Chapter 11 - Thunderbreak
As ironic as it may have been, Yuki Haku positively loathed having to fight at sea.
On deck, the ship would pitch and roll, swaying from one angle to another in unpredictable ways that made her head spin. It made aiming difficult and made missing as much a danger to her allies as it was to herself. Depending on how big the ship were, waves could tower over them and crash unto the deck, threatening to wash them away, if it didn't catch them by surprise or overpower the grip of their chakra.
And then there were the storms.
The wet wood and iron would be difficult to stick to, the boat's rocking and swaying turning from a minor inconvenience to a serious danger that could toss them off the ship if they were caught moving at a particularly bad time. Waves would tower two to three times the ship's height, as tall as the Mizukage's tower back home in Kiri. Haku sometimes wondered how they ever managed to stay on-deck, much less the men and women that sailed these routes without access to chakra.
But even worse than that was fighting out in the open sea, where you couldn't stand still for fear of the waves crashing straight into you and dragging you down into the depths. The crush of the tide could toss you about and confuse you, making you unable to tell up from down in the darkness of a storm.
You had to keep moving, walking, stepping, climbing over or around the waves as they came, constantly aware. All the while dealing with whoever was trying to kill you. One misstep could have you stabbed by a kunai or dragged under.
The wind could whip the rain into your eyes with the force of thrown senbon. At night, it could sometimes be harder to see than when they were in the hidden mist technique and the waves and weather would smother any sound of approaching foes.
Haku hated fighting at sea.
Damn shame that's exactly what she was stuck doing.
She felt her hand rattle as she tried to parry a sword strike with a kunai. It would have split her from shoulder to hip if she hadn't. She rode a wave behind her and let a handful of her senbon fly with a single twitch of her hand. The man was caught under the crest.
Haku heard no splash, not with this much noise, but the man hadn't come after her again.
Raiga's Raiders. Haku couldn't suppress her scowl at the thought.
They'd run into them en-route to Kinami-ko. Suigetsu had been resting at the time, but she'd sensed chakra signatures getting closer. There had been so many.
It had been only mild concern at first. After all, they were the ones catching up, and it wasn't uncommon to encounter another merchant fleet on the lanes.
But when she'd reported to both her sensei and the fleet captain what she'd noticed, the seaman turned to Zabuza with a concerned look.
"We've already adjusted course for Kinami-ko. There are no other ports in this direction." There wasn't supposed to be anyone else here.
And then the storm hit them just as they made contact.
Her sensei took one look at the sails, seeing the lightning bolt and the crossed swords of Kirigakure's Kiba, the swords that Raiga had absconded with when he'd fled their village to become a missing-nin.
That had been almost an hour ago.
Waves were already towering over the masts of their ships when they took to the water. Haku would have preferred to stay on-deck, but they couldn't afford to let any of the enemies get close. Raiga's Raiders were known for having shinobi-trained crewmen, different from the usual small-timers they had to deal with who didn't even know what chakra was.
All it would take was one stray jutsu to puncture a hull before a ship and her crew were taken under the drink.
Lightning flashed overhead. In the brief moment, she'd caught the briefest glimpse of the ships they'd been protecting. The sight of the Namikaze ships sailing through the storm with their sails tied down reminded her of the painting she'd seen in her mother's room.
She wished her mother was here. The woman was powerful enough in the use of their bloodline limit to be able to freeze an entire section of the sea. Turn it from a battle at sea to one on dry land, land that she could wield and shape almost as freely as she could breathe. Unfortunately, all she could do right now was spawn a iceberg that would get tossed and thrown about by the waves as much if not more so than the ships were. It would also take all of her chakra to do it.
Haku spotted Gozu and Meizu taking on five men at once, somehow managing to still maintain their flaunted teamwork even in such difficult circumstances. Gozu tossing kunai with explosive tags to destabilize their opponent's hold on the waves as Meizu literally cut through the water with their chain-blades and shredding through their opposition.
She'd been about to move on when another flash of lightning revealed one of the enemy ships now alarmingly close to the two chunin and headed straight for them.
"Gozu-kun! Meizu-kun!" Her voice could barely be heard over the wind, the rain, and the waves, but it seemed the two noticed, turning to her before leaping off the crest of a wave and towards her.
Seconds later, she saw flashes of light come from the top of the ship's deck, streaks of reds, blues, whites, and oranges making lines in the sky. Haku would have almost thought the way it managed to be seen in the darkness of the stormy sea beautiful, if not for the deadly implication.
"Jutsu incoming!"
The Demon Brothers had picked her up and jumped out of the way before she'd realized they'd done it.
Behind them, and in front of Haku, the water blasted up and outward as fire, lightning, and who knows what else hit the water. She covered her face with her arms.
Where was sensei? Kimimaro? If she'd run into the demon brothers, Kagami and Choujuro should have been nearby as well.
"Where are the others?" She tried to shout while the three tried to make their way out of the ship's range, hoping to be spared from another flash of lightning so they wouldn't be seen. The waves and the rain would mask the glow of their water-climbing chakra, but light might reveal their position.
"We saw Raiga fighting Zabuza-san." Gozu's voice garbled up in the rain as his hair hung heavy with water over his face. "Kagami-sama and Choujuro were distracting the other raiders, but it's hard to tell how well that's going."
Another flash of lightning. This time the boom and blast of wind that followed was strong enough to almost knock Haku down. The Demon Brothers fared no better, having to drive their hands into the water to keep from going under.
Then came the quiet.
Rain stopped falling, waves calmed. Haku knew it was just going to be for a moment, with the shockwave of whatever that was knocking everything away.
Haku looked.
She didn't know it was possible to take a lightning bolt and wield it the way Kurosuki Raiga did.
And then there were the ships. Haku could see six more of them, the one that had been pursuing them already turning around to regroup, oars crashing into the waves as the rain was starting to come down again.
"That's too many." Meizu snarled.
It was.
Even from here, Haku could see Kagami's shock of red hair and Choujuro's trying to dance about the monstrous lightning whips that Raiga was swinging around like toys. Her sensei was sending water dragon after water dragon, unable to get close. She could only imagine how terrifying the lightning where they were, when it looked to be dwarfing the man that fought with them from all the way here.
What could they do from here? They were outnumbered and potentially outmatched if Raiga was keeping her jounin sensei at bay alongside two of Kiri's more prominent chunin.
How'd her mother have handled this? Freeze the water then scuttle the ships with ice spikes? Haku didn't have the chakra for that. The biggest icebergs she could form would just get tossed around in waves like these.
Tossed around.
"Gozu-kun, Meizu-kun, I have an idea." Both looked to her in question. She explained herself, and both started readying their seals. Haku did the same.
"Hyoton: Shimo no Kabe! (Ice Style: Wall of Frost)"
Her palms hit the waves and immediately the water started to freeze, forming what should have been a wall of solid ice that would rise out of the ground in a form of her direction.
This time, it was more or less shapeless, just a mass of ice that she was forming from the seawater they were standing on. As it grew in size, it began to rise from the sea, the waves of the returning storm beginning to sway the infant berg like it did the ship they'd been on earlier.
Haku closed her eyes and did her best to ignore it. She needed to pour more chakra in. This needed to be as large as she could possibly make it, in as little a time as possible.
There was a jolt as the berg heaved up, more waves surged beneath it. Haku had to send chakra to her hands and feet to make sure she wasn't tossed from the ice. Distantly, she heard the Demon Brothers gasp, but heard only a brief scraping of their sandals on the ice. They'd managed to stay on.
It was getting harder to breathe now. She was starting to feel light-headed, and she knew that if her eyes were open, she'd be seeing spots.
All the same, she pushed.
"Holy shit, Haku-chan."
Only when she could barely stand, could barely open her eyes from the exhaustion, did she stop.
Haku took a deep breath, her throat dry. "Now!" She'd have whispered it, if she didn't think it would get drowned out by the storm.
Immediately, she threw herself off the berg. Gozu and Meizu lept back.
"Suiton: Bakusui Shouha! (Water Style: Exploding Water Colliding Wave)"
The last thing Haku saw was the great wave carrying her prized creation, an artificial iceberg the size of three of their ships towards Raiga's fleet before the darkness took her.
~TtT~
"Waves towered tall as mountains, tossing the ship and the handful of men that crewed it up and about like toys in a child's hand."
Haruno Sakura looked upon the various shades of black-red water that swirled about the air mimicking the movement that she narrated. The ink-shadow of the ship thrown up and allowed to do a loop before the waves seemed to reach out to take it back into its embrace.
All around them, the children gasped.
Sakura continued.
"Lost at sea, they were, on a dark night where even the stars dared not shine through. For how could they, when lightning struck and winds blew at the waters in the directionless fury of a storm at sea?
"The men cried out for mercy, cried out for help, to anything that could spare them. They called to gods and demons both. Desperate to be permitted to return to their families, that relied on their trade, and some swearing to give sacrifice to whoever that would answer."
Above her, the figures of men rose from the ink-shadow of the unfortunate ship, their faces frozen in terror as they waved their hands above themselves with impotence as they were again thrown about the red-black sea.
On the other side of the room, she could see Naruto's now-purple eyes steeled in focus.
"For a brief moment the water stilled, the storm winds abated and even the darkness of the stormy night crept back."
The red-black sea floated down as it calmed, Naruto bringing it and the ink-ship closer towards the lamp to allow the soft, gold light of it to shine through the waters from below. Sakura suppressed a twitch of her leg when something cool and wet brushed it for a moment.
Naruto smirked in a way that Sakura knew was for her, but his eyes stayed completely focused on the show they were putting on.
"And then came the creature, jetting up from the sea and casting its blue light over the children of man."
And then the light shut off. Of course the children cried out in panic, as did Tsunami, maybe. That sounded like her in the back.
Sakura had to suppress her surprise, too. Naruto hadn't been able to interact physically with his Skyscribing before. That was new.
Then the soft blue glow came, from the serpentine thing that had burst forth from the red-black sea. It's coils from below the water swirled about mid-air and surrounded the now-darkened lantern. Those, too, glowed in the soft azure of chakra.
When the glow became bright enough for her to continue reading, Sakura continued.
"It was a dragon, great and terrible, rising over the ship higher than even the tallest of the waves of the storm. The men were certain this creature was here to put them out of their misery, and huddled together to accept their fate."
Light spun as the dragon circled the ship, the head hanging low as though in interest.
"When the creature asked for their tale, the captain stood before his crew and shared it. The dragon eyed the man, he was first among his peers yet he stood among them. Once the telling was done, the dragon's light brightened like-unto a star's, rising totally out of the sea."
And the dragon did so, the chakra-glow that Naruto had given it glowing so bright all the room was illuminated.
"Night turned to day, and the dragon's will stayed the storm. Waves ceased, winds waited, and the clouds above parted as though in fear of the great creature.
"And so, for the first time, the Tide Star took it upon itself to guide the son of men to their salvation. When daybreak came, and the men could see land just over the horizon, the dragon began to ascend.
"'Look to the stars when you are lost at sea.' The creature told them, 'May Keiga's light shine through any darkness to guide you through the night.'
"To this day, the Tide Star guides the ships through even the roughest storms and the darkest of nights, making sure no ship is ever truly lost at sea."
Ironically, that was when the whole room turned dark as Naruto removed the chakra from the dragon-construct he'd created. Sakura heard the not-so-subtle thump as he fell back unto the floor and leaned himself against the wall behind him, breathing heavily. That definitely took a lot out of him. Sakura couldn't say she was surprised. This was the first time she'd ever seen him control separate forms. Normally, he'd just use a single puddle of ink and use the shadows on the wall to tell the story.
No, this time, the controlled liquid made up everything. The red-black sea, the ink-ship and ink-men, and the chakra-charged Tide Star. All done without any of them mixing even when the sea held the ship and the dragon touched both.
That was some very fine shape manipulation. How much better was it in actual combat now?
Children rushed towards the two of them, Sakura standing to intercept the ones headed for Naruto to get him a bit more time to collect himself. Inari, Tazuna's grandson, was the first of the group to get to them.
"Sakura-nee!" The boy called out. "That was so cool!" His companions babbled in agreement. Sakura held out a hand to try and get them all to calm down while sending them a smile. Let it not be said that all the babysitting missions weren't useful, though she wasn't all that used to handling this many kids at once.
They'd been invited to a get-together for Kaiza's birthday. All of Team 7 had been invited, originally, but they were still technically on-mission and couldn't all go. Sasuke was currently at the port keeping watch while their sensei was resting.
Even Naruto was technically on radio duty right now, and he'd left several clones at the radio to keep an eye on it. If anything happened, one of them would dispel to pass on the information.
Honestly, she'd probably try to get Naruto to head back to the place they were staying at and take it easy for the rest of his shift on radio duty. There was also a non-zero chance that he'd be back on his feet in a few minutes like nothing happened. Nevermind that he'd clearly put a lot of chakra into making that dragon-construct of his glow as part of the show.
Still, she'd get him some time to catch his breath.
So she fielded the questions from the kids and, occasionally, the parents. They mostly had to do with how the show was done anyway, since even among ninja that had come to the village before, something like what they'd done hadn't been seen yet. Not that Sakura had expected it.
"I'm a bit surprised that the two of you know about Keiga." It was Kaiza that brought it up, once Inari and the other children had finished asking their questions and were called elsewhere in the house for games. "None of the other Konoha ninja knew about the Tide Star when I spoke with them."
That was probably not strange at all. Konoha was a landlocked village. Outside of Kiri and maybe Ame, after a fashion, all of the hidden villages were. Maritime navigation was definitely not something that'd have mattered, and there were usually easier means to navigate than relying on the stars when on land.
"Na-kun's godfather likes collecting stories from all over the world. We like reading through them sometimes."
"Naruto-kun's godfather must travel a lot, then." Kaiza nodded, one Sakura returned. "And the show with the ink and water, do you two do that at all the parties?"
Sakura looked away as she felt some heat rise to her cheeks. "I think this is the first time we've done it for people that aren't family."
At this, Kaiza laughed. "Well, you make a very good storyteller, and whatever it was that Naruto-kun was doing really made one hell of an impression with the kids. If you two ever decide you want out of the ninja business, you could probably make good money as traveling entertainers."
"I'm sure Jiraiya-sama would love the idea of that." said Rin as she walked away from the crowd of people and sent Sakura a smile. Her dark Namikaze-issue haori cut an almost imposing future while it hung over the kimono she wore decorated with the sigils of the Corporation. The woman's brown eyes turned away from Sakura to a now-standing Naruto. "Well done, Naruto-kun."
"Ri-M-Murasaki-sama." Sakura managed to catch it before she said the woman's real name.
It took some getting used to, referring to Rin by the codename she'd told them she used when out on official business. While the older kunoichi didn't explain why she used one at all, everyone on Team Seven, including Kakashi, agreed. It was, admittedly, a surprise that their sensei did considering his penchant for asking about things he considered suspicious.
That only told her that Kakashi probably knew why Naruto's mother went by a pseudonym when outside the village. Maybe she'd ask him about it when they were back in Konoha.
Still, Rin hardly hid her face, and she still wore all the things that marked her as a part of the Namikaze Corporation. Honestly, it was like she was still back at Azuchi.
Well, except for one thing: the purple tattoos on her cheeks were gone.
Naruto returned a proud grin that Sakura was all too familiar with. The blond approached their little circle with Kaiza's wife, Tsunami, joining shortly afterwards. The older woman gave Sakura and Naruto her compliments on the performance while Rin approached her son.
"I remember you were still struggling a bit when I left. I take it you practiced while you were here?"
Naruto nodded, but it was Sakura that answered. "Almost every day! He was playing with ink and water every day, and just about any time he was free."
At this, Rin smiled in approval. "It's certainly shown." This was followed by a meaningful look that only Naruto seemed to have understood. "So… Did it help?"
"You bet it did!" The boy's grin turned devilish.
"Good, good." The older ninja answered with a pat on the boy's back before stepping away to rejoin the crowd, "If you don't mind, I still need to bug Gatou about how we're going to be handling Kinami-ko's security once it's finished."
Rin had arrived several days ago, apparently sent over by the corporation to check-on the progress on the port as well as setting up its more long-term defenses. The Namikaze Corporation had sealwork as a large part of how they defended their property.
Sakura sent the boy a confused look once Rin was out of sight. "What was that about?"
"A surprise." He laughed before turning to both their hosts and apologizing for needing to leave early, citing that he had to get back to radio watch.
Both Kaiza and Tsunami waved it off, "It's fine, Naruto-kun," Tsunami said with a tilt of her head and a small smile, leaning against her husband. "We get it, you're still on the clock. Run along now, and don't burn yourself out. You did look like the show tired you out a little."
Naruto clearly agreed because he stepped away after a wave to Sakura that she returned. "I'll tell her you had to get back to the house." she said. And after a quick 'thank you,' he was out the door.
In the hour that followed, Sakura was dragged into some party games with Inazi and the other kids, something she hadn't really gotten to do since before she started the academy, if not further back since games like these weren't really common with shinobi families. Afterwards, when the kids were too tuckered out to keep on going, she'd helped the parents heard them to seats and got them more food or water to drink.
The girl had been sitting down for another round of the buffet when she felt a pulse of chakra go through her. It was the beacon seal.
And it was coming from Kinami-ko.
~TtT~
Namikaze Naruto frowned as he looked at the view from the concrete docks.
It was sunset, but instead of the red-orange light glittering on the water of the horizon, it was the forest that caught the eye, instead.
The corporation ships arrived. Damn shame they were coming with some bad news, too.
He left several clones to man the radio after he woke their sensei up after he'd sensed Sasuke activating the beacon seal. His teammate was leading a team of more clones in putting out the fires on the ships, working with the surviving crew.
Looks like it left him to deal with the group of what looked to be Kirigakure shinobi that had come ashore and to tend to their injured.
It was a group of four people, though after managing to speak to them, only one of them was actually seriously hurt, though the rest needed some patching up for their minor injuries, and maybe some checking over by his mom to make sure none of them would get infected. What was concerning was that one of them was unconscious.
By the time sensei had arrived, he'd given the Kiri ninja his medical supplies and handed several soldier pills of Akimichi clan make to help the knocked-out girl with her chakra exhaustion. The one that had gotten injured, somehow awake enough despite her leg almost looking like a wreck, had been the one to explain to him what happened.
"Riaga's raiders?" Kakashi asked after the short debriefing. Sasuke was still leading Naruto's clones and the port security to help the shipping crews with the fires, but from what Naruto could see, they'd be done in short order. "Are they sure?"
"Well, the injured girl, Kagami-san, said she fought him, and the group's leader, Zabuza-san, also confirmed it." Naruto shrugged.
His sensei's sole eye widened. "Momochi Zabuza, huh? Guess that's legitimate, then."
"Know him, Kakashi-sensei?"
"Yeah. He's part of Kiri's Seven Swordsmen. If he says he fought Raiga, he fought Raiga."
Unsaid was why there was little reason to doubt them. Kiri had a regular client in the Namikaze Corporation, and it was going to take a lot to pull them back from that.
"Which is really an entirely different concern now." Kakashi crossed his arms. "According to the updated bingo books, Raiga doesn't operate this close to the mainland. He mostly targets shipping lines around the larger island nations, likely because those tend to not get a lot of servicing from shinobi."
"They're probably on their way here."
Both Naruto and Kakashi turned to see the jounin captain of the Kiri teams. If not for the sword, Naruto would have probably thought that Momochi Zabuza was your average Kirigakure jounin. He wore their standard uniform with only the harness for his sword and the blade itself really standing out.
Funny that he also had the lower half of his face covered, though.
"They were headed north when we caught them. Ten ships and all looked to be fully-manned."
"No chance they're after anything on the mainland?"
Momochi crossed his arms and looked at the Konoha jounin with a raised brow. "Is there anything on the mainland in this area that isn't attached to the Land of Waves?"
There wasn't anything, actually. At most a minor village a day or two on foot after the bridge. If they were after anything, it was likely here.
It was probably clear on Naruto's face because Momochi nodded in understanding.
"Any injured, Momochi?"
All three turned to see the dark-robed figure of Nohara Rin walk through the gates. She was still dressed in the same kimono and haori she'd been wearing at the party at Tazuna's house, but now wore the plain, white mask she wore when she arrived that morning. It was partly covered by her kasa, a woven, wide-brimmed hat.
Behind her was Sakura, giving him a look of concern before turning her eyes to the still-smoking ships. Yeah, he couldn't blame her for that.
Zabuza gave his mother a long look before responding. "Murasaki-sama? Is that you?"
Huh, so even the Kiri shinobi knew about the Lady Murasaki.
"Glad you remember me, Momochi-kun." He could hear the grin in Rin's voice. "It's been a long while, hasn't it?"
"About ten years." The swordsman replied. "I wasn't entirely sure it was you, but I thought I recognized the voice." He crossed his arms and gave her a quick once-over. "You still dress the same, too."
At this, Rin - no, Lady Murasaki. It was probably better to think of her that way during missions. It'd make slipping up harder - Murasaki laughed from behind her mask.
"It's a uniform." She began walking past them. "Or close to one. Let's catch up after I see to your injured teammates, yes?" There was a casual hand-wave in Sakura's direction as his teammate moved to follow the older kunoichi. "This girl's part of the Konoha team. She's training to be a medic. I'll be having her observe."
Zabuza made no argument.
~TtT~
About half an hour later, both groups of ninja were gathered inside the administrative office with a severe-looking Komamura and a roughly put-together Gatou.
Murasaki had her mask off and laid across her lap. Her brown eyes held steel in them that Naruto only ever saw during training, and only ever during spars.
Her cheek tattoos not being there still bothered him a bit, though.
"We'll need to evacuate the town." Murasaki informed everyone in the room. "While I'm sure we'll do our best to keep the fighting to the port, they can just as easily try and get around us by landing on a different part of the island." She turned to the barrel-chested head of security. "Can you have your men focus on that?" When he nodded and moved to leave, she stopped him and looked to Gatou, "Do you know anywhere they can hide?"
"There are caves north-west of the town. We go there when storms hit and the tide threatens to flood."
She asked Komamura if he was familiar with the place, and sent him off when he stated he did. "You can get help from Tazuna-san and his family. They'll help get everyone organized."
Gatou rose to follow, either to see to his own staff or to assist in the evacuation, Naruto didn't know. Murasaki gestured for him to remain. The diminutive businessman sent his mother a confused look, but didn't argue and sat back down.
"I'll need you to be aware of what's happening, so you can act accordingly when you join the civilians, Gatou-san."
"Of course, Murasaki-sama."
She then turned to Zabuza.
"Momochi-kun, what do you and your team plan to do?"
"Our team's contracted to protect theships."
"The Namikaze Corporation will be more than happy to compensate you and your team for additional work, and the increase in rank. As well as the trouble of having to update your mission's parameters while it's underway."
Gatou chimed in, then, stating that the ships weren't going to be moving anyway, and they were contracted up to the return trip to Kirigakure. Naruto saw Zabuza's shoulders tense, and what might have been a frown marr what of his features could be blond had gotten some practice having to read people's expressions through a mask.
"Let's iron that out later." He cast his eyes across the members of his team. "I doubt my kids would be willing to leave the Land of Waves out to dry, anyway. Much less if Raiga's involved."
Naruto fought the urge to sigh with relief at the statement. While he hadn't gotten the full picture, what the Kiri genin team had told him had given him an idea. Having their help would certainly even the odds, if just a bit.
What followed was a cascade of information care of the Kirigakure team. They shared every scrap of it they had, from the estimated one hundred-strong ninja-trained pirates that comprised Raiga's fleet, and the ten ships that transported them.
"We're not entirely sure what range the ships can engage at." It was the tall, white-haired genin. He was definitely older than Naruto, and likely by a few years, too. "By the time we noticed each other, we were more or less in close quarters. I didn't see any crossbows mounted on-deck, but I was only able to board one of them."
"From what we saw, the ships mostly attacked with ranged jutsu from the people on-deck." chimed in one of the horned chunin, his voice filtered through the rebreather-mask both he and his twin wore. "A few of them had bows and crossbows, too. Nothing big, though. They also definitely had kunai."
He thought the older boy may have winced. It was fast enough that Naruto may have imagined it. Probably from first hand experience, then.
"How powerful are they?" It was Kakashi. "We're clearly outnumbered here, so quality is going to have to be our best bet."
"Felt like fighting academy students in terms of training." This answer came from a red-headed girl that was about Naruto's age. Her pink eyes swept across the room while her eyebrows furrowed in thought. She crossed her arms before she continued. "They know some stuff our academy students wouldn't know, like the odd elemental techniques and how to walk on water, but the ones I fought definitely made me feel like I was fighting the kids, if a bit stronger, physically."
"Good. Then particularly well-trained genin should have little trouble with dealing with them." Murasaki dismissed. "We'll just need to find a way to address the disparity in numbers." She then addressed Zabuza, "You mentioned that they had reinforcements as your group was disengaging."
"Yes." The swordsman nodded. "Another ship arrived. Smaller. Had two shinobi on them. One of them I recognized."
It was the shorter white-haired boy, standing and pressed up against a shadowed corner like some sort of cornered animal, that snarled. "Hoshigaki Kisame."
"I didn't know he and Raiga were associated." Murasaki said.
"They're not." Naruto could hear the scowl in Zabuza's response. "Hoshigaki's infamous even in Kiri. Killed the last wielder of Samehada before disappearing. We're pretty sure he had something to do with the Yondaime Mizukage incident. Last we knew of him, he joined some organization of missing-nin."
Naruto turned to his mother and their eyes met. He saw a flash of concern there. Her frown deepened.
"Hoshigaki joined the fight?" She asked.
It was the red-headed girl that answered, scowling. "Water-sharks. They're his calling card." She patted her now-healed leg. "Thought I'd lose my leg there."
Murasaki then launched into a brief explanation of an organization called Akatsuki, some sort of mercenary group that was made up of S-ranked missing-nin. It had been the first time that Naruto had heard of such a thing, but it sounded like it wasn't something genin were supposed to know about anyway, especially if they were as picky about their clients as Murasaki said they were.
"Which means they're probably coming here because they were paid to be." Gatou spoke for the first time in a while. "That means we could pay them off, right?"
"Not if they want to be trusted by anyone that hires them." Kakashi answered.
That wasn't unexpected. If ninja could just be paid off after they'd been hired, no one would bother to hire ninja in the first place. It was important to both the ninja and their clients that they did what they were paid to do. Because the moment that trust was lost, clients would just go to other villages, and that happening enough times could spell the death of one.
It's why villages lived and died on their reputation, and why Konoha had taken so much care of theirs. Why the myth of their being the most powerful of the five kage-lead villages mattered so much.
Still, someone paying mercenaries to strike at them meant only that they'd found enemies that weren't willing to put up with the Namikaze Corporation for one reason or another.
"Did you get a good look at who Hoshigaki was with?" Questioned the brown-haired woman. "Whoever he was with is probably an S-ranked nin as well."
All of the Kiri shinobi shook their heads. Just about stated they found it too dark to be able to really see any distinguishing features. Kisame was recognized simply because he stood out that much. It made Naruto wonder what he looked like.
"How long till Konoha can send reinforcements?"
"The nearest outpost is about three hours from here." said Kakashi, "I've already sent my ninken to request assistance from them. But it'll likely take twice that much time for them to arrive, and that's not accounting for anything unexpected happening."
Murasaki then turned to the Kiri jounin. "And how long do you think it'll take them to get here?"
"My student," Zabuza gestured to the girl of the Kiri genin team. Everyone turned to the exhausted looking girl that was only half-able to pay attention to the discussion. Naruto could easily see the bags under her eyes and the half-lidded way she looked at them. "Managed to damage most of their ships, and they'll probably need to do some patchwork repairs before they can continue. It probably bought us a few hours at most. Three? Four? Maybe more if we did more damage than it looked like we did, but I'd rather hedge our bets."
"We'll do exactly that, then." Murasaki agreed.
What followed was the two jounin and his mother working on a plan of action for them before everyone, including Gatou, were dismissed to their respective tasks.
~TtT~
All of the ninja had been introduced to each other afterwards, Naruto, not unexpectedly, garnered some reaction when his full name was dropped, though less from Zabuza and the red-headed chunin who was named Terumi Kagami.
It turned out, he wasn't the only offspring of a kage present. Kagami was the daughter of the current Mizukage, Terumi Mei. Kaguya Kimimaro, the oldest-looking genin of Zabuza's team, was her adopted older brother.
The shorter white-haired boy was Hozuki Suigetsu, and the exhausted third of their team was a girl of the Yuki clan named Haku.
Kagami's team consisted of the twins that called themselves the 'Demon Brothers,' and a shy-looking boy with blue hair and glasses. It was a strange mix if Naruto had ever seen one, but they were a chunin team, so he figured they knew what they were doing.
All of them were split up. Sakura and Sasuke were tasked with assisting in the evacuation of the civilians alongside the port guards, with sensei coming along to see what defenses were available to the locals in the caves, and if any of them were armed or could fight. All the same, Gatou and the security team would be remaining with them to keep them safe.
Suigetsu and the Demon Brothers were sent alongside the merchant fleet to get them away from Kinami-ko. According to Gatou, there was a relatively hidden bay on the other side of the island. There wasn't a lot of infrastructure there yet, but it would be out of the way enough that they shouldn't be attacked. Once the ships were moored, the crewmen would join the other civilians in the mountain caves.
Kimimaro, Kagami, Chojuro, and Zabuza were tasked with attending to the lighthouse and making sure everyone there was evacuated as well. Besides making sure the civilians were evacuated, they were also given seals to apply to the building, little slips of paper that they only needed to stick to the walls. It would give them a possible early warning of the ships coming, and give them an idea of how long they had. Afterwards, they were to head back.
Haku was still exhausted and was recuperating in the bedroom attached to the administrative office. His mother expected that she wouldn't be at her best even by the time the battle started, but she'd benefit from as much rest as they could possibly get her.
That left him with his mother as they went about applying seals to various sections of Kinami-ko. Those same seals would be a crucial part of their defenses.
"What did you notice?" Rin asked without looking up from her work, her hand waving as bucketfuls of blood-infused ink flew out of wooden containers and into the air before attaching to the concrete and forming some very familiar arrays: Two-step Storage and directional seals.
She'd brought vast amounts of un-infused ink, sealed into the multitude of scrolls that she'd brought with her on horseback. Not unexpected considering what she was tasked with doing by his uncle. Thankfully, the fact that the ink had been un-infused meant that he could infuse it with his blood, too, and wouldn't have to waste his time with taking out a brush, or burn through his own ink stores.
Because even though he liked to think he had a lot of pre-infused ink, lining an entire port's worth was another matter entirely.
As it was, he now had several of his clones distributed across the port doing exactly what he was. Rin's clones were doing the same.
"About?"
Even through the white mask, he could feel the pointed look his mother gave him. Imagining purple eyes indicating the use of the Namikaze bloodline limit bore into his own. He couldn't help but think about the look on his dad's face whenever that gaze was directed at him.
Naruto was relatively sure he winced the same way Jiraiya always did, too.
"The team deployments weren't random."
He tried to suppress the wince when he felt her roll her eyes. Of course he had to elaborate further.
"My team has spent the most time here out of everyone. If there were people that knew the layout of the town best, it'd be us. We also managed to build the most trust with the locals. Sakura and I especially."
The show from last night and the rapport they had with the parents of the younger children would have definitely helped.
"That'd make us the best possible option for assisting with evacuation. The townspeople trust us."
"And the rest?"
The rest, huh? Naruto paused for a bit there, focusing on skyscribing for a few moments to think on how the Kirigakure group was given their tasks. All of the genin and chunin had shared some of their capabilities with each other, even though some had expressed a desire not to. Their leaders all told them that a surface-level understanding of each others' abilities would be crucial to being able to work together, and they'd need every possible advantage they could scrounge up for the fight to come.
While Kakashi, Zabuza, and Rin didn't let them be privy to the discussion they had when hashing out their plans, Naruto had some information to work with.
"Suigetsu-san, Gozu-san, and Meizu-san are all good at going through water. They were sent with the ships because they'd be best able to fight at-sea if something were to happen."
And he continued, explaining that besides Haku, the remaining four of the Kiri group were probably the strongest of their bunch and could best handle getting out of a tight situation if something happened before they finished at the lighthouse.
Rin nodded, seemingly satisfied with his explanation. "And as for you and I?"
Naruto made a vague gesture in the direction of the port. He didn't say anything else.
The smile was apparent in her next words, "Good."
He felt the warmth in his chest, and he couldn't help but grin in pride at her approval. With renewed vigor, he went back to work.
"We'll have a few more seals we'll need to setup once this is done. I'm relatively sure you haven't done anything like this yet, actually."
That piqued his interest. "What're we doing?"
"You already know the Wall of Denial seal, no?"
Naruto blinked. The Wall of Denial was a chakra absorption seal that could drain chakra around it at a fixed rate. Used part of the absorbed chakra to keep the seal running, too. He knew that one.
"Yeah?"
"Good."
Well, that was cryptic.
~TtT~
Rock shattered under the force of his leap.
It was almost like flying, that brief moment of weightlessness at the top of the arc just before he started falling back to the earth. There was this tingle that went from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes and fingers. It was a rush like no other.
Jiraiya of the Sannin could see the blur of the trees. Near the horizon, he could see farmland close to some of the towns and villages he passed. The sage made sure to never get close to them when he was like this.
Even now, many years after learning how to wield the power, it still amazed him what boons it granted.
He felt like a mountain with arms and legs, strong enough to withstand any strike and bring to bear that same magnitude, inspire that same awe. Immovable, unstoppable.
This was arguably Jiraiya's most powerful technique, and he could certainly say that's what it felt whenever he used it.
"You're really in a hurry, aren't 'ya, kid?"
Jiraiya eyed the toad on his shoulder from the corner of his eye, opting to focus more on where he was landing and where he was going to aim his next leap.
"'Have to be." was all he said in response.
"I can imagine." Jiraiya could hear the roll of the toad's eyes. "And when were 'ya going to introduce us to your son, exactly?"
"He's Minato's son, and I was gonna give him the toad contract at some point."
Then he crashed into the earth, a crater forming around his feet as splinters from the trees that got in his way rained down around him. He could already hear the telltale groaning of trunks and branches as they began to fall, but Jiraiya didn't wait to see it happen. Moments later, he was in the air again.
"Besides, I figured I'd have 'Bunta check him out first. No sense wasting the time of a great sage."
The sage, Fukasaku, only grunted in response and asked no further questions. Jiraiya figured his teacher wouldn't be in the mood. They'd been traveling this way for about two days now, rushing south from the Land of Rain while he was in Sage Mode and Fukasaku helped keep him stabilized. It was the fastest way Jiraiya could get to where Naruto and Rin were short of flying.
Days ago, he'd been in Ame, meeting his contacts at the Grand Hinata Inn, and after making sure those same contacts could enjoy a few days of some of the best amenities one of the oldest resort-inns in the world had to offer, he'd gone off to meet with friends and family.
Saiki and Sayoko met him at the family residence at the peak of the mountain-complex. Amusingly enough, he found a fellow-visitor in Sanshou Kotarou there, too. Supposedly, Hanzo's grandson was enjoying an offday from his genin team to spend time with Naruto's cousin. Jiraiya joined them for tea in the conservatory that overlooked the Namikaze gardens atop Tenryu-zan.
Dinner was spent with Sanshou Hanzo over drinks, catching up while they sat in the bar built into the cliffs that overlooked the river-valley of Rain.
They caught up, shared stories. Jiraiya telling him of how Naruto was doing, and what the kid had been up to outside of training. It wasn't much, he'd admitted. The boy was focusing a lot of his time on growing stronger and learning whatever else he and Rin were teaching him, his hobbies were largely reduced to seeing Sakura, or Shino, or Tenten, or maybe dropping by Uchiha Izumi's bakery. Maybe he'd read a book or scroll that Jiraiya brought home from his trips.
Actually, wasn't there that new barbeque place that Megumi had opened? What was the name again?
Hanzo joked that the Sanshou and Namikaze clans may end up being joined in the next ten or so years, citing what has become regular visits by Kotarou to the Inn to visit Saiki's youngest granddaughter. Jiraiya had toasted to that, and said if it did turn into a romance, he might dedicate a book to it, or at the very least a short story.
"Keep it safe for the teens to read, and I'll foot the bill for publication, Jiraiya-kun." The older man rasped, raising his glass and chuckling.
It was then that Minato's older brother walked into the room, and the remainder of Jiraiya's plans were thrown over the cliffs of Tenryu-zan to shatter on the rocks below its western face.
The Namikaze suspected something was going to happen at Kinami-ko, and the clan head was worried enough to send Rin over to make sure that Naruto would be okay. That had been days ago.
Now, a messenger had arrived by bird from one of their contacts in the Land of Tea stating that two shinobi were spotted departing Midorimiya in one afternoon. According to the portmaster, they were chartered to circle around the southern capes and before heading north-west.
It was circumstantial at best, but when two members of Akatsuki - an organization known for recruiting S-ranked missing nin - were in your general area, you had good cause for concern.
And that wasn't counting the fact that the Land of Tea was something of a point of interest for the Corporation right now, with the ongoing construction of Kazemichi-sosui. Jiraiya knew not everyone was happy about that. Their contacts had told them as much. The Corporation had to step on some toes to get that canal building project approved. Clearly someone had decided to do something about it.
Kinami-ko was not a target they expected, though, but maybe it should have been.
So Jiraiya had made his goodbyes and made way for the Land of Waves with all due haste, resorting to even his most powerful technique to do so.
He knew he could be accused of overkill, but going this way and not having to rely on the roads had saved him half a week of travel. They'd cut through the mountains and forests that made up a large part of the countryside and were due to arrive at the Land of Waves in a few hours.
Jiraiya hoped he'd be wrong. He hoped that he and Naruto's uncle were just being paranoid and the two Akatsuki members were going somewhere else completely and just passing by. He hoped that when he got there, nothing was happening and he'd be greeted with an embarrassed Naruto and a bemused Rin. After all, it was still entirely possible, and it seemed too weird for two S-ranked missing nin to go after a town with nothing in it and a port that wasn't even operational.
But he also knew that Kinami-ko might have been that now, but it wasn't going to be that way forever. If things worked out, it'd be a great source of income for the corporation, and one hell of a way to take advantage of the canal that they, themselves, were building.
So it was a viable target, if only to hurt the corporation's reputation and future revenue.
And so Jiraiya landed upon the earth and took another great leap that made him resemble the toads he trained under.
Whatever was happening, he'd deal with it. And if something happened to Naruto and Rin… Well, he'd just have to remind them why he was the most terrifying of the Densetsu no Sannin.
~TtT~
Okay, maybe it wasn't as cryptic as Naruto would have thought.
Considering the direction the conversation had been going in, coupled with what they learned about the enemies that were coming to their doorstep, he really should have seen this coming.
Not that he minded the lesson he was getting.
"So we're going to need to make a central storage array first?"
Rin nodded as she walked them towards the administrative office. "You remember what the main problem with the Wall of Denial is, right?"
"Yeah. It's that it actually absorbs more chakra than it needs, and if it has too much chakra absorbed, it'd start to deteriorate before breaking down." He'd seen it happen enough times when he'd been learning the seal. You could only have it get hit by enough water dragons before it gave up on you and you got knocked around.
Sometimes, all the way into the nearest, artificially-made swamp.
Naruto couldn't say they were bad at motivating him to learn.
"It's so all the excess chakra has somewhere to go, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"But that's a lot of sealwork if we're going to be connecting all of them to one big storage source."
"We'll be making several, actually." Rin paused as they approached the concrete walkway that connected the administration building to the rest of the complex. "We'll want two or three, just so they're isolated from one another." Her white mask turned towards him over her shoulder. "I'm sure you understand why."
He did. It'd be too easy to just destroy the storage array and pressure the protection seal into breaking down. Sure, it'd mean their opponents knew how to deal with the seal in the first place, or even knew what it was, but it was best to assume the opponent knew that. Naruto told her as much.
"How're we going to do the sealwork, though?" Naruto asked, rubbing his chin with his hand. "We barely had enough ink left when we finished the outer seals." They probably had enough to actually apply the Wall of Denial seals. The array for that was surprisingly small, if annoying to paint by hand.
Rin answered him in the form of several blades of water flying out of seals in her sleeves and cutting directly into the concrete slabs of Kinami-ko. Naruto exclaimed at the sudden action.
"Kaa-san! W-what the hell!?"
"Seals don't all need to be ink, remember?" His mother answered, an amused lilt in her reply. "Besides, the others are going to need to use this area. Best to make it so that stepping on the paths of the array won't immediately damage it."
"And the damage to the port?" her silent stare told him she was giving him a raised eyebrow from behind the mask. "Right. Namikaze property."
Her voice was as light as a feather. "We can consider it a business expense. Protecting company assets and all that."
That was something he'd have to look into, though. Not having to use ink for sealwork would save him a lot, and it'd be a great way to surprise people. He wasn't practiced at carving, though. Maybe once he could actually use Skyscribing for things other than writing like his mother could.
It didn't take Rin very long to apply the array. A few minutes at most. Afterwards, they started creating the pathway that would connect the storage seals to the forward sealwork. Naruto hadn't done anything but watch since both the storage seals and the pathway were made from carved concrete.
"When can I start learning how to do that, anyway?"
"I think you're making decent progress." She told him before looking out towards the sea. "You've already got your shape manipulation down based on what you were doing last night, I'm sure if you had a few more weeks of practice you cou-"
There was a rush of air. Rin exploded into movement so quickly he heard her robes crack at the suddenness of it. It was followed by a splash, a relatively distant crunch, and a squawk.
When he looked to see what it was his mother had attacked, all he could catch was the puff of smoke that disappeared to reveal a splatter of red that covered some of the sealwork they had done, and a few stray, black feathers. Those would have to be re-done.
Rin took a deep breath.
"I think I know who Hoshigaki is with now." She sighed. "Lovely."
Aaaaand done!
Happy to finally have the pieces coming together for the upcoming battle of Kinami-ko. I hope the setup and explanation for why everyone's here makes sense, and makes it feel like this whole event didn't come out of nowhere.
Will the defenders be able to handle themselves long enough for their expected reinforcements, and the unexpected Jiraiya to arrive? We'll have to hope so! I hope the brief action scenes were also pretty cool, and the ones to follow are enjoyable.
I hope you and your families are all safe, especially with what's happening with the plague right now.
Take care, and a belated Happy New Year!