Hi, everybody. Me again, with another what-I-hope-you-find thrilling installment. 'Hope you enjoy!!
Haku
In that moment, the reality of Haku's surroundings took on a transcendent clarity that would have seemed truly sublime if not for the imminent peril. Behind him and off to his right Mari struggled furiously against her older brother Jimon's bear-hug grip, arms flailing as she cried out. To the young ninja's immediate right, beneath the porches shade, the mysterious young woman named Juri sat, drinking tea and looking on keenly with interest. What she wanted was not at all clear. Even though it was she who'd warned Haku of the ANBU's ambush, her motives seemed far from altruistic.
Since Zabuza's death, life had certainly become more complicated…by orders of magnitude more complicated! Strange new people had arrived upon the shores of his heretofore limited world all with their own puzzling and at times cryptic personalities, purposes and peculiarities that, despite how clever Haku often thought he was, the young man found himself unable to address in any way that did not leave him thoroughly mystified.
The fugitive's trained mind shunted the complexities of his existence away for the time being, with each person and each dilemma a constellation in the spinning cosmos of his thoughts.
The immediate concern was the man, the masked ANBU mist-ninja, sprinting down the street toward him, intent on killing him and certainly capable of doing so.
Such speed! Haku realized with a shock as his adversary was upon him in a blink of an eye.
The fugitive's lean, left forearm flinched purely out of reflex and caught the oncoming fist behind the wrist as he started to evade, but it was too little too late to guide the blow harmlessly past him. Haku's block buckled under the terrible force before he could get himself fully out of the way; and the ANBU's shoulder, backed by the man's weight and fearsome momentum, crashed through his chest.
The fugitive gasped sharply at the crushing impact but managed to tag the mist-ninja behind the ear with a hooking, one-knuckled, 'phoenix-eye' punch as he passed.
Haku wheeled from the force of the blow which knocked him spinning violently backwards until he fell to a wobbly crouch by the curbside. His left arm tingled, swollen and burned, from the ANBU's chakra.
The Demon's Apprentice nursed his arm and watched as his foe, surprised by the counter, flinched and stumbled, but then quickly regained control and came to his feet, posture hunched, and rubbing his neck where Haku had hit him.
The young fugitive frowned. He's strong! he realized. That blow should at least have knocked him unconscious.
He considered for a moment that if he'd been wearing his normal accoutrements and weapons there would now be a senbon piercing through ANBU's carotid artery. The fight would be over; rooster-mask would be dead.
Not that the observation does me any good now, the teenager thought.
"Nice," the mist-ninja called out to Haku in a pained, begrudging admission. "Good one." The ANBU then pushed himself to his full height, staggering only once, then slid the mask off his face. "My name is Eiji Tohei," he announced proudly. ""Just wanted you to know that."
Haku's eyes narrowed at the young mist-ninja's chiseled, 'recruitment poster' looks. "Your name," he answered coolly, deliberately, "means nothing to me."
Eiji took the reply in stride and chuckled. "I guess it's up to me to change your mind!"
The ANBU sprang high, the profile of his body dark against the bright, sunlit sky, and let fly a volley of shuriken to cover his approach – an expected tactic. Haku dodged, weaving in and out between the missiles which hissed past him in silver flashes. Right behind them came Eiji, who flicked his hands into which kunai knives appeared as if by magic. The mist-ninja leaped through space, flying straight at the fugitive with arms extended and the razor points of his knives leading the way.
The fugitive sidestepped deftly and the ANBU flew by, rolled to his feet, spun back and came at him again. Haku blocked Eiji's right and left stabs, then grabbed the wrists and locked the mist-ninja's elbow; one of his knives fell from his grasp, clattering as it hit the pavement. Adjusting his position, Haku whirled and threw Eiji but the ninja spun in mid air and landed on his feet.
Still, the technique allowed Haku the time he needed to roll away, grabbing the abandoned kunai as he went.
The two squared off, each now similarly armed. Haku's expression was baseline calm; Eiji's – mocking, taunting confidence.
"You don't fight bad…for a queer," Eiji disparaged.
Haku grinned nonchalantly and let the remark pass at first, then pressed the fingers of his free hand to his lips and blew him a kiss.
Eiji again attacked, this time more cautiously, and probed Haku's defenses with a series of quick thrusts before he attempted to close. Even the slightest mistake would mean death at the other's blade. Up and down the street the two ninja fought – a deadly, fast-paced game of strategy, position and flowing combinations. Sharp steel flashed and rang; clothing and skin parted then blossomed forth with thin streaks of red.
Increasingly, Eiji pressed the attack as his long-sought-for quarry yielded, but then suddenly Haku slipped the ANBU's thrust, snaked his weapon arm around the mist-ninja's and pinned it tightly to the side of his body.
Around and around they circled, locked together, but it was Eiji who was surprised as he found out that he was not the stronger of the two but only an equal.
As they slowed to a stop, momentarily stalemated, Haku looked him in the eye and raised his free hand. The mist-ninja sneered at first, knowing his adversary could not reach across his own body to hit him, but then his face lit with alarm as Haku instead began to form a series of seals.
"You…" the ANBU muttered, wide-eyed, "you can't make seals one-handed!"
Eiji's eyes darted at the mists that began to form around him, whirling together into shapes that resolved, coalescing gradually, into exact duplicates of the fugitive he faced.
"It looks like one of us is in a lot of trouble," Haku intoned in a lilting, matter-of-fact, and slightly feminine voice, then tightened his grip on Eiji's arm as he tried to pull away. "But I suppose you would consider it an insult if I asked you to simply surrender."
Eiji's lips pressed together in a single tense line. "It'll take a hell of a lot more than a stupid water-clone jutsu to take me down!" he barked back.
The ANBU pulled and twisted sharply as he positioned himself to reap Haku's legs out from under him, but the wily fugitive released his hold and leaped away, letting his jutsu-created doubles close in.
Gritting his teeth, Eiji gathered himself then leaped to the attack. One after the other, the water-clones fell before his onslaught – his slashing, stabbing blade and powerful tai-jutsu, while the real Haku watched and waited, leaning against the wood planked walls of the adjacent building.
In less than a minute the last remaining clone burst apart like a water balloon, Eiji's knife having flashed across its belly, and the ANBU stood alone.
Haku nodded, knowing all along what the result would be. But it was ok. His enemy had spent more of his strength, and Haku had altered the terrain and expanded his options.
Eiji, Haku noticed, was in phenomenal condition but was starting to gas. The mist-ninja lowered his brow and fixed Haku with a hateful stare as he danced his blade from hand to hand.
"I won't lose to you," the mist ninja insisted, smiling grimly; his eyes hard and unwavering. "After all, how could I live with myself?"
Haku drew a breath and let it out. There was nothing he could do but end this unwelcome confrontation the way he'd ended so many before. This time, he could allow himself to be moved by softer emotions as he had with Naruto and Sasuke. This time, again, he would have to kill.
The fugitive refreshed his grip on his kunai while he formed seals with his free hand. A wind arose at once, cloaking him in its whirling fury. Haku surged forward, letting the demon wind carry him like a living tornado but, as he lashed out with the fatal blow, Eiji evanesced, vanishing suddenly from sight.
Gen-jutsu! Haku realized at once, feeling pin-pricks of terror ripple up and down his spine. But where…where'd he go?
The young ninja flung himself aside even before the rapidly expanding, tell-tale shadow of a figure plunging straight down at him revealed the answer. A line of pain streaked down his shoulder-blade as he went, just a moment before he heard the pursuing ANBU land behind him with a loud, stomping splash in one of the puddles the defeated water-clones had left.
Haku hissed at the sickly sensation – the change in the surface tension across his skin; the warmth he felt trickling outward, seeping into his t-shirt and dribbling down the back of his leg. He leaped away, veering and weaving to avoid the pursuing Eiji, but when he turned the ANBU was right there almost on top of him.
If the fugitive had done anything thus far to tire the mist-ninja, any evidence of it had vanished. Eiji had drawn blood, and the sight of it, red and flowing against Haku's skin and clothes had revived him. The ANBU surged forward, sending bursts of chakra to his feet to spring at his prey with blinding speed. He slashed savagely then pumped the point of his blood-stained kunai while Haku evaded desperately.
As he fell back under Eiji's onslaught, an observation occurred to him, drifting slowly and coolly across his consciousness which was otherwise occupied. Rhythm, it said, he's attacking in rhythm.
Seizing on the idea and hoping it was right, Haku changed his grip on his kunai, dodged the first thrust then timed the second. When it came, the young ninja sidestepped to the ANBU's inside and slashed across his knife hand.
As the kunai dropped from the mist-ninja's crippled grip, Eiji's eyes widened in shock. Haku spun and pumped a quick, hammering stab at the ANBU's face, but it was only a feint to draw his attention away from the real target. When Eiji planted his feet and committed to block high, the fugitive instead dropped to a crouch on the water-slicked pavement and plunged his blade through the ANBU's foot.
The shocked mist-ninja froze for a moment as Haku leaped, coiling into a tight ball as he spun, then lashed out. The back of his heel cracked against Eiji's jaw, sending him stumbling backward, twisting around and around.
Haku continued his spin all the way around as he began his descent, making hand signs as he went and letting his kicking leg slash across the puddle beneath him. As a curving, rooster-tail of water shot up, the young ninja landed in a stance, arms extended, with the fore and ring fingers of his left hand pointing squarely on target.
"Ninja art," he intoned to focus his concentration, "ten-thousand needles of death."
At the utterance, an arctic wind blasted around him, capturing the water, shaping then flash-freezing it into thousands of razor-pointed shards which exploded through the stunned Eiji, taking him off his feet and slamming him into the planked wall of the adjacent building.
Furious motion ceased.
An eerie calm fell, trapping everything in its unearthly spell like insects trapped in amber.
Where, only a scant moment before, Haku faced a bitter, implacable enemy intent on his destruction, now there was only another young man like himself – a prisoner of circumstances, a prisoner of his own choices.
Eiji hung there, pinned to the side of the blood-splattered building like a specimen butterfly. His arms, legs and portions of his chest and belly were peppered with daggers of gleaming, crystalline ice, each oozing and spurting little crimson rivers as he twitched weakly.
The ANBU's face, once so brave and sure, now paled with shock and uncertainty. His eyes blinked rapid-fire as his breaths continued in short, ragged spasms.
A voice behind Haku rang out excitedly, startling him. "ALLLL RIGHT!" the strange young woman, Juri, cheered as she leaped out of her seat and came off the porch to congratulate him. "That was slammin', Iceman!" she cried, eyes fiery with glee. "Haha, I guess the rumors, ladies and gentlemen, of the Demon's Apprentice's demise are just a bit premature."
Haku stood and stared at the stricken Eiji then turned toward her.
"And that," Juri added as she grinned at him widely and set her hands on her hips, "is exactly why we want YOU working for us."
The young ninja looked past her, then around until his grey eyes came to rest on Mari who looked back at him with a blank expression, her features haunted and empty. Jimon's arms were still encircled around her, though she no longer resisted.
Haku turned away. Surely she must have known, he thought, but it brought him no comfort.
"One thing though, tough guy," criticized Juri with a cold grin. "You said, 'ten-thousand needles of death', not 'ten-thousand needles of hurt-someone-real-bad'.
The ninja looked at her and shrugged faintly, not comprehending.
The dark-skinned blond cocked her head toward the ANBU. "Lil' bastard's still alive," she commented snidely. "I guess that flak-jacket he's got on saved him from the worst of it, but that's ok. I'm more than happy to pick up your slack."
The woman's face snapped toward Eiji as she brought both claw-fingers hands to her chest, one over the other, in a chakra-generating movement called 'Lion Embraces the Ball'.
"Hold on," muttered Haku, who touched her lightly on the wrist.
"What? 'You gettin' soft on me?"
"Save your strength," he answered. "The others are coming."
Juri looked up and around at the surrounding streetscape as she listened intently, and sensed the hostile energies. "I feel them now."
No sooner than she'd said that then a pair of figures materialized before them. The smaller of the two, tiny and lithe, a girl in ANBU fatigues and a white and black zodiac mask that bore the abstracted features of 'horse', went immediately to Eiji while the larger lumbered forward to challenge Juri and Haku.
Haku straightened. This could be none other than the ANBU Captain, the one Jimon had described: the big, fat ninja who'd killed fifty bandits by himself with his 'sick' jutsus. Looking at him now, the fugitive realized that Mari's brother had done him little justice. The man was huge! Though not all of him was 'quality' pounds, there was more than enough there to warrant a reflective pause.
His frightening face, snarling and scruffy, with eyes outlined and magnified by heavy glasses, made him seem more like a guardian lion, rampant and angry.
Juri brushed a blond strand off her ear, turned to Haku and gave him a leering smile. "You know what," she began in a calm voice that was pregnant with menace, then turned her sights back to the bloody, perforated Eiji and the masked woman trying to aid him. "I just can't pass up a chance like this!"
The young woman's fingers flew through a series of seals as she skipped forward with her arms crossed over her chest, hands tensed into claws. As she landed, Juri's fingers tore the air, sending forth ten lashing tendrils of energy at the trapped and wounded Eiji. The force of her chakra crackled like lightning, scorching and scarring the pavement as it went rippling forth.
Haku drew back in shock then pulled his arm protectively over his face as the big Pack-Leader spun before his two team-mates and interlaced his fingers. A solid wall of water and mist materialized from nowhere and rose up to intercept Juri's devastating jutsu which crashed into it like a fiery comet into a frigid and unyielding sea.
She's insane! Haku realized with a start. And the rest of that ANBU's team is here.
A quick, practical calculation informed him that there was no point in staying. The fugitive back-pedaled a step and turned but was brought up short at the sight of the hunter-team's fourth member – another man in a mask, this one expressing the artistically-rendered visage of a boar.
The mist-ninja looked at him, his fingers forming a seal, and Haku clutched at his chest. He couldn't breath; his heart had stopped! Streaks of light and dark popped and flashed through the young ninja's vision as he commanded the power of his chakra to keep himself mobile and conscious. Haku's hands moved convulsively from long held habit to where he normally carried quivers of senbon then, realizing he still carried Eiji's kunai, coiled his arm and flung it at the ANBU with all the strength and speed he could summon.
Boar-mask flinched at the last second, dropping away as the knife shot through space right through where his neck had been, and broke his deadly jutsu.
Haku, now released, took in a deep, desperate breath then jumped back as something small and fast whistled by so close that it brushed his skin in its passage. Looking after it, the young ninja saw the shiny object bank sharply then come corkscrewing back at him.
Shit! he hissed to himself as he dodged then ducked, only now seeing the fishing line-thin monofilament that trailed behind it; visible only in places where it's undulant curves caught the sunlight.
Good tag-team move, Haku judged, grinning mirthlessly. One paralyzes while the other kills.
He was moving now, running at high speed at the boar-masked ninja.
ANBU Number Five's controlling his weapon from a distance, the fugitive thought, running chakra through that wire like an umbilical. But he probably can't control it well enough to use close to his own team-mates.
The mist-ninja skipped aside, circled then rushed at Haku, dropping down at the last moment to take him down at the legs. The fugitive sidestepped left, pivoted sharply on his lead foot and hammered hard across the ANBU's face with his right hand while capturing an arm with his left. Haku spun, trying quickly to dislocate Boar-Mask's shoulder; the man caught on and tore himself away but the young ninja gave him two snapping lead-leg instep kicks, one low and one high, as he went.
A flicker of light by his feet told Haku to move, and he stepped out just in time to avoid being snared by Number Five's looping wire. The ninja jumped aside, jumped again, ducked, then ran for the relative shelter of the metal-roofed porch as the whizzing dart coiled and struck at him every step of the way.
Without stopping, the teenager wove around one of the wood columns, ducked under the trailing monofilament then cart-wheeled back over it. Along the porch he went, sliding over then shooting under tables and whipping around columns while Number Five's weapon followed him like an angry, living thing.
The boar-masked ANBU, meanwhile, shook off the effects of Haku's kicks and ripped his mask off. Oddly enough, beneath it, his face was completely normal – a slightly sullen-cheeked countenance topped by short, light brown hair. The one thing out of place was the thin trail of blood that wept from his nostrils, and dripped down along his lips toward the corner of his mouth.
The mist-ninja reached up, wiped it then gave his reddened hand a harsh, critical glare. "Damn!" he barked scornfully; his calm features souring into a grimace as he drew his sword, a straight, double-edged 'djin', and charged.
The unmasked ANBU leaped into the porches shade, his blade singing through the air as it whirled just over the ducking head of the Demon's Apprentice. Recalling his weapon, the mist-ninja turned the point back around with a deft flick of his wrist and thrust, but Haku floated back just enough to let the blade pass then grabbed the over-committed arm and pulled. With the swordsman now unbalanced, the fugitive's hand shot over the ANBU's eyes, latching under the nose with his thumb, then extended with a sharp twist that buckled the man whose feet shot out from under him.
Haku had no time to celebrate however, as ANBU Five's dart soared after him. The young man danced away from it, spinning and twisting again around columns, jumping and running up the walls and across the ceiling, using his chakra to cling.
As he came down, landing on a gaming table, the recovered, now-maskless mist-ninja lashed at his feet. Haku hopped backward down to the floor then kicked the edge of the table hard, sending it flying at his attacker who batted it aside and rushed at him. Haku fell back, confounding both the ANBU and his as-yet-unseen team-mate's weapon as he dodged nimbly while throwing anything he could get his hands on in their paths – bottles, glasses, plates, chess and 'go' boards, tablecloths and chairs, all went flying only to be shattered or shredded by the ANBUs slashing swipes.
Kicking up a sawhorse-bench and seizing hold of its legs, Haku blocked the swordsman's lunge with the lower part of the seat then crashed down on his wrists hard with the upper. The young ninja's riposte with the butt end slammed under the mist-ninja's chin. Haku spun then, following him as he staggered back, whipped the bench around by one leg and bashed the man across the side of his head with the seat.
The fifth ANBU's dart leaped forward immediately at the opening in Haku's guard, but the ninja pulled his improvised weapon back quickly, blocked, and felt the impact as the dart struck and stuck.
The hunted teenager took a moment to turn his bench over and saw for the first time in detail what it was – a metal bird of sorts, a sparrow, streamlined in gleaming steel. Its pointed beak, imbedded deeply in the bench's lacquered wood, and razor-edged wings were clear indications of just how deadly a weapon it was. From its tapered back end, a thin wire ran, a metal trail following back along every inch it'd traveled…around columns and weaving through furniture like the web of some sort of overly-industrious spider.
While the fallen ANBU groaned and rubbed the side of his head, Haku looked away in search of his fifth opponent. All the while, the sparrow-dart jerked and twitched as it tried to free itself.
Casting his eyes around, Haku found him…no, her, at last.
The kunoichi, who wore a zodiac 'rat' ANBU mask, crouched atop the parapet of a building across the street, sitting on her heels and holding the tail end of a long reel of wire in her gloved hands. Haku could feel her cold gaze upon him but, for whatever reason, all he could do was grin back.
After all that fighting, he was breathing heavily but it was not labored breath. In fact, the young ninja felt energized, calm but alert.
With the bench kept firm in his grasp, Haku looked across the way for any sign of the 'horse' kunoichi and wondered if her ministrations to Eiji had been successful. Though the young mist-ninja had tried to kill him, to the utmost of his ability, it still seemed regrettable to Haku if he were to die.
A sound like thunder drew his glance, and Haku looked off in the distance toward where an old building listed suddenly then fell amidst a cascade of clashing energies – water and lightning.
Oh, right, he remembered as he recognized the familiar music of dueling jutsu, Juri and the ANBU captain. He harkened closer, somewhat perplexed. How in the world can a girl like that, no older than me, take on a veteran ANBU pack-leader? Such things are not unheard of, but--. The answer came to him then as he remembered the scroll the strange girl had dropped into her tea.
Chiromancy? he considered for a moment. That means she has a master helping her in all this. No genin level ninja, or even a chunin, could master such an advanced school of jutsu. Even to attempt it requires the penmanship of a Zen scholar.
Shaking his head, Haku turned toward the battered and beaten ANBU swordsman, who again struggled to his feet.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" Haku advised him coolly, but the ninja attacked anyway.
Blocking upward with his bench, Haku fired a no-shadow kick into the man's stomach then released his hold just as the sparrow-dart pulled again. The bench flew from his hands and clattered off the ANBU's face and shoulder, sending him sprawling back down.
From clear across the way, Haku could hear Ninja Number Five gasp then shout out apologetically: "Yukimasa!"
Again the ANBU rose, and Haku couldn't help but be impressed by his durability. His face was bruised and cut, and he still reeled from the effects of that kick to the guts.
"Yukimasa-san," asked Haku abruptly. His unexpected question jolted the man. "Is my death really so important to you?"
The ANBU reigned in his gasping breaths while behind him the sparrow dart thrashed about, trying to dislodge the bench that was still stuck fast to its beak.
"Do you really have to ask?" he hissed back agitatedly, his composure yielding to frustration. "How many mist-ninja have you killed, hundreds? You can't just walk away from that! We won't let you!
"Then too, we know what happens if you get away – more war, more bloodbaths. Isn't that what Momochi trained you to do? Isn't that who you are: the Demon's Apprentice?!"
'Masa's hands joined, forming a seal, and Haku averted his eyes. There was no way he was going to let himself get caught twice by the same jutsu!
But no, this was something different. When the fugitive's eyes flashed up, there were now five more ninja surrounding him.
Haku grinned and shook his head for a moment before he realized the difference. These were not shadow-clones like Naruto had used, or even water clones like he and Zabuza used which had only a fraction of the original's chakra. These were actual duplicates, equal in power to their creator!
Good jutsu, Haku thought, clearly impressed. I kinda wish I knew that one.
But even though he found himself outnumbered, the young ninja was not at all worried. He was calm and ready.
Over the last month and a half, he'd been beaten, almost killed and taken to the very precipice of death. He'd languished in bed as he'd recovered, then took on a life apart from training and fighting – a 'normal' life, or what passed for one.
Haku had lost the last fight he'd been in. He'd lost to Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi. No, that wasn't quite true. He'd lost the fight, but they had not beaten him.
After Zabuza had failed to realize his dream, they'd both gone on from that defeat incomplete. They'd come close to the magnificent summit only to be cast down. Though The Demon of the Hidden Mist had survived, the knowledge of what he'd almost achieved hung on him like an anchor. In serving him, Haku couldn't help but share his loss, his anguish. They were both beaten well before they ever crossed paths with that team from Konohagakure.
In an almost absent gesture, Haku grinned, picked up a tall glass of ice-water left on one of the small gaming tables, took a small sip then threw it in Yukimasa's face. The mist-ninja's duplicates attacked, thrusting and slashing with their swords, but it seemed as if they moved in slow-motion.
It had taken his battle with Eiji for Haku to shrug off the effects of six weeks of lethargy from his limbs, the restlessness from his mind, as if accumulations of dust and cobwebs were starting to fall away. He'd had to return to battle's fiery cauldron to feel again how well he took to it; to feel the potent power of his ninja ancestry flow in his veins and to imagine those all-but-forgotten generations of shinobi cheering him on, praising his name in the afterlife.
And maybe, just maybe, he hoped, his late master would be among them.
Zabuza Momochi, the Demon of the Hidden Mist, had discovered him, taught him and trained him, but he hadn't created him. Haku was not just a ninja made, but a ninja born.
As the fight ensued, Haku felt at last that he'd returned. He felt like was…home.
Haku skirted a stabbing blade, guiding the flat of the blade past him easily with his palm, then cracked the clone in the eye-socket with the bent back of his wrist. Though they outnumbered him, it was as if he could do ten things before any of the ANBU could complete even one.
He'd entered a state he'd come close many times to but never fully experienced before – a profound, effortless calm, a moving-meditation where he was both inside and outside himself simultaneously.
The air started to chill, surprising Yukimasa and his minions. White vapor gushed from their mouths and nostrils, and steamed off their sweating limbs and the tops of their heads as they chased after the fugitive. The gamers' abandoned glasses started to frost on the outside, while the beverages they contained crusted over with ice. From nowhere, out of the clear, sunlit sky, snow began to fall.
Snatching up two pairs of chopsticks from the next table, Haku spun toward the original Yukimasa who was easily detectable, for he was the only one of the six that was wet. Deflecting his blow, Haku poked him in the hollow of his throat with the mated chopsticks, making him gag. The young ninja then closed quickly, punching him just below the breastbone, then striking upwards and sticking his chopsticks up 'Masa's nose – one in each nostril!
The ANBU yelped and rose up on his toes as he staggered back, with Haku guiding him along until he was pinned against a post.
The jutsu-clones rushed after him but Haku gave him a cagey look, forced the utensils in a little further then demanded: "Call off your dogs."
The mist-ninja's face grimaced as he gasped, blinked repeatedly and groaned in desperation. "Release!" he croaked, at which all his duplicates vanished.
At that moment, the sparrow-dart, having finally freed itself, shot forward but snapped to a stop inches from Haku's head. The young ninja turned to look at it then turned back to Yukimasa.
"I hate resorting to puns," he confided, raising a dark eyebrow, "but your friend is…out of line."
The young fugitive drew a breath then let it drift out into the cold air while his captive wriggled in discomfort.
"I asked you before if my death was really that important to you, and you told me," intoned Haku as snowflakes fell over both their faces, clinging for a moment then melting away, "but it was not what I expected. When you said I can't walk away from what I've done, that makes perfect sense to me. You're right. I agree. I can't just start life over, ignoring the last eight years.
"But the rest of what you said is ridiculous." Haku leaned closer to look the man in the eyes. "You're afraid of me; of what I'll do? How can that make any sense when even I don't know what I'm going to do? How can you be afraid of something that hasn't happened; that may never happen?"
The sparrow-dart strained against its tether, desperate to fly on. Its repetitive struggles made the taut wire twang like some exotic one-stringed native instrument. The slender, young ninja spared it a critical glance then slackened his grip slightly.
"Your fear is your problem, not mine," Haku began his tense explanation, "and you have no right to make it mine. I have enough of my own in case you hadn't noticed."
With that, Haku withdrew his probing chopsticks, cracked the ANBU across the jaw with the point of his forearm, came back with a back-fist, then whirled around with a spinning reverse-crescent kick that blasted through the side of the mist-ninja's head and flipped him inside-out.
With the fourth mist-ninja finally subdued, Haku paused to take a deep, collective breath. The cold taste of the winter air braced him. He knelt then, grabbed Yukimasa by the edge of his armored vest and dragged him off the porch and out into the street.
Not too far away, geysers of mist clashed with fiery plumes – as if somewhere a volcano was vomiting raging rivers of lava into the ocean.
Haku paid it no attention as he walked though the thin veils of snowfall. Instead he dropped the fallen fourth mist-ninja unceremoniously and looked up at the fifth ANBU who froze warily at the sight of him.
"Madam Rat," he called out to her; his voice neutral but his expression firm with defiance. "If you've come to kill me, and will accept nothing less then please…let us continue."
Ok, I kinda thought I'd end Ch. 9 there, not wanting to overestimate my limited readership's appetite for looooooong fight scenes. This is 'Naruto' not DBZ, right? It's also a departure from my earlier three points of view per chapter format.
Me? I love fight scenes, I can't lie!! If I won the lottery, I'd write them all day long.
Anyway, please let me know what you think!
--Jono'
