Hello and welcome. I hope you all enjoyed chapter 4 and I plan to dust off Wave with this chapter. As always please leave a comment/review. I enjoy all feedback and constructive criticism.

Speaking of, a few people have questioned my decision to swap Kiba with Sasuke as the class favorite object of female attention, so basically if you want me to ret-con/rewrite old chapters changing this please tell me (cut off is the release of chapter 6 as that will most likely be start of chunin exams and thus have Kiba in it.)

With nothing further please enjoy chapter 5.

Tzauna's house, guest bedroom

Kakashi made a groaning noise as he awoke in an unknown futon, his body felt like lead and his brain was bashing against his skull, oh hello old and very much hated acquaintance known as chakra exhaustion.

"Man, I put way too much into that vortex jutsu." He muttered as he sat up on the futon.

A door opened and a middle aged woman with blue hair and slightly tanned skin walked in.

"Oh good you're awake. My name is Tsunami, I'm Tazuna's daughter, you're at my house, your students and dad were quite worried, apparently you suddenly collapsed." Tsunami said kindly.

"Ah, so that's what happened, well thank you for your hospitality and you needn't worry it's just chakra exhaustion, I'll be weak for a few days but I'll be fine." Kakashi spoke.

"Good, I'll tell you others you're awake." She said as she left.

His team and Tazuna then came into the room shortly after, all perking up at seeing him awake.

"Hey Kakashi-sensei your awake, you really worried us by just passing out like that." Naruto said, excited to see him alright.

"Yea, sorry to worry you, I exhausted my chakra with those two big water jutsu, some rest and I'll be ok in about a week, take this as a lesson to always watch your chakra levels, if you overuse it and collapse in the middle of a battle it can spell death." Kakashi explained as he sat up with some effort.

"First and most pressing of all things, I thought it over, and I believe Zabuza is alive." Kakashi started shocking them all.

"Woah woah woah, Kakashi-sensei, not only did you almost kill him, that hunter guy hit him in the neck and took away his body to dispose of it right?" Naruto asked him.

"While you are correct there are some factors that don't add up, first of all, the weapon that ninja used was senbon." He explained, which caused Satsuki to catch on.

"Which rarely kill, and are known to be able to affect the body in many ways if they hit the correct spots." She added, causing Kakashi to nod at her.

"Correct, not only that but hunter ninja deal with the body on sight, no behind closed doors like that one claimed, that way there's no room for error and they take the head to confirm the kill, that hunter took away the body intact. I think it's safe to say that wasn't a real hunter-nin, they were just wearing a mask and placed Zabuza in a false death state with senbon and took him away to save him from me, so I think he'll definitely come back for round two." Kakashi explained to them all, causing then all to either tense or be filled with worry.

"But how can we beat him when he comes back if you're out of commission for a week?" Satsuki asked him.

"Well Zabuza had his fare share of damage done to him by me and not only that his body will need time to recover from the near death state, which gives me time to recover and time to train you." Kakashi answered her, seemingly not worried.

"But those two were crazy strong, how will last minute training help?" Sakura asked him.

"You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when up against a wall." Kakashi said cripticly.

"Why even try? You'll just end up dead." A voice said, making them all turn and look at a small child with a bucket hat and a blank look in his eyes, he was staring at them with a quite creepy look.

"Inari! Don't say such things, it's thanks to these ninja your grandfather made it back at all." Tsunami childed her child. He then walked off, leaving the leaf ninja quite perplexed.

"I apologize for him, Gato's tyranny has affected him more then most." Tazuna spoke to them.

"Well kid should have a little faith, a ninja is a whole different type of warrior from what he knows." Kakashi said as she genin nodded.

A bit later Naruto walked by a room in the house to see Inari staring out at his room's beautiful view of the sea while holding something close and crying.

"*sniff**sob* daddy." He cried to himself.

"So that's what the old man meant." Naruto thought in realization, clearly something had happened to Inari's father, and Gato was to blame, this only solidified one thing, they couldn't fail, they had to see this bridge built, no matter what.

Kakashi managed to get himself on some crutches and lead his team outside to a forest and had them stop.

"Right, first of all let's have a refresher of what Naruto exactly is, Naruto?" Kakashi asked, putting him in the spot.

"Right urrr, chakra is the jutsu energy inside your body?" He answered not really sure just getting Satsuki and Sakura to shake their heads at their male teammate.

"You're not wrong but it's more complex then that, so listen up, I won't repeat myself. Chakra is made up of both physical energy, that lies within your body and cells, and spiritual energy, gained from experience and training, the fusion of these two energys creates chakra that we ninja utilize for many functions." He explained to him.

"OK so I know I bit more but we all already know how to use chakra, how does that help?" Naruto asked him, not really seeing the point of this.

"Know how to use chakra? Hahahaha, you have zero comprehension how wrong you are, sure you can gather and access chakra but really use it? Absolutely not, Satsuki is ahead of all of you with her basic grasp of nature manipulation but you are all novices at truly controlling it." Kakashi reprimanded them, Naruto looked down in shame as well as some jealousy, yet another Satsuki had surpassed him in.

"I will take the first step to reprimanding this. For this training you…will be climbing trees." He finished with an eye smile making them all face fault.

"Climbing trees?! What is this academy year one?!" Naruto yelled at him.

"Slight change, you can't use your hands." He finished not that got their attention.

"Explain." Satsuki said simply, her gaze hardening.

"It's very simple, reach the top of these trees without using your hands, let me demonstrate." Kakashi said as he hobbled over to a tree and just walked up it like he was walking on any normal surface.

"Woah." Naruto said as he saw him do it.

"The trick to this is to concentrate chakra on the bottom of your feet, this will allow you to stick to the tree and most other surfaces, this is not only great training for controlling chakra as the bottom of your feet are one of the most difficult areas of the body to focus chakra but it's a valuable skill for all ninja, you saw me and Zabuza use a more advanced version of this technique to walk on water during our battle." Kakashi explained as he hung upside down from a branch, and then detached and fell to the ground and landed with no issue.

"So it's about better control of our chakra?" Satasuki asked him.

"Yes, you see right now all you do is grab an amount of chakra and push it into a jutsu, it's terribly inefficient, you could grab too much or two little and it can affect the performance of a jutsu and waste precious chakra, if you gain surgical control your will have maximum efficiency of your chakra, no sloppy jutsu and no waste, for more complex jutsu and general long engagements, chakra control is beyond essential." Kakashi explained to them.

"But wait Kakashi-sensei sensei, what about that special chakra thingy you said Satsuki already knew how to do?" Naruto asked him, wondering what this skill she already had was.

"Ah yes, nature manipulation. They barely cover it at the academy so I doubt even Sakura knows much. You see, some jutsu can be split into five different elements. Fire,wind,earth,water and lighting, these make up the different styles of jutsu, like the water style:water dragon you saw me and Zabuza use, but to perform nature jutsu you will need to manipulate your chakra into the type of chakra for the jutsu, for example Satsuki already has some basic understanding of fire nature manipulation, but that's to be expected, one of the common traits in the Uchiha bloodline aside from the Sharingan is great talent for fire jutsu, but that's a bit ahead of you two for now, just focus on this training." Kakashi explained with Satsuki looking proud of her talent in nature manipulation.

"So that's how she can literally breathe fire. Well I'll get this down easy and then I'll be way better at nature chakra then you." Naruto said, almost taunting her with his optimism.

"You'll try, loser." She said, almost meeting his challenge with her words and not insulting him.

Kakashi told them to mark their progress with kunai and they all took a running start.

Naruto however, failed instantly, barely getting a few steps up before he slipped and fell down.

Satsuki fared better but not amazingly, as she pushed too much chakra into her feet and she damaged to bark and threw herself off the tree with some force, she managed to slash the tree to mark her progress and land safely.

Sakura however.

"Hey, this is pretty fun." She spoke, sitting on a high branch twirling her kunai.

"Wah? How are you already up there?!" Naruto shouted from the ground while Satsuki's eyes just narrowed at Sakura of all people being ahead of her.

"Very good Sakura, it seems someone hasn't come as far as I originally thought, and maybe the Uchiha's great skill isn't all it's cracked up to be." Kakashi said, mocking them both, getting both of their eyes to narrow at each other.

"Good job Sakura, now they are motivated. I didn't expect you to get this that easily however, I know you have the lowest amount of chakra out of all of us but it seems you also have some talent for chakra control, maybe having her sit out on some D-ranks to go study at the hospital would be a good idea." Kakashi thought as he looked up at the pink haired genin, she was definitely lacking in chakra capacity, one of the reasons why she got to hang of this exercise so quickly, but he didn't expect that quickly.

"Alright, do some more climbing Sakura then I'll have you stay with Tazuna on the bridge. We probably won't see any show of force for about a week but it never hurts to be cautious." Kalashi said as he took out his book and began to read.

Over the next hour Naruto and Satsuki weren't making a lot of progress, if anything as they kept failing, their performance suffered.

Naruto finally relented and walked over to Sakura and asked her for advice.

"Psst, hey Sakura, you seem to have this thing down flat, can you give me some advice?" Naruto whispered to her.

Sakura was surprised to see the normally headstrong and "I can do everything myself cus I'm gonna be Hokage, Believe it!" Naruto asking for advice, she supposed she'd humor him.

"Well first you can't just keep running at it, focus on gathering the amount of chakra you need then focus and maintaining that chakra in your feet as you run up the tree, them focus on grabbing that amount of chakra so it's like second nature, and most importantly, you need to keep a clear head, even if your failing, part of chakra is spiritual, if your angry or frustrated it can make it more difficult to control your chakra precisely." Sakura explained to him and Naruto nodded throughout her speech.

"Ok, focus on the amount of chakra I need and stay calm, thanks Sakura." Naruto said as he went back to his tree.

He stopped and formed a hand sign and slowly focused his chakra into his feet, he also slowed his breathing at the same time, and tried to throw away his frustration at the task.

He opened his eyes and ran at the tree and almost doubled his progress before he launched himself off from the tree, a kunai slash marking his new progress. He looked ecstatic at his burst of progress and gave a thumbs up to Sakura, Kakashi smiled beneath his mask from the sidelines as the members of his team worked together.

"They still have a long way to go, but they're getting there, hopefully one of them can break through to little miss lone wolf." Kakashi thought as he glanced at Satsuki seemingly frustrated with her lack of progress and Naruto's sudden surge in progress, Kakashi decided he wouldn't gain anything by watching further and he and Sakura left them to continue the exercise.

When night fell and exhausted Naruto and Satsuki waddled back to Tazuna's house, ate a small dinner courtesy of Tsunami and went right to sleep, utterly spent.

The next day they were back at it as Kakashi continued to rest at Tazuna's house and Sakura on Kakashi's orders was guarding Tazuna and helping out with some labor work as Kakashi told her she needed the physical conditioning, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Throughout the day Naruto and Satsuki continued to work at their task, but Satsuki was becoming more and more frustrated as she made no progress and Naruto was close to matching her distance.

She finally relented.

"So…what did Sakura say to you yesterday?" She asked, highly embarrassed.

Naruto looked over to her and saw the slight blush and sheepish look on her face as she asked him.

Naruto smiled, taking some satisfaction from Satsuki of all people asking for advice.

"Alright, I owe you for the gear so I'll tell you. Sakura told me to try and focus on gathering the needed chakra first, get used to using that much chakra until you can grab that amount properly, and also stay calm, as she said something about your chakra control getting all messed up if you're pissed off." Naruto explained basically verbatim what Sakura had told him.

"So the angrier I've gotten at Naruto catching up to me the more I've slowed down, ironic." She thought as she understood where she was going wrong.

"Thanks." She said simply as she slowed her breathing and focused her chakra.

Upon letting go of her current frustration and focusing on her chakra and the task at hand she leaped in progress yet again, allowing her to reach the lowest branch on the tree.

Naruto looked up, both partly happy he helped his teammate progress and also downtrodden that she got ahead of him yet again, but that only made him want to try harder in order to surpass her.

They kept up the pace for the rest of the day, both starting to run dry on chakra when it reached the later hours of the day.

Satsuki was going for another attempt as Naruto was catching his breath as she was high up. She suddenly got light headed and she started to fall, yet she couldn't correct herself as she felt half asleep.

Naruto noticed just in time and sprang into action instantly.

"Suki!" He yelled, not noticing how he abbreviated her name.

He was barely in time to catch her bridal style as he skidded across the floor.

"Hey you ok?" He asked as her consciousness seemed to focus.

"Wha-what happened?" she asked him like he had just woken up.

"You just fell, think you may have pushed yourself too much. If you make another run, you'll end up like Kakashi-sensei." he said to her, part of her wanted to argue the fact, but she was just too exhausted.

She soon struggled to keep her eyes open and fell asleep again.

"Seriously? Well it's probably best if I call it too I *yawn* probably couldn't do too many more attempts." Naruto said, his own tiredness hitting him.

He lifted her up and began back towards Tazuna's house.

He looked down at her and thought "we are definitely even more that gear after this, she'll probably threaten me or something just for bringing her back. It's odd, she looks…almost peaceful." As he looked down at her, she subconsciously snuggled into his body warmth in her sleep as Naruto carried her back.

He knew that conscious Satsuki would definitely want to kill her subconscious self for such behavior, and probably kill him so there were no witnesses.

He definitely 100% did not think she looked kinda cute like this.

.

.

.

His blush betrayed all sense of his denial.

He got back, explained to Kakashi sensei what had happened, he did leave out the saving part as she would probably not be happy about that being known, just that she fell asleep as she was so exhausted.

Their sensei accepted the answer and praised him for bringing her back and told him to drop her in her room and get some sleep himself.

He placed her down in the secondhand futon and pulled the covers over her.

"Mother, Father, please don't go." He heard a soft voice say as Naruto left the room, he turned back as he heard the words, she must have been dreaming, he walked back over to her and pulled the sheets more over her person, and she seemed to relax again, Naruto softly smiled as he left the room to sleep himself.

The next day

Naruto awoke to the feeling of something cold on his neck, he slowly awoke and his vision corrected itself and he was that cold sensation was Satsuki holding a kunai to his neck.

His eyes widened and all he could utter was.

"Morning." He utterly, still in shock at his waking up to his teammate and rival holding a blade to his neck.

"Last night, what happened?" She uttered darkly, her tone leaving no room for anything less then the honest to God truth.

"Well after you fell asleep I brought you back and placed you in your futon and went to bed myself." Naruto answered her.

She stared at him for a few seconds and then released the blade from his neck.

"I believe you, just,*huff* force me awake next time, please." she said as she walked off.

.

.

.

"What the fu-"

Later that day, back at the trees

"*huff**pant* Listen, I'm sorry I just tried to help yesterday, alright!" Naruto said. Finally speaking a word to Satsuki after this morning.

"*pant* whatever, it's just, I don't need anybody's help." She spoke back to him, honestly she knew her reaction was a bit over the top, it was mainly her own pride, but what was she without her Uchiha pride.

"Yeah well you were asking for it yesterday!" Naruto answered back to her.

"Shit" She thought he was right, the advice he passed along from Sakura had helped.

"Listen, I just…I don't like having to rely on other people,on anybody. So thank you, for your help yesterday, but don't do it again." She admitted to him, honestly just frustrated with herself and the myriad of slashes on this accursed tree.

"Yea, I get that sometimes, but it's ok to ask for help, you don't like me and I'm not your number one fan either but we are still teammates, so i'm here, if you ever need my help." He said back.

"Heh, thanks loser, just…never call me Suki again." She said back, smiling slightly at him.

"I'll think about it…Suki." Naruto said mockingly, smiling back at her.

"You're impossible." She spoke, shaking her head.

"I try." He said back again smugly as he focused his chakra for another run up the tree.

The next day

Kakashi and Sakura had taken a break to come check on the progress Naruto and Satsuki had made. They came up to the trees they left them but could not see them on the ground.

"Hey Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said, they turned to the voice to see Naruto on a high branch of the tree, showing his progress.

"Well it seems you've come quite far Naruto." Kakashi said, eyes smiling at him.

"Yep. Whaa." Naruto said before slipping, they thought he was gonna fall but turns out it was just a prank as he hung upside down on his branch.

"Haha, got ya." Naruto said smugly before dropping from the branch, flipping in the air and landing. Just then Satsuki jumped down from above the tree leaves and landed next to Naruto, looking just as proud of herself.

"Well it seems you two have finally mastered this exercise." Kakashi said, impressed with their progress.

"Well we still want to make it to the top of the tallest tree, we still have a bit more to go." Naruto said with Satsuki nodding in agreement.

"OK, Well make sure you don't push yourself too hard, Zabuza will soon be recovered and he'll no doubt go after Tazuna again." The jonin told them, they both nodded seriously.

Evening

They were both catching their breath on high branches.

"I *pant* won't let you *pant* beat me." Naruto said, turning to her, a look of determination on his face even with his exhaustion.

"*pant* me *pant* neither." She answered back, the same look of determination on her face.

"We should *pant* probably head back though, *pant* I don't want to carry back sleeping broody again." Naruto joked which got him another classic Satsuki glare.

However she knew he was right, and the last thing she wanted was to be carried again.

"Let's go." She spoke as he caught her breath and jumped from the tree with Naruto doing the same.

"I definitely think we can make it by tomorrow." Naruto spoke, breaking the silence of their walk back.

"Well I will, you? Can't be too sure." She answered back, clearly engaging in this game of mocking one another as they have been for the past two days.

"Har har, miss super genius kunoichi, there is no jutsu or technique you can master that I can do myself with enough effort and hard work!" He answered back.

"You make it sound like I always try something and it always works out, the reason I've always been better then you is because I train just as hard and have the talent." she spoke back to him both staring each other down in the forest.

"Well I'll catch up, just watch me." Naruto spoke to her.

"I'll admit you have been getting better, but your still a long way from surpassing me loser." She returned, a challenging smirk on her face.

She walked off in front of him, she had just insulted him and said he was never reach one of his goals in surpassing her, but with the way she was almost setting him a challenge with her tone and words, he found himself smiling as he continued to walk back alongside her and oddly enough, so was she.

At dinner they both competed to eat more then the other, their speed of consumption making them throw up a little which got them both berated by Kakashi for wasting food.

After dinner Sakura commented on a torn picture in the room, it seemed to be a family photo, with a version of Inari that seemed to be completely different, all smiles and childish happiness.

Inari ran off at the mention of that with Tsunami following after him.

"I apologize but that's a bit of a sore subject for the both of them. The man from the ripped out part of the photo was Kaiza, he was Tsunami's husband and Inari's step-father. He was a fisherman from somewhere in the land of water who moved here some years ago, he originally was introduced to us when he saved Inari from possibly drowning before he learnt to swim. Since then he was a part of our lives, he became the father figure Inari never had and eventually his real father once he started dating Tsunami and they got married, he was always talking about how if you have something precious you should protect it with both arms. He was always kind, and helpful to others in the village." Tazuna said regailing the leaf ninja with his story. They were all listening as he continued.

"Then Kaizai became a hero in this village, a storm hit our village and we had no time to close the floodgates, if nothing was done a large portion of the village would have been destroyed, homes, lives and precious farmland would have been laid to waste. But Kaiza lept into the current and fought with all his might and was able to close it, from that day forth he was a hero to all of the land of waves and nobody was prouder then Inari to call that man his father. But then Gato came, he bought all the ports in the land and threatened anyone who didn't sell into selling with his army of thugs, Kaiza, being the man that he was, stood up to him, they took Kaiza and broke both of his strong arms for all to see, then executed him in front of the whole village to set an example, Inari has become hollow ever since, and while Tsunami tries to hold it together for him she too will never be the same." Tazuna finished as he wiped a few tears from his eyes.

It suddenly made sense, not only were the citizens of this land being suffocated and starved by Gato's monopoly a man who they had all looked to as a savior had been killed in front of them like it was nothing, in killing Kaiza, they killed the spirit of the land of waves.

"I'm…so sorry." Sakura said, a few tears in her eyes too.

"Thank you, ever since then, Inari has never smiled, he believes there is no such thing as a hero." Tazuna spoke.

"Then I'll prove him wrong." Naruto spoke as he stood up.

"I'll prove, there is such a thing as a hero, once we finish that bridge." Naruto spoke with confidence that made Satsuki smirk at his behavior.

"He'll never change. What a loser." She thought yet her facial expression betrayed her thoughts.

"Kakashi-sensei, I'm going back out." Naruto spoke as he walked to the door.

"Alright just don't overdo it, we can't have you out of commission due to chakra exhaustion." He spoke casually as Naruto left.

As he got to the door he turned to Satsuki and gave her a brief sad smile as he left.

"Figures he get like that, it hits a little close to home…for both of us." She thought as dark thought about seeing ones parent murdered in front of you creeped into her mind.

She kinda wished Naruto was still here now.

The next morning

A young effeminate man was walking around the forest looking for herbs as he stumbled upon a sleeping boy around his age, one he recognized, from the ninja team he saved his master from.

Now if Haku was a good weapon like master Zabuza wanted he would slit his throat in his sleep and be done with it. Luckily for Naruto Haku was very bad a being a true shinobi as he couched down and shook him awake, he was covered in dirt and scratches, it looked like he had been traning relentlessly.

"Hmm wha?" Naruto said sleepily as he was awoken but somebody. He tooked and saw a 'girl' in a pink kimono with a basket crouching next to him, it suddenly dawned on him that he slept in the forest after he wore himself out from training so much.

He sat up to speak with the 'woman' that had awoken him.

"Are you alright?" 'She' asked him as Naruto rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"Oh yeah I'm fine, just I was so worn out from training that I must have just fallen asleep here." Naruto answered 'her'

"Traning? Are you a shinobi?" Haku asked him, he knew the answer of course but he wanted to see what made this leaf ninja tick.

"Yea I am, from the hidden leaf." Naruto said smiling brightly as he adjusted the metal plate on his forehead.

"I see, well what are you training for, Mr leaf ninja." Haku asked him.

"To get stronger, my dream is to become the greatest ninja in my village, the Hokage, what are you out her for miss?" Naruto asked 'her'

"I'm gathering herbs for my master." Haku answered him truthfully.

"Your master?" He asked in confusion.

"Yes they are someone truly dear to me, I owe them my life and all that I am now, tell me, do you have anyone like that?" Haku asked him, thinking about how Zabuza had saved his life.

Naruto thought about those closest to him, Iruka-sensei, old man third, Teuchi and Ayame, and more and more his team, the image of a sleeping Satsuki worming its way into his mind.

"Yea I have a handful, they mean a lot to me, don't know where I would be without them." Naruto said sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

"Then you are richer and stronger then you know, I believe, that is someone fights to protect someone precious to them, they can truly become strong." Haku spoke, baring his core philosophy to the leaf genin.

"Someone can become truly strong to protect what is precious to them? Yea I suppose your right." Naruto said, thinking back to how he made an army of clones to protect Iruka-sensei from Mizuki.

"I'm glad someone from another country shares my thoughts, it's comforting that others think as you do." Haku spoke to Naruto as he stood up and grabbed his basket and turned to leave.

"I wish you luck in your training. And I'm a boy." Haku spoke as he left.

Naruto scrambled to his feat at his last words.

"Seriously! He's even prettier then Sakura!" He yelled in his mind, but he knew prettier girls, speaking of.

Flashback to Tazuna's house last night.

"Kakashi." Satsuki spoke after Naruto had left and Sakura went for her 'beauty sleep'.

"Hmm? What is it Satsuki?" He asked, not looking up from his book, that she had sinced learned was a smug novel called make out paradise, she now wanted to burn said book.

"You still owe me an explanation behind your eye." She said to him seriously.

"Maybe I'll tell you some other time." He deflected.

"Oh no not that crap from your introduction. Tell me." She hammered down on wanting her answer.

"It was a birthday present." He answered, still dismissing her.

"An Uchiha's Sharingan is their pride and joy, no member of my clan would just give it away as a gift." She said, she was getting angry now.

"*sigh* ok here's the short version, a member of your clan was part of my squad way back when, a mission went bad, I lost my left eye in a fight, then my teammate had his entire right side crushed in a cave in, he offered me his eye and I took it out of respect for him, since then, his gift to me has saved my life more times then I care to mention." Kakashi told her, telling an extremely short version of events, lest the pain he still felt rear it's ugly head from the depths of his mind.

Satsuki still was not very happy with that answer he barely explained anything. But she was pretty confident he didn't kill a member of her clan and steal it so it was good enough. For now.

"Alright, but don't you dare take the gift of my bloodline lightly." Satsuki told him, as he was one of the few who could ever use a Sharingan left alive she wanted to make sure he respected the legacy of her clans dojutsu.

"Never have, never will. I'd trade this eye away to have my friend back in a heartbeat, never trade away those close to you for simple power or jutsu, you'll end up hollow." He told her in rare words of wisdom for the normally lax and lazy jonin.

Fast forward to morning

Satsuki had never really slept well since that night, but some were worse then others, this was one of those bad ones.

It started like every other bad dream, coming home after her day at the academy and seeing the streets lined with body's and blood, running home to see him standing over the corpes of their parents, bloody katana in hand. He pinned her to the wall and whispered in her ear.

"Now, I'll take your new precious people from you." The voice that had once told her he loved her and was proud of the progress she was making said.

She awoke covered in cold sweat while hyperventilating, tears running from her eyes.

She curled up into a ball and tried to steady herself, but it never fully worked, she never felt right after she had the dream again, all the pain brought to the forefront of her mind, crude mental stitches torn open as her trauma poured forth like blood from the wound.

"No no nononononononono. It's fine he's gone he's already taken everything from you, he can't take anything else, your an avenger Satsuki, you going to get strong and kill him and avenge them, mother, father, everyone." Satsuki thought to herself, she had lost count how many times she had to stable her own psyche with those thoughts of reassurance.

Part of her wondered if she should take her PTSD medication but it always felt wrong medicating it, like she was trying to make the problem go away, but it never would unless she completed her goal as an avenger.

Instead she just tried to slow her breathing and calm herself.

When he had managed to calm herself she left the room and went to Naruto's he was definitely still asleep and she wanted to go started on training. She looked in his room and didn't find him.

She decided to at least head downstairs, maybe he was already up.

She walked downstairs just in time to overhear Sakura and Tsunami worrying about the fact that Naruto didn't come back last night and may have stayed out training.

"Relax, Naruto is a survivor, he'll be fine." Kakashi said, flipping through his book.

"Oh Satsuki, you want some breakfast? Maybe we could hang out for a bit?" Sakura asked her fellow kunoichi.

"No thanks, I'm going for a morning walk, clear my head before training." She said dismissively as she left the house.

"You know she really needs to learn to socialize more." Sakura said as she sat down at the table huffing.

"Ah to be young." Kakashi thought as he saw Satsuki leave, he was about eighty percent sure she was going to find Naruto.

He simply smiled beneath his mask as he turned a page.

"Oh Tsunanna-chan you minx." He thought as he read a passage and blushed slightly.

With Satsuki

She walked towards the set of trees she and Naruto had been training, they had picked the two tallest trees in the forest for their final goal.

As she walked she passed a person who she mostly ignored. She saw Naruto freaking out about something, perfectly fine if dirty from sleeping in the forest.

"Hey loser." She said as she looked down at him.

"Oh, hey Suki." He said to her as she glared down at him once he used her nickname.

"Your such a pain. Whatever, we getting to the top of the trees today or do you still need an extra year to catch up to me?" She spoke, poking his competitive side yet again.

"I think you got that the other way around, imma beat you to the top." He spoke as he got to his feet and made a run at his tree.

"Like hell you will!" She yelled as she ran to hers, a smile on her face.

They kept going at it all, day when they wanted to take a break and stop the drive to overcome the other allowed them to soldier on until they made it to the top, they could reliably reach the top of the tallest tree without lengths of time to perfectly focus their chakra they had both done it at the same pace.

"We *pant* we did it." Satsuki said as they clung to the tops of their trees, looking out at the land of waves from on high.

"Yea, you even managed to match my pace." Naruto said to her as he looked out with her.

"You mean my pace!" She said back in irritation.

"Well I-" Naruto got light headed all of a sudden and his grip slipped and he fell from the tree.

"Naruto!" Satsuki yelled and she jumped from the tree and jumped from tree to tree in order to catch him just before he hit the ground by his jacket.

"Urr what the hell, man my head feels heavy." He said, slightly out of it.

"You did the same thing I did pushed yourself too hard, combined with not sleeping properly last night." She said as she slung his arm over her shoulder and they walked back together.

"Think you're right, thanks for grabbing me, Suki." Narito said, still using that nickname.

"Keep using that name and I'll drop you." She said to the exhausted Naruto.

"Yes ma'am." He said back, too tired to banter right now.

They finally made it back to Tazuna's house and they got through the door, scuffed up but ultimately proud of themselves.

"Kakashi-sensei, we made it to the top." Naruto said giving him a thumbs up to his sensei who looked happy to see both of them had achieved what they set out to do.

"Very good you two, now get some sleep, your both on guard duty with me and Sakura tomorrow" Kakashi spoke as they both sat down at the table to get off their feet just for a minute.

"What's the point!" A familiar voice rung out as they turned to see Inari standing there.

"Gato will just kill you its pointless to stand against him." He spoke out, his trauma caused by the human scum causing the small boy to think he was invincible.

"shut it!" Naruto yelled back to him, still exhausted but finding power enough for this.

"what do you know anyway, you live in a nice great ninja village, none of you have suffered, you don't know anything about it!" Inari yelled back, making both Naruto and Satsuki quite unhappy at his words.

"You have no idea, what we have or have not been through, but nothing will change if you just sir here not doing anything but crying, you coward!" Narutp yelled as he left the room to sleep, Satsuki stayed where she was but was shooting Inari a glare now.

"You know it might seem like he's mad at you bit he isn't." Kakashi spoke up, breaking the silence that permeated the room after Naruto left.

"Naruto grew up an orphan, so he knows his fare share about suffering too, but after a while he stopped crying and feeling sorry for himself, I think it's because he grew tried of crying, and decided to do something about his sadness, and strove to become the Hoakge." Kakashi explained as he left too, along with Sakura and finally Satsuki, leaving the boy to think on those words.

Boom, we'll call that chapter done, I know I promised that we'd finish wave in this one but we are already at 6k words and I don't want to make a chapter too long for you so we'll end things in chapter 6. Please read review and comment and I hope you all enjoyed.

(Please give feedback on the dynamic I have written between Naruto and Satsuki for now)