Zabuza's S.Adventures 38 (Patreon)

Zabuza's S.Adventures

Chapter 38

-VB-

To swim without disturbing the surface was to swim deep underwater, and Zabuza and his fifteen ninjas did exactly that. Moving as fast as they ran, they cut through the dense and churning waters and latched onto the starboard bottom side of the metal ship.

And slowly crawled up to not make loud noises.

Suspiciously, there hadn't been Kiri-nin guarding the waters.

They all climbed aboard and quickly caught the guards and put them to sleep.

Then they prowler deeper.

The ship was a maze of narrow metal corridors, doors, and pipes.

Aside from the guards, no one else was out and about. They just raided Land of Fire's coast, and weren't alert? What the fuck?

He finally snuck into one of the rooms with sleeping occupants.

Zabuza found them, the Kiri ninjas.

"What the fuck?"

There were seven ninjas in here, all of them genin and none of them older than twelve.

He … hesitated.

Why were there only children here? Sure, Kiri was fucked up, but to send greenhorn genins to the frontlines without seemingly any experienced leaders?

"Taicho."

He leaned back and saw Ami, one of his subordinates.

"What?"

"We found the captain and the chunin in charge. We have them secured."

A chunin?

"This is weird…" he grunted as he turned away and closed the metal door silently.

"Hai."

"Prep the rooms with explosive tags."

-VB-

Konoha-nin found him in his sleep and got him. The guards didn't signal the alarm, so they must have gotten on and took them all out.

He knew raising the Land of Fire as the Mizukage ordered was a bad idea.

Now, he sat tied to a chair and senbon disabling his tenketsu points. He was as good as dead.

"They put you in charge of them all?"

Ren looked up and froze.

Standing in front of him was the lucky traitor, Momochi Zabuza.

Ren sneered at him. "Ah, the turncoat. I should have expected Konoha would have used you to fight us."

"Wasn't much of a fight," Zabuza snorted as he took a seat across from him. "Why are there no jounins or experienced chunins aboard?"

"… because they're busy fighting Kumo."

"So they put a bunch of greenhorn genins and a chunin on an expensive metal boat? For what? Raids?"

"You wouldn't understand following ord-."

"Yeah, well, that order got you captured."

"And you're an insolent dog that betrayed his village!"

The Demon of the Mist stared at him coolly. "The village threw me away. The Mizukage threw me away. Just like he threw you and these genins away."

"... ENEM-!" he shouted but couldn't after one syllable when a kunai fucked his throat. He gurgle in his own blood and slumped forward.

-VB-

"Idiot," Zabuza grunted as the shout woke up a few. The few would soon become many.

"Taicho, are we retreating?"

In a tight corridor filled with enemies that outnumbered them, there was no chance of survival if they stayed.

"Yes. As soon as we are on the deck, set the tags off."

"Hai!"

Zabuza and his comrades ran through the halls as a few dogs slammed open behind them. Irate Kiri genins saw them and realized the situation and began to sound the alarm.

The first few died quickly but enough had risen to stop it.

They cleared the interior and were on deck.

"Now!" Zabuza shouted as they all took off and jumped overboard.

The tags detonated and the ship exploded from within. The deck quickly caught on fire, and screams erupted from the lips of the unfortunate who survived the explosion.

They swam to shore safely and watched the ship and all of its occupants - roughly five hundred ninjas and sailors combined - died as the ship sank with all of them, whether or not they survived the explosion and the fire.

As he stared at the sinking ship, Zabuza only got more questions than answers. Why did that chunin follow a suicidal order? Why were there only genins aboard? Why were the guards only genins as well? Why were there no alarm systems set in place?

He didn't get his answer until a week and a half later when he got a letter demanding an explanation from Kushina on why the fuck did he blow up a civilian ship?

What?

-VB-

He was summoned back to Konohagakure, and stood before the Hokage. Kushina was currently in the backbones while she interrogated him as his superior.

"What happened, Jounin Momoichi?"

There must be something serious if she started the debrief like that.

"It began on… "

He told her everything about how the Kiri vessel had come with ninjas. He had watched them raid three villages for supplies. Having determined them to be enemies, he engaged them at night and ended them as it was normal in this kind of situation.

Her hard eyes softened in relief and she leaned back into her chair.

"Oh thank kami you hadn't gone crazy."

"Is that what they are saying about me?"

"Yes!" she nearly hissed. "Kirigakure is accusing us of attacking civilian vessels! Worse, they had pictures of the vessel you blew up, the Blue Lagoon, blowing up!"

It was then Zabuza understood and he felt his heart clench a little.

They had used him and his patrol team.

"There were only genins aboard," he grimaced.

Kushina grimaced. "Kiri is proclaiming that the ship was a chartered noble education field trip. Are you sure-?"

"Every single one of them had a headband somewhere on their body."

She growled. "Send in Jounin Commander Nara on your way out. Kirk just broke a big rule and tried to blame it on us. I'll make sure you'll be okay."

He left.

Even if he didn't get the full picture, he understood that something big had happened.

Why would random children getting killed matter? It hadn't mattered before. It wouldn't matter during wars.

Unless..

Unless there were noble children. Heirs. Heiress. Even Fire nobles and their children.

Why else would blowing up a civilian ship matter? It mattered because people who mattered had been killed.

This was a matter out of his league. Even as a missing-nin, he'd intentionally avoided doing too many nobliloty-related missions because they brought too much attention. Involving a single family might get him a big bounty. There was a chance that-.

He froze as the puzzles fit in.

Kirigakure was unstable. The Land of Water was unstable. Both had lost a lot of Manpower and economy due to the Kiri Civil War.

What if…

What if this was planned? Of course, destroying a civilian vessel wouldn't matter internationally. It wouldn't be the first time or the last. There wouldn't be compensation. What would matter, however, was if Kiri could use this as an excuse to gather the support of outraged nobility who didn't get the justice they wanted, and use it to overthrow the daimyo.

Why puppet the daimyo when you can legitimately take over the entire system? A puppet might one day grow its own mind, and that would cause a chain of events too meddlesome for ninjas to deal with. Yagura was pulling a political move unlike anything he'd shown before.

And the Mizukage used him to do it, unknowingly or not.

Zabuza gritted his teeth and took intentionally steady steps on his way back home as the very bitter realization that he'd done his enemy's dirty work for them.

-VB-

Later that week, his guess came true when frantic merchants spread the news of the Water Daimyo's death and Yagura's ascension to the Lily Throne.

For the first time since moving into Konoha, he raged.

-VB-

A/N: not everything works out in his favor. What should have been a footnote of his life became a personal humiliation he will not let go for a long time.

I am also moving fast, i guess, but I wanted to set a living and fighting world before time skip (soon to come).