Things were not bad. Things could've been a hell of a lot worse.
Nobody was dead.
That was always a promising start. I mean, Naruto looked like he'd tried to tackle a freight bull head-on, and Sai was doing his usual impersonation of a human ink spill, but they were conscious, breathing, and for the former rather snarky, which, with the golden boy, meant he was fine. Bruised ego, cracked bones, sure. But fine.
The merchant and his workers were looking fine as well, a bit shaky, but it was routine at this point.
As for the other side….
Zabuza didn't look thrilled with how things turned out either. I gave him the once-over because apparently I'd started collecting mid-fight damage assessments like they were trading cards. Blood on his lips. The lower half of those bandages hangs damp and useless. Sharp teeth exposed. Not metaphorical sharp. He looked like a damn piranha someone put pants on.
His side was a mess. Rasengan shaped from the look of it—burn-splatter, torn fabric, bruising in a perfect chakra spiral.
The iconic broadsword was as worse off as its wielder. The top chunk of the massive cleaver was gone, snapped clean like a snapped cookie, and the ring at the end had turned into a mournful half-moon.
Not bad, Naruto. Shame I missed it. I would've loved the excuse to clap like an over-caffeinated soccer mom on the sidelines and go, "Now see, that's technique, baby."
Man, Rasengan's scary.
It really was a terrifying thing when you saw it up close. Pity I hadn't been positioned to watch Naruto pull that particular rabbit out of his hat—would've been the perfect excuse to finally dust off my own version. Flimsy justification, sure, but sometimes flimsy was all you needed.
I'd managed to cobble together my own Rasengan months after graduation, once my chakra manipulation had stopped resembling a toddler's finger-painting and started looking like actual technique. The show had been surprisingly thorough about the training methodology, which helped. Really, it wasn't that complicated a jutsu—you just needed a casual, astronomical level of chakra control proficiency. Nothing to it.
Thus the reason I made the training cards.
The real trick wasn't learning it. The real trick was never using it.
Hard to explain away knowing the signature technique of the still-very-much-alive Fourth Hokage without raising some deeply unpleasant questions. Questions I had zero interest in answering. So there it sat in my back pocket, my little nuclear option, gathering dust.
To be fair, though, my style relied more on precision and diplomacy. Well, diplomacy in the sense of creative bullshitting, but still.
A man of my refined tastes rarely needed that level of raw destruction anyway. Subtlety was an art form.
Still, it would've been nice to have a ready-made excuse locked and loaded for future use.
Alas.
"You're slippin', Haku," Zabuza growled, eyes fixed on me like I was plaque on his molar. "I told you to keep him off the damn bridge."
My grin sharpened without meaning to. "Haku's job wasn't to stop me, Zabuza. Just to distract me. And I don't know, I'd say he… performed admirably."
I let my gaze linger for a second—it wasn't intentional, not at first, but it was stupidly, irritatingly easy to drift sideways toward Haku. That soft face. Those eyes. The way he stood a little too upright, as if awareness of his own beauty made him defensive about using it. His frame was slight but strong, the slope of his hips curved where you didn't expect it. And that damn complexion fair and…..
"My tastes aren't subtle," I added levelly, "but I wouldn't say I was unwilling to be led by the pretty ones."
I….. should not have said that. Not out loud.
The silence that followed was uncomfortable even for me.
I heard Sakura's disgusted scoff, followed immediately by Naruto's exasperated groan.
"Oh come on, Eishin! Right in the middle of a fight!?" He said as if he had any ground to feel superior. "Ugh, you're such a super pervert! Can't you go five minutes without being gross?"
I turned to Sakura first, finding her with arms crossed and big green eyes throwing daggers my way. Amazing. It hadn't been half an hour since I'd dressed her down, and here she was showing me that fire again. This girl really needed to learn when to pick her battles. It was like she was doing it intentionally.
Oh, she needed discipline, alright. And not the kind you write up for in ninja reports.
I matched her gaze steadily, letting the silence stretch. One beat—her chin lifted defiantly. Two beats—uncertainty flickered across her features. Three beats—her shoulders tensed and lips thinned as she realized I wasn't backing down. Four beats—her arms shifted, grip loosening. Five beats—her defiant posture crumbled entirely as her arms reluctantly dropped to her sides, and her gaze fell.
Much better.
With Sakura properly meek again, I turned back to Naruto with my most charming smile. "What can I say? I'm a man of refined appetites and questionable judgment. It's gotten me this far."
But then Naruto's eyes went wide. His brain finally caught up with something I'd said earlier. "Wait, wait, wait. Did you just say 'he'?" He pointed dramatically at Haku, voice climbing an octave. "But that's obviously a girl! I mean, look at her! She's prettier than Sakura!"
From my peripheral vision, I caught Sakura's sharp intake of breath, her briefly subdued demeanor evaporating as her face flushed crimson with indignation. She was about to say something and most likely beat his shit up but she found my gaze again and her eyes flickered away, biting her lip into silence.
I wonder if he realized I just saved his life. That should make us even—me saving him, and me walking around with his mom's panties in my pocket. Then again, I did fuck her… so maybe not.
"Honestly?" I shrugged, entirely too pleased with myself. "Your guess is as good as mine. But I'm certainly interested in finding out."
That's when Zabuza's laughter cut through our little comedy routine like a rusty blade through silk—harsh, grating, and entirely too amused for someone who'd just taken a Rasengan to the ribs.
Naruto bristled immediately. "What's so funny, bandage breath?"
Zabuza didn't even glance at Naruto. His predatory eyes were on me now, and his smirk was crooked with blood and contempt. "So this is the famous Red Claw of Konoha?" He shook his head slowly. "Gotta say, kid, I was expecting someone older and a little less... chatty."
Oof.
"I do have a reputation for being disappointingly verbose," I replied with mock humility, already reaching for my sleeve. "Most people expect more stabbing, less talking. It's really quite unfair to my public image."
Honestly, though, I don't like talking that much. I prefer silence sometimes, contemplating life and mentally unraveling over how soft Haku's jawline looked.
I took a calm breath, rolling my shoulders—my body still sore from the earlier run-in with Haku, which had involved far more ice needles than I'd prefer inside my person.
I pulled out a paper tag covered in intricate jutsu-shiki and pressed it against my forearm. "See, normally I'm all about diplomacy before engagement. Give negotiation a fair shot, see if bloodshed can be avoided, maybe work out our differences over tea and small talk."
I pushed chakra into the seal, and immediately an arm of living flame materialized inches from my skin, crackling with barely contained heat. The air shimmered around it like a mirage.
Zabuza's eye narrowed, his grin widened, and his grip tightened on what remained of his sword.
Doesn't it have the ability to reform using blood of its victims?
"But considering how you roughed up my favorite little loudmouth over here," I continued conversationally, nodding toward Naruto, ignoring the exaggerated disgust in his face, "I'm not feeling particularly diplomatic today. Call it professional courtesy—I'd feel terrible if I didn't get some proper retribution."
Zabuza's grin widened beneath those tattered bandages, showing far too many sharp teeth. "Now that's more like it. Been a while since someone wanted to dance properly."
Dude, have you seen yourself?
"Zabuza-sama," Haku's voice cut through the tension, soft but urgent. "Be careful. He's exceptionally fast and lethal in close combat. I've seen him use fire style jutsu, Mist Blaze Dance."
Without taking his eyes off me, Zabuza waved a dismissive hand. "Stay out of this one, Haku. Just make sure those brats don't try anything stupid."
So jealous.
Must be nice having a backup who bothered to study your opponent's capabilities. None of my teammates had offered so much as a "hey, watch out for the giant sword" warning. Then again, looking around at my absolutely stellar support network...
Sai stood ready in his typical antisocial silence, which was actually reassuring in its predictability. Naruto was positioned protectively over a trembling Inari, but his posture screamed that he wanted to launch himself back into the fray rather than anything resembling tactical sense.
And Sakura—well, I would be happy if she didn't get in the way. Or force me to save her ass for a third time today.
I let my smile sharpen as I shifted my gaze from Zabuza to Haku, whose dark eyes hadn't left me since I'd arrived on this bridge. I gave him a lazy wink—because why not?—before making my move.
Shunshin wasn't a delicate technique. Using it during combat was objectively stupid if your name wasn't Shisui Uchiha. It was hard to control your momentum during shunshin, nearly impossible to course-correct, and attempting combat maneuvers mid-technique was a fast track to eating dirt.
But not to brag—I was pretty damn good at chakra control, and I'd calculated roughly the chakra needed for the distance between Zabuza and myself.
The world snapped into one linear blur of compressed speed—and a second later, I was in Zabuza's face.
The man, however, hadn't earned his reputation for nothing. He managed to get his broken broadsword up just in time to block my flame-wreathed hand. The impact still drove him back four solid steps, boots scraping against the bridge.
"That thing hits hard," he growled, muscles flexing against the glowing pressure of my firearm bearing down on his sword.
I just smiled and did something he wasn't expecting—I suddenly lowered the chakra flow to my flame construct to near zero. The hand of fire immediately lost its physical properties and most of its shape, becoming nothing more than ordinary flames that phased harmlessly through his sword.
The sudden loss of resistance caught Zabuza completely off guard. He'd been pushing back against substantial force, and when that force vanished, he stumbled forward. But the Demon of the Mist wasn't called that for show—he recovered quickly and used his forward momentum to swing his damaged blade in a vicious arc aimed at taking my head off.
Just as the flames phased through his sword, I slammed chakra back into the construct. The hand of fire regained its solidity and weight, landing squarely on Zabuza's chest.
"Hm"
"Got you."
I meant a more eloquent line, but things were moving fast; I had no time for that.
Then I used the fire hand like a rocket booster. Much like those old mech anime where the robot launches its fist as a projectile, except mine was made of concentrated fire and bad intentions.
The flaming construct rocketed forward, carrying Zabuza with it as he struggled mid-swing. When he'd sailed a respectable distance, I snapped my fingers.
The explosion that ensued was not as impressive as I'd have liked — I didn't have time to charge it — but at point blank it ought to do some damage.
Smoke and steam billowed where Zabuza had landed, and the acrid smell of burned bandages mixed with the morning mist.
I found myself standing beside a wide-eyed Haku, who was staring at where his mentor had just been introduced to my particular brand of diplomacy. It had been less than five seconds since I'd winked at him to when I'd appeared right next to him. Things were quick to escalate in this business.
I smiled at him as I started peeling the now-smoldering paper tag from my forearm, the seal burning against my skin after forcing that much chakra through it for the explosion.
"You know," I said conversationally, not taking my eyes off the destruction I'd just caused, "your boss really should listen to you more often. That was excellent tactical advice he just ignored." I glanced sideways at Haku, letting my eyes linger on the face. "Good thing I know how to properly appreciate... detailed observation." I stepped just slightly closer. "Care to tell me what other techniques of mine caught your attention? We could go over them…. somewhere a little more relaxed. Say, over a cup of tea?"
Judging by the look he gave me, he's definitely not a tea person.
Should've gone with sake.