"Matches for sale!"

A young, feminine boy called out to the busy streets, holding up the small pack of goods. He looked sickly, clear signs of frostbite yanking at his hands and feet.

"Matches for sale." His voice began to die down, as mist radiated through his lungs and up through his mouth, tone dying down in the hustle of the crowd.

"matches for sale…" It's barley above a whisper now, as the young man draws a match, the fire that radiates off the tip seemingly the only thing he has in the way of warmth. He tries to speak again, but his lungs are heavy.

He feels like his voice is lost

"Aah!" Kakashi shot awake, feeling a sharp, weighty pain coursing down his entire body. The sudden sensation of light is enough to take in by itself, but the flood of memories that rush into his mind almost made him feel nauseated.

"Woah, woah, easy…" A calming female voice suddenly became audible, as a hand that presumably belonged to the same woman pressed him back down onto the bedroll.

"Woah, he's awake!" Naruto's speech attributed more to snapping him out of a half-conscious daze than anything else. Slowly, he began to straighten himself outwards under the slim covers, bringing a palm to his forehead.

To his side was a red-head woman, hair around shoulder-length, blue eyes, in her late twenties from what Kakashi could see. He attempted to ask her name, but due to his still-frazzled brain it only came out as an indecipherable sound of confusion.

The intention remained clear however.

"Mr. Hatake, I'm Meiya, Tazuna's daughter." The woman said, light bouncing off the horns of her thin-rimmed glasses. "I've been acting as your doctor since you arrived."

Kakashi continued to push himself upwards, so that he faced Meiya directly, letting out a small groan of pain before rushing to questions.

"How long was I out."

"10 years!" Naruto (voice comically made deeper) called out from what the jonin could now see was the next room of the house.

"Around three days." She replied, ignoring the laughter of the children behind her.

"Anything I should know about?"

"Nothing too notable…" Meiya put a hand to her lips as she thought. "Chakra levels were shot, probably because of your dojutsu, but you've recovered with the circuits undamaged as far as I can tell. That cut on your back may be a problem but it looks pretty shallow."

Kakashi raised a hand to the scratch to test her theory, immediately recoiling as a stinging sensation shot up his back.

"Ah."

"Still hurts?"

The man nodded his head.

"That's okay, I've got an oil treatment, it just needs…HEY! TETSUJI!" She cut herself off, yelling towards the latter part of the house.

A man emerged a few seconds later, smiling brightly as he emerged into the living room. The only notable thing about his fashion sense were the yellow-strapped wrist warmers that ran up his hands, petering out at his elbow, as well as purple hair and a small matching goatee.

"Oh, wow, he's up!" The man said, crouching downwards to bring his face level with Kakashi's. "Hey, I'm Tetsuji, Meiya's husband. Nice to meet you!"

He thrust a hand outward towards Kakashi's own, the action earning him a small slap on the back of the head from his wife.

"Nice job offering a handshake to the guy with the injured back, nimrod." She scoffed, glasses upturning as Tetsuji's face scrunched up in a regretful smile, eyes slanting.

"Ah, right, sorry!"

"Whatever, could you get the hot water running? Mr. Hatake needs to apply the medicine to his back."

"On it!" He replied, his enthusiasm unbecoming of the rather boring situation, his eagerness carrying through to his footsteps as he dashed towards the bathroom.

"I'll go grab the treatment." Meiya said, sitting upwards and letting her light blue kimono extend downwards at her feet. Her newfound absence in the room gave the rest of Team Seven a chance to crowd around their injured teacher.

"Are you feeling alright, sensei?" Sakura asked, looking over him with slight concern.

"I've felt worse." He responded calmly despite the back-length scratch that was sending stinging jolts of pain through him.

"Are you sure your hand didn't fall off after you used the big lightning jutsu?" Naruto asked, prodding at Kakashis arm. "take a look!"

Kakashi raised his hand up from under the covers, Naruto's eyes slightly sagging in disappointment as he saw the appendage fully intact.

"Ah, that means your fight wasn't that cool then. If you lose a hand or a foot or a leg or something, that's how you know it's a seriously badass fight." His face returned to its normal positivity quickly though. "Actually, it's pretty good that you didn't lose it, then you couldn't do hand signs."

The sound of footsteps in nearby room caused Naruto to flip to the side, gaze directed at Tazuna, who let out a small "hmm" of recognition at Kakashi's awakened state.

"Hey, old man! You got any games?"

"Games?"

"Like board games."

Tazuna sighed, eyes dropping slightly downcast his spectacles.

"I've got a shogi board up in the attic."

"Oh, shogi!" Sakura visibly prepped up at the mention of the activity.

"What, you know it?" Naruto responded.

"Yeah, I was the second ranked player in the academy shogi club!" She bragged excitedly; eyes almost sparkling.

"Well, come on, let's play!" Naruto began to run up to the attic (his pace potentially too fast for the cramped living quarters)

"Okay!" Sakura answered, chasing at his tail.

Tazuna uncharacteristically smiled at the two as they rushed up the stairs, his glass-covered eyes flickering with a twinge of reminisce before he disappeared out the back door, whistling along as he went.

That left Sasuke and Kakashi in the room together, and the older man immediately realized that this wasn't coincidental. The tension became almost tangible, it's frost carrying over from Sasuke's icy demeanor.

"Where'd you get that eye?" Sasuke asked, calmness intended but not delivered, a clear simmering anger biting at his tone. Kakashi said nothing, silence fanning the flames of Sasukes rage. "The sharingan is the trademark of the Uchiha clan, where did you get it?!"

Sasuke had not yelled like that in five years.

"It was a gift from a friend." Was all he got in response, but it was enough to satiate his initial curiosity, at least for now.

"…whatever, what's your ability?"

"Hm?"

"Your ability. Every sharingan has an ability specific to the user, what's yours?"

"Enhanced perception and memory past the normal limits of the sharingan. In short, the ability to copy jutsu."

Sasuke accepted the answer, but his grimace never wore off. Instead, he turned his gaze sideways, still stewing with slight anger. He stood still like a statue for a few seconds, before walking off, the only sound in the whole house being his footsteps against the raised wood flooring.

Despite no words being spoken, Kakashi could almost feel the emotions that were radiating from the boy.

It felt like sorrow.

Dust was kicked up from even the slightest step in Tazunas attic, the abundant grime causing Naruto break out into several coughing fits.

"Have you found it yet?" The Uzumaki boy barked from in-between his bouts of sneezing.

"…No…" Sakura replied, more focused on digging through the horde of items that lay about the loft. Her flashlight barley peeked through the dusk-coated surroundings.

"Well, you better hurry up, the torch isn't gonna last much longer." Naruto said, correct in his assumption about the primitive-object which, while having been readily incorporated into the shinobi marketplace, were not good at illuminating places for more than ten minutes at a time.

Sakura was too focused on attempting to find the shogi board to really bother making conversation with Naruto, something the boy deeply resented. Huffing loudly, he folded his arms over each other and attempted to turn sideways.

This proved to be a fatal mistake, as even the smallest movement was too much for the cramped room. The blonde let out a sharp shriek as he felt his arm knock something over.

"Aaah!"

BAM!

The sound of an object slamming against the ground was instantly recognizable, made worse by Naruto's frightened jumping. It did nothing to phase Sakura, who's hand had brushed over what felt like the box of a shogi board.

Triumphantly, she ripped it out of the clutter while turning the torch back to Naruto.

"Found it!"

What she saw was Naruto curled up into a ball on the floor, next to what appeared to be a picture frame, clutching a kunai to his chest.

"What are you doing?"

"I knocked something over."

"…You knocked a picture frame off an old wardrobe."

"Hey!" Naruto shot back to her, fiery glare flaming with embarrassment over fury. "When you can't see, you don't know what it is! Maybe it was a bomb!"

"And if it was you would've rolled up into a ball right next to it?"

Naruto had no response.

Reaching downwards, Sakura clutched the smooth but textured wood of the frame, flipping it over. The glass was covered in dust, the kunoichi having to smooth a finger through it just to get a visible image.

What she saw was a picture of a broadly smiling Tazuna, flanked by Meiya on his side along with a woman of similar age to him, and a boy she didn't recognize. Her fingers inquisitively traced over the frame, eventually feeling paper crackle under her joints.

Turning it over, she uncovered a small slip of card on the back that read.

"Father's Day"

"Hey, that's the bridge builder" Naruto mused, not really being able to comprehend the context of the picture. He harshly prodded at the other boy's face, small remnants of dust coating his fingertip. "is that Tetsuji when he was younger?"

"No, he's got different hair…and a different face…and a different everything. I think it's his son."

"But he doesn't have a son."

"Yeah but he might've…" Sakura paused, favoring a "slit throat" motion instead of actually saying the words.

"He kicked it?"

"Yeah, probably the same with his wife." The girl speculated sadly, placing the photo back on the shelf, before turning to Naruto with the shogi board snugly slung under her arm. "We should probably go down; the torch is getting dim."

"Yeah, yeah…" He replied, opening up the attic door. Plush streaks of light began to illuminate the upper room further, putting its small size into perspective, although any time spent on this sight was menial, as the two began to climb down the folding staircase.

Any thoughts about the picture were left cramped up there for the time being.

The biggest struggle Kakashi Hatake had to face in his sixteen-year career as a ninja may just have been not bankrupting this families house by leaving the hot water running in the shower. Any weight or pain from his joints completely lifted from his body, the man feeling just as good as he did prior to being slashed in the back by a seversword.

Reluctantly, he grasped a hand on the water handle and turned it downwards, ceasing the flow of hot liquid from the showerhead.

He clamped his body against the tiling of the shower walls, hoping to conserve some of the warmth that they had preserved. This lasted all of thirty seconds before the shivering set in and he was forced to unenthusiastically leave the bath that was being used as a shower.

Mask, jacket, pants, dressed.

Running the towel through his wet hair, Kakashi trudged through the house, not quite being able to shake the feeling of being waterlogged with his mind still clinging to the drug-like high of stepping into the shower.

Emerging into the living room, his only exposed eye rested on the sight of Sakura and Naruto playing Shogi while Sasuke sat emotionless in a chair to their right. When he said "Sakura and Naruto were playing" it was more accurately Sakura playing against herself with her constantly having to tell Naruto what moves he was even allowed to make within the confines of the game.

"…No, you have to put that one there." She said, Naruto following her instructions by placing the piece exactly where she said. The rooms tone was bleak and depressing, any conversation that occurred in it sounding drab and slightly miserable.

Kakashi had no interest in watching a 13-year old girl playing a one-way game and he suspected she didn't either so, exhaling to get the trios attention, he finally spoke.

"Alright, meet me outside, we're going to have a lesson."

All three shot him confused stares, with only Naruto being able to properly vocalize what they were thinking.

"But, Kakashi-sensei, you're all wrecked up and stuff." The blonde snapped back; eyes enlarged with confusion.

"Yes, and I don't really have to do anything except yell at you, so it doesn't really matter."

The three all simultaneously paused, taking time to comprehend Kakashis words before they all sat up (Sakura in annoyance, Naruto in excitement and Sasuke in indifference).

"So, where are we going?" The Uzumaki boy asked, smiling brightly.

"Well, it's not going to be a hike" Kakashi lazily stepped forward, opening the back door and letting the light breeze from the family's "backyard" blow in his face. See, Tazuna had built a house for himself on the very outskirts of the edge of town (it was the only free-land available at the time) which meant the back of the house fully connected to the spiraling forest that adorned the edge of the village.

The genin hadn't set foot out of the house (despite the three days they'd spent there), so the spectacle of the looming forest depths was still fresh, mystically drawing their eyes to the misty emerald treetops.

Crack!

Small chips of wood began to break under the soles of Kakashis feet, as he began to walk up the tree.

All three pairs of the genins eyes widened.

There he stood, perfectly perpendicular on the tree trunk. It was almost like he was a branch himself he stuck out so well. However, while this discovery was enough to completely shock two of the three ninjas watching him, Kakashi quickly got bored, crouching horizontally and looking at the students.

"This is what we'll be learning today, it will teach you the basics of chakra control." The older man spoke, quickly jumping down from his perch and standing up straight.

"Woah!" Naruto exclaimed, mind still trying to completely wrap itself around what he'd just seen.

"See, when you heavily focus chakra to your feet, or arms or wherever, it creates a magnetic pull between you and other solid forces, almost like you're creating your own gravity."

Naruto was still bug-eyed in amazement, even while his squadmates own whimsy had long since worn off. Eye fixed and focused, Kakashi made his way over to another tree, gently pressing his sole towards the crinkling bark. Small waves of chakra expelled from his foot, although they were entirely feint.

"See, if the chakra levels too small, your feet slip." He demonstrated this by grazing his foot down the trunk, the three students observing how the chakra strands attempted (and failed) to cling onto it. "but if you use too much, the force becomes too intense and you bounce off.

His leg (and by extension, he himself) were suddenly thrown backwards, an explosion of chakra denting the root of the tree. He swiveled to face his students, eye and expression softening out.

"I'm going to take a walk; I'll see you in thirty minutes."

With that, he began to stride away, sticking a hand in his pocket much to the genins anger and/or surprise. Characteristically, it was Naruto who began talking first.

"Hey! You aren't even going to watch us?"

Kakashi apathetically waved his free hand backwards, not even turning around to talk to the three. "I'll be back to see how you're going soon, just give it a try."

The young boy had no counterargument, simply watching on as his teacher disappeared through the mesh screen door that guarded entry to Tazunas house.

Naruto quickly turned back around to face the tree, the airs breeze reinvigorating a new, burning determination within him. He braced his body, fully preparing for a full-on sprint as chakra began to swirl around his feet.

"Just give it a try huh? Well, I'm gonna ace it on the first." He began to run at the tree, chakra below him dinting the ground.

"Wait, Naruto, don't!" Sakura attempted to warn him, realizing just how much chakra he was bumping into his feet, but it was too late, as the boy leapt at the tree, foot extended proudly.

BOOM!

Sakura held her hands up to her mouth while Sasuke just winced as Naruto ricocheted off the tree like a bullet, smashing against the ground hard. It was comical how many times he bounced off the ground (the flooring acting as if it was a trampoline).

"Ah!" He yelled, not really being able to register the hit before his own natural momentum threw him back up into the ground.

"Ah!' An identical shriek was emitted, as he bounced once again.

"Ah!" Yet another cry of pain signaled the end of his war with gravity, as the Uzumaki boy began to slow down, slowly rolling across the dirt-covered turf before what little force he had behind him was halted by the wide wooden step of Tazuna's house.

"Ohh." He groaned; eyes more white than anything else. Maybe he wasn't going to ace it on the first try.

Kakashi hadn't really taken the time to look over the house he'd been staying in, but he had to admit it was nicely quaint (maybe not intentionally). The décor was obviously scrappy and cheap, but he supposed it only added to the charm.

The smell of boiling tea drew Kakashi into the living room, where he found Meiya and Tetsuji sweltering said brew, making use of an old, slightly dinky teapot and a bag of unlabeled tea leaves.

"Tetsuji, shake it around a bit!"

"Okay, okay, it's hot!"

The couple seemed so focused on the tea-making process that Kakashis presence in the room was completely lost on them, the copy ninja having to fake an exhale to get a semblance of their attention.

"Oh, hey Mr. Hatake!" Tetsuji said, shaky hand resting on the kettle.

"Steady it." Meiya scolded.

"I'm trying to steady it!" His attention snapped back to his wife; eyes heavy with frustration. "Don't make me multitask."

She looked back at him unimpressed. "Well, I'll talk to Mr. Hatake, you keep the pot brewing."

"Fine."

Meiya's head turned forty-five degrees to face the older man, spectacles fogged up from the steam that the teapot emitted.

"What is it Mr. Hatake?" She sounded almost annoyed, which caught Kakashi somewhat off-guard.

"Um…is their…you can call me Kakashi, by the way." He stumbled through his words.

"What is it Kakashi?" This time any annoyance in her voice was replaced by playful banter.

"I just wanted to ask, is the library near the city square still open? I haven't been here in fifteen years."

"It's down the road from where it used to be, thanks to big man Gato running it dry and seizing the funding. Small, oval shaped, one-story building."

"I think I'll take a walk then."

Meiya raised an eyebrow, while Tetsuji temporarily looked up from the kettle with questioning look.

"Are you sure you should, dude? I mean, you should still be pretty roughed up."

"I'll be okay." Was all Kakashi said as he began to exit the house.

Fresh air filled his lungs and cleared his mind as he set out on the dirt path that led to town. He may not have been to the land of waves for a while, but he knew his way around its suburbia. It wasn't a big place, and you could walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes if you were fast.

One thought had been nagging at him all morning and it had to do with the boy in the mask that he'd seen a few minutes before he passed out.

A rain of thin, sharp needles descending onto the battlefield, each one piercing into Zabuza.

As soon as it happened, he'd realized something was off. The needles missed the throat, eyes and heart, yet were too precise for this to be accidental. To add to this, any competent anbu (which this one clearly was judging by the needles accuracy) would've followed up on the attack by attacking one of the vitals, just to confirm the kill. At best, the "anbu" had been a clumsy but lucky body snatcher, who wanted to claim Zabuzas bounty. At worst, Zabuza had an unknown assistant. Kakashi would find out sure enough.

The sound of stones kicking out from under his feet alerted him to his surroundings. He was far gone from the forest now, finally reaching the stone pathways of the village. His eyes widened.

He'd never seen a town quite as run down as this one.

Not a single building was built up more than two stories (which made him appreciate Tazuna's house a little more). Litter blew through the streets, small pieces of wrapping paper and naperies bumping against his feet like he was the center of gravity in this small, sad, town.

His vision grazed over the few people that occupied the streets. Not a single smile could be seen, instead every occupant of the wave looked defeated. Defeated. That was really the only word to describe it.

He continued to walk, the connection of his sandals with the concrete sidewalk the only sound that mattered. Having not been here for years, Kakashi called upon his memories of old as a way to illuminate his path through the town (although so much had changed, it was still difficult)

The smell of seawater drifted through the air, bring forth of wave of nostalgia upon Kakashi's shoulders. He recognized the street; this was where the library used to be…

"Gee, what's taking him so long?! It's just a lousy document!" A young, goggle-clad boy said slumped down on the long stone steps.

"Sensei probably got lost in there. He's not great at reading directions…" A girl replied, stripes of purple running down her cheeks.

"Give him time." Was all a standing, masked boy said, looking away from his teammates.

"Oh, I've given he time Kakashi." The other boy barked, mischievous intent swirling around his eyes. "…MINATO-SENSEI! THE MIST IS ATTACKING!"

"Shut up! You'll get us in trouble." Kakashi ordered. Neither of the other two heeded his pleas.

"MINATO-SENSEI, THE MIST NINJA ARE ABOUT TO DROP RAIN BOMBS ON AND US AND WE'RE GONNA DIE!" The girl yelled, struggling to hold back laughter.

As much as he tried to calm the other two down, Kakashi's directions fell silent in the face of the their gradually increasing laughter.

The circle-shaped building.

Kakashi snapped out of his reminiscence, instead looking past where the towering library used to be to see a tiny, oval building on the end of the road. He looked towards space on the street where the old one had been, only to be met with the sigh of a torn down and grimaced landmass.

Nothing had been built up from it, instead it was a mangy block of land covered in trash and infested by rats. Any foundation was minimal, as the patch of turf was mainly the earth's natural dirt.

Kakashi kept walking.

"Woah, this is so weird!" Sakura hung upside down from a tree-branch, letting the wind gently blow through her hair. It was like she had complete control up here, nothing could touch her or hit her or yell at her or…

Her pink locks began to drape down, leaving her forehead exposed with immediate self-consciousness setting in. Hands shot up to try and pull her hair back to normal, but as a result, she began to lose her footing.

Crack!

She just barely managed to keep consistent chakra flow to her feet, almost tipping off the tree completely. It would be embarrassing, but when she looked at the state of her teammates well…

"Haha! Sasuke can't climb the tree!" Naruto laughed from his position on the ground.

"Shut up, neither can you." Sasuke hissed venomously, looking about ready to punch the boy next to him.

"Yeah and neither can you!" Naruto rubbed it in again, forgoing all self-worth just to rib his rival some more. Said rival took a pause, before standing up straight suddenly enough that Naruto backed away in fear that Sasuke was legitimately going to start throwing.

Instead, the Uchiha ripped a kunai from his pouch and pointed it upside the outstretching trunk.

"…The person who can get their kunai to the highest point on the tree wins."

It took a few seconds for the other ninja to process his words, before he broke out into a toothy grin.

"Deal."

Naruto stood up to meet him, only to retrieve a kunai and place it as high as he could reach. Sasuke responded by jumping upwards (using the tree trunk for leverage) and imbedding his kunai into a higher perch.

The hyperactive boy soon realized by looking at the knife that he would need to try a little harder to beat Sasuke in this competition. Gritting his teeth, chakra began to flow into his feet as he ran full steam ahead towards his next goal.

Damp floormats sunk beneath Kakashis as he set foot in the murky, barley-lit library. It's dumpiness was in-line with the rest of the wave, torn-wallpaper and shaggy carpeting feeling not at all uncharacteristic with the location.

A small but long shelf ran through the center of the room, many of the books contained within it boasting busted spines and ripped corners.

"Hello, what can I help you with…" A voice meekly echoed through library, directing Kakashi's attention towards the front counter. The man made his way over there quickly, still getting used to the unpleasant sinking of the carpet.

"Do you have the most recent land of mist digest?" He asked to the young and scrawny counterman.

"I do, but it's not-borrowable. Fuckers were stingy with the amount they gave me this time. Under that fucking Terumi girl, I swear I get less and less each month…" He groaned, handing Kakashi a thick booklet of paper, which was promptly swiped through.

The jonins eye scanned through the pages, specifically looking for one blotted headline. Over and over the paper fell in on itself, not containing what he was looking for, until he finally spotted it:

CONFIRMED BOUNTIES:

Quickly flipping to the front of the page to make sure the date lined up with him and Zabuza's fight, he flicked the stack of pages back to the heading and ran down the names he could see.

J…K…L…M.

To further coordinate his vison, he dragged a finger down the pamphlet, the tip of it somewhat smearing the poorly inscribed ink. Through all the names, he could not mind Momoichi, Zabuza.

That confirms it, the hunter-nin must've been an assistant of some kind.

To think he either had an inside ninja on the anbu, or at least one with the precise ability that was shown set off a train of thought in Kakashi's head. There was a lot he didn't know about Zabuza Momochi. Motivation, family history, pure skillset…

"Oh, you're a Konoha man." The librarian suddenly blurted, detracting him from his mindscape, at least for the moment.

"Yep."

"I'm from Konoha too, yeah, moved here a few months after the big fox attack. Makes you want to get away from it all when you see some big-ass nine tail monstrosity charging at your apartment block. Names Ojiro Azawa" The man spoke with surprisingly spritely look in his eye, barley focusing on Kakashi.

"Hm. Land of Waves treating you well?" The still-residing Konoha shinobi asked, his exposed eye practically simmering with rhetoric.

"Pfft, as if." He groaned, scratching at the back of his neck. "Not after Gato moved in anyway, guy practically ransacked the place. It's essentially a ghost town now except all the ghosts yell at me for not having the same books the old library used to."

"…Say, speaking of books, do you happen to have anything at all about "Zabuza Momochi"?"

Ojiros face visibly tensed up from just the name, obviously stiffening up despite his attempts to hide any emotional reaction.

"…Nah, man, w-wouldn't know…I mean, I don't think there's anything under that name, could be but if it's here and I've seen it, I haven't seen it, you know what I'm saying?" His teeth were visibly chattering which only intensified under Kakashi's gaze.

"Uh-huh."

That was all it took for the youthful man to completely crack, practically ripping a drawer out from under the counter before he slammed a thick, blue booklet into Kakashis chest.

"Here! It's yours, forever! I don't want it anymore, I thought I did but I didn't!" He cried, almost literally as his moist eyes began to wobble in their sockets. Despite this showing however, Kakashi's attention was firmly locked on the cover of the pamphlet.

"And this is…"

"His manifesto!" The librarian yelled, slamming his hands upon the front desk. "Released before he did it, before the clock struck twelve, before all of it! Terumi banned it in the mist, if they know I have it, they'll fucking lock me up and throw away the key!" Ojiro's cries swiftly devolved into full-blown hysterics. "Take it, take it and run dude!"

Kakashi calmly walked away from the library, leaving a panic-stricken man in his wake and an interesting read tucked behind his vest. The only change he felt within him was the breeze of the cold, wave air.

"Haha, wait till he sees this." Two childish voices laughed to themselves as they observed their handiwork. Said handiwork was in the form of a massive piece of street art that illustrated a man who Kakashi assumed was Gato sat next to a long measuring stick.

Not only did it dwarf him, but another ruler pointed at his crotch adorned by big bold lettering that read.

HE CAN'T STACK UP IN ANY WAY!

Seeing as his footsteps were the only other sound in the barren streets, the two youth's attention was quickly diverted towards him. He noticed both were masked, presumably to hide their identities in case they ran into Gato's gang.

Their laughter died down, eyes staring at Kakashi with an attempt to figure out if they should be scared or pleased. A two-finger salute from the leaf ninja quenched their fears, as the older man continued to walk away. Sad as it was, that may have been the most life he'd seen from the village since he started his stay here.

Closer.

Closer and closer Naruto crawled up the tree, his jaw clenching under the pressure of his chakra. He was being very careful not to expend himself too much, under the risk that it would lead to him bouncing off the tree.

Sasuke in the meanwhile, seemed almost too scared to properly begin scaling the tree as the chakra that radiated from his feet seemed lax and weak, especially in comparison to Naruto's.

BOOM!

"AAAAH!"

Maybe that was for the best, a fact realized by the Uchiha as he saw Naruto crash into the dirt for the gazillioninth time. This case of crash and burn was swiftly accompanied by the sound of the boy's groans.

"Ahhhh! Sakura, there's gotta be some trick you're not telling us about, that's how you can do it!" He bellowed pointing an unenthusiastic but accusing finger at a perched Sakura, who had been uninterestedly running a finger through her pink curls for the better part of ten minutes now.

"Maybe there is, I wouldn't know, 'cause I don't know how you two are processing the technique."

Sasuke glared upwards at her, eyes focused.

"Well…just tell us how you're doing it."

The sentence and positioning of ger squadmates would normally be answered by the girl, but something about it resonated with her. For the first time in her life, Sakura sensed she was on the top side of a power dynamic, and when someone like that is faced with power, they tend to begin tripping.

"I dunno', seems kinda like cheating to me…" She mused, secretly loving the scowl that broke out on Sasuke's face.

Yeah, take that jerk! Who's "useless" now?!

"But Sakura, that's not fair, you've got an advantage 'tabyo!" Naruto protested.

"Yeah, well, maybe if you can put your kunai on my level, then I'll fill one of you in on the secret." Her mischievous smile quickly transferred to Naruto, giving him the push, he needed to stand back onto his feet.

"Alright, you're on!" He bellowed, proudly thrusting his fist outward and beginning to build chakra back up through his base.

"I see everything's going well here." Kakashi's voice suddenly appeared, attracting the attention of all three ninjas.

"Yep!" Naruto replied, more focused on climbing the tree than listening to his teacher. Sasuke simply ignored Kakashi's existence, his feet beginning to feel somewhat light from repeated chakra use.

The only one to really acknowledge the man's presence was Sakura, who couldn't help herself shooting glances towards him, hoping he would figure out she'd been able to do it. He easily caught one of these glances, looking up at her positioning and letting lose what was obviously a smile.

"Good work Sakura."

This, along with the power trip she was already on were enough to make the kunoichi dizzy with excitement.

"AAAAH!" Her focus quickly turned to Naruto, who attempt another mad-sprint up the tree, making it around six feet up the trunk before he was thrown away like a magnet trying to be pressed into another magnet.

Eating dirt once more, he found his face foot-level with Kakashi, looking up at the jonin with disappointed eyes. He fully expected either laughter or belittling from his teacher, but instead, he was helped up off the dirt and brushed down.

"When you're walking up the tree, think of it not vertically, but horizontally, like a tightrope. Just try to keep balance for a little bit."

At first, the Uzumaki boy was surprised at the fact he'd been offered advice at all, but he quickly rebounded, breaking out into a smile.

"Alright! Thanks, Kakashi-Sensei!"

"No problem. I'll be upstairs if you need me." He replied, positive yet monotone before beginning to walk away, hand clutching at the blue book to his side. In the meanwhile, Naruto began to look past his classmates and the forest itself with his eyes setting upon one thing.

The huge tree that lay just outside the depths of the forest.

It towered over its contemporaries, like a tower in the distance, its emerald leaves singing a song of winter air and twilight-lit skies. Almost instinctively, Naruto raised his hand up to it before clenching his fist around the branches, trying to grasp it despite the vastness that lay between the two.

He was going to climb that tree.

Shinobi are tools.

Tools to support an agenda, tools of war, tools of the people at the top.

What's funny to me, is that the people at the top can throwaway lives like food scraps, and then get mad when you do the same thing.

"Hey Zabuza!" Two young boys ran towards him, foreheads protected by the metallic headband of the mist.

"Hey." Was all he replied, as the two began to walk by his side.

One of them, a bowl-cut blonde, looked over his friend, laughing at Zabuza's appearance.

"What's with the tape dude?"

Zabuza's eyes grew fierce but also playfully defensive.

"It's discretion tape, my dad says you have to have it if you're going to be a ninja, because other ninja are gonna have harder time making out your face."

"…Seems kinda lame." The other one of his friends, a taller, brunette boy, said.

"Yeah, well, you need it if you're going to be one of the seven swordsmen."

The seven swordsmen of the mist. The land of mists pride and joy. A group of the most elite swordsmen (and swordswomen, which rendered the name dismissive) found anywhere over the elemental nations.

Recently one of the members, Kisame Hoshigaki. had gone rouge, the reason I later found out being "Unforeseen mental anguish and anxiety".

Made sense in hindsight.

He was young, fifteen when he joined the swordsman and barley eighteen when he left. As a result, they wanted a young, new upstart to take his place. The fact that our classes' examinations were mandatory should've been a red flag, but out we went, the hook of celebrity being too much for us to pass up.

In the classroom, Zabuza's delight was concealed by his bandages, as the seven swordsmen came up to answer questions and even occasionally joke around with the class. For the two-hour long period until lunch break, the future demon of the mist was over the moon.

He and his friends munched on their food, as they lay about the tree that oversaw the river, occasionally passing each other a shrimp chip or a water biscuit topped with fresh whitebait.

"Imagine if we're all so good that they have to become the nine swordsmen of the mist, just to accommodate us." That was Hyogi Ninamura, Zabuza's (at this point) lifelong best friend, a boy who was constantly bouncing with optimism.

"Yeah, then what if they become the twenty swordsmen of the mist." Zabuza joked back, turning to his friend with a carefree look in his eyes. "It'll feel a little less special then won't it?"

Hyogi laughed, returning his gaze to the riverbank.

"Well, whoever get's in has to send the other two souvenirs from wherever they go on their missions." A standing boy said, while he leaned back against the tree. This was Ochabo Nomura. Not the brightest boy, but physically adept enough that he exceled at taijutsu and ninjutsu.

"Wanna skip a stone?" Hyogi asked, sitting up off the ground and picking up a smooth, puck-shaped rock he'd been eying.

"I dunno." Zabuza replied, staying fixed on the ground.

"Oh, come on, one more time before we become proper swordsmen." Ochabo said, with a hint of force.

"Fine." Zabuza lazily stood up, grasping the rock in his palm. He threw it upwards a few times, getting a feel for its weight before rearing his elbow back and throwing it outwards, releasing the stone from his grasp.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

TISH.

The rock finally sunk downwards, its momentum fizzling out like the bubbles in the water.

"Woah, fourteen skips, that's the lucky number!" Hyogi exclaimed with stars in his eyes, turning back to his bandaged friend. "I'm sure you're gonna get in now Zabuza!'

Sometimes, I wondered what would've happened if I hadn't skipped that stone. See, the hook may have been buttered up, gleaming in a way that makes you think it's not dangerous, but it's still a hook, it's still sharp, and once it grabs onto you it doesn't let go.

"W-what?" Zabuza's voice was low, as he struggled to comprehend the information he'd just learnt. The air in the mist academy battle area was heavy on his lungs. Across him stood Hyogi, just as lost and confused by the rules set out as his friend was…at least that's what he showed.

"You heard me…the first one to kill the other wins. If either of you refuse, you will both be killed so it's advised that one of you kills the other instead of wasting both of your lives." Fuguki Suikazan delivered this information to the two teens as if he was telling them they'd scored a B on some test that didn't matter.

Zabuza's breathing began to intensify, his body frozen in pain and fear.

Then he saw it.

A previously downcast Hyogi looked up at him, tears in his eyes.

"I'm sorry Zabuza." The boy said, voice shaking.

All the other ninja could muster up was a quiet, broken murmur.

"Don't"

When an animal is backed into a corner it will lash out. That's a rule of nature. Now us humans, well, we like to think we're above it, but really, we're the same. Push a human against a wall and watch how quickly they snap.

Hyogi began to charge at Zabuza, a twisted bloodlust pouring from his eyes. His target just stood still, hoping, no, praying, that he would either wake up or Hyogi would just stop running.

You see it in the eyes, windows to the soul and all that. When a person's not ready to die, they start looking like an animal.

Those eyes.

Zabuza couldn't snap himself out of it.

Eyes that had been once filled with humor and charm were now fully enveloped by fear and cruelty. There was nothing human about those eyes.

There was nothing human about those eyes.

Hyogi reached his arm out to try and harm Zabuza. Whether he was trying to gouge the eyes or choke Zabuza out was indiscernible as his technique was non-existent. Zabuza's wasn't. The taped-boy's leg shot out sharply, shattering Hyogi's arm under his knee and sending his friend sharply down to the ground.

Now, Zabuza initial thoughts were to snap the neck. Painless, fast, a respectful end, nothing could be better in this situation. He leapt onto Hyogis body, gripping both sides of his head in preparation.

Only he saw the eyes again.

Hazel-filled spirals filled with regret, terror, kinship, hatred, dread and everything in between that selection of emotions. Something about them deeply disturbed Zabuza. He wanted them to go away.

That's the real fucked up thing about the trials. No knife, no weapons. Seems counterintuitive for the swordsman of the mist but they want to judge you. They want to see you backed up to a corner with nothing.

Looking back at it now, with combat training in-mind I should've gouged him, but when you're a little kid, well, those eyes are really goddamn scary.

Bam!

Zabuza's knuckle smashed into Hyogi's face, breaking his nose easily. Hyogi responded by doing the worst thing he possibly could in this situation. He reopened his eyes.

Bam!

Zabuza thumped him again. Same result.

Bam!

This time the punch concussed his friend, which only exemplified the problem. Hyogi lost all sound mental functions, eyes reopening instinctively…again and again and again.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

Tears streamed down Zabuza's face as he continued to drive his fist into Hyogi's face. It felt like an eternity, yet he could never keep the eyes shut, every punch being met with that sharp, stinging gaze once more.

I never got his eyes to close. Juzo ripped me away before I could do anything more. It wasn't out of compassion or disgust, Hyogi had just been long-dead so it was pointless. That was the first time I passed out covered in someone's blood.

"HEY MEIYA!" Tetsuji's voice snapped Kakashi out of the manifesto, the older man not realizing how deep he'd gone into the book until he'd been taken out of it.

"YEAH?!"

"WE GOT ANYMORE DOENJANG?!" Instead of taking two minutes to go downstairs and talk to his wife, Tetsuji had decided that his time was extremely valuable and not worth wasting. In actuality: Tetsuji was feeling lazy and decided he just needed to yell.

"NOPE!"

"OKAY, I'LL ADD IT TO THE LIST!" With this, he turned back to Kakashi through the doorframe with a sympathetic smile. "Sorry."

Kakashi just nodded his head.

Closer.

Closer.

Naruto felt his grip on the tree slipping, Kakashi's technique only being able to keep him steady for so long. It was like he was no longer climbing the tree with his chakra, instead he was just climbing like he would regularly.

He reached his hand up, trying to fully extend himself up as high as he could to correspond with his ever-slipping grip.

SNIKT!

The kunai stuck just above Sakuras head.

Naruto didn't really have time to appreciate his victory before he fell to the floor, landing flat on his back.

"Oohh." He groaned, the brunt-force pain that coursed through him beginning to feel all too familiar. The only thing that soothed it was the fact that he had the secret now and Sasuke (who had been a few feet below) didn't.

Speaking of the secret, he felt Sakuras hand grasp his, pulling him up to his feet.

"Good job Nar- "

"Tellmethesecret!" He blurted, almost too fast for her to properly respond.

"Alright, alright, what you have to do is…"

Sasuke liked to think he had extremely good hearing, but Sakura's "secret" soon devolved into indecipherable whispers that he had no chance of interpreting. The smile that broke out on Naruto's face only served to piss him off more.

Sakura left to go inside around a minute later, presumably out of boredom, Sasuke didn't care. What Sasuke did care about was the fact that he'd slipped off the tree yet again when Naruto was making fine progress.

Something lit up under him. He didn't know what, but his previously lax chakra control stiffened up and he began to sprint up the tree trunk, completely focused on reaching Naruto's level. He ran higher and higher until his rival was just in arms reach, sticking his limb out just in front of him.

"Huh?" Naruto exclaimed, as he felt Sasuke's arm brush past his head and imbedded the kunai just above where Naruto had previously stuck his. He may have begun to fall downwards, but he did it, surpassing where Naruto had placed his.

Waiting until Sasuke hit the ground, Naruto simply ripped his kunai out and placed it a few notches above the other. Sasuke looked up, the shit-eating grin that reflected back not making it easy before his eyes darted to the side and he mumbled:

"Tell me the secret."

Naruto's smug smile intensified. "I didn't get that, what'd you say?"

"I said tell me the secret." Sasuke replied with venom.

Naruto's smile grew brighter than what was previously thought possible by human facial features. "What's the magic word?"

The Uchiha didn't know if he was willing to suck up his pride and say it. It took him a full thirty seconds to even show a hint of life, before he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and said:

"Tell me the secret, please."

In saying this, he actually surprised Naruto, who had been one-billion percent sure that this was not going to be said.

"…okay." The blonde replied, promptly jumping down from the tree (childishly hurting his knees in the process). He leaned in close to Sasuke's ear, covering his mouth with one of his hands.

"Wait, why are you whispering it? I'm the only other person here."

Naruto looked back at him like he was an idiot before his vision scanned the surroundings. Quietly, he turned back to Sasuke and whispered, tone not joking in the slightest…

"Spies…"

"…If their spies, I'm pretty sure they know how to climb trees."

"Yeah, well, whatever, maybe I won't tell you the secret. Maybe you're a spy and that's why you want it so bad." Naruto looked back at Sasuke like he'd just ascended to a higher-tier of philosophy than that which was previously known in the ninja world and unfortunately, due to the information that he had, Sasuke was forced to treat him like it.

"…Okay fine, whisper it." He groaned, letting out a sigh. Naruto had won this round.

I think it was the Second Kazekage who wrote the essay on the "theory of adaption". It said that creatures who were able to adapt to their surroundings, would always survive while those who didn't died off.

Crack!

Ochabo's neck snapped beneath Zabuza's arms, his eyes going completely blank.

It was an intentionally cruel process. You never knew when you were going to get called up or even on what day the next round would be. All you knew was if your name was called out by the swordsmen, you were either leaving a murderer or not leaving at all.

See, every day I'd go out there knowing I was walking into death, but the others, even the others that killed…

CRACK!

A young boys neck shattered under Zabuza's boot.

Just.

"AAAAH!"

While previously being pinned down, Zabuza took the advantage in her grief and lunged at her eyes.

Couldn't.

BAM!

Punches relentlessly mowed down upon a boy's face, each attack pushing him closer and closer to the light.

Grasp it.

Everyday they'd have those same eyes and every time I'd kill them. I killed them all.

I made it to the swordsmen, obviously and I hated it. For all their talks of being "heroes' of the mist" what they really were were six egomaniacs, high on both mist propaganda and, most of the time, actual drugs.

I quickly learnt what "heroes of the mist" meant in Seiya Samina's context

"No, please, you can't just-!" A man tried to protest as a bolt of lightning slashed through his head while Zabuza's sword cut through his associates like butter.

Leaf village immigrants and people who opposed the Mizukage. That's who we were taking out.

They said it would get better under Yagura. "The reformer" they called him, the man who tamed a tailed beast. He was soft, nothing reformed under him and then bam, he was dead, big surprise.

Water flushed into the sink, hasty hands picking it up and throwing it into his face. Cheers echoed from outside the small, dimly-lit stall that Zabuza was in.

"…Now Officially the Fifth Mizukage, Mei Terumi!"

Didn't buy into Terumi's bullshit reforming either. I could tell, she was soft as well. After Raiga got done in, a new kid joined the team. Mangetsu. Had the same eye's as me, clearly went through the trials. Only difference was they'd started doing it covertly.

Apparently, she'd "lobbied" for the trials to be removed, but it seems like a load of shit to me. The Fifth Mizukage can't revoke school murder? What a joke. She was big on education as well, real big on education.

Made it an easy decision to make.

Juzo Biwa was the closest thing I had to a mentor on the swordsmen. Scarred up, tatted-up guy from down south, on the outskirts Kirigakure. Forty years old. A lunatic with no people skills but he taught me a few things. Taught me to respect the sword, taught me how to silently kill, but the most important thing he taught me?

Fire crackled around the street, uplifting from the houses that strayed to the side. Juzo sat in the middle, surrounded by bodies of the people he and Zabuza had murdered, a non-militant shinobi protest group who had protested Seiya's civil-war on the leaf.

Even a trained killer like Zabuza couldn't help but flinch as he felt the blood seep through a man's shirt, the body of which he was dragging outside to the streets now.

"This is a lot of work, Juzo." He said, tossing the lifeless corpse onto the ever-accumulating pile.

"Fuck it." The older man slurred, clearly drunk, his eyes gazing around the flames. "Shinobi…Zabuza, Shinobi are tools. Tools to send the message youwant to s-send. All this…bullshit…we're all tools, man…"

That night, I wrote it off as drunken stupor, some shit Juzo was spouting, whether out of comedy or grief I didn't know. The funny thing is, he was right and through the years I started to realize it, started to see the bigger picture.

Those at the top use those at the bottom as cannon-fodder. This is another rule of nature, except this one is the modernized take, this is what humans have pushed the rules to accept and we'll continue to push and prod and pull at the rules, until, they snap, because that's all the people who make the rules know how to do, make things snap.

Zabuza's footsteps echoed through the school hall's, as he headed towards the nearest classroom in the mist academy. It was funny, normally the sights and smells would send him back to his childhood, but he knew there was no time for reminiscence here.

Ding!

The clock struck twelve in the morning, meaning it was time for lunch break.

Ding!

He opened the door to the sixth-grade classroom. Through the window he counted at least twenty ninja's-in-training.

Ding!

"Woah, is that Zabuza Momoichi?!"

"He's a swordsman of the mist."

"Like, a hero or something."

He heard whispers spread around the class.

Ding!

Shinobi are tools to send a message.

Zabuza reached for the sword on his back.