The bridge builder turned out to have arranged transport in the form of a small wooden ayubune that lay waiting for them. After gliding over the dark and misty waters for an indeterminate length of time, the surly looking rower turned to where Tazuna reclined against the edge of the boat, and adjusted his broad-brimmed hat. “We’ll be there soon, Tazuna-san. It looks like we’ve avoided detection for now, but I’ll take us towards the route with the thickest vegetation, just in case.”

Kakashi turned to Tazuna, frowning with one eyebrow. “This is a bit much just to evade bandits, isn’t it?”

“Pwah, easy for you to say.” The old bridge builder glowered at his bottle, which had run dry some time ago. He made to toss it over his shoulder, but after a moment’s hesitation carefully lowered it into the water instead. “We don’t have mystical ninja abilities like you do. Bandits can kill us just fine.”

The group continued their passage in silence, with only the dip of the rower’s oar into and out of the water working to break the quiet. Finally Tazuna’s great bridge loomed up before them, towering over the boat and diminishing them with its shadow. It was made of massive stone blocks like Konoha’s more modern buildings, and above all its sheer size was beyond anything Naruto had ever seen.

“Amazing…” he whispered.

After they passed underneath the great bridge they came upon a hidden channel flowing out into the coast, one so narrow that their boat brushed against the foliage growing on either side, and they had to duck their heads low to pass underneath the overhanging branches. The mouth of the straight opened up into a great bay, filled with ancient mangroves and nearly enclosed by a town that was shaped like a crescent moon. Endless wooden scaffolding stretched out before them, seeming to merge with the buildings’ floors and walkways, so that Naruto could not help but wonder if perhaps the entire village rested upon the timber platform, raised above the water by its countless supporting posts.

After they disembarked at the nearest pier, the rower gave the group a last brief nod before setting off into the mist once more. “This is it for me. Goodbye and good luck.”

“Yeah…” Tazuna gave the man a wry smile. “Many thanks.”

Tazuna’s house turned out to be one of the most impressive buildings in the village, situated close to the market square yet with a clear view of the bay. It was a large two-story building made of wooden planks, with a thatched roof supported by formidable timber pillars on all sides, and actual glass windows.

“Just you wait ‘till you get a taste of my daughter’s cooking,” Tazuna said proudly as they walked along the walkway leading up to the house. “You won’t ever want to leave, I promise you that!”

“Something’s wrong,” Kakashi said after taking one look at the hastily constructed wooden panelling keeping the front door together. “People have forced their way in recently – at least two men with swords, by the looks of it.”

No sooner did he finish speaking or Tazuna rushed towards the entrance, throwing the door open with such force that it fell into pieces behind him. “Terumi!” he called. “Terumi, are you all right?”

“Father!” A young woman with long black hair appeared in the doorway, wearing a blue skirt and a short-sleeved pink shirt with red trims. Her left eye sported a dark bruise, though it was old enough that it was already starting to fade. “They came again, father, while you were away. I told them you fled the country, but they wouldn’t believe me! They cut apart all the furniture, and they said that if you ever came back they would…” She trailed off as she seemed to notice Team Seven for the first time. “Who..?”

“They’re the ninjas from Konoha I hired,” Tazuna said as he pushed his way past his daughter. “Where’s Inari? Where is my grandson?”

“He’s upstairs. He’s unhurt, but he refuses to come out of his room.” The woman turned and bowed before the ninjas, far lower than Naruto could remember anyone ever bowing to him. “Welcome to our home, most honoured and noble guests. I humbly apologize for the lowly state you find us in.”

Naruto’s team allowed themselves to be led into the building, stepping over the broken door only to find the bridge builder cursing over a heap of broken furniture piled in a corner of the living room. “Look at this! Look what the bastards did to my house! Mindless savages! Criminal scum!”

Kakashi pulled a broken table leg from the pile and inspected it with his one visible eye. The wood was cut clean down the middle, without so much as a single splinter sticking out. “No ordinary sword could achieve this level of sharpness,” he said. “This was cut with a weapon using chakra-flow.”

“They got my drinks cabinet too,” Tazuna continued. “Bloody bastards. But I bet they didn’t know about this spot…” Tazuna lifted up one of the floor mats, and with one hand he drew forth a bottle of dark liquor. “Hah! I used to hide my collection here from my old lady, but it looks like it fools low-life thugs too. Terumi, go and get some glasses for our guests, will you? A stiff drink to calm our nerves, that’s what we need right now…”

“Tazuna, you lied to us,” Kakashi said. “You said your country was beset by bandits, but this was done by Samurai – trained warriors capable of manipulating chakra.”

“I never lied!” Tazuna twisted around, his face contorted with anger as he pointed his bottle at Kakashi. “Gato is a bandit! He’s nothing but a two-bit thug!”

“Gato?” Kakashi seemed almost shocked, if such a thing was even possible. “You hired us to fight Gato of all people?”

Naruto was completely lost at this point, and turned to Sakura for help. “Uhm… who’s this Gato they’re talking about?”

“You don’t know? He’s one of the Land of Fire’s biggest businessmen, and one of the few truly powerful civilians out there. He owns one of the largest shipping companies, Gato-company, in addition to providing countless other goods and services.”

“He’s a thug!” Tazuna said again, brandishing his bottle like a weapon as he spoke. “He bullies and threatens people into obedience, bribes anyone he’s able to and sends his henchmen after everyone else. He’s a beady-eyed low-life criminal who tries to steal everything in sight, and now he wants the Land of Waves for himself. But he won’t have it! Now that you’re here, we’ll finally be able to fight back.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Kakashi said. “It doesn’t matter what you think he’s done; in the eyes of the law he’s a businessman like any other. If you have evidence that he’s behind these attacks you should take it to your local officials, not us: Konoha’s shinobi are not your personal police force.”

“Wait,” said Naruto. “I don’t get it. This Gato is only a civilian, right? If he’s really all that bad, he must’ve made a lot of enemies. And the Land of Fire has a Village full of ninjas, and all the other great countries do too. So, uhm… Why hasn’t somebody killed him by now?” He’d wondered the same thing about the Land of Fire’s Daimyo, as well: Why did all those ninjas even bother to listen to ordinary humans, when it would be so easy to take power by force?

The bridge-builder glared at him, his grey eyes narrow and fierce behind his spectacles. “Because he greases Konoha’s palms with blood money, that’s why! As long as he keeps money flowing in the right direction nobody important wants him dead, and he can just hire ninjas and samurai to kill everyone else who gets in his way.” At that moment Terumi came in carrying glasses on a plate, but she was too late to stop the bottle from reaching Tazuna’s mouth. He drank deeply, and when he lowered it again his voice was thicker than before. “That’s what you ninja don’t get… it doesn’t matter how strong or weak you are as an individual, all that matters is whether you can get other people to listen to you. If you don’t have that, you’re nothing.” He smiled bitterly, then: The thought seemed to amuse him, somehow.

“The Land of Fire does have a few corrupt officials,” Kakashi allowed. “And it’s true we don’t do as much to protect civilians as we could, but the fact remains that you mislead us. You hired us to protect you from bandits, but if Gato really is trying to take over the land of Waves then he’s not going to stop at thugs and samurai: He’ll send ninjas after you. That makes protecting you a B-Rank mission, at the least. If you wanted that level of protection you should have paid for a team of chūnin or jōnin instead of hiring recently graduated academy students. I’m not going to risk my students’ lives on your account.”

“Do we look like we’ve got that kinda money?” Tazuna waved his bottle around to indicate the house and the village all around them, the dark liquid inside sloshing dangerously as he did so. “We’re a poor village, living of fishing and trade, and now we don’t even have that… We’d raise our own ninja if we could, but you Konoha bastards won’t even let us do that!” He took another swig from his drink, and slammed it down onto the floor for emphasis, though the lack of table diminished the effect.

“Hold on,” said Naruto. “So ninja Villages like Konoha have total military control, and they use that to become rich by selling our services as mercenaries and assassins to the highest bidder. Ninjas don’t want to waste their time on boring stuff, so they let the Daimyo and politicians run their countries for them, who in turn allow people like Gato to oppress and extort the civilians for them without any of it being seen as their fault… And all the while Konoha’s leaders try to distract us from what’s really going on by talking about the Will of Fire and putting an end to all the darkness in the world?”

“Ah…” said Kakashi. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that…”

A wicked grin split across Tazuna’s rosy face. “Hah, I’m starting to like this brat! He tells it like it is.”

“It doesn’t matter,” a young voice said behind them. “All these nice-sounding words about right and wrong don’t make a bit of difference – the only thing that matters is who’s stronger. You ninjas should leave while you can; ideals are useless if you’re dead.”

Naruto turned to confront this newcomer, only to find a boy of ten standing at the bottom of the stairs. The childishness presented by his baggy white hat and green pants with braces stood in stark contrast to the cynicism in his eyes, Naruto thought. “Huh? Who are you?”

Tazuna perked up. “Oh! Everyone, I want you to meet my grandson, Inari. Inari, say hello to these nice people: They’re going to help us defeat Gato.”

“No they won’t.” The boy briefly greeted his grandfather with a hug before returning his attention to the group, focusing his dark eyes on Naruto. “You can’t win against someone like Gato. Fighting someone stronger than you isn’t brave, it’s stupid. If you try to be a hero, you’ll only get yourself killed.”

Naruto spluttered loudly. “What kinda attitude is that? You’re just saying you don’t wanna try to make things better, and being snotty about it. That’s not even a belief, that’s just giving up!”

“Naruto, you idiot!” Sakura scolded him. “Why are you getting into an argument with a child? Can’t you tell that he lost someone important to him? He’s probably just scared that the same will happen to the rest of us, too.”

The boy paled at those words, and on the instant he turned and fled, his footsteps going up the wooden stairs with increasing pace and diminishing volume.

“Inari, wait!” Tazuna made to go after the boy but stumbled over the bottle of liquor, and fell flat on the floor with a resounding crash. He vainly grabbed for the flask, but the dark liquid was already pouring over the floorboards and vanishing down the cracks. “Damn it! Damn it… damn it all…”

Terumi rushed to his side, a towel already in hand. “It’s all right, father. I will clean it up. It’s all right…”

Kakashi-sensei regarded the scene with a pensive expression on what little could be seen of his face. He looked at Naruto and the rest of the team for a quiet moment, and finally turned back with a sigh. “Excuse me, miss Terumi,” he said. “Do you have someplace quiet where my team can talk in private?”

She nodded, and pointed at the storage room at the back of the house. “You can use our oshiire. It’s not very large, but…”

“It’s fine,” he said, as he led his team through the wooden door. The storage room was really not small by any objective measure, but filled as it was with beds and broken furniture, it still felt quite cramped. Kakashi slid the door shut behind them, and the room was cast into total darkness.

“Uhm,” said Naruto. “Could use a little light, here?”

“We are now officially on a B-rank mission, being in foreign territory with the possibility of going up against enemy ninja,” his teacher said gravely. “Protocol dictates that in such a situation, secrecy must be maintained, which means no light and only discussing sensitive material in whispers. It’s not likely that the enemy has access to a technique like the Byakugan which allows them to observe us from afar, but a ninja should never take unnecessary risks. That is also a shinobi rule.”

Naruto dimly recalled learning in the academy about the importance of keeping your voice down when discussing plans, as an enemy ninja could otherwise listen in simply by focusing chakra to their ears. He shifted uncomfortably. “Okay, yeah, that makes sense and all, but… it also would be kinda nice to be able to see something? I mean, I don’t wanna complain, but…”

It was silent for a moment as Naruto trailed off, and in the pitch-black darkness it was all too easy to imagine that everyone had disappeared and he was alone in the room. Finally, Sasuke’s incredulous voice came from out of the blackness. “You’re afraid of the dark,” he said in disbelief. “I am actually teamed up with a ninja who is afraid of the dark.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark,” Naruto protested. “I just don’t like it.”

There was a weary sigh, and then a light appeared in their midst, revealing the faces of the four ninja amongst the shadows. Kakashi had drawn forth a candle from somewhere, which he placed upon one of the low square tables that were stored there. The team huddled closely around it, kneeling at all four sides of the table as though they were preparing for supper instead of discussing a dangerous mission.

“The situation has changed.” Their sensei leaned over intently, eyeing each of the genin in turn. “We are no longer bound by the stipulations of our mission, and so we need to re-evaluate our plans. As members of team seven, I want to hear what you think we should do next.”

-o-

Deep within a forest, hidden amidst the perpetual shadows of great evergreens, the windows of an old abandoned tower shone with light once more.

The stone and timber structure was a remnant of forgotten times, its original purpose long forgotten. None now knew for what reason long filaments stretched from the trees to the roof of the tower and back again, as though it were at the centre of a great spider’s web. But if the spirits of that elder structure disapproved of its current use, none dared voice their discontent, for the new master of that grim place brooked no dissent.

“I want him dead! I want you to take care of him yourself, do you hear me?”

In a wide and open stone chamber, standing on a floor made of shattered crimson rocks, a small and whiskered man in dark formal attire was shouting angrily. His diminutive stature contrasted sharply with that of his heavyset bodyguards, as well as by the tall stone pillars and archways of the place, but it was emphasized further still by his overly loud and shrill demeanour. Zabuza half-suspected that he was doing it on purpose, though to what end he could not guess: They both knew that Zabuza could kill the civilian in an instant, so pretending to either strength or weakness seemed pointless to him.

“What, are you talking about that bridge builder again? Didn’t you send people to kill him already?” Zabuza idly picked his ear with one finger and brought the excavated contents up for his inspection, ignoring the disgusted look the smaller man gave him. “Why not just blow up that bridge of his and be done with it?”

“I did! I sabotaged his bridge three times. He just keeps repairing it!” The small man, Gato, began pacing across the room with manic energy. “I threaten his family, I kill his son-in-law, and it just makes him work harder. The stubborn bastard doesn’t stop, and what’s more he’s making those primitive villagers think he can do it, too. His bridge doesn’t even matter at this point… he’s making me look weak.”

You are. Zabuza shrugged, though it might have looked as though he was just trying to get more comfortable on his grey leather couch. “So what? Just hire a chūnin to slit his throat in the night. He’s only a civilian; you don’t need me for something like that.” In truth, it made no difference to him who he killed as long as he got the money he needed, but he was not fool enough to take such an easy-sounding mission at face value. If Gato was willing to hire a former member of the Hidden Mist’s Seven Swordsmen just to kill a civilian, there had to be a catch. In Zabuza’s line of work, missing something like that was usually fatal.

Gato chewed his lower lip. “That’s not an option anymore. Tazuna escaped to Konoha, and now he’s returned with a shinobi bodyguard to protect him. My agents tell me they’re led by a ninja with silver-grey hair, and only one visible eye.”

Zabuza sat up. “I will deal with this. Leave.” Gato seemed about to protest, but Zabuza no longer cared to indulge the walking waste of time. He raised his executioner’s blade, Kubikiribōchō, and slammed its metal edge onto the floor with a resounding crash. The weapon smashed straight through the finely crafted stone, scattering crimson fragments in every direction. The small man ducked and shielded himself from the projectiles with frail arms as he and his bodyguard fled through the door.

The second coming of Konoha’s White Fang: Kakashi, of the Sharingan eye…

After considering for only a moment, Zabuza stood and drew himself up to his full height. He strode over to where a cloth seemed to be suspended in mid-air, which he tore away with a single angry gesture. Revealed underneath there was a mirror which was made entirely of ice: A single pane of cold white matter, thin as a blade, which reflected his pale image with perfect accuracy.

“Haku.”

Frigid air wafted down and around the rectangle of ice, cold enough to freeze the moisture in the air itself and form crystal patterns on the stone floor all around it. At the same time, a figure appeared within the pane to replace his own reflection: A boy of perhaps sixteen stood there like a frozen image, seeming somehow sad and forlorn despite the mask that hid his face. Then the boy stepped through the portal, and he was inside the room, as though he had always been standing there.

“Master Zabuza?”

The boy was clad in the traditional garb of the Hidden Mist’s hunter-ninja: A pinstriped grey outfit underneath a green haori with white trimmings. His white metal mask had thin eye-slits, with a red wavy design over the mouth and the Hidden Mist’s symbol edged in the top – a mask that had once belonged to Zabuza himself. His face was framed by a pair of long black locks gathered in iron cuffs.

Zabuza eyed the outfit disapprovingly. “How long are you going to keep wearing that stupid mask?”

The boy removed the Anbu mask with one hand, and lowered it to his side. Revealed below was a kind and gentle face, feminine to the point of androgyny. His voice was equally sweet, calm and soothing like a lullaby. “Forgive me, master Zabuza. It reminds me of the old days.”

“There are no old days,” Zabuza said gruffly. “There is only my ambition for the future, and the role you are to play in it. Remember that.”

The boy nodded. “Of course. I am your weapon to be used and discarded, master Zabuza.”

“Very good.” Zabuza smiled slightly, knowing it would be safely hidden behind the bandages that covered his mouth. Then he grew serious once more. “Our new ‘employer’ wants to pay me to kill a bridge builder called Tazuna. The bridge builder is guarded by one Hatake Kakashi, from the Hidden Leaf.”

“The last wielder of the Sharingan,” Haku said instantly, his eyes widening in realization. “It is rumoured to be able to see through any trick, copy any technique, control minds and even see the future…”

Zabuza gave an affirmative grunt. He walked to the couch and collapsed back onto the seat, though this time he did not slouch. He leaned forward, arms resting on his knees, and gave the boy his full attention.

“You’re smart, Haku. So tell me… how do I defeat Hatake Kakashi, of the Sharingan eye?”

-o-

“The situation has changed,” Sakura’s teacher told them. “We are no longer bound by the stipulations of our mission, and we need to revaluate our plans accordingly.” He leaned over intently, eyeing each of them in turn. “As members of team seven, I want to hear what you think we should do next.”

For a quiet moment they sat huddled together within the darkness of the store room, illuminated only by flickering candlelight. Finally, when it seemed nobody else would speak up, Sakura gave voice to the obvious. “We should go back to Konoha. We’re not prepared for this: We have no combat experience, and now we’re up against enemy ninjas for our first real mission? It’s too much.”

Naruto stared into the candle, his blue eyes ablaze with stubborn determination. “I’m not leaving,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “This is what we came here for – to help people. That’s what this Will of Fire stuff is supposed to be all about, isn’t it?” He shook his head slightly. “You guys can leave if you want… I’m gonna stay and fight.”

She frowned at him, suppressing a note of irritation at his obstinacy. “Naruto, there are millions of people who need our help worldwide. If we go back to the village we can just ask for a different mission where we can save more people with less risk. It makes no sense to feel obligated to help these people just because Tazuna-san tricked us into coming with him in the first place!” She forced her voice back down to a whisper, keeping her teacher’s warning in mind. “Anyway, you can’t just stay here on your own; you’d be branded as a rogue ninja. And since the rest of us want to go back, you’ll just have to-“

“No, Naruto is right.” Right when Naruto looked about to cave in, Sasuke spoke up from where he was seated on her right. His hands were folded together under his chin, the way he used to do at the academy, and his expression was just as deep and mysterious as it had been back when they were sorted into teams. “As ninjas, we knew that the survival rate for genin was low when we started, but we made that choice regardless, because we value some things more highly than the risk to our own lives.” His dark inscrutable eyes moved to bore into hers, and Sakura felt her face flush with heat. He continued in a smooth voice, all silk and cool reason. “Sakura, you’re wrong to think that you can best avoid danger by doing nothing. For ninjas, most casualties occur when genin are engaged in real combat for the first time. As such, gaining some combat experience here may actually be the most prudent course of action.”

She looked at him, her lips moving silently as she sought some way to object, but she found neither courage nor the words to protest with. Somehow, when Sasuke spoke he sounded so much more profound, and compared to him all her finely crafted arguments became no more than the immature gripes of a frightened child. A deep defiant part of her wanted to point out that if he was right about the risks, then perhaps becoming a ninja had been a mistake, or not even that: That it had not been a decision at all, but something that just happened, without any kind of logical reasoning or thought behind it. But she could not bear to say so now, for if she did Sasuke would look at her again with such condemnation and pity in his eyes, and then she would never be able to face the world again.

She turned to her last hope: The legendary ninja who was her teacher, Hatake Kakashi, who still had the authority to call off this madness and bring them all home safely. When she spoke it was almost pleadingly. “But sensei, what do you think? I mean, you said Tazuna-san lied to us and everything, so…”

“Hm. It’s true that this mission is dangerous, and I wouldn’t want to risk your lives needlessly,” Kakashi admitted. “But at the same time, I don’t want to force you to act differently from how I would myself, were I in your position.” He leaned back, looking upwards as though in remembrance of events long passed. “To see what is right without acting on it bespeaks an absence of courage. Those are the words of the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, who was my teacher.” As he said that, Naruto’s blue eyes burned even brighter, and Sakura knew that the battle was well and truly lost.

She slowly rubbed her temples with her fingers, in a vain effort to gain her bearings, and sighed. “Ok, fine, I just… Just tell us what we should do next.”

-o-

In the darkness of the storeroom, a single candle provided a flickering, uncertain light.

Kakashi regarded his studious pupil seriously. “Well, that’s up to you to decide. What do you think we should do?” Now, let’s see how much you three have grown.

“Isn’t that obvious?” Sakura hardly seemed to be paying attention anymore: Her mind was elsewhere, though what she was truly thinking Kakashi did not know. “Our mission is to protect Tazuna, isn’t it? So that’s what we should do.”

“No…” Naruto looked up for the first time since the team had entered the room. “What our official mission is doesn’t matter anymore, since the only reason we’re still here is to do the right thing and help the villagers. So we gotta ask ourselves how to do that, instead of just doing what we’re told.”

“Naruto is right,” said Sasuke. “If we stay here and wait for the enemy to attack us, we are at a disadvantage. Therefore, we should take the fight to the enemy and move to assassinate Gato. Once he is dead there will be no more assassination attempts, and our mission will be accomplished as well.” The youth reclined in his seat and folded his arms, clearly considering the issue settled.



“Wait, hold on a moment.” Sakura was whispering more urgently now, some of her earlier energy having returned to her. “I don’t oppose killing Gato, he sounds like a horrible little man and probably deserves to die, but killing him won’t really fix anything. The whole reason Gato is targeting the Land of Waves is because they have no ninja of their own. If we killed him, it would only be a matter of time until the next crime lord went after them. We should train the villagers to defend themselves instead, so that they will no longer be such an easy target.”

“Training foreign Shinobi is forbidden under Konoha law,” Sasuke reminded her. “Besides, what chance do even trained villagers have against real ninjas? They would be completely useless.”

“Wait,” said Naruto, turning to Kakashi for answers. “What is the exact wording of that rule?”

“We are not allowed to reveal any of Konoha’s secrets, on pain of death,” he replied. “That includes the secrets of how to train someone to become a shinobi.”

“But then we could still train the villagers to use basic chakra manipulation, like Samurai,” Naruto said with growing excitement. “And nothing’s stopping us from doing both: We could kill Gato and train the villagers at the same time, so that after we leave ordinary bandits wouldn’t dare attack them.”

Sakura frowned. “I suppose.”

“Then it’s settled,” Sasuke said. “Sakura can stay behind and train villagers, while the rest of us take the fight to the enemy, and finish this.”

“Wait,” Naruto said. “We haven’t considered any other ideas yet. Is there any way we could convince Gato to just leave the country alone? Couldn’t we just, I dunno, bribe him or something? And can we really believe Tazuna when he says Gato is behind all of this? We should really make a list of options before we decide what’s best.”

Soon, Sakura had spread a scroll out onto the table, and was drawing diagrams and listing their options with advantages and disadvantages for each. The three children were bent over the parchment, trying to read her writing in the dim candlelight and arguing in hushed voices. Even Sasuke seemed to have gotten caught up in the discussion, having entirely forgotten that he was supposed to be aloof. Kakashi watched it all with a masked smile, blending into the shadows as a shinobi should.

And to think that, only a month ago, they couldn’t even work together well enough to take a single bell from me. Minato-sensei… Obito, Rin… This time, I’ll make sure to do it right.