"Are you sure? Are you certain that this is the only way for this to end?" Naruto said to Haku.
"Yes."
Haku responded as he was ready to face dead. He felt a little happy that he could atleast teach something to Max, but sad at the same time because he is going to die by the hand of Naruto. As someone that could relate to him, he felt sorry that he was going to burden Naruto with this task.
"The sad thing is that if we had met in a different time and place, we could have ended as friends."
Naruto said with pain. He knew that Sasuke died because of Haku and he needed to do something about it. So he steeled himself, took out a kunai and charged at Haku.
"Wait."
Naruto heard the voice of Max and stopped the charge. When he looked at Max, he saw a weird peaceful air around him.
"Naruto, I heard what Haku said, but I still haven't heard what you think of this. As someone that can understand me, do you believe in what Haku said? Do you believe that those that protect what is truly precious to them can become truly strong?" Max asked Naruto.
Max noticed that things were about to end, since they were still enemies and there was already a casualty in their side caused by Haku. Things were not going to end in a happy ending today.
He also noticed that Haku was serious as to wanting to die. Max knew that there were different ways for thing to end, but Hku was forcing Naruto to end it with one of the ugliest ways.
Naruto was taken back by the question. But since Haku had asked something similar to him before, he didn't have to think too much to answer.
"Of course. I know that there are things worst than dead in this world. As someone saved from that by Iruka-sensei, I will protect then even at the cost of my life." Naruto said with strong conviction.
Max relased after hearing this. He already knew that Naruto believed in it before he asked. He only did because he wanted to acknowledge something that he felt before when he was talking to Haku.
'It seems that words from those that truly understand each other have more weight and importance.'
While Naruto and Max conversed, the fog had started to disipate. As the view got clearler by the second Haku expresion change suddenly.
This alerted Max who quickly analized his surroundings. Behind Naruto, Max could see the silhouette of two peaople. On was been tied down by something an the otherone was preparing to attack.
Haku quickly started to do hand signs, which prompet Max to look at him. Max didn't know what those signs meant but by the expresion of Haku, he knew what he was about to do.
'His going to protect the one that is going to be attacked.'
Max quickly theorized that the one tied down should be Zabuza, while the other one should be kakashi. After thinking this, Max suddenly charged at the two.
His training was not for nothing at least, which made him cover 1/4 of the distance un a blink of the eye.
But something happened that was out of his expectation, a mirror like thing was slowly forming beside Zabuza. In the mirror, Max could see that Haku, which he had left behind in a blink of an eye, was been reflected on it.
'Teleportation? What sort of magic is this? Also, Kakashi has something in his hands that looks like a ball of lightning? Anyway, Kakashi seems to not notice the mirror so if he attacks-'
Max could already know what was going to happen at the end. Kakashi would strike Haku instead of Zabuza.
'I'm not fast enough to reach them in time. It seems that the only hope for me is to avert kakashi attack.' Max thought.
Max quickly put his right hand on the hilt of his Katana and activated his chakra. He didn't have time to take the full stance, but he flet that he didn't need that to do what he needed to do.
The problem was that his body was not ready to do such motion out of the sudden, so an intense pain in his right arm assaulted Max. He could feel that his chakra burned as it passed back and forth from his hand and katana.
'Pain? It doesn't matter. Haku tought me a way to finally move foward. Since, he gave me this gift let me do the same.'
The pain in his arm suddenly vanished from his mind as he started to draw his katana.
"Iai - Blade Wave!"
Max did a quick slash with his katana. He didn't noticed, but that slash was a lot faster and intese than all the others that he did in training.
A blade imprint appeared as his katana passed through the air. After the slash was made, the imprint accelerated and propelled foward.
***
As Kakashi thrusted his Lightning Blade forward, he noticed that Haku appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of Zabuza.
'I can't change direction!' Kakashi thought as his hand was about to strike Haku.
But out of nowhere, Kakashi felt his body sense danger coming from his right. Since Kakashi couldn't change direction, his body acted instead.
As a jounin, Kakashi had a lot of control over his body. With training, a jounin could make their body ignore theit instinctive motions and even take advantage of them to do certain manuvers.
In this moment, Max hoped that Kakashi had trained enough to take advantage of those instinctive impulses. This was a high level of control that Max knew that he hadn't grasp.
Thankfully, Kakashi had. He used the sudden danger that his body felt to tilt his hand motion away from a vital spot of Haku and at the same time escaping from the Blade Wave that Max sent.
*WOOSH* *BANG*
Kakashi saw the Blade Wave pass below his arm and saw that he had striken Haku in his colar bone. In a quick motion, he used the left over lighting of his attack to numb Haku and made him pass out.
Zabuza couldn't move, but he had seen everything play out infront of him. As he saw what Haku did and the outcome, he felt a relieved but he wasn't able to understand why.
Suddenly, the dogs that had him tied down started to vanish as he saw that before Haku moving in front of him, he had sent some senbon towards the scroll that Kakashi used to summon the dogs.
"It seems that you are wrong again, Kakashi."
Zabuza said as he tried to cut Kakashi through Haku with the Executioner's Blade. Kakashi saw this, but aslo noticed that Haku had griped his arm before been knockout, so he took Haku and jumped back.
After landing, he placed the still bleading Haku on the floor. As he finished placing Haku on the floor. Zabuza had already charged at Kakashi and swang his sword horizontaly.
Kakashi jumped away from Zabuza and ready himself for another attack, but was surprised when he saw that Zabuza didn't follow.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto had recovered after noticing that Haku and Max disappeared. Since the fog had mostly dissipated, Naruto saw Haku get struck by Kakashi and Zabuza attack them both.
"You bastard-!"
"Naruto wait!"
Naruto was about to charge at Zabuza when Kakashi made him stop. Kakashi had noticed something when he saw that Zabuza didn't do a follow up attack when Kakashi was staggered trying to evade.
"This is my fight!" Kakashi said as he ready himself and charged at Zabuza.
***
After doing the Blade Wave, Max had taken some time to recover. But he still noticed what Kakashi had noticed in Zabuza.
'You are really lucky Haku.' Max thought.
Suddenly he saw two people running his way. He could iddentify Tazuna since he had seen him before in the market and was one of the elders of the village. The other one was Sakura which was the only girl that was part of the group of allies that Inari told him about.
Sakura didn't even noticed Max as she ran pass him, but Tazuna did. Max nodded at Tazuna which prompted a nod of gratitud from Tazuna as he followed Sakura.
Max could saw the dou stop beside the body of Sasuke, which made him realized that the fog had hidden the battle of Haku, Sasuke and Naruto. Sakura was finding out now the dead of Sasuke.
Kakashi only glanced at Sakura and saw what she was seen. He felt sad, but he needed to do something else now.
As the battle of Kakashi and Zabuza progressed, Zabuza was getting injured with each clash. His movement was too agitated which gave a lot of opennings for Kakashi to dealt damage.
After taking out both of Zabuza's arms, Kakashi suddenly stop and looked at his left.
Max also noticed that some people were making their way from that direction. As they got closer, Max saw a great number of goons moving towards them and in front of the goons was a short man with a stick.