… Kakashi’s POV…
I watched with wide eyes as Etsuko did a couple of hand seals… and disappeared. I looked around and could felt her presence somewhere close to Zabuza.
Then, the Zabuza clone turned into water. She must have done that.
I saw Naruto and the rest watching with wide eyes too. They had never seen Etsuko showing her true powers… I knew about it but I didn’t tell Etsuko. Now… it had come to this.
Suddenly, Zabuza flew back. He was still keeping me in his water prison.
Zabuza got up, just to receive a punch in his stomach. He flew back again but landed on his feet. He chuckled and looked around. Then, he sent a kunai to his right into nowhere and I saw a thin line of blood appeared in the air.
Zabuza rushed towards it and grabbed the air. Etsuko appeared, her neck being held by Zabuza. Her arm was bleeding, where the kunai had struck her. Her eyes went back to their normal blue.
… Etsuko’s POV…
“Ack!” I cried. The past few minutes had been a blank for me. “W-What… ha… happened?”
“So the Miryogan doesn’t allow you to remember? Hm…” Zabuza said then squeezed my neck tighter.
I cried again. I was choking. I was powerless now…
Zabuza looked at me in the eye. “Think of how fun it will be to kill the last royal family member.”
What is he talking about? The last royal family member…
“Etsuko!” Naruto and Sakura yelled. Tazuna gasped.
“No!” Sasuke shouted, trying to get up.
Zabuza threw me against a boulder. Everything was flying until I hit the rock. It was like a giant stomped on my back. I swear I could’ve heard a crack…
I weakly lifted my head up to see another Zabuza clone appeared. It loomed over Naruto.
“I-I have to get out of here! If I stick around, I-I’ll surely be… be killed!” Naruto started to crawl away. Then, he stopped dead. I smiled. Naruto stared at his bandaged hand. “And I will not lose to Sasuke!”
Naruto looked at his headband under Zabuza’s foot. After attacking me, he had walked back and scuffed it into the ground again.
“I remember. I decided not to back down from anything. I promised myself that when… when I become a ninja!” Naruto stood up and charged at Zabuza.
“Naruto!” I yelled.
Seconds later, Naruto came crashing back to the group. I slowly got up to join them. Naruto shakily got to his knees, clutching his headband. Slowly, he stood up once more.
Tying his headband to his forehead, Naruto said, “Hey, you freak with no eyebrows! Put this in your bingo book: the ninja that will someday become the greatest Hokage of the Leaf Village.” He tightly secured his headband and looked at Zabuza with his trademark grin. “Uzumaki Naruto! Oh, and don’t forget the next top female ninja, Chiba Etsuko!”
Zabuza glared at him.
“Etsuko, Sakura, Sasuke! Listen to me for a sec,” Naruto said.
“What?” we asked at the same time.
“I have a plan,” Naruto said proudly.
Sasuke smirked. “So you’re finally thinking about teamwork?”
Naruto wiped the blood from his chin and smirked. “Let’s go wild!”
Zabuza chuckled. “You seem to be quite confident but do you even have a chance for victory?”
Kakashi’s eyes widened. “What are you all doing?! I told you to run away!” he yelled furiously. I’ve never seen Kakashi this angry before. “The outcome of this battle was decided when I got caught! Run! Our mission is to protect Tazuna-san. Did you forget that?!”
Naruto turned to Tazuna with a pleading look. “Old man…”
Tazuna smiled. “Don’t worry. I caused all of this in the first place. I won’t say that I want to survive no matter what. Sorry, everyone. Fight as much as you want.”
“Looks like now we have to fight,” Sasuke said with a smirk.
“Sakura-chan, can you please stay and protect Tazuna? Please, I’m counting on you,” Naruto begged and I nodded. So did Sasuke.
“Sure!” she agreed and I hugged her to show my thanks.
“Are you ready?” Naruto asked. Sasuke and I nodded.
Our excitement was interrupted once again by Zabuza. This time, it wasn’t a dry chuckle. It was a cruel laughter.
“You sure don’t learn, do you?” he asked.
“Nani?” Naruto said.
“Still pretending to be a ninja? When I was your age, my hands were already soaked in blood.”
We flinched. Kakashi’s eyes narrowed at the Kiri-nin. “The Demon Zabuza.”
“It looks like you’ve heard of me.”
“A long time ago, Kirigakure was known as the Village of the Bloody Mist. In that village, there was an obstacle that existed to become a ninja.”
Zabuza glared at Kakashi. “So you know about the final test there.”
“The final test?” Naruto questioned.
Zabuza laughed again. “Students killing each other. Friends who have eaten from the same pot are separated into groups of two and forced to fight each other until one of them is killed. This is done with friends that have helped each other, shared their dreams and competed together.”
“That’s awful…” Sakura whispered.
“Ten years ago, Kirigakure had to go through a reformation,” Kakashi said. “Because in the previous year, a monster appeared that finally decided it.”
“A reformation? What did that monster do?”
“A small boy who had not even gained the right to become a ninja killed more than a hundred of the candidates that year and killed them all without hesitation.”
We all looked at Zabuza. His eyes held a murderous intent. “That was fun,” he said.
The next thing everyone knew, Sasuke was lying on the ground with Zabuza’s clone elbowing his stomach. The Uchiha coughed up blood.
“SASUKE!” Sakura cried.
I gritted my teeth and turned to Naruto, giving him a nod.
“Got it!” he said, forming a single hand seal. “Shadow Clone Jutsu!”
Some of Naruto’s doppelgangers appeared and surround Zabuza’s clone. He simply grabbed his sword with a bored look. “Oh, the Shadow Clone Jutsu? And you replicated into quite a few.”
Each Shadow clone took out a kunai and went to attack. “Here we go!” they yelled, jumping the fake Zabuza all at once. When they thought they had him, Zabuza’s clone swung his sword and slashed practically all of the doppelgangers. They were sent flying backwards.
I dashed towards the Zabuza clone. “Tsutenkyaku!” I yelled and jumped high into the air. I gather chakras at my right foot and kicked down but the clone dodged. The kick created a crater in the ground and the clone flew back a little from the impact.
Naruto took out something from his bag. A Windmill Shuriken?
He caught my eye and we smirked at the same time. “Go for it!” I yelled. “Sasuke!”
Naruto threw the shuriken for the Uchiha to catch. Sasuke grabbed it and spun around to get a better aim.
“A shuriken won’t work on me,” Zabuza’s clone warned.
Sasuke ignored him an opened the shuriken. “Demon Wind Shuriken! Windmill of Shadows!” He performed a high jump while throwing the Windmill Shuriken. The clone waited patiently to block. But Tazuna’s, Kakashi’s and Zabuza’s eyes widened when they saw the shuriken fly right past the clone and aimed itself right at the real Zabuza!
“I see,” he said. “So you are going after the real one this time. But it’s too easy for me!” He grabbed the shuriken with his free hand just in time to see another one coming at him. “Another shuriken was in the shadow of the first one?” he asked himself, surprised. “That’s not the Shadow Shuriken Technique.”
At the last second, Zabuza jumped, avoiding the shuriken attack.
The shuriken transformed into a cloud of smoke in mid-air to reveal Naruto with a kunai. YESSS! YOU’RE GOING DOWN, ZABUZA! HA!!!
“This is the spot!” Naruto yelled, throwing the kunai that was aimed for the arm that held Kakashi prisoner. Unless he wanted to be hit, Zabuza would have to take his hand away. And that’s what he did.
Zabuza released the water-prison technique, letting Kakashi out. The assassin’s  eyes were filled with a murderous anger. He took out a large shuriken and prepared to throw it at Naruto while he was falling.
“YOU DAMN KID!” Zabuza yelled.
Zabuza was about to throw the shuriken when something stopped him. Blood flew through the air.
Kakashi’s hand was under one of the shuriken’s blades, preventing it from being thrown. Naruto fell into the water with a happy grin as Kakashi glared at Zabuza. The blond lifted his head out of the water.
“Your plan was impressive, Naruto,” Kakashi complimented.
Naruto laughed. “I used the Shadow Clone Jutsu to hide the fact that I transformed into the shuriken. I didn’t do it to defeat Zabuza. I left one of my replicas and transformed into a shuriken. Then, my replica threw me, now a shuriken, to Sasuke.” He grinned. “Sasuke noticed that it was me right after he caught it. Then, he took out his own shuriken and used the Shadow Shuriken Technique. I hid in the shadow of the real shuriken and went straight for Zabuza. I knew I couldn’t beat Zabuza just by that, of course. But I thought if I could just break the water prison, maybe things would turn around.”
Sasuke smirked. “It was just luck.”
Tazuna looked pissed when he heard that. “IT WAS JUST LUCK?!”
“I lost myself temporarily and cancelled the water-prison technique…” Zabuza said.
“No, you didn’t cancel the technique. You were forced to,” Kakashi corrected. “Let me just tell you that the same technique won’t work on me twice. What are you doing to do now, Zabuza?”
A heavy silence filled the air. Tension was so thick. I felt a bead of sweat rolling down the side of my forehead. The other stared carefully at Zabuza, waiting for his next move.
Surprising everyone, Zabuza put the blades of the shuriken together and pressed it against the back of Kakashi’s hand. It started to bleed more until Kakashi finally snapped the shuriken away.
The two ninjas jumped backwards and prepared their hands, ready to start a ninjutsu battle. Man, I wished I had some popcorns… it is SOOO exciting!
Zabuza did the first seal but Kakashi’s Sharingan copied them so fast that we couldn’t tell who was copying who. It was a long jutsu and apparently, a powerful one.
Finally, their hands stopped.
“Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu!”
Two giant water dragons rose from the river and circled each other, trying to attack their respective enemy ninja. A huge wave formed as they collided. It came in Sakura’s, Sasuke’s, Tazuna’s and mine way, sweeping us away in the current.
Kakashi and Zabuza jumped backwards and ran a mid-circle before doing the next hand signs. Zabuza raised his left arm and brought the right one in front of his face. Zabuza looked terrified when he saw that Kakashi had done that at the same time as him.
“He’s moving just like him!” Tazuna exclaimed. “And with such perfect timing!”
Both ninjas lowered their arms and did the bird seal.
Kakashi was saying something that was definitely pissing Zabuza off. Finally, the assassin lost his cool and did the other hand seals as fast as he could. And Kakashi copied them.
“Water Style: Grand Waterfall Technique!”
This time, Zabuza didn’t finished the jutsu.
A great whirlpool came into his direction, trapping him inside. The whirlpool made its way towards the forest, taking Zabuza along. It finally stopped when it hit a tree, leaving a harmless Zabuza leaning against it. Several kunais thrown by Kakashi struck him in the arms and legs.
Kakashi jumped to the tree behind the assassin. We ran towards them.
“This is the end,” Kakashi said.
“Why?” Zabuza managed to ask. “Can you see the future?”
“Yeah.” Kakashi lifted a kunai. “You’re going to die.”
Before anybody could react, two senbons hit Zabuza’s neck. Blood started to fall from the injury as he fell onto the ground. Everyone’s eyes widened. Kakashi didn’t do this for sure.
I looked in the direction from which the senbons had come from. There stood someone with a mask like the ANBU’s so it was difficult to tell if it was a boy or girl.
But I knew who it was… Haku.
Kakashi glared at the intruder. Tazuna, Sasuke and Sakura stared at the newcomer. Naruto got out of the water and joined the other with an angry look on his face.
Kakashi jumped from the tree, landing beside Zabuza’s ‘corpse’. He kneeled down and put two fingers on his neck, trying to find a pulse.
“He is dead,” Kakashi confirmed.
The stranger bowed. “Thank you very much. I was looking for a chance to kill Zabuza.”
“The mask…” Kakashi wondered out loud. “If I remember correctly, you must be a hunter-nin from Kirigakure.”
“You are very well informed,” Haku said.
“A hunter-nin?” Naruto asked.
“Hunter-nins are special ninjas who assassinate exiled shinobis like Zabuza, who, for some reason, go against their villages. They do it so they can conceal any secret of the village,” Sakura said.
“Yes, I am a member of the pursuing ninja unit that hunts exiled ninjas,” Haku said.
Naruto looked from Haku to Kakashi then to Zabuza’s ‘corpse’ with clenched teeth. He turned to the hunter-nin.
“Who the hell are you?!” Naruto snapped.
“Calm down, Naruto. He’s not an enemy.” Kakashi stood up.
“That’s not what I’m asking! But… Zabuza was killed! He… he was so strong but he was killed so easily by a kid that’s not much different from me! We… we look like idiots! I can’t accept this!”
“I understand that you can’t believe it,” Kakashi said in a calm tone. “But it’s real.” He put his hand on Naruto’s head. “In this world, there are kids there are younger than you…” He looked at me. “… and stronger than me.”
An air current coated Haku’s body, causing him to disappeared then reappear beside Zabuza’s body. He put it on his shoulders with incredible ease, as if it didn’t weight anything.
“Your battle ends here for now,” Haku said. “I must go dispose of this corpse. It’s a body filled with secrets. If you’ll excuse me…” With that, another air current coated him and Haku vanished.
Once we weren’t in danger anymore, Kakashi covered his Sharingan eye with his headband. Naruto ran up to where Haku and Zabuza were.
“He’s not around here anymore,” Kakashi said. Naruto kneeled down and punched the ground in frustration.
“What was that?! What were we…? Damn it, damn it, da –” Naruto stopped when I grabbed his arm. He looked up at me.
“Naruto, we have to realize that sometimes people are going to be stronger, faster and smarter than us,” I said. “And that means that we will have to work hard to achieve our goals!”
The boy’s eyes widened. A smile formed on his face as he nodded.
Kakashi turned to the rest of the group. “Our mission hasn’t end yet. We still need to take Tazuna-san to his house.”
The bridge builder grinned and laughed, like we weren’t in danger of being killed a few minutes ago. “Sorry about that, everyone! Just rest at my house.”
“Alright, let’s cheer up and go!”Naruto exclaimed.
Kakashi walked forward, leading the way… but then stopped. His face went pale and eyes widened. I had been expecting that and quickly rushed to his side. I caught Kakashi by the waist and arm before he could fall.
Everyone rushed over and I gently laid Kakashi down on the ground.
“What happened?” Tazuna asked.
“Kakashi-sensei...” Naruto called in a low voice.
Sasuke kneeled down and checked the passed out Jounin’s pulse.
“It’s okay. He’s just exhausted,” I said and Sasuke nodded to confirm it.
The rest of sighed in relief.
I wrapped my arms around Kakashi’s waist and pulled him up, putting his arm around my shoulder. Sasuke went to the other side and did the same to Kakashi. Together, we carried him to Tazuna’s house with the rest leading the way.