At the same time that Menma and the others set foot on the Land of Waves' soil.
On the opposite side of the Land of Waves' main island, at the docks controlled by the Matsuo Group, a completely different scene unfolded.
A massive stone pier extended into the bay like a greedy maw.
A dozen or more boats of various sizes were moored at the pier, including several large, multi-deck merchant ships with pristine sails, a stark contrast to the Land of Waves' own dilapidated little fishing boats.
Above the pier stood several obviously newly constructed warehouses and office buildings with brick structures and glass windows, their style clashing with the surrounding low wooden houses, highlighting the wealth and power of the outsiders.
At this moment, the pier was 'bustling' with activity.
Countless poorly dressed, thin and pale civilians of the Land of Waves, like worker ants, moving goods on the pier.
Heavy wooden crates, baskets of fish catches, packaged goods... bending their backs.
They formed long lines, moving mechanically under the watch and shouts of wandering samurai wielding clubs and vicious thugs wearing swords.
The crack of whips, coarse curses, the dull thuds of goods falling, and suppressed gasps and occasional pained groans intertwined into a symphony drenched in sweat, blood, and oppression.
The air was thick with the smell of fish, sweat, cheap tobacco, and an oppressive atmosphere.
Inside a three-story administrative building by the port,
In a sparsely furnished room with a hint of sea salt, Zabuza was leaning back on a spacious sofa.
The lower half of his face was wrapped in bandages, revealing only a pair of cold, cruel eyes sharp as blades.
He wore the Akatsuki's black cloak with red clouds. His lean, cheetah-like physique was completely concealed by the loose robe.
Zabuza was slowly and meticulously wiping a Ninja Sword laid on the coffee table in front of him with an oiled cloth.
The blade was long and narrow, with an elegant curve, gleaming with cold light.
Creak—
The room's heavy wooden door was pushed open, breaking the silence.
A figure also wearing a black cloak with red clouds walked in, carrying several oil-paper wrapped bento boxes, humming an out-of-tune tune, swaying casually.
He was of medium height, with somewhat messy medium-length green hair, and a cynical, slightly smug smile on his face.
Most noticeable was the strangely shaped umbrella strapped to his back and an ancient-looking sword hilt hanging at his waist.
Rokusho Aoi.
Konoha's Missing-Nin, now an Akatsuki's member.
"Yo, Zabuza, still wiping that Ninja Sword of yours?" Aoi tossed the bento boxes casually onto a nearby low cabinet, walked to the window, and looked down at the scene on the pier below, a hint of mockery at the corner of his mouth.
"I just heard some rumors outside. Those Demon Brothers you sent out... seem to have failed. They were captured by those Konoha's Ninjas. Tch, useless."
Zabuza's motion of wiping the blade didn't pause in the slightest, he didn't even lift his eyelids.
"Just two wastes." His low, icy voice came through the bandages.
"If a weapon gets dull or broken, just throw it away. Only weaklings who rely on weapons feel attached."
He had defected from Kirigakure seven years ago.
Initially, relying on the fearsome reputation and strength of the [Demon], he did attract some desperate outlaws.
But seven years of a wandering, dangerous life as a Missing-Nin, living on the edge, acted like the cruelest sieve, eliminating those who weren't strong enough, ruthless enough, or lucky enough.
The Demon Brothers were the ones who had followed him the longest and were still somewhat useful, but that was all.
Dead, they were wastes.
For him, whether followers or partners, they were essentially just 'tools' to be used.
If a tool breaks, regret is unnecessary... at most, consider whether a replacement is needed, or whether the tool itself has become inadequate for his needs.
Aoi turned around, leaning his back against the windowsill, crossing his arms, and looked at Zabuza's cold-blooded demeanor, raising an eyebrow. "Tools? Fits your Demon style. But..."
He drew out his tone. "If this mission fails, the generous commission promised by the client will be greatly reduced. The organization's expenses have been high lately. Konan's always muttering about 'funds' and 'budget.' If she finds out we lost a big chunk of income because we messed up the mission... it won't be easy to explain to the leader, right?"
His words were a reminder, but also carried a bit of schadenfreude.
Zabuza finally stopped wiping his sword.
He slowly raised his head, those icy eyes looking at Aoi, his gaze scraping across the other's smiling face.
"Explain?" Zabuza's voice carried a chill.
"To whom do I need to explain? Pain? Or... you?"
His killing intent, like a cold tide, silently spread, instantly filling the entire room.
The temperature in the air seemed to drop a few degrees.
The smile on Aoi's face froze for a moment, his body leaning against the windowsill tensing almost imperceptibly.
He knew very well that the guy before him was a monster who had fought his way out of the Bloody Mist… cold, strong, and regarding human life as worthless.
Although forced to join the Akatsuki due to Pain's power, he had never truly submitted and lacked any sense of belonging to the organization.
He probably had long harbored resentment towards Aoi, who is placed by Pain as his 'partner' and 'monitor'.
Just as this subtle, ready-to-break stalemate was happening…
Bang!
The office door was kicked open violently!
A middle-aged fat man wearing expensive but tacky silk suits, sporting a huge beer belly, his face shiny with oil, burst in aggressively, surrounded by a group of ferocious-looking samurai and thugs wielding clubs and swords.
This was the controller of the Matsuo Group, Zabuza and Aoi's client for this mission… Matsuo.
As soon as he entered, he pointed at Zabuza, who is motionless on the sofa, and Aoi by the window, spraying saliva as he roared: "What the hell are you two good for?! Huh?! My people just confirmed that old bastard Tazuna has returned to the Land of Waves!"
"What about the men you sent out? Weren't they supposed to be foolproof? How did he come back in one piece?! I paid a fortune to hire you Akatsuki! Not to feed useless mouths!"
Matsuo's voice was sharp and shrill, full of the arrogance of a nouveau riche and the anger and fear born of losing control over the situation.
The thugs behind him cooperated with their boss, each widening their eyes and baring their teeth, trying to overwhelm the two seemingly unremarkable Ninja in the room with numbers and momentum.
Facing this sudden intrusion and reprimand, Zabuza didn't even twitch an eyebrow. His eyes simply shifted from Aoi to the enraged Matsuo, as if watching a boring farce.
Aoi was momentarily stunned, then the corner of his mouth slowly curved into an even more amused smile.
"Oh? Boss Matsuo, quite angry, aren't we?" Aoi's voice was light and airy, carrying an unpleasant, slimy quality.
His right hand raised seemingly casually.
Whoosh—
A silver gleam, so faint it was almost invisible, flew at a speed difficult for the naked eye to track, grazing Matsuo's plump, greasy cheek!
Rip.
Matsuo felt a coolness on the side of his face, followed by a sharp sting.
He instinctively raised his hand to touch it, feeling a warm stickiness on his fingertips.
He brought it before his eyes. On his fingertips was a glaring smear of red!
'Blood!!!'
'He, he dared?!'
Matsuo's eyes instantly widened to saucers, the anger on his face replaced by shock and a rapidly rising fear.
He whipped his head around. A thin, cold-gleaming senbon was now quivering, embedded deep into the thick wooden door frame behind him!
Aoi maintained his throwing pose, his smile growing brighter, and also colder. "We'll take care of the mission target ourselves, you don't need to worry about that. But..."
He lowered his hand, slowly walked up to Matsuo, who was dazed from the cheek sting and fear, leaned in slightly close to the fat face, and said slowly, word by word, in a voice only the two could hear:
"Next time, if you speak to us in that tone again... what gets scratched won't be just a layer of skin. Understand, Boss Matsuo?"
Aoi's tone was gentle, but the killing intent in his words was chilling.
The thugs behind Matsuo finally reacted, shocked and angry, wanting to step forward.
Zabuza finally moved at this moment.
He quietly sheathed the polished Ninja Sword into the scabbard on his back, making a soft 'click'.
Then, he spread his arms wide and leaned back against the sofa backrest in an extremely relaxed, almost languid posture.
But the moment his body leaned back,
Boom!
A terrifying wave of killing intent, as if soaked with the wails of countless souls, like an invisible blizzard, erupted from Zabuza as its center, instantly sweeping through the entire room!
It was an indiscriminate killing intent!
The most pure aura of 'evil' and 'death', refined from the countless lives Zabuza the [Demon] had taken!
"Ugh...!"
Matsuo bore the brunt. He felt his breath catch, his heart squeezed by an icy hand, his blood almost freezing.
The thugs behind him fared even worse. Their faces turned pale, their legs went weak, weapons clattered to the ground, some even started trembling uncontrollably, dark stains quickly spreading in their crotches...
It was the instinctive, uncontrollable fear of a living creature facing a top predator!
As if in Zabuza's eyes, these people before him were no different from ants on the roadside.
Matsuo's face turned from red to white, then from white to green.
He opened his mouth, wanting to utter some harsh words to save face, but his throat seemed blocked, unable to spit out a single word.
The immense fear and the sting on his cheek had completely extinguished the illusory arrogance that wealth and power had inflated in him.
He spun around and almost scrambled towards the door, stumbling due to his weak legs, luckily caught by a thug who could still barely stand.
Without looking back, he only squeezed out a threateningly weak sentence from between his teeth: "Th-three days! I'll give you three days! Kill Tazuna, and those Konoha's Ninja! Otherwise... otherwise, I'll go to the underground exchange and cancel the mission! Hmph!"
With that, as if his butt was on fire, he fled the suffocating room with his terrified thugs in a sorry state.
The door was slammed shut in panic, making a loud 'bang'.
Inside the office, silence resumed.
Only the faint, lingering smell of blood in the air and the haunting remnant of that terrifying killing intent proved what had just happened.
Aoi walked to the door, easily pulled out the senbon embedded in the door frame, and twirled it dexterously between his fingers, as if it were just an interesting toy.
"Scaring those trashes is so boring." He curled his lip, looking at Zabuza. "But we still have to do the mission. What's your plan?"
Zabuza slowly sat up straight, that terrifying killing intent retreating like a tide, disappearing without a trace, as if it had never been there.
"The Konoha's Ninjas... who's leading them?" His voice returned to its usual low pitch.
"Hatake Kakashi, Konoha's Elite Jonin." Aoi said the name, a flicker of fear in his eyes.
He was a Konoha's Missing-Nin himself, so naturally he didn't want to encounter Kakashi, known as the [Copy Ninja].
"Hatake Kakashi..." Zabuza repeated, the bandaged corner of his mouth seeming to twitch slightly, emitting an ambiguous soft snort.
"The [Copy Ninja], huh... somewhat interesting."
"Two days from now. After they've settled in, when their guard is most relaxed."
Zabuza raised his eyes to Aoi, directly issuing orders: "I'll handle Kakashi. You take care of the target and... those Konoha brats. Swift and decisive. Leave no traces."
In Zabuza's view, Kakashi was the only opponent worth taking seriously.
As for a few Konoha's Genin brats?
They were just bugs to be crushed at will, more than easy for Aoi to handle.
"No problem." Aoi shrugged, a smug smile on his face. "A few brats fresh out of the village, easy pickings. And my Sword of the Thunder God hasn't tasted blood for a while."
Although being ordered around by Zabuza was a bit annoying, who could complain when the other party was stronger than him?