"Why?" Sasuke asked as he watched the masked boy decimate wave after wave of That Boy's Kage Bunshin. There were several questions that were running through his mind, and they all boiled down to one, "Why?". Why hadn't the boy killed him earlier? Why wasn't this boy making a serious effort to kill him even now? He had him at his mercy, and yet he still held back. Why was he toying with him in this manner?

"I was like you once." the masked boy said as he moved from mirror to mirror. "I lost my precious people when my father killed my mother and tried to kill me."

At those words, a memory that was always close to the surface yet again came unbidden, a memory of the day he had lost all who were precious to him.

He had come home late from training. The Uchiha district had been totally silent. Unnaturally so. He came across the first of the bodies on one of the side streets after he'd turned off the main road to say goodnight to his aunt whose light was still on on his way home. The main path through the district which led to his house had been completely devoid of corpses, as if it had been deliberately swept clear but, as he continued to explore, he soon discovered that there were more dead littering the alleys and byways of the Uchiha district, alot more.

After finding what had to be at least half the clan lying dead in what seemed to be oceans of blood, he ran fearfully through the silent streets that were littered with the bodies of his kin, dreading what he'd find at home. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached the house his family shared. It was dark and completely silent inside and out, as unnaturally silent as the district had been. Fearing what he would find, he ran through the empty halls frantically searching for his parents and his older brother. Inside his parent's bedroom was...

The bodies of his parents lay in a heap on the floor, one on top of the other. There was a pool of blood around them, and spatters of blood staining the walls. His parents were dead, and he could sense that he wasn't alone in the room. There was someone hiding in the shadows, possibly the same someone who had murdered his parents.

As he stood there uncertain whether to fight or flee, the person moved out of the shadows.

It was Itachi.

The masked boy continued, his story, drawing him out of his flashback as he sent another volley of senbon in his direction, forcing him to dodge.

"My family had been a poor but happy and loving one that had lived on a small farm in Water Country." the boy said as the senbon sailed through the air.

"My mother however had had a secret that ended up destroying everything when it was discovered. Before I was born, there had been a long and bloody civil war in which those with Kekkei Genkai came to be feared and reviled for having been on the front lines slaughtering thousands upon thousands, shinobi and civilian alike. After the war, having a Kekkei Genkai was basically an automatic death sentence in Water Country. Despite being a civilian, my mother had been born with a Kekkei Genkai that she had struggled to keep hidden." the boy continued as he settled himself into another mirror and launched another volley of senbon.

"My mother's Kekkei Genkai had been passed down to me and, one day I discovered my powers and showed them to my mother, not knowing the danger they represented. Unbeknown to either of us, my father had witnessed this. That evening, he and several others from the nearby village came to our home and killed my mother. After they had killed her, my father moved to kill me. I blacked out after that but, when I came to, I learned that I killed my own father." the boy continued as he continued to flash from mirror to mirror taking out That Boy's Kage Bunshin at a rate that was becoming just the tiniest bit easier to see.

"It was then that I discovered that loneliness, the feeling of being unwanted, unneeded by anyone, of not having a purpose was the worst feeling in the world." the boy said after he'd taken out another batch of That Boy's Kage Bunshin as That Boy uselessly hammered away at the mirrors from the outside.

"I was starving on the streets alone for a long time until Zabuza-sama found me." the boy continued as he made an attack that prevented him from exiting the mirrors after he'd thought he'd seen a perfect opening.

"He had need of me and my powers which everyone else feared. He took me in, and I became his tool, his weapon, an extension of his will, and anything he asks of me, I will do, even if I have to destroy my own heart to do so." the boy finished as he made an attack on That Boy who had apparently done something that had rattled one of the mirrors, and That Boy went down with several Senbon sticking out of him.

Hearing that story, he had to admit that he and the masked boy were alike in some ways, and he could see how the boy could feel "sympathy" for him because he could understand his pain better than most. Both of them had had someone they had loved and trusted to protect them destroy their family. Both of them had been left completely alone in the world afterward. Of course that didn't make him stop resenting the other boy who continued to attack him or stop the other boy from attacking him though. It did however make him wonder how his life could have turned out if he hadn't had a need to avenge his clan to drive him.

If he had absolutely nothing left after That Man had killed his clan, would he have been the same? Would he have completely subsumed his will to that of the first person that had need of him who came along?

He was rather quickly pulled out of his musings because the boy's attacks became even more serious after he finished his story, apparently having reminded himself exactly why he was fighting. Instead of the usual tiny slices, the senbon were starting to stab into his body but, he could see! He could see every move the other boy made! Was this the sharingan? Had he finally activated it?

Kakashi knew he was growing tired but did his best to not let it show lest Zabuza spotted and exploited this weakness. He had lost a great deal of blood as he made the moves that would put his opponent into Check. Fortunately, he wasn't alone in his exhaustion. He could tell that his opponent was becoming exhausted as well, as the unnatural mist had begun to clear because his opponent was unable to continue pumping Chakra into it. If his opponent was as exhausted as he appeared, it meant that he would be slower than normal. Good. It was time to finish this.

Prepping the field for his finishing move, he pulled out the scroll he used to summon his pack and put blood on it before resealing it and pressing it into the surface of the bridge. Beneath him, his pack of nin-dogs made their way to Zabuza, broke through the surface of the bridge, and immobilized the man.

After exchanging the usual battle banter, which he could afford to do now that his opponent was immobilized, he powered up a Raikiri. Before he could move forward and impale the Swordsman of the Mist with it however, an ice mirror formed right next to him, and several senbon went flying. Due to his exhaustion which wasn't being helped by the Raikiri that was eating his Chakra like crazy, he wasn't as quick as usual, and he failed to dodge. After being impaled by the senbon, he fell to the ground unable to move. Fortunately, his dogs had dealt with Zabuza's arms so, unless Zabuza's accomplice who had so far shown Sasuke and Naruto mercy - Sasuke twice - had decided to finish him off, there was a good chance he would live.

Behind him he could hear a scream of "Kakashi!" and he could feel a familiar Chakra rising, a Chakra he had not felt in over twelve years. Naruto's seal was breaking.

Everything went black...

Momochi Zabuza growled in frustration at the situation he had found himself in. Hatake Kakashi the Copy Nin was lying on the ground in front of him, and he couldn't do anything to make sure he was finished off thanks to the dogs that were pinning him in place. The one good thing about this situation however was that Haku had yet again arrived in the nick of time to save his hide. That boy was more than worth all of the time and effort he had spent on him.

Kakashi was down, possibly permanently, but there was a more immediate threat to deal with. There was a new player on the battlefield, a powerful new player. The malevolent Chakra he had sensed shortly after the Copy Ninja had fallen to Haku's senbon continued to rise with each passing second. Who or whatever it was could be a serious danger to him.

Suddenly, there was a yell to his left, and the blond Inuzuka boy was racing up to him. As the boy approached, the dogs that had been holding him immobile scattered in all directions with their tails between their legs. He himself barely had time to register the fact that the boy had transformed when he came barreling into him on all fours. As his mind desperately scrabbled to find out what the hell was going on, the clawed and fanged boy with the slit-pupiled red eyes sent him flying and attacked him again. Haku tried to defend him, and got attacked himself for his troubles. After the boy incapacitated Haku, he focused on him once more, barreling into him, and trying to slice him open with his claws.

All he could think the entire time this was happening was "Holy shit!". This had most definitely not been how he'd planned for this attack to go.

For the second time in Uzumaki Naruto's life, he was seeing red. That boy Haku had taken out Kakashi, and it was all that Zabuza guy's fault! He'd heard that Haku boy's story, and knew that if that Zabuza guy hadn't made Haku fight, then he wouldn't have and Kakashi would have been fine. He was going to kill him! He was going to kill the both of them!

He attacked Zabuza first because he was the one responsible, the one who had been actively trying to kill Kakashi while Haku had been trying to spare him and Sasuke. As he was dealing with the man, Haku tried to attack him. The key word there being "tried". He swiftly dealt with Haku and turned back to Zabuza, intent on tearing him apart.

As he was about to land the final blow on that Zabuza guy, he smelled danger. Had the Haku boy gotten up? He whirled around in the direction the scent had originated. It wasn't the Haku boy. There was someone else here! No, several someones. He smelled sweat, unwashed bodies, and steel. Lots and lots of steel. There was an army somewhere nearby.

"How pathetic!" someone he couldn't yet see said. "I had hoped you would be able to take the other ninja with you before I took you out, but clearly the Demon of the Mist isn't all he's cracked up to be. Demon? Pah! More like a minor imp at best. You got brought down by a little kid."

He didn't like that voice. There was something wrong about it. Something that reminded him of every unpleasant person he'd run into in his entire life.

"I should have sent my mercenaries in in the first place, since you obviously couldn't get the job done." the person said as the mist that had been obscuring his vision faded.

The mist cleared completely revealing a short, stocky, grayish brown haired man in a suit and sunglasses with a cane standing at the head of a small army. He could've sworn he'd seen the man before somewhere but he couldn't place him. The men standing behind the man were armed to the teeth with a wide variety of weapons which ranged from swords to pikes.

"Kill the survivors, then move on to the village. The people there need to be taught a lesson." The man at the head of the group, whom he finally realized was the businessman Gato whose picture he'd seen in the paper, said.

Kill the survivors? But Saskuke and Sakura and Tazuna were the survivors, and he had sworn to protect them, and he never went back on his word. There was no way in hell he would let that happen! There was no way he would let the man who had ordered Zabuza to kill Kakashi take out the rest of his team!

The red haze that had been gradually fading overtook him once more, growing deeper until there was nothing left but red.

Sasuke couldn't quite process what he was seeing. It had started when the masked boy had left the mirrors entirely in the middle of a battle that had been entirely in his favor for some reason, and less than a minute later the mirrors all shattered, freeing him. Despite the fact that he had been freed, he could do nothing more than sit and watch what happened next, because the masked boy's senbon seriously restricted his mobility and prevented him from doing much else. The first thing he saw after the mirrors shattered was the masked boy lying on the ground. The second was Kakashi, obviously having been taken out by the swordsman Zabuza. The third was That Boy tearing the swordsman apart. Then, someone else arrived, someone who had been at the head of an armed mob.

It was what happened next after the mercenaries had shown up that he had been unable to process. After the man at the head of the mob had ordered the mob to kill them, That Boy changed as he raced towards the men on all fours. As the boy sped towards the group, a strange red energy started bubbling up from That Boy, and surrounded him, a strange red energy that caused an ominous feeling to wash over him even where he sat so far away from the coming action. The first thing That Boy did when he reached the group was grab the ankle of the fleeing leader, pull him towards him, and tear his throat out. As soon as the leader was dead, he then started on the mob.

One man impaled That Boy with a spear, and he pulled it out and continued attacking as if nothing had even happened. The wound that the spear had made closed before his very eyes. After the grievous wound that had been caused by the spear had healed, That Boy then started cutting a swathe through the group of mercenaries. The men soon began to break ranks and flee when they realized that their weapons were ineffective. That Boy would just keep pulling them out, and continue fighting while his wounds healed right before their very eyes. Heedless of the damage he caused as well as the damage that was caused to him, That boy chased the men as they fled over the side of the bridge.

What was That Boy? He couldn't possibly be human...

"Naruto!" someone behind him called, gaining his and everyone else's attention.

As he watched, That Boy turned away from the slaughter and raced over towards the source of the voice, which turned out to belong to Tazuna's small grandson who was at the head of a mob of locals armed with tools and farming equipment. As That Boy moved past him, he could see that he had somehow grown claws and fangs, and that the strange marks on his face had grown larger and more feral looking. There was something else as well, That Boy's eyes weren't blue, they were red.

"Naruto!" the Tazuna's grandson cried out when That Boy was almost on top of him.

That Boy reached up to attack, but stopped before he landed the final blow. The ominous red energy that That Boy emitted began to dissipate. The claws shrank back into nails, and the marks turned back into lines. The fangs presumably vanished as well.

"Hey Inari," That Boy said. "Sorry about that."

Just what in the hell was Uzumaki Naruto?

As Naruto spoke with Inari and the mob of villagers who had come with him, Haku had slowly made his way to his fallen master's side. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he reached him. He was weak, in pain, and quite possibly bleeding internally as well as externally, but that didn't matter. Only Zabuza-sama mattered.

Zabuza-sama was alive. Barely. He had lost far more blood than was healthy, and would continue to lose even more if he didn't do something. Using one of the few healing jutsu he knew, he pushed his Chakra into Zabuza-sama until he was about to pass out. There was a good chance that he wouldn't wake up because he had used up so much of his Chakra. There was also a chance that Zabuza-sama would die despite his ministrations as well. He would cross that bridge later when he came to it though.

His last thought as his consciousness faded was If Zabuza-sama dies, then I don't want to wake up.

Edited 11-26-12