Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does.

The question of whether or not Haku had told Zabuza was answered when the clones were unaccosted the entire time…and when a gigantic sword was thrown over Team Seven plus Tazuna's heads. It lodged itself in a tree and then Zabuza, the feared Demon of the Mist, appeared before them, balancing himself on the handle.

"Not shaking this time, Sasuke?" Naruto asked quietly, grinning fiercely.

Sasuke shot him a dirty look as a reply and drew his chokuto.

"Zabuza," Kakashi said levelly. "The Demon of the Mist."

"So you've heard of me," the Kiri nuke-nin said, sounding pleased. "I've heard of you as well – the man who has copied a thousand jutsu, Sharingan Kakashi!"

Kakashi hummed in agreement to the name, his visible eye curving into a smile. "More than that now, I should think." The Jounin then glanced down at his students and casually walked over to stand next to Tazuna. "Well, I trust you all to take care of this," he said to Team Seven. He then pulled his copy of Icha Icha Paradise out of his kunai pouch and started reading it.

Team Seven sweatdropped at their teacher's attitude. Zabuza almost fell off his precarious position of balance on the handle of his sword.

"What the hell?" he spluttered. "You're not even going to fight? I'll kill your genin in a few seconds!"

Team Seven looked mildly affronted and made as if to protest, but then Zabuza noticed exactly what Kakashi was reading.

"WHAT THE HELL!" he shouted. "You can't read porn in front of impressionable young children!"

"Too late," Sakura and Sasuke muttered, glancing at Naruto. He shrugged sheepishly.

"Hey, it works, doesn't it?" he replied quietly.

"It's not like I'm reading it out loud to them or anything," Kakashi defended, not looking up. "Besides, Naruto here was perverted before I even met him, so you can't blame me for that!"

"Yeah, well, at least I don't go around reading Ero-sennin's books any time I get the chance!" Naruto shot back. "And I don't even use Orioke no Jutsu anymore!"

Sakura and Sasuke both coughed out a quiet, "Konohamaru."

"Shut up," Naruto said. "That was nostalgia! And he needed to learn how to do a Henge better…just be thankful I definitely don't use the Harem no Jutsu anymore!"

Zabuza mouthed "Orioke no Jutsu" and "Harem no Jutsu" quizzically, not that anyone could tell because of the bandages wrapped around his face.

Seriously, what the hell is this guy teaching them? Even if I weren't going to kill him and his students, I would definitely never, ever allow Haku anywhere near him. EVER.

"Still, perverted is perverted – and you created those two before you met me, so I'm in the clear, whatever, ah, material I may read regardless," Kakashi said, an almost gleeful note in his voice. He then spoke to the nuke-nin. "You should remember, Zabuza, that only the most powerful ninja have such quirks and actually live long enough to constantly annoy people with them."

Zabuza facepalmed. "I try not to think about those kind of people."

"Just like how we try not to think about Gai," Naruto muttered to his teammates as Zabuza started ranting about ninja he'd met with absurd quirks.

"I've actually gotten pretty used to him because of Lee," Sakura murmured back.

"Yes, well, that's you," Naruto said. "I, on the other hand, could never get used to him. Lee? Sure…eventually. Gai? Hell no. He was the one to originally come up with the 'Power of Youth!'"

"Lee's even more…'youthful'…than Gai," Sasuke pointed out.

"Yeah, well, at least he knew when to tone it down. Some," Naruto shot back.

"True," Sakura admitted. "Especially after I got to him – I even got him out of that awful green jumpsuit occasionally!"

"Please tone him down soon," Naruto practically pleaded. Sasuke didn't say anything, but Sakura could see the desperate light in the raven-haired male's eyes too.

The pink-haired kunoichi shrugged. "I'll think about it," she said with a wicked grin. Then she looked back at the Kiri nuke-nin who had been monologuing for the past several minutes. "Oh, I think Zabuza's almost done ranting about traumatic experiences with quirky ninja…although Tazuna seems to be the only one actually listening…"

They all sighed at Kakashi, would had his book raised in front of his face again. Zabuza hadn't noticed. Team Seven turned their attention back to what he was saying.

"—I can at least take comfort from the fact that I don't have too many quirks, if any."

"Manic laughter," said Naruto. "That's a given."

"Listing all the ways to kill someone in a happy tone," Sakura added, before realizing that, oops, he hadn't done that to them yet…hopefully he would just assume they had heard horror stories of how he did that. Hopefully. Then again, Lady Luck as of late had seemed to fluctuate back and forth from standing firm on their side to crossing over the line and consorting with the enemy for a while.

"Offing the whole graduating class of Kirigakure before you were even set to graduate yourself," Sasuke finished off.

"Smartasses," Zabuza said. "I'm going to kill you all. And the man you're guarding." He zeroed his gaze in on Naruto. "You can be the first to go, shortie."

Sakura and Sasuke glanced at each other, and then quickly backed away from their Hokage as a vein started to throb in his forehead.

"GODDAMMIT!" the blond yelled. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT THAT HE COULD GET LOST BEHIND THE HOKAGE'S STACK OF PAPERWORK, EH?"

The blond time traveler then proceeded to create about a dozen Kage Bunshin, all of whom immediately pulled out kunai and charged at Zabuza.

Zabuza blinked, not sure of what to make of this reaction. "Goddammit," he muttered as he prepared to rip his sword from the tree and take care of this annoying brat. "I hate people with weird quirks."

Omake! (Starts the day teams were assigned)

Ino, as a person, did not really notice the finer details of things when she was fixated on something else. Thus, instead of noting the fact that Sakura had cut her hair to a short length when all the girls (except for Hinata, but she was chasing after that annoyance Naruto) knew that Sasuke "liked" girls with long hair, the Yamanaka had focused on the fact that Sakura was sitting calmly next to her Sasuke-kun, along with Naruto, because they were a team now!

She had scowled and fumed and ranted internally about how the universe wasn't fair to her, but sat down relatively quietly, plotting new ways to make Sasuke hers.

In light of this, we are now capable of understanding why she didn't take the first opportunity to realize that Sakura had cut her hair, and what the implications of that choice were (to the fangirls of the class). However, that didn't make it any less amusing when she finally did notice her ex-best friend's haircut.

It happened just after Team Ten had finished eating at the BBQ restaurant. Chouji, Ino, and Asuma were all leaving when a certain short-haired, pink-headed, very tired kunoichi trudged past them, muttering obscenities and something about, "arrogant smirks on blonds – just has to rub it in, doesn't he!"

Ino's mind registered the pink hair, and before it had registered the shortness of said hair, she had called out, "Hey, Forehead!"

Sakura lifted a weary head and looked at the Yamanaka. "Good evening to you too, Ino," she responded. Then, eyeing Ino's horrified expression, she asked mildly, "Is something wrong?"

Ino raised a quivering hand and pointed at Sakura's hair. "Your hair!

Sakura's face showed vague confusion as she ran her fingers through it. "Yeah, I cut it last night. Didn't you notice it in the morning yesterday? You were glaring kunai at our team for at least an hour while waiting for your sensei to show up, so there was plenty of time for you to have seen it…"

Ino shook her head mutely. Chouji pulled out a bag of chips and started munching on them at the same time that Asuma grabbed a new cigarette and lit it. Thought neither of them liked or understood teenage girl melodrama, they knew that it was polite to wait for the Yamanaka before heading out.

"You really should pay more attention to details like that, Ino-pig," Sakura stated, only half-joking – which was something Asuma noted, but not anything that caught the attention of Ino or Chouji.

Ino huffed rather grumpily, and then realized how this event was "significant."

"This means you've admitted defeat and given up on Sasuke-kun, doesn't it?" the blonde crowed, a delighted smile spreading across her face.

"Well, yeah," said Sakura, flicking her head rather impatiently to get her bangs out of her face.

Ino did a victory dance. Sakura watched in amusement. Asuma and Chouji just hoped the girls would finish this up soon.

"If Sasuke hasn't fallen for one his many fangirls yet, then I really don't think he'll fall for some helpless kunoichi who always depends on him as her strength," Sakura said forcefully. She was hoping to impart what she knew to Ino as a warning/advice to leave Sasuke and get on with her life, or if that backfired, to convince Ino she needed to get strong in order to have Sasuke acknowledge her. "I'm going to focus on being the best kunoichi I can, probably specializing in medical ninjutsu to help my teammates. You should find something you're really good at and work with that to help your team progress." With that final bit of advice, the pinkette brushed past the blonde, leaving behind a spluttering Ino, an indifferent Chouji, and a somewhat impressed Asuma.

'Well,' Asuma thought to himself. 'Looks like Kakashi must have gotten her to grow out of the fangirl stage somehow during her team's test, and apparently got her to train, if that's the reason she seems so tired…'

"By the way," Sakura called over her shoulder. "There's a guy on Team Ten Kakashi told me about who seems really nice and could help me with my taijutsu. So don't even think about looking at Rock Lee."

The pink-haired kunoichi then continued on her merry way.

"Rock Lee?" Ino muttered. "Who the hell is that?"

Asuma was too busy choking on the smoke he had inhaled in his surprise to answer her.

A/N: First of all, I'm sorry this took so long. I've been away from computers and I'm lazy, sooo….along with that, sorry – I lied about the fight being this chapter. It'll be in the next one. But at least this one is a long chapter! …sort of. No, not really, huh?

Oh, you know what I realized recently? I made PF!Naruto a lot liked Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist…oops. On the other hand, I now have a lovely new crossover, so it's not all bad!

Okay, to Albatross Aoba: I'm a lazy person with ADHD who doesn't know what a cliffhanger is? All right. Let me address that in parts. The laziness: yeah, I am. I could make longer chapter, but I don't, because I am very lazy. I will not deny that. I'm not quite at Shika's level (nobody is), but still. To the ADHD: well, I don't have it in real life, but in terms of reading/writing fanfiction? …I get distracted very easily. For example, my thought progress while writing chapters 14-16: "Okay, I'll finish these chapters and post them as a sort of holiday present. All right, Chapter 14's done! Oh, now Chapter 15 is done…hmm, it's really short…oh well. Chapter 16…I can do this. I can write out the fight. I will not get dis—ooh, look, shiny new fanfic!" To the not-knowing-what-a-cliffhanger-is: I do know what they are. I made an error in judgment and looking back at it I can see that the end of Chapter 15 was not, in fact, a cliffhanger. You are correct. From now on I will only refer to something as a cliffhanger if it really and truly is one. If I'm wrong about it then, feel free to correct me again, and I shall retract my statement again. Still, I'm having a lot of fun with this, and it's helping me to grow as a writer, so I'm not going to give it up. If you don't like what I'm doing, don't read it. Eventually, I'll probably go back and rewrite this, maybe make it longer, but for now I'm rather pleased with it.

To everyone: If I ever mess up and type "Zazuba," it's because one of my friends for a long time was under the assumption that Zabuza's name was "Zazubasa." I don't know how on Earth she managed to get that from watching the dub, but…anyway, ever since then I've had difficulties trying to remember the correct way to spell his name, so if I mess up just ignore it, please, or point it out so I can fix it.