Kakashi slowly regained consciousness, and with it, all of the aches and pains that come with chakra exhaustion.
"I wonder how long I was out for this time?" The lazy jounin asked to no one. He opened his one visible eye and found himself laying on a futon in a room he didn't recognize. Shortly afterwards the door opened to reveal his team in varying states of exhaustion.
"Only a day and a half, actually." Came the reply to his seemingly rhetorical question, from the last remaining Uchiha.
"Were you training?" He asked the genin.
"Just a little bit sensei." Naruto replied. "Mostly just some taijutsu."
Kakashi nodded in approval and attempted to sit up a bit, succeeding after two tries.
"It is imperative that we send for help." He said, his voice in a dead serious tone. "Zabuza is alive; the standard procedure for hunter-nin is to dispose of the body on sight, not to take it somewhere else. I think that the 'hunter' was working with Zabuza and simply put him in a death-like state. He is still alive and has at least one person working with him. If his partner is skilled enough in the medical arts, which I think they must be because the knowledge needed to put someone in a death like state is well above average, than we have about two weeks or so until Zabuza is well enough to attack again."
This brought a gasp from the genin who thought the ex-mist ninja was out of the picture.
"Sasuke or Naruto, do either of you have a summoning scroll for a messenger bird?" Kakashi asked.
Both boys nodded their heads in the affirmative and produced two identical scrolls.
"Good, I need one of you to send a message to the Hokage, requesting back up. Right now, the three of you aren't strong enough to fight either of the two foes we have identified right now. But I plan on changing that." His last sentence was accompanied by a slight smirk, barely evident through the fabric of his mask.
While the boys saw this as a good thing, Sakura didn't like the look her sensei had. Not one bit.
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The next day dawned early and with not a single cloud in the sky, although the genin didn't have the time to admire the surrounding wilderness. Kakashi had taken the team to a location in the forest surrounding Tazuna's house. There were trees every direction one could look and a stream about four feet deep ran through the forest, bisecting the trees into two distinctive areas.
"Now, I'm going to teach the three of you to control your chakra. This will help you conserve chakra when it comes to battles you may fight later on. Theoretically, if you master even basic chakra control, you can perform any technique. Of course that is theoretically and based also on the size of your chakra reserves, but don't worry too much about it. Now, Naruto, and I assume Sasuke have already completed the exercise I'm going to give you, Sakura, so they'll have to do something else. All right, Sakura, you will be climbing trees."
The pink haired girl's face contorted into a look of confusion, before she asked how that was going to help her chakra control.
"Well, you see…you won't be using your hands." Kakashi replied, and proceeded to walk straight up the closest tree, crutches and all, without his hands. "It is said that the soles of the feet are the hardest part of the body to gather chakra to, so this will help with proper molding, but also, if you use too much or too little chakra, you won't stick to the three, so it will also help with your precise control over the amount you use."
Sakura pondered over her strategy to conquer this stage obstacle, before she pulled her hands into the ram seal and gathered chakra to her feet.
"If you feel uneasy about this, you might consider running at the tree." Her sensei suggested.
Sakura ran at the tree at top speed and was able to run more than three quarters of the way up, before she fell back to earth and landing on her feet after a graceful back flip.
"Very impressive Sakura, you didn't make the top because of poor control, but because your reserves are so small." Kakashi explained to the three genin. "I want you to continue to run up and down the trees when ever you can, this way, your reserves will increase significantly."
Sakura nodded and continued with her exercise. Meanwhile Kakashi turned his attention to his two remaining students.
"The exercise you two will be doing is called water walking, and it sounds exactly like what it is." He walked out on top of the water and stood on the surface. Suddenly he wobbled a bit and quickly returned to shore. "As you could probably tell, this requires much more chakra to perform. During the tree climbing exercise, the goal was to release a constant amount of chakra to stick to the tree. With this exercise, the goal is to release the correct amount of chakra, and then keep control of it away from your body. You see, the chakra you release in this exercise, isn't going to be trapped by the tree, so you have to create 'stilts' with your chakra and push them to the bottom of the water. The stream of chakra must be constant and controlled. If we were in Konoha, we would practice over a hot spring, but since were here, this river will have to do."
When the copy ninja had finished the directions, the two boys began to test out the new skill. It was slow going, especially for Naruto, since he had so much excess chakra. Sasuke was able to steady himself on the surface by noon, but Naruto was struggling. His feet were battling the water, surfacing and then submerging once more. They took a break at noon and reunited with Sakura, who was very tired by now and could use the rest.
After lunch they returned to their assigned tasks and continued to struggle. Sakura had made it to the top of a thirty foot tall tree a few times, but when she tried other trees, she seemed to top out at around thirty five feet or so. She assumed it had to do with her small chakra reserves. The boys were a different story all together. After his initial success with water walking, Sasuke was having a small amount of difficulty. He was able to stand on top of the water fine, but if he tried moving more than small baby steps, he would loose control and wet his feet with cold river water. Since he wasn't the chakra monster his brother was, he took a break around two in the afternoon and continued reading the information the Hokage had passed onto him. The actual manuscript was too valuable to bring with him, but he had taken many notes on the information contained within, and brought those. The steps outlined to control fire weren't exceedingly complex, but required a good amount of control to do.
Naruto was still having troubles with the exercise, but he was now able to stand on the water, but any attempt at movement would throw off his control. But he kept at it, and while Sasuke was practicing some fire control skills, Naruto was finally able to move a bit…albeit, unconventionally. Having troubles keeping his chakra at a consistent level away from his body, he simply used his chakra to skate along the surface of the water. It was effective, but it wasn't the point of the exercise.
When Kakashi returned later, he noticed the improvement his students had made. Sakura had improved her reserves somewhat, it wouldn't be an instantaneous process, but he was quite happy with her improvement. The boys…well Sasuke had been able to stand on the surface easily, and then take a few steps, but after two or three his control or reserves faltered and he would fall in. 'Nothing another day or two of practice wouldn't fix.' Kakashi thought to himself. Naruto, on the other hand, was making slight progress, he could stand on the water, but taking any steps, larger than an inch or two was impossible. He did show of his new 'skating' ability, and while it impressed Kakashi and Sakura, (reluctantly) Kakashi was quick to point out that it wasn't the goal of the exercise to skate, but to walk.
The team began to head back to Tazuna's house for dinner in a comfortable silence, the genin were either too tired or annoyed to speak much.
"Oh, yeah, before I forget, the back up I requested will be here tomorrow, so I'd make use of the day training, since you might not get too much more time." Kakashi said, still reading that perverted orange book of his.
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The next day was typical of the Wave country, sunny with morning dew rising off the grass and a light fog rolling in off the surrounding water. The genin spent the first half of their day continuing with their chakra control exercises from yesterday. After lunch, Sakura had tentatively tried the water walking exercise and decided that she needed to expand her reserves much more before trying it. Sasuke had almost gotten the trick of the exercise and was almost able to walk from one shore to the other, although his feet would slip under the surface of the river once and again. Naruto was making progress as well, especially after some tips from his brother, who watched how Naruto was molding his chakra. They were almost even in terms of control, but Naruto was slightly behind Sasuke, if only because of his abnormal amount of chakra.
As the group headed towards their 'home', the boys felt a chakra signature approaching quickly, and took up defensive positions around Sakura, who was confused at the sudden behavior of her teammates. Almost as soon as Sakura figured out someone was coming, her teammates were uneasily shifting their weight from one foot to the other and searching their surroundings for any disturbances. Suddenly realization dawned on the boys and they quickly turned tail and ran towards the house.
"Wait, what's going on?" Sakura yelled at her teammate's backs.
"Um, nothing…nothing…just um, DON'T TELL HER ANYTHING!" Naruto yelled and added a burst of speed to distance himself from his teammate.
This left one pink haired kunoichi very confused as she suddenly felt a figure drop from the trees behind her. She whirled around and drew a kunai, only to find her 'attacker' was wearing a Konoha head band along with a trench coat and was staring in the direction that Sasuke and Naruto had run off.
"Um, can I help you?" Sakura asked.
"They ran off that way, didn't they?" The figure asked in a rhetorical way.
"Y-yes." Sakura stammered, she felt the killer intent rolling off this new figure and was very frightened by it.
"Thanks." The mysterious figure said with a smile, before disappearing once more, her trench coat flowing behind her.
Sakura shrugged her shoulders and continued back towards the house.
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When she returned to Tazuna's house, she was greeted by her sensei and Tazuna's daughter Tsunami.
"Hey, sensei, I saw this really strange lady, and she had a Konoha head band, is she our back up?" Sakura asked as she accepted a glass of water from Tsunami.
"Yes, that would be Mitarashi Anko, who I believe right now…is yelling at Sasuke and Naruto." Kakashi answered without looking up from his book. He was correct, because if Sakura listened very carefully, she could make out sounds coming from up stairs that sounded like either yelling…or murder, it really could have been either one.
Suddenly, Naruto and Sasuke ran through the kitchen and out the door, followed by a set of kunai, which embedded themselves in the table.
"Get back here! I'm not done with you two yet!" Anko yelled from the top of a flight of stairs that lead to the bed rooms.
"Um...Kaa-san… I don't mean to be rude or anything…but… no!" Naruto yelled back over his shoulder, still running for his life, Sasuke ahead of him. He hadn't stuck around to 'talk' with Anko.
'So that's Naruto and Sasuke's mom.' Sakura thought as she watched the woman at the top of the stairs glare at the retreating backs of her sons. 'She's scary…and deadly…and she's a jounin so she's strong…I bet Sasuke would love someone who was as strong as his mom…damn, I need to train more.'
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A week had passed since Anko had arrived, and things eventually settled down. After Anko had trained the boys into the ground (both figuratively and physically) for attacking a jounin and disregarding orders, she became calmer and helped guard Tazuna or train the genin.
Sakura watched as the boys grew stronger under the tutelage of two jounins. She was quite disappointed in the fact that she didn't have enough chakra to perform almost all of the jutsu that the boys were learning. She was diligently climbing trees like it was going out of fashion, but her chakra reserves were growing at what seemed like a snails pace. She was currently lying at the base of a tree resting after another continuous hour of running up and down a forty-seven foot tree.
In almost a week and a half, she hadn't managed to find out how Naruto was able to propel makibishi at a jounin, or how Sasuke came to live with Anko and Naruto. It wasn't for lack of trying either, they just wouldn't talk. The best she got out of them was "It's called a secret for a reason." In one short week, Sakura had learned to hate that word like nothing else. Not even Ino-pig could compare to her hatred of the word 'secret'.
'If I hear that once more, I think I'll go insane!' She mused to herself and started to get back on her feet.
"Hey! Pinky!"
Sakura turned around to see Anko meandering over towards her, leaving Naruto and Sasuke lying on the ground, dazed.
"You've been doing that forever, aren't you bored yet?" The jounin asked.
"Well…yeah, I mean I keep running up and down, but I just can't seem to increase my reserves enough."
"Well that's generally the problem that plagues most kunoichi. We have pretty damn good control, but not large enough reserves." Anko said, this wasn't anything new to Sakura, she had known this before. She looked at Anko and noticed the glint in her eyes that seemed to promise pain. "But…there are other ways of forcing your reserves to increase. Keep in mind that most of them are illegal and you would be killed, either by the attempt or by Konoha if you did, but there is one perfectly good way that might work for you, but we'll need Kakashi's help…"
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A few more days passed, with the boys engrossing themselves in the literature that they received from the Hokage, and Sakura working with Anko and Kakashi on…well no one knew quite what they were doing. The day wore on and the two jounin began to return home with a badly winded Sakura, but the boys continued to practice. They returned for dinner, which was a subdued affair, both due to the economic state of the country and the loss of another five workers from the bridge, pushing its completion back even further. Then there was the enigma known as Inari. Tsunami's son was silent and would often throw dirty looks at the ninja. That night, things came to a head. Inari was watching the genin eating dinner, when he suddenly threw his fist at the table.
"Why? Why do you even try? You'll never be strong enough to beat Gato! No one is! You'll just end up dead!"
"Don't flatter your self kid; I don't plan on dying any time soon." Naruto replied, barely acknowledging the boy.
"Idiot! Gato's too strong…he just kill you like you were a fly." Inari almost screamed as tears from long since repressed memories welled to the surface.
"Yeah, whatever, do you have any more rice? It's really good." Naruto asked Tsunami.
"You don't get it, do you?" Now Inari was screaming, his tears flowing freely down his face. "Gato's taken everything from me…you have no idea what it's like!"
A very tense silence followed as everyone watched Naruto for a reaction.
"So you're telling me, you've been playing the protagonist in your own tragedy? That's a stupid way to live, even worse than revenge. Kid I don't know what happened, but I doubt that it was worse than what I lived through for almost eight years. I doubt that very much! In this entire world, there are probably only eight people that have the same kind of pain that I had for so long. If you think that your life is so tough, than do something about it! Don't just sit there and cry!" Naruto quickly stomped off into the surrounding forests for some well deserved alone time.
Inari was shocked speechless, while Anko and Sasuke were staring daggers at the boy, radiating killer intent at the boy, who luckily was unawares. It wasn't until Sakura broke the silence that this trend stopped.
"Umm, shouldn't we try and find Naruto? Zabuza should be healed by tomorrow, and we'll need all of our strength to fight him."
"No, he needs some time to himself. I think this little argument drug up some rather unpleasant memories for him." Anko replied.
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Later that night, Kakashi found Inari sitting on a small pier that was by the house. Surprisingly, he also found Sakura there. He figured she would be too tired to be up, what with the training she had been doing. He sat next to Inari, while Sakura was lying on her back looking at the sky.
"You know, Naruto doesn't want to be mean or anything, but he just doesn't respond well to wallowing and brooding." The lazy jounin said. "But he does know what he was talking about. I heard about your father, and I am truly sad to hear that such a great man was killed by a thug like Gato, but you still have a mother. Naruto grew up on his own for almost eight years with no parents. He was hated for something he had no control over, even after he found Anko."
This was a news flash to the pink haired genin. She didn't realize that people hated him just for who his mother was. This called for more contemplation. A lot more contemplation.
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Naruto stormed into the forest, in the exact same manner he stormed out of Tazuna's house. He was feeling emotional, not quite crying, but not too far from it. It was something he hadn't done since he moved in with his mom, and he didn't plan on starting now. So he did the best thing he knew to take his mind of certain disrespectful child. He trained…and trained…and trained some more. He didn't stop until it was easily midnight, and he still had energy to burn.
'Yes, but tomorrow is the day Zabuza is supposed to finally be healed, so I need to conserve my energy.' He thought. 'Might as well go to sleep.' With that he lay down in the soft grass and fell into a quiet sleep.
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Morning dawned early, and Haku was making good use of it. The fake hunter-nin was gathering herbs that would be needed after the fight with the copy ninja Hatake Kakashi and his team of genin. Of course the two boys were the only ones worth preparing for. From what was gleamed during the previous encounter, it was obvious that the two were above average tandem fighters…and then there was the strange blond and black haired boy. 'He was able to project makibishi into Zabuza-sama…I wish I could figure that trick out.' Haku entered a clearing and noticed the aforementioned boy lying in the grass. Walking towards the prone boy silently, Haku stopped and stared at the sleeping boys face. Along with the distinctive dual whisker marks, Haku noted the small scars covering the boy's eye lids. 'Someone tried to remove his eyes?' This thought crossed through Haku's mind without being fully thought through. 'Damn you kid, do you have any idea how hard those pieces of metal were to remove?' Haku barely noticed the pain of the spines of the thistles cutting skin. As the blood slowly slid down Haku's right hand, it fell into Naruto's snoring mouth; the fake hunter turned and left the sleeping boy. 'When we fight…I'll make sure you can't endanger my precious person!'
Not even thirty seconds after Haku left the clearing, Naruto shifted in his sleep, the motion of which, caused the dark blond to bite the inside of his cheek drawing blood and waking the boy with a yelp. Haku's blood quickly rushed towards the new entrance and Naruto began the tedious process of absorbing the new DNA. The only thing Naruto felt was a slight rumble in his stomach, from a lack of food. He quickly headed back towards the house for some well deserved food.
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When Naruto arrived at the house, he found that his team had already left for the bridge; they too were making use of an early sunrise. With any luck, the as of yet unnamed bridge would be finished by the end of next week, and this mission would end. As he was about to leave and rejoin his team, two samurai decided to cut through the front door, in an attempt to abduct Tsunami. Before they could even make a snide opening remark, their stomachs were crushed by a pair of fists, courtesy of a certain genin. The pair slunk into unconsciousness rather quickly and Naruto simply cussed. His stomach was twisting and turning, and now he didn't have time for breakfast!
"If they attacked here, than they must also be at the bridge. I want the two of you to go somewhere safe." He addressed Tsunami and Inari who was standing at the corner. "Gather as many towns people as you can, and prepare your self. Gato might choose this time to 'make an example'."
He quickly ran towards the bridge and arrived just in time to see Sasuke kick the masked hunter-nin away. He quickly rushed over and joined the others; thankfully, Zabuza and Haku were on the opposite end of the unfinished bridge.
"I see that the blond boy has decided to come." Zabuza commented off handily. "Haku, don't take any chances with those two, something doesn't sit right with me about them."
"Hai, Zabuza-sama." Came a high pitched voice from behind the porcelain mask. Naruto couldn't tell weather it was a guy's voice or a girl's.
Suddenly the mist ninja split into two. Then four. The masked person kept on dividing so fast it was making Naruto's head spin and his stomach twist. A sudden twinge of pain ripped through the right side of his head and he instinctively reached up and grasped his temple, completely missing the senbon that Haku threw at him. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he began to pitch forward, right as the needle pierced his stomach.
Naruto hit the ground with a thud and didn't move…
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(A/N: Right, well, I wanted to finish the Wave arc in two chapters, but it isn't gonna happen. Oh well. I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and I hope I can count on your continued reviews. I hope to have the next chapter out soonish!"