10 The Battle On The Bridge 1/3

A dark haired child stood with his arms extended from side to side protectively, and his black eyes glaring fiercely at the two thugs that had intruded into their home. Behind him is his injured mother, who the thugs hat hit earlier, resulting in her current unconscious condition.

Meanwhile, the two thugs, one bald and the other having long hair, smirked tauntingly towards the boy. The bald thug drew a knife with two edges, and pointed directly towards the mother and son.

"Brat, if you don't step aside, I'll gut you," he threatened as the knife shone with a glint.

"Never!" The boy shouted at them.

The long-haired thug then said, "Kid, really, hand over your mother and we won't hurt you. We just want to have fun with her, and after that, you'll get her back." Dead, that is.

"You won't take my mother from me! I won't let you!" The child shouted again.

Running out of patience, the bald thug started to walk towards the boy, while saying, "Stupid brat. Then die!" He lunged the knife at him, and the boy stared directly at the thug, infuriating him even more.

And then, all of them heard the wind whistle. The bald thug suddenly stopped in his tracks, and as the boy stood, he saw the thug's eyes roll up behind his head. Slowly, a thin line appeared in the middle of the bald thug's neck and… his head fell.

As the sound of the head hitting the ground reached his ears, the boy covered his mouth as his eyes widened in fear. He looked behind the thug, and also saw the long haired one standing headless.

Soon, the bodies fell to the ground with a loud thud, and the culprit stood behind them. A man in his early forties wearing ninja equipment and a bamboo hat, holding an unbloodied sword in his left hand.

Fearfully, the boy asked, "W-Who are you?"

The man glanced at him as he sheathed his sword, and said, "Where's the team of ninja your grandfather hired a few days ago? We're with them."

The child then replied, stuttering, "T-They're at the bridge. G-Grandfather was supposed to supervise the workers t-there."

Glancing at the two, Itachi said, "What's your name?"

"I-Inari, s-shinobi-san," the boy replied.

"Then, Inari-kun, you're a very brave child," and then he disappeared in a blur.

As soon as the shinobi left, Inari fell on his butt. And relief washed over him. But his relief quickly turned to disgust as he stared at the corpses of the men who had wanted to take his mother away.

He turned towards his unconscious mother, and as his voice cracked, he said, "Mom, everything's gonna be okay now. I promise."

Itachi appeared on top of the house's rooftop. He looked at his three disguised students, and he said, "Follow me to the bridge. Team eight's there."

Then they disappeared.

(At The Bridge)

Sakura breathed heavily with a knee on the ground, a broken arm, and abrasions all over her body. Even though her wounds were small, the bleeding would eventually tire her out, leading to death. But even with all of that, she never took her eyes from her opponent.

A slender and tall man in his thirties, around the same height of his sword, the Kubikiribocho. He has no eyebrows, creases under his eyes, and a crossed-shaped scar on his cheek. His eyes and spiky hair are the same color; dark gray. And outside, he only wore a long-collared dark robe with red clouds knitted all over it.

Biwa Juzo, one of the three seven swordsmen of the mist who survived Might Duy's eight gate release. An S-Rank missing nin.

She knew that the only reason she and her team are alive right now is because, from what she had read in her sensei's bingo book, he is a cruel and brutal person. Back then, he used to slay his enemies in a quick brutal fashion. However, she fears that Juzo may have adapted a rather sadistic personality due to the fact that he still continues to torture her even though she's basically powerless to stop him from killing her.

Kurenai-sensei, on the other hand, is fighting Juzo's partner, another swordsman of the mist, Hoshigaki Kisame, another S-Rank missing nin, rumored to have chakra reserves so high that he's considered as the tailless beast. Strangely, he's also wearing the same robe as Juzo.

But at the moment, she couldn't afford to let herself be distracted by someone's battle.

Right now, her goal isn't to win but to survive and complete her mission.

"Hey pink-haired brat, your teammates are knocked out already, y'know? So why don't you give up the old man behind you, and maybe I'll spare your worthless lives," Juzo said with a smirk, his kubikiribocho lying on his shoulder.

On the ground near him were Hinata and Ino, unconscious.

Hinata had tried to get the swordsman with her 8-Trigrams, 64 Palms, however she didn't even get to touch him before she was knocked away by the side of Juzo's buster sword.

But that was a trap, she had Ino ready to throw her flower-shaped shurikens, laced with paralytic poisons . That failed as well because he somehow knew what they were going to do.

She could've used genjutsu on him but that won't matter due to how large his chakra reserves were and how much control he had of it, so her genjutsu would be dispelled almost immediately.

She's a civilian-born shinobi but her reserves are pathetic compared to others, that's why she wanted to compensate for her weakness with genjutsu and iryo ninjutsu.

With her current skills, at best, she could be a strategist and a healer. But she's definitely no fighter.

She winced as her broken arm ached. If only her iryo ninjutsu was capable of healing broken limbs but alas, she simply didn't have enough time.

"Giving me the silent treatment, eh? Ah, no matter. You're gonna die soon, anyway," if it came to any other person, she would've considered that as nothing but a taunt, yet she could feel that he was serious. That she was actually going to die.

She gritted her teeth. She's so weak, so weak compared to her team. So weak compared to Azumi. So weak compared to everybody else.

If only she was stronger, maybe everything would've gone alright. Maybe she wouldn't be on the verge of death right now.

Suddenly, she widened her eyes as Juzo disappeared from her vision. She looked left and right in panic but then she heard a scream behind her.

"ARGHHH!"

She turned around, only to see the old man, Tazuna, being impaled by Juzo's kubikiribocho through the stomach. And with that, he dragged his sword upwards, slicing the old man in half vertically.

She nearly threw up at the sight of his innards falling from his stomach as he fell to the ground. But she held it in, and glared at the culprit. Juzu gleefully smirked while the blood on his sword visibly disappeared. No, more likely it sucked the blood to fix itself.

"You like that?" He said to his sword as if he was talking to a person, "Maybe you'll like this girl's blood also!" And he charged straight towards her.

She tried her best to dodge, really she did, but coupled with a broken arm and her numerous wounds, her vision started to blur due to the loss of blood.

Juzo didn't care as he swung his sword horizontally, intending to cut the pink-haired genin in half. And when the sword was just about to hit her, time seemingly slowed down.

She wasn't prepared to die just yet. She didn't want to die. She wanted to prove her parents wrong that she could survive without them, that she could live without them. She wanted to show them that even though she's not intending to inherit the family business, she still wanted to let them see that she can be successful as a shinobi.

But it seems like this is the end.

'I don't want to die.'

A tear fell from her eye as time resumed to normal, and the kubikiribocho rapidly closed down towards her. But suddenly… the buster sword suddenly broke in half. No, it's more like the upper half of it disappeared.

And then, she saw it. Somebody whose back was turned against her but she could feel something from it… it was warm. Warmer than anything she had felt. It was… comforting.

She widened her eyes when she looked at the person's head, and it was red. Blood red. Only one person she knew had that kind of head, with the exception of Azumi's mother.

"Asahi Ren…" she muttered.

"Hmm, how pathetic. A grown man playing around with little girls. You should've become a priest if you wanted to play with children," and that snarky mouth, it's surely Ren.

Then from the front, Ren glanced at her, saying, "Well, I see that you've found your match in terms of cruelty, Haruno."

She smirked, as she said, "I didn't know you paid that much attention to me, Asahi. Maybe you have a crush on me?" Even though this was not the time to be saying things like this, she just felt like it. She felt tingly… for some reason.

He snorted, "Sorry, little girl, but I'm more attracted to older women. Grow some chest and then we'll talk."

She wanted to refute that jab towards her chest but she stopped herself. Then, her eyes grew serious, "Can you take him on?"

In his own carefree way, he said, "Just take care of your teammates, and I'll handle this one."

She nodded, and immediately went towards her two unconscious friends.

He turned his eyes on the swordsman, and couldn't help but savor the look of shock on his face as he stared at his broken sword. Then Juzu glared at him fiercely.

"Was it you who broke her!?" He yelled.

He shrugged, "I've broken a lot of women. So which one?"

In anger, he yelled, "My sword! Did you break her!?"

He looked at the swordsman strangely, and replied, "So the sword's a she? Well, what do you know, swords do have genders. So tell me, which position do you fuck her the most?"

He smiled in amusement as he saw the missing-nin perform a series of hand seals after he said that. He was curious what kind of jutsu the man was going to do, so he let him finish.

After 12 hand seals or so, fueled with rage, Juzo yelled, "Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu!"

A huge amount of water, shaped like a dragon, came out of his mouth after that. With glaring red eyes, the water dragon sped towards him, snarling.

He was amused once again. For a so-called dragon, it sure looks a lot like a water serpent. But he has to admit, to control this jutsu of his while standing behind him takes a lot of chakra control.

Yes, Juzo used his water dragon jutsu as nothing but a distraction. After casting that, the swordsman immediately ran straight behind him to try and decapitate him with the remains of his sword.

However, he already knew that Juzo was going to do this from the moment he faked being angry. At the very least, he exaggerated it. Either way, he'll finally have a taste of his own medicine.

As Juzo was just about to bring his half-sword down towards the neck of the brat in front of him, he saw it. Less than a second, no, less than a millisecond, the red-haired brat turned around with a wide smile on his face, almost reaching each end of his ears.

That was when he felt dread.

Time slowed down for him. Visibly, he saw the kid take out half of his sword from inside his cloak and he immediately knew what the genin was about to do.

With a swift hand movement, he threw the front end of the sword towards its owner, piercing him right through his heart and lungs.

The water dragon behind Helel stopped moving, and dropped on the ground with a huge splash.

Juzo coughed up blood as he fell to his knees. He looked down to see the half of his beloved sword plunged into his chest. Even though he is going to die soon, he couldn't help but laugh at the irony.

"Hah hah hah…" it was a hollow laugh but he couldn't care less. He stared straight towards his soon-to-be executioner, and said, "I can't believe I'd die to a genin, even less, to a kid. Hey brat, do me a favor, just this last one. Here," he threw the lower part of his kubikiribocho, the one he was going to use to cut his head off, and continued, "Cut my head off with this."

Looking down on the remains of a sword, Helel shrugged, and said, "If you say so."

He was like a phantom. He picked it up, and as soon as he did, the head of Juzo had already rolled towards his feet.

Seeing the decapitated head, he said, "Well, at least you died the way you wanted to die. Most of my enemies died rather shamefully, y'know?"

And then, he looked on the bridge, and in the distance, he saw Kurenai, Itachi, Azumi, and Sasuke fighting what seemed like a fish person. No, a shark person.

Must be Kisame, he mused.

And meters away from him were the three girls, sitting with their backs against the fences of the bridge. Hinata and Ino were still unconscious. Sakura had lost consciousness due to the loss of blood. If this continues, she will die soon. He needs to heal her, and fast. Or else he'll lose a valuable ally for the future.