Land of Waves (5)

His grip tightened on his blade, though because of his injury, he could now feel the real weight of the weapon which he once wielded like a feather. The strain on his muscles pressing against his broken ribs sent surging waves of raw, unadulterated pain shooting up his torso. But he ignored it. There was only one goal here: run!

Zabuza jumped away, into the trees, and continued sprinting. Haku knew not to reveal himself. Not until he was in true mortal peril. And in the event that he did appear, and as much as he was reluctant to, Haku's sacrifice would buy him precious seconds to escape.

Kakashi understood Zabuza's thoughts all too well. Battles between high level shinobi were more akin to shogi matches than a contest of strength. The ability to think ten moves ahead, predict what your opponent was thinking and discerning any potential traps was what set the truly elite apart from the mediocre.

Before Zabuza even moved, Kakashi and his shadow clone had already been prepared to chase him down. Their Sharingan eyes allowed them to see the minute twitches of his muscles just as Zabuza made the decision to run. And without an injury weighing them down like Zabuza had, Kakashi and his shadow clone easily cut off his escape path, pincering him between two identical looking ninjas.

Unlike Mezu who mistakenly identified Naruto's Kage Bunshin as Tsuchi Bunshin, Zabuza was rather knowledgeable about the various secret techniques belonging to different hidden villages. He had to be to be successful at his previous job at Kiri's assassination unit.

As a result, he was aware that one of the Kakashis pincering him was a clone, and thus the greatest chance he had to escape was by going through the clone instead of the original. However, one crucial feature about the shadow clone was that it was impossible to identify which was the clone and which was the original. Zabuza who was not part of Team Seven's planning process had no way of knowing which was the clone.

Fifty-fifty. One route led to certain death, and the other, an escape. Zabuza gave a feral grin, despite his bleak circumstances. A fifty percent chance of survival was way better odds than many impossible battles he had been through before.

Circulating dense chakra into his muscles, Zabuza exploded towards one of the Kakashis, Kubikiribocho slicing through the air, similarly empowered with chakra.

Of course, there was no way Kakashi would let himself get cut – clone or otherwise. Now that he had Zabuza hurt and cornered, he had to get rid of him here and now.

His hands blurred, forming twelve handseals under a second, "Doton: Earth Fang Field!"

Slamming his hand into the ground, a wave of earth chakra transferred from his palms into the ground and the earth immediately morphed according to Kakashi's wishes.

Thick earthen spikes erupted from the ground, functioning both as a way of obstructing Zabuza's way forward as well as possibly injuring the rogue ninja with its sharp spikes.

Needless to say, something as simple as a C-ranked jutsu could not possibly harm or surprise someone of Zabuza's calibre. As the spikes emerged from the ground, the Demon of the Mist immediately used one that had appeared in front of him as a vantage point to bounce back in the opposite direction, towards the other Kakashi who had moved to chase after the missing nin.

The thick earthen spike shattered into pieces the moment Zabuza leapt off of it, an awesome display of strength the sheer quantity of chakra the Kiri shinobi had pumped into his legs, before rocketing back.

Zabuza never intended to try and run away so obviously. His initial charge was only a way to disguise his true intentions which was to carve through the Kakashi behind him. His speed bolstered by the momentum of jumping off the spike drastically enhanced the kinetic force behind his blade swung in Kakashi's direction.

Had Kakashi been any other shinobi below his level, or had he not possessed the predictive capabilities of his Sharingan eye, Zabuza's speed and abrupt change in direction might have surprised him. However, Kakashi was not just any other shinobi. He was the Copy Ninja, someone who could be counted amongst the top five strongest shinobi currently residing in Konoha. And that strength did not measure just pure fighting abilities.

Though Zabuza flew throw the air extremely quickly, with Obito's Sharingan that blessed him with immense dynamic vision he could see through the Demon of the Mist's movements. And the one fatal flaw of Zabuza's plan was that he could not maneuver himself in mid-air.

Kakashi immediately moved out of the way of Kubikiribocho's trajectory, before the same kunai he had tried using to stab through Zabuza's head was thrusted once again towards the missing-nin.

However, as the Demon of the Mist struck the ground with Kubikiribocho, missing Kakashi's body entirely, the impact and contact with the ground allowed Zabuza to twist his body in mid air with a surprising flexibility and acrobatic prowess one would not expect from a man with such a stocky build.

This allowed Zabuza to once more evade the sharp blade of the kunai and even allowing him to land on the opposite side of both the Kakashi who were now behind him.

"See ya." The missing nin mockingly jeered before sprinting away with all his might.

The two Kakashi behind him watched his retreat indifferently.

"Why did you think I only created one clone?" One of them commented as another Kakashi erupted from the ground in front of Zabuza and landed another devastating kick that crashed into the rogue shinobi's sternum, launching him back towards the other two Kakashis waiting patiently.

This final clone was Kakashi's cherry on top of the plan Shikamaru had crafted. It was not a Kage Bunshin, but an actual Tsuchi Bunshin this time. The Earth natured chakra that made up its body allowed the clone to effectively hide its presence beneath the earth to avoid detection until it was needed.

Furthermore, due to the Earth Nature chakra, its blows were a tier heavier than what Kakashi was capable of with his base body without chakra enhancement. The damage from the kick was not as heavy as one would expect however, as Zabuza had saturated his body with chakra this time round, which provided an added layer of much needed defence.

However, the earth clone's attack did prevent him from running away as well as providing the opportunity for Kakashi to finish off the Demon of the Mist.

Zabuza managed to stop the momentum from the kick by stabbing his blade into the ground, leaving a long gash across the earth. However, this did little to prevent him from being surrounded once more.

He managed to swiftly pull out his blade to deflect a flurry of shuriken thrown at him, however he was forced to block a kick aimed at his head with his forearm. Then he had to slip another punch thrown by the Tsuchi Bunshin.

Zabuza swung Kubikiribocho to counterattack, but his arm holding the blade was stopped before he was caught with another hook that landed smoothly on his jaw, leaving him dazed for a moment.

The sight of three identical looking Kakashis ganging up on Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Mist, was hard to look at for anyone who knew his history. The former member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist struggled to hold his own, but not to mention counterattacking, just trying to block and evade attacks from three different directions was already difficult.

Zabuza finally managed to pull himself away from the flurry of blows, recklessly going on the offense by charging towards one of his opponents and ignoring the punch that landed on the same spot as his broken ribs as well as a kunai that stabbed into his back.

Fortunately for him, the charge was luckily aimed at a Kage Bunshin, and the impact was enough to destroy the clone, disappearing in a cloud of white smoke.

With one out of three opponents destroyed, Zabuza immediately turned back to frenziedly slash at his remaining enemies, swinging his giant blade with wild abandon. The Demon of the Mist was not exactly close to death, but his experience and instinct told him he was not far from a point of no return. So the tried and true method of getting himself out of it was to slaughter and go wild with bloodlust.

The Tsuchi Bunshin lacked the mental faculties to avoid Zabuza's frenzied attacks and was easily carved into pieces. Now, the only one left was the original Kakashi, who jumped back to avoid the half-crazed demon.

In truth, Kakashi was trying to hold himself back from launching powerful ninjutsu. The usage of the Shadow Clone had already halved his chakra capacity while the Sharingan eye, though powerful, drained his remaining reserves like a voracious glutton. The C-ranked Doton ninjutsu as well as the Tsuchi Bunshin similarly consumed not insignificant amounts of chakra.

Furthermore, with the knowledge that Zabuza had an additional partner hidden somewhere, Kakashi was trying to fight while conserving his remaining reserves as much as possible.

As Zabuza slowly ceased his rampage, he could finally take stock of his injuries. Aside from the multiple bruises that would surely start forming in a few hours' time, blood was also leaking from his mouth from the internal injuries. Every breath he took was laboured and sent sharp pain from the broken ribs that had further shattered from the last attack from Kakashi.

Most importantly, the kunai stabbed deep into his body hit something vital. He could feel the internal bleeding from the ruptured organ. He would have to receive immediate medical attention otherwise…

If he pushed himself, he could continue fighting at peak condition for a few minutes max, but the drawback afterwards would leave him at death's door. Which meant he had to kill Kakashi during that short time frame otherwise he would most definitely die, or worse, be captured. But he also knew that Kakashi wasn't dumb. The Konoha nin would also realize that the few minutes would be his last ditch effort, so he would only need to stay away for some time before Zabuza by himself.

Running away was also not an option. He could similarly only run at max speed for a couple minutes, and judging by the fight so far, Kakashi was just as fast as if not faster than him. He could, at best, be chased for a some time before collapsing and getting captured. Which meant that his only option now was-

Zabuza's thoughts were interrupted when two senbon needles suddenly flew into his neck before he slumped forward and fell to the ground motionless.