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Chapter 48
"Are you being fucking serious right now?"
Akari gave a deadpan look at the man who'd just insulted her. From his Hitai-ate, he was clearly a Kusa-nin, so sure, he could be forgiven for maybe not having a clue about who she was. But then again, he called her a demon-bitch, so he probably did know who she was. "You heard me right, we don't need you or your demon-fox, we're doing just fine here on our own."
Looking around the camp she'd arrived at, Akari smirked. "Yeah, because missing limbs, rampant infections and down-trodden looks really scream 'We're winning!' at me. Look, you got a problem with me and Kurama, cool, fuck off somewhere else in the camp and let me deal with whatever I need to. You don't have enough Iryo-nin by the look of it. Plus, you have what, a hundred and fifty nin here, with half of them wounded in some fashion. To top that off, fairly sure you ain't the commander around here, now are you?" Refusing to be looked down on, though kinda hard since she was shorter than the opposing man, Akari folded her arms, her point made.
If he still wanted to argue, she had a boot-heel with his name on it, just raring to be kicked.
Ignoring that absolutely pleasant interaction, most of the Kusa-nin were...apathetic to her presence.
They really didn't give a damn too much, they were just pissed off that they were being invaded once again. Granted, they didn't exactly have the best location, nearly perfect in their positioning between Konoha and Iwa to force the two superpowers into invading them if they wanted to battle. It wasn't quite a proxy war, since Iwa and Konhoa were directly fighting, they were just doing it on lands that neither side owned.
The problem for Kusagakure was that to go south would go through Amegakure, something that was frowned upon thanks to the torrential downpour, as well as the rumors of a so-called 'God's Angel' who wielded paper of all things to attack her foes, which included Konoha-nin. That made Amegakure a far less appealing direction to fight through.
But, to the north was arguably worse. Takigakure was home to Chomei, the seven-tails. With Killer B dead and Gyuki in her inventory, Fu, the Jinchuriki for Chomei, was now the strongest Jinchuriki around, not including Akari herself of course. Now, Akari was pretty much entirely confident in her ability to defeat her, sure, but regular Konoha-nin wouldn't stand a chance.
To finish the picture, Kusagakure was named for its abundant grasslands, perfect for logistics and supply-trains. This also made their lands the perfect battle-ground for Konoha and Iwa-nin. Since Konoha were already allied with them, that meant that in the eyes of the minor villages around, Iwa attacking them wasn't a general attack against minor villages, meaning Iwa didn't get dogpiled.
The minor villages didn't like them attacking Kusa, but with Konoha supporting them, they each were retaining their idea of 'attack us, and we all attack you'. To be fair, it made sense they wouldn't want to incite the anger of any of the large villages. Even in their moderately weakened state, Suna could still crush a minor village in a mere week, Takigakure being the only exception.
Clicking her fingers, Akari stood up from her knelt-down position, brushing dirt over the Hiraishin-tagged rock she had planted. She'd planted her Hiraishin onto a rock because it was far more resistant to being worn-down than a paper tag. Even vellum wasn't as durable, which meant that since she wanted these tags to remain to act as a rudimentary fast-travel system, she needed a material she wouldn't ever have to replace. Her own fast-travel system was nice, but she couldn't transport people using it, making the Hiraishin superior in that sense.
With a little focus, Akari picked out the Hiraishin marker currently in Yu no Kuni, appearing there in a flash of crimson to an empty clearing. Wandering towards where she knew the camp was, Akari spotted her team after a few moments, waving them over when Hikaru noticed her. "Time to go then kits." Spawning three Shadow Clones, each took hold of one of the Genin. Then, as quickly as she'd arrived, she disappeared, each of them appearing now in the middle of Kusagakure. "Wow, remind me to never use that thing twice in as many minutes." Akari took a few deep breaths, settling herself.
Her head spun a little from using the Hiraishin twice in a row. Despite the fact that she could use it once without feeling nausea, twice in less than a minute or two for some reason just threw her for a loop. How Minato could use it to zip around the battlefield she didn't know. "Sensei, how long do you think we'll be out here?" Raising her arms above her head, Akari stretched out, yawning.
"I have no idea. It just depends on whether Iwa's Jinchuriki tries to attack. Considering my stunt capturing Gyuki and Kokuo, I don't think Iwa ever want him to come into conflict with me, that's why Yugito never actually attacked us, Kumo didn't want to lose their second Jinchuriki. Kiri only had one to start with, who is also their Kage, so my chance of running into him is incredibly low." Humming to herself, Akari dug a hand into her inventory under the guise of unsealing something, pulling out the stuff for two tents, one for her and Tachiko, one for Aiko and Hikaru.
Tossing the two bundles side by side, Akari made a Shadow Clone, much to Aiko and Hikaru's dismay. "Oy, you two were the ones who decided you wanted your own separate tent, so deal with it. Besides, Tachiko here knows how to set a tent up already." She left the Shadow Clone to assemble the tent, heading deeper into the camp to pick up their actual orders.
Her Shadow Clones still didn't do anything if she wasn't going to do it with them, not unless she had something else she had to deal with like right now, or if she was in the middle of combat obviously. She could use them for menial work, just so long as she had a good excuse for not doing it alongside them. Pushing open the flap to the command tent, Akari took the situation in with a lazy sweep.
There were a few nin bustling around, as well as a Hyuuga sat facing a wall, evidently keeping tabs on the enemy forces using his Byakugan, the veins were a dead giveaway. Stepping up to the desk of the commander, Akari waited for him to finish the plan he was currently inscribing, finally looking up just after he finished drawing the flanking manoeuvre. "Ahh, Uchiha, you're here already?"
Rolling her eyes, Akari huffed. "Well duh, there's a reason they've started calling me the Crimson Flash. Fucking on the nose though." She mumbled, getting a small chuckle from the man, Shigaraki is the nameplate on his desk was to be believed. "So, what exactly am I gonna be doing, hopefully not one-woman-armying this whole damn section like my last deployment?"
The man's eyebrows rose, shaking his head as he began flipping through folders, eventually pulling one out while he spoke. "Oh no no no, we're going to be using you as, well, a spearhead. Iwa have gotten their teeth dug right in here, using old battlelines established during the previous wars to pick the optimal position to deploy. As such, we require a sledgehammer to smash their defences into disarray." He gestured a hand at her. "That's where you come in."
"So what, I pump out a hundred or so Shadow Clones, then go crash into their front lines while you guys slip around the flanks?" She didn't look down at the plan the man had pulled out, putting her own spin on things. Shigaraki nodded, pressing the paper forwards slightly to make her look at it.
She finally did so, but only after another moment of eye contact. "Not exactly..." Akari's eyes widened. This plan called for her to use fifty or so Shadow Clones, then use the Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu on a Kunai inscribed with the Hiraishin much like Minato did, the idea being that seeing a field littered with Hiraishin markers would actually send some of the Iwa-Jonin, many of whom were veterans of the Third War, into PTSD-induced flashbacks of Minato shredding their lines.
It would possibly galvanize some into a fury, but it was more likely to instil heavy morale damage against the enemy forces. Added to that Akari's presence with several dozen Shadow Clones, and the Iwa-nin would be shaken before they ever made contact. Then, even if Shigaraki didn't know it, she could add her new Title into the mix, making half the Iwa-Genin flee, as well as a good portion of Chunin, fewer still for Jonin. "Uhh, I just want to warn you, I can't use the Hiraishin consecutively, two uses makes me nauseous. I'm guessing it was a hidden Kekkei Genkai similar to the Jinton allowing Minato to move at-" She trailed off as she saw Shigaraki's deadpan look.
Lowering her gaze, Akari mumbled. "...Sorry."
Planting her chin on one hand, Akari resisted the urge to groan as she waited for her Chakra to come back.
After spending a few days warding off Iwa-nin attacks, she'd finally gotten herself a proper mission, one which involved...exactly what she was doing now, sitting in a tree pumping out Shadow Clones. Her team couldn't use the Jutsu, so they were back at the base.
Right now, the simple part of the plan was that she was going to remain sat right here, continually producing Shadow Clones, recovering her Chakra, then producing even more, since she'd been given lee-way on how many she produced, as long as she could do the job. Since she didn't reveal that she could refill her Chakra Coils in a measly four minutes, it was probably expected that she'd have at most a hundred and fifty Shadow Clones. She had many times that number already, and it just kept increasing.
The original plan that Shigaraki showed her was good, the only problem was that it relied on Iwa actually meeting them in a pitched battle. Apparently, word of her exploits in almost single-handedly holding Kumo back several times had reached Iwa, making them wary of attempting a proper attack. As such, a revision of the plan was made, again using her.
However, unlike the original plan, this one called for a direct assault on the main Iwa encampment. When the majority of the enemy forces were confirmed to have left the base on missions, that was when she was to strike. The main aim? Destruction. She was to level as much of the base as possible, burn supplies, tents, everything she could get her hands on.
This would seriously hamper Iwa's ability to defend themselves, leaving their throats wide-open to a quick second strike from Konoha, annihilating their center and giving them a straight shot onto Iwa's lands. Kumo would be far harder to pull this off with, as they had both Yu no Kuni and Shimo no Kuni between their border and Konoha. But there was only a narrow strip of Kusa no Kuni between Iwa and Konoha.
They would have a long, arduous fight ahead of them to reach Iwagakure and force a surrender, but hopefully they wouldn't suffer too much in the process.
Quest Received!
Hammered Dirt.
Objectives:
Destroy Iwagakure's main encampment.
Reward: 150,000 Experience
Hidden Objective:
?
The first warning Iwa had that something was wrong was a streak of flame in the night, crashing into a hastily-erected wall of dirt with an explosion of flame.
It came from the dense grass which was a staple of Kusa no Kuni, the clone which fired it completely concealed by greenery. Of course, that didn't stop a large repercussion strike of several Doton Jutsu's tearing the area up, forcing the clone to retreat or be crushed. As they counter-attacked that one clone, a second one popped up further to the side, firing her own Gokakyu no Jutsu, the strike again being blocked by a wall of earth.
This time the strike was more vicious, a large pair of walls snapping up like jaws from either side, crushing the singular clone before she could escape. As the Iwa-nin cheered at this strike, three more fireballs were hurled, one of which managed to slip past the defences and impact within the camp itself, lighting fires and beginning the process, even as Iwa-nin rushed to extinguish the fire and find the enemy.
With a loud whistle, half of Akari's clones stood up, each one finishing their hand seals at the same time and spitting out fireballs larger than the clones themselves. She had made enough clones to completely surround the Iwa-nin encampment several times over. As the fireballs flew through the air, many dirt walls slammed up in an attempt to stop the onslaught of flame, retaliatory strikes rending huge portions of the surrounding grasslands to barren.
Deciding to add her own spin on things, Akari borrowed a little Chakra from Kurama, flexing her arms as she pulled it through her coils, turning it crimson with her bizarre lightning nature, then merging it with her own Chakra, spinning it around in her body several times, all the while picturing a sphere she could throw. She poured more and more of her own Chakra into the Bijuu-fueled ball, expelling it from the Tenketsu in her hand, a thin sheet of Chakra containing what was practically an explosion of lightning.
Rakurai Bakudan no Jutsu (Lightning Strike Bomb) - An original Jutsu. This Jutsu compresses Lightning Chakra alongside Lightning-natured Bijuu Chakra, then expels it as a throwable orb, which will shatter upon impact. Variable cost Jutsu.
Tossing the little ball of death from one hand to the other, Akari tossed it upwards towards a clone, who snatched it and glared at her, as if asking why it had to choose her. "You were closest." Was her deadpan response as she shrugged, watching the clone growl at her before sprinting towards the Iwa encampment. To their credit, the sensors i nthe mix had picked up on the dangerous attack, re-directing as many iwa-nin as could be corralled into attacking the oncoming clone.
Her clone's response? Go faster. She activated Sharingan, kicking off at near-top speed to hurtle right up to the now-solid wall of earth surrounding the camp. With a middle finger aimed at Akari herself, she hurled the ball at the floor, being immediately engulfed. Wincing a little at the momentary flash of pain the clone experienced, Akari had to cover her eyes as the area was bathed in bright light, her Jutsu exploding with the force of, well, about ten-thousand points of Chakra.
Stray strands of Lightning from the attack had seared mile-long scores through the grass, several of her clones being flash-fried from random chance. The camp was definitely looking a hell of a lot worse though. The dirt wall had exploded, all the Iwa-nin inside a twenty-meter radius had been cooed from the inside-out, bursting in violent showers of blood as they boiled alive in an instant, their bodies being bloated with steam then detonating. Even those who survived weren't unscathed, many had been hit by the lightning strikes and suffered livid Lichtenberg marks across their flesh.
Nonchalantly waving her arm, Akari sent her clones forwards, each one equipped with a pair of Kunai as they swarmed the camp, a frown on her lips. This wasn't fun. Stomping over her enemies by using a thousand Shadow Clones or by pulling Minato, Hashirama and Tobirama out for every fight was not what she ever wanted to do. She wanted to have fun in this life, not just steamroll everything in existence.
Akari watched as her clones butchered their way through the shattered Iwa-nin lines, several fleeing in terror when they realized who was fighting. She'd equipped her Crimson Flash title for this battle, but since they didn't know it was her they were fighting, the chance to flee effect hadn't proceed, not until her clones got close enough to identify.
Approaching the camp, Akari walked up the side of the earth-wall barricade they'd erected, tempered using her flames, then sat down on top of the wall peering into the camp as her clones worked their way through killing everything they got their hands on. At the very least this would give her a dump-truck worth of experience. She didn't know what her hidden objective was though, so she tried a few things like using one of each Jutsu, firing them at random into the camp. She also made sure to get a few kills herself, her knives seeing play as she swept past a few Nin who tried to surrender, leaving them with their throats slit. When she saw the notification for a completely quest pop up and read through it, she knew everyone in the camp had been defeated.
Quest Received!
Hammered Dirt.
Objectives:
Destroy Iwagakure's main encampment.
Reward: 150,000 Experience
Hidden Objective:
Kill every Nin in the camp without aid from other Nin - Completed.
Reward - +5 to All Stats, 100,000 experience.
Experienced Gained from Kills: 2,373,950
"Son of a bitch, I just got my stats neatened up as well..."
Returning to the camp, Akari was met with...fear.
Apparently, the Hyuuga who were around had been relaying the entire battle not just to Shigaraki, but also to the other nin in the camp. As such, they each knew exactly what she'd achieved, killing hundreds of enemy nin whilst barely lifting a finger herself, letting her Shadow Clones do the work for her. Maybe this would cement her status in their eyes as some kind of demon, at least for the nin who had no positive to level things out.
The Konoha nin mostly knew her because of her work on the Golan-seals, as well as the fact she single-handedly saved the village from extreme devastation by using Megami no Mon, but the Kusa-nin certainly didn't have reason to see her as anything different from what other Jinchuriki were regarded as, thinly-disguised demons living amongst them, dogs for their villages to send out on attacks.
Akari re-equipped her Sannin-slayer title, just in case it somehow procked an encounter while she was here, ignoring the staring masses as she picked her team out of the mix of nin going to and fro. They'd apparently been repurposed for menial labor, hauling things across the camp. Right now Aiko and Tachiko were wrestling over who was going to carry what, while Hikaru was just getting on and carrying things.
Dropping in, Akari planted her hands on her two wayward Genin's heads, making them freeze up in surprise. "S-sensei? Y-you're back early!" AIko tried to worm out of the fact he'd just been about to snatch a bag of...whatever that stuff was and dump it on Tachiko.
Swatting his head, she let go of them both. "I know you two are only like 14 or whatever, but, well, where's your teammate?" When they looked around in surprise for the absent Hikaru, she sighed. "He's getting on and working, while you two were too busy arguing to do the same. How about this, split it all into thirds." Denoting portions of the pile they'd been tasked to move, Akari pointed at one section. "This is Hikaru's. Then this-" She pointed at the middle one. "-is Tachiko's, and that one is Aiko's. Before you say anything, yes, Hikaru's has more things. However, his are much lighter to move. Enjoy."
Leaving her team to the work they'd been assigned, Akari quickly checked the time. Still a long time to go before she had to really do anything, so she slipped across the camp towards the medical area, removing her forearm guards into her inventory then quickly cleaning herself off as well as she was able to. Passing through the flap into the largest tent, she scanned up and down the beds that had been set up for injured nin, counting wounds, judging the level of treatment, generally getting a feel for the medical situation.
She spotted the Iryo-nin in charge of the tent, quickly walking over though made sure she stepped loudly enough to announce her presence, something she actively had to do now thanks to her Agility making her move quieter by default. "Hey, you guys need any help here?" Despite her loud footsteps, she still somehow managed to surprise the Iryo-nin, making them almost drop their clipboard as they spun around. "Woah there!" She quickly snatched the board before the paper could get dirty touching the ground, passing it back with a grin. "Sorry about that."
The Iryo-nin nudged his glasses, taking the clipboard from her carefully. "I-it's fine. Are you a certified medic then?" Shrugging, Akari tried to remember ever actually getting an Iryo-nin certification. She'd had a pretty unorthodox introduction to actually being an Iryo-nin, basically leaping straight into the midst of things in the middle of the Third Shinobi War, so when actually thinking about it, she never actually got any kind of official certification.
"Well, not officially, no." As he opened his mouth to rebut her, she continued on. "Though considering people call me the Crimson Medic, maybe they got the wrong idea, thinking I heal people by making them bleed or something." She nonchalantly shrugged again, watching the young Iryo-nin argue with himself for a moment as he tried to get his bearings again, his mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish.
He probably had an idea that she was just a regular combat-nin looking for something to do like menial work, dumping waste or something. She'd tried to clean herself up, but her vest still had some scuffs and burnt patches from being too close to Katon Jutsu that were being launched. "Y-you're the Crimson Medic?!"
"Well, I know they call me other stuff now like Sannin-slayer, Crimson Flash, but yeah, I'm also the Crimson Medic. Guess you've heard of...me? Hang on a sec, those glasses...are you by chance a friend of Nono Yakushi's? She wears the exact same glasses." The boy nudged his glasses again, probably a nervous tic.
"S-she's my mother...adoptive mother, that is. How do you know her?" Waving an arm around, Akari found her gaze attracted to one wounded nin, his arm was festering a little. "Oh, that? Apparently an Iwa-nin was using some kind of venom extracted from a rare Chakra Beast, one whose venom the Poison Extraction Jutsu doesn't work on. It doesn't seem to spread too quickly though."
Rolling her neck, she stared at the boy. "Did you think about extracting the venom manually, or simply debriding the area? Just because it resists a Jutsu doesn't mean extracting it can't be done more manually." As she spoke, she approached the wounded man, kneeling down and wreathing her hands in Chakra Scalpels, a Jutsu she hadn't used since she was eleven, maybe twelve.
She then face-faulted, cutting the flow to one hand before withdrawing a needle from her inventory, leaning back to look at Nono's adopted son. "Hey, do you know if this guy has any allergies to this anaesthetic, or if the venom will have a negative reaction?" He shook his head in the negative. "Good." She immediately jabbed the syringe into his body, pushing the anaesthetic into his body then retracting it, pressing a little gauze against the hole her needle made even as she dumped the now-empty syringe into her inventory.
With a shallow sigh, Akari got to work, quickly slicing away all of the festering flesh, then debriding a little further to ensure any still-afflicted flesh was also removed, all while the boy, Kabuto he revealed during her impromptu operation, watched on, even taking notes at one point as she worked. Slicing one final portion of flesh from his arm, Akari dumped it into the repurposed dispensary she'd dragged beneath her, using a brief Suiton Jutsu to create a few bullets worth of water from which to wash off her hands of blood.
"Right, now all that's left is to, well..." She then cast the Mystical Palm Jutsu, healing as much of his arm as she could, eventually managing to grow back all the way to his wrist, stopping just before his scaphoid and lunate bones in the wrist. She couldn't rebuild his hand, her Game classed it as a crippled state after all. If she had a hand to graft into place, much like she had with her own hand after losing it, then maybe, but as it was, all she could do was make his life as easy as possible. He'd lost his left hand, which if he was right-handed meant he could possibly keep being a Shinobi, but it was more likely this was the end of his career.
Standing up, Akari pressed her hands up, cracking her back in several places and yawning. "So, whose next?" She turned to face Kabuto, only to see his eyes practically twinkling as he scribbled in his notebook. "Uhh, Yakushi-san?" She inquired, actually using the correct...ish honorifics and way to address someone, only to be ignored, or perhaps simply unheard, by the very distracted Iryo-nin. Shrugging, Akari moved onto the next bed, wincing at the sight of the Kusa-nin's wounds.
"Yeesh, even for me that's a nasty one."
I have a really bad habit of not listening to my own instructions.
It's 19:17pm on Friday as of writing this. As in, it's already done just over two hours after I said I would start writing again. oh well, means I've got all day tomorrow to relax...who am I kidding, I just can't seem to stop myself.
Oh well, hope you enjoyed. Akari explained a few reasons of her own as to why she doesn't just wipe the world out using Shadow Clones, because it's a Game! She wants to have fun, not just curbstomp everything. Granted, she's plenty strong enough to do so, but she only uses her proper strength if she has to, otherwise she just relies on physical abilities, she prefers them.
She got that experience thanks to the fact there were lots of Jonin and Chunin, and fewer Genin. Since it all actively counts as her kills, she didn't get it halved either. Don't forget, she just wiped out one of Iwagakure's main encampments. Gives you a picture of how strong she is if she puts the effort in, huh?
Now, I'm pretty sure I made a small error calculating her experience. I know though that I'm probably only a few thousand off at most, so...I really can't be bothered to fix it. That's me being entirely honest. if you want to take the time to work out exactly what it should be, be my guest, I'd be happy to know how much I'm off-target!
Take care boos!
Name: Akari Uchiha
Level: 143
Age: 17?
Experience: 106,888/143,000
To Next Level: 36,112
Title: Sannin-slayer - Defeating one of the three legendary sannin is no easy feat, but you managed it. Future opportunities unlocked.
Secondary Title: Jonin - +25% Experience gained working with Genin
Health Points: 36,625 - (100 Base + (Vit x End)) x 5
Regeneration Rate - 7225/m - 120.41/s - Vit x End - Halted when afflicted with bleed status.
Chakra Points: 45,625 - (100 Base + (Int x Wis)) x 5
Regeneration Rate - 9025/m - 150.41/s - Int x Wis - Halted when continuous chakra drain Jutsu in use.
Strength - 85
Vitality - 85
Endurance - 85
Intelligence - 95
Agility - 305
Wisdom - 95
Luck - 85
165 Skill Points Available