Chapter 11
"Naruto, you have to help Sasuke somehow. There are two of them and I might be going to a.s.sist Kakas.h.i.+-sensei depending on the situation," I asked of him.
"You can count on me, dattebayyo!" he grinned. I continued to observe them as we ran. Sasuke was trapped in some sort of a mirror dome made of ice and Kakas.h.i.+ was standing in Zabuza's way.
The boy attacked Sasuke with numerous senbon from all of the direction of the ice mirrors. He was moving from one mirror to another in an instant. From my eyes, I could see that the mirrors were apart of his chakra and it was not a genjutsu. For a kid to manage to use this calibre of jutsu, it could only mean one thing, a Kekkei Genkai. Suddenly, a rain of senbon fell and a few had managed to hit Sasuke. A word I never would say in the presence of people had escaped my mouth.
"We have to hurry, Sasuke is in danger," I gritted. Naturally, we increased our paces towards the bridge. During which, I saw Sakura stepped ahead to throw a kunai at one of the ice mirrors, the boy easily caught the kunai. Luckily, we had arrived in time for that. Naruto threw a shuriken at him which managed to knock him down and then he threw a smoke bomb at where we were going to land.
"Who?" Sakura said, puzzled. There was an awkward silence surrounding our arrival except for my sudden cough.
"Uzumaki Naruto! Has finally arrived!!" he proudly announced and my cough intensified due to my annoyance at his flamboyant way of entrance.
"Is the smoke bomb necessary?" I protested and he just grinned there, proudly. I was also noticing that it was getting harder to breathe. Perhaps the fall had broken something in my body. Well, ain't that a predicament. With me weaken, my skills will be heavily limited.
"Now that I'm here, everything will be fine! The main character of a story usually shows up late in these types of situation and instantly kicks the enemy's a.s.s," Naruto loudly declared. A sweat dropped along with my forehead. I straighten myself and disappeared but only to appear behind Zabuza with a crack of lightning. That creep used the moment to threw shurikens at Naruto. I couldn't react in time because of my ribs and the sore pain of my shoulder had worsened because of my Raiton Shuns.h.i.+n no Jutsu. We were surprised that it was deflected by senbons thrown by the hunter-nin boy.
"What's with that, aren't you guys supposed to be allies?" I asked between pants. Kakas.h.i.+-sensei noticed my behaviour and he knew that something was wrong with me but he kept his mouth shut about it.
"Haku, what is this?" Zabuza demanded.
"Zabuzsan, these kids, please let me fight them my way," the boy said.
"So his name is Haku," I thought to myself.
"So you don't want me to interfere, Haku? You're as soft as always," Zabuza replied. That being said, it hasn't escaped my notice that Sasuke could barely keep up with the boy's jutsu. Being inside of the attack radius was probably not a good idea. A notion that was moot because of our favourite knucklehead.
"Hey! I came to rescue you!!" Naruto whispered from beside Sasuke. Never had I slapped my head so hard in my life. Then, the matter got worse when they bickered with each other.
"Sensei, that mirrors, it's his kekkei Genkai right?" I gritted and my question was answered with a nod.
"Impressive, not bad coming from a good for nothing aristocrat. Mokuton user in Hyuuga eh, what a combo," Zabuza suddenly said but he never turns his back to face me.
"Mokuton was the least that I can do. I'm not going to waste it on you," I gritted.
"Talking big when you can't even breathe properly. Never take a Hyuuga for bragging before," he chuckled. I thought ahead about each possible outcome that could happen today. Each will not be possible without some heavy damage on my bodyparts.
"What should we do, Sensei?" I asked. Kakas.h.i.+-sensei's hand went to his headband.
"Sorry, but I'm going to end this instantly," he declared and that made Zabuza laughed.
"Sharingan again? Is that the only thing you can do?" the man said. There was a moment of silence before Zabuza charged at Kakas.h.i.+-sensei. I immediately withdrew Fudo Masamune and threw it onto Zabuza's back. Both of them evaded the blade in a flash and our sensei appeared not too far from me. Veins were showing around my eyes as I searched for him. I heard Zabuza laughed darkly as he appeared in front of us.
"A s.h.i.+n.o.bi's supreme technique is not something that should be shown to the opponent over and over," he said.
"You should feel honoured. You're the only person to see it twice and there won't be a third time," Kakas.h.i.+-sensei said, "also, with Hikari being here, your chances to win are next to nothing."
"Byakugan and Sharingan--the two ultimate dojutsu from Konoha," Zabuza chuckled hollowly, "even if you defeat me, you both can't win against Haku."
I retrieved my Fudo Masamune and appeared next to Kakas.h.i.+-sensei.
"This can't go on sensei! We need to beat him fast," I said and then charged at Zabuza. Fudo Masamune clashed with his large sword. I winced yet again, the shoulder was beginning to be a huge ha.s.sle along with my ribs. Zabuza brought his hand to form the seal of confrontation and suddenly we were engulfed in a thick and dense fog.
"I've been waiting a while for the chance to use this line. 'I'll tell you this. The same jutsu won't work twice on me' wasn't it?" he asked.
"Sakura!! Protect Tazunsan!" I heard our sensei yelled, "Hikari, be very careful! This mist is his jutsu."
"So the mist was his doing..." I mumbled.
To the naked eye, one could never see through the fog this thick and what was worst, the fog was laced with his chakra, naturally, I couldn't see him even with my Byakugan. I sent out a wave of chakra around me and instantly I felt shurikens flown at me.
"Hakke Sho; Kaiten!" I spun while emitting a burst of chakra. The force of it rendered the shurikens useless.
"Impressive, as I thought, long-range attacks won't work on you." His booming voice announced. On cue, I coughed up blood and heard him chuckled. It was getting harder to breathe than before.
"Looks like somebody had punctured his lungs," he said while he appeared behind me with his sword ready to slice me.
"This is your second mistake today. You are in the range of this jutsu," I took my stance, "Hakke Sho; Rokujuyon Sho."
I attack him with the Juken but while the blow landed, I missed a couple of his chakra points due to my shoulder.
"It hurts," Zabuza's voice was booming again, "though, it's too bad you missed something."
His sword slashed my back diagonally. With that, blackness consumed my sight.
"Sorry, sensei," I muttered and heard somebody yelled my name before I pa.s.sed out completely.
"Oni-sama, open your eyes," I heard some booming voice called. I opened my eyes and rose up. The first thing that, caught my eyes was my injuries. It wasn't there.
"Am I dead?" my voice was also booming as I said it. Then I heard a laugh from behind me. I turned around and I saw them, two young boys, one was sitting whilst floating and the other was standing proudly. Their chakra felt familiar to me but I didn't recognize them anywhere.
"Not yet, Oni-sama," the one with the long white hair said.
"But closed enough," the other one with a spiky red hair said and he was the floating kid. They wore my family's robe and the redhead had a third eye that looked just like me but his eyes were not Byakugan.
"That eye," I muttered. "Oni-sama?"
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"That's right, we are your brothers. Nice to finally meet..." The spiky red hair one couldn't finish his words because I immediately charged at him and grabbed him by his collar.
"You idiots sealed Mother, why?!" I demanded and my Rinne-Sharingan flared.
"So you really had awakened it without the fruit," the redhead said, "peace, Oni-sama. Calm down. We'll explain it to you."
I let go and sat down in an instant. Surprisingly the two of them followed suit.
"This one's name is Hagoromo," the redhead said while grinning and the other one bowed his head slightly.
"I'm Hamura, this idiot's twin," he said, "it is an honour to finally meet you, Oni-sama. When we were growing up, Hahue had always compared us to you, you know. Her most promising son, our elder brother."
"Jealousy, Is that it?" I gritted angrily. Both of them raised their hands in defeat.
"No, we grew up with you as our inspiration. Hahue used to mention you a lot when we were kids," Hagoromo said.
"Then, she slowly forgot about you. It was the Divine Tree's doing, it had changed her. You are Mother's only link to her sanity and love, the tree made her forgot you," Hamura added.
"We were surprised about it too. She just ended up stop mentioning you in one day. We were puzzled because she had never stopped talking about you. We asked her about it and she simply brushed it off like the way she always did to avoid being talked to. She was never the same after that day," Hagoromo added.
"No way, how can she be affected so much by the tree? I never recalled her to be that that, I mean, she knows not to listen to the tree," I said slowly.
"After she sent you away, she ate the tree's chakra fruit to defend her self from the attacking humans. We have these, because of that fruit, you know," Hagoromo pointed at his horns on the forehead.
"Hahue would never do that. She was supposed to guard it, not doing the same thing as the others did," I said. The two looked at each other, silently wondered about something I said.
"She said that she was weak and that was the only way to save herself," Hamura said.
"Oh right, she was pregnant with you two," I chuckled as I remembered the most important plot in my past and rubbed the back of my head, "what had happened that made you two idiots seal her?"
The boys went silent.
"She was getting more and more consumed by the power of the tree. She had collected human beings to be the nourishment for the G.o.d Tree. Hagoromo's girlfriend was among them, her death made him awaken his Sharingan. We went to confront her about it and she told us that she was preparing for some people's arrival. She never explains it in detail, however," Hamura explained.
"Did they found out about this world?" I thought to myself
"She held Hamura hostage and brainwashed him to fight me. She said she wanted the chakra back, it was all hers. I had to kill Hamura to save him and I revived him using the Tags that Gamamaru gave me. That's when I awaken my Rinnegan and one step away from the Rinne-Sharingan. We had to fight Hahue for so long because she had merged with the G.o.d Tree to become the Juubi," Hagoromo continued and I was speechless.
"She would never go that far..." I muttered.
"The tree had corrupted her completely," Hamura said slowly.
"Then," I gritted, "this was all my fault. If I'm strong enough, she wouldn't send me away. She wouldn't result in that way. This is my fault. I'm weak."
My rant went on and on. I reached for the non-existing Fudo Masamune. When I found that it wasn't there, I was close to having a breakdown.
"Stop, Oni-sama, don't do this. Don't you remember your own words on the girl?" Hagoromo was holding my hands which was scratching my thigh unconsciously. I couldn't feel anything of course. When my senses came to my self, I was overcome by sadness.
"Why, Why is this happening to me! Why couldn't I do anything!" I yelled as I curled my body on the ground in despair. Hagoromo grabbed my s.h.i.+rt to stand me up.
"Stop this..." he urged.
"It's all my fault," my lips quivered as I said it.
"No, it was not. See-through it, Ani-san. There is nothing you can do. There is nothing we can do. Not anymore. We best move forward. You have a new family now. Don't be this way," Hamura urged me. I sniffed away my despair, I knew that he is right.
"Now, we need to tell you something else. The day we seal the living being that was formed from the merging of Hahue and the tree, the Juubi, we had to separate it from its chakra. Leaving Hagoromo being the host of the Juubi's chakra or in today's term, Hagoromo became the Jinchuriki of the Juubi. The sh.e.l.l, however, was sealed using Hagoromo's Rikudou Senjutsu and became what was known as the moon. I left earth to guard the sh.e.l.l on the moon while Hagoromo chose to stay on earth and continue to teach humans the ways of Ninshu. The thing is, a few years back, the sh.e.l.l was stolen. It was summoned from the moon," Hamura said.
"How so?" I was puzzled.
"The one who summoned it possessed the Rinnegan," Hagoromo simply said, "it's not a pure Rinnegan, a mutated one but still powerful enough. The ones who could awaken the Rinnegan were the Uchihas, the descendants of my son, Indra who had the Sharingan. But they would need Otsutsuki's bloodline to awaken it. This could happen if they infused their blood with the Senjus or the Uzumakis; the descendants of my other son, Ashura who inherited my bloodline," Hagoromo explained.
"So the mastermind is an Uchiha?" I deduced and they nodded.
"It seemed so," Hagoromo said, "you will not die here, you still have a long way to go. I had separated the Juubi's chakra into nine souls and one of them resides in your friend. With the sh.e.l.l gone, it is only a matter of time before they collected those souls and unleash the Juubi onto this world. You have to safeguard the children, Oni-sama. You are stronger than us. We are asking you to watch over them because you are the only one alive at this moment."
"We will heal your wounds as good as we could. But this is the only time we can reach you. I will send someone to teach you senjutsu. You need to develop your senjutsu as it will maximize the Rinne-Sharingan's potential," Hagoromo continued. This must be the end of my encounter with my brothers, sadness began to creep into my heart.
"It is good that you are with the Hyuugas, they are my children. Take good care of them, Oni-sama," Hamura patted my shoulder.
"Wait, is there a way for me to come back in time?" I asked urgently and they both looked everywhere but me.
"That jutsu was developed by Hahue and she alone knew how to make it work," Hagoromo said, "you don't have to look back anymore. You got a new life ahead of you. We've been watching you since you arrived here. You will find happiness."
"Be strong, Oni-sama," Hamura murmured. "We both love you."
Tears were falling down my cheeks yet again. Then I was consumed by darkness yet again.
"I love you guys too," I whispered.
I woke up coughing and in great pain. My ribs were set on its own as did my internal organs. They healed me just enough so that my injuries didn't become fatal. Still, my head felt dizzy and faint. I was fading in and out of consciousness.
"I'll kill you!!" I heard Naruto growled. Then I felt the presence of chakra so full hatred coming from the direction of the voice.
"So this must be it. The soul. Inside of him," I said. I couldn't stay awake because of the blood loss so I'd fainted yet again.
"Hikari-kun," I heard Sakura cried.
"Don't go, please don't leave me," she was crying on my chest. I opened my eyes and turned to the side and I saw Sasuke was staring at me. Numerous senbons could be seen throughout his body. He then smiled at me.
"Sakura," I croaked, "you are not getting rid of me that easy."
"Hikari-kun!" she cried yet again. Thankfully, it was a cry of relief. I slowly pushed my shoulder back into its place. It made a pop sound and I winced audibly.
"I've been worried, I thought you were gone," Kakas.h.i.+-sensei breathed a sigh of relief. I slowly rose from the ground to sit and I saw that Zabuza along Haku was dead.
"Hey, what happened when I was out?" I inquired. Everyone present couldn't answer the question.
"Haku sacrificed himself to save Zabuza from Kakas.h.i.+-sensei's Raikiri. Then, Zabuza sacrifices himself to kill Gato," Sakura said. I looked down onto them. I understood that Haku was a boy with a kind soul. The fact that Sasuke was still alive had proved so; Haku didn't aim at his vitals. Zabuza, on the other hand, must have a change of heart.
"What made Zabuza do such things?" I pressed. Sakura looked away.
"Naruto reached deep in his heart, scolded him of Haku's demise and he was moved by it," she said. I then exhaled my breath.
"Really? These two had lived a hard life, let's give them a proper burial," I suggested and they all nodded.
Two weeks later, we visited their graves. Zabuza's sword was pierced to the ground on his grave. We were silent as we paid them our respect for the last time. I closed my eyes as I prayed for them. My silent prayers were interrupted by the sound of someone slapping something.
"What are you doing?! That's bad karma!" Sakura yelled at Naruto, "but Kakas.h.i.+-sensei..."
Our sensei hummed to answer her call.
"Were these two correct about ninjas?" she inquired. I looked up into the sky and I saw two eagles that flown atop of us.
"A s.h.i.+n.o.bi isn't supposed to pursue his own goals, becoming the country's tool is the most important thing. That's the same for the Leaf village," our sensei said.
"Is that what it means to become a true ninja? You know what?! I don't like it!!" Naruto grumbled.
"You believe that too?" Sasuke asked. That got me interested and I looked at Kakas.h.i.+-sensei.
"Well, every ninja has to live while dealing with that issue. Just like Zabuza and that boy," our sensei said and that made me sighed heavily.
"Ok, I just decided!! I'm going to be a ninja in my way," Naruto announced. His words made me smile widely that day. The mission had taught me a great deal. It made me found my ninja way--I'd do anything to save my family and friends.