Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Haku's death came on swift wings.

Actually, it didn't. It came on a blood soaked scroll of paper, carried by a shaking servant who burst into the court session in the middle of Lady Terumi's speech. The room quieted. The Mizukage stood from his position at the head of the u-shaped table and glared. It was only a level-two glare, so the servant simply quaked in fear, instead of spontaneously combusting.

"What?" The Mizukage growled.

"A-a correspondence, M-my Lord," The servant stammered. Haku winced internally. He had been at the receiving end of one of those glares before. He swore there were still eyeball shaped scars burned into his retinas. "from Lord Gato. He said it was urgent and to deliver it to you immediately." The servant trailed off under the combined stares of the entire Court of the Mist.

The Mizukage crooked his finger at the servant.

"Give it to me, then."

The servant took a small step forwards and collapsed in a dead faint.

The Mizukage slapped his forehead and slumped back into his throne. The four of the Five Lords of the Mist present were quickly losing interest. Lady Terumi was sobbing about some failed engagement or other, Lord Suikazan was eating some fish thing he smuggled in, and the two others whose names Haku had quite frankly forgotten were engaged in a rousing battle of 'who can lick the other's tonsils first'.

"Haku."

Haku glanced up from watching two of the most powerful people in the entire country of Mist trying to suck each other's lips clean off. The Mizukage had drawn his legs to chest and was looking for all the world like a moody teenager.

"Yes, my Lord?" He asked quietly, stepping up next to the throne.

"Get the paper."

"Yes, my Lord."

Haku walked around the table to the collapsed servant, surreptitiously kicking one of the kissing pair's chairs over. Monosyllables from the Mizukage meant that he was three seconds away from brutally massacring everyone in the room for not paying attention to him. It was for the best that the two Lords weren't distracting each other.

Leaning down, Haku grabbed the scroll from the servant, trying not to get his hands covered in blood. He tore the seal off and dropped it to the floor.

"Read it." The Mizukage huffed.

"My lord Mizukage," Haku began. "it has come to my attention that you clearly aren't going to do anything about the raids on my bridge until I give you clear evidence that they aren't just a figment of my imagination. Attached to this scroll is a note delivered by one of the bandits to the bridge-builder, Tazuna. With a sword. Through his face. I hope you will understand the necessity of the situation and will finally do something about it, you lazy ass. Your loyal vassal, Lord Gato."

The room was quiet, but at least the Mizukage didn't look too homicidal.

He waved a hand tiredly. "Go on, read the note from the bandits he mentioned."

Haku pulled the paper out. It was covered in drying blood and probably brain matter. He held it through the edge of his sleeve, making note to burn his clothes afterwards.

"Yagura, you bastard." Haku shut his mouth and hazarded a glance at the Mizukage. The four Lords present looked at the Mizukage, too, as if expecting him to fly into a rage and kill them all. The Mizukage just slammed his head into the table, muttering something that sounded like, "Fuck, not him.".

Haku continued. "get your goddamn bridge out of my lake. You stuck us in here, you have to deal with us. With great hate and wishing for your death, the Swordsman Three." Haku flipped the paper over. "P.S. Since Momochi is too concerned with yelling at you, I suppose its up to me to tell you what we'll do if you don't a. stop the bridge, or b. remove the curse. I-" Haku looked at the council. "Here the hand writing changes. Nice Kirikagure you have there, it be a shame if anything happened to it. Then there's a picture of a poorly drawn shark eating you, my Lord."

All eyes in the room shifted to the Mizukage, who was slamming his head into the table at a steady pace. Lady Terumi stood up, her robes flowing and shining in the misty sun that streamed through the high windows.

"Yagura, sweetie," She said hesitantly, laying a hand on his shoulder. "what's wrong?"

He let out a muffled wail.

"Right," Lady Terumi stepped back. "servant."

Haku snapped to attention. "Yes, Lady Terumi?"

"You are going to deal with him, and I am going to go home and soak in a bubble bath for the next hour or so." She nodded emphatically. Her bosoms did too. "As the next in line for the throne, I declare this meeting adjourned."

She spun around and Haku had to step back a little or risk being clobbered by flying bosoms. She left the room, followed closely by the two Lords, who by this point had simply skipped the mouth excavation bit and gone straight on to the 'this would be obscene if not for the clothes' part, and Lord Suikazan. The door slammed shut, leaving Haku with an angsting Mizukage and an unconscious servant.

"My Lord, I thin-"

The Mizukage threw a look at him. "Haku, what do you know about the Seven Swordsmen of the Bloody Mist?"

"Only that they were disbanded years ago." He thought for a moment. "Also that they threw wild parties."

The Mizukage nodded sagely. "Yes, I disbanded them near the beginning of my regin. My father had created them to be a force that no one could fight and live. I disbanded them after their leader disobeyed my orders and slaughtered a town. And then Ringo Ameyuri refused to date me. So, I told them that they would be banished to the northern lake if they didn't give up their swords and title." He gingerly took the note.

"Everyone but Momochi Zabuza, Hoshigaki Kisame, and the younger Hosuki brother gave in and left the Seven Swordsmen. I cursed them to live an eternity in the northern lake, but apparently somehow they found a way to get out."

The room was silent.

"So," Haku said. "what are you going to do, my lord?"

The Mizukage leaned back, his eyes closed. "Well, they clearly want me to come check on the curse, otherwise they wouldn't have said anything. So, I can assume a trap is waiting. The logical thing to do would be to ignore the threat."

"But then the raids would continue."

"Yeah, and I need that bridge built. We can't open commerce with Wave unless we can transport goods." The Mizukage ran a hand through his blond hair. "So, I need to send a guard detail up there to deal with them."

"I thought that they were undefeatable?" Haku leaned against the edge of the table, crossing his arms.

"Then the only option we have is for me to go up and reseal the curse."

Haku smacked him.

"My Lord, how could you say something so stupid?" Haku slammed his hands on the table, his face drawn in concern. "How could you risk your life like that?"

The Mizukage rubbed his cheek. "You're lucky I like you, Haku, otherwise I could have you executed for that." He said pointedly. "I am going to recast the curse. I will leave with a full guard. I will be fine."

"But what if you're wrong?"

"I'm not."

Haku lifted his eyes to meet the Mizukage's glare. Level-four. This was bad. Fine, then.

"I apologize, my Lord." He dropped into a kneel, his face towards the floor.

The Mizukage flapped his hand at him.

"Go, do whatever it is that servants do. I'll need my sword and armor in the morning."

"Yes, my lord." Haku's face was blank, but the neurons in his head were sparking. He turned to leave. "My Lord?" He said, his hands curling around the edge of a chair.

"What?" The Mizukage snapped.

"I'm sorry."

"Look, I forgave you-" Whatever he was going to say was cut off by Haku violently applying the chair to the back of the Mizukage's head. The solid wooden frame hit him with a sickening crack and he collapsed onto the table.

Haku dropped the chair. He propped the Mizukage up in his throne, making sure he wouldn't be too uncomfortable after he woke up from his head trauma.

"Sorry, my Lord," He muttered, pulling the Mizukage's outer robe off and stuffing it into his hip pouch. "but I will not let you die. Hopefully, the Swordsmen will have forgotten what you look like by now."

He took the Mizukage's sword. It was a pretty piece of metal. The most Haku knew about swords was that they cut and were sharp, so he couldn't appreciate the sword to it's fullness, but he still recognized a good work of craftsmanship.

He turned, and, with a long glance back at the Mizukage, he left the room. The corridor was silent and empty, so Haku had no trouble getting to the stables. He grabbed the nearest horse he could reach and clumsily put on its saddle and bridle. On the fourth try, he managed to mount it without kicking the wall or falling off. He pulled the reins and the horse ran out into the night, towards the north, and his death.

Chapter Text

If Haku didn't die in glorious and fearsome battle with the Swordsmen, defending his Mizukage and savior with his life, he was going to die from all the damn mosquitoes. He smacked a hand to his neck.

After traveling for nearly three days, he was sick, tired, and sore. He had abandoned the horse a short time ago, wanting to travel on foot to attract less attention. Also, he had no idea how to ride the damn thing and was fairly sure that the horse had turned around at least once, and while he thought he was straddling the northern border between the continental Land of Water and its outlying islands, he could have been in Fire for all he knew.

Haku had never traveled more than a mile outside of the capital of Water, so he couldn't rely on any familiar land marks. Being lost severely sucked, and Haku just wished he knew where he was.

The trees were tall and imposing, nothing like the spindly, weaving mangroves that grew everywhere in Mist. The ground was mostly sparse, with patches of bright green, rustling bushes dotting the landscape.

Wait.

Haku mentally backtracked. Rustling bushes? He wasn't an expert in botany, but he was fairly certain that plants were neither sentient nor capable of independent movement.

Picking up a heavy branch from the forest floor, he slowly stepped towards the bush. The rustling continued at an alarming rate. Anything could be behind that bush. Bears, tigers, bandits. There were a thousand and one things that could be hiding behind that bush, waiting eagerly to kill him. He raised the branch.

The face of a young boy popped out from the bush.

"Hey, nee-chan," He said loudly, and crashed through the rest of the bush. "where are we?"

He was young, no older that ten, and had a bright, curious look to him. A shock of yellow hair stuck up at all angles above his wide, blue eyes. His obnoxiously orange jumpsuit was a stark contrast to the fluffy, earthy red tail that stuck up behind him and wagged happily.

A Kitsune.

"Hello, Kitsune-sama." Haku said, and bowed deeply.

Haku had long since given up on the old religion. It was selfish of him, he knew, but there was no way that a group of benevolent gods would kill a young boy's parents, leaving him an orphan, alone in the world and starving on the streets.

The Kitsune tilted his head.

"Me? Nah, nee-chan, I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" He jabbed a thumb at himself. He paused. "And I'm lost."

He... drooped. Haku was often on the receiving end of puppy dog eyes, being a servant in a that had an excess of food and living in a country that had a surplus of orphans, but this boy's pout easily bested them all.

Sympathy was a bitch.

"Where are you trying to go?" Haku leaned down and looked at Naruto.

"I'm lookin' for my Iruka-nii. I saw a super-cool toad and followed it and then it jumped into a lake, so I went around it to the other side and then I saw a tree that looked just like my foot and then I looked up and I'm lost."

Clearly the boy had some magical gifts, because there was no way that someone with lungs that small could talk for so long without taking a breath.

"What does your Iruka look like? Perhaps I've seen him."

"Um, he's tall and has a big dumb scar on his nose and he stuck a bird to the back of his head, that's why his hair is so funny." Naruto confided, like it was a royal secret.

There was a noise in the bushes, and Haku moved in front of the boy. He might have been an ancient, powerful, magical being, but right now he was a lost and scared child, and Haku was not about to let him get eaten by a tiger.

"Hello?" A voice rang out. It was deep, masculine. Naruto seemed to perk up.

"Iruka-nii!" He shouted. "I'm here!"

A man, this 'Iruka-nii', presumably, stepped into view. He was indeed tall, and had a large scar across the bridge of his nose. It was rude, but Haku had to agree with Naruto, he did have really stupid hair.

"Naruto, where have you been?" He harped, walking towards them. Naruto stepped out from behind Haku.

"I followed a toad and your big, dumb head didn't follow me. I could've died!" He fell back dramatically against Haku, who, being a underfed servant, stumbled a bit with the weight.

"Naruto, I-"

"Iruka-nii wants me dead!"

Clearly Iruka-nii did want him dead, because the man lunged at him; trying to tackle the boy. It was unsuccessful.

"Ow." Said Haku, who was not enjoying his current position at the bottom of a dog pile comprised of a whining Kitsune and a very heavy man.

"Sorry." The man stood up and pulled Naruto to his feet. He stuck a hand down for Haku. "I apologize for any inconveniences my ward might have caused, ma'am."

Haku ignored the hand and pulled himself up.

"I'm a boy." He muttered, dusting off his trousers.

"Shit." The man said.

"It really isn't that big of a deal, everyone ends up thinking that." Haku glanced up at him. Okay, so he wasn't talking about his mistake in gender observation. He looked scared. Odd, given that the only thing that could be reasonably threatened by Haku at this point was a warm meal, and even that might have been a stretch.

"You're from Mist, aren't you."

Haku saw how the man kept edging Naruto behind himself, as if to hide him. He seemed ready to run.

"Yes, I am." Haku answered levelly. Whatever fit of hysteria had overtaken the man was not going to affect Haku, thank you very much.

"Are you here for the boy?"

"Why would I be?"

"You kill his kind in Mist."

Haku let a breath out through his nose.

"Those are the former Mizukage's laws. The current Mizukage abolished the practice."

"They still practice it in the east."

"I'm not here to kill the boy."

"Then why are you here?" The man seemed to relax a little. Naruto was still clutched to his side, looking silent and scared.

"I'm looking for the northern lake."

The man eyed him suspiciously.

"What would anyone want with that place?"

"I seek the Swordsmen." There wasn't much harm in divulging his plans to a random man he met walking in the woods, right?

Naruto stuck his head out from behind the man.

"What do you want them for, nee-chan? All they do is smell like fish and throw swords at people."

"You've seen them?" Haku turned to Naruto.

"Yep!" Naruto smiled. "Iruka-nii and I saw them a few days ago, when we passed the cool bridge. It wasn't done yet and I got to jump across the broken bits, but then I fell and Irkua-nii caught me, but the shark guy jumped up and tried to eat us, but Iruka-nii punched him in the face!" Naruto took a breath and slammed a fist into the man's leg for emphasis. He winced.

"Naruto, maybe I should tell the story." The man said.

"No." Naruto shoved a small hand over the man's mouth. "You tell it dumb. Anyways, Iruka-nii beat up a shark! But then it got boring and that talked about bridges and curses and stuff so I played a prank on one of the builders. I put a frog in his hat and poured slime on him. And then I fell asleep."

So, the Swordsmen could leave the lake, and were apparently dangerous. This was good and bad. It meant that Haku was right to come here in place of the Mizukage, but it also meant that the deadly killers weren't contained.

"How many were there?" He looked at the man, trying to convey as much honestness and patheticness into his gaze as possible.

"Three."

Monosyllables. So, the man still didn't trust him.

"Please, I need to know as much about the Swordsmen as possible."

"Why?" The man glared at him.

"I," He paused. "I need to save someone."

The man stared at him, long and hard. He must have seen something, because he drew back up and sighed, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and nodded.

"Alright," He said. "I can help you."

Chapter Text

Naruto threw a new log on the fire. The log hit the wood already there, and caused a thousand tiny sparks to float off into the night sky. One of them landed on Haku's sleeve, and he quickly had to pat is out or risk a wardrobe fire.

Iruka sat, leaning back against a tree. Naruto ran over to him, cartwheeling along the way, then sat down in his lap, curling his tail around himself for warmth. Haku had to resist the urge to coo.

"So," Iruka began. "what can I tell you?"

"Alright, ummm, okay. How are the Swordsmen getting out of the lake?"

"That, they didn't tell me. But I can tell you why they were there."

"Alright," Haku shrugged. "anything helps, really."

"So, about ten years ago, the Seven Swordsmen went rouge and took out a town. They killed everyone, against the Mizukage's orders."

"Alright," Haku interrupted. "I know that already. Can you tell me how to beat them?"

Iruka gave him a look.

"Does the descriptor 'unbeatable' mean anything to you?"

Haku sighed. "Can you please help me? Any information at all is helpful at this point."

The flames crackled against the darkness, throwing wild, writhing shadows onto the trees. Iruka looked deep into the fire, pushing the embers together with a dampened stick.

"A long time ago," he broke the heavy silence. "The gods demanded a bride from Mist, a woman of high birth and unearthly beauty to marry the King of the Sea Trolls. Naturally, the nobles refused. But, the King of the Mist, that's Mizukage in your language, offered his own daughter for marriage. In return, the King of the Sea Trolls gave him a gift."

"That's a great story and all," Haku interrupted. "But I don't see what this has to do with me not being brutally slaughtered by the Swordsmen."

"Let me finish and you'll find out." Iruka glared at him. "Anyways, the Sea Troll King gave him the gift of magic, to trap those who disobeyed him in the northern lake. Of course, the Sea Troll King didn't want the King of the Mist to have that much power, so he made it that if the person trapped in the lake did true good, they would be set free. That's what I think your Mizukage did to the Swordsmen."

"So," Haku muttered. " You think one of them did 'true good' and that's how they got free?"

"Oh, hell no." Iruka waved a hand, careful not to unsettle Naruto. "I am certain that didn't do any good, but from what little I managed to glean from my conversation with the shark, I think something in the bridge being built over the lake is disrupting the curse."

"Are you suggesting that someone is sabotaging the bridge to free the Swordsmen?"

"It isn't likely, but anything is possible." Iruka shrugged. "The Mizukage has more enemies than I've had hot meals."

Naruto yawned, and rolled so that he was curled up into a fluffy ball of neon orange.

"I'm sorry to cut this conversation short, but we need to get back to the Land of Fire as soon as possible and we can only do that if we get some amount of rest. I can tell you more tomorrow, but right now, Naruto needs to sleep."

"Of course." Haku nodded.

He grabbed the saddlebag containing his sleeping bag off of the horse and rolled it out a short distance away. He slid under the blanket, and quickly fell asleep.

Early sunlight gently drifted through the treetops, throwing dappled light across Haku's black hair. It was a cold, clear morning, which sucked because Haku only hit roughly 45 kilos after he spent a day gorging himself, and thus was always cold. He was seriously regretting his decision to not bring more blankets.

He shivered, curling deeper into his sleeping bag. He pulled the edge of the blanket over his head, his warm breath puffing and fogging up in the cold. His back hurt, his neck hurt, there was an annoying puff of fur from his, or more accurately, the Mizukage's, sleeves tickling his nose every time he breathed.

He shivered again. It was getting annoying to breathe in his cocoon of moderate warmth.

Sighing, he shoved the edge of his blanket back. It was bitingly cold. Haku sat up, looking around. The kitsune and his handler hadn't left in the middle of the night, which was good, given that Haku was still lost and really couldn't find left from right at this point, much less a lake in the middle of nowhere.

He crawled out of his sleeping roll, and stood up, his neck and back popping. Shivering, he rolled up his sleeping bag and carried it over to his horse. He shoved it neatly into the saddle bag,then took the saddlebag and threw it over his shoulder.

"This is it." he murmured to the horse. "I'm sure you still hate me, but please go home to the Mizukage. He needs you more than I do." He patted the horse's flank slowly, and pulled off its harness. It stared at him, then nipped his hand and trotted away, back to what was probably Mist.

"That was a good thing to do."

Haku turned around.

"Oh, Iruka. Well, I couldn't take him with me. The Swordsmen would probably eat him."

"Right," He looked serious. "I couldn't say this last night, I don't want Naruto to hear it, but you're probably going to die."

That asshole.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Haku hissed.

"I didn't mean it like that," Iruka held up his hands in a placating gesture. "you must be strong, in will if not physical strength, to sacrifice your life for someone, but the Swordsmen are warriors. Their sole purpose is to destroy and kill. They killed a town full of innocent people, five hundred dead. I was there." He ran his fingers through his hair. "You are so young, you don't know what they did, you never saw the bodies. The whole thing was a disaster. The Land f Fire tried to send in soldiers to help, but it changed nothing. The rivers near the village were red with blood for a week. The aftermath group had to go eight miles for uncontaminated water."

"Please stop." Haku whispered.

"No," Iruka said sternly. "You need to know this. You need-"

"I need to save the Mizukage." Haku snapped. "You wouldn't understand, he saved me. I owe him my life."

Iruka was silent.

"Travel north, you'll find a fork in the road, take the left path. It will take you to the lake."

"Thank you."

Haku turned, and marched toward the road.

"And Haku?"

Haku glanced back.

"Good luck."

He nodded. "Thanks."

"Also," Iruka called, pointing the direction opposite of Haku. "North is that way."

Chapter Text

A small crack of wood signaled their approach, and Haku was half sure that it was intentional. He pulled the hood of the Mizukage's robe over his head and turned around.

There were three of them, as expected, all carrying swords. The tallest and most noticeable by far was a large shark-looking man, with a sickly gray blue tint to his skin; next to him was a shorter man, with tanned skin and dark brown hair. The last man, or boy, Haku wasn't sure, looked laughably small in comparison to the others; he had a shock of white hair and startling violet eyes.

"Hey, Yagura." The tanned man said.

Haku channeled every ounce of teenaged angst and snobbish superiority he had into his voice. "Swordsman," he sneered. "had fun splashing around in this pond?"

The shark-man growled. Haku was extremely proud that he didn't collapse into a dead faint right then and there.

"Although," he continued, trying to keep the quiver from his voice. " I am curious as to how you managed to get out of my little trap."

"Oh?" The tanned man stepped forwards, swinging his sword onto his shoulder and good God, it was like someone took a meat cleaver and mixed it with a nightmare and then added a sprinkling of hope you didn't like your head all that much. "and here I thought you were yearning to see me again, Yagura-kun."

Spite. Okay, Haku could do spite. He had been half raised by Lady Temuri, after all.

"I've moved on. You should, too. Back into your puddle, I mean. Swordsman-kun." Haku buffed his nails on the Mizukage's robe, the very image of nonchalance except for the part where he was desperately glancing from side to side for a weapon or some way to trick the Swordsman into putting down his sword and kindly fucking off back into his lake so Haku could go home and sleep on not rocks, thanks.

A flash of anger skittered across the other man's face.

"Back that up, Yagura." He pulled the meatcleaver on steroids off of his back and pointed it at Haku. "You, me. We fight to the death and when I win, I'll drag you through the capital by your pretty hair and piss on your corpse."

Haku blanched, glad that his face was hidden. This man was brutal. Desecrating the dead was something barbarians did. Crap, how would the Mizukage respond to that?

"And what," Haku drawled. "makes you think I'll agree to that. Maybe I'll just order my escort to attack and kill you all."

The white-haired one spoke up.

"Yeah, we thought you might do that. You didn't, I mean, we can tell that you're alone, btw. But that's why we have Kisame, here." He gestured to the sharkman. "The plan was to have him slaughter any goons you brought with you, but you haven't got any, which is good, because when Kisame kills he tends to be messy, and I'm on laundry duty this week."

Kisame grinned. Those were some severely frightening teeth.

"Well," Haku said. "I suppose I'll have to fight you then. I do really hope you've gotten better. I don't want to get bored, after all."

Haku pulled the sword from it sheath with a low, metallic whistle. Then, as if in slow motion, he overdrew it, fumbling to catch it. It fell in a lazy arc and hit the ground with a loud clang.

There was a painfully long moment, and four pairs of eyes stared at the sword.

The white-haired boy coughed.

"Are you sure you're up to this?" His face was the very picture of concern. "'Cause I'm sure we can delay if you're not in top form."

"I meant to do that!" Haku snapped, glaring at the other boy. "Its a... family ritual." He finished lamely.

"A family ritual?" Kisame quirked an eyebrow.

"Yes." Haku leaned down and snatched up the sword.

Or, at least, that was what he tried to do.

A watery hand formed out of a nearby puddle and grabbed the handle before he could touch it, and a half melted face came soon afterwards.

"Oh," the face said, as Haku stared in fascinated horror. "please don't stop on our account."

"I was finished," Haku said stiffly. "give me back my sword."

"Your family ritual is dropping your sword and nothing else? Lame."

The hand let go of the sword and receded back into the water along with the face. Back near the other two Swordsmen, the white haired boy took shape from a puddle.

Haku grabbed the sword, and held it the way he had seen the Mizukage hold a thousand times.

"Ready, Yagura." The tanned man said, holding his sword as naturally as if he'd been born with it.

"Whenever you are." Haku shot back. Maybe if he ran very fast, he could make it out of the area before the Swordsmen caught up with him. He shook his head. No, he was here to save the Mizukage. He would not leave.

The tanned man charged.

He swung the meat cleaver at Haku, air rushing and splitting in it's arc.

Haku leapt back, clumsily bringing the Mizukage's sword up to block the blow. The force behind it was more than he expected and he stumbled back, shaking out his wrist.

"Clumsy, Yagura." The tanned man growled.

Haku shifted his feet around, re-balancing himself. Okay, time to use that swing he had seen the Mizuka-

And then the sword filled his vision. He flinched back, and the meat cleaver caught the edge of his hood. He barely saw the sword twitch, and a neat line appeared in the cloth. Fuck, he didn't know it was possible to even move that fast, let alone swing a blade twice the size of a child at speeds like that.

Haku stumbled backwards, clumsily stabbing the sword forwards. His sword caught on a nick in the tanned man's sword. The abrupt stopping motion almost wrenched the sword from his hand and threw his swing off to the side.

The tanned man pushed forwards, lunging at Haku sword first. He sidestepped, and Haku had to admire the man's foot work. He was no swordsmaster, but he liked people doing work well.

Haku caught the blade on the edge of the Mizukage's sword, thin arms quivering with the effort.

"You haven't been practicing, Yagura. That block was terrible."

The Swordsman was awful and condescending, but he was powerful, and Haku was losing badly.

He dove to the left, under the sword. Ducking behind the Swordsman, Haku slashed blindly back at him. His sword clashed loudly against the cleaver, and Haku jumped back to avoid being cut.

He turned, desperately trying to see what the swordsman was doing.

Haku heard a crack as the blunt edge of the tanned man's sword hit the back of his head. He felt the pain distantly, something he was grateful for, because that hit sounded horrific. His vision swooped and dived and he collapsed to the ground onto his knees, fighting back waves of nausea. There was a sick blur to everything, and he couldn't stop from swaying back and forth.

A rough hand grabbed his arm and he slowly followed it up with his eyes. At the top was the tanned man. Somewhere, in the part of his mind that wasn't trying to force shutdown because you dropped the hardrive, idiot, he knew that he was probably going to die. But that was okay, because then the Mizukage would be okay, because the Swordsmen would think he was dead, and go back to their pond and the Mizukage could live out the rest of his life happily subjugating the hapless residents of the land of Water.

"Come on, bastard. I want to see your goddamn face when you die."

Well, that ruined it.

To his credit, Haku did try his best to prevent his unmasking. However, there was only so much a five-foot, ninety pound palace servant suffering from a blow to the skull could to do to prevent a musclebound hulking giant from pulling off a loose hood.

The tanned man ripped the hood away from his head and his long inky hair fell around his face.

The tanned man stared. Haku glanced up, his vision swimming.

"Shit." The tanned man said. "Shit. You ain't Yagura."

"No." Haku agreed. His tongue felt heavy and thick in his mouth and there was a black fuzziness in the edges of his vision.

There was a tense, silent pause.

"Fuck!" The man screamed, throwing Haku to the ground. The pain, which before had been taking a nice vacation to the land of Snow, suddenly returned full force. It was only due to the fact that he landed solidly on his jaw that he didn't scream.

"I was supposed to kill you! You fuckin' coward!" The tanned man howled. "You send me some brat and expect me to call that revenge!" He threw his sword to the ground and screamed at the sky. It was a sound of pure fury, and it echoed throughout the clearing.

A small puddle of water rippled near Haku rippled, and the white haired boy squelched out of it.

"Zabuza-sempai?" The white haired boy looked just as confused as Haku felt. "What happened?"

The tanned man, Zabuza apparently, turned around, jabbing a finger at Haku.

"That happened." He hissed. "Goddamn bastard sent a fake to fight me."

He stomped over to Haku, and knelt down next to him. He grabbed Haku's hair and pulled until they were nearly level.

"Well, brat? What did Yagura do? Pull you off the streets and send you to go die for him? What?!" He shook Haku slightly.

"No one sent me." Haku mumbled, and a thin trickle of blood bubbled out of his mouth. The blackness on the edges of his vision was looking more and more comforting.

"No one sent you?" He sneered and slapped Haku. "Don't fuckin' lie to me, brat!"

Haku went completely limp. His eyes crossed a bit and he could see a bright smear of red across his nose. The world was quickly dissolving into bright blocks of color. Distantly, he felt himself being shaken roughly and he heard Zabuza shouting.

Then he fell, and kept falling into the inky blackness.

Chapter Text

Waking up from his delirium was almost as bad as losing consciousness in the first place. His eyelids were about a thousand pounds, but that was nothing in comparison to the rest of his body. Slowly, as sensory data managed to resister and not just be sent to the part of the brain labeled: under reconstruction; please direct all workflow elsewhere, he felt the cool press of sheets, and a soft pillow under his head, and the solid weight of a futon under his back.

With a force of will that could indeed have moved the earth with only a lever and somewhere to stand,Haku cracked his eyes open a scant few millimeters and oh God sun. A single ray of the most terrorizing, horrible, sadistic and downright mean bit of happy sunshine blazed through the… curtains? It was hard to tell, what with the death ray of sun blinding him, but fuzzy blocks of color were starting to coalesce into shapes.

Of course, because Haku was inconveniently exhausted from intense cranial trauma and currently felt like an artful display of lead weights shaped to look human, the why and how of his bout of unconsciousness hit him. But not like a ton of bricks, because if a ton of bricks hit him, he would probably die, and thus would not have to deal with the fact that he was supposed to have been killed by a large, angry man with an oversized meat cleaver. Yet somehow, he was still alive.

Alright.

As tempting as it was to lie in bed all day and just try not to go into a panic attack because someone had dragged him here and they would probably come back, he knew he should probably find some way to extract himself from this situation. It was what the Mizukage would want him to do.

So, he summoned up all of his strength and somehow managed to counteract both the forces of gravity and the forces of his nerve endings screaming in pain, and rolled over on to his side.

And right off the edge of the futon.

He hit the ground with a muffled thump. His right arm throbbed, and he noticed for the first time that it was tightly wrapped in bandages.

He pushed himself up with his good hand and managed to maneuver himself into a sitting position. He glanced around the room and, oh my. For half a second, he thought that somehow, everything had just been a dream and through some improbable and highly comedic means, he switched places with the Mizukage and that was the only reason that a servant like him was sleeping in a room that could have been directly lifted from the depections of royalty in the tapestries in the palace. The room was huge, for lack of a better term and because Haku didn't typically use words like gilded and opulent. It was easily the size of the Mizukage's chambers and more lavishly decorated than anything he had ever seen. The futon took up most of the left corner, and scrolling pictures of sharks and waves decorated the walls. A silk screen depicting a man drowning sat to the right, looking particularly morbid. There was a large wardrobe in the corner and a low table in the center of the room, covered with golden hair ornaments. But the most magnificent thing by far was a full length mirror against the far wall.

Haku really hoped none this wasn't one of the Swordsmen's rooms, because he thought he could see a bright pink kimono peeking out from the wardrobe.

Ignoring the part of him that wanted to rifle through the room and see what else it had to hide, he stood up on shaky legs, quivering like a newborn deer. He slowly and uncertainly made his way over to the sliding door. He reached the door and, okay, time for a break. He felt completely drained and would have felt embarrassed if he could muster up the energy. He leaned back against the wooden frame, trying not to put too much weight on the delicate door.

The faint sound of footsteps outside the door didn't really register until someone grabbed the door and pulled.

He fell back when the sliding door was violently wrenched open. And he really hoped that a brick wall had somehow gained sentience and decided to stand behind him because if this was a person he was leaning on, well that gave new meaning to the term 'built like a brick shithouse'. Particularly the brick parts.

He turned around and fell to the floor when his brain decided that remaining balanced was using up too much energy. Energy that could be devoted to other things like breathing and blood circulation.

The man, and it was a man, not a sentient brick wall, was the blue sharkman who was hanging around with Zabusomething and must have been a Swordsman because Zabusomething seemed very exclusive in the people he associated with.

"Kisoume, right?" Haku squinted up at him. He was fairly certain that there were biological limits on how tall someone could be before they were in danger of breaking off at the knee. The sharkman was at least a foot above that limit.

Kisoume, maybe? looked down at him.

"You ain't dead?" He shuffled inside and slid the door shut. Haku hoped the tray he was holding had food and not poison or implements of torture. "Huh. Suigetsu owes me fifty ryo."

He maneuvered past Haku, who was a little too dazed at seeing a giant blue sharkman calmly walk into his room, carrying a tea tray and wearing an apron that said "kiss the kappa" to react much to the intrusion.

"It's Kisame." he said, shoving the hair ornaments to the floor and putting the tray on the table. "You know I'm pretty sure that Zabuza popped at least three blood vessels when you turned out to not be Yagura. C'mere."

He waved a hand at Haku. Haku stood up, or at least made a decent attempt to do so, stumbled three and a half steps forwards and fell. Or, would have fallen if Kisame hadn't tossed the tray onto the table, where it balanced perfectly, and instantly dodged behind him and caught Haku in his arms.

Then, Kisame dropped him.

"Ow." Haku muttered from his position on the floor.

"Er, sorry. Force of habit."

"Dropping me?" Haku sat up, rubbing his back.

"Suigetsu had fainting spells when he was younger." the man muttered, by way of explanation.

Kisame reached down and grabbed Haku's hand and pulled him to his feet. And since Kisame had over a foot on him, a little bit off the ground.

"So, how's the concussion doing?"

"Why am I still alive?" Haku stared hard at Kisame's chin, not wanting to risk meeting his eyes.

Kisame sighed.

"Look, I'm sure that your crush on Yagura drives you to do some pretty crazy shit," at this Haku sputtered. "and I know you must think Zabuza is a giant dick for freaking out and nearly killing you, but even we've got some honor left in us. We're warriors, not barbarians."

"What does your honor as Swordsmen have to do with you not killing me?"

"Hey," he made a placating gesture with his hands. "I'm just sayin' that we don't kill defenseless little girls."

That surprised Haku, who was beginning to think that, because he kicked all those dogs when he was little, he had gone to some elaborate version of Hell, where they tortured you with utter surrealness. It was at that point that he noticed he was still wearing the clothes he had fought the Zabuza in, sans the Mizukage's robe. He realized two things then, one, that his captors were shit medics if they didn't even check for damage to the soft, squishy, and easily breakable abdomen, which was hidden by his clothes, and, two, that his current outfit was baggy and, where it wasn't covered in bloodstains, a light, girlish blue. It was also completely untouched.

Haku knew he was feminine looking. You didn't get through seventeen years of life with a face like his without someone mistakenly catcalling you without realizing that, yes, that ass was fine but the parts up front might be a little less appealing.

"I'm a boy."

"Pull the other one."

"I'm serious."

"Poor thing," Kisame put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "did Yagura tell you to say that?"

Haku pulled open the front of his shirt.

"I am a boy." he said again. "Don't insult the Mizukge like that."

To his credit, Kisame didn't freak out. Haku had had to suffer through some of the worst sexual crisises known to man, being both pretty enough to attract the flirtatious of nearly everyone and having been the Mizukage's servant for the better part of eleven years. He was very glad that Kisame didn't start crying onto his shoulder about how his mother had never loved him and how he was so confused about everything and he just needed someone to listen.

Kisame simply let go of Haku's shoulder, said 'oh' in a voice so small, Haku was surprised that a great hulking shark monster could make it, and started pulling food off the tray.

"Damn, how am I gonna demand your firstborn now?"

Haku tucked the folds of his shirt back. "What?"

"Its part of the curse thing. We've gotta demand the firstborn of any fair maiden we rescue from drowning in return for saving her life."

"Why would the Mizukage put something so bizarre in one of his curses? And I was never drowning."

Kisame gave him a look. "Do I look like Yagura to you? How the hell would I know what goes on inside his head. And, ah," he scratched his chin. "Zabuza tossed you in the lake before we managed to calm him down."

Haku gave a small shrug and reached for the food. There was a fish thing that he vaguely recognized. It was delicious, but he didn't really register that in favor of scarfing down as much as he could.

The utter bizarreness of the conversation was starting to bother Haku. Never mind the fact that he and a sharkman were discussing the nature of the Mizukage's curse and how it pertained to eating firstborn, but the fact that his captor was telling him anything about his situation other than 'we have you captive, do not escape.', was unnerving.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Haku bit the bullet and asked the question, although not particularly in that order.

"Well," Kisame said through a mouthful of food. "Its not like you can leave this place, not without being rescued by a prince anyways, so you'll be stuck here until you decide you can't stand living in a bubble with three homicidal killers and you step outside and drown."

The mirror was to Haku's back, so he couldn't see the expression he was making. Kisame could though, and he stopped chewing and swallowed slowly.

"...what?" Haku whispered.

Kisame stood up, wiping his hands on the front of his apron. He moved the rest of the food from the tray to the table, holding the tray loosely under his arm when he was done.

"Look, you're not the first one to fall into the lake. I'll admit that we didn't expect you to be a boy, And I'm pretty sure that messes up the curse, but still..." he trailed off. "Try to eat the rest of that and then sleep. Dinner will be in a few hours."

The part of Haku that had kept him alive on the streets for two years wanted to protest and demand more information, but the other part remembered the soft futon and suddenly his exhaustion hit him and he just wanted to lie down and sleep until everything just went away and he woke up in the cramped servants' quarter at four o'clock in the morning to prepare for the day.

Kisame left quietly, shutting the sliding door with a small swish.

Haku fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The table was already set and prepared when Suigetsu dragged Haku into the room. Kisame sat, sprawled, really, at the left side, and the tanned man sat in the shadows at at the edge opposite the door he had just been kidnapped through.

"Damn, Suigetsu," Kisame rumbled. "what did you do to him?"

"Hey, he looked like this when I found him! I didn't do nothing!"

"Didn't do anything." Haku corrected, jabbing Suigetsu in the ribs.

Suigetsu twitched and shuffled Haku off his shoulder and onto the floor. Haku landed shakily and brushed invisible specks of dust off of his trousers.

"I'm sure he didn't look this bad when I checked on him earlier."

"Yeah, well, he was covered in a layer of crap earlier, so."

Suigetsu sat down at the side of the table opposite Kisame. So, that left Haku facing Zabuza.

He sat down, folding his legs underneath himself, with his back straight as a branch. A very straight branch, like one from one of those huge pines from Fire. For a second, he wondered how the Kitsune and his handler were doing, but then he noticed the food.

The table was full of the most exquisite and mouth watering food Haku had ever seen. A steaming pot of sukiyaki sat on the center of the low table, surrounded by an artful spread of thinly sliced fish. Plates of sushi and tempura were scattered along the table. It was the most food Haku had ever seen in his entire life, barring royal feasts, but those didn't count because he wasn't allowed to attend them anyways.

"Where did you get all of this?" Haku muttered. He was fairly certain that his stomach was trying to commit mutiny and take over so that it could get at the food.

"Made it." Kisame grabbed a dish of rice and began leveling it onto his plate. Suigetsu followed suit and Zabuza... well, Haku couldn't really see him, but he guessed the man was eating.

"You made all this?" Haku was decently impressed. When he was put on kitchen duty, it basically meant he couldn't sleep for the next forty-eight hours.

"Yeah, it ain't hard, you just-"

A loud gurgle interrupted him.

/Really, stomach?/ Haku blushed a little.

"Goddamn kid, just eat if you're that hungry. I didn't poison anything."

Haku nervously took a bowl of rice and sectioned a small portion onto his plate. As a servant, eating with everyone else was so rude he could barely imagine it. If Lady Terumi were here, she would have pummeled him for doing something so presumptuous as to eat at the same time as his hosts, even if they were as unorthodox as they were.

"So," Haku started, trying to relieve some of the heavy tension in the air. "what's being here like? Is it... normal, I mean." He amended after Zabuza's glare cut through the shadows.

Well," Suigetsu said around the dango. "I'm pretty sure Kisame's dating the halibut that lives in the rock formation two doors down."

Kisame scowled.

"At least I'm not pining after some dominatrix that beats me everytime I see her."

Haku wasn't sure exactly how Suigetsu's face managed to contort like that, but he was impressed at the intensity of the expression nonetheless.

"Fuck you." He muttered and casually flipped Kisame off.

"Sorry, but I'm not into bondage."

While Suigetsu was exploding into rage, Kisame turned to Haku.

"So, kid, got anyone waiting for you back in Mist?" He waggled his eyebrows in a way that was clearly meant to convey some degree of raunchiness, but with his face and those teeth, it made him look more like a shark that had found a helpless bleeding diver swimming around without a boat in sight. Haku nearly told him so.

"Er, no." Haku didn't form relationships as a rule, given that he spent most of his time making sure the Mizukage wasn't eating rotten food or slitting his wrists in some mid-life crisis relapse to his teenaged years. He didn't really see the attraction of relationships or sex in general, and didn't particularly understand the fascination people had with it. He chalked it up to one of those things that people had when they were introduced to society as children and actually had parents for the bulk of their formative years, instead of being sequestered away from other humans and having been orphaned at a tragically young age through horrific circumstances.

"Oh, I guess you've got that thing for Yagura anyways."

Haku glared at Kisame.

"I am not attracted to the Mizukage."

Suigetsu nudged Kisame with his elbow.

"That makes two of them." He leered.

There was a threatening growl from Zabuza's end of the table.

"Zabuza won't admit that he has a raging mancrush on Yagura." Suigetsu confided to Haku.

"Naw," Kisame waved a hand at them. "he's in hate."

"Hate?" Haku asked, trying to feign interest and not run out of the room going 'la, la, la, I can't hear you' with his hands clasped over his ears. Hearing about the Mizukage's love life, or hate life, as it was, was something he never wanted to do.

"It's a bit like love, except they actively try kill each other, instead of only occasionally." Kisame reached for another piece of tempura.

The table was mostly silent, with only the clinking of silverware and chewing, or in everyone but Haku's case, loudly ripping food apart with their sharp death teeth.

"Fuck it, Zabuza. Eat something. Yagura ain't gonna die just 'cause you're glaring his slave to death." Kisame threw a piece of tempura into the shadows.

A knife flew back. Kisame neatly dodged it, shrugged and went back to eating.

"Servant."

Haku suddenly found himself the point of several stares.

"I'm the Mizukage's servant," He shifted. "not his slave."

"There's a difference?" Kisame asked.

"Well, I'm sure that you all seem to think that the Mizukage spends his days devouring souls and gargling the blood of innocents, but he isn't evil. Besides, they abolished slavery in Mist when they made murder illegal." Haku said resolutely.

"Please," Zabuza growled, leaning forwards into the light. "Yagura is as much of a killer as any of us are."

He... wasn't hideous, now that Haku could see him and his vision wasn't obscured by an overlarge hood, although he didn't have eyebrows, so that was a little weird. His skin, at second glance, wasn't tanned, just dusky. He had a strong jaw, and sharp cheek bones that led up into his hairline. His short, dark hair was jagged and messy. His whole being, really, was jagged. There were no soft lines or slopes anywhere.

"He saves people. He has mercy." Haku's voice was quiet.

"Feh," Zabuza sneered. "all Yagura can do is try to keep from kicking peasants in the streets."

"He saved me." His voice had gone ice cold.

"And how many more has he killed?"

"No more than you."

The tension in the air could have been cut and served as part of dinner and probably been entirely filling. Kisame was ignoring them, looking like this happened every night and he was well versed in pretending nothing was happening and going on with eating. Suigetsu, on the other hand, looked like he was a second or two from cracking a bad joke in an attempt to keep everyone from killing sack other.

"I was under orders."

"Oh," Haku put a hand to his chest, looking for all the world like an offended duchess. "I recall those being orders to stop."

Zabuza slammed his hands onto the table. The silverware rattled and Suigetsu jumped.

"What do you know about it?!" He growled.

"I know you killed innocents." Haku knew this was a bad idea. He knew he was being stupid and trying to goad a homicidal killer who had attempted murder on him. But the Mizukage was the only thing he trusted to not sick dogs on him, amongst other things. Digging into stories he had only heard from travelers with Kitsune was probably a bad idea, but then Haku was the person who attempted to fight a known killer on his own turf with a weapon he couldn't use.

He didn't actually see Zabuza move, but suddenly the swordsman was there, his hand clinching around Haku's throat.

"Don't talk to me about innocents, you little shit. If you knew anything, you'd shut your damn mouth." He gave Haku's throat a warning squeeze.

Haku flailed his legs, trying to kick Zabuza away. He ran his fingernails down Zabuza's arms, scoring angry red lines in the scarred skin.

"Hey," Kisame's rumble filled the air, and one huge grey hand descended onto Zabuza's shoulder. "drop him, Zabuza."

"Why should I?" Zabuza gave a squeeze and a shake.

Haku made an undignified squawking noise. Really, couldn't the two deadly killers have a domestic when his life wasn't hanging from an over muscled arm?

"You'll ruin the curse if you do."

"And why shouldn't I ruin it? Give me a reason not to kill this brat."

"Zabuza, you can't!" Said a voice that sounded vaguely like Suigetsu's. "We'll all be stuck here forever!"

Fuck this noise, Haku thought, and kicked Zabuza in the stomach.

It wasn't a hard kick by far, but it was enough.

To his credit and Haku's misfortune, Zabuza barely grunted. But, he loosened his grip just enough that Haku was dropped to the floor, slumping in a heap and gasping for breath.

Zabuza scowled and kicked him in the ribs, then stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Haku's vision briefly lit up in white hot pain and he whimpered, curling around his middle.

Suigetsu dropped beside him and gently shook his shoulder.

"Hey, you gonna be okay?" He asked, his face open with concern.

I just got kicked in the ribs after suffering a major concussion and various other serious injuries. Give me a minute. Was what Haku wanted to say, but he only managed a brief moan.

"If it makes you feel better, he didn't treat any of the other drownees any nicer. Although I don't think he tried to kill any of the others as actively as he does you."

"Yay me." Haku coughed-whispered.

"Um, I guess you should just go back to your room when you can." The floorboards creaked in a manner that indicated Suigetsu was shifting his weight from one leg to the other. "Kisame and I've gotta go make sure Zabuza doesn't do anything stupid."

The tow sets of footsteps pounded away, and Haku heard the creak of unoiled door hinges.

It was hard. Breathing, that is.

Haku slowly forced oxygen past his bruised airway. His throat was unsettlingly puffy. A few more huffs and he sat up slowly, trying not to aggravate any injuries.

It was pretty clear that Zabuza was projecting his hate for the Mizukage on Haku, he knew that. Now he just needed to figure out how to survive a homicidal killer, keep a curse in place and keep the Mizukage from harm.

Right, little by little it was then.