DealBacker

"Thank you for your cooperation," Haku bowed and grabbed Zabuza and his sword, vanished into the mist a second later.

Oh, very nice Flicker. Didn't know you could disperse the chakra into the mist like that. Very nice, I observed as I turned to Kakashi who was swaying on his feet already. And then before he could get a word out, he crumpled into the water. Keeping up appearances, I dashed to grab him before he drowned—though I did debate leaving him there for just a moment.

A little waterboarding never hurt anyone.

"Naruto, Sakura, I'm assuming command for the moment."

"Wha—! You can't just do that!" Naruto immediately objected.

"Shut up, Naruto. Not the time. Kakashi's run out of chakra and he'll be down for a while. Tazuna, is your house close by?"

"A-ah, yes. It's not far at all," the old man replied, still sounding very scared and overwhelmed.

I nodded. "Good. Naruto, I need a couple of clones to carry Kakashi and at least a dozen running perimeter watch for us."

"Huh? What for? We already won, didn't we?"

I sighed, making sure to look exhausted as well as I got Kakashi on dry land and set him down. "You idiot. If Gatou can hire three ninja to kill Tazuna, he can just as easily hire four ninja. The mission isn't over."

The blond blinked, suddenly realizing I was right. Of course, he was thinking about some other, until-now unseen threat coming next, whereas really I was talking about Haku. Lying is so easy when you're telling the truth.

"Sakura, I need you to keep an eye on both Tazuna and Kakashi. Direct Naruto's clones, because he has no idea how to run a moving perimeter while I know for a fact that you aced that course. I'll go up into the air and make sure there's no one waiting for us nearby."

"Y-yes, Sasuke-kun!" the pinkette replied and I knew I could trust her to nag Naruto into cooperating. She was good for that, at least.

I used the Midnight Flicker—my Body Flicker into a Midnight Nameless combo, that took the excess chakra from the bubble and turned it into a Transformation jutsu, allowing me to get immediately into the air without having to take off slowly—and began to scout the area with my glowing Sharingan.

With all the chakra in the air from the mist and the other water jutsu, it didn't help all that much, but I could still see decently well as I scouted the surroundings in an outwards spiraling pattern. Ah, there!

Smirking I reversed course and landed with a smooth roll, undoing the transformation as I started to head back to my team, but not before my hands flew into a cross seal and a Shadow Clone appeared. It mirrored my smirk before transforming into a raven and flying off the slower way, flapping its wings to get off the ground and its scarlet orbs drawing a spooky line through the swirling mist.

My Shadow Clones still couldn't Flicker without popping from the strain, which limited them quite a bit from my normal techniques and mobility, but now that I had time to train I was sure that would soon only be a problem of yesterdays.

Haku and Zabuza so tagged, I headed back.

"Sasuke!" A Naruto clone noticed me and nodded. "Wait, how do I know you're you?!"

I blinked at him.

What was Sakura telling him for him to actually get some opsec-sense? No wait, he was just trying to mess with me. "Pipe down, broth brain."

"Huh, it is you. Alright, the boss is that way," the clone let me pass, pointing down the path.

I could already hear the sea again in the distance, which was promising. Wave Country wasn't the biggest island, but Tazuna's house had been right next to the sea as far as I remembered.

Tsunami and Tazuna greeted me as I entered the living room and I courteously introduced myself.

"Ma'am. Uchiha Sasuke, Konoha genin, temporary team leader due to our jounin leader being incapacitated."

"A-ah! Oh my... H-hello, my name is Tsunami. Thank you for all that you have done for my father and us..."

"Of course. Your security is our primary priority, to that end may I task you with nursing our jounin-sensei back to health? He is currently exhausted and will need bed rest and food for the foreseeable future. We will of course station one of our number to protect you and the house, but ensuring that they do not need to worry about our sensei's needs will make guarding you easier."

She nodded after glancing at her aged father, appearing just as overwhelmed as he did. "Y-yes, I already had the guest room prepared and your friends brought him there, I think."

I nodded and grabbed a Naruto clone as he was walking past—hands crossed behind his head as he ambled about aimlessly.

"Get Sakura and meet me in the living room."

"Huh?" It wisely replied before I jabbed it in the face and it popped. An outraged yelp, more to do with who had punched him than how hard it had been, rang out from the floor above us.

A few seconds later the two came down, Sakura looking much calmer and Naruto looking all the more annoyed for it.

"Sasuke-kun, you're back!"

I nodded again. "Alright, I did a low-flying scan around the immediate vicinity and it looks clear. We're safe for the moment."

She sagged with relief.

"Yeah, but what about the other ninja coming after the old guy?" Naruto asked, somewhere between annoyed and excited. Unlike his first fight with the demon brothers, his encounter with Zabuza had gone considerably better.

For his confidence, at the very least.

"Right. Until Kakashi is back up, I'm in command and—" As Naruto aimed to interrupt me, I looked at him with my Sharingan ablaze, making him swallow his complaint with an audible gulp. "And that's why we need to train. We'll set up a rotating guard schedule, with someone always with both Tazuna and with his family and Kakashi, in case Gatou thinks to take hostages, and I won't lie, most of this will be handled by you Naruto."

"Wha? Why?! That's not fair!" he immediately objected.

"Because you can train at the same time as you do all that with your Shadow Clones."

Naruto blinked, deflating from the shout he was about to loose. "Huh?"

"You have more chakra than I, Sakura and Kakashi combined, so you can fill in bodyguarding roles with ease while at the same time getting in the training. Sakura and I will rotate to give you chances to rest as you need it, but primarily she'll be training to catch up as much as her own reserves allow it. Get it, Naruto? You're the only one among us who can do this." I put my hand on his shoulder. "Our lives are in your hands."

The blond looked a little overwhelmed with the sudden show of trust, but he swallowed and nodded.

"Okay."

I smiled, for the first time in what felt like months. Fuck Kakashi and his bullshit.

"What kind of training are you talking about, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, somehow having managed to forget that we had just been in a death battle against a Kiri missing-nin in Wave country. God damn it, she was such a fucking useless shit. It was starting to really get on my nerves. The water walk is listed as a chakra exercise in the Academy materials, she just saw me use it.

Fuck. Calm down.

I inhaled through the nose and made sure to shut the flow of chakra to my Sharingan, hoping that it would cool my head a little.

"First of all, you two need to learn tree walking. After that, water walking. With the terrain being what it is, both will be important if we have to fight again. Be it here or at the bridge. After that, if we still have time and Kakashi hasn't woken up, I'll have more ideas I can work out for you two, if you want."

Naruto looked skeptical and Sakura ecstatic, but I figured it would be fine.

"How are your chakra levels? I'm running a little low right now." Because of the Shadow Clone. But what they don't know can't hurt them.

"I-I'm fine, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura assured me, even though I could tell her stamina had been dented by the journey here. Pathetic.

"No problem!"

But at least Naruto was still the dependable stamina freak as always. I probably only had a few days of uninterrupted time to work with him, before Kakashi woke up, but with his Shadow Clones I knew I could whip him into something pretty reliable.

It would have to do. For now.

Nodding, I stood up. "Okay, then I'll show you the tree walking exercise real quick and then handle guarding Tazuna for the rest of today. Naruto, keep enough clones to cover the house and don't go too far when you train later. You just need a decently large tree to train against. Tazuna, do you need to be somewhere today or will you be staying here?"

"Ah, I should probably head out and get everyone ready for work at the bridge tomorrow... If it's not too much of a bother."

I nodded. "That's fine. I'll be with you in fifteen minutes while I show these two what to do."

"Right." The old man nodded wearily. "I could use a little break, after all that excitement, really."

"Make it a half-hour?" I asked.

"Please."

"Right, you heard the client. Come on, let's let him and his family have some peace and quiet."

I led my team outside and went for the nearest pair of solid trees, within a stone's throw of the house. Unlike Kakashi, I wasn't going to hand them kunai and cut up the poor trees for nothing, and it made more sense to keep everyone near the client anyhow.

"So, this is one of the most basic chakra control exercises around. But it's both useful and it helps you with other jutsu as well," I began as I coolly walked up the tree and then stopped, regarding them at a ninety-degree angle. "Chakra, being the stuff we use for our jutsu. Not chatora or whatever, Naruto."

"Uh, I knew that!"

Sakura didn't look impressed at his words, but I continued.

"This matters because of all the tenketsu, the ones in our feet are the hardest to use. So if you can learn how to push and control chakra at your feet, everything else comes much easier. Jutsu which might have tired you out after a few minutes can suddenly become a lot easier to handle, and you can do them that much more often because of less wasted chakra. It takes a precise amount to stick to the tree like this; too little and you slide off, too much and you are repelled from the tree. But once you can do it with your feet, everything else comes much easier afterward."

"Umm..."

But of course, Naruto had never had the problem of 'running out', and the theory completely and utterly escaped him, even though I repeated the salient point for him. Fine, here's the kicker.

"Really though, that's all just a bonus. Walking this way makes scaling walls much faster, so if you get knocked off the bridge and into the water, you can get back up and into the fight quicker to support your teammates."

"Oh!" Naruto nodded, the practical applications always appealing to his sensibilities.

"Additionally, by lowering or raising the amount of chakra, you can do some interesting stuff," I said and began to slide down the tree as my attraction weakened. With a final step, I corrected my alignment and stood level again. "That's what happens when you use too little. Not super useful or anything, but can be handy. For us as ninja, too much chakra on the other hand is really interesting, because..."

I crouched and then pushed with my chakra. The ground beneath my feet exploded and I was propelled, kicking with my feet to add into the movement as I vanished from sight and crossed the entire distance to the house in a single step.

"Over here...!"

They both turned my vanishing from their sight leaving them gobsmacked.

Walking back to them I put my hands in my pockets. Boy was I glad I wore my long-sleeved shirt and slacks here. The air was moist and the wind from the sea cold. At least compared to the Fire Country's ever-sunny days.

"So, if you can figure it out, your speed will effectively sky-rocket. Useful stuff."

Even Naruto looked like he couldn't disagree, so I gave them a confident smile.

"Well, go on. Try it out. Just collect some chakra, focus it to your feet and try it out."

They nodded and adopted the ram seal; the basic for simply gather chakra and molding it without any modifiers.

Naruto, headstrong and brash as usual, chose to run at the tree screaming at the top of his lungs even though I hadn't done anything to encourage behavior like that. And as expected, he dropped down on his back with an urk, two steps in.

I supposed that while he didn't have my early problems of over-eager and potent chakra, his massive reserves made it difficult to get it moving in the first place.

"Tehee~ Look, Sasuke-kun! I got it!" Sakura preened and had I not expected it, I might have been annoyed. I had to spend a whole afternoon to get it right even with the Sharingan and my peculiar background.

"Whoa! Nice, Sakura-chan!" Naruto cheered, even if he looked annoyed at failing.

Honestly, I didn't just understand what he saw in her. Then again, I knew Naruto was an idiot, so really I was at fault for even trying to understand his point of view.

"Alright, Sakura. I want you to do this every day until you're at half chakra capacity. You need to work on your stamina. You can start now; run up and down the tree until you're at half, then go inside and rest."

"Oh, umm..." she looked sheepish.

Right. Garbage for stamina; she was already exhausted.

I sighed. "Then, stick with Naruto and give him some pointers if he asks, then go help Tsunami-san with Kakashi after I leave with Tazuna." I turned to look at the sullen Naruto. "And you. Why aren't I seeing any clones?"

"Huh?"

"Broth brain dead-last. The Shadow Clones retain their memory and send it back to you after popping. You should have at least a couple working on it with you right now."

He looked at me with a slack jaw, incomprehension in his eyes. "Wha...?"

"Remember how I punched your clone to tell you and Sakura to come downstairs earlier? It's like that. Now focus, when I come back with Tazuna I expect you to have figured this out."

"What the—that's way too fast?!"

"Really? Took me only a few minutes back when I learned it a few years back." Complete and utter lie, but his inferiority complex was my best tool right now.

"Grr! Just you watch! I'll have this down before dinner, y'know!"

What an idiot. So easy.

Now, where was Tazuna...? It was about time for him to get moving while we still had daylight.

Meanwhile...

The red-eyed raven landed outside of the hut, returning to a more human appearance before continuing onward. No point in revealing that I could fly just yet.

Surrounded by dense forests and even denser mists, finding this place would have been difficult without Haku leading the way. But with Zabuza and his sword to lug around, the masked boy had hardly made good time, especially since he had been so desperately covering their tracks.

The older boy was running scared, still under the impression that Kakashi was the threat.

So, dusting my feet at the very nice-looking doormat, I politely knocked at the door.

Haku already knew I was here since I hadn't bothered to hide the sound of my steps; to an expert of silent killing that was as good as screaming at the top of your lungs while wearing a massive neon sign reading 'I AM RIGHT HERE'.

But that was fine, I wasn't here to fight.

I sensed someone behind me.

"Just so you know, I am a Shadow Clone. If you kill me, I'll just pop and my memories will return to the original. And he already knows where you are." Kind of a bluff, but I could just follow the path I had seen Haku take earlier and find this place even if my memories didn't reach him for whatever reason.

The presence behind me stilled.

"Oh, and I'm not here to fight. More like... have a little chat." I turned around, offering a smile to the masked ninja, standing a few steps away from me, hesitating. "In fact, my intentions are for this to end with both parties walking away satisfied. No further bloodshed or fighting necessary."

Still, Haku hesitated.

I could almost feel the disbelief, fear, and wariness roiling off of him.

"To put it simply... I am here without Kakashi's knowledge. After all, he's down with chakra exhaustion." That got a reaction out of Haku. Not quite relief, but something. After all, he couldn't well trust me on just my word. "Additionally, I would ask that you think about the situation. If I wished to remove you from the picture, I could simply contact the Hidden Mist Village's actual hunter-nin." He tensed again. "Ooor, assassinate Gatou to free this piddly little nation from his tyranny."

That got an even bigger reaction out of the older boy. They were working with the sleazeball for a reason, whatever it was. He almost reached for something, judging by the twitch in his right arm. But he was holding back from the desire to attack, remembering my earlier words.

Looking him over, I let him mull over my threats.

Now that I had the time to look at him, the turtleneck sweater with a haori combo actually looked pretty neat. The hakama pants looked a little cumbersome to my tastes and I had to wonder where he hid all those needles, since he didn't wear any visible holsters or pouches. Maybe the haori had pockets on the inside? Or did he just push the needles into the cloth itself?

Wait—is the turtleneck sweater one piece with the hakama?

Ninja fashion is weird. Though it was a lot cooler than Zabuza's apparel.

Like, seriously? No shirt and a single suspender around the neck? I vaguely remembered him being cooler, but maybe that had been in his later appearance on the bridge... Hadn't the man been cold with all the moisture in the air? Maybe his grayish skin-tone belied some weird ancestry, like with Kisame. Like a whale or a dolphin, or something?

The beluga ninja.

All that, and the lack of random bandages everywhere put the pretty-boy miles ahead of pretty much everyone else in terms of fashion, at least in my book. Reining in the desire to scoff and noticing that Haku wasn't fidgeting anymore, growing resolved instead, I spread my hands placatively and continued speaking.

"But, I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm here to talk. So for now—and because I do not wish to distract you from tending to your companion—may I come inside?"

Haku lowered his hand, exhaling slowly. "You... may come inside and be seated by the door if you wish. I shall be with you shortly."

With that, the Water Clone lost cohesion and turned into so much water on the already moist ground. Huh, without the Sharingan activated I couldn't tell him from the real thing. You didn't walk into negotiations with weapons bared, so of course, my eyes had remained jet-black ever since I let the Midnight Nameless jutsu go.

I hadn't tried the Water Clone jutsu out yet, but did this mean it too acted like the Shadow Clone with its memories? No one had ever seemed to use it at a distance and it was really weak compared to the user, as I recalled, but if Haku could talk to me there had to be some kind of mental link. Ah, no wait...The framework I saw Zabuza using is similar to the Replacement jutsu.

If the Shadow Clone was an evolution of the regular Clone jutsu, empowered by a fuckload of chakra and spliced with a mold of your consciousness to allow it autonomy, the Water Clone jutsu was closer to the puppeteered substitute-distraction used with the Replacement jutsu. Just with the malleable and chakra-receptive water as a core instead of a log or something.

So water was probably necessary to connect it to the user; like the Hidden Mist jutsu. Advanced users probably learned to operate them just as Suna's puppet users learned to control their weapons.

I closed the door behind me quietly and sat down by the foyer, with zero intentions of being rude and barging around before my host made himself available. If Haku chose to run, well at least he should be sufficiently cowed by my tracking him, prolonging Zabuza's recovery period all the more. And with my original still handling Tazuna, Haku would be in for a very rude awakening if he thought he could pull a fast one on me.

Some fifteen minutes later a tired-looking boy, still wearing the mask appeared, though looking very hesitant.

"Zabuza-san is awake and wishes to see you."

I stood up, nodding as I moved to follow after him further into the weird house. And as I did, I couldn't help but have my eyes drawn to Haku's swaying hips and rear. Perhaps sensing my gaze, he spoke up.

"Ah, by the way, I'm a boy."

He turned around, without his mask to offer me a winning smile to punctuate those words.

"I-impossible..." I staggered back, eyes wide. I pointed at him, accusingly. "I thought you were a girl, like me!"

A beat. Haku blinked. I blinked.

He looked at me. Really looked at me. I did have a very slender body and androgynous face, and my eyelashes were longer than this. More than once, Ino and Sakura had sighed dreamily about my eyelashes. I blinked twice for good measure, noticing his noticing.

I thought it was funny.

"I-I see..." Haku offered hesitantly.

"Tch, it's not funny if you take it so seriously..." I grumbled, shoving my hands into my pockets again, damn thankful that I wore my long-sleeved shirt and slacks here. The air was moist and the wind from the sea cold. At least compared to the Fire Country.

At that, he did smile a little, turning around to lead me further inside.

Zabuza was lying on a king-size bed, glaring at me with his sharply-filed teeth visible through a growing sneer.

"Yo, Zabuza. How you feeling? I would have brought some get-well presents, but this country's a real mess."

"What do you want, brat?"

"Is that how you refer to someone who nearly cut open your throat, eh Zabuza?" I mimed the kunai at my throat, mirroring one of his wounds.

"...So you did miss on purpose."

I nodded, my posture oozing grim satisfaction. Zabuza continued sneering, but didn't call me a brat again. I took that to mean he was willing to hear me out.

"So, I assume you know who or at least what I am, right?" I continued, nudging with my head to the fan on the back of my dark shirt. "And that you know what happened to my clan, right?"

He said nothing, but sensing Haku's interest, I decided to explain.

"The Uchiha was one of the more respected clans in Konoha until just a few years ago. It's not like Kiri, with its bloodline purges." Oh, right, Haku hadn't showed off his skills yet, no points there. Keep it like a general tidbit, not a point of commonality between us. "Until just recently, at least. For whatever reason, my elder brother Uchiha Itachi, one of the foremost prodigies of the clan as far as everyone who'd met him was concerned, decided to kill everyone else in the clan in one night."

That got Haku's attention, judging by the hitched breath. Sympathy point get. But I pretended not to notice as I went on.

"So to cut a long story short, I want him dead. And to do that, Konoha has been kind of useless, to put it bluntly. They don't look too nicely on revenge, for whatever reason."

Zabuza grinned. "I suppose they would have you do that tree-hugging two-finger handshake and just get over it, if he did come back, right?"

"I wouldn't be surprised." I shook my head. "But that's me. I'd like your cooperation as agents outside of Konoha. Your ears on the ground, outside of my village's walls, can hear a lot more than I can."

"...And what would we get in exchange? Your client's life?" Zabuza leered mockingly.

"Mm, no. Kakashi is still alive and he would absolutely find me out if that did happen. So killing the client would require killing Kakashi, which, to put it bluntly, isn't fucking worth your potential help." I shook my head again. "No, I'm thinking that you two are obviously working towards something here, to be willing to align with a little fuck like Gatou. Something like acquiring funding for another coup in Kiri, perhaps?"

He didn't react.

"Or, ah, perhaps rather the use of his shipping lanes to support an ongoing resistance in the Water Country?"

A tensing of jaw. I was hitting something sensitive now. I wished I could turn on my Sharingan to confirm that he wasn't throwing out a false positive, but we weren't that good friends yet. Probably never would be. Oh well.

"And how exactly would that work?"

I smirked, crimson eyes spinning now. Both ninja tensed. "Oh, simple. I brainwash the absolute living fuck out of him and turn him into your little puppet. He's going to show up here sooner or later to complain, isn't he? Simple and easy, catch his entire entourage in one go, after which you don't even need to stick around. And we Konoha ninja already think you're dead, so we're not gonna come looking for you. It's just not our style to go looking for fights, right? Everyone gets what they want."

The air in the room was thick with tension. A tension unalike any I'd ever before felt.

And I realized with some dark pleasure that they had been taken completely off guard by my offer, and were now more than a little wary of me. I turned off my Sharingan, feeling the dread satisfaction run out.

"You get your shipping, I get my intel, Konoha gets an A-rank mission pay from the freed and ever-so-thankful Wave citizenry, Gatou gets to live, and all that it takes is for Gatou's psyche to get wiped. I hardly think that's something someone as blooded as you should be squeamish about. The man has more than earned his death by now—I can practically smell the gallows in town from here, and we aren't even downwind.

"So... Do we have a deal?" I asked with a smirk.

I stopped, mid-step.

Smirking I hurried to catch up to Tazuna before he realized I had paused for a second there as the memories of the Shadow Clone returned. Success. Only problem now was that I had no idea how to mindbreak and brainwash someone with the Sharingan.

Oops!

Well, the clone had been right in his judgment call there.

Zabuza and Haku seemed more worried about Gatou dying than being called the Kiri hunter-nin on, so tempting them with him was probably the only thing that was going to work. And this way Wave was going to get out of this fine and dandy, too, which was a definite plus.

Because boy, I hated walking around here.

Despite everything I am, think and do, I'm still not a sociopath. And seeing this much human misery still gets to me. Seeing so many starving people and begging children isn't something I can just pretend doesn't exist. Even back before I had a hard time ignoring beggars and the homeless, even though I disliked the very idea of being in any contact with them.

Well, not disliked. Been disgusted by.

More visceral and emotional, less rational.

"Stay back," I said, hand going to my kunai at my leg as I stared at another beggar.

Tazuna looked pained, but when I had explained that any one of them could be an assassin—a demonstration of the Transformation jutsu silencing any further objections—he had acquiesced to my behavior.

Unwashed, starving, living in the streets and digging through refuse to survive...

I could sympathize with them and work to better their lives, but they were still disgusting and I didn't want them anywhere near me. I wasn't going to self-flagellate myself like some saint or ignore basic hygiene considerations for them, either. I didn't even have any disinfectant or latex gloves and at Tazuna's place they just had basic soap.

I even hated people touching me back before, with their sweaty and sticky palms. Hell, my own hands, too. I would almost religiously wash my hands, hating the way they would feel after I touched anything. I was so glad that this body hadn't that problem.

Maybe I had that one Asian gene that affected sweating, the one that made it so their sweat didn't smell and that extremely spicy foods prevented sweating and their nose from running. Or were those completely separate genes? At least, I didn't remember ever being disgusted with my own armpits' odor, so that was probably the case.

Whatever.

Besides, already the clone's memories assuaged me that I was bringing them salvation.

If not right now, then very soon. That was enough of an excuse for me to allow my disgust to reign supreme among my immediate inclinations. So excuse the lack of hugging and kumbaya.

The beggar, cowed by the blade and my glowing carmine eyes, kept away.

"Please understand, Tazuna-san's personal safety is of the utmost importance for this country's future, and respect his personal space," I recited again, professionally.

As we went to the final couple of houses to notify the men willing to work on the bridge of Tazuna's return, he spoke up quietly.

"Is... is that really necessary?"

"Sir, I am a killer." I looked at him. "I could have been hired to assassinate you, in terms of competence, literally years ago. But just because the Hidden Leaf Village has stricter policies regarding child soldiers today, does not mean other villages or ninja clans do. The Transformation jutsu is elementary and among the easiest ninjutsu to learn around."

"But..."

"Please, sir. Let us do our job, so that you may do yours and save this country."

He nodded, resigned again. "Right. But... Why didn't that jounin of yours act so serious about all this? If he had been that professional when I hired you, I wouldn't have complained about you kids at all..."

It sounded more like an idle curiosity than a real complaint. But, well, I didn't mind answering. It would be throwing shade Kakashi's way anyhow.

"He's what happens when child soldiers who go on assassination missions grow up relatively sane and stable. Zabuza was on the opposite side of that spectrum for comparison, so I hope we can excuse a little bit of his stranger nature."

"Ah... Right." Tazuna nodded. He had seen the jutsu those two had been tossing around.

The client happy, I could return to my musings while keeping an eye out for anything weird. Sure, I had struck a bargain with Zabuza and he shouldn't even be able to act for the next few days, and in canon nothing had happened, but that didn't mean I could fucking slack off on a job.

I needed to figure out a way to practice my Sharingan and fast.

With Kakashi's bullshit back at the village I hadn't gotten train my newfound ocular powers nearly as much as I would have liked to. I had never been exactly sure when the genjutsu powers kicked in or if they had been there all along, but my memories were certain that all of the people doing that stuff had had three tomoe in their eyes. Mangekyo excluded.

Which meant that I should be able to do it now, too.

But knowing that and being able to do it were two very different things.

So now I had to figure it out before Gatou showed up, sometime in the immediate future. Haku had promised to set up a signal at a location when they knew it was time, I would have to keep an eye out for it. Probably in the form of a Shadow Clone...

Which, if I needed another Shadow Clone to practice the genjutsu on, could get pretty taxing. Especially given the food shortages here in Wave.

Maybe I could make Naruto go fishing as a form of training? I had brought supplies, of course, but long-lasting battlefield rations weren't the tastiest or even the most nutritious of things. They kept you going, but that was all. And that wasn't enough for me. I needed to excel in the short window of opportunity available to me now.

The other option was to... find a someone to experiment on.

I grimaced at the immediate mental image of kidnapping and effectively torturing someone off the streets here. Disgusted by them though I may be, hate or wish any kind of suffering upon them I did not.

Which left, again, just Naruto.

"Maybe I can call it genjutsu resistance training...?"

Well, probably not.

"Okay, you can both walk on water now. Good job."

They learned fast. Faster than I had. And Kakashi hadn't woken up yet, either. Excellent.

Sakura preened, excited and proud to be complimented by me, but I pretty much ignored her. Naruto was looking pretty proud, since after mastering the tree walking exercise he had taken to water walking even faster, just as in canon. Without the weird seal by Orochimaru to muck things up, he had picked it up like a damn natural.

We were all standing on the water right now, completely stable and secure. Even Sakura's stamina seemed to be improving a little bit.

"Unfortunately, compared to the tree walking exercise, this one doesn't have that many useful neat tricks associated with it. But it does improve your chakra control further and now we can all walk on water. Neat, huh?"

Naruto grinned and nodded, crossing his arms, and noticing how Inari—that was his fucking name. How had I forgotten it? The brat only shared the name with god of foxes, and all!—was staring at us from the window of the house's second floor. I guess that old shout-and-sulk had occurred like in canon, but this time since we were literally standing on water just outside his house, even a brat like him had to be a little impressed.

"So, so! What's next, hey, hey! What's next?"

Whoa. Was Naruto easy or what? He'd completely forgotten his rivalry with me, hadn't he? Ah, just as well. It was kinda a shame he wasn't a girl, since Naruko with a side-order of Kyuubi-chan would have made this world a ten outta fucking ten. Genki, gutsy pig-tailed tomboys full of sunshine are the stuff dreams are made out of.

"Huh, what's that weird look for? You're creeping me out Sasuke."

Right. He's got unexpectedly sharp senses. Good thing for your butt that I'm not into dudes, broth brain.

Actually no, even as a joke it wasn't that funny. Naruto was the kind of dumb, where blonde jokes didn't accurately represent the kind of crime it was to leave him alone and without adult supervision for any length of time.

God damn it, why do I have to be the adult here...?

I cleared my throat, nodding to myself to clear my focus.

"There's a couple of things I'd like to work on - if you guys are willing?"

Naruto grinned and Sakura looked ready to hump my leg, so I took that as a yes. At this point she was barely an afterthought, but given how quickly she mastered chakra exercises I figured I would have to throw something otherwise challenging at her to keep her busy.

Nothing too theoretical either, since she did have a big brain to match her apparently big forehead. Couldn't say I had ever thought of it as being particularly big, though. And if I told her that, I would probably give her enough material to dream over for months, given her supposed complex about it.

"Okay, Sakura. As it is, you're not exactly able to keep up with me or Naruto in taijutsu and at range your kunai lose too much power to really work as support. So I'm going to teach you something that will allow you to improve your throwing weapons effectiveness."

I grabbed my kunai and attached the chakra string to it, at this point it was incredibly easy already and I could do it on the fly and without any handseals.

"This is a chakra string. It's a technique based on the tree walking exercise where you maintain the chakra at a distance to whatever you had 'stuck' onto."

"Wow, Sasuke-kun! Who taught you that? I read that the Uchiha clan were famous for their string techniques, are you really going to teach me your clan techniques?"

Oh, fuck. Was that what this looked like? Like I was prepping her on Uchiha clan jutsu so I could bring her into my household or something. Yeah, fuck no.

Raising a hand, I stopped her. "This is different. The shuriken-guiding techniques work with these strings too, mostly, but I'm not going to teach my clan's techniques to you since you don't have a Sharingan." That sounded plausible enough and it deflated her dreams handily. "This is just something I figured out on my own. It's probably what the Suna puppeteers use, too."

"Oh. Oh wow, you really figured it out yourself?"

I waved her off and continued. "Anyhow. I've figured two decent and easy uses for it already and I want you to work on them. First," I drew two shuriken from my rear pouch and attached a chakra string's end to each with my thumb and index finger.

And then I flicked them towards the pier and the forest behind the house.

As usual the string went right past the dead wood of a pole as the shuriken passed it by on either side. Then when it reached a tree the string went taught and sent the two shuriken spinning in opposite directions as they tied up around the tree.

"I call it the Chakra Bola. The chakra somewhat phases through dead matter—iron and steel in particular—but slows down against biological matter with some residue chakra. Against living stuff it acts just like a real string. It can be a bit tricky to figure out, but it's great for entangling opponents when they've lowered their guards."

"Oh...! Like a parabola?" Sakura confirmed, looking very interested in my little demonstration.

"Uh..." Did this world even have the regular ball bola? I had no idea. "Yeah. That's it exactly."

"What's a parabla?" Naruto asked Sakura and then looked very confused when she tried to explain it to him.

"Anyhow, there's still one more good application. I call it the Chakra Sling." I drew my kunai and attached one string to it, keep it still attached to my hand. "This one is easier chakra control-wise, since you don't need to attach two objects to each other, but a little harder to use otherwise."

I turned around and began to spin the kunai over my head like a bullroarer, its curious shape and round hilt making a peculiar sound. And then I snapped forward with my hand, pulling in the kunai's string a little at the last second before cutting it loose, turning the rotational momentum into linear. It snapped forward like a bullet, embedding all the up to the hilt on the same tree that the pair of shuriken had wound around.

I wasn't sure if even Kakashi could throw that hard.

Naruto didn't look very impressed compared to the Bola, but Sakura's eyes were wide again.

"At the end there, I pulled the string closer, which—"

"Increased the kunai's rotational inertia, accelerating it even faster... Sasuke-kun, this is... this is incredible...!"

"It's not that cool..." Naruto sulked again and I scoffed.

"Well, go practice it. This should take a little bit longer than a minute to get, I'd wager. You can borrow my shuriken and kunai, too." I made a vaguely dismissive motion and she nodded, skipping off to collect the weapons and practice.

I didn't expect much from her, but with this she wasn't going to be entirely useless. Because as I remembered it, she went into the chuunin exams with just the basic three Academy jutsu. And she couldn't even single-seal them. Jesus fucking Christ, Kakashi.

"So... So! What're you gonna teach me, huh, huh?"

"Jutsu-addict."

"Huh! What'd you call me, again?" Naruto went from excited to excited in a second again, fists raised for a fight.

"I'm not going to teach you anything for now, because you're still lacking in the fundamentals," I started.

He gaped at me, as if I had told him I was going to destroy all the ramen in the world. "That's not fair! You showed Sakura-chan a cool new jutsu! I knew you were a bastard, but that's just unfair!"

I blinked.

"The Chakra Strings are just tricks. I taught them to her because she's so weak that she can't do a Shadow Clone. By virtue of that one fact alone, anything she can do, you can do pretty much a hundred times better."

Naruto blinked again, his affronted expression melting away and turning into something else, that I couldn't quite place.

"Right... I forgot. You're always like this, Sasuke."

Wait, what?

"Huh?"

He shook his head, uncharacteristically serious all of a sudden.

"So what are you teaching me then, if not a cool jutsu?"

Shaking aside the weird moment, I forged on. "Since your Shadow Clone allows you to multitask, I want to focus on a training scenario I want you to start doing. It's more like a free-form exercise than anything else, though."

"Uh, okay?"

Right. Naruto. Use small words.

"I want to help you make the best use out of your clones. Individually and in groups. Think of it like this; back in Konoha different stores and shops have different prices, even though they sell the same stuff, right? Think of ramen."

"Uh, yeah? Ichiraku is the best!"

"Right, so for the same money you're getting more."

He nodded.

"I want your Shadow Clones to each be like Ichiraku ramen, rather than just cheap everyday cup ramen. Okay?" Now of course there was a price difference there, which offset the difference in quality, but Naruto had already forgotten about the money, dreaming about ramen as he was.

Goddamn broth brain, seriously.

"That sounds awesome! How are we doing that?"

I want you to make three clones, right now."

He did so.

"I want you to consider these three a 'unit'. So when I want a unit of clones, you make three Shadow Clones. When I want two units, I want six Shadow Clones. If I want five units...?" I prompted with raised eyebrows and Naruto looked put-upon-the-spot as he fumbled.

"U-uh, f-fifteen?" one of the clones piped up, hesitantly.

I nodded.

"Do you want fifteen now?" he asked, looking at the three who were now following the discussion too.

"No, just keep listening. I want these three to train together, without you. They can go wherever they want to do this training, but they just have to do it."

All four nodded.

"They'll make two teams; one is alone working against the other two. And the point is that it's unfair, that's what makes it training."

All four nodded again, looking slightly uncertain.

"The one who is alone should try to survive by any means necessary. He's allowed to use a kunai and shuriken freely. So let's say that that's you." I pointed at one clone. "Draw your kunai and go stand over there. Remember, you're allowed to do anything so long as you survive."

The clone obeyed, drawing his holstered kunai and spinning it lazily around a finger, sometimes making poses which Naruto must have thought were cool.

"You two, on the other hand, are working together to pop him. But because you're working together, you have restrictions on what you're allowed to do." Naruto probably didn't know what 'restriction' meant, judging by his skeptical expression. Keep it simple, stupid. "You are not allowed to use shuriken or kunai, only taijutsu."

The clone in question gulped. "But, he's got a kunai, that's crazy!"

"So you need to be careful and work together with your partner. You, on the other hand, are not allowed to use taijutsu at all. You can only use your shuriken and kunai from a distance. Does that sound reasonable enough or do you need me to explain again?"

I was pretty sure I would have to explain again, but with three clones I would just have to pop all three and he would probably get it then.

"...I get it, I think... But why am I doing this? How does this make my ramen better—I mean, my clones better?" the original Naruto asked, surprising me.

"It's... Ah, actually I forgot a key detail." I turned to the two clones who were working together. "You two, Transform into the Kiri demon brothers."

All four Naruto froze, looking at me with wide eyes.

"The point, of all this, is to make you better at the fundamentals. The basics of the basics. If you had trained with your clones on how to defend against two armed attackers working together, would you have frozen up against those two before? Maybe. Maybe not. But you would at least have had some confidence in your ability to beat them, right?"

He was avoiding my eyes now. "I guess..."

"So the solo clone gets more experience at defending himself both against taijutsu and ranged attacks, and especially against both at the same time, meaning that your clones won't get popped so easily in a fight and you won't get hurt. We've added a good broth to the cheap cup ramen." I pointed at the taijutsu clone of the pair. "This guy has to judge when he can attack unarmed against a kunai, teaching you how to deal with sharp weapons like their claws again and not to just slug it out blindly. We've added some vegetables for the flavor to the noodles."

I pointed at the final clone. "And this guy has to judge when he's distracted and learn to time his thrown weapons with the taijutsu clone's moves, improving your timing, throwing and teamwork. He adds the uh, miso and pork, to the ramen. This way your clones' coordination will improve as a whole, too, so Kakashi won't just Replace himself with one of you again. And you won't do something dumb like throwing a kunai into your own skull one day..."

"Hey! I wouldn't..." Naruto began but hesitated.

Had he really?

"Amazing. You've already managed to do it before I could even conceive of it happening. You're really one of a kind, Naruto."

"You jerk! You can't concede any better than I can!" he retorted.

"You might just be right about that," I deadpanned, before shaking my head. "Anyhow, you guys all understood that?"

Four Naruto nodded, the original still a little glum.

"Good. Okay, taijutsu clone, divide your kunai and shuriken between the other two, since you're not allowed to use them. Oh, and I suggest using the borrowed one's first, because if he pops so should the borrowed kunai." That tidbit looked like it went over their heads. They probably wouldn't have time to worry about running out, not yet or for a long while to come either. "Anyhow, transform now into the demon brothers and try it out."

The pair of Naruto grimaced and then all three got to work.

It wasn't pretty. Taijutsu clone got gutted pretty much instantly and then defender clone got nailed in the gut by a kunai from the last clone standing, having been way too focused on stabbing the taijutsu clone.

I whipped a shuriken into the jubilant chuunin-lookalike-last-man-standing and popped him, too, before turning to the real Naruto who was looking over the whole thing pensively. The triplicate memories of the explanation and the memories of all three clones probably gave him a lot more clarity over the point of it all, now.

"So, what do you think?" I asked.

"...Yeah, I get it. I died way too quick..." He looked sullen at how effectively I was rubbing it into his face, forcing him to admit that he did need to work on a lot of stuff. "But you still don't know anything about ramen. That explanation about just putting things into cup ramen isn't how it works, like at all."

I shrugged at his annoyed expression.

"It's the only language you seem to speak, broth brain. Now go forth and multiply," I commanded, throwing out my hand imperiously.

"You're weird, Sasuke."