Naruto: Zabuza, The Greatest Swordsman

Silent wind swept the rocky ground where dead bodies laid scattered, coloring the place in crimson, what is even more horrifying is that the cold corpses here are not those of adults but of young children, their light extinguished before they could illuminate the world.

Adding to this bloody scene is a boy seated in the middle of the carnage, his hands wrapped around his legs, his vacant eyes wide open, giving the appearance of an exhausted beast bound by heavy chains. One couldn't say if it was bloodlust or terror in his eyes.

Some distance away, overlooking this carnage stood a group of people. Some were shocked, some were angry, while many were horrified..., except for one, long gray-haired man whose face is like stagnant water; a courtesy to his vast experience and high status among this group of people.

He and all the others here, including the corpses are wearing uniforms of pinstriped material as bracers and greaves, their complete black attire comprised of a shirt, pant and a grey flak jacket. Additionally, each person sported a shiny headband with a symbol resembling waves (~).

"Clean up the ground... and from today onward..., stop this ceremony forever!" ordered the gray-haired man. his words absolute.

"Yes! Lord Third!" one of the men replied, emphasizing he older man's status. 

Witnessing today's massacre, majority of the people around the gray-haired man agreed with the decision..., and for the one who didn't?... they didn't dare voice it out loud..., For the one ordering them is no ordinary man... he is the third Mizukage!!. In the village hidden in the mist his words are like the words of a god.

After some time.....

On the hospital bed of the Mist Village, a boy lay flat. he is the same boy who earlier, sat in the middle of that carnage. Although it is currently midnight, the boy is fully awake... His eyes are staring at the ceiling while his mind is drifting in a mist of thoughts.

He looks at his hands.

"With these same hands, I butchered them." Today, he regained the memories of his past life. As the two vastly different experiences were merging, he was forced to take a strange drug and then thrust into a battle royale.

By then, he had already realized that he was not in his old world. He had been reborn in another world... specifically; in the world of Naruto as the first main villain of the series; Zabuza Momochi.

Affected by the drug, he lost his sanity for a period of time... He cuts down child after child. They had tried to resist and fight back, but none were able to stop his mindless slaughter. He watched on in confusion and utter horror as his blade and kunai sliced waves of children. Trapped in his own body, he could do nothing.

As he regained his sanity and control over his body, he had killed every other child in that arena.

'I had always wanted to get out of that monotonous life, now I am out of it. I wanted an exciting life... but this!..... This is not exciting; this is just stupid and cruel!'

Owing to the fact that he wasn't really attached to his past reality, even despising that loathsome life as a cog in the large economic machine, he had accepted this new revelation fairly quickly. 

But now again...

'Just looking at the life i have lived in this world till now, it seems that i have become a cog in an even bigger machine.' He didn't like the feeling of being controlled by others. He felt disgusted by his own weakness.

'This is all because I'm powerless! This is a dog-eat-dog world, where I am not even a dog' he closed his eyes. "I am dog food," lamenting in a faint voice, he fell unconscious.

The following days were just like every other day in the Hidden Mist Village: killing their fellow villagers, discrimination, terror. These were fairly common occurrences here. But recently, a rather surprising piece of news was spreading like wildfire...

Apparently, the graduation ceremony for the lowest caste of students, i.e., those whose clans were annexed into the village, had been removed.

People had varying reactions to this news. Many conversations were going on in the village, particularly surrounding the main character of this topic, who... however... was unconscious in the hospital bed. Days went by after the incident, but Zabuza didn't wake up...While over time conversation about the incident died down...

Finally, after nine days went by...

"Ugh! My head hurts" Zabuza cried out. The nurse, who was replacing the IV fluid connected to his nerves, noticed this and called out; "So have you finally woken up!?"

Alerted by the noise, "What?... What happened? And w-who are you?" in confusion Zabuza asked the woman. The nurse looked at the boy.... like everyone else in the village... she obviously knew who the kid was.

Scared but with a hint of pity for the unfortunate kid, the nurse replied, "I am a nurse, and you are in the village hospital."

Hearing this, he calms down. He remembered being in the hospital. Seeing the boy calm down, the nurse continued; "You've been in a coma for nine days."

'No wonder my body feels so stiff!' he thought. "You stay here while I go search for the doctor." Silence returned to the room as the nurse went out.

He is left alone to contemplate his present situation. These nine days in a coma were more like nine years for him. In this time period Zabuza Momochi's original memories and his... or rather his past life's memories had merged into one. Currently, he was and also wasn't the original Zabuza.

He was both the original nine-year-old Zabuza and a transmigrated soul. But at the same time, he had become a different person compared to both Zabuza and the transmigrated soul. 'I am Zabuza Momochi. Although I have memories of two different lives, I am still me, and that will never change,' he thought.

'In my past life, I couldn't live freely, not having a good relationship with my parents and being single. I lived alone, continuously repeating the same routine over and over again. I was tired of living... that was a pathetic life'

He wanted to die, but he didn't have a concrete reason to kill himself. Sure! he was living a monotonous life..., but that could never be the reason to give up on life....

' Was that enough of a reason to kill myself when there were numerous people smiling while struggling through far worse situations?. How could I; who had a stable life, give up on it just because i was bored?'

'I guess... deep down, I really believed life would get more exciting' confessing in the end, the wind seemed to find its course, embracing the mist in its path, rather then trying to blow it away.

'Even in this life, I've lived being controlled by fate, an irrelevant chick in the grand scheme of things, being powerless and left at the mercy of others.'

If he hadn't regained the memories of his forgotten past life... he would have inevitably followed the same path shown in the Naruto series, meeting his end with the same unresolved emptiness.

"But all of that doesn't matter now.... Past is not real, only the present is!... from this moment onward, I will change my destiny as Zabuza Momochi..., I will live a fulfilling life with no regrets. I will never be attached to a string while being helpless. I will become strong and will never suffocate under the same piles of regret, again."