"Sometimes by losing a battle, you find a new way to win the war."
- Donald Trump
DISCLAIMER/ I don't own Halo or Naruto
Chapter 11: Targeted From Every Corner
"UGH!" Kakuzu choked when the sand nearly fell down his throat, making him gag in reflex. After nearly two painstaking hours that felt like days of digging himself out of the sandstorm that had appeared out of nowhere, he expected the Spartan to be waiting out here for round two...
Or not. Not a single, solitary soul was around.
"Twelve million gone, just like that," Kakuzu breathed out in vexation, his frown growing deeper. If there was one thing he hated more than anything else, it was losing easy money. Easy money was like robbing candy from a defenseless baby, and with the Spartan being humorously weak against him, it would have – should have – likely been an easy kill, but he had not predicted the Spartan being very crafty in combat.
First, he had learned that that odd metallic thing the Spartan held would fire out smaller metal objects at a near blinding rate, and knowing this vital news meant that it would be easier for Kakuzu to incapacitate his opponent after separating him from his weapon.
If he had just taken his time to kill him, he would already be on his way to Kiri to claim his reward, but now he was stuck in the middle of the godforsaken desert with no Spartan body, and more importantly, no way to track him.
Kakuzu grew increasingly furious at himself as his mistake seemed to grow larger by the second. He had planned for two weeks to find the Spartan by unwinding tips from the multitude of whimsical tales told by bar patrons, but none had helped his search. Then he'd spent many days trying to track him after he'd been spotted in Konohagakure, wasting no time in going down there and beginning a large search for him which ultimately lead nowhere...
That was all before he'd come across a small flying object that had obviously not been a bird. His curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he'd followed it through the Land of Waves while avoiding its line-of-sight. While he was not normally someone who got distracted from his primary objective, the object had struck him as something that might be valuable, and those were the types of things that Kakuzu knew he had to have.
Taking it down had been easy, just like his water-walking exercise, a simple swish and flick. He'd taken his prize to one of the money caves located in Suna's only mountain range, where he'd known it would be well-hidden from anyone brave enough to go inside.
The Spartan coming there, though, was probably one of the luckiest days of his life, almost like finding a golden brick stashed away under the desert's sand. Never had a bounty ever come across him in his near-six decades on this world; it had always been the other way around, with him chasing down anyone interesting and taking their heads in.
Kakuzu was brought back to reality when he noted how cold it was becoming, the once-yellow scorching sand turning a frigid dark orange as the sun set. Looking up to the sky and staring at the stars, he thought quickly and formulated a plan of action.
He would begin his search for the Spartan from scratch, as it was practically impossible to pinpoint him. Then, when he did get a trace of his target, he would redouble his efforts, find him, and torture him. Anyone related to him or had any relation toward the Spartan would be killed in a brutal fashion, never seeing the graceful angel known as 'mercy'.
When he found the man's home or base, Kakuzu would take everything with value and anything else would be burned to ashes. Everything that belonged to the Spartan would be his and his alone. No one would stand in his way of Kakuzu's relentless search, and when he found wherever the Spartan was hiding, he would kill him, plain and simple.
The mercenary swore a vendetta that night that he would not rest until he got his revenge.
And collected his money.
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3 YEARS LATER...
[LAND OF HONEY/ 蜜の国-Mitsu no Kuni]
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The Land of Honey was unknown to most across the western parts, but those who had heard of it knew it was best known for its large markets containing some of the Elemental Nations most diverse districts. However, with the war raging on, demanding shinobi and consumables be shipped to the frontlines, the economy was at an all-time low.
It was currently night, with a bone-chilling air blowing through the mostly-deserted town. Many of the buildings were demolished, while some of their foundations were crumbling away to breaking points. The Land of Honey was a loss...
Blam!
An ominous blare rang through the valley as a man's body slumped to the muddy ground in a heap, a smoking hole in the center of his head. A shallow shuffle sounded from behind him, followed by an armored boot that stomped over the corpse and proceeded briskly down the dark road.
John looked around at the countless mangled corpses riddled with bullet holes. Most of the men on the ground wore Kiri headbands, while others were Suna shinobi. After almost 15 seconds of listening around and hearing nothing except the crackling fires in the buildings, he moved on.
Targets neutralized, John thought to himself. Proceeding north. Loading a fresh clip in his assault rifle, he walked back to his Pelican stationed a few miles outside of the village. Now that he walked lands filled with deceptive predators and men and women who knew hundreds of ways to kill a person, he had to be cautious.
The few restless months which had stretched into three years had been eventful in many ways. The world John had come to know as 'Earth-2' was filled with many things he had never known of or could imagine possible. His name and appearance were now known across many parts of the land, granting him the moniker 'Orenjiaido Akuma', which translated to 'Orange-Eyed Demon', though John didn't particularly care what people thought of him or what they wanted to do with him; he had a job to do and it was waiting to be started.
The chaos of his clash with Kakuzu three years previously had fallen on deaf ears, but what took place the days following that was heard loud and clear in every direction. John had returned to Kirigakure – as he'd been there more than once, and thus knew what he was getting into, not to mention the village was in a weakened state – to gain more answers with regards to the war.
John had located key officials who were loyal to the Mizukage, namely intelligence squads in charge of key information concerning the village's dire secrets. When John had found a roster with their names and locations, it took him less than four weeks to interrogate all of them and dispose of any traces of them to cover his tracks.
After his little bout in the Hidden Mist against its Mizukage, he'd been labeled a public menace and been placed in the Bingo Book. It wasn't the heftiest of bounties, only 12,000,000 ryō, but that didn't mean John was in the clear yet. There were still many bounty hunters after him, especially from Taki. He'd taken care of the search parties or bounty hunters by launching an array of espionage attacks on their villages and destroying any leads they had on him, and followed that up by destroying any important documentation and eliminating high-ranking shinobi.
However, he had not anticipated finding scrolls with odd kanji that looked familiar to him. When searching what the kanji had described, he had kept coming across the word 'seal' over and over again. Unable to figure out what they meant, at the time, he'd assumed they were unimportant.
After finding out more about seals, he'd realized just how wrong he'd been. The complex art of sealing something in a sub-dimension by applying blood and a series of complicated kanji that had to be written almost perfectly… John wanted to learn more about it, but it required something important that he didn't have: chakra.
John had tried to mold chakra, but each and every time he would end up with the same result – an agonizingly miserable failure.
Apparently, the most famed seal-users were a clan known as the Uzumaki, located in Uzushiogakure, the Village Hidden in Whirlpools. Facts about this distant land were all puzzling, but from what he had gathered, it was a place not to be taken lightly on any given day.
From reading personal documentations that he'd stolen from carriers, it seemed that the war had been started by the city known as Konoha, which utterly surprised him since he had ventured there on prior occasions. While Konoha had begun the war, the rest of the nations' capitals were not helping it. More and more men were being sent out on missions to destroy, capture, or kill something, but ended up dying instead.
The war was going nowhere, and John wasn't going to be joining anyone to end it. It was him and him alone.
He'd first planned to end it by attacking another village that had the most participation – the Village Hidden in Clouds within the Land of Lightning – in order to weaken its defensive lines, by while he had been there previously, there'd been no easy way to pinpoint the locations of troops or the Kage. John had ended up spending several weeks trying to gather answers, but without any leverage, he'd come across all dead ends, barring the one time he'd caught a straggler...
XXXXXXX
37 DAYS BEFORE
KUMOGAKURE (雲隠れの里, Kumogakure no Sato)
XXXXXXX
"Talk," John's raspy voice cut through the air in the foggy canyon. After executing the last of the Taki bounty hunters after him, he needed to know where the imported messages were from several of the lower region divisions.
"I don't sing for free," a cocky voice replied with a shouldered cough. "Speaking of which, I'm not supposed to talk to strangers..." The Kumo shinobi then placed a white piece of paper in his vest pocket and turned toward the silhouette in the fog. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out the visage, but soon saw nobody there.
"You will..." John said again as he stepped toward the calm man more quickly, and before the man knew it, his neck was being squeezed by a massive glove and he couldn't feel the ground below him any longer.
"Wha-what the fu—!" tried the Kumo-nin, only to break off into coughing.
"Attack me and I'll snap your neck," the Master Chief promised, squeezing tighter. He pressed a knife into the man's abdomen, though not hard enough to break skin, and asked, "Where are they?"
"What?" the Kumo nin asked while trying to steer away from the knife blade curling in his belly.
"The central messaging outpost. I want a location."
"Not telling," grunted his captive.
John knew this man's game, trying to play strong while having an arrogant attitude…it was all really a matter of time before he had to take extreme precautions and break the guy's clavicle.
"Location, NOW," John demanded more harshly while digging his fingers into the man's neck.
"You should let me go...the Ame shinobi wouldn't want their puppet to be cut off completely." The brown-haired man's sneer made John frown in disgust. "If only you could understand me, teme."
"I can understand you. I want to know where the outpost is."
"Forget it, I'll never tell."
John reared the man's body back and slammed him into the rock's foundation, not enough to kill him but enough to cave in his ribcage.
"N-nice...but it won't do..." the man wheezed out as his face began to turn an unhealthy red. He began to cough and hack up blood on John's forearm armor, but it didn't faze the Master Chief in the slightest.
Something caught John's eye on the left side of the Kumo shinobi's coat, and John reached out to grab it after dropping the man on the ground. The assassin tried to get up and summon a familiar to aid him, but felt every bone in his hand shatter as a massive green boot slammed on top of it.
Crunch!
The man gasped loudly and began screaming, feeling the bones snap and shatter before he saw some escape the skin in his hand.
John looked over the folded piece of paper and unfolded it before adjusting his eyes on the extended sentences.
'Amegakure's leading general has to be stopped at all costs. I fear that once he's through Konoha's defense, he will more than likely set his sights on us. Destroy this note immediately after reading it and report back by sunrise.
-Third Raikage'
John looked down at his prisoner and gripped the back of his neck to lift him off the ground again.
"Who is Ame's general?" the Master Chief asked, ignoring his prisoner's agonized groans. He felt like he knew who the man was, had heard the name before, but it wasn't coming up.
The Kumo-nin spat out a name as if it were poison. "Hanzō…the Salamander." Almost like a light switch flipping in John's mind, he instantly remembered that name.
"Then you have no relation to Hanzō," the Mizukage questioned.
"Who?"
"Hanzō the Salamander. Ame's leader."
John kept the name rolling in his mind, trying to calculate a plan on taking Hanzō out of the picture, but first he would have to find the man. He leveled a glare back to the shinobi in his clutches and slowly asked, "Where is he?"
"Ame. Where else?" the young shinobi cockily sneered.
Finally fed up with his captive's act of impertinence, John dropped the man on the ground, allowing his back to hit the wall. The action caught the man off-guard as he felt his brain rattle and his vision blur from the smashing the back of his skull against the rock. While he rubbed his head to shakes off the dizziness, he didn't see the armored man raise his foot until it was too late.
A loud crack echoed through the rocky landscape, followed by screams that rent the night.
XXXXXXX
John took cautionary steps over some of the buildings' rubble while aiming toward the surrounding area. The Ame shinobi had tracked him down surprisingly well and even put up a fair fight, though it hadn't prevented him from shredding through them in a matter of minutes. They had been ruthless and highly-trained, and their ninjutsu techniques had proved to be almost too much to handle.
Based on that, John concluded that the major problem in the war was the Land of Rain.
From information John had gathered in the Land of Honey, Amegakure had the second strongest strength and most leverage against Konoha.
Finding information on Ame was hard to come by, and capturing Ame shinobi who would tell him anything of value was even more difficult. Any of the drones he sent either got lost in the rain or, for those that did manage to get inside, weren't able to see anything through the dense clouds and constant downpour.
There was only one reasonable thing he could do now when all else had failed, and that was to enter Amegakure and locate Hanzō personally. It wouldn't be easy, but he had a good feeling he would find him since there were rumors that he would be the one in battle.
If that was the case, all John had to do was lure him out.
John turned a corner and entered a shopping complex that was utterly soulless, the only things present being the mangled stands and surrounding fires.
He kept his eye locked on his scanner, trying to see if there were any survivors he could escort. Many times after exiting a village, he would come across one or more civilian survivors. Sometimes he would ignore them completely, but other times, when it was absolutely necessary, he would aid them in escaping.
He'd saved over 14 people after being on this planet for four long, perilous years. Most of the men and women he'd rescued were in too much of a fright to understand what was going on, incapable of processing what was happening. While he was in the middle of ending an onslaught, it didn't mean he had to ignore the helpless. He was molded by the UNSC to defend the innocent.
John exited the shopping district with his rifle clutched in his hands and finally began the trek down the dark road toward his Pelican. His only company was the soft, chilly breeze and the odor of burning wood and bodies.
After walking for more than an hour and navigating his way through a few dozen trees, he managed to come back to his grounded Pelican, walked around to the back, and entered it.
KONOHAGAKURE (木ノ葉隠れの里, Konohagakure no Sato)
Hiruzen Sarutobi was many things, but today he was very unhappy.
Scratch that, he was livid.
The 3rd platoon of shinobi he'd sent had failed to retrieve the prisoners in Amegakure from the previous battle. After several months of trying to recapture a front along the border with Amegakure, Hiruzen had been forced to send in some of Konoha's top shinobi to take care of Hanzō the Salamander personally.
Those being his very own students.
Hiruzen leaned back in his leather-lined chair and took one mighty puff of his pipe, feeling tired from the hour of work he'd spent signing treaties and granting authorization to Konoha's forces. He truly didn't know what he should do next but resume his mundane activities. He flipped idly through another report of the 'Orenjiaido Akuma' – which sounded a lot like the Spartan – but his thoughts were far away on his students.
Orochimaru, Tsunade, and Jiraiya.
All he could do now was give his students the faith they deserved...
And hope it would help them survive...
AMEGAKURE (雨隠れの里, Amegakure no Sato )
There were many ways to describe the Land of Rain, but rainy was the first word that came to mind. All it did, and all it ever seemed to do, was rain for years on end. The storm was far too rough for the Pelican in which the Master Chief was piloting. While it could stand up to the disastrous elements of space combat, the rain mixed with lighting was proving to be too much to handle. He had spent 13 hours flying east toward Amegakure, and the majority of that time had been spent trying to get past the Land of Wind.
About three miles inside the border and at a stationary altitude of 700 feet, he began to descend in a canyon that provided excellent cover from other ninja.
After seeing the perfect spot to land, he began to kill the Pelican's engines and pull back the throttle slowly. The Pelican's wings lurched slightly to the side from a gust of wind, but the Master Chief made sure to keep the rear rotating wing steady against the constant patter of rain. He also made sure to keep an eye on the life scanner as well, since some shinobi were gifted in wind affinities and could knock him out of the sky if he wasn't careful.
John exited out of the Pelican's doors and walked softly on the soaked ground. The preload rear doors slowly raised themselves up and closed tightly as John made his way around the Pelican toward the black lock-box and opened it.
He took out an MA5C Assault Rifle and 13 clips of ammunition, placing them on the back of his utlity strips. Next, he grabbed for a Magnum and clipped it on his thigh, keeping the safety on. Given his locale, he also remembered to apply weather-resistant padding to the gun's features.
Reaching back into the weapons box, he pulled out a pair of frag grenades and attached them to his waistband. He began to close the weapons' box, but suddenly remembered, reopened it, and pulled out a large stick with four sharp, metallic points and a yellow sphere at the opposite end.
It was a Z-4190 Bubble Shield, giving 20 seconds of protection from anything besides vehicles and living beings.
Clicking it to the back of his waistband and tapping on his wrist's TAC/PAD, he locked up the Pelican and observed the area before him. Ame was a clear, desolate country with numerous rocky valleys drowning under the gushing rain. John had heard of planets with irregular weather patterns, but this really took the cake.
John looked over to the west and listened to the sound of thunder batting against the clouds. He set his retrieval waypoint back on the Pelican in case he became lost in the thick storm currently pelting his armor. He took a few steps south and then began a light jog, stepping in several puddles along the way.
The sky lit up for a millisecond, followed by the crashing boom of thunder. John continued to jog for almost a quarter-hour before he came across something on the rocky ground that made his jaw tighten...
A body.
That was still alive.
Upon further inspection, he saw the person was wearing a flak jacket and standard shinobi shoes. Why a shinobi was on the ground in the middle of the pouring rain was unknown to him, so he aimed his rifle at the man and took measured steps forward. "Don't move."
"C-can't...stand..." came the weakened reply.
John knelt down and turned the man over on his back, revealing a young teen with dark gray hair and green eyes. His face possessed several cuts and blood was running down his cheeks toward his lips. He was deathly pale, almost like paper, and the flak jacket he wore was coated in blood around his stomach. John's blue eyes looked down to find the man had been penetrated three times by metal shards that stuck out only two inches. Above the man's forehead was a standard forehead protector that was burnt almost beyond recognition. When John looked closer to try to make out the image there...
It was a Hidden Leaf headband.
"You..." the man said, trying to lift his arm and only moving his shoulders.
"What's your name?" the Master Chief asked, knowing this person was on death's doorstep and hoping to find information to know what he was up against.
"Taizu Hamada...Genin..." Blood was pooling in his mouth and dribbling out the sides, making his speech garbled. "I don't know…who you are…though…"
"Master Chief. What happened to you?"
"Ame forces," the Konoha-nin spluttered, his left eye twitching. "All of us…gone so fast…all fucking gone." Taizu gasped when he tried to think back to the fight, but all he could remember was everyone being taken by surprise amidst the sound of explosions.
"Did Hanzō do this?" John questioned, receiving a weak nod in return.
"Yes..." Taizu said. He swallowed his own spit in an attempt to continue replying, but a loud gasp escaped instead, and his eyes closed very slowly, shielding them from the oncoming rain.
"Taizu? Taizu, can you hear me?" The Master Chief tapped him on the side of his face, but saw the man's life force had depleted and assumed he'd bled out. From his wounds, it appeared as if it had only happened some minutes ago.
BOOM!
The Master Chief stood up as fast as lightning and held his rifle up toward the north when he heard something that didn't sound like lightning. Looking up, he saw several rocks fly about and hit the ground around him in a volley. Over a slightly elevated hill, John could make out a dark cloud blotch that was continuing to grow, too quickly to be natural. Continued observation allowed him to deduce that the quickly-elevating dark entity wasn't a cloud, but smoke created by an explosion.
He stepped over the corpse and saw more smoke as he began to hear yelling accompanied by grunts of pain. Peering over the rock, he caught a glimpse of something astounding…
HUD: 6 targets...recalculating/NOW 4 TARGETS
A cluster of bodies littered the ground over the hill's edge. Many of them were sprawled in heaping piles with arms and legs tangled together, blood painting the puddles a deep, sinister red.
John looked more closely through the rain and managed to catch sight of something gigantic moving at unimaginable speeds. Toward the left and onward it scurried away, making him squint just to catch a glimpse of it...
He slid down the hill and gave chase.
In the middle of a disastrous scene were three people wearing light gray armor around their midsection, a metal headband with a stylized leaf on it on cloth around their foreheads, a single pouch around their thighs, and metallic forearm and shoulder guards. Rain rolled down each physically-exhausted person, the evidence of some prior battle in the scrapes and bruises liberally covering them.
The first shinobi was a tall slender man with raven black hair that flowed past his shoulders and yellow eyes that could've passed for a snake's, purple markings trailing from their corners and along the profile of his nose. This man's name was Orochimaru, a true genius in the shinobi arts, though all his knowledge didn't prevent him from being at the limits of his stamina; despite that, he still stood and stared defiantly at his enemy.
Beside him was a taller, more muscular man with pointy, chalk-white hair, red lines tracking from his eyes toward his bottom jaw in an imitation of tear tracks, a wart on the left side of his nose making him look prematurely aged. This man's name was Jiraiya, formerly the dead-last of his class and now a self-proclaimed super pervert and extraordinary shinobi in his own right.
He was currently being held up by his teammate, a young, gorgeous woman with blonde hair, hazel eyes, and a very well-endowed figure. Her name was Tsunade Senju, the Slug Princess of Hidden Leaf and granddaughter of the First Hokage. Her knowledge of medical ninjutsu had allowed her to retain less injuries than her teammates, but she was running low on chakra and even holding Jiraiya up was taxing. Unfortunately, no reinforcements were forthcoming; the remainder of the Konoha platoon they'd come with decorated the soaked ground before them as corpses.
Before the trio stood Hanzō the Salamander, despot of Amegakure…not that he needed the village's aid. With decades of experience and a breath that was poisonous enough to kill those unfortunate enough to inhale it, Hanzō was a one-man army. Reports of his prowess said that he'd never been beaten in battle, and he'd never left survivors behind.
Hanzō was now standing atop a mighty salamander, his arms to his sides as rain poured down what little of his impassive face could be seen beneath his rebreather. He looked down at the Hokage's students and said sternly, "I predict the Hidden Leaf Village shall emerge victorious from this battle." The weather hid the outline of a figure ducking quickly behind some rocks as the older man continued, "Therefore, I shall let you three live." He paused in his speech, a primal instinct flaring up that told him another person was in the area, despite the fact that he couldn't see anyone.
"WE DON'T NEED YOUR SYMPATHY, WE CAN STILL FIGHT!" Jiraiya roared.
"Stop it, Jiraiya!" Tsunade yelled back as she struggled to hold him up, herself up, and prevent him from attempting to attack Hanzō, who had just handed their asses to them.
Hanzō was too busy focusing on the interloper to listen. He pinpointed something behind a boulder not 80 yards away and said, "You can't hide from me, Konoha shinobi. I said you shall emerge victorious, I never said you shall defeat me." Turning away from the boulder and redirecting his attention to the Hokage's students, he continued, "I, Hanzō, hereby name you the Hidden Leaf's Sannin. In exchange for their lives, reveal yourself, stranger." The newly-appointed Sannin's eyes followed those of Ame's leader as they shifted to the boulder, seeking Konoha reinforcements.
Heavy footfalls made their way to the quartet's ears, followed by a splash and then a thunderclap. The Sannin could see a large figure walking toward them, though with the rain obstructing their vision, only its silhouette could be made out. Whoever it was appeared tall, around seven feet, and judging by the sound of footsteps, was cloaked in armor from head to toe...though raised the question of how he was able to sneak up on the Sannin but not Hanzō.
Thump…thump…thump…
As he came closer, they confirmed that the figure – a man, judging by his stature – was indeed wearing dark green armor over his entire body, as well as an orange visor on his helmet, heavy combat boots, shoulder guards, shin guards...he looked like a walking armory. Carefully held in his arms was a metal plank with a nozzle at one end.
Jiraiya's eyes began to narrow when he saw him.
Orochimaru tried to stop any genjutsu that might have been casted, but then remained silent when he determined the figure was real.
Tsunade, however, released an involuntary gasp at the sight of the orange visor and metal plank, straining to see through the former and catching sight of a pupil-less orange eye…
It's him! This was the man who had saved her brother…though what he was doing in Ame was a mystery. Like her teammate, Tsunade thought that maybe the man could have been a genjutsu, but an outline of the Spartan created by the rain seemed to confirm he was real. Despite the fact that he'd saved her brother, reports of the green giant kept cropping up throughout the Elemental Nations, few if any positive, and yet, Tsunade had hoped that he would come back and potentially join Konoha, reaffirming her original belief in him.
Now, with her and her teammates at the end of their ropes, and her brother's savior before them, the blonde hoped that her first estimation of his character had been correct, for his decision would seal their fates. Was he going to side with Hanzō and kill them? Was he going to kill Hanzō, as unlikely as that seemed?
Jiraiya was trying to think of reasons why the Spartan was in Ame. His last recorded appearance had been in Taki when he'd fought a whole platoon of bounty hunters, none of whom had been recovered. Search parties were sent, of course...but they hadn't returned either.
These thoughts were silenced when the man asked, "Are you the leader of Amegakure, Hanzō the Salamander?" His voice was deep and gravelly, calm, yet stern. He was paying no mind to the Sannin, who were partially surprised to hear him speak.
Jiraiya couldn't contain his shock. "WHAT THE HELL?!"
"You again!" Tsunade yelled in shock.
The armored being paid no mind to them as he waited for Hanzō to answer.
Hanzō crossed his arms, looked at the being up and down. "Who and what are you?" he demanded.
"Spartan Sierra 117 of the U.N.S.C. Now answer my question…are you Hanzō?" he returned, taking a few steps forward.
Hanzō jumped off his salamander, who dug beneath the ground in the blink of an eye. He stared up at the Spartan's orange, rain-splattered visor, each staring down the other—
BOOM!
Neither adversary blinked at the sudden thunder, both focused on studying the other to determine who would attack first.
John was a thirty-year veteran with enough war tactics to rival Sun Tzu in strategy. He had learned dozens of martial arts and thousands of ways to kill someone...
None of which would help against someone who could be considered nigh-untouchable.
Hanzō had fought in near-constant wars since he'd been a boy. As a child, he'd taken the poisonous sac of a black salamander and integrated it into his own body, becoming the most terrifying child in Ame. He'd trained constantly with the Hidden Rain's best generals to reach a rank equivalent to and even exceeding that of Kage, surpassing everyone who'd stood before him in combat...
But never had he fought against a highly-augmented super soldier. It would be quite the new experience.
"Yes, I am. I have to say, I wasn't expecting to see you. They say you come and go, much like the wind…" Hanzō leaned closer to the giant man. "Now, answer my question, Spartan…why do you invest yourself within my business and Konoha's Sannin?"
"I'm here to end this war."
"And how do you seek to accomplish such a noble goal, Spartan?" Hanzō asked with mild interest. A man who sought to end a war singlehandedly was…arrogant. A man who would want to battle someone far beyond his league was…foolish. But to show no fear for his own safety in the face of such overwhelming strength…
That was…truly remarkable.
Spartan 117 answered by quickly reaching down, raised an M60 Magnum, and pulling the trigger.
BANG!
A bullet drilled through Hanzō's forehead, and the Ame-nin collapsed with a splash.
The water clone immediately defaulted when the bullet made contact with it. Hanzō had noticed the speed the Spartan reacted with to lift the odd weapon and fire it. It was loud and left a tiny smell of some unknown substance and smoke, but it still wasn't enough to take him down.
Spartan 117 looked around and then checked at his sensor; no one was around except the Sannin.
"You fool!" Orochimaru yelled as he grabbed Tsunade – who still held on to Jiraiya – and ran through the rain towards cover. For almost a minute, John surveyed the area, listening for anything besides the rain. He felt a small tingle beneath his feet, then the ground began to shake in earnest. His HUD picked up the vibrations coming from exactly underneath him.
John pressed his feet firmly against the ground and then launched several feet into the air like a rocket, seconds away from being devoured by the poisonous salamander that erupted from the earth. He landed twenty feet away – his mass creating a crater in the ground – took aim, and began firing bullets at the amphibian.
The bullets seemed to take effect as the salamander screamed in pain, green blood streaming out of the open wounds that were created. In retaliation, the salamander opened its mouth and unleashed a thick purple fog. It made contact with John, who stood there as the fog circled around him. The Mjolnir Assault Armor Mark IV provided airtight compression and a personal oxygen tank if the Spartans were unlucky enough to be caught in space, water...or even poisonous gas.
John's sensors went off again as a mini, scythe-like blade attached to a chain flew through the smoke toward him. John leaned to the left and grabbed the chain, yanking it towards him with all his might. The other half of the chain came forward with Hanzō on the other end, who immediately aimed a kick at John's head. The Spartan leaned backwards, letting the Ame-nin sail over him and skid across the rain-covered ground several feet away. Hanzō turned around, performed a few hand seals, and yelled, "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"
Without warning, a massive fireball raced toward John at an alarming rate, but the Master Chief simply stood still, willing to take the jutsu head on.
Boom!
Hanzō took note of his handiwork: for several hundred yards, the ground was nothing but wet ash. Steam began to form around the area due to the elemental clash of fire and water. When it cleared seconds later, the Ame-nin noticed that there was no body. He looked around and sensed the Spartan hiding in a ditch just a few yards away.
While the man's armor possessed a few superficial scorch marks, Hanzō was mildly surprised to see that his adversary was still alive. John pulled out his sidearm, jumped out of the crevice, and began firing rapid shots at the despot, who burst into another water clone.
The Spartan aimed where Hanzō was originally while turning his head in the direction the Sannin had run off in, trying to see if they needed medical attention. From his earlier observation upon arriving, they were likely to be bedridden for days if they continued fighting.
Hanzō was nowhere in his scanner's radius. John replaced his pistol with an MA5C Assault Rifle and kept his guard up. As he began walking, he felt something pull at his leg, and looked down to see hundreds of paper tags crawl from his left leg up to his knee. He reached down and tried to pry them off or rub them away, and in doing so, caught a glimpse of the kanji on them: 'explode'.
The ensuing explosion was deafening. Like a rocket taking flight, John was thrown into the same boulder he'd been hiding behind earlier, his momentum and mass crushing it into hundreds of pieces. He landed in a crouch, boots covered in scorch marks, the impact creating another crater in the ground. His rifle had been thrown an unknown direction, leaving him with his M60 Magnum, two frag grenades, and a bubble shield.
He had to make them count.
John stood up and looked around until he heard Hanzō's voice ring through the valley. "Truly pathetic, Spartan. You have been graced with luck by surviving that move, but it will only be much more difficult from here on out." John looked at his scanner and saw no one within a few hundred feet of him, but pulled out his Magnum and pointed it over at boulder Hanzō could be hiding behind. He looked over to his right when he saw movement, briefly assuming it was Hanzō before remembering animals were around this area and could be used as distractions.
He took a steady step forward and aimed toward the left, then swung to the right as he began making his way in the Sannin's direction.
John couldn't pick up Hanzō's life signature, and there was no one alive out there except for him. When he began to lower his gun, he began to feel a slight pressure around his body, like something was out of place. The wind suddenly picked up, making the force of the rain even harder.
Another roar of thunder rolled across the valley as a bolt of lightning struck near Chief. He didn't flinch, but the imprint of the burn mark was only a few feet away and could have hit him if he'd moved to the right. He couldn't feel the ominous presence of Hanzō nearby, but there was a feeling building up inside him, like someone was telling him to look behind him...
Chief then spun around quickly, and sure enough his radar picked up Hanzō's vitals from about 20 feet above him. His head rose quickly as he looked up to see Hanzō flying at him with his chain scythe raised high. John tensed the muscles in his arms as he aimed his Magnum at him…
Hanzō saw the Spartan aim the object at him and swung his weapon at his enemy's neck to see if he could decapitate him before he could attack.
Simultaneously, there was a loud bang and the sound of something sharp slicing through the air.
A bullet exited the gun's chamber and struck Hanzō in the side of the face, shattering the side of his gas mask like glass. Bits of metal flew everywhere, some striking the side of his face and causing blood to flow into his eye from the cuts above it.
John's Magnum fell into two pieces as Hanzō's blade cut cleanly through it, like a hot knife through butter.
Chief was struck as the blade managed to cut through his shields and slice into his armor, though not deep enough to touch his skin. Hanzō leapt off, pushing the Spartan off-balance to make him stumble back a few inches. John sprang forward out of his daze and struck at the Ame-nin; he ducked out of the way, causing Chief to nearly shatter the rock behind him.
Hanzō slashed at his adversary's midsection only to see the blade glide across the armor, creating the sound of screeching metal but no mark. He had to leap back as the Master Chief ripped his hand out of the boulder and tried to backhand him.
John sprinted forward and kicked out, hoping to cave in Hanzō's chest, but the Ame-nin simply dodged it.
As he'd turned around, the Spartan had noticed that his scanner wasn't blinking. The man he was facing was far more dangerous than he would've thought, and he would likely need his rifle to defeat him. He turned to begin looking for it, but the idea left him as the ground underneath him began to shake again. He jumped up again, only instead of explosive tags or a giant salamander, John was nearly wrapped up by a chain. He flipped backwards and attached an energy grenade onto it before back-flipping expertly through the air and landing on his feet. The chain retracted, emitting a noise of clanking metal several yards away behind a boulder...
BOOM!
A medium-sized explosion of blue flames destroyed the hill Hanzō' had retreated behind, causing hundreds of pieces of rocky debris to fly everywhere.
John knew he had to think tactically; he hadn't come all the way here to be killed by a madman that could be shot in the head by a single bullet…if he was normal. But after three years in this world, he'd learned that few people were normal, and that even less could be killed by normal means...
But he wasn't fighting to kill anymore.
He was fighting to survive...
The real battle had just begun...and it was going to get bloody.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A special thanks to livezinshadowz who was an absolute lifesaver. Now that John is coming face to face with the man whose death affects the war he's been fighting against, it's going to take everything he's got to end it. Reviews are welcome...
