EPISODE 28: Undercover Assault
They approached the Royal Tribe with plenty of caution. It took them much longer to advance while hiding, but getting caught could raise an alarm, so it had to be avoided at all costs.
At first, Yoninke and Sarzan planned to mix themselves with the invaders and to act as if they belonged with them, but soon they were going to find out that it wasn't going to be so easy. The one that knew he had to avoid all contact with enemy eyes was Jim Namikaze. They expected a lot of difficulty just to get anywhere close to the Royal Tribe; however, it turned out to be much different than their expectations.
Soon, they realized that there was no one guarding their large village. It seemed like a trap at first sight, but it was not. Dormon's forces were not there anymore. They were at the huge earth coliseum, or the Earth Stadium, which was at the other side of the village, about 40 meters beyond the last small houses there. Everything was going to happen at that stadium…
Since the entrance, Yoninke, Sarzan, and Jim saw dead monkeys and apes on the ground everywhere. It was a terrible sight for Sarzan and Yoninke because they could recognize many of those faces. For Jim Namikaze, it was strinkingly reminiscent of what happened at Maida's village. Those were some of his worst memories and these sights brought them back to him as if it was happening all over again. It was like opening an old scar on the same place where it happened before.
Yoninke also felt very worried when he saw his little house was destroyed and there was no sign of his crazy father anywhere. For the first time in years, he really wished his decrepit father was there, even if the old monkey was going to criticize him, as he always did.
The tragedy was very recent because it was obvious that many monkeys had not been dead for more than 20 hours—that was the length of one day at the Earth Realm; night and day were shorter there.
As they advanced, voices could be heard from far away. They began to realize that the whole village was left desolate of life, with just the bodies of almost half of the tribe's habitants. They had fought bravely to protect their home, but the Royal Tribe was not enough to defeat all the other tribes…
The voices they heard were not coming from the village; they came from the Royal Earth Stadium, which was half a mile away. Something big was happening there for sure…
Besides, not everyone was dead and the rest had to be somewhere. Maybe there was an ongoing battle at the stadium; or maybe there was something else there…
"Let's hurry! That is where they were planning to execute the others! Father and Em must be there!"
Sarzan was agitated and Yoninke was the same way. Jim Namikaze also felt uneasy for a while. Last time this happened, he had been defeated by the powerful rogue ninja Zet Otsutsuki, right after seeing similar sights of death with humans. (He didn't remember what really happened. In reality, he had been killed as well, but Maida's mangekyou sharingan and her unique ability saved him.) This time, it could not repeat itself no matter what. He was an earth sage now, but still, an enemy powerful enough to take over the Royal Valley could not be underestimated. They had to act carefully and think. Otherwise, their chances were pretty slim, even with the power of a sage.
"The closer we get to it, the more careful we have to be. Let's approach the stadium as we approached the village," suggested Jim.
Sarzan listened, but Yoninke couldn't approach this with such calmness (he wanted to go rogue on them after what he saw; he certainly couldn't play undercover guard anymore after what he had seen at the village).
When they reached the stadium what was happening was revealed to them…
Dormon's tribes had put hundreds of large wooden bars over the huge sitting areas at the stadium. They were being used as giant cells to keep the rest of the Royal Tribe imprisoned. There were many young monkeys (children), females, and other members of the village that were not among the elite ninjas. The elites from the Royal Valley that had not been killed already were tied up on pillars of wood. The pillars were standing at the edges of the massive open field of earth that was the inner stadium; it was quite visible from the giant cells. Everyone—from the prisoners of the Royal Tribe to the hundreds of rogue monkeys from the other tribes—would see what was going to happen there.
Em and Enma were among the twelve elite survivors trapped on the pillars. They were close enough to talk, but they couldn't do anything to stop what was going to happen. Yashiro was also among the elites that were caught. They were tied with special ropes that didn't allow the gathering of sage chakra, so Em and Enma couldn't use their sage mode. They couldn't use their hands either, so using jutsu techniques was out of the question as well.
Dormon was at the center of the massive field, ready to begin the short speech where he would reveal his plan for his father's tribe, for the Royal Valley, and for the Earth Realm itself.
He was a big ape like Enma, but much younger. He was wearing dark yellow ninja clothes. The dark yellow color on his clothing was very visible to all at the great Earth Stadium of the Royal Valley. He had a beard like Enma, but his hair was very black, rather than white. His eyes had dark yellow pupils—just like the ninja clothes—that made him look like a cursed ape (that eye color was super rare at their world).
Perhaps, the most important thing to mention about him was not how he looked, but how he was…
Dormon's confidence was absolute because he knew how powerful he was. He had already defeated all the other tribe leaders of his world. He feared nothing. Power and control were what he valued the most; and being the absolute king and ruler at the Earth Realm was his greatest wish. He was an earth sage and a master of the two most useful types of elemental techniques at the Earth Realm—the earth-style and the wood-style. (One could manipulate the vast amounts of earth everywhere and the other could control the growth and movement of plants and wooden trees. The earth-style was faster, but wood-style techniques were powerful and certainly more dangerous.)
You could say that Dormon's only weaknesses were that he was mortal and overconfident—this second trait can be a double-edged sword; it can also lead to making the wrong choices because you think your failure is impossible…
The worst part, however, was that Dormon was heartless and he only cared about fulfilling his wishes. (Unfortunately, he was also good at manipulating others, so he convinced the rogue tribes about taking over the Royal Valley.)
Em and King Enma were feeling terrible. Em was the only one who managed to fight Dormon directly during the invasion, but he was defeated by his older brother. Neither of them had enough time to use their sage modes, but chances were that if Dormon was more powerful than Em without sage mode, then he also surpassed him as an earth sage. Em was captured by Dormon after their battle. King Enma was caught at the largest battle at the center of the Royal Tribe. He was more powerful than the invaders, but there were too many, and they had been taught to hate the Royal Valley and its king, so Enma was their main target from the start. They knew they had to keep him alive though…
Em was feeling pretty bad. He couldn't forgive himself. If he had succeeded against Dormon, may be his tribe would not be on the edge of destruction:
"Father, I am sorry… if I had managed to beat him, we wouldn't be in this state. Our tribe and our friends wouldn't have been killed. If I had been stronger, maybe, this could have been stopped…"
Em's voice was full of regret. He was almost on the verge of tears, which was not a normal thing for someone strong like him.
Enma was pretty serious and also had plenty of scars from his battle. He seemed stronger-minded than Em, but the truth was that he was also devastated inside. If there was someone at that stadium that truly knew what regret was, that someone was the king.
He looked at Em:
"Son, don't be sorry for anything you did or did not do. I am the one that has to feel that way. If everything ends, or even if it doesn't, I hope you can forgive me. You always felt that way about Dormon, since you were little. You knew who he really was. You warned me a hundred times and I never listened. I didn't want to execute the criminal that was my own son. I sent him into exile, and even though I knew that he was causing chaos outside, I never did anything to stop him. I put my own interests before our tribe's best interests. I don't deserve to be the king. A true king would always put his tribe before himself. You are younger, but you always knew what was best for our tribe. You would make a better king than me."
The monkey king and his tribe had been defeated, and this was his darkest hour, but he still had one thing to fight for:
"I am glad that both you and Sarzan are still alive. I am glad that Sarzan and Yoninke managed to escape… Em. Listen. If you have the chance to escape, do it. Don't hesitate and don't worry about me. I will stay here and face my demons no matter what, but you two shouldn't pay for my mistakes. I wish our tribe didn't have to pay for my mistakes, but it is too late now."
Em's sad state changed when he heard those words from his father. At the end of the day, Enma was right; Em did care more about the tribe than about himself:
"Father! What are you saying!? I would never leave you and the others here! We have to fight Dormon and defeat him somehow. Half of the Royal Tribe is still alive in those giant cells. We must save them!"
Enma lost his fatherly patience and returned to his usual self:
"You fool! I know how you think, but look at us! We can't beat him and his army like this! If we are all killed, it is the true end for the Royal Tribe. You must escape and survive!"
"What about Sarzan, Yoninke, and the Namikaze guy, the human. Their team wasn't caught father. They must be around here. We still have a chance."
"I don't think they would do that. They are the best team I ever trained and Namikaze is a great earth sage, but even they would know that fighting here is not the best choice."
At least, there was some hope for Em:
"Sarzan, that little liar. I wish I could see his face now."
Enma, on the other hand, thought that it was too late for them already.
At that moment, Dormon began his speech at the center of the Earth Stadium:
"Today, we are going to make history for our kind at the Earth Realm…"
Meanwhile, Team Namikaze had already reached the stadium. They saw how the rest of the Royal Tribe was being kept like animals in giant wood cells that surrounded the stadium. The whole place was heavily guarded by hundreds of monkeys from Dormon's tribes. It didn't look like there was any way to get in without a serious confrontation. Apparently, someone was also talking pretty loud from inside the stadium, but they couldn't hear his words clearly. It was obvious, however, that the one giving the speech inside had to be Dormon, the leader.
After seeing the massacre at the village and the sight from the stadium, Yoninke was ready to raise hell:
"This is it! Mighty ninja Yoninke is going to make heads roll! I will open the way. They will see what an elite gorilla can do!"
Yoninke was pretty serious, so Jim and Sarzan had to stop him. They were lucky that no one saw them. They grabbed him and Jim gave him a quick reality check:
"Shhhhhhhh! Quiet Yoninke! If we get caught now our heads are the ones that will roll. Save all that rage for when we get to Dormon. Believe me, we want to see him pay too, but we have to do this right. There are only three of us and there are hundreds of them. We can't win if we don't approach this with intelligence and a plan."
Sarzan agreed and added something important:
"Guys, I know another way to enter the Earth Stadium. There is a secret tunnel that only the royal family knows about. I never entered it, so I don't know what it is like, but I know where one of its entrances is at. I also know it is the one that leads to the stadium. It is underground, so that tunnel should take us to the inside of the stadium."
"Great! Why didn't you say that before?!"
Yoninke was still in a battle-ready mood with his twin swords on his hands.
"Let's go, we will follow you Sarzan," said Jim.
The tunnel's entrance was not visible from the stadium, but it was not far from it. The place was close to the group of wooden houses that were closest to the stadium. However, it wasn't a secret anymore because one of the enemy monkeys was guarding the entrance.
"Now is the time Yoninke," suggested Jim Namikaze, when he realized that there was no safer way to get into the stadium (and the enemy guard wasn't going to move either).
Yoninke jumped from the roof where they were to the tree directly above the entrance. The guard saw him, but Yoninke was pretty fast, so by the time the guard reached for his sword it was already over. Yoninke didn't stay on the tree above, he only used it as the spot where he landed for half a second, before using his dual blade spinning attack on the guard.
(This reminds me of Attack on Titan. Those of you that watched that anime will understand why.)
The tunnel had little light, so it was dark. And it was wet too; the ground there was like the earth close to a river; it probably had a water source nearby. They were careful, but they still had to take care of three more guards that they found inside the tunnel. Eventually, they reached a place that had five different routes to continue. Sarzan and Yoninke were thinking about taking a route at random, but Jim knew a better way:
"Wait, we can't do this based on luck. There is a better way to know what is the route that will take us where we want to go for sure."
Jim Namikaze turned around.
"Shadow clone jutsu!"
Five shadow clones that looked like him appeared. This was the ideal technique to handle the situation because he would know what the clones knew, if they were beaten or if he—or they—cancelled the technique. One of them would give him the knowledge about the best route to take…
Three of the clones reached areas that had exits within the giant cells. All three were spotted and attacked by rogue guards at those places. They disappeared and Jim knew about it as soon as it happened. One of the other two reached a blocked path with no exit. Finally, the last one continued until he arrived at a place that was directly underneath the central area of the Earth Stadium. The stadium's ground was part of the ceiling at that underground location. From there, the clone could also hear Dormon's voice as he gave his speech. The last two clones released themselves on their own, so Jim Namikaze knew about this soon after.
Team Namikaze followed the right route and they reached the area under the stadium, which was below the front of where Dormon was standing giving his speech. (Directly above them was a spot inside the stadium that was just 15 meters away from Dormon, at the very center.)
They could understand what he was saying from there and they knew it was Dormon. Who else would be giving a speech at the center of the grand stadium in that situation?
They didn't hear the beginning of the speech, but after they reached that place, they heard every word, and Dormon's plan became clear to them:
"The current king and his Royal Tribe are turning our kind into a bunch of peaceful monkeys that have nothing to do with what we really are. We are warriors that have been chosen to rule over all the other species in this realm. The Royal Tribe's teachings go against our identity and our dignity as warrior apes; yet they are the true rulers of our world, while we live in the forests as if we were a different species than them.
If their tribe is eradicated we can be both, the rulers and the warriors that we always were. The strength of our kind will come back and we will be more powerful than ever. This disgrace will be erased!
Let me be your king. Let me be the one that will lead us all into a new age without the old Royal Tribe, which wasn't royal at all. Let's regain our dignity and take our rightful place at the center of our world!"
Dormon's tribes were guarding the cells, fighting anyone that tried to escape, and cheering loudly for their leader. They already knew what was coming. They were going to execute the elites from the Royal Valley. Then, they would set the giant wooden cells on fire, killing nearly everyone within them. They would become the rulers of the whole realm after that, and Dormon would be the new king.
Needless to say, they were savages that weren't very smart. That is why it wasn't too hard for Dormon to manipulate them into following his false promise of glory, bathed in blood and death. Moreover, they also feared him because they had seen him at his full power and he had killed their (already) fearsome leaders. They were a gargantuan threat for the Earth Realm, with Dormon at the center of it all.
The monkeys of Team Namikaze couldn't stay still knowing Dormon's plan of total annihilation for their tribe.
"You two open a hole on the ceiling with your earth techniques! I am going to cut that bastard's head off!"
Yoninke simply could not wait any longer. He was done hiding.
"Earth-strike!" yelled Sarzan as he punched the ceiling above them with a hand of earth.
It only made a couple of minor cracks on the ceiling though. They needed a far more powerful attack to make a path to the surface from there. Jim also knew that the time for hiding was over. Dormon had to be stopped. However, they didn't stand a chance without their full power.
"I will turn into an earth sage. I am going to open the path for us," said Jim Namikaze.
He made six shadow clones—the maximum that he could make—and sat down with them. All seven began to gather sage chakra. Despite the situation, he had to remain calm, otherwise it would not work. However, Dormon continued talking and he said something that truly affected Jim because it reminded him of the small Namikaze village, where he was born, and of Maida's village, where he had met true love for the first time:
"Small tribes that stand in the way shall be destroyed by the powerful ones. Those little tribes were us many years ago and the mighty Royal Tribe used to persecute us, but now we have grown and we are the powerful ones. The Royal Tribe is in our way to be the masters of the Earth Realm, so we shall exterminate them, as they planned to do with us!"
Dormon's words reminded Jim Namikaze of what happened at Maida's village. There were no true elites, or Anbu ninjas, at the village. Then, three uber powerful ninjas came seeking Maida's sharingans and they destroyed the whole village because it was in their way (and the villagers opposed them too). Jim also remembered the old earth-style master that taught him and his lost brother what they knew when they were kids. He sent them away when the Third Great Ninja War started at the Human Realm because he knew that the small Namikaze clan could be destroyed… and indeed, it was. The old master was their grandfather…
Jim Namikaze remembered all the good people from those two dear villages… what happened to them was going to happen in a much larger scale at the Earth Realm if Team Namikaze didn't stop Dormon there. Jim Namikaze knew that his sage powers were the key to make it possible. And, after hearing Dormon's last words, he found a new strength:
He wasn't going to allow the story of the Namikaze Clan or of Maida's village to repeat itself ever again. Two times had been more than enough in his life. Even if it took his own life, he would stop the third one. (He clearly didn't remember that he had already died in the second one, but Maida saved him.)
He began to gather sage chakra faster than normal.
"Namikaze, what are you doing!? Slow down! Yashiro isn't here!"
Yoninke got worried when he saw that. (He and Sarzan couldn't save him if something went wrong.)
Then, three of the six clones disappeared and all of their sage chakra was transferred to Jim Namikaze, who reached the earth sage mode in that instant. His pupils turned yellow and the skin around his eyes turned brown.
(The other three clones stayed there gathering sage chakra.)
Jim didn't realize it, but he was just like Yoninke was before. He was going to go straight for Dormon. His feelings had been involved since Dormon reminded him about Maida, her village, his friends, and his grandfather…
"Sage-art earth strike!"
The strike of the hand of earth created by an earth sage was so powerful that it broke through the ceiling and opened a massive hole all the way through. It provoked a huge explosion at the stadium's surface and a great ruckus among the rogue tribes guarding the cells. It opened the ground not far from where Dormon was.
Sage Jim walked and stopped right under the great hole he opened. Sarzan and Yoninke were going to go to that spot too, but he didn't give them enough time to get there:
"Sage-art earth-hold jutsu!"
Three earth hands grabbed them, held them tight, and raised them all the way up to the surface. These were not normal earth hands; they were the kind of advanced earth techniques that only the sage mode could create.
As soon as they landed on the surface, sage Jim sealed the hole. It was like nothing to him, so Dormon quickly realized that the human was in sage mode.
Yoninke was caught off guard by the hand of earth and he made it known as soon as he landed at the stadium's surface:
"Is this how you stay quiet and avoid getting caught with intelligence?! You made fifty times more noise than me Namikaze!"
Sarzan was the one who responded:
"Shut up and get ready! It's time to save our tribe. It is now or never!"
Dormon was just fifteen meters away from them. His speech had been stopped abruptly.
"I won't let you destroy the smaller tribe that is home to this realm's true king," said sage Jim.
Dormon was as big as Enma, but he was younger. He was strong and confident. In many ways, he looked like the savages that he led, but he was smart too, and his response made it clear:
"True king? Do all of you not see it now!? The king of the Royal Tribe, the one that once hated humans, has gone so low that he taught the earth sage mode to a human, rather than to one of his own kind! They can't destroy our dignity any further! It is time to replace this false king!"
That statement made anyone that didn't know the king well question whether the king wasn't really as great as they thought. Dormon's words raised some doubts on many, even among the monkeys from the Royal Tribe. However, something else grabbed everyone's attention:
Everyone noticed the human and the two monkeys that appeared close to Dormon after the explosion. Enma was shocked—he certainly wasn't expecting that—but deep down he was also glad. He believed that Team Namikaze had a chance; he knew how good they were because they had managed to beat him, even before Jim Namikaze became a sage.
Em knew it too. They were there!
The rogue tribes were confused though. The two monkeys had the same clothes as King Dormon's elites.
Sarzan and Yoninke threw out the "elite" uniforms. Yoninke revealed his trusty twin blades and confronted Dormon:
"You are the only false king here! Mighty gorilla Yoninke is going to teach you a lesson you won't forget!"
Dormon began to laugh.
"King Enma's elites are a bunch of comedians. It is no wonder why their tribe was defeated so easily. I will be the one that will be teaching you lessons today!"
Yoninke's father got to see what was happening from one of the wooden cells. He almost got a heart attack when he saw that his son was pointing his swords at the warlord. That fool had not changed! (As usual, he had him worried sick!)
Dormon made a gesture and, with his signal, hundreds of monkeys from his tribes left their positions and charged towards the three near him. (This was why no one other than Em managed to fight him directly before. He also had the protection of the tribes.)
Sarzan and Yoninke were ready, but this definitely wasn't a good sight. Sage Jim used the best technique to deal with the situation:
"Sage-art earthquake jutsu!"
The earthquake didn't affect the spot where he, Sarzan, and Yoninke were, but it shook everything else vigorously. Cracks on the ground appeared in several parts of the stadium and one of the giant wooden cells broke, initiating a battle between the ones inside and the rogue guards. The rogue monkeys that were coming after Team Namikaze got extremelly scared and stayed still, without advancing any further, or ran back. This mighty power was far too similar to Dormon's, and what they saw from Dormon was quite frightening. If the human had that same power, then they knew they didn't stand a chance.
Right after the earthquake stopped, four familiar faces appeared from the only open entrance at the Earth Stadium. The guards outside allowed them to enter without asking questions because they knew who they were, but they were in a truly sorry state.
Dormon's elites had arrived. Two of them were almost naked and all four looked beaten up. They walked, with difficulty, all the way to the center of the place, where Dormon was.
Team Namikaze was surprised. Those four were much tougher than they thought if they could still get there after their battle. However, Dormon was more surprised. He wasn't used to seeing his elites beaten:
"What happened?! Who did this to you!?"
Leya answered:
"Those three right there did it. We knew they would come for you, so we came to warn you, but I see they got here before us. My king, do not take them lightly, they are more skilled than they look."
Dormon got furious:
"You mean that all four of you were beaten by them!? I am going to have to pick new elites for my new kingdom!"
The elites looked disappointed. They had done a lot for Dormon and he was ready to throw them out like this because they lost just one battle. (To give you an idea of the things they had done for him, let's just say that Leya slept with him and the other three killed monkeys from the tribes when he asked them to do it.)
Then, Dormon got a better idea and decided to use his elites once again:
"It's actually a good thing that you are here now. Turn into your weaponized forms, all four of you."
Erion complained:
"King, we are not in the best shape for…"
However, Dormon interrupted him:
"Do it now! I am going to demonstrate to everyone here what their new king can do, just like I did before I conquered every tribe. I will destroy their champions and their hope, without even using my sage mode. They defeated you, so you should be glad that I will use you four to finish them here."
Erion wasn't sure about it because he knew the weaponized forms were not going to last a long time in their current state. However, the other three liked it. They were going to finish the human and the two monkeys, or rather, Dormon was going to use them to do it.
Leya grabbed Dormon's arm. She became a thick bracelet that was engulfed with the power of lighting.
"My king, destroy them with my power," said the bracelet.
Erion became a light and strong body armor, just like Sarzan.
"I will protect you my king," said the armor.
Rosu and Barion stood side by side.
Rosu became a silver sword with the power of the wild gusts of a tornado. Barion became a red blade with the power of lethal fire. Dormon walked towards the swords, grabbed one with each hand, and united them. They merged into a fierce-looking sword that was silver on the left side and red on the right. It looked like the silver side was surrounded by wind and the other side was covered with fire.
Team Namikaze was ready too.
"Let's fight him as one," suggested sage Jim.
It had been a while since they had done it, but this was definitely the union of one of the best teams at the Royal Valley: the human earth sage with armor Sarzan and the mighty Yoninke sword.
Dormon was still quite confident though:
"You human sage have given me the perfect chance to demonstrate my dominance once again. I will defeat a sage without even using the sage mode myself. Then, my foolish father will follow with the rest of his elites. I will be the new king of the Royal Valley and of the entire Earth Realm very soon. And no one will dare to oppose me after my demonstration of power with you."
The elites were completely quiet. They were Dormon's tools for battle.
Sarzan and Yoninke, on the other hand, were Jim Namikaze's companions.
At that moment, the battle with Dormon began…
NEXT- Episode 29: Team Namikaze vs. Dormon
