A/N: Sorry for the longer wait on this one. Had some stuff going on, and had to delay a bit. Hope it wasn't too much for you all. Thank you all so much for 100 reviews! Means a lot to me, and I'll keep it up as best I can :)
Time for Chapter 7
Enjoy!
Naruto strongly disliked uncertain situations. They were stressful, irritating, and, above all else, maddeningly long in most cases. At present, what he, Satsuki, and Shikamaru found themselves within could only be described as the absolute peak of uncertain situations. Worse yet, they had precisely no ways to change that fact unless they wished to be sent to a watery grave. Less than one hundred feet in front of them, under the cover of a thick mist, their leader, teacher, and guardian was dueling a man whom the genin had yet to even see.
The sounds of sparking kunai, clashing fists, and complex jutsus being performed could be heard clear as a bell from their vantage point, and it only served to further chip away at their collective nerves. They simply did not possess a developed enough set of senses to determine which strike belonged to who by auditory cues alone. Despite all of the things they did not know, of one thing they were certain. The tension would kill them long before the man against whom Kakashi was battling would.
"Could you quit pacing already? It's not going to change anything." Naruto said to Satsuki, who had been walking in a continuous, back and forth line across the shore since their rough landing upon it five minutes prior. At his words, the raven-haired girl shot him a glare.
"Shut it, deadlast. You're feeling the pressure as much as I am. You're just too dumb to know what it means." she said tensely. Naruto raised an eyebrow and gestured for her to continue. Satsuki threw up her hands in frustration.
"We can't see them, we can barely hear them, and we sure as hell wouldn't be able to react to them. Same went for the Demon Brothers. We're sitting ducks. We could die at literally any moment. Does that not freak you out?" she questioned. Her sudden temper was clearly a product of the great stress she was under, and Naruto understood the sentiment well. As such, he suppressed his urge to return with his own venom.
"I never said it didn't bug me. I'm as shaken up as you are. I just don't think we should be panicking about something we can't change. We need to wait." he reasoned as calmly as he could. Much to the surprise of both, Shikamaru was the one who responded next.
"I'd normally agree with you, but I think Satsuki has a point. Even if we aren't really of any use out there right now, we still need to at least keep our eyes peeled and ears open. Whoever Sensei is fighting is here for Tazuna, and as we've established, if he dies, so does the Land of Waves. I don't care much about it personally, but I think it'd be wrong to give up." he said. The blonde raised an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic conviction of his teammate.
"That's a new one from you. I guess I get what you mean, but I still think we should at least try to not freak out." he said. A loud ringing sound then split through the air, causing all of them to flinch. It had been a clash of blades, as evidenced by the barely-visible flash of sparks that had shone momentarily before their eyes.
"How strong is your teacher?" Tazuna asked nervously as the unseen duel raged on just outside their field of vision. Though each of the three genin initially began to answer the question, they soon found that they did not truly know the strengths, weaknesses, or limitations of Kakashi. He far exceeded each of them individually, and if their bell test was any indication, he was stronger than all three of them put together, but how far that prowess stretched was a mystery.
"He's good at what he does. Just trust him like we are." Shikamaru said shortly, though his tone was far less confident than his words. For the following five minutes, the group silently strained their ears and eyes to catch what minimal glimpses they could of the conflict before them.
"Are either one of you sensor types? Because I'm definitely not." Satsuki asked her teammates. Both boys shook their heads.
"Nope. I can barely even use my normal senses." Naruto said jokingly, drawing a chuckle from Shikamaru.
"I can relate. Probably not a good thing in this case, since that means all we have to rely on is our gut." he said nervously. Before any more could be said, a burst of orange light sent a wave of heat across the bank, causing the genin and Tazuna to stumble back a few feet. At the sight of the flare, Satsuki's eyes widened just a touch.
"That was a Fire Style Jutsu. Probably the Great Fireball." she said in a tone filled with poorly veiled awe. Shikamaru frowned and glanced in her direction.
"Isn't that jutsu exclusive to your family?" he asked skeptically. The raven-haired girl nodded and pursed her lips tightly into a thin line.
"It was, anyway. Variants of it have always existed, but I know that shade of fire like the back of my hand. That was my family's jutsu." she said firmly. Another burst of fire then ignited in the mist-curtained river. Naruto stepped further back and shielded his eyes from the light of the destructive fire.
"That's some ridiculous heat. It's frying me from over a hundred feet out. That can't be safe to use." he said through the renewed sound of sparking kunai ringing out in front of them. Despite the dire situation, Satsuki smirked in his direction in response.
"Just another reason you should watch your tongue around me. That's a jutsu I know how to use." she said proudly. The blonde rolled his eyes and kept his gaze focused straight ahead.
"And you'd end up in prison for burning me alive, so I think I'll keep doing what I've been doing." he said dismissively. Then, for the first time in a fair stretch of time, Tazuna spoke.
"Do you think he's winning?" he asked tensely. It was Shikamaru that answered, and his response was a precise expression of the group's collective unease.
"I sure hope so."
Living and dying at the mercy of thin margins was a feature, not an aberration. With every swing of the blade, no matter how wide and obvious, the chance of a swift, bloody death existed. Each jutsu, each exchange, it all held dire consequences. To learn to play by these margins, and to bend them to one's own will was the mark of a truly proficient Ninja. To manipulate the opposing side into cutting their own throat by way of their own poor judgement was an artform in and of itself.
Kakashi Hatake had certainly had less trouble with lesser men than Zabuza Momochi. For all that he maintained a casual, nonchalant demeanor the majority of the time, an ocean of blood lay beneath his feet by virtue of his career and expertise. As of the present moment, he had yet to find his opening to add to the volume of that unfortunate sea. The men had gone tit for tat time and time again. For a man of his size and power, Zabuza was shockingly nimble and fast.
'I should've figured that fire would only make the mist worse.' Kakashi thought to himself as he ducked under a bladed swing for his head. As Zabuza attempted to regain his balance from the missed swipe of his sword, the leaf jonin pushed off of his rear foot and speared his fist across the left side of the rogue's bandaged jawline. The strike did little more than turn his head to the side, but it bought Kakashi ample time to pivot away and leap back into a more open range.
As was standard, Zabuza immediately pursued him across the space the jonin had created between them. Opting to meet him rather than evade, Kakashi engaged him halfway across the icy water with a pair of kunai drawn. Despite the disproportionate sizes between his kunai and Zabuza's enormous blade, the clash ended evenly, with a spray of sparks clearing away some of the mist.
"For a man as slim as you, you're tough to overpower. I've cut larger men in half with less effort." the rogue said darkly as he strained to break through Kakashi's defenses. The silver-haired jonin shrugged as best he could and pushed Zabuza back a step.
"I'd like to think I'm pretty tough." he said simply. The rogue gave a laugh at the quip and increased the force with which he pressured Kakashi with his blade. A moment later, he knocked the jonin's kunai off to the side to create an opening. Before Kakashi could regather his bearings, Zabuza kicked him square in the chest and sent him tumbling across the water. When Kakashi finally managed to stop himself from falling further victim to his own momentum, he was forced to defend himself again immediately.
Swing after swing, he ducked, dodged, pivoted, and deflected Zabuza's increasingly violent attempts to bisect, bludgeon, and behead him.
"You could at least try to make this a contest, you know." Zabuza goaded as he swung a downward arc with his blade. In stark contrast to his previously skittish tactics, Kakashi planted his feet, and took a gamble of timing and positioning. As the rogue swung his sword down toward the jonin's head, Kakashi intercepted the metal by catching it between his palms and stopping it mid-stroke.
"Sorry, but I don't get into brawls." Kakashi said. He then forced a stream of chakra through his palms, which he swiftly streamlined into electricity. The steel of Zabuza's blade conducted the shockwave and directed it into the rogue's own body, sending him reeling back in a stupor of numbness and temporary paralysis. With a clear lapse in defense on the part of his opponent, Kakashi aggressively rushed forward and cracked Zabuza on the temple with the point of his left elbow.
The rogue lurched off to his own left and stumbled away, thus leaving his head in perfect position for Kakashi to slam his right shin into his forehead as he leaned down toward the oncoming kick. The series of blows sent Zabuza crashing down onto the water, in which he began to sink. Choosing to take as few chances as possible, Kakashi knelt down and slammed his palm down onto the water. He then forcibly injected an even more intense burst of electrical chakra into the river.
As a result, the water was turned into a makeshift conductor, with bolts and sparks flying around just beneath the surface tension on which the jonin stood. After a moment or two, Kakashi removed his hand from the surface and stood up straight. A swathe of dead fish slowly began to float to the surface of the river. For a time, there was silence. Too long a time.
'You're still alive down there. I can feel you, Zabuza.' Kakashi thought to himself with narrowed eyes and focused ears. In line with his suspicions, a bubble drifted its way up to the surface at Kakashi's feet. Taking the cue, the jonin leaned back sharply. A split second later, Zabuza's blade came flying straight upward out of the water, soon followed by its wielder. The jonin's preemptive lean at the waist allowed him to avoid injury, but it compromised his balance enough to force him to reset and back up.
"I kicked you clean in the head, and then I fried you. You've got to be made of rubber, or something like it." Kakashi said only half-jokingly as the rogue Ninja before him. Zabuza's body routinely twitched from the excess electricity still pulsating through it, and he looked somewhat worn by the experience, but overall, he looked as close to unfazed as a human being could given what Kakashi had put him through.
"Or maybe you've lost your touch. Who knows? It could be both. Neither of us are young anymore." the blade-wielding rogue said roughly. Kakashi raised an eyebrow and prepared himself to fight once more.
"I'm thirty, and you can't be a ton older. I think you're underselling me." he said. Zabuza smirked beneath his bandages and raised his sword above his head at an angle.
"And most Shinobi die before they hit thirty-two. Our profession doesn't have much of a shelflife. As far as this world is concerned, we're old men." he said. He then swung his blade in front of himself. As had happened before, the mist began to clear around the two combatants, but this time, it disappeared entirely, thus leaving the river and both shores fully visible. For the first time in quite some time, Kakashi's genin were visible to him.
'They all made it in one piece. Thank God.' the jonin thought to himself, relief creeping its way into his psyche. Zabuza's mirthless laugh quickly snapped him back to attention.
"Let's get the kids involved, shall we? It's only fair." the rogue said as he made a hand seal. Kakashi's eyes widened as two clones made of water appeared in an identical likeness to Zabuza at either side of the blade-wielder.
"Leave them the hell out of this. You're fighting me." Kakashi snapped. Zabuza shook his head and made a signal with his hand that sent his water clones sprinting for the bank on which Team Seven stood alongside Tazuna.
"Those copies are less than half of me in terms of strength. Probably still more than enough to slaughter your brats and that old man, but still. They might just have a fighting chance if they play their cards right." Zabuza said jeeringly. Kakashi gritted his teeth, but managed to calm himself down.
"Fine, in that case, I'll just have to get rid of you quickly." he said rigidly. He then pulled his forehead protector straight, removing it from his left eye in the process. The eye snapped open a beat later to reveal a red iris with several black tomoe encircling the pupil. A fully-matured Sharingan. Zabuza folded his arms across his broad chest and held his ground.
"Kakashi of the Sharingan. The Copy Ninja. That eye is where those titles come from. I've been waiting for you to finally bite down and use it." he said. Kakashi scowled and stepped forward.
"You're going to regret ever bothering to hinder me or my team."
"They'll be on us in twenty seconds."
Satsuki processed Shikamaru's words and swallowed the nervous lump in her throat as she and the rest of her fellow genin awaited the arrival of a pair of clones Kakashi's foe had created. For the first time, the group had a visual on who exactly their teacher had been contending with for the past fifteen minutes. He was certainly as unsettling as his mist, and he had a quality of bloodlust about him that caused Satsuki's blood to freeze in her veins.
"Back up a few steps, old man. Things are about to get a little messy." Naruto instructed Tazuna. In a moment of rare meekness, the bridge builder did as he was told and retreated several meters back. With their client at a slightly safer distance away, Team Seven bunched themselves closer together and stared straight ahead at the oncoming clones.
"From the looks of things, this guy's been making Kakashi-sensei work for it. If that's the case...we're probably screwed." Shikamaru said bluntly. Satsuki gave a dry laugh at his candor.
"Damn shame, too. Dying with the two of you makes us a little too even for my liking." she joked arrogantly, drawing a snort from Naruto, who had drawn a pair of kunai.
"Once a bitch, always a bitch, I guess." he said flatly. A few beats later, the clones were upon them, stopping little more than ten feet in front of the genin with their sizable blades drawn.
"For somebody as seasoned as Kakashi to bring literal children out onto the field like this is beyond me. Not that I haven't done a bit of the same before. Either way, three bodies' worth of blood should add up nicely. The name's Zabuza, and I'll be the last thing you ever see or hear." one of the clones said in a deep, cutting tone. Shikamaru lowered his stance.
"That's a little overdramatic, don't you think?" he shot back, choosing to die as his dry-humored self rather than a quivering mess, it seemed. The clones simultaneously chuckled at the retort.
"I'll cut out your tongue first, brat." they said darkly. The clones then charged forward at the genin, prompting the teens to scatter. Though they had moved defensively, the cell quickly charged back in to prevent Zabuza from moving any further toward Tazuna, who was standing frozen just ahead. Satsuki was the first to be struck, and it was by the flat of one of the clones' blades. She was sent crashing to her back on the ground of the shore.
'Not now…!' she thought to herself in a slight panic as the clone that knocked her over reared his blade over his head to swing it down on her. As she scrambled to her feet, she barely managed to leap away in time to avoid being cut in two. The clone quickly attempted to pursue her, but a kunai was quickly lodged into his ribs.
"Move, Satsuki!" Naruto called out to her from a few feet away. The blonde was engaged alongside Shikamaru in a painstaking, strenuous effort to hold their clone's blade in place in order to prevent it from striking downward at them the way Satsuki had just contended with. Needing no further prompting, the Uchiha girl flipped backwards and set her feet. She then weaved a sequence of hand seals and leaned her head back.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" she yelled, snapping her head back to level and unleashing a burst of searing fire from her throat as she did so. The clone with which she was locked in raised his blade and turned its flat toward her. The fire slammed into the sword forcefully, and caused Zabuza to retreat a few inches. Once her chakra ran dry from the exertion, Satsuki ceased the Jutsu.
"Not quite as intense as Kakashi's, but seriously impressive for a newbie. Be proud of that." Zabuza said. He then charged forward and swung his blade at Satsuki's head. The girl leaned back as quickly as she could, but was still grazed by the end of the serrated edge. The contact opened a thin incision on her cheek that sprayed blood. As a result of having compromised her posture to keep her head on her shoulders, the leaf kunoichi lost her balance and stumbled back.
Instead of falling over completely, however, her back struck a barrier. With a quick, rushed glance over her shoulder, she saw that it was Naruto who she had bumped into. The pair was back to back, with Shikamaru hardly two feet to the blonde's left. The second Zabuza was calmly stalking toward the boys while the second did the same toward Satsuki. They were surrounded.
"Second time asking this week, but...any ideas?" the Uchiha girl asked as calmly as she could manage. Both Naruto and Shikamaru shook their heads.
"Fresh out. They're way too strong to paralyze with my shadow, and Naruto's not fast enough to hit him. Seems like you aren't either." the Nara said bluntly. The two Zabuza's then stopped their advance and made identical hand seals on either side of the trio.
"Normally, I'd just kill you three right here and now, but I think I'm gonna draw this out." the leftmost clone said coldly. Each clone then extended their arm forward.
"Water Style: Water Prison Jutsu!" they both announced. Before any of the genin could react, the atmosphere around them liquified and encapsulated them in a freezing orb of water. They were tightly packed together, and the internal current of the strange water formation they were stuck within made attempting to force their way out practically impossible.
"Most people can hold their breath for around two to three minutes when they're desperate, so you'll all have time to think up some last words, even if you won't actually get to say them." Zabuza said in a cruel tone as the teens writhed and choked within the liquid prison. Satsuki struggled mightily against the current in an attempt to force herself out into the open air, but found that she was in no position to move, as upon their forceful entry into the ball of torrential water, she had accidentally swallowed some of the liquid, which was now pooling in her lungs. Shifting her attention to her teammates, she saw that they were a bit better off than she was, as they appeared to be somewhat lucid and calm.
Naruto's calm quickly and visibly deteriorated when he spotted Satsuki. Apparently, she was doing a poor job of hiding just how much she was struggling. For a moment he hesitated, seeming to consider his options, but he quickly forced his way toward her. Before she could react, he took hold of the sides of her face and pulled her head forward. Much to her shock, Naruto covered her mouth with his. In the midst of her shock, Satsuki felt her lungs fill with just enough air to restore a touch of her strength.
Once the task was done, Naruto pushed off of her and gripped his chest. However much of his oxygen he had passed on to her had apparently been a substantial amount, as he had traded his relative comfort for just as much, if not more difficulty than she had been dealing with. In any other circumstance, the girl would have immediately demanded an explanation, and likely would have struck him, but at present, she lacked the environment to do either.
Over the next thirty seconds, all of the strength that any of the genin had mustered up to grit their way through the dire straits they found themselves in was eaten away at and practically reduced to nothing. Just as each of the three approached the point of losing consciousness, however, the prison of water dissipated all at once. Shockingly, the clones melted along with it.
"What...in the…" Shikamaru coughed as they all laid in a heap on the damp shore. As she regained her bearings, Satsuki slowly sat up and freed Naruto from her bodyweight, as she had been laying on top of him due to the fall. A long glance across the river revealed a shocking sight.
Zabuza was seemingly dead, floating at Kakashi's feet, but their teacher was not alone standing over the inert rogue Ninja.
Kakashi looked on with narrowed eyes and a skeptical disposition as a strange, surprising development played out before him. He had largely been several steps ahead of Zabuza upon the activation of his sharingan, but the match had still been somewhat competitive moment-to-moment. Out of nowhere, Zabuza had been struck down by something unseen and sudden. Now, he lay lifeless in the cold water on which they had been fighting. Interestingly, the person whom Kakashi assumed had been the perpetrator of the hit had shown themselves.
The person in question wore the garb of an international Hunter Ninja, was of relatively average height, and strode lightly over the water. They wore a mask to cover their face, and had long brown hair bound behind their head with two strands swaying down across their shoulders.
"Forgive my intrusion, but I simply couldn't resist the opportunity to strike." the hunter said politely. The voice was soft and feminine, and held all eloquence of a trained professional. Kakashi shifted in place as the new arrival examined the floating body carefully.
'Senbon through the neck? That's some freakish accuracy. Who is this?' the silver-haired jonin thought to himself as the huntress picked up the corpse and slung it over her shoulder with surprising ease.
"I have been tracking Zabuza Momochi for a number of weeks at the behest of my superiors. I simply had to wait for an ample chance to finish the job. Thank you for providing me that chance." the huntress said evenly with a bow.
"Oh, so I was your bait, was I?" Kakashi asked. The mysterious arrival gave a shrug and turned her back to the jonin.
"That's one way to think of things, I suppose." she said, bracing herself to zip away as she spoke. Before she could, however, another voice rang across the river.
"What the hell is going on, and who on earth is that?" Shikamaru, who was bounding across the water, asked in confusion. The huntress slowly turned back around to face Kakashi and Shikamaru, who had joined his teacher.
"I have already explained myself. Good Day." she said before disappearing into a puff of smoke with Zabuza in tow. Before Shikamaru could ask the obvious question, the Jonin answered it for him.
"Apparently, she's a hunter who's been after Zabuza's head for a long while now. She used us as a distraction to get a clean shot at his throat. I'd normally not buy it, but the way she killed him was perfectly in line with the way hunters operate." he explained briskly. He then cast a look back at the shore, where Naruto, Satsuki, and Tazuna were staring at them expectantly.
"We should probably go tell them, don't you think?" Shikamaru suggested. Kakashi nodded and gestured for the Nara to follow him. After a brief jog across the river, they reached the rest of their party.
"What just happened?" Naruto asked simply. Kakashi sighed heavily and geared himself up to explain the sheer oddity of what had just occurred for the second time. After a few minutes of questioning, answering, and several points in between, the situation at hand was somewhat understood by the entirety of Team Seven.
"That's a freakish stroke of luck. We'd have died without the hunter." Satsuki said in an odd tone. Kakashi nodded stiffly.
"Yeah, and that's on me. I should've had you run on ahead. I could've caught up. Either way, we need to-" he began. Before he could finish the sentence, he collapsed suddenly to the ground.
"Sensei!" Naruto exclaimed as Kakashi pulled his forehead protector over his left eye once again. The silver-haired jonin coughed a bit and rolled over onto his back.
"Don't worry about it. Using my eye is a little...tiring." he admitted stiffly. Surprisingly, Tazuna was the first to speak up.
"My family's home is only a few miles from here. We can lay you down there. How does that sound?" he said. Kakashi nodded and propped himself up on his elbows.
"Yeah, sure. I'm gonna need help walking, though." he said. Satsuki and Naruto both nodded as well and slowly raised their instructor up to his feet and slung each of his arms over their shoulders.
"Lead the way." Satsuki said to Tazuna, who quickly stepped in front of the group and began to walk, prompting them to follow.
Oddities were at hand, and they would all mean different things for each Ninja as time wore on.
A/N: I AM SO SO SORRY for the long wait. I really wanted to get this out last night, but I had a lot of shit to do. Tried to make this longer to make up for it. I'm really sorry for skipping over Kakashi's masterclass over Zabuza with his sharingan, but that fight is so brilliant in canon that I don't think I could have written it well. I hope you can forgive me :(
Also, Haku, as you all know, just appeared. Haku will actually, as many of you could have gathered from that brief scene, will actually be a girl in this fic. You do the math…
Tell me what you thought in a review :)
See you next chapter! Read and Review!
