The following day, Naruto:
The group set out early the next morning, pushing forward to help make up for lost time. Naruto had not said a word to either of the others when they awoke, and neither had volunteered anything, but he could tell that things were at least better than they had been the day before. There was still an awkwardness between them, but neither one was avoiding the other anymore. Once or twice, he even saw them exchange shy smiles, Sasuke's face reddening slightly when they did so.
Even with their early start, it still took the rest of the day before they reached the land of waves. That evening, the five of them boarded a tiny boat to make the crossing. The trip was made in near silence, team seven watching the waters carefully in case of another attack, but none came. When they made camp that night, Naruto saw Sasuke and Sakura sitting together, quietly holding hands in the firelight. He decided to leave them to it, and went to bed so that he could be rested in time for his turn to take watch duty.
It was another early morning departure for the small convoy the following day; Kakashi seemed eager to reach their destination quickly. The five of them traveled in formation under the light of the morning sun. In front of Naruto, Kakashi started, turning on his heel to face the rest of the group. "Get down!" He shouted.
Without hesitation, the other four threw themselves to the ground as a sword easily the size of a man soared through the air above them, spinning end over end and embedding itself in the trunk of a nearby tree. With a strange sort of flicker, a man appeared, standing on the hilt of the massive blade. "Zabuza Momochi," Kakashi said quietly as the others picked themselves up, his voice filled with dread. "No matter what, protect Tazuna. Leave this guy to me."
The man in the tree chuckled. "Kakashi Hatake," he said, his voice filled with wry amusement. "Today might get to be interesting after all."
Kakashi raised a hand to his face, pushing his headband up off of his left eye. "Just stay behind me, everyone." He murmured.
The figure pulled his great sword free and leapt from his spot on the tree, landing on the surface of a small pond that crossed the clearing, he made a few brief hand-signs and spoke quietly.
"Water style: Hidden mist jutsu."
Immediately, the clearing began to fill with a dense fog, hiding their new foe from sight entirely. It began to spread rapidly, quickly moving towards the small formation.
"The man's an assassin," Kakashi called out in warning. "He's doubtless trained himself to hunt in this mist. He has the advantage as long as he knows where we are and we don't know where he is."
He had a point there, the fog was a problem. Naruto moved his hands to make the requisite signs, hoping to god that this would work.
"Wind style practice technique: Morning Breeze!"
The jutsu was one of the simplest in his repertoire, one he had been taught when he was just learning the very fundamentals of nature manipulation, and its effect had virtually no offensive potential, but Naruto hoped against hope that it would be enough. At his calling, a light wind began to blow through the clearing, pushing the fog away into the treeline before it had a chance to spread. Zabuza was once again exposed, halfway through some kind of summoning Jutsu, the water around him beginning to rise and shape itself into figures identical to their summoner.
"Good work Naruto!" Kakashi called out, wasting no time in dashing forward. "Never let the enemy fight on their terms." He lowered his arms to the floor as he ran, his right hand taking on a strange blue glow, as if he were somehow holding a bolt of lightning in his hand. The Zabuza clones moved to intercept, but Kakashi was faster, the glowing blue light cutting through each of them like butter as he aimed a punch right at the true Zabuza's gut, the other man just barely managing to block it with the breadth of his sword. The force of the impact was still strong enough to send Zabuza flying, Impacting hard against a tree and falling to his knees. Kakashi tried to take a step forward, but couldn't, his feet seemingly stuck fast to the surface of the water.
The assassin laughed quietly as he picked himself up off the floor. "Well, that was a hell of a punch, but I'm afraid your time is up." He moved to the water's edge, placing a hand on Kakashi's chest.
"Water prison Jutsu!"
Kakashi looked back at his students. "I've lost!" He shouted. "Run!" An orb of water rapidly began to form around the silver haired ninja, rising around his legs. Zabuza, moving slightly stiffly, reached down to pick up his sword. One of his arms was still stuck in the water, holding the jutsu together.
What happened next was neither well planned, nor well advised. This is no less true for the fact that it worked. Both Naruto and Sasuke rushed forward with angry yells, each making hand-signs in perfect unison. The two leapt high into the air.
"Fire style: Fireball Jutsu!"
"Wind style: Great Breakthrough!"
The two jutsus combined in midair and the great fireball emerged, rocketing towards Zabuza and Kakashi with the speed of a runaway locomotive. Both Kakashi and Zabuza realised something at the same time. Kakashi, shielded as he was by a protective wall of chakra reinforced water, would probably survive this. Zabuza, still rooted to the spot by his arm holding the water prison up, and unable to make hand-signs with both hands occupied, would almost definitely not. Zabuza moved very, very quickly. Fire hit water in a violent explosion of heat and steam. When the mist cleared, Kakashi was laying face down at the water's edge, half in, half out of the water. Zabuza was nowhere to be seen.
"Protect Tazuna!" Sakura shouted, and the other two double timed it back to the rest of the party, the three of them forming a triangle around the old man as they waited, their breath bated. Eventually, a lone figure stumbled out of the tree line. Zabuza was badly burned, his exposed chest split and cracked with angry welts, his body covered in crusted brown scorch marks.
"Gotta say kids," He said slowly as he staggered forward. "That was one pretty cold move, blasting your teacher just to get a clear shot at your enemy. You'd make pretty damn fine hidden mist shinobi." The three Genin turned to face Zabuza wordlessly, each with a kunai raised, a determined expression in their eyes. Before the battle had a chance to begin, there was a brief whistling sound, and a small silver needle struck the burned ninja in the neck. His eyes glazed over and he fell to the ground with an unceremonious thud. A short, robed figure dropped from the trees just above, a mask covering the entirety of their face.
"My apologies for the trouble this man has caused you," The figure said in a slightly muffled voice. "My team has been hunting him for some time now, and your battle presented what may well have been the only chance we had."
Naruto gaped. "W-who?"
The masked ninja laughed slightly. "I am a hunter nin from the village of the mist. It is our job to apprehend deserters and to make sure that any secrets they took with them when they left, stay secret." The figure stooped down, picking up the scorched corpse under one arm, quite a feat given that the man was at least twice their size. Before anyone had the chance to protest, the hunter nin disappeared, leaping into the trees once again. As Sasuke and Naruto stared after the figure, Sakura gave a small shriek of realization, before turning and running in a dash towards where Kakashi lay.
It was pretty bad. Where Zabuza had been burned, Kakashi had been boiled. His skin was dotted with blisters and angry red patches, the whole back half of his body veined with white traces the color of cooked fish. He groaned quietly as they pulled him from the water. That, at least, was a good sign. There followed a tense several minutes while they applied emergency first aid, rubbing the exposed skin with an antiseptic cream laced with a moderate strength painkiller, taking care to keep his face covered. Eventually, he was docile enough to carry, and Tazuna carried him in a piggyback while the three ninja maintained formation around him. By the end of the day, they were in the village that Tazuna called home.
AN: Okay, so, initially, I had this whole massive chess battle sequence planned where everyone had a little moment to be awesome and stuff. After going through writing like three different scenarios and strategies, each one entirely different from the others, I realized that only one of them worked. Mainly because the other two had serious and exploitable strategic flaws, and the third one required so many explanations and play by plays to make work that it was just gonna wind up seriously boring. So I eventually decided 'What the hell, let's just get Naruto and Sasuke to hit the chessboard with a sledgehammer.' After all, Sakura had her turn being a badass last time, they need to share.
As always, feel free to review, I love it when people do that, bye! :P
