Daze
Chapter 18: Conflict in order
A/N: Chapter eighteen is here, hope you enjoy.
X X
Naruto sat down on the wooden stool folding his ash jacket over his lap as the bartender stepped out to greet him.
"Oi gaki how old are you?"
Naruto flashed his purple kiri headband from his pocket and the man nodded.
"What can I get for ya?"
"Rice wine, up, misted, and cut."
"Coming right up."
Naruto pulled the senbon from his pocket twirling it between his fingers.
He went to put it in his mouth but darted his hand out catching the point of a steel object between the needle and his thumb.
"Sloppy execution, if that was meant to be a sneak attack you should retire now."
The man behind him with a dagger in his sleeve began to sweat nervously.
"How'd you know?"
"I saw the glint of your blade in the glass before you even closed the door."
"My employer told me you were just a chunin."
"Your employer was misinformed, Rogue ninja have no rank."
Naruto grabbed the man's shoulder forcefully, seating him next to him, and tossing his dagger into a nearby dart wall with the needle.
"Oi bartender get my friend here a drink, Sake on the rocks."
"Sure thing gaki."
The man began to sweat profusely.
"You're not a ninja are you?"
"You can tell that easily?"
Naruto nodded cooly.
"The lack of knowledge and sloppy sneak attack might paint you a genin, but, your pitiful chakra reserves are those of a civilian.
Naruto placed the senbon into his mouth.
"So, tell me why are you trying to kill a ninja, who do you work for?"
"I can't say."
Naruto chuckled.
"It's funny how everyone says that but it's never true."
"Please, sir if he knows I told you he'll kill my family, the fact I failed already means I'm a dead man."
The bartender came out with the drinks on a tray.
The man shot him a hopeful look but he took one look at Naruto's bared crimson eye, and he turned the other way to clean glasses.
"Here's how it's gonna go, either you sit here and talk with me over drinks I find your employer and settle things with him,"
"Or?"
"Or, I use genjutsu to force the information out of you and settle things with him anyway."
The man gulped, taking a strong swig from his glass of Sake.
"If I tell you, you promise to stop him."
"You have my word, and my nindo is to never go back on my promises."
"He's missing an eye, and he wears a distinctive cloak, but I glimpsed beneath, such terrible burns.."
The horrified screams came to a stop as Kabuto stepped into the room.
"Orochimaru-sama?"
A sultry female voice answered back as a green haired woman with golden eyes stared back from the darkness.
"The transfer went without issue, truly this host has such a wellspring of energy."
The white-haired boy raised his glasses, with two fingers.
"Her clan's kekkei genkai no doubt, they were banished from Kusa for defying the Kage but they took their secrets with them."
"Ah, what a shame it took the sacrifices of her clan to fully realise their power, I would've liked to have more of her ilk for later vessels."
"My sincerest apologies my lord but science is an art of trial and error."
"No use begrudging what has already transpired, instead, we should focus on what can be changed."
"I suppose you mean that one."
The woman growled thinking of the red-haired traitor.
"Has there been any word of her status since she defected to those leaf weaklings."
"Yes my lord one of our spies has actually reported that she is on a top secret mission with your former pupil."
"Anko-chan hmm, a tempting prospect to tie up two traitorous underlings of mine in one strike."
"Unfortunately they are currently on that Kunoichi island, to pursue them we would have to commit to a full scale assault."
"You are correct… unless."
The snake woman raised her hand to her face covering her right eye.
She pulled the skin down revealing ivory skin underneath and made a serpent's grin.
'That's not a good sign, Master must have a plan.'
"You wanna repeat that you blonde bimbo!"
"You heard me you boar!"
Anko let out a dramatized sigh rubbing her temples.
"Sakura, make Ino and Tayuya stop arguing before I tie all of you to a tree and leave you for a fortnight."
Sakura began to sweat fearfully knowing that it wasn't an empty threat.
She forcefully grabbed the girls by their ears and whispered angrily at them to stop lest they face the snake master's wrath.
"That's better, now Ino, Sakura you two are going to search for that suspicious gaki, Tayuya you're going to come with me to meet the contact."
They all nodded in understanding though Tayuya grumbled about wanting to find the bastard herself.
Sakura turned to her blonde rival.
"How well can you sense chakra?"
Ino sighed.
"I've been practicing whenever I can but tou-san says it can take years to master, right now I can only sense a few blocks away and this island is massive."
Sakura nodded.
"Old fashioned way it is."
Naruto lifted his crimson eyes to the burnt orange horizon.
'Where is this bastard hiding?'
He knew that the culprit wouldn't be far from the bar so he could see if his underling had succeeded.
It had been fifteen minutes since a clone had left the bar henge'd to appear as the threatened assassin, a man named Takasuke.
The real Takasuke had been reverse summoned to the Land of Rice for his protection until Naruto could verify the assailant was dealt with.
Naruto caught a glimpse of a chakra anomaly with his sharingan and smirked.
In a flash of white and a flapping of fabric he came upon the cloaked individual with a falling barrage of dark fists and elbows.
"Shunshin: Shāpu-seki no ame!" (Body Flicker: Sharp Stone Rain)
The man coughed blood his camouflage jutsu dissipating as his body was juggled by the multiple steel-like strikes.
Naruto followed the assault with a strong axe kick tossing the man from the roof and to the sandy ground below.
Hopping down from the roof Naruto watched the man rise to his feet.
"Oi if you're tough enough to endure that, why send a farmer to do your dirty work?"
The man chuckled darkly.
"You think me a fool child, that garbage was merely a ploy to draw you to me."
Naruto chuckled.
"Funny considering it seems I got the drop on you eh, oji?"
The man growled ripping off his grey hooded cloak to reveal a suit of sleeveless grey studded leather armor.
A green ringed Jo staff was tied to his back.
His long grey hair was unkempt, tied in a loose side ponytail and he was severely burned from his face to his left elbow, a prosthetic below that, his left eye a hollow space.
"Do you remember me gaki?"
"I don't know, you look familiar but the burns make it a little hard to tell."
The man gritted his teeth in rage.
"You did this to me, you managed to evade the explosion thanks to your puppet loving friend, but I took it all and it took everything from me!"
"That's battle."
"What would you know of battle you upstart, I led the Mist's Keyabu (Kenjutsu & explosives) Against the Sanin in the 2nd ninja war,"
The man adjusted a wakizashi on his hip, pulling a nodachi from his back.
"-I was in the Land of Iron Samurai 1st regiment when Iwagakure broke the neutrality pact and crossed the Samurai bridge in the Third great war."
The man held the Nodachi in his hands, gripping it too tightly so that his prosthetic fingers creaked and bent.
"You a rogue child adopted by a traitorous group got a lucky blow and managed to make me fail, I lost my honor, my family, my brothers all because of you!"
The man spat with rage channeling wind chakra into his long blade.
"Fight me that I may reclaim what's left of my honor."
Naruto paled this man was much more experienced than him, and driven by a rage that burned.
"Fine oji, if that's the way it is then I'll give you an honorable death!"
Naruto weaved handsigns rapidly sidestepping the man's initial slash and leaping back.
"Futon: Yasei no kaze no nami!" (Windstyle: Wild wind waves)
Naruto made flat palms with both his hands and chopped at the air diagonally.
Long green chakra cut from his hands and shot out in a series of jagged wind blades.
Immediately he drew his tanto from his side channeling water chakra into a bubble of frothy chakra covering the blade.
"Suiton: Sashimi!"
Slicing at the man with the small blade the bubble of water chakra turned into a tendril like whip.
The man countered deftly.
Quickly and carefully sidestepping every wind blade as if he were dancing he spun turning the momentum into his blade cutting through the tendril with sheer force.
'Shit, I used two A rank's back to back hoping to floor him, I've only got enough chakra left for two A rank's and an S rank.'
Naruto bit his lip with exertion making a hand seal.
'If my Kakuzu, and Kisame didn't cut it then how about my Sasori-Deidara combo!'
"Katon: Karaheizu!" (Fire style: Colored haze)
He opened his mouth releasing a powerful plume of purple mist from his lungs, his opponent tried to jump away but was pulled in by puppet strings.
The man saw the culprit was in fact a long haired puppet string going from the blonde boy's fingers into it's back and out it's own fingers.
A second puppet tackled him from behind and held onto him.
It's stomach opened, and steel chakra cable shot out tying his waist, the puppet held his eyes open with it's newly freed arms.
The stringed female puppet's eyes flashed green and the man felt himself pulled into a genjutsu.
Waves of dizziness like that of a deep intoxication overtook the man and he began to sway and trip.
"Seven hundred and thirty days training with S ranked nuke nins, I am not some weak chunin to be beaten by you!"
Naruto smirked.
"Now fall to my special Nina, Mika combo, Ningyō bijon: Bakkasu!" (Puppet vision: Bacchus)
Naruto turned and ran trying to put as much distance between himself and the expanding cloud of vapor.
He heard a set of heavy uneven footsteps chasing his own but he wasn't worried, even though the man had managed to break free from the genjutsu.
He had already lost the battle.
In a moment, anything organic touched by that substance would be a memory.
'Sasori helped me design this special poison, it acts as a magnet for the special C6 fire chakra Deidara and I worked on it's the collaboration between two master artists.'
Naruto made a single hand seal.
"Katsu!"
The vapor dissipated like fog dragged by the wind but a powerful whining noise like a boiling pot began to grow louder.
The puppets vanished in a plume of smoke returning to two scrolls in Naruto's jacket.
Naruto groaned and fell to his knee beads of sweat falling down his face.
'This takes too much chakra if this doesn't kill him I'm done for.'
Naruto paled, clutching his headband tightly.
The enraged Hotaru continued to close the distance between himself and the blonde boy drawing his second shorter blade he channeled fire into it.
He readied his blades in an X slash shape, quick but cautious of any counters the boy might make.
Then he felt it.
The pressure in the air changed from the sheer chakra as the area exploded in a glorious plume of purple ignis.
The older man's eyes widened as he reveled in horrified awe at the deadly but beautiful sight.
'Is this my death?'
Naruto was tossed by the aftermath of the fire bomb.
Shakily looking up to see what would be in the smoke when it cleared.
To his surprise there was a great mass of ivory and fur charred and dying in the street.
'A mammoth?'
He heard a cutting ripping sound of muscle and flesh, the loud crack of something breaking through bone, and the squelch of something bursting forth from a body.
Hotaru burst forth from the mammoth's side covered in blood and burned badly.
His prosthetic arm was knocked off and his blades were shattered from their handles.
The man climbed down from the mighty beast laying a solemn hand on its forehead as it let out a labored death groan.
"Sorry Kyodai, I hope you can forgive me and find peace in the next life."
The man turned to the downed Naruto.
"A mighty attack, it would've killed a less savvy opponent."
He pulled his Jo staff from his back, lightning surging through the bell ring on either end.
"You put up a mighty battle for that I will find the last shred of honor in my blackened heart and give you a dignified end."
Naruto paled internally coming to grips with the fact that he might die.
He thought to use his sharingan but that attack had drained the last of his chakra in his reflection, he could see onyx eyes staring back at him.
'This is it.'
"Shanaroo!"
The burned man's eyes widened as he sidestepped a flying punch aimed for the ground where he had been standing.
The ground crumbled as he lost his footing.
"Shitenshin no jutsu!"
The man's eyes rolled before returning to a vacant state.
The man's gruff voice spoke in a feminine affect.
"Target secure Sakura."
The pink-haired girl nodded picking up the downed blonde under her arm.
"Resist and I'll break your legs."
Naruto nodded weakly.
"W-wasn't planning on it pinky."
Sakura's eye twitched but she tied the boy's wrist in ninja wire.
Ino made the man tie his own wrists before returning to her own body, the man collapsing from his own burns and lack of chakra.
"Ino take this one back to Anko I have to heal that man before he dies of infection or shock."
The blonde girl ran over taking the boy from Sakura's arms who ran over and channeled green chakra into the man repairing the worst of his burns.
Naruto looked up into the girl's green eyes.
"I never noticed."
"What?"
"You Yamanaka girls are pretty cute."
Ino blushed a bright pink turning away from the blonde prisoner.
X END X
A/N: Hope you enjoyed this newest chapter, the next chapter will be out shortly (After these messages). -Ice