Author's Note: Yes, I know I call jutsu "spells." Yes, I understand that is not what they are called in the canon series. I initially wrote this for people who had never read Naruto before, and it's a personal artistic choice that I made for these people. It is not that I just don't understand the series, and I trust you can see that through my writing.

I already have this book finished and I am not going to go back and change every reference to spells just because you're a pedantic whiner. If you're really that bothered by it, simply stop reading. Don't bother leaving a review. Go find a life that doesn't involve leaving reviews on fanfictions you don't like telling them what the technical term for a fictional piece of magic is.

Oh, and in the series, chakra is referred to at least once as MAGIC. So fuck off. It's just a story!

That ends this brief public announcement.

7.

Tsunami was up to see us all off and watch us go the next morning. Inari was not.

As I was walking the well worn path around the village to the bridge beside my team, I reflected that, by now, Zabuza and his assistant could strike at any time. We were no longer safe, if we had ever been.

Naruto kept looking over at me. At last, I sighed and smiled wryly. "Hello, Naruto," I said.

He jumped and then smiled, a bit sheepishly. "Hello," he said, blushing and looking down at his feet.

Sasuke raised a quizzical eyebrow as he stared between us.

Kakashi seemed not to notice us and was extremely focused as we walked onto the bridge. As we approached the building site closer, we saw why. I gasped involuntarily.

The construction site was covered with the bodies of dead laborers. All machinery around them was eerily still.

"Fuck -!" Naruto began, his eyes widening.

"He killed them -?!" I echoed. I whirled around, expecting to find Zabuza right behind me, but he wasn't. The bridge appeared empty. It was his killing intent, I realized. He was leaking killing intent. He was somewhere nearby.

Then the thick, cloying, chakra laden mist began to fall over us.

"He's coming!" said Kakashi alertly, and Naruto, Sasuke, and I immediately moved into a formation around Tazuna and pulled knives out. Tazuna was extremely nervous, and we had become close enough over the past week that I tried to comfort him.

"Don't worry, sir," I said. "We'll protect you."

That dark, ever-present chuckle echoed out from the mists. "Be careful," said Zabuza's voice. "I'm not even sure you can protect yourselves..." Then Mizu Bunshin appeared around us, suddenly, out of the mists. It was more expected this time. We were learning his scare tactics.

There were two for each of us, instead of one. I pushed a rush of chakra to my muscles and it began. His sword swung out toward me and I dodged and then got around behind him. He seemed so much slower than he had last time. I angled the kunai just right; it shot through both Mizu Bunshin and they were gone. The whole encounter took roughly about a second and a half.

Then I looked around to my teammates. Sasuke finished first, viciously taking his knife and cutting it into the final Mizu Bunshin's brain and down through his stomach lining, water leaking out until the Mizu Bunshin dissipated completely. Sasuke stared at the spot where the Mizu Bunshin had been for a moment, and a satisfied smirk I wasn't sure I liked played across his lips.

"You okay, Sasuke?!" I called out.

He looked up and seemed pleased with himself. "Not a scratch," he replied, referring to last time when he had been bleeding. "The speed helped."

"What did that Bunshin ever do to you?" I asked playfully, grinning, but in a way I was serious. That had been a pretty vicious way to end a copy.

Sasuke's face darkened. "He tried to make fun of my panic attack from last time," was all he said in explanation.

"Hey! Isn't anyone paying attention to me?!" We both looked around in surprise to Naruto... who was standing there, triumphant, in an empty space.

His increased speed and the taijutsu sparring had worked. Naruto, too, was unwounded.

"Easy," said Naruto, bragging, feigning casualness, seeming all of a sudden bigger than himself. I smiled.

"Good job, team," said Kakashi approvingly.

Then there was that dark chuckling again. "You've been training your little brats, Kakashi," said Zabuza's voice. "How... cute."

The mists had begun to thin. Zabuza - in the flesh presumably - stepped forward before us, his assistant beside him. For some reason, the slim, dark-haired young teenager who followed Zabuza everywhere was still wearing an old Kiri ANBU mask. "Haku!" Zabuza barked in the direction of his assistant. "... Take out the kids."

So he would be fighting this time?

"Yes, sir," said the boy - who finally had a name, Haku - smoothly. He stepped forward. So it would be the three of us against Haku, and Kakashi against Zabuza.

"Good odds," I muttered, tensing, getting ready.

"Not for you," said Haku dryly, and Zabuza smirked from beside him.

The boys looked backward at me then. Sasuke's face was calculating. He met Naruto's eyes, and then Kakashi's, and the three of them looked back at me slowly, almost hesitantly.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Sakura..." said Kakashi, almost gently, "someone has to stay back and guard Tazuna."

"You don't want me to fight?!" They winced as my voice, unusually loud and shocked, echoed throughout the bridge.

"Sakura -"

"Have I done something wrong?!"

"Well, no -"

"Do you think I'm weak?!"

"Sakura-cha -"

"Sensei, I can do this!" I said, upset. I realized my eyes were burning and I looked down, embarrassed.

And then, gently, a hand placed itself on my wrist. It was, of all people, Sasuke's. He was holding my wrist, as I had held his at the beginning of the first battle. When I looked up, his eyes were tender and they made my throat close up. "You shouldn't be so eager to die," he said, with a small, sad smile.

Naruto looked between us, frowning, and then he broke in between us almost forcefully, getting right up in my face. "If someone has to stay back, it should be you, Sakura-chan," he said firmly. "Not because you're weak. Because you're the one we all need!"

I looked up at Kakashi, lost, and he nodded. He even smiled. But then he said firmly, "Do your duty as a ninja."

"Your teammates are right," Haku spoke up, and his voice cut through the touching moment like a knife. We turned to look at him in surprise, guarded. "Anyone who fights me will die," he predicted calmly. "And I have no attachment to the idea of killing you."

"If you kill my teammates, I'm fighting you anyway!" I snapped, surprising even myself. What was up with me today? I looked down. "... Fine, I'll stay back," I groused. "But I don't have to like it." I may have pouted. Just a little.

My teammates seemed amused, but more confident, as I stepped carefully backward with Tazuna and they stepped forward toward their respective opponents, lucky, underhandedly emotional bastards that they were.

Naruto, predictably, charged in first. Sasuke rolled his eyes, but then followed behind him. Haku moved forward at incredible speeds to engage them, and then they came together in a clash of hand to hand combat. Sometimes it would be knife versus senbon needle, which Haku kept up with what must have been incredible upper arm strength, but for the most part they just fought with kick and fist. Naruto's newfound speed and taijutsu strength showed more than ever, and he and Sasuke melded together, working perfectly off of each other. It was like they could read each other's minds, knowing where the person was going to move to even before they did so, and I realized I was watching the formation of a perfect fighting union, the kind that only came every so often in a person's life. It was awe inspiring to see, especially through my young Genin eyes. I knew I was seeing something special - a special kind of friendship that didn't need words. Occasionally, when their eyes met, Sasuke and Naruto would pause briefly to grin at each other in exhilaration, and then it was off back into the fight. That was all they needed.

They kept Haku's arms so busy between them (Naruto even pulled out the occasional well placed Kage Bunshin) that he had to push them away and retreat to do any hand seals for spells. He couldn't even do one handed seals while engaging them. Once he had retreated, we discovered his spell element was ice, which was not a normal element and had to be... "Sasuke, Naruto!" I called out immediately, alert and frowning as I watched closely. "Bloodline limit!"

Haku paused for a moment and looked over at me. "Clever girl," he said at last. "Yes, that's right, I'm one of the monsters." But before I could do more than wonder what he meant, Sasuke and Naruto engaged him again and it was back in the fight.

At any rate, Haku used his element in a number of creative ways. He made the puddles of dampness on the bridge push up into Sasuke and Naruto's feet, into sharp spikes of ice; they guarded the soles of their feet with thick layers of chakra and leaped between the spikes and back onto stable ground. Haku also broke up ice into its elements, wind and water. He made water needles fly down on them through the air, and they dodged the needles with their newfound speed. Haku flew a great sword of water at them and Sasuke responded by using his fire spell, a great gust of fire that blew from his mouth and into the air in a bright burst; the water sword disappeared underneath its power. Haku blew a burst of cutting wind at them, meant to produce several small but deep cuts in their faces, arms, and chests; Naruto simply ducked underneath the jet stream, pulling Sasuke down with him.

Then Naruto charged, ducking underneath the air, straight at Haku while Haku was still busy with his wind hand seal! He caught Haku in the stomach and Haku was thrown back, bodily.

"Haku," said Zabuza seriously, from where he was watching, "it's time to get serious."

And that should have been my first clue. Haku hadn't been serious yet?

But no, he hadn't. Because then Haku made a hand seal and great mirrors of ice appeared out of the air. They came in close together and formed a dome around Sasuke and Naruto, blocking them in completely. Then Haku actually walked inside one of the mirrors... and all of a sudden, he was in all of them. How was that even possible? Some sort of clone technique?

Haku proved it was not just an illusion by throwing senbon needles from all the mirrors at once, raining them down on Sasuke and Naruto in a constant barrage that they could try to dodge, but had no way of really blocking. And Haku wouldn't let them escape the dome.

"Naruto! Sasuke!" I called out worriedly as for the first time, blood began to fly, the boys quickly beginning to move slower, resembling pincushions. Every time they ran for an exit out of the dome, Haku would see it and throw out an attack to send them back.

Kakashi ran forward, and Zabuza ran forward to meet him, smirking. "Nervous, Kakashi?" he asked. "You go help them, that's fine. But then I'll be forced to go after the girl and the old man."

Kakashi stood back, frustrated, glaring at Zabuza.

"You don't know what's going on," said Haku in a detached sort of voice, watching the boys from his mirrors. "You don't know how I'm doing this. And you cannot escape." It was wholly eerie, with the boys breathing heavily and bleeding there below him.

But then Naruto grinned, looking up. It was that same grin I'd seen the first day we were placed on a team together, the one I hadn't liked. This time, I felt better about it. He had an idea. "I don't have to know how it works," he said. "Just like I don't have to know what chakra is to be able to use it. It's all just a prank anyway, right?" And here, he looked over meaningfully at me. "It's all just a prank."

My eyes widened. That was what I'd told him to strategize.

Haku didn't seem to understand. Naruto looked over at Sasuke, almost jokingly, and made a hand motion. Blow. Sasuke nodded, took a deep breath, and another fireball erupted from his mouth, filling the space above them in the dome. Haku was blinded by it for a moment. His mirrors shook, but held; they were stronger than Sasuke's simple fire spell. But meanwhile, Naruto had bent down and done something with some equipment from his pouch.

The minute the fireball faded, he held the kunai up tightly... and let it go, letting it spin loose. He had contrived a kind of system where he'd twisted ninja wire up so tight that when he let the kunai tied to its end go, it spun around and around - and the bottle of paint tied to the other end of the kunai did as well.

I had a sudden memory.

"Naruto, you pranked Iruka-sensei all the time," I said while we were waiting on the bridge in Konoha for Kakashi-sensei one morning. "Why don't you ever try Kakashi-sensei?"

"Oh, I'm still going to get him with the paint I said I would in the beginning," said Naruto, looking over at me in surprise as if I should have implicitly understood this. "It's still happening. I carry the paint with me, waiting for the perfect opportunity." He smirked and put his fingers together like he was plotting something. Then he stopped and scowled. "But I never see an opening!"

Sasuke let out a sound that was as close as he ever came to a laugh. "Good luck," he'd said sarcastically.

Paint went everywhere. It went all over Sasuke and Naruto, of course, but it also completely covered the internal walls of the mirror. So Haku could no longer see them.

Through all the paint, Sasuke and Naruto ran, they flat out ran, as silent as they could, straight through one of the gaps between the mirrors. The minute they passed the outside of the mirrors, Haku could see them again; he sped to the correct mirror and came half out of the mirror, grabbing for them...

Naruto and Sasuke spun around and, in perfect tandem, Naruto kicked Haku in the stomach and Sasuke punched him right in the face underneath his mask. Haku went flying out of the mirrors, skidding across the ground, and Sasuke and Naruto safely retreated backward, now out of the trap.

"Damn, that felt good," Naruto muttered. "Asshole." And Sasuke let out one of his almost-laughs.

I felt a moment of extraordinary pride and triumph and envy... And then Naruto cried out, collapsing.

Sasuke whirled around in alarm. "Naruto!" I cried out.

Haku slowly stood as Naruto clutched one of his legs, a senbon needle embedded deep into the shin. "I mix my own poisons," Haku spat out, breathing heavily. "That one's a paralysis toxin. It takes out the closest part of the person's body and then spreads, slowly killing them. The Onikyoudai, in fact, had a weaker version of the same thing on the metal claws attached to their fists. I'm surprised it didn't hit any of you. I decided you might need something a bit stronger this time."

Naruto tried to stand, and then fell over again in pain. Now, if ever, was the time to run in and fight. I moved toward the fight, but Kakashi called out, "Sakura! Stay there! Naruto! Try to bleed out the place around your leg, without stabbing yourself! Sakura! Get Tazuna off the bridge, now!"

"But -" I instinctively turned toward Kakashi.

"NOW!" He and Zabuza had begun to engage in physical fighting; Kakashi was dodging underneath a sword parry as he shouted. Then Zabuza went back a couple of quick steps, and his mist slowly began to thicken once again...

I turned desperately toward my teammates. "Sakura, get out of here!" Sasuke called, getting in front of Naruto with effort (he was still bleeding) and glaring at Haku's form across the bridge from him.

I looked down at Naruto...

Who looked up and smiled with a terrible kind of effort. He had a knife angled above his leg. "Trust me," he said. "You don't want to see this."

And, in a trance of horror, I grabbed Tazuna's hand. We turned, and ran away, into the mists.

Somehow, Kakashi and Sasuke must have been doing their jobs, because we got back off the bridge safely and all I had to do was run in front of Tazuna and cut through some Zabuza water clones on our way through and back out of the mists, onto dry land.

We noticed immediately when we went outside Zabuza's range. The change was startling. All of a sudden, we were in the middle of a clear, sunny day, the peaceful village in front of us, the water beside us sparkling. I turned and looked back around in dread. There was a big, thick, grey cloud completely hiding the bridge from view, eating into the ocean on either side of it. A paralyzing kind of malaise, creeping through everything.

Paralyzing. Naruto.

I swallowed, feeling like I was going to cry, but no way was I crying at a time like this! I turned back around with force and said to Tazuna, "Tazuna-san. We need to take you home."

He nodded quietly, looking down at me solemnly. "... Thank you," he said. And then, as if guiltily, "I'm not even paying you guys the proper amount."

"I know," I agreed. "You suck. But we can't focus on that right now."

So I led him around the village and through the trees toward his house. I expected to come upon more assailants at any second, but all the assailants were busy killing my teammates. It was because I was so on edge that after a while down the forest path, I realized something odd. "Hey," I said, "there are sword marks on all the trees around here that... weren't there this morning."

I paused, looking around. They seemed to form a trail, as if someone had been slashing trees irregularly as they passed... And the trail lead toward...

Where we were going.

The blood drained from my face. "Tazuna-san," I said, "didn't you say that the thugs Gatou employs are samurai?"

"Yes," said Tazuna in confusion. "Why?"

Shit.

I commanded Tazuna to stay back, despite his protests that his family was out there. "Tazuna-san, you're a civilian," I said firmly. "I doubt you know how to do any more than throw a punch. You need to stay back for now and let me handle this."

Then I crept up behind the trees to peer through the leaves at Tazuna's house beside the sea... and what I saw made me sick.

Tsunami, proud Tsunami, was lying on her back by the house. She had been forced down there by a heavily scarred samurai. The samurai was riding on top of her, pushing his crotch toward hers, cutting a winding trail of blood down her arm with a sword and panting, leering heavily. Tsunami was crying.

"Jesus," I heard the other samurai mutter, looking away in disgust from where he was standing awkwardly beside the horrific display.

Then, suddenly, in a mad burst of courage, Inari ran out of the house and straight toward the samurai. "You stay away from my Mom!" he screamed, crying himself -

The standing samurai raised his sword to kill Inari -

"If you kill him, I'll bite my tongue and kill myself, and then you won't have a hostage!" Tsunami screamed -

The samurai on top of her raised a hand to silence her -

And then Tsunami and Inari both disappeared completely from the samurais' view.

I kept the genjutsu up with one hand, and then with the other I made a completely separate set of seals. Inari and Tsunami were both replaced with logs in the forest surrounding me. In a second, they were both lying beside me. I whirled around quickly and put a hand over both of their mouths, silencing them.

They looked up, paused in surprise, tear tracks on their faces and their eyes still in a semblance of horror. I removed my hands from their mouths and put a finger to my lips. Then I turned around, in a cold kind of fury, and channeling chakra into my feet, I crept up a trunk to a tree perch high above the samurai, watching them like a hawk.

"What the fuck? Where'd the bitch go -?" They were looking around themselves for their hostage for Gatou...

Carefully, calculated, I arced two kunai down out of the trees. They whirled around and blocked with their swords. I angled the kunai with the two pieces of nearly invisible ninja wire I still held, attached to their ends; the kunai locked around the blades and then I pulled the strings.

The swords flew out of the samurai's hands, and then I leaped down out of the trees and kicked them both in the face as they were looking around for their swords. I felt both of their noses break and saw the spurt of blood. They collapsed over under the weight of my kick.

I landed neatly on the ground between them and kicked the one who'd been standing in the face, knocking him out. Then I turned to the other, the rapist, glaring down at him.

"What the fuck -!" he said, trying to move away, staring up at me. "You're just a little girl -!"

I caught him by the pant leg with my foot and let the final kunai in my hand fall without looking. I stared ahead of myself grimly as I heard him scream. Then I looked down.

The kunai had fallen right through his penis and he was bleeding everywhere.

The samurai passed out. I didn't kill him and patched up the mess that was his nether regions with some spare bandages I had in my equipment pouch. It was embarrassing and I kind of wished he was awake while I did it so he could be embarrassed along with me. But I'd just taken away his ability to ever have sex again, so I figured I couldn't be too hard on him.

The Ninja Academy taught basic first aid. I thought of how I was at the Academy, eagerly learning every first aid class, and suddenly I felt I'd lost a kind of innocence.

I stood and turned around at last, almost nervous, to the dead silent place in the trees where I'd left Inari and Tsunami. I walked over into the shadows and found them curled up against a tree trunk. A shaking and crying Inari was being held by his mother, who was also crying in fear. She had his face pressed up against her chest so he couldn't see what I'd done.

She stared up at me, terrified, for a moment. I felt awful.

Kneeling down slowly, I smiled with effort. "As long as you don't mind my bloody hands," I said, "I'd like to hug you." Tsunami trembled for a moment, and then she opened her arm and I was hugging her and her son. I felt their warmth for a moment.

Inari was still shaking and crying. "I wanted to be like Naruto -!" he sobbed. "I wanted to be brave like Naruto -!" I was touched, heartbroken.

"You did well," I said, rubbing his back. "You really did. I'm so proud of you. And of you," I said, sitting back and looking at Tsunami. "You tried to protect your son."

Tsunami looked away in shame. "I... I'm sorry you had to see that..."

"No! No." I looked her dead in the eye. "You want to know what? One day when I was eleven, a female instructor at the Academy took all the girls into another room and explained to us the rules of life, especially as a kunoichi. And they said sexual assault during a battle can happen to the best of women. And it's never the woman's fault. That's what they said to me. There's no shame in it."

I turned her head to look at me, and for a moment I felt like the adult. She looked back into my eyes hesitantly. "It's not your fault," I said softly. Maybe it was easier saying that to someone else than it would have been telling it to myself.

Tsunami's face almost crumpled, but she held it strong. "When you first came here, I thought my father was crazy, hiring children," she said. "But... but I was wrong. You're not children, really, are you?"

I stood up, looking away. "I don't know what I am," I admitted, and I felt it.

I let Inari and Tsunami back inside the ruins of their home, I led Tazuna back into the house with them so he could hug them fiercely, and then I went outside their house to the sea. I sat down on top of the water, channeling chakra in my knees and butt, and I washed my hands off till they were sore and pink. Then I stood up and went over to the unconscious samurai on the shore. I bent down seriously and took up the walkie talkie one had attached to his hip.

I turned it on and attempted a deep voice, trying not to be nervous. "Reporting in," I said, feeling ridiculous, like they'd see through me immediately. "The woman and child have been captured as hostages and the coast is clear."

A voice responded after a minute. "Good. I'm heading back to the bridge with the others to finish things off." I realized that dark, greasy tone was Gatou's.

I turned the walkie talkie back off, disgusted and worried. Was everyone converging with my teammates there on that bridge? No matter how nervous the idea made me, I had to get back there!

I tied the samurai up. Then I went inside the house, where the three family members were picking up the remnants of dishes. "No one will attack you here anymore. They think Tsunami and Inari are captured and Tazuna is still at the bridge. I need to get back to the bridge and find my teammates."

Tazuna nodded seriously, placing a hand each on his daughter's and his grandson's shoulders. "Thank you," he said. I nodded and turned away -

"Will Naruto be okay?" Inari asked quickly.

I looked back around to him, puzzled. "I'm not sure," I admitted. "We're fighting a lot of important people out there, and more are coming."

Inari stared after me in worry as I left, but at the same time he was almost thoughtful.

I was running by the time I made it to the bridge. I leaped up onto a tree branch and through the trees, traversing long distances in seconds, and then when I got out onto flat land I just sprinted, my breathing sharp, all the way back to the battle. When the bridge came in sight, I realized I could see it - the mist was gone.

One way or another, the battle was over.

I felt a thrill of fear and nervousness. Turning instead to the sea, I climbed down the steep rocky cliff and down to the water level. I walked out onto the water and then ran with light steps over the top of it, to the huge wooden support beams I had so admired when I'd first seen the bridge. Then I began climbing. I walked from the sea and up sideways along one of the support beams, the damp wind whipping my hair, trying to undo my bun. When I reached the top of the bridge, I peeked the tip of my head over so I could just see how things had gone - but so that no one, hopefully, would spot me.

The first thing I saw was Kakashi and Naruto, standing, alone. Naruto was standing. Somehow, though he was covered in blood, he seemed okay.

"Naruto!" I called out joyfully, instinctively - I'd been so scared for him. I climbed up onto the bridge and ran toward them. And then stopped as I registered the rest of the scene, horrified.

Haku was dead, his head cut off and his entrails spilling out of his cut abdomen. There were deep chakra burns all along his body. Zabuza was also dead, a great hole of blood and burns made in the center of his chest. The whole scene carried an air of leftover darkness in it; the very wind was heavy. And Sasuke was... Sasuke was...

I looked up pleadingly to my teammates, as if asking them to tell me anything other than what I suspected. Kakashi was sitting, looking exhausted. Naruto met my eyes, and he seemed sad and ashamed and somehow dead.

No.

I ran over to Sasuke's form, which was lying still, covered in senbon needles that had been plunged deep into his whole body, particularly his abdomen and neck. He lay, still and cold, a whitish blue color. His eyes were closed. He was, in that moment, beautiful. Beautifully dead.

I immediately felt tears burn my eyes. I clutched at my body as if trying to hold myself together, and then I was reminded of Tsunami, and then my face broke, trembled, and a sob escaped from my throat. "Don't cry," I whispered, tears running down my cheeks, repeating one of the rules of being a ninja. "Don't cry." My voice broke. I couldn't help it. I couldn't look anymore. As I gave another shuddering gasp, the tears running, I turned away.

I just stood there, trying to get my sobs under control for a moment.

This ninja stuff, it's no joke. People get injured. People die. Kakashi's voice echoed back to me, his words at the beginning of this mission. He'd looked just as tired and lost then, caught up in memories, as he did now, sitting back on the bridge in something strangely like defeat. I wanted to approach him, but somehow I couldn't. He seemed so far away from me.

Instead, I rushed over to Naruto, who was looking down with his face twisted in pain, and I hugged him. Naruto looked up in surprise. "You... you don't blame me?" was the first thing he asked.

I stood back, looking at him in surprise, and then I smiled painfully. "No, Naruto," I said in a watery voice. "I don't blame you."

Some of the dread faded from his face, leaving only a terrible kind of sadness behind.

"What happened?" I asked desperately.

And Naruto sighed, took a deep breath, and told me the story.

"We learned about Haku and Zabuza today. Or, I guess, I did. Haku... he was the man we met in the forest. That's why his voice sounded so familiar. Behind the mask, it was him - the guy who taught us about medicinal herbs.

"Haku was born to civilian parents. They were farmers out in the northern part of Water Country, in a place where it snows all the time. His father had been born in the same village he worked the land in, but his mother had come in as a stranger from a distant village. What Haku's father didn't know when he married Haku's mother is that his new wife was on the run from the Hidden Village of the Mist.

"There were these civil wars, see. And people with bloodline abilities did so much damage during the wars that they came to be seen as monsters, blamed for all the social ills in Kiri. The bloodline clans "scattered to the winds, the remnants hiding their abilities." That was how Haku put it. Haku's mother had one of these persecuted bloodline abilities. Her entire family had been killed in Kiri. That was why she'd run away. Haku's mother could manipulate ice. She never told Haku's father because she knew he'd see her as a monster, that anyone in Water Country would see her as a monster.

"But then Haku was born, and he started showing the same ability to manipulate ice. And Haku's mother couldn't hide it all the time. Haku couldn't really control it very well yet. Haku's father saw Haku playing around with ice one day. He got a whole bunch of other villagers together. They stormed the house, they killed Haku's mother, and then they tried to kill Haku. Haku's father was crying as he tried to kill him. Haku reacted in fear, and spikes of ice shot from his raised hands and killed all the villagers. Including his own father.

"After that, he had to run from his home village. He was just a kid. He ended up a beggar on the streets of Kiri in the middle of a bitterly cold winter. He said he had 'a dreadful destiny to stay alive.' Zabuza, for some reason, saw Haku huddled there on a street and he took him in. Zabuza was always called a demon, so Haku's supposedly monstrous ability was no big deal for him. He made Haku his apprentice and raised him to be a ninja.

"Haku said Zabuza always called him his tool, his perfect weapon. But Haku was happy just to be somebody's anything. Haku was completely loyal to Zabuza and they did everything together. I think... I think they were a little in love... you know? Just the way he talked about him...

"Anyway, Zabuza left the village after trying to start a coup against the Mizukage. No one knows why he did it. But Haku ran away with him, and so did some of his other 'associates' - like the Onikyoudai. They were searching for money to start another coup, and that's how they fell in with Gatou."

"Naruto," I asked, "how do you know all this? What exactly happened during the fight?"

"So there I was, right? Trying to bleed out the poison. And Haku and Sasuke were fighting hand to hand combat, but Sasuke was tired and Haku kept pushing the senbon he'd hit him with further and further into Sasuke's body with each contact.

"Meanwhile, the mist around us was getting thicker. Zabuza decided to only attack Kakashi through the mists, using other senses besides his sight to track Kakashi, so that the Sharingan couldn't look into his eyes and hypnotize him again. Haku had hidden and watched Kakashi-sensei's Sharingan last time, and he'd figured out its hypnosis secret. That's why he wasn't fighting during the first battle.

"But Kakashi-sensei used a dog summons and he had the dogs' noses find Zabuza through scent and trap him. Then, while Zabuza was held down by the dogs, Kakashi-sensei went in to pierce a chakra attack called Chidori through his chest.

"Meanwhile, Haku made Sasuke balance backward on one leg, and Sasuke's leg had senbon sunk so far into it that Sasuke collapsed. Haku went in past Sasuke to try to attack me and kill me. I couldn't stand, so I was dragging myself along the ground trying to get away. I wouldn't have made it in time.

"Sasuke stood - and he took the attack for me. And that's why... that's why he's..."

Naruto looked away, his voice breaking a little. He stared up at the sky, unshed tears in his eyes. He took a deep breath. After a moment, he continued.

"I can't really tell you what happened next. It's part of my secret. But I got... really angry. I've never been that... that... before. And because of it, all my wounds were healed and I was able to defeat Haku. I blew right through all his attacks, both senbon and ice, straight through his taijutsu guard. I threw him to the ground and punched right through his mask. That's when I recognized him. And all of a sudden, I was more surprised than I was angry.

"I asked Haku why he would betray us that way, befriend us and then try to kill us. Haku said he didn't enjoy killing, but he'd do anything for Zabuza. He told me his story, and then he said in despair that... that because I had defeated him... he was no longer a fit tool. His only purpose in existence had been to be Zabuza's perfect weapon, and now he was a... a 'broken and defeated weapon - no use to anyone.' He asked me to kill him. He... he asked me to, Sakura-chan."

I couldn't speak for a moment. "And," I asked at last in dread, "did you?"

"I had gotten up off of him by that point. After some arguing and mixed feelings, I agreed. Because, you know. Sasuke. So I was running toward Haku with my knife, but suddenly Haku's eyes got wider and he stopped me. He'd sensed that Zabuza needed him. He ran off to go help Zabuza, but I managed to move forward and stop him by his sleeve. Maybe... maybe if I hadn't been training with you guys and Kakashi-sensei so much, my reflexes wouldn't have been able to catch him... but I did.

"As the mists cleared, Haku saw that Kakashi had killed Zabuza. That he had failed to save Zabuza. And then..."

Naruto couldn't continue. After a moment, lost, I looked to Kakashi-sensei. "Haku grabbed Naruto's knife and committed seppuku," said Kakashi coldly, grimly. "I cut off his head to put him out of his misery."

I felt a thrill of cold for a moment, the blood draining from my face.

"It was horrible," Naruto whispered. "He just looked so peaceful as he was shuddering, lying there...

"And that's when you came back in."

They both looked exhausted. I understood the feeling.

I walked over to Haku and Zabuza's corpses. Kakashi and Naruto had lain them beside each other, and the way they were spread out, it looked like their hands were almost touching. It was horrible, gruesome, and fitting somehow. Was this what love was like for ninja? Were Haku and Zabuza right - were ninja people who made themselves kill others even when they didn't want to? Were ninja meant to be weapons, perfect tools, discarded when they were no longer of use? That seemed so cruel to me, and I understood then how different Konoha must be from other Hidden Villages. I suddenly saw its emphasis on friendship and teamwork in a whole new light. I was proud of my village. But what kind of person would I have become, growing up in Kiri? I tried to imagine trying to kill Ino, or Hinata. I tried to imagine my own parents trying to kill me. It was impossible.

Maybe they were the best people they could have been, under the circumstances.

Because they had been good, sometimes. An angry, grieving part of me screamed that they had killed Sasuke, but their ruined corpses were so pitiful to look at that not even the anger could come as fully as I had expected it to. I was reminded of the good they had done. Haku could have killed us that morning in the forest - sure enough, I recognized his feminine face. But he hadn't; he'd woken us instead, and had even taught us something about medicine. The cold, calculating ninja who used non-deadly, anatomically precise senbon needles to fight, who'd had such a serene and kind face. And then there was Zabuza, with brutally short dark hair and bare, heavy muscles, his entire body a vicious weapon of violence, his manner sadistic and aggressive. And yet he had taken in a little beggar boy when he didn't have to and had trained him to be a ninja. How could he really have seen Haku's potential just from glancing at him? He couldn't have. But he'd made the gamble because deep down he'd probably wanted to save the little boy anyway.

And if they'd fallen in love, like Naruto'd thought they had, that was their business. I suddenly realized I had no room to judge.

I was left with mixed feelings. The enemy was supposed to be masked and faceless and cruel. That was how I had always imagined being a ninja in my mind.

"Kakashi-sensei," I finally said, looking up at last. "Gatou and some of his thugs are coming."

Kakashi stood immediately, the cold alertness stealing over him again.

"Well then, let's go out and meet them," he said darkly. "I'd love to get my hands on the man who started all this." That was the moment I accepted Kakashi-sensei was probably going to kill more than two people that day.

So me, Naruto, and Kakashi, we went to the end of the bridge only to find a huge ship docking itself at that unfinished end. "Let's go," said Kakashi-sensei in a quiet, terrible tone. He never took his eyes off the tiny, besuited man in the center of the hired samurai.

We leaped down onto the bridge, in the middle of everything, and then it was complete chaos. It's not that the thugs were talented, necessarily. It's just that there were a lot of them. I got cut, my dress got ripped, and quite frankly it really pissed me off. I kept punching and kicking people, slashing them with my knife, ducking under and hitting everything I could reach, and still more people came. Somehow, there seemed to be infinite numbers of them. Somehow, Naruto and I ended up back to back, fighting off everyone who ran at us shouting, which was probably safer anyway. At least someone on my side was at my back.

Then there was a gasp and everything went hush for a moment. Wildly, almost annoyed, I looked around.

Kakashi-sensei had cut a wide swathe of blood through the thugs he encountered. He had not bothered to knock anyone out or injure them, as Naruto and I had. All the thugs who had encountered Kakashi were dead. Then he'd grabbed the spear of the nearest available thug and skewered Gatou on the end of it, lifting the limp body high up into the air. Gatou appeared to have died as he lived - running away from a problem he'd created.

"There they are! Get them!" We looked up - and suddenly, Wave villagers were leaping down onto the ship from the bridge after us, armed with spears and weapons! Inari was calling at people, hurrying them down, leading the charge. He had somehow gotten his whole village out to defend the island. A frown, this time of determination, filled his face. And there were Tazuna and Tsunami, with him.

The villagers met with the thugs and after the first villager fell in a show of blood, people paused a little. Then Naruto called out with rage and filled the rocking boat with blood-soaked Kage Bunshin, and then Kakashi added his, and then I added my own regular Bunshin because I figured - why not? In this chaos, no one would be able to tell the difference anyway.

Thugs began bodily throwing themselves off the ship, and villagers began helping them. "Bon voyage!" I distinctly heard Giichi call gleefully as he tossed a man bodily out into the waves. It was like throwing water from a leaky boat. Villagers just kept tossing evidence of Gatou's repression into the drink. It quickly turned violent, with punches being thrown and shouts being called and thugs being pummeled and beaten. When my head started to hurt, I grabbed Naruto and we made our way out of the boat and back onto the relative safety of the bridge. The battle was effectively over by that point anyway.

Inari was standing there with big eyes, waiting for Naruto. I nudged Naruto and pointed. "He was really brave protecting his Mom," I muttered. "He said he wanted to be like you." Naruto looked at me curiously, raising an eyebrow, and then he turned his gaze to Inari... And, of all things, he smiled. He walked over, kneeled down, and began talking to Inari quite kindly.

I could see, for the first time, why the Hokage let him train with his grandson.

A slight smile lit my face for a moment, and then a hand was placed on my shoulder and I turned around. Kakashi-sensei was standing there. He waved me over so we could talk, privately.

"You never did tell us what happened after you got Tazuna back to his house," Kakashi said quietly.

"How - how did you know something happened?" I asked, too quickly.

"Well, you're not stupid enough to leave Tazuna without having a very good reason as to why no one would think to look for him and his family at his house..." I took it as a compliment.

And so I told him my own story.

He nodded, listening. "You stabbed him in the penis?" he asked after a moment. "Creative." He sounded impressed. "I always knew there was a reason I liked you."

But for some reason, in that moment I looked at my hands. They had blood on them again, though not from any deaths. I bit my lip and clutched my arm, looking away.

"You saved him," Kakashi said without question, watching me. Then, "... There's nothing wrong with that, you know."

I looked up. "There isn't?"

"That you would apply first aid to a man who didn't deserve it... speaks well for your powers of forgiveness. But you will have to kill eventually, you know, if you stay as a ninja." His tone was warning. "It won't all be like it is today, where a whole bunch of chaos can make you avoid the question."

I looked down again. "I know. And... I wasn't too careful. I mean, I cut through those men. And if one had died... that would have been on me."

"So you've accepted that. That's positive," said Kakashi. "I think Naruto got a little wake up call about the realities of violence on this mission, too. Maybe..." He sighed, tiredly. "Maybe this will all turn out to have been for the best." And then, inevitably, he turned to look at Sasuke, at Haku and Zabuza, at the dead bodies of the laborers all over the bridge. I thought, too, of the villager who had been felled fighting Gatou's thugs.

But Sasuke. Sasuke. The beautiful boy I had always looked at with such admiration. The one I'd thought least likely to have died on a first mission away.

He was gone.

And I couldn't quite believe it, though I had seen it for myself. I walked slowly over to him and kneeled down beside him, putting a hand on his chest, where his heart had been. It was impossible, that this boy could be dead. It just was.

So when the chest moved underneath my hand, I screamed and jumped to my feet.

And then the chest moved again! Up... and down... And then Sasuke's eyes fluttered open. But how?! How?! I -

And then I realized. Haku.

"Kakashi-sensei, Haku spared Sasuke! His attack put him in a near death state, he missed all his vital organs!" And I began jumping around and cheering like a stupid little kid as Kakashi and Naruto both whipped around to stare at me wildly. "He's alive! He's alive! You're alive!"

And I leaned down and hugged Sasuke so hard he fell over again, and then I started laughing, and it was just. It was perfect.

And then the laborers slowly began coming to. Lifting their heads... blinking their eyes open...

"I want to check something," Kakashi said abruptly, and he walked right over to Haku and began rifling shamelessly through his equipment pouch. He lifted the bottle of poison out of it. And he smiled, sadly.

"Hey, Naruto," he called out. "That deadly paralysis poison? It wasn't deadly. It was a weak dose. It temporarily locks a person's limb in place and then releases it later."

Haku.

Naruto smiled. And then he started crying.

We buried all three of them: Haku. Zabuza. And that one brave first villager. There was a quiet hillside after the trees by Tazuna's house gave way, and that was where Kaiza was buried. The other three were buried beside him. Evidence of Gatou's madness, Gatou, whose empire was even now in the process of crumbling.

Gatou was not buried in the Wave.

We made wood crosses for the other three to go with the fourth, and we placed flowers and incense before each one, as the Academy had taught us was proper. "Were they right, Kakashi-sensei?" I asked after a moment, a couple of days later when we were all knelt quietly before the graves. "Is a ninja merely a murderous tool?"

Kakashi sat back, thinking. After a moment he said, "The idea is that ninja have to be inhuman. They cannot have emotions or seek a reason to exist, like most other people do. They must simply be weapons. Even in Konoha, certain people who believe that do exist."

"But they're not in power," I said quickly.

"... No," Kakashi agreed. "They are not. There are many in Konoha who do not like the idea."

"Good!" said Naruto firmly. "Because I'm never becoming a tool!"

"You're not?" I asked, smiling. Somehow, I'd expected it.

"Nah. I'm gonna be like Kaiza. Run straight down the protective path where I'm never going to regret anything!" And even Kakashi smiled at that.

"So... you don't believe in that ninja theory?" Sasuke guessed after a moment.

"Well, no," said Kakashi. "All ninja have emotions. All ninja seek a reason to exist. Even if it's dark, like with Zabuza's failed coup d'etat, or morbid, like with Haku's obsession with being Zabuza's perfect weapon. All human beings seek a reason to exist. All human beings care for other human beings. It's the way life works," he said simply. "I don't think there has ever been a single human being alive who has never cared for another and never sought a reason why they exist in this world."

I wondered what my reason to exist was. And after a moment, I realized the answer was obvious. I existed for others. I existed for the people I loved. Without my parents, without Ino and Sasuke, without Hinata, without Kakashi and Naruto - I would never have been in the first place.

"I agree," I said, and was pleased with my choice.

The bridge was finished within the next few days. The whole village chipped in to help. Meanwhile, I still taught my gardening classes, and the men on my team relaxed. I think they'd needed it more than me, to be perfectly honest.

And after a few days of recovery, it was time to go home. The whole village came out again on the bridge to wish us farewell. Someone told me they were thinking of calling it the Bridge of Seven, after my team, and for that I was rather touched.

The villagers were so much cheerier than they had been. Conversely, I felt like my team was more serious, like we'd grown up a little. We'd traded emotional states with the villagers. There had been both a gain and a loss of innocence. There was somehow a nice symmetry to it.

Every woman who had been in my classes gave me a huge hug and told me to be good and to write, just as if they were my mothers. Inari tried very hard not to cry at seeing us go, but in the end Naruto told him to be good and a few tears leaked out anyway. Tazuna thanked us, and said sincerely that he believed he was actually going to miss us.

"I think I'm going to miss you too," said Naruto with equal honesty, "you drunk old man."

Tazuna paused. And then we all began laughing at the sheer cheek.