After the thick fog dispersed, what appeared before everyone was the sight of Kakashi's strike piercing through Zabuza's chest.
Scarlet blood streamed uncontrollably from Zabuza's mouth.
After his lips moved slightly a few times, the light in his eyes gradually dimmed, and his breathing steadily weakened. Having witnessed Zabuza suffer the fatal blow, Haku froze as if struck by a bolt from the blue.
Kakashi slowly withdrew his right hand from Zabuza's chest. With no support left, Zabuza's body collapsed onto the ground.
"Zabuza-sama!" Haku cried out.
Watching the battle come to an end and Haku struggling desperately beneath his hands, Ueno Kei frowned slightly. He sighed, then released the hands restraining Haku.
Though Haku wanted to rush to Zabuza's side at once after regaining freedom of movement, the severe injuries Naruto and Ueno Kei had inflicted on him earlier left him unable to stand. He could only struggle forward, crawling laboriously toward where Zabuza had fallen.
Haku slowly dragged his badly wounded body toward Zabuza's prone form.
Though the distance was less than a meter—something an ordinary person could walk in a minute or two—it seemed unimaginably far to Haku at that moment.
Slowly, when Haku finally drew close to Zabuza, he stretched out his trembling hands and embraced Zabuza's body. He looked at Zabuza's tightly shut eyes and silent face, as though Zabuza had lost his soul and only an empty shell remained.
Haku's tears began flowing uncontrollably once more.
"Zabuza-sama..." Haku murmured softly. In a daze, it felt as if he had returned to that cold night more than a decade ago, when Zabuza had stood before a thin little girl.
He had gazed coldly at that girl. Yet those words that sounded so heartless to others had been so gentle in that girl's heart.
What Haku