Chapter-11
"I like what you did on the first day of our training."
They were at their makeshift training ground.
"When I mugged ya off and left you with the bill?"
". . . no, the day after that. Our first spar."
"What about it?"
"The aggression. I want more of that and less reactivity."
"Can't do when you're getting your face kicked in, though."
"Paradoxically, by being reactive against a superior foe you let them control you. They have an ice age between every shot; they have the time to scheme and strategize, to set traps and pick at your defensive shape till they create an opening. They might not catch you cleanly; but they put you under such immense pressure that with every passing second the result becomes imminent. Your concentration starts to go— at some point you make an error . . . and that ends it. Such an opponent is not going to be taken out on the counter: try taking initiative, and accept the risks as they come."
She'd dragged him out of bed at five in the morning for this. Naruto had a feeling this was going to be a daily occurrence.
He yawned. Tried blinking away the sleep.
"I did," he said, "and I spent a day with an ice pack and a broken wrist."
"You were losing to me that day, no matter what. Consider this a general principle, not a hard and fast rule. If the opponent is way beyond you, then create a distraction and run."
"Aye, aye, cap'n."
He shot off an ironic salute, then yawned again.
"I will tell you this." Satsuki had a look of discontent on her face. "I am not happy with your progress so far. It is fantastic for an average genin— but you and I know you are far from average."
"Am I?"
"Aren't you? Relative to the talent I sense, your growth has been limited."
"You keep sayin' talent this talent that, but I ain't feeling it, ya know? I feel pretty cold on the inside. Maybe you got the wrong guy?"
"You learnt elemental manipulation as a child and have nearly mastered the rasengan. You did not need a mentor for either. Name me one student from the academy who can claim the same."
"Different conditions . . . different time."
"Yes. And I'm asking you to roll back the clock."
"A'ight. I'm trying, tho'. I'm trying the best I can. Honest."
"You are not. I see grit, but no fire. I see a man mentally checked out go through the motions, as though running through a checklist. I think you'll regret this blasé attitude of yours someday: but I'll leave it be and accept your answer for now. Let's move on to other things: let's talk about techniques."
"Which ones?"
"Ninjutsu."
"A'ight. Got somethin' in mind?"
"Before we get into the nitty gritty of it, I have a theory I'd like to share with you."
She seemed excited.
She was in her element.
"Sure. Ya don't even gotta ask. You're the teacher here."
"A big mistake I've seen Shinobi make, even at the highest level, is that they treat ninjutsu as a supplementary skill set. To all too many, it is a flashy bombardment of disconnected mid to long range attacks. They either throw at full power, with no thought behind it, or use it reactively as a counter to someone else's techniques. It is explosive this way, but hardly ever effective; all it does is drain you quicker. When used like this, it is of limited potential: you are using it to test speed and evasion, but not much else. With me so far?"
Naruto found he quite liked her when she was like this. One could see the passion brimming, the dedication, the hours upon hours spent perfecting this craft; and that to him was worthy of admiration, even if the subject under scrutiny was murder and the effiency of it.
"Yeah, I think so."
"Good. Now, if I were to say that taijutsu is about punches and kicks," Satsuki demonstrated by erratically throwing her arms about, "just thrown like so, as hard as possible, with nothing but instinct to guide it, then I'd be laughed out of the room, and with good reason."
She modulated her erratic movements, added an element of fluidity to it; shifted, ducked, weaved, bounced in and out; so that where there had once been clumsiness, now there was only grace.
Taijutsu at the highest level is well honed," she said, coming to a halt, her point made. "It is a refined artform with a hundred different styles and variations, each having its own patterns and combinations. Yet say the same to someone about ninjutsu . . . and they goggle at you as though you are talking in another language."
"So not one off attacks?" He inserted a finger in his ear. Dug.
The look of revulsion on her face was adorable.
"No, not one off attacks," she said, staring at his ear, his finger. "Combinations. I want you to think of it as an art having its own language. It's not about an accumulation of techniques or being a walking ninjutsu repository: it's about your thought processes and your combinative efficiency. A good Shinobi can take down an army with just C and D rank techniques well combined; whereas a bad one, even if given a repertoire of S rank techniques, would be none the better for it."
"So, in summary . . .?"
"In summation, don't just throw. Think. What does this technique do? What do I hope to accomplish with it? What can I combine it with? If your answer is: I intend to blow this place sky high; or, this is a distraction that I'm using because I'm out of ideas; or even, I'll throw, and whatever happens, happens— then that isn't sufficient."
Satsuki got more animated as she went on, more into it.
"Warfare is by definition unpredictable," she continued, "and all that we have at our disposal, every single tool we use, is meant to lend predictability to the unpredictable. Ninjutsu is not just a fight ender or an area demolisher: when used well, you can force your opponent into picking from a palette of very limited responses. On the battlefield, a man with limited options is a man about to die."
He raised his hand, the way they did in those academy classrooms he had abandoned years ago. For the first time in years he was semi-serious during a theory session: her speculations were quite interesting, at least if one set aside one's bias.
"Could ya gimme an example?" Naruto asked.
She created a clone.
It morphed into the image of a generic Kumo nin, then skipped away and took up a position around thirty paces from them.
"I want you to watch carefully," Satsuki said, "because I expect you to break down my combination for me. It is very basic— but it should be instructive nonetheless."
That said, she slalomed into motion.
With a sweep of her hand, and at a speed that beggared belief, she sent towards the clone a convex crescent of wind the size of six grown men laid horizontally. The ground underneath erupted into a set of lacerations as it shrieked by; the air was a curtain shredded.
The clone evaded it by pushing off the ground. It went to its right, then came back down, paying no attention to the terrain behind devolving into a shower of levitating stone and clod.
Yet Satsuki wasn't done.
There was an inhuman fluidity to her movements. She shimmied forward and sent another; and when the clone repeated its dodge she sent a third, catching it mid air, forcing it to produce a blade and intercept. It bisected the crescent, but was given no time to adjust because Satsuki herself had taken off after her wind blade.
She wove under the clone's wild swing and kicked it in the ribs. The clone was propelled backwards: gigantic earthen appendages tore through the ground, grabbed it around the torso mid flight, and in a symphony of snaps wrung it like a toothpaste tube, a human handle to a tennis racquet.
It struggled valiantly, but to no avail.
A burst of lightning later the clone's neck wobbled: its spine was a flower stalk sliced, held together by a flap of reddening skin; its neck was an ever growing gash that offered the world its ghastly grin— a geyser gushed forth, encrimsoned the ground. The appendages let go; the head separated from the body— both dropped downwards limply, and were dispelled mid air.
Satsuki landed gracefully on the other side, palm shimmering dark blue.
She turned to Naruto and raised an eyebrow.
The entire sequence had taken under five seconds.
"Goddamn, that's impressive." He whistled, and did not even try hiding his slack jawed amazement.
Despite her best attempts to remain statuesque, there was a slight flush to her cheeks and a pleased glimmer in her eyes.
"So," she said, "what did you learn?"
"To never, ever piss ya off, that's for sure."
"Naruto."
"Alright, alright. Lemme think. Full disclosure, tho' — I was busy admirin' . . . and that happened way too fast."
"Try anyway. If you picked up on even a few things, I'll be pleased."
"Ok. Let's see."
He closed his eyes and reimagined the scene. Wind, wind, wind, taijutsu, earth, lightning, all in under five seconds, all accompanied by a flurry of constant movement. The transition between natures and the total lack of either buildup or hand signs was fucking flawless, as was the lack of tells; she had been inscrutable, unreadable; it had seemed as if she could do anything, go any way; yet even in the midst of that chaotic sequence, even amidst that rain of devastation, she had radiated an aura of calmness, of authority, of being in total control.
There was a definite method to her madness.
What he had witnessed was controlled chaos elevated to artform.
Ninjutsu is not just a fight ender or an area demolisher, she had said. When used well, you can force your opponent into picking from a palette of very limited responses. And on the battlefield, a man with limited options is a man about to die
He opened his eyes.
"That wind technique," he said. "The size of it. Like, really horizontal. Really wide. You took away the clone's ability to go left or right. Only way it could go was up. Up, then pick a direction— not direction first."
"Very good." She offered him an encouraging nod. "Theoretically, he could also go into the earth or parry; but those are irrelevancies we may safely discard for the moment, since this is a limited exercise. Besides, the former enables my primary nature, which is lightning, while the latter eventually transposes into the first combinative line. You may continue."
"Uh . . . you did it twice, though. Why would you . . . ? Hang on a sec."
He closed his eyes again and reimagined it.
"Ya wanted to note how he reacted the first time." He sounded tentative, even to himself. "We do it in hand to hand combat. Note quirks an' stuff, you know? Like, ye, he'd go up, but which direction and all. Instinct. People tend to go the same way over and over while acting on instinct."
Her eyes shone with something akin to pride.
It made his heart swell.
He'd never seen anyone look at him that way before.
"Yes," she said. "Not always true, but more often than not— yes. The first blade helped me assess his reflexes. It gave me a better idea of the distance I wanted to fight at. He gave me a tell in picking a side, too. A rough one, sure . . . but it is enough. Attention to detail is the difference between life and death at this level, and you are doing very well so far."
"So the second time he went the same way, you . . . no, wait . . . you set up the earth technique first, didn't ya?"
"I did." Satsuki offered him another nod. "B rank. No hand-signs necessary, at least for a good Shinobi. A rank and above, we'd use it— but this was my point: sometimes economy and speed are preferred to raw power. I set the trap, and I set it quickly. If I'd woven through hand-signs or opted for power, then there'd be no combination. The scheme falls to pieces."
"So ya set it behind him, anticipating the direction he'd dodge in. If he'd gone the other way the second time . . ."
"Then I'd be down a little energy, and I'd leave the technique dormant for later. Remember, the terrain is your friend. Visualize it. Use it. It is a useless strategy against a Hyuuga or a sensor— but then again, most Shinobi are neither."
"So that's it? I got everything right?"
"More or less. The one thing I think you noticed, but failed to mention, is distance management."
"Yer movements up and down?"
"Yes." Satsuki nodded. "Say it after me: distance management is our God."
"In what way?"
"The range you fight at determines everything. You want to be in a situation where you can evade by a hair's breadth if necessary, but no more and no less. That's the ideal range. Too close, and you're dead; too far, and while you're defensively better in a ninjutsu bout, and have more time to dodge, your attacks are a non-starter."
"A'ight. What's the ideal range for a guy like me?"
"An elite Jonin," she said, "would try keeping a distance of twenty five paces at all times. I keep eighteen, but my entire style is speed and precision based. For you . . ." She thought for a second. "Thirty five paces. Let's go with that."
"At all times?"
"Yes."
"Like, even in the middle of attacks?"
"Yes. Cut it if you are willing to risk getting hit, or need to transition into taijutsu; increase the distance if you are happy dodging and need time to think. But else, yes. Consistent distance at all times, even when under pressure."
"So, like, if they take four or five steps forward, or move backwards by the same amount?"
"You move the same distance with them, in the same direction. You assess how many steps they've taken, and you move even as they are moving. That's at the core of every ninjutsu fighter's style."
"That sounds . . . really difficult, not gonna lie."
He did not like the sadistic smile on her face.
"It is," she cooed. "It is very, very hard; and it needs to be drilled till it becomes instinct. So today," her smile widened, "today you will be assessing distance and learning how to dodge."
" . . . I don't like the sound of that."
"I do." She reached out and patted him on the head. "And I'll definitely like the sounds you make."
" . . . fuck."
"Thirty five paces," Satsuki pointed. "Go stand at thirty five paces from me. You'll assess distance at a glance, and you'll dodge."
"Dodge what?"
"Why, the streaks of lightning I throw at you."
" . . . you're a sadist."
"I've been told that before." She nodded sympathetically. "Now go. Thirty five paces."
He skipped away. Squinted. Took up a position that he thought best satisfied her parameters.
She flicked her fingers. A thread of lightning spurted across the terrain and nicked his nose before he even had the time to think. He went down, landed on his butt; held his nose, which stung and smoked.
"That was thirty two," she called out. She was in a good mood. "Back on your feet." Satsuki took a few steps forward, so that he could no longer just take three steps back and be done with it. "We go again."
" . . . fuck."
And on and on it went, till dawn turned into morning, and morning into mid-day. They had a ten minute break for lunch, but after that it was back to this, this terrifying, nose singeing proposition. It was easy enough to get a handle on the technique when they both were static — that took him half an hour.
But then she added movement to the mix, and all of a sudden his calculations were thrown out of whack. He got it wrong by as much as eight to ten paces on more than one occasion.
"You're enjoying this, ain't ya?" He called towards the end, holding his nose with one hand and pointing a finger in accusation with the other. That last string of lightning would for sure leave a scar.
"A lot, yes." And she was. It was the happiest he'd seen her. Uchiha Satsuki was truly, truly having fun at his expense.
"Fuck's sake," Naruto grumbled, "at least pretend there's some kindness in yer cold dead heart."
Star gazing. There was something to be said about the freedom it brought. To sit there, atop the house; to pretend one was a mote of dust, an insect that the cosmos itself ignored— it was a liberating sensation.
So Naruto did not notice when she crept up on him, did not realize she was there till she plopped down next to him, a cup of tea in her hand. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, saw that she too was staring at the sky. So he said nothing, gave her space.
She held out the cup. Placed it right under his nose.
"For you," Satsuki said. "I made it."
He did a double take. Stared at the tea. Stared at her. She was still looking at the sky.
Stared at the tea again.
Stared at her again.
Rubbed his eyes.
"For me?" He echoed.
"That's what I said, yes."
"Is it poison, sensei?"
"The most potent kind."
"I'm hurt, ya know? Hurts right here." Naruto tapped his heart. "Thought for a second we had a thing going on."
Her lip quivered. She continued star-gazing.
"Drink it," she said.
"Found a replacement for me?"
"That kid I healed— she was cute. Less of a loser, too."
He took the cup. Sniffed at it.
It did not smell rancid.
"Tell Shiho Naruto-nii went out frothing at the mouth, like a man." He sent a quick prayer to the heavens. "Bottoms up!"
Gulped down the drink.
Sighed.
Stared at the empty cup.
Set it down on his lap.
And considered throwing himself off the rooftop, or at the very least going downstairs and drinking bleach.
"It really was poison."
"I put effort into that."
"Back at the academy," Naruto announced sadly, "I drunk Kiba's piss as a dare. That had more flavour to it, and a better taste."
"This is why you have no friends." She did not sound offended.
"And you got none 'cuz they all die of tea poisoning."
"That's so stupid."
"Yer tea's stupid. The Hell did ya learn this abomination from, anyway?" He inspected the cup. Turned it upside down. There had to be a vial of poison in there somewhere.
"Kunoichi classes. Admittedly, it's been eight years, and my memory's a little foggy."
"A lil'? They should airdrop ya into Iwa, sister. Go be a chef there. If yer tea is this bad, then your culinary skills will for sure start the fourth Shinobi war."
"I can't cook."
"You," Naruto whispered, horrified, "are a heathen. An absolute philistine."
"Need I remind you that only one of us has an appreciation for art?"
"Yeah, sure. I'll feed ya art books till the end o' time. See how that works out."
Satsuki scoffed, but said nothing.
"Seriously." Naruto grappled with this revelation, this rupture in the fabric of reality itself, "what kinda kunoichi can't cook?"
"The kind that's always out of the village," she replied. "We get rations. We are given supplies."
"Still a life skill. Never took ya for the kind to skimp out on shit an' all."
She looked at him with some amusement.
"Why are you so upset over this? The tea wasn't that bad. I had a cup too."
"Yer tastebuds are dead." Naruto shook his head, his face clouding over with grief. "Always the case when ya take a hit too many to the head. Shinobi lifestyle, man."
"As opposed to your pristine head movement and your exemplary choice in cuisine?"
"I can cook."
"You?" The surprise on her face was genuine. "You can cook?"
"Hell, yeah. I'm a great cook. It's my passion."
"Remind me to have you make me something to eat."
"Ha, nice try. I ain't no sucker." He winked at her. "You ain't gettin' to mooch off me on missions. Imma make the best food there is, and Imma eat it in front of ya. Every. Single. Day."
"To change the subject entirely," Satsuki said, and there was a levity in her voice, a gleam of mischief in her eye; "I hold back a lot when we spar. We don't want that to change any time soon, do we, Naruto?"
"Tis what ya been reduced to, eh? Beatin' people up, stealing their lunchboxes." He shook his head. "Makin' two tiffins ain't the biggest chore in the world, I guess."
"Good," she said, and he could hear the laughter in that word. "Good."
They sat like that for a while. The silence was companionable. For a second there was the illusion that something had shifted, something changed.
"You really want to run a shop someday?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"What you said to me the other day, back at that ramen stand."
Naruto laughed.
"Oh, that. Nah. Nah, I was just messin' with ya."
"So you don't want to run a shop, then?"
"Eh, won't say that either. Sounds like a plan. It's just the first thing that came to mind the other day." He peered at her. "Why? Ya interested in a partnership or somethin'?"
"No, I was just curious. You haven't given your dreams much thought, have you?"
"I got an unrealistic one, which is running away from all this."
"That, as you say, is unrealistic. May I suggest a substitute?"
Oh.
So that's why she was here.
What a shame.
"Fuck's sake, not this again. I can feel a speech coming on…" Naruto rubbed his head. Closed his eyes.
"I'm serious, Naruto."
"Ok, listen. No offence, but the Hell gives you the right to tell me what my dreams ought to be?"
"I'm your mentor."
"Yeah." He laughed. "Yeah. So stick to teaching."
"This is a part of your education."
"Uh-huh. How?"
"What you hope to preserve," Satsuki said, "tells the world everything about who you are as a person."
"Does it, now?"
"It does. A person with dreams is a person you trust when you have your back against the wall. They have a reason to live, and will fight by your side to the last breath."
"And me? You don't think I'd do that?"
"I . . . do not know. You're a drifter. An unambitious lout who fails to recognize his own strength." She hesitated half a second, then sighed in defeat. "You're also my friend."
"I'm . . . sorta touched, not gonna lie." And he was. "Never been called that before."
"So now you see why I must counsel you on this. I'd be neglecting my duties if I were to not do so."
"And if I don't want your counsel?"
"Then I wouldn't force it on you. But I nonetheless implore you to listen to me, if not as your mentor then as your well wisher."
"Don't got many of those." Naruto laughed again. "A'right. Fine. Share your wisdom, o great sage."
"The dream now, as always, should simply be to see tomorrow," she said. "And tomorrow. And tomorrow, till someday Uzumaki Naruto is an old man. Close your eyes and imagine this for a second: witnessing your seventieth sunrise whilst surrounded by your grandchildren, a brood of reprobates who prank you the way you once pranked the world. Why shouldn't that be possible? Why should it stay a dream? To make that happen is a life worth living."
"To you, not to me. The things one's got to do to keep it alive . . . yeah, can't live with that. We've been over this. You know this. I just . . . can't. It's not worth it. Not to me."
"I will be frank with you. Your thought process has issues. Reality does not care about your idealistic delusions."
"And we were getting along so well too. Now we're back to lecture mode. What's it with you people and clinging to the coattails of reality, huh?"
"At this moment," Satsuki said, ignoring him, "you are an insect, and yours is just a lofty ideal that you cower behind. You've nested in the eyrie of your fears, and you refuse to take flight. Trust me, there's nothing worse to live with than inadequacy . . . and no worse way to perish than in weakness."
"Again, your thoughts, not mine. The worst ya can do—" he yawned. "The absolute worst, it's to show someone a mirror. Just leave em be. Let em dream. Let em live. Let me live."
"There's dream." She held up a palm. "And at the other end, there's delusion." Satsuki held up the other palm. "There's a purity to one and a complacency to the other. The first is wheat; the other, chaff. The first must be nurtured, the second stamped out."
"Oooooo. You're a tough girl, ain't ya?" He spread his arms wide in a come at me gesture and grinned. "Stamp me out, then, sensei. Here I am— stamp the fuck outta me and see how I care."
"You jest, but I've torn the stuffing out of your type before." She did not seem to take any pleasure in the words. It sounded like a confession. "I've ripped up cities which used delusion as their foundation; I've walked through the ashes of their aspirations. I've looked people in the eye and seen their system of values crumble. I've seen what a dead man looks like—"
"Mouth kinda open, starting to smell?"
"— seconds before he dies," she finished with a huff. "Don't mock me, you idiot. I've . . . where was I? Yes. I've run through dreamers and talkers and idealists alike, and they all bleed the same, suffer the same. Vacuous bleatings about ideology are always forsaken at death's door; then everyone begs for the same things: mother, father, family, mercy. None of it is ever given. Not on the battlefield. And that suffering— their suffering— the one of knowing in their last moments that they can do nothing, that they are nothing— it's not something that I ever wish for you to experience."
"The horror stories you tell me for the village's sake," Naruto said dryly, covering his mouth with one hand and feigning interest.
"Not for the village," Satsuki said. "Not anymore. For you."
She stared at him unblinkingly. He felt his ears redden, and looked away.
"For you," she repeated again, slower this time, stressing both syllables. "This is about you, because believe it or not I've come to . . . tolerate you, and it would upset me greatly if you were to die. You're my friend. The village might not miss you, but I would. No one deserves to go through life without ever discovering what they could be . . . what they will be, if allowed to live long enough. And if something were to happen to you, then the thought of everything you could've been would haunt me."
"That's . . . honestly the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me," he said, making a funny face and pretending to wipe tears from his eyes, but nonetheless flattered, and blanketed by a warm fuzzy feeling that was oh so mushy and gooey and—
"You right now," she pushed on, ignoring him, "you're a muddle. You say freedom, you say ideal, but all I hear are empty words. You are in a stasis; yours is a self induced mediocrity. To die this way is to die with regrets."
"And that's definitely not the nicest." Naruto looked at the sky and laughed.
"You won't get it," he said softly, eventually. "Yeah, ya won't. Never will. I'll have regrets, no matter what. Those words mean something to me because my life's a shitheap. And my life's a shitheap because every asshole within a two mile radius feels the need to act, to intrude— you know, to prove something. Why can't everybody just be still for one fucking second and do nothing? Do nothing, man. Just let the world happen to ya, instead of, I dunno, pulling strings. Every motherfucker's pulling strings."
". . . you're not making sense, Naruto."
"See? My point exactly. You people just don't get it."
Kaiza could not be found.
It was a conundrum and a half.
Naruto went through Wave with a fine tooth comb, but this figurehead seemed more a folk hero than a man of flesh and blood, more a legend lost to the sea of time than a current day fisherman fanning the flames of rebellion.
In this hollowed out pit of doom, where everything was forgotten and everyone faded without hue and cry, he alone was worthy of memory: he'd clawed his way out, clawed his way back into the light; and now he brought with him a cable and a many runged ladder.
This was not all Naruto heard. Rumours spoke of a mythical figure with a gift for eloquence. He had the tongue of Gods, they said. He had a stainless selflessness, an unmatched ardour. He was a deity stolen away from a fane and recast in human form for the sake of their liberation.
He was a symbol. He was a luminary. He was their hope and salvation. Yet he was one of them, too.
Aye, he was one of them.
So when asked about him they closed ranks and sent Naruto on a wild goose chase.
Shiho, bless her innocence, one day suggested the bridge. She even gave directions.
So he went.
And there Naruto met an unfriendly old man named Tazuna, who set aside for a second his flask of liquor and introduced himself as the bridge builder. He pointed over the heads of his labourers, who had broken for lunch; pointed proudly to a hulking, half finished structure in the distance which was buffeted by currents and bracketed by clouds. It stretched over the water like a kraken awakened.
He called it his baby, his brain-child.
To queries about Kaiza he was dismissive. There was no such person, he growled. Shinobi-san was misled. It was Tazuna who was incharge of this entire operation. The country dwellers were rustic ignoramuses; they were barbarians who could not tell their head from their ass. To pass the time they made up baseless rumours and nonsensical fairy tales about some non existent random.
When pressed further he grew hostile and ambled away, but not before spouting dire warnings that carried on them the stench of sake.
It was thus that Naruto found himself wandering through Wave's town square, utterly at a loss for answers and pondering over whom to next consort with or confront.
"Flowers! Fresh flowers! Flowers, Meyumi-nee chan? They'd go well with your hair. Only hundred ryo. No? Fifty? Please? Rent's due next week."
And there was Shiho, trying to find herself new customers. Her target this time was a rickety lanky girl who swayed from side to side as she walked; she had the same palsied empty eyed look that everyone here wore, a second skin.
The girl spotted Naruto and hurried away. The land was rife with rumours of his being a Shinobi, a Gato hire.
Shiho, however, waved and pranced up to him. She looked healthy, had a healthy pallor to her face: her eyes gleamed, her smile had the sun's sparkle to it; and, as she fell in step beside him, as she began to enthusiastically fill him in on her day, Naruto found himself smiling with her too.
A scream in the distance quashed their peace. It was from behind two blocks of huts, from beside the dilapidated beverage house.
By the time Naruto hurried over, leaving Shiho trailing by quite a margin, a crowd had gathered. A crowd that cowered and did nothing— they stood and watched.
At its centre was a wan woman on her knees whom Naruto recognized immediately. He had seen her a fortnight ago— it was the same woman who fled Waraji, the same one who on that night had looked like a spirit. The sunlight and her prostrate position told a very different story: one of sickness and suffering, of despair and dehumanization. She was shrunken, fading fast; there was an unevenness to her posture, and her countenance was constricted in terror.
Above her towered a man. He had two blades strapped to either side; a set of tattoos and spirals ringed his wolfish visage. Naruto did not even need to ask around to know he was one of Gato's men.
"Please . . ." The woman whispered. "We'll pay the rent. We'll pay the tax too. Just . . . one more week."
The man laughed and kicked her in the face. She crumpled. Blood oozed from her maw, blotted the ground. Then with effort she wobbled and pushed back into her former position of prayer. Of plea.
Of supplication.
Naruto grit his teeth. Balled his palm.
"You dare beg Zori of the Waterfall for mercy, whore? Take yer things and get lost."
Zori. He knew that name. Waraji had mentioned it too. The other Samurai. Gato's enforcer.
Bitter resentment welled. Naruto unclenched his palm. Lapsed back into passivity. He could not hurt the client's henchman.
"Please. . ." The woman sounded like a broken record.
Zori reached over and lifted her off the ground by her neck. She kicked at air, purpling. Clawed at nothing. Tears leaked down her eyes. Her voice emerged in guttural gasps, unfinished pleas.
"I remember you." The look Zori gave her was lascivious. Sexual. It made Naruto want to saw the bastard's neck off with a rusted blunted kunai.
"Yer husband was a piece of work too, wasn't he?" Zori bared his teeth. Leaned in."We shown him. Oh, we shown him well. The bossman don't forgive. Now take yer shit an' get lost if you wanna live."
Do nothing. It was a desperate plea to himself, the last dam laboriously straining against and holding back a tidal wave of rage and hate. Suffer. Suffer, and be still, and let the world go by, as it—
"Mother?"
Shiho was panting. She'd just caught up. The smile was gone. Her eyes were wide. The wicker basket slipped from her hands. The flowers fell to the ground, were trodden on by the crowd. Someone tried shushing her, restraining her, but with another cry of mother! she rushed forward.
Zori backhanded her.
Swatted her away, as though she were a fly. Sent her tumbling. She rolled twice. Hit a small rock. Came to a halt. Sat up dazed, her head bleeding.
Shiho began to cry.
And something deep inside Naruto snapped.
He'd drawn into himself to look insignificant. He'd slouched and hunched over; he'd tucked in his chin to stay nondescript.
Now he stood to full height. Squared his shoulders.
Stepped forward.
Stepped out of the crowd.
Stepped into the man's vision.
"Hey, pal." His voice was laced with a tempestuous fury. The fringes of his vision were a blaze of red.
"How 'bout ya pick on someone your own size for a change?" He took another step forward. "Let her go."
The man was taken aback. Then a cruel leer spread across his face.
He turned and faced Naruto, and squeezed tighter.
"Make me."
And that was all the invitation Naruto needed.
At a speed that Zori had no hope of following, no prayer of tracking, Naruto blurred forward.
It was the elbow of the extended arm he went for. He was on top of Zori before the man had time to blink. With one palm he trapped the forehand, kept on it a vice-like grip, then pushed downwards; the other he slipped under the elbow and pushed in the opposite direction with the entirety of his strength.
There was a gunshot crack, followed by a howl. The fingers were loosened. Zori let go and wrung at his arm in desperation. In an ironic reversal of the sequence from a minute ago, he tried getting away.
But Naruto wasn't done. He did not let go. He wasn't thinking. There was a pent up rage in him that for too long had stayed dormant; and now, in the fog of the moment, with adrenaline rushing through his veins and the siren call of vengeance trilling through his heart, it made perfect sense to hurt this man: to break him, to mar him, to maim him, to revel in the hunted agony in his eyes— to gloat over the fear, the half formed pleas.
Naruto grabbed him by the throat, and in a cruel parody of what Zori had done to the woman, heaved him off the ground. He let go of the arm, which bent in the other direction, flapped unnaturally. With his free hand he fired up a rasengan, which came out perfect, mastered in this moment of madness and malevolence.
Naruto brought Zori down to eye level. Revelled in the pig-like terror in those eyes. Revelled in his triumph.
"Not such a big man now, are ya?" He whispered.
"Ple—"
With one hand still throttling him, giving him no leverage and nowhere to go, Naruto drove the rasengan into Zori's ribs.
The man's torso exploded outwards in a shower of gore. The remnants of his ribcage were expelled into the air. His organs spattered across the turf. His spleen was ripped out, his spine dangled. His eyes widened in disbelief: the light leaked out, first a sliver then a torrent. Even in death he thrashed about, thrashed till he weakened; in a matter of seconds all motion ceased; and through it all Naruto kept staring into those eyes, mesmerized, hypnotized, the fog in his mind clearing, the beast sated, the sense of what he had done descending upon his reason, which until now had taken a leave of absence.
The crowd went silent. Even Shiho stopped crying. She crawled over to her mother— they huddled together.
Naruto let go of the corpse.
Took three unsteady steps backwards.
Smelt iron.
Smelt the putrid stench of bowels loosened, of innards strewn about.
Felt all eyes on him.
Looked down at his trembling reddening palms.
Doubled over.
Threw up.
And began to laugh hysterically.
"I fookin told ya, we didn' want no one else!" Waraji had tears in his eyes. The man was apoplectic with rage.
"Did not mean to kill the guy."
They were in the sitting room, arguing. Naruto had showered, but the shock was still there; pain was a predator gnawing at his haunches.
Waraji ignored him. Continued to rant at Satsuki, who had taken a seat atop the study table for this hastily summoned rendezvous. She was in her own world: she ignored the two of them; her nails seemed to be of more interest to her.
"Ye bring along some rookie, an' now Zori's dead. Dead! He was a family guy, for love o' God. What do I tell his wife, his kids? What do I tell the boss?"
"It ain't my fault that yer people are shitbags." A sliver of the former indignation took hold. "That piece of shit, he got off on beatin' people up in the middle of the street. Someone had to put him in place. I didn't mean to kill him, that's all, ok?"
"O no, jus' maim him I'm sure." Waraji's hands twitched— he was contemplating unsheathing his sword.
"That guy— he deserved to die, yeah?"
"When the boss hears o' this, ye rookie," Waraji spat, "you's dead. Oh yeah, you's a dead fookin man, six feet under. Yer job's over. Get the fook outta here. Fook ya, fook every last one of ya. Imma tell boss, an' he gonna get Iwa on the job. Firs' she makes excuses an' asks for—"
"Enough."
She said it softly, but they heard her loud and clear nonetheless: all sound ceased at once. She was still studying her nails; she sported a look of bored contempt.
"There was a peasant revolt on the western front," Satsuki said. "It was spontaneous— and it was short-lived. Zori was sent to quell it. I offered my aid, but he foolishly refused it. He fought valiantly . . . but it ended in tragedy. He was butchered by some peasants and civilians. A fate no less than what he deserved for his brashness and his repulsive weakness. That is what you will tell Gato. Understood?"
"Ye ain't no one's boss, ye whore," Waraji blustered. Ye don't get ta—"
There descended upon them a tsunami of pressure. It was like being buried under sheet upon sheet of ice; the pressure was of such potent quality that the air warped and keened, the walls cracked. The slats on the windows shattered, and so did the glass. The glass exploded inwards and rained on them like a whip of knives.
Naruto got his arms up in time. The sting of glass did not even register. It was the paroxysm of panic that was the issue. It tore through his body. His bones rattled. His heart contracted, clenched in dread. He broke into a cold sweat. This was accompanied by tremors. He grit his teeth . . . and was able to wiggle his way out of the vice-like grip of her killing intent.
Waraji was less fortunate. The man was brought to his knees. He sported a set of lacerations, was a blubbering mess. He rambled incoherently, begged for mercy.
Satsuki rubbed her nails against her hakama and blew at them a couple of times. She squinted at them and clucked her tongue. Then she pushed off the table she was sitting on. Stepped up to Waraji. Knelt before him and hooked a thumb under his chin, then gently pushed upwards till he met her gaze.
"Your friend was a rabid dog." This she said without inflection. "And you, Waraji, are a gutless fraud. Now— you will do exactly as I say . . . or else I will send you the way of your dear departed friend."
The man managed a muffled whimper, a terrified nod.
She let go of his chin.
His eyes rolled back.
He crumpled bonelessly.
Satsuki stood and turned to Naruto.
"You." Something shifted behind the impenetrable veil of those obsidian eyes.
"Gonna gimme the third degree now, sensei?" Naruto squared his shoulders and stared back, daring her to censure him.
"What's the point? What's done is done." Her voice was flat. It was as inscrutable as he'd seen her look. "I'll do you a favour and leave this out of the mission report. But next time, try not to be such a bleeding sentimentalist."
He did not feel guilt.
It was an odd admission, one that sounded wrong, even to him, one that defied all reason; but now that the hysteria had faded; now that he was no longer hyperventilating; now that he was left to his own devices; Naruto ambled about the town, uncaring; surrendered himself to the night and its starry vault, the stars firebrands shimmering through a cataract of cloud cover.
And the guilt did not come.
He'd killed a man in cold blood. He had held him by the throat and looked him in the eye, then gemmed the landscape with a necklace of his innards. Intestines, like links of a chain, had spooled out; intertwined with them was the central nervous system. The entire thing was a grotesquery of primal ostentation, fleshly ornaments linked through the crushed remains of a man's excretory organs.
It was a scene of carnage, a summation of every single thing he condemned, the foulest and the most barbaric of murders . . . and, despite all this, there was no guilt.
No sense of triumph either.
No vindication.
But no guilt.
The man had bled out: he was a stranger; he was a monster. He defiled people. Destroyed lives. He had accumulated atrocities under his name.
And he deserved his fate.
A part of Naruto wondered if that made him less human than he wished to be. He stared at his hands— which no longer shook— and wondered if the lack of self condemnation made him no different from those he chastised.
He couldn't find it in himself to give a shit either way.
He drifted from the centre of town and approached its periphery; all at once he came to a dead halt— stood still and stared.
He had unwittingly made his way to the bridge.
It towered over him, a bulwark, though half built. A brutish superstructure: ugly even in the sheen of moonlight; twisted; ribbed with rebar, steepled with steel; a metal contraption, an unholy abomination.
But to the people here, he thought, it was the most beautiful of monuments, the most sumptuous of constructs, worth more than a memorial, worth the highest of heavenly odes— it was a land's liberty, a land's last hope. It had the gloss of human expectation to it, and that beautified it, rescued it from the architectural destitution of its construction; and, as he stood staring, it seemed to expand, seemed to swell and touch the skies and become a seat fit for any deity, a glorious golden passageway that linked the earth to the empyrean.
Naruto was lost in such thoughts when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
He turned around.
And there he was. The man he had spent three weeks searching for. The man who could not be found.
The man Tazuna said did not exist.
He had a wooden leg; he propped himself up with a staff, but stood ramrod erect. He was broad shouldered and benign; his statuesque posture radiated an air of authority, an aura of assertiveness. In the splash of night light he looked like a bronzed God.
"You are Naruto Uzumaki." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah."
The man's weathered face blossomed into a grin.
"Glad to meet you, Uzumaki-san." He extended a hand.
"My name is Kaiza— and I've come to beg you for your help."
A/N: Speculations in the first scene are obviously my own. Take with a pinch of salt and then some.
If you are anything like me, then you'd be surprised to know Zori and Waraji are canon. That's the name of Gato's two henchmen. I know, I know. I didn't know they had names either, at least prior researching (read: google search if Gato's henchmen had names) it for this fic.
First of the two transitioning points in Naruto's character. The second . . . well, you'll see.
That was a thirty hour chapter. Reviews go a long way. Pretty sure I got at least 30% of it done in one go, because I was on cloud nine after a long review. So yeah, please, please leave a review.
Have a great weekend, guys!