Incident Six – Witness to Tragedy
Fire Country – Outside of Bounty Office
Daimyo Controlled Territory
Concurrent with Manga Chapter 322-328
"You are not to engage the two who took Yugito," Captain Saito had ordered them clearly. "Track and observe, but don't engage."
"But why?" Nanami had demanded over the radio, after all, why had they been sent if not to kill these two?
"I have it on Genjiro's absolute authority that one of them cannot be killed by normal means, some dark spiritual pact provides immortality," her superior had told her.
Nanami hadn't believed it, immortality was not something she accepted, it flew in the face of all she knew of the ninja way, but it made the order make sense. "Just one of them?"
"Genjiro only mentioned one, the other is likely not a follower of this 'Jashin' and so does not share that power," Saito explained.
"Can we kill that one then?" Nanami requested.
"For now do not engage either," Saito's orders were absolute. "A plan has been established to deal with this and will be ready soon. Focus on locating the enemy, but only engage if you must to defend yourselves, and even then prioritize safety and escape. Is that understood?"
"Yes sir," Nanami replied. "I understand; Team One out."
She had not believed her Captain then, but she did now.
The rangefinder embedded in Nanami's polymer goggles read one hundred eighty three meters. Her field bow, with its simple strengthening seals, could manage a killing shot at just over twice that, but not through the forested terrain currently presented. Still, she suddenly wished her distance was greater, a lot greater, and she had to clench her hands to resist the urge to signal her teammates over the short range radio.
One hundred eighty three meters away Nanami was staring at a man standing upright, apparently talking easily, with two massive knives embedded in his chest. It was absolutely horrifying.
Slowly the young woman took a careful breath, steadying herself. Her camouflage was good, the tough and well made patterned gear and paints obscured her almost totally, and for the stakeout she'd draped a chakra-dampening blanket over most of her body as well. Another breath. The bow was still in her hands, the powerful secure weapon she trusted, it was strung and an arrow was notched. That was the most comforting part, the arrow. Nanami took a great deal of solace in the possession of that slender shaft of wood, bound with its explosive seals. Explosion arrows were easy to make, everyone in the Shinobi-Ite had learned the method, and the one Nanami held now could blast that walking monster into a thousand pieces should she chose to launch it. He might live, she decided, but those blades left holes in his body. A mass of ruined flesh harms no one.
There was a great temptation to launch that arrow, but Nanami would obey her orders. She could not engage. Besides, she would never attack while the Leaf ninja could see. They were unanticipated, and they must not come to know of her team's presence.
It had been Chiyuki's idea to stake out the bounty office, after they had learned, while wearing henge disguises as Leaf ninja, that their targets had been carrying a body with them. It had been easy to learn that from a woodcutter, once the information Genjiro had obtained got them close. Nanami had been pleased to learn her teammate's intuition was correct when the two targets arrived, and even more pleased to confirm one of them as Kakuzu, she recognized the massive Waterfall ninja from his bingo book picture. She had been less pleased at the order restraining her arrows from flight, but now was not so sure. It seemed Saito had directed the wiser course.
Her nerves steadied Nanami stared out at the fight. She had strong eyes, and the scope mounted on her bow provided additional magnification, so it was easy enough to see what was happening. Observation was important, it would matter a great deal to learn the abilities of this pair of Akatsuki, especially their supposedly immortal foe.
So it was clear to Nanami when Kakuzu emerged to slam at the crouching Leaf ninja. The massive man was surprisingly fast, and terribly strong, but he'd attacked barehanded and close in, when he could have thrown weapons from a distance and achieved the same effect. That much boded well.
There was a storm of motion from the scene of battle as the four Leaf ninja and the two Akatsuki shifted positions. Then, strangely, Kakuzu fell behind his partner, moving away from the enemy. This didn't make sense to Nanami, if the man's asset was his strength, then why back off?
Moments later one of the Leaf ninja, a bearded man with little knuckle-knives, charged toward the immortal target. The abomination countered with one of the knives embedded in his body, even as he jumped about to evade another attack from some kind of dark strands. Nanami supposed this must be some jutsu used by the leaf ninja, and a flicker of her eyes pinned the source at the topknot-wearing one. In a display of capable skill the bearded man used one of his own knives to simply slash apart the larger weapon thrown at him, an application of wind chakra Nanami knew well, it was something Chiyuki was good at.
Then that massive, ridiculous scythe was in the air, whirling about with surprising ease. It seemed to strike the bearded man, but he didn't appear seriously hurt thereafter, but then the immortal bastard licked his blade of all things.
Heat and ash suddenly covered everything, as powerful jutsu was used. Nanami's angle to the blast was bad, but she figured it had to come from the bearded man, since she could see the other three were not moving. It was certainly a powerful technique though, perhaps enough to melt the immortal Akatsuki down. Nanami hoped so.
The blasted cleared, and the result made no sense, something happening with far too much frequency in this battle. The bearded man was burned, while the Akatsuki had changed into something skeletal and hideous, as if his bones had become visible through the skin. How had that happened?
There was no more time to consider it, for the bearded man charged, even as the immortal stood in some kind of symbol on the ground, one Nanami wished she could see, that information could be useful to Genjiro.
With a move that seemed slow, almost casual from the perspective of the distant watcher, the Akatsuki took a long metal spike and with deliberate ease drove it down into his own leg.
Nanami blinked, and her eyes narrowed, had such a thing actually just happened? Her eyes were not lying, it had, and the man seemed essentially unharmed, yet, strangely, the bearded man had fallen. There was no way a ninja of his obvious ability would trip, and it could be seen that blood flowed from the left leg, the same as where the immortal one had stabbed himself.
Everything paused on the battlefield, and Nanami had a dark feeling creep up the back of her skull as to what was going on, but she didn't want to accept it, considering the hideousness of such a thing. She would not be given the choice to deny, for the skeletal Akatsuki raised his spearpoint to his chest, right over the heart, his intention and method utterly clear. Nanami held back a sigh as she waited for the blow to fall, considering only that she hoped never to perish in such a way.
Yet the blow the sniper expected did not come, for the skeletal figure held steady and unmoving.
This was illogical, so there must be a justsu behind it, indeed, something similar had happened at the beginning of the battle, when the initial attack had landed. One of the Leaf ninja must have some kind of jutsu to immobilize an opponent, Nanami deduced. Glancing at the trio standing apart she could see the seal held by the topknot-wearing man, so it must be him. Still, Nanami didn't think anything had changed. Time favored the immortal, and when the Leaf ninja ran out of strength to hold his foe it would end.
As Nanami was watching the Leaf ninja, she saw him stand and move, and then could see the Akatsuki do the same thing, a fortuitous glimpse to recognize the true nature of the confining jutsu, a power to force another to mirror your own motions. This set off a small bell in her head, recalling old lessons, Captain Saito's tales of things learned during the war. There was a clan of the Leaf that had a power like this, a name she could not recall, but it was a deadly ability, working through…for a long moment it escaped her memory, then, as ever so slowly the Akatsuki moved to the left, away from his symbol on the ground, the words of her captain came back, and the vehicle of this impressive binding was revealed. Shadows, Nanami said the word silently. A technique that works through shadows, and therefore, is useless on moonless nights, that was the lesson she had been taught, a specific ambush the Raikage had used.
Then the Akatsuki was outside the circle. Nanami watched with clear eyes as a shuriken ripped through the man's earlobe, and regretted that at such a distance she would not be able to tell as the Leaf had whether or not the strange link was broken. Still, she knew subsequent actions would bear it out.
The Akatsuki's head flying off a moment later was more than enough confirmation. Nanami felt a brief surge of hope; hope that these Leaf ninja had found a way to win this battle. They weren't her allies, but nevertheless she could not for a moment wish for these hideous Akatsuki to win. That thing, she thought of the immortal one, should not exist. Genjiro's promised aid could not arrive soon enough in Nanami's mind.
Hope did not last long for the watcher, as she saw Kakuzu move at last, bypassing the Leaf ninja to pick up the immortals severed head, and then, in an action to leave Nanami completely stunned, simply place it back atop the headless body. It was too much to take in while remaining motionless, and for a moment Nanami committed the failure of closing her eyes before the foe, but she absolutely had to clear her head, she could not accept this otherwise.
The sniper's eyes snapped open in time to witness yet another shocking sight. The two leaf ninja who had stood aside for a time now charged Kakuzu with a combination attack of jutsu and massive weapon. Now she had to watch, to see what Pillage could actually do.
Normally witnessing a man's hands detach from his arms and grasp the throats of other while dangling on long dark chords would have been a great shock, but in the irrational context of this battle it did not seem important at all, simply another occurrence. The battle certainly went on without it, as the bearded man faced the immortal and was struck down to the ground. A moment later Nanami saw scythe and spearpoint pass through the formerly-headless foe's chest.
Sound broke in Nanami's observation with a start. A single tap of static passed over her radio, followed by two in rapid succession. It was a clear message for one of the Shinobi-Ite, Chiyuki, designated as number one, asked to take a shot.
Nanami understood her sister's request. She was in a position a ninety-degree arc away from Chiyuki. Kakuzu had presented his back to her sister, and his hands were occupied. There would be absolutely nothing he could do to prevent his destruction, and the immortal Akatsuki member was not facing her either. It was an almost impossibly good chance.
It was a snap decision, and Nanami was solely tempted, but the cold reason pounded into her by the endless days of training won the tiny struggle. They could not engage, orders forbid it, and so did operating procedure. If these Leaf ninja must die to preserve the security of the Shinobi-Ite, then die they must. She replied with two slow taps to identify herself, and then spoke a single word into the headset. "Negative," a whisper, and with it the death knell of the four leaf ninja rang out in Nanami's mind.
Sniper blood ran cold, and though guilt assailed her, there was no regret. The decision was not worth questioning, and the lives of ninja of another village were not worth saving. This was the only calculus the Shinobi-Ite could allow themselves to understand, there was no room for any feelings of mercy or hesitation in their world.
The topknot-wearing ninja suddenly charged, only to be thrown back by the body of his own comrade, and it looked grim indeed from the watchers' perspective.
"Incoming!" Shiori's voice crackled over the radio. "SPL, SE, NC." The coded acronyms fell through the void of radio contact, interpreted easily by Nanami. Standard platoon of Leaf ninja, meaning four, from the south-east, and Shiori's own hidden position was not compromised.
It was no wonder the Leaf ninja did not see Shiori, for they must have been moving at maximum speed, as the clearing outside the bounty office burst into a mass of black birds only moments after the message was received.
There was a flurry of obscured motion Nanami could not follow easily from this distance, too much to try and observe at once, but then the field cleared, and additional Leaf ninja faced off against the pair of Akatsuki.
Now Nanami had to make a decision, for her own situation had changed. With reinforcements the odds had shifted, and there could well be more, who knows how many the leaf had sent out here if they knew the identity of their opponents. If too many converged here her team would be spotted. The risk to remaining grew with every battle. How much time did she dare wait?
The Akatsuki advanced in a hurry, and then suddenly stopped, and Nanami pushed aside her quandary to observe. The pause lengthened, and it occurred to her that perhaps these madmen had decided to retreat. She tapped the radio twice. "Three, A, T," she spoke hurriedly, commanding Chiyuki to take the Shinobi-Ite's first real action of the whole battle.
It was not seen by anyone but the three snipers, the gauzy creation of fragile paper flashing through the air to connect with the back of Kakuzu's cloak, about a foot from the bottom. The impact would not be felt, for the cloak was barely ruffled as the paper arrow's embedded seal activated and it burned almost instantly away to ash. In less than three seconds there was no sign of the delivery mechanism, and only the tiny homing transmitter remained, planted unknowingly on the distracted Akatsuki member.
Nanami was relieved when that went as planned; now she could point to something truly constructive to this battle. It was barely in time, for only moments later the pair of madmen vanished beneath concealing jutsu. It was over, for the moment. She waited ten seconds to confirm this, and then issued her sisters the code to fall back.
As she moved smoothly through the branches Nanami considered what had just happened. She had witnessed horrors and seemingly the death of a capable Leaf ninja. The Akatsuki were impressive for certain, to face two to one odds and even reinforcements without any seeming difficulty. Still, there was a cold smile on her lips as she moved, for nothing she had seen allowed her foes to counter her. Team one had remained unobserved by both sides throughout the battle, and with the exception of the immortal one, could have killed any of the combatants at any time. Masters the Akatsuki might be, but it was of a way that had no use against what they were about to face. The Leaf ninja would be the last one, Nanami suspected, the immortal fool would soon face his own tragedy, and losing a head would seem positively joyous then.
