Kakashi noticed the puddle immediately.

It was hard not to. The thing was laying directly in their path, so close they would almost step on it in passing. From the sudden, if muffled, intake of breath, he guessed that Sakura had noticed it as well. Nice to know she's not so engrossed with the conversation that she lost her senses. Kakashi gave a slight cough, just a quick clearing of the throat, and was proud that none of the others showed any reaction other than a slight hitch in their breath.

Still, he had to admit it took a big brass pair to be so blatant about such a trap. Any fresh genin squad and even a few higher ranked shinobi Kakashi could think of might not have noticed, while someone with more experience might notice and write off the hidden ninja as incompetent. It was an excellent tactic, designed to either ambush the weak, or make the strong underestimate their foes until it was too late.

If anyone appreciated the dangers of underestimating others, it was Kakashi.

When two shinobi clad in rebreathers and wearing a pair of matched iron gauntlets flowed up out of the false puddle, Kakashi didn't even bother to turn towards them. He gave a second cough, quietly, and got an answering grunt from Sasuke, a grumble from Naruto, and a stirring rendition of a popular song in whistle form from Sakura.

Right, he thought as he heard the metallic clink that signified the attack, let's see how they do.

A simple, classic kawarimi was enough to escape the trap, with their foes none the wiser as they mercilessly destroyed the log he swapped himself for. Oh, good, chumps, he thought as he watched them from the forest. Kakashi could not even remember the last time the body replacement technique went unnoticed by his opponents, which bode poorly for them.

"One down," the two ninja proclaimed as they destroyed the jonin, his shredded body tumbling to the ground behind them. They smirked to themselves under their rebreathers and leaped at the shortest one, chains cutting the air. He was only just beginning to turn towards them as they reached out to rend his body.

"Two," they said in unison.

"Sure," the little orange-covered kid said quietly, a small smile on his face.

There was a flash of pink and a frightful shout from one side of the Demon Brothers as Sakura took to the fight. She launched herself at Gozu, arms crossed. He raised his unchained arm in defense, detaching the chain between himself and his kin as he did so, only to have her collide with him, not merely with her fist, but with her entire body weight. He stumbled back a couple steps, his momentum only checked by his brother, who reached out with his unbladed hand to catch his sibling.

A second flash, this one blue, passed in front of the two ninja. The second child was just slow enough that the men could see the smirk on his face as he passed. Their eyes followed his form long enough to see him dashing further away from them. They sagged slightly, their guard dropping just a little in reaction to the missed attack, and their eyes tracked back towards the pink girl, who had spun away in that time, covering her ears with her hands, obviously terrified. A smirk slowly started to form on their faces under their masks at the cowering girl, and the smile remained until their eyes stopped moving, focused dead ahead, on the small cylinder that was still rising slightly from where Sasuke had tossed it in passing.

The flash of light as the small explosive lit off was terrible in itself, no meager single flash but a series of flashes that crossed the colors of the rainbow twice over at an intensity strong enough to be blinding through their eyelids. As bad as the lights were, however, the sound was that much worse. It was a gruesome noise, loud bangs intermixed with piercing whistles and thudding bass rumbles that pushed at their chests. The Demon Brothers flinched away, eyes fluttering as they tried to blink away the afterimages, unable to hear the slight scuff as the orange boy finally completed his turn, now that the flashbang had done its job.

Meizu didn't hear or see a thing as Naruto firmly kicked as hard as he could between the man's legs, but he certainly felt it. Kakashi had started a grueling physical regimen after the first week of sparring with Team 8, and he pushed nobody harder than Naruto, knowing full well that his excessive healing ability permitted him to be pushed to the limit, time and time again. But where he had been working on Sakura's somewhat shoddy reflexes and Sasuke's speed, Naruto was getting nothing but strength training. Between this and Naruto's much improved food intake, the young man was already beginning to become a physical powerhouse. Meizu rose a full three inches from the ground, which would seem unimpressive were the blow not coming from someone half his own height. He landed on his knees, then dropped to the ground, twitching.

While writing his report on the mission later, Kakashi would swear he'd heard the musical ding of a boxing bell at that very moment, but he never found out where the sound came from, so it never made it into his official report.

Gozu felt the thump of his brother hitting the ground and blindly jumped away. He sailed off towards the trees, intent on simply fleeing faster than these genin could possibly follow. Unfortunately for him, he landed less than a foot from Kakashi's hiding space, and in an almost friendly fashion, the white-haired jonin nailed him with a lariat and latched on, holding the unconscious man up by his neck.

"Good work, team," he said, walking out of the treeline to dump the two captives into a pile. "You fought well, especially against a pair of chunin like these two." He looked at Naruto, and frowned. "I expected you to react a little faster, though, Naruto."

Naruto smirked and blew a raspberry at the pair of nukenin on the ground. "Sakura is faster than I am, and so is Sasuke. I knew they'd be there soon enough." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly and glanced at Sasuke. "I've seen enough of Sasuke-teme's surprises to know by the time I turned around, I'd just have to turn around again." He perked up a little and pumped his fist in the air. "But we got them, didn't we! Dattebayo!"

Sasuke grunted at the cheering orange menace, but he managed a small smile. "So," he said quietly, shrugging his shoulders, "I blinded them with science, Sakura attacked them with all her might, and you... you played ro-sham-bo with them?" He looked away, feigning distaste. "Classy," he mumbled.

This set Naruto off, and he began shouting at his rival and friend over the insult. Kakashi tied up the two fallen shinobi and stepped away for a moment to discreetly summon one of his dogs to run a message to Konoha. Tazuna tried to bring his heartbeat under control with more than a fair bit of his remaining sake.

And Sakura stood in the midst of it all, unmoved, trying not to stare at Sasuke as the blush continued to glow on her cheeks, giving away the fact that her one true love had just given her the biggest compliment she thought she could ever hear from him.

It took a little while, but as soon as Kakashi pointed out that dishonesty voided their contract and he could, in theory, simply leave Tazuna alone with the slowly recovering shinobi he had tied to a tree nearby, the man spilled it. He explained all he knew, about Gato and his crushing grip on the economy of the Land of Waves, the threats to his family and his workers, and his desperation to finish this one work and free his land.

"I suspect this is a bit beyond you," Kakashi said, addressing his team. "In general, genin are not exposed to battles with other shinobi without significantly more experience. And we are certainly not getting paid enough for this." He turned to the shivering bridge builder who was standing beside him. "However... I do not like the idea of simply leaving you to die, even if you were grossly inaccurate in the details of the mission. But it is not just my life that might be at stake." He turned to his team, and raised his one visible eyebrow.

Sasuke was first to state his opinion on the matter. "We may as well keep going. You're here to help us, we're well rested, and as prepared as we're going to be. We'll have to face other shinobi eventually, we may as well do so now, while circumstances are with us."

Kakashi nodded, and turned to Sakura, who gave him an easy shrug and ruffled her hair with her hands, helping it air out. "This is dangerous, Kakashi-sensei, but I think we can handle it. We managed to take these two out, and they were well above our level too. With any luck, our other foes might just underestimate us as well."

Kakashi nodded, then flashed forward, a kunai appearing in his hands. In mere moments, he was in front of the pink-haired girl, blade posed to kill... and he almost jumped as one of Sasuke's little surprises passed inches from his exposed eye, cap still firmly in place and fuse unlit. Sakura had not flinched in the least and was staring at him with an almost feral glee, as if this was planned, and Kakashi seriously wondered if his cute little genin squad really had planned it at some point.

I guess all those teamwork exercises did help, Kakashi thought cheerfully as he stepped back and nodded. And at least Sasuke cared enough to intervene.

"We might die, all of us, for taking this path. No amount of power can save you from a foe who gets in a lucky shot. But if you all accept this course, knowing that you'll have none to blame but yourself, then I'll agree to it." He tucked the kunai away and nodded to Tazuna.

"Wait," shouted Naruto, stomping his feet in the dirt, "What about me? Aren't you gonna ask me my opinion!"

Kakashi turned back to Naruto. "Are you saying you don't want to keep going?"

Naruto shook his head with a frown.

"So, you want to keep going?"

Naruto crossed his arms, made as stern and serious of a face he could, and nodded.

"Then why are you standing here complaining?"

Sasuke grunted and reached out to give his team mate a light slap in the back of the head, and to the sound of Naruto's sputtering fury, he started walking down the road. Naruto rushed to catch up, but drew to a stop when Kakashi reached out and snagged his collar. "Sakura," said Kakashi, nodding down the road, "go with Sasuke and Tazuna. Naruto and I need to have a discussion."

She gave a small nod, and jogged to catch up. Tazuna followed after a quick glance at the remaining two ninja.

"Naruto," said Kakashi quietly when the others were several meters away, "let's talk about your contribution to the team."

Naruto swallowed heavily.

EDIT: Thanks to Pom Rania, who has now gone over this chapter in an effort to finally stamp out the early installment weirdness *GLUG*

Author's Notes: So, in my original concept for this chapter, Naruto was far more involved, but I noticed something in my efforts to put it down, and it was this: At this point, Naruto is still almost 100% his canon self. Training a person to fight is much easier than training them to think, and not expecting meaningful danger to him or his team, Kakashi had no reason to directly order any kind of special tactics with Naruto's shadow clones. Rest assured, he will be coming to his own soon, but for now, it made little sense for him to be running down the path of Uber!Naruto with a giggle and a Kage Bunshin, so instead, I did what seemed most natural to me, if he was not frozen in shock like in canon.

Namely, nut shot. Canon Naruto strikes me as a bit of a bar room brawler, low on technique and high on effectiveness. With that sort of open target, how could he resist having a ninja become known to have been taken down with a kick to the nuts by the future Hokage?