Unknown-nin345: I'm not really sure where the idea for this came from. It just sort of gathered and collected over the course of a couple days, culminating in this. I'm sorry if you get confused when reading the first couple of paragraphs. I hope you like it.
Disclaimer: I don't own any names/abilities/clothing/quotes/weapons/jutsus/bloodline limits from any other manga/anime/cartoon/book/video game/movie/fanfiction.
Uzumaki Naruto was mainly feeling two things right now as he kneeled in the center of a dome of ice panting a little heavily: tired and glad, but mostly tired. He was tired of so many things: hiding his appearance and abilities, his feelings about who it was he had a crush on (that's right, he didn't have a crush on the pink-haired banshee, Haruno Sakura), and finally he was tired from having to both dodge various ice needles while holding himself back from actually doing something that could finish the fight.
Now, the reason why he was glad was very simple. He no longer had to hold back since his teammate (if you could really call him that), Uchiha Sasuke, was no longer conscious. The broody boy had been pierced by three ice needles in a spot that would fake a death-like appearance. Just like what the fake hunter-nin had done with Zabuza.
Naruto chuckled and looked up at the masked figure whose image was reflected in each of the ice mirrors that the mystery person had made. The blonde-haired boy made his way into a standing position and addressed the figure, "Thanks for finally putting the teme to sleep."
The mystery hunter-nin tried to feign curiosity and asked in an almost perfectly curious voice, "What do you mean? Your friend is dead. Those needles were aimed for his vital points." Underneath the mask Haku sweated nervously, wondering if the blonde boy had noticed that the black-haired brat wasn't dead.
Naruto scoffed and jerked a thumb at the Uchiha. "Please. That's the exact same thing you did with Zabuza-san. So my thanks to you, Haku-san." The black-haired figure flinched in all of the windows. "Yeah, I figured it was you back when you were gathering herbs, although I'm still not clear on whether you're a guy or girl. Anyhow, I no longer have to hold back. I wasn't sure if his Sharingan could copy my abilities, so I decided to wait and see if you could knock him out."
"Would you truly use your comrades this way Naruto-kun?" Haku asked, wondering if perhaps Naruto was different from the first assumption that had been made of him.
"Haku-san, the brat lying on the ground there is obsessed with getting power. He thinks that because his older brother killed his entire clan means that he should be given everyone else's jutsus and strengths in order to 'avenge' his clan." Naruto flatly told Haku. "If he even suspected I was the least bit stronger than him, than he would whine and complain to the council of Konoha to give him more power. The sad thing is that many of the people on the council would, just to get in his good graces."
Haku's head shook from side to side sadly, "If only clans with bloodline limits had been treated that well in Mizu no Kuni." The masked figure conjured up some ice needles for each hand and said, "Unfortunately, Naruto-kun, the time for talking is over."
Naruto closed his eyes in concentration and smiled, "I couldn't agree more Haku-san."
Haku leapt from the mirror straight towards the still as stone Naruto who hadn't moved a muscled. Had Haku been paying attention; then maybe the wind coming in to swirl about the blonde would have been noticed sooner. As it was, Haku didn't and was already halfway to the blonde, arms cocked back to launch the needles, when his eyes snapped open and he sprang to action.
He jumped a little and launched out with a mid-air spin kick. At first Haku wanted to laugh at the stupid move that Naruto had just done… right before a burst of wind knocked the masked fighter right back into the mirror that Haku had just come from.
Naruto smirked and took the time that Haku was using to catch the breath the crash into the mirror had knocked out, and brought his hands up into the 'ram' handseal. A quick burst of chakra and smoke formed around his body. Haku watched as the smoke dissipated and revealed a different boy than the one from before.
The boy had the same blonde spiky hair as before except it reached down to his shoulder blades, with the hair from his neck to the shoulders being tied off in a short ponytail, but now seemed to be constantly blowing in a nonexistent breeze. Over a black short-sleeve shirt he was wearing an odd, dark-orange padded vest that came down from his shoulders in arcs, connecting at the belt on his waist (a/n: Think Sub-zero or Scorpion from MK, just orange). He was wearing black pants that had pads on his knees and the sides of his thighs that were orange in color as well. On his feet were steel-toed black combat boots with small combat knives stuck into both of them. He had an additional kunai holster that hadn't been there before and finally, on both his hands were black leather gloves with orange forearms guards extending from his wrists. He had also grown a couple inches in height too, topping off at 5'5''.
But, if Haku were to say what the most startling feature of the transformation was, then the first feature that would come to mind would be his eyes. The inky black of the pupil had expanded to the edge of his iris, replacing the bright sapphire blue with a dark black. In the middle of the black orb where the pupil had once been, was the bright, shining silver kanji for 'wind'.
A smirk grew across Naruto's whiskered face as he stretched out a bit saying, "Man, it feels good to be me again. I hate having to use that stupid henge in order to hide my true self. Now," he settled into a fighting stance that emanated complete confidence in his skills. "Let's continue Haku-san."
Naruto launched at the mirror Haku was hanging from, a blade made of wind extending from his wrist. Haku managed to dodge out of the way just as Naruto lashed out with his super-sharp blade, cutting straight through the icy glass. Before Haku could make it to another mirror though, Naruto swung a fist in an arc at the ice-user that launched a gust of wind that threw Haku's body hard against one of the mirrors making the black-haired fighter shout in pain.
Haku's response was to throw another barrage of ice needles at Naruto. Naruto tried to dodge them by back flipping off the remaining piece of ice he had been hanging onto, but received a couple in his left leg. When he landed he was forced down to a knee due to the position the ice needles were in. Haku tried to capitalize on this and launched at the downed Konoha shinobi, but once again did not notice Naruto gathering wind to his hand.
Just as Haku reached him, Naruto swung his wind-surrounded fist upward. The tightly packed orb of wind that surrounded his fist exploded upon connecting with Haku's body, propelling the ice-user at high speeds straight through one of the ice mirrors. Haku broke through the suspended mirror, sending pieces of ice clinking onto the ground, and bounced on the ground before rolling to a halt.
With no immediate threat to him, Naruto pulled the ice needles out of his leg and stood up slowly. He stood on a single leg for a moment before he decided to test his weight on his recently needle-filled leg, there was only a dull throb compared to when the needles had been in so Naruto started to slowly walk to the downed Haku.
Naruto had just reached Haku when the black-haired ice-user managed to stand up. Looking at Haku, Naruto saw that his last attack had put an extremely long crack in the hunter-nin mask that covered Haku's face. Naruto was silent as he watched one part of the mask fell, revealing Haku's mouth and the trail of blood coming from it, then the other, showing the face of the person that had woken Naruto when he had fallen asleep in the woods. What troubled Naruto the most about this face though, was that it seemed content with what had just happened and looked ready to accept any fate, even death.
Before Naruto could say anything however, Haku softly spoke. "Please Naruto-kun…kill me."
The blonde jinchuuriki narrowed his eyes and the two silver kanji in his eyes glowed brighter as he stared at the person across from him. "Why? Why wish for your death so soon?"
Haku smiled sadly. "Zabuza-sama has no need for a weak tool. By defeating me you have shown that I'm not strong enough to serve at Zabuza-samas side. Please kill me."
Naruto looked down at the ground for moment before asking, "Why is he so important to you that you would just ask to be killed because you lost one fight?"
"In Mizu no Kuni those with Kekkai Genkais were killed off in a bloody holocaust. My mother had hidden her talents and married a simple farmer in order to try and lead a simple life. A couple years later I was born and for a while, I was happy. Then, I had discovered that I could manipulate water and change it to ice. I had showed it to my mother who got very scared and told me to never do it again. (A tear fell from Haku's eye.)
I think that was when my father found out. He came back to the house one night with a mob of other villagers. They killed my mother and were going to kill me next. The ice of my bloodline protected me by rising up and spearing every villager straight through their hearts. I ran and ran. The next few weeks were a blur to me as I moved from one town to the next, barely surviving. One day, the greatest thing happened to me. (A bright smile spread on Haku's face at this point)
Zabuza-sama found me. He didn't shun me like everyone else had and trained me to be his weapon…his tool. He is my most precious person, the one whom I would do anything for. So now you see Naruto-kun, why I asked you to kill me. I just cannot bear to disappoint Zabuza-sama with the knowledge that I failed a task he had given me."
Naruto lowered his head and closed his eyes in thought. He tried to imagine how he would feel if he had failed in a task given to him by the Sandaime Hokage, one of the few people Naruto cared about. After thinking for a brief moment he discovered that he might feel close to what Haku was at the moment.
He looked back up at Haku, the silver kanji in his eyes dimming slightly, and asked, "Could you do one last thing for me Haku-san? The wind tells me that what I see as your body isn't what it truly is. I'd like to see your true self."
"It seems that it is true that you cannot hide from the wind…Very well Naruto-kun, I does not matter now what people see me as since I am about to die." Haku brought both hands up in the ram seal, the same as Naruto had done just a couple minutes earlier. This time though, there was no poof of smoke to signify the canceling of the Henge no Jutsu.
Naruto was silent as he watched the change. Haku's chest extended out generously and became very round, her waist then got thinner as her hips and legs grew curvier. When the change was finished the blonde boy blushed lightly since Haku made a much better girl than guy.
"I can see why you might want to disguise yourself as a guy Haku-chan. With a great figure like yours then many of your opponents would greatly underestimate you." He complimented, drawing a blush from the girl.
"Yes, that is one of the reasons. If only we had met differently then I might have told you the other." She took a steadying breath and closed her eyes. "Please do it now, or else I won't be able to face Zabuza-sama."
Naruto stared sadly at her for a moment before he brought out a kunai from one of his pouches. He looked down at it, then back at Haku's face before nodding to himself. Without pause he whacked Haku in the forehead with the metal ring part of the kunai. The girl's fell to the ground, alive but unconscious.
"I'm sorry Haku-chan, but you didn't deserve to die. I'll be right back." He said to the softly breathing girl. He quickly turned and began running to where he could sense his sensei, Hatake Kakashi, and Zabuza's chakra signatures coming from.
When he arrived, he saw the Zabuza was being held in place by a group of dogs that had odd cloths with a strange symbol on them. His sensei meanwhile was holding what looked like a small ball of lightning. Naruto quickly figured out what his sensei was going to do and called on what remaining control he had over the wind to aid him; increasing his speed and shielding his arms in miniature cyclones of protective wind. He managed to reach Zabuza just as Kakashi did and crossed his cyclone-encased arms in an 'x' to block the ball of lightning of his sensei.
Kakahsi's eyes widened in shock at the new shinobi and jumped back a couple feet after it was clear that his chidori wasn't going to pierce the wind guarded arms of the newcomer. He cut the power to his Chidori and dispersed his ninken, silently observing the newcomer, finally noticing the Konoha hitai-ate of the shinobi.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" demanded the silver-haired ninja.
Zabuza snorted and scathingly said, "You must be a true idiot Kakashi to not even recognize one of your own students. He might be wearing new clothes and grew out his hair, but this is still the same blonde brat who freed you from the water prison in our lake fight. I'm guessing you beat Haku?" the last part being directed at Naruto.
Naruto took a couple steps forward and turned sideways so that he could keep both his sensei and Zabuza in his peripheral vision. He decided to make it easier on Kakashi and let his eyes go back to their normal, sapphire blue. The blonde ninja nodded to Zabuza's question, "Yes I did beat Haku, but I didn't kill him. He actually asked me to kill him since he didn't want to face you knowing that he had failed one of your tasks."
Kakashi chose to interject here. "I don't believe that. As you were Naruto, you wouldn't have been able to land a scratch on that fake hunter-nin. Sasuke would have been the one to beat him, not you."
Zabuza and Naruto both chuckled at that and said together, "That weak idiot was lucky to last as long as he did against Haku." The two looked at each other and raised an eyebrow each.
"Besides," Naruto continued, "You had no idea about my Kekkai Genkai and there's no way I'm going to tell you what it can allow me to do."
Kakashi growled in his throat, irritated both from the fight and the unexpected revelation of one of his student's secret. "Naruto, as your superior officer, I order you to tell me now!"
Naruto turned to fully face his sensei and leveled his own glare at the man. "Why?! Not once in the entire time you've been the leader of this team have you ever done anything to show me I should trust you. In fact there are only six people who know about my Kekkai Genkai in Konoha, and the Sandaime isn't even on that list. Not out of mistrust, but because he would have to tell the council which would try to do whatever they could to get their hands on it. Maybe if you would occasionally try to attempt to teach me something I might trust you more, as it is you've done absolutely nothing."
Kakashi sputtered for a second before he replied, "What about the tree climbing exercise?"
Naruto waved a hand nonchalantly, "Already knew it. Iruka-sensei taught it to me the night I became a genin. The only reason I had trouble doing here is because I had just upgraded my weights." Kakashi was struck silent at this.
Everybody turned their head when they heard a light clapping coming from the edge of the bridge. The remaining mist blew away to reveal a short man with a cane dressed in a business suit standing there. Behind him was a very large group of thugs,
The man sneered as he looked at them. "Well it seems like the Demon of the Mist is actually a baby demon instead. It looks like the three of you might have a little fight left in you so I might as well make this easy for me." He snapped his fingers and five figures garbed in clothing similar to Naruto sprang up from shadows in the ground. The five were all in black though instead of orange, each had some sort of mask covering their mouths and bright, piercing, neon blue eyes.
Naruto's eyes grew wide with worry and all he could say was, "Aww, crap!"
(End of Chapter)
Unknown-nin345: Hi there all, as you can see this story is going to contain slight elements of Avatar and a little bit of Mortal Kombat.
When Naruto mentioned that only six people knew about his bloodline limit in Konoha here's the list: Hinata, Techui (the ramen stand owner), Ayame (Techui's daughter), Anko & Kurenai (they're like older sisters to Naruto and have looked after 'him' since he was seven), and finally Iruka. Now, that doesn't mean that no one else knows about the bloodline limit, that's just the list of those who know in Konoha at the moment.
Please review.
POWER TO THE CLIFFHANGERS!!!