I do not own Naruto. It is a little short, but this is my first fic, so baby steps. Rated M for safety.
Chapter 1: Waves
Waves were all he had known up until this point. Born on the shore, he grew up on the water. The waves gave him food, and food meant life; the waves were his life...until they were ripped away by the tides made by a single man. The same man who casts a long shadow from his short frame.
The waves were once his family and friends. His home. But all of them were washed away by the tides that he knew so well. The high tide crushed his family against the rocks that lined the shore, and the low tide dragged his friends into the sea. They were once exhausted, but now they were able to sleep.
While the waves once meant life for the boy, now they meant death. So he ran from them. Ashamed and a coward he ran. Ran from his grandfather, mother, and worst of all, his father.
They were all gone now anyways. That was just an excuse. They were gone because he left them.
He was afraid.
"Never again," these two words that he uttered held within them meaning as vast as the very seas from which he came.
Never again would he be afraid. Never again would he run when those he loved stayed behind. Never again would he be weak and worthless. Never again would he let those precious to him die while he did nothing but run away. Never again...never again.
"If something is truly important to you… even it's heart-breaking, even if it's sorrowful… you keep on trying and trying, even if you lose your life, you keep on protecting it with these two arms! …Then, even if you die, you leave behind the proof that you are a man… forever…"
He was no such man; he was just some brat. A coward. But he would bare the pain, the shame, the guilt, with his two arms. And then never again. One day, he would become strong. He would become the man his father believed that he could be. Even if it cost him his life.
The short man with a long shadow grinned maliciously. Wave was finally his; there was nothing standing in his way. No bridge, no builder, and, best of all, no hope.
Kaiza and his two arms? Shattered. Just like how the hope that he represented.
Tazuna, the bridge builder, birought some of that hope back. But where was he? Blown apart along with his bridge. As his head was severed off his shoulders, so that hope went with it.
Nothing stood in his way. Well almost nothing. Just two loose ends that needed to be dealt with.
"Sorry demon of the mist, its just good business," though his voice was devoid of any apology or sincerity as he puffed his smoldering cigar, the only light in the streets of Wave, sans the stars. It was a perfect night; a new moon to mark a new leaf turned over by the Gato Corporation. And like so many of the pages before it, this one was soaked in blood.
The two loose ends stood there motionless, haggard in appearance and manner. The battle they fought to rid Wave of all hope appearing to have taken its toll.
Gato grinned. It was already over.
Flicking the stub of his cigar away, he grunted and turned to his army of sell-swords and thugs, preparing himself for the show.
The moment the butt of his cigar touched the dirt of Wave's main road, heads flew.