86 Chapter 86

NARUTO

'Are you in Land of Wave yet?' Naru-nii wonders. 'I'm almost gone here.'

'Not yet,' Naruto thinks. 'Still in the fog.'

'How are you and Kurama getting on?'

'Not bad,' Naruto hesitantly answers. 'He can be pretty stingy but he had a pretty good idea I wanted to run by you.'

'What's up?'

'He wanted me to use up all my chakra on a bunch of clones to do whatever I want throughout the day, then he'll let me use his chakra instead.'

'Are you nervous about that?'

'Yeah, I guess I am,' Naruto admits. 'I mean I don't want to lose it or anything.'

'I get that, but remember, he's angry because everyone thought of him as some mindless monster only capable of hate,' Naru-nii explains. 'But I can tell you he's not terrible and his chakra's not terrible. It's up to you, though. He's your partner after all.'

'Yeah,' Naruto affirms as their group slowly advances in their little boat under the cloak of thick fog. 'I guess I just wanted to talk about it. I feel better now, thanks.'

'Anytime,' Naru-nii voices. 'I won't be there when you meet Zabuza and Haku. Remember, just because I told you what happened to me, doesn't mean it'll happen the same to you, so keep your eyes and ears open. Haku will be the one in a mask pretending to be a Hunter-nin. If you see any white rabbits, be ready.'

"There!" Sasuke calls as he throws a shuriken into the bushes, startling a few birds to take off in the air.

After checking the shrubbery, Naruto yells, "Ah! You killed a rabbit!" With big balls of tears in his saddened eyes, he quickly cradles the motionless rabbit in his arms. He looks from Sasuke to the bleeding rabbit, continuing to yell, "how could you be so cruel!"

"I- I sensed something-" Sasuke defends.

"Oh! Thank Kami," Naruto interrupts. "Usagi-chan's still alive!" Rushing over to Sakura, Naruto presents the injured furry animal, asking, "could you?"

"What am I, your vet," Sakura asks though taking the bleeding animal and working her best to heal its injury, after which, Kakashi yells, "get down!"

They all get down just before a giant sword spins lethally overhead like a tossed shuriken, filling their ears with a deafening metallic hum until it lodges itself halfway through a tree ahead. Feet land on the long handle of the large sword and the Demon Jōnin they belong too amplifies his awesome killing intent.

Despite the suffocating killing intent, Naruto moves into place with as much stealth as possible. It wasn't until Kakashi-sensei cleared the mist and told his team he would never allow his comrades to die that Naruto recalls the summit Naru-nii has him climbing toward, of the training he's killing himself over every day, and then he remembers who has worse Killing Intent than Zabuza… Kurama. Staring down the Demon Jōnin after staring down the Demon Fox suddenly didn't feel so challenging.

"Ne, you should give up now," Naruto calls out to the unmistakably strong Jōnin. "Because you're looking at the greatest Hokage there'll ever be!"

"You're acting big, wearing that headband like you're a ninja," Zabuza slowly, evilly, chuckles. "But a real ninja is someone who hovers between life and death numerous times. Only those in my Bingo book deserve to be called Ninja. Guys like you, can't-"

"So, all I have to do is beat you to deserve being called a ninja?" Naruto interrupts.

"Naruto-" Kakashi warns as Zabuza chuckles evilly.

"You should have been a comedian brat," Zabuza spits. "You would've lived longer."

"How about this," Naruto irately yells back. "How about I let you have the old man behind me," he bargains as he points to the old builder, "if you beat me. But if I beat you, I get your sword!"

"Naruto, enough!" Kakashi admonishes even as his stern red and black eyes remain fixed on Zabuza. Though Naruto feels it in his body to listen to his sensei, he also knows—through no fault on sensei's part—that Kakashi doesn't know everything.

Again, Zabuza laughs before bringing up his index and middle, activating jutsu. "A clone is more than enough for you," Zabuza states as a water clone emerges. "Kakashi, if you interfere, I'll kill the brats and the old man behind you."

"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura warily calls but isn't sure what she wants to ask. Whether it's about Naruto, them, or the mission, this is all dangerous territory and it's looking closer and closer like one of them wasn't going to survive it. While her duty kept her by Tazuna-san, she worried more about Sasuke-kun and her team.

Naruto moves away from the safety of his battle-ready Jōnin-sensei—who's stuck between the mission behind him and the assassin in front—to the clearing beside them, all the while the water-clone is eying him. Naruto takes out prepped kunai for each hand, spinning them in the air before gripping them in a fighting pose. The water-clone rushes to the blond, and as a taller faster adult, he was on Naruto in a second, bringing down the clone of his large sword with scary speed. Naruto smiles as the sword slices down for the kill before speaking, "boom."

Both Naruto and Zabuza's water clone explode, surprising some longer than others. Kakashi and Zabuza were able to sense the kunai being thrown from the bushes at the original Demon of Hidden Mist, and when Zabuza blocks it, Kakashi and his Sharingan are on him. Though Zabuza stops Kakashi's kunai to the neck with his bare hand, a couple of shurikens thrown low and from Zabuza's blind spot are embedded in his leg.

"It's over," Kakashi harshly states as he locks Zabuza's injured arm in an arm grapple before expertly breaking it at the elbow then immediately follows up with a strike to the rogue Kiri-nin's nose. Despite a broken nose, the Kiri-nin rolls back with the force, attempting to gain some distance, but Kakashi is far more mobile, never letting up on the constantly retreating Kiri-nin until the half-naked ninja is leaning heavily against a tree, visibly exhausted with a kunai deep in each limb.

Before Kakashi can execute the killing blow, two senbon stick the eyebrow-less assassin in the neck instead. Turning to the direction of the senbon, the mostly stunned group find a masked ninja with long black hair standing calmly on the long branch of a tree. Naruto emerges from the bushes as Kakashi checks Zabuza's body, asserting, "definitely dead."

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