Title: Clouds Drawn by the Moonlight

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

AN: Hi, just wanted to say thank you once again :)

Also, I kind of struggled writing the fight scene for this chapter. It's like I didn't want Hitomi to be overpowered but at the same didn't want to under-power(?) her. You know what I mean? lol I don't know.

Chapter 7

"Well, well." Sensei nonchalantly said, "If it isn't Momochi Zabuza, the nin that went rogue from the Hidden Mist."

I wasn't sure if that sentence was necessary but given that Sasuke and Naruto struggled to recognize him, I suppose it was.

Sasuke set his jaw and his muscles contracted, ready for the confrontation. Naruto however, looked like he was going to spring into action any moment. I caught his eye, discreetly shaking my head to remind him of our main priority.

Tazuna. Protect Tazuna.

His face rippled with conflict and he clenched his hands, trying to prevent himself from doing whatever he was about to do. I was relieved that he actually listened to me; with his combination of being ignorant and rash, I assumed he was going to ignore.

We again slid into the triangle formation around Tazuna with me taking the same side as before and my byakugan triggered automatically. At this time, I felt another chakra signature hidden within the trees. Haku. I'm pretty sure I was the only who knew he was there and if he decided to attack, at least I was ready. Though, myself alone won't be enough. I made sure not to stare directly at him with my byakugan as I wanted him to think we didn't notice and maneuvered my body in a way that I was facing at the middle point of our enemies' directions. Completely having your back on the other was like a death sentence.

Zabuza chuckled intimidatingly, "Kakashi of the sharingan I presume? If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you hand over the old man?"

"I'm afraid I can't do that." Sensei replied. "Team seven protect Tazuna and stay out of the fight. He is out of your league."

I couldn't see as I was watching Haku at the moment but from Sasuke's sharp intake of air, Kakashi sensei must've lifted his forehead protector, baring his sharingan.

"Oh? To face the legendary sharingan, so early in our acquaintance," his voice dripped with sarcasm. "This is an honor."

"You keep calling it shareengan or sharingen or whatever!" Naruto yelled. "What the hell is it?"

"The sharingan is a dojutsu, a bloodlimit that is located within the eyes like Hitomi's." Sasuke explained, "It allows the user to detect, comprehend, and reflect any genjutsu, ninjutsu, and taijutsu."

"Nice to know but now really isn't the time for bloodlimit lessons, guys." I said frankly. Though, Zabuza thought otherwise.

"But there's more to it than that." Zabuza continued, "it can also foresee the opponent's techniques and duplicate it down to the smallest detail. When I was in an assassination unit for the Hidden Mist, I possessed the bingo book that listed our enemies and it had quite the extensive write up of you. It called you the man who copied over a thousand jutsu, Kakashi the copy ninja."

That surprised both Naruto and Sasuke, whereas I was indifferent from already seeing that page.

Naruto stared at sensei with awe. "That's so cool…"

"Enough talk," Zabuza crouched, "I'm on a very tight schedule to get rid of that old bridge builder but looks like I'll have to kill you first Kakashi."

With a blur of a movement too fast to follow, he leaped away, landing on top of a body of water. The fog swirled in, masking both Kakashi sensei and him from our sights.

"What's with all this fog?" Naruto shouted in alarm.

"This fog— it's not natural. It's a water jutsu." I scowled, realizing what it was. "The Hiding in the Mist Technique."

Please correct me if I'm wrong but if you're trying to hide from us, why speak? Why speak, hide, and put us on guard? He did mention moments ago that he used to be part of the assassination unit and should have the skill of the quick, silent killing technique. In all honesty, he's making this much more difficult than it needs to.

"Eight points." Zabuza's voice menacingly echoed throughout the thick mist. "Throat, spinal column, lungs, liver, jugular vein, clavian artery, kidney, heart… so many choices. Which vital place shall I choose, hm?"

Cue the intimidation tactics. I would be lying to myself if I said I wasn't affected by them. It was so incredibly terrifying to hear those words but not know where they originated from.

I needed a plan. I needed to quickly think of something, anything but my mind was blank and I didn't understand why. My brain was just… empty. There was absolutely nothing. My breathing became shallow and uneven, panicking over what I was going to do. I knew that we'll be facing Zabuza and I had thought about it because there was no way I would go into this—

The killing intent slammed against me without warning. It was crippling and dense, searing and asphyxiating. It was honing in at me like a predator does to its prey. The intent I felt during that one fateful birthday night paled in comparison. This— this was far more debilitating.

I wanted to disappear, to hide, to defend, to attack, to do something but I wouldn't budge. I did nothing, standing there like a deer in front of headlights, heart hammering against my chest.

"Sasuke!" Sensei snapped. I jolted. While trying to calm myself, I hadn't looked out for my own teammates, blindsided by my own fear. "Don't worry. I'll protect you, all of you with my life." With those words, the killing intent washed away, replaced by a gentle, serene feeling. Though not completely erasing the fear, it had calmed me to a degree and I knew it had too with the boys. "Trust me. I won't let my comrades die."

"We'll see about that," Zabuza said hoarsely behind me. "It's over."

Chakra rushed to palms, concentrated and ready. Without a thought, I whirled around and slammed the palm of my hand to his chest. Dead at the center, like I wanted him dead.

"Krgh!" He grunted, but the feeling… was too mushy(?), a bit too liquidy than the human body.

I stepped back a few steps apprehensively, then my eyes widened. "…a water clone!"

"Correct." Kakashi sensei praised. He was now standing next to us and chakra radiated from himself, clashing, blowing the thick fog away. "Now we can see better."

"A Hyuuga, huh?" Zabuza's voice rasped around us, "Yeah, I've ran into one of you once. Just gauze their eyes out and they're worthless."

I glowered, anger fizzling dangerously hot within me. He was trying to get me angry, taunting me, causing me to become reckless. First the intimidation tactic and now this. Although he fought with a large sword and elaborate jutsus, he was the type of ninja that played with his kill; exhausting them, making them feel as if they're helpless. Like a part of his game, his toy.

He's doing it on purpose, to get a reaction from you. You must be in control, not him. Control yourself, your environment, and the battle. Steady yourself. Breathe Hitomi, breathe.

I repeated this to myself over and over again. Like others who hailed from a clan, I also had clan pride, running deep within me. You can talk shit about me, I hardly care but talk shit about my family? We're going to war.

"Stay focused!" Sensei announced, "Don't let your guard down even for a moment; the battle's just getting started."

"I don't think so," Zabuza's body flickered behind him, his sword already swinging. "We're finished."

"Sensei, behind you!" Naruto cried out.

I was unfazed by the scene of our jounin being slashed in half as water splashed everywhere from where he stood.

"Don't move." Kakashi sensei lowly said from behind. He held a kunai close against Zabuza's throat.

"You've copied my water clone jutsu. Impressive," he mockingly praised. "But I'm also not that easy."

Immediately, he dissolved into water. A clone. I think I'm going to suffer a stroke from keeping up with this fight. Clone after clone. Trick after trick.

Sensei had barely enough time to react before almost being decapitated by Zabuza's sword. There was a brief taijutsu free for all between them with the air sharply cackling every time he accurately swung the Kubikiri Bocho. Sensei dodged and ducked each attack, his steps light. He also seemed to be retreating back, leading Zabuza further and further away from us. Step by step until he splashed on top of the waters.

I mentally screamed. Why? Why would you go onto the water? Being anywhere near a body of water against a Mist nin was like suicide and I was right as he was abruptly pulled under water.

"Water Release: Water Prison!" Zabuza yelled. Water rose and whirled around sensei, creating a spherical dome and trapped him inside. "You tried to escape to the water. Big mistake."

Fuck.

I thought he had a plan. I thought he did it on purpose as no ninja in the right mind will fight a Mist nin near water. But from the pure panic etched onto Kakashi sensei's face, I knew he hadn't done it on purpose.

The jutsu itself was harmless and instead, actually restricted the caster as they had to stay in contact with the sphere to maintain it. Again, why isn't he taking the chance to kill sensei? He was well aware of sensei's notoriety and logically, his death will only reward him by boosting his own. So, why is he taking the time to capture him? I knew he was the play-before-kill type of assassin but still.

"Now Kakashi, we can finish this later," he positioned a hand into two fingers. "But first, I'll take care of your little friends. Water clone Jutsu!"

A clone molded itself from the water and trudged towards us. I swallowed hard; we were the last barrier against him and Tazuna.

"Wearing those headbands and acting like ninjas. A real ninja is someone who survived brushes of death. Only when you're deadly enough to be listed in my bingo book, then you can call yourselves ninjas. You all are a joke."

Naruto growled but in a blink of an eye, he was punted back with a momentum so severe that his headband slipped off.

"Naruto!" I shrieked, about to rush towards him but Sasuke held me back. His eyes glazed with fear.

"Take Tazuna and run!" Kakashi sensei desperately shouted. "You have no chance of beating him! As long as he's keeping me trapped within this prison, he can't move! Just run away now!"

He wanted us to run. To run and at least save ourselves and Tazuna. But what about sensei? We couldn't just abandon him. We couldn't let him... actually I'm sure sensei will be fine except he doesn't know about Haku and two against one just screams uncertainty.

I balled my hands, "We're not leaving sensei here."

Sasuke nodded adamantly. "Even if we do run, he'll track us down easily and we also have Tazuna who's a civilian. He can't keep up with our pace. It's useless to run."

"Exactly." I gritted my teeth. "We got to free him."

"But how though."

Great question. I scan our surroundings with my byakugan, trying to find a loophole or something that can aid us with the battle. Think. Think. Okay, fire techniques were virtually ineffective against Zabuza because duh, water beats fire and lightning weakens water. But none of us knew any lightning releases. I could just face him head on since he was partly immobile from his own jutsu but the thought of him summoning multiple water clones made me flush that idea out. Unlike the shadow clone jutsu, the water clones only had a tenth of their user's strength, making it possible to conjure multiple at once. And believe me, having one was already a handful. My mind swirled, trying to think of a plan and at the same time be wary of Haku's presence.

My eyes widen. Haku. Senbon. Needles. Water needles.

I felt my heart thump not from fear, rather the opposite: hope.

I could use the water needle technique to both free sensei and maybe destroy Zabuza's clone simultaneously.

Using the chakra control granted by the gentle fist, the user concentrates their chakra until water vortexes are formed. The vortexes will then shoot out needle-like blasts of water and with the combined use of the byakugan, its precision was deadly. It's not really a water release per se as the chakra is only controlling the body of water by guiding and shaping it.

The technique itself was accidentally discovered by Hinata. We were sparring near a river one evening and one of my attacks had pushed her too far. She tripped on a nearby rock and plunged into the shallow river. I wanted to end the match as she could catch a cold but to my dismay, she insisted on finishing. I remember her taking a moment to concentrate her chakra again for the jyuugen and just before she got out, water began to rapidly churn and sharply blasted out of it. My head could've been decapitated if I didn't duck on time. Intrigued, I spent days trying to figure out and understand it but never fully did. Hence why there was a very good chance I could miss.

But here's the other catch; the user has to be in touch with the water they were going to use for the technique. Whether it be a leg, hand, or foot, some part of your body that expelled chakra must be submerged. This is because their chakra has to constantly channel into the water for the vortexes to remain.

I bit my lip. Which meant I had to be in the water, when there's a mist nin in front of me. There were too many risks involved as I could also become trapped like Kakashi sensei and when that happens, it is truly game over. Ironic how just a few moments ago I was internally screaming about sensei's actions and here I am thinking about doing the same.

I had to decide.

"We are ninja! We ain't going anywhere!" Naruto fiercely exclaimed, producing three shadow clones and charged at Zabuza.

One of these days I'm going to suffer from a heart attack due to Naruto's recklessness.

"The shadow clone jutsu?" Zabuza easily subdued the clones. "Not even a thousand of your clones can touch me. Pathetic." And just before he got to the real one, Naruto pulled back, landing in front of us again.

In his hand was his forehead protector. Screw a heart attack, I'm going to die from his actions.

"What are you doing? This fight was over the moment I was caught!" Frustration now replaced the desperation sensei's voice previously held. "Our duty is to protect Tazuna! Did you forget?"

Naruto flinched and glanced at Tazuna, "Gramps?"

Tazuna gave a weary smile, "Well, I planted this seed myself. I'm not going to say that I desire to live so much that I'd stop you. I'm sorry. So, go save you sensei and fight!"

I admired his courage. There was a possibility of facing certain death with our decision to stay, but Tazuna without hesitation supported.

"You hear that?" Sasuke's lips curved into a smirk.

"Alright, let's do this." I wasn't sure what I meant by 'this' as I was still hesitant on implementing my plan. It's funny how even though we had zero chances of winning, we were so determined and adamant.

"You're going down, you eyebrow-less freak!" Naruto positioned his hands for another batch of his shadow clones when Zabuza started chuckling.

"You guys will never grow up. When I was about your age, these hands were already dyed red with blood."

"The demon of the Hidden Mist." Kakashi mumbled.

"Ah so you've heard about me."

And now cue the background story. A part of me wanted the stalling as the doubts of my plan were still lingering in my mind but the rest wanted to get this battle over with.

"A while back, in the Hidden Mist which was also called the Bloody Mist village, there was a final obstacle in becoming a ninja." Sensei's face darkened.

Zabuza hummed, "You know about the graduation exam."

I gulped, thanking whatever the supernatural being up there. Listening to Zabuza's story, once again reminded me how I hit the jackpot on the reincarnation roulette.

"Exam?" Naruto queried. "What's this graduation exam thing?"

"Friends who had trained together, ate together, helped each other and shared dreams were pitted against each other… until one of them loses their life."

"Ten years ago, the Hidden Mist graduation exam was forced to change. This change occurred because of the previous year, when a devil appeared." Kakashi sensei continued, "A young boy, without pause and hesitation killed over a hundred of the students."

One hundred was a large number. One hundred people. No, one hundred kids probably as it was a graduation test.

"And that sure was… fun." Zabuza gave quite possibly the most psychotic look I've ever seen and suddenly lashed out.

He ruthlessly punched Sasuke to the ground, blood splattered from his mouth. Sasuke coughed, gasping for air and the moment Zabuza's foot stomped on him, my body again reacted. I practically flew across the gap between us and thrusted my hands forward, forcing the missing nin to retreat. I grasped Sasuke's arm and flung both of us back.

"Shadow clone jutsu!" Naruto snarled and a horde of orange engulfed the missing nin.

Sasuke wiped the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth and forced himself to stand despite his legs' shaky request to stop.

"I have a plan." I said in a hushed voice. "Help Naruto to keep him distracted."

He gave me a firm nod and launched himself towards the fray.

I scrambled towards the body of water. From the outside, I probably looked insane heading towards the thing that only strengthened the enemy and maybe I am. I braced myself before entering the freezing waters. It wrapped around my body, causing me to shiver uncontrollably for a few seconds.

"Hitomi!" Sensei growled, "get out of the water now! He'll trap you too! Get out immediately!"

"Such foolish actions." Zabuza mused. "Water clone jutsu!"

Another water clone molded itself and began to stroll his way to me.

"Hitomi, please!" Sensei tried again. "Please leave! You got to listen to me!"

Terror began creeping its way into my mind but I sucked in a breath and ignored the distractions. I can do this. I closed my eyes, enhancing the chakra on my hands like I did for the jyuuken.

Now.

I opened my eyes, they throbbed as I aimed for the three targets and the waters around me swirled violently, creating two large vortexes. Soon, a rapid fire of thin needles of water burst out of them and the air whistled as they blasted to their respective targets.

"You are fini— urk!" The clone that loomed over me uttered. I winced. Three needles impaled the clone and it dissolved into water in seconds. If I had waited any longer, I would've been imprisoned or worse killed.

I watched as the needles I directed at the real Zabuza caught him off guard and forced him to back off, removing his hand on the spherical water dome. Kakashi sensei erupted out of the prison like a volcano, his anger matching it.

With sensei free, I whipped my head to the boys and to my horror, the needles missed as the water clone combed through the sea of Narutos with his sword.

Shit. I— I was so focused on freeing sensei and targeting the clone near me, I wasn't able to precisely target the one fighting the boys.

I desperately clawed my way out of the water, the weight of my clothes dragged me, slowing me down. I made a half attempt to wrung my clothes dry and sprinted towards the boys. I briefly looked over my shoulder to see the fight between sensei and Zabuza. The intensity of the violence had amplified as before, simple tricks of ninjutsu and mostly taijutsu were used. Now, they were utilizing full blown killing jutsus.

I didn't have the time to watch however, as I turned my attention to the clone raising his sword at Sasuke. I jumped in front of him and took the brunt of the attack by deflecting it with the Revolving Heaven. He threw me a grateful look and we both charged at the enemy.

We weaved through his sword, our attacks coordinated, supporting and protecting each other. Whenever the clone reached too close to the boys, I'll lunge, making him retreat over and over again. He kept his distance with me, knowing the dangers of my touch and I could tell he was becoming agitated.

"You are quite annoying." The clone glared at me.

Yeah, and I'm about to become even more annoying. I widened my stance, preparing for the Eight Trigrams.

Clone Zabuza must've sensed a spike of my chakra because after swiping through a group of Narutos with the Kubikiri Bocho, he changed his target. He repeatedly focused his assaults on me, keeping me moving which hindered my chance to implement the Eight Trigrams. I narrowly avoided a slash of his sword and blocked a hit with my chakra filled hands.

I immediately retaliated by swiveling my body and jabbed my fingers at the tenketsu point on his bicep, effectively closing it and with my right hand, palm bottomed him. My hands tingled from the impacts; I swear his body was made out of iron.

He grunted in pain and his sword clattered on the ground. Sasuke took the critical advantage by connecting his foot to Zabuza's face and grabbed his other arm. He brutally twisted it behind his back, restricting the clone's movement.

"Hah!" Naruto then swooped out of the air and stabbed him with a kunai right at the center of his stomach.

The clone scowled as he melted into water.

"Take that, no eyebrows!" Naruto cheered in between breaths; his clones disappeared one by one.

"Hmph." A small, triumphant smirk spread across Sasuke's face.

Our victory was short lived and barely had time to register what was happening before a giant wave roared at us. I held Tazuna close to me in case he swept away with the water.

When the voluminous amount of water died down, Kakashi sensei and Zabuza immerged. The missing kiri nin was in a dire state with sensei being the obvious winner of the battle.

"How…?" Zabuza panted.

"You will die!" Sensei articulated, ignoring his question.

A copious amount of chakra radiated to my right, this signature— I forgot. Due to the chaos of the battle, I forgot about Haku.

I honed my eyes at the direction of the chakra and there he stood, hidden by the trees, senbons in hand. I hardly had the chance to react when two of the very senbons that he held in his hands moments ago were now impaling Zabuza's neck. He was fast.

Zabuza collapsed to the ground and his chakra vanished like a candle being blown out. However, he wasn't dead. A tiny, very tiny spark of chakra steadily circulated throughout his chakra pathway system and would've fooled anyone of his passing if they didn't have the byakugan. Luckily, ya girl has a pair. Well to be honest, even with the byakugan it was kind of hard to tell unless you really searched.

"Thank you very much." The boy with the hunter nin mask said, "I have been searching for the opportunity to kill Zabuza."

Sensei crouched, placing his fingers against Zabuza's neck, searching for a possible pulse. His eye narrowed, "He really is dead." He stood up again, "that mask, you're a hunter nin from the Hidden Mist."

"Yes. My duty is to hunt down missing nins and Zabuza has been a target of mine for a while." Haku crouched and slung Zabuza over his shoulder. "Farewell." With a body flicker, he disappeared.

"W-what the hell!" Naruto clamored, "who is he? He's so young and he just, just killed him!"

Kakashi sensei sighed, "He's a hunter nin, it's his job to hunt and kill missing nin in order to keep their village's secrets. In this world, there exist kids younger than you yet stronger than me."

Naruto's shoulders sagged, "what… but that's…"

"I know how you feel but that's just how the shinobi world works." Sensei slid down his headband, "now, we have to get Tazuna back home—"

He abruptly stopped. His body began swaying and suddenly without another word, he collapsed.

There's a brief beat of silence as we were in shock.

"Kakashi sensei!" Naruto exploded with worry.

I boosted the chakra to my feet, darting towards where sensei laid in full speed. I rolled him over and immediately began administering the basic first aid procedures, just like how aunt taught me. I checked for his pulse and breathing.

He was breathing, but for a split second, my hand hovered above his mask, scared that he wasn't getting the proper amount of air. However, puffs of his warm breath filtered through his surprisingly thin mask and I retracted my hand in relief.

I scanned his body with my byakugan; no broken bones, no water in the lungs, no internal or external bleeding, but his chakra system… It was the main culprit of his critical condition. The chakra pathway system looked like a railroad map, with intricate lines looping all over the body. A normal pathway system had a light blue hue glowing steadily, which was chakra rushing throughout the body. In contrast, a person who's suffering from chakra exhaustion, their pathway had a very faded blue or sometimes a gray color. Complete gray meaning death.

With sensei, it was a mix of faded blue and gray which meant his reserves were low, scary low. The pathway along his arms and legs were completely gray while the stomach and head area were still flickering. This is why when one suffers from chakra exhaustion it's generally, 'I can't feel my arms' or 'my legs don't work,' not a total blackout. Sensei's body just shut down on him like it was done working for today. Even though his sharingan eye was covered, it was chomping away on his non-existent chakra reserves at an alarming amount and with the rate it was replenishing, he was going to be out for an hour or two.

"It's chakra exhaustion." I rubbed my eyes, deactivating the byakugan. My eyes felt like they were going to pop off from their sockets. "He's out cold."

They sighed in relief.

"My house isn't too far from here now." Tazuna offered. Despite not fighting, he too looked battered, emotionally and mentally drained from all the shit he witnessed today.

I stood up and turned to Naruto. "Can you produce some clones? We have to move sensei but I don't think we'll be enough."

Considering Tazuna's age and our exhausted state, we'll be struggling to haul the silver haired jounin. Naruto nodded and promptly created two of himself.

We were greeted with an overwhelming amount of relief by Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter and she was also concerned seeing sensei's limp body.

"Is there somewhere our sensei could rest?" Sasuke asked a bit impatiently after introductions.

"Follow me." Tsunami said while leading us up the stairs. "He can use our guest room."

Tsunami hurriedly unrolled the futon and directed me to the cabinet that housed the pillows. Naruto's clones gently eased Kakashi sensei onto the futon and I pulled up the blanket.

"Do you need anything else?" Tsunami asked as she stood near the doorway.

I shook my head, "no, we'll let you know if we do."

We sat in silence, not knowing what to do and taking the moment to process everything.

I looked over my teammates. From Haku 'killing' Zabuza and sensei passing out, I didn't have the time to assess their conditions.

"Are you guys okay? No major injuries?" I scooted closer to the boys. "I should've asked sooner but too many things were happening at once."

Naruto rotated his arms, flexing his fingers. "I'm fine! I think I got a few scratches but other than that, I'm good."

"Sasuke?" I lifted a brow. "He got you hard with that punch."

His hand lingered over his stomach, the area of Zabuza's blow. "I'm fine."

"Let me check." I offered and my eyes strained.

"I'm fine." He repeated, recoiling his body away from me.

I huffed, "What if you sustained internal injuries? It'll be quick so stop being stubborn. And you too, Naruto. I just want to make sure both of you are okay."

Maybe he was flustered? By all means the byakugan can only see chakra and the internal systems that the chakra circuited around, so I don't actually see their nakedness. At most, I just see their body outline.

After a few minutes of arguing and explaining, Sasuke finally relented while Naruto bounced onto his feet, ready for my examination. Both had no life-threatening internal injuries, bones intact and unbroken, and chakra pathways working perfectly fine.

It was interesting really, seeing, feeling their chakra. Naruto's was bright, warm, and buyout, moving playfully along his systems. It was also very… bountiful? I'm not sure how to describe it, but I knew it was because of the kyuubi. Sasuke's was smothering, igniting yet cold and detached. There wasn't an ounce of darkness in it.

"So, when is he going to wake up?" Naruto queried while staring at sensei worriedly.

"I'm not sure, but he should regain consciousness in about an hour or so." Nervousness weighed down in my stomach. "He has to. We can't defeat Zabuza ourselves."

"What? He's dead, remember?" Naruto elevated his voice. "That hunter nin guy killed him."

Sasuke gestured at sensei. "Lower your voice, idiot."

"Sorry." Naruto sheepishly scratched his cheek before turning towards me. "The hunter nin killed him, remember? And even Kakashi sensei checked that he was dead."

"No, he's alive and I know it." I said firmly. "His chakra, it was very faint and barely noticeable but… I saw it with my byakugan. It was there. He is alive."

"Then, he purposely aimed for his neck…" Sasuke trailed off, catching on quickly.

I nodded, "a momentary death. Unless it stabs a vital organ, senbons have a very low probability of killing."

"But why? Isn't it his job to kill? He's a hunter nin." Naruto frowned, puzzled.

"I don't think he was a hunter nin, more likely Zabuza's partner." I sighed, "we should talk about it when sensei wakes up and before the next confrontation, we have to prepare ourselves." I glanced towards our jounin, "Kakashi sensei has to recover by then."

Dinner was a solemn affair. We briefly broke the news of Zabuza's survival to Tazuna when he brought us food and he exploded with I think a million questions, panicking. We assured him that we'll talk in detail when our jounin regains consciousness.

It's been an hour since we first arrived at Tazuna's house and Kakashi sensei was still out cold.

I reached out to adjust his pillow when he snapped awake and in a blur, held my wrist in a death grip. There was an unforgiving glint in his onyx eye.

"Sensei?" I squeaked. My wrist ached but I didn't say more, didn't move an inch.

Naruto practically pounced on the jounin. "Sensei, you're awake!"

He scanned the room and his muscles visibly relaxed. His grip slowly loosened from my wrist and he eye curved. "Hitomi? What, what are you guys doing?"

I swallowed and pushed the bangs out of my face. "You passed out from chakra exhaustion and we were making sure you were okay."

"I see," he drawled. "Is Tazuna safe?"

"Yes, but Zabuza's alive." Sasuke got straight into the point.

His eyebrow furrowed in confusion before the realization also dawned on him. "We'll talk to Tazuna tomorrow and I should be able to move by then too. For now, set up watch and rest." Sensei paused. "You all did a good job today, so I guess it makes up for not listening to my orders earlier."

Sasuke crossed his arms and looked away while I just rubbed my tired eyes.

Naruto snorted, "we couldn't just leave you behind."

We set up a rotational watch with me having dawn this time. After camping for a few days, sleeping in a thick futon was a luxury for me and I knocked out the moment my head hit the pillow.

Sasuke woke me up after what literally felt like five minutes of sleep and told me the necessary information about the perimeters. He kept repeating some stuff saying how I wasn't paying attention but I protested that I was.

The ocean breeze came in crashing waves, washing over me with its salty essence as I dragged myself out of the house and began watching.