Chapter 18 Misty Days
The next day the journey to Wave remained relatively uneventful until they reached the sea. The sea was covered in mist and Minato could barely make out anything up ahead.
The group met with one of Tazuna' s associates at the shore who rowed them across the sea to wave. The boat ride over to Wave was relatively quiet. The rower repeatedly emphasized the importance of being silent due to the danger Gato posed.
A giant partially constructed bridge loomed out of the mist.
Kiba gasped, "Woahhh! Its huge!"
The entire boat shushed him simultaneously and he clapped his hands over his mouth awkwardly.
Soon enough the boat came close enough to land so that the riders could begin to make out the Land of Waves. There were large arches that surrounded the islands and separated them from the sea.
The boat passed through a long tunnel. The mist cleared on the other side of the tunnel. A bright blue sky was revealed along with a beautiful village amongst mangroves. But taking a closer look at the village revealed that many of the buildings were run down and falling into disrepair.
"This is as far as I go. Take care of yourself Tazuna." The rower told Tazuna as he started the boat engine.
"Thanks. For taking such a risk. I shouldn't have asked you to do it." Tazuna replied.
The man merely nodded and turned his boat away, sailing off towards his own home.
Tazuna turned back to the Shinobi, "Ok! Now, if I can just make it home in one piece…"
"Hai, hai." Said Kakashi. Though Kakashi knew that there would most likely be another attack on Tazuna. It would most likely be the Demon of the Mist as well…
He signaled to his team to be on high alert and for Naruto to use his chakra sensing as much as he could.
Naruto nodded at him, taking up a position at the front of the group to act as an early warning system.
The group traveled for an hour in silence, the tension slowly growing as they got closer to their destination. It was when they reached an area near the sea that something happened.
Without a warning Naruto suddenly threw a shuriken into the bushes to his right. The whole group tensed and prepared for combat.
Kakashi charged into the underbrush and discovered a frozen white rabbit waiting for him.
'This rabbit… It's the wrong color for the season. A decoy kept as a pet?' Kakashi thought.
Kakashi quickly turned, "Get down!" he yelled at the group.
They all hit the ground, Sasuke tackled Tazuna down along with him.
A huge cleaver spun over their heads and embedded itself into a nearby tree.
Suddenly a Shinobi appeared standing on the handle of the giant zanbato, back facing Kakashi and the genin. He was shirtless and was wearing pinstripe pants with camouflage arm and leg warmers. His lower face was wrapped in bandages and his hitai-ate was tied on crookedly.
'Ah… I guessed correctly' Thought Kakashi with a sweat drop.
"Well if it isn't Momochi Zabuza, the Nuke-nin from Kirigakure." He said, casually sticking his hands in his pockets.
Minato found it interesting that his hitai-ate wasn't slashed through like that of a typical nuke-nin.
Kiba bared his teeth and prepared to charge at the man, only to be stopped by Kakashi's outstretched arm.
"Don't interfere, he's on a different level from our previous opponents." Kakashi said, not taking his eyes off Zabuza for a moment. "This may be a little rough…" Kakashi lifted his hitai-ate, revealing a red eye surrounded by three tomoe and a long vertical scar over his eye. "Use the Manji battle formation you guys. Protect Tazuna-san. Stay out of this fight."
The genin were unsurprised by the reveal. Pressured by Kiba's unrelenting curiosity and Naruto's gentle nudging, Kakashi had already revealed the eye to them during training. Kakashi had awkwardly explained to Sasuke that he'd received it as a sort of last will from a teammate and that he wasn't part Uchiha. He'd equally as awkwardly explained that he hadn't fully mastered it.
Zabuza smirked under his face wrappings. "Heh. The Sharingan already? One of the greatest doujutsu, capable of seeing through an opponent's ninjutsu. I'm honored, Kakashi. When I was in Kiri's ANBU our bingo book possessed quite the entry on you. " Zabuza turned to fully face Kakashi. "There was an impressive record of yours as well… The man who has copied over a thousand different ninjutsu… Copy nin Kakashi."
Kakashi lowered his head in acknowledgement, attention fully on Zabuza.
"Well as pleasant this conversation has been. The time for talk is over. I'm on a tight schedule to kill the old man over there." Zabuza drawled.
Tazuna gulped nervously while Kiba, Sasuke, and Naruto surrounded him quickly.
Kakashi took his hands out of his pockets, readying himself.
"Well Kakashi. Looks like I'll have to kill you first." Zabuza said. He then leapt off his zanbato and dislodged it from the tree, landing on the water. He took up a pose with his left arm outstretched above his head in a half ram seal. Zabuza then quickly vanished into the mist.
"He's gone!" Kiba shouted.
The mist dramatically thickened around the group. Minato discovered that his sensing abilities became extremely limited within the mist. He could only sense a small radius around himself. The air was so saturated with chakra Minato couldn't accurately sense where Zabuza was.
"He will come after me first. Zabuza is a master of the art of silent killing. Don't let your guard down!" Kakashi said sternly as the mist hid him from sight.
Zabuza' s voice drifted out of the mist from all directions, "There are eight targets."
"W-what?" Asked Kiba, Akamaru whined from within his coat.
"Throat, spine, lungs, liver, jugular vein, subclavian artery, kidney, heart. So many choices. What vital place shall I choose?" Zabuza laughed, exerting his killing intent upon the group.
Sasuke shook in place, reminded of a terrible night long ago. Kakashi subtly ran through a series of hand signs. He expelled a blast of calming chakra, revealing himself to the group again.
"Sasuke. Kiba. Calm down. Even if he gets me, I'll still protect you." Kakashi turned to direct a reassuring smile at them. "I will never let my comrades die!" Minato smiled, his old student had really come a long way.
"I wouldn't bet on that."
Minato turned inwards to the group just as Zabuza appeared in the middle of the Manji formation.
"Game over." Zabuza said.
But before he could react he was stabbed in the chest by Naruto.
Minato watched as Zabuza bled water instead of blood and leapt away from the water clone. A second Zabuza appeared behind him. Naruto ducked as Zabuza slashed at him with his cleaver. Kakashi instantly charged at Zabuza and stabbed at him with a kunai. Zabuza blocked with his sword and jumped backwards. Into a second Kakashi. Who held a kunai to his neck.
"Game over." Said Kakashi.
Zabuza laughed mockingly, "It will take more than mimicking me like an ape to defeat me. A lot more."
The Zabuza that Kakashi held a kunai to dissolved into water and another Zabuza appeared behind Kakashi. He swung at Kakashi with a large horizontal sweep. Kakashi ducked low underneath the swing like Naruto, but Zabuza embedded his sword into the ground and used it as a pivot point to deliver a devastating kick to Kakashi. Sending Kakashi flying into the sea. Just as Zabuza was about to chase after Kakashi he was stopped in his tracks by what he saw on the ground.
"Heh. Caltrops? What foolishness!" Zabuza vanished in a shunshin and reappeared on the water's surface behind Kakashi.
"Hah! Gullible fool!" He weaved several hand signs and the water around Kakashi rose up and trapped him in a large water bubble. "Heh. His jutsu is inescapable once you're trapped." Zabuza gloated. "You running around makes it too hard for me to do my job. I'll finish you once I've dealt with all the others." With those words Zabuza formed another water clone that charged at the genin the instant it appeared.
"You brats don't deserve to be called Shinobi!" The clone roared as it ran towards the genin.
It elbowed Kiba out of the way roughly and lashed out in a spinning kick at Sasuke, leaving Naruto as the only barrier between him and Tazuna.
Naruto swiftly pulled out a paper tag, flashed through hand signs and slammed his hand on the ground. A bright blue barrier sprung up, surrounding him and Tazuna and blocking the swing of Zabuza's cleaver. The Zabuza clone pulled back as his sword bounced off the barrier, he reassessed the situation. He was surrounded on both sides by genin with a seemingly impenetrable wall in front of him.
The Zabuza clone paused and broke out into laughter. "Hahaha! Quite the genin you have here, Kakashi!"
"Run away! Don't stay and fight! This was over the moment I got captured! Zabuza can't move from here and he'll lose control of the clone if it gets far enough! Save Tazuna-san!"Kakashi yelled at the genin.
The genin traded looks with each other. They shot a glance at Tazuna who was safe behind the barrier. The man smiled.
"I got us into this mess by lying… It would be a shame if you kids died to save me. You go ahead and fight with everything you got!" He said.
They grinned wildly and faced the clone again. Sasuke and Kiba took up fighting stances while Naruto drew symbols and reinforced the barrier surrounding himself and Tazuna.
"What are you doing!? Run!" Kakashi shouted desperately.
Kiba smirked back at Kakashi, "Just who was it that told us abandoning your friends made you worse than trash?"
"Heh. Apparently you kids don't care if you live any longer. Playing at ninja like its a game!" Zabuza brandished his sword wildly "By the time I was your age. I had already dyed these hands in blood!"
"So? what does that matter?" Kiba brashly yelled out.
"Heh. Do you know how I got the name Demon of the mist?"
"The Kiri graduation test…" Kakashi's quiet murmur was caught by Zabuza.
"So you've heard. Of the killing spree between classmates. Such good times… " Zabuza smiled, his eyes upturned in delight.
He then leveled the full force of his killing intent back upon the young genin. Imposing visions of death upon them.
The water clone ran forwards and assaulted the barrier with all its might. Bringing the great sword down in a vertical slash that crashed against the barrier with a clang.
Kiba darted forwards as Sasuke covered him with a barrage of shuriken. Kiba skidded under Zabuza clone's legs and quickly pivoted. He spun into a Gatsuga and aimed straight for its back. Kiba collided with the clone as a storm of claws and sent the clone barreling straight into Sasuke's shuriken. The clone scattered into water droplets slapping the barrier.
"Hmph not bad." Zabuza grunted, "But how's this?" Two more water clones formed at the edge of the water and dashed at a recovering Kiba. Naruto quickly stepped out of his barrier and charged forwards to tackle Kiba out of the way of two crushing vertical swings. He quickly formed a shadow clone that raced off to confront the left water clone and shouted at Kiba and Sasuke,
"You two! Save Kakashi! I'll take handle the clones!"
The other two nodded sharply and dashed around Zabuza's clones to confront the real Zabuza.
Sasuke pulled out a large fuma shuriken from his pack as he ran and unfolded it. He leapt high into the air and threw it, flashing through a few hand signs as he went.
"Aiming for my real body huh? Naive!" Zabuza caught the large shuriken but was surprised by a second shuriken hiding in the shadow of the first one. "Not enough!" Zabuza crowed, leaping over it.
He was blindsided when Kiba crashed into him from the left in another Gatsuga. Knocking him away from the water prison that held Kakashi.
Minato and his clone dispatched the water clones with swift stabs to the abdomen.
Kiba skidded on the water as Zabuza growled and made to throw the fuma shuriken in his hand at him.
Instead his arm was grabbed by a crushingly tight grip from a now freed Kakashi.
"You boys have grown well" Kakashi said glaring at Zabuza with his Sharingan eye. "The same jutsu wont work on me twice!"
The two Jounin jumped away from each other simultaneously. Zabuza began a long string of hand seals that Kakashi mirrored instantly. Both men flipped through signs until they ended on a 'Tori' sign. The sea churned as two gigantic dragons formed out of water rose up and crashed against each other. Water overflowed the banks. Flooding the area as Sasuke, Kiba, and Naruto channeled chakra into their feet to remain where they were. Tazuna remained perfectly dry in his little barrier.
The waves subsided, revealing Kakashi clashing with Zabuza's large zanbato with a tiny kunai knife. Zabuza was pressing down on his sword with both hands but was still held off by Kakashi's chakra reinforced kunai.
The men dashed around in a circle and took up mirroring poses with left arm outstretched to the sky.
Zabuza's brows furrowed, he lowered his arm which was copied by Kakashi.
Kakashi then spoke, making no sense to Kiba and Sauske, "...Through them all!"
Zabuza's eyes widened as he put his hands together in a sign.
"...Got that sickeningly evil look in his eye… Right?" Kakshi continued.
"You're a pale imitation." Zabuza said, shaken.
"I'm the genuine article. No mere copycat stands a chance against me!" Both men said at the same time.
Suddenly Zabuza paused in his hand signs, there was a faint figure forming behind Kakashi. It was? Himself?
'Impossible! Is this one of his genjutsu?' Zabuza thought.
But by the time he had come back to himself, it was too late.
Kakashi had completed the set of hand seals that Zabuza hesitated on.
A huge burst of water crashed into Zabuza sending him flying. The large tsunami like wave carried Zabuza away and sent him crashing into a thick tree. Kakashi threw a set of kunai that thudded into Zabuza's arms and legs, pinning him to the tree.
Kakashi landed on the branches above Zabuza and said, "That's that."
Zabuza glared at him from the corner of his eye, "What… Can you see the future?"
Kakashi raised a kunai menacingly, "I foresee… Your death…"
But before Kakashi could act two senbon thudded into Zabuza's neck. Sending him crashing to the forest floor.
"What!?" Kiba yelled in shock. Minato remained silent as he studied the newcomer who had just thrown the senbon. So this was the presence that he had sensed observing the fight. Minato hadn't bothered with them because he could feel no hostile intent from them until Zabuza crashed into the tree.
The newcomer was standing on a tree opposite to Kakashi. They wore a Kiri hunter nin mask and long pinstriped hakama pants with a black Haori tied with a white obi.
Kakashi shunshined next to Zabuza and inspected his body. He put two fingers to Zabuza's neck, feeling for his pulse.
"Hmm… he's dead…"
Kakashi looked at the hunter nin thoughtfully as he pulled away from Zabuza's body.
The hunter nin bowed, "Thank you for your help. I hope you don't mind my interfering. But I wanted the satisfaction of putting Zabuza out of his misery."
Kakashi tilted his head at the hunter nin, "The mask is familiar… Correct me if I'm wrong. But are you a hunter nin from Kirigakure?"
"Well aren't you a smart one!" The hunter nin said. "I am indeed from Kiri."
Kiba ran up to the base of the tree and yelled angrily , "Who do you think you are taking our prey like that? You may be a hunter nin but he was our opponent!"
"As I said before, I apologize, I wanted the satisfaction of the kill. I have been chasing this man for a very long time."
Minato closed his eyes and reached his senses out to Zabuza. He could still feel a very faint chakra impression from the body.
"Damn you!" Kiba yelled, he turned to Kakashi, "Are we really that weak? That guy just got taken down by a guy our age! What's with that?"
Kakashi walked up to Kiba and patted him on the head, "You have my sympathy. I can see how that would be hard to accept. This probably won't be the last time we run into someone who is younger than you and stronger than me though."
Kiba tched and looked to the side angrily as the hunter nin shunshined to Zabuza's side.
Minato waited calmly for the hunter nin to cut off the head and destroy the body.
"Your battle is over for now… The remains must be disposed of. Lest they give up secrets to our foes. I must be off." The hunter nin said, hefting the body over his shoulder.
"Wait!" Minato shouted.
"Hm?"
"I want to see you destroy the body right here."
"Aw, Naruto that's gross!" Said Kiba.
"I'm afraid that the disposal technique is a secret." The hunter nin said with a hint of worry.
Minato narrowed his eyes at the hunter nin. "Isn't it hunter nin protocol to destroy the body where it falls?"
The hunter nin said nothing. They simply vanished in a quick shunshin.
"Sensei."
"Aah. I know."
"What? Wait what just happened?" Asked Kiba.
"Zabuza is still alive." Naruto replied returning to Tazuna's side to release the barrier seal.
"What!?" Kiba shouted, Akamaru barked in confusion as well. "But Kakashi-sensei said he was dead!"
"Think about it, what weapons did that hunter nin use?" Kakashi asked.
Kiba and Akamaru both tilted their heads, "Senbon, why?"
"Dobe. It's hard to actually kill with senbon." Said Sasuke, crossing his arms.
"Indeed. Hunter nin are required to have an intimate knowledge of the human physiology. It would have been simple for one to place a person in a near death state." Kakashi said.
Kiba smiled wickedly at the thought of Zabuza being alive. That meant there was a chance for a rematch!
Kakashi pulled his hitai-ate back down, "Well, for now we still have to escort Tazuna-san back home. Let's get going!"
Kakshi took a step and then promptly collapsed face forward on the ground.
"Ah! Kakashi-sensei!" Kiba yelled.
Minato face palmed. This was exactly like Kakashi from long ago when he'd just received the eye. Kakashi would always finish missions by over exerting himself and then pass out right afterwards. Minato thought it had gotten better but evidently not.
"He's chakra exhausted, Kiba." Naruto said as he formed two shadow clones and made them carry Kakashi. "Lead on Tazuna-san, lets go to your house and we can camp nearby."
Tazuna laughed, "Ahh no need you can stay in my house, come on boys!"
"That was fun to watch, can you fight someone again in a few minutes?"
'Kurama. No.'
The fox grinned widely, "Aw, why not?"