Chapter 9

It was hard for Kakashi to recall a fight more nerve-wracking than this. The reason his lightning chakra was not turning to water was because he was naturally good at suppressing his emotions. He was burying the fear so deeply within him it wasn’t consciously registering in his mind. A ninja of Zabuza’s caliber was rare to encounter indeed and any harder threat Kakashi had help in dealing with. He cursed Gato for not informing him sooner of Zabuza’s role as their enemy.

“Chidori,” were Kakashi’s only words.

Something about simply stating the word was more needed than hand seals. When the sword coated in flame chakra appeared in the mist the Leaf ninja’s right arm was surrounded with almost all his chakra. The Executioner’s Blade was not just parried but repelled by his chakra enhanced fingers when they struck the edge of blade. A weapon of such caliber surrounded by all Zabuza’s flame chakra could only be repelled by Kakashi strengthening a single portion of his body with the majority of his own chakra.

But with each clash Kakashi was more damaged than Zabuza. The amount of chakra enhancing each other’s chosen weapons was about equal but Kakashi’s fingers were now bleeding. The edge of the Executioner’s Blade had pierced the layer of chakra surrounding his fingers and now he was desperately trying to suppress the pain. It was a good thing lightning chakra naturally had a piercing effect on whatever it struck or else the blade would slash right through his hand.

He couldn’t even attempt to catch a glimpse of the sword as Zabuza was going to attack his blind spots. He could only anticipate the next swing of the blade from hearing alone or mental calculation. Kakashi was constantly having to reengineer Zabuza’s advantage in his mind to think of where he was most vulnerable. The leaf ninja was playing a purely defensive role in this case, a place that was always reserved to the eventual loser.

Even if Zabuza can’t kill me in one swing he’ll sure be able to wear me down. Kakashi began to realize.

The only places on Kakashi’s body besides his dominant hand that was enhanced by lightning chakra were his feet. This was because Kakashi not only needed a single point on his body strong enough to physically repel the sword but had to be fast enough to react to the blade that would randomly appear out of the mist. The field of chakra around him that normally expanded 5 feet in radius was nowhere enough to shield him from Zabuza’s blade. Zabuza wrapping literally all of his body’s flame chakra around his arms and edge of the blade meant there was almost no defense against such an attack.

This is Zabuza’s signature strategy. He thought. Surrounding opponents with mist and then slicing them to bits with his blade. Since Zabuza can easily avoid attacks with his mist body and I’m too busy defending myself…it’s only a matter of time before I slip up and he hits a blind spot I don’t anticipate. As mist his body is faster than a human body but also the mist is so thick even my Sharingan can’t see through it. Even if I wanted to expand my chakra it’d be less efficient than a true Uchiha, not to mention I would most likely exhaust myself and faint.

The ninja was sweating enough from sheer frustration it threatened to obscure his vision. As Zabuza only allowed his arms, face and sword to become solidified from white mist before attempting to skewer his enemy with the Executioner’s Blade Kakashi, Kakashi had no way of knowing the shinobi’s immediate location. After each swing of the blade a clash of bluish-white electricity would spark with almost blinding light.

And just as Kakashi wanted the sparks of his chakra would hang in the air like static electricity. The static around Kakashi was closer to him than the mist was as Zabuza wanted to keep a healthy distance between him and Kakashi. The mist was just out of reach of the Hidden Leaf shinobi as it was the perfect distance from which Zabuza could ambush him. But Kakashi was planning on his own surprise attack.

With each clash of Zabuza’s fire chakra enhanced blade and Kakashi’s Chidori a little bit of Kakashi’s lightning chakra left his hand. The strength the Demon of the Hidden Mist was swung at him was causing his chakra layer to be chipped away at. But Kakashi was counting on that as now there was an entire field of static surrounding him.

Just wait, Zabuza. Kakashi thought. You’re about to find that a cornered dog can bite back. There’s enough of my chakra in the air for it. Just one, maybe two more strikes.

“You have brought my nation great pain, Kakashi Hatake,” Zabuza’s voice could be heard to Kakashi’s right. “Not only by joining Gato but if I were to kill the Leaf Village’s legendary shinobi, the Hidden Leaf would seek retribution. Only further endangering my already crippled country.”

Kakashi carefully eyed the area of the mist to his right, knowing that Zabuza’s face was materialized there. It was thoroughly obscured by mist but he was sure it was where Zabuza could observe him. However, he knew that Zabuza would materialize his sword in any direction other than to his right to further confuse Kakashi. He then eyed his left quickly, anticipating an attack from there first and foremost. He was somewhat relieved when saw a sparkle of electricity buzz in the air from that direction.

Keep talking, Zabuza. He thought. Expose the location of your face all the more to me.

“You have already risked that by taking on a role not only as shinobi but as a political leader of the Hidden Mist,” he said. “What are you…on the council for your ninja village? No…if I’m correct…you made yourself secondhand man to the Mizukage herself.”

“I watch Mei and make sure she does everything for the sake of the Land of Water,” his voice carried through the mist. “So far she has been entirely selfless in fulfilling her duties to the Land of Water…unlike that monster Yagura.”

“You talk about honoring and protecting your nation so much I still wonder how you can justify deposing Yagura,” he said. “If I deposed Hiruzen like that I would be called a traitor for generations to come, my name stamped into the mud and made a curse.”

“Maybe,” Zabuza replied, his voice seeming to surround Kakashi. “But I care nothing for my own name. Only that the Land of Water’s people are satisfied. And Hiruzen was never the monster Yagura was. Yagura was a threat to his own home because his needless warmongering attracted violence to us. Things were going fine for us once Yagura was deposed…we were no longer the Bloody Mist. And just as we were at peace for the first time in years…Gato saw that as an opportunity to make us cattle for his drug trade. I can only hope that once you are killed the Leaf Village has mercy on us and does not retaliate.”

“If I remember correctly,” Kakashi said. “The coup you instilled to depose Yagura was also pretty violent. You're saying you’d risk upsetting the highest level of your shinobi village’s government for the sake of peace with such treason?”

“Well let me answer with a hypothetical,” Zabuza said. “Are you saying you’d willingly serve a maniacal monster that only brought greater and greater harm to your country? If Hiruzen asked you to do something deplorable to your own nation’s people, would you carry it out?”

As Kakashi listened to Zabuza’s words something felt off to him. It was subtle but he felt as soon as Zabuza started talking his senses dampened. It worried Kakashi. He then realized he couldn’t hear anything over Zabuza’s words.

Can…? Kakashi thought. Can Zabuza tell I’m trying to predict his attacks by hearing alone? Is…is he saying all this to muffle the sound of his sword swings?

“Or…,” Zabuza said. “Maybe I should not praise Hurizen Sarutobi so highly. And you already made that choice. After all…he is the one who ordered the death of those hundreds, possibly thousands.”

Kakashi’s entire body immediately stiffened, his mind no longer concerned with the battle. The Hidden Leaf shinobi’s arms relaxed as he was too stunned with what Zabuza had just stated. Beneath his mask, his jaw was agape.

“H-How-?!” Kakashi shouted. “W-When did you…learn of-?!

And just like that, the anticipated attack came out of the corner of his left eye. Kakashi didn’t immediately dive forward to deflect the strike as he had been trained to not react from movement from the corner of his eye. It was too easy to distract a ninja by throwing something out the edge of his line of sight as a easy diversion. However, Kakashi was so sure that Zabuza would attack from that angle he turned to deflect it only to be surprised.

Stolen novel; please report.

He broke his sword? He thought. And anticipated I would expect an attack from the opposite of where he was attacking?

And sure enough the tip of Zabuza’s Executioner Blade was being flung from the right side at Kakashi’s head. It was surrounded with some amount of red flame chakra but it was too little to be that much of a threat. Kakashi jumped out of the way, his feet fast enough to jettison him backward to avoid the shard of the blade. However, just as Kakashi was avoiding the projectile of dark metal he could hear the sound of the Executioner’s Blade to his right.

It was a terrible sound. The way the blade could just so cleanly slice through anything. It carried a subtle, yet haunting reverberation that disturbed Kakashi with each stroke he listened to. And it was again ringing behind him. But he could also hear the Executioner’s blade striking the static electricity hanging in the air before nearing Kakashi, an odd buzzing sound mixing with the ringing.

“Millenium Hanging Cage no Jutsu,” he said.

After weaving a few hand seals the electricity hanging in the air immediately concentrated around the blade behind the right side of Kakashi’s head. The static racing in midair around him glided precisely to the location of Kakashi’s blade. When Kakashi landed on the concrete of the bridge he smiled beneath his mask as he heard a clanging sound.

“Wh-What did you do?!” Zabuza shouted.

He let out a rather satisfied sigh of relief as he found himself facing Zabuza’s floating arms holding the Executioner’s Blade. The bright red chakra burned exactly like fire as it was mere inches from Kakashi’s face. Kakashi observed the very end of the sword had a clean slice where the tip had been removed. However, the cage surrounding the entire weapon and arms held them in place.

The field of sparse, disperse static was gone as it had been concentrated around Zabuza’s weapon and limbs. Thin bars of bluish-white were stationed along the length of the blade all the way to the end of his arms. The rods of pale blue formed a rectangular trap that held the entire sword in midair. The sword and arms holding it were completely motionless.

“I-I can’t move!” Zabuza shouted. “My arms won’t budge! My sword won’t swing!”

With Zabuza’s arms properly immobilized, Kakashi released his Chidori as he allowed the rest of his lightning chakra to spread equally around his body. While he didn’t quite have a radius of five feet of chakra surrounding him anymore, it was close enough to four and a half feet. The remaining half foot would probably regenerate by the end of the day.

“Well maybe you should have expected a shinobi who knows over a thousand jutsu to have a proper counter to your standard attack,” Kakashi said. “You’ve gotten complacent, Devil Hidden in the Mist. You’ve stopped experimenting and learning new jutsu, relying on your same old bag of tricks. But me…”

He turned fully to face the broken sword.

“I have learned some of the most obscure techniques known to shinobi,” he said. “And the Millenium Hanging Cage is quite a complicated one. For most shinobi it would take far too many hand seals than practical in the midst of battle.”

“But using your Sharingan you copied not only the technique,” Zabuza said. “But the hand seals of the shinobi that used the least hand seals to perform it.”

“Incantation also helps certain techniques,” Kakashi admitted. “Just as it helps you perform your Mist Evaporation Jutsu without performing hand seals.”

“Copy Ninja,” Zabuza spat out with disgust. “That’s all you can do is replicate what others before you have produced. No originality, just regurgitation. You are merely a thief. How unbecoming of a legendary shinobi.”

“You’re one to talk,” Kakashi said. “Part of the reason you were caught by my trap is because this is the same ambush technique you use on all your victims. Attacking their blind spots while obscuring every other part of you in mist…I was able to counter so easily because I just had to think of where my greatest blind spots were.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this jutsu before…” Zabuza said. “Wait…now I remember. So you stole the master of the Hanging Cage’s hand seals before you defeated him. That’s quite the clever strategy. Observing the hand seals and the technique with the Sharingan before killing the shinobi, possibly with their own technique. Making you the sole master of so many different jutsu.”

“Yes,” Kakashi said. “But I’m not into the pride of my status as an all-powerful warrior. I merely seek the betterment of my nation, just as you do, Zabuza.”

“Do not compare us,” Zabuza said, his red chakra burning with intensity. “I am braver than you, Kakashi. While you merely sought the continued existence of your corrupt village, I sought to reform mine. I turned the most violent of the ninja villages into the most peaceful.”

“There you go again,” Kakashi said. “Implying that rebelling against your ruler when they disagree with you is a higher form of patriotism. I chose to stick with mine through good and bad.”

“And have become a tool of the mafia as a result,” Zabuza said. “Besides…you may have immobilized this portion of my body but not the rest. I could be just as dangerous without my sword as with it.”

“I know,” Kakashi said.

He began weaving hand signs again before closing fingers into a circle. Kakashi peered at Zabuza through the roughly circular shape he created with his hands. Now that his target was in sight, Zabuza was as good as dead.

“Which is why I must stop that,” he said. “Suction Vortex no Jutsu!”

The mist behind Zabuza began to suction towards his arms. The great sea of white began to clear as it gathered behind the floating arms. The mist soared toward him in a great wind before clumping together to solidify.

“No, what have you-?!” Zabuza screamed.

The shinobi’s body began to reform as if Kakashi was remodeling his body from clay. First his shoulders reformed from the mist then the rest of his upper chest was filled in as his upper body and head appeared as well. When Zabuza’s torso was finished his lower half followed next before Zabuza stood floating in midair, his arms frozen to the handle of his sword.

With the mist obscuring Kakashi’s surroundings gone, he could see the entire bridge was deserted save for those hidden in the sea of mist swallowing the rest of the unfinished structure. The workers were gone and their tools were lying on the concrete, discarded in a hurry. That included Tazuna, to his chagrin. But out of the corner of his vision he thought he could see what looked like Naruto facing a ninja.

Naruto found a way to counter the mist of his opponent? Kakashi thought. Can’t say I’m surprised, considering how he’s the most studious of my cadets. But I'm sort of surprised that someone with his deficiency has come so far…

However, Zabuza was going nowhere. His body was completely encased in pale blue rods in a rectangular structure as he was suspended in midair. The Millenium Hanging Cage could spread itself as thin as possible with no effect on how strongly it could imprison its ward.

It was one of the few existing jutsu that’s effectiveness was completely independent of the type of chakra it was moulded from. Lightning chakra not being very durable meant it would be compromised from strong attacks thrown against it. But this technique was special.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Zabuza shouted. “The chakra…it’s spread so thin. And how could you reform my body?! H-How can–?!”

“The Millenium Hanging Cage technique was developed to be used against any shinobi,” he said. “No matter how strong they were. You see, the technique can be made of any chakra without compromising its strength. The jutsu is formed when an opponent strikes the chakra used for the Cage. The kinetic energy is stored within the chakra moulded for the technique and distributed throughout.”

“S-So you mean-?!” Zabuza said.

“Yes,” Kakashi stated. “The cage can be strong no matter how much chakra is used because the force that was first exerted on it is the same amount of force it exerts on the one imprisoned. If used rightly, your opponent won’t only be able to move. It gets its name due to the fact that it can last up to a thousand years.”

“How devious!” Zabuza shouted.

“And the Suction Vortex no Jutsu is an even more obscure technique,” Kakashi stated. “It’s a technique that wouldn’t normally be used against the average shinobi. Its only use is concentrating the substance that a shinobi has turned their body into a single point before reforming their person. Using this in combination with the Hanging Cage technique I was able to nullify your own jutsu and trap you.”

Kakashi then lifted his stretched fingers to his face, lightning crackling in his right hand. He didn’t need to concentrate his remaining chakra to his arm to perform this Chidori. The entirety of Zabuza’s flame chakra was wrapped around his blade for his body to be completely exposed.

“It’s over, Demon of the Mist,” he said.

“Very clever, Copy Ninja,” he said. “However, there is one technique I have prepared that you could never counter.”

“Quite the bluff,” he answered. “You can’t even lift your finger to perform a hand seal!”

Kakashi then stabbed his outstretched hand towards Zabuza’s chest.

“Oh,” he said. “None needed.”

And that is when Zabuza vanished before being replaced by another.