AN: Explosions and more AU.
When things took a sour turn, they did so abruptly, as things have a tendency to do when they change for the worst. The Asui had been navigating in view of the western coast of Nagishima, cruising in a slow southward curve in order to reach the harbour of Modoroki. The weather had been heavy over the past few days, the skies blanketed under a wet, low lid tailored in various shades of lead and the sea pitching up like a rancorous stead. The entire crew of the ship had welcomed the surly weather, their captain explaining that a grey horizon and a curtain of rain were their best defence against the pirates and other privateers of Mizunokuni.
On the ninth day of travel, however, the drape of clouds was dispelled by the sun early in the morning. Being so far south of Mizunokuni and on the safe side of Nagishima, captain Chogi thought his ship safe. It was not even noon when one of the sailors spotted a dark vessel, shaped like a blade, sailing seemingly full-steam after them. The pursuer's sharp profile allowed him to plough through the sea like a hot knife through butter and before long, everyone on the Asui could see the menacing prow of a corvette grow nearer and nearer.
The bow of the warship was painted with the open maw of a shark, the teeth an eerie mix of flaking white and crimson rust against the broken checkerboard paint job. Her command bridge was low, blocky and open-topped; those on the Asui could see the silhouettes of some of the pursuing crew massed on the observation deck. Between the prow and the bridge was a strange bunker-like structure, a long tube jutting out of it.
Haku and Naruto, who had been above deck practising in a remote corner so as to not be seen, had stopped and were now both at the stern, eyes narrowed on their approaching tail. The blond had discretely created a shadow clone to warn Zabuza. The nuke-nin greeted the replica with the narrowed eyes he had had for Naruto since a few days now but followed the false blond. When Zabuza saw the corvette, all he did was shrug.
"It's okay," he said dispassionately. After a second of reflection, he amended. "Keep a blade near you anyway. It's not flying any kind of flag so caution comes first."
"Who are they?"
"What does it matter?" Zabuza grunted, waving Naruto's question away. "It's what they want you should concern yourself with. If it's who I think it is then-"
"Captain Chogi!", a sailor screamed from the bridge, "they're hailing us by radio!"
"And what do they want?"
"Us to kill our engines, Captain!"
"Well, tell those animals that as long as they are not flying any type of flag, we're not stopping. And we'll welcome anyone who sets foot on our deck with a foot of steel. Isn't that right, lads?!"
The entire crew hollered their assent and the radioman hurried back to his post to relay the words of his captain. The Asui did not have to wait long for the answer.
Before Naruto's astonished eyes, the blocky casemate fired a fine, blinding beam of light that instantaneously turned countless gallons of seawater into steam, not fifty cubits from them. The resulting explosion was thunderous and rocked the Asui, the ship dangerously tilting starboard. The previous defiance of the crew melted like snow under the sun.
Zabuza swore copiously. "Idiots! Why would they-" He blinked before a dark chuckle spilt from his throat. "Because they are not who I think they are," he muttered to himself. "Oh, someone's gonna lose his fuckin' head." He turned to the two boys. "These cretins have a ranton gun. We have to move."
"R-Ranton? Gun?"
"A chakra engine that generates storm release. It's just as likely to explode in your face as to fire in the direction you aim it at."
"Chakra engine?"
Zabuza glared at the boy. "I look like a scientist to you?"
Naruto shook his head no.
"That's what I thought. Get ready for a fight. We have two minutes before another shot is loaded."
"What is the plan, Zabuza-sama?"
The nuke-nin grinned madly. "I ain't sitting like a little bitch while they're taking potshots at us." He turned towards the two boys. "We're attacking, obviously."
"What?!"
Before Naruto could fully register it, Zabuza had jumped off the boat, followed closely by Haku. The blond blinked before he shook himself and jumped after the pair. Zabuza had already bitten his right thumb and woven a few hand signs: in a plume of smoke, Kubikiribocho, his cleaver, appeared in his right hand. Haku, meanwhile, had two handfuls of senbon at the ready. The trio crested and weaved around the hills and valleys of the waves like the kappas of legends, the Suimen Hokou matching their steps with the shifting surface of the water. Zabuza easily distanced his two companions, his size and experience giving him a matchless speed; the man was even cleaving through the largest waves to gain time.
Their approach did not go unnoticed; the crew of the warship pointed at the trio and all unsheathed some manner of weapon. Before they could think of anything else, however, Zabuza jumped, coiling his entire body before he roared.
Chakra laced the howl and pulsed wildly through the sea, whips of water swirling around the nuke-nin like vipers ready to strike. An indistinct shadow rose above the man's form, the same kind of presence the mind conjures when one is lost deep in the woods, alone and at night. The apparition reeked of death, of imminent threat; it set every crewman's instinct on fire, urging them to seek somewhere to hide, freezing them in place for a single second.
Kubikiribocho sawed through the air, the sound as she did so an impossibly low staccato that wrung Naruto's nerves. The crewmen assembled on the observation deck were butchered in a matter of seconds, the spinning blade cleaving them in half mercilessly.
Zabuza had already moulded more suiton chakra and flexed it through several mudra. The water exploded around him as he landed from his jump, a massive dragon-shaped waterspout emerging from the sea and slamming against the hull of the warship like a hammer against a bell.
For an instant, the enemy ship looked as if it would capsize. The sailors were thrown to and fro by the impact; some even fell in the sea. Bits and pieces of steel flew all around, torn from the hull by Zabuza's jutsu. Then, in an explosion of foam and water, the vessel righted herself. Most jettisoned sailors hauled themselves above the surface, showing some degree of mastery over chakra. Naruto had no time to wonder if they were ninja or if all sailors took the time to master the water-walking jutsu. With a thunderous bang, the ranton gun fired once again.
The blond was both completely blinded and deafened, so disoriented by the howl of the canon that he nearly fell underwater. As his senses returned to him, however, he heard the dissipating echoes of an explosion, the dancing reflections of flame on the water and smoking debris falling all around him. The smell of charred everything invaded his nostrils and Naruto gagged. Stumbling, he turned around.
The Asui was no more than a burning wreck, devoured by a greasy, greedy fire that roared and cracked. A column of black, dirty smoke was rising, engulfing the near sky in darkness.
"Naruto!"
His name being called shook the boy out of his stupor, right on time for him to see a humongous swirl of water shot from the warship and speeding towards Zabuza, Haku and him. There were ninja on the vessel, thought the boy, his mind immediately quarantining the information so he would not panic. With a flick of his fingers, Naruto created two shadow clones, who quickly laced their hands to make him a platform. Before the wave could crash on him, the boy stepped on the improvised footboard and jumped, as high as he could, gathering his limbs against his body. The jutsu brushed against the sole of his feet and he used the brief contact to gain further height.
Turning his momentum into a spin, he moulded a fraction more of chakra before melding it all in a handful of kunai which he threw at the warship, as hard as he could. Five blades turned into five hundred and a rain of steel peppered the deck, wounding a number of men. At the same moment, Haku and Zabuza's chakra flared. A water fang shot from the nuke-nin's feet, like a shark cruising right below the surface, and exploded into shards of black ice as it hit the warship. The gut-wrenching sound of crumpled sheet metal rang in the ears of all those present but the vessel held.
The crewmen, however, had recovered from the initial assault. They had not expected the crushing suiton wave to deal with the trio; instead, a number of them were aiming hand-held contraptions at their attackers. The weapons were basically elongated stocks joined to a cylindrical device mounted between two curved limbs. The typical "twang" of strained metal being released came to Naruto's ears just as a blur of steel opened a burning cut in his cheek.
"Shuriken launchers!" Zabuza barked dryly.
Another volley flew at the dispersed trio. Naruto lunged behind the cover of a wave while Haku formed a thin sphere of black ice to protect Zabuza and himself. The blond created several copies of himself and the assembled Narutos charged with a holler. Kunai, launched at the speed of sound, almost immediately felled a dozen but there were a dozen more.
Zabuza moulded more chakra, sweat drenching his clothes, a headache threatening to split his focus. Fifteen mudra later, a suiton powered wave rose and blasted towards the ship, like the open maw of a leviathan.
It was speared through by another beam of lightning, the suiton losing coherency and the water instantly evaporating in a deflagration of scalding steam, creating an opaque screen of mist between the warship and the trio. Half the remaining Narutos, those nearest to the blast, were thrown haphazardly in the sea and dispelled by the shockwave. The other half looked in rising panic at the hole gouged out of Haku's frozen shield.
The six boys saw Zabuza emerge from the melted sphere, his skin burned red by the steam, a wickedly curved kunai in hand. The tall man's eyes shone with murder for a second before he disappeared in the mist created by the attack. The Narutos felt the rising wave of fear clawing at the crewmen's guts when they realized their mistake. The sensation rang against his being like the toll of a bell. The screams came seconds later, smothered by the lingering cloud of steam.
The little troop of blonds charged anew while two of them hurried back towards the ice sphere. In the melted remains of the defensive jutsu, they found another Zabuza watching over a wounded and unconscious Haku. The brunette's clothes had been torn, his skin burned and his left arm flailed by shattered ice. His breathing was loud, pained but easily audible.
"I'm leaving him to you," scowled the man before he liquefied back to water.
One Naruto carefully placed the older teen on the back of the other and they slowly walked around the fight, using the waves in order to avoid detection.
On deck, Zabuza was slinging from one sailor to the next, slitting their throat, stabbing them in the heart and severing major arteries. The Muon Shin perfectly silenced his movements and the slowly dispersing vapour hid him from view. Suddenly, the nuke-nin found himself out of target to slay and almost tripped on a corpse instead. The almost imperceptible displacement of air alerted him of an attack. He swayed to the side and caught the offender, twisting his arm, disarming him and almost killing him before he recognized the azure of Naruto's eyes.
"Kid?"
"Boss?"
"The hell you doing here?"
"Oh. The clones were just a distraction. I swam underwater to their port side and climbed up. They were too busy with you to spot me."
Zabuza took stock of the boy. He was drenched in blood and seawater in equal parts. He raised an eyebrow. If what Naruto was saying was true, it hinted at an impressive lung capacity and a budding mastery of the Suimen Shin. From the four "steps" jutsu - Muon, Shun, Suimen and Noburi - four "body" techniques could be deduced but Zabuza was almost certain that Haku had not pushed Naruto that far yet.
"You did, huh? Alright." He allowed. Compliments were Haku's things. Plus, Zabuza genuinely did not think having the good sense of stabbing an enemy in the back was deserving of any praise in the first place.
The steam eventually cleared up completely and revealed the carnage the pair had wrought. Eviscerated, throatless corpses littered the deck of the warship. Blood and entrails made it slippery. A few men still lived; their breathing was systematically some manner of raspy, wet or whistling. For the first time since they began fighting, Naruto observed the crew. They were a ragtag bunch, wearing no uniform. The only distinct symbol they all bore was a piece of steel, stitched on their clothes, marked with four stylized waves.
"Buccaneers," sneered Zabuza. "Bought by the two Bloodletters. Fuckin' trash." The nuke-nin ripped a hitai-ate off a corpse. "They don't deserve to wear this."
"They weren't…" Naruto swallowed a bout of nausea. The brine was redolent of spilt blood and lingering fear and the resulting smell was overwhelming. "They weren't ninja?"
Zabuza barked a laugh. "No." He turned to face the blond and leaned, spearing the boy with his gaze. "You've seen me fight Hatake." He gestured at the deck. "That looked like a battle between ninja to you?"
"Well… I mean, they did use a suiton jutsu."
The tall man rolled his eyes. "Jutsu are tools. Anyone can learn them. It's how you use them that makes you a ninja, how you think. I'm pretty sure Haku told you that."
Naruto nodded.
"Sneaking around is exactly how a ninja should think. Keep it up and you won't instantly die when we're met with actual opposition. Now, where's Haku?"
"Here," growled a voice that belonged to someone they did not know.
Naruto blinked. He was confused - yet not - to see Haku in the hands of a wounded man. He shook himself as the situation truly set in. Fear wrenched his guts and stopped his blood cold. Body tensing once more, eyes widened by a sudden shot of adrenaline, the boy considered the threat, all his senses on alert.
The individual, standing on the water right below the pair, was sweating abundantly. His perspiration reeked of death and his pallid skin spoke of his coming end. Naruto easily spotted why; there was a shard of steel embedded in the man's side. A snarl was twisting his face, a mix of pain and elation. He looked as if he could fall over any second but Naruto did not dare move. The kunai pressed against Haku's neck, its edge biting into the flesh of his friend, was something he could do nothing about.
"Zabuza, you fuckin' traitorous dog, drop that kunai," threatened the man, his breath short and pained.
"Shishi, how are you? Still a loser?" Zabuza deflected in a bored tone.
"A loser who's gonna make a million off your head, you piece of shit! Drop that kunai or I gut this boy!"
Zabuza relaxed his grip on his blade. The blood-drenched knife fell on the deck. Meanwhile, Naruto tensed. His gaze swept from Zabuza to Shishi back to Zabuza. Dread suddenly filled Naruto: the nuke-nin would not sacrifice Haku, would he?
"Why not admit you're done, Shishi? You've lost half your guts. You won't get to cash in the bounty."
The man laughed mirthlessly, blood pooling on his lips. "What's that? Afraid of death? I'm taking you out with me if it's the last thing I do."
"I don't think so," answered Zabuza coldly.
"The fuck you mea-"
The man's rant was brutally interrupted when his head was yanked backwards and his throat opened by the sweep of a blade. His hold on Haku loosened and the teen was caught by a replica of Zabuza. Naruto blinked.
"When?"
"I always leave a contingency in place."
Naruto breathed a sigh of relief, his body unwinding and uncoiling, tension bleeding from his frame. The abrupt fall down from his combat-high shook him like a leaf in the wind, his hands quaking beyond his control. His stomach twisted and lurched, the thick and heavy smell of death suddenly too much to handle. Naruto could not fight the urge to vomit and threw up a thin string of bile while Zabuza started to jettison the corpses in the sea.
A few wounded gurgled for mercy but were promptly disposed of, the nuke-nin giving them the release of a quick death. Naruto did not know why but he was relieved that Zabuza even bothered to deal a coup-de-grace when he could have chucked those still alive in the water. At least, the sharks, which were now lurking around the immobilized warship, would not get to devour anyone who still breathed.
Once he was calmed down, Naruto noticed something concerning. The vessel was slowly but surely leaning sideways. He supposed Zabuza's jutsu had damaged the hull because the ship was most definitely sinking.
"Boss, we need to take a canoe and get to shore."
Zabuza snorted, looking up from Haku, whom he was checking on. "Relax, kid. We've got a taxi coming for us. They'll be here any minute now."
"A… A taxi?"
"Yes." The nuke-nin narrowed his eyes on a point on the horizon and smirked. "There they are, in fact. Finally."
"Where?"
Zabuza pointed a finger at the sea and, before Naruto's flabbergasted eyes, something emerged from the water, parting the surface in a great shower of foam. Naruto looked at the machine - for the vessel was most definitely man-made - in sheer amazement, his sickness all but forgotten, his jaw hanging loose.
It looked like nothing at first, simply a shape cleaving the sea and leaving a trail of surf behind it but the closer it got, the more details Naruto could see. Its fuselage entirely made of metal, the submersible was an elongated cylinder that tapered into a sharpened spur. There was a tower of sorts, perpendicular to the body, connected to the spur by a curved beam of spiky steel. It seemed as if a giant sturgeon had been made machine, covered in steel and given a mean fang. The leviathan sailed towards the warship with nary a sound, most of its body still submerged and slowed to a crawl a dozen meters or so from the sinking corvette.
A lid opened on the tower and a head popped out. A body followed it, revealing a man, perfectly human to Naruto's honest surprise and relief. He had half expected some kind of sea monster from the legends to pilot the strange ship. The individual wore grey fatigues and brown shin-high sandals; the only touch of colour he had allowed on his person was a crimson headband.
"Zabuza," greeted the seaman. "I'm captain Jitsuo. Welcome aboard the Hisomu. My men will take care of the rest."
"You're late, captain."
"Apologies. Dumb technical difficulties."
"I'll pretend I'm not an overly cynical individual this one time, captain. Let's go, kid."
"We're-We're going inside this?" Naruto squeaked.
"Yeah. It's called a submarine. An invention from the last war. Neat, huh?" Zabuza said with an unusual trace of jolliness in his voice.
The blond said nothing. Sailing had been a pleasant experience until now but he was not so sure about willingly entering the holds of a vessel meant to go underwater.
"Well, come one kid. Haku needs a doc and there's one inside."
That convinced Naruto to follow the nuke-nin, if barely. Inside the submarine was even narrower than the boy had anticipated. It was built like a long corridor, segmented into a number of rooms where sailors busied themselves around strange pieces of machinery. As he was led to a cabin, Zabuza having taken Haku to the infirmary, Naruto counted less than twenty people working on various stations. He recognized a radio but apart from that, he could not tell what purpose the various instruments, levers and buttons served.
For what felt like hours - and probably was - he lay on his bed, listening to the groans of the vessels around him and the rumour of the crew going about their jobs. Once he was told Haku was and would be fine, Naruto finally allowed the last of his instincts to let go of the commands. He possibly slept for a while but was not sure he did. At the very least, his thoughts drifted off, the exhaustion of the fight and the rhythmic whispers of the ship blurring the lines between dream and reality.
At some point, he found himself back on the deck of the warship, the steel floor slick with blood. He saw guts spilling from the open belly of a single man, hissing and smoking against a layer of ice, twisting like beheaded serpents. He heard his dying rasps, the wet wheezes he warbled from his bloodied mouth. The man's face crumpled and rumpled, so much that it transformed, changing until Naruto recognized Tazuna. The boy did not have to look at his hand to feel the weight of a blade or hear the rivulets of blood dripping from its edge. His eyes widened in horror as the man's intestines latched on and crept up his legs, like the tentacles of some unholy creation.
Naruto woke up with a start, drenched in sweat and panting hard. For a second, his perspiration felt like frigid blood stuck on his skin and his breath caught inside his throat. He forcefully exhaled, blinking the sensation away, fighting the urge to scratch himself and gasp for air. He realized he was freezing, not having bothered with a change of clothes (which he did not have in the first place), allowing the cold seawater and the drying blood to seep in his flesh and bones. His muscles hurt mildly, like an echo of his exertion. His head swimming slightly, he exited his quarters in order to find a shower.
A curt but still polite sailor showed him the way to the bathroom, warning the boy about the rationed water and even providing him with a set of much too large but clean fatigues. Naruto thanked the man and enjoyed the very short but hot shower, letting the water cleanse him physically and mentally. Refreshed, he donned his change of clothes, rolling the sleeves and the pants to adjust their size and tying his scarf around his waist.
Quietly, he made his way to the infirmary, where he was allowed to see Haku after a short stare down with the physician. The older teen had been sedated and his wounded arm seen to. His ruined clothes had been disposed of because Haku was now garbed in a simple white robe. Naruto sat next to the bed and shuddered as a sigh of relief purged an anxious poison he had not even been aware of. Slowly, he caressed Haku's cheek, marvelled at their rosy complexion and lingered an instant at the commissure of his lips, feeling the ticklish breeze of his steady breathing. Naruto smiled gently. The azure of his eyes, however, hardened to diamond.
His brother was worth it. All of it. The blond settled himself as comfortably as he could in his seat and began his watch.
"Why were you so late?" Zabuza growled his question, not an ounce of mirth in his voice.
"Because we had to spot you, Zabuza," dismissed the captain. "How vast do you think the sea is exactly? Plus, the Asui was on a course we didn't expect, that close to the coast. And we really did have an engine failure. An oil leak."
"They had a fuckin' ranton gun."
"Yes, well, now they've lost one. And the plan was for the Asui to be lost with all hands anyways so that's taken care of."
"I thought you would be the one to sink the fuckin' ship, not an actual enemy vessel."
"High command thought your name would be enough of a bait," smirked the captain. "Do you have any idea how much of a pain it was to leak it in a way the bloodletters would buy? We hoped the Kuikorosu would come."
"I don't care. I got shot at with a ranton gun and one of my men nearly died because of it."
"Cry me a river, Zabuza. It's war," retorted the captain dryly. "The Alliance won a functional ranton canon and your little femboy didn't-"
A firm, powerful hand choked the captain's throat and squeezed. Zabuza pushed the man out of his chair and against the wall of his cabin.
"You have no idea how much worth this boy has," whispered the nuke-nin in a deceptively low and calm voice. "Your miserable crew and this rusty tub wouldn't even begin to compensate for his death. A single ranton gun wouldn't cover a tenth of it. I wouldn't make the same mistake twice because it won't be me you'll have to fear. It's Mei who'll come and melt your face off. Am I clear?"
The captain nodded as best as he could and Zabuza released his hold. The man coughed and wheezed, gasping for air.
"That-That was unnecessary."
"I've found that a bit of violence makes people listen to you. Now, you'll go tell your radio that I'm not happy and that whoever at Command thought it'd be a good idea to use me as bait without telling me better fuckin' hide."
"Why did you even need to murk your trail so completely in the first place? Who do you need to lose that you have to sink an entire ship and an unrelated crew for it?"
Zabuza frowned. "You don't need to concern yourself with that. How much time until we arrive?"
"We'll be there tomorrow in the evening."
"Good. I'll be in my quarters."
Zabuza ignored the muttered "asshole" coming from behind him and exited the captain's cabin. Settling down on his own bed, he summoned Kurikiribocho with a flex of chakra and a speck of blood. Slowly, he tested the edge of the blade. It was perfect. Nonetheless, he fished his pouch for a whetstone and started grinding the sword. The sound of metal being scrapped ounce by ounce, along with the repetitive motion, helped him think.
The boys had not heard him when they had had their heart to heart, too preoccupied with their emotions to pay any attention to their surroundings. Zabuza was not sure why he had yet to admonish them for that; not that it mattered. What did was the fact Naruto was likely an altogether different monster than a simple kekkei genkai holder.
The nuke-nin knew of the kekaijuu, beasts that transcended the material and spiritual, creatures entirely made of chakra. He had studied the ancient jinchuuriki ritual that supposedly sealed such a being within the coils of a human sacrifice, in order to merge their chakra and create a hybridized creature.
He knew all of that because Yagura the Bloodletter was a jinchuuriki and there was no better way to kill something than to seek intelligence on it. Zabuza barely contained a snarl at the thought. Yagura, the great treason; the hound bred in secret by the lord of Mizunokuni, Tenka-no-mikoto, to bring to heel the nobles of his country. Zabuza forcefully exhaled his anger. There was no time for impotent rage; he had to decide whether or not he could let Naruto live.
Zabuza ground his whetstone against the length of his blade. There was a chance Naruto would turn into something uncontrollable; Yagura was mad, after all. The man hid behind a veneer of mannerisms but was without a doubt completely psychopathic. If he had not been conditioned to show absolute obedience towards Tenka, he would have killed the lord of Mizunokuni long ago.
The whetstone scraped against the steel once again. Naruto could also become the ace of the rebellion, provided he was properly trained. He could become the weapon that would fell Yagura, more surely than any other ninja, no matter what training they underwent, ever could.
Zabuza growled and focused on what really bothered him. He had never imagined Konohagakure would use the jinchuuriki ritual. The Leaf was driven by jingoistic beliefs that encouraged martyrdom but was supposedly soft on her children. Nonetheless, the fact was that Konohagakure had performed the ritual. Zabuza, for the life of him, could not figure out why, then, the boy had been left on his own.
The only logical conclusion was that the ritual had gone wrong, that Naruto was not a jinchuuriki but a failed attempt. Then again, thought Zabuza, logic was undervalued in Konohagakure. The forest pixies obeyed their emotions, the "Will of Fire" skewing their sense of pragmatism. He could almost picture some weak old fool advocating against training the child, wanting to give Naruto an illusion of a peaceful childhood.
From what the boys' discussion had entailed, however, Naruto had been reviled for all his life by the entire population of the village for something he had not known. Meaning that even when the - hypothetical - attempt at normalcy had been out of the window, Konohagakure had not judged it necessary to change anything. The Leaf had not deemed it useful to train Naruto or reinforce Naruto's loyalty. The boy had been so miserable, he had latched on to Haku after meeting him three times, betraying his village to join a ragtag pair of nuke-nin.
Because, as much as he would never say it out loud, Zabuza could admit to himself that Haku and he made a ragtag pair. He slapped a hand on his face and dragged his skin down, a sigh escaping his lips as he felt the onset of a headache. He hated when things made no sense.
AN: Holiday break.
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