Powerlessness was probably the most intense feeling saturating Hitomi's limbs, overshadowing even her fear, as she watched Zabuza capture Kakashi in his Water Prison technique. She hadn't mastered this technique yet but knew how it worked and the power a shinobi needed to use it. She wasn't there yet, and even less so for the version Zabuza was using, with pressure so intense inside the liquid that any movement was impossible.

"Ah, what a fool you are, Kakashi! You shouldn't have allowed me to throw you in the water. Breaking out of this prison is impossible. Everything is gonna go smoothly now that you can't intervene." The renegade closed his eyes for a moment and composed a one-handed mudra, his other hand keeping the Water Prison active. Between the Genin and the riverbank, where Kakashi had banished a clone just moments before, another one formed slowly. "I'll kill you later, Copy Nin. First, I want you to watch as I massacre your brats."

It was the clone who spoke next, his voice just as cold and animated by scathing irony. "So, kids, you want to play ninja, with the forehead protector and all that stuff, uh? But, you know, a real ninja stands alongside death all the time. As long as you're not in the Bingo Books… Well, we can barely call you ninjas. For me, you're just as weak and useless as civilians." The clone then moved, faster than their eyes could follow, and suddenly Naruto fell, hurled over more than three meters away by a fist that split his lip open. Hitomi knew Zabuza was toying with them or holding back big time. He could have just killed them, there and then, with less effort than what it took to wield that damned sword of his. Under his foot laid Naruto's forehead protector, probably his most cherished possession, already stained with dust.

"Kids, listen to me now!" Kakashi commanded from the Water Prison. "Take Tazuna and run! You don't stand any chance against Zabuza, but he can't move as long as he holds me in the prison, and he can only control his clone over a few meters. Leave me behind and run, now!"

For a second, Kakashi's words and the killing intent that was drowning the area as surely as the mist almost got the better of Hitomi. She felt so weak, so insignificant, so conscious of her own mortality and filled with the need to survive that, for a moment, she considered following Kakashi's orders, considered leaving him behind, taking her brothers and Tazuna and run as fast as she could. Then shame invaded her at the idea of abandoning a teammate, the scathing feeling fighting off her fear with merciless efficiency. Slowly, she straightened up and tightened her grip on her sword's guard.

"Kakashi-sensei, you're giving up too soon. Sit back and watch the show, we're coming for you." Her voice's firm, tranquil tone seemed to give back courage to Sasuke and Naruto. The latter formed the Cross Hand Seal and formed his own clone, who quickly took Tazuna with him out of sight – Hitomi felt his presence even through the mist as he stopped several dozen meters away, to safety. Now the Genin could fight without worrying about their civilian charge. However, Hitomi didn't summon her cats: they were mortals in this world, even if they were hard to kill, and she didn't want to risk them. They were far too precious to her. Besides, she knew she didn't need them for this.

When Naruto smiled and ran straight to Zabuza's clone, Hitomi and Sasuke followed, their swords, tarnished by the mist, raised in menace. The girl took the lead: she was the weakest, but also the fastest of their trio, and she was the one to engage with Zabuza's clone to create a diversion while Sasuke attacked on the flanks – Naruto would get his forehead protector, and they would be done with that particular threat.

For a moment, it looked like they were going to get the upper hand, but in one move the clone overwhelmed them, shoving Sasuke away as he kicked Hitomi hard enough to make several of her ribs crack or even worse. He then sent Naruto back to them with a careless push of his arm, as if he was just an annoying fly. Like a meagre victory, the blonde's fingers were tightened around his forehead protector and he quickly put it back on, his knuckles skinned and breathing too quick.

"You can write my name down in your book, shitface!" he grinned. "I'm the future Hokage. I'm Uzumaki-Yūhi Naruto, from Konoha!"

It wasn't the first time Hitomi heard her name added to Naruto's, but it moved her as always. Even here, in this dire fighting situation, the small spark of pride and joy warmed her up like a hug, reminiscent of calm and peace, of the reason why she was fighting. That simple push allowed her to lock the pain in her ribs deep under the surface, where it wouldn't bother her. "Sasuke, Naruto, I have a plan. Come here."

They obeyed and Zabuza's clone let them. Despite the bandages covering half his face, amusement and curiosity appeared clear as day on his features. He obviously wanted to see what the brats were capable of, he who thought of himself as invincible – and he wasn't so far from the truth on that account.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Kakashi yelled from his prison. "Now that I'm his prisoner, the fight is over, you have to flee! Our mission is to protect Tazuna, remember? Run, it's an order!"

"Ah, shut up!" Hitomi snapped, her voice whipping through the heavy air, through the killing intent and mist, effortlessly. "Hatake Kakashi has the reputation of always taking his team home. We won't shame our sensei by leaving him behind, so shut the fuck up and let us work on saving your sorry ass!"

She had never dared speak like that to an adult, but she was reaching her boiling point. She had lived too much, in too few days, to tolerate an added pressure if she could make it stop. She glared at Kakashi then turned to Naruto and Sasuke to explain what she had in mind. She was happy to have this knowledge of the canon, because she wasn't sure she would have had this idea on her own, and she knew this one would work.

"To say that when I was your age, my hands were already soaked in blood… You Konohajin brats are so mellow!"

Hitomi turned her glare to Zabuza, not even trying to hide her disdain. Her fear, by disappearing, had allowed her other emotions to bloom like many explosive flowers inside her mind. "Massacring children doesn't make you a shinobi. It's loyalty to the values you have sworn to protect, to your Kage, to the missions and your teammates that are at the core of what makes a good ninja, not oceans of blood you leave in your wake. If the ability to kill alone was enough, samurais would be as much shinobi as we are."

She knew she had a point, because everyone nursed a mixture of disdain and resentment towards the warriors of the Land of Iron. They returned the favour during rare encounters with shinobi, only allowing them to enter their country at the cost of a heavy tribute. Still, traditionally, the Gokage Summit, which had only been organised once in the history of the Hidden Villages, was to be held there, no matter the price to pay. It was the only perfectly neutral land in the known world. They had that power over the other nations, one that could stop them from uniting against a common enemy.

And then, Zabuza, as if refusing to tolerate that insult, charged and attacked them. Oh, he didn't target Hitomi, but Sasuke, as if he knew that going after one of her brothers would be worse than any hit he could land on her. She shuddered as she watched the youngest Uchiha fall under the renegade's blow, spitting a mixture of blood and saliva.

Naruto reacted immediately with Shadow Clones and ordered all his copies to throw themselves at the deserter. Hitomi took advantage of the confusion and used this moment offered to her to clone herself and metamorphose her replica, thus taking Naruto's place in the canon plan. She had better accuracy than him with kunai, and had carefully taken note of all the little changes in this fight so far. She wouldn't risk it.

When Zabuza rid himself of the clones and launched himself at Naruto with a snarl, Hitomi stepped in with the Ambush of Moving Water, forcing him to freeze for a second before his titan-like strength broke through the technique. This moment was enough for Sasuke, to deploy his Fūma shuriken and throw it so it would go widely around the two Zabuza, Hitomi's metamorphosed clone in its shadow.

There, safe and unexpected behind her first real opponent, the clone snapped back to her original form and, instead of throwing the kunai like she had originally planned to do, she stabbed Zabuza in the biceps with it. Pain and surprise tensed the renegade's arm, making him break contact with the Water Prison just before he threw himself at the clone, making it disappear in a puff of smoke. With a bestial scream, the Demon of the Hidden Mist hurled himself at the three Genin, his sword raised to cut Hitomi in half, and…

And suddenly Kakashi was there, soaking wet and surrounded by his own killing intent, his hand on the wrist that was holding the sword gripping down hard, harder, everything to stop Zabuza from harming one of his precious students. Later, he would allow himself to feel flabbergasted that his three little Genin had managed to wound a fucking Jōnin. First, though, he had to get rid of the threat that the man represented to their survival. "Well done, children. Your plan was excellent. This play with the shuriken… It was you, Naruto, right?"

The three kids nodded. Hitomi hadn't even had time to propose that idea in particular, Naruto had had it first. She had only given them their role and handled logistics. Everything had rested on Sasuke's shurikenjutsu, far better than his teammates'. They had all been essential to that plan – teamwork allowed them to equal or even surpass adversaries that were otherwise impossible to beat.

"I was stupid," Zabuza sighed. "Anger got the better of me, and I forgot the Water Prison."

Hitomi took advantage of the short break in tension to head back to her teammates, the Fūma Shuriken long forgotten in the river. She didn't really want to go get it right now. After all, they had many other weapons left. Her features soured by pain, she stepped between Naruto and Sasuke, unsheathing her tantō again. She knew this fight wasn't over yet.

"Admit it, they kicked your ass this time," Kakashi nagged.

The deserter answered with a recalcitrant grunt. His dull eyes stayed on the three kids for a while, then came back to Kakashi, the main threat.

"You won't get me twice with the same technique, Zabuza. What are you hoping to do now?"

And suddenly they were at it again, stepping away from each other in perfect synchronisation to stand, ten meters away from each other, on the river, their movements so controlled their feet didn't even disturb the surface of the water. The two shinobi formed hand seals at the same time, faster than Hitomi or even Sasuke with his Sharingan could follow. It was the longest chain Hitomi had ever seen; when it ended, two twin dragons sprang out of the river and clashed against each other, creating a wave so strong it collided against the three Genin who were watching from a safe distance. Hitomi couldn't stop the rush of admiration that surged in her mind as she stared, dumbfounded, trying her best to stay aware of everything around her. She could still feel Naruto's clone, safe a few dozen meters behind them with Tazuna. If it came to it, she had to stop Zabuza from walking past the line she formed with her brothers.

"… copy every one of your moves."

As she heard her sensei's voice, Hitomi understood that the psychological warfare had started, and that he was leading, slowly overcoming Zabuza's mental shields. Kirijin didn't encounter the Sharingan often – and even if the Demon of the Hidden Mist had had any experience when it came to fighting against the Uchiha, the true secrets surrounding their eyes had been jealously kept somewhere even Sasuke hadn't been able to find them – yet.

"Enough! I'm gonna make you shut up once and for all!" And yet Zabuza froze midway through his hand seals, which allowed Kakashi to outpace him with the Great Waterfall technique. And that technique looked like that, Hitomi definitely wanted to learn it. If only A-rank hadn't been so chakra-hungry that even attempting it would empty her reserves and kill her… Maybe she could try it in a few years. She had a twinge of worry when she felt how much chakra Kakashi was putting into the technique, in addition to the steady stream of energy his Sharingan required. She knew to her core what chakra exhaustion inflicted upon a shinobi's body. If only there was any other way…

As soon as the formidable wave-whirlpool was over, Kakashi threw several kunai to Zabuza, stabbing him with each of them until he couldn't move anymore. Blood streamed down his limbs then washed away in the torrents of water that had been diverted from the river. Hitomi watched and carved that moment in her memory, unable to do otherwise.

"How is it even possible, Kakashi?" Zabuza rasped. "Does your eye allow you to see the future?"

"Yes. And I can see your death."

He had barely said those words that two senbon seemed to appear from nowhere and pierced the deserter's throat. Zabuza stiffened with a weak gurgle then slumped like a puppet whose threads had been cut. Hitomi understood what had fooled everyone there in the canon. He really looked dead. One more dead body in her wake. She mercilessly pushed down the anxiety that attempted to rise inside her with that thought. She couldn't allow for the slightest distraction; the fight wasn't over yet. And if all her opponents were to be such powerhouses… But then, Team Seven's legendary bad luck had only started to appear during this mission. She knew there were many, many more occurrences to come.

"Ah, he's dead at last." The voice, soft and quiet, came from the thick foliage of a tree a few meters away from the place where Kakashi was standing over Zabuza's limp body. Hitomi looked up and finally discovered Haku, one of the first characters from the canon she had really connected with, in the Previous World. He was slender but taller than she would have thought, his stature enhanced by the black wooden geta he wore instead of the open boots ninjas tended to prefer. His face was hidden behind a white mask decorated with Kirigakure's emblem and a red swirl, his long black hair kept in a tight bun covered by a cream-colored little cap. He didn't look like a typical threat. Hitomi didn't let that fool her, however: he was dangerous, perhaps even more than Zabuza had been. "Thank you," he continued with a subtle shade of respect in his voice. "You have been a precious help. I've been hunting Momochi Zabuza for a long time, waiting for an occasion to kill him."

"That mask, it's from the Kirijin Hunter Nin Corps, right?" Kakashi drawled. His question seemed a bit ridiculous, now that Hitomi was witnessing the exchange for real. He knew the answer to that question – he had the same kind of mask at home, probably in a drawer or a chest under his bed, or even a secret stash. Hadn't he been called the Hound? He was one of the very few amongst the ANBU to have acquired a worldwide reputation, and to have survived said reputation.

"Exactly," Haku said with a slight nod.

"What's a Hunter Nin?" Naruto prompted.

Sasuke was the one to answer his question, a gleam of reluctant respect in his eyes. Hitomi remembered he had studied the subject at the Academy, when he was still very young, before Itachi had betrayed the village. He had wanted to walk in his brother's steps. "It's a brigade in the Kirigakure ANBU division, tasked with hunting down rogue shinobi from the village and killing them before destroying the bodies."

"Eh? Why destroy them?"

"Because a body," Kakashi stepped in, "is full of secrets and information about the life a shinobi has lived. For example, if I came to die, people would fight over my corpse to dissect my Sharingan and try to decipher its many mysteries, or even just attempt to get all the techniques I know into their hands. Each village has medics whose only job is to read the meridian web of the bodies that are brought into their care."

Hitomi knew a Nara who was working in that division in particular, an impossibly tall and thin woman whose pale grey eyes seemed to examine everything as if she could discover their every secrets, destroy their surface and reveal their core. Since she had learned of that woman's job, she stayed at a respectful distance, just in case. If the creation of her Library was visible on her meridians… It could become a problem. A problem she wouldn't have to worry about since she would be dead, but still.

"B-but I…" Naruto stammered. "But… How… How can that guy be so strong? How could he kill Zabuza, who seemed invincible to us?"

"I understand it's a lot to take in, Naruto," Kakashi said in a soothing tone, "but things have always been this way. In our world, there are children younger than you and yet stronger than me. There will always be someone, somewhere, that will be better than you."

That shard of truth could be deeply unsettling for shinobi, often confronted with their own mortality. In this world so prone to quarrels, a stronger opponent often meant a meeting with death, and even ninjas cultivated, somewhere deep below the surface, a fear of their own demise. Without that fear, after all, they wouldn't have any survival or preservation instinct, and a lack of those would have been a real nuisance to their missions. Even at the Academy, children were taught that their life was precious – but that the mission was even more so.

"Your fight is over, you can rest now."

The masked boy shunshined from his branch to a spot next to Zabuza's lifeless body. Hitomi really wanted to learn that technique. If she could use it in combination with her other skills… She would be worthy of the unofficial title of pain in the ass to fight she proudly held in the Fellowship.

"I'm going to destroy this body. Thank you again, Konohajin shinobi." On those words, the masked shinobi disappeared, taking Zabuza with him.

Hitomi had thought, at length, about what she was supposed to do about this. She could have alerted Kakashi before Haku left, but it would have meant the two deserters' death, and the young Yūhi still hoped to change that. She was sure that man and child could play a major role in future events if she played her cards correctly. That was why she had decided to let events unfold for now, even if it meant another terrifying fight was to come.

Tazuna and Naruto's clone came back, then the blonde puffed out of existence. The bridge builder seemed a bit shaken, but he didn't even have a scratch on him. Kakashi watched him approach impassively, pulling his forehead protector back over his Sharingan. "Well, we still have to escort Tazuna-san to his place. Let's get moving."

"Yeah, you'll be able to rest soon, we're almost there!" Tazuna grinned.

Even Hitomi, who knew what to expect, barely reacted in time when Kakashi fell, cushioning him with her back. She moaned, the pain in her own body awakened by the end of her adrenalin rush and the sudden impact. Her ribs radiated a furious fire and breathing didn't seem worth the suffering it provoked.

"Aah, Kakashi-sensei, Hitomi!" Naruto jumped, fear unmissable on his features. "What's happening?"

"Ngh… Kakashi-sensei, chakra exhaustion, I'd say. Me, ribs, Zabuza's kick…"

"Hand him to me," Sasuke ordered. "You're wounded, which means you don't get to carry the other wounded. Come on!"

The girl obeyed and took a few steps on the road, arriving at Tazuna's side. He looked at her with worried eyes, as if she was in charge now that her sensei had dropped unconscious. The sigh that almost escaped her hurt enough to make her swallow a pained sob. Even if the house was as close as the bridge builder had said, it would still seem stupidly far away.