Puppets of the Leaf

Puppets of the Leaf

Chapter 6:

With Team 7 officially active and able to take missions, Naruto expected to be going on body guard missions, or to be stalking a group of bandits, hell he'd even settle for patrolling a border, anything but this. They were walking back towards the Academy's briefing room, Naruto nursing various cuts and scratches that he had received from the cat that now rested in Sakura's arms.

While chasing the cat Kakashi had actually forbid Naruto from using either of his puppets, saying that a half naked kunoichi wouldn't affect a cat, and they couldn't kill the cat, so the handless Blade, as Naruto had named it, was also out. Naruto had a hell of a time trying to catch the agile feline, and when he finally did, he was ready to kill it anyway after it scratched him up. Though admittedly, Naruto couldn't blame it after seeing what the Fire Lords wife did to it.

However after seeing it jump and run around all day Naruto had gotten another Idea for a puppet. Once the team was dismissed for the day, he made a beeline for his apartment, then to the weapons shop. Finally Naruto came to his last destination, a clothing shop that specialized in furs.

Several bundles in hand, he returned to his home, and spent the rest of the night constructing his newest creation. It was slow going for him, this being the first time he was building one from scratch.

By the next morning, after Kakashi had finally shown up, they once again made their way to the Briefing room of the Academy.

"Let's see, Team 7…" The Chunin, working beside the Hokage was thumbing through the teams file and the mission requests. "…We have several D ranks available: grocery shopping, yard work, fence mending, finding the Fire Lords cat…"

"We'll take it!" All eyes suddenly turned to a grinning Naruto. Kakashi was mildly surprised at the boy's reaction, however by the way he fingered the new orange scroll that hung horizontally beneath the other two on his thigh, the Jounin suddenly feared for the animal's life.

"Are you sure?" the Chunin continued, "I have it here that you did that same thing yesterday as well."

"Ohh yes. I want that one." Naruto's grin turned positively feral, and the Hokage could have sworn that he felt a little killing intent in that grin.

Kakashi had to admit, Naruto's new puppet was pretty brilliant. He watched with an amused expression under his mask as the cat with the bow on its ear was chased closely by a small orange fox. If he hadn't seen Naruto unseal it with his own eyes, he could have almost mistaken it for the real thing.

Naruto was standing in the middle of a clearing as he directed the fox's movements, Sakura, who was standing near Kakashi and Sasuke, had at first yelled at him for using animal fur to make it, until the boy explained that it wasn't real fur. Sasuke just smirked.

The cat suddenly veered out of the clearing and into an old log, too small for them to follow. Naruto sent the fox in after it without hesitation.

"Nice going Naruto-Baka." The pink haired girl stomped up to him. "What are you going to do now; you can't see what's going on inside it."

The boy ignored he comments as he reached into his tan hip pouch and pulled out a small rectangular box. The others gathered around him as its surface came to life with a heavily blurred, dark image. "I put micro cameras in its eyes." He depressed a small button on its side and the image cleared up as it took on a greenish tone. On the small screen, before them they could clearly see the cat hissing and swiping at the puppet. Over their earpieces, they could also hear the commotion the cat was producing. "And microphones in its ears."

Before, Kakashi was impressed, now however, he was astounded, what the boy had done was to create the perfect tool for scouting and information gathering. Not for the first time since meeting the blonde, he had to question the difficulty of the graduation exam the academy administered, either that or the morals of the instructors.

He thought the later.

"So how are you going to get it out now?"

The boy grinned and twitched two fingers. On the screen, the bottom of the view was slightly blocked as the fox's mouth opened. A second later the cat jerked back and nipped at its side, before falling still. The fox approached the limp form of the cat, and seemed to take it in its mouth.

Moments later the cat was dragged out of the hollow log. Sticking out of its side was a long thin needle. Naruto was suddenly hit over the head by a screaming Sakura.

"What the hell did you do?!" Her rants and insults continued until Kakashi interrupted her.

"Sakura, stop yelling at Naruto. The cat's fine, the Senbon needle was dipped in a paralyzing agent."

He had pulled the needle from the side of the cat and a watery yellow liquid dripped from it. He looked at the fox again which was also limp where it had exited the log.

He congratulated Naruto on his puppet, and they returned to the Academy.

Needless to say the Fire Lords wife was furious when she was handed a limp cat. However after being assured that the cat would be fine in a few hours she left in a huff, and the Hokage asked to see the puppet that had captured the feline. Naruto unsealed it and caused it to leap onto the table. The old man chuckled as he pet its head. The movement was highly artificial, but based on appearance, it looked very lifelike. He recommended that Naruto practice a lot with it, to make it move in natural way, and assigned them another mission. This time picking up groceries.

Naruto was practicing with his puppets, trying to control both Blade and Kyu, his new fox-like creation, at the same time. The results were less than ideal. He still lacked the control, and fines that Chyo-sensei had said was required. The ultimate goal, she told him, was to be able to control a puppet with only one finger, a puppeteer's skill being measured in how many puppets they can control at once. That however was a goal he was very far from accomplishing.

As he continued to practice, he could feel another person in the field watching him, he turned to see Umino Iruka, his academy instructor, standing behind him. The man Naruto considered to be an older brother or even uncle, was smiling in pride as he watched his former student try to master his chosen art.

"Iruka-sensei?"

"Hello Naruto. I wanted to see how you were doing with your training."

"It's going great! I'll master multiple puppets in no time."

The Chunin smiled again. "I'm sure you will. Actually I wanted to talk to you about one of your puppets."

"Nani? Which one?"

"Well after seeing your new fox puppet…"

"Kyu."

"Right, Kyu,… I started wondering if you still had that first puppet you made, the…uh…f…female one." It was obvious that the Chunnin, was nervous discussing Naruto's rather raunchy creation, having been the victim of it's charms once or twice.

Naruto smiled at the memories. "Ok, what about her?" The teacher took a deep breath.

"I had a suggestion to make, c…could you please take her…it…out of its scroll?"

The boy laughed. "Ohh I get it. You wanted to peek at it."

"What? N…no, it's not like that! Just take out the puppet!"

Naruto continued to laugh as he complied. He knew that Iruka wasn't that perverted, but it was so much fun to tease him.

The scantily clad puppet appeared in a puff of smoke, this time without the theatrics that usually accompanied the entrance. Iruka cleared his throat nervously. 'It's so life like'. He steeled himself.

"Ok Naruto, now I want you to use it to attack me."

After a moment's hesitation, Naruto took out a kuni and tossed it into the air, where he directed the puppet to catch it, and prepaired the mostly nude kunoichi to charge forward. Before he could move however, Iruka raised his hand in a gesture that clearly meant 'wait'.

"That's what I figured. That puppet doesn't have any weapons other than its looks does it?" 'Though if looks could kill…'

Naruto dumbly shook his head, realization dawning on him.

"Then I think it might be time to upgrade it, or even rebuild it completely. Both of you're other puppets are highly specialized to fit certain situations, however you're only combat puppet is Blade. You should build this one into another combat type that can cover the weaknesses of the others. Those are the same basic principals that go into the Genin team selections. Well anyway it's something to think about. See you later, Naruto." The boy nodded in understanding. It was definitely something that would warrant more thought, however that was for another time as another idea came to him.

"Hey Iruka-Sensei…wanna treat me to some Ramen?"

A small bell rang as the door to the weapon shop opened. The owner, who had been busy sorting through a new shipment of Kuni, turned to see who had come in. and spotted the orange jumpsuit of his new favorite customer. "Back again so soon, Naruto?" "Yep, what do you have as far as long-range weapons?" A bright smile crawled over the man's face. 'Yup, my favorite customer indeed.'

After another lucrative shopping trip, that would leave Naruto Ramen-less for at least two weeks, unless of course he could trick Iruka into buying him more…again, he found himself at home making major alterations to his Kunoichi. Gone, or at least covered, was the lingerie. In its place were a fishnet shirt, which could be seen through, and a very short skirt. Slung along her waist was a quiver, which held a full load of arrows, to go along with the compound stringed longbow he had picked up. It was very sturdy and built for range and power. The clothes he chose to keep, at least in part, the puppets original purpose as a distraction and, in the case of perverts, as an incapacitation tool. The real changes however came inside it. To help his aim he had equipped it with one camera in its left eye. This one had a special zoom function, which also fed to the small screen he carried with him.

He had spent all night tinkering with it, and had been startled by his alarm clock going off, signaling that he had a very short amount of time to meet with his team. After hastily getting dressed he made his way to their bridge.

Naruto was cursing their latest client. At the briefing, he had, loudly, protested the fact that they were going to receive another D rank mission. His impatience was rewarded with a C rank bodyguard job. The next thing he knew he was getting verbally abused by some, drunk, bridge builder.

They were now walking along the road that would lead them to the man's home country. Naruto was occupying himself by practicing with Kyu. He had determined, taking the Hokage's advice to heart, that if he could keep their client convinced that it was a real living fox, then he would have mastered it. To that end he had asked the others to treat it as if it were real.

As they were traveling, Naruto would have it run ahead and 'sniff' around the tree line, as if investigating something interesting, all the while taking nondescript glances at the screen he held in his hand. Kakashi silently approved of the boy's self imposed training, and wished that Sakura would devote herself similarly.

Ahead of them Naruto saw a smallish puddle of water in the road, He made Kyu, walk ahead of them and 'drink' from the water until they caught up. On a whim he looked at the screen expecting to see a reflection of Kyu in the water. What he saw instead took a minute to sink in. There was another set of eyes watching him, or rather Kyu. Someone was hiding in the water. As they walked by, Naruto quietly motioned to his teacher.

"Kakashi-sensei…"

"I know, just keep walking."

Naruto sent Kyu off into the trees, and followed his senseis order. After a few minutes he saw, through the screen, two people emerge from the water, and join a long chain between them. He casually reached for the white scroll on his hip and bit his thumb.

As the two approached he turned to face them, before he could complete his summoning of Blade, Kakashi was wrapped up in chains, and torn apart.

In a puff of smoke Naruto sent Blade into the path of the closer of the two, even as they continued their charge. The move took the man by surprise and both of the puppets arms pierced the nin's chest. He fell to the ground in a heap, as his brother let out a cry of rage. This was quickly cut off though by a string kick to the head courtesy of Sasuke. The man stumbled and charged at Naruto, who stood in shock looking strait at the man he had just killed. He barely even noticed as the second of the Demon Brothers was halted a few feet from Naruto's own death, by the strong grip of Kakashi, much to the other's surprise.

The Jounin tied the one unconscious nin to a tree and covered the corpse with its own cloak, before sending one of his nin dogs back to Konoha with a message for ANBU to pick them up. A short while later they found themselves on a small boat heading into the Wave Country. The bridge builder reviled to them that he lied when he applied for the mission, because his village didn't have enough money for a higher ranked team. Reluctantly Kakashi agreed to continue with the mission. During the ride Naruto hadn't said a single word. He just sat, with Kyu, 'asleep' in his lap. Kakashi moved close to him.

"Are you ok?"

"…"

"Naruto, we're ninja, sometimes it is necessary for us to kill. What you did was in self defense, there is no shame in that."

"…Yea…"

Unconvinced, Kakashi reached into his hip pouch and produced a small familiar scroll. "Here, the Hokage told me to give this to you, if the mission required you to take a life."

Naruto instantly recognized the scroll as being one from Chyo's three scrolls. He opened it curious as to its contents. It contained only a few words, mostly what Kakshi had just told him, followed by the phrase, "Get over it."

Oddly enough, Naruto felt better. He had taken his first life in battle, he was no longer innocent, but for some reason, the bluntness of the words made him feel better about it.

They had reached the other side without incident. After a while of walking Naruto suddenly stiffened and threw a Kuni into the trees. Upon further investigation, he found a small white rabbit. He was now confused, he was sure that he had felt a person there. Years of people looking at him with hatred in their eyes had made him highly sensitive to when someone was watching him. No there was someone there, and from the look on Kakashi and Sasuke's faces they had noticed it too. Sakura, meanwhile had started to bash him over the head while yelling at him.

Kakashi continued to stare at the startled animal, until he heard a large object coming at them from behind.

"Everyone down!!"

As they all hit the ground a large sword impacted into the tree next to them. A tall man stood on its handle.

"You must be the Copy Cat Ninja, Hatake Kakashi, no wonder the Demon Brothers failed. There's quite a page on you in the Mist's Bingo Book."

"Momochi Zabuza, former member of the Seven Swordsmen, and Nukinin of the Hidden Mist Village. You're in my Bingo Book as well."

The man turned to face them. "I'm honored."

Kakashi lifted his headband to uncover his left eye. "Listen to me all of you, no matter what happens don't get involved. I'll handle this."

"Well, well, bringing out the Sharingan, for me already? I truly AM honored."

Sasuke was staring at his teacher in shock, even as they took up a defensive position in front of Tazuna. Sasuke and Sakura both held kuni before them, while Naruto held not only a kuni but his white scroll. Kyu, he had left in the bushes next to them in case he needed it.

"I guess I'll have to deal with you first eh, Kakashi?"

He disappeared and landed on the ground behind Kakashi, his right arm pointed strait up and left in a seal at his chest.

"Hiding Mist Technique."

All of their vision became blurry, as a thick fog coated the area. The hazy figure of Zabuza seemed to melt into the background, becoming all but invisible.

The area suddenly filled with a powerful killing intent.

"Jugular, clavical vein, corated artery, liver, lungs, heart, kidney, spine. Eight critical points to choose from. Now which one should I go for first?"

The dark voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. All three of the Genin, felt paralyzed by the fear coursing through them. For Sasuke, it seemed like it would never end. He could see only one way out. Slowly he turned the kuni in his hand towards his own stomach.

"Sasuke!" the voice of their sensei seemed to cut through the fear and clear their heads.

"Don't worry; I won't let any of my comrade's die." As if to prove his point, he flared his Chakra, in such a way that the force of it actually dispersed the mist within a small area and the killing intent along with it.

Now that he was reviled the former Mist nin was actually standing in the same place as before. Everyone trained their eyes on him, as he quickly disappeared, only to appear again directly in the center of the formation of Team 7, his massive sword poised to kill all four of them in a single stroke.

His red Sharringan spinning wildly, Kakashi put on a burst of speed that surprised them all. He pushed all four of his allies out of the way, and thrust a kuni into Zabuzas stomach, only for another one to appear behind him when the first one dispersed in a splash of water.

"IT'S OVER!"

Kubikiri Hocho, cleaved through Kakashi easily also revealing a Water Clone. The nukenin had only a moment of recognition as another kakashi placed a Kuni at his throat.

"Yes, it is."

The excited cheers of his students were cut off as this one too was revealed to be a clone. The real Zabuza came at Kakashi from behind, His heavy sword imbedding itself into the ground as the Leaf Jounin sidestepped the attack.

Zabuza followed this through, by pivoting on the sword itself and thrusting a kick to the man's midsection. Kakashi was thrown back into the water where he was trapped in a sphere of water.

"Like I said Kakashi. It's over."

Various things ran through the heads of the Genin of Team 7. They wondered how they had gotten into this situation. Thus far, things had happened to fast for them to keep up. For Naruto, at least, this wasn't the first time he had experience the fast pace of a life or death battle. Thing that were going on now had happened similarly when he fought against the traitorous Chunin, Mizuke. At that time, his teacher had been incapacitated and it had been up to him to save the day, and like that time, his teacher had been telling him to leave and save himself. He had won that fight, as he would this one. However there were several key differences this time around. First, Naruto wasn't alone, he had his team standing with him. The opponent they were fighting was also vastly stronger than Mizuke had been. It was fine though, they didn't need to beat the Missing Nin. The final difference was that their teacher wasn't gravely injured like Iruka had been, he was only captured. They had to free Kakashi, so he could beat Zabuza.

As these thoughts crossed his mind, as if making matters worse just to aggravate him, a water clone emerged from the water before them. "Well, kids, let's play." With that the clone rushed towards them and backhanded Naruto a ways away from where he had stood, as Sasuke attempted to fend the clone off, to no avail. He was hammered into the ground and the Water Clone planted it's foot on the boy's back pinning him to the ground.

Seeing that it was now up to him, since Sakura was 'guarding' Tazuna, Naruto crossed his fingers before him in a seal. "Get off him! KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"

Fifteen clones appeared, surrounding the false Zabuza, as it looked around himself in amusement.

"Kage Bunshin huh? Interesting."

Mirroring his clone's thoughts, Zabuza turned to his captive. "Solid clones, and quite a few of them too, surprising brat you have there Kakashi."

In response the Leaf Jounin smirked at them as if they were just enjoying a sunny afternoon together. "You have no idea. It wasn't me who killed one of your 'Demon Brothers' with hardly any effort. That "brat" even noticed their ambush before I did. You've underestimated them all. If you surrender now we can still go our own separate ways. Otherwise, those kids will cause your downfall."

Zabuza snorted in contempt. "Please Kakashi, I expected more from you."

The jounin shrugged and took out a small orange book. "Your funeral."

There was slightly more confidence in his voice than he felt however. He had told them to run before but should have known that they wouldn't. He had taught them never to leave a comrade behind. Regretfully, it was one of the few things he had taught them. He didn't regret for a second taking them on as his students, but he wished that he had been a better teacher. Letting them develop in their own way was good and all in theory, until someone mislabels a mission. This is the result of such mistakes. If they survived this, he swore to himself that he would do better by them.

Naruto smirked as the clone eyed the clones. Without looking, he cast thin chakra strings into the bushes behind him, and moved Kyu around the fight passed Tazuna, who eyed the fox curiously as it ran by and into the foliage near the water.

Finally tired of this laughable stand off, the clone put pressure onto Sasukes back, eliciting a grunt of pain from the raven haired teen.

Naruto couldn't afford to wait anymore, the clones charged forward and buried their target under a mountain of bodies. With a yell the water clone swiped them all off of him with its massive sword. Taking that as his signal Naruto flexed his finger, while Sasuke, now free, was rolling to his feet and hopping back away from the clone begining his own series of seals. A senbon launched from Kyu's hiding spot imbedded itself into the side of the clones head, and it exploded in a shower of water.

Zabuza and Kakashi, however, only saw the flying bodies of clones, the explosion of water, and a multitude of fire balls coming at them courtesy of the recently freed Sasuke.

"KATON: PHENOX FLOWER NO JUTSU!"

Zabuza grinned, and slammed his foot down on the chakra-charged water, and a large wave lifted up, effectively blocking the fire balls, however, not the Kuni hidden with in them. They caught him slightly by surprise, and he brought his sword around, swiping them away.

With the distraction caused by the surprise attack, Zabuza barely noticed the pinprick on his right arm as a thin senbon needle pierced it just above the elbow.

He glanced down at it in confusion, and then alarm as his arm suddenly fell lifelessly to his side, numb from the shoulder down. He looked over at the shore line to see a small fox jump up onto the orange clad boy's shoulder, seemingly controlled by his hand movements.

As the water prison fell away, Kakashi calmly put away his reading material, and stood up, red eye swirling. "By the way Zabuza, I wasn't exaggerating."

The Nuke-nin found a Kuni at his throat, and knew he was beaten. He hung his head and two more senbon pierced his neck. The man fell into the water instantly. All eyes turned to Naruto.

"What? I didn't do it."

A figure appeared next the boy then. He wore the white mask of a Hunter Ninja.

"No it was me. Thank you for disabling him for me. I've been looking for an opportunity to kill him for weeks now."

AN: Wow, sorry about the long time in between updates. I've been having some problems with my internet connection, and I just started a new job. To make up for it, Chapter 7 will be up within the next few days, and it will be the longest chapter yet. It will also take us up to the end of the wave arc.