Disclaimer: I never owned Naruto and I never will!
All of you! Quake before the mighty powers of Spellcheck! That's right, I've finally managed to install Open Office into my computer, so there will be far less spelling and grammatical errors in my story for now on. However, its come at a great price. Something crazy has been going on with the website, and the document manager hasn't been working properly since Sunday. In other words, the following chapter has been finished for days now, but I couldn't submit it.
Enjoy this slightly delayed chapter.
"Haku, say something. Why did you save me?" Naruto said.
"He can't answer you, kid. That guy's dead." The umbrella-guy pulled out an umbrella. "And soon you'll be, too."
Naruto's eyes opened in shock. 'Haku... dead? It can't be. It can't be.' New strength found its way into Naruto's body. "It can't be!" Naruto jumped onto his feet, landing on all fours.
The other boy stared closely at Naruto's new look. 'His eyes turned red. That's strange.' "That's a neat trick, making your body turn red like that. But I'm going to end this now!"
Without Uzumaki Ch. 7:
Naruto's body started shaking violently as what appeared to be fire started to twist around him. Naruto started mumbling to himself, "kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill..." Naruto ran towards the umbrella guy at this point, continuing his insane chanting. "kill, kill!"
'What's up with this kid?' The guy thought. 'First he turns red, and now I think his voice just dropped several decibels. Did he just hit puberty or something?'
Naruto jumped into the air, his hands stretched out towards his enemy, and the nails on his fingers made it look like he had claws. "kill... kill. I'm going to kill you!"
The Umbrella-guy jumped backwards, avoiding Naruto's claw swipe. Then he hurled his umbrella into the boy's chest. It exploded, throwing fire, dirt, and Naruto into the air.
The umbrella-dude watched Naruto rise upwards into the sky with a smile on his face, "A direct hit. And I put enough explosives in that umbrella to take out a dragon. But just in case he survived..." He pulled out his remaining two umbrellas and spun them in his hands, assuming a duel-weapon stance that was normally reserved for swords.
Naruto fell back down into the cloud of smoke that was produced by the explosion.
The guy gave Naruto a thirty second grace period, watching the smoke settle and making sure that there was no movement from Naruto. He started to put his umbrellas away when he was satisfied that Naruto was dead, "Guess he didn't survive after all. I expected a little more than this when I saw him release all of that chakra. Oh well." He started to push his first umbrella into one of the holes in his coat where he stored his weapons, but there was a flash of red that pierced through the smoke. The umbrella guy swung his umbrellas in front of him so that they formed an x that protected his face. He was just in time, since Naruto's fist shot out of the smoke a mere second later, breaking both umbrellas as if they were twigs.
At the very last second, just as Naruto's claw began to scratch his cheek, the umbrella-guy moved his head to the side, and he kicked Naruto in the chest to knock him backwards. He looked at the two broken umbrella poles in his hand, and threw them to the side. "So, seeing that guy die gets you this angry, huh? Well then, I guess I should let you in on a little secret."
... Meanwhile ...
It was at this point that the remaining members of Zabuza's army finished off their latest batch of enemies. There were four left, if you counted the deceased Haku, but only three if you didn't. There were those twins that Zabuza kept around. He just called them the demon brothers since trying not to get their names mixed up when they looked exactly the same was way too difficult. Then there was that female ANBU who had managed to survive for this long even though she had originally been opposed to attacking the Kage during the day.
The demon brothers were currently standing over the body of the last ninja they killed. He was wrapped completely in barbed wire, and had died from blood loss due to the countless cuts on his body produced by the aforementioned wire.
One of the brothers, lets just refer to him as the first brother, pressed a switch on the metal glove that he was wearing, detaching it from the barbed wire. "I expected Haku to handle most of these opponents, not us." He said to his brother.
The second brother began the tedious work of untangling the wire from the body it was wrapped around, so that he could roll it back into his glove. He started by rolling the body across the ground with his foot. "Yes, it is too bad that Haku is dead. We used our weapon so much that the wire almost broke. Reattaching this will be so troublesome." He tried to pull the wire free from the body, but it seemed to be caught on something, probably a bone. "Go check Haku's body for kunai, I'm going to have to cut this free." He continued tugging as his brother approached Haku's body.
The first brother walked up to Haku, who was still covered in senbon. The needles had actually hit him in a way that stuck him to a wall, so the demon brother started by removing some of them so that he could stretch Haku out on the ground. He began searching the kid for a kunai holster, but stopped when he felt some blood hit him in the face. He jumped backwards when Haku coughed again, spraying more blood.
"Hey brother, I got the chain free! It was just stuck in the guy's shirt!" The second brother yelled from the distance. He walked over to his brother, pausing when he saw him jump away from Haku's body. "What's wrong, brother?" he said.
"He's not dead." the first brother declared, still watching Haku's body.
"Who are you talking about?" The second brother followed the direction that his brother's eyes were looking in. "Haku's not dead? What makes you say that?"
"He just coughed blood on me. Dead people can't do that."
The second brother walked up to Haku and prodded him with his foot. Haku coughed again, getting blood on the second brother's shoe. "Hmm. I see why Zabuza talks so highly of this kid. There's few people who could avoid a critical wound when hit by this many senbon." He took his foot off of Haku's chest. "Brother, go fetch that medic-nin that Zabuza sent with us. You know, the one with blue hair."
The first brother nodded, before running off to find the remaining member of Zabuza's team. He found her a good ways away, nursing a shoulder wound with the dead bodies of three enemy ninja around her. Thirty seconds later, the two brothers were standing besides Haku's body as the ANBU crouched beside him and started investigating it.
She started by lifting up his arm and checking his pulse. "Well, I'll be damned." She said. "He has a pulse, but it is very weak." She opened up Haku's kimono and plucked a couple of the senbon, paying special attention to how deep the holes they made were, and their position in the kid's body. "None of his organ's were hit, and the wounds aren't deep enough to be fatal. It's surprising that Haku was hurt this bad by needles like this, unless..." She molded chakra around her fingers, causing them to glow a light-green color. She pressed one of her fingers against one of the senbon. Her chakra changed color, turning from green to purple. "Poison..." she muttered.
... Further away from the tower...
Naruto rushed the umbrella-guy again, aiming for his face and throwing a violent punch.
The guy rolled to the side, barely avoiding the attack. "Hold your horses there, buddy. I told you that I have a secret to tell you."
Naruto landed on the ground and spun around. He prepared to attack again, baring his fangs.
The umbrella-guy reached into his pocket and whipped out a green vial. "Your friend's not dead yet."
Naruto stopped mid-dash, stopping himself by digging his claws into the ground.
The umbrella-guy waved the vial side-to-side, making sure that Naruto was paying attention. "When I said he was, I meant that he was as good as dead since he took a hit from my senbon. I coated them in a special poison that only my family makes. It is very slow acting, taking as much as an hour to kill its victim if they only receive the standard dose. This vial in my hand's the only antidote..." The guy looked into his hand where he had been holding the vial, and quickly realized that it was gone. He looked behind him to see that Naruto had somehow snatched the vial from him while he was talking and was now running towards Haku. 'Kuso!' The guy mentally cursed. He pulled out a kunai, his last weapon, and ran after Naruto.
Naruto made his way towards Haku, the demon brothers, and that anbu woman, with the umbrella-guy right on his tail. He threw the vial towards the ANBU, shouting, "This vial has the antidote in it! Give it to Haku!"
The umbrella-guy threw his kunai, hoping to intercept the vial in mid-air.
The demon brothers were all poised to catch the vial, but then they saw a kunai being hurled towards it. The first brother spoke, "Let's go, brother." The two brothers attached their gloves together using a bladed-chain. Then the second brother grabbed the other one by the back of the shirt and hurled him towards the vial.
The first brother grabbed the vial and bounced the kunai to the side using his metal glove, then he pulled on the chain, throwing his brother past him.
The second brother flew over the umbrella-guy, who hadn't stopped chasing Naruto even after tossing his last weapon. That was a huge mistake, since it allowed the demon brothers to use their patented tag-team move, wrapping the guy up with the bladed-chain so that he couldn't move a muscle. The brothers initiated their finishing move with a simple phrase, "Do it." Seconds later and all that was left of the umbrella-guy was chunks of meat on the ground.
Meanwhile, the female ANBU placed the antidote in a syringe that she produced from absolutely no where, and stabbed it into Haku's neck. "I hope that that guy wasn't lying about this antidote." She squeezed the green liquid into Haku's neck. Once all of it was in, she checked Haku out with a medical scanning jutsu. She let out the breath she had been holding, then she took a last look at the vial before letting it fall onto the ground. "Guess this was an antidote after all."
Naruto took a seat next to Haku, clutching his chest. He spoke to the other boy despite the fact that he was unconscious. "Damnit, you queer-bastard. You had me scared there for a minute. But... I knew... that..." Naruto fell sideways mid-sentence and his eyes widened in pain. His chest felt like it was on fire.
The anbu stepped over to Naruto. She noted the blood that was pooling under his body. "You don't look much better than Haku." she said. "But great work getting that antidote. He would have died without it." She covered her hands with medical chakra, and applied a layer to Naruto's chest. The wound there was massive and was burned thoroughly, obviously caused by that direct hit from an explosive umbrella.
Meanwhile, the Demon Brothers were once again having problems with their chain-gloves. The first brother looked at the broken links of the chain that were scattered across the ground. "We should have brought an extra one, brother."
The second brother nodded in agreement. He turned around to face his sibling, and somehow also ended up facing the double doors that led into the Mizukage's tower. He was just in time to see Zabuza's sword appear through the space between doors and slowly work its way down, cutting the doors open. Zabuza himself stumbled through the doors, deep wounds and blood scattered across his body.
"Zabuza-san!" both brothers yelled. They dashed forward and caught the big man right before he fell to the ground.
Zabuza talked, with visible effort showing on his face, to the brothers, "Where's Naruto and Haku? We have to make our escape, now."
"Escape? Why Zabuza-san?" the first brother said.
"Was the Mizukage too powerful for you?" the second said. "I'm sure that if the three of us worked together..."
Zabuza pushed the brothers to the side and pulled the wrappings off of his face so that he could cough blood onto the ground. "It wasn't the Kage who did this to me. The person in the tower was an impostor." He said once he finished
"What do you mean, impostor?" The first brother asked.
"Then where's the real Kage?" the second one said.
Zabuza stood up and brushed himself off. "I don't know. He's probably still in the tower somewhere, since he was manipulating it during my fight with the other guy." Zabuza looked into the sky as a few rain clouds appeared overhead. "I had already expected Keito to try something like this, telling someone to henge into him and fight me in his stead. He never was one for a good battle." A downpour started, gushing water down on the tower from way up high. "What I didn't expect was for his double to be that powerful. I couldn't even lay a finger on him."
"You didn't land a single hit?" One of the brothers asked.
"Yeah, I hit him all right, but hitting him wasn't the problem. I couldn't hurt him at all." Zabuza scanned the area. "You guys did a good job pushing the Mizukage's army back. You depleted their strength by at least eighty." He looked back towards the Demon Brothers. "Where's Naruto and Haku. It's time for us to leave."
The Demon Brothers pointed towards Zabuza's left where Haku was still on the ground, being treated by the ANBU. Naruto was on his feet, stumbling back and forth trying to keep his balance. He had his shirt open so a small gash was visible in his chest. It seemed to be rapidly closing up, so Naruto would probably be injury-less in a few more minutes.
Zabuza started to approach the group, his escape plan already in his brain. He looked to his right, into the battlefield. Even after all this time passed, there seemed to be at least three Kaguya left, fighting for their lives against the last twenty members of the Mizukage's army. 'That should do.' Zabuza thought. 'We'll leave the way that we came.' Zabuza turned back towards where Haku was, and suddenly froze in place. He pulled his sword out of its sheath.
The Demon Brothers saw Zabuza's look of surprise and looked towards Haku as well. There was something very weird going on over there. They looked on as the female ANBU slowly rose to her feet, a look of pure terror on her face. Even after standing up completely straight, she continued to rise until her feet were no longer on the ground. She silently mouthed the words, "Help me." Towards the brothers and Zabuza.
"Someone's choking her." one of the brothers stated. "Someone invisible."
Naruto had already drawn his own blade, and was also facing the female ANBU. From his position he could clearly see what was wrong. He could see fingers wrapped around her neck, squeezing the life out of her. What made things strange was the fact that the fingers appeared to be made out of water, and were connected to a watery arm that had extended out of the ground. There was no body as far as Naruto could tell. Just an extremely long arm that had stretched out of the ground.
Naruto set his feet and aimed his sword at the arm. "Don't worry!" he said to the ANBU. "I'll get you free!" He rushed forward as soon as he was done shouting.
"Wait, Naruto!" Zabuza said from his position hundreds of feet away. "Forget about her! Grab Haku and come over here!"
"What! How could I just forget about her! She's the one who saved Haku!" Naruto said. He ran towards the arm and tried to cut it off of the ANBU, but, to his utter surprise, his sword went right through it.
Suddenly, a second arm burst from the ground, upper cutting Naruto right in the chin. The boy flew through the air and fell to the ground, hard. He spit out blood as he felt pain rack his body, stemming from his chest wound. Naruto looked towards the ANBU, who was still in the grasp of the water arm. Now there was a second arm that was also extending out of the ground. Naruto watched as a mass of water began to slowly rise out of the ground, becoming shaped more and more like a human as time passed. It was attached to both arms.
"Naruto! Hurry up and grab Haku before he finishes materializing! If you take any longer we won't be able to escape!" Zabuza said to his apprentice.
Naruto was still paralyzed by the pain, so he could only watch as the water transformed into a person who looked several years older than him. This guy was dressed in a raincoat, and his pants were devoid of any kunai holsters, or any weapon holsters at all for that matter. There were two orange, star symbols printed on his coat, one on the back and one on the sleeve. There was also an orange symbol drawn on this guy's left eye, somehow, which appeared to be in the shape of a star. The orange stars obviously meant something, but what that was wasn't very clear.
He looked at Naruto and smiled, while continuing to choke the female ANBU. "Hi there, Naruto. I've heard great things about you." He pointed towards himself with the thumb of his left hand. "The name's Hitode, but that is more of a title than a name. You can call me Hito for short.'
'There's a starfish pattern on his coat, and his name even means starfish. Plus, his eye has a star drawn on it. Is that supposed to stand for something?' Naruto forced himself to stand to his feet and aimed his sword at the water-guy's throat. " Drop her, now! If you don't, I'll kill you!" Naruto said.
Hito balled up his left fist, before spinning around and slamming it into the female ANBU's face, knocking her out with ease. "There, I dropped her." He said, watching as the woman flew through the air and experienced a vicious landing that probably shattered a few bones.
Naruto didn't take that very well, he jumped forward and swung his sword downwards with all his might, catching Hito with his back turned.
Hito sidestepped at the last second, just avoiding a fatal blow. However even with his quick reaction, he still lost his arm to Naruto's blade.
Naruto smirked. 'This guy isn't so tough.' Naruto watched the arm tumble through the air. "I'll finish this guy off in no time, Zabuza-sensei! Then we can go back inside and finish the Kage off!"
Zabuza turned to the Demon Brothers. "Shin! Shinji! Go and grab Haku. Once you have him take the escape route that we discussed yesterday. Make sure that you do not engage that guy while you do all of this. Just run away as fast as you can!"
The two brothers nodded and dashed towards Haku's position. The first one picked him up, and both rushed off to the east, running on top of the Tower's moat as if it was a sidewalk.
Naruto watched this spectacle with obvious confusion on his face. 'Why is Zabuza so insistent on us escaping now? I could kill this guy with my hands tied behind my back.' He looked at Hito's severed arm again. 'I was able to take away his ability to perform jutsus. In addition, his taijutsu should be useless now unless he fights with a leg style. He's no longer a threat.' Naruto lifted his sword and shoved it into its sheath. He raised his right hand in front of his face with his fingers forming half of a seal. "I'm going to finish you off in style." Naruto declared to his opponent. He disappeared using one of Zabuza's signature disappearing techniques.
When Naruto reappeared behind Hitode, he was all set to take him out with a horizontal slice, but just as he landed on the ground behind Hito, his face met with the guy's left fist. The fist was attached to the arm that Naruto had removed from Hito three seconds earlier, and the arm had somehow stretched to several times its former length. Blood exploded from Naruto's nose as he was sent flying by this violent attack.
Hitode allowed his left arm to fall to the ground, since it was now ten feet long. "Zabuza already showed me that move when we fought, Naruto. Attacks like that won't work on me." He raised his fingers in front of his face and muttered, "Kai!". When Hitode dispelled his jutsu, his stretched out arm burst into water, leaving his real arm attached to his body. The severed arm that was lying on the ground also burst into water.
Naruto's grip on his sword dissolved and the blade broke out of his hand, flipping through the air and clanging against the ground several feet away from its owner, as his back slammed into the earth. Naruto felt like all the life had been drained from his body by that punch. None of his muscles were working anymore. 'That guy's strength is unreal. No one, not even Zabuza, has ever hit me this hard. And he did it with the arm that I had cut off.' Naruto eyed the puddle of water where the original arm had landed. 'Now I know why Zabuza wants to leave so badly. Anyone who can regenerate that fast after an injury can't be defeated by physical attacks.' Naruto struggled with all of his might to turn his head towards his sword. 'Our swords are the only weapon that me and Zabuza rely on. If our enemy can't be hurt by them, then there's no way that we can win.'
Hitode started to flex his new arm. "Now you know why I was named 'Starfish'. A starfish is an animal that can regenerate so well from injury, that even if one of its five limbs is cut off it can regenerate its body completely. In fact, a starfish can regenerate so well that even the severed limb becomes a new body. Watch as I demonstrate." Hito did a string of handseals ending with the ram.
Naruto turned his head the other way, only to see that Hitode could create bunshin from lost limbs. 'Shit! This definitely isn't good.'
"See, the arm you cut off has become a new soldier under my control. And, in case you were wondering, he can perform jutsus since he has just as much chakra as me. In fact, the only difference between us is the act that he is lacking a brain, which I can compensate for by giving him orders." Hitode pointed to the east. "Go chase after Haku, and bring him back here, alive."
The "arm" bunshin dashed off in that direction, following the Demon Brothers.
Hitode slowly approached the fallen Naruto, cracking his fingers as he walked. "And now to finish you off." He raised his foot, lifting it over Naruto's head. He started to press his sandal into Naruto's face. "Any last words?"
That's all for right now folks! I'll update again whenever this site lets me, since I've been having some trouble with the document manager.
By the way, I overhauled the first chapter, making it the final chapter from my original story to be improved. It's way more developed than it was before, with details explaining several aspects of my plot that were left up to the imagination before. Check it out if you want, especially if you felt that my first chapter was lacking. Peace!