Warring Routine


January 3rd, year 15 After the Kyubi attack

The rain fell unforgivingly under the dark sky of the night, crashing violently against everything it hit, be it the rare outcropping of trees or the far more common landscape characterized by the red-colored stone of the land of Earth. The wind was harsh, and the cold seeped into the very bones of everyone foolish enough to dare defy the mountains.

"At least it isn't snow." the whisper of Ino brought Sasuke out of his reverie, his eyes quickly finding the dark shape of her body at the entrance of the cavern. they were holed up in, "How are they?"

The Uchiha returned his attention to the other two shinobi they had bunkered with after the ambush that broke Konoha's platoon, sneering distractedly at their still unconscious forms before he returned his attention to the blonde Yamanaka: "Still out of it: if they're chunin, I'm Madara Uchiha."

Ino offered him her sharp grin while she cast off the heavy cloak meant to keep off the worse of the rain from her body while she scouted ahead, her teal blue eyes glinting mischievously in the dim light cast by the only lamp that Sasuke felt like using while babysitting the two unconscious chunin: "So... we have some time for ourselves?"

Despite himself, Sasuke felt his pulse quicken while he looked over the blonde moving towards him, his eyes capable of following the smallest movement caused by the deliberate sway of her hips: "We're alone in hostile territory, with two dead weights and no safe way to return." if his voice was the tiniest bit chocked, he knew Ino wouldn't mention it, even if the widening of her smile was proof that he had caught on on that, "We need to prioritize."

"Oh, I'll prioritize all right..." her grin widened minutely as she reached him, her hands trailing softly around his temples and in his damp hair, "I think you know that too..."

Sasuke forcefully controlled his breathing as he felt like drowning in her eyes, the warmth that he had started to discover with the Yamanaka months before turning from a distant simmer into something hungry. And from the parting of the girl's lips, she felt similarly, as she bent to bring their lips together however, the Last Uchiha stiffened: something had changed.

Immediately, Ino switched from 'relaxed' to 'ready to engage' as she spun on her heel, trusting in her partner's reaction even if her senses hadn't informed her of anything amiss: her teal eyes scoured the darkness beyond their cave, her sight unsuccessfully trying to part the heavy curtain of rain in front of her. Her chakra, coiled tightly around herself, stirred minutely, not so much as to be perceived by anyone but a skilled sensor in the immediate surroundings, but enough to prime her body for a lethal retaliatory strike were they to be attacked.

Sasuke followed her example with less than a split second delay: Raiton he spent many hours honing since Kakashi first showed him the Chidori thrummed just under his skin, while a familiar red and purple tint covered his sight as the Sharingan spun forth, already seeking patterns in the blinding rain outside the cave.

A fraction of thought was spared for the two dead weights behind him, only for his training to command the rest of his focus on the surroundings.

There!

Sasuke exploded out of their hiding spot with chakra being shaped by blurring hand-seals and his eyes blazing red as he called upon the gifts of his bloodline: one tree didn't burn as much as stopped existing because of the concentrate blaze of fire that the Last Uchiha spewed upon it, his center mass already shifting to accommodate for the retaliatory strike of an Iwa nin that exploded out of the ground in front of him.

The hands trying to grab him closed on the drops of rain at his sides, his chakra already twisting the perceptions of his attacker just long enough for a kunai to land within his left eye.

His victim turned out to be a mud clone as he unraveled, and Sasuke darted left under the powerful slash of a katana, his left hand turning into a spear point as the Chidori screamed its entrance into the world with the blinding white scream of lightning.

"Shit!" one of the shinobi anbushing him jumped back just in time to be gutted by a companion, who winked at Sasuke, letting him know that Ino was in charge of that one.

The priorities shifted, and Sasuke went from blind-offensive to keep-them-away, that'd give time to his girlfriend -he withhold a smile at that thought- to rifle through the mind of their attackers while providing support to the Uchiha.

Under the heavy rain, his chakra blazed, burning away the sloppy attempt at genjutsu that brough his attention to his right, where another Iwa kunoichi was feverishly working through hand-seals.

A single glance, however, forced her to duck to her left, dodging an imaginary kunai just to trip over a companion that was darting towards Sasuke. With his Sharingan blazing in the night, he was a nightmarish vision for his opponents, that likely expected to pick up you average chunin already exhausted from battle.

Sasuke didn't even have to try to kick the throat of the first man attempting to engage him in close quarters, his bloodline more than enough to read him as an open book and to exploit the infinitesimal opening of his attack. The ninja was blond and had an uncared-for beard that became splattered with blood after his failure against Sasuke, who ignored the names the enemy shinobi shouted to each other in order to prepare something that resembled an organized offensive.

A green light covered the hands of the blond man, and Sasuke immediately went in for the kill: he didn't know why a medic would attempt to fight in the front lines, and he didn't actually care, but he needed to remove him as soon as possible.

A woman wielding a short katana and - Is that an actual shield? What kind of kunoichi is she? - flashed to his left just as a short-haired blond man did the same on his right, his straight jian extended as if to skewer him. Two steps forward were all that he needed to throw off his attackers, who were ready to pursue him further instead of falling back. They didn't expect that I would slip through their attack to assault their medic-nin.

However, there was suddenly a third shinobi in front of him: an humungous red-haired and bearded man that attempted to smash Sasuke with an haymaker covered in rock in a downward swing.

So they have a semblance of tactics. Sasuke realized that the overextending of the pincher maneuver was a feint to lure him into the midst of three shinobi that clearly knew how to work together, and a part of him wanted to nod appreciatively at their teamwork.: his way back was now blocked, and the man in front of him was just a bit too large to be bypassed at the same speed he had been moving at.

Foolishly, the man seemed to ignore that a stab was much faster than a swing, or worse, he seemed to think that only because Sasuke didn't wield a katana, he wasn't a threat to his life: without hand-seals, relying only on sheer chakra-manipulation, the Chidori struck just under the solar plexus of his attacker, and the Uchiha killed the man immediately.

At the same time, his free hand turned into an half-ram seal while he slipped his chakra in the med-nin in front of him: between the gifts of his bloodline and the enhanced control that his hand-seal provided, the target wouldn't move for a while.

"Hidan!" the male scream coming from behind him was enough to inform Sasuke of his opponent's hesitation: with a serpentine turn on his left heel, Sasuke pushed off at the same insane speeds he had used to fuck around his attackers until then: bloodied but free, his hand clamped on the right wrist of the surprised blond while the Uchiha kept moving, leveraging the imperfect balance of his opponent to drag him between himself and the attacking woman.

The black-haired kunoichi openly snarled at seeing her window of opportunity close before she could take advantage of it. She seems aware of her companion's mistake.

The unbalanced shinobi found himself with his main arm twisted behind his back, his jian forced flat between his back and Sasuke's torso while the Uchiha kept him between himself and the woman. While she had lost her opportunity to attack directly, however, she hadn't stopped her charge, and tried to somersault the two men.

Her intention was clear in the narrowing of her eyes, in how her legs coiled to turn all the possible momentum into something capable of delivering her just behind Sasuke's back.

To these eyes, that is simply too obvious. Sasuke wanted to snort while he kicked away the left knee of the shinobi in his control, and he simply pushed forward the wrist of the weapon-wielding hand: the jian darted forward in a stabbing motion, grazing the blond hair of the Iwa shinobi while his shoulder was dislocated with a wet 'pop'.

"Argh!" even in pain, the man that the Uchiha was using as a weapon realized what was going on too late to do anything about it. But the black-haired kunoichi wasn't your average rookie, and she brought forth her shield at an angle, just enough to divert the badly controlled stab by proxy of Sasuke.

Then she slashed with her sword. Chakra was channeled in an unfamiliar manner along the lenght of steel, and even under the rain, for a moment it was like the edge of the katana was reflecting the glare of an unforgiving sun directly in the red eyes of the Uchiha. The latter almost felt a smile threatening to rise on his features. As if I haven't trained exactly against this scenario.

Being an Uchiha, it was obvious that his enemies would one day force him to fight without his most powerful tool: and he was ready for that. After all, the perfect recall of his immediate surroundings was enough for quick retaliation. But I'm not alone.

"Ino!" he called while his body moved based on what he remembered thanks to his perfect eyesight, "I'm momentarily blind!"

In the fraction of second between the moment in which the shield deflected the jian's stab and the instant in which the kunoichi's elegant use of the chakra flashed an absent sun into the Sharingan, Sasuke's foot that had kicked the blond shinobi's knee had yet to touch the ground, and from his perfectly balanced position, it was a joke to kick the base of his unwilling prisoner's back, throwing him against the incoming woman.

With her shield to one side and her whole weight behind the slash quickly approaching Sasuke, she was bowled over by the body of her companion, breath leaving her lungs forcefully at the impact. A hail of kunai immediately followed, and the Uchiha heard the satisfying bite of steel on unprotected flesh. Given the lack of grunts of pain, he suspected that at least one of the two Iwa shinobi was dead: likely the woman.

An instant later, Sasuke felt the familiar touch of Ino's chakra over his pathways, and he let her in: the sight of the battlefield was returned to him, albeit at an angle that forced him to adjust as if he was seeing through an impartial observer. Still, his brain was coded to deal with the massive amount of information delivered by the Sharingan, so he was quickly back at 100%.

He felt a full smile tug at his lips now: this was the warmth that he had started to recognize only thanks to Ino. He could trust her, and she had his back.

As if he had just pushed off from a stable rock, Sasuke used his last kick to reorient himself, and his heel impacted hard against the vambrace of another incoming ninja that he had yet to face, redirecting his attack just enough to avoid his neck being grazed by what looked like a spiked mace, and putting himself in a perfect position for his hand to close around the shaft of the weapon.

What kind of team goes around with these kinds of weapons? Sasuke wanted to laugh in disbelief at Iwa's politics, only for the memory of Tenten to blossom at the forefront of his mind. That shut up his brief bout of hilarity, and an instant later, he was again fully focused.

As Sasuke started to pull on the innocuous part of the weapon, the ninja wielding it gave proof of his intelligence by immediately letting go of the weapon, turning his incoming swing into a shoulder check that should crash just under his ribs of Sasuke.

Pathetic. Sasuke was just too nimble for this kind of attack, and he somersaulted over his attacker while bringing around his spiked mace, burying it into the man's temple. At this distance, he felt the feeble flame of the man's chakra gutter out like a candle in a hurricane, and he left a feral smille cover his features, finally falling fully into the rhythm of a fight for his life.

The Uchiha darted once more as he followed the sight of the battlefield provided by Ino, chakra surged across his eyes while he worked off the blinding technique of the just killed kunoichi.

In a matter of fractions of a second, he released the half-ram seal that he had used to keep the med-nin in place, and he skewered him with a Chidori just in time to turn on himself and kill the man with the dislocated shoulder.

His Sharingan flashed across the area while Ino's chakra slowly abandoned his pathways: "I awoke the two with us, we need to move, but they're weak, and they're more useful protecting me while I use my Bloodline on the enemy."

"Agreed." Sasuke spoke out loud, knowing that she could hear him, and he let go of the almost religious control he kept upon his own chakra. With the Sharingan blazing once more through the rain, he picked the direction he had planned with Ino the day before, and ran.

After the clash with the group of Iwa nin, he'd bet his eyes that the main force had found their hiding place, so it was useless to waste focus on a cloaking technique. Besides, if the enemy focused on him, Ino could do her job much better.

With no hesitation, he moved.


Soon after those events, far away from that place, a raven popped after delivering a message, and Itachi Uchiha walked to his companion with a heavy frown on his features: "Sasuke is near Kumo, your Yamanaka is with him... apparently they are in a relationship."

Daiki rose from his cross-legged position with a deep breath, a grimace flashing briefly over his usually placid expression while he turned fully towards Itachi: "Are you ready then?"

The Sharingan in the eyes of the kinslayer morphed slowly into the terrifying shape of his signature Mangeyko, and he answered with a tone that would have chilled the dead: "I'll do what I must."


AN

More of a Sasuke-exposition than anything else, I'll admit, but I had to place it at some point, so, sorry if you wanted more Daiki, but I'm already summing up a lot of the war as it is, I cannot fully cut secondary characters that I still need from the story.

But there was a lot of action here, wasn't there? Opinions?


Now, answering the multitude of PMs I received:

In case anyone missed it, Daiki is (knowingly or not) willing to sacrifice pretty much everything in order to set up his 'Revolution'. I set up his character more or less randomly (at the beginning, this was my second written work ever) and I've simply rolled with the consequences, dropping in something new from time to time.

As I've said multiple times by now, I really don't like this fic that much, but the plot actually exists, unlike 'The Bigger Picture', and fights in Naruto are much easier to write than the battles in the HP-verse, so I'm finishing this, I'm 100% sure, and the following fights will grow in terms of 'amazing' and sheer 'cool-factor', which are the only two elements that managed to carry the manga through the later parts of Shippuden, and don't make me get started with Boruto.

Having said that, I tossed out several first chapters on my profile, belonging to different fandoms, knowing that I've gotten much better at this fanfic-business, I suggest you give those a try!


This part is for some of those who wrote me in PM, you know who you are:

Even if this is an SI, I'd like to point out that I'm the Author, not Daiki-himself, while I share some opinions with some of the characters, I haven't built the MC so that it would be 'like me', but of course he's rather obvious as an SI, mostly because as an Author I think that more or less every SI would start with the same objectives.

Still, I'm working to meaningfully shape the character in 'With the Eyes of God', which actually is my best fic in my opinion, so try that if you want.

Also, the rants in PM about the merits of Stalinism, the 'Revolutions ate their own children' quotes, and whatnot aren't really... meaningful?