At Any Cost Chapter 10, a naruto fanfic

Author Note: I have a question for everyone. When I read a new story (new to me but already like seven plus chapters into it for the author) I read the author notes in the first chapter and skim the ones in the last posted chapter. Conversely if I'm reading a story from when it starts onward, I'll read all the author notes. Is this normal? Do you all do the same? If you don't read the note, how would you know the questions unless (Islagatt's head explodes at this moment).

Ohh… t3h suckage…

Aidis: And now we have the pleasure of reading a chapter written by a headless author!

At Any Cost

Chapter Ten

All fun and games 'til someone loses a limb.

Standing on a sandy, frigidly cold beach of Wave country's primary archipelago, a blonde ninja glared harshly at the water before him. The damp sand stretching behind him made it evident the tide was out at that particular moment, and the ninja's own dampness suggested he'd been standing in the water when it was at high tide. This was not entirely correct, but it was a similar idea…

With a strangled sound of exhaustion and pain, Naruto reached deeply into his chakra reserves, into the Kyuubi's reserves, and drew it out. The seal over his stomach ejected the demon's energy, throwing it into the air around the blonde before it turned and fell back over his form in a potent aura. Narrowing his eyes against the pain, he pushed the chakra into the water and stepped forward.

Three days before that, Tazuna had led the party forward at a sedate pace. For some this would have been a challenging pace for a pleasant walk, but the four behind him were ninja, even if the jounin was a bit tired and the angsting blonde was burned out this pace was meaningless to them. The old man himself was in excellent physical condition thanks to his years of strenuous physical labor, even now in his graying twilight, he was super-fit.

He paused as they walked, and the ninja halted with him, allowing him to explain his sudden hesitation and the outstretched arm indicating the hillock just ahead. "We're not far from the boat now, once we're aboard we all need to be super-quiet or we might get heard. I'm not worried at this point but if Gatou catches my friend there, he'll be in super-trouble." The ninja, though still twitching at the overused out-of-style vernacular, nodded resolutely. Naruto just ignored him. (A1)

The group advanced and the thickening mist seemed to swallow the group up as they descended the other side of the hill, halfway down the ground became sand, and the slope eased off. Tazuna felt the shift and instinctively his steps became lighter, to the point where Sakura and Naruto had a hard time hearing them anymore. Kakashi himself was inwardly impressed by the old man's ability at silence. Although, he chalked it up to having lived in the mist most of his life and having to hunt mostly by sound.

He'd have been half-right in that assessment, as it was, Tazuna stepped quietly and quickly mostly because ships belonging to Gatou had, since first arriving, stolen and kidnapped things and people from shore when they heard them, or just killed people. The incidents were casually written off as hunting accidents at first, the old man's fists curled as he recalled those times, the men found guilty of involvement in those cases had been disbanded from their roles, some even punished openly.

As Gatou's stranglehold on the Wave economy grew though, the incidents took a new tone, now being labeled as terrorist acts against his property, and asserted that his men were doing proper work in defending his assets. Those involved were either ignored, or praised lavishly. It had gotten such that even old men like himself now knew how to silently walk on the sand and hide from sailors, they had to, there were no options. In a sadistic and slightly ironic way though, it had helped the survivors of Wave.

His reverie was cut short when he heard the lapping water against a wooden hull. Frowning slightly, he recognized it was still too far from shore, he couldn't be sure if it was his accomplice or not yet. He reached into a pocket and threw one, then two, then three stones into the water. After a moment, there was sound of a stone hitting the sand, then a second, then a third. Sakura looked up at the bridge builder with confusion in her eyes and prodded him lightly.

"Uhm, Tazuna-san, what are you doing?" The old man looked back at her before deciding whether to answer or not.

With a slight shrug he decided there was no reason not to enlighten her, and began his tale. "Well, when we hear a boat out on the water, we don't know if it's Gatou's or a villager's, so we throw out stones to attract attention. Since we have to be super-cautious on shore nowadays, if we don't hear answering stones from the boat, we get to cover before the sailors find us. If the boat answers with more stones, then it's a villager and all is clear." He stepped into the sea-water until it was up to his shins and then reached out to the boat that came up to the shore. He motioned for the ninja to clamber aboard and they complied swiftly, the air of danger compelling them to use all their skills in silence. Even the blonde, in spite of his sullen state and horrid skills, was soft enough to be just heard as he boarded.

Making sure they were aboard safely, the old man pushed the boat back out into the water and swung himself onto one of the benches, seemingly unbothered by the un-seasonal chill in the air and his soaked legs. Tazuna shifted in his seat as the boat eased away from shore, regarding the man at the engine with a cautious look.

The other man seemed to catch the unspoken questions and raised a hand defensively. "We're going to swing by the cove for a few hours, when it's dark we'll make a run for one of the abandoned ports." The old man nodded slowly and turned forward again.

The cove was an out-of-the-way little bay, some ways into the mainland's marsh-forest without having gotten too far from the sea. They hadn't been there long when the noontime sun had scattered the mists. Naruto was sleeping now, having become bored by his brooding and being angry with his tenant. Sakura and Sasuke were keeping alert while their sensei seemed as focused as ever on his book. Seeing how little was going on, Sasuke decided to gather more information.

"Tazuna-san, you said the shores were dangerous now, because of Gatou's sailors. What did you mean by that?" The bridge builder looked up at him, startled from his rice ball lunch, he considered the question while he munched on the sticky meal and finally, with a swallow and a long draught from a jug that was definitely not liquor, he answered.

"Gatou's people are super-twisted. When they first started around here, they would steal from people on the shores, threaten them with spears 'n' such. After a while though, they started kidnapping people and killing them where they were found on the shores…" He closed his eyes for a long moment. And then his accomplice picked up the story.

"A lot of men and women and even some children vanished, we think they're being used for one purpose or another on the ships, slave-labor you know. There's nothing we can do about it though… People who try to investigate or ask questions get rounded up and stuck in corporate prisons." The younger man looked to the bridge builder, who seemed very small at that moment, the lines in his face were deep and his eyes were distant, unfocused. Sasuke felt something in him twist as he heard about what Gatou was doing to this country and a dark look passed over his face.

Sakura herself was distraught over the actions, though she seemed more horrified and less righteously indignant than her crush. She noticed, on some level that Naruto had cracked open an eye and listened to the story, though he showed no reaction. Kakashi was of a similar state to Naruto, simply reading his book, although the latter for having witnessed worse atrocities many times over. The blonde had no real excuse besides his general disdain for human life.

Uchiha Sasuke found himself deciding then and there hat he actually hated Gatou and his bastards far more than he hated his brother. When he realized it, he verged on scolding himself before thinking better of it. (1)

The boat slipped forward through the night, the water surrounding them was not shrouded by the mists, but instead was inky black, like oil. The gibbous moon overhead shone pale light over the flow, but a slight genjutsu had them covered from sight. Soon enough the abandoned pier loomed before them and Kakashi released his genjutsu. He took in the tattered and broken boats, still fettered to the rotten wood like so many leaches, although they looked as dead as their host in this case.

Tazuna hated seeing the abandoned piers, because he knew the people who had owned the remaining boats. He missed those people, and he hated the guilty thankfulness he felt whenever he thought about their being gone. If they had been here, then the foodstuffs they had would never have been enough, they were nearly at the malnutrition point already and if there were any more mouths to feed the village would begin to starve within a year. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, pushing those thoughts away as they bid their driver farewell and marched down the pier towards his home.

His anguish didn't go unnoticed of course, Uchiha Sasuke, rapidly forgetting about Itachi, felt his ire stirred into a greater blaze by the obvious pain this old man was suffering. Empathy wasn't something Sasuke was used to indulging in, but the somewhat obsessive ninja had never been willing to do anything halfway. Kakashi seemed to notice the way his fists were tightening, this piqued his curiosity primarily because he had expected Sakura to be the only one actually affected by the suffering of Wave country, but apparently Sasuke was still very humane.

Hatake Kakashi wasn't sure whether to dissuade the boy for his own sake or encourage him for the village's. (2)

The beach fell away behind the group, advancing as they were in the dead of night, there should have been some problem being silent. However, being four ninja and a grizzled old man used to having to move about in darkness, there weren't any real issues. The tension in the air however, slew any brewing thoughts of conversation any might have had, and the only sounds were Tazuna's (3) clamorous footfalls and the distant, ever fading sound of the water lapping against the sandy shores.

'Ere long lights came into view, their soft luminescence at first mere blobs, Naruto stared at them for longer than the rest of the group and they were considerably closer before the light cast enough ambience for him to realize it was a home. Obviously a home waiting for someone to arrive, the blonde ninja figured that this was probably where they were going to. He was, however, proven wrong when they passed by the house a thirty-something woman, whose face seemed ten years older and whose eyes didn't seem to focus right, waved absently at Tazuna before she resumed her silent staring.

The old man waved back, but by the time he did she was no longer looking at them. He sighed heavily and continued on. Sakura looked at the woman confusedly and then looked back to their charge. "Uhm, Tazuna-san, who was that woman?"

The old man grimaced slightly, he hated talking about the people he knew in Wave… Predicting the cowardice in his heart and bones, he reached into his vest pocket, withdrawing a beaten, oxidized flask and brought it to his lips. "Megumi, she and her husband married a while back, but after Gatou's men arrived he disappeared." Another draught and the chemical courage burned its way down his gullet, he slipped it away, deciding he was sufficiently numb for the telling. "They were deeply in love, seemed like they were on the trend upwards too, sweethearts as children, throughout most of their youths. Even so they took the time to make sure that they were stable enough for a family, and making sure the other was the right one them. Touching and mature huh?"

Sasuke grimaced, he knew where this was going and he really didn't want to listen to it, he wished that he himself had a little flask of liquor. Not that there wasn't plenty in the estate left…

"He went out to fish one day, and no one ever saw him again. Just vanished into the mist. They never even found his boat, so Megumi stands there every night, waiting for him. It's been almost a year now… She doesn't really have much left in her." He shook his head and pulled his hat forward a bit. Sakura was openly crying at this, the horrible story was appalling to the romantic young woman, yet at the same time it was appealing for the woman's familiar devotion to her chosen (Sakura carefully ignored the fact that she was at the same time not in the least devoted to either Naruto or Sasuke, and in fact wanted them both for little more than their looks).

Sasuke glanced to Naruto from the corner of his eye and found the blonde staring straight ahead, face clear of any emotion but smoldering anger. He couldn't still be upset about losing? The anger wasn't proper for the story, so Naruto wasn't even affected by it, this in turn pissed Sasuke off to no measurable end. Maybe he could beat Sasuke into a hospitalized state with almost no effort, but that didn't matter- the prick needed to get his worthless ass beaten down if he could just ignore innocent people suffering around him.

Tazuna unconsciously saved the raven-haired genin's life when he announced their arrival. Sasuke quickly looked up and took in the building before them. Two floors, lower floor with a jutting forward room and patio, a window to the second floor above the patio's roof, a short bridge over a thin strip of water, ritzy considering the times and the country, built by the people who lived there obviously. The bridge-builder had mentioned a daughter and grandson, though not a son-in-law, so the grandchild's father was likely taken or dead. Either way he wasn't likely to be the sociable sort.

Well… at least I haven't been spoiled on normalcy… Sasuke thought ruefully.

The ninja and bridge-builder quietly slipped into the house, the old man explained that the other two were likely to be asleep already and that they should simply set up in the guest rooms. With a minimum of noise, the two boys and one man set up in one room, cramped though it was, and Sakura (despite her protests that Naruto or Sasuke could sleep with her (Naruto had instantly begun to giggle at the insinuation) was spreading out a futon in the last guest room. Tazuna had retired shortly after identifying the places of what they'd need.

Sasuke, thankful for something besides dirt to sleep on was out like a light. Kakashi was gone not much after, still tired from overusing his Sharingan. Naruto, however stayed awake a bit longer. He was unable to sleep, a new place, the fact that he lost, these things pressed in on his mind. Very quietly, he got up, went to his pack and rummaged through it, finding what he sought after a few moments, he returned to his mat and sprawled out again under as many blankets as he could find or improvise.

Ninja were stealthy, silent even, able to endure any hardship and ignore any pain, it was in their charter to be paragons physical virtue. Thus, a good shinobi like Sasuke didn't much mind the cold, he had but a single thin blanket over him while he slept. He paid for it when he woke and threw it off of him, wincing at the sudden shock of pain in his muscles and joints. On the plus side, his spine didn't ache today. Well… Not as much.

He stretched painfully, trying to wrench his shoulder back into position, and glanced to the other two mats in the room. Kakashi's was folded up and left against the wall, which surprised Sasuke, he'd figured the jounin's punctuality would only be rivaled by his cleanliness. Naruto, however was still there, and under a pile of blankets. Snorting slightly, he kicked at the blanket-pile to try and wake his teammate up.

Any ninja had to be a light sleeper, so Sasuke expected him to spring up and attack him for the disturbance. However, Naruto did nothing, so he tried again, and again, each kick a little stronger than the last. Finally it seemed to get through to him and the blonde muttered and mumbled, shifting slightly. Thinking his efforts were successful, Sasuke was surprised when

Naruto only turned over and went back to sleep.

He was about to kick him in the head when he noticed the blonde was holding something. He contained a malicious smile as he thought that perhaps it was a teddy bear or some similar thing that could be made fun of, and was surprised when it turned out to be a hitai-ate. Not his own, for that was over his forehead, but one nonetheless important if the way he clutched it were any indication. Sasuke was torn between laughing and just leaving, laughing because the blonde clearly went against his own creed and held something that wasn't just power in high regard. He ended up biting his tongue and giving Naruto one last wakeup kick before leaving the room.

As the overall dark genin wandered rather confusedly through the house, he took note of things in his surroundings. The walls were clean, but still carried an air of age, there were squares of darker colors at odd intervals, Sasuke realized they must be where pictures had been. Even the nails in the walls were removed and the holes spackled over. All this of course led to question why they were removed and why wasn't the wall repainted, and the answer seemed to be obvious, they couldn't afford paint and couldn't bear to look at the image in the pictures, they must have had the husband in them. A little ways down the hall, Sasuke stopped at an open door and looked inside. It seemed to be a little boy's room, half a torn picture lay on the sill of a boarded-over window. The candles laying in the room seemed to have been used many times over, and there was a vague indentation upon the bed.

Sasuke quickly moved away, feeling empathy stir up in his heart again. With renewed determination he set off to find the stairway down.

Naruto woke up quite grudgingly, his body was sore still from the burning pain of Kyuubi's chakra, but he had decided something in his sleep, he knew why Zabuza was stronger and why he hadn't enjoyed the fight. So resolved, Naruto threw his blankets off of himself and got dressed, a malicious and disturbing grin forming on his face almost as soon as he was out of the makeshift bedroom. He gave himself the once-over as soon as he found the bathroom and frowned slightly.

His jacket had one sleeve that went down half of his bicep, still a huge hole where his abdomen was partially blasted off once, his pants had become shorts very quickly, ragged ones at that. His other arm was now bare some ways over his torso, the edges were rapidly falling apart, another thing he could chalk up to Zabuza's accursed sword. He changed his observation to himself, and frowned at the forever-blue eyes, he wondered if those would ever change and decided they probably wouldn't. He pulled some of his tenant's chakra into himself and his eyes remained blue, no noticeable fangs. He dispersed the chakra with an annoyed sigh and went down to the rest of his team, he passed a sentimental-looking Sasuke before walking downstairs on the ceiling.

It took a few minutes but he soon found Kakashi, Tazuna, and the old man's daughter (or too-young mistress, Naruto's mind offered with a lecherous internal grin). He plopped down onto one of the mats on the ground unceremoniously, wide smile and sorry clothes adding several strange levels to the silence in the room. After the silence stretched on for a minute he developed an irritated tic over his eye and glanced over to his sensei.

"What's up with all the quiet? Old man's back home now and Zabuza's no concern anymore, smooth sailing right?" He actually sounded a little disappointed while he spoke and Kakashi had to sigh at the tone.

"Good to see you're back to normal Naruto, angst doesn't suit you, you know." Naruto mocked being wounded but didn't interrupt him. "Anyway, we're not out of the woods yet, the hunter-nin who took Zabuza's body wasn't a hunter-nin. More likely Zabuza's accomplice. Meaning he probably didn't kill Zabuza, so-"

Sasuke ran into the room when he heard shouting and found the blonde genin jumping around and dancing, cheering wildly over some news or another.

He threw his hands forward and the chakra flooded into the clear blue depths, Kyuubi's energy turning the water into a frothy, bubbling red. His face screwed into a tight grimace as he fought the chaotic energy and the unwilling water both at once and brought his hands together, as if prying open a door. The water's bubbling and frothing concentrated into a singular line but intensified, greatly, red rushed into Naruto's features as he grunted in pain at the exertion, sweat ran rivulets down his face in spite of the morning cold.

A strangled cry escaped him as he pulled his hands apart violently, the beach sand whipped around him in a frenzy as he drew still more chakra from behind his seal. With glacial sloth, the waters split, rose and pulled away from itself, a corridor forming in the sea's bottom.

"a-a-a-Akai…. Uuuumi-i n-no j-j-jutsu…" The red sea technique was something Naruto half-remembered from a book some idiot had tried to sell him once. He thought it was a crock of shit at the time but this technique stuck with him, and he had always wanted to try it out. Of course, by now the water was towering over him on either side, his arms were stretched out as far as they could go and his whole body was shaking. Without much warning his chakra field collapsed and the water crashed back around him again, the cold sapping away all the external hurt from the technique's execution. The water then rushed back out and Naruto collapsed onto the freshly wet sand, breathing hard and his eyes shut tightly against the still fierce internal burn.

He'd come here to train after Kakashi decided to teach Sakura and Sasuke the tree-climbing technique. After all, he had to train and get stronger, and he most definitely did not want to be around Inari or that coddling bitch mother of his…

Sakura and Sasuke sat with hard, unreadable looks after hearing of Zabuza's survival, the woman of the house set out bowls of oatmeal before the ninja team and her father. Moments later another bowl was set out for her son when he came to the table as well. The atmosphere was peaceful for a moment, Naruto and Kakashi eating, one with a huge smile and the other eating so fast no one saw his face. Of course, for ninja, nothing is ever as simple as a quiet, amiable breakfast in relative silence.

Less than a minute after sitting down and enduring the mood, Inari lashed out at the ninja. "Why are you even here? Gatou's just gonna have you all killed you know." Tsunami instantly tried to shush her son when Naruto burst out laughing. "HEY! I'M SERIOUS! HE'S GONNA KILL YOU! DON'T YOU GET IT?!"

Finally forcing himself to answer Naruto let red simmer on the surface of his skin for a long minute, and then looked to Inari. "Hehe, it just strikes me as funny, someone dies, just one person, and it breaks you. You're broken, you've lost whatever strength you had, little brat like you probably had no will to live anyway. You wouldn't understand so I'll use little words for you, maybe you'll learn something." Killing joy seeped from his pores, causing the protest in Tsunami's throat to catch and die. "I have strength, because I refuse to die, that's what being strong is, not letting anyone kill you, I have strength and there's nothing to change it so long as I don't care about anyone. If people matter, then your strength is worthless, because everyone else is weak. I have power, because I can, I have, and I love killing. I am strong and will not die, I have power and I will kill anyone in my way, I don't care who or what," He looked distantly, out a window as the aura he was throwing off swelled again. "The only thing that makes you worth anything is power." He got up and left, the door slammed shut when a tendril of red energy flung itself back into the house and pulled the door shut.

Inari sat behind a tree and watched the ninja do things that were astounding to him. There was power in the boy he watched, there was strength. Why was he strong? What power did he have and why did he have it? He didn't care, it was power he needed, he wanted that strength and he wanted that skill. Cautiously, Inari stepped out from behind the tree to call the ninja's attention to himself.

Sakura stood on the bridge one hand ever resting on her kunai pouch as she watched the workers, old and young, all men with a hope like Tazuna. To see their country be free and healthy again. The old man did his share of work too, lifting steel beams and bags of concrete, working just as hard as anyone else there. Anyone except her. She had finished the chakra training and so Kakashi had sent her here to guard the workers, but she was here because she was too worthless to waste time training, that was how she felt.

A resolution formed in her, remembering Naruto's words, she wanted to prove that she wasn't weak, that she had power, and if she didn't now, she would. She would. "Tazuna-san, is there anything I can do to help?"

End Chapter Ten At Any Cost

Author note: Alright, Naruto's angstiness is over, I promise. I'm really trying here to put character in the land of waves, is it going well? Should I stop trying to filler the people up and go straight to the fight? I really would rather not, but this is a story, it is for the fans and readers.

A1: Super-dooper!

1: Sasuke is becoming more human now. Yes. If Naruto is going to be inhumane, Sasuke has to pick up the slack.

2: Aidis asked why would it benefit Sasuke to dissuade him from caring? Reflect on Haku's words, 'I will kill my heart and become a true ninja'…

3: You wouldn't think he could be stealthy, but Naruto's a quick study as is shown in the series, and when needs must, one can assimilate knowledge quickly.

Aidis: I actually have nothing to say… I'm disappointed in myself…