---Previously---
"Is that all you've got!?" Kenji taunted, though a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. This kid was more skilled than he looked.
Haku didn't reply. He appeared behind Kenji in a flicker of movement, a single senbon aimed at the back of his neck. But Kenji was a veteran. He spun, his sword deflecting the needle with a sharp clang, and countered with a powerful backhand slash. Haku was forced to leap back.
This was not an easy fight. Kenji was strong, experienced, and his aggressive style left little room for Haku's usual, precise takedowns.
Haku landed lightly, his breath misting in the cold air. He knew he had to end this. He brought his hands together in a new, more complex seal.
"Secret Jutsu: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals!"
---Now---
"Secret Jutsu: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals!"
The ground around Kenji erupted. Shards of ice shot upwards, forming a dome of perfectly reflective, crystalline mirrors, trapping the rogue ninja inside. Haku stepped into one of the mirrors, his reflection appearing in all of them at once.
"What is this jutsu!?" Kenji roared, looking around wildly. He slashed at one of the mirrors, but his sword just scraped harmlessly off the super-hardened ice.
Then, the assault began. Haku moved between the mirrors at impossible speed, a blur of motion. Senbon shot from every direction, piercing Kenji's arms, his legs, his shoulders. He roared in pain and frustration, swinging his nodachi wildly, but he was always striking at reflections, at afterimages.
"Damn you! Come out and fight me!" he bellowed.
Haku appeared in the mirror directly in front of him, his expression unreadable behind the mask. He formed another seal. The temperature inside the dome plummeted. Kenji's movements began to slow, his breath coming in ragged, frosty plumes.
Realizing he was being worn down, Kenji gathered all his remaining chakra for one final, desperate attack. "Earth Style: Great Mud River!" he roared, slamming his hands on the ground.
The floor of the ice dome turned to a churning river of mud, destabilizing Haku's footing and cracking the base of the ice mirrors.
With a final, furious yell, Kenji swung his nodachi in a 360-degree arc, shattering the weakened mirrors into a blizzard of glittering ice shards.
As the ice dome collapsed, Haku appeared from the swirling mist of ice particles, already in motion. Kenji lunged, his sword aimed for a final, killing blow. But Haku was faster. He slipped inside the rogue ninja's guard, his hands a blur. It wasn't a powerful strike. It was a series of quick, precise jabs with his senbon, striking pressure points in Kenji's neck and chest.
Kenji froze, his sword stopping inches from Haku's face. His eyes widened, a look of profound confusion on his face. He tried to move, to speak, but his body wouldn't obey. He was paralyzed.
Haku stood before him, his chest heaving, his own body aching with the strain of the long, difficult fight. He looked at the defeated rogue ninja, then slowly removed his mask.
He met Kenji's terrified gaze, his own dark eyes holding a cold, quiet finality. "It is over," he said, his voice barely a whisper. He drew one final, ice-coated senbon. And with a single, mercifully quick motion, he ended it.
Haku stood there for a long moment, the adrenaline of the battle slowly receding, leaving a deep, profound exhaustion in its wake. He looked around at the silent, moonlit clearing, at the bodies of the fallen bandits, at the dead rogue shinobi at his feet.
He had done it. Alone. He panted, his breath misting in the cold air. Unlike his normal experiences with Zabuza on missions, this had pushed him to his limits.
But he had won.
---
The adrenaline from the battle slowly began to recede, leaving a deep, profound exhaustion in its wake. Haku stood over the lifeless body of 'Hozuki' Kenji, his breath still misting in the cold night air.
The mission was complete. All that remained was the grim, final task. He reached for a kunai, preparing to take the rogue ninja's head as proof of his success.
Just as his fingers closed around the cold steel of the kunai's handle, a faint, high-pitched whistle cut through the quiet of the clearing. Instinct, honed by years of life-or-death combat, screamed at him. He didn't hesitate. He threw himself backwards, a desperate, rolling leap that was more reflex than thought.
WHOOSH!
A compressed blade of wind, sharp as a razor and nearly invisible in the moonlight, sliced through the space where his neck had been a fraction of a second before. It slammed into a thick cedar tree behind him, carving a deep, clean gouge in the ancient wood.
"You're an interesting one..."
The voice was calm, cultured, and utterly out of place in this bloody, chaotic clearing. Haku scrambled to his feet, his body instantly coiling into a defensive stance, his eyes snapping towards the source of the voice. When he got a good look at the man who had just tried to kill him, his own eyes widened in recognition.
The man stood at the edge of the clearing, having emerged silently from the shadows of the forest. He was in his middle years, with sharp and disciplined features that spoke of long years of experience, not on the battlefield, but in the corridors of power. His black hair was tied neatly into a topknot, and a faint but noticeable scar ran down the side of his face from above his eyebrow to his cheek.
His expression was stern and unreadable, with narrow, focused eyes that gave away neither fear nor hesitation. He wore layered robes in dark blue and maroon beneath a tan outer vest, the attire fitting of someone of status, yet practical enough not to hinder movement.
"~Ho... it seems like you know me," the man said, a slight, almost condescending smirk touching his lips as he saw the flicker of recognition in Haku's eyes.
"Yu Masanori," Haku breathed, his voice a low, wary whisper. "Minister of Finance of the Land of Hot Water." He took a half-step back, his mind racing. "It seems you have a connection with this bandit camp..."
'Damn, I'm too tired to fight,' Haku thought, a cold knot of dread tightening in his stomach. He was spent, his chakra reserves dangerously low after the long, difficult battle with Kenji. He hadn't even sensed this man's approach. Retreat was his only option.
"You think you can run away?" Masanori's grin widened, a predatory light entering his eyes. He saw the shift in Haku's posture, the subtle preparation for flight. His hands moved, a blur of motion as he wove a rapid series of complex hand seals. "Wind Release: Blade of Wind Technique!"
Haku's eyes widened. He tried to dodge, to leap away, but his exhausted body wouldn't respond fast enough. The jutsu was a storm of smaller, faster wind blades, an inescapable net of cutting force. He could only raise his arms in a desperate, futile attempt to block, squeezing his eyes shut, bracing for the impact.
However… he felt nothing.
No pain. No tearing of flesh. Only a sudden, powerful gust of wind that whipped his hair around his face.
"Huh?" Haku opened his eyes. Standing directly in front of him, his back to him, was a towering, crimson-coated figure. Alaric. The storm of wind blades had simply… dissipated, a foot from his sensei's unmoving form.
"What!?" Masanori's eyes widened in shock. He hadn't seen him move. One moment the masked boy was alone, the next this giant of a man was just… there. And his jutsu, his powerful A-rank technique, had vanished as if it had never been cast. "W-Who the hell are you!?"
"..." Alaric didn't turn around immediately. He simply looked at the stunned minister, a slow, evil smirk spreading across his face. He finally turned his head slightly. "…I'm batman."
"W-What the hell are you saying!?" Masanori finally gritted out, his hand instinctively tightening on the hilt of the tanto hidden within his robes. The initial shock was rapidly being replaced by a cold, simmering fury. 'Fuck, just who is this guy!?'
"Yu Masanori, right?" Alaric asked, his lazy smirk returning as he began to walk slowly forward, his boots making no sound on the soft earth. "I think I've seen your name in Yugakure before... brother of Yu Hisen, the Daimyo of the Land of Hot Water."
"..." Masanori didn't move. He watched the man approach, his mind racing, trying to place this impossible figure. His every instinct, honed by years of navigating the treacherous political currents of a daimyō's court, screamed at him that he was in the presence of something utterly beyond his control. "What's your name, stranger?"
Raising his brow a little, Alaric chuckled and shook his head. "Now, now... let's see why you're here."
Masanori's own brows rose in confusion, but as he met the stranger's gaze, all he saw was a pair of spinning, crimson eyes, the three tomoe of the legendary Sharingan burning with an otherworldly light. "What do you-"
Before he could finish the question, his world dissolved. The forest, the dead bandits, the masked boy behind him… it all vanished, replaced by an endless, silent void. His will, his thoughts, his very being, were no longer his own.
Alaric watched as the Finance Minister's sharp, intelligent eyes went dull and vacant, his posture becoming slack and pliant. He was a puppet now, waiting for his new master's command.
"What were you doing in this camp?" Alaric asked, his voice calm and direct. "What is your relationship with these bandits?"
"I have been hiring them," Masanori replied, his voice a flat, soulless monotone. "To cause terror in the towns and villages bordering Yugakure."
"Why?"
"To create instability," the puppet answered without hesitation. "To show the people, and the council, that the Daimyō's peace is fragile. To force my brother, Yu Hisen, to re-establish Yugakure as a true hidden village, with its own shinobi force."
Alaric nodded slowly, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. "Ah, now that I think about it…" he commented, more to himself than anyone else. "Yugakure really doesn't have its own shinobi anymore." He looked back at Masanori. "Why do you want Yugakure to have its own military? It seems peaceful enough."
"Because a shinobi village can be controlled," Masanori stated, the deeply buried ambition of the real man bleeding through the genjutsu's control. "I want to control Yugakure. To usurp my brother's position. To become the true power in the Land of Hot Water."
Alaric's eyebrows rose, and he let out a low whistle of genuine surprise. He turned his head, his gaze finding Haku, who was standing silently a few feet away, his expression a mask of weary disbelief. "You heard that, right?"
Haku, who was still trying to recover from his own grueling battle, could only nod weakly.
Alaric sighed, a sound of profound, almost theatrical, boredom. He nonchalantly placed his pinky finger in his nose, digging for a moment with an expression of intense concentration. He then examined the resulting booger with a critical eye before, with a casual flick of his finger, he sent it sailing through the air towards Masanori.
Haku sighed again, a deep, long-suffering sound. He didn't understand his sensei's strange, often petty, sense of humor. He didn't know how Alaric controlled people with a glance, how he could be so flippant in the face of such dark political machinations.
But as the tiny booger landed softly on the finance minister's ornate robes, Haku's eyes widened in horror.
It didn't just land. It ignited.
FWOOOSH!
There was no sound, no explosion. Just a sudden, violent eruption of pure, crimson flame. The fire clung to Masanori, not like a normal flame, but like a living, devouring entity. It didn't spread; it consumed. The minister's eyes that were dull gained a light and widened in a final, fleeting moment of silent, uncomprehending terror as the black flames devoured his flesh, his bones, his very soul.
The light from the unnatural fire was so intense it threatened to blind Haku, but he saw it. He saw the lazy, almost bored expression on Alaric's face as the minister was erased from existence.
As quickly as it had appeared, the black fire vanished, leaving nothing behind. Not a speck of ash, not a scorch mark on the ground. Yu Masanori, Minister of Finance of the Land of Hot Water, was simply… gone.
Alaric turned his head, his gaze settling on his stunned, pale-faced student. "Go ahead and remove Kenji's head for proof," he said, his voice as calm as if he were asking for another cup of tea. "After that, let's go. We don't have to clean this up."
Haku could only stare for a moment, then, with a slow, almost robotic movement, he nodded and walked towards the body of the dead rogue ninja, his mind a numb.
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