It was early morning when Zabuza finally reached the Village Hidden in the Snow. Its high, wind-breaking walls and sturdy guard towers must have been impressive in an earlier age, but all Zabuza could see were structural weak points that would go down with a few exploding tags, and convenient climbing routes that would let a well-equipped shinobi rain fiery destruction on key infrastructure for nearly a minute before the defenders could pinpoint his location. He hoped that there were other, hidden, defences, or this village would fall the day after Earth or Fire decided it was worth the effort. Not that it was his concern either way. He was here to hunt; nothing else mattered.

“Halt and identify yourself, stranger,” a mere two guards addressed him from the battlements.

“Momochi Zabuza,” he said, “a hunter-nin from the Village Hidden in the Mist. Here on business.”

“Z—Zabuza?!” one of the guards stammered. “The Zabuza? With the sword and everything?”

Zabuza was spared the need to come up with a scathing retort by the other guard.

“No, you idiot, it’s the other hunter-nin from Mist named Zabuza. Who also has a huge broadsword with a hole in it strapped to his back.”

The gate creaked open.

“Please follow us to the chief’s abode,” the more competent guard told him.

The other one brought up the rear, virtually ogling the Throat Cleaver.

Zabuza hated weapon nuts. As far as he was concerned, a sword was a sword was a sword. You drew it, killed people with it, then put it away. Outside battle, you gave it proper maintenance as a tool, always left it within easy reach, and beyond that didn’t give it a second thought. Fetishising weapons was a way of fetishising death without having to confront the bloody reality of battle. These weapon nuts were even worse than those Jashin cult freaks who kept inviting him to join their secret order, because they were at least open about their perversion.

From the way they walked, Zabuza reflexively analysed, the soldier and the deviant were both chūnin-level. It fit with his assumptions. Snow would be similar to Sand: with a population size limited by sparse natural resources, the focus would be on training every shinobi to the peak of their potential, rather than allowing teams of genin to exist for the sole purpose of having someone to send on D- and C-rank missions. If so, he should tread lightly here. If things went south, he might not have a vast army converge upon him, but those that came were likely to be of elite quality.

The pair of guards quietly escorted him through the squat, square buildings of the settlement, to one particularly large hut at the centre. Inside, an old woman whose hair was festooned with ring-like decorations greeted him with a broad smile which set off several mental alerts.

“Welcome, honoured visitor. I am Tetori Kumako, chief of the Village Hidden in the Snow. May I ask your name and your business in our harsh but beautiful land?”

“Momochi Zabuza,” Zabuza introduced himself curtly. “I’m hunting a pack of missing-nin in the Mizukage’s name. I’ve tracked them to this country, but they have an unknown movement-enhancing ninjutsu which cut off their trail. I want to request your help in finding them.”

“Through your person, the Elemental Nations lavish their attention upon us. We are most honoured,” Chief Tetori said. “We would be happy to provide whatever assistance you need in order to complete your business here as swiftly as possible.”

Zabuza didn’t miss the message.

“I need to know whether your people have seen any signs of foreign shinobi movement, or failing that, places where those shinobi could hide without you noticing them. I also need to buy supplies. That is all.”

Chief Tetori nodded in a self-possessed fashion. After several seconds to think, she spoke.

“Yes, there is one place where we have noticed suspicious signs of human activity.”

She looked to one of her attendants, a middle-aged woman with an impenetrably stony expression.

“Kōri, fetch me Yukino.”

Kōri gave a mute bow and hurried out.

A minute later, she returned, not-quite-dragging an androgynous-looking figure by the sleeve.

That face! Zabuza had to sharply suppress a reflex to jump to his feet.

“Haku?!”

The young man, now fully inside the hut, tilted his head slightly in confusion.

“Who’s Haku? I’m Yukino. Easy to remember, ‘cause I’m always chill as snow. Haku isn’t even a girl’s name.

“Say, you’re new. You lost, or here to trade? Those furs aren’t half as nice as what you can get at Mama Honoka’s, and I bet she’ll throw in a replacement for that ratty old mask for free.”

“Yukino,” Chief Tetori said pleasantly, “shut your mouth and don’t speak until you’re spoken to.”

“But—“

Kōri promptly gave her a smack upside the head, which told Zabuza a great deal about Hidden Snow. If a junior shinobi ever accidentally talked back to the Mizukage, they would be on their knees begging for mercy before their voice finished fading from the air.

“Ow!”

“Yukino, this is Momochi Zabuza, a visitor from our beloved cousins in the Village Hidden in the Mist. He is going to need a guide to the peak of Mount Death.”

Yukino’s face turned so pale it was as if she were practicing her camouflage. This did nothing to reduce Zabuza’s stirring suspicions.

“The peak of Mount Death?” Zabuza asked.

“We have seen smoke rising from it of late, and other signs of habitation,” Chief Tetori explained in a kindly, completely inscrutable voice. “It is a perfect place to hide, remote enough that no outsider would ever be able to reach it—unless, as you say, they had special movement ninjutsu to bypass the perils of the mountain.”

“This is about the goats, isn’t it?” Yukino exploded from the stress of keeping her mouth shut. “I told you, Chief, that was a complete accident!”

“Those goats constituted a third of our reserve food supply,” Chief Tetori said. “And they were only the latest misdemeanour in a history of insubordination. I think a mission to Mount Death will be an excellent way for you to prove your loyalty and dedication to the village.”

“But Chief—“

“You have received your mission. I will give you an hour to help our honoured visitor purchase appropriate supplies, and then you must go.”

“Wait,” Zabuza said, “what’s this about leaving in an hour?”

“There are signs of a snowstorm approaching,” Chief Tetori said, still completely unreadable. “You should have no problems if you leave this area swiftly. Otherwise, you may find yourself trapped here for days, in which case I hope you like your testicles slowly cooked over a charcoal fire.”

Zabuza blinked. “What did you say?”

“Fried goat testicles,” Chief Tetori clarified innocently. “A local speciality. Very nutritious.”

In other words, she was sending him to a distant and dangerous place with an expendable guide, and she wanted him gone as soon as possible. And if he refused, then he refused her cooperation and she had every excuse to get rid of him. But this was still his only lead. He was already on rocky ground with the Mizukage with how long he’d let the Cold Stone Killers, a bunch of mostly genin, remain at large. He didn’t want to go back empty-handed, not without even trying. Besides, if the mountain turned out to be dangerous enough to make him turn back, then it would certainly be too dangerous for them to survive.

“Fine,” Zabuza said. “I appreciate your help. I’ll be sure to tell the Mizukage about what you’ve done for me.”

Let her chew on that for a bit.

“I would love nothing more,” Chief Tetori said. “Yukino, show our guest to the market.”

-o-

​ They’d been climbing the foothills for about an hour, but to Zabuza it already felt more like ten.

“I can’t believe I’m on a team with Momochi Zabuza himself.” Yukino was bouncing. “This is so amazing!”

“For the last time, we are not on a team. I don’t do teams.”

“Is this ‘cause I’m a girl? It’s 'cause I’m a girl, isn’t it? You old men are all alike!” Yukino pouted.

“I don’t care if you’re a girl, Yukino,” Zabuza said. “I just don’t do teams. And I’m not an old man.”

He’d tried ignoring her. He’d nearly gone crazy trying. But Yukino never shut up, not for a second. If she was still like this when he got near the target, he’d have to gag her and dump her in a cave somewhere. He hadn’t yet decided whether he’d go back for her afterwards.

“Of course you’re an old man. You must be at least twenty-five!”

“My age is none of your business,” twenty-seven-year-old Zabuza told her, not that he cared about such things. He was a professional, and the mission was all that mattered. Besides, he was still in the prime of his life. The girl didn’t know what she was talking about. “Even if I did teams, I wouldn’t take on a shrimp like you.”

“I’m not a shrimp!” Yukino exclaimed. “I’m a genius genin from a powerful Bloodline Limit clan!”

“You are?” Praise the Sage, useful information at last.

“I am. Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I don’t make shallow promises,” Zabuza told her.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“Well, if you won’t promise, I won’t tell you.”

“This is why I wouldn’t team up with you,” Zabuza concluded. “You’re denying me strategic information out of pettiness.”

“Yeah, well,” Yukino crossed her arms defiantly, “you’re the one being stubborn about making a petty promise.”

Zabuza had a sudden awareness that this conversation was only going to descend further into imbecility if he let it continue down this path.

“Fine. I promise.”

“All right. My name,” she said, “is Yuki Yukino.”

Zabuza choked. She was even from the same clan…

“Zabuza! You said you wouldn’t laugh!”

“That wasn’t a laugh, that was surprise!”

“Liar,” Yukino glared at him. “Are all Mist ninja liars like you?”

“I am not a liar,” Zabuza said sullenly.

“You so are. And you broke your promise, so you have to pay a forfeit.”

Zabuza raised an eyebrow. “A forfeit? Are you serious?”

“Yes.” Yukino stared at him for several seconds straight, as if gathering her courage for some inane request. “You have to kiss me.”

Zabuza shoved her casually, sending her face-first into a nearby snowbank.

“Another reason why I’d never team up with you. You overreach.”

“Gphah!” Yukino spat snow out of her mouth as she laboriously extracted herself. “Fine, then. In that case, give me a piggyback ride.”

Zabuza looked at her closely. But if she was an assassin looking for an opening, she was a truly incompetent one. A real assassin would wait until it was their turn on watch, and strike while he was asleep (not that it would work). Also, she had the killing intent of a limp fish.

“You mean on top of this enormous mass of gear I’m already carrying?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, is the weight of one teenage girl too much for the big bad legendary hunter-nin?”

She fixed him with the unbudging stare of a child who had decided what she wanted and wasn’t taking no for an answer. Zabuza was reminded of why he’d never wanted kids.

“How the hell did it come to this?” Zabuza muttered, looking up at the heavens as he took the path of least suffering and crouched to let Yukino get on.

“Touch the sword and you die,” he said without any particular feeling. “Mess with my stuff and you die. Annoy me too much and you die. Got it? Then let’s go.”

“You can’t kill me,” Yukino pointed out. “I’m the only one who knows the way.”

“True,” Zabuza conceded. “I’ll have to be more professional. I will cut off your limbs, cauterise the stumps with Fire ninjutsu, and force-feed you soldier pills to make sure you don’t die from shock. Then, if you are quiet, obedient and helpful, I will consider not leaving you on the mountain once I’m done with the missing-nin.”

Yukino took this in. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, which was a pity.

“So,” she said after a short pause, “nice weather we’re having, huh, Zabuza?”

​ -o-

​ There were advantages to Yukino’s incessant babbling, Zabuza had decided. While the girl herself was clearly a few tentacles short of an octopus, half-listening to her at least kept his mind off the journey itself. He’d never been to Snow before, and the cold seeping into his very bones was a new experience he could have done without.

“Yukino,” he interrupted yet another request to see under his half-mask, “why do they call it Mount Death? What kind of threats are we dealing with?”

“Actually,” Yukino seemed inexplicably gratified by the question, “its full name is Mount Certain Death to Any Fool Who Dares Approach. You can see why we shorten it.”

“If it’s a mountain of certain death, how come you know the route?”

“Every ninja knows the route,” she explained simply. “For our Genin Exam, we memorise directions, take a map, and then our entire graduating class has to climb to the peak together. We do get shadowed by an elite jōnin team to make sure we don’t get wiped out by an unexpectedly tough chakra monster or an earthquake or whatever, but they don’t tell us that until afterwards, and they don't mind if we get killed by 'appropriate' hazards. Then whoever makes it back to the village alive is promoted to genin.”

“Huh,” Zabuza grunted approvingly.

“Snow isn’t like your soft southerner villages, where you have cattle and crops and prey all queuing up to jump in your mouths,” Yukino said with what Zabuza already recognised as uncharacteristic seriousness. “The Land of Snow hates humans. It wants everything to be still and silent forever, and humans don’t. So everything we have in Hidden Snow, we have to fight for. If someone’s not strong enough to help us in that fight, then we can’t afford to spend resources keeping them alive. It’s harsh, but it’s what life is like here.”

“Huh,” Zabuza said again. There was something strangely romantic about that. A land where it was just shinobi against nature, with no room for politics or ideology or war. A land where nobody ever had to ask if they were fighting for the right cause. Mist was supposed to be like that—a village of brave survivors, united under a single perfect will, working to defend their own and dominate the world by right of hard-won strength. It wasn’t. There were many reasons why Zabuza had taken the hunter-nin job, and one of them was that it kept him on the road, away from Yagura’s Hidden Mist and everything it stood for.

“Thing is,” Yukino went on, “I think people get so obsessed with fighting for survival that they forget why we don’t want everything to be still and silent. You go out of your way to pour some humour into their dull lives, and they start shouting about misconduct. You do things the clever way instead of the way you were told to, and you get done for insubordination. You try something different during a ritual and you’re told you’ve dishonoured your ancestors. When our ancestors came up with the Equinox Celebration in the first place, they were doing something clever and original and fun. But the second you try making up new lyrics to the Song of Five Stars…”

“Yukino,” Zabuza said bluntly, “I don’t care.”

“That’s all right,” Yukino said, unfazed. “I do.

“I figure fun is infectious,” she went on. “If you keep on having it, no matter what’s going on around you, eventually even the biggest sourpuss is going to feel their blackened lump of a heart start beating. You wait, it’ll happen to you too.”

“No,” Zabuza said. “No, it won’t. If I ever notice myself starting to act like you, I’ll jump off this mountain myself.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you do. After all, we’re a team.”

Zabuza groaned.

​ -o-​

“And another thing,” Zabuza grumbled many arguments later, “who gave you the right to use my first name?”

“But you’re Zabuza!” Yukino objected. “Zabuza the Stalking Death. Zabuza the Butcher of Honnō City. Zabuza the Grim Reaper. That’s what all your fans in Snow call you.”

“There are at least six different ninja known as the Grim Reaper,” Zabuza said. “I’m not one of them. It sounds pretentious. And what do you mean, fans?”

“You’re the ultimate hunter,” Yukino said. “Every kid wants to grow up to be like you.”

“Huh,” Zabuza grunted bemusedly. He’d thought it was just one…

“And besides,” Yukino added, “you keep using my first name.”

“That’s because you’re a child and I’m an adult.”

“I am not a child!” Yukino pouted childishly. “I’m sixteen years old!”

“And still a genin?” Zabuza asked pointedly.

“That’s just ‘cause Chief Tetori won’t send me to the Chūnin Exams. She says I’m too immature, which I so am not!”

Chief Tetori went up a few degrees in Zabuza’s estimation.

“She’s just a bitter old woman with a fir tree up her—gyaaah!”

Even Zabuza’s danger sense had registered nothing wrong until the moment the snow covering the ground rose up and bound him around the waist… and then kept on rising. Within a few seconds, both shinobi found themselves gripped in the fists of a towering giant made of snow.

Zabuza’s reaction was instant. “Haku, Ice Spike Barrier!”

His apprentice obeyed immediately. A shell of ice formed around Haku, then thrust out spikes that disrupted the structure of the fist, sending him toppling to the ground below. He landed with catlike grace.

Zabuza was no slower in taking care of himself. He’d reflexively raised his arms as the trap was sprung, leaving his hands free to form seals. “Fire Element: Flame Tsunami Technique!”

The curtain of intense fire sped towards the giant’s head. Its impact rocked the head back, and the giant’s fist loosened enough for Zabuza to escape… but far from being melted off, the head was barely damaged. As Zabuza watched, snow from elsewhere in its body shifted to repair the damage.

He glanced at Haku. No, at Yukino. “Intel!”

“It’s a snow golem!” Yukino said, dodging the four-metre monstrosity’s crushing blow with, it had to be admitted, chūnin-like speed. “There’s a small creature at the core which has nivelikinesis. I mean, it can manipulate snow!”

No kidding.

Zabuza skidded backwards as a successful block with the flat of his sword protected his body but failed to hold back the monster’s advance.

“It’s effectively immune to weapons, and it’s constantly healing as long as there’s snow around. It also keeps sucking up that snow to make itself bigger and tougher.”

Zabuza’s peripheral vision was full of snow as far as the eye could see. And yes, the snow golem had already gained another half-metre’s height. What kind of ninjutsu would work best against a constantly regenerating target that could probably disassemble itself as easily as it had risen out of the snow in the first place? The perfect hard counter would have been a technique that slowly but unstoppably increased the temperature in a wide area. It was a shame no such thing existed.

“Oh, it’s also full of really dense Water chakra, so Fire ninjutsu is useless.”

Right. Water beat Fire. One of Zabuza’s favourite tactics for killing Leaf ninja was being turned against him. If you wanted to beat Water, you needed Earth, but while Zabuza could use it (any elite Mist jōnin who didn’t have all five elements was a laughingstock), he was so heavily Water-aspected that using its counter-element was always a last resort.

Zabuza tried to chop off one of the fists with a heavy vertical slash, to no effect. The snow was packed incredibly densely, which accounted for the thing’s ridiculous strength.

“And if you try to run away, it compacts itself so it’s really strong and really fast, so you can’t outrun it.”

That had been Zabuza’s next thought. The key to survival as a hunter-nin was to only ever engage the enemy on your own terms.

“Tactical advice?” Zabuza called out as he ducked under another attack, and heard with dismay the sound of a boulder shattering behind him.

“Don’t let it see you in the first place.”

“Better tactical advice?”

Yukino hesitated, which nearly got her killed by an overhead hammerfist strike. The snow golem fought disturbingly like it knew basic taijutsu.

“Uh, knock it off a cliff?”

It was a useless tactic for hunter-nin, whose job wasn't done until they retrieved the body. But it made sense against something so big and heavy, and if it had worked for Snow shinobi in the past, that was a good reason to trust in it now.

That left one critical question, a question which could mean the difference between life and death when fighting chakra beasts.

“Can it understand human language?”

“Nobody knows,” Yukino shouted back, using a carefully-angled ice shield to redirect a horizontal sweep away from her. “Can you hurry up and kill it, please? Zabuza? Sir?”

He couldn’t just give Yukino a series of instructions. He remembered one of his early missions, back when he was still an incompetent chūnin, watching his team get taken apart by a rendclaw pack after discussing their plan in front of the enemy. Another reason why real shinobi made themselves strong enough to work alone.

Now he’d have to do the one thing he wanted least—he’d have to trust her.

“Yukino! I’m going to try and destroy the core by hitting it with everything I’ve got,” he lied. “You look for an opening and run away as soon as you can.”

He looked pointedly at the edge of the plateau as he spoke.

“Understood, Zabuza, sir,” Yukino said to his massive relief. “I’ll leave this to you.”

Well, then. Time to teach this oversized snowman what it meant to be a true predator.

Zabuza couldn’t rely on his favourite tactic today—not when he had no idea how the target’s senses worked. Without facial features, for all he knew it hunted by pure chakra sense. It might even have omnidirectional awareness, in which case it was even more imperative that he keep its attention away from Yukino.

“Water Element: Water Bullet Technique!”

The globes of water smashed into the snow golem one after the other. It wasn’t enough to displace it, as the creature just hunkered down into a low, resistant stance.

That was fine. It was only a setup for Zabuza’s next move.

Zabuza took careful aim, and threw his sword in a horizontal spin at the thing’s chest. Then, before it could straighten up again, he leapt onto the sword as if it was a platform to stand on.

The golem reached for him, thumping its chest with both fists to crush him. Zabuza leapt back just in time.

Now disarmed, and briefly off-balance as he landed, Zabuza had no way of blocking the next punch coming for his face.

Then the exploding tag attached to his sword exploded.

The Throat Cleaver, already driven into the golem’s body by its own chest thump, suddenly sliced a lot deeper, causing a screeching noise that did not come from the golem’s snowy head. It staggered backwards in panic, its attack aborted.

But the sword hadn’t penetrated deep enough. The snow golem roared, yanked the sword out, and threw it at Zabuza full-force.

“Wind Element: Cursed Spear Technique!”

Zabuza had already begun the seals the second he landed from his jump, timing the ninjutsu to coincide with the golem’s predictable retaliation. The Cursed Spear was a technique that swept up loose debris from around the user, pulling it into the slipstream of a focused burst of wind and embedding it in the target's body as that burst connected. In this case, all it could collect was snow, which would only make the golem stronger, but that still suited Zabuza’s purposes.

The Cursed Spear hit the spinning Throat Cleaver, cancelled out its momentum—and threw the blade back at the snow golem.

The golem was already reeling from that initial impact when it was hit by the remaining force of the spear of wind, and then by the brief snowstorm that followed in its wake. The snow may have had the effect of healing it… but it could only do so because it had mass. And mass knocked things back.

Unbelievably, even now, the monster was upright and seemingly unharmed. But unfortunately for it, it was no longer standing on snow.

Zabuza watched it begin to shrink as it slid backward, increasing its density in a last-ditch effort to find purchase on the ice—the ice that Yukino had been layering on the ground behind it all along.

As the golem slid past Yukino, its size rapidly and urgently approaching a human’s, the girl did something that made Zabuza forgive her every last bit of mindless chatter.

“Ice Element: Immovable Object Technique!”

A coat of ice extended around her body, rapidly thickening as it anchored itself to the existing ice on the ground. Right before she finished freezing in place, Yukino reached out towards the snow golem as if in a last-second attempt to save it.

Instead, her hand closed around the Throat Cleaver’s hilt. Her grip was solid enough to hold onto it even as the golem slid off the edge, and the ice kept her from falling after it. Gravity tore the sword out of the golem’s chest, leaving it solidly in Yukino’s grasp.

The ground was so far below that they never heard the golem land.

“How did you figure out the plan?” Zabuza asked Yukino a minute later, once she finished defrosting herself.

“Duh,” she said lightly, as if she hadn’t just been fighting for her life against an elemental abomination. “You were talking as if you were going to sacrifice yourself so I could escape. As in, as if you were expecting to lose. Zabuza the Dragonslayer never loses.”

This was why Zabuza hated fighting in front of other people. You kill one snake summon in its full battle regalia…

“Hey, I don’t think anyone’s killed a snow golem before. Or at least, not with witnesses to prove it. From now on, you’re Zabuza the Snow Shover!”

“No. That makes me sound like a tool for clearing roads.”

“Zabuza the Powder Pusher!”

“That makes me sound like a drug dealer.”

“Actually, since it was a team effort, maybe we could have a joint title. We can be the Giant Knockers!”

“You know,” Zabuza said thoughtfully, “my sword took some damage in that fight. And it’s a special sword that repairs itself when I feed it blood.”

“I’m… going to go confirm some landmarks now.”

Zabuza didn’t smirk, but only because Zabuza never smirked. “Oh, and Yukino? We’re not a team.”

​ -o-

​ The cave where they made their stop for the night was surprisingly well-appointed, with bits of furniture, a boxy oven somebody must have put together with the Earth Element, and even a hefty door to keep out the wind.

“Every generation of ninja has added bits and pieces when they stopped here,” Yukino explained. “Little gifts for the future.”

“Huh,” Zabuza grunted amusedly.

Zabuza looked closely at the walls. “Are these cave paintings? Like the ones you hear about telling the histories of prehistoric peoples?”

“In a way,” Yukino grinned mischievously. “That one is from a famous hunt in the first chief’s time. See where he’s using an ice shield to protect himself from the three-metre-tall elk while it breathes fire on him. And that one over there is a picture of the duel between Masters Shirai and Kadota for my great-aunt’s hand.”

She beckoned him deeper into the cave.

“What’s this one?” Zabuza asked, tilting his head first one way, then another. No matter how you looked at it, that was…

“Chief Tetori having carnal relations with a yak,” Yukino said proudly. “Note the speech bubble.”

Zabuza read the text. Chief Tetori was apparently bellowing, “Take me, kinsman. Take me now!”

Understanding dawned. “These were drawn by bored genin stopping here during their Genin Exams.”

“Yup. This one’s by yours truly.”

“I somehow guessed.”

After a little more time spent examining the paintings (for useful information regarding Hidden Snow, and not because some of them were hilarious), Zabuza was ready to turn in for the night when Yukino turned to him and asked a question that came out of nowhere.

“Hey, Zabuza, who’s Haku?”

​ -o-

​ “Dear Captain Momochi Zabuza, my name is Yuki Haku. I think you’re a really amazing ninja, and I want to be just like you. Would you please consider making me your apprentice when I graduate the Academy? I’m a descendant of Snow’s Yuki Clan, and I can already use the Ice Bloodline Limit. It’s very powerful! I can’t wait to hear from you.”

“Dear Captain Momochi Zabuza, my name is Yuki Haku. I guess you must have missed my last letter. I really admire you as a ninja, and I want to be just like you. Would you please consider making me your apprentice when I graduate the Academy? I am a descendant of Snow’s Yuki Clan, and I can already use the Ice Bloodline Limit, which is famous for its power and flexibility. I hope to hear from you soon.”

“Dear Captain Momochi Zabuza, this is Yuki Haku again. I’ve finally graduated from the Academy. Have you thought about my request? I honestly think we’d make a great team, and a ninja with your skills needs an apprentice to pass them on to. If you give me just one chance, like an exam, or a trial period, I’m sure you will be impressed. I look forward to hearing from you.”

“Dear Captain Momochi Zabuza, it’s Haku again. I’d like you to know that I have the Mizukage’s permission this time. He thinks it’s a good idea for you to take on an apprentice, and that I’m a suitable candidate. I’m sure we’ll work very well together. I look forward to hearing from you.”

“Dear Captain Momochi Zabuza, this is Haku. This is my tenth request, and I still haven’t heard back from you. I’ve been working very hard to meet your standards—as you might know, I’ve already passed the Chūnin Exam. The Mizukage says I’m qualified to join a normal hunter-nin squad now, but I really think it would better for me to be your apprentice. I hope to hear from you.”

“Dear Captain Momochi Zabuza, this is Yagura. I tire of Yuki’s petitions. It would be to the village’s detriment to lose your hunter-nin skills when you die, and you are too valuable in the field to assign to an instructor position. I am hereby instituting a two-man team consisting of yourself and Yuki Haku. Report to the mission desk upon receipt of this message.”

Zabuza had never understood, even at the end, what had made Haku so determined to be by his side. He was under no illusions concerning his own charisma or lack thereof. Nor was he the strongest jōnin in Mist, or the most famous. And he did not remember ever meeting Haku until the team assignment. When he tried to get the truth out of the boy, all he got were vague words of admiration, and eventually an unexplained “This is where I belong”.

They had, it had to be said, made a good team. Haku was quick-witted, diligent, and, most of all, reliable. Zabuza didn’t need power in a teammate—there were very few missing-nin he couldn’t kill himself, and for those he could just call in a strike team once he was done gathering intel. But someone to watch his back, to secure escape routes and create distractions? Haku’s presence opened up countless possibilities.

The kid wasn’t bad as an apprentice either. He soaked up knowledge like cotton soaked up blood, and the adaptability of his Bloodline Limit gave him huge growth potential. Social skills, too. He even made Zabuza laugh every now and again, and Zabuza never laughed. But what Haku had turned out to lack was the one crucial skill of a ninja, which was not to die.

Haku should have learned to kill his emotions by that age. Failing that, Zabuza should have done it for him—it was brutal and took a heart of stone, which Zabuza had, but it was not impossible. Instead, the stupid, stupid child had thrown his life away trying to save Zabuza. It probably hadn’t even been necessary. If Zabuza had pushed himself hard enough, he surely would have got out of the way in time. He didn’t need Haku’s kindness.

With that one action, Haku had wasted all the time they’d had together. The apprentice was meant to avenge the master, not to die before them. It violated the natural order. It should not have happened. It was wrong.

And, of course, it would never have happened if Zabuza had accepted the kid’s first request, or his second, or his third. With Haku’s extraordinary learning speed, if Zabuza had started teaching him at graduation, or even taken an interest in him earlier, Haku would easily have become strong enough in time, and maybe even wise enough.

But there was no use thinking in hypotheticals. Haku was dead, and Zabuza sure as hell wasn’t taking on another apprentice. Haku had been special—even the Mizukage knew it. The bright young sparks that had put themselves forward to take his place weren’t fit to lick Haku’s sandals, much less keep up with the lethality of Zabuza’s missions. No, Zabuza had given teaching a fair shot, and naturally the results had only confirmed his existing convictions. He didn’t need teammates, and there weren’t any who could keep up with him anyway.

“Another Mist hunter-nin,” he said to Yukino in a voice that did not invite questions. “He died.”

​ -o-

​ Zabuza had lost count of the number of random encounters he and Yukino had had by now. Fortunately, between Yukino’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the local flora and fauna (which Zabuza had found to be equally deadly) and Zabuza’s skill at killing things until they were dead, they’d made it this far with no permanent injuries. In addition, the experience had done wonders for Zabuza’s ability to trust her, both as a combat asset and overall—there was no way she'd make it all the way back down this mountain on her own.

Now, finally, they’d reached the road to the peak, where the Cold Stone Killers hopefully lay in wait. Zabuza had no intention of facing them in open combat, but he did need to confirm their numbers and abilities, and especially the nature of their special movement, whether by observation or by kidnapping and torture.

“Stay here,” he whispered to Yukino, “and stay silent. Completely silent. If a greater dropbear falls on you and starts eating your head, you shut up and let it. Understood?”

“Understood,” Yukino said out loud.

Zabuza sighed and began creeping up the mountain path.

The going was slow, as every last centimetre of the area had to be checked for traps and hidden watchers, and there was no such thing as paranoia when the enemy had a sealmaster. Finally, Zabuza reached the plateau at the very peak… and found it nearly empty.

There was a single wooden shack, built solidly enough to resist exposure to the biting high-altitude winds. And nothing else. No traps. No people. Not even a new species of chakra beast to add some much-unneeded variety to his day.

And the shack was empty.

Had the Cold Stone Killers got wind of his coming and left? Or had they never been here at all? Was this, as he’d suspected, a gambit by Chief Tetori to get him gone and ideally killed? He had no way of knowing.

​ -o-

​ “This place has a lot of symbolism, you know,” Yukino said as she poked at the fire (which Zabuza had fed with wood from his storage scrolls, because a shinobi who wasn’t prepared for everything was just a civilian with chakra reserves).

“The reason they bring us up here, apart from making sure the weak ones die, is because this is the tallest mountain in Snow. We look around and we can see everything—we can see how vast our land is, how beautiful it is, and how small we are in comparison to it. ‘This is our mother, and this is also the enemy’. You’re probably the only foreigner ever to come here.”

“Huh,” Zabuza grunted noncommittally.

Yukino poked at the fire for a few seconds more, then stood up determinedly.

“Hey, Zabuza.”

“Yeah?”

“Merry Sagemas!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, the day the Sage of Six Paths was born. Isn’t this such a romantic place to celebrate it?”

Zabuza rolled his eyes. “Yukino, there aren’t any records left over from that time. Nobody knows when the Sage was born. Assuming he was born at all, and wasn’t some supernatural being.”

“Yeah! That means we can celebrate it any day we want and have equal odds of being right!” Yukino beamed.

“This is stupid,” Zabuza grumbled. “Who goes around randomly making up festivals in a survival situation?”

“Well,” Yukino said, her smile deflating, “I suppose instead you could sit around thinking about how those missing-nin managed to give you the slip after all that hard work. And I could sit around thinking about how the people I grew up with hate me so much they sent me on a suicide mission.”

Zabuza looked at her, and the unfamiliar morose expression on her face, for a few seconds.

He forced a smile onto his face. “Merry Sagemas!”

Seeing Yukino’s grin somewhat softened the blow of feeling like a complete idiot.

“That’s the spirit, Zabuza! So what did you get me?”

“Huh?” Zabuza grunted in shock.

“Don’t tell me you’re celebrating Sagemas with a beautiful woman and you’ve forgotten to get her a present?!”

Zabuza didn’t know how to begin responding to this. “But… I only just…”

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll go first.

“I spent a while thinking about what would make a perfect gift for a badass hunter-nin, but my budget is a bit low this year, and all the shops are down in the village where everybody wants me dead, so I thought: what about ninjutsu?”

“Ninjutsu?”

“Yep. I think it would be wrong for me to hand over clan or village secrets just ‘cause they are trying to kill me, but there’s this great technique that everybody in Snow knows, and everybody in Snow knows how to recognise. It’s called the Sleep Beneath the Snow Technique.”

“What does it do?”

“It feigns death really well. Like, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’ll never figure out that someone’s not alive. Their body temperature drops, their wounds stop bleeding, they don’t react to pain, the works. We mostly use it against chakra predators.”

“Huh,” Zabuza grunted contemplatively. He had been thinking about learning a technique for coping with overwhelming force. He remembered seeing Jiraiya of the Three at work in the Swamp of Death. He doubted he could defeat a man like that in single combat, but on the other hand escape wasn’t always an option. This would cover the gap nicely.

“This is going to be great! I’ve never taught anyone a technique before! So to start off, focus on the chakra in the pit of your stomach…”

​ -o-

​ The journey down was considerably smoother than the journey up, now that Zabuza knew both the route and the most common hazards, and he spent more time leading Yukino than the other way round.

“So what are you going to do after this, Zabuza?” Yukino asked as they descended the lower slopes.

“Head back to Mist,” Zabuza said. “I’ve lost the trail, so I have to report back to the Mizukage.”

“He’s your boss, right? I guess he’s not going to be happy.”

Zabuza nodded. “He’s not going to kill me, not while I’m still useful. But you can bet I’ll be getting the worst, most dangerous assignments for a while.

“What about you?” he asked, if only to get the image of Yagura’s cold, dehumanising eyes out of his head.

“Well, I can’t go back to my village,” Yukino said matter-of-factly. “They’ll just send me on another suicide mission. And I’m not going to survive in the Land of Snow on my own. So I guess I’ll have to head south.”

That brought Zabuza up short. “You mean… you’re going to turn missing-nin.”

There must have been more condemnation in his voice than he’d realised, as the air between them began to grow dangerous.

“Is that how it is?” Yukino asked coldly. “Are you going to kill me now? Well, before you do, why don’t you tell me what you think I should do, mighty hunter-nin? Should I roll over and die because my village says so? I’m not a burden on them. I’m not a useless extra mouth to feed. I’m a capable ninja who wants to serve her people, and they’re the ones rejecting me just because I don’t fit into their narrow little picture of the world. So what am I supposed to do, Zabuza?” Her eyes were wet, but defiant. “Tell me. What am I supposed to do?”

Zabuza had nothing to say. Missing-nin were traitors. It was a fact plain as day. Shinobi life was about sacrifice. You sacrificed your life every time you went out on a mission, and if you were skilled enough, and lucky enough, then at the end you got it back. If one day the village decided you weren’t going to get it back, that was its prerogative. To refuse such a mission, or to abandon it, was to turn your back on the nature of shinobi life itself. Zabuza was regularly ordered on high-risk missions, and if one day the Mizukage assigned him a mission with the expectation that he wouldn’t be coming back, then Zabuza would still go. He was a loyal shinobi, maybe not to the Mizukage, maybe not to the corrupt, rotting edifice that ruled his village, but to the true ideal of Mist that would outlive them both. Zabuza would still go.

Wouldn’t he?

“I’m not going to kill you, Yukino,” he finally said. “I’m not a Snow hunter-nin. I kill the people the Mizukage orders me to kill. He doesn’t even know you exist, and I see no reason why he’d need to.”

“You don’t have any answers, do you?” Yukino asked softly.

Zabuza didn’t reply. They continued their descent in silence.

“You know,” Yukino said a while later, “you never did give me a Sagemas present.”

“Huh,” Zabuza grunted affirmatively.

“Well, then, how about a kiss?”

Without particularly thinking about it, Zabuza shoved her into the nearest snowbank.

“Pthegh!” Yukino spat out a mouthful of snow as she unburied herself, showing no great surprise.

“Worth a shot,” she said. “But the Sage will curse you if you’re stingy on his birthday—which could very well be today. So how about this…”

There was a note of casualness in her voice so strong that Zabuza knew it wasn’t real.

“Take me on a sightseeing tour of the Elemental Nations. You’re going to the Water Country first, aren’t you? Let me tag along at least that far.”

Zabuza stared. Him? Travel with a missing-nin? Where was he even supposed to begin explaining how wrong that was?

“C’mon, Zabuza,” Yukino said, either cheerfully or desperately. “Don’t we make a great team?”

Zabuza looked at her again. That damned resemblance was still there. Not just her face or her powers. She was skilled for her age, but for all he knew she’d already hit her limit as a shinobi. And unlike Haku, who’d been gentle, fatally gentle, this girl was a whirlwind of chaos who wouldn’t shut up if he cut off her head. But up on that mountain, there were a few times when she’d nearly made him laugh. Maybe, if they stayed together, one day he would.

“Fine,” he said. “Just as far as the Water Country. Then whatever happens, happens.

“Also, we’re not a team.”

She squeeed. It hurt Zabuza’s brain even to think the word, but there was no other description for the sound.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou! This is going to be great! So how do we get to the Water Country from here? Do we have to take a ship? I’ve never been on a ship! Will there be pirates? Or kraken?”

On second thought, maybe he could kill her just a little?​