Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1. Violence. (OH, addition!)
AN: Full Chapter Title: Update: The Land of Waves! Gato's Terrible Legacy!
"Things are too quiet." The centurion brought them all to a halt, drawing his sword from his side without speaking another word. He strode forward, the blue eyes of the men of the Orange Legion roaming the trees on either side of their path. The centurion was left to advance alone because he was capable, he discovered the tripwire without issue and cut it with single swing of his blade.
A log soared in front of his face and the wind shifted his blonde locks.
"Ambush." He returned his sword to his side and lifted a hand into the air. "Artillery!"
"HOO!" Pilum soared into the trees and the possible cover was destroyed, the shields of the Legion planted in front of them and protecting them from the wooden shrapnel. A group of clone started forward on either side of the road, shields and swords held at the ready while a ring was formed around Tazuna, pilum jutting out from gaps in the barrier of shields. The centurion pressed two fingers to his ear.
"Tazuna's arrival is delayed. We are being attacked." Just as he spoke, battle cries reached them from all sides. A battle cry came from the lips of those of the Legion engaged in combat and already he could smell the iron of spilled blood.
"Damn Ronin." Tazuna's voice from next to him made the centurion raise an eyebrow before he heard something that was simply uncommon.
It was a cry of alarm in a voice identical to his own.
"That's not good." The centurion spoke an understatement before blue waves of Chakra ripped through what remained of the trees and cleaved into, and through, the shields of the Legion. He was splattered in blood but paid no mind to it as he swiftly formed the necessary seals with his hands.
'Praetor's genius knows no bounds.'
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
Before, the Ronin had faced hardly a quarter of the might of a century. Now they faced two.
"Kill these Ronin!" The centurion's words were met with a cry for battle as pilum soared overhead before raining down into the forest. With a sweep of his hand, he tightened the circle around Tazuna.
He did not like the technique of these Ronin. His eyes were cast to the nearest body, the cut that had bisected him from the shoulder thought to be impossible. Their armor was strong, their shields stronger and neither had provided much resistance. The technique the Ronin made use of was definitely something he would be investigating after this battle.
He did hear the ringing of steel striking steel but he could ignore that. His eyes settled on the two men charging down the road from in front of the circle protecting Tazuna.
He summoned and threw a pilum forward and his eyes narrowed when the sword of one was wreathed in Chakra before it extended, cutting the projectile in half long before it would reach the two.
'This will not be easy.' He took half the circle with him when he charged forward with a shout.
"Your wife's old man will be fine." Zabuza Momoichi, the man who had terrorized the Land of Waves with his mere presence, stood across from the man who now ruled in the absence of Naruto Uzumaki. "He got a little banged up but nothing a bit of bed rest won't fix. At least that's what Haku tells me. As for the guys with him? Most of them got killed before reinforcements showed up and took them down."
"I'm surprised I trust your apprentice more than I do you." Kaiza locked eyes with the mercenary for a moment before sighing, rubbing at his tired eyes. "Do you know who's behind the attack at least?"
The attack in question wasn't something unfamiliar in Waves, both during the rule of Gato and now in the short time after it. It seemed that Gato's had left an unwanted legacy for the people of Waves in a large bounty he had ordered put on the man who had killed him. It was a bit difficult to do so since the citizens of Nami no Kuni had butchered him in a mad frenzy, but the large bounty had been placed on Kaiza's head. He was under constant guard, the soldiers of Naruto Uzumaki's rapidly expanding Third Cohort wasted no time in tightening security in what was becoming the capital of the land.
Construction on the Orange Legion's future fleet was not halted throughout it all. It continued under a harsh schedule. Tazuna had hardly been given a day's rest to recover from the shock of the attack before he was told to return to the shipyard. The old man didn't honestly complain, Kaiza had heard him mutter something about "going stir crazy cooped up like this" before he had grabbed his tools and hurried out the house. For everything that had happened, the thing that still surprised the younger man was the fire that had been lit in his soul after so long.
He wasn't like this when he was building the bridge all of Waves would be relying on for salvation. He hadn't been the same ever since he had thought he had been marching out to his own death.
Back to the matter at hand, the attack was one of several but the first that targeted someone beyond Kaiza. Tazuna was traveling, under guard, and men they had just recently identified as Ronin from the Land of Iron had attempted to claim the bounty on his head. They hadn't succeeded. Some had been butchered during the attack, the lucky ones really, under the blades of the Legion and the others had been taken prisoner. They had been sentenced to death without a minute wasted.
"The prisoners didn't do much expect for scream." A dark smile came across the face of the Demon of the Mist. "I'm surprised most of them lasted so long with that particular execution style. I've never seen anything like it. That damn kid has got a pretty unique style."
Zabuza was referring to a particular method of capital punishment Naruto had instructed his Legion to use called crucifixion.
The Demon called it unique.
Kaiza called it barbaric.
The report he had been handed by the Demon told him everything he needed to know. The prisoners the Legion had taken had been divided into groups of three, the survivors had numbered twelve exactly out of the initial thirty-six intentionally, and sent to the four main Orange Legion camps. Three were located far from Kaiza, spread out to the very edges of Nami no Kuni to the other three cardinal directions, but he only needed to see one example of the execution for it to sicken him. The fourth camp was located in a limbo, both inside and outside of the expanding port city.
He had already seen it before, Naruto had been sure to instruct one of the centurions of his Legion to find one of Gato's more vicious surviving thug and make an example out of him. Kaiza wished he did not have to be witness to the brutal execution but the centurion of each of the centuries of the Third Cohort had been present. He couldn't refuse. He had at least made sure Tsunami and Inari didn't have to see the execution. He had thought it would be simple, a beheading with a speech at most.
He had never expected it to happen the way it did.
The man had been dragged out to the center of the camp. He was a murderer, a rapist, a thief, and a monster without question. The Centurion of the Third Cohort had listed off his crimes, a long list that made Kaiza want to go out and beat the man to death with every new crime leveled, and then given his sentence without batting an eye. The man had been smirking the entire time, smiling with pride with every one of his vile deeds and the more vicious ones had earned laughs of sadistic glee.
"For the crimes as I have read them, committed on the lands of the Uzumaki Empire under the protection of the Third Cohort of the Orange Legion, you have been sentenced to death. Your execution is by crucifixion."
His smirk was gone when he heard the last word. He had tried to struggle but he was weak compared to the strength of the Praetorians. A man like Kaiza, stronger than many, could be called weak when compared to the might of the Praetorians.
A crowd had actually gathered to see the man that had terrorized Waves be put to death but no one had expected for the method to be so brutal. They had cheered when the man's resistance had been met with the unrelenting strength of the Praetorians. Men, women, and children had enjoyed the sight of the man beginning to sob, to plead for mercy. Some could remember when they had done the same, heard the same countless times day in and day out, and jeered at him. He was nothing but a monster that would at last die, that would at last receive the fate all beasts like him deserved.
The man had been forced to a post by two of the hundreds of Praetorians that made up the guard Kaiza had been given where his hands were bound above him. Then a centurion had stepped forward. A whip was in his hands. Kaiza could still see it in his mind's eye now, covered in nothing but the blood of a man whose voice had given out long before the lashes had stopped. It hadn't ended there. The crowd was silent. They had originally cheered at the man's suffering, a small bit of their land's own pain being given to him, before it had simply gone on and on.
The same two Praetorians had cut him down on the orders of the centurion, dragged him away and thrown him to the ground next to a cross.
They didn't do anything else through. The same centurion that had wielded the whip came forward and drew his sword. He cut the leather into cords and handed them off to the Praetorians. They dragged the nearly dead man onto the cross, held his legs together while another came with a large hammer.
The pain of having his legs shattered made the man fully conscious for what came next. He was screaming the entire time but he no doubt remembered the identical faces that held him to the wooden cross, tied his arms to it at the wrist, forced his ruined legs straight and tied his ankles together before tying his shins to the cross. He no doubt remembered Kaiza's face when his cross was erected directly in front of the Vicarius.
Kaiza knew he would never forget that man.
The people of Waves had wanted retribution, had wanted to see the guilty punished.
They did not come to see a man tortured.
They did not come to see a man left to die.
The two Praetorians did not leave the crucified man then. They stood on either side of him with a hand on the hilt of the blade at their side and a pilum in their hand. The centurion had stepped forward next, handed him a scroll and spoke a single word.
"Read."
He remembered the blood that had stained the centurion's hands. He remembered the blood that had been left on the front of the scroll he had opened with numb fingers. He remembered the blood that bled through the paper, almost smudging the letters of the words he had no choice but to read.
"People of Nami no Kuni, your lands are the lands of the Uzumaki Empire and are protected by Praetor's glorious Orange Legion. Within his lands, the word of Praetor is law. Within his lands, the Orange Legion will protect all who swear themselves to him. Refusal to follow the words of Praetor is a crime punishable by death and it will be carried out in the method you have seen before you today: crucifixion. This criminal is to hang from this cross until he is dead. A guard shall be posted here to discourage any attempts to remove this criminal. If any attempt is made, those responsible will be sentenced to death and it will be carried out by crucifixion. If this criminal does not die within 7 days, he will be killed by the guard. Once the criminal dies, no grave will be dug, no shrine will be committed to his memory, and all who knew him will seek to erase him from their thoughts. His corpse will be reduced to nothing but ash and all he owned will become property of the Uzumaki Empire and the Orange Legion. If any attempts to give this criminal honor in death are made, those responsible will be sentenced to death and it will be carried out by crucifixion. Do not despair at the sight before you today, do not feel anything but disgust for the murderer, the rapist, the abuser who hangs before you. He was a man who followed Gato, a man who let Nami no Kuni fall to poverty, to strife, and to misery. Rejoice that his life is lost today, rejoice that his memory dies with him, and rejoice that Praetor's Orange Legion watches over these lands. Rejoice people of Nami no Kuni."
He could still hardly believe he had spoken so perfectly, so clearly, when his tongue felt as if it weighed ten tons. He had wanted to do nothing but crawl into a hole and die the entire time he had been made to speak, to commemorate the brutality as some joyous thing. He felt sick to his stomach even now just remembering what had happened.
"You alright there Vicarius?' Zabuza's humored voice brought Kaiza back to the present, away from his memories of screams, of blood, of a man broken and left to die. "You're looking a little bit green."
"I-I'm fine." Kaiza could hardly stand to know twelve men now hung from twelve crosses. He also couldn't stand that he was glad he wouldn't need to give another speech to the people, tell them to take pride in the fact that they were witnesses to such brutality. "Go…go do whatever it is you do Momoichi."
"And I'd thought you'd never let me go get drunk." Zabuza's chuckled filled the office despite the man being gone. Kaiza let his head rest in his hands, driving the palms of his hands into his eyes as he tried to block out the memories with the pain.
"Vicarius, I trust you are fine?" The centurion, at least one of the many within Nami no Kuni, entered his office not long after the Demon had left. He stopped in front of him, two Praetorians shadowing his every step. "Even if you are not, there is much work to be done with the information we have gained from the prisoners."
"Weren't they executed?" Kaiza wished he didn't ask. The centurion's face held a grin identical to Zabuza's own even if it was only for a moment.
"They hang to die as we speak." The centurion held up a scroll from his side and presented it to the man who had been placed in charge of Waves. "This information is more pressing, the location of Gato's remaining funds and the cause for the attacks against you and your family. We have gained vital intelligence and the finest century of my Cohort has been dispatched to end this problem at the roots." Kaiza now knew who he spoke to: the Centurion of the Third Cohort, the commander of all the forces that stood under the banner of the Third Cohort of Naruto's Orange Legion.
Beneath the two boys that had left Nami no Kuni for their home village, he stood with one of the ten most powerful soldiers of the Legion, one who commanded a force that would soon no doubt be worth ten Cohorts instead of the two it currently was. The expansion of the Third Cohort was no secret to the citizens of Nami no Kuni. The increased presence of the Legion's soldiers spread across their lands, the continued extermination of the stragglers of Gato's once mighty force, and the increased construction of every project the Legion undertook was impossible to ignore.
"I see." He took hold of the scroll and opened it, the map within a familiar thing to his eyes.
He had once swum up a river nearby to close a dam door not too far from where the last of Gato's vile legacy was being kept. It was once the site of one of his greatest feats, a sight of inspiration to others about the strength one man could possess, but now it would be nothing but another execution ground. Naruto's men would not leave with any prisoners, the Legion seemed to dislike the very practice of taking prisoners. They saw it as an act reserved for the truly pathetic, the weak that deserved nothing less than life-long servitude to Praetor and his Empire. Only complete conquest of their foes would do normally and Kaiza had never seen the alternative. He didn't know if he should be happy about that.
Death, no matter how cruel, is better than slavery, right? Would death not have been better than suffering under Gato's tyrannical rule? Would death not have been better for the children he forced into his service? Would death not have been better for the women taken by his thugs? Would death not have been better for the men taken from their families and shipped like cargo?
Regardless of his thoughts on the matter, the men of the Legion would attack. Gato's remaining thugs would either be killed with their steel or spared to be interrogated on the location of his funds by the centurion that commanded the assault. Those men would be questioned there, they would be sentenced there, they would be crucified there, and they would be left to die there. The might of the Orange Legion was absolute in Nami no Kuni and, with it, Naruto's power was impossible to deny.
Once Kaiza had been amazed at the power of Naruto Uzumaki but now he was growing more and more sickened by it.
'At least he's nothing like Gato.' It was his one solace. Gato was a petty man, one who abused his power simply because he could, and Naruto was nothing like the former tyrant of Nami no Kuni. He wouldn't randomly select citizens to crucify at the very least. His Legion did not rob, murder, and rape the people. They protected them, helped them, let them become strong once more. When no one else had batted an eye as Gato took over the small land, Naruto had come and freed them all. Naruto was building Nami no Kuni, letting it become great once more and allowing the people to truly live again. Gato had only destroyed it, let its people sink deeper and deeper into despair with his sick glee growing every day.
Yes, Kaiza could be sickened by the sight of Naruto's more extreme showings of his authority but he could not hate the blue eyed Shinobi. He was a hero to the people after all.
By the end of the day, he would be sending a report on the complete extermination of Gato's forces to Konoha, carried by the wings of a messenger bird.
AN: Before I continue, take a moment to appreciate the research I did for the crucifixion part. Broken legs would lead to collapse when the arms gave out and leave the victim to suffocate. That's at least what I read. If you know more, PM me or leave a review and I will gladly correct this bit and credit you. I want to strive for accuracy for this part actually.
Anyway, ignoring the crucifixion, onward to replies.
hennessyswagg83: I've already replies to you via PM.
Megatronus Uchiha: Your challenge has been accepted and I'm currently working on it.
Donthedarkdragon26: I am glad to have entertained you. And yes. It will still happen.
Guest: I've learned you can't please everyone. I'm currently actually questioning if you even went far enough to read this...
Ecomadness: I have given more!
Review or PM if you want.
Peace.