Tales of the Shinobi War 2
By: creyzi4zb12
Fanfic from: Naruto
Setting: During the Shinobi World War 4
Fanfiction Spotlight: Shikamaru, Kurenai
Dictionary: Blue Cult = A cult of shinobis who worship an illusion known as the Blue Kage. Belief and prayers keep him alive and real.
The Blue Kage = Explained in the story
Kunoichi = A female shinobi/ a female ninja.
ESR = Evacuation Shinobi Reserve; the Shinobi forces assigned to safeguard and protect the civilians evacuating in certain hidden villages. These shinobis are mostly composed of Konoha ninjas who were too inexperienced, young or old to fight in the front lines during the Shinobi World War 4.
Supporting Characters:
Nakoruru = Rogue Shinobi woman hand of the Blue Ninja. She wears blue robes and carries a huge scythe as a weapon. Her character image is explained in episode three and is based on Miyuki Kobayakawa in "You're Under Arrest"
Saizo = Rogue Shinobi hand of the Blue Ninja
What are you doing Kurenai?
Shikamaru wills every bit of power that he has for the ninjutsu. The "Shadow Neck Binding Technique" uses a technique developed from the Nara clan's hidden Shadow Imitation Technique with combat in mind. It is possible to inflict direct damage to the enemy by transforming and moving shadows endowed with physical power. A black hand creeps slowly towards the neck of his assailant. At first it seems like a black snake, creeping slowly from Nakoruru's feet to her slender legs, and circles above her waist and back, then slithers up towards her neck.
Nakoruru finds her strength insufficient in combating the shadow jutsu Shikamaru had placed upon her. She tries to raise her scythe for a strike, but is unable to do so. "What have you done to me?" Nakoruru shouts at Shikamaru angrily as her scythe keeps sticking to his (Shika's) left hand.
Shikamaru doesn't answer. He conserves all his strength and chakra to finish his ninjutsu. He had used the time he had when the kunoichi was disabled to assess the battlefield. Including the scythe wielding kunoichi, there were ten able ninjas remaining. The other rogue-ninjas were either retreating or dying slowly from the wounds they had received by his traps.
He had weighed all possibilities in battling these ten rogues remaining, and the odds did not seem to go his favor. Shikamaru was losing chakra and strength fast. Come to think of it, he doesn't even know if he has enough to finish his "Shadow Neck Bind Technique".
He concentrates harder in finishing the jutsu. But the pain from the scythe sticking in his left hand overwhelms him, and Shikamaru loses all control that he has on his neck-binding technique. The shadowy hand that snakes over Nakoruru retreats for the shadows in the floor, disappearing in a snake like fashion.
Nakoruru, feels her prey weakening, tries to remove the scythe impaling Shikamaru's left hand to the ground, but is unable to do so. For all Shikamaru's strength, he is able to maintain and lock Nakoruru in a "Shadow Binding/Imitation Technique", a ninjutsu from the Nara clan that allows the user to extend their shadow on any surface (even water) and as far as they want as long as there is a sufficient area. Once it comes into contact with a target's shadow, the two merge and the target is forced to imitate the user's movements.
"Kill him now you guys!" Shikamaru hears Nakoruru shout a command towards her fellow rogue-ninjas.
Shikamaru looks at a rogue-ninja wearing blue robes finish a few hand-seals, and to his horror, summon a giant man sized shuriken. The blue robed shinobi poses for a throw, gathering all its strength to throw the giant shuriken at Shikamaru.
"Stop it, you'll hit your ally as well!" Shikamaru shouts wildly to the rogue-shinobi. Nakoruru, despite being safe from the "shadow neck binding jutsu" was still locked within Shikamaru's "Shadow Imitation/Binding Technique".
He looks at the pretty face of the kunoichi whose shadow and body is locked with his. For a moment, he considers using her as a shield to block the giant shuriken; but even if he wanted to do that, he couldn't. Shikamaru was stuck to the ground and couldn't move because of the scythe impaling his left hand to the grassy dirt.
The blue robed shinobi throws the giant shuriken towards him, Shikamaru looks at the spinning piece of metal with dread. "There's no escape now" Nakoruru scowls.
Shikamaru moves his arms up, making Nakoruru copy his movements due to the "Shadow Imitation/Binding Technique". Nakoruru who holds the scythe impaling his left hand to the ground is forced to remove the weapon from the copying of Shikamaru's motion.
Blood flies out from his hand as the scythe is removed. The pain seemed to overwhelm Shikamaru to a point where he lost the control of his "shadow bind" towards Nakoruru. But there was no time to resist the pain, Shikmaru summoned the strength of his legs to jump back, just enough distance to dodge the giant spinning shuriken headed towards him.
Nakoruru feels the release of the shadow binding jutsu on her body. She realizes that she is free from the restrictions of Shikamaru's technique, and is now able to move on her own will. She raises her scythe back, and swings it in a horizontal slash towards Shikamaru who was quite busy dodging the giant spinning shuriken. She hits him on the torso, making a cut so deep that Shikamaru's jounin uniform was sliced in half.
Shikamaru rolls back from the sudden powerful attack of the kunoichi. He finishes his roll, picks up a kunai from his pockets, and poses defensively for battle.
His mind begins to think of new strategies in defeating the rogue-ninjas. After making the slice, the kunoichi had posed her body in a relaxing taunt, dangling the scythe between her shoulders and giving Shikamaru a faint smile. That was an advantage to Shikamaru, the taunt gave him enough time to breathe and regenerate his chakra for another round. He closes his eyes and makes a deep breath to relax, and tells himself to concentrate and focus harder in the fight.
Then suddenly his whole world goes black and white, his body shakes convulsively as blood begins to spurt wildly from his torso. The scythe cut had penetrated both his armor and muscles, leaving a deep horizontal gash on the torso. He wills all of his body to stand up and continue the fight, but all those once strong legs could do was kneel down and shake uncontrollably. He thinks up of tactics, of strategies to fight like this, but the pain overwhelms him, and all he could think about was death, death and Kurenai.
Kurenai, those were his last thoughts. Come to think of it, he was seeing Kurenai's back right now, in front of him, carrying a kunai and posed in defense. "Kurenai…" Shikamaru's weak voice grumbles, then his face falls down to the grass.
O-O
Kurenai had weighed the odds in which battle she would be participating at. Would she accompany the ESR shinobi group fighting in the east, or would she help the male ninja in the west who was confident enough to fight forty rogue-ninjas on his own.
The decision took her a few seconds to make, the shinobi from the west was either too strong, or too stupid to go solo in a battle. Fearing the latter, she made her way west and tried to help the shinobi soloing the rogues. If the western flank falls, then the enemy might get inside the evacuation camp, and Kurenai couldn't risk something a slaughter happening because the ESR was dumb enough to send one shinobi against forty experienced rogues.
Moving closer to the western fight, she was surprised to realize that it was actually Shikamaru soloing the fight against the rogues. Why was he here? Was he here for me? Those were the first thoughts that came out of Kurenai's mind. But before thinking deeper about Shikamaru's relation in being here, Kurenai shrugged all the ideas away.
As a genjutsu user, she needed to clear her mind of most heavy thoughts. From the death of Asuma, the worries of her child, to the surprise of seeing Shikamaru here; all burdens in her heart and mind for the sake of her genjutsu was removed. She grips her kunai tightly and positions herself defensively in front of Shikamaru, protecting the poor lad from further attacks of these rogues.
No time to think of a strategy, she needed to finish this battle fast. Shikamaru seemed to have lost a lot of blood from the battle, and was dropped unconscious on the grass dying. She manages a small glance to Shikamaru, to see if he is okay. The lad seemed to be sleeping soundly like a baby, muttering a few words of "Kurenai" that she couldn't hear.
"She's here! Master! The woman is here!" Kurenai hears a rogue-kunoichi wearing blue robes scream out in ecstasy. She was carrying a huge scythe dripping with blood which Kurenai suspected belonged to Shikamaru. The blue robed rogue-kunoichi spins her scythe and slams the butt of the weapon to the ground, making a loud boom sound as it happens.
"Attack!" Nakoruru orders the ten remaining rogue ninjas to do so.
The ten ninjas attack in unison, some forming hand-seals. Kurenai sees a rogue-ninja wearing a purple top hat fire a water bullet at her. She dodges the water bullet, and engages five rogue-shinobis all at once.
The rogue-ninjas try to swing their weapons towards her, but soon find themselves wrapped up in the roots of a huge Sakura tree that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. To their eyes, Kurenai was nowhere to be seen. But in reality, Kurenai was right beside them, paralyzing them with her genjutsu/illusion, and slicing their throats with a blade.
The purple colored rogue-ninja watched in horror as his comrades die one by one from Kurenai's attack. It wasn't that much of a battle, Kurenai was dashing back and forth slicing the throats of her victims here and there with ease.
Kurenai's prey did not seem to bother blocking or evading the coup-de-grace, all they seemed to do was struggle aimlessly to a supposed to be invisible assailant that wasn't really there, taking no attention to the fact that their throats were already sliced open by Kurenai.
Dangerous combat illusions are easily destroyed by a simple trick when in a group: simply touching and disturbing a victim's chakra flow literally is able to release a person from a genjustu. But even if Kurenai's target were aware of this strategy, Kurenai's illusions were too sudden for them to react to.
"It's not real, it's all just an illusion!" Nakoruru screams.
"Yes, that's true! It's not real, they are all merely illusions. We can combat her if we just ignore them all." The rogue with a purple hat laughed. But his laugh was short lived, when all of a sudden red butterflies start appearing out of thin air. He looks for Nakoruru, their spiritual leader, but she is no longer there, just darkness and the red butterflies. He tries to bat them away. "Get away from me!" He screams.
Several of the red butterflies seemed to land on his body, nibbling at his flesh slowly. The rogue with the purple hat's face turns into panic as he realizes that he is already trapped in the illusion made for him. He performs a few hand seals and fires a water bullet in the darkness.
Kurenai watched the water bullet fly and hit nothing but air on its path. She didn't need to evade the missile because she was already behind the rogue on purple when that happened. She swings her kunai and slices the tendons of the rogue's right leg, maiming him. The rogue on purple drops to the ground; no longer batting any invisible butteflies due to her genjutsu being broken from the pain. But the damage was done, and the rogue on purple was now helpless. Kurenai finishes the job by slicing his throat.
The rogue on purple manages to mumble a "please" word, before drowning on his own blood. Kurenai then points her kunai towards the only enemy left standing, the rogue-kunoichi on blue robes.
"It is over." Kurenai's face grow serious, as she looks at her prey eye to eye.
"Come on! I'm not afraid of your petty illusions!" Nakoruru scowls back at Kurenai. She then raises her scythe and charges for Kurenai.
Nakoruru makes a horizontal swing, but Kurenai ducks and plants a kunai on her left foot which she tried to kick her with. She howls in pain as the kunai bites in deep at her left knee, and Kurenai picks up another kunai from her pockets.
Nakoruru performs a hand seal with her left hand, and blows a water bullet straight ahead. Kurenai dodges the missile attack, and charges ahead. The blue-robed-kunoichi makes a downward slash, but Kurenai steps back and throws a kunai almost point blank towards her target, hitting Nakoruru squarely in the right armpit.
Nakoruru bits her lip from the pain, she summons more strength to make another swing with the scythe but Kurenai is able to attack first by fast throwing another kunai to her right bicep. The thrown kunai bites deeply into her muscle, making her drop the scythe to the ground, dust clears out in the grassy dirt to emphasize how heavy the scythe was. She pants heavily as three kunais stick into her body, one on her left foot, one on the right armpit and one on the right bicep.
"I don't need to use genjutsu against amateurs like you." Kurenai serious face bites deep into her prey's eyes.
Since her right arm was now useless. Nakoruru uses her left for a hand seal. Summoning a "water geyser" to erupt to where Kurenai was standing at.
Kurenai notices the ground rumble and is able to evade the desperate attack in the nick of time by rolling forward towards Nakoruru. She finishes her tumble with a hard slash using her kunai, Nakoruru tries to block the attack with her left hand and soon finds three of her bloody fingers flying. Kurenai finishes her off by grabbing her right arm and slamming her to the ground with a judo move.
Kurenai looks at her surroundings for any enemies remaining, and when the coast was clear enough, she puts her weapons back on her secret pockets and tends to the dying Shikamaru.