Chapter 18: Finally Scrapping Through
Disclaimer: Naruto is the work of Kishimoto
By now; Naruto was up to Loop 10 for this checkpoint and a total of 1 Year spent training and fighting Zabuza.
To be honest; Naruto could've went through and get to the next checkpoint but he didn't know if they would face the no eyebrow man later on.
"Taijutsu seems…fine" Naruto commented seeing a single Shadow Clone with its resistance seal off face off against a few other Shadow Clones at once.
While his skill in Taijutsu wasn't to the High Genin level yet; individually that is; his skills in Shadow Clone combat was much better now. Even a trained Chunin would be pressed enough with 5 Shadow Clones attacking him at once.
For starters he was now more able to coordinate with a few number of Shadow Clones using at max three of them to pressure an enemy else defeat them.
Using a Shadow Clone to block an attack before attacking in that gap was one example of how Naruto managed to progress in skill. Another was to quickly create a Clone while in mid-air to move him out of an attack.
Not to mention that he was able to pressure Kakashi quite a lot with three dozen Shadow Clones facing him off. It was his proud moment when he managed to lure the man into a prank trap which painted the words 'Pervert' on him.
"Hehehehe, Kakashi-sensei couldn't get the paint off and had to change" he giggled thinking at how the man treated him after that.
Aside from screwing around with his team; or rather at his team with pranks and such; Naruto was much more serious later on in the Loop.
The fight with Zabuza and before that; the fight with the Demon Brothers were one of the first times his team saw him…serious with the exception of Guy and Lee whom he trained often in for his Taijutsu development.
Basically he spent most of the time during this time making up tactics in order to get rid of Zabuza, save Kakashi or prevent Kakash from being captured by the former. It was actually quite fun trying to predict the Jonin's ability and counter it to the best of his ability.
"Though for some reason Zabuza needs to survive the fight to move on as well…" Naruto mused.
It was actually a shocker to him when Zabuza died against Kakashi who was using that Jutsu to gather lightning in his hand; the Loop reset. In fact he repeated the battle exactly the same and the same thing happened.
Zabuza needed to live…for now that is.
Plus there was still that unknown person who was helping out Zabuza. Naruto pouted thinking of how he never saw the reaction of that unknown person when Zabuza died.
Did that person escape?
Did that person attack them?
Did that person set a trap for them?
He wanted to know this information and every time Zabuza died, he was prevented on seeing this.
Well it just meant that he needed to make sure Zabuza was knocked out…one way or another. Yeah…Naruto was really questioning on why an enemy had to live right now. Perhaps it had some significance later on but he wasn't sure.
"But why does Zabuza need to live at this point?" Naruto thought, it was like his life was a story which glitch out at certain points to tell him that nope; you can't get rid of this guy at this point. It was highly frustrating for him to work with something as restrictive as this.
A damn list of what he could and could not do would be perfectly fine.
CRACK!
Then space cracked and a note fell through with Naruto dumbfound staring at it for a good 10 minutes before his head rebooted to understand what just happened.
"You go to be fucking kidding me" he muttered picking up the note after sending a Shadow Clone to check for traps, poisons or anything else that could harm him. God he loved the Jutsu at times like this.
Conditions for next checkpoint:
Make sure you win the fight against Zabuza and avoid being killed along with anyone else; yes keep Zabuza alive, it is worth it. Oh and don't bother trying to chase him and his assistance when they appear; too much of the plot will change if you do.
Oh and if you're asking why you're stuck in a time loop of all things, blame it on fate, destiny, death and time not getting along with each other.
Signed, An Observer.
"The hell does this mean?" Naruto wondered.
It looked like that he was right in that Zabuza needed to live…along with everyone else there as well until they get far enough that there is another checkpoint…whenever that is.
Plus what was this about not chasing after that damn assistance that killed them a couple of times now?
He almost had Zabuza during those runs and that person ruined it!
Gritting his teeth, Naruto continued to rant in his head thinking of why there would be a bloody note on how to proceed at this moment along with why this person who was watching him wasn't helping him at all!
CRACK!
And then another note fell through….
Can't help. Timeline is too unstable at that point in time. You need to progress way more in the story for me to meet you.
Signed, Someone who wants you to advance the plot.
With a frustrated sigh, Naruto shook his head and just decided to wing it to get through as fast as he could at this point. It's not like there would be dire consequences if he did.
"Almost there…" Naruto muttered about to see the clearing where Zabuza would appear once again.
Looking around he made a cross sigh and said, "Shadow Clone Jutsu" creating a couple of clones to spread out. Since he was at the back of the group, only Kakashi noticed him making the clones.
There was a silent nod from the man since Shadow Clones could relay information back to the original.
The training month before the C-rank went pass and Naruto considered himself doing good even compared to the previous runs of these events.
While he still maintained the massive amount of cash from all the D-ranks he did on minimum price each, getting the resistance seal from Kakashi and training with Gai and Lee; he also made some progress with his team-mates as well.
Knowing what the raven haired avenger wanted helped Naruto interact with the boy and made their relationship…less hostile.
'If you mean not trying to avoid any interactions with me and constantly sparring with me to get stronger if that's what you mean' that thought came in mind at that moment.
While Sasuke still dominated their spars for the most case, Naruto was getting used to Sasuke's fighting style and was winning increasingly to have around a third win rate right now.
That in turn caused the boy to train harder reducing his win rate down to something he considered perfectly fine.
Basically it was a cat and mouse game of whether Naruto could catch up in Taijutsu or Sasuke remaining powerful enough to maintain the distances in win rates.
But there was a good benefit to this admittedly.
He managed to convince Sasuke to train with him in Taijutsu with Gai and Lee as a result even though the poor boy tried to escape the moment he saw the green spandexes.
And that moment when Lee beat Sasuke. And the time when the duo ran Sasuke through the ground through running alone.
Naruto eventually managed to pull out a minor stick out of his ass with some help not thanks to Sakura who refused any extra training at all. Now, Sasuke was better at Taijutsu, a lot faster with more stamina (but not that much) and even wasn't as much of an ass as he remembered.
'All in the name of getting more power' Naruto thought grimly. He might need to correct that later on. Naruto knew the only reason Sasuke trained was to gain power to kill that certain someone. Before he thought it was him but…
Whoever angered Sasuke enough that he became an avenger was powerful. More powerful than Kakashi it seemed. And every time Naruto tried to learn more about it, either Kakashi steered the conversation away or Sasuke froze and reduced their relationship to hostile.
Naruto never could find out more information about why Sasuke wasn't power so quickly.
Poof!
His musing was stopped as one of his Shadow Clones were destroyed; though he wasn't sure it was Zabuza or his unknown assistance.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto warned which made Sakura give him a strange look.
The girl was useless even when he tried to help her.
Hell; Naruto wouldn't be that surprised if she conveniently forgot about him explaining how Shadow Clones worked.
Sasuke definitely did though was put out that he couldn't use it without killing him. Kakashi had to explain it VERY clearly to never use it without having more Chakra.
Fun fact: Most Jonin know this Jutsu but never use it since it takes up too much Chakra and it's not worth it in normal situations else the other problems that came with gaining memories of being killed constantly.
"GET DOWN!" Kakashi screamed pushing Tazuna down on the ground from behind as the rest of the team and Naruto did the same.
At that moment he felt another Shadow Clone pop, being killed.
Yep it was that assistance of Zabuza's doing his work. He was already down to 3 more Shadow Clones around the area and the fight didn't even start yet.
Cue time where Zabuza and Kakashi talked for a bit about things that he already knew as Naruto silently made a Shadow Clone behind him and immediately making it transform into a VERY small fox (ironically) that ran into the bushes.
With the enemy Jonin watching Kakashi, he didn't seem to be taking much notice on the Genin. Naruto managed to stop a smirk on how he was going to make his life hell in this short fight.
Naruto continued to create Shadow Clones one by one with lots of difficulties doing so making a half way cross sign with his Kunai at hand as a disguise. Even if he couldn't make a full cross, still making a half way attempt made it easier for him to mold his Chakra for the Jutsu.
Still...
Zabuza might know about him using Shadow Clones but it didn't matter since the man was underestimating him.
Those Shadow Clones created one by one were Transformed into small insects which crawled to each of his team-mates and Tazuna without them noticing a thing to appear when Zabuza least noticed it for an ambush.
Kakashi at this point drove Zabuza to the waters again where he started to make hand-seals and growled out, "Hidden Mist Jutsu."
A good deal of Chakra; more than Sakura could ever have and at least twice as much Sasuke has right now was used in the Jutsu where Mist started to be created around the body of Zabuza as water turned into vapour rapidly.
"Liver, Lungs, Spine, Chevical, Neck, Brain, Kidney, Heart. Which one should I go after?"
As those ominous words echoed and everyone except for Naruto and Kakashi were getting frightened; the mist continued to thicken and the killing intent from Zabuza continued to rise.
After experience so many times; while Naruto wasn't that affected by it; it still gave him the chills since it came from a man who slaughtered a graduating class before he entered the Mist Academy.
Such a display at a young age made Zabuza a dangerous opponent even back then as a child though Naruto shivered at the thought that he would do the same if put in the same situation.
Naruto for a lack of a better word was a Gutter Child; someone who lived stealing and doing whatever they could to survive.
With the mentally of a child and being overcharged by the village; Naruto had no choice but to steal to live and be stolen from when he finally got an apartment. More than that, he wanted to be acknowledge. He did so using Pranks.
Zabuza was the same and it was the state of the Hidden Mist Village that caused him to kill those people. He wanted to be acknowledged no matter what and slaughtering those people made him noticed.
Once again the air was heavy.
Zabuza was ready to kill and all of them were targets. Tazuna was close to fainting but held on since he had the fate of his country on his shoulders. That old man had resolution and was willing to die for it.
Naruto could respect that.
Sasuke was shaking but Naruto had a feeling he was getting a flashback attack from that event that was traumatising him. Understandable since Naruto had a feeling his team-mate was not completely mentally stable; but what Ninja was?
They were trained children killers even if Sakura was included in that list.
Sakura…wet herself and with his Chakra enhanced nose he smelt it. He wished to use it to try and track Zabuza even a bit not smell when his team-mate spoiled herself!
"Sasuke" it was then that Kakashi called out to the raven haired boy, "Don't worry. I'll protect you guys even if it kills me" he turned to eye-smile at them with both eyes now, "I don't let my comrades die."
"We'll see about that!"
Like before Zabuza appeared at that moment to attack.
Like before Zabuza went through their defence around Tazuna.
However unlike before, Naruto was prepared.
Poof!
A total of five Shadow Clones appeared and stabbed Zabuza several times in that exact moment.
"Water Clone?" Kakashi exclaimed as the Zabuza that Naruto 'killed' turned into water. The Trap was perfect with Naruto taking the enemy-nin in surprised though he should've expected this from a fellow A-rank Shinobi.
Instead of appearing behind Kakashi and attacking him; Zabuza seemed to have gotten more serious and targeted him as he growled out, "Not bad….BRAT!" before attacking with that giant blade falling down at his head.
"KYAAA!" Sakura uselessly screamed for her own safety.
"Dobe!" Sasuke seemed generally concern about him in that moment.
Kakashi's eyes widened as he rushed in to stop Zabuza at that moment while Naruto started to make the hand-seals for a certain Jutsu while tagging in to a Shadow Clone nearby.
SMASH!
Poof!
On one hand, Kakashi and the rest of them saw Naruto get sliced in half. On the other hand; said sliced Naruto poofed and turned into smoke meaning that was a clone all along.
And only Kakashi knew that Naruto had the ability to substitute with his Shadow Clones quickly.
"WHAT?!" the collection people who saw this shouted at once.
Grinning from a distance away from the battle; now with no one to notice him he made the Cross hand-seal and said, "Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!" creating a good 50 Shadow Clones at once and transforming them into animals and other objects.
Hopefully the two Jonins would be too distracted to notice him using Shadow Clones.
Splitting up the animal transformed clones, he sent half of them to hide under the lake and the other half to distract Zabuza and help with the battle by moving them around the area for a possible trap later on.
He also sent down an untransformed Shadow Clone to help protect Tazuna and deceived Zabuza a bit since he didn't know that Naruto could use Shadow Clones. If he was going to avoid the shit storm with Kakashi being captured he might as well prepare for it.
Naruto watched as the battle continued with Zabuza and Kakashi both using Water Clones to screw each other's heads.
The moment they got away from Tazuna and the rest of his team, Naruto Transformed two of his Shadow Clones into giant Shurikens and threw them at Zabuza.
"Over there?!" Zabuza didn't seem surprised to be attacked at that moment and easily dodged the two giant shurikens and grabbed one to throw back directly at Naruto.
Only for that transformed clone to transform back to its original appearance and attack.
"The hell?!" Zabuza cried before killing the clone and picking up the second clone transformed giant shuriken and throwing it at Naruto.
'Damn he was too quick!' Naruto roared in his mind. Even if the clone cancelled its transformation he would still be hit!
Making the hand-seals quickly, Naruto substituted with another Shadow Clone near the ground instead of in the trees as he waited for the rest of his clones to get in position.
It was kinda hard to make sure that his animal transformed clones get near enough to the water.
He had to make the clones transformed clones into fish…which was kinda hard to do and popped around three quarters of those clones when they tried to get them in the waters of the lake place where the battle might go.
It took him a full Loop of study on fishes for this part of the plan.
"You won't get away!" Kakashi shouted charging in at Zabuza where he can't attack so easily.
The missing-nin let go of his blade unexpectedly and kicked Kakashi away to the direction of the lake forcing him to stay over the surface of the water.
'Better use those clones around near me to try and distract Zabuza some more' Naruto thought creating a Shadow Clone and immediately dispelling it giving the command to the rest of them.
In the next moment, several things happened at the same time in such a short period that it could not be more than 3 seconds max.
The first was that Kakashi was having trouble staying on the water which he didn't know was saturated with Zabuza's Chakra and thus was harder to manipulate or connect to.
Second was that Zabuza was now moving quickly behind Kakashi to use that Water Prison Jutsu of his to trap him. He was already making the hand-seals for it.
And third was that there were a dozen giant shurikens sheering through the air towards Zabuza and around where he could escape rapidly.
"Shit didn't get him that time…" Naruto cursed as he watched one of his shadow clones get questioned by his team-mates at THAT moment while Zazuba dodged the attacks he threw at them while shooting off hand-seals rapidly.
By that time Kakashi widened his eyes seemingly recognising the Jutsu.
Zabuza grinned through his bandage mask while saying, "Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu!"
It was at that moment that Naruto REALLY knew the difference between a Genin and Jonin.
Genins like Sasuke MIGHT have one or two flashy jutsus they can do once in a while but this…creating a MASSIVE DRAGON OF WATER to appear and attack so easily was another thing.
BANG!
"SENSEI!" The real Naruto heard his team and his clone shout at the same time while Tazuna, a civilian was frozen in fear.
Sakura was gazing to the opposite side of the battle more than he liked as the battle went on fiercer than before.
Kakashi from where Naruto could see was flung back a good distance away due to the Jutsu and the chakra saturated water causing him to not move out of the way in time. By the time the Jutsu ended he hit a tree and rebounded back into the water.
This time…Naruto couldn't save him as Zazuba moved behind Kakashi and said, "Water Prison Jutsu" encasing the man in a sphere of water where he was trapped…and everyone else at the "mercy of the Water Clone that was just formed.
"All of you! RUN!" Kakashi shouted from the water prison. Strangely enough it was clear of what he said despite being in water…
Was there some sort of Jutsu that allowed you to do that? He needed to ask later.
Gritting his teeth Naruto thought, 'How much longer until those clones I sent there are in place?!' looking at the small fishes that were swimming slowly while being carried by the waves as close as possible to save his Sensei.
Looking at his team and the client Naruto figured it was time to get into the fight rather than a clone since he could at least take more than a single hit…he still needed to figure a way around that.
Making the hand-seals necessary; Naruto substituted with his clone next to his team and made that clone pop at the same time gaining the conversations he had with his team.
Cue Sakura insulting him, Sasuke not saying anything and Tazuna saying that they can fight if they wanted since he would be dead without them anyway.
Yeah…
He was glad he used a clone for this conversation they had for at least the sake of his ears and was at least prepared for the bloody fight now compared to before.
"Teme" Naruto started, "Somehow I think my Clones can't handle this…" while look at Zabuza slaughtering 10 Shadow Clones in less than a second flat.
Seeing the clear killing intent and 'pressure' from the Water Clone Zabuza which Naruto had to CONSTANTLY repeat in his head was only a tenth as strong as the original (He mildly wondered if Zabuza modified his one to be stronger…) Sasuke nodded and prepared himself.
"Sasuke! Aim a fireball at the real Zabuza! The Water Prison will protect Kakashi-sensei! I'll hold off the Water Clone!" Naruto shouted as both real and water clone Zabuzas widened their eyes.
"Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
A swarm of 100 Narutos appeared to hinder Zabuza as best they could while making a clear path to the target.
No matter what kind of person there are; there were only a few people who could shrug off C-rank or higher Jutsus and almost all of those people had a protection type jutsu or were simply S-rank. Naruto doubt Zabuza was one of those people despite being that strong.
Making the hand-seals quickly which Naruto once again noticed to be pretty fast for a Genin; though super slow compared to a Jonin; Sasuke breathed fire forming it into a giant fireball that was shot out to the real Zabuza.
All while his mass shadow clones were stopping the water clone in question.
Fuuuuuussssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh!
"YEAH!" Sakura cleared on seeing her Sasuke-kun kicking ass while completely ignoring what Naruto did and suggested to Sasuke to begin with.
However several more Water Clones appeared on the lake right in front of the target with Zabuza smirking at them.
BOOOOM!
The fireball hit them and blew up sending smoke and in this case water from that general area.
It was at this point that Naruto noticed his clones were pretty much cleared out while he wasn't watching and the memories he gained from them being destroyed were filtered out. Sasuke was looking nervous as well seeing that their admittedly straightforward plan didn't work.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH" Zabuza laughed, "Not bad brats! However you made a mistake of facing against me while you could've ran."
Naruto smirked to that.
"Too bad since we will not abandon our comrades. We will not be worse than trash" he declared in a confident tone similar to how he did before…this time loop thing.
To the side he could see that Sasuke was smirking as well trying to hide the fact he was shaking a bit.
While Naruto didn't like Sakura that much anymore (something he groaned about, wasting too many years on her); she was still their comrade and he trusted her to a certain extent to protect Tazuna and not run away.
"Heh, your death" Zabuza shrugged before commanding his Water Clone to kill them.
But Naruto continued to smirk. He got information from his clone underwater after all; they were in place and were waiting for action!
"Heh, your death" Naruto taunted back sending the signal to attack while the Water Clone was about to attack them.
POOF! POOF! POOF….!
A total of 6 Shadow Clones survived the…well transformation into a fish type creature and then the Water Dragon Zabuza sent and…really being underwater for a long time.
And all of them leaped into the air from under the water and turned back to their original shelves.
While throwing an aimed shot with a Kunai at Zabuza.
Acting with instincts seeing that this was no illusion and he had no plans on being pocked holes in with a good number of Kunai at once; Zabuza grabbed his giant sword and swung it blowing away all of the Kunai away with one landing near him.
But he didn't notice one thing. That those Kunai were also Shadow Clones.
Poof!
That one clone close enough and one that didn't pop due to the blow appeared and threw a Kunai at CLOSE RANGE and yet the missing-nin somehow managed to dodge that…
But in turn Zabuza had to released his Jutsu on Kakashi.
The Clone's last act was to attack Zabuza again as the man charged at the Shadow Clone in anger before Kakashi kicked Zabuza from the back rather hard.
"Ahh!" Zabuza turned and started flipping through hand-seals rapidly again but Kakashi read them and knew the Jutsu and sped through them faster than Zabuza could.
"Here's a present back for you!" Kakashi shouted shooting off his hands before shouting, "Water Vortex Jutsu!"
As the water around them turned into a vortex that shot at Zabuza and smashed him into the trees further away, Zabuza was in shock. He couldn't even move fast enough to get away from the jutsu and was hit hard.
BANG!
Staring at Kakahi who got near; Zabuza shouted out, "Impossible! Can you see the future?!"
"Yes" Kakashi replied with his Sharingan spinning rapidly at Zabuza, "And your future is death!" with a Kunai about to kill the man gripped in his hands.
Woosh!
In that moment two Sebon flew from the air and hit Zabuza instantly killing him. The man dropped dead as Kakashi checked his vitals and the man; no boy in the mask appeared. Naruto frowned; this was the person who killed or knocked him out before.
This person was strong enough to take Zabuza down. While the masked boy and Kakashi talked for a bit; Naruto remembered the note that said they needed to escape.
Naruto clicked his tongue in annoyance seeing that he didn't want to take the chance that he needed to let them go and stopped them and was forced to repeat this fight again.
Pulling his headband down, Kakashi murmured some words and collapsed.
Looking at each other, Naruto and Sasuke took one of Kakashi arms and lifted him up; carrying him while Tazuna said, "My home is around an hour walk away now."
With nothing else to do; the team walked with their collapsed Sensei and were all thinking of different things but Naruto had one clear thought.
'Checkpoint get soon~'
Loop 10 End. Checkpoint Gained. (Total time spent: 1 Year 50 Weeks, 3 Days)
A/N:
The beginning of the Mysterious Observer!
Seriously I plan on that on happening a total of 3 times in this series and this is the first. The second I've already written and the third time Naruto gets a message...well spoilers.
But onto the rest of the chapter itself.
This fight...while difficult for me to write was rather fun to write in all honesty.
Naruto here had several plans within plans that he was forced to use one after another to deal with whatever Zabuza threw at him. Shadow Clones were really overused in this fight as well serving several roles at once.
Seriously, Naruto could split himself into hundreds if he wanted and he didn't take advantage of that?
I mean he could've easily during the second bell test with Kakashi use Mass-Shadow Clones, hide them in the forest while setting up traps and fight him from afar while showering Kakashi with weapons instead of fighting close range.
Well to be far, he actually Transformed his Shadow Clone in that fight in the Manga which also skipped most of the fight.
The anime did a decent job at least for the rest of the fight that was skipped but once again we had Naruto Shadow Clones charging in and getting destroyed...what the hell happened on using Shadow Clones more smartly?
Anyway the next chapter is the next part of the story which is basically Wave.
And with the 1 Week training in Canon, you can bet Naruto will be training more for the second fight with Zabuza and now also Haku.
Also, reviews are back which means I can FINALLY read your comments.
Which means I found that people don't like me bashing Sakura so much. True, but I have big plans for her and its not going to the whole 'she dies pitifully' type of thing.
Remember the whole mentally and constant support thing?
Yeah, this Sakura is because Naruto stopped constantly supporting her in every turn. This Sakura doesn't have anyone to praise her or keep her spirits up whenever she's rejected by Sasuke in one form or another.
Sakura while 1 dimensional in my series is unfortunately also 1 dimensional in Canon. Its to the point where Sasuke has more dept than to her at least in Part 1...and the latter half of Part 2.
Despite everything, Sakura and Chiyo vs Sasori was awesome.
Finally, I can now reply to reviews...