#and now he has a somewhat important role in the overarching plot lmao

[discoabc]

Ch 18 Deleted Scene: Unintentional

A/N: So I wrote this before I had a better idea of where I wanted to go with the Wave Arc in the fic and had I gone with it I might’ve ended up with a fairly different story. I ended up scrapping it because a) it felt too canon typical and b) to have Kakashi lament about how beautiful he is.

“I cannot die here.” Haku’s words came out as this painful wheeze. It was surprisingly Sasuke who caught my arm when I wobbled suddenly, helping to set me down on the ground. “I-I must go to Zabuza-san. I must help Zabuza-san achieve his dream. I cannot die here.”

That set something off in Naruto. My blonde teammate cast one last worried look over at me before snarling at the fallen boy, nails digging into his palms when he clenched his fists. “Zabuza’s dream? You- how the hell can his dream be so important?! He…- he killed Takasago! He killed a hero!” Naruto’s voice cracked but his anger deepened.

Haku twisted his neck to look past Lee and see my furious teammate. There was guilt in his features that I wished I couldn’t see because he’d almost killed me. That last ditch attempt of his was fully intended to kill me. “Zabuza-san showed kindness to me and so, as long as he gives me a place in this world that abandoned me, I will accept the deaths of those who oppose his dream.”

And I was going to be one of those deaths.

“Besides” - a lurching, bloody cough - “aren’t you Konoha-nin the same? Killing those that oppose you and showing kindness to those that work with you? Like you, girl, that killed a man without even granting him any last words because he opposed you? And then that man’s brother?”

Naruto stiffened but I didn’t see or care, lips stretching into a furious sneer of my own. Because how dare he? How dare he judge me for what I’d done, use it as an example of how I was somehow the same as him? The same as Zabuza who hadn't granted Takasago any last words either?

“They were trying to kill me.” Like you, you bastard. “I was defending myself. What was a civilian woman like Takasago going to do to Zabuza?”

I shouldn’t have fuelled this stupid conversation with the enemy. I should’ve said nothing because this was dumb and one of us should either be knocking Haku out or killing him before he attacked again, not engaging in a philosophical debate on whether killing people that opposed you could be right depending on what perspective you looked at it from.

“There are different ways to kill a person than just through violence,” Haku’s voice was growing fainter, weaker. “We needed money and might have died without it. That woman, Takasago, was standing in the way of that.”

“Is that how you manage live with yourself?” Sasuke’s voice was cold and hostile.

Haku flinched and a gasp of agony left his throat as a result. “I...I am nothing more than a tool. Tools aren’t meant to feel anything, they’re meant to just serve their master.”

Lee shifted uncomfortably but it was Tazuna who spoke next. “That’s not what the boy asked. You’re just running away from the question and being hypocritical as you clearly feel emotions. You’re a bloody human being, kid, so stop it with the stupid metaphors.”

He flinched painfully again. “...What I mean to say is that it doesn’t matter if I hate myself. As long as Zabuza lives, I will not finish the job my father started and kill myself for the awful things I have done.”

It was Sasuke’s turn to flinch, eyes wide and skin pale. It would be because it was family killing family, something he knew so intimately, too intimately. “What?”

Haku wasn’t given the chance to answer the question with the sob story I didn’t want to hear. Zabuza’s form flying through the air would’ve been comical if it weren’t for the fact I knew how strong the man was and it was instead terrifying.

“Gai-sensei!” Lee called with a bright smile when the man appeared with an equally if not more blinding grin.

“Zabuza-san!” Haku instead cried out, eyes wide and horrified.

“Sorry I’m late, Kakashi here was getting a little wobbly on his feet,” Gai laughed heartily, yanking the said jōnin into view by the arm, who looked somewhat displeased at how he was being manhandled.

“Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto shouted, following the trend of yelling people’s names as they arrived.

Kakashi snapped his gaze onto us and pulled his arm free of Gai’s grip, sauntering casually over save a couple of shaky steps. “Hello, my cute students.” That usual condescending smile of his was back but his eyes were hard, flickering over our forms and assessing what damage had been done. The relief at our lack of life-threatening injuries was obvious, although he didn’t look exactly happy at the wounds we had sustained either, gaze hovering especially long over the stick of metal in my already bad shoulder.

He reached forwards and pressed his hand lightly onto my good shoulder in a gesture that made me almost collapse entirely. Because Kakashi, whose name for me was a synonym for safety, was here, and it was okay. I was okay. Everything is okay.

The fear, exhaustion, and pain that I’d been trying to ignore swirled up in me all at once and my eyes stung as I gulped down big breaths of air. Kakashi didn’t comment on it. “The rest of Gai’s team are picking up our clients now.”

I thought back to the women we’d hidden around the town in pairs with traps that fired shuriken barring the entrance to their hiding places. Initially, we’d planned to hide Tazuna away too, but he’d been the last on our list to conceal as an unofficial client of ours and Zabuza and Haku had arrived before we could reach the spot he was to be hidden in.

It had been a gamble doing that as Zabuza and Haku could’ve easily decided to take the civilians out first rather than us ninja, realizing early on that the women with us were transformed clones had their focus been that. But everything Kakashi did was risky and, really, had any of the plans he’d made failed, our situation wouldn’t have gotten that much worse having already reached practically rock bottom. For example, if Zabuza had realized I was moving in the mist back then, I’d’ve not increased the target put on me by much since he was likely to have attacked me first anyway.

In the case of hiding the women around the town, they were so much safer out of the heat of battle that us not being able to immediately go to their aid was a reasonable trade off. Besides, if Zabuza and Haku really had focused on them, then, with more civilians than there were ninja, their death was likely to have been inevitable either way.

Morbid, yes, but this was a morbid profession we led and Kakashi had faced that fact objectively in order to increase whatever chances we had of survival.

Loud grunts and coughs made us all turn to see Zabuza struggling to his feet, arms hanging limply by his sides. They’re broken, I noted upon seeing how they had been twisted somewhat unnaturally too. His chest was heaving and a snarl left his throat. “What are you waiting for?” He hissed. “Come closer to I can wring your little neck, you Konoha bastard.”

Lee made a noise of outrage at how the man referred to his teacher but Gai simply clenched his fists tighter and stepped backward into a ready stance. “This will be the end, Zabuza Momochi. Severe Leaf Hurricane!” He yelled as he suddenly went powering forwards, moving so fast he became a blur.

Ice. Neck. Crack.

There was a split second where everyone on the bridge was very, very still. That was aside from Haku’s head that was now lolling to the side at an angle it really shouldn’t have been.

It was both surprising and not at all. Lee had been distracted from his unspoken job of keeping an eye on the boy and I’d been fully aware that Haku would die for his ‘master’. Yet it was different seeing him do it in person. Sickening and cold.

And fast, fast like Takasago’s death with that brutal lack of finality.

Gai caught Haku’s body whilst everyone, Zabuza included, continued to stare. It was the first time my teammates had seen death - Sasuke had been shown a horrifying genjutsu of the deaths of all his clan members, yes, but this was the first time he’d seen it in the flesh, saw the life leave someone’s body with the snap of the fingers.

Tired, anger at the injustice of their first in person brush with death being so distant and clean compared to mine made my headache worse.

Then Gai broke the image of that non-scarring murder. “It wasn’t intended to kill.” He sounded mournful. Genuinely upset for the boy who lay with his neck broken in his arms.

It wasn’t intended to kill.