13

Naruto's first thought when he woke to the sound of shouts and yelling was that they'd been discovered. That Danzou had somehow found out about Team Hawk and Konan and had brought Anbu with him to attack them. His second thought, however, and perhaps the more frightening of the two, was that Madara might have come back.

Naruto swiftly rolled out of his bed, snatching up and slipping on the long jacket he'd received from old Fukasaku as he ran out of his room. He followed the hallways towards where the voices were coming from. They led him through the kitchen and out into the far side of the garden, where he found Suigetsu clinging to the back of the other male member of Sasuke's team, Juugo, he remembered. Glancing around, he saw Karin and Konan standing next to each other off to the side. As he made his way towards them, they noticed him and moved to meet him at a midpoint.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Well," Karin started. "Juugo is a bit bipolar. He can be as nice as can be to his best friend in the entire world one moment," he nodded anxiously for her to continue. "And brutally murder them the next. He's quite insane. He was one of Orochimaru's supposed failures."

Konan took over, seeing the unsettled look on Naruto's face at this news. "It appears that only Sasuke can control his mood swings- apparently Juugo recognizes a bigger demon when he sees one- and seeing as Sasuke's not here at the moment…" They all turned to look at the struggle between Suigetsu and Juugo. It was apparent that if something was not done soon Juugo would soon be rampaging down the streets of Konoha.

Naruto thought for a moment. A bigger demon, huh? He grinned. Let's just see about that.

"Hey, Suigetsu! It's my turn! Let him go for a second!" he shouted. He slid into a mock fighting position to demonstrate his intentions. Suigetsu looked as suitably flummoxed as he could for someone being swung around through the air.

"Whaat?! What the heck are you thinking? Are you an idiot? You're still building your chakra back up, aren't you? Why would you want to fight this?!"

"I could say the same to you." Naruto argued, raising an eyebrow.

"Fine." Suigetsu jumped off Juugo's back to land less than elegantly. He was over at Naruto's side in a moment. "You have a try and see how you like it."

"I will. Thank you for suggesting it." Naruto smiled mockingly.

"Brat."

"Baka."

At this, Suigetsu deemed the conversation too childish to continue with, and went to sit on the deck to pout (although he would never call it that). Naruto turned to the amused girls watching in the background. "I'll be back in a minute. Would you girls mind getting us something to eat for breakfast, please? I found some rice and salted bacon last night."

Konan answered him in affirmative while Karin grumbled something about sexist people always thinking it was the women's job to cook. They both headed inside.

"Well, I'll get started, then."

Naruto walked towards Juugo, who had turned his attention to destroying trees. "Ne, Juu-san! You really should calm down! You're destroying Sasuke's trees!"

That statement only served to turn Juugo's attention towards him. The almost overly large man studied him for a moment before falling into a full-out sprint towards the blond. He raised a muscled arm and pulled it back to hit Naruto with the full power of the charge.

At the last moment, Naruto raised his own hand and intercepted the blow smoothly. He held onto Juugo's fist and caught the man's other hand as it was aimed at him as well, flipping him over himself bodily and directing the man to land on his back. It surprised him how easy it was to block the blows. He'd only ever used his natural chakra with high level opponents, such as Pein and Madara, or in simple training. Not to say that Juugo was low-level, far from it in fact, but it seemed that Naruto was simply out of his league.

Hey, Kyuu? Want to play for a minute? I need to get Juugo under control. Apparently he needs a demon to scare him out of this fit of his and I think we fit the description. Actually, I think we can outdo even Sasuke in this category. He grinned.

Sounds fun, Kit. She purred happily back to him. A picture of her gaping jaws yawning widely flashed behind his eyes at the same time. But remember, even though you won't transform, you'll still gain some rather vulpine features when you come into contact with my chakra.

Got it. Naruto grinned as he allowed a bit of Kyuubi's chakra to leak out of his body slightly; just enough to make his eyes bleed red and for Kyuubi's voice to overlap his own.

"Juugo! Calm down!" Naruto's voice rang out through the sudden silence of Sasuke's garden.

Juugo froze upon hearing the not quite completely demonic voice.

"Look at me."

The large man only had to tilt his head slightly to obey Naruto's murmured command. The blond could see Juugo's entire body shudder when their eyes met. There was a wild element within Juugo's eyes. Something that seemed alien. Orochimaru's curse tattoo, if one was to judge by the small tattoo-like marks that were spreading across the man's body. Knowing this was what Karin had meant by "failure", Naruto felt pity grow in him, but he didn't allow it to reach the expression on his face.

"Sasuke may not be here right now, but you will listen to me until he comes back. I don't want to have to kill you before we leave to find him, and I especially don't want this to get in the way of our operations. If you have any problems with that, tell me now." Naruto growled out, baring his teeth.

He saw something click in Juugo's eyes. The man blinked and shrank back. His eyes cleared and he ducked his head, hiding the receding curse mark tattoo. "No…no. Forgive me, Naruto-san. It's not by my own wishes that I do… that." Juugo uttered softly, so only Naruto could hear.

Naruto chuckled and he let the red hue of the Kyuubi's chakra retreated back into his body. When he spoke, his voice was his own once again. "Its fine, Juu-san. Besides that wasn't aimed towards you. That was for the benefit of your little demon. If it's alright with you, how about we go talk to Granny Tsunade later this afternoon and see if she can do anything about this condition of yours?"

Juugo looked up at Naruto and smiled thankfully. He pushed himself up off the ground before Naruto could offer a hand. "I would be very grateful Naruto-san."

"Just call me Naruto, Juu-san."

"Then I insist you call me Juugo."

"Aww, you don't like your nickname?" Naruto pouted.

Juugo laughed lightly, but didn't answer. He began to walk back towards the house. Naruto fell in beside him. The blond caught sight of Suigetsu's expression and grinned. "Ne, Juugo, I would say that your teammate over there has never seen anyone tame your demon like that before."

Juugo laughed quietly. "I would say that you're right. Even Sasuke-sama had a hard time of it, I've heard."

Naruto's eyes grew large and round and his grin reached his eyes for the first time in a while. "Ha-ha! Now I finally have something I can brag about to that Teme!" he jumped into the air and clapped his hands like an overjoyed child. "He won't say it, but he'll be jealous."

"You were rivals?" Juugo asked.

"Well, yeah, I guess you could say that. He was always so much better than me at everything. There was this one time though, when we went on a mission to the country of waves, we were attacked by 'The Demon' Zabuza. We were neck and neck."

Suigetsu was at his side in a moment at the mention of the previous owner of his sword. He'd heard mention of the mission from Sasuke once, but the Uchiha had never fully told the story of what had happened. Of course he'd heard the rumors, but they were just that. Rumors.

"What happened?" Suigetsu asked interestedly.

Naruto smiled. He'd meant to mention the mission in passing, but at Suigetsu's child-like interest, he had the urge to tell the whole thing.

"Well, to begin with, the mission was a C-rank escort mission. We were supposed to take a bridge builder back to his village to complete what is now the Naruto Bridge." He blushed in pride and embarrassment remembering that Tazuna had named the bridge after him. "But, after two ninja from the Village Hidden in the Mist attacked us, the bridge builder convinced us to continue the mission as an A-rank. But keep in mind that we had only just recently graduated from the academy."

"Your team leader allowed it to continue?" Juugo asked, surprised.

"Well, there was a time frame that needed to be met. Plus, Sasuke, Sakura, and I were all in agreement to continue it. We convinced Kakashi-sensei to go along with us."

"What? That little pink-haired brat fought against the Demon Zabuza?!" Suigetsu scoffed. "No way!"

Naruto smiled. "I dare you to say that to her face; you won't be able to walk again for a week. And that's even if she heals you afterwards. Anyway, almost immediately after we stepped foot in the land of waves, Zabuza attacked us. Kakashi-sensei took him on first, while we protected the bridge builder. But at one point during the fight, Kakashi-sensei got caught in a water prison."

"That always was one of Zabuza's favorite techniques." Suigetsu commented.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, he said as much. After Zabuza created a clone to go after us, me and Sasuke rescued Sensei from the Water prison with a shadow shuriken trick-"

"With Naruto as the shadow shuriken. It was a rather brilliant tactic if you ask me." Kakashi's voice drifted down from the tree they were passing under. Naruto didn't so much as flinch, while Juugo and Suigetsu jumped and Suigetsu shot a glare up at the Jounin.

"Thanks, Sensei!" Naruto said for the compliment as he jumped down from the tree to land in front of them. "Want to join us for breakfast?"

"As long as I get to tell the rest of the story."

Naruto laughed. "Alright, then."

The four of them entered the kitchen at that moment. There were six bowls of rice on the counter closest to the stove (Karin had apparently sensed Kakashi's chakra outside) and there was some bacon stacked on a large plate on the table. They each grabbed a bowl and a pair of wooden chopsticks from an open drawer and sat down at the table, with Konan and Karin on the two ends and the men in between.

"Itadakimasu!" Naruto said loudly. The bowl in front of him was empty in seconds, along with two pieces of bacon. He got up and refilled the bowl with rice from the large cooker on the stove and, instead of sitting back down, he leaned against the counter and ate slowly from his second bowl.

Kakashi smiled at his antics and smiled at the two women. "Thank you for the food, ladies. Now, the boys were all talking about my team's first big mission to the Land of Waves. Naruto left off at when we were battling against Zabuza Momochi." He looked around the table and, having obtained everyone's attentions, he continued.

"After Naruto and Sasuke freed me from Zabuza's water prison, we continued our fight. I eventually gained the upper hand with my Sharingan and he was knocked unconscious. Unfortunately, his partner masqueraded as a hunter-nin and pulled Zabuza from right under our noses.

"Of course, neither of us got away without injury and, during the timeframe of rest that the team had, I set Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to climbing trees." He smiled under his mask as he saw the confused looks on his tablemates' faces and the grin on Naruto's.

"What do you mean, climbing trees?" Suigetsu was the first to voice the question and, before Kakashi could get the chance to confuse them further, Naruto answered for him.

"He had us climbing trees using only our feet to learn chakra control. Since we were only Genin, we hadn't been shown how to do it, yet."

Kakashi glared at him playfully for ruining his fun. But Naruto knew that Kakashi would have teased the others for forever, confusing them with riddles, if he hadn't interposed. His sensei could be so childish sometimes.

"Anyway, Sakura was the first one to reach the top of the trees we were using, so I sent her ahead to guard Tazuna, the bridge builder we were protecting. Naruto and Sasuke spent the rest of the time we had there. I remember one time they came back and it was already completely dark outside. They were both supporting each other they'd worked themselves so hard. Neither of them won, either. They made it to the tops of their trees at the same time. I think that's what sparked their rivalry. The funny thing was that both of them seemed to think that the other was getting ahead of them, when they were actually the same level most of the time." Kakashi laughed.

"So, what happened to the rest of the mission?" Karin asked, smiling a little.

"Well, Sasuke, Sakura and I left early one morning. We left Naruto because he'd stayed up all night training. While we were on the bridge, Zabuza attacked us again, with his partner, Haku, in tow. Zabuza and I went at it again while Sasuke took on Haku. The only problem was that Haku had a Kekkei Genkai. You've probably heard of it if you've been to the wave country. It's from that clan with the ice-style jutsu. Sasuke wasn't prepared to handle Haku, but the boy trapped him in a sort of mirror technique. That was the point at which Naruto showed up. Unfortunately for us, he was a bit of an idiot at that point in time."

Naruto put his hands up in a placating gesture at a glance from Kakashi. "I know it was a stupid thing to do. I just couldn't think of anything else to do at that moment."

"What did he do? I'm curious." Konan asked with a small smile on her face.

Kakashi let out a patient sigh and shook his head. "He jumped right into the ring of mirrors, where Sasuke was trapped. After getting our hopes up with a big entrance, too... After that, though, I was fighting Zabuza and his damned silent killing technique, so I couldn't see their fight at all. Speaking of… Naruto. Neither you nor Sasuke ever told us what happened in Haku's trap. Care to elaborate now?"

Naruto's face, which had been red in remembering his idiotic actions, sobered slightly. "Yeah, I don't mind…" Everyone at the table turned to look towards Naruto. "By the time I got into the ring of mirrors, Sasuke was already pretty hurt by all the needles that Haku kept throwing around. Haku's technique worked by his moving so quickly from mirror to mirror that it was almost impossible to see him. His mirrors were unbreakable so the only way to break the jutsu was to catch Haku. At one point, Sasuke came up with the idea of using my shadow clones-"

"You could use shadow clones at that age? Impressive." Karin commented. Naruto shrugged embarrassedly with a nod to acknowledge the complement and then continued.

"He came up with the idea to use my shadow clones to distract Haku's attention while Sasuke focused one of his fire jutsu on him. That's when Sasuke started to use his Sharingan, too; he mumbled something about how his eyes were adjusting to Haku's speed. Haku finally tired me out, though. Me and Sasuke were stuck with maybe fifty or so needles each. I collapsed and Haku went after me…"

The kitchen was silent, waiting for Naruto to continue. They had all long since finished their food and they were all absorbed in the story. Kakashi was piecing all the parts together.

"Sasuke took the hit for me. He knew it was a trap and…I looked up to see Sasuke standing over me and then he fell and he looked…" he cleared his throat. His listeners were silent, not even daring to breath. "All I remember firsthand until a little while after that is that I was really, really pissed. That was the first time Kyuubi came out. She broke Haku's Jutsu while I was unconscious and healed me while she did it. Next thing I know, I'm about to kill Haku. But just before I landed the hit, he disappeared. I learned later that he had gone to protect Zabuza." Kakashi took over at that point, recognizing where the two parts coincided, and everyone turned back to him.

"Haku took my killing blow just before it reached Zabuza. It surprised me and gave Zabuza a bit of space to work with when I had to jump back to avoid an attack. Zabuza was amazing to say the least. I had taken out both of his arms and he could still fight pretty well. But then, of course, Gato showed up."

"Wait, you mean, that Gato? That little midget who hired people then tried to kill them so he wouldn't have to pay them?" Suigetsu asked.

"You knew him?"

"Yeah. He hired me once for an assassination on one of his enemies' little girls. I refused and he sent a whole army of thugs after me. I would've killed him myself if Orochimaru hadn't gotten to me."

"Well, yeah, that's actually what happened, basically. Gato and a whole bunch of hired punks met us on the bridge. Gato decided to disgrace Haku's body, which wasn't one of his better ideas. Naruto lent Zabuza one of his kunai and the man charged straight into them and killed Gato; I can't even remember how many blades he was stabbed with."

"I thought you said both of his arms were out."

"He held the kunai in his mouth." Naruto answered Juugo's question.

"Damn. He was a demon. I'm glad I have his sword." Suigetsu grinned wickedly.

"But how did Sasuke-kun survive?" Karin asked having remembered the emotion Naruto had expressed at remembering the event and having interpreted it as resulting from Sasuke's death.

"Haku didn't really kill Sasuke. He only put him in a temporary death state, like he did to Zabuza when we were about to capture him. Thankfully, he hadn't grown as hardened to killing as Zabuza would have liked." Kakashi said. They could see under his mask the outline of a smile.

"I wish that this Haku were still alive. I would like to know more about his kekkei genkai. It seems interesting." Konan said.

"It was certainly hard to go up against." Naruto commented dryly.

"Why did the bridge builder name the bridge 'Naruto'?" Juugo asked, having noticed that little fact at the beginning of the story.

"Naruto convinced Tazuna's, the bridge-builder's, grandson, whose adopted father had been killed by Gato, that he needed to fight back, and he went around their village and passed on Naruto's words to the villagers. Every single one of the villagers came to fight against that mob of Gato's and we scared em' all off…Geez… just talking about it reminds me of how beat up I was…" Kakashi sighed. "Zabuza sure gave me a run for my money." He sighed again and pushed his chair back up to stand. "But, anyway, we'd better get going. We've gotta meet Sakura, Temari, and Gaara. Plus, I'm going to go talk to Yamato and Sai and see if they'll come with us."

"Oh, yeah! I didn't see them when I came back! Are they okay? I mean, I know they're alive, but…"

"Yeah, they're fine, Naruto. I'll try and get them to come out with me to the training grounds. Either way, I'll be there soon. Tell Sakura to wait for me there, okay?" Kakashi walked around the table and raised a hand in a wave then jumped up onto the roof and to the side of town where Naruto knew Captain Yamato's house to be, since it should still be standing.

There was silence for a moment. Naruto interrupted it. "Well? Shall we leave now?"

"Might as well." Konan answered.

The two of them walked out to the forested area behind Sasuke's house. They were shortly followed by Karin, Suigetsu, and Juugo. Once they were a safe distance into the trees, the five of them jumped into the branches and headed towards the hokage's private training grounds, which were a fair distance away from the village and which were hidden behind multiple layers of jutsu so as to not disturb the villagers if the hokage wished to let loose.

Tsunade had lent it to Naruto for his training with his Rasengan before, so he'd asked to use it for their purposes this time around. She'd allowed it. They would work out a training schedule after today, along with training partners. Then they would search for and go after Sasuke.

And, of course, kill Madara and his cronies.