to the past
There's an unpleasant, self-deprecating sort inanity in the pain of hating who you are (what you are—what you are to become—wait—you have already become it) - because your birth was a mistake that you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.
You block it out, and keep on living.
(Because you want out of the labels. You don't want your whole life crammed into a single, reprehensible, cursory, impalpable word. shinobi. Because this is you and this is me, but that's not all, now is it? You want something else, to be something else; something unfastened and intrinsic and basic and free. Something transcendent. An individual. Different. You don't know what it is or how to get it, but it's something that's not this.)
You know that there is something missing. (you wish you born as someone else, somewhere else, and with nothing more than desirable, all-consuming ignorance.) You hate your rampant intellectualism, but you use it as a coping mechanism to justify every death you've ever caused. (she deserved it—and—he was asking for it—and—I killed them because it was my job/life/everything.)You regret everything you've ever done. But this is who you are. They said when you were four years old: "You will be a killer," and that was that.
(Things like shinobi ethics don't exist, and there's nothing wrong with forcing a child into a role they don't want to play.)
But when you stand here at the precipice of death, and there is a ninja-boy (stupid-boy, killer-boy, crying-boy) screaming: "How can you not care?! He gave his life for you—his dreams!", and you realize that he is devaluing the life of this dead child for every single lost ambition he gave up on the way, the inanity returns. You stop blocking life out. Everything becomes undone. He didn't want this (Haku was always too soft and too kind—too everything), and neither did you. If you'd had a choice, you remember you would have liked to have been something different.
An individual.
But that choice died when you did. You dreamed a dream (let's stop this madness, Zaza', because this whole system is wrong), but somehow the only way to attain it was through stark, irreconcilable violence. Nobody would listen to reason. Everybody listened to tragedy. Your dream (of a normal life, one without violence) died the moment you slaughtered one, two—two hundred children. Your compassion died alongside with your dream.
Ninja-boy (stupid-boy, killer-boy, crying-boy) is still screaming (WAKE UP AND REMEMBER YOUR HUMANITY—YOUR DREAMS) and you do. Haku is dead. You remember your dream, and being eight years old and wishing your best friend didn't have to die because he was graduating. Haku is dead.
(Haku was always too soft and too kind—too everything. So was Suizei. Wait. Who is Suizei?)
"Let's stop this madness, Zaza', because this whole system is wrong."
Yes, you think. This whole system is wrong.
"Boy," you say, "give me your kunai."
Ninja-boy, stupid-boy, killer-boy, crying-boy, tosses you his blade, and you realize he isn't that stupid.
And this is how it will end.
He is seven when he meets a boy named Suizei. Just Suizei. Suizei always smiles (and he is beautiful, the child of a sun-god, with skin like liquid gold and hair of rusty iron).
The air of Kirigakure is always heavy with rain and blood and it will eat away at Suizei, changing him like a chemical reaction. By the time he is twelve years old, he is no longer beautiful, but sad. And this is what he loves about him. When he dies, and Suizei is still smiling, this is what he'll grow to hate.
Suizei tells him many things with his sun-bright smile (stupid things, funny things, things like he overcooked the rice last night and it was sticky and gross, or he found a stray cat this morning and fed it, so that's why he doesn't have a lunch—can I please have some of yours?), but the things he tells Zabuza when he is not smiling, the things that are not stupid or funny, are the things that concern him the most. Like when Suizei tells him he will never do anything that he wants. That he will always do what he doesn't want.
"It's what we do. We don't have a choice. You do what you're trained not to want. You do the things that scare you the most. At least here, in Kirigakure, you are."
And this frightens him. It makes him think. Because they are looking at the training grounds of last year's academy graduation ceremony, and the ground…well, the ground is not the color of the earth. The ground is red and terrible, and no matter how much it rains in Kirigakure, the color does not fade. This makes him think. And this frightens him.
So he asks (or would like to ask): "…will you do what scares you the most?" (Will you become a shinobi and kill people?) Because he can't really see Suizei holding a knife and slicing paper thin lines through the necks of strangers. Not Suizei. Beautiful Suizei, Suizei who lives alone and gives his food to stray animals and smiles even when it's raining.
He doesn't ask.
But then Suizei would say something stupid like: "Hey Zaza', that look on your face is making me sick; you look like a fish out of water! Let's go get some sashimi, okay?", and he would think Suizei was the most stupid boy in the world.
Later, Suizei smiles and says: "Hey Zaza', I joined the academy today!"
(He is seven years old when he meets a boy named Suizei. Just Suizei. He doesn't have a last name or a middle name, or a name he can remember, or even a family. He doesn't even have a sense of what a family is. His parents died when he was very young. Shinobi heroics are a terrible thing.
He asks Zabuza if family means love and Zabuza, in a moment of stupid disinterest, tells him "yes". Suizei says nothing and then Suizei suddenly declares that he shall never love because he does not have a family. Zabuza doesn't tell him that this is wrong, or that his notion of love is partially mistaken, because quite frankly he doesn't give a fuck—his own parents died too, long ago—and love is stupid and you can't love when you are a shinobi. So in a way, Suizei is right in not ever loving, and maybe, thinks Zabuza, just maybe this kid who he calls his friend will make a good ninja. These are the things he does not say, but Suizei goes on not loving people anyways. )
Zabuza says: "That's great, Suizei," and he can see Suizei's smile falter, just a crack, and he is seven years old and they can both see what Suizei really means.
"Hey Zaza', I joined the academy today" really translates to "Hey Zaza', I've just thrown my life away", and "That's great, Suizei" really means "You're a fucking idiot", but it doesn't really matter, because he didn't have a future to begin with. Neither of them did. They were both four years old when people said: "You will be a killer, because your parents were killers," and that was that.
Suizei's training starts now (he smiles, so bright and stupid), and he's surprisingly good.
But you can only hold a smile for so long, because after that it's just teeth.
Suizei is eleven years old when he tells Zabuza that everything about the system is wrong.
"Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against. But I don't want to kill, Zaza'. Why the fuck would I want to kill little kids?"
Zabuza thinks Suizei is a complete and total idiot and he wants to ask why the hell did you become a shinobi then? Why would you do something that you hate and something that makes you sick to your stomach and cry when nobody's around? Oh wait—you didn't have a choice. Zabuza doesn't ask and says: "You have to." Because it's the truth, and if he doesn't, then there's nothing left for him. He wants to remind him what he said to him when he was seven and Suizei was ten, about them never doing anything that they want to do, but that would be cruel (but true. Everything Suizei said was true.)
And Suizei (beautiful Suizei, talented Suizei, always-smiling Suizei) turns around and punches Zabuza in the face. Zabuza reels under the brute force of Suizei's hit and he falls back, hitting the ground, hard. Suizei is so talented—so strong. The teachers at the academy love him. They say he'll make a great killer.
"No I don't!" he says (yells, shouts, cries). "I don't have to. I don't want to. Zaza', don't you get it?!"
He wants to say, "Yes, I've always understood, that you're too soft and nice and kind—too everything, to be a killer. The moment you smiled at me and stupidly told me you'd never love anyone, I understood. But who do you love now, Suizei, that has made you change your mind?", but he doesn't and merely stands up, wiping the blood dribbling down from the corner of his mouth and stares.
"I can't do it, Zabuza," Suizei tells him, crying. "I can't kill someone."
(And what he doesn't say is how he witnessed a teacher at the academy kill a classmate when the kid cried after being forced to fight his brother. Nobody who is weak in ways like that is allowed to live. They have a system to upkeep. Killers to train; dreams to destroy. )
The air of Kirigakure is always heavy with rain and blood and it will eat away at Suizei, changing him like a chemical reaction.
Suizei has just turned twelve (his birthday was yesterday) when he tells him he's going to die.
Suizei smiles (he's always smiling, that stupid Suizei) and Suizei tells him that everything about the system is wrong (I hate it. I hate this. I hate what we do) and that tomorrow he will kill or be killed, and if he could (i am what i am what i am and that is not you) he would kill everyone—yes, everyone—just to make a point.
"Everyone?" Zabuza asks. And he thinks to himself that everyone is a lot of people—a whole class—hundreds of them. Just kids. Nine and ten and eleven years old. All dead.
"Yes," Suizei says.
And it doesn't really register with him what Suizei is saying—or meaning to say—and he can't see the fear and hate and 'I never wanted to be this—a shinobi—scum—killer—murderer—this is all so wrong' filtering from his eyes. I won't kill little kids. Why the fuck didn't I ever have a real choice?
(Because in Kirigakure the air is always heavy with rain and blood and there really isn't a future that doesn't involve killing. Everyone is a bloodthirsty monster, and if you aren't one too, then you will be eaten.)
Zabuza says he doesn't understand (everyone is a lot of people—a whole class—hundreds of them. Just kids, Suizei. Nine and ten and eleven years old. Just. Like. Me.) and Suizei shakes him and he hits him, hard, across the face and he screams: "Don't you get it, Zaza'? Tomorrow I won't graduate. Tomorrow I will die. I won't kill anybody. I can't kill anybody. This whole system is stupid and this is what it leads to!"
Zabuza doesn't cry or say, "You're an idiot!", or even say, "You're the best friend I've ever had."
He just says, numbly, stupidly: "You have to. You have to kill whoever you fight against. You have to graduate." (Fight or die, you fucking idiot. FIGHT.)
Suizei laughs, and for the first time in years he smiles, a real smile, not just teeth and fake emotions to hide what he's really feeling.
"We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are, Zaza'...or we can decide for ourselves. I'm not a real shinobi."
Suizei leaves and Zabuza, who is supposed to start his training at the academy next week, picks up the blade Suizei won't fight with and thinks.
It is a complete and unequivocal bloodbath. Suizei is dead. Everyone is dead.
One, two—two hundred children gone. Bloody corpses splayed elegantly in poses befitting of terrified children who screamed and shouted and cried when kunai blades marked their necks for death. And when they ask why, why he did it, he tells them: "I killed them to feel good about myself. Just the fact that I am breathing is enough." Which is a terrible lie.
He killed them all—even Suizei—for Suizei.
Because this system is wrong. But after this—this terrible, terrible tragedy, the massacre of graduation day ceases to exist.
(One day, he thinks. I'll change it all. One day, the air of Kirigakure is always heavy with rain, but not blood. I'll chase away the monsters.)
He remembers Suizei's last words; the words after he asked (begged) him to fight back, please, just once. You want something; a future, something else. This is your dream. Suizei. Please.
"I'm not you, Zabuza..."
"Suizei..."
"Zaza'?"
"Yeah, Suizei?"
"I love you, Zaza'. Remember that."
Smile.
Teeth, covered in blood. Reality. Grinning. Dead.
You are clear-cutting a hole straight through Gato's chest when you realize your dream is dying. It always has been. You wanted to go back, just so you could change the system and stop the madness. Kirigakure is full of monsters, and yet your one of them. You failed the first time. And now, there won't be a next time. Haku is dead. Suizei is dead. You are soon to be dead. The air of Kirigakure is still heavy with rain and blood and it ate away at you, much like it did Suizui. Suizui died (you killed Suizui, much like you killed Haku) to change that. But nothing really changed. No, not really. Because killing for peace doesn't make much sense, now does it?
You are still a shinobi (Suizui was a shinobi to the day he died) and killing people just begets more killing. You never wanted this. You never wanted any of this. You only wanted what Suizei wanted.
Because there is an unpleasant, self-deprecating sort inanity in the pain of hating who you are (what you are—what you are to become—wait—you have already become it) - because your birth was a mistake that you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.
(After Suizei died, you blocked it out. You found Haku instead. His smile reminded you of Suizei. How nice.)
But right now, with ninja-boy screaming, and Gato grinning, you have a choice. Your first ever. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. You choose—well, you choose the only option there ever has been to correct your terrible, miserable existence in this world.
(Yet no matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.)
After that, there is nothing but the memory of "I love you" and these are all the reasons why.
end
AN: I am forcefully being made to dedicate this to evangelinefyre, who apparently gave me the idea (er...motivation?) to write a story about Zabuza. She is also the one who edited this. Thank-you. Anyways. For those who are unaware, in the manga, Zabuza killed an entire graduating academy class when he was nine years old. Tradition in Kirigakure dictated that the class was pitted with two on two fights to the death, leaving only half to graduate. After the massacre that Zabuza caused however, the tradition was banned. Thoughts? Comments? Feeeeelings? Leave a review and let me know.