The Case-Book of Kakashi Hatake

A Study in Silence {Part 10}

Momochi was led into one of the holding rooms, silent and docile the entire way. It was almost disconcerting to see the way that all of the fight and motivation just seeped right out him, leaving behind the pale husk of a man slowly dying of consumption.

Yamashiro sat down across from him and opened up his mouth as if to speak, but the suspect cut him off.

"Bring me a pen and paper. I'll make a full statement," his tone resonating with deep defeat. "You can ask your doctor friend, but I highly doubt that I'll survive long enough to even sit through trial. Three years of slow death is more than one man can take."

I was once again sucked into the depressing cavern of his eyes, glassy and unfocused, themselves already like one of the dead.

So Zabuza Momochi sat there and wrote, and wrote, coughing occasionally but never faltering. His tale was woven across page after page of nondescript, police stationary. After the case's conclusion, I was permitted to read it myself, and I would like to share his tragedy with you now.

He came from the outskirts of Kiri, a brutal and dangerous area of the Land of Water. Their country is very unlike my own, and there are some who consider it uncouth and uncivilized. The majority of it is so dangerous to inhabit that only the hardiest of folk survive where vigilante law is more common than policemen and crime widespread, the cities sparse and separated by large expanses of ranching or cattle farming wherever the land is arable. Large tracks of unsettled marshes dot the area, homes to the plentiful outlaws and bandits. It's not referred to as the Wild Wild Mist for no reason, and the men who come from there are just as wild as the land itself.

Zabuza Momochi was no exception. From a young age, he earned a reputation as a man not to be trifled with. Six feet of pure muscle, a pistol holstered at each hip, broad knife strapped behind his back with the handle sticking over his right shoulder, spurred boots clinking ominously with every step, bandages wrapped around the bottom half of his face, it's not hard to imagine why people gave him a wide berth. He made a living as a petty outlaw, taking from those too weak to stand up to his brute strength and perfectly sharpened blade. That changed, however, when he met a strange man in a saloon one day.

Momochi was sitting at the bar, silently reveling in the fact that all the people around him, even the behemoth who was the barkeep, refused to make eye contact when a small man pushed through the double doors, everyone whipping their heads over to stare at the newcomer except the outlaw, who instead sipped the amber liquid he was twirling in his glass. The newcomer walked through the room to take the barstool right next to Momochi, all of the other patrons turning away quickly to begin whispering amongst themselves.

The bold, little man waved down the bartender to order a drink as Momochi studied him from the corner of his eye. He was finely dressed in tones of grey and dark green, but not in a restricting manner that would prevent the man from fending for himself. There was a thin scar curving down the right side of his face, starting just below his eye and ending under his jaw, and a cane topped with a jade flower hung from the bar beside his elbow.

Momochi took in his finery with the eye of a man who stole to make a living and pondered robbing the person next to him, who was paying the bartender with a few slips a paper pulled from a thick wad of bills. But something about the small newcomer made Momochi pause. Either he was incredibly stupid, or he was incredibly confident in his skills. Things like the rippling muscles almost completely hidden by his coat; the small line across the cane indicating where it could be pulled apart, revealing a deadly blade; the shrewdness of the purple eyes that seemed to be staring into Momochi's soul, made the outlaw pause. The larger man felt his blood run cold with fear like he hadn't experienced in years.