Hi, and welcome back ;)


Only when the year grows cold do we see

that the pine and cypress are the last to fade.

-Chinese proverb.


If Being a Ninja Was Easy…

"If you are to be a weapon at my side, Haku," growled Zabuza, "then you must be strong and sharp."

The little eight-year-old looked up tentatively at the towering figure of his famous master who stood at the edge of the forest clearing not with his eight-foot-long zanbato sword slung over a shoulder but a ponderous club of similarly massive proportions called a 'ruler'. Just the sight of the ninja, the youngest of the Seven Legendary Shinobi Swordsmen of the Mist, posed thusly was enough to make the apprentice quake with trepidation at what the immediate future held.

Haku bit his lip and brushed a long ribbon of black hair from his girlish face. Sensei was going to make him fight again…and he hated fighting.

But The Demon of the Hidden Mist had saved him from a vagrant's life and slow, inevitable death by starvation, exposure and the pitiless, almost universal hatred of everyone in the Land of Water. This magnificent man, this ninja of the Hidden Mist, had saved him from all the perils of the world, drawn him into his sphere and given Haku a new life with a grand purpose. Dying in the attempt to please Master Zabuza, however painful or violent, would be infinitely preferable to disappointing him.

"Now then," the jonin continued sternly as he leveled a stony glare, "let's see if you've learned anything in these last few months."

Haku shrank, knowing he wasn't ready, but resolved to give everything he had to the effort.

"By the way - this ruler probably weighs two-hundred pounds. So make sure it doesn't hit you."

Without further explanation, Zabuza attacked. Rushing at his tiny student with a bestial roar, the jonin spun, whipping his club low with the kind of speed no one would think possible for a weapon so large, kicking up leaves and carving a hemi-circular arc in the ground where the end caught.

The pale little boy, with mouth and eyes wide with terror, recovered his senses barely in time to hurl himself over the oncoming sweep, wobbled when he hit the ground then ducked when his master continued the motion high.

In the buffeting vortex created in the wake of his sensei's ruler, Haku felt the power behind it – more than enough to send him to oblivion even with a glancing blow! Already the boy's head pounded, his breath rattled, and his thoughts spiraled out of control. The training he'd had and the 'natural' talent that coursed supposedly through his veins all seemed to have fled; and the fight had barely even begun!

Panic was the only thing left! The apprentice ninja stumbled out of the way of another swipe that passed in a furious blur, scrambled back again, again and again in a desperate attempt to gain some distance then fled for his life.

But the Demon of the Hidden Mist would have none of it, and pursued his terrified student with even greater vengeance the more Haku retreated, smashing down every tree the boy hid behind, shattering every rock then following him with whirling lashes, clubbing overhands and battering-ram thrusts that would splinter the gates of the strongest castle.

As Haku started to slow from fatigue his willowy arms, legs and delicate ribs tasted heavy oak even the slightest brushes of which cracked bones, bruised skin and punished flesh.

After long minutes of this, abruptly, Zabuza ceased and Haku, hyperventilating and trembling from shock, braced himself on wobbly knees, half-blinded by the sweat that rolled down his young face.

"You were able to avoid taking too much damage so far," his master pointed out in a voice cold as ice. "But what have your tactics accomplished?"

Haku swallowed hard, looked up and shook his head, completely perplexed. He really didn't know and was far too dazed and battered right now to even try to venture a guess.

Zabuza lowered his fearsome, draconian gaze, a prosecutor in blue and grey mist-shinobi fatigues and heavy, armored jacket. "Look at you," he began critically, gesturing with his ruler as if it were as light as a straw, "you're exhausted, half dead already. All your movement and energy is coming from your body. Your chakra isn't flowing at all. You're just reacting with no idea of what to do next.

"And where it's true that sometimes you can tire your opponent, did you really imagine that you could outlast ME?"

Haku's thin brows knitted fretfully; his heart sank. Though he hadn't studied the mysteries of ninjutsu long, the boy had to acknowledge that the chances of him surviving against his bigger, stronger, faster, fiercer, smarter and better-trained sensei with not even a shred of strategy were pretty slim.

"Because you did not counterattack," lectured Zabuza, "because you did not affect me or reduce my ability to destroy you, NOW look around and see what you have to face."

Haku followed the sweeping gesture of his master's muscular arm, and quickly noticed that the battleground was now surrounded in eerie billows of thick, impenetrable mist. The boy's grey eyes went wide then as a dozen more Zabuza Momochis stepped from that mist to confront him…all identically armed with tree-trunk-like rulers.

As one, the ninjas surged at the little boy in a blue and grey whirlwind of rage, with clubs cocking back or winding up to lay him waste.

With his heart in his throat the young apprentice forced himself to be calm and draw upon the power of his chakra, scant as it was, and to remember what Zabuza had taught him. There were thirteen opponents now but not all could attack at once especially wielding weapons that big.

He'd have to keep moving, keep aware of his attackers and position them against each other…and he would have to counter.

With Zabuza's clones closing fast, Haku focused then went for his weapons but in all the excitement the boy had kind of forgotten where he'd hidden them. The apprentice ninja patted and searched through his drab traveler's clothing furiously but the handles of his kunai just seemed to squirm away every time he grabbed for them.

Hopping back at the last second, the Demon's Apprentice barely missed being flattened under a furious downward smash that cratered the ground. Haku danced away, ducking under then diving over more whirling clubs, using both his chakra and the elusive movements of crane-boxing sensei had showed him; just like he did when sparring with some of the 'gentler' shinobi Zabuza would assign to the task every so often.

With another smash oncoming, the boy apprentice finally committed himself and sidestepped only enough to let the ruler pass by. Finally finding his kunai, Haku slashed along the edge of the momentarily-slowed club just as it hit the ground, cutting off his attacker's fingers; the Zabuza-clone pulled back bloody hands then burst into a watery spray.

Tasting satisfaction for the first time while timing the next adversary's swing, Haku darted back then closed faster than the water-clone could recall his massive weapon. The little black-haired boy leaped, cutting the jutsu-conjured man behind the elbow with one hand and slashing quickly over its eyebrow with the other.

Disarmed and with blood pouring into its eyes, blinding it, this clone too turned back into water and splashed apart.

A sudden pressure in Haku's mind compelled him to drop FAST which he did just as a club whizzed overhead, clipping the boy across the shoulder blades when it passed. Haku grunted from the shock of impact, hit the ground face-first and much harder than he'd planned, then pushed off his hands to bring the rest of his body forward just as a spine-crushing blow thudded behind.

Despite seeing stars and almost incapacitated with pain, Haku sprang to his feet then rolled away from another swipe, flinging a kunai with all his strength at a distant Zabuza just as three others converged on him all with rulers homing for the kill.

Though the knife wobbled as it flew, it hit the Zabuza square in the center of the forehead across his hitai-ate. ALL the water clones burst apart then, drenching Haku who buckled under the weight of the onrushing sloshes.

With calm and quiet descending over the training field, the soggy, badly-beaten little boy looked up at his master uncertainly and clambered to his feet. As desperate as Haku was for this to be over, eclipsing those thoughts by far were his hopes that he'd made Zabuza happy in some way however small. If he'd accomplished that; if he'd given his master some cause to believe that the time he'd spent with his apprentice hadn't been a complete waste then this was a day Haku would cherish forever.

The kunai in the Demon of the Hidden Mist's forehead had not struck hard. The knife dropped away with the point just sticking in the fabric of his headband for a moment before it fell to the ground with a thud.

Zabuza stood his ruler upright next to him and was silent for a time. "How did you decide which one was real?" he asked at last.

Huffing and puffing, with his lungs feeling like they were going to burst, his head burning as if from terrible fever, and almost his entire body throbbing and aching from the blows he'd taken, Haku brushed the dirt from his scratched, wet face and the leaves from his tangled, matted hair self-consciously, nursed a swollen arm, gulped then offered in a shaky, heartbreakingly hopeful child's voice: "W…water…water clones don't s-sweat, s-s-Sensei." The boy sniffled, wiped his tearing eyes and dripping nose with a sleeve then tried to still his quivering lips. "And…and-and-and…y-y-you were the only one of them ha…h-hanging back."

The Demon of the Hidden Mist gave his eight-year old disciple a cruel grin…then himself turned to water and splashed apart.

Haku had just enough time to startle with wonder before a blow he never saw coming sent him rolling limp as a rag doll over the forest floor.


Naruto

Strolling as he never thought he would through the foreign streets of Kirigakure no Sato with a wide, carefree, Cheshire Cat smile blooming under his borrowed ANBU mask, Naruto followed Haku at a discreet distance.

The genin could see the slightly stooped figure of Lord Noriyasu Tsujita, the clan patriarch burdened (or blessed) with a truly horrifying kekkei-genkai, plodding up ahead at his partner's right. At Haku's left walked whoever that was the ninja lord was traveling with but Naruto really didn't know or care about that at this point. There'd be plenty of time for introductions later.

Thinking back to what had happened just minutes ago, the blond couldn't help but laugh.

What a relief! he marveled. Haku didn't have to kill Tsujita after all but somehow just talked the old guy out of wiping-out the Mist Village instead.

Naruto couldn't have been more surprised than when Haku had flashed him the subtle but unmistakable signal to stand-down, and the teenager made a mental note to find out just what in the world the constable had said.

Demon's Apprentice – nothing! thought Naruto slyly. From now on, your new nickname is: 'The Silver-Tongued DEVIL!'

It was hard for the leaf-genin not to giggle and swell with pride a little at his friend's accomplishment. As enamored as Naruto was with great ninja battles, slashing swords and jaw-dropping displays of jutsu, there was certainly an impressive, understated and undervalued elegance to non-violent solutions.

Nobody gets hurt and everybody gets to go home, the thirteen-year-old summed up happily then remembered something similar that Pervy Sage had tried to explain to him one time like: 'people who are mad today can be happy tomorrow…but if they're dead today they'll still be dead tomorrow.'*

Eh, it was something like that.

Anyway THAT'S the kind of Hokage I'M going to be! Naruto vowed, brightening even more as he thought about the future, one who can do it ALL – talking AND fighting.

And YOU, Haku, I'm DEFINITELY putting YOU on the payroll. You're gonna make an AWESOME councilor!

You see? I knew you could do it, he thought towards the girlish ninja then rested his hands casually behind his head.

This is going to be the easiest mission EVER! I'll get back to Konoha in a couple of days and no one will even know I was gone.

Naruto winced then as he suddenly remembered something else, something really important!

I sure hope Inari and Chuuya didn't mess up my place…


all theories
like clichés
shot to hell,
all these small faces
looking up
beautiful and believing;
I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.

I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.
we have narrowed it down to
the butcherknife and the
mockingbird.
wish us
luck.

-charles bukowski


Inoue

"You seem a little on-edge, Pradesh," the silver-haired kunoichi remarked to her captain of security surrounded by the streamlined comforts of her stateroom aboard her floating command center, the Sophae.

The mist-ninja, slightly taken-aback, immediately traded his concerned expression for one more suitably martial. "It will pass, Lady Inoue," Pradesh reported but could not maintain his stoic demeanor for long. "It's just that," the man hesitated to explain as he drew a calloused finger across his chin's dark stubble, "I never imagined being involved in an undertaking like this - something remembered throughout history. A hundred years from now people will look back and mark this day, knowing how it was before and what followed after."

The councilor nodded, poured herself a cup of steaming black tea then blew to temper it. "I quite understand. You needn't be at all embarrassed. It only underscores that you appreciate the significance of the events about to unfold," she said then drew a careful sip, savoring the slightly bitter but still mellow flavor. "Change is never easy," the woman remarked in an easy drawl, "even when it's necessary."

"You're not nervous at all, my lady, about what is to come?"

Inoue straightened her patterned, sapphire shawl, rose then wandered to cast a long look out one of the armored portholes. In the distance, Kirigakure no Sato was an unremarkable strip of gray and green layered between a cobalt sea and a leaden sky.

"No," she answered with a calm, introspective air, "curious, yes, of course, but not nervous. We've been erecting and arranging these dominoes for years. For me, the only thing different about today is that the time has finally arrived to set them tumbling."

The swarthy jonin smiled grimly as he folded sinewy arms. "You make it sound like such a simple thing – overthrowing the Mizukage, destroying the Mist Village and recreating it in Wave Country. If the ninja world has seen a bolder plan I do not remember it."

"The theories are simple," the councilwoman observed. "Dominoes fall the way the do due to stored energy and gravity – just physics, really. People act the way they do due to human nature – biology, I suppose, psychology perhaps, but all sciences governed by certain predictable constants."

"People are trickier." Pradesh sounded sure at first but then backed off: "Some of them anyway."

"That's the thing - we don't need ALL the people to go along with us, just most of them. And in the face of imminent danger only a very few will stand around asking questions, even among shinobi. Almost as few will pay them any mind. Most will do just as they're told. I'm quite sure."

"And after?"

Inoue gave the ninja a patient, grandmotherly smile. "It won't matter after," she lilted. "There will be those who analyze how so many of Water Country's blood-gifted families could have managed to survive after being hunted for so long a time. They will question all the whos, whats, wheres and whys of Kirigakure's downfall and resurrection, Lord Oku's death and, of course, my assent to Mizukage. But they will all be seen as traitors and liars, conspiracy theorists, political ideologists or cranks and ultimately fall into irrelevance. For everyone else, those questions will matter about as much as the shape of last year's clouds.

"You know, Pradesh," the councilwoman continued instructively, "I've often said that great nations are built on myths, not truths. Kirigakure's survivors and, of course, all the ninja brigades I've spared from the 'pox' will be free to chose whether to believe they are a part of the noble and heroic struggle to rebuild their village…or not. Or I suppose they could all choose to believe that they're just pawns in a cruel game played by autocrats occupying seats of lofty, inscrutable power." She laughed with a wink then raised her forefinger, saying: "Mythology, clearly, is on our side."

Cocking his head, Pradesh matched her playful tone as much as his normally dour disposition and gravelly basso voice would allow, "Which is the truth?"

"Well that's what I'm trying to tell you," Inoue gushed; eyes flashing like a magician's, "the truth doesn't matter. No one really fights and dies for 'truth', only what they choose to believe is the truth. Objective truth, if there is such a thing, is absolute and unchanging; it's cold as the grave, cold as death. People run from truth, fear truth, and rightly so - the truth is unrelentingly ugly and unpleasant. And who in this world can really say that they understand it anyway?

But belief," she observed in tones rising with inspiration, "is fluid and adaptive; easily frees those who possess it from the shackles of memory and history, and allows them to ignore the normally stubborn obstacles of reality, reason, humanity, and common sense. People fight and die for belief.

"Where the truth is cold, belief burns hot. Belief…is the animating force of life itself!"

While Pradesh's face fell into an expression of reverie, the councilwoman and clan matriarch paused to take another drink of her tea.

"Kirigakure…poor Kirigakure," she mused quietly. "That's part of our problem, you know. Lord Oku just couldn't keep up the myths the Sandaime started." Shaking her head, the mist-ninja added: "Indoctrinating an entire generation of shinobi in the belief that the only way to protect the Land of Water from a world teaming with enemies is to be uncompromisingly fearsome and bloodthirsty - I mean," Inoue half-chuckled, "the idea doesn't stand a moment of scrutiny, does it."

Pradesh's eyes, one obsidian-black, the other bone-white narrowed. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice lowering just a bit pointedly.

"Well, it's obvious. Even if all the other elemental nations COULD ever agree on a single course of action (like invading us) they'd all go bankrupt building the enormous navies and training the thousands of soldiers and hundreds of ninja to wage war far from home where they would have to take by force and then control through permanent occupation hundreds of islands strewn out over a thousand miles of ocean in a committed effort that would have no foreseeable or predictable end. Although you can't say that such a thing is 'impossible', the likelihood of an invasion like that ever threatening the Land of Water is fantastically unlikely and not something to base an entire generation's reason for existence on unless there's something else to be achieved which, of course…there was."

Silence fell like a pall.

"Oh," the startled councilwoman realized, "that was callous of me, wasn't it? You believed it too." Inoue grimaced then shook her head at her own thoughtlessness, lamenting how gabby she'd become in her confident old-age. "I should have remembered – the Third Mizukage had a way about him, an especially powerful charisma that made whatever he said so easy to embrace."

The jonin's dark brows knitted as he turned his face from her. "If the other nations were never really a threat, then why…?"

"Who can say? It's all water under the bridge now," Inoue concluded dismissively, a bit annoyed at, once-again, finding herself having to treat a grown man like a child. "But our Sandaime was never interested in defending Water Country, you must have noticed. After all, where are the fortifications, the hardened infrastructure, the tunnels, storehouses, depots and all the other preparations you'd expect to see if you were a nation preparing to be invaded? The Land of Water has none of that. You studied military tactics at the Martial School; you must have –." A breath escaped her as the frustrated kunoichi abandoned the tack. "Nevermind," she offered wearily and waved her hand. "At any rate, the armies he raised are clearly for offensive purposes."

"Offensive?" Pradesh wondered, and his master had no doubt that it was for the first time in his life. "For what?"

The kunoichi shrugged. "It's possible that he had in mind expanding the Land of Water, maybe even dreamt of world domination or something equally silly. Most think, and I think, he was just out to settle some old score against the Hidden Leaf Village."

The matriarch's cloudy eyes followed her chief of security.

There were women who absolutely reveled in the fact that some of the strongest men in the world could have their souls shattered by a single well-constructed or, in this case, carelessly-offered phrase. To Inoue, it was just one more of life's ugly complications.

"Are you all right?" she inquired at last.

Pradesh drew himself up. "Fine, my lady," he stated. "I forgot for a moment that my duty is to implement policy, whatever it may be, and not to make it."

Inoue nodded, impressed and reassured by her ninja's correctness. "Quite so," the woman affirmed then tried to buoy him. "I can tell you're disappointed though because what you'd held so dear to your heart as true turned out not to be. But don't be. That there never were any barbarians at our gates shouldn't weigh on you. Remember instead how alive that belief made you feel, how important, how much a part of something greater than yourself. That is what is important. That is what really matters.

"That belief did was it was supposed to do – it made you train hard and work hard. It made you love your country and integrated you as part of it. It made you a better man and Kirigakure a stronger village.

"The myth that we shinobi of the mist are all great defenders of our nation has been over for awhile. It couldn't live on without the Third Mizukage himself to sustain it, especially with cruel reality telling us that we are all but forgotten in the world and feared in those places where we are remembered; that all our preparations for war have left Kirigakure and the Land of Water a thousand ways impoverished."

The councilwoman looked up meaningfully. "It's time for a new, equally potent and motivating myth: one of resurrection and rebirth.

"As a purely practical matter," she continued, "it will help set us on the path to a more prosperous future. Kirigakure has wallowed too long burdened by the past, weighed by effects of decisions made and hierarchies established by people long dead. We're drowning in dysfunctional order, a corrupted ethos and our own sorry, paranoid and violent reputation. It's long past time to cut that Gordian knot and start afresh with new leadership in new environs, absolved from the sins of the past."

Pradesh looked at her then, in his own blunt way, cut to the chase - "A lot of people are going to die."

"A necessary sacrifice," replied Inoue. "Change requires it. If it gives you any sense of perspective, just think of how many have died over the years to keep things the way they are – martyrs to a dying order."

Pradesh checked the clock.

"In just a few minutes, the very public and spectacular death of Lord Tsujita at the hands of an elite ANBU assassination team will announce the new era. He won't be the first, or the last, to fall. But in the end, should Heaven and Earth favor us, we'll raise a Village worthy of all those lost lives."


Mist Ninjas

"MAN, it's great to be home!" Riki declared grandly as he and the other two members of his squad used their jutsu to walk atop the smooth waters of the Unagi Canal. The way was so narrow along this stretch that any of them could almost touch the walls of the buildings flanking them just by stretching out their arms. "I can't get over it, Yumei," the lanky teenager continued in glowing admiration, "you actually made chunin!"

The ranking kunoichi, a tall and slender auburn-haired girl, grimaced and rubbed her temples.

"It's you guys' fault," she answered in a good-natured but distracted tone. "I couldn't have done it if I'd had anyone else on my team. AND you made me look like one of the Seven Swordsmen in the after-action report."

Jiri, the shorter, youngest, blue-haired third of their group gave her a curious look with luminous, pale eyes. "You ok?"

"No," Yumei started glumly, "yeah, it's just – I got this headache and I can't seem to shake it."

"Did you hit your pressure points?"

She nodded. "I tried that. I had something to eat and took some pills but it still won't go away."

Riki, chafing at this unwelcome change in what should be a festive mood during the week of the Ascension Ceremonies, tried to brighten things. "Well, we're almost to your clan's villa," he chimed with still-boyish assertiveness. "You can get something for it there, right?"

Yumei nodded though her lips were still pressed in a thin line.

"I'm really looking forward to finally getting to see your house. I heard a lot about the Li clan so I'm picturing, like, SKULLS on the walls and stuff."

"It's nothing like that! Come on!" the girl protested; her normal, teasing enthusiasm showing through. "We threw out all the skulls YEARS ago. All that's on the walls now is -."

"Is what?"

"Um…my dad's fishing trophies and mom's needlepoint mostly."

"Needlepoint?" Riki echoed in disbelief, sharing a curious look with Jiri.

Yumei's expression wriggled a little. "Needles are her favorite weapon but she uses them for other things too." The kunoichi thought about it for a moment. "Just don't make fun, ok?"

"Ok," assured Riki who continued smugly: "but only 'cause it's a special day."

Yumei stopped at an unassuming, heavily lacquered door a few steps up from the waterline, sheltered in a deep alcove.

Both teammates regarded it dubiously.

"Is this it?" ventured Jiri.

"It's much bigger inside, come on."

The girl threaded her key home, opened the door and ushered her partners down a long, narrow hall that opened into a spectacular, landscaped courtyard three stories high, bounded by ornately-railed balconies and open to the cloud-laden sky.

"Alright!" crowed Riki gustily. "I didn't know you were rich! Yumei -"

But the teenager didn't hear. All froze at the somewhat surreal sight of the motionless couple reposed on one of the courtyard's stone benches: a woman lying down as if asleep with her head resting tenderly in her companion's lap.

The girl trembled, her face squirming with confusion and concern. "Mom…Dad?" she cried then raced to her parents.

"Yumei?" Riki offered, hovering close by, almost paralyzed in shock while his leader tried furiously but unsuccessfully to rouse them. Even with his relative inexperience, the teenager could tell they were not merely asleep.

The chunin fell back in despair, pressing her hands tightly against her temples as her expression strained. "Riki," she ordered curtly, "search the house. Jiri, go get help, now!"

As her teammates raced off, Yumei Li fell and wept disconsolately in the grass.

The help Jiri would bring would come too late.

Riki, shy as he was, would soon report to his distraught leader in a gasping voice that there was no one in the house still alive.


Haku

It's really over, isn't it, Haku considered happily though he could still hardly believe it. Kirigakure's safe, and their ninja don't know anything about the blood-gifted clans' descendants.

Lord Nikai might still be difficult if he won't give up his designs for vengeance, but, the teenager allowed in the name of reason, one thing at a time.

Wave Country…Mari, he continued, stirring dreamily. I really did it. I'm really going home.

Glancing aside, the young ninja directed his thoughts toward his partner and friend, Naruto Uzumaki, who trailed surreptitiously behind. Though the blond was well out of sight, Haku felt comforted by the unseen leaf-ninja's presence.

You were right. You were right the whole time.

In retrospect, Haku couldn't help but be a little embarrassed at his earlier pessimism.

I have to apologize, Naruto, he offered in grateful humility. I really thought I was so much wiser, so much smarter, that I had to keep an eye on you…just because I'm a couple of years older, because I have more experience and you're always so impulsive. But in the end it went just the way you said it would.

And I really don't know if I would have had the courage to take such a risk – doing things MY way, not Zabuza's, without you with me.

Looking to his left, the young constable's cheery, mellow and introspective mood was fouled as he found Hideo's glassy eyes glaring back in cold accusation.

Looking right, to the frail figure of Lord Noriyasu Tsujita, the constable found himself again quite moved. The afflicted old ninja had failed his mission, no, worse – he'd abandoned it. At the same time, the faint smile on that sickly face gave no indication of shame but instead a glimpse of the magnificent insight the man had gained. In the world's brutal history, how many people really treasured life, any life, so highly that they'd set aside their own righteous anger; that they'd let their enemies live when the means to destroy them were right at hand.

What if everyone felt that way?

It was a beautiful thought, Haku mused. But for right now it was enough to live another day…for his heart ached for home.

Passing over the North Star Bridge into the Piazza del Carne', Haku looked over the weathered rooftops toward the awaiting sanctuary of the Shingen Aqueduct in which was secreted the passage home. The teenager's fond gaze dropped toward the way ahead and all the people, the statues and fountains then noted how the waters flowing from them bent just slightly in his direction.

Oh, no, Haku had just enough time to think in the instant before everything changed.


The Continuing Adventures

of the

Konohamaru Ninja Squad

Under a cloudless umbrella of brilliant blue Fire Country sky Moegi climbed up the last few rungs of the rusty access ladder then stepped over a parapet to arrive at last on the sweltering, gravel-carpeted rooftop. Catching her breath while praying for the day when she'd be able to just jump up to the top of a building with a single chakra-assisted leap, the apprentice ninja shaded her eyes and searched for her partner but didn't see him.

"Huh," the little red-headed girl wondered then went looking.

Only after a minute or so did she note something odd about one of the mechanical units then went over and knocked on it. Up close, the girl could see now that part of it was a corrugated refrigerator box craftily-painted to look like metal.

"Come in," a young, lethargic voice responded.

Moegi found the access panel, opened it and found Udon wadded up inside.

The sweaty, brown-haired boy set down binoculars and looked up at her, his drooping eyes magnified large by his big, round glasses. "Hi Moegi," he greeted then wiped his always-leaking nose with a cloth.

The girl squeezed in, squatted beside him in the extremely confining space then looked through a grille, across the way toward the door to Naruto Uzumaki's apartment.

"I gotta say: you've really outdone yourself, Udon," she piped as she pushed the twin towers of her orange hair down to fit better against the low, cardboard roof. "This place is great! It's like…like a duck blind or something. It really blends in."

Udon smiled sheepishly and nodded.

"Not too comfortable though. UGH! It's like a hundred degrees in here. So did you see anything?"

"No, nothing; Naruto's been inside all day," the cadet reported in a tone more weary than usual. "Konohamaru's been trying to listen in at the door and windows but he hasn't heard anything.

"Y'know…" Udon was about to continue then fell quiet.

"What?" his teammate prodded curiously. "Oh, I'll bet I know: you think Konohamaru's crazy thinking Naruto's up to something when really he's just been sick." Moegi followed with a playful, confiding laugh. "Which makes US pretty stupid sitting here in this hot-box waiting for something to happen when nothing's going to."

Udon's chestnut eyebrows lifted at the remark but he still nodded in begrudging agreement.

Shooting him a look, the aspiring kunoichi suggested: "We COULD just say 'no' one of these times. WHY do we always go along with him?"

Udon shrugged. "And then what?"

"Mmm, I didn't think about that." The girl's expression tensed. "I guess one of US would have to be leader then."

Their sidelong glances met.

"I don't know if that'd work out any better," Udon, in an abundance of sincerity, ventured. "Do you? Besides…Konohamaru, well, you know, HAS to be leader. He just...he just does!"

The red-head's freckled face slackened as she ended up agreeing. "You're probably right. And I guess it would be kind of dull without Konohamaru talking us into doing stuff like this."

Udon nodded then gave a philosophical sigh. "I figured it was good training for later on when we're ninjas doing this for real."

"Well, this blind is a LOT better than any of the ones we did before…like that square 'boulder' we tried to sneak up on Naruto in. Remember that?"

The two shared a laugh.

"Well, I'd better get going," Udon lamented after a time. "My mom's already mad at me for being away so long." The nine-year old grimaced then groaned as he unfolded himself after hours of dutiful surveillance. "Do ya want me to get you anything from the store?"

Moegi brightened at the offer. "Um, yeah, something cold to drink would be great." A hard realization of the ninja life dawned on her. "I guess I'm gonna be here awhile."


Haku

In flashes too quick to follow, the waters of the fountains merged and came spiraling at the three in twisting, coiling ribbons. Haku grabbed Tsujita, knocking him down, but was too late to prevent the ninja patriarch's head and arm from being severed by the rippling ribbon's passage.

Shocked screams rang out from the Mist Village's terrified citizens who suddenly found themselves in the middle of a war zone, dropped whatever they were carrying then scattered in every direction like panicked game.

As Haku hit the ground with his arms still clinched around the now dismembered body, time seemed to slow.

An ambush, he realized in a heartbeat. The full scope of his naiveté and the depths of his failure gripped him inside. Aya, she must have told the ANBU. I never should have placed such trust in her.

The ninja's grey eyes sought Tsujita's limbs as they spun end over end through the air, trailing spattering crimson on their way earthward. Before they hit, Haku reached out with his kekkei-genkai and froze them all, head, arm and body, solid. Simultaneously the ninja's cold saved him as the razor ribbons of water homing back toward him turned at once to ice, stopping dead before they could reach him.

A quick glance behind was all it took to inform Haku that Hideo's twitching, butchered corpse lay strewn in pieces over the unforgiving pavement along with the remains of some Water Country civilians unfortunate enough to have been passing by in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The young ninja felt water pool around him; water that had not been there an instant before. The Demon's Apprentice tried to spring to his feet and leap away but found that his left arm and leg had been cut deep down to the bone, forcing him to log-roll away instead, splashing as he went. No sooner had he gotten clear then a mist-ninja sprang from the water as if it were fathoms deep, one of her two gleaming 'ghost-head' broadswords hissing right through where Haku had been an instant before.

The shinobi, a fearsome creature covered all over in a mandala of black tattoos and eager for the kill, leaped after her crippled prey but was buffeted back by a driving, shockingly-cold arctic wind that rose out of nowhere. Recovering and charging, the mist-kunoichi was brought to a halt by a swarming mob of furious, snarling, masked mist-ninjas.

What was really strange though was how small they were…and how blond.


Naruto

In the blink of an eye the tattooed swordswoman cleared out a swath of Naruto's doubles with a flowing, figure-eight slash of her blades then leaped back, paused and took a casual pose.

"I'm gonna take a stab (so to speak) and say that you're not really a ninja of the Hidden Mist," the kunoichi suggested, not the least bit phased by the sudden arrival of a legion of shadow-clones. "By the way," she added, "it seems like I've felt that other guy's chakra before. That couldn't be Haku, Zabuza's kid, could it? 'Cause last I heard, Yamashite'd killed his ass."

As Naruto scowled under his mask, the woman craned her head to look over the top of his vast (but still short) army of clones. "Hey! yelled the woman. Haku! Is that you?"

The lead Naruto's face screwed. "YOU'LL never know!" he retorted fiercely but beneath his bravado the genin could tell that this opponent was strong, smart and slick…like his sensei, Kakashi.

The woman flashed a devil-may-care smile. "Sure I will," she corrected. "You don't actually have to be alive to answer my questions. We've got a whole team that specializes in post-mortem interrogations WHICH you would know IF you were one of us."

"Yeah, well, don't count your bodies before they're dead."

The ninja conceded the point. "True, true. Thanks for reminding me."

Streaking forward across the wet pavement, the woman charged the mob, slashing away with a butcher's sureness and a ballerina's grace. Shadow-clone limbs, heads, torsos and viscera spun violently through the air before popping into gusts of vaporous chakra. The mini-army of genin divided themselves into smaller groups that did everything in their power to counter-attack, head her off or slow her down for the rest to overwhelm but it was useless. When the kunoichi moved, she slid and skated effortlessly over the surface of the water faster than the eye could follow, switching directions in ways that mocked physics. Yet when she planted, that same water rooted her to the spot so firmly that she could not be off-balanced.


"Come ON, Haku!" the real Naruto urged meanwhile some distance away, crouching over the grimacing, raven-haired constable who struggled to rise with one hand clamped over a blood-soaked upper arm, while two more of the leaf-ninja's shadow clones kept lookout.

The Demon's Apprentice shook his head desolately. "I'm sorry, Naruto," the teenager croaked. "I failed. My plan was doomed from the start."

"Forget it," the blond insisted then shot a look toward his remaining clones as they were being slaughtered right and left. "We got bigger things to worry about!"

Helping his limping friend to his feet, all four made a break back toward the North Star Bridge but were forced to skid to a halt then fall back as the water flowing in the canal beneath it suddenly roared to life in towering geysers of white spray that poured forth a dozen crystalline serpents.

The monsters flashed at the young ninjas, rippling like banners in the wind. All managed to dodge the razor-toothed maws, but Haku, slowed by his wounds, was sent sprawling by one of the creatures' wild, whipping tails.

Half the number of serpents split off to circle around in a wide perimeter, preventing any chance for escape; the other half lunged at their encircled prey. As two of the jutsu-conjured creatures struck toward Haku one of Naruto's clones charged, knocking one into the other and altering the serpents' trajectory enough to miss the stunned teenager by a hair.

"Sh-t!" Naruto cursed as he ran to cover his partner, with he and his other clone preparing a Rasengan as they went. The leaf-ninja finished it just in time to leap high into the air and blast through three of the watery dragons as they descended toward the constable, twisting and wrapping around each other in cyclic fury.

The blond genin crouched as he landed amidst a spray of water then rolled aside as another dragon snapped its jaws where he'd been, skimming the ground in its passage. In all the frenzy of flashing, scimitar teeth and coiling, glass-like bodies, Naruto felt his clones vanish as they fell to the monsters in a grizzly scene right out of the Triassic. The leaf-ninja's blue eyes flashed, trying to keep track of the ones that were left which, unfortunately, were most of them.

Before he even had a clue what to do next a number of them charged only to be ripped apart by a whirling tornadic wind that froze as well as tore, littering the landscape with chunks and shards of broken ice.

Chilled down to the bone and with his ears popping from the pressure change, Naruto spun and saw the battered and bloodied Haku on one knee, hand extended into a seal. Grabbing hold of him, the genin half-carried the young constable into the scant shelter provided by the icy wreckage - two serpent heads and midsections all twisted and fused together, just as the rest of the water-dragons attacked.

"Haku!" Naruto urged as the monsters closed in at which Haku stirred, gathered himself and, with a grunt of effort, destroyed the rest with his winds. A glacier-mass of twisting, draconic bodies tumbled toward the two, clattering to a stop just a few feet away.

That's when Naruto noticed how badly hurt Haku really was – with deep gashes at his upper arm and thigh. All were bleeding despite Haku's efforts to seal them shut with chakra and body-control techniques.

What the hell happened! the leaf-ninja asked himself. Everything was going great and then -!

The blond frowned under his mask. "Sh-t!" Naruto hissed but felt a little better as he could see that Haku was thinking.

"These shinobi we're up against are jonin-level – two distance types and the swordswoman; we can't keep fighting them," reported the constable with respectable calm.

Naruto nodded, his blue eyes wide beneath his ANBU mask. "Yeah? Tell me something I DON'T know!"

"A snowstorm," said Haku, his own masked face rising toward Naruto's. "They might not expect that. It could give us cover to escape."

Naruto grunted affirmatively then added, "HEY! That kunoichi, do you know her? 'Cause she sure knows you."

Haku nodded soberly. "Her name is Yashako. She is one of the Seven Legendary Swordsmen."

Zabuza's student brought his hands together in a seal and mustered his concentration while Naruto did the same, fighting off the daunting effect of Haku's revelation about their adversary.

The sky, already leaden, went darker still as jutsu-conjured snow began to fall and chunks of hail rained down over the piazza, blown back and forth in a wild, driving wind. At the same time a vast army of blond shadow-clones appeared, surrounding the two in a protective cordon ten ranks deep.

Despite all of it, a thin ribbon of water shot past, slicing effortlessly through ice and shadow-clones alike. Naruto shouted and dropped down having been nicked by the tail end of its passage while Haku crouched lower and covered up from the spray of angry fragments. More ribbons shot past, cutting the two ninja's ice fortress and crowd of shadow clones down almost to nothing in mere moments.

"Naruto! Get out of here; run for it! Follow the plan!" shouted Haku urgently as water rushed under them, spreading over the pavement in a thin, mirror sheet.

"Not a chance, Haku!" the leaf-ninja roared back. "We're BOTH gettin' out of here!"

From the arriving waters' unnaturally smooth surface sprang Yashako, the same tattooed shinobi from before. In a fluid movement too graceful for most to appreciate as it was too quick and elusive to follow, the ninja coiled back a broadsword then lashed at Haku's neck.

The teenager threw himself to the side and ducked his head as the onrushing blade passed over him, stinging his ear and slicing stands of his hair. Desperately, Haku wriggled away as quickly as he could while defending against the swordswoman with kicks and blocking with bundled senbon clutched in either hand.

"I'll be damned," remarked Yashako, pressing her advantage. "That IS you!"

In an orange blur Naruto leaped past Haku to head the mist-ninja off, engaging her with drawn kunai. The genin, snarling savagely, managed to deflect her blades for a second before he was sent flying back, eyes wide and with a gory 'X' slashed across his chest.

Even as the shock and horrid sensation flooded him – the sharp, excruciating pain, the nauseating looseness of his parted skin, and the hot wash of vivid red gushing down the front of his body, almost as bad as that burned the realization that this enemy had defeated him so easily, with barely an effort.

All the training I've done…the young ninja's miserable thoughts echoed as time crept to halt. All the tough opponents I've beaten and I'm still -, Naruto's mind rebelled with protective silence, reluctant to finish the tortuous thought: helpless…even when my friends need me the most!

As Naruto stumbled back then fell, Haku scrambled awkwardly to his feet, ready to protect his fallen partner but was still horribly overmatched. The Demon's Apprentice's senbon, to this foe, flew glacially slow; his tai-jutsu lagged clumsy and amateurish. Yashako sliced through the young constable's water-clones and ice shields faster than he could summon them with barely a pause until the black-haired teenager was again set on his back with the point of the kunoichi's sword leveled into the hollow of this throat.

A single, practiced swat with the flat of her other blade dashed the ANBU mask from the slender teenager's face and sent it clattering over the Mist Village pavement.

"So this is what it's come to, huh, Haku?" the jonin accused. "Zabuza couldn't take over the Mist Village so you've come back to destroy it. I guess that figures. Sour grapes plus you got a blood-gift too and all you guys stick together – blood's thicker than water, something like that, right?"

Naruto, huddled on his knees and with palsied arms clutched over his bleeding chest, looked up at the scene unfolding before him in horror. "Stop!" he roared at Yashako, head pounding with emotion; his fury welling, "don't do it!"

The woman grinned grimly as the muscles tensed down the length of her arm.

"Say 'hi' to Zabuza in hell for me...'Demon's Apprentice'," she hissed then thrust but her arm didn't move.

A started Yashako scowled in contempt at Naruto, who'd suddenly appeared right in front of her. The woman's eyes dropped, inspecting the blond boy's fingers as they dug hard into her ropey forearm then his gruesome wound which seemed to be slowly creeping shut.

Haku looked up at his rescuer, his bruised face paling. "Naruto, no!"

"You're quicker than I thought. Nice grip you got there too," the mist-kunoichi allowed in a voice pregnant with malice, "pretty strong chakra. I'm impressed." Yashako slashed with her other sword, a single, perfect stroke that would have decapitated a monument as well as the leaf-ninja had Naruto not ducked, and with such speed that it was hard to tell that he had moved at all.

Undaunted, Yashako's arm coiled back fluidly and smashed the genin squarely in the middle of his facemask with the pommel. Where the woman very clearly expected the ninja's head to snap back from the impact with the body falling limply to the ground either dead or comatose, the figure moved not an inch, surprising her yet again.

"Who ARE you?" she demanded imperiously as the ninja's ANBU mask, spider-webbed with cracks, slowly came apart; the pieces falling one-by-one from his face.

The smaller ninja glared back though the jigsaw-puzzle with frightening, defiant eyes burning lava red, black streaks like whiskers drawing back over his transforming face, taut lips pulling over fierce, jutting fangs.

"WHO ARE YOU?" Yashako cried once more, her voice rising to a crackling shriek as the leaf-ninja's chakra, thick, elemental and sinister, filled the air with tendrils of vaporous red.


Thanks for reading! -Jonohex

OH...forgot to say, the greatest countries in the world this time (in order) are: USA, CANADA (yay! Welcome back! ;), and...Sweden!

* Footnote: Naruto is paraphrasing Sun Tzu from the Art of War: "A sovereign cannot raise an army because he is enraged, nor can a general fight because he is resentful. For while an angered man may again be happy, and a resentful man again be pleased, a state that has perished cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life."