The world narrowed to the edge of the Executioner's Blade. It was a massive, unstoppable wall of steel, descending with a finality that promised to cleave Deva in two. Kakashi was too far away. There was no time to dodge, no room to evade. Deva's senses were screaming, feeding him a thousand points of data about the blade's velocity, its weight, the killing intent humming from its user. You think too much, his sensei's voice echoed in his mind. In that split second, the torrent of data and the imperative to act became one.
Deva didn't retreat. He slammed both of his palms onto the damp earth. He made no hand signs. He simply focused on a frequency he had copied minutes ago—the powerful, high-density defensive jutsu Zabuza had used to form his Water Clones. He commanded his own monstrous chakra reserves, an ocean of power, to erupt.
[Water Style: Water Wall!]
A solid, vertical wall of swirling, high-pressure water erupted from the ground between him and the blade. The roar of the water was deafening. The Executioner's Blade smashed into it with the force of a battering ram. The water wall held for a fraction of a second, the massive force of the blow turning the surface into a churning vortex, steam hissing from the friction. Then, the wall exploded outwards in a torrential blast of spray and concussive force.
The unstoppable momentum of Zabuza's strike was spent. Thrown off balance, his massive blade knocked from his grip by the blast, Zabuza stumbled back, his eyes wide with disbelief. He had been countered by his own technique, performed without seals, by a genin.
That was all the time Kakashi needed.
In a flash of movement, the Jonin was on him. With Zabuza unarmed and off-balance, it was no longer a fight; it was a dissection. Kakashi moved with a cold, brutal precision, his Sharingan tracking every flinch, every desperate attempt to recover. A series of sharp, debilitating strikes to Zabuza's joints and pressure points crippled the Mist-nin's ability to fight back. Zabuza crumpled to the ground, incapacitated and glaring up with pure, impotent hatred.
The main threat was neutralized. But the battle was not over.
A loud, sickening crack of ice echoed from the other side of the yard. Deva's head snapped towards the sound. The dome of ice mirrors, which had been the arena for the other desperate battle, was cracking. He saw Sasuke, his body a shield over Naruto's, get riddled with a final, seemingly lethal volley of senbon needles before collapsing.
And then, Naruto erupted.
It was not the chaotic heat Deva was used to. This was something else entirely. An immense, malevolent energy exploded from Naruto, so hot and violent it was a physical force that tore the air itself. The remaining ice mirrors didn't just break; they vaporized into clouds of steam. A figure emerged from the vapor, cloaked in a bubbling, crimson aura. Naruto's eyes were no longer blue, but a demonic red, his canines elongated, his whisker marks thick and feral.
Deva's senses reeled. The sensory input was overwhelming, a frequency so powerful it threatened to shatter his mind all over again. It was the roaring storm from the Academy, but magnified a thousandfold, twisted into something ancient and hateful. It was a fundamental frequency, a primal song of pure power and caged rage. Without a conscious thought, his mind, built for replication, latched onto it. It wasn't a choice; it was an instinct. His entire being focused on surviving the sensory onslaught by dissecting it. He rode the wave of hatred, found the core vibration beneath the chaos, and stored it away in the deepest corner of his mind. He had it. The frequency of the beast inside Naruto was now his. He wouldn't pay it a mind now, but the data was logged, a seed of terrifying potential planted in the library of his memory.
Haku, terrified by this monstrous transformation, was no match for the raw, bestial power. The enraged Naruto was on him in an instant, a whirlwind of claws and chakra. Haku's mask shattered, revealing the face of a young, gentle-looking boy. Just as Naruto, in his blind fury, raised a chakra-cloaked fist for the final, killing blow, he saw the face beneath the mask. And for a split second, he hesitated.
That second was all it took.
From the other side of the yard, Kakashi, having tied up the incapacitated Zabuza, prepared to end the mission. His hand crackled with the sound of a thousand chirping birds as he charged his signature jutsu. [Chidori!] He shot towards Zabuza, his hand a blade of pure lightning.
"It's over, Zabuza."
Haku, seeing his master about to be killed, made his choice. In a final burst of speed, he flickered from in front of a stunned Naruto and appeared directly in Kakashi's path. There was a sickening squelch. Kakashi's eyes widened in horror as his arm plunged through Haku's chest.
Haku coughed up blood, a faint smile on his lips. "Zabuza... sama..." he whispered, and then went limp.
The red chakra around Naruto receded, leaving him shocked and confused. The mist was beginning to clear, the silence broken only by Kakashi's heavy breathing and Tazuna's quiet, heartbroken sobs.
Just as the tense silence fell, the architect of their suffering, Gato, appeared with his thugs. Seeing his hired ninja defeated, he mocked the fallen Haku. It was his final mistake. In a last, suicidal act of vengeance for his companion, Zabuza, with a kunai in his teeth, broke his bonds and charged into the crowd of thugs. The slaughter was brief and brutal. When it was over, Gato and his men were dead, and Zabuza collapsed beside them, his life fading away. Kakashi, in a sign of respect, carried him to lie beside Haku as an unnatural snow began to fall.
The fight was over. Tsunami and Inari were dead. Haku and Zabuza were dead. Gato and his men were gone.
Team 7 was left standing in the aftermath. Sasuke was unconscious but alive—Deva could sense his steady, if weak, life force. Haku had avoided his vital points. Naruto was exhausted, trying to process the carnage. Sakura was tending to Tazuna.
Deva stood apart, his mind a quiet storm. He had a library of new, powerful jutsu in his head—frequencies of water, mist, and ice. More importantly, he had the foundational frequency of the Nine-Tails stored away for later experimentation. But the cost of this data was laid bare in the four bodies that now littered the land. He thought of Kakashi's words—those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum. He had dismissed it as a simple platitude. Now, he saw it as a fundamental law. Zabuza, a monster, had died avenging his only comrade. Haku had given his life for his master. Their bond, in its own twisted way, had been absolute.
The mission was a success. The bridge would be built. But as he looked at the broken home and the fallen ninja, it felt like a catastrophic failure. This, he realized, was the true, bloody meaning of being a shinobi.