Naruto Uchiha: the Last Sage of the Six Paths by JH17

Chapter 16: Defending the Bridge

Naruto sighed, sitting against a half-built railing of the bridge. He was almost bored with things, since he was expecting quite literally anyone to show up to stop them. Suddenly, he noticed a large chakra signature. It was an incredibly large amount of chakra coming towards him, it even rivaled his own chakra levels. Realizing that this could possibly be Zabuza's reinforcements, he quickly activated his right eye, letting it swirl into the Mangekyou. "Takami." Quickly summoning a shadow clone and dispersing the ones training, he sent a shadow clone into his Kamui, telling it to quickly alert Kakashi and the others. In the meantime, the real Naruto stood at the ready, prepared to defend the bridge from anyone who dared to fight him. Naruto leapt across the gap between the two parts of the bridge, shouting. "Everyone, get away from here! There is a powerful shinobi approaching, and I don't feel like cleaning up your bodies." The builders fled as quickly as they could, as Naruto stood. Naruto's eyes bled a little as the full effects of a clone using his Mangekyou finally hit him. He took a deep breath and concentrated. He pulled a kunai from his belt, ready to fight whoever stood before him. Focusing his eyes on the approaching shinobi, he noticed a smaller chakra signature which was dwarfed by the larger one. He recognized it instantly with a smirk. "Zabuza...again? Hmph, I should have figured that." Naruto leapt off the bridge towards them, slipping the kunai away quickly. "Well, guess I should give this thing a try at the least." Naruto created a shadow clone, which ran through handsigns while the original created a Rasengan. "Katon: Zokyo-en(Fire Style: Augmenting Flame)." The clone spewed fire into the Rasengan carefully and precisely, loading it with that chakra. Naruto concentrated hard on keeping the Rasengan together while the new chakra settled in and around it. Finally, the Fire chakra calmed and simply coursed through and through the Rasengan. Naruto grinned, imagining the destructive power this would have on his enemies. "Kamui." Within a moment, Naruto was gone, but the clone remained.

The two nin charged for the clone who simply leapt into the air, creating a clone of its own who threw it forward a tremendous distance. The new clone dispersed, leaving the original clone alone again. "Boss said I needed to bring them over here, so this should work." The shark-like nin charged after him. "Get over here, brat!" he roared, letting his sharp teeth show with a grin. As the shark-man came close, he slammed his weapon down from his back. At the same time, a strange distortion formed from behind him, revealing another Naruto holding a strange fire in his hand. "Katon: Rasengan!" Naruto threw his arm forward with as much strength as he could, but the shark-like man reacted quickly and pulled his weapon back around, blocking the Rasengan. Naruto's eyes widened then narrowed, pushing more chakra into his jutsu. The shark-man simply smirked in response "Samehada absorbs chakra, brat." Soon enough, the Rasengan began to dissolve against the weapon, blowing off the wrapping and showing a spiky, purple, odd weapon. The weapon itself almost gagged against the chakra, but accepted it nonetheless. "The Samehada? You must be Hoshigake Kisame, of Kiri." The now named shinobi grinned in response to the recognition. "Seems you must know me, I didn't expect a child to know an S-Ranked shinobi." "Well when you're a shinobi, you're supposed to know your possible enemies." Naruto glanced back, seeing Zabuza watching them. Flipping back over Zabuza's head to create some distance, Naruto spoke "Oh, you've returned already? And even nursing a wounded arm, seems I really did deal some serious damage." Zabuza growled under his breath. "How about your little friend, Haku, right? I've seen his life, I see how you two see each other, why try to lie at this point? I wonder how he'd feel if he were still around..." The injured Kiri shinobi's eyes widened, before gritting his teeth. "So what, you killed the boy? Whatever, he was nothing but a tool." "You lie, Zabuza. I told you already, and I'll tell you again: I have seen his memories and I understand your relationship." The bandaged Kiri nin only growled again. "So, Zabuza, if you don't want the boy to die, I suggest you back away." Conflicted, Zabuza made the safe maneuver to back away from the fight, giving them plenty of space.