Hikari; The Forgotten Otsutsuki

Chapter 10

There was an awkward silence after Kakashi-sensei suddenly woke up and instantly sat in a deep thinking mode.

"What's wrong, sensei?" Naruto inquired and our sensei jumped at his question. It seemed that the thought was bothering him by that much.

"Body erasing teams usually dispose of the body of the person they killed right there," Kakashi-sensei said. The grip on my hand tightened as I said, "Damn it, I know that something wasn't right!"

"So what?" Sakura despite being the brightest of us Genins had failed to see it.

"How did the boy dispose of Momochi Zabuza?" I asked.

"How could we know? That masked guy took the body with him" Sakura reasoned.

"Exactly my point," I said.

"And if he needed proof of his work, he could have just taken the head and the weapon that he used to kill Zabuza," Kakashi-sensei retorted.

"Here I am the one with the Byakugan. Man, how could I be so stupid?!" I gritted.

"No way," Sasuke managed. He was disbelieving this revelation.

"Yeah, exactly," Our sensei rubbed the back of his head as he concurrently agreed with Sasuke's realization. Tazuna-san demanded to know what we were talking about.

"Most likely, Zabuza is still alive!" He continued darkly. The pure shock was the face that was written on Sakura, Naruto, and Tazuna-san.

"What the hell do you mean?!" Naruto demanded.

"Kakashi-sensei, Hikari had checked it with his Byakugan and he had confirmed that that man was dead!" Sakura said angrily with her fist propped at our sensei.

"That is my fault," I said and Sakura's eyes turned to me ablaze, "forgive my carelessness, I should have noticed it right away. My Byakugan let me see the chakra flow network within a person. For some of the Hyuugas, we can even see the exact points where the chakra will flow or stopped. I should have seen it in the first place that the senbon merely momentarily blocked the path of his chakra and in addition to somehow stopped his heartbeat."

"I don't get it," Sakura asked.

"The needle that hunter-nin used, unless it hits a vital organ, it has a low probability of killing your opponent. It's even an item used by the doctor in acupuncture therapy. Hunter-nins know about the body's structure thoroughly. Putting a person in a momentary state of death is probably easy for them," Kakashi-sensei explained, "first, he carried away the body of the much heavier Zabuza. Second, he used a weapon that has a low probability of killing. These two points indicate that..."

"Momochi Zabuza is most likely alive," I finished and he nodded.

"Aren't you thinking too much? Hunter-nins are supposed to kill missing-nins," Tazuna-san countered.

"No, with all the suspicion, we must be prepared before it's too late. That's a ninja rule. Plus, whether Zabuza is dead or alive, there's no assurance that Gatou hasn't hired an even stronger ninja," Kakashi-sensei replied. I looked around and I saw that Sasuke already accepted the fact that Zabuza is alive while Sakura was still in disbelief. Naruto, on the other hand, was excited.

"Sensei, what do you mean preparing before it's too late? You can barely move," Sakura suddenly asked and our sensei chuckled at her question.

"What else, Sakura? He is going to train us," I said, happier with these new circumstances, "I am curious to see how much all of you had improved and I don't want to hear it from Naruto's boisterous mouth."