A revelation

"Anno! Wake up!" Sakura yelled, pulling me out of sleep with all the gentleness with which Naruto eats ramen.

"Stop kicking me! I'm awake!" I said, before standing from my floormat and walking downstairs to eat breakfast with everyone else.

"You know, it's times like these that I miss being in a hostile country with enemies all around where a single misstep could get me killed, you know why? Because there was no one waking me at seven every morning!" I said.

"I start waking you at six, it just takes an hour to wake you up" Sakura said.

"Oh, I'm sorry, does it hurt your feet when you kick me for an hour?" I asked.

"I poked you with my foot, I didn't kick you" she said.

"Well-" I started to say before I was interrupted by Sasuke.

"the bridge is almost done, I think we should go through what we learned, after all, we rarely train together" Sasuke said.

"Sasuke's wrong" Naruto said as he came down the stairs in a white T-shirt and orange shorts, yawning and clearly not having actually heard what Sasuke said, but disagreeing on principle nonetheless.

"wouldn't it be a good idea to not just share what we learned but also how long it took to learn, just to plan who might be good enough to learn something new in the short time we have and who might not be good enough" Sasuke said, looking pointedly at Naruto.

"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!" Naruto asked.

"It means that I learned the tree-walking exercise before you" Sasuke said.

"Yeah? Well I know a B-ranked jutsu, do you? Didn't think so!" Naruto said.

"only because your chakra control is so horrible that you're incapable of making a clone otherwise" Sasuke said.

"AND-" Naruto started, but I quickly cut him off before the argument could really take off.

"First of all, Sasuke, you learned the exercise a day before Naruto and a week after Sakura, secondly, Naruto, Sasuke is right, stop bragging about that, and thirdly, you two are fighting for second place, so until you find achievement on the level of beating a record on your first day in the academy, stop arguing" I explained with flawless logic.

Sakura raised an eyebrow.

"You never even learned the tree-walking exercise, and you keep bragging about being the worst in the history of Konoha, you have no room to judge Naruto on bragging. But, even if you three are acting stupid, I think Sasuke's idea was good" she said.

"first of all, I don't need to learn the tree walking exercise, I have two grasping whips to swing around with, and secondly, I will graciously go first" - I coughed and prepared to speak in my most dramatic voice - "throughout our time here, I worked tirelessly on two marvelous gloves, they are a glorious creation with storage seals at the end of each finger so I can make my senbon of shredding appear at the tips of my fingers whenever I want, and beyond that, there is another secret function to the gloves that I will tell no one about" I said.

"...So, Sasuke what did you work on?" Sakura asked after a few seconds.

"Wait a moment! You were supposed to be curious and ask what they can do!" I whined.

"And you were supposed to tell us what you can do" Sasuke said.

"I will! Just as soon as you ask a couple of times and I reject you!" I said.

I was only met with two blank stares.

"I'm kinda curious, what can they do?" Naruto, the only friend who didn't betray me, asked.

I immediately switched into a tortured pose "I am sorry Naruto, but I cannot tell you that, it is a secret I have to take to the grave... or until I really need to use it" I said.

"This is why we don't give him what he wants Naruto, he'll just ask for more the second he gets what he wants" Sakura complained.

"I know, I know, I just hoped he changed after he went away" Naruto said, making the others settle into a wistful silence as they thought of a dream that could never be fulfilled.

"Well, I'm hurt and betrayed, so now that that's done why don't we move to a more fun subject, like what Sasuke is able to do" I said

"I can use the most Jutsu out of the three of us, I can use the academy three, the tree walking exercise, the great fireball jutsu, the phoenix sage fire jutsu, and Kakashi-sensei taught me how to infuse my weapons with lightning chakra to introduce me to my natural affinity" he said.

"I'll go now! Compared to Sasuke, the idiot, I don't have as many techniques, but mine are way cooler and stronger, I can do the shadow clone jutsu, and I can do the hidden slash jutsu, a wind release Kakashi thought me" Naruto said.

Sakura sighed at their constant competition before speaking "I know a genjutsu that makes it seem like there are kunai flying at the victim, other than that I also know a water jutsu that is meant to disrupt an opponent by flowing around them and shoving them whenever I say so, they're meant to give me or my teammates the chance to strike" she said.

An expectant silence filled the room as they stared at me, seemingly waiting for something although I had no idea what.

"So..." Sakura said leadingly.

"So?" I said

"Tell us the jutsu you learned" Sasuke said.

"Jutsu? I never learned any jutsu, what in the world would give you that idea?" I said.

"wait, what! You never learned a single jutsu? But how did you survive in Kiri then?" Sakura asked.

"wit, luck, and fuinjutsu" I said.

"are you serious?" Naruto asked.

"completely, my gear is the only weapon I have, and while I do make some of the best gear around, if I run out of gear, I'm dead" I said.

The others just looked at me with crestfallen expressions.

"what?" I asked.

"it's just" - Naruto said hesitantly, before continuing - "when you told us that Jiji sent you to Kiri we thought he would at least give you a way to beat up anyone who attacked you, Ya know?"

"I see your point Naruto, I really do... but honestly, he was incredibly lenient, by law he should have brainwashed me and sent me to some village, not made me a spy" I said.

"Yeah, I guess" Naruto said, looking down into his breakfast.

"well, let's get going, shall we? After all, we have a busy day full of guarding and babysitting ahead of us before we head to bed, one day closer to finishing the bridge" I said with a smile, before turning and heading towards the bridge with Tazuna.

I could hear the creaking boards under my feet as I moved through the quiet house, although, I suppose that a house should be quiet in the middle of the night. I was walking to the kitchen after lying awake for so long that I started to get thirsty, it was a bad habit I picked up ever since the night I escaped Kiri. As I was heading back towards the room I shared with Sakura I suddenly stopped in the moonlit living room when I heard Zabuza talk to me from his sleeping spot in the corner.

"Give me some Water" he said.

"Thank god, you have no idea how happy I am that you only want water, I was terrified for a moment that you needed to visit the toilet and I had no one around to foist that particular chore off on" I said.

Zabuza glared at me.

I sighed and walked to fetch a cup of water before returning to... water? To water Zabuza. "You know, I think I liked you better when you were just the scary, hugely competent shinobi attempting to assassinate us with a magic sword, back then I had no idea about all the things beneath the stone-cold surface" I said.

Zabuza's frown deepened.

"I know what you're thinking, 'I wonder what deep insights the wonderful Anno might have about me?' And let me tell you, I've keenly observed that you are not just scary on the outside but also on the inside, then there is your clear love of telling us how stupid we are at regular intervals, and lastly, that you are a sore loser" I said.

"Sore loser?" he grunted.

"Of course! We beat you and now you're being all moody" I said.

"You didn't beat me, Kakashi Hatake did" he said.

"First of all, I hit you with my whip, so really, I should be able to claim partial credit for beating you. Second of all, even if you are going to behave exactly like a sore loser would and use some ludicrous excuse like 'I was already unconscious by the time you whipped me so you didn't actually do anything that would just make you a bad guest instead of a bad loser" I said.

"That is the most idiotic thing you have said till now" he said.

"So, how did you end up here anyway? In the land of waves, I mean, not outside of Kiri, after all, I already know how that happened" I said.

"And what do you think happened?" he asked.

"Well, that depends on my mood really, you see, the stories of your assassination attempt on the Mizukage have traveled far and wide, so the explanation for how it happened is, shall we say, ambiguous. Some stories regale of you challenging him to single combat in either a meadow, on top of a mountain, or some deep ravine with only your sword, and him ambushing you with his entire village, some others have the exact same story only with you and the mizukage switched. no rebellion in sight in either story, funnily enough. But I would guess that the truth is either somewhere in the middle, or completely unrelated to either story" I said.

"You talk too much" he said, before letting silence drift over us for a couple of minutes.

The silence left me with time to think, an activity I never particularly enjoyed before now, and one which only got more bothersome after I got a couple of bad experiences to run through my head over and over again.

"How did you learn about the rebellion?" he asked.

"Hm? Oh! Simple, really, I was sent as a spy a little over a year and a half ago, and, well, one thing led to another, and I eventually tried to break into the daimyo's office with chakra sealing collars on, the kind you're wearing, actually. That was a trap set by the Mizukage, one which I really should have seen through, and my friend died because of it, then I happened to overhear them talking about how they were 'close to succeeding at ridding our land from the bloodline filth which has been infecting it for so long' and completed a daring escape" I said.

"You really think the Mizukage didn't know you were there?" He said.

"Well, he said it himself, he expected to see me there, then saw her instead and thought I was using her as some sort of scapegoat, someone to get the information for me" I explained, almost as much to myself as to him.

"Even if that is true, I'm curious as to how you managed to convince the princess to betray her father" he said.

"I just explained how it wouldn't really matter if Konoha found out since we would only really do anything to Kiri, not the land of water as a whole, and she was on board, she always hated court life, she practically jumped at the chance to make a clean break" I said.

"You honestly think that it wouldn't matter if Kiri disappeared? Idiot. Hidden villages and their countries have a symbiotic relationship, one can't survive without the other, countries rely on their hidden villages to stop rouge-nin from running rampant, hidden villages rely on their counties for every resource that isn't fuinjutsu. That's why hidden villages always need an excuse to go to war against other hidden villages, because if the nobles and the peasants aren't on board then they have to waste time and resources on taking supplies by force"

"Huh, I never knew that" I said, while a fear that had been gnawing at my insides ever since I left Kiri started going wild, the fear that I had missed something.

"You-" - I swallowed to wet my very dry mouth - "you implied that the Mizukage knew I was there, right?" I said.

"Yes, it would be stupid to think otherwise, after all, even if the Mizukage has grown sloppy enough to not realize that if the person in front of him doesn't have a chakra signature, then there could be more people without a chakra signature he should look for. Then any shinobi above the mid-Chunin level will have their senses enhanced by chakra to a point that they would easily hear your breath" he said.

"That's what I was terrified of" I said.

I stood up and started to pace around the room, going faster and faster the more the image of exactly what was happening crystallized in my mind.

"Think about it, we know that the Mizukage knew that I was there, then the question is, why would he let me go? Or even let me get inside in the first place?" I said.

Zabuza frowned as he started thinking about it "maybe he filled it with false information for you to escape with?" he said

"I think it was because he wanted an excuse for war, an excuse which might just sound like something along the lines of 'a spy from Konoha broke into the daimyo's office and killed the princess when she discovered him before escaping with an armload of the land of water's secrets' don't you think?" I said.

"That doesn't make any sense, he wouldn't be aiming for another war when he's already in the middle of a civil war" Zabuza said.

"you're right, you are, he wouldn't be, especially not when the fact that he is in a civil war would have just been released to the rest of the world" I said as I sat down on the low table and ran my hand through my hair. Then it hit me, clear as day.

"The only reason he wouldn't be worried about the other great ninja villages attacking would be if he had allies, allies strong enough to offer some protection against the other great hidden villages... and the only thing that can help protect someone from a great hidden village, is another great hidden village... Konoha is going to be attacked by at least two great hidden villages, and I'm the catalyst" I said, as I finally completed the whole, terrifying picture of what was happening.

"What will you do now?" he asked.

"Konoha needs to know about this, they need to know that two great hidden villages are planning to attack them... but, I can't just leave my friends to deal with whoever you are working with; besides, the bridge is almost finished, it will only take a couple of extra days to deal with you and your friend" I said before walking back to my bed, only to lie awake for hours, thinking on whether or not I should go to Konoha as fast as possible, or stay with my friends, until, finally, I fell asleep.