Me: I do not own Naruto!

Naruto: Huh? No one owns me!

Me: Err...actually... *mumbles something under breath*

Naruto: Hmm? What was that?

Me: Kishimoto owns you! *runs away*

Naruto:... Who's he?

Kasumi: Ahem. Please check out Author-chan's blog and review.

Return

"Ok! Let's go!" Tazuna nodded decisively.

"Naruto-san." Kasumi muttered softly, dropping back to talk to the blonde, who looked at her with curious blue eyes. "Create some clones and station them here."

He frowned, brow furrowing, but did as she said. Subtly - it was a long, hard, tedious process, but Kasumi liked to think that she was teaching Naruto some subtlety - he created several dozen clones that scattered themselves around the house. That done, he glanced at her, confusion swirling on his face. "Why?"

"Because this is a target." She replied patiently. "Previously, all three of us were here while Kakashi-sensei guarded Tazuna-san. But now that we're all going, there's no one here if things go wrong."

"Ooohhh!" A lightbulb lit up on top of Naruto's head. "I see." He nodded sagely.

Walking in front of them, Sasuke scoffed. "Dobe."

"What was that, you teme?"

Kasumi sighed and did her best to tune out her boys' bickering. She had a bad feeling about today... and that never went well. She raised a hand to rub at her temple, feeling a headache pounding against her skull.

To her relief, they did fall silent during most of the walk towards the bridge. She wondered if Naruto and Sasuke were simply lost in their own thoughts or if they had managed to pick up on her own unease. Weeks ago, she would surely have thought the former was true... but things were different now.

Naturally, everything changed when they actually reached the bridge itself.

"Wh-What's this?!" Tazuna screamed, stopping dead in his tracks.

Staring at the devastation in front of her, Kasumi could understand why. She took in the fallen bridge builders with calm detachment, noting their wounds and their positions. Taken by surprise, blunt force trauma, defeated in quick succession...

Beside her, Naruto gulped loudly, a bead of sweat dolling down his forehead. Sasuke surveyed the chaos neutrally, but there was a hardness in his eyes.

"What?!" Tazuna demanded, holding one of his coworkers up. "What happened?!"

"A monster..." The man groaned weakly.

Shit. Kasumi clenched her jaw tightly, her headache disappearing even as her danger sense started to scream. 'They're back...' She had known; they had all known; - that Zabuza would be back, but knowing and knowing wasn't the same thing.

A thick, dense fog that practically reeked of chakra drifted around them and began to settle over the entire area. This wasn't good.

"Here they come!" Kakashi warned even as they rapidly assembled into formation, surrounding Tazuna. Sasuke already had a kunai out and clenched in his hand; Naruto frantically followed his example.

Kasumi narrowed her eyes and steadied herself. If she had penned this right, this was going to be brutal.

"Long time no see, Kakashi." Zabuza purred from out of sight, tone all but rolling with menace and danger.

Haku

"I see you're still with those brats." Zabuza commented from somewhere in the mist. "He's shaking again... poor kid."

Shaking? Discreetly, Kasumi glanced at her teammates, making sure to keep her senses sharp and aware, and realized to her surprise that Sasuke was shaking, trembling slightly. She stared at him with muted shock; Uchiha Sasuke was not one to openly show weakness or be cowed by fear.

The mist parted without warning and Kasumi thanked the nerves of steel that she had developed when she found herself staring straight at a kneeling Zabuza clone, smirking up at her cruelly. She narrowed her eyes at it and glanced around to find clones everywhere; in front of them all and even one inside their little diamond, staring down a sweating Tazuna.

Her mind raced. Water clones, she identified easily. Not that bad; take out the one in front of her first, it had the most potential for harm; it was far enough that it could swing that enormous sword and actually hurt her before she did anything and then the one in the middle because it was so close to Tazuna, their client, and then the boys would take out...

"I'm not shaking from fear." Sasuke stated with a smirk, unintentionally interrupting her thought process. She glanced at him to find him looking quite unperturbed despite the clones that had shown up on all sides. "I'm shaking from excitement!"

Ah. That certainly made sense. Kasumi mentally rolled her eyes. Sasuke never changed, did he? Still as arrogant as ever... though thankfully, he got along better with her and Naruto now.

Naturally, Naruto wasn't quite that composed. Nowhere near it, in fact. "OI!" He jerked back, eyes bugging out of his head, and pointed a belligerent finger at the Zabuza clone right in front of him. "Where did you come from?!"

There was a moment when everyone on the bridge just sweatdropped. 'What sort of ninja is he...?'

"Naruto-san..." Kasumi muttered in exasperation, making a mental note to expose her teammate to some shock stimuli once they got back to Konoha.

"Dobe." Sasuke deadpanned.

"What was that, teme?" Naruto swung around to glare at the Uchiha who glared right back.

"You're such an idiot." He replied, blank-faced.

'What the hell...?' Zabuza's eye twitched from where he was still hiding in the mist.

'Naruto will be Naruto...' Kakashi sighed. 'Nevertheless, we need to get this show on the road.'

"Naruto. Sasuke." He said and immediately, both boys snapped their attention to him, all business now. He eye-smiled; that was better. "Do it."

Both boys nodded seriously, disappearing in a blur of navy and orange. Kasumi was content to watch calmly as her teammates utterly obliterated the Zabuza clones, only stepping up to take out the one in front of her, but leaving the rest for them.

She wasn't fool enough to think that her male teammates weren't showing off or competing with each other or feeding their egos, but she didn't really care. Kasumi had no need to prove her worth; she knew when to take care of things and when to let her teammates stretch their abilities.

Appearing back in their positions as quickly as they had disappeared, Naruto and Sasuke smirked triumphantly at each other. She simply shook her head; they were such boys. Then again, what had she expected?

"Hmm... they saw through the clones." Zabuza took a step forward from where he had come into view from further up the bridge. "Those brats have grown."

"It looks like some rivals have appeared...eh, Haku?" He didn't turn around, but it was obvious that he was addressing the masked person a step behind him.

Kasumi's eyes widened. Haku?

"It does indeed." Haku replied coolly.

Oh... oh no. She had suspected, but...

"... Haku?" Naruto spoke up hesitantly, evidently remembering the name from his little encounter in the forest. Kasumi glanced at him and found a surprising vulnerability in the blonde's cerulean blue eyes.

Her mind rapidly stomped on the break. Why was Naruto... ah. That conversation, she had been so occupied with trying to identify the person that he had been speaking to that she had utterly ignored just how much of an impact that conversation had had on Naruto.

For her teammate to realize that the kind, insightful person he had been talking to was with the enemy... this battle was going to be tough. From the looks of it, only Sasuke had no attachment to their opponents at all.

Kasumi... she knew that she could completely shut down her emotions. Fight with Haku no matter that he had originally been her first friend. But Naruto... she didn't know if he could make the same choice. The blonde was so bright, so vivid, so entrenched in his emotions that she didn't know how he would do this.

Haku removed his mask, a small smile on his feminine face. "Hello, Naruto. I told you we would meet once more."

"You... you, but why?" Naruto asked, audible confusion in his voice. "Why... are you working for Gato?!

Haku's smile fell a bit, but he shook his head. "It's necessary, Naruto. In the world of shinobi, sometimes you must do things that seem distasteful or unpleasant. Gato... working for him is necessary."

"Necessary?!" Naruto shouted, plainly angry now. "Necessary?! Have you seen this town? Do you know what he's doing to the people, to the children?! How is that, in any way, necessary?"

"Enough." Zabuza cut in, appearing bored. "Haku."

Haku leapt forward.

Hostage

"Where do you guys think you're going?" 'Naruto' stood in front of the door with his feet spread, arms crossed, a scowl firmly in place as he tried to stare down the two strange-looking men. Since he was much shorter than the both of them, it didn't work out too well.

One of them scoffed and laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. "Get out of our way, loser ninja."

"Not a chance." He said bluntly. "What are you doing here?!"

"We're here for Tazuna's daughter." The other said and swiftly slid out his sword, slicing 'Naruto' in half before he could react.

"Humph. What a sissy." They walked on, leaving the two parts of 'Naruto' to fall to the ground. And disappear in a poof of smoke that they didn't notice.

"She better be in..." One grouched, placing a hand on the doorknob.

"Yeah, well, you're never going to see her!"

"Oh, shut up, loser... ninja..." They slowly froze, turned back, and had barely managed to comprehend the orange, before they were promptly met with a boot to the face for each. Nose breaking from the force, blood spilling in the air, they crashed against the door, the poorly structured entrance falling down with a loud crash.

"Wha..." Tsunami came running at the sound and gaped at the two unconscious thugs in her doorway. Lost, she turned to stare incredulously at the two grinning Naruto clones.

"Eeh...sorry about that, Tsunami-san." The one on the right smiled, looking a bit embarrassed.

"Yeah, we sorta went a little too far..." The one on the left rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Oh." Tsunami placed a hand over her pounding heart, face paling. "Oh, no, it's just fine." More than fine - what was a door compared to her and Inari's life? - but she was trying to comprehend just what could have happened.

"Mom? Are you okay?" Inari ran in on the scene, looking terrified and worried.

"Oh, Inari!" Tsunami enveloped her only son in a fierce hug, tears falling down from her eyes.

"Mom?" He hugged her back, but stared at her with wide, concerned eyes. "Mom, are you okay?"

"I'm alright." She assured him, still petrified at the realization of what would have happened had the Naruto clones not existed. "They saved me."

"Really?" Inari looked at the smiling clones.

"Yeah!" One knelt next to the pair, grinning cheerfully. "You have a really nice mom, you know.

"Mm-hm." The other gave them both a thumbs-up. "You can count on us!"

Looking into their smiles, their easy confidence, Inari felt a bud of hope. Maybe... maybe heroes existed after all.

Speed

Sasuke and Haku clashed on the bridge, sparks flying as his kunai connected with the masked boy's senbon. They whirled around at high speeds, appearing as blurs to Tazuna's eyesight.

Kasumi and Naruto watched, the latter only restrained by the former. She knew that Naruto wanted in on the fight, but she had grabbed his wrist when he made a move to go forward and arrested his movement with a look.

She believed in Naruto's strength, certainly, but this was a battle of speed and Naruto's forte was his unpredictability, creativity, and brute strength. Out of their team, Kasumi was still the fastest, although Sasuke was quickly catching up. Even more damning were Naruto's own emotions: Kasumi was far too aware that sometimes, Naruto just didn't think when he was upset.

She was also deeply conflicted in what to do in this situation, but she had more than enough experience in making decisions untainted by emotion. In some ways, it was one of her greatest strengths, but she knew that, compared to her teammates, it could also be a powerful weakness.

Naruto probably would be fighting against Haku later, but for now, she held him back, simply observing the battle.

"I don't want to have to kill, but you won't stand down, will you?" Haku said casually as they tried to overpower each other. Stalemate, Kasumi thought to herself.

"Don't be foolish." Sasuke replied arrogantly.

"I see... but you won't be able to keep up with my speed the next time." Haku retorted. "Plus, I've already gained two advantages."

"Two advantages?" Sasuke questioned even as Kasumi's eyes flickered over the water from all of the dispelled clones on the bridge. Something was tugging at her memory - what had that bloodline been again...? He had told her once, but she had forgotten it in the blood that came afterwards.

"The first is the water on the ground. And the second is that I have occupied one of your arms." Haku said, referring to the deadlock that was Sasuke's kunai against his senbon.

"You will now only be able to run from my attacks." He proclaimed, raising his hand to his mask and shaping his fingers into multiple seals. Kasumi's eyes widened. A one-handed seal?!

"Special Jutsu: Flying Water Needles."

Stopping on a specific hand-seal, Haku stomped one foot on the ground and all of the water on the ground rose up into the air, solidifying into large water needles that surrounded Sasuke on all sides.

Alright. Kasumi quickly made the decision that they had stood on the sidelines for too long. Sasuke was strong and he was trapped, but he wasn't alone.

"Naruto-san." She said softly.

Naruto nodded and bought his hands up. They had rehearsed this enough times that both of her boys instinctively knew what she wanted when she called their names. It came in handy during fights. "Wind Release: Gale Palm!" He slammed his hands out, calling up a fierce, violent gale that tore towards Sasuke and Haku.

Trust

"Are you not going to move?" Haku asked Sasuke quietly.

The Uchiha shook his head, smirking even as the sharp, lethal projectiles came ever closer. "I don't have to."

The sheer force of the wind shattered the water needles when it hit and sensing the surprise of his opponent by the way he tensed, Sasuke pushed hard against Haku. He jumped away, the mask doing nothing to hide the shock his body language screamed.

Sasuke smirked. Having a team was damn useful. Pressing his advantage, he pushed off the bridge and appeared behind Haku. "You're pretty slow... from now on, you will only be able to run from my attacks." He said in an ironic repeat of what Haku had said to him earlier, lifting his kunai.

As Haku turned rapidly, Sasuke struck out, kunai in each hand. Haku dodged under both blows, but was utterly unprepared when he threw one of the kunai, resulting in a large lock of his hair being cut off. Lashing out with his foot, Sasuke kicked Haku some ten feet away, in a gush of blood.

Zabuza stiffened, looking at his fallen discipline with visible shock.

"Looks like I have the advantage in speed." Sasuke commented, straightening up.

"Show-off." He heard Naruto mutter behind him and he smirked in amusement.

"I can't have you underestimating my team by calling them 'brats'." Kakashi said calmly. "Sasuke is the Leaf Village's #1 Rookie. Kasumi is the most intelligent kunoichi and Naruto is the #1 most hyperactive, unpredictable ninja in the Village."

Sasuke smirked proudly, basking in his sensei's praise. Normally, he didn't care about compliments - especially from adults, he had received plenty of those since That Day - but this was Copycat Kakashi, his sensei, a former Anbu, an A-class shinobi. Sasuke could accept a compliment from him without feeling like a fraud.

"Hahaha..." Naruto laughed nervously, but there was a pleased grin on his face and he was rubbing the back of his neck. Sasuke inwardly snorted. What a dobe... but the thought was fond.

His eyes flickered to Kasumi and he promptly felt his senses go on high-alert. His female teammate didn't seem to have heard Kakashi at all; she was staring past at him with disturbing amounts of panic in those chocolate colored eyes. She took a step towards him, a frown forming on her lips.

Sasuke snapped his attention back to their opponents as Zabuza began to laugh, low and cruel. "Haku, do you realize? At this rate, we'll be driven back." He said.

Sasuke heard more than saw Kasumi take another step towards him.

"Yeah." Haku rose to his feet, chakra rising off of him. "We can't have that..."

"Naruto-san, clones!" Kasumi snapped out behind him.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

He had the brief second to wonder just what Kasumi was doing, before Haku formed his fingers up in yet another seal. A shift at his feet had Sasuke suddenly looking down to see the water on the ground rising up and forming into an ice rectangle. Shit. Now what?

Tap.

Sasuke glanced to his right to see Kasumi materialize with Naruto at her side - a clone, he assumed. When she rose to her feet, tugging the clone along with her, Kasumi's face was harder than he had ever seen it.

And then he proceeded to stop paying attention to his teammate and to the dome of floating ice mirrors they found themselves trapped in.

"Special Jutsu: Demonic Ice Mirrors."

Entrapped

Kasumi had a fleeting moment of self-disdain. Up to that point, she had completely blanked out on what Haku's bloodline was. The only reason she had decided to enter the fight was because her danger sense had been screeching at that point and she had figured better safe than sorry.

The Ice Release... so nostalgic and dangerous.

Quickly shaking off the disturbing memories, because she was in danger and Sasuke was in danger and those ice mirrors were a problem that she needed to figure out. Now was hardly the time to have a trip down memory lane and she turned to the clone that she had Naruto create.

"Create more clones to guard Tazuna-san." She hissed in the clone's ear as Haku stepped into one of the mirrors, reflections appearing everywhere. "Do not enter this structure; stay outside and I'll tell you what to do. Dispel now."

The clone nodded solemnly and disappeared in a poof of smoke.

"It's useless."

Kasumi narrowed her eyes at the countless reflections of Haku that faced them. Some of them were right side up, but others were horizontal, upside down... it was all terribly confusing and disorientating.

"Kasumi...?" Sasuke glanced at her and she shook her head. She had little knowledge of the users of the Ice Release and no knowledge of this particular jutsu at all. It was best for them to simply stay put and see how this would play out. Charging straight at the mirrors when they knew nothing about how Haku could attack them was downright suicidal.

"Were shall I begin?" His voice echoed throughout the dome of ice mirrors, making it impossible to see the real opponent. Kasumi's eyes widened as the Hakus each raised a senbon; oh, God, she had the feeling she knew what was coming.

Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!

A moment later, a cut appeared on her arm. Her face, her neck, her legs, her arms, tearing through her clothing and cutting straight across her skin. Kasumi gasped, curling up instinctively as she was bombarded with attacks from the needles, what felt like thousands of cuts appearing on her pale skin in seconds.

"AHH!" Distantly, through the haze of pain, she heard Sasuke scream and she realized that he was being attacked, too. Not surprising, the still-working part of her mind informed her, but most of her concentration was spent on trying to protect herself from the barrage of attacks.

It hurt and despite herself, Kasumi found herself crying out as the pain tore at her composure, her ability to think. It didn't help that her bloodline continued to howl at her; yes, she knew that the opponent was attacking her and she knew that increasingly deadly senbon were slicing through her skin, but she didn't know how to stop it!

A minute later, an eternity later, she couldn't tell the difference, the attack finally stopped and gasping, Kasumi fell to one knee on the cold, hard ground. A cool gust of wind blew across her skin and she flinched. Lord, that hurt.

Okay. Okay. Stay put and see how it plays out = bad idea. Very bad idea. Note to self: do not do that again. Why in the world had Haku stopped his attack? She wanted to hope that he was still that sweet, kind boy that she known in her childhood, but her logical mind flatly refused.

There was no point in trying to find her long-ago friend in this stranger seeking to kill her and her teammates.

Glancing around, she noted that Sasuke was keeling next to her, also looking exhausted and in a great deal of pain. Wait, were those footsteps coming closer...?

"Kasumi-chan! Teme!" Naruto called from beyond the mirrors, sounding worried.

Oh. Bad.

"Naruto-san, don't -!" Kasumi called back, but it was too late. Naruto tore straight into the dome of mirrors at a dead-run and skid to a halt in front of his teammates.

"Hey!" He gasped out, blue eyes wide as he took in their ragged state. "Are you guys okay?!"

Kasumi wasn't particularly concerned with her state of being at the moment.

"What do you think you're doing?!" She hissed at Naruto, angrier than she had been for a long time. There went a great deal of her plans - she had originally been planning for Sasuke and Naruto to launch a double attack with either ninjutsu or in a pinch, taijutsu, but that was obviously out of the question now.

Sasuke was just as infuriated. "You absolute idiot! Did you use your brain at all?!"

Naruto looked a little hurt at their reactions, but there was a determined glint in his eyes. "I'm not going to let him hurt you." He stated firmly, turning to face the mirrors. "Oi, Haku!"

"Naruto. You should have kept out of this." Haku replied, raising his senbon once more.

"I don't care who you are! Don't you dare hurt my teammates!" Naruto retorted, forming his fingers into a familiar seal.

It was a distraction. Kasumi took it. Subtly, she glanced up and caught Sasuke's eye. She nodded to him, quick and curt. Sasuke's eyes sharpened and a glint of excitement appeared in those dark, dark eyes.

She had known that Sasuke had been eager, more than eager, to test out his Sharingan in combat. She hadn't wanted to, not in this fight where they were so clearly outclassed and anything could go wrong, but it was plainly obvious they needed to step it up a little.

Kasumi didn't know whether Haku recognized her or not, but if he did, he wasn't showing it. Other than not outright killing her, of course, but that didn't count on his side.

It was entirely possible that Naruto would fall to the same fate.

Next time:

Lethal. It would have been a lethal blow.

Kasumi froze. Plain out froze. A second later, her training, her logic, her poise slammed back into her, but only for her to comprehend exactly how stupid she was.

Me: The reviews!

ZabuzasGirl: No worries! Doing my very best; thanks for the review!

Nikita: Hmm... Kasumi might actually be pulling herself together! Maybe. Sasuke and Naruto are hilarious when they're bickering, aren't they? :3 Thanks for the review, hun!

Seere Klein: Oh, thank you! Well, they are only 12 years olds right now. The teamwork thing is more central than the romance at his point. Kasumi, hmm, I don't know how she would react with romantic stuff. Guess we have to wait and see!

Kasuke. Hagase: Maybe...? Lolz, thanks for the review, hun!

Bella-swan11: Ah, but we all know how impulsive those two are, neh? Sasuke is still being the Ice Prince right now. Let's see if we can get him to thaw later. Thanks for the review!

bluefrost15: I'm doing my best! So happy to know you like my story; hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Me: So... cause it's Spring Break, I have taken it upon myself to update everyday until Spring Break is over! I wonder if I'll do AS before school stars again...? Ah well, we'll see! Umm... visit my blog and review please?