THE 5th OF NOVEMBER I
Daiki POV
The wind whipped harshly across the land, the grey clouds that hid the sky were bloated with water that they didn't want yet to relinquish, while the trees and the men whispered among themselves, rustling the first and gesturing the seconds, both knowing, albeit in different ways, that a storm was about to break the tense air that had them jump at every shadow.
With a deep breath, I walked out from a small outcropping of trees, looking over the barren land of Iwa, seeing as how they were starting to enclose upon the Fire Nation' territories thanks to my enhanced Sage-senses.
I had intercepted an Iwa team made of four chunin, who ha been depleted rather suddenly because of 'an asset that had to be captured by all means', namely Kakashi, who had gone on a surgical killing spree, removing no less than twelve Iwa-jonin before that could even be deployed.
"I hate this part of my plan." I muttered to myself, starting to trot downhill, picking up speed as my chakra churned tightly in my coils. The Akatsuki was something that I would be able to deal with, one piece at time. Between my skills and the knowledge I had of their techniques, I had a definite leg up.
But my main objective wasn't to fight the Akatsuki, was it? I wanted to change the world, the S-rank group of nuke-nin was a secondary branch of what I wanted to accomplish, I needed to foment malcontent and fear amongst the civilians, while keeping the shinobi forces of their countries too busy to keep track of meetings between book-lovers.
It was a complex endeavour, made all the more difficult by the impending apocalypse if I didn't manage to take Obito and Black Zetsu out of the game before either of them took notice of my movements. Sadly, that implied figuring out a way to bypass Obito's 'I can phase through things' gimmick, which was supported by some bastardization of mokuton.
That left me with a very limited pool of options. Having both Nidaime and Shodaime at my beck and call was useful, undoubtedly so, but I also needed to carefully manage the flow of information they were exposed to, I could return them to a proper Death with a few handsigns, but losing them only because I got sloppy and they managed to figure out that my actions harmed equally all the nations, including their own very much beloved Konoha, it would be a waste.
To overcome Obito, I needed to block his eye's capabilities. Sadly, I could only replicate Seals, I was no genius with them, I lacked the proper 'forma mentis' for that, and improvising bullshit on the fly like Minato Namikaze could, was very much beyond my reach, even with the short tutoring that the Nidaime had deemed me worthy of. So, Fuinjutsu was out.
That left me with three other options: hope that Nagato was stronger than him, and engineer a conflict between the two. Which was risky and brought with it a series of complications that I couldn't reliably predict.
I could take Nagato' eyes for myself, hoping that they would work properly for me, and that I could figure them out before everything went to shit. And that was only after an unavoidable fight with one of the most powerful being on the continent, one that Naruto won thanks to Sage Mode plus Kurama, with a powerful clan of toad summons on the side as support. Oh sure, he had reacted to an attack, Naruto had no plan, he was on the backfoot, forced to protect his village instead of being proactive about it.
Ambushes were much more effective to kill someone. "What is a shinobi, if not someone weak that learns to kill someone stronger?" I murmured as I started to move full sprint, mulling over that idea. Shinobi were never meant to be honourable warriors, those were the samurai, and there was a reason if only a small nation relied on them while all the others had a proper system that kept a stable force of shinobi on hand.
I could plan to infiltrate Ame and assassin Nagato in the dark. Sadly, Jiraya had been spotted in the manga, and he had a vastly more effective method to infiltrate. More likely than not, I would end up fighting openly in enemy territory, something I was unfamiliar with, and even with Hashirama and Tobirama at my side, open fights were never clear and cut. Maybe the King of Hell thing that Nagato could do was able to subvert the Edo Tensei, I had no idea, but risking it was foolish.
Much more simple, even if distasteful, was taking Obito's free eye from Kakashi. Cunning Kakashi, adaptable Kakashi, smart Kakashi, 'my dogs will tell me you're about to get the drop on me an hour before the actual ambush' Kakashi. Someone that was just on the edge of being S-rank, someone that I suspected was far more skilled than me at the stealth game, even if the meditation state of Sage Mode could allow me to remain invisible from his senses, as soon as I moved, he would feel me coming.
Discreet was not a term that could be ascribed to Sages after all.
But opportunities like the one I stumbled upon were worthy exposing myself for.
Kakashi 3rd person Pov
Kakashi was exhausted. He ran, chakra churning tightly through his coils and breath heavy in his chest, even if no sound betrayed his presence, no leaf quivered because of his movements.
Three days. He had managed to gain that lead on the pursuing enemy, then, two days before, a mistake, something that was dictated more by the enemy's luck than his own he was less than a thrown kunai from a Konoha outpost when he spotted the lack of chunin among the trees. The lack of living ones at least.
So, from an instant to the latter, instead of finding himself a few minutes from safety, he had found himself at the centre of a classic pinch manoeuvre.
He hadn't managed to get a clear reading on the Iwa nin that slowly but surely worked to surround him, cutting every avenue of escape in order to force a confrontation. Even then, worry and fear were far from his mind. He had lost them in with his first foray into the previous war, there was only constant adrenaline, controlled breaths, trap disseminated in order to create a false trail, his summons unleashed to muck his trail and war him with their superior senses if something was wrong about the direction he moved in.
He ducked under a branch and sprinted over the ground, no doubt barely appearing as a grey and black blur to the unfortunate chunin that fell to the ground with a slit throat. Kakashi grimaced, knowing that he had left a clear sign of his passage, something that forced him to change direction and run in the open for more time that he would have liked to.
Kakashi wasn't your regular jonin. He wasn't your regular shinobi, period. Hunting him was just as dangerous as fighting him in the open, death was in the details, he knew, there was no optimal angle, no 'most reasonable approach', everything was classified in terms of effectiveness and risk. He discarded the highest risks without a second thought, one did not survive by taking risks after all, focusing instead on the optimal course of action that enabled survival.
Kakashi had witnessed much in his life, more than most should, and for every act of abject horror and depravity that marred his memories, he had learned, he learned from his enemies just as much as he had learned from his fellow Konoha-nin, Obito's eye, and his heart lurched with a familiar pain when his thoughts went in that direction, had proved itself invaluable.
Kakashi of One-thousand jutsu, Copy-nin Kakashi. His friend's eye surely had helped his career, but the only thing everybody had focused on was his ability to manipulate all the elements, with jutsu that would have required more time to be learned that the amount of time Kakashi had spent alive, fears and suspects that undoubtedly had been overblown by his own Village counter-intelligence. Still, it was something that helped him, given his own penchant for freaking out the enemy, putting him on the backfoot even before the fight proper started.
What everybody seemed to miss, and Kakashi was careful to not correct their assumptions, was that if the Sharingan allowed learning every jutsu with a single glance, why shouldn't it have allowed learning mannerisms, movements, tactics, taijutsu forms and everything else just as well?
Kakashi had been a blade in the dark, completing five missions nobody ever learned of for each that his Village used to parade him around, keeping the vultures at bay, nurturing the illusion of Konoha's strength, a strength that had been utterly lacking after the Yondaime's death. Too few shinobi after the previous war, the attack of the Kyubi in their own home hadn't helped.
Konoha had been close, very close, a few years from having the adequate numbers to keep up the appearances. A couple of years after the Crush the hopeful 13 years old chunins would have started to actually blossom, their chakra reserves expanding with puberty, their tactics and techniques refined carefully, ushering in a whole generation of jonin. Which was unheard of.
Kakashi kept running, following the lead of Bisuke, who had found a hole in the net his opponents' were tightening around him. He ran quickly over a river, his feet not making a sound over the water as he manipulated it in order to skate forward, faster than he could have done on dry land before remaining on the same side of the course of water, throwing off his pursuers.
Not only they were all Heir from the prominent clans, each entitled to the deepest secrets and techniques that not many others had every even attempted, but they had also grown up together, their interaction observed and carefully managed in their infancy, either with the blessing of their parents or working around the clan heads. There was no animosity, no secret hates. Inuzuka, Yamanaka, Nara, Hyuga, Aburame, Akimichi, each undoubtedly loyal to the village, eventually to be railroaded to become a join, while his own team... Naruto, with so much raw potential that he would undoubtedly fall into S-rank eventually, Sasuke, who had managed to grow out, if tentatively, of the trauma that his brother had inflicted upon him, and Sakura, who... well, Kakashi had never invested too much in the civilian girl, she was book-smart, and had so little chakra that if trained she could become a fine medic-nin, but there was nothing else about her that screamed 'promise'.
Kakashi knew that he had numerous people attacking him, there was just no way that he could let himself be trapped unless the enemy enjoyed an overwhelming numeric advantage.
Along with the class of heirs, there had been Daiki. Extravagant, Business-man, Writer... Original. He had truly blossomed under Gai's tutelage. He would have been one of the hidden blades along with his team, cutting through swathes of nuke-nin and keeping up the illusion of Konoha's strength just like Kakashi had done before flaunting his fame turned out to be more useful than applying his talents.
Bisuke tore through a couple of chunin, faster than they could react: the third man of the cell was a seasoned jonin however, and so his senses picked up on Kakashi presence an instant before his tanto could cut his jugular. A hectic exchange immediately followed, sidestep, punch, backslap, cartwheel, and wire tightened around Kakashi's opponent's neck. A twitch of the wrist and the ninja-wire acted as a garrote, removing the obstacle.
Then the tragedy, the death of his teammate, that Kakashi had witnessed, should have incensed the kid, the scary kid that had learned the Kage-bunshin after being shown only once, the one that killed a Junchuriki before hitting 18 years of age.
Instead, he grabbed the occasion of distancing himself from Konoha and serve at the Daimo's court, learning among the best of the country. That had been accepted from the Hokage and the council with appreciative nods. It made sense that he wished for distance, and being trained outside would bring fresh knowledge in Konoha, maybe nurture his originality.
When he had returned, Kakashi had not been impressed. The Hokage pit them one against another in order to see what kind of asset the upstart was, and Kakashi, for the first time in a long while, had been confused.
The young man behaved like he knew a joke that only he was privy to. But there was no proof whatsoever about betrayal or even disloyalty, the only quirk had been his absolute refusal of having a Yamanaka in his head, which admittedly, could sare shitless everyone. That had raised more than a few eyebrows, but the Hokage had preferred nurture the sapling with trust instead of putting it under a microscope, even if obviously Daiki had been followed constantly.
Daiki's tentative bond with the Last Uchiha had been something that helped to still the Hokage's hand, in hindsight, Kakashi could see it: how would have Sasuke reacted if the only one he started to open up with suddenly died? Even framing it on Kumo would have simply exacerbated the Uchiha' sociopath tendencies, not tightening the Village's hold on his loyalty one bit.
Kakashi never stopped, his body falling into the lull he had trained himself for in order to keep his mind fresh for battle, a subtle pulse of chakra later, he directed himself towards Pakkun, who was keeping open a narrow passage between enemy squads with a combination of sudden appearances and aborted attacks.
Slowly, as he ran, he returned to his musings. The quirky and generally aloof Daiki had proven his worth by revealing that he was a Sage. A Sage, like Jiraya-sama, one that could fight Orochimaru without a plan or preparation and force him to retreat, and that had proved that the Saindaime had been wise in his choices regarding Daiki.
Then it came the betrayal from Suna, coupled with Iwa's own predictable attempt to stir trouble. Everything engineered by Orochimaru, who had made open use of his knowledge of the territory in order to smuggle across the trees a whole army. They failed, and failed badly, not managing to destroy Konoha, which had endured, like it always did.
So close, they had been so close to the transition between managing an image of power and actually having that power.
Daiki, one of the 3 S-rank among Konoha' ranks, along with two of the sannin (since nobody actually believed that Tsunade was off the rooster), was going to be the last step before Naruto's generation came through with their blood's promise, showing the world the might of Konoha' clans and bloodlines.
Gone with Orochimaru, who had simulated his own death so many times that nobody truly believed his demise to be permanent. Daiki, aloof and dangerous Daiki, who the higher-ups suspected had engineered his own death, getting out clean from shinobi life.
Sandaime-sama crippled in his deathbed, age finally catching up during his last clash against Onoki, who paid with his life for his failed attempt on Konoha's life.
That combination of events had nevertheless bought them time. Konoha was still powerful. The counter-intelligence had subtly confirmed that Konoha hadn't needed the Kyubi to win, that Konohagakure no Sato still had Senju Tsunade and the Toad Sage Jiraya, while the other Villages had at most two S-rank in their numbers.
Iwa needed a few weeks to figure out what to do, knowing that Konoha couldn't ignore their last insult. Onoki's grandaughter was promising, but too young and inexperienced to take his place, so her father had taken up the mantle as Yondaime Tsuchikage instead
Kumo had been grateful to not have been dragged in that particular shitfest. Keeping their remaining Jinchuriki near their Kage,
Kiri was a mess, their own spies confirmed that there was something more than simple unrest going on there.
Suna got gutted, there was no other way to properly put it, and Danzo quickly got it under control, securing one border and pacing Konoha in an optimal position in order to deal with Kiri.
A twinge on Kakashi chakra informed him that Pakkun had dismissed himself, and the Copy-nin turned sharply left, following the coded messages that his summons were transmitting through chakra pulses, too subtle and exact to be picked up by anyone lacking the connection created by a Summon contract.
In the following sixteen seconds, all of his summonses got wounded heavily enough to be dismissed.
Twenty seconds after Pakkun's disappearance, Kakashi broke out from the umpteenth outcropping of trees, only to stop when a fucking platoon of Iwa-nin surrounded him. At least fifty chunin strong, there was at least a single three-man team made of join on the forefront of the small army that had trapped him. All in all, he briefly felt honoured that Iwa would deploy such a force only for little him.
Shit. The thought was discarded as it formed, one hand immediately lifting his headband, freeing Obito's eye, which shone maliciously in the grim weather.
The Copy-nin snarled quietly, his teeth bared under his mask, while he started to mo...
They died.
Blunt force trauma so strong their organs collapsed, their bones splintered, the shards rocketing through their bodies only to harm their peers.
They died quickly.
The damage inflicted so vast, that their brains went in shock from the pain, spines tore apart, throats slashed open, skulls crushed in impossibly strong hands.
They died suddenly.
They drowned on dry land. when the river rose like an angry god, globs of water clung to the nostrils and mouths, instilling panic during those last minutes of apnea the trained ninja were capable of facing.
They seized in a second of agony before death freed them from the pain inflicted by the flash boiled flesh, as a swathe of white fire scorched the ground around Kakashi.
Instead of dying, those with enough wit to figure out a countermeasure saw their limbs turn into ash under white waves of fire, and while they were reeling from the pain, the cold bite of metal found its mark, striking with unerring precision vital organs.
They cried in despair while the ground split open to devour them, their techniques, chakra and will not remotely strong enough to oppose the Sage.
They died in droves, they died alone, they turned to run only to stumble upon a comrade busy retreating, before being used as a target by squads of brothers and sisters who lived in a genjutsu they couldn't dispel.
The chunin represented the greatest part of the army, and they were ants challenging an active volcano, leaves daring the sky to strike them down.
The jonin reacted better, but while they managed to recognize a blur of something tearing through their ranks, they simply could not keep up.
The few genin that had been drafted to the front in order to be tested in the war were running without direction, attempting to help, or just survive, but they either were lucky, or they just disappeared, trampled upon by the reason why the army had been stopped.
At the end of the day, it didn't really matter, they died. Broken. Shredded. Tore apart. Splattered. Erased.
Kakashi ducked and weaved across the battlefield, making use of the extensive properties of the Sharingan coupled with his vast experience in order to not get caught in the crossfire, observing a familiar presence as it crushed the opponent that had been hounding the Copy-nin for two days straight.
Daiki POV
I perceived the healthy form of an enemy shinobi snap his wrist in a throwing motion, the twisting hips of a kunoichi about to hammer her heel in my left temple, the bodies moving around me were like colours on a canvas. And exactly like images on a painted surface, to my senses and reflexes, they appeared almost still.
My right hand shot forward and choke-slammed the first against the second, the windpipe crushing beneath my fingers and the skull of the kunoichi cracking open under the pressure I exercised upon the body of her fellow countryman.
Without stopping, I kicked away the head of a third man and enjoyed the surprise of the fourth when the kunai that he tried to plunge in my neck broke against my toughened skin before slamming my left elbow through its skull.
It was almost like I was a man of iron tearing through origami. The sage-mode granted me a form of invulnerability that in the manga only people of at least Pain's caliber had managed to crack.
Along with it, enhanced senses and reflexes that paired with a strenght and speed that was beyond what anyone but S-class shinobi could hope to withstand.
Sage-mode equals cheat-code. I sing-songed in my head, trying to not focus on the dying men around me.
More chakra one consumed, faster the senchakra would be depleted, and that was why I was carrying on with only a little ninjutsu, and I left a shadow-clone to support me with genjutsu. And it was also the optimal strategy because of the number of deaths I was causing. Wide area of effect jutsu would easily be opposed by groups of enemy shinobi, with the Hinokami no mai I could kill a dozen of them, before another group could counter it. Using taijutsu, I was tearing apart the enemy lines, grabbing the occasional shinobi an hurling it through trough the others, and the psychological impact was starting to be felt.
Having a natural affinity for suiton, however, and one as trained as my own was, meant that with a half-ram hand-seal, the small course of water that Kakashi had tried to use to lose his tail followed my will with barely a twitch of my will, my own chakra crushing the feeble attempt of the Iwa-nin to gain control upon the humongous amount of liquid that moved around me like a twister. Instead of blades of wind, whipping tendrils of water that were capable of tearing through or drowning my enemies in response to their reaction surrounded me, following my path through the Iwa-platoon.
When the last Iwa-nin fell, disappearing from my senses like a candle snuffed out, it started to rain, the heavy clouds finally deciding that they had enough of waiting.
"You're welcome." I drawled eyeing Kakashi, who was doing his very best to not show the exhaustion that undoubtedly had creeped out on him, very few things can be hidden from a sage.
"You' re officially dead." he retorted, making me shrug.
"Sandaime's orders, Konohagakure higher-ups are compromised." I saw no reason to not propagate the lie I had seeded in Konoha, if I was lucky enough, Shikamaru would end up with a sudden ally eventually.
The Copy-nin made no motion towards lowering his headband, not that he expected to have a chance against me if I were to attack, it was more of an act of respect if I were to guess.
With a sigh, I let the Nature chakra seep out of my coils and back into the world loosing the golden eyes that undoubtedly were freaking out the Copy-nin, rolling my shoulders to let the kinks out of them. I wasn't tired, since I had used only a minute amount of chakra to fight. I had wanted to fight without Nature-Chakra, relying only upon the improvements that my self imposed murder-training had bestowed on me, but I wanted to finish it quickly.
"Any reason why the current Hokage would have asked me to look into your 'death' if the opportunity arose, and why it's a standing order for at least five other shinobi that I know of?" he asked me, making me scratch my jawline thoughtfully.
"Eh... It's a bit complex... have you heard anything about my cute little genin?"
"They're chunin, and I won't tell you anything, since you're a nuke-nin now." he retorted, not giving an inch of information.
I scoffed, rising my head towards the sky in order to let the rain wash away most of the gore and blood that the Iwa-nin had left on me, helping it along with a bit of seal-less Suiton manipulation: "I don't hate Konoha."
"Why reappearing now?" he asked, exciting another shrugh from me.
"It's the 5th of November, and you needed a hand."
The Copy-nin blinked, trying to figure out how much I was shitting him: "Why is the date relevant?" he asked, completely dismissing my claim that I actually wanted to help him.
I snorted, unable to resist: "Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I see of no reason Why Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot."
"I can't really trust you in any case." Kakashi pointed out, dismissing my answer.
I nodded: "You'd be right."
My shadow-clone, who had abandoned Sage-Mode at the end of my fight against the Iwa-nin, chopped the Copy-nin over the back of his neck, compressing a chosen nerve, that caused Kakashi to slump forward, unconscious.
I moved quickly and with certainty, chakra with a green tint covering my hands while my clone hands rested upon Kakashi's head: the one over his forehead keeping him unconscious, while the second rested at the base of his spine, keeping him still through an unlikely application of medical chakra.
Swiping on a seal over my forearm protector, I summoned a glass container full of an inert solution. "Sorry, Kakashi." I muttered as my hands opened the eyelid that his Obito's Sharingan, still active and consuming Hatake's chakra.
With a wet plop and a lurch that thankfully was covered by the heavy rain, I removed my objective by the Copy-nin's orbit, placing it safely in the container I had prepared before sealing it back in the storage seal on my forearm protector.
"Don't be an asshole." My clone told me, making me raise an eyebrow at him.
With his head, he pointed to the very fresh bodies surrounding us: "At least give him a nice blue eye to dazzle the ladies with."
I snorted, but acquiesced to my shadow clone's request, Kakashi was kind of alright on my books. An asshole, for sure, but one of the good ones. Finding a compatible eye took fifteen minutes, restoring it to an acceptable level in order for it to be transplanted another five minutes of careful application of medical chakra, while the operation, which I had looked up back when I was a genin, exactly for the possibility of taking up an OP doujutsu later down the line, took twenty minutes.
For some reason, his optical nerve was less than receptive to my efforts. If it was because his body instinctively opposed every chakra that it identified as not-me, I couldn't tell.
Once I was done, my clone dispelled, and I took Kakashi over one shoulder, disappearing in shunshin across the barren land of Iwa, pointing to the closest tree line that indicated the proper beginning of the Land of Fire.
I dropped Kakashi in a hidden enough position among the branches of a particularly tall birch tree, before running across the forest, sneaking my way across the border with Iwa a couple of times before I felt something through the water that I habitually used as an aid to perceive the world around me.
I was being followed.
Whoever it was, it had kept crossing the boundary between nations like me, indicating that it wasn't a common shinobi, those would have been at least careful when doing so.
I reached a vast clearing, where a small course of water sneaked through, enlarged by the downpour.
After a flash of lightning that blinded the world, a couple of shinobi appeared less than twenty meters from me.
Dark cloaks with red clouds, Itachi and Kisame were staring me down.
AN
Well, things start to move again, a brief, semi-hidden summary of recent events in the first part of this chapter, while every country amasses their forces and gets started with preventive assassinations in order to facilitate the full-blown war, Daiki makes his first move.
I played a bit with the POV, I wanted to make everything a bit more dynamic, did it work?
I've finally set up my own site, where my fics can be downloaded in pdf (complete, not chapter by chapter), and you can support me through a donation if you have the means and the wish to do so.
cloud9stories dot net is the name of my site, you can find the complete caption on my profile if googling it isn't enough (for whatever reason ff doesn't let me copy-past the URL here).
Thank you!
