Answers to my Reviewers:

Rosebunse: Could you elaborate please? I'm not entirely sure what you're referencing to...

Buterflypuss: Thank you, I appreciate the review.

Jasmine: I must've forgotten to mention that, so to answer your question: No, Sasuke and Sakura will not hate Naruto for the Kyuubi.

AnimeLuver778: I'm glad you liked it, I think you'll also like the changes I'm making to the Wave Arc.

Reign of Sorrow: I looked back at the last chapter and I realized it sort of was a filler chapter...but this chapter will be just full of action!

Guest: Thanks, I'm happy that you think so. It just warms my heart.

Rose Rain 7: Oh wow, your review just made my day when I read it, so thank you. Its comments made me laugh - it really makes me feel good when one of my readers tell me they like my story.

And finally a thank you to all my readers that Favorited/Followed my story.

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO! If I did…*the author sighs dramatically* let's just say, it would be VERY different…Enjoy

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." - Albert Einstein

Last Time on Scarred

Sakura blinked at the question trying to remember if there was a reason she asked, "That's right, I wanted to know if we'll come across any foreign ninja on this mission."

Kakashi reached out to ruffle his student's hair as he eye-smiled and said, "Don't worry Sakura there are no ninja combats on C-ranks. The worse we'll run across will bandits and the like."

"Oh okay then, thanks Kakashi-sensei."

Neither ninja noticed Tazuna's obvious guilt-ridden grimace at the reassurance.

It was ten minutes later that they noticed an innocent looing puddle on the path. Naruto twitched as he passed the puddle muttering about bugs as he brushed his hands over his clothing, but as he did so his team noticed that Naruto was using some of the hand signals that Kakashi had taught them a few weeks ago and he kept using the signs for 'enemy' and 'two'. They were so glad that Naruto had started to more actively use his sensing ability since otherwise they would've been completely blind-sighted.

Once the whole team had caught the signing they started to get ready - Sasuke started to mentally prepare himself for an encounter whereas Sakura subtlety inched herself towards their client in order to be ready to protect the man at a moment's notice. Kakashi had told them as they were leaving the village that Naruto and Sasuke were to protect the team, Sakura was to protect the client and he would step in if there was a chance that there was something that they couldn't handle.

After walking another meter or so, the team turned when they heard the sound of chains rattling and watched in horror as two foreign ninja wrapped their long razor looking chain around Kakashi-sensei and pulled.

"What?!" Was shouted by the genin as they witnessed the two shinobi slice their teacher into pieces. "Kakashi-sensei!"

"One down." The two ninja intoned as they moved onto their next target - Naruto. Said boy kept a blank face whilst he turned to face the two ninja who had suddenly appeared behind him, the razor sharp chain already starting to unfurl as he stood his ground calmly.

"Two down." said the foreign-nin.

Naruto watched out of the corner of his eye as Sasuke reacted and let loose on a shuriken that sped towards the razor chain that was starting to encircle his body, forcing it off course and instead taking the chain towards a nearby tree which was then secured by a thrown kunai. Sasuke then jumped onto the clawed hands of the shinobi and kicked out into the surprised faces of the two ninja, causing them to fall back and release the chain that secured them together.

"Thanks Teme." Called out Naruto as he gave his team-mate a two-fingered salute, seemingly unaware that one of the shinobi had recovered from Sasuke's kick and had appeared sinisterly behind him and had started to attack the boy but it was stopped right in its tracks however as two of Naruto's clones appeared out of nowhere and both preformed a double flying side kick which brought the shinobi down to his knees and with a bash to the temple from the hilt of his kunai from the original Naruto, the shinobi was out cold.

Meanwhile the remaining enemy shinobi had turned to attack Tazuna who was guarded by the third and final genin of Team 7. Coolly focused, Sakura narrowed her eyes as she readied a kunai in one hand and clenched her other hand into a fist. Telling the client to stay back, Sakura waited until the ninja was almost on top of them and she then lashed out with her fist unconsciously lacing it with chakra as she hit the enemy over the head, resulting in knocking him unconscious and leaving him within a human shaped crater in the ground.

That was the scene that Kakashi flickered into as he looked over the two unconscious shinobi while ignoring the surprised expressions on the client and his genin's faces which quickly faded when they realised that their teacher had substituted with a log, "Well done team, I'm impressed by your reactions. Sasuke that was a very smooth response, Naruto excellent timing with the clones," Both boys smirked and knocked their knuckles together as Kakashi continued, "And Sakura that was a graceful knockout to the enemy shinobi."

'Also, note to self: don't tick Sakura off anytime soon.'

After praising his genin, Kakashi went to grab the two men by their collars in order to drag them over to a nearby tree and tie them to it. Leaving the two unconscious shinobi alone for now, Kakashi then turned and stared straight at their client, his body language showing the aggression he was repressing and in a cold tone he stated, "Tazuna-san...we need to have a little chat."

Tazuna gulped heavily at the frosty tone, instinctively knowing not to cross the man in front of him - he'd definitely underestimated these Leaf shinobi. He nodded his agreement.

Kakashi eye-smiled at Tazuna and the intimidating body language seemed to evaporate as he turned to face the enemy ninja he just tied up, "Lesson time team, now which one of you can tell me who these two are?"

"Two chunin-class missing ninja from the Hidden Mist, they're known as the Demon Brothers of Kiri - Gōzu and Meizu." Stated Naruto to the surprise of Sakura and Sasuke, but the boy just shrugged at the looks, "What? I've been reading the bingo book in my spare time."

The conversation died off as the Leaf ninja noticed that the brothers were waking up. Kakashi walked forward a little, crouched down and started a stare off with the two; it was after a 10 minute silence that one of the brothers spoke, "How were you able to detect our ambush?"

The dead toned reply, "It hasn't rained for the past few days and with how sunny it is today, a water puddle shouldn't have existed." Kakashi didn't mention Naruto's sensing ability; he wanted to keep his student's ability as quiet as possible.

Tazuna turned to Kakashi, confused, "Then why did you let the kids fight when you knew that?"

"If I felt like it, I could have just killed these two in the blink of an eye but..." At this point Kakashi turned to face their client, "I needed to know who the target was for this ambush."

Tazuna blinked as he started to realise what the jounin was implying, "What do mean?"

"In other words Tazuna-san, I wanted to find out if you were the one being targeted or were they after somebody from my team?" Kakashi's tone of voice got colder as he continued, "We haven't heard anything about you being targeted by ninja. Your request asked us to protect you from armed groups like gangs or robbers. It is also our job to support and guard you until your bridge was completed. If other ninja are to be our enemy then this mission would now be an expensive B-rank." At Tazuna's guilt-ridden face, Kakashi sighed and eased up a little, "You might have had your reasons, but it only troubles us if you lie in your request details. So, since this wasn't a part of the mission we have no reason not to call it off."

Tazuna grew panicked at those words and said, "B-but you'll be leaving me die by Gato's hand!"

Kakashi only visible eye-brow rose, "Gato? Do you mean the one from Gato Company?"

"The very same."

"He's one of the richest men in this world, why would he be after you?"

Tazuna started to explain as his expression became grim, "Oh, on the surface he's just the President of the company but it's underneath that he shows his true colours. He uses gangs and ninjas to smuggle drugs and contraband goods, he also does takeovers of other companies, sometimes even countries. But it was a year ago that he set his sights on Wave Country and using violence and wealth as his shield, he entered the country and quickly took over the island's sea traffic and transportation and on an island like Wave Country, controlling the sea means ruling over the wealth, politics and the people of it. But the one thing Gato is afraid of is the completion of the bridge. Since I'm the one building the bridge I became an obstacle to get rid of."

"So these ninja were sent by Gato..." Sasuke muttered to his team-mates as motioned towards the Demon Brothers. His team-mates nodded at his words, having come to the same conclusion.

Kakashi's face was blank from the words, "All that tells me is that Gato is a corrupt business man whose power is being threatened. What good reason could you give me that will convince us to carry-on on this mission?"

"Well, if you quit your mission I'll be killed for sure...While I go home. But there's no need for you to blame yourselves, only my cute 8-year-old grandson will cry and cry and cry some more and my daughter will just hold a grudge against Konoha ninja and live a lonely life...but it's not your fault."

The three genin sweat-dropped at the attempt at emotional blackmail, and they say attempt because their sensei was not moved, he proved these thoughts when all he said, "Is that it? That's your reason as to why we should continue? Because frankly, my main concern to withdraw my genin now and although gifted they may be they aren't ready for such a high-levelled mission."

There was silence before, "I thought a Leaf ninja would be more compassionate to my plight."

"I truly sympathise with your situation Tazuna-san, I really do, but my top priority is to my genin not to you."

So, a tense stare off began between the two men. One of them who wants his country out from under a tyrant and another who wasn't ready to put his genin at such a large risk with so many unknown factors at play.

The three genin in question tolerated this for another minute before Naruto spoke his mind, unsurprisingly. "Kakashi-sensei we aren't kids, we're ninja and as ninja we adapt if something goes wrong, especially on missions. Look at how we handled the Demon Brothers."

Kakashi looked at his genin, "The next ninja Gato will probably send will most likely be a jounin, an A-rank in the best case scenario. You three aren't strong enough to go up against such a ninja."

Sasuke shrugged and said plainly, "Then we'll be your back-up."

Kakashi struggled to find anything to say that his genin wouldn't be able to counter, "And if I'm captured or killed?"

Sasuke and Naruto's expressions told him that they weren't going let that happen. Sakura's was expression was identical as she answered, "If you're captured we'll try to get you out and if we can't, we'll escape with the client and send a message to Konoha."

Kakashi was silent as he considered the situation, "Okay fine, we'll continue this mission. But first, Naruto could you put a chakra repressing seal and a tracker seal on the Brothers while I send a message to the Hokage about our predicament."

"Hai Sensei." Naruto said as he saluted his teacher and did as he was told. The seals he put on the Demon Brothers were of his own making, he had filled the majority of his free time pouring over all kinds of sealing scrolls, drawing up his own exploding tags, storage scrolls and stasis seals to name some of the ones he'd looked over which he then began tweaking them and seeing the result of those changes. It was only after both his Jiji and his older brother approved of the seals he made that Naruto was able to begin creating his own seals. That process was going slow at the moment though. After he got through those horrible handwriting lessons in order to get his brush strokes perfect, he enjoyed learning and making seals especially once he found that he was a natural at the difficult art.

Kakashi meanwhile had composed a short message to his leader, he then crouched downwards and made the necessary hand signs, "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

As the smoke cleared, Pakkun was sitting there looking just as unconcerned as his master usually projected. "Kakashi, what can I do you for?"

"Pakkun, I need you to get this to Hokage-sama, it's important."

"You never call me unless it's important Kakashi." At his master's look, Pakkun sighed, "Fine, give me the message then."

Putting the scroll in his ninken's mouth, Kakashi stood from his crouch and watched for a few seconds as his summon ran towards Konoha. The jōnin then turned to face his genin and after explaining that he had signed a dog summoning contract, Kakashi then made sure his genin were ready for the upcoming trials. It was once that was all done that, the ninja and client travelled until they reached the Land of Fire's coastline. Waiting for them was a small fishing boat and once they boarded, they headed towards the area where the various islands of Wave country were made up of.

As the boat paddled closer, the mist got thicker and thicker until the four ninja and two civilians couldn't see whatever was in front of them. The boat's driver spoke up in a quiet manner after an hour had passed into their journey, "We should be able to see the bridge soon. Since we're moving along the side of the bridge it won't be much longer until we'll be at Wave."

And as the guy said, a large structure loomed out from the mist. The Leaf ninja looked over bridge, admiring the imposing, although incomplete, figure as the boat skimmed past. 10 minutes later the boat passed through under a low arch revealing a housing dock area surrounded by mangroves. These same water trees covered the boat as it pulled up behind what seemed to be a disused shack.

As the group departed from the boat, their driver said to Tazuna, "This as far as I go, so take care."

"Thanks for taking the risk." Was all Tazuna said as he nodded at the man.

"Get that bridge finished." Was the reply before the man started up his motor and sped away.

Meanwhile meeting up at the end of the pier, Kakashi started to instruct his genin on how they will be handling the situation while Tazuna had his short talk with their boat escort.

"Naruto: I want you to be sensing constantly, you'll be on lookout since I have a feeling that Gato will be sending a jōnin level ninja this time but make sure you stick close to the client." Kakashi stated before he turned to his other male genin, "Sasuke: Your main role is to be the first line of defence with Naruto, he'll tell us when our next enemy approaches and finally, Sakura do you have some of Naruto's barrier seals on you?" Once he got a nod from said kunoichi he continued, "Good, Sakura: your main priority is to be the final defence of the client so once we're on the road start weaving those Genjutsu I taught you and if it does come to a fight - use those seals."

Acknowledging their teacher's orders, each genin nodded and before they could add their input to the plan Tazuna came ambling up. "All right, take me home safely."

Agreeing, Team 7 and their client started their walk, quickly reaching a pathway lined with trees. But it was 5 minutes into their walk that Naruto sensed a large chakra source and quickly threw one of his kunai at it but all the ninja heard was a thunk of metal hitting wood. Taking out another kunai inconspicuously, Naruto cautiously approached where he had thrown with Sasuke bringing up the rear, Kakashi-sensei and Sakura staying with the client. It was soon revealed that the supposed enemy was a little white rabbit, looking scared out of its mind. Turning back, Naruto informed his team of his find as he and Sasuke made their way back to the rest of the team, Kakashi however was thinking quickly, 'A white rabbit? Naruto must've found a snow hare but the only have white fur during winter since the days are short. That means this pet rabbit was raised inside a place where the sun isn't a factor, which means it's a decoy!'

Moments after his realization, Kakashi shouted out, "EVERYONE, GET DOWN!" As he himself dropped to the ground, pulling down Tazuna with him.

Following their instructor's orders, the genin dropped and not a moment too soon as the sound of displaced air rang out through the silence as a huge blade spun past their heads and lodging itself firmly in nearby tree. The leaf ninja cautiously raised their heads to look at the blade that nearly decapitated them only to find an ominous figure balanced on the handle.

Kakashi murmured to his genin to stay back as he said analysed their latest opponent, "My, my Zabuza Momochi - a missing-nin of the Hidden Mist Village." Was said as Kakashi raised a hand to his face and took a hold of the edge his hitai-ate where it covered his right eye.

Turning only his head, the identified Zabuza countered, "I'm guessing you're Kakashi of the Sharingan eye, right?" He then growled out, "Sorry, but I'll need you to hand over that old geezer."

Working through the shock that Kakashi-sensei apparently had a dojutsu, the man's genin listened to their instructions. "Assume your positions and protect Tazuna-san and don't join this battle. That's an order."

"So Zabuza..." Kakashi continued to talk but instead turned to his opponent as he finally revealed the blood red eye with three tomoe in it, "Shall we begin?"

"Oh, I'm honoured that I can see the famous Sharingan that I've heard about so soon. The eye that can penetrate any illusion and reflect the power of jutsu back at the perpetrator but perhaps most fearful of all its traits is the ability to detect and duplicate its opponent's techniques." Zabuza dictated to Kakashi, "When I was in the Hidden Mist's assassination squad your information was listed in the bingo book I carried. It had quite the extensive write-up on you; it noted this...the man who copied more than 1000 techniques, Copy Cat Kakashi."

Shocked at how impressive their teacher was the genin stayed silent, knowing not to get this man's attention especially with the small amount of killing intent the man was exerting while he was seemingly chatting casually.

"Let's cut the chit-chat here. I'm on a tight schedule to kill off the old man but it seems that I'll have to defeat you first." Stated Zabuza as he crouched downwards and the genin tightened their formation around the client in response to Zabuza's words.

Suddenly Zabuza kicked off from the trunk of the tree, dragging his enormous sword with him as he leapt towards the nearby lake and landed firmly on its surface. Raising his right hand upwards, he formed the Ram seal with his left causing the water start to churn and rise up out of the lake and form an impressive mist.

Kakashi analysed the opposing ninja, 'He's embedding a lot of chakra into the water...'

"Kirigakure Jutsu*." Was all Zabuza said before disappearing from their sight.

Kakashi started speaking to genin as the mist got thicker as the seconds ticked past, "Be on the lookout, Zabuza Momochi is famous for mastering the art of silent killing. He'll be coming after me first but even then don't let your guard down!"

Taking the instruction to heart, all three genin stayed aware and each of them took out a kunai.

It was then a disembodied voice started to speak eerily, seeming to come from every direction, "Eight targets, the larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, vein, collarbone, kidneys and heart..." the three genin and their client started to sweat and shake as the killing intent rose and saturated the area. "So many choices to pick from, now which vital organ do you want to get struck? Heh-heh-heh."

Not saying anything, Kakashi in retaliation literally blew the gathering mist away with his chakra. Looking at his teacher, dark thoughts passed through Sasuke's mind, 'What an intense thirst for blood...One breathing motion or one eye movement could be detected and it'll get me killed! This is the murderous intent of two Jounins clashing and the feeling that my life is in someone else's hands...I want to kill myself instead of going through this!'

Sasuke's self-destructing thoughts were interrupted by his sensei, "Sasuke, don't worry. I'll protect the three of you with my life; I won't let anyone on my team die." Noticing the eye-smile turned their way, the man's genin were reassured even as the sinister voice of Zabuza echoed out in contradiction.

"I don't know about that...This is the end!" Zabuza exclaimed as he appeared amongst the huddled genin but reacting on the instincts Kakashi-had embedded into them, Sasuke and Naruto lashed out at the missing-nin stabbing him in the torso, and not expecting the attack Zabuza was surprised for a moment before he melted into water.

'A clone!' was the thought of the genin before tightening their formation, when Naruto suddenly started to sign to his team-mates, explaining that he had sensed another chakra source nearby. Discreetly making half-a-dozen clones, Naruto then sent them of towards the chakra source.

Reappearing in front of Kakashi, what was left of Zabuza's bandaged face showed his shock at the attack from the genin. "I'm surprised Kakashi, your genin actually seem competent for whom seem to only be rookies."

"I've trained them well then." Kakashi quipped before he rushed forward with a kunai in hand and made a slashing motion at his opponent.

Dodging the would-be fatal blow, Zabuza retaliated with a swing of his sword and quickly the two elite jōnin engaged in a short but intense weapons match of kunai vs. sword. But then in a sudden move Zabuza grounded his sword and by grabbing the handle with one hand, Zabuza preformed a sweeping kick and sent Kakashi flying into the nearby water.

"Kakashi-sensei!" exclaimed Sakura at the sudden turn of events even as the two boys analysed the battle.

Kakashi finally surfaced but as he did he noticed the heavy quality of the water, as he went to right himself, Zabuza suddenly appeared behind him and already performing some hand-seals as he called out, "Suriō no jutsu!*"

"Dammit!" Exclaimed Kakashi as a swirling vortex of charka infused with the water and formed a sphere, trapping him within.

"Heh-heh-heh, you fell for it. This prison is inescapable, you're trapped." Said the Missing-nin in a gloating manner, "You'd give me a hard time when you're moving...Now then Hatake, I'm going to finish you off later, I've got some brats to get rid of. Mizu Bunshin no jutsu*."

A Water clone then formed a couple of meters from Team 7, which then started to chuckle ominously, "You might have caught me off-guard with that attack before brats but the three of you aren't ninja. Oh, you might wear the hitai-ate but you're all fools if you think you're really ninja. A real ninja is someone who has faced numerous life and death situations. So in other words, you can call yourself a ninja when you appear in my bingo book!" Disappearing within the mist, Zabuza then reappeared and kicked out at Naruto's chest causing his headband to come loose and send the boy flying backwards. "You're just kids!"

"Naruto!" Sakura said in alarm but she then let out a sigh of relief once she saw Naruto getting up with only a few bruises and scratches on his body.

Kakashi then shouted out to his genin, "Everyone! Take Tazuna and run! You can't win against him so go now while he has me trapped in this prison! The clone won't be able to go very far from the original before becoming unstable. So leave, now!"

Sasuke was the one to retaliate his teacher's word first to the surprise to his team-mates, "Run? You must be kidding Kakashi-sensei. What's stopping him from killing you and then coming after us? Besides, we said we would break you out if you were captured. We're not leaving you that easily."

Soon after Sasuke finished his speech, one of Naruto's clones appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the hitai-ate that Zabuza's clone had grounded beneath his foot. The Naruto clone managed to throw the head-band before being dispelled by the Zabuza clone.

"Oi Sasuke, I have a plan." Naruto called out to his team-mate as re-tied his forehead protector to his head.

Sasuke smirked at his team-mate as was thinking along the same lines, "It's time for some team work then."

"Let's get wild!" Naruto said as he smirked confidently, he then turned and explained his plan to his team-mates.

Zabuza looked at the three genin in front of him, a little astonished that they hadn't even considered backing down and retreating with amount of killing intent and scare tactics he had used on the brats. That earned a little of his respect but that didn't mean he was going to ease up on them, "You seem to quite confident, but do you even have a chance for victory?"

Sasuke and Naruto replied in unison, "Let's do this."

TO BE CONTINUED...

A/N: *author bows low to her readers* I'm so sorry, I'm so, so, so sorry, I'm begging for your forgiveness here - I really didn't mean to be gone this long. Life decided to be difficult, so I ended up courting chaos for all of November and December (before anyone comments, you try and study for end of Semester exams on top of shopping for my large family [there's 31 of us] for Christmas...)

So yeah, now that the chaos has receded, I've been able to get back to my stories. On a final note, a thank you again to everyone who reviewed, favourite and/or followed my story - those who, it just makes my day.

Please either review or PM me if you have any questions, concerns or if you noticed a digression in the above chapter, I'm the one who proof-reads my work so if I missed something please tell me.

Hugs and kisses, '95

Note: *The Hiding in the mist jutsu is a specialty of the ninja from Kiri. It causes a mist to spring forth by lifting up some water from either a pre-existing source or from expelling from their mouth. The mist's thickness is controlled by the amount of chakra kneaded into it. It can't fool the Byakugan but due to the chakra imbedded into the mist, any sharingan will only see the mist coloured by their opponent's chakra which effectively allows the user to hide from the dojutsu.

*Like Kage Bunshin, the Water clone technique creates live clones of the user. As its name suggest, the clone is made of water, and weighs half the user's total weight (equipment included). Using this technique, the user is able to divide his energy to create several copies of himself. While the replicas are not capable of sentient thoughts, they share a one-way bond with the user that allows him to communicate thoughts and order with them, but not the other way around. The clones follow the user's orders to the letter, and are their own person.

*With the Water Prison technique, the user will perform the needed hand seals to summon a sphere that is capable of imprisoning an opponent. The user will keep touching the sphere when the attack is still in effect. The only way to break the attack is to disrupt the user from touching the sphere. It's impossible to escape when inside the sphere. This is usually use in conjunction with Mizu bunshin technique. The real one will touch the sphere and the clone will attack. Because of the nature of this jutsu, things can get a little difficult if one is attacked by a third party. Destroying this jutsu from the inside is nearly impossible.