I'm back with "chapter five," which is really just the final part of chapter three... And, with that having been said, I'd like to respond to some reviews that weren't just "update faster" or "great job."

Guest: Thank you for clarifying, and...I don't think it was a stupid question; rather, its validity will come into play some time soon; that's all I'm willing to say on the matter.

115saikano: I realize that it wasn't properly explained, and I apologize for that; I should have done a better job with detailing this Naruto's origins much better than I have, so I'll do it now.

EVERYBODY READ THIS PSA RIGHT HERE

Reign In Blood Naruto/Kitsune was literally raised by Anbu in an attempt to become the greatest sword and shield that Konoha could posess; he was given to them just after the sealing of the Kyubi, and he lived his entire life (until the age of seven) as an Anbu or a Kurojutsu Anbu. He was sealed away on his seventh birthday, giving rise to 'canon' Naruto. The seal is now beginning to unravel, and the Anbu teachings have begun to resurface...he's not heartless, and is in fact far from it, but he has been trained since infancy to show no emotion towards anyone or anything. He is not 'unstoppable,' however such a statement may seem at the moment; he's just a powerhouse of a ninja, as usual, and was practically bred to be a strong warrior...you'll start seeing Kitsune's failings more towards the end of the story, when certain future plot events happen.

PSA OVER

Well, with that done... Let the show go on!

He was aware of their dying screams before him, and laughed at their misery; this world had stripped him of the boy he called his son, a child of purity and whole-hearted goodness that wasn't suited for life as a killer of men. They were a part of this world which had robbed him, and he would have his vengeance with their lives. He lashed out with his sword, rending flesh and bone from one another and themselves, ending lives with simple flicks of his wrist...any who could see him as they died, struck down by the man within the mist, would have sworn that they had seen a demon.

This, of course, could only be Momochi Zabuza; his mouth frothing with frenzied rage, his eyes gleaming within the wetness of the mist, he was hatred and rage and death by steel. Life fled before him, by his own doing, and he could only laugh as his ears received the shrieking wails of those who would soon be his victims. There were a few Chunin gathered within the rabble of civilian mercenaries, but they gained nothing by this elevation of status; all humans were equal, after all, in the eyes of demons. He understood how great a shame it was that none could ever see him perform his Musei Koroshi technique, the art of Silent Killing, that he had taken and mastered and perfected beyond all other skills in his impressive repertoire...and, indeed, beyond the level of any other shinobi of Kirigakure. His mist was thicker, his sword perfect for the task, and his movements truly showed just how far he had developed his most infamous ability.

"There are eight targets," he said, inflecting the words with a growling rasp, "and each of them is just as easy to strike."

Three lives ended as he swung his great zanbatō, the Kubikiri Hōcho; were he to think of the joke, he would likely laugh that he was so 'in his element.' This was the feeling he lived for, the sense of self that he'd all but forgotten; he had to thank the brat, in a way, for Haku's death... It had brought out the part of himself that he most loved: a mindless monster who lived only to fight and kill and die like the demon he was. This was life, he told himself, but it wasn't worth living if he didn't have a fresh coat of blood adorning his pale hands.

'Yes,' he had to admit to himself, 'this is why I love life.'

Kitsune strolled into the building rather leisurely, intent on savoring the carnage that his temporary partner had dealt out to the place. The fortress reeked of death and the dying, and screams could still be heard coming from the upstairs chambers. Zabuza had likely gotten to Gato, then, and was finishing him off... The thought made Kitsune look around, seeing fresh blood get soaked into the brilliant white of the mansion's carpets and rugs, and he could think of few sights that were quite as beautiful as the one that stood before him: corpses strewn about the area with their bones broken at odd angles, lifeless eyes listlessly gazing upwards towards the ceiling and the things beyond, and even several of the not-quite-dead who were quickly disposed of by Kitsune's blade.

He heard, rather than felt, Zabuza as he went about disembarking from the upper floors; if the sound of shattering glass was any indication, then the rogue had leaped through a window... Kitsune ducked with sudden intensity, avoiding a powerful fist that went right through were his face had previously been; whipping around, he grabbed his loved one and pulled her close.

"All of the arrangements have been made?"

"Yes, saiai. You, of all people, should know that I'm very thorough."

"Well, I suppose you're right. I didn't doubt that you had succeeded, I simply felt that checking was a necessary precaution."

"In any case, we should get going! I don't want to be late for the most important day of my life!"

"Why not let him suffer?"

"Dearly beloved, we are...to prevent against...in sickness and in health..."

Could this go on for any longer than it already has? Kitsune wondered. It's getting a little insulting, how slow a drawl this man uses.

[Grin and bear it, kid; at least you have something to do while he keeps droning on about whatever half-cocked ideology spawned this torture of ceremony...]

It was all Kitsune could manage to not scream at the world, as that would ruin the idea of a nice ceremony, and he told himself that this was supposed to be a happy day; he wasn't supposed to kill anyone here, and would likely be punished for doing so... Just get it OVER with already!

"You may kiss the bride."

[Finally.]

Finally.

"Finally!" Nekomata purred as she was dipped low, and she did her best to make sure that her new husband would remember very little about this day...and the coming night...except for the feel of her smooth skin, the taste of her habañero lips on his, and the cries that would pierce the heavens; this, however, would have to be saved until his 'business mode' had gone offline. He was still taking out Gato, in some fashion or another, and wouldn't rest until the job was finished in its entirety.

"Something is terribly, incredibly wrong." Kakashi noted, looking up from his book to stare at the two Genin under his command. "Something that can't be undone."

"What is it, sensei? Did something happen?" Sakura asked, her large eyes curious and questioning.

"Probably. I'm willing to bet that it's actually nothing, but optimistic ninja are always the first ones to die; to tell the truth, I suspect that Naruto has cracked or broken yet another seal. It's not going to be an elemental one, fortunately, but he's still becoming more and more unstable as he progresses through them all. The further he goes, the more he'll regress, until he becomes nothing more than a beast..."

"And what do we do now?" Sasuke's tone was just as cold and even as it had ever been, as though he expected a very dark and bitter truth to come from his teacher. Black eyes drilled ever onwards, knowing that the future would depend on the elder ninja's next sentence.

"You two need to go back to Tazuna's home, and you need to quard him; if I'm wrong about what's going on, and possibly if I'm right, then they'll need you there. Tactics will be to guard the client only, and eliminate all threats as quickly as possible. If one of the others becomes a liability, kill them...this goes for the two of you as well."

"But what about you?" Sakura couldn't shut her mouth before the question was asked.

"All things considered, if worse comes to worst, I may have to try to kill Naruto."

Sasuke's head dipped in thought, and unsought tears began to fall down Sakura's face.

"Come on, let's go..." Sasuke hopped away, pulling his pink-haired teammate by the arm. 'He didn't say he would have to kill Naruto, he said he would try to kill him; he doesn't think he can do it, and he could be right if he was telling us the truth about Naruto's past.'

Kakashi stared into the distance until he could no longer feel their chakra signatures, his visible eye hardening before the Konoha hitai-ate was lifted to reveal his legendary Sharingan. If it truly needed to come to blows, he would need the famed Mirror Wheel Eye to stop his student's inner beast from coming out to play...now, fully prepared, he began to leap through the forest. Arriving in the town, he blew right through it on his way to the one place he knew Naruto would be: the mansion, off in the distance, that was cloaked in a thin veil of mist.

He returned to the mansion alone, and what he found was incredibly offensive: Gato's still-warm corpse was stuck to the door by a railroad spike. Where the aforementioned spike came from, nobody but Gato himself would likely know, but a certain Mist Demon would likely understand a thing or two about its origins if he paused in his mindless chuckling on the way back to the land of his birth... In any case, Gato was dead. A customary once-over search of the mansion didn't reveal anything that he needed, but there were several items of historical importance; who would have thought that Gato would use his immense wealth to collect antiques and fossils? Kitsune sealed them away in a series of scrolls, knowing that they could certainly be of use to someone in Konoha, and he had a nagging feeling that he would eventually need them on some far-off date in the future.

There was a slight rustling of wind behind him, and ozone tinted the smell of the air. "Inu," he did not speak, as such a word was not strong enough for one like him; he commanded, "you have come to betray me, my friend? In the very moment of our triumph, you seek to destroy the cause's champion?"

"We were never friends." Kakashi's words were bitter, his left eyebrow furrowing in rage. "We were comrades and coworkers, allies and compatriots; nothing more. There was no friendship between us."

"Oh, believe me, I know." Kitsune laughed with his synthetic voice, a sound more disturbing than any other, and turned to look at the last Hatake. "If there's anyone who knows anything, Inu, it's me...like the way you specifically asked for the three of us to be on a team, as the Hokage planned, and never intended to fail us? You're recreating our Kurojutsu team! You, me, Itachi's brother, and Kame's daughter..." There was a short pause.

"That was unplanned. You were arranged according to your grades, and I was chosen to be the sensei because I could train Sasuke's Sharingan when it awoke."

"You should know better than to lie to me, Inu. You know that I can hear your heart beating, in this quiet a scenario, so why do you even try?"

There was no answer from the silver-haired man, and Kitsune bowed his neck at a slight angle as he sighed in irritation.

"Very well... Go, then, and sleep now in the fire."

An explosion rocked the earth beneath the mansion, all thanks to Nekomata's mastery over sealing, and the building was being eaten up by the conflagration of flames. Kitsune had vanished, off to parts unknown, and Kakashi followed suit soon after; in minutes, the entire place was ablaze...after half an hour, nothing remained but ashes and a deep crater upon the hillside. Death had paid a visit, and Gato had paid his price in full.

More than a fortnight later, as the bridge was being finished, the three members of Team Seven had still seen nothing of their final teammate. The city had been holding a festival for the past two weeks, and showed no signs of slowing or stopping its celebratory events. Money and food kept pouring in from the citizens who continued to return from the mainland of Hi no Kuni, and an electoral system of government had been created. Gato's remaining thugs had been run out of town, and all of their stolen money had mostly been recovered. A long-standing trade agreement was signed, as well as the mission's payment being handed over, and they were making ready to leave Nami no Kuni behind them as an A-ranked mission that they would be quietly lauded for.

"We're not waiting for him, are we?" Sasuke asked, though it was much more of a statement than anything else. "You intend to leave him behind if he doesn't show up."

"He knows his way back to Konoha, Sasuke." Kakashi's words were a quiet confirmation, and would be all the answer that the young man received.

Shortly after this, they crossed the bridge and began to head back towards their home; none of them could wait to return to their favorite haunts, or to simply be back in the place that they regarded as where they belonged.

"But...what do we name the bridge?"

"Leave it unnamed." Kitsune said. "Instead, just write an inscription on a plaque that can go beside it."

The suggestion was ignored, however. "I know! How about 'The Great Bridge of Kitsune?'"

"That's ridiculous..."

Believe it!