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The Fox, The Raven, and The Cat raise hell

chapter 8 - hell in the mist

lake surrounding wave country, 30 minutes after shino's first joke

they were on the lake, about ten minutes away from wave country, naruto, hinata, rikou, and rika were all in their animal forms, rika and rikou flying around scouting the area ahead for archers, and killing the ones they found. naruto and hinata had transformed just so they could save some space and have an excuse to cuddle. about ten minutes later, they met up with rika and rikou on land as naruto and hinata shifted back to their human forms. they started to walk and they made good time as they were only two miles from tazuna's home at this point. however, naruto and hinata heard something that they didn't like, and rikou and rika saw something that confirmed everyone's worries.

/DUCK!/ rikou screeched as he brought tazuna, sasuke, and sakura to the ground, while everyone else followed suit and dropped to the ground, as an odd zanbatou zoomed passed the space where their heads had just been.

a man with no shirt, wearing huge pants with bandages over his mouth was standing on the blade's handle, as it was now lodged in a tree, "interesting, you weren't taken by surprise, excellent, come, let us battle." he said grasping the handle of his blade and backflipping dislodging the blade from the tree and swiping the sword at tazuna, only to have it blocked by rikou's zanbatou.

"sorry, but this old fart's my client, and if he dies, I don't get paid." rikou said in a bored tone, before throwing the bandaged man and his zanbatou away with his own zanbatou.

"ah, wonderful, a young spirit ready to do battle, I can feel it in your words, this is more than your pay, you want a fight as well, well, I'll gladly be the one to oblige! I am zabuza momochi, the demon of the mist!" zabuza said resting his blade on his shoulder.

"excellent, I've always wanted to fight one of the seven swordsman of the mist. I am rikou karasu, and I'd like to make a deal with you, if you kill me, you may take all 100,000 ryo that I have on my person at this moment, but if I defeat you, you and your apprentice hidden in the trees must return to konoha with us, after being payed 50,000 ryo." rikou said also resting his blade on his shoulder.

"deal, no matter what happens, I get more money than I would've for killing the old man, of course, you're going to have to pay the men who are out to kill me." zabuza said getting ready to fight.

"well, I don't see why not, I mean after all, I have much more money back at konoha." rikou said as he and zabuza charged one another. their swords collided, again and again, and then they jumped apart, zabuza forming a seal where he put one arm straight above his head with his middle and index finger extended, while the other arm was infront of him with the same fingers extended the same way, except for the fact that it was in front of him like a normal handseal.

"hidden mist technique!" zabuza said as the mist surrounding them became much thicker. "prepare for death, no one has ever survived this technique, as I use this technique to kill silently, you'll be dead before you know what happened."

"I don't see what good outer silence does against someone hwo can hear your heart pumping loud and clear." rikou said charging zabuza silently, as he put his zanbatou to zabuza's neck, he flared his chakra, causing the mist to vanish. "guess what, you're comin' with us to konoha." rikou said causing zabuza to smile under his mask and chuckled.

"indeed, haku, come, the sooner they finish their mission the sooner we can return to konoha and stop running from the hunter nins." zabuza called out placing his zanbatou in it's place on his back.

"yes, zabuza." came a feminine voice from behind rikou.

"heh, who knew, the kid's as fast as us. so you're haku, I think you're a girl by the way you speak, but I can't tell for sure, care to clear that up for me?" rikou said placing his zanbatou on his back as well.

"I am a girl, yes." she said going to zabuza's side.

"I was right, cool, alright, well, let's head off to tazuna's house, I'm hoping we can get some dinner." rikou said as the large group began to walk towards tazuna's home.

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tazuna's house, ten minutes after the fight

"I'm home! and I brought a hefty group home with me!" tazuna announced as they filed into his living room, rikou sitting on the coffee table, zabuza leaning on the wall, haku sitting politely, eyeing kiba every few minutes, naruto sitting on the couch with hinata sitting next to him, leaning on him, rika standing next to the coffee table, putting all her weight down on the hand she had on rikou's shoulder, who didn't seem to notice anything other than the fact she had her hand on his shoulder, while kiba was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, sasuke was meditating, thinking about what the right way to gain power might be, sakura resting in an arm chair, while shino stood speaking to anko in animal tongue, while she was laying on the couch next to naruto and hinata, and kakashi just stood in the corner reading his book.

"dad!" came the voice of a young woman with blue hair and a worried look on her face. "you're oka- HOLY, dad, who are these people?" she asked.

"these are my bodyguards, well, except for the huge one and the girl in the mask, they're my bodyguards' friends." tazuna said kindly. "everyone, this is my daughter tsunami." he said as the blue-haired woman waved, and everyone said hi, except kakashi who merely grunted.

"oh! I just remembered something!" rikou said reaching into his pocket, completely unphased by the 98 pounds his girlfriend was pushing on his shoulder. "zabuza, here's you 50,000 ryo, this is the last part of the deal, here you go, if you don't kill anyone on our way back to konoha I'll give another 100,000 once we get there."

"you say that like you're going to live." came the voice of a young boy.

"and why wouldn't we, all we're up against is some rich bastard with no strength of his own, you talk about him like he's an evil god." rikou said standing up, catching rika as she fell from his sudden movement.

"he may as well be, he showed us there's no such thing as a hero, that sometimes you must run to live." the young boy said sadly.

"while sometimes you must run to live, there are times where life isn't preservable by simply running." rikou said staring at the small boy with his arm around rika's waist. "the villagers back home hated me, so what would I do when they came after me? I ran, and what would they do when I ran? they followed with even more villagers trying to kill me, I found that the more I ran, the stronger the threats became, so what did I do? I fought back before it became too much for me to handle. you lot failed to do this." rikou lectured.

"WE COULDN'T! HE KILLED DADDY! HE GOT RID OF OUR ONLY HERO! HE BECAME TOO STRONG BEFORE WE COULD DO ANYTHING!" the young boy yelled tears streaming down his face.

"it's not entirely your fault, in a war, one side usually tries to crush the other sides hopes of victory, this is usually a last ditch-effort, gato started with this effort, effectively crushing your hope of winning against him. however, we have not been crushed, a coward who would crush your hopes for a quick profit shall die, so swears the heir to the eitouingu no karasu's power!" rikou proclaimed pointing his thumb at his chest.

"y-you really are strong enough to beat gato aren't you? i-incredible, thank you!" he said tears in his eyes.

"no sweat, er, who are you anyway?" rikou said embarassed that he managed to restore the heart of a kid he didn't even know the name of.

"sorry, my name's inari, tazuna's my granddad, and the lady with the blue hair is my mom." inari said sitting down near the table. "not to sound like I did earlier, but do you have any proof of your strength?" inari asked wanting all the positive reinforcement he could get.

"you've heard of the demon of the mist right?" zabuza asked his arms crossed over his chest.

"yes, once I had a nightmare about him." inari said shivering.

"well, don't worry about him anymore, rikou here set him straight, and now he's a good guy, helping to kill gato." zabuza said putting his hand on rikou's shoulder.

"really? can I meet him?" inari asked with a shimmer in his eye.

"just met him kid, zabuza momochi, at you're service." zabuza said with a smirk.

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same place, one hour later

"hey, who's hungry?" rikou asked causing everyone in the room except tsunami to raise their hands. tsunami paled.

"um, I don't have enough to cook for all of you." she said embarassed.

"that's not what I'm getting at, naruto, kiba, rika, hinata, it's been a month since we've last hunted, haku, I want you to gather some natural spices to put on whatever we bring back, anko-sensei, heh, you'll love this job, you get to skin what we bring back, sasuke, have kakashi teach you to climb a tree without using your hands. let's go!" rikou said as they all dashed through the area outside the house.

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same place 30 minutes later

"we're back! and we have a huge haul!" rikou yelled as he lugged in a cart of dead rabbits. "hope you don't object to rabbit meat!"

"oooh," anko said happily, "I get to skin all those?"

"these and five more carts, like I said, we got a huge haul tonight!" rikou said happily as they brought the rest in.

"welcome ba- HOLY SHIT! LOOK AT ALL THIS MEAT! THIS IS ENOUGH TO FEED AN ARMY!!!" tsunami yelled when she saw the mass of dead meat.

"yah, pretty much, we may as well be an army." kiba said as haku walked back in with a basket full of herbs.

"anko-sensei, get what you get to do now." rikou said pulling out a hunting knife which soon found itself in anko's hand skinning bunnies at a rapid pace. within a few seconds she was on the second cart, the skin in an empty cart next to the first. "wow, she'll be done soon, glad we got all this meat."

"you do know this is going to take two hours to cook right?" tsunami asked.

"yep, that's why we're gonna go train or something. pass the time." rika said sitting in an arm chair catching her breath after all the flying she did.

"you're strong enough to bring me down and you want to be even stronger?" zabuza asked.

"yeah, why not, I say, train 'till you can barely breath, eat a soldier pill, and train some more." rikou said.

"then I'll train too! I still need to get strong enough to prove my worth to the ninja world!" zabuza said with a powerful grin on his face.