For two days, a fragile sense of normalcy settled over Tazuna's home. It was a lie, and Deva could feel it.
Outside, Naruto and Sasuke were locked in a relentless, rivalry-fueled competition to master tree climbing. Inside, Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, quietly prepared their meals while her son, Inari, watched the shinobi with sullen, resentful eyes. Deva sat on the porch, his senses expanded, mapping the entire area. The peace was a thin sheet of ice, and he could feel a crushing weight approaching from below.
It broke at dusk on the third day.
A mist, thick and unnaturally cold, rolled in from the sea. It was heavy, oppressive, and saturated with chakra. It swallowed the sounds of the forest, creating a dead, muffled silence.
Deva shot to his feet, his silver eyes wide with alarm. He felt two hostile energies within the mist, both powerful, both radiating a killing intent so pure and cold it felt like a physical force. "Kakashi-sensei!" he yelled. "Two of them! They're here!"
His warning was a second too late. The front door of the house disintegrated into a cloud of splinters as a massive blade sliced through it. In the gaping hole stood a tall, bandaged figure, his presence a vortex of raw menace.
"So," Zabuza Momochi's voice echoed, dangerously calm. "This is the hornets' nest."
His attack was not aimed at the shinobi. It was aimed at the heart of the mission. With a speed that seemed to bend reality, he blurred past them.
Tsunami screamed. A flash of steel. A wet, sickening sound.
Inari, who had been standing beside his mother, let out a choked cry of "Mom!" before he, too, was silenced.
It was over in less than a second. A second of absolute horror that burned itself into the minds of the genin. Tsunami and Inari lay dead on the floor of their own home. Tazuna let out a raw, animalistic scream of pure anguish, the sound of a man whose entire world had just been murdered in front of him.
"You talk too much, old man," Zabuza growled.
"GET TAZUNA AND GET BACK!" Kakashi's roar was thunderous, his usual lazy demeanor incinerated by a white-hot fury. He engaged Zabuza in a blindingly fast explosion of steel, and the two Jonin crashed through the back wall, their battle spilling into the misty yard.
As Naruto and Sasuke scrambled to form a defensive line around the sobbing bridge builder, a second figure landed silently between them and the raging Jonin battle. He was slender and wore a mask. It was Haku.
"I'm afraid I can't let you interfere with Zabuza-sama's fight," Haku said, his voice soft, yet colder than the mist itself.
Kakashi, parrying a blow from Zabuza's massive blade, made a split-second decision. "Sasuke, Naruto, handle the masked one! Sakura, protect Tazuna at all costs! Deva, with me! We're taking Zabuza down!"
It was a battlefield promotion born of desperation. Deva didn't hesitate. He flickered to Kakashi's side as Sasuke and Naruto charged at Haku, beginning their own desperate battle.
"Zabuza's main weapon is stealth," Kakashi said, his voice tight as he dodged a swing. "He'll use the mist. I need you to be my eyes. Call out his position."
[Water Style: Hidden Mist Jutsu!] Zabuza's chakra flooded the area, and the mist became an impenetrable wall of white.
"He's behind you, to the right!" Deva yelled, his senses piercing the gloom with ease.
Kakashi spun, his kunai meeting the silent strike from Zabuza's blade. As they fought, Deva's mind was racing. He could feel the exact way Zabuza molded his chakra for the mist, the specific vibration of the jutsu. I feel it. I can copy that.
"He's forming a clone at your six!" Deva warned.
Kakashi ducked under a sword swing and destroyed the half-formed Water Clone. But Zabuza was relentless. He disengaged and flashed through a series of hand seals.
[Water Style: Water Clone Jutsu!]
Three perfect, solid duplicates of Zabuza emerged from the mist, charging at Kakashi from different directions. Kakashi was instantly bogged down, forced to defend against the coordinated assault. A fourth clone broke off from the pack and shot towards Deva.
Think too much. That's your fault. Kakashi's words echoed in his head. Deva's response was immediate. He brought his hands together, forming a single, simplified hand seal his mind had already calculated as the core of the technique he had just witnessed.
"Water Style: Water Clone Jutsu!"
A perfect, solid clone of Deva erupted from a puddle beside him. It met Zabuza's clone head-on, their limbs blurring in a taijutsu exchange.
The effect on the battlefield was instantaneous. Kakashi, having dispatched one of his opponents, saw what had happened, his visible eye widening in utter shock.
Zabuza paused, his head tilting. "Copying my jutsu after seeing it once? The Sharingan lets you do that, Kakashi... but who the hell is this brat?"
Deva didn't answer. He had proven his point. Now, it was time to press the advantage. Seeing Kakashi locked in a stalemate with the remaining two clones, Deva ran through another set of hand seals—ones he knew intimately.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A massive sphere of orange flame roared from his lips, hurtling not at Zabuza himself, but at the area between him and Kakashi. The intense heat hit the thick, wet mist and exploded into a massive cloud of steam, momentarily blinding everyone and disrupting the Hidden Mist Jutsu.
In that split second of chaos, Kakashi acted, destroying the remaining two clones.
The steam began to clear. Deva and Kakashi now stood side-by-side, facing a single, very real Zabuza. The initial shock of the ambush was over. Deva was no longer just a sensor; he was an active combatant in a Jonin-level fight, armed with his own powerful jutsu and the stolen techniques of his enemy.
Zabuza stared at him, a new, dangerous curiosity in his eyes. "You're no ordinary genin, are you? This just got a lot more interesting."