"Guys! Take Tazuna and get out of here right now! His clone can't travel far from him or it turns back into water." Kakashi shouted from Zabuza's water prison.

"But what about you sensei?" Sakura asked, nervously holding her kunai in front of her.

"Don't worry about me! I told you he's too much for you! Now leave! That's an order!"

Sasuke was about to follow that order, glancing at his teammates. 'Damn it. Even if we do run, Zabuza will just kill Kakashi and chase us down. Our fates were sealed the instant Kakashi was captured. We'll have to fight Zabuza and free Kakashi. It's the only way we even have a shot at surviving.' Again Sasuke looked at his companions. Naruto looked ready to charge in and attack, no surprise there. He always was too headstrong for his own good. Tazuna looked about ready to turn and run as fast as he could. When he saw Sakura she looked moments away from bursting to tears.

"Don't worry Sakura." Sasuke forced himself to say. "I promise we'll get through this together." Sasuke tried to sound confident but to his ears the promise sounded hollow. Still it seemed to work, Sakura looked a little calmer. "Just stay close to Tazuna and keep him safe." Sasuke turned to Naruto, who was making the hand seal for his shadow clones. "Naruto and I will handle this."

"Yeah, this eyebrow less freak won't know what hit him." Naruto boasted as ten more Naruto appeared around him. "You stay back and keep the old fart safe."

"Oh so the little brats think they're real ninja." Zabuza taunted. "Tell me children, how old were you when you took your first life?" Both Sasuke and the Narutos stiffened at the question. "Oh, still virgins I see. Then let me tell you a story about my home village, Kirigakure. It had another name once, the Village of the Bloody Mist. It got the name because of the graduation ceremony every student went through to become genin. When they started at the academy two children would be paired off. They would live, fight, and train together. They were meant to be as close as siblings. In order to graduate from the academy, one of the students had to kill the other one."

At that Sasuke and Naruto glanced at one another. 'If we had been born in that village…' Sasuke couldn't finish the thought instead he thought of their fight so long ago, when Itachi had betrayed him. Sasuke could tell Naruto was thinking the same thing.

"So what are you saying?" Naruto asked, "That you killed your best friend to become a genin?"

Zabuza laughed, "I'm not finished with my tale. The practice has since been ended, because of a certain incident. One year a child who wasn't even old enough to enter the academy butchered the entire graduating class of over a hundred students. I've never had so much fun. So let me ask you, do you still think you have a chance against me?"


"You're a monster." Sakura whispered after Zabuza finished his story. He slaughtered one hundred children, while he was a child himself. There's no way someone like that could be human.

She suddenly found it hard to breathe. She could only watch as Sasuke, Naruto, and all of his clones, seemingly heedless of their inevitable demise, charged forward. She could barely hear Kakashi Sensei's shout for them to retreat while Zabuza's clone effortlessly repelled the onslaught without moving from its spot. Sasuke had leapt into the air while the Narutos all threw shuriken at the Kiri ninja. With contemptuous ease Zabuza's clone blocked the shuriken with a swing of his giant sword, all the while aiming the swing to cut Sasuke in half. Sakura closed her eyes and cried out to Sasuke before the sound of metal crashing into wood reached her ears. When she opened her eyes, the girl saw a log that looked like it had been hit with a club fall to the floor while Sasuke was behind the clone aiming a kick at his back. Before the foot could connect the water clone turned and grabbed Sasuke by his ankle. With his savage strength, Zabuza tossed Sasuke like a rag doll into the oncoming wave of Narutos. While he collided with two Narutos, causing both clones to disappear, the remaining 9 all tackled Zabuza's clone. The giant didn't even budge as he shoved against his attackers and swung at them with his sword. That was when Sakura saw he was using the blunt side of the blade.

'He's toying with them. How are we supposed to protect someone against something like that?' She wanted it all to stop. She wanted to run home and forget that this nightmare ever happened. But she knew Sasuke and Naruto wouldn't run away and leave Kakashi Sensei to die. And even if she could bring herself to abandon them and run herself, she had no doubt that she wouldn't be able to make it home. As much as she hated it she was stuck here, for better or worse.


Naruto's chest felt like it had been danced on by an angry horse. The blow from Zabuza's giant blade had disposed of all his clones and sent himself flying, landing in a crumpled heap next to Sasuke.

"He's not trying to kill us." Sasuke said as he helped Naruto to his feet, "Not yet anyway."

"Is that supposed to be comforting?" Naruto coughed, chest burning with pain.

"It means we get another shot at freeing Kakashi." Sasuke informed him. "So long as we don't bore him."

"Great, got any bright ideas?"

"I have the beginning of a plan. You brought a windmill shuriken right?" Naruto shrugged off his backpack, keeping a wary on the Zabuza clone who seemed content with letting his prey try whatever they were thinking of. After a few moments of searching Naruto produced a large fan like blade that when unfolded resembled a windmill propeller. "Great, think you can keep him distracted?"

"Please." Naruto said as he made even more clones, "Distracting people is my specialty." And with Naruto and his clones charged forward each shouting a battle cry of some kind. Two clones started to weave hand seals. Within moments Zabuza's clone was engulfed by a giant inferno.


"Hmm. I'm afraid it's not very strong." Kakashi commented upon seeing Naruto's rather small fireball. "Still I guess that's be expected, you are a wind nature after all."

"Then why the hell did you bother teaching me this jutsu then?" Naruto complained, upset that his fireball was so much weaker than what he saw Sasuke do.

"Just trust me ok. Keep practicing at it and it'll get stronger. Until then however let's trying something else." Kakashi instructed Naruto to create a shadow clone. "Now one of you cast a fireball while the other casts jet stream. Your target is that tree over there. The two Narutos started sequencing their hand seals. They both finished at the same and where one blew out a great gust of air, the other shot another small fireball. When the small ball of flame connected with the stream of wind, Naruto blinked in surprise.

The jet stream had ignited like oil and had become a firestorm that consumed not just the tree Kakashi had pointed at but several trees behind it as well. The two Narutos stared in open mouthed amazement as Kakashi's own shadow clone doused the fires with a water jutsu.

"When two opposing chakra natures meet two things happen." Kakashi explained, his eye smiling at Naruto's surprise, "Either one will cancel the other out, like water does with fire, or they will combine and strengthen each other, like wind and fire. Remember Naruto, versatility is your greatest strength."


Zabuza was mildly impressed with the blonde brats little trick. If it weren't for the fact that the mist surrounding them weakened the combined jutsu, along with his clone created a water wall around him before he was engulfed, Zabuza would be short one clone. Still it wasn't quite good enough. Zabuza decided right there that if the blonde brat were able to grow up and mature, he'd be a major contender in the ninja world. Shame Zabuza had to kill him now. With a nod, his clone turned its sword around and began to lay waste to the little army of blondes. That was when he noticed the other brat.

The dark haired boy had unfolded a windmill shuriken and hurled it directly at him. 'Smart. Attack the real me while my clone is distracted, and hopefully put an end to me.' Zabuza thought as he watched the giant shuriken sail towards him. It was too close for him to deflect it with his sword, so he caught it by the ring in the center. To his surprise, the brunette didn't curse or look angry that his attack failed. He smiled. That's when Zabuza noticed the second shuriken flying towards his mid-section. 'He hid the second in the shadow of the first. Clever little bastards.' Unable to block or catch the second shuriken, Zabuza did the only sensible thing he could do. He hopped over the damn thing without taking his hand off of Kakashi's water prison.

"Good try kids." Zabuza taunted as he landed. "But not good enou…"

"Who said we were done!" a loud, obnoxious voice called from behind. Zabuza turned to see the blonde hurdling towards him, each of the fingers on his right hand had a ragged line of charka running along it. Zabuza had no choice, he removed his hand from the water prison and leaned away from the oncoming brat. Even so, the kid was still able to scratch his side, drawing five small trickles of blood.

"Woo Hoo!" the blonde shouted as he landed in the water in front of them.

"You little shit!" Zabuza spun the windmill shuriken around his finger, fully intending to take the little bastard's head off with it. Only for it to stop spinning mid wind up. Zabuza turned to see a drenched Kakashi, holding on to one of the four blades of the shuriken, murder plain to see in his scarlet eye. "Guess I'll have to take you first if I want to get to the brats. Eh Kakashi?" Zabuza chuckled letting the windmill shuriken fall and sink into the lake.

"Don't make it sound like it's going to be easy Zabuza." Kakashi growled in response, "The same jutsu won't work on me twice."

"Is that so?" The two jonin stared at one another for a few moments. Weighing each other. Then as one they leapt apart, hands flashing through identical hand seals. For almost a minute the two ninja just stood there weaving their seals. When both finished at the same time, twin dragons of water emerged from the lake and attacked. The resulting clash sent waves through the lake, forcing Naruto under the water's surface. While their dragons fought Kakashi and Zabuza closed in on each other, sword in Zabuza's hand, kunai knives in Kakashi's. Sparks flew from the blades as the two engaged each other with lightning fast attacks. Kakashi crossed his two knives together to make an X and caught Zabuza's sword between them. When Zabuza pushed Kakashi away from him he pressed the attack, but no matter how hard or fast Zabuza struck at him, Kakashi was able to duck or weave out of the way, all the while score numerous if superficial wounds with his two knives.

"Why won't you die?" Zabuza shouted as he slammed the sword to his back and started weaving a new jutsu, only to find Kakashi already weaving the exact jutsu he was. This time Kakashi finished first.

"Water Release: Giant Vortex." Kakashi said as an arc of water rose around him, only to shout out like a sideways waterspout. The vortex slammed into Zabuza, knocking him off his feet and propelling him into a tree. As the water died down hot lances of pain buried themselves into Zabuza's shoulders. The two kunai Kakashi had been fighting with were buried to the grip in his flesh.

"How?" Zabuza coughed looking straight into Kakashi's sharingan, "Can you see the future?"

"I can." Kakashi admitted, "Your future is death." And just like that Zabuza's world faded to black as two long needles pierced his neck.


Surprised by the sudden attack Kakashi turned to the direction of the attacker and found himself looking at young boy wearing the porcelain mask of a Kiri ANBU. "Well you were right. He died." The boy said, his voice slightly muffled by the porcelain mask he wore. Kakashi eyed the boy suspiciously as he approached. "I'm sorry for stealing your victory away from you, but I was sworn to kill this man myself." Kakashi said nothing as the boy approached the corpse and checked for a pulse. He evidently found none as he stood up with relief visible on his body language. "You have my thanks for wearing him down for me sir."

"Just who the hell are you?" Naruto shouted as he crawled out of the lake, soaked to the bone. "We get our asses kicked by this bastard, Kakashi Sensei almost died fighting him and you just show up and kill him like it's nothing." Naruto was visibly trembling, although whether or not that was from his anger or just being completely soaked, Kakashi did not know. "Why didn't you help us out? What makes you so much better than us that you could just…?"

"Naruto that's enough." Kakashi said. "This boy is an ANBU Ninja from Kiri. He was just doing his job in the most efficient way he could."

Kakashi could see that the Kiri ninja's casual dispatch of Zabuza had hurt his pride. Naruto bit his lip, clearly trying to keep himself from crying.

"It was not my intention to cause any of you distress." The boy said looking at Naruto. "It just seemed to me like you and your friend had the situation under control. All things considered you did well." With that the boy turned to Zabuza's corpse and hefted him onto his shoulders. Naruto opened his mouth to protest but was silenced by Kakashi's hand on his shoulder. "His body contains many secrets of my village. I must see to the destruction of his remains." And just like that the boy disappeared with the body.

"Come here you three." Kakashi beckoned his three students to him. When they gathered around him he smiled under his mask. "You guys did great, all three of you."

"But I didn't do anything." Sakura stated.

"That's not true Sakura, you did something very brave today." Kakashi said. "You didn't run away. Things seemed hopeless and instead of fleeing you stood by your teammates." Then Kakashi turned to Naruto and Sasuke and let his voice drop to a low growl. "As for you two." The two boys suddenly had a worried look to their eyes. "Thank you both for not giving up on me."

"We should be able to make it home by nightfall." Tazuna said, a relieved smile on his face.

"Well in that case let's get going." Kakashi said casually, while sliding his headband over his left eye. "I find myself a tad fatigued." As he turned to walk away however Kakashi stumbled before collapsing to the ground.


Having finally arrived in The Land of Waves, Naruto and his team are put through a very strange regiment. At the same time Naruto finds himself having to prove to a young boy that there are still heroes in the world. Next time: A Land of Heroes Part One: Recovery


Author's Note: Welp that's it for Zabuza... No seriously he's dead. Permantly. He will definitely not be appearing in the next couple of chapters. I swear. Scouts honor.

P.S. I was never a scout.