"EVERYONE get down!"
A large blade swung over the group of six. Riki blinked, and the next thing she knew, she felt her body crashing into the soil. Sakura had dragged Naruto and Riki down to the floor with her as she ducked down and the three of them fell to the grass with a 'thud'.
The large sword wedged itself into a tree, and then, a split second later, a man appeared, standing on its long hilt.
"Well, well," Kakashi walked near the tree where the man was at, hands still in his pockets. "If it isn't the most famous Rouge ninja of the Hidden Mist, Zabuza Momochi!"
Just as Sakura helped Naruto and Riki off the ground, the blonde charged at the man, letting out a battle cry. He was about to run past Kakashi but the grey haired man didn't allow him to pass. Kakashi held an arm in front of Naruto, shielding him from the enemy whilst also blocking him from intercepting Zabuza.
"You're in the way," Kakashi said with low tone of voice. "Get back."
Naruto grew annoyed at Kakashi's words, even though his teacher had tried to protect him. "Why?!"
"He's on a totally different level than the guys from earlier." Kakashi's short explanation didn't seem to satisfy Naruto at all, and the blonde gritted his teeth. Kakashi gripped his left hand over the left part of his face.
"I assume you are Kakashi of the Sharingan, the copy ninja . . ." Their attacker said, his back towards them, his neck twisted to look at them. Sasuke flinched at the metuon of the Sharingan.
Kakashi had a Sharingan?
"Sorry," Zabuza said, his deep, raspy voice shaking up fear inside Riki. "I'll have you hand over the old man."
"You guys, get into the Manji battle formation." The team looked at Kakashi, slightly confused. "Protect Tazuna and don't get involved in this fight. Got it?"
Kakashi finally pulled up his headband off his left eye. And under his headband was a crimson eye that had three black commas that surrounded a black pupil. Naruto gasped beside Kakashi in surprise and Sasuke was baffled.
"Well," Zabuza trailed off. He turned his whole body and faced the group below him. His full appearance instilled fear in not only Riki but most of Team Seven. "I never knew I'd be able to see the famed Sharingan so early . . ."
"Sharingan this, Sharingan that!" Naruto shouted. "Everyone keeps talkin' about this Sharingan, what the heck does it even mean?!"
"The Sharingan . . ." Sasuke muttered, "The user of the so called Visual Jutsu is said to possess the vision to see through all Genjutsu, Taijutsu and Ninjutsu and is able to deflect them. The Sharingan is a type of unique eye to the user of the Visual Art. However, that is not the only power of the Sharingan."
"Well said," Zabuza congratulated Sasuke. "But that is not all. What is more frightening is that the eye can asses a person's techniques and copy them. When I was in the Anbu Black Ops, search information about you was in our Bingo Book. There was also domething else in the Bingo book. It was about a man who had copied over a thousand skills . . . Kakashi, the Copy Ninja!"
After a few seconds of tensed silence, Naruto spoke." T-That's awsome, believe it!" he shouted.
"Let's end the talking here." The man crouched down in his sword's hilt and stretched. "I must kill that old man immediately."
Tazuna gasped at the Rouge nin's declaration. The genin of Team Seven rushed into the Manji formation, with Riki as the fourth addition that guarded Tazuna from behind. They all held a kunai knife in their hands, ready to strike if the Rouge ninja ever came close to Tazuna.
"But it seems like I had to defeat you first, Kakashi . . ." The man jumped off his sword and pulled off the tree. And within seconds, he was stood on the lake Riki had spotted earlier, his hands up in a hand sign.
Naruto's head whipped to the lake. "He's over there!" All of Tean Seven twisted their heads over to the lake, and saw the man casting a peculiar jutsu.
"Ninja Art: Hidden Mist jutsu."
Zabuza cast the jutsu, and the mist he had conjured from the lake using his chakra enveloped him. Soon, he vanished, and his presence was replaced by a small green leaf that gracefully landed to where he had been before.
"He disappeared!" Naruto exclaimed in surprise.
Kakashi took a few steps closer to the water. He spoke to his team. "He'll probably come to erase me first . . ."
"What . . . What is he?" Sakura asked, confused and scared.
"Zabuza Momochi," Kakashi said. "He's an Anbu Black Ops member in the Hidden Mist Village and is known as the 'silent killing' expert."
"S-Silent?" Naruto whispered.
"As the name suggests, it's a killing skill used in an instant in silence. By the time you realise it, it's possible you may find yourself in the afterlife." A droplet of sweat fell of Kakashi's face and onto the soil. "I haven't totally mastered my Sharingan, so keep you guard up guys. Well, if we fail, we'll only die."
Mist grew from out of a lake nearby Team Seven and Tazuna. The mist was more dense and and concentrated than it had been when Team 7 had crossed the river earlier.
"The mist is getting thicker!" Naruto cried.
"The Land if Waves is surrounded by sea and has many lakes and rivers. So mist rises very easily," Tazuna explained.
In the mist, Zabuza's voice grew more sinister.
"Eight points."
"The larynx, the spine, the lungs, the liver . . ." Riki flinched.
"The jugular and subclavian veins." His voice echoed in the eerie mist. "The kidneys.
"The heart—"
Riki didn't need to let him finish his speech.
She recognised the words he said. As a Hyuga, she had studied the chakra network inside the human body which familiarised her with organs too. And it just so happened that Riki knew the body parts the man had mentioned, and they just happened to be the most lethal parts of the body if they were struck or damaged.
"Sasuke." Kakashi's voice was audible from ahead of Team 7. "Don't worry. I'll protect you with my life. I will not allow my comrades to die."
"I wonder about that."
The man appeared infront of Tazuna and behind Sakura and Sasuke. After hearing how close the man sounded, Riki spun her head round.
"It's over."
Kakashi appeared in front of the man in seconds, and so Tazuna, Riki, Naruto and Sasuke all took at as a chance to flee. Now all four of them were a few metres away from Kakashi and Zabuza. Riki was still standing straight, her kunai knife still in hand. Sasuke knelt into the floor with one knee, also holding his knife. Tazuna, Sakura and Naruto were all strewn on the patchy soil.
Kakashi swiftly stabbed a knife into Zabuza's stomach. Water trickled down Zabuza's leg and onto the floor. Another Zabuza stood behind Kakashi. "Sensei, behind you!" Naruto yelled and pointed to the Zabuza behind Kakashi.
Zabuza swung his sword, and as he did so, the clone Kakashi had stabbed converted itself to water and fell to the ground. "Die!"
The sword swung clean through Kakashi. Kakashi's body that had been cut through soon turned into water in the same way Zabuza's clone had. Zabuza began to panic when the real Kakashi stepped behind him. Kakashi pressed his kunai kinfe to Zabuza's neck.
"Don't move," Kakashi ordered. "This is over."
"W-Wow!" Naruto squealed, amazed. Riki couldn't believe it had ended so quickly. And her doubts were right.
Zabuza's sense if panic disappeared and he chuckled darkly. "It's over? Zabuza mocked Kakashi," You don't seem to understand a thing, do you? You won't be able to beat me by making me a monkey . . . No chance."
He laughed again. Riki tensed. "But I must say, you are good. My water clone jutsu being copied at that point . . . By letting the clone talk as if it were you, you successfully distracted me. And you used the Hidden Mist jutsu to hide yourself and see what I was doing . . .
"But . . ."
Another Zabuza appeared behind Kakashi. "I'm no fool." Kakashi's eyes grew wide. Kakashi stabbed the clone in front if his, and the clone burts into water.
"That one was a fake too!" Naruto shouted. Zabuza swung his large sword at Kakashi from behind.
Kakashi ducked right under it, and due to the momentum of the sword, it wedged itself in the dirt. However, it seemed as if Zabuza had wanted that to happen, as he swapped his right hand that held the sword to his left, and he landed a powerful kick onto an unsuspecting Kakashi. Kakashi was launched into the air from the sheer force of the kick.
Zabuza picked up his sword and ran up to the side of the lake where Kakashi would have fell. He attempted to attack him as he dropped to the floor, but Kakashi had arranged a large number of makibishi spikes infront of the lake where he fell. Zabuza halted right before them.
"How foolish," Zabuza stated, and he flipped over the Makibishi spikes and onto the suface of the water. Kakashi fell into the water, not far from Zabuza.
"Sensei!" Naruto cried. Riki winced, kunai still in hand. Sakura stood up off the floor, still fearsome.
"His taijutsu skill are also extremely good," Sasuke groaned.
Kakashi reached the surface of the lake, his hair and clothing soaked through with water. Only his head peeked through the layers of water. His hair wasn't spiky anymore, and having being soaked by water, it fell down onto his face, covering the Hidden Leaf symbol on his headband that represented their village.
Zabuza was behind him in a flash. "Fool," he breathed, and he weaved a series of seals. "It's a Water Prison jutsu."
Kakashi was now trapped in a large ball of water that floated atop the lake beside Zabuza. Zabuza had his left hand stuck inside the water prison. "You're trapped! It's a special prison that makes you impossible to escape. It makes things harder, having you act. Now, Kakashi, I'll settle things with you later."
Zabuza turned his head to the genin of Team Seven and Tazuna. Riki shrank away from his deadly stare. "First I'll finish these guys off."
"Water Clone jutsu." Zabuza weaved a sign with one hand. As he did so, a portion of the lake water rose up and formed a duplicate of Zabuza with an identical sword that was strapped to his back.
"You're acting big, wearing a headband like a ninja. But a real ninja is one who has hovered between the lines of life and death multiple times," he said.
"In other words," Zabuza continued, "only those worthy of being listed in my Bingo Book are real ninjas." He put his hands up into a hand sign that Riki recognised. "Guys like you can't be called real ninja!" The mist around the area grew, and Zabuza disappeared.
Riki focused her sight at where Naruto was, and soon she could see Naruto laying in the floor with Zabuza a few meters in front of him. "You're no ninja!" Zabuza bellowed, "You're just a kid!"
The rest of Team Seven looked at the source of the voice. "Naruto!" Sakura called to him.
"You guys!" Kakashi shouted at rhem. His voice was slightly muffled by the the water he was encased in. "Take Tazuna-san and run! You have no chance of winning against this guy! As long as he has me trapped in his jutsu, he won't be able to move, and he won't be able to use the Water clone jutsu if his clone is too far from his main body. In any case, just run for now!"
But Sasuke shook his head. "We'll just have to do it!"