Chapter Two: NEVER HOLD BACK!!

The almost malicious grin on the face of Uzumaki Naruto was enough to make lesser men run in fear. The shine in his ocean blue eyes traced glowing lines in the air as he moved forward at full force, not holding back in the slightest.

His opponent, a girl disguised as a Mist Hunter-nin, would have been frozen with awe were she not a weapon of Zabuza's. She dodged to the side as best she could hoping to not be hit by yet another seemingly random attack by.

She would however not be so fortunate as his left foot would catch her on her right shoulder and set her into a spin, he grabbed her other shoulder as it came around and used as a pivot point to throw himself upwards into the air, blasting his way through the upper most ice mirror. At the peak of his flight he let out his arms and legs to stop the small amount of spin he'd taken off of the nin he was fighting. He looked down at her and his smile went from predatory to peaceful.

"It was fun fighting you," he said barely loud enough for the nin to hear. He then started to descend at a speed far higher than should be possible if he was only pulled along by gravity. He lifted his right leg and stretched his left downward as far as it would go. He began to spin, slowly at first, but it picked up speed to the point where his features began to blur.

Haku by this point had landed and looked up just in time to see her opponents foot inches from her face, only a split second away from dealing the final blow...

+--- Two months earlier---+

"Ed? I didn't know you were a ninja of the Leaf," Naruto said as he jumped up to the big man's shoulder, staring intently at Ed's headband.

"Ah? Oh, right this thing," He tapped the headband on his arm, causing Naruto to swing his arms wildly in order to keep his balance and not fall off the guy's shoulder, "The guy with the funny hat-"

"Hakage-sama?" Julietta asked, disbelieving.

"Ah, yeah, Hokage-dude. He said that my strength could be used for the good of the village. I didn't believe him at first, but then he said if I did well out in the field, or taught kids to be good fighters, then more people would buy my belts," he finished with a big grin on his face.

Naruto hopped down to his two new teammates and whispered to them, "This guy is a total freak. If you want to be able to walk home today then you should just tell him your names and leave now."

"We can't do that," the girl, Maki, said in a monotone, "He's our jounin sensei. We have to wait for him to dismiss us."

Naruto hung his head and arms dejectedly, "Now you tell me. And I wanted to go fighting again tonight."

Maki and Julietta looked at their teammate, mildly concerned about what he thought this Ed guy had in store for them.

A booming clap was heard and all three looked up at Ed who had gone from his normal happy grin to something that looked sadistic. Maki and Julietta began to wonder if they should have taken Naruto's advice.

"Alright, lets see what you kids can do." Ed slid into a fighting stance.

Maki and Julietta just stood there looking at the man like he was crazy. They looked to Naruto to see if their instructor was joking since he seemed to know the guy, but he was just sitting on the ground cross legged with his back to them and seemed to be mumbling something.

He looked over his shoulder and saw them staring at him, "Hey, you two should attack him now. If Ed gets bored it's only gonna get worse." He waved them towards their instructor.

"What about you?" Maki asked, "Doesn't he need to know what your capable of too?"

"We've fought dozens of times, so he already knows all that I can do," He turned away and continued mumbling and drawing figures in the dirt.

Ed shook his head and said loudly, " Ah, the Hokage-dude told me you three are to work together to fight me, or you go back to the academy. I think it was supposed to be a test or somethin'."

Naruto palmed his own face as he stood up, "Ed, if it's supposed to be a test then you're not supposed to tell us about it."

"Ah," He said adopting a contemplating look, "Oh well, what's done is done. Now I want each of you to come at me with the best you've got." Ed took a step forward and the two who'd just met the guy swore that the ground shook.

"Alright, let's do this," Naruto began bouncing in place then looked at his teammates, "If you two have any super jutsu I suggest you break them out now." Naruto then jumped at Ed and tried to catch him in the face with a kick.

Ed blocked with his forearm and lifted it upwards with great force. Naruto allowed himself to be spun with the upwards movement and repositioned his body in the air to bring a high velocity elbow down on Ed's face. Again Ed stopped the blow and this time grabbed a hold of the blonde and threw him away, back towards the academy.

"You're gettin' better, munchkin! But you still lack force!" Ed yelled after the blonde. He then turned to his two other students, who hadn't quite caught on that they were supposed to be fighting yet.

"Looks like I'll need to take the initiative," He said aloud and began to advance on the poor gennin.

Julietta decided to go ahead and let loose. It certainly seemed as if their new teacher could take a good hit or two, so certainly nothing he could do would harm the guy.

Maki at the same time was wondering what would be best to use on this guy. While certainly not the best strategist in their year, she knew a good deal more about it than others and looking at this giant of a man, advancing on her and her remaining teammate she couldn't spot a single weakness that was normally there with big guys.

His center of gravity was shifting with each movement he made, impossible to tell where to next, it seemed like this was the kind of guy who could never be tripped. Even if he could be, she doubted she had the physical strength needed to force his legs out from under him.

The next glaring weakness for most big guys that was missing was the distribution of muscle on his body. Most guys his size focused solely on upper body strength. They would normally only work their legs enough to be just at the performance level they needed and relied heavily on their arms for attacks. She could tell even through the pants that this guy wore, baggy as they were, that his legs were just as heavily muscled as his arms and as she watched him bat around her other teammate she could see he had no qualms about using his legs to fight. That poor tree... and the poor people's house it fell on.

Third, and the one most exploited in this situation, was his speed. Guys his size normally were monstrously strong, but terribly slow when compared to most nin. They could easily be dodged.

Ed was however no where near normal, as you could already tell, and was quick as lightening.

Julietta slammed into the ground again and groaned. He supposed he was lucky that giant was holding back or he'd probably be dead. He sat up and looked to Maki hoping she'd come up with something to take this guy down with. He idly wondered where their third teammate was, but decided other matters were of more importance.

"Hey, Aikawa-san, got any advice I can use?"

"Run away," She said in a monotone.

"Aw, c'mon. I'm not that tough."

They looked towards their new sensei who had a large grin on his face. It was then that Maki saw it.

"I got it," she whispered to Julietta, "Jutsu."

"What?"

"I don't think he knows any jutsu. He said it himself that just a little while ago he was a civilian. He may not know how to combat them even. I'll put him under a genjutsu then you use something offensive."

"Like what?"

"Do you know any fire or wind jutsu?" She asked as she gathered chakra and began making handseals for a low level genjutsu that would make the user think they were in a field of flowers by themselves.

"Er...no. but I got a pretty cool lighting jutsu I saw some guy do a while back."

"When I give you the say so, fire it at his head," She cast the jutsu and a glazed look came to Ed's face, "Now, Sakamoto!"

Julietta quickly formed six hand signs that ended with the dragon sign and proceeded to launch three balls of lightening from his right hand without yelling the name of his jutsu.

The spheres of energy closed in on the giant of a man that was their sensei and the two almost dared to hope that they had beat him.

They should have known better.

Ed stuck his hand out just in time to 'catch' the balls of lightening and slam his other fist into the ground.

The two watched as the electricity visibly moved through his body, up his left arm, down his right, and dissipated in the earth.

"That was a good combo, you two really understand teamwork. Now where is my third student?" Ed said as he stood back up with a proud grin on his face.

Maki and Julietta looked at eachother then back at the academy where they had seen their teammate heading last.

When Naruto had finally been found he was hanging from a coat rack by the back of his shirt next to the girls rest room, which had a broken door, wearing a sign that said pervert and his body covered bruises and bumps. Ed laughed.

Later that evening, while Naruto was sleeping of his Righteous Feminine Fury induced wounds, Ed appeared in the hokage's office. The other jounin were already there and were reporting in whether or not their team's passed or failed.

The guy with hair as grey as Ed's reported that his 'Team Seven' had passed, just as the big man was coming in.

"Ah, Mr. Ed," Sarutobi greeted, "How did your team do?"

"They passed."

"Ma, that's not possible," The other grey haired man said, not looking away from his orange book.

"Oh. Why not?" Ed asked.

"Three teams have already passed, mine being the last, the rest are in the sixty six percentile that fails," Kakashi explained as if to a small child.

"Oh," He looked down with a slight frown for a minute before looking up with a huge grin on his face, "I guess that means my team really breaks the mould! Ha ha ha!" Kakashi tried yet again to tell Ed that it was impossible for his team to have passed, but the big man ignored him as he walked up to the Hokage, "Is it okay if I take my students out to my house to train? Don't get me wrong, they are great kids and good fighters, but e'ery one of 'em could use some conditioning."

Sarutobi made a show of giving it some thought before nodding, "Very well. You will need to bring them into the village once a week to do a mission though."

"Alright, later," Ed waved, again ignoring Kakashi's misgivings about his team actually passing.

+--- . ---+

At first, when Ed told them that they would be training with him, Maki and Julietta were a bit leery about being left to this man's machinations. Naruto just groaned and complained that his bruises hadn't fully healed yet.

After the first day they began to regret their choice to become ninjas. After the second they began to regret they were ever born. After the third they began to think Ed was trying to kill them. The fourth day was mission day.

Sarutobi had never had a team of gennin practically fall to their knees and cry in relief over a D-ranked mission.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh resembled the first second and third.

This routine continued for a month and a half, taking off only every Thursday for missions and every other Saturday for relaxation and recuperation. This, of course, meant that the three of them, under Ed's surprisingly sadistic management, were growing much stronger.

Ed didn't have them training with weights though, he said it was more detrimental than it was an improvement. He instead gave them each a stop watch, a clip board with excersizes they were to finish with a spot where they could mark their time for completion on each excersize, and the order to keep going till he told them to stop.

After lunch he'd let them each decide what they wanted to train in, giving them complete free reign as long as it was an active practice. Julietta chose ninjutsu, Maki chose to work on her taijutsu, and they were both surprised to find out that their blonde teammate was a gymnast in training when he set up a course free-runners have wet dreams about outside of Ed's house and started going at it. Every Sunday Ed would spar with them individually after breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Finally, one Thursday at the previously mentioned month and a half from the start of their training, Team Six stood before the Hokage who looked rather relieved to see them.

"Ah, good, you're here," Sarutobi motioned for Iruka to give Ed a particular mission scroll with a 'B' on it, "Team Seven began a mission yesterday that was originally C-ranked. Information was discovered by the jounin sensei that raises the rank to high B/low A. Instead of immediately returning with his team and abandoning the mission, as is proper protocol, he decided it would be a good learning experience for them. While I do agree that it would be good for them to see some of the high level shinobi battles I think it is too dangerous for a single jounin sensei and gennin team to take on alone. Ed, if you feel your team is ready, would you mind accompanying Team Seven on their mission to Wave Country?"

Ed looked at his students. Naruto was practically vibrating in spot at the mere thought of doing anything as awesome as a high ranking mission. Maki and Julietta looked like they were eagerly anticipating the mission as well, their reason was escape from the physical torture that Ed called training.

"Sounds like a plan," Ed grinned. Sarutobi gave a relieved smile back and sent them on their way.

After reading the scroll Ed turned to his students, "Okay, this says you need enough supplies for up to three weeks away from the village. You guys go get what ever you need and I'll meet you at the main gate."

Maki, Julietta, and Naruto all went on their way, the last taking to the roof tops with near unsurpassed grace.

Maki was the first there. She had everything packed in a large knap sack she carried over her shoulder. She wore a pair of baggy Cargo pants, loose enough to not effect movement, but tight enough to keep them from being easy to grasp. She had on a purple t shirt and over that a white tank top. She had copied the style from her Auntie Kaori.

Naruto showed up next in his usual day clothing. He carried a black back-pack, he was apparently listening to a portable music player as he approached, and, dispite all the grace he displayed when he fought and flew, none of it transfered over to his dancing skill. Maki actually laughed as she watched the blonde butcher all that was dancing in his approach.

Julietta and Ed showed up at the same time. Ed, like Naruto, hadn't bothered to change his clothes. Julietta however had donned a purely black suit and a white headband.

Naruto took one look at the other male on his team and said, "Okay, I'll bite. What's with the suit?"

"The greatest fighter ever wore a suit just like this. Haven't you ever heard of Kinjiro?"

"Nope."

"Uh-uh."

"No."

Julietta stared at them all with wide eyes before shaking his head and walking out of the gates as if he felt sorry for their ignorance.

Maki, Ed, and Naruto just looked at eachother, shrugged and followed Julietta out of Konoha.

+--- . ---+

After a long and boring two day trip, a swim to the island (Ed's idea.), and Julietta singing the praises of the great fight Kinjiro to anyone who would listen, they found themselves wandering into the house that their partner team was supposed to be staying at for the duraton of the mission.

Ed and his team entered the house just in time to hear a midget angst-out and say, "Why do you bother trying? You're just going to die."

Many occupants of the room moved to say something, scolding or inspirational it didn't really matter as Naruto spoke up with, "Yeah, but that's the point isn't it? We're all going to die someday, it's a fact. With the knowledge that we have a limited amount of time we should work our hardest to live a good life."

Everyone just stared at the blonde for a moment before the munchkin stood up and yelled, "Just shut up! You don't know anything about my pain!" Then the kid ran out of dining room and up the stairs, slamming his door with a loud bang.

Naruto gave a sheepish grin as he rubbed the back of his skull. Ed placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder and gave him a nod that let him know that he was proud of what his student had said despite the recipients reaction.

"Please, excuse Inari," the woman who appeared to be his mother said pleadingly. She hoped that her sons anguish wouldn't get the ninja fed up with them and make them leave. "Ever since his stepfather died at Gato's hands, he's been really depressed."

Ed spoke this time, "That's alright, ma'am. We all have our moments and the kid's just happens to be now." Ed turned to his fellow instructor, whom he did not recognize in the slightest, and asked, "So what's going on?"

Kakashi stood and motioned Ed to follow him outside to explain the finer details of the mission.

At the same time Riki, Sasuke, Sakura studied their partners in this mission.

After a couple of suspicious glances Riki just gave them a large grin and went back to his food with a casual 'Hi' thrown to them.

Sakura gave Maki a critical look, running her through the library of faces that were her known rivals for Sasuke. After only a couple of moments she recieved no matches and decided on a tentative friendship with the girl to see where her goals took her.

Sasuke just stared at Naruto with a slightly pissed off, slightly evaluating look that could only be generated through years of superior ( Or inferior, depending on your view of things) breeding. He noticed that the class clown that had defeated him a couple months ago had grown about an inch. He noticed that he seemed to have noticeable denser muscle, focused mostly on his legs. Finally, he noticed, much to his ire, that Naruto did not seem to recognize him. He gave a brief grunt and turned back to demolishing what was on his plate.

The woman, who introduced herself as Tsunami,then ushered the three of them into seats around the table and gave them fresh plates of food. Team Six thanked her and set into their meal with fervor.

Outside, Kakashi finished briefing Ed, "... And Zabuza appears to have an accomplice disguised as a Hunter-nin. That's everything."

Ed nodded his head in thanks for the information and turned to go inside, but stopped for the hand on his arm.

"To be perfectly honest with you, I do not like the fact that you are here. I do not like that fact that the Hokage gave you the position of Jounin without any military history to speak of, and most of all I do not like the fact that your students, left overs not capable of passing my simple bell test, are allowed to be on a mission of this rank. As the senior officer on this mission I am ordering you and your team to stay out of my team's way or they will deal with me personally and the Hokage when we return."

Now Kakashi tried to leave, but was similarly stopped by a hand on his arm.

"To be perfectly honest with you," Ed started, mocking the other jounin, "Your opinion means less to me than this pebble," he picked up a nondescript grey, rounded pebble, "And your order is just as fragile," he proceeded to crush the small rock between his forefinger and his thumb. "As for you assumptions regarding my students... Count your teeth the next time you feel like airing them, for you may find yourself with a number less than you had before hand." Ed put a smile back on his face and a subtle aura of death that had creeped up on the area, slowly turning colors grey, drowning out sounds, and driving away small animals, dissappeared.

Kakashi stared as the man who was a good foot and a half taller than himself walked into the house. He gave a brief frown and lifted his sleeve on the arm Ed had stopped him with. He was not surprised to see the large blackish bruise in the shape of the man's hand on his arm.

The rest of that week, for the most part, Team Six did avoid Team Seven, though not because of Kakashi's order. It was simply more convenient for each team to train seperate from the other. Having the other's there would breed a familiarity that would not be good should they come into a combat situation where they could not depend on someone who had been there during their training.

There was only one major altercation near the end of the week.

Sasuke, in his own way which consisted of leering at him, tried to get Naruto to remember him. He wanted a rematch against the class clown. Naruto had of course noticed the looks he was getting whenever they were in the same room and on Thursday it came to a head.

"Um, Sasuke-san," Naruto said a little nervously, "I understand that your... prefferences may be... alternative, but I assure you I am straight and find only the opposite sex appealing. So please, please stop eyeing me like that."

It took a moment before everything settled in for everyone in the room.

Ed, Tazuna, Riki, Julietta, and even Maki, burst into laughter.

Kakashi frowned at Naruto for suggesting such a thing about his prized student.

Sakura seemed to be caught between dreaming up some kind of twisted yaoi fantasy that wouldn't happen in a million years and extreme anger that anyone would even hint that her crush was gay.

Inari was fighting with all that he was not to break out laughing. He was a sad boy. An angry boy. A boy with nothing left to loose. And angry, sad, little boys with nothing left to loose don't laugh.

Tsunami was unsuccessfuly trying to hide her giggles of amusement behind her hand.

Sasuke stood up in a huff, considered laying waste to the annoying blonde with a fire technique, and stormed off in mild rage... striking most of the room as malodramatic and supporting the theory currently on the table.

Ed, Tazuna, Riki, Julietta, Maki, and now Tsunami started laughing once again. Inari just gave them all the best glare he could at the moment and walked out of the room. Moments later they all heard the light laughter of a sad, angry, little boy who discovered he does laugh after all. Sakura was still caught betwixt emotions, but seemed to be leaning towards the fantasy. Kakashi gave off a sigh of exasperation and buried his nose back into his perverted book.

Through out all of this Naruto had managed to still keep up his nervous look. He did admit that had he been an observer he would have laughed, but as the victim of the Uchiha's staring he was not quite so inclined.

At the end of the week, though there was still tenson between the two teams, Kakashi took all six gennin with him to guard the bridge builder. Ed had stayed behind do to a slight hangover after being issued a challenge by Tazuna. As it turns out the giant of a man had a midget sized tolerance for anything alchoholic.

Immediately everyone knew something was wrong when they got to the mist shrouded bridge. Kakashi could smell the blood of the workers.

"Heh, heh, heh, heh," came the deep laughter of the man once known as the Demon of the Mist Village, "Looks like you are not to adept at predicting the future, Copycat Kakashi. You predicted my death and yet only a week later here I stand, this time prepared to end your miserable life."

The mist cleared enough to see Zabuza and his accomplice, a hunter nin that appeared to be the age of the gennin that Zabuza would identify as Haku. Zabuza was grinning under the bandages on the lower half of his face.

"And look at this, you even brought me more brats to kill after I finish with you," he began to chuckle again as he noticed what seemed to be quivers of fear out of two of the gennin. He was about to say something to that effect when the blonde one suddenly became a blur.

The blonde was however stopped not half a second later by Kakashi's hold on the back of his shirt.

"Naruto, what the hell are you doing?"

"What does it look like, you one eyed pervert?! I sure as hell ain't sellin' girlscout cookies," Naruto shouted as he tried to free himself from Kakashi to get at the two enemy ninja.

"It looks like you were about to attack a superior nin with no plan what so ever in mind, probably resulting in your death."

" Are you kidding me? I've had a plan ever since the moment the Hokage told us this guy was in the mission."

"Oh, so you must have done some research on him befor-"

"Nope."

"Then you had heard rumors that were probably exagger-"

"Nope."

"Okay then. If you don't even know anything about the man you are about to fight then how in the hell did you figure out a plan that would invariably defeat him? How would you factor in the techniques he uses if you do not know what they are? What kind of plan could you have possibly come up with if you didn't even know the man's name before you were assigned this mission?" Kakashi was severely displeased. He would really need to talk to the Hokage about letting that Ed guy keep teaching. It just didn't appear beneficial to the health of these children.

"My plan," Naruto looked over his shoulder in a condescending manner, as if labeling Kakashi a coward for not already fighting alongside him, "...is to win!" He redoubled his struggling.

Kakashi looked at the blonde for a few moments before palming his face, "Just go back and guard Tazuna, Uzumaki. No 'but's. This is an order from a superior."

Naruto seemed to think that over for a couple of seconds before he stopped struggling and started grumbling. Anyone listening could make out the words 'spoilsport' and 'cowardly pervert'.

Zabuza, having seen all this, began chuckling.

"Something tells me that one is not a student of yours, Kakashi," He removed his sword from his back signaling that the real battle was about to begin.

"What makes you say that?" Kakashi took a rather long Kunai from his weapons pouch and stood at the ready.

"Cause he's got the balls that you are apparently trying to cut from your team," Zabuza said before turning to Haku, "You take care of the brats. Take as long as you need."

The mist reformed around both factions, and, despite his grumbling, Naruto took up a defensive position next to his female teammate in order to better guard Tazuna.

It did not take long for Haku to lure away two of the students, Benso Riki and Uchiha Sasuke, and trap them in a dome of frozen mirrors. For the first few minutes of the fights nothing was revealed about either of the fights going on around them except for the sounds of battle. The names of jutsu were called at seemingly random occasions, metal clanged, and pain became audible.

Finally the fight bewteen Zabuza and Kakashi had moved far enough down the bridge for the mist to fade, if only a little, and show the battle between Haku, Riki, and Sasuke.

The longer he watched, the more Naruto wanted to be in there. Every attack thrown, every boast made, every time one of his fellows nearly bit the dust to a senbon barrage, the more Naruto appeared to want to show his fangs.

And finally an opening appeared.

Fighting in a battle for his life Sasuke had activated his clan's famed bloodline. It had given him an edge against the ice using ninja... for a few minutes. The Sharingan ate up chakra as quick as, if not quicker than, those fireball techniques he used.

As Sasuke began to loose his footing, Haku launched a volley at him, and Riki stepped in to take the blow for his comrade. With Riki knocked out by the senbon, and Sasuke in dreamland from chakra exhaustion, Naruto grinned.

He began to walk forward.

"Maki, Julietta, please stay and help guard Tazuna-san. I will stop the ice user." Hearing the tone of their comrade's voice, that inaudible sound of a predator about to pounce on its prey underlining each word, they decided it was best to stay out of his way for the time being.

As he walked towards the girl in disguise he began to speed up with each step.

Haku, fortunately for her, noticed his approach soon enough to escape into one of her mirrors.

Naruto grinned as he saw her do this and picked up the pace of his charge. At only a couple feet from her mirror he brought his shoulder to bare and smashed through the plate of ice like so much glass, a seemingly insane grin painted on his face.

Haku had escaped to a different mirror. She looked down at the blonde now standing within her dome, grinning from ear to ear as he stared at her. He didn't seem to even be paying attention to his two comrades she had knocked out.

"You are rather heartless," Haku said in monotone, using the time she had while speaking to set up an attack, "to not even concern yourself with the deaths of your comrades."

Naruto looked over his shoulder at the two unconscious boys. He could not see if they were breathing and was sure that if he put chakra to the task of enhancing his hearing he wouldn't hear their hearts beat.

He dodged the volley of senbon Haku threw at him in his moment of distraction and grinned as he said, "Well either one of two things happened. The least likely is that you put them into a near death state like you did for Zabuza- Fuck Hatake for not letting me fight him from the start- to cause emotional turmoil in the remaining gennin making it easier to put them into the same state and then use our 'deaths' to dishearten our jounin into making foolish mistakes that you would exploit. The one I find more likely is that you fought them and they you to the best of their ability and they died with their boots on. A beautiful death for ones as young as us. Now it's my turn."

"You... you want to die?" Haku was in shock. How could someone so young see such a death at the hands of the enemy beautiful. How? There was no reasoning. It was incompatible with all that she had been taught. Death was meaningless. It only meant that you were of no further use besides fertilizer. It was something to avoid at all costs.

"Are you crazy?! I don't want to die at all! I don't think anyone in their right mind wants to die," His grin, having disappeared only momentarily, came back in full force, "But if it's my time then I'm going down with a fight. And if you've fought a Class Five All-Arounder then you'll know that there is nothing more beautiful than an all out battle of skill, will, and strategy. So let's get this show on the road. Give me your best and I'll return the favor."

Haku studied her opponent, who took a couple seconds to bounce on his feet and loosen his joints. She could practically feel the anticipation rolling off the boy. It was far different from the two she had faced earlier. They had let off waves of negative anxiety, fear, and from the Uchiha, bloodlust. This blonde however just seemed to glow with... joy.

Even though she did not understand how the blonde's mind worked she could not help the small smirk that formed under her mask at the sheer kinetic energy coming from the kid.

Thoughts, theories, and , from that moment on, left the area.

Haku stepped out of her mirror, but let the dome remain. The fact was that the mirrors were her best technique for deffence. They were also quite useful for the offence she was about to employ.

Water floated up from the ground and into her hand. It then lengthened, sharpened itselft, and froze into the shape of a straight edge three foot sword. More water was brought up from the ocean below and followed the same process until thirteen identical swords, including the one she was holding, occupied the dome.

Naruto's grin matched the glow in his eyes as he got ready for the fight to begin, glad he had decided to wear his good shoes today. This was gonna be fun.

For a few seconds the two of them stared eachother down.

If one were to choose one word for both fighter's opening move it would have to be 'Boom!'

Naruto flashed forward with speed gained through Ed's insane training methods.

Haku brought her first sword back and to her right then swung it upwards diagonally at the incoming blonde sending a flurry of ice shards at him.

Naruto dodged those by twisting out of the way then launching into the air. He began to spin and as he neared her lashed out with his left leg.

Haku blocked with her sword, but it shattered and the kick connected with her face. Luckily her mask took most of the damage and she shook off the slight headache that formed with taking the hit. She grabbed another sword before he could attack again and sent three more waves of shards at him. She followed them this time, not wanting to let him get enough distance from her to use another aerial attack.

Naruto dodged the shards by a twist to the left, a jump doing the splits, and the last by another spin. He was barely able to dodge the actual blade by dropping into another split on the gound and even then the blade grazed his shoulder.

Naruto then lifted up on his hands lightening fast and propelled both feet into her stomach. He then lifted his legs up into the air to stand on his hands and began a ground based spin.

Haku caught her self and landed on her feet near the edge of her dome. She summoned another sword to her other hand and charged back at the blonde.

Naruto spread his legs apart into a split yet again, this time with one leg forward and the other back.

As soon as one of the boys legs came close, Haku jumped into the air herself. She unleashed two waves of shards at the same time from her swords.

Instinct alone saved Naruto from a direct hit. Three shards, not much larger than the senbon Haku had been throwing around earlier, were imbedded in his right thigh. He ripped them out with a slight grimace of pain as he stood quickly.

On impulse he grabbed one of the remaining ten swords floating around the dome and jumped up to meet Haku in the air.

Haku was mildly surprised that he had thought to arm himself with one of her weapons, but dismissed it as unimportant as he proved in their brief clash in the air that he knew nothing of the arts of the blade.

His swing was sloppy at best, but it did at least serve the purpose of forcing her to block and had enough force to shatter the sword he was using and the one she had blocked with. He then launched a punch at her face that connected, but not with as much force as he'd wish as she brought her remaining sword to bare and slashed a shallow cut across his chest.

They both hit the ground, but didn't pause in their confrontation.

Haku grabbed another sword and Naruto shattered the three near him before launching himself at her.

Instead of responding with an attack in kind, Haku sank into one of her mirrors and came out of another to Naruto's left and slashed horizontally at him.

Naruto jumped over the blade at the last second and brought his heel down on the blunt edge of the sword, causing another shatter, and threw a roundhouse kick.

Haku dodged and use the opportunity to cut Naruto's leg as it passed over her head.

Naruto hissed, but didn't stop and put a mule kick into her ribs a split second after bringing his other leg down.

Haku flew backwards into one mirror and came out swinging from the one at the top, more shards flowing from her swing.

Naruto pulled off yet another dodge, jumped at her, and grabbed her sword as soon as it was within range. He ignored the pain of yet another cut to his hand and used his free hand to grab Haku by the shoulder and proceeded to land ten consecutive kicks to her stomach and ribs before twirling them so that her back was facing the ground and gave her his most vicious kick yet.

Her grip had become lax from the barrage and Naruto still held firm to the sword so ripped it out of her grasp before landing and shattering it like the others.

Haku stood up, took a quick stock of her situation, and decided to end it. She disposed of all but one of her swords, needing the chakra it would take for this final technique that was beeing eaten up maintaining them.

She took her last sword and stepped into a mirror. Like before her appearance spread to all the mirrors. The mirrors then began to glow setting her image into a sillouette.

Naruto looked around at all the mirrors and gave a short whistle. Short for the reason that the attack then began.

Haku rushed at Naruto with speeds nearly untrackable. The blonde barely managed to dodge.

He wasn't however able to dodge the next, or the one after that, or the many more after that.

Shallow gashes began appearing all over Naruto's body.

Haku was now confident that the battle was hers.

But to declare victory before the opponent had fallen had been the folly of ninja far better than her.

"YeeeaaaaaAAAAAHH!!" with a beastial roar of pain and determination Naruto managed to land a monstrous blow to her stomach with his fist. Blood, oxegyn, and spittle was forced past Haku's lips as she took the full force of the blow, multiplied by her speed at coming toward him. She hit the ground and rolled to her feet dispite her gasping just intime to seem him launch at her yet again.

The almost malicious grin on the face of Uzumaki Naruto was enough to make lesser men run in fear. The shine in his ocean blue eyes traced glowing lines in the air as he moved forward at full force, not holding back in the slightest.

Haku would have been frozen with awe were she not a weapon of Zabuza's. She dodged to the side as best she could hoping to not be hit by yet another seemingly random attack.

She would however not be so fortunate as his left foot would catch her on her right shoulder and set her into a spin, he grabbed her other shoulder as it came around and used as a pivot point to throw himself upwards into the air, blasting his way through the upper most ice mirror. At the peak of his flight he let out his arms and legs to stop the small amount of spin he'd taken off of the nin he was fighting. He looked down at her and his smile went from predatory to peaceful.

"It was fun fighting you," he said barely loud enough for the nin to hear. He then started to descend at a speed far higher than should be possible if he was only pulled along by gravity. He lifted his right leg and stretched his left downward as far as it would go. He began to spin, slowly at first, but it picked up speed to the point where his features began to blur.

Haku by this point had landed and looked up just in time to see her opponents foot inches from her face, only a split second away from dealing the final blow...

Haku saw her life flash before her eyes for the briefest moment before she felt herself pulled out of the way of the boys final attack.

She looked to her savior to find a giant of a man with a frown on his face as he looked toward the end of the bridge that the two elder ninja were fighting. Haku removed her mask for a better view and turned to follow his gaze.

Naruto, having missed his intended target, hit the concrete of the bridge and wound up making a spiderwep of cracks ten feet wide.

"Hey! What the hell, Ed?!" Naruto noticed the direction of his superior's gaze and followed that.

At the south end of the bridge stood the head of the Gato Shipping industry, Gato himself, surrounded by fifty to sixty mercenaries.

He was obviously speaking to the Ninja on that end, but Naruto couldn't make a word out of it. The point though became clear when Zabuza shouted in rage and threw his massive sword like a buzzsaw blade at the midget of a gangster.

The spinning blade cut Gato's rant short by seperating his head from his shoulders and killing a number of the mercenaries behind him as well.

"Well..." Naruto winced in pain as his wounds caught up to him, "I guess that means we're not enemies anymore." Naruto turned to look at his opponent and saw her face for the first time, he frowned for a second. "You're a girl?"

Haku nodded slowly.

Naruto thought for a moment before he got a kind of goofy grin on his face and said, "Wow... I think I'm in love." And with that he passed out from minor blood loss.

Haku could only think of one suitable response to the blonde's declaration.

"EH?!"

+-- End Chapter 2--+

A/N: And that my wonderful readers is one of the longest chapters i've written in a while. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please leave a review if it suits you.