Yo.

Without further ado, more chapters. More drama. More action. More THRIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLS.

Sorry about that.

Chapter 86: Held to That

"That blasted Kisame…" Pain bit down on his bottom lip as Naruto and Jiraiya exchanged confused looks. "He destroyed the form I sent to aid him…"

"He what?" Konan turned to her partner, seeming for the first time since her tiny break at Jiraiya's earlier outburst to be showing some emotion. "Why would he…"

"To egg on that boy that he's so obsessed with." He let out an angry growl as he turned back towards the two of them. "Well, Naruto Uzumaki, it seems you're in luck. One of my own agents has sabotaged my plan."

He wouldn't deny that he thought of that as a very good thing, but at the same time…

"I'm glad to hear it, but it wouldn't have mattered in the end." He shook his head, pointing right at Pain with a fire behind his eyes. "Even if you had somehow managed to hurt one of my friends, I wouldn't have given myself to the darkness as you did."

"Oh? Are you saying you would not have allowed the Nine-Tails' strength to roam free were I to have killed your friends? Hah, I must admit, I very much doubt that."

"Oh sure, I'd use the Nine-Tails' power, alright, hell, I may even succumb to that power for a while," He stared down at his own hand, feeling the power of his Indigo Sage Mode at his fingertips, the raw strength of nature, of balance, already almost enough to leave him intoxicated. "But in the end, there's no way I'd become like you. Drawn not to change the world, but to make it experience pain. I will change the world," He promised the man. "But not like you intend to."

Pain briefly stared right at him, as if contemplating the strength, the soul of his words. After a few more moments, he let out a low sneer, and his forms all converged back to him, the five of them taking an offensive formation.

"Fine, Naruto Uzumaki…"

"Prove it to me, then." He spoke as they charged.

"The strength of your will!"

/-/

"Sealed away?"

Tsunade nodded, handing her a small sheet of paper. Upon it was a diagram of a ring of black surrounding her curse mark, and then a further ring around that.

"I've been in talks with the Leaf's best sealmasters, and even Jiraiya when he wasn't too busy ogling the women at the Bathhouses." She sighed audibly. "That's the best they could come up with to contain it. It's a duel walled seal. Both a physical blocker, so that your curse mark can't unfurl unless you really want it to, and a mental blocker, so that you can't want your curse mark to unfurl. Theoretically, that'd make it impossible to open, and keep it sealed away."

She marveled at the construction of the twin seals as she gazed at the diagram there. With those two… she'd be able to go back to her normal life, wouldn't she? No fear of Orochimaru's schemes, even with the man dead as he was, no fear of succumbing to the darkness within her, or of even needing to be the next Wood Style adept.

Just… just Sakura.

She saw Tenzo's stern but focused lessons, Naruto and Sasuke holding out their fists, and her bumping them with her own…

Anko's smiling face…

She frowned.

"I…"

/-/

"Dynamiiiiiiiic… ENTRY!"

The Puppet Kazekage raised a massive pyramid made of black iron sand up to try and destroy Guy before his attack could come down, but luckily, the man was just the smallest bit faster. His foot collided with the structure, and sent it hurtling back down to earth, nearly crushing the Third Kazekage beneath its weight, were it not for Sasori's deft maneuvering.

"Keh!" Guy let out a breath of disappointment, before smirking, looking westward and shouting, "It's on you, Kakashi, Tenzo!"

An instant afterwards, two wooden beams shot up from the ground just below Sasori's form. They missed his body, but crucially, they struck the man's hands, knocking the both of them upwards, and causing him to, however briefly, lose control over his puppet.

At that same time, Kakashi moved in, a Chidori blazing in his right hand, which be brought around and stabbed directly into the heart of the Third Kazekage.

The wooden construct broke into tiny, splintered pieces as it was rent apart, and Sakura found herself wanting to cheer (although she was able to relent) as she saw the disgruntled look of annoyance upon Sasori's face as a piece of his puppet struck him.

"How utterly annoying."

It was at that very moment that Anko shouted for her to move, and she felt like that was probably a good idea, for she had very briefly forgotten she was, also, in a fight for her life against a member of the Akatsuki.

An explosion went off right where she'd just been standing, originating from a clay spider that'd been there a moment prior.

Correction; two members of the Akatsuki.

Orochimaru swung at Zaku with his blade, which she was pretty sure he called the 'Kusanagi' or something, and the boy ever-so-narrowly dodged it, shooting back at him with a scything wind Jutsu, which, instead of emerging from out of the wind-tunnels that he'd had removed, instead came from a Jutsu he himself had learned. She felt a small kernel of pride at that, even if she'd had nothing really to do with it.

"Oh, and where are the gifts I gave you, Zaku?" Orochimaru smirked. "I know you lost one of them, but the other wind-tunnel was still fully operational, was it not?"

"Oh, do me a favor and shut up!"

The voice had come from Kin, who threw a senbon with a bell on the end of it directly at Orochimaru's leg. It struck true, digging into a pressure point along his thigh, and sending a Genjutsu rattling straight into the man's bones. It pinned him to the spot, which gave Dosu ample time to gather chakra in his hands, and unleash his own powerful Jutsu, utilizing both his gauntlet and some natural wind chakra, which utterly eviscerated Orochimaru's body.

For a brief moment, Sakura thought that was it. The man had fallen, and he wouldn't be getting up. Of course, about a half a second later, his corpse shook, and from out of its mouth came a mucus-covered, but very much alive Orochimaru.

"My my." He smarmed, smirking the Sound Trio's way as the three backed away, biting their bottom lips, and clicking their tongues in annoyance. "You all have certainly improved. I might even say you're Jonin level at this point."

"Patronizing bastard…" Dosu spoke under his breath, turning towards her. "What's the matter, Sakura, why aren't you going all out?"

Her jaw locked as she tried to find any possible way of excusing this without being found out, but unfortunately for her, Orochimaru himself was not feeling so kind. "Oh? You didn't tell them? Truly?" He laughed. "My, how selfish of you. I must admit, I hadn't expected someone as 'righteous' as you to lie to their faces."

"I didn't lie!" She stressed, grinding her teeth together. "I just… hadn't gotten around to–"

"Hadn't gotten around to it?" He rasped, his pointed teeth showing as he spread his maw to continue speaking. "The fact that you're utterly devoid of power, that you possess quite literally nothing that can aid them in any way… you didn't feel like that was worth mentioning?"

Anko and the sound trio zeroed in on her, their gazes inquisitive, their stares burning a hole in her neck.

"I…"

"How do you think I came to be revived?" Orochimaru smarmed casually. "I was brought back by utilizing my own cells residing inside her curse mark. Combined with a clump of my flesh, I was able to come right back, good as new, easy as anything; well, at the cost of her curse mark, of course."

Anko looked directly at her, seemingly asking her without actually doing so if that were true. After a moment spent deliberating, she admitted it, nodding her head.

"Gods, Sakura…" Anko sighed. "You know you could've just told everyone, right? Would've saved us an awful long while wondering why you weren't trying in a fight for our lives."

She opened her mouth, about to try and defend herself and her decisions, but sealed it a second later. There was no reason to, after all. Her decision had been an entirely selfish one, borne of her own fear of… of…

It was ridiculous, so she decided not to think about it.

And so instead, she focused back in on Orochimaru, who was shaking his head with an evil sort of grin upon his lips.

"Shall we continue, then?" He asked. "If you've all gotten that prattling out of your systems."

She took a step forward in anger, but was immediately stopped as Kin's arm, which shot in front of her, blocked her from moving.

"Don't rise to his bait. We have a pretty delicate formation here. While the others fight Deidara and Sasori, we're the only line of defense holding this asshole back." She spoke, and Sakura found herself agreeing. "We don't need to get aggressive. Soon the others will finish fighting, and then our numbers here will swell. We can overwhelm him with force if we just take this slow."

She nodded to show she followed the plan, but as they retook formation, Orochimaru let out a cackling laugh, and cracked his neck with his left hand as he held out his Kusanagi blade with the other.

"You all seem to have forgotten something rather crucially important about me, my dears." The man said as he held up his left hand, making a rather simple 'Confrontation' seal. "That even without my Jutsu at my disposal, I am still one of the Sannin."

She wondered just what it was he was doing as he clearly channeled chakra into his hand, activating something.

And then a second later, a knife raked down her back.

Hot, red blood flowed down her back as she fell forward, instantly filled with more adrenaline than her body realistically knew what to do with, even if the wound, upon first impression, didn't seem particularly debilitating. She turned towards whomever had hit her, drawing a kunai from out of her back, and poised to throw it directly between the bastards eyes…

Or, well, that had been the plan until she saw Anko standing there, her body quaking madly as her curse mark snaked across her, holding a bloody knife in her left hand. Her eyes were horrendously wide, as if she'd just done something she'd never be able to forgive herself for; guilty of some unspeakable sin.

"Sa…kura…" She barely squeezed out through a locked jaw. "Get… away!"

And then a moment later she attacked her once more.

As she juked back and away from her master, evidently under the control of her curse mark, for there was simply no other reasonable explanation for her current actions than that, she rapidly flipped through ideas in her head as to how she should handle this. Killing Anko was immediately thrown into the furthest recesses of her skull, and promptly set on fire, as was injuring, or maiming her in any way. She would normally be able to wrap her up in the roots of the Wood Style, but…

Well, that was out as well.

"What the hell!?" She heard Kin yell as he dodged another of Anko's strikes. "How are you… you're supposed to be without Jutsu!"

"This is far from a Jutsu, little girl." Orochimaru snickered, easily dodging Dosu and Zaku's attempts to strike him, and even managing to cut across Dosu's back with his Kusanagi sword, though the man barely managed to avoid a fatal strike. "This is an imbedded response, something I added back when I first gave her the Curse Mark. In much the same way that I can still utilize the Summoning Jutsu thanks to utilizing a summoning seal, despite lacking any other abilities, I can still control her utilizing her Curse Mark as the catalyst. Both are merely an application of chakra. Whether or not one can utilize Jutsu has no bearing on it."

He turned towards Sakura with a smile.

"I cannot control you, on account of you having had your Curse Mark taken from you, so alas, I cannot simply win this battle outright." He sighed, dodged another few volleys of Kin, Zaku, and Dosu's abilities, and continued. "Though, well, I suppose I should stop wasting time."

"Anko dearest…" He spoke, and Sakura's master's body stood ramrod still, hanging on his every word.

"Kill Sakura, would you?"

/-/

Haku's eyes peered open over the course of several seconds, but on account of him not particularly recognizing his surroundings, nor sensing any threat, he found no reason to be up and aware just yet.

He pushed himself off of the floor and found that said floor had an odd texture. Actually, that wasn't quite right. The floor had no texture.

He was trapped within an empty, blackened void. Surrounding him was an endless expanse, which stretched out in all directions, seeming to span infinitely, forevermore.

"Where… am I?"

"Within your own head, most likely." A voice called out, one that shot shivers down his spine, for he recognized it instantly. "A cross between a vision and a dream."

Haku turned, looked behind him, and saw in an instant exactly who was stood before him. Clad not in the attire he'd last seen the man in, an Akatsuki cloak with black rods running through his skin, but in his old mist uniform…

Zabuza smiled at him in an oddly peaceful way.

"Za…buza…?" His voice trickled out of him slowly at first, before, with a pained cry, he closed the distance between the two of them, wrapping his arms around his old master. "It's… it's you! You're…" His enthusiasm faded as quickly as it'd arrived. "You're…"

The man smiled sadly as Haku drew away from him, and he took a few seconds to understand just what it was that was happening.

"You're still dead… aren't you?"

The man nodded solemnly.

"This… this is all just a fantasy spun up by my head… isn't it?"

Once more, his old master's head bobbed up and down.

"I… the last thing I can remember was fighting Kisame… and…" He struggled to remember the last thing that'd happened. "He flung that shark-like ball of chakra at me… and caved in the corridor around the both of us." His eyes widened as a possibility hit him. "Wait… am I…?"

"Dead?" The word passed by Zabuza's lips and briefly sent chills traveling throughout his body. "No. You're very much alive. Close to dead, perhaps, but not quite there. Not yet."

He sighed in relief at that, pushing against the ground and standing up, taking a look around. Once more, he couldn't see anything through the blackened expanse, and, realistically, there was nothing to see.

This was merely a piece of his mind. There was nothing to be found here at all.

"So… how do I go back?"

"Good question." Zabuza laughed, scratching the back of his head. "I'd say when you've finished what you have to do, you'll wake up."

"I'm asleep?"

"More like unconscious." The man corrected his line of thinking. "Like I said, close to dead. You're… in the real world, I'll readily admit you're not doing too hot. You fell a mighty long way, and took a mighty hard hit, after all."

That explained some of the pain that was wracking his body, even in his head.

"I don't have time to spend talking to my own head." Haku shook his head, sighing dramatically as he turned away from the fake Zabuza. "Just let me go. I have to finish this fight, I have to kill Kisame. or–"

"Or what?"

Admittedly, he had no idea. He felt like… like he'd known why not too long ago, but–

He saw Kisame striking down his father's body, saw it lying in a bloody heap in front of him, and saw red. He reached for a sword that wasn't there, swung at a bastard who wasn't there, and heard a sigh signal out from behind him.

"Think for a moment, Haku. You've let yourself get riled up again." Zabuza sighed. "I think that's probably my fault, admittedly. I was always too quick to anger, and I think you probably picked that up from me."

He turned back around to the man standing behind him, shooting the… the illusion an odd expression. "What are you…"

"What did you say you were fighting for, Haku?" Zabuza asked him. "Was it to kill Kisame? Was it to attack him, wound him, as he did me?" The man walked towards him, staring right at him. "Is that why you're fighting him?"

He… no… that wasn't…

He saw Ino's smiling face as she laughed at some asinine thing he'd said. He saw Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. The people's of Root, Ra, Torune, Fu, and Sai. He saw…

He saw Zabuza, looking down at him with pride after he'd first learned to master his ice mirror's.

"Remember what you're fighting for, Haku." Zabuza spoke, placing a hand on his shoulder, and smiling up at him. "You're fighting for peace for those you love. Not in anger, not in hate, but because the man in front of you has given you no other choice. Because if he's not stopped, then he will kill everyone you love just to goad you into facing him."

He… Haku hadn't…

"I…" He spoke aloud, shaking his head. He remembered back to his first real words to the man, when their fight had begun, He remembered seeing the man's face light up when he'd first drawn his sword…

And he'd remembered how it'd dimmed the moment he'd spoken his reasoning for fighting. That he needed to protect those close to him. He'd laughed… he'd laughed, but…

But it had come across, even to Haku, as such a forced thing.

But when Kisame had struck down Zabuza's corpse… when he'd lunged at him with fire in his breast, and rage in his heart…

Kisame's smirk had only grown wider; more excited.

He found his own jaw grinding down as he momentarily lost himself in the rage of that feeling, but Zabuza's hand on his shoulder, lightly squeezing down, as if subtly reminding him he was there, was enough to have him looking back up.

"I… I made a mistake, didn't I?"

"There's no shame in making a mistake, brat," Zabuza spoke, as he reached behind his back, and drew from off of it his Executioner's Blade; Kubikiribōchō, which Haku was positive had not been there a moment ago. "What matters is being able to make up for it."

His master held the impossibly large sword just in front of him in a reverse grip, so that the sword floated below them in the nothingness of space, and the handle within his palm was held aloft in front of him, right in range for Haku, too, to take ahold of it.

"I regret that I never got to pass this onto you in life," Zabuza smirked. "I'd like to make up for that now. It's yours, brat." The man snorted to himself. "It's been yours for quite a while, really, but I hope this lets it be official, at least."

For some reason, as he reached across and gripped the blade's handle himself, it felt somehow… heavier. It was a lot like when he'd first wielded it, completely untrained, unused to the raw weight of its form. Now… now that feeling should've faded, but instead…

Instead, it hung about his muscles, the weight of gravity itself pressing down upon his back. Even still, he hefted the blade, and slotted it along his back, just like Zabuza had before him.

"Remember, brat, Kisame's strong, but he's just strong." Zabuza explained to him, even as the expression on his own face grew gloomier. "He has nothing on the power you wield right now, he could never understand what makes you strong, so…" His master looked him in the eye, and, after a moment, merely laughed. "Hah… who am I kidding, you already know all of this without me telling you, don't you?"

Haku tried his best for a smile, but he feared the tears running down his face ruined the look a little.

"Somehow… even now… You're always there for me when I need it. Even when you're…"

Zabuza gave a melancholic chuckle.

He shook his head, trying to keep from falling apart. He'd be no use in the battle to come, in the end of all of this, if he was a crying mess.

That could be left for later.

"Right. I guess… I should be going, huh?" He laughed as, just as he said those words, a shining door appeared just behind Zabuza, hovering there. "Ah… that must… be my cue, huh?"

"Looks like it."

They hovered there in that empty space for a moment, before Haku's legs seemed to realize that if they didn't do something soon, nothing would ever happen. He took a solitary step forward, and then another…

Right into the arms of Zabuza.

"Wha…" The man initially recoiled away from his touch, but Haku wouldn't let him go. Not yet.

He had something he needed to say.

"I never got to say goodbye before." He spoke, laughing a bit sadly. "Even if you're not really Zabuza… even if you're just a figment of my imagination, then… I don't think it matters." He looked up at the man before him, who had, for better or worse, looked after him for most of his life, and spoke the last words he likely ever would to him. "Thank you for everything…"

"Dad."

Zabuza's eyes were as wide as saucers. They stayed like that for a second, and then another, before his expression softened, and he turned his head away from Haku's gaze.

"Hah…" He seemed to be trying to show a strong front, but his voice was uneven and coarse.

Haku didn't call him on it.

"Where do you get off sayin' somethin' like that, huh?" The man gave another laugh, though this time, he heard the crack in it, heard as he broke slightly, and turned to face him with eyes filled with tears.

"Haku… I've nothing left to say to you that I haven't already." The man spoke, reaching across and squeezing down on him, before letting go, and giving him a light push towards the golden gates. "You were the best damned son I could've asked for. That has, and will always, remained true. Now go." The man smirked as he turned away, waving as be faded into the ether.

"There are still people on the other side waitin' on you."

He nodded, turning towards the golden gates, and stepped back into the world of the living.

/-/

He coughed up blood almost immediately upon waking up, which Haku considered pretty far from a good sign.

"Ah, sleeping beauty rises!"

He took a moment to, first of all, take a look around the room, trusting that if Kisame had been willing to wait for him to wake up without killing him, he'd likely hold off on doing so over the course of the next few seconds as well.

The space they were in was evidently a cavern far below the Akatsuki's main base, if the hole in the ceiling, which was easily the newest looking part of the space, was anything to go by. The cave itself seemed to be made of limestone; having been bored out over the course of millions of years by a river of some kind, which, apart from some dampness along the walls and the ceiling, seemed to have dried up some time ago.

He located his sword a second later, buried an inch or so in the rock off to his right. It seemed like Kisame had put it there just for him.

After completing his general observations, he turned towards the sound of Kisame's voice, and found the man perched atop a small boulder in the corner of the room, swinging his leg in a cocky manner.

"Why'd you wait for me to wake up?" He spoke, feeling like he already knew the answer, but also feeling like he could probably milk the man in front of him for a few more minutes of downtime before they fought if he started up a conversation.

"Cause there's no fun in stabbing some guy who's already knocked out." Kisame answered, confirming his suspicions. "I've been waiting to fight your ass for a long time, kid. I'm not gonna' waste it just 'cause you went and got all woozy."

He nodded. It was not a courtesy he'd have extended to Kisame, were their positions reversed, but he could certainly see why the man had done what he'd done, at least when he tried to see things from his perspective.

"And y'know what, I just realized you're totally stalling me to recover, aren't you?"

He said nothing. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the wrong answer, for Kisame sneered, shaking his head.

"Heh, every advantage possible, right kid? I can respect that." The man snorted, drawing Samehada from off of his back and pointing it right at Haku. "Well then, I do believe it's about time we finished this."

"I was just thinking the same thing." He spoke as he picked up the Executioner's Blade from just beside him and hefted it along with his right hand. "I will delay no longer; I will this farce here and now."

Kisame's smirk, which had previously seemed unbending, briefly warped, as if the man were bothered by something.

"Your tone's awful different." The man spoke as he hopped down from his vantage point atop the small boulder, landing on the damp cavern floor and kicking up the smallest droplets of water. "The hell happened to you?"

He smiled as he answered. "I simply received a reminder as to who I was; no, who I was supposed to be. I don't plan on faltering again."

Kisame studied him for a moment, seemingly trying to look for a chink in this new proverbial armor of his. Evidently, he found nothing, for all he could do was simply let out a quiet laugh, and charge in.

Their swords collided in the middle of the cave, sending off sparks from Kubikiribōchō, along with the man's own Samehada, as they skittered back and forth, occasionally contacting with the ground as the two massive blades did battle.

A rather inevitable fact began to make itself clearer as they continued to fight…

Kisame would win if things continued as they were.

The answer from Haku was obvious; he would simply not allow that.

He backflipped out of his next hit, buying him just the smallest bit of space; space that Kisame wasted no time in using to his own advantage, either. Even as Haku fired out two senbon, relics of his earlier days as a ninja that he didn't use as often anymore, that connected with two pressure points along Kisame's neck, the elder of the two of them simply powered through that loss of feeling, and fired off a powerful shark bomb.

It wasn't the same as the one before, as it merely exploded, and gained no energy as it traveled, but Haku still had problems dodging away from it, forced to take the brunt of the explosion along his left arm. Unfortunately, as slow as he was to recover, he was unable to fully avoid Kisame's blade from cutting across the gap between them, and sheering away at his left side. He pulled away, but not before he'd taken serious damage to his left side, including his left arm in its entirety, which hung limply at his side as he panted for breath, having barely eked out of his opponent's way.

"Hah… your left arm isn't working." Kisame pointed out rather obviously, before his grin took on a more serious air, and he let loose his next vitriolic words. "Just like that bastard Zabuza when I struck him down. Same exact injury, actually, Samehada to the left side of the back." The man grinned. "What are the odds, right?"

Haku didn't answer. He was too busy focusing chakra into his right arm, and backing up, towards the wall behind him. He would not allow the man to goad him into following his pace. Idly, as Kisame followed him, his foot kicked up some water on the ground, splashing the tiniest bit onto his foot as he raised his blade. He slammed it down into Kubikiribōchō, fracturing it along the slot carved into it. It held, but…

"Kind of a shitty place to die, don't ya think?" Kisame questioned him as he prodded his defenses with Samehada's tip, forcing him to barely parry with a one-handed strike from his own blade, which rattled dangerously, as he finally hit the wall behind him, quite literally backed into a corner. "Damp and dingy like this… Ah, well, I'm sure you'll get over it."

"Funny thing about these underground caverns…" He found a smile forming on his own face, and Kisame must've noticed it, for he seemed to try and dodge away as Haku pushed chakra into the wall beside him.

"What do you think hollowed them out?"

A moment later, a dozen or so spines of ice jutted out from the wall, each piercing a different section of Kisame's body. The man was butchered like a pincushion, and very briefly, Haku thought he'd won…

Well, until the Kisame before him disappeared into white smoke, replaced by the boulder he'd been sitting atop a minute or two ago.

"Seriously kid!?" Kisame cackled as he slammed down on him from above. "You thought you could get me with the 'unexpected water in the area' thing twice!?" He practically guffawed as he struck once more, Haku narrowly managing to juke beneath it. "Damn, I take it all back, you haven't learned a thing!"

At that, Haku simply smiled again.

"Did you think I wouldn't know you'd expect that?"

Kisame's eyes widened as he jumped straight up and shot his hand out to touch the wall behind him. This time, the coalescing ice came from every single droplet of moisture in the room, forming massive, crystalline structures that utterly decimated the space. Kisame managed to avoid most, but a few did nick him here or there.

"Damn kid, not bad!" Kisame guffawed. "Still not enough though!"

That was fine.

Haku had known they wouldn't be.

Because they'd bought him the one thing he'd needed…

Time.

He channeled more chakra into his hands as he formed the hand-signs for the Jutsu he'd invented specifically to fight the man before him, specifically to eliminate any change Kisame Hoshigaki might have against him…

No…

That wasn't right…

The Jutsu he'd invented to protect anyone against anything; to keep his loved ones safe.

"What the–" Kisame's voice echoed out from below him, and he watched as the man yanked himself off of one of the icicles that'd pierced his body. "You–"

What he'd been practicing in the forests when Sasuke had come to him searching for answers, not knowing that Haku himself had been searching for his own.

Now, he intended to show the man in front of him the result of his training.

He finished the hand seals and placed both his hands on his blade.

"Ice Style…

Radial Frost!"

Ice radiated off of him in the pattern of a snowflake itself. His internal body temperature, normally slightly lower than the average humans, plummeted as frost covered every inch of his skin. It didn't matter, though, because his tolerance was rather high, for one…

And because that same frost was freezing everything else in the vicinity as well.

Normally when he utilized it, Radial Frost had a rather high time to actually affect anything. When he'd been using it in the forest and Sasuke had entered, he'd been in no real danger, easily able to escape out of it by taking a few steps back. But that was in the middle of hundreds of trees, and at the beginning of fall, the air being at its driest.

Here, in the middle of a small, enclosed, damp cave…

It spread, oxymoronically, like wildfire.

Any and all moisture in the cavern was turned to ice of some kind. The puddles along the ground chilled over, cracking the rocks around them with the chill. The humidity in the air froze as well, increasing the speed at which the frost traveled while also making the room incredibly dry…

And it hit Kisame only a moment or so after.

Traveling from his legs up to his torso, the ice covered every part of him. It fully encased him in nary a second, but Haku was not foolish enough to believe that a man of Kisame's caliber would fall to that alone. Normally, it would've frozen the man to the core, shattering him like an ice sculpture in mere seconds. But… no, he needed to take advantage of this opportunity before it was ripped away from him.

This was, after all, his ace in the hole.

He had nothing left if this failed.

He kicked off of the wall behind him, on a straight shot for Kisame as he landed on the floor and vaulted forward. His sword was primed to strike straight through the bastard's heart, primed to end this battle, primed to end their rivalry once and for all.

It didn't at all surprise him when Kisame's right arm broke free of the encasement, and he brought Samehada up to try and block his attack. His head came next, cackling as if he was having the time of his life.

And briefly, in the moment before their swords connected, Haku realized he would lose.

His sword, at the angle Kisame's rested at, would be parried by the man's own. Surely, the block would not decide the fight, but it would be enough time for Kisame to break free of Haku's ice and, as he'd been doing just before this, win the ensuing fight of strength.

He realized all of this just as his sword scraped the edge of Samehada…

And then, as if by some miracle, he felt two hands grip onto the exact places his own rested, recognized the ghostly, cow-print gauntlets those hands wore.

It wasn't much help, if Haku was being honest. It was the tiniest nudge upwards, a degree or two of angling difference…

It was everything.

For as his sword collided with Kisame's own, cutting atop the man's own in an 'L' shape just on top of his right pectoral, Samehada's spines scraped against the already fractured metal of Kubikiribōchō just right, shattering it into pieces. Surely, that should've been it under normal circumstances, but instead, the way his blade broke was just barely enough to do what he needed.

Because some of the heft was gone now. Some of the weight that he'd had to lug around before was gone now. The new edge, created through the shattering of steel, was just as razor sharp as it'd been before, if not more so. And now… now he was able to move it as he'd been unable to before.

He thanked the man who'd helped him along one last time as he adjusted the angle ever-so-slightly, let out an unearthly scream as he stabbed his blade forward, past Kisame's guard…

And impaled the man straight through his upper body.

Kisame let out a horrid gasp as all other sound faded from the cavern.

By its nature, Kubikiribōchō began to absorb Kisame's blood immediately, reconstituting itself into the massive great sword he knew it as. Except… it was different, somehow. The angles along the blade had come back with some new variation. Something he'd never seen before rested in his grip.

A new Executioner's Blade.

One all his own.

"Ha… haha…" Kisame laughed as he spat up blood onto Haku's blade, and it ran down the side as the man leaned back and cackled madly. "HAHAHAHA!" He calmed down after a moment, seeming to have used a good majority of his energy. "Not bad, kid… seems…" He took a labored, painful breath. "Seems you've won after all."

He said nothing as Kisame placed his hand against Kubikiribōchō's edge, running his fingers along it. "Damn… that 'Radial Frost' thing was… was a neat trick. Using the humidity of the air… and the dampness of the ground to speed up the ice…" He shook his head. "Damned… genius."

Haku gripped the sword in his hands just a bit tighter as the man across from him rasped for breath. For some reason, he wanted to speak. He wanted to let the man across from him know exactly why he'd lost…

It felt appropriate to him, at least.

"I abandoned worrying about you, you know."

Kisame looked up at him with blurred eyes, evidently already beginning to fade somewhat.

"This time, I didn't seek you out." Haku spoke as he let his left arm, which he'd forced beyond what it could realistically do, fall to his side, entirely limp. He'd need to get Tsunade to heal it once he got back to the Leaf. "It was you who sought me. I was fully content to never face you again. I'd grown past that little weakness of mine, that desire to kill you, the last time we'd fought in the Deserts of the Sand. And it's that that gave me the edge; the ability to finally win. Unlike last time, I came in with no baggage. Sure, you tried to bait me into reacting by destroying that copy of my father… and it worked for a moment, I won't deny that…"

Kisame snickered as he looked down at the sword jutting out of him.

"But in the end, he saved me from it." Haku smiled. "Zabuza helped me in my time of weakness and pulled me back from the brink."

"Pulled you… back…?"

He couldn't explain that Zabuza had 'come to him' in a vision, or that, more accurately, his brain had created an illusion of his father…

Because that… that had to be it.

"Only one of us cared if we killed the other here today…" He spoke, his smile disappearing. "And that someone was you."

"Heh… sayin' you can't return my affections, kid?" Kisame smirked jokingly, even as he coughed a few more times. "Harsh."

"But at the same time," He continued, bulldozing through the man's comments. "If you're going to continue to threaten me, continue to goad me using the people I care about, first Zabuza, then Ino, and now my father once more… then I have no choice." He fixed his hand on the new Executioner's Blade's handle. "I will end you here and now, to end your chances of hurting them."

"You…"

"I'm not fighting for myself anymore. I'm fighting for those behind me, for whom I must protect." He shook his head. "And that…"

He looked the man across from him directly in the eye.

"Is something someone like you, who's known neither loyalty, nor love, could never understand!"

And with all the might in his right arm, he ripped Kubikiribōchō straight down Kisame's body, pulling it out in a spray of blood and innards that sent the shark toppling to the ground below them.

He landed with a horrid, sloppy sound, reminiscent of the Pain form of Zabuza Kisame had thrown at him before. He panted restlessly, somehow still alive despite everything. Even then… it was clear to anyone who might've been present…

This was it. He was dying.

"Never known loyalty, or love, huh brat…" Kisame slurred out, his eyes hazy. "Hah, I suppose that's true. I'm a shark. I don't do that 'feelings' crap. I was beholden to a country, once, and all it ever did was let me down. These days… I play by my own rules. I stick to my own ideals. Power. Strength. Ferocity…"

"But… still…" The man smirked. "I think I did have a friend, actually."

Haku's eyes widened somewhat as he planted his sword in the ground beside him, using it to hold him up as he panted for breath.

"He was… kind of cold… and could be… a bit of a dick sometimes, but… I liked the guy."

Kisame turned to him, now, no longer staring aimlessly at the ceiling above him.

"If by some chance you run into him… tell Itachi to make it, would ya?" Kisame asked of him. "I know he doesn't… have long, and yeah, if he asks about that… let him know that him having a deadly disease was painfully obvious even to me, but…"

""Live the best life that you can with what you've got left" … tell him that for me, would ya'?"

And for some reason, despite everything the man below him had done to him, despite everything they'd been through, despite him having been his very end, or perhaps because of it, Haku felt almost beholden to. "If I run into him… I'll tell him."

"Heh… good." Kisame rasped out, finally letting his head loll backwards on the cool, icy stone beneath him.

"It's funny… do you remember… that last thing you said to me… back when you guys ran from us… in the Sound Village?"

Haku thought back, barely able to recall the event that'd happened nearly four years ago now.

He remembered desperation, and pain… but… when he focused in harder, he did indeed recall what he imagined Kisame was talking about.

"Next time…" Haku uttered under his breath, looking up and meeting the shark's gaze as he spat his next words out. "Next time you won't be laughing… I swear that."

Kisame looked practically thrilled.

"I'll hold you to that."

"Haha…" Kisame snickered once again, despite the dying light in his gaze. "Looks like you lost that one, kid…" Kisame panted, his breaths growing less and less full. "Even… at the end…" His eyes closed slowly, agonizingly so. "You couldn't… stop me laughing… Ha… ha… h…"

And the shark named Kisame breathed his last, smiling up at the sky, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly, as if, at any moment, he could start laughing once again.

End Chapter 86

Yo rip Sharkboy. Lavagirl better watch the fuck out.

Is that the most obscure reference I've made so far? Probably not.

Anyways, see you all next week.