A True Ninja
A/N: Hello again! This is something I've been working on ever since I finished Senran Kagura and had a little idea pop into my head. I really hope you enjoy! Without further adieu, I present to you, A True Ninja!
Nowhere To Go
"There's more pussy here than in a cat shelter."
~?
"Hey!"
The fat one's voice rang out in the alleyway, his slimmer lackey's grinning maliciously as they surrounded him from both possible exits. "What do you want, fatso." It was not a question. Clad in a plain onyx hoodie, black jeans, and black high-top sneakers, the boy looked as scrawny, almost fragile even, in the eyes of the delinquents. "Rrgh!" The leader growled angrily at his statement, pulling a sheathed sword from his back as he formulated his next words. "Give us your money, dork! And don't tell us you're broke! Cuz I know you gotta have some cash to be able to buy sumthin' like that!" He stated, indicating the glare of the sun atop the golden chain hanging from his neck and falling into his shirt.
He stood silent for a moment, contemplating, before he finally gave his answer.
"You'd be wasting my time."
A sweatdrop formed on the idiots' foreheads as their leader voiced his thoughts once more. "Whaddya mean we'd be wa-
"I know you're puppets."
Shock fell over his face before he recomposed himself. "Hah! That's a good one! But, I'm still gonna kick your ass!" The teenager's dark hood fell from the top of his head as he withdrew his tanned hands from his pockets. Spiky scarlet tresses flitted aside in the oncoming breeze as blood red orbs glanced upwards to greet his vision. "If you were real people, you'd all be under my Tsukuyomi by now." Suddenly, he vanished, his person suddenly ceasing to exist in that immediate space. Just as quickly as he vanished, he reappeared. With a schwing of a sound, their supposed victim materialized back into existence behind the overweight bully.
"But you're not."
The spiraling sphere drove into his back before the poor fellow could even register the stranger's words. Flesh and muscle tissue ground together as he screamed in agony for what felt like forever, until finally-!
BLAM!
A plume of smoke exploded from the punk's body just before his technique detonated, sending out the target that he really hit. A man-sized wooden doll flew from the cloud of smoke, confirming the boys suspicions. "Oh.", he spoke. "So I was right. What's next?", he pointed to the nearest lackey. "Ya gonna tell me you're a body pillow?" Before he could answer however, a powerful haymaker smashed into his nose, showering the atmosphere in mucus and viscera before he, too, reverted back into a doll of oak. He glanced at the rest of them from behind his back, the trio of tomoe in those crimson eyes of his spinning relentlessly.
"Grr… C'mon boys!"
The remainder of the accused puppets performed a hand sign, sending out wave after wave of ethereal energy until the world around them bled a violet hue. "This-", they all spoke in unison. "is a shinobi kekkei! Now we don't have to worry about bystanders seeing us fight." He turned to face them fully, a familiarly shaped knife dropping into his grasp from within his sleeve. "I wasn't worried either way." The delinquents charged him, shouting furious insults and slurs as they unsheathed their weapons. They never saw his smirk. Just as they never saw him move.
One of their own dropped in a spasming heap, quickly shifting from organic to inanimate. Sweat expelled from their pours as they turned to see him glaring at them maliciously. Those tomoe suddenly morphed, shifting into a flower-like pattern atop his crimson eyes. And then he spoke one word that spelled doom for them all.
"Susano'o."
An entity created entirely from darkness itself rose from the ground, wriggling and writhing as it took shape. The onyx flames of its exterior lashed out in an angry fit, setting various chunks of ground and walls ablaze, the fire sputtering and then grower with each passing second until whatever they'd burned was reduced to ashes, and then still they burned. Only delighting them with the sight of its head and torso, the beast roared, summoning its massive broadsword. Through all this, their target stood still within the monstrosity, controlling its destructive actions with naught but a wayward thought. "Ya see", he began. "Where I come from, there was a man with a rather peculiar title to go with an even deadlier skillset."
The puppets actually showed fear in that single unforgiving moment as smoke and small black flames exuded themselves from in between his pearly white fangs. He performed a single handed seal as the powerfully soulless white eyes of the Susano'o stared them down, glinting with glee. "Everyone who knew of him, called him the man who could burn even fire itself." Embers, sparks, and flames of darkness, an even deeper black than that of the beast itself, swirled into existence across the blade of the ethereal monster's weapon of choice. It raised it high, the overwhelmingly dark energies seeping from their target blotting out the sun completely, leaving only a grey haze for them to see through. When next they looked back at the red haired shinobi within the belly of the beast, all they saw was the age old eyes of the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan.
"And I took that title."
The sword came crashing down upon the earth, demolishing the buildings they stood between as well as the shattering the ground all around them. Blackness engulfed them, leaving them blind and helpless. The lot of them heard one last thing before not even their wooden carcasses were left.
"Amaterasu."
The shinobi kekkei faded and it was as if nothing occurred. The carrot top walked away utterly unscathed from an unaltered environment. An expertly paved road lay behind him, untouched by the black flames of his Susano'o. The wooden puppets he'd defeated only moments ago were nothing but ash atop a blacktop as he exited the alley, not even a single sweat broken as he pulled his hood over his head. Stuffing his hands into his pockets the shinobi whistled a small tune to himself as he walked into the crowd of people, blending into society almost immediately.
Yagyuu dropped down from the rooftop, followed by a clumsy Hibari, glancing at the ashes that were soon blown away by the oncoming breeze before sweeping her gaze over to the where the mysterious teen had walked. Her eyes hardened, the girl's face contorting in concentration even as Ikaruga and Katsuragi jogged onto the road behind them. "Hey!", the blonde called out as the duo slowed to a halt. "What happened? We came as soon as we saw the signal." Yagyuu stayed silent but the pinkette beside her did not, as evident by her turning to face them fully with a confused yet happy expression.
"Well, we found the punks…
Kept in suspense, Ikaruga pressed on, "Yeah? And then what happened?"
"They were harassing this boy and we were just about to jump in and help, but then they conjured a shinobi kekkei." She explained to her classmates. "It was so quick… The boy took them all out by himself. He was obviously a ninja, too, but… He used a summoning that I'd never seen before."
That curvy blackette and busty blonde looked at each other in befuddlement, their expressions scrunching up in disbelief even as the regal-like girl spoke. "A summoning you'd never seen before? What was it like?" That was when the first year turned, her twin platinum ponytails fluttering as she looked at them with her lone ruby red eye. "It was the torso of a great battle armament. Equipped with a sword made from black flames, the boy stood inside of it, almost as if he were controlling it with his mind. Then, he plowed through the lot of them in the blink of an eye."
Taken aback, the girls gave a shocked look when Hibari nodded in affirmation, squashing any doubt they had about their junior's description. "This is rather unsettling.", the black haired kunoichi stated as she placed a hand on her chin. "Not only were the group of delinquents we were sent to eliminate ninja, but, a shinobi we know even less about took them down single-handedly." A thought crossed the ditzy pinkette suddenly. "Oh, those punks were actually puppets as well."
"What?!"
Katsuragi's outburst dragged the group's attention to her when Hibari's statement reached her ears. "They were puppets?!" Ikaruga opened her mouth to speak, "You know what this means, don't you?" At their confused expressions, The black haired shinobi elaborated. "This means-" the silverette interjected. "That someone was targeting either that boy or us."
"But, we don't have any enemies, do we?", Hibari asked.
"We don't." Katsu said.
"Which means", the other third year began. "that whoever was controlling those puppets were after that other ninja." Yagyuu turned, her bloody red eye regarding the path that the aforementioned boy had taken and promptly disappeared thereafter. "Question is", she spoke. "who's the puppeteer, who was that boy, and why is the puppet master after him?"
With no helpful answers to any of their questions, they walked off, exiting the alley and heading back to the academy.
Then, Katsu spoke up.
"Hey, as anyone seen Asuka?"