"The bastard who hired Zabuza and Haku is gonna betray them?" Naruto repeats, shocked. "Then - of course I'm gonna tell them, dattebayo! Haku's my friend, and there's no way I'm gonna let him get stabbed in the back like that!"

Kakashi blinks. "Haku's... your friend? Naruto, Haku's the hunter-nin who took Zabuza away."

"Duh, Kakashi-sensei, I know that!" He replies, sounding a bit offended. "I saw him in the forest and I thought he was a pretty girl at first, but he was actually a pretty guy."

"You... saw him in the forest - Naruto," Kakashi says, with more than a little concern, "Haku and Zabuza are our enemies. They're missing-nin, there's no reason why they wouldn't attack and kill everyone on our team."

"Nah, Haku wouldn't do that," the blonde says, shaking his head. "He's my friend. We talked about precious people, and how we have to protect them. He's not a bad guy!"

Kakashi fights the urge to put a hand to his face, because this kind of optimism... was something not even Minato-sensei and Kushina had. What were they teaching in the Academy these days? Not even Obito...

His sheer disbelief at the situation must have been obvious on his face, because Sakura gives him a look of pure sympathy when she sees him. "I told you so," she says, with a surprising lack of smugness. "It... takes some getting used to."

"He's still like this in the future?" He asks.

"He... toned down a little, but... pretty much, yes."

"How did he survive?"

"Um. Ungodly amounts of charisma and an insane healing factor," Sakura tells him without irony. "I told you about Pein, but... Look, reality itself bows down to Naruto. If he thinks there's some good in someone, there will be."

As it turned out, there had been one thing that Sakura had not considered in her plan, and that had been the fact that if there was one person that the Universe will work against in any given situation... it was Hatake Kakashi.

His father had killed himself, his best friend had been crushed under tons of rock (saving him), the teammate he had promised to protect had killed herself using him as a medium, and the only family he had ever known sacrificed themselves in the face of a rampaging nine-tailed demon. All of that, before he had even finished puberty. For years, he had gotten up in the morning simply out of habit, the only thing stopping him from taking another way out... the constant feeling that Obito was still watching through the dead eye in his head, the knowledge that he would have been furious (Dammit Bakashi, who the hell told you that you could die like that?)

And then he had finally passed a team, because Sensei's eyes and Rin's smile and Obito's only family - and that little bit of potential, the hope that maybe, this team wouldn't end up like the last Team Seven Kakashi had been a part of. Except, of course, the first C-rank mission their team was sent on had quickly rocketed in ranks due to the appearance of a damn Swordsman of the Mist and his helper, neither of which would take more than ten minutes to utterly destroy Kakashi's pack of cute little genin.

When Naruto had yelled loudly at the criminal duo, there had been a tense minute of utter silence when there was a chance that this could all be resolved peacefully - and then the Universe realized another opportunity to fuck over Hatake Kakashi.

Zabuza's derisive laughter had filled the air, and the hunter-nin Haku had said, with some regret, "I'm sorry, Naruto-kun." After that, there had only been split seconds to meet Zabuza's blow, not enough time to make sure his genin were okay, only to pray that Sakura had things in hand.

"That was pathetic, Hatake," Zabuza drawls as he leaps away before Kakashi can strike back. "But that brat of yours was a pretty good liar - almost had Haku fooled. Too bad he and the girl aren't going to last two minutes."

"You might be surprised," he returns easily, sliding his headband up and exposing his Sharingan eye. The world comes into startling focus, and he can see the - ah, there. Kakashi flashes through a series of hand seals and a shadow clone pops into being a distance away from the two of them. Useful, when he needed those few seconds of surprise and wanted something to switch with. "Besides, Naruto wasn't lying. Gato has no plans to pay you and Haku."

"Not even he can be that stupid," the other man returns with a laugh, sending his blade slicing through the space where Kakashi had been mere seconds earlier.

He swivels on his feet before launching himself at Zabuza's back, the man's fist missing his face by a hair's width, and lands a harsh blow, enhanced with chakra, at the man's shoulder. "I think you might be overestimating him," he says calmly.

Zabuza hisses in pain, but shakes off the damage with disturbing ease. It seemed that only a mortal wound would be taking him down.

This wasn't good. He had to finish this fight quickly. Even if Sakura was at jounin level, there was no reason to believe that she could handle Haku by herself with all the disadvantages of a smaller, unfamiliar body - on top of protecting Naruto, who had been swept into the fight as well. His only consolation was that Sasuke was still guarding Tazuna, his chakra nevertheless flickering with barely hidden worry as he sent constant looks in his teammates' direction.

So. A distraction, and then... Chidori. Kakashi narrows his eyes, mentally checks his chakra reserves as well as making sure that - yes, Sakura and Naruto were both still alive, chakra signatures still flickering at the edge of the field - and then a chakra signature, almost monstrously large, moving at unimaginable speed (only sensei could move that fast, he thinks) that slammed into Haku's, whose chakra signature dimmed - he had obviously been knocked unconscious by the blow.

"What the hell was that," Zabuza growls, momentarily distracted as he squinted in the direction of his protege's battle. This was an opportunity to take him down, Kakashi knew, but his students were still in the near vicinity of the unknown.

"It wasn't one of ours. Momentary truce," he says, knowing full well that it didn't count for much. They were shinobi, not samurai. But Zabuza nods with a slight hesitation.

Melting ice, splatters of blood, and - his students, alive, albeit a bit scratched and bloody. A few feet away, a cloaked figure crouches, an obviously unconscious - or dead - Haku slung over his shoulder. A spiraled orange mask with a single dark eyehole and tufts of messy dark hair are the only things that Kakashi can see from his angle. He casts a quick look at Sakura in hopes of an explanation, but she is also staring at the new arrival, a look of vague confusion on her face. Naruto is next to her, seemingly unhurt - though the large scratches on his clothing seem to indicate otherwise. For once, Kakashi is grateful for the existence of the Kyuubi.

Zabuza grits his teeth. "You -"

"Don't get mad at Tobi!" The man yelps, drops Haku to the ground with a thud, and puts both hands up in surrender. "He just knocked out on his own - it was a good thing that Tobi was there to catch him."

Obvious lies, but Zabuza seems to be reassured by the fact that his apprentice was still breathing. "Who the hell are you?" He demands.

"Eh... Tobi's just Tobi, Zabuza-san."

If the man had eyebrows, they would have twitched. Kakashi watches the two with some amusement, just because the situation was just utterly ridiculous. So, this is what Sakura had meant, when she had talked about how strange the future was...

"Right. Why are you here, interfering with this fight, then? Are you with them -" a vague gesture to Kakashi and his hiti-ate - "or what?"

"Just your friendly neighborhood Tobi, here to help, Zabuza-san! Tobi saw a humongous crowd of really angry people heading over here with a short fat guy with glasses, so I figured they were probably coming after you guys! Tobi thinks he wants you guys to beat each other up first." The man - Tobi - shrugs, and then points to behind them. "Hey! Aren't those them?"

That was probably the oldest trick in the book, but Kakashi could hear the distant footsteps of what had to be more than a few dozen people, and resists a groan. "Gato," Zabuza mutters under his breath. "...Huh. Looks like that brat of yours was telling the truth, then, Hatake."

In a blur of action, Zabuza has Haku slung over a shoulder. Tobi gives no sign of concern. Zabuza gives Kakashi a wicked grin - he had been wearing a mask for almost three decades, he knew how to read expressions underneath a mask. "Can't say I'm too happy about how this shitstorm ended," he says, "and I sure as hell have no desire to see any of you, ever again. Especially not you." He nods his head toward the orange-masked maniac.

"You feeling up to helping my team out with Gato and his men?" Kakashi asks nonchalantly.

Zabuza scoffs in derision, and disappears into the mist without a word, Haku over his shoulder. Well, damn. Kakashi gazes at the approaching crowd wearily. Taking down those men wouldn't be a problem, except he had an immensely powerful unknown shinobi - one who hasn't shown any aggression, but still unknown - at close proximity with himself and his little genin - genin who, Kakashi knew, wouldn't take well to seeing the bloodbath.

Except - with his sharp hearing, he picks up the whistle of a blade through the air and a high squeal, followed by loud shouts of fear. "Let this be a lesson to any other greedy idiot who wants to betray me," Kakashi hears Zabuza say, and then both his and Haku's chakra signatures really do disappear.

Gato was down, evidently. His men, however, were not. "Your leader is dead," Kakashi says pleasantly. "You won't be paid for fighting us. Why lose your lives for nothing?"

The men exchange furtive looks, and for a moment Kakashi is slightly worried that their greed will prevail over their common sense - when he hears the stampede of a few dozens footsteps coming from the other side of the bridge, and Naruto shouts, "Inari!"

Tazuna's grandson stands at the head of a makeshift army of villagers armed with whatever they could find, which consisted mostly of pitchforks and shovels. He himself was armed with a crossbow, a fierce look on his face that Kakashi would never have expected just a few days earlier. "Get away from our village!" the boy shouts, and as if broken from a spell, Gato's men scatter, pursued by the villagers.

How - right. Naruto.

Now, Kakashi turns his attention to the strange newcomer. "So... Tobi, was it?"

The man nods enthusiastically. "Eh, yeah, that's Tobi!" From the corner of Kakashi's eye, he sees Sakura squint at Tobi - and gives a gasp of recognition, before putting a palm to her face.

"So, you know Sakura-chan there, I see," he asks. Tobi gives him a thumbs up. "Yeah, Tobi's a friend of Sakura-chan. Though, Tobi looked a bit different the last time she saw him..." He trails off.

"Sakura?" Kakashi asks her, hoping for an explanation, any explanation, of what the hell was going on.

"I can't believe you," Sakura says instead, staring balefully at the orange-masked man. "That really was you? Olé?"

Tobi chuckles, practically emanating embarrassment from every pore, scratching the back of the head with one hand. "Eh - yeah, Sakura-chan! Sorry for being late this time! Tobi was helping an old lady carry her bags!"

Was that - ? No, it couldn't be... But that kind of familiarity with a genin who couldn't have met him in the past -

"Sakura," Kakashi repeats. "...Is he your fellow time-traveler?"

"...He is," Sakura replies. There was a brief silence, and then Tobi said, in a completely different, darker tone of voice, "You're kidding me. You already told him? If I knew earlier, then I wouldn't have had to play the idiot."

"You didn't have to," she points out. "It wouldn't have made that big of a difference... You know what I think? You like doing it. Why else would you go through that whole - whack-a-mole routine with us, way back then?"

"...True," the man - Tobi? Was that truly his name? - mutters. "Damn it, Sakura. I could have had so much opportunity to mess with Kakashi."

"As important as that is," Sakura says dryly, "it isn't as important as us getting back to our own time."

With the distinct feeling that he was missing something - missing a lot of somethings - Kakashi cuts in smoothly, "As glad as I am that you can catch up with your friend, Sakura, I would greatly appreciate an explanation as to who he is and exactly what is going on."