"This is nice."

"This is demeaning..." Zabuza grumbled. Did lover mean something else in Esdese's blood soaked mind? Another word for teddy bear perhaps? All she seemed to do was cuddle at times, and his part could have been fulfilled with a particularly sour faced bundle of cloth. That thought was easier to admit to than the possibility he agreed with her. A thought that was pushed to the back of his mind as he continued to stare into the fire.

"All you need to do is grow up, then we'll switch positions. Would that be less demeaning?" She teased. Without the mystery of who or why they were sent to this island hanging over their heads, Esdese would say she'd enjoyed herself so far. Exploring the island with Zabuza had been exciting and now she got to cuddle up by the fire on the beach. She'd be sure to give whoever started this mess a brief 'thank you' before she slit their throat. It'd only be fair.

Zabuza snorted. He was a hair over five feet now and held little hope he'd grow much further even with Esdese forcing three full meals a day down his throat when the opportunity presented itself. He wouldn't deny that he'd enjoy looking down on Esdese, if only to stroke his ego. But that would have to wait.

"You know.." She trailed off, chin resting on his shoulder. A day spent examining the wild flora and fauna had been spent bouncing ideas about their location had been their only conversation. "You never told me how you got to the capital." She hoped to remedy that fact, a romantic talk by the fire did wonders to intimacy, or so she'd been told.

"Walked." He got a light bite on the back of his neck for that unapologetic comment.

"You know what I meant. We've been together for a while now, and yet we know so little about each other. I want to get to know you Zabuza. And I hope you want to get to know me." She confessed.

He sighed as he slumped down in Esdese's lap, his head now resting against her chest. The last thing he needed was his throat in the immediate vicinity of her teeth. "I left the tribe around nine, got to the capital when I was ten-ish, spent then until I met you committing various crimes and atrocities against innocents to keep myself fed. Nothing exciting."

"Why'd you leave?" She asked. She'd only left the north because there was nothing left for her.

"There was a disagreement. I wanted to join a hunting party, they thought I was too young and things broke down. When it was done ten people were dead and I was kicked out. I carry demon's blood, apparently." Another snort. "Yagura was an idiot. Almost wish I was there to finish him off myself."

"My tribe was wiped out while I was away on a hunting trip when I was younger..." Esdese admitted with the same ease. A subject long put to rest in her own mind as she began to play with Zabuza's hair.

"Would explain the northern campaign." He mumbled. Stories had run rampant across the capital about the brutality shown to the barbarians to the north.

"Hmm? Hardly. They were weaker than I expected, I was bored and they were punished for it. If they were strong enough to massacre my tribe, they should have been strong enough to entertain me. That notion was proved false, and like all those before them, they paid for that weakness." That is how it works. The strong devour the weak. Nothing personal, just survival.

"So the weak have no place in your world? No right to rule over the strong?" Zabuza mused. He wasn't a religious man, but he was willing to sell his body and soul to whatever deity would allow him to say his piece before he joined them in whatever shit-hole that was the afterlife.

"Of course not." Esdese agreed without hesitation, with only a trace of confusion in her voice. She was under the impression Zabuza held the same beliefs. Beliefs that he seemed willing to throw back in her face.

"Then why are you the prime minister's bitch?"

At least if he died here, it would be with the warm sands of home at his back and a starry sky above him as he stared up at Esdese. There were worst ways he could go, even if personal preference would be not dying until he was at least in his triple digits. With both wrists pinned above his head that seemed a possibility that shrunk by the second. Going strength against strength with Esdese would be suicidal, so he didn't struggle.

"Care to repeat that?" He'd hit a nerve. Good.

"The prime minister is a fat layabout, more content to stuff his fucking face than do anything useful. You could feed a squad of soldiers for a week with the amount he eats in a day." He could feel the grip on his wrists tightening as Esdese seemed to process his words.

"Firstly, I don't see what this has to do with me. Secondly, you are walking a very thin line. You are aware I don't tolerate treason Zabuza. And the only reason I am not stripping the flesh from your bones as speak is because I know two things for certain about you. You are not stupid, and by extension you are not a revolutionary." She said with narrowed gaze.

"You didn't deny my claim."

"I don't need to. The prime minister does his job, and I do mine. Simple as that."

"Does he? He sits with his lard ass in a chair all day, whispering words into a boy-emperor who can't even tie his own shoes without permission. What has he achieved?"

"Control of the empire." Esdese bit out.

Zabuza's eyes gave away what he thought of that statement. "Doing a great job then. Rebels in every corner, most of the officers in the army are either a prostitute or fucking one into power. You never did get around to telling me how many had been arrested or kicked out."

"Because it was irrelevant." Zabuza was practically purring under her, bandages around his neck and sharpened fangs that gleamed in the night. Her throat seemed to tingle at the sight, but she kept her grip firm.

"How convenient. Must have been a lot then. A particularly embarrassing amount if you and Budo have to keep it hush hush. After all, let's be honest here. The only reason the rebels haven't stuffed an apple down Honest's throat and served him up for Sunday dinner is the pair of you. Your reputations alone are what keep the wolves at bay."

"What do you want, Zabuza? Cause if this is nothing more than complaints against Honest, and insults to myself, I don't see why I should continue this conversation. I could always find another lover." She grinned down at him, matching fangs for blood-lust. "Perhaps Tatsumi would be interested."

He took it in a surprising amount of stride, not even flinching under her. She had expected more. She couldn't explain Zabuza's animosity to the young man, but she knew it was there, and even if he didn't show it, he knew the comment would sting.

"If you want to fuck a spineless rat, than sure. I just assumed you had better taste than a real rebel." He ground out in as level a voice as he could manage.

"Passing the buck doesn't suit you Zabuza, where is the young man who stood defiant as I broke his body into pieces?" She teased with renewed malice in her voice.

"Still laughing at the face you made before he almost tore out your throat. It must kill you inside to have to thank Run. Without his timely intervention, you'd be another dead weaklin-" He was cut off as Esdese's fist impacted the sand a hair's width away from his head, sending shudders along the beach.

"Finish that sentence, see what happens." An eye for an eye, yet Esdese couldn't help but feel she'd lost some sort of battle by physically reacting. A feeling that was compounded by Zabuza's grin. The cat that ate the canary didn't even come close as he continued. Poisoned words that cut into her.

"And there it is. The little string that made you Honest's puppet. You are far stronger than me Esdese, maybe far stronger than I'll ever be, but you have one weakness. You need to prove your strength. You need to see how weak everyone else is. You need the screams, need the blood, the torture, the sounds of battle to remind yourself that you are strong enough to protect yourself. That your pride, the one thing you have left that is truly yours can remain untouched.

And Honest? Honest gave you a path to walk, the easy route to obtaining that invincibility. Gave you a sword when you needed it, gave you troops when you wanted it, gave you access to weapons that turned you from the greatest warrior in the empire, into a monster of the battlefield. And he gave you blood, probably to hook you into the deal. How many times has he told you to kill someone? How many massacre's have been started at his orders, for his own reasons? How many were avoided because he didn't see a point in them? How much blood has he denied you after that initial taste? You could have wiped the revolutionaries off the map months ago if you didn't have to pussy foot around him, kissing asses and obeying the instructions of old shit lords who couldn't tell the end of a blade from it's pommel. At what point did you go from a wolf, to a trained dog, feeding on scraps from your master's table. When did you get so weak?"

"He is in charge, that is how it works." She protested feebly, her grip slackening, and breathing seeming to grow shallow before she asked the all important question. "Why? What do you even want? Honest doesn't give a damn about you, why should you give a damn about him?"

With a flick of his wrist, his hands were free and the positions were reversed, Zabuza straddling Esdese. He took a gamble, not going to pin her hands, instead placing his hands by her head to hold himself up. Earthy brown eyes met cool blue. She could still kill him in a heart beat, but held herself back because he hadn't made an overt move on her life. Now he hoped his luck would hold. "I want to wake up in the mornings, and go to sleep every night knowing I will have a meal waiting for me. I want to choose not to wear a shirt, instead of dressing myself in rags. I want steel blades that don't shatter after three uses. I want whetstones to sharpen those new blades. I want a bath every morning, where I can soak in the warm water for as long as I wish, whenever I wish. I want to fight, whenever it pleases me. I want to kill, whenever it suits me. I want the idiots who call themselves revolutionaries to get off their high horses and die before this fucking empire gets caught up in a three-way war with it's pants down. I want power. I want glory. I want you to stand by my side. I want you to fight by my side. I want you to rule by my side. I want to drown this empire in blood if that is what is needed. I only hope you would be willing to stand by my side and do it."

Words failed her at this point, Esdese opening her mouth only to close it a second later as she searched Zabuza's eyes. They were cold, sharp with a depth of endless greed and ambition that seemed to draw her in, but try as she might she couldn't find any hints of falsehood. "Why me?" She asked after a minute of silence, the only sound the gentle crashing of the waves in the distance.

"Because who else? You deserve far more than second best. You deserve far more than to be treated as a one-note general whose greatest achievement being the slaughter of rats and cowards to scared to fight a real war. Together, we could cut a path through the continent. The Alchemists to the west? The isle nations to the south, the untamed tundra to the north or the mysteries of the far east? The blood that we could spill with each conquest, the fun we could have, together? I will only say this once. I have started to give the slightest damn about you, and unfortunately can't think of anyone else I'd enjoy sharing this opportunity with." Zabuza said only to find arms around his neck that pulled him close.

When he was finally free to pull back, he was still held close, the taste of sea water and sweat on his tongue as he caught his breath. A small smile played across Esdese's lips. Earlier resistances seemed to have melted away with his confession. The power and intoxicating effect of love, he thought with a mental chuckle.

"And, hypothetically speaking, I wanted a bit of a payment upfront. A display of loyalty, that you were serious in your 'one time confession'."

"Depends." He was willing to promise as much as he could, so long as she joined the right side.

"Tell me you love me." Her final test. She had to hear him say it, to see if she would get that telltale shiver down her spine that would prove to her, and her alone that this wasn't just her being weak. Instead, this would her finally finding an equal. Young, and untrained, but an equal none the less.

There was only the briefest hesitations, one she wouldn't hold against him as he pulled away to again meet her eyes. He said the all important three words she wanted to here, and then proved it at her eager prompting. Later that night, Zabuza watched the last embers of their beach fire flicker out. With Esdese's head resting on his bare chest, he couldn't decide what was scarier. What Esdese would do to him if she found out he was lying, or if he had actually spoken with more than a grain of truth in those three insignificant words.

Problem for the morning, he decided with finally as he pulled Esdese closer. Bare skin touching bare skin as they both rested on the beach. He was exhausted and he'd figure it out later.

An: Well, to be fair. I don't think anything here was too explicit to change the rating, which is good, hopefully. Anyways, when I first read Tatsumi's little speech imploring Esdese to switch sides, I thought it was a good idea, even if Tatsumi is an idiot. Esdese wouldn't switch sides because 'it's the right thing to do' or just because she's in love. Blood and violence come first to her, and a boyfriend/significant other are second. I hope I made this argument in-character enough to convince her, because I honestly do believe she could have been swayed away from Honest if given the right motivation. IE, more blood and guts. Something Tatsumi would never in a million years promise her, but Zabuza? Zabuza is perfectly willing to kill off people, so long as it gets the job. Not indiscriminate murder, or killing for shits and giggles like Wild Hunt, but deaths that would serve an actual purpose. My only concern is I didn't make Zabuza's speech to cheesy. Zabuza has two modes in my mind. The times where you are lucky to get five syllables out of him in a day, or the times where you can't get him to shut the fuck up. This was one of the latter times.

Regardless, hope you enjoyed the chapter. Next time we'll have our dynamic due back in the capital, where some shit is going down. Murder, and death abound! As always, comments, concerns and questions are welcome! See you all later, and hope you had a good day!