Chapter 12
Fu
Naruto was taken back. "What?"
"You're just like me." The mint-haired girl repeated.
"How? I mean…" Naruto stuttered in surprise and confusion.
The girl lifted her hand up to her chest. "I have a tailed beast too. The seven tails. He told me about your nine tails."
To the side Zabuza frowned, "if the tailed beasts can sense each other then it would be quite hard to keep Naruto secret if another Jinchuriki is near"
Seeing the sun start to set, the girl started to panic. "Please take me with you! Don't leave me alone!"
Naruto frowned, "looks like she has a fear of the dark" he thought. "I'll try asking Zabuza, he calls all the shots here." He told her before turning to Zabuza.
"Can we keep her?" Naruto pleaded
"What's this? Adoption day?" Zabuza retorted with a tick mark on his head.
"But you let Haku keep his bunny!" Naruto pouted.
"Did Naruto really just compare this girl to a bunny?" Haku deadpanned. Seems that Naruto would never cease to surprise him.
"Shinobi-san, please take me with you. I promise I won't get in your way." The girl said. Zabuza looked at her, scanning her for any traits that would tell him where she belonged before finally stopping at the band that rested on her arm.
"Why don't you go back to Waterfall?" he asked.
She flinched before answering, "I can't. If I go back and they see that my teammates aren't with me they will lock me up or kill me without question."
"Aww come on Zabuza-sensei! You can't really leave her like this can you? Just look at her!" Naruto said in full puppy do eyes mode. Zabuza's eye twitched before looking at the girl who was also in the same state.
"What is your name girl?" he finally asked.
"They call me Fu, or 'the demon'" she answered.
Zabuza sighed, "I'm blaming this on you Yagura, Utakata"
"Fine. BUT", he turned to Naruto and Haku; "This is the LAST time, understood?" Both nodded while Fu was beaming with joy. He turned to Fu again, "now, since you are a ninja, I'm assuming you at least know how to use your chakra to an acceptable extent?" he questioned.
"Yes, though not many know it, Shibuki, the son of the village leader teaches me in secret. A few days ago he said that I was around the level of an average genin. That's what made me decide to take this mission, well that and the fact that the council leaders apparently saw me growing stronger and took this as an opportunity to kill me." Fu muttered the last part angrily.
Zabuza heard but ignored the last part, "good, because I don't want to have picked up deadweight." He then turned to Haku and Naruto, "since we have so many interruptions today, we are behind schedule. I wanted us to be back in town before nightfall, but that is nearly impossible now. Not at the pace we were traveling at. So from here to the hotel, I want us to go full-on ninja speed. Got it?"
Seeing everyone, including Fu nod, he turned around, "We travel in single file. Me first, then Haku, Fu and Naruto. Fu, since I am not sure about your speed yet, I am placing you in the middle. If you are unable to continue then Naruto would carry you. He is the second physically strongest after me and I can't carry you because I might still need to fight and react quickly if we come across a hunter-nin or any other similar threat."
Fu nodded, surprised at his quick breakdown of the situation and picking the best formation in the short amount of time. Pretty much every Jinchuriki was naturally physically strong compared to the average ninja and if they did come across enemy ninja they would go for Zabuza first seeing as he is the biggest threat here.
"If any of you two lag behind then you will be doing my special exercises tomorrow. Fu I can understand for now, but you two shouldn't have a reason." Seeing the frightened look on their faces, she deduced that whatever Zabuza's special exercises were, she did not want to find out through experience. "Let's go." he barked.
And just like that, the clearing was calm again. The only sign that there was anyone there was the two dead bodies and drying blood.
The next day
The group arrived at a clearing that has clearly seen better days. There were marks ranging from small holes that belonged to senbon to slashes that littered the tree trunks. Fu even spotted some trees that had slashes so deep that the tree seemed to be about to fall over while others had already fallen and had been chopped up even more. "What happened here?" Fu asked shocked at the destruction.
"Welcome to our humble training ground." Naruto introduced sarcastically. "We train in pretty much all our skills here. From our precision," Naruto pointed to where the small holes were, "to our strength," he pointed to the fallen trees that upon closer inspection had ropes tied around them, "to our personal specialties." Here he pointed to where the trees had slashes all around them.
"And every week or so we spar in a clearing not far from here. That is where Zabuza gauges our process and what we need more training in. If we don't live up to his expectations, we do a set of his special exercises. If we don't live up to it more than once in a row, he doubles or triples it in accordance to the amount of times we didn't." Haku continued.
Zabuza then walked into the clearing. "Glad to see you getting Fu settled in. Haku, I want you to fight Fu. I need to see what she is capable of before I can train her. Fight her easy then slowly increase the difficulty. Fu, I want you to go all out, no holding back. But no killing techniques allowed."
Haku sighed as he led her to the place where he and Naruto sparred. "Another thing you should know about Zabuza. He is very blunt. He doesn't beat around the bush and waste time and expects you to follow instructions to the best of your ability without wasting any time." As soon as they arrived at the clearing, they both got in battle ready stances.
"Begin"
Haku stood there, waiting for Fu to make the first move. The last few years of training beat that into his head. Never charge head first into a fight with an enemy with unknown strength. Seeing Haku wasn't going to do anything soon, Fu decided to make the first move.
"Hidden jutsu: scale powder technique!" she said as she spat out some sparkling powder from her mouth. Not expecting it, Haku was unable to defend himself against it and was temporarily blinded from the scales reflecting the sunlight into his eyes.
Seeing her chance Fu took a running start and landed a flying kick on Haku sending him flying for a few feet. But to her surprise he just stood up like it was nothing. "Good one, I didn't expect that, but now I know of it, it won't work on me twice." Haku grinned at her.
Fu grinned back before making more handsigns. "We'll see. Water cutting sword justu!" she called and formed two swords made from water in her hands.
"Oh come on! Am I the only one who doesn't use swords?! Haku complained before ducking to prevent losing his head. Since he was already on the ground he spun on his heel with a leg out in an attempt to trip the duel wielding kunoichi.
Easily seeing it, Fu jumped up and brought her swords down in an attempt to do a jumping slash. She would have succeeded if not for the ice dome Haku formed. Her blades weren't sharp enough to completely cut through the dome and only managed to slightly damage it. She frowned a little before giving a slight smirk.
Haku looked through his ice dome and narrowed his eyes seeing her smirk. Suddenly he was aware of something burning next to him. His eyes widened. "An explosive tag!" he thought in alarm.
"Boom" Fu whispered as she jumped away.
The ice dome shattered in all directions. Fu let her arm fall from where she used it to shield her eyes. The dust cleared to reveal… nothing. Fu's eyes widened before looking around. "Above? To my left? Right? behind? Or…"
"Below!" Haku's voice cried. Fu looked down just in time to receive an uppercut, snapping her head back and knocking her off her feet.
"Nice move, you almost got me with that one. I didn't even see you place it." he praised. The Fu he was looking at smiled. "Then you gonna love this one" she said before turning to water. Haku only had time to widen his eyes before he heard Fu.
"Hidden jutsu: hiding in scale powder jutsu"
Haku smirked covering his eyes and jumping away, "I told you, that wouldn't work again!"
Haku was suddenly very glad he jumped away because as soon as he got away, he opened his eyes just to see a huge explosion where he was a moment before. Haku landed on a tree branch and Fu not far from him.
"Not what you expected was it?" she smirked at his shocked expression.
That shocked expression then turned into a smirk as he created a ball of ice. "So you like playing with explosives huh?" Fu tensed
"Well then how would you like to see my personal creation? Ice grenade!" he shouted before throwing the ball of ice. Fu's eyes widened as she jumped in the air. They widened even more when she saw that the ball exploded into ice spikes. Finally when she thought her eyes wouldn't widen anymore, she looked at Haku who was holding two more ice grenades.
Thinking fast, she made hand seals for the only technique that could save her. "net-shaped prison!" she called before spitting a green web and successfully trapping Haku in its sticky confides. "Now you can't throw them and you can't detonate them without hurting yourself. She smirked. Haku sighed as he let the ice grenade dissolve.
"Coming of winter" he whispered before releasing ice chakra from his body. Fu suddenly felt the temperature drop as she saw her web starting to freeze before shattering. "I admit, you almost got me again, but now it's all over" Haku said in a low tone while making hand seals. "Demonic mirroring ice crystals"
Fu looked around as blocks of ice started to form all around her. She tried to break it with an explosive tag but it didn't even scratch the surface of the mirrors. She tried to make hand signs for her hiding in the scales technique, but a quick senbon to her hand stopped her short.
Fu started panicking. She made 6 water clones, each heading to a different gap in the mirrors. But before they could even get close, they all turned back to water. "In these mirrors, I am much faster than before. Faster than the human eye can track." Haku's voice echoed around all the mirrors. She felt a cold metal on her neck as she turned to see the masked face of Haku.
"Game over" Fu heard next to her. She sighed as the ice mirrors turned back to water.
"It is" Haku heard behind him as he saw another Fu hold a kunai to his neck. The Fu he had turning to water. Now it was Haku's turn to sigh as they both relaxed and put their weapons away.
They heard clapping. "Good work, both of you. Fu, since you have proven you can keep up with Haku, then you will train with them, though you will focus a little more on chakra control and finesse than brute strength. Haku, you still made a few amateur mistakes such as not checking when you rushed in for the finish. You will do double the training next practice, but because you did this well, I won't put you on my special program." Fu beamed while Haku sighed with relief.
"Also, since Fu is a known kunoichi of waterfall, we can no longer just leave you without ranks. In a week's time, you 3 will battle me to see if you can truly become ninja in my eyes. 1 week for you to get accustomed to each other's fighting styles. No training until then. Relax, train, chat, whatever. Just don't damage anything in town or get in trouble."
"Yes Zabuza!" all three said at once.
AN: here's the next chapter. Not much to say really. Though as it seems you can expect chapters every Sunday or so. If I don't post I'll say so on facebook.
Also a huge shoutout to AzureSoulReaper for reviewing every single chapter and getting the cookie for correctly guessing Fu (::)
And a cookie for Noahendless for correctly deducting the song "What did the fox say" by Ylvis in his mine rant xD (::)
Reviews
AmbertheCat: well here's another long chapter, tried to make it longer, *shrugs* don't think it worked. Hope you enjoyed anyways!
BlackDragonShinigami: nah bro, no romance quite yet ;)
AzureSoulReaper: thanks for reviewing the chaps
Noahendless: sorry 'bout that xD I thought about making Naruto joke about it but decided it was too much trouble xD. Also don't worry 'bout it, a rant here and there keeps the author aware =)