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Chapter 85 - The Three Grim Blades
🕑 Added 2025-08-05 10:46:49 +0000 UTCThis was bad.
Five hunter-nin on the west side, moving in coordinated patterns that screamed professional ambush tactics. If there were five on one side, basic military doctrine said there were at least triple that number completing the circle around us.
Fifteen fucking elite shinobi, minimum, all closing in like a noose made of sharp steel and bad intentions.
Really, not looking good at all.
I'd questioned the resolve of these two hunter-nin earlier, wondering if they'd actually commit to a fight over some missing-nin bounty. Now I wasn't wondering anymore. Kirigakure was fucking serious about this—they were bringing out the big guns. Zabuza must have pushed their patience past the breaking point.
Still, wasn’t it a bit excessive? What the hell had he done to warrant fifteen top-tier shinobi hunting him down like a rabid dog? Sure, he was a missing-nin who'd participated in a civil war and started his little revolution on the side...
Alright, perhaps that did warrant this kind of response. Yet Kiri wasn't exactly in a position to throw around this many resources, not with the Mizukage being nothing more than a puppet dancing to someone else's strings.
A destabilized Kirigakure was far more beneficial. Zabuza was one of the wrenches that furthered that destabilization.
I shook my head, pushing the political implications aside. Whatever the reason for this overwhelming response, my priority now was getting Naruto out of here alive.
Keeping my focus on the two hunter-nin in front of us, I reached into my pack and pulled out a small scroll, pressing it into Naruto's hand without looking away from our "negotiation partners."
"What's this?" Naruto asked, turning the scroll over in his hands with that trademark curiosity of his.
"Food," I replied simply, though the mention reminded me that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast—well, unless you counted the appetizer that was Sakura, which had been a nice warm-up for the main course that was Tsunami.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Naruto eyed the small scroll skeptically. “You think this is the time for a snack break?"
"Just keep it with you and use it as a bribe when you need to," I said, still maintaining eye contact with Wolf-mask.
"A bribe?" Naruto's voice cracked with confusion. "Eishin, you're not making any sense."
I just smiled, letting him puzzle it out. He grumbled under his breath but tucked the scroll away, which was all I needed.
With that insurance policy handled, I turned my attention to Zabuza. The missing-nin immediately raised his guard, massive sword coming up despite his obviously battered condition.
"You know, circumstances have a funny way of changing," I said conversationally, pulling out a jutsu shiki paper for my Firehand jutsu. I rolled up my right sleeve and stuck the seal to my forearm—the one on my left was still functional, but redundancy was a beautiful thing. "Just when you think you've got everything figured out, the universe decides to shuffle the deck."
"Hah," Zabuza wheezed, but there was something almost like camaraderie in his tone. "Sounds like the voice of experience talking, brat."
"Well, I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier," I continued, keeping my voice light and conversational. "As gentlemen, we should probably discuss our mutual interest in not becoming pincushions for… life and its many mysteries. You know, professional courtesy and all that."
Naruto shot me a glare but didn't interrupt. Sakura probably would have.
“So you're thinking we team up against these two, eh?“ Zabuza's laugh was a harsh bark that turned into a wet cough. "Their offer is not to your liking?"
The two hunter-nin shifted almost imperceptibly, hands moving closer to weapons as they processed this unexpected alliance.
"Oh no," I said, pulling the kunai from my shoulder with a sharp hiss of pain, "I can handle our masked friends just fine on my own." Blood ran down my arm in warm rivulets as I examined the blade. "The real issue I have here is that you've been treating your companion like, uh, not so well."
"What, you another naive idealist?" Zabuza mocked, though his voice carried that particular rasp that suggested amusement. "Going to preach about friendship and rainbows?"
"Not naive, just aesthetic," I replied with half-sarcastic sincerity. "Your actions are ugly, and Haku is pretty. It physically hurts the romantic in me to watch him treated like that."
Zabuza scoffed, but I wasn't done.
"Plus," I continued, "you made Naruto upset. And an upset Naruto is a massive pain in my ass."
"Hey!" Naruto protested, cheeks flushing with indignation.
I ignored him and focused on Zabuza. "So here's the deal, big guy. You and Haku are going to accompany Naruto and Sai somewhere quiet where you can have a nice, civilized discussion about proper companion treatment. Work out your differences like adults. Meanwhile, I'll continue my delightful conversation with these two gentlemen about professional boundaries and jurisdictional disputes."
Zabuza's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "And what makes you think I won't just gut your students the moment we're out of sight?"
I held up the bloody kunai, letting the crimson drops catch the flickering light from my fire hand. "Could you?”
Zabuza studied my face for a long moment, then threw back his head and laughed. "Alright, brat. You've got a deal."
The two hunter-nin remained silent, watching this exchange with the patience of predators waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
"Is this wise?" Sai muttered, the first time I'd heard him openly question one of my decisions. "Tactically speaking—"
"Yeah, what he said," Naruto echoed, though his voice was getting more slurred by the minute.
I ran my finger along the blood-coated kunai, collecting the crimson liquid on my fingertip and watching it gleam in the firelight. "Trust me," I said quietly, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "At my signal, retreat south. Run and don't stop. Sai, you're carrying Haku." I paused, letting the weight of unspoken words settle between us. "The forest has plenty of dangers."
Naruto's confused expression suggested the hint had sailed right over his head. Fortunate that. But Sai's almost imperceptible nod told me he understood perfectly.
"This is it," I said quietly, glancing at Naruto from the corner of my eyes. "That chance you wanted. To show everyone what you're made of? Well, congratulations, you lucky bastard—it just fell into your lap."
Naruto's face scrunched up in confusion for a moment longer before his trademark grin spread across his face.
"Heh, don't worry, Eishin!" he declared, pointing dramatically at Zabuza despite the obvious effort it took to keep his arm steady. "I'm gonna teach bandage-face here how to treat his teammates properly, dattebayo! No way I'm letting that slide!"
What are you? The world advocate for teammates and friendships? Yeah….
I nodded, then ran my blood-coated finger across the back of my other hand. The metallic scent was sharp in my nostrils as "Now," I said to Sai, hand flying into handseals, then slammed my palm against the forest ground.
“Summoning Jutsu!“
Smoke erupted around in a billowing cloud, and Sai took advantage of it, moving like the professional he was—a blur of black and pale skin as he sprinted toward Haku's form. Naruto stumbled after him, poison making his movements clumsy, but his intent clear.
The two hunter-nin weren't about to miss that chance either. Through the smoke, I caught the glint of steel as they launched themselves forward, and I was already moving to intercept. My kunai met Wolf-mask's blade in a shower of sparks while my left arm's Firehand shot out to his partner a couple of steps back.
Wolf-mask was good—as expected from an elite shinobi from one of the most vicious hidden villages. His kunai work was textbook perfect, each parry and counter-attack flowing into the next like water.
But his partner wasn't experienced enough or quick enough to fully deflect my Firehand with his sword, nor could he guard himself from the explosion that followed.
The brief flash was all the distraction I needed, but apparently Zabuza had the same idea. His massive cleaver whistled through the air at Wolf-mask's head—and where mine would have been if I hadn't learned long ago to never trust anyone in a fight, allies included.
The blade passed so close I felt the wind from it ruffle my hair and cut Wolf-mask’s head in half.
But no blood or bones or meat. Water clone.
Wolf-mask dissolved into water with a wet splash, leaving nothing but a puddle and the smell of river mud.
Of fucking course.
I shot Zabuza a glare. He just grinned, showing too many teeth. "My bad, kid. You were in the way."
I snorted, turning to check on the second hunter-nin. At least that bastard was actually dead, his body crumpled against a tree trunk with burn marks decorating what was left of his torso. Small victories.
"Guess you don't get to have that civilized discussion after all," Zabuza wheezed, though there was dark amusement in his voice.
"Your injuries must be worse than you let on if you can't even sense them when they've already revealed themselves."
Zabuza's grin faltered, and his head swiveled as he took in what I'd been dreading—the forest around us was no longer empty. Two dozen — more — figures in animal masks had materialized from the mist like ghosts, forming a perfect circle of death around our little group.
But that made me wonder, doubtful and suspicious. Nearly thirty. Hunter-nin was but a small corps of the weakest and some rejects of Anbu. If Kiri has this many hunter-nin, how many Anbu did it have?
While Anbu alone was not enough to tell about the power capacity of a hidden village, it was enough to deduce.
The deduction didn’t fucking make any sense.
All of these sent to hunt one missing-nin?
Something was not right.
“Hah.“ Zabuza's feral smile returned, wider and more unhinged than before. "So this is what you meant about circumstances having a funny way of changing."
"Fuck," I muttered under my breath as Sai appeared at my side, Haku's near-unconscious form slung over his shoulder. Naruto stumbled up beside him, still fighting the poison but looking more alert by the minute.
"What's the plan now?" Sai asked, his voice betraying none of the tension we were all feeling.
"Yeah!" Naruto added, swaying slightly but game for whatever came next. "Why are there so many of them? Bandage face, what did you do?"
I stared at the wall of masked killers surrounding us, mind racing through possibilities. They couldn't push through that many elite shinobi—hell, I wasn't sure I could either.
The stalled silence of the impending battle was suddenly, catastrophically broken by three loud, obnoxious voices.
"Oi, oi! Takū-kun, you smell that? Smells like..." A dramatic sniff. "Fear and roasted frog!"
Through the dissipating smoke, a figure in a red-stained haori emerged, furred chest bare and a broken katana slung carelessly over one shoulder. The raccoon took a long drag from his pipe and exhaled the smoke in a perfect ring. "Ah, the sweet aroma of a battlefield. Reminds me of that time with the monk and the sake jug, ne?"
"Gahaha! Rakū-san, you always bring up that monk!" The second voice belonged to the largest of the three—a rotund raccoon whose short yukata strained against his belly. Takū hefted his kanabo like it weighed nothing, grinning stupidly. "But wasn't that the time you got so drunk you challenged a tree to a duel and lost?"
"That tree cheated," Rakū declared with wounded dignity, adjusting his haori. "Used poison ivy. Dishonorable tactics."
The third raccoon, thin and twitchy with a patched straw hat pulled low over his face, spun his naginata in nervous circles. "Both of you are missing the point!" Pakū hissed, darting his eyes around suspiciously. "This smells like a setup! Mark my words, those snake bastards are behind this. They're probably working with the cats again—I knew we shouldn't have trusted that bakery!"
"Pakū-kun, you say that about every bakery," Takū laughed, completely oblivious to the two dozen armed killers surrounding them. "Remember when you accused that nice old lady of being a spy just because she put raisins in her bread?"
"Raisins are suspicious!" Pakū snapped, then paused mid-rant to squint at the assembled hunter-nin. "Wait, who are all these masked weirdos? Did we crash someone's costume party?"
"Ah, my dear cousins, it appears we have been summoned to dispense justice!” Rakū struck a dramatic pose, one hand on his broken katana's hilt. “The philosophy of the streets teaches us: 'When life gives you enemies, make enemy soup!'"
"That's not a real saying," Pakū muttered.
"It is now!" Rakū puffed his pipe with theatrical flair, smoke curling like a cheap stage show.
“Stand back and tremble, fools! For you gaze upon Rakū—Ashtray of the Western Wind, breaker of silence, thinker of loud thoughts!”
Takū spread his arms wide like a sumo about to hug the world. “Gahaha! And me—Takū! Bellied Beast of the North Ditch! I ate thirty dumplings in one sitting and only cried once!”
Pakū adjusted his crooked straw hat, eyes darting. “Pakū, Itchy Blade of the Glum. If any of you blink funny, I’ll assume you’re with the snake syndicate and preemptively slash your kneecaps.”
There was a pause. The wind blew dust across the silent battlefield. Somewhere, a crow cawed.
Then Rakū raised his pipe high and bellowed. “And together we are... the Three Grim Blades!”
Takū thrust his kanabo into the air, nearly hitting Pakū. “Scourge of snack stalls and saboteurs alike!”
I stared at the three anthropomorphic raccoons and deadpanned.
They are useful. I told myself. They really can be…. sometimes.
