a heart is a hilt.

the fauna and flora are crazy. tiny land sharks skitter about the marshes and inlets like rats. some fish species swim through the air, flitting through cities in hordes and descending upon any garbage and left over food scraps they find. giant salamanders rise from the mud, swallow a water buffalo whole, and sinks back into the river bed. a farmer throws his hat down in fury because that’s the third one this month!

the ever-present mists feel alive. the mist is chakra-heavy and dense, and small ghost lights flicker deep in the fog, coaxing you closer. they say the mist has a mind (minds?) if it’s own. sometimes one hears voices, familiar and strange, whispering your name. some have reported having visions. no one will say what they saw.

there are special groves of mangrove trees in the marshes and inlets, their borders marked with old bones, trampled trinkets, scraps of old, yellowed paper. men without hope walk among the trees until the roots take them, swallow them up, calcify. if you look closely at the whorls you can almost swear you see familiar faces, finally peaceful, gratefully at rest. you hate their simple endings. you envy their quiet nights.

everyone is superstitious, because demons and monsters really do walk here. if a strange man with a laugh like bells shows up at your door asking for a place to sleep, you let him inside without question and give him something even if it’s only watery broth.

most kiri shinobi carry small trinkets and good luck charms on their person. they take auspicious numbers and supposed omens very seriously. palmistry and fortune telling are common practices.

kiri nin do not trust their eyes. little in this world is what it seems.

outsiders are not trusted. mistfolk are a wary people. they do not trust the skin you wear. few will share their full name with a stranger. they do not trust that you won’t try to steal it.

there is crime. so much crime. the people grow dead to the pang of loss early on. the first lesson every child learns is that nothing is sacred, not even blood.

the infamous yuki clan was said to be a clan of beautiful and treacherous monsters. they appeared in the frozen mountains in the north and the black sand beaches of the northern continent, a solitary woman with long black hair and blood red lips, singing and humming softly to you from the mists. those lured into their arms disappeared. it’s whispered that the beautiful victims were whisked away to their frozen dens and islands; the rest were reduced to frozen, lifeless husks, their life force devoured.

the hoshigaki were born from the sea herself. whether they were a gift or a curse from the ocean god, or a promise of what could be, is unsure. they are members of the upper caste. just in case.

the hōzuki are an odd family. human enough, but always smelling faintly of salt and sea. they are sea-blooded, they have a sixth sense for sensing bodies of water, they are on edge on the cusp of thunderstorms but at peace in the heart of a monsoon. they share distant ancestors with the hoshigaki.

Ficlet Summary: Zabuza dies on the bridge. Haku dies with him, though his heart yet beats.

The mission fails, Zabuza dies, and Haku unravels. The cement is cold and wet against his forehead, a strange noise like a hawk’s cry ringing in his ears as he sobs over the man who gave him purpose and to whom he gave himself in return, who he was fractions of a second too late to save, the sudden flurry of snowfall indistinguishable from his freezing tears. Five hours ago his confidence in Zabuza and his own abilities had been so deeply engrained he’d begun sketching out preliminary plans for assassinating Gato. Now he wants to die. He wants to die, he wants to die, he needs to die before Zabuza travels too far down that road for him to catch up —

Something warm and solid slams into his chest, knocking the senbon from his throat, bowling him over and swarming around him. It is only when Naruto  squeezes him and tearfully shouts “You can’t! You can’t!” into his crumpled chest that Haku realizes he has been screaming everything out loud.

                                                         ***

He has a collapsed sternum, broken collarbone, a concussion, two broken ribs, a constellation of raikiri burns on his chest and left side of his face, and a broken heart. Kakashi sends Sakura to find Haku some new clothes, has Naruto and Sasuke to fetch the medical supply bag, then kicks them out of the room to keep an eye on Inari. He throws the medical bag strap over one shoulder and carefully lifts Haku up with both arms, balancing the bulk of the boy’s body against his chest as he slowly carries him to the bathroom and props him up in the tub. The Land of Waves is a poor land, but the water that filters into the tub is relatively free of silt, to Kakashi’s pleasant surprise. They don’t speak as Kakashi crouches next to him, undresses him, or wipes away the dirt, dried blood, cement dust. The broken bones that can be splinted are, the wounds that can be sewn or cauterized shut are closed. The pain is horrible, like salt in a mortal wound, but not so much as a hiss escapes Haku’s lips.

Wringing out the last of the blood into a bucket, Kakashi sits back on his heels, the fabric covering the bottom half of his face bunching around the jawline, his eyelids drooping slightly as if on the verge of a sigh.

Haku ignores him, watches murky, lukewarm water swill lazily around his navel. Calculates how fast he could drown himself if Kakashi were to step out for a minute. Thinks the copy-nin just might let him so long as he were discrete about it. Wonders what, exactly, the copy-nin could want to say to him that he’d want to hear after all of this.

Chakra surges in his veins, forcing his exhausted system toward strain. If it’s I’m sorry Haku will kill him. He doesn’t know how, but he will.

Kakashi’s hand twitches at the chakra flare, but his hands are steady as a flesh damp rag is laid across Haku’s brow. His hand lingers at the edges of the washrag. Haku can feel the man staring at him, patiently waiting for his attention. When he finally looks up the tension in Kakashi’s shoulders lessens, almost as if he’s relieved.

“Naruto admires you,” the man says; this time Haku flinches, immediately regrets it when the gesture tugs on his collar, ribcage.

“I’m glad you two were their first opponents,” Kakashi continues on, using the wash rag to dab a chakra burn dangerously close to Haku’s temple. “I’m glad it was you.”

                                                        ***

Haku directs the burning of Zabuza’s body. The genin are uneasy with the task, but Kakashi follows Haku’s instructions without comment, and they follow his lead. It’s been two days since the battle on the Bridge and the body’s begun to bloat. Sakura screams when a maggot falls from Zabuza’s ear canal onto her hand, then claps her hands over her mouth, leaving Sasuke and Naruto to struggle under the additional weight as she whips around to look at Haku, laid out like a ragdoll in an old wheelbarrow cushioned with threadbare rags, staring past them toward the sea. Ocean breeze tugs at a dirt brown rough-spun haori, one of several of her dead husband’s handmedowns Naruto had begged off a reluctant Tsunami. He’s so small the clothes are constantly slipping off one shoulder or the other. He looks like a doll abandoned by a careless child. Still, he looks better than he feels.

“There was a bug, and,” Sakura stammers. “ I didn’t mean to. I — I’m s-sorry.”

Haku’s blinks, as if confused, and casts about a moment before his gaze drops to meet hers. His eyes are hazy unfocus, like clouded glass.

“Why?” Haku says from somewhere far, far away, “It doesn’t matter. He’s dead.”

                                                         ***                                                      

The burning takes eight hours. After the first three the Leaf shinobi slip indoors for dinner. Haku remains outside, blankly watching the flames struggle to devour a man torn from the womb of the Bloody Mist.

Kakashi returns with a chair, two bowls of rice and some kind of root vegetable, a pair of chopsticks and a spoon. He sits several paces behind Haku, eating quietly, occasionally getting up to refresh the pyre. The air stinks of burnt hair, acrid fat, spoiled meat. Haku closes his eyes and leans into the smoke, inhaling deeply. Falling soot irritates the welts on his face. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything at all.

When all that’s left are cracked bones smoldering among the coals, Kakashi collects the majority of the ashes in metal urn procured from who knows where and places it in Haku’s lap. The metal is so hot some of the skin on his palms stick to it, the damage quick and horrible and bloodless. Kakashi bandages his hands and sets the urn aside. “It’s going to be hot for a few hours,” Kakashi says, as if Haku’s childhood hadn’t been an endless line of burying & burning, burying & burning, as if these burns were not the least of his wounds. From what he’s seen the copy-nin is a shameless man, yet he pauses, licking dry lips beneath the mask. “Likely it’ll stay hot all night.”

Haku says nothing, just stares at Kakashi until the man ducks out of the room and quietly shuts the door behind him, but that night he wraps the urn in a blanket before curling around it, this warmth he cannot bear to forget.

                                                           ***

He tells them how to find the treehouse, where the valuables are, and they clear it out before razing it to the ground. Kakashi asks him what he wants to do with the rest of Zabuza’s effects. Outdated transmissions, clothing, food and water rations, two Bingo Books, camping equipment, encrypted plans, spare equipment, miscellany. Nothing confidential. Not that it would’ve mattered, anyway. Not now. It goes without saying Team Seven will claim any valuables on Zabuza’s person, not that there’ll be much of those. The only things of worth Zabuza had owned were Kubikiribocho and his dreams. Both now lie cold and dead in the dirt.

“Burn everything,” Haku says. “But bring me the sword.”

the biggest issue i have with fanon portrayals of haku is that they often fail to account for his influences and history in depicting him. admittedly, this is probably because he appears in one volume all the way in part one and no one bothers to re-read it (rightfully so tbh). most of us only remember him for the tear-jerker death scene because holy fuck that was a heartbreaking and borderline traumatic read for our young, still developing minds. the most memorable thing about him is how he dies, and fanon reflects that: he’s written as pure, sweet, demure, devoted. 

however, here are a few other weird and bizarre parts of his character that are overlooked and, imo, make him far more interesting than uwu trauma angel.

1) he’s zabuza’s apprentice

duh, right? everyone knows this, and his relationship to zabuza is the axis upon which fanon haku turns, and haku’s influence on zabuza is what makes the bridge death scene such a tear-jerker. but what about zabuza’s influence on haku? 

zabuza is a scary fucking dude, with a scary fuckin’ demon-shaped ki that paralyzes naruto, sasuke, and sakura, and makes kakashi break out in a cold sweat. he’s intense as fuck, ready to kill, and has no qualms doing what must be done to reach his goals. we know he has a screwed up set of ethics and a tilted sense of honor, but he also isn’t afraid to play dirty to win.

haku shares a lot of these characteristics. 

when gatou’s goons pull their swords on zabuza, haku goes from calm to pissed “in an instant.”   he’s also extra about it just like zabuza is and gets a bit showy. he can also radiate zabuza-level killing intent strong enough for samurai to wonder if he, too, is some kind of “monster.” 

haku even has the same zabuza crazy eyes and everything:

this scene only becomes more interesting once we learn that haku’s reaction was completely unnecessary because zabuza had a kunai hidden beneath the blankets and was prepared to kill gato:

as soon as the threat is gone, haku’s sweet appearance is back.  

it’s also notable that his shift in behavior happens “in an instant” both here and at several other points this arc. for example, in his fight against naruto and sasuke, haku emotionally shifts gears several times. the most notable is when naruto punches him and haku, reading this as proof of his failure as zabuza’s ‘tool’ and thus proof of his unworthiness to continue living, immediately becomes dejected / depressed and  ( selfishly ) asks naruto to kill him. the only reason kakashi kills haku in wave instead of naruto is because haku senses zabuza’s in danger at the last second and sacrifices himself for him instead, in an attempt to prove he was good for something after all, even if that something was dying.

to me, these panels demonstrate that, yeah, he’s a nice kid at heart, but he’s also intense, he’s possessive, he isn’t afraid to kill to protect what’s his or for his ambitions, and he’ll snap a bitch’s wrist for looking at dadbuza sideways. 

2) hunter nin background 

now, we all know the kirigakure timeline is madly fucked up ( i’ll touch more on this later, especially re: zabuza’s real age, because wow there’s some issues there ) and not even kishimoto is sure what happens when, but i’ll be going off this volume as well as what i can remember from shippuden to make a case for haku actually being a hunter nin and not just pretending. 

after zabuza awakens from the temporary death state, he grouches at haku about wearing his mask, to which haku responds that he likes wearing the mask, because:

to me, this implies that though in this circumstance haku pretended to be a hunter nin to save zabuza, haku actually either was a hunter nin at some point in time, or received hunter-nin training.  according to the manga zabuza meets haku when haku’s still incredibly young, say anywhere between 7-10 years old give or take a few years. zabuza’s coup de etat has also already failed at this point, and zabuza has left kirigakure ( and potentitally water country as a whole, raising the possibility that haku is not from water country at all, but more on that later ) as a missing nin to raise funds and bide his time before another attempt. yet when haku and zabuza are introduced haku is wearing the same body processing unit uniform as ao and a kirigakure headband. 

though it’s possible these items were looted from the body of a hunter nin that was tracking zabuza, it is unlikely zabuza would have known the techniques utilized by hunter-nin well enough to teach them to haku. yet the narrative leads us to believe that haku does have these abilities:

here kakashi outlines for team seven the capacities of the buntai squad, referencing specifically the hunter’s intimate knowledge of anatomy, surgical procedure, and plant identification. all skills zabuza doesn’t have, but haku does, despite allegedly being trained only by zabuza. he even has a special surgical toolkit. 

all of this suggests haku received specialized buntai corps training from someone other than zabuza, opening the timeline up for further analysis. 

conclusion: write more fucked up haku instead of sweet snow woobie

even if i’m full of shit, haku is just way more interesting if he’d been a hunter nin ( or illegally trained by a current or former hunter-nin who went behind the Mizukage’s back and betrayed his village – hm. ) especially given how young he is. as several of the earlier panels show, it’s a hard and thankless job, and you’re tasked with killing and decapitating fellow citizens, most likely people you knew, considering kiri’s stupidly high defection rate. like, fuck. tell me more about this kid who’s considered a genius despite his impoverished background, who sold his soul to the local devil and became a ninja despite his compassionate heart, and, what’s more, took possibly the worst job an empathetic person can take aka hunting down people who have every reason to run from a fucked up homeland. tell me more about this tiny malnourished child with eyes too big for his face learning how to read and write by studying anatomy textbooks in a dark cellar. tell me about this kid who has learned to compartmentalize his emotions from a young age teaching himself to deaden his heart right before he begins dissecting someone. tell me about this kid with intimate knowledge of the human flesh who has never gotten the chance to know his own heart. tell me about the young boy living to become a death-dealer. give me the angst and the fucked up humor his upbringing no doubt gave him. 

anyway. this as a long ass nonsensical ramble, and i didn’t touch on even half the things i wanted to, but i hope this outlines several aspects of haku’s character that are often neglected, and introduces some new problems with the incredibly problematic kirigakur timeline.

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