Tazuna's scream was muffled as his body was engulfed by water. The scrolls which Ren had scattered around settled on the round around the native and formed a protective aqua shield.

 

Somehow Tazuna still could breath and he wasn’t even feeling uncomfortable keeping his eyes open. In a single glance, he saw that there were now multiple Ren’s. Who he assumed to be the original left the group after giving some suggestions to his teammates.

 

The mist continued to move around the area, but nothing seemed to get rid of it. Naruto could only stick very close to Tazuna together with some other shadow clones of his.

 

Sasuke cursed openly as he slapped himself.

 

‘Damn it, how the fuck am I being affected by bloodlust of his level. This isn’t even comparable to the one Itachi put on me with that accursed genjutsu!’

 

He extended his hand and opened his holster pulling out several shurikens and a kunai.

 

Sasuke found the situation utterly despising. He had been poisoned with the worst poison of all – fear. A nerve-freezing terror had obstructed him for a moment before one of the many Ren’s had pulled him out of it.

 

Selfishness was a sin he did not want to experience right now. He had a team he was confident he could trust – excluding Naruto of course, he didn’t think he was good enough to trust him with his back, at least not yet – in such moments of struggle.

 

With mist present on the air, the oxygen they breathed seemed tainted… His throat meet a lump and he couldn’t help but exhale rather loudly.

 

Good.

 

He felt the pressure he had been facing slowly leave his body.

 

Do not let the killing intent take over your control. You are an Uchiha, the mightiest of them all, with few equals and who could defeat anyone on their path.

 

Sasuke repeated a mantra while also keeping an eye on the water column Tazuna was stuck inside. He didn’t seem uncomfortable, even better, not like it would really matter to him right now. Comfort was not a luxury they could afford right now.

 

“There you are!” He yelled out as a way of gaining even more confidence while blocking some sort of projectiles – needles? No senbons – with a kunai. He did not waste any time either as he threw the shurikens straight at the source of the senbons.

 

Ren and Kakashi could deal with Zabuza, meanwhile he… and Naruto could deal with this other assailant who in his eyes was almost just as dangerous if not even more.

 

‘A bloodline user just like me… At least he can use his, what a failure of an Uchiha I am. Doesn’t matter either way, I’ll crush anyone who stands in our way.’

 

xXx

 

“That’s a nice trick you got there brat, but it won’t do you much good against me.”

 

Zabuza grinned under his mask as his body made an appearance just next to the water turrent. What he did not expect however, was for Ren’s shadow clone to immediately attempt to stab him with his sword – also a product of Cloning.

 

“Nice trick you got there, I didn’t even notice they’re solid clones until it was almost to late.” Zabuza visibly was exasperated as he blocked the sword with the dull side of his colossal blade.

 

“That being said, you’re too predictable!”

 

He pushed Kubikiribocho forward forcing the other sword to crack violently and swiftly causing it to disperse in a cloud of smoke. The shadow clone panicked but couldn’t do much as it was chopped in half by the blade.

 

With a single swing around himself, several more shadow clones were forced to disperse. This show of violent raw strength still did not cause the mist to be dispersed, in fact it seemed to even generate even more of it.

 

“Wind Style – Great Breakthrough!”

 

Gusts of wind strong enough to cut apart the mist blasted everything on its way, forming debris and cracking the ground to the point it was just being incinerated. Zabuza found himself temporarily overwhelmed at the sheer display.

 

‘This attack has enough chakra put into it to make even a jounin admit their inferiority straight up. How the fuck did he gather this much chakra?! This is the equivalent of 5 A-Rank Jutsus.’

 

With his ace jutsu being dispersed as easily as it was easy to form, Zabuza did not move away from his spot in the slightest, instead he allowed himself to join the fury of the wind jutsu.

 

As the jutsu’s effects were fully shown, Team 7 and Tazuna did not see Zabuza’s corpse, but just a pond of water. Kakashi knew from that moment what technique was used and became wary of his surroundings once more.

 

“A doppelganger.” Ren snorted as Kakashi immediately put his sharingan to work, aiming at pinpointing the rogue Kiri ninja’s position.

 

“Well Done Ren, I’m proud of you.”

 

‘I’d be surprised if you weren’t. I had to put my plan B to work for this to actually happen.’

 

His shadow clones had two jobs, to lay out a defensive formation which would stop anyone from entering and seep out their chakra slowly; and to act as sacrifice vessels to another seal. The moment they would die, that seal would be activated and their remnants would change to a chakra core which would suck the ambient chakra in an unusual-yet-tough to discover way.

 

This was how he had afforded to waste so much chakra on that jutsu in the first place.

 

‘Shame I couldn’t get the real him though. While my sensor abilities grant me the ability to find chakra presences, his signature got really fuzzy the moment this technique was activated. At least it worked for its original objective quite well.’

 

“Do you really think it would be so easy to get rid of me? To be a true shinobi does not mean to just be capable of fighting on an equal ground. You must first cross the bridges of death and life and give the middle finger to it brats.”

 

The mist started to materialize once again. Ren could only wonder just how much chakra Zabuza was planning on wasting. He couldn’t even think about it for too long, as he heard Kakashi shout out.

 

Focusing his sensory capabilities, he saw that Kakashi had been trapped in a water sphere.

 

“Fuck!”

 

Ren raised his sword vertically and blocked Kubikiribocho the instant it appeared in front of him, ready to chop his head off.

 

“It appears all of this wasn’t a fluke brat. You do have some potential, but you’re still too raw and green to think you can face me on a one-versus-one.”

 

Zabuza’s chakra-enhanced leg connected with Ren’s abdomen, causing the later to cough… smoke?

 

The Kiri ninja’s eyes widened as he came to a realization.

 

“The one who should be careful, is none other than you!”

 

Just as his leg had connected to the shadow clone earlier, a fist covered in condensed chakra of the highest quality slammed onto his cheek and sent him flying away.

 

His body skidded across the field until he planted the tip of his blade onto it and stopped it after several more meters.

 

“One Sword Style – Maelstrom of the Dawn!”

 

Ren shot forward while unsheathing his actual sword and moving it in a circular way, causing the wind to form currents of gusts in the shape of a whirlpool.

 

Zabuza was not a master of wind-style, but even he knew that if that hit him his body would most likely be shredded to pieces – or worst scenario he could possibly die in one shot. The amount of chakra put into this single move was mind-boggling.

 

‘How the fuck is that sword enduring that amount of chakra channeled into it?! It’s made of normal steel!’

 

Zabuza seethed on the inside while he pulled Kubikiribocho out from the ground and took a stance of his own. Throwing the sword into the sky, he flashed through several hand seals.

 

Ren swapped stances as soon as he came to an understanding of what jutsu the rogue ninja was about to use. For one, he was glad he had trained his eyesight to the point even the incredibly moving hands of the jounin ahead of him were easy to read.

 

‘Fucking hell, I’m pretty sure this jutsu takes less hand-seals than how many this fella is going for. Is he going to use a more advanced version of it?’

 

Water Style – Water Dragon Bullet Technique

 

The water on the lake nearby surged upwards and through chakra manipulation turned into a massive dragon who looked menacingly-enough to cause Ren to temporarily stumble for a moment.

 

Pointing his rather mediocre-sword compared to Kubikiribocho, Ren thrusted it forward and chains burst out of his palm. Aided by the wind stream and the chains tied around the handle caused the sword to fly with incredible speed – several times that of sound – straight at Zabuza who chose to face it with his own creation of a jutsu – a water dragon.

 

“Unfortunately for you, that won’t be enough.”

 

Ren lurched forward and Zabuza felt a screeching sound blast across the field as his eyesight connected together to see a kunai flying at him. Due to the fact that he was holding his sword on one hand, and the other one was busy going through another set of hand-seals, he was incapable of doing anything to stop the kunai but deactivate his new jutsu.

 

Barely managing to dodge it by a hair’s width, he growled at Ren and missed the fact that Sasuke was just right next to him.

 

The Uchiha narrowed his eyes and grabbed the jounin by his neck and relaxed his kunai which was ready to take Zabuza’s life in one shot if necessary.