Hello, and welcome back. Lacking discipline when I write, I have to admit, I keep thinking of Itachi and Kisame as being like Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd from the James Bond movie Diamonds are Forever, just as I think of Haku and Naruto together as like Huey and Riley from The Boondocks. It takes real effort not to channel my influences!

Thanks for coming!

-Jonohex

Haku

Their battle unfolded as a metaphorical cat-and-mouse game with Haku never in doubt of his role as the mouse. He'd used his jutsu to cloud the battlefield, hinder his opponent's ocular powers and, he prayed, obscure the true purpose of the gathering snowfall and plunging temperatures from Itachi's insight. Haku had then summoned ice clones, as many as he could, and sent them scattering in all directions while he himself sped toward where he'd last seen Naruto. Under the powers of his kekkei-genkai the world dissolved into a stew of gauzy grey swirling with fat flecks of white. The teenager moved with purpose, a game plan that seemed sound, but that didn't blunt the inescapable facts or ease the sickening feeling of being horribly, horribly outmatched or that his Uchiha nemesis would kill him at any moment.

Haku raced through the storm, relying on his other senses to guide him for he was nearly blind himself when, suddenly, the mist and snow-choked air lit up red as the dawn.

"Ninja art," Haku stammered urgently, recalling nuances he'd learned from his Aramata clan forbearers, "Ice Fortress."

A bulwark of ice, feet thick, swelled into being then flared lantern-bright. The young ninja leaped away just as the last of it, thin and melted into a glittering lace-like tapestry, crumbled away. The air convulsed with conflicting torrents of arctic cold and volcanic heat, steam and snow in equal measures. Haku landed in a crouch and tried his best to convey what he hoped would be interpreted as shock. It wasn't hard to do.

One after the other, he could feel his multitude of clones begin to vanish. One by one, each of them winking out, killed somehow unseen out there in the cold gloom.

"Your tactics do you credit, Haku," said Itachi from much closer by than Haku expected. Powerful as the Akatsuki was, the man was a master at masking his chakra which made him hard to sense. "Leaving me to flounder and search for you through all this fog and snowfall, sorting through your clones while you rejoin Naruto and team-up to defeat Kisame is very strategic thinking." The teenager hissed then spun, slicked the snow and crusting ice from his face with a hand and tried to get some kind of read on where his enemy lurked. "There's more to it though, isn't there?" the voice continued from out of the white, this time issuing from another direction entirely. "This unseasonable chill…it's more than just to make me uncomfortable. It's sapping my energy. I suppose you had in mind that after you and your jinchuuriki friend defeated my partner that you would then turn your combined efforts back upon a weakened me. Interesting! A bit optimistic to be sure," Itachi opined, "but interesting. There's a kernel of real cleverness there and I wonder if it isn't in your Aramata blood. Your master Zabuza was strong, there's no doubt, but I've never heard him described as clever. Surely you did not learn tactics like this from him."

What now? Haku considered. His grey eyes lit. Yes, something desperate. More than anything else he needed Itachi to believe that he'd figured him out. He needed Itachi to chase him.

Gritting his teeth, his breath freezing to sleet in the frigid air, the former Demon's Apprentice clapped his hands together in a seal. The wind surged, gathering in tornado-strength then leaped at the sound of the Akatsuki's voice. Haku used the attack to cover his retreat, bounding nearly blind over the thickening snow, wondering if this fight would be his last. As he went he called again to the heavens and the powers of air and water for yet more snow, deeper cold. He would have to make his move soon if he was to make it at all.

The section of the Mist Village around him was utterly recognizable from what it had been before their battle had begun but even through the dense whorls of snow and freezing gusts, Haku could make out the dark shapes circling around him, closing in. Shadow-clones? the thought occurred as one landed almost immediately in front of him before he could evade it. The ninja caught just a moment of Itachi's raven hair and cloak rippling in the harsh wind before the Akatsuki exploded.

The teenager's ears rang. Blood leaked from his nose. As his eyes twitched open, his blurred vision was almost crowded out with pinpricks of light. How much time had he lost?! At some level Haku knew that the blast had thrown him quite a ways, that he'd flown, arcing through space before thudding along the snow-blanketed earth. His slender body informed him through a litany of aches and numbness all these things he couldn't remember. That Itachi hadn't used this time to kill him was beyond miraculous but perhaps Haku's tactics had worn him down more than the young shinobi had thought. After all, whatever power the strange jonin's ocular jutsu might grant him, eyes were still very fragile things and sensitive to the elements. But then again, perhaps it was just that Itachi hadn't finished toying with him. That Haku had leapt away on instinct, that the wind had rushed to his defense were the only reasons he'd survived Itachi's jutsu at all.

Groggily, Haku pushed up to his hands and knees which were all but swallowed up in the deep drift of snow that had cushioned his fall. Where am I? he asked himself in a panic. Which way did the explosion carry me? Whether he would live or die might well depend on the answer but his trembling fingers told him what he needed to know. Ice! His heart leaped. I'm right on top of it.

Haku rose, quieted his mind and felt for his pursuer's chakra. Even to stay alive in this bitter cold would require Itachi to burn through some. There! the teenager exulted as he found it and again lashed out, unleashing more of his own chakra into the snowstorm. "Ice release: Fractal Dragons," he intoned. As Haku completed his hand signs, twin serpents arose from the snow, their jagged scales clear as crystal, their claws and fangs sharp as broken glass. At a motion of their master's arm they flashed into the blinding billows toward their unseen prey.

Zabuza's former student gasped at how quickly he felt them destroyed and then again as a towering monster of fiery red-over-ebon energies strode forth from the gale, sword in one hand, shield in the other like a demon soldier. A word came to him from its description in the 'Bingo Book' – Susanoo. Within its protective embrace Itachi himself walked unhindered and unharmed by any of Haku's efforts.

"I see you," the infamous Uchiha announced casually with an untroubled smile.

The transparent wall of ice Haku had created in front of him just then as a shield erupted into a seething pyre of black flames. The teenager fell back from the preternatural heat as the monstrous chakra-monster lurched forward.

"An admirable effort, Haku, truly," Itachi granted with a gracious air. "You summoned snow and cold to punish my eyes and contain their power. You've survived techniques I've used to kill dozens of others but the powers of my Sharingan come from worlds unknown to you and cannot be defeated. I show them to you as my gift so that you will take the memory with you into the afterlife."

Looming over him, the Susanoo raised its sword – a thing of shifting shards of crimson and obsidian.

Wait, does that thing protect Itachi from below? The thought flashed with no great emphasis but it meant that maybe Haku's plan was not lost. The young ninja's hands worked furiously, for the first time today sealing two jutsus at the same time. The earth heaved violently then gave way under Itachi for it was not soil or pavement beneath that blanket of snow…but ice – ice that had crusted the top of the Canal of Sighs over which Haku had lead him; ice that obeyed its blood-gifted creator. Simultaneously, a colossal hand of water erupted forth to seize the startled jonin.

That water is cold, far below freezing because it's salt water and in motion, thought Haku as he retraced his way through his logic. It's more than cold enough to stop your breath, your blood, paralyze your muscles including your heart. Though you are the far-stronger shinobi, I've used the terrain to my advantage and caught you by surprise. And just as I didn't know all your techniques, you didn't know I could use two at once.

With Itachi imprisoned in its clutches, the hand froze solid then withdrew back beneath the crack in the ice which froze over almost immediately in the sub-arctic chill. Wind and snow whipped and gusted, erasing the scar almost immediately, returning the canal to a tract of unbroken white.

Your flow of chakra depends on the flow of your breath, of vital energy through your body, Itachi. Even your famed Sharingan cannot function without it. Though he still didn't quite believe it, Haku could only follow through to the one stunning conclusion. "I-I've won."

The teenager dropped to his knees, hands slack at his sides, his senses swept by a profound sensation of awe that such a thing was possible let alone that he had done it - defeated Itachi Uchiha. The weather cleared, the winds, snows and sub-arctic freeze Haku had brought through the power of his kekkei-genkai faded as he released his grip. A shudder passed through him though it was not from the cold; he'd used an awful lot of his chakra and clung perilously close to the zero-point. Of all the things he'd ever done in his life, this was the most incredible. At the age of only fifteen, to kill a ninja-legend and S-class criminal feared even by the strongest shinobi, who had slaughtered his entire, storied clan and gone on to wreak untold terror. It was a feat that would make Haku a legend in his own right, his name reverberating throughout history for ages to come…

"No," Haku muttered to himself then blinked, "no, no it…it is impossible."

Almost in time with his realization, the ice above where Itachi had vanished began to crack. As Haku stood there, hairline lightning bolt fissures leaped outward then widened explosively into inky chasms. The darkness within them boiled – a seething, twitching mass of hooked claws, razor beaks and struggling wings. A sea of Sharingan eyes flashed from the void an instant before it vomited up a black geyser of ravens whose guttural shrieks shattered the cloud-clotted sky. Defeated, with no choice any longer but to accept it, the young ninja swallowed then staggered back with his arms clutched about his face, helpless now as torrents of raptors flew at him, wings tearing at the air, beaks gnashing, red eyes glittering in ecstasy of expected carnage.

Naruto

The terrible shock of impact surged through the little genin's body in a sickening wave that rattled his bones and turned his insides to jelly. Only by pulsing his chakra, releasing it just at the right moment like he'd been trained, had the boy saved himself from crippling injury. Naruto stiffened in pain, eyes pinched shut, mouth open in a gasp as he seemed to hover sideways for a moment before he went crashing to the pavement. Spall from the wall he'd struck, crumbled bits of mortar and weather-worn brick rattled over his back and shoulders. The dazed boy fought to stand but his battered body seized and he slumped backward into a heap.

Even through his wavering vision, Naruto could make out Kisame's black-robed shape as it stalked slowly toward him, patient and relentless as the tide.

"Can this really be the nine-tails jinchuuriki?" the blue-skinned figure goaded in a mocking tone. "All that power and yet no one's taught you how to use it."

Naruto panted for breath. Thus far nothing he'd done had worked – none of his tricks, none of his hard-learned jutsu. None of it had had even the slightest effect. It was as if everything he'd struggled through, all his fights, all his training had been for nothing – nothing! The Akatsuki was right to mock him.

"I'm going to take you, you know," Kisame declared, "rip you right out of that shell."

The boy goggled at the strange remark which the giant ninja quickly clarified: "not you…YOU inside! Kyuubi! Unless you stop me. CAN you stop me? You'd better try because I won't give you much longer."

Beaten and battered, Naruto blinked and gathered his breath. He could feel the presence of the demon-fox inside him bridle at the challenge, rise to the man's contempt from behind the bars of jutsu that contained it. As before against Rahaman and Orochimaru, against Sasuke, against Haku, the power of the Kyuubi's savage chakra welled within him then spilled out in an uncontrollable cascade. The teenager's eyes flared, the marks on his cheeks darkened and all around him a halo of angry energy flamed, behind him – two trailing tails of ghostly red light.

Kisame's cadaverous blue, shark-like face widened into a ghastly, triangular-toothed grin. "Hmm," he purred with delight then grunted sharply as Naruto, enflamed by the Nine-Tail's power, exploded into him and sent the big ninja flying. The possessed genin raced after Kisame on all fours, distance passing by in a blur of nearly inconceivable speed, then was again upon his prey – smashing with fists, tearing with clawed hands, his mind insensate, all but overwhelmed by the storm of the Demon-Fox's rage.

But even from his awkward, half-prone position, and covering his face with his arms against a torrent of blows, the jonin shoved Naruto off and came to one knee, repelled him again when the genin renewed the attack, then drew out that massive, bandage-wrapped sword from across his back…and he was laughing! Despite all the cuts and swellings inflicted upon him, the rents in his Akatsuki cloak, Kisame was laughing. None of the blows Naruto had landed had done any real damage. The demon-Naruto paused, the significance penetrating even through the red haze of his fury. His feral eyes narrowed, the chakra coursing through him took a measured pause – a breath to fuel an even greater conflagration.

Kisame grinned and shook his head. "It's not your fault, I suppose," he offered in what might have been real charity, "we came for you too soon. You're still only a boy. Given another six years of hard training, ten maybe, then you might have been something of a challenge."

From deep within him, in the oceanic reservoirs of chakra where the Nine-Tailed Fox lived, livid energy boiled and bubbled to overflowing as two more tails of energy joined the pair Naruto already had. A hideous, fanged snarl spread across his transformed face. All around him, pavement cracked from the gush of the Kyuubi's chakra.

The Akatsuki nodded. "I appreciate the effort but it's just not enough."

Naruto flew at the former mist-ninja, tails of chakra writhing and lashing like whips but Kisame slid aside and countered with a stroke of his sword. A single move; the boy collapsed like a kite abandoned by the wind.

That sword, he realized through the fog of his thoughts, had ripped away his strength, his chakra – his and the Nine-Tails'. Blue eyes wide with alarm, the leaf-ninja looked up at Kisame, at the sword in his hand that pulsed organically, crooning with the pleasure of gustation. The thing was alive!

The big ninja's backhand smashed the boy harder than he'd ever been hit before and sent him rolling limply over the Kirigakure pavement. In the next moment Kisame's fingers were around his throat, lifting him up high over the ground so that his body dangled, squeezing as if to pop his head from his body. "You alive, even if just barely, is all I need," said the former Legendary Swordsman of the Mist, "and you'll be easier to manage without those legs. You won't bleed to death though. I'll see to that."

The man's words struck a chord of panic. Breath gurgled in Naruto's nose and mouth, his heartbeat pounded in his head as he hung there helplessly.

With the one hand still clutched around the genin's neck, Kisame drew back his sword with the other…then stopped. Naruto froze, tearing eyes pinched shut as he readied himself for the blow to fall, for his severed legs to drop away out from under him but it didn't come. Instead, Samehada fell from the ninja's grasp as did Naruto himself.

For a long moment the boy sat on the paving stones and stared, breath rasping, as the motionless ninja towered over him. Something within Naruto urged movement and he tried to rise, stumbled, then at last staggered to his feet and backed away, almost tripping over Kisame's horrifying weapon. Naruto flinched as the thing bristled at him, then he ran.

Itachi

On the rooftop, in that first and last moment they'd ever met, Itachi looked the teenager over, speaking words he knew Haku could not hear. "How could you know that I have so many ways to lure my enemies into genjutsu other than by meeting their gaze? A gesture of my hands or even the subtle modulation of the tones of my voice can be enough for the inexperienced."

The former leaf-ANBU walked forward calmly, boots crunching roof gravel, black cloak waving gently while Haku stood there motionless atop the parapet, not seeing, not hearing, his mind trapped in the world of Itachi's illusions, silent and still, staring without comprehension as the Uchiha drew his sword – a straight arm-and-a-half length of razor-edged steel.

"Such a shame," the ninja went on, changed his grip with a fluid movement of his wrist, raised his blade then gave Haku's porcelain-pale cheek a delicate stroke with the edge. "You really are beautiful, a treasure, the last of your kind too…just like me or nearly. But, as two of my fine colleagues would attest, that which is beautiful does not always last. Even that which endures has no guarantee."

With a single, sinuous uncoiling of his arm, Itachi slashed. The blade passed through Haku's unguarded neck quiet as a whisper, not even slowing as it parted flesh and bone. The boy's longish hair was the first to fall away, carried and scattered like dandelion seeds by the wind. The head held on just a moment before it toppled from Haku's shoulders and tumbled down to the streets below.

That done, Itachi drew then released a breath, made to sheath his sword but hesitated sensing something amiss. The body - that was it. It hadn't fallen. It stood there still, headless on the parapet. The Akatsuki turned and cocked his head curiously as the severed stump of Haku's neck began to spout not blood…but fish! A few tiny minnows, small, silver and darting, dribbled forth at first but then durgons, angels, drums, tangs, boxfish, cuttlefish, eels, octopi, sharks, whales and all the creatures of the deep followed, erupting from the wound like something from a bizarre and primitive creation myth.

Truly startled now, Itachi raised an eyebrow and took a faltering step back. "Could it be…?"

Beneath his feet was not the gravel roof ballast it had been a moment before but the ocean's silted bottom. The sky above was not the leaden mantle of clouds over Kirigakure but the flickering surface of waves many fathoms above, hopelessly distant. A cold current took Itachi, sweeping him aloft and away past coral castles, vistas of unknown oceans and ancient, undersea trenches yawning black, his path crisscrossed by schools of fish and drifts of seaweed. The ninja's mouth pursed, wriggled then opened wide in a gushing paroxysm of bubbles as he laughed.

For the life of him, he could not recall the last time HE'D been trapped in a genjutsu!

Haku

Without warning, Haku's world shifted. The demonic birds were gone as was the snow-buried, iced-crusted Canal of Sighs. He made to lower his arms but they were already at his side. Before him, barely a step away stood Itachi Uchiha – the devil incarnate.

The teenager froze, mouth hanging open as he stared into the infamous man's motionless face, his unearthly, singular gaze. Haku flinched on instinct and found himself teetering for he was standing on a narrow parapet atop a building four stories over the street, still soaking wet from Kisame's jutsu. Nothing that had happened since he'd last stood here had been real. Haku wobbled, arms flailing before he shifted his weight, bent at the knees and finally recovered his balance. The young ninja's cloud-grey eyes flashed back towards Itachi but the Akatsuki had not moved.

Haku stared, breathless, with one hand clutched at his chest. Cautiously, he hopped down to the roof, paced back and forth but even this evoked no reaction. Only then did he remember Okino the Manatee's vow to help him.

An illusion? The young shinobi marveled at the idea. Could his powers really be that strong?

Haku's face set with resolve as he reached into his quivers and drew out three senbon, one gripped between each of the fingers of his fist. With a single punch he could kill the all-but-last of the Uchiha for REAL this time. Haku swallowed hard, his face intent but found himself frozen in the moment. His hand was pulled back to deliver the blow he'd issued a hundred times before, tendons creaking under the strain, but still he hesitated.

Before him, Itachi's sightless Sharingan eyes blazed – a universe unto themselves, fire red with teardrops of black orbiting like planets. At this moment not even the residual memories of Kirigakure's greatest ninjas that resonated within Haku since he'd used Lord Hirai's jutsu had anything to offer.

The Uchiha twitched then, making Haku jump nearly out of his skin. Haku looked closer, entranced and mystified just as Itachi's head jerked suddenly and tilted. The Akatsuki's throat swelled. A pregnant bulge under his skin rose, stuck then fought its way up, up! And now there was something in the man's mouth; his cheeks bellowed. The Demon's Apprentice continued to stare in petrified fascination as Itachi's lips parted along a crooked seam and an ebon beak poked out, rasped a crow's throaty croak then wriggled as the great bird's body behind it thrashed to wrest itself free.

Horrified, overcome with an onset of pure, instinctive repulsion, Haku backed away wide-eyed, nearly tripped over the parapet wall just behind him then jumped down to the street and fled as quickly as his body and chakra would carry him.

Naruto

Alone, the young ninja limped through the empty city feeling haunted as well as hunted. He'd certainly been defeated before. He'd faced death before, been close to it a few times but never like that, never in so offhanded a way. And why - because the Akatsuki craved the power of the Kyuubi inside him. He had no illusions at all that the extraction would be delicate. It was the meat of the nut they wanted. As Kisame himself had intimated: they couldn't care less about the shell.

Naruto, not really paying attention to where he was going, just moving for the sake of moving, found himself at the gateway to another of the Mist Village's odd-shaped courtyards. He paused there, wondering what he should do now, where he should go and his thoughts turned to Haku. As much as he liked to believe in his friend's prowess, how slick he was sometimes, the genin couldn't put aside the idea that he'd be at least as overwhelmed by Itachi as he'd just been by the man's shark-like partner.

Naruto's jaw tightened even as a pang of frustration took hold. After the beating he'd just taken, a fight with Itachi and the agonies it promised, the defeat it promised were the last things he was ready for but it didn't matter. Haku was his friend. There was no way he would ever abandon him to a fate like that even if it meant sharing it.

No sooner then he'd completed the thought then Haku himself appeared as if conjured by it. The young ninja raced across the empty piazza, his breath hissing, footfalls conspicuously loud as he sacrificed stealth for speed.

"H-hey!" Naruto called out.

Zabuza's former student skidded to a stop, arms wheeling, then looked back at him in amazement. "Naruto?" he answered in disbelief, sank with obvious relief then hastened over, slowing as he got close enough to apprehend the genin's injuries. "What happ -?" he started then stopped. "Are you o -?" the taller boy began then stopped again and smiled faintly. "Sorry, I guess stupid questions aren't much help."

Naruto gave him an encouraging grin. Having never known parents or family or anyone who worried about him, he found it nicely reassuring. "I'm ok," he exaggerated. "Ok enough anyway."

Haku flashed a quick hand-seal then, rendering the two of them dry as a bone, clothing and all in a cool puff of evaporation, reminding Naruto that having a kekkei-genkai was often really, really useful. "I guess that Kisame suddenly stopped, caught by Master Okino's genjutsu just as Itachi was."

The leaf-ninja's blue eyes widened. "Is that what happened?"

Haku nodded. "I don't see any other explanation."

"And Itachi," Naruto probed. "Did you…I mean is he…?"

The ninja shook his head. "And Kisame?"

Naruto frowned, his answer evident. Really he was surprised that Haku had even asked. "Do you think I should have?"

Haku shrugged. "I don't know," he offered then said with a clever look: "I know what my master Zabuza would have done. I'm sure you know better than I do what Kakashi-sensei or Master Jiraiya would have done."

"I didn't stand a chance against Kisame." It was not an easy admission to make. After all his training, some considerable victories Naruto had thought he'd come farther.

The taller ninja glanced at him thoughtfully. "Naruto, there will always be someone stronger than you," he said. "It doesn't mean as much as you think it does. There's a lot to be said for doing the best you can with what you have, for rising -," Haku paused reflectively, his gaze wandering for a moment, "for rising to what challenges come your way."

The genin nodded, not wholly convinced but certainly appreciative of the effort.

"Look at it this way," Haku tried again, "Kisame is stronger than you and you didn't kill him when you had the chance. But, really, since when do YOU do anything the way most ninjas do. Do you feel it makes you any less qualified to be Hokage?"

Naruto looked back at him, grinned and shook his head.

Mei

Sitting on the stone-dressed steps of the monument to Midori Hirai, the First Mizukage, Mei looked out over the aftermath. As battles went it could have been far worse. Her shinobi had pretty well crushed Kurage and his gang of traitors for these, clearly, had not been Zabuza's 'cream of the crop'. Nevertheless, they had still done their damage. Across the piazza, the dead had been laid out in neat rows, bodies covered with white sheets, soon to be dutifully cataloged. The wounded were being tended to, some by Kirigakure's nascent medical corps but mostly by each other or themselves with field medicine. Over her objections both Aya and Ao tended to her, with Aya looking after the especially vicious chakra barbs Kurage had struck her with and Ao the more mundane injuries.

Yashako's growling voice caught her attention and Mei looked over to where the swordswoman was directing some activity or other. The jonin had arrived out of nowhere during the battle and routed two full squads of the former Zabuza-loyalists just by herself. The kunoichi really was a demon and Mei was relieved by her presence and tacit support. As a woman aspiring to a leadership role she'd often envied her male counterparts – there was never a shortage of other men who'd line up in droves to follow a strong leader. Women always seemed to be harder to sell. Having this Legendary Swordsman of the Mist in her camp would do a lot to solidify her position.

Mei's emerald eyes lifted then at the murmur of commotion and she rose to her feet, brushing aside the protests of her adjutant, Captain Ao, and Aya. At the center of it all were two small figures. The shock of bright yellow hair identified one as Naruto immediately even at this distance. He walked alongside a very lithe and pretty dark-haired companion, whether a boy or girl it was hard to say, and they were making straight toward her.

Chojuro, injured though he was, sore and tired, flinched with alarm, pushed himself up, reclaimed his monstrous weapon and was at once a one-man wall of razor-edged steel. Though the blue-haired boy had much to learn and many woeful shortcomings, he'd never wavered once in his first battle. He didn't look much like an aspiring ninja. He didn't have the skills but he surely had the spirit. Surely the rest would come in time.

Mei watched as her shinobi attempted to edge closer to the two newcomers but were compelled to keep their distance by some unseen force. It was only after looking more closely that she saw the fractal patterns of frost crackle along the ground, the white of her ninjas' breaths that she realized that the pair was encompassed by a ring of bitter cold.

The two closed to within a few paces before the massing mist-shinobi constellate around the pair would permit them no closer. Weapons bristled toward the teenagers like grass bent by the wind. From mid-way up the steps of the monument, Mei rose to meet them. Yashako, who'd been watching bemusedly as they came, strolled over to stand beside her with arms crossed. Together they could not have posed a more striking contrast: Mei, tall, fair and angelic yet with a fierce, defiant mien; and Yashako, sinewy, razor-toothed, dark skin emblazoned with the whorl tattoo designs of her distant island home. The swordswoman's two ghost-head blades were close at hand and still stained from her recent fight but her eyes glittered with golden amusement.

"Hello again, Lady Terumi," offered Naruto's companion. Mei recognized his cool contralto at once though by this time she hardly had to guess.

Yashako's casual grin widened as she began to snicker. "Well!" she crowed with a full-on belly-laugh, "ain't this a shit in the punch bowl!"

Mei gave her subordinate a quick, remonstrating look before returning it to the two arrivals. "I thought you seemed familiar even without your mask, Haku. And I assume it IS Haku this time and not just more clones," she said, casting an accusing glance at Naruto who shied and rubbed the back of his brushy, yellow-haired head. The poor blond was a wreck who looked fresh from a fight that had not gone well for him.

"Sorry about that," Naruto offered in awkward but absolute earnest. "Heh."

Haku nodded soberly, answering: "It's the real me this time." The mention of his name had sent a ripple of reaction through Mei's ranks that ranged from awe through the most abject hatred.

Zabuza had taken on a real beauty to be his disciple – jet black hair, alabaster skin and a delicate, feminine quality. Not that Zabuza had ever had any use for beauty, or that there was anything that beauty gave that the things Haku had done as the Demon's Apprentice didn't take away.

Mei's expression hardened as she remembered. "As you must know," she began tensely, "I've been looking all over for you. I have a few questions. I'm sure you understand."

Again Haku nodded and his apparent compliance was starting to make the kunoichi suspicious. "I have some answers," he supplied, "and more than that - a way, maybe, for this village to survive. All are yours but there's something you must do in return first."

Mei's emerald eyes narrowed. She hated tactics like this. Grumbles rose from her cordon of mist-ninja. "Pray tell me then."

"You have to come with us," Haku intoned as gravely, probably, as his voice was capable of, "right now."

The woman gawked then chuckled, her breaths tugging painfully at her fresh stitches. "As you see we've just gone through yet another fight, with YOUR former master's cohorts no less, and you expect me to simply surrender just because you ask?"

The thought occurred to her, briefly, that it wasn't that ludicrous a demand. She was wounded, her forces were weary from all their battles, fighting back the chaos without a break for days. Now here was a transformed Demon's Apprentice who'd killed Krishenay Rahaman along with scores of the 108 Demons, and with the Leaf Village's powerful Nine-Tails jinchuuriki at his side. A fight could be a real problem though that didn't seem to be what they'd come for, judging just from their expressions and body language. Naruto especially seemed a bit hangdog and beat-up.

"You're not surrendering," Naruto explained a touch desperately. "We just need you to talk to some people. It has to be you and it has to be now."

Mei looked at them again askance, bewildered that they would even ask something as blatantly cavalier as that. Captain Ao straightened. Chojuro tensed and shifted his massive double-sword.

"Oh, C'MON lady!" blurted Naruto with raw frustration, "guys, are we really that scary?!"

Haku's expression froze for a second at his companion's outburst then softened. "Surely you wouldn't unleash your armies on the likes of us," he added, deliberately coquettish.

Mei smiled tightly at first at Naruto's pluck and even Haku's nerve and the apparent ridiculousness it underscored – two relative children surrounded by an entire regiment of ninja. At the same time they all knew very well how their appearances deceived. She didn't really think that Haku was mocking her and yet the more she thought about it, the angrier she got. The smile fell from her face and her lips peeled back: "Considering the mayhem, the nonstop waves of catastrophe and death that have befallen my village since you two arrived I would be well within my rights to do just that and no one, no one," she repeated for emphasis, "would question it."

Haku sucked in his lips and bowed his head in contrition.

The woman, seeming every bit like a vengeful goddess, indeed, feeling like one, let out a breath. "Naruto, you are, technically speaking, still an enemy ninja no matter what that document Lord Hirai gave you might indicate or however well-intended you seem.

"And you, Haku, despite your recent actions, were The Demon of the Hidden Mist's apprentice and that's more than a little bit hard for me to get past. For your crimes, you should have already been executed. Until a few days ago everyone thought you had been."

Mei stopped then, realizing she didn't know why she'd said all that. What was the point? Was she going to order these two killed, and if so, why – because she was afraid of them, because she was angry at what had befallen Kirigakure? There was no doubt in her mind that that's what Lord Oku, the Fifth Mizukage, would have done. But he was dead now. All he'd done in this last years of life had been ruled by paranoia and snap (what he'd termed 'decisive') judgments, his tenure marked by unswerving faith in the power of violence. None of it had saved him. Instead, he was dead and Kirigakure was on the verge of collapse.

"Ah, shit. For what it's worth," Yaskako added quite unexpectedly, tiredly, with a roll her head "my sensei says Haku's legit."

Mei's eyes darted. "Y-you talked to him…The Ma-?" She stopped herself. Those who'd served and sacrificed themselves for Kirigakure deserved honor, not derisive nicknames. "Okino?"

The kunoichi nodded. "Today…at his place."

Mei frowned. Something like a shape of things were beginning to form – Councilor Hirai with Haku and Naruto in one camp as unlikely allies, Lady Inoue in hers but could she really be guilty of all that Naruto had suggested? And now even the hermetic shinobi Okino had made an appearance from out of his self-imposed exile.

Baffling everyone, Mei turned quietly toward the statue of Midori Hirai behind her, climbed one step, climbed another then stopped. Her green-eyed gaze rested on the woman's heroic profile. "You knew her didn't you?" she asked without turning.

It took a moment for Haku to answer. "Ah, f-for just a short time," the teenager admitted, confirming her theory about the nature of his earlier power.

"What was she like?"

"She had all the complexities you would expect of the woman who became First Mizukage," Haku's words reached her. "She was able not only to convince the fractious clans of Water Country to come together to defeat the 108 Demons but to lend her what was most sacred to them – the spirits of their greatest ancestors! Many fear what lies ahead but she was a boundless optimist who saw a future of unlimited possibilities, progressing inevitably toward peace. Although she was not beyond resorting to coarser political tactics, Lady Hirai's particular genius was that she could get others to share her vision."

Mei stared at the stone figure awhile longer then turned around and made her way down to join the two outsiders – the Demon's Apprentice and the Leaf's jinchuuriki.

Captain Ao looked twice at her expression and paled. "Miss Terumi, you're not actually considering their ridiculous demand!"

"I am," she answered then gave a mock, vampish smile. "On second thought," Mei quipped, "how can I refuse? After all, I've never been asked out by a pair of such handsome young gentlemen before let alone at the same time." She appraised the two of them then turned to Ao meaningfully. "A blonde and a brunette no less. I'll have to write about this in my diary."

Suppressed rumbles of shock and objection rose up around her and even Naruto and Haku exchanged an uncertain look as the mood shifted. Ao quivered tensely as if considering physically restraining her. Chojuro lowered his weapon and stepped aside but begrudgingly and only at the last moment.

"Here now," the kunoichi remonstrated, "enough of this ridiculous carrying-on; it's embarrassing. I'll be back soon enough and will expect that you'll have things back in good order by then. Ao," Mei snapped, "you're in charge. Yashako, you're his second. Chojuro," the boy looked up sharply, rapt with attention, "assist them as best you can. Everything you learn today serves our village tomorrow."

The blue-haired boy gulped, wide-eyed at her pronouncement then returned a crisp bow.

"None of you are to follow, understand? I will take care of this myself."

Mei joined the two ninja, stepping right between them. "Naruto," the woman greeted in a measured voice, "I've no hard feelings about before. Haku," she turned to the taller of the two, "I meant what I said earlier but don't think that you're the author of all this. And since you're plenty smart when it comes to smart remarks I think you're also smart enough to realize that if this is a swerve, well, I don't really have to finish my threat do I?"

Haku met her gaze briefly, almost spoke but instead only nodded that he understood then raised a hand to the center of his chest and formed a seal. A gust of freezing wind and sleet swirled around the three, and when it had dissipated only a thin, wide circle of frost remained.

This concludes story arc Hide and Go Seek. Please tune in, or rather stay subscribed, for the next arc as yet untitled.