Chapter 11

Goodbyes, bunny and new girl

Naruto looked at the sheath of the sword. It was a brilliant golden color that seemed to glow. It had beautifully crafted decorative dragons that seemed to move on its own accord as they wrapped around the sheath. Naruto looked up at the handle. It was just as golden and vibrant as the sheath and though it had dragons as well, these had finer details and seemed to be made to be used as a grip.

Finally he looked at Mifune, "but sensei, how do you know it's me who is the child of prophecy? And even if it was, how do you know I won't destroy the world?"

"I don't, but it is a sensei's duty to believe in his students."

After some hesitation, Naruto grabbed to sword. He unsheathed it and took a moment to marvel at its beauty. Not a single piece of rust was seen on the reflective surface of the sword.

He set the sheath down and made a small cut on his palm. Clenching it and looking into Mifune's eyes he spoke with conviction, "I will make you proud sensei. This I swear!"

Mifune looked in the determined eyes of Naruto, "you already have" he thought.

The next day

The group was ready to head out. Everybody was saying their last goodbyes.

"Thank you for helping me, Hiro-san, and please thank everybody else for me too." Naruto said as he shook the hand of one of the samurai who trained him.

Hiro was the name of the highest ranking samurai in the group that educated him in books. Thanks to him, Naruto knew his human anatomy well enough on where a hit would do what kind of damage and how severe the damage would be.

"Naruto, it's been a pleasure teaching such a young and motivated student. May we meet another day." He shook Naruto's hand.

Finally after many goodbyes, it was Mifune's turn. "I am happy to be your teacher Naruto, and just so you know, if you need anything, the samurai would be glad to help." Mifune looked over his shoulder "am I right?"

The crowd roared in approval and Mifune extended his hand, "well I'm expecting to hear great things about you. Goodbye Naruto"

Naruto looked at Mifune's hand for a second before pushing it away and hugged him. "I'll miss you sensei" he said as his eyes watered.

Mifune's eyes softened. "I'll miss you too, but now it's time for you to go."

Naruto wiped his tears away, "goodbye sensei" and with a tearful last look, Naruto left the land of Iron, heading to destinations unknown to him.

3 days later

Zabuza had finally had enough. "Naruto if you don't stop mopping around, I am going to stuff my socks in your mouth and put you in a genjutsu that doesn't allow you to smell or taste anything but those socks for the next week!" the threatened, raising his killing intent for added effect.

Naruto snapped his head up in fear. He did NOT want to taste nothing but dirty socks for a week! In his fearful state, Naruto never realized that Zabuza didn't wear socks.

Satisfied that Naruto wasn't going to mop around anytime soon, Zabuza decided to tell them his plan. "Now as you both know, Mist is in too much chaos right now. So for the next 3 years, I am going to train you both. In between the training sessions, we will be hired as mercenaries and hunting other missing ninja. Any questions?"

Seeing them both shake their heads he turned around and started to walk again. "In about 5 miles we will be coming across a town. You two find a place to stay while I see if there are any jobs available. Got it?" The two nodded. "Good."

Arriving at the town, Zabuza gave them a quick breakdown on where to go, where not to go, and where to avoid at all costs. "Trust me, some of these places contain ninja that wouldn't hesitate to kill you for merely stepping wrong in their presence or even just to pass off time." He had said.

And so, as planned the two found a hotel that wasn't too bad and overly costly. Rogue ninja had to watch how much they spend after all. Else they might run out of money for food. Granted, they could always steal, but it's easier not to. Less hassle that way.

"I'm telling you! The ninja won't be as scary as Zabuza said!" Naruto tried arguing for the millionth time.

"And I'm telling you that it's better to be safe than sorry! Besides, what if Zabuza found out? What then?" Haku argued back

"What if Zabuza finds out what?" a voice came behind him causing him to nearly jump out his skin. "Zabuza! We were just err.." Haku trailed off noticing Naruto laughing and rolling on the floor.

"hahaha you should have seen your face!" Naruto laughed.

Haku was confused. Was he missing something? He looked back at Zabuza just in time to see him be enveloped in a cloud of smoke, revealing another Naruto laughing. Haku was furious. Naruto had tricked him!

"I'm going to kill you Naruto!" he screamed as he made a handful of ice senbon. But before he was able to throw it, he was caught by a hand.

"Now, if you wanted to destroy stuff, you can go outside in the forest where I won't have to pay for collateral damage." Zabuza said.

Haku rolled his eyes. "Naruto cut the transformation already. The same trick won't work on me twice." He said before stopping and looking at Naruto who wasn't laughing like he expected. "It's the real Zabuza this time, isn't it?" Naruto nodded. Haku sighed, "Sorry Zabuza, Naruto's being a pain and was playing pranks on me. I thought you were another one of them."

Zabuza let go of Haku's hand. "Yes I saw that one. Good job on making a transformed shadow clone undetected Naruto. If you were an enemy assassin you would have been able to kill Haku." Zabuza praised.

"This brings me onto my next order of business; since we arrived too late, there are no missions for this week. So I want to train both of you twice as hard for when we won't have time to train. As for what I'm going to teach you, I want both of you to learn my silent killer technique." That was a shock to them both. Being taught silent killing from one of the best? Awesome! "Follow me to the forest and I will show you how it's done before you attempt it yourself."

"Now, there are many ways to do this technique, for example. If you were in a forest like now, you can use the natural camouflage given by the trees. But personally my favorite is using the mist. As he said this, he created the handsigns for the hidden mist jutsu. And by the time he finished, the mist had already seeped in.

"The mist is perfect camouflage in areas that have a high chance of being foggy. The victims would think it was just a normal fog. It also gives off an eerie atmosphere that would install fear in the opponent, making their reaction time slower." Zabuza then appeared behind them. "And that is when you will strike."

"AAAHHHH!" they both screamed.

"Now your turn" he smirked.

It's been one and a half years. Naruto and Haku have both grown in leaps and bounds. Haku through his natural born genius and Naruto through his shadow clones. They had both expanded their jutsu repertoire. Both knew the substitution and were quite proficient in the silent killing. Not nearly Zabuza's level, but still enough to defeat most chunin level ninja.

In fact, in an attempt to hone their skills, they made it a game to attempt to "assassinate" each other. In other words, when one let his guard down for even a second, the other would try to put him in a position where he would easily be killed without getting caught.

The group had just come back from a mission. To me more exact, Naruto and Haku's first A rank mission by themselves. Zabuza only stood by. Though there were some cases that he almost had to intervene, everything turned out right in the end.

On their way back to the town the kids have affectionately dubbed as "their hideout", Naruto heard a rustling in the bushes. Thinking it was either an enemy, or one of Haku's attempts but not caring either way, Naruto threw a kunai at it.

Seeing the bush no longer moving, Naruto looked to see if it was part of Haku's plan, though when he looked, Haku seemed just as on edge as Naruto was. Naruto slowly walked towards the bush, holding a kunai in case it was an enemy. Then in a quick movement, he moved the bush away and held his kunai to a … rabbit?

He put his kunai away and brought the rabbit out. "False alarm, just a rabbit" he said sheepishly.

Zabuza snorted, "All this training and what is it used for? To scare a bunny to death."

Naruto looked back at his hands only to find that the bunny was gone. Looking around he found that the bunny was… being held and petted by Haku.

"It's ok little bunny, don't be afraid! Aww, you so cute!" Haku said while petting him. Naruto and Zabuza gave him deadpan looks.

"You sure you're not secretly a girl Haku?" Naruto asked once again.

Without letting go of the rabbit, Haku formed seven ice spikes all pointing to Naruto. "What did you say Naruto? I couldn't quite hear it." he asked with a warning tone in his voice.

"N-n-othing Haku!" Naruto waved his hands around.

"Good!" Haku was instantly bright and shiny again.

"Let's go. I want to be back before nightfall." Came the gruff voice of Zabuza.

When he turned around he saw Haku looking at him with puppy eyes. "Can we keep him? Pleeeassee?"

Zabuza looked at him. "No"

"Please can Zabuza let Haku keep this cute bunny Haku wants?" Haku pleaded again and increasing his puppy dog eyes, leaking some fake tears for added effect.

Naruto had to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing at that. A few months ago, Haku was watching something or another on TV when he came across a show that had a characters talking in third person. When Zabuza came back that night, Haku tried it on him and it freaked him out to no end. He never did say why though.

Since that day, Haku decided that this would be perfect blackmail material.

Zabuza looked at Haku for another full 5 seconds before caving in. "Fine, but I'm not taking care of it and will I not tolerate it slowing down your training or hinder your missions. Am I clear?"

"Yes Zabuza!" Haku cheered.

A few miles later, Haku was still talking to his bunny. Suddenly Naruto heard a scream in the woods, without thinking, he turned and was about to rush off into the woods, but Zabuza grabbed his collar "No, Naruto, screams like that happen all the time, we are ninja remember?"

Naruto looked at Zabuza, "No this is different, I have a feeling…" Naruto then heard the nine tails talking to him.

"Good feeling you got there Naruto. If I'm not mistaken then that's the scream of the 7-tails host. It's in the same direction"

Seeing Naruto come back to the waking world, Zabuza asked him the question. "What did the fox say?"

Naruto looked up at Zabuza. "He said that the scream most likely came from the Jinchuriki of the 7 tails. As a fellow Jinchuriki, I have to help them!"

Zabuza sighed, "Fine, but if it's more trouble than its worth, we're leaving" Naruto reluctantly agreed and they dashed off in the direction of the scream.

When they arrived, the three ninjas saw 2 male shinobi and a female kunoichi. The two male ones looked about 14 with brown eyes and brown hair in a spiky form, possibly twins. The girl had green hair and orange eyes and looked about 10. She had multiple bruises and cuts that still looked fresh. She also looked as if she almost had her clothes ripped off. Her shirt was ripped and her skirt was also showing multiple tears.

"Demon, you are going to die today, but first, we going to have some fun with you" one of them sneered while the other had a sick grin on his face. Haku looked on in shock while Naruto was seeing red. His eyes turned red with a slit in the middle. He grabbed his sword and dashed towards the first boy

"One slash!" he shouted, drawing his sword, cutting the boy in half and sheathing it in one fluid movement. Shocking the other boy. While Naruto's back was turned, the other boy snapped out of his shock and grabbed his kunai before charging at him, aiming to stick it in his skull.

Only to be decapitated by Zabuza.

Naruto turned around to see Zabuza's sword where the boy's head was and Haku lending the girl one of his spare kimono.

The girl looked at them in fear, but when she saw Naruto's red eyes; she zoned out for a second before whispering with wide eyes, "You're just like me"

AN: I know, not much content here, but bear with me. I have asked Jman22056 to help beta this story, so you can likely expect better grammar and line breaks, though feel free to point out any errors i missed or any suggestions!

Besides that, glad to see some of you have checked out my facebook page.

Also, I have hidden a part of a song somewhere in the story, virtual cookies to those who find it.

And cookies to those who guessed who this girl is.

Again, anything I missed will be posted on my facebook page.

Reviews:

BlackDragonShinigami: I am honestly amused that you are still excited by a shout-out after like 7 consecutive chapters

Noahendless: no problem. Yeah I like to keep people somewhat guessing and being different from the norm. but don't worry, if all goes according to plan he should get it before chapter 20.

AmbertheCat: thanks. Personally I thought that I made Naruto a little OP in that fight. You didn't have to ask me if it was alright to follow me! It was intended for my fans to follow me =). Thanks for being the first by the way.