Land of Waves (6)

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

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the sight.

A figure donning a hunter-nin mask with Kirigakure's symbol engraved on the forehead appeared on the branch of a tree.

"Thank you very much. I have been tracking Momochi Zabuza for some time, waiting for this chance to finally take him down." The figure spoke with a gentle tone as he bowed politely.

The Copy Ninja nodded, "By your mask, I see that you are a hunter nin from Kirigakure. Is that right?"

"Impressive. You are well informed." Haku answered, though he could feel some hesitation starting to seep in.

He had decided to jump in at that moment because he realized that his master's chances of survival were very quickly diminishing. Taking down a shinobi who was about to defeat Zabuza would prove to be a tall order, so Haku decided to put him into a near death state and utilize deception to get them both out safely. This was a backup plan formulated by Zabuza, in the event of his defeat in battle.

Haku did not relish the idea of injuring his master, but it was the only way to prevent them from getting captured or killed. However…

'Why isn't he checking Zabuza-sama's vitals?' Haku realized during their short interaction. Kakashi looked calm, which could be explained away from his years of experience dealing with foreign shinobi. However, Kakashi was not approaching Zabuza's 'corpse' to confirm his death for some odd reason.

Could the Konoha shinobi be exhausted and thus lacked any energy to even attempt to confirm Zabuza's death? Or was he that naïve to fully believe the façade at face value? Impossible, someone who had laid such an intricate ambush would never be so foolish. Then could Gozu and Mezu have betrayed them? Those two were loyal to Zabuza, but there were always methods to make them talk…

His dread and trepidation were violently suppressed as Haku reappeared next to Zabuza's body and picked it up. Theories and conjectures were good and all, but his priority right now was to get his master out of this dangerous situation.

"Excuse me, but I must deal with the remains. There are many secrets in his body that must not be allowed to get into the wrong hands." Haku recited, his lines carefully rehearsed.

As he held up a handseal to perform a Shunshin, his actions were interrupted.

"Ah hold on." Kakashi spoke, holding up a hand. "Would you mind meeting my students? It's not everyday they get to meet a hunter nin. And judging by your voice and appearance, you must be about their age. I think it would be good for them to meet someone so talented but is the same age as them. Maybe they will get inspired."

Haku sweated, "That will be difficult. I am in a rush to return to Kiri. If there's nothing else, I will bid you farewell-"

Kakashi smiled before taking slow, measured steps towards the pair, "What's with the hurry? Oh, are you in such a rush that you forgot that you are supposed to deal with the 'corpse' immediately, on the spot, so that there's no room for error? Isn't that right… Haku?"

The Hyoton user froze before immediately forming a single handed seal that created hundreds of needles made of ice which immediately flew towards Kakashi.

In response, the Copy Ninja formed a handseal which allowed for his chakra to explode out of his pores, creating a make shift armor of chakra that, while not durable, was more than enough to deflect the flying senbon.

'One-handed seals. At such a young age too. What a horrifying talent. If he is left alive, he will be a terrifying enemy of Konoha. I have to kill him right now!' With that in mind, Kakashi rushed forward while forming handseals, "Like I said, you should stay and meet my students, Haku!"

"Katon: Fire Dragon Blast!" A stream of fire moulded into the shape of a dragon was sent flying towards the pair, the intensity of the flames scorching even the dirt underneath it.

Before the impact, there was flash of blue, but a great explosion instantly covered it up.

BOOM!

The smoke and dust from the explosion obscured Kakashi's vision for a moment, but he wasn't supremely confident that the A-ranked jutsu had managed to finish the job.

And as expected, as the smoke and dust cleared, the only thing that remained after the explosion were large chunks of ice that were rapidly melting even with the dense Hyoton chakra saturated within.

Kakashi looked around for any further signs of his opponent before putting back his headband to cover his Sharingan once he was convinced the missing-nin and his apprentice managed to escape. It was unfortunate that he couldn't kill the both of them. The Hyoton user was stronger than what the Demon Brothers had reported under their interrogation. If he was still in the ANBU, he might have chased them down relentlessly to prevent such a dangerous enemy from threatening the village. However, right now his students and the mission were the priority.

Furthermore, he was positive he left such heavy injuries on Zabuza that the man would be out of commission for a couple months at least. Enough time for the bridge to finish its construction.

With that, Kakashi turned and ran back to his students, albeit slightly weary from the heavy consumption of chakra.

--------

"So that's it? Zabuza and his apprentice didn't even return and attack again after that?" I commented in disbelief after Sasuke finished recounting the Wave mission. It was almost completely different from how I remembered it going down in canon.

First off, the Demon Brothers had actually been interrogated after being defeated and captured by Team Seven. This gave the team from Konoha valuable information about the upcoming attack, which allowed them plenty of time to plan and lay a trap.

Kakashi then singlehandedly defeated Zabuza, which forced Haku to intervene. However, as the jounin had already been informed about Haku's existence beforehand, he was not deceived by the performance. Though they managed to escape in the end, the severe injuries Kakashi left on Zabuza made sure he could not recover in time to assault Team Seven again.

Which meant there was no climatic showdown at the bridge where Sasuke rescued Naruto by taking the flurry of senbon from Haku, and consequently the bond and friendship between the two protagonists forged from the encounter did not occur.

Sasuke frowned and shrugged, "No. They ran away after being defeated by sensei. I didn't even get to see them because we were trailing quite a distance behind sensei and the clones. The only enemies I got to face in the entire mission were the demon brothers and a bunch of thugs Gato sent when the bridge was almost done being built. What a waste of time."

I sighed heavily, which did not go unnoticed by the Uchiha.

"Fine, I get it. You got to fight and defeat actual missing nin while I had to take the back seat and let my sensei handle everything. You don't have to brag." He glumly retorted in response.

"What? That's not- urgh, whatever." My thoughts were heavy with the realisation that even without my presence, my canon knowledge was being warped further and further from being recognisable. Haku and Zabuza were still alive. What did that mean in the grand scheme of things, I could not be certain. But what I was certain about was that my knowledge of the supposed future was getting more and more unreliable – the result of my intervention and its butterfly effects.

Sasuke frowned at the perceived slight, "Tch, I don't care. Let's just train."

"Hm? Yeah sure." I replied distractedly before perking up, "Oh right, you should start getting serious about your training. It's about time for that too."

The Uchiha's eyebrow twitched, "I have always been serious about training! And what are you talking about?"

I smiled, "You don't know? The chuunin exams are coming up in a couple months and Konoha is hosting this year's exams. Since Konoha is the hosting village, chances are we will all be recommended to join the exam since it will be relatively safer here."

Upon hearing my words, it looked as if a fire was lit in the boy.

"Heh, chuunin exams? Sounds interesting." He remarked, pretending not to be as excited as I knew he was feeling. Seriously, why is this kid such a tsundere?

"Yeah, it will be. Not like we will be expected to pass it though. We just graduated the academy, so most likely we will be nominated to join the exam just to get experience. Of course, that only applies to the rest of you amateurs. I will definitely be rewarded with a chuunin vest once it's over." I shot him a challenging smirk.

He growled, "Don't get cocky. I developed a new move recently, care to test it out?"

I chuckled in amusement, "Sure, sure. Show me what you got."

Though my face was all smiles, inwardly I was more than a little anxious. With the chuunin exams approaching that also meant the arrival of another person, more dangerous than any being I had ever faced in my existence.

Orochimaru, the Snake Sannin.

Worst of all, that guy had a hard on for the Sharingan like nothing else. And unfortunately for me, I didn't just have the Sharingan, I even had the miraculous Gamer Body and System. Sasuke would be his target during the second stage of the exams, but I would be in ten times the amount of danger should that terrifying monster find out about my abilities.

As I followed Sasuke to the Uchiha training grounds, my gaze couldn't help but tremble at the thought of being targeted by someone like Orochimaru, a true monster in human form.