Chapter 67

This measly little chapter took me 8 months to write… well at least now it is out of the way.

Kakashi Interlude

Kakashi just barely suppressed the urge to sigh while he watched the black haired teenager in front of the grave. The whole day had been such a giant cluster fuck and he was well aware that the consequences of this mission would follow him for the rest of his life, he just knew it.

It all started when Naruto had to run back to the house because in a moment of carelessness he forgot to seal up his secondary weaponry into one of his weapon seals that the kids had been putting on various parts of their gear in the last week. With Tazuna being impatient about continuing the bridge the rest of their team had decided to continue to the bridge without the blonde to stop the old man's grumbles.

And because fate truly hated Kakashi, it was of course this day that Zabuza decided to finally finish his job.

Long story short, Kakashi was without his strongest ninjutsu hitter during the initial confrontation with Zabuza and his Ice user apprentice. That Mist jutsu of the missing nin was just the icing on the cake because Kakashi still wasn't recovered enough to easily sense his opponent in that soup.

The only saving grace of this whole debacle was that both Sasuke and Sakura stayed relatively calm during the whole fight and followed his instructions without any kind of hesitation. Even so it was more luck than skill that let his two Genin weather out Haku's attacks until Naruto arrived and could give Sasuke more suitable back up.

The moment the blonde Uzumaki had arrived, Sakura had wisely chosen to fall back to both give the boys some more space for their combined ninjutsu attacks and moved her attention to their client to protect Tazuna against any incoming attacks. Maybe some additional instructions on body guarding would be useful for the pink haired Genin, from all his students she was probably the most suited for that.

Kakashi had to admit that he was very proud of his female student's behavior. She had kept her calm and started to slowly charge the barrier seals Kakashi had drawn up for precisely that reason. If he hadn't known what exactly Sakura was doing, he would have never noticed.

And then Sasuke was suddenly on the ground, riddled with senbon needles and everything just spiraled out of control. When Naruto drew on the Kyuubi's chakra it nearly gave Kakashi a heart attack and he could only barely redirect Zabuza's sword in the last moment, not that his opponent wasn't distracted either. The silver haired Jounin had to bit of a slew of curses as he deflected Kubikiribocho and jumped a few meters back to get a better look on the situation.

Sasuke was down and Naruto had in response lost control and wore the Kyuubi's chakra like a cloak. Crap, he was transforming. He needed to end this fight right now!

Naruto Interlude

'No, no, no…' a voice in Naruto's head chanted while he stared at Sasuke's senbon pierced form. This couldn't be happening…

Everything had gone wrong in a matter of moments. Naruto didn't understand why they had gained the upper hand, even with those pesky ice mirrors that their opponent used. The fake hunter nin had become more hard pressed with every attack. Replacing his ice mirrors was clearly costing him chakra, even if it wasn't as much as he and Sasuke were hoping for. Still they continued their barrage on and were waiting for an opportune moment to get one of their attacks through his defense and wear him down. Closing in on him and attacking their opponent without any idea of how skilled he was in close combat just sounded like a very bad idea.

And their strategy was working, Naruto knew that they could be damn proud on their combined fire-wind jutsus; they had just learned to get the timing right and they already had enough power that even an ice Kekkei Genkai user had problems withstanding. Within a few months or even years there would be nothing that could stop them on the battle field, the blonde ninja was sure of that.

And then the ice nin's mask had shattered under his latest wind attack and Naruto felt himself stumble. Haku.

Even if they hadn't had more than one encounter, Naruto felt strangely betrayed by the boy…

The distraction nearly cost him the fight.

If Teme hadn't moved in front of him to deflect the senbon needles, Naruto would have been pumped full with them and after one too many of Kakashi-sensei's senbon lectures in the last few days he knew damn well how versatile they were and how much damage they could cause if applied correctly or even incorrectly.

Forcibly the blonde Genin concentrated back on taking out Hak… their opponent.

Though he couldn't suppress the betrayed, "Why Haku?"

Naruto was aware that Sasuke was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Good, at least the Teme now knew that he was… what was the word Kakashi-sensei used? Emotionally Compromised? Yeah that.

"You said that you understood fighting for your precious people." The pretty shinobi said, his face so serene that Naruto wanted to punch him in the face, hard.

"Yeah, so what?!" Naruto knew that he shouldn't get so worked up but he really couldn't help it.

"Zabuza-sama is my precious person. I will do anything for him… even take you out."

That smile. It was really kind of creepy.

Beside him Sasuke's muscles tensed and relaxed again, his expression was clearly wary. Fanatics kind of creeped Sasuke out now that he had realized how close he himself had come to becoming one. The Uchiha had admitted to that some time during their elemental training when Sakura had asked why he took such great care to not overdo training when they had been used to Sasuke training at least an hour or two longer per day than them. Sakura had nodded at that and then grinned at both boys.

"Don't worry, if you start to obsess again I will run interference! You too Naruto… when we are home we will have some serious discussion about your Ramen and Orange Jumpsuit obsession."

Sasuke, the traitor had smirked at that while Naruto had slumped down and despaired inwardly.

Concentrating back on the ninja in front of him Naruto bit his lower lip hard before he pressed out furious.

"Come on Haku. You were pretty nice to me in the woods do we really have to fight? Gato is an asshole; can't you see how bad he is for Wave?" the blond pleaded.

Naruto had a hunch that Haku wasn't that immune to the suffering of the Wave people as he liked to pretend.

There was a moment of hesitation before Haku answered with another serene smile, "I'm a tool. A weapon for Zabuza-sama's use only, I will do whatever he asks of me, no matter the consequences."

Yeah Haku was clearly not all there mentally, Kakashi-sensei explicitly warned Team 7 about this kind of attitude and how fast this could spiral out of control. Naruto was sure that the talk had been meant for Sasuke mostly and he had found the whole thing hilarious at that moment, but now… well the blonde Genin felt sick on his stomach, Haku truly believed what he was saying.

Beside him Sasuke returned to his classical fire ninjutsu stand, the teme was right continuing to talk would do no good here. Maybe when Haku was a bit more beat down he could try again but right now trying to get through that conditioning was a waste of time.

With now well practiced ease Naruto timed his Fuuton attack to hit Sasuke's Katon one when it had reached a certain coloration and as predicted their attack burst outward and took down another five ice mirrors, not that their place would be empty for long. This time though Sasuke after releasing his fire jutsu continued to move and what the hell was Teme doing? Naruto barely recognized the hand seals for another Katon when he could feel his hands instinctively run through the matching Fuuton hand signs to give Sasuke's jutsu a significant boost. And it was more luck than actual timing that he looked up right in that moment when Sasuke changed direction and aimed his jutsu at the same place they had just destroyed. Faithfully Naruto followed and with disbelief he watched as their jutsu crashed in slowly reforming ice mirrors and blasted out a steaming figure.

They had caught Haku with a full frontal.

Even a month ago Naruto would have stood there shocked and waited for the prone figure to recover. A month of Kakashi-sensei conditioning them out of that bad habit had both Genin moving before Haku even finished sliding across the concrete floor. They were about fifteen meters away when Haku suddenly moved and a barrage of senbon hit Sasuke right in the chest and the neck. Naruto could only watch horrified as his rival, his teammate sank to the floor and closed his eyes.

There was a curious buzzing in Naruto's ears before rage punched through his body like one of the Uchiha's fire jutsus.

His mind felt hazy and sluggish and entirely too slow in comparison to his speed which had nearly tripled. With a simple flexing of the chakra that was now cursing hot through his veins Naruto shattered the rest of the mirror dome around them and narrowed in on Haku's form. Naruto didn't even entertain the thought of using the jutsus or taijutsu he had learned since graduating from the Academy, instead he rammed the ice user into the bridge and started to punch him repeatedly in the face and torso. The blonde Genin had an out of body experience while his fists buried themselves into Haku's blank face, once, twice, three times before he had even hit the bridge, each punch left behind a fine sheen of red chakra that attacked Haku's porcelain skin. Naruto probably would have continued with that until his opponent was dead had Haku tried to retaliate. Instead the slightly elder boy had been calmly accepting the hits Naruto had doled out with silence and only squirmed slightly when the red chakra began to eat at his skin.

"Naruto!"

It was Sakura's voice from behind him that ripped Naruto out of his trance and he felt his anger recede, only to be replaced by horrified realization.

'Shit' was the only word his thoughts could manage. Not that it stopped him from using what he had learned about restraining opponents, Naruto absently grabbed into his pouch for a repressing seal while his thoughts whirled around what had just happened, he had totally lost control… was that the power of the Kyuubi? Now at least he understood why Kakashi-sensei warned him about trying to experiment with it without supervision, it felt like a drug.

Kakashi Interlude

The moment he felt the Kyuubi chakra recede Kakashi burst into a blur of movements, he was running out of time and he had to end this fight now!

His hand flew through the seals for the summoning jutsu and in less than a second he was surrounded by the ninken that he normally used for ANBU missions, a sharp one worded command had them vanish into the mist. Kakashi took another deep breath before he forced his body into a nearly damaging speed and strained his barely recovered chakra coils to produce a Chidori that was only about half as strong as his normal ones.

Zabuza had no chance.

In the same moment his dogs bit into him Kakashi punched with his assassination attack right through his left lung. The missing nin would be dead in a matter of moments.

A nearly inhuman scream echoed over the bridge only to ebb out in broken sobs. Zabuza's accomplice, Haku was it? The teenager's eyes were fixated on Zabuza's broken body lying on the concrete bridge.