"...and then he ran forward, his arms broken, just cutting through all the thugs! I gotta admit, I almost puked my lunch, but when he cut off Gato's head I felt a thousand times better!" The bridge builder was recounting the same tale this night as well, already lightly buzzed. He was surrounded by fellow builders, men of all ages united in their celebration of their country's freedom. A man wearing a heavy cloak sat slightly apart from the group, but it was clear that he was still listening in.
The bridge builder smiled wistfully. "Those Konoha ninja were really something else." He said, remembering how they had fought to protect him even after he admitted he lied about the mission. They were good kids, and Tazuna almost wished that they would get out of the shinobi business. He couldn't understand it as a civilian, but he didn't like how kids so young were trained to kill people. "Even after all that fighting against Zabuza, they still buried him. They respect the dead, those Konoha ninja. The heroes of Wave!" He added at the end, raising his drink in the air in happiness, before downing it in unison with most of the bar goers.
The cloaked man pointed his head to Tazuna, clearly interested at this bit of information that had been left out the previous nights. "You said..." he began, his voice deep and rough. His left hand was tapping the table, a rough calloused hand that showed a past of hard work. Black hair peaked out from his hood, which shadowed the rest of his face. "You said...they buried Zabuza?" He continued, posing the question as though it didn't really matter, though his posture - edging slowly forward, almost eager to hear the answer - gave him away. At least, to a trained shinobi, it would have.
But Tazuna was not a trained shinobi. He was all too happy to give the location of Zabuza's grave in his drunken stupor, and went straight back to yet another retelling of the 'Miracle at the Bridge' to his attentive coworkers, completely ignorant of the man's quick exit from the bar.
The man walked through the main village of Wave, amazed at the change that had come over the past week. He had passed through the village years ago, when Gato's reign was in full effect. The village then had been depressing, as if everyone living there were just walking corpses, waiting to fall for good. Now it looked like everyone was fighting not to grin wildly, with some of the merchants even handing out free food, just because. One of them, a woman working at a fruit stand, even gave an apple to the cloaked man, smiling happily at him despite him utterly dwarfing her. Muttering a 'thank you', and awkwardly shifting for a second, the man continued on as the woman turned her attention to some kids.
Tossing the apple with his left hand, he eventually took a bite of it, feeling its juices run down his mouth. It was pretty fresh, which the man accounted to all the trade routes that Wave was the focal point of. They must have gotten tons of supplies from their trade partners to help in the rebuilding after the suffering they faced under Gato. Finishing his apple, he tossed the core into the grass. It would feed the worms now, he thinks, though he has to admit that his knowledge of what worms eat was pretty lacking. Dirt or something?
The right side of his body twitched, and he stomached his sudden discomfort. His left hand clenched into a fist, and he stood at the exit of town with saying a word. The moment passed, and his hand unclenched, allowing blood to drip from where his nails had pierced the skin.
He wouldn't do it. Not here. Not when they finally had hope.
He continued his large strides until he reached a hill overlooking the large bridge. It looked beautiful from this distance, a sign that hope could be found no matter what. The man smiled underneath his cloak, which only widened when he saw the large Zanbato sticking out of the ground at the site of two graves lying side by side.
The man knelt down, muttering a one handed prayer. He wouldn't bring his right side into it; he felt that such a thing would only corrupt the honest wishes he had for these two to find peace. Standing back up, he finally raised his right hand forward, gripping the handle of the Zanbato with a sickly grey scaled hand. A gust of cold wind blew the hood off of his face, revealing the right side of his face was grey, with a golden eye and black sclera. The left side of his face looked noticeably calmer and more human, with a light brown eye. Dark hair hung around his face, seeming almost like a mane with how it continued down into the cloak.
He lifted the Zanbato into the air with seemingly no effort, and began laughing wildly. The grey skin began to spread across his face, almost completely covering it, before he slammed the sword back into the ground, taking deep breaths until the grey skin reverted back to only covering half of his body.
"Two out of seven..." He whispered, strapping the zanbato to his back, setting off into a different direction than where he came. "I won't rest until I gather them all."
There was a war in Kiri.
A Civil War, to be more specific, between those who supported the current Mizukage and those who fought to free Kiri from his rule. There was supposedly more issues involved, that of hatred against those with Kekkai Genkai, but it was minor and merely helped fan the flames. The ANBU hiding in the trees didn't care one way or another what started the war. All he cared about was his mission, the one assigned to him by his sensei. She had chosen to go against Yagura, and the now ex-ANBU agent had agreed to serve her.
He remembered back when he had been a genin, when he had been happy to be serving Kirigakure. He had risen through the ranks, becoming an ANBU and casting his old name of 'Izaya' away, becoming just another masked shinobi fulfilling the Mizukage's will. But then his sensei had approached him, used the name he hadn't heard in years, and he found himself serving under that woman yet again.
Which was where he found himself now. Taking out Genin Teams, solely to cripple the current administration's ability to complete missions.
A faint trace of chakra appeared at the end of his senses, and he opened his eyes and prepared himself. He wasn't quite a competent sensor, but he could still get enough of a warning to set up the trap. A few handseals, and a large mist came from the air and surrounded the team on the ground.
The mist was something that all Kiri nin knew personally. They were expected to, considering it was what their damn village was named after. So all Kiri nin were expected to have at least basic skill in the Hiding in the Mist technique, and how to identify when it was being used against them.
So honestly, Izaya couldn't really say he expected for it to be as simple as just using the Silent Killing technique, which was why he was currently outside the mist, going through handseals. A Jounin jumped from the mist just as Izaya finished his last seal.
"Suiton: Water Spear." He said, firing a spear of water from just in front of his mouth. The spear flew faster than it had any right to, hitting the Jounin through the gut. Too easy. Izaya extended his senses out, trying to detect some type of trickery, before turning his attention back to the Jounin. The Jounin had fallen to the ground, and Izaya stalked forward, his ANBU mask covering his face. He was tall and slightly lanky, but as he casually pulled out his tanto from its sheathe, the Jonin bleeding out on the ground couldn't care less about what his attacker looked like. All he could do was sputter out half formed warnings to his team, as the tanto was jammed through his neck.
Izaya shifted the blade in the neck, slicing though in one motion. Blood spurted out in impressive amounts, and he sighed as some got onto his sandals. It was obvious that the supposed Jounin was just a Chunin who had been promoted beyond his station. With almost half of the eligible shinobi joining the Rebellion, the Mizukage was forced to promote slightly above average Chunin to bolster the ranks of Jounin. He began to wipe his tanto off on the Jounin's shirt, feeling as though he had forgotten something.
"Sensei!"
Ah, right. The Genin Team. He shrugged, pulling his still bloodied tanto away from the shirt, not willing to clean it if it was only going to get dirty yet again. He rushed through the mist, bringing his sword down upon a white haired boy. When the boy turned into water, Izaya channeled chakra into the blade, and sparks of lightning shot off of to electrocute the Hozuki clan member. The boy to the left was still running through handseals, far too slowly to make a difference. Izaya brought his sword up, cutting through the boy's hands and negating whatever jutsu he was attempting before it could even begin. The boy saw through the slits in his mask, into Izaya's uncaring eyes, and the ANBU decapitated him with a lazy swing of his blade.
Before the blood could reach him, the man had already set his sights on the girl, shaking in place. The quick deaths of her team had terrified her, and she could barely keep a grip on her kunai. Izaya briefly toyed with the idea of messing with her by giving the classic 'points of certain death' speech, but decided that he still had some standards left. When he reached the girl, he cut the base of her spine instead of going for a killing blow, and stood still as she fell to the ground, losing all feeling in her legs.
The girl was crying and screaming, begging for help, and Izaya groaned as he placed a calming genjutsu around her to shut her up. He would normally feel something about killing two genin and crippling the third for life, but these were Kiri genin under Yagura's command. As far as he was concerned, they lost any chance at mercy after choosing to become ninja under Yagura's rule.
He tossed the girl over his shoulder and set off, making no effort to clean up the scene of the battlefield. There was no point. Yagura would know it was the fault of the rebels no matter how well Izaya cleaned or planted false clues, and none of those punks were really worth a damn anyway to even attempt to study their bodies. They'd just lay there, forgotten, not even a footnote in the annals of Kirigakure history.
Honestly, it was too good a fate for them, but Izaya felt that doing such things would give him enough good karma to survive the civil war.
...maybe.
"Another failed mission, Tsuchimaru?! That's the third one this month!"
It was a familiar, if unwelcome, scene at the Tsuchikage's office. The diminutive form of the old Tsuchikage sat at his desk, frowning at a much younger man in front of him. An astute observer would notice quite a few similarities in their facial appearance, the most noticeable being the large nose on the younger man. While nowhere near as incredible as the Tsuchikage's massive schnozz, it was definitely not something you'd see walking down the street.
The younger man looked nervous, unwilling to make eye contact with the Tsuchikage. "Gramps...I mean, Tsuchikage-sama...I did my best." He said. It was an excuse that had been made too many times in the past
"Your best isn't good enough!" The Tsuchikage shot back. "As my sole grandson, you're expected to be a shining example of an Iwa Shinobi! But after all this time, you're still a Chunin, and you have more failed missions than not!" It was disappointing. The boy's younger sister was already a Jounin, and Onoki was forced to admit that if things kept progressing as they were, she would be the only viable choice for Tsuchikage despite her annoying attitude.
Onoki rubbed his forehead, trying to stave off a headache. "Just tell me how exactly you failed your mission."
It was supposed to be an easy one, even for a Chunin. A simple delivery. Some kind of art show had hired Iwa to help with transporting a caravan full of art goods to some backwater town on the border of Kumo. The pay was nothing special, honestly a bit low for a C-rank, but it seemed simple enough that Onoki though that Tsukimaru couldn't mess it up.
The news that the transport had been destroyed had not been expected in the slightest.
Tsuchimaru rubbed his gloved hands nervously. "Well...We got into some trouble in the Land of Frost. Some Suna-nin were looking to steal the goods for their own mission, and didn't expect to face Iwa nin. We got into a small skirmish..."
Onoki finished his sentence for him. "In which you, lacking awareness of your surroundings, launched an Explosive Fist only for your enemy to dodge, and for you to hit the caravan." That was the last thing you wanted to tell your clients; that your own ninja had destroyed the items they were hired to protect. It had definitely been a hit to Iwa's rep, minor though the mission had been.
The Tsuchikage sighed. "You're suspended for one week. During this time, you may not use any commodities available to only Shinobi. Do I make myself clear, Tsuchimaru?" He asked sternly. Tsuchimaru nodded, and placed his headband on the desk. Onoki noted with disappointment that the boy looked as though he were about to cry. "You may go."
Tsuchimaru wasted no time in leaving, not paying attention to anyone else in the Tsuchikage Tower. Taunts of 'No-Good Tsuchimaru' followed him out, and he ran back to his apartment faster than he'd thought possible. Locking the door behind him, he walked into his room and punched the wall, thankfully not putting any chakra into it.
Giving a bitter laugh that he had least had done something right, he sat down on the bed and held his head in his hands. Yet another failed mission by 'No-Good Tsuchimaru'. He scoffed, looking at some of the scars covering his bare arms. His service record wasn't that bad! It was actually slightly above average for a Chunin! But because he was the grandson of the Tsuchikage, people expected him to be able to shit out Dust Release at a moment's notice.
He frowned, and began removing his gloves. People always mocked him because he wasn't as good as his sister, or as great as that bastard Deidara.
'Look where praising that guy got them...he stole a Kinjutsu and blew up half the village!'.
Tossing the gloves aside, he looked at the mouths on his palms, and smiled.
'It doesn't matter if they call me "No-Good Tsuchimaru" or not. I'll protect this village!'
He walked over to the window, pulling open the curtain and looking across the stone buildings that made up Iwagakure. "And one day..." He said out loud. "I'll be a better Tsuchikage than Gramps."