ᴅᴇꜱᴛɪɴʏ ʀᴇʙɪʀᴛʜ|ⁿᵃʳᵘᵗᵒˣⁿᵃʳᵘᵏᵒ

The Chunin exams

(very long chapter)

"So, this is goodbye, huh?" Naruto said as he and Team Seven stood in front of the completed bridge in Wave.

Across from him, Zabuza nodded with Haku faithfully by his side.

"Yeah, it is brat." He said, "We'll be heading towards Mizu no Kuni — one of my contacts managed to get me an audience with the rebel leader. We'll be expecting to meet up with them a week from now."

"That's good to hear, Zabuza-san." Naruko said beside her brother, smiling brightly at the older girl beside the man, "Please take care of Haku-chan, alright?"

"Thank you for your concern and hospitality." Haku replied pleasantly, a small smile on her lips. "I'll miss you Naruko-chan."

Naruko smiled at her new friend before proceeding to hug her warmly. "And I you, Haku-chan. Write to me when you get to Kiri, alright?"

Haku just nodded.

It had already been a week since that battle on the bridge that many locals had taken to calling 'The Battle of Nami'. Naruto had commented the name had bordered on the cheesy side, but the name stuck and the events were being retold again and again by the citizens of the newly revived Nami no Kuni.

They were eternally grateful to the shinobi who had granted freedom to their small country, and had promised to spread their tale of their incredible exploits far and wide.

The Konoha ANBU that the Sandaime had sent out beforehand had already ransacked the late tycoon's compound; his entire fortune lay bare and abandoned. The ANBU took the liberty of 'repurposing' the stolen wealth and sent the majority of the money into Nami no Kuni's coffers, as per the Hokage's orders to help the country rebuild.

After recuperating from the battle, Naruto had volunteered his shadow clones as a cheap labor force to continue building the bridge — what with Tazuna's workers down for the count, someone had to take up the hammer. On the third day, Naruko had finally caught up as to why her brother had been absent for their training sessions and promptly offered her own services as well.

Tazuna couldn't be happier — a force of over a thousand clones were more than enough to complete the bridge in record time, and it helped that both Uzumakis had a knack for carpentering and construction.

Then, on the third day, Sasuke woke up.

The first thing everyone noticed was the familiar red of the Sharingan in the boy's eyes — one tomoe in the left eye, two tomoe in the right. Kakashi then explained to him everything that had happened after he had been knocked unconscious, where Naruto managed to convince Zabuza to switch sides and help them kill Gatō.

At first, Sasuke was pissed and miffed at missing the action, but he finally relented when Haku apologized to him, partially soothing his heavily bruised ego. It helped that Naruto — the object of his constant ire and hatred — was making an effort to be sociable to the Uchiha, which slightly surprised the boy.

The blonde even offered to train with him, but he did warn the raven head to not try to kill him, or Naruto would follow through with his threat that he had made on the first day they had met. All things considered, they managed to placate the Uchiha's anger.

Team Seven continued to train in earnest, in light of the recent events which shook their confidence in their abilities to the core, and had pestered their lazy Jōnin-sensei to train them further, as to prepare for events such as this one in the future.

Kakashi gladly obliged, although his tardiness was beginning to grate on their nerves — including Naruko's who was the most level-headed of the bunch, and only after threatening to report him to the Hokage had managed to get the silver-haired man to actually teach them something more productive.