III
━━━━━━┓༻❁༺┏━━━━━━
Author's note:
In this chapter we have a little flashback and we get short glimpse into Asami's ANBU past.
━━━━━━┓༻❁༺┏━━━━━━
Arc III Chapter IV
━━━━━━┛༻❁༺┗━━━━━━
Heavy snow covered the forest that were clad in crystalized water like sugar. The entire land as far as the eye went was reigned by the harsh forces of winter that enveloped everything beneath a thick blanket of frozen white and icy cold. Nature had morphed into a cold dessert, seemingly hostile to any form of life, their very presence. But nonetheless signs of life still existed among the trees and these people refused to back down to the forces of nature. Trapped in an endless silvan labyrinth of ice, a squad of ANBU was currently moving through the trees with a frightening speed, desperately running for their life.
"We have to move faster, Konosuke. They are probably right behind us, Captain", Hachiro, his second in command, pointed out with a small degree of desperation in his voice.
"I know, Hachiro, I know. Konosuke's voice was strained by the accumulating fatigue. He was tired, and the rest of his squad too. They had to get some rest, immediately, but that wasn't possible. They had to carry on.
"Where are Masaaki and Yusuke? Shouldn't they have already returned, Hachiro?"
"No idea."
"Haven't seen them."
"Dead, perhaps?", echoed a chorus of voices through the frozen wood.
"Masaaki and Yusuke were both killed half an hour ago after you had ordered them to engage the enemy in order to gain additional time. Sadly, they weren't able to fall back and eliminated as a consequence. Masaaki met his end through an incoming blade, while Yusuke got hit by an explosive tag or something else", their youngest ANBU answered in a dispassionate voice colder than the freezing air surrounding them.
Behind her Tiger mask that appeared somehow too big for her, Asami was just a little girl clothed in a white innocent looking and fur coat. Nevertheless, the girl was an official ANBU and now one of them.
She wasn't even 13-years-old, but the severity of their situation and the death of her comrades didn't bother her in the slightest. The girl simply accepted their death in a fatalistic manner, which mildly concerned Konosuke. Asami could be his daughter, but her heart was already harder than stone and colder than ice. Did she even feel anything?
"How do you know that, Asami?" Konosuke asked for further information while unconsciously increasing the speed more and more.
"Well, I have seen them die with my own eyes when I briefly glimpsed back after their Chakra signatures had suddenly disappeared", Asami confirmed their death and displayed again her famously good eye sight.
Not that Konosuke complaint, because it was always useful to have someone on your side with such an excellent visual perception and who was simultaneously a sensor type. But sometimes it almost felt as if they had an actual Dojutsu user among them, which was often disturbing to say the least. Her eyes saw further than what should be normally possible and with a scary precision that couldn't be considered normal even for shinobi.
Asami was, however, obviously not a Hyuga, otherwise her eyes would be white and not the darkest black he had ever seen. And she couldn't be an Uchiha considering that the Uchiha clan was quite limited in number these days, not say as good as dead. So, what was Asami's secret?
"Why haven't you informed me then until now, Asami?", Konosuke regretted his decision and that he had sent two good friends into their death by ordering them to delay the pursuing Kiri-nin. But times were hard and drastic measures had to be taken. Nevertheless, Konosuke knew that they were running out of time and Kiri-nin were getting closer and closer with every second.
His squad was just not fast enough because they were slowed down by Norogumi and Karen who had been both heavily injured. And it was clear that both wouldn't be able to maintain their current speed any longer if they didn't reach the assembly point soon. Konosuke needed time. But where should he get this time from?
"Informed about what?" Asami wondered and tilted her mask.
"That they are dead", Konosuke replied slightly angered by her nonchalant attitude.
"Ah, I understand. Sure, sure, I could have done that. However, I believe that would have been of little use aside from ruining our mood, right? Masaaki and Yusuke are gone and we have at the moment more important concerns than mourning two corpses if we don't plan to join them soon in the afterlife, Cap-tain", the Kunoichi needlessly stretched her last words.
"Aarghhhh", Konosuke ground his teeth. Once again the girl indirectly attacked him and his superfluous sentimentality. Deep beneath her beautiful outer shell and layers of white fluffy fur, Asami was a vicious little devil.
Asami continued in a sarcastic tone and warned him, "Moreover, I would strongly recommend you to slightly increase the speed, otherwise we will soon make contact with a few very sharp kunai. Because we have a very, very, very angry Kiri platoon right behind our backs, and as far as I can tell they are rapidly closing the distance. We should really hurry up, Konosuke."
The last part was spoken in a forceful manner and not with her typical humorous note. This was not a mere suggestion.
The Anbu countered enraged, "We can't. Don't you see that Norogumi and Karen are far too weak? They will never be able to keep up with us."
Didn't Asami recognize in which condition they were. Norogumi could barely keep up with them and he had to be supported by Hachiro and Aneko, while Karen had lost a lot of blood and it was a miracle that she was still conscious.
"I know, I know. Tsk tsk tsk, you don't have to tell me that, Konosuke. But I think I have a quick and effective solution for our little problem", Asami drew her beloved sword and Konosuke's eyes grew immediately wide. The ANBU feared the worst. No, no, she didn't plan to kill them. Well, she didn't and Konosuke sighed in relief.
Stopping on a firm branch, Asami halted and so did the rest of the confused squad. Using her Chakra, the steel of her blade glimmered in pure white and indicated that something was about to happen.
"Konosuke, I will confront them and delay their advance while you continue to retreat", Asami declared laconically and prepared to leave.
"Confronting, what are you talking about?" Konosuke reacted bewildered, although he actually understood pretty well what she meant. Nevertheless, he didn't like her idea.
"You know what I mean, Konosuke. Either someone stops them or everyone here dies", Asami man's voice was dispassionate and unyielding as always, "Alternatively, we can still leave Norogumi and Karen behind, but I don't think you would ever consider that option no matter how reasonable it might be, right?"
"Uhmmmmmmm …", Konosuke hesitated. Asami might be strong, but if she was strong enough to face them head on was another question altogether.
"Let it be, Konosuke. I have always said it, you are too soft for the job and you lack the will to make the hard decisions that are sometimes required", Asami looked up into the sky and noticed with a smile that it had suddenly to snow and millions of little water crystals were slowly falling onto the white frozen ground. She liked snow, she really like it.
"And now go. After all, you don't have all day, otherwise my most noble self-sacrifice might be even in vain. However, I doubt that I will actually die, because I am not exactly the weakest ANBU Konoha has to offer."
Konosuke sighed in resignation and accepted his defeat. In the end, Asami was right, something had to done. The rest of the squad was left alone by the girl that moved into the opposite direction.
After a short pause, the ANBU Captain simply ordered, "Let's go."
Continuing their way, Konosuke reflected on their rocky relationship, which wasn't exactly the best ever since the beginning, not to say abysmal and characterized by a variety of conflicts.
Asami didn't like his command style and vice versa, almost as if they both were polar opposites constantly fighting each other. Aside from blatantly ignoring the majority of his orders and disagreeing on almost every point possible, the girl regarded him not only as inept, but also as a subpar choice of a Captain in general. In her opinion, he was one of "these typical narrow-minded master strategists" and that "he relied like all Nara way too much on plans requiring absolutely perfect clockwork precision".
Asami repeatedly criticized him for being too pedantic and cautious. That he lacked the necessary audacity and initiative in the attack. That he wasn't capable of seizing golden opportunities when they were presented to him on a silver platter because he was too focused on avoiding losses by all costs.
That it was foolish to believe that battles were won without casualties and sacrifices being made, the price of victory was paid in blood alone and nothing else. That the one who defended everything, defended nothing and would lose accordingly everything.
Her accusations stung like hot needles, but he decided long ago to put with the girl and her antics. Because in the end, Asami was good, not to say amazingly good and it was always very convenient to have her on your side even when she was only 13, albeit he had at times the suspicion that she was in truth significantly older than on paper.
No matter what, the Kunoichi was a force to reckon with and her tactical advice was in the most cases relatively sound, even when her personal doctrine was vastly different from his own.
In summary, her methodology was striking extremely fast, exceedingly hard and never doing things by half. Most of the times, Asami preferred to go in with all guns blazing and simply kill everything and everyone living.
Therefore, it was sometimes infuriating to work with Asami because of her rather trigger happy nature, her throw kunai first, ask questions later attitude and her absolute disregard for the concept of obedience. Especially, if she, for example, attacked yet another time despite having explicit orders to standby, only because the conditions were favourable, and ruined once again all of his careful planning and meticulously crafted stratagems.
What use did the best strategy have if a certain girl visibly enjoyed it to sabotage them at every step possible?
━━━━━━┛༻❁༺┗━━━━━━
Asami sighed. In the end, it was always the same, if you wanted a job to be done properly, then you had to do it yourself, because everyone else was practically useless.
Everything would be easier, if Masaaki and Yusuke hadn't got themselves killed, but no.
In vain, she had advised Konosuke to send her to intercept them, but he didn't share her enthusiasm and rejected her offer for whatever stupid reason. Because she would have slaughtered them without any major difficulties, provided she hadn't encountered the Mizukage herself, which was, however, rather unlikely. Instead Konosuke sent the two who were nothing more than mere cannon fodder. You see, it was simply horrible to be ignored and sometimes your own superiors were your worst enemy.
Driven by her inner rage, Asami took a firm grip on her sword.
Nothing was ever easy with Konosuke and his annoying convoluted strategies. Didn't he see that he was trapping himself by always aiming for the best possible solution, for the perfect solution? His judgement was clouded by eternally being stuck to the original plan and an overall lack of flexibility. He was one of these just according to keikaku types and Asami loathed them all.
If Konosuke hadn't tried out one of his highly specialized battle plans, then they wouldn't be in this precarious situation. His plans might be brilliant on the first glance, but they were inherently flawed. They were too reliant on coincidence and luck, and not forgetting the stupidity of your opponent,
No, it was a simple standard assassination mission and they had only to kill high priority target. Unfortunately, said person had quite a respectable guard force consisting of Kiri-nin placed around him.
She advocated a direct assault through the front door and to compensate their numerical disadvantage with the element of surprise. Just get in, kill everyone, get out. Because who would expect a frontal attack by ANBU in broad daylight? Exactly, nobody. The Kiri-nin wouldn't even know what hit them before it was over. And it was obvious that Konoha had to stand behind the operation, anyway. Therefore, secrecy wasn't much of an issue in this case.
On the other hand, Konosuke proposed dispatching a small infiltration party and trying to bypass the sentinels while the rest of the squad together with her was kept in the reserve until support was needed.
His proposal was certainly the more shinobi like and elegant one, and as a consequence she was outvoted right before the attack, which was a further reason that she would rule with an iron fist over her squad and crush any delusions of democratic participation when she would ever become Captain.
Joke aside, his plan fell instantly apart like a card house. The infiltration team was detected quickly, which was per se not so much of a problem. But then all things went south with the arrival of two entire platoons of Kiri ANBU and that was slightly unexpected to say the least. From one moment to the next, they were outnumbered, outmanned and outgunned. And it wasn't funny to get Konosuke and his trapped team out of the danger zone afterwards.
Asami passed the nearby trees as she was slowly closing up with their pursuers.
Whatever, this attitude of the presumed genius strategist probably ran in the family. What was the boy's name again? Shikanaru? No. Shikakaru? Na, but she almost had it. Asami was sure that it was something with Shika…
Anyway, the other Nara boy was also such an insufferable know-it-all, always focused on his Go and Shogi board as if he could predict all of his move of his opponent's with such ease in real life. As if the enemy was just an inanimate puppet dancing to his tune, which was of course ridiculous.
Asami arrived at a small clearing populated by a single mighty oak enveloped by snow and ice. They had crossed the plain a few minutes ago. The Kunoichi scanned the area and awaited the arrival of the Kiri-nin while the snowfall around was growing stronger in intensity with every second passing. It was only a question of time until the storm turned into a real blizzard.
Soon after, fifteen Kiri ANBU entered the scene and stopped their advance right in front of her. How truly dramatic. They were just of fifteen unlucky men, probably the vanguard, and they had the misfortune to meet her.
Concealed by white mask, her eyes glimmered weakly in a vivid red and Asami aimed her left Mangekyo on their leader. Flanked by two guards, the man stepped forwards and started mocking tone, "Is Konoha really that desperate? Are they now sending a little girl to stop us…"
━━━━━━┛༻❁༺┗━━━━━━
A pulsating white blade was struck through Captain Yakumo. The tip exited his chest where his heart was supposed to be and behind him stood the girl clothed in white. The Kunoichi whispered sweetly into his ears and didn't hide her girlish giggling, "Little girl? That might be true, but you are grossly overestimating your own abilities and immensely underestimating mine, my friend."
The sword sliced through the rest of Yakumo's body like a hot knife through butter and the girl bisected Nobuyori and Tatsukichi with a swift swing spinning sideward. Their flesh offered no resistance to the heated plasma and they were cut in half. Yakumo, Nobuyori and Tatsucki were dead and their bodies fell down into the cold snow.
"One, two, three. So, who is the next in line?" the girl turned around and faced the rest of their group with her emotionless mask. The Kiri ANBU didn't hesitate. They knew what had to done and they wouldn't back down easily from here on. They would kill this bitch, and if it cost their lives.
"Wuuuaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh", their war cry filled the icy plains and the ANBU charged at the girl with all of their vigour and rage.
"Hehehehe", the Kunoichi giggled amused by their foolishness and disappeared from sight in a blink of an eye.
An untraceable blur of nebulous afterimages demanded one victim after another amid the ongoing snowstorm. You couldn't see her, you couldn't hear her, but that didn't seem to apply to the girl. She knew exactly where they were and kept picking on them, taking them out one by one.
Four, a horizontal slash. Five, decapitated. Six, pierced through the chest.
In a fluid series of instant movements, the girl crossed the battlefield without any effort whatsoever. Like a ghost, the Kunoichi was everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. Her position always changed and what gave away her position was only vibrating white sword that the girl carried with her.
Seven, he saw it never coming and was struck from behind. Eight, lost his both feet in an attempt to run. Nine, confronted her boldly, but his sword was simply molten through by her plasma.
The Kiri ANBU were decimated. They realised too late that they didn't stand a realistic chance from the very beginning against the personification of Death himself. Their unit disintegrated and their retreat turned quickly into a full scale rout, but it was useless. There was no escape, no mercy.
Ten, a pair of Raiton loaded kunai nailed his lifeless corpse to the nearby oak.
Eleven and twelve, both answered with a pincer movement. A purple barrier deflected their attack, however, and their swords simply snapped apart. The barrier wasn't scratched at all. The surprised duo was immediately electrocuted by a sudden lightning afterwards.
Thirteen and fourteen, they had reached the secure treeline and seemingly escaped their inevitable fate, which was of course just an illusion. The girl simply looked into their direction and soon after a gigantic bluish-white detonation engulfed their position. The blast force of the nightmarish fireball ripped the nearby trees apart and incinerated everything within the epicentre. They were both burned alive by the flames and reduced to nothingness.
Hidden behind her white porcelain mask, the girl slowly approached a trembling Hisahsi.
He was alone now, so utterly alone. He was the last one surviving this carnage that barely lasted two minutes. Her previously white fur coat was now like the snow coloured red by the blood and gone was any pretence of childish innocence.
"Fifteen", the girl focused her eyes on him through her dangerous slits and Hisahsi could have sworn that her eyes were glowing in a dark luminous red he had never seen before in life. These eyes weren't normal, they weren't human. What was she? Was the girl really human?
"What is your name?" the demon in white asked nicely after a short pause. But he didn't need her damned fake politeness.
"You fucking bitch, I don't have to answer you", Hisahsi grabbed his Tanto and rushed forwards with all his force. The ANBU clashed against her shield, but the purple barrier didn't budge a single millimetre. The girl giggled and nonchalantly broke his stance by aiming with a simple kick for his feet. He toppled over, or rather should have. Before the ANBU reached the snowy ground, Hisahsi took a punch into his abdomen.
The force behind her incredibly fast punch was immense considering her frail stature and didn't exactly correlate with his expectations. The girl hit hard and Hisahsi was brutally thrown backwards until the soft snow finally stopped him.
The demon in white shook her head in a disappointed manner, "Tsk tsk tsk, the shinobi these days. Always so stubborn and they never know when to give up. You try to be nice and what do they do? They directly spit in your face."
"You are right, Fifteen. You don't have to answer me, but that won't be necessary for what I intend to do anyway", the Kunoichi leisurely lifted his mask off with the tip of her blade.
"I have a little work to do for you", she told calmingly in a smooth and lyrical voice.
Hisahsi was visibly enraged, "Who do you think you are… Aarghhhhhhhhhhh!"
The girl drilled her sword right through his right hand pinning it into the ground," You shouldn't misunderstand your position, Fifteen. I am not particularly renown for my infinite patience and your continuous refusals to cooperate are starting to annoy me. Do you understand your place now?"
"Aarghhhhhhhh!"
"I said, do you understand now?" immense pain shot through my nervous system. The girl let a bit of her Chakra flow into her sword and began to twist it in my wound. The plasma around the tip was practically burning his hand.
"Aarghhhhhhhhh, yeeeesssss", Hisahsi ground his teeth and endured the pain.
"Excellent. Was that so difficult? Why couldn't you have been so cooperative from the very beginning? Why do I always require the forceful kind of persuasion methods? Tsk tsk tsk, men and their stubbornness", the girl smiled happily.
"Anyway, your very important task is to inform the rest of your lovely company that they should get the fuck out of my way unless they want to have a friendly encounter with me. And we don't want that to happen, do we?"
"And now run, run before I change my opinion", the girl's soft angelic tone turned into cold ice.
━━━━━━┛༻❁༺┗━━━━━━
Asami looked after the retreating figure of her most recent acquaintance. He wasn't the worst runner she had ever seen over the years. Actually, the boy was quite fast. But that shouldn't be too surprising after the grand show she had put up for him. Her little carrier pigeon should slow them down a bit, or at least let the Kiri-nin reconsider their choice to pursue them.
And if classical intimidation didn't work and they ignored her friendly warnings, then she had to persuade them as usual with her sword.
Asami approached the oak and retrieved her pair of kunai. After all, these two kunai were special and specifically designed and produced for her. Therefore, they shouldn't be wasted needlessly without a second thought. Especially, when they were pretty expensive like them. Afterwards, the girl sat down on one of the firm branches the tree had to offer and waited, and waited, and waited.
Asami was wondering whether her previous actions would ignite their desire for revenge, or whether they would listen to reason and avoid her. Both options were possible.
The Kunoichi watched the battlefield and smiled happily admiring her handiwork, even when it mainly consisted of dead bodies, severed limps and a bit of blood and gore in between. But hey, who cares?
In fact, Asami was quite proud of what she had achieved everything since her fateful fight against Itachi, thanks to which she had received a few very, very advantageous gifts and new abilities.
Getting her hands on an updated version of the Sharingan, was unexpected to say the least. Furthermore, the interesting special abilities of her eyes augmented her style perfectly as if they were specifically made for her.
Not only profited her method of teleportation strongly from the visual prowess of her new Sharingan, but also her technique was now smoother and more fluid than its crude predecessor. Because of them, Asami was able to overcome the majority of limitations regarding the range and the execution.
Especially, her left eye was convenient. Asami appreciated the advanced and remote Chakra control the left eye provided her with. Her right eye was, however, trickier to use, not to say quite challenging and requiring a high degree of concentration. Her left eye constructed Chakra, while her right was capable of deconstructing any form of Chakra.
And apparently they were called now Mangekyo Sharingan, which was frankly a piece of information that was hard to come by. She had to secretly dig around for quite a time because the village archives, the official shinobi archives as well as the unofficial ANBU archives, weren't all too forthcoming concerning the Uchiha clan and their Dojutsu techniques.
Someone could nearly think that everything in regard to the Sharingan had been systematically purged or classified for a reason, what Asami certainly did. Fortunately, she had access to most of the information as an ANBU, but all of these measures went exceedingly beyond what could be considered normal security and rational secrecy. There was something fishy about the situation and it had to do with the Uchiha clan.
And not forgetting, she received gratis on top the Susanoo, a lovely creation. An easily malleable avatar made out of Chakra that offered almost unlimited potential for modifications and experimentation, and Asami had already a few ideas. It was unfortunate, however, that she could use her Susanoo so rarely, which was severely disappointing.
Anyway, the Sharingan was full of surprises and a truly potent weapon. Sometimes she almost felt like she was cheating, but only almost. Because it wasn't her problem that she had them and other people not. They were hers, hers alone.
Asami was curious, however, if her Sharingan still had to offer more? She had surely to do some research in that direction. Who knows, perhaps she would even stumble over a hidden connection between the Sharingan and Rinnegan?
In retrospective, she was quite grateful to Itachi for the gifts he had given her. Unfortunately, she had spoken out a death threat against him, which could be considered a slight issue. Because Asami was neither the type to forget nor to forgive easily without any form of just retaliation. And Itachi would pay his price too, that was sure.
Nevertheless, Asami felt slightly indebted to the Uchiha. Sure she would kill him some day and this project might require a decade or two. But Asami was a patient person in that regard and she could wait for her revenge. And who said that you couldn't eventually forgive your enemies?
In the end, they could perhaps even put their little grudge aside and reconcile after their little initial disagreement. Because a small skirmish, a few deaths here and there and them trying to kill each other wasn't that extraordinary among good friends, was it?
And not forgetting, nothing was made for eternity. People and primarily strategic situations tended to change and forced you to reconsider your position on certain matters. The allies of today were the enemies of tomorrow and vice versa.
Asami smiled while her Chakra sensed how the hostile Kiri-nin suddenly halted and regrouped. They Not only stopped they, but they also retreated soon afterwards.
So, her pigeon had apparently reached his target and successfully delivered her message. And it seems that they had decided to abandon their senseless pursuit, which was honestly a good idea instead of adding a few more corpses to her body count.
Asami got up from her relatively uncomfortable sitting position because being frozen to death wasn't a particularly appealing to her. Despite wearing the warmest and thickest clothes she had, it was simply too cold here for her liking. Yes, it was winter and it was damn cold. And her current location didn't provide much cover against the assaulting elements.
Asami rubbed her gloves and marched straight off to the assembly point where the they and the other ANBU squads were supposed to regroup after completing their assigned missions. As far as she could remember, their assembly point was supposed to be a small village near the border.
━━━━━━┛༻❁༺┗━━━━━━