On the seventh day after their arrival in the Land of Waves, the sky was incredibly clear and the sun reflected on puddles everywhere with cheerful insolence. Hitomi had told Kakashi about her surveillance of Gatō and kept Sunaarashi with her at all times. The cat kept her updated on the tyrant's movements, which could become useful. When the man wasn't busy threatening or blackmailing people, he had a boring life.
This time, the whole Team Seven went to the bridge to watch over Tazuna, except for Naruto, who stayed home to protect Tsunami and Inari. After a moment of hesitation, Hitomi left one of her water clones and Haīro behind as well. She didn't like dispersing her forces like that, but cat and boy got along well and Naruto could order the clone around if he needed to. With the bridge builder's family as protected as possible, she felt more at ease.
Even if she knew what to expect, a ball of anxiety and shock alike formed in her throat when she saw the bridge littered with inert bodies. She walked to the closest man and took his pulse: he had only been knocked out. The needles sticking out of his limbs told her it was Haku's work – Naruto had told her he had met 'a boy who was even prettier than a girl' the previous day, during his morning training session, and it could only be him.
"Hitomi-chan," Kakashi ordered, "summon two water clones and send them to evacuate the civilians. This is a diversion, which means…"
"That the welcoming committee is already there," Sasuke finished.
After obeying her teacher, the girl sliced her thumb open and summoned her other two fighting cats, trying very hard not to worry about them. Hoshihi and Kurokumo had promised they would be very careful, and that they would go to the spiritual world immediately if they were wounded, so she had decided to trust them. The ginger cat and his black-pelted companion appeared in a puff of smoke, Sunaarashi joining them at their summoner's feet, obviously ready to fight.
All of a sudden, a thick blanket of fog fell over their group. Sasuke, Hitomi and Kakashi surrounded Tazuna in a triangle, swords and kunai unsheathed, as soon as the teacher gave the order. Behind Hitomi's back, the Uchiha seemed to be shaking, but she could almost feel the anxiety turn into jubilation inside him – maybe because the same was happening in her own body.
"Yo, Kakashi," started a deep, well-known voice in the mist. "Still dragging those brats around, uh? Look like they're shaking, the poor little things." And suddenly a dozen clones were surrounding them, all terribly threatening – and yet Hitomi wasn't afraid anymore. She even felt serene, as if nothing wrong could happen to her.
"Now, Sasuke-kun!" Kakashi ordered.
The Uchiha heir started moving immediately, his silhouette fading in the mist as he ran to one clone after the other to return them to a liquid form, his katana never stopping in its deadly dance. Water fell around them in a perfect, supernatural circle, and Sasuke stepped back to his place, in a defensive stance once more.
"Ooh, you beat all my water clones, eh? You've done some progress, kid. They are dangerous opponents, aren't they, Haku?" Even in compliments, his voice was still biting with irony, but Hitomi didn't let that get to her. No, she couldn't, not when she was hearing the masked boy's name for the first time, his identity hammering one more nail into the coffin of pressure and stakes Hitomi had engrossed herself from the beginning of this mission.
"So Hitomi-chan was right, and this boy is your accomplice. At least, this time, it's obvious."
"Let me handle him," Sasuke growled.
Hitomi didn't need to ask him why he wanted to fight Haku. She knew how important honesty was for him. She just tightened her and her cats' position around Tazuna to fill the void her adopted brother left as he stepped towards the adversary he had chosen for himself. Her eyes didn't leave Zabuza for a moment. She didn't have the Sharingan that was turning Sasuke's eyes red, but she wanted to be ready when the deserter attacked.
The two teenage boys collided in a clash of steel against steel. Sasuke seemed to have an advantage with Shingi to Giri, the katana he had inherited from his father, but Hitomi knew how fast Haku could be – she knew this advantage wouldn't last. She couldn't stop a rush of worry from washing over her, even knowing Haku loathed killing and would try to knock him out, to neutralise him.
"Hitomi-chan! Leave Kurokumo and Sunaarashi to protect Tazuna-san. You and I are fighting Zabuza. You're only doing support if you can help it, is that clear?"
"Yes, sensei!" Hoshihi following her like a shadow made of fire, the girl stepped toward the renegade. The gentle warmth of adrenalin was brushing her fears off, making them slide along her limbs and pool at her feet like a cloak she had shouldered off carelessly. She felt calm, focused, and in her dark red eyes laid a strength, an intensity that maybe hadn't been there a few days prior. She knew what was going to happen, and everything would be okay. She held on that truth like she would embrace a loved one, allowing it to slow her heart down and sing the melody of battle under her skin.
"Can't do anything without your brats, can you, Kakashi? Afraid you can't win without them?"
"Aah, you're so wrong, Zabuza. See, Sasuke is the best Genin in Konoha, and Hitomi is just behind him. And then, of course, there's Naruto, who's so unpredictable it becomes a strength of its own… Anyway, just to say that I don't need their help. I'm just using you as a training dummy."
The deserter seemed a bit offended by Kakashi's words, and Hitomi could empathise with that. She, too, would have felt insulted if she had been a Jōnin and one of her opponents had used her as a dummy for their Genin. She shifted nervously, tightening her grip around her tantō as she waited for Kakashi to act first. It happened in a flash, in the clash of steel against steel, her teacher's kunai against Zabuza's monstrous sword. She had to stay focused on her goal.
As he parried with an easy move, Zabuza laughed. "Did you hear that, Haku? Those kids are so strong."
"Yes… We have to be wary of them." There was no mockery in his tone, Hitomi realised as he formed a hand seal that turned water into ice. Hitomi's distraction would have cost her her life if Hoshihi hadn't jumped on Zabuza's arm from below to deflect the blow that would have cut her in half. The hit went over her head, so close it took a strand of her hair with it.
"For fuck's sake!" Kakashi groaned. He ran towards the other fight, Hitomi behind him, but Zabuza stopped them, standing in their way as mirrors formed a cage around Sasuke and Haku, hiding them from view. The smile on Zabuza's face, perfectly visible despite the bandages hiding the bottom half of his face, made Hitomi bristle. She snarled, killing intent blooming by reflex on her skin like its own kind of fog, invisible but toxic.
"Not so fast, you two. I'm your opponent."
Sasuke screamed in pain behind the mirrors and Hitomi's anxiety came back with a vengeance. In answer, from beyond her killing intent that had never been stronger, a soft, cruel and enchanting voice started whispering and crawling under her skin, all bloodlust and promises of massacre. Her pupils contracted extremely in the centre of her dark red eyes as Hitomi forced the voice to retreat so she could focus on the fight. She couldn't fail.
"Come on, think about it, Kakashi. If you go help your student, I'll kill the girlie and then your client, but you can't let her go alone for fear that she'd be trapped too."
The teenage girl could see the moment her sensei decided not to risk helping Sasuke. Just like her, he prayed that the young Uchiha handled it on his own, for his skills to be enough. Zabuza and Kakashi picked up their own fight, Hitomi taking the opportunity to throw a kunai towards Haku in the hope of distracting him. She wasn't surprised when he dodged, but the big puff of smoke appearing before the mirrors did surprise her – until she understood it was Naruto, Haīro in tow. With an affectionate smile, she let the boy sing his own praise as he saw fit while her cat walked to her – and then the blonde entered the circle of mirrors and Sasuke and he started arguing immediately.
"Boys!" she called in a light, almost playful tone. "If you don't start focusing on the enemy right now, I'm gonna have to punish you!" They immediately obeyed her and she could feel Kakashi's approval of her. They could now concentrate their own efforts on Zabuza and pay him back.
"Tell me," Kakashi started, "where did you pick up that boy exactly? Weren't the Kirijin clans massacred?"
"It wasn't easy, let me tell you that. He survived one of those massacres and he was begging in the streets like a mutt. I waited for him to kill another beggar over a slice of bread before taking him with me. I wanted to be sure he had what it took."
For a second, Hitomi allowed herself to feel immensely sad for Haku, who had to have been broken-hearted to have to kill that unnamed person. Then Naruto howled in pain and part of that feeling disappeared deep inside her. She parried a hit from Zabuza, rolled under his huge sword and replied with a kick that totally missed its target. She wondered if he had had a bruise, where she had hit him during their last fight. Part of her hoped so.
"Sorry, Zabuza, but this time I'm the one with no time to lose." Kakashi was tugging on his forehead protector when the nukenin attacked. His sword in one hand and one of the strange Kirijin kunai with only one cutting edge in the other, he rushed towards the teacher and stabbed his hand so deep the blade clicked against the metal plate on the Copy Nin's glove, on the other side. It had to hurt like hell, but Kakashi didn't even blink. "Not so eager to see the Sharingan again, are you?" he taunted as he finished his movement.
"Hmph. You should know that a ninja only uses his best weapon with parsimony."
"And you should feel honoured! You're the first of my opponents to see it twice. There won't be a third, though."
"And? Even if you beat me, you can't win against Haku. I taught him everything I know, forged him like a blacksmith forges a sword, until he became the perfect weapon. His techniques are even better than mine, thanks to his Kekkei Genkai! He's nothing like those weaklings you drag around."
Once again, Hitomi allowed the insult to fly over her head. He wasn't wrong, after all, when he said Haku was more powerful than they were. His knowledge of death had probably made him tougher, and his ice techniques were incredible. But the Yūhi heiress wasn't to be overlooked either, and she was lucid enough to know intimately each one of her strengths and weaknesses. She shuddered when she felt the Sharingan awake.
"You're making a mistake," Zabuza continued, "by showing me your precious eye again. Like you said last time, 'you won't get me twice with the same technique'!"
Suddenly, the mist thickened and Zabuza vanished into it. Hitomi closed her eyes for a second, just enough to focus some chakra in her nose and ears. When she'd come home, she'd ask Kakashi for senses enhancing training, she felt terribly exposed in this situation, even with her meridians. She needed to get better. She moved, reflexes taking over her body, and five shuriken fell to her feet, parried with a slash of her tantō. She saw a shadow in the fog then heard multiple clashes of steel against steel that told her Kakashi had faced a similar attack.
She remembered what was coming next, and Kurokumo's cry of alarm gave her the impulse she needed well before Kakashi understood Zabuza's next move. Already she was standing between Tazuna and the deserter's blade, and a line of fire and blood slashed across her torso, from left shoulder to right hip. If Hoshihi hadn't stopped the renegade by biting him behind the knee as hard as he could, she would have died, disembowelled, but she was lucky: the wound was impressive but superficial. It still hurt like a bitch, though, a burn that awoke in Hitomi's body and spread to each and every nerve. The pressure and whisper under her skin crawled in response, stopped at the last second by a surge of pure will.
"Hitomi!" Kakashi had just arrived, too late to protect her.
The girl's breathing was heavy, laborious, but got better when she forced the pain to retreat in a dark corner of her Library, ignoring the feeling of blood rolling down her body and staining her clothes. If she stopped to think about how the fabric clung against her skin, she'd be sick, and this definitely wasn't a good time for it. She clenched her teeth and attacked with her tantō, forcing Zabuza to parry and step back. Hoshihi joined her, while Tazuna and Kurokumo walked out of reach. "I'm okay, Kakashi-sensei. I have a plan, follow me! Haīro, Hoshihi, you know what to do!"
They had repeated this manoeuvre over and over, often on poor Ensui who hated playing the training dummy. Hitomi had evoked the possibility of using it against the swordsman, because it worked particularly well against taller and heavier opponents, just like he was. Ignoring the pain like it was just a phantasm, a product of her mind, she danced around Zabuza, Hoshihi and Kakashi helping her force him to parry from every side, while she closely monitored Haīro's position. As soon as she sensed him in place, she slid under the nukenin's sword, as fluid as the water under the bridge, and hit his torso as hard as she could with her open palm reinforced with chakra, leaving her blood on his naked skin. Totally taken by surprise, he couldn't stop the impulse she had given his body and took a few steps back, tripping on Haīro, who was waiting behind his legs.
Thus the big swordsman fell; before he was over his surprise, Hitomi was sitting on his torso, her tantō against his throat, while Hoshihi bit the hand he was wielding his sword with hard enough to stop him from using it, his heavy, ginger paw immobilising the man's shoulder. The girl was shaking, weak, out of breath, and yet she fought with all her might to keep the renegade submitted to her will, her knobbly knees pressing hard against his ribs. Soon enough, Kakashi came to her help, putting his foot on their opponent's stomach, his Jōnin strength managing to pin Zabuza to the ground. The two men looked equally as dumbfounded, and Hitomi had to admit she herself was astonished to have succeeded. She had expected Zabuza to dodge, but now she would be forced to…
"Step aside, Hitomi-chan, he won't move. I'll kill him for you."
Reluctantly, the girl started to obey, but froze mid-move when she heard Sunaarashi's voice, clear and firm in the mist. "Gatō is approaching, just like you said, Lady Summoner! He plans on killing Zabuza so he doesn't have to pay him, and he has a little army of civilian mercenaries with him."
Everything went still around them. For a second, Hitomi wanted to collapse in relief, but she resisted that impulse, preferring to stand up slowly, her tantō still threatening Zabuza just in case he tried something.
"It's… It's a lie," the man growled.
"What would my cat gain by lying to you now?" she challenged in a harsh tone. "I was expecting something like this to happen, that's all. I heard whispers in town, when I went there with Tazuna's daughter, and I decided to send one of my cats to spy on him. He wouldn't have any reason to lie, and especially not now that you ceased being a threat to me."
"Do you have any shred of evidence to support your claims, girl?"
Hitomi had to think about it for a moment, then a terrifying, probably quite cruel grin slowly stretched her lips. "Actually, I think I have exactly what you want, Zabuza-san. Kakashi-sensei, is your genjutsu good?"
"Well, quite, wh- oh, I see. Let me handle it."
She was beaming, almost as bright as Naruto, because she had succeeded. Neither Zabuza nor Haku would have to face the destiny that had been theirs in the canon, except if something went horribly wrong from this point on. As the buzzing of a genjutsu surrounded them, she kept the deserter under close watch, her sword still grazing his throat, and her cats acted accordingly, even if Hoshihi had stopped chewing on his sword hand.
A few minutes later, trapped in the illusion that was showing Zabuza's defeat, his now useless arms dangling along his flanks, Gatō stepped on the bridge, his group of mercenaries in tow, and started to mock the swordsman, boasting about the plan he had conceived to use him without having to pay for his services – after all, a shinobi as strong as he was, even a nukenin, was worth three times the army the man had behind him. Still hidden by the genjutsu spell, Zabuza exchanged a look with Kakashi and spoke in a voice full of muffled anger. "You can let me go and call your fluffballs back, kid. We aren't enemies anymore. Haku!"
As if he had heard everything – which was probably the case, he was a genius, after all – their other opponent ended his Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals technique, revealing Sasuke and Naruto standing back-to-back, their swords raised in front of them like shields. They were both wounded, but nothing too worrying. Even from where she was standing, Hitomi saw that her adopted brother's Sharingan now had two tomoe each. "Zabuza-sama, your orders?"
"One does not get away scot-free after trying to ensnare me. Gatō is dead, and his small fry with him. Kakashi, girl, will you help me?"
Taken by surprise, the teenage girl looked to her sensei before giving any answer. When he nodded, she squared her shoulders and nodded, too. "I will, and I'm sure Naruto and Sasuke won't want to be left out of it." Just as she said that, her brothers arrived next to her, looking absolutely fuming, like they had just heard the whole conversation. They looked well enough, and it was all that mattered. As for Hitomi, she was starting to feel her strength leave her body. She reinforced her limbs with chakra, still enough at that stage to chase her exhaustion. After signing for them to get ready, Kakashi interrupted the illusion.
"You're dead, Gatō!" Zabuza screamed as he charged, sword first, at the flabbergasted tyrant. Several mercenaries immediately stepped before his target, and it was the moment the Konohajin shinobi chose to join in. Hitomi's blood sang in her ears, the voice whispering more seductively than ever its promises of death and agony, but she resisted it with dignity, her sword hitting and parrying again and again. Twice, her cats saved her by diverting a mortal blow – nothing could make up for the blood she had lost and was still losing. In one instance, it was Haku who saved her by running a spear made of ice through the torso of a man who had attempted to jump on her from behind. After a second of shock, she thanked him with a nod and got back to the battle.
It happened in a flash, the flash of her blade on an exposed throat, and the cold reflection thrown by the sun on the blood that suddenly splattered her face. Her eyes open wide in shock, she watched the man fall at her feet, the taste of his life dripping on her lips, her cheeks, between her lashes, and in her eyes. She had just taken a life, all by herself, with her own hand, without the intermediary of one of her summons. A killer.
For a short, very short second, the voice that was whispering terrible oaths in her ear took over, pushed back the remorse that was suddenly choking her, burning it until only bloodlust and violence remained. When she took the upper hand again, Hitomi wasn't paralysed by the consequences of her actions anymore. Her heart was beating fast in her chest, her movements were muddled, rendered messy by exhaustion, but one after the other the men surrounding her fell.
She raised her head just in time to see Zabuza break Gatō's neck with a careless, effortless swipe of his arm. It was over. They had… They had won. She had succeeded.
Suddenly reaching the end of her strength, she fell to her knees in the sea of corpses and hid her face in her hands to cry over her innocence, murdered as surely as she had just murdered her first human being.