Kakashi did not so much walk into Wave as drift there on stubbornness.
The moment Zabuza and the masked hunter-nin disappeared into the mist, everything that had been running on instinct and muscle memory started sending in complaints. His legs were lead, his Sharingan eye a slow-burning throb under the hitai-ate. Each step along the muddy path hooked another weight onto his shoulders.
He kept moving anyway.
The kids were still wired, even if they didn't realize it. Naruto buzzed between bravado and delayed terror. Sasuke's jaw was clenched too tight, eyes narrowed, replaying mistakes. Sylvie walked with her hands clenched on her straps, chakra tucked in close, but every time she glanced at the treeline it spiked sharp before she crushed it back down.
Tazuna trudged ahead of them, hunched under more than just age and the smell of cheap alcohol.
By the time the outline of his house appeared through the fog—simple wood, salt-worn and sagging—Kakashi's chakra coils felt like dry, scraped channels. He was very aware of how much damage one more real fight would do.
Tsunade would have smacked him for overextending like this.
"Hey, old man, is that your place?" Naruto shouted, pointing like the house might sprint away if unobserved.
"Yes," Tazuna snapped, though the edge was dulled by exhaustion. "Welcome to the glamorous Land of Waves. Try not to trip over our poverty."
The front door slid open before they reached it.
A woman stood there with a dishcloth in her hands, hair tied back, eyes shadowed with the particular tiredness that comes from holding a household together with willpower and cheap rice. A small boy half-hid behind her leg, peering out with narrowed eyes.
"Tsunami," Tazuna said, voice softening. "I'm back."
She blinked. Took in the hitai-ate, the kids, the tired man in the mask. Her gaze lingered on the blood drying on Kakashi's vest and sleeves.
"…Welcome home, Father," she said. Then, to Kakashi, "Please, come in. You're hurt."
"Just a little chakra exhaustion," Kakashi said lightly.
The porch tilted under his feet.
The world hiccuped sideways.
He felt himself listing and thought, distantly, before everything went grey at the edges.
Naruto yelled his name. Someone grabbed his arm. The ground came up faster than he could correct for—
—then he hit a futon instead of the floor. At some point, someone had shepherded him down a hall and into a small room. His vest was off, his mask tugged down around his neck, the air thick with the smell of antiseptic and miso.
His whole body complained in chorus.
"Don't get up," a small voice said firmly.
He cracked open his good eye.
Sylvie sat cross-legged beside him, glasses askew, hair frizzed from humidity. There were bandages on her hands where she'd scraped them earlier. Her chakra brushed against his—a cautious, precise tap, like a kid poking a sleeping tiger.
"You should still be unconscious," she added. "Medically speaking."
"Mm," Kakashi said. "Medically speaking, I've heard worse."
Across the room, Tsunami frowned as she wrung out a cloth. "You shouldn't be moving at all," she said. "You used too much… chakra, was it? Whatever it is, you scared my father half to death."
"Sorry," Kakashi said. He meant it. Startling clients by collapsing was bad form.
Outside, he could hear Naruto and the small boy arguing about something—volume, shouting, the words "hero" and "stupid" already featuring heavily. Sasuke's footsteps paced somewhere nearby, measured and restless.
Kakashi exhaled slowly and let the ceiling stop tilting.
"Since we're talking about my terrible life choices," he said, turning his head just enough to look at the three genin hovering in the doorway now, "we should probably discuss yours too."
Naruto blinked. "What? We didn't almost drown in a water prison!"
"You also nearly got you and Tazuna killed," Kakashi said mildly. "Twice."
Naruto flinched. Sylvie's chakra spiked with quiet annoyance on his behalf.
Kakashi sighed.
"Sit," he said.
They did, grudgingly—Naruto at the foot of the futon, Sylvie and Sasuke against the wall, all three radiating varying degrees of tension and adolescent outrage.
"First," Kakashi said, "I owe you an explanation. About chakra, missions, and why this all went sideways."
He watched their faces as he talked.
He kept it simple; they'd had Academy lectures, but context mattered. How chakra was physical and spiritual energy braided together. How using too much didn't just make you tired; it burned channels, tore muscles, wrecked nerves.
"How close were you?" Sylvie asked quietly. "On the lake."
"Closer than I'd like to repeat," Kakashi admitted. "Sharingan isn't free. Copying that many jutsu in a body that isn't built for it…" He trailed off, letting the implication hang.
Naruto swallowed. "So you… could've died."
"Yes," Kakashi said. "Which is why you three need to understand what we're actually in now."
He shifted, ignoring the way his leg throbbed in protest.
"You were promised a C-rank escort," he said. "Bandits. Maybe one or two minor thugs. That situation with the Demon Brothers?" He raised an eyebrow. "Borderline B-rank. Zabuza Momochi, former elite from the Hidden Mist, working for a crime lord who owns half this country?" His tone flattened. "Solid A-rank."
Naruto's eyes went wide. Sylvie's fingers tightened on her knees. Even Sasuke's cool mask flickered.
"You mean…" Naruto started. "We're not supposed to be here?"
"By the book?" Kakashi said. "No. By reality?" He glanced toward the adjoining room, where Tsunami moved quietly between kitchen and table. "We're here. And if we leave, Wave stays under Gato's boot."
Silence stretched.
"Here's what that means," Kakashi went on. "I am on a time-limited recovery. Zabuza is too, wherever he is. When he comes back—and he will—you three need to be stronger than you were today. A lot stronger."
Naruto straightened. "We can do it! Just teach us some super strong jutsu!"
"Yeah," Kakashi said dryly. "I'll just give you all Chidori and see who loses an arm first."
Naruto perked back up. "What's Chidori?"
"Forget ninjutsu—curiosity also killed the cat," Kakashi said. His visible eye curved just enough that it might've been a smile, if any of them trusted him that far.
Naruto deflated a little. Sylvie snorted. Sasuke's gaze went intent, like he was carving the unfamiliar word into stone.
"Then what?" Sasuke said.
Kakashi pointed a finger at the window.
"Tree-walking," he said.
Naruto blinked. "…Tree-walking is a thing?"
"Walking," Kakashi said, "up trees. Without using your hands."
Naruto's jaw dropped. "That's awesome."
Sasuke's mouth twitched, just a little. Sylvie looked thoughtful, already mentally reverse-engineering the mechanics.
"It's an exercise in chakra control," Kakashi explained. "Channeling just enough to stick, not enough to blast yourself off the bark. You three start that tomorrow. I'll supervise as soon as I can stand without my legs arguing with me."
Naruto punched the air. "We're going to be so strong Zabuza won't know what hit him!"
"We'll see," Kakashi said. "But if you listen and train, you'll at least live long enough to find out."
He let his eye drift closed for a moment.
Outside, the ocean roared softly against rocks. Inside, the house hummed with a low, persistent fear. It lived in the way Tsunami's eyes darted to the window whenever a cart rattled past. In the tension in Tazuna's shoulders. In the small, hard knot that was the boy—Inari, Tazuna had called him—watching them all with the cynical focus of someone who'd seen too much.
Kakashi's own chakra was a frayed rope. But the three kids in front of him were burning bright. Too bright. If they weren't careful, this place would eat them.
"Rest tonight," he said. "We start climbing trees at dawn."
Naruto groaned dramatically. Sasuke rolled his eyes. Sylvie hid a smile.
It was a mess. An underpaid, mis-ranked, morally dubious mess.
Kakashi had been in worse.