Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

"Shisui, what do you mean Konoha has one of Kiri's swordsmen in their custody?" I shouted.

"It's exactly as it sounds like, Mai!" Shisui yelled back. "Hurry up, if we want to intervene, now's the time.

The reveal had set both of us into motion, and now we were speeding through the forest at a rapid rate—so quickly that the trees all seemed to blur into one giant, green blob and so speedily that no sound other than a screech at the top of one's lungs could be heard over the roaring wind.

Haku was draped over Shisui's back with the poor kid almost being sent flying off each time his ride changed altitude or angle.

We were panicked, but we had every damned right to be. Shisui failed to indulge me in anymore of the information that I itched to know—we just didn't have time for him to debrief me on the new shitshow that I had probably indirectly triggered—and had chosen to unquestioningly aid me in my endeavor instead.

Was it suspicious that he was stalling? Yes.

Did I care about his shady dealings if I was going to end up with Zabuza in my custody if I did succeed with his help? Absolutely not.

"We're only a half a mile off now, I'll talk once we've pulled this guy out of Death's grasp." He turned around to give me a reassuring smile, one somehow laced with the slightest hint of humor as he cracked one last joke before we jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. "You're rather good at it—saving people from their untimely demises."

"You would know from from first hand experience, wouldn't you?" I muttered under my breath as we broke through the last bit of the thicker part of the woods.

If we squinted, we could just barely make out the almost-dancing figures of Team 7 while they struggled against Zabuza. Had it not been an actual skirmish between people who were fighting tooth and nail to live, I would've gladly stood there, completely memorized at the fluidity in their movements—so graceful it almost seems unreal.

Maybe it was unreal.

(ReaL? Are yOU real? or arE you stiLl dEAder than dead? JusT diE alrEaDY.)

"Mai," Shisui hissed into my ear, jolting me out of the near-hypnotized state I had been in. Both Zabuza and Kakashi seemed to react at the minute sound—a reminder of just how dangerous this task really was.

Shisui might have been an experienced sharingan user, yes, and I might have had my own fair share of experience with stealth operations, but that didn't mean jack-shit when we were diving head first into a battlefield with two other wielders of the sharingan, and a man famed for attempting to overthrow his entire damned country—albeit for good reason. The brazenness of our movements was only multiplied by ten fold when the fact that the man we were trying to save wasn't our own comrades, but the one trying to slaughter those very same comrades instead.

If Shisui and I were to be caught, we'd be done for—a fact that we were unfortunately all too aware of.

Hell, I didn't even know if he could be trusted anymore.

Shisui had practically disappeared for two years after our last meeting at Konoha's cemetery—a long time by any standards, and even more so when our mission was taken into account, yet never once had the Hokage inquired about why the flow of information between Shisui and I had suddenly stopped. What had happened was more than just obvious. Their lack of communication time was practically brazen enough to be an insult.

Shisui had continued to feed all of the information that he had acquired to the Hokage, he just simply stopped giving it to me. Whether that was a conscious decision made on his part, or an order from Sarutobi, I couldn't be completely sure.

I wanted to be able to have faith in him, but a small part of me kept refusing to spill everything. Sure, Shisui could've have ended our communication in order to give me an excuse to spend more time with Naruto, but he also just as possibly could've been given an order from the higher ups to prevent me from knowing too much. Either move was entirely possible, and both equally likely.

There was no doubt about it—telling him about my plans of basically committing treason and having him participate was an absolute risk.

But in the situation that I was in, it was a risk I had to take.

I nodded at Shishui, indicating that I had recollected myself enough to smoothly execute our damn-near preposterous plan. He gave a brisk nod back, setting the said-preposterous plan into motion despite every logical bit of us screaming for us to stop.

Making sure the hunter-nin mask was on tight, I entered the fray.

Zabuza was hunched over, clearly on the losing end of the battle. He panted as he mustered up the strength to spare one last glare at his opponents, determined to not go down without sticking it to the enemy. His stance relaxed, probably sensing my presence and mistaking it for Haku's.

Before Kakashi could land the finishing blow a week early, I launched Haku's senbon towards Zabuza, knowing that he wouldn't dodge if he was certain I was Haku. The needles stuck, and his eyes widened as he comprehended the fact that he was, in fact, not placed under an inanimate state.

"Wha—"

His alarmed cry was interrupted by a blow to the chest, courtesy of me. In any other occasion, the kick would have done little to the infamous missing nin, but now, in the midst of a battle that had practically kicked his ass to the moon and back, even breathing wrong could have probably knocked him down for a few seconds.

For a few seconds.

He used an iron grip to grab hold of my ankle, and I clenched every bit of my body to stop myself from crying out. Interrupting the fight was my role, distorting the fight to allow us to drag Zabuza out of there without being detected was Shisui's. If anything looked even slightly out of place, all our efforts would go to waste.

This had to play out almost exactly as it had the first time around.

I shifted to the right, nearly dislocating my own ankle in an attempt to give Shisui a clearer visual of where Zabuza was.

This was where Haku would have to step in.

With every superstitious bone in my body, I prayed to any god that came to mind as I waited for our plan to either fail or work. Shisui was already set up, but he'd have to try pretty damn hard to use any chakra without being detected by the last two regular sharingan users in Konoha. It couldn't even be called ballsy anymore—what we were doing was damn near arrogant to even think about attempting. Pulling a fast one on an Uchiha was a death wish—one that would've been a nearly impossible feat to accomplish if it weren't for Shisui's expertise.

We were going to manipulate Haku into landing the real finishing-ish blow with the same technique he had used the first around.

With blood pooling both in my mouth and now from my injured ankle—yet another damaged body part to add to a long list of shitty things I'd had to endure in this world—I nearly exploded in anticipation. I bit the inside of my cheek harder, drawing out more of the irony liquid to distract myself from the excruciating pain that shot up my entire leg.

The sky—I focused on the sky. The mesmerizing blues that looked just like the ones I had seen in another life.

(Go back go baCk I waNt to gO. LeaVE bacK to blUE SKiEs.

I want to go home.)

In my peripheral vision, I could just barely make out what was presumably Haku's shadow. For a second, I felt a pang of guilt for manipulating the poor kid into attacking the man he cherished above all, but that motion died with the comfort of knowing that this was—if my own selfish whims were ignored—for the best.

And just like that—only after a few seconds into my entrance—it was over.

Mission accomplished—Zabuza was out, but from the looks of it, I was about to be out, too. I clenched my fist, digging my nails into my palm to divert my attention to that rather than the dull ache that had dug its way up into my thigh.

Taking a deep breath to steady my voice, I mimicked what little I could recall of the way Haku had carried himself when he had pulled the same stunt on Team 7.

I bowed, swallowing a mouthful of my own blood before I spoke. "Thank you for aiding me. I've been tracking Zabuza to search for a chance at killing him for a very long time."

Naruto rushed over to where Zabuza's 'body' was laying, looking both distraught and relieved all at once. Behind him, Sasuke limped after the somehow still-energetic blond, perhaps looking a little worse for wear during this time around. There was no discernible difference though, and for that, I was relieved.

Sakura, yet again, was another story. All the damage that Naruto probably should've been showing—though wasn't due to his jinchuuriki healing abilities—had seemingly been transferred on over to her. The poor girl—and I don't call her this lightly, considering her psychotic tendencies—looked like she had been literally dragged through hell and back, with scrapes and cuts lining every bit of her body. Whether the damage was a result of this world's changes, or simply due to her newfound arrogance, all I knew was the fact that she looked, at any angle, wholly fucked up. She looked at me for a split second, and then seemed to have passed me off as insignificant as she separated from the group, going to the side to bandage herself up.

I had no way of knowing what exactly happened while I was fighting my own battle, but it didn't seem to have been pretty.

"A hunter-nin from Kiri?" Kakashi asked, eyes narrowed.

I kept my voice steady. "Correct."

"What's a hunter-nin?" Naruto asked, looking at his sensei expectantly.

Before Kakashi could reply, I answered for him. "My duty is to hunt down missing-nin. I am a part of Kiri's hunter-nin team."

Every word I said dragged on the conversation, but an inexplicable force seemed to drive me to keep the conversation as close to what it had originally been as possible. If memory served me right, what would come next was—

"Who are you?" Naruto's voice lacked a rash aggressiveness to it, but it was confrontational nonetheless.

Kakashi sighed, not bothering to further inspect me. He was probably completely exhausted from the fight—far too exhausted to bother with a man who definitely appeared dead. "Naruto, stand down. He's not our enemy."

"He's as young as me! Why is he so strong? Someone like Zabuza who gave us so much trouble was taken out just like that?!" Naruto exclaimed, no longer shouting at me but rather just shouting out his frustrations in general.

I focused on trying to recall what would happen next, desperate to find something to fixate my mind on before I passed out right then and there. It'd be more than just a bit of a speed bump in my road of life if Team 7 managed to unmask me if I fell unconscious. Kakashi would do that little fatherly-like movement, placing his hand on Naruto's head, and then he'd probably say something about the differing power levels among all shinobi regardless of age. Something like that, right?

Wrong.

"What are you talking about, dobe? We've lived around prodigies for all of our lives—even little Mai is a special jounin now. Stop wasting time gawking over others, idiot, or else you're gonna end up losing to that reckless idiot even more."

In spite of how many implications came out of Sasuke's now-somewhat friendly personality—though he had a shit way of showing it—I barely stifled a laugh at how he handled the usually uncontrollable blond's vigor in all emotions that he felt.

Naruto scrunched his eyebrows together in annoyance. "Shut up, bastard! I wasn't gawking, I was just thinkin' about how Mai would totally get her ass kicked by this guy."

Oh the irony of it all.

I could have watched Team 7's rocky-but-somehow fitting dynamic for hours, but the fuzzy feeling I felt inside my head was telling me it'd be best if I hightailed out of there.

Shisui had left the moment the genjutsu had successfully gotten Haku to take out Zabuza. Getting Zabuza out of here was all on me.

I crouched down, gritting my teeth as I slung him over my already-aching shoulder. "I must dispose of his body. Many confidential things seem to be hidden in it."

I spared Naruto and Sasuke one last glance, giving him another once over to assure myself that they were alright.

"Farewell."

I shunshined as far as I could with what little chakra I had remaining—so much of it had been wasted using Shisui's technique in the fight with Haku. As my feet landed on the ground, I felt my knees buckle. Zabuza slipped off my shoulder, and shortly after, I fell with him.

As my consciousness faded, one poignant thought stood out to me.

Well, at least I'm not dead yet.

25 chapters and 70k words! Das a milestone.

This is it for the actiony chapters, and the next one will have plenty of Shisui and Mai interaction without the threat of someone dying looming over them at that very second lol.

I'll keep this short. Please leave a review! I'm happy when you do, and a little disheartened when you don't. :(

Have a great day. :)