Review Responses:
Narusaku: I'm glad I was able to ease your previous worries. As for your new question, yes the Rinnegan is an EXTREMELY powerful doujutsu but it doesn't have the same abilities as the Sharingan. Now if you combine the two...well I think you get it.
McAwzome: So you escaped! Good, very good.
Jotunn: Wow. It means alot that you like this story. Nothing's better for me as a writer than getting a review saying how much a person loves the story. Thank you.
Kwimen: I can see why you're asking that. In Kakashi's case, he's waiting until they get back before he asks. You'll know why he's waiting when the time comes. As for the Third Hokage, he's heard rumors and seen Naruto's new outfit but he has yet to see him in action.
Mr. Motivator: Yay for motivation!
"Today's the day that Kakashi-sensei predicted that Zabuza will attack again." The pinkette inhaled deeply and relished the feeling of fresh air before she continued. "To be honest, I'm scared." She glanced to either side of her to see if either of her teammates had even heard her. She noticed Sasuke was deep in thought and was completely ignoring. Figures. Sakura had slowly began to see Sasuke for who he was, not who she thought he was. The god-like picture of Sasuke Uchiha had started to crumble that day at the Academy. That day, when Naruto had thoroughly beaten and humiliated the Uchiha, she seen who he was. At first the smirk on his face had almost looked like a smile but his eyes... his eyes held an unfathomable amount of hatred for the one who had just beat him. After that she began to pay closer attention to Sasuke without such a massive amount of the fangirlism she had held before. Each time Sasuke was beaten his eyes told the same story: hatred. It was such a strong hatred too.
Next her eyes landed on the Uzumaki beside her. During the same time that Sasuke began to interest her less the opposite occurred for the blonde. Recently, ever since she began to keep an open mind, Naruto had impressed her over and over again. Between the unrealistic promises he somehow keeps all the way to how kindly he treated her despite how she used to treat him. Sakura never really understood, now that she looked at it, why the adults always treated Naruto like the plague. He was such a kind hearted person. Yet somehow this selfless angel of a human that is her teammate had earned the nickname "Demon Boy" from the adults. Yet, even after he had been struck in front of her, he just picked his smiling self back up. That alone was something she could never do. If she was hit like that for no reason there was no way in hell she would be smiling. There was also no way the attacker would have remained free yet he was back in the same store the next day acting like nothing ever happened. She began to walk with Naruto alot after that incident. During that time she had seen some of the nicest people she knew do some awful things to him and yet despite seemingly everyone hating him, he still smiled.
"Hey Sakura, do you need something?" Naruto's inquisitive voice brought her out of her thoughts.
"Not really. Why do you ask?" She noticed the corners of his mouth began to twitch ever so slightly.
"Well you were staring at me for about five minutes and you were smiling the whole time so I thought that you were going to ask me something." There was that twitch again.
"What did you think I wanted to ask you?" She narrowed her eyes as she realized that Naruto had probably ignored her when she had broken the silence earlier.
"Well I don't know. A few thing come to mind like if I'm also afraid of Zabuza, if Gatoh is going to send any men, maybe a date when we get back, and something about Sasuke. That's all I could think of you asking." He felt that twitch again as Sakura was oblivious to what he mixed in with the guesses.
'Processing...processing...' Those were his thoughts as he looked at her thinking over what he just said.
"Well that seems about-" 'click' "wait WHAT?! A DATE!" Naruto finally let that twitch go and broke out onto a full blown grin. He chuckled as he ducked under the enraged kunoichi's fist. She gave it a few more good swings before she finally settled on crossing her arms and muttering under her breath while shooting glares at the still laughing blonde.
"A date, no. However I WILL go eat with you at Ichiraku when we get back." Sakura couldn't have been more pleased at his reaction. Their roles changed as she laughed while he tried to splutter out a coherent sentence. On the other hand, Naruto had no idea what to think or say. He had been kidding about the date when she suddenly agreed to it just without using the term "date" to describe it. He must have looked rediculous at that point. Here he was, Naruto Uzumaki the one who inherited the powers of the godly Rikudo Sennin, and he was there spluttering out incoherent words as the girl of his dreams laughed at his misfortune. The fun was ruined before he could retaliate by the masked Jounin that lead the team. Kakashi had enjoyed the conversation behind him but he had a question or two for Naruto.
"Hey Naruto I need to ask you something." Kakashi had lazily tilted his head to look at the Genin and was surprised to see him become slightly tense.
'Don't ask how, don't ask how, don't ask how...' Naruto continued to chant his mental prayer as he spoke up. "What is it Cyclops-sensei?" The "cyclops" and every other member of Team 7 sweat dropped as Naruto's infamous nicknaming ability came to play. Kakashi made a note to make their next training session extra difficult for Naruto before he continued. "You didn't leave Tsunami and Inari by themselves did you?"
"No, I left a few Kage Bunshin to leave at the house with them." Naruto stated his answer like he knew a few of his Kage Bunshin could keep half of the world safe. It was confident to a strangely comforting level.
"Ok. Just checking." He turned his head back to his book to "read" as they continued walking to the bridge.
"What happened here?!" Tazuna slowly swept his shocked gaze across the injured, dying, and already dead bodies of his workers. They had risked their lives to build this bridge and throughout the whole construction not a single person was injured. Yet now all of them were crumpled heaps that occasionally moaned in pain. No one could see far in the familiarly thick fog that clung to the bridge. They were all on their guards at the sight of the beat down before them but when the same voice echoed from everywhere they were on the brink of insanity from awareness as the Genin saerched all around them. Even Naruto.
'Throwing on that act again? Well hopefully it doesn't stay that way through this whole fight.' The Jounin stared hard into the mist until he could finally make out the silhouette of two people.
Several water clones came dashing into sight and surrounded the group of Genin that protected his target.
"So you drug the little brats along to huh. Must really want to see them die." Naruto noticed Sakura tense up slightly when he Zabuza had mentioned them dying. He made a mental note to ask about that later before he turned his attention back to the clones. They each wielded the intimidating Executioners Blade and all had death in their eyes.
"I don't think they're going to die today. At least, not if Naruto and Sasuke have anything to say about it." Kakashi's statement was punctuated by the splashes of several very dead water clones while Sasuke and Naruto stood in front of Sakura, both of them spinning a kunai on their fingers.
"Too easy don't ya think Sasuke?" Naruto didn't bother to face Sasuke and instead stared directly at the two missing Kiri ninja.
"For once I think I agree with you Dobe." The Uchiha stared at Zabuza's familiar companion realizing that the now visible hunter-nin would probably be his opponent. Naruto was glad he had learned how to switch between his regular eyes and , as he so maturely called them, his "ass kicking" eyes. Now that he thought about it, he was going to need a name for these eyes. Maybe when he got home he would try to think of one.
Even without his new eyes active, Naruto felt confident that he knew what the next few minutes would bring.
Well, Naruto turned out to be damn good at guessing things as he and Sasuke attempted to dodge another senbon barrage. Naruto could have simply repelled all of them but he didn't want to reveal his eyes yet. After the Demon Brothers were killed he knew certain people would start to ask questions about how they were taken down so easily. The last thing he needed to do was draw attention to himself by walking around with a doujutsu that was only seen on the Rikudo Sennin himself. Naruto winced when he felt the bite of the senbon punching through the skin and plunged into his left tricep. He felt another one cut his cheek while yet another hit him in the chest, several inches from piercing his heart.
He did a quick check of his teammate's condition and reached, what he would guess, an medically sound conclusion: he was FUCKED up. Senbons were sticking out of his back like he was some kind of human pin cushion. His left arm was limp from several meticulously placed senbon that temporarily disables whatever limb it hits. The paralysis could only be released when the senbon were pulled out of the chakra point and the corresponding pressure point. Naruto made his way towards the struggling Uchiha with the hopes of being able to redirect the hits.
"Naruto...stay out...of...this!" The blues eyes of the blonde met the red of eyes of the newly awakened Sharingan. Each eye only held two tomoe but it seemed like everything was trying to move through water from Sasuke's point of view. He tried to stand and was finally able to lift his head to glare at Haku but only succeeded in opening the way for the three senbon to become embedded in his chest. The Uchiha took several instinctive steps back to try and move away from the source of his pain. His Sharingan eyes began to flicker between red and black as the pain caused his knees to buckle beneath him as he slumped to his knees. His eyes were locked onto his own chest, or rather, the three new senbon that joined the other three. The red eyes finally gave way to a solid black . A strange gurgling noise emanated from the Uchiha's throat before he fell forward onto the cold, hard concrete that formed the bridge.
The sounds of a girl's screams were overpowered by the bloodthirsty roar.
Haku struggled to stand as she peered at the fist that she skewered on. The blonde snarled at her as he ripped his hand out of her chest, leaving behind a nasty, gaping, ragged hole in her chest. The blonde had experienced a complete personality shift once the other boy, Sasuke Uchiha, went down. Haku had felt awful for doing that to the poor child but she had justified the action in her mind by saying that it was what Zabuza-sama would want. She tried to fight against the blonde, god did she try, but it seemed like the Genin had released centuries of pent up rage, hatred, and animalistic ferocity all at once.
She had no chance against the onslaught that came in the form of the blonde Konoha Genin. It took several blurred seconds before she found the fist protruding from the back of her body.
Haku noticed the edges of her vision had faded considerably and the black edges threatened to consume her vision. Her knees betrayed her and she collapsed in a heap on the ground.
"Zabuza-sama..." Haku fixed her gaze on her lord, the man that saved her from a life of persecution, as he fought against the Copy Ninja Kakashi Hatake. A dark and throaty laugh began from her soon to be killer. Sh noticed that his eyes were back to the solid blue. Then a thin circle of black emerged from his pupil and moved to the edges of his eyes. Several more of the black ripples made their way out and finally settled into place after reaching an equal distance in between each one. Haku watched in fascination as three spinning tomoe swirled out of his pupils and settled on the ripple line closest to the pupil.
"Don't worry about him," That dark laugh sounded so foreign coming from, what she could guess, the usually happy-go-lucky, always chipper and smiling blonde. He produced a sword and silently removed it from the fancy sheath. "He will be joining you very soon." He extended his hand and faced the open palm at the back of the completely oblivious Zabuza.
"Bansho Ten'in."
The former member of the Seven Swordsman of the Hidden Mist Village found himself being ripped off the ground as it felt like gravity had suddenly changed its rules and now pulled him sideways intead of down. He caught a flash of metal and was able to see the sword punch through his chest, effectively ending his life.
Naruto frowned as he absentmindedly pulled the sword from one body only to use it to cease the struggles of the girl on the ground next to him. Naruto hated to kill people. He hated it with a passion yet he was VERY good at the killing profession. He noticed Sakura was crying at the Uchiha's body. As her tears streamed forward she also toom the initiative to began patching the wounds that her limited used of medical ninjutsu would allow. The Sharingan part of Naruto's eyes caught sight of tiny, near microscopic, movements of the chest to signify that he still drew breath. Naruto felt that pang of loneliness again as the thought of Sakura choosing Sasuke over himself made themselves quite prominent on the forefront of his mind. He watched her put her beautiful face onto Sasuke's chest. His heart nearly crumbled at that sight. However, his heart was saved when she tilted her head to the side and began to listen for a heartbeat.
-thump, thump-
Sakura let a massive smile cross her weary face.
"He's alive Naruto. He's alive." Sakura was ecstatic that she had been able to save their comrade's life. His breathing was rapidly returning to normal right before their eyes. Naruto looked up at the pinkette and noticed she was looking at him for something. It hit him pretty fast as he could recognize that facial expression and the emotions behind it anywhere, anytime. This was because he had once, and still occasionally did, worn that very same expression: she was looking for acknowledgement and acceptance.
"That was awesome Sakura-chan!" He didn't give his brain time to think as he lunged at Sakura and wrapped her up into a big bear hug.
Sakura blushed profusely at the blonde who's arms she was currently in. She was happy that he acknowledged her achievement. For some reason, his acknowledgement of it made the feat even better. She never felt him lift his hand carefully from her and point it behind the at the gathering mob of mercenaries.
"Shinra Tensei." He disguised the muttering with a series of coughs. He seen the mercenaries fly off the bridge without a sound. Well everyone but Gatoh was quiet. He screamed for his life as he dangled from the bridge. A fall into the water at that height would be the same as swan diving into concrete. He heard a few footsteps above him and looked at the blonde above him. He immediately began to panic when he seen the contempt in the blue, rippled eyes.
"Bansho Ten'in!"
The weapons that the fallen mercenaries had dropped floated all around the blonde and pointed directly at Gatoh's helplessly suspended body. His pleas for mercy fell upon deaf ears. Naruto turned his back to the pathetic "thing" hanging from the bridge before he spoke once more.
"Shinra Tensei."
The weapons all hit their mark and several seconds later a splash from below was the only thing to mark Gatoh's final resting place.
Tazuna watched the receeding figures of Team 7 as he spoke.
"So what should we name this bridge?"
Inari was the one to name the soon to be famous bridge.
"The Great Naruto Bridge."
AN: Wow l. So I REALLY didn't like writing that chapter. I was never that creative with the Zabuza fight so I rushed it to the point where I missed some key points I could've tweaked for a better outcome. I would like to apologize right now if this chapter seems below par and I promise to rectify this with the next few chapters. As always Read, Review, and Enjoy!