Zabuza stood there wondering how everything had gone to hell so quickly. He had gone to the bridge with Haku so they could be ready for Gato's ambush, as killing someone he'd hired so he wouldn't have to pay them sounded like something the man would do, as he had been known to have done it before. At that point, he'd decided that Gato had had him by his balls for far too long, and the debt collectors could go to hell for all he cared. If Gato showed up with an army of mercenaries like the Uzumaki claimed he would, he'd kill them all, Gato included.

When he and Haku had arrived at the bridge, they had both rather carefully cleared the workers out of harm's way. But, since he couldn't tell the construction crew why he wanted them out of the area as that would render his plans of counter ambushing Gato useless, he had been forced to use force in order to do so. The construction crew had received only minor injuries on the way to the building he'd selected, as it appeared to be well away from any potential battle sites but unfortunately, the Copy Ninja Kakashi had seen these actions as a threat and had attacked accordingly when he and Tazuna had returned from lunch to find the bridge to be abandoned and completely shrouded in mist. Because the Copy ninja had attacked, he was now in the difficult position of being forced to defend himself while attempting to cause minimal harm to his opponent.

He could tell that Haku was growing increasingly agitated as well as he attempted to keep the Uchiha boy contained and therefore out of both his and the boy's sensei's way. If necessary, Haku would bring the Genin down with non-lethal force.

Fortunately, was absolutely no sign of the Uzumaki boy.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" yelled a disturbingly familiar voice.

Speak of the devil...

He quickly dropped his weapon and moved away from the Uzumaki boy's sensei, holding his empty hands up.

"It's not what it looks like! I wasn't..." he said as he frantically tried to explain the battle that was taking place.

"Look, see, he's not hurt." Haku said at the same time, most likely pointing to the Uzumaki's male teammate, as the female had stayed out of the battle.

The Copy Ninja used the moment of distraction to power up one of his signature lightening jutsu. As what would in moments be his death was powering up, he heard a yell of "WIND STRIPPER ATTACK" come from the Uzumaki boy. Moments later, he was hit by a powerful cyclone of incredibly frigid wind that felt as if it had been filled with thousands of tiny blades as well as the numerous objects it had picked up on its way over to him.

Moments after that, everything went black.

Gato smirked as he saw Momochi Zabuza be brought down by a child. He'd missed most of the fight due to the thick mist that had enshrouded the bridge that had become a battlefield obscuring everything but, he knew that it couldn't have been all that good considering the fact that the swordsman had been brought down by a child that couldn't have been older than ten.

So much for the Demon of the Bloody Mist. Damn ninjas. Always playing up their reputations and never living up to expectations.

As the curtain of mist faded, he stood near the end of the soon to be destroyed bridge facing the small country he ruled with an iron fist with his horde of mercenaries arrayed behind him, knowing that this would be a dramatic sight when the mist fully cleared away like a parting curtain. Soon, his men would kill the so-called Hell-God Uzumaki as well as the children he'd brought with him, and his reputation would increase.

The blond child who had taken down the man he'd been repeatedly and apparently incorrectly assured was an elite assassin had been the first to notice him. Looking at him and his mercenaries as if they were a minor irritation, the boy made several of those odd hand gestures that ninja made before they attacked. He was pretty sure that whatever the boy planned on doing wouldn't cause too much damage, and would be more focused on the mercenaries behind him as he would see them as the bigger threat.

The boy eventually stopped making those hand gestures and yelled "WATER PROCTOLOGIST JUTSU". An instant after the jutsu was named, he heard water start to rush behind him, and a moment later there was pain, Pain, PAIN.

Then, there was nothing.

Then, the nothing cleared and he found himself standing in front of the man called Kaiza whose death he had used to break the spirits of the inhabitants of Wave. Behind the fisherman who had been defiant to the last was a crowd that consisted of every last one of his dead enemies. Behind them was an even larger crowd of people who died because of his actions.

He only had enough time to think Oh shit! before the mob surged forward.

Sakura sat picking at her dinner unable to think of what she should make of Naruto. Before the mission started, she had believed that he had only been placed on the team because he was a total loser, and had been needed to balance out Sasuke's awesomeness. Everyone in class called him Dead Last. All of the Academy Instructors besides Umino-Sensei had called him talentless, incredibly stupid, and much worse, and she had believed them. And, at home, her mother who had told her to stay away from him had said that his mother was a clanless whore, and that his father was more than likely from Iwa considering his hair, and she had believed her.

This mission, which had been supposed to be a simple escort job had shaken every last one of her beliefs about the boy she had considered to be the team's fifth wheel. The first blow that shattered the steady foundation of belief had been learning that Naruto's family was both feared and well known outside Konoha. The second blow had been seeing Naruto defeat opponents that even Kakashi-sensei had a hard time dealing with. His methods had been rather unorthodox but, the truth was that he had taken down an entire army.

First, he had taken down Momochi Zabuza who had proven to be an excellent fighter when he wasn't running away from Naruto before Kakashi could using a Wind Jutsu with a slightly perverted sounding name. Next, he had killed Gato using a Water Jutsu that had sounded like a prank, but had turned out to have deadly and rather traumatizing results. And finally, the army of townspeople that he had convinced Inari to recruit had arrived in time to see him incapacitate an army of mercenaries using Shadow Clones and a Jutsu that she had constantly yelled at him for, calling it both useless and perverted.

In that moment, Naruto had proved that despite it being perverted, it had been far from useless.

The third blow to her beliefs had come when Kakashi-sensei had confirmed that Naruto had not been lying and that Naruto's father was indeed none other than the Fourth Hokage himself before swearing her and Sasuke to secrecy.

How could she have underestimated Naruto so completely?

Worst of all, why did their teachers treat the son of Konoha's greatest hero so badly, and why did her mother tell such vicious lies about his parents?

Toshi thought the boat that had rescued him was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in his entire life. When he was pulled aboard, he had felt like hugging and kissing the captain when the man had come to ask him and the rest of the survivors of his mercenary crew what happened.

"Gato's dead. The Hell-God got him." he replied, shuddering at the memory of what he'd seen.

It had been as if a giant fist had...and then the water had started spraying out of the man's mouth.

"Hell God?" the captain asked.

"U-Uzumaki N-Naruto. Oh gods, he looked like a little kid...and then...and then he was like all of the old stories, but worse. He took out Momochi Zabuza with a weak wind attack, then he used some prank jutsu on Gato...and...then the water...it...it...then he made like a thousand Kage Bunshin, and the next thing I remember is waking up on the boat. I-I thought he'd spared us, but...but he'd put a hole in the boat." he said, barely able to bring himself to recount what happened.

He could hear one of the other survivors crying nearby but, he couldn't bring himself to chastise the man for being such a baby. He felt like crying too. His mother used to tell him that if he was bad, an Uzumaki would come and get him. He used to laugh it off believing that the Uzumaki weren't real, that they were some sort of made up thing like the Bogeyman he'd heard about during his travels. But, he had been bad, he had been very bad, and the Uzumaki had gotten him. He had no illusions that he would have survived if the Uzumaki had not willed it.

The Uzumaki had given him a second chance and, by the gods, he was going to take it.

"You did what?" Tsunami asked, not exactly sure she believed her ears.

"I put a hole in their boat." Inari mumbled.

"Inari, you know you're not supposed to put holes in people's boats." she said, trying and failing to feel pity for the poor mercenaries who were undoubtedly drowning by now.

One thing the people of Wave knew was boats and, if someone from Wave put a hole in your boat, it was a sure bet that it would sink. Do it right, and the boat in question could get pretty far out to sea before it did so.

"I'm sorry mom." Inari said looking like a kicked puppy.

"That's okay. You'll have to go to bed without dessert tonight though." she said, trying and failing to be stern.

She knew she should be horrified since her son had committed homicide but, all she could feel was glad that those men he'd killed would never be coming back.

Sasuke sat in the room that had been provided for his team by Tazuna's family musing on his day. It had been rather unusual to say the least. Naruto, the freaking Dead Last total idiot Naruto, had defeated hundreds of mercenaries with two overpowered prank jutsu and didn't even get a scratch on him, while he had been stabbed with like a dozen senbon and failed to even hit that girly boy Haku. To make matters worse, the instant Haku had managed to render his limbs immobile, the little freak had decided to show him how to use his senbon as double pointed knitting needles for making socks, and had given him several patterns to take home with him.

It was as they were loading the mercenaries onto the boat while Haku and Sakura tended to Zabuza, who had apparently only been rendered unconscious, that he decided to believe Naruto's time-travel story. There was no other explanation for how Naruto had been so good. In order to pull something like this off, he had to have had the five extra years of training he'd claimed to have had. Considering his familiarity with Jiraiya, it was obvious that that training had most likely been with a Sannin no less.

Naruto was Itachi's age, and he had spent several years being trained by one of the strongest Ninja in the world so, there was little shame by being beaten by someone like that.

Naruto had repeatedly told him that Orochimaru was bad news, as had the man's former teammate Jiraiya. Training under the man, if he offered like Naruto believed he would, would apparently come at too high a cost.

Naruto was Itachi's age and, from the way he had spoken of Itachi, it was obvious that he had faced him in battle and survived. Naruto had been trained by a legend. There would be no shame in...

Naruto dragged himself into the room and flopped onto his futon in an undignified manner apparently too exhausted to even consider worrying about appearances.

"Naruto." he said, to catch the other boy, no, the young man's attention before he fell asleep.

"What?" Naruto groaned.

"Train me." he said.

Edited 11-3-12