Overburn II

Showtime.

Haku's been doing a pretty bang-up job of keeping Naruto busy, and that improvised Flashback jutsu did a real number on his aggro—no Kyuubi fucking everything up now. And for all that he had been hiding his Ice release bloodline limit from me, with the fight forcing him to stop holding back and with his heart-to-heart with Naruto needing that bit of context, I now had an excuse for knowing about it.

Which, while not dramatic or earth-shattering in any way as a revelation, meant I had one less thing I needed to pretend I didn't know about to keep track of.

That said, I'm worried about Kakashi since he's apparently on the move. But if real me ain't worried, no point in sweating over it.

I exhale, shouldering the seversword, which while I can't say I've come to prefer over other weapons, definitely has some uses I hadn't considered before. Definitely an eye-opening experience, using it against more nimble opponents, pushing the boundaries of what I had considered realistic and effective in taijutsu. It's not merely a matter of superhuman strength and using chakra to stick to the ground so I can swing it normally, but also about how to work with its massive weight pulling me this way and that after each swing.

Still not something I'd choose to use normally. I mean, for one of the seven swords of Hidden Mist, it's pretty disappointing. Samehada could eat chakra and the twin swords did something with lighting, I think... Or were those just filler? They were probably just filler. Like the Second Hokage's lightsaber. What did I get as Momochi Zabuza, Demon of the Hidden Mist? A big fat fucking spatula with a pair of holes punched through it.

Disappointing.

But for all that, the way it forcibly creates space with each attack can't be denied. Maybe I'd look into a massive sword of my own once I got storage seals sorted out; pulling a buster sword out of my ass for a surprise overhead swing would be definitely worth it in a pinch.

"Who's that...?" Naruto asks.

My sharpened teeth push against the bandages wrapped around my face, and not for the first time, I have to marvel at the difference between doing a Transformation as a flesh and blood human being and doing it as a chakra construct like a Shadow Clone. It's not a chakra construct on top of real flesh, but my self in the guise of the thing whose shape I've taken, feeling the false clothing and other bits created from chakra as well.

In that sense, Shadow Clones are a perfect match for the Transformation jutsu, unbound by some of the limitations regarding size and mass.

Walking past the orange menace as Haku raises the mist around us, returning visibility to near-normal, at least as far as Wave Country goes, I grunt as I spot the beady-eyed businessman.

"Gatou. What the hell do you think you're doing here...?" I ask, feeling Haku's shroud settling over my shoulders, not quite completed yet but ready the moment I want to project my bloodlust.

"What does it look like, Zabuza? You're obviously not worth the money, so I'm getting the job done myself," Gatou loudly declares amidst his men, sending a laugh rippling out through them.

There are at least two hundred of them, fairly lightly armed but definitely ready for mayhem. The fact that none of them realize how monumentally bad of an idea any of this is speaks of how inexperienced they are.

But oh well, we're all dying soon enough, so no point in lamenting over them.

"Naruto, get over here!" my real self shouts and I hardly pay attention, too focused on raising my bloodlust. Honing it, concentrating it, bringing it to bear on the spearheaded tip of my chakra. Ready to freeze every single one of those idiots on their feet and make them piss themselves with fear. "Did you get Tazuna and the workers out of here?"

"No, they're still at the end of the bridge... But Kakashi-sensei's here now and he's gonna kick Zabuza's ass, too!"

Kakashi's pulling a bluff through Naruto, huh? Oh, right, I should react to that.

"The Copy Ninja done hiding and cowering behind his kids?" I ask with a mocking sneer, looking over my shoulder at myself and Naruto. They tense, but hold their ground. "Haku, on me."

"Yes," Haku immediately attends to me, taking his place at my left side. "Zabuza-san."

I glance at him and we exchange confirmation over the plan. I'm running to massacre my employer, with Haku apparently coming just behind me as support. But in reality, his role is to use his ice mirrors to ensure that Gatou survives and manages to escape once real me finally lets loose, after which he will rendezvous with the real Zabuza.

The neat little scheme is coming together a lot better than I'd even hoped, but I can't help but feel a certain melancholy at my role in all of this. Sparring with my real self while pretending to be Zabuza, using all of the moves I had copied from him and trying to figure them out was fun and all, but...

No wonder nobody told Naruto about how the Shadow Clone really works.

It's one thing to see a clone get popped and retain that memory, dismissing it as just so much noise in the middle of a fight, or to dispel yourself and simply cease existing, and another thing entirely to walk to your death willingly. Because that's what will happen to this... instance of me, leaving nothing behind but memories. How many people could do that, I wonder? Just accept their death and walk into it, for the sake of some hare-brained scheme?

But, well...

Thoughts of suicide had always been a constant companion of mine.

Not exactly depression, but more of a greyness to life that never seemed to give way outside of momentary bursts of pure pathos. The acceptance that everything is in perfect balance and that the ups and downs only feel like ups and downs because of funny chemicals in your brain. So ok, maybe textbook depression with a side of mania.

But whatever. I don't think I can power Zabuza's demon-shroud thingy with emotions like these. Especially since I need to convince Kakashi that it's really Zabuza. Murder, murder, murder. Think about cleaving that stumpy little fatso from head to groin with one swing, about—oh, right. That's why I'd been excited about this little scheme yesterday, right?

"Gatou... I'm going to tear apart your little boys, break your legs, then find that old bridge builder and tear his head off with my bare hands... And then we can talk about baby devils."

I walk forward, melancholy all but forgotten, giving way to the old mania. I have to desperately hold onto the chakra running wild within me; it wouldn't do to have my Sharingan pop to life now and ruin the game, now would it?

"Y-you...!"

I don't care to wait and listen, exploding forward with such speed that the concrete itself shatters beneath my feet. Roaring, I hoist the massive blade in a sideways swing and there's barely any resistance as it plows through seven men.

It rains blood and bits of innard, bone, and flesh.

The crowd goes rears as on in shock as the wave of death splatters them all, and the only one among the seven to have survived the swing begins to scream his head off as the pain hits him. My exhale comes hot and heavy through the stupid fucking bandages as I spin around and recover my stance.

I never understood why he wore them anyway, so I raise my free hand to pull loose my mouth and reveal a sharpened, sharktooth grin.

"Ah, there we go..."

Now I've got plenty of material to work with for my bloodlust.

Naruto almost falls on his ass as the sheer wave of maimkilldeath hits us, Haku's combination jutsu going off seamlessly as the black, demon-headed shroud comes into being above the false Zabuza.

"Naruto, get me those oil canisters over there," I say hurriedly as I crouch next to him.

"Huh? What?"

I point them out to him, now clearly visible through the dispersed mist.

"Why?" Naruto asks, getting up.

"Just do it, and get everyone as far away from the fighting. And do it quickly." I insert as much burgeoning panic and worry into my voice as I can muster and it seems to convince Naruto to act, as he nods and runs off.

By now Kakashi and Sakura should have found Tazuna, since without the mist they can move that much more freely under the bridge. Especially as they should now be confident that Zabuza isn't paying any attention to us.

Because hoo boy, my clone is going to town on the poor sods over there, pulling off a real good Guts impersonation if I've ever seen one. Every swing leads into the next, his foot slamming into the ground as he spins around and around, heads, limbs, and broken weapons flying everywhere as the blood runs freely into the sea over the edges.

I can smell it all the way here; the blood, innards and excrement from all the dying.

At this rate, he'll tear through them all before I can even get my jutsu off, the fucker.

"Here!" Naruto returns just in time and I can see how shook up he is by the sheer carnage, not more than thirty meters away from us on the bridge. "I found everyone else, too! Sakura-chan, Kakashi-sensei, old man Tazuna, and all the workers! They're on the end of the bridge with my clones right now."

"Good." I nod, looking at the canisters he barely managed to get over here.

Too many canisters, too few hands. He hadn't even made any clones, just tried to put one on each finger like they were shopping bags or something.

"You might want to step back, Naruto. It's going to get ugly," I continue saying as I bring out my spool of ninja wire. While I prefer chakra strings, this stuff has its occasional uses too.

"Huh?" he asks, intelligently, as I cut a length of wire and put it through the handles on all the canisters and then tie it together, getting them bunched up in a loop. I ignore him and stand up, holding the wire.

I take two steps towards 'Zabuza' and the ongoing massacre and then spin around, winding up in an Olympic hammer throw to get all the canisters into the air, and loosed them into the air above the crowd with all my might. No one except Naruto notices, too occupied with the 'Demon of the Mist's' rampage.

Drawing four kunai—judging that two of the canisters will be close enough that a single throw will suffice for the both of them—I cast them with a perilous throw. The oil canisters practically explode apart, the thin sheet metal barely even slowing down the heavy throwing knives, releasing their contents as droplets into the air.

"Sasuke—"

Serpent, ram, monkey, boat, horse—charge fire natured chakra and hold the shaping tiger seal without hands—Fire Release: Great Fireball jutsu!

Only it's not ball—It's a great whirling vortex of fire, as wide and tall as the bridge itself, swallowing the corpses and crowd in an instant and continuing onwards like a burning horizontal tornado.

A second later the oil droplets ignite and the air itself lights up, for some reason lacking all the oomph the sawdust had displayed against Kakashi.

This much won't be enough to burn them all—

The first row of mercenaries—swallowed by the falling curtain and spinning fire—explode as the air begins to scream.

No. Those are actual screams, swallowed up in the next handful of seconds by the spreading detonations, as all the oxygen is ripped from our surroundings to feed the great bonfire I've lit on the bridge, detonation after detonation rocking the air in waves. For a still moment, I feel disconnected even as I keep pumping chakra into the pyre to keep it going, Sharingan whirling in detached analysis.

It's the mercenaries and the corpses. Every living thing has chakra. The fire jutsu ignites them somehow fueling itself - the wood dust and chips must have contained some trace amounts of chakra where the oil didn't, causing the explosion.

Wow. This would be absolute hell on a battlefield. Once someone ignites, it'll just keep spreading.

And then the Shadow Clone's memories return to me.

Wielding the Kubikiribōchō, sparring around with me, nervous boredom, melancholic determination, and then finally the sheer bloodlust and childlike joy I found in the carnage. The smells and sounds doubled for a moment, intensifying and bouncing between the two perspectives, bleeding into each other as I realize I'm laughing.

It's not the killing that's funny.

I—ah, how to explain this coherently... I don't think I can—I remembered a funny picture in a flash; one of those personality type tests that were no better than horoscopes, giving unflattering and humorous descriptions of the various types. I had always thought of myself as an INTP, but I knew that I vacillated between Introverted and Extroverted. And the description there for the ENTP had just sprung to mind all of a sudden.

'Killed a rodent when he was nine, was pleasantly surprised when he felt nothing...'

The hacking exhale cuts off my firebreathing and I fall to my knees, coughs and laughter racking my lungs for a second until I can get another breath in and calm myself down, chasing away the dumb memory from back before, trying to analyze the situation more objectively.

It made sense that I felt nothing. I had been training and preparing myself for years for this.

To kill people for a living.

Staring at the ground, my vision has been washed pure red and it's not just the Sharingan, the blood on the bridge spread all over, dripping off the sides, reflecting the dancing flames and carnage. My head is swimming and I'm not sure whether it's from all the chakra I threw into that attack or from the lack of oxygen.

"Ah, ahah, ahahahha..." I look at Naruto, whose wide-eyed stare reflects my own red-ringed mania, framed by the flames. "Sorry - inside joke with Zabuza." That is, me. "Punchline wouldn't make sense to anyone else."

"I... uh..."

The blond looks at me worriedly, as if he's never really seen me before.

I get back up, giving my handiwork only another quick glance—confirming that the fire is slowly dying out now, only the remnants of the oil keeping it going—before turning to look at Kakashi and Sakura rapidly approaching us from behind.

"Report," Kakashi's not playing around, eyeing the fire warily.

"Zabuza lowered his guard while dealing with Gatou's men. So I loosed my biggest jutsu with Naruto's help. I think we got both of them. Zabuza and his apprentice, I mean. Gatou looked like he might have been running away already from them, so who knows."

The jounin glances at Naruto, who's still numbly looking around, before nodding. "Good job. Both of you."

Naruto's head snaps to look at him at those words, only loosely comprehending that he's being praised for surviving and keeping Tazuna safe, rather than in assisting in a massacre. He works his jaw, trying to say something, before closing it and gritting his teeth, eyes looking back and forth between the obviously relieved Sakura, Tazuna in the distance with the workers and back to the fire and me.

Not quite the conclusion from canon, but certainly must have engrained something in him emotionally.

Well, now I just need to set someone to fetch the Kubikiribōchō my clone threw and then meet up with the Zabuza and Haku. But for the moment, I think it was safe to say that they were 'dead'.

Mission success. Yay. Oh whoa, wait.

Whoa, almost blacked out there... Definitely used too much chakra.

Even with my attempts to build up my chakra reserves over the years, I had obviously gotten away with my new jutsu, fueling it far past what it strictly needed. Then again, human bodies are like half water, so it was probably better to err on the side of overkill.

Looking up, I inhaled through my nose and almost gagged at the stench. Like the combination of pork, burned hair, and something else, indescribable, the smell wafting through the air towards us slowly but surely.

"Is...Is it over?" Tazuna asked, offering a shoulder to support one of the still-weak workers.

Kakashi offered him a bland expression, nothing really like a smile, but somehow reminiscent of one anyhow as if it was the best he could be arsed to do for a client's benefit. "So it would seem. For now, we shall wait for the fire to die out and tend to our wounded."

"Sensei... What about, what about Gatou's men?" Naruto asked, still looking worriedly over to the fire.

If some had survived, I doubted they would live long unless they had had the good sense to jump into the water.

"Maa, well, that's up to the people of Wave," Kakashi replied, shrugging off dealing with the bothersome details to anyone else, with an actual smile. "We're just here to guard the bridge builder, Tazuna, after all."

Naruto didn't look like he quite agreed, his cerulean eyes still inextricably drawn to the fire.

"Now, Sasuke, let's have a look at your wounds. Take off your shirt."

Sakura made a sound, her hands flashing up to cover her flushed face. Was she holding her nostrils shut...? I sighed and complied, moving over to let the jounin have a look at my wounds, even as an irrational surge of paranoia regarding just how experienced he was at dealing with this kind of stuff. Could he judge how the fight had really gone from just my wounds or something?

Calm down the fuck down, Sasuke. All you need to do now is act like normal. And for fuck's sake, don't smile with duper's delight.

A flash of Sharingan behind closed lids allowed me to rein in my emotions as I tossed aside my ruined shirt at Kakashi's request.

Normal. Normal. I can do normal, right?

We were the talk of the town for the whole week after that.

By the time we returned to Tazuna's place, word had spread of our big fight on the bridge. Not only due to the absolutely massive bonfire I had lit, but also by word of mouth as the stragglers from Gatou's hired army escaped, raving desperately of demons and the fires of hell. It didn't take long for everyone to get curious after that, anxiousness and fear giving way to hope and expectation once they began to connect the dots.

Gatou had been driven back.

Sent running with his tail between his legs, in fact.

And once Naruto saw everyone's reactions, his confusion, apprehension, and misgivings about the battle gave way to a sort of grudging acceptance. He was now a killer, if only by proxy, but for his deeds, he was now receiving the one thing he had craved his whole life. For a boy who wanted to be acknowledged and accepted above everything else, being celebrated as a hero was nothing if not a dream come true.

Even if it did come at the cost of the death of a pseudo-friend like Haku.

Given how distant he was from me the following days, I suppose it wasn't too far-fetched to say that the Yuki boy was something like his first true friend.

So, I gathered Zabuza's sword and the mask Haku had been wearing and cast aside some time during our fight, I placed them on a cape overlooking the bridge to act as a cenotaph together with Naruto one morning. He had managed to find some closure in the ceremony, declaring solemnly that his nindo was not to be anyone's tool, but to only fight battles he himself believed in. Good for him. I think. Our peculiar relationship, strained and distant as it had become, wasn't entirely fixed.

But it would be on the mend now.

Oh, and I now had secured Zabuza's sword, for whenever the man decided that it was time to retrieve it. Two birds, one stone.

And as days passed, where Naruto still remembered my firebreathing with a sort of grim and resigned disgust, the people of Wave came to increasingly see it as their new rallying cry; the symbol of their resistance and of their rising up to the tyranny of Gatou. Especially as he was still alive and would sooner or later return. I think the difference there stemmed from the fact that they had not seen it firsthand and had not been there when it happened. Had not had to clean up the mess on the bridge, had to smell burned flesh and hear their last cries. Had not had to do anything other than stick their heads out of their houses and see the dancing flames and share that experience with each other.

I mean the symbolism of a big fire on the bridge that was to connect them to the Fire country wasn't lost on me, but it was just sort of tasteless. I wasn't sure whether to consider it an era-defining moment in Wave's history as a nation or just a pre-modern expression of slacktivism.

Inari hadn't played as pivotal a role as in canon, but when those two goons of Gatou's showing up at his place some of the Naruto clones stationed there had had their chance to shine as well. But he had apparently gotten the Therapy jutsu treatment, too, sometime while I was out of the house. Good for him. And being a dumb little kid, he obviously lapped up all the talk about the fire being a symbol of their resistance and freedom, and as such had been one of the most vocal proponents of his Naruto-niichan being a hero, just like his step-dad Kai-something-or-other—once our involvement in the affair became known to him.

It was kind of neat seeing how quickly things turned around for the people there, but...

The Fire Country was so damn close. If they could build a bridge, then they could just as easily just leave and move to the mainland. It wasn't as if there were any real border control or barriers for immigration with how lax the Daimyo's control was. And it wasn't like their culture, language, or customs very so very distinct either...

I just didn't see how things had gotten to this point.

Maybe I just another thing about other people I would never understand, being tied down by things that seemed so ephemeral and meaningless. Maybe I was just being hypocritically harsh on them since in canon they had actually stood up and risen against Gatou's men themselves, even if it had been after Gatou himself had died, and won their own freedom, whereas now that had effectively been prevented by my scheming.

Still, I had never once bothered to so much say a word to the kid during my stay at his house, so I left dealing with the people of Wave and the rest of the bridge's building to Naruto instead, while I took a well-deserved rest. I had by all accounts been the MVP during the battle of the bridge, facing off against Zabuza for an extended period of time and then finishing him and Gatou's mercenary army off, while at the same time driving away Gatou. So I had more than earned the peace and quiet, everyone agreed.

Which was just as well, since it left me with plenty of time to sneak out Shadow Clones to meet with Haku and Zabuza.

Mere days after his death, the man was feeling good enough to start moving around again, and as such demanded that I start working on getting him an in in Gatou's shipping organization. I had half-hoped to spend some more time with the two, but unfortunately, with the beady-eyed businessman's desperate escape and the uprising of Wave Country, we were now on a rather tight schedule to catch up with and replace a few well-positioned lieutenants of the millionaire.

So where I hadn't gotten to ply my newfound mindbreaking skills on Gatou, I had instead gotten the chance to do it to two of his remaining lackeys instead.

Which was just as well, since it wasn't anywhere near as easy as I thought it would be.

It was a bit of a rude wake-up call to the fact that Shadow Clones aren't actually people. They were just chakra constructs. So while I could use them as a basis for some types of training, since they had complete and functioning chakra coils with identical tenketsu as people had, they weren't perfect copies of the human body or mind. Merely imprints made solid by way of advanced jutsu.

So some types of genjutsu would simply be beyond me without actual, living and breathing guinea pigs to work on first. And first on that list came breaking people's minds in a useful way.

I played off the 'half-catatonic meat puppet that answered all questions with a droning, emotionless voice'-blunder as an intentional act the first time, saying that it was better to nip any chance of the victims recovering in the bud, because I wouldn't be around to fix anything. Though I wasn't sure if they bought it entirely. But well, so long as they could pump both of the two lieutenants of all relevant information, Zabuza and Haku would be able to seamlessly infiltrate the organization as I'd originally suggested, which probably worked just as well as a more skillful touch would have.

So, whatever.

We simply agreed on a few discrete communication channels for the future and wished each other the best of luck after that.

By the time I decided that I had had enough laying around 'resting'—with Zabuza and Haku having already long-since left the country, leaving me with nothing to plot or ruminate about for—Tazuna's bridge had already nearly been completed. With the newfound national pride and resurged interest in economic independence, nearly all of the able-bodied men and women had joined in some capacity or other.

Had that happened in canon? I had no recollection.

Regardless, team 7 would be back before the Chuunin Exams commenced.

With only a few days left in Wave, we settled into an easy schedule. With my extended rest and Gatou's defeat, discipline had obviously faltered. But since Kakashi was the commanding officer and he didn't appear to care, I couldn't very well start forcing the team to get their shit together.

So, before I knew it, the bridge was done and we were leaving.

The name came as something of a surprise, though in hindsight it was pretty obvious; The Great Fire Bridge. Because it connected to Fire Country. And because of the big fire, which had liberated their nation from Gatou's tyranny, right?

Eh, even Tazuna looked a little embarrassed by the name, but he had caved to the fervor and political pressure. It was good on paper to ass-kiss to the Fire Country now that they were opening up new trade negotiations with them, right?

Even so...

When we were finally heading back to Konoha, we all couldn't help but solemnly walk past the still-blotched dark spot marring the otherwise white bridge. The only one among us who didn't really seem to quite understand the full implications of the fight was Sakura, though even she could sense the somber mood and keep appropriately quiet as we walked over the bridge back to the Fire Country.

And walk we did.

Had we run the whole way we would have been back in Konoha in no time, but I realized that Kakashi was probably intentionally keeping us at a slow pace. It was something I remembered reading about extensively; about how to deal with the psychological stress of killing. Some book or other—among the dozens I had read back before on the subject of conflict in its many differing forms—had compared how the veterans of World War 2 and Vietnam had been treated and how they had coped with their experiences.

World War 2 vets had been put together in big boats and sailed back home the slow way, allowing them all to compare and contrast their experiences. De-stress and rest in the knowledge of their shared experience. Welcomed as heroes and celebrated by their home countries as heroes and liberators.

Vietnam vets had been brought back pell-mell, hurriedly and without fanfare. Ripped from their comrades, given no time to come to terms with what they had experienced among their peers and then thrust into a society that absolutely abhorred them, vilifying them as murderers of children and civilians.

The results were pretty stark, for anyone who cared to compare them.

Human beings are exoteric creatures; a product of their continued surroundings. Social herd animals, always seeking acceptance and acquiescing to the shared reality of the masses to better fit it.

Naruto was now more-or-less a blooded ninja. A child soldier who had gotten the first taste of his profession. Even with the celebration and constant praise from everyone in Wave, he needed this quiet walk back. He needed to be able to talk about anything and everything, usually only tangentially touching the topic of the battle on the bridge, and each time I could sense Kakashi's focus pique onto the conversation, often not saying anything himself to the boy but getting either myself or Sakura to chime in.

Because it wasn't the opinions of your superiors that kept normal people grounded and sane after something like that; it was that of your comrades. By the time we were halfway back, Naruto was already almost back to his old self.

Kakashi as it turned out, really did care. In his own awkward and stilted way.

As for me...

After the red-hot mania of battle and the cold calculations that had followed as I dealt with the aftermath... I hadn't really felt anything. Maybe I was just numb. Maybe it was because I had entered the battle with full knowledge of what I was going to do and no illusions about it. Maybe it was because I had kept the entire thing a secret from my team, meaning that it didn't truly affect my reality at all and giving it a quality of dream-like detachment and unreality. Maybe it was because I had a cocaine drip attached to my optical nerves and whatever part of my brain was supposed to make me feel bad about murdering my fellow men just didn't work properly anymore...

A lot of the neurotransmitters in the brain were pretty easily overloaded, leading to either a crash or a period of prolonged numbness, if I remembered correctly. So... made sense?

Whatever it was, I didn't really feel one way or another about the whole affair.

Then again, wasn't everything like that to me, now and back before? Nothing really affected me, long-term. No matter what I felt momentarily, my self would always return to a center from where nothing else seemed to really matter. An immutability of self; an inability to affect true change; a true stubbornness the defied all outside impetus; the soul of a true contrarian seeking highs to at least feel something.

No, that was just wishful thinking.

The hubris of someone too smart to ever let themself become traumatized or brutalized enough to be forcibly changed by anyone or anything. And once again, just as back before, this... detachment, this mechanical view of life—of seeing everything as nothing more than the tick-tock of biological machines thinking themselves conscious in the purest and highest of delusions—served only to separate me from others.

My lips curl up by themselves, just thinking about it. I'm the only real, thinking human being. Everyone else is just an unthinking NPC... Isn't that what we all think?

Though, it wasn't as if this characteristic was only something I'd dreamed up in some aspect - hadn't I had already completely shed all of my hatred of Kakashi? Where had the blazing hate from a month ago gone? It was just... gone.

So, I brooded.

Partly because it helped hide my true feelings but also partly because Kakashi was back in the picture and I had no idea where things would go from here. Or even where we stood right now. Even ignoring my blatant case of working with the enemy to deceive my commanding officer, I had again blown something up and nearly gotten everyone killed, reinforcing my image of a loose cannon.

"Hey, hey, Sasuke! We're going to Ichiraku Ramen first thing when we're back, right?"

I look up, frowning. "...Why?"

Naruto looked at me as if I was stupid and I had was half-tempted to slap him.

"Mission Complete-ramen, obviously." He grinned, putting his hands behind his head as he walked with his usual swagger. "And I owe you a bowl for that bet, anyway. I'm not weaseling out of it, even if you would."

I blink.

"...I guess."

I hadn't had ramen in like a decade, so fuck it, why not?

The blond grins, skipping ahead and turning around with bouncing steps. "And then you can teach me that jutsu like you said you would!"

"...Pretty sure I promised no such thing," I respond skeptically.

"Nuh-uh, you said that I needed to train on my fundaments before you'd teach me a jutsu!" he practically shouted, now pointing at me accusingly. "And I did work on them. Even when you were just sleeping all day."

I glance at Kakashi, who's again walking with his nose deep in his orange book and seemingly paying us no attention.

"Eh, that is true. But that was before..." I shrug.

With the danger over and Kakashi back in charge, would he allow me to teach Naruto anything? Back in canon, I had thought he was just lazy... But when this team 7 had gotten established, he had specifically forbidden me from training, which was definitely more work than just ignoring me was. And as far as canon went, he didn't really seem to teach anyone anything unless he absolutely had to, so maybe there was something more going on there.

Like...

Since the amount of chuunin each village could have was pretty heavily bottlenecked by the international examinations model, could it be that the amount of chuunin everyone had was intentionally being kept low as a form of arms regulation? Each village agreeing to limit their combat potential to keep tensions from ramping up too much and to maintain the current peace? The Chuunin Exams are war, but even more literally?

Because from what I remembered from canon, genin were kind of supposed to be shit and not know anything about anything. Even chuunin were kind of unimpressive when you got right down to it. It didn't take that much training to turn someone into a chuunin, not really. I mean, how could it, if Iruka and Mizuki were both at that level and still worked all day with snot-nosed brats?

There were so many skills that would perish in an environment like that, that it wasn't even funny. If the villages really wanted to, they could have been churning out 'chuunin-level' shinobi really fast.

But they weren't.

It wasn't like the other genin in the Chuunin Exams were all that much better off than team 7 was either, suggesting that it was a common trend, not just something I could pin on Kakashi being lazy. The biggest standouts were pretty universally somehow non-standard - like Gaara with his Shukaku or team Gai, specializing heavily in taijutsu which directly scaled from hard work, rather than the things I thought were being held back from us.

So, like Iruka had said about sealing? Restricted to chuunin and above?

Though what did I know, since my learning speed was definitely abnormal, and that was only in part due to my Sharingan, because canon Sasuke sure as heck hadn't meta-strategized that much around it once he had gotten it, outside of training to handle Lee's taijutsu skills.

Though, there was something to be said about trying to rationalize a shounen manga's internal logic and consistency, as if everything had to make sense.

The orange book closes with a soft thump as Kakashi looks up.

"Maa... A promise is a promise, Sasuke."

Wait, what?

"Yeah, yeah!" Naruto immediately agrees with boundless energy, and Sakura too chimes in with happy noises.

"It would be a shame to leave things half-finished, especially since you seem to have a plan for both of them already," Kakashi drawls, ignoring our reactions.

"Right, uh... Okay?"

Seriously? Right, well not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. If I can get Naruto to learn this one trick I had been wanting to show him since I first got my grubby mitts on him, his combat potential will absolutely sky-rocket. And then eventually throw in the Rasengan and just yeesh. He'd be an absolute menace.

"You guys remember the tree walking exercise?"

They both nod, already excited now that I'm teaching them something again, neither noticing how Kakashi is observing us. While I do, I ignore him and just explain the technique instead.

"Right, well, remember what happened when you put in too much chakra when you tried to walk up the tree?" I ask and stop, putting my hands in my pockets, noting that it might be time to switch to short-sleeved shirts soon since it was getting warmer. Or had I just gotten used to Wave's climate?

They both stop and turn to look at me, thoughtful.

"Uh...?"

"You moved really fast, Sasuke-kun," Sakura points out, preening at Naruto. "We couldn't see you at all."

"Oh, right! That thing you did when we sparred."

I'm a little bit annoyed that Naruto forgot about it already, since that had been the part I personally found most fascinating with the skill. But no point getting hung up on it now. It was something I had observed while teaching swordsmanship to newbies back before, too; the tendency to not quite get what they were being told and shown, no matter how many times it was repeated.

Until it finally clicked, it was like trying to explain colors to a blind man. So, better to just re-iterate and build on what he's managed to work out slowly.

"As a little reminder: observe," I say, standing with my feet straight and knees locked out.

With a soft sound, I bounce off the ground despite not moving any part of my body.

Naruto blinks, peering suspiciously at my feet.

But Sakura gets it, of course.

"The chakra pushes you away from the tree! Or the ground in this case..."

I nod, turning to Naruto. "You catch that?"

He rubs his brow, frowning.

"Yeah, but why does it matter?"

"Alright, Naruto. How high can you jump into the air?" I ask rhetorically, knowing that even without the chakra repulsion method they can spring pretty damn high. As he's about to answer, I interrupt him. "Could you jump over the walls around Konoha?"

"Wha—?" He swallows whatever he had been about to say, hesitating.

"What about you, Sakura? Because I can."

She looks skeptical, halfway between wanting to deny it being possible and being embarrassed about doubting me.

I shrug at their sullen silence. "How about I show you?"

I walk to the middle of the road, where the trees don't hang over us and the sky is clearly visible. Crouching slightly, I inhale and seallessly mold chakra. The really good thing about the chakra propulsion step is that it doesn't seem to really have any issues with scalability, outside of timing.

Meaning that if I wanted to and could do it instantly, then I could pour literally all of my chakra into a single prodigious leap. But it had to be instantly. Because the moment I started being pushed away, all the chakra that was expelled after contact vanished was just being wasted. The difference in the phases of matter, again.

Inhaling to brace myself, I pour a one-twenty-fifth of my full reserves into my feet and at the same time push off against the ground, not so much jumping as much as resisting the sudden and explosive push that sends me flying up into the air like a rocket, cratering the ground where I once stood and sending dirt flying off all around. Unlike with horizontal movement, the relatively slim profile of the human body when looked at from above makes for a fairly decent projectile.

Meaning I don't even need to make a chakra bubble to work around the drag slowing me down.

As is, I easily fly some hundred meters into the air before I even start to slow down, my hair whipping violently and the air rushing past my ears like a storm.

Or so I figure, based on what I remember the height of those nearby mountains being relative to sea level. Before my ascent comes to a halt, the sound of my breaking the sound barrier carries up to my ears and I grin before using my Midnight Nameless jutsu to transform into a raven.

I fly back down to team 7 in a wide spiral, turning back once I'm close enough to a tree to skate back down to the ground.

"Maa... A very succinct and impressive display, Sasuke. But not exactly very well thought through. Unless you wish for Naruto to jump into the clouds next, anyhow..." Kakashi lazily chides me as I notice him holding down a bouncing blond by the shoulder.

"Right, uh..."

Naruto is dumb. Point of fact and key interest: Naruto is dumb so you need to think through the consequences for him.

"So anyhow, that's something you can do with it, even if it's not exactly very useful. Instead, what I wanted to teach you is how to use that to do something called the Body Flicker jutsu," I continue, forging on despite the faux pas.

"Oh, isn't that what Kakashi-sensei uses all the time? With the swirling leaves?" Sakura asks, wide-eyed and with her hand raised, as if this was a classroom.

"Pretty much. The leaves look nice, but they're really a way to bleed off the excess chakra without a huge puff of smoke or a loud sound. Especially for long-distance jumps where it can be a bit much otherwise. Anyhow, the first step to learning the Body Flicker jutsu is to figure out how to use the overpowered tree walk quickly," I explain. "And it's the basis for a lot of advanced taijutsu styles, too, I imagine."

That observation got Kakashi's attention, his eye focusing on me from the road.

I smirk, planting my feet in a wide stance and then pour enough chakra into my left foot to keep it almost stuck to the ground—enough that I would be sliding down a tree at a controlled rate, were I to be standing sideways—and then I push an overpowered amount into my right, rear foot, as I perform a high roundhouse kick with it.

Again the leg explodes through the air like a rocket, but my left foot remains on the ground, spinning around completely as I bring the launched foot back down and return to my original stance.

Naruto looks me with wide eyes, the kick having been so fast that he had felt it several meters away. Then I did it again, but backwards with a spinning hook kick, snapping so sharply that I'm pretty sure I broke the sound barrier again with my toes.

"So, plenty of absolutely fascinating applications there."

As far as I remembered, Lee couldn't use any ninjutsu or genjutsu, but nothing had been said about him using chakra in general. Especially since those gates definitely weren't something you could just run a marathon or twenty to learn how to do. So those big spinning kicks were just the kind of thing someone who could only use basic stuff could focus on.

...Fear the man who has practiced one kick ten thousand times.

Well, I would see for myself soon enough. And then steal it all, mwah hahaha...

While the 'realistic' mixed martial arts stuff from back before had served me well in the Academy, based on what I had seen of actual shinobi fighting now, I would have to start branching out into more acrobatic and flashy moves soon. Against the Demon Brothers, I had done a clothesline of all things and the less said about Zabuza's moves the better.

The fighting logic I had been bound by in a previous life was already starting to fray.

And while I could already do all kinds of kicks, as I had just shown to the rest of my team, but it was one thing doing them out of context while fucking around and another thing to do them in a fight.

Anyhow, I draw a kunai and spin it around my finger.

"And this doesn't just apply to our bodies, either."

I turn to a large tree up ahead and push my chakra into the unreceptive and downright cranky steel. It's so much easier to just attach a Chakra String to it, than to actually try and push enough chakra into it to achieve the repulsion. Especially the chakra bubble part, which would make it so much better as a supersonic projectile.

Maybe I should buy some high-end chakra conductive steel kunai, even if it was prohibitively expensive for most people?

My hand whips forward, the kunai making a loud crack-boom as it explodes from my hand, burying itself in the tree halfway to the handle so fast that it's virtually impossible to distinguish the sonic boom from the impact.

"It's practically a style all on its own, once you get creative."

"Sasuke-kun, is this one of the Uchiha throwing techniques?" Sakura asks, eyes suddenly gleaming.

"Not really," I refute. At least, I'm pretty sure it isn't. "Just another thing I figured out a while back. Not even something I use myself, to be honest. The Chakra Sling is more reliable since shoving chakra into the weapon is pretty finicky."

Without the benefit of improved aerodynamics that a chakra bubble could provide, big projectiles were slowed down too much to really be worth it. And my experiments with a workable Flicker bubble on kunai had just been a string of failures so far. Though... maybe if I used something an already aerodynamic shape I wouldn't need to worry about it? Something like a senbon, perhaps?

Now that I think about it, that's actually a pretty good idea to look into once back in the village. I can carry a lot of senbon needles, and with the throwing technique I've stolen from Haku as the basis, I'm pretty sure I could work them into my kit easily enough.

Gotta remember that for later...

"Maa... compared to the strings you used during the bell test... They certainly have more potential," Kakashi offers. "It would take very precise chakra control to make effective use of the Body Flicker jutsu's second stage in throwing weapons. Mm, close to the highest levels of shape transformation, even."

"Or just buy chakra steel?" I shrug, not really sure what his point was.

"The Body Flicker jutsu's second stage...?" Sakura wonders, looking between myself and Kakashi in wonder.

Oh, right. Focus now.

"Once you figure out how to effectively boost yourself with the tree walking step, you'll start to notice just how much the air slows you down. It's like running into a strong gust of wind, all the time." I explain as I wave my hand flat through the air. "So, the second step is to exert chakra around you to improve your aerodynamics."

I turn the hand edge-wise and chop through the air.

Naruto copies the gestures, comparing flat and edge, finding neither really all that different.

"Imagine that the air is like water, because that's how it feels once you start going faster. It thickens. And once you go really fast it's like trying to push through heavy mud," I explain, figuring he would find more use of a practical example rather than the explanation regarding velocity being squared as a factor in air resistance calculations.

As for Sakura... well, whatever. She'd probably figure it out on her own.

"Maa, just to be clear, any high-speed movement utilizing what you've just been shown is considered a Flicker jutsu. The ability to use chakra to improve your aerodynamics or to mask your sound and chakra signature are all improvements on that basic technique..."

Huh. There goes my Chakra Propulsion step name. Or was it Repulsion? Whatever. Flicker it is.

"Anyhow, for now, let's make a game out of it," I say, looking at the road winding up north towards the Hidden Leaf Village. "You're only allowed to stand on the shadows on the road, cast by the trees. And you're only allowed to jump using the Flicker jutsu. No normal jumping, not without using the tree walking at least."

Naruto looks as if he still doesn't understand, but that's to be expected. He always responded best to being challenged, so...

"I'll buy whoever can jump the furthest a meal at a restaurant of their choosing."

"Really?" Sakura practically shrieks with excitement, immediately alarming Naruto.

"B-but Sakura-chan, we were going to go to Ichiraku, and..."

"Shanna—I mean, I'm going to do my best," her fired-up excitement vanishes like a candle in the wind as she notices my looking at her, replaced immediately by her usual prim and proper self.

I mean, I knew she had the whole inner self thing going on, and that her true self wasn't too far removed from Naruto, but I still didn't understand where her obsession with being so well-behaved came from. I hoped it had nothing to do with me, or some perceived preference of mine—like I vaguely knew her hairstyle was. Her hair was like this in canon, too, but at least here she had the excuse that my hair was pretty long too.

Just, mine was like this because I hadn't seen any barbershops and without an electric hair clipper I didn't feel confident in cutting it myself.

It was actually getting annoyingly long now. Like, unexpectedly biting my own hair, annoying. I need to buy some ribbons, or something. Or maybe just put bandages in my hair—isn't that what ninja use for everything? It's like a ninja fashion statement or something.

But whatever, I could groan about my hair once I was home again.

For now, I was trying to make something useful out of Naruto.

Even if Sakura had better chakra control, Naruto had by far better stamina. Moreover, this was literally just about shoving as much power as fast as you could, something which he was definitely better disposed towards. So with the proper motivation, there was just no way he would lose.

He would, of course, choose Ichiraku—where I was going anyway—so it was literally no skin off my back to do it this way. Hell, I might even argue that the ramen he owed me was canceled by the ramen I owed him and beg off... Or maybe not. And as Konoha's walls came into view, my predictions proved true. Even so, both of their control was pretty shoddy and they still tended to miss or stumble on their landing, so it would be a while still before either could hope to even start learning the second part...

"Maa, you kids head on out to eat... I'll go talk with the Hokage. Write up your reports and hand them in later..." Kakashi drawled as we passed under the looming gates, giving the gate guards no more than a glance.

I managed to activate my Sharingan before he vanished in a puff of smoke, observing his Flicker technique out of sheer technical curiosity again, given the recent subject matter, before the orange and pink menaces moved to drag me off to Ichiraku.

"Ah, by the way..."

I nearly jumped out of my skin, my heart beating a mile a minute as Kakashi suddenly appeared behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder as he spoke.

Holy hell! How did he do tha—No, wait, this is a Shadow Clone. With my Sharingan still on, I could notice a number of disparities from his appearance just a moment ago. He must have made it earlier, just to mess with me.

The clone eye-smiled before speaking, apparently satisfied at having scared the crap out of me.

"Meeting tomorrow at 9 as usual, don't be late. Oh, and the restrictions on your personal training are now lifted. Have fun!"

And with that, he dispelled in a puff of smoke not too dissimilar from having Flickered away.

Naruto blinked.

"What restrictions?"

"Kakashi."

The Hokage put down the papers he had been reading, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his tired eyes as the jounin wordlessly entered his office through the window. He gave one of the ANBU standing in the corner an almost amused stand-down, before looking at the returning jounin.

"I take it the mission went well, then?" Hiruzen asked.

Had something gone wrong, he was more than familiar enough with the tardy man to tell from his body language alone.

"Maa... Something like that, Hokage-sama."

Kakashi looked as if he wanted to sigh, despite the rigid discipline instilled in him from years in the ANBU. The Hokage waited for a long minute, but when the taciturn jounin could not find the words to convey his thoughts, he sighed and reached for his glasses again.

"The client lied about the mission parameters. We ended up running into a pair of chuunin along the road, as I informed by message before," Kakashi finally began.

"Indeed. A patrol picked them up, and I couldn't help but note in your report how Sasuke-kun seemed to finally, ah, 'come out of his shell' as it were. I assume the rest of the mission continued in a somewhat similar fashion, then?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama. Soon after we set foot in Wave Country we were ambushed by Momochi Zabuza."

Hiruzen looked up, startled, as Kakashi continued.

"He was driven off without casualties, and though he sustained severe injuries, my own exhaustion left me unconscious for several days. During this time, Sasuke took immediate steps to assume command over the team. Doling guard duties with the client and the client's family, training his two teammates in both tree and water walking exercises, scouting independently, and setting up contingencies for further contact with hostiles...

"A few days after I regained consciousness, but before I regained full combat capacity, Zabuza returned with an accomplice—someone with at least chuunin-level combat ability—who had helped him escape from our first encounter by masquerading as a Mist hunter-nin. With my own condition, I was unable to actively assist in the fighting, being forced to leave it to Naruto and Sasuke, who expressed confidence in their ability to continue once we were able to rendezvous during a lull in the fighting. And as a result, as far as I was able to verify from second-hand accounts and collateral damage, Momochi Zabuza perished at their hands, when his employer arrived with another force of hired mercenaries to double-cross him."

The Professor blinked slowly and after a long silent moment, reached for his pipe and began filling it.

"A C-rank turned A-rank... I would almost say as expected of Naruto's team, but, something of this extent goes beyond a mere laughing matter."

Kakashi smiled, wistfully.

"They're good kids. They will go far."

Hiruzen pondered prodding the jounin, seeing as how the team had been forced on him by the Hokage's meddling. But he could sense that there was a but coming, here. One which he could already guess at himself.

"I will be entering them into this year's Chuunin Exams. At his current level, Uchiha Sasuke will only grow resentful if he is forced to remain in the same team with the other two," Kakashi said, pained to break up the team he so clearly had grown to like in such a short time.

"A genin capable of combating an experienced jounin and win isn't unheard of - though I do agree that he will most likely pass with flying colors, were he to make it to the end." Hiruzen assented. "But do you think breaking up the team is truly necessary?"

Kakashi laughed, then. Though it was a hollow one.

"If it was a matter of merely combat potential, I suspect Sasuke could have both of them whipped up to a level suitable to keep up with him in a matter of months."

The Hokage blinked.

"But even in that event, I am not sure whether it will be possible for him to bond with either of them in any true capacity. In that sense... He might be somewhat similar to Orochimaru, from what I have heard. At least, in the... early years..."

Kakashi trailed off, somewhere between sheepish and apologetic as he saw the aged ninja's sagging shoulders.

Though the traitorous sannin's loyalty had never really been in question before his escape, it was well known that if forced to choose between his own designs and research, or his fellow ninja and comrades... The man would always choose the former two. It was one of the things which hard spurred on such heavy-handed changes in education among the new generations, to foster as many bonds and ties to the village and the people within it as possible.

But Uchiha Sasuke had been alone for many years now...

Would it have been better to graduate him early, when he might not have still been so set in his ways and open to others? A heavy sigh passed by his lips. There was no use getting stuck pondering what-ifs and why-nots.

"Do you still believe that he is a threat to the village?"

Kakashi shook his head.

"The restrictions you suggested I place never bore out in any alarming behavior, though in battle he consistently proves himself prone to be overly excitable. Though I do believe time will temper most of it out of him."

"I assume he was overjoyed with the return of his freedoms, then."

Kakashi shook his head, eye downcast. "More confused. By now our relationship is... strained. He expects punishments at every turn."

"Then, what would you suggest for him, following his promotion?" At this point, it seemed already like a foregone conclusion. And the reply that Kakashi gave him was just as predictable.

"ANBU."

Hiruzen lit his pipe and sighed, shaking his head again. Because sending the last Uchiha genius there had gone so well, hadn't it? Especially now that the younger brother was proving more than a little difficult to keep grounded.

"If that's all, you may leave."

"Hokage-sama," Kakashi nodded.

"Oh. But I want a full report on my desk about the mission, by tomorrow morning. Understood?"

"Of course." Kakashi nodded again, then hesitated. "There is, one more thing..."

"Yes?"

The jounin hesitated.

"Sasuke must never be placed under Danzo's command."

Hiruzen inhaled through his nose before he replied: "That goes without saying."

Kakashi nodded then vanished through the window, closing it silently behind him.

Perhaps I should have simply dissolved the Uchiha clan following that night... It would have made things so much simpler... The Hokage shook his head once more. Just another regret to add to his self-made mountain.