章節 197: Chapter 197

Zabuza took a moment to let out a heated, anger-restrained exhale, tickling his vocal cords to produce a low growl and send a frightfully cold paralysis down Tenten's spine. Cornered and captured mentally as much as physically, Tenten can't even stop listening if she wanted to as he demoralizes and deconstructs something previously safe within her.

"In an effort to teach me the strength of his position, he gave me a horn big as I was that I was to blow in every seven minutes during his sermon. He was a weak and petty man, so I didn't care, but I did it anyway. The first time I sounded that horn, he stopped preaching, dropped to one knee for two silent seconds, then got back up and continued yapping. Everyone there naturally thought it was odd; looking around like idiots. I thought he'd lost it, myself, but the second time I sounded that fucking horn, two followers dropped to their knee along with him; for two seconds before standing back up again. The third time, a dozen worshipers took a knee with him before standing. The fourth time, they all took a fucking knee. Not out of obligation. He didn't order them or even make mention that he was going to act that way. They simply followed blindly, and to this day, with all the murders and slayings I've committed, that's still the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life!"

Gripping Dānyī's entire face with a painfully tight grasp, the angry assassin glares directly in the choking arms dealer's eyes and practically yells, "it's when I learned that none of you mattered more than nourishment for the strong. Your sheep-daughter was born to warm my bed and you were meant to feed my sword, you thieving cow."

Turning back to back to Tenten, he grips her by the throat, gripping her thin anatomy shocking hard as he stares into her shaking eyes and states, "I see the same quit in your eyes, girl."

"N-no," a hollow and tearful Tenten manages.

"Ten," her father weakly voices. "He's g-goading you. There's nothing wrong… with b-bein a fol-lower. We all follow!"

"She's a quitter," Zabuza accuses her.

"I'm… not," Tenten tries to yell through gritted teeth.

"If you don't die now," he starts shaking her thin but strong neck. "You will, peacefully, in your own bed from old age. And no one but your pathetic, fatherless offspring will know your name," Zabuza assures her with all the certainty of his decades as an elite ninja.

Trembling, Tenten couldn't respond. To be so easily forgotten, to be passed by unnoticed, to amount to nothing, it was her worst fear. And without knowing her, Momochi Zabuza easily grasped upon the very thing she feared most about herself. It's why her father's capitalistic nature or her mother's abandonment is never worth mentioning. The only thing that mattered to her was becoming someone important to the people of her village. It was a beautiful dream that filled her with warmth when she was alone.

Zabuza then adds the final thorn in her heart.

"Sheep like you will never amount to anything," cutting her deeper than his sword ever could when a distant fist knocking against wood sounds throughout the room. The grip at her throat tightens but it didn't matter to Tenten; she already felt lifeless. As the man's senses traveled well beyond her home and business, Tenten wanted to find a hole, crawl in it and die. Instead, Zabuza cut her binding with his short fingernails, and with her father as a hostage, he orders her to open the shop's door.

Spiritless, Ten drags her feet down the stairs to the door, and the closer she moved to the freedom beyond the doorway, the more she hoped and prayed for the person knocking to be the answer to this madman. With her father held to his sword's edge should she disobey, she does as instructed and unlocks the door to allow Ōyashiro Izumo to enter the store.

He was a tall skinny man with long beige hair, a trim cut goatee, hazel eyes, and milk-white skin. He wore a baggy brown tunic over a teal long-sleeve shirt and pale green pants. Tenten doesn't recall meeting the man, but she's heard of him often enough from her father and immediately looks for and finds the pink bangle around his right wrist, a trade-mark accessory of the Ōyashiro family.

"Upstairs," Zabuza orders from the back of the store though it sounds as if he's right next to them.

On their way, Tenten whispers to the tall and stern man in a tunic, "get help. He'll kill us."

"My dear," Ōyashiro sweetly calls from beside her as they walk to the back of the store. "I remember your mother when she was younger and you are even more radiant than she. Time and death certainly have a wonderful feature of showing us what truly matters, do they not? Though I would not like you to think less of me, I must be who I am and explain that despite knowing your father and your mother for some time, my business comes first, followed by my safety, and if at all possible, I'll certainly help those in need, for a small fee, of course."

In the seconds it takes Tenten and Ōyashiro to travel from the front door to the apartment upstairs, Tenten hopelessly acknowledges that this man is cut from the same clothe as her bleeding father, faithful servants of the almighty ryo. With Zabuza at the far end of the room, casually leaning against the dining table, Tenten moves beside her tied up and now gagged father.

Observing the sweating, bleeding, and pale Dānyī, Ōyashiro callously begins, "I'd wondered why my old colleague failed to meet me at the scheduled time." Turning to the tall assassin with the executioner blade, the veteran dealer continues, "when Terumī-dono introduced you as a traveling monk of her acquaintance, I believed her—you were quite convincing, after all—however, I'd have to be blind not to recognize Momochi Zabuza, the previous owner of Kubikiribōchō."

"You should leave, Ōyashiro," Zabuza orders, confident the merchant isn't going to draw attention, considering the ninjas he's smuggled into the village.

"I certainly intend to do so," Ōyashiro kindly states. "As soon as my business in Konoha has concluded."

"Then get out while you can," Zabuza warns the old merchant. "Because if you think your business has anything to do with Kubikiribōchō, then you've wasted a trip."

With a short bow, the merchant calmly speaks, "with all due respect, Momochi-dono, I don't believe it is."

Kicking the chair Dānyī is tied up to with his long leg, the Demon of Hidden Mist tells him, "don't blame me because you trusted this filth enough to sell you smoke."

"Then I ask, why are you here," Ōyashiro almost ponders to himself rather than ask Zabuza. "The executioner blade is already in your possession. Why not flee? Whatever more could be keeping you here, I wonder."