At the crack of dawn, Sakura went to check on Naruto, Lu, and Sasuke, but there was no sign of the boys. She didn't panic and saw their absence as a sign that they're training or doing something to clear their heads.
"I presume they're not here?" Kakashi, who was at the end of the hallway called to Sakura as she finished looking for her friends.
"If they are they're not in the house at all," Sakura shrugged, before leaving the house with her equipment.
"Just what am I gonna do with them," Kakashi sighed.
"Morning, Mr. Hatake, where are the kiddos?" Tazuna asked.
"Still missing, likely to come back before noon," the silver haired man shrugged.
"If that's the case, we can eat breakfast before I go back to the bridge. My colleagues aren't going to the bridge until Gato's men leave the bridge," the older man suggested, going to the dining room to wait for Tsunami to finish cooking.
In a clearing, the three boys sat in silence. They initially were going to train, but once they got to the clearing they all sat silently for a few hours.
"So…what's the plan?" Sakura, who had just arrived in the clearing asked the boys.
"I dunno. What I do know is that I don't feel like training," Naruto exhaled.
"I agree. After yesterday, I have a few base ideas and I'm not looking forward to creating new applications for the cloudstyle," Lu shrugged.
"That's what you're calling it now? What a simple name," Sasuke mocked.
"Your dojutsu is quite literally called the 'copy wheel eye,' it's hard to compete with something that simple," Lu shot back.
"Fair enough,"Sasuke conceded, "...so, when are we going to the bridge, Sakura?" he followed inquisitively.
"Noon? We should be there by ten and right now it's dawn, it'd be better for you to take a nap or at least eat," the girl responded, surprised at how calm they've been.
"We'll be there early, around nine or so, tell Kakashi sensei that we'll be there on time, aside from that, the general plan is to exhaust Zabuza while keeping two of us relatively fine, preferably Sasuke and you because of your chakra reserves," Naruto added, before setting up a tent and creating one clone to watch as the boys slept.
A few hours later, Naruto was suddenly filled with memories of needles piercing his neck, startling him awake. He woke Lu and Sasuke up and then told Lu to make a bubble dome large enough to sense around him, which the white haired boy complied with, but shrugged as he got no results.
"I don't know who did that but it'd be better for us to alert Kakashi sensei and finish this mission early so that we can get rid of the problem at the root," Sasuke suggested.
"Now we get to fight something? Finally? I can't wait to beat that mercenary's ass," Naruto cracked his knuckles and sent a few clones to find Kakashi and tell him the circumstances. Surprisingly, Kakashi, Tazuna, Inari, and Tsunami were all at the bridge and it was nearly completed.
"That's awfully convenient," Lu pointed out.
"Very. Zabuza's probably gonna ambush us and target Inari and his mom," Sasuke added.
The three boys shunshinned to the bridge nonetheless and when they arrived, a torrent of water collided with the center of the bridge, sending a few bridge builders into the lake below and causing a noticeable gap.
"I hope you didn't think we forgot about us," Zabuza sneered as he leaped in front of Kakashi, followed by a masked shinobi who was holding needles.
"Needles. Neat," Naruto pointed out, "I found the culprit," he added.
"How are you alive, boy?" The masked shinobi asked calmly with a bit of tension in their voice.
"That's strange coming from someone who's about my height, but maybe you weren't aiming to kill me with your needles, Haku," Naruto retorted.
"You know their name?" Sasuke quizzed.
"Yeah, apparently he was talking to my clone before he tried to kill me," Naruto sighed, "His whole goal is to help Zabuza because he's his 'weapon' or whatever, and upon me declining his request to withdraw from the mission, he threw three poisoned needles at my neck.
"Yet you still do not understand, what a pity," Haku hissed, dashing at Naruto, but was intercepted by a chain of water bullets that were as long as arrows and thin as needles, following the trend of needles by being pointed similar to needles.
"Unfortunately, I can't let you stop him from fighting your alleged master," Sakura interjected.
"Then you'll die first," Haku coldly replied, blitzing past Naruto and Lu, using his momentum to launch a barrage of needles at Sakura.
Sakura leaped above the needles, but Haku's barrage did not end, following the pink haired girl as she spiraled and dodged in the air, using her water senbon to block some of Haku's very own needles. Sasuke saw an opportunity and activated his sharingan, following the needles and began casting phoenix flowers to intercept Haku's senbon in bulk. This allowed for both Lu and Naruto to continue ahead and assist Kakashi, but the combined effort of Sakura and Sasuke only resulted in a barely even match against Haku.
"We need ot change our plan," Sasuke offered.
"I have an idea, but you're going to need to figure out how to use the jutsu I'm about to use myself. After that, follow my lead, we'll have to catch him off-gaurd if we want to gain an advantage," Sakura communicated silently, using a Water Prison jutsu to reduce the impact of Haku's senbon and opening an opportunity for Sakura to cast her version of the Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding technique that sprouted roots that wrapped themselves around Haku, binding him down to the bridge momentarily until he realized that he was in a genjutsu, freeing himself. By the time the boy had escaped the genjutsu, Sasuke casted three large fireballs that he fired off at Haku in quick succession, disrupting his footing.
"You two are getting quite annoying. Before I kill you two, I do want to know; why are you fighting a downhill battle?" Haku griped.
"Because we know we can win," Sasuke replied confidently.
The sky turned red and the clouds became black around Haku. Sakura's plan was to use a genjutsu and make it obvious, leading to Haku releasing the initial effect, but with Sasuke's ability to see chakra in a near x-ray fashion, he could route the chakra to begin effecting Haku in a delayed matter, leading to a gradual genjutsu. This genjutsu was modified with the Kurama style that Kurenai taught Sakura, allowing for Haku's perception to feel like reality.
"That was impressive, but still, not enough," Haku congratulated from behind Sakura, pelting her with senbon that paralyzed her slowly because it was coated in a tranquilizing poison.
He followed this act by creating a dome of ice mirrors that encased Sakura and Sakura, which he used to amplify his speed and throw senbon from all over, seemingly phasing into the mirrors and being able to enter and exit as he pleased.
"Maybe I should go over there,"Lu,who saw the Haku create the dome of ice mirrors grunted as he blocked Zabuza's blade with a thickened cloud, one that was layered to absorb the impact of the man's attack, sucking the man allowed for Kakashi to capitalize off of the man's sudden stop as the clouds restricted his blade and arms..
Lu rushed towards Haku's ice mirrors and charged his chakra, using clouds at his feet to aid his mobility as if he were skating. With the built up chakra in his arms he expelled two large bubbles, hoping they'd be able to absorb a portion of the ice mirrors and allow the boy to intercept Haku's onslaught against his teammates.
"That's nice," Haku began, "one of your friends would like to join you on your deathbeds, you should be honored," he teased.
"Lu, WAIT," Sasuke wheezed, "DON'T CO-" The boy was stopped by another barrage of senbon that were aimed to stop him from moving by attacking his pressure points.
As Lu's bubbles came into contact with Haku's ice mirrors, they seemed to be fizzing out as if they were being rejected by the mirrors and he didn't feel any chakra returning to him.
'If those won't work, maybe these will?"he thought quickly, before noticing a few senbon flying his way, which he blocked by moving the clouds that were on his feet to his hands and absorbing the impact of the three senbon that came his way.'I still don't know what these clouds can do, crap, maybe we should've actually trained before engaging with Zabuza again,' he grimaced internally.
With one swift motion, he expanded and thinned the cloud and funneled more chakra into his arms, noticing that clouds were coming from his hands and swirling around his forearms as he added chakra. This drained his reserves rapidly, but he was able to add lightning chakra and use the misty nature of clouds to fog the interior of Haku's dome, hoping that the electricity being conducted would be enough to either catch Haku off guard, injuring him enough to break the dome or attack the dome itself by having the electricity being conducted through the thin ice mirrors. This resulted in the former occurring, except this gambit only dragged him into Haku's mirrors and as he recovered, he was too a victim of his opponent's onslaught.
"Great," Sasuke grumbled.
"Save it for later, duckbutt," Lu griped.
"How about both of you save it, besides, I think I have a plan to get us out of here," Sakura chastised, dodging out of the way of another barrage of senbon.
"I'm surprised to see that you can still move with that poison coursing through your veins," Haku commended, "...then again, you're not faster than me so this will all be in vain," he added before phasing into another mirror.
"You see that? When he phases into the mirrors he can't attack and is vulnerable to being interrupted, so if we could find a way to attack him as he entered or the second he exited a mirror, we may have a chance of escape," Sakura analyzed, throwing a few explosive kunai to disrupt Haku's aim, forcing him to miss her, Lu, and Sasuke.
"My bubbles don't do physical damage, they just shock you and cause fatigue and my clouds are seemingly only able to absorb impact," Lu offered.
"That's great actually, if Sasuke can use the rat tremor jutsu, he can effectively create damaging discs of lightning. If you use your clouds to absorb the impact of them without destroying the discs then you'll be able to delay them and obscure when they'll be able to attack Haku, catching him off gaurd," Sakura explained, dodging out of the way of another three senbon.
"If you can add regular water bullets to my clouds, I can effectively make a ministorm coupled with the increased conductivity of water, as if it was raining and we had lightning," Lu gathered, flipping out of the way of a barrage of senbon, far more dense than Haku was previously using. "You getting desperate?" Lu called to his opponent.
"As if. I'm merely trying to make your deaths painful," Haku hissed in response.
With his opponent riled up, Lu initiated the plan, starting by using the Bubble Style: Cloud Pellet, creating a plume of chakra bubbles that gradually filled his chakra reserves and served as a way to hide his next move, which was to create twenty clouds, a small table's width, to catch Haku in whatever mirror he chose next. As Haku jumped through mirrors, it was evident that he was slowing down as a result of the clouds, yet each time he jumped through the clouds, he ended up cutting a few of them in half, making them about hte size of a person's head, which only served to harm him in the end. Sakura expelled as many water bullets as she could mold at Lu's clouds and Sasuke spewed lightning discs with the Rat Tremor Jutsu, allowing for the last part of their plan to begin. Lu pulled a few clouds towards himself and added chakra to them to allow them to begin the storm.
"New Cloud Style: EXPLOSIVE STORM!" He screamed he released the discs that were boosted by water propelling them as they left his clouds, scathing himself or his teammates a couple of times as discs flew out sporadically, destroying Haku's ice dome.
"You fools. I was trying to be polite by killing you with mere senbon, but you JUST. DON'T. QUIT!" Haku bellowed as three large spikes of ice erupted onto the bridge, aimed directly at Lu, who was now breathing heavily trying to gather his stamina after the gambit he'd just taken.
"LU! WATCH OUT!" Sasuke cried out as they approached his friend. The Uchiha noticed his body was moving and everything was twice as slow as they'd initially been when he'd unlocked his sharingan during training.
Sakura's eyes widened in horror as she saw Sasuke run directly into the oncoming Spikes, but once they arrived where Lu was recovering, there was no painful sound of flesh being pierced nor her friends being knocked down. She steadied herself and dashed through the spikes in order to reach mid or close range with her opponent and use a genjutsu to stagger Haku even if for a second to create an opening for Sasuke, who was right behind her. Lu finally recovered and stood up, but froze in shock as he felt his legs stiffen and his arms give out, slumping back to the ground.
'I…can't…I. Can't. Move…'