I do not own Naruto, this story is for entertainment purposes only. I came to terms with that a long time ago...(Sniffs)
Notice: Post time skip appearances!
Son of Terumi
Chapter 1: Enter the swordsman
Land of Waves
All was tense in a small clearing between a lake and a forest for three teenagers whom were glaring at a man who was wearing a harness as the only thing resembling a shirt on his chest and had adorned his legs with blue pinstripe pants that were further equipped with leg warmers fitted for urban combat. Likewise arm warmers garbed his forearms and his face was covered in a mask fashioned from bandages that went up as high as his nose. Lastly sitting upon his forehead was a headband that bore a plate to the side with the symbol of Kiri imprinted on the plate. On his back, fitted to the harness he wore, was a exceptionally large blade shaped like a butcher's knife that had a hole near the top of the blade. The man stood atop the waterfront with an outstretched arm, the hand of which touching the surface of an orb of water containing yet another man of silvery gray hair, a flak jacket of olive green, blue clothes, and a headband bearing a leaf surrounding a small swirl that made up the insignia's base...
Even at the utter cusp of victory the instincts of a shinobi swordsman were at their height. It wasn't because of the Leaf jonin who was trapped within the prison of water constructed from the very lake they stood upon and the possibility that he would escape, however unlikely that was. It definitely wasn't the genin huddling by the drunkard of a bridge builder he was tasked with killing. They could barely keep up with one of his water clones without a casualty on their part. No... there was someone else here. Haku wouldn't have risked revealing his position by signaling what light there was on a mirror on a mere haunch... the worst part of it was that he couldn't tell who it was.
Rogues entering the fray on their own volition was not unheard though pretty uncommon. Given their status and profession however, he wouldn't truly put it past that dwarf to hired someone on the cheap side to off him to save a few ryo. A shinobi from another village at least trespassing on another shinobi's quarrel was also a possibility though a bit rarer than the first... and such encounters were just as unpredictable, deadlier even in most cases, as a rogue's presence if no one knew which village said shinobi was from. Or in an off chance of a fluke on Haku's part, he mistook a civilian who stumbled upon them and took to hiding.
Unlikely but mistakes regrettably did happen to even the greatest of shinobi under the right circumstances. If they didn't have a tendency to be fatal at the end he would simply shrug it off as an annoying memory. But someone was here, regardless.
The stirring of the genin easily drew his attention to their pitiful efforts to save their sensei from a watery grave by chucking shuriken at him. Pathetic. He didn't even had to consider dodging as he drew Kubikiribocho from the harness on his back and promptly swatted all but the most inaccurate of darts away in a single blow.
CHING!
"So there was someone else..." He didn't get any further than a quarter of twisting his neck to spot the intruder when his eye came to the startling discovery made it widen out in panic, his iris constricting to the extreme of its natural ability to do so. In the brief moment it took to spot the colossal blade covered in paper bombs coming down on him from behind he vanished in a burst of the body flicker technique that in turn forced him to let loose the jonin he was drowning within a water prison. "Damn it!" Kiri's interference was strictly not an expected factor with their civil war going on... but if a swordsman entered the fight, then that meant one of two things: Kiri's war had came to a conclusion, or that sadist Jinpachi also went rogue himself. Either way didn't bode well, especially if his prisoner survived the follow up blast.
BOOM!
Sure enough the small plot of lake Zabuza Momochi had stood upon erupted into a jagged mountain of water that consume everything in the immediate area, depriving anyone looking upon it to see the fates of anyone who was near it or otherwise caught in it. It hardly mattered to the swordsman. Anyone who wielded the Shibuki needed the skill and agility of a shinobi of at least chunin rank to use it more than once... but a legendary sword like that was the type of weapon that could only be found in a jonin's hands.
Unless it was stolen of course.
Regardless, once Zabuza touched dry land he had to roll forward to dodge a kunai that sizzled much to his delayed dread as he took off once more to find it wasn't the only bomb laden knife lobbed at him or near him for that matter. Several more kunai entered the fray, each equipped with a bomb tag fluttering against the wind and other currents as it sailed through the air, and only a few were actually aimed at him while the others were set up like mines to inhibit his movement on land. With a snarl he swung his zanbato at one of the kunai aimed at him, effectively knocking it and its lit cargo into a small network of the improvised minefield that awaited him at the cost of his own retreat coming to a sudden halt. A intended reaction most likely on Jinpachi's part, no one lived a relatively long life in the Seven Swordsman on brute strength alone.
From above came that sharpened block that was a sword that rivaled his own in size alone, a narrow strip of metal being the cutting edge when at the peak of its strength while the other half, a bar that was the sword's design acting as a divider between the two, was solely covered in explosive tags attached to a wide scroll than ran from top to bottom. It took everything in Zabuza's power not to swing at it when the tag covered half was bearing down on him like an angrily dressed guillotine of explosive rage, he knew how that sword worked. Instead he made time to grab a trio of kunai from the case strapped to his leg and let them loose against the practically hidden edge of the bomb covered edge of the blade for its desired effect...
BOOM!
A vicious grin split Zabuza's bandage covered lips. As planned, the canopy of bombs came loose and began to flutter in the wind in a sizzling mass of paper that was to consume Shibuki's wielder as the blade, rearming itself with a fresher sheet of bombs, slide past the spent sheet of paper. While it would be nice to see an old... 'acquaintance,' even the Demon of the Bloody Mist didn't particularly care for a shower of blood and bone if he could avoid it. Zabuza girded himself for whatever licks of flame and any at all surviving "mines" that had lasted from the earlier explosion and dove into the plume of smoke, born thanks to diverting the kunai from earlier, just as the second explosion resounded that surely consumed the other swordsman if he failed to prevent his death from an act of recklessness.
"Sasuke! Wait!" An annoyed snarl placed itself upon his covered visage. There was still at least one jonin out there, a real threat than some brat from a ruined clan to deal with and his loudmouth companion that was to come if he read the moron accurately enough.
"Take this!" Indeed he came. From the sounds of it he tossed a kunai into the smokescreen that hidden away the known rogue of the Village Hidden in the Mist only to miss him by a mile considering the swordsman neither felt or saw the kunai come near him despite the smoke. A waste of weaponry, or perhaps it was intended to draw him out... a waste in either case.
"Fire Release- Urk!"
"SASUKE!"
"Who the hell- GAH!"
Unless his prisoner, Kakashi Hatake, the Copy Cat, suddenly changed colors, Jinpache must have survived his own attack. Not good. Taking quick stock of his situation Zabuza snarled and charged forward, sword raised high, to hopefully cleave the man in half before the smoke completely evaporated and revealed his plot to end him to level the playing field against Kakashi if he too was alive as well.
Clang!
It was for not. Since there was no sizzling his zanbato must have clashed with the other zanbato's uncovered side of the blade, the user of which unyielding as he was... a telltale sign alone. "You're not Jinpache," Zabuza practically whispered to the clearing air.
"No. I'm just the one who received his sword." Glaring eyes narrowed onto a plain white mask given blue tribal markings that dominated the portion where the left eye was and coming to a narrowing stop where the chin would be as it traveled downward. The symbol of Kiri was proudly emblazoned atop the forehead. From what could be seen in the immediate area of the mask were bandages that gave way to the ears of his opponent and lazily drooping golden blond hair, the exact the same shade of blond of that genin who now laid on the ground while clasping his midsection alongside his comrade, that managed to escape the confines of the bandages in odd, irregular places. He was wearing the Anbu variant of his village's flak jacket that too proudly shown of which village he fought for on the bent shoulder pads that slightly went past the shoulders. While it obviously left no room to showcase what kind of shirt he was wearing, it was obvious enough that his shirt, if any, didn't have sleeves. The arm that held the Shibuki was obviously a prosthetic made of wood, a puppeteer's arm really that he didn't try to hide that most likely bore a hidden cache of weapons of its own. As for the other arm, his only protection was a vambrace lacquered to match the dark gray of his flak jacket encompassing the entirety of his forearm that tapered to a sharp point when it came just short of his elbow. For pants they were fairly loose dark brown pants that were tucked away into standard dark blue shinobi sandals when they came near the feet. The most distinguishing fact he could tell about the swordsman from what little can be seen however was that he was of his late teenage years if Zabuza was to guess from the body build.
"So Kiri's war has been settled then... and they're trying to revive the Seven aren't they?" In truth it was more rhetorical than a question as proven with the added pressure on his part on their lock. It was met in kind. "Would make sense if they sent the wielder of the Shibuki after me."
"To be honest I was hoping to tire you out first before I made a real decision in regards what to do with you," the masked swordsman stated simply, his voiced masked slightly thanks to the actual mask on his face. As for Zabuza, his eyes narrowed even further and dared to glance at the Leaf genin fighting to stand up behind him.
"Oh?" he muttered in response, half expecting the swordsman to nod in return yet he didn't.
"Either way I'm here to reclaim the Kubikiribocho and bring it back to Kiri, and to be honest I'm not that interested in spilling blood for it."
"Heh..." Once more a grin came to Zabuza regardless of it being seen or not. "A shinobi trying to recruit a rogue who left the very village he's from. I'll admit, I haven't heard that one before." His hands gripped the sword's handle ever tighter. "But..." In a sharp screech of metal on metal, the blades came apart, the elder of the two ducking low and sticking his leg out in a sweep to kick up the ash left behind by the spent explosives. "I'm not interested!"
Both shinobi leapt back from the smokescreen, both of which lobbing kunai and shuriken at each other in hopes of at least nicking the other. None of which landed on the elder Mist shinobi, and all likelihood the ones sent to the younger swordsman hadn't had any more luck than he between the armor and the quickly dissipating cloud of once grass, paper, and pulverized dirt if Zabuza was to be honest with himself. In any other circumstance he would've labeled it disappointing on this fresh blood's regard if he was done in by such a cheap tactic.
In a dead sprint the older swordsman broke for the tree line the second he touched the ground, leaving everyone but his current pursuer in his dust as he made for the cover of foliage and branches. As for the two genin ambushed by the loyal Mist shinobi, they managed to finally stand under their own power with hands cradling the now bruised parts of the assailed areas where the shinobi assailed them. "Damn it!" Sasuke, the dark haired teenager wearing an open long sleeved shirt, dark blue pants and a blue cloth sitting between the two held up by a purple rope belt, snarled. "Who was that guy?"
"Obviously a shinobi from Kiri." Both heads whipped around in heated anticipation of another ambush only to relax soon after upon seeing the soggy form of Kakashi fighting to keep his clumping hair from his good eye, the other one being veiled by his headband. "Or at least once held allegiance to Kiri... did either of you by chance learn why he's here?"
"I think he said something about bringing something back to that Kiri place," Naruto groaned as he gently patted the midsection of his burnt orange jumpsuit that boasted a large black T pattern that ran from the sleeves to unite in the middle to run along where the zipper would be.
"I see..." Kakashi hummed as he stared at the forest that the two shinobi disappeared to. "Where's Tazuna?" he suddenly inquired.
"Right here, sensei!"
Boom!
As a precaution he drew out a kunai and held it defensively between looking at the origin of the explosion, the forest, and searched for his team's client, an elderly craftsman of graying features and glasses, who had to be virtually dragged out of his hiding spot amongst the foliage behind them by a somewhat wary Sakura. "Good... let's get going."
Of the three genin, only Sakura's look of alarm lasted and was voice upon. "Excuse me sensei but shouldn't we help him despite..." She grimaced to herself upon a brief reminder of what had transpired but minutes at best before. "His own... attack on us?"
Kakashi regarded her for a moment before shaking his head. "Konoha has no alliance with Kiri to begin with. As far as we know his objective is entirely different from our own. Considering the fact that he's yielding the Shibuki only states that whatever his mission is most likely involves someone's death, and getting Tazuna to safety is our greatest priority as of right now."
"I can definitely live with that," the man gruffly replied as he took a reassuring swig from a sake bottle hanging from his belt. It was a likewise agreement all around with only a measure of reluctance as a whole.
XVX
He could give the kid credit, he was holding his own. Unfortunately the forest wasn't enclosed enough to truly inhibit someone from using a zanbato of any caliber even if they were as experienced as The Demon of the Mist, but it was enough of a challenge to force large weapon users into being more careful with their swings even if given the advantage of a bomb covered blade for demolition. The worst Zabuza received thus far was a single bleeding nick running a good inch along his left bicep whereas Shibuki's holder had his masked nicked and his wooden arm on the receiving end of a glancing blow at worst, but otherwise unharmed much like the rogue swordsman.
"It's been too long since I had a real challenge..." Unfortunately this was taking time, time better spent achieving his contract, not to mention that it was more than possible that Kakashi was lurking somewhere in the shadows if he was still alive or worse yet ensuring his target escaped. "Hm!" A change of tactics was in order; single hand came to form a seal, heralding in the congealing mists that already surrounded them and their transformation into coalesced clouds of fog that consumed every tree, every bush, and every glint of light that the sun could shine down upon them.
"It's time to end this," Zabuza growled out from the dense mist.
The masked shinobi carefully glance from side to side to find nothing but the airborne vapor that blotted out the world around him, the grip of his sword coming to a light squelch as the wooden hand tightened around it. From the light darkness provided by the haze a dark chuckle arose, courtesy of the elder swordsman lurking within it, came his voice once more. "Did you know there are eight methods to kill someone almost instantly?" Upon the teen's silence he continued after a respectful moment. "Larynx, spine, lungs, jugular, subclavical veins, kidneys, spine, and the heart... Tell me: If you had a choice in the matter, how would you like to die?"
Thunk!
Probably a stray shot to find him, and if lucky end him, the swordsman had to bite back an annoyed groan as he cautiously ambled through the fog to buy himself time and to pull out whatever struck his arm in relative peace. "A senbon?" he muttered as he plucked the weapon out. A strange weapon of choice, but who was he to judge considering he carried something as outright destructive as the Shibuki? Still, of all the weapons shinobi throughout history used, senbon were not as commonplace in use nor as coveted as something like a shuriken for instance.
"I see..." he murmured in conclusion. It certainly explained things; he had been wondering why Zabuza was more surprised upon seeing the coming blade of Shibuki rather than the concept of an ambusher upon him. Someone else was here.
Pwt! Pwt!Pwt!
If their reverberations were anything to go by this other shinobi was smart enough to assume he had moved and reacted accordingly by laying a careful barrage to find him once more... if only that was the only threat. While the mist had hidden him away it also cloaked the rogue and his partner, and even then at least one of them did his best work under such natural camouflage... wait, why would someone be flinging so many senbon needles at an otherwise un-seeable enemy under such conditions-
On a hunch Shibuki's blade whirled in his grip as he brought it to slash across the torso of an imagined foe only to have a clash of blades instead, the crash of sparks briefly illuminating each other's darkened figure in the mist. "I'll give you this much kid," Zabuza practically chuckled in his growl. "You're not making my job easy."
The younger swordsman forced the blade away and spun the Shibuki once more as he twirled the entire blade around in a bodily spin that knocked away the renewed senbon assault upon him, his one good hand forming seal upon seal in utter ease given that no one could properly see the limb let alone the hand.
"Water Release: Rushing Sphere!" The mist, being airborne water vapor, swarmed to the Kiri operative and amalgamate on his skin as droves of the airy water came to him. Quickly did the united waterfront form a humanoid shell around him and the sword as well, yet it didn't stop. What was briefly limbs turned into monstrously sized blobs that threatened to drop off his body completely yet didn't as they contorted around him, further increasing in their size as it consumed more of the fog to feed itself to shape its title's namesake that held the shinobi in the direct middle of it.
From the confines of the haze Zabuza came with his zanbato reared back, all the more ready to cleave him in half alongside the bubble that encased him. As if it was that easy. Living up to its name the orb of water seemingly took a life of its own and ferried the shinobi through the miss, shrugging off the flurry of senbon that managed to land on it as easily as a rubber ball would with an impact with the ground as it bulldozed everything in its path towards the greatest advantage any Mist shinobi could have for their arsenal.
"What is he up to?" Zabuza snarled as he hurtled through brush and low hanging branches in his own bid to reach the lake, his partner but a shadow trying to catch up. "Hm?" Already narrowed eyes went to their limits as he held up his sword defensively and strafed to the left, deftly dodging a thin variant of a hissing water dragon that tore apart whatever it came into contact with. There was no contest between the two when the Kubikiribocho was called upon to defend the swordsman. Other such constructs came and went in his passing, each blindingly seeking some kind of enemy to destroy if not wound. They weren't much of a threat, not since it seemed that he had unwittingly stumbled across the path with the least resistance judging from the numbers and lack of coordinated aggression. But it only served to dampen what relief there was to be had for the ex-Anbu considering it meant only one thing- the Mist shinobi had reached the lake and was trying to buy time for a jutsu demanding a greater expense of chakra to perform.
Not good.
"Water Release-"
"Shit!" With the dour hope of stopping whatever the shinobi was up to out the window, Zabuza was left no choice but to hitch his sword onto the harness and flip through his own hand seals in defense of what was surely to come.
"Dark Tsunami!"
Sure enough a jutsu based attack came thanks to the generous amount of water provided by the lake much to his chagrin. Even if it wasn't original in its idea thanks to its earlier use, Zabuza formed his own Rushing Sphere and turned tail to outrun the oncoming murky wave taller than twice the height of the surrounding trees that it drown, destroyed, and possibly uprooted in its advance, not that he stopped to find out. He knew well enough whatever made up that murderous mass of water other than its identifiable substance wasn't just for show.
In his retreat, the orb keeping pace with the oncoming wave as it barreled after it, Zabuza only looked back once and snarled at what he saw: The swordsman of Kiri atop his own creation using what looked to be a cleaved branch as a surfboard.
"Cheeky little—!" Even within his own mind Zabuza had to cut himself off in favor of being wary. From his perch the younger swordsman flung out a kunai equipped with a bomb tag, unfortunately the fleeing swordsman knew it wasn't aimed at him but ahead of him... and it wasn't going to be the only one to destroy the only advantage he had at the moment.
POOF!
"SHADOW CLONES!?" He did of course hope it was going to exhaust his supply of kunai at least considering Shibuki's needs...
Like a hellish rain of steel and paper, even if "fake" by a technicality, kunai after kunai embedded themselves into whatever they found purchase in and awaited the intended victim to meet them. As if it was going to be that easy! Risking the concentration needed to maintain the sphere, the fleeing shinobi ripped his bandage mask apart to free his shark-like teeth with one hand which soon dove into a pocket that swiftly retrieved a soldier pill to which he ate soon after. Again risking his concentration, and to an extent ripping off his enemy in terms of tactics, the man willed, sacrificed, a portion of his watery protection to be used as semi-living ammunition to clear out a path through the mine field that awaited him in the form of the miniscule water dragons that eagerly drove themselves to their 'deaths.'
While it worked it only took away something crucial to the swordsman- his awareness. With his attention devoted to clearing a path the sphere roughly ran over a thick root of an older tree that refused to yield so easily, and the resulting bounce that came off it diverted the protective ball onto a new path entirely. A path his dragons had not nor could not clear in time when they were brought to hastily correct this crisis.
BOOM! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
Even if it was at full strength, or enhanced for that matter, the defensive jutsu could only take so much punishment before it gave way, upchucking the rogue in turn to finally meet the crushing force that was hell-bent on consuming him in its depths.
Woosh! BAM!
There was practically no time in between him being swallowed up by the charging torrent of water and him being slammed into a tree with such force that he knew he broke something for sure. To his credit the former Mist shinobi never opened his mouth, only gritted his teeth at worst, as he rode out what was left of the wave. For all he knew it was probably an intended reaction to have him ingest whatever clouded the water against his will.
When it was over he finally fell from the tree's side with a near mangled yelp of pain that he barely constrained upon his landing, splashing onto muddied grass at the base of the tree. He made to try to stand on his feet but his own body screamed for him to stay put.
Splash!
Unfortunately he couldn't muster the energy to ignore the aches of his body. He did nothing to hide the snarl upon his face as the masked shinobi readied the Shibuki's blade to strike him down once and for all.
Pwt! "Gah!"
As easily as it came the scowl washed itself away for a vicious grin. "You dropped your guard," he darkly chuckled as he enjoyed it while he could. The smile was short lived though considering what he already knew and what was going to happen. The shinobi, now crippled slightly by a senbon piercing his calf, would limp away and guard himself for further attacks which were to come. The attacks, if and when they came, were simply a distraction to force the shinobi away while Haku extracted him via his mirrors of ice...
Like clockwork it happened just so.
"We're going to settled the score next time, kid," Zabuza managed to growl as he was escorted through a glistening mirror of ice held up by his cohort's power over it. When they were through it dropped and shattered as gravity dictated once the chakra fed to it was cut.
"Damn it." Grimacing under the mask, the swordsman spent the better part of a minute carefully removing the senbon from his leg and flicking the bloodied piece of metal away once his leg stopped being its slightly morbid pin cushion. When he stood he gave his leg a decent amount of pressure by taking a step forward and winced as a result. He added more pressure and winced all the same as before, but his leg worked all the same.
With the issues of his most serious wound put to mild rest he set off to the spot where the rogue and his partner had disappeared to only to find a quickly growing puddle in their place, a somewhat remarkable feat considering the soggy ground beneath it, yet evidence that the shinobi were once there still remained in the form of diminishing shards that glistened slightly in the light as they rested at the bottom of the puddles. His flesh and blood hand reached out in curiosity and easily plucked out the soon discovered frozen fragments of what was once a mirror. "Ice huh?" he murmured to himself. "I guess that makes another allegedly dead clan coming back to the world."
Sighing, he gave the fragment a quick rub of his thumb shortly before lazily tossing the frozen piece away. "I better report this..." he grumbled. "Knowing my luck she's going to bite my head off for this when I get back home."