Chapter VII

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

There were no disturbances that night, outside of the camp or otherwise. They packed up in the early morning and set off walking again. Naruto didn't tell anyone, but he had not dispelled the clones from last night. He wasn't sure why, but it seemed a good idea to have them all moving through the forest on either side of the path. It may only have been a C-rank mission, but Naruto had never left Konoha before and it was easy for him to pretend that they were guarding someone much more important than a simple bridge-builder.

They walked for several hours, settling into the easy routine that they had adopted yesterday; Naruto, Oscar, and Kakashi in the back, Sasuke and Sakura in the front, and Tazuna in the middle. Kakashi may have had his eye on his book, but as a seasoned Jounin, he was able to be constantly aware of his surroundings.

The puddle in the path immediately raised a red flag, even more so when he saw Oscar's eyes dart toward it nervously. The boy didn't say anything, but he tapped Naruto on the shoulder and then indicated his eyes. Keep a lookout. The blonde gave a brief nod, instantly sending a kind of general heads-up to his sentry clones. He felt them close in on the path slightly, ready for action. Oscar sped up a step to tap Sasuke and Sakura. They turned, and he repeated the silent warning. They nodded and closed in on Tazuna, kunai drawn. They were still not completely ready when the two figures surged out of the tiny puddle.

One of them appeared to throw the other. As he came down, the two quickly wrapped the chain connecting their gauntlets around Kakashi and pulled it taut. Kakashi had only time to shoot one panicked look at his team, before the Jounin died, sliced into bloody slivers. "One down," One of the men smirked. The two made to throw their chain around Naruto next, but he had already called up his reserve clones. He saw the chain coming down around his neck and felt the gauntlet break the skin on the back of his hand and desperately kawirimied with a shadow clone to get out. It must have looked odd to the demon brothers of the mist. One minute they had a genin trapped in their chain, the next there was a puff of smoke, and the very same genin was still in the chains. Without wasting any more time, the two yanked on the chain, pulling it tight enough to dispel the clone. As they did so, it left them open to attack from the three dozen clones currently standing behind them in the path. They were set upon by the kunai-wielding clones, and got stabbed repeatedly until the clones managed to find the chinks and joints in the armor. A few clones shoved knives into the shoulder and knee joints, twisting hard and bring the Demon Brothers of the Mist to their knees. Most of the shadow clones backed off as Sasuke began to form handsigns. One clone hauled the two brothers together using the chain to make an easier target.

"Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" Sasuke called, before blasting the two brothers with flames. Oscar backed him up by throwing kunai through the fireball at the brothers, the flash-heated metal piercing the armor in several places. As the smoke cleared, two more Naruto clones leapt forward, ninja wire in hand. Using a small-scale version of the Brothers' preferred method of assassination, the clones quickly dragged the ninja-wire across the Brothers' throats, decapitating them. There was a moment of silence as the dust settled.

"Hey dobe," Sasuke said, "What was that last stunt for?"

"Well, call it overkill, but I wanted to make sure that they were actually dead," Naruto said. Sasuke could not tell if he was trying to be sarcastic or not, so he let it go.

Sakura emerged from the bushes where she had pulled Tazuna as soon as the fighting had begun. They both looked rather shaken. "Should we keep going?" Sakura asked, "Now that we don't have a Jounin?"

Her teammates gave her a blank look. "What do you mean?" Oscar asked.

Sakura swallowed a little. "I don't know how to break this to you, but those guys just killed Kakashi. He's dead."

"I am?" Sakura whirled around to see a perfectly whole Jounin-sensei jumping down from the trees.

She was highly confused. "Then who- I mean what-?" She turned to where she had seen Kakashi fall, and saw only a scattering of wood chips lying across the path. "A Kawirimi?"

Oscar narrowed his eyes at the desecrated log. "Sacrilege. You must atone through the planting of no less than twenty-five saplings within the next seven days."

Kakashi knew the truth in these words. He did not want to incur the wrath of the Log, so he resolved to pay homage once they arrived in Wave country. For now, he looked to a few of the Naruto clones, peering through the trees, and asked them to past him the Brothers' charred and decapitated heads.

"Why?" Naruto wanted to know.

"I'm going to seal the heads in a scroll. Those two have quite the ransom in the bingo books. When we get back to Konoha, I'll submit the heads and you guys can split the reward."

"Hang on," Sakura said, "If you knew that those were high-class shinobi, why did you hang back?"

"Think of it as a test, to see how you guys would react. I needed to know whether you would react with the client in mind or depend on each other at all. You all did pretty well."

"Wait, High-class shinobi? What were they doing here?" Sasuke asked. "I thought that Tazuna was just a bridge-builder. What gives?" All eyes turned to a nervous-looking Tazuna.

"What haven't you told us?" Kakashi asked softly.

Tazuna's nerve broke under the stares of the five ninja. He explained all about how he was the key to his countries freedom. He was terrified that they would desert him the moment they learned of his treachery. When he had finished, Sakura was highly alarmed.

"Kakashi-sensei," she said, "We may not be prepared for this. We need to get Naruto medicine for that cut as well. Should we go back?"

"No." everyone turned in disbelief to the blonde. "You are not going back on my account."

"But she is right about your hand, Naruto," Kakashi said. "Those two poison their claws. You need to let the infected blood out and get treated for it."

"Alright then," Naruto said grimly. Much to everyone's astonishment, he pulled out a kunai and raised it, clearly intending to plunge it into the back of his hand. As he swung it down, Oscar moved forward and caught his hand, arresting its movement.

"Don't be an idiot," he growled. Naruto had never heard his friend use that voice before. "Even if you refuse to get help, I won't let you do that yourself. You have no experience and you might sever a tendon or something. Let me." To Naruto's surprise, Oscar slid the knife out of his unresisting fingers and held Naruto's injured hand up. Mindless of the blood he was getting on himself, Oscar took up the skin of Naruto's hand between his fingers, causing Naruto to gasp with pain. He bit his lip hard as Oscar made a straight shallow cut across the first wound. The dark boy then pulled a roll of cloth bandages out of his pack and used a length to mop up the blood that spilled forth. When he had it cleaned to his satisfaction, he spread on some salve out of a jar in his pack before wrapping the whole hand in bandages. He put the salve and the roll away again before catching Sakura's look. "What?" he asked.

"Where did you learn that?"

Oscar seemed startled by the question. "I didn't learn it anywhere. I have no formal training in this kind of thing. That doesn't mean I haven't seen it done before." He looked at Naruto's hand. "I would just hate to see something like that be done wrong. Honestly, everyone thinks they can do this stuff by themselves but sometimes you just can't. That's why I brought the bandages and things. Wounds often get worse if you don't have the right means to treat them with."

"Alright," Kakashi said. "If that's done I suggest we press on to Wave, seeing as Tazuna used the old Jewish mother's trick. About his grandson and daughter." No one objected, so on they went.

After an hour or so, Naruto voiced something that he had been thinking about. "If Gatou really wants you dead, he'll send someone much better than those Demon Brothers of the Mist."

"Better?" Sakura squeaked. "Weren't they good enough?"

"They can't have been too experienced," Sasuke reasoned. "Look how they went for Kakashi first instead of taking out their primary target."

All the same, they did not encounter any trouble for the rest of the journey, save for a few bandits who were easily dispatched.

As the boatman was guiding the boat over the water from the main shore to the island of Wave, Naruto remembered something that he had wanted to ask Oscar. "How did you know that something was wrong with that puddle?"

"Hm? Three reasons. First, was in the middle of the road, not overshadowed by trees, in a place where any sensible puddle would have evaporated by then. Secondly, though normal water is reflective, I couldn't to see the road underneath through the surface of that puddle. And last, Kakashi actually took his eye away from his book for a second to look at it. No innocent puddle could elicit such a strong reaction."

Naruto was yet again impressed by the shorter boy's perceptiveness. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until the boatman interrupted their separate trains of thought. "Damn this mist. We're so close to the bridge and yet we can't even see it. At least we can't be seen by Gatou's men."

As they neared the shore, an enormous shape loomed out of the mist. Naruto whispered out a tiny whistle and even Sasuke was hard-pressed to seem like he saw such things every day. The bridge was an awesome thing. It was so impressive that the genin had no trouble believing that the fate of a county's-worth of people depended on it.

"How much of it is complete?" Kakashi asked, keeping his voice low.

"About fifty percent, but progress should be much faster now that we have your protection."

"Glad to hear it."

When the skiff glided up to the dock, they all got out and thanked the boatman. "Now just get me home!" Tazuna said.

"Yeah, yeah," they muttered.

Naruto was tense and high-strung, creating clones to investigate every rustle in the trees and bushes. Finally he snapped and threw a shuriken into the bushes, nearly skewering Kakashi in the process. When he sent a clone to investigate, they discovered that it was only a rabbit. "Naruto, what have I told you about terrorizing small woodland creatures? I'll have to take away your privileges soon." Naruto wished that Oscar wouldn't make light of his jitteriness.

Kakashi noted the rabbit's winter coloring and realized the implications in seconds. "Get down!" he yelled, just as an enormous sword came whirling out from the vegetation to stick in a tree, perpendicular to the trunk. A moment later, the man who had nearly beheaded the party arrived, standing on the grip of his sword and squinting down at them.

"Show off," Oscar muttered, getting up and brushing dirt off his clothes.

"Ah. So after the Demon Brothers of the Mist they send Missing-nin Zabuza Momochi. The quality is improving," Kakashi quipped.

"I could say the same about you," The shirtless intruder responded.

"In fact, you could almost give me a run for my money- unless I do this-" Kakashi's hand reached up and he slid his headband off of his left eye…

A/N: Cliff hanger! Anyone who read the bio on my author page (eh hem) would know that Oscar considers himself to be rather less than an amateur medic, but he's the closest thing that team seven has.

About the Jewish joke, I am Jewish, so I don't consider it to be a crime. For anyone who's not in the know, the Jewish mother's joke has to do with guilting people into doing things and goes like this; How many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: No, it's alright! I'll sit in the dark.