"And just where have you four been?" Iruka asked, his voice dangerously low. The four children in question kept their gaze on the floor, and shuffled their feet nervously.

"Well, ya see, Sensei," Naruto began.

"No. I really don't see." Iruka moves his face right in front of theirs, going to an even more threatening position than the looming he had previously been doing.

"Anko gave me a report that told me all about your little stunt. And after reading it, I must say that I am extremely disappointed. Do you four have anything to say for yourselves? Because if so, it had better say it now."

"Umm…"

"Well…"

"Uhhh…"

"Congrats on getting three new classmates Sensei!"

"Say what now?" Iruka asked, turning over to Naruto.

"Well, we picked up Gaara and Haku along the way, and they need ninja training, yea? So you gotta teach 'em!"

"But you said three students. Who the heck is the third?" Iruka questioned. "The only other person mention in the report was… No. you can't be serious."

"Come on, Zabuza's not that bad. Sure, he's got the funny bandaid mask, and the weird ripped up clothes, but besides being a fashion disaster, I think he's pretty cool."

"Don't forget the blood Naruto," Sakura instructed. "He always has a lot of blood around. That's one of his best qualities in my opinion."

"I will not be teaching Zabuza of the Freaking Bloody Mist!" Iruka yelled at them, his head seeming to suddenly enlarge to twice its size.

"Of course not Sensei!" Naruto agreed. "You'll be teaching with him. Ya see, Jiji couldn't get him instated into the Anbu straight away, cause Danzo's a jerk, and he needs a job if he's gonna be allowed to stay in the village. He refused to work at our awesome Uzumaki Stand, so we stuck him with a bunch of sniveling academy brats instead."

Iruka was about to yell again when someone knocked on the door.

"Come in!" He called out cheerfully, his demeanor changing so quickly it was scary. The door opened and the old lady that was the school's secretary peeked her head through.

"Iruka-san, you've got a err. You've got a uh… A teaching buddy. He's waiting out in the hall."

"A teaching buddy? What the hell kinda crap is that?" A voiced growled from out in the hall.

"Mr. Momochi, language!"

"You mean Mr. Uzumaki!" Hinata called over to the lady helpfully.

"Yes, of course," she replied dryly. "Whatever, he's your problem now. Deal with it."

"Thank you Ms. Yukada," Iruka sighed as the door closed behind her. It opened again to reveal none other than the Uzumaki's favorite evil menace.

"Yay! It's Zabuza-sensei!" Sakura ran over and grabbed the man by his leg. "I missed you boo!"

"Get off me brat!" Zabuza snarled, shaking his leg in an attempt to dislodge the pink haired child currently attached to the limb.

"I wanna do that too!" Naruto whined, racing over to join Sakura.

"Get off my Senpai! He's mine!"

"No way! I'm the one that wanted to invite Zabuza-sama in the first place!"

"I am not your Senpai you little freak!"

"ENOUGH" Iruka shouted, causing everyone to freeze in place. Sasuke was, for some reason, walking up the wall, and Hinata was nowhere to be seen.

"All of you are going to quiet down and get ready for class. We are absolutely going to have a normal day in here, filled with great fun and learning. There will be no more interruptions. You four kids, get to your seats. Zabuza, you're coming with me to help with papers."

"Do I look like I want to push a pen around all day?"

Iruka glared at him menacingly, KI leaking out into the room. Zabuza ducked his head and made his way to over to the desk, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like curse words.

"Stupid crazy Konoha. I miss Kiri, there at least you got praised for killing people," he mumbled.

"What was that?" Iruka asked him in a cheery tone.

"Nothing," the demon bit out.

The rest of the day proceeded as normal, just like Iruka had wanted it to. Glue ended up on the windows, and a couple new holes were added onto the wall. Outside, the playground was a lovely new shade of hot pink and orange, and the trees were all beautifully burnt and mangled. The Uzumaki's were a particularly artistic clan.

The children all went over to the Uzumaki Stand that night feeling quite contented. Sasuke had been able to practice his stealth, Naruto had pulled pranks, Hinata had snuck off in the middle of class to do… something, and Sakura had managed to trick Zabuza into signing an apprenticeship paper. All in all, a pretty good day for the Uzumaki's.

Gaara and Haku were working the stand, since they wouldn't be able to actually join classes for a week or so. A few people had sent complaints back to the new chefs about there being sand in their food, or it being too cold, but after Gaara had sent the first guy to the hospital they had soon found all complaints turning into compliments.

"See, they were born to be Uzumaki's!" Hinata said proudly.

Anko, who had become their most common patron, and was there everyday, snorted.

"They still need a bit of work. My dango wasn't as good as it usually is."

"That's because Sasuke wasn't there to cook it. We always have him make your food for you, since he's still the best cook of us all," Sakura supplied.

Anko merely shrugged, turning back to her now nearly empty plate of dango. Naruto, taking advantage of her sugar induced happiness, came over to the snake summoner and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. It looked a lot like the one Sakura had been carrying around all day, hugging lovingly.

"Hey, Anko, would you please sign this paper? Sakura got Zabuza-sama to be her sensei, and I need one too! Pretty please teach me! I can't let my underlings become better than their clan head! That's just not right!"

"Well kid," she said, popping the last biscuit into her mouth, "I'd like to, I really would. I like this little thing you got goin' with your clan. 'Specially Pinky, she's got a good thing going on. Thing is, I'm still looking for a seal master to make the old man feel better, and can't really do anything right now to help ya."

The kids all looked over at each other, frowning in confusion.

"Why are you still looking for one," Hinata asked her, "We had a guy show up just the other day who was a seal master."

"Jiraiya of the Sannin," Sasuke supplied. "Seal master, spy master, toad sage, the Yondaime's sensei, famous author, Naruto's godfather, and pervert extraordinaire. Not to mention being a stupid crying drunk, currently collapsed on our couch."

Anko tilted her head at Sasuke quizzically. "You do realize at least one of those things was an S class secret, right? I mean, it's true and all, but not too many people are supposed to know about it. I myself only learned after actually flirting with the stupid old man." She smirked at him, "You didn't do that too, did you? I mean, I thought sensei was the only pedophile in the group, but I could maybe see the man swinging that way…"

"No way," Sasuke scoffed. "I just pretended to be the guy for a day. You'd be surprised how many people you can fool with a simple henge."

"So now you have a seal master to do whatever you needed him for!" Naruto announce happily. "That means you can be my sensei now! Just sign here."

Anko laughed, but took the pen anyway, writing her name on the bottom of the page. Hinata smiled from behind all her friends, looking at the place she had snuck her name onto the paper as well. Not that any of them knew it. Now she'd get even more time to hang out with Naruto.

—

"Sa' wa' nuh?" An obviously intoxicated voice asked. What looked to be the Third Hokage looked down on the toad sannin with a look of exasperation.

"Just sign this paper," the 'Hokage' sighed, reaching into his pocket for his pipe, setting it alight with a simple fire jutsu. Jiraiya took the proffered pen, scribbling his nearly illegible name onto the bottom of the paper before promptly passing out again.

Sasuke smirked as he released the henge, glad that he had managed to find a way to make it physical. Even a drunk Jiraiya would have been able to see through something as simple as a henge genjutsu.

"He smells disgusting." Gaara commented in a monotone beside him. "Can I kill him?"

"No. He's your sensei now, which means he's going to teach you how to kill more people than you already can. Don't you want to learn that?"

"But mother wants his blood…" Gaara objected. Sasuke nearly facepalmed as he heard the boy refer to the Ichibi as his mother yet again. He was going to get that looked at soon as the idiot slobbering on his couch woke up.

"But don't you want to kill other people too? He's one of the best out there, and he could teach you how to be the best too. You could even get strong enough to kill your father. Doesn't that sound like fun?" Sasuke asked.

"Mother likes that idea," Gaara admitted. "Maybe she and father had a fight before she died. I think he cheated on her," he said, a hint of anger making its way into his otherwise emotionless voice, "I will kill father for her."

"Good," Sasuke said, patting the boy on his back briefly. "Now I need to go find the others, wait here Gaara." He shunshined out of the room, having used his sharingan that was awakened during the massacre to copy it from one of the many ninja who used the technique to move even a single step.

He found Naruto, Sakura, and Haku all working at the Uzumaki Stand, with Zabuza growling at them every other minute. He told them to meet him back at the main house, and after threatening them all with accumulated blackmail on their respective crushes, Zabuza included, he went to get Hinata. She was in the psych ward of the hospital, her usual intel gathering site, and agreed to meet with them all after she was finished listening to all the crazy ex-ANBU's mutterings.

"We need to get Tsunade to return to Konoha," he said, once they were all gathered.

"Isn't she off the grid?" Naruto asked.

"She's supposed to be, but Hinata and I have found her. The hard part wasn't finding her, it's convincing her to come back."

"She has been traumatized by loss, and associates Konoha with all the bad things that have happened to her," Hinata supplemented, adding her knowledge to Sasuke's. "We're going to need to convince her that some of her grandfather's 'Will of Fire' still exists."

Zabuza snorted derisively. "It can't be that hard. Just show her that little blonde headed menace you call a leader, and you'll come back with her and three other S class missing nin."

"We don't need any other S rank missing nin," Sakura said, "we have you Senpai!"

"I can't go," Naruto said sadly, "Anko-sensei said that she's going to be training me even in my sleep now that I'm her apprentice. You'll have to go without me."

"I don't want to go," Gaara said, cutting off their chances of bringing him along as well.

"There's no way in hell that I'm going after that crazy lady," Zabuza told him, "I've heard she's even more bloodthirsty than most girls when she's mad. And from what I've seen of women, that's something to be feared."

"If Zabuza-senpai isn't going, then I won't either!" Sakura announced, puffing her cheeks out in the same manner as that as two year old.

"Am I seriously going to be stuck going after her myself?" Sasuke asked them all, annoyed.

"What about Hinata?" Naruto asked.

"She's going to be busy studying with you and Anko. She slipped her name on the contract you got Anko to sign, so you've got a training buddy," he explained. "Is there actually not a single one of you that can go?"

"I can," someone spoke quietly. Sasuke turned to see someone who could have been a boy or a girl who looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite remember their name.

"Why would you want to go?" he asked, wondering why a complete stranger was in their meeting. The boy's/girl's face turned a bit red, and their eyes immediately turned to the floor.

"I would like to learn about medicine. I want to be able to protect my precious people. Tsunade is the world's most renown medic, and I wish to learn something from her."

"That's awesome Haku!" Naruto said, giving the kid a big thumbs up. "You are the embodiment of the true Uzumaki spirit!" There were nods of agreement from all of them. Sasuke nodded too, but that was because he had remembered who the kid was. He still wasn't sure if the person was a boy or a girl though.

"Alright," Sasuke said, turning to Haku, who's face once again turned a bit red. "You and I will go and find Tsunade, and try to convince her to come back to Konoha. If that doesn't work, then we'll try to convince her to become our sensei. Which means she'll have to come back to Konoha anyway, since we are required to come back eventually. It won't be any detriment to us anyway, since our goal in bringing her back is to become her students."

The meeting broke apart soon after that, and the assembled Uzumaki's all dispersed to find their respective sensei's and train. Sasuke was left staying with the boy/girl who's name he had yet again forgotten.

"So when do you think you'll be ready to go?" He asked.

—

"So when do you think you'll be ready to go?" Sasuke asked. Haku started at being spoken to directly. After Haku had been adopted into the clan, they'd stopped talking to the ice wielder. It was only Zabuza-sama that spoke to Haku, as it always had been. But now Sasuke was addressing Haku, and the child felt flustered, being unused to the attention.

"I should be ready to go by tomorrow." Of course, Haku was ready to go right now, but was unsure that was the answer Sasuke was wanting. Something told Haku that the boy needed some time to get a couple things ready. There was something in his black eyes that looked like wariness, like he was getting ready for a battle. Haku reflected dimly that those eyes were very pretty. The boy looked almost as pretty as Haku did, not that that would ever be mentioned.

"Good. I'll get the Hokage's permission to leave again, and try to think of a way to make sure Iruka doesn't find out until we're too far away. You are able to hold your own in a fight, if it comes to that, right?" Those onyx eyes met Haku's brown ones, which were quickly brought back to the ground, heat blooming across the ice maker's face.

What's wrong with me? Haku wondered, having never experienced something like this before.

"Zabuza-sama has told me that I am quite proficient when it comes to attacking and defending," was the shaky reply Sasuke received. He nodded absentmindedly, already heading out the door.

Haku breathed a small sigh of relief once Sasuke was gone, hoping that the odd symptoms wouldn't continue the entire time they searched for the slug sannin together. Which of course, only meant that they would.

—

Author's Note:

If it feels like I used Haku's name too many times in that last part, it was on purpose. I'm not wanting to reveal the kid's gender yet. I'm just going to leave it up to your imaginations until I decide on the right moment to tell you all. I didn't want to use androgynous pronouns, because that might lead some people to believe that Haku was gender neutral, which is not true. Haku's gender will be revealed later on, until then you guys can make it whichever one you want in your head.