It had been three days since team seven's encounter with Zabuza and the retrieval had already departed with the bandits, genin, and three chunin and informed Sakura and Kakashi that everyone involved would receive a B-rank mission's pay for them. In addition to the bandits and missing-nin, they were informed that team seven and Lu have the obligation to withdraw from the mission, but regardless of their choice, another genin team will arrive in the next two days.

"What do you think?" Kakashi wondered to his only conscious student.

"I…I don't know. I know they'd never forgive me for throwing in the towel and we know they're only unconscious, but-"

"I understand," Kakashi eye-smiled at the pink-haired kuniochi, patting her shoulder. "I was in a similar, maybe worse situation when I was your age," the man solemnly shared to his student.

He didn't elaborate on the details, but Sakura could see the pain in the man's eyes, so she chose not to pry. Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, had entered the room to check on the boys and saw the melochonic look on Sakura's face.

"If there's anything I can do…" she softly called.

"It's fine, Mrs. Tsunami," Sakura kindly denied. She didn't want to depend on the woman's help, it'd make her look and feel a bit weak.

Moments later, Naruto,Lu, and Sasuke stirred awake and stared at each other.

"So, did we all get knocked out by Zabuza or…?" Sasuke wondered aloud.

"That's an airhead's question, Sasuke," Lu drawled.

Sakura stared at her teammates and she felt a huge lump in her throat. She couldn't speak. Moments prior she was worried they'd be out of commission and the fear that her friends wouldn't recover had suffocated her. Now, she was so overwhelmed with relief, she didn't notice the tear that fell down her cheek.

"Shaddup, I am in no way as airheaded as the prankster," Sasuke, referring to a now silent Naruto, retorted.

"Sakura," Naruto began. "I'm sorry we worried you. We'll be fine and more careful now, I promise," the kyuubi's jailer assured, having been the first to recognize how his friend was feeling and the last of the three boys to speak.

Sakura's tears began falling at a far more alarming rate than what she'd initially felt, and by this point she was full-out bawling and couldn't say anything and merely nodded as she sobbed.

Lu and Sasuke were shocked at Naruto's sudden display of emotional intelligence, but more so, felt guilty for making Sakura cry. While aware they didn't directly harm her, they understood that their lives being in danger was a catalyst for the scene in front of them.

"I'm sorry, too," Sasuke began, "...we weren't as careful as we should've been and while Zabuza was a formidable jonin, it doesn't excuse how careless we were by no means," his lamented.

"It's not your fault, Sakura," Lu assured. He could sense that the kunoichi suspected her own weakness is what could've led to their injuries and he wanted to clarify that her belief was faulty. "We weren't strong enough, and next time, we won't just be strong enough, but we'll all be more than prepared to face a threat of Zabuza's magnitude in the future. To paraphrase the Uzumaki , we will. Believe it," he encouraged.

Naruto cocked an eyebrow at Lu, but understanding the nature of the situation, ignored the blatant plagiarism on his friend's behalf. By this point, Sakura's tears were drying up and she fully understood her friends. The lump that was growing in her throat was no longer present, and she felt a wave of resolve and a fiery motivation to become stronger. Moments later, Kakashi entered the room.

"You four done chatting? If so… we have company, get your gear and step outside," he informed the genin before shunshinning out of the room, leaving a swirl of leaves.

"He's always trying to act all cool and flashy," Naruto complained, sighing at the mess Kakashi left in the middle of the room.

"As if you aren't," Sakura giggled, if only slightly, still thinking of ways to become stronger.

After the genin collected their items, they stepped outside and were surprised to see a few of their classmates.

"Is there any reason the hokage's son and his," Lu began complaining, but a glare from Kurenai silenced the Awakatsu boy quickly. "...genin along with Kurenai sensei's team are here?"

Lu inquired, skeptical of the unusual amount of reinforcements.

"Surely they can't all be here as reinforcements, we only barely had a draw with Zabuza,"Sasuke added.

"You're right. We did barely have a draw with Zabuza," Kakashi conceded,"But that was only because you: one, caught the man off-gaurd, two, had a sufficient strategy. There's also the risk of too many genin being liabilities that Zabuza can kill of, disrupting our morale and increasing his chance of outmanuvering us. So no, not all of us will stay, but know this: you're also at risk for returning to the leaf before this mission ends, Uchiha," Kakashi chided.

"So, if that's the case, why is there an extra team?" Naruto wondered outloud, "If I had to guess…." as if the boy had a moment of insight, he jumped up into the air, "YOU INTEND TO TRAIN US IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MISSION, DON'T YOU KAKASHI SENSEI?!" Naruto exploded in excitement.

To the man's chagrin, Naruto was correct.

"Well if you understand that, we can skip the banter and we can begin assigning groups and we can begin training," Asuma announced, taking one hand out of his pocket and waved the genin off.

Within moments the genin had been put into sparring matches that seemed a bit unfair for team seven's genin. Naruto was facing Choji and Shino, Lu was put against Ino and Kiba, Sasuke was put against Hinata and Shikamaru, and Sakura requested to learn from Kurenai, who surprisingly obliged the girl's request.

"The rules are as follows: Those working against a team seven member are allowed to use their entire arsenal, however members of team seven may only use two close ranged jutsu and taijutsu, if you're a blade user, kenjutsu is allowed aswell. Furthermore, the spars do not end until I, Kakashi, or Kurenai says so. We will all be watching carefully, so have fun, and to my genin, if you don't clobber Kakashi's students, you're in for hell when we return to the leaf village," Asuma commanded the genin. "With that, you may begin," he growled, before sitting by a tree to spectate the fight with Lu, Ino, and Kiba.

"I hate that I have to fight with this guy," Ino rolled her eyes.

Kiba raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. His temper had decreased, seeing as he had to work with Shino and his articulate insults, unless someone was aiming for blood, Kiba didn't really mind off-handed comments.

"And I bet you'd rather fight your dear Sasuke instead too, huh?" Lu taunted, before condensing chakra in his feet, unevenly, to burst at Ino and Kiba, aiming for the former student.

"Son of a-" Ino shouted, before springing into the air and flipping behind the blur that was Lu's form.

She formed the handseals boar and ox, finishing with a casting seal to cast the earth style: ruprturing earth palm, which caused a decent area of the ground in front of her to deform and rise a few deformed chunks of earth to disrupt Lu's footing. Kiba saw this as an opportunity to cast the four legs technique, blitz through the deformed earth like a dog would, and turned into a blur in to deliver the passing fang jutsu, which turned the Inuzuka into a spiraling blur, aimed directly at Lu. Lu began to treewalk and flipped off of a branch and used his first jutsu, the bubble style enhanced fist, coating his fist in a thin outline of bubbles that he used to tag Kiba and sap some of his chakra.

"What are you doing, idiot?" Ino criticized before throwing a wired kunai at Lu and wrapping it around the boy's leg.

Lu simply jumped down from the tree, using the force of his fall to disrupt Ino's grip, and followed that action by tagging Ino 16 times, in semi-vital spots, momentarily incompacitating her.

"Akamaru, I want you to try to communicate with her and keep your distance from Lu," Kiba whispered. Akamaru barked in agreement, transforming into a feral form of Kiba, and blitzed over to Ino to try to lead her to Kiba.

"Good, you're thinking, but that won't be enough," Lu whispered from behind Kiba, who swiveled around to face the boy, sweeping at his feet to either stagger or gain distance from Lu.

"Ino, I want to use your clan's technique to catch Lu, I'll buy you time to land it and with Akamaru, I'll be able to overwhelm or distract him," Kiba called out. At this point it was useless trying to secretly form a plan against an opponent as fast as Lu.

Kiba flipped four times away from Lu to fuse with Akamaru with the Inuzuka Style: Man Beast Transformation Combo: Two-Headed Wolf Jutsu, now distracting Lu with his increased speed and size. Lu increased the amount of chakra he used in the Bubble Style: Enhanced Fist Jutsu and didn't notice the bubbles were now coating Lu completely, save for his head. He bursted at Kiba by using compressed chakra at his feet, but instead of pure chakra, a stream of bubbles propelled the boy at the fusion of ninken and shinobi, allowing him to build momentum for a spinning crescent kick from the air, disrupting the transformation and knocking Akamaru and Kiba away from him. He felt a surge of chakra enter his coils and following his action, the chakra he was using had solidified around him, leaving a few bubble like clouds to surround him as his form changed once more. Lu paused for a second and noticed the changes that had just occurred.

"Why the hell is there a could beneath my feet?" Lu wondered to noone in particular.

He sat down for a second and recalled that he'd been covered in some sort of cocoon when he fell unconscious against Zabuza, but not only that, the bubble clouds around him were quite misty and he felt as if he could control them completely by moving his limbs. He stood up and gathered chakra at his feet again, but this time, he intended to use the Bubble Style: Creation technique to mold a cloud he could stand on beneath himself. After a few tries, he got it right at began to hover a few feet in the air. Lu also noticed that everytime he made a movement, he could feel his chakra moving around him and it could only extend two feet around him and above him. Lu followed this by practicing a few of the katas that Hinata taught him a few weeks prior and noticed the bubble clouds also swivled and moved exactly as he'd done.

"I'd like to concede in this sparring match, Asuma sensei," Lu bowed, descending and jumping off of his cloud.

"Sure, why not, you seem to have found something more interesting anywho," the man sighed. He looked at Kakashi and the man merely shrugged.

"I had a hunch that they three boys had some type of drastic change or ability unlocked, I never guessed that Lu's would be so… unique," Kakashi shared.

Naruto fely Lu's chakra flare and momentarily was distracted from his restricted fight against Shino and Choji, allowing for Choji to land an Expansion Jutsu: Super Slap, sending Naruto rocketing through the grass, dragging dirt as he spiraled.

"That hurt," Naruto mumbled, before using the rubble as a distraction for him to use the headhunter jutsu, limiting himself to one more jutsu. As he swivelled in the dirt, the dirt began to tremor and the hole he'd dug into was being filled with kikaichu, forcing the Uzumaki to emerge from the dirt and confront Choji head on. Shino was now circling Naruto and Naruto was dodging Choji's Human Juggernaut Jutsu, which expanded Choji into a large ball that rolled through the clearing as if he were a boulder. Naruto noticed that Shino's kikaichu were actually ticking him and that his speed had decreased significantly since he'd been exhausting himself dodging Choji and he sprang into a tree and molded chakra in his chest to use a Water Style: Wild Water Wave Jutsu, but he settled on placing seals everywhere he went, or at least across the area where he fought both Choji and Shino. The plan was to place a few seals with lightning nature chakra all over, in order to disrupt both Choji and Shino's kikaichu. Naruto used the monkey seal when infusing his chakra into the seals to select the nature of them and began placing them everywhere. He even attached a few to his supposed explosive kunai and threw them around. They did minimal damage but they did slow Choji down and disarm Shino's kikaichu. This limited their match to an exhausted taijutsu two on one situation. Choji planted his feet after Shino cornered Naruto into a standard Taijutsu battle and thrusted his palms at Naruto, disrupting his balance. Naruto's nose began to bleed and his head vision got hazy and Shino took that as an opportunity to sweep the boy and plant an elbow in his stomach as Choji used chakra to leap above Naruto and dived onto Naruto, Landing a palm on his stomach, causing the boy to spit and this act caused Asuma to lean forward and raise an eyebrow in concern.

"Are you sure your genin are all equipped to handle these situations?" Asuma skeptically demanded.

Kakashi shrugged and pointed at Naruto, who now recovered and was grabbing Choji's arm and using the kinetic force of him springing from the ground and turning to slam Choji onto the grass, releasing his hand after leaping off of the Akimichi hier's stomach and slamming a knee into Shino's head from above, dazing the bug user.

"Naruto's a bit different than usual," Choji pointed out to Shino.

"And how is that," Shino queried, adjutsting his hood and glasses accordingly.

"He's silent. He hasn't said anything. That's unusual for him, I'd know that for sure, he talks nearly as much as his chakra density eclipses ours," Choji responded, before launching a barrage of explosive kunai at Naruto.

"That… is true, however, he could just be different when fighting," Shino reasoned.

Choji rolled his eyes and ran behind Naruto as Shino leaped from behind Choji to land an axe kick on the blonde, which he blocked with one hand and spun downward to slam Shino into the ground.

At that moment, Shino noticed Naruto's eyes, nails, and face were a bit different than usual, which confused him but Shino released kikaichu from his sleeve to distract Naruto.

"His face. It's… animialistic. As if he were using a technique from Kiba's clan," Shino informed Choji. At this moment, Choji paused and also felt that Naruto was exhuding killer a very thin layer of killing intent at both Shino and Choji.

"You feel it don't you? I don't like to say this, but I'll keep it simple, I'm the jinjuriki of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. What does this mean you ask? It means it was sealed into me the very moment I was born. And right now, the bastard gave me the smallest sample of his chakra to help me recover from the ass-beating you two were dishing out at me," Naruto explained, spitting into the grass and slowly returning to normal.

"That's a fucking cheat, he literally has an external supply of chakra," Choji, seemingly at Asuma, complained loudly.

"Yes, it is quite daunting, but I doubt that he has control of it to an extent where he'd use it constantly," Shino interjected.

"Bingo," Naruto applauded, before dashing at Shino, thrusting a leopard punch at Shino's chest, breaking his guard, followed by a roundhouse kick which sent Shino barreling. Choji charged at Naruto and grabbed one of his arms and tucked it over his shoulder, slamming the boy, then dropped his elbow onto his stomach, to which Naruto grabbed Choji by curling and turned him onto his back. Naruto felt a strange sensation in his neck and suddenly, chains of chakra sprouted out and Shino, who was about to sneak attack Naruto , was slapped away by 9 chakra chains that erupted from his waist. Naruto leaned forward, crossing his hands as he stood, opening his legs to build pressure in his legs and bursted at Choji with a palm thrust, sending the boy into a tree. He followed this act by slamming five tails onto the ground and using the other four in tandem with his hands to grapple Shino, launching him into the grass a final time.

"THAT'S IT. YOU'RE FREE TO TAKE A BREAK," Kurenai, astounded at what she was seeing, announced to Shino, Choji, and Naruto.

Naruto, for his part, was exhausted and fell down to one knee and the amount of chakra chains he had reduced to three.

Sasuke was beginning to be frustrated with his partners. Shikamaru had nearly caught him three times with his Shadow Possesion Jutsu and Hinata was an exceptional and graceful taijutsu combatant. Being limited to merely his Flame Fist Jutsu and the Phoenix Flower Jutsu, he had no real option to completely disarm them. If he wanted to take out Shikamaru using long range, he could use the latter jutsu, however Hinata would intercept it with a dome or a palm thrust that sent waves of air at the jutsu, completely snuffing out the flame. Using the Flame Fist Jutsu only stopped the hand-to-hand contact of himself and the Hyuga hier from cutting off his chakra coils throughout his fingers, and by extension wrist and palm. Not to mention it exhausted his chakra reserves and he was running out of strategies to interrupt Shikamaru, which only frustrated him more. Sasuke sucked his teeth and swept at Hinata's feet, however she raised one foot and planted it in between his legs, stopping the sweeping motion and allowing herself to get closer to the Uchiha. When she got closer, almost as if she were a snake, she gracefully slitchered past his strikes and landed four strikes with her juuken, intentionally avoiding two vital tenketsu and striking two unimportant one's, disrupting his chakra network. Sasuke ducked below her next strike and landed a spinning hook kick, which the girl simply parried. Her silence as she reingaged with the Uchiha was startling, despite that, he continued to press on. He noticed he was getting slower and out of the corner of his eye, saw a shadow stretch further than it usually should've, which indicated to him that Shikamaru was about to attack. He jumped back away from the shadow, but noticed he couldn't move and Shikamaru pointed at the sky. Sasuke had miscalculated. The sun had shifted in that moment and he used a distraction to make it seem like he was going to restrict Sasuke, but Shikamaru opted to lean forward and used more chakra than usual, freezing Sasuke. Hinata took advantage of the situation and landed a knee in Sasuke's gut, breaking the possession and sending him flying back. As he was staggered, she swiftly closed eight tenketsu, then sixteen, then thirty two. She left it at that and assumed Sasuke was done in, but what she didn't expect was for his chakra to flare up. She focused on his eyes and noticued they had a red hue, not only that, but his pupils had a tomoe that had just spun to a stop. Sasuke felt pain all over himself as a few of his tenketsu had been opened and his eyes felt clearer than usual. It felt like when he'd been knocked unconscious against Zabuza and he'd realized what just happened to him. He bowed to Hinata and thanked her momentarily before disapeering in a burst of leaves, coating his fists in fire nature chakra strikes as he thrusted a palm heel strike at Hinata's chest, sending her backwards as he blitzed toward Shikamaru and swept the boy, landing a swift takedown to disarm him momentarily and take him out of commission. Sasuke followed this action by engaging with Hinata in a trade of blows and he noticed her movements were not only slower, but he could somewhat mimic them and intercept her as she moved. As she tried to land a two finger thrust on one of his tenketsu, he watched in slow motion and parried her, opening her guard, and followed that act by kicking her in her ribs, which she guarded with both hands, leaving the other side open as he leaped above her and landed a divekick on her back, planting her in the ground, as he threw wired shuriken at her, wrapping the girl and allowing him to pull her up, landing one final elbow thrust in her stomach,breaking the wire and staggering her. Hinata spit out a small amount of blood and they began trading blows ending in an exhausted draw from both of them at the expense of Kakashi interjecting and stopping the match.

"You've done well, the both of you, but I suppose this fight wouldn't end if you two kept at it this way, you're all dismissed, you may rest," He cheekily smiled through his mask, allowing the dojutsu clan hiers to bow to eachother and take a break.

When Sakura asked Kurenai to train, Kurenai gave her a two scrolls and demonstrated the jutsu. These jutsu were the Kurama clan's String Bean Binding Illusion Jutsu and the Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding Technique. This demonstration was also followed by Kurenai telling Sakura that when she learned the jutsu, she could use them on the jonin so that she could show her an escape genjutsu, rather than disrupting the genjutsu itself. Fast forward fourty-five minutes, and Sakura not only learned the jutsu, but also learned the Flower Petal Escape technique, so that she would be able to hard counter other genjutsu users. The jutsu from the Kurama clan also made genjutsu feel real, so it was likely that opponents that were unfamiliar wouldn't be able to recognize it was a genjutsu or counter her.

"I don't really have much to teach you, but I'd say you're not as strong as you'd like to be," the woman began, "...but I do believe I can still offer conditioning for you and I could also have you train with Asuma or Hinata for different reasons," Kurenai offered.

Sakura sat for a minute and thought about what the woman was suggesting, and had her answer: "I think I would like your conditioning, to train in taijutsu with Hinata, and, if possible train with other instructors, but maybe not Sarutobi sensei," Sakura responded honestly.

Kurenai considered the genin's response and asked her another question, if she would like to return to Konoha to continue training as the rest of team seven completed the mission with Asuma's team. To her surprise, Sakura declined and noted that her team would be more useful, as it's a sensory unit, and that Lu knows a few katas of the Hyuga clan thanks to Hinata training with him, something she learning when training with him to learn the jutsu that Kakashi gave team seven. Kurenai considered this and nodded, before dismissing Sakura right around the time that Sasuke, Naruto, and Lu had finished, allowing all of the genin and jonin to talk together or have a break.

"I unlocked my clan's kekkei genkai," Lu sighed as he sat next to Sasuke, who was next to Naruto and Hinata.

"Whaddya mean "unlocked"? I thought you already had access to the jutsu?" Naruto glanced over at Lu, curious about what he'd just said.

"I mean that my jutsu was incomplete. The bubble style seems to be an extension of the actual jutsu, which creates clouds," Lu shrugged.

"Clouds?" Hinata leaned forward.

At this point Sakura plopped down by Lu and the five genin shifted to make a circle as they sat and conversed.

"I mean… you know what, let me show you," Lu sighed,before molding chakra in his hand, creating what seemed to be a cloud. "I took a break after having an awakening and realized that I may have three chakra natures, if not that, four," he pinched his nosebridge, sensing he made a mistake because two more people began surrounding the five genin.

"Well, spit it out already," Shikamaru dryly demanded.

"I'm curious, too," Kakashi eye-smiled.

"If you'd let me speak," Lu grumbled, "Anyway, I think my supposed kekkei genkai has something to do with weather, more specifically, clouds. Clouds are able to create precipitation, such as rain, hail, and snow, which makes me suspect I have the wind nature,"he explained." And the fourth nature is purely out of speculation of unnatural things that can be made from clouds. The suspected fourth nature is the fire nature, simply because clouds are made from the evaporation of water, via heat,which then crystalizes and forms into a cloud,"he added, pausing out of a vague sense that someone would ask a question.

"So… why the hell can you make bubbles that take people's chakra?" Sakura challenged. Everyone else was more interested in what the boy had to say and shared the question she happened to ask.

"I'm pretty sure the bubbles are just water wrapped and contained via an electric field, the sapping comes from my chakra coming in contact with someone's chakra coils, the electricity along with conductive water would course my chakra into someone, but with no way to exit, rather than explosion, it withdraws the contacted person's chakra and returns to me with the added chakra," Lu continued, "I'd like to experiment and see if I could make any supplementary jutsu, but as of now, not only can I not control both bubbles and clouds, the clouds don't share that chakra draining property, and likely amplify the effect of my bubbles. In theory, if I could make the bubbles with the clouds, I'd use less chakra and increase the potency if it's directly from the source," he knew they weren't all satisfied, but he still had no other answer.

"WAIT!" Naruto interjected. "THEN HOW CAN YOU ABSORB AND NULLIFY JUTSU?! He screamed,"If your jutsu can return chakra because it takes it from another person, then how do you use it against other jutsu?" Naruto clarified.

"Dobe," Sasuke sighed, "If he returns chakra to himself by withdrawing the jutsu, would it not also make sense that he can absorb other chakra by storing it in the bubble and returning it to himself?" Sasuke pointed out.

"That's actually exactly what I do," Lu added.

Naruto deflated for a moment but jumped in excitement once he remembered what he unlocked.

"I also unlocked my clan's technique, but I can't summon the chains at will, they seem to only appear with intense emotion, hence that damned fox's chakra," the blonde complained.

"Idiot," Sakura facepalmed.

"Dumbass," Lu rolled his eyes.

"Once a dobe, always a dobe," Sasuke drawled.

"F-f-fox?!" Hinata trembled.

"Oh. Yeah. I did forget to tell everyone, save for about half of us here. What I'm about to say is an S-Rank secret and could get you executed if you share this information, but thirteen years ago on my birthday, the Kyuubi wasn't killed, he was sealed into a baby, which happened to be me," Naruto, with very little hesitation, shared.

Each word made the Hyuga redden with surprise, and after Naruto finished explaining, Hinata was at her limit.

"Oh dear," Kakashi, with sarcastic surprise, said as Hinata fainted on the spot.

"...Did I say something wrong?" Naruto asked with a blank expression on his face.

"It's so fitting that you have the wind nature, because you truly are an airhead," Sakura, who was now adjusting Hinata's position, remarked.

"Aaaaaanyways, I had nine chakra chains that were almost like chains as a result of the Kyuubi's chakra, but this time I swear I heard a deep nagging voice as I used its chakra," Naruto resumed, "The chains also seemed to be very sturdy and they had pointed, kunai like edges, but I swear they dulled when the Kyuubi's chakra faded, after I calmed down. I also lost chains: I had nine, that reduced to four, but as of now I have a vague sense of how they cna be summoned," the blonde concluded.

"I guess it's my turn," Sasuke, who was waiting for Naruto to finish, began. He flashed his sharingan and waited for everyone to get a good look at him. "For some reason my eyes give me a slight speed boost and make me a bit stronger, not sure if that's because of the precognition I have, the fact that my eyes were dormant, or if they genuinely unrestrict me in some way," he added, shrugging.

"We're in one hell of a training session when we return to the leaf," Sakura, who assumed she was next, began, "I got genjutsu training from Kurenai sensei. While pretty standard, the techniques she taught me could actually make the victim sense and perceive the genjutsu beyond an optical illusion. It requires better chakra control, as I'm not just inputting my chakra into another person's network, but directly to their brain, messing with their sensations," she explained, watching as Hinata slowly awoke, rubbing her eyes and quickly sitting up after realizing what she'd done. "I also intend to learn some other stuff," Sakura, with intentional vague phrasing added, "...but for now, I know three jutsu and a genjutsu escape jutsu that flips the disadvantage onto my opponent," she finished, looking into the sky and noticing it was very dark.

"We should probably wrap this up," Shikamaru input, pointing up, before waving everyone present off and walking into the woods, presumably to camp with Asuma and the rest of team ten.

"I guess I should go too," Hinata added, before shunshining to team eight's camping grounds.

"Well now what?" Naruto asked.

"We sleep," Kakashi pointedly responded.

"I have no argument against that," Sakura agreed.

"Same here," Lu added.

"I'm pretty drained too, but now that we're not unconscious are we still welcome with Tazuna's family?"Sasuke quizzed.

"Surely being around the client during the mission is the only thing we're supposed to do," Kakahsi cheekily responded,"...so yes, we're more than welcome, and you'd better hurry because Tsunami mentioned she'd be cooking dinner tonight, to celebrate you three's recovery," the man smiled, shunshinning in rapid succession and leaving his genin to watch.

"Well, I'm not starving to death because you three wanna be slowpokes," Naruto teased, following his sensei.

"Ah what the hell," Sasuke sighed, shunshinning to catch up to his teammate and sensei.

"You wanna do what they're doing or do you wanna walk?" Lu offered.

"You know just as well as I do that Kakashi's going in the wrong direction," Sakura pointed out, snickering.

The two genin walked back to Tsunami's home and waited for about thirty minutes until they heard a loud scream from who they assumed was Naruto.

"GOOOOOOOOOODDAMN YOU, KAKASHI HATAKE!" Naruto bellowed as he approached the door to Tsunami's house.

"Oh, glad to see you're joining us," an already sat Kakashi eye-smiled.

"You son of a-"

"That's enough. It's our fault for assuming he was going in the right direction," Sasuke, who was visibly angry, interrupted. Seemingly his anger could be blatantly redirected at his sensei, who was now eating a bowl of rice and yakitori.

"I don't get it," a small voice murmured.

"What was that? Naruto, who was still panting from all of the chakra loss and physical exhaustion, asked to noone in particular.

"I don't get it," the small voice, which could be identified as Tsunami's son, repeated. "I don't see why you guys are even trying. Gato's gonna kill you. You should leave while you still can," the boy continued.

"Inari…" Tsunami, with worry, began.

"You're all weaklings who couldn't even handle Zabuza, how do you expect to stop Gato, because that's what you'll really have to do, if you actually plan on defending gramps," Inari chastised.

"We already know that," Lu, who was finishing the broth from his miso soup, interjected.

"Not only do we know that, but we're prepared for it. And Gato's merely a rich piece of greedy shit who has the money to pay for mercenaries such as Zabuza to do his dirty work. The man isn't very strong at all, if you wanted to do it, you could," Sasuke added.

"It really seems like you're the weak one if you think about it. You're scared of a man who cant even see past his stomach," Naruto criticized.

"Yeah, and what do YOU know? It's not like you lost your dad to him, or watched as your village got pillaged by a bunch of thugs, you're all just senseless, money hungry shinobi. You're no better than Gato's henchmen," Inari spat.

"Inari, that's enough," Tsunami sternly reprimanded.

"I'm only telling the truth, mom," Inari replied with haste.

"I'd like to excuse myself from dinner," Lu, Sasuke, and Naruto said in unison, before ascending the stairs and going to their presumed rooms.

'Now he's done it,' Kakashi, who was restraining himself, thought in astonishment.

"I'm sorry for my grandson's behavior, he's just-"

"It's fine, Mr. Tazuna, he's right. But those boys have been through a lot on their own and honestly, they probably needed that reality check," Kakshi raised his hand.

"They're not the type to hold grudges against a little kid," Sakura assured.

"They might only just be more motivated to train and overcome Gato simply to prove him wrong," Kakashi added. "If anything, he only confirmed your family's safety. I think we should all go to sleep for now and we can talk about this when we wake up and they've cooled off," Kakashi suggested, before finishing his meal and going up to sleep.