"NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" came the thundering voice from the small masked boy. Before that he seemed to have a demeanor like Sasuke, his voice was slow and rigid. But now he turned into an incarnation of Kurama.
"You see..." Dix said turning to Kakashi, who was actually more occupied by the raging kid that was moving towards them to attack. He wanted to use his special bloodline ability, Ice Mirrors, which Kakashi had a bad feeling about, so he jumped away so he doesn't get trapped.
Dix on the other hand, was completely unfazed and stood his ground. Many ice-boards appeared around him, with little space between them they formed a dome and the masked kid entered one of them.
"This is my special ability, you have no way to escape now, you are dead! I will avenge Zabuza!" cried Haku, which was his actual name. Dix snorted and with a bit of laughter he said:
"Who said anything about escaping? I am not locked in here with you. You are locked in here with me!"
"Ahhh! Just die!" Haku said and started attacking.
His pattern was that he exits lightning-fast out of one of the mirrors and rush towards another, while showering his enemy with senbons. This is all well and good, if he is faster then his enemy. But this time that wasn't the case. As soon as Haku exited the mirror he was in, Dix activated his EMS and rushed at him with all his speed.
He easily caught his neck and pinned him to one of the mirrors that was at the end of his trajectory. It cracked due to the forces applied to it, but didn't actually break, which was admirable. Haku still seemed to be conscious so Dix next used a good portion of his strength and threw the body in his hands towards the ground. It created such a huge crater that the earth rippled out of the range of the Ice Mirror technique. Dix was sure this would at least break every single bone in Haku's body, and at worst would kill him right away. He saw the mirrors still standing, so that meant Haku was still alive.
He jumped down to the epicenter of the crater to see the damage. Haku was a complete mess, most of his body was torn and bloody, his head barely resembled him from before. Even after all this, he somehow had the strength to open his mouth and say:
"Za... Zabuza..." then he closed his eyes and with a sigh he breathed out his soul. With that all the mirrors broke, and Kakashi rushed in to see what happened. He was shocked to see the destruction, and after everything that happened in the last 10 minutes, he had to sit down a bit. It was good he was sitting down, because next Dix used his new weapon and chopped the masked kid's head off. Even though he has seen his fair share of horrors in the previous war, this was still a lot to take in.
Dix moved up to Kakashi to make a 'report'.
"Kakashi sensei. All of the enemies are accounted for and are taken care of. We can continue the journey."
"I see, you made sure to finish him, right? I know these people tried to kill us, but a kid your age shouldn't be so bloodthirsty. You have to regulate yourself or you may become something like Zabuza." Hearing this Dix just tilted his head a bit to the right.
"What do you mean, sensei? I took care of people that endangered both our mission and our lives. I am different from Zabuza. He kills because its fun, while I kill because that is my duty. I don't enjoy this one bit, but it is what I signed up for when I became a ninja. This is what you yourself did before me, and this is what ninjas will continue to do in the future."
Kakashi couldn't deny the truth in his words. He used to participate in the war at the age of 10, way younger then these kids were. But still... It felt unnatural.
"You are right. Lets gather the others and move a bit, then we can take a breather. We all deserve a bit of rest after the fight, even though you shouldered the majority of the work. We should also take care of the bodies."
"Yes, sensei, with your permission I'll burn them and their belongings. Also I'd like to keep this sword. It is the Beheading Sword, that is one of the seven legendary weapons of Kirigakure."
"Uh... you know fire release? That is... great. But I'll take care of them. You should go and inform the others. Go, take the sword with you, I suppose its your spoil in this battle..." Dix just nodded and moved as he was told.
After waiting a bit, Kakashi burned Haku's body to ashes, then moved to Zabuza, and instead of doing the same to him, he pulled out a sealing scroll and stored the corpse into it. Zabuza had a huge bounty on his head, and while he himself didn't need the money, the village would welcome the offering for sure.
After all that was done Kakashi moved over to the rest of the team. He saw that the little yellow headed was standing away from the rest, simply because both Sasuke and Sakura were afraid of his power. They have seen him defeat their leader once already, and now they witnessed him take care of an elite killer from another village. They understood the danger Zabuza was, but were confronted with the idea that their teammate was a similarly powerful beast. They even saw him chop off a head without a second though, and saw the destruction he caused inside the ice cage.
They needed time to understand and accept this. Sasuke was in the worst state. He understood how powerful the two jonin are, but instead of working his way out of his crisis, he was shown how strong someone can be that is the same age as him. This didn't help his already unstable mind, due to his promise of getting stronger for revenge. Sakura on the other hand was simply scared, or more like totally frightened. Everyone had to change their mentality about their teammate.
Seeing all this Kakashi just let out a huge sigh, put the headband back on his left eye and gave the order to move. They only walked for half an hour when Kakashi gave instructions to get some rest. Everyone dropped on the ground and started eating in silence so they can digest in peace, both the food and the day's events. After a long silence Sakura couldn't keep her mouth shut, so she moved a bit closer to Sasuke and started whispering to him her thoughts.
"How can he be so strong? Its like common sense breaks around him. He used to be normal during Academy, but now he is completely different..." Dix heard this, even though he was quite a distance away, and answered out loud.
"Yes, I am strong. You should be thankful for it, because otherwise we might've all died back then." At this Sasuke stood up and tried to refute his claims by heavily gesticulating.
"You mean to say Kakashi sensei would've lost? You mean you are stronger than a jonin? Huh? I'm not going to believe that! There is only so much you can hide!" hearing this Kakashi tilted his head back a bit and looked at the cloudy sky.
Instead of answering Dix look to the side, at Kakashi, with an eye which obviously said 'go tell them'.
"He is right. I wasn't totally sure of my victory." hearing this both Sasuke and Sakura went pale. But Dix continued on.
"His greatest strength is his sharingan, and when he pulls it out he relies on it too much, while he never managed to properly master its use. He would've copied the first water clone that attacked us, but would've missed the second. That would've lead to being surprised by a third consecutive attack, at which Kakashi would've escaped to the water. There was a trap there which would've meant our almost guaranteed death."
Everyone stayed silent, and even though Kakashi was getting used to this, it was a huge hit to his face when he realized that what Dix said was accurate. He understood that the kid must've gathered enough intel on both him and their enemy to run a simulation in the blink of an eye during combat, which seemed to be perfectly reflecting reality. This thought made him shudder. He felt like he was getting very tired, almost as if there was a walking black hole that sucks his mental energy, instead of a genin sitting next to him.
What he doesn't know about is Dix's previous knowledge of the ambush, which makes everything so much easier.
Sasuke just looked at Kakashi, waiting to refute the delusional Dix's claims, but that one simply looked back and nodded. At this Sasuke's world views almost completely shattered.
"Marvelous. Is this how the God of Ninja's teachers felt back in the days? I wonder..."
"By the way... " Dix continued, looking up to meet Sasuke's frightened eyes. "Mentioning sharingans, you already have yours, you know that? I've never seen you consciously use it, so I have my doubts."
"What... What nonsense are you spouting? If I were to unlock it, I should know about it, no? How would you know?" Sasuke said, with a bit higher pitched voice, like he wanted to deny it, but caught a glimpse of hope anyway. Hearing this next to Sasuke both Sakura and Kakashi were flabbergasted. They are starting to give up trying to get used to this.
"Eh... I see. Want me to help you realize it?" Dix asked, looking back at the food he was eating.
"I... If you aren't bullshitting me... Then, yes. If you really know a way for me to get my sharingans I'll do what you say." he said with a resigning sigh and voice, and tilted his head forward to look on the ground so he doesn't have to beg for help too sincerely.
"Great." Dix answered, then summoned a clone without pausing his lunch. That one looked at Sasuke.
"Follow me, I'll help you."
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
You find the official discord for the novel here: https://discord.gg/XCEDp7H9tA
Thanks for the read, I'd appreciate if you were to leave your thoughts in the comments and donate some stones.
Cheers! :D