CHAPTER SIX
~ The Next Day ~
"Alright, Naruto and Sasuke, you two finish pulling the weeds. (Y/n), get the list from the old woman, and I'll do the babysitting until you get back. After those are done, we've got one more." Kakashi explains. Sasuke and I nod in understanding, but Naruto groans in frustration.
"Are you serious?!? There's more?!? What the heck else is there to do?!?" Naruto yells, catching the attention of several of those walking past.
"We've got to retrieve Madam Shimji's cat, Tora." Kakashi explains. Naruto groans again, but my face lightens up slightly. I love cats. I suddenly hear a soft hum beside me, making my head snap to my right and my face almost flames red. Sasuke stares at me with adoration written on his expression. He'd seen me.
"Alright team, get to work." Kakashi instructs before walking off himself. I nod and get away from Sasuke as quickly as I could. This is gonna be very a long day.
~ Later That Long Day ~
"Naruto you dweeb!" Sasuke yells as Naruto dives over him and grabs Tora the cat himself. I silently gasp in fear for the cat, but it seems fine as it starts to maul Naruto in the face. That poor cat.
"What the hell!" Naruto yells as the cat continually scratches at him. The cat can probably sense Kurama and wants to get away. I sigh and walk up to Naruto and Tora and gently take the creature from Naruto. Upon being moved, the cat gets ready to attack again, but sees me and stops. I slowly lift my hand and allow the cat to smell my fingers before stroking the animal's soft fur. I ignore the rest of my team's stares and walk off to report to the Hokage.
"Whoa. That's the calmest I've ever seen (Y/n)! She looks so... so... not (Y/n)!" I hear Naruto yell. I turn around and glare momentarily before continuing. Sasuke, Kakashi, and Naruto trail behind me slowly, considering that I was already walking slowly to prolong my time with the cat. When we get to the Hokage's office, Madam Shimji squeals in excitement. The cat tenses in my arms and his claws dig into the fabric of my black shirt. The round woman runs up to me to take the cat, but I jerk away from her quickly.
"(Y/n) what are you doing? That's her cat, you've got to give it to her." Sasuke says. I glare at the woman, then at Sasuke, then back to the woman.
"Madam, you're mistreating your animal, and I refuse to return him until you learn to properly care for him. You've got to be gentle. If you do that, we won't have to keep doing this redundant, idiotic mission every time Tora escapes your meaty grasp." I sneer at the woman. Her eyes go wide and she gasps, but nods her head with a shameful look on her face.
I stroke the cats fur a few more times before reluctantly placing him in her arms. She strokes Tora gently, and Tora seems to relax. When I turn around, Naruto's and Sasuke's mouths are wide open, and Kakashi's eye is wide. Lord third stares at me in disbelief as I keep my expression stoic.
"Well then, mission successful. Now, as for your next mission-" Lord third starts, but Naruto groans loudly, stopping him.
"NO! No no no no, heck no old man! I'm tired of these baby missions. It's busy work! I want some action, I wanna go out into the field, life on the line, fighting battles! We are ninja after all!" Naruto says just as Iruka walks in. Iruka's eyes go wide and he fumes.
"Naruto! Shut up! How dare you-" Iruka starts, but Lord third raises a hand, stopping Iruka from scolding Naruto any further.
"No, it's alright Iruka. The child wants more responsibility. It'll be good for their character growth. Alright, team 7, I'm assigning you a C ranked mission. An escort mission." Third explains. Naruto beams with excitement and starts jumping up and down in place. I shake my head and look to the ground.
"Oohhhh! Who are we escorting?!? A feudal Lord, or a princess maybe, or a-" Naruto starts, but an older man enters the room and starts speaking over him.
"Are these brats escorting me home? They don't look like ninja. That one there is even shorter than the weak little girl!" The man says. My fists ball up as my aura turns much darker than normal. My eyes flicker over to a shining blue brighter than Naruto's eyes, and I start walking forward, but a warm, familiar hand starts melting the ice in my blood.
Sasuke.
The man's eyes widen and he takes a step back. I deactivate my Daku, with with bit of a struggle, and shrug Sasuke's hand off of my shoulder.
"(Y/n) stop. We cannot kill our client. I apologize Tazuna. I am Kakashi, Jounin of the leaf, and I can assure your safety. We will meet you at the gates in one hour." Kakashi says to Tazuna. He eyes us skeptically before nodding his head, not daring to make a rude comment.
"Whatever you say." Tazuna says and is escorted out of the room. We all leave to go pack for the mission, and just as planned, an hour later, we meet at the gates and head out on our mission.
Kakashi stands up front, then Sasuke and Naruto on either side of Tazuna, and finally me in the back. I drift a bit farther back form the others, just because. Almost immediately, Naruto starts rambling, so I drown him out and keep my gaze on the dirt road. Ten minutes into our walk, my gaze lands on a puddle in the middle of the road. My eyebrows furrow together and my gaze snaps up to Kakashi, who seems to be acting a little too unaware of his surroundings. He noticed it too. We had just barely passed the puddle when chains whipped out and cut 'Kakashi'.
Naruto freaked out and froze, causing him to get injured. I smirked evilly to myself and took out my katana. Sasuke went to attack one of the mist ninja, but I ran in front of him and pushed him back into Naruto, almost knocking him over. The mist ninjas's eyes widened as did my smirk. They whipped their chains, but I was faster.
My hand shot into my kunai pouch as I pinned the chain to a tree, then swung my sword, decapitating the first one. The other two mist ninja, as well as my squad and Tazuna gasped in shock as I kicked the head away from me, then turned to the other two. They attempted to flee, but I pinned one to a tree with three kunai, and stabbed the other in the stomach. I'd killed three people in one day.
I panted in attempts to catch my breath as I walked up to the dead ninja on the tree and wiped my bloody sword on his clothes before turning back to my group. They were mortified. I rolled my eyes as Kakashi jumped out of a tree with a shocked expression on his face.
"Uh, good job, I guess. Naruto, you need work." Kakashi said. This seemed to diffuse the tension in the air, tensed shoulders relaxed and kunai were placed back into weapons pouches.
"You're not hurt are you, you scaredy cat." Sasuke teases Naruto, and for some reason, the idiot stabs himself and says a speech, but I drown it out as I stare at my first three bodies. Before I know it, Naruto's hand is wrapped, the bodies were gone, and we're moving again. Now, Naruto is overly aware of things that aren't even there. For the past hour, he's been throwing kunai at things that aren't there, but this last time, there was a rabbit. I glared at Naruto for almost harming the creature and went up to it, but something wasn't right. I felt a strong demonic presence from the left. My body went tense and I jumped up in the air before Kakashi even gave the order.
A large sword lodged itself into the tree where my head was just a second before. When I came down from my jump, I landed on the blade of the sword, and not a second later, a tall masked man landed on the hilt, only two feet away from me. He eyed me up and down before grabbing my throat and slamming my back up against the tree.
"(Y/n)!" Sasuke yells as Naruto gasps. My fingernails clawed at his fists, only making his grips tighter. I lower my hands and close my eyes, concentrations my chakra there before flashing them open again, showing the bright blue flame-like color.
"Really Zabuza, a child is who you pick a fight with?" Kakashi calls out sarcastically. Zabuza turns his head to look at Kakashi.
"This child is no ordinary one. She's got a demon in her, I can feel it, look at her eyes, she reminds me of-" Zabuza begins and he turns his head back to me and looks me in the eyes, mistake. Zabuza gasps and releases his grip on my throat. My concentration wavers and my Daku flickers off as oxygen enters my lungs and I suck in a much oxygen as possible while falling to the ground, but the impact never comes. Sasuke had dashed over, putting his life on the line to catch me.
"Are you alright?" Sasuke asks, looking down at me with genuine concern. I cough a few times and then nod my head in response. This man was going to die by my hands. I growl and get up, my chakra lashing out like crazy, I take a step forward, but Kakashi stops me.
"Don't, I'll handle this." Kakashi says and pulls his headband up. A small growl rips through Sasuke's throat at the shocking sight before us.
The sharingan.
After restraining Sasuke from ripping Kakashi's borrowed sharingan out of its socket, Kakashi and Zabuza engaged in a quite tense battle. Sasuke and Naruto stayed by the bridge builder as ordered, but I was sitting on the ground, formulating a good plan. It's obvious that Kakashi is not an Uchiha, so using the sharingan is going to take a toll on him, and that's where I come in.
"(Y/n)! Take Naruto, Sasuke, and Tazuna away from here, now!" Kakashi suddenly yells. I sigh heavily and stand up off of the ground and dust myself off. Kakashi was in a pickle. His chakra was outstandingly low, and Zabuza had figured out the trick to the sharingan.
"Why would I do that?" I ask in boredom as I crack my knuckles and take a few steps forward.
"Because it's about to get ugly. That's an order, now go." Kakashi says after he spits a few fireballs at Zabuza, who dodges them effortlessly. This is a game of cat and mouse.
"I apologize Kakashi, but I can't do that. I have beef with this man right here." I say, finally becoming serious after touching my bruising neck.
"Oh do you now brat?" Zabuza says with an evil cackle after capturing Kakashi in the water prison jutsu. This is too easy, and he knows that. What's he planning?
"Kakashi sensei!" Naruto and Sasuke yell in unison. I groan slightly, forgetting about them. I turn around with a strict look on my face.
"Sasuke, Naruto, listen to me carefully. Stay here and protect this man, do not get in my way, do not interfere, no matter what happens. Understood?" I order them in an authoritative tone. Their eyes widen. They exchange glances before looking back to me with slight determination written on their face.
"Yeah." Naruto says, focusing on his wound from earlier. He looks at Sasuke, who now has a slight skeptical look, but his eyes travel to me. My eyes catch his and he keeps his there, staring. After a few seconds he looks to the ground and grips his kunai a bit tighter.
"I guess." Sasuke mumbles. I sigh in relief and turn back to face Zabuza, whose still got his hand on the massive ball of water. I discretely make two shadow clones and send them under the dirt and charge straight forward to Zabuza. He laughs maniacally and makes water clones to keep me busy, but little did he know that I was just keeping him busy. After I'd defeated the last clone, I turn back to him with a smirk growing on my face.
"What do you have to smirk about kid?" Zubuza growled. My smirk grows as my hands ball into fists. It was obvious Zabuza was worn out from Kakashi, but from what I'd studied of this man, he was determined, if not just as much as Naruto.
"This. NOW!" I yell as one of my clones shoot up from the dirt and plant a kick in the center of his chest. The second clone pops out behind him and slams him into the ground. Perfect. I race forward and haul Kakashi up quickly and drag him close enough for Naruto and Sasuke to grab him. They quickly drag him away.
"You know, I never wondered why you try so hard. You've got a sister to kill right? A clan to avenge? It took me a while, but I finally figured out where I'd seen those eyes before. You're a Daku." Zabuza teases breathily, wheezing from the impact of the ground. My body tenses and I slowly turn my body to face Zabuza. He was standing now, seemingly recovered from my attack.
"What'd you just say?" I whisper breathlessly, but I know he hears me because he began to chuckle humorlessly.
"It's pathetic really. You need fuel to be strong. You're weak. You will never kill your sister, and your clan's death will always be meaningless." Zabuza boasted. That's it. There it is. The ice in my veins began to build and my breathing became labored.
"Shut. Up." I demand as I ball my fists tight and dig my foot into the ground. A broad smirk crosses Zabuza's face as he crosses his arms over his chest.
"Your mom, your dad, aunts and uncles, grandparents, all dead." He says in mock sympathy. Another thing I hate dearly. I grit my teeth and a growl rips through my throat.
"I SAID SHUT UP!" I screamed, animalistic. The air now stings with my raging chakra, begging to be released, and I planned on doing just that.
"And now, your sensei, your friend, and your little boyfriend are going to join. And it's all. Your. Fault." Zabuza spat. My body freezes and all goes silent. Something inside of me snaps as my head hangs down, and all human emotions seem to vanish from my body, the only thing I craved was this man's blood on my hands.
"Oh no." Sasuke says breathlessly as he makes the group back up a few steps. I didn't even need to turn around to know that they were terrified.
"You shouldn't have said that. She's gonna-" Kakashi starts, but black energy, pure, uncontainable chakra forms around my body. The earth under my feet crumbles from the pressure and my head snaps up.
"You're going to die now." I growl in a voice that sounded like mine mixed with someone else's. My eyes flame so brightly that the sun seemed dim in comparison. To be honest, I was no better with my Daku than Kakashi was with the sharingan. I'd had zero training with it, but that didn't matter right now. Zabuza's eyes widened momentarily before his expression went blank. He wasn't moving, meaning he was letting me attack first, this caused my mind to drift back to the genin exams.
Flashback
"Begin!" Iruka yells. I continue to stand in place with my arms crossed, waiting for her to attack. She looks confused momentarily, before her eyes light up with realization.
"Oh, right, you're letting me attack first." She noted as she gains a bit of confidence about herself and pulls a kunai from her weapons pouch. I scoff lightly and glare in her direction.
"It's common courtesy to let the weak go first, or maybe common sense." I say nonchalantly with a smirk. Some of the students behind me gasp while others giggle and laugh.
End of Flashback
I'd beaten that girl bad, and I'll do the same with this idiot. I growl once more before pushing off of the ground with my right foot, causing a deep crater to make itself present. Zabuza quickly made some water clones, but as I ran past them, they all turned to ice. Zabuza froze and his eyes went wide as I continued to race toward him effortlessly.
"Ice, the only ice user alive is- but that's impossible!" Zabuza finishes just as I catch him in an uppercut so strong he goes flying through the air. I push myself upward at a speed so great, I pass Zubuza. I do a singular flip and extend my leg, crashing it down onto Zabuza's throat. Blood comes flying out of his mouth as his body races toward the ground. I land on his body with a thud, knocking the breath from him. I grab his throat and stand up, pulling him with me, with much difficulty because this man is literally 6 feet tall. He shakily holds his own weight and opens his eyes, looking directly into mine. A broad smirk makes its way onto my face, I've got him.
"You'd think with you being an ex-mist anbu, you'd have sense enough to know not to make the same mistake twice." I say before using all of my chakra, pouring it into my eyes. Zabuza gasps as a strangled cry escapes his throat. He screams as loud as he could as he falls onto his knees.
Blood starts pouring from his eyes, ears, and nose. His hands slowly come up and attempt to reach for me, but they never make it. I crack my knuckles and pull a kunai from my bag and raise it above my head. As my arms go to plunge the kunai into Zabuza's throat, a needle whizzes through the crack between my right arm and my head and penetrates Zabuza's neck, making him fully fall over. I growl loudly and turn around, charging at whoever took my kill, ready to rip their throat out.
"Sasuke, Naruto, grab her!" Kakashi yells, and just as he said it, two arms wrapped around my waist, and one body wrapped around my legs, but I didn't care. I dragged them to the man who was standing next to Kakashi, but he came up to me as well, stopping me from dragging the two.
"You need to calm down, this is one of the good guys, his mission was to kill Zabuza, not ours, we need to leave." Kakashi says. I focus on the familiar warmth on my back, allowing it to replace the ice in my veins, and I quickly go back to normal, other than the fact that I have no chakra. It's surprising that I'm not dead. I shake Naruto and Sasuke off and start to walk away in the opposite direction without another word.
"Wait, (Y/n). I've got a bone to pick with you. I gave you direct orders and you-" I didn't get to not listen to the rest of Kakashi's lecture because my body was failing me. I slowed down and swayed to the left before completely collapsing to the ground, sounds of someone screaming my name echoing around me before I lost conciseness completely.