Sorry for the wait. Important details and explanation in the A/N.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

"Let the kid go." Shisui looked so bored, he might as well have yawned while confronting the somewhat recovered missing-nin.

For someone a single slice away from losing his partner in crime—literally—he sure as hell seemed calm and collected. I, on the other hand, appeared impassive to an untrained eye, but any shinobi with more than a couple of years under their obi could probably discern how screwed I felt—which, if it wasn't obvious enough, was very screwed. As far as I had come as a nin, I was eons away from being the brawn of this duo—hell, I was only just barely the brains through a multi-universe loophole.

Zabuza raised a brow at Shisui's brazen demand—one whose confidence I was able to find a bit of comfort in. "Maybe if I kill the brat, you'll learn how to properly disarm a Kiri nin."

"Then maybe if I kill your brat, you'll learn how to properly threaten a Konoha nin," Shisui retorted.

Neither I nor Zabuza had to do much thinking to figure out which underling Shisui was referring to. A quick side glance gave me a bit of reassurance to how likely it was that I'd survive this ordeal—Shisui hadn't slacked off on watching our captives after all. Hovering above where Haku's body still laid unconscious, Shisui's shadow clone dangled a kunai dangerously close to the boy's neck.

"You think I care what happens to the kid? The boy's a tool to me. Nothing more, nothing less." Zabuza growled. He would have sounded rather genuine about his lack of concern for Haku had I not already been well aware of the tears he would've shed for the kid in another life.

"Even if you didn't care for the kid, you'd be given a run for your money if you tried taking both of us down in the state that you're in right now. Being forced into a state of inanimation is hard on the body," Shisui reasoned.

"You'll end up killing us anyways. Might as well take one of you bastards down with me."

I laughed, feigning tranquility in a moment that called for anything but. "Before you go chopping my head off, take a closer look at the guy a few milliseconds away from offing your partner, would you?"

Zabuza let out a snarl-like noise, probably dubious about my request, but his confidence in my inability to escape his clutches got the better of him. He did as asked, first sparing a short glance in Shisui's direction, then doing a doubletake as he matched the name with the face.

"Shunshin no Shisui?" He pressed the kunai harder against my neck, drawing out small droplets of blood. "What the hell are you playing at, kid? We've always said that Konoha was full of rotten people, but now they're off resurrecting the dead?"

"I'd be more than happy to give you an answer if you would just let the girl go," Shisui offered, knowing damn well that he was in no position to be bargaining.

Sure, Shisui might have been able to hold the upper hand in a fight against the already-injured Zabuza, but I'd still be deader-than-dead if fighting the Kiri nin was what he had to resort to. Defusing this situation was tricky enough as it was, and adding the fact that Zabuza was doubtful of his survival regardless of whether or not he let me live made it even moreso. As much as I hated to admit it, now would be as good of a time as ever to have a certain blond brat talk-no-jutsu our way to a permanent position in the world of the living.

Unfortunately, all we had to work with was his bootleg, adopted sister—me.

Without having any actual intention of doing so, I instinctively gulped nervously, pressing my own throat harder against the blade. While I would've preferred to not have myself get injured any further, it was, if anything, a hell of a wake up call.

"I can't say much about how likely it is that you'd live if you offed me now, but I can offer you at least a few more decades in the world of the living if you'd put the kunai down."

Zabuza laughed—a cold, harsh sound that seemed more akin to a bark than anything. "A few more decades in the world of the living? Now I know you're bullshitting me."

I flinched—this was looking bad.

Shisui shot me a look—one so subtle that anyone lacking a close relationship with him would've assumed that not a thing had gone wrong. To me, though, the quick flash of panic in his eyes clearly painted how screwed the both of us were if we couldn't verbally disarm Zabuza soon. It was a look of doubt—a momentary lapse in his carefully crafted cover that he had spent so many years perfecting.

These next few words would either kill me or save me.

"Are you really gonna lay your life down for a guy like Gato?" I asked, focusing all my effort into keeping my voice steady. "Someone like you?"

He faltered, choosing not to slit my throat the moment those semi-mysterious words tumbled out of my mouth. It was obvious bait, and he and I both knew it, but he'd choose to entertain me anyways.

"Someone like me? Kid, a missing-nin's job is to do whatever the hell their highest bidder asks them to do." His voice was bitter—a sound most often heard in the last words of a dying shinobi—and it told me all I needed to know to ensure my survival.

Screw the lessons beaten into me through my years of training. This was something that required knowledge of something far too humble for ever so prideful shinobi to do.

I had to pander.

"You're not a missing-nin though," I stated matter-of-factly, knowing that such an untrue statement would further grab his attention. He couldn't kill me if he wanted me to keep talking.

Shisui's eyebrow twitched at my statement, not knowing where I was going with my words, but he seemed nonetheless more calmed now than he had been a few moments before. Even he was able to see Zabuza's guard relaxing. Perhaps not enough to willingly let me go, but definitely nearing a point where it'd be easier to take him out without any dying on my part.

"I'm not a missing nin?" His voice was dry. "I'm sure that handy bingo book you Konoha nin always carry around says otherwise."

"'A missing-nin is a nin that has abandoned his or her village,'" I quoted, pausing to let the textbook definition of the term sink in. Hopefully, hearing something so akin to what he had probably once heard in his own youthful years would ring a few bells—maybe even have him feel nostalgic about the village he had betrayed to save.

"You didn't betray your village, Zabuza-san." His eyes grew cold again as he probably predicted the next few words I'd say. Knowing full well that the reaction I wanted wasn't what I was going to get, I opened my mouth anyways.

"Your village betrayed you."

I shut my eyes, bracing for the blow I knew was to come from words that held so much buried weight in them. Everything he had done, all that he had tried to hide—it was all being dragged up back to the surface by none other than me, the enemy who should have never gotten ahold of

such sensitive information.h

He didn't fail to meet my expectations. In fact, he exceeded them. Even in the beaten-down state that he was in, I ended up shoved against a tree no less than ten meters away from where we had been standing only milliseconds before.

(Well fuck, here's where it ends endS EndS.)

Perhaps having such a sharp tongue would be the end of me once again.

(Mocking laughs, a guy whose pride I had stepped on—don't touch that firework, they're for laTer later lAtER!

Hey! What are you doing!

StoP! sTOP! We're inSide—)

The treebark dug into my back, drawing out blood from wounds I hadn't even realized I'd had.

(My back hits the wall, is that something in my abdomEn?)

"Mai!" Shisui's voice pierced through the night—an impulsive cry on his part.

(Muffled voices, muffled screams. I can't hear over the thundering of my own heartbeat—my name my namE? Are they callinG out to mE?

"...ia!"

"...ria!"

Are they saying my nAme? NaME? I can't heaR yoU!

"Aria!")

A loud crack resounded throughout the forest as my ribs gave in to the pressure of Zabuza's attack. All sense of pain had left me; the blood running down my back seemed to be no more than a trickle of water, and the digging the treebark was doing felt like the light tickle of a feather.

(They're screaming—everyone is screaming—but why aren't I? I can't feel a damn thing—is that my finger twitching over there? How funny, is the room going black? Our apartment always did have electricity issues.

How funny.

How funnY!

Looks like I'm dead!)

The pressure stopped—suddenly, unexpectedly. I looked over towards Shisui, and though he had certainly moved closer to where Zabuza had been crushing the life out of me, he was nowhere near close enough to have been able to stop him before my entire chest caved in.

I looked down now, ignoring the blood seeping through every article of clothing I had on—which, admittedly, wasn't much considering I had just barely been patched up by Shisui. Had we not been in a more dire situation, I might have even blushed at the idea of being so bare and unprotected while in the company of so many deadly people. Unfortunately, though, most of my more usual senses of shame and embarrassment had been long forsaken—given away to this world in return for the sake of merely living a tad bit longer.

Wounds weren't what my attention was drawn to, though—at least, not my wounds. Instead, the wound that I was looking at happened to belong to the guy who had just been seconds away from ending my havoc streak in this life.

Zabuza laid on the ground, eerily still. He was mostly unscathed—save for the needles that stood out almost defiantly from his neck.

Shisui and I turned our heads to face my unlikely savior.

Haku stood hunched over, gasping for air and looking anything but alright, yet still he'd somehow managed to peacefully knock out Zabuza like a light. His expression was nearly indiscernible—upset that he had been the one to injure the man who had given him everything who knew, yet relieved he'd stopped Zabuza from waltzing into a premature death.

He looked up suddenly, locking eyes with me rather than Shisui—a strange decision to make when most shinobi would turn to whoever looked more likely to be the leader.

The kid either had a killer sense of intuition, or had simply lost his mind. Whichever it was, I was just grateful that it had prevented the upper half of my from becoming a pancake. He seemed like he was struggling to speak, and I fought with every bit of willpower in me to keep myself conscious for whatever he wanted to say.

"You… You said you could stop Zabuza-sama from dying," he rephrased my words, sounding more and more desperate with each one that rolled off his tongue.

I nodded, too exhausted to verbally reply to the cornered boy.

Haku was much more humble than Zabuza—a fact made undeniable for all the years to come as the boy dropped to his knees, bowing before the person who'd just sabotaged all that he had ever known. His forehead pressed against the dirt, obscuring his expression from Shisui and I.

"Please." His voice cracked. "Zabuza-sama will die if he fights now. My lineage is of a bloodline targeted in the purges. I will pledge loyalty to Konoha so… please…"

Shisui replied in my place, aware that I was far too injured to properly get across the point that I wanted. He raised his hand, scratching the back of his head as he tried to remain stoic—he always had been bad with being cruel to the younger enemies we had who'd been pushed into the shinobi world without knowing any better.

"We weren't going to let either of you be killed in the first place, kid, so would you just lift your head and help me fix my brat up?" he sighed, gesturing towards the pack of supplies that we had picked off of his then-unconscious body. "I have a feeling you know more about medical aide than I do."

It was a noncommittal gesture of peace—a way of showing Haku that we were prepared to trust him, though the situation had already made it impossible for the young boy to betray us. With Zabuza knocked out cold and Shisui being fully capable of taking down Haku without breaking a sweat, he wouldn't even think of harming me under the guise of healing me.

Haku pushed himself off of the floor but kept his head held low.

"Thank you."

And with that, I took the somewhat successfully defused situation as my cue to fall forward, passing out.

We finally see more of how Mai's death played out, and they have Haku on their side! Hooray! Next chapter, we'll be finding out just who it is that Konoha has in their custody.

And with that, I'd like to write a bit of an apology. I apologize for the extended time that it took to write this chapter. Without giving away too many details, I was recently the victim of an assault, and it's really taken its toll on me. I've spent the last couple of weeks with friends trying to help me move on, but it's difficult. I am truly sorry that I was unable to write in that time, though, and I hope you guys can understand. Thank you for being so patient with me, though I can't promise updates as regular as I once did them.

Again, thank you for your time, and thank you for 250 reviews!

As always, have a great day. Leave a review, if you can. I'd appreciate it.