The atmosphere in the house was tense all throughout the evening and the following days. Sasuke pretended he was fine, but never left Haruka out of his sight for too long. Naruto made a point of staying close to the bridge builder, and Tazuna's daughter tried to make sure Haruka was never in the same room as her son.
It didn't really matter to Haruka. She spent most of her day sitting right next to Kakashi and stretching her sense of chakra as far as it would go. It was exhausting and she had to take a break every hour or so to avoid getting a headache. Waiting wasn't one of her favorite pastimes, but she needed to rest her back to get back into fighting shape as fast as possible.
The townspeople didn't know a lot about Gato, they were mostly just afraid and wanted him gone. However, all of them were in agreement that the man hated ninja and that his regular guards were samurai. Ronin, more likely, but civilians probably didn't care about these kinds of distinctions.
Gato posed as a shipping magnate, but apparently that was only a small part of his business. His main operation involved drugs and other black market items. Nobody had any specifics on that, not that it mattered. Officially Gato was a foreign business man, so killing him without a contract would get Haruka in trouble, no matter his other activities.
What was more interesting to her was the no shinobi thing. He'd hired a known nukenin assassin to kill Tazuna, but his guards weren't ninja. It seemed a little weird at first, but nukenin were almost as likely to do a job as they were to kill and rob their employer. Konoha wouldn't take the kinds of missions Gato's business involved, at least not officially, but other nations might. Kiri for one hadn't been called the Bloody Mist because they were a bunch of friendly do gooders. Then again, Kiri might just decide they wanted Wave themselves, and regular shinobi were always more expensive than nukenin, especially if they had to travel far to complete the job. As a criminal and businessman the most important things to Gato were probably money and power and paying Hidden Village shinobi was more expensive and would put him in the weaker position.
It fit with what Naruto had discovered on the third day. One of his clones came across a group of conical houses, suspended in the trees several miles away from the town. He couldn't confirm that Gato was there for certain, as he had no idea how the man looked, but there were at least three dozen men that looked like thugs and an older guy in a suit that was guarded by two men in samurai gear.
"There's something else," The blond said when he was done relaying the information his clone had gathered. "I don't know how important it is, but you said everything, so… I met a boy in the woods. He was really nice and gathering medical herbs, and he also kinda looked like a girl. Like, a lot."
The Uchiha scoffed at him, but didn't comment otherwise. Haruka gave both of them an exasperated look, but neither seemed to get what her problem was.
"So, let me get this straight. You find what is probably Gato's outpost in this area. Not far away from that you run into a boy gathering medical herbs. This happens only days after we fight a nukenin who was in all likelihood saved by a fake Hunter-nin. A boy whose face you have never seen."
"You can't be serious," Sasuke said. Naruto still didn't get it though.
"What? What does it mean?"
"It means there is a good chance that boy was the Hunter-nin you idiot!" Sasuke nearly shouted at him.
"No way! Haku was way too nice to work with that bastard nukenin!"
Sometimes Haruka wondered if Naruto even knew what being a ninja entailed. People like Haku might not be the norm, but they weren't a rarity either. Itachi was perfectly nice, polite and hated violence. He was also an elite assassin and mass murderer. Humans were complex creatures that could be driven to do just about anything under the right circumstances. Being nice wasn't the same as not-a-killer and the greatest asshole in the world might have a soft spot for fuzzy, little kittens and give his life to protect them.
"Just keep the perimeter up Naruto and if Haku does happen to show up again make sure not to let him anywhere near the house," Haruka sighed.
The blond agreed before he left to talk to Inari, the bridge builder's grandson. He wasn't happy with the order, but apparently not unhappy enough to risk being wrong about his new friend. It would have to be good enough.
"You're going tonight?" Sasuke asked when Naruto was out of the room.
"Yeah, we're probably not going to get a better opportunity. I know where Gato's outpost is and if the fake Hunter-nin is gathering herbs that means Zabuza isn't ready to fight yet."
"There could be other shinobi."
"If there were they would have already attacked, it's been three days. Gato is likely too cheap to pay more than one nukenin unless he absolutely has to."
***
Haruka waited until after dinner and checked the surroundings one last time before she left. Sasuke took a guard position on the roof and Naruto assured her that his clones would notice any attackers and give him enough time to warn everyone in the house. It wasn't nearly as secure as she'd like it to be, but she hadn't lied when she'd told Sasuke that they were unlikely to get a better opportunity. They couldn't risk waiting for Kakashi to wake up because even after he did he would still need more time to recover and by then Zabuza would either be back on his feet as well, or Gato would have decided that it was time to send someone else.
Well, unless all of her assumptions were wrong, which was entirely possible. Not that it mattered much at this point. They weren't in a position to twiddle their thumbs and hope for the best, so instead she'd trust her instincts, her training, and Naruto's luck.