Disclaimer: I'm not Kishimoto, so Naruto still isn't mine. I'd be happy to trade him for TenTen and Anko though.
All was finally quiet on the bridge. The thugs were gone and Gato was dead, killed by Zabuza's last act. Tears rolled freely down Naruto's face as he glanced at the bodies of Sasuke and then Haku.
"Such a waste.." Naruto muttered to himself, "Sasuke may have been a bastard, but he was our bastard, plus Haku was a good person. In another time, Haku and I could have been good friends."
Suddenly, Naruto heard what must have been a really mean Genjutsu. He'd swear he heard Sakura's voice yelling that Sasuke was alright. After realizing that he didn't know how to cancel Genjutsu ( 'Gotta remember to look into that back home.'), he figured that no one currently alive on the bridge was likely to do such a thing. With barely restrained hope, he turned back towards Sasuke only to see the familiar sight of Sasuke trying to get Sakura off of him.
With a loud laugh and the flow of tears renewed, Naruto ran towards his teammates. While still about fifteen feet away, he suddenly paused with on odd look on his face. "How the hell are you alive? Those needles went right through your neck!" Naruto screamed at what looked like a recovering Sasuke. "You're not some kinda Zombie, are you? Cuz if you are, I'm out of here!" The suddenly paling boy backed away a few steps as the Sasuke-Zombie got to its feet.
"Shut up, idiot." After a brief moment of thought as to whether it'd be worth it to pretend to be undead to keep Naruto away from him, Sasuke decided such an act was below him as an Uchiha. "I was only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead." With a small smirk on his face, Sasuke could admit, even if only to himself, that while he had his pride, he did have a sense of humor, and coming out of a near-death experience was a perfectly valid excuse to use it should anyone bring it up in the future. The look on Naruto's face was priceless, shock not being nearly a strong enough word.
"You told a joke! A good one!" Paling even further, Naruto backed away even more. "Back away, foul creature. The Power of Ramen compels you!"
Now annoyed, Sasuke glared at the blonde idiot, his usual scowl back in place. "I'm not a Zombie, the hunter-nin just put me into the same false-death state as Zabuza in our first fight."
Naruto stood a bit straighter and crossed his arms. "Yeah right, the needles were aimed at me. Do you expect me to believe that Haku was able to throw those needles at me, predicting that you'd get in the way at exactly the speed and angle you did, to that exact spot? Didn't Kakashi-sensei say hitting someone in the spot to fake death was amazing hitting someone standing still? Even if he was only trying to knock us out, how are both of us still here if Haku was THAT good?"
Even Sasuke had to admit the idiot had a point. While he knew that the hunter-nin, apparently named Haku, wasn't going all out to kill them, the idea that the difference was that great between them was galling. 'How am I supposed to kill That Man if I can't even beat this Haku, even with my bloodline activated? Though now that I think of it, my body moved on its own to protect Naruto, how'd that happen? While he can occasionally be amusing, I don't like the idiot enough to sacrifice my ambitions. I know I read about a way of controlling movement before, what was it? Something from Suna...right, they can control puppets and even enemies with chakra strings. Hn, seems this missing-nin was able to learn far more than I was taught in Konoha.' Seeing Naruto open his mouth again, Sasuke cut him off. "Simple, Haku knew he was unworthy to end an Uchiha and you got lucky." With that, he turned around and started walking back to Tazuna's house, Naruto's yells getting softer as he left.
Omake:
Naruto stood a bit straighter and crossed his arms. "Yeah right, the needles were aimed at me. Do you expect me to believe that Haku was able to throw those needles at me, predicting that you'd get in the way at exactly the speed and angle you did, to that exact spot? Didn't Kakashi-sensei say hitting someone in the spot to fake death was amazing hitting someone standing still? Even if he was only trying to knock us out, how are both of us still here if Haku was THAT good?"
Sasuke just smirked and said, "Simple, I have plot armor. Everyone knows Kishimoto likes me best."
AN: While I'm sure it's out there somewhere, I've never seen two points addressed in Wave. 1) Sasuke's false-death's amazing aim. 2) the line "my body moved on its own" always bugged me so I made up an explanation that I think makes more sense. Thanks for reading my first idea. If you liked it, awesome, if not, I really don't care. If anyone wants to use this, go right ahead, just please let me know. Review, flame, advise, ignore, have at ye men!(and ladies too, of course)
