"Second Chances in the Mist"

Chapter 2: "Getting Closer"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz. I have nothing to do with any of them.

Author's note: I recently watched the conclusion of Zabuza's arc and I was deeply saddened. Granted, both he and Haku had beautiful death scenes, but I deeply wish they hadn't died. This story is basically one big tribute to them.

Also, I've edited Chapter 1 slightly.

On with the story.


The Demon of the Hidden Mist sneaked into his apartment, unseen by his neighbors. Once inside, he unwrapped his bandages, revealing the face of Momochi Zabuza. He stripped off his ninja attire and packed it into the back of his wardrobe. He put on a pair of drawstring pants and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. After that, he climbed into bed and soon faded into the realm of dreams.


The assassin gazed upon the dark head nestled on his chest with an expression most of his enemies would have considered alien to him: love.

The dark head tilted upwards, revealing a smooth, feminine face with brown eyes gazing at him.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

"Yes," Zabuza's lover replied with a soft smile on his face.

"Good," Zabuza murmured as he laid a soft kiss on the young man's forehead.

"Come on, kiss me lower," his lover encouraged with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"I really have corrupted you, haven't I?" Zabuza mused.

His lover reached up and kissed him soundly on the lips. Zabuza responded, running his fingers through the boy's hair. When they parted, the boy spoke some of the sweetest words in any language.

"Aishiteru, Zabuza."

"Aishiteru, Haku."


That was when Zabuza woke up. "Damn it. Only a dream."

One wouldn't think that someone as terrifying as Zabuza would have such "soppy" dreams. When it came to Haku, though, the missing-nin found himself feeling rather mawkish. It was a weakness of his, but one he wouldn't be rid of any time soon.

He looked at the clock and realized that it was time to go back to Konoha Junior High and begin yet another day of hell.

All right, it wasn't so bad. He got to seriously fuck with that bastard Kakashi's head over his feelings for the Haruno girl and he got to see Haku. Two wonderful things that compensated for the hell some of his students put him through.


After classes were over for the day, Zabuza sat in a classroom waiting for Haku. He would have taken a short nap, but he didn't want Haku to see him sleeping and think he was lazy. As much as Zabuza liked to act the badass, the truth was that he valued Haku's opinion of him deeply.

The assassin-cum-teacher looked at his watch. It wasn't like Haku to be late for anything, not in all the time he'd known him – both lives counted.

It was at that moment that his sensitive ears alerted him to the sounds of a scuffle. He would have let one of the other teachers handle it, but something compelled him to go and find out for himself.

He exited the classroom and stalked toward the double doors to the stairway. Once there, he climbed up the stairs, the sounds of struggle growing louder as he got closer.

When he reached the top floor, he entered the hallway and walked straight to the rooftop access. He climbed up onto the rooftop and saw something that made his blood boil.

Three boys surrounded Haku, one of them holding a box. The other two were shoving Haku around as he struggled to get at the boy holding the box.

"Give it back!" Haku yelled.

"Why should I, you freak?" the box-holding boy sneered.

"It's mine!" Haku answered as he charged at the box-holding boy, only to be tripped by one of the other two boys. Haku fell on his front, his uniform skirt flying up to expose a pair of plain white panties.

"Nice panties, freak," the boy who had tripped him mocked.

Haku pulled down his skirt and rose to his feet, his face flushed with anger and humiliation.

Seeing that look on Haku's face and the sneers on his tormentors' faces made something snap inside Zabuza. Less than ten seconds later, those same tormentors were begging for mercy from the self-styled Demon of the Hidden Mist.

"You're lucky I'm a teacher and we're on school grounds," he sneered, his brown eyes alight with demonic fire.

"We'll leave him alone! We swear we will!" the box-holding boy whimpered.

"Good," Zabuza hissed. "Now get the fuck out of my sight!"

The boy who had been holding the box dropped it and, along with his two companions, ran back into the school.

Zabuza picked up the box and gave it back to Haku. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Haku replied.

Zabuza noticed some scrapes on Haku's exposed legs. "I'll take you to the nurse to get those looked at."

Haku smiled wanly. "Thank you, Momochi-sensei."

"You're welcome," Zabuza answered.

As the two walked back into the school, Zabuza saw a folded piece of paper lying on the roof. He surreptitiously picked it up and slipped it into his pocket.

After having his legs bandaged by the school nurse Shizune, Haku and Zabuza walked toward the classroom where the latter was supposed to tutor the former.

"It's been rather stressful," Zabuza said. "Would you rather go home?"

"No," Haku replied softly.


An hour of tutoring later, Zabuza drove Haku home.

"So, Haku, what's your home life like?" Zabuza asked.

"It's nice," Haku answered. "Anko-san is nice to me. She's like a big sister."

"So I can assume you don't live with your parents," Zabuza deduced.

"No," Haku confirmed with a sad expression.

"What happened to them?" Zabuza inquired. "They die or something?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Haku responded softly.

"Then we don't talk about it," Zabuza conceded. "No big deal." Great. The kid's life is as shitty now as it was then. Whoever that motherfucker was that brought us back, couldn't he have bothered to give Haku a happier life?

Then again, I'm still an assassin-for-hire. Hell.

Zabuza stopped in front of a two-story beige-painted house. "This it, Haku?"

"Hai," Haku replied. "Thank you, Momochi-sensei." He opened the passenger door and exited the car.


Zabuza drove back to his apartment and parked his car in the apartment complex's parking lot. He went back into his apartment and entered his office. He had a lot of papers to grade, so he might as well get started.

After several hours of grading papers, Zabuza entered the kitchen to cook himself a meal. It was a small meal, consisting only of what Zabuza needed to keep himself going.

He was effectively under house arrest. He couldn't go out as the Demon of the Hidden Mist, not unless he wanted to put a bull's-eye on his chest and back. That left him bored senseless.

He pulled the folded paper out of his pocket and opened it, revealing a drawing of a familiar man dressed in black with bandages covering half of his face and a large sword on his back. A familiar white mask with wave-like red designs hovered over the man.

The reason the man was so familiar to Zabuza was that that man was him . . . and the mask belonged to Haku.

Does he remember? Zabuza wondered.


"Haku-chan?"

"What is it, Anko-san?"

"Where did you get those scratches?"

"I took a fall."

"Don't bullshit me, Haku-chan. You know better than that."

Haku gazed into those unnerving dark eyes of Anko and found himself telling her everything.

"Some boys were harassing me. Trying to keep my box away from me. Momochi-sensei took care of them for me."

"That's good to hear," Anko said, her expression softening slightly. "Do you like him?"

"Yes, of course," Haku answered. "He's a good teacher."

"No, I mean do you like him?" Anko amended with a wicked look in her eyes.

Haku blushed and looked away. "No, no, not like that!"

"Methinks you doth protest too much, sweet Haku," Anko purred, sounding more like a mischievous cat than a human woman.

"Ahh, Anko-san, you're embarrassing me," Haku protested.

Anko just smirked. "You're cute when you blush."

"Anko-san . . ."

Anko had the feeling that if this were some shoujo animé, she and Haku would be making out right now. In truth, she did find him attractive and if she had been the ruthless viper she was years before, she'd have taken him the moment he stepped into her home. However, she wasn't sure if he was attracted to women at all and she knew for a fact that this Zabuza Momochi held his heart.

Lucky bastard, she thought.

"Don't stay up too late with those books, Haku-chan. You need your sleep."

"Thank you very much, Anko-san."

"You're welcome," Anko spoke and laid a sisterly kiss on his forehead before walking out of his room.

When she entered her room, she saw a familiar and unwanted shadow there.

"Orochimaru," she hissed.

"What, no 'sensei' attached?" Orochimaru asked. "I'm hurt, Anko-chan. Wasn't what we had special?"

Anko snarled. "You're a sick monster and a traitor to Konoha."

"It wasn't my fault I outgrew this silly little enclave," Orochimaru answered, and Anko could swear she saw him smirk even though he was obscured in shadows.

"What do you want?" Anko asked.

"Haku," Orochimaru replied.

"Well, you can't have him," Anko declared.

"Of course not," Orochimaru remarked with a sick grin in his voice.

"Why do you want him?" Anko interrogated.

"For his Kekkei Genkai, of course," Orochimaru answered.

"Kekkei Genkai?" Anko repeated in disbelief. "Haku has a Kekkei Genkai?"

"He's not aware of it, but I am," Orochimaru stated. "He will make a fine addition to my ranks."

Anko could hear the twisted anticipation in his voice and it made her skin crawl. She could not believe that this man had ever been her teacher, not with the sheer malevolence that had sunk its roots so deeply into his soul.

"You won't take him," Anko snarled. "I'll do whatever I have to so that you can't have him."

Orochimaru reached out to stroke Anko's cheek. "And what, my sweet Anko, makes you think you can stop me?"

"I can and I will," Anko declared. "Now get the fuck out of my house before I paint its walls with your blood."

"So violent," Orochimaru purred. "You are more like me than you'd like to admit. No wonder the people of Konoha don't trust you." He withdrew his hand. "I will leave you and your dear Haku be for now, but I will claim the boy sooner or later."

He was gone. Just like that, he was gone.

Anko let out a sigh of relief and lay on her bed, trying her best to relax.

This isn't good, she thought. Orochimaru is back and he's after Haku for his bloodline limit. But how does Orochimaru know that Haku has a bloodline limit?

Anko rose from her bed and picked up her CD player, inserting her favorite rock band's CD into it and turning up the volume to maximum. Usually, this would soothe her, but it wasn't working this time. Orochimaru's visit had left her too rattled to relax.

As tough as she liked to act, Orochimaru had a way of making her feel like that same little girl who had once been his apprentice. That made her angry. Her reputation in Konoha had suffered deeply due to Orochimaru's treason, as the elders and most of the other ninja had assumed that she was no better than him. She had worked hard to get past that and make the village realize that she wasn't just Orochimaru's student. Orochimaru showing up at her house certainly didn't do anything at all to help her standing.

"Damn him," she muttered, although she could barely hear herself over the loud, hard beats of the band playing in her CD player.


In an apartment in Konoha, Naruto watched the movie Batman Begins on the English-language channel.

"Momochi-sensei gave me a really easy assignment," he remarked to Sakura and Sasuke, who were sitting on either side of him. "All I have to do is watch an English-language movie and take notes on it!"

"Silly," Sasuke muttered.

"What do you mean, bastard?" Naruto asked angrily.

"The cape would get in the way of his movements . . . and can he turn his head in that thing?" Sasuke answered.

"It's called suspending disbelief!" Naruto answered.

"Sasuke-kun doesn't have to suspend anything," Sakura defended.

"He'll be suspending something," Naruto mumbled. "I'll suspend him from the ledge of this apartment."

"I don't know, I swear to God!" the corrupt cop protested on the screen.

"SWEAR TO ME!" Batman roared.

"I never get tired of that line," a familiar smooth voice remarked.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke looked behind them and saw Kakashi leaning forward on the couch.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed. "You like Batman, too?"

"Yes," Kakashi admitted with an unabashed grin.

"So you don't read that perverted book all the time," Sakura commented.

"No, Sakura-chan, I do not," Kakashi answered. "After you're done with the movie, we'll train. In the meantime, do you have any popcorn? I'm hungry."

Sakura passed Kakashi the popcorn bowl and the patch-wearing young teacher took a handful and ate it.

"Buttery goodness."

An hour or so later, the movie was over. Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke had each gone into separate rooms to change into their ninja garb, as did Kakashi.

Naruto wore a black-sleeved orange jacket and black pants. Sakura wore a dark red zip-up top and miniskirt with black shorts. Sasuke wore a blue shirt and long khaki shorts with mesh arm-covers. Kakashi wore a dull green jonin vest over a navy Kevlar mesh shirt and pants, along with a mask covering his face all the way up to his eyes. All four wore forehead protectors with a metal bar marked by Konoha's symbol, but Kakashi wore his in such a way that it covered his left eye.

"Let's go," Kakashi said.


The four ninja leaped into the night, moving swiftly in the shadows. Within minutes, they reached the open field in the center of the forest.

"Now we begin," Kakashi stated. "Come at me, all of you, and do it as one."

The three genin charged Kakashi as one, each attacking him from a different angle. Naruto leaped up and aimed a kick for his head, while Sasuke's elbow flew toward Kakashi's midsection, and Sakura swept her leg to kick Kakashi's feet out from under him. Kakashi caught Naruto's ankle and tossed him while bending backwards to avoid Sasuke and going into a handstand to avoid Sakura.

"Very good," Kakashi remarked, catching a kunai that Naruto had flung at him as he flew toward a tree. Interestingly enough, he was still in the handstand position . . . and now he was balancing his body weight on just one hand.

Sasuke quickly performed some hand signs. "Fire Style! Fireball Technique!"

He breathed out a fireball, which Kakashi performed a one-handed cartwheel to avoid. By the time the silver-haired jonin landed, Sasuke was already attacking him again. Kakashi blocked Sasuke's attacks with one hand while using the other to read Icha Icha Paradise.

Sasuke growled. "Still not taking us seriously, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi found himself impaled in the back by shuriken and kunai. He vanished, revealing that he'd been nothing but a shadow clone.

"Shit!" Naruto exclaimed in frustration.

"Where'd he go?" Sakura asked.

"Boo," Kakashi's voice spoke before fists and feet found themselves embedded in vulnerable midriffs, thus knocking the owners of those midriffs to the ground. The jonin revealed himself, holding Icha Icha Paradise in one hand. "At least you fight better together than you used to."

"Shadow Clone Technique!" Naruto exclaimed, creating about twenty doppelgangers.

Kakashi smiled under his mask. "Naruto, you know as well as I do that you're not the only one here that knows that technique. Shadow Clone Technique!"

An equal number of Kakashi doppelgangers faced down Naruto's doppelgangers. The two small armies of doppelgangers charged each other, only for Naruto's side to be quickly overwhelmed by Kakashi's side. The Naruto clones quickly dissipated, as did Kakashi's clones, until only one of each was left.

"You're going down, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto declared.

Kakashi performed some hand signs that were very familiar to Naruto.

"Aw, crap," Naruto had just enough time to say before Kakashi revealed his overpowering technique.

Smoke billowed around Kakashi, obscuring his frame. It soon faded away to reveal a beautiful silver-haired woman posed enticingly among clouds that obscured her naughty bits.

"Hi there," she greeted seductively.

Naruto collapsed with blood gushing from his nose. "Now I know what it feels like."

Sasuke was doing his best not to stare, but his eyes kept drifting toward the beautiful woman that Kakashi had become.

"AHHH!" Sakura cried out. "Kakashi-sensei! Quit doing that!"

"Doing what, Sakura-chan?" Ninja Centerfold Kakashi asked in mock innocence. Smoke once again obscured "her" figure, fading away to reveal the male, fully clothed Kakashi. "Has anyone learned anything valuable today?"

"Yeah, that you're just as bad as Naruto!" Sakura declared hotly.

Kakashi chuckled. "No. You see, Sakura, not all fights are won by physical force. As a ninja, you must learn to use deception and trickery to outsmart an opponent. The Ninja Centerfold works quite well for this purpose because a straight male or a lesbian who looks at a beautiful naked woman will not be able to think clearly and that will grant the advantage to the person using that technique, assuming he or she knows how to use that advantage."

Sasuke looked at Naruto. "Dead Last, get up."

Naruto shot to his feet. "Don't call me Dead Last, asshole!"

Sasuke just grinned. "You look like you were ganged up on by jonin and beaten to within half an inch of your life."

Naruto quickly wiped the blood off his nose and glared at Kakashi. "When did you learn my technique?"

"When you were using it to prove your insane theory that the Godaime Hokage really was a lesbian," Kakashi replied coolly.

"I had plenty of evidence!" Naruto declared.

"Yes, the evidence of your perverse thinking," Kakashi answered.

"This conversation is getting disturbing," Sakura said.

"Indeed," Sasuke agreed.

Kakashi's voice turned grave suddenly. "We are in deep trouble."

"Why?" Naruto inquired.

"Orochimaru," Kakashi responded. "He's back."

"Orochimaru again?" Sasuke asked.

"Yes, Orochimaru again," Kakashi answered. "Did you think he'd give up so easily? The man is an obsessed, power-hungry monster."

"What is he after?" Sakura questioned.

"What else, Sakura-chan?" Kakashi replied. "He wants the ninja enclaves to band together under his leadership and conquer the whole of Japan. To do this, he'll go after anyone with a Kekkei Genkai."

"No . . ." Naruto murmured. "That means he'll go after Hinata and Neji!"

"Not just them, Naruto," Kakashi spoke. "Sasuke and Haku, too."

"Haku?" Naruto echoed. "But he's not a ninja!"

"He has no formal training or experience, but he possesses a Kekkai Genkai, alright," Kakashi stated. "He might be in the most danger of all, since Orochimaru will doubtlessly find him the easiest to persuade or coerce into his cause."


Meanwhile, the Demon of the Hidden Mist rode his motorcycle straight to Gato's corporate headquarters. He wasn't going to wait for Gato to send his thugs to kill him. He was going to come straight to Gato and kill him.

The Demon parked his motorcycle in the corporate headquarters' parking lot and walked to the elevator, only to be stopped by a pair of men in suits.

"Get the fuck out of my way," he snarled as he drew the large sword from his back and charged. The suited men pulled out semi-automatic guns and opened fire on him. The Demon used his sword as a shield and the bullets ricocheted off it, striking the men. With one swift motion, he slashed both men and they collapsed, their blood pooling out from underneath them. "Bitches."

He walked into the elevator and hit the special button that would take him to Gato's office. When he reached the office, he saw a virtual army of thugs parted in the middle to reveal Gato's smirking face.

"Ah, Demon of the Hidden Mist," he sneered. "Good to see you."

The Demon smirked underneath his bandages. "You won't be thinking that once I'm through with you."

"You're a little too expensive for my tastes," Gato remarked. "I was gonna send my guys to hunt your diabolical ass down, but now that you've come to us, we can kill you right here."

The Demon drew his sword. "Come on, all of you."

"Kill him," Gato ordered.

The thugs pulled out submachine guns and semi-automatics and all of them opened fire on the Demon of the Hidden Mist. He simply stood there, either allowing them to perforate him or helpless to do anything about it.

To their surprise, he dissolved into water.

"What the fuck?" Gato uttered.

"Here's Johnny!" the Demon exclaimed as he descended upon Gato's thugs and started slicing through them. One ended up cut in vertical halves and another was cut through from shoulder to hip. He decapitated a third and brutally impaled a fourth before slicing upward, cutting through his torso and head. About a baker's dozen of thugs gathered together to shoot at him but he ducked and weaved between bullets, letting them shoot each other as they had lined up in a circle. More thugs took shots at him but he deflected those bullets with his sword, letting them bounce off and hit other thugs.

Gato watched in horror as the Demon of the Hidden Mist slaughtered his men. Deciding not to take any chances, he fled for his life, only to be struck in the leg by a stray bullet. The crooked businessman collapsed, crawling on his arms to reach his personal elevator. Unfortunately, he was pinned to the ground by a large blade in his back.

"AAAAHHHHH!" Gato screamed.

"Hey. How ya doing?" the Demon whispered menacingly.

Gato looked up at the Demon . . . and saw the face of the Devil himself.

"You're a dead man," the Demon snarled. "You do realize that, right?"

"Guh-guh-guh," Gato uttered, hardly able to speak through the blood rising in his throat.

"And you know where you're gonna go?" the Demon inquired, although it was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. "Hell. Right where demons like me reside. They'll eat you alive, little man. You'll be nothing but fresh prey for them."

Gato spat blood at the Demon.

"I was gonna make it quick and painless, but now I think I'm gonna let you die slow," the Demon stated as he pulled his sword out of Gato's back, releasing a virtual geyser of blood. He attached the sword to his back and walked out of the dying Gato's office.

Once outside the corporate headquarters, he walked to his motorcycle, only to be confronted by a pale man with dark hair and yellow eyes.

"Excellent work, Momochi Zabuza," the man complimented with an evil smile on his face. "Or do you prefer to be addressed as the Demon of the Hidden Mist?"

"How do you know who I am?" the Demon asked.

"You did your best to expunge your records back in Kiri," the man replied. "But there is such a thing as hard copy, Zabuza."

"What do you want with me?" the Demon questioned angrily.

"It's not you I want, Zabuza," the man answered. "It's the boy you so fiercely crave. Yukikaze Haku, is it?"

"You won't have him!" the Demon roared. "I won't let you have him! Now who are you?"

"Orochimaru," the man responded. "Now . . . if you won't join me, then simply stay out of my way and no harm will come to you. Interfere . . . and your life is forfeit."

The Demon drew his sword again. "I just did a whole lotta killing back up there. You wanna be next on my list?"

"Be that way, Momochi Zabuza," Orochimaru hissed. "Be that way." He vanished into the shadows.

"Fuck," the Demon mumbled and got on his motorcycle, riding into the night.


End Notes: So there you go. The relationship between Zabuza and Haku continues to develop and we got a little look at Team Seven, or Team Kakashi as some people call them. Will Zabuza and Haku ever get together? Will Kakashi find the strength to either deny his feelings for Sakura or confess to her? What is Orochimaru up to and how does he know about Haku's Kekkei Genkai? All these questions and more will be answered.

By the way, Yukikaze is a last name I made up for Haku, since it's Japanese for "snowy wind" or "blizzard." It makes sense, in light of his Kekkai Genkai. Also, "aishiteru" is Japanese for "I love you."

You're free to let me know what you think of this story.