"Bring in Mr. Tazuna here," Hiruzen said over the intercom.

Tazuna entered the mission office.

"What? *hiccup* I thought I would receive real ninjas, not kids!" Tazuna shouted.

"Especially that brat with pink hair and bright clothes! How did someone become a ninja with that outfit?!" Tazuna insulted.

Sakura got very angry and tried to charge Tazuna, but Naruto held her back.

It was very evident that he was drunk.

"You were given what you paid for," Naruto replied.

"Don't worry, Tazuna. We have one of our best jonin accompany you as well, so there won't be any problems," Hiruzen said, trying to calm the client.

Tazuna relented. He can't go around insulting Konoha ninjas right in front of them.

"You better be ready to lay your lives down for me!" Tazuna said, leaving the office.

'That seems off... wait! Isn't Gato running some of his illegal operations in the Land of Waves?' Naruto thought to himself.

"Well, pack up for at least a month's worth of supplies and meet me at the southern gate at 8 AM tomorrow," Kakashi ordered.

The team saluted and left.

March 3rd,

7:52 am,

"It's nice of you three to be here early," Kakashi said with an eye smile.

'Looks like he is taking this mission seriously,' Naruto thought.

"We should be prepared for anything we might face. Things can go south easily since we might face ninjas, so I will be checking that you three are prepared for anything we might face," Kakashi said. Tazuna flinched when Kakashi mentioned facing ninjas. Kakashi and Naruto noticed Tazuna's expression, which confirmed that he was hiding something. People typically do not have such an expression out of fear, rather, it comes from guilt.

"Good Satsuki, you got everything that you need to go outside the village," Kakashi praised.

"You too, Sakura. But I think you should ease on the makeup and perfume a bit. You are too young for seduction missions," Kakashi joked.

Sakura frowned, but when she looked at Naruto, who seemed to have bought nothing, she smirked thinking he would be scolded.

"Show me what you got, Naruto," Kakashi ordered.

With a small amount of chakra coursing through the points where the seals are, Naruto showed off the seals he had inscribed on his body.

"Very good, Naruto!" Kakashi praised him.

'To have such high-level seals, even if it's just a storage scroll. It can probably store a tonne or two worth of goods, I have only seen Minato sensei and Lady Kushina create such a seal!' Kakashi thought with surprise.

'He is truly their son,' Kakashi thought with a smile.

Kakashi signed out at the gates and came towards his team.

"Let's make our way to the Land of Waves now," Kakashi announced.

They all nodded and made their way.

11: 34 am,

"Ah," Naruto sighed in happiness. He ate to his heart's content just a minute ago. They were on their move again after having lunch, the sooner they made it to the Land of Waves, the better.

While on their move, they spotted a small puddle in the middle of the road.

'A pond in this weather? It hasn't rained in many days and it's a pretty dry climate. Such a bad genjutsu,' Naruto thought with pity. Although he had sensed them a while ago, he didn't expect them to do such a pathetic job at disguising themselves.

Kakashi was thinking along the same lines as Naruto.

'I will see whose their target,' Kakashi thought.

Just as the group passed the puddle, Kakashi was wrapped in spiky chains ripped into pieces thanks to the 2 rouge mist ninjas, who jumped out of the puddle.

The one on the left jumped towards the closest target, which was Naruto. he slit Naruto's throat and the other made his way toward Tazuna.

Satsuki seeing Naruto get killed, awakened the sharingan.

"YOU BASTARD!" Satsuki screamed, running head-on towards Naruto's killer.

The one who was about to kill Tazuna looked back to see that the girl who screamed was about to kill his brother, so he made his way towards her.

Suddenly, he found himself on the ground, courtesy of Kakashi kicking him away.

The other one dodged Satsuki's strike and was about to slit her throat as well, but found himself crashing through a tree, thanks to someone he thought was killed by him.

Naruto quickly placed a paralysis seal on his opponent and tied him up. Kakashi knocked out the rouge ninja he defeated and tied him up next to his brother.

"Hmm, looks like you have awakened the sharingan, congrats," Naruto said, looking at Satsuki.

Satsuki was surprised by the current happenings, she was happy that she got the sharingan but was damn mad that Naruto had faked his death right in front of her.

Naruto was slapped hard by Satsuki.

"Ouch! What was that for!" Naruto shouted annoyed.

"I thought you died!" Satsuki shouted back with her sharingan blazing.

"I had to know who was the target, us, or Tazuna," Naruto replied.

"Uhh?" Was her intelligent response.

"And now we know the answer. Why did you lie about the mission, Tazuna?" Kakashi questioned with a glare directed towards Tazuna.

Tazuna shrunk under the glare since it's pretty scary when an S-ranked ninja glares at you with anger.

"Wha~What do you mean?" Tazuna questioned. This only made Kakashi's glare more intense.

"They targeted you, did you think we didn't notice," Naruto said.

"Fine... Yes, I am targeted by someone, someone very powerful. What most don't know is that Gato has taken over my entire village, seizing all the ports and enforcing strict taxes on us. This drove our entire economy down, forcing us to live in poverty. But our only hope is the bridge I am building which connects us to the mainland, this will make Konoha involved with Land of Waves' affairs, helping us get rid of Gato's rule once and for all!" Tazuna said, getting passionate at the end.

"But it still doesn't excuse the fact that my team is in danger against rouge ninjas, my team is newly minted so they have no experience. And you lied about your mission, endangering us!" Kakashi scolded.

"Please! My country has no money left! This is the bare minimum we could get from all the people! We can't afford a mission higher than a C-Ranked! If I die, no one will take care of my family! My daughter will never trust a Konoha ninja ever, and my grandson will cry himself to sleep every day!" Tazuna pleaded.

The three genin gave a deadpan expression at the end.

"Hmm, going through with the mission is now out of my hands, my genin have to all vote if they want to continue with the mission or not," Kakashi replied.

"I vote that we go. We have an opportunity to make a very good ally out of The Land of Waves," Naruto said, giving his vote.

"I vote in favor of continuing the mission, I want to face more ninjas to push through my limits," Satsuki said with a smirk.

"Ummh, I vote in favor of the mission as well," Sakura said. Even though this mission was way out of her league, She realized that this mission would help her get promoted to Chunin and gain valuable experience as a ninja.

"Very well then, you got very lucky that my team is very understanding," Kakashi said with a slight glare at Tazuna's direction.

Tazuna gave a genuine smile. He was happy that he managed to convince them to continue with the mission.

"Let's get moving," Kakashi said turning towards the direction of the Land of Waves.

March 5th,

4: 23 pm,

They crossed through the ocean thanks to a fisherman who managed to sneak them into the country. A lot of time was taken for them to pass through the land of Wave's ocean since they had to keep quiet to not gain attention from the thugs who were patrolling the country to keep an eye on the country's borders. Currently, they are about halfway to Tazuna's house.

'Hmm, I can sense about 2 chakra signatures, one being about as big as sensei's and another thrice as big as Satsuki's,' Naruto thought.

Kurama chose to wake up then to watch what was going on. This event was much more interesting than what was going on before.

Naruto threw a kunai toward a bush.

'He used a substitution,' Naruto thought.

"Geez! Why are scaring us like that!" Sakura shouted.

"Shut up! We probably got someone as strong as sensei going up against us," Naruto said, looking in the direction where the huge chakra reserve.

Sakura got mad when Naruto told her to shut up but got quiet when Naruto and Kakashi shouted "Get down!".

Naruto dragged Tazuna down with him whilst Kakashi dragged down Sakura with him. Satsuki got the memo and got down as well.

"Kakashi Hatake, you go by many names, a few being the Copy Cat Ninja and, The ninja who copied a thousand jutsus," The man said. This surprised Sakura, Tazuna and Satsuki. They didn't know Kakashi was this skilled since they thought he was someone very lazy and incompetent.

"Oh Kakashi, why don't you give the old bridge builder and leave as if we never met in the first place?" He continued, after leaping on top of his huge sword

"Zabuza Momochi eh... what are you doing over here in the Land of Waves? It's a bit far from your country, isn't it?" Naruto said, looking up at Zabuza.

Everyone but Kakashi gave a questioning glance at Naruto.

"So you know who I am, eh," Zabuza said.

"Back then, the Village hidden in the mist had another name, the bloody mist. One of the reasons why it was called like that was because of their Genin exams. Each student will be paired up, that person will eat with you, stay in the same class as you, play with you, train with you, and so on, but to graduate from their academy, they will be forced to kill their partner. It was either kill or be killed! But everything changed suddenly, a person the same age as us, killed everyone from the graduating year without remorse, and he wasn't even part of the academy. There, he was nicknamed Demon of the Hidden Mist. He became a ninja without even going to the academy since he showed such great skills," Naruto explained.

Zabuza chuckled evilly.

"It felt... so good!" Zabuza exclaimed with some craziness.

The whole team tensed up when Zabuza spoke.

'How could he kill so many people when he was our age!' Sakura thought, getting paler by the second.

Zabuza was an S-ranked missing ninja from the Village hidden in the mist. Zabuza ran away from his village after a failed assassination attempt on the tyrannical Fourth Mizukage. Zabuza was part of the 7 swordsmen of the mist, carrying the legendary blade named Kubikiribocho.

"I am sorry Zabuza, I promised my client that we will protect him till our last breath," Kakashi replied.

"Are you sure about that? You still have your genin with you, aren't you worried about what will happen to them?" Zabuza mocked.

"Don't forget that Kakashi sensei is also an S-ranked ninja, just like you are... My sensei has copied over a thousand jutsus and was even personally apprenticed by the Fourth Hokage. Having a sensei of his caliber is something you shouldn't disregard, so don't underestimate us," Naruto said straight-faced.

Kakashi was a bit surprised at Naruto's knowledge about him.

"You don't have to worry about them," Kakashi said to Zabuza, revealing his Sharingan, which was glaring full force at Zabuza.

'How does he have the sharingan!' Satsuki thought with surprise and a bit of anger.

'This is the first time I am seeing 2 S-Ranked ninjas duke it out to the death, this will be quite interesting,' Naruto thought.

"Hmm, you look quite familiar... you look like the Fourth Hokage!" Zabuza said with a bit of surprise. Naruto's eyes widened a bit and it was followed by narrowed eyes. Zabuza was spot on. Naruto was a mini Minato with a fair mix of Kushina and Minato's personalities.

There was a huge amount of killing intent directed towards the group of five. Only Naruto and Kakashi seemed unfazed. Sakura, Satsuki, and Tazuna seemed as if they were ready to piss off their pants.

'How did he deduce Naruto's relations with sensei with just a glance?!' Kakashi thought with a bit of panic. He looked at Naruto to see his reaction. 'He is smirking?!' Kakashi thought with a bit of surprise. 'Looks like he already knows of his father at least,' Kakashi thought.

'Now that Zabuza said so, Naruto does look like the Fourth Hokage!' Satsuki thought, but Sakura wasn't able to think under such a circumstance since she wasn't trained to handle much killing intent, so she completely disregarded what Zabuza said about Naruto resembling the Fourth Hokage.

Kakashi flooded the place with his killing intent to counter Zabuza's, easing the pressure on his team.

"Looks like you have someone competent in your team, but no matter! I will kill the bridge builder!" Zabuza exclaimed, jumping down and retrieving his sword while falling. Zabuza used a special hand seal and yelled, "Hidden Mist Jutsu!".

'Let's see what he can do with the mist on,' Naruto thought. Although Naruto can use a wind jutsu, he wanted to see what Zabuza could do when he went all out.

'The killing intent from him is quite high, not as much as mine though,' Naruto thought.

"Of course, it's not as much as yours! You likely have as much killing intent as your father and you likely can handle even more, after all, you learned about it from me!" Kurama said puffing his chest out with pride.

Naruto's sweat dropped at what Kurama said. But Kurama did have some merit to his words, Kurama's killing intent is as much as Madara and Hashirama's was.

'Hmm, Zabuza made water clones, and Kakashi sensei copied it to the dot. The Sharingan is very impressive,' Naruto thought.

Naruto concentrated more on Kakashi's eye, 'Is that a Mangekyo! How can Kakashi handle the drain of the Mangekyo sharingan?!' Naruto thought with surprise. The Mangekyo sharingan, even if it's deactivated, uses a lot of chakra. It's because it gives a higher perception than the normal 3 tomoe sharingan. It also provides the user with a higher chakra reserve to not drain the user completely.

'Looks like even a transplanted eye gives its user the increased reserves. No wonder Kakashi has such high reserves while having the transplanted sharingan,' Naruto thought.

"The transplanted Sharingan can naturally increase his chakra reserves, but its constant drain will negate its effects, ultimately reducing the amount of chakra available to him," Kurama added.

Naruto mentally nodded at that. What Kurama said is a probable reason for Kakashi's chakra reserve problem.

'This battle between 2 kage level ninjas is too much! I can barely even breathe with the about of killing intent those 2 are throwing around!' Satsuki thought as she was bringing her kunai close to her throat,

"Don't worry Satsuki, I will protect you three with my life," Kakashi said reassuringly.

'Zabuza is planning on jumping inside our formation uh,' Naruto thought.

He took out his katana and prepared himself.

Just as Zabuza was jumping inside the formation, Naruto sliced right through it. Not one sound was heard.

'Naruto dispelled one of Zabuza's water clones. Even if it's just a water clone, it holds one-tenth of Zabuza's full power,' Kakashi thought. He barely can see what was going on through the mist.

"Sensei, I recommend you input more chakra to your sharingan to see better,' One of Naruto's clones recommended.

Kakashi tried out what Naruto recommended, and was quite surprised. Kakashi was able to see much better through the mist. His Sharingan's tomoe was spinning now. Naruto knew that just activating the mangekyo stage would eat at one's chakra, so he didn't tell Kakashi to force more chakra into his eye.

Satsuki whirled around and shouted, "Sensei! Behind you!".

But Kakashi was too late to defend himself, so he was slashed by Kubikiribocho.

Sakura, Tazuna, and Satsuki's eyes widened when they saw what happened to Kakashi.

Kakashi's wound sprayed out a clear liquid. It turned out to be water. Zabuza just dispelled a water clone.

The three who were worried now had a relieved expression.

Zabuza was pierced by a kunai, thanks to Kakashi. Zabuza dispelled into a water blob as well. The Kakashi which pierced the Zabuza clone was slashed in half by Zabuza. That Kakashi dispelled into a blob of water, and Zabuza was kicked away.

That Zabuza, after crashing at a tree, also dispelled into a water blob. The Kakashi who kicked that Zabuza clone was sent flying thanks to Zabuza's foot crashing into Kakashi's abdomen.

The Kakashi who was kicked happened to be the real Kakashi.

'So all of Kakashi's clones got dispelled, but one of Zabuza's is still there. Let's see what sensei is going to do,' Naruto thought. Naruto was quite impressed with what was going on, The 2 jonins were going at high speeds against each other. 'But now comes the real fight,' He thought, observing the fight.

Satsuki even with her Sharingan activated couldn't see much since she has little to no practice with it, and also it's underdeveloped, making it nearly useless in most cases. But for her, if she manages to see the fight, she could learn something from it by analyzing the fight using stage one of the Sharingan's visual prowess.

'Damn it! I can barely see anything since it's a chakra-laced mist!' Satsuki thought.

'It's good that I can see what they are doing,' Naruto thought. Naruto still had some ways to go until he could call himself fast.

Zabuza swung his blade horizontally at Kakashi. Kakashi, who anticipated this, brought his kunai up and clashed with the Kubikiribocho head-on. Zabuza was surprised at the strength Kakashi showed. Being able to hold off the Kubikribocho with just simple kunai took a lot of strength.

Both Zabuza and Kakashi jumped away from each other. Suddenly, a clone of Zabuza rushed at Kakashi, pushing him towards a tree. Zabuza dashed forward at full speed, his movements swift and aggressive. As Kakashi attempted to counter with a punch, he was forced to duck quickly when Zabuza swung the Kubikiribocho Horizontally. This left Kakashi with no choice but to duck down, knowing that he would be left vulnerable to a kick. He braced himself and he was sent sprawling to the huge lake.

"Wind Style! Great Breakthrough!" Naruto shouted, clearing the mist.

'That damned brat released my mist!' Zabuza thought with a bit of anger.

'This water, it feels too dense!' Kakashi thought with panic, but it was too late to do anything about it because one of Zabuza's clones appeared and performed the water prison jutsu. The real Zabuza was substituted with the clone to keep the jutsu running since it was quite taxing to use for a prolonged time. He also didn't take the genins much seriously, so he only sent a clone against them. Sakura and Satsuki panicked when they saw their sensei inside the water prison.

"Run! Run away with the client! He is was out of your league!" Kakashi shouted.

"Zabuza's clone can't go too far from the original! Run away!" He ordered.

'I can't show off that I can use wind blades yet, I have to save it for the last blow,' Naruto thought.

'I will use my clones to distract Zabuza's water clone whilst I take on the real Zabuza head-on,' Naruto thought.

"Sakura, Satsuki, protect Tazuna. I will take care of Zabuza," Naruto instructed.

"Who made you the leader?" Sakura questioned.

Naruto released a high dose of killing intent.

Everyone's eyes widened. The amount Naruto was releasing was equivalent to that of what Zabuza and Kakashi were producing before.

The Killing intent was mainly directed towards Zabuza to show he is an actual threat, and some towards Sakura to shut her up.

"If you have any ideas, please suggest them," Naruto said in a cold voice, chilling Sakura and Tazuna's spine.

A bunch of Naruto's clones charged towards Zabuza's water clone and the water clone was quickly dispatched.

Naruto knew he could match Zabuza, even beat him if he used the sage mode, but he couldn't go around using his ace yet, after all, he didn't want to be seen as a target yet.

Naruto ran quickly toward the real Zabuza at High Jonin speeds.

Zabuza's eyes widened due to the speed Naruto was charging at him.

Zabuza propelled himself away from both Naruto and Kakashi, releasing the water prison.

"Good job Naruto," Kakashi praised.

Zabuza went through hand seals for the water dragon jutsu.

Kakashi started to mimic Zabuza to the dot. They went through all the hand seals, which were 44 hand signs and produced the same-sized water dragon which collided with each other.

Zabuza and Kakashi went head-on against each other, Zabuza tried to slice Kakashi with his sword but got blocked by Kakashi's skilled use of Kunai. Kakashi's sharingan allowed him to know where Zabuza would strike.

Zabuza jumped back and started to wave hand signs which Kakashi copied.

"Water Style! Great Waterfall Jutsu!" Kakashi shouted followed by Zabuza.

Zabuza was taken aback when Kakashi performed the jutsu ahead of him, he wasn't able to comprehend how he was able to do that.

"Wind style! Hyper jet" Naruto shouted. The jutsu he used was a stronger version of Jet stream jutsu.

Naruto's jutsu made Kakashi's jutsu more powerful, which gave them the edge over Zabuza. Zabuza's jutsu collapsed easily, and Naruto and Kakashi's combination jutsu made its way toward Zabuza at high speeds. Zabuza, not being able to dodge it, braced himself for the impact.

Zabuza was flung across a few trees and was pinned down by Kakashi's kunai. Zabuza is now bleeding and heavily bruised.

"Can you see the future?" Zabuza asked.

"Yes, and your future is death!" Kakashi said with seriousness.

Soon 3 senbon struck his neck, killing him. A mist hunter ninja jumped in front of Zabuza and said, "You are correct, Mr. Kakashi. His future was death. Thank you for weakening him for me. I have been tracking for the past 3 months to kill him," The Masked Mist ninja said.

'Hmm, he has a bloodline. No way they would let him join the mist forces, let alone the hunter-ninja division! Naruto thought.

"You are correct, that brat didn't help us out when your sensei was inside the water prison. That's when Zabuza was most vulnerable since he wouldn't be able to do anything when near invisible senbon would strike him," Kurama voiced his opinion.

Kakashi checked Zabuza's pulse to confirm if Zabuza was dead.

Zabuza had no pulse, so Kakashi relaxed.

"I shall be leaving," The Masked ninja said, leaving in a body flicker with Zabuza's body.

"And Zabuza got away..." Naruto muttered to himself with narrowed eyes.

Kakashi fell unconscious due to chakra exhaustion.

"Sensei!" Sakura shouted with worry.

"Don't worry, he is just unconscious due to chakra depletion. It happens when someone who is not an Uchiha uses the sharingan too much," Naruto said while making a few clones to carry Kakashi.

6th March,

At Tazuna's house,

"Good Morning, Sensei," Naruto greeted next to Kakashi.

"Oh... Hello Naruto. How long was I out for?" Kakashi questioned.

"About a day. You suffered from chakra exhaustion, so take it easy," Naruto said.

Tazuna, Satsuki, and Sakura entered their room when they heard Kakashi's voice.

"Thank god you're awake, sensei!" Sakura shouted with happiness.

"Now that sensei is awake, I have something to tell you guys about," Naruto said. Everyone focused their looks on him.

"What is it?" Satsuki questioned.

'Hmm, so he too probably thinks that Zabuza is alive,' Kakashi thought.

"Zabuza escaped, not killed," Naruto said, shocking the entire everyone but Kakashi.

"Idiot! How is that possible when Kakashi sensei confirmed that Zabuza died!" Sakura screamed.

"And you're supposed to be the smartest in our team. Listen before you shout!" Naruto barked out, shutting Sakura up.

"The places where the senbon struck were at the neck, at specific pressure points. These pressure points when struck will place the person in a death-like state. Zabuza has a very capable ninja under him, he moved away from the battlefield at around Jonin-level speeds," Naruto said.

"You are spot on, Naruto. From all the damage he suffered, we can say he would be back in about 2 to 3 weeks. And it will take about 2 weeks for me to recover from my chakra exhaustion. But for you guys to survive the upcoming fight, I will be training all of you until you guys go unconscious," Kakashi said with a serious face.

"And for you to train us, you will have to recover quickly. So rest up, I will send my clone to get breakfast for you up here," Naruto said.

Kakashi gave an eye smile at the care his student showed him.

A/N: If you are curious,

Naruto's strength:

1) Speed - High jonin (Thanks to training his speed from a young age)

2) Genjutsu - High chunin to low jonin (Can dispel high levels of genjutsus, and can perform only chakra intensive genjutsus)

3) Ninjutsu - Mid Kage/ S-ranked level (Has a lot of jutsus thanks to the shadow clone training method)

4) Taijutsu - Mid Jonin level (Is limited because of his age)

5) Chakra control - Mid Kage level (He has been using the shadow clone jutsu for a long time for this)

6) Senjutsu/Sage Mode can amplify all of the above to a certain degree. (His overall strength would be Mid S-ranked/Kage level, but will lose against a similarly leveled foe if the foe is experienced)

Overall - High Jonin to low Kage/S-ranked level

Kakashi's strength:

1) Speed - Mid Kage/S-ranked level

2) Genjutsu - High jonin level (Thanks to his Sharingan)

3) Ninjutsu - Mid to high Kage/S-ranked level (He has so many jutsu but lacks the chakra)

4) Taijutsu - Mig to high Kage/S-ranked level (He trains with Gai very often. This level of Taijutsu is obtained with he uses the eight inner gates)

5) Chakra control - Mid Kage level (Had increased access to higher-level chakra control because Minato permitted it, and later Hiruzen granted continued access to it due to Kakashi's position as Anbu commander)

Overall - Mid Kage/S-ranked level

Satsuki's strength:

1) Speed - Low to mid-chunin level

2) Genjutsu - Low chunin level (Thanks to the Sharingan's genjutsu prowess)

3) Ninjutsu - Mid to high chunin level (Has a huge repertoire of fire jutsu from the Uchiha clan archives. Has the potential to increase her ninjutsu prowess to a higher level with the ability of the sharingan)

4) Taijutsu - Low to high-chunin level (Boosted from low chunin level due to the sharingan)

5) Chakra control - Mid-Genin level (Kakashi only showed his team the tree walking exercise)

Overall - Low chunin level

Sakura's strength :

1) Speed - Mid-Genin level (Kakashi pushed her to do a lot of physical activities. She had to play catch up to Naruto and Satsuki since she didn't train properly during the academy)

2) Genjutsu - Low-Chunin level (She has very good chakra control. Kakashi gave her a few jutsus for it since she had a talent for it)

3) Ninjutsu - Mid to high-genin level (Kakashi is trying to make Sakura catch up to her teammates to have good team dynamics)

4) Taijutsu - Mid to high-genin level

5) Chakra control - Mid to high-chunin level (She has excellent control)

Overall - Mid-genin level.