"Slug!" Raven barks.
The Anbu captain's authoritative tone shakes Slug from his stupor, "my apologies Captain, but no, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. Her condition is beyond my expertise."
"What the hell do you mean!?"
"Trust me, I'd put Captain Mantis out of her misery if I could, but how do we kill someone without a pulse or heartbeat?"
Pelican scoffs, "Oh, for fuck's sake!"
"It's not a bad question," Parrot adds.
Slug removes the rebar impaling Mantis's shoulder, tossing it aside. "What baffles me is that her blood appears to have mutated into some gel-like substance; this could be what keeps her remains animated."
Parrot gags, "screw this, I'm out of here," he walks away, knowing this will be another memory to suppress deep within his subconscious. Parrot is no stranger to war; nevertheless, perpetual missions as a Grey Beret (Anbu) can wear down the strongest minds. Some even turn to illegal narcotics as a coping mechanism for the harsh realities of war, "hey Cock-ta-puss, you alright?" he asks, approaching Hawk.
"Yeah, fire-crotch, I'm fine. A bit winded, but I'll manage," Hawk responds, catching his breath.
Parrot reaches into one of the pouches on his flak jacket, "here, it ain't much, but it's all yours truly has left."
Hawk takes one of the orange capsules inspecting it. "These must be the state-of-the-art military rations pills Neo Uzu no Kuni (New Land of Whirlpools) won't shut up about."
"It's experi—um, I mean a reverse-engineered product, ya know."
Hawk rolls his eyes (not that anyone can tell since he's a Hyūga), "and they want a couple of guinea pigs to test these on, right?"
"No, no, no; It's not like that," the Uzumaki replies, shaking his hands. "We scavenged the recipe from an SSR (Syndicate of Socialist Republics) narcotics lab a few years back. This stuff's groovy as hell, I'm tellin' you!"
Hawk raises an eyebrow at this, "those Syndi-narcos sure do make good shit. Alright, you've piqued my interest. Go on."
"C'mon, have I ever steered you wrong before? This pill will take all the pain away while producing pretty trippy results. Yours truly would know, you know." Parrot says, handing Hawk a Pepsi.
"Pepsi! Hot damn!" Hawk gulps the capsule and swigs the soda, "so, how long's it take to kick in?"
Parrot shrugs, "about five to nine minutes, give or take."
Hyena rolls her eyes, "fuckin' junkies."
Hawk raises his middle finger at Hyena, but Hyena gives the bird right back. Parrot flips off Pelican for no reason, so Pelican returns the good old-fashioned California Howdy to all three.
(SCMC [Sovereign Colonies Marine Contras]) — Fort Firestorm — Rooftops — Present)
Jimi adjusts his rifle's telescopic sights; he zeros in on his mark (accounting for elevation, wind, and parallax adjustment) and exhales.
(Anbu 13 Alpha)
Caramel and sugariness within the high fructose corn syrup stream down Hawk's throat—the Pepsi carbonation burns a little. The acidity has a citric taste; it's subtle but noticeable. Parrot and Pelican stare in astonishment as he downs a two-liter bottle like a champ. Hawk tosses the empty container bouncing it off Hyena's head, "god, this Pepsi's so fuckin' good."
Hyena glares at Hawk, "pasty bastard."
Parrot catches the bottle upset it's empty, "a two-liter bottle ain't meant for just one person, fool! You fool!"
Before Hawk responds, a wave of killing intent washes over the Anbu, distracting them.
"Arrgh! Ahh! No Mantis! Noo! Aaahhhh!" Slug screams as Mantis bites into his shoulder.
Blood and chunks of flesh splatter the side of Parrot's mask; a round grazes the top of his head.
"Aaargh! My arm! My fucking arm!" Pelican screams, gripping the bloody stump where his arm now hangs by a few tatters of flesh.
"Sniper! Get down!" Raven warns. Hawk falls, landing in Parrot's arms; the baseball-size hole in Hawk's chest abolishes any hope of survival. Tears well in Parrot's eyes as his childhood friend dies with a look of shock forever dawning on his face. Slug drives a kunai through Mantis's skull and elbows her with his other arm to break free. Raven punts Mantis away, then dives through a window with Slug. Parrot awakens from shellshock. He springs from the ground, grabs Pelican, and dives through the window behind Hyena. Another round flies by embedding itself into the wall.
"Damn, I missed," Jim remarks, 'they can't leave a main-house Hyūga laid out in the dirt. They have to recover the body sooner or later,' he notices movement, then spots his next target, "oh no, you don't, you fucking slug!" (Slug sneezes). Jim chambers a bullet and then fires. The round destroys Mantis's upper and lower jaw before she can bite down on Hawk's corpse, but this doesn't deter the undead kunoichi. It terrifies yet amazes him how resilient the mutants are; nevertheless, a pristine intact dōjutsu ripe and ready for harvest lies in wait.
Pelican writhes in pain over losing a limb; Raven applies pressure above the wound, halting the bleeding. Hyena muffles his screams of anguish, preventing him from drawing anything to their location. Slug finishes patching the bite wound on his shoulder and then rushes to Pelican.
"Parrot, restrain him!" Slug administers a potent custom-made anesthetic. Pelican's muffled screams and involuntary twitching cease; his pain becomes somewhat bearable. Slug sanitizes the wound, then removes the fragments lodged within Pelican's arm. Slug's mastery of medical ninjutsu enables him to work with Pelican's bloodline limit by creating new cells, skin tissue, muscles, nerves, arteries, and veins around the regenerating skeletal structure. Pelican makes a full recovery in minutes rather than hours, relying on his bloodline limit alone.
A droning guttural groan disrupts the post-apocalyptic ambiance as the lifeless mass drags itself against the ground. Persistent tapping against a metallic surface echoes through the adjacent window near the Anbu.
"What the hell is that ya know?" Parrot asks.
"Shit, what now?" Hyena wonders. Raven slides a compact mirror at Hyena and points up. She nods, then inches the mirror towards the window; Hyena adjusts the angle and gasps as a round shatters the mirror.
"You've gotta be kidding! Another one!?" Raven hisses.
Jim chambers another bullet then gets a cheap laugh at Mantis, head-butting Hawk's groin plate.
"Their biotechnology's no match for our combined military might, they said!" Pelican mocks, "expect moderate to low resistance with enemy morale at an all-time low, they said! Well, someone forgot to tell the fucking SSR that! Or rather, what's left of it."
"Agreed, our intel regarding the Syndicate of Socialist Republics leaves… much to be desired," Slug concedes. "Seems those Syndi-boys weren't just cowering in the rainforests."
Pelican snorts, "They were happy chowing down upon the Village of the Bloody Mist's Hunter-nin divisions until we came along."
Slug slides down, sitting against a wall near Pelican, "that explains the disappearance of all those infiltration teams sent here over the years. The Socialist Republics may have fallen long before we secured a beachhead."
"Even still, the remaining Syndi-guerrillas technologically outclass us. Why haven't they pushed us back into the ocean yet?"
Slug sighs, looking away in deep thought, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say they're biding their time. It may be why large portions of the continent are inaccessible."
"And by inaccessible, you mean—quarantined, right?"
"Exactly! Whatever this shit is," Slug says, pointing at his shoulder injury, "if this ever reaches the Elemental Nations, it can spell the end for the Village Hidden by Rain."
Pelican nods, understanding the implication, "how long before you try taking a chunk out of me or anyone else, then, doc?" he half teases, leaning away from Slug.
Slug chuckles, "I don't know; it's hard to say. I've never had a chance to study one of the specimens with us constantly fleeing from them." He winces in pain, holding his shoulder, "a shame I'll never meet my dear grandson now."
"We can at least make that insidious bitch pay before the inevitable," Pelican assures Slug extending his new hand.
Slug pulls himself up with a sad smile, "a tragic way for it all to end, wouldn't you agree? But that's par-for-the-course given our career choices." They both laugh, reminiscing their days at the academy. The day they passed their Chūnin Exams together and became jōnin (high/elite ninja) two years after.
Pelican frowns, "those bastards conscripted me."
A cluster of smoke bombs fly from the windows, then explode, releasing a diversionary smokescreen. Jim scans the streets, surveying the perimeter around the smoke for any signs of activity. He fires at a shadowy afterimage speeding behind a building but misses. The Anbu approach; Jim shoulders his rifle and makes a break for it, 'I need to stall for more-'
An onslaught of kunai and shuriken are hurtling at Jim. He dives away; the shuriken change course in pursuit. He dodges but kunai armed with explosive tags rain down encircling him. His hands fly through a combination of seals, "Lightning Release: Jolting Jigawatt Jutsu!" electricity surges through the metal, diffusing the explosives. A second jolt launches the kunai, cutting the wire strings that control the shuriken. As two black blurs dash at him in his peripheral vision, he evades the projectiles. Jim eludes evisceration and seizes a ricocheting kunai to deflect a beheading attempt.
"Release!" while dispelling an incursive genjutsu, Jim imbues the kunai with chakra, then b-twists between two incoming Fūma Shuriken. The bulky spinning blades veer and intersect, but he throws the kunai through the guided shuriken's rings before they rebound, pinning them against a wall. The speeding afterimages reappear; another kunai slips from Jim's sleeve into his hand. He deflects a sword speeding towards his abdomen, then elbows his rifle, nudging its barrel enough to deflect another blade racing at his jugulars. The Anbu dodges Jim's counterattack with the shoulder stock, yet Jim ensnares the kunoichi's wrist using the rifle's sling.
Jim charges the bolt handle, but she cuts the sling and diverts the barrel before Jim fires at the other Anbu. A shinobi slashes at Jim with a downward swing; Jim kicks the kunoichi's sword sheath into the shinobi's ulnar nerve (funny bone), stunning the Anbu's arm. Jim stumbles the kunoichi with a heel sweep allowing him to lean back from an upward slash. He spins his kunai midair to chamber another bullet; however, the shinobi grabs the barrel and lands a solid right hook on Jim's face.
Jim recoils but catches the kunai, then cuts a tripwire setting off an impromptu wire string trap. The kunoichi kicks the rifle out of Jim's hand and lunges onto his back. The shinobi swings his sword at Jim's mid-section; nevertheless, Jim halts the blade with the kunai ring before wrenching on the almost invisible wires with all his strength. Jim gasps as the kunoichi's sword freezes, inches away from the back of his throat, scraping against his teeth.
Both Anbu's limbs are bound as Jim's rifle tumbles over the ledge. "Shit, not now!" he curses.
"You thought we wouldn't catch up with you? You thought you'd get away with all the bullshit you've put us through? You've had this coming for a very long time, you fucking bitch!" Raven sneers, venom dripping in her voice.
"My my—you're pretty strong to be holding us back like this, but I wonder how long you can keep it up?" Slug taunts applying more force with his sword, "your arms will give sooner or later; then our blades will be inside you. Hope you're into getting spit-roasted, you filthy slut."
Raven inches her sword towards Jim's throat, "you have a choice, Malkhaz. My blade slides down your throat, the doc guts you like a fish, or you fall to your death!"
"Fuck… Awk! You!" Jim hacks.
"We're about to fuck you with our blades in a second, you little whore," Raven retorts, squeezing her legs tighter against Jim's ribs, "Oh, look, she's suffocating. It won't be long now."
"You know I'm a doctor, right, Malkhaz? If we capture you alive, I'm breaking out my surgical instruments, and then I will take my time with you. Starting with that pretty little face of yours!"
"Tobirama said nothing about this flat-chested floozy being alive or in one piece! I like the idea-"
"Tch like you're one to talk," Jim grunts.
Toasty~!
Raven's eyebrows furrow. A snort almost escapes Slug, but he manages to suppress it. The two Anbu personnel restrain Jim using their body weight; Jim's back can't sustain the pressure much longer. He tries salvaging his strategy before it goes FUBAR but knows he'll have to improvise. Jim curses himself for not refilling his pistol mags. Still, hindsight's twenty-twenty.
'It's fuckin' go-time, indeed!' with a slight twitch of his index finger, the wires hoist Raven's arms enabling Jim to maneuver away from her blade. He snorts mucus from his sinuses, then spits the lung butter straight through the eyehole on Raven's mask.
Raven shrieks, "aah! Goddamn it!"
Jim spins, redirecting Slug's sword before kicking him in the head. He pulls Raven over the edge absorbing her chakra; the excruciating sensation forces Raven to disengage. Jim throws her through a window and readies another kunai; Slug dives after Jim like a hawk. They erupt into a flurry of strikes faster than an untrained eye can see while falling. Sword against kunai and steel against steel match each other blow for blow. Slug's longer reach gives him an edge; he swipes away one of Jim's kunai.
They withdraw, then slow their descent using their chakra to stick to the building's surface. Slug stares Jim down, daring the Marine Contra to make the first move. The thunderstorm intensifies; lightning rips through the clouds brightening the sky in a blinding light as if God is watching the battle.
Jim disappears, reappearing before Slug as the lightning flashes. Their weapons clash, emitting sparks that rain down like tears of a weeping devil. Caught in a stalemate, they battle in pure strength, pushing each other back, bending their wrists, and trying to free their weapons from one another. Standing at 222cm, Slug towers over Jim; however, Jim has a speed advantage. He forces Slug's fingers into a crude amalgamation of hand seals. Electricity surges through his hand, electrocuting the enormous shinobi. Galvanic currents arc between Jim's palms; he tightens his fists before taping them together like jumper cables.
"By the way, dick doc—I'm a man! Lightning Release: High Voltage Vendetta!" Jim assails Slug with a rapid barrage of electrified punches to his abdomen, uppercuts Slug, then sends him plummeting with a spinning hook kick. Raven's hands burst through the glass under Jim. She grabs his ankles, then yanks him into the building throwing Jim through a wall. A volley of shuriken and kunai fly at him, but he dodges and deflects the projectiles with little effort.
A dim light gleams behind Jim; the room brightens. Heat soars against his back. He evades but a fireball resembling a skull impacts a nearby wall launching him across the room. He grabs onto the interior balcony railing preventing himself from falling. Raven disappears from the doorway, then reappears behind Jim speeding through a string of hand seals.
"Fire Release: Searing Skull Salvos!" three flaming skulls accelerate toward Jim. He aerial flips off the railing, throwing a handful of shuriken. Raven parries and then bolts down the hallway after him. Explosions blast through the walls behind Jim; Raven swings from an intersection, surprising him with a powerful kick. He crosses his arms, blocking the attack, yet the impact sends him flying into a cubicle farm. Jim skids to a halt; a mutant ambushes him from behind.
"I like your cut, G!" Jim slaps an explosive tag on the back of the mutant's head before kicking the abomination at Raven. She dodges; the mutant's upper body wedges into a wall behind her. Raven lunges at Jim; however, an explosion destabilizes her trajectory.
