Zabuza most likely would be a long time recovering from Naruto's "Thousand Needles Of Death" technique. Not that Naruto called it that, but that the phrase pretty much summed up what that application of his "Railgun No Jutsu" did.
Gato of Gato Corporation and his hired mercenary army had attacked him. Letting them live past that was not official ninja policy.
"Naruto?" asked Kakashi as Naruto came past with the somewhat charred wagon that had formerly held the corpses of Gato's mercenaries. Said cart now piled high with boxes and chests and carpets and even some furniture.
"Well, I just followed my sense of where a lot of weapons were, Kakashi-sensei." Naruto indicated one section which indeed had a bundle of weapons of various types there. "There was a lot of money and stuff there, so Rin-chan and Sasuke helped carry stuff."
"So basically," said Kakashi. "You took members of your team and looted the enemy base?"
Naruto stopped, hearing a dangerous tone in his sensei's voice. "Uhm, I guess?"
Kakashi kept up the look for a moment before shrugging. "Good job, Naruto. There's hope for you yet."
It was midnight, and sleep was not forthcoming for Sakura Haruno.
Partly this was because she'd collapsed into unconsciousness and had then woken up from cramps and aches and pains that had resulted from how she had sprawled.
So she had a lot of hurt keeping her awake.
The role of a kunoichi was different from the role of a shinobi for the most part after one reached chunin level. That had been the whole point of teaching them things like flower arranging in the Academy. Pure combat mission - male shinobi. Infiltration, spying, general sneakiness - kunoichi dominated that part of the ninja profession. Also tended to rely on poisons or go into the medical field or genjutsu. Not that there weren't kunoichi that were just as much combat-monsters as the male side of things, there certainly were - but the subtler stuff tended to attract more kunoichi after reaching chunin.
There were a few chunin and jonin who were female, Sakura knew of three off the top of her head. Kurenai Yuhi, jonin-sensei of Team 8. Genjutsu expert. Tsunade, one of the three legendary ninja of Konoha - who was a medic-nin. Suzume, the chunin teacher of women's skills at the Academy. Whose expertise seemed to be infiltration and poisons despite being a bit of a cleanliness fanatic.
Or perhaps she was into cleanliness because she was used to working with poisons. Not the first time she'd considered that.
Now there was Rin, who was apparently a chunin and was a medic-nin. It was obvious to Sakura that she needed to study something besides pure academia if she was going to keep up with her two team-mates.
Sasuke was, well, Sasuke. Naruto wasn't completely hopeless anymore.
Sitting on the roof of Tazuna's house, Sakura looked out in the dark and pondered her future as she tried to work aches out of her joints.
Movement where there really shouldn't be caught her attention.
"Genjutsu," said a twitching Sakura a moment later. "It's a genjutsu. That's all."
On the other hand, if it was NOT a genjutsu - then there were a lot of shambling figures moving towards Tazuna's house.
It couldn't be.
"Zombies?!" asked a horrified Naruto's voice. "Aw, c'mon. That's just WRONG."
So it wasn't just her. Well, there really was just one way for her to react to this.
"AHHH! You don't exist! You aren't real! Go away!"
"Uhm, Kakashi-sensei?" asked Naruto, pointing. "Why is Sakura throwing roof tiles at the zombies?"
"Because she doesn't want to go hand-to-hand with them?" tried Kakashi.
"Why is she yelling they don't exist?" asked Naruto.
"I'm not sure," admitted Kakashi. "It seems to be confusing the zombies too."
Naruto glanced out there at the confused zombies.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
"Sasuke's awake," noted Naruto.
"I think he's got the right idea," said Kakashi.
"What's that?" asked Naruto.
"Fire," said Kakashi, before going through hand-seals.
Then Rin walked past both of them. "Sing, Choukanohi. A hymn to pass them on to the next life."
"Must be this thing," said Sasuke, coming up to Kakashi with a box. "Looted it from Gato's safe."
"It's glowing, so that's a safe bet," agreed Kakashi. "Let's try it out."
A large number of zombies suddenly lunged. For Sasuke. Who was still carrying the box. And was just now realizing that might not be a good idea.
Much later:
"So, Kakashi," said the Sandaime Hokage. "You left here with three genin to guard a bridgebuilder."
"Right," said Kakashi.
"You came back with three genin, a chunin who is alive despite being dead prior to this, a percentage of profits from the bridge use until such time as an A-Rank mission can be paid for," noted the Hokage.
"Speaking of which, that was a very nice touch, Rin," admitted Kakashi.
"Experience haggling with merchants over prices," admitted Rin. "It's a talent."
"Also two bloodlines that were awakened," said the Hokage. "Naruto got the Weaponmaster, while Sasuke's Sharingan awoke-"
"It was when he got mobbed by zombie prostitutes," said Kakashi. "I thought he was going to die from bloodloss first."
"They bit him?" asked the Hokage, appropriately horrified.
"Actually, they were trying to do something else with him. I think he was equally horrified, nauseated, and something I wasn't expecting from a kid his age," admitted Kakashi.
"I see," said the Hokage. "Kakashi. I'm going to want a VERY detailed report."
"Really?" asked Kakashi.
"You can leave out what the zombies were trying to do with Sasuke Uchiha," said the Hokage, looking a bit green at the thought. "Really. Some underneaths are best left un-looked under."
"I put in a stipulation that Tazuna is going to spread the word about how generous and badass Konohagakure is," said Rin, changing the subject. "If that helps at all."
"I think a full report from you as well," said the Hokage. "And Kakashi?"
"Sir?" asked Kakashi.
"Two days at the latest, don't be late with this."
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(Posted Tue, 24 Sep 2013 17:18)
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