Chapter 12
The group was tense, no one had spoken in about half an hour as the group walked cautiously along the dirt road towards Tazuna's hometown. They knew what they were up against to be sure, but they also knew that they could never be prepared for a beast of a man like Zabuza Momochi.
"Not far now" Tazuna spoke up nervously "about twenty more minutes until…"
Tazuna stopped speaking when Yamato stopped walking.
"W-what is it?" fretted the bridge builder, as he began brandishing his now empty bottle of Sake above his head like a club "Is he here, is he?!"
Yamato shook his head and looked amused "No, no. I sent some clones back to the leaf to request aid. One of them just dispelled, so I know the result".
"And?" spoke Shikamaru, the tenseness of his voice belying the calmness of his face.
"Well, for starters" replied his sensei, "the good news is that the Hokage is indeed dispatching another team to aid us".
"W-well that's good" muttered Hinata "and the bad news?"
Yamato winced "Currently this is pinned at least up to a B rank, perhaps more if who we suspect is behind this has more people with him".
There was an eerie silence between them after each and every person realised their predicament.
"I take it then…" spoke the Naara slowly, "that due to the way you said that, it means that it could go up even higher, given who might be behind this?"
The wood user sighed "Right on the money there, yes that is unfortunately the case".
Naruto was just stood gawking at the impossible task before them, when he caught the scent of something he was getting disturbingly accustomed too.
'Blood, and iron…lots of it'.
He turned to the group and waved his arms frantically, which caught Yamato's eye.
"Yes Naruto what is it?" he asked with a hint of amusement.
Naruto pointed out into the forest, as some of his metal floated into view and formed one sentence.
'Blood and iron, the swordsman is here now!'
The rest of the group snapped into formation at this information.
Hinata stood in front of Tazuna, Shikamaru behind him, with Yamato and Naruto to his left and right respectively.
"Don't let them get near Tazuna!" barked Yamato, his skills from the Anbu presenting themselves as he surveyed the area for the threat.
As the first wisps of mist began to circle and form about Team Yamato, they were as prepared as they could be, against such a terrifying Shinobi.
Silence
Since the mist had rolled in, no one had said even a word, each member of the team was straining their ears to denote the enemy's approach.
All except Naruto, he could still smell the adversary, and he was tracking him, just as he was sure that Zabuza was doing the same of them.
The Demon of the Mist moved slowly, calculatingly, almost strolling towards them in complete silence, belying the bulk of the weapon of choice he carried.
Although Zabuza was silent, strangely enough the sword giving him away.
'That weapon…just how many people has it killed by his hands…' Naruto gulped internally.
The problem was, although he could track him just fine, there was no way to contact the others, as the mist hugely impaired vision.
'I can barely see myself!'
"M-my Byakugan is useless in this fog." Hinata admitted, "This mist must have been generated using chakra, s-so all I can see is a wall of white in every direction" the distress was evident in her voice.
Naruto jumped, 'Kami he moves so fast!' he screamed in his mind, as Zabuza suddenly sped up, leaping in the air and shifting his metal accomplice around for a downward strike.
Yamato bristled, seeming to detect the movement.
"Guys, next to me, NOW!"
The team scurried closer to Yamato's side, as he performed a wood jutsu.
A thick dome of wood formed about them, planks locking together with a loud clunk, just as a gargantuan sword crashed through the top of the dome, stopping only with the resistance of Yamato securing and reforming the dome about the sword, effectively trapping it inside its walls.
Yamato saw his chance, and further manipulated the wooden dome, branching its walls out to ensnare Zabuza's legs, to no avail, as he withdrew the sword straight from the dome with little effort and sliced the bindings from himself, before merging back into the mists.
Yamato sighed heavily. "Right then" he ran his tongue along his teeth in thought.
An idea sprung into his mind.
"Hinata, do you know the Hyugas rotation technique?"
The heiress immediately saw his train of thought. "Y-yes, I can, I only began training with it a few weeks ago though, so I am not very skilled at it…I cannot maintain it f-for long…"
"No, no, that's fine Hinata" nodded Yamato, "I just need you to keep it going as long as you can, draw all the mist in, and I will take care of the rest."
Hinata nodded, and took a deep breath. "Eight-Trigrams: Rotation!"
Just as planned, the fog drew closer, and thicker too, pulling it off their attacker and revealing him, but disguising the leaf team.
"Wood style: Wood Mallet" Yamato spoke, his jutsu concealed by the swirling cyclone of mist.
Zabuza had barely enough time to react before several large pieces of timber came barrelling out of the mist, he managed to dodge most of them, and cleaved in twine the rest with the executioners blade.
He gave his attention back to the mist team. "So that's what they're playing at"
While Zabuza was distracted with the logs, the wood user had created a large slab of wood and used it to, in one sweep waft the mist away to the side.
Zabuza smirked, planted his sword in the ground beside him and began to weave hand signs. "Water style: Water Dragon Jutsu!" he yelled.
Behind Zabuza, a huge serpentine dragon formed from the mist that had been blown away, and roared furiously, launching itself through the air before him as he pulled his sword back from the ground and charged back into the fray.
Shikamaru was beside Hinata, so she used her rotation to keep the brunt of the dragon at bay, Yamato was able to encase himself in a wooden dome again, unable to get near Naruto before it landed.
Naruto just gawked again, 'That's so damn cool!' he thought, as his metal formed about him like a pillar, as per his will 'and cold!'
The jutsu hit hard, and Naruto had to sink the bottom of the pillar further into the ground, so that the water didn't keep leaking in.
"You can't keep hiding forever leaf!" Zabuza shouted, as he clove apart the second dome.
"Who said I was hiding?" spoke Yamato.
'Wait a second' Zabuza mentally froze 'that came from-!'
As the debris cleared, Zabuza noticed that there was no one inside the dome, and as he glanced downwards, he realised his haste to finish of the wood user had sealed his fate.
Yamato's head and arms were protruding from the ground, and he was grasping Zabuza by the upper legs, pulling him down beneath the earth, their resistance to the dirt non-existent.
'Head-hunter Jutsu…'cursed the missing ninja.
He swung his sword at the ground where Yamato's head was, but he had already sank below the surface when the sword slammed down, and became lodged into the now solid earth.
He was helpless, he was already stuck up to his waist, wriggling out wasn't an option, especially if Yamato was still holding onto him.
"Pff" Zabuza spat to one side "Taken down by a bunch of leaf pun-".
He stopped his muttering as a senbon needle pierced his neck, and as the bite of chilled steel registered in Zabuza's mind, he slipped quickly into blackness.
Yamato noticed Zabuza go limp, and quickly surfaced and scanned the area for who had intervened.
On the branches of a tree that overlooked the battlefield, a small ninja stood, who then leapt down to the forest floor, and began to make its way to the 'Demon of the Mists' body.
The ninja was of small build, they wore a mask of the Mist villages Anbu and wore a loose fitting battle kimono that was not standard issue to the Mist Anbu.
Yamato frowned and made to step between the hunter and its quarry.
"You have been hunting Zabuza Momochi then?"
"Yes" replied the stoic, masked ninja, "I have been tracking him for some time, I thank you for giving me an opening. I will prepare the body for transport shortly, you may go about your business".
Yamato shook his head, as his distrust deepened.
"If you don't mind, can I take your Anbu platoon number?".
The hunter-nin spent a few seconds of silence before replying, "I do not think I can just tell that information to anybody."
"Come on now" Yamato urged, "I will need to report your involvement to the Hokage anyway.
The hunter took another moment of silence and then finally nodded in defeat.
"Platoon 10."
Yamato sighed and shook his head slowly, "You see, now we have a problem"
"A problem?" the Anbu said, again a little too quickly.
"Well" Yamato continued, "a few problems really. One, every villages Anbu live under very strict rules and regulations, the first of all is dress code".
Yamato gestured to the hunter-ninja, "Which you automatically fail. The second, is that as an agent of a village, especially hunter ninja, if assisted by other village's ninja, must give their platoon number without argument, so that the rewards is fairly split among all parties."
Yamato shook his head again "Third, when a hunter has dealt with their quarry, they burn their bodies on the spot, so as to prevent other villages from learning anything from the corpses of another village's ninja".
Yamato crossed his arms "And fourth, every village has 10 platoons of Anbu" he uncoiled his arms, "all except the mist. Because of the bloodline purges there is only 5 platoons remaining in total"
Yamato sneered "So what does that make you".
The mysterious 'Anbu' bristled, and stood in front of Zabuzas body, reaching into a pouch and throwing a couple of smoke pellets out hastily to shield vision of their escape.
The leaf team ran up to their sensei's side.
"W-where did they go sensei? D-do you want to me to track them?" asked Hinata semi-confidently.
"No Hinata" breathed the exhausted Anbu captain, "we have to get our friend to the drop point. We could all use a little downtime, besides it is unlikely that that is the last we will be seeing of them.