Disclaimer: All Naruto characters are the copyright of Masashi Kishimoto. I’m just borrowing them to write up a story with no intention of making any money. This is for fun. That’s all. :)

Big thanks go to all who read and left reviews for Chapter 2: TimTam’s rule, and Perentie Fan

And thanks go to all who read Chapter 2. :)

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A World without You
By JuPMod (aka JPMod)

Chapter 3: Lost Innocence on the Broken Waves

With a whirl of leaves and wind, Chikao and Naruto appeared in the middle of a clearing surrounded by trees. Looking around, the blond saw it was a beautiful clear day with blue skies above him. Confusion etched on the young man’s face. He was expecting a place indicating death and destruction, but instead they arrived in a peaceful tranquil meadow.

“Hey, Chikao-jiisan, I thought you were taking me to see what had happened to the other nations and villages,” Naruto spoke out his thoughts.

Chikao gave a soft chuckle on the suffix added to his name. He didn’t mind it, given he was an old man. “I am, Naruto, I am.” He indicated a particular direction. “Through this forest on the other side is our destination.” Moving forward, he gestured for his young charge to follow him. “Come now. Let us go.”

Naruto frowned, but he followed the angel nevertheless. A while later, they were strolling through the forest, and for the blond, it seemed somehow familiar.

“Does this forest seem familiar to you, Naruto?” Chikao asked, seeing the wandering blue eyes taking in the trees.

“Not really,” the teen replied with a small shrug. “It does seem somewhat familiar, but given I’ve seen so many forests, they all look alike to me.”

“Well, we’re really not far from our destination,” the angel reassured him. Looking ahead, he spotted the end of the forest, so he pointed forward. “Matter of fact, we’re here.”

Coming out of the woods, the pair happened upon the edge of a shore with a house supported above the water by pillars. The scent of sea water and the chirping of gulls along with the location jarred Naruto’s memories to the forefront of his mind.

“I know this place! We’re in the Land of Waves!” Naruto nearly shouted out, taking in the recognizable place.

Chikao nodded an affirmative. “That’s right, Naruto.” His right index finger rose to momentarily point toward the house. “Are you aware whose house this is?”

A small smile came to Naruto’s face. “Sure do. That’s where Inari, his mother Tsunami, and his grandfather Tasuna-jiisan live.” Yet something caught his eyes, making him frown and squint. “Hold on. Something is not right.”

Taking in the large dwelling, the Konoha genin began noticing that the structure was not in good shape at all. The wood was beginning to rot, the windows and doors were smashed in, and there were some holes in the walls. Overall, it looked like the place has not been lived in for years.

“I see you’re seeing the signs, Naruto,” Chikao said, alerting the boy back to his presence. “No one has lived in this house for nearly three years.”

“What?!” shouted the Konoha ninja as he whipped his head around to face his companion. “I know very well they lived here! What happened to them?!”

“What had happened to them tied in to the fate of this small nation, Naruto,” the angel sadly answered before nodding toward the area of the waters away from the house. “Look across the waters, Naruto, and tell me what you see.”

Gazing outward in the direction Chikao indicated, sharp sapphire eyes scoped the area. He could see the distance shoreline of the main land and the identifiable landmark of the bridge Tazuna built. “Hold on,” Naruto mentally said as he took in the sight of the bridge, and upon closer inspection he immediately knew what he was seeing was not right.

“Gah!” a wide-eyed Naruto screamed out, pointing toward the bridge. “The bridge! It’s not completed!”

“Not on this world, Naruto,” Chikao explained. “It was not ever completed.”

Naruto once again whipped his head around to face the angel. “Why?!” he asked that simple one-worded question that had been asked through-out the ages.

Gesturing to the dirt road that snaked the shore toward the bridge, Chikao sadly grinned. “Come. I’ll explain along the way toward the bridge.” With that said, he began walking on the path, and sooner after, Naruto followed in step with him.

Not long after they started the trek, did Chikao begin speaking. “Much like with Konoha, you’d played a vital role in the Land of Waves, Naruto. As you know, you and your team had helped defeated Zabuza and Gato, enabling Tazuna to complete the bridge and bring new hope to the nation.”

“True,” Naruto admitted, but his expression told that he was not convince, “but surely Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, and Sakura would have won the battle without me.”

“Could they?” Chikao asked with a raised eyebrow. Seeing the frown on the teenager’s face deepening, he continued. “Naruto, with you not being there, who do you suppose was the third genin of Team 7? Being the dead last of your class, you were chosen for Team 7, because it was a tradition to place the top of the class with the dead last. Yet with you not have been born, the dead last position went to Shikamaru.”

Chikao raised a hand to prevent Naruto’s question, foreseeing this. “No, Naruto, Shikamaru was not the one placed on Team 7. The Third and Iruka agreed to keep the Ino-Shika-Cho trio intact, thus the slot on Team 7 was given to Kiba.”

“Kiba?” Naruto blinked in stupor. “Kiba became a member of Team 7? Then what about Team 8?”

“Oh, they had managed to find someone to fill that slot on Team 8,” Chikao answered with a nod.

The guardian angel continued the sad tale. “Now the point is that you did play a vital role, Naruto. If you remember, it was you who had defeated Haku. In this world, Sasuke too was not able to defeat Haku, yet Kiba and his dog companion also couldn’t defeat the older boy. Haku was just too fast and quick for even Kiba and Akamaru.

“In the end, Haku was free to provide aid to his master in battling Kakashi. Haku gave Zabuza the brief time he needed to kill Tazuna, thus ending the hope for the people of the Land of Waves. Team 7 went home defeated, and Gato had continued to rule the land until the Mist intervened.”

“Say what?” Naruto was flabbergasted. “The Hidden Village in the Mist? I thought they were in a civil war.”

Chikao nodded once in affirmative. “Oh, they were, Naruto, they were. That was until Zabuza returned and finally overthrew the Sandaime Mizukage in a second coup and became the Mist’s Yondaime Mizukage. A year after he became Mizukage and stabilized the Mist, he came back to the Land of Waves to seek revenge against Gato.”

Now Naruto was really baffled. “Seek revenge?”

“Oh, yes,” Chikao confirmed with a serious face. “You see, a few months after the battle on the bridge and Team 7’s defeat, Gato has no further use of Zabuza and Haku, thus the greedy tyrant had tried to assassinate the missing-nin and his young apprentice. It failed. Zabuza vowed revenge, thus the reason the Land of Waves is now currently under control of the Mist.”

“Okay,” the blond shinobi shrugged. “If Zabuza came back, things should have been better once Gato was overthrown, right?”

The serious face on the angel became bitter and gloomy as he shook his head. “No, Naruto. Things did not have gotten better at all.” He gestured with hand toward the bridge. “We’re closer to the bridge now. Do you find anything strange about it?”

Looking at the bridge, Naruto at first didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but the closer he looked, the more he saw things that do not belong on a normal bridge. Things, upon recognizing them, that made his blood boil in shock and fury. Unable to believe what he was seeing, the young man dashed the remaining distance to the bridge, leaving Chikao behind.

A few minutes later, upon arriving at the bridge’s threshold, Naruto stared at the horror before him, his eyes narrowing as he clenched a fist. Corpses of men were stringed along the sides, most of them hung on nooses on makeshift polls. Others hung over the sides by iron shackles. It was clear all them died and left there to rot. The scene, combined with the bridge’s state of disrepair, gave a very bleak outlook regarding the Land of Waves as a whole.

Just to one side of the bridge’s entrance laid a wooden sign. It was nothing more than a piece of plywood leaning up against the beginning of the railing. Words were scrawled in red paint on the surface, and those words brought a chill down Naruto’s spine.

It did not surprise the genin to sense Chikao had suddenly appeared besides him, no doubt due to his angelic powers. Turning from the sign, outraged blue eyes locked onto sad ones as the blond raised an index finger to point out the repulsive spectacle. “Did Zabuza done this?!” he nearly screamed in anger.

Chikao nodded once. “By both Gato and Zabuza,” he verified. “After the battle, Gato had started killing those, who tried to resist him, here as an example to everyone not to oppose him. Many months later, when Zabuza returned, along with Mist ninjas, and overthrew Gato, the people had thought at first they were liberated.” The angel shook his head. “Zabuza was really no different than his Mizukage predecessor. He refused to finish the bridge, stating he did not want any connection to the mainland to allow any of the Sound forces access to Kiri’s territory. If any one tried to oppose him and the Kiri government, he simply continued the practice that Gato had started.” A sign escaped the angel’s lips as he looked at the plywood sign. “The name of this bridge, placed there by an unknown Wave citizen, is quite appropriate – The Death Bridge.”

Naruto’s gaze shifted from the old man to once again fall on the horror before him. His ears heard Chikao continued to talk as both took in the grisly scene. “You had brought hope to a dying nation, Naruto. It was not just your vital role in the bridge battle, for it was also your words to a little boy who in turn galvanized others to help defend the bridge.” A tiny grin, conveying some warmth, appeared on Chikao’s face as he turned to face Naruto, who in turn face him. “You may not know it, but they had named this bridge after you.”

The blond blinked at this news. “They did?” he asked, not quite believing a bridge was named after him.

Chikao chuckled a bit at stupefied teen. “Oh, yes, they did, for it was called The Great Naruto Bridge. Named after the boy who had brought hope.” The tiny grin faded from his elderly features as he gestured to the bridge. “As you can see, without you, the bridge came to symbolize the complete opposite – despair.”

Once more, blue eyes shifted to took in the bridge and what it came to represent. For Naruto, the scene just felt totally out of place under the clear blue skies, the warm air, and the crystal blue waters. One would normally thought of peace and tranquility when it came to tropical paradises, not of death and misery.

When his mind thought about the old bridge builder, Naruto also thought of the little boy and his mother. He whipped his head to face Chikao again. “Chikao-san, what happened to Inari and his mom? They were spared, right?”

Those eyes and his solemn expression told the young man everything. “I’m sorry, Naruto, but they had died not long after Tazuna. It was great fortune that you had happened to be there at their home when those two hired hands of Gato’s came to the house to capture Inari and Tsunami as hostages. Due to your chakra exhaustion, you had slept for two days and were in the ideal position to deal with the thugs.

“In this world, however, Team 7 was all together at the bridge that day, thus Tazuna’s daughter and grandson had been captured. Once Gato learned Zabuza killed Tazuna, he had no need for Inari and Tsunami as hostages. He had Inari killed and let his men did what they pleased with Tsunami before they killed her.”

Naruto was dense at times, but even he was not so stupid to pick up the words the angel was telling him. “No,” he spoke softly, “you’re not telling me that they… done that to her.”

“I’m afraid so,” Chikao answered just as softly. “Those men did not care for the welfare of others, only themselves. They had fun raping her until she couldn’t take it anymore, when they finally killed her.”

Closing his moist eyes, the Konoha jinchuuriki clenched his teeth and hands at the thoughts of the kind and gentle mother he knew being on the receiving end of such a sick deed. It was painful to even think the old bridge builder’s entire family has been wiped out with his daughter being the last to die in such a cruel way.

Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Naruto opened his eyes to Chikao patting him in reassurance. “Come, Naruto. There is one more thing you need to see. It involves an old friend of yours.”

With those words, the angel turned to stroll into town followed by a confused ninja. Naruto has no idea what Chikao has meant by ‘old friend of yours,’ given the only friends he knew from the Land of Waves were Tazuna and his family.

Walking along side his elderly cohort, Naruto couldn’t help but to gaze around the place as they walked through the business section of town. Compare to the time he and his teammates came here, it seemed that the economy was doing far better. There were more goods and food available, and overall, it did not appear that the people were suffering.

“Eh, Chikao-san?” the orange-clad adolescent asked before training his eyes on the waiting ones of the angel. “You told me that things were worst now under Zabuza’s rule than they were before under Gato. This place does not look like anyone is suffering. I see plenty of food and merchandize around.”

Chikao gave half sad grin and frown. “Look at the faces, Naruto. Do you see anyone really happy? Do you sense the somber mood in the atmosphere? These are not people living in harmony regardless that they might have somewhat a better life than it was with Gato.”

Turning back to his observations, Naruto looked more closely and found that Chikao was correct. The mood here was definitely not relaxing as any village was at peace. Instead the many faces he came across were mix with frowns, fear, and hopelessness.

“Naruto,” Chikao said. “Unlike Gato, Zabuza has no desire to rule a land with a broken down economy. He had opened trade with the Tea and Sea Countries to the south and Lightning Country to the north. He does not trust Orochimaru, thus why, as I said before, he refused to have anything to do with Rice Country, which now controls all territory of the former Fire Country.

“Zabuza rules the Land of Waves and refuse to let the former government return. Technically, the Land of Waves no longer exists, for these lands are now part of Water Country. These people have no means to fight against a shinobi army, thus why they had lost their independence.”

A sad sigh escaped the angel’s lips before he continued. “Yet despite a better economy, there is no justified law and order here.” Hearing this, Naruto rested his eyes on Chikao. “The land is governed by a Jounin Elite who answers to Zabuza, and some diabolical merchants had learned that it’s easy to give kickbacks to the Jounin Elite in exchange for favoritism and some protection. It soon came apparent to everyone that if you cross certain people, you’ll end up in jail and possibly tortured or worst. Most learned it was best to go about your daily life without saying anything against the government and those they support. To do so would be folly; especially given the Jounin Elite’s second-in-command was not someone a person should trifle with.”

It was then the pair and everyone around them heard a commotion up ahead. All stop as a 30-something man came running down the street with a frighten look on his face. For Naruto, he couldn’t understand what scared the man, until several kunai and shuriken came out of the sky in front of the man, making him halt. The man spun around to gaze up as several male Kiri shinobi landed on the rooftops on either side of the street, and from their green flak jackets, it was easy to tell they were all chuunin in ranks at least.

“Do you really think you can get away from us?” one of the Mist nin said with a smirk. His words made the others chuckled in a sadistic way. People quickly moved away from the pursued man, not wanting to get involved.

“Please,” the frightened man begged, “that shop owner was trying to swindle me to pay 5,000 more for the shirt! Surely you can see my actions of punching him was justify!”

The smirk on the lead Mist chuunin became wider. “Tell that to the Boss.” The words made the eyes of the civilian man went wide with even more fear.

Just then a Kiri ninja suddenly appeared in front of the civilian, and it was obvious he had used Shunshin. The shinobi was tall and lean with short black hair and dark eyes, and he wore the typical garb of a jounin that Naruto remembered Kakashi-sensei wore. The coldness of his expression was that of a season veteran despite that he looked like a teenager. To Naruto, the Kiri nin seemed familiar, just he couldn’t make out the face to a name.

“You shouldn’t have run. Now your punishment will be more severe,” the cold ninja spoke in a voice that sent shivers down everyone’s spines.

Seeing all the civilians around him quite frightened of the Kiri jounin, Naruto was about to ask Chikao who was the jounin, when the excused man spoke out in a quivering voice. “P… P… Please, Haku-sama, spare me!”

The name brought a huge shock to the blue-eyed blond. “Haku?!” he shouted before he raised his voice even higher. “HAKU!” He just couldn’t believe it, but now that he knew, the Kirin nin was indeed the boy he had befriended judging from the closer look at the nin’s face. The hair was cut, but the features were girl-like, just like Naruto remembered.

Two Kiri chuunin hopped down from the roofs to stand on each side of the terrified man before grabbing him by the forearms. Before he knew it, they were taking him away, dragging him by force pass their jounin leader. “Please! I am innocent! I AM INNOCENT!” the man shouted beseechingly.

“We’ll see about that,” Haku coldly said as he turned to face the retreating backs of his men and the captor, making the young man’s back faced an alarmed Naruto.

“Haku! What’s wrong with you?! This is not like you at all!” Naruto yelled as he approached the older boy. Getting no reaction, the Kyuubi container gritted his teeth before making a grab for Haku’s right arm, but instead of contacting flesh, the hand ghostly went right through the Kiri shinobi, causing even more shock to Naruto. “EH?!”

As Haku strolled away behind his men, Naruto stood there bewildered to what has just happened. It was then that Chikao came forward to stand besides the astonished boy and began explaining. “No one can hear or see us, Naruto, because we’re just spirits, observing but can not interact. Given you were not born, do you expect people to able to hear and see you? You do not exist on this world.”

Naruto numbly nodded as he watched the form of Haku grew smaller, yet there was something he couldn’t comprehend. “What’s wrong with him, Chikao-jiji? That’s not the Haku I knew. He wouldn’t be so cold like this at all!” he finished, trying to reconcile the kind, gentle teenager he knew with the cold, cruel young man seen moments ago.

“You’re correct, Naruto,” Chikao replied. “That’s not the Haku you met. In this world, Haku had not ever met another kindred soul, so he had not ever knew of others who had suffered like he did. Yet the change in his personality came from an awful event.” Naruto gave his full attention to the angel as he continued.

“Haku has not ever lost his kindness and gentleness, for he had spared Sasuke and Kiba’s lives, as he did with anyone. Zabuza was the one who kills out of the pair. Yet the eventful day, when Gato had decided to kill Zabuza and Haku, was the turning point. Gato’s men somehow managed to isolate Haku away from Zabuza and then captured the young man. Let’s just say, Naruto, that women are the not the only ones to experience being violated in cruel ways.”

The significance of those words hit Naruto hard as a full-power Rasengan. “Jiji-san, you don’t mean…” he softly spoke.

Chikao nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so. Some of Gato’s men had mistaken Haku for a girl, just as you did, yet despite they’d learned he was a boy, some of them didn’t care less. They had violated him, and to make sure he couldn’t use any of his jutsu or tried to escape, they’d drugged him. He was rescued by Zabuza, but not before he experienced the worst things imaginable. The experience had left him broken and angry with very little trust in anyone except for Zabuza.

“Zabuza made Haku one of his personal elite warriors after he became Mizukage, and once the Land of Waves came under the Water Country’s rule, he placed Haku as second-in-command under the Jounin Elite in control of the Wave Country. Haku had taken great pleasure in hunting down all of Gato’s men who had violated him, yet despite this, he would not ever again regain his lost innocence.”

Looking down, Naruto clenched his fists in helplessness rage. The friend he knew was alive but not well at all. The Land of Waves was now a conquered nation with its people suppressed under tyranny. Things just felt so hopeless.

Gazing back up into the angel’s kind, sad eyes, the blond Konoha shinobi gulped. “Are things in other nations just as bad?”

Sighing, Chikao nodded an affirmative. “Yes, they are, and in some places, it’s much worse.”

After the elderly man placed a hand on his charge’s shoulder, both of them disappeared in a whirl of soft wind, leaving behind the broken waves of a broken people in a slowly dying land.

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TBC (End of Chapter 3)

A/Ns:

1) I’d thought that this might be the likely scenario to what would have happened to the Land of Waves if Naruto was not born. If Naruto was not there to defeat Haku, the battle might have been won in Zabuza’s favor, and since Gato was obvious going to betray Zabuza, I really didn’t see the greedy tyrant keeping the Mist nin long. It makes sense in the end that Zabuza would return later to oust Gato and keep the Land of Waves as part of his conquest.

2) I like Haku, yet I knew that his goody personality might be his undoing one day especially if he gets captured with no Zabuza around to save him. His girly appearance sure makes him a likely target for abuse and maybe rape, thus I knew if he was rape, he would not stay the same person afterward.

3) I understand that in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life George Bailey can actually interact with the people in the alternated timeline, the one where he was not born. It’s just that to do so with Naruto will make the story more complex than I want to convey, so Naruto and Chikao are like spirits in the alternated timeline, where they can watch and listen but can not interact with events. Their interaction is much like how the Christmas Ghosts and Scrooge, from A Christmas Carol, can only watch and listen as they view events. Besides, as Chikao said, Naruto has not ever been born in this alternated world, so how can he interact if he has not been born?