Patrols around the bridge were a constant sight.
Lowly samurai from the deleted Hizao family guard, barely equipped with the armor needed for the fighting style.
They were more swordsmen than samurai, as the noble family sold armors to afford weapons and bodies …
Mercenaries and conscript peasants taken from the population, anyone with a talent for fighting and a lack of fear was welcomed to risk their lives for coin …
A few lowly ninja families from outside of the big villages, paid for with promises of land and the opportunity to establish a clan in their new home with titles …
Wave country wasn't the richest, but they still had nobility … a merchant, no matter how rich, couldn't simply ‘remove’ a noble family without consequences …
… But internal strife sponsored by said merchant was an entirely different thing … To establish a puppet nobility after a successful civil war wasn't anything new …
Lines were drawn, armies marched, and a bridge was being built …
Starting at the land of Fire and stretching over the sea … Gatoh dared not to attack something that belonged to the Fire nation in the territory of the Fire nation …
Gatoh's win condition was to own Wave country before the bridge touched it, the people present in Wave country only needed to last until the bridge connected close to the shore …
After that, the Fire nation would protect its business partner and conveniently seize most of Gatoh's assets present there, a not insignificant fleet of ships and merchandise …
The Fire nation nobility interested in this conflict had the audacity to take advantage of Konoha's graduation cycle to hire one of the few konoha's jounins spared to be senseis for a pittance of a Rank C mission …
And while Konoha put a greater emphasis into making sure their genins grew into full fledged ninjas … Konoha was also eager to reply in kind against the face slap to the face they just received, Konoha would make sure to take their dues …
***
Kakashi spent the next few days watching over his genins, training their reflexes and instincts so they would be as prepared as he could make them … Tazuna's house was a point of focus and it showed …
Kakashi could see the house being watched, but with the samurai tasked to keep guard and his own presence, none dared to approach as of yet.
Kakashi could see the guard making sure the family was safe and that Tazuna could work on the ironwood they brought from Konoha … at least that part of the job wasn't a lie, Tazuna was busy at work cutting the tough wood into the pins needed to secure the final stretch of the construction …
***
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Sasuke, Sakura and Jay lightly spared against each other, Sakura and Sasuke teaming up on Jay most of the time.
As amusing as it was, Jay knew that Sakura was having it the hardest … bags under her eyes told of nights not well slept as the stress of the crash course ate away her ability to relax …
Despite the relative tiredness and constant anxiety Kakashi's training brought … the improvements were clear …
Sakura and to a minor degree Sasuke, both grew used to the state of life and death focus needed to keep up with the high speed battle ahead of them, Sasuke even managed to mature his sharingan a little bit more …
Jay, still muzzed about if he made the right call to side with Sasuke and Sakura and keep going on the mission … there was risk and there was reward, Jay was still early in his run, it was the time for experimentation and a lot of deaths to get the hang of what you can and can't do in said reality … but Jay also got really lucky with his current shell and companions, he would loathe to waste it because of his skewed sense of risk …
Sasuke and Sakura both wanted to finish the mission … they talked with the locals, they heard their pleas and woes … they understood what was being done and what was at stake for those people and they wanted to do something about it …
***
Sasuke had his Uchiha pride, his family was responsible for Konoha's law and security, they were the enforcers, the police … Sasuke saw the injustice and heard about Gatoh's business practices, Sasuke wanted nothing more than to throw the book at the corrupt business man …
During his rest, Sasuke patrolled the town stopping the crime that was running rampant … Everyone was struggling … the baker that made the bread and the starving mother steals it for her kids … was it just to arrest the mother for trying to feed her kids ? Was it just to deprive the baker from the reward for his work so he would be the one starving next ? What was the right thing to do ? How would Sasuke uphold the justice that his family was in charge of ? … Sasuke didn't know … Konoha didn't have that kind of problem, Sasuke never saw it in the streets of the village … The more Sasuke saw, the more naive he felt …
***
Sakura on the other hand was a bleeding heart, she was fierce and furious every time she saw the myriad of conscript peasants coming back from the field half starved and wounded … she took upon herself to shadow the overworked nurses in the field hospitals to at least feel like she was helping … but it never felt like enough … Sakura was a ninja, she could manipulate chakra, she went to the academy nurses and
Med-nin to heal any broken bone or wound she got during her training … Sakura knew what iryoninjutsu was capable of … but Sakura wasn't a med-nin, Sakura wasn't trained on the art, she didn't take those courses, she wasn't capable of healing an open wound with chakra … Sakura thought she had time to learn it at her own pace and now another person bled to death because she was too naive thinking she had time to be lazy …
***
Kakashi on the other hand was a mixed bag … the Hokage’s orders were clear but also obscure … the decision was on Kakashi's hands to continue the mission or not, if the risk wasn't too great …
Kakashi couldn't safely say that the risk was acceptable … The first confrontation against Zabuza was a close call and despite the element of surprise being gone … they didn't have any extra advantage, they were aware of Zabuza and Zabuza was aware of them …
Kakashi wanted nothing more than to take his team and bail on the mission, but he stayed his hands for a simple reason … his genins weren't backing down … they were almost eager for another round and Kakashi would loathe depriving his genins of an opportunity to grow.
Kakashi saw the looks in the eyes of his cute little genins …
Sasuke was using his status as one of the uchiha heirs to whip the small number of guards in the city into something like the Uchiha police … and they were listening …
Sakura was training her chakra control to a razors edge, Kakashi offered more advanced chakra control training techniques and Jay practiced those with her, chakra treads would soon be in Sakura's repertoire and she was dead set into using them in the most difficult manner … Iryoninjutsu … pestering Kakashi to teach her the little he knew about the art …
Jay on the other hand was running Kakashi's dog summons to the ground delivering messages back and fought with Itachi pertaining to an ‘investment’ for Konoha budget …
Over the last week Kakashi almost forgot that Jay was apprenticing under Itachi … who was being groomed by Hiruzen to take on the hat …
Sage forbid if Kakashi ever had to deal with paperwork and ledgers … that is an enemy that Konoha's killer hound wasn't keen on hunting …
***
It was by the week’s end, while his team helped to prepare the bridge for the final stretch …
Things were silent as even the war skirmishes took a pause for the day … even though the bridge was almost completed …
It made sense, with an elite jounin like Kakashi present, it was simply a waste of lives to try and throw barely trained thugs and mercenaries at him … to fight a jounin you needed a good team of Chunins or another Jounin …
… And Kakashi knew what Jounin the enemies had … Kakashi could feel his presence …
Despite the clear sky and the sun shining on top of their heads, a white wall made of mist was coming from the sea …
Kakashi took a deep breath and yelled …
[Kakashi] - WORKERS, LEAVE THE BRIDGE … -
It didn't take long for the command to be heard …
[Kakashi] - Let's go team … we can't let Zabuza break the bridge with our fight … -
Team Kakashi went to the shore to meet the demon of the mist for a second round …
The demon of the mist arrived … and he had company …
*** *** ***
