Chapter 51

Sakura and Tazuna were talking about the Land of Waves when we passed by the conspicuous puddle that held within two Mist nin. If I hadn't been specifically watching Kakashi, I would have missed his knowing glance as we walked by the ambush. I felt restless. Between my crows, my own vague chakra sonar, and my foreknowledge, I had known they were ahead of us for the past two minutes.

As soon as they sprang from the puddle, I locked down the closest one in a genjutsu before stabbing him through the shoulder with a wooden bokuto, pinning him to the ground like a butterfly specimen. I flipped away before the gasmask-wearing ninja could claw at me with his good arm.

His partner was still disoriented by the failed ambush maneuver when Kakashi sucker punched him in the gut. The second Mist ninja dropped his end of the already limp spiked chain and collapsed to the ground.

I remarked to myself, "That was anticlimactic." Then I realized that everyone was staring at me. "What? Did I do something wrong?" Other than the pained breathing of the man desperately trying to pull my sword from the corner of his chest, it was awkwardly silent.

"That seemed a bit excessive, don't you think, Haru?" Kakashi said, pointing at the struggling Mist ninja.

I shrugged. "I had to protect the client," I said stoically through my mask.

"How did you...Did you already know this would happen, Haru?" Kakashi asked seriously.

"...yes."

"Well, good job," Kakashi said, as if he would discuss this with me later. "For now, is there anything else we should know about?"

"They're the Demon Brothers. They're missing-nin from Kirigakure hired by Gato to kill Tazuna, here. The bridge that the old man's building is a threat to Gato's stranglehold on the island nation. Right now the country is too poor to afford a B-rank mission so he didn't mention that he was being targeted by Gato's ninja. Unless we help him complete the bridge, Gato will drive the country into poverty and ruin."

"How did you know all that?!" the drunkard asked in surprise.

I gave my standard answer, "I read a lot."

"Tazuna-san, that's so sad. I didn't know your home was in so much trouble!" Sakura said. "Kakashi-sensei, are we going to help him?" she asked the jounin, earnest to help after hearing so much about Tazuna's homeland and suddenly learning about its predicament.

Kakashi turned to Sasuke. "What do you think? Fighting foreign ninja is beyond the scope of this mission. Should we return to Konoha?"

The Uchiha looked at me before answering confidently, "As if I'd quit now and let the shrimp take all the glory." Since the fight had been over in about one second, he and Sakura had only been able to put themselves between the attackers and the client.

I taunted him back, "Haha, you've still got a long way to go if you want to show me up, Sasuke."

Kakashi clapped his hands. "It's agreed then. We continue the mission. Haru, are you sure there isn't anything else you want to tell me before we continue?"

"Gato won't rest until the bridge builder is dead. We can expect more assassins to attack as the bridge nears completion."

Kakashi sighed before starting to tie the Demon Brothers to a tree by the road.

Once we reached the island by boat, I was on full alert. It was only a couple hours of traveling on the road until I heard one of my crows caw. I couldn't sense anything when I extended my chakra outward, but that was to be expected from a jounin-level missing-nin whose specialty was silent assassination. It didn't matter that using my chakra to sense other chakra made me light up like a Christmas tree to anyone else who could see or sense chakra. Zabuza would already know where we were.

Kakashi stopped us suddenly. "I know you're there. Come out already," he yelled up into the trees.

I grabbed Tazuna and tripped him, pulling him to the ground with me as a massive sword flew through the air at us at neck level. I thought it would have been nice to catch it and take it for myself now, but it was spinning far too fast. Sakura and Sasuke and Kakashi had likewise dodged the attack.

Kakashi broke the silence. "Well, well, if it isn't Zabuza Momochi, missing-nin from Kirigakure."

Zabuza was standing on the handle of his sword, the weapon currently embedded in a tall tree. "It's nice to meet you too, Konohagakure's famous Copy Ninja. No wonder the Demon Brothers failed."

"Everyone, stay back. This isn't someone who you can fight. He's on an entirely different level from those other ninja we saw," Kakashi warned. He gripped the underside of his forehead protector, no doubt revealing his Sharingan to intimidate Zabuza.

"I'm sure you already know why I'm here. But before I kill the old man, I'll let him watch me kill you and all your little kids," Zabuza said as he disappeared in a flicker, taking his sword with him. Sasuke's spray of shuriken landed harmlessly in the tree.

Kakashi warned Sasuke, "Sasuke! Protect the client!"

"Tsch, where did he go?" Sasuke said as a thick mist rolled in. In front of us, Kakashi's outline disappeared, obscured in white chakra-laced fog that Zabuza had summoned from a nearby stream.

I clapped my hands together. Lines of sealing ink escaped from between my palms in thin lines. With my fingers, I pried open a hole leading to the home of the crows. Thus, I called forth a small flock of black birds to call out Zabuza's location.

When they began to caw loudly, Zabuza's voice echoed out from beyond our sight, "That's against the rules. You're not allowed to know where I am until you're already dead!" More cawing sounded from behind us.

"Shit, I missed my chance to take him down with a genjutsu. Now we have to deal with his water clone. And damn, this killing intent is pretty strong."

Zabuza seemed to materialize next to Sakura, grabbing her by the neck and pulling her away. Kakashi instantly chased after him, following her screams in the fog.

My crows were cawing from three different directions. "Sasuke! Can you see anything with your Sharingan? Sasuke! Snap out of it!" Sakura's screams were getting more distant. "Fuck it!" After hiding away Tazuna under a shroud of genjutsu, I summoned my chakra into a Rasengan. "Sasuke, we have to find the real Zabuza."

"I know! You don't have to tell me twice!" Sasuke growled at me, regaining some of his fighting spirit. "But I can't see him! There's chakra everywhere!"

Zabuza's voice rang out, "Then they were all alone. Helpless little babies. I love hearing the dying cries of young ninja. It reminds me of home."

Tazuna walked forward, pulling his onion shaped hat off his head and yelling valiantly. "Enough! It's me you want! Just kill me and leave them alone."

"Don't mind if I do," Zabuza said, appearing between Tazuna and myself. With a single wide slash of his massive sword, he decapitated the old man. "What? A clone?" he shouted as Tazuna dissolved into a scattering of crows.

"Now, Sasuke!"

Sasuke charged forward with his own Rasengan, slamming it into Zabuza's water clone. Water splattered everywhere as it disintegrated from the attack.

When Zabuza's second clone appeared behind Sasuke, it too splattered into water as my Rasengan hit it in the back. Now that there was only one more source of cawing, I used the Replacement Technique with my crows to find the last Zabuza. Landing in a tree above him, this time I didn't hesitate and ensnared him in a genjutsu. I burned chakra to layer more and more illusions on top of my first one, ready to invade as soon as he broke the first illusion. I was finally satisfied when my thrown kunai bloodied his arms and he didn't wake up or revert to water.

Although I was expecting it, I was hugely pissed when two senbon impaled Zabuza's neck. I looked to the origin of the needles and saw a shinobi with long hair and a Kirigakure ANBU mask. "Thank you for tracking him down for me," said the ninja I knew to be Haku.

"No problem. You're a hunter-nin, right?"

"That's correct. Are you also a hunter-nin? I've been looking for an opportunity to kill this one for some time."

"Don't worry about it. Let me help you out." With a snap of my fingers, I created a Rasen-fireball and sent it into Zabuza, burning him alive in a fiery blaze. Haku screamed, tearing off his mask and flinging fistfuls of needles at me. I flickered around the burning corpse of Zabuza and pulled the Kubikiribocho off his back, blocking even more needles with the flat of the giant sword.

"That's not yours! Get your hands off that!" he screamed at me hysterically, his pretty eyes streaming tears.

"If you want it so badly, come and get it," I told him. By now, Zabuza was nothing but ashes, which was good because it was getting colder by the second.

I blasted through his ice mirrors with one last Rasengan, walking away as if they were never blocking my path to begin with. Never mind that I was unpleasantly low on chakra. As I walked, I blocked his senbon with my fancy new sword. The attacks stopped by the time I caught sight of Sasuke and the real Tazuna.

"Hey, guys. Let's go find Kakashi-sensei and Sakura," I said, dragging the Kubikiribocho along the ground. I wasn't hurt but I was definitely exhausted. "If Zabuza had a counter to genjutsu..." I didn't want to think about how much worse that fight could have gone. I was still too weak and unready to be happy with my cheap victory, and I felt fear in my heart as I considered how much stronger the Akatsuki would be.