Another day had passed with Sasuke mainly recuperating (and thinking about what and how to teach his `friends´) and while his ribs and arm did not pain him much any longer, Kakashi had again warned him from doing any Jutsu that needed good fine control, so everything he was doing right now was trying to walk on water. Which due to sporadic control issues in his chakra system proved to be …. challenging. The only reason he was able to ignore most of Narutos snickering was the fact that it would take a year or more until the blonde himself was able to walk on water. He smirked after managing a full 9 steps without sinking in. It seemed it was looking up now...

Naturally that was the exact moment his chakra suddenly and violently spiked, causing him to splash in a rather funny way (for those still dry that was). He sighed as he concentrated to pull himself out of the water by channeling chakra to his legs and feet. This would be taking a while it seemed...

After another 2 hours of grueling (and not to mention wet) exercise, with varying amounts of success, Sasuke sat on a tree trunk looking out over the lake, and relaxed. He had dried himself with a very slow and controlled execution of his "Drying Jutsu" (it seemed mostly all worked as it should, but if his chakra decided to do unexpected things it did so with gusto) and waited for Sakura to bring him the promised food, he was starving (as judging by the sounds his stomach produced so was Naruto, but that wasn't anything new was it?). At least he was getting the hang of it. "Say Sasuke, are you going to teach me that Jutsu you promised sometime today?" The blonde asked in his usual, energetically-excited tone. Sasuke sighed. "Yes. After we both have had something to eat." He stretched a bit, testing the flexibility of his ribs. Almost pain free, nice. He was interrupted by Sakura carrying a large plate with sushi, sauces, Onigiri and grilled fish. Naruto and he did what could be expected of boys and quickly got to it, with Sakura nibbling on her rice ball, watching the 2 dig in.

After disposing their food rather quickly, Sasuke leaned back and looked at his team mates.

"Now, I want something clear from the start. I am not your Sensei, believe me I don't want Kakashi-Senseis job, but he allowed me to nonetheless teach you each fitting Jutsu that I have learned in one way or the other. And for that to work you have to do exactly as I tell you." He waited for them to nod in acknowledgment. "Good, now Sakura, your chakra reserves are abysmal. I estimate them at about a third of mine, and I myself only have slightly above average reserves. So I decided to go with a Jutsu that mostly needs fine control, as your control on the other hand is very impressive." Sakura had hung her head at his judgment, but now slowly regained her composure. A little compliment from her crush seemed sufficient to motivate her. "Now look closely." Sasuke rose and then slowly went through the 3 signs needed to start the Jutsu. Monkey, Monkey, Bird. He held the final sign as he took a deep breath, just to explosively blow out the air he held towards a nearby tree. The air between a few feet in front of Sasuke and the tree looked as if a rotating dustcloud had suddenly appeared, just for it to disappear a moment later, to leave the tree and the ground around it marked by countless small pockmarks. He almost fell over, of course his chakra had chosen this exact moment to spike and he had used about twice the amount of chakra needed and with less than half the usual efficiency. Stupid haywireing...

He regained his breath and started to explain. "It is a C-Class Ninjutsu called "Cutting Dust Barrier" ,I …. borrowed it from a chunin a while ago, that utilizes dust already present in the air to both provide a dust screen and a relatively weak area attack. It relies heavily on the user maintaining control and directing it after actually executing the Jutsu and scales rather strongly regarding its efficiency if your control wavers. Judging your momentary reserves one normal use should deplete around 70-75% of your chakra, so you can both train your control regarding its use and your reserves. Now, you try it..."

As expected Sakura did not have much trouble doing the signs or the Jutsu, aside from being only able to do it once without rest, and so Sasuke went to show Naruto what he had in store for the hyperactive blonde.

"OK Naruto, as you, unlike Sakura, have abysmal control but freaking huge chakra reserves, this Jutsu should do." He ignored Narutos pout and went through the 4 signs of the Sparrowhawk Jutsu, "This is the Sparrowhawk Jutsu, a C-Class Wind Type Ninjutsu. It will provide you with an enormous speed boost as long as you are on open ground, do not execute other Ninjutsu or run our of chakra. Seeing your usual way of attacking and your reserves I'd say it was meant for you." Judging by Narutos expression he had immediately realized the potential of "supercharged" Kage Bunshin, and went on to try his new "toy". With the expected results of him wasting large amounts of chakra (and 7 tries) until he got it to work with roughly half the regular efficiency. Just to promptly run straight into a tree at twice his normal speed. Sasuke smirked. That promised to be fun... And so, while resting and regaining his strength, he kept watching Naruto (and lots of clones) trying to get a grip on the "Sparrowhawk". He laughed a loud belly laugh as 3 of the 9 clones present executed the Jutsu perfectly, just to speed up and run (at thrice their regular speed) into 4 more clones ahead of them, causing them all to vanish with the usual smoke cloud, followed by Naruto shouting at the remaining clones. Ah, how fun was that? He still was unsure about the second Jutsu to teach him, but there would be enough time for that later on. Plus watching Naruto was more fun at the moment anyway.

And with lots of cursing, laughing and pleasant exhaustion their training continued until they were too tired and went back to Tsunamis house to devour massive amounts of food (and ignore the overtly sulking Inari, except for Naruto who did not stop throwing him glances, to the best of their abilities). Overall it had been a good day. Too bad it wouldn't last...

Elsewhere, in a small but well built and equipped hut close to a mountain top, a scowling Zabuza sat while a masked female clad in a deep blue catsuit and a black cloak slowly removed the tape from his right forearm. The wound seemed closed, only a thin but red scar still visible, but the inspection took another 2 minutes until she spoke. "It is healed well enough, refrain from doing anything strenuous for 2 more days and you are fully up to speed again." The voice was void of any inflection and relatively low for a women. She rose, the light illuminating her half white, half black Mask, and went to leave. Zabuza moved his fingers, and found no pain or restricting feelings left in his arm. He was impressed, that damn lightning Jutsu Kakashi had hit him with had done quite some damage. "Wait. You still owe me another service!" His voice was sharp and commanding, and the woman obeyed by turning around. While her face was covered, her body language clearly said "Lets get this over with". She did not say anything. Ah, how infuriating she could be...

"I need support for my plans in Wave. I am going to be facing Kakashi Hatake and his team, which seemed rather competent so far, and obviously doing that alone would be stupid, as they managed to capture or kill Haku and wound me last time." His teeth gnashed loudly. The sheer nerve! He had spent years training Haku and now he was most likely dead. Argh! Where could he find an apprentice so obviously skilled and yet so obedient?

The woman cocked her head to the left. "And what do you expect me to do? You might remember that I am only a moderately skilled fighter. And most of my contacts are not close enough to get here within your intended time frame."

"I know. I expect you to carry this", at that Zabuza drew a small scroll out of his bag, "to Hohiro. And I want you to give me the Warriors Plate you and Orochimaru played around with a few years back." That brought out a reaction. She straightened and the slits of the mask focused on Zabuza. "You are aware of the fact that we did not manage to reproduce it? If it gets damaged in your battle it will be lost. Permanently. Even if the Old Snake was willing to discard it because of his inability to rebuild it, I am not!" Her tone was clearly angry now. How dare he to demand that! This armor was at least 150 years old, probably much older, and had a lot of abilities that she was sure she had not yet discovered, on top of providing excellent protection against Ninjutsu and boosting its bearers strength. Enough for years of research!
"You will do as I say." Zabuzas Killing Intent spiked to dangerous levels. "And all debts will be dealt with." He added with a little less coldness in his voice. Damn, why did she have to be in the Swordmans debt! And honorable enough to follow the code regarding them on top of that. Ah fuck it, she would find other things to occupy her mind with... She nodded, opened the safe in the far wall and gave the Warriors Plate, a shoulder guard made of some sort of copperish metal, rather massive and marked by brownish runes, to Zabuza together with the scroll containing her info about the artifact, taking the message scroll the Nukenin wanted delivered scroll instead, and left. No use in delaying, after she had delivered this scroll all debts would be dealt with. And when Zabuza would cross her path the next time, she might have some thing up her sleeve, oh yes...

Smirking she sped northwards.

Zabuza therewhile put the plate on his left shoulder for the first time. After all he had to train with it before he used it in battle. Kakashi and his brats had 3, at the most 4, days left until he would crush them. His evil smile was hidden by the bandages, but still there.

The Copy Nin would never know what hit him...

Kakashi found his students at the breakfast table, where they chatted and of course consumed lots of food. He had actually come to appreciate the New Sasuke quite a lot. Not only was he a far better teamplayer, as evident in him teaching Jutsu to Sakura and Naruto, no his skills were far more varied and well rounded than that of most Chunin. On top of his Sharingan that was. Yes, he seemed to lack "his" Sasukes Chakra reserves and drive for perfection, but otherwise, as loath as he was to admit it, they all seemed to be on the "good" side of this strange exchange.

"Sasuke, I will start training with you today. We need to see how far your system has recovered, and some Sharingan training seems to be in order as well." His gaze went towards Sakura and Naruto. "You 2 will continue to practice what Sasuke taught you, and it would also be wise for you to scout a bit and get to know the surrounding area. I will leave the exact schedule to you." Witht hat he nodded Sasuke to follow him and left for a nearby clearing.

A few minutes alter they arrived. "Well then Sasuke, first activate your Sharingan." Which his pupil did, and Kakashis assumption proved correct. He had thought that Sasukes last move in the battle with Zabuza had been too perfect for him. Now he could see why. His Sharingan had reached the mature level. Late seeing how long he already had it, but seeing the absolute age really early. If he remembered right only Itachi had been younger than Sasuke at reaching a mature Sharingan in the last generation. "Well well, Sasuke. It seems that the battle triggered your Sharingans evolution. You possess a mature Sharingan now. This will no doubt change some of your predictions and the general feel, which is why we will try it to its limit right now." And with that the most grueling training Sasuke could remember began. Kakashi threw hundreds of Shuriken, Kunai, punches and kicks at him, always getting closer and closer to the limits of his predictive ability. Which, he had to admit, had been boosted quite a bit. Not that he had much time enjoying it. While he usually could only see the 3-4 most likely outcomes, and the perfect reaction to them, he now could consider 5 and more ways to counter up to 10 different variations of the same action. So while not actually faster or more precise, it seemed his Sharingan had gotten deeper and broader in its focus. Which was good, as he would never have managed as long as he did with his old ability.

Still, after almost 2 hours he was beat. Scratch that, he was almost unconscious, and still evading kunai! Kakashi smiled as he saw that Sasuke had picked up the new advantages this quickly. He really hoped they would have at least 2 more days to prepare, because he had rarely seen someone as gifted with the predictive abilities of the Uchihas famed Doujutsu. Yes, this proved to be a VERY interesting development...

But now his pupil would have to rest. He really deserved that, after this performance. And the afternoon would provide enough training time for the team.

Later that day, Sasuke and his team mates trained formations and predicting each others actions in battle. Sakuras new combination of a cloaking Genjutsu and a medium range area attack made her a good ambusher, Narutos prowess with supercharged Bunshin was improving, and Sasukes new abilites fit in nicely. Kakashi was pretty sure they would be ready for the upcoming battle. As long as Zabuza would not come up with too much backup that was...

Far away, under a rocky ravine with a small, crippled tree growing on it, a rather old but muscular looking, balding Ninja in brown and gray clothing sat against a rock, reading a scroll. His massively bushy brows furrowed, his wrinkly forehead wrinkled even more, his long beard wobbled. So, the brat had finally decided to make his move and try to found a new village. He smiled. It was about time that his one time pupil finally stopped doing the dirty work for little men and started aiming higher again! While Wave was not a location many would choose, it provided all Zabuza needed. Water, seclusion, and most important: a power vacuum. Yes, the next few weeks would prove ….. interesting.

Grabbing his huge, slim sword Hohiro smirked a bloodlusty smirk and went off to join his pupil.

AN: Here we go, enjoy! And almost as important: review!