Chapter 180

When we got to the end of things, we had a problem. It was a problem that became apparent as soon as we took these guys alive.

What were we going to do with these chuckleheads?

In the end we brought them all together. This wasn't normally a tactic you employed, usually you kept prisoners separate. But Zabuza said a point had to be made. He had yet to tell me what the point was, which made me a tad nervous, but we still did it.

I wrapped each of their heads and woke them up. The four of them came to with a start at the wraps and noted they were tied together, so if they wanted to move, they'd have to coordinate to do so. Which meant that when they tried to stand, they immediately toppled over. A sight which made Suigetsu snicker before Chojuro nervously put a hand over his mouth.

Zabuza walked forward, looking at the four of them, "So, we've talked to all four of you and this has left us in a bit of a quandary. You see," He gestured to me, "One of my own doesn't want to kill you. I'm inclined to agree with the fact that what you made was exceptional. Artists like that are ra…"

"We aren't going to be your slaves! We are going to take our weapons from you and resurrect our village founder with the sacrifice of the one tailed beast." The man ranted.

"Fucking how?" Suigetsu said, "Blue hair is missing the fingers on his dominant hair, yellow stripe's balance is shot with his missing toes while you and long hair will be feeling muscle fatigue for a bit because of the frostbite."

"New wielders could be found as easy as turning a hand!" That got some looks from the others, who just turned their heads to look at him.

"Um, so you want to try and drag other people to try and capture the one tailed beast, resurrect your founder... then what?" Zabuza said, his voice rather flat.

"Then we will show our superior weapons and strike down the ninja villages who suppressed us." He said, "It's only a matter of time."

We looked at him, then the others who were considering their situation and were not looking as sure. It was one thing to conceptualize such a plan, to train, work hard, make your fancy weapons. It was one thing to get so totally wrecked before the plan even started to really show just how bat shit crazy it really was.

"Okay, and then what?" Zabuza asked again.

"What do you mean?" The man said.

"You show shinobi how strong you are, you show your superior force, you destroy the ninja villages, then what?" Zabuza repeated "This plan, how practical is it really? Breaking it down, the steps are, kidnap a jinchuuriki, which by default makes them in terms of raw power one of the world's strongest ninja. Which by the way, Suna won't take laying down. That puts them on your backs immediately. Then somehow sacrificing them to resurrect your leader, which... have you done before? How do you know that'll even work at all?"

"Ancient texts provide hints of a ritual that requires the immense chakra of a demon to do it." He said.

"So you haven't done this before, you're following the hints of something you've never tested, at all. Isn't that bad craftsmanship? Don't you measure twice, cut once? Or make prototypes before doing something so bold, especially since it would kill you?" Zabuza asked this time.

"A peon like you wouldn't understand the brilliance of this plan." He said.

"Do you even get this plan? What happens if this works? Not just to you, but to your village." Zabuza replied.

"Well, clearly the world would see our glory and finally respect us." The man said.

"Until the rest of the shinobi villages band together and kill him." Zabuza said, "And very likely either completely killed off everyone else in your village, or personally captured the artisans to force them to work for their villages to make weapons of similar quality to fight the other villages."

Suigetsu tapped his nose, "The latter actually sounds more likely. Not that they would last very long in such conditions, since anyone who couldn't snatch up one of the artisans would deliberately target them to neutralize their opponent's advantage."

By this point, I could see the blood draining from most of their faces as we talked about this. We weren't even fucking lying. Why? Because that shit is what happened to our swordsmiths. They successfully made the Seven Swords and at some point, someone on either our side, other nation's side, or likely both, killed off all our brilliant weapon makers so such feats could not be accomplished again. The boy with the blue hair spoke this time, he wasn't addressing us though, he was turned towards the leader.

"Se-seimei-sama, he-he, wouldn't let that happen, right?" It was a question. Probably one they should have asked before, honestly.

The man seemed calm enough, or at least he was probably a pretty damn good actor, he didn't even stutter, "Of course, of course! With the final form of the weapons he'd be invincible."

"Famous last words." Zabuza said dryly.

"He would be! You haven't seen the full power of those weapons. Once we resurrect our leader, he could use them to their full potential." He continued.

"And if the weapons break?" Zabuza inquired, "Or say, a shinobi did something that the weapons can't account for. Like say, flash boils the air around him, buries him in magma, covers him in bombs, traps him in a prison of water, encases him in solid rock, you know whomever this dude was even if you resurrect him he's still human, right? Because all that shit I just described to you, could all be done by one fucking person."

"Yo-you're lying." The boy with the blue hair said, "That's just an exaggeration, a single shinobi can't."

"A single shinobi froze you guys before you had a chance to fight back." Chojuro said. His was voice level as he looked away, "Then it took the four of us to properly defrost you so you four didn't just end up dying from that one attack."

At this point, even the man advocating was starting to sweat, "But we can't stop now. We worked for years on this plan. If we stop…"

"That's a sunk cost fallacy." I said, which got me a few stares from everyone else. Right, unfamiliar terminology. "Just because you've put time and effort into a bad decision, doesn't mean putting more time and effort into it will make it into a good decision. It's still a bad decision, and the fact that you aren't getting that time and effort back doesn't mean you shouldn't just walk away."

I got a few blank looks, one from Suigetsu, some from those wrapped up. The lead guy was squirming now, his face furious. "It doesn't matter! We will succeed, we will bring back Seimei, we will."

"Get yourself and likely your entire village killed." Zabuza interrupted. "Or do you think the Daimyo would take such an open act of rebellion laying down?"

"Rebellion." Kujaku spoke this time, her voice soft, "But, we acted alone, our village."

Zabuza reached over to her and she flinched back, but couldn't really move as he took the headband off her forehead and held it aloft, "What does this symbol mean then?"

Kujaku paled, "Ar-artisan."

"Yes, of the artisan village. You think that these symbols are just a joke. You think people given these headbands are done so without heavy responsibility. Why do you think it's punishable by death to make these outside their proper villages? Why do you think it's illegal to wear a symbol that isn't yours? Because when you wear this, you aren't representing yourself, you are representing your village and by extension your country." He said, holding it in front of them, "You four may as well have put a target not just on your village, but your entire country. Do you think the bigger elemental nations would take that? We are but a small band from one such nation and we almost killed you as easily as spitting."

That left them shaking and not because Zabuza was being intimidating. Because he wasn't being. He wasn't baring his pointy teeth, he wasn't speaking loudly, he wasn't even pushing his aura onto them. He was just telling them the truth. Villages were responsible for their shinobi. That's why ANBU existed, for when villages wanted ops done that couldn't be immediately traced to the village. Shinobi had to go into the field, understanding that what they did represented their village. That there was a very real risk a mistake would hurt the village. That's one of the reasons why if a shinobi really went rogue, declared themselves a missing nin, they slashed their headbands.

These four, or at least two of them, hadn't actually considered that.

It was pretty easy to do reckless things, when the buck ended with you. When your life, and only your life was on the line, it was simple to make those decisions. But when something you did could potentially kill everyone you know and love, well then things were more complicated. Things were heavier. You could have nothing to lose, but everyone else, well, it looked like they weren't willing to bet the lives of others.

Most of them.

"It doesn't matter! We deserve respect, once we get out of here we will…"

"What are you talking we!?" Kujaku injected as she squirmed against the bindings, "No, no no no, this isn't what was supposed to happen. It was just supposed to be us. But everyone else, they'll die. We almost died. Kami, no, we can't do this."

"We can't, you mean you won't." The man hissed back, "Useless girl, no conviction, just because of one small hiccup."

"This isn't a small hiccup." Suiko said, his voice calmer but still shaken, "Look at this, we've lost, we are only still alive as a sufferance."

"Please, more like they don't have the gall to…"

Zabuza looked at him. "You really are insane." He then turned to the rest of us and pointed at me. "Kill him."

"Why?" I said.

"Because he isn't going to cooperate." He said. "Now get over here and follow orders." He growled. Oh great, now we're doing a whole loyalty thing.

Taking a deep breath in and letting it out, I walked forward and looked at the others. As I walked up to the man he stared at me. "You're an odd duck, you know that, right? Is it really so hard? For you to just let go."

"You wouldn't understand, you're just a child, you've never been where we are. Stepped on, disrespected, tossed aside. You wouldn't talk if you knew…"

I reached out with one hand on one side, and on the other I wrapped his head with wraps from my arm. Covering his mouth with the wraps but leaving his eyes. "Don't presume to know anything about me."

And I felt it, when I held his head. Like a buzz up my arm, this strong emotion I couldn't place immediately. Was it fanaticism, anger, resentment? Maybe a mix of the three. I didn't know. Because I gave his head a quick twist and broke his neck.

He went limp and the feeling faded and I stepped away, looking down. When I looked up again I saw the other three had frozen. I suppose, maybe it wasn't really real to them. The threat, until we actually killed one of their own. Nevermind how positively simple it was.

But death was always easy. It was much harder to take someone alive.

Zabuza spoke again, but I didn't really hear what he said to them. I just went to sit down. Thinking about it, I think that was the first time I'd been directly ordered to kill someone. It was funny, I had killed several people before, it was probably closer to a hundred, but that was the first time I'd done it as a direct order. I never liked it when it was this way. When it was deliberate action. In the heat of battle, in the heat of the moment, it never had as much effect.

We could have let him live. But it was clear with each passing word that he in particular would never actually work with us. He was set on his action, but the others were not. Not yet.

Maybe given a bit more time they'd reach the same point as him, but right now, right now they were scared. They were scared because they had real time to think about how all their actions could affect those around them. Given the context it made me look up and think about Zabuza. Despite his fighting style and his nature, he rarely did things that didn't have a lot of consideration on the long term effects.

It showed when he worked for Gato. He could have ended that fight very early on. Killing the bridge builder and being done with it. But he didn't actually want Gato to win because Gato wasn't an honorable man or an honorable employer. He probably suspected the man would betray him. Nevermind he knew that if he killed Sasuke he would have brought down the wrath of Konoha for unofficially ending that line. Or if he had killed Naruto or Sakura that he would have brought the personal wrath of Kakashi, who would no longer be mission professional and would have very much thrown caution to the wind to kill both him and Haku.

I was trying to do the same, try to look at the big picture, try to act in such a way that made things better long term. It was exhausting, but I was trying. Which was why I still didn't understand why I was here when I could be better served at home.

It didn't make sense.

Maybe it did, in some twisted way, but they weren't telling me why. Honestly, I needed to write home again, maybe they'll give me some answers.


When I finished writing the letter I bit my finger and put up as much chakra as I thought was needed. A few seconds later, pop…

Success!

Momo rubbed her head a little as she looked up at me, yawning. "Aka-san, good morning."

"Good morning, Momo." I put some leafy greens in front of her as I sat there. "I need some secrecy seals from Minami."

"Oh, secrecy, what are we doing?" She said as she started to munch on her salad, "A blood oath?"

"Nothing so scary, just something to prevent them from communicating a certain thing." I looked at Haku, who nodded to that effect. We were currently bartering. We weren't going to let the other three go until we could bind them to secrecy. Zabuza was going to town with Suiko to get a certain book, while Suigetsu and Chojuro watched the other two. Apparently these weapons were not entirely their work. There was a LOT of alteration, improvisation and such, but the designs at their base were adapted from a previous work, like the twin swords originally being a single sword, that the leader had found years ago. Suiko volunteered this information, since he didn't want anyone else getting a similar idea than their leader with these designs.

It seemed like after the very real threat to their village they were getting ready to wash their hands of all of this. But well, we couldn't leave them with the weapons or the designs to make more of them. At least, not here.

I was perfectly cool taking them back to Water with us, because previous works as base or not, those weapons were impressive craftsmanship. Unfortunately, they did NOT want to go at all and having craftsmen forcibly taken with us to our country wasn't a great idea. If at all possible, you don't want people making vital tools for you, doing so under duress. But we couldn't just let them do whatever they wanted. Especially we couldn't let them be able to just wander off and tell people we were here.

Momo ate her food, "I'll ask Goggles if she has any available." When she finished, she popped out of existence and disappeared once more. I sighed in relief as I leaned back.

"This is a risk." Haku said.

"Yep." I replied. It was a risk, it would be way simpler to just kill them. But again, these were excellent craftsmen. "What do you think is going through their heads right now?"

Haku looked up for a moment before speaking, "I think they're at a loss at the moment, for what to do. What you said before, about the Sunk Cost Fallacy, you make it sound so easy, just to move away from something like that. That people could just disregard something they've worked for for years."

"I didn't say it was easy." I countered, "But what they were doing was a bad idea."

"I know." Haku said, "But I feel bad for them. They worked very hard for a long time, the questions Zabuza asked, they probably didn't consider them before because they trusted their leader." He looked at the corpse to the side. We had untied him from the others. "It must have felt good, like they had a purpose, and we just stripped that away."

"It's not the same." I replied, "Not really. I mean, if you're trying to draw parallels between you and them, to empathize." I glanced over at them, "Those people, they have lives, people that depend on them, friends, family. What they were doing wasn't really a purpose, it was lunacy."

"They didn't think of it like that." He said, "The leader, he thought they were serving their village. That it would bring something to them that they craved. They felt mistreated, so in their own way they were rebelling. Is that really any different to what we did, in the land of Water?"

I held up a hand and waved it side to side, "Kind of? I mean, look at this village. The people here, working, creating, they have so much to do, to live, to create."

"But what if it wasn't enough for them?" He said, "I never thought about it before, but I wonder, if my powers remained secret, if I had continued living on that farm, hiding what I was, would it have been enough?"

"For a lot of people it is." I said, "But, I understand what you mean. I guess some people want to push for something more, want to be special, to affect change." I leaned on my hand, "But change is hard and when it does happen, it doesn't always happen for the better. We've seen it first hand, changing things, especially doing so in a positive direction, takes work. Steady, hard work and it has to be done over years and years." I looked over at them, "It sort of felt to me like they thought their part would be done once they summoned this Seimei dude and maybe it would have been."

"What do you mean?" Haku asked.

"I've read a bit about the type of jutsu that claims to bring back those from the dead. Such things though, can't be obtained without a sacrifice," I looked at Haku, "A human sacrifice."

"Oh." Haku said, "A soul for a soul. I suppose that would make sense. You think they were going to pay that price?"

I shrugged, "If what they were doing was actually going to work. I doubt they had much occasion to test it, and if they did, well, then we know how Suiko and that fire sword guy were killed before."

We sat in silence for a little bit longer before Haku continued, "I still feel bad. Even if they return to their lives, they'll never be the same. That boy will have a hard time swinging a hammer."

"That's not your fault." I said.

"It is. If I had been more precise, I could have avoided freezing their arms. We were intending to capture them alive." He said.

"It's not that big a deal." I said, holding up my stump.

"Ume, you are not normal in that regard." He said simply, "I understand you seem to shrug off your injury, but you are terribly weakened by not having a working arm. You know you can't wield the wind swords properly because of that and they are a perfect fit for your style otherwise."

"I mean, I kind of thought you'd use them." I said, "Wind is one of your affinities."

Haku shook his head, "I wouldn't even know where to start. I've never used wind jutsu before. I've barely used water jutsu. It feels more natural to use ice."

"I suppose." I said, "But Zabuza would want you to try."

"If he asks me, I will. But otherwise." He looked down, "I think I want to be better at what I can do. If I could have just frozen parts of them, or made the shell so it didn't cause frostbite, they'd just be immobilized. We probably could have just held them and talked there."

"I mean, maybe. But that's not a suitable tactic against other shinobi." I said.

"We haven't been dealing with actual shinobi." Haku countered, "I can practice this with Suigetsu. That way, if this comes up again, we won't have to defrost them like that." Haku said, already determined on this path.

I didn't argue with him. I suppose it hurt him a little bit. Haku was a hella talented ninja, he worked VERY hard to be able to use his abilities. This hiccup, no matter how small it was, it had motivated him to do better, to be better. That was nice, I suppose. At least he had a goal that was reasonably obtainable.

Still, we had a lead, once we finally got this pact down, we'd be moving on. Then maybe, just maybe, we'd actually find one of these damn swords and get closer to heading home.


Something that strikes me about filler villains, if they aren't just hired thugs, is how very short sided they are most of the time. Now this can be forgiven if they are the type of villain who have been pushed to that extreme, that is, they've lost everything like their village was burned down. But these villains, not even given that much backstory in the proper. To be fair, the ENTIRE point of that arc was basically, hey, remember Gaara, whelp, we're gonna make a filler centered around him, how he's changed, how he's gotten better.

Except bearing the one scene where he spins the dude in the armor around like a top and flings him away, Gaara and his siblings act incredibly stupid. They make this excuse that they're trying to save the one girl who wasn't so scared of Gaara to not take his tutlelage at the academy, but it's all pretty damn thin.

Anyway, leave reviews, I'll try to keep writing.