29 Daddy's Home
It took a lot of running around to track down what was left of the ex-Kirigakure shinobi who joined me in my first attempt on the Mizukage. Some had splintered off, joined bandit clans or gangs, but at least the biggest faction of my followers had stuck together under a Special Jonin named Gendo. He'd caused a schism when people started getting tired of working for scumbags to get by, and lead away an idealistic chunk of my men. They'd holed up on the coast and were working on stealing a ship that could take them to the continent east of the Land of Water.
I quashed those plans when I landed on Gendo in the middle of a meeting, collapsing the man and the table under us. Standing on his head with both feet, the surprised ninja shrieked in agony and terror as I smiled around at the big room filled with a platoon of his subordinate chunin. My organization currently lacks genin, but give these guys a chance to prove themselves. Their skills will definitely let you down.
"Daddy's home." I greeted my soon to be miserable subordinates.
After hunting down what was left of my coup forces, I had three special jonin and two platoons of chunin. Not exactly the two hundred we had for the assassination attempt on Yagura, or the one hundred we had when we fled, but I was a different man than I was before, both literally and qualitatively.
Most importantly for these chumps I now had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the techniques in Konoha up to the elite jonin level and a supernatural ability to teach others. Even if they were all as dumb as cats and dogs I can easily get them skillfully performing to the best of their personal limitations. Which is why I had my group hidden in the back woods of the Land of Hot Water with many water clones running around screaming at people. Omnidirectional ass chewing is the most effective way to break a regular man down and turn him into a warrior, turn that up to the supernatural level and I had my ninja undergoing the most effective boot camp this world has ever seen.
Most of them specialized naturally into swordplay and water release jutsu, but a few exceptions for the other elements found themselves equally served by my teachings. I only needed a fraction of the time to help anyone learning from me develop their skills, and this includes such fundamental areas as chakra control. While all my men might labor under the burdensome fate of not being born quarter alien space gods, and thus will never win the important battles of the world, in the realms of us lowly humans their skills will make them splendid shinobi.
My own abilities grew rapidly as well as I continued working through Hiruzen Sarutobi's incredibly broad skill set. I chose the man as my only Template for that very reason. My Template options were restricted purely to this setting, and included the alien space gods that everyone so rightly fears. There were many more powerful options to pick from than the Third Hokage, but Template Stacking I & II nerfs all abilities gained through it to Tier 5 power. Almighty Push is a hell of a lot less almighty when it's nerfed to a building level ability, and interdimensional portals aren't very helpful when it takes you a couple of seconds of concentration to make a portal to a location within your line of sight. That is where Hiruzen shines, because where the Third Hokage lacked the incredible specialized abilities of his peers, he possessed the broadest ability set of them all, and a hell of a lot of that power set fits nicely into my Tier 5 limit without getting the nerf hammer making it largely useless.
It wasn't long until I felt confident stealing a ship and sailing to the Land of Water, the misty islands that quite frankly fucking suck to live on. The Land of Water is a savage place, not just Kirigakure, but the entire archipelago. It almost gives me Iron Islands vibes with just how brutal the place is on its population. The current Water Daimyo possesses the weakest control over his country of the Big 5, and the Mizukages under him have run rampant for decades.
Kirigakure was a dreary city of round stone towers built through minimum effort Earth Release jutsu out of the local brown sedimentary rock bluffs and always shrouded in heavy mist with a hard scent of iron in the air. My boys and I sailed our ship straight into port in what most would call a suicidal maneuver.
I stood on the prow holding a billowing flag that read: Daddy's Home! With a chibi painting of me hacking Yagura's head off with Kubikiribocho. As I swaggered my way into history, my men filled their pants more and more as we approached the massive horde of shinobi forming on the docks with Yagura at the head of it all.
As we pulled the ship in I leapt off the prow and thirty yards from the Mizukage, planting my flag into the brown stone pier.
"Well, Zabuza, I never expected you to show your face in the village again, but here we are." Yagura greeted me while pointing his hooked club at my chest, "Actually, I never expected you to show your face at all. Or be taller. It feels like you're mocking me."
"I'm a complex man, Yagura." I acknowledge him with a tilt of my hairy chin, "I was an early bloomer and a late bloomer. That's some complex puberty."
"Some guys have all the luck." the diminutive Kage spat, "It was nice of you to bring back the Executioner Blade, and round up your band of miscreants. I feel like I should pay you for such fine delivery work. Maybe I'll just make your death's quick."
"Funny you should mention dying quickly." I growled and released a full power genjutsu smashing 'KAI!' wave.
My sudden move sparked aggression from the locals, but Yagura's high pitched wailing as he bled from his eyes, nose, and ears caused the attack to stall as his shinobi watched him collapse to his knees then fall backwards writhing until he died from Obito's final kill switch. They backed away from the man and pressed against each other in a semi circle around him.
"Now that he's dead and gone, you all have till the count of ten to fall on your knees and swear loyalty to the Fifth Mizukage!" I declared and let loose the full power of my chakra.
Zabuza possessed a chakra so dense and malevolent that even without forming a conscious technique people with no affinity for the energy could witness the spectral form of a purple and black oni rising over the man's shoulders. With that times five, and increased control I felt close to actually materializing this oni as a chakra cloak similar to that of a bijuu. In fact, with Soul Talent, it is likely only a matter of dedicated effort.
Even if my chakra oni wasn't ready to reach out and start smashing people, it still terrified the people around me, and even before I started an audible countdown shinobi and kunoichi of Kirigakura began falling to their knees. The surrender of those closest to me cascaded, a simple matter of human nature: it becomes much easier to give up once someone else has first.
"Good, all of you, listen up!" I commanded my minions, "Yagura's reign of terror and division is over. It's time for all the ninja of Kirigakure to come back together. It's time we stop killing each other long enough to look around and realize that we are all dying over a bunch of stone towers any asshat with passable Earth Release could build in a day." I really let my disdain for how primitive the Land of Water is drip out of every letter, "All that shit is over, Daddy's home, and I'm not going to be king of a bunch of rocks out in the middle of sea. The shiniest gold, the softest silk, the smoothest sake! The world is our oyster, we just have to stop chopping of our own hands long enough to reach out and take it. This city will shimmer with the light of every cut and color of gem in the world. When I finally die and the next civil war kicks off, our descendants will have something worth fighting to the death over. Go out there and tell all the people that you see, that Zabuza Momochi is Mizukage in Kirigakure, and that he will bring the people to riches and glory, even if he has to drag them there kicking and screaming. Go! Go now!"
As the assembled shinobi scrambled to carry out my command I slipped an arm around the shoulders of my apprentice and pulled her close.
"Master Zabuza has finally achieved his dream." Haku stated in awe.
"Just the one, Haku. There's a million more to keep us going yet." I told her and we both smiled.
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