"talking"

"demon talking"

'thoughts'

'demon thoughts'

Pride talking

Chapter 8

He couldn't hear the Kyuubi. It was just him and this person called Pride. As he looked to this person, he only felt hatred and bloodlust. It felt addictive. It was as if this being was putting the will to kill into him.

It was his darker half. And it wanted blood. And he was angry enough to comply without argument.

He focused his gaze onto the boy in the mirror. He felt strength rush to him. It wasn't the Kyuubi's chakra. It was his.

He clapped his hand and brought them to the ground. He brought out the same sword as he had before.

-

Hunter Nin POV

The boy in the mirror gasped at what was happening. The boy, Naruto, had a dark aura around him. When he looked up at him, he saw that the boy's eyes had also changed. They had become a dark purple and slitted.

The next thing he did surprised the hunter nin. The boy simply clapped his hands and put them into the ground and a sword came up into his hands.

'Is it a bloodline?'

Naruto got into a loose sword stance with one hand on the hilt and the other on the flat surface of the blade. Faster than the ninja could blink, Naruto charged and swiped at the mirror.

The ninja could have sworn that there was a flame coming from the blade, it was going so fast. The swing created a sound like a bullwhip. The ninja was pretty sure, that even if the attack didn't hit the sound would have broken the mirror anyway.

The mirror itself was totally sliced in half and fell to the ground, shattering. The ninja was lucky that he had such quick reflexes, or else he would have ended up like that mirror.

He decided that it was useless to keep up the demonic ice mirrors. Naruto could obviously break them with ease, and it would be a waste of chakra to keep them up. He went to one of the farther mirrors as fast as he could. Instead of melting this one down, he formed it into a makeshift sword. It was better to be armed with something he was inexperienced with than with nothing at all.

Naruto turned to face him, falling once again into his stance and charged. Haku put the sword up to guard the blow. When it hit, both opponents were at a standstill, but Naruto had more power behind the blow. He was slowly pushing the hunter back. The sword of ice was also starting to chip.

He pushed back away from Naruto. Naruto swung out the sword at an amazing speed. Though it didn't hit, he was still pushed back from the force.

He hit the ground and rolled back. His mask was beginning to crack from the friction. Naruto stood back straight and once again took a stance for the final blow. He knew that he couldn't beat Naruto. He stood up and prepared to take the blow.

His masked had cracked.

Naruto POV

That's it. Just a little farther and you'll have your revenge.

He saw the hunter nin get up. His last attack had flung him back. It was time for the final strike. He pulled his sword up and charged for the final blow.

He moved at incredible speeds. He wanted… Needed to kill this person.

He moved closer to the ninja and thrust out his sword arm. He felt the sword go threw him. But he felt no pity. He felt no grief. No. It gave him a strange satisfaction.

But he knew it wasn't him who enjoyed it.

He heard a cough from the person as blood came up from his mouth and pushed away the mask.

What he saw next surprised him. It was the boy that he had met in the woods. He had been so nice to him. Why would he want to kill them?

Haku coughed again. The sword had gone straight through him, narrowly missing the heart. He quickly withdrew the sword.

He watched as Haku fell to his knees. He didn't know what to do. His anger had passed now that he knew who he had tried to kill.

"W-why?" he asked.

"I d-did it for –cough- Zabuza-san" Haku said, clutching his chest. "My…only ambition is to he-help Zabuza-san"

"Is that really something to throw you're life away for?" Naruto asked.

Haku smiled sadly at the question. "Yes. He saved me from being alone. He took me in when no one would even look at me. To me… it is truly worth dieing for. But I failed him. I can't beat you. Please…kill me."

'He doesn't deserve this' "Fine"

He picked up his sword and rushed forward to deal the fatal blow. Just as he was about to kill him, Haku's eyes widened and he pulled a senbon to parry the blow.

"I'm sorry Naruto-kun, but Zabuza needs me" he spoke weakly. As he finished saying this, he sped out of the way.

Naruto looked around trying to sense were he had gone. When he picked up his chakra signal, he found it between that of Kakashi and Zabuza. He ran towards them, hoping that Kakashi was still okay.

When he reached them, Kakashi had his hand though Haku's heart. He was dead before the attack even hit though. He died because of the blood loss. But by putting himself in front of Zabuza, he had saved him from his death and freed him from the dogs holding him.

Both Zabuza and Kakashi were wounded. Zabuza, given this second chance, grasped his cleaver and went to cut through Haku to get to Kakashi. Before he could hit, Kakashi grabbed Haku and jumped out of the way. He laid Haku down and stood again to face Zabuza. Before they could resume the fight a voice broke through the mist.

"It seems as though you've failed to do your job, Zabuza" said the man. He was short and balding. Behind him stood a gang of about 50 thugs.

"Gatou" Zabuza growled.

"I decided to take care of the problem myself, along with you" he said, smirking.

"I guess this means our fight is over, Kakashi." Zabuza said.

Kakashi only nodded and pulled his headband over his eye. During the fight he had stabbed Zabuza in one of his arms, making him unable to so jutsus. Zabuza grabbed a stray kunai off the bridge from there fight and ran towards Gatou.

Gatou had run to the back of the mob for protection, but that didn't stop Zabuza. He ran through the mob killing as many as he could. He was stabbed in the back by the guards who were trying to get good with their boss.

Zabuza reached the edge of the bridge to where Gatou was standing. With a few good swipes of the kunai, he chopped the man's head off. The body flew into the sea as Zabuza himself collapsed onto the ground.

The rest of the mob stared at the scene for a little while before realizing that they were out of a job. Some of them began shouting about robbing the village. As they went forward, an arrow shot straight at them, landing short of the leader.

"You won't touch our town!" someone yelled. Naruto looked behind him to find that it was Inari and all the residents of the Wave.

Naruto grinned at them and turned towards the mob. "This is the least I can do. Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" Then clones appeared next to the original. Kakashi had the same idea and also created some clones. The mob members, upon seeing the extra ninjas, turned tale and ran back towards the boat they had come on.

Now that the mob of bandits and thugs was gone, Kakashi walked over to Zabuza's body. He stooped down and picked it up and laid him down next to Haku's corpse. They would make sure that they both got a proper burial.

But right now they had more important business to attend to. Sometime during the fight, Sakura had taken Tazuna over to Sasuke's corpse. She was currently crying her heart out over his corpse, while Tazuna stood above her with an awkward and sullen look.

Naruto and Kakashi walked towards them to get some of the needles out of Sasuke's body. Looking down at him, Naruto felt guilty. His friend had died to save him.

'Fool' he thought sadly 'You didn't have to do that. I wouldn't have died anyways.'

He had just pulled out one of the senbons from his chest, when he heard a low moan. All three of them froze in place, looking towards Sasuke. Kakashi reached out again and pulled out another senbon, causing another groan from the would-be-dead boy. Sakura was ecstatic. Naruto had to literally hold her back from jumping on the boy and pushing the senbon further into his body. He was alive, and that was what mattered.

Sasuke had woken up two days after the battle on the bridge. He had been quite during the time he was up, but it really wasn't that different from how he was normally. The four of them had buried the bodies of Zabuza and Haku next to each other right next to a river. They had put Zabuza's sword and Haku's sash as grave markers.

Unknown to the others, Naruto had set up a small trap, so that if there were ever grave robbers coming for Zabuza's sword or something, they would get a large shock and a face full of kunai. The sword itself was the trigger.

After paying their respects one final time, team seven started there journey back to Konoha. The residents of the Wave had come to see them off. As they watched them go, Tazuna only had one question to ask.

"What should we name the bridge?" he asked. There was a murmur through the crowd.

One voice came up over the rest. "We should call it… the Great Naruto Bridge!" it was Inari. More murmurs, this time of consent, went through the crowd.

Tsunami smiled down at her son. She was proud that he had become so strong. It was thanks to those ninja, especially Naruto, this was why she had no problem naming the bridge after him.

Tazuna could only nod his head. It wasn't good to go against the populace. Plus, his grandson should have the chance to decide. But he couldn't help but think 'I was the one who built the damn thing, it should be named after me!'

So after little debate (and much grumbling on Tazuna's part) the bridge was christened 'The Great Naruto Bridge'.

Sasuke and Naruto had fallen behind from the group, much to Sakura's chagrin. He had simply said that he wanted to talk to Naruto for a few minutes. Naruto had no idea about what Sasuke could possibly want to talk to him about. The Kyuubi on the other hand, had a sneaking suspicion.

"How?" he asked.

"How what" Naruto asked him.

"Don't play stupid!" Sasuke hissed dangerously. "How did you make those explosions without using hand signs?"

Naruto was taken aback. He hadn't thought that this is what he wanted to ask him. Though he felt kind of stupid that he hadn't thought of this before.

"Um….well, you see…" he laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head. Sasuke looked at him expectantly.

"It's sort of like a bloodline, I guess." He said finally. "It something I've been working to master. The technique, if that's what you want to call it, has taken me a while to learn."

"But what did you use? I thought I saw a cloth or something." He said.

"Yea… it helps improve the strength and makes it easier to use" Naruto answered. He wasn't really lying. Without the spark cloth, he would have to make a fire of some sort. Then he would have to draw the array. With the cloth, all he had to do was snap his fingers because the array was already drawn and he had a spark.

"You said you had to learn it. Does that mean I could learn it to?" Sasuke asked. If Naruto didn't know better, he would swear that the Uchiha was practically pleading with him, in his own way.

"No." It wasn't said scathingly. He wasn't about to give him any of his secrets. It would be better for Sasuke in the end, he reminded himself. Sasuke had just a bad a past as him. Naruto had only wanted to bring back one person. If Sasuke learned of the idea to bring people back to life, Naruto was sure that he would try it out on his clan.

Sasuke glared at Naruto. He was sure he could learn whatever Naruto knew. He could Naruto compare his strength and skill to him, the number one rookie of the year. Sasuke was positive that the only reason Naruto didn't teach him the jutsu's was because he wanted a chance to be stronger than him.

'As if that dobe could even come close to being as strong as me'

Team seven had a long way to go before they reached Konoha.

Sorry about the delay. I wasn't here on the weekends and I was working hard in school. Not a lot of time to just sit and write.

Please review.