It took Haruka almost four hours to reach the outpost. She could have gotten there faster, but she didn't want to risk being noticed and keeping her chakra imperceptible got more difficult the more of it she used. Stealth was her only advantage at the moment, one she could absolutely not afford to lose.
She slowly crept up one of the tree trunks, well out of range of the patrolling thugs, and only using chakra when absolutely necessary. It took her the better part of an hour to move from tree to tree and onto the roof of the main building, silently and without being seen.
Haruka almost cursed out loud when she finally reached it. There were two trained and one civilian chakra signatures in a room at the top. Gato and his two guards in his office she'd judged, and of course they had decided that it was time to go to bed just as she got into position. Following them into one of the lower levels was too risky. There was no way she could kill Gato without having to fight his two guards. In his office she might have been able to get away with it before anyone decided to investigate the noise, but not in the sleeping quarters. There were too many people on that floor.
One civilian didn't stand a chance against a shinobi in a fight, even one fresh from the Academy. But the game changed once there were several civilians, especially the kind that knew how to wield a weapon. At some point they would simply be able to overwhelm Haruka, ninja techniques or not.
Time for plan B. Or in other words: improvise and hope for the best. Her original plan hadn't been all that solid to begin with, born out of desperation as it was, so whatever she came up with on the fly couldn't be that much worse.
Haruka crawled along the building's outer wall until she reached the window to Gato's office and then used her claws to cut a hole into it. Afterwards she gathered chakra to her palm, gently nudging the glass to avoid shattering it. It worked surprisingly well. There would be no way to hide that someone had been in the office, but then her goal was merely not to be discovered while she was still here so that didn't really matter.
Gato's office didn't look bad. Expensive, wooden floor, decorative plants, two very comfortable leather couches, massive desk and behind that a safe. There was some artwork too, but Haruka didn't have an eye for that kind of thing. Especially the cage with a teakettle in it that stood on a small side table confused her quite a bit. Was that art as well?
She didn't spend too much time perusing the office, more focused on the desk and safe. Picking the locks on the desk's drawers was very easy, but also not particularly useful. The papers within would probably be interesting to someone, but they didn't do her any good at the moment. The safe seemed like it wouldn't be much use to her either. Haruka wasn't sure if she could have exerted enough force on it to break the thing at all, but she definitely couldn't do it quietly. With the help of chakra enhanced hearing she might have been able to get around a mechanical combination lock, but of course the stupid thing just had to have a key lock.
"I could help you with that," a tiny voice said from the other side of the office. It surprised Haruka so much, she jumped away from the safe, rolled to the side and had two kunai drawn before she was even on her feet again. Besides her own she couldn't feel any chakra signatures nearby, but in the cage that had held the teakettle before now sat a tanuki with a straw hat hanging around his neck.
"Who the hell are you and why can't I sense you?" She hissed, suspicious and embarrassed that she'd been caught off guard in such a situation.
"My name is Jubei and I'm a mighty summon!" The little creature declared. Haruka raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah, so mighty that you serve as a piece of weird room decor."
"I'll open that safe for you if you free me," he offered in a huff.
"If you're so good at opening things, how come you can't unlock the cage?" Haruka asked skeptically, but went over anyway. Apparently there was some kind of seal on the cage that dispersed chakra as soon as it passed the bars, which explained why she couldn't sense him. It also meant that he couldn't transform himself into something smaller and escape on his own or simply go back to his summoning realm.
The cage's lock, however, was as simple as those on the desk drawers, so Haruka had no trouble at all simply picking it. Jubei looked completely delighted when he jumped out. He bowed to her and then promptly transformed into a complicated looking key. She blinked at him for a moment before picking the key up and opening the safe with it. Haruka knew that Tanuki were supposed to be incredible shapeshifters, but this was still impressive. Whatever he had done didn't just make him look like a key, he actually was one.
"I believe this concludes our business," Jubei said in a strangely formal tone, having transformed back the second the safe was open. He waited for her to nod in acknowledgment and then disappeared in a small cloud of chakra smoke. Haruka didn't waste any time wondering about the strange little creature, instead rifling through the safe. She stuffed all the money that would fit into her bag as well as a few papers that mentioned Konoha, and then headed back out through the window.
Zabuza's chakra signature was in one of the smaller houses, that was so far out of the way that the guards excluded it from their patrols. Still, Haruka didn't hurry, sneaking up another tree trunk and then carefully over to the other house. Compared to the one Gato's office was in, this one was more of a shabby hut. It also was completely empty except for Zabuza himself and a second chakra signature she assumed belonged to the fake Hunter-nin, Haku.
Haruka let herself in through the front door this time. She kept her chakra imperceptible, but didn't bother being overly quiet. She wouldn't win a fight and didn't want to give the impression that she was trying to sneak up on them. When she reached Zabuza's room a boy was waiting in the door. He looked calm, three senbon in one hand, but his chakra was skittish, more uncomfortable than afraid.
"I'd like to talk," Haruka told him. He looked at her blankly, seemingly unsure what to do with that, and then there was laughter from inside the room.
"Step aside boy," Zabuza said. Haku immediately obeyed.
The room was completely empty, except for two cots and a small table. Haruka made sure to keep her back to the door, and both Zabuza and the boy in her line of sight.
"Well?" The nukenin asked her after a few seconds of silence. His chakra was almost as weak as Kakashi's and his body clearly hadn't taken its introduction to a tree trunk very well, but he'd be able to come after them again in a few more days.
"I just cleared out Gato's safe," she started, voice as firm as she could make it. "Which means you're not getting any money from him any time soon. I'm sure he has more elsewhere, but who knows if he'd still be willing to pay you after this."
"So you came to gloat then?" Zabuza interrupted her with a disbelieving laugh. Haruka frowned at him, shaking her head.
"No. I'm going to give the money to you and in return you will come back with me and protect the bridge builder and my team. Or you could kill Gato and his men, I really don't care."
"And what makes you think I'm not just going to kill you little girl?"
"You could, but it would cost you. You saw what I did to your minions. I might not get out of here in one piece, but neither will you." It was a bluff of course. Haruka couldn't fight Zabuza on her best day and even now, injured as he was, there was still the fake hunter-nin to take into account. Haku's accuracy with senbon had to be incredible to be able to put someone in a near death state. She wasn't sure if the nukenin saw through her bluff, but he didn't call her on it.
"Well, seems we have a new mission Haku," he grinned, showing decidedly too many sharp teeth. Did he file those or was that some kind of natural mutation?
***
Zabuza decided to head back with Haruka instead of taking Gato out. She was a little confused about that at first, but then the reason he had agreed to work with her in the first place became clear. Physically the nukenin was a lot worse off than she had first thought and Haku was apparently rather averse to killing. The way back to Tazuna's house took them almost as long as Haruka had needed initially and they weren't even trying to be stealthy.
Haruka could sense one of Naruto's clones long before it burst out of the trees when they got close to the town.
"Haruka-chan!" It shouted, dramatically pointing at Zabuza, as if she could have somehow missed the nukenin's presence.
"Tell the others I've made new friends," she interrupted the clone, completely ignoring his hysterical babbling and arm waving. She had to tell him five times that, yes, she was sure and no, this wasn't some convoluted hostage situation, before he finally did as told.
A few minutes later the house came into view, with both the original Naruto and Sasuke waiting on the porch. Haku smiled at the blond and, after receiving a nod from Zabuza, the two moved inside. Sasuke merely raised an eyebrow at her.
"How did leaving to kill Gato turn into bringing the guys that want our client dead back here?"
"What can I say, Gato has really shitty timing and I didn't want to risk having to fight fifty thugs and him," she told her teammate with a nod in Zabuza's direction. Sasuke gave her a long look, as if to ask whether she was sure about this, but she didn't budge. After a while he shrugged and went inside as well.
"I think there's still some dinner left," Haruka told Zabuza. She wasn't about to just trust him blindly and would make sure that one of her teammates or herself were awake to keep an eye on him at all times, but he really didn't have a reason to betray them right now.