Chapter 39 New Alliance

In Gato's heads quarters one his Lieutenants was marching to the room that the ninja and the boy were using with a large group of hired killers as well. He had gathered up some of the worse types of people he could find as he wanted to make sure that this ninja was killed. They would have to rush him with the best killers he could find. They walked over to the door as their leader stopped, he was a bit nervous after all he had heard the stories about this guy.

"So is he in there?" One of the new guys asked.

"Yes and be quit, the food we sent in was laced with a drug that should knock him out but just in case he didn't take it we need to go in there and hack the big bastard down. Then we can deal with the boy on the bed as well once the big one is taken care of." The lieutenant told them.

"Oh come on it's not like he's expecting this and he's only one man." Another said grinning at the thought of an easy pay check for this.

The group's leader was about to make a comment on that but he never got that far, as Zabuza's sword suddenly came through the door and right through the leader and two of the others, while cutting the arm off another. Cries of pain and death sounded as the door suddenly split open as Zabuza himself stormed out. He saw the shocked and surprised faces, that was good for him he liked it when they were scared.

He had noticed the drug in the food, only a genin wouldn't notice that kind of trick, hell he had used that trick before himself on certain targets when he couldn't get close as did many in his line of work. So he had been waiting for this, he had put a chair by the door waiting for the men to come. Once they were close enough he would attack them first to throw them off, then it was a simple matter of hacking the rest to pieces.

Which led to this moment as he swung his huge sword throwing the bodies off the blade and managed to cleave through a few more men, there were shouts and people yelling and total chaos, this was bad for them but good for him. One man against a group was bad odds but when that group was disoriented it turned the odds in his favor.

"Come and meet your death," Zabuza yelled at he tore into the group. He showed no mercy as with his large sword gave him a long reach, a couple tried to get under his blade but a punch here or a kick there to get rid of that problem, sometimes he broke a rib or kicked a knee to bend in a way that wasn't meant for a human knee to bend. That caused more problems for them as now they had men on the floor trying to get around the ones rolling on the ground in pain.

Zabuza also had another thing to worry about, he had to cover the doorway in case someone got by him and tried to use Haku against him as a hostage. So he didn't let it happen, he cut, sliced, hacked his enemies to pieces. The blood flowed and flew as the room was starting to be painted in the blood of his enemies as he was being painted in the red blood as well, making him look every bit the 'demon' that he was nicknamed.

He could smell the fear in the air as their confidence dropped, that was when they were truly dead. When you thought you were going to die and didn't fight for survival you were as good as dead, and he could sense that in them. Some of them started to run away for help at least the smart ones did, the rest he finished off. By the time he was the done the place looked literally like hell itself.

He was breathing a little hard and his arms started to ache but years of using his sword had made him strong enough to have kept swinging for an hour. But he had little time now, he quickly went back into his room and got the chair he had been sitting on and threw it at the large window breaking the glass. He went over to Haku's bed and putting his sword on his back he gently picked up the boy in his arms.

Zabuza had taken care to prepare Haku for travel, he immobilized him as much as he could wrapping the boy's arms to his chest and making sure the wound was tightly bonded up too. The boy moaned a bit in pain and he was sorry for that but they couldn't stay here anymore. He positioned him as best he could in his arms before jumping out the window and making his way to the only place he might be able to take Haku.

-Wave Village-

Sakura wasn't sure what was going on but there was something going on with two of her friends. Naruto and Hinata had been acting weird around each other for the past few days. Hinata would blush even more at the sight of Naruto and he would look a little sheepish around her as well. Something was up but when she pressed them for something they wouldn't say what exactly.

It was frustrating not knowing and so she took her frustrations out on her training. She had so far mastered the water walking and was building up her chakra now, as controlling her chakra was something she had always been good at. She wanted to learn some more justus and Kurenai was able to help her with refining her genjustu skills but she needed to learn a bit more. Mainly something more offensive would be helpful.

Sakura had also taken to practicing with her tonfas in the woods as well, after her last training session she was tired, sweaty and a certain tree now had pieces of the bark removed from all the hits. Her arms felt dead afterwards as she kept her wrist weights on but it was good for her.

She sighed as she sat on the ground taking a break and a nice cold drink from her canteen. She closed her eyes as she rested against the tree, all in all this land wasn't bad although she hoped that the village would recover. Every day she helped Tsunami with her shopping and every day it broke a bit of her heart at seeing how the people lived. She still remembered that little girl that asked for food, her body looked like the girl hadn't eaten much in days and Sakura was most likely right.

There was also another reason she was working so hard, mainly to try and not think about her own little problems. Mainly that she had given up on having more than a friendship with Naruto and now the whole thing with Sasuke just left the girl feeling depressed.

'Maybe I should just focus more on my ninja life,' Sakura sighed.

'Hell no! You can't give up now, I say we get stronger and then Sasuke-kun will have to notice us!' Inner Sakura told her.

'You think that might work?'

'Well if we can't ask him out he didn't say anything about asking us out,' Her inner self said.

To Sakura that actually made a little sense but then she had no idea what Sasuke even liked. She remembered that rumor that he liked long hair and nearly all the girls had grown it out, Ino being one of them. But Naruto had said he liked her hair the way it was and she had liked him a bit back then too, plus Sasuke didn't seem interesting in long hair. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't remember any girl that caught his interests.

'Maybe we should ask for some help?'

'From who though?' Sakura thought about it.

For relationship advice maybe Kurenai would be nice, it would be good to get another female ninja's views on it. Plus, Sakura bet that Kurenai had to have a lot more experience in this given she was an adult. But who to ask what Sasuke liked? She couldn't go right up to him and ask because she doubted he would answer and it would be pretty silly.

'Maybe Naruto would know?'

'You think?'

'Well, he and Sasuke train a lot together and maybe because they're boys they would share or talk about girls?'

Sakura doubted it but it wasn't like she had anything else to go on, and even though Naruto and Sasuke never seemed to get along, as far as she knew, Naruto was the closest thing to a friend that Sasuke had.

"S-Sakura?"

Sakura was pulled out of her thoughts by the familiar stutter of her friend Hinata. She looked over to see the girl playing with her index fingers like she normally did.

"A-are you okay?" Hinata asked seeing Sakura's rather haggard look.

"Yeah I'm just taking a break from training," Sakura told her. "I really need to keep up with my teammates and it's not easy. Sasuke-kun's like a natural and with Naruto's stamina and the way he works himself to death, I need to keep up or I won't be any use to them."

Hinata nodded knowing what it was like to live up to high expectations. She sat down next to the other girl, they had known each other for years and she and Ino were the only two girls that Hinata was friends with. It was nice to have some female company at times as well.

"So...what's going on with you and Naruto?" Sakura asked as this was her chance to find out what was going on.

"H-Huh!?" Hinata blushed bright red.

"Oh come on, you and him have been acting all weird and the others may not notice but I have. So come on what's going on? You two aren't fighting or anything are you?"

"N-no it's nothing like that," Hinata said quickly.

"Well come on, you might feel better if you tell me." Sakura asked her nicely.

Hinata thought about it, she hadn't really talked to someone and keeping it all in wasn't really helping her either. She eventually broke and told the other girl what had happened on the roof.

"You two kissed!?" Sakura couldn't believe it, sure it was an accident but she knew of Hinata's crush on Naruto, and the girl finally got her first kiss with him. The romantic side of her was going nuts with images of the two of them in a romantic setting.

"B-But it was an accident, we even talked about it." Hinata told her.

-flashback-

It was the morning after the kiss and both teens had been having trouble even looking the other in the eye. Hinata kept blushing more than usual when she locked eyes with him and felt like feinting when she thought back to Naruto's mouth on hers. Her heart would skip several beats faster and she couldn't look at him for too long before she felt like she couldn't take anymore. Naruto was kind of the same as he blushed lightly thinking back on that day.

Eventually it was just getting too much and Naruto managed to catch Hinata along at the end of the day.

"Hey Hinata-chan can we talk?" Naruto asked her.

"S-sure," Hinata wasn't able to say more than that in fear that she wouldn't be able to talk anymore.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked.

"H-huh?"

"I mean you won't look at me or even talk to me so I figured that you were mad," Naruto said looking down. The last thing he wanted was for Hinata of all people mad at him, if she was mad that made it feel like he had just gotten kicked in the guts by a horse.

"N-no! I'm not mad Naruto-kun really!" She was really didn't want him to think that she was mad at him.

"So then why have you been avoiding me?" Naruto wondered.

"W-well it's just that, you know, when we, um..." Hinata pushed her index fingers together trying to explain it.

"Was it a bad kiss?" Naruto scratched his head.

"No!" Hinata instantly covered her mouth as her eyes widened.

"Well that's good," Naruto chuckled, "I hate to think it was a bad kiss but it was a lot better than the last one I got."

Hinata couldn't help but giggle at the disgusted face he made as she too remembered that day.

"Hey it's not that funny," Naruto whined.

"S-sorry," Hinata said with a small smile.

"So...it was a good kiss then?" Naruto asked as she blushed so red he thought she that was a good sign. "Well I hope this doesn't ruin our friendship I mean you're one of the most important people in my life."

"Y-you're important to me too," Hinata said giving a small yet warm smile.

"Good then still best friends right?" Naruto smiled at her with his eyes closed looking very much like the kind of smile that Kakashi gave.

Although she would love to be more than friends, his friendship was something that she never wanted to lose.

"Yes, still friends," she told him.

-End Flashback-

Sakura sighed hearing this, "You know you really need to tell him how you really feel."

"I-I want to but every time I try I just, well..." Hinata trailed off.

"Yeah we all know," Sakura said to her. "You know in a way we're the complete opposites. You can't tell the boy you like how you feel and when I tell the boy I like, he just ignores it."

Hinata hug her head slightly depressed now, she really did want to tell Naruto but she just couldn't get the courage to do it. It was bad enough that he saw her training that one night, something that she was still embarrassed about and hoped that Naruto never found out that was her. Then there was the kiss, something she had dreamed of all this time and yet not exactly the magical moment she had hoped for. And Sakura, one of the girls who had come a long way since their childhood as the search pink haired friend had had the same confidence problems that Hinata had. While Hinata had gotten a bit better, Sakura was the most changed and yet she too couldn't seem to get the boy she liked.

"But you know what?" Sakura suddenly said getting Hinata's attention. "I'm not going to give up, I know what I like and I'm going for it. Besides if he doesn't like me...then I guess I can move on but not until I said that that I've done everything I could and so should you."

"M-me?"

"Of course, you're not going to let me make an oath like that alone are you?" Sakura smiled at her.

Hinata thought about it for a moment and then nodded her head, somehow she would find the courage to tell Naruto how she felt one day she was sure of it.

"As much as this little display of kunoichi is very touching it's making me sick to my stomach."

They both jumped and got up quickly and when they saw who it was they both froze. Standing not ten feet away was Zabuza and he was carrying Haku with him. Both young girls weren't sure what to do because they both knew that if this man wanted to kill them both he could do so easily.

"Relax I'm not here to fight," he said coldly to them. "Take me to Kakashi and that other woman, I want to talk terms with them."

-Later-

Kakashi and Kurenai had just finished their talk with Zabuza, it wasn't exactly the easiest conversation as everyone was tense. When he had first shown up with Haku in his arms both jonin teachers were on their guard just in case. They heard what Zabuza told them about how Gato had tried to kill him and Haku and the man's plans for hiring an army to attack the town. Kakashi and Kurenai both had been paying attention to both his story and his body language.

Being a ninja meant you picked up a lot of different skills and to be a jonin you usually had many on hand, one of them was the ways to pick up when someone was lying. Unfortunately another trait was how to lie and is was safe to assume that Zabuza knew how to lie and not be caught as well. It was just one of those circular logical problems that happened in the ninja world.

Kakashi decided to take things at another angle, this man wouldn't come to them with such a story just to get them to lower their guard and kill them in their sleep. When you fought someone you got a good idea of the kind of person they were. Zabuza was the type to come at you head on or even sideways but deception like this wasn't the type of style he had. Plus Kakashi had seen the man with the boy, it was in the eyes. Zabuza actually cared what happened to Haku, which in itself was surprising to Kakashi as the stories about the man said he didn't care about anyone or anything.

'I guess even a demon can have a heart,' Kakashi thought as he took all this in. All in all he came to the conclusion that Zabuza wasn't lying to them and now they may have solved one problem but now had a whole new one.

"So then you came to us of all people?" Kakashi surmised.

"It's not like I had a lot of choices," Zabuza said sounded irritated about the whole thing. "Besides I had hoped someone had some medical training to help and I can't take Haku too far with his injury."

"We only have basic field training but we'll do what we can," Kurenai told him.

Zabuza nodded it wasn't what he had hoped for but it had been a long shot even when he made the choice.

"Maybe we can work out a deal," Kakashi said thinking about it. "We got a lot of enemies coming here soon and a lot of innocent people could be hurt or killed, so if you agree to help us out I can sent a message to Konoha to sent a medic nin here for the boy. With that he can make a full recovery."

"I have your word on that?" Zabuza said.

Kakashi nodded, "Yes, we're no longer enemies it seems so I might as well use you to help us and also help you in return."

"Fine," Zabuza simply said.

"Good, now I think we should make up a plan for the defence of the village," Kurenai said as they started to plan out what they would do.

While they were planning, Naruto was looking in on Haku. The boy had been in and out of consciousness as the genin had taken turns looking after him. Hinata seemed to be helpful as she was out looking for herbs to help and had some of her healing salves. They weren't top notch healing items but every little bit helped. Naruto was also glad that he worked things out with Hinata

He sighed thinking about that he really needed to get over this, it was just a kiss right? Okay so it was his first girl kiss and it hadn't been bad or nothing it was just that she had been his best friend for so long he didn't think of her as a 'girl' in that way. Okay she was cute but she would never think of him in that way would she? Plus he was still haunted by that girl on the water he couldn't stop thinking about her, hell he was still having dreams about that girl.

Naruto just sighed thinking that life was just way too complicated these days.

"You look really serous at the moment you know that?" a soft voice spoke up.

"Huh, hey you're awake," Naruto smiled at the boy. He looked a little pale and weak but so far Haku looked like he was doing better. "You look pretty good for a guy who had a hole put into his chest, you're lucky my dad pulled away at the last moment or you really would be dead."

"Yes, I'm surprised I lived," Haku had been in and out of it for days. He was surprised that Zabuza had kept him and was caring for him, he was just a tool wasn't he?

"Yeah well it looks like Zabuza was taking good care of you and we made a deal with Konoha to send to a medic team. My dad plans to send one of his ninja dogs with a message later today with what's going on, he would have sent it sooner but he didn't want a team to be jumped by more forces."

He had heard how Kakashi explained that he was unwilling to put others into more danger, they were two full teams (granted only genin teams) but he had no way of knowing if Zabuza would have been patrolling the route to the village or any other forces that Gato had. Now with Zabuza on their side for the time being, they had enough intelligence for Kakashi to give that to the Hokage so the team on the way would be able to avoid any dangers.

Haku was silent a moment as he stared up at the ceiling.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked.

"I'm not sure why I'm still alive, I'm just a broken tool now. I'm worthless to him so why did he save me?" Haku asked confused.

"You know that kind of talk really pisses me off," Naruto told the boy, "I mean we're people first and if you really want to know it's that he cares about you. I don't know exactly how things are but you know in a really, really weird and strange way it's kind of like he's your dad."

Haku's eyes widened quickly at that, his own father had tried to kill him and ended up killing his own mother.

"Oh come on the guy took you in, trained you and raised you," Naruto said smiling. "You want to know a secret? Kakashi did the same thing to me so in a way we're both the same."

Haku looked at the masked boy as he thought about it, it was a strange concept to think of Zabuza as a father figure but not an unpleasant one, in fact he had more memories of Zabuza than he had of his own family. And when he looked into the eyes of the boy next to him he could see that his eyes were very familiar. They were eyes that knew loss, pain and yet what it was like to be taken in as well.

"You have someone precious to protect don't you?" Haku asked him.

Naruto was taken aback from the question, "Yeah I got lots of people. I mean there's my dad, the Old Man, then I got a few crazy people that I like to call my aunt and uncle, my friends and Hinata-chan."

Haku smiled at that, "That's good to know. You know true power comes from the need to protect those precious to you that's where real strength comes from and with so many people to protect I can see that you'll get very strong."

"Heh heh," Naruto laughed rubbing the back of his head. "Thanks."

"So...can you tell me more? I never really got to talking with others before," Haku asked him.

Naruto nodded as he started up with his life, then went into his family and friends and even his best memories of them as well. Haku told him about the Mist village and his life on the road with Zabuza, well the good parts and not the missions. Overall it was a good time for both young boys and both felt that they had met someone that could understand them in ways that others couldn't, even if they didn't totally understand it themselves.

They were still talking when Kiba came in to relieve Naruto but the boy just said he had it covered. Kiba shrugged as it meant some free time for him so he was all for it, he just got them some lunch and that was it. It was weird as how Haku had not that long ago been their enemy and there was Naruto making friends like the boy was an old friend. Kiba had to admit that Naruto had a talent for making friends, he still remembered the day he met the blonde at the academy.

That had been a rocky start but later Kiba thought he was a good guy, but there was still Zabuza. Now that was one scary guy, and he wasn't sure he could even sleep comfortably knowing that guy was around. He could already tell that it was going to be a long night tonight, plus from what they had heard from Kurenai, Gato was about to attack very soon as well.

'Man when it rains it pours it seems,' Kiba thought as he wondered what he could do to kill a few hours.

Next up Chapter 40: Gato's Attack