Interlude: The Hydraean's Wrath
"First… there was the one who we name not. Next came Yosho, who rediscovered the art of butchery. Azusa… Azusa who… wielded two swords…"
Demon of the Hidden Mist. Heh.
Fitting, since I'm in fucking hell now.
Zabuza's vision swam as he strained to stay conscious, to stay focused. He spit out a sticky gob of crimson saliva and took a tight, controlled breath through his nose. An oppressive coppery odor filled the room. It was a scent that was very familiar to him by this point in his shinobi career. Very familiar, like a dear old friend coming to chat over a mug of beer.
Zabuza shifted slightly on the floor, and every single muscle shrieked in absolute agony as a thousand white hot knives ripped into him. His mind fogged over, and his treacherous shitpile of a meatsack swayed slightly, triggering a new wave of pain, this one much duller than the last.
He could feel his blood run in rivulets— hot and wet and sticky— onto the floor.
Whatever it takes.
Zabuza coughed up another gob of bloody spit and forced his lungs and voice and mouth to
cooperate damnit, as he recited the history of his sword, over and over. It was beaten into him, literally beaten into him, over the last few weeks, and now it stuck to his brain like grains of sand wedged between foot and sandal.
"First… there was...the one who we name not…"
I'm going to kill Yagura, Zabuza thought.
"Next came Yosho…"
I'm going to fucking kill him.
"...who rediscovered…"
He's already dead. He's already a fucking dead man.
"...the art of butchery."
I just haven't killed him yet.
Shards of molten metal continued to chip away at him.
o-o-o
The function room at Kurohige's was a damp closet in the back basement of the bar. It smelled like rotting fish and seaweed, and the walls were thick enough that you could fillet a shark alive inside and nobody would hear a squeak.
Which was perfect, because they were here to plot the murder of the Mizukage.
Zabuza sipped his glass of whiskey. Terumi Mei sipped at hers. She was hot shit, both literally and figuratively, given that she could weave a few handsigns and vomit out streams of molten lava as well as clouds of boiling steam. Having two bloodline limits that were compatible— and also in a way didn't result in the user killing themselves accidentally in their childhood— was rarer than a two headed fish. Rarer still was that Mei wasn't even from a proper Mist clan, the rumor on the street was that she was some orphaned babe that her (now long dead) chuunin mother picked up from somewhere in Hotsprings. There was a record of a minor clan there having the Boil Element, but the Lava Element was a complete unknown.
Barring Yagura, she was the strongest Mist ninja of their generation.
She was also a redhead.
"Is there anyone else we can count on?" Mei asked. "We're going to need a decent amount of support if any other combatants show up."
Zabuza thought for a moment.
"Haku will want to be there," Zabuza replied. "Gozu and Meizu can probably be convinced. We could set the three of them up to run interference alongside any assets you can bring to the table. Who do you got?"
"Mangetsu," Mei said, "and maybe one or two others."
Zabuza grunted. Hozuki Mangetsu was an up and coming chuunin that showed some serious promise. Not as on the ball as Haku, but that was a high bar to clear.
"Alright then," Zabuza said. "How do you want to do this?"
"Dead of night, attack the tower?"
"Mhm," Zabuza said. Vivid murder seeped into his thoughts, and some of it bled out as killing intent. Mei felt it and smirked in response.
He felt his sword stir.
Murder, blood, violence! the Executioner's Blade sang inside his head. He ignored it.
"Eager, are we?" Mei asked.
Zabuza paused, locking her eyes with a dead stare.
"You have no idea."
o-o-o
The two of them came in through the windows, enshrouded in a cloud of mist that his Water Clone produced, and preceded by a volley of Lava Bullets that Mei had spit out. The attack was perfect. The planning was perfect. The execution was perfect. There was no chance in hell of anything going wrong.
At least that's what Zabuza thought, seconds before it all went wrong.
His hands gripped his blade as he soared through the air, eyes locked onto the thin column of flesh, blood, and bone that was Yagura's neck. He'd behead the man in one swing.
Poetic fucking justice.
Yagura's hands were in motion the instant the glass of the window had broken. The Mizukage hadn't even bothered to get up from his desk, he just—
"Coral Element: Bastion Reef."
Pain.
Zabuza stopped in mid-air as every inch of himself collided with a jagged mass of coral that suddenly filled the Mizukage's office. The coral reef slammed into him and kept expanding outwards, pushing him up and away at considerable speed. He noticed idly as he flew backwards through the air that the growing reef collapsed the whole building.
His fall was broken by the roof of a smithy, a few city blocks away. A spire of rainbow coral towered over the village skyline. He shot to his feet, hefting his sword up. Yagura might have had the next best thing to a god sealed inside his stomach, but jinchuuriki or not, he was still just a pile of meat at the end of the day.
And the Executioner's Blade would cut through that meat effortlessly, and then he would be dead, Tailed Beast or not. The hard part was getting there.
Zabuza's eyes unfocused as he prepared himself for the sort of high-level combat where too much attention in one direction would leave him a bloody smear on the sidewalk. His vision took in all the details of his environment, and he tracked a flurry of watery orbs as they shot over the horizon towards his solar plexus. He hefted his sword and Blocked. Normal wielders of the Ultra Greatsword style knew that Blocking was a last resort option against a ninjutsu attack, since any ninjutsu worth its salt that
could be Blocked could probably rend a sword in twain, leaving you without a weapon in the best case scenario.
The Executioner's Blade was no normal sword, and it smote the water spheres out of the air effortlessly, without taking a scratch.
Kill, maim, destroy! howled the sword in the back of his mind.
Zabuza roared in agreement. He strode forward, the village blurring underneath his feet. He found his target a block away. Yagura was covered in a thin layer of spiky white coral and a shroud of reddish-black chakra that was tinged with blue here and there. Evidently the Mizukage had decided that there was no room to be fucking around.
I can play rough too, you greasy-haired cunt.
The Mizukage spat out a gob of greenish liquid at him, some acidic blob that would probably dissolve him in seconds and leave a pile of bones behind. Zabuza swept his sword up in a sweeping defensive gesture and Blocked that too, barely breaking stride.
Zabuza saw it in his mind's eye. He felt it in his bones, in his boiling blood, in his raging soul and his shining sword as he screamed forward. Today was the day.
I will kill you, Zabuza thought.
Right here and now, my blade is going to slice through you like a sushi knife gutting a fucking salmon.
A second later and he was within striking distance. Zabuza hefted his sword up, let out a roar so intense that it tore something in his throat and loosed blood and spittle out from behind his sharpened teeth, and brought the Executioner's Blade down on Yagura with every ounce of force his mighty physical form could muster. It bit down through the coral armor, sliced through the chakra shroud the Jinchuuriki wore underneath, and the edge sunk into the muscle and sinew of Yagura's upper torso and shoulder.
Yagura's eyes widened in surprise.
"Take that, you piece of shit stupid-haircut-having motherfu— "
A tail emerged from the shroud and sideswiped him. Zabuza was thrown to the side by the force of the blow, as his sword spun off uselessly into the distance. He could feel his left arm, something wasn't right. Was it broken? A torn ligament?
Something wasn't working in the limb anymore. His ribs seemed a little creaky too...
Shit, Zabuza thought, his undying rage brought down to a burning simmer.
I guess I'm fucked then. I can probably still rip his throat out if I can get up close. Maybe use my teeth?
Yagura inhaled deeply, probably getting ready to drown him with another acid glob, before he was seized in the jaws of a giant water dragon that came rushing out of
nowhere. The water ninjutsu surged forward over one of the street's buildings, and the Mizukage soared high up and out of view with it. Probably landing far enough away that they'd have to hunt him down and fight through a pile of loyal Mist ninja at this point.
Water Dragon Bullet was one of Soichiro-sensei's specials. Stood to reason then that his master had shown up to help in the nick of time, sending Yagura a quarter of the way across the city in the process.
Stupid drunken masters meddling in their student's revenge plots.
Mei is probably dead, shame. I wonder if Haku is still alive? Kid deserves better than to die to a horde of nobodies.
"What in the
absolute fuck are you doing!?" Master yelled. He looked kinda mad. Why was he being such a grumpy fuck?
Sprinkles of debris fell off his flak jacket as Zabuza hauled himself up off the ground.
"Trying to assassinate this piece of shit."
"I can
see that," his master barked, "but did you morons actually have a plan other than 'hit him real fuckin' good'?"
Zabuza grunted. "Mei was going to blast him with some ninjutsu and then I'd take his head off, or slice off a limb and—"
"He's a Jinchuuriki, dipshit! If you hack off a limb he'll just grow a new one and shank the old one in-between yer ribs!"
Zabuza blinked.
Huh. News to me.
"And another thing, you didn't think to maybe let your
incredibly fuckin strong mentor in on this little bit of treason?" Soichiro-sensei spat a thick one out to the side. "I know I'm getting old, son, but we probably could've done
something other than get you and a bunch of yer friends killed."
Ouch. That hit hard. They underestimated the bastard's capabilities a bit (who would've ever figured that Yagura could make a six story tall spire of coral the size of a city block?), but…
…
Shapes flickered in the distance as the city-wide emergency gongs started up. Soichiro dropped into a guard stance.
"Get yer get-up-and-go back up into gear and get the fuck out of the country," Soichiro said. "If you head out now I'll be able to hold them."
What?? No!
"Fuck that," Zabuza snarled. "No way I'm leaving you to die now too."
"DO YOU WANT ANOTHER SHOT AT THE CUNT OR NOT!?" Soichiro yelled. "It's get leaving or get dyin', make a choice kid."
Zabuza weighed the options.
There wasn't much weighing to do. If he was well and truly fucked now, then he'd have to leave this rotting cesspit of a village and come back later to finish the job. He'd need more training, more experience, more power. He needed assistance, people that Yagura wouldn't be able to turn into mincemeat, teammates that could go toe to toe with a bijuu, maybe. He'd need…
Where's my sword? Zabuza blinked.
"The sword, I need to go find— "
"Were you paying
any attention the last month!? You
can't lose the damn sword. Now fuck off outta here!"
Zabuza turned on his heels and ran.
o-o-o
Soichiro gasped desperately. He was in bad straits, though he wouldn't let the bastards know it.
A squad of Mist ANBU lay dead at his feet. Another two squads surrounded him, eyeing him with the same trepidation and anxious anticipation a handful of genin would eye a giant sea snake. He might have been able to take them, if he was fresh out of the gate. Maybe if he hadn't gotten that knee injury last year fighting Jiraiya of the Three. He could certainly do it, if only he had his sword…
Shame.
The sound of a pair of hands clapping split the night as a short figure in an evening robe stepped into view. He was accompanied by a jounin Wakahisa holding an unconscious ANBU— Haru? Haku? One of those was the kid's name
— and another barrel of ANBU.
Soichiro squinted.
"Ah, Mori." Soichiro said, "I should have fuckin' guessed. This one of yer shellfish traps?"
Mori Yamato, the clan head of Mist's most brilliant family of strategically-inclined bastards, was far too professional to laugh while he was on the job. Or off the job. Instead he smirked ever so slightly.
"Well, I suppose it was one of the options on the table," Mori said. The man waved a hand. "But it was certainly an opportunity. Hoshigake Sandayū unfortunately died valiantly in the chaos, you see. I'm sure the new leader of the swordsmen will be able to fill his shoes."
Soichiro felt his blood boil over, but he kept himself under control. He narrowed his eyes.
"I'm sure yer real eager for me to take a swing at ya for that one, shogi boy" Soichiro said. "So, I'm not gonna."
Mori's smirk stayed on his face.
"Consider this," Mori said, holding up a hand towards the unconscious Mist ANBU in a demonstrative gesture that wouldn't be out of place in an academy instructor's lecture. "I have your pupil's apprentice right here. I'm sure he'll be a choice piece of bait for the lobster trap we're going to be setting in the future for him. Don't you think? Of course, I think you have enough fight left in you to take him out before you're neutralized. It's an option. So is surrendering."
Soichiro grunted. His eyes scanned the crowd of ninja for movement, but not a single person twitched so much as a muscle.
"Unfortunately for you," Mori continued, "only one of those options will take out the remaining leverage we have to play against your student. So the game gets predictable from here. Do you want to play it out, or would you rather we skip to the end?"
He's fuckin' toyin with me, is he?
No, wait.
Soichiro's gut analyzed the situation. It said that something wasn't quite right with it. His mind took over, and after some amount of mulling it over, he saw the trap.
They'd capture him no matter what, and torture all sorts of information out of his rotting half-corpse that they probably hadn't been able to get out of Sandayū. Then they'd string him up like a freshly gut swordfish and use him as bait to draw Zabuza back. They'd do the same if they had Haku alive, only they wouldn't be able to get their grubby paws on any of the knowledge about the swords.
Either way you cut it, he lost.
Unless...
For a moment, the silence was thick enough to slice with a kunai. The apprehension and killing intent and anxiety and sheer
adrenaline permeating the air was almost strong enough to be a physical force. Like gravity, or the ever changing tides.
But that moment passed.
"Fuck you," Soichiro spat. He smiled, showing off some particularly sharp teeth. "Ain't gonna play your games."
He took his practice sword — the only sword that he owned now — and spun it around to face himself as quick as a riptide. At the peak of the blade's acceleration, he twisted unnaturally and slammed the edge into his own neck.
Well, this is it. Time to head to the great distillery under the waves.
Never liked this fuckin' place much, anyways.
AN:
Kakashi knows the very broad summary of the fight scenes in this interlude, and does not have direct access to any of the details that aren't publicly known (no PoV internal monologue info, etc.). Voting remains closed.