Greeting to all my favorite readers, this is Death Boo writing to you from the border of Tiredland and Murderousland…
As you can guess, I'm feeling tired and murderous today, this is a result of my new (and first) real job, which is cleaning up a bakery. I'll try to make the story short, it's a vacation, It's a bakery, and it's spring cleaning time…
Here's the longer version, as a special treat: the Passover (Easter) vacation has started, and I got a job in a bakery, but since it's the Passover (the mother of all "they tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat" holidays) the owner wants to do some cleaning, so in my first week, I had to do stuff that no one has done there in about six months, so I'm tired as hell, dirty as hell, and I'm feeling murderous just because I'm that kind of guy.
Oh, yeah, story…
Chapter 16: Fight, Battle, War.
"Shit!" Naraku thought, the he felt the movement in his leg, and saw the look on Ealla's face, it was a finishing jutsu, and from what it seemed, if he wouldn't be able to stop it, he'd lose his life.
He called the chackra to his palm and struck his nee when he felt the vibration getting there, he knew too well that a wound from his demonic chackra would take a few weeks to properly heal, but still, it stopped the jutsu, he was safe. For now.
"Who'd believe he would be able to figure out the counter so fast?" the only way to stop the bloody whistle jutsu was to interrupt the sound, either by cutting the body open or by radically changing the chackra circulation.
"Very impressive, kiddo. What's your name?" Gaara asked, it was a while since he saw that kind of chackra movement.
What's his name? It was the first time he was asked that question, he didn't want to start this new part of his life with lies, and he didn't feel like making the "it's only proper to give your name first" speech, it would be too Sasuke-like. So he just told him the truth.
"The name is Uzumaki Naraku"
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"Squads three and four, start spreading out, squads six and eight, take your places, one n' seven, cover the escape traces, two and five, you're coming with me, 'hidden gunshot' operation starts in 30 minuets"
Technological advancement changed the world, it meant better machinery, better weaponry, better harvesting tools, better everything. But it also meant a different distribution of power, the people now knew who was sending them into wars and who was taking their food, they knew who was to blame for their bad situation, so they revolted, even the strongest feudal lords had to give up and listen to the villagers demands, old sources of power were crumbling, so why should the ninja villages be any difference?
It made perfect sense, it was justice, the shinobies were outdated, they were OK for the old times, but toady? Their ways were wasteful and cruel, overcharging the customers, having kids handle diligent situations, teaching children to kill from the day they were born. The times demanded replacement.
"Commander, we got the green light from headquarters, and all the troops are ready" Amber nodded at the old man; she was one of the youngest members of the force, and certainly the youngest to become a commander. Only 24 and already an active leader of one of the most important missions the 'night hound' ever had to deal with, the attacking of the chunin exam.
She loaded her rifle, that model's killing range was 500 meters, the highest effective range of a shurikan was 250 meters, when it was hurled by the last hokage of the leaf village. All the conditions were in their favor, the element of surprise, superior equipment, and the ninjas would have no where to run to or hide, it would be like a shooting range. The chunins were the middle rank of the ninja society, so if this mission would be 100% successful, then the future generation of experienced ninjas and some elite shinobies will be dead by the end of the night.
And as a bonus, Amber knew that two of the kages, the leaders of the hidden villages, were there as well.
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"The name is Uzumaki Naraku -
Son of Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hinata"
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Of course, the ninja villages won't turn to history just because of one mission, the only way to truly end their reign will be to get them out of business, day by day, the lords will see that the "night hound"s can do anything the ninjas could do, just better and cheaper, no more exposing their secret documents to underage children, no more having to entrust their objectives and cash just so that some kids could train, better results, better morals, simply better.
Even if today's mission would be a failure, the downfall of the hidden villages was already set; the night hound was only one of the new agencies, the largest and the strongest, but still only one out of many. And even if somehow, the shinobies would be able to counter their attack, all the survivors would be welcomed by any other agency, it was only business, the competition between them never got personal like the shinobi villages.
But no matter how she tried looking at it, no soldier could stand against a ninja, even she would probably be beaten if she had to face one of them alone, even most of the genins could defeat her in marital arts, or taijutsu, as the ninjas called it. The agencies strength lye in numbers and equipment, not in individual skills.
"Get your asses moving, the operation starts now"
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"Impossible.."
"It can't be!"
"They are dead!"
"That's not entirely true, they both live on… all the demons you've seen are my father's ISAN (legacy, leftovers, inheritance)" Naraku looked for a moment at the vortex.
"and this body…" he touched his leg, he was still a bit off because of the chackra he forced inside it, "is modified from them both".
"then what does that make you?"
"a monster…"
"just like me…"
"I guess it does make me a monster, does it really matter?" Naraku asked them, one more demon, one less demon, what change did it make?
"It doesn't change anything, you know. Did you kill the genins in the exam or not?" Ealla asked.
"Do you have any doubt? You certainly attacked me pretty fast… but yes, I'm the one who killed them, and if it makes you feel any better, it was nothing personal against them" Naraku answered swiftly, kids always learned new languages fast.
"Then this place will be your grave. Is there something you wish us to tell someone?' Temari stated, opening her fan to show the three stars.
"No need to, I'll tell her personally" he tried to smile, but he was getting worried, faced against three enemies, all of them highly experienced, and without any advantage over them.
"I'm getting impatient, shall we begin?" Gaara looked at Naraku, he didn't see many people as qualified to be his rival, now even more than in his childhood. But he couldn't resist a chance to fight with an offspring of the one man who beat him.
"Just remember that you're the one who asked for it" Naraku crossed his hand into the seals, he was also intrigued to see how would he stand against another demon.
"Drilling spear of Sand no jutsu!"
"Demonic earth strike no jutsu!"
In an instant, the sand materialized in the air, forming a solid, packed spear, which immediately flew on to Naraku.
It met with a rock, not just a rock, a hard, stone tough boulder, which appeared out of nowhere, covering Naraku like a cocoon.
"it won't save you" Gaara yelled, he knew how much his absolute defense effected his hearing sense, so he guessed that he'd have to scream to get the message over.
And then the drill came into action, inch by inch, digging into the cocoon, closer to the inside, closer to where the target was.
"I'm not done yet, either" Naraku whispered in reply.
The stone pillars came out of the ground, pushing away the drilling spear, and forcing Gaara to jump back.
"very impressive, young boy, but just defensive jutsus won't win you your life" Gaara said, thinking about his next move.
"If you think that you can even touch me, bring it on!" Naraku yelled to him, and then began forming another series of seals. "This jutsu is one that my father invented, I'm sure you'll find very… surprising" he explained, it was another one of the sneak attack techniques Naruto was so fond of.
Red chackra began spinning around Naraku, crushing rocks and raising dust and water to the air, scarring the ground around him with the radical waves of chackra.
"Where is he going to come from?" Ealla asked herself, it was a tactic many demons often used, it was wasteful on chackra yet amazingly effective, but only when you didn't know what to expect. She began tying strings to her kunais and shurikans to her glove.
"Above!' she shouted in her mind, and threw the projectiles to the air, totally ignoring the whirling chackra beside her.
"Damn! The chackra won't distract them for very long now! And I can't dodge all the projectiles…" Naraku thought from his falling position in the sky, if he would block them, then they'll fall to the ground and alert them of his whereabouts, but getting hit will have the same effect. "I have to push them even farther into the sky!" he decided, and quickly hit them with his elbow, earning small scratches, but not anything that will be noticeable by the shinobies below.
"Three, two, one… Pull!" Ealla counted from the moment she felt the strings tighten over he glove, it meant someone changed the course of the weapons, and that he was only 30 feet above them, so she pulled the strings, bringing the weapons down on Naraku with a whistling sound.
"Damn, they're coming back!" Naraku cursed in his mind, it already messed up his plans, now he had to relay on defending from the shurikans and kunais, while keeping track of his target. He turned around and began deflecting them.
*Cling, Swish, Chiwishh*
"18 feet…" Ealla marked to herself and focused chackra to her legs, preparing to jump.
*Pufff*
Her body left the ground with amazing speed, in a mere moment she was already at Naraku's height, with a kick heading towards the boy's head.
*Trach*
Naraku knew exactly what effects would the kick have, a jolt to the brain, messing with all his senses in the good case, or leaving him unconscious in the worst-case-scenario.
*Buff!*
Naraku fell to the ground, he barely escaped getting hit in his head, but he wasn't able to avoid the kick entirely. "Damn Bitch! How did you know I was coming?" he shouted at her.
"Well, I do have to admit it was very nicely done for a kid you age, but you don't stand a chance against an expert like me. The dust and rocks were a cover to the fact you aren't there anymore, it's a tactic widely used by demons and people with high chackra stamina, you lead us to believe your going to use a ninjutsu while you used to the spinning effect of the chackra to push you to the sky. The question was whether you'll come from above or below, but it was answered when I realized that amount of rocks in the whirl wasn't increasing, which if you'd dug a cave, it would highly increase.
And then I used the shurikans to measure your distance from me, and to attract your attention when I'm attacking, too bad you managed to see me in the last second and change your position to defend your head, it could have been a devastating kick if you hadn't"
"So, I have to keep an eye on you as well, this seems to be getting more and more fun every second" Naraku lied, trying to keep his voice cold and emotionless, he wasn't sure if he could deal with Gaara alone, and another powerful enemy didn't make things any easier.
"So the Uchiha wasn't bluffing when he said Ealla was good for this job…" Temari decided inside her head, after the first shock, the situation didn't look so bad. After all, they were three adults, and he was just a kid, weird and scary as he might be, but still no match to them.
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A loud voice was heard in the Sound camp, followed by many other loud voices, catching everyone by surprise, only a few knew what that sound meant, but every single kid could have recognized the screams, the ninjas best friend and adversary, death itself.
All around the camp, people began falling to the ground, holding their chest, their hand or in worse cases, not holding anything, just falling lifelessly.
"Is it another shinobi village?", "Where they hell are they?", "Where are the ANBU?"
All the questions were directed to one person, the sound kage, who was already at the verge of losing his calmness, sending orders, receiving the first bits of information, fending back the complaints over the lack of intelligence, it was amazing how people could find time to criticize him in the middle of the crisis.
"It's no good, all the anbu were gathering information inside the leaf village ruins, we don't know anything about the enemy! Issue all ANBU right now to go and obtain any possible knowledge about the situation, and have all the others stand their ground!"
He was one of the few who recognized the loud sound, a gunshot, hundreds of them, the tool that could take out any shinobi from a large distance, even when handled by the simplest of men.
Another one of the few who knew about rifles was Konohamaru, and his reaction was slightly more rushed. "Get down! All of you! Use solid matters for cover!"
They did as he ordered, tough it wasn't really required, the natural instinct of jumping away from bullets kicked in pretty fast. "What the hell is it? Are we under attack?" Hob shouted over the gunfire, covering his head from the shards and his nose from the gunpowder smell.
"Damn! We didn't think they'll attack at least for five more years! We aren't ready!"
Konohamaru screamed, it was his responsibility, prepare the sound village to an assault by any kind of agency, he was supposed to be the absolute best in countering them, it was planned to teach minor alchemy no jutsu at the ninja academy starting from next year! Had they given him a mere six months and he could have instructed the jounins, that have would reduce the losses from any attack by at least 90 percent!
"Listen to me, kids! Don't think about retaliation now! You'd die before getting within 300 feet from them! Right now we need to concentrate on escaping the camp, it's a death trap for us…" He ordered them, as a jounin instructor husband, it was his duty to take over the genin teams until his wife would come back.
"To leave the camp? Why should we do that? Won't it be more logical to stay with all the other ninjas and attack together?" Hob asked.
"Believe me, I know what I'm doing, we've set the camp this way to protect ourselves from any ninja invasion, it's an open field from which we can see anyone coming close. But at this situation it means that they can shoot us from afar and we can't get near them…" Konohamaru explained quickly.
"Then what should we do, Sensei?" this time it was Tack who asked the question, his cover was the least efficient, merely a rock, it protected him from the bullets but the work shards were cutting his arms and legs.
"We'll go to the safest place around for shinobies to hide in…" Konohamaru turned his gaze towards the place of his birth, "we're going back to the leaf village"
----Chapter 16 – Fight, Battle, War --- End---
Well, was that enough action for you guys (and girls)? Naraku fighting, and a new plotline introduced, not to mention that Konohamaru is back in the business…
Oh, yeah, I tried to make the battles as ninja-like as possible, I think I did a good job, combining ninjutsu and strategy, if you need explanation on anything, just tell me about it in a review so I'll explain it better.
On a completely different note, I've got about ZERO writing done this week, I blame the world! And the bakery (from my ranting above!)