The Wanderers
Chapter 80 – The Faces of the Quiraji
A/N: My most sincere apologies for the lateness of this chapter. I've both been sick and stuck with work, so I haven't had a chance to do much writing. It's somewhat of a chaotic time right now, but I'll still be doing my best to get these chapters out when I can.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, the reader would know who the final villain is during the final battle. It wouldn't change every week.
***Previously-On***
The main strike team awaits the fall of the chakra-nullifying field to begin their final assault on the Quiraji main base.
The first team to attack their target was the force from Kirigakure, led by the surviving members of the Seven Swordsmen. Initially the battle did not fare well and Suigetsu and many Kirigakure shinobi were killed. Their mission failed.
The next team to attack their node was one of the Otogakure forces led by Jin. They confronted an archer of conflicting natures and were ultimately victorious in their battle, but lost the materials necessary to destroy the node. Their mission failed.
The third team to attack a chakra-nullifying node was led by Kankuro and a force of Sunagakure ANBU. They came in contact with a crazy old woman who seemed impervious to attack, who was able to butcher large numbers of their force at once. After a clever manoeuvre they defeated her and got their mechanic to the machine to take it down. However, that was when a Quiraji ambush struck them out of nowhere. Their mission wasn't directly a failure, but the mechanic has yet to bring down the machine.
***End Summary***
Darui wasn't an enthusiastic shinobi under many circumstances. If given the choice, he would have preferred to stay at the Raikage's side, where he belonged. The only reason he had accompanied the Tailed Beast containers was because A had no faith in his brother's ability to stay on point.
Yet here he was at the head of the majority of their pursuer shinobi, leading a mission to destroy a machine that could potentially put an end to the war without the Raikage even knowing.
It was altogether far too troublesome.
In front of him ran two of Yugito's personal hunters. He knew better than to ask whether they were close or not, as he'd discovered they didn't like the fact that they had to answer to him rather than their mistress. However, they were very good at what they did and they'd been able to make good time skirting around the edges of chakra-nullifying field towards their designated target.
Despite what the orders from the 'Otokage' might have been, Darui had sent their fastest runner to Kumogakure to tell the village what was happening and the details of their plan. Normally he would be concerned about the runner being intercepted by Quiraji forces, but Darui figured that the enemy had enough on their mind and their armies had to be focusing on their movements here rather than in the rest of the shinobi world.
Though a part of him suspected that if there was ever a time to attack the villages en masse, it would be now. Even with their numbers, their village was still vulnerable from the previous invasion.
Shaking himself out of such thoughts, Darui continued to move forward at the head of his force. They'd reached the area of the Land of Fire that many of them had become familiar with before it had become a no-go zone, becoming less forest-heavy and more grasslands. Many of them had completed missions on these patches of earth, yet now they were here trying to save the Land that wasn't even theirs.
"It's up ahead," called out one of the hunters at the front. "We can sense the field extending out around a section that is concealed from us."
Darui nodded and waved a hand signal for them to take their formations. They'd been preparing for Quiraji ambushes for the past few hours, yet none had come against them. He figured that the enemy was holding their forces for the node powering the field, and as their target came into view he saw his guess had been correct.
The machine node looked like a long slanted triangle that sat in the middle of a grassy field, though the shinobi couldn't make out any of the details as ranks and ranks of Quiraji soldiers stood in front of it. They seemed to notice the Kumogakure force's presence with obvious interest, but as they sat within the chakra-nullifying field they demonstrated no interest at all in coming out to greet their enemies.
If that was all they had to deal with, Darui wouldn't have been too concerned about their chances. Even without chakra, he figured that each of his shinobi was worth at least five Quiraji soldiers in battle, meaning that they easily outnumbered their opponents.
But nothing is ever that easy.
Standing outside of the chakra-nullifying field was a single figure in a dark cloak, designating him as one of the Quiraji specialists. He looked to be skin and bones with little else on him, but unlike many of the previous Black Robes they'd fought, he was surprisingly young.
His force stopped out of range of the single Black Robe, wary of the enemy's trickery. The days of Kumogakure shinobi underestimating their opponents was long past, and it wasn't as if they were so constricted by time that they couldn't afford to be cautious.
"Wait here for my signal," said Darui to his second-in-command before stepping out of line towards the Quiraji specialist. He wanted to get a closer look at their opponent before giving the order to attack, and a part of him was very curious as to why their opponent was standing outside of the chakra-nullifying field, where the shinobi were at their most powerful.
The young Black Robe noticed his approach with a skittish jump, turning to face him with terrified look on his face. "Oh my! You nearly scared the life out of me." He seemed to struggle to breathe at the fright, but calmed himself down and smiled awkwardly at the confused shinobi. "Are…are you here to attack us?"
Darui gave the Black Robe a tired stare, "We didn't come all this way to have tea and biscuits with you. We came to take you out and destroy your machine."
"Ah…well that's…unfortunate." The Black Robe seemed to be shaking with nerves as he talked to the much taller shinobi and the look on his face told the Kumogakure Jounin that he was quite the craven.
"Are you the leader here?" he asked cautiously.
"Oh…yes. Shen was given command by Lord Benkei. He has many great things in mind for Shen, but Shen isn't sure that he is up to the job."
Darui groaned and stepped forward, "This is a waste of time." The Black Robe appeared terrified of him, but didn't take a step back as Darui came closer with his hands clenched together. His opponent was closer than Darui would have expected for a Black Robe that surely specialised in long range combat. While outside of the field, Darui had no issues moulding a reasonable amount of chakra within his arms.
In a motion that was faster than a gust of wind, Darui swung his large blade from his back into the side of the Black Robe. He'd hoped to catch the Quiraji leader off-guard and cut him down before he could use any of his strange abilities, as they were wont to do.
However, before his blow could fall, the expression on Shen's face turned from terror to fury. His cheeks tightened and eyes changed their gaze as he brought up a hand to intercept the attack. Darui's blade bounced off an invisible force that appeared to surround the Quiraji leader's hand, as Shen turned his terrible expression to his shinobi foe.
"Now you face the true wrath of the Quiraji!" he spat with hatred in his voice. The startling shift in his expression and voice was only matched by his change in personality. He slashed across Darui with his other hand as if mimicking his enemy's strike, but Darui used a burst of chakra through his legs to pull back his blade and jump back several dozen feet. Just as he fell back, he could see the air being sliced apart as if it were being cut by a blade similar to his.
The moment Darui went out of range, the Quiraji leader's expression changed back to the original version he'd seen, and the Black Robe once again seemed pitiful. "Oh…how come you're all the way over there? I'm not complaining…but still…feels a bit rude…"
"What is with this guy?" asked one of the confused Kumogakure shinobi behind Darui. They hadn't seen the slash that had caused him to fall back, but the fact that the Raikage's right hand was treating the enemy cautiously was enough to cause them to be on their guard.
"He's in range of our techniques, we should just get him," said another with a confident grunt.
A large cluster of Kumogakure shinobi voiced their agreement and began to run through handseals to activate long-range ninjutsu. Darui sheathed his blade and placed his hands together in a complex handseal, as he could see that perhaps if they combined their attacks they would be able to overwhelm the Black Robe before he could attack them back. The manner in which he'd attacked him was concerning, but with the amount of strength and firepower they had at their disposal he still held confidence that they could win the battle.
The Quiraji soldiers that were standing in front of the machine node still hadn't moved an inch.
Shen took a backwards step as he stared in fear at the power being gathered ahead of him, a large part of him wanted to turn and flee the battle before they could attack him. However, he never got the chance as the shinobi began to activate their techniques at the same time.
Dozens of hunter Jounin activated bolts of lightning that they sent straight at the Black Robe leader, while others sent hails of chakra-enhanced projectiles. Darui pushed his hands out at the front of the line: "Ranton: Laser Circus!" (Storm Release)
A halo of bright energy gathered around his hands before exploding outwards in dozens of beams that weaved around the other attacks that were being fired at the Quiraji leader, taking their energy and adding it into his own attack before sending it straight at Shen.
It seemed like the Quiraji leader had no defence against the storm of attacks, but through a small gap in which he could see the enemy, Darui realised that they'd made the one mistake they'd sworn they wouldn't.
They'd underestimated their enemy's power.
As the chakra-based beams and lightning struck against the air in front of Shen, his expression changed back to his furious visage and he weaved his hands in front of his body as if collecting the attacks into his palms. As he did so, the chakra disappeared from the attacks and they withered to nothing before they could strike directly at him, while the projectiles that had been fuelled by chakra fell away to the ground at his feet.
Shen looked at the shinobi that had attacked his with a furious anger on his face as he flexed his fingers menacingly before driving them towards his opponents at a great distance. Darui and some of the more perceptive shinobi in their ranks tried to shout out a warning, but there was no time for the shinobi to get out of the way.
Shooting out of the Quiraji leader's fingers were beams of dark spiritual energy that leapt towards the shinobi at far greater speeds than they'd been originally fired. Darui could only watch in horror as a corrupted version of his own attack came screamed towards him and laid into his own ranks with terrible accuracy. While chakra-based attacks had precision and control, attacks based purely on spiritual energy had power that shinobi couldn't possibly hope to achieve. There were some shinobi at the front that had enough speed to avoid taking critical damage from Shen's retaliatory attacks, but many were not fast enough and took the dark beams directly in the chests, killing them instantly.
The Quiraji leader's attacks had only targeted the front line of shinobi, however only three out of the forty that had been standing at the front of Kumogakure force remained standing.
Darui was kneeling down on one knee with a hole in his side larger than his fist.
Any regular shinobi force would see such devastating losses and would immediately break, falling back from the battlefield after seeing such a display from such a powerful opponent. However, the Kumogakure pursuit force was no regular force of shinobi; they were the students of the Two-Tails container and some of the most powerful shinobi in all of Kumogakure.
Naturally, they charged their opponent with loud roars of fury, with their bladed weapons in hand. If ninjutsu techniques couldn't work and could be turned against them, then they would charge forward and cut him down to size.
Darui struggled to keep himself upright on his knee, coughing blood onto his leg as he tried to cover the hole in his side with his hands, but they just came back sticky with blood and he could already feel himself falling into unconsciousness.
The single medical-nin that had accompanied the Kumogakure pursuit force leapt to his side and placed his glowing blue hands to his leader's wound. It didn't take a medic of his experience to see that the Quiraji leader's attack had seriously devastated Darui's body; the attack had punctured several of his vital organs, including almost completely destroying his liver.
"This is…" He struggled to find the words to tell Darui that there was no way anyone could heal this kind of wound under battlefield conditions, let alone in a hospital back in the village.
Darui glanced over at him for a moment before grimacing at the look he was being given and pulled forward his sword to steady himself on the ground. "Oh well. Now's as good a…place as any…to die." Despite his wound and his failing strength, Darui pushed himself up and began to hobble towards the battle. The medic protested and tried to pull the leader away, but a single glare from Darui told the medic to stay away, lest he was cut down for getting in his way. The medic swore at his leader's stubbornness and walked behind him, trying his best to heal as much of the damage as he could to give Darui a little bit more time as he made his way forward.
As shinobi came down upon him like rain on a field of grass, Shen's persona kept static in his furious psychotic rage, dodging and twirling away from each of the shinobi attacks. He was no Red Warrior however, and relied on his abilities to protect himself as he began to absorb physical energy from the strikes that battered at his invisible barrier. His robe was being cut and torn by slashes of kunai and sword, yet Shen himself remained uninjured. More and more Kumogakure shinobi piled on and mounted attack after attack on him until Shen judged that there were enough shinobi for him to begin his counter-attack.
With a deafening roar, he stomped his small feet into the ground and threw his hands up into the air. As his movements stopped, nearly a dozen Kumogakure shinobi saw their opportunity and drove their weapons into his body. The Quiraji leader was impaled by swords and kunai alike, while several short blades stuck in his neck; a killing blow for any normal enemy.
Shen ignored the strikes as if they were mere fleas and flared open his hands as if he was calling down the wrath of the heavens onto the shinobi attacking him. As he did so, an unbelievable force of physical energy slammed down into the large number of Kumogakure shinobi that had surrounded him. In an instant, over thirty Kumogakure shinobi dropped to the ground like they'd been stomped down into the dirt. They're bones were crushed into dust and none in a twenty metre radius was able to survive the strike.
With his foes destroyed for the moment, Shen's expression softened and he glanced down at the piles of crushed bodies with a look of fear on his face. "Oh my! What has happened here?"
The surviving Kumogakure shinobi pulled back their charge towards the Quiraji leader and turned to see Darui still stumbling towards Shen with murderous purpose in his eyes. Several of them asked for orders; recognising that their foe wasn't one that they could defeat through conventional means. However, blood had begun to pool in Darui's head and he couldn't hear anything except a loud ringing that was deafening. His mind was stuck in a haze and all he could do was concentrate his blurry gaze on the robed young man that had killed him and his companions; his hate was all that drove him forward anymore. The medic that had been healing him had remained with the other Kumogakure shinobi, wary of the fact that he was getting closer to the enemy leader with the knowledge that he was already dead.
Without a leader to give them orders, after seeing so many of their comrades dead for little respite, the Kumogakure shinobi force's moral broke and they knew they weren't going to be able to defeat their foe. With that in mind, the surviving cluster of shinobi turned and fled in the direction that their home village was in. They'd sent a runner to ask for reinforcements, but even with greater numbers they couldn't see a way they'd be able to break through to destroy that machine node.
Through his blurry vision, Darui could see the wounds that had been inflicted on Shen when he'd crushed the Kumogakure shinobi were already beginning to smoke and close themselves up. He snarled and released his hand from his side, knowing that he only had a few minutes before his wounds made him immobile and he would be cut down by the now-cheering Quiraji soldiers.
Shen seemed to be still terrified of his approach, despite the damage that he'd been able to do to their ranks, making Darui wonder what kind of messed up personality issues the Quiraji leader had.
Clutching his cleaver-blade in a single hand, Darui used the last ounce of his strength to heft the blade up and tried to bring it down onto the middle of the enemy leader, though he couldn't put much more force in it than a small child could.
As the craven he was, Shen stumbled back and fell over in the wake of Darui's last desperate attack, holding up his arms in a vain attempt to protect himself from the weak attack.
However, it was never meant to be. Darui's blade dropped to the grass as his strength failed him. He looked down to see a pair of short blades sticking out of his chest. He didn't have the strength to see the White Assassin that had teleported behind him and ended his life, but that didn't matter as the Quiraji specialist withdrew the blades and reached up to snap his neck with their powerful arms.
His body fell to the floor with a sickly thud as the White Assassin regarded Shen with contempt in his eyes before teleporting back to the Quiraji ranks within the chakra-nullifying field. The Quiraji soldiers were still cheering at the death of the shinobi leader, but the other Kumogakure shinobi were too far away to hear them.
The battle for this node was over.
Though they called themselves the Sound Four, and they were known in the shinobi world as a very dangerous shinobi team, Jirobou, Tayuya, Sakon and Ukon had a tendency to not get along at all.
Only the brothers didn't fight with each other as they travelled along the road towards the machine node that they'd been tasked with destroying. They hadn't worked together as a team since the establishment of Otogakure by the Otokage and the death of Kidoumaru, and as such their teamwork was very rusty.
"We're going the wrong f**king way!" yelled Tayuya, her red hair flaring up in the wind that had accompanied the light rain they were running through.
Jirobou stabbed at the wet map in his hands with his finger, "No, we're not. It's over this ridge, through this forest and in this field. That's what the map says."
The musical kunoichi scoffed at his assertion, "What the hell would you know? Can you actually see anything through those fat eyes of yours?"
At her side, Sakon laughed loudly at the notion, while his brother ran silently beside him without making a comment. Out of the two of them, Ukon was the more serious one, but they'd each been given command of the mission equally.
None of them knew why Neji had done it that way, and each of them resented the fact that the others were there.
While Jirobou did his best to convince Tayuya that she stank like a bear's backside and would make a nice love pet for a Quiraji general, the Otogakure shinobi that had been designated to assist them ran behind them at a distance that allowed them to avoid the wrath of the warring Sound Four.
Despite Tayuya's protests that they were going the wrong way, the army moved along their original route until they emerged from a small forest. In front of them expanded out a wide field of grass that looked like it had been prepared just to have the machine node in place.
The sensory shinobi in the group seemed perplexed by what they could see, even though there was a large Quiraji force standing in front of them, seemingly waiting for their arrival. The node they'd come to destroy was smaller than they'd been expecting; it was a spherical device that looked to have a number of lights within its steel frame. The thing that puzzled the sensory shinobi was that the chakra-nullifying field that they'd expected to fight in barely encompassed the machine node itself, with none of the Quiraji soldiers able to actually stand within the field's protection.
As such, the Otogakure shinobi would be able to fight at full strength.
"Well this is a bit sad," said Sakon with a smirk.
Jirobou stuffed the map into his pouch and poked out his tongue at Tayuya before turning his attention to the Quiraji soldiers in front of them. "Finally, a battle in our favour."
"Don't underestimate them," warned Ukon in his gravelly voice. "They've been waiting for us, they must have known we were coming."
Tayuya snarled her frustration at her larger companion and turned her attention to the shinobi under their command. "Get into line! The Otokage wants this field down and that's what we're here to do!"
The Otogakure shinobi jumped to obey her command, each of them wary of the knowledge that she was still the head of interrogation for their village and would gladly torture any of those that disappointed her in battle.
"I'm not seeing a leader," observed Sakon with a disappointed tone. "Shouldn't there be some great Quiraji general that we can crush beneath our feet and break their spirit?" He turned and demanded one of the sensory shinobi tell him which of the Quiraji soldiers standing against them was the strongest.
There were only one hundred Otogakure shinobi that had accompanied the Sound Four, as most of their village had elected to remain behind to defend the Fire Temple from the inevitable Quiraji counter-attack to their invasion, while another group had accompanied Jin to destroy one of the other machine nodes. Because of this, they were significantly outnumbered by the Quiraji force, nearly three-to-one.
It was good odds for any Otogakure shinobi, especially with the lack of Quiraji specialist troops that they could see.
The Quiraji soldiers they had come to fight seemed to be ready to embrace them, having notched arrows in their bows and formed into military ranks that were impressive to see. However, the Otogakure shinobi had full access to their chakra abilities, and as such the Quiraji force didn't scare them too much.
Despite their haste in wanting to engage the enemy in battle, the Sound Four knew that they still had to take their foe seriously. As such, Ukon called for one of their shinobi to come to the front and fire a warning shot into the enemy ranks; to show the Quiraji the extent of their abilities.
The young man nodded with pride at being chosen and ran through a long set of handseals as he stepped in front of their ranks to the ground between the armies. The technique he was planning to use would disable many of the Quiraji soldiers in front of him with a burst of directed sound that would mess with their perceptions.
He smirked as he saw that none of the Quiraji soldiers had come forward to intercept him; clearly they didn't see him as much of a threat.
His hands clapped together and he gathered his chakra into his larynx to begin his technique.
And in a blink, his hands were cut from his wrists in a single flash of metal. He looked up to see a woman clad in a white cloak and a dead expression in her eyes standing in front of him, though she seemed to be covered in a strange red hue. He only got a moment to look at her before she brought up one of the two twin-blades that sat on the top of her wrists and removed his head from his shoulders, letting his body fall to the ground and fountain in blood while she collected her white cloak and teleported in a flash.
The Otogakure shinobi watched this unfold in disbelief. The White Assassins they had encountered so far had been constrained by the same physical issues that Uzumaki Naruto had. Yet this female Quiraji specialist had just teleported twice in less than five seconds, clearly breaking that known constraint.
"I guess the leader has shown herself," said Jirobou with a squint, trying to get a better look at the White Assassin deep in the Quiraji ranks. "Did anyone catch the name of the shinobi she killed?"
The other Sound Four members shrugged in response; none of them really knew any of their subordinates names that had accompanied them to the battlefield.
"It doesn't matter," said Ukon roughly. "We now know what we are facing."
His brother nodded in agreement while cracking his knuckles loudly, "We'll take out her troops and then concentrate on taking her down. If we keep our ranks tight, she'll struggle to find a footing to catch us off-guard."
"It won't be that easy," warned Jirobou, but nevertheless he gave the order for their shinobi to form up and clapped his hands together to begin moulding chakra.
The Quiraji soldiers seemed more interested in fighting them now that their leader had revealed herself, though the White Assassin showed no concern for her troops' well-being at all. Once she was able, she disappeared into the air as her kind tended to.
The Otogakure force that had accompanied the Sound Four wasn't a green force, but rather was mostly comprised of veterans of the war with the Quiraji. So when they saw that she had teleported away, each of them tightened up their ranks and prepared themselves to receive her inevitable attacks while the Quiraji roared out a challenge and charged at them.
The Sound Four glanced at each other for a moment before both Sakon and Ukon clenched their fists and charged headlong into the Quiraji ranks. Tayuya rolled her eyes and pulled her new flute to her lips, blowing air through the instrument to create an upbeat melody that seemed entirely out of character for her. The music flowed throughout the battlefield into the ears of every shinobi in range, while Jirobou slammed his hands into the ground to create a mighty earthquake that shook the ground terribly.
Just as he'd predicted, the Quiraji leader appeared behind him with the intention of cutting him down as he shook the earth with his Earth Element ninjutsu. A single shift in the music that was playing throughout the battlefield told Jirobou that Tayuya had seen her appear behind him. That allowed him to shift the chakra of his technique and create a massive earth pillar behind himself that shot high up into the sky, preventing the White Assassin from attacking him. Just as she saw that her approach had failed, the White Assassin disappeared once again as Sakon and Ukon slammed into the Quiraji soldier ranks with over twenty Otogakure shinobi at their side.
When they'd been under the effect of the Cursed Seal, the brothers had possessed extremely potent strength and regenerative abilities, but it required them to share a body for most of the time as their chakra reserves struggled to handle the load. However, since being freed from that time by the Otokage, both of the brothers had mastered their abilities to the point that they were far more powerful now than they ever were under the Cursed Seal. They moved in perfect synchronisation as they always had, being able to read each other's movements without even needing to see them, so when one brother moved to attack one soldier with a chakra-infused fist on one side, the other brother leapt over his back and kicked out at one of the enemy soldiers that was trying to attack his back.
While working together, Sakon and Ukon were a whirlwind of destruction, taking out clusters of soldiers at once without even being touched by their weapons.
The other Otogakure shinobi were no slouches in combat either, particularly with their ability to use their full selection of taijutsu with their chakra rather than just being restricted to just their own physical abilities. Several fell under sheer weight of numbers of Quiraji soldier attacks, but once they were reinforced by their companions the Otogakure shinobi fought with an eerie precision that shouldn't have been possible under regular circumstances.
But these were hardly regular circumstances.
Protected on all sides by a shield unit of defensive shinobi, Tayuya used her music to accomplish two vital tasks. She had no capacity to place the Quiraji under genjutsu effects, as they were immune to such things. Instead, she used her music to inform their ranks where and when the White Assassin leader appeared so they at least stood a chance against her surprise attacks. The Quiraji leader still claimed a terrible toll on their ranks as each time she appeared in a gap she took down two or three shinobi before disappearing during their counter-attack.
The second thing that Tayuya was controlling was their shinobi's strengths and movements. By flooding their minds with her chakra-infused music, she was able to mostly override their wills and make them fight as one singular unit that lived and breathed in each moment. The Otogakure force moved with a precise rhythm that changed depending on Tayuya's tune, and she kept a close eye on the battle so that she could change at a moment's notice.
The last of the Sound Four concentrated his efforts on trying to trap the White Assassin leader. He could almost see a pattern in the way that she would appear within their ranks, use her twin blades to cut into the weak points of the closest shinobi she could find before disappearing back to the same position at the back of the Quiraji ranks.
To that end, he clapped his hands together and wrenched two large chunks of earth out of the ground to hold like giant balls in his hands. He waited until the timing was just right and hurled them one after the other at the exact location that the White Assassin teleported to. She seemed to notice the danger immediately and turned to face it with the same silent gaze she'd worn since the start of the battle.
She tapped her wrist blades together to form a cross in front of her before leaping forward and slashing at the rock that had been sent to crush her. Two lines appeared on the outside before the projectile fell into four pieces and she turned to see who had attacked her.
It was then she saw the second rock coming screaming towards her, while she still floated in the air. It seemed to surprise her for a moment as she considered bringing her blades up to replicate her previous attack before changing her mind and shifting her position in the air with her feet pointed at the rock. As it hit her she used it as a springboard and disappeared in a flash, as the timing on her teleportation activated at the same time. Jirobou snarled at his failure and dropped his hands to the ground to create a thick earthen barrier that surrounded him on all sides, tight enough to deny her contact with him directly. Within his barrier he braced his arms for impact, and ducked just he felt a pair of slashes come against his barrier where his head had been.
The top of the barrier collapsed inwards as he saw that she'd tried to decapitate him with her first teleportation, and was already on top of the cut with her blades poised to slash down into his exposed back. However, she disappeared back into the air as a flurry of kunai and shuriken came in from the side.
Jirobou dropped his barrier to see who had saved him, nodding his thanks to the pair of Otogakure shinobi that had thrown the projectiles. His gratitude only lasted a moment however before he saw her appear behind them and stab her wrist blades into the backs of their necks. She seemed to give him a look that said 'what are you going to do about it' before disappearing once again.
Within the melee between the Quiraji soldiers and Otogakure shinobi, the advantage had clearly turned to the shinobi's favour. Sakon and Ukon had taken out nearly a third of the enemy force on their own and Tayuya's music commands had reaped a terrible toll on the Quiraji force. The White Assassin leader was keeping the shinobi from truly overpowering the Quiraji soldiers, as each shinobi she removed from the battle was far more vital than her soldiers were. Given enough time, she could probably take out the entire shinobi force, but not before they killed every Quiraji soldier in front of them and destroyed the machine node.
She knew what she had to do. Without a word she disappeared back into the air.
Tayuya kept an eye on the battlefield while she changed the tune of her music to suit the fighting. It was dreary work; she hated using this type of technique, but if it was necessary to win the battle than she'd do her duty. The Otogakure head of interrogation noticed a strange absence on the battlefield and tried to find the source, only to see that half of her bodyguard had already been killed by the Quiraji leader. With her flute in hand, she changed to a more upbeat tempo and jumped back just as a blade threatened to cut the flute in her hands in half.
The female White Assassin disappeared as soon as she'd appeared, but unlike previous time she didn't retreat with her second teleportation. Instead, she teleported behind the retreating Tayuya and made a downward slash with one of her wrist blades. One of Tayuya's guards tried to jump in between them, but only succeeded in pushing her slightly out of the way of the blow. Instead of cleaving her head in two like it would have, the strike simply claimed one of her ears.
Tayuya dropped to her knees with a scream that was more piercing than her music, her flute discarded on the ground nearby. Her remaining guards tried to attack the White Assassin while she couldn't teleport away, but the Quiraji specialist quickly overwhelmed them and cut them down above their ward. She turned down to finish the job on the injured Otogakure kunoichi, but saw Jirobou stampeding towards her with large rock fists that could crush her in a single blow.
The White Assassin let out a huff and stepped over Tayuya before slashing down at the ground to slice Tayuya's flute in two. As Jirobou came into range she disappeared into the air, causing him to stumble down towards the ground.
"Damnit!" shouted Jirobou as he steadied himself and dropped the rocks from his fists. It was a rarity for him to swear, but the situation seemed to warrant it as the White Assassin leader appeared back in the melee to slaughter their shinobi. He turned back to Tayuya to see that one of her ears had been completely cleaved off.
Despite the situation and despite the severity of the injury, Jirobou couldn't help himself. He placed his hands on his stomach and let out a booming laugh, one that ran through his entire body. The irony of her injury was absolutely priceless and not even the evil look she gave him could stop him. Eventually Jirobou ran out of breath and he held his cheeks in pain; it was too much. He knelt down in front of her and offered her a hand up.
"You're a f**king asshole," said Tayuya slowly. Because of how messed up her hearing was with only one ear, her voice came out quite nasal.
That was enough to send Jirobou over the edge and onto the ground in a fit of laughter. Tayuya tried to yell profanities at him, but upon hearing herself she promptly covered her mouth in embarrassment while her other hand covered her missing ear to try and stop the constant flow of blood.
With Tayuya both injured and preoccupied, the shinobi force lost their massive advantage over the Quiraji force and the weight of numbers began to take its toll on the shinobi force. They still continued to lay into the Quiraji soldiers with ninjutsu and taijutsu alike, but the Quiraji were getting better at fighting them by the minute and there were only so many places that Sakon and Ukon could be at once.
Through the confusion, the White Assassin reaped a terrible toll on their force, taking out shinobi after shinobi with little reprisal. She even managed to get in a few hits against the brothers before they wised up to her act and fought back-to-back to prevent her taking advantage of their blind spots. They both knew if the situation got really bad they could merge bodies and fight more effectively that way, but it had been a very long time since they'd done that, and neither particularly relished the idea at the moment.
They knew they had to take out the Quiraji leader, otherwise she'd just cut them down one at a time. The two of them barked out orders for their shinobi to fight more defensively as they ran towards the seemingly incapacitated Tayuya and the recovering Jirobou. The large man appeared to have recovered from his fit of laughter and was now helping Tayuya to her feet, while the female kunoichi hurled slurred profanities at both him and anyone that tried to come close.
"Tayuya! We need the music again!" yelled out Sakon as they ran towards the two of them.
The Otogakure kunoichi glared at him hatefully, but the look in the Sound Four member's eyes was enough to guess what he had in mind. With a loud swear she swung around her pack and pulled out her secondary instrument: a long clarinet. Even with her hearing messed up as it was, Tayuya knew music like she knew her own body. She began to play a mournful tune that perked up the Otogakure shinobi immediately while the brothers quickly signalled their plan to Jirobou. They didn't need to communicate between each other, as they knew what each was thinking about, but Jirobou was needed for their plan.
Both Sakon and Ukon reached their Sound Four companions and bit their respective thumbs before swiping it onto their palms and jumping back to create some distance from each other on the battlefield. "Kuchiyose: Rashoumon!"
At once they drove their hands into the ground, causing a massive gate with a demonic visage on its doors to appear at each of their feet. The pair of gates were a short distance between each of the faces, and the brothers jumped back behind their respective gates and prepared themselves.
Tayuya continued to play her clarinet without paying attention to what was happening around her, barely even noticing that Jirobou had disappeared from her side.
As she'd suspected, the Quiraji leader returned to finish the job. The White Assassin appeared in her blind side and didn't waste any time in stabbing her in the side with one of her wrist blades. Tayuya snarled in pain and dropped her clarinet to try and swing an arm at her enemy, but the White Assassin simply planted a boot to her chest and knocked her down to her knees.
In between the Rashoumon gates, the female Quiraji leader stared down at the Otogakure head of interrogation with both hatred and contempt in her dull eyes. She glanced down at her opponent's discarded instrument before regarding her scarred face with a hint of amusement in a smirk. Before Tayuya could do anything to defend herself, the White Assassin flicked her wrist blade at her face and removed her other ear from the side of her head.
The scream that came from Tayuya's mouth dwarfed any sound she'd ever made before as both of her hands shot up to the sides of her head. The pain was so intense that if she didn't so thoroughly hate everything she would have passed out by now. Her face dropped to the grass as she continued to scream, but because she couldn't hear herself she wasn't aware that she was no longer producing any sound from her mouth. Her throat had already run dry.
Satisfied with the result of her work, the White Assassin turned to see if there was a new target for her wet blades.
It was then that Jirobou's hands shot up from underneath the ground and clasped at her ankles tightly. Not one to see if she could escape from such a grip, Jirobou wrenched himself out of the ground and slammed her down to her waist within the hole he'd dug with his earth technique before closing it onto her body as tightly as he could. The chakra seemed to dissipate as it came into contact with her body, but as he pulled himself out of the ground and looked down at her to see her struggling to pull herself up he knew that he'd finally been able to trap the slippery Assassin.
He only had a second to shoot forward, scoop up the agonised Tayuya in his large arms and dive out of the way as the pair of Rashoumon gates came slamming into each other. Both Sakon and Ukon had pushed almost all their chakra into their arms to deliver a single powerful punch that could move such massive gates along the ground to crash into each other with a thunderous clap.
The Quiraji leader just happened to be caught in between the demonic faces of the Rashoumon gates and was squished into nothingness. Jirobou dropped Tayuya to the ground and turned to see if their trap had worked. The brothers Sakon and Ukon both held their hands up in anticipation for a retaliation attack from the Quiraji leader, as now with most of their strength spent would have been the perfect opportunity to take one of them down.
After nearly twenty seconds, it became apparent that no such attack was forthcoming. The enemy was dead and buried.
With their foe finally dead at their feet, the Sound Four turned their attention to the machine they'd come here to destroy. Their shinobi were still engaging the Quiraji soldiers and were pushing them back as well as they could. Tayuya still had her hands on the sides of her head and was screaming silently in pain, but the other Sound Four simply ignored her. It wasn't because they wanted to focus on the job more than helping her.
It was mainly that they felt she needed to suffer for a little bit. Tayuya had a tendency to irritate them incessantly, so their sympathy was at an all-time low.
"So how are we going to destroy this thing?" asked Ukon.
Sakon turned to their larger companion and motioned with his head, "You reckon you could take care of it?"
Jirobou considered the proposition for a moment before sighing and stepping back out of the chakra-nullifying field. "Only if you get a medic over to Tayuya. She's suffered enough for one day."
"If we must…" muttered Ukon begrudgingly. He made his way over to the screaming Sound Four member and looked down at her with contempt in his eyes. It wasn't that he really disliked the kunoichi; none of them were that hateful towards each other.
They were just bad people, and it was really funny.
She looked up at him with what appeared to be pity, but it didn't last long before Ukon's fist came crashing down on her head to knock her out. If he were so inclined, he could have shared some of his chakra with her to help regenerate her ears, but Ukon was in no mood for sharing. He rarely was.
As the chakra-nullifying field only extended a short distance from the node powering it, Jirobou found himself still within a good range of the machine as he began collecting massive amounts of chakra within himself. He clapped his hands to push it to the brink before shoving his hands into the rocky ground beneath his feet.
With a loud grunt of exertion, the ground began to give and he wrenched up a huge boulder that was so oversized it looked like he shouldn't be able to hold it up. His hands struggled under the weight and beads of sweat started to appear on his forehead, but Jirobou fuelled more chakra through his body and took a back step to centre himself.
Seeing what he was trying to do, a group of Quiraji soldiers broke off from the main battle with the Otogakure shinobi and moved as fast as they could to intercept him before he could attack the node. However, Sakon and Ukon rolled their eyes at the annoyance and stepped between Jirobou and the soldiers, clenching their fists tightly.
"You got the left, Ukon?"
"Do you really need to ask?"
While they took care of his attackers, Jirobou hefted the boulder backwards and aimed himself at the machine node. He had no real clue whether it would be strong enough to destroy the machine, but it didn't hurt to try.
With a loud grunt, he hurled the boulder straight into the chakra-nullifying field. The chakra that surrounded it dissipated once it entered the field, but the force and angle of his throw carried it until it slammed into the middle of the machine. The boulder was easily twice the size of the machine itself, and the angle caused it to break through the steel barrier and forced its way through.
It only took a moment before it hit a sensitive part of the machinery and there was a loud fizzling sound in the air. They didn't have any sensory shinobi with them anymore, as they'd been killed in the fighting, but clearly they'd made an impact on the field as the Quiraji soldiers immediately broke and fled the battlefield as quickly as they could.
The Otogakure shinobi battling them weren't about to let their enemies get away from them, cutting them down with projectiles and sword strikes as they fled. They had no reason to be merciful.
"Is that it?" asked Sakon with a raised eyebrow, looking over to his brother.
Ukon shrugged and looked down at the unconscious Tayuya he'd knocked out. Without her hands to cover the sides of her head, she had begun bleeding quite badly. If they didn't get her healed in time, she would probably die. "Get someone to take her back to the Fire Temple. It wouldn't look good for the Sound Four to become the Sound Three."
"Fair enough," said Sakon. He looked over at the rest of the battlefield, seeing that they'd completely routed the Quiraji soldiers that had come against them. The silent White Assassin that had attacked them was still crushed in between their Rashoumon gates, but neither brother wanted to take them down to check. They both liked the idea of the gates standing there as a testament to the battle.
While they began reorganising their shinobi to return to the Fire Temple, the remaining Sound leaders made their way over the remnants of the machine node and began destroying it piece by piece.
It didn't hurt to be thorough.
Neji's eyes perked up as the rest of the group noticed the same thing he just did.
"The field is down."
The others in the strike team gave their own confirmations and got up from their relaxed positions. They'd been waited for a reasonable amount of time and were as prepared as they were ever going to be for this battle.
No other word was spoken between them as representatives from every shinobi village still fighting and the Konoha survivors took their first step into Quiraji territory. The chakra-nullifying field had given no visual indication of its failure, but the fact that both Neji and Hinata could now use their Byakugan to investigate the area without pain and blindness told them that the field had indeed completely fallen.
However, they had no indication of whether it was permanent or not. They had to move as quickly as possible and resolve the final conflict with the Quiraji leadership before the field came back up. Otherwise, they would be trapped within the field, with the best Quiraji fighters at their backs. Not a good position to be in.
The distance between their original position outside the field to the crater that used to contain Konoha was less than an hour at a reasonable pace, but with the adult Hyuugas at the forefront the group moved much quicker, as they could tell that there were no Quiraji soldiers between them and the edge of their destroyed home. They kept the information they could see through their black and white vision to themselves, as everyone would be seeing it in short time.
Within twenty minutes of moving through forests that evoked powerful memories in the Konoha survivors that were at the front of the group, they began to see a strange spire that seemed to stand in the middle of where Konoha once stood. The walls of the village had long since been destroyed and the path that normally separated it from the main road in that area of the Land of Fire had already started to be overgrown with brush and weeds, as if the forest itself was trying to reclaim the area for its own.
"I'm not sure if I'm ready for this…" muttered Kiba as they started to come to the forest's edge. At his side, Akamaru barked out a comment that he chose to ignore, while his cousin, Nagisa, looked over at him for a moment with a slight nod of her head. The Inuzuka heirs could tell the smells around their old home had changed drastically, to the extent that it almost hurt their noses to be in the area.
"How close are we?" asked the Kazekage as he ran by his old friend's side.
Naruto turned to his wife with a raised eyebrow, to which she gave him a small smile that had a hint of awkward sadness that only a husband could see. He turned back to Gaara, "Not that long. Hinata says it's all clear between here and Konoha."
The rest of the group heard his statement and accelerated their pace, with both Rock Lee and Yugito holding themselves back from going at their full speed, knowing that the strike team had to stick together. While moving as quickly as they could, they had to reserve as much strength as they could.
"We're coming up on the ruins of Konoha," warned Neji quietly. "Keep your wits about you. This isn't home anymore."
"We're well aware of that," said Sasuke at a low growl. He wasn't normally one for emotion, but coming back to the place that he used to despise had brought out things in him he hadn't been prepared for. At his side, he knew his older brother didn't need eyes to see his discomfort, though even one so stoic as Itachi was affected by the target area of their mission.
After all, the last time the elder Uchiha had been in the village, he'd slaughtered his own family for his younger brother's sake.
"We'll get through this okay," said the young woman at Sasuke's side, squeezing his shoulder gently. Under normal circumstances, he would give her grief for acting soft in a time that didn't require it, but something about the setting set his nerves on edge. And that itself was troubling.
"I've not visited Konoha since the end of the Third War," said Mei with her hands slowly clenching into chakra-infused fists. "I don't expect the same reception."
The group began to slow as the forest started to open up, even though they knew there weren't any soldiers they couldn't be certain there weren't Quiraji traps designed to demoralise and disable them.
A few minutes later, the area that once contained Konoha came into view.
The spire that they'd seen earlier was attached to the top of a small building that looked entirely alien in the area. The crater that had been created when the village had been destroyed hadn't changed in the years since, with the building the only indication that there was life in the area.
There was no evidence of the previous village's existence. Even the mighty faces that once sat on the Hokage Mountain were nowhere to be found.
It was an appropriate battlefield for their liberation from the Quiraji invaders.
The strike team didn't have any specific hand signals or structure of command, but each shinobi present considered themselves as important as each other in the grand scheme of the final battle. It was because of that that each of them took the first step into the crater of Konoha, to approach the Quiraji structure and confront their enemies directly.
The moment they stepped over the threshold, the top of the spire began to open up in reaction. It folded outwards like a flower blooming in the sun. Before any of them could react, a single object shot up through the air like it'd been fired out of a cannon.
The shinobi strike team froze at the sight and several of them started to prepare their defences, but it became obvious that the object had no interest in their presence. It rocketed up high into the sky with a silver gleam before shattering in the sky far out of view. It split off into thousands of different shards that seemed to have minds of their own as they flew far away from the middle of the Land of Fire.
"Signal flare?" observed Konan with a raised eyebrow.
At her side, Kakashi looked up at the strange phenomena for a moment before shrugging, "Hard to tell. If they are signalling for their forces to converge on our location, then we're low on time."
Hinata tried to follow some of the projectiles' progress with her Byakugan, but they passed out of even her long range vision, with most of the projectiles looking like they were aimed at other parts of the country outside the Land of Fire.
"This ain't a good omen," commented Killer Bee as he fixed his sunglasses to adjust for the light.
"We have to move forward. The Quiraji leaders must be inside that building," said Neji. "It's the only place my Byakugan can't penetrate."
"Then that's our target," said Naruto with a confident nod. He was grateful they had the opportunity to finally strike at their enemy directly.
Rock Lee nodded his agreement with his Konoha companion as he started to stretch his legs habitually. "The lack of a smaller field is concerning though, is it not? Wouldn't it make sense for them to put us at a disadvantage?"
"Let's just get this over with," muttered an impatient Sasuke. He placed his hands together into a handseal and began moulding a large amount of chakra in his stomach.
Before he could complete his technique, Itachi reached over and grabbed his hands with one of his, cancelling the technique. "Don't be hasty, Sasuke. The enemy has yet to reveal itself."
"They're coming out," said Hinata, cancelling her Byakugan to prevent the waste of chakra and the injury to her eyes. She hadn't been able to see inside the building, which was enough to tell her who was inside.
As she said it, the large double door that sat at the centre of the small building began to creak open slowly. The strike team had come within a shuriken throw of the building's entrance, yet none of them was willing to fire a shot until their enemy revealed themselves.
Several silhouettes began to emerge from within the Quiraji building. They appeared to be in no rush to greet their attackers, but that was because they knew that the shinobi's presence here showed how desperate they had become.
"All of them at once, eh?" observed Rock Lee with a sickeningly loud crack of his neck. "This ought to be an interesting fight."
"But only them," said Neji with a frustrating tone of voice. "The leader still remains within."
"One step at a time," said Gaara as the top of his gourd popped off and a line of sand began to circle around him. "They were clearly waiting for us."
The silhouettes came into focus and the shinobi strike team saw the figures that had been sent against them. The final battle had yet to begin and the enemy had already revealed the majority of their hand.
The Four had come.
Author's Note:
The next chapter will be a Bonus Chapter, and it's one that I hope you enjoy, even though it's quite dark and depressing. After that, there are ten chapters left, and then a final Bonus Chapter before the end of the story. I'm trying my best to get it done by the end of the year, and I hope you'll all stay with me until that end and continue to enjoy my story.
These chapters will probably be out every two weeks, judging by my current writing schedule. I'm doing my best not to 'rush' things, as I don't want to just skip to the conclusion. There will be resolutions to everything in the story, fear not. If there is some obscure thing you think I might forget, please don't hesitate to comment about it. With a story this long, sometimes there are things even I can't keep track of.
Please review and tell me what you think. I try to take each review into account, and believe me I read them all. Tell me what can be improved, what you liked, what you didn't, everything. I'm a writer so I'm always open to criticism.