Chapter 55

Kakashi rubbed his temples. "So you're telling me that S-rank missing-nin Deidara from Iwagakure killed Gato and all his men and then blew up Gato's hideout? And he intends to blow up the bridge next?" Sakura and Haku, who was wearing his Kirigakure hunter-nin outfit without the mask, were likewise stunned by the unlikely news.

"That's our best guess for the 'venue' he was talking about," I clarified. Sasuke and I had come as quickly as possible to report to Kakashi on the bridge. Something still bothered me about the entire meeting. "If Itachi is dead, why does Deidara hate the Sharingan? Why is he missing an arm?"

The man looked at the two of us incredulously. "You don't seem like you're lying. But that seems kind of hard to believe..."

A massive explosion rocked the bridge and the shadow of a humongous bird passed over us.

Kakashi slowly looked up, a pained expression in his eye. "Is that..."

"Yes," I answered. "That would be Deidara."

Everyone on the bridge watched the underside of the giant white clay bird circle make circles in the air. The workers were on the verge of panic, cowering under building materials or peering over the side of the bridge and wondering whether diving skills would see them through. Team Seven and Haku prepared to evade any attacks from the sky.

"Remember, he infuses his explosive clay with his chakra, meaning he can make it explode on command. That means all his clay sculptures act as remotely controlled bombs. But because his techniques are all earth-based, you should be able to diffuse them with lightning chakra." I was sure as hell going to fill Deidara's head with genjutsu if I had the chance too. I didn't trust my genjutsu to work on half of Akatsuki, but with Deidara it was worth a try.

Sakura was the first to ask, "Why isn't he attacking?"

Haku offered the guess, "Maybe he is waiting for something?"

I had no fucking clue what was going on. I wished I could just click my heels together and go back to ordinary Naruto where things were predictable.

Sasuke pointed at the sky, Sharingan spinning in their sockets, "Incoming projectiles!"

It was not kunai or shuriken or clay insects but rather dozens of copies of Deidara's head floating down from the sky, dangling from tiny parachutes. Each one was an elegantly sculpted replica of the original, all the way down to the long hair over his left eye. Soon they peppered the bridge, their pale white eyes blinking as civilians crept toward them out of curiosity.

When the last head landed, they spoke in unison. "Dear philistines, I'll be back to destroy this bridge in one week unless the masked Sharingan user comes out to fight me. Please be sure to pass this message along to him. That is, if you survive my small demonstration." And then the disembodied heads all began to cackle madly.

"No, you fools! Get away from those!" Sasuke yelled.

All over the bridge, explosions and screams resounded, echoing through the misty ocean air. Eventually, the sounds of the bombs ended and there were only the pained cries of wounded men carried on the breeze.

Deidara and his clay bird were long gone.

"What did you do to make him so angry, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked frantically.

Kakashi didn't seem to know what was going on either. "What makes you think I did anything, Sakura?"

Sasuke chimed in, "The message did mention a masked Sharingan user. So are you going to fight him?"

Instead of giving an answer, Kakashi said, "Sakura, can you tend to the wounded?"

The girl tugged on my arm. "Haru, let's go. Haru, what's up with you?"

And then I remembered that I wasn't just watching these events happen. I was actually here. I was here and I could change things with my own two hands. In a way that I never really felt in Konoha, I realized that I was a shinobi now and of course things wouldn't be the same as the story I remembered.

"I'm sorry, Sakura. Yeah, let's go." I was trembling in my coat. I had spent years preparing for this. Zabuza was the beginning. But I had expected him. As I followed Sakura's lead and assisted her efforts at triage with my own feeble Mystical Palm Technique, despite everything I had taught myself, I still felt unprepared for what was to come.

"So what kind of training are you going to show us, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked as we waited before Kakashi in the woods nearby Tazuna's house.

"This." Kakashi walked up the side of the tree, his body completely perpendicular to the trunk.

The three of us waited for him to do something. Our leader continued to walk up the tree and onto the underside of a branch. Upside down, he paused and said to us, "Focus your chakra in your feet and use it to stick to the tree. This will..."

"Just a second, Sensei. You want us to walk up the tree?" the pink-haired girl asked.

"Yes, Sakura. You will climb the tree without using your hands. As I was about to explain..." Kakashi was cut off as Sasuke nonchalantly walked up the tree.

"We already know how to do the tree-walking exercise," Sasuke said, his arms crossed in an expression of unimpressed boredom.

"Is that so?" Kakashi asked suspiciously.

"We already know how to walk on trees and fight on top of water and a lot of other things," I answered.

"And who taught you?" the white-haired man asked me. "They don't teach those things at the Academy."

"I did." If I had simply gone along with the Academy curriculum, I would certainly have been a know-nothing genin impressed by the ability to walk up trees.

"Yes, but who taught you, Haru?"

"I just knew from the start," I said.

Kakashi fell from the tree branch and flipped during his split-second fall to land on his feet in front of me. "I should have known," he said, closing his eye wearily as he ran his hand through his coarse white hair. "How strong do you think you are, Haru?" the jounin asked, slowly opening his eye to stare at me.

"Maybe special jounin?" I guessed. It wasn't like I had a lot of examples to compare myself to.

"Really? That strong?" Kakashi's mask obscured all but the vaguest hints as to what he was thinking. I couldn't tell whether he thought I was being arrogant or whether he expected a different answer or if he was thinking about something else.

"Maybe. You could say I'm a genjutsu specialist. But there are a lot of people who have ways of countering genjutsu. Against anyone who's immune to genjutsu, I'm a lot weaker. I have one really strong and versatile attack technique but throwing exploding fireballs will only get me so far, which is why I really wanted to learn kenjutsu now that I'm out of the academy. Sage mode is useful if I have time to prepare but I can't ever count on that for sure. My medical techniques are really only good enough for patching up minor injuries and I don't know much fuinjutsu besides storage seals."

I could tear a hole in anyone who was weak to genjutsu. But against anyone else I'd have to be extremely careful as I was paper thin in terms of defense and lacking any real options in that area besides misdirection with clones.

"How is your taijutsu?" Kakashi asked.

"Pretty good," was all I said. "And that's compared to monsters like Naruto and Hinata." I'd put good odds on myself to win against anyone below jounin. Against anyone stronger than that, well, that's why I stocked up my bag of tricks during my spare time at the academy.

"What do you think about Sasuke and Sakura?" he asked as if the two of them weren't part of the conversation.

"Sasuke is probably high chunin-level while Sakura is around the lower end of chunin, judging by how far they've taken the Rasengan. The Sharingan bumps up Sasuke in a lot of areas. He just lacks in combat experience. Whereas Sakura doesn't have as much chakra as Sasuke, her medical techniques are extremely useful."

Back in the ground, Sasuke looked annoyed at the frank assessment of his abilities. Sakura also seemed embarrassed. The Academy did very little for our combat abilities, focusing more on drilling us on regulations and procedures and making sure we weren't completely useless as genin. I supposed that was all one could really expect from a standardized institution. Likewise, Uchiha clan matters took up a significant portion of Sasuke's time now that he was the clan heir.

"Is the Sharingan really that powerful?" Sakura asked meekly.

Kakashi looked at her with a thin eye. "Indeed. There are people who would kill for the power of the Sharingan." He rubbed his chin through his mask. "I suppose I have something to teach you that would be useful. I can't say that you'll be able to learn it in a week but it might be interesting to see you guys try."

Kakashi began to gather blue, sparking chakra in his hand. "This is called the Chidori. I've copied a lot of techniques with the Sharingan but this one is my first original technique. Make sure you pay attention because it takes a lot of chakra..."