Mission and Mist

I don't own Naruto or The Gamer

"Power comes in response to a need, not a desire. You have to create that need."– Goku

Previously on Cloud Gamer

"Goodnight Shin." Kakashi said

"Night kid." Sho said while patting my shoulder

"Thanks for the help!" Minato yelled out while I walked through the door. It gave me a warm bubbly feeling hearing so many people wish me well. I hadn't felt this way in so long, this happiness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So sleeeeeepy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning

"Hey Shin, I need to explain how missions work in Konoha."

"Okay, I'm going to keep practicing while you talk."

"Sure, so I'll be your commander and superior, second is Kakashi in my absence so listen to him if I'm not there. We may have to stay there for over a month so be prepared for that, I'll be giving you a headband temporarily, so people know your allegiance. Bounties are split evenly in my squad 25% for everyone and my cut will be put into a savings account for any of you to use in only the direst situations."

"That's fair. Do you have the mission parameters right now?"

"No, I'll be receiving them tomorrow before we leave, on missions issued directly by the hokage like this one, the scroll will be given to us via hawk, and we have to burn it once we remember the information."

"Why do we have to burn the mission scroll?"

"In case of the scroll falling into enemy hands, we don't want information to be spread amongst our enemies. That's all for now so I'll wake you up on mission day and you will follow me to the eastern gate."

"Okay, thanks Minato."

"No problem, good luck with your calligraphy today. Oh yeah! I have a gift for you as well, a thanks for your help with completing the rasengan."

He threw over a scroll and I caught it in my left hand, still scribbling down kanji with my right. I placed down my brush in the ink bottle and opened it up, there were several large paragraphs and diagrams explaining the steps and tips for learning the rasengan.

"You're really giving me this? Aren't signature jutsu supposed to be passed down from master to disciple?"

"They are usually, but the rasengan isn't the only thing I'll be handing down. My flying thunder god is staying between me and my kids, unless someone somehow finds out how to reverse engineer it haha. Plus, it's a gift from me to show gratitude, just accept it yeah?"

"Heh, sure Minato. Thanks for the gift, I'll be sure to master this within the next few days."

"I doubt that, even Kakashi took a few months to learn it and he's a rare prodigy out of all the usual 'prodigies' that each clan seems to pop out every generation."

"I know right, its almost like a pissing contest to who can make their babies the strongest."

"It really is."

"But I'll be learning this in the next few days so don't worry."

"Mmm, well good luck." He vanished in a bright flash of gold and I stared back at the screen in front of me.

"Would you like to absorb this technique; you will gain the skills 'rasengan' and 'shape manipulation'"

I pressed 'Y' and the scroll dissipated into blue particles that entered my head.

"You have gained the skills 'rasengan' and 'shape manipulation'!"

I pumped my fist into the air and quickly finished my calligraphy for the day, only taking 3 hours for the 100 sheets, gaining 8 levels in the skill. I raced outside and brought the newly awoken Sho with me.

"So what did you want to show me?"

"Just a little thing I picked up, want to spar?"

"Nah, I just woke up. Just use it on this clone." He summoned in a mud clone that formed from the ground and stood still while yawning.

"Then, watch this shit!" I put my hand out in front of me, palm facing up while I grasped my forearm to stabilise it from the backlash of energy being created. "RASENGAN!" I raced forward and slammed the orb of blue energy into the clone, blowing away its entire midsection and launching pieces of rock all over the grass.

Sho stared in awe and looked over at me, I was panting slightly because the skill uses over 400 chakra at the minimum and the focus it requires to maintain is insane. "You. Are one fuckin' scary kid."

"Damn straight." I sat on the ground to catch my breath a bit while Kushina and Natio raced outside to see the commotion.

"What the hell happened out here!" Kushina yelled, looking at the blasted clone's bits that were littered over the area.

"The kid picked up your husband's rasengan. How long did you say it took him to master it, 3 years? It was less than a day for him."

"WHAT!" Kushina shouted out loud, her mouth gaping like a dead fish while she looked at me. I smirked at her face and held out my palm, forming a light blue rasengan and holding it up.

"See? Pretty cool huh?" Sho commented, sipping on his tea and chuckling at Kushina's face. Natio was also gobsmacked but stayed silent before heading back inside to fetch some tea.

Sho went back inside and Kushina followed along while I stood there, looking at the blasted clone. I didn't bother checking for anymore spectators as I released my cursed seal and felt the ripples over my body. In my status screen, my chakra had increased by 3 times, and my health by 2 times. My strength stat had tripled but my chakra control was halved.

This was all at a cost of my stamina decreasing rapidly, but I only used that for sword techniques and other non-combat skills like cooking, so I didn't pay much attention to it.

The black markings spread over my body and burned like a hot iron against my skin. I formed another rasengan in my right hand and watched as the usually blue colour took a greyish tint, closer to black. This power, it felt great, so good, like I was in a whole new body.

I walked back inside with it still on and Kushina looked over at me with a cross look. "I told you not to use that! At least until we can make it safe!"

I shrugged and deactivated it, huffing out slightly while my body cooled down. "You have no idea how good it feels to use it. It's like being reborn."

"That's the problem! That's not your power, it basically is a new body. Please, don't use that until we can fix it."

"Fine, but if it comes to my life being on the line. I'll be using it as much as I want."

"Argh, fine, but no other time. Promise?" She extended a pinky towards me while Sho laughed at my scolding.

"Promise." I finished, putting out my pinky and hooking it with hers, she gave me a wide grin and brought me into a large hug, shoving me straight into her cleavage.

"Awww! So cute!"

"Ku-Kushin, ca-can't breathe!"

"Oh, sorry." She giggled, letting me escape her grasp and sit on the couch. Miya came down from her room wearing a big t shirt and shorts. "Hey Shin, can we go to grass country soon? I only got a month off from my work so I need to head back."

"Sorry Miya, but I'm heading out on a mission to water country. Sho, can you take her there?"

"Yeah sure, I'll go with Natio and meet you back here in, lets say June?"

"Kushina is it fine if I stay here until June?"

"I don't mind, ask Minato though, I'm sure he'll accept." She responded.

"Guess that sorts out the plan, make sure to grab all of the scrolls and store them in one." I said to Sho, he gave me a thumbs up and went upstairs to tell Natio.

"Whew, guess I'll be here a while. Thanks for letting me stay Kushina."

"Still need to ask Minato, but don't worry about it. You can finally get a bed as well."

"True haha."

"I'm going to start packing my clothes up, well, my new ones." Miya said, skipping back up the stairs. I yawned a bit before somebody knocked on the front door.

Kushina opened it up and Kakashi strolled in while looking towards me. "Yo Shin! Want to spar with someone?"

"Hm? Sure, who do you have in mind?"

"You'll see." Was all he said before turning away and walking down the stairs. I followed along and he took me through the village until we reached a training ground.

"This is training ground 6, the person you'll fight is in here. Cya!" He disappeared quickly and I walked forwards, if this was somebody Kakashi wanted me to fight, they would probably give a good battle.

"YOSH! WHO HAS MY YOUTHFUL RIVAL BROUGHT TO REPLACE HIMSELF!"

"Please don't tell me…"

"HELLO, YOU MUST BE MY OPPONENT!"

"Who're you?"

"AH! SO HIP AND COOL!"

"What the fuck?"

"SUCH CRASS LANGUAGE, I'LL NEED TO DEFEAT YOU TO PROVE CUSS WORDS ARE AN EVIL PATH. IF I CANNOT, I WILL RUN 400 LAPS AROUND THE VILLAGE."

A tall kid wearing a tank top and a red scarf appeared in front of me, his teeth shining brightly like the sun. Yep, definitely Guy.

"Do you have a volume button?"

"HAHAHA, MY YOUTH SOARS BEYOND THE POWER OF VOICE! So yes, I can be a bit quieter."

"Alright, Kakashi brought me here to fight someone. I assume that's you?"

"Yes! But I'm worried about him. I was hoping this competition would bring him out from his darkness."

"Because of Obito?"

"Precisely. But I don't want to waste this opportunity, so let's have a spar!"

"Any rules?"

"No ninjutsu or genjutsu! A fair fight between only taijutsu will be a perfect competition!"

He settled into a stance with his left palm forward, facing towards him and his left fist behind his back. I moved my right fist back and took a step forward with my left leg, my left arm sitting parallel to it.

"YOSH! BEGIN!"

He raced forward at stunning speed, and I barely ducked his first kick through my head. He pivoted off of his right leg and kicked me straight in the chin, launching me high into the air.

I looked down to see where he was, but I couldn't find him on the ground. 'Leaf shadow!' I recognized and jutted my elbow backwards into his stomach, launching him towards the ground. He recovered before landing and I dropped to the ground 20m away from him, rubbing my sore chin.

"YOU ARE A GREAT OPPONENT; LETS TURN THIS UP A NOTCH!" He reached into his shoes and pulled out several metal packets stitched together, throwing them off to the side and creating large craters.

"What the fuck?!" They were way heavier than I thought, in the anime, Lee's weights were also incredibly heavy, but this was on another level! He vanished again and I used my 'perception +' to stop time. He was right in front of me with a punch to my gut ready, when the time ended, I moved my hands to guard, but I was too slow and hit with 3 more punches in a single second.

"OOF! SHIT!" I yelled out, coughing up saliva on the ground while he stood over me. Guy reached a hand down and picked me up, wiping grass off of my back and arms.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. If you want to step it up a notch, I will as well."

He quirked an eyebrow but gave me a bright smile. I flooded my system with swift chakra, my body vibrating in place before I blasted into the air with a jump. He followed me up and went for an axe kick that I caught, grabbing his foot and flipping several times mid-air.

"ORAA!" I threw Guy into the ground with a heavy swing, letting go of his leg as he crashed into the dirt with a heavy crash. Surprisingly, he got up easily and grabbed my leg as I fell, slamming me in the same way with a yell.

I coughed up even more spit as my body bounced off the ground, Guy was strong, way too strong. What were they feeding this kid!? I planted my hands above my head and slammed a mule kick into his face, which he guarded but we still pushed back.

I recovered and blocked his return jab to my right with my forearm, bringing up my knee to retaliate. He stopped the knee with his right hand and grabbed my forearm that I used to guard with his left, picking me up and throwing me away.

I skidded across the ground and flipped back upright, but he wasn't there. Guy appeared behind me and landed a devastating roundhouse kick to the back of my head, slamming it deep into the ground, I welcomed unconsciousness as the pain from the swift chakra and my own injuries put me in a deep sleep.

Is this how you do a scene break?

"Guy, you went a bit hard there."

"Sorry Kakashi, he was holding up pretty well and I guess I just went overboard."

"Whatever, I'll take him back home."

"YOSH! THE SCORE IS 23- 20 NOW, ONLY 4 MORE UNTIL I HAVE BESTED YOU MY RIVAL."

"Sure, sure."

Maybe it is, guess I'll just keep doing it like this

"What the hell happened to Shin?"

"A bit of a fight."

"If you can call a thorough beating 'a bit' I have no idea what a serious fight is. He had bruises all over his body! He looks like a blueberry!"

"Oooh, true, he does look like one. Do you have a camera?"

"Kakashi… I'll give you a 10 second head start."

"Oh no."

*SLAP*

"Wake up now!"

"Huh?"

I stared up to look at Kushina who was dressing my wounds. I sported several scratches over my body, and I was bruised all over my body, especially on the back area. That last slam definitely did a number on me.

"So who did this to you?"

"Some kid named Guy, Kakashi's 'rival' or something. Apparently, they had a bet and I got roped into it, it was a good fight though."

"You're lucky you're an Uzumaki or this would have landed you in the hospital but even for a Uzumaki, your regeneration in surprisingly fast. Far above the average person at least."

"How do I stack up to a jinchurikii?"

"Not even close bud, you still hanging onto becoming one?"

"Yeah, I am. It'll be hard to do though."

"Incredibly so, especially since you might end up starting a war because of it."

"Ugh, now I've got to go out on a mission looking like a mummy."

"Maybe not, especially if we get Rin to help you heal a few of these scratches and such. You up for some kenjutsu practice?"

"Even while I'm injured?"

"Don't worry, I'll hold back."

"That does not quell my fear in the slightest, gorilla woman."

"Hmm? I think I heard something. Shin did you hear that? It's the sound of your head start clock running out." She gave me a wide fake smile with killing intent oozing off of her figure.

"I'll be taking my leave now." I quickly vanished out of the house with a burst of swift chakra, leaving behind Kushina who started to chase me like a hungry hyena. This was going to be a long day.

2 days later

"Time to wake up Shin, mission time."

I groaned and looked up at Minato, who was smiling down at me while wearing his shinobi gear. He chucked me a headband and a set of dark shinobi clothes that fit perfectly, "I grabbed these yesterday, put them on quickly and we can meet Rin and Kakashi at the gate."

"*Yawn* alright." I quickly threw on the clothes and grabbed the pack Minato helped me set up yesterday, containing a sleeping bag, several pills, a med kit, ration bars, sets of clothes and a water canteen, there was some other stuff, but I just grabbed the bag and followed Minato out the door.

Minato's mop of blonde hair was easily visible while I followed him through the early morning streets. We had bought some breakfast on the way to the gate and were now waiting for Kakashi and Rin.

Kakashi appeared 20 minutes early and Rin came 5 minutes early so Minato began to read out the mission parameters. "Alright team, we will be heading to the east coast near the land of water to protect our borders and offer reinforcement to our forces. As a secondary objective, several of our chunin and genin have been taken hostage and we are to help any ANBU we see in their mission to rescue them. Notable enemies we may come across are the seven swordsmen of the mist, the mizukage and several elite jonin of the B – rank and above. Any questions?"

"What can we expect from our enemies based on the usual weapons or tactics they use?" Kakashi asked, flicking through his prepared bingo book that had a ton of sticky notes attached along the outside.

"Poison weapons are a popular choice in Kiri, but we should also expect a lot of water ninjutsu, kenjutsu and use of assassination techniques, even from low level enemies. Now let's head out, any more questions can be asked during the trip to the border. It will take 3 days to get there with 2 breaks a day and 7 hours of rest."

We were hopping through trees without interruption from 6:00 am to 12:00pm where Minato called for our first break. That was when I received this notification from my system.

"Hull was fucking around again so I couldn't write this earlier, sorry!"

"New quest formed 'Misty Day, Cloudy Night'

Objective 1: Complete stated mission parameters

Objective 2: Survive 1 month on the front line

Hidden objective 1: ?

Hidden objective 2: ?

Rewards: 10x 5 skill voucher, 50,000 ryo, title 'temporary ally'

Hidden objective rewards: 20x 1 skill voucher, title 'timeline shifter', title 'saviour', 300 reputation with 'Team Minato'"

'What the hell is even going on in the realm of gods?' I chuckled mentally, snacking on my ration bar while waiting for Kakashi to finish his bathroom break.

I finished my ration bar as Kakashi came out from the bushes. Minato commanded us to keep moving forward and we all sped off, sticking behind Rin and in between Kakashi at the back and Minato at the front.

A wild scene break has appeared! (I like these things)

3 days later

The trip to the border was incredibly uninteresting besides a couple of skirmishes with low power mist shinobi. I had yet to use the rasengan and I made sure that no one back home told him I could use it. I was planning to make it a cool surprise after all.

When we actually reached the border, we met up with a squad of ANBU which Minato commanded around like they were his subordinates, surprisingly, they actually listened, and we were now going for an attack on a mist outpost near the coast that had apparently captured some of our chunin.

"Alright squad, move in using stealth, our main priority is rescuing our chunin." Minato ordered, his normally warm blue eyes now cold like ice, this was who the future 4th hokage truly was.

We all nodded and separated, already knowing our orders. Mine were to secure the chunin that were being held in the centre warehouse with the help of Kakashi and Rin.

The outpost had 3 main areas, the housing, where most of the people were currently asleep except for the few people watching out at night. The main storage area, where weapons were kept and extra supplies or materials scavenged from the war and finally the keep, our main target.

This outpost was not an ordinary one though, it had a cool nickname and everything. Along with one of the seven swordsmen stationed here as a last resort troop sort of thing. We were attacking 'Sword sky', a very important stronghold along the border which the mist was using to push our forces back for the past few months.

I placed a tag on myself and Rin and Kakashi followed, activating it discreetly while we dropped into the walls, sticking to the shadows. We stayed silent while sneaking around, ignoring the sounds of ANBU killing their forces while they were asleep.

Kakashi called for us to stop outside of a rusty door on the backside of the keep, putting his fist up and counting down from 3. 3, 2, 1, then Kakashi burst through the door with a kick and set off a very loud larm. It blared through the entire outpost with its ringing but there were only around 16 soldiers battle ready, not including the member of the swordsmen.

Kakashi ducked under several kunai that flew out into the fence and we followed him inside, sticking close to the boxes of extra supplies that weren't kept in the storage. I looked at one of the labels and felt my stomach drop.

'Inuzuka ninken', but there was no barking from inside the box. I attempted to open it but Kakashi stopped me, pointing upwards to the second story.

I nodded and Kakashi slowly walked up the wall, softly placing a tag on the roof. Rin kept watch while Kakashi activated the tag, it sizzled a bit before exploding with a resounding *BOOM* through the warehouse.

Kakashi jumped through into the second story and I heard the crackling of lightning and several screams of pain, the hole glowed a bright blue from the light upstairs.

I took that as a signal to move in and jumped up. It was incredibly dark in the room but I activated a small lightbulb jutsu on my finger, lighting up the room with a yellow glow.

Rin had followed me through but whimpered at the sight in front of us, while Kakashi was pale. I felt a bead of sweat fall down my face as I looked around the second story. There were several boxes, all labelled with different words, but that didn't matter at all, at least compared to the middle of the room.

A pile of bodies laid in the middle, all dismembered or missing limbs. I looked to a box on my left and it read 'ears', a box on my right said 'legs'. I started to gag at the smell of the place, it was like rotting roadkill in a residential area, or like sewage in a dirty pipe.

"What. The. Fuck." Kakashi gasped, staring in horror at the area in front of us.

"Unexpected guests?" A sadistic voice said. A large silhouette dropped from the roof, holding onto a long needle with string stuck in the ceiling. "I had no plans for collecting more produce, but I'm sure you could fit somewhere."

The string retracted into the blade and my light finally covered his body. It was large, almost 7 ft tall and he had black hair with a large wrap of bandage covering his entire midsection.

"I am Noto, member of the seven swordsmen of the mist, and the current wielder of Nuibari. Who might you kids be?"

Kakashi didn't answer but charged up a Chidori and flickered over to Noto, stabbing it forward before his wrist was caught by a wrap of ninja wire. "Ah, ah ah, bad kids without manners get punished" He swiped his sword upwards and Kakashi was dragged towards the ceiling and into the darkness by a thread, his screams soon filled the room with small drops of blood spilling down.

"KAKASHI!" Rin shouted out. I pulled out my katana and rushed in immediately, trying to cut the wire that held Kakashi up in the darkness. Noto let me try to slash but as I brought my sword across, the string sliced the blade clean through.

"What?!" I landed on the ground and stared at my broken sword, dropping the handle on the ground and activating my dojutsu. I could sense Kakashi up above and he was struggling to wrestle his wrist free while the string slowly cut through using gravity.

I formed a clone and went in to fight Noto while my clone went through hand seals. I launched a quick punch to Noto's head, but he dodged it easily and grabbed my hand, flinging me away into the wall above our hole.

My clone managed to complete his duty and place a wall under Kakashi so he could stand properly and not lose his hand. Rin launched a few poisoned kunai, but Noto deflected them using Nuibari's handle.

I stuck to the wall and balsted off, attempting to tackle Noto and force him to drop Nuibari. He quickly dodged to the side and Kakashi screamed out in pain from the string cutting into him.

"Shit! Rin, can you do something for Kakashi? I'll hold him off." I said, focusing solely on Noto in front of me, but he vanished into the darkness while cackling maniacally.

"You 3 are great! So much fight! But you should stop now, or else you will taste worse." I shivered at the tone, but I still couldn't sense him in the room, was he hiding his chakra signature? Using the same tags, we were?

"Silent killing technique" I felt my skin crawl as a tight string curled around my neck. Noto pulled tightly on Nuibari and it launched me towards the ceiling, Kakashi screamed again in pain and I started to lose my breath.

Now it was only Rin who had the ability to fight Noto. We had failed this mission, there was no way we could defeat this elite jonin without the help of anyone else. We couldn't save the chunin because they were already dead. We couldn't even alert Minato so he could know the situation, until I got an idea.

There were windows in the warehouse, but the moonlight wasn't shining through from the moon's position so I wouldn't be impeded. I started to push my chakra into my finger while holding it towards the window, something I had learned while waiting for our mission was Konoha's standard code system, this one specifically being the morse one.

'Commander. Help needed. Quick. Death. Jonin elite.' I slowly signed out, the room was quiet while Noto toyed with Rin, slapping her to the ground and knocking away all of her weapons.

"Youuu, are a trulllyyy, fineee, specimennn." He slowly snaked up her form with an arm, snapping her right arm with a resounding *snap* at the elbow. Kakashi had seemingly gone unconscious from the pain while I was losing oxygen guickly, things were not looking good.

A bright flash of light filled the room as my vision faded to black. 'Minato. A bit fuckin' late.'

Minato POV 10 minutes earlier

"I don't have a good feeling about this." I said out loud. My group had finished our objective of assassinating the sleeping shinobi and the other ANBU group was finished with the night watch.

"Is something wrong Namikaze?"

"No, something just feels off. This was a bit too easy. We didn't even see the swordsmen and Noto is known for being quite the, flamboyant individual."

"Maybe he was moved a little while ago and we didn't receive a report?"

"That could be it, maybe, lets just wait for the kids at the rendezvous."

"Yes sir!" All of the ANBU responded. We flickered to our starting point, overwatching the outpost as a small yellow light started to blink in my peripheral.

Flashback 3 days earlier

"Shin, what are you doing?"

"Hm? I'm learning about morse code, apparently its really useful for the stealth missions, though I doubt I'll need it."

"From what I've heard we might. Good job for going out of your way to learn, hopefully we can use it in the mission, so it doesn't go to waste right?"

"Yeah, right!"

Present time

'Shin…' I thought, I slowly breathed through my mouth and read the morse code out loud. "Help needed. Quick. Death. Jonin elite. Shit!" I couldn't use my markers I had on them because of the chakra suppressing seals.

"Sir Namikaze! There is a hole through the window on the second story. Could you get a kunai in there from here?"

I looked at the window he was referring to. It was only about a meter in diameter, and we were over 300 meters away, nothing I haven't done before. I pulled out one of my special three-pronged kunai and launched it through the window, vanishing onto it when I heard a loud clang of metal.

"Rin! Kakashi!" I looked down to see Rin being slowly scoured over by Noto and Kakashi was dangling from his left arm off of the ceiling. I looked up to my right and saw Shin. With a thread around his neck, dripping blood slowly onto the metal floor with a drip.

"NOTO!" I yelled out forming a shadow clone and throwing a kunai into the air. Noto turned around and ran at me, flinging Shin and Kakashi's bodies around the ceiling like fucked up marionettes. He attempted to skewer me on the end of his blade, but I used my clone to form a rasengan and add some wind chakra.

Noto ran straight through my position, but I flashed onto the kunai from before, slamming my rasengan into his back. "Wind style: Rasengan!" His body slammed through the second floor, and he dropped Nuibari, Shin and Kakashi's bodies dropping to the floor with a pair of slams. The ANBU dropped in soon after and recovered Shin and Kakashi's bodies, taking along Rin with them who had a broken arm.

I dropped through the second story and stared down at Noto, several bodies from the floor above dropped onto him. "RAGHHH" He launched them all up with a scream and looked towards me, fury in his eyes. "ALL I WANT TO DO IS EAT, HOW DARE YOU TAKE THAT AWAY FORM ME!" His eyes slowly started to morph, taking on a maroon tint with black dots scattered within the sclera.

His chakra started to ooze off of his body when his eyes changed, taking on a dark red colour when it escaped his pores. "What. Is. Going. On?" He slowly said, looking down at his hands. He started to scratch around his chest and teared through his flak jacket, ripping the shirt underneath and making his skin a raw pink colour.

Slowly on his chest he started to bleed, a circle covered his midsection, spanning from his ribs to his naval. A smaller circle was carved inside, and his skin began to darken. "GRAGHHH" He roared out, looking down at me with glowing eyes and black skin.

"What the hell!?" I yelled out, surprised at his sudden change in appearance and power. I could feel his chakra from over 10 m away, that's like what happens when somebody uses the 8 hidden gates!

I reached into my back pocket and fished out 3 kunai throwing them in different areas of the room as a just in case. Noto slowly stalked towards me with his fist stretched back, launching it forward at an awkwardly slow speed.

I dodged the punch by teleporting to another marker and escaped the huge crater that was created by his slow punch. Noto squeezed a fist a few times before looking towards me again, vanishing from his position and slamming a fist into my face.

His punch was far stronger and faster with this enhancement, but he lacked technique. I recovered form the punch and spat out some blood, readying 3 shadow clones behind me while I sat in place.

My clones rushed forward, one of them landing a good kick to Noto's back, pushing him forward into the wind style: rasengan, my other clones were forming. They slammed it straight into his neck, blasting his head straight off as his body froze and fell backwards.

I stopped meditating and my clones dispersed, but Noto's body, it slowly squirmed around, and black energy surrounded his neck, reforming his head perfectly as he snarled towards the roof. He stood up shakily and stomped on the floor a few times, like a child throwing a tantrum.

He launched towards me with another punch which I ducked under, placing a seal on his left bicep and kneeing him in the torso before elbowing his face as he fell towards me.

I used a kunai and quickly stabbed him through the heart, straight through the middle of the rune on his chest. He squirmed around and screamed out in pain as his body began to slowly liquify into a black goo. It seeped into the middle of the room before compressing into a small blue gem with a bright glow.

"I guess we'll have to thank you Mr. Namikaze."

I spun around with a kunai and stabbed towards the new feminine voice, but she caught my forearm and looked up from her cloak, revealing maroon eyes with a brighter tint to them. "I will be taking that stone now. Once again, thank you for your help."

I teleported to a kunai right next to the stone and grabbed it. "What do you want it for?"

"Luminos requires those stones for his revival, and to bring about eternal night."

"What's this 'Luminos' you speak of?"

"Our god of course, now, how about I trade you something for the stone."

"No can do, I'm going to need to get the hokage to analyse this."

"Even for the life of a precious student?" She brought out something from her cloak that unfolded like origami, revealing a picture of Kakashi inside of it. "What's that?" I asked, on guard for any sort of attack using his body.

"A special kind of jutsu, a sort of, voodoo paper if you will. Wherever I draw, cut or rip on this picture a similar injury will happen on the person I have this connected to. In this instance, Hatake Kakashi, your precious student."

"Fine, take the crystal, but give me that paper and never threaten us again." I commanded, trying to end this deal quickly to potentially save Kakashi from her attack.

"Thank you, Minato Namikaze, your cooperation is very much appreciated." She bowed with a smirk and folded the paper into a plane before flying it over to me. I caught it and threw over the stone, completing our deal.

She turned away with a flick of her cloak, revealing the same insignia that was on Noto's corpse and under it, several more sheets of paper in a pocket near her back. I attempted to follow her chakra signature as she left, but her presence disappeared suddenly off of my radar.

I jumped up to the second story to grab Nuibari before I left to go check on my students, but it was gone. I hadn't sensed anyone come in or leave the area using chakra. I gave a quick double check before vanishing back to the ANBU that were taking care of my students.

"Mister Namikaze you're back, did anything go wrong?"

"No, but there was something odd. Have any of you ever heard of 'luminos'?"

"I think I have, it's a cult that appeared over the past few years in the land of dusk." An ANBU member, Kuren, responded. She was currently bandaging up Rin's arm in a makeshift splint while Shin and Kakashi had already been bandaged up.

"I see. We will send a hawk with our report tomorrow, there's something weird going on with that cult." I concluded, taking a look back at the outpost where today's carnage occurred.

First, my students are all facing an elite jonin. Second, we uncover a huge export of human and animal flesh through the elemental nations and finally a random cult appears that wants stones that are made from immortal people. Pretty huge stuff.

Shin POV, The next morning

I yawned and put a hand up to my neck, feeling the rough bandage fabric surrounding it. I looked at my surroundings and saw I was in my own tent on the cliff surrounding the outpost.

I got up on my legs and stretched before walking out and seeing Minato eating some breakfast along with a bunch of ANBU members, they were somehow shoving food through their masks.

"How the hell do you do that?" I asked, genuinely confused on how they make food pass through solid material.

"Trade secret" One of them responded, finishing off the rest of her ration bar and chucking the wrapper in the fire. "Good morning, Shin, how're you feeling?" Minato asked, giving me a small smile.

"I'm feeling fine, these bandages are bloody uncomfortable though."

"Haha, I'm sure. By the way, have you heard of Luminos?"

"Where did you hear that from?"

"Well, yesterday, after I defeated Noto, he started to change into some black zombielike thing with a rune in the middle of his chest. After I defeated it, he dissolved into a blue crystal."

"Ugh, annoying bastards."

"So you do know about it?"

"Yeah, but did someone appear and take the crystal?"

"They did, how did you know?"

"Same thing happened to me and Sho, we were out doing a bounty and the same thing happened to our target. Some girl showed up and grabbed the crystal in exchange for a guide to fuinjutsu for me."

"Hmm, alright. What do you know about them?"

"Well first, they want to use those stones to bring about the 'eternal night' which I don't know what it is. They also want me to use as the body for Luminos to take over when he descends or something like that because apparently, I'm blessed by him? They also said they would be using more forceful methods from now on to achieve their goals."

"Okay, that's all?"

"Yep, that's everything I know so far."

"I'll need to talk to the hokage about this for now though, we'll continue the mission. Kakashi will need a few days to heal and so will Rin, so we'll be doing small jobs when we reach the main base on the border."

"Wait, we're going to a main base? I thought we were just going to be surveying around the area for a while and doing jobs."

"No, obviously we need to restock after a while, since we'll be out here for a month and we'll be receiving missions from there to complete."

"THAT OLD BASTARD! HE TRICKED ME!" I shouted out, all of the ANBU snickering at my display.

"What do you mean?" one of them asked.

"The hokage sent me to do this 'one' mission so I could learn the shadow clone technique, but he has ended up roping me into possibly 10 missions all bundled together."

"Wow, he really did get you good." The same ANBU replied, finishing his ration bar through his mask. I groaned and walked into the tent I recognized as Kakashi's.

"Hey Kakashi, you alright?"

"…"

"I know you're awake."

"…What is it?"

"Are you okay? Noto fucked up your arm pretty badly."

"I'm fine. How is Rin?"

"Haven't checked on her yet… the bandages are pretty uncomfortable huh?"

"Yes. They are."

I left the tent with a flap of the entrance and walked into Rin's, she was still sleeping so I peered over her body. Her bandages were open loose enough that I could just see the skin under them, it was a purple colour, thoroughly bruised and battered.

I cringed a bit at the sight and left the tent quietly. Kakashi was out now and eating some food around the fire while Minato was preparing his gear with the ANBU.

"We'll head out in 2 hours and be at the stronghold by 4:00pm." Minato commanded, all of the ANBU nodded and began to clean up our camp site. I packed up my tent while Kakashi sat silently around the fire, staring into it with a dark look. Minato had tried to talk to him while I packed, but Kakashi kept saying he was fine and pushed Minato away.

After I finished packing, Rin finally woke up and started to pack her equipment up along with Kakashi who was helping her because she couldn't use her arm. When they were finally done Minato gave us a rundown of the base we would be staying at, it was quite large and housed 60 shinobi right now, with several barracks and small training areas to use.

We would be given an assignment every few days or so to complete and get 2 days of rest before the next one. Most of which would be heading into water country to reinforce a skirmish or attack a payload with supplies.

Rin tried to talk with Kakashi but was brushed off by him making some excuse about being busy. The group noticed this and left Kakashi alone for some time, at least until we left, jumping through the green trees of fire country.

4 hours later, Steam compound

"Minato Namikaze, shinobi number 006510"

"Ok, next."

"Shin Uzumaki, temporary shinobi number 010915"

"Ok, next."

"Kakashi Hatake, shinobi number 009720"

"Ok, next."

"Rin Nohara, shinobi number 010885"

"Have a good stay in the Steam Compound."

"Thank you."

When we first entered the compound, a chakra test was run on everyone, then we had provide our shinobi licenses, or in my case, my temporary one and finally they forced us to recite our name and numbers like prisoners.

When we finally got through the entrance, there was a huge courtyard with several large tents that could store about ten people each on our right, on the left were a few target practice areas and a pond. In the middle was a large stone building with 4 stories, the first being a medical bay, second for information stores, the third where we would receive missions as handed out by the commanding officer here and the basement story for supplies.

The ANBU split off from us and went towards a tent while Minato took our team up to the commanding officer, a young man with black hair, wearing a robe and bandages over his right eye. His name was Danzo Shimura, an elder of Konoha and was placed here due to a lack of commanding officers back in Konoha.

"Team Minato, you have arrived. Good. I have a mission prepared for you that is needs attention as soon as possible." He said coldly, a small glint in his only visible blue eye.

"I'm sorry Danzo, but we haven't rested from our previous mission, and my subordinates are still injured." Minato rebutted, hoping to get us a small break before the mission.

"Like I said before Namikaze, this mission needs your attention as soon as possible. Someone like 'The yellow flash' of Konoha should be able to handle something as simple as this." Minato grit his teeth but walked forward, putting out his hand. Danzo smirked and placed the mission folder in front of Minato, Minato slowly picked it up and left the room.

"Who was that?" Rin asked, trying her best to keep in line with Minato as he charged away angrily.

"Danzo Shimura, one of our elders. He says he always has Konoha in his best interest, but sometimes I really doubt it, especially when he is forcing unrested forces into new missions."

"Well, what's the mission?" I asked, hopefully it was easy, but knowing Danzo from the anime and also how he taunted Minato just now, I was going to be disappointed.

"T-T-This bastard…." Minato clenched his teeth and gripped the folder so tightly that it started to fold around his fingers.

"I something wrong Minato?"

"No. Nothing. We are taking extra supplies and a couple of ANBU with us." He growled out, pressing through the front door of the building and I got a quick peek at the first page of the folder.

'Objective: The defeat of the third mizukage, Azel Terumi'

"That wasn't expected!"

The voices of the gods were drowned out by the hopelessness of the mission. Danzo expected us to make a power move and attack the Mizukage's convoy? Kill a kage level fighter with only 7 shinobi? HE WAS FUCKING INSANE!

Uh oh, this isn't looking good for Shin. Next time on Cloud Gamer – Shadow of Water, Shadow of Fire! – sounds pretty cool huh? Well, I'm tired but so incredibly excited to write a kage level fight, especially since we have no information on the third mizukage, I can make him as OC as I want!

Got a review earlier for some discrepancies in the first few chapters, UGHHHH, now I need to go fix those at some point. But for now, I love you all, cya! - tired