Chapter 24: Caged Birds
"Learning defense improves the attack. If the lion knows how the prey can escape, it'll capture it in a much more precise way."
-Rillion Gracie
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Naruto Uzumaki
When the instructors explained the rules of the Joint Preparatory Exercise, Naruto knew that control, a word that was heavily stressed for emphasis, would mean that no truly lethal actions would be taken against each other. The implication being that your career as a shinobi would be short-lived; especially in a place that valued teamwork so highly. Naruto had enough control, for example, not to kill someone with his blades- or Satsuki with her techniques, but that very concept, of control, was at play and being tested. It took a lot to kill someone with chakra running through their bodies anyway, but it wasn't impossible.
As Naruto blocked yet another kick aimed at taking his head off, he imagined that Rock Lee hadn't gotten the memo.
The two of them danced through the woods, arms and legs moving in blocks and strikes like the complicated rituals of two sea creatures undulating through the water.
Two creatures attempting to kill each other, that is.
Naruto felt the force of the fist as it passed by his nose. He twisted away from it as Rock Lee spun into a handstand whirlwind kick that Naruto batted away with the backs of his fists. Each movement of his opponent chained into the next in a seamless wave of attacks. Naruto hadn't used his Lightning Mark yet, but he might have to if this bullshit kept up. Ducking, dodging, and blocking only if he had to, the blonde searched for an opening.
He couldn't find one.
The sounds of the other fights; Neji doing his level best to kill Shikamaru, Satsuki attempting to beat the shit out of the Nara's cousin, faded in the background. Now, there was only the sound of splintering wood as Rock Lee's fist exploded through the side of a massive oak tree hunting for his face.
The blow wasn't enough to detonate the whole tree, like Tsunade, but it was also not an attack he wanted to receive in any way.
So he dodged. Again.
Blocking kicks and punches with the flat of his blades was hard and maiming one's comrades looks bad, or so he'd been told over and over again.
Flowing around the vicious elbow that chained into a roundhouse from the right, Naruto tucked his body into a handstand and lashed out, timing it to connect with the bright-green kid.
So fast Naruto heard joints creak, Rock Lee took the kick on suddenly crossed arms.
The chakra he added to enforce the kick broke his guard and launched the bodysuit guy, but not nearly far enough for some true breathing room.
Only five feet.
Then Rock Lee straightened, giving him a blinding smile with teeth so white they almost reflected his image.
"You are a slippery one, Naruto Uzumaki. You have quite the kick!"
[A pity you cannot kill this one, Se- Naruto.]
Internally, Naruto was rolling his eyes.
Maybe someday he'd find the bloodthirstiness of Kaguya endearing.
A loud slamming noise, metal on metal, broke the stillness of the forest and birds flew up all at once, a cacophony of feathers and squawks.
[That was the signal.]
[Yes, they are making a play for the flag. Choji is most definitely outnumbered, but we don't have a role there.]
[A pity. Battle is the truest path to advancement.]
Naruto opened his mouth to reply. Rock Lee's face hardened as he heard the sound. Alarm bells started to ring in his head. Lee knew what that signal meant. He was suddenly sure of it. The ridiculous-looking trainee just looked stupid, but was, in fact, not.
In a flash, Naruto sheathed his swords and prepared to go into overdrive. Rock Lee's punch came at his head so fast Naruto almost couldn't track it and he almost missed his cue.
The punch wasn't faster than thought though.
Since having his chakra system fixed from the shattered mess of tangled and blocked channels that it had been after the Nine-tailed Fox ripped itself out of him, Naruto was terrified about using the Mark.
The Lightning Mark had been an escalating nightmare of agony before. Pain like long knives sliding into his veins, his chakra system, his eyes, and it had plagued him in ever-increasing amounts. At first, it was a little bit as the chakra itself slipped out of his control and ravaged his body, but then…
Naruto honestly didn't know how he'd ever functioned with the sheer mind-ripping torture the Lightning Mark had been when sparring with Shizune.
But now?
His renewed system and coils pumped beautiful rivers of soothing chakra where he directed. The one thing he hadn't done since the Fix, as he was calling it, was test the full extent of his Lightning Mark.
Satsuki deflected the hit from Lee. Naruto had a split-second to feel disappointed he wouldn't get to try it out, before his rational brain kicked in and he disengaged.
Her bones didn't creak like Naruto's did when hit by Rock Lee, nor did she seem to be in any pain. The Uzumaki certainly had been.
She's definitely doing something sneaky with that Earth chakra!
He barely heard her yelling at him to switch out and that Ren was down.
Holy shit that was fast!
Rock Lee watched them both, having backed off the instant that Satsuki intercepted the hit. Rather than frustration painting his face, he looked… oddly pleased?
"Oh what a beautiful flower I've been confronted with! You must be the incomparable Satsuki Uchiha! To cross each other in combat is the truest form of friendship- so, let's be friends!"
Naruto, too baffled to even spare any sympathy for Satsuki, rushed off to the next stage of their plan. This hadn't been perfect, but they could still proceed. If only he could get to Shikamaru.
[Ware!] The mental shout from Kaguya was the only warning he'd had as Rock Lee wasn't remotely done with him.
"Leaving in the middle of a fight isn't youthful, young Naruto! Let me instruct you both!"
Turning, Naruto saw Satsuki launching a punch at the same time he did. Naruto went low, she went high.
Rock Lee, in a whirlwind, spun into an impossible tornado kick that blocked both of them and struck back. Satsuki flew backwards and landed awkwardly in a half-crouch, Naruto on the flat of his back.
[Thanks for the warning...]
[Pay better attention!]
Not sparing another thought, he gave Satsuki a significant look and fled into the trees. There was an eruption of flame and heat that signified the Uchiha was done playing around.
Scrambling, feeling like a coward running from battle, Naruto strained to reach Shikamaru in the next clearing. If anyone could defeat that monstrous weirdo with a bowl-cut in taijutsu, it was the Uchiha.
Hold on Shikamaru, I'm coming!
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Choji Akimichi
Knowing that he wasn't supposed to be killing anybody, Choji did his level best to avoid trampling anyone.
That wasn't easy when he felt like the boar during a Hunt.
Class 3R spread out around him in a rough circle, switching to long spears taken out of sealing scrolls. If he had to guess, Choji thought that Ren and Rei had prepared very well for an encounter with an Unveiled Akimichi.
No doubt his cousin gave them all the information they needed to fight one of them effectively. Their teamwork alone was off-the-charts professional, a requirement when hunting an Akimichi.
The way they hemmed him in with concentrated bursts of stabbing spear tips told him that much, interspersed with elemental jutsu. Though they didn't draw any blood off his armored hide, this was merely a matter of playing for time. Choji honestly didn't think that was the point of what they were doing.
No, the real problem was his cousin, Ryu.
Choji was a twenty-foot tall armored giant; Ryu was fourteen feet and equally armored. The heir to the Akimichi was stronger and bigger, in his Unveiled form at least- but still susceptible to jutsu and clumsier than his cousin in his movements.
This was only the fourth time in his life that he had spent this much time Unveiled.
That difference showed.
Fire from a spat technique hit him in the back, over and over again as he attempted to cut through their circle, disrupting their formation.
When had they gotten shields?
With a sinking feeling in his gut, Choji realized there were new figures behind the circle-wall. Tenten Higurashi, previously supposed to be downed, was there with Gyuso, Kirito, and all the others that were supposed to be taken out!
No, was there any prohibition against reviving downed teammates?
Surely Shikamaru planned for that?
The flag trembled beneath his huge feet, small and vulnerable- like their chances for victory now. Choji couldn't defeat all of these people by himself. Even now he felt the huge nin-dog of Hamura snapping at his hamstrings, not grabbing purchase against his plate armor.
With a mighty swing, but not too mighty, he swatted at the dog.
Growling, it jumped back and someone else raked him with a spear.
Despair grew as the tip sliced through his armor. Chakra metal!
That had to be Tenten.
Ryu's fist connected with his chest and steel-on-steel exploded, sound crashing around the clearing in a waterfall of noise. Choji felt himself stumble, off-balance.
Like wolves catching a scent, they all pounced, spears stabbing in, shields closing around him.
Choji had enough.
His answering roar hit them like a physical blow. He followed up, muscles bulging and chakra surging as he hit Ryu as hard as he could in the chest with the flat of his tower shield. The broad expanse of steel just on its own was half the size of his cousin.
Class 3R scattered as Ryu flew backwards, felling trees at the edges of the clearing in a line that stretched another forty feet. Glaring through the slits of his helm, character for dreadnought prominent, everyone took a step back in fear.
With another roar, Choji dropped his warhammer amongst the ants trailing near his leg. Ignoring the titanic crash and the scrambling of his opponents to get out of the way, the hand of the clan heir of the Akimichi closed around the nearest person, careful not to immediately crush them.
Gyuso didn't look scared. That was odd.
A strange drowsiness overtook him and Choji felt himself, twenty-feet tall, swaying. His control slipped. Fingers contorted and blood sprayed in the air. The Yamanaka squished out in a droopy mess and it was all Choji could do not to vomit all over the ground.
No! No! No!
Horror overwhelmed him until he felt a thundering pain in his temple. Pain lanced through his head and suddenly there was nothing in his hands, no mess, no blood, no dead Yamanaka.
Just pain. And the sky, as he stared up at dark clouds rolling in quickly.
Rain came in huge pooling sheets.
Choji took his bearings quickly because he knew he was still in combat, that much was true, but what had happened? He was flat on his back staring at the sky. Someone had hit him so hard he'd hit the ground kneeling, and then hit him again which dropped him.
Another impact made it hard to breathe as his breastplate dented in, screaming penetrating his helm and the ringing in his ears. Someone was hitting him.
Hard.
Were they trying to kill him?
No, that was against the rules right?
Deep inside himself, Choji knew that death came to downed shinobi, so he had to stand up, absolutely had to, or he'd let his whole class down, and let Shikamaru down worst of all.
The worst headache in his whole life crashed over him, almost blacking him out, but he held on and knelt, catching the next blow on his vambraces. Choji's mind cleared enough to realize it was the girl with the iron ball-topped staff: Fay Tan.
Everyone else was hitting him too, but she was the only one dealing damage beside Tenten with her chakra metal spear. Bludgeoning damage with sufficient force could make the integrity of his armor fail. That was unacceptable.
The Yamanaka… they'd used genjutsu? Had to be.
But all of a sudden his body stopped responding to his commands half-way to his feet where he was stuck in a half-crouch.
"Mind-transfer Technique Complete."
Gyuso was speaking...out of Choji's mouth.
Screaming in his own body, spiritual fists pounding against the iron bars that held him, Choji fought against Gyuso's control.
He failed.
Rei stepped up, an above-average beauty with an extremely punchable face, Choji had always thought. Shadows burst upwards like hands from graves, spinning and piercing his body, immobilizing him.
"Shadow Sewing Technique."
Choji couldn't even scream. Rain drowned them all as thunder crashed in the sky.
Watching like he could still do something, Choji stared at the upraised warhammer of his cousin's and kept watching as it descended towards his face and he knew no more.
His last thought: well, I tried to hold them as long as I could.
That part was done. Now for the next.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Ren Nara
Ren knew that this would be the hardest battle they'd faced yet as a class. Shikamaru was hailed as one of the greatest tactical geniuses in their clan for a reason.
Ren also knew that his sister had been building a model of his strategies and behavior for the last five years, ever since her first loss against him. She was careful to hide the maneuvered losses from the Heir. He was keen and would spot the inconsistencies if she lost too easily. Every time, she learned something new. She'd done her utmost to obfuscate victories, even amongst the outer clan disciples and cousins so as to prevent any counter-modelling.
Thus, Ren and Rei were very often underestimated. But they held back, only winning enough in clan-based challenges to put them in the middle of the pack.
That was the way the two of them, Rei and Ren Nara, had always operated: slow, methodical, inexorable, and steady. This game they'd played out across Training Ground 56 with Shikamaru was different: a game of Shogi where they had no intention of holding back.
Rei and Ren were going to win this time. Boldly, explosively, and so complete and total that the rankings in the Nara clan were going to collapse.
In the end, there might even be a new clan heir...
Their opening gambits played out roughly as they expected, with minimal deviances detected, or if there was, they were within proper variance.
Except for the bit with Satsuki and that wild Uzumaki.
Kirito was right behind Lee and Neji for combat strength and he'd gone down with resistance that didn't match the modelling. That was most assuredly not in the plan, nor was the explosive technique that the Uchiha girl had used to decimate their flag location. Himself and his sister were supposed to have defended the flag successfully, but fell to a 'calculated' weakness.
Satsuki had changed that.
To have been forced to retreat, galled them both.
However, now they were in a different stage and Ren had received instructions on how to adapt. So, he was here, hunting through the forest for a Yamanaka.
Not ideal.
The saving grace from this excruciating detour was that his entire vanguard, plus the first round casualties by now- here he checked the position of the sun to ascertain what time it was- yes, they should have been awake and pushing to surround the enemy flag location.
Akimichi were notoriously difficult to put down, but he was certain that the teamwork between the Nara, Akimichi, and Yamanaka of 3R would be enough to deal with one clan heir and not a particularly talented one at that.
So, that left the majority of their class doing… something.
Rei theorized that there would be a larger clash towards the end of the third part of both plans as Shikamaru would maneuver both teams towards open battle and close combat in particular.
That would not favor his team. Ren didn't understand why he would do that and told Rei so in clipped sentences. His sister, the darling girl that she was, often lost her patience if he didn't follow her lead. How many steps ahead was she predicting?
Ren believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that his sister hadn't planned far enough ahead.
But Ren knew he had and was shifting their plan accordingly.
Forgiveness was often better than permission, in some cases.
Rei claimed that the clan heir's plan involved some kind of suicidal maneuver to show combat aptitude for all of his classmates whilst sacrificing himself so the Uchiha or the Uzumaki could neutralize their King-piece: Neji. But they hadn't calculated on Rock Lee's increased level of importance in their schemes, nor Rei or Ren's willingness to move personally.
What kind of suicidal move would he plan on using that could catch everyone?
Ren had a few ideas.
And how could they neutralize Neji without losing a pawn of their own?
No, Ren believed it was a smoke screen for the real play: the pitched battle. His sister didn't agree and as she was captain, it was his duty to obey.
But, like he'd said, Ren had always believed in asking forgiveness instead of permission.
His quarry was ahead of him, crouched behind a tree looking over her shoulder. Luckily, that was the opposite direction from where he ghosted through the trees. Tracking and stealth was a passion project for him and he'd only gotten better at it over time until he rivaled his friend Hamura Inuzuka.
Spotting Ino Yamanaka's shadow stretched out behind her like a flag, Ren whispered her defeat.
"Shadow Technique: Suffocating Darkness."
A muscular arm of darkness reached out of the ground like a venus fly-trap snapping on a fly, clamping down around Ino's neck and squeezing.
The short Nara savored the look of horrified surprise on her face, eyes bulging and face purpling.
Ren knew the exact pounds per square inch to cause unconsciousness, instead of death, and controlled the Suffocating Darkness technique with intense concentration: Four point four pounds per square inch for ten to thirty seconds.
Just to be safe, he counted out precisely eleven seconds.
Ino's eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.
The girl slumped against the tree and his darkness disappeared. Ren checked her pulse, taking his time: steady. No room for error here. Grabbing the flag, he took off and prepared to reinforce his team and claim victory and their new mantle as the clan's true prodigies.
Ren smiled and put on speed.
The look on Shikamaru's face, like Ino's, would be such a sweet thing.
Overhead, dark clouds gathered.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Shikamaru Nara
The glowing fingertips of Neji Hyuuga made contact with the armored gloom around his chest and broke it, saving him, but so too did the deep shadows disperse like mist around the stiffened fingers of Neji Hyuuga.
Bruising was already forming underneath his shattered technique.
He could feel it as an ache in his chest. Better than a burst heart, he mused. Neji might have pulled the punch at the last second, but rage can do funny things to people.
Together they wove in a dance of taijutsu where Shikamaru immediately understood he was sorely outclassed in every way like a newborn competing in a dance competition with a trained professional. The absurdity was obvious in the asking.
Iruka, when confronted by his students, claimed that stupidity, recklessness, and carelessness- most often one and the same- could be the downfall of any great shinobi. The vagaries of fate could claim an S-rank monster the same as a Genin could slip on a banana peel and break his own neck. That was what his instructor would have them believe.
How was that preparing them for the real world?
Or was the concept of hope in the face of overwhelming odds the lesson here?
Whether it was or not, Shikamaru determined that he didn't care what fate had in store for any of them because Naruto was right, though he'd never admit it: power was the lever that turned the world.
Neji had a certain sort, the physical kind of power, over Shikamaru.
Shikamaru would show him a few of the other kinds.
He did his best to keep up with the furious Hyuuga, watching the veins pulse at the temples of the white-eyed prodigy, careful to block only insofar as to avoid getting any truly debilitating blockages in his chakra system. The Gentle Fist was known as one of the most deceptively dangerous and unassuming taijutsu's styles in the world. Difficult to outright defeat, Shikamaru knew his saving grace was the term, 'good enough.'
Perfect was the enemy of progress, as his father said. Plans couldn't be perfect- so you might have to settle. Coming out alive and without severe blockages would be 'good enough.'
So he took some hits to keep fighting, but then he started speaking.
"You know Neji, I'm a rather ardent admirer of yours," his breath huffed out as he ducked and spun, letting a brief touch hit only the pads of his thickly-padded vest.
Neji, angry, but focused, didn't respond.
"You are, without a doubt, a candidate deserving of the number one ranked spot in the KSMA. Especially given your-"
Block. Riposte. Try not to get his head taken off by glowing fingers.
"-infamous reputation as the son of that psycho Hizashi. Surely there was no favoritism held in their decision to uplift the seed of a traitor?"
Shikamaru had to stop and start when speaking in between attempting not to die at the hands of the person he was taunting.
"But then again… that's why you talk a lot about Fate isn't it? You know that they'll never see you as anything other than the Traitor's Son. Only fit to be a Branch member or to, preferably, die in combat? Save them the trouble? So much potential-"
Here Shikamaru couldn't avoid his left arm becoming numb from the elbow down. That was problematic, though not impossible to work around. He couldn't work this much longer.
Naruto would, hopefully, be on his way now.
The Nara clan heir pushed chakra frantically into his feet, launching himself backwards in a spring jump that saw him twenty feet higher on a branch, staring down at the heaving Neji.
"-yet, they locked you with the Caged Bird Seal, didn't they? Some Fate they gave you, the greatest Hyuuga of your generation- a potential greater than the current Main Branch heir, right? That's what gets you doesn't it? Makes you bitter that poor stuttering Hayato-"
Here he gave a silent prayer to Hayato to forgive him for speaking lies like this: for the greater good of the group.
"Poor stuttering Hayato is infinitely better off, but a far worse shinobi?"
Shikamaru forced an easy grin. Talking about Hayato like that made him angry, but he tried to act like it didn't.
"-Fate isn't kind, is it Neji? What did your father do anyway, part his hair the wrong way? Oh that's right… he attempted to break the Caged Bird seal on the Branch family and got murdered for it."
Shikamaru could almost see the heat coming off Neji in waves. Finally, the top student of the KSMA took a deep breath, looking up at Shikamaru more calmly than a moment ago.
"My father… my father had the gall to question the Hyuuga way of life. That was all. He couldn't accept his fate, such as it was, and thus went mad with the knowledge. The Caged Bird seal cannot be broken, just like Fate cannot be changed. I?"
Neji set himself, his robes blasted with the wind of his sudden acceleration from the leap that saw him within inches of Shikamaru, whose eyes widened in terror.
This time there were no glowing fingers.
Neji's fist came raining down on his upraised and crossed arms, Shikamaru blocking just in time, though not fast enough to prevent the sheer kinetic power to rocket him through the branch and slamming into the ground at speeds that he was sure if he hadn't slowed himself a fraction of an inch with shadows wrapping out around some trees, that his back would've been, at the very least, broken. As it stood, his shadows shattered the second he hit the ground.
Neji came crashing down into him later and this time there was nothing he could do to prevent damage as blood sprayed out of his mouth, the Hyuuga's scarily calm face inches from his.
Shikamaru felt the hotness of the whisper as Neji spoke. Terror trilled in the Nara's veins such as he hadn't felt since that night with the ANBU. Neji was going to kill him, he was suddenly sure of it. Neji finished his sentence.
"I am perfectly comfortable in my superiority to the likes of you."
Accidents happened, right?
Then he felt more than heard the signal he was hoping for and knew what it meant. A crash in the distance.
Neji's fist drew back above the barely-able-to-move Shikamaru, fingers extending, his hand forming into a knife, all fingers glowing brightly.
"Neji."
The Nara had an edge of desperation in his voice.
Flatter and icier than a cold winter pond, Neji spoke.
"Trash doesn't get to speak."
"Wait- but, can I ask you one last question?"
The rage had disappeared from Neji's face, yes, but the blankness was worse, so Shikamaru spoke quickly.
"Speak."
"Okay, okay."
He paused for dramatic effect. To eek out that last second.
"How comfortable are you in your superiority over him though?"
Neji looked up, eyes sharp. The blank canvas of eyes that was the Hyuuga trademark widened.
And the foot of a faintly glowing Naruto Uzumaki crashed into him with all the force he could muster. One second Shikamaru was staring at the enraged Hyuuga from below, the next Neji was gone, blasted backwards by the titanic hammerblow of a kick.
Naruto landed lightly, staring down at Shikamaru and spoke in a growling tone.
"Eat shit, Hyuuga."
And Shikamaru started to laugh.
"Took your fucking time, Uzumaki."
"Shut up."
Naruto grinned and offered him his hand. Shikamaru took it.
Levering the lanky Captain of 5U to his feet, the two of them stood with clasped hands and watched as the dust cleared around an unfortunately unharmed Neji thirty feet away, brushing his robes off.
Shikamaru looked at Naruto, taking in his battered appearance. He didn't look as bad as he should for someone that fought multiple opponents. By all rights, he should be low on chakra and suffering from the pile-up of minor injuries.
Green light, in the form of rings of script, fuzzed into existence around Naruto's wrists and then his hands were healing the various scrapes and bruises and deeper wounds on Shikamaru.
Goggling at the constant surprise that was Naruto, he kicked himself mentally for not remembering that he could do that.
"Thanks, though you should save your energy."
Naruto just looked at Shikamaru like he was confused. That fact was something the Nara filed away.
Shikamaru waved his sentence away.
"Just like we talked about, okay?"
Naruto nodded. The Nara jumped away and it was just in time.
An enraged Hyuuga charged at them.
Overhead the clouds started darkening.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Naruto Uzumaki
There was no time to spare as the enemy his whole class was absolutely terrified of came at him full-force.
Minute adjustments of his body, martial artist robes fluttering, saw him safe from the dozens of blows that came faster than Naruto had ever expected in his worst projections of how this fight would go.
Seiryu was fast- but astonishment came when he realized that monster was slower than Neji.
The closest analogue was a notch higher than Satsuki and definitely less brutal than that fuck-face Raiga Kurosaki.
The horror came in realizing how narrow a gap it was.
Neji dictated the entire fight from minute one as Naruto knew he couldn't maintain the precision in this fast of a fight to use his blades without killing Neji. Forced to put them away, he wasn't very confident of his ability to win this fight.
That wasn't the objective here, however, which was a good thing.
A thought occurred to Naruto just in time. They traded blows, a high-cross punch meeting his hardened block. The glow around Neji's fingers, the deadly Gentle Fist, shut down his tenketsu around his shoulders and elbow. A pained smile crossed Naruto's face as his Control Seals activated and he quickly ran healing chakra through the closed tenketsu in a painful popping sensation, reactivating them.
This was how he was going to win this fight. Sheer fucking endurance.
The two skidded back from one another.
"Naruto Uzumaki."
Neji's voice was flat.
"Neji Hyuuga."
Naruto gave it right back.
"Your Captain seems to think you can defeat me. But I remember you- you ran to get a teacher when the rest of your comrades engaged me in combat. That is rank cowardice in my estimation. Your Fate is to lose here to a superior opponent."
For a moment, wind whipped through the clearing, the weather darkening with pregnant clouds. The climate report that Shikamaru obtained was accurate. Perfect. Naruto weighed his response- or lack thereof.
"Whether I can or not is irrelevant. The question is can you afford to fight me when the rest of your team is in quite a bit of trouble."
The heavy clash of spears and shields and squealing of iron-on-iron echoed to them distantly. Battle had very specific sounds.
Neji didn't seem to care, his long hair whipping with the upturned wind. His lavender and white robes contrasted sharply with Naruto's dark ones, like his robe was thoroughly stained with ink.
"They can handle themselves. I have avoided using techniques thus far because I don't want this to be too easy, nor can I be sure I won't kill someone."
Naruto snorted.
Nothing pissed him off more than being underestimated.
"Then shut the fuck up and fight me, asshole!"
Then Neji really came after him.
For the first time, at seven years of age, Naruto got to watch his grandfather, Mifune, Shogun of Iron, really fight. Naruto would never, ever forget the sight. Mifune fought like he could see opponents moves ahead of time, sliding his sword gracefully into position with lightning-quick flicks that were so efficient he barely moved himself. The control, precision, and speed required to absolutely dismantle an opponent before they were able to muster anything resembling an offence was truly awe-inspiring.
When Naruto was six, Mifune took him to the opening of an art gallery in Musashi City. There they'd spent an evening slowly drifting from painting to painting trying to figure out what art was, or at least Naruto had. But he'd been fascinated when his grandfather dragged him over to his favorite: a piece by Segiro Takanaka entitled, 'rainstorm.'
The piece was layered paint; an infinite escher-like maze of every shade of whites, blues, greys, and blacks one could imagine. The effect of the techniques used in it's creation looked like staring through a pane of glass out into an ethereal, rainy world. Slashes of color blended and moved, and with the flickering of torchlight, it gave the painting a three-dimensional effect.
When Naruto watched his grandfather fight, his blade invisible, Naruto thought longingly of Segiro Takanaka's, 'rainstorm.' Invisible and ever-present, the blade acted seemingly of its own accord. His opponent, a Lightning Country Shinobi of some renown, couldn't use a single hand seal and was defeated in what seemed like moments, cut in a hundred different places, seemingly all at once: a storm of blades borne from one.
Neji fought like that- but with his fists.
It was all Naruto could do to slip between the blows and what he couldn't, he took and re-opened the tenketsu a precious moment later. With his swords and the ability to kill, this might have been a different battle: without that, and just his fists and nothing else, only Satsuki might have been able to match Neji.
This was an unsustainable gauntlet.
Naruto knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that in a real fight this would be much different, the blades being a force equalizer, but the sheer idiocy of Shikamaru's plan required Naruto to meet him, fist to fist, until a predetermined moment.
His breathing deepened as he struggled to keep up with the sheer speed of Neji's arms; in response, Naruto used the barest minimum of movement required to reposition his arms in spinning blocks, or dodges, minute movements of his head to avoid outright brain death.
He knew he was waiting for the big move.
Naruto knew his trump card lay in wait, just sitting there, and if he reached out… Neji was dead. Not literally, he thought fleetingly, but defeated.
But not yet. It wasn't time.
That was up to Neji.
Deciding to up the ante, Naruto swept a double-handed blow aside, taking multiple hits in order to land a punch on Neji's stomach that brought him up short coughing.
In the fading light, Neji could probably barely see the Aegis Technique flash black and white, a palm-sized circle of Forged script in front of his knuckles adding to his hit. The sigil for 'Force' screamed itself to any sight that could read it.
Neji, as far as Naruto was aware, could not.
The Forged script broke immediately, his control of it limited and poor in duration and strength, as his control of the Aegis wasn't perfect.
The short blow hit with the force of an autobus, however, lifting the kid and throwing him back. Naruto tried to keep standing in a way that told a story to Neji.
The story was this: He wasn't going down quickly, if at all.
But the truth was far different.
Neji was strong and his offense was almost perfect. Naruto could afford to take so many hits that other people simply could not. Any other opponent would be dead so many times over it wasn't funny.
Which was why Shikamaru required Naruto to do this part.
Well, both parts really.
Naruto attempted to grin. He was afraid it came out a little weak.
"Neji, Neji, you aren't as good as I've heard. I can do this all day."
Pasting a doubtful look on his battered face, he felt blood trickling down his lips and out along cuts on his arms where he didn't want to spend energy healing, and said.
"Honestly, I don't think your Gentle Fist is working right today. Want to try again tomorrow? Call it quits?"
The forced calm on his opponents face belied the tightness of his fists.
"I think destiny is about to come calling Naruto Uzumaki. I also think you aren't as well as you pretend. Remember," the byakugan blazed in his eyes a faint glow shining over it.
"The eyes of the Hyuuga see all!"
And his speed doubled, appearing in front of Naruto in a heart-beat landing his strongest blow yet, one Naruto couldn't avoid, right on his chest. If Neji wanted him dead, he'd have been dead right there. But it only contained a very short-ranged Gentle Fist, spread out in a facsimile of his Aegis punch.
Then Naruto was airborne with a cracked chest bone that hurt with every panicked breath.
Air spun around him, sky and ground mixing until he couldn't tell which way was up. His body carved a furrow in the ground like the tail of a comet as he came crashing down to rest against the trunk of a tree. Pain, his best friend these days, greeted him- as potent and debilitating as ever.
Neji had followed him and the precious second it took to get his bearings almost lost him, not only the match then and there, but the opening Shikamaru told him to look for.
Almost gently, like a nurse administering a merciful death by lethal injection, Neji stared down at his crumpled opponent and whispered.
"Destiny is against you today Naruto, but you fought well. You're in the range of my divination."
The Hyuuga's robes blew stronger than the wind around them.
Rain started to fall.
Danger sharpened everything around him, almost slowing the world into a stop-motion video of his mounting defeat.
Light glimmered around Neji's hands and a sound like a pure note pulsed out from Neji.
"Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms."
That was it. But Shikamaru had underestimated how many it would be. By almost half. Panic threatened to sink his mind, but he steadied himself, choosing to put faith in his Lightning Mark. Neji was almost a blur.
Fast was fast, but thought was quicker.
Lightning Mark: Activate!
And the world slowed for real this time. White light like the rising dawn burst from him, but it wasn't the froth of a white-water rapid, it was almost Forged, like white steel shaping around him in the vaguest of outlines of something man-shaped.
Synaptic static buzzed in his mind, played across his skin, and strength like a rushing river flooded his body. Rain drops moved in slow motion past his face.
The perception of it was odd.
What was horrifying was that Neji was still moving faster than he had any right to be. Naruto was matching him, but not fully. He needed to act. Kneeling as he was, he stood up and his body felt like it was tearing itself apart from the speed, slow in his perception, but the strain was absolutely there in every muscle fiber, a deep ache immediate and noticeable.
Neji's eyes widened slowly and narrowed in the same instant.
The glowing, deadly hands moved faster.
Naruto brushed the first one aside, couldn't avoid the second one entirely, and felt some of the white light around him dim.
What felt like an endless wave of strikes came at him almost as one.
Then Naruto was lost in the blind territory of pure reaction as Neji sped up.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Shikamaru Nara
From his vantage point watching Neji and Naruto have the most savage fight he'd ever seen between two Academy trainees, it was extremely hard to believe that either of them weren't already Jonin.
Was that possible?
Two children already Jonin level?
Shikamaru stared in awe as Naruto took Gentle Fist blows over and over again, opening them with some trick of iryojutsu, as it had to be that. In turn, he fell not far short of matching the Fourth Year genius in speed and skill. Overmatched, yes, but hanging on.
His mind was a whirlwind, reevaluating the Uzumaki in his longer-term plans.
In answer to his mind's question, he already knew the answer.
Trained Jonin were faster and stronger on average than both of these fighters, top of their classes they might be. Add on the skill, judgment, density of chakra, potency of abilities, and Shikamaru knew it was just awe talking.
No, they weren't Jonin-level yet. But they were further ahead than most of them bar Satsuki perhaps, or some of the other Fourth Years. Nakata could easily take both Naruto and Neji at once, he knew. Nakata had demonstrated that already during their unfortunate earlier encounter.
As he watched, Shikamaru kept track of the weather as it rolled in and within five minutes of constant clashing, the slapping of flesh so loud it felt like all he could hear, rain fell in sheets and Neji turned the fight, as he'd told Naruto he would.
The reality was worse.
Shikamaru knew it would've been deadly had this been that kind of fight. Naruto took it and stayed down in a trench dug in by his passage.
With speed impressive for even anyone in Fourth Year, he appeared in front of Naruto and prepared what Shikamaru knew would be his one and only technique that would be acceptable to use in non-deadly force scenarios.
Eight Trigrams.
Shikamaru prepared his Shadow Binding Technique and waited.
But his jaw struggled not to drop witnessing Naruto's response. A chakra-flare white-light, like the substance that made up the legendary White Light Chakra Saber that Shika had always dreamed of wielding, appeared as the shadowy outline of a suit of armor encasing the Uzumaki.
Then it was impossible to make out what was happening as the two blurred into and melted together like water mixing paint colors: a palette of black and white and lavender.
The moment stretched and he heard Neji shouting in ever-increasing hoarseness.
"Two!"
Rain slanted between the two.
"Four!"
Shikamaru couldn't follow what was happening.
"Eight!"
Naruto was starting to get hit more than he could avoid.
"Sixteen!"
The blonde sped up, managing to keep up.
"Thirty-Two!"
Rain pounded and Shikamaru frantically tried to keep watching, pushing the soaked hair out of his face.
"Sixty-Four!"
Naruto danced, gaining momentum as he fell into a rhythm.
Then, as the numbers increased, Shikamaru saw steam rising around the air, fog picking up around both of the fighters' feet. Shikamaru knew Naruto was still fighting.
"One hundred twenty-eight!"
The Uzumaki was hit seventy-times in various parts of his body, but not full-hits, or he would've already been down.
Slanted though it was before, rain was now washing off their area like it was hitting a fan.
Both fighters stilled, the tableau frozen as rain came down in buckets now, soaking his face, almost making him miss it. Neji was panting, arms hanging in the air. But Naruto's hands were wrapped tightly around both wrists, stopping the last two blows that were an inch away from his chest.
The two fighters breathed like bellows with deep heaving breaths.
Sputtering, the white light around Naruto died leaving his black robes to hang limply, wetly off his body, ponytail also hanging dead like Shikamaru's.
Neji wrenched his wrists out of the loose grip Naruto held, striking again.
Naruto barely blocked them, then retaliated with a punch that Neji blocked. Shikamaru knew it was his moment. Neji struck again and knocked Naruto to the ground where he struggled weakly.
The green rings around Naruto's wrist were dark, just tattoos now.
Shikamaru struck.
Hand stuck in the Seal, darkness raced between drops and froze the Hyuuga who looked almost comical in his surprise. Hoping beyond hope that Naruto could still do his part- the part they came all this way for. He heard himself shouting.
"NARUTO! Do it!"
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Satsuki Uchiha
From the first few minutes of their taijutsu exchange, Satsuki knew she'd finally found someone who was truly her equal in close combat. She wasn't a hundred percent sure how, but Rock Lee lived up to his name: his blows felt like he was covered in stone.
Part of her own private training this past year included focusing all her energy on learning a specific version of Reinforcement technique, which was all about enhancement of the body in different ways.
Hers, in imitation of Nakata's, which she'd studied exhaustively, ran potent Earth chakra through her system and Reinforced her entire body. As a result, she hit like a truck and could take blows that others couldn't: all while maintaining her footing with an anchoring technique.
She won most of the taijutsu spars against Naruto, but not all of them.
That kid couldn't hit as hard as she could, but he was fast. The only person who could match her in the strength department was Choji- who she suspected never showed how strong he actually was- which scared her quite a bit.
Naruto wasn't far behind her.
And neither was Rock Lee.
Spinning, she kicked him in the face, sending him back only a little bit. Re-engaging, they traded blocks and blows; when she went high, he swept her feet out from under her, or tried to, instead entering into a tête-à-tête of kicks, both blocking and trying to strike out again at the same time.
Her fist slipped past his guard, punching into his ribs and as she blocked his follow-up, she roundhoused him in the face with her left hand. But his left leg cannoned into her middle and they both blasted away from each other, rolling and coming up into equally defensive stances.
Pouring chakra into her eyes, the tomoe, she knew, would appear to have sped up their circling.
Breathing deeply, in and out, she flexed her hands, locking her stance and preparing to move when the Sharingan gave her the signal. Details jumped out at her: the tightness of Lee's jaw, the subtle flexing of his thigh muscles, details of which showed through his bodysuit in striations.
Rock Lee, above all, was a dedicated taijutsu user, even more exclusively than she was.
She watched in enhanced color and detail as his foot shifted position and the center-line of his body followed suit, changing the projected attack angle. Satsuki stayed still so as not to give away her knowledge of his estimated strike pattern created by the Sharingan.
There was no surprise as she tracked him, flickering out to a tree nearby where he used it as a springboard to launch himself at her in a spin-kick that would've taken her head off had she not slapped one kick away, palms stinging despite the Earth chakra reinforcement. The other she seized in one fist.
Taijutsu, when one was faced with an opponent who used such powerful strikes, jabs, and kicks, whether from elbow, knee, head, foot, or fist, was a game of precision. If the mismatch was too great, no amount of precise redirection could save you.
Luckily, her and Rock Lee were fairly evenly matched in strength, size, and speed.
So she used all his considerable power against him.
Grip tightening, Earth chakra coursing, she spun into the dynamic sphere; correlation lines appearing in her Sharingan's vision to aid in her execution of a perfectly timed slam.
...that she had to break off as he somehow, somehow, got his foot around again and attempted to take her head off, again. She let him go and he fell, dropping, springing into a back handstand, kicking off again into attack.
The whole thing was seamless, done as if he'd known what she was doing before she did it. Like he had a Sharingan of his own. Instead of cursing or getting frustrated, she flowed into her next move.
Snapping her fingers, the air ignited around her hands and they became wreathed with a thin heat haze that looked like burning gas. Rock Lee's eyes narrowed, but his attention was suddenly swallowed by her launching her whole body at him in an almost literal blazing barrage of taijutsu.
Sweeping her leg, she aborted the move quickly as he hopped over it; catching him in midair with a kick that came around so fast his eyes visibly widened at her speed. Rock Lee crossed his arms and took the kick, but it knocked him off balance and out of the air to land on the ground, rolling.
Satsuki was on top of him in a second, launching punch after punch, not so much taking the momentum as much as ripping it out of his hands and seizing the lead in a bare knuckled grip.
Heat blazed around her fists as she forced him back step by step, forcing pressure and that was clearly something he wasn't used to by virtue of his suddenly uncertain back steps and his hesitant blocking.
How do I knock him the fuck out? This fight can't drag.
Her team was counting on her.
How indeed.
She'd recently gotten a working knowledge of an Earth technique that could do the trick if she was able to use it on the fly, something she previously found impossible to do quickly as she had to focus intensely. Focusing intensely while trying not to get her head taken off was… difficult.
Rock Lee made up his mind before she could do the same.
His foot lanced forward, ignoring her raised fists, breaking through her guard and connected with her chin. Light burst like fireworks in her head as she lost track of where she was, but tried anyway to keep her guard up.
Instinctually, she felt where the attack was coming from and formed an L-shape with her hand clenched into a defensive posture that protected the left side of head from another kick. She felt it rock through her body, throwing her to the ground, but she wasn't stunned this time.
Rolling backwards she came up just in time to slam her arms down into an X-shaped block that deflected the straight kick off her chest, where it would've certainly put her down, and down into the ground, like lightning grounded by a metal pole.
In response, she trapped his legs and threw her weight onto him, clinching, and spider-monkeying her body into a cross-mounting position.
Ignoring the awkwardness of the position, as she jammed her lower body onto his side or the sheer indignity of literally rolling around in the mud fighting like children, as it had started to rain quite a while ago, Satsuki pressed her advantage, sensing that her opponent was unfamiliar with this type of fighting.
She initiated an arm-triangle choke, pinning his throat and arm between her legs and locking her muscles as tight as possible.
Then the struggle started. Pain bloomed.
He's so fucking strong!
If Satsuki hadn't had such a strong connection to Earth chakra, she would've lost immediately. But so much of it was swirling through her that she matched Rock Lee. Yet it was still an uncertain clash, despite her advantage.
Blood and mud and sweat swirled together as they pitted their wills against each other; Satsuki's heart hammering in her chest as her biceps strained, the work with the Atlas stones paying off as she found she was equal to the task. She heard choking, but ignored it, as he forced some words out, so he couldn't be too bad.
"You. Are. A. Worthy. Opponent. Satsuki, but-"
Then he redoubled his efforts and it was all she could do to hang on; but the writing was on the wall. She couldn't hold him much longer. He would break out and then the Uchiha would lose in such a vulnerable position.
So she had to cheat.
"I. Won't. Let. My. Team. DOWN!"
He roared, but she'd already thrown the last of her strength into a last gambit. This was it.
Success or failure.
From between gritted teeth, she forced her hands into the correct hand seals and spat out the words of her technique:
"Earth Release: Density Manipulation Technique."
Her weight doubled in an instant- the most that she could manage. The resistance she sensed from him seemed to swell, trying to match her now almost two-hundred pounds of weight and all the added benefits of such.
Like better leverage.
Sweat plastered her shoulder-length hair to her forehead and across her face in black lines. Her clothes, a typical attire for an Uchiha, were askew and she didn't care.
Satsuki snarled and pressed all of her now-considerable weight against his windpipe, attempting to close it off and defeat her opponent.
What seemed an inevitable victory became a slugfest where her will pressed against his resistance, his hands pounding into any available area he could get his hands on. Satsuki didn't give a shit, knowing she'd pay for it later, as she stayed laser-focused on choking this fucking guy out!
Shouting, she tried not to kill him by crushing his windpipe, but it was a close thing.
Finally, they sweated and strained against each other for what seemed like eternity, until blessedly he fell still and she quickly let him loose, checking for a pulse.
Weak, but he was alive.
Her hands fell to her sides, barely able to make fists.
Rain soaked her and her hair was a mess, but she won.
Satsuki Uchiha screamed her victory to the dark clouds above, while laying in a limp heap.
Thunder rumbled in answer.
Satsuki dropped the heat haze around her hands only to realize they'd faded a while ago, her concentration broken by that Lee kid's absurd bullshit moves.
Almost broken by trying to get up, step by stumbling step, she trudged off to where she heard a massive battle. Satsuki needed to save her friends.
Satsuki Uchiha had just a little more left to give.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Ami Totsuka
Shino, Kiba, Hayato, Aiko, Yuna, Sakura, and herself crouched in a semi-circle at the very edge of the clearing they'd made for their flag.
Dark clouds swirled overhead, thunder rumbled, and they all buzzed with nervous energy Ami could literally feel.
She empathized.
They were all watching the same thing: a massive armored giant that was Choji slowly getting whittled down to nothing. She would say he was a lumbering behemoth, but Choji was deceptively fast, swinging his horse-sized hammer like it weighed nothing and moving well enough that it took 3R way longer than it should have to do anything at all.
"Stupid motherfuckers."
Ami's gloved fist tightened around the grip of her massive maul.
She knew when the signal was; but still, she had to ask.
"Can we go now? Please?"
Hayato was their scout and the leader for this particular part of the plan, so she directed her question at him. Hayato was calmer than she thought he'd be. Ami's knee bounced and she just noticed. Trying to steal herself against the nervous habit, Ami clamped a hand down on her leg. It didn't work.
"This part is always the worst." Kiba sounded resigned as he spoke.
Ami's interest peaked. "Whaddya mean?"
"Shikamaru always does this- puts pieces in place without explaining the whole thing. Compartmentalization he calls it. Pain in my ass to wait here with no knowledge of how things stand- or whether his harebrained bullshit is working."
Kiba snorted. "Yep. We could be about to lose and Shikamaru wouldn't say anything."
Ami hesitated, still afraid to speak her mind after all this time spent with this group who she knew better than her own family now. Mentally, she waved away her own fears of being the outcast, as she'd always been, and spoke.
"Isn't that… like… a bad thing?'
Shino spoke up, voice quiet: conscious that the other team had an Inuzuka who could hear very, very well.
"Yes. Why, you ask? Because compartmentalization only works when our Captain is well-protected and cannot be easily accessed by our opponents."
Ino and Kiba spoke pretty much in unison.
"Dumbass."
They looked at each other, spooked.
Hayato barely turned his head, speaking at Ami on his left.
"Shikamaru has his reasons for putting himself in harm's way. We need to trust him. Shika, Naruto, and Satsuki all."
In a flash, Hayato shushed them and his eyes narrowed, veins bulging in tell-tale Byakugan fashion.
"It's time. Move."
Huh, no stutter.
Ami wasted no time after that thought, a Reinforcement technique blasting through her body. She launched herself at the back ranks of the enemy, aiming her hammer for the spine of the biggest target: that fucking piece of shit Akimichi who brought down Choji.
The bigger they were, the harder they'd fall.
All seven members of 5U were utterly silent as they ran and Ami counted the seconds until contact.
Ten seconds.
Ami heard her breathing slow down as she concentrated on her breath: her weapon and the key to her success in this battle.
Nine seconds.
Eight seconds.
Seven seconds.
Six seconds.
Thunder rumbled overhead and rain had started falling.
She hadn't noticed.
The red sash over her shoulder, secured by ties, reminded her that battle was a certainty in her future as the things she wanted out of life would require it.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
Lightning flashed.
"Heaven and Earth Breathing: Activate!"
Wind blasted out of her tenketsu; speed doubled.
One.
Ami screamed and her maul, now surrounded by swirling wind, connected.
Wind detonated and battle was joined.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Naruto Uzumaki
"NARUTO! Do it!"
He didn't need to be told what to do.
When Shikamaru had asked him about the Caged Bird Seal, Naruto knew that it wasn't as simple a prospect as Shikamaru framed it.
The Caged Bird was a seal. Unsealling it was the key. Break it, and we win against Neji: spiritually, physically, emotionally- the boy wouldn't be able to function and his very future would be thrown into jeopardy.
Sure, but the Caged Bird Seal was insidious; the script wrapped itself into the chakra system of the victim and created a permanent way to use absolute, unmitigatable pain throughout the body to enslave the bound.
This wasn't simple.
In fact, if Naruto hadn't managed some rudimentary control over the Aegis Technique there was no way he'd be able to do what was needed in order to break all the script at once. As it stood now, with the way those last battles played out and how difficult Neji had truly been as an opponent, Naruto wasn't sure if he could actually achieve an Aegis of sufficient size to cover Neji's whole body. If it was partially successful, Neji would be in unbearable agony for the rest of his short life.
He'd quite possibly commit suicide just to escape it.
Shikamaru had given him non-clan restricted secret histories, from who knows where, that confirmed several Hyuuga had been subjected to such things as an alternative to expensive chemical cocktail executions.
All of them killed themselves. Without exception.
The pain of a fully-unleashed Caged Bird was just so mind-crushing that death was a preferable outcome to a sustained barrage.
There was no way the instructors and proctors watching them would react favorably to this plan, but the Nara seemed sure that things would be fine. With a huge amount of tenketsu out of commission, Naruto wasn't so sure he could do it. If he botched this...
So, in order to succeed, Naruto needed to keep a stable Aegis long enough to inscribe the Script sigil and enforce its Will on every piece of the Caged Bird running through Neji's whole body.
Rain fell in driving sheets, almost sideways, and every inch of Naruto was soaked, battered and bruised. Most of his cuts had healed on their own quickly, but the rest would need attention. His chakra was running low too, which was the biggest surprise of all.
His Lightning Mark, in its more complete form, was an enormous drain- similar to his Tool Creation Technique in the beginning. Even that little Aegis he'd used to sucker punch Neji and Lee were enormous drains too.
This would be the biggest yet.
Ignoring Shikamaru, who'd dropped down next to him and held the Shadow technique, Naruto narrowed his attention to a point: a narrow event horizon where all his concentration became infinite and drew.
His Will and his chakra fused, Forging a sigil of massive size: Infuin Kai, the characters for Empty and Break/Shatter. Sigils that denoted the wiping away of sins and a return to homeostasis. Hand seals flashed in dizzying complexity as he struggled for perfection.
In a flash, he was done, holding the Tiger seal.
"Aegis Forge: Infuin Kai."
A white that was somehow more erupted in air as if stapled there, a Forged ring that didn't seem quite real, like it was painted on the world, hovered before him.
The whole thing looked like a wire sculpture.
Naruto's being trembled with the effort and his chakra guttered like a candle about to go out. All in an instant, the energy left him in a rush. Imposing his will on the world felt like he was pulling a tree behind his body as he attempted to wade through quick-drying cement.
Naruto halted half-way, the Forged Aegis wavering, delicate like blown glass. Neji was staring at him, frozen in fear at what he surely didn't understand.
Naruto simply didn't have enough chakra to push through.
How was that possible?
He didn't have enough!
One long moment stretched out into a line that sent him through a dozen emotions at once: worry, fear, disappointment, anger and on. He thought he was stronger than this!
More than anything, he wanted to prove himself to Class 5U. Naruto imagined the yellow-eyed monster that was his personal boogeyman, the thing he wanted to kill more than any other and knew that a man like that didn't get where he was alone. He had Orochimaru, Danzo, and countless others- not friends exactly, but people he worked with to accomplish his goals. Naruto knew this was an important step. His father had mentioned that specifically in his journals: comrades made lighter the burden. Naruto needed this.
Naruto had to prove himself!
But he didn't have enough chakra to finish, just enough to keep it going for another few seconds.
Kaguya, his awareness of her, bloomed in his mind. Potent. Strong.
When had she gotten so strong?
[I have you. Worry not.]
Potent chakra flooded him, like a bathtub draining in reverse from where Kurama used to reside; the taste of rage potent like sunshine against his skin. Power was and was not his. Naruto used it to remake a small piece of the world.
His hands moved faster than they'd ever had before into a complicated dozens of hand seals; the second half of the technique.
"Aegis Forge: Break."
And the Caged Bird Seal, the script all entangled in Neji's body like dusty cobwebs in an abandoned house, vanished as if it never was.
Neji collapsed, unconscious.
So, too, did Naruto.
The last thing he felt was quiet, yet deep satisfaction radiating from where Kaguya watched and waited. Naruto felt another piece of himself change.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon (Observation Deck)
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Sen Ranmaru
Sen Ranmaru, Jonin Advisor of Class 3R, strongly suspected he was watching the birth of the future pillars of their village.
These children are absolutely monstrous.
The strength, speed, and skill of this generation- First and Fourth Years both, were off-the-charts high, even by their rigorous standing. Rather than the normal trepidation or bit of personal bias he felt towards his class's continual victories, it filled him with an absurd burst of hope that even the First Years were astounding.
As a member of the Konoha Intelligence Service, when he wasn't advising his class, he knew what awaited them behind Konohagakure's high walls. This… this was a good thing.
Reports flooded in of a myriad of monstrous S-class threats, advancing weapons technology, and shadowy strings connected to things they still hadn't quite pieced together, even with a constant stream of HUMINT from Jiraiya. That Human Intelligence, or the people at the forefront of the terror racking the continent, were the only primary sources they could gather.
Monsters roamed their world now, unbound.
To survive, they needed monsters of their own.
Watching that blonde trainee, the one with the utilitarian martial artist robes, Forge chakra in a ring bigger than Neji's body, he was struck dumb by the staggering security risk of that technique (did it Forge script?) being used in even this private Joint Preparatory Exercise and the monstrous chakra requirements to activate it. Only an Uzumaki could do that- he was old enough to remember.
Did Iruka know about all of this? He must have.
These were First Years that were performing like they'd worked together on dozens of operations and were at least four years older than they really were, if he much missed his guess. What had happened to these kids to make them like this?
That Akimichi, too- Sage's crusty balls!
"I'm still fairly certain that 3R is still going to pull a victory here- a technical, at worst."
Anko Mitarashi spoke, projecting her voice out of the side of her mouth, glued to the mayhem of 3R directly facing 5U in a lopsided melee fight around 5U's flag location.
Eight still standing on 5U to 3R's nine.
Clouds of kikaichu swooped in and out of battle as the Aburame fought next to a girl wielding a wind-shrouded hammer. Inuzuka battled Inuzuka; though it was hard to tell when one bestial form ended and the other began as they simultaneously used their family techniques.
Two girls who looked like identical copies of one another wielding strange weapons double-teamed two bun-headed girls also equipped with two colossal sledgehammers and a steel-ball capped jo. The force-multiplier and the reason the battle was at all even on the side of the First Years was the Heir to the Hyuuga clan and the absolute whirlwind he proved to be.
Dipping in and out of all the different battles, he spun and twisted, avoiding techniques and fists and boots all aimed at taking him out, all the while gliding fingers across tenketsu and burning with all the ironic fury of the Gentle Fist.
Until a short, black-clad blur of a shadowy figure lashed out with strings of shadow. One of his, Ren Nara, came out of the underbrush into the chaotic rain-blown battlefield and struck a decisive blow against the biggest threat.
Sen had to smile at that.
Until Satsuki Uchiha, the Hokage's daughter, stepped out of the trees looking half-dead, an almost skeletally-thin harbinger of doom: a pale spectre with red eyes.
The Jonin's eyes widened as he felt, even from here, that she was sending another of those widespread pulses of Earth, sent to take control of the physical stuff underneath the battlefield.
There was no acknowledgement on the battlefield of her presence.
Until a pulse rippled out, then 5U reacted almost as one, jumping back from all the battles into a roughly-drawn battleline.
When the earth exploded upwards in a wave that sent huge chunks rocketing upwards into the sky, 3R reacted as if they'd known it was going to happen.
All except Ren and Rei Nara.
Fan Tay, Weishi Kela, Ryu Akimichi, and Hamura Inuzuka stayed next to them as the Nara concentrated, clasping hands together. A blackness, darker than the sky above them, started to spin around all six members of his class.
The chunks of stone, large in the sky, cast a wide shadow.
Then the Nara struck seemingly as one.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Shikamaru Nara
Shikamaru didn't have much time.
Haste sped his hands as he plunged in Naruto's robes, searching for the small capsule the Uzumaki told him was there. One large pouch, strapped securely to his right thigh, held neatly organized bundles of various things; Chakra pills (Shikamaru took out one of those), tiny fabric scissors, plastic bandaids, some weird gel, various herbs, and found smelling salts in specialized capsules.
Holding them up to his eyes, he broke them, smelling the eye-watering, awareness-inducing substance.
Waving it under Naruto's nose, he watched as his battery woke up in a hilarious, normally fit-inducing gulping gasp of noise.
"...people tell me I sleep all the time, but this would be quite a place, even for me."
Shikamaru grinned and laughed as Naruto struggled to turn over onto his hands and knees and lever himself up. As he did, he absently gave Shikamaru the finger.
He caught the mutter.
"What the fuck, man. That was terrible."
Naruto was starting to grow on him. But he wouldn't be the first to admit it.
Sobering, he put a hand under one black-clad armpit and pulled, helping him while speaking.
"Last part. Do or die. Uh, metaphorically. Ren has their flag back, and by now they've launched their final counterplay all while standing over our goddamn flag spot."
Naruto nodded, not speaking, taking the offered pill from Shikamaru and shivered as chakra pooled in his previously almost empty system. Kaguya's power was gone.
"Let's do this. For the win, right?"
The Nara nodded sharply. Then spoke, voice questioning.
"For the fucking win. Also, am I crazy or did you know the, uh, white streak in your hair just get bigger?"
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon (Observation Deck)
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Sen Ranmaru
Shadow, larger than any Nara technique he'd seen since the Third Shinobi War when the Nara regularly used combination techniques, bloomed on the battlefield.
Like a putrid tree extending its roots, the strands snaked through the shadows of the rocks now falling in the sky and under the dome of gloom created by the terrible weather, a hundred hands reached out and seized the entirety of 5U in one malicious strike.
All of the First Year advisory of Iruka Umino stood stiffly, frozen like statues at the moment of creation. Sen thought this battle was all but over. There were only two players not caught in the huge Shadow Binding.
Both of which were beaten, battered, and presumably low on chakra.
The soft susurrus of the fat droplets echoed now on the silent battlefield.
Except the squelches of two sets of footsteps.
They didn't come out of the forest where Sen believed they would.
Shikamaru, tall for his age and wearing a thick, but worn flak jacket like his father, had his arm around Naruto Uzumaki who, if he was much mistaken, was knocked unconscious not two minutes ago.
He was supported by the Nara, who came to a stop forty feet away from where the rest of his class stood paralyzed, forming a triangle between all of them: their Captain and one remaining member, where Rei and Ren Nara held their technique with a small guard, and 5U.
The flag, now dead center of their triangular positions, hidden by a genjutsu presumably held by a member of the First Year group, dissolved a minute or two ago when the Shadow Binding activated, showing 3R's prize for a hard fight.
Sen activated the focusing construct, script flashing near his elbow in the observation deck.
The tableau leapt into view.
He certainly could've used a Reinforcement to enhance his eyes, but that was chakra expenditure he didn't feel like having when script could do the same thing.
"...seems we're at a stalemate."
That was Shikamaru talking.
"I hardly think so. What say you, Rei? Is this a stalemate?"
The girl smiled, and Sen was unfamiliar with it. A satisfaction so deep it seemed carved on her face. Rei was never that satisfied, always working her models and never seemingly resting on her laurels. Was this a ploy, a gambit, or genuine satisfaction at believing she beat her cousin?
Sen honestly couldn't tell.
"No, Shikamaru has lost and as we stand here blathering, he's attempting to navigate his way out of the labyrinth he's found himself in. A little mouse squeaking and squeaking, not knowing the walls are closing in. Or that there is an owl about to swoop in the dark of night."
Shikamaru seemed to consider this, looking at Naruto who gave a little shrug.
"A little too poetic for my taste. I prefer to deal in more… concrete terms."
Fan Tay sauntered over to the flag and uprooted it from its base in one fluid yank, displaying it to the rest of the battlefield, her weapon held lightly in the other hand. A ragged cheer rose from 3R, exhausted, but clearly relieved it was over.
"I... well, I really hate to be that guy, but I think you should check the flag again."
Sen squinted and realized, before seeing Fan Tay's eyes widened in terror, that there was a hollow compartment in the tube part of the flag.
Enhance.
Sen's eyes sharped again, through the construct, and he spotted the slit and immediately identified a hissing explosive tag.
Fan Tay shouted the alarm, but then everything happened at once.
The vanguard protecting Ren and Rei moved with admirable speed to protect the technique holding their victory, while Fan Tay hurled herself onto the tag, curling around it to muffle and minimize the explosion.
Naruto, in a black blur, pushed himself up, not sagging anymore and threw something into the sky that burst, lighting the clearing like a flashbang, all while green fire burned so brightly from near the boys wrists as he initiated what was, to Sen's trained eye, a chakra transferral technique that Sen shaded his eyes.
For the second time today, a Shadow Binding the size of an autobus sped towards 5U, only in this case it seized the vanguard protecting Ren and Rei and the entirety of 3R still active.
The sheer balls of that move; the skill to control that many threads and act so nonchalant while doing it were worth a passing grade all on their own. Sen approved. Sen approved very much. Sen was a little disappointed in Ren and Rei for celebrating too early.
Naruto sagged and dropped to the ground, kneeling.
Ren and Rei proved themselves not the fools he'd thought they'd been, not a moment later.
Ren smiled and dropped his hands from their clasped combination pose. Rei was the origin of the technique; she skillfully, powerfully launched that gargantuan technique and did it by herself with no aid from Ren!
Anko muttered, "Holy shit, nice job girl!"
It was all he could do not to laugh out loud.
"Well done Rei!"
Ren's shadow spun out into yet another Shadow Binding as they played against each other so many moves ahead it almost boggled Sen's mind.
But before the shadow reached Shikamaru, he spoke something that Sen couldn't catch.
Anko did. She gasped. Audibly.
"What?"
She whirled on him, furious. The other Jonin looked around from their various positions lounging in the tower.
"We need to stop this match now. Shikamaru's going to kill himself!"
But it was too late.
A small cat with white eyes poked a head out of the Shadow Binding.
Then it changed.
#
/Training Ground 56: Canyon
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Shikamaru Nara
Rei and him sparred in the realm of thought.
Move and countermove spun out in his head in a flowchart that he had no issues keeping straight in his mental map of the battlefield. Shikamaru heard Satsuki speak about what the Sharingan did for her, at least in general terms, like the ability to use the prediction engine ingrained in it to use minute clues, invisible to others, to somewhat model where enemies would be moving.
It looked like they were reading others' minds, but that wasn't really what was happening; only Yamanaka could do that, really, but Shikamaru did his very best imitation of that today.
Plans spun and whirled, correlation spooling out as he predicted.
When Ren stepped out, that hadn't been his first clue or even his fourth.
Rei was too obvious with her satisfaction. She thought him straightforward because he always played straightforward. He, too, used the same long-range algorithmic modeling to build his estimations of those around him. She couldn't stop him, or surpass him, even in the one thing she was supposed to be good at. Not when he knew the true lever. Power.
Now, for his trump card.
This was the single, infinitely stretching moment that he'd spoken to Naruto and Kiba that day on the roof. The idea that nobody knew the full extent of what was possible with Shadow Release.
Power, Naruto had told him, was a lever.
Shikamaru had a big fucking lever and he was about to use it.
A voice spoke in his head, whisper quiet, the sound of paper sliding against paper. Almost non-existent. A product of sleepless, obsessive nights born of insomnia and anxiety; a restless searching for a means to save his friends even when he could not. A technique that would allow something else to save his friends while he remained frozen. A technique buried in the clan archives where no one was supposed to find it.
[Is it time?]
[Yes. Yes it is. Please, Smiles, save my friends for me would you?]
A pleased hiss met his mental words.
"Shadow Clone Technique."
Ren unclasped his hands from Rei's and launched another Shadow Binding.
A small cat, made entirely of hardened gloom, seemed to appear from within Shikamaru's outstretched Shadow Binding. The strain of keeping his massive technique going was nothing next to the relief of having let Mr. Smiles out.
White eyes turned to him in a face of Forged shadow.
A small meow turned to a guttural roar as it swelled, flush with the power Naruto had given him via the transferral technique.
Mr. Smiles, once a small cat, ballooned into a nightmare beast twelve-feet tall with foot-long razors for claws that loomed over Shikamaru and over the rest of the two Nara far away from him. This would take all he had to give.
Ren's Shadow Binding snapped into place around Shikamaru, but Mr. Smiles was already half-way to Rei and Ren, unleashed fully and not a target of any technique.
Frozen, with nothing to do but stare at the ultimate technique he'd snuck from where he usually snuck things, he admired his Shadow Clone.
Built like a hulking tank, it resembled nothing so much as a rabbit-cat-faced bear with huge antlers galloping forward like a gorilla, only with claws like a nightmare.
Power radiated out of it and Shikamaru knew that the only reason Mr. Smiles was currently as big as he was had to do with the fact he contained fully half of his chakra and a huge influx from Naruto. Normally, he was either a kitten-size or a shadowy, white-eyed replica of Shikamaru. Yin chakra was all about imagination and breathing life into it.
The Shadow Clone could operate independent of the user.
And boy, did it.
Like a cat in the hen house, Mr. Smiles landed and for a hot second, Shikamaru was afraid his technique would kill Rei. That moment passed and it lashed out with a blunted, bulging muscular fist and knocked her so fast and so far that as she skipped like a stone on the water and came to a rest on her back, he was still a bit afraid she was dead.
The binding holding his team disappeared.
In a flash, they acted as if at a signal, surrounding the still-paralyzed 3R and held weapons to their necks, demanding submission.
There was no celebration, only cold determination. The battle, on the brink of a 3R victory, reversed itself.
Satsuki, free now, and looking like some bloody avenging deva as she stalked forward, ripped the flag from Ren's hand, stuffed behind his belt like it had been, and thrust it in the air.
The battle was over.
And 5U was the victor.
Shikamaru almost sagged with relief, but was held up by Ren's slowly disappearing binding and wondered what was to come after this.
For he knew, this was just the first battle of what was surely a long war.
#
/The Hidden City
/The Village Hidden in Rain
/Rain Country
Wingfoot
Wingfoot sat with one leg dangling off a spit of metal scaffolding jutting out almost a mile above the austere beauty of the rain-soaked steel forestry known as the Village Hidden in the Rain. Like iron fingers grasping at the heavens, buildings stretched off into the horizon.
Theirs was a permanent monsoon.
God wept today, as he did every day, until their sins were forgiven.
The city-state hummed with life as a vibrant population moved in huge swarms across the bridge-and-canal threaded streets at ground level below him, little more than ants to his unenhanced eyes.
Wingfoot, born the orphan Kyūsuke, but given new life by his God, Nagato, breathed slowly, evenly, as lava chakra cycled through his body, the sheer intensity of heat fogging the air around him, a soft sizzling disrupting the chorus of droplets on the metal.
Today was a beautiful day.
Behind him, in the open-air stage built atop the highest tower in Rain, fluted columns did nothing to prevent the downpour through sheer architecture, though Wingfoot knew no droplet touched anything within their God's reach.
Wingfoot, dressed as a devotee of the One God in ash-and-blood colored robes with cloud imprints, rubbed the Elkbear horn grip of his two-handed bastard sword sheathed on his lap. Horn, especially that of the elusive Elkbear, ensured longevity of the hilt. No cracking, no splintering- the horn was almost as tough as steel and a sweaty palm wouldn't slip on it either. Wingfoot cared greatly about details like this which is why God asked for him personally to come witness a meeting such as hadn't been seen in almost ten years.
Wingfoot flickered and disappeared, appearing behind himself facing the tableau of God's Court; Fugaku and Juzo were bickering, as they always did about something or another. For God's sake, he skimmed their conversation in hopes of picking out a useful piece of gossip.
"...your overconfidence will be your downfall, Juzo. A large sword does not an invincible warrior make, you understand?"
Juzo Biwa was an utterly strange-looking fellow in Wingfoot's opinion.
A scar in the shape of a cross bloomed on his face overlapping a tattoo or a scar, Wingfoot wasn't entirely certain, of iron bars across the lower mandible. Eyebrowless, the man was unsettling to look at for the average person, Wingfoot was sure. The shock of hair sticking up, still dark and not grey with the age he knew Juzo was, completed a look that resembled nothing more than a walking-talking starving saw-snouted eel.
Then there was the sword.
Kubikiriboucho, the Vorpal Sword, was a monstrosity of a creation: both in form and function. The secrets of the creation of the swords of the Seven Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist were lost to time and Wingfoot dearly wished that were not true. Over the years, he'd endeavoured to obtain one for himself by killing as many of the Seven as he could: which was none. They were elusive shinobi and the Hidden Villages, on top of that, went to great lengths to maintain control over their property. The effort it would take surpassed the threshold he established for keeping a low-profile on God's Word.
With a last, lingering look at the Vorpal Sword strapped onto Juzo's back, Wingfoot swung his gaze to the speaker at the Swordsman's side: Fugaku Uchiha.
Tall and straight-backed, Fugaku was one of the newest members of Akatsuki, devotees of the One God, and perhaps the most controversial in a way. Most would probably call him conventionally attractive with a fine figure and piercing dark eyes that Wingfoot knew held plots and secrets wrapped like a Gordian knot. Fugaku held a script-covered long-spear in a gloved hand that looked like it had been soaked in blood.
The man once known as Kyūsuke heard that Akatsuki's reputation was as a circus of freaks in the nations outside Rain and would be the last to gainsay that idea because it was true: none of them were normal-looking, except perhaps himself, and Fugaku.
At least, in the inner circle at least.
Akatsuki numbered in the thousands, after all. Tens of thousands.
"What do you call a vampire snowman?"
Wingfoot felt the sigh more than heard it.
"I really do feel like I'm going to regret this."
Pause.
"What?"
Pause.
"Frostbite!"
The guffaw that ripped out of Juzo Biwa echoed throughout the strange acoustics of the throne room-that-was-not-a-room. Fugaku merely smiled politely, praising Juzo for getting better at comedy. Wingfoot felt Fugaku did this as a sort of silent rebellion. They would all suffer if he continued to encourage this unprofessional behavior.
That, he rather thought, was the point.
Uncharitably, he imagined killing Juzo and felt bad. A little. Juzo Biwa was a butcher of thousands and an insane psychopath to boot. As God reminded him for what seemed like the thousandth time, God worked through us all- even the crazies like Juzo.
The two fell silent as they approached the throne and knelt against cushioned rests in their assigned spots, two of sixteen spots in a semi-circle facing what looked like one colossal script-covered throne. Not everyone, Wingfoot knew, would be here today. Indeed, only himself, God, The Conqueror, Juzo and Fugaku would be in attendance.
Their guest of honor arrived just then, emerging from the pool of darkness on the floor like a corpse rising out of their grave.
The giant that emerged wore a red short robe, tied loosely in the front, with a mask the same color as the fur of the Nine-tails, framed by an overwhelming wave of obsidian black hair that curled in ringlets. The hair looked like underwater plants wavering in the current. Like they had a mind of their own.
A gunbai was strapped by blackened chains to the man's back, the rest of him had no hint of skin showing. Burning yellow eyes, spinning with a twisted Sharingan tomoe, cast light out of the mask like a partially-shuttered lantern.
This man held power like a star: a self-combusting mass of destruction, so dense and potent that standing next to him felt like confronting a tornado. Truly, God's power was unfathomable if he held a being like The Conqueror in check.
Fugaku and Juzo both stilled, like a prey animal that sensed their predator nearby. That was wise. Wingfoot did likewise. Waiting. Watching. Listening. The crackling, dry-paper-on-paper sound of his God spoke up and it warmed him, fortifying him against the chill of The Conqueror's presence.
Wingfoot knew what was under the mask, unlike the others.
"Welcome, Seifuku-sha, to the House of God. Unmask and be welcome."
A gloved hand reached up and peeled off the Noh mask and the sound it made reminded Wingfoot of a bandage coming off, skin sticking to the adhesive.
Underneath, the man was a sewn nightmare of a man-doll. Darkness made flesh, a kind of pitch black skin, split him in a horrifying demarcation of his body traveling from the widow's peak near his hair, down across his nose in a zig-zag, and over his mouth and chin, down his neck and presumably across his whole body.
Half-man, half-shadow thing.
The man once known as Madara Uchiha had come upon something resembling good fortune, to live this long. Last he'd heard, the man died eighty years ago.
But clearly that was not true.
Something had sustained him and Wingfoot suspected he knew exactly what that something was. No one sane would ever pay whatever price this thing had extracted.
"I greet you, Nagato Uzumaki."
Wingfoot bristled at the disrespect in that twisted mouth that spoke like two voices intertwined; to imply he was just a mortal was to deny the heights to which their God rose. Wingfoot blurred, striking out with a razor-sharp wing-like blade at the infidel: Madara or not, that man would not survive.
"Stop Wingfoot. Madara Uchiha deserves the respect we afford all guests in my temple."
In a flash, a flash in which The Conqueror moved not an inch to defend himself or react, Wingfoot moved back from where he'd been a moment ago.
Wingfoot then looked upon his God as he stood.
Kyūsuke saw perfection in the form of a man.
Naked from the waist up, Nagato Uzumaki was covered in darkly glowing, burning script and fuinjutsu that made his pale skin, like that of a patient just out of a hospital, seem even lighter. Even his face was seemingly tattooed with the glowing symbols.
Not even an inch was left untouched, even down to the fingertips.
Vibrant red hair, like the purest form of the color, cascaded down his back in ruler-straight lines down to his feet and pooled there. Bright orange rags, like a jumpsuit torn to shreds and pushed down around his waist, were the only form of clothing he wore. Sleek musculature gave his body the kind of definition that only came from a body fat percentage under ten percent.
Wingfoot admired his God as perfection in all things.
Daring to raise his head from the body of his God, he stared into the eyes that saw everything. Script burned even here, in a flash of purple symbologies that faded in and out, changing, whirling, moving through complexity that Wingfoot couldn't fathom. There were more scripts here than on the rest of his body combined; except for the wings. As for the eyes...
What could those eyes see?
Who could decipher the mind of a God?
As one bare, tattooed foot came down onto nothing but air, the God Pein floated forward to hover in front of them all and directly in front of the Conqueror, Fugaku, and Juzo, who remained in place.
If God's eyes contained infinite symbolgies, the six gargantuan wings, three on each side top, middle, and bottom, spread on either side of Pein and seemed Forged from script. These things attached to their God, Kyūsuke knew, was The Kojiki- beyond that, he knew nothing about them.
The Angel modeled one of her key paper techniques off their majesty.
His God was speaking.
Kyūsuke turned his heart to engrave the words on it.
"The next mission is a joint one between Madara and my followers."
The rain, for a brief moment, slackened outside as God spoke.
"The River Daimyo has the largest and most complex networked communications equipment on the entire continent, perfectly positioned for our needs, yet it lies dormant and defunct. Already, agents in the other towers near and very, very far have activated the substations. However, the main tower, River Country's, is the last and most crucial for what I and the Seifuku-sha have planned for the future of this continent and this world."
The Seifuku-sha moved not one muscle, though his yellow eyes took in the situation and the Akatsuki members with one sweeping gaze, especially when Fugaku spoke up.
"My Lord, please forgive my ignorance: will you allow us a glimpse at the grand design at play here?"
Pein, with those impossible eyes, actually smiled.
Wingfoot felt a flash of jealousy. Juzo sneezed and paid more attention to the snot on the back of his hand than to the words of their God. Wingfoot felt his fury like water on a hot pan. I hope you die a painful death Juzo Biwa. And I hope it is I that gets to prune your heretical life.
This time it was that horrible voice from Madara Uchiha that answered.
"The last usage of it was during my prime, to communicate with the Western Continent. During the Warring States period, Hashirama was in a technology exchange program with the King of Sendoka, a small Western country that was rich in rare metals."
The yellow-eyed man put a finger to his lips as if considering, or remembering perhaps? Wingfoot couldn't help but see something hidden in Fugaku's eyes as he stared at his ancestor. That left him wondering.
"...yes, well, Hashirama believed technology would be the great equalizer. The fool. He truly believed it was our future and actively sought it out wherever he could find it. Remnants of a lost time he called them. Again, what a fool. Remnants? Artifacts of a power greater than ours."
Here he seemed to shake himself, as if chastising himself or having a… conversation between himself? There were subtle differences in speech that he couldn't decipher.
"Most of it was to be found in the West, though some of it was acquired here, in the Elemental Nations. The Uzumaki," here he nodded at Pein, "began re-creating a lot of it, repairing it. But that was cut short by Hanzo and his… conglomeration of nations. It is why the Kojiki is here now and not sunk at the bottom of Whirlpool. Hanzo wanted the Kojiki and took it from the Uzumaki. The Day of Blood was a sad one for the world."
Juzo finally spoke, ignoring the huge revelation that hit Wingfoot at hearing it was Hanzo that was directly responsible for the genocide of Whirlpool.
"Eh. So you want us to secure the tower? This doesn't seem like it requires much force, hardly a job for a team of S-ranks- merely expertise. Can we not send a Chunin?"
Both Pein and The Conqueror smiled. Pein was the one to answer.
"Konohagakure...has scheduled their Field Exam in response to the River Daimyo's unfortunate request to expel the mercenaries we've contracted. Black Ocean is highly-respected and an arm of Gato and Shinno's joint venture in Our Name."
Pein knelt in front of Fugaku who kept his head down respectfully, unlike Juzo whose attention was clearly wandering.
One scripted finger under the Uchiha's chin lifted his head and they stared at each other.
"Thus Konohagakure, and your lovely wife, are digging for information and this cannot be allowed. You are to...persuade...the River Daimyo to rescind the orders as well as eliminate all prying eyes while actively restarting the Communications Tower. Kill everything. Are your orders understood?"
Fugaku merely nodded.
Juzo waves his hand, smiling, bloodthirsty as ever.
Pein withdrew, floating back and settling in his throne, wings folding.
"Honored Ancestor, why aren't you handling it yourself now that Kumo is practically gone and both Earth and Mist, under your stewardship, have started moving towards our end game?"
Madara had started melting back into the ground, using the same pool of darkness, a technique of some kind Wingfoot guessed, but stopped at Fugaku's words.
"This is why I have competent associates, is it not? And… I have other matters of incalculable importance to attend to. That is all I need say on the matter. God speaks, you obey, correct?"
Then he melted and was gone.
Pein cocks his head; almost as if listening.
He nods.
"The Conqueror is gone. Speak freely, my friends. Tell me your woes and I will soothe you."
Wingfoot spoke first, nailing his words to Fugaku.
"Our reports indicate your daughter will be in attendance for the Field Exam. What say you to this?"
Fugaku's face never changed; never shifted an ounce.
"If she gets in the way of our God's plan, she'll be eliminated."
No hesitation. Though that didn't mean predicted compliance, Kyūsuke supposed. He nodded to Fugaku.
Pein addressed his secretary, for that was what Wingfoot was. Secretary and General of the Armed Forces of Hidden Rain.
"Has Konan returned from Wind?"
Wingfoot knew that his God would know the second anyone stepped foot into his realm, but was asking for the sake of Juzo and Fugaku.
"She is still meeting with Pakura, finalizing details of the technology shipment from Hidden Snow- which should be arriving by train in a few days."
Pein cocked his head, then nodded.
"When she arrives, I have a task for her. I haven't figured out, quite yet, how Madara Uchiha has survived this long. I suspect some foul alchemy, but regardless we still have an agreement with the Seifuku-sha. Until that ends, we treat him with respect."
Wingfoot nodded. Juzo and Fugaku exchanged wary looks.
"That does not mean I trust him or trust what he's doing when I can't see him. I've observed him with the Kojiki, but there is something that has started blocking me while doing so. I need physical eyes on him. He sent his pet snake, Danzo, to the Western Continent and I'm afraid I'm powerless to observe what he does there either. This frustrates me."
Pein stared into the distance, seeing something that the rest of them could not. He waved a hand after a moment, shaking himself.
"My old friend, convey this to her and then continue your duties with the soldiers. They must be ready for our Crusade."
Wingfoot nodded sharply.
"As you command. One World."
The word was echoed by everyone present like a ward against the future.
One world.
#
q/Konoha General Hospital
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/Fire Country
Naruto Uzumaki
"You killed Neji with that stunt. You and Shikamaru, who almost certainly knew what he was doing. The Hyuuga clan is going to erupt violently and maybe split over this when word gets out. And it definitely already did. Did you think, at all, when you discussed this plan?"
Shizune closed her eyes as if pained.
Shizune, dressed in fresh scrubs, sat next to his bed and listened intently as he used both hands to visually illustrate how he absolutely destroyed Neji, conveniently avoiding anything that made him look bad.
Truthfully, he'd been floating on what he imagined drugs felt like: a giddiness that surprised him with its strength. A potent cocktail of relief, the satisfying pain of exertion, the success of a goal completed, the absolute heights of victory, and the togetherness of doing something as a team.
Naruto had truthfully never felt anything like it.
Was this the Will of Fire?
But when he got to the part about the Caged Bird seal-
Her voice had been cold, like ice. So he repeated himself slowly, explaining what he'd done throughout Neji's body, wiping his slate clean, taking him out of the game permanently and undermining his entire worldview in the most thorough form of revenge Shikamaru could think of.
Shizune closed her eyes after that as if pained. Then she'd said-
Her words hit him in the gut harder than Neji had earlier.
"This is the selfishness that Tsunade was talking about, Naruto. You have powers other people can't even dream of and you- what? Thought you were freeing someone from tyranny? Without even considering the consequences? This was not an altruistic act for Neji's benefit, so don't you dare so it was. I'm so ashamed that you do that to a comrade and risk the village's safety like this."
Naruto had been so astonished that he just… gaped at her. Like those stupid fish that medic-nin practiced with: gasping on a table and hoping beyond hope that the trainee gets it right and can fill his lungs with oxygen.
There was no oxygen here.
He hadn't even thought about- but that was the problem, wasn't it?
High off victory, both teams were bundled off to the Hospital where guards watched them like hawks. Nobody could find out any information, but at the time, nobody cared. They passed. It wasn't officially stated yet, but they had to have done really well, right? First Years versus Fourth Years and they'd won. Victory was all that mattered, though, wasn' it?
What was the big deal about this particular seal?
But that was pure idiocy. Naruto saw everything about this seal. Knew it in his bones, what it did, how it worked, what the purpose was: because it was baked into the structures, the symbols, the sigils.
Uzumaki always knew.
Control and destruction. That was the purpose of the Seal. This wasn't about protecting the Byakugan, no, it was about keeping those with power in power and those who weren't the elite, those that weren't on top, down where they belonged. And Naruto knew that. He'd known that. Shikamaru didn't hide that they were doing more than fucking Neji over- Hayato had known too, hadn't he?
Shikamaru and Naruto didn't rationalize it away, no. They knew what they were doing was right. But security mattered more to Shizune and the rest of them than the subjugation of the Branch family- that was clear. Naruto saw that, but it still wasn't that that battered him about like a tiny ship in a hurricane.
She was right.
Not entirely, but this was what Tsunade was talking about. Naruto used what he knew to accomplish the goals he cared about and most of those weren't altruistic- he hadn't done the right thing because he cared about Neji. The total opposite, actually. Tsunade was convinced the reason we do things mattered. So was Shizune.
"Naruto."
The blonde was so deep in his thoughts that when she spoke he just stared.
"Naruto, listen to me: just doing the right thing isn't enough, you need to think about the consequences. This is grave- you destabilized a major clan on the eve of what could be Konohagakure's most dire hour. Knowing or not. And I suspect knowingly."
Naruto looked into Shizune's face for the first time since she started speaking. All the details he failed to notice shot into view: the faint wrinkles starting to appear, the singular grey hairs, the dark circles under her eyes, the exhausted slump of her posture, the bloodshot eyes. Shizune wasn't sleeping well, that much was clear, and was obviously under a tremendous amount of stress.
As Naruto thought about what he'd say, he came to a realization.
Humans loved simplicity. But life was complex- and humans tended to reject the importance of context. So what layer of complexity were they operating on? Shizune very much wanted this to be about security- the needs of the village trumped all according to the Will of Fire. But that was a binary situation: one village wins and the others lose.
So, too, was this situation: should we reject the Branch Family in favor of Konohagakure as a whole because the Main Family was 'afraid?'
Again- that wasn't why Naruto went through with the plan.
So Naruto admitted it, finally, to himself.
There was a deep ugliness in the world: people like Neji thought the world was a certain way, that it had to be this way. Naruto wanted, more than anything, to follow the light that Shikamaru shone on the situation and correct it. To blow open the doors of the mind to a world where there was no such thing as Fate- just choices.
And yes, to tweak Neji. But… it definitely was more than she made it seem. She resisted the complexity of the situation.
"Shizune- there is darkness in Konohagakure… a darkness everywhere, that people think is okay because, well, life is suffering right? Shinobi endure. It's what we do."
Intense and low, Naruto modulated his voice so he stayed calm- not angry, not pissed that Shizune, of all people, would say this to him.
"But we don't have to endure pain like this- so much of it is things we take for granted as tradition, or the just, 'the way of the world.' But power is neither good or bad. It's a tool like anything else and yes, I used it to remove what I saw as an obstacle. Neji… well, he obsesses over his fate like that actually fucking exists. He's an automaton wind-up toy that Konoha plays with. Now? Now he has a choice. So, too, does Konohagakure."
The clock tolled. A pure note echoed, signaling the lateness of the hour.
Shizune stared at him and he stared back at her, neither giving an inch.
The thoughts in Shizune's head didn't make it to her face, but if they had he would've been shocked to know she saw Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash of Konoha etched into the lines of his face like the script on his back, or the seals on his wrists. Intensity flared from every facet of his deep violet eyes and conviction ground his jaw into sharp relief. The increasing whiteness of his hair only added to the unsettling gravitas.
Naruto looked very much like his father at that exact moment.
"People forget that making no fucking choice is making a fucking choice. Doing nothing is doing something- so, you and Tsunade and Mikoto especially? Sitting here and being okay with this bullshit, wherever it comes from, is making a choice and believe me when I say I'm making notes on who picks what."
Shizune started to speak, shock or guilt in her voice?
"Naruto-"
"My grandfather was right and I hate that I find out this shit after he's dead."
Naruto looked at Shizune then, still intense, but his voice was even lower, looking out of the window into the darkness.
"He said shinobi loved to believe that endurance was an enviable trait. But he said to me, all that time ago, 'is the oak stronger than the willow?' I said to him, 'I dunno what the fuck that means old man. But yeah, the oak is definitely stronger."
Naruto rolls his hands over, looking at his new scars. He imitated an old geezer badly.
"'No, my boy, the oak breaks when the willow bends. You understand me?' And I think I said something else stupid. But you know what? Konoha is a great oak and change is coming in the form of a huge ass wind. Which is gonna survive, you think? Should we bend a bit or stand firm?"
Shizune was quiet for a long time.
qNaruto idly played with frayed ends of the blanket on his bed.
The Head of Konoha General Hospital then quietly got up and left, looking like she was on a mission.
Naruto rolled over, pulling the covers of the hospital bed up to his chin.
There was a presence in his mind.
Kaguya.
She was quiet, as if considering.
[Good night, Kaguya. We have a lot of work to do when we get out.]
[I, yes.]
She sounded like she was going to say something else, but instead-
[...good night, Naruto.]
Then the considering presence was gone.
Sleep was a long time in coming.
A/N: Thanks again for the beta work by the great Fuyuriku and Mist. Appreciate you guys!
This chapter marks the end of the Academy as we know it- there will be a few wrap-up scenes of importance and then... well, the ball really gets rolling. From that point, it's all crazy baby. Hopefully, since you've stuck with me this far, you'll stick around for the rest!
For any aspiring fic writers who feel like they aren't good enough- you are. You just have to sit down and do the writing. All the good stuff comes in the editing phase anyway. :) Please feel free to reach out in PMs if you want a quick pick-me-up from someone that waited entirely too long to seriously start writing (anything!). To everyone whose contributed so far, thank you. Reviews, as stupid as it sounds, keeps me motivated. If even one person enjoys my story, that makes me happy. I write for me, obviously, but it absolutely does not hurt to know there are people out there that actually enjoy the product. So, again, thanks.
Please- any issues, inconsistences, typos, glaring errors in continuity- point it out in the reviews! Once Book 1 is done, I'll be going on hiatus to revise this whole thing for plot errors, then we move into entirely uncharted AU territory. So every bit helps!
Thanks again,
J.B. Macleod
