"What happened?" Naruto asked when Gaia and Rezaa arrived at the bridge builder's home with an unconscious Kakashi.

"Chakra exhaustion," Gaia explained, "the result of overusing a Dojutsu that you weren't born with."

"We could have handled it," Kakashi had said to the Hunter-nin who threw the senbon.

"It was my job to bring Momochi back to Kiri," the unknown shinobi explained, "I'm just following orders."

The shinobi hefted Zabuza's much larger form on their back before giving them a nod and disappearing.

"That was weird," Gaia told them, "Senbon aren't usually used to kill like that. Do you think- Hey, Kakashi!"

Rezaa snapped attention as his father fell over backwards, catching him as best he could.

"Tou-san?!"

Gaia sighed and pulled Kakashi's hitaiate over his sharingan eye.

"The idiot overused his sharingan. He'll be fine, don't worry."

Rezaa pointedly ignored the insult when Gaia took his father's prone form to sling it over his own back.

"Come on, chibi-chan, time to regroup with the others "

Rezaa blinked and chased away the memory when Naruto asked, "Will you explain what this cha-ri-ga thing is now?"

Sasuke looked a bit more constipated than usual as he explained, "The sharingan is the kekkei genkai of the Uchiha clan. It's a rare ability even within the clan that allows the user to see through all types of genjutsu, taijutsu, and ninjutsu and in doing so, deflect and/ or copy them."

"Huh?"

"Our Uchiha teammates have the chance of developing magic eyeballs," Benetto clarified.

"Oh! Why didn't you just say so, Sasuke?"

Then he seemed to realize something, "Wait, does that mean Kaka-sensei is related to you guys? Since he has that magic eyeball thing?"

"No," Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest, "It's unknown how he got the eye. Most believe that he killed his Uchiha teammate for it. That's why he's called Friend-killer Kakashi."

"That's not true," Rezaa said sharply, "The sharingan was a parting gift from his friend. Your father acknowledged his right to own it!"

"Now. now," Gaia-sensei interrupted, "there's no need to fight about this. I'm sure Sasuke-kun just didn't know better. Bloodline theft was a common occurrence during the war, after all."

"Tou-san would never!"

"Of course not, but Sasuke-kun doesn't know your father, does he?"

Rezaa scoffed and left the room to check up on his father instead. The bridge builder's daughter, Tsunami, had set him up in one of the rooms of the house so he could sleep off the chakra exhaustion.

"I've never seen this sort of thing before," the woman admitted, "he doesn't even have a fever, it's almost like he's in a coma."

Rezaa sighed, "Do not worry, this is normal for him. If he's overused his... magical eyeball, he usually tends to sleep for a couple of days. He'll wake up and be a bit sore but that'll go away in a few days as well and he'll be good as new."

"I can't imagine a life like that," Tsunami admitted, "Are both your parents shinobi?"

Rezaa blinked before bluntly replied, "I was an accident. My mother was a civilian that my father was tasked to seduce."

Her eyes grew wide, "Oh, um..." she looked down in embarrassment.

"My father didn't know about me until someone put me on his doorstep when I was a year old. He didn't really want a child at first, I think, but Gai-ojisan said that it helped tou-san. He'd felt very alone before."

"Well, then I'm glad you were there for him. After my first husband died, I wasn't sure if I would be able to raise my son by my own but then my father helped me and I never regretted keeping him."

—

"You brat, was that necessary?" Zabuza complained as he pulled the last senbon out of his throat.

"I don't know what you mean, Zabuza-sensei," Haku's face was full of innocence.

Zabuza narrowed his eyes. He hadn't been fooled by this act since the brat was ten.

"You could have aimed anywhere else to induce the false death."

"Ah, but then I would have had to pierce muscle. This was much easier."

The swordsman huffed, trying to get up but failing with a painful grunt.

"You will be a bit out of it for a while," Haku admitted, helping him up, "Luckily, I know a great healer."

Zabuza wheezed out a chuckle when he was hefted up. He used both Haku and the kubikibibocho as crutches as they made their way to the base they were currently staying at.

They headed straight for Kokomi when they arrived.

"What happened?" the pink-haired girl asked them when she saw Zabuza's state. "Did he overdo it again?"

"I don't overdo anything, brat."

"Yeah, right," she muttered as she summoned up a water spirit in the form of a jellyfish. The jellyfish immediately started healing Zabuza.

"The target was protected by Kakashi of the Sharingan," Haku told her.

"Oh shit."

"It doesn't matter," Zabuza argued, "heal me up and I'll go back to finish him off."

"Mm, you're not leaving for at least a week."

Zabuza glared down at her, she glared back up.

"If you leave before at least a week of bedrest, you'll permanently damage your body. The Demon of the Mist is not gonna be very fearsome if he's gonna hobble around on crutches for the rest of his days. I'll make sure they'll clash with your colour scheme too," she waved up and down at the muted colours of his clothes, "you'll look like an idiot with bright red crutches. And you won't be able to swing kubikiribocho anymore either. You plan on fighting with your teeth in the future?"

Zabuza looked down at his two brats that stared at him unwaveringly before sighing, "I hate you two. Should have drowned you when I had the chance."

"Of course, Zabuza-sensei," Haku agreed with that same damned mask of innocence.

—

It took three days for Kakshi to wake up. During that time, Gaia had started to instruct his genin on tree walking.

"Hn, couldn't you have learned this before leaving the village?" Shao huffed as he watched his brother's team fail at the technique.

Well, it was mostly Sasuke (to the Uchiha's chagrin), Benetto was struggling as well but he seemed to be doing a lot better than his dark-haired teammate and Sakura had figured it out with just a few tries.

"Ah, well, we would have managed a simply C-rank without," Gaia waved it off.

"You're almost there, Ben-chan!" Naruto cheered for his friend. He had only recently mastered the technique himself.

"Team Seven, why don't you perform some water-walking exercises?" Gaia suggested when Sasuke was getting increasingly annoyed by the loud blond's presence.

"Hn, right," Shao grabbed the back of Naruto's jumpsuit and dragged him along as he and Rezaa walked to a nearby river.

This was where Kakashi joined them a few hours later.

Naruto was thoroughly drenched–having not quite mastered the water-walking technique yet–while Shao was only soaked up his knees and Rezza was still mostly dry.

"Tou-san!" he called out when he noticed his father.

He disengaged from their group spar and bounded over to his dad to squeeze the life out of him.

Kakashi made a dramatically exaggerated groaning sound at his son's tight hug but returned the embrace nonetheless.

"Kaka-sensei, you're all right!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly.

Kakashi gave him one of his famous eye-smiles, "Maa, Naruto-kun, it takes more than a little chakra exhaustion to kill me. Speaking of," and now he grew more serious as he gently removed his son from around his waist so he could look at him properly, "you were extremely reckless back there, Rezaa-kun. We'll have to talk about that properly later. Now we have to plan what we'll be doing next."

"Tou-san?"

"I'm pretty sure Zabuza is still alive."