Bad conscience, a one shot regarding Zabuza's sensei
It hadn't been his fault that "he" had turned out the way "he" did, "he" had already started on that road when he became "his" sensei.
His name is Sa-do Toushou, third generation grand weapons-smith of Kirigakure.
He had been in his thirties when he had watched the massacre. Normally the graduation was considered a favoured annual event where the future genin would be fighting each other in mortal combat, during which each individual one would be judged by the assembled jonin and the higher class in the village.
Sa-do was, and still is, part of the higher class, he had finished training his last team, which had all defected and taken the path of Missing-nin a few months prior. How did it come to be that all his students ended up as missing-nin and traitors?
His subsequent depression had become a serious annoyance by the aging Choku Wani, his usual drinking/discussion/training/shogi partner of the mizukage's council. Therefore the ancient one had dragged him out of the Toushou clan workshop to the graduation ritual.
Choku had been convinced that he might find someone worthy of being his new apprentices. That or he might get woken up by the young student's skill or just their will to live.
Sa-do had caved in and had taken seat next to Choku, there he had awaited the inevitable display of Kiri's barbarity as the other Villages put it.
But what he had seen still shook him to his core. A single child had gone on a rampage in the great fighting ring. The first 3 had been easy for "him", taking them by surprise, but the 105 others had been prepared for the assault, though shaken by the boy's skills with a kunai and a simple knife.
In a few minutes it was over, the boy sat there, knees to his chest panting and just staring out into nothingness.
No one had tried to stop him, no one had expected him to last more than a moment, it often happened that a child strayed into the training area and got killed. But this boy hadn't strayed, he had come with a purpose, he had wanted to kill, or die.
Everyone saw a fierce little demon in the boy
Sa-do had been the first to announce his intentions to be his sensei. He knew that this boy would grow up to be a useful tool for Kirigakure. Not to mention, was bound to become one of the seven swordsmen.
He knew that he needed to train him. And so he had done.
Sa-do had been pleased to teach the boy whom he learned was Zabuza Momochi.
Ironic that the child should be of that clan.
That there of their number should be one whom could kill and fight so fiercely, like a demon.
Genin
But he proved to be both willing and eager to learn the art of murder, he sucked up knowledge like a sponge sucked up water. His ambitiousness helped him, his pride and dreams forced him to move on even as his own family disowned him, called him a child of an Oni. Denying him as their clansman. Erasing his name from their lips, hearts and minds.
Sa-do had taken pity on the boy after he learned of that. Zabuza had outwardly seemed unchanged by being kicked out of the clan, but inwardly he was crying, he never showed it though, instead he buried his tears and kept on getting stronger.
He focussed his anger and sorrow into something, something even worse than before.
Chunin
He passed his Chunin exam without a hitch, not like the demon brothers, those too got punished severely for putting up such weak performance. Zabuza had spoken out then, reasoning that they could not fulfil their duty to the village if they only had one arm each. So they were spared, crippled until Sa-do fashioned their metal gauntlets, and they learned how to use them together. But they would never be able to perform jutsu again, their claws, poisoned or not, prevented them.
But they could still fight and more readily for Zabuza than any other, He started out with those two. And Sa-do had helped him.
An eternal shame for him as time would tell.
Jonin
His most prized student, a Jonin, a member of the seven swordsmen of the mist. Strong, merciless and willing to carry out any mission. When he was admitted into the ANBU Sa-do was even more proud. He had actually trained him into becoming the perfect tool for Kirigakure.
A mantra repeated for Zabuza so many times he repeated it in his sleep: you are a tool, you are a tool in the hands of the Mizukage. Without emotion, without hesitation, without mercy, when you have achieved this, then you are the perfect ninja. then you are the perfect tool.
Perhaps it was what made Zabuza follow the way of the rest of Sa-do's students. And even worse he had tried to take him with him in the fall. SA-do had turned it down, he had tried to steer Zabuza away from such thoughts, to rule the water country, to be Mizukage was not what Zabuza was meant to do. The Kijin, the fierce god of Kirigakure was meant to take lives, not to rule over them as their lord and master.
Sa-do had thought that the end of it, that Zabuza had abandoned his thoughts about ruling, especially now that he had taken in an apprentice, a little girl by the looks of it, but how wrong he was.
Zabuza continued weeks later, he said he would make the village strong, make it unbeatable, show the whole world what the bloody mist village was made of, real ninja, not the peace loving cowards the mainland was infested with.
He would use all resources he had said, from the kids on the street, whom had untold potential, according to him at least, to the Kekkei genkai clans.
Then Sa-do had sent him away, those clans were closed land, some still fought under the Banner of the mist, but others just kept a low profile and didn't trust the village and yet more choose to leave the country altogether, newer coming back and joining their enemies. Those clans were untrustworthy.
And then Zabuza had said something, something that spoke of an utter madness having infested his mind: "be kind to them, give them a home despite of what they have or may have done, they will accept that, they will be loyal to us then"
Sa-do had yet again sent him away, for good it seemed. He never saw Zabuza again. He heard that he had just set out to "take care of something" with his student before the Kaguya clan attack. Had he been present, he would have understood how little the bloodline clans could be trusted. He would have realised his madness then. But no.
Missing-nin
Sa-do hadn't seen it, he had only heard of it. A coup by Zabuza, involving several ninja from both ANBU and the regular Jonin and Chunin. He had gone on with his madness and taken many with him in the fall.
How could he have done it to the country, it had gone out of a civil war less than a decade prior and now he had jeopardizing the very peace which had given them the time to prosper.
In the end he had been unsuccessful, only a handful of his men had survived, him being the only Jonin. They had fled afterwards. Left the country, becoming travelling mercenaries, working for criminals and the like.
They were scum, dirt, nothing more than bugs. And he was to blame, but he was the only one who felt that. He was the only one who took the responsibility for it. The Mizukage had said that he was guiltless, that Zabuza already had been a loose cannon before entering his training. In time Sa-do accepted that as the truth, he was guiltless in his student's evil deeds.
But the thought always nagged him as he sat alone in his home, had he been to blame after all?
Or was it Zabuza whom had been too ambitious? Couldn't stop rising in the ranks, craving more and more control and power.
Had Zabuza tried to avoid being a tool like he had been trained to be, be the wielder of a knife and not the knife itself?
A foolish goal, ninja were tools not human beings; they strived to kill their emotions not to become something they weren't meant to be, humans.
Gone?
Sa-do eventually took a new set of students. He was keen let them be taught in their homes by their clan and not by him, he didn't want a repetition of the Zabuza incident. And with Zabuza's niece on the team, he couldn't take any chances. He would watch over her especially, which unfortunately meant that he would watch the other two less, but it was worth it, even when one of them fell to his doom in a ravine. He couldn't allow another Zabuza to emerge.
He couldn't bear the shame and the disgrace, not again. But especially the disappointment.
Each student he had trained he had shaped like he shaped the knives in his forge, thousands of hits with the hammer to remove all impurities. yet with so many before him, Zabuza might not have been of the right type of ore. Not right from the beginning.
the thoughts of Sa-do Toushou ladies and gentlemen, an OC that also feature in the future of another of my stories, (where as this is a part of the background story,)
started out on this ages ago and then forgot it, but its finnished now,
hope you enjoyed it, read and review
Sa means:difference, Variation, make and help in japanese
Do: counter for occurences
Sa-do: third
Toushou: swordsmith, but also frostbite and swordcut
a note of interest the "child of an Oni" is a japanese way of speaking, meaning that a child does not resemble its parents, in other words a child that doesn't take after its mother and father is not a humanbeing, fitting for what I have in mind for Zabuza in the future