"Heh heh heh... Kakashi, it seems you were wrong. What was that about my ambitions ending here? It's still far too early for that!"
Although Zabuza spoke his declaration of escaping death's grasp in a low voice, his still slightly trembling pupils betrayed the violent shock and... wavering in his heart.
Haku, who had taken the Lightning Blade straight through his chest, clearly felt his life rapidly slipping away. Before his consciousness completely faded, he did what he believed was the last thing he could do for Zabuza—he used his final strength to desperately grip Kakashi's arm that was still channeling lightning through his chest, trying to restrain it.
Looking at Haku's pale yet strangely peaceful face, and those eyes gradually losing focus, Kakashi understood that this boy was already... beyond saving.
This eerily familiar scene instantly triggered the most painful fragnts from his mories... violent anguish suddenly clenched his heart.
The newly freed Zabuza had already raised his cold blade again, deliberately letting out cruel laughter. "Hahahaha! What a useful tool I picked up! Right until the end... he created such a perfect opportunity for !"
No way! Does he intend to... cut down this child too?! Kakashi watched the rcilessly descending blade with alarm.
But Haku's fingers, still gripping his arm tightly, beca his greatest constraint at this mont! He couldn't dodge.
With Zabuza's speed and strength, with his arm restrained and his mind in shock, Kakashi absolutely couldn't avoid this precise and vicious strike.
However—
Just as the blade was about to fall, Kakashi gritted his teeth hard. Rather than trying to break free from Haku's grip, he used the boy's hold on him as leverage, bringing Haku's now powerless body along in an extrely forced sideways rolling leap.
The blade scraped harshly against the bridge surface, sending up a shower of sparks.
"..."
Having narrowly avoided the strike, Kakashi knelt on one knee and gently laid Haku down. He fully understood the situation now, and saw through to Zabuza's true heart beneath that cold mask.
Just then—
"Naruto! Satsuki!"
Sakura, who had been nervously protecting Tazuna in the rear, saw the two approaching—Satsuki was carefully supporting a sowhat fatigued-looking Naruto as they headed toward the battlefield.
Kakashi carefully laid Haku flat on the bridge surface. The boy's chest wound was horrific, his life force as weak as a candle flickering in the wind.
Imdiately after, another taijutsu clash erupted between Kakashi and Zabuza.
However, just before Haku's consciousness was about to sink completely into darkness—sothing changed.
Dozens of Haku's black hairs silently fell from his head, trembling and transforming in the air as if alive, ultimately becoming dozens of butterflies. This was a secret safeguard Naruto had quietly left on Haku, now finally taking effect.
These butterflies ford from life energy flew gracefully toward Haku's heart, pierced and hollow from the Lightning Blade, then quietly rged into his flesh and blood.
In the next mont, a gentle life energy began slowly flowing into Haku's nearly dead body, forcibly stabilizing his final thread of life.
He could hold on a bit longer. Haku's consciousness, wrapped in warmth, temporarily stopped at the boundary between life and death.
On the other side, Zabuza roared as he viciously chopped at Kakashi, but his technique was full of openings, having lost all its previous sharpness.
Kakashi simply sidestepped, easily avoiding this chaotic attack, then delivered a heavy straight punch to Zabuza's abdon!
"Gah!" Zabuza staggered backward several steps in pain. Refusing to accept defeat, he charged forward again with wild swings of his blade.
But his movents had completely lost any combat technique, reduced to nothing but instinctive, chaotic venting.
Kakashi had already appeared behind him using Body Flicker before he even finished swinging, driving a kunai into the shoulder joint of Zabuza's sword arm!
Splurt!
Zabuza's arm imdiately dropped powerlessly, no longer able to lift. He gasped heavily, roaring in a voice thick with confusion: "Why... why can't I keep up with your speed anymore?!"
"You've already lost, Zabuza." Kakashi's voice was coldly almost cruel. "Haven't you noticed even now?"
Kakashi clearly rembered that earlier scene—facing what seed like a strike that would tear both him and Haku apart, he should have been absolutely unable to avoid it. Yet Zabuza had... hesitated at the crucial mont.
The subtle deviation in the blade's trajectory, that mont of hesitation—Kakashi had caught it all clearly.
Even Zabuza himself hadn't realized that witnessing Haku's "death," that enormous grief and emptiness he'd never experienced before, had already eroded his fighting instincts, leaving him unable to think normally, much less control his own body.
At this mont, he stood on the edge of complete emotional collapse, all his attacks rely desperate, unwilling struggles.
Just as the kunai in Kakashi's hand was about to strike the unable-to-form-seals, nearly defenseless Zabuza for the final blow—
A series of dense, chaotic footsteps suddenly rang out from the other end of the bridge, breaking the tense atmosphere of the battlefield.
Both Kakashi and Zabuza looked toward the sound. They saw a short man wearing round sunglasses, leaning on a cane with one hand comically wrapped in bandages, swaggering onto the bridge surrounded by a large group of thugs carrying clubs and swords with vicious faces.
"Gato... what are you doing here?" Zabuza recognized the newcor, asking in a hoarse, exhausted voice.
"Oh ho ho~ If it isn't our famous 'Demon of the Mist' Momochi Zabuza!" Gato's voice carried mockery and ridicule. "What an ugly defeat... truly disappointing."
"What do you an by that?" Zabuza's gaze swept over the obviously ill-intentioned, restless thugs behind Gato. "And why did you bring so many people?"
"Heh heh heh heh..."
Gato let out a cold, low laugh, lightly tapping the bridge surface with his cane. "Isn't my aning clear enough, Zabuza-san? I've changed my mind—please, just die right here."
He stated his true purpose without any attempt to hide it.
"You know, hiring you proper ninja costs enormous amounts of money! That's why I originally sought out you cheap and useful rogue ninja."
Gato looked like a calculating businessman. "But now... you've already fought those Leaf ninja to mutual destruction, saving quite a bit of trouble. If you all die here, not only do I not have to pay the remaining huge fees, I can even save the advance paynt! This is quite a profitable deal, don't you think? Hahahaha!"
Naruto, just arriving at the battlefield with Satsuki's support, looked at Gato's smug expression as he thought he controlled everything, then glanced at the ragtag group of undisciplined thugs behind him...
How exactly did this idiot beco one of the world's richest n? Is there really nothing wrong with this world's economic system?
Naruto felt deeply compelled to complain.
****
80 advance chapters at patreon/Eatinpieces
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