Ch238- Amends
“Hruut!”
Zabuza slashed through his target with ease. The bubble popped, violently dousing him in water. He didn’t care nor did he slow down. He kept his momentum even with the sting in his eyes and soaked hair impairing his vision, his opponent was ahead of him breathing another bubble.
He lunged for Utakata’s pesky pipe with his wakizashi, viciously slashing downwards at it. Utakata didn’t hesitate to parry the dangerous blade with his pipe, the resulting clang of metal always surprised Zabuza though.
Just what is that thing made of? He grinded his blade against it, testing his strength against the Jinchuriki’s while preparing a secret attack— his tongue dug through the hidden flaps in his cheek and with a single exhale Zabuza launched three short senbon right at Utakata’s face.
Clink!Clang!Clink!
Utakata gave a shuddered laugh, his pipe still bearing the brunt of Zabuza’s strength and weapon, “What were you going to do if I didn’t catch those with my headband?”
“I’d call myself the winner and advise you to get stronger.” Zabuza said, grinning as he increased the pressure on Utakata’s pipe, not a dent or crack had appeared on its bronze surface.
“You bastard.” Utakata broke away, dashing out from their exchange with a chakra powered leap that sent him several feet in the air. His fingers eagerly weaved familiar handsigns before bringing the pipe up to his lips. “Take this then!”
Utakata blew a plethora of bubbles, all of them moving too fast to be regular water filled pranks. Zabuza dashed away, deciding with ease to go on the defensive as half a dozen bubbles raced through the sunny training field towards him. Haste-filled he retrieved a clutch of shuriken from his pouch and released them without any care for accuracy.
They met their marks easily enough. Two stabbed through a bubble and triggered a deadly chain explosion. As chunks of earth and bursts of water went everywhere, Zabuza could do little but dash out of harms way while his opponent…
Where is he..!
Zabuza twisted and turned in search but realized too late— “Right in front of you!”
Utakata lunged from the settling smoke, emerging from a water puddle with his pipe already in his mouth. The bubble was already part way blown when Zabuza started channeling chakra, it enveloped him quickly, refusing to pop even with his Wakizashi in stabbing position.
The bubble seized Zabuza in less than a second and before he could weave hand seals Utakata already commanded it to rise. “Hold it! There’s no escape, none you’d like to employ for a friendly spar anyway so…call it my win?”
The blasted Jinchuriki smirked up at Zabuza with a hand resting casually on his hip. Zabuza stared down at his fingers mid hand seal and sighed, “What is that, your fourth win?”
“Just might be.” Utakata said, already willing his bubble back down. “Before you ask for another spar, I’m running low on chakra.”
Zabuza gave him a deadpan look as the bubble popped, harmlessly setting him on the pockmarked ground. “You are literally a chakra battery.” he said, refusing to believe his…friend.
In one of their previous training sessions Utakata had divulged some of his ‘top secret’ duties as the Fuuinjutsu master’s helper. The village’s new ultimate defense relied heavily on Utakata as well as Lord Yagura himself to maintain a steady supply of Tailed Beast Chakra— at least that’s how Zabuza understood it. It didn’t make much sense given he hadn’t seen said defense employed anywhere since and when he asked his…friend about it he grinned and shushed him quiet.
Utakata shrugged. “Only on the weekends and days I don’t have missions. Whatever, I’m tired of beating you.”
“You only ‘beat’ me because I don’t have enough jutsu or chakra to match yours.” Utakata rolled his eyes at Zabuza’s weak excuse. “How did you even learn to do that and where did you get that pipe?”
Utakata examined the pipe in question with a wistful look on his face. He put it away and grinned at Zabuza, “Time to pay up and quick, it’s almost rush hour.”
Zabuza groaned and started walking the other way. “This is subordinate abuse.” he bemoaned once Utakata predictably caught up and swung an arm around him.
“You’re not my subordinate.” he said incredulously.
“But I could be, that seniority alone makes you a bully.”
Utakata barked a laugh and despite himself Zabuza grinned to the sound of it. “To think the loathsome Demon of the Mist could be bullied and by me.”
To think indeed… Zabuza rolled his eyes and went around picking the shuriken he could find where they fell. “Try me when I’m stronger.”
“I will.” Utakata promised, pausing before adding. “I know I’ve said this before but I’m happy to help you learn new jutsu, if you bring any but…”
“I get it, you can’t share yours unless, well, unless I find where to learn it from asides yourself.”
Zabuza watched Utakata zip his lips and throw the key. “A shinobi’s arsenal is the key to his defeat…huh.”
His Jinchuriki friend nodded and handed him some of his shuriken. Unlike months prior these weren’t crooked, rusted or on the edge of degradation. They were well maintained, sharp and unbelievable well balanced. They put a small light in him each time he held them. His time with Team 3 might’ve been short but it was the most well compensated he’s been putting aside his short dabble with Lord Funato.
“Ready for dango?”
“Am I?”
***
The path towards the dango spot was a long skip from their training grounds. They sprinted most of the way but the moment they reached unspoken boundary between the new caste district and the central district…the presence of ANBU lurking up on the rooftops dissuaded them from sprinting any more.
Zabuza’s eyes followed one ANBU-nin perched up on one of few radio towers in the village, the cloaked shinobi seemed to catch him staring and met his gaze but Zabuza didn’t relent until his neck couldn’t bend to look any further.
“You’re too stubborn.” Utakata said once Zabuza looked away. “What if he decided you’re who or what he’s looking for?”
Zabuza smirked. “It wouldn’t be the first time. I’m not afraid of them, they’re afraid of me…what they think I’ll become.”
Utakata hummed in thought for a moment. The sun had been up and ablaze the entire day but now a gentle orange hue stained the village. “Maybe, but I don’t think they’re here for you today.”
That much was true. A full month had nearly passed since the Fourth Mizukage announced the formation of the new caste clans and the laws drafted to protect caste folk like himself. Since then not much about the caste district had changed besides the uptick in shinobi movement but there were a lot less incidents. Previously Zabuza would go about his day minding his business in town and hear about one abuse, maiming or execution, no such thing nowadays.
Instead he heard some of the most ridiculous things like—
“Oh hey, did you hear about Shiro? The caste clan girl who led and completed like three A-ranks?” Utakata said, the cheer and excitement in his voice mirrored every other who’d spoken about this faceless caste clan pioneer.
It was two A-ranks last I heard, at this point the truth might actually just be a single A-rank or perhaps a handful of B-ranks worth the value of one.
Zabuza rolled his eyes. “Yes…I heard of her.”
“Mizukage-sama promoted her to Jounin on the spot or so they say. She’s only—mmhhph!” Utakata’s words cut short as Zabuza slapped his palm over his mouth.
“I’ve heard enough of her success, please let’s talk about something else or just order our dango.” They’d finally arrived at the dango spot and unlike most it wasn’t a kiosk and a cardboard sign, it was a thriving business run by some Karatachi woman and her grandkids.
““Welcome to Aunty Dango’s Tea Shop!”” All the employee’s sung as Zabuza entered after Utakata.
It was a rented space with a functioning bathroom and seating space for the myriad of customers soon to be on their way. Already there were a few enjoying their orders, a smitten couple here, a boy and his mother back from school there and a group of laborers having their first meal of sweets and tea.
Most successful businesses in the caste district were like this. Built, patronized and protected by those of the caste district yet run and benefited from by those well outside. Usually foreign merchants finally looking to settle but more often than not simple, essential businesses within the caste district had some influence of the main clan in it.
It was a normalcy not many thought to question but now that the caste clans fortune seems to be taking a turn for the better, Zabuza had finally heard his thoughts on the matter voiced by one person or another. When will the caste district be run by its denizens?
Zabuza expected many changes would occur as more and more asked questions like that aloud and sought the answers. If the freedom Lord Yagura has granted sustains then Zabuza could see his neighbourhood truly becoming a part of the village-city rather than another backwater slum.
They sat and waited for a waiter to come pick their orders. There was a menu on each side of the table but both Zabuza and Utakata found themselves guilty of a sweet tooth— they needn’t even glance at it.
“Uta-kun…Momochi-san, what’ll your orders be?” The waiter that came up to their table was also another familiar aspect of this spot. She was a reserved, brown haired civilian girl hired off the streets to lend a hand.
Utakata beamed up at her. “Koe-chan, so good to see you. I’ll have my usual but cover it, might be in the bathroom for a bit.”
Koe made a stinky face and shoo’ed him away before tentatively turning towards Zabuza. “And you, sir?”
Zabuza hadn’t done anything bad to Koe nor was this a case of his reputation preceding him. Their meeting was bloody, brutal and traumatic and judging by her hesitance to look him in the eye more than a half second, Koe remembered it all and still hadn’t recovered.
I could’ve afforded not to be so violent that night but…I was already having way too much fun.
Zabuza didn’t have much experience handling people he’s saved but usually the right answer is to apply some distance. He couldn’t do that in Koe’s case because he liked dango and it wasn’t his fault she got a job at his favourite spot. But also because, even if she was timid and shrunk near him now, he always got an extra something from her as form of some kind of everlasting gratitude.
“Dango.” Zabuza said, giving her his singular and simple order. “Ten plates.”
She wrote it down furiously on her notepad and nodded. “Coming right up, sir!”
Koe made herself scarce before Zabuza could bother to grunt in response. With her gone he was left alone at the table with a glass of water and two complimentary dango balls sitting in a weaved plate.
His eyes found the bathroom on the far right side of the restaurant. Asides from the little boy having his sugar slick cheeks wiped clean there was no one else in sight and Zabuza knew there would be no one in the bathroom either.
Admittedly, Utakata was a much more hardened shinobi than Zabuza originally gave him credit for. He was fairly predictable in battle but still had enough up his sleeves to keep Zabuza anxious and guessing. It was a different scenario in any social setting though. The moment the tension of battle, training or the general strife of being a shinobi was lifted, Utakata became as easy to read as a scroll with a single word.
He’s gone to find Rina again or maybe she’s already here and I’m the one he’s brought.
Zabuza sighed and once again blamed himself for the embarrassing predicament. He’d told the Jinchuriki that Rina would be the one to decide if Team 3 returned or not and since then Utakata found any and every opportunity to unite them for that conversation.
Albeit there weren’t many opportunities in the first place given the political turmoil involving the Princess’s clan but the last time Utakata arranged a meeting they met in the supermarket. And Mangetsu was there.
Not the best meet at all.
He was sure his rivalry with her cousin didn’t help. Mangetsu himself wasn’t above taunting him for the failure Rina told him all about. The only reason they didn’t battle right there and then was because…well, it was a supermarket and Utakata wasn’t as lost from the objective as any of them. The poor Jinchuriki ping-ponged between the three of them trying to put out fires before they started only to fail woefully in that attempt once Rina had enough and stormed out.
Doubt it’ll be any different this time.
““Welcome to Aunty Dango’s Tea Shop!””
Zabuza turned to see who entered and found Rina staring right at him. Her scowl formed as she turned around and dashed out in record time. “Wait! Rina just…hey! Come on, this is our chance!” Utakata yelled, beckoning him to chase after the fleeing Hozuki.
“Ughhhhh…” Zabuza groaned and sank deep in his seat.