Hey there! And again a chapter, yay! Thanks to Jestie Uchiha for reviewing!
If you're interested: I put a picture of Minari on my profile. It's her before and after the timeskip.
OMG! Just found out something HORRIBLE! Instead of the 8th chapter I uploaded the 6th chapter again! Noooo! Gosh, why am I so stupid? Well fixed that now. Sorry for confusing you all! Oh and while rereading the previous chapters I found so many mistakes, wants me to bang my head against something hard. I really suck... Too lazy to fix 'em thought...
Nothing else to say, so just enjoy this chapter, the last one of this arc^^
Sins and Sunshine
Chapter 13: Mission successful
For hours now was I running around in this forest and couldn't find anything but trees, water and trees. Then finally I reached the riverside where I could already see the half-finished bridge. It was encased in abnormally thick fog, not the normal one that I find here every so often but the jutsu-type one. That meant that the battle was still ongoing and neither Zabuza nor Kakashi were dead yet – Zabuza because it was his jutsu and Kakashi because he was the only one who could take him on. I took that as a good sign, but I still had to hurry.
On the bridge I saw Zabuza being held/bitten on by a full dozen of dogs. In front of him was Kakashi who had strange blue sparkling chakra gathered in his hand and wanted to tear a hole into Zabuza's chest with this. Haku appeared in front of his master to act as a meat shield. In horror I watched as my dear friend was about to meet an early end and stormed forward.
"Stoooop!" Screaming I was tackling Kakashi to the side. He got distracted and his blue lighting jutsu got dissolved, same goes for the dogs.
"Minari?" he uttered in surprise.
"Minari." the two nuke-nins said also startled to see me here.
"Minari? Where?" I could hear Naruto and Sakura shouting from somewhere in the fog.
"What are you doing?" my sensei confronted me.
"Stop this fight! You're no longer enemies!" I shouted but only met unbelieving stares.
"Minari-chan. You know why we have to do this-" Haku began but was interrupted by I.
"I know, but that's the point. Gatou no longer needs you and has sent his little army of thugs to come here and kill everyone in sight!"
"That little…!" Zabuza growled clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white.
"Minari, explain. Why do know this and where have you been?" Kakashi-sensei questioned me, a stern look on his face. Naruto, Sakua and Tazuna came running towards us stopping behind Kakashi. I smiled nervously and scratched the back of my head.
"Well, it's like this. First I followed Zabuza to spy on them. Then I found out that Haku was actually an old friend of mine, but that's a complete different story. The point is that I found Gatou's house and overheard him while explaining his plan to his henchmen. We don't have much time left, so please stop this pointless fight!" I looked pleadingly at Kakashi, hoping that he'd understand. He was silent for a moment, thinking, and then faced the kiri-nin.
"It may be that for this mission it is no longer necessary to fight against you, but you're still nuke-nins and it's our duty as Konoha's shinobi to dispose of you."
"But, why?" I sreamed. Zabuza chuckled bitter.
"Duty, that's right."
"And what if you pretend that you have killed us? We promise to never cause any trouble again and you won't hear any word from us in the future." Haku suggested. My eyes lit up and again I gave my sensei a pleading look and now even Naruto began to persuade him not to kill them. Finally he nodded and gave in.
"I guess we can accept that."
Happily I hugged first Kakashi and then Haku, then I noticed that something was not right.
"Where's Sasuke?"
Naruto became gloomy and saw backwards. I followed his gaze and saw a bundle of dark blue clothing motionlessly lying on the ground, senbon sticking out everywhere. Thank goodness the fog disappeared otherwise I wouldn't have seen anything but, well, fog.
Shocked from this Sakura was running towards her beloved, the bridge builder following her because it was her task to protect him. Then she kneeled down beside Sasuke's unmoving body and started crying. Err, but why wasn't she helping him? Didn't she see that he's still alive? How about feeling his pulse? Seriously, fangirls.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the problem the others kept discussing.
"Oh look, bandits." I stated and pointed in the direction where I saw them. The others cut off their discussion about how to fake their death to follow my gaze. When I said 'little army' I didn't exaggerate, there were really many of them.
"That would solve the problem." Zabuza stated, grinning maniacally. He then grabbed a kunai, pushed forward, slashed some bandits, skewered Gatou and jumped together with him into the water.
"Use Zabuza-sama's sword as proof that you really killed us." Haku said smiling.
"And it was nice to see you again, Minari-chan."
"Bye, Haku-kun." I said waving him as he disappeared. Feeling sad I stared at the spot where my friend stood just seconds ago. Saying farewell is never easy.
"And what do we do with all those bandits?" Naruto asked and directed my attention back towards the event at hand. The thugs, now without a money source, wanted to rob the village, but then all the villagers appeared and proclaimed that they wouldn't let this happen. Then Naruto and Kakashi-sensei made an army of shadow clones and the bandits got frightened and ran away. Okay, they jumped into the water so they swam away.
Everyone was cheering and happy that it all was over now. There was just one problem: Sasuke.
I went over to Pinky, still lying on Sasuke's chest and crying. I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her off him.
"Hey, what are you doing? Let me go!" Pinky protested. Ignoring her I looked at the boy in front of me.
"Better?"
"Much better." he said panting and took a deep breath, finally free from the heavy weight on his lungs.
"Sasuke! You're alive!" Sakura shouted crying out of happiness and flung her arm around his neck, which brought him only more pain. Beware of the pink danger.
Few days later…
"Is it okay so?" I asked Kakashi-sensei.
"Perfect." he answered. "Just like a real grave."
Right now our team was at a hill, preparing the graves for Zabuza and Haku to let it seem more realistic. No one knows about this fraud except us and Tazuna, but he promised us not to tell anyone.
Sasuke had quickly recovered from his injuries. They weren't as bad as we thought at first. Haku was truly too nice. Somehow Naruto and Sasuke became good friend while I was away. Did I miss something?
By the way, they finally finished the construction of the bridge. This way we could cross the water without having to take a boat which could again bring me into the danger of falling over board.
All the villagers came to see us off and tell their thanks. Naruto talked with some kid and both started crying like little babies, but without showing it to the other. Tzz, boys and their pride. So after their crying session we could finally get going towards the sunny Konoha. Yay, good bye, fog, I definitely won't miss you! Ha!
"Ne, Minari-chan. Look, what Kakashi-sensei learned us!" Naruto said, then run towards a tree and climbed it without using His hands. Wow. He learned to control his chakra, just like a ninja…
"Cool, ne?" he said grinning, proud of his achievement.
"Uhh, nice, Naruto." I replied slightly confused. I mean, isn't that basic skill for every ninja or did I miss again something?
"You don't like it?" he said looking sadly at me with watering puppy dog eyes. Aww, cute!
"Yes, I do. But I thought you learned something more amazing like a cool jutsu or something." I admitted.
"Well, at least we learned something unlike you!" Pinky snapped at me.
"Who said I didn't learn anything?" (I really did! I learned how to piss off dangerous criminals without getting chopped to pieces afterwards! And my stamina went up, too!)
That answer left her dumbfounded and Kakashi-sensei gave me an amazed look.
"I would never have thought, that Zabuza would actually teach you something."
"Neither did he." I answered grinning and left him with completely confused. I love messing with other peoples' minds!
"Oh, and Minari." Kakashi said.
"Yeah?"
"I still have to lecture you, that it's not good to leave without a word."
"Nooooooo!" I screamed and ran for my life.
At the Hokage's office…
"So that's what happened." the Hokage mused after hearing our story from Kakashi-sensei.
"But what's wrong with Minari-chan?" With this he looked at the picture of misery that was actually me. Wax-pale and with a blank stare I stood there, supported by Naruto and Sasuke standing on both sides of me. Four whole hours of Kakashi's lectures that would even break the strongest of all shinobi. Kakashi missed his vocation. He should have become a specialist for interrogation and torture!
"She got lectured by Kakashi-sensei." Naruto obligingly explained to the Hokage.
"There, there, Minari-chan. It couldn't actually have been this bad."
I shot him a death glare.
"That's what YOU think!"
Yay, another chapter complete! And yay, Haku and Zabuza are not dead!
I played with the thought that I could update more often from time to time, after realising that I have enough prewritten chapters for the whole year… Well let's see what life brings!
Now, for all the Gaara-fans out there (including me)! The moment you all waited for has come! Gaara's first appearance! Yaaaay! Err, yeah… So look forward to the next chapter^^