Chapter 6: Taking a chance

No, no. He had to keep it together.

It had taken him (taken them all) far too long to get their bearings backs after being chased by that eyebrowless maniac just to lose their nerve by whatever nonsense Zabuza was spewing.

Okay, this guy is super messed up. Got it.

Naruto pushed back the horror the story the man insisted on recounting and the joy present in his voice provoked in him. Like having a graduation exam that has you killing your friends wasn't bad enough then this guy laughs at just showing up out of nowhere and literally murdering everyone just because. The blond could see why he was called a devil alright. Still, he pushed it all back, he needed to focus.

What they were about to try wasn't exactly complicated, any tiny slip in their timing could be pricy though. They'd done something similar during the bell test, but back then Kagome was able to provide constant cover with her never ending, long range attacks as she danced around the edges of the field.

Something she couldn't do now, at least not with Tazuna having to rely on hiding behind her for safety. A kage bunshin of her own could give back some of her freedom, and give them more breathing time. During their training, however, they'd discovered that while perfectly capable of performing the technique, both his childhood friends ended up feeling way more tired than he did even with just a couple of clones. If they failed (no, no, no, they wouldn't fail. Nope, definitely not...but if they did...) she'd be the last line of defense, meaning she had to be close to their client and hopefully not ready to fall out of exhaustion. Their snipper had lost her mobility and was now mostly chained down to one place. Plus a fair amount of her weapons were out of the question as well. Using smoke bombs and flashbangs would hurt them more than they would Zabuza.

Timing had always been an important part of this but with her hands tied as they were, the gap of time he and Sasuke had to do the whole thing was far smaller than anything they'd tried before. Not that they couldn't do it, of course not, they could totally do it. Not a single doubt about it. He wouldn't have rejected the extra leeway though...

The sound of a body hitting the ground hard forced him out of his thoughts.

In another one of his annoying instant moves, the browless freak had pulled Sasuke away from their group. Blood was dripping from the Uchiha's mouth as he pushed his battered body to stand again.

"Sasuke!"

Kagome-chan's scream echoed through his skull. Panic and worry tainting her usually soothing voice. Anger took over him as his hands moved to form the seals. No time to keep thinking, they had to do this. Now.

"Kage bunshin!"

Over a dozen clones covered the filed, kunais in hand. They had one chance. This was it.

"Here I come!"

With a single mind, they jumped on their opponent. Not a single spot was left without a clone trying to push the man back. And with a single movement, all were sent back, puffs of smoke joining the fog and obscuring everyone's vision.

Unaffected by the sudden lack of visibility a series of long needles soared through the air the moment Zabuza got rid of the Narutos covering him.

"Oh, a senbon user," the freak said, getting rid of the needles with a careless motion. "nothing special though."

Arrogant and distracted, so far so good. This is the only way to defeat him.

"Sasuke!"

The loud scream brought Zabuza's attention back to the two boys. The oversized shuriken flew through the air with no problems, his aim true as the Uchiha took hold of it. Sasuke's grip was confident even while rolling to a better position, the sound of senbons being deflected again reassuring him their timing was still good.

"Evil wind shuriken. Shadow windmill." The bastard's voice was almost smug as he readied the attack. As much as he hated to agree with him, Naruto could feel his confidence growing. They could do this.

"Size won't change a thing," Zabuza laughed "a shuriken won't work against me, no matter how big."

Oh, it wouldn't work now would it? Ignoring Zabuza's taunts Sasuke threw the weapon. The blades easily bypassing the water clone, in a straight line to their real target.

"I see, ambitious, aiming for the real me, but..." the arrogant jerk's hand shot forward, the shuriken stopped in its tracks by the man's grip. "That's not enough!"

A smirk made its way to his face as he heard the undistinguishable sound of senbons flying through the air once again. That was his cue.

Twisting in the air, kunai already in hand Naruto took aim. The man in front of him was still suspended in midair, his only 'free' hand busy deflecting Kagome-chan's attack. Unable to do a single thing about the boy in the place the second shuriken had been.

Now!

His blade flew in a straight line, right at the bastard's head. Even as Zaubza pulled away, blood sprayed from the shallow cut the mist ninja wasn't able to avoid along with a small wave of water.

Rage filled the man's eyes as he moved towards Naruto's falling form, grip tight around their decoy. Clearly determined on chopping him in two with their very own windmill shuriken.

Until Kakashi-sensei stopped him that is.

Naruto never thought he would ever be happy to see their sensei with such a dark expression on his face as the one he had while the blond swam back to the surface. Though had it been directed at anyone else, he suspected, he might've felt different.

"Naruto, great plan" Pride welled up in his chest at Kakashi-sensei's praise. " You guys just keep on growing."

"Hehe, the aim of the shadow clones wasn't to defeat the clone but to hide the fact that I transformed into the shuriken. Sasuke added his own before throwing it to give me some time, and Kagome-chan took care of covering all the switches with her on and off attacks. Of course, I didn't think that could beat him but I thought if only we could break the water prison, our odds would be better."

"Heh, I got distracted and ended up releasing the jutsu,"

"Wrong!"Kakashi-sensei's voice rang through the clearing. "You didn't release it. You were forced to release it."

A warm feeling he would never admit to having felt to anyone, not even for free ramen, ran through him at the way their usually annoying teacher defended their plan. They might still be genin but they weren't useless.

"I'll tell you now, I won't fall for the same trick twice," Kakashi added, fully facing his opponent. "What will you do now?"

Both experienced ninjas jumped away (could you even gain enough force to jump out of water?). Sending droplets of water everywhere when he shook his head, Naruto focused again on their suddenly not-so-useless teacher as the man moved through what had to be a dozen of hand seals in a second. Water began to move around them, and under him, and maybe the middle of the lake the fight was taking place was not the best place for Naruto to be.

Then again, swimming towards the shore may not be the smartest move here considering there were dragons (huge dragons made of water) clashing right in front of him. And maybe he should start swimming backward because the water around him wasn't exactly calm after all that.

The two fighters jumped back into the fray after the water show ended. Their weapons locked in a struggle for dominance, and seriously since when was it normal to do that on top of a lake that was sloshing around more like rapids in a river than anything else?

Experienced jounins really were on a whole other level. The realization hit him as the two began to move at the same time again. Even without adding the sharingan, the techniques they were using could easily knock him out in a single hit...or worse.

"...reading them," Kakashi-sensei said out of nowhere. What on earth was he talking about? For some reason though, Zabuza was beginning to look way more panicked than he had all the fight. "...freaky eye is pissing me off, right?"

"Heh, all you're doing is copying me" Zabuza scoffed clearly trying to regain some of his earlier arrogance and failing terribly. "You can't beat me, you monkey bastard!"

Kakashi-sensei's voice sounded overly loud as it overlapped with Zabuza's. Well, now he understood why the mist nin looked so freaked out.

To be honest it was a little creepy.

"Damn you! I'll make it so you can never open that mouth again!"

The raging man began to move his hands in a quick succession of seals only to freeze. Fear took over his rage and maybe Naruto should really move now because he could feel the water surrounding him begin to move in a completely unnatural way and he was getting a real bad feeling.

And he was right.

He was right, damn it, he was right and the water was way too choppy for him to steadily keep his head above water. His jerk of a teacher would end up pulling him into the huge explosion of water and damn it he had to keep swimming because he was swallowing a bit of water, he could even hear Kagome and Tazuna complaints along with Sasuke's grunt as waves with a height that had no right to exist in a lake hit against the shore. Oh, he was so pranking him once they were back in the village.

He managed to peek out of the water to see Zabuza pinned down to a tree, kunais piercing his limbs, Kakashi-sensei looming in front of the rogue nin.

"...how?" The arrogance in the man's voice was long gone, incredulity and defeat now taking its place. "Can you see the future?"

"Yeah, you're going to die."

This was it, this was truly it. Somehow they did it, they...

The familiar sound of metal cutting through the air reached him and before he could fully understand what was happening two long senbons were sticking out of the missing nin's neck. His body going slack in an instant, only still standing thanks to the kunais pinning him to the tree. The man they'd tried so hard to beat, the one who almost killed them over and over was...dead...just like that. Gone in less than a second.

"Hehe, you were right, he's dead."

From somewhere within the trees came an unknown voice. He looked around, almost stopping his swimming back to shore at the sight of the small figure kneeling on top of a branch. This guy was young, there was no way he was that much older than him and yet...

Kakashi-sensei disappeared for an instant only to reappear crouched in front of Zabuza. Checking for vitals, a part of his brain whispered, but the shock of what he just saw still too strong to completely understand why.

"Thank you very much," the unknown ninja began. "I have been looking for the chance to kill Zabuza for a long time now."

"That mask..." the jounin trailed off "You're a Hidden Mist Hunter nin."

"Impressive, you are indeed correct."

"Hunter nin?"

The question was out before he noticed he'd spoken, water dripping from his heavy clothes as he made his way back to the others. He honestly didn't expect the unknown shinobi to answer.

"Yes, my duty is to hunt down missing nins, to make sure the secrets of our village remain, well, secret. I'm a member of the Hidden Mist's hunter nin team."

The stranger's voice was soft, with no hint of emotion as he causally explained the whole thing, like it was something easy to do, an everyday occurrence. Shock finally gave way to anger. Wide blue eyes going from one person to the other. No, he supposed he was looking between the corpse that had now fallen to the ground to the person casually standing on the tree. He could feel his fists shivering.

"What the hell?!" he shouted, not really thinking what came out of his mouth. "Who are you?!"

"Don't worry Naruto, he's not an enemy."

"I'm not asking about that!" He yelled again, this time turning to face his teacher "That Zabuza…that Zabuza was killed! A guy that strong…a guy that strong was killed by a kid! By a kid not much different from me! We look stupid! How can I understand that!"

Kakashi sighed, had the blond not been so outraged he might've noticed the unusual tiredness in the motion "I know how you feel but frustrating as it is, this is the truth. In this world, there are kids younger than you yet stronger than me."

The albino finished, placing a hand on top of his blond hair, embarrassment surged back with a vengeance. He looked back to the group he'd sprinted past in his haste to vent his anger. They'd made their way to them at some point and both his friends looked tense, he was sure they'd been just as shocked and annoyed by the whole thing but only he had exploded like that.

"Your battle is now over," the hunter nin said, pulling their attention back to him. "And now, I must dispose of this corpse since it seems this is a body with many secrets. Farewell."

"He's gone!"

Just like that, in less time than it took for him to blink both the stranger and Zabuza's corpse were just gone. Almost like they were never there to begin with. Like Naruto and the others didn't just almost died a hundred times over.

"Ahh," Kakashi sighed again "We can talk about this later, right now we have to get Tazuna -san back to his home. Let's go!"

"Ahahahaha, super thanks, you guys." Tazuna laughed, if the sound was a bit forced no one pointed it out. "Come over to my house and relax for a while."

The idea of finally having a roof over his head seemed to cool down his residual anger and embarrassment. Regardless of how things ended they'd still managed to protect their client, they would continue the mission and would actually get some rest and better food. It was still irritating but at least the didn't fail.

He turned to rejoin the group only to see a look of worry in Kagome-chan's face as she sprinted past him at the same time a dull thud reached his ears. Glancing back it was easy to see why she'd looked so concerned.

Kakashi-sensei was lying motionless in the ground.

Everything has a price, if you want to gain or even just protect something, then something would always be taken in return. That was just a reality of their world. One Kakashi thought he'd understood. He'd lived through it over and over, and yet he couldn't stop the annoyance bubbling up inside him as he watched without seeing the hurried movements of his students' legs around him. At least he managed to turn his face to avoid breaking his nose when he fell.

He knew using the sharingan was going to have a steep cost (and that was without including the veritable interrogation that was sure to come his way once Kagome's curiosity won against her concern for his health and stopped keeping Sasuke away) but the copy ninja had hoped to at least make it all the way to the town before collapsing. Maybe he should've closed his eye while inside the water prison, sure he'd still be drained, but getting those extra minutes out of the way could've allowed him to get to a relatively safe place before collapsing. The man would've shaken his head if that was something at all possible. He knew, even if he could go back in time he'd still keep the sharingan active.

It was the least he could do when, in his mind, he was seeing his suddenly rebellious students face against an opponent like Zabuza. Call it masochism, but if these children were going to die trying to free him then he owed it to them to burn their images in his brain.

"...just keep watch, this will only take a minute."

There was an unexpected sharp quality in his usually soft spoken student that broke his train of thought. His dark eye blinked slowly, there was a strong grip on his shoulder and now he could see the misty blue sky on top of him, so they turned him around.

"What will only take a minute?" If him being awake came as a surprise the girl didn't show it.

A warm feeling spread across his body, making it clear that his opinion held absolutely no value in her decision of doing whatever she was doing.

"A diagnostic."

"You've studied medical jutsus?" Kakashi asked, not allowing surprise to lace his words because, once again, that was very much not on her file. And sadly enough that was not as surprising as it should be. It was becoming a bit of a trend actually.

"A little, but I've focused more on regular first aid. I kind of understand the theory but haven't really gotten a hang of healing chakra just yet," she continued smoothly.

The warm sensation he could feel fading begged to differ on this being 'regular first aid' but he kept quiet. Getting rid of Zabuza didn't mean there couldn't be other opponents lying in wait, and assuming there were ears everywhere was pretty much standard procedure for shinobi. Disclosing details on an endangered kekkei genkai in the open would not be wise.

"It's just chakra exhaustion, recovery will take some days but nothing to be worried about," she sighed, relief coloring her words.

"Yes well, the sharingan isn't exactly a light technique to use." Especially since his body wasn't made to be compatible with the price the doujutsu required. But that was, once more, information that wasn't wise to discuss in the open.

"How long until we reach your town?" Sasuke's voice hadn't lost its tension, a bit paranoid but not overly so. The kid had good sense.

"Ah, not that far, actually." Their client spoke for the first time in a while, voice shaky.

"Good, Tazuna-san, I'm sorry to ask this but can you help me with Kakashi-sensei?"

"Ah, Kagome-chan you're carrying him then?" Naruto asked, thankfully he seemed to have calmed down.

"You two are hurt. It may not look like much, but until I can get a good look at both of you. I won't risk worsening an injury." Idly the jounin wondered how man times had those two gone overboard with their training for her to have perfected that tone. "I'm the only one who didn't get hurt at all."

"Which means you're the only one ar full strength, if we get attacked while carrying him we need your hands free. "Unsurprisingly Sasuke shot her down.

"I'll do it! I'm not tired at all. Not the slightest bit!"

Kakashi could picture the blond jumping around the others.

"Oi, oi, weren't you the one who got hit the most shortie?"

Ah, he'd forgotten his students' lovely little habit of talking about him like he couldn't perfectly hear them due to him being less than two meters away from them. And the old man seemed to have picked it up as well.

Finally, two sets of hands raised him from the ground. Judging by the black hair on his left Sasuke had been the unlucky winner of the 'who's the least hurt' contest between the boys and was carrying his earned duty. Idly, Kakashi wondered what would this whole situation make for his reputation if word of this were to get out. Crap, if Guy heard about this he'd have to spend weeks on high vigilance just to avoid Konoha's green beast's overly energized concern.

Gloomy thoughts circled around him as he watched his team rearrange into a new formation that would allow them to retain some semblance of protection with Kagome in the front and the loud prankster in the back. He was stalling, he knew it, he was purposefully distracting himself with thoughts of the people back in the village. Whether he liked it or not this mess of a mission made something painfully clear.

He needed to up his brats' training.

For a while, he'd managed to make himself forget the fact that he didn't have a single normal student and that all of them were, in fact, orphans. Meaning the tailored training for unique bloodlines most jounin wouldn't touch with a ten miles katana was now on him.

With no clan backing any of them up they'd need him to try and pry open the one thing most shinobi clans made sure to keep under lock and key. Either that or let them flounder around on their own and risk them potentially getting stuck without ever mastering those skills.

With the sharingan at least he had some sort of headway, painfully obtained as it was. He could teach the basics without too much trouble. Sure he'd reach a level he could no longer achieve since the special blood that allowed for the full use of the technique didn't flow through his veins, but at the very least he could give some starting pointers to his student.

The Higurashi's kekkei genkai though...the bloodline hadn't been seen for generations and the time her clan was well known was even worse when it came to sharing the details of their secret techniques. He knew their reiki was basically a secondary energy reserve that was highly effective against regular chakra. That it was compatible with other bloodlines and the clan generally preferred focusing in healing and seal making was common knowledge. That said, his experience in the bell test told him they were just that, preferences, not limitations. First, he'd need to see how much she knew, of course.

Then there was Naruto. With the other two, he had some semblance on what he could do (at the very least he could offer some insight with the sharingan and he was 92% sure the girl had clan scrolls he could study to gain some context), the blond prankster, however, was a completely different monster.

Almost literally.

Sasuke may have been less injured but the albino was sure by the time they reached Wave Naruto's recovery would be farther along than the Uchiha. The staggering amount of clones he could manage while still wasting a ridiculous amount of chakra would've left him in a hospital for months if he tried to imitate his student. Sure he could always focus the blond's training in chakra control but the boy would doubtlessly become bored with it a few hours in (if he was lucky). How was he supposed to train the boy when he had no clue what Naruto's limit in chakra output was without the seal becoming strained?

He could already feel a headache starting as he shoved those thoughts away only to try and fail to shake his head to make sure his eye wasn't fooling him. They were entering a decent sized house and the sky behind him seemed to have darkened considerably...damn, he must've been far more tired than he thought if he lost track of time like that.

"Father!"

Panic and a bit of fear were easy to hear in their client's daughter's voice, although thinking on the picture they probably made it was honestly a fair reaction.

"Ah, Tsunami, do we have the guest room ready?"

"Is he..."

"Maah, I'm fine, really. Just a bit tired," Kakashi interjected, best to make it clear he wasn't dying. "I'll be able to move as soon as I rest a little. A week or so should do the trick."

The woman didn't look too convinced but a look from the old builder convinced her to just guide them to their temporary quarters.

The room they entered was bigger than he'd expected, especially considering the trick Tazuna used to lower the mission cost. Then again, he figured before Wave fell to imminent ruin the engineer must've been fairly well off. Repressing a sigh at being placed in a rolled out futon Kakashi tried to focus on what was important, the uselessness he could feel creeping in wouldn't do anything for him. "My students are still young but they should still be able to handle basic protection detail for seven days."

It wasn't much but it was all he could offer to reassure Tazuna. Their client nodded before excusing himself to check on his daughter.

"About that, sensei..." Kagome started, uncertainty lacing her words "It might not necessarily be a week..."

Wait, what?

"Kagome, no."

"Oh, are you talking about that?" Naruto piped in.

He blinked. Kagome wasn't what he'd call a spoiled girl but the Uchiha rarely, if ever, denied her anything, and even then his reluctance to do so was easy to pick up on. This time however Sasuke showed no hesitation in his denial.

"I can do it, you know I can."

"Oh I know you can, but the only thing you'd achieve would be to switch places," Sasuke scoffed, disapproval clear in his stance.

"That was an accident. It was the first time I tried something like that and didn't know when to stop. I can speed things up for a day and a half or so and end up only a bit tired."

"If you collapse..."

"I won't." The determination he could hear in her voice was impressive considering the almost threatening tone the Uchiha had used. "I still have to heal you two."

Before Kakashi could ponder if he should stop a potential fight from brewing Sasuke backed down. "Fine, but there's no point in healing mere bruises."

At that, the girl smiled brightly, like they hadn't been a second away from the first fight between them Kakashi had ever witnessed.

"Not a standard medical jutsu I presume," the copy ninja asked dryly.

"Nope, as I said, I haven't managed to get a hold of healing chakra yet...umm, Sasuke, do you remember where I put that scroll?" the girl questioned, a pensive expression on her face as she checked a couple of texts hidden somewhere between the layers of clothing she wore.

"Here, I won't carry anywhere if you go overboard." For the bored tone he used, his face still showed a good amount of concern. Stil,l he handed the instructions to her without too much resistance.

"I'll be fine. Trust me."

"Just trust her you bastard, Kagome-chan knows what she's doing." The boy was smiling again as he re-entered the conversation. Apparently, this wasn't the first time it happened and Naruto had learned when to bow out and come back.

After a quick review of what had to be a Higurashi family technique scroll, the girl made a fast series of hand seals (at least a third he didn't recognize) before pressing two fingers on his forehead and another two above his heart.

Definitely not the standard healing chakra, he thought while he watched a bright pink glow shine through her fingers completely different from the cool green medics used. Like back in the clearing Kakashi could feel a warmth spreading through him. Unlike earlier, however, the warmth didn't vanish instead it lingered in his chakra coils. He still wasn't in the condition to go jumping and sprinting around but her estimates felt right. This should hasten his recovery by a couple of days.

Idly, he wondered if he needed to have a talk with the kids about the dangers of experimenting with unknown jutsus without any supervision before he pushed the thought away. They seemed to be doing just fine on their own and those two were sensible enough not to try something too dangerous. Why fix what's not broken?

It took a couple of minutes for the glow to fade and Kagome stood up, a conflicted look on her face. Instead of reaching towards the boys like she threatened to do, the young kunoichi merely stared at him for a few seconds before sighing and sitting back down.

"There something else...I'm really not certain. I didn't want to bring it up with no proof but... I have a bad feeling about this." With just that the two boys tensed in an instant, and wasn't that an interesting rection here. "I-I 'm not sure Zabuza is really dead."

The sentence hanged in the room for five full seconds before the jounin kickstarted his brain once again.

"Explain."

It came out more of an order than a request though to be fair, Kakashi was so ready for the day to be over. In fact, he was ready for the whole mission to be over.

"It's just, what that hunter nin used." With a single smooth motion a long needle was being twirled around her fingers. "Senbons can be used to kill effectively of course but…they are first and foremost weapons of precision, if your aim is off by even just a cm the hit will no longer be lethal. While we were coming back this thought came to me and no matter how much I've tried to push it back it doesn't go away.

"The neck is a completely normal target, there's no bone to deviate the hit or block it but…besides the vital point there's another important pressure point in the neck. It's a hard place to target but if you've mastered your aim then it's not much harder than going for the fatal blow."

"What's this point for?" the blond asked.

"Paralysis" the word slipped through his lips leaving a heavy feeling of dread inside him. That alone didn't have to mean anything of course but…hunter nins are supposed to completely erase a body. That was supposed to be their priority. As far as he knew the presence of foreign shinobi should not affect their actions unless they were determined to be hostile. Instead, that guy simply carried the corpse without thinking about it for even a second. "A paralysis strong enough to pass by as temporary death, Zabuza is still alive."

Kagome nodded, a grim frown marring her face. Right, considering senbons were her weapons of choice it didn't surprise him all that much that the girl was able to identify the precise acupuncture points. She'd have to spend hours studying medical texts for her skill with the needles to be useful in battle at all.

"No way but then…"

"An accomplice," Sasuke finished before the silent prankster could even finish his question. Obviously, the Uchiha had wondered about it already and didn't like the conclusions he reached. Not that Kakashi himself was all that happy either.

"Right," Kakashi said, a bit surprised at the lack of doubt in the two boys. Had he been the one to breach the issue Naruto surely would've loudly vocalized his questions, now though they both accepted it like it was a universal truth. It couldn't have been just because it was Kagome who said it, he'd just witnessed Sasuke go against her and this was not the kind of topic the Uchiha would play along just to keep her happy. Her safety was, unsurprisingly, his first priority. His mind went back to the moment Zabuza made his presence known. It had been just a second before he made it in between their formation and without his intervention, Tazuna would've been killed for sure but the girl had managed to get a word out.

Behind.

She'd felt him.

Then there was the bell test. At first, he'd thought the three-way attack had been something they'd practice sometime before that. It was the only sane explanation considering how close some of the needles came to both the real Sasuke and the real Naruto but…there had been no pattern, none at all even if some of those shots would've required her to make her throw aiming at places her friends were still standing at. Again he pushed those thoughts back. This had to be connected to her kekai genkai and the boys were clearly used to her using it that way. He could worry about that later.

"We will begin preparations before it's too late. That's a shinobi rule. Plus whether Zabuza is alive or not, Gatou might hire an even stronger shinobi."

I may have cut the recovery process but you still can't move sensei" Kagome said dryly.

"Which is why your training is going to be upped a level," Kakashi said, injecting more cheer to his voice. Ironically despite the increased danger, Naruto seemed to be one second away from jumping with glee. "But obviously this is just training until I get better you won't be able to defeat him without me."

"Wait, wait, wait, if that guy's alive what happens if he comes before you can walk?"

"Normally when someone gets hit in a pressure point it takes some time to regain full control of whatever part of the body was paralyzed. With temporary death it will take was longer," Kagome answered in his place an oddly amused smile in her lips.

"Alright! Special training here we go!"

Somehow Kakashi managed to repress a snort, it seemed like adding the word special made the blond forget just how cheery all three of them tended to be after their regular training.

Well, Naruto would get a good remainder…as soon as he figured out how to train them that is.

"Trouble sleeping?"

Tired azure orbs locked on equally exhausted onyx. There was doubt and restlessness hidden beneath the startled look in her eyes. Sasuke sighed, he shouldn't have been surprised she chose to get some fresh air. For all the easiness their client opened his home with, there was something about staying in such an unfamiliar place when they were all well aware they were being hunted. Sure someone of Zabuza's caliber was probably expensive but from his understandings, the man should still be more than capable of hiring someone else should he tire of waiting for the mist-nin to heal. After all, the man was using missing-nin, nothing really stopped him from making multiple contracts.

And the atmosphere from dinner had been more than enough to remind them all that just making it to the town was, in fact, the first part of this whole thing. There was still plenty of time for more things to go wrong.

"Did I wake you?" She asked because it was just so much like her to worry about him.

"Not really"

Silence settled between the two as he sat beside her, dark eyes gazing at the starts he could see from their spot on the roof. An undercurrent of uneasiness tainting their usually companionable silence.

"You're still determined to finish this mission aren't you?"

"You're not?"

He frowned, his first reaction after learning of their client's deceit had been to go ahead and abandon the mission. Yes, he tired from the D-rank missions and he wanted to do something that would finally challenge his abilities. But there was a big difference between C and B-ranks and truth to be told the last thing he wanted was place the girl in danger. Something their earlier encounter proved was highly likely.

Naruto's passionate speech of honor and whatnot hadn't quite convinced him to stick with the lying old man, but it was enough for Kagome to change her mind. Even after the old man had been jumpy for days around her after the first attack (and despite the fact that even after he stopped visibly wincing it was easy to see the builder still watched her warily) the girl was not one to just ignore someone in need if she thought she could be of any help. In the end, he relented, they could gain some decent experience of this, maybe finally see what their teacher could do while keeping the girl happy. Of course, the thought of someone of Zabuza's caliber would be hunting them. Still, running away from their problems wouldn't ever solve them.

This could also give them an idea of just how far they were from him.

"It's not like we can get away if we wanted to. Getting back without our sorry excuse of a teacher probably merits some sort of punishment…plus we'd have to drag the moron back as well." Because while he could potentially convince Kagome to leave there was no way he could make the blond listen to his sense of self-preservation.

"Oh, we'd probably go deaf like that," Kagome laughed, it was a bit strained but he'd take it. "We should probably go back inside, rest a little. Tomorrow's 'special training' is bound to leave us exhausted."

His mood soured more, if the man's regular training left them ready to pass out without them even using a drop of chakra Sasuke wasn't sure he wanted to know what an intensive one would be like. Not that they had much of a choice really. At least not unless they wanted to prove the annoying brat of the house right when the kid proclaimed their future deaths during the oh so warm family dinner.