Mission to Wave Country

Team seven met at the main gate at seven in the morning. Kakashi had informed Sakura what she needed for the mission as he didn't want to waste time with her having to stock up on things today. Sasuke he knew was properly prepared for a two week long mission like this one. They would need about two days to reach Wave Country at civilian speed. Naruto was always over prepared. No need to worry there.

A few minutes past seven the team set out for the mission. Naruto had read the bingo book from ROOT yesterday and was prepared for all the ninjas that could await him. He had sealed more weapons for this mission than the last C-rank to be prepared to take out hundreds of thugs. Out of the village Naruto made ten shadow clones that transformed in small birds and took off, scouting ahead. For some hours nothing really interesting happened. Sakura tried to make small talk with Tazuna, trying to find out more about Wave Country. Naruto had pondered the use of telling Kakashi his information, but had decided to not to. He wanted to do this mission and if he informed his sensei about the higher rank the team wouldn't get it. And between Kakashi and him there was no missing nin that Gato could have hired that they couldn't take out. After all, Gato was greedy as hell. More than a normal jonin he wouldn't hire if at all.

Three hours into their travel, one of his shadow clones dispersed. Naruto signalled Kakashi with handsigns about the potential threat in from of two ninjas hidden in a puddle. Kakashi signalled back to continue without alarming anybody. Naruto confirmed the order. After twenty minutes they reached the puddle Naruto's clones had informed him about. The team passed the puddle without Sasuke or Sakura reacting to it. Really, they obviously needed to train more on situational awareness. It had been warm for the last week. A puddle in the middle of the road was simply impossible with those conditions.

Soon after they had passed the puddle the two ninjas jumped out and attacked Kakashi with a bladed chain, tearing him to shreds. Or at least that was what Sasuke and Sakura saw. Naruto, being immune to genjutsu of that level, saw a replacement with a log. Sakura's screams were tuned out when he quickly analysed the reason for Kakashi's actions. Which made him conclude Kakashi wanted to know the ninja's target. And perhaps test his team under fighting conditions.

"Sasuke left, Sakura, guard Tazuna, I take right." Naruto commanded, which his team-mates immediately followed.

Sasuke rushed at the left opponent, Naruto at the right one and Sakura took position in front of Tazuna with a kunai in her hand. Sasuke pinned the chain of the two ninjas, who wore breathing masks and had Kiri headbands, to a tree with a shuriken, which he enforced with a kunai. Naruto meanwhile had reached his opponent and was going for a quick kill. He pushed wind chakra through his kunai and once he was inside the ninja's guard, he slashed at the throat. Having enhanced the kunai with wind chakra, taking the ninja by surprise with his speed Naruto cleanly cut off the head.

Sasuke meanwhile had involved his opponent in a taijutsu fight. While the ninja tried to get past him all the time, Sasuke was obviously winning. Finally he kicked his opponent in the kidneys, which made him fall down in pain. Just when the other ninja tried to stand up, Kakashi appeared and took care of the ninja, knocking him out. Sakura looked immensely relieved that Kakashi was still alive.

Naruto had to collect himself for a moment. While he had killed animals before without problem, killing a human was still different. He knew it was kill or be killed in this world, but the first kill was still difficult. Hopefully he would be able to take out the thugs. Sakura looked at the corpse at Naruto's feet in horror, Sasuke looked indifferent. He had seen others being killed before after all.

"Good job, everybody. That was a perfectly executed reaction to an ambush. Naruto, are you okay?" Kakashi asked concerned.

"I'm okay, Kakashi sensei; just give me a minute to get it straight in my head." Naruto requested, trying to calm his feelings down.

Talking about killing was definitely easier than doing the deed. But if he wanted to become a good ninja, he would need to do it again. And in Wave there waited a bunch of thugs that he would have to kill to free the country. Kakashi nodded towards Naruto, resolving to talk to him later about his obviously first kill. Then he turned to Tazuna.

"You didn't tell us that ninjas were after you; we were only informed about bandits and the like." He confronted Tazuna.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Tazuna tried to evade.

"Oh, that's easy. I knew about this ambush twenty minutes before it happened from Naruto. His scouting clones had informed him about two ninjas hiding in a puddle on our way. I replaced myself with a log when they attacked and let my team handle things for two reasons. First, I wanted to see how my team dealt with a situation like this and second, I wanted to know their target. Were they after one of us or after you? Those ninja tried to get to you from the start. So I want a very good explanation for this or I'll take my team back to Konoha. With you lying about the rank of the mission, you broke the contract you made with Konoha." Kakashi informed Tazuna.

"Okay, there is a super dangerous man after my life. You've probably heard about him. His name is Gato." Tazuna confessed.

"President of Gato Shipping. Currently ranked fifth richest man in the elemental nations." Naruto stated. "Suspected to be involved in criminal activities, but it could never be proven."

"Yes, that's him. He came to Wave Country a bit more than a year ago. First we didn't think anything about it, but he soon had bought up all the shipping industry of our nation. You see Wave Country is an island so we are dependent on the shipping to get goods. But that wasn't the worst part. He used his monopoly to drain the country dry. The people live in poverty. Many lost their houses to Gato. Who protests is killed. He takes what he wants with his hired thugs making sure nobody dares to oppose him. His shipping business covers his criminal activities. He deals with drugs, alcoholics, rare goods even slaves. Everything that brings him money. The only thing he fears is the bridge I'm building. If I finish my bridge, Wave Country can break his monopoly and get back to strength." Tazuna said.

"But why didn't you just tell the truth?" Kakashi asked.

"That's easy to conclude. Wave Country was sucked dry. They didn't have more money than for a C-rank mission if they poured all their money in the bridge to get their freedom. I guess in the recent past Gato had tried to take Tazuna out so that he sneaked out of the Country with all the money the people could get together to hire a few ninjas. He hoped he would get ninjas strong enough to protect him while he finished the bridge. And if Gato had just used his thugs he would even have been lucky that that was true. But those two are the demon brothers, missing ninja from Kiri. B-ranked in the bingo book. Bounty for one 1.000.000 ryo, bounty for both 3.000.000 ryo." Naruto cited from the bingo book he had read.

Tazuna nodded. "He's right. In the past Gato only used thugs. There are rumours that he hates ninjas because they are so expensive. I wasn't sure if he would hire ninja to take me out. And we really are super poor. Even our Daimyo has no money. All the money I gave Konoha is from the people. And it is all we could afford. We put everything else into the bridge; it's our only hope." Tazuna said.

"You still shouldn't have lied. If you had told the Hokage the problem he would have come up with a solution." Kakashi said. "Now we still have the problem that this mission is too much for this team."

"I am for continuing, Kakashi sensei. This is not just a mission where the client wanted to save money. This is about a whole country going down the drain because one greedy bastard wants to fill his pockets even more than he already has. And we can't afford that people think Konoha would let a country fall to such a man. We are strong enough to continue." Naruto said.

"Hmph, Naruto is right. We are strong enough, I vote we continue." Sasuke said, already thinking about what kind of fighting experience he would get.

Sakura looked unsure, but she didn't want to disappoint Sasuke. And the people of Wave obviously needed help.

"I agree." She said.

Kakashi looked at his team. He knew this was the best genin team that could have got the mission. Naruto was practically a jonin in all but title. Sasuke probably low chunin level and Sakura after two months of rigorous training was a normal genin. But she could stay in the back and be support if a fight started. He wouldn't need to protect all of them like they were real genin.

"You are aware that if we continue, our next opponent won't be chunin level, but more likely a jonin like me?" He asked.

All three nodded. Naruto calm and determined, Sasuke determined and Sakura a bit worried, but still determined to continue.

"Alright, we will continue. But once Wave Country gets back to its feet you'll have to pay the difference to the mission rank this will develop into." Kakashi told Tazuna.

"Of course, thank you so much." He said gratefully.

Naruto sealed the head of Meizu, whom he had decapitated in a scroll to collect the bounty later on. Kakashi decided that just leaving Gozu here, bound until the ANBU could collect him, was too risky.

"Naruto, do you have prisoner scrolls in your repertoire?" He asked.

"I would need to make it, but I can do the seals. I guess you don't want to risk him escaping when he can be a good source of information?" Naruto asked.

"Indeed." Kakashi said. Naruto nodded, took a blank scroll out of his backpack, took his sealing equipment and began drawing.

Sasuke and Sakura for the first time saw how good their team-mate was with fuinjutsu. They had never really seen him create a seal from scratch. To say they couldn't avoid being impressed was an understatement.

"Damn it, boy, you could think you were one of the Uzumaki of old." Tazuna said.

"I am an Uzumaki, Tazuna." Naruto answered, finishing the seal by pushing chakra into it.

"A real Uzumaki? But your hair is blond, not red." Tazuna exclaimed.

"I don't know my parents, but my mother was an Uzumaki. That much the Hokage could tell me." Naruto said.

"What is so special about the Uzumaki?" Sakura asked, clueless.

Kakashi looked at her strangely.

"Don't tell me they cut that important part of history out of the teaching plans of the academy?" Kakashi said.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Sakura asked.

"Okay, impromptu history lesson. Before the third great ninja world war Konoha had a sister village called Uzushio. It was located in the former land of whirlpools, an island nation close to Wave Country. The leaders of the village were the Uzumakis. That clan was known all over the elemental nations for three things. Their longevity, their skills in kenjutsu and their incredible skill in fuinjutsu. The Senju clan that founded Konoha and the Uzumaki clan that founded Uzushio were distant cousins. Konoha won the second shinobi war because we had the Uzumakis on our side. But then, shortly before the third war started, Iwa and Kumo decided that to have a chance against Konoha in the third war, they needed to eliminate our strongest ally, Uzushio. They kept their attack plans completely secret. But they didn't expect the opposition they would have to face in Uzushio.

"All the ninjas there were exceptionally strong. The village was much smaller than Konoha, but their ninjas were all at jonin level if they had a few years of experience. They managed to send the genin level ninjas away to evacuate the civilians. Sadly not all of those convoys managed to escape, but many did. The united forces of Iwa and Kumo attacked relentlessly for three days. Konoha ninjas were on their way to assist Uzushio, led by Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash and Kushina Uzumaki, the Blood-Red Habanero or outside of Konoha the Red Devil. But they were too late. They reached Uzushio on the fourth day when the last Uzumakis, who had held out to give the civilians a chance to get as far away as they could and hoped that Konoha would reach them to help in time, had fallen to the enemy. But Iwa and Kumo didn't get a great win from this battle. They lost ten times the ninja Uzushio had lost.

"It was that battle where my sensei earned his name of Yellow Flash and Kushina got her name of Red Devil. They tore the remaining ninjas down. It was nothing but a bloody massacre. The weakened ninjas from Iwa and Kumo, while still having the numeric advantage were no match for those two and the rest of the Konoha forces. They were killed to the last member. In remembrance of our failure to reach Uzushio in time to help them, like they did for us in the past, Konoha wears the spiral of the Uzumaki clan on the back of our chunin and jonin vests. While the crest of the Uzumaki clan is white like on Naruto's shoulder, the symbol on our vests is red to always remember that battle." Kakashi said.

'So he too is from a nearly extinct clan.' Sasuke realized.

Sakura was solemn. She hadn't known about that. And it seemed to have been a really important historic event. Why wouldn't the students at the academy learn about it? Naruto had taken in the story calmly. He had already known about it. It was a big part in both of his parents' journals. But hearing it from Kakashi sensei was still something different.

The journey continued without incidents until they reached the coast where Tazuna had organized for a boat to transport them over to Wave Country. The man who stirred the boat was extremely nervous, despite them having cover from the early morning fog. When they passed the bridge, Naruto couldn't help but let out a soft whistle.

"Damn it, Tazuna. That really is one impressive bridge." He said.

"Thanks. I told you I'm a super bridge builder." Tazuna answered.

Once they reached land, the fisher wished Tazuna luck to get home safely while Tazuna thanked him for his help. Naruto sent out a new batch of clones transformed into birds to scout the island. He needed to have a good reason to know certain things after all. Identifying missing nins from a bingo book was no problem. Kakashi knew he was always over prepared. But knowing about the political and geographical highlights of Wave Country if he didn't send out scouts wouldn't be good. And honestly, taking out a camp of five hundred thugs on his own while possible, would be much easier if his sensei helped.

"How far is your home from here, Tazuna?" Kakashi asked.

"About one and a half hours." Tazuna answered.

"Be on guard. It's probable that we will encounter opposition before we reach Tazuna's home." Kakashi warned.

His students nodded. They walked surrounding Tazuna. Naruto at point, Sasuke left, Sakura right and Kakashi behind Tazuna. Half an hour into their walk, Naruto threw a kunai into a bush, then looking into a different direction, then somewhere else.

"We have company, Kakashi sensei." Naruto stated.

"Location?" Kakashi asked.

"Changing at a fast pace." Naruto said.

Hidden in the trees Zabuza Momochi was really impressed. He wouldn't have thought that a team like this was protecting the bridge builder. He had found the remains of Meizu, but not of Gozu. And from Meizu he could only tell that his head had been cut off cleanly. No other injuries. Probably Kakashi's work. But the blond was definitely a sensor. That could be a problem. Otherwise he didn't look that special. The team seemed to consist of genins. He decided to introduce himself properly and hauled his giant sword through the air at the group.

"DOWN!" Kakashi shouted and pulled Tazuna to the ground.

Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto were drilled to immediately react to their sensei's orders and went down. Naruto in the position of a push-up so he jumped up again after the sword had sailed over his head, ready to defend.

"My, my. I didn't expect somebody like you here; no wonder the demon brothers couldn't fulfil the mission." Zabuza said, standing on his sword, which was stuck into a tree.

"Zabuza Momochi, Demon of the Mist." Kakashi said.

"Ah, you've heard of me. Well, I have to ask you to hand over the old man to me. I'm not after you and your brats. If you do, I'll just let all of you run home." Zabuza said.

"Sorry, can't do that. It's our mission to protect Tazuna." Kakashi said.

"A pity." Zabuza said.

Sasuke looked like he wanted to attack this new opponent, but Kakashi held him back.

"No, this one is not like the two before. Against him I need to go all out. Release your seals and protect Tazuna. Naruto, you're in command." Kakashi said and pushed up his headband, revealing the sharingan.

"Oh, the sharingan this early on, I'm honoured. I've heard about you too. When I was still in the ANBU of Kiri you were in our bingo books. You're known as the Copy Ninja. The man who has copied a thousand jutsus." Zabuza said.

Zabuza let loose a high amount of killing intent. He was really surprised when none of the genin reacted to it, but countered it. Especially the blond didn't seem bothered at all. He had taken the other two and positioned them around the old man.

"You'll have to do better than that, Zabuza. Those are my students and I've put them through harsh training. You didn't expect me to let them go on C-rank missions without being used to killing intent?" Kakashi mocked.

"Interesting. You seem to have some talented ones there. But can they really succeed in this harsh world? Were they scared when you killed Meizu?" Zabuza asked.

"Huh? What is he talking about? You killed that ninja, Naruto." Sakura asked.

"Don't give up sensitive information, Sakura." Naruto hissed back.

"Wait, the blond brat killed Meizu? No way. Meizu was a chunin and in a team with Gozu really dangerous." Zabuza exclaimed.

"Release." Naruto just quietly said, letting his resistance seals go completely.

"Ah, so these are not your normal genin? Or Meizu was just careless. Would make sense." Zabuza pondered.

He jumped from his position on the sword, taking the sword with him in the action and landed on the water.

"Hidden Mist jutsu." He said, creating a field of mist.

"No, not like this." Naruto said and flew through a bunch of seals himself. "Wind release. Spring gale." He declared and a strong gust of wind came up and blew the mist away.

"There is no way I let him use his silent killing technique." Naruto said.

Kakashi nodded, rushing at the revealed Zabuza.

"Annoying blond brat. Doesn't he like to wear his chunin vest?" Zabuza asked, taking on Kakashi openly now.

"He isn't chunin yet. But that will only be the case until the next exams." Kakashi said.

"No way that brat is a genin. I mean, what kind of games is Konoha playing?" He attacked with his sword, intent on cutting Kakashi in two. "That boy is a sensor, can use wind element and obviously did his homework. Why is he still genin?"

"That is nothing you should worry about. I'm your opponent." Kakashi said and countered every single attack Zabuza used.

Both jonin used tricks, clones, replacements and ferocious taijutsu to get the advantage against the other. Then Zabuza got in a kick, Kakashi flew towards the water, but threw a bunch of Makibishi nails on the ground to stop Zabuza from pursuing. He righted himself in the air and landed easily on the water. But as soon as he landed, the water sprang up, trapping him in a sphere of water.

"Now I have you." Zabuza said. "And your little team won't have any chance against me, once you're dealt with. As long as they didn't make it into my bingo book, they're not worth being called ninja. When I was their age, I already had massive amounts of blood on my hands."

While Sakura especially was shocked, Naruto and Sasuke remained calm and concentrated.

Kakashi looked for a method to get out of here. He could use lightning element to fry Zabuza, but that would also weaken himself and he didn't know if the jutsu was kept by a water clone or Zabuza himself. But obviously he needed worry. Naruto was again taking action.

"Shadow clone jutsu." He said and posted twenty clones around Tazuna, Sasuke and Sakura.

"Keep watch while I get Kakashi sensei out." Naruto said.

Sasuke nodded. He knew that if one of them had a chance to get their sensei out of the water sphere it would be Naruto. As much as he hated being second best to the blond. And then Naruto disappeared faster then he ever did before.

Zabuza just had time to parry the hit with the tanto the blond was wielding.

"Fast." He brought out.

"This is nothing." Naruto said and vanished again.

Zabuza was now concerned and made ten water clones. But only ten seconds after he had made them, they were destroyed and the water splashed back into the lake he was standing upon. And he couldn't see anything. Damn, that brat was faster than most jonin. He needed to evade a fast flurry of strikes with that damned tanto which was seemingly chakra conducting and channelled the blond's wind chakra. And the blond knew how to use it. He barely managed to keep up the water prison. But when he glimpsed back he saw Kakashi not being inside anymore, but a cloud of smoke. Instead Kakashi and the blond brat stood opposite of each other, going through a chain of handseals each.

"Water release: Water dragon jutsu." They both exclaimed and two water dragons raced at Zabuza.

He just managed to dodge the two dragons, cursing under his breath. That wasn't part of the plan. Going up against two jonin. And one of them obviously a speed devil. He now was at a massive disadvantage. While he could take on Kakashi while utilizing his silent killing technique, the blond made that jutsu useless. Additionally you couldn't underestimate a sharingan. Kakashi was famous for a reason. But now Kakashi seemed to have another idea how to take him out. He went through a few different seals. The blond was covering the way to the land where his shadow clones and the other two were protecting the bridge builder. He needed back-up. He had hoped to keep Haku out of this, but it didn't seem to be possible. He gave a secret signal that told Haku to intervene.

"Lightning release: Lightning torrent." Kakashi exclaimed.

"Ice release: Ice dome." Another voice sounded and a dome of ice appeared around Zabuza and a second figure.

"So you had an accomplice hidden. I wondered it he really was a Kiri hunter nin, but that answers that question." Naruto said.

"So you knew. Well, nothing else to be expected from a sensor type." Zabuza said, glad that Haku had blocked the attack.

"Haku, take out the blond. I'll take Kakashi." Zabuza said.

Haku nodded.

"Naruto, stop holding back and go all out." Kakashi ordered.

"You sure?" Naruto asked.

"Yes. if Zabuza trusts this ninja to have his back, you can be sure he is strong." Kakashi said.

"Understood, sensei." Naruto said.

Haku attacked Naruto fast, but Naruto was faster. While Haku went at high chunin speed, Naruto could go high jonin speed. Both boys peppered the other with senbons, shuriken and kunai. Naruto deflected all of the ones sent his way, but Haku was hit a few times. None of the senbons managed to hit a vital area, but Naruto knew the poison would soon do its job.

"Ice release: One thousand needles of death." Haku said. Creating a dome of ice needles that shot at Naruto.

"Water release: Water encampment wall." Naruto countered the move and the needles just managed to be caught in the barrier of water.

"So you're a water element too." Haku said.

"You know that I can use both wind and water, but ice I've never seen. A bloodline limit?" Naruto guessed.

"Indeed. Which means you have no chance to win against me." Haku said. "Ice release: demonic ice mirrors."

A dome of ice mirrors surrounded Naruto and the water under him froze as well. He looked around and saw Haku in all of the mirrors.

"Now you are doomed. Not even Zabuza Sama can break this jutsu." Haku confidently said.

"We will see, Haku." Naruto replied calmly. Then he was attacked from all sides by senbons. He deflected most, but some got stuck in his legs.

"A speed technique. You switch positions from one mirror to the other faster than I can see. But it's no time space ninjutsu." Naruto analysed.

Haku was shocked and without the hunter nin mask Naruto would have seen it on his face. How could he analyse the jutsu so quickly?

"Wind release: Great breakthrough." Naruto said and not only blew away the next barrage of senbons, but also managed to make a dent into the mirror.

"Chakra strengthens the mirrors. That must cost you a shitload of chakra to keep up." Naruto commented.

"That doesn't matter, Naruto. Before I run out of chakra, you'll be dead. So you should just give up and hand over the old man. It would save your and your team's lives." Haku offered.

"No, thanks, Haku. I'd never just give up a mission because things get a little bit complicated. The last jutsu was just a test run. Now I know that my other jutsu can break these mirrors." He stated confidently.

"Not even Zabuza Sama could get out of here." Haku said.

"Well, then you'll just have to see if you don't believe me." Naruto said and concentrated chakra in his hand before he threw a three pronged kunai at a mirror and disappeared. "Rasengan." He exclaimed and pushed the spinning ball at the mirror.

The mirror resisted exactly five seconds before rips appeared on the surface and it finally broke into pieces. Naruto used his normal high speed to reach the other mirrors and soon the whole dome was in shards.

"Impossible." Haku whispered but was soon forced to dodge Naruto's sword attacks.

Meanwhile Zabuza was losing his cool in Kakashi's game of copy the demon. He completely brought Zabuza out of his cool and in the end he nailed him with a giant waterfall jutsu and pinned him to a tree with kunai.

"Can you see the future?" Zabuza asked annoyed.

"Yes, and your future is death." Kakashi said, ramming the kunai into Zabuza's chest.

He heard an outcry of pain out on the lake and when he turned around, he saw Naruto had also ended his fight. A minute later he was walking towards the shore, carrying a bound opponent on his shoulder.

"Any problems, Naruto?" Kakashi asked.

"Not really, Kakashi sensei. But his demonic ice mirrors afforded a bit more power than I originally had thought to break." Naruto answered.

TO BE CONTINUED...