Reborn in the Mist

“Ahh! Maita-kun, help!”

Zabuza scoffed as his wakizashi grinded against his opponent’s metal rod. He broke away just as another sand bandit took a stab at his head. He jumped back, keeping a fair, respectable distance between himself and his two opponents.

He spared a glance at Team 8 and felt embarrased for them. Already their weakest link was captured, the stupid girl was pinned to the sand bandit’s chest with a rusty kunai pressed against her neck while his free hand frantically waved a rod at her haplessly panicking teammates.

“Come any closer and I swear I’ll slit her throat!” The sand bandit screamed and laughed at the same time.

“Maita-kun!”

“Shut up, bitch!” He sneered, strangling her even further. “You two, disarm, right now or I swear I’ll gut her!”

To emphasize his point he pressed the sharpened tip of the rod on the stupid Genin, she squealed and squirmed but didn’t break free despite being in the position to do so. Zabuza wasn’t a hundred percent certain but going off by the red in their eyes and the manic laughter he’d say these bandits were high as heaven on some drug.

It won’t take much to get the slip on these fools. He thought, bringing his hands up to a handseal.

“Hey! I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You’re surrounded.” One of his opponents said, his scarved face did little to hide the relative youth in his voice.

“Yeah, you’re shinobi here for the Chuunin Exams, aren’t you?” The one Zabuza marked as the boss said, he was far older than any of his lackeys and didn’t care a dime about hiding his face. He shined his yellow teeth at Utakata and Mangetsu, both Chuunin were caught between the boss and two of his lackeys.

“I gave the order to kill you but it seems some of you have futures as shinobi.” The boss said gruffly. “If you want to see that future then I advise you to disarm, abandon your backpacks and start walking.”

The light skirmish at the beginning before that fool of a girl got captured was enough to gauge the strength of their opponents and in Zabuza’s opinion, the two sand bandits keeping him separated from the rest were skilled fodder. The same likely went for the others.

Zabuza caught Utakata’s eyes from across the sand, hardened and cold; they guided him northwards where a second desert storm was raging. He nodded, understanding the message. Ao and Pakura were in there, likely facing their own set of sand bandits as that storm was anything but natural.

“Don’t even think about it.” His opponents said, catching the fully unspoken conversation. “You won’t make it before we kill one, two or three of you. Besides, they have their own problems to worry about over there.”

The fiends cackled proudly at themselves, smirks and grins large beneath those masked faces. Zabuza withheld a growl, he couldn’t lose composure now, especially when his first instinct is to continue the fight and leave team 8’s idiot girl to fend for herself like a shinobi or die a damsel’s death.

This would’ve been a lot easier if I were with them. He thought, watching his teammates square off with the boss who at least was capable of using Chuunin grade jutsu.

“Maita-kun…” The pathetic Genin whimpered.

“Kekeke. What will it be? Maita-kun?” The boss mocked, earning a raucous blow of laughter from his lackeys. “Surrender or die?”

Just then, something occurred to Zabuza. Where the heck is Team 5?

The soft and then rapid crunch of sand behind him answered his question as a pair of footsteps belonging to invisible figures raced past him. He blinked and for the first time felt a veil over his eyes just as a pair of familiar whining voices yelled—

““Surrender!””

“Urk!”

Zabuza’s opponents choked, stumbling as something pierced deep into their stomach and hearts respectively. Blood dripped over the invisible hands holding the kunai.

“Earth Release: Head Hunter!” Team 5’s adult genin announced as he rose above the descending sand bandit, swiping away his captive in one smooth go. “Are you alright?”

“Kill them, damn it!” the boss roared, but it was already too late for any of the sort.

Utakata and Mangetsu stepped through the lackey’s callous strikes. Utakata delivered a devastating uppercut to one, sending him flying as a piece of his tongue flopped in the air. Mangetsu’s tanto cut straight through the femur bone of the other, eliciting a banshee like scream as he fell over, suddenly maimed.

The boss himself was several metres away and Zabuza was hot on his trail. Wakizashi glinting under the sun, “I don’t think you’ll make it!” Zabuza mocked the man, releasing three senbon from his fingers.

Credit well due the boss spun around just in time to deflect them but also in time to catch Zabuza’s foot with his face. He sputtered backwards, blinded by bloody agony as he reached for his nose.

Zabuza lurched forward, wakizashi poised to split through his throat— until he sneezed. A blast of wind erupted from his bloody lips and pushed Zabuza mid stride. Unexpected as it was, Zabuza set his feet squarely the moment he sensed a chakra spike, he grinded to a halt and reared forward with his blade and charged through the dusting sand.

Don’t let him escape! Zabuza weaved through a set of three hand seals, activating the jutsu just as he dashed out of the dust cloud. Rather than keep running the boss chose to fight; he too was weaving handseals, eyes widening at Zabuza’s approach before sharply studying what he saw.

Three Zabuzas sprinted at him, bloodthirsty grins split on each face. The boss’s eyes darted desperately between them, trying to figure the real one from the fake. Three steps away from three glinting wakizashi’s he roared in frustration and clapped his hands together.

“Wind Release: Gale Palm!”

A fierce roaring gale swirled out of his outstretched palms, blasting sand through all three illusions. The boss gaped in horror as each smirked and faded out of existence, spinning on his heels and rearing his arms to defend a millisecond too late as Zabuza sprung from buried sands beneath his feet.

The wakizashi slide through the bottom of his mouth with a wet ‘shlurk!’, the boss released only a startled grunt as the blade broke through the top of his skull.

Zabuza stood perfectly still to let the sand pour off his body in grainy rivulets. Once it was finished he retrieved his blade and let the boss thud in the sand. He groaned at himself, annoyed so much sand had gotten through his cloak and wraps, his practical attempt at replicating what team 5’s adult Genin’s [Head Hunter] jutsu did were…

“Well, it got the job done.” Zabuza muttered, glancing at the boss’s slow cooling corpse. It’d rot sooner than it cooled out in the desert sun, poked at by what vultures soared by.

At the thought of cooling corpses and vultures Zabuza reevaluated the worth of physically digging through the sand to get the drop on the boss sand bandit. Spitting dirt he swore to stick to slipping through water with [Hiding in Water] instead, “Kami knows what’s decayed in here.”

“Zabuza!” Utakata yelled, leading the others over his way with a bright, victorious grin on his face.

“Why are you smiling, we’re not done.” Zabuza said as they congregated around him. Utakata wasn’t the only one looking pleasant about themselves, the entirety of team 5 was wearing a smirk they felt very entitled to.

“They’ll be fine.” Mangetsu deadpanned, setting his foot to rest on the boss’s corpse as he stared out at the still raging sandstorm. “Now that we’re done over here, I’m sure they’ll stop playing with their food.”

Zabuza was confused for a moment and then, seconds later when parts of the storm burst apart in scorching red flares it made all the sense.

Pakura of the Scorched Sands and Ao the Byakugan Killer. Only shinobi of their tier would use an ambush to evaluate their subordinates, there was less than nothing for Zabuza to help them with.

Sure enough, the storm dissolved seconds after, billowing over the desert like it’d never been there as the pair walked out as unscathed as they’d been when they disappeared. Ao’s single eye cast a judging gaze across them, his lips tugged in the beginnings of a smile, he looked amused as his eye landed on team five.

“Could have been better handled, but well done, team Kirigakure, keep this up.” he said, all the while his eye never left Akari, Haruka and the shinobi Zabuza had refused to acknowledge until now— Yaga.