Zabuza's S.Adventures 24 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

-VB-

Zabuza’s S.Adventures
Chapter 24

-VB-

Life was a balance.

Zabuza realized this now.

For the average run-of-the-mill ninja, it was finding enough missions to get money, pay their rents and utilities, pay for food, find a spouse, fuck, make a few kids, and hopefully retire before getting stabbed.

His life wasn’t much different. He was currently on one of many paid missions of his life. Money from this mission would be spent on food, utilities, maintenance, taxes, and more. He already fucked a lot, had a few kids, and was honestly looking forward to retirement.

…

He was an average run-of-the-mill ninja.

“Damn.”

“What’s that?”

He glanced at his teammates.

As part of the larger border patrol and possible skirmish unit, he had been inserted into a group of twenty ninjas that would operate as a platoon. He was not the commander of this platoon but its second in command.

The one who’d called him out was the platoon commander, Toshi.

“I just realized that I’m a run-of-the-mill ninja,” he grumbled.

Toshi laughed. “I think only the kages and some of the hardcore ones like the Sennin are not average,” the black bushy-bearded and bald ninja chuckled. Then he paused talking and glanced at him. “Well, I guessed that you’re not exactly the same as us.”

The two of them continued their slow pace along with the rest of the platoon and the carriage with supplies for them and the outpost they would visit and operate from.

“What’s so different? Is it because of where I am from?”

Zabuza normally did not work with other Konoha ninjas. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to or they didn’t want to; most of his time in missions was spent patrolling, traveling, and fighting. Sure, fighting against Konoha’s enemies was working with Konoha-nin but it wasn’t one that he spent talking heart to heart.

He supposed that … since he would be staying in Konoha now… he should open up to others a little.

“I mean, I go on missions,” he began. “I fight, go home, have fun with my wives, have kids, and will probably retire, right?”

“Ah…” Toshi hummed. “I think you forgot something.”

“What?”

“Big guys like you can retire, but small guys like us don’t retire.”

“What do you mean?”

“You do know that there is a high turnover rate for us chunins, right? There’s a reason why jounins like you are truly elites.”

He did know.

“But you know what I’m getting at.”

“Yeah, it’s what all of us want.”

“... Do you have family back home?”

“Nah,” Toshi huffed. “All the women I’ve courted think that I’m too weird.”

Zabuza raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see anything weird about you.”

“I know, right?” he groaned in misery as his shoulder slumped. “I just talk about what I do for work and whatnot, and all of them are just -”

Zabuza held up a hand. “Wait, you tell civilians about ninja work?”

“Well, yes? What else do I have to talk about?”

He facepalmed. “You do realize that even in Kirigakure the civilians have a hard time understanding the complexity or brutality of ninja work, right?”

Toshi looked surprised. “Really?” he asked incredulously. “But the civilians live in Konoha and half of the people are involved!”

“Which means that the other half aren’t.”

The bearded chunin looked alarmed. “Wait, so when I told them about how many bandits I killed and how I did it…”

“They probably only saw a brutal killing machine and not a person.”

Toshi’s head dropped in embarrassment. “Ah man, I fucked up.”

Others behind us laughed, something that would have never happened with Kiri-nin and their superiors.

Toshi just laughed with them with a bright red flushed face.

Zabuza joined in with chuckles of his own. He rather liked this kind of friendly atmosphere.

-VB-

“Toshi, get the fuck up!” Zabuza shouted as he shielded them both with Kubikiribocho from the rain of kunais.

“... Can’t…” the jolly bearded man muttered as his eyes stared off into the distance. His pale face and the slowing blood flow from his stomach wound told Zabuza all he needed to know. “Zabuza… t-take the orders and burn them…”

And then the hands he used to keep the bandage tightly fell to the side.

“FUCK!”

Zabuza only spared the world a glance before he carried out Toshi’s last orders, pulling the two scrolls out from his back pocket and burning them with fire the new second in command, someone he didn’t know, provided.

“We have to get to the outpost!” Zabuza shouted. “We’re sitting ducks out here!”

He told Toshi that they should have fallen back the moment they saw the mist. There was no way it wasn’t made by Kiri remnants.

Zabuza caught sight of a ninja jumping down with a sword in hand at a squad of unaware Konoha-nin.

“DUCK!” he roared as he threw his sword. He grimaced a little as his now exposed side took a few glancing hits by the kunais, and watched as his giant blade buzzsawed across the air. Konoha-nins saw it and ducked just in time to be showered by gut and blood from the ex-Kiri-nin he just bisected.

The powerful blade turned from its own horizontal spinning momentum and came back to him. Zabuza grabbed the bloodied hilt of the blade.

He came face to face with another Kiri remnant charging at him with kunais in hand and a water jutsu ready to go.

“DIE, TRAITOR!” the ex Kiri-nin snapped before spitting out a large green acid water ball at him.

“FUCK OFF!”

The acidic water ball cut down along with the ninja in question when Zabuza chose to attack rather than dodge. The ninja took the hit and … became wood.

‘Substitution-’

Zabuza jumped away from his spot just as four of the same acidic water balls splashed there and burned through the solid ground.

Mid-air, he quickly surveyed the area.

The chunins and few genins he now led were spread out.

“GATHER TO ME!” he roared before he threw Kubikiribocho again and then slashed through a dozen hand signs before slamming into a ram sign. “Water Technique: Great Torrent Dive!”

Various water balls formed and became discs in an instant around Zabuza before screaming down to the earth like saws. Aimed specifically at the Kiri remnants, they cut down those whose training he was only too intimately familiar with.

Konoha-nin saw him and began a fighting retreat towards him.

“We go to the outpost!” he shouted as he landed and caught his blade, and the Konoha-nins all nodded with loud acknowledgements.

Then they broke off into a run before more of the Kiri remnants could converge on them.

As they ran, Zabuza’s mind was filled with questions like how these remnants could have dodged Konoha and Land of Fire patrols or how they showed so much coordination. It was as if … there was a hole in the border.

‘What the fuck is going on?!’

One of his questions was answered when he arrived at the border military outpost and saw a burning ruin.

“Oh shit.”