Kakashi had finished a stretching by the time his genin managed to make their way outside, though he did admit it didn't take them too long.
"If Zabuza is indeed alive I imagine we have a few days until he is recovered enough to make a second attempt on Tazuna and in turn us, this time with backup. I'll deal with Zabuza so you need to be prepared to face whoever joins him. I believe the ninja we saw was the only person working with him, if there were more, they likely would have ambushed us and from what I know Zabuza generally doesn't work in large groups," Kakashi offered his analysis.
"So, it'll be the three of us vs whoever Zabuza's partner is?" Sakura asked.
"Yes, but I think Zabuza's partner is likely less dangerous, only because if they were of the same strength, they could have attacked us while we were weakened. Even in our state we were a threat to them," Kakashi responded wondering who exactly would have joined Zabuza, knowing his temperament.
"Then how should we prepare?" Sakura asked.
"I don't want to make guesses on their fighting style only because, I don't want to go into the fight and be surprised. We'll do some training and then prepare a plan of action, I have some things I want each of you to focus on.
"First I want to know about your sharingan, you promised to tell me about it," Sasuke halted the conversation and Kakashi wasn't annoyed only because he was expecting this. He was honestly surprised Sasuke didn't bombard him with questions the moment they returned from the battle with Zabuza.
"That's fair," Kakashi acquiesced, "I'll try to condense the story. It was back when I was twelve and first elevated to the rank of jonin," he noted the surprised looks on their faces, "I was put in charge of a mission with my two teammates. I consider it one of my greatest failures as a ninja and a person. During the mission I lost an eye protecting my teammate Obito, an Uchiha, later in the fight a cave collapsed on the three of us and Obito had to save me in a collapsing cave due to my blind spot. Before he passed, he gave me he offered his eye to replace the one I lost, our third teammate Rin was a healer and was able to perform the transplant." There was more to the story so much more and most of it revealed an awful side of himself, but Kakashi wasn't in a place where he wanted to rehash it instead he finished with, "Now, every time I open my eye, his eye, I'm reminded of the person he was and the person I want to be. His sacrifice inspires me to protect those close to me, to protect my team, to protect you."
"How were you allowed to have it, stealing sharingan is considered a major crime, no offence," Sasuke asked and it was a fair question, usually taking a sharingan and transplanting it was grounds for execution, though the circumstances were quite different.
"Actually there was a discussion on whether I should be allowed to keep the eye, eventually the clan head decided to honor Obito's last wishes, though the Uchiha did make it known that they expected me to use my sharingan for the good of the village and that I had a responsibility to Obito," Kakashi remembered those discussions, though he hardly felt coherent at the time still reeling with everything that had happened.
"You said the clan head then that means," Sasuke trailed off looking slightly conflicted about speaking.
"Yes, your father spoke on my behalf," Kakashi finished for him adding, "he was a good man." He remembered Fugaku clearly, he was stern, but fair and Kakashi never felt the man placed any blame on him for what happened. Though Kakashi blamed himself enough for it not to matter.
Sasuke didn't seem to have a response to that so Kakashi decided to let the matter rest. Down the line he did want to give them more insight to who he used to be, but he felt shame for some of the things he did and the way he acted. For now, he could keep that part of himself hidden.
"Now on to what we'll be practicing, Naruto we're going to spend some time learning how to apply seals in battle, namely with taijutsu. Generally, seals are used before battle or with other ninja covering you, but basic seals can be applied while fighting to disrupt your opponent," he explained to Naruto and although he knew it was a somewhat odd style of fighting it worked well against ninja who relied heavily on ninjutsu. He could almost liken it to the Hyuga who blocked chakra points, in some ways it relied on a similar principle. Though the Hyuga had fine-tuned a technique, this was much more varied and much less exact.
Naruto nodded, he'd become much more receptive to learning sealing after he found out about his heritage which Kakashi appreciated.
"Sakura, we're going to take the next step into your water style training and depending on how you do we can decide where to go from there," he looked to Sakura as he spoke and he could see the excitement, clearly she wanted to be sending water dragons to soak the boys as soon as possible.
"Sasuke, we're going to focus on using fire style on outside sources," Kakashi turned to Sasuke and seeing that he didn't' know exactly what he meant Kakashi continued, "What I mean is creating fire from something other than your chakra and controlling it. For the purpose that I'm talking about we'll be utilizing the fire release with exploding tags. Thankfully I had a large amount sealed in a scroll I brought along with me, I intended to teach this eventually."
"Let's spread out and get a bit more into it," Kakashi created his two shadow clones and separated the genin, Sasuke was moved quite a distance away as he could easily hurt one of them if he was careless. Sakura and Naruto wouldn't be able to do damage to each other aside from Sakura maybe getting Naruto wet.
"Sakura we've generally been focusing on manipulating water that you already have access to, now we're going to look into gathering water," he made a movement with his hands and some dew rose to his fingertips, "Water style has a distinct advantage that you don't have to create it yourself, it come from around you, and its easy manipulate in a multitude of ways. However, it comes with the disadvantage that how much chakra techniques cost or if they're even possible is dependent on the water around you."
"There's no way that's the only way to use water style otherwise they'd all be carrying gourds around," Sakura argued and Kakashi conceded to her point, because of course she was correct. Though it wasn't too rare for water style fighters to keep water on hand in some form.
"True, as you become more skilled, you'll be able to gather water from sources other than containers or bodies of water. Of course, it is possible to create water from chakra, but generally only masters choose to do this because the cost of creating large amounts of water is high unless you have large reserves or great skill. One notable example of a ninja who employed that skill was the Second Hokage who is to this day known as the foremost expert of water style, among his other accolades," Kakashi explained, knowing it was unlikely she'd be summoning sources of water purely from chakra, for the majority of techniques, when there was usually an easier option.
"If I'm not going to be creating water or using a water source where am I drawing it from?" She asked and Kakashi could already see her mind running.
"I said you wouldn't have a body of water, but that certainly isn't the only source of water. The way I often do it is by drawing water from underground, I can utilize earth style as well, so it doesn't feel too difficult. However even that depends on the landscape, the water must be there, for the time being we'll focus on the water all around you. The water in the air as well as condensation and dew. Further along the line you'll be able to draw water from plants if needed, considering they have large amounts of water and offer little resistance," Kakashi explained his general method and outlined what he had planned for her.
"Alright that all makes sense," she nodded along clearly trying to see herself doing it.
"Now I'm going to help out by giving you a very easy source, this water will be thick in the air and already imbued with chakra so it will be easier to sense and latch onto, first come over here, I'll let you get used to the feel of my chakra," he summoned water to his own hands and held them out.
She reached her hands out and moved the water as she had been learning, he gave her time to adapt to the feel of his chakra as he fed it into the water. Then he pulled back and slowly went through the signs to turn the water to mist, he was sure she'd recognize the jutsu from Zabuza. "Now I want you to feel the water in the air focus on my chakra, I haven't put any strength behind it and the technique on its own is fairly harmless so just focus.
He watched her close her eyes and began watching her development.
Kakashi began Naruto's training as he often did by opening a scroll receptive to seals and showing him how it would be placed. Although Naruto did take to sealing very well, his chakra control hadn't reached the point where he could form complex seals, and realistically that wasn't what Kakashi was looking for anyway. What he wanted was seals that offered the most bang for their buck, simple, fast, and effective.
Most genin, especially young genin wouldn't know how to deal with seals unless they had specifically been trained or came from a clan specializing in some form of sealing. Kakashi didn't plan on going too far beyond basic sealing at this point for a few reasons. If Naruto wanted seals to be a major part of his skill set down the line then Kakashi would support and help him, but he needed to train in other subjects to improve his chakra control to deal with complex seals. For now, they would be a secret weapon and he felt he owed it to Naruto to at least give him an insight into his heritage, Kushina was willing to teach him some skills it was his duty to pass those along.
Of course, that would require Kakashi to train more in sealing, considering relatively few people still focused on sealing he was quite advanced, but compared to Kushina he had some serious work to do.
The one flaw that many people didn't seem to remember with the sharingan was that just because the sharingan could theoretically memorize any technique it didn't mean the viewer could use them. If it were that simple every Uchiha would have been using all five elements. Kakashi was the copy ninja not just because he could memorize techniques by seeing them, but because he could replicate the majority of them thanks to his natural abilities and training.
So, he knew more than he could actively use in a few fields, but he didn't feel comfortable teaching something if he couldn't do it himself. That meant anything, he wanted to teach his students he had to have a firm grasp on. He was lucky he had long since adapted to life with little sleep, working throughout the night and being haunted by nightmares apparently had some uses. A lot of his current free time was spent getting a head-start on whatever he wanted to teach the genin. Before his team he had no free time because he was constantly on missions, now he was usually only sent when missions were too advanced or delicate to be trusted to anyone else.
"Alright Naruto I've taught you about a few seals, but the majority of those can't be fully utilized in combat, this time I'll teach you one you can place on an opponent to disrupt their chakra in the middle of a fight," Kakashi walked him through the steps and once he had it down it would be time to practice on Sasuke and Sakura.
Sasuke had become more and more accepting of Kakashi and really the team as a whole. As time had passed and stopped questioning Kakashi, "I briefly mentioned we'd be focusing on using fire that isn't produced by you, it's actually somewhat similar to what Sakura is doing. However, I know you prefer to see results than hear me drone on so watch carefully," Kakashi patted his shoulder as he took a few steps away.
He pulled out a few kunai with exploding tags and threw them in the same general direction, away from all his genin. He let them explode near the edge of the clearing but based on their location they weren't going to hit anything. He flooded chakra into a shuriken and threw it in the center of the explosions with a few hand signs the explosions chased after the shuriken converging on a tree that would have been perfectly safe.
He turned to Sasuke, "That is the fire chasing jutsu, you use your chakra as a center point and it draws all flames in the vicinity towards it, obviously this includes the explosions from tags. A slightly more complex version can be placed as a seal so eventually we'll work with Naruto on that. It's offensive in guiding flames towards an opponent or defensive in drawing flames away from yourself or teammates. However, if you were using it on flames made from an opponent's chakra, like my own fireball, it takes far more chakra because you must overpower their existing chakra. In cases like that the technique might work better to weaken the attack or make it easier to avoid."
Sasuke made the little grunting hum, but Kakashi could tell in Sasuke's vernacular that meant he was interested.
"Don't worry, I packed plenty of tags for practice just be careful where you're aiming," Kakashi drew out a scroll where he'd sealed a number of explosive tags and weapons. Sasuke's desire to hide his interest was continuing to lower, compared to the beginning of their relationship as teacher and student. Kakashi chose to take that as a positive.
Tazuna's family was very accommodating for the most part through the week though Inari was quite sullen not without reason. Loss has a way of changing people, it was something Kakashi could understand and couldn't fault a child for his feelings.
Although he didn't assign blame, the tension between Inari and his genin, specifically Naruto, was reaching a point where it was starting to affect him. He had to stop Naruto from running off into the night to train and since they were escorting Tazuna to the bridge the next day it was better to rest up.
He simply told Naruto, "Inari is hurt and words might not reach him so let's show him with actions by fulfilling this mission." Naruto looked determined and thankfully went off to rest without complaints.
He stepped back into the main room to drink some tea before heading to sleep on his own and came across Inari alone. He wasn't planning on hanging around, but he felt the need to say something, so he bluntly told him, "Naruto grew up without parents and Sasuke lost his entire family when he was a child. Both are working to help others and be strong for the sake of those they lost, you should get in that mindset."
That was probably rude, and Inari was probably too young to be told to basically be told to man up, but Kakashi wasn't known for being the most tactful. He left the boy and went to go find his tea and catch up on some reading.
It was a work day and they guided Tazuna to the bridge, but Kakashi had a bad feeling, he wanted to quash it down, but he'd learned to trust his gut.
They had only just stepped onto the bridge when Kakashi saw the fallen bridge workers and ordered Naruto to send clones to clear them off the bridge and bring them safety. His genin fell into position on his orders and moments later two figures appeared. Zabuza who was clearly fully healed and the nameless false assassin. "I'll take Zabuza, hold off the other ninja if you can. If not take Tazuna and run, I'll deal with them both if necessary."
"We'll beat this guy," Naruto announced for the three and Kakashi nodded deciding to trust his genin for now.
"Are you done chatting?" Zabuza asked sarcastically, "Haku deal with the brats, it's time to teach Kakashi here a lesson."
"Did you forget you lost last time?" Kakashi asked before charging at Zabuza who had just enough time to summon his mist and slip into it. Kakashi couldn't stop to disperse it or he'd leave himself open, however Sakura didn't have that concern. "Sakura, the mist," he called out.
"On it," she yelled back and Kakashi both felt and saw the mist around him creeping away, clearly towards Sakura though he didn't turn to look.
"They've learned some new tricks, have they?" Zabuza asked drawing a kunai now that he was no longer hidden.
"Let's let your companion figure that out, no more stalling and no playing around," Kakashi went on the offensive once again.
The mist faded as it collected in Sakura's hands giving her perfect view of Kakashi launching into battle and their other opponent who she believed Zabuza called Haku. She already had the water on hand it was time to do something with it. "Naruto, Sasuke hold back for a minute," she told them already going through the hand signs to launch her opening attack. It was more to try to gauge what type of fighter their opponent was than anything else. "Water needle jutsu," she called sending out a barrage of thin blasts of pressurized water.
Haku danced around them spinning on his heels, he was clearly quick, but even after dodging he held back Sakura could only guess he wanted them to move in closer. If he was faster than her attacks there was no point in wasting chakra launching water attacks from long range, especially since it seemed he was likely a water user as well. Nobody would stand in a pool of water when facing a group of ninja where at least one utilized water style, unless they were confident in their own use of the element.
"He's probably a water style user and we know he uses needles from when he faked an attack on Zabuza. To create a false death state takes precision," Sakura said to the two boys who both looked ready to go.
They whispered to each other for a moment before nodding and allowing Naruto to create a group of clones. Apparently Haku was tired of waiting because he launched a group of needles towards them with Naruto and Sasuke getting whatever their plan was ready she jumped to the front to stop them. With the distance separating them it wasn't hard to block; however, they were quickly followed by Haku who charged in.
Sakura made sure Tazuna was behind them before crouching in position to intercept the approaching ninja. It ended up being unnecessary because the clones rushed past her to confront Haku. "Sakura fall back," Sasuke said jumping next to her. She didn't protest because the boys seemed to have an idea, and someone needed to stick close to Tazuna.
The clones took the lead heading straight for Haku who, with a spin, launched needles into each of the clones however Naruto's true body activated the explosive tags that were attached to the clones. Haku leapt back to avoid the blasts, but Sasuke who had been following up ran towards him with the fire chasing after him. When he got close Sasuke threw the kunai that the fire was tracking and leapt past Haku before blasting a grand fireball from the opposite side of Haku.
With fire quickly closing in from both sides Haku was trapped, but Sakura was able to get a glimpse of a hand movement from Haku before the fire connected. The three genin stood waiting for the result of the inferno, they heard nothing and from her position in front of Tazuna Sakura couldn't see anything.
Sasuke watched the fire swallow up Haku, but the lack of sound from within irked him. There should be some reaction even if Haku used a water style technique like Sakura seemed to think he could there should have been some sign of connection.
Before the mist had entirely cleared needles launched out. Sasuke was able to dodge them, but he noticed something, the needles appeared to be made of ice. The last of the fire and resulting mist cleared and Sasuke was shocked to see a mirror made of ice and the image of Haku on it. Haku peeled off the mirror and appeared in front of Sasuke. Sasuke was barely able to dodge the blast of water that launched from either side of the bridge.
"Nice dodge, you truly are quick. Unfortunately, now I've collected enough water to move onto my true goal," Haku stated and without much inflection he added, "I don't want to kill you, but if you try to get in Zabuza-Sama's way I will do what I must."
He was cut off from Sakura and Naruto by Haku and his mirror, Sasuke knew his best bet was to attack first and not let Haku have the chance to use whatever he was planning now that they were surrounded by water. He briefly considered calling to Sakura and getting her to summon the water towards herself, but quickly realized the flaw. Haku would just use the technique over there or draw more water from the surrounding area and his job meant he couldn't put Tazuna in danger. Plus, he trusted himself to deal with whatever this was more than his teammates.
Of course, that decision meant nothing when a horde of Naruto came barreling towards them. More ice mirrors began forming around him, creating a dome trapping him and the group of clones inside. He had no way of knowing if the real Naruto was there or not.
Naruto's master plan just seemed to be continually creating clones which would quickly get struck by needles. At first, he thought it was idiotic, creating clones over and over didn't do anything if they kept getting destroyed.
However, he quickly realized it gave him the ability to study Haku and his movements and he became sure the real Naruto was still with Tazuna and Sakura. The clones always made more before they were all destroyed, but he didn't think there was any one that had been struck without disappearing afterwards. Haku leapt from mirror at an extremely high speed, but Sasuke knew he could do it, he could see it if he focused.
He was still taking injuries, but Naruto was doing some distracting and after a while Sasuke felt like he got a feel for Haku's movements. He was riddled with needles, but something clicked he'd been firing blasts of fire and one clipped Haku leaving a small burn as he leapt between mirrors. He opened his eyes and was able to view the world in a new way, instinctively he knew this was the sharingan. "Naruto, enough with the clones I can handle this," he said as the newest batch of clones was dispersed.
Out of nowhere Sakura ran towards them loudly announcing her presence and sending a kunai in between the openings of the mirrors. Sakura was arguably one the most intelligent girls he knew, but randomly throwing a kunai without even bothering to hide her presence was beyond weird. He immediately knew something was up, Haku on the other hand didn't know anything about Sakura and seemed to think this was something he could use.
He leapt out of a mirror grabbing the kunai and flying right towards Sasuke who was finally feeling the effects of chakra exhaustion. Before they clashed the kunai transformed into Naruto who grabbed Haku's throat and was promptly kicked away. However, the ice mirrors all came crashing down, with his Sharingan Sasuke was able to see what happened there was a seal around Haku's throat.
It was the chakra disruption seal Naruto had been learning, clearly, he and Sakura were waiting for an opening and relying on Haku's desperation. With Sasuke able to see Haku's movements he had to attack directly rather than continue attacking at a distance, and they essentially covered for him offering Haku a weapon to attack with.
There was one important fact with their plan, the seal was a disruption it quickly faded and both he and Naruto were low on chakra. "I wonder if your friend is as quick as you are?" Haku asked running towards Sakura. Although Sasuke had managed to see through Haku's technique it was at the expense of his body and he still hadn't inflicted major damage on the other male.
Sasuke's movements were limited due to the needles throughout his body, in close quarters it didn't matter as much, but for full on running he was slowed down, and Naruto was slower than both himself and Haku naturally. Which meant Haku would be able to reach Tazuna and Sakura before them.
Ignoring the pain, he pressed on after Haku with Naruto on his heels.
Naruto was chasing after Haku right behind Sasuke and knew they were too slow to catch him which meant Sakura needed to counter. Sakura had a basic knowledge of what Haku could do thanks to Naruto's clones essentially passing information to him, which he revealed to Sakura. It's how they developed the strategy to catch Haku when he was getting desperate with the transformation jutsu and a seal.
With that Sakura knew how Haku's technique worked to a degree. It was why she cast a jutsu sending the water on the bridge back into the river to keep Haku from summoning mirrors right away.
Thankfully Naruto left a few clones behind, so she used them to cover Tazuna as she sprinted to confront Haku. The clones would be destroyed in one strike and would be useless in holding Haku off. Haku threw a group of needles towards Sakura at fairly close-range Sakura wouldn't be able to block them, but she could still jump out of the way. However, she chose to raise her arms and take the needles, Naruto could see that if she moved, they were aimed towards Tazuna and would have struck him or one of the clones if they were able to get in the way.
Sakura drew her kunai and clashed with Haku and the two were locked for a moment Naruto saw Sakura do something that should have been considered insane. With her free hand she drew an explosive tag, at such a close range it would clearly hit her and Haku.
"Are you insane? You'll blow us both up," Haku said and although none of them had seen his face Naruto could imagine the incredulous look on it. Sakura dropped her Kunai and the force of Haku pressing against her made him step forward closer into range.
Sakura simply grabbed his wrist and said, "Let's see." She set off the tag and at the same time Sasuke used the fire chasing jutsu. The force of the blast sent Sakura flying backwards, but the majority of the explosion itself was pulled towards Haku. Sasuke released the technique after it struck Haku and the masked male was thrown towards them.
When he landed his mask had been broken apart and he was on the ground by their feet as was Sakura in front of Tazuna. Haku looked up at them and gave a defeated sigh, "I've failed Zabuza-Sama, kill me now."
There were so many things to say to that, but Naruto was stopped by Sasuke's voice, "Naruto let's end this." Right, he was here for a reason. He was doing this for his mission, for his village, and for his team. This sad person who wanted to die because they weren't able to serve a monster shouldn't be his concern, but Naruto couldn't help feeling like there was something wrong about this.
Before Sasuke could strike, because Naruto knew he wouldn't be able to do it himself, Haku leapt off. Naruto turned thinking he was going to attack Kakashi now and his sadness was an act, but he was shocked to see Haku in front of Zabuza with Kakashi's hand through his chest coated with blood and lightning.
It was a horrible scene watching the lifeless boy in front of Zabuza who used the opening to attack. However, the damage he sustained earlier must have been enough for Kakashi to put an end to him. Once Naruto was confident Kakashi had the rest in hand he ran towards Sakura with Sasuke beside him. They crouched in front of Sakura who was standing with the support of one of Naruto's last clones.
Sasuke actually spoke before him, "What were you thinking? Setting off an exploding tag in your hands, it's one thing to attach a tag to a clone, but what you were doing was borderline suicide."
"I trusted that you'd help me Sasuke-kun," Sakura gave him a look that Naruto wished she gave him. She made a pained sound before adding, "One tag wouldn't really kill either of us, what happened afterwards. I couldn't tell from here."
"You probably blacked out and missed it," Sasuke growled at her clearly not appreciating her nonchalance, though Naruto couldn't place the exact expression on his face. "Kakashi used a technique to kill Zabuza and Haku managed to intercept it, but Kakashi finished Zabuza soon after."
While the genin were busy he sealed Zabuza's body in a scroll, he was going to have to turn him in. He was in multiple nations Bingo Books, which meant he was required to bring in proof of his death, namely his corpse. The whole scene was too sad for Kakashi to even particularly want to money that came with turning in the bounty, he knew Zabuza lost the minute Haku died.
Sacrifice could give one strength, when Obito passed Kakashi fought with the need to make his friends sacrifice worthwhile. Zabuza didn't understand this, he lost his way with Haku's death. Despite his attempts to hide it Kakashi could tell he was affected, and it made him weak. The monster had a heart, he just didn't know how to use it. Discovering Zabuza's humanity made his death worse, but Kakashi had long since adapted to the way of the Shinobi.
"Well, well," a heavy small man who Kakashi knew was Gato stepped forward with a large group of thugs behind him, "Zabuza might have failed, but at least he managed to weaken you." Realistically none of them appeared to be ninja and Kakashi could tell even with his strength and chakra running low killing them wouldn't be too difficult. His job was to protect the bridge builder and if that meant taking down this group as well, he would.
Still Kakashi was never one to seek out bloodshed, a show of force should be enough to scare most of the thugs off especially because they were only loyal to money. They were lowlifes, but Kakashi didn't think he had the right to decide whether they truly deserved to die, Gato on the other hand he had no issues with killing.
He picked up Zabuza's blade and threw it directly at Gato, it cut through two thugs before beheading him and crashing to the ground. Kakashi opened his sharingan and glared at the rest saying only, "Run and don't return."
Thankfully they did rather than force him to exhaust himself further. He collected the executioner's blade swinging it to clear the blood off and returned to his genin. Sasuke and Sakura were both injured, though the injuries looked quite different, he'd have to check them out later and hear their full accounts of what happened to make sure there wasn't any lasting damage. Naruto was the least injured, he'd likely relied on clones which did offer a degree of protection.
Regardless of what exactly happened he was happy to see all three were alright. He wondered how many other ninja dealt with something like this on their first C rank mission, Kakashi wondered if he just attracted trouble.
A/N
So there were some differences to the anime.
Obviously the type of training was different because they already learned tree walking in my story, I'm pretty sure I made up all three of the new techniques they were using. Water needles which very well might already be a canon jutsu is just blasts of thin water which are pressurized and cut like needles, fire chasing which I'm sure there's similar things draws fire to wherever the jutsu is cast, and the disruption seal which is exactly as the name implies a seal that briefly disrupts the flow of chakra.
Because the training changed Naruto was not out all night so he didn't sleep in the forest and meet Haku, he also wasn't sleeping in late because of exhaustion. Because Naruto hadn't met Haku when he was unmasked Naruto didn't have the same emotional response or questions about Haku's motivations to live for someone else. However he was still disturbed to hear that Haku only cared about himself in relation to Zabuza.
I didn't want to spend time on the Inari storyline so I basically cut it out only mentioning him, like I chose to do with Tazuna earlier. Kakashi's fight with Zabuza wasn't as important this time mainly because I was fine with how it went in canon, aside from a lot of standing around and I don't think it needed much exploring.
I tried to give everyone a spotlight during the fight with Haku, it probably seemed a lot quicker mostly because I skimmed over the section where it was basically an entire episode's worth of Sasuke and Naruto standing around getting hit with needles. I think they all showed impressive parts of themselves and none of them were useless.
Sasuke was able to work in tandem with his teammates, utilize a new technique, and of course unlock his sharingan.
Naruto was able to use his clones to provide support with Sasuke, fed information to Sakura, he worked with her to develop a plan, and was able to plant a new seal on Haku. Naruto did not use the nine-tails chakra because Sasuke never fell into a state of false death.
Sakura showed her ability to manipulate water in multiple ways, showed her ability to quickly gather and understand information, and go hardcore at the end
(Sorry for the long note please feel free to let me know what you think or ask a question, it's really encouraging. Also I rushed a bit to get it all together so if there are any mistakes let me know.)