Here's the second (proper) chapter. Sorry it took so long – I've lost my second beta, so now I need a new one. I can understand where she's coming from, 'cos she's just going into Year 12, and she's got her own stories too, but it would have helped if she could have at least gone over this one before she told me. Meh, my own fault, I suppose, for taking so long. If you want to take on this story as beta, PM me with your email address, and I'll send you a practice piece. Go over it and send it back along with your modifications in a different colour. You have to be able to give decent criticism and suggest possible idea replacements when required. If you can be prompt about returning checked chapters that's even better.

When you read this chapter, you'll probably notice that Sakura pulls her head out of the clouds fairly quickly. I did this because I'm going to focus on other characters more, making her something of a minor character. Therefore I did not want to deal with her much. I don't have any real patience with Fangirls of any type. Ino I'll put up with 'cause she at least has some innate sensibility. Sakura has none, so I want her straightened out and out of the way as soon as possible. And what's up with Kishimoto? He seems to have lost the plot, from shortly after Sasuke's defection. I mean, Naruto's been training with a Sannin, granted he's the laziest of the three, but still. You'd think Naruto would have far more in his arsenal and would've calmed down some, instead he's just a roughly adult-bodied version of his 12 year old self. Not cool Kishimoto, not cool.

The night was quiet. Moonlight gilded everything with a palette of whites, greys and blacks, giving an eerie feeling to the mist-enshrouded Land of Wave. Kakashi's visible eye opened. Where…? Ah. Tazuna's home. They'd gotten there in the late afternoon, shortly after which he'd fallen asleep. How long…?
"'Bout time you woke up." Kakashi twisted to peer into a shadowed corner. Clothing shifted as their newest acquaintance moved into a patch of moonlight shed from the window. "You've slept for thirty-two hours straight."
"Naruto-san." Thirty-two hours? So it must be some time after midnight.
"Aa."
"…What are you still doing up?"
"I never slept."
"What?"
"I need less sleep than most people. It means I can go for longer periods with little or no sleep, and still function at a hundred percent." Is it a bloodlimit? Kakashi wondered. He voiced this thought.
"What's a bloodlimit?"
"You mean you don't know?" If he doesn't know, then probably not. "A bloodlimit is something peculiar to your blood-related family. It's generally an enhanced ability like sight or strength. Some families have stranger abilities like being able to manipulate certain elements with fewer handseals or completely sealless."
"Never heard of anything like that."
Stopping in the middle of shifting to a sitting position, Kakashi looked at him suspiciously. "Where have you come from? Most people in the Elemental Countries know about bloodlimits and handseals."
Naruto grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Ah, sorry. I forgot. I come from a land quite far from here. I'm not sure I can go back."
"Really? What's it like there?"
"It's very different. For one thing, it seems quite peaceful here in these lands. For another, your fighting methods are very interesting. I know weaponry and words, but I've never seen someone use energy quite the way you do."
"So you've never seen Jutsu? I find that hard to believe."
"Oh, I've seen spells, demonic and holy, even been trained in them, but never the combination of chi and ki."
"Chi? Ki? What are they?" By now Kakashi was sitting fully upright and alert.
"Chi is the energy of the body, of life. Ki is the energy of the soul."
"So chi would be physical energy and ki is spiritual energy."
"Yeah, suppose so."
The conversation fell into a lull. They sat in silence, Kakashi contemplating the answers he'd received.
"Kakashi-san."
"Mm?"
"Why have you not trained them equally? Doesn't it interfere with your ethics?"
Kakashi glanced at him sharply. "How do you know?"
"I can see auras if I want. Duck-butt-cut's has quite a few overtones of yours, whereas the other two don't." Kakashi glanced at the walls. "Don't worry. I've soundproofed the room from the other side." Naruto pointed to a half-hidden ofuda on each wall with a final one above the door. "Nobody but us will know what is said in this room this night."
Kakashi gazed at Naruto with dead eyes. "Ethics have no place in a shinobi's life."
Naruto moved to stand in front of the window, staring out across the road towards a nightmare forest. "Are you sure?"
"In a profession which demands you lie, steal, kill and impersonate people as the job description, you cannot have morals."
"Morals? I thought you said ethics had no place in your life."
"Same thing."
Naruto turned away from the window, looking at Kakashi from the corner of his eye.
"But it's not, is it? Ethics and morals, I mean."
Kakashi looked away.
"Think, man, think! Do you say "a chicken is a bird" or "a bird is a chicken"? One does not mean the other! So you can have ethics and not morals. Are you really, truly without any guidelines?"
"I-"
"Will you kill another for sport? Do you rape or pillage on assignment? Do you go out of your way to cause damage or harm without due cause?"
Kakashi exploded. "NO! Never! I have never- I could never-"
"So you do have ethics, however skewed they may be. And you're in conflict as to what to do."
"No I am not." he said tightly.
"But you are, Kakashi-san, you are. How can you not be? You've been asked, told to do something which goes against your ethics, and you can't do anything about it, or so you think. So you're in conflict with yourself, over whether to follow orders and get two innocents undeservedly killed, or whether to disobey, and make sure they can take care of themselves."
The silver-haired man gaped at this stranger, this unknown, who had him figured out far more quickly than he'd ever thought possible.
"You forget, I can read auras if I want. I do it as a standard response whenever I meet someone new that I will be in company with for an undetermined amount of time. Not more than a flash, but it's enough to tell me important things about whoever I'm with. And this conflict within you is as clear as day to me."
Team Seven's sensei slumped. "But how can I help them? How, when if I disobey I stand to lose so much?" he said brokenly.
"If you cannot help them yourself, find someone who can. Surely you have those that you can prevail upon to help you, help them?"
"But- "
"But nothing. If you can see a way clear to do as your ethics demand, without incurring penalty, take it!"
The light came back to darkened eyes. His visage firmed as he resolved to do whatever required to ensure that his team did not die for petty reasons, Kakashi nodded in gratitude to the man who had set him straight. "I will."
"That's all I need to hear." Naruto said. He clapped Kakashi on the shoulder and moved to the door. Taking down the ofuda, he said "I'll take the other's down after breakfast."
"Naruto-san." The blonde turned. "Thank you."
The young man smiled. "Your welcome."

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Meanwhile, in a hut deep in a forested middle-of-nowhere somewhere in wave, the hunter-nin was tending to Zabuza.
"Zabuza-san." No answer. "I should really pull out the senbon. But first- " He reached into his kit, withdrawing a small pair of cutters, the type used for removing sutures. Reaching for the bandages about Zabuza's face intending to cut them, his hand was grabbed.
"Haku."
"Au, Zabuza-san, you are awake after all."
"So poorly aimed." Pulling the senbon from his neck, Zabuza lurched upwards.
"Zabuza-san! If you're not careful you will injure yourself most severely! Please desist, allow me to take care of them-" Alarmed, the hunter-nin made as if to force him supine again.
"Enough." The masked one stopped. "You were taking too long. Now, remove that damned mask!" Removing the mask revealed an androgynous face, with large eyes, making it difficult to tell if Haku was male or female.
Feeling the injured area, Zabuza complained "Couldn't you have chosen another place to hit me? You could have killed me for real."
"But the neck has the easiest points to hit to cause a death-state."
"So cruel, you are."
"Sou desu ne."
"…"

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The next morning after breakfast Team Seven followed Kakashi outside. He led them to a clearing in the nearby forest, where he stopped, letting his weight fall on his crutches.
"Right. Today you learn the tree-climbing exercise"
"Ano, Sensei? How will that help us?" Sakura asked. Sasuke scowled at his teacher and Kiba hmphed, before throwing his two bits in.
"Yeah, how does climbing a tree help? We already know how to climb trees." Kakashi smiled.
"You will be climbing trees without using your hands." They stared at him. "By learning to climb the tree, you will learn greater chakra control, theoretically enabling you to master any jutsu." Sasuke smirked. This will make it easier for me to kill HIM.

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Sakura finished quickly.
"Well done." Kakashi eye-smiled at her.
She blushed, and glanced sidelong at Sasuke to see if he had noticed her achievement. He didn't even glance at her. She looked down, crushed. Why didn't Sasuke-kun notice me? Is it because I beat him? ... No, I'm sure it's because he's trying hard too. Cha! That's it, that's it! We'll prove our love to him yet! Yeah! She looked up and smiled happily, before glancing at Sasuke again.
Naruto observed the group from his position in the crook of a tree. Seeing the changing expressions of Sakura, and remembering the conversations of last night, he came to a decision.
"Kakashi-san."
"Mm?"
"I need to speak with the girl."
"All right then. Sakura!" She looked up. "Naruto-san wishes to speak with you."
Sakura was puzzled. Why would a person she hardly knew want to talk to her? He beckoned and she followed him to another clearing. She looked at him expectantly.

"Girl, you SUCK!" Sakura stared at him, shocked. "I honestly can't see how you even got to this level. Simply put, you. Are. Weak."
"B-but how can you say such a thing? I was the top kunoichi in the class!" she spluttered. He looked at her calculatingly. Casting about he spotted something that would do.
"You see that rock over there? I want you to lift it." She looked in the direction he was indicating and her jaw hit the ground. He wanted her to lift that monstrosity?
"Not that one, the one next to it." Oh. The rock was about six inches high and a foot across, far more reasonable than the half-ton cliff next to it. Moving over to it, she grasped it and heaved. Reaching a foot off the ground, it became too heavy for her and she dropped it.
"See, this is what I mean. A true ninja of your level should be able to lift a rock of that size above their heads, no problem." Naruto glanced towards where her team was training. "Admittedly your teacher doesn't seem to have trained you much, maybe from some misguided attempt to protect you from life's hardships. But that's no excuse for your level of pathetic strength."
Is he saying that I'm that weak? "B-but Sasuke-kun- !
He looked sternly at her. "Is the duck-butt-cut more important than your life? Because if you don't start getting serious and become the trained killer your rank says you are, you'll lose it before the moon is out."
Is it? Is it really worth losing my life in favour of chasing after someone who's given no sign of returning my devotion? What are you saying? Of course it's worth it; Sasuke-kun's just repressing his emotions! Cha! Is it that? Or is it that he never had feelings for me… no, anyone, in the first place?
He started to walk back to the clearing where her team was. As he passed her he said "Think about it. Is your fussing over beauty and obsession over the boy really worth the probability of your death and the wasting of your potential?"

She stood there for quite a while after he left.

A/N: I probably should have another chapter before this one, but I want to move on from the Wave arc. The Chuunin Exam arc will have far more interaction, I just want to get this bit over with. The only reason it's important is because it's where Naruto arrives. Once he meets with the rest of the Rookie Nine and Team Gai, the story will be fleshed out more.

The conversation with Kakashi may seem a little out-of-the-blue, but I needed him to actually be of use leading up to the Chuunin Exam. This was the only way I could think of to do it. Sorry if it seems too soon. I may eventually go back and add another chapter before/modify this one, but not right now.

Chi – body/physical energy
Jutsu – technique
Ki – spiritual/soul energy
Ofuda – mostly used by houshi/miko, they are conduits for spiritual energy. Can be used for seals, barriers, to exorcise spirits and demons etc.
Senbon – foot long needles often used by medic- and hunter-nin. Excellent for hitting a specific point on the body, as seen with the death-state Zabuza was placed in.
Sensei – teacher
"Sou desu ne" – literally "it is so". Basically Haku is agreeing with Zabuza.