It was just supposed to be a C-Rank; an easy escort mission. They went escorted him home and then left. Easy, nothing to it really.

Except that wasn't what they found after leaving the village. First Team Seven had been attacked by B-Ranked Missing Nin and now they were watching their sensei fight an A-Ranked Missing Nin by the name of Momochi Zabuza after having freed him from a water prison.

With Kakashi freed, the fight was supposed to be fast and in their favor. Kakashi was their sensei; after all, he couldn't be taken down by some cheap missing nin! Except the fight was even and Kakashi had taken a blow to the stomach that was bleeding steadily.

Eventually Zabuza was nearly defeated and a hunter ninja took him out for them before disappearing with the body but Kakashi hadn't come out for the better either. With a steadily bleeding wound and a severe case of chakra exhaustion, the jounin was out for the count. It was only luck that they weren't too far from Tazuna's home where they'd be able to treat their sensei's wounds.

However once they got there Sakura took one look at the wound and passed out while Sasuke fled to go heave in the yard outside. The blood was rather gruesome to look at but it was a clean cut. Naruto ignored his two teammates and assessed the damage.

"Boil some water and soak some clothes in it! We need to clean it before stitching and bandaging it!" Naruto barked at the stunned civilians.

"Right!" The woman, Tazuna's daughter most likely, darted into the kitchen while Naruto worked to stem the bleeding and rummage simultaneously through his pack for his medical kit. It had everything had had ever used to heal himself when he was younger inside and he was more than grateful that he'd thought to bring it.

"Here are the clothes!" the woman panted as she burst back into the room. Naruto grabbed the burning hot fabric from the pan she'd brought the in and, ignoring the burn of his hands, began cleaning out the wound to prevent infection. It said a lot about their sensei when the only real reaction Naruto got was a small wince.

As he was sure that it was clean thoroughly, Naruto pulled out some medical thread and a needle that he kept soaked in disinfectant before he began to sew the wound shut with a steady hand. For the first time in a long time the genin was glad that he had been forced to take care of his own wounds when he was younger. If he hadn't been there was a good chance that Kakashi would die.

Once the stitches where done, Naruto grabbed a bottle of diluted lavender oil and applied it to the wound. It would work as an antiseptic and help the wound heal without infection. Satisfied with his patch job Naruto began wrapped the wound in bandages before redressing his sensei in spare clothing that Tazuna had brought out for him.

"Is he going to be super alright?" The bridge builder asked hesitantly.

"He should be," answered Naruto, grinning. "I doused the wound with diluted lavender oil so it should heal without infection."

Looking at the bloodied uniform of his sensei's old clothes, Naruto began emptying the pockets in preparation of throwing it out. Kunai, shuriken, ninja wire, and more weapons slowly piled on the floor before there was only a bingo book left in the ruined clothing.

Naruto looked at the book curiously before flipping through it. That Hunter Nin hadn't seemed right to him and he figured that maybe Zabuza's page in the bingo book would answer his questions. Sure enough, Zabuza was described as travelling with an unknown companion that was known for disguising as a Hunter Nin and showing up to save Zabuza when it was clear that the older ninja was losing.

Sakura groaned from the flour as she came too. Naruto gave her a concerned glance as she steadily sat up and looked wearily at their sleeping sensei. "Wow," she muttered as she saw white bandages peek out from under the clean civilian shirt. Sasuke chose that time to stumble back in with a groan.

"You alright teme?" Naruto asked the pale white Uchiha.

"Fine." Sasuke grunted. "You fixed up sensei?" there was a note of disbelief in his voice.

"Sure did, dattebayo!" Naruto grinned. "He'll be fine soon enough but it'll take longer since he's got a bad case chakra exhaustion. I think he's entered a healing coma but I'm not sure," the blond admitted.

"Great," Sasuke snapped. "Just great."

"What are we going to do now?!" Sakura whispered, slightly afraid of the upcoming days.

"Don't know but we should fortify the house," Naruto suggested. "I don't think that Hunter Nin was good news."

"Since when do you think?!" Sakura snapped. She knew it wasn't right and that she shouldn't be taking her anger and fear out on Naruto but that didn't stop her from doing so.

Naruto glared at her. "Since I took sensei's bingo book and found out that he was traveling with Zabuza and no one knows what he can do or what he looks like without the mask!"

The other two genin paused and Sakura had the decency to look repentant for her remark. "He'll be back eventually," Sasuke acknowledged reluctantly. "I remember Iruka-sensei saying that Death States took a while to recover from and sensei also injured him."

"We can't send for help either because Kakashi-sensei is unconscious." Sakura muttered, worried. "So what are we going to do?"

"Fortify the house," Naruto stated as if it were obvious. "Trap the forest outside and post clones to let us know if a ninja attempts to approach. Learn that water walking thing sensei and Zabuza were doing and practice all of our techniques."

Sasuke and Sakura looked at the blond in surprise. Naruto was still grinning but for once it looked more predatory than, well, idiotic. It reminded the two of the Academy where that grin spoke of untold pranks that had most of the Ninja population of Konoha shuddering in fear. It was something that made both of the pause before glancing at each other and nodding in agreement. Naruto was the only one of them with experience in trapping, whether it be pranks or not.

"So dobe," began Sasuke. "You tell us what to do." Normally, Sasuke wouldn't have ever even considered following the dobe's lead but back when fighting Zabuza, it had been Naruto who devised the plan to free Kakashi. It was Naruto who had patched up their sensei after the two of them had either passed out or left to puke. And it was Naruto who had the plan so for the first time since becoming a team; Sasuke would follow Naruto's lead.

Naruto looked at Sasuke for a minute before grinning. "Right, here's what we'll do…"

Kakashi spike a fever later that night. It seemed that his immune system had crashed due to his wound and chakra exhaustion. While just a cold with Kakashi's immune system shot to hell, it could easily become deadly.

"I need feverfew and Vervain," Naruto called to Sakura. "The bottle should be labeled!" He was boiling hot water and preparing a boil to grind the herbs in before adding it to the water. Sakura nodded and dug out the bottles as quick as she could.

Sasuke was busy placing cool clothes and ice on their unconscious sensei to lessen the fever under the order of Naruto.

"How do you know all this stuff, anyway?" Sakura finally asked as Naruto added the crushed herbs into the small pot of boiling water.

Naruto frowned and looked at her. "Well, I'm an orphan. I can't really afford a medic when I get sick so I read up on home remedies and Hokage-jiji taught me some stuff that he knew."

"Oh," Sakura blinked. She'd never considered what Naruto would do without parents when he was ill and it certainly never occurred to her that he would have to pay for a medic nin to treat him by himself.

Naruto shrugged off her look of pity with a bit of discomfort. It didn't sit well with him that she was pitying him. No one had ever really pitied him before and he found that he didn't like the feeling at all.

"It's done," Naruto finally broke the silence as he took the pot off the stove. "Now it just needs to cools before we get him to drink it."

"How do we do that?" Sasuke yelled from his spot in the room over.

"Sit him up and open his mouth!" Naruto yelled back before turning to Sakura. "You'll have to pour it while I rub his throat to get him to swallow."

Sakura nodded before sighing as the blond walked into the other room. "This is going to be a long night," she muttered before following.

They slept most of the next day before Tsunami (the name of Tazuna's daughter) woke them up at noon for lunch. Tazuna had put off going to work on the bridge until his escorts had time to protect his family.

Kakashi was still unconscious but the herb had broke his fever as well as the ice. The Vervain had taken care of the cold that had tried to take hold and Naruto was relieved to find that Kakashi had brought chakra and food pills with him, meaning that they wouldn't have to worry about him starving to death while unconscious.

"Right! We've already booby trapped the woods surround the house," Naruto's clones, made the night before, reported to the newly awake Team Seven. "And half of us are stationed throughout the forest as rocks and stuff!"

Naruto grinned at them before waving them away to join the other clones in the forest. Sasuke looked somewhat impressed at the quick work of his teammate's clones while Sakura ignored it all in favor of the food in front of her.

"So the sooner we get the bridge done the sooner we can get Kakashi-sensei back to Konoha,"
Naruto summarized as they ate. "You and Sasuke should go to the bridge with my clones and guard Tazuna while practicing that water walking thing while I stay here and guard Kakashi-sensei, Tsunami and Inari."

"Right!" Sakura nodded while Sasuke grunted his agreement. The plan set, the genin finished eating before going their separate ways to do their jobs. Naruto created thirty clones with the instructions to head to the bridge and help Tazuna build before checking on Kakashi again.

"Right," Naruto nodded to himself as Tsunami bustled about the kitchen, cleaning up. "Now how did Kakashi-sensei and that Zabuza guy do that water thing?"

It would have to have something to do with chakra but how? Naruto walked outside and towards the dock of the bay with determination. Maybe it was like the leaf balancing exercise? Except instead of focusing the chakra on the leaf he would be focusing chakra towards his feet. Nodding to himself in determination Naruto carefully placed a foot on water surface on the shore and slowly pushed down. His foot sunk but stopped before it hit the surface of the waterbed.

"Right," Naruto muttered and repeated the process with his other foot. While not on the water, he wasn't standing on the lake bottom either so now he needed to figure out how to stay on top instead of sinking. An idea popped into his head and Naruto formed a now familiar hand seal.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto shouted after forming the ram seal. Twenty clones appeared in a cloud of smoke. "Alright guys, let's get this down!" Naruto shouted as the clones as cheered and rushed at the water.

This was going to be a long day.

Two days later and Naruto had the water walking down. They had established a routine the first day: Wake up, eat, guard Tazuna and the bridge, and practice water walking while checking on Kakashi every once in a while. Naruto had discovered that it was quicker to train with his clones and he always sent about thirty to the bridge with Sakura and Sasuke, who worked on perfecting water walking with the clones' help as they watched over the construction crew, helping when it was needed and watching when no help was required.

The third day, his clones dispelled before reaching the house and Naruto was bombarded with memories about the bridge as he helped Tsunami around the kitchen. He fought not to shout out in confused pain as a headache throbbed behind his eyes due to the influx of information he'd just gained.

"What was that?" he mumbled in confusion before deciding to think more on it later when they all headed to bed for the night. He turned his attention to his arriving team and their client.

"I've mastered water walking!" Sakura proclaimed proudly as she sat down. Sasuke gave a confirming grunt as he also took a seat.

"I've got it down too, dattebayo!" Naruto grinned as he helped pass out dishes to each person. "What about you, teme?"

"Almost," Sasuke grunted, displeased with being the last person to master the odd technique. It was a bit harder than he had expected.

"Sasuke-kun can stand a few inches below the surface!" Sakura reported happily as they began serving themselves. "It's a bit hard to change the flow the entire time so he can't stand on top yet."

"Me and my clones worked on it all day!" Naruto agreed. "It took forever, dattebayo!"

"Those clones of yours are super helpful, super believe it," Tazuna commented. "We got a super amount super done! We'll be done in super no time!" In the past three days, the bridge was over half done due to the extra hands that Naruto's clones provided. Tazuna was beyond grateful for the help, as were the remaining workers. It seemed his clones' policies on passing time were more 'help whenever not busy helping Sakura and the Teme with water walking' than he had been expecting. Not that he was complaining if it got them out of here sooner.

"Still no sign of Zabuza or the Hunter Nin," Sakura reported as she took a bite of the food Tsunami provided.

"Just a bit of thugs wandering about, nothing serious," Sasuke added as he too, began to eat.

"Nothing around here either and my clones haven't reported anyone attempting to approach either." Naruto nodded. "Kakashi-sensei still hasn't woken up but his chakra is closer to normal levels so he should wake up soon. No more fevers either."

There were relieved nods from the other two members of the team. Inari scowled at the lot of them but kept quiet due to the verbal thrashing Naruto had given the boy the night before. It wasn't a pretty thing and Naruto refused to think anymore about the incident with the younger boy. It wasn't worth getting angry about all over again.

"So now what do we work on?" Sakura asked, frowning. "I doubt learning to walk on water is going to help us out that much against Zabuza and his partner." Though it was definitely cool and she was willing to bet the Ino had yet to learn the skill. 'Take that, Ino-Pig!' Inner Sakura yelled triumphantly.

"We can go through sensei's things and see if he brought any scrolls for us to learn from," Sasuke suggested. It would make the most sense.

Naruto shook his head. "I already looked, there wasn't anything like that in with his things,"
Naruto sounded a bit regretful and more than a tad annoyed. The least their sensei could have done was leave them with some kickass jutsu! Lazy Pervert.

"Great," Sakura mumbled.

In the past three days the members of Team Seven had learned to work together better than any of their previous D-ranks had ever managed to teach them. Sasuke spoke more and grunted less while Sakura stopped holding back her ideas in favor of getting Sasuke's attention by being sweet and 'innocent'. Naruto stopped being overly ridiculous (though it was fun throwing people off with it when he went into town every once in a while) and a bit more serious. In truth they had matured over the time they spent planning ways to survive. Whether they had been on their own for days or weeks, that level of responsibility in a hostile situation was always going to change them and they had strived to have it change them for the better.

"So we need to learn new techniques but our only way is unconscious and we're trapped here until the bridge is built while our enemies regroup in some unknown place and could appear and attack us at any time." Sasuke summarized before huffing in annoyance. The next time they had an opportunity to take a C-Rank, Sasuke was going to interrogate their client to make absolutely sure that all the information was valid.

"Pretty much," Naruto admitted. "I think the first thing we should do is disguise ourselves."

"With what?" Sakura asked, frowning. "If you haven't noticed, Zabuza is a Jounin. The Henge isn't going to fool him!"

"Not with chakra!" Naruto snapped, finally fed up with being thought of as an idiot. So he didn't have the best grades at the Academy but that didn't make his stupid! "I got away from jounin and Chuunin all the time when I pulled pranks and you know how? Because they were looking for a bright orange jumpsuit and when I changed clothes and hid my hair, they walked right past me!"

"Zabuza and the Hunter Nin will be looking for a kid in a bright orange jumpsuit with blond hair, a girl with pink hair and a red dress, and another kid wearing the Uchiha crest with black hair." Naruto grinned as understanding passed over the faces of everyone gathered. "So what happens when we change that?"

Two matching grins met his own as they began planning on how to change their appearances with a Henge. Naruto had some clones Henge into civilians before telling them what supplies to get.

Ninja were masters of hiding in plain sight, after all.

"Are you sure this dye will wash out?" Sakura asked as she fingered black locks that had at one time been a bright pink.

"Of course is will!" Naruto grinned, red spikes replacing his previously blond hair. Sasuke's hair had been dyed brown in replace of his black locks.

"Right, so now we look sort of different but what if they still recognize us? Our clothing is still the same," Sakura pointed out as she blow dried her newly dyed hair.

"Easy!" Naruto pulled out some clothes from the bag his clones had brought back. "Change into these and then I'll put the finishing touches on."

Five minutes later and Sakura's red dress was replaced with a flexible shirt, a skirt, and leggings that were all colored in different shades of green, matching her green eyes. Sasuke's blue shirt with the Uchiha crest was replaced with a black shirt and grey pants that blended well against stone. Finally, Naruto's signature jumpsuit was replaced with a red shirt and black pants. With the change of hair and clothes, they looked like different people almost.

"Right so hide your hitai-ate." Naruto instructed and watched as the both hid the forehead protectors in their pockets. "So my hair's not my give away but it is your guy's. Sakura, you need to cut your hair and Sasuke, we need to style your hair differently." He had learned the hard way that you needed to be thorough if you wanted to hide from ninja of any rank without jutsu.

Both grimaced but nodded. They could always change it back or grow it again later when there wasn't two terrifying missing ninja after them. "Tsunami-chan? Can you cut Sakura-chan's hair while I work on the teme's?" Naruto asked the watching woman. He wasn't about to trust himself on cutting hair long hair and especially not a girl's long hair. He liked living and he wasn't so stupid that he didn't know what would happen if he screwed it up. Cutting his own hair was a different matter and he was certain that Sasuke's hair would be far easier than his own unruly locks.

"Of course," she nodded and picked up a pair of scissors while Naruto took out a kunai and began working on Sasuke's hair. Thirty minutes later and Sasuke's hair was laying flat against his head and Sakura's hair hung just above her shoulders. If Naruto hadn't known them before, he wouldn't have been able to recognize them. Excellent. This was better than anything he had managed in the past!

"Right," Naruto nodded and dug out the last product in the bag before walking to the bathroom. When he came back, his trademark whiskers were gone. "Now no one will recognize us!" Naruto grinned at them.

Sasuke and Sakura studied each other in the mirror before conceding that Naruto had done a great job on them. Sakura doubted that her own parents would recognize her, bangs hanging on the side of her face and hair in a styled ponytail with little to no hair covering her neck. Sasuke's trademark Hair style was replaced with a normal styled hair cut that made…

"We look like civilians," Sasuke muttered aloud, completing his previous thought where everyone could hear.

"And who ever expect a civi of being dangerous?" Naruto grinned evilly, his red hair only emphasizing the look. Really, the red hair looked almost as natural on the once blond as his blond hair had. He'd even remembered to do their eyebrows, which was a really smart move on the dobe's part.

"So what plan requires us to look like civilians?" Sasuke knew that Naruto had to have something up his sleeve if he was dressing them like this. Blending in was good an all but there had to be a reason for it.

"I've been thinking," Naruto began. "Zabuza and his ally are after us because Gato hired them to kill Tazuna, right? What if there's no more Gato?"

"Then there's no more Zabuza and the Hunter Nin," Sakura realized, blinking. "So we just need to take out Gato," she grinned. At one point in time that thought would have bothered her but now? Now it was either kill Gato or die fighting Zabuza and his apprentice. And she really didn't want to die.

"And then let them know that their employer is no longer around so they've no reason to attack us anymore," Sasuke finished with a smirk. That was a plan that he could get behind.

"But why dress like civi's?" Sakura asked, frowning. She still didn't understand why they needed to blend in if they were going to take out the threat. They still needed to find Gato and dressing as civilians didn't seem like that would help them any.

"Well, Tazuna said that the mercenaries are the law enforcement around here and that they take offenders to Gato to be judged on their crimes," Naruto told them with a foxy smile. "So if we stage a crime they'll take use straight to Gato since we look like civilian nobodies instead of ninja!"

"You know, at times like this I wonder how you were deadlast in our class." Sakura frowned at him but Naruto waved that away.

"School was boring and all the teachers did was go on and on about History and proper procedure! Nothing on cool jutsu or anything!" Naruto whined, pouting. "Pranking civilians was a lot more fun!"

"And then you do something like that that reminds me exactly why." Sakura deadpanned, sighing. Naruto just shrugged with an unrepentant grin. He didn't bother pointing out that it was his ditching of class that was saving them right now. Sasuke ignored them all in favor of studying his appearance more. He needed to be familiar with how he looked now if it ever came down to more…unpleasant avenues.

Tazuna wondered idly about their sanity as they talked out their plan. They were insane, he'd give them that at least.