A minute earlier.
Surrounded by ice mirrors, Tachibana, Team Seven and Tazuna all huddled closer as they faced a mysterious masked opponent reflected in all the mirrors.
Sasuke pulled out a kunai and became tense, while Naruto tensed his fists to punch anything coming towards them.
Sakura protectively stood by Tazuna's side as Tachibana analysed the ice dome using spirit vision.
'So I can see his 'real' location using spirit vision.'
'How do I get him if he's so fast in moving around?'
'AOE attacks?'
'But I have no jutsu-'
'Oh. I could do that…'
Tachibana's hand went to his ninja pouch as he felt around for a particular item he'd looted from the corpse of the genin who'd attacked him.
'But I have to be quick…how do I distract him though?'
"Give up the man you're protecting and I'll leave you alive." Haku proclaimed calmly as he pulled thin ice needles into both hands, showing everyone he meant business.
"As if we'll give him to you! We promised to protect the old man and we'll do it!!" Naruto shouted and Tachibana crafted a quick plan.
"Aren't you ashamed of serving the village that killed everyone from your clan!?" Tachibana shouted from behind dragging all attention to him.
With everyone looking at him with confusion, Tachibana continued, "I heard that the Mizukage had turned the once prosperous Kirigakure which was dependent on several clans like the Kaguya and Yuki into the bloody village! They slaughtered all the clans!"
Sasuke's eyes widened as he looked at Haku, his eyes turned a little moist but he held back his nightmares well.
Naruto was a little confused but when he heard about Haku's tragic past he became solemn too.
"Kirigakure has changed!" Haku proclaimed confidently, but Tachibana used spirit vision to see how unbalanced Haku's emotions were.
His aura was a mixture of various colours, there was a deep violet that indicated the feeling of estrangement, blue for thought and a depressing grey for sadness.
So Tachibana struck when the iron was hot.
"But your partner says otherwise! The demon of the hidden mist! Zabuza! Are you sure you trust him? Tell me doesn't he treat you like a tool? The bingo book tells several tales of how Zabuza graduated to become a genin by killing all the other students in his class!-"
"-Isn't he exactly like Kirigakure is? If they've accepted a shinobi like him, what's to say that they've changed? You must evaluate people based on their actions! Not their words!"
As much as he'd like to, Tachibana's aim wasn't to win over Haku or convert him to become a believer of the will of fire that consumed talents to sustain itself. Tachibana only wanted a moment of distraction.
And the momentary distraction he got.
As soon as Tachibana saw Haku's eyes close from the sudden babble of words he'd poured into the conversation, Tachibana tossed the explosive kunai he'd stolen from the corpse of the genin who tried to blast him to the top of the ice dome, where the 'real' Haku was.
*BBBBOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*
The explosion shattered most of the ice mirrors but Tachibana wasn't done.
Before anyone could react to the first deafening explosion, as soon as Tachibana saw Haku escaping from the ice dome to protect himself, Tachibana tossed two more explosive kunai towards him.
Two more explosions lit up the dome simultaneously as the pressure waves pushed the split boat towards Kakashi and Maruboshi.
"MARUBOSHI-SENSEI! KAKASHI-SENSEI! We're alright! For now!" Tachibana shouted as soon as he got the chance since the thick mist didn't allow them to see much.
Tachibana constantly scanned the sea for any signs of Haku and found him recuperating a little distance away.
'It should take him at least a minute to recover fully.'
"Whoever has the most chakra out of all of you, use the clone and transformation jutsu to fake several teams with Tazuna in them and scatter them around the sea."
"I have the mo-!" Naruto shouted but Sakura managed to shut Naruto's mouth before he could speak more by thrusting her fist into his mouth.
"Keep your voice low, we don't want them to catch onto our plan." Tachibana explained and Naruto quickly nodded before forming a seal and creating several clones.
Except to Tachibana's luck, Naruto used the multi-shadow clone jutsu to create the fake teams which made them real enough to interact with the water in the sea, making all the fakes seem real.
Tachibana and the rest quickly jumped out of the boat and merged with the surrounding teams with Tazuna.
On the other side, Kakashi used his Sharingan to scan through the chakra mist surrounding everyone to see if he could find Zabuza. But once he understood that this was pointless his fingers blurred at high speeds with hand signs.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough Jutsu."
A torrent of air rushed out of Kakashi as he guided it everywhere around them to scatter the mist and reveal the several fakes floating in the sea.
Whether it be Kakashi, Maruboshi, Zabuza, or Haku, everyone because stupified by the amount of clones in the water surrounding them.
Maruboshi smiled a little before complimenting Tachibana, "Good job you brat. At least I haven't taught a fool."
'But I am the Fool!' Tachibana shouted in his mind but remained silent in reality as he copied the smile that all the other clones Naruto had transformed into him had.
Maruboshi instantly used the clear view of his enemies as an advantage and rushed at them, running on water, while weaving hand seals.
"Water Release: Great Dragon Bullet!"
Instead of one, three dragons spiralled up from the sea under Maruboshi's legs as they all aimed at Zabuza and Haku before launching a series of water bullets.
Zabuza sliced through the few bullets that came at him, while Haku quickly made a mirror to hide in and teleport to Zabuza's side.
As the water dragons stopped their bullet spam and slithered to cover the entire area where the clones were, Maruboshi launched a spinning kick at Zabuza.
Zabuza was forced to fend it off with his blade but before he could react, Kakashi emerged from behind him weaving hand seals so fast his hands became a blur, "Water Release: Water Prision!"
A sphere of water rose from the sea to capture Zabuza who was locked in a fight with Maruboshi but before the water could form completely, Kakashi was forced to retreat as he found hundreds of ice needles firing his way.
Kakashi dodged the needles and with a single hand formed a seal that spawned a shadow clone which rushed to keep Haku busy.
Focusing back on Zabuza, Kakashi and Maruboshi mounted a pincer attack.
But Zabuza being not one to be left behind instantly formed a water clone to tackle the two enemies and reduce his strain.
"Who're you, old man? Never heard about you." Zabuza asked with a smile as his blade sliced through the kunai Maruboshi put up to block his blade.
"The famous Demon of the Hidden Mist wants to know my name? I'm honoured. You can call me death because I will be the death of you."
All of a sudden the kunai that Zabuza had sliced into two vanished alongside Maruboshi who was now rolling in the air as his prosthetic leg slipped off to reveal a thin but extremely sharp blade.
Zabuza flipped around with his clone's help as he narrowly avoided the blade to his neck, only to come face to face with Kakashi once again.
Kakashi wasted no time getting his three tomoe Sharingan to spin, using Genjutsu to confuse Zabuza.
Zabuza instantly broke out of the genjutsu but the fraction of a second he spent trapped in it allowed Maruboshi to bring down the blade in his leg towards him.
But just as the blade reached Zabuza an ice mirror opened up to allow a hand to pull him away from harm.
Maruboshi immediately redirected his attack and sliced away the hand, but the damage was done, Zabuza was saved.
Kakashi and Maruboshi both looked at Haku who was standing a little far away with Kakashi's clone. He'd lost a hand and was bleeding profusely, but with a soft touch, his shoulder froze to stop the blood loss.
"Zabuza-sama! Are you alright!?" Haku shouted.
Zabuza looked at him and then back at Kakashi and Maruboshi before clicking his tongue. 'Tsk. I didn't think this old man would be so strong. Who's he?'