Summary: Recca, Kagero, and a SI are placed in the world of the Nine Tails
Crossover: Flame of Recca, Naruto, Hitman: Contracts, YYH
Disclaimer: I don't own what other people do. I do own me, though.
Feedback: Sure thing... I like hearing how I can improve :) I also like hearing people's opinions on things. I have a fragile ego and low self esteem -- please review?
BandsThisWasWrittenTo: Guns and Roses, Norther, and Nine Inch Nails.
Pre-fic Comments:
I mainly work off the manga, and had a flick through my Naruto eps. Ye Gods. What a pack of drama queens -- all of them! The manga isn't that bad!
Still looking for that general Naruto fanfic mailing list...
Stefni: Thanks! And it wasn't so much teaching it as it was stealing it ala Sharingan, without the Sharingan. As for the new sensei bit -- that would depend on how good Kakashi is at verbally defending himself :)
KamiKaze no Kage: Thanks! No prob for the explanation, it really is a good game. Hitman: Contracts also has some of the old missions from the original game in it.
"Lokison Raiha versus Lee! Begin!"
"It seems that Fate has brought us together as adversaries," Raiha said. "I have heard of your... problems with chakra."
"It has not dulled the fire of my youth," Lee yelled, perfectly content to carry on with the obligatory pre-fight posturing. Dragon Ball Z was his favourite manga, after all!
"My Bloodline means that trying to use chakra is sheer folly for myself," Raiha continued, before pulling his twelve pound cast iron sledge off his back. "Even his allies are afraid of the berserker."
"Berserker? What word is that," Lee asked, before disappearing. "Let's begin."
Raiha seemed to raise his sledge by chance to meet Lee's kick, just like his left forearm happened to meet Lee's punch after that. The bowlcut genin leapt back to face the opponent that he had thought would be simple to beat. He was so glad -- a fire burnt out without fuel, after all. Nothing must quench his flames of youth!
"You are slow, but strong," Lee complimented. "And very skilled."
"Thank you," Raiha said. "You are fast, but your style is highly predictable, and your punches never deviate from the same type. Your kicks are also very strongly reminiscent of the Konoha Senpuu move that you favour so highly."
"Lee! I'll allow taking off your weights," a voice called out. "This is to prove your way of the Ninja!"
Lee obediently took off his legwarmers, revealing weights strapped around his shins underneath them. His opponent politely waited while Lee unstrapped them, lifting them up to chest height before dropping them, plumes of dust hiding him when they hit the ground. Eventually, when the dustcloud cleared, two massive craters were revealed.
"You have my respect," Raiha said. "You are truly determined, to train like that."
"Thank you," Lee said. "Why are you not taking off your own weights?"
"Weights," Raiha asked, bringing one manacle'd wrist up to chest level, showing it to Lee. "These are seals."
"What are they, samurai," I muttered.
"Not everyone is as impatient as you," Kagero-kaasan chided me.
"They should be beating the crap out of each other, not doing this wait bullshit," I said. "This is no way to impress clients, either, unless they want streetfighters."
"Hey, wait," Recca said. "I wanna see what happens."
"Wait a moment," Raiha requested.
Lee inclined his head.
The genin let his sledgehammer fall to the ground, long handle standing upright due to the weight and angular design of the head as he brought his two iron manacles around his wrists together over his chest.
"Releasing the seal by ten, until the target has been defeated."
Angular runes beaten on the metal glowed red a moment.
"Let's continue," Lee said.
Raiha picked up his sledge, as Lee vanished again. He swung, seemingly randomly, faster than before, as Lee moved too fast for most peoples' eyes ability to track him. Raiha swayed slightly as Lee struck him, before swinging again.
Lee appeared before him, clutching his chest with one hand. Spitting out blood onto the sand of the arena, he looked at Raiha. "This is fun!"
"Stop playing," Raiha said.
"You too, then," Lee said. "Drop that seal. I dropped my weights."
"No, it's way too dangerous," Raiha said, swinging his sledge again.
Lee danced around it. "I can take it!"
"For me, I meant," Raiha clarified.
Lee's guard dropped a moment, while he thought that over. Raiha took the opportunity and brought the hammer around again, striking the middle of Lee's arm squarely. A loud crack announced what had happened, and Lee vanished to the other side of the arena.
"You're too good," Lee said. "I can't stop here! I must continue, and prove that anyone can be a great ninja with only taijutsu!"
"Heh," Raiha grinned, resting his sledge on his right shoulder. "Go on, then. Prove it for me as well."
Lee appeared behind the tall Lokison, knifehand across the back of his head. Slowly, the sledge-wielding nin fell to the ground like a felled tree trunk.
"That was COOL," Naruto cheered, as Lee gave thumbs up to the crowds now cheering him.
"Say, Hanabishi-san," Sakura asked. "I don't understand -- you've said that Recca-san is to lead your clan, but Matora-san would make a better leader."
"Hell no," I said immediately. "I suck at motivating people. If I was leader, I'd be telling them off and giving orders and doing a crappy job."
"That's the way a good command works," Kagero said. "The leader is as much figurehead as he is thinker, and has to gain the hearts of the people he is leading. His second in command is the one who does the unpopular tasks, and supports the leader first and foremost."
"What if the leader can do both," Sakura asked.
"Then that is a perfect leader," Kagero nodded.
"As well as one that'd get a heart attack from stress within a year," Shigeo-tousan chipped in with an irreverent smirk.
"Which is another reason I don't want to be leader, too much work," I said.
"That's just cos you're lazy, niisan," Naruto said, poking his tongue at me.
"Finally," the Konoha medic-nin muttered, as the Sand ANBU arrived. "I've been holding stasis for you -- Kazekage's corpse is unchanged in any way whatsoever."
The Sand ANBU Leader looked at the Sand bodyguard, who nodded, meaning that the medic-nin had not been picking the body over for hints as to Sand techniques and medicines, to the best of his knowledge. A old, thin Sand medic-nin walked out from the grouping of ANBU, walking over to where the Kazekage was slumped over in his stone chair. Nothing had been touched -- even the grey brain matter, hair, bone, and scalp were still spread across the backrest.
A sharp intake of breath announced that something was wrong.
"What is it," the Sand ANBU Leader asked.
"This is notKazekage," the old medic said, looking at the face. "See? The bone structure is faintly... wrong... and the edges where the skin meed the eyes are peeling away, like so, revealing who this really is."
Producing a superlatively sharp scalpel, the medic carefully cut the dead skin mask off the dead man, placing it to one side on a clean piece of white cloth.
The Sand ANBU Leader's face was stony, and rightly so. His 'easy' mission, providing backup to the one nin in Sabakugakure who least needed it, had turned into a royal clusterf-ck. First his 'client' had been murdered, with the assassin making a clean escape, and now he had found that Kazekage was not, in fact, Kazekage.
"This is disturbing," Hokage said from a respectful distance. "If I might? Could you show the true face?"
The medic obeyed, revealing a face with misshapen eyes with slit pupils. Dark lines went down past the inside ends of the eyes, making his thin, shallow nose look more like a serpentine snout. His pale skin was marred only by the red dot in the center of his forehead, where the bullet had penetrated.
"Orochimaru," Hokage breathed in anger.
"You know this man," Sand ANBU asked.
"He is one of the Sennin, the Snake Sennin," Sandaime said. "He was exiled from Konoha for inhumane experiments on live human subjects."
"This raises the question of where Kazekage is, and if he is still alive," the medic said, face twisted in hate.
"He is not," Sandaime said.
"You sound certain."
"This... technique, of stealing faces, is one of his original jutsu, and does not leave the original owner of the face alive," Hokage said. He now looked every bit as old as he was. "I will leave this matter to you -- Konoha will cooperate fully to find out the extent of this atrocity."
"Sakyo-dono, I thought we were joking," a burly businessman dressed in a rich kimono said. His bearded face was sweating heavily.
"I rarely joke about matters regarding hundred million yen bets, Herod-san," Sakyo said, breathing out tobacco smoke evenly.
"But that will bankrupt me!"
"You joined the Black Book Club knowing what the conditions are," Sakyo said. "Are you saying you are... 'welching' on our bet?"
"You won't see a red cent off me!"
Herod stopped breathing for a moment as he traced a thin tendril back to the shorter bodyguard, blood beginning to trickle from where his throat was nicked.
"Monday, Herod. One hundred million yen. Or Shijyuushichi-san will be paying you a visit."
Herod swallowed as the tendril was retracted.
"Sabaku no Gaara versus Hanabishi Recca! Begin!"
The short redhead began to laugh, quietly. Sand erupted from the huge gourd on Gaara's back, floating in the air like tobacco smoke as Gaara clutched his head.
"Okaasan... this blood will be good... I promise..."
"Hey, you gotta get my blood first," Recca said, pulling his lower right eyelid down. "Biiii!"
"Come," Gaara said.
"Hell no," Recca retorted. "I heard rumours about you, you know you're not exactly quiet, right?"
Sand surged forwards, and Recca leapt back to avoid it. Flicking his right hand to summon his Flame, he regarded Gaara curiously.
"Hey, I can see you're Sand Man, but can you control glass," Recca asked, intentions obvious.
Gaara's eyes were wide with madness, as he flicked his hand, sending sand surging towards Recca, who let his internal flame rage in response.
Kagero-kaasan sighed, shaking her head. "This is like they're a pair of five year olds throwing dirt at each other, really."
"Well, if Recca does melt Gaara's sand, then his asset becomes a liability, doesn't it," I asked.
"Not if Gaara can use the sand lying around the arena, and create sand from the ground," Shikamaru said. "Then it would be a question of who would run out of sand or fire first."
"Hey, isn't fire a speciality of the Uchiha Clan," Ino asked.
"My son is a Hokage Flame Master," Kagero-kaasan said with pride. "Every firstborn in his line has possessed an internal flame."
"I wonder if he can come up with a strategy for dealing with Sabaku no Gaara in time," Shikamaru mused. "He doesn't seem like it, even if he is a kick ass type."
"Is he related to Matora-sama," an unfamiliar voice from behind asked them. It was a tall girl with white hair, pale skin and raven eyebrows.
"Who're you," Sakura asked curiously.
"My name... is Torako," the girl said, after a moment of thought.
"Right," Shikamaru deadpanned.
"Matora-sama? Is there something I should know, my son," Kagero asked, exquisitely polite.
"Maybe later," I hedged.
Post-fic Comments:
For those who can't really understand Japanese (like me!), Shijyuushichi-san translates roughly to Mr 47. Normally a Japanese person would use a different word for 4 and 7, though, as shi also means death and is considered unlucky.