Please Don't Leave Me

Battle on the Bridge! Zabuza Returns

(Kazumi's P.O.V.)

The walk home wasn't too long, no one wanted to talk until we at least got half way and even then it was small talk. Whatever Sakura did for that little boy made her and Tazuna stay deep in thought.
Sakura was obviously thinking about what Gato was doing to this place and why he might need to do it in the first place. Tazuna was thinking about his people and that he wanted to speed up his work to bring peace to his people. No, I couldn't read their minds but they made it obvious what they were thinking. Or maybe I'm just good at reading other people's expressions.

"Ah, Sakura, Kazumi, you're home early" said Kakashi sitting at one of the trees scaring the day lights out of Tazuna and Sakura.
"I was waiting for you to come home Kazumi. I want you to show me what happened with that jutsu you told me about yesterday. I'll meet you at the river and you can get changed. I'll be waiting" he said jumping between the trees.
I walked to my room and grabbed the pair of shorts and a tank top like I wore the other day. I walked over to the spot he took me to and he was standing right next to the river near the bridge.

"Good, you came. Now focus your chakra and walk across the river, when you get to the bridge I want you to turn your body to water. I'm going to activate my sharingan and analyze what it is and then I'll tell you how to control and maintain it" he said lifting up his headband with his sharingan activated. I nodded and made the hand sign walking steadily on the water, the river was flowing a little faster today. I kept walking until I reached the bridge.
Ok, now I need to focus. I focused my chakra and fused it into the water adjusting it. I opened my eyes and when I looked at the ground my feet were still there. I sighed and tried again focusing my chakra again and my chakra was going into the water and I felt the water adjusting to me and moving at my will, but the water started crawling up my legs and up to my lower stomach.
I looked down again and it was replaced with water.
"I've never seen any technique like this. It's powerful, and not easy to master. As you said it turns you body to water at your will but you can change it back at any given time. It needs chakra control to keep the jutsu going, so this jutsu requires more chakra focus than climbing trees or walking on water" he said and I widened my eyes at what he told me.
"Alright, Kazumi. This will be challenging but I want you to try and turn your whole body into water, if you are made entirely of water you might be able to pass through the bridge without ducking. If you can do it go to the other end and wait for me to help you to release the jutsu" he called to me. I nodded and closed my eyes, I pictured the water moving up my body and to my surprise, when I opened my eyes almost nothing was left of me with skin. I was all water, I felt the jutsu slipping and I focused harder and I felt myself dropping and I started panicking thinking the jutsu was still going away, I took a deep breath and kept focusing and I was sinking further down and my body was disappearing in the water and this made me very nervous.
"Kazumi, keep the jutsu going. The water is making your body go into the river and you're becoming one. Try to keep going and see how far you can get traveling in the water" Kakashi called and I focused on the water picturing my body becoming one with the river, I felt like I was sinking but when I finally got all of my head into the water, it felt amazing. I felt like I was at peace, I looked to my right and there were ripples spreading.



It was like the ripples were playing and dancing with the water, it was too tempting. I swam over to the ripples and swam with them spreading through the water. It was like all my thoughts were erased and I wasn't even doing the jutsu sign anymore, it was just natural. No more chakra was needed; I was just with the water. The sound of the running water was music to my ears and I peacefully enjoyed the moment I could finally feel so at peace. But the peace was soon broken by a loud voice
"Kazumi!!" I heard and when I looked up through the water I saw Naruto looking in the water for me with Sasuke and Kakashi also yelling my name. I swam over to Naruto and held his hands in place of the water and he couldn't get out. He started struggling and I didn't let go of his hands, I made my face come up from the water but Naruto started yelling even more saying something has him.
"Naruto, stop! It's just Kazumi" called Kakashi and Naruto stopped struggling and settled down.
"Alright, Kazumi. I need you to release the jutsu, just imagine yourself getting your body parts back and making all the water go away" he said and I closed my eyes picturing my actual body coming back and I could feel my toes coming back along with my legs, back and neck finally coming up to my face with my body a solid again.
"Kazumi, you had us really scared. When you didn't come up from the water Naruto and Sasuke came by because I was yelling at you so loud and it looked like nothing was going to keep you from the water" said Kakashi with a look of relief, and I opened my mouth to apologize but then I realized how cold the river was and got out really quick shivering.
"Lets go home, we can get you something warm there" said Kakashi as we went back to the house. When we got there Tazuna's daughter was cooking dinner and she was talking to Tazuna and Inari but Inari looked like he was ignoring her. Naruto stopped and looked for Sakura and Sasuke sat on the ground waiting for dinner to be ready, but in all honesty I wasn't even close to hungry. Kakashi led me to my room and he grabbed a blanket and put it on my shoulders as I sat on my bed warming up.
"Alright, I'll come get you when dinner's ready" he said
"That's alright, I don't think I want dinner. I'm not hungry" I said
"Sure, but I'll send in Sasuke later to see how you're doing" he said closing the door. I looked out the window and there was a perfect view of the river from my window. I didn't even know how long I was looking at it until I heard a creak at my door I saw Sasuke standing there with a cup of tea in his hand. He walked over and handed it to me and I took it savoring the taste but forgetting it was still hot and it burned my tongue a little.
"Was there something I missed at dinner?" I asked
"Inari stormed out saying we didn't know anything and that we were going to die. Then Naruto stormed out saying he was going out for training" he said and I nodded but I noticed his chin was wet and his breath smelled horrible
"Did you throw up or something?" I asked
"Hn" he said looking away and I was going to take that as a yes
"Go brush your teeth, your breath smells terrible" I said nudging him pointing to the bathroom and he just sighed getting up brushing his teeth.

I looked out the window one more time and even from here I could barely hear Naruto screaming and grunting. I sighed and jumped out the window listening to where I heard Naruto shouting and it took me no more than 20 seconds to find him running up a tree. I fell to the ground and waited for Naruto to come back down, he scratched the tree about 1/4 of the way up and fell to the ground with a thud.
"Naruto" I said
"Ah! Kazumi? What are you doing here?" he asked
"What about you?" I asked
"I need to train, I need to prove heroes really exist" he said
"I can understand why you might be angry but that won't do any good if you want to take it out on the tree. Your anger will crush the tree and you can't climb it anymore" I said
"Yeah, you're right" he said
"Lets go" I said walking in the direction of the river
"Where are we going? I still need to train" he said
"So do I, I help you with tree climbing and you help me with my water walking" I said
"Oh, ok. Can you give me any pointers?" he asked
"Don't let the thought of beating Sasuke come to mind, you're too focused on him to understand your chakra control" I said
"Sure, thanks" he said and we got to the river.


I made my hand signs walking across the river careful not to lose focus feeling myself disappear into the water seeing the beauty of the ripples racing down the river, the little rush of cold water waking me up, and the toads and tadpoles coming to learn about life.

I swam up to the toads and they didn't see me but I reached out and they saw me barely. I stroked the little toad's head and it was slimy but the toad was leaning against my hand wanting me to pet it more, the little tadpoles saw me and swam to my face nuzzling into my cheek
"Hey, Kazumi?" asked Naruto from above as I swam up
"Hn?"
"Can I ask you what it's like under there? It looks cool" he asked
"Come here" I said and he kneeled down and I grabbed his hand taking a deep breath and pulling him under water. He screamed having a hard time breathing and I released the air I had in my mouth making an air bubble shoving it in Naruto's open mouth. He stopped screaming and looked around trying to say something but the air bubble didn't let him and all that came out was bubbles.
I grabbed his hand dragging him through the river looking at all the rocks, fish, and toads. When I stopped by the toads I met earlier they swam back up to me and nuzzled against me.
I motioned Naruto to try and pet him on his head. He reached out and the toad pulled away and that made Naruto mad and tried yelling through his bubble but again only bubbles came out which only made him even more mad. I smiled warmly and grabbed his hand setting it out in front of the toad.
The toad looked at his hand unsure and leaned in closer and let him pet him on the head slowly. As he did so, the toad circled him and nudged him and swam in the opposite direction, he didn't seem to understand but I grabbed his hand again and raced after the little toad when I saw something above us and stopped to look at it.
The ripples flowed through the river and I felt Naruto tug at my hand and when I looked at him he was confused. I motioned to the ripples and he looked at them in awe. One more ripple came by and it was going away, but I motioned to Naruto and we raced to the small fading ripple until it came to a stop.
I stopped and looked at where it stopped, it was so pretty and it looked peaceful and small and not rough and big, it was just enough for us to swim and stop slowly. Naruto tapped my shoulder and I saw he was running out of air and we swam up to the surface when his air bubble disappeared.

"Wow! That was so cool! And that race was awesome! We should do that again!" he said fist pumping. I smiled again at him and he wandered off to his tree near the river and started working again. I looked at the horizon and the sun had already set, we trained for another two hours before Naruto passed out, and not too long after. I have no memory of passing out but I joined Naruto not long after

I heard a small snap and when I looked up there was a person standing over me. They had long black hair with a pink sleeveless dress.
"You're going to catch a cold sleeping there all day" he said smiling at me. Quite honestly, if I didn't hear his voice I would have truly thought he was a woman.
"Yes, thank you" I said
"What were you doing out here?" he asked
"Training" I said
"I see. You're friend is still asleep over there, would you like to wake him up?" he asked
"Yes, I can wake him up" I said getting up from my spot
"So how did you end up sleeping here? Wasn't it uncomfortable?" asked the boy
"No, as a child I used to sleep outside a lot" I said
"Oh? And why is that?" he asked and I stopped myself for a minute
"Family issues" I said


(Flashback to 8 years ago)


"Daddy! Daddy!" called a small girl no older than 6, she skipped over to him but he didn't pay attention to her
"Daddy!" she called again but he didn't want to look back
"Hey daddy! Guess what!" she skipped over to his desk so she could see his face but when she saw him she wished she hadn't. He was angry looking and had deep bags and a scowl on his face.
"What now?" he asked bitterly
"W-well, I was going to say Itachi took me out for dangos today and on my way home I saw Izaya and got to talk to her" she said now not knowing how bad of a mood he was in thinking he was going to yell at her or hurt her.
"That's all you wanted to tell me? Next time you want to waste my time do it with something useful" he said bitterly
"I-I didn't k-know I was wasting your time" she sniffled
"You still are. I have too much work to be worrying about some kid" he said turning back to his work
"W-well, when I was talking to her she asked if I wanted to sleep over and I wanted to ask you if I could" she said in a small voice
"Isn't there someone else you can bother besides me?" he asked turning around at her looking at her harshly
"I-I-I" she sniffled out
"Leave now. I don't need to waste my time dealing with another kid" he said
'Maybe he's just hungry.. If I give him the leftovers maybe he'll cheer up..' she thought to herself
"I-I also brought home some dangos for you because I thought you would get hungry. I--"
"Kazumi!" he yelled now standing up from his seat to face her, clearly angry
"I'm not hungry! I've got two legs and I can use them! I have work that I need to do and I can't do it with you here!" he yelled pointing at the door as she ran out the door crying her little eyes out and trying to wipe them away with a balled up fist.
"B-But daddy, today is *sniff* m-my birthday!" she yelled running away and out of the Uchiha compound.
"Kazumi?" asked Itachi in front of her, she ran past him and kept running and running and she wasn't going to stop then. She ran most of the night and her family was worried about where she was, all except her father who was too wrapped up in his paper work to notice she ran out of the house.
By morning she was found slumping next to a tree with tears rolling down her eyes, some dried up and some new like she was crying in her sleep. Itachi brought her back home and all the family was there to comfort her while her father had already left to work.

(Back to present)

"I see" he said as she reached out her hand to wake up Naruto
"I could wake him up for you if you want to go home" he said and I nodded, but I stopped myself and stopped over by the river and sat at the edge with the water streaming past my feet that were still lightly dipped in.
I couldn't help but think, what was it that I did to him to make him snap at me so much, it wasn't just that time a long time ago when I was 6, but before the massacre when I was in a happy mood and would try to be nice to him he would push me away and didn't want to talk to me unless he had a lesson to teach me about the family when he was in a somewhat good mood. I'm sure that he wasn't trying to neglect me or anything like that but with the stress of his position it took its toll on him. But because of that I would always go to Sasuke or Itachi because I wasn't able to stand him yelling at me, I didn't want to keep it in, but then again I couldn't.
When people have a sweet little girl sometimes they expect her to have the perfect life and that she didn't have too much to say. But I couldn't say that, my family was always busy with something unless it was mom, Itachi, or Sasuke. Other than that it was dad, who didn't talk to me much. I thought I had a good family, but I never talked about them and people would pity me.
Yes, it was hard for me to keep in tears but one of the things I didn't like too much as a kid was pity, but I used to hate how weak I was and tried to hold it back as much as I could but I wasn't able to keep it up forever.
Mom always said I was a sweet little girl and that I had no right to be yelled at that way.
I never fully understood what I did, but apparently it was big enough to have him snap at me so much. I felt a hand on my shoulder and Sasuke was standing right behind me
"Did you forget about breakfast?" he asked
"Yes" I said and he nodded
"That loser asked me to get you so he can show you something" he said
"Ok" I said getting up unsure about what he wanted to show me. When we got to where Naruto was, he was half way up a tree and was relaxing on a branch. I smiled lightly and watched him as Kakashi and Sakura came a little while later
"Knowing Naruto he could be anywhere, and Sasuke hasn't come back either. I wonder where they are" said Sakura as a kunai came out of the tree and landed in front of Sakura
"Woah, Naruto can climb that high now using his chakra? That's great" she asked
"What do you think? High enough for you guys? I mean it's a long way down" he asked trying to get up as his foot slipped and he was falling over.
"Ah! Naruto!!"
"Uh-oh"
I was ready to help him but right at the last second before he was going to fall, he used his chakra to stay on the tree.
"Haha, just kidding! You guys really fell for it!" he screamed
"We were worried about you Naruto" said Sakura looking agitated
"Why do I think this is going to end badly?" asked Kakashi sensei
"It most likely is" I said as Naruto let his chakra slip and he was falling for real.
"Ah! You just had to push it didn't you show off!!" yelled Sakura. I was running to help him but when I took another step closer Sasuke came out of nowhere and caught his leg hanging upside down on the tree.
"You really are a total loser Naruto" said Sasuke still hanging onto his foot
"Ah~Alright Sasuke! You're the best" squealed Sakura
"Well, I see you two have gotten better, good job. What about you Kazumi, are you getting the hang of it?" he asked me and I nodded
"Good, we're going to head back tot he house, you can stay here if you want though" he said as he and Sakura left
"Hn, I need to practice anyway" said Sasuke bringing him and Naruto down to the ground
"And I need to be better than Sasuke to prove I'm better" said Naruto
"I still haven't fully made it yet, I can watch you and if you want you can go after that" I said watching them climb up higher and higher, until I couldn't see them. After another hour or so when they finally decided to call it a day, they both panted over to me completely exhausted.
"We...we made it to the top" said Naruto holding himself up by holding his knees.
"Good, you can go home if you want. But I still need to train so you can do whatever you'd like" I said turning to the river
"Oh! I wanna come!! You watched us so I wanna watch you" said Naruto behind me
"Hn, I guess I'll come too" said Sasuke as we walked over to the river and stopped right at the edge.

I breathed deeply and made a hand sign focusing my chakra, I took a step onto the water and started walking, I finally made it to the bridge and focused more of my chakra adjusting to the water imagining myself turning into water as I felt water move up my legs and torso moving all the way up to my head. I opened my eyes and fell into the water
"Kazumi!" yelled Sasuke
"Don't worry, this is part of her training. She's awesome at it!" yelled Naruto fist pumping and I moved with the water going down to the end and making my body a solid again breathing deeply and wobbling a little. It was only going to get harder from here but this is probably the hardest I've had to work since I tried to learn the waterball jutsu. Sasuke and Naruto came to my sides and helped me stand.
"Hn, I say it's about time we head home" said Sasuke
"Yeah!" yelled Naruto falling on his butt
"You idiot" he said taking one of Naruto's arms and took it around his shoulder
"Lets go" I said as we walked to the house and when we opened the door everyone was looking at us.
"What have you been up to? You look like something the cat dragged in" said Tazuna
"We made it...all of us" said Naruto
"Good, now we move on. Starting tomorrow you're all body guards for Tazuna"
"Alright" said Naruto kicking up in the air and falling on his butt again bringing Sasuke down with him
"You are such a loser" said Sasuke as everyone chuckled and I giggled
"Alright then, sit down and lets eat" said Tazuna
"No thanks, I'm more tired than I am hungry. I think I want to go to bed early" I said and they all nodded their heads and I left for my room. I stripped down and jumped in for a shower cleaning my hair and body. After I was done I slipped on my pajamas and brushed my hair getting ready for bed.



"Pst, Kazumi" said a voice, I groggily looked up to see Kakashi
"It's time to go. We're going to protect Tazuna at the bridge today, but Naruto is asleep so we have to be quiet" he said and I nodded going to the bathroom and changed into my clothes heading to the front door where everyone was already waiting there.
"Ok, I leave Naruto in your hands. He's pushed his body to the limit, overdoing it as usual. So he may not be able to move today at all"
"What about you? You're still recovering yourself"
"Why, do I look wobbly? I'll be ok"
"Come on, lets go" said Tazuna as we left walking to the bridge, but something caught my attention. It was a strong scent coming from the bridge
"Hold on!" I yelled smelling something
"What is it?" asked Kakashi as I smelled a strong scent of blood and death, it was too much I felt like my nose wanted to pop off
"I smell blood, and a lot of it" I said. We sprinted to the bridge as fast as we could and right in front of us was Tazuna's men laying on the ground with blood going everywhere, like I said
"What the--Someone was here, someone got to them" said Tazuna as mist was building up and it was hard to see. He came earlier than I thought.
"Sasuke! Sakura! Kazumi! Get ready" said Kakashi as we circled the bridge builder and they took out their kunai knifes and I took out my katana
"Kakashi sensei, it's Zabuza isn't it? This is his hidden mist jutsu" said Sakura.
'No duh. Did you not learn his moves when we last faced him, did you not see him hide in the mist when he tried to kill us?' I thought.
"Sorry I kept you waiting Kakashi. I see you've still got those brats with you, oh. That one's still trembling. Pitiful" he said towards Sasuke. I gritted my teeth as a bunch of Zabuza's clones surrounded us
"I'm trembling with excitement" said Sasuke. The clones all smirked at us
"Go on Sasuke" said Kakashi as the clone in front of him launched at him but all the clones were torn to pieces in a minute tops.
"Oh, so you could see they were water clones huh? The brat's improving, looks like you've got a rival Haku" he said stepping up with a boy in a mask, but he smelled familiar. Wait! He was that boy I met when I woke up in the forest, maybe it wasn't a good idea to let him wake Naruto up for me.
"So it seems" he said as we stared them down for a good minute.
"I remember you, how are you feeling? You look pretty beaten up, are you sure you'll be able to fight?" he asked me mockingly
"I feel good enough to take you down" I said holding up my katana
"Then lets see how well you do little brat" he said
"Enough talk, lets go!" I said pointing my katana at him.