The Guardian

Summary: Uzumaki Kushina passed on her clan's legacy on baby Naruto before she 'died'. When Naruto was mad enough to access Kyuubi's chakra during the battle for wave's bridge her own fail-safe kicked in, instead gathering the Kyuubi's chakra into another power-source and turning Naruto into whirlpool's guardian, a Kamen rider. KamenRider!Naruto. NarutoxFemHakuxHinatax? Kamen Rider 555 Elements X Naruto.

Last time on the Guardian:

Naruto instinctively opened up the device in his right hand, and looked at the display on the top part. Having recognized it as the Faiz Phone, he quickly dialed the henshin code: pressing 5, 5, 5 and the Enter Button on the Faiz Phone. The phone recognized the code, and said in a digitized voice:

"Standing By…"

Naruto then closed the phone as a sound, which he recognized as the waiting sound for the henshin sequence, played in the background. He then raised the phone instinctively, as he held it up in the air, and said:

"Henshin!"

He then docked the Faiz phone in its docking cradle on the faiz driver, a click sounded, and he placed the phone horizontally on the driver itself, and the buckle was completed. The digitized voice acknowledged the docking of the phone to the driver, which said.

"COMPLETE"

Chapter 2: Naruto fights as Faiz, and 1st Orphnoch Encounter.

Glowing lines of crimson flowed out from the four corners of the faiz driver, flowing around Naruto's torso first, the bottom lines flowing down towards his thighs, knees, legs and feet, while two lines coming from the top of the buckle made a curve on top of his seal. The crimson lines further traveled up to his chest and sternum, which joined as one line on his back. Lines also flowed to his shoulders, neck, arms, elbows, arms, and separated into arrow-like figures on his hands. After that a bright light surrounded him. As all of this was happening, the faiz driver made beeping and other digitized sounds while in the process of transforming Naruto into the faiz suit of power armor.

Inside the dome of ice mirrors and still surrounded by the thick mists her master had made, Haku watched her opponent go through some weird motions that she didn't recognize as hand seals, so she didn't perceive it as a move or threat against her. It was too late to act as a red light enveloped the buckle that she now recognized as having never been a part of the blonde's arsenal and wardrobe before the bright light engulfed him. Red lines of light now spread through her opponent's body as a bright red light engulfed Naruto, as she now knew his name was. The light got too bright to look at directly, and she shielded her eyes from it, after a few seconds the light faded, and as she turned to look, she was confused at what she saw:

Instead of her blonde opponent, the figure standing there was clad in a black body suit. His shoulders were shielded with a metal-like material she hasn't seen in her life. The same metal-like substance adorned his wrists, lower arms, knees, ankles, legs, and feet. The boots were also lined with the same metal for the sides of the soles. The gauntlets the figure was wearing had the same red lines throughout the hands, and the same metal-like substance coated the first segmented portion of its fingers. The majority of the metal was focused on the chest, a bit bulky, as if protecting something under it, but she observed that it doesn't hamper movement like some of the samurai armor she had seen. She also thought that the armor extended to the back of the figure. This was finished by a helmet which she observed completely hid the user's head, it was a full mask, to hide the user's identity. The prominent thing about the helmet was the closed, insect-like mouth in the same metal-like substance, the extended appendages on the top of the helmet, like an insect's antennae, and the very large, bright yellow eyes, which seemed to be glowing. The red lines she had seen earlier were now prominently displayed throughout the figure's body, some going through the metal material itself. All in all the vision she was seeing was enough to make her hesitate, swallow in nervousness, and grip her senbon tighter in resolution.

Naruto had the feeling of excitement while in the middle of his transformation to Kamen Rider Faiz' suit of power armor. He felt the power coursing throughout his body, and as the transformation sequence finished its course, he found that the world around him was now clearer and more vibrant, as he looked through the visor of his helmet, which he now learned to be the ultimate finder. His eyes narrowed through the ultimate finder as he looked once more at the faux hunter-nin that killed his rival.

I. Faux Hunter–Nin vs. Kamen Rider Faiz

Haku knew in the back of her mind that this was the same opponent she had fought earlier, but he has now changed, "More like transformed…" Haku thought as she spoke to the figure surrounded by her ice mirrors.

"I see that you had something up your sleeve after all this time. It won't matter however, as like your friend, you will die here today." Haku said as she prepared to once again move for another bout with the transformed blonde ninja.

Like another user of Faiz in its own universe, Naruto instinctively flexed, and flicked his wrist and hand, anticipating the next impending round of battle, which started after he made the gesture.

Haku started to move from ice mirror to ice mirror while throwing her senbon, in an attempt to score a hit on her opponent. Naruto was making her frustrated as he seemingly knew where the path of her senbon was going to hit; and dodged accordingly. What senbon Naruto missed only sank a few centimeters in his sol foam body suit, which he shrugged off after each volley, the sol metal only added to her frustrations as her weapons of choice only seemed to bounce off the material.

Naruto kept dodging Haku's volleys of needles as his well-timed bursts of movement were aided by the ultimate finder's wide range of vision. He wasted no excess energy as he moved here and there in an attempt to stave off Haku's large volleys of needles, which would be fatal to meet head on. As he moved the limited x-ray vision on the ultimate finder allowed him to see how Haku sank into one of the ice mirrors. Making a well-thought-of decision, he dodged and jumped Haku's last volley while chasing her as she appeared in mid air. Haku chose another mirror to sink through, as Naruto punched through the mirror which was her intended destination, shattering it in an instant.

Meanwhile inside her ice mirror, Haku was stunned as the now black-clad blonde guessed her attack pattern. She was also nervous as an avenue of attack was closed to her, because of the shattered ice mirror Naruto punched through.

Meanwhile Naruto guessed long ago that the mirrors were the hunter-nin's way of transporting himself. Landing on the ground, he began to shatter his enemy's mirrors one by one, to limit his foe's movement, making 'him' easier to defeat. He then punched the mirror next to him, then a second, and a third mirror followed its destruction as he gave it a vicious kick.

Haku was now getting desperate, as creating those ice mirrors took a lot of chakra out of her. She can't let her trump card fail like this, she needed to protect her master and finish killing the old bridge builder, or their contract with Gato would be canceled. Taking initiative, she pulled out one of her kunai from a hidden pocket of her clothes in one hand, as she threw her senbon at Naruto to distract him. She hissed as Naruto dodged the senbon and threw another punch at a mirror, which shattered like the others before it. But Naruto's dodge and punch left him in the center of the now incomplete dome of ice. Haku switched mirrors and ended up at the top most mirror of the ice dome, and canceled her ability as she let gravity do its work for her.

Naruto watched as his enemy plummeted from the center of the dome, kunai poised to skewer him as the fake oi-nin seemed determined to end the fight with this one blow. He then made a split second decision, and stepped back a pace before jumping up to meet his opponent in the air.

As the two opponents neared each other, Naruto spun his body upwards and extended his right leg, tucking his left leg beside him in an angle. As it seemed that Haku would skewer her opponent with her kunai, naruto adjusted his body slightly in the air, and his right foot passed haku's kunai harmlessly as he delivered a brain-jarring kick to her chin, which continued to her face, the impact of which was mercifully cushioned by her mask, causing it to crack. As haku reeled from the effect of being the first person to experience naruto's rider kick, naruto turned in mid-air, tucked in his right leg, and extended his left leg, kicking the wrist holding the kunai, knocking it away, and twisting the wrist in a bad angle, dislocating her shoulder. As she cried out in pain, naruto completed his combo by spinning vertically, and delivered an overhead soccer kick to her chest, fracturing a few ribs and breaking two of them. The result of this combo redirected haku to one of her undamaged mirrors. She hit the mirror elbow first, which dislocated her other arm from the elbow down, as she went through it. Because of the force of Naruto's kick the mirror shattered completely, and the other mirrors followed suit as haku's control over them was broken from being in so much pain. The mirror thankfully slowed down her fall and absorbed the impact from naruto's final kick, as she finally went down and slid five feet away from the center of the battlefield.

II. Fight End and Aftermath

Naruto landed in a crouch as he observed his handy-work. Several paces from him lay the prone figure of the enemy he had just defeated. He waited for five minutes to see if his opponent would recover from his combo. When he determined that his opponent seemed to be unconscious, he walked from his position to where his foe lay.

Haku was a broken tool, literally and figuratively. Her arms were broken, one dislocated shoulder, a dislocated elbow, several fractured ribs, two broken ribs, most of her ribs bruised, and a pair of useless hands not even good for making one-handed seals. Although her legs and feet were unharmed, she continued to lie there, and her opponent heard the mantra that she was speaking in a whisper.

As Naruto walked over, he heard the voice of his opponent speaking something, as he neared the prone form he heard the fake hunter-nin say:

"Please kill me, I'm a broken and useless tool…Please kill me..."

These words were repeated by the broken ninja lying in front of him. As he crouched in front of his defeated enemy and removed the cracked and broken porcelain mask, he stared unbelievingly at the familiar face of the kind-hearted teenaged boy who greeted him after waking up from an all night training session in a clearing a slight distance from Tazuna's house, which exhausted him enough that he passed out where he stood. The person who taught him all about protecting the ones he loved the most.

"You…you're that guy from two days ago..." Naruto asked in disbelief as the mask revealed the face of Haku.

Haku smiled sadly at him while coughing up a bit of saliva coated with a bit of blood when she bit her tongue when Naruto kicked her chin. "It's me, Naruto-san. I am Haku, the hunter-nin that took Zabuza's seemingly lifeless body, and tricked you into believing that he was dead. Now please kill me, Zabuza-sama has no use for a broken, useless tool like m-"

Naruto growled as he punched Haku in the gut, knocking out what he thought was an older boy. After a few minutes of making sure he was out cold, He checked his condition and the state of his injuries. When he had deemed that his opponent can still survive for a few hours, he returned to the body of Sasuke, and gently lifted his teammate's body from the cold ground of the recently concluded battlefield. He then walked to the direction he remembered where his third teammate was.

As he approached the location of Sakura and Tazuna, his mind was reminiscing about the things team seven did together. Naruto remembered a few good times, and several bad times with team seven. Naruto sighed as he remembered Sasuke treating him like he couldn't measure up to his genius, which he realized, was true. He also remembered how Sakura would berate him by either typical fan-girl violence against the object of her affection, or by insulting him verbally. He also remembered how Kakashi wouldn't teach him anything except to frequently berate him for not honing his chakra control.

Naruto decided then and there to make himself a better ninja and either leave team seven behind as a chuunin or leave when his two other teammates made chuunin, or ask the third Hokage for a team transfer out of Kakashi's team.

Naruto's thoughts then went back on how to tell Sakura that the love of her life was dead, without her blaming him. Giving it up as a lost cause, he simply chose to stay silent as the mists parted, and he saw Sakura and Tazuna still in their spot. He noticed that both were on high guard when they saw him.

Because he was still wearing the faiz armor, Naruto stopped before he hit Sakura's kunai range, and gently laid down the body of Sasuke, before leaving their spot. Naruto could hear Sakura's questions of why he was carrying Sasuke, who or what was he, and the empty threats of what she will do to him if he found out that he was responsible for Sasuke's injuries and why he was not moving, which made him inwardly wince. As he walked further away, Naruto could hear Sakura's cries of anguish as he pictured Sakura holding Sasuke's body in a tearful embrace.

III. Mist's Demon vs. White Fang: the Final Move

Meanwhile back at Kakashi and Zabuza's battleground at the bridge, Kakashi momentarily felt Kyuubi's killing intent and chakra before it disappeared completely from his senses. Zabuza also felt the momentary spike in malevolent chakra for a moment before it was gone. Both turned in the direction where their subordinates were fighting, and looked at each other.

"What the hell was that chakra, Kakashi? Are you hiding some kind of trump card on that black-haired student of yours?" Kakashi, not seeing anything in the mist, retorted back.

"That is none of your business Zabuza. But it seems like one of my students is getting serious over there. So I'll finish this fight of ours, if you don't mind." Pulling out a small scroll from his Jounin vest, he dipped his thumb over the cut in his vest that Zabuza's sword had made in one of their clashes, and swiped the blood in the middle of the scroll. Rolling it up, he did hand seals while making adjustments to the seals he made, because of the scroll he held in his hands. After he was done, Kakashi slammed his hands with the scroll in the ground, and the lines of seals indicating a summoning jutsu was seen on the ground. Kakashi called the technique out quietly so Zabuza wouldn't find his position in the mist, as well as give away that he was using a jutsu.

"Kuchiyose: Tsuiga no Jutsu! (Summoning: Tracking Fang Technique)"

Inside the mist, Zabuza was waiting for Kakashi's next move. He was confident, but feeling a bit nervous. He knows that Kakashi can't see him in this thick mist and because of that his sharingan was useless here, so why was he spooked?

Suddenly, Zabuza felt a nearby sound of rumbling, and it was getting closer as he felt the ground shake and saw the concrete floor of the bridge being cracked. He dodged just as the head of a dog appeared from under the ground and attempted to bite him. However as he landed, another dog bit his lower left leg, which was followed by another dog biting his other leg, pinning him to a standing position. While he was being restrained in the legs, other dogs popped out from under the concrete to bite his arms, his upper legs, and a large dog appeared to bite his left shoulder, and pinned him with its weight. One small dog jumped up and bit his scarf, effectively pinning his neck and head. Zabuza was stunned, it was only minutes ago that he was in a stalemate with his opponent, now the tables have turned and he was a sitting duck for whatever Kakashi might have planned for him.

Kakashi stepped into Zabuza's vision as the mists parted slightly because of the missing-nin losing control over it. He was really thankful that the tracking fang was successful, as he didn't have much chakra left with fighting Zabuza and keeping his sharingan active inside the mist.

"How did you find me inside the mist? Your sharingan should have been useless here."

Kakashi gave Zabuza a lazy eye and covered his sharingan once more with his hitai-ate, as his chakra level was very low. He didn't even have a sufficient amount of chakra to summon a raikiri(lightning edge) to finish Zabuza off.

"I'd answer you if I knew that you were going to die today, as dead men tell no tales. But just because I can't kill you right now, doesn't mean I won't if I have to. All I can say to you is that before I got my sharingan, I was raised and trained to be a very good tracker." Zabuza glared back at Kakashi, while biding his time and waiting for his subordinate to save him. After a few minutes however, with no Haku in sight, he hung his head in defeat, and said:

"Alright, you've defeated me. I accept my loss."

The mist dissipated little by little, as Kakashi saw Sakura hugging a non-moving Sasuke, who looked like a pincushion, with the numbers of Haku's senbon embedded in his body. He also noticed, that his female student had not moved from her initial position when she was left behind to protect Tazuna, so he was wondering how she was hugging Sasuke, and how he got to her position. Kakashi was also worried why the Uchiha wasn't moving.

In the meantime, Zabuza saw Haku's unmoving form several feet away from where he had left her to do battle with the black-haired kid. As he took a closer look, he found that Haku's was seriously injured, and was wondering why she wasn't moving from her position. He was also worried that Kakashi's student put her in this state, but with him also unconscious, he seriously doubted the theory that it was the black-haired kid who knocked her out.

Neither man noticed that someone was missing in all of this drama and their musings, however.

Both Jounin-level ninja wanted to go and check if their subordinates were okay. However, that's when the two men heard someone clapping from the other end of the bridge, and said.

"Bravo Zabuza, you have failed to kill the bridge builder, again." A sarcastic congratulatory voice filled the air. A voice which Zabuza knew only belonged to one person.

IV: Gato's double-cross and the Coated Man.

As the mist further cleared, they saw a short man who was wearing a business suit and orange-tinted, round sunglasses. Zabuza recognized him at once, and growled at him, because his appearance at the battlefield was not part of their deal and plan.

"Gato! What are you doing here? You promised me that you would not interfere with my plans!" Zabuza seethed as he looked at his current employer's victorious grin while still being restrained by Kakashi's ninken. Gato held a dangerous glint in his eyes that Zabuza and Kakashi cannot ignore, and so they faced him, Zabuza still held by Kakashi's ninken.

"It's time to end my contract with you Zabuza. You were taking too long in killing the old bridge builder, so I put my own plans into motion. Besides, I never had the intention of paying you, or your group for the services that I needed. You missing-nin are bad for businessmen like my esteemed self, so once you took care of Tazuna and his guards, I planned on killing you and your men. I've been looking around for your partner as I had been looking for some payback for what she did to my arm, -yes, I now know she's a girl- and I see that she's knocked out over there. Once I get rid of you she'll be a bonus for the best mercenary here, then I'll pass her along to the others. A group of missing-nin is very expensive to hire these days, but a hundred or so hired mercenaries doesn't even come close to that price. It seems that your reputation for being the demon of the mist was a bit exaggerated. Heh, in the end, you're just a little baby demon!" Gato laughed evilly as the mist vanished, revealing the one hundred plus mercenaries that he hired, all armed with various weapons.

As Gato spoke, Zabuza narrowed his eyes until his fury couldn't be contained by the bandages on his face, and he growled when Gato announced what he planned to do with Haku once he was dead. He struggled to turn his face at Kakashi, and then spoke.

"Our fight is over Kakashi, I do not wish to harm Tazuna, his family, and your genin anymore, and that I have no quarrel with you from this point onwards. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a businessman to butcher."

One of the mercenaries holding a straight edge cleaver and had a bandana on his head, laughed as he taunted Zabuza.

"What's this? A heavily injured ninja, thinking he could take on over a hundred mercenaries? You have got to be sh-urk! "The mercenary didn't finish his sentence as a shuriken lodged in his throat and fell down dead. His lifeblood pouring out of his throat through the shuriken wound, courtesy of Kakashi who had a glare of indifference on his eyes.

"If you haven't noticed it yet, I'm still here. All of you and Gato are threats to me and my team, as well as hindrances to the completion of this mission; which is to protect Tazuna and make sure his bridge is finished, (A/N: The last statement was a lie, in case you were wondering.) so you have one minor-injured ninja and one very pissed off, lightly injured, giant-sword wielding ninja to take on all of you. Oh, and let's not forget my very cute, and very ferocious ninken." Kakashi finished his speech as he sent Zabuza a pointed glare, saw him nod, and whistled.

Zabuza nodded once to seal his promise, and the ninken Kakashi summoned relinquished their hold on Zabuza. The ninken retreated to Kakashi's place and growled at the mercenaries. Zabuza then raised his head chopping sword, and grinned malevolently at Gato and his hired fodder.

Gato sweated bullets as his so-called plan was ruined. He didn't know Zabuza was only lightly injured! Taking in account the still standing Kakashi and those dogs, he was screwed. Running back to the throng of mercenaries, he turned his head and yelled at an unarmed man who was wearing a tan coat, sunglasses, a motorcycle cap, and matching goggles.

"Kotogi! Go out to the front and earn you pay! Kill the bridge builder and anyone who stops you!" Gato yelled as he ran to the bridge's unfinished end. The man called Kotogi smirked and said, "Sure boss." and pushed his way to the front of the mercenary army.

Kakashi and Zabuza noticed the commotion as someone said: "Out of the way you pussies. I'm going to the front." Both shinobi concluded that it was a tan-coated man coming to the front of the line. The mercenaries were either giving him a wide berth or being pushed aside and knocked down. The fear coming from some of the mercenaries as they looked at the now revealed coated man wasn't missed by either of the ninja. As one, they both raised their guards up for any surprises coming from this unarmed man.

From his position among the mercenaries, Kotogi raised an eyebrow as he stared at the two men in front of him.

"The boss sure sounded serious when he said that I had to be here, out in the front. You too look like you can give me quite a workout, so if the both of you wouldn't mind, I'm going to slip into something more…comfortable." He said as a black visage, like a faded tattoo appeared on his face and body, before a sound like muddy and murky water was heard as the coated man transformed.

A/N: I decided to end this here because of the word count. Rest assured the next chapter will be posted soon. As always please review. Thanks for reading!