Chapter 37: Bloodsoaked Symphony – Accelerando
Be careful. It was once said by the Godaime Hokage that these are the two words that an experienced shinobi most hates to hear before a mission. At the time, she offered witnesses no answer, and none was asked for. It would be another six years before the precise reasoning behind the statement would be imparted on those who had heard, when Konoha's Dozen Saints had begun to truly come into the depth and breadth of their powers.
For shinobi, the words be careful were one part jinx, like wishing an actor good luck as they take the stage, and one part insult, a direct implication that the shinobi did not know their job well enough to know that their surroundings are rife with hiding places. Like many things that seem simple and normal in the culture of civilians, in the high-stress, pride-driven, honor-focused world of professional shinobi, a simple phrase of care is more taboo than the true name of any demon or deity.
All present were focused on the battle to hand. Within 36 hours, Tsunade would be engaged in a battle that would leave at least one of the Legendary Sannin as nothing more than legend; and all of those who served under her were aware that they, too, faced suitably epic confrontations in the battle to come.
Although the designations used for both the operation itself, and the locations involved, were lifted from Danzo's ANBU files involving the Root forces at battle, Operation Bloodsoaked Symphony is almost universally accepted to have begun right about the time that the forces of the Honoo-Hanran and the Sunagakure task force and support forces left for Grid-Point Addolorato.
Although what inspired Tsunade's comment is not entirely known, Uzumaki Naruto's legendary inability to shut up does give us one clue, as he is recorded to have asked Temari why she "was so angry at her brother, isn't he Kazekage after all? Its not like he's being unfair, or something..."
Sabaku no Temari sent the younger blond bouncing along the desert sands around this point in time, and there was nothing more said concering the topic. Considering events that followed, the statement could have been considered truly ironic.
1
Orochimaru's smile appeared almost benign from his perch on a misshapen bolder. Hundreds of Otogakure 'shinobi' ran around him, each intent on completing their assigned task to prepare for the incoming Konoha shinobi. Of course, his personal supervision of the situation could have had something to do with their furor.
Otogakure's shinobi fell into four major categories. The first of them were the standard lot of missing ninja that every new village used as their primary shinobi until their first few classes of academy students reached viable ages. They were followed by the hordes of 'ninja', who were really civilians who were taken in, given the cursed seal, and then used as experiments and shock troopers. Beyond the impressive power that the cursed seal gave them, they were barely even capable as ninja. Yet they were more than enough to walk over genins, and provide the average chuunin a semi-decent challenge. These were followed by the shinobi who had been given cursed seals. These shinobi were a cut above the rank and file, serving as his personal elites, eventually being gifted with the second stage seals that marked them as such.
The final category was the smallest, being Orochimaru's personal entourage. Of that rank, there were three; Kabuto, Sasuke, and Orochimaru himself. And of those three, Orochimaru liked to believe himself the greatest threat. No one was willing to divest him of that belief, and that gave him a certain level of confidence, enough that he sat completely at ease in the midst of hundreds of shinobi whose faces he couldn't recognize if his life were to depend upon it, with Konoha's forces having been spotted one hour ago at the far edge of the maze of canyons and mesas that stood between the two forces.
If he knew Tsunade, and Orochimaru had no reason to believe he didn't, she was presently engaged in setting up a medical unit to deal with the critically injured. He would guess that genin would be performing much of the fetch and carry tasks, as they had during their own time as genin. Whether Tsunade's own medic ninja, or medic ninja from their ally of Suangakure would provide the staff, Orochimaru was uncertain, but he didn't believe that it mattered too much. With only a portion of Konoha's forces at her disposal, Tsunade would be hard-pressed to match the swarms of curse-seal reinforced shinobi at his disposal.
Orochimaru smiled. This would be a good day indeed.
2
Not far from the main body of Orochimaru's forces, Uchiha Sasuke, the one of the only living members of his slaughtered clan, stood. He felt surprisingly calm for a man who was about to enter a battle for his life and future. Then again, he was a man who had dedicated his life to killing his own brother. It was one of those ambitions that made him less than the ideal person for introducing to parents.
It was the kind of thing that would put a serious cramp in his ambition to restore his clan, but in the few moments where he was completely honest with himself he doubted that he would be restoring his clan because he doubted he would live past his final battle with Itachi. Those moments had been understandably rare even before he left Konoha, and were even rarer still now; Otogakure did not loan itself to stability or honest reflection.
In some ways, he supposed, that would also explain the woman that had appeared, her back pressed to his own. There was very little that was stable about either of them, with his fratricidal intentions and her rather impressive Multiple Personality Disorder. And if either of them would allow themselves the thought, they were bound to impede one another at some point; with his desire for vengeance and her desire to serve her master, the instant that Orochimaru was no longer useful to Sasuke, the two would be in instant, direct conflict.
"Are you worried?" Her voice, a deeper and more mellifluous sound than Sakura's clear, direct tones, surprised Sasuke with its ability to continuously catch his attention in a way that none from Konoha had ever really achieved.
"Not particularly. I've beaten the dobe before. I can do it again. He can't have improved too much since we last met."
"He did fight Lord Orochimaru twice before you fought him last time; the effects of fighting someone like our leader had to be straining."
Sasuke let a slight smirk split his face. "He's a jinchuuriki, Karin; that's how he fought Orochimaru last time, and that's how he fought me before that. I can shut down that power source quite easily now; he can't match me anymore."
The warmth left his back, only to be replaced by a pair of particularly warm spots just below his shoulder blades, a hand snaking underneath his open kimono-top. "If he's really a jinchuuriki, then I would suggest not being too confident in that. They're hard to predict, sometimes."
"And painfully easy at others. Jinchuuriki only have so many tricks up their sleeves before they run out. They rely on their demons for power far too often." Sasuke's hand came up, easily extracting the hand that was questing around inside of his top.
"No different than the rest of us, in that regard." Karin drew her hand back. "You keep quoting Orochimaru like that to me; you know I have everything he has ever said memorized."
So he was dealing with THAT Karin, was he? "What does he want?"
"He is of the belief that this boy, Naruto, is not someone you should under estimate. He said to tell you that 'the boy did not begin to truly use his abilities as a jinchuuriki until recently.' He is, in short, telling you the same thing that I am telling you now. There's more to him than you want to believe."
Sasuke sighed. "Does no one have faith in my abilities? I am an Uchiha, we are the elite. You know that very well, Karin." Turning to face the woman, Sasuke gently lifted the glasses from her face. He watched with a sort of clinical fascination as her expression slowly shifted, softer, more open, more amorous.
Whether this or the more clinical Karin was the original, not even she really could remember anymore. It had been so long since her M.D.P. had set in, since Orochimaru had bound the clinical part of her mind to the glasses that she wore, forever solving the problem at the price of her loyalty to him. "I trust your abilities as a shinobi, Sasuke." Her hand flashed out, and, allowing himself a slight moment of playfulness, Sasuke lifted the glasses just beyond the extent of her reach. "But you need to keep things in perspective. Orochimaru himself once said that the boy could be a problem in the future."
"The future, Karin. Not now." He said, letting her flailing hand reclaim her glasses. She settled the glasses back onto her face, and stepped back from the younger man. She gave him another look, before settling her fists into a hip, shifting her weight to rest on that leg, pushing the hip out further.
"He said that three years ago, Sasuke; Orochimaru also wanted me to tell you that even Jiraiya, oaf that he is, grew to be a shinobi of decent power with only a few years, and less motivation than your 'betrayal' appears to have given that boy." Leaning her head forward slightly, she let the glasses slide to the end of her nose, allowing the two more publicly acceptable parts of herself to blend together. "Don't die, okay?"
Karin was gone before Sasuke could form a response, her jade top rapidly disappearing into the moving throng of ninja. Slight smirk falling away now that he had been left alone to his thoughts, Sasuke turned back to look out over the canyons, allowing his thoughts to take up their own quest, piecing together just how much more powerful the dobe could have gotten, and what abilities he might have learned.
3
The golden hour. For medics of all professions, it is the timeframe between injury and treatment that can improve survival rates by as much or more than half. For shinobi, it is the one hour that stands between contact and conflict, the one hour that it is most difficult for enemy insertions to effectively hamper operations, and thus the one hour that is dedicated to actually preparing for a battle when two large shinobi forces encounter one another. Every country has a different operational procedure that is followed during this one hour, a different series of events and priorities that are taken care of between contact and conflict. For Konoha, one of the primary operational procedures has been to establish the presence of a well-supplied, and well-defended medical unit; followed closely by the establishing of a capable, equally well-defended command and control center.
Few records exist of what Otogakure used its golden hour for. Those that do remain, found both in the Root files, and in the observations and memoirs of various shinobi at the battle, speak of both a pharmaceutical facility used to fuel the cursed-seal crazed shinobi that Otogakure flooded the battlefield with, and a firebase, armed with amplifiers to allow for highly powerful genjutsu and ninjutsu to be released onto the battlefield.
The Honoo-Hanran, powerful though they may have been, could have found themselves in a truly desperate situation were it not for the unaccounted for presence of the Suna ninja, who were tasked with the duty of discovering the enemy's preparations. As with any shinobi firebase, a large part of its effectiveness relied on its position being defended, and undisclosed. Shortly before the battle began, Otogakure's plans took their first major hit, as Suna ninja removed the danger of the firebase from the conflict.
4
Sasuke heard the explosion, and for half a moment found himself wondering who had fooled with Orochimaru's experiments again. It didn't take him long to realize what had exploded, as the shinobi that had formed ranks behind him began to whisper that the firebase had been blown to pieces. Shaking his head, he glanced over his shoulder, fixing his gaze on the front-most ranks of shinobi. A slight pulse of chakra was all it took to get them back in line. The fear of the uppermost echelon of Otogakure shinobi, who were permitted to kill (within reason (excluding Orochimaru)) on the whim of a moment, was unmatched. That Sasuke had never exercised this right (to anyone's knowledge) did not lessen that fear.
"I told you before, we don't need that firebase."
The utter calm in his voice was all that 'his men' needed to settle their shattered nerves. Whether or not it helped their opinions of Uchiha Sasuke's sanity was another issue entirely.
5
Tsunade settled her face into her tried and true battle mask as her eyes fell on the ranks of Otogakure shinobi. The only truly unifying element of the lot was that purple rope-obi that Orochimaru had always been so fond of. She had time for little more than that lone observation as her eyes immediately caught on the figure that led the opposing ranks. She felt her heart still do its little staccato step; as it had so long ago, when the three of them were foolish genin and she believed that his looks and cold exterior hid a man whom never existed.
Jiraiya felt more than saw the skipping heartbeat of his long-time comrade. He knew that Orochimaru had to sense it as well, and judging by the slight flicker of amusement behind the Snake Sannin's eyes, it amused him to no end. Just as it always had.
Stepping forward, Tsunade leveled a single finger at Orochimaru. "We've come to settle an old score."
"Really? Which one would that be, I have so many with your village, after all." Orochimaru hissed, his shoulder shaking with laughter at his private joke.
Tsunade's grin was more fitting for a tiger than a slug-mistress. "All of them."
Orochimaru's laughter dropped immediately, his eyes locking onto his two teammates. Jiraiya spoke, unflinching. "Lets take this somewhere more private, huh?" A quick pair of nods, and the three Sannin broke off, lunging across canyons and mesas to reach a more secluded playing field, where their powers could be unleashed without fear or danger to lesser mortals.
6
Across the entirety of the battlefield, similar scenes played out, as Konoha shinobi still loyal to Tsunade, and Otogakure shinobi chose out targets based either on appearances of strength, or based on old grudges from the three years of war. Of all these scenes, few of them are truly noteworthy. Kakashi and Kabuto's battle began with little fanfare, as if the two were merely removing their last confrontation, inside of a Konoha hospital room, from an indefinite pause.
A battle which began with considerably greater pomp and circumstance occurred on the plateau adjacent to where the Otogakure and Konoha leaders had initially met for battle. It was on this plateau that, for the first time in three years, all the members of Konoha's Dozen Saints were gathered in one place. Many attribute this combat to the be actual birth of the Dozen Saints, although there is some serious dispute over whether their actual 'birth' might not have been earlier, during those fateful Chuunin Exams, or later, when Danzou's true madness began to become clear.
7
"Ready to come back with us now?" Naruto asked the moment that he saw Sasuke. He felt his knuckles tighten slightly underneath his gloves, could hear their material creak under the pressure he was putting on them. He would have to look into getting actual shinobi gloves when he got back to Konoha… Suna, when he got back to Suna. It wouldn't do for his hands to make that kind of noise all the time, not with the way he fought nowadays.
"Hn… You think you can beat me, dobe?" Sasuke's voice carried with it the prerequisite amounts and mixture of disdain, arrogance, and general sod-offness so as to guarantee a reaction out of both of his former teammates. He was vaguely surprised when neither of them reacted, except for Sakura to further secure her gloves, and for Naruto to tighten his Konoha headband. In the back of his mind, he heard Karin's warnings, and wondered if she might not have been at least partially correct. "As I recall, this was just between you and me. No one else." He said, throwing a significant look at Sakura.
Naruto nodded. "Yeah… No one, and nothing, else." Sasuke paused for a moment, understanding perfectly Naruto's meaning with that statement. Fighting back his hesitation, he nodded. If he needed the cursed seal to take out regular old Naruto, without his Kyuubi-enhanced powers, then he really was in the wrong place.
Seeing the Uchiha survivor give his assent, Naruto smiled, and jerked his head off to the side. Not even waiting for a response, Naruto bolted for the edge of the plateau, and lunged away from the main body of the battle, headed away from all possible interference. A quick glance confirmed that, as he always had, Sasuke held the advantage of speed, easily catching up to and keeping pace with the Kyuubi vessel.
Finally judging the distance as enough, Naruto let himself skid, losing momentum even as he turned to face Sasuke. The Uchiha came to a halt as well, his hand finding its way to rest on the side of his rope-obi. Impassive as always, he watched the blond who stood, his weight balanced between the tips of his fingers and the balls of his feet, a fox ready to pounce at any moment.
Except he already had, Sasuke realized belatedly, as he was forced to duck under one Naruto's spinning kick, and block another as it aimed a kick up at his solar plexus. Shifting the block from two arms to one, he brought the other arm up to block the follow-up axe-kick from the Naruto behind him. Putting his speed advantage to use, Sasuke spun, preparing to dispense with the two Naruto clones in one strike. His left hand speared out, striking the still air-born Naruto in the kidney, as the other lanced towards the crouched Naruto's throat. He was surprised when he felt the muscle in the back of his calf give out, a well-placed kick collapsing the joint of his knee. Staggering, he felt the Naruto behind him spin, before planting a knee into his lower back, flipping the Uchiha forward. Moving with the flip, Sasuke planted one hand, and thrust a foot back at the blond shadow-clone, dispelling it as his foot thrust through where the clone's head had once been.
Naruto's eyes narrowed as he felt the wealth of information pour into him from the two clones. If he knew Sasuke at all, the fact that even one of his clones had managed to land a hit would be enough to draw out the Sharingan.
Sasuke sneered as he looked across the field from his own crouch. That dobe had actually managed to land a hit, and he hadn't even had to do it himself. What was he doing, sending Kage bunshins at an Uchiha? Sasuke had half a mind to be insulted, but settled on humoring the dobe. He saw the point quite clearly, after all. It read 'Use your blasted Sharingan already.'
Who was he to disappoint the village idiot? He let a small trickle of chakra flow out into his eyes, and felt the Sharingan come to life.
The blood-red eyes of Sharingan met with Naruto's crystalline-blue optics. Naruto smirked, and for the first time in three years, Sasuke had to delve into his memories of all the various types of smirks, smiles and grins Naruto fell back on. He rapidly came up with the answer, and somehow the knowing only made it worse. For this was Naruto's 'Gotcha now.' Smirk, and Sasuke had rarely seen him pull that out unless he had something up his sleeve.
"Ya know, Sasuke, a bloodline's only as good as the stuff that makes it work. Anyone who knows how it works, can get around it, find holes in it." The blond's facial markings twitched for a moment, and as Sasuke watched, the air around Naruto began to fill with a whipping lattice of chakra.
"Do you have a point?" Sasuke asked, holding off in the hopes that the blond would explain what this flailing network of chakra tendrils was supposed to be. The tendrils, as it rapidly turned out, were only the first step, as they suddenly lashed onto one another, forming a web of chakra that surrounded the entirety of the blond's body, a crystal network of blue veins hovering at a good foot from his body.
"I'm getting there! Do you know what the whole point of the Sharingan is? It isn't copying, although its known for that. It isn't even prediction. The All-knowing Sharingan, is really better called the All-analyzing Sharingan."
Sasuke paused. The dobe knew, huh. "So what."
All at once, the blue veins of chakra drew themselves back towards Naruto, lacing themselves through the blonds tenketsu, covering his body in a network of glowing blue tendrils invisible to the eye of all but experienced shinobi, or those with doujutsus. Such as Sasuke's own Sharingan
"Basic level Sharingan can't see chakra well, and thus has to go off of physical signals, such as muscle movements, momentum and the like. But this provides enough data for the Sharingan to be able to predict information, and copy basic movements that the user is very familiar with."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed as the dobe broke down the secret of his family doujutsu so easily. It was rather disturbing, in actuality, he had used the ability to copy familiar movements during that written Chuunin exam."
"After the Sharingan hits its second stage, the tricks get more varied, because then the user can see chakra better. At that point, Sharingan begins to tap into the user's knowledge about everything from fighting to hand seals to lip reading to use as information, in addition to what it sees from the shinobi in front of it. But as a side effect, this lets the user copy the process of using a specific jutsu. The ability to see the hand signs and how the chakra is moved through the body and environment, in combination with the knowledge of the hand signs that are used by the jutsu's original user, means that the jutsu can instantly be copied for use. Of course, that the Sharingan's owner can't perform the jutsu any better than the person he copied it from without practice is expected, but that's life for ya."
It had to be admitted, Sasuke was impressed. Karin might not have been so far off base when she said that he was underestimating Naruto. That he was talking so much about Sharingan, breaking down how it went about copying jutsus, a trick that even Sasuke didn't entirely understand, was actually as intimidating as it was mystifying. And it was nothing if not mystifying to hear the village idiot show more knowledge than the village genius about his own advanced bloodline. For a moment, Sasuke began to wonder if, perhaps, Naruto might just be able to win this fight, before banishing the thought. Even if it had been a remote possibility, it wasn't something he could afford to be entertaining going into the battle; it would be distracting.
"Really, its once Sharingan gets to the final level that things get really creepy. At that point, Sharingan can not only read chakra like a book, but it can actually read a little bit of the neural impulses in another person's mind, provided your close enough. Once you can do that, its possible for an Uchiha to project themselves into the target's mind, and influence them to some degree or another. The amount really depends on a variety of things, such as if the opponent is expecting it or not, the mental strength of the targeted shinobi, and the mental state of the target. A tired, confused or stressed out opponent is more susceptible to this. Since I was all three of those last time, its really no surprise you could shut down even Kyuubi. After all, when it comes down to it, however powerful fuzzball thinks he is, I'm still the jailor, and my mind is the one that is in charge."
"I believe the terms were no one, and nothing else." Sasuke growled, already reaching for his cursed seal. If the dobe wanted to bring out the fox, he would find that the fight would be considerably harder than their battle three years ago.
"Of course it is; your little stunt last time was a form of the Sharingan's hypnosis technique, a technique I know how to counter now." Naruto said, as the chakra lattice solidified, its loops flowing fluidly in and out of his tenketsu, around his body in a pattern more complex than any puzzle Sasuke had set his eyes to work on in years.
"You see, Gai-sensei developed a way to fight Sharingan users based solely on the movements of their feet. It's a good trick, but it takes years to learn normally, and it isn't the most precise thing in the world. So I've got a different one. I watch the chest muscles."
Sasuke felt his head tilt at that. "What happened to years, dobe? And why the chest, wouldn't the hands be better?"
"Hands are easy to use for genjutsu, and not every attack involves the hands. Anytime you move to strike with your hands, feet, even a simple headbutt, muscles in the chest and stomach move, because these muscles are the most important ones to movement in the entire body. And as for years… Did you know that whenever a Kage Bunshin is dispelled, everything it remembers is sent directly to the user; as long as the user can supply a given amount of chakra and mental energy, those memories can be retained and integrated as the users own. Most shinobi can't really make much use of this trick, as the amount of chakra required to retain and integrate memories is almost equal to the amount of chakra needed to create Kage Bunshins in the first place."
Sasuke couldn't help it; his mouth fell open as it dawned on him what the blond was saying. He quickly recollected his Uchiha cool™ "But for you, that's not a concern."
Naruto smirked. "Nope. Now multiply a thousand Kage Bunshins by a month of training with Gai-sensei to fight Sharingan users his way, and another several months with Kakashi-sensei to develop new ways… I'm finally ready to take you on."
Sasuke couldn't help but stare at Naruto's pronouncement. "So much work wasted on a single fight." Sasuke lunged forward, his eyes flashing. He saw Naruto launch himself, and waited for his eyes to predict his next movement, to throw that shadowy image that would tell him where the blow was coming from.
He was more than a little surprised when the blow he saw coming was the real one, and barely managed to maneuver his forearm into place to block the jab. Naruto rolled with the momentum, moving into a massive backhand with the other arm. Sasuke ducked under the blow, and was surprised when the blond whipped his body, bringing the knee of his right leg at the side of Sasuke's face. The Uchiha leaned back, and realized instantly that was a mistake. Although the Sharingan was still mysteriously blank in predicting the blond's next attack, he could guess well enough from the way he had been whipping around, transferring momentum, that the knee was going to rapidly become a straight kick, one that Sasuke would be unable to dodge or block given the proximity, force, and built-up momentum behind the attack.
He was right, as Naruto smoothly chambered the knee, bracing his splayed hands and foot on the ground, and unleashed a powerful side-kick into Sasuke's chest. The Uchiha was launched a good foot and a half by the kick, before he managed to reclaim control of his flight, and flipped himself back onto his feet. Even still, he skidded another half-foot before he stopped completely.
"I told you, I developed new ways to fight Sharingan. Did you think that all that chakra I was moving around earlier was for show?"
Sasuke's eyes widened, as he realized what the blond had done. Sharingan's analytic abilities relied in part on those of the user, and although it had a degree of precision and detail-work that a normal human's mind could never match, he was more than capable enough for this. The blond's lattice of chakra, weaving into and out of and through the tenketsu, or at least where Sasuke was almost certain the tenketsu were located… it was almost absurdly simple, yet so expected of the blond that Sasuke was truly surprised he hadn't thought about it.
"You've hidden your chakra system with that network." Sasuke said, as he straightened up from his crouch.
"Meh… almost. What I've really done is created a kind of advanced chakra aura. Its laced into and through my coils so that I don't have to put any effort into maintaining it, its automatic once I set it up. Because it's so tightly constructed, and so closely attached to my chakra coils, it's actually less expensive, chakra-wise, than the average chakra aura. It can't be used to attack like a normal aura because it doesn't bleed out enough chakra to be able to harm. But the amount of chakra it bleeds out is just about sufficient to keep even Kakashi's Mangekyou Sharingan from piercing it."
Sasuke froze as his world came crashing down at that last sentence. 'Kakashi's Mangekyou Sharingan'
8
For those who are not up with the manga to this point in time, Karin is a character who has premiered within the last month or so. We are unaware of what her powers as a ninja might be, although we should know before my next update. If we don't, I'll have to figure out something suitable. (am really hoping Kishimoto will tell us before then.)
Everything pertaining to her having multiple personalities and to her relationship with Sasuke is of my own devising; although the multiple personality bit seems to be hinted at in canon, and her 'thing' with Sasuke isn't that much of a stretch considering her introduction.
Accelerando – gradual acceleration in a piece of music; gradually increasing tempo.
Addolorato – sorrowfully, used to describe the way that a piece should be played or should feel.