Chapter Text
Chapter 5 - Wave:-
Whyever did I decide to go on this mission?’ grumbled Naruto. It had been a month since Team 7 ‘passed’. The following month was filled with chores that these people called ‘D-rank missions. Naruto never did any of them; he refused to even show up after the first mission he attended, and Kakashi didn’t really care too much, probably because he’d offered the man some Icha Icha.
This one was the first ‘real’ mission that Team 7 had received after a whole lot of whining from Sasuke and his accompanying NPC Sakura. They were to escort this bridge builder, Tazuna, to Wave Country. It was labelled as C-Rank as they were moving outside the relative safety of the village, and they were to expect enemies on the way. Nothing more than some bandits, though.
The current cause of his ire was one Sakura Haruno. He truly wondered how she was considered the smartest girl in their batch. He was pretty sure that it was standard for the Academy to educate its students on the different nations of the Shinobi world. Even he knew that Wave was a fishing country.
That was when he noticed the puddle on the ground some 50 meters ahead. Instantly, he figured out that there was going to be an ‘ambush’ soon. Heh, if only they knew. He contemplated alerting Kakashi about this, but he just shrugged and kept quiet. The man may be perverted but he was no fool. He would have certainly noticed it.
Soon, they were right in front of the puddle, and as expected, from the puddle jumped out a pair of humans. The most striking part of them was that they were wearing gauntlets around their arms, chains wrapped all around it. The chains instantly rushed forward to wrap themselves around Kakashi, ripping him to shreds instantly.
Immediately, Sasuke and Sakura broke down, seeing their sensei ‘die’. Seriously, were they really so dumb? He was a Jounin, the best of the best. He would not die so easily. But he decided to quit worrying about it and decided to just end the two nitwits who decided to attack.
With a burst of speed, he disappeared, reappearing behind the one who wore the gauntlet on his left arm and quickly snapped his neck. With that same swiftness, she appeared behind the other one and kicked his knee in and pushed him down on the floor with his arms held behind his back as he dropped to a crouch and pushed his own knees down onto the man’s head.
It was at that moment that Kakashi decided to show up again.
“Kakashi-sensei!” screeched Sakura. “We thought you died! How-what happened?” she asked, a confused stammering mess.
Naruto and Kakashi just shook their heads. “Sakura, I’m a jounin. Do you really think that I’ll die just like that?” asked Kakashi mildly annoyed. Of course, Sakura had no answer and just decided to shut up.
Sasuke was still in a state of shock. ‘Why did I freeze up? No, obviously not. I would never be afraid of pathetic losers like them. No, I just wanted to give that idiot a chance to beat them. Yes, that’s it.’ Thought Sasuke.
“Now then” Kakashi said, “What do we do about our dear bridge builder here?”
“What do you mean, Kakashi-sensei? Don’t we just continue on with the mission?” asked Sakura. Kakashi just facepalmed and decided to elaborate.
“Sakura, Tazuna paid us for a C-Rank mission. This means that we should face no threat beyond some thugs and bandits on the road. The fact that we’ve encountered a pair of shinobi immediately raises the rank of the mission to a B-Rank. The mission we got was a C-Rank, thus we are well within our rights to either take Tazuna back to Konoha, have him pay for the B-Rank, and send a different team to complete the mission or we can also just leave him here.” Kakashi said, looking intently at Tazuna.
“Please, you-please just hear my story! We-I really need your help! I’m sorry for lying about the threat level, and I’ll make sure to pay the full amount! I swear it! Please, just listen to my story!” Tazuna wailed. Seeing Kakashi’s nod, he continued with his story.
Sakura was moved to tears by the end of it. She really was unfit for the life of a shinobi. “Kakashi-sensei! We aren’t leaving him, right? We have to help him!” she screamed. Kakashi just massaged his forehead, feeling the onset of a nice headache. Sasuke just grunted, which in this context probably meant that he wanted to continue too. Looking at his last, and most skilled student, he saw Naruto just shrug, as if he couldn’t care either way.
Kakashi just sighed. “Alright, we’ll continue with the mission. But, Tazuna, you’ll have to pay the full price of a B-Rank or the price of whatever rank this mission is classified as at its completion. Do you understand?” asked Kakashi seriously. “It will not be fun if you decide to not pay the full price or try to run.”
Tazuna nodded his head rapidly. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much! And I swear I’ll pay the full price at the end!” he said.
Naruto pulled Kakashi over to one side. “Kakashi, I’ll interrogate him.” He said simply. Kakashi’s eyes widened before they quickly narrowed. “How do you know how to interrogate someone?” he asked suspiciously. For a Genin to have knowledge on how to perform an interrogation was very unusual.
Naruto just nodded. “I do. I’ll interrogate him. Take the team, move onwards, but be careful. I’ll catch up with you guys once I’m done.” Naruto said. Kakashi, still suspicious, just nodded, told him to be careful, and walked off with the team and Tazuna.
Once Naruto was sure that they weren’t around, he turned towards the unconscious ninja. He thought about how he wanted to interrogate him, before deciding that there was no point in doing it the old and traditional way and just used the Nakara path of his Rinnegan.
He went over and kicked him in the stomach, effectively waking him up before calling the King of Hell through his Nakara path. It soon rose up from the ground and wrapped its tendrils around the ninja as he started screaming.
“He is the King of Hell. If you answer every question I ask truthfully, he’ll let you go. If you don’t, he’ll kill you and take your soul. Simple, right? Now then, who are you? Do you work for someone? If so, who?” said Naruto.
The ninja shakily answered him, obviously shaken by the actual King of Hell staring right at him with his unnerving Rinnegan. “I’m Gozu, one of the Demon Brothers of the Mist. I work for Zabuza Momochi.” He stammered out.
“Good, good.” Said Naruto as the tendrils that were once tightly wrapped around the now named Gozu unraveled themselves. The next moment, Gozu started choking on his own blood as his throat was pierced by Naruto’s kunai.
He picked up the kunai, sealed the corpse in a scroll and felt for where Kakashi was currently located. It was actually very close by, they’d only managed to make it a few hundred meters away before they were attacked again, probably by Zabuza. Close by, he felt another strong presence, probably an accomplice of Zabuza. ‘Oh well.’ He thought, not really concerned. He could literally make an infinite amount of anything he wanted anytime and could destroy everything at the snap of a finger. He had no reason to be concerned.
He appeared at the sight of the fight. Kakashi and who he presumed to be Zabuza were fighting on the water while Sasuke and Sakura were watching bug-eyed on the shore, not even bothering to even get into a protective position around Tazuna.
Right at this moment, Kakashi got caught off-guard by the Demon of the Hidden Mist. Zabuza quickly trapped Kakashi in a water ball. Naruto decided that he’d watched enough and went over a punched Zabuza, making sure to tone it down so that Zabuza only just went flying a few meters away, instead of his entire body exploding into fine paste. Hey, he was bored, and this was entertainment, and you keep entertainment around.
Kakashi inhaled a breath of fresh air as he finally got free of the water ball. Naruto could understand why. It wasn’t just a normal ball of water that he was trapped under. It somehow felt more pressurized than usual, like how it would feel when you’re several hundred feet under water. It quickly started stealing the breath away from Kakashi. Of course, he wouldn’t die like one normally would when they undergo rapid decompression as they move from deep underwater towards shallower waters quickly.
Naruto quickly went over to Zabuza and punched him hard again, right to his nose, making a nice popping sound as Zabuza went underwater from the force of his punch. It was at this moment that the accomplice that he’d felt before came over to try and save him but Naruto was quicker and drove the accomplice to unconsciousness with a single smack as he went underwater to pull Zabuza out.
He hefted the both of them up on each shoulder as he turned back to look at the wide-eyed, shocked expressions on everyone’s face.
“So we going or not?”