4- Graduation

The two senior ninja size each other up, both seem to identify their targets. "Zabuza Momochi. What an honor to encounter one of the Seven Swordsmen." Kakashi probes, allowing the self assured man to inflate his ego. "Kakashi the Copy-cat, I wonder what that old man is actually worth to encounter you here? Or is it your value has dropped? Peace make you soft?" Ignoring the jab, Kakashi orders "Get in formation, do not engage, he's too much for you." Uncovering his left eye to reveal a slowly spinning set of tomoe around a pitch pupil in the solid red iris. "The Sharingan already? I'm flattered, but yet to be impressed!" Watching Zabuza put up his Hidden Mist jutsu, Kakashi watches the chakras around him. |A water clone waiting, kids in formation, Naruto has that jutsu up, and it looks exhausting.| Taking advantage of the mist Kakashi makes a Water Clone of his own to intercept Zabuza's in waiting, before using his chakra to clear the mist.

"These children are supposed to be useful?" As expected, Zabuza's clone appears in the center of the formation, in a showboating pose. "Their hands don't have any bl-" Using its foot to jam the plain blade in the dirt, Kakashi's water clone quips back, "I have enough for the team." holding the uniform knife under the clone's chin. The real Executioner Blade hones in on the group, aiming to split the entire group where it stood to be stopped by Kakashi knocking Naruto to the side while blocking the huge swing to find it would have been better to dodge. Kakashi careens through the clones in lock, and into the pond beyond them. The genin watch as Kakashi struggle out of the dense water as Zabuza appears next to him. "Water Prison jutsu! You're rusty copy-cat, lets see if these brats deserve their headbands."

The group menaced by Zabuza's new water clone is frozen in the shock of the exchange that put their sensei in a losing position. "Run! Go now, the clone can't follow for too long, you're no match, GO!" Sakura inching backwards looks to Tazuna's grim face as he looks on to the two boys before him. One in contemplation, thinking the situation through, deciding that fighting is their best chance, while the other limbered up after the involuntary flinch at his sensei's words. "Don't freeze this time loser." "You're pretty stiff there, why don't you thaw while I do some real work?" Naruto begins rushing in at the amused simulacrum of the swordsman before making twenty of his own to pin it down in a flurry of seemingly unpredictable strikes with pepperings of Sasuke's immaculate shuriken strikes. The seasoned swordsman throws and grabs any clone unlucky enough to be caught into each other or the path of Sasuke's shuriken that would prove too much effort to dodge. Narrowly grabbing the real Naruto mid attack, this Zabuza aims to throw him into the shaking pink guard and the old man behind her, not accounting on the blonde to entirely stop the momentum midair before making a second volley of clones. |He stopped midair, and made another batch of clones. The other is studying me while testing my defenses with shuriken. I'll give them one more go before I deal with them.| Readying himself for the next assault, the water clone plucks the kunai thrown by Sasuke from the air before the churning mass of orange charges.

Each of Naruto's clones are batted away as easily as the first volley, this time using the confiscated kunai to dispel them down to a managable number. "Is this all you have to offer brats? Where I come from there is no graduation without blood!" Watching the shock etch on the faces of these children, he aims the kunai at their weakest link. |Too green.| Sakura caught in Zabuza's malice, can't muster the will to dodge or deflect the kunai. Her eyes adjust as the point of the knife sits an inch from her eye, unmoving. With a sharp spike of a new malice, she looks to the voice closest to her, "Here's you're blood asshole! Sasuke, NOW!" She looks from Naruto's Impaled hand to Sasuke unfolding a fuma shuriken in a disciplined display. "Shuriken Jutsu: Demon Windmill Shuriken!" Zabuza's clone turns its eyes to the shuriken before being dispelled by an angry and unsupervised Naruto. Zabuza catches the first shuriken before jumping over the second in the shadow of the first. Just before he can open his mouth to taunt the genin the dodged shuriken transforms into a blonde mid throw of a kunai. |I got distracted? Well I can take a kunai.| Rather than move as Sasuke though he would, to their shock he lets the kunai hit the arm as he rotates it to do minimal damage. Feeling the weight shift in his other arm he sees that another clone has a hand in his face.

POP! Managing to hop back and throw the clone, he manages to get away with only a ring in his left ear. |That would have deafened me. The eyesore dies first!| Reaching his hand back for his blade, Zabuza is force to dodge as the brat's wet sensei swipes at his neck with a kunai. The engage is fast and even keeled for the untrained eye, but Sasuke see's the demonstration of his families dojutsu has Zabuza on the backfoot with Kakashi using it to read Zabuza's attempts to free the sword from his back. Recovering from Naruto's jutsu, Zabuza changes the pace by dropping into the water to dodge Kakashi's kick, having to still deflect to kunai that chased him into the lake. Finally freeing his oversized blade, he swings it upward to break the surface and carry him out while forcing Kakashi back. Immediatly sticking to the sword with his shoulder, Zabuza begins to weave his jutsu's handseals, and watching in horror as his opponent keep up with the same signs. Two translucent dragons rip from the lake and collide, Kakashi's spinning red eye taunting Zabuza. |Can he r-| "Read my mind?" The Konoha jonin smiles as his opponent's face turn red, and begins to race him with the next jutsu's seals. Kakashi finishes first. "Water Release: Water Vortex Jutsu!" Bracing behind his executioner's blade, Zabuza can do nothing but endure his own jutsu until his back is forced into a thick tree that groans in strain until the water subsides. Standing to see one of the Leaf's war heros approaching him, just before a sharp pain and darkening vision.

Kakashi stops as the hunter ninja drops next to Zabuza inspecting their aim. "I thank you for the assistance, I have been looking for this opportunity for weeks." |He's young, perhaps a couple of years ahead of my students. I don't have enough chakra to handle him too if he is aligned with Zabuza. Best let them get away for now.| "Who are you!?" Naruto runs up to the scene after seemingly bandaging his hand. "Thats a Kiri hunter ninja Naruto, they chase rogue ninja from their village to prevent the leaking of village secrets." As the hunter ninja picks up the body, Naruto moves to intercept , but is stopped by Kakashi. "No, this isn't our buisness." Letting the duo dissapear, Naruto lashes out, "Dammit! He just killed Zabuza, like THAT! He wasn't even that much older than us!" "NARUTO! Cut that out." Satisfied that Naruto has given his full attention Kakashi continues, "There are those younger than you, and stronger than me. This is the world." Covering his eye, he moves to continue their journey, but collapses on his first step. "Sensei!" the genin call out. Checking on him, Sasuke states simply, "He's out cold. He might have chakra exhaustion."

The boat ride was rather uneventful despite the tension thicker than the fog and heavier than the bridge they pass under. The silence almost covers the lazy waves, no on daring to break it while Kakashi is down. Oblivious to it is Naruto, occupied by his scrolls, so absorbed he doesn't notice Tazuna reading over his shoulder. Pulling close to the pier, Naruto rolls up his scroll and waits for everyone to get off the boat before making a clone to help him haul Kakashi to the nearby house. Moving swiftly, Tazuna opens the door and begins to prepare a resting area while the jonin's subordinates carry him in. Past the commotion of Tazuna's daughter, and some rushed introductions, Kakashi lays dead to the world.

-The next day

Stirring, Kakashi resist the urge to wrench open his eye, rather opting to sniff the air. |Sea salt, rice, and treated wood. We made it to Tazuna's house. Judging by the noise a ways off, Naruto is using his time to learn that jutsu the Hokage gave him.| Slow and deliberate, Kakashi opens the exposed eye as to not blind himself, looking to see a woman in plain clothes cleaning the room around him. Clearing his throat to both test his voice and get her attention, she turns to him. "You're awake, do you want me to call your students in?" "Please do miss?" "Tsunami." Moving to the door and opening it to find Sakura already approaching, to dash in past her. "Sensei! You're awake! Good maybe you can talk some sense into the idiot." Kakashi raises an eyebrow as Tsunami leaves the room. "Care to catch me up while we wait?"

Being caught up on the events during the end of, and after the fight, Kakashi summarizes, "We're at Tazuna's, Sasuke is off training in the nearby woods, and Naruto is practicing a jutsu off the pier, despite his injured hand?" "My hand is not that bad off, I'm fine." "HOW!? I saw that kunai on from my side! How does a hand with a HOLE in it classify as FINE!?" As he opens his mouth, Kakashi cuts off the ongoing argument, "Let me see that hand Naruto." Walking over, Naruto undoes the slightly browned bandage, containing more sweat than blood at this point. Holding it out to Kakashi who gingerly holds it steady to examine the closed angry flesh where there should be a hole. |Kyubi.| "He's fine." Sakura stomps over in disbelief to look at the angry red welt on both sides of his hand. "See, fine. Oh, and I got the jutsu down!" Before Kakashi could vocalize his surprize, Sasuke walks into the room, wrapping his sore knuckles. |He's working on his taijutsu?| "I am both pleased and disappointed by your actions in our fight with Zabuza. You all saved my hide, against my orders. Care to explain why?" With Sakura looking down cast, without answer, and Naruto sputtering for a justification, Sasuke answers, "If we ran, he likely would have finished you and killed us with little trouble. It was better to try to free you while he was immobilized, probably a similar handicap to what you do fighting us." A brief tense moment before the jonin seemingly accepts the answer. "I apologize, my worry would have led you to death, I'll have more confidence in you three in the future. To show how sorry I am, I'll train you lot into the ground this week. We'll have another round with Zabuza about that time."

Sakura with immediate panic in her voice objects, "But he's dead! Isn't he?" almost pleading she looks over at her teammates, Sasuke indifferent and Naruto.. relieved. "Likely not, senbon aren't often used as lethal weapons and when they are, they don't have that kind of stopping power. I didn't have the energy to take on a fresh fighter, so I let him go." "You mean that psycho talking about graduation and blood is alive?!" Tazuna standing in the doorway terrified at the news. "If he is, it'll take him time to recover from a near death state, about a week. In the meantime I'll need you to stick close until one of my genin finishes their training. We don't want a thug getting you while Zabuza rests." Silence fills the room as Tsunami stands solemnly next to her father, broken by Sasuke. "What did he mean by 'There is no graduation without blood'?" "I suppose you should know as much as you can. In Kiri, they used to pair students in their academy together, and then have them fight to the death in their graduation exam, the idea that if you could kill your best friend is service to your village, you could kill anyone. They stopped this tradition after an entire class was killed by a boy not even in the academy, Zabuza."

-Undisclosed

There, laying in bed, Zabuza watches his unmasked and fair faced associate prepare a tincture to apply to his wounds. Hearing footsteps echo close to his door, Zabuza lays his head back and closes his eyes. |I don't have the energy to deal with this bullshit for long, I'll let Haku handle the talking.| Entering the room is a squat man in a expensive suit, reaching an even five feet if you count the dirty gray hair styled like a mane, flanked by two overconfident armed thugs. Moving up to the bed, Gato's nazely voice rings in the room, "You are a waste of money Zabuza, you couldn't even kill a lone bridge builder." "He hired a shinobi guard , a war hero even." "I should just save the money and be rid of you -" As Gato reaches out, he feels a hand firmly grasp his arm. Looking to his guards, now lying boneless on the floor, senbon in their necks. "We will have the bridge builders head for you, but do not press your luck with us, Mr. Gato, in a little over one week." As Gato's other hand reaches for the knife under his shirt, Haku squeezes the arm into a clean break, eliciting a howl for the break, sharpening to a scream when Haku drops his arm to swing before Gato can cradle it. "Let that serve as a reminder as to what shinobi are, Mr. Gato." Haku says, seeing the humbled man out of the room, polite smile never leaving his face.