His fingers are cold, soft, and a little wet. Like snow, like a touch of snow.
"Haku," he murmurs, with a tenderness he could only expose when the boy is asleep. Zabuza caresses his long black hair, thick and fibrous but soft like silk. His face is pointed, becoming angular, with big brown eyes, long shiny lashes, the palest complexion, pinkish lips. He is likes a snow rabbit, so small and fragile, so nimble, so witty. But, there is an audacity to him, too. A bodily strength, a likable temperament that furrows, that crushes. Just enough sadism, the perfect amount of sadism. Their enemies cower in fear of this little boy, this - his body is small, growing. Adolescence, steaming, arriving, from some distant hormonal shore. Soon, he will become interested in sex, alcohol, and the other sins of life. His nindo is still forming, still - but he only has eyes for Zabuza. Zabuza is his master, his savior, his - and so Zabuza wonders: When will he realize what I really am? When will he realize that I am just a washed out traitor? A merc. A thief. A broken tool.
"I'm sorry, Haku."
He dresses the boy in kimonos - or is it the boy who dresses himself? He gives the boy a mask to wear, his old hunter-nin mask, from the days of glory in the bloody mist, the failed coup, the life on the run. Unlike the Akatsuki, Zabuza never scratched out the Kiri symbol from his forehead protector. Instead, he just wears it off-kilter, like they say the Copy Ninja does. It was a long, cold, bloody history. The Fourth, the coup, Juzo, Kisame, that Uchiha boy… It burns in him, like something sour, like pulp in his gut, in his throat, wanting to becomes words, tales, truths. But, the boy is asleep.
"I was born into the Bloody Mist, Haku. A world you were too young to know about," he starts, then stops, chokes on the words. It's too long ago, to talk about it now. Useless, both him and his past. The Bloody Mist was a simple place. Death or life. Strength or death. The weak died, the strong became tools. The very strongest, the Seven Swordsmen, became heroes. That's how it was. Simple. When the times changed, things became confusing. He fought for something he didn't understand. He tried to kill him, so foolishly he tried. His beheader's blade snapped on the Fourth's coral. Like a twig, like - and so he had to flee, he had to run, he had to become invisible, hiding in the mist, silent stepping, killing for food and money. It wasn't long ago, when the news arrived, that the coup was over. That Mei Terumi, once the most hated ninja of the Mist, had accomplished what nobody could - the old regime, started by the Third, continued by the Fourth, was toppled. Yagura was dead. At the cost of a Bijuu, and countless missing-nin. Zabuza could not go back, then. He became one of the lost. An old hero, still celebrated, still respected, but he had nothing to go back to. The Mist wasn't the same. He didn't want it to be the same. But it wasn't the same. If he returned, he would collapse, implode, fall away into depravity. So, he found a child, in the snow. Haku. One of the lost souls who the new regime never - well, the timeline is messy. Nothing is known. That's the nature of shinobi, of the secret-keepers, of death dealing. It's useless, all so useless. This world, it's made of relationships, work, and the dying of things. Maybe. Something like that. Zabuza is lost, still. Confused, betrayed by himself and others. That man, that short snobbish man - Gato. With his mustache, his wiry hair, his sunglasses. He will die a bloody death. Nobody will care. That is fine. He will die like Shinobi die, on the battlefield. Like Zabuza will die.
But, the boy. He murmurs in his sleep. Unintelligible, without language. Just a noise, a sleeping noise, almost like a snore - but Zabuza will punish him for it, later. Good Shinobi don't make noises. The ones who survive are always alert, even within sleep. So young, he is, Haku. So small, so - but he is not so fragile, not so weak. His jutsu is strong, cannot be defeated by normal ninja. But - maybe it is his nindo that is weak. A nindo unto Zabuza. A life dedicated to a broken tool. This is like Genjutsu, Zabuza thinks, what he does to Haku, what he's made Haku believe about him.
"I'm sorry, Haku. I just needed, I just needed one person to believe in me. To see me as the man I wanted to be. No - I didn't know what I wanted, back then. When I was a kid, a killer kid, I didn't want anything, back then. I just wanted to be good, maybe. And that meant killing. Anyone they told me to kill. I peaked too early, I think. I - I'm sorry, Haku. But you'll know about me, one day. You'll become powerful, stronger than me, and I'll die, maybe by your hand, and you'll go back there, to the Mist, which, now, under the Fifth, might accept you and your abilities. I'm sorry. I keep you from that, from - But they'll use you, too. You'll see. There is no such thing as peace for us, for Shinobi. No such thing as dreams or aspirations or ambitions. Only the day-to-day, killing, survival, then death. In the end, we all fail. So, we call failures successes. We call dying on the battlefield - we call that honorable. I don't know. I have no honor, anymore, Haku. Honor means having, it means having someone to give your honor to, right? To die honorably means you died for someone. But, I have - I don't have that, anymore. I just have these blood-ridden hands of mine, this blade that eats the blood of my enemies, and this brain which pulses with hot boiling blood, too. I'm sorry, Haku. But I cannot die with honor. I cannot give you anything. Except, maybe, my sword. One day. You can have it, one day. If you can lift it, that is-"
And he laughs. Zabuza laughs a sad, dry, sandpaper laugh. His chiseled teeth showing, his bandages coming loose.