Chapter 21

Hinata felt something push her; she turned and saw it was Haku. Haku pushed her out of the way of the snakes that passed through. Hinata was about to try to move Haku out of the way but she knew she wasn't fast enough. She couldn't do anything and the snakes were only a few feet away. She looked at Haku and saw that he was terrified; he was scared, sad, but you can still see a bit of happiness. He was ok with giving his life for her. Hinata couldn't let that happen she didn't want Haku to sacrifice himself for her. Haku should be the one to live. But there was nothing either of them could do. They knew what was going to happen Haku was ready to protect Hinata by giving himself up. Hinata didn't feel she deserved to have such an amazing person to try to save here by giving his life. A tear started falling down Hinata's face.

They both closed their eyes and waited for this to be over they couldn't bear to watch. Hinata couldn't see the caring loving Haku be ripped to shreds by the damn snakes and Haku couldn't see Hinata's sad and scared face as she watches him die. 'Naruto I love you, take care Hinata.'

And he waited, and waited, and waited, and nothing. Nothing attacked him. Nothing touched him he was still alive. He slowly opened his eyes and saw the snakes inches from his face, ready to tear him apart but they didn't move. They were just staring at him. He was about to move when the snakes turned to dust right in front of his face. Hinata was now standing next to him pulling him into a big hug silently crying at the thought of losing one of her best friends. They were both confused at what happened. When they looked up they saw Naruto lying on the ground on his back dripping wet from head to toe. Orochimaru was on the floor soaking wet he was struggling to get up the poison was taking its toll on his body. But he could still stand he could still kill them if he tried.

Of course he did try.

Orochimaru brought his hands up to his mouth and blew. From his fisted hands a stream of fire shot out heading straight to them. Haku was about to make a wall of ice but a wall of water beat him to it. He looked at Hinata and she was just as surprised, hand in front of her ready to make a wall of her own. They both turned to Naruto and they saw he was smiling up at them, before he disappeared in a yellow flash.

They both looked around trying to find where Naruto would end up when they saw the same flash on top of them. Then they saw Naruto falling down on them head first arms reaching for them. They both shot a hand up to grab him. Naruto grabbed their hands and the three of them disappeared.

Orochimaru saw all three disappear and immediately stopped the fire and called to Kabuto. He didn't really care if they got away he accomplished what he came here to do, and the three were just nuances to him. They were able to poison him and stop his plans for a while but he will just have to wait till the final test instead of doing it during the preliminaries like he planned. When Kabuto got to him he quickly took off his shirt and told him what happened.

"Those three will be a problem want me to kill them for you?" he asked as he injected a medicine into Orochimaru to stop the poison from moving through the rest of his body.

"Don't be ridiculous Kabuto they can kill you in a blink of an eye. You'll be dead before you even knew they were there. Even that Hyuga girl can cause you great damage and that defense of hers is far too great for you to get through. If it wasn't for the fact that she was low on chakra she could have easily outlasted me because of that damn poison. Don't take here lightly. But if you were to have to fight one of them take on the girl. I could just be giving her too much credit, she did attack when I least expected it. I'm sure you could probably kill her. But who knows this poison is really clouding my mind, get me out of here and get rid of the poison before I feed you to my pet snakes." Orochimaru said as he thought about the changes we would have to make to his plans.

Naruto Haku and Hinata were currently lying on their backs on a giant tree trunk that all three were able to lay right next to each other.

"Now what should we do Haku?" Hinata asked as she got over the dizziness of teleporting or whatever it is Naruto did.

"well we should talk to the Hokage first and then come up with a plan for when Orochimaru strikes again, but right now I just really want to rest." Haku said as he stretched and looked at Hinata and Naruto. Hinata looked exhausted, she looked more tiered then when she and Naruto worked on expanding her chakra reserves. Hinata knew she shouldn't use her special defense for too long and if she is low on chakra. But she did save the both of them so he figured she thought it was worth it. That plan was their back up for times like this, they weren't sure if it would worked it hasn't before when they were training, but their glad it did, probably the adrenalin. Then Haku looked at Naruto. He looked normal like he just woke up and was ready to start the day. But Haku knew that wasn't it, he could see the sings of exhaustion and pain on his face, the way his eyes were slightly dimmer, the way his lips were slightly turned down even with that smile on his face. The way his eyebrows twitched every ten second. He has been with Naruto to for far too long to be fooled by the masks he wore. He knew everything just like Naruto knew everything about him.

"I'm going to try to get us to our room okay." Naruto said as he was going to grab their hands. Haku just put his hand on his chest.

"Naruto its ok we can rest here, we can go back in half an hour." Hinata nodded her head in agreement. All three curled up together and Naruto dozed off, Hinata looked at Haku.

"Haku you should rest as well ill keep look out."

"Hinata your far more exhausted then I am you should rest."

"just do as I say Haku, if he somehow found us and attacked you will be better at protecting us then me," when she saw Haku was going to disagree she said "ok how about this you rest for a fifteen minutes and I wake you up and then I rest for fifteen minutes and then we all wake up and go to the tower?"

"Fine" Haku said when he saw Hinata wasn't going to back down. She learned so much from Naruto, damn stubborn team he thought before he doze off.

Hinata was about to wake up Haku to switch after he let him rest an extra ten minutes when she saw how peaceful he looked, when she noticed something coming near them. She gently shook Haku and put her hand over his mouth. Haku quickly realized what was happening and pulled out a kunai. Haku stood up and threw the kunai to a tree on his right without looking. When he turned he saw some anbu standing there his kunai stuck on a tree branch inches from his face.

"It's about time, what took you so long I sent for you a long time ago." Haku said when he realized who it was.

The anbu in the middle walked up to him and asked "Where is Orochimaru?"

"I don't know what happened to him, I just know he is really week right now so you should spread out and look for him, hopefully he is still here" Haku ordered, the anbu nodded and disappeared.

"We should head to the tower now." Hinata said when Haku sat next to her. Haku just nodded and woke up Naruto. They helped Naruto get to his feet and after another ten minutes Naruto was able to stand and walk without falling over.

"Haku I want ramen!" Naruto said they started walking to the tower. "I think we all deserve some, we kicked but. But we still need to train more… but first ramen. Haku do you have money? I forgot my wallet at the house and I have no money. Hinata would you like to go with us? You hair is all dirty… ow why did you both hit me, your hair is full of twigs and leafs and dirt." Naruto rambled on and on all the way to the tower, Haku and Hinata just nodded their heads and didn't really pay attention after five minutes of Naruto talking way to fast he didn't give them the chance to speak.

When they got to the tower they went to the Hokage and told him everything that happened. From the fight to the poison to how he got Sasuke. When they finished explaining they all headed up to their rooms passing by everybody else that made it to the tower in time. They still had an extra day for the exam the three of them took that time to rest for the following preliminaries that were going to start. Unlike the others that were worrying, training, or/and socializing they stayed in bed all day only getting up to use the bathroom and that took them a bit of extra effort considering all they wanted to do was sleep and rest.

Authors note: thank you for the likes follows and the reviews. Cold as ice now has 95 reviews, 120 favorites 114 alerts. Thank you all for enjoying my story enough to follow to review and favorite.

I didn't want to keep you waiting to find out what had happened to Haku so here it is. I hope you enjoyed it. And I know there will be some questions so ill just say one thing hopefully it helps you understand.

Adrenalin helps you do thinks you normally couldn't. Like a mother lift a car of a baby cause of adrenalin... Has happened by the way. Adrenalin is some crazy shite.

Anyways tell me who you would like to see fight Haku Naruto and Hinata during the preliminaries.

Tell me what you think, please review. Thank you so much for your wonder full reviews and thank you for taking the time to read my story.