Zabuza's S.Adventures 13

Commissioned by Kejmur

 A little bit of a filler chapter mixed with a little bit of world building.

Zabuza’s S.Adventures
Chapter 13

-VB-

When he and his genin team arrived at the Hoto Outpost at early dusk, Zabuza couldn’t help but feel that some of the garrison ninjas here were glaring at him.

As he passed through the wooden gate that served as the official entrance into the log-walled outpost, he was proven right when the gate commander glared down at him along with many of the stationed ninjas. The regular soldiers only looked at him in fear.

He was stopped by a ninja, a jounin like himself. “Momoichi Zabuza, jounin of Konohagakure,” he bowed lightly. The tall and burly-built man returned the gesture. 

“Enamoto Juushan, a fellow jounin and the commander of this outpost,” he replied. “May I see the patrol order?”

Zabuza reached into his uppermost leftmost vest pocket and pulled out the mission slip. The outpost commander took it, unfolded the paper, and read the lines.

“Hmm, just a simple patrol mission to acclimatize the genins to this sort of work. Not a single problem, considering how boring it is along this border.”

“Good to know.”

“Come with me to the tent. I’ll have a spare map with the route to the Torohima Outpost.”

“Sensei,” Keito spoke up as they moved. “Why do we need a separate map?” he asked.

“It helps to keep the location of the outposts off of the map,” he replied. “It’s a common tactic just in case one map was stolen with information on one outpost rather than one map being stolen for information on all outposts.”

“That makes sense, but doesn’t it get … I don’t know, cluttered?”

“It does, but better a few pieces of paper more than to lose your people.”

“What did Kiri do?”

“... We just killed the people who had those outpost locations memorized when capture was very likely or inevitable.”

That seemed to make his students feel the chill or lag a little behind.

“It was Kiri’s official regulation and procedure, which is not the case in Konohagakure. Konoha nin are known for suiciding on their own.”

“You like talking about morbid things, don’t you, Zabuza-sensei?” Eri asked with a deadpan tone.

He shrugged without looking over his shoulder. “Just how I grew up.”

-VB-

They got the map and stayed for the night. The following morning, they set out to “patrol.” 

It was a leisurely mission where he spent most of his time teaching his students how to observe movements from afar. 

However, he stopped them all when he saw a road that ran between the Land of Rivers and the Land of Fire. From over a kilometer away atop trees, he saw the state of the road through the gaps between few tree canopies. 

The Sanamo Road, or the Road of Fire Daimyo Sanamo, was one covered even by the Kiri Academy for its importance for serving as the trade highway between the Land of Wind and the Land of Fire. As such, the Land of River, Wind, and Fire all did their best to maintain the road, if only to extract more tax from the merchants passing through.

The Kiri ninjas didn’t care, and just considered a valid target in case of war to disrupt trade.

As a new Konoha-in, Zabuza did care, and he frowned at the state of the supposedly well kept road. 

Even before he could formulate a plan to discover what might have caused the damages, he heard it. 

BOOM!

His eyes snapped towards the border. In seconds, he found the cause of the damage. Heading deeper and deeper into the Land of Rivers, he watched as two different teams of ninjas fought, one team fleeing and the other team chasing. 

The problem, however, was that they had already crossed the Fire-Rivers border, and he knew better than to jump the border to capture possible perpetrators to the damages Sanamo Road suffered. 

“Sensei, the Sanamo Road is damaged!” Tsuyo pointed out belatedly. 

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, the road is damaged, and the possible causes to the damages are already on the other side of the border,” he groused before he jumped down from the tree and landed on the ground with only a soft tap.

His three students were less graceful and made a bunch of noise while jumping down and landing. 

“So we’re chasing them?!” Keito asked excitedly.

“No,” he replied. “I don’t know which regulations Konoha and Land of Fire covers borders, but it is common sense to never cross a border without your superior officer’s command. An armed personal crossing the border during peace? That’s asking for war, if not execution for the lone actors.” He glanced over his shoulder to see Keito’s paling face. 

“Let this be a lesson to you all. Sometimes, you just have to let a troublemaker go…”

And then he heard another explosion in the distance followed by silence.

“To avoid getting into bigger trouble.”

He waited for a bit while looking forward again. “Alright, let’s get moving again. We can reach the Torohima Outpost before sundown easily. You don’t want to go to sleep on an empty stomach, do you?”

“No, sensei!” his three students exclaimed excitedly at the prospect of food. 

They did not know, however, that he intended to train them briefly but brutally before they went to sleep.

-VB-

The following morning, he woke up, fed, and led his team back towards Hoto Outpost. On the way, they ran into the Sanamo Road again and the merchants trying to pass through the pot hole riddled road. 

“Sensei, shouldn’t we help them?” Tsuyo asked him when they stopped by to check if there were any more disturbance in the area.

Zabuza looked over the naive, well-meaning (mostly), and enthusiastic stares they were giving him (Eri was the only one who looked as bored as he did).

“... I suppose we can have Keito work on his Earth techniques,” he sighed. “Let’s go repair a road.”