Chapter 4: Demons of the Hidden Mist

Team 7 made their way through the forest outside of the leaf with Tazuna. It was quite in the forest, though Sakura worried they might run into enemy ninja. Kakashi however assured her that wouldn't be the case as this was only a C-rank mission. As they continued, Sakura asked about the land of waves and found there were no ninja there and it was a fishing area. Also, they learned about the title of Kage which existed in the five Shinobi lands and was given to the most powerful shinobi of the village. That included the Hokage of course.

"Wow, Lord Hokage must be really great then!" Sakura said aloud.

Yeah right, her inner self said. He can't be that great.

Naruto had his doubts as well. I got him with my sexy jutsu he's nothing special.

Sasuke didn't say anything, though Kakashi could tell they had silently thought low of their leader.

"You all just insulted Lord Hokage didn't you!" Kakshi said. "Well I'll have you know he maybe old but he is still much stronger then all of you combined!"

This caused Naruto and Sakura to get scared. But they continued walking, eventually passing a puddle of water. The genin thought nothing of it, but Kakashi eyed the puddle with suspicion. Moments later those suspicions were proven correct as a pair of ninja suddenly appeared behind them out of the puddle. Both of them wore cloaks and heavy gauntlets on one hand each that connected them by a long spiked chain, and had headbands with three small lines on them, the symbol of the Hidden Mist. Though their headbands also had horns attached to them like demons. For they were known as the Demon brothers, both of them having dark hair.

One of them threw the other via the chain and wrapped around Kakashi as the genin turned around in bewilderment. Before they could react, the sharpened edges of the chains seemed to cut their sensei to pieces. Naruto and Sakura both wore expressions of shock and fear while Sasuke retained a calm expression on his face, not even reacting to their sensei's apparent demise.

"Kakashi sensei!" Naruto yelled.

No sooner had the words left his mouth then the enemy ninja appeared on both sides of him.

"Now its your turn!" they said with sinister chuckles.

The sharpened chain spun, ready to envelop Naruto who stood frozen. Sasuke, however was ready. He threw a shuriken and kunai with pinpoint accuracy, disabling the chain and preventing Naruto from getting sliced to pieces. Sasuke then landed on the shoulders of both ninja and kicked them away, causing the chain to break. One of them went for Naruto again, while the other charged at Tazuna. Sakura, thinking quickly put herself between the bridge builder and his would be killer. Sasuke then put himself in front of his teammate, arms spread and open as though he were ready to take a death blow for her. Naruto however, was still frozen as the clawed gauntlet thrusted at him.

Baam!

Suddenly both ninja were knocked out and Kakashi reappeared with one trapped under each arm. Naruto had been knocked off his feet, alright mostly, aside from a set of scratches on his hand from the ninja's claws.

Sakura breathed in relief. Then she noticed Naruto's injury.

"Naruto! Are you alright?" she asked, running over to him.

"Sorry Naruto, didn't mean for you to get hurt. I just didn't expect you to freeze up like that," Kakashi said. "Good job Sasuke, you too Sakura."

Sakura smiled at her sensei's praise, though her expression turned worried again as she looked at Naruto's hand.

"Let me see that," she said.

Handing her his hand, he blushed as she took it.

"Well, it doesn't look serious," she said, once again relieved.

Naruto's frustrated expression didn't change. Sasuke had been so calm and fought as though he'd done this a thousand times while he'd frozen up in fear. How was he ever going to catch up with his rival?

"Hey?" Sasuke looked at Naruto.

"Yeah?" Naruto asked.

"You're not hurt, are you?" Sasuke asked with a smirk before adding, "Scaredy cat!"

Naruto gritted his teeth before Sakura looked at Sasuke in disapproval.

"Hey Sasuke! No need to be mean about it!" she said.

Naruto looked at her in surprise for a second. Did she just defend him from Sasuke? Her long time crush that she'd been obsessed with? That gave him a bit of joy, but it didn't cover the anger he felt as Sasuke's insult.

"Yeah! Why you I oughta…!" Naruto began jumping around in anger as he glared at Sasuke.

"Naruto don't move!" Kakashi said. "Those ninja had poison in their claws."

Naruto froze again and Sakura gave another worried expression. They tied the ninja up and then Kakashi rounded on Tazuna, who had asked for standard protection against thugs, but not against ninja. That protection would have cost more, this was obviously above their level. Sakura, worried about that as well as Naruto's injury suggested they go back to the village.

Tazuna looked down. "If you leave me now, I'll be dead before I can return to my homeland. I asked for what I could afford cause I had no other options. The Land of Waves is very poor, I hope to change that with the bridge I'm building."

Kakashi gave him a one eyed sorry look.

Naruto, still disgusted with his cowardly freezing from earlier, said, "I say we go on!"

Sakura gasped in surprise. "But… Naruto!"

"I agree. This mission is just getting interesting," Sasuke said.

Sakura was uncertain, but said nothing.

"Alright then, I guess if you two are determined to press on," Kakashi said. "But first we need to treat Naruto's wound."

Before Kakashi or anyone else could do anything, Naruto stabbed the injury with his kunai to get the poison out. Blood soaked the grass at his feet as he vowed to never run away or freeze up again and to keep up with Sasuke.

"Naruto stop!" Sakura said grasping his hand and getting blood on hers.

"Well, that should get the poison out but we need to stop the bleeding or you'll die of blood loss," Kakashi said.

Naruto screamed, Sakura frantically reached into her backpack for a wash cloth which she wrapped around Naruto's hand after getting it wet in the puddle left behind and put pressure on it to try and stop the bleeding. But to her surprise the blood stopped.

"Well, that was quick, but we better get a bandage on the wound," Sakura said as she wiped his hand gently then looked at the wound.

Only to see there was no wound.

"What?" Sakura said, holding it up high into the sunlight so it would be clear. "It's gone!"

"Huh? Naruto looked. "Wow, good treatment Sakura thanks!"

She shook her head. "That wasn't me! Wounds shouldn't be able to heal that fast!"

She looked at Kakashi, who didn't look too surprised as though he'd figured something out.

It must be the chakra of the nine tailed fox, he thought.

Sakura looked at Naruto. "Well, I don't know how. But I'm glad your okay, Naruto."

Naruto blushed. They continued forward, the rest of their journey to the Land of Waves was without incident. They saw the bridge and Tazuna informed them of who was after him, Gato of Gato Company. A short man who casts a long wicked shadow, he'd taken over the seas, which controlled the income in this fishing land. As such the Land of Waves was impoverished, but the bridge could reopen trade and break Gato's hold on it. With that, they headed through the forest to Tazuna's house.

Naruto detected something, at first it appeared like he was just trying to act cool to outdo Sasuke but soon-

Bam!

A sword, a very large sword that looked more like a giant knife then anything else came flying at them. Naruto and Sakura ducked. The sword stuck into a tree and its thrower landed on the handle. He was a man with the same headband as the two before, and like them had black hair, though his was shorter. His lower face consisting of his nose and mouth were covered in bandages, and he wore a sleeveless black shirt, matching pants and a pair of light purple armbands with vertical stripes. He was big and heavily muscled. But Naruto wouldn't let that scare him, not this time.

"Well well, if it isn't Zabuza Momochi, rogue ninja from the Village Hidden in the Mist."

Naruto listened but didn't care, he'd beat this guy whoever he was. He stepped forward to attack but Kakashi held out a hand.

"You're in the way, he's not like those other two!" Kakashi said. "He's in a whole other league. This one's a Jonin like me! All of you get back and protect the bridge builder!"

Zabuza looked at Kakashi and, "No wonder the demon brothers failed in their mission. Its Kakashi of the Sharingan."

Sasuke froze. Sharingan? He thought.

He then reached up to grab his headband/eye patch. "If he is our opponent, I will need this."

He revealed his other eye, which was an unnatural red color with three black tomoe around it. The sharingan, the inherited ability that allowed one to see chakra and jutsu, enabling a ninja to copy the techniques they saw. Sasuke explained as much to Naruto, though there was more to it. Sasuke knew of the sharingan, because it was a jutsu that was unique to his own clan, or should have been. He silently wondered how Kakashi had it, but this wasn't a good time to ask.

The two jonin began to fight each other, Zabuza began with using a jutsu called the Hidden Mist jutsu. It caused mist to appear and limit their vision, then he and Kakashi began to fight. They both used water clones at first, one after the other. Zabuza's first clone went for Tazuna but was intercepted by Kakashi and stabbed, leaking water before dispersing. Then a second Zabuza appeared from behind Kakashi and sliced him in two only to turn into water as well, but the real Kakashi appeared from behind and put his kunai to this Zabuza's throat and they thought it was over. But Zabuza laughed and his foes quickly realized it was just another water clone. Then the real Zabuza got Kakashi from behind and sent him flying into the water and Zabuza was on him.

"Water style! Water Prison Jutsu!" Zabuza shouted.

"No!" Kakashi yelled.

He was instantly trapped in a floating sphere of water, leaving Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke to fight alone. Zabuza, unable to hold Kakashi and fight them himself created a water clone to handle the genin. Sasuke tried to attack it but even he was no match for the far more experienced Jonin. Kakashi told them to run which they almost did, but Naruto turned and stood against the water clone Zabuza had sent on them. Sasuke followed suit, realizing that it was their only option since if they left Zabuza would just kill Kakashi and then come after them. Saving their sensei was their only chance.

"Sakura, protect Tazuna," Naruto ordered. "Sasuke, listen up! I have a plan."

This surprised both Sasuke and Sakura. The pinkette put herself in front of Tazuna, her genjutsu might have been useful but someone had to protect him. She could only hope Naruto's plan would work.

Naruto started by creating a lot of shadow clones, then threw something at Sasuke who turned in a cool manner after gasping. He revealed the object as the Demon Wind Shuriken, a larger shuriken that was more deadly. Sasuke threw it at Zabuza who caught it, only for a second one to appear afterwards. Sakura thought it was gonna work, only for Zabuza to dodge it. It flew behind him, only to transform into Naruto! The blonde then threw a kunai straight at Zabuza's head!

Zabuza dodged the death blow, getting a small scratch on his cheek that was just enough to anger him. He went to attack Naruto, spinning the shuriken.

"I'll kill you!" he yelled as he approached.

Naruto was helpless as he couldn't stand on water. But Kakashi stepped in and protected his Genin.

"Your battle is with me," Kakashi said blocking the blade of the shuriken.

The plan had worked. Naruto's attack had gotten Zabuza to get his hand off the water prison holding Kakashi.

"Naruto, that was an excellent plan you had," Kakashi praised his genin without taking his eyes off Zabuza.

"Thanks Sensei! I knew I couldn't beat him but I could at least distract him!" Naruto said.

"Don't kid yourself," Zabuza said. "I was just careless as all."

"No. You were forced to let go," Kakashi said. "Now where were we?"

The two Jonin resumed their duel, leaping away from each other and performing a long series of hand signs. A pair of dragons made of water chakra flew at each other. They met with equal force and canceled each other out. Zabuza grit his teeth as he realized Kakashi was copying every single jutsu he did thanks to his sharingan. He tried one last trick but Kakashi used it even quicker and sent a small Tsunami at Zabuza, it looked over as the technique was about to drown him when suddenly Zabuza was struck with a pair of needles to the neck! That had to kill him!

Team 7 looked up into the trees and saw the killer, a young man in a mask with the same pattern on it as Zabuza's headband.

"Thank you," the ninja said. "I've been tracking Zabuza for some time. Your battle gave me the opportunity I needed to take him down."

Everyone was surprised by his sudden appearance while Naruto was angry as he joined the others after getting out of the water.

"Judging by your mask, I'd say you're a tracker ninja from the Village Hidden in the Mist," Kakashi said.

"That is correct," the ninja said.

"Aha! A tracker!" Naruto accused.

"Easy Naruto, he's on our side," Kakashi said.

"That's not the point this guy is really short while Zabuza was really strong and you had to work really hard to bring him down while this guy took him down like he was nothing!" Naruto ranted.

"Naruto, in this line of business you'll find there are people who are younger then you but stronger then me," Kakashi said.

The tracker ninja they were currently dealing with sounded young. Not much older then Naruto. But he was incredibly strong, and precise from the way he'd target the neck. The tracker then lifted Zabuza's corpse over his shoulder.

"I'll dispose of the body, thank you again."

And as quickly as he came, he vanished.

"Well, now that's done we can-

Kakashi broke off as his vision began to get blurry. Must have overused my sharingan. He thought as he began to lose his balance and collapsed.

"Sensei!" Naruto yelled.

They had to continue forward. Tazuna helped carry Kakashi the rest of the way to his house as the genin followed. Sakura looked at Naruto.

"Hey Naruto, great job back there," Sakura said with a smile. "You're not a complete idiot after all!"

"Ah thanks Sakura!" Naruto said with a blush.

She blushed back, hoping they would all be alright through this.

Well I was afraid for a while I wouldn't get two Naruto chapters out this week but I managed this one after all. Not many changes here aside from Sakura being more caring and concerned for Naruto, standing up for him against Sasuke and then praising him. I guess that's enough for this chapter though. Hope you guys like it and I hope you will look at my other Narusaku story that will hopefully be updated this Saturday unless something happens. See you again in another two weeks I hope, though I have considered another retelling fanfiction like this one in Pokemon of Ash and May. Though unlike in my other one I'm considering having them just be the same age and allowed to date. If you are a fan of Pokemon as well you might like it. Good day.