"There's no such thing as heroes!"

Sasuke didn't look up from his food, despite the brat's outrageous claim. He had been through it all before, and wasn't really interested in hearing it again. He heard Inari's mother, Tsunami, sigh, but he wasn't too concerned. He knew Naruto would fix the idiot's broken logic soon enough.

Besides, that was at least the third time they had beaten Zabuza, he didn't need some annoying kid telling him they couldn't do it.

"Yeah, right!" Naruto huffed, "How do you explain us winning if heroes aren't real?"

"Naruto," Kakashi interjected fake-calmly, "we already went over the fact that we didn't win. Zabuza's still alive."

"But we almost won! We would have, if his stupid buddy hadn't gotten in the way!"

"His stupid buddy's name is Haku," Sasuke told them. "But I do like the name Stupid Buddy better. I think I shall call him that." Derick, beside him, nodded in agreement. He had told Sasuke a bunch of things about Stupid Buddy, like how he dressed up as a girl just to confuse people, and of how he sometimes hid senbons in Zabuza's food. Derick was pretty sure that the senbons were an accident though.

"How do you know his name, Sasuke?" Sakura asked him. Everyone but Kakashi turned to look at him and Derick. Kakashi was too busy trying to ignore him to actually pay attention.

"We had a nice little chat while you guys were fighting. I had to make sure he didn't mind I kept Derick after all."

"You abandoned us to fight Zabuza by ourselves so you could ask his apprentice if you could keep his rabbit?!" Sakura growled at him, a vein on her head slightly bulging. He decided it would be in his best interest to not point that out.

"Yep! But it's okay, 'cause we talked about other things too. I told him how Gato was going to betray him, and how we were going to beat him on the Great Naruto Uzumaki Bridge."

"I GET A BRIDGE NAMED AFTER ME!"

"Please calm down Naruto," Kakashi asked him, not able to stay out of the conversation any longer. "We've already discussed this. Sasuke can't see the future."

"How dare you doubt my magnificence!" Sasuke accused. "My future sight may very well be the only reason You hallucinations are alive! You need to be more grateful. Like Derick. He'd be dead right now if it weren't for me." Derick glared at Kakashi too, who was looking at the rabbit a bit warily. Sasuke too turned to look at Derick, but it was for a different reason.

"I forgot you died last time! Are you a back-alive hallucination? Do you remember dying, Derick?"

"Well, duh." The rabbit answered. "If you can come back to life, why can't I? You think just because I'm a rabbit that I'm not an important, life-altering character?"

"Of course I do!" Sasuke told him, "you're way better than stupid Bakashi over there. All he ever does is lay around and complain. At least you talk!"

"Ummm… Sasuke? You feeling alright?" Sakura asked him. Everyone at the table nodded earnestly, and he got the odd feeling that they were wondering about that too. The only one who wasn't acting weird was Kakashi. But then again, that was probably because he was always weird, and Sasuke was just used to it.

"Perfectly fine." He answered.

"Good…" Sakura said, scooting away from him a little. He frowned as everyone else did too. Maybe they were all just fidgety from the coffee that he knew they hadn't had.

"Either way," Tazuna said, reeling the conversation back to what Sasuke was sure was going to be a boring normal, "Zabuza is still alive. You guys were able to beat him off once, but that was with your sensei's help. And look what it did to him! How are you pip-squeaks gonna keep me safe without his help?" He said, swinging his early morning cup of alcohol over towards Kakashi.

"Have you not been listening?" Sasuke asked him, trying to bring back the crazy. "I can see the future. You're gonna be fine. The other people working on the bridge are going to be enjoying a nice blood bath, but you'll be fine."

"Sasuke!" Sakura gasped. "How could you say something so awful? I mean, it may be true, but really? At the breakfast table?"

"Alright fine," Sasuke huffed out. "I won't discuss anymore gruesome scenes while we're eating food. No matter how many fun, bloody, gory, entraily, evilly, horrifically, maimingly, disgustingly, dastardly, awfully, traumatizingly awesome they are. That reminds me of that one time when Orochimaru exploded in a shower of blood that one time during training and-"

"Sasuke!" Sakura chided, looking worriedly at the three civilians at the table across from them. Said three civilians were all a lovely shade of green, and were slowly pushing their food away from them.

"Sorry Sakura," he said unapologetically, reaching out for Tsunami's untouched bowl of rice. Naruto, seeing Sasuke take some of their now unwanted food, joined in, having finished his a long time ago.

"I don't think it's very polite to eat your hosts' food, you two," Kakashi told them.

"But Sasuke did it!" Narito objected.

"Sasuke is most likely certifiably insane. You, on the other hand, should know better."

"It's quite fine, ninja-san," Tsunami told him weakly. "I was just eating to be social."

"Thanks lady!" Naruto said with a big grin. "You're super nice." Tsunami smiled awkwardly at him back.

"Well now," Kakashi said. He had stood up while all of them were busy listening to Naruto, and was now leaning on his two crutches.

"I'm pretty sure we've scarred our clients enough for one morning. Out the door you three go." He ordered cheerfully.

"But sensei, what are we going to be doing?" Sakura asked him. "Tazuna's still here, and we're supposed to go to the bridge with him to make sure he's safe."

"Maa, don't worry about it. I'm sure Zabuza's going to need a bit of time to get his strength back up. In the meantime, you three will be training. I'm afraid you aren't competent enough at this time to protect anyone." He eye-smiled.

"Who's fault is that?" Sakura muttered under her breath.

"You know, it's kinda useless muttering when you're insulting a trained shinobi," Sasuke told her. "He's going to end up hearing you anyways."

"Maybe I wanted him to hear me."

"Oh, alright. I'll help you," he told her. He turned back to Kakashi as they were walking through the door.

"YOU SUCK SNEEZESAY!"

"I think you mean sensei."

"How can I call you sensei if you never teach us?" He countered.

—

"I'm sure you all know how chakra works by now, so I'll keep this simple. Channel your chakra through your feet and into the tree. The you'll be able to climb up it. Just make sure you don't use your hands." Kakashi told them all. He was standing in front of a tree that looked familiar to Sasuke, and he didn't have to wonder why. It was just that the last time he had seen it, there were about 72 slash marks across the bark from a kunai.

"But sensei, we already know how to do that." Sakura said, annoyed. He could understand that, seeing as how she was probably thinking Bakashi was finally going to teach them something new.

"Not all of us know how to do that," he said.

"What do you mean? You're the one who taught us how to." Sakura asked him. "Naruto, did you really already forget how?"

"Nuh-uh, Sakura! Why do you always assume it's me that's done something wrong?"

"Guys, calm down," Sasuke told them. "You both are fine, you know that."

"Then who doesn't know how to do it? Kakashi?" Sakura asked, confused.

"Nope! Derick still needs to learn how."

His team turned to look at Derick, who was currently sitting by Sasuke's feet, eating clover.

"You want to teach the bunny the tree-climbing exercise," Sakura deadpanned. "Why?"

"That would be so cool!" Naruto yelled, bouncing over to the rabbit. Sasuke smirked, glad to have Naruto there to hype up anything he needed.

"He would be like a little bunny ninja! He could kick butt!"

"Sasuke, I don't think Derick can learn how to tree climb." Kakashi told him. Sasuke crosses his arms defiantly, and Derick lept into action. He hopped right over Kakashi's head and ran up the tree, stopping at one of the top branches. He threw a stick down and hit Kakashi's head.

"Screw you, you stupid cannon character!"

"You were saying?" Sasuke asked rhetorically.

"You know what? Nevermind. Let's learn the water walking technique instead."

"Already know it." They answered him as one.

"Then I'll teach you all a new jutsu. How about the-"

"Sensei, those are all so boring." Sasuke complained. "Can't we do a fun one instead?"

"What do you mean by fun?" Kakashi asked. Sasuke could see the concealed worry in his teacher's eye. He felt a tiny bit of regret that he was tormenting his teacher this way, he had some pretty fond memories of when they had trained together. Like waiting on the bridge for three hours, or when he was at the training ground for seven hours that one morning. Just like that, his tiny regret had turned into immense pleasure.

"I mean something cool. Something that only a few people know, and could totally freak everyone else out."

"I don't know anything like that." Kakashi lied.

"You lied. You are seriously nicknamed Kakashi of the thousand jutsu. You should know at least one!"

"And what makes you think I want to teach you that 'just one'?"

"You did it last time! You taught me this really cool jutsu that-" his lips morphed into a grin. He had just thought of something beautiful.

"Alright sensei, you can leave now, I'll take it from here." Kakashi looked like he was about to argue, then shook his head. He walked away slowly, since he was still on his crutches. Once he was out of their sight, Sasuke turned back to his squad. In the near distance he could hear cats running. He smirked, glad that Derick had had the sense to coat the stick he had thrown in catnip.

—

"Why is this jutsu so freaking hard?" Sakura growled. She was getting really frustrated, since she'd been working on the same thing for almost three hours. When Sasuke had shown her the tree and water walking techniques, it had taken about three seconds.

She guessed it had something to do with her elemental chakra. She wasn't sure what elements her chakra were exactly, but it definitely wasn't lightning, because she could get the freaking chidori to work.

Her only consolation was that Naruto was having just as much trouble as she was. He was sitting on the other side of the clearing, staring at his hands. She had seen sparks of chakra on his palm, but that had been it. No chirping or scary flashing on either of their parts had been produced.

She turned over to see Sasuke asleep, laying upside down on a tree branch. She narrowed her eyes into a glare, thinking that he was going to be the first person she used this jutsu on when she learned it. They had both been obviously struggling in the very beginning, but he had decided to take a nap instead of actually helping!

All he had done was shown them the jutsu and told them how to do it. It may have been enough to teach him something, but not everyone was a genius prodigy!

She growled again, getting more angry by the second. She channeled chakra into her hand, and yelled in frustration as it didn't work. She punched the tree in front of her, and it splintered and cracked straight through. She watched in silence as the tree moaned before falling back, leaving only a stump in front of her.

"Wow Sakura, that was awesome!" Naruto yelled from the other side of the clearing.

She grinned, triumphant, not wanting to admit that had been a mistake. Who needs chidori anyways? She thought.

She flinched when she heard a rustling sound coming through the branches of the tree she had just killed. Spiky black hair with leaves and a couple twigs stuck in it shot up through the sea of green, and she giggled.

"Good job Sakura, but don't forget that chidori is the best thing ever, and I still want you to learn it! Now it's your turn to do something cool Naruto!"

—

Omake:

Derick watched as his new leader fell from the toppling tree. He wasn't quite sure what to think of the group that had accepted him so readily into their midst. Shinobi weren't supposed to be this trusting.

The pink one looked very pleased with herself as Leader complimented her, and the blonde looked happy as well. There was something odd about all of them, and he already knew what a part of it was. Leader had come back to life like he had, but he was pretty sure he somehow didn't know it.

But it went deeper than that. The three of them acted different than most of the children he had known, even if most of them had been poor street urchins. He wasn't sure what the different was yet, but he was determined to find out what it was. It made them all stronger when they were together, even if it tore them apart when they were alone.

He was going to be the best out there. He would rise above all others, and become unstoppable. Leader had saved his life, and the other two were important to the boy, so he would take care of them.

The future Bunniekage swore it.