Morino Ibiki was a frightening man. He was not like Iruka-sensei, who sometimes tried to act tough but was really a big softie underneath. He was not like Mizuki-sensei, who was all smiles until the moment he thought someone wasn't showing him respect, when he suddenly lashed out like an angry snake. He wasn't even like Kataoka-sensei, who had scary shiny glasses and an obsession with discipline, but also bought the class sweets at the end of term if everyone passed the test. Morino Ibiki acted like the second he thought you were a threat, even if you were his best friend or his brother, he would knock you out and have you taken away, and then nobody would ever see you again. Later, long after this special guest lecture at the Academy, some of the children would learn that this was literally true.
"Members of the civilian population often ask me," Morino began, "'what is a ninja?' Who here can tell me the answer?"
Nobody wanted to answer a question in front of the whole year group. What if you got it wrong and everyone laughed at you? And on top of that, nobody wanted to be wrong in front of Morino Ibiki, the uncrowned king of the dark side of ninja life that no child wanted to think about.
The guest lecturer stood still, and silently waited. There was nothing special you could point to in his posture or his expression, but gradually a certain mood began to permeate the hall. Morino was in charge here, and his approval meant happiness and safety. All they had to do was do their best to answer his questions, and he would look after them as if they were his own. The alternative, Morino's disapproval, was associated only with nebulous terror.
Bit by bit this mysterious feeling outweighed the children's natural discomfort. Finally, a blonde girl in the middle of the assembly hesitantly raised her hand.
Morino nodded at her.
"Someone who fights bad people to protect the village."
"Good," Morino smiled. "Anyone else?"
A boy wearing a pair of sunglasses indoors raised his hand next.
"Someone who carries out missions to bring money to the village."
Soon there was a rush of offerings, especially after it became clear that there were subtle gradations to Morino's smile. Who wouldn't want to give the best answer and be raised above everyone else in Morino's eyes?
"Those are all reasonable definitions," he told the audience. "But there's one you've all missed out, and it may be the most important.
"A ninja is a killer."
He instantly had everyone's total attention.
"You were told when you entered the Academy that the life of a ninja is full of sacrifice. You were told that one day, you might be called upon to give your lives for the sake of your comrades and the village. But the first sacrifice you must make to become a ninja is both simpler and more cruel. You must sacrifice your innocence."
The children listened to Morino, wide-eyed. The deep, rock-solid conviction they could see in his eyes was proof that he'd personally lived every word of what he was now telling them.
"Every single one of you, if you graduate and become genin, will face enemies of Leaf in battle. You will have to kill. At that time, if you hesitate for even a second, you will be killed first. That is why, among the many qualities you need to be a ninja, the most important one is killing intent."
He paused to let the idea sink in, and slowly let his gaze sweep over the assembly. Each of the children felt like the tall, imposing man was looking directly into their eyes.
"In the coming months, many of you will drop out of the Academy because you have no killing intent. There is no shame in this. There are many ways you can serve the village, and just as some of you have the qualities needed to serve as ninja, so the rest will discover their own unique skills in time. A community that could do nothing but kill would not be worth protecting.
"For those who stay, understand what you are sacrificing for the village. The other man may not be a villain. He may be fighting for his comrades and his village, and doing what he believes to be right. He may be like you in every possible way. Yet he is the enemy."
Morino let every word of his final sentence fall into place in an exact, inexorable rhythm. "And you must kill him before he kills you."
-o-
That day and that speech were burned into the mind of every single Academy student. In accordance with Morino Ibiki's prediction, the number of students dropped sharply, the first wave leaving in the immediate aftermath, then more as they began the special classes designed to condition them to kill, and many found themselves unable to murder a living enemy, even when that enemy was really a clone or an illusion.
Historically, Naruto's assigned class reading had told him, all shinobi were taught from youth to suppress their emotions in order to be able to treat their enemies as simple targets rather than living human beings. It was Leaf that had pioneered a superior form of conditioning: it taught its ninja to find motivations that reinforced their personalities, allowing them to face the full impact of killing without crumbling under the stress. Thus the zealotry of those who believed in the Will of Fire, thus the emphasis on willing sacrifice, on the centrality of the village to their lives, and on the preciousness of bonds and the need to protect them. Instead of tough, brittle ninja that believed in nothing and obeyed orders perfectly, at the price of a sizeable chunk of their psychological health and overall potential, Leaf trained ninja who fought with genuine passion, and thought that their beliefs and values were freely chosen.
Of course, the textbooks didn't quite frame it that way, being more along the lines of "Leaf became the strongest village because it allowed its shinobi to fulfil their full potential as human beings". But when you had no true bonds to protect, no place in village society and apparently no right to inherit the Will of Fire, it wasn't difficult to step outside everyone else's belief system and read between the lines.
It wasn't something he'd ever had to seriously contemplate before—not until he'd killed a man with his own hands. But there'd been no chance to reflect on it during the Night From Hell, nor during the chaos of the day that followed. Afterwards, they'd made double time to the next inn on their route—they didn't want to be caught in the open with half of their team disabled, and any other mercenaries might not yet have got the memo that Zabuza wanted to get his own revenge. So now, here Naruto was at last, lying awake and wondering: as someone who wasn't taken in by illusions like "community" and "comrades", what was he fighting and killing for? Why had he found it so easy to take lives when he'd never internalised the beliefs that absolved others of guilt for things done in the line of duty?
It wasn't just because of the kill-or-be-killed situations, he knew. People fighting for their lives could freeze up like anyone else. Nor was it because, in the purest technical sense, he hadn't killed anyone—although it was true that Sasuke had been the one to deal the death blow to the Demon Brother, and Zabuza's water clones had never been alive in any meaningful sense to begin with. Try as he might to be satisfied with a simple explanation like that, Naruto couldn't rid himself of the feeling that there was a deeper, truer reason why he had always seen becoming able to kill as less of a tragic sacrifice and more of a broadening of options.
-o-
Sakura wasn't sleeping either. Yesterday she'd watched Sasuke kill an enemy ninja without hesitation, his movements beautiful, precise, and without a shred of mercy. She'd tried to put it out of her mind, tried not to question what that meant—about Sasuke, about ninja in general, about her future—but then today another ninja had very nearly done the same to her, as if to say, "Reality is brutal, and it's not going away".
Was this going to be her life from now on? Was she going to have to wade through rivers of blood like Zabuza and Kakashi-sensei? Was this what she'd joined the shinobi Academy to become?
There was a brief sense of tension inside Sakura's mind, as if something was being pushed aside to make room.
"Quit moping around, you moron. I'll tell you what you didn't want to become, and that's some angsty little girl who goes to pieces in the middle of her first big mission."
Inner Sakura didn't mince words. She also didn't let herself get hung up on other people's feelings, question the rightness of her actions, take nonsense from anybody, or ever, ever hold back. That was the whole point of her. But while Sakura knew she couldn't have made it this far without her guidance, the price was that Inner Sakura treated her the same as everyone else. Even now, Inner Sakura's tone was laced with impatience bordering on contempt, as if she was berating the likes of Naruto rather than a normal human being.
Sakura cringed at the rebuke. "But what am I supposed to do? I'm not like Sasuke. I can't kill people just like that, without hesitation, just because they're the enemy. I thought it would be easier. I thought as long as I was fighting for the village, and for my parents, and for my friends, I'd be able to do anything. But what if I can't?"
Inner Sakura rolled her eyes condescendingly. "You've really forgotten, haven't you?"
"Forgotten what?"
Inner Sakura waved her hand. Inside their shared mind, an image—a memory—displaced the hazy backdrop connecting the two personas. A little pink-haired girl hid timidly behind a taller blonde girl in a wide green field, while all around them other children played together or picked flowers.
The pink-haired girl's feelings washed through Sakura. Fear of stepping out on her own. Gratitude to her protector. A desperate need to cling to her, and fear of being abandoned. And, eventually, shame. Shame made only deeper every time her parents compared her to Ino in the bizarre belief that telling her all the ways in which she was bad would somehow make her better.
"Now do you remember?" Inner Sakura demanded. "You swore, you swore to yourself that you would never be that girl again. You made me because you were so terrified of going back.
"You wanted to be strong. You wanted to be what she couldn't, to have what she couldn't. To have them look at you and see you, not her. You fought tooth and nail to get into the Academy so you could become a ninja like her, only better. You studied until your head was ready to explode, just because you knew you were book-smart and she wasn't."
It was true. It was all true. Ino might have been born with strength and confidence and beauty and everything that made a person matter, but now Sakura had all those things too, earned with every scrap of her being. And any day now, Sasuke would choose her and then her victory would be complete.
"Am I getting through here?" Inner Sakura asked rhetorically. "Good. Now, if you want to throw all that away because you don't have the guts to face what being a ninja really means, that's your call. I can go. You can be that little girl again to your heart's content."
Sakura shook her head rapidly. "No. That's not what I want."
"Or... you could get your ass in gear and show Sasuke that you're a real kunoichi, and twice the woman Ino is."
Sakura was quiet for a few seconds.
"Three times the woman."
"Atta girl," Inner Sakura grinned. "You're gonna do just fine."
"Hell yeah!"
-o-
Sasuke was very aware of Sakura's status as a woman right now, but not in a way she'd like. Last night, he'd heard Naruto go into Kakashi-sensei's room, later joined by Sakura. Then they'd both gone to Sakura's room—which was fine, as he had important things to think about, and was more than happy being left undisturbed in the room Kakashi-sensei had so cruelly made him share with Naruto. But then came the noises.
The sounds of physical exertion would have been pretty innocent on their own. Granted, only an idiot would start exercising this late at night, but then this was Naruto. Enough said. No, what drove Sasuke to distraction were the snatches of dialogue he overheard.
"No, Sakura, not there…" Naruto would say, then moan at Sakura's unseen actions. "I can't keep this up much longer" was another one, accompanied by out-of-breath panting.
Sakura was no better, with exclamations such as "Oh, that felt so good," and "Summon more clones—we're just getting started!" and "You call yourself a man with stamina like that?", delivered with increasing exhilaration. The noise went on all night, leaving Sasuke unable to sleep or to concentrate on anything whatsoever (and there was no way in hell he was going over there to tell them to shut up).
He'd found out the truth in the morning, of course, and made them feel the full weight of his displeasure. But as with most things with Naruto, it was in one ear and out the other, and in the end he had to content himself with Sakura's torrent of panicked apologies.
But now he could finally get some peace and quiet and reflect on the mission so far. Much as Sasuke hated to admit it, they were clearly in over their heads. Kakashi-sensei had told them that he'd spoken to the leader of the support squad that had come to take the surviving Demon Brother away, providing a detailed description of their route and requesting an A-rank team to catch up to them as soon as possible to hand over the rest of the mission. It was no worse than what Sasuke would have done. If Kakashi-sensei had sent the request for help and the route description with the dog, it could have been intercepted, allowing the enemy to lay some devastating ambushes. Keeping it as verbal information memorised by a ninja squad was far safer. It would have been even safer if they'd turned back (not that Sasuke would ever think of advocating it), or stayed in place to wait for backup, but apparently there would only be one window for Tazuna's Wave contacts to sneak them past Gatō's blockade, and they couldn't risk missing it.
As for the mission itself... they were cutting it very fine indeed. He still didn't know how Team Seven had avoided total annihilation, since he'd regained consciousness after Kakashi-sensei and Naruto had both gone to sleep. Sakura was naturally of no help either. Still, his brush with death and the peculiar competence of his team aside (Sakura's taijutsu had been almost acceptable, and he had no idea what to make of Naruto lately), the battle had been everything he'd hoped for. As long as he kept fighting enemies like these, he would grow stronger quickly. Every victory would be another step towards his goal.
Except... Sasuke hadn't even hesitated before killing that Demon Brother. It hadn't occurred to him to question what he was doing, or to make a conscious decision about taking lives. Had he hesitated before killing their parents in the name of his unknown ambition? Or had it been this easy for him too? Was this how it happened? Was there a slippery slope where you had no trouble dispatching your enemies, then moved on to your friends, then your family? Was it Sasuke's destiny to become the next Itachi?
No. The battlefield was a place only for those who were willing to risk their lives in the name of a greater goal. He had his goal, and he was prepared to risk his life for it. His enemies had theirs, and did the same. It was right and proper and honourable that one would win and grow stronger, while the other would lose and be destroyed. Whether he won or lost, he would respect the law of the battlefield. He would never be as weak as the coward who killed civilians, even children, with weapons that had been forged to protect them.
-o-
The rest of the journey to the Country of the Wave was blissfully uneventful, although Sakura and Sasuke had grown suspicious of Naruto after learning that he'd brought down two Zabuza clones on his own. It had taken a week of sustained buffoonery before they weighed the odds and concluded that the clones were more likely to have been killed by a freak meteor strike than by Naruto being a competent ninja.
The crossing into Wave had to be done late at night so as to avoid Gatō's patrol boats, with a complicated signalling system to bring Tazuna's boatman ally to them without alerting anyone to their presence. It was an infiltration worthy of real ninja, which according to Tazuna was because it had been prepared by real ninja. Wave happened to have quite a few retired ninja among its residents, veterans who had moved to the peaceful island country to live out their remaining years amidst its idyllic landscapes and excellent climate. Gatō had been smart enough to leave them alone lest killing them draw retribution from their home villages, but stupid enough to then dismiss them from consideration just because any retired ninja was by definition too old, crippled and/or traumatised to fight.
It was the last and most fatal of Gatō's mistakes. Wave should have been easy pickings—a nation of people so pacifistic that their idea of rebellion was building a bridge, and so uncoordinated that an entire country could be conquered by one man and his horde of half-trained thugs. Then his tyranny taught them how to unite in hatred. His purges created a core of hardened, fanatical survivors. And his interference with the retirement of a handful of ex-ninja created a resistance that knew everything there was to know about covert action, sabotage and information warfare. With Gatō's mercenaries spending ever-increasing amounts of their time and his money running around putting out fires, it was no wonder that the magnate had been reduced to hiring missing-nin in order to put an end to a single civilian construction project.
As morning dawned, a duly enlightened Team Seven finally arrived in one of the larger towns on their way to Tazuna's home village (which would serve as their base for commuting to the construction site). Kakashi-sensei made the call to go through the town rather than spend time circumnavigating it, so this was where Team Seven got their first glimpse of life in the Country of the Wave.
Streets lined with empty shops, the nearly bare shelves of the successful a pitiful improvement over the boarded-up windows of the failed. Unnaturally thin, empty-eyed passers-by, with hunched shoulders, gazes fixed on the ground and faces concealed beneath their bizarre onion-top hats. Pavements whose perfectly-laid cobblestones were caked with filth and dirt. And countless homeless children lining the corners and alleyways. Naruto watched the townspeople look past the children with apathetic eyes, as if they simply weren't there, and something inside him snapped.
Knowing he might well regret it later, Naruto started to hand out coins from his frog-shaped wallet to the children they passed. After a little while, Sakura started doing the same, albeit some way away and on the other side of the street, as if unable to admit that she was copying him. Before too long, the party of five had an ever-growing crowd of street children following them, begging for money.
"Nice job drawing attention to us, you imbecile," Sasuke snapped at Naruto.
Naruto's anger at the world he was living in immediately extended itself to Sasuke. He grabbed him by the collar. "You got a problem with how I choose to spend my money?"
"I do when it affects the mission," Sasuke retaliated. "And what do you think this is going to accomplish anyway? Those kids are going to get maybe one good meal out of your money, and then they'll be back where they started, and nothing will have changed. Tazuna's got the right idea with his bridge—if you want to change the world, you need to have vision, not play at being everybody's friend for a day."
Naruto shoved Sasuke away. "You spoiled little rich kid," he growled. "What in cold hell do you know?! You've never had to go hungry in your entire life. You've never had to look to people for help and have them turn away as if you were offending them just by existing. You couldn't begin to understand what it means to receive a single act of kindness from somebody who could have walked away. So I'm telling you right now. Shut the fuck up before I make you."
Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto was vaguely aware of Sakura staring helplessly at the two of them, as if wanting to step in but not knowing whom to side with. She wouldn't understand either, not with her cosy home and happy family, but at least it looked like she was trying.
Before Sasuke's meaningless pride could turn this into yet another fight, Kakashi-sensei stepped in. "I'm not going to intervene in your ethical debate, but I will point out that extra attention is actually an advantage for us. Wave has no ninja village. To most of them, shinobi are mystical beings of legend with unimaginable supernatural powers. Seeing us on their side will be a major boost for morale, which will benefit our work in all sorts of ways.
"From a more long-term perspective, Wave has been cut off from the rest of the world for a long time. For many, this is their first impression of Hidden Leaf. Right now, it's an impression of wealth and generosity, not to mention the fact that we've twice defeated the best Gatō had to send against us without any losses.
"I should also remind you that you can expect B-rank or A-rank pay for this mission, so lack of personal finances is not something you should worry about right now."
With that, Kakashi-sensei returned to his position next to Tazuna. Naruto did notice, however, that he didn't give any of his own money away.
-o-
The team's mood was tense when they finally arrived at Tazuna's house in a small village not far from the shore. It was a large house which had clearly seen better days—which figured, since with Tazuna gone, the only people left to look after it had been his daughter Tsunami and her son Inari.
While the black-haired little boy was very quiet, perhaps shy, his mother was the very soul of hospitality. It was quite incredible how, without the assistance of shadow clones, she managed to simultaneously get everyone's bags put away in the guest rooms, prepare and serve a vast quantity of seafood broth, lecture her father for gaining so much weight during his time away, quiz everyone on news from the outside world, and generally make Team Seven feel like honoured guests. Sasuke, to his utter horror, became a special target, as Tsunami decided his slight frame obviously meant he wasn't eating enough, and proceeded to ply him with extra helpings while cooing about the poor emaciated boy and how she would restore a rosy glow to his cheeks if it was the last thing she did. Naruto wanted to laugh his head off, but was afraid this might draw her attention to him instead.
The good food and pleasant conversation helped everyone relax, and after a variety of small talk, the conversation turned to the bridge, and the progress that had been made in Tazuna's absence. While it was less than desired, since Tazuna was apparently the only person with the necessary engineering expertise who hadn't been blackmailed or otherwise intimidated into submission by Gatō's goons, the old man was confident that with him there to "drive some motivation into those slackers", they'd be back on schedule in no time.
"Relax, Tsunami," Naruto boasted, lounging back in his seat. "We're the top three ninja of Leaf's younger generation, and Kakashi-sensei here may not look like much, but he's a famous hero of the Third Great Ninja War. Between our strength and your bridge, we're going to kick Gatō's ass so hard they're going to have to rename him Jellō! Believe it!"
Inari, who had been listening quietly for most of the meal, suddenly leapt to his feet, hands in fists. "You're all stupid! You think you're heroes? Gatō's going to kill you like he's killed everyone else! Nobody can fight him! If you have any brains, you should just give up now!"
"Inari!" Tsunami snapped. "Don't be rude to our guests!
"I'm sorry," she said to the ninja. "My husband—Inari's stepfather—died trying to protect our village from Gatō's mercenaries, and we still... feel his loss very keenly."
"That's right!" Inari wouldn't let up. "He tried to be a hero, but there's no such thing as heroes. If he hadn't done that, he'd still be alive. And now you're going to die trying to be heroes too!"
"Hey," Naruto started, "Now you're just being—"
"Shut up!" Inari cut him off. "I hate being surrounded by idiots like you! And I hate living like this! It wouldn't have to be like this if people didn't go around trying to be heroes!"
Naruto opened his mouth, but to his surprise, before he could say anything Sasuke beat him to it.
"Shut the hell up, you loser." Sasuke apparently had no intention of going easy on the boy. "Did I just hear you dismiss your father dying fighting to protect your family? Did I just hear you dismiss the life your mother works hard every day, on her own, to provide you with? Who the hell do you think you are that you should have the right to judge them?
"You think your father's death is a free pass for you to act like a wimp your whole life? You think because he wasn't strong enough you can just throw in the towel and forget about his killer? Well, you don't get to do that.
"If you don't like something, work to change it. If you're not strong enough for that, get stronger first. If you've got an enemy you want to beat, man up and train until you're strong enough, even if it takes years. And don't you dare dismiss other people for trying to do what you're too much of a coward to, whether they make it or not."
The room was silent for a few seconds. Then Inari burst into tears and ran off.
Naruto's first thought was "Well done, Sasuke, you just went off on one at a pre-schooler". But his second thought was "I'd have done it if you hadn't". There was something simply unforgivable about someone taking their parents for granted like that.
The rest of the dinner was conducted in a subdued silence.
-o-
The next day, Team Seven assembled at a grove of particularly tall trees not far from the village for what Kakashi-sensei termed "tree walking" exercises. He gave them a brief explanation of how they worked (push chakra out from the soles of your feet, not so little that you slide off, not so much that you fly away), as well as explaining the vast benefits this skill would deliver in terms of mobility and general chakra manipulation, and sent them out for a first try.
Naruto was forced to admit that Sasuke's attempt was impressive—he made it halfway up his tree of choice before making a mark with a kunai and backflipping off.
Sakura's was nothing short of astounding—for all that they'd become used to her falling behind in combat, she took a leisurely stroll to the very top and then sat on the highest branch blowing raspberries at them. Apparently, her chakra control really was her strong point.
Now it was Naruto's turn. He started to run up the tree. Adjusting the levels of chakra in his feet seemed fairly trivial, on the same level of complexity as adjusting his grip to hold onto a moderately slippery bar of soap. Then, with a start, he realised that he was nearing the top, and thereby revealing his own enhanced chakra control skills. This called for emergency measures.
"Bwaargh!" Naruto "accidentally" channelled way too much chakra into his feet, and shot off the tree with the speed of greased lightning, nearly bowling Kakashi-sensei over before coming to rest upside down in a groove made by his head some way from the clearing.
Wow. That had been educational. Naruto suddenly knew how skilled ninja managed to instantly accelerate the way they did. This would have some amazing taijutsu applications, to say nothing of his more... special... techniques.
Kakashi-sensei, meanwhile, just shook his head.
-o-
Naruto was in bed, finishing up his reading—the team had patched things up with Inari, at least enough for Naruto to borrow some of Wave's intriguingly foreign manga from him. It wasn't the kind of hour for people to go knocking on his door, but since it was fifty-fifty odds that this was one of his hosts, he couldn't exactly turn them away.
"Come in!"
Kakashi-sensei entered and closed the door firmly behind him. "Do you have a minute, Naruto?"
"Sure. What's up, Kakashi-sensei?"
"I see you're enjoying some manga," Kakashi-sensei observed. "I read some myself before the start of this mission. As it happens, Asuma's nephew has a full collection of Ikazuchi Saga."
Naruto tried to keep his expression blank. Oh, cold hell.
"Really? And what did you think?"
"I wanted to see the fight Sakura told me you got your Genin Exam plan from. Curious thing—I couldn't find anything remotely similar in the whole series."
Naruto gave his finest innocent shrug. "I must have been thinking of a different manga after all. I'm sure the title will come to me eventually."
Kakashi-sensei gave him a piercing look. "Naruto, do you mind if I tell you a bedtime story?"
As far as Naruto could remember, nobody had ever told him a bedtime story, and he would have bet all his savings against Kakashi-sensei being the first.
"Uh, sure, if you like."
"Back in the days of the Third Great Ninja War," Kakashi-sensei began, "there were two squad leaders whose mission success rates were far above those of any other. One was my master, Minato-sensei, and the—"
"Who was Minato-sensei?" Naruto interrupted. The name rang a bell, perhaps from one of those history lessons during which he did his best to appear asleep.
"Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash," Kakashi explained. "You know him as the Fourth Hokage."
"Whoa! You were trained by the Fourth himself?!" Kakashi-sensei's standing with Naruto suddenly rose astronomically.
"At the time, he was one of the top squad leaders. The other was a man named… well, none of us could ever pronounce his foreign name, so we usually went with 'Vash'. And he's the one I want to tell you about.
"Vash was a genius ninja—as you can see from the fact that he rivalled the future Fourth Hokage—but he hated responsibility and did everything he could to avoid it. So he worked hard to hide his true skill, to the point where even now most people haven't heard of him. Do you know what 'obfuscating stupidity' means?"
Naruto kept his breathing even. His vision was growing narrow, and his heartbeat loud, but hopefully Kakashi-sensei couldn't tell that just by looking at him. He shook his head.
"It's when you act like an idiot to disguise the fact that you're actually very intelligent. Vash was a master of it. His squad would join battle, and he'd slip and fall, or trip over and grab something completely unexpected for balance, or throw a kunai and accidentally cut a rope holding up something heavy, and when his opponents were done laughing they'd suddenly realise he'd eliminated half their squad without a scratch on him."
This Vash sounded entirely like Naruto's kind of guy.
"But then one day his squad was caught in a massive ambush by Hidden Rock troops. And Vash didn't know what to do. There were too many of them to fight with his usual fake incompetence, but if he used his full strength and saved the day, he'd shoot straight to the top of the candidate list for next Hokage, and everyone knew the Third was planning to retire once the war was over."
"So what did he do?" Naruto asked, dreading the answer.
"Nothing. His indecision lasted for entire seconds, and in a high-level shinobi battle, that can be a lifetime. By the time he made up his mind, it was too late. Rock had wiped out the rest of his squad. Of course, he then destroyed them with his full power, but that didn't bring anyone back—not the specialists he needed to complete the mission, and not the teammates who had trusted him with their lives."
Naruto had no response. That could have been him if he'd held back even a little bit against the water clones.
"Vash gave up being a ninja after the war, and disappeared completely. Some say he couldn't live with the guilt. Others think he's still out there, somewhere, trying to atone."
Kakashi-sensei held Naruto's gaze. "I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, Naruto. But if you want to be a good shinobi, you need to know what matters to you most, and what you're prepared to sacrifice for it. Think about it while there's still time."
He left without waiting for a reply, not that Naruto had one to give him.
Naruto didn't sleep that night.
-o-
In the morning, after breakfast, Naruto went to Kakashi-sensei, and very quietly asked him what the next step of training was after tree walking, and whether it was something he could do on his own.
Kakashi-sensei decided to send a shadow clone with him to act as a teacher, leaving the original to supervise Sasuke and Sakura. Apparently while the latter could mould the right intensity of chakra in her sleep, she would quickly deplete her low reserves if she didn't learn to be more efficient.
Whether deliberately or by chance, Kakashi-sensei chose a distant clearing as the training site, one where no one would ever stumble across Naruto by accident.
"This exercise is called water walking," Kakashi-sensei told him. "Not only do you have to regulate the amount of chakra emitted from your feet, but you have to adjust it second by second to the outside environment until it becomes second nature. Normally you'd start out on a still surface like a lake, but time is limited and you need this weaponised by the time Tazuna is ready to resume construction work on the bridge next week."
Kakashi-sensei casually gestured towards the nearest source of water, which happened to be a raging river, deep and terrifyingly fast. Naruto was not an animist, but even so he clearly recognised its desire to tear him to shreds for the heinous crime of being a human in its vicinity.
He gave Kakashi-sensei a "You've got to be kidding me" look.
Kakashi-sensei shrugged, and calmly walked over to the other side of the river as if it were a smooth stone floor. "Don't forget, when you fall in and start getting carried into the rapids, you can just use what you learned in tree walking to touch off something solid and leap out to shore again."
Naruto noticed that he'd said "when" rather than "if", but it was too late to complain.
"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei."
"Keep at it for the rest of the day. Come back once it starts getting dark and I'll talk you through some basic tips if you're struggling. But the more you can achieve on your own, the more you'll get out of it. Then after dinner, we'll be working on anti-Zabuza strategy."
And with that, Kakashi-sensei left him to face the river's wrath alone.
-o-
Training sucked. Even with a few shadow clones doing it alongside him, progress was slow and painful. It didn't help that, since the clones had a tendency to try to grab onto each other (and him) when falling, every failure cascaded until everyone was wet. Naruto promised himself that once he could do Fire Element techniques like Sasuke, the first thing he'd do was learn (or invent) an instant clothes-drying ninjutsu.
Grumbling to himself, he dismissed the shadow clones and headed for a convenient log on the other side of the clearing to take a break.
"Don't move!"
Naruto froze, his foot still in mid-air. Oh, cold hell. Zabuza wasn't supposed to be active until next week at the earliest. Had his mysterious hunter-nin ally decided to make a solo first strike?
Naruto very slowly turned his head while keeping the rest of his body completely still.
The person he saw was not a ninja. It was, in fact, the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen in his life. Long black hair trembled in the breeze. Large brown eyes seemed ready to capture his gaze, their colour brought out further by a matching choker around her neck. A sleeveless pink kimono accentuated her pale skin. Looking at her, Naruto's heart skipped a beat.
"You were about to step on a valuable medicinal herb," she explained matter-of-factly before plucking said herb from the ground. "You can move now."
Naruto stepped down. "Uh, hi. You're gathering herbs?"
What an unbelievably smooth first impression, his inner critic congratulated him. That eloquence trophy is surely on its way even as we speak.
"My master's feeling sick, and I wanted to make some medicine to help him recover. This area is very good for medicinal herbs. What about you?"
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, a mighty ninja!" Naruto declared, trying to recover from his earlier gaffe. "I'm out here training."
The girl smiled. "I'm Haku. Are you really a ninja? Is it true that you can fly and breathe fire?"
"I think you're thinking of dragons," Naruto told her. "I do know someone who can breathe fire, but he's a bit of a jerk."
She laughed. "So what are you training to do?"
"I'm learning to walk on water." Naruto decided not to demonstrate, aware that falling into the river was unlikely to help him impress Haku.
"That's amazing! Can you show me?"
"Uhh... I'm actually just taking a break. So do you live around here?"
The girl hesitated, then nodded. "Sort of. My master and I used to travel the world before Gatō trapped everyone here."
"What does your master do?"
"Oh, he can do everything!" Haku said proudly.
An idea occurred to Naruto. "Hey, how about I help you out with gathering herbs, and in return you tell me some stories about your travels? This is my first time outside the Fire Country."
"But don't you need to train?"
Naruto shook his head. "Don't worry about it."
He summoned a few shadow clones and sent them to resume the training. Haku's jaw dropped.
"You can make more of yourself?!"
"It's no big deal," Naruto replied modestly even as an aura of smugness a hundred metres wide radiated from him. "So what kind of herbs are we looking for?"
"For a start, more like this one. This is false hawksbeard—you can take it internally to treat coughs and fevers, or to help with snake and insect bites."
Naruto nodded. "Gotcha. All right, tell me a story."
"Well," Haku was deep in thought for a second. "There was this time when my master and I had signed on with a merchant bringing an order of unusually-shaped turnips to the Country of Tea. Unfortunately, right before we got to the daimyo's court, the merchant fell ill with stomach flu, and he begged us to complete the deal for him. But what he forgot to tell us was that the daimyo didn't want them for eating..."
"...and then my master says, 'The contract never said anything about getting the goat off the flagpole afterwards!'"
"Bwahahaha!"
Naruto had been having so much fun listening to Haku that he barely noticed it was getting dark. He'd never wanted dinner less.
"Will you be gathering herbs here again tomorrow?" he asked.
"Maybe," Haku told him. "Will you be skiving off your training here again tomorrow?"
"Only if you help me," Naruto told her.
Haku laughed and gave a nod.
Naruto walked back to Tazuna's house in high spirits.
-o-
Dinner was a lively affair. Sasuke was sulking at being beaten by Sakura, Sakura was over the moon at finally having something she could impress Sasuke with, and Naruto was practically bouncing, and unsuccessfully trying to hide it. At one point, Kakashi and Tsunami both stared at him for a few seconds, then exchanged meaningful looks.
A few seconds later, Tsunami leaned over and whispered, "Local girl?" in Kakashi's ear.
"Almost certainly," Kakashi whispered back.
"What are you two whispering about over there?" Inari demanded. "I'm telling you now, I do not want a ninja as a stepdad!"
Tsunami blushed, while Kakashi kept his expression entirely unreadable. Sakura, Naruto and even Sasuke laughed.
-o-
The next day saw Naruto making extraordinary progress in his training (which is to say only falling into the river whenever he stopped paying one hundred percent attention). When Haku arrived, he took care to position himself so she would face away from the river. If she noticed the clones' antics behind her anyway, she was too polite to comment.
Today, he took more of an active role in their conversations, partly at Haku's insistence. He found himself full of stories about the life of a ninja (and the D-rank missions, including a number of anecdotes about That Accursed Cat), and about the people he spent his time with, temperamental Sakura, wannabe genius Sasuke, curious but easily terrified Hinata, and quite a few others. For someone so used to thinking of himself as alone, Naruto was surprised by how much he had to tell her. Haku was a natural listener, and he even found himself telling her about the others, people whose significance to him he struggled to define but whose existence unquestionably mattered: the Hokage, Teuchi and Ayame from the ramen shop, Raijin, Iruka-sensei, and, he realised to his surprise, increasingly Kakashi-sensei too.
Haku sounded wistful when she questioned him about the people in his life. Apparently, her life on the road didn't leave her with opportunities to make friends. It was just her and her master—although it helped that he was the most incredible man ever, strong, wise, caring and generally incomparable in every way.
"Sounds like you're in love with him," Naruto teased her.
"Don't be silly," Haku told him. "My master's my master. He's not someone you love or hate. He's above all that. It would be like being in love with the whole world all at once."
"Oh, so he's your world, is he?"
"Yes," Haku nodded, completely seriously. "He is."
Naruto didn't have much he could say to that.
From there the conversation turned to what it was like to live in a ninja village, surrounded by other people, many of whom also had amazing supernatural abilities. Haku asked, for example, how you prevented crime in a village where everybody was an expert at being sneaky and covering their tracks. Naruto had to explain about the village police, and how Leaf used to have a special clan, the Uchiha, whose Sharingan eyes allowed them to see through any disguise and defeat even the deadliest ninja criminals. Unfortunately, this meant he also had to tell her about the Uchiha Massacre, and how one dark night Uchiha Itachi had wiped out his entire clan for no reason anyone could fathom, leaving only his little brother alive. Haku was deeply moved by the discovery that Naruto's friend (no, he corrected her, the term was "rival") Sasuke was the last survivor of his clan.
Since the mood was growing dark, Naruto decided to quickly change the subject. He cast around for something to talk about, and recalled that yesterday she'd mentioned playing shogi as part of a ridiculous bet in the Country of Vegetables.
"You said you like shogi, right? I do too."
"Do you have a favourite strategy?"
Naruto beamed. "Oh, sure. I'm a big fan of the Yagura Castle as long as you don't get stalemated, and there are so many ways to mess with your opponent using the Floating Rook—"
He suddenly realised what he was saying. This was why he was supposed to watch what he was saying twice as carefully whenever he got excited. So much for that budding friendship.
Then he realised to his surprise that Haku was staring at him with keen interest.
"I hate the Floating Rook," she announced. "My master gets me with it every time and I still haven't figured out a counter."
"Oh!" Naruto exclaimed. "Well, what you want to do is try to make an opening for a Climbing Silver. You'll be in a lot of pain if you mess it up, but the basic idea is this..."
-o-
Naruto was in heaven. Pure and absolute heaven. He had discovered the perfect woman. Apart from being beautiful and charming and clever and interesting, she actually took his intelligence to be a good thing. Inspired by the way the day had gone, he even made some great suggestions during the nightly anti-Zabuza strategy meeting, like ways in which he could place his shadow clones on the bridge to prepare traps before the battle. It wasn't anything that could dramatically undermine his façade, but it was still more than he would have had the courage to say before.
-o-
"You know," he told Haku, "it's not very safe travelling the roads all the time with just one man to protect you. How about I teach you a little self-defence to balance out all the herbal medicine you've taught me?"
Haku did not object. In fact, it struck Naruto, there was an unfamiliar intensity about her as they trained, as if she was focusing less on replicating the moves herself and more on the detail of how he was doing them. On impulse, he decided to try something... just in case.
The next technique he tried to teach her was not another standard piece of civilian-friendly self-defence. It was a highly advanced ANBU-level assassination move he had seen exactly once in his life, the night he'd carefully inserted a dozen clones Transformed into pages into Kakashi-sensei's copy of Makeout Tactics. It was the page on which the name of Mikoto's real father was finally revealed, and Kakashi-sensei would open it and do a double-take at the name, only for the page to vanish in a puff of smoke and reveal a nearly-identical page—with a different name. Too afraid of damaging a real page to try to destroy all the remaining clones at once, and too afraid of spoilers to try to flick past them, Kakashi-sensei had to suffer through all twelve iterations before reaching the real revelation.
While Naruto had not managed to learn the full technique, which would have required seeing it more than once and ideally not being in extreme agony at the time, he knew enough to try to teach it to Haku and see what happened.
To his thoroughly concealed horror, she picked it up as effortlessly as all the others, without seeing any apparent difference.
Wave had no ninja village. All the foreign ninja living in Wave were old and retired, and Gatō's blockade prevented any new ones from coming in. Haku, who had been in close and blissful physical contact with him in the process of practising the self-defence moves, was not under the Transformation Technique.
He now knew exactly who she was.
And even though she was clearly a highly skilled enemy ninja, and for all he knew everything she'd said and done so far had been an act, the fact was that he didn't want to have to kill her.
As they chatted about ninja village economics, and the bizarre matchmaking customs of the Country of Wheat, and the strategic pros and cons of the Flatfish Opening, Naruto hastily developed, analysed and dismissed plan after plan. Eventually, as the sun got low, he decided he had something with at least a small chance of working.
"Hey, Haku, are you busy tomorrow?"
The girl tilted her head slightly in puzzlement. "No, pretty much like today. My master's getting better, but there are still a few medicines that he could do with."
"Then do you fancy... uh... going on a d-d-date?"
Haku stared at him as if he'd spontaneously grown nine tails. "A date? With me?"
"S-Sure," Naruto affirmed, while inwardly going "Pleasepleaseplease let this work!" and also "Help! What do you do on a date?"
Haku let the silence stretch until Naruto was near panic. Finally she nodded. "Meet you here at the usual time?"
"Yes! I mean yes."
For good or ill, his fate was now sealed.
-o-
Late that night, after everyone had gone to bed...
Naruto knocked on the door.
"Uh, Tsunami, can I talk to you?"
"Naruto? Of course. Just give me a second."
There was a brief delay.
"Come in!"
Naruto came into the bedroom. Tsunami, in a green dressing gown, was waiting for him.
"What is it, Naruto?"
"Um... I know I don't know you very well, but I need advice, and it's not something I can ask anyone in my team..." Naruto shifted his feet awkwardly.
Tsunami nodded sagely. "You want to know how to invite a girl on a date."
Naruto was stunned by the uncanny guess. It was a reminder not to underestimate people just because they hadn't been trained in spycraft.
"Actually, she's already said yes. I want to know what you do on a date, and how. I really don't want to mess this up." Not when there were lives at stake.
"I see. Well, the first thing you need to do is look the part. What have you got apart from your uniform?"
"Uh... just these clothes I'm wearing now."
Tsunami shook her head. "No, that'll never do. How long do we have before the date?"
"It's tomorrow."
Tsunami looked taken aback. "Dear heavens.
"Right. Stand up. Arms out. Let's see if any of Kaiza's old things fit you."
"Arms up!"
"No, the colour's all wrong."
"Arms out."
"Sleeves are too long, but goes well with your eyes."
"Stop squirming!"
"My, I didn't realise he'd kept that. Oh, the way he looked in it when he danced..."
"Tsunami? Is something wrong?"
-o-
That night, Naruto learned the unimaginable power a woman can unleash when guided by a higher purpose and wielding a sewing machine. He also memorised a list of nearby tourist locations, based on a very old guidebook Tsunami lent him. According to her, it had been brought here by a visiting ninja tourist from far away, who had given the thing to her and proclaimed that her encyclopaedic knowledge of the area, as well as her surpassing beauty, made her a far superior guide. Inside the front cover, there was indeed a message reading "To Tsunami, from Jiraiya with love". Despite its age, the book was in excellent condition, barring the red circles marked around a number of hot springs.
But there was only so much one could do to prepare, even armed with Tsunami's advice, encouragement and promise of absolute secrecy no matter what. Naruto adjusted his hand-me-down black trousers and crimson jacket, took a deep breath and entered the clearing.
It was just as well he'd taken a deep breath, because it was suddenly caught in his lungs. Haku was wearing a black kimono with cherry blossom patterns that somehow managed to make her look even more amazing than she did before. Her smile was radiant, though there seemed to be some subtle melancholy quality to it—or was that just his imagination now that he knew her to be an enemy?
"You look stunning," he told her when he could speak.
"I like the way you look too," she replied. "So where are we going?"
"Right this way."
-o-
Were he not keenly aware that Haku was an enemy who would soon be trying to kill him and the rest of his team, it would perhaps have been the perfect date. He'd plotted a route down a riverside path leading to an old and beautiful temple, with an inn nearby that had largely escaped the ravaging of Wave's economy through exceptional self-sufficiency, and could thus offer an excellent meal in elegant surroundings. After an initial shy silence, Naruto and Haku found themselves talking incessantly.
But the main event was still to come.
As Naruto led Haku to the western gate of the city he'd passed through before, he started to bring the conversation in the direction of Gatō and Wave's recent history. Then they went in, and Haku saw Wave's urban face.
Something about her expression hardened. Behind her eyes, Naruto recognised a pain born not of shock but of recognition, an acute stab turning into dull but constant heartache. It was what he felt whenever he left the warmth of Ichiraku Ramen and once more felt the adults' contemptuous glares on his skin.
Today he would be the one driving the knife deeper.
"This is what Gatō wants to preserve so he can keep getting rich off these people," he told Haku. "And it's also what the ninja he's hired, a guy named Zabuza, is fighting to protect. It's hard to believe, isn't it? That someone would lay their life on the line to keep starving children on the streets, to keep everyone miserable and scared?"
Haku said nothing.
Naruto kept her moving, down the streets he remembered being most impoverished on his first time through, using the maps he'd memorised from the guidebook to locate places of maximum impact, like ruined residential areas and closed hospitals.
"It bothers me," he said. "I keep thinking that we might lose, and then the whole country will stay like this forever." He meant it. This was his first mission where something important was at stake, and this only made it more excruciating that suddenly he was having to weigh so many different things in the balance.
Haku still didn't say anything.
"So I keep telling myself that we have to win. We have to help these people beat Gatō, so they can have food and water, and shelter. And pride. That look in their eyes... I never want to see anyone looking like that again.
"I guess that's why I brought you here," he confessed. "Sorry, I know it's not great date material, but I wanted you to understand what I'm doing here, in this country, and why."
Haku managed a smile. "That's OK. I'm... I'm grateful you want to share something that matters to you with me."
Eventually, they left. There were a couple of other places Naruto had on his list, scenic locations that gave Haku plenty of space to think as they stared out at beautiful vistas together. He didn't get in her way.
As it grew dark, and they began to head back, she turned to him. "Naruto, I want to thank you for today. It meant a lot to me to go on a date with you."
He smiled. "Yeah. Me too."
"Listen," she went on, "tomorrow is the last day I'm going to get to spend with you. My master's feeling better now, and we're going to move on from this place. So make sure you come, OK? There's something important I have to tell you."
Naruto's eyes widened a little.
She smiled, a little sadly. "Wait until tomorrow. Goodbye, Naruto."
-o-
It was early morning. In the process of performing miraculous feats of avoiding Tsunami lest she quiz him about the date, he'd had an idea, one last plan which almost certainly wouldn't work, and would doubtless lead to disaster somewhere down the line even if it did work, and would probably place him in terrible danger and not pay off at all, but it had to be done. And it had to be done now. Tazuna's itinerary had been drawn up, and starting tomorrow he'd be working on the bridge in person every day. And the bridge, a confined space surrounded by water, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, was where Zabuza would inevitably strike.
Naruto dispatched six clones on a special mission. He wished he could send more, but the final confrontation with Zabuza was coming up, and he wouldn't be getting that chakra back for a while.
Then he went out and waited for Haku. Happily, his shadow clones had been working diligently, even during the date, so he pretty much had water walking down now. The hard part had apparently been not just staying above the surface, but managing chakra flow in the horizontal plane to prevent the river sweeping him away like some sort of moving floor.
Haku came soon enough.
"Hello, Naruto."
"Hi, Haku."
There was an awkward silence.
Naruto hated awkward silences. He'd been stuck in them his whole life, whenever somebody wanted to ignore him or get rid of him but couldn't quite figure out how. So he broke this one quickly.
"You know, you never did tell me the end of that story about your master, the ten jugs of pig grease and the panicking minister of foreign policy..."
And as Haku obliged, they fell back into the pattern of their previous conversations. Still, there was something between them now that hadn't been there before, and Naruto thought they were both aware of it. A certain tenderness, perhaps, combined with an unspoken sense of sorrow. They both knew that something precious was ending, and that it could not be protected or preserved. Even the brief time they'd had together was an illusion, a false peace between two people of whom one would inevitably have to kill the other. At least if Naruto failed.
Eventually, evening came, and then there was no more time.
"So what was it you wanted to tell me, Haku?"
Haku sighed. "Naruto, I'm not who you think I am."
"I know."
"You... do?"
"Your master is Zabuza, isn't he?"
Haku looked down at the grass, then back up at him. "But I don't want to fight you, Naruto. Please... stay out of the battle tomorrow. I don't want to have to kill you."
"Are you really OK with this? Fighting for Gatō? To keep Wave as it is?"
Haku didn't say anything for a while.
"I'm my master's tool. If he wants me to fight, I have to fight."
"Even if it's wrong?"
"You don't understand," Haku said. "I owe my master everything. If he said the sky was green, I would do my best to live my life as if it was."
"But... but you're better than that!" Naruto exclaimed. "You're intelligent, and experienced, and capable of making good decisions! You can't lie to yourself just because someone else says so!"
"I owe him everything," Haku repeated. "Nothing I do will ever be enough to repay him, so I have to at least give him everything I can."
Naruto, having rehearsed this conversation extensively in lieu of sleep, decided to try another tack. "You know he'll die. My team is strong, and Kakashi-sensei is incredibly strong. You're not just letting him fight for the wrong cause. You're not just letting him kill for the wrong cause. You're letting him die for it."
Haku was silent.
Time passed.
"...I'll talk to him," she said in a voice just above a whisper.
"What?"
"I'll talk to him," Haku repeated. "Maybe he'll listen."
Naruto felt a wave of relief.
"But Naruto, if he decides to fight, I have to be there at his side to protect him. It can't be any other way."
Naruto nodded helplessly. "And that goes for me too. I can't let any of my team die."
"Then I guess that's it," Haku said with regret. "I want you to know that, even though I was trying to deceive you about who I was, I meant everything else. The time I've spent with you has been precious to me."
"Me too," Naruto told her. "You're the most amazing girl I've ever met."
Haku smiled. Then, completely unexpectedly, she stepped over to him and kissed him. It was warm, and gentle, and soft, and made his heart sing. He felt a little dizzy when she pulled away.
"Oh, by the way..." Haku added, "I'm a boy."
The dizziness intensified. Naruto attempted to make a considered response that would encapsulate all his feelings about this sudden revelation.
"Bwuh?!"
Then he realised something. He wasn't feeling dizzy because he'd just discovered that he had had his first date, and his first kiss, with another boy. He was, in fact, feeling dizzy because Haku's lips had been poisoned. He hit the ground with a thud.
The last thing he saw was Haku dragging his body somewhere no one would ever find it.