Naruto and Sasuke had been locked into battle with Haku for what seemed like an eternity to them both, again and again they both did what they could to dodge volley after volley of senbon that were wearing them both down slowly.

Naruto could feel himself beginning to slow down more and more after each senbon found its mark. Pretty soon, Naruto felt like he was almost done for, and as if right on queue, another wave of senbon was headed towards, and this time, Naruto knew that he couldn't dodge them.

A wave of regret, rather than fear hit Naruto, 'Old man, I'm sorry, I guess I won't become Hokage after all.'

Watching this, Sasuke felt himself compelled to act, and was just about to leap at Naruto to remove him from harm's way, when something totally unexpected happened.

As the senbon got closer and closer to Naruto, a wall made entirely out of red crystals formed itself between Naruto and the ice senbon, easily blocking the tiny projectiles. Haku, from within her ice mirrors nearly stopped moving out of shock, and Naruto himself could only stare at the red crystals in amazement. But while Haku was distracted, and moving slower than usual, Sasuke acted quickly and threw several kunai at where his Sharingan predicted that Haku would be between the ice mirrors, and sure enough, the kunai found their mark, mostly.

On her way in between mirrors, Haku was suddenly struck in the arm by several kunai that threw her off course, and he ended up landing in a painful heap behind one of the mirrors, suddenly clutching his arm in pain, staring in amazement at the two holes that the kunai had made before the impact with the bridge jarred them loose in an incredibly painful way.

The giant ring of ice mirrors suddenly disappeared, sinking back into the puddles from which they had been summoned from. But this did not mean that Haku was done, she pulled the kunai free from her arm while dashing backwards to gain distance from Naruto and Sasuke.

Meanwhile, both Sasuke and Naruto were staring in amazement at the crystalline structure that had apparently come from out of no where. Naruto had felt that when the crystal structure had appeared, it had drained from his chakra, "Hey Sasuke, I think that I somehow made this, I felt it drain from my chakra when the crystal appeared, and it appeared just in time to probably save my life."

Sasuke seemed to scoff at that for a moment, "You realize that this must be some kind of bloodline, right? It awakened when it was needed to save your life, like my Sharingan did earlier."

Naruto was at a loss of words for once, unable to process that he, an orphan that had no family, must have actual been from a clan that had a bloodline.

Sasuke interrupted Naruto's thoughts, "Well whatever it is, you had better learn how to control it, because it looks like Haku is coming back now."

Both of them turned towards where Haku had backed off to for time to wrap up her arm, only to now see her dashing back towards them, four more senbon in one hand, while the other hand flashed through one handed signs, "Ice Style: Swallow Snow Storm!" Forming out of thin air came a large number of swallows made completely out of ice, but Naruto could see that the wings of the birds were tapered to an incredibly sharp point. Naruto and Sasuke both dashed out of the way of the cloud of birds, each going in different directions, only to see the birds change direction as they went past them, now coming straight at them as they were both still in mid air.

Sasuke with his Sharingan still active, was able to dodge all but one of the dozen swallows that swarmed by him, leaving him with a gash just above his right knee. Naruto however, did not have the predictive capabilities of the Sharingan, and as the swallows got closer and closer, Naruto was about to raise his arms to brace for the impacts, but instinct took over, and he instead felt a large pull on his chakra again, and another crystal wall formed itself in between Naruto and the ice swallows, and the swallows were unable to change direction soon enough to dodge the wall, shattering against the hardened crystal.

Haku could only watch in fascination as her swallows were neutralized by Naruto, again by the mysterious crystals he could apparently make, which seemed rather similar to how her ice could be manipulated, only Naruto was not needing to make hand signs at all, it was as if it was natural manipulation of the crystals, somehow bypassing the need for hand signs to properly shape his chakra.

Sasuke however, still had to deal with his swallows, but this time as they came at him without the element of surprise, Sasuke quickly flashed through hand signs, "Fire Style: Giant Fireball Jutsu!" Sasuke quickly produced a large fireball that was way too large for the swallows to avoid, and they were quickly melted by the fireball.

Naruto and Sasuke both had the same thought upon seeing the fireball melt the swallows, 'So it was only the ice mirrors that were strong enough to resist fire.'

Both Naruto and Sasuke had kept Haku in their sights this time, watching to make sure that she did not catch them by surprise again. Naruto began the charge at her, creating nearly a dozen shadow clones around him as he charged at her from her right, while Sasuke charged in from her left.

Seeing the large threat that Naruto and his clones were, Haku began to dash backwards further, throwing ice senbon as she did so. As the wave of ice senbon rocketed towards Naruto and the clones, Naruto and all of the clones knew what to do, and replicated the flow of chakra that had previously occurred to protect Naruto, only this time they did it a little bit differently, and as the senbon grew dangerously close to Naruto and his clones, they were all suddenly encompassed by crystal, the added weight forcing them to fall harmlessly at the feet of Naruto and his clones.

Naruto was seized by a brief feeling of triumph, 'Yes! My idea worked!' before steeling himself, and continuing to race towards Haku, who was still skipping backwards, throwing senbon at Naruto and his clones to slow them down, each senbon simply falling at their feet covered in crystal.

As Haku was backing up however, she could see the mist surrounding Zabuza and Kakashi's fight fall away, revealing Zabuza pinned down by a number of dogs, with Kakashi clutching his right arm which was covered in raw electricity, and he began to run towards Zabuza, his intent obvious, to kill her master.

Without a second of hesitation, Haku took off, moving as fast as she could to somehow stop Kakashi from killing Zabuza, and she saw only one way to do so, she was going to throw herself in between Kakashi and Zabuza, and sacrifice herself to save Zabuza.

She would have arrived in time to save her master, except for one thing, Naruto. Naruto had a brief moment of inspiration, and had several of his clones throw them towards Haku as hard as they could, and with 5 clones, Naruto was moving very fast, almost fast enough to stop Haku himself, but that was not his plan.

Naruto was only ten feet behind Haku, but beginning to slow down, but he was close enough, and as Haku's foot touched down on the bridge to launch herself back up into the air, red crystal grew out of the bridge and engulfed her foot, crawling up to the middle of her shin before stopping, effectively stopping her in her tracks.

Haku could then only watch helplessly as Kakashi pierced the heart of Zabuza with his Raikiri, and a cry of anguish tore itself from her throat, "NO!"

The nin-dogs dispelled, their job done as Zabuza fell to the ground stone dead. Haku continued to try in vain to free herself from the crystal, but no matter what she tried, she couldn't, so she collapsed, tears running down her face in anguish at the death of her master, who she thought of as a surrogate father.

As Zabuza fell dead to the ground, a cruel laughing could be heard, and everyone on the bridge looked up to see that Gato had arrived, with a small army of thugs at his back.

"You know, I really must thank you for taking care of Zabuza for me, I was worried I would have to have my boys kill him after he was done killing all of you, but with him dead I won't have to worry about that, and he thought that I was going to PAY HIM, what a fool."

Gato walked back and forth in front of his goons, before speaking again, "They all look tired and worn out from their fighting, go finish them off them off boys!"

At once, all of the goons began to rush forward, and to encourage them, Gato yelled out, "Ten thousand ryu for whoever brings me the head of a ninja!"

Their assault was brought to an abrupt stop, after Kakashi signaled Naruto, and the two of them both poured as much chakra as they could into creating clones, creating a group of clones that was almost equal to half of the number of thugs.

From where Naruto stood however, he heard a voice call out t him, "Naruto, please release me from this crystal, so I may go kill Gato myself. I have no animosity towards anyone in your group, but I will make Gato pay for getting me and Zabuza-sama into this situation in the first place."

Naruto looked over to Kakashi, who nodded his head in agreement, and Naruto used his chakra to loosen the hold of the crystal on Haku's leg, and she quickly pulled her foot out, and pulled off the Hunter-nin mask that she had been wearing prior, shocking Naruto as he finally realized that the foe that he and Sasuke had been fighting this whole time was in fact the boy that he had met in the forest a few days before, and had mistaken for a girl.

The army of thugs wearily began to come to a stop thirty feet shy of the small army of shadow clones, before Gato again commanded them, "If you want to get paid, go KILL THOSE NINJA, and FIFTY THOUSAND ryu for Tazuna's head!"

The two groups then finally rushed at each other, shadow clones against hired thugs. Normally, even when the odds are 1 to 2, shadow clones would have had no problem against hired thugs, but both Naruto and Kakashi had already previously been tired, Kakashi's Sharingan and Naruto's Crystal Release having drained a large amount of chakra from the both of them, thoroughly weakening the strength of the clones.

The four ninja, Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke and Haku were about to intervene themselves, until over the crest of a hill before the bridge, the entire village appeared, armed with make shift weapons and armor, armed with rakes, wood cutter's axes, hammers, and similar attire.

It was Inari, Tazuna's grandson, who in the front of all of the villagers, and he spoke confidently down towards Gato and his men, "The people of our village, of the Land of Waves will lie down for you no longer Gato!" And at once, they all began to run down the hill, shouting war cries as they did so.

The appearance of the villagers, however ill equipped, completely shattered the moral of each and every one of the hired thugs, and they all threw down their weapons, and were prepared to turn and flee towards the boat that they had arrived on and left moored just on the side of the bridge on one of the support pillars, when a wall of ice mirrors rose up, cutting them all off from reaching their escape, Gato included.

Naruto turned to where Haku had been next to him, only to now see her in each of the ice mirrors, six in total, "There is no escape for the hired scum that committed untold villainy and atrocities to the people of Wave. For all of you, you shall face justice. And the only justice for murderers and thugs is death."

The villagers and team seven could only watch in a mix of morbid fascination and horror as wave after wave of ice senbon rained down upon the thugs, each and every single senbon finding a lethal point on their target, and in seconds, the thugs were all dead, none of them even having been able to utter a cry of pain.

But left in the center of all of the dead thugs, was Gato himself, left cowering pathetically on the ground, weeping. Haku jumped down out of the ice mirrors, letting them disappear behind her as she walked towards Gato, who she grabbed by the collar of his shirt, and pulled up to his feet.

"Gato will no longer be a problem for the people of Wave, his men are all dead, and I will ensure that Gato will never harm another human being again." With that, Haku was gone, dashing down off of the bridge and onto the boat that was still moored down below, heading back to Gato's hideout.

The next week was spent in celebration for the liberation of the Village of Wave, the common people constantly thanking Team Seven for all of their help, even if it hadn't entirely been them to finally handle Gato and his men, though without their help their village would surely have still been doomed.

Team Seven however, spent the week mostly resting; Kakashi was entirely burnt out again, while Sasuke was in a similar state. Naruto bounced back the next day however, good as new, constantly experimenting with his new found bloodline, the origin of which still baffled the entire team, including Kakashi, who was by far the most perplexed.

On the seventh day, the bridge was finally completed with the help of Naruto's shadow clones under the guidance of Tazuna. Team Seven was finally ready to now leave, the bridge was complete, Gato was almost certainly dead or imprisoned somewhere by Haku, and their mission was finally complete.

As Team Seven began their journey back home, the entire village turned up to watch them go, cheering their name's as they left, mixed in with a large amount of blessings.

As Tazuna and Inari stood with Tsunami to watch Team Seven leave, Tazuna began to ponder out loud what they should name the bridge, only for Inari to suggest a name, "The Great Naruto Bridge, because it was Naruto who gave us all courage and hope again to stand up against Gato."

Tazuna and Tsunami could only nod in agreement, it was a suiting name, not to mention the blood red crystals that were found all over the bridge, not to mention the two walls of crystal that had to moved off of the bridge, which Inari had insisted be erected at the beginning of the bridge.

About ten minutes after Team Seven was out of view from the people of wave, they were suddenly approached by Haku, who walked out of the woods along the road back to Konoha.

Sensing that Haku's intentions were not hostile, Kakashi made no move to stop Haku, who stopped a few feet in front of Kakashi, addressing him, "I know that you captured the Demon Brothers, Gozu and Meizu, I would like to pay for their freedom."

Kakashi shifted nervously, "Gozu and Meizu were taken back to Konoha, I sent word to Anbu to retrieve them, you will have to come with us back to the village to negotiate with the Hokage for their freedom, and it will probably cost you a lot, they are renowned missing nin from Kirigakure, and Kiri has a high bounty on them of almost forty thousand ryu, you will probably have to match that to get their freedom."

Haku smiled at that, "I took all of Gato's money from him, as well as had him sign over his entire business empire to me before I let him walk away, he is penniless, he will now feel what it felt like for the villagers of Wave."

Kakashi nodded, a cruel punishment, but fair for the crimes he had committed, "Then you no doubt have more than enough money to buy their freedom, come with us and you will be able to get into the village with us and meet with the Hokage."

Haku nodded, and the group was again on the move, Haku falling in a little behind Team Seven as they walked, while the genin all had mixed feelings about Haku tagging along with them.

Sakura was afraid of Haku, having seen how she probably would have for sure been able to kill both Naruto and Sasuke if not for Naruto unlocking the crystal release bloodline to save the situation.

Sasuke was wary of Haku, but eagerly wanted to fight her again, she was an opponent that was capable of keeping him on his toes in terms of speed, something that only Kakashi could do, but he would never go remotely close to all out in a spar.

Naruto however, was just intensely curious about Haku, still not being entirely sure if Haku was a boy or a girl, Haku's voice and appearance and voice were that of a girl, but Haku had told him she was a boy, plus he wondered why she would take Gato's business and money, what would she need all of the money for?

To ask Haku himself, Naruto slowed down for a moment, and fell in step with Haku, asking her first, "So really, are you a boy or a girl?"

The question made Haku smile, while Sakura was appalled that Naruto would have the balls to simply ask Haku that, while Sasuke and Kakashi simply listened to hear the answer, having both been slightly curious about it as well.

Haku waited a moment before replying, "I am a girl, but around everyone but Zabuza, Zabuza made me act and tell everyone I was a boy. Zabuza made me do so because he did not want to hear the endless teasing from Gozu and Meizu about him being the sensei of a girl."

Team Seven as a whole figuratively face palmed at hearing that, making someone hide their gender to avoid teasing from someone was definitely different, to say the least.

Naruto waited a moment to ask his next question, "So about Gato and his money, why did you take it all? What could you need all of that money for? Tazuna said that Gato was insanely rich."

Haku waited for a moment before replying, "I gave a large amount of it, nearly three million ryu to Tazuna to give back to all of the people of wave, I know he was a good and fair man, I am sure that when he finds it, he will distribute it fairly to all of the people to improve their lives."

The entire team stopped to stare at Haku in amazement, Kakashi being the first to say something, "That was very noble and kind of you to do, Haku-san."

Haku bowed her head in embarrassment, "Gato took a lot from the people of wave, not nearly that much money, but he caused them a lot of pain and suffering."

There was silence as they began walking again, Naruto still walking besides Haku, but it was only so long before he could ask his next question, "What about the rest of the money, what are you going to do with it?"

"With the remaining two million ryu I am going to fulfill Zabuza-sama's dream, I was his tool, but more than that, I was like a daughter to him, and he, a father to me. He wanted, more than anything, to raise enough money to pay for an army to seize control of Kirigakure from the evil and cruel Mizukage Yagura. With the demon brothers, and with as many soldiers as I can buy, I will fulfill Zabuza-sama's dream."

Author's Note: I quickly want to say thank you for those of you who read my story all the way through, I really like this idea for a story, I have never found a story where Naruto has the Crystal Release bloodline, and so I wanted to write one. Let me know if there IS already a story like this out there, as I would very much like to read it. Please let me know what you thought, pm or review, either way.

For those of you wondering, Haku and her mission to seize control of Kirigakure will be a MAJOR part in this story, and there will probably be a few chapters dedicated to that.

P.S. If you are wondering how I am going to explain Naruto having Crystal Release, it will probably be a while before it is all explained, but when it is, I hope you all like the way that I came up with.