Disclaimer: Neither of us own Naruto, and neither of us make any profit writing fanfiction about it.
File Title - A great big fuckin to do
Contributing Authors: The King in White, Ajax the Great
(AN - Ajax): Hey everyone. I've spent a long time reading a wide array of Fanfiction before motivating myself to produce some content of my own, and now I'm happy to be collaborating with The King in White. This is dedicated to all those poor readers out there that are ready to 'scoop their eyes out with rusty spoons' (as White put it) when reading yaoi, mpreg, or any of those obviously delicious and well thought-out masterpieces. Aiming for a realistic, character-driven story, along the lines of what I myself would love to see more of in fanfiction.
"Why? Why did you save me?"
"I don't know. My body just moved on its own, idiot."
Sasuke collapsed backwards, tired muscles giving out as Haku's senbon took their toll. Everything in his vision was spinning together, melding into an uncertain blur of colour. Then there was warmth at his back, preventing the Uchiha from hitting the tiles of the bridge and a strained voice hollering in his ear.
"Sasuke!"
Cradling his wounded teammate closer, Naruto watched in a mixture of panic and disbelief as his rival's dark eyes glazed over. Blood was trickling from the corner of the Uchiha's mouth as the boy struggled to form words.
"That man… until I defeated my brother, I absolutely refused to die… That's what I decided, but…" Sasuke's vision cleared past the fog of memory and confusion for a silent beat, and he reached up to seize his teammate's tattered orange jumpsuit with a trembling hand. "You. Don't die."
Then Sasuke's arm dropped away, and with a final gasping breath the Uchiha's chest went still.
There was an odd hot burn in Naruto's eyes, the world glimmering beneath a veil of water and salt before warmth started to trickle down his whiskered cheeks. He was crying? Numb reality began to sink into the blonde boy as his lungs started to shudder. Drawing Sasuke's body to his chest with with silent sob, Naruto almost missed Haku's sorrow-tinged words.
"He - to protect somewhere dear to him, he would knowingly plunge right into a trap." Haku murmured softly, straightening to stare down at the orange-clad genin through the slits of his mask. "He was a shinobi worthy of respect."
Sighing, Zabuza's apprentice sunk back into the ice mirror's conjured up by the Yuki clan's kekkei genkai. "Is this your first time witnessing a friend die? This is the way of shinobi."
"Shut up." Naruto spat, voice thick with tears and rage. Delicately laying the dead body of his teammate down, the Uzumaki began to pluck out the ice senbon with uncharacteristically gentle hands. "Even though I hated you too, you still…"
Steam began to billow out around Naruto, wreathing the boy in waving tendrils of vapor that vanished into the surrounding air. "I won't forgive you!" he swore, voice turning dark and guttural as the red, bubbling mist began to spiral malevolently.
"This bridge is where our dreams are tied together. The place where we fight. Me, for my dreams. You, to avenge the loss of yours. Please don't resent me." Haku somberly looked on at the Konohagakure genin, but was taken aback when a sudden burst of energy emerged in front of him.
Bright crimson chakra blazed into existence, spiralling up and out with malicious, heavy presence. Seething rage began to rush in the blond's veins, beating thick and swiftly. Hunching over, Naruto's hands dropped to the ground, mouth twisted in a wordless scream of pain and anger.
The concrete surface of the bridge was gouged out as his nails lengthened and sharpened into claws. Snarling unintelligibly, his lips were bloodied by elongated canines. Naruto dug thick furrows in the stone before pulling his hands away and glaring hatefully towards Zabuza's silently watching apprentice.
A howl of agony and fury ripped itself from the bestial form tensed on all fours, letting loose a pulse of killing intent that hung as a physical presence in the air above the bridge.
Haku's mouth dropped open in amazement as he witnessed the boy's transformation, shock hidden behind the mask of a Kiri oinin.
What phenomenal chakra.
Hair sticking up haphazardly with deep black lines branded into his face, the boy looked like one possessed. Naruto rushed animalistically over to one of the ice mirrors arranged in the air, and raised a clawed hand behind his head with deadly intent.
"I've already told you, these mirrors aren't made of normal ice. You can't think to break them with-"
The devastating force brought to bear by the jinchuuriki's clawed fist shattered the frozen construct, as well as every mirror in the vicinity, stopping the speech short. Eyes smoldering with hate, the boy seethed at Haku, projecting his rage into the air.
"If possible, I don't want to have to kill you, nor do I want you to have to kill me." Haku warned, drawing up a handful of senbon. "However, if you come at me, I will kill my heart with a blade and become a true shinobi."
With a roar that seemed impossible for such a small figure to emit, Naruto closed the gap between himself and his opponent with a speed that the fake Hunter Nin could barely trace, silencing the Kirigakure rebel's speech with blistering momentum.
The kyuubi's jinchuuriki was beyond the point of reasoning.
A hastily formed hand-seal substituted Haku with a large piece of ice left on the bridge, barely managing to avoid the fate of the shattered mirrors. Rapidly forming more signs, Haku gathered a large amount of water and froze it on the surface of the bridge, creating a glistening sheet of hoarfrost.
Batting off savage, uncontrolled swipes with frantic creations of ice, Haku began to lose momentum in the face of the Konohagakure genin's onslaught. Losing ground quickly, the false oinin was granted a momentary reprieve when the blond suddenly stopped his brutal assault and dropped to the ground in pain.
Haku proceeded to create more mirrors about the area as Naruto watched with wild eyes, shoulders heaving rapidly as he shook with anger and anticipation, momentarily incapacitated by the incredible torture of bringing the power within himself to bear.
As water vapour continued to condense, the false oinin narrowed his eyes behind his mask. He wouldn't be able to survive a direct hit from the monster in front of him - but perhaps a distraction...
Icy needles bombarded the blond, forcing him to raise both arms in front of his face with an unearthly scream. Chakra the colour of blood bubbled around his form, beginning to repel the deadly hail of with ease.
The barrage of ice continued, relentless in its attack, though the frothing crimson energy swirled madly around the boy's form, completely nullifying any damage the needles would have caused.
What was this?
Haku panted from exhaustion as a deep rumble emanated from his opponent's location, and the air crackled with killing intent. Shaking violently, Haku fell to a knee, unable to stand straight under the malevolent pressure.
The alien chakra continued to churn around the boy, until it began to take a rudimentary shape, rising behind the blond.
Was that a... tail?
The ghostly appendage began to flick back and forth like that of a rabid dog, matching Naruto's bestial features. The blond tensed on all fours, bounding forward at an incredible pace, chewing the ground beneath him into concrete pulp.
Unable to move, Haku closed his eyes as the blond jinchuuriki closed the distance between the two of them, his eyes burning with ravenous anger.
I apologize, Zabuza-sama. In the end, it looks like I was just a useless tool, incapable of even defending myself, let alone you. I am-
Both Haku's thoughts and Naruto's barreling rush were interrupted as a girl's shrill voice cried out, "Sasuke! Naruto! Where are you?".
The crushing pressure of Naruto's aura was slightly lifted in the moment of his distraction, allowing Haku the moment to subtly slip away into the mist and head towards distant sounds of clashing metal.
After snapping his gaze back to where he had last seen the Hyoton user, Naruto bellowed in rage when he found nothing there. Snarling viciously, the blond sped towards the location of the voice he had heard.
"Are they going to be alright, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked frantically, having felt a malevolent surge of energy in their direction.
Kakashi gritted his teeth, unable to spare a word while he concentrated on tracking Momochi Zabuza in the thick mist.
"Sasuke! Naruto! Where are you?" Sakura called out in desperation.
"You can't go after those two boys, or I'll slaughter the girl and old man right here, Sharingan no Kakashi." The Demon of the Hidden Mist's voice reverberated from all directions, Zabuza's location masked by the silent killing technique.
The Kirigakure renegade appeared immediately after, his absurdly long blade glancing Kakashi's shoulder, while the Copy Ninja returned the favor with a deep cut to his enemy's side.
Perfect. Now that he's bleeding, I can track his position in the mist.
Kakashi hurriedly rolled out a scroll from one of his many pockets, biting his thumb and wiping the blood on the paper. "Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu!"
Summoned ninken burrowed into the earth, searching for the swordsman and prepared to bind him in place for Kakashi.
"Sakura," Kakashi whispered. "Stay here and protect the bridge-builder, I'm going to finish Zabuza. I'll help Naruto and Sasuke once I'm done, don't panic."
Sakura nodded with wide eyes, and watched her sensei disappear into the mist, suddenly feeling very alone. Tazuna didn't appear much more confident than she felt, his head nervously swiveling around his shoulders.
Kakashi advanced towards what he perceived to be Zabuza's position in the mist, ignoring his foe's passing taunts. The copy-nin readed a brace of kunai on his right leg, fingers twitching in anticipation as he noted reverberating laughter from the mist around him.
So much for being a 'silent killer'.
Kakashi stalked forwards with the practiced grace, and leaned forwards for a final sniff of the air around him. Zabuza was close - dangerously so.
Immediately after unleashing a volley of steel to his right, Kakashi barely ducked under a savage swing of the Kubikiribocho, nearly losing a few fledgling hairs on his chin to the monstrous blade.
Missing a low sweep to his opponent's legs, Kakashi pushed off of his forearms into the arc of a brutal axe-kick, taking Zabuza in the side with a crunch.
The Kirigakure no Kijin retreated into concealment with a curse, breathing heavily as he held a hand to his side with fury contorting his face, hidden under interwoven bandages.
Sharingan no Kakashi wasted no time in lunging forward into a predatory prowl, intent on tracking - and eliminating - one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist.
"You know nothing about me, Hatake Kakashi…" Zabuza spat in the masked ninja's direction. "Your vaunted eye doesn't see everything. Don't presume to judge that which you don't understand!"
Not deigning to respond verbally, the son of the Kuroi Kiba loosed a hail of shuriken in the direction he perceived the voice, and was rewarded with a grunt of pain.
He suppressed the urge to simply rush into melee combat heedlessly, as a wounded animal was still more than dangerous. There existed a safer solution.
Kakashi pressed two fingers to the center of his lips and released a shrill whistle, his sharingan whirling madly as it struggled with the visually confusing mist.
When the Copy Nin took in the sounds of his ninken emerging from the ground, he rushed forwards to where Zabuza was locked in place by a pack of snarling dogs.
The mist around them slowly dissipated as the Kirigakure nuke-nin was unable to maintain concentration for the technique.
"Momochi Zabuza," Kakashi drawled. "When you fled Kirigakure after your failed coup, word reached Konoha swiftly. Whatever your motivation - I cannot let you hurt the bridge-builder."
Electricity arced down Kakashi's outstretched hand, darting around with volatile energy. As it engulfed his forearm, the air was filled with the acrid smell of ozone.
Before stepping forward to deliver a fatal strike through his opponent's heart, the sound of exaggerated clapping caused drew Kakashi's attention. Glancing to the side, a small man with an expensive suit and cane gleefully snickered at the situation, followed by an army of thugs.
"How delightful, and pathetic," the man sneered, leering at the two shinobi.
"What are you doing here, Gato?" Zabuza snarled, still immobilized by Kakashi's canine summons, steeled against the prospect of imminent death.
"Well, I obviously never intended to pay you at all. This situation works out nicely, as I can collect the bounties on both your head - for you, Zabuza, and that of the infamous Copy Ninja as well." The short man sneered, contorting his face to look like a sewer rat. "I couldn't have asked for better circumstances, both of you battered and bruised as you are!"
The horde of mercenaries behind Gato fingered their weapons eagerly, beginning to advance on the two ninja, before they felt a heavy pressure come down on them from behind the pink-haired girl and the bridge builder.
Naruto, Kakashi remembered worriedly, sensing the Kyuubi's chakra surging through the boy.
"What are you waiting for you fools?" Gato bellowed at his ragtag army of common criminals. "Slaughter them!"
Overcoming their nervousness, clumsily held swords and axes were raised above their heads, thousands of fingers tightening in anticipation. Gato's henchmen pressed on towards the shinobi, roaring as they charged.
"Kakashi, my fight is no longer with you," Zabuza muttered darkly, eyes dancing with hatred. "Please, let me kill Gato."
Kakashi paused for a moment before nodding wordlessly. The silver-haired shinobi released his ninken with a quick hand sign, freeing the zanbatou wielder. As the two ninja prepared to retaliate against the mob of ronin and bandits, an red blur landed on the concrete behind them. Eyes flickering backwards, Kakashi and Zabuza circled slightly to face both incoming dangers.
Sakura shrieked and held a kunai out to her teammate's snarling, bestial form, barely able to lift her arms to defend herself under the horrifying weight of his presence.
Staring at the threat of steel in front of him, Naruto slammed into the form of his female comrade with an alien scream, spraying chunks of red on the ground in front of her.
Naruto proceeded to slash at Tazuna's neck in an instant, nearly decapitating the man before releasing a savage roar. Ripping into his employer's body with reckless abandon, Naruto drenched himself in gore.
Newfound courage lost, the massive gang of lowlifes tucked tail and ran from the red-coated monster, stepping over each other to get away from the source of that terrifying aura.
"Bakemono!"
With all semblance of humanity abandoned, Naruto launched himself into the fray, cutting sanguine swathes through the mob. The hired thugs slipped on each other's blood and tripped over larger body parts, blindly attempting to flee as shards of bone ricocheted across the bridge.
Despite his fatigue, Kakashi recklessly sprinted towards Sakura, horror mounting, but all hope began to falter as he saw mangled innards splayed out in front of his young student's fallen form.
Kakashi numbly attempted to start scooping up her intestines from the ground with a relentless pace, fervently denying any thought that she was too far gone. He couldn't afford to lose another comrade. It was not an option.
Zabuza stood, dumbstruck, watching the carnage unfold in front of him. He hadn't moved from the spot he was captured by Kakashi's ninken, his mouth merely agape underneath the mess of bandages sloppily covering his face.
The bruised and bloodied form of his young protogé shocked him out of the sight, tugging at his arm. "Are you alright, Zabuza-sama?"
"Yeah... It just reminds me of a long time ago," Zabuza muttered, gaze locked on the form of the blond tearing through human flesh like tissue paper. "He has as much blood on his hands as I did at that age."
Haku swallowed thickly, upset at seeing the transformation from such a sweet boy he met in the forest to the animal slaughtering men like insects in front of them.
"Come on, Haku. I have a feeling that Gato's going to be enjoying a long and painful eternity soon enough. Let's take advantage of that fact."
With those words, Zabuza accepted Haku's supporting arm and disappeared in the direction of Gato's estate.
Reality pulsed back in with a vengeance. Groaning through the dryness of his mouth and the pounding headache between his ears, Sasuke opened dark eyes to a cacophony of screams and distant growls.
Blinking up at the distant grey sky, the Uchiha took in the now mist-free air surrounding him with a distant trickling realization. It was still a struggle to connect the sluggish strands of thoughts in his brain, and Sasuke rolled over with another groan.
Wet.
Cold and sticky and crimson with a whiff of copper squelched up between his pale fingers, and Sasuke stared at the red-stained surface of Tazuna's incomplete bridge.
Blood, whispered through the foggy roads of his mind. You aren't even worth killing, Itachi breathed, burning memory of a brother who betrayed him and butchered their kin.
Sasuke threw himself to his feet with a curse, rubbing the congealing gore from his palms onto his shorts with a swallowed scream. "What the hell?" he muttered, giving one last shaky wipe before turning bleary eyes up to take in the surroundings.
He instantly wished he hadn't.
A distance away, Tazuna was simply splattered in gory chunks over the length of a yard of concrete, the bits of the old drunk's flesh decorating the bridge that had been the single hope of a struggling nation. But that nauseating sight wasn't what made the Uchiha want to shut his eyes to reality.
It was the image of Sakura, limbs splayed at odd angles with their sensei hovering over her moaning form, futilely pressing the grey snakes of her entrails back into her ruptured abdomen.
"Sasuke!" the jounin barked, voice full of steel and with no hint of the typical nonchalance Team Seven had come to expect from him. Snapping out of his daze, Sasuke rushed the distance on shaky legs and threw himself down beside Sakura.
The faint sensation of pain spoke of skinned knees, but it was ultimately irrelevant in the face of bleary greens orbs and the shaky smile his dying teammate graced him with. Sasuke-kun was formed soundlessly by her pale lips, and unbidden tears sprung to his eyes.
"Hey, Sakura." There was none of his typical disdain in his voice, and the Uchiha forced his lips to pull up into a small smile. Kakashi was just visible in the corner of his eye, hands gone dark, and Sasuke knew what that lack of green chakra meant.
Sakura was going to die.
Haruno Sakura died at the age of thirteen on a half-finished bridge in Nami no Kuni. She died suddenly and silently, without dramatic speeches or heartfelt goodbyes. Between one breath and the next, a bubble of blood rose out of one nostril, and the pink-haired girl simply ceased to breathe.
Sasuke's eyes burned. Heat and salt blurred crimson Sharingan, tears pouring down pale cheeks to drip onto blood-soaked tiles. The palms of his hands were covered with Sakura's congealing blood, her vital fluid staining his skin the same way the image of her corpse permanently sunk into his mind with the clarity of a newly earned tomoe.
"Why do they have to die?" the Uchiha asked his silent squad leader in a dead voice.
Why did his mother have to die drowning in her own blood while his father's corpse lay on top of her? Why did Shisui have to linger at the bottom of the Naka River for days until his bloated and split flesh was pulled from the bottom by a curious fisherman? Why did Sakura have to die, fresh and innocent and on her first true mission?
Why was Sasuke cursed to live when everyone else died?
Itachi, you should have killed me with our parents that night.
"It's a cruel world." Kakashi replied in a flat, emotionless tone, rising to his feet and lowering his hitai-ate over his unveiled Sharingan. Settling a hand over Sasuke's shoulder in a brief gesture of comfort, the jounin squeezed before turning to face the other end of the bridge. "The mission is a failure. We have to do our best to retrieve Naruto alive now."
Glad for the distraction, Sasuke furrowed his brows in an expression of confusion before following Kakashi's wary gaze.
Naruto was howling in glee, tearing apart a shrieking yakuza with his bare hands and showering in the blood that spilt from the tattooed man's opened veins. Throwing the corpse to the ground amongst a veritable field of dismembered body parts, the genin threw himself back into the shrieking crowd of hired muscle to find a new victim.
Bile burnt in Sasuke's throat as Kakashi lunged forward, and with little other choice, the Uchiha followed behind the jounin. "What the hell is wrong with him?" he panted as they lunged across the unfinished length of the bridge. "Where are Zabuza and the other one?"
"Gone." Kakashi answered the second query tightly. The jounin ignored the first.
The distance had allowed Sasuke to take a bit of edge off the horror. Once Sasuke stepped onto the battlefield amongst the screams of the feral genin's victims, he no longer had that luxury.
The stench of blood was thick and cloying. Bloodily fluids and remnants of butchery stuck to the heels of his zori, squelching up between his toes. A grown man lay on his side weeping for his mother, holding his innards in with with the only hand left to him.
It was too much. Sasuke snapped.
"What is the difference between reality and illusion?" Itachi murmured, twisting along the edges of his vision like a ghost with Mangekyou swirling malevolently. "Learn to accept that it doesn't exist. We are all bound into one another's fantasies…"
The howl that tore out of his throat was wild and inhuman and tortured beyond recognition as Sasuke flew backwards in a whirlwind of indiscriminate violence. His lids were peeled back so far that his eyes were pinpricks of red and black surrounded by fields of white.
Two eyes blazed in the night, thick and bloody and red like crimson stars fallen from the void. Perdition was risen and tied into a cycling masterpiece of murder. Nails bit into wood as his hands scrabbled, pushing through thick curtains of blood in search of something to grasp. "Nii-san, please!"
"Sasuke!" Kakashi's voice resounded in his ear, so physically close but so mentally distant compared to the siren song of gore under his fingernails and the way the skin of his face burned as he closed in to Naruto.
"Sasuke, my baby." Okaa-san breathed, wrapping him up in a maternal embrace that failed to quiet his tears. Because Okaa-san was dead and her stench was the stench of grave dirt and her taste was the taste of old blood on the back of his tongue, peeling out of her rotting flesh.
Red chakra burnt through the air surrounding his living teammate. A cloak of pure violence and malevolence in the shape of a fox that sharpened Naruto's nails and lengthened Naruto's teeth and thickened the lines of his face into jagged stripes.
The water was crushing him. Breaking him down and filling his lungs. It was cold and dark and alone and his eyes had been torn from his skull and crushed. His name was Uchiha Shisui and he was eighteen years old, murdered at the hand of his closest friend.
The ring finger of his left hand cracked when he struck Naruto in the face with a closed fist, breaking the boy's nose and seeing it instantly reform with a deeper surge of red hate.
Then suddenly the red hate was gone, smothered out because Kakashi was there, fingers lit up in swathes of purple and barking in the harshest tone Sasuke had ever heard the man speak in.
Brother, please. Why are you doing this, nii-san? Why are you hurting me? Please don't hurt me anymore! Itachi, please! No more memories, please! It hurts, nii-san! It hurts so much! Please stop! Please! Please! Please!
The world went dark as Kakashi's fist hammered into Sasuke's temple.
To think that he'd left ANBU to avoid such colossal messes. If there was one thing Kakashi had learnt from this ill-fated attempt to actually command a genin squad, it was that he would have been better served to just remain alone.
Everyone he worked with eventually died. Horribly.
Settling onto his haunches, the jounin fruitlessly brushed some of the moisture that seemed thick in Nami no Kuni's air from his flak jacket. Tired, with one KIA and two subordinates out of action, even the infamous Copy Ninja didn't dare to light a fire to keep warm.
He'd disposed of Sakura's body before leaving the battlefield as per Konoha regulation. The loss of one so young and still innocent made him feel even older than his twenty-six years. A girl dead, and two boys covered in the blood of civilians, criminals, and each other.
What a monumental fuck up.
His sensei's son was the first to stir, the hastily applied Gogyo Fuin being enough to disrupt the Kyuubi's chakra and knock the blonde boy out for several hours. Kakashi tensed as the genin rolled about in confusion, slowly relaxing as it became clear it was only the typically clumsy boy controlling the body at the moment.
"Yo."
"Did anyone get the name of the guy that hit me?" Naruto moaned, moving to his feet and stretching out stiff muscles. A quick dunk in a stream had managed to remove much of the blood from the boy, though his once orange jumpsuit was still heavily stained crimson.
Threading his fingers together, Kakashi set his elbows on his knees as he forced himself to consider the best way to break the news to Naruto. How do you explain to a cheery and ignorant boy that he'd been overcome by a demon, managed to brutally murder his teammate and numerous other people, and drive his other teammate into a (hopefully) temporary mental breakdown?
As it would turn out, Kakashi had no chance to ease the boy into it. Once Naruto caught sight of Sasuke limp but breathing form, all stiffness was forgotten as the genin simply dove onto the other boy with a gleeful shriek of "Sasuke, you're alive!"
Twin red eyes shot open at the impact, drinking in the midnight sky, the forest surrounding them, and the blood-stained boy laughing and babbling on his chest in an instant. Then Sasuke, threw Naruto from him and lurched to his feet to spit in a tone of pure venom. "Don't touch me, bakemono!"
Well, Kakashi reflected as an expression of bewilderment and hurt crossed over Naruto's features. Team Seven was fucked beyond all repair.
Zabuza landed awkwardly with Haku's arm supporting him, perching in front of Gato's manor. The nukenin gave a subtle stumble from his exhaustion that Haku automatically picked up on and corrected for. The weakness he displayed disgusted himself.
"Off," he grunted. "Let me go."
"But Zabuza-sama, you're still-"
"I said off!"
Haku complied obediently, removing his arm from his master's side. Haku proceeded to fuss over the Demon of the Hidden Mist, applying ointment and bandages where necessary after his grueling fight with Hatake Kakashi. Despite all of his cocky taunts and the help of his genius apprentice, Zabuza had truly expected not to make it away from combat with Kakashi no Sharingan alive.
"Taking care of me can wait, Haku. We need to make the most of this opportunity. Gato is gone, with most of his henchman, and his estate is going to be ransacked as soon as everyone figures out what's happened."
With those words, Zabuza stood straight, betraying no hint of pain as he did so. Stabbing his massive sword into the earth, the man completed a series of complex handsigns with all the practiced ease of a true master.
Kirigakure no Jutsu!
A heavy fog rolled in on the estate, masking the approach of two deadly individuals, who entered through the main doors without meaningful confrontation. The few hired thugs they encountered died soundlessly, passing into the realm of death within the space between one blink and the next.
With a series of hand signals, Zabuza instructed Haku to disable any alarms around the rooms containing ledgers and Gato's liquid capital. He was confident between the two of them they could massacre any guards lurking about, but why waste unnecessary time?
Haku silently disappeared into the mist, having memorized the locations of the estate's myriad of security systems during their weeks of service as hired muscle to the fat little dwarf.
Zabuza arrived at a room that appeared smaller than it actually was, due to the massively overflowing papers that occupied it. Cutting through the lock with ease, Zabuza was pleased that no alert had been raised.
Ignoring the vast majority of the documentation in the cluttered room, Zabuza strode confidently to a specific shelf near the back, removing a chunk of papers to reveal a safe hidden behind it.
Utilizing Haku's stealthily acquired information on the combination, the Demon of the Hidden Mist was rewarded with a satisfying click from the metal construct, which swung open quietly to reveal a horde of treasure in paper form. Certificates for gold, backed by Hi no Kuni's Aozora clan - the most powerful merchant family east of Kusagakure.
Quickly stuffing Gato's identification, proof of credit, as well as a number of documents that noted the small man's very long economic reach into a small bag he picked up from an unconscious guard, Zabuza proceeded to exit quietly.
Zabuza moved on, approaching Gato's personal quarters, which were conspicuously empty, for once. Repeating the process of opening the safe, the nuke-nin carefully opened the safe located in a panel above the massive bed, revealing a variety of personal possessions and banknotes. Grabbing as much as he could carry, he swiftly left the house to find Haku waiting next to Kubikiribocho, still implanted into the ground where he left it.
"We're finally ready, Haku," Zabuza sighed, releasing the mist. "With this, we can fix Kirigakure. With this, Yagura doesn't stand a chance."
Nodding at his master's declaration, Haku followed the man who saved him from the bloodline purges. He would always follow Zabuza, he was a tool who owed the man his life. Without Zabuza to protect, Haku's life meant nothing.
This man, despite his prickly exterior, had loved him as a father, and taught him everything he knew. How to protect himself, and conceal who he was.
There was never truly a time for rest, as one threat would always appear to challenge their existence. From being targeted as a Hyoton wielder, to a defenseless child, or even a nuke-nin, Haku had learned to disguise the fact that he was afraid, that he felt inadequate, even his own sex.
Haku knew his place in life was to protect and nurture the dreams of his precious person, and that he would sacrifice his life to do so.
You were wrong, Iruka-sensei.
Naruto was hunched over a trickling brook, dipping his hands into the cool water over and over and scrubbing furiously at the tanned skin until it reddened with irritation. No matter how hard he cleaned, the blonde simply couldn't remove the sensation of warm blood and gore from his hands.
You were wrong. I am a monster.
No matter how politely Kakashi-sensei had put it, or how the jounin beat around the bush with the blame for it, there was no other way to put it. Uzumaki Naruto was a monster. A murderer. Filth. Sasuke could definitely see his true nature too - what he really was.
Iruka-sensei was a good person that had faith in the facade of humanity that Naruto wore like skin. Not that Naruto could blame his former teacher. The disguise had been so complete he'd even managed to fool himself. But Mizuki had known. The villagers had known.
There was no way the blood was ever going to come off of his hands. The skin between his fingers stung from all the sand and grit that he was rubbing into them in an effort to reduce some of the murder clinging to them, but it was worthless. The death was in his mind, and every time the blonde looked at his hands, he would see them stained in crimson all over again.
Perhaps despite his attempts at denying Naruto the responsibility for the murders, Kakashi knew that. The man must. Otherwise he would say something rather than simply stand and stare with a tired eye and the blonde worked through the pointless motions of cleaning his hands.
Because he couldn't wash the fucking monster away. Naruto had managed to get comfortable in his own flesh. Tried to draw lines between the bijuu inside of him and the human that held the destruction back. Painted himself into the role of lone hero jailor. Which was wrong, because he was the monster and the monster was him. Tied up and bound together so tightly there was no real point where Uzumaki Naruto ended and the Kyuubi no Yoko began.
They were one. One monster. One malevolence. One flesh. And the only proper way of dealing with a monster was a swift knife to the throat. Bleed it out and hope the creature stayed dead. Naruto wondered if he would die from such a wound, or was he too much of a monster even for that manner of dying?
If Kakashi hadn't taken away all his weapons, Naruto would have tried it out. The Uzumaki suspected the jounin probably knew that.
Crushing the heels of his palms to his eyes, Naruto forced a breath through his lungs as he bent over with a gasp. "Damn it." he keened with the low whine of a wounded animal. "Damn it!"
Sakura didn't deserve to die like she had. She deserved to live long and healthy life, with four children and a white picket fence that Naruto might have even given her. Back when he was deluding himself that he was human.
The tears that poured down over whiskered cheeks came hot and thick as the blonde wept for lost hopes and murdered dreams.
(AN - White): There's around 5700 words. We've agreed 5000 is going to be our minimum chapter length. Or rather, what I dictated and Ajax just put up with. This is the edited version. Is there a reason no reviewer noticed one of the scenes in the middle literally wasn't finished?
(AN - Ajax): I would recommend taking a look at our Appendix on Ao3, where we clarify a number of changes we've made to the Naruto universe. If you're confused about anything, check there first - our author names are the same on that site.
For our old viewers, yes, we've bent Haku back from girl to boy. We changed our mind about pairings, so the yaoi workaround is no longer needed.