Chapter 120: The Cruelty Beneath the Kind Face & Zabuza's Crisis
The world snapped back into focus with the gut-wrenching sense of teleportation. Ren stood once more on the frost-sheathed bridge deck, not on the support tower where he'd left. The air was colder, the mist thicker. At his feet, Tazuna lay groaning, his back a grotesque pincushion of glittering ice senbon. The old man's skin was pale, his breathing shallow—Haku hadn't killed him, but he'd made him a message in frozen pain.
A whisper of chilled air. Ren's head tilted a fraction, his hand a blur. A kunai appeared, meeting the crystalline edge of an ice blade that materialized from the mist with a sharp clang. Haku stood before him, the serene mask of his features cracked by a visible, simmering fury.
"Where," Haku's voice was a low, frozen thread, "is Zabuza-sama?"
Ren spun the kunai casually in his hand, the motion effortless, insulting. "You'll be joining him soon enough."
Haku's eyes narrowed. Ren saw the moment the young ninja's discipline warred with his fear for his master. It made him predictable. The kunai in Ren's hand flashed, not with chakra, but with reflected, distorted light from the mist—a feint. Haku's instincts screamed. One hand flew into a single-handed seal. A perfect, person-sized ice mirror erupted from the frost at his back, its surface rippling like water.
But Ren was already moving. Not with the Hiraishin, but with the pure, lethal speed of Sakumo's legacy. His body became a streak of silver-white light, the air itself seeming to part before him.
White Fang Flash.
The technique was simplicity and death incarnate. He passed through the space Haku occupied in the time it took for a heart to beat once.
CRACK-SHATTER!
The ice mirror, and the Haku reflected within it, exploded into a cloud of diamond-bright shards. They rained down onto the bridge with a sound like breaking glass.
But there was no blood. Only ice.
An Ice Clone. Clever, Ren thought, his senses immediately expanding. Used the mirror as a distraction while the real body… where?
[Pure Land Live Stream – Chat Log]
[VIP5, Admin: Tobirama Senju]: Calculated deception. The mirror was theatrics. The clone was the escape vector. This one has a tactical mind far superior to his brutish master.
[VIP1: Uchiha Izuna]: Gotta give credit where it's due. The cross-dresser's got style. Unlike someone who just stands there and gets Chidoried.
[Zabuza Momochi: …]
Ren turned his attention to Tazuna. The old man was a mess. The senbon weren't in vital spots, but they were numerous, and the cryogenic chakra within them was leaching into his system, threatening nerve death and systemic collapse. A vegetable was a bad look for a client, and a dead one was worse for business.
"Uncle Tazuna, this might sting," Ren said, not waiting for a reply. His hands formed a quick, precise seal. He leaned forward and exhaled a thin, controlled stream of flame—a Fire Release technique so basic it was usually reserved for lighting campfires or cigars. It required exquisite chakra control to not immolate the target.
The flame licked over Tazuna's back. The ice senbon hissed, melting instantly into rivulets of cold water that steamed on contact with the bridge. The invasive chill was purged.
Tazuna gasped as warmth returned to his tortured muscles. Then he smelled burning hair and fabric. He looked down. His trousers, their belt burned through, pooled around his ankles. His shirt was scorched at the edges. He looked up at Ren, his expression a masterpiece of suffering and betrayal.
"Young man… do I look alright?"
Ren helped him up, averting his eyes from the sudden draft. "Minor collateral damage. You're alive."
"Alive?" Tazuna wheezed, clutching his sagging pants. "Where did you go? That… that monster in the mask! He grabbed me, shook me, demanded to know where you took 'Lord Zabuza'! When I said I didn't know, he… he pinned me down and started hitting me! Then he started stabbing with those ice needles! He said if I didn't talk, he'd string me up from the bridge and beat me like a rug! If you'd been a minute later…"
Ren blinked. That was… more intense than he'd expected from the "kind-hearted" Haku of the original story. But then, this wasn't a story. This was a boy raised in dumpsters, fighting dogs for scraps, molded into a perfect, amoral tool by a demon. Kindness was a luxury he couldn't afford; cruelty was a language he understood fluently.
[VIP3: Yagura Karatachi]: Poor old man. Ravaged by a cross-dressing assassin.
[VIP5, Admin: Tobirama Senju]: Individuals who engage in consistent gender-role transgression often exhibit complex psychological profiles, which can include latent sadistic tendencies. The subject's actions align with this analysis.
[VIP1: Uchiha Izuna]: The old geezer's tough. A few minutes of that would break most men. Maybe the cross-dresser was just playing with his food.
[VIP5, Admin: Tobirama Senju]: Or he has 'other' appetites. The mind that chooses to present as the opposite sex is a labyrinth of deviant potential.
[Regular: Hyūga Hizashi]: A terrifying thought.
[VIP2: Third Raikage]: A cross-dressing master of Ice Release… truly a formidable and unsettling combination!
[Zabuza Momochi: …He was just efficient.
The chat, however, was about to turn its analytical gaze on the new arrival.
[VIP5, Admin: Tobirama Senju]: Zabuza. A query.
[Zabuza Momochi: …What?]
[VIP5, Admin: Tobirama Senju]: You were aware of your subordinate's… sartorial and presentational preferences.
[Zabuza Momochi: Yes. What of it?]
[VIP5, Admin: Tobirama Senju]: And you permitted it. Even encouraged it, as it aided in infiltration and deception. The question is: did this permissiveness stem from tactical pragmatism… or a more personal interest in the aesthetic and functional possibilities of a male presenting as female? Were you, in essence, cultivating a tool that also satisfied certain… niche proclivities?]
The Pure Land stream seemed to hold its breath.
[VIP1: Uchiha Izuna]: HOLY— TOBIRAMA! YOU GENIUS! THAT'S IT, ISN'T IT?! THE DEMON OF THE MIST HAS A FETISH! CONFESS, ZABUZA! YOU KEPT HIM AROUND BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO—]
[Zabuza Momochi: NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! IT WAS PURELY TACTICAL!]
[VIP5, Admin: Tobirama Senju]: The subject protests with notable vigor. A common psychological deflection. The data remains inconclusive but suggestive.
Zabuza's spectral form felt a new kind of death—death by scandalous, posthumous speculation from the most revered and revised figures in shinobi history. His afterlife was becoming a hell of invasive questions.
On the bridge, Ren finished securing Tazuna's pants with a strand of ninja wire. "Stay behind me. He's still here."
The mist swirled, coalescing into a ring of perfect ice mirrors around them, each one reflecting a calm, deadly Haku. Dozens of him, all with hands raised, thousands of ice senbon glittering into existence like frozen constellations.
"You took Zabuza-sama," the chorus of Haku's voices whispered from every mirror. "I will take everything from you in return."
The chapter ended with Ren and a half-naked, traumatized Tazuna trapped in a dome of lethal ice mirrors, Haku's gentle voice promising utter annihilation, and in the Pure Land, Zabuza desperately trying to defend his honor against the relentless psychoanalysis of a dead Hokage and a cackling Uchiha ghost. The cross-dressing master wasn't just kind-looking with a cruel heart; he was the catalyst for the most bizarre interrogation in afterlife history.
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