I apologize to everyone who reviewed the last chapter for not getting back to you. I'm just so busy that I ended up putting it off indefinitely. I'll try getting back to people more promptly this time.

On that note, I've often wondered what I would do with flames. I've decided to publicly discredit them. Like so:

From: Fayari

"Seriously, stop interrupting the flow of the story with your imaginary conversations with Naruto. It's annoying as fuck. Great story, bad writing."

Now, you see, that is just rude. I can understand why you don't like the cheap fourth-wall humor. But here's an interesting question: if you don't like my writing style, then why did you decide to follow -not just this story- but me as well? I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty hypocritical to me. Honestly though...I just don't care. About you. Or your opinion. I don't write for the feedback, no matter how much I enjoy it, but for the fun I have writing. You are just 1 person, out of 98 reviewers, out of 300 followers, out of 40,000 visitors. You don't even qualify as a statistic. Male, female, or other, you're just a whiny little bitch. Goodbye.

The moral of this: If you're going to criticize (which I do encourage) then be constructive. Or at least polite about it.

On the more positive side, these were a bit more noteworthy for one reason or another:

Ultimate-Zelda-fan – Yes, I chose your idea above everyone else's. I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am!

Uzunaru999 – I already knew about Lucy being a double agent; I saw her death coming from a good ways away. I just don't feel like retconning my story, seeing as it has no effect on its plot at all. The reminder was appreciated, though. And you seriously got 100% on all the games? Very impressive.

Guest – On your comment about Naruto and Sasuke both being exhausted after training even though Naruto has such immense chakra, here is my thought process. Naruto has up-to kage level reserves before the first time he consciously calls on the Kyuubi's power, but he has probably the worst chakra control in his entire graduating class so he ends up wasting it easily. Sasuke has much better control over much lower reserves and the two end up balancing out. But don't forget, their training isn't just physical and their exhaustion isn't just from chakra overuse They have just spent several hours intensely focusing on a single objective with slow results. How tired and aggravated would you be after two or more hours trying to stand on water by thinking at it, hmm?

That's all I had to say about that. On to the chapter. There's a lot happening in this one, so perspectives will shift frequently. To make up for the time in between a bit I made this one longer than normal. Enjoy!

Chapter 7

In the morning, Kakashi determined that the hawk would be fine after a few days rest. Naruto then somehow talked him into letting him care for it. So Kakashi showed the blonde how to keep the hawk balanced on his shoulder while running. Sasuke showed him how to stroke its head to calm it, and gave him a bag of jerky to keep it distracted and content throughout the day.

"Wow Sasuke-kun. Where did you learn so much about taking care of birds?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke tensed at the question and a flicker of what might have been sorrow crossed behind his black eyes before his entire posture changed into the most vicious Uchiha-glare that his teammates had ever seen. In the moment of shocked silence that followed he turned away from them, saying, "I'll take point." With that, he rushed down the path until he was almost out of hearing range.

Kakashi sighed imperceptibly at the reaction from his dark-haired student. Glancing at the confused and anxious looks on his lighter-haired students faces, he could only hope this blew over quickly. There was no way they could have known that Sasuke's brother had been a crow summoner, after all.

Nothing more was said on the subject that day. The rest of the second day of the mission was both uninteresting and uneventful after that, so we'll wrap the day up with a montage!

Ninja running through the woods…ninja eating lunch...ninja running through a field…ninja eating diner…god, this is boring. Montage over. On to day three.

The first sign that they had arrived at the waterfall village and the end of the mission was the roar of the falls themselves.

The second sign was the two little kids running up and happily greeting Shibuki as "Shibuki-sama!"

The last and most conclusive sign was Kakashi letting Shibuki hire Team 7 to clean up the trash in the river.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Naruto shouted while waving one fist wildly and carefully feeding the hawk -now perched on a low hanging tree branch- with the other. "We're not even done with this mission and you're already hiring us out as trash collectors!?"

"Look on the bright side Naruto. At least we can get some more practice water walking," Sakura said to try and cool the rambunctious blonde's mood. Though inwardly she was just as incensed at having to take on such a stupid chore in the middle of an important mission.

"Actually, to reach the stuff on the bottom you'll have to wade in," Kakashi said with an obscene amount of pep for a grown man. Especially a seasoned assassin like him.

Naruto looked at his sensei dejectedly, then slumped into the river to start on his new 'mission,' all the while grumbling half curses at the indignity of it.

It wasn't long after they started when the cry of a hawk pierced the air. Shibuki yelped and ducked behind Kakashi from where he had been reading Make Out Violence over his shoulder.

"Don't worry, it's just a messenger hawk from Konoha," Kakashi said as he held up his arm for the hawk to land on. He pulled off the note tied to its leg and read it quickly. "Hmm…Someone's looking for me."

"Does this mean you're leaving?" Shibuki asked.

"Afraid so. But don't worry, my team can finish the clean up," He assured him. He turned and shouted to get his team's attention. "Hey! Guys! I hate to cut and run, but I'm needed in the village."

"Is something wrong, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked when she saw the hint of seriousness in his eye.

"An emergency session of the Jonin Council has been called," he said seriously. "You guys follow me as soon as you're done here."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto called back from where he was bent over fishing for a can that had slipped under a rock. "The sooner we finish this stupid side mission, the sooner we can get back to the village for a real mission."

Kakashi sighed. "Okay then. I'll see you all soon," he said as he hitched up his pack. With a flick he sent the hawk back into the air, where it made a beeline for Konoha. Then Kakashi was gone in a running blur.

An hour of wading through the river after wayward trash later, Naruto was bored out of his gourd. It was a bright sunny day, the sky was clear, the birds were chirping, and here he was stuck fishing other peoples garbage out of a river when he could be training, or doing real missions, or eating ramen! He sighed, then stealthily checked to make sure no one was watching him. Sakura had taken a break and was entertaining the kids with Shibuki, and Sasuke was far enough away that Naruto was sure he couldn't see what he was about to do.

Grinning, Naruto focused and activated his Eagle Vision. Over the past few weeks he'd developed the habit of using the Eagle Vision to scan his surroundings. He told himself it was training, but he was really just looking for interesting things to alleviate his boredom. He'd found a few useful things this way, mostly dropped change and misplaced kunai and shuriken.

Now, all it showed him was clear water, empty trees, a can he'd missed outlined in gold as part of the mission objective, and a red blot quickly growing in size from behind the waterfall. He bent over to grab the can before that last thought made him freeze. He could be forgiven for his slow reaction; after all, no one had tried to kill him since Wave. He'd ever only seen that red glow in his dreams.

"Everybody get down!"

Sasuke noticed Naruto freezing a moment before he detected the approaching enemies as well.

"Everybody get down!"

Naruto beat him to the punch with the warning, but that didn't stop him from taking action. He tackled Shibuki to the ground even as Naruto fell back to the shore with a leap to land in a crouch, his hands already in the single seal he used to summon his clones. From the corner of his eye, Sasuke could see Sakura step into a ready stance in front of the two kids at the tree line, her eyes darting from the waterfall to the top of the cliff to the trees rapidly in search of their attackers, right hand in front holding a kunai, left in her weapons pouch, likely gripping a smoke bomb so she could escape with the kids if needed. It was an unimaginative textbook response, but it was flawless none the less. No hesitation born of fear in either of their stances. It was definitely an improvement over their lax reactions in the early phases of the Wave mission.

Contrary to popular belief, Sasuke didn't hate Sakura, or Naruto for that matter. He was just constantly annoyed by their incessant pestering, immaturity, and inability. If Naruto would just calm down and take things seriously and Sakura would stop asking him out every chance she got and take her training seriously, he might just be willing to treat them with more than the barest minimum of respect. Kakashi was a different matter entirely. If that lazy Cyclops didn't start training them seriously soon, Sasuke was definitely going to get Naruto to help him light a fire under him. Literally.

And speaking of Naruto, it was time to get back on track. The enemy had arrived. Four men jumped out of the waterfall, all wearing hitai-ate on their foreheads and with shuriken holsters on their right legs. The first three wore matching outfits of grey pants and jackets. The fourth man had silver hair that was spikier than Naruto's, a green stripe of paint on his nose, and brown eyes. He was wearing the same grey pants and black sandals as his team, but had traded the jacket for a sleeveless black shirt and yellow arm warmers like Zabuza's.

Sasuke's sharp black eyes were able to pick out the four vertical lines on their hitia-ate, marking them as ninja from Amegakure. That was good; if they'd actually been a welcoming party from Taki then this would have been very embarrassing. Sasuke had been pretty sure they wouldn't be, based on their speed and the hint of death in their auras, but it was always good to be sure.

Sasuke quickly took command of the situation. With a call of, "Naruto, on Shibuki!" he rushed forward onto the surface of the river to confront the four airborne Rain-nin, even as the blonde took up a defensive position with two other identical blondes around their client. The Rain-nin unleashed a barrage of kunai at them, and Sasuke just smirked at the challenge. He reached behind him and pulled his most powerful weapon, his folding fuma shuriken, from its hidden holster on his back.

He unfolded the shuriken with a sharp clang, and with a smooth chant of "Demon Windmill Shuriken," he let it fly. The black disk of bladed death cut through the air and intercepted the front line of incoming projectiles before immediately turning around to disperse the rest of the kunai. One final spontaneous course adjustment sent the shuriken careening towards the attacking ninja, who immediately began to scatter. Unfortunately for them, that's when the shuriken split into two and homed in on their fleeing forms. Only the man in the black shirt managed to dodge the attack as his three allies were cut down in front of him. He retreated behind the waterfall.

Sasuke grunted as he caught and refolded his shuriken. "Che, One got away," he said as he watched the three bodies fall into the water dispassionately. He ignored the slight tremble in his hand holding the now red-tipped fuma shuriken. With a practiced flick he shook the blood off and slid the weapon back under his shirt. He turned back to check on his teammates, only to flinch back in shock at the look of wide-eyed adoration the three Naruto's were giving him from shore.

"Dude! Sasuke that was awesome! How did you get those shuriken to do that zig-zagging thing?!" The Narutos shouted, practically vibrating with excitement as they mimed out Sasuke's attack, making everyone sweatdrop

A rustling in the bushes immediately set everyone back on edge. A middle-aged woman in a faded purple kimono stumbled through the trees. "Shi...Shibuki-sama," she stuttered weakly. "It was awful. They attacked...without warning-" she collapsed half way to them, revealing the kunai embedded in her back.

"Mommy!" The kids shouted worriedly as they ran to their collapsed mother, Sakura and Shibuki close behind, the Narutos and Sasuke taking subtle guard positions in case of another attack.

Sakura gave her a very quick examination-really, she just checked for a steady pulse and confirmed that the wound wasn't deep or anywhere fatal. "The wound doesn't look too bad. She's just unconscious," she told everyone.

Sasuke took lead. "Sakura, you're the best at first aid. Treat the woman, then get her and the kids out of here. The rest of us will go to the village and take care of these guys."

"Wh-What?! What are you saying?! Your mission's over! Go home!" Shibuki shouted, the young village head trying to cover his panic with anger.

"Konoha ninja don't abandon their allies," Sasuke said with such serious finality that it froze Shibuki in place. The kids -and Sakura- meanwhile sprouted identical starry eyed expressions with the shared thought, "He's so cool!"

Shibuki was conflicted. These kids, these rookie gennin, had detected and reacted to an attack before he, a village leader, could. The blonde had summoned solid clones in the blink of an eye without effort. The Uchiha had deflected an overwhelming attack and slain three enemy ninja with a single attack. The girl hadn't participated in the fight, but she had mastered the water walk in two steps, which was an astounding feat in itself. 'Well,' he thought, 'I could definitely do a lot worse.' "Fine," he groused. He didn't want to do it, but with Fuu out of the village -which is the only way a successful invasion could even hope to occur- he'd need all the help he could get.

Naruto turned to his two clones. "You two stay and help Sakura-chan guard these guys!" He said in a hammed up authoritative voice.

Both saluted sharply and said, "Yes sir! Boss sir!"

With a final plea to stay safe from Sakura following them, Shibuki led the boys behind the waterfall.

Sakura sighed as she finished treatment on the woman, tying the last bandage and rearranging her kimono. She turned to the kids and smiled reassuringly. "Your mom is going to be okay." 'After she's seen a proper doctor,' she thought privately. 'Fortunately it wasn't that bad an injury. She was lucky the kunai got stuck in a rib. An inch off center and it would have slipped by the bone and pierced her lung. Like last time.'

Sakura clasped her hands to keep them from shaking as the memory of Sasuke's kunai riddled body rose up. This was just like the mission to Wave. The boys jumped right into the fighting and she was left to sit back and watch. She was too weak to fight alongside them. She hated this. She was a ninja too, dammit!

She sighed again and composed herself. She knew, logically, that what she was doing by looking after the civilians who couldn't fight was just as important as what the boys were doing by confronting the enemy, but she just wished that she was strong enough to stand beside them, not behind them. To fight alongside them.

A nearby 'poof' pulled her from her pessimistic thoughts. She turned to see one of Naruto's clones in pitched taijutsu combat with a man, probably an enemy jounin. He was wearing a baggy gray shirt under blue overalls, black sandals, a grey bandana over black hair, and a black half-face mask like Kakashi-sensei's. The quickly dissipating smoke cloud surrounding a kunai embedded in a nearby tree told her the fate of the other clone.

She could feel the fear rising up inside her again, but she was able to reign in her urge to panic. The mission to Wave took her through the gamut of fear: everything from her own death to that of her first love. She knew that anything short of Zabuza himself wouldn't make her freeze up this time. With her resolve hardened she prepared to move her charges out of the line of fire. A branch snapping behind her -opposite the dueling shinobi- derailed her plans.

She turned around and had a kunai in her hand so fast that she swore she heard some of her own joints pop from the strain. Leaning on a nearby tree was one of the men from the waterfall. His clothes were still wet from the river and stained red on his right side where he was clutching the wound from Sasuke's fuma shuriken. He was panting and sweat was beading on his pale face and bald head from the blood loss and shock. His free hand held a kunai in a white-knuckled grip.

"I kill you," he gasped, "and they won't kill me for screwing up!" He lunged at her with a wild yell.

For a moment everything seemed to stop. A bead of sweat hung suspended in midair. A heart skipped a beat. A girl who never stopped thinking found her mind frozen by the fear she thought she had mastered. All she could see was the look of incredible pain and desperation on the charging man's face. And then the world sped back up, and the little girl who thought she was a ninja did the only thing she could do: she closed her eyes and struck in a blind panic.

On any other day against any other opponent, she would have died pitifully. But today, against an opponent delirious with pain and blood loss, his senses dulled by shock, her blind strike found purchase in her enemy's undamaged side. The splatter of blood from the wound striking her face made her open her eyes in time to see the results of her attack.

The man stumbled back two shaky steps before finally falling to the ground in a lifeless heap. Sakura's eyes slid from the slowly growing pool of blood under the man, down to her still outstretched arm and kunai. Her blood soaked weapon was of much less interest to her than the splatter on her naked arm, which reminded her of the feeling that made her open her eyes in the first place. She slowly reached up and touched her face, and when she pulled it away to find her hand coated in the blood she expected to find, she started hyperventilating.

Before the panic attack could properly set in, an unfamiliar hand was placed on her shoulder, and an unfamiliar voice said, "Nicely done. Thanks for saving us the trouble of killing him ourselves."

Sakura slowly turned her head to look at the man standing behind her, the one she saw fighting Naruto's clone before. Up close she could see the demented look in his eyes that screamed madness and a cruel lust for the pain and suffering of others. She was spared the humiliation of fainting by a quick chop to the neck.

The man walked over to the dead shinobi and sneered at him through his mask. "Useless trash," he said as he kicked the cooling body of his former comrade. He turned to his men, one with the old woman slung over his shoulder, another with the unconscious kids under his arms, and the third moving to pick up Sakura. He pointed to the last man and said, "You, take care of this body. The rest will help me cart the others back to the village. It should be just about time for the show, hehehehehehehe!"

After following Shibuki through the underwater maze behind the waterfall, the guys finally surfaced in the central lake of Takigakure. The village was set in a large bowl scooped straight out of the earth, with high stone cliffs bordering it on all sides. On the shores of the lake there were buildings, homes, and fields stretching up to the cliffs. In the center of the lake was a small island, and on that island was what had to be the largest, oldest tree in the world. The trunk was as wide around as a city block, and it rose up as high as the tops of the cliffs, its branches so wide that they stretched over the edges of the cliffs on all sides, but sparse enough that a lot of light still filtered in between the branches.

Naruto took a moment to marvel at the sight, then followed silently after Sasuke and Shibuki towards the shore of the village. Halfway out of the water on the shore, Naruto froze and paled. He quickly went back over the memories of his clones to be sure, and paled some more. There was no doubt: Sakura had been attacked. "Dammit," he swore. "Sasuke! Sakura's in trouble!"

"What are you talking about? And keep your voice down, dobe," Sasuke hissed.

"Teme!" Naruto whisper-growled. He shook off the coming argument and got back on track. "My clones were just taken out by some guy while Sakura was fighting one of the guys from before! Her and the others are in trouble!"

"How can you possibly know that?" Sasuke asked skeptically.

Naruto started to shout something, then paused as a thought crossed his mind. He sweatdropped and said, "Oh, uh, right. I forgot to tell you guys about that."

"About what?" Sasuke growled in annoyance.

"That when a Kage Bunshin is dispelled everything they learned is sent back to me?" Naruto said quickly while rubbing the back of his neck and smiling nervously.

Sasuke's scowl and the angry tic on his forehead told Naruto that his teammate was currently stuck between envisioning all the uses for such an ability, berating Naruto for forgetting to mention it, and demanding he teach it to him so he could throttle him with four hands. He was saved from whatever Sasuke was going to say when another three-man team of Rain-nin attacked them.

Sasuke happily redirected his anger at the new threat. Singling out the nearest ninja, a pale faced young man with long black hair wearing a purple vest over a long sleeved black shirt, Sasuke slipped under his swung kunai and inside his guard. A quick series of punches followed by a powerful kick sent the older ninja flying into a nearby house with a red tile roof. He turned to check on Naruto just in time to watch two pairs of him connect with joint axe kicks that sent the other enemies to unconsciousness. The fight lasted only a few moments.

With the immediate danger handled Sasuke looked around for Shibuki, only to find no trace of the Waterfall shinobi. Spotting his opponent getting back up, he cursed inwardly and made a judgment call. "Naruto! Go after Shibuki; I'll handle these guys then follow you," he shouted to his teammate. He cut off the question he knew was coming with, "Sakura can take care of herself, now Go!" For once the blonde didn't question him and dove back into the lake to find their client. Sasuke gave his opponent his full attention, drawing a kunai and taking a ready stance.

The Rain-nin drew another kunai and charged at Sasuke. The Uchiha easily evaded the strikes, waiting for the opportune moment to counterattack. It soon came when his opponent overextended a thrust that would have taken Sasuke's eye if he hadn't ducked just enough to let the blade whisper over his hair. Sasuke lunged forward with his own stab that sunk his kunai to the hilt in his opponent's ribcage and into his heart.

Sasuke couldn't help the grin the creased his lips. That had been almost too easy. Calming his breathing, Sasuke looked up at the man's face, but froze once he saw his eyes. The cold, lifeless look of helplessness and surprise on his face immediately caused Sasuke to flash back to that dark night 4 years ago. It was the same look each of his relatives had in their eyes in his nightmares.

That brief pause was all it took for two new opponents to ambush him. Even though he recovered and managed to jump back from his dead opponent, it was already too late. Twin bands of water came from either side and wrapped him in a tight bind. He struggled against the grip and managed to move so he could see both of his assailants. One was the guy who dodged his fuma shuriken at the waterfall, the other was a brunette woman with short hair held back by a white hairband, wearing a pink tube top with red trim, a half-zipped short teal and white coat with very wide sleeves clinging loosely to her arms, dark blue spandex shorts with a shuriken holster tied to her right leg, and black ninja sandals.

"They caught me before I could even sense their presence," Sasuke thought while struggling. "These guys are good."

"Oooh. You're not bad at all, kid," the woman taunted.

"You didn't really think it would be as easy this time, did you?" the man laughed.

"Shall we cut him in half now, or let him suffer first?" The woman teased with an evil smirk and a playful tug that made Sasuke gasp.

"Wait. He might come in handy when we negotiate," a new, grating voice said from behind Sasuke.

"Who's this?" the young ninja thought, turning to see the newcomer out the corner of his eye while trying to keep the other two enemies in sight. It was an older man than the others, wearing black ninja sandals, grey pants, and a blue-grey longcoat left open at the bottom and buttoned back for greater mobility. His hair was a wild black mess that made Naruto's hair look tame and was barely contained by a dirty-yellow bandana. His dark eyes, goatee, and malevolent smirk just screamed evil mastermind.

The next thing Sasuke knew was pain as he was electrified. With his last moment of consciousness he cursed his own inability, and prayed that Naruto and Sakura would be fine without him.

Forgotten on its perch in a tree overlooking the river and waterfall, the hawk watched.

He watched as the female human with the cherry-blossom colored fur tail on its head was attacked by one of the injured humans from before. He watched as it killed the other human to protect the two hatchlings, but was defeated by another, stronger human, whose pack took it, the two hatchlings, and the older injured nest-mother away.

He knew the cherry-blossom-human needed help. The sun-furred fox-human that'd helped him had left with the raven-furred duck-headed human and the skittish brown-furred human behind the waterfall to hunt the weird humans who attacked them earlier, so they were out of his reach. But maybe their alpha, the moonlight-furred dog-human with one eye who had fixed his wing could help? It had followed after his kin from the southern forests, so he should be able to find it; his wing was feeling much better now. But how to make the dog-human follow him back here?

The pondering hawk looked around for anything that might get the dog-human's attention. Its sharp eyes fell on the glinting thing on the ground near where the cherry-blossom-human had killed one of the weird humans, and it grinned like a…well, a hawk.

A/N

It's finally done! I've been working on this chapter for months, trying to force my way through everything that I needed to get in it. Sakura and Sasuke's kill-scenes were the hardest to write and held me up the longest. I hated writing them, but they were important for what I have planned for Team 7. Please tell me what you thought of them...and the rest of the scenes while you're at it.

To make up for the time in between, this is the longest chapter of the story thus-far! God I hope the rest are easier to write.

OMAKE

The five ninja and one hawk were sitting around the ampfire on their second night out. They would reach Takigakure, and the end of their mission, early the next day. But for now, they were engaging in some casual conversation.

"You actually read the textbooks Naruto?" Sakura asked skeptically.

Conversation that amounted to questioning the idiocy of one of their teammates.

"Of course I did!" Naruto rebutted. "I spent hours studying and training every day. I just always had trouble with tests and stuff. Oh, and my chakra control sucked."

"Really? That's all?" She deadpanned.

Not getting it, the blonde continued with an all-knowing nod. "Yep. It took me a week to master the control for tree climbing, but only a few hours to master the Kage Bunshin, which relies more on power than control."

Sakura decided to ask a question that had been bugging her ever since the bell test, "How many clones can you make anyways?"

Naruto looked up and tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well…I made a thousand when I mastered the jutsu and showed Iruka-sensei, and my control is really up since then…hmm, I honestly don't know how many clones I could make at once."

The look on everyone's face -except the hawk who really didn't care- was no less than flabbergasted. Sakura's quickly turned to irritated denial though. "No way. There is no way you can make that many bunshin at once. You would need a kage's reserves and skill to even try without killing yourself-"

Naruto didn't even let her finish her rant. He slammed his hands together and cried out, "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" The sky filled with rolls of smoke so thick they blocked out the stars and forest completely. When the smoke cleared, all that was visible was orange. Sun ripened orange as far as the eye could see; a mass of orange so large it was visible from space.

'He really can do it,' Sakura thought. 'This gives new definition to "one man army."'

'And they're all perfect solid clones. I wonder if they're fully functional?' Inner Sakura pondered.

'Functional?' Inner Sakura rolled her eyes, and somehow managed to whisper into her outers' ear. Sakura fell back in a faint with a scarlet face and a small nosebleed.