The slow civilian paced walk towards Wave from Konoha was tedious and so ridiculously slow for the young ninjas, that they were quickly losing their patience and discipline within their formation. They had started all excited for their first mission outside of Konoha at 0800 at the gate, surprised when Kakashi arrived only a few minutes late, and led them through the usual checkout protocols. He then had them in a diamond pattern surrounding and protecting their client with Sasuke up front, Naruto and Sakura on either side of Tazuna, with Kakashi bringing up the rear with his head buried in his favorite orange book.
It really only took about two hours at that slow pace for Naruto to start bouncing around with too much energy, and Sasuke scowling even more about slow civilians while Sakura happily chatted with the old grey haired bridge builder. She asked constant questions about Wave, his family, his bridge, and anything else she could think of while her teammates continued to grumble about their slow pace. After a few hours in, Kakashi, seeing Naruto's build up of energy whispered to the young blonde that he could discreetly start spawning shadow clones to explore around them and widen their protective barrier around the client, hoping it would give the energetic young ninja something else to do than focus on their slow civilian pace.
It worked really well for the next few hours, as Naruto used a quick bathroom break to spawn at least a thousand clones and sent them off in various directions around but mostly in front of them to scout out the path and provide that additional layer of protection around them all. It also gave Naruto something else to focus on instead of their slow pace, and he used the clones to happily explore all around them as he had never been this far from the village before. With Sakura's never ending questions to Tazuna, and with added instructions from Kakashi along the way they soon started passing time and distance.
It was late that first afternoon, having been walking now for over seven hours when Naruto saw something that was completely out of place in Fire Country, a puddle of water calmly sitting on the dried path they had been on. It wouldn't have been as out of place if it had rained at all in the last several days, and therefore stuck out like a beacon and had him turn to Kakashi for instructions. But his leader only gave him a shake of his head and motioned him to continue past the puddle, as he obviously had it under control, or at least was waiting to see what it was before disrupting it.
Seeing neither of his teammates reacting to the puddle, he could only assume Kakashi gave them the same instructions or they didn't notice it, and continued his pace while paying close attention to the spot on their path. That level of attention was pretty much the only thing that prevented him from jumping in fright when after their entire group passed next to the puddle, it seemingly exploded and two relatively similar looking ninja leaped out of it. Before he or his teammates could react, the ninja pair with the unique chain they each held on to had seemingly wrapped up and destroyed Kakashi in a shower of blood.
"One down," spoke the taller of the two on the left.
"Three to go," spoke the other shorter ninja as they both prepared to leap at them, but never got the chance.
Sasuke had instantly leapt towards the pair, throwing a kunai at the chain they carried and pinning it to a nearby tree, forcing the pair to abandon their weapon and separate, leaving Sasuke charging the larger of the pair. The shorter of the pair instantly took off directly at Tazuna, and Naruto watched as Sakura flinched in fear, and knew it was up to him to protect his teammate and their client, instantly forming his favorite seal and causing several dozen shadow clones to appear all around him, Tazuna, and Sakura. Several of his first few clones were torn through by the unusual clawed metal gauntlet on the foreign ninja's arm, but within moments were able to tangle up with the attacking shinobi and quickly overwhelmed him and had him soon after knocked out and bound in a chakra suppression tag with only seconds passed.
When he looked up at Sasuke, he saw him whipping off his kunai on a dead ninja's clothes, just as Kakashi emerged from out of the nearby bushes looking completely unruffled, but his gaze fixed on Tazuna. He praised both Sasuke and Naruto for successfully defending their client and teammates from an ambush against chunin level missing ninja. Then he told everyone to stay put as he interrogated their lone prisoner for more information and leapt back into the surrounding woods with the bound shorter shinobi over his shoulder as the three genin stared around wide-eyed at the quick action they just faced.
"Tazuna, we need to talk," came Kakashi's more demanding tone of voice, that had the elderly bridge builder virtually sweating bullets as the powerful ninja stared at him until he broke down and spilled everything.
We learned about a powerful and corrupt businessman named Gato who controlled Wave with an iron fist, killing all opposition, and practically enslaving the town, and squeezing the resources from their small island. His bridge was their only hope of getting out from under his tyrannical control, and he had been trying to kill Tazuna ever since he started building his bridge. Their entire country was impoverished and terrified of the man and his army of thugs and recently, rumors of hired missing ninjas, had forced him to appeal to Konoha for help, but they would never be able to afford the more expensive A-Rank mission it probably required.
Kakashi was not happy at all, having been lied to by the client about the severity of the mission and putting his young genin team in danger from opponents well beyond their level, and now forcing Sasuke to take his first life as a ninja of the Leaf. He was all set to abandon the elderly bridge builder to his fate, but was stopped from abandoning the mission by his genin team who all argued that they needed to help, and couldn't abandon a mission as it would look bad on Konoha. Sasuke also argued that he needed to test himself against other ninja and was happy to continue, and Naruto argued that with Kakashi present, they should be capable of handling anything that came their way, and could always use their new communication pins to contact the Hokage and ask for reinforcements at any time.
With the mission continuing as planned, Kakashi gave his genin team a small explanation on the Demon Brothers, missing nin from Mist that were chunin level opponents they just defeated luckily as they were underestimated. He then told them to get back into formation and pay much more attention, as the severity and dangers they could encounter just went up several notches, and hoped he wasn't making too big of a mistake. He gave them all a quick lesson on cleaning up after a battle, and sealed away the body of Sasuke's first kill in a death scroll, making no mention of the other death scroll he already filled with his interrogated prisoner.
When they continued on, they all were now paying a lot more attention to their surroundings, mostly ignoring Tazuna as he repeatedly thanked and praised them for helping him, and on high alert for another confrontation. Sakura was shaking a bit after freezing up in the face of enemy ninjas, and wondering why she agreed to continue this mission when all she wanted to do was run home, but couldn't bring herself to ever go against Sasuke. Sasuke was likewise thinking back on the fight, and pleased he handled himself well and defeated another ninja, showing off his progress and ability and determined that it was just another step in his quest for vengeance against his brother.
Naruto was the only one really thinking about the fight, and how lucky they got, that they went after Kakashi first, as his slight hesitation at the beginning of the battle could have spelled his death against a more efficient and less hesitant fighter. He was pleased he didn't freeze up completely like Sakura, but would hardly call his actions great, and was simply glad he survived to fight another day, and wondered if that was how much of his ninja career was going to be. Kakashi was watching his genin closely after the confrontation, not surprised at Sasuke's brutality or lack of emotion, Sakura's hesitance and inability to keep up, and Naruto's now quiet contemplation as he went over the particulars of the fight and hopefully learned and progressed from it.
It was nearing dusk as their group finally reached the bank of a large body of water, and Tazuna led them along the coast towards a somewhat hidden alcove that had a small boat and boatman waiting on them. He greeted Tazuna fearfully, and made sure the ninja knew to be quiet on the water as sound travelled quite well on the open water, and they needed to pass into Wave unseen from the many patrolling Gato ships. When they reached the other side after a stressful twenty minutes, they said goodbye to the boatman and led Tazuna back to his house, which was thankfully only a little over an hour away.
Shortly after taking up their positions around Tazuna again and heading towards his house, Naruto heard a noise in the bushes and threw a kunai at a startled white rabbit that had his two teammates teasing him for attacking a harmless creature. Before he could even refute their teasing however, they heard a quickly approaching whistling sound that had kakashi yelling for them all to duck. Naruto, closest to Tazuna tackled the older bridge builder to the ground as they all felt and saw a large object slicing right over them, which then became imbedded deeply into a nearby tree, and had a uniquely dressed missing ninja standing above what turned out to be a sword of immense size.
"Fucking tree huggers," came the low almost growled voice of the large muscular man standing on the flat of the large blade embedded into the tree, "give me the bridge builder and you are free to go ...I have no quarrel with you."
"Momochi Zabuza," greeted Kakashi almost seeming friendly, though he was quickly trying to position himself between the famous missing nin and his small genin, knowing they would have no chance against someone of this caliber, "Demon of the Hidden Mist."
"Sharingan Kakashi," replied the large bare chest man wearing only striped pants and bandages around part of his torso and covering the lower half of his face as he eyed the eldest Leaf ninja carefully. "Or do you prefer Copycat Kakashi ...you have quite the bounty on your head in Mist ...maybe this little job will be worth it."
"Stay behind me, this opponent is on a completely different level from all of you," spoke Kakashi somewhat fearfully as he tried to impart on his young genin not to get involved in this fight, while Sasuke was still staring at him in shock at the name he was called and wondered why a non-Uchiha would be known as a sharingan user.
Kakashi was worried for his young genin, and knew this was a fight he would probably need to go all out in order to win, and hoped none of his students got hurt in the process. While the two powerhouses continued to size each other up and trade slight barbs against each other, the genin were in various states of shock as they started to feel a strong presence pushing down on them, as if they were about to be killed. Luckily, shortly after it began, Kakashi seemed to push out his own presence that washed the oppressive feeling away, and replaced it with a small sense of security that Naruto used to slowly start gathering his own chakra in case he or his clones were needed to help.
Sasuke was trembling in excitement at seeing two strong opponents fight, and also very curious when our cyclops leader pulled up his slanted headband and uncovered a unique red eye with an unusual black tomoe pattern that he was intimately familiar with. He knew now wasn't the time to ask, but he promised he would find out how his Clan's famous sharingan eye was in his jounin sensei's head when this fight was done. They all listened to the pre-battle banter of the two strong ninja, and were all shocked to learn of Zabuza's nickname and the meaning behind how he got it, and wondered briefly if maybe this was a fight their sensei might lose.
The moment the two powerful ninja leapt towards each other and broke the growing silence, Naruto created several dozen clones that further surrounded the three genin and their civilian client inside a wall of bodies as another layer of protection. Sasuke, not one to ever hide, instantly pushed his way to the front of the circling group of clones to better watch the ensuing battle himself, and eager to prove himself worthwhile as his teammates hid. Naruto continued spawning small groups of clones away from anyone's notice, and had them quickly henge into small animals and disburse even further around them, some even transforming into inanimate objects along the nearby shoreline as the fighting was moving over the water.
The three genin watched as Kakashi seemed to be matching Zabuza move for move, as neither side seemed to be gaining too much of an advantage, until the fight started moving closer to then over the water. After an insanely impressive pair of matching water dragons cancelled each other out, they watched wide-eyed as Zabuza seemed to finally catch Kakashi inside a large bubble of water that imprisoned him as he frantically tried to escape. Zabuza though, created several water clones and told them to take out the brats, and the genin could tell that whatever that water prison was, it needed to be maintained by the original as he didn't move after capturing their sensei, instead sending his clones to do it.
Naruto had read up significantly on clones of each element in his quest to perfect and eventually find the Fuinjutsu Blood Clones he made, and knew water clones were typically only 10% as strong as the user, and hoped that was enough for them to handle. He looked over at Tazuna and Sakura, both of whom were huddled and terrified at the scene in front of them, and then at Sasuke who looked ready to try and take on the half dozen Zabuza clones single-handedly. He remembered their recent team battle with Team 10 and quickly called out to his teammate, he had a plan to take care of the clones and help their sensei, but would need the Uchiha's help to pull it off.
"Sasuke," started Naruto seriously, "send as many fireballs as you can at the clones, I'll boost them with wind ...maybe we can get Zabuza to move and free Kakashi."
"Got it," replied Sasuke with a grin, and quickly started spitting out decent sized fireballs at a relatively quick clip towards the approaching water clones.
"Futon: Great Breakthrough," called Naruto and sent a strong wind attack right behind Sasuke's fireballs that instantly empowered them to three times their size and speed, taking out all but one of Zabuza's water clones in the first volley.
Another volley of wind enhanced fireballs took care of the last charging water clone who had made it incredibly close based on the heat they felt before he too was reduced to a harmless puddle, and a third volley had the real Zabuza with wide disbelieving eyes have to abandon his hold on the water prison to dodge the incoming fireball that no genin team should be capable of. Luckily, before Zabuza's full attention went towards the genin, Kakashi exploded out of the water prison, completely pissed off and out for blood.
Within a minute he had Zabuza on the ropes and ready to deliver a killing blow, as the sound of a thousand tiny birds started humming as a seeming sword of pure electricity bloomed out of Kakashi's hand with the intent on ending the missing nin when they were interrupted. A pair of senbon came from a nearby tree well away from the genin team, and lodged themselves in Zabuza's neck instantly dropping him to the ground like a sack of potatoes, and a young thin ninja in an unusual hunter mask emerged from the forest and approached the large missing nin.
"Thank you for your assistance," the unidentifiable hunter ninja spoke slowly as they approached a weary Kakashi, who let his technique go when he recognized the Kiri hunter mask, "I have been tracking Zabuza here for months, and could not have killed him without your aid."
Kakashi glanced down at Zabuza, and quickly checked his pulse, finding none and stepping away from the dead body as the hunter continued his deliberate approach. When he reached Zabuza, he easily hefted the impossibly large man over his thin shoulder and disappeared in a shunshin before another word was said. The genin of Team 7 looked on in shock as the little hunter ninja took away the large missing nin, before watching Kakashi return his hitai-ate over his sharingan eye and promptly collapse in exhaustion where he stood.
"Sensei?" gasped Sakura, the first thing she had said in minutes, having completely locked up and froze since the beginning, and now terrified even more that their lone protector might be hurt and unable to keep them safe while so far away from Konoha.
"Let's all check on Kakashi, and stay together," spoke Naruto quickly, not wanting Sakura to run off without support, and also needing to keep Tazuna protected until they knew more about Kakashi and if their opposition was now over.
Sasuke gave Naruto a long look but didn't say anything as the group made their way towards where Kakashi collapsed, being herded by several dozen clones still keeping an eye out for anything else as they reached their collapsed leader. After a quick check from Sakura, who at least knew the signs of certain medical conditions, they identified him as simply having chakra exhaustion. Naruto had a clone transform into a cot and loaded Kakashi on as two more stepped up to carry their jounin sensei as they continued on towards Tazuna's house with the remaining clones surrounding and protecting them.
It took them some time to make their way to Tazuna's house travelling at civilian speeds and carrying Kakashi, but they arrived safely and without incident. They were happily greeted by an attractive older woman, who introduced herself as Tazuna's daughter Tsunami, and was beyond grateful and accommodating for the people protecting her father. She led them all inside and into a pair of spare rooms on the second floor, one much smaller that Sakura took, leaving the larger room for the boys, who set Kakashi down on the only bed.
"We should probably set up a perimeter?" spoke up Naruto, causing Sasuke to pause again and stare at the blonde with an unknown look on his face, "I can get my clones to do that part and keep watch ...but we should probably all have an idea of trap locations."
They grabbed Sakura on their way back outside, and Naruto created several dozen clones and had them start to trap and create a defensive perimeter around the large property, while pointing out everything to his teammates in case they ventured outside. He mostly ignored the somewhat gobsmacked looks from his two teammates, and simply laughed it off as traps being a specialty of his due to all his pranks, which they both instantly believed. Tsunami then called them all to dinner, and they went back inside, with Naruto in the rear where he paused and spawned a much larger batch of clones to add to the others, out of view from his teammates.
It wasn't that he didn't trust them, but didn't really want to answer their obvious questions that would be asked. How did he have so much chakra to make that many clones? How much was he learning with that many clones? What else did he know that Sasuke would be jealous of?
This way he could have even more clones for their perimeter defences, and even use the others to start scouting out the surrounding area, the bridge, the town, and anything else he could think of. The dinner was wonderful, though there wasn't too much for his usual appetite, he was happy his sensei was at least awake and eating. He realized that the family was probably spread pretty thin if Tazuna's earlier explanations of poverty were to be believed, and promised to help supplement food from that point forward and put out a call to his clones to bring in some game.
"Sakura said you sent out a few dozen clones to secure the perimeter and start trapping the area," spoke Kakashi after the meal was winding down, and conversation started picking back up.
"Yes sensei," answered Naruto plainly, "they can also take care of night watch ...how long until you are back to full strength?"
"Good," replied Kakashi with his customary one-eyed smile, "probably a few days ...a week at most."
All three genin seemed to sag in relief at that news, as none of them fancied doing this entire mission without Kakashi's help, but then tensed after he went on to explain that they would most likely be seeing Zabuza again, as the "hunter nin" was most likely an accomplice since he didn't immediately dispose of the body, and senbon were very tricky instruments to kill someone, but definitely able to induce a death-like state. He reckoned we had a good week until Zabuza too was back at full strength, and then would most likely be facing him and his "hunter nin" partner and would need to continue training in the meantime.
To that end, he gave Sakura a pair of books on basic healing, both field medic stuff and the more involved chakra based healing techniques, and told her to study up as best she could as it could mean saving one of our lives in the future. Sasuke was told to work on water walking and get to the point he could fight on the surface for extended periods of time, as water was the most common and abundant element in Wave. He simply told Naruto to continue on his chakra control, earning a somewhat disparigent scoff from Sasuke at the seemingly easy and useless training he provided the dobe.
Naruto on the other hand knew that it meant he was free to train however he wanted, as Kakashi knew how much time and training he already put in geared towards that exactly, and was their sort of running joke on everyone who underestimated the blonde genin. Therefore, Narutoi started thinking about what he would work on and set up while here in Wave, and decided to simply continue as he was flooding the area with his clones to learn as much as he could about what was happening, and send large groups off to train predominantly his taijutsu and sword training. When dinner was over Naruto helped Tsunami with the dishes earning him a beaming smile and thanks from the nice woman.
"So, can I ask how there seem to be so many people outside that look just like you?" she asked after looking out the window at one moment and seeing four replicas of the boy next to her discussing something in her yard and looking around.
"I can make tangible clones ...it's a chakra technique I am pretty good at," he answered with a smile to the kind woman, who had been nothing but pleasant and friendly. "Definitely helps with chores."
Her tinkling laugh was quite nice, and Naruto marvelled at how easy it was to talk with her as she held no preconceived notions of him being a demon container or prankster, and wondered if this was how most people interacted with others. When the dishes were done, Naruto even offered to have some clones pick up around the house and outside, further endearing him to the client and his family. At one point he took Kakashi outside to point out entry points and traps, and used the time to spawn another large batch of over 2000 clones that he disbursed out into their surroundings to continue gathering information, much to Kakashi's approval.
Naruto promised to be careful, after Kakashi said he was going back inside to rest and leave their protection to the young blonde. Because of the amount of clones already disbursed in the area, Naruto already had a great clearing in mind for a place to continue training, as he was still too pumped up to sleep yet and had energy to burn. Arriving in the clearing he started with a nice warmup and then moved onto taijutsu forms and then sword fighting katas in an attempt to better train his muscle memory as clones couldn't really do that.
As he swung a large heavy training sword around, he wondered just how strong one needed to be to use that large meat cleaver type sword that Zabuza used effortlessly, and resigned himself to ask Kakashi about it tomorrow. He was sweaty and tired by the time he finished his late night workout, but managed to do one more large spawning of clones before he returned to the house. It was quiet when he returned, but he knew both Kakashi and Sasuke were aware of when he got back and settled down to sleep, content to know that his insane amount of clones would be able to easily alert them all if anyone tried to come near them.
Naruto awoke early the next morning to an influx of new memories that he had to sort through and understand before he actually got out of bed. His clones had apparently been really busy, and found the bridge, the town, Gato's headquarters, his mercenaries' barracks, and were continuing even further out across the island of Wave in search of even more. Despite the late hour they were exploring, he could confirm that the town was really struggling, with poverty, homelessness, and hopelessness abound and had a hard time not charging in and trying to fix everything.
Gato's headquarters were huge and ostentatious, well fortified for civilians, but nothing a quality ninja couldn't bypass, and was planning to get Kakashi's permission to try and infiltrate it to learn even more. The most interesting thing his clones found though was a small abandoned old temple that was practically falling down and unused, but had something that he never expected to see and made him beyond excited. The Uzushiogakure Spiral was carved above the door frame, and despite the temple being barren and dilapidated, it meant his family was at one point there and there might still be other clues nearby.
When he finally got out of bed and headed downstairs, he met Tsunami in the kitchen just getting started on breakfast for everyone, and told her he had his clones find them some additional meat and vegetables so they weren't taking all their food. He was again thanked gratefully, and helped set the table and finish breakfast preparations for the large group that soon joined them at the table. His teammates were both pretty quiet this morning, which wasn't new for Sasuke, and the meal passed quickly with minimal discussion until everyone was finishing up.
"Today, we should all accompany Tazuna to the bridge to get a better lay of the land and set up our own protections and schedule," started Kakashi to his genin, "but we will probably be splitting up guard duties so everyone has a chance to continue training."
"That's good, I need to get to the bridge and see how many workers I still have left," spoke Tazuna, somewhat dejectedly, having expected even more of his workers having left due to pressure from Gato's thugs or simply needing to try other methods of earning a living and feeding their families.
"I wouldn't mind contributing some manual labor," replied Naruto, thinking that learning anything about building would only help him when it came to restoring his old apartment building, and hoping it would help the bridge go up quicker and be another layer of protection for them.
"Those clone thingies can lift stuff right?" asked Tazuna with a pleased gleam in his eyes as he stared at the blond he remembered brought forth pretty decent numbers on a few separate occasions and could definitely use the extra muscle.
"Probably more than anyone you have working for you," replied Naruto with a challenging smirk, knowing his strength far surpassed any civilian.
"You're hired," laughed Tazuna happily, his spirits lifted a bit at the prospect of more help.
"Then let's all head out," responded Kakashi, directing the conversation back to what they needed to do, "and Naruto can leave some clones behind to watch over the house."
The four ninjas then left with Tazuna heading towards the famous bridge he was building, with Naruto lagging behind to spawn large amounts of clones that would add to the numbers he already had running all over the island of Wave. When they reached the bridge, the genin were all suitably impressed with its immense size, but rather underwhelmed by the only half a dozen other workers, prompting Naruto to create a dozen clones. They all quickly transformed into less noticeable young workers with bland brown hair, and the standard clothes his clones had seen around the island, hoping it would help them fit in better as they all walked up to Tazuna as he was greeting the others.
They introduced themselves as cousins from a small mainland village with no experience, but hard workers willing to learn and were split up to assist the other workers and run supplies all over when necessary. While Tazuna was getting the builders back on track, Kakashi was talking his genin through possible areas of ambush or sabotage they would need to be careful about, and walking them through his plans and strategies to use if they were attacked at the bridge. They also went through the rotation for guard duty at the bridge, making sure everyone got a few turns, but also allowed them all enough time to really practice what he gave them each to work on.
Naruto offered to spend a few extra turns doing guard duty at the bridge, as he could still train in his chakra control, and had a few clones training as well throughout the day, and wanted his teammates to have ample training time. He also argued that he had started sleeping much less, and could use some of the time in the evenings and nights to continue training if he felt like it. Kakashi was fine with that, and rearranged their guard rotations to reflect the change. Neither of his teammates thanked him or even acknowledged the sacrifice to help them, but Naruto had grown somewhat used to not being recognized by Sasuke and Sakura, and found that it bothered him less and less now that he was improving so much.
That first day, after Kakashi let Sasuke and Sakura return to the house to train or study, Naruto asked him about any other chakra control exercises he could work on, as he had exhausted how many leaves he could hold and even move around on his body. He knew tree climbing and water walking, and had even continued his work on the Elemental exercises, all things that helped improve his chakra control, but felt it getting harder and harder to continue improving. Kakashi actually had him start leaf spinning, controlling the rotation of your chakra to spin a leaf above your hand, and then to work towards doing over every finger or other parts of the body.
That was quite the challenge, as he had never worked on rotating or spinning his chakra in that method, and required a good deal of concentration and a new way of approaching chakra control exercises. That this would also eventually help him in learning to rotate chakra for the Rasengen, a spinning and grinding vortex of chakra, that was a favorite and invented move by his father, though he didn't know that at the time. Kakashi was happy and proud to get him started on something that many shinobi really struggled with, and would hopefully be a great building block to his later training that was his birthright even if he didn't know that yet.
After doing that for a while, Naruto also asked Kakashi if he would watch and critique him as he went through the sword katas that he gave his young student, to see if he was ready for more. A pair of shadow clones took their visible place on the bridge while they slipped into the surrounding woods and went through the basic kata Kakashi gave him less than a week ago. He was not too surprised that Naruto had taken so well to any and all training with the amount of shadow clones he was constantly producing and adding to his time training, and deemed him ready for the next stage of katas that he went through with the energetic younger blonde.
By the end of that first day of working on the bridge, Tazuna was quite pleased with Naruto's dozen workers and gladly welcomed them back whenever they wanted to work, and were thanked by the other half dozen real workers as well for their invaluable help. He decided to continue the ruse, and sent the dozen worker clones into town with some money to get lodging and continue to play their part as visiting laborers, and have another set of eyes on everything going around. He also continued throughout the day and as they were all walking back to Tazuna's house, to spawn large amounts of clones whenever he felt his chakra reserves were ready for more and saw no reason to stop adding to his clones.
They had already over the course of the day scouted out much more of Gato's compound, the mercenaries' barracks, various spots throughout the town, and mapped quite a bit of the island. They had also started delivering large amounts of meat and vegetables they hunted and harvested to Tsunami, who was somewhat overwhelmed at how much this one boy was helping them, but grateful nonetheless for the help. He had also managed to find an old port on the far other side of the island that seemed to have fallen in disrepair and was left unused. It was the closest landmark though to the abandoned Uzushiogakure Temple he found, and wondered if it was related or facing another nearby island that might have more answers.