"Even though water clones have only one tenth or the original's strength, that should be more then enough to take care of you three." Zabuza said with a sadistic grin plastered on his face.
"You guys need to get out of here, the water clones can only go so far from the original, if you get far enough away, you should be safe!" Kakashi warned from inside his prison, his voice slightly muffled from the water.
"No way Kakashi sensei, were not leaving you. As you told us, those who abandon the mission are trash." Naruto replied in a calm yet firm tone.
"Oh so the kiddies want to play? Alright, prepare for the slaughter." Zabuza said with a gleeful smile. And signaled his clones to charge.
"Sakura, you help Sasuke hold the clones off, I'm going to get Tazuna out of here." Naruto said as he grabbed Tazuna and threw him over his shoulder, receiving a shout from him. Naruto then took off into the woods.
As soon as he got far enough away from the battle sight, he made five shadow clones to protect Tazuna, then hurriedly returned to the battle.
When he got there he saw that Sasuke and Sakura were doing fairly well against the clones, they had already managed to destroy two.
Sasuke ducked under a kick from one of the clones, then dodged around a few quick punches from another, but he failed to notice the third one about to cleave his in half until it was to late, the sword was mere inches away from his stomach, when suddenly the clone burst into water.
Sasuke looked around and saw Naruto holding several shuriken, some of which he assumed threw at the clone.
But Sasuke didn't have time to thank Naruto, as he was sent sliding across the ground towards Naruto from a hard kick to the side courtesy of the other clone.
Naruto helped Sasuke up then they both ran into battle. As they met a clone charging head on, sasuke broke to the left, and Naruto continued on straight. When he reached the clone, he ducked under a swipe from the massive Zanbato, the rolled to the side to avoid a spinning kick.
The clone raised its sword high above his head, about to bring it down towards Naruto, when a kunai stuck n the side of its head, courtesy of Sasuke.
They both just smirked at each other, and made their way towards Sakura.
Sakura was holding her own, she had managed to take out one of the clones, and was currently in a tiajutsu battle with another. As she was fighting she saw how much the endless practice of going through kata's had paid off. She was holding her own against the clone.
She danced around the clones, using her speed advantage, as even though the clone could move the sword around quickly, it was still cumbersome, and Sakura managed to strike it the back of the leg with a kunai, before it could block, sending the clone splashing into a puddle of water.
It was then that Sasuke and Naruto ran up. "There's only five left. But we need to be careful, he could always make more, but we also need to hurry and finish so we can rescue Kakashi sensei." Naruto said as he watched the clones with a calculating eye.
"You guys ready?" Naruto asked as he drew a kunai.
"Yep." Sakura said getting into a fighting stance.
Sasuke just smirked in a very Sasuke manor and said, "Bet I can get more then you dobe." as he charged towards the clones.
"In your dreams!" Naruto yelled back as he chased after Sasuke. Sakura hot on his tail.
The five water clones charged towards them, ready to wipe them off the earth. When they reached the first one, Sasuke made a leap over it, and while the clone was busy watching him, Naruto stabbed it through the heart, and continued on his way.
When two more reached them, Naruto and Sasuke broke left and right respectively, and Sakura seemed to disappear.
As Sasuke and Naruto charged from either side, the clones engaged them in tiajutsu, when suddenly several shuriken destroyed the two they were fighting, and several more headed towards the one that was still charging, although he had enough time to dodge.
Naruto and Sasuke looked and saw Sakura fade into existence. "Nice work Sakura." Naruto said before he dashed towards the last clone and killed it with deadly efficiency.
To Sasuke and Sakura it just looked like a cut to the throat. But from where Kakashi was he saw that not only had Naruto slit the throat, but the way he had done it was to stick the kunai into the clones neck and pull towards himself.
"That's the way ANBU are trained to kill, theres no way he should know that, unless maybe it was just an accident." Kakashi thought to himself. But not only had he seen the kill, he had seen the how Naruto's eyes changed from the playful, laid back kid, to the hardened eyes of a war veteran, the same eyes he saw in the third Hokage. But then they changed so fast he almost didn't catch it. But he knew one thing for sure, he and Naruto had to have a talk.
As the three charged the last clone, he flashed through handsigns, before raising his hands up in front of him. "Water style giant water bullets!" the clone said before launching several water bullets from the lake to wards the three genin, causing them to scatter.
But when they landed and prepared to charge, they saw the clone splash into a pile of water because it used up all of its chakra.
"Well well Kakashi, it seems you have quite a team here, at least for ninja posers." Zabuza said as he admired the teams handy work.
"Hey what do you mean ninja posers?" Sakura yelled.
"What I mean pinky, is that you havent yet had your hands stained with blood, therefore your not a real ninja." Zabuza said. "You see, when I was your age, I already had the blood of a dozen lives on my hands." he said darkly.
"B-but, how?" she asked weakly.
"In the hidden mist, the graduation exams work differently then in the leaf, you see to pass the final exam, you must fight to the death with your classmates. The people you grew up with, trained with, and were like family to you, you had to kill them."
"But you see I never went to the academy, I was trained outside of it, so when graduation day came, I went and slaughtered the entire graduating class, which was two years older them me. it's the reason I got the name demon of the bloody mist." Zabuza replied with a sick grin on his face.
This made all three of the genin turn a little green. "So your bragging about killing your friends, your family? What kind of sick, twisted, psycho are you?" Naruto said lowly.
"The best!" Zabuza replied happily.
That was it, Naruto charged, Sasuke and Sakura right behind him.
Naruto pulled out a few shuriken and threw them at Zabuza, who just used his sword to block them all. But they served their purpose. Naruto then reached into his backpack and pulled out a giant shuriken, and threw it to sasuke. "You know how to use one of those?" narto questioned, although he already knew the answer.
Sasuke just nodded. "Are you kidding dobe, you give me my favorite weapon and ask if I know how to use it? Ha!" Sasuke thought to himself as he opened the giant shuriken up.
He then jumped to the side, and onto a tree branch to prepare for his shot.
Naruto and Sakura kept charging, and when they were close enough, they started doing handsigns. When they finished, they said together "Tandom jutsu, earth spear projectile!"
Just as they finished, several large earth spears came out of the ground and launched towards Zabuza, but they were far enough away, and moving slow enough that he dodged them all. At least he thought he did until he received a deep cut across his left leg.
He grunted and fell to one knee, but was careful not to take his hand out of the water prison.
"Very impressive, a earth jutsu, mixed with a genjutsu to make me think the projectiles were in a slightly different place then they actually were. And by the size of this cut, I would say about four inches, very impressive for a couple fresh genin." Zabuza said as he stood back up, grunting in the process. "But that aint going to be enough to put me down for good!"
Zabuza was about to make a handsign when he suddenly jerked to the left to avoid the giant shuriken the nearly took off his head. He looked to where it came from and saw sasuke in a tree, he then caught a brief sparkle of light, and realized he was holding ninja wire.
Realizing what was probably happening, he turned his head around just in time to see the shuriken making its return trip, so acting solely on instinct, he managed to duck under it. But he was unprepared for when Naruto and Sakura were in front of him about to stab him with kunai. So he quickly cut all chakra output and dropped under the water, but in the process he released Kakashi.
Naruto grabbed Kakashi, then he and Sakura jumped back to the shore, where Sasuke met them.
"Are you ok kakashi sensei?" Sakura asked worriedly to their sensei who was currently gasping for air.
After he finally got his breathing under control, he replied "I'm fine Sakura, thanks to the three of you."
"Aw such a touching moment." Zabuza, who was now standing on the shore of the lake said.
All four of them were instantly on guard.
"Time to play some more kiddies!" he said as he drew his sword and charged only to fall flat on his face after a few steps. He looked at his feet and saw some kind of sticky substance, he tried to get up, but found he was laying in in more of it. "What is this stuff!" he screamed as he continued his struggle to get up.
"Oh that, that's just a little concoction I made one day when I was in desperate need of some glue. Its just turned out really sticky." Naruto said with a smile on his face.
"Defeated by glue, the rest of the seven wont ever let me live that down." Zabuza mumbled to himself.
Kakashi, realized that Zabuza would get out of it soon, as with the help of chakra he was already on his knees. So he focused some chakra into his had, and then formed a raikiri. As he did the sounds of a thousand birds chirping filled the air.
He then charged at Zabuza, he was almost there when suddenly something struck Zabuza in the neck and he fell over.
Kakashi immediately stopped his jutsu. It was then he saw a person land beside Zabuza. The person was wearing a green kimono and a hunter mask.
"A kiri hunter nin?" Kakashi questioned.
"Yes, and I must thank you, I've been tracking Zabuza for months now, not to be rude, but I must dispose of his body." the hunter said in a clearly feminine voice.
"No wait…" Kakashi said and jumped forward, but it was to late, they had already disappeared in a swirl of fog.
"That wasn't a real hunter nin was it?" Naruto asked.
"No, I don't think it was." Kakashi replied.
"Yeah, arent hunter nins supposed to destroy the body right where the kill it?" Sakura asked.
"And senbon arent very deadly, especially in the neck." Sasuke added.
"Your both right, but in any case we need to get back to Tazuna's house, speaking of which, where is he?" Kakashi asked.
Just as he finished, Tazuna, escorted by five Naruto clones walked out of the woods. "Ah there you are." Kakashi said "We should probably get back to your…" he didn't finish as he collapsed, and would of hit the ground if Sasuke hadn't been standing right next to him.
"Is he ok?" Tazuna asked.
Sakura's hands started to glow green and she ran them along his chest. When she finished her examination she said, "Yeah from what I can tell he's just exhausted, but I'm not that good of a medic yet, so I could of missed something. But I think he just needs rest."
"Alright then, we better get to my house." Tazuna said as he led them to his house.
hello its akatsuki-cloak here with the next chapter, sorry it took so long, but i was on vacation.
but i hoped you liked it.
on another note, im still accepting applications for one of naruto's main enemies, the application is on my profile.
tell me what you think.