Living Twice

Hmm…Sorry. I just can't seem to find out if readers still have operable keyboards. They're all broken. I suppose after this chapter, you may find yours working again. Reviews are wanted, and needed!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

9.

As he stared in what he believed was the east, he drew in a deep breath and inhaled the crisp morning air. Where, how and when…All of the knowledge was there, and he Knew that he had to do what needed to be done. Ending something like this, like that, was necessary, and no matter what angle he tried to think of, he knew…he knew that he would eventually do it.

It was around seven or so minutes past six. No time could be wasted.

Quickly checking if all he had was secure in his weapon, he dashed straight towards the north. He needed to get into the clearing in the forest over there and prepare himself before the other got there.

=X=X= (8:00 a.m.)

She fidgeted with the choker around her neck with her left hand as she walked. The damned neckwear was chafing her underneath, but for sentimental reasons, she kept it on. Perhaps one day, common sense would overrule the sentimentality, but not some day soon.

The light weight of the basket in her right hand reminded her that she needed more medical plants and herbs for him to recover more quickly. Fortunately, he had woken up late last night, but as he claimed upon consciousness, was that she 'put him down, 'cause death would be painless.' If the man could have said that about the pain, it must've hurt like a son-of-a-…

'Hmm? What…or who is that over there on the ground?'

She walked a bit closer, but more in a direction that would take her closer to it, instead of directly at the object/form. As she neared, she saw that it was a boy with blond hair, and dark clothing, lying horizontally to her approach. About two meters or about that distance closer, she saw that the hair was spiky the clothing was a very dark blue, nearly black, even. And he wore grey sandals.

Shinobi sandals.

"What the…"

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Wasn't that the same boy who was fighting Zabuza, and even went as far as to steal his sword and sent a clone off with it? She 'knew' him well; her ice clone that had dispatched his had described him. But just to make sure…

She saw the whisker marks/scars on his cheeks a meter closer to his form. Even now, he was just lying there.

'Is he…sleeping?!'

This was incredibly convoluted and intricate, but also incredibly austere at the same time. Perhaps she could-

'No. don't even think about, Haku. He was just trying to do his job of protecting his client. Not to mention, even while we followed the team from the river, he carried on as if he wanted to avoid something troubling. Perhaps he's a good natured person who likes to avoid fighting when possible.'

Her other side argued. 'Or he's a sensor.'

'If he was a sensor, how come he's not reacting to your presence?'

'He's completely asleep. Besides, he fought unhindered by the mist.'

'He's a killer.'

'Idealist.'

'Remember what his teacher said? That boy is not normal. He kills brutally with those…weapons of his.'

Her argument nearly made her dizzy, her heart rate racing in beats. Without even realizing it, she was at his side, and she needed to make a decision.

'Just wake him up.'

'Kill him!'

'WAKE HIM UP!'

'KILL HIM!'

She knelt down beside him, placed her basket down and reached for his shoulder. Her hand was nearly upon his right shoulder, and if she formed an ice senbon just right, he'd have a hole in his neck where his jugular had its course pass through.

'Just wake him up. He doesn't know you.'

'You can kill him. You killed your father before, your own kin. What's to stop you from killing some nameless shinobi?'

Her heart rate started out of rhythm now, and the edge of her decision was as thin as a hair line. She was tottering on it; a mere slight shift in weight would cause her decision to fall in two separate pits.

'This isn't you.'

'You're a disappointment. I ask my tool to get the job done, and she wakes him up, instead of killing him. Haku, you're useless.' Zabuza's growling voice spoke like a terrible voice of reason in her mind. In a fit of anger and rage that lasted a second, a shard of ice erupted from her index like a deadly fingernail of sorts that elongated towards the vein. He vocal was nearly a yell as she did this, eager to please her master.

The boy's eyes snapped open, and he quickly shifted his head and neck towards his left shoulder. The ice nail stuck into the ground, and in the same moment, the boy on the ground reached his hand up and grasped her arm at the biceps/triceps area and pulled down. A split second later, his knee slammed into the side of her head, strong enough to wrench her from his grasp and send her tumbling behind him.

Still on the ground.

He quickly got up, and assumed his usual stance with his arms limp and his head hung down. Promptly getting up as well, she formed an ice senbon and watched him. Studying him for a second, she was thrown for a loop by his seemingly harmless stance, but she was surprised to see moisture fall from his face. The morning was still very cool; so it was nigh an impossibility that he was sweating. As he looked up at her, his now un-shadowed eyes had a few tears running from them freely down his whiskered cheeks.

"Why?"

She didn't know how to answer his poignant question. So she chose not to.

"Why?!" He yelled now.

Still confused, she hazarded one. "Why what?"

"You were…(sniff) supposed to wake me up…"

Haku froze. (The author laughs, and falls out of his chair and rolls on the ground in hysterics)

"How did…I wanted to…but…I couldn't." She responded at last, after a long moment. "My will is not mine, but I'm an extension of Zabuza-sama's."

The boy shinobi sighed. "Maybe there's still a way to prevent this…" He mumbled to her. "My name's Naruto. And you're Haku, right?"

"How did you-"

"I know a lot of things. The most important of which, is that you won't live past today. But I'm hoping you will, by simply walking away."

"Is that a threat?" Her eyebrows furrowed in an extreme frown, while maintain a level-eyed glare.

"No. It's a fact. But it's preventable, if you just walk away. Pretend we never met."

"Why don't you walk away, if you are so caring enough to be concerned with my life?" She pondered in sarcasm.

"Time must run its course. Two things happened. We either talked about the idealism of having a precious person to fight for, to protect."

"…" Her blood started rushing through her inner vessels at a dangerous pace. How much did he really know about her?

"And after that, we both walked away. In a second format," He continued in all seriousness. "We fight, and I killed you."

"Who's to say that I won't kill you, instead of me perishing?"

"There's no one to say that. But I hope that you'll still just do as I instruct." Naruto replied. "But to show you how much faith I have in you, I'll walk away from you to the edge of the clearing." He turned his back, and started doing just that.

She suddenly felt the need to laugh. Was he really a shinobi? Blind faith in total strangers?

Although he knew too much about her, for her to be strange to him. But she herself knew nothing about him, other than the fact that he was strong. Perhaps she should take him up on his offer.

'…Useless tool.'

And all of that reasoning fled from her.

Three ice senbon formed between the grips of her fingers and she threw them, aiming for his heart's location in his back a bit to the left, with nary a sound.

Naruto was still walking away, and just before the ice needles killed him, he turned to his right, now sideways to the needles and they passed him harmlessly. The sound of them embedding in a tree suddenly caused them to sprint towards each other, but just before they clashed, he seemingly hesitated and stopped, reassuming his stance.

She rushed fully towards him, forming three senbon midway and held them in between her fingers like claws. She lunged forward with it to his ostensibly unguarded torso, but he caught her hand at the wrist with his left hand, and slammed his right into the crook of her elbow. A slight change in the angle of her hand, he had her curling her own creation back to her face.

A infinitely still moment had her watch the senbon stopped just an inch before her face. As the moment passed, he pushed her away from him.

"Just walk away, Haku." Was all he stated.

"No. You don't understand! This is something I must do!" As she uttered the last, she had reached back to him again. Lest he make her own death look like her own accident, she released her grip on the senbon and settled for pure taijutsu.

She threw a punch at his throat, eager to incapacitate him. He seemed deliberately to wait, before he grabbed her hand with both of his own. In a single wrenching moment, he made a full body 'U' swing with her arm and she went with the turn, she fell flat unto her back in a small toss-up and away.

Her kimono was soiled now, but she didn't care for that as her wind was knocked out from under her. He walked over to her at the side and looked down.

"Please desist."

She kept her emotions under control with a single gasp for air, before forcing herself up from her back and raising her whole leg to kick him toes first to the temple. Again, he caught her offensive right leg at the ankle and after swinging her up and around twice. He got the flash of a memory of what he did to Mizuki as he did this, and it scared him.

Rather than swing her into something particularly hurtful, he was considering just letting her land back in the grass in decreasing speed, but then he…

Got a glimpse under her kimono.

"Gah! Damn it!" He let go abruptly, severely flustered. All he had seen was underwear, but that was more than enough for his hormones. "I should've remembered that! Damn!"

The girl fell head and shoulders first away from him, and finally landed in a heap not too far from a tree. Deciding to just abandon taijutsu, she went through several handseals and announced a technique.

"Hyoton: Chimei-teki sutoraiki!" (Ice release: Mortal strikes)

Ice started forming on each of her fingertips on both hands, taking only a split second to be three inch elongated spikes. She threw them off her fingers with a slack wrist, and all ten spikes were heading for the blond in all haste.

Naruto ceased his episode and readied himself with a kunai to close the distance towards them. He sidestepped some, deflected others as he inched his way towards her. She was chucking them off rapidly nonstop but somehow, in her befuddled mind, was still able to be unharmed by them as he reduced his own time to react to them. She knew she was fast. But he wasn't fast. No. He was quick to react. He was at first ten meters from her when he first started repelling her continuous attack. Now he was seven.

Now five.

Then three.

In desperation, she decided to use her trump card, using several handseals unique to her and using more of her chakra since she had no water for natural aid. "Haku no Hijutsu: Makyō Hyōshō!" (Haku's secret jutsu: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals)

Haku suddenly saw her breath in front of her upon exhalation. Naruto saw ahead of him, and his peripherals, and previous experience told him he was in a dome of said mirrors. However, he didn't miss a beat on his advance; he sprinted at her dead-on when she created the technique and by the time it was completed (very quickly, mind you,) he was only a mere two feet from her.

At that distance, she was in the act of leaping backwards to enter the mirror, but the attempt went for nought as he used all of his running momentum, and his forward lunging force in his right hand to catch her throat in a grip, and slammed her into the ground.

Her air threatened to leave her all at once, but the strangling grip of his on her throat forbade it from occurring. All of a sudden, his index and his thumb on her throat pressed almightily on the blood vessels under the jaw hinges to the back, the act cutting off blood flow to the brain. He was crouching next to her writhing form on the ground, looking repentant while practically cutting off all living requirements between her head and body, not to mention oxygen, and she panicked.

Her vision became speckled and marred with dark spots to the corners and increased, like small puddles of water joining together to make a large one; her vision became like that of a tunnel.

"N-…No!" She gurgled in desperation for self-preservation. "I-…'ll le-…ave! St-…op! Pl-…eas-…e!"

Naruto felt like he wanted to cry as he watched the girl in her hysterics to live. He actually let up a bit, and the girl was quick to capitalize on it with a substitution. She hadn't the presence of mind to actually use an ice clone which could skewer him with ice shards; she only used a log which took her to the trees.

The domes mirrors fell to the ground, and Naruto was quick to step out of their way and dodge them. As they collapsed like a stack of cards, he finally dived out of the scrum before the last of the overhead ones bisected him. Rolling as his upper body made contact with the ground first, he ignored the still relatively intact mirrors and stared at the girl who was panting for breath in an attempt to recover.

"Well? Will you leave?"

She did not answer straightaway, but she soon did. "You still…hurt my master. That I must…avenge."

"If I beat Zabuza, what chance would you stand? I'm not implying that you're weak." The Uzumaki hesitated. "We started off as friends…in another time. It's because of this why I have continued to show mercy, hoping that you would just leave…To live! Don't you want to live?!"

Haku stared at the boy. It sounded as if he was pleading with her. And he was right; several times, he could have dispatched her. Why was she still fighting?

"I…am his tool. I must be prepared to fight with him, and for him." She replied with an equally emotional tone. "I must be prepared to die to continue his, if needs be."

Naruto did not move for a full minute. When he did, he assumed a new stance. His legs were still the same, but his right fist was reared back fully and rested close to his side, and his open palm out in front him. Tears ran anew down his face as he did so.

"I was afraid of this. I hoped…I prayed…I begged…"

"…?" Her look was questioning, but beyond that indication, she got the feeling that the boy was washing his hands of her.

And she was afraid.

"And you would not change your mind. If so, prepare yourself, Haku."

Reason, fear, and the flight response in her screamed for her to run away as possible in the direction away from the boy. Her conscience, ideals and the 'Zabuza mentality' yelled for her to continue fighting. By the time she was ready to make her choice to fight, she fell victim to dizzying haymaker to her jaw and she fell out of the tree on her side.

"Ah!" As her eyes stared upwards, she saw that a clone of Naruto crouched on the branch next to her previous location that still had its arm stuck straight out as if to emphasize how hard a hit she just took.

She heard footsteps running towards her, and she quickly got up to face the sound. She was greeted to the sight of Naruto going on the full offensive for the first in a headlong rush. Within less than no time, she had up a shaking guard to protect her chest, a lowered chin to protect her neck and tensing her gut in readiness. In pointless readiness.

Now face to face with each other, the boy let loose. Quickly hooking his left open palm behind her right hand at the wrist and wrenched towards his right. As she was pulled towards him, he raised his right knee and smashed it in her gut. Without losing a beat, (making a slight step to be at her side), he still held her outstretched arm and made passes; he grabbed her wrist with his right hand now, and gripped her arm around the 'ceps muscles with his left. Quickly sweeping away her right foot with his left, she fell to her left knee.

Thus enabling him to bring his right knee rising up with a grunt of effort to strike her elbow, giving her a joint snap-and-break.

"Gah!" With all of her experience of the medical field, she knew that she could never continue her 'job' as ninja, let alone continue this fight. A break like that in that particular area was horrible…on paper.

In real life, it was much worse.

She tried to beat off his grip with her left hand, but it was a doomed attempt. She knew that. He also did, but he was not about to give her any quarter.

Promptly making a light step back in front of her, he then yanked on her broken arm back unto her feet. Ignoring her yelps of pain, he grabbed her 'still making poor attempts left hand' and held them both out straight. He then lifted his right foot at the knee, then stretched it and kicked her in the chest. With that, he pushed his foot forward away from him, while pulling her arms towards him. He continued despite her screams, until with a grunt, he yanked her arms out of their sockets at the shoulder.

He was nearly deafened at the vocals, but he felt that he needed to continue. Right until the bitter end.

He released the grip he had on her arms, and with a final push with his leg, she stumbled backwards. About six steps towards her were all he made, and he slammed both of his palms on her ears. Her eardrums nearly ripped apart and all she heard was a ringing drone, not even her own screaming as he held unto the back of her head and brought it down hard, while bringing his knee up to cause a collision halfway. The problem was, one had to have more force, but it was the knee had it.

She was knocked back, her nose bridge nearly shattered. If pain was a sound, it would be her screaming, no contest. He raised both of his fists, and readied himself for the last.

One straight-forward punch to the gut made her double-over, a reflex she instantly regretted as she got curling upwards uppercut punch in her eye that made her stand straight again. With all things considered, she was now wishing for death, and knew she would soon have it.

A thrusting kick to the left knee with his right heel nearly broke her kneecap, but gave it a 'shattered glass' feeling as it was pushed away and she stood adjacent to him. He kicked her behind in the crook of her right knee now, and she fell to both knees. Before she could just face-plant, he went behind her in a burst of speed, and held unto her hair to keep her in place.

She was a mess. She had broken bones, yes. But at the moment, all of her felt like a glassware smashed to bits. She prayed for deliverance in between as she gasped for breath to assuage the lung that wasn't punctured by broken ribs.

She felt something circular press into the back of her head, but after a moment of thought, she realized that Naruto was holding his creation at the back of her head.

The same creation that shredded Zabuza in the leg and chest. With it pressed into her head like that, it was certain to kill her.

"I'm sorry, Haku. I-"

"Igs hokay." Was all her swollen, broken jaw could permit.

She felt chakra being molded behind her, but knew not why.

"I shouldn't have gone so far. Maybe sometime during your practical torture, I thought you would substitute and run away."

"…" The girl gave a long, heaving sigh.

"Wae can bae frens in ve afferlife." She muttered with a peaceful, pained smile.

"Friends." Naruto agreed, shedding a tear.

The fuse in the bomb tag at the base of the mug ran out, the mug leapt up in Naruto's hand; the weapon fired shrapnel like a dragon's breath that blew Haku's head apart to the fore in a rage to pieces.

=X=X=

Naruto sighed as he left the area in a small daze. Immediately walking to the sea in the location that wasn't too far where the others trained in water-walking, he just let his whole body fall in. The sea became colored red with the blood that washed off of him; none of it his. Dirt washed off of him too; first it became instant mud that dissolved away.

Kakashi Hatake just watched his student lie face down in the water. "Naruto, we missed you at breakfast."

Naruto spun in the water and lied belly-up so he could respond. "I'm not in the mood for your jokes, sensei."

"What kind of, or whose blood is that?" The man puzzled.

"My friend's."

The man's head swiveled around to see Sasuke and Sakura watching him with wide and concerned eyes, and then turned back to the Uzumaki.

"They're right here-"

"I met her this morning."

"You killed a girl you met this morning?!" The man sputtered. "What the he-"

"She was the mist Hunter-nin who rescued Zabuza."

"…I-"

"Just give me a day to myself." The boy said in a choked-up voice.

The Hatake was a man of many talents and skills. But he could not discern if it was sea water on the boy's face, or if her were actually crying. Taking that his sorrow-filled vibe was any clue, he walked his other two students further down the beach from the grieving blond.

=X=X=

It had been a week since Zabuza last saw Haku. At first, only two thugs that normally accompanied Gato brought him food and water, but he was perturbed when he hadn't seen his subordinate.

"Where is she?" He muttered to himself for the fiftieth time since waking up that morning.

Somewhere, deep down, he knew that he should go out and look for her. But his sensible side told him to just take it easy. As he rehabilitated himself by training, he actually missed her voice telling him to 'take it easy.' And he would growl something along the lines of 'you worry too much'.

Now it was he who must be worrying too much. All of this was downright weird, and suspicious. The girl wouldn't leave him alone for more than sixteen hours straight, much less so many days. He felt the need to go investigate but the call to train to kill the team took priority.

Finally, he just gave up. He got beaten and made to look the fool by a punk, a genin, no less. Bereft of his skills, of his sword, and bereft of his senses.

"Oi, Momochi!" A nameless thug called. "The cook sent dinner for you."

He mumbled something that the thug decided to accept as a sign of gratitude and left he plate of food on the table. Getting up, he felt a sharp pain arc through his chest but he pushed through it. He must have overstrained himself again. Finally reaching the table, he was actually surprised to see a note underneath the bowl as he took it up off the tray.

I'm sorry about Haku. But I blame you for her mentality. She felt that she had to die to serve you as some pathetic tool, and I was forced to kill her. You'd better watch out, because I'm coming for your head.

Naruto.

The man read through the note once.

Twice…

Five times…

Ten times…

He read it a countless number of times, before he turned back to his food and dashed it to the ground in the angst of his emotions.

"He killed Haku?" He asked himself unbelieving. "Then she was just a worthless tool, after all. Did she let him kill her or something? She was too soft…"

Scarcely a second later, he was off into the night by bounds and painful leaps, deciding to just look for the area that she claimed she would be in to get medicinal herbs. Upon arrival, the full moon revealed nothing strange or out of the ordinary in the clearing.

The flowers gently swayed in the night wind as he looked around. Yelling her name once, he saw what looked like a wide patch of dirt. It was made noticeable for everywhere else was grass.

He walked over to it slowly, wary of a possible trap. When he was certain of none, he noticed her basket on the patch of dirt, and he feared that it was a grave marker.

'It can't be. It's a trick!' He yelled mentally.

'You're saying that because you're afraid to check if I'm there.' Haku's voice sounded in his head. 'I really am, you know.'

'No you're not.' He argued back.

'Pity. You must be scared of desecrating my grave, afraid that it might be profanity.'

"That's a lie!" He shouted. "I'll show you!" He was like one insane.

He pulled Kubikiribōchō off of his back and slammed it into the patch, digging through it like a shovel. After ten seconds, he stopped and dug with his hands. His hands hit something hard, and he discovered that it was a branch of a brittle tree. There were several of these large boughs, and he ripped them all away. As the sight underneath was revealed, he turned away.

But the image would stay.

She was set in the position of that of a man lying in a casket with her hands folded over the chest area, and lying straight. Her favorite pink kimono with the plum colored swirls was muddy and dirty and bloodied. Her face was nearly non-existent.

Her beautiful face, hell, her whole head was practically in separate pieces. While Zabuza could tell what weapon did that number on her, there seemed to have been some effort on the boy's part to put the 'head' back together. But her beautiful face would never be.

The deterioration of her body in the grave and the maggots that made their home in her flesh made sure of that. Not to mention the smell.

"Naruto. I'm going to kill you." Zabuza growled. He heard footsteps behind him above in the grave and he looked up to see the very same looking down on him.

"And if it were possible, my boss will kill you twice for defiling her grave."

The shadow clone of Naruto then dispersed, and the swordsman was all alone again, in the grave standing above the girl who died to serve him.

This chapter was easy to write, as well as difficult.

It took me two days to type, but it was hard to capture Zabuza's emotions on this; he's still half crying, half aloof. Not in the way that was if she was his daughter, just as if she was close to him. Which she was.

I wanted to do a new spin on Wave, and I hope that I haven't disappointed. I am nearly in tears right now for killing one of my favorite characters, but…aw, damn it! She'll live on in Breaking Limits!

Final clue/hint: Throughout my writing, have I ever been known to make careless capitalizing of my words? Check the end of the last chapter, then the start of this one. Then think of a crossword called 'Wonderword'.

I also want to end this arc with one more chapter, before people start chewing me out about 'where's Kin?!' and all that. I'm getting impatient too; I was to update this next week with AATC, but against all odds, I'm putting out four chapters for three stories in one week. Beat that!

Valete omnes,

MRAY 4TW.