The boat trip to Wave was pretty much the same as he remembered it being the last time. Sasuke, who was probably going through withdrawal rather than being hung over since Kakashi had confiscated all of his alcohol, was staring out at the mist as if it had personally insulted him, Sakura was trying to rub up against Sasuke who kept pushing her away, Kakashi was reading one of his favorite novels in the Icha Icha series, and quietly giggling at the particularly dirty parts, and Tazuna was aft-wards quietly chatting with the skipper who was quietly rowing the boat towards the shore since the motor would have been too loud.

There was one small problem with him himself however. A problem he'd noticed the morning after they'd left Konoha. A problem he'd completely overlooked until he'd mentally reviewed his day wondering why he'd had the nagging feeling that something was missing. Kakashi had forgotten his pills this time around, which was bad, since if the meds in his system slipped below a certain level, they'd completely clear out of his system far more quickly than normal, causing a large number of problems. Remembering the disaster that had occurred when Jiraiya had decided he didn't need the medication he'd been taking since before he could remember during their training trip, he hoped that it wouldn't turn out to be a complete disaster. They couldn't afford one considering what would be happening soon.

By this point, the medication in his bloodstream had slipped well below therapeutic levels, and he was already beginning to feel the results. The worse than usual twitchiness which was the first sign that things would be going South soon had already started. He felt like he had alot more energy than usual, and he was rapidly losing focus as just about everything from the way the boatman smelled to the cry of the gull wheeling overhead caught his attention. If things went the way they had the last time he'd been off his meds, he'd literally be bouncing off the walls unable to focus on anything for more than two seconds by midday tomorrow if not sooner.

Back before, Old Lady Tsunade had once told him that he suffered from what appeared to be an extremely severe form of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that had most likely been caused by the much larger than usual amounts of Chakra in his system thanks to the tenant in his belly that gave him more energy in a minute than a normal person had in a month. The meds had helped keep this under control to the degree that, while he was on them, he appeared to suffer from a normal case of ADHD that had gone untreated. Without the meds however...

He hoped there was a pharmacy in Wave otherwise, Kakashi and the rest of the team were in for an interesting time.

Kakashi had been quietly reading when Tazuna had made a comment that heralded disaster.

"What's wrong with him?" Tazuna asked as he gestured to a rather squirmier than usual Naruto.

He looked at his watch. Was it already that late? Damn, the kid should've had his meds hours ago. Come to think of it, when was the last time he'd given the boy his meds?

Reaching into a specific pocket on his vest, he pulled out a small pill bottle. It was empty. That's right, he'd planned to go to the pharmacy for a refill but, they'd got the mission to Wave and he'd been too distracted thinking of the many ways it could go wrong to do so. Iruka had told him not to cut it so close with Naruto's meds and to get a refill when there were fifteen pills left in the bottle but, he just didn't listen.

"Aw shit." he said as he remembered what Naruto was like before he'd started the meds.

%

Kakashi nervously followed the nurse down the corridors of the hospital. As he did so, he wondered why he had the gall to think that he would succeed where medical professionals with decades of experience had failed. It was probably because he had actually cared about Naruto's fate, and the hospital staff had only been caring for the boy because the Hokage had ordered them to do so.

"He's in here." The nurse said as she opened a heavy steel door, revealing a thickly padded room.

A bright yellow blur that he'd been assured was really a two year-old boy flashed by, appearing to be moving somewhere near the speed of light. The blur, or rather boy in question was bouncing off of every wall of the padded room, including the floor and ceiling faster than even his Sharingan eye could track.

His mission was to get this kid to sit still long enough to swallow the pill that one of the doctors had provided, since all other methods of administering medication to the child had failed. Naruto had absolutely refused to get within fifteen feet of a needle after he'd been caught in a net by a hunter nin who'd been hired for the occasion, and given his vaccinations several months ago, and had been far too young for this particular medication at that time. Adding to the problem was the fact that the child always seemed to know when the food given to him was laced with sedatives, and would accordingly refuse to eat it. After Naruto had gotten rather dangerously thin, the hospital's medical staff had been forced to cease their attempts at sedation.

If he failed in this task, Minato-Sensei's son - who seemed to live up to the name Yellow Flash without using special seals - would probably be forced to live in that padded room for the rest of his short life, which the doctors had informed the Hokage wouldn't last longer than a few more years if he continued the way he was going since the human body couldn't handle the stress that the boy was putting it through, even with the freakish healing and regenerative abilities he had.

The doctors and nurses had attempted to administer medication to Naruto while he was asleep but, the boy only slept for about a minute at a time before he started bouncing off the walls for hours on end, as he had been doing ever since he learned to walk, once more. By the time the hospital staff reached the room with the child's medication, Naruto would have already woken up, and was damn near impossible to catch while he was awake.

The hunter nin who'd used the net in order to capture Naruto so he could receive his vaccinations was on medical leave for mental health reasons since he'd been unable to do anything other than sit in a corner and rock back and forth after that mission. If the rumors he'd heard were true, Naruto's eyes had turned red and the boy had grown claws and fangs which he had then used to bite and scratch the hell out of the poor man when he turned the child loose in his room after the vaccinations had been administered.

Nobody else had been able to hold onto the child long enough to administer medication, much less catch him in a net as the hunter nin had done since then. The one who'd come closest to doing so had been Morino Ibiki during the infamous stuffed duck incident two months ago, and he had ended up coming away from said incident with a large number of nasty looking scratches on his arms that looked like they were going to scar. Because of that, Jiraiya had been ordered to clearly label all of Naruto's birthday presents as such and send them through the mail properly in order to prevent another misunderstanding such as the one that had led to the stuffed duck incident from occurring.

He hoped his plan worked. Otherwise, the doctors and maybe even the Hokage would give up hope of the child that Minato-Sensei had sacrificed so much for ever living anything approaching a normal life.

After watching the boy bounce off the walls for over an hour, he was reasonably certain that he'd found a pattern in the boy's movements. Hoping that he was correct and that neither he nor the boy suffered any broken bones or other injuries as a result of bringing the child to such an abrupt halt from the speed he'd been moving at, he moved to knock the boy out of the air. Upon landing on the floor, Naruto was stunned for a second. It was all the time he needed. He pinned the boy and forced him to swallow the pill he'd been given. Before the child could spit it up, he shoved a chocolate into the boy's mouth and hoped he didn't choke. That apparently did the trick, since the boy became busy chewing and swallowing the chocolate, completely forgetting about the pill.

After a while, the medication seemed to take affect. Naruto's bouncing became much slower than it had been before. Instead of being somewhere near the speed of light, he looked to be traveling at about the speed of sound. He probably wasn't though, since there weren't any sonic booms.

After his initial success, he got called in every morning for the next week to give the child his medication. By the time it had reached what the doctors had determined to be therapeutic levels, Naruto was merely moving at the rate of an overly hyperactive toddler and actually sleeping for hours at a time rather than minutes. Fortunately, considering the young age at which Naruto had started his medication, the healing and regeneration that had been caused by the fox supercharging his Uzumaki traits had eliminated any of the numerous possible negative side effects. After a month, Naruto was able to be released into the care of one of the local orphanages.

%

"Is there a pharmacy in Wave?" he asked Tazuna when his flashback had ended, praying the answer was yes because he hadn't seen one the last time around.

The last time he and his students had been in Wave, he hadn't needed to visit the pharmacy because he'd gotten Naruto's prescription filled in Konoha at the last minute. This time however...

"Yes, but it is controlled by Gato. The man has a stranglehold on almost every business in Wave, the hospital included. The medicine sold at the pharmacy is priced higher than almost anyone can afford." Tazuna said scowling as his thoughts took a rather dark turn. "When I finish my bridge, Gato will no longer have a stranglehold on everything and people will finally be able to afford such basic things as food and medicine."

He sighed in relief at this, and silently prayed that the pharmacy in Wave had the medication he needed, and that Naruto would be able to hold out until then. But, considering the fact that Naruto was running around in circles by the time the boat docked, he wasn't certain he would.

Sakura watched in confusion as Naruto raced so far ahead of the group that she could barely see him and then ran back several times. Naruto had calmed down a bit since they'd left the Academy but, right now, he was being even more of a spaz than usual. After racing back to the group yet again, Naruto started running around them in circles instead.

"Don'tworryTazunaI'llprotectyou-thenyoucanbuildyourbridge-theneveryone'llbehappy!" Naruto chattered as he ran around Tazuna before he got distracted by something in the bushes.

"There'sarabbitaroundhere!-Iknowthereis!-Ilikerabbits!-Rabbitsarecuteandfluffy!" Naruto babbled as he raced off into said bushes presumably in search of the rabbit.

When Naruto returned from the woods carrying a frightened white rabbit, she attempted to smack him over the head for not only breaking formation but, scaring the crap out of the poor woodland creature as well. Instead of allowing the blow to land, Naruto dodged her in a move that was faster than she could see however.

"Turn that poor rabbit loose Naruto!" she yelled. "Can't you see how scared it is?"

"Why? Icaughtititismine!" Naruto yelled as Kakashi told them all to duck.

A half second after she and the rest of the team except Naruto, who sprung at least thirty feet into the air still clutching the hapless rabbit, ducked, a gigantic sword went sailing over their heads or, as in Naruto's case, beneath their feet and embedded itself into a tree. When she looked up at the massive blade, there was a fearsome looking man standing on it looking down at them, and Kakashi-sensei was standing in front of the rest of the team preparing himself for battle.

"HimisterMomochi-Iforgot-it'syourrabbit-canIkeepit?" Naruto said, speaking faster than a two year-old on speed that has eaten a pound of sugar as he held up the rabbit that looked like it was about to have a heart attack.

The man looked down at Naruto in confusion for a moment. The confusion rapidly turned to shock.

Zabuza looked over at the group of Genin led by the Copy Ninja Kakashi that were guarding his target. He couldn't help but do a double take at the blond one who was holding up his decoy rabbit and asking if he could keep it. Whose bright idea had it been to dress the kid like a toddler?

Taking a look at the clan marking on the boy's back that he could just barely see from his vantage point, he realized that he shouldn't have been surprised. There was a reason for the flee-on-sight order when it came to that particular clan. The entire Uzumaki family, as well as being incredibly skilled with Seals, was both highly dangerous and bat-shit insane. The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist had learned that the hard way fifty years ago when the swords were passed down to the next generation rather earlier than expected after one of the blond boy's relatives had defeated all seven of them and shoved their swords where the sun didn't shine. When he was drunk, his former master would claim that he was still finding bits of rectum on his sword.

"Haku, we're getting the fuck out of here!" he yelled.

Had it been just that one incident, he probably would have stood and fought but, he had grown up hearing stories that he had desperately tried to forget. Ordinarily, he could handle tales of blood and gore but, blood, gore, silly string, and a prank jutsu that had deadly results for the S class ninja that got caught in it...And, the one that had pulled that off had just been a Genin like the blond brat whose parents apparently hadn't yet realized he wasn't three anymore.

"Why?" Haku called back, hidden in some trees.

"They have an Uzumaki with them, that's why!" he yelled back.

Haku didn't need to be told twice. Like everyone else in Water Country, he'd grown up hearing the stories. An instant after he'd answered the boy's question, he flew out of the tree in which he'd been hiding and made his break for it across the water with him trailing a few feet behind after having barely taken the time to pull his sword from the tree. That had been one hell of a close call.

It seemed that nobody had seen fit to warn anyone in Kiri that the Uzumaki clan hadn't been entirely wiped out by Kumo and Iwa - however unlikely as that was, now that he thought about it - as reported, since there were obviously some survivors left living in Konoha who were mixing with their population if the hyper blond was any indication. Though he had absolutely no loyalty to the Mizukage, he was going to rectify that situation immediately.

As he raced across the water intent on putting the Uzumaki as far behind him as he could, cries of "Hey! Hey! MisterMomochi! CanIkeeptherabbit? CanIkeeptherabbit?" started to come from a few feet behind him. Fearing what he would see when he looked behind him, he turned around while still running until he was running backwards. The Uzumaki boy had followed him and was still holding the little snow rabbit of Haku's that he'd used as a decoy. The rabbit was still alive but, it was now looking a little worse for wear. He would make it up to Haku later but, now...

"Yes! Now, go away!" he yelled, hoping and praying that the boy would leave him alone as soon as he got what he wanted, and knowing he wouldn't be so lucky.

"Okay! ThanksBye!" the blond Uzumaki boy yelled as he turned around and made his way back to his team who were standing on shore staring at him in open-mouthed shock.

Stunned, and almost unable to believe that his stupid plan had actually worked, he tripped and fell into the water he'd been running across. Haku rand back and hauled him back out, and a second later they were running once more.

Edited 11-3-12