Time Travel Lovers **BEING REWRITTEN/EDITED WITH MAJOR CHANGES**

Chapter 33: Confrontation

They had reached the Wave on the second of February. It was now May 10th. They had made giant progress on the bridge. Almost a fourthjm done in three months. Granted most of their progress was just the support pillars. Naruto had gotten pillars placed that spanned halfway to the mainland. The actual bridge was still barely a half mile off shore.

Once Naruto was done placing the pillars his efforts could be moved to construction of the actual bridge. It was currently just Tazuna, Kaiza, and Hinata working on the bridge. She could see why it took almost five years to build the bridge last time. They would have the bridge completed in a year and a half at the current rate.

Naruto was now getting a three day weekend to rest. He spent the first day sleeping and eating then he slowly built up his energy and willingness to get back to work.

Tsunami had made Tazuna give Naruto the breaks. Her motherly instincts were still growing but she had picked up on the boys weariness. So now Naruto rested for three days while the others kept working on the rest of the bridge. It was a much better system and Naruto was feeling much better.

It now took him an hour to get out to his start point for work. He ran/jumped on the pillars all the way out. The barge with his supplies stayed tied to a pillar. He had to bring it back to refill once a week.  It now took four hours to pull the empty barge back to shore and six to pull the full one out.

It was a long process but Naruto was very happy with their progress. With only four people and thirty six bodies to do work they were doing awesome.

He just couldn't shake the feeling of apprehension he had. Something was going to happen eventually.

They had made it so far without incident in the Wave. They had had many fun times and causes for joy. His and Hinata's first anniversary, Inari's first words and steps, Kaiza proposing to Tsunami, Tazuna making a fool of himself, and more. So many causes for joy.

Naruto feared that those times may soon come to an end.

He wanted to think it wasn't because of them. Due to their meddling Kaiza had met Tsunami sooner and was now engaged to the young mother. Because of them attention was being drawn to the Wave. As they had progressed they had seen an increase of day traffic to and from the land. More boats passing by to get a look at the bridge. A small unrest had been heard from those who worked as ferry drivers and transporters across the expanse of ocean. It had taken a meeting with Hinata for them to realize they would still have business as ferry would be faster and larger loads would still need to be transported by barge.

Naruto and his squad of five clones were about to dive to place another pillar when the sound of a motored boat reached his ears. He looked up and could see the speck in the distance that was the oncoming boat. His sense of apprehension was a stone in his gut. This was it. Whatever feeling he had been getting from the nature chakra in the air had arrived.

He quickly dispelled all but five clones and had all of them transform. A mess of brown, black, and blue haired men had replaced the squad of six Narutos. Onr clone was created then and started racing back to the shore. The lone blond clone was long gone by the time the boat came to a stop by the disguised Narutos.

"Greetings! I'm from Konohagakure. Would it be possible to talk?" The speaker seemed like a normal ninja. But to Naruto he was too painful too see.

Iruka Umino waited paitiently while the group of men shared a few looks and whispers. He had no idea what they were doing out this far with a barge full of wood, metal tubes, and bags of something. He could see a trail of circles breaking through the waves every few seconds. There was about five miles till they would reach the shore of the Land of Waves.

"We may speak on the land." Iruka heard the dismissal in the tone and nodded. The man who spoke turned to his companions. "Pack it up and secure everything. This will take the rest of the day. Get the string ready and go ahead. I'll go with the visitor and direct him."

Iruka acknowledged the fact that the man speaking was obviously the leader.  His companions set to work immediately. A few dove into the water and sufaced minutes later with more of the metal circles. The number of times they all dovr and surfaced made Iruka feel a little sick.

The leader stayed above the surface and was grabbing pieces as they were lifted up and placing them on the barge. Iruka noted that on occassion all of the men made solid steps of the surface of the water. The leader stayed either on the barge or on the surface of the water for a solid hour before all the circles had apparently been hauled up.

They tied everything down and then the five others began to race across the surface of the water. Iruka noted the hop they had to their gate and made note that they must be stepping on something.

Finally it was just Iruka and the leader.

"I never introduced myself. I am Iruka Umino. Chunnin of Konoha."

"Satori. Assistant to Tazuna and leader of the pillars crew."

"Pillars?"

"Yes. Pillars."

Iruka would have been a bit offended by the man's brusk and almost rude way of talking, if he hadn't seen it for what it was. Being wary of giving too much information to a stranger and a possible threat.

"What are the pillars for?"

"The bridge."

A bridge? Since when was the wave planning on making a bridge to the main land? Iruka had so many questions.

Okay! Hi. I'm a horrible author. I'm late and I only have this mess of a chapter offer. It'll pull together hopefully with the next chapter. That is whenever I can kick my ass into high gear and get it done. School starts on the 22nd for me so stuff will shift around then. Either more consistent updates because I'll have a ruitine again or updates will be even more random then they have all summer. I am not giving up on this story so just stay with me. Please?

Like always, love all y'all! Happy reading!