Curse These Old Bones - Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Zabuza stood with the weight of Kubikiribōchō balanced across his broad shoulders, the blade’s dull, brutal edge catching flecks of moonlight as the sea breeze rolled in from the port. The night smelled of brine and cold iron, of tension curled tight beneath the surface of things. From his vantage point atop the weathered stone parapet, he could see the faint glow of lanterns along the dock, where Anko and Pakura moved through the shadows with practiced ease. A handful of samurai flanked them, their movements disciplined, boots clicking softly against the cobbled streets.

Samurai. Stationed far too conveniently for coincidence. Zabuza’s eyes narrowed. Those weren’t the typical rent-a-blade types. A bit old, a bit rusty, but with fire in their eyes. Their stances were sharp, their hands close to their hilts, and their glances…Old Samurais ? Loyal to the previous Daimyo ? Damn Sura, he could at least brief them a bit better…

His gaze shifted.

Sura and Yuki stood below, framed by the crumbling arch of the old lighthouse. The conversation floated up in half-heard fragments, caught and torn by the sea breeze.

“…not my people anymore…” Yuki’s voice was tight, brittle as frost underfoot.

“…they never stopped being yours, Princess…” Sura’s voice slid through the air, smooth as oil on cold water.

Zabuza’s eyes flicked toward the girl—Yuki Kazahana. She had the bearing, now that he looked for it. Shoulders drawn high to hide the nobility etched into her posture. Chin tilted too sharp, the reflex of someone unused to bowing. And that name—Kazahana—hell, it was almost insulting how obvious it was. Daughter of the former Daimyō of Snow Country. A runaway royal, hiding behind drink and bitterness. Of course, Sura needed to save Princess. And, of course, Konoha would end-up, if they played well, with a new vassal in all but name country.

“…you think a name is enough to fix that country?” Yuki snapped, her voice cracking like ice under pressure.

“…not just a name…” Sura replied, voice low and sinuous. “…but power… legitimacy… and fear, if need be. You think the current Daimyō can hold that country together? He sent dogs after you, Yuki-hime. And you saw what happened to them.”

Zabuza’s lips curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. Those three had fallen like wheat before the scythe. He’d made sure the message was clear: their severed heads had rolled right to the feet of the remaining guards, their faces frozen in wide-eyed disbelief. Blood still stained the cracks of the stone courtyard where it had all ended.

“…this is madness…” Yuki muttered. But the fight was bleeding out of her voice, replaced by something heavier. Resignation. And under that, perhaps… hope?

Zabuza could see it. That old, poisonous thing Sura dealt in like a merchant at a silk bazaar: promises painted in just the right shades of regret and ambition.

"And of course, Konoha — we can…"

Then it happened.

Mid-sentence, Sura’s body locked for the barest fraction of a second. His hand froze midway through an easy gesture, and his eyes narrowed just enough to betray the incoming storm. Zabuza caught it immediately. The faint tightening at the jaw. The subtle shake of his head, as if to clear the phantom weight of fresh memories. One of his clones had just been dispersed. And whatever news had ridden that wave of chakra—it was bad. For a heartbeat, something like …fear ?…flashed across Sura’s face. Real, unvarnished apprehension. Then it was gone, smoothed over by the effortless smirk he wore like a second skin. But Zabuza had seen it. And that was enough to make him fucking afraid.

“…you’re thinking too small, Yuki-hime,” Sura continued smoothly, as if nothing had happened. “…this isn’t about thrones or crowns. It’s about the survival of your people. Your survival. And…”

His voice trailed off, eyes distant, though his mask never slipped again. But Zabuza kept watching. Whatever had just happened—whatever news had come through that dispelled clone—it wasn’t good.

Then, without missing a beat, Sura turned to Yukie, his voice low but edged with finality. “Just…think about that, Princess.” He didn’t wait for her reply. His fingers moved with subtle precision, forming a rapid series of ANBU hand signs.

Zabuza’s eyes narrowed. Kiri signs. That’s Kiri protocol. His grip unconsciously tightened around Samehada’s hilt. How the hell does he know that?

The message was clear: Gather the team. Roof. Now.

Zabuza vanished without a word.

— — —

A few minutes later, the frost-bitten tiles groaned under Zabuza’s weight as he stood alongside Anko and Pakura. The rooftop overlooked the skeletal remains of the old lighthouse and the mist-cloaked harbor beyond. Cold wind dragged at their cloaks, carrying with it the sour stink of the docks and the faintest metallic tang of snow yet to fall.

Anko crouched on the ledge, chewing the end of a senbon with mock impatience. “So?” she drawled. “Why’s the boss-man calling a midnight council on the roof? Finally ready to spill that it’s not exactly a state secret he’s planning to stick a crown on little Princess Yukie’s head and call it a day?” She grinned wickedly. “I can see the perks. Konoha gets its own cozy little snow-covered puppet state. Nice place to store our frozen assets, eh? But really—why bother?”

Pakura shifted, arms folded tightly against her chest. Her voice was cooler, clipped. “The country is a dead husk. Covered in snow year-round. The land’s infertile, frozen to its core. Mortality rates through the roof from exposure and starvation. If it were a mine, I’d call it stripped clean. What’s left to want?”

The creak of the rooftop stairwell door cut their conversation dead. Sura emerged, his face a mask of something heavier than even his usual arrogance could cover. Grave. That was the only word for it. He carried the weight of a man about to hand out bad news—and worse orders.

Pakura straightened immediately. Even Anko, mouth half-open to sling another quip, fell silent. They had seen him many things—reckless, infuriatingly smug, even bored—but never this tense.

“Change of plan,” Sura said, his tone low and devoid of its usual mocking cadence. He crossed the roof to stand before them, his gaze flickering between each of them with uncharacteristic sharpness. “I had a clone handling a situation. It was supposed to be clean. Quiet. And it wasn’t.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. “No—that’s wrong. I underestimated the outcome. That’s on me. The clone was supposed to fix the problem and dispel before it became anything worth worrying about. But now…I’m not sure it succeeded. And even if the chance it failed is low, the consequences are bad enough I can’t ignore it.”

Anko tilted her head, chewing her senbon like a bored wolf. “Can’t you just send another clone?” she asked, almost lazily. “Or are we making this dramatic for fun?”

Sura turned toward her slowly. That look—flat, deadly serious—made even Anko’s bravado falter.

“No,” he said simply. “If there’s a problem—whether political, or…other—a clone isn’t enough. I have to handle this in person.” His hands moved again, precise and blindingly fast. A puff of chakra and smoke heralded the arrival of a new clone beside him.

“This one stays here with you. But listen closely. If this clone gets dispelled—and the other three with it—”

Anko shot to her feet. “Other three?” she interrupted, incredulous. Pakura sighed sharply through her nose, resisting the urge to shove her over the ledge for once again interrupting their commanding officer.

Sura didn’t even blink. “Yes. Three others,” he confirmed. “One henged as a samurai, motivating the other samurais to keep morale from imploding. Another’s henged as a civilian, spreading the right kind of whispers to guide public sentiment where we need it. And the third…”

He turned his head toward Zabuza now, his expression unreadable.

“…The third is sealed in scroll number three,” he finished. “Zabuza’s pack. Emergency fallback in case of absolute failure. So, now you know, Anko, Pakura…”

Anko’s mouth opened again, but this time Pakura shot her a glare sharp enough to slice through steel. Blessed silence.

Sura nodded approvingly, then folded his arms across his chest, his breath fogging faintly in the cold. “Since you’re all finally quiet, listen closely. I’ll give you just enough to keep this from collapsing if things go to hell.” His eyes flicked to each of them, sharp and measuring. “Snow Country is a strategic location. And once the snow leaves—”

Zabuza cut in before he could finish.

“Wait. The snow will leave?”

Even Anko, prepared for another flippant retort, stayed silent. That was such a ludicrous statement even she had nothing snide to add. Pakura, for her part, merely lifted a brow, her analytical mind already working through possibilities—and finding none that made any sense.

Sura’s lips curled into that infuriatingly knowing smile. “In time,” he murmured, digging into the inner pocket of his coat. With the sort of theatricality that made Zabuza’s left eye twitch, he produced a small, silver-chained necklace, the dull glint of a cracked blue pendant catching the thin moonlight.

Anko’s eyes widened. “Hey! That’s the princess’s necklace! The one she threw overboard when she had that little dramatic breakdown on the boat. I was this close to diving after it for the resale value.”

Sura held the pendant up between two fingers, the fractured gem turning like a slow pendulum. “And this,” he said, voice almost reverent, “is the key to the whole damned plot.” He handed the necklace to his clone, who tucked it away without a word.

Zabuza growled low in his throat. “You’re telling me that broken trinket’s going to melt a whole country?”

“Not exactly,” Sura replied with maddening calm. “It’s the keystone to the old Kazahana geothermal project. Hidden, forgotten, conveniently erased from most records. Once the proper seals are removed—this,” he tapped his chest where the pendant had hung, “unlocks the control array. And with the right people in charge…”

He let the thought hang like a guillotine over their heads.

Pakura exhaled slowly, her voice low and dangerous. “You’re telling us we’re standing in the middle of a frozen goldmine.”

“Exactly,” Sura said, his grin widening. “Once the snow leaves, the land recovers. Agriculture, trade routes, mining operations—hell, maybe even a naval port if Konoha plays its cards right. And every bit of that newfound wealth will owe its resurrection to the benevolent hand of Konoha” His eyes gleamed.

He adjusted the strap of his pack and turned toward the rooftop exit. “Now, I need to make my way back toward Konoha. Quickly.”

Anko kicked her heel against the rooftop tiles. “And what exactly do we get to do while you go running off into the sunset, oh Great and Mysterious One?”

Sura didn’t look back. “Simple,” he called over his shoulder. “You’ll make sure Yukie becomes the new Daimyō. That she signs the treaties—my clone will represent me for the formalities. The scrolls are already drafted.” He patted his backpack. “All perfectly legal. Mostly. Just follow the instructions sealed in scroll two, under the Treaty Compendium.”

He paused at the door, turning back just once, his expression unreadable beneath the weight of whatever storm he was about to walk into. “Remember: if the clones fall…you fall back. No heroics. No grand last stands. If it all goes to hell, you cut your losses and run.”

His voice dropped, soft and deadly serious.

“Good Luck, my friends.”

And with that, he was gone, vanishing into the cold night as if he had never stood there at all.

Zabuza released a slow breath, his fingers unconsciously tightening on Samehada’s hilt.

“Wonderful,” Anko muttered. “He leaves us with a princess, a country, and a doomsday clock of the mysterious crisis he has to go and solve. What could possibly go wrong?”

— — — —

Tiger had been through hell before, several times over. He had walked away from things that should have killed him. The silent, needle-threaded nights when he’d dodged Suna’s assassins as they slipped into Konoha’s borders. The Kyūbi’s rampage a decade ago—he still felt the phantom heat where a claw had grazed his skull, left a scar tucked beneath his hairline, “a kiss behind the ear,” Hound had called it with his usual gallows humor. He had even fought Sasori of the Red Sand, the puppet master’s body jerking like a marionette as ANBU steel tore through it. Training with Itachi Uchiha had been another brush with annihilation—more psychological vivisection than training, really, and one Tiger had survived only by clenching his jaw until it cracked. And, of course, there had been the madness of serving under Hound when he’d first joined ANBU. Surviving that was a qualification in itself.

But this?

This shit?

Tiger turned in place, forcing his breath steady as his eyes roamed the ruins around him. Kusagakure’s capital—no, what was left of it—looked like a corpse with its ribs cracked open. Stone streets gaped with fissures wide enough to swallow carts. Entire rows of houses had collapsed into ashen heaps. Smoke poured from broken beams like the city itself was exhaling its last. Bodies—shinobi and civilian alike—littered the cobblestones. Some lay intact, their eyes glassy, others twisted, melted, half-consumed by something that was not fire and not jutsu but something far worse.

Cat and her team had gone only minutes before, dragging the unconscious jinchūriki—Naruto, Tiger reminded himself, the boy had a name—back toward safety. Alongside them, the Red Death and her squad had followed them as well — their safety capital and probably the main parameter of Cat's mission —, their faces pale and stricken. And those genins had seen them fight Sasori head-on, seen them cut through his hellscape of puppets with nothing but blood and stubbornness. They had come back from that a bit traumatized - but it was nothing compared to what they’d seen here. It had hollowed them. Tiger had caught it in their eyes before they left—the look of people who had glimpsed something too close to madness.

Hell, he had that look too.

He still felt the quake in his bones, the echo of that chakra pressing down, suffocating, searing. Not chakra. Not simply chakra. Malevolence made liquid. Tiger had been close enough to the Kyūbi’s rage once, as a boy clutching a kunai far too big for his hand, and this had been worse. Older. Hungrier. He remembered the Hokage—calm, almost casual—as he turned to him before walking into it.

"I’m going to melt," the Hokage had said, his voice steady, almost casual, as though he were commenting on the coming rain. His eyes never wavered. "Do not panic. It will look like I die—but I will not. Your mission is to deal with the aftermath. Use scroll three. Heal and protect the two red-headed women. Then, escort them back to Konoha. I will try to send reinforcements… though they may not come quickly."

Tiger’s gut clenched at the memory. Because then the Hokage had done just that. He had walked into the maelstrom and begun to dissolve, his skin blistering, sloughing off in sheets. His flesh had liquefied, dripping from bone, until the man was nothing but a silhouette melting into that unholy chakra. Tiger had seen plenty of grotesque deaths, but never someone choosing it. Never someone melting with calm in their eyes. He shivered. Even now, he could almost smell it.

And then the world gave him no time to breathe.

Figures burst through the wreckage, running hard. A cluster of Grass shinobi, pale-faced, flanking their lord. The Daimyō himself stumbled forward, his silk robes clinging damp to his legs. His expression was a grotesque paradox: the slack jaw of terror and the taut jaw of fury. He looked like a man who had pissed himself and still wanted to swing a blade at the world. And why shouldn’t he? A bijū had nearly torn his capital apart. His own shinobi lay dead in the gutters. And the Hokage—the one man who might have smoothed this storm—was gone, melted to nothing.

That left only Tiger.

Tiger and the few ANBU at his back, two of them staring at him like he had an answer while their medic was healing the badly hurt red-headed woman the Hokage

The Daimyō’s voice cracked as he spoke, though he tried to wrap it in the tone of diplomacy: “We will have to consider…recruiting some of Iwagakure’s shinobi. To ensure our safety. And reparations—yes, Konoha will pay reparations. Why did your Hokage destroy my city? Why did your village kill my people?”

Tiger’s mouth went dry.

Fuck. He would rather have fought Sasori again. At least puppets didn’t demand treaties.

— — — —

Kushina sat by the bed, fingers twisting the hem of her tunic until the fabric frayed. Naruto had been unconscious for a full day. She should have been relieved.

She wasn’t.

She wanted him to wake — needed him to — but at the same time, terror gnawed at her. When he opened his eyes, there would be no hiding anymore. No easy lies about why chains had bound him, why the Kyuubi’s voice had torn from his throat.

She leaned forward, resting her forehead against her clasped hands, breathing shallowly. "Please," she whispered, "just a little longer."

But fate, cruel and impatient, refused to wait.

A small rustle.

She looked up, heart hammering.

Naruto shifted under the covers, a soft frown creasing his pale face. Then — slowly — his eyelids fluttered open, revealing that vivid, familiar blue.

Kushina felt her heart twist, wild and fierce.

"Naruto," she breathed, the word breaking from her before she could stop it.

The opened eyes were full of questions.

"Sensei K…Are you…my mum ?"