When they stepped onto the dock, Team 7 let out a collective sigh, each for their own reasons.
Sasuke sighed in relief. The crossing had been done slowly, with the speed of but a single oar to remain silent. For all of his posturing, Kakashi had been fairly tense, as had Tazuna and the boat owner, and Sasuke thought he had a good grasp of why. Out in the water, only Kakashi would be able to fight in any meaningful manner, and an ambush would be easy to arrange in such a thick mist.
Sakura sighed in mild distaste as she looked around the small town they had landed in. It looked like an acceptable place to live, and she was proud of herself in that she found no objection to the dirt that seemed to be ground into the surface of every object she could see. Dirt was a sign of work, and no real industrial or farming village could look as clean as Konoha on even their best day. But the cracks in the walls, the ancient peeling paint, the rough wood used for patch work, all of these spoke of long neglect. Even the power lines and poles looked to be held together with rough patchwork and shoddy repairs, and in an area of wooden housing, that could make this place a death trap.
Naruto sighed in discomfort. The trip had been long, and Kakashi had given him a direct and serious order to remain silent and largely immobile the entire trip. He had handed Naruto a small pile of leaves and had instructed him to practice the Leaf Concentration technique, holding a leaf to his forehead with nothing but his chakra. Unlike the academy, however, this time he had to do it with a literal twist, rotating the leave slowly and consistently in a circle, like a clock. The first dozen leaves had spiraled into the water before Naruto managed to get them to remain on his forehead, and he had spent the remainder of the trip silently trying to even out the speed, staring over the front of the boat as they traveled. Unused to such inactivity, his back was now stiff, and he stretched several times trying to work out all the kinks.
Kakashi nodded to the boat captain when the man decided to take them no further, then looked at Tazuna. "Well, now," he said, his voice high and cheerful, "Maybe we should find a place to have a nice meal before we set off, ehh, Tazuna?" Tazuna blushed and turned away at the foreign shinobi's faux pas. Asking for a restaurant in a place as poor as this was a ghastly thing to do, but in turning away at that moment, the bridge builder missed the subtle hand signal Kakashi flashed to his team.
Naruto did not miss the signal. He nodded quietly, and then loudly proclaimed his need to find a restroom as soon as possible, clutching as his gut and hopping around in distress, causing Sasuke and Sakura to lean away from him in disgust. Tazuna sighed and started leading the group in the direction of the nearest restroom he could remember in this town, and never saw the look that Kakashi and Naruto shared.
Twenty minutes later, quite relieved, the five of them left the public restroom to begin their journey to Tazuna's home.
Twenty minutes later, exactly as relieved, the five of them left the public restroom.
Two hours later, the last group of the five of them left the public restroom.
"Kakashi-sensei! You're the best," shouted Naruto as they walked down the road, arms behind his head and a great smirk on his face. Sakura agreed loudly, and even Sasuke managed a grunt of agreement at that. "Using all those shadow clones as decoys was genius," the blond continued to shout, chuckling loudly. Kakashi turned to him and smiled.
"You see how powerful misdirection is now, Naruto?"
Naruto cheered enthusiastically, causing his team mates and Tazuna to lean away from him.
"And do you know what makes misdirection even more powerful?" asked Kakashi, turning his attention away from forest to address his charges. Naruto leaned forward, eyes glittering at the prospect of more wisdom from his incredible sensei.
Kakashi shot his cute little genin a big smile, and said cheerfully, "Not shouting out your tactics for everyone to hear."
"I agree," came the deep voice from the surrounding trees, even as the great sword came whistling through the air. Sakura managed to throw herself into Tazuna, knocking him out of the way, while everyone else jumped out of line to avoid the spinning sword. Kakashi tracked the sword with his eye until it hit a nearby tree with a resounding crack, sticking far enough into the tree to support the ninja who landed on it.
The man was thickly muscled, a fact evident due to his bare chest and back. He wore only some pants and a set of leg and arm warmers in a blotchy black and white camouflage pattern. He turned from where he stood, back to the Konoha team and they saw that his face was masked with white bandages, showing only his eyes and spiked brown hair, blowing softly in the breeze.
"Your genin are quite astute to have noticed and dodged my attack, Sharingan Kakashi, but they talk far too much for ninja. Not that it mattered, making that many clones, the last set would have to be the real ones, which my intel made sure to watch for. Rest assured, I will let them flee like the little false ninja they are after you're dead... if they turn over the bridge builder to me."
Kakashi drew a pair of kunai and took a ready stance. "It seems you have me at an advantage. Who are you, exactly?"
"Why do you ask?" said the mysterious ninja.
"To know what to etch on your tombstone," said Kakashi with a smile.
The bare-chested shinobi laughed at this, a deep, strong, and surprisingly warm chuckle for such a stern figure. "Very well," he said from his perch, "I will give you the name of your killer. I am Momochi Zabuza, formerly of Kirigakure. Are you sure you want to fight? There is no shame in yielding to a threat such as myself."
Kakashi spared a glance at his genin, and found them shivering but in control and ready to fight. Even Tazuna seemed willing to go against this foe. He grunted once, then looked up at the tree and smiled. "I think not," he said.
Zabuza nodded in acknowledgment, even as the mist began to rise and fill the road and forest, growing impossibly thick. "Then I will show you why I am called the Demon of the Hidden Mist, Kakashi." He made a hand sign, and the mist rose and concealed his form, turning the entire roadway white.
"Flee, you three," said Kakashi, stepping into the mist. "Keep the client alive."
Sasuke and Sakura immediately grabbed Tazuna between them and started to run, but Naruto simply stared at Kakashi's fading form. "Like hell I'll run," he shouted at the mists, drawing his own kunai. "I'm no coward! I'll fight you here and now!"
"As you wish," Zabuza said quietly behind the blond as he brought his blade across and through the boy's body, not even bothering to watch the child die.
Naruto blinked in the sunlight and looked up at Kakashi, walking calmly ahead of him. "Sensei," he said, sorting out his memories, "One of the teams has been hit. Ummm... someone named Zabuza... Mocha? Moochee?"
Momochi Zabuza, thought Kakashi. Jonin ranked, and a rank earned through blood, not mission ranks and friendly competitions. We're in for a fight, eventually. "Which team," he asked, giving the surrounding area a little more scrutiny in case the foe was close.
"The last one, sensei."
Kakashi held out his hand, and Tazuna grunted before slapping his last bottle of sake into the jonin's hand. "Never make a bet you can't bear to lose," said Kakashi, tossing the bottle to smash against a tree, splashing the alcohol around the area. "Tell me," he asked his students, "Why did he hit the last group?"
Sakura spoke up when the other two said nothing. Naruto had a studious but laughable look on his face, while Sasuke wore his traditional look of bored indifference, although Sakura thought they were both thinking carefully. "For almost any ninja, the only way to make that many teams would be to use standard clones, which are simplistic and incapable of further jutsu. The last team to leave the restroom would almost have to be the real versions, and if an observer happened to notice them leaving and saw them interacting with the world physically, they would likely assume that the last ones were the real ones."
Kakashi nodded, and looked at Naruto expectantly. He was still frowning, and Kakashi imagined he could hear the ungreased wheels of the blond's mind squeaking under the unusual effort he was making. Finally, something seemed to snap free, and his eyes widened.
"But because my shadow clones can perform jutsu, and interact with the world physically, it's harder to notice that they are fake. You made us leave first, because you know anyone watching would assume the first group to leave would be fakes of some sort."
"Very good, Naruto, Sakura. It's good to see you both have a grasp of what we did and why." Sakura smiled, and Naruto grinned hard at such a small praise. Kakashi sent a glance to Sasuke, and saw the glint in the boy's eyes as he thought about the situation.
Sasuke was thinking hard, but not on the same thing as everyone else. This is impossible, he thought over and over, a litany of disbelief that did nothing to change the fact that he had heard the plan Kakashi had presented to them in the public bathroom they had ducked into. Naruto made shadow clones to henge into copies of us, and they got orders to make more copies, but Kakashi never said...
"Dobe," said Sasuke quietly. When Naruto looked at him, still grinning, Sasuke asked that he really needed to know. "How many teams did you send out?"
Naruto thought for a moment, and his grin got bigger. "Six teams. I wanted to do more, but Kakashi-sensei insisted they be able to fight and run for at least a day, so I had to be careful not to... what?"
Sasuke and Sakura were staring at him.
Six teams, Sakura thought, her estimation of her occasionally stupid teammate raising as she did the math. Thirty clones, capable of lasting a full day or more and fighting. The team had leaned on Naruto's shadow clone technique plenty of times in the past, using them for manual labor and spars, but banished clones returned their chakra to their owner, so she'd assumed they were only capable of low key physical labor. But if all of those clones could operate that long and fight with jutsu, then...
He's on a whole different level, Sasuke was thinking at the same time. But where Sakura was shocked and pleasantly surprised, Sasuke was now grinding his teeth. With that level of power, I could easily have my vengeance.
His thoughts were interrupted when Kakashi laid a hand on his shoulder gently, and the man leaned in to whisper quietly in his ear. "Don't forget who tends to win in your spars. Power is only as useful as the person who controls it, and chakra is not the only source of power." Kakashi gave the young man a pat on the shoulder and stood back to observe.
Sasuke nodded and forced his jaw to relax. Their power is my power, he repeated to himself, the words Kakashi had instilled into him after his disastrous first loss against the two of them. He realized that his angry thoughts had not been hidden as well as he hoped, and both of his teammates were looking at him with pity. No, not pity, concern, according to Kakashi.
He blew out a single deep breath, then held out his arm, fist closed, at Naruto. "Your use of the clones is getting better, Dead Last. Don't think I'll go easy on you, just because you're useful. I'll run you into the ground."
Naruto glared at the black-haired Uchiha for a moment, before he laughed and bumped fists with him. "You're on, teme."
"Well," Kakashi said, taking the lead again, "we should get to Tazuna's in an hour. With any luck, Zabuza will be busy until then."
Hours later, after they had reached Tazuna's home and settled for a meal, Naruto stiffened. "Kakashi-sensei," he said quietly.
Kakashi looked at him.
"Zabuza just finished off the clone of you on the last team."
"Ahh," said Kakashi, lifting his chopsticks, amused to notice how hard Sakura was trying to see how he ate through his mask. "He hunted down the other teams, then?"
Naruto frowned in confusion. "Ehhh? No, baka-sensei, he finished the clone of you on the last team." He looked over at his teammates in time to see Sakura's chopsticks hit the table from where they fell from her hands. Sasuke's mouth was open, food inches from it, and his eyes were narrowing.
"... What?"
Even Kakashi had to work to keep his voice even. "How did you manage that, exactly?"
Naruto shrugged. "Well, once the first clone disguised as you got trapped in a position where he couldn't escape, he kinda made more clones before taking the hit..."
"Where are they?" bellowed Zabuza, leaping through the trees, eyes searching.
The fight with Kakashi had been brutal. The man had been insane, abandoning any concept of defense for pure, all out attack and forcing Zabuza into a defensive position. He had shown no inclination to use jutsu in the fight, even after Zabuza had cut down his student. But Zabuza did not earn his title by being a pushover, and he had eventually regained the initiative. Even as he brought the blade around for a blow he knew Kakashi could not dodge, his foe had made a two-handed sign... and four copies of him formed, even as the original dissipated in a puff of chakra smoke.
That's when Zabuza realized that he'd never so much as heard the first genin's body hit the ground.
The fight had become hectic as he cut down clone after clone, more appearing with every stroke. Every gambit he made, every trick and trap and technique he used to try and draw out the real Kakashi, caught only more clones. He took several blows, including a few unpleasantly deep but nonlethal cuts in his legs when one clone used the death of four of his kind to make a suicide lunge with a pair of kunai. Zabuza had tagged the clone with the pommel of his blade, but not before the kunai had sunk into his legs. The fight had only ended when the final clone raised his hands in the now familiar seal and vanished with a look of surprise.
When Zabuza let the mist fade and saw that not a single body was in sight, he had started screaming, and he had not stopped, not in the twenty minutes he had been following the trail of the rest of the team. His screams echoed through the woods, and got louder with every flex of his legs and every drop of his blood that fell from them. They hurt terribly, but in his fury, he found the strength to ignore the pain. As he approached the fleeing team, leaping from tree to tree, he saw the pink-haired brat was carrying the bridge builder across her back, giving the children a little more speed.
But not enough, he thought with a great deal of satisfaction. Kakashi obviously left with another group, assuming his clone could hold me off long enough to return. Why else would they bother fleeing with the builder, slowing them down as they tried to escape? I bet they hoped I would find and focus on Kakashi once I figured out his clone trick, so they left the dead weight with the weaker party.
Zabuza hurled his blade as soon as they came in range, and the two genin split up. The black-haired boy in blue turned to face him, while the girl continued to flee. Another clone, Zabuza figured, grinning beneath his mask. He charged forward, ignoring the clone's weak attack to deliver a simple but powerful punch to dispel it.
The pink-haired girl had stopped running and set the bridge builder down to better fight her foe. Unlike the others, she took up a wide stance, arms raised like a prizefighter. Might be a real one, thought Zabuza, slowing his charge to consider his next move. Then he saw a flash of fast-moving color to his right, and laughed.
The first senbon needle hit Tazuna in the temple, a perfect strike... and he dispelled.
No.
The pink girl turned to the new attacker, stance shifting awkwardly, like she had never used the style before.
No.
Her eyes widened slightly as Haku flew at her, arm outstretched and senbon already in flight. Her mouth opened slightly as if to say something, then the needle hit, in the middle of her forehead... and she dispelled as well.
NO!
Zabuza screamed in animalistic fury and started to lash out at his surroundings.
Naruto looked up from his nearly empty plate. "The last one on the first team just popped."
"How..." Sakura was whispering, and looking at Naruto. Impossible, was all she could think. "How many times did the clones replicate?" Naruto looked confused. How do I ask him how many iterations he had, she thought for a moment. He is like a child, not enough vocab... oh, right.
"Pretend they were having children," she said quickly, before he got too confused, "and each time they split, it was the next generation for that clone. How many generations did the clone have, at most? If the last clone was the last child, what was its relation to the original?"
Naruto paused and started counting in his head. Original had split into six, call them first generation, then G1-2 had split into four to take that second blow...
It took Naruto almost thirty seconds to sort out the many memories he had received, determining who was next to die based on their position on the battlefield when they appeared.
"The very last one was his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. But when he tried to make another set, he ran out of chakra." He looked at the wide eyed stares the table was giving him, and sunk deeper into his seat. "I think," he mumbled.
Sakura's mind buzzed. Ten iterations, after the original twenty. Each iteration split the clone's chakra at least by half if not more...
Impossible.
Sakura stood and walked out of the house without a word.
Kakashi found Sakura out at the end of the dock. He crept up on her at first, observing her, and saw she was not crying or shaking. Just thinking, very carefully. He felt a little warm pride creep into his chest with the realization that her reaction was at least partially because of him. He allowed himself to move towards her without his customary stealth, eventually sitting on the dock next to her. She was still motionless, her eyes tracking back and forth, following what was going on inside her head. He waited quietly, enjoying the peaceful night.
"What is he, Kakashi-sensei?"
Kakashi nodded to himself. Not an unexpected conversation, really. "You mean who, Sakura."
Sakura turned and stared at him, eyes blazing. "No, Kakashi, I mean what." The loss of the honorific was not missed by Kakashi, nor was her angry tone. "He has more chakra then any ninja I know of. The Hokage. The Sannin. Every academy teacher, every ninja I know. That's not separate, Kakashi, that's combined." She looked down at the water. "What is he."
He shrugged. "He is Naruto, the Great Orange Prank, Number One Surprising Shinobi of Konoha." He looked down at her in the watery reflection, and saw the first hint of fear in her eyes. "Sakura," he said quietly, drawing her attention. She looked up, barely formed tears in her eyes, tears she was fighting with all of her might to keep in. Good girl,he thought approvingly.
"I know from where Naruto gets his power. He is human, very much so, but he does have one advantage, one that gives him a great deal of raw power. Although technically incorrect, consider it a sort of bloodline limit."
"A Kekkei Genkai," she asked, using the formal title for the genetic powers that many shinobi bloodlines had. Her voice was slightly awed, but it still wavering. Kakashi nodded in reply. "What is it?" she asked.
"I cannot say."
Sakura whirled in place, bending into her Four Legged stance and snarling at her teacher. Kakashi raised his hands, waving them downwards in a placating manner. "Ahh, no need to get like that, Sakura. I really cannot say. It is a capital crime to tell you what it is."
She stood slowly from her fighting stance. "A capital crime?"
"Yes." Kakashi stood and dusted some imaginary dirt from his pants. "The only one that can tell you is Naruto, and frankly, he is already terrified that you and Sasuke will think he's a monster. I can't stop you from asking," he said, turning to face some bushes near the start of the dock, "but I can suggest that you not do so."
Sasuke stepped out from the bushes, hands still in pockets. "You're saying that the dobe is too scared to tell us why he's so strong," said Sasuke. It was not phrased as a question. Kakashi nodded in reply, and Sasuke scoffed. "Idiot," he said, turning back towards the house and walking away.
Sakura started jogging to catch up to Sasuke, who was moving at a slow walk, the same walk he used every time he was with a teammate, one designed to convey disdain at a slow pace while inadvertently encouraging others to catch up. The same one he uses when he wants a teammate with him, Sakura translated in her head, but he's too obstinate to admit it.
"Where are you going?" called Kakashi.
"To ask, of course," she called back to her teacher.
Sakura knocked politely at the door to the boy's bedroom and waited for a reply. When none came, she knocked again, then opened the door slightly. "Naruto," she said quietly, "Can we talk?"
She heard him grumble, but it wasn't a no, so she slipped inside.
Naruto was sitting with his back to the wall, staring out the window opposite from him. The moon outside was bright, and its light shining through the window screen covered his face like a fence made of shadows. Or a cage, she thought as she sat down in front of him.
They sat in silence for nearly a minute, and in that time, Naruto never looked away from the window. Sakura could see him quite clearly, and several times his jaw moved slightly, as if he wanted to speak.
"You can tell us," she said.
"You say that now," he mumbled, still refusing to look at her, "but once I tell you, you'll be like the rest. You'll nod and smile when you have to, but when nobody else looks, you'll whisper, and point, and mock. Back in the academy, you already were like that to me. Just like the rest." He didn't sound angry or spiteful to Sakura. He just seemed very… tired.
There was a few moments of silence. Sakura wanted to deny what he had said about her, but she knew damned well she couldn't. Before they really became a team, she had looked down on the loudmouth blond, just as most of the other students had. She decided to ignore his point for now, although she knew they'd have to talk about it eventually.
"It's that bad?" she asked.
He nodded, and his eyes finally met hers.
Dear kami, she thought, staring into his eyes. He really is terrified. She broke eye contact, looking at the floor, giving herself time to think. He was annoying, and loud, and brash, and uncouth. But he was also friendly, and loyal, and outgoing. He was, when all was said and done, a friend, possibly a very good friend, and in his eyes she had seen his fear, and she half suspected it was fear of losing what little he had. If enough people treated him as he had said...
"I need to ask something else then," she said quietly. "I don't want to pry, Naruto. I really don't. We're friends, even if I do get a little... physical when I get angry at you." She was suddenly feeling very guilty about that last part, but in the light of the moon, he saw him smile, just a little, and with the way he and Sasuke fought, she figured he'd be okay with the occasional thump. She gave him a small smile back, then schooled her face back into a calm, neutral state. "But... whatever is going on with you, I need to know... is it safe? Is it controlled?"
She felt crushed when he frowned at her, but she sat up straighter and waited for his answer. Kekkei Genkai were not always safe for the user, or for those around them, and some families that carried them were famed for their mental instability or social problems. She didn't want to ask, but in the same vein, she had to know if she needed to be on the lookout, in case he became a danger.
Finally, Naruto nodded. "My... problem was dangerous, at one point. But it should not be a danger any more, according to Kakashi." He scratched the back of his head. "I don't know what all might be involved, actually. I've been told very little about my... condition. Right now, aside from details, all it's really done is made me have a lot of chakra, and help heal me from injuries."
"That's why you were able to spar so much with Hinata, isn't it?"
Naruto nodded, and managed a small grin.
Damn, Sakura thought, remembering a couple conversations she'd had with the Hyuga a few weeks before, I owe her an apology now. She really was hitting him.
"Okay," she said, standing up to leave. "You know, if you ever really want to talk about it..."
Naruto yawned and scooted over to his mattress. "Maybe later. Thanks, Sakura-chan."
Sakura smiled as she opened the door. Honorific and all. Guess he is all right.
"Sure," she said, shutting the door quietly, "any time." She then walked down the stairs, where she had convinced Sasuke to wait for her, having explained that 'Hey, Dobe, why are you so powerful' was insufficient for the importance of the conversation.
Sasuke opened the door some time later. He stepped into the room and laid down on his mattress without so much as a grunt. After a few moments, he tilted his head slightly. "Hey, Dobe," he said, in a whisper.
"Yeah?"
"Whatever it is, you're still a dobe."
Naruto grinned under the cover of darkness. "Thanks, Teme."
"I made a mistake, Haku."
"How so?" asked Haku, preparing to tend to his master's legs. The cuts had been painful but harmless early on. Then Zabuza had started to rage and demolish a small section of the forest, the cuts had ripped deeper, and Haku had been forced to stun Zabuza with a few senbon until he could stop the bleeding. Now he had no choice but to stitch up the injuries, and he was heating the thick needle he was intending to use for the job over a lit candle to sterilize it. He watched his master and savior through the flame of the candle, staring at the man's face, unwrapped for once.
"I underestimated Sharingan Kakashi." Zabuza spat, quite literally, and glared at the wall as Haku prepared the thread and needle, "I will not do this again." He picked up a small stick covered in teeth marks from the healer's kit, then laid back and set the stick in his mouth.
With nothing else to be said, Haku leaned over and began to work.
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: I was uncertain about using shadow clones to make shadow clones, but nothing I found in my searching indicated that a clone could not clone, barring limits to chakra. The number of clone iterations is probably much more than canon this early (if a clone of a clone takes half the clone's chakra, instead of them all sharing a chakra pool with the original owner, which is how I assume such a thing would work). There is in fact a reason for it, although it will not come up for some time yet.
First, and foremost, thanks to Cute Kirby. I looked at your review for last chapter, specifically about how I wrote Naruto and Kakashi at the end... and you are absolutely right. Naruto does not show any meaningful altruistic trend until the end of the Wave arc, and while I could have just left it as is and claimed he got some moral training from Kakashi around the same time he learned about the price gouging... that would be lazy. Hooray for the power of the edit.
Arcan Amazdi mentioned that, regardless of how good a trainer Kakashi was, there was no way that Naruto could put up any challenge to him. I can understand that, but I also point out that, like canon, "winning" was not the goal, distraction was. As for his injuries, I have updated the text to hopefully give a better indication of my intended purpose, which was that the worst of it was self-inflicted.