Author's Note:
Hi. Again, I don't own Naruto, Gears of War, Batman, The Dark Knight, any references to the band Slipknot or any references to any of the other content in this story.
Chapter Sixteen
"Let's play a little game shall we?" The Locust from before said. "You are the volunteers for our shooting gallery. We will be playing team hunting. Whichever team kills the most ninjas wins. It will be the shirts, my team, versus the skins."
"Yeah right! I'll kick your head in before you use me as target practice!" Kiba shouted at the armored Locust. The Locust then fired a warning shot at Kiba.
"Shut up before I shut you up dog! The shirts here are called Drones for your information. Our buddies the skins are called Grenadiers; they're the grunts of the party." The Drone who fired at Kiba said.
Kurenai quickly made note of what the locust was saying in her head. Assuming that she and her platoon made it out alive, she would have to let Tsunade know that the Horde men wearing armor were called Drones and were the foot soldiers of the terrorist organization. The Horde men who wore no armor and fought bare backed were called Grenadiers and as the one Locust stated, they were the grunts of the organization.
"Now dance!" The Drone shouted as he and the rest of the Locust Horde fired away. The team jumped back but to their surprise, the bullets were rapidly firing from the Drones weapons! "Oh yeah, shirts are using the latest guns made by Nazo! Their called submachine guns or SMG for short!"
"Take cover! Take cover!" Kurenai shouted as she and the rest of her team ran back and took cover behind the boulders and fallen trees at the bottom of the hill. "We can't be hit by those weapons! Those guns are extremely dangerous!"
"What do we do!? My insects can't reach their position with those SMGs firing so fast! And those Grenadiers are using some sort of gun that has dispersing projectiles!" Shino shouted over the loud sound of fire.
"We have to move! That one assassin in the trees is going to fire his weapon, his long distance gun, again! We can't take a hit from that!" Hinata shouted as she used her Byakugan to watch the assassin take aim with his gun weapon.
"But we can't get past those projectiles! There is nowhere to go!" Shino shouted. Suddenly a projectile went through Shino's skull. Shino fell to his knees. Shino had been assassinated!
"No, Shino!" Kiba shouted. Suddenly Shino's body fell apart into bugs and Shino appeared behind another piece of cover. He had used a bug doppelganger to escape.
"Damn, we need to take care of that long distance assassin." Hinata said as she watched the Locust reload his weapon with her Byakugan. She then attached a paper bomb to a kunai knife and threw it at the assassin. It pierced his armor and stuck in him as it ignited and killed him. "Yes!"
"Frag out!" A Grenadier shouted as a spherical object landed on the team's position.
"Run! I smell ignited gun powder in that sphere! That thing has gun powder in it and is about to explode!" Kiba shouted. The team jumped out of the way and ran to the nearest cover. The sphere exploded and metal fragments blew in every direction leaving a small black crater in the ground. The team barely escaped.
"They're moving! Fire!" The Drone shouted. The Horde took aimed at Team Kurenai and began firing. Kurenai felt a projectile lodge into her side and shoulder as she took cover. She examined the wound and found that nothing vital had been struck. However, she would have a great deal of trouble staying balanced with the projectiles in her.
"Sensei, you're hurt!" Hinata shouted. She could see the blood running down Kurenai's side.
"Don't mind me! Use your Byakugan to look for an opening in the enemy's position!" Kurenai grunted in pain. She held her side and tried to pull the projectiles out of her body but it was no use; they were too deep.
"R-right." Hinata said. She was shaken by how much blood Kurenai was losing already.
Hinata activated her Byakugan and saw that the Drones stopped firing and were opening a small latch underneath their weapons. A small clip of some sort came out of their guns and they were putting new ones in. The Grenadiers were snapping open the barrels of their weapons and were pulling shells similar to the assassin's shells out of their weapons only theirs were much bigger.
"They need to reload their weapons every now and then! They're doing that right now! Now is the time to strike!" Hinata shouted.
"Good! I'll use my genjutsu to distract them! You, Kiba, and Shino go around them and take out as many of those Drone Locusts as you can!" Kurenai said as she let go of her wounds and began to make a series of hand signs. Suddenly a large number of roots began to crawl out of the ground and began to wave in front of the Locusts. "Go now!"
The young Chunin ran around the hill and attacked the Drones from their sides. Hinata used her gentle fist to rupture the hearts and vital organs of the Drones while Kiba and Akamaru used Jujin Bunshin No Jutsu to create a Man-Beast doppelganger out of Akamaru and killed the remaining Drones with their Gatsuuga technique. The Grenadiers quickly reloaded their weapons and began firing. Shino summoned a swarm of insects to distract and disassemble their weapons but failed as the insects were blown away by the exploding shells. Suddenly a Grenadier charged towards Shino with a strange spike like weapon in his hand. Shino tried to dodge his attacker but the Grenadier ran passed him and attached the weapon to Shino's back and removed a chain on it. The small spike weapon was stuck to Shino's back and began to tick.
"How do you like the tag fragment grenade!? We Grenadiers use grenades on a regular basis!" The Grenadier shouted as he charged towards Kiba and Hinata with his gun ready to fire until Kurenai jumped up into the air and killed him and the other Grenadiers with kunai thrown into their skulls.
"Someone help me!" Shino shouted as he tried to pull the grenade off of his back. Suddenly the grenade exploded and bugs flew everywhere along with fragments from the grenade. Shino appeared again in a tree trying to catch his breath. He had used another doppelganger to escape the grenade. "That was too close!"
"No shit Shino! If this is what these guys carry on a regular basis then we're screwed if we ever have to go to war against them." Kiba said. He couldn't believe Shino was alive.
Kurenai began to hear a message coming in from her own radio piece. It was one of the ninjas back in Tanzaku Town.
"Mayday! Mayday! We have swarm of Horde men invading the district! They are killing civilians and shinobi alike! We need back up! I repeat, we need back up!" The ninja shouted.
"We're on our way! Stay clear of those Locusts! Try to fight them from a distance!" Kurenai answered into her radio which she then attached to her head to be used as a headset. Her team did the same thing knowing that they would now have to be able to hear for emergencies on their radio at all times. "Let's go!"
Team Kurenai rushed to Tanzaku Town which was now in flames and filled with debris. Locusts were shooting down ninjas and civilians were running for their lives. There were holes scattered throughout the town.
"The Horde is everywhere! The Horde is killing everyone!" A man running out of town shouted. The Team took cover again and tried to pin point where the locusts were coming from. Hinata activated her Byakugan to search the area.
"Wait a minute, if they emerge from the ground then that means that they can be stopped if their emergence holes are buried." Hinata thought to herself as she saw a collapsing billboard above an emergence hole. She then made another kunai paper bomb and threw it on one of billboards legs. It exploded and collapsed on the Locusts killing them and burying their hole. "It worked!"
The other ninja saw what happened and began to do the same thing. After a few minutes of fighting, the area had been cleared of Locusts and emergence holes.
"Good job. Those men, those Locusts or whatever they call themselves had us pinned down." A ninja said to Hinata as she and all the other remaining ninjas gathered around to recoup and plan for their next attack.
"It was nothing." Hinata said. She felt very humble about her accomplishment.
Kurenai went down on one knee as a medical ninja approached her and began to treat her wounds. Kurenai couldn't believe what was happening; Nazo had sent almost an army of Locusts and all methods of detecting them did nothing. They had popped up as they pleased and crushed their ranks! However, Kurenai then realized what had to be done if the ninjas defending the four districts hoped to save what remained of the districts.
"Everyone listen up! If caving in the emergence holes is what will stop the Locust Horde here then we need to burry all the holes in each district!" Kurenai said as she grunted in pain as the medical ninja pulled the lead projectiles out of her side.
"But how are we going to do that? We don't have that many explosives and we can't get close to them when they have those things called guns." Kiba said.
"I was only lucky with that one hole. There might not be a destructible environment at each emergence hole." Hinata said. She was slowly losing her confidence as she looked at the death and destruction around her.
"If that is how you are going to think about things then why did you bother becoming Chunin?" Kurenai asked. She would not stand by and watch her students fall into despair just because the Locusts had done so much destruction. "You three are no longer apprentice shinobi. You can handle this. If you can't try to save this town and the other three then you won't stand a chance if the enemy tries to attack Konoha. Find the emergence holes and stop them!"
Kurenai's students felt reassured and confident after hearing her words. The other ninjas also felt a renewed vigor.
"Alright, we'll try." Hinata said. She began to think about what Naruto would do in this situation. He wouldn't give up or go back on his word on defending the four civilian districts. She had to try. She had to fight this battle to the end and live to see Naruto again! "I'll protect Tanzaku Town!"
"Good Hinata! Everyone, spread out and fined the emergence holes! We need to save what remains of the four districts!" Kurenai said. She was glad to see Hinata confident in herself and willing to fight to the end. She seemed so much stronger now.
The ninjas scattered and dashed off to find the other emergence holes. They were not going to let Nazo and his Locusts win!
"You can do this Hinata. Don't fall now, be strong for that special person." Kurenai thought to herself. She had complete faith in her student's ability and the ability of her comrades. They would win.
Hinata ran to the center of the town where more emergence holes had popped up and Grenadiers had appeared to take out the defenses in the town center. She dashed to a piece of cover and watched the enemy blow the shinobi of Konoha to pieces with grenades, both spherical and tag. Hinata didn't see anything she could drop onto the enemy's position. She would have to dash in and destroy the emergence hole herself.
"Naruto, I'm doing what you would do now. I swear I'll live to tell you about this. I will become stronger." Hinata said to herself as she activated her Byakugan again. "Mother, you always said that I was strong and that I just didn't realize it. Please watch me from heaven as I do everything in my power to stop these men. You will be proud of me after this."
Hinata waited for the enemy to reload and sprinted towards their position. The Locusts saw her and began to reload faster and took aim to kill her in her tracks.
"What are you doing!? That's suicidal! You can't get close to them!" A ninja in cover shouted at Hinata as she continued foreword. The Locusts fired like mad at Hinata who zipped past the projectiles as best she could.
"You may be fast but you are not bullet proof!" A Grenadier shouted as he fired his SMG at Hinata. Hinata slid through the fire of the Locusts and quickly stood back up. Before they could react, Hinata began to spin like a top and used her rotation to blow the locusts away and bounce back the bullets that had been fired at her.
"You think so!?" Hinata shouted. She then attached a paper bomb to the hole and jumped away. The hole sank along with ground around it killing the remaining Locusts. Tanzaku Town was secure!
"Wait a minute, your Hiashi-dono's daughter. Hinata Hyuga!" The ninja from before said in amazement. "Hinata-sama, you saved us all."
"Oh, it was nothing really. You can just call me by my name." Hinata said blushing. She was flattered by the compliment. She then got back to being serious so she could focus. "Anyways, we need to find any remaining holes and bury them. Let's go!"
Hinata left with the remaining ninja and began to search Tanzaku Town.
In the second district, Kiba and Akamaru were preparing to fill up a whole line of emergence holes. The Grenadiers and Drones below were completely unaware. Kiba and Akamaru took to the roof tops and used Gatsuuga to knock down roofs and other debris on the Locusts below.
"Sup' bitches!? This is gonna fuck you up!" Kiba shouted as he and Akamaru tore through the roof s and buried the Locusts alive. The emergence holes were buried and the ninjas below left their cover. "Woo! Scratch a dozen dead grubs!"
While Kiba was celebrating, he suddenly felt a blade slash through his back. He looked around and saw a huge brute of a man with a butcher knife and heavy armor on behind him.
"Hunger." The man said as he lifted Kiba up by the throat. Kiba stabbed the man in the arm with a kunai but the man only filched as he drew his knife back to stab Kiba through the stomach. Akamaru quickly leaped and bit the Locust in the shoulder. He then dropped Kiba and was killed by another bite to his skull which snapped his neck.
"Damn, I thought I was dead man." Kiba said as he tried lifted himself up with the help of Akamaru. "Thanks Akamaru."
Akamaru then carried his master back down to the ninja below where a medical ninja began to treat Kiba's back. Kiba told the remaining ninja to scout for more emergence holes and bury them. The ninja obeyed and set off. The second district was secure!
Meanwhile, Shino was not having as much luck with the third district. He was pinned down with four other platoons and they were cornered by fire power of the Locusts. They had stationed machine guns which one Locust shouted out was a troika turret. There was another long distance assassin on the rooftops and was shooting all shinobi who came out of hiding down.
"We are very much screwed." A ninja next to Shino said. "Any ideas on how we are going to make it past these guys?"
"No but I'm working on it." Shino said as he thought about how he could get around the enemy. He noticed that the Grenadiers were only focused on what could be seen in front of them and the assassin on the rooftops was watching below. They both had their own angles but lacked to see anything small. Shino remembered that his bugs were able to get half way into the barrels of the Grenadiers guns before they were blown away. Perhaps he could use his bugs to steal one of their grenades. "I got it! Find away to distract them!"
"Alright, I'm on it!" The ninja next to Shino said. He created a genjutsu of the platoons charging the locusts and they took the bait. Shino then quickly summoned a swarm of insects to sneak behind the Locusts and steal a tag grenade. He could sense his insects carrying the grenade and made them drop it into the emergence hole unpinned. The grenade exploded and caved in the hole. The remaining Locusts began to panic; the assassin on the rooftop was confused about what was happening. Before the assassin could react, a paper kunai bomb was thrown and attached to his position which caused the roof to collapse and kill the remaining Locusts.
"We won! The Locusts are down! We can press forward!" A ninja shouted as he and the other remaining ninja shouted for joy.
"Don't celebrate just yet. We need to find and close the other holes." Shino said. He was worried about his comrades. "Let's find the others and bury them!"
The third district was secure and the ninja continued on. Things were beginning to look brighter for them. They could stop Horde!
All that remained was the fourth district. The Locusts were falling back now that the Konoha forces had found their weakness. A Drone was busy commanding the remaining remnant of his forces when one of his drones approached him.
"Gunso-sama, the charges have been placed!" The Drone shouted. "They're ready to blow any minute now!"
"Good! Let's get the hell out of here and leave these Konoha bastards to watch their precise civilian districts burn!" The Drone shouted as he called his forces back to their emergence hole.
"But gunso-sama, the arrangement of the bombs won't destroy the towns, they'll only make an image from a bird's eye view!" The Drone said.
"Doesn't matter! The rikugunshokan only wanted to make a threat to the Leaf Village and to leave the Land of Fire in turmoil! This is will keep them distracted long enough until we return to destroy Konohagakure!" The Drone shouted as he and the Drone sprinted back to the emergence hole and escaped. "This will inspire fear in their hearts and break down their courage!"
The Locusts escaped and the ninjas remaining in the four districts shouted for joy thinking that they had won. But their joy was short lived when they heard explosions happen all around them. No one was caught in the blast but now most of the towns were on fire. Hinata, Kiba, and Shino returned to Kurenai who was now bandaged and had her wounds treated.
"Sensei, we stopped the Locusts but it looks like they had planted explosives in the civilian districts during the fighting." Kiba said. "We were too late, the Horde won."
Everyone began losing hope as they watched the towns' burn but Hinata thought differently. Something wasn't right about how they were destroyed, or rather they were not destroyed but left in an odd condition. She relaxed her body and focused a great amount of chakra into her Byakugan. She looked at the areas from a bird's eye view and saw something strange. The explosions had created some sort of strange characters on the districts.
"Wait, they didn't destroy Tanzaku Town or any of the other civilian districts." Hinata said. "Someone quickly get me something to write on, they spelled something on the districts. It's some foreign characters, I can't read them."
A ninja approached Hinata with a blank scroll and a piece of charcoal wood to use as a pencil. Hinata first drew a long stick figure with a curve meeting on its top and an arch coming off of it. The next two characters she drew were to arches leaning against each other and line going through them. The final character had two stick ends, two arches facing away from each other and connecting the two stick figures. It was unfamiliar to everyone there; whatever the characters were, they were not Japanese.
"What do you think it is?" Hinata asked. No one around her could give her an answer.
"I don't know. But whatever it is, it can't be good." Kurenai said as she looked at Hinata's sketch.
Underground at that time, the Locusts who had attacked the surface returned to their rikugunshokan, their general.
"Rikugunshokan, we succeeded in our mission." The Drone said. "The four towns now have the image you wanted burned into them. What is our next course of action?"
"We wait. The next strike will be when the Leaf has nowhere to run or hide. When we corner them, we shall strike." The Locust general said from the shadows with his back turned to his subordinates. "I will devour them and the other four Great Shinobi Nations."
The general began to head back to the Hollow with his army in tow. His queen was waiting.
While hell had crawled up onto earth back in the four civilian districts, Team Kakashi had just entered the Fire Temple where they were greeted by the monks there. The head monk Chiriku began to give Team Kakashi a tour of the Fire Temple.
"Please enjoy the sight of our temple." Chiriku said as he led the ninja to the training grounds of the monks. "We are the Land of Fire's royal guard. We are the protectors of this land and the people who live under the Feudal Lord."
Naruto was busy watching the monks training. He saw that they were all partnered up for sparring except for one. It was the young monk, the only one with a full head of hair, that he ran into before. It was the boy Sora who attacked him at the grave of one Four Ninja Guardians. He couldn't help but notice that the monks glared at Sora much like the villagers back in Konoha did to him when he was young.
"You noticed his, 'unpopularity' here haven't you?" Chiriku said to Naruto. "I truly fear what will become of him. His life is so much like that other monk from long ago."
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.
"Long ago, when I was boy here training, there was a deformed child amongst the Fire Temple monks. He was born from one of the most respected monks at the temple. However, that child's mother died giving birth to him and his father died of disease shortly after." Chiriku said while watching Sora.
"What was that monk's name?" Sakura asked. She was intrigued by Chiriku's story.
"Unfortunately, because he was so hated that no one called him by his real name and it was forgotten even by me. Perhaps he forgot his own too." Chiriku answered.
"What did the other monks call him then?" Naruto asked.
"He had a terrible temper and a loud screeching voice that whenever he screamed people swore that he could knock over trees and buildings. Thus, everyone called him Wrath." Chiriku said. "He had an earth based chakra and had mastered several difficult earth style techniques, he had an odd kinship and communication with animals, and he was a master at wielding the bow staff."
"If he was such a talented monk then why did the others hate him? What happened to him?" Naruto asked.
"He was feared for his powers as well as his deformity. They say that he would talk with worms when he was alone and that his screams could raise the dead. None of this was ever proven and rumors began to hurt his reputation. The discrimination against him lead to the entire temple turning against him. He then attempted to kill the head monk at the time and caused a great deal of damage in the process. He failed and was chased out of the Fire Temple. He never returned." Chiriku said looking down. He was the only one who pitied the monk from long ago. "I don't know if he lives or not, but I wish that he wouldn't have turned out the way he did. When I look at Sora, it all comes back to me."
Naruto saw everything that Chiriku said in his mind. When he looked at Sora again, the image was intensified in his head. He heard a scream in his head and quickly tried to stop imagining it. Naruto began to fear the same thing; would Sora, even though Naruto didn't know him well, become like Wrath? If so, would it be the monks' doing or would he have chosen to become a monster on his own? Naruto stopped thinking about it and carried on.
Back in Konohagakure, the surviving platoons reported back to Tsunade with everything they had gathered from the fight. Chishiki was there in her office observing the characters Hinata had written down while Tsunade went over what had happened with Team Kurenai and a few other ninjas from the event.
"They call themselves Locusts? It is a suiting name for them since they live underground." Tsunade said.
"Apparently there are ranks amongst the Locusts. The ones that carry the most armor are called Drones while the lightly armored ones and bare backed Locusts are called Grenadiers. There were a number of Drones and Grenadiers who appeared to be higher up than the others; we assume that these are the elites." Kurenai said. "They carry weapons that they call guns. Kiba could smell gun powder in the projectiles. This is probably what allows the projectiles to be fired. They are first contained in small shells which once ignited, fire the projectile out of the guns barrel. The speed and accuracy on the projectiles varies. Some of the guns were more accurate than others. The long barreled guns could fire from distances miles away and had enough power to travel through a human skull. A good number of shinobi were killed this way. The long barreled guns have some sort of scope attached to them which allows the wielder to see targets from afar and aim accurately."
"I can hear about the different guns later. I want to know what these hand bombs the Locust Horde carried into battle were." Tsunade said. She was amazed by the guns alone but bombs that could be thrown and tagged to walls and people were unbelievable. "How did they use them and what were they called?"
"The Locusts called them grenades. The small spherical ones which killed a good number of shinobi as well as blew off the limbs of some were called fragment grenades or frags for short." Kurenai said. She couldn't stand the sight of what she had seen reappear in her head. "The other type of frags which could be thrown as well as tagged onto people and objects were called tag fragment grenades."
"I never thought that the Horde could do so much damage without throwing a single shuriken or kunai, using a single technique, using any chakra, or charging into close combat." Tsunade said looking down. She didn't want to admit it to anyone but she was scared. So much death and destruction in one night was something she couldn't handle. Not when her enemies had blown four civilian districts half way to hell in some sort of alien message after killing almost all of the platoons who had gone to defend the districts. "Thank you for giving me your report. You are free to leave. Take care and give your wounds time to heal."
"Thank you Lady Tsunade. We will." Hinata said was she and the rest of her team bowed before Tsunade. "Good night."
The team left and Shizune walked in with a pile of reports.
"Tsunade, there are a great deal of reports that you need to read about what happened tonight." Shizune said as she placed the reports on Tsunade's desk. "Are you listening to me?"
"Chishiki, did you find anything about those characters made on the districts?" Tsunade asked. She ignored Shizune for the time being. She had too much on her mind. "Is it anything you can translate?"
"I am sorry my lady, but I can't translate it for you. I can however, tell you what these characters are." Chishiki said as he walked over to Tsunade's desk with an old scroll in his hands. "These are phonics letters. They do not represent an object or character like in any of our languages but sounds. The sounds of these letters create a word but unfortunately I can't translate them."
"What is he talking about Tsunade?" Shizune asked as she looked at the scroll Chishiki was holding then looked at the scroll Hinata had written the letters on. She was starting to get annoyed by Tsunade ignoring her. "I know this is a lot but please answer me."
"I do know that this first letter is called an 'ar'. It makes the sound 'ra' when pronounced. I would need to do research on the others to find out their pronunciations before I translated the word here." Chishiki said. He could tell that Tsunade was bothered by everything that was happening.
"Thank you Chishiki. You are free to go." Tsunade said. She then put her face in her hands after Chishiki left.
"Tsunade are you alright?" Shizune asked. She could tell that the Horde was getting to her.
"Shizune, do you think that maybe these people have come from a completely different world that they would have this sort of power and would know these sorts of curses to carve on the homes of civilians?" Tsunade asked as she looked at Hinata's scroll again. "I don't want to admit it, but I'm scared. Nazo isn't from this world to have these things. I was told that our shinobi were called 'ground walkers' by the locusts. Do you think that maybe they really are from the earth's center and are really monsters in human form?"
"I don't know. But I am scared too. I know that we have to make it through this. Don't lose hope yet." Shizune said in attempt to comfort Tsunade. "You are the Hokage. You have the power to stop the Horde."
"Chishiki said that he would have to research the letters to find out what they mean. But I don't know if I want to know what they mean." Tsunade said as she looked at Hinata's scroll with despair in her eyes.
Shizune didn't say anything. She looked at the scroll and was also filled with fear. It was frightening not knowing what it meant. But whatever it meant, it definitely wasn't something good. Shizune backed away as she looked at the following letters on the scroll.
RAAM
Author's Note:
I made it to my goal of sixteen chapters! Thank you so much for reading this far! Don't worry, there is still plenty more to come! It's early to be giving credit but I would like to thank two people right now for helping me come this far:
Hinata Uzamaki-sama, another author here online . She inspired me to write this story and is a great fanfic writer herself.
RoseTiger, she said that she couldn't wait for this chapter. She really pushed me to finish it. She is also an author here online . If you are reading, I want to tell you thanks for pushing me!
Please stay tuned! There is significance to the mentioning of Wrath and the word RAAM! For you few Gears fans out there, you can probably guess who is coming to Konoha! Stay tuned for more romance, action, and Nazo's new mask and weapons! Thanks for reading! Please review and give suggestions!! Also, there is a poll on my profile about adding the Akatsuki to my story. I'm not sure if I want to do it so I'm asking you the readers to tell me what you would like to see! Check it out when you get the chance! Thank you!