Revenge for a Bloodline, Zeko's assault!
(Took a bit longer than I did plan, but here it is. Enjoy)
"Well it seems our mission rate is increasing slowly. Hiro, whatever you had them do in Kumo, maintain that and-" The relative peace of Uso's day was interrupted by a faint sound outside his window that led to his office being partially obliterated in a blast of lightning chakra. "What was that?!" He whistled and lifted his cane to reveal that it had a retractable sword inside of it. "Who's there? Show yourself!"
The dust of the semi destroyed building was parted by a single figure, a figure that was small but imposing enough on its own to make Uso and Hiro cautious in their approach. The old man was looking around for whoever made the terrible choice to assault his office while Hiro was looking directly at the ceiling. "Uso-sama, he's above." They looked up while the figure on the ceiling looked down at them with his ninjatō in hand.
"Hiro, Uso. Nice to see you both, I have some questions." A group of Bedrock members burst into the room through the door while some held on at the destroyed wall, all had their eyes on the intruder of the room while he was completely focused on the big players in the room. He noticed a familiar smell but waved it off as his mind trying to alleviate his anger.
Uso raised his hand to get his forces to stand down, for now, and he addressed the angry youth in the room. "I'm not sure what brought you to me like this, but I'll trust that it's of the upmost importance. What questions do you need answered?"
"Can you summon scorpions?"
Uso was confused but he nodded. "I also included Hiro in the summoning contract. I'll ask you a question now, what does this matter?" Despite the boy's fury he was still enamored by the coarseness of his leader's voice, but his anger wouldn't let him show that.
"A scorpion sting killed Akira, and I have enough evidence to think that you two were responsible." Most of the Bedrock members tensed at his blatant disrespect but Uso was calm and collected.
"You're wrong boy, I would never." He dropped his defensive stance and stood upright with his cane against the floor. "I was upset that Akira didn't want to join my group but I would never decide to kill someone for something like that. Now I am as curious as to how he died myself since whomever was responsible would be a great danger to the village."
Zeko's crimson eyes scanned Uso's wrinkled face for every twitch, every motion, every single detail he could bring in… and he found no trace of deception. 'The people closest to you- Neji was a smart guy with those eyes of his. Wait… Byakugan… It can see all around a per-' It clicked and his blood red gaze shifted to Hiro. "Hiro, you said your arm is bandaged because of some bad burns." He dropped from the ceiling and stood in front of them both, the others in the room following his every move.
"Been that way for years, Zeko you're making a lot of assumptions and I don't like the path you're on."
"Take off the bandages." His tone was clear and left no room for discussion, alternatives, or negotiation. "If it's just a burnt arm then there's no problem."
Uso looked at his aide and nodded. "I agree, just prove to him that there's no issue." Even the man who lost part of his office agreed with the idea of just taking the bandages off but Hiro just chuckled, and his soft laughing turned into full on evil mastermind cackling. Zeko squinted his red eyes while Uso raised an eyebrow. Neither of them could've seen what happened next from a mile away.
Hiro bit his tongue and the organ started to glow, a small array of seals came to life from his blood. He spoke two words that echoed through the office and into the minds of the masked Bedrock members, two words that decided how this was going to play out. "Kill them!" Hiro leapt out the open wall and Uso lunged at Zeko with the sharp end of his weaponized cane. He didn't hit the boy, instead he stabbed the abdomen of the person who tried to get Zeko in the back, and Zeko returned the favor by kicking another masked shinobi who was going to get Uso into a wall.
The two were back to back as a few dozen shinobi rushed them. Zeko swung his ninjatō but stopped the attack when Uso spoke up, "Don't kill them, they're under a genjutsu!" That changed things, he couldn't just kill people who didn't have control of what they were doing so he sheathed his weapon and decided to use his bare hands. Two came at him and were tripped then slammed down by Uso's cane, they were working in tandem. Every time someone came at them Zeko would set them up and Uso would knock them down, but their streak stopped when four with detailed masks came out of the woodwork. Bird, Cat, Ram, and Dog? He couldn't tell what the last one was but it didn't matter much since they just turned the tables and knocked him into the air.
Out of nowhere came cloth that wrapped around his body and pushed his arms to his sides while the same happened to Uso. "Hiro! You won't get away with this!" Cat and Ram followed their commander out the window while Bird and Dog kept restraining the two.
"Our apologies Uso-sama, but you never were in control. Hiro-sama has always been our puppeteer, you were just a decoy. With you and the child dead there won't be anyone to speak against him and he'll say he was attacked and you were a casualty." A flare of chakra and the cloth was set ablaze with two people trapped in it. Things were bleak for the avenger but when things are at their darkest, that's when you have to be a source of light to break the shadows that want to pull you away and make the world forget you.
"I'm not burning out here! I'm Yokano's little demon!" Sand clung to his body and smothered the flames, he ripped the cloth with his sword and fell right towards Bird. He slashed with his ninjatō but he got a kick to the stomach for the work, but that's where Mamushi struck and stuck her fangs right into their neck. Bird fell to the floor paralyzed and Dog released the cloth to let Uso fall to the floor. Dog weaved hand seals and flooded the room with a torrent of water.
"Suiton: Suijinheki!"(Water style: Wall of water). Uso wasn't on fire anymore but now he was in danger of drowning on the floor and Zeko was pinned against the intact wall of the room by rushing water. He was about to send lightning chakra up the current but then he saw the old man still wrapped in cloth and realized he'd take him out too. He couldn't catch his breath since the water just kept coming and coming, and everything was turning dark.
'Can't breathe! Gotta- Find- Not dying- Like this!' Fuck it you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. The last of his oxygen went to moving his hands into the four signs he had to use and a single ball of purplish-blue lightning formed above the stream of water and shot off at Dog. Zeko went limp and fell to the floor but he was, literally, shocked awake by his own attack and he took in as many gulps of air as he could.
Dog recovered and started his signs again but they didn't get to finish since a cane struck the back of their head and they fell into a puddle on the floor. "That was dangerous… And reckless of you." He was an old man but he was looking older now, then again he did get shocked by the backlash of that lightning ball.
Zeko finally got enough air in his lungs to stand up and he looked through the hole in the wall with his sharingan tracking Hiro, and he clearly saw him headed for the village wall. He picked his sword up and looked at his reflection then nodded with fresh determination. "Uso-sama, I have to apologize for the damage. I also have to apologize for accusing you of killing Akira."
The old man just waved it off while catching his own breath. Nearly drowning and being electrocuted at his age? Way more serious than it happening to Zeko. "It's fine… I think I'm having palpitations. Zeko I'm giving you a mission, one that I'm sure you want to accept." The boy knelt down and awaited his orders. "Pursue Hiro, incapacitate any other Bedrock shinobi you encounter. When you catch Hiro… Kill him with prejudice."
"Roger that!" He jumped out the opening and gave chase to the first thing he saw, which was the bastard or bitch with a cat mask. 'Katon: Gōkakyū no jutsu.' A fireball at their back would have stopped them but they dodged the oncoming ball of flames with the grace of a cat landing from a tree. The two of them landed on a rooftop and stared each other down. "You're lucky I'm after Hiro." They rushed each other at the same time and their fighting styles conflicted, they had sweeping strikes with the occasional jab while Zeko was striking fast and hard like the snakes he learned from. Then it hit him like a meteor. His nose picked up a smell that got him grabbed and scratched across the face. 'Cinnamon?' The pain of nails across his- Hold up. 'A scratch?!' He caught their arm and saw that their mask and hood covered the top of their head but his gut was telling him to get them off.
Cat backflipped and hit his jaw with their foot but he grabbed them by the shoulders and drove his forehead into theirs, splitting the mask they had into two halves. His moment of shock led to another scratch across his face but the one that was going for his throat missed once he snapped back into the fight. They caught each other's hands and deadlocked. Again he was in shock over who this was but he finally managed to kick her in the side for some breathing room. She rushed him and went low but their shins connected and they were locked in place again. He could feel that it wasn't a real leg at all, now she was like Yuuji. "You-"
"Gizagiza tsume!" (Jagged Claws). Her nails extended and almost took his eyes out but he leaned back and swung his foot towards her face but she dodged just as quickly.
"You're alive?!" He jumped to kick for her chest but she caught him and tried to throw him down, yet he was just as nimble so she didn't succeed and he rolled over her close enough to grab her blonde locks. "Hiro's genjutsu… I need answers." He punched her in the stomach and forced her head up to look him in the eyes.
"Snap out of it Hanatsu!"
Memories. The power of the human mind was greater than most realized. Most humans have the ability to remember things that happened to them a long time ago in their life, even if something happened to blur the memory it can still be brought back through reminders of the past. Times of their team, their misguided pranks, helping them vandalize the library. All of it came flashing back to her and the haze over her brain lifted to let her see Zeko there with tears in his eyes. "Z-Zeko?" She was brought into a hug before she was fully aware of where she was but despite the circumstances, it felt right to hug him back. "What happened? Where are we?" Even more memories started coming into her mind and her sluggishness turned to honed killing intent. "That guy- Hiro! Where is he?!" Her claws were more ready than ever and they'd taste whoever got in her way.
"Follow me. We both have a score to settle now." They both leapt off after Hiro but he was clearly on the wall and only moving upwards, and he had an entourage following him.
"You're not going anywhere else." The building they were on shook and started to collapse when Ram made their appearance, but a cloud of sand gave the reunited team a foothold. Ram was there weaving more signs and out of nowhere a hole opened in the air above them. "Doton: Nentsuchi Otoshi." (Earth Style Mud Fall). Red clay fell from the hole and started catching the two but they jumped to street level before it managed to trap them. Ram started forming another jutsu and slammed their hands onto the street and this time they were caught up to their ankles in liquefied sandstone, he actually didn't want them going anywhere. "It looks like Cat betrayed us, Hiro-sama won't be pleased."
"The hell does that mean?"
Ram decided that he might as well spill the beans on that, they actually couldn't go anywhere as it stood and they were only sinking deeper. "He tried his hardest to get someone from the Nekoma clan, they refused to have any of them join Bedrock. It was a shock when Cat joined and now she has to die with you." They were up to their necks in the ground and still sinking. "Your corpses should serve us well." They sunk into the ground and were gone from sight. It was a perfect plan of capture for later use since they just had to suffocate below the earth, and Ram was feeling pretty good over dealing with the problem so he had a minor oversight. An oversight that came back to bite him quite literally.
"Messabaku sō!"
The earth split and revealed a mound of sand that split in two at a jagged mouth, it looked exactly like a certain demon tanuki, and it swallowed Ram without even trying. Moments later an arm came from the ground and following it was a bulbous body of sand covered in black seals. Shukaku was on the scene, or at least his visage was. Zeko was halfway in the forehead of the construct while Hana held onto him for dear life. "Did you have to get all big?!"
"Fastest way up the wall and we can deal with some of them like this." The construct jumped onto the wall and started climbing like some sort of… Attacking Titan that would climb a wall just to cause harm to humans, an outlandish idea. They were approaching the top of the wall when a barrage of fireballs came down on them luckily they were already on a giant mass of sand so their protection was quick, however they couldn't fire back since it took full concentration for Zeko to do this so they had to push through. Push they did and in another minute they climbed onto the walkway of the wall where a dozen masked shinobi waited with Hiro just beyond them.
"Damn, you actually made it to- CAT?!" He saw Hana on the twenty meter high imitation and a vein pulsed by his eye. "All the time it took for me to get you?! Those fucking Sharingan! Okay I'll calm down, it's fine. I'll just undo your work once I get your eyes. Kill them both, bring me his eyes." His words echoed the same as before and the masked shinobi rushed the sand construct. Faux Shukaku grabbed his stomach to fling some sand at the charging people and some of them ended up caught in the grip of the desert's minerals. Another volley of fireballs and a few sources of wind amplifying them, the sand held up and kept the two vengeful shinobi from being burnt to a crisp.
The impersonation of the monster tanuki raised its arms and slung them forward in a flood of the desert's wrath. There was a sand tsunami headed for the masked shinobi, it was even spilling over the wall as it covered some more Bedrock shinobi in its grasp. Hiro and a few others leapt above the flood of sand and Hiro decided to deal with the nuisance himself.
"Futon: Shinkū Taigyoku!" (Wind Style: Vacuum Blast). Hiro exhaled and the air in front of him spiraled and condensed into a ball that shot straight at the sand construct and blew it away, like it was just dust to the wind. Hana and Zeko managed to safely land while the sand returned to a normal shape. "You want something done right-" Hana's instinct saved her once she detected a massive spike in killer intent behind them both, while Zeko dodged based solely on automatic response.
Their evasion mimicked one another since they were both taught a feline style of combat, and it helped the both of them evade the brutal swipe of Hiro's bandaged arm. The kids turned and lashed with their own sharp weapons, one with claws and the other with a silver coated sword, but their attacks were lodged in the bandages of Hiro's arm. "You gotta kill it yourself!" He pushed them both back and they looked at each other and nodded because they knew beating Hiro would be a constant team effort, if they slipped up at all… They'd die. Zeko pulled his weapon out of the bandages and kicked Hana away from a swing of something he'd get pissed at.
It was a scientific ninja tool but it was modeled after a fuma shuriken, its blades were bright red and it was about to hit him in place of the girl it was aimed at but she came back and clawed the weapon away from Zeko and sent it flying into the air. Hiro's shoulder bulged and he dodged their oncoming swipes with ease, he returned them with two hits to both of them that made them lock up for just a moment. He raised his bandaged arm but he jumped to avoid a flood of sand before he could finish them off. "Ah right, that sand." He started dodging the torrent of sand that threatened to crush him with all the fury the desert had to offer but his evasion was faster than it chased him and the idea was abandoned. "More…"
Zeko and Hana rushed while Hiro just smirked at their attacks, it wasn't that they were sloppy or bad at fighting but compared to him they weren't doing well. Each slash, every cut, scratch, punch, kick, or sweep was evaded with motions that looked almost like a dance. "More." Zeko jumped and went for a high kick while Hana went for his legs, dodging the two of them at once took more effort but he still did it. Hana got kicked like an abused puppy and Zeko's wrist was grabbed. "More!" He was pulled around and got a backhand to the face for his efforts so far. "Hit me more! Don't die like worthless brats!" Zeko and Hana landed beside each other while Hiro started thinking about what he just said. "Actually if I kill you now, it'll mess up their plans."
They were up again and a personal grudge could wait, Zeko had a question. "Who's plans?" Hana was moving just as well and listened to this interrogation. Hiro smiled and delivered the information he had to give, they were going to die so why not indulge them?
"Ao Akuma of course, who do you think wanted Akira's eyes? Who do you think wanted the one tail?" He didn't. But they could swear that he did. Hana fell forward and dodged the returning scientific shuriken but with a pull of sand it was in Zeko's hand.
"What do you mean… What the hell do you mean?!" With a simple pull he cut the pathetic weapon in half with his own. Hiro smiled and lifted his hand to show a seal on his bandages, he grabbed that wrapping and unraveled it slowly. The vengeful pair was equally shocked and disgusted at what they saw; Hiro's arm was inky black with splotches of red across it, and at his shoulder was an active Byakugan with veins pulsing around it. The real shock for Zeko were the four sharingan eyes in his forearm that seemed to be staring directly at him.
"It was a fun time that day…"
There were five of them left, Akira and Chomusuke put in their work to fend off their attackers as best as they could even with one of them being slowed down even more as time passed. Akira collapsed to one kneeand Chomosuke stood at his side, worried. "I'm fine, I just have to catch my breath." His construct of chakra went from being fully armored to just being humanoid with hair as spiky as his own. The Totsuka blade was still burning brightly in the hand of his Susano'o. Akira's eyes were bleeding and his body wasn't keeping up with the pain he was in. His Susano'o went from looking human to being skeletal, but Chomusuke took advantage of the distraction and sent another wind enhanced slash at one of the masked goons. They dodged enough to live but they lost a few fingers in the action.
"Akira-dono, you're not well. Please fall back so I can take over for you." Akira closed his eyes and the Susano'o was gone and the gourd holding the Totsuka blade mysteriously vanished as well. Right when Chomusuke stepped up to the plate, Akira put a hand on him and looked him in the eyes.
Despite his fatigue there was a smile on his face as his mangekyou sharingan spiraled in his eyes, the panther was hypnotized by the black lines over red iris'. He pulled out a voice recorder and a black jar but tragedy struck in that moment of distraction. One of the masked shinobi flew by Akira's head with white wrappings trailing behind them, but in that move he took something with him.
Akira was missing his left eye and he wasn't strong enough to do much about it, whatever poison was in his system pulled so much out of him that he was stuck taking a knee while his shut eyelid leaked red blood. His plan changed right after that and his attention snapped to the one holding his left eye. With their clean hand they reached up to their mask and lifted it above their mouth. "Finally slowed down Akira?" He knew that voice and he couldn't believe who was behind the mask while it lifted over the rest of his face.
"You…"
Hiro had a grin on his face and his bloody hand was at his side while Akira glared at him and his right arm. "Fighting as much as we did, I'm surprised you didn't figure it out sooner…" He rolled the eye in his hand around like it was a treasure instead of someone else's body part. "I'm just surprised it took this long to get this eye, and I'll take the other one just as-" He leapt back to avoid Chomusuke's claws from tearing his throat right out, and the panther kept his hypnotized glare on him while Akira steeled himself for something drastic.
Akira's mangekyou sharingan was active on Hiro's arm and Zeko was feeling something that almost hurt him, a level of anger that would've had steam rising off his body if there was enough moisture in the air. "I'm a little angry that he managed to hide his other eye with that stupid summon but one is enough for me." He held his hand out and exhaled chakra infused air into a ball in his hand while Zeko was brimming with so much anger that his eyes started straining while Hana was preparing for the next attack. "Futon: Shinkū awa bakudan." (Wind Style: Vacuum Bubble Bomb). He threw the ball of wind and watched as it sailed right for Zeko and he mentally grinned. 'The vacuum bubble bomb explodes once it makes contact with anything, no doubt in my mind they'll try and deflect it and when they do…'
Zeko's hand gripped his ninjatō hard enough to turn his knuckles white, he brought it to his side and slashed the dense bubble in two. Hiro waited with bated breath but there was no explosion, no injuries, no death. Nothing. He watched that sword start to glow a pale shade of yellow and he was confused at how they were both still unharmed. "You really did kill my dad…"
"Heh! No, the scorpion venom killed Akira." He exhaled a larger bubble into his left hand this time and as it became more dense he hardened his expression. "I murdered Akira!" He wasn't ready to see what happened next and it actually worked to both intimidate him and distract him from the air bullet Hana sent into his side, and the jutsu managed to nearly knock him off his feet and ruin his concentration. His injury wasn't what had his attention, it was Zeko. "That's…"
His right eye definitely wasn't his, and it was obvious since it was a mangekyou sharingan… one that matched the one in Hiro's forearm. "I finally get to avenge Tou-chan." He held onto his weapon firmly while Hiro composed himself.
"I'm right by your side Zeko, we might not be a full team but I'll be with you!" Her support brought him from the darkness of fury and he nodded at her words, ready to strike alongside her.
"It's so nice that you two are ready to die together." He jumped into the air with his vacuum bomb just out of his normal hand, it wasn't touching him in fear of setting it off prematurely. In the air he already had his sentence ready. "A shame, all that trouble and you just brought the other one right to me!" In two movements, Hana was pushed behind him then Zeko raised his ninjatō and blocked the bubble even as the sandstone beneath his feet started sinking downwards from the force. He could feel his teeth vibrate but he kept blocking the jutsu as it started shrinking and his weapon started to glow even brighter, but Hiro was lost when his attack vanished from the face of the earth. "What the?!"
Zeko grabbed the hilt of his weapon with both hands and brought the ninjatō to his side with his own smile on his face, and Hiro felt a spike of danger in the air. "Uchiha Reflection…"
Yuuji was minding his own business outside of the Kazekage's building, the fact that Goji was in front of him wielding a barbecue fork didn't do anything to break his relaxed mood. "What are you up to?"
"I'm ready for round two whenever you are! I'm down with right damn now!" He twisted the utensil in his hand but Yuuji was still absolutely calm with the threatening actions being taken against him.
"Aren't you supposed to stay near Zeko? If you don't want him getting in trouble then you oughta figure out where he is and-"
It would be going too far to say the entire village shook, but it would only be so much of a stretch. Both Yuuji and Goji braced when a sudden wind almost took the clothes off their bodies, sand was being blown off the streets and people casually enjoying their day had to stop to not be knocked onto the ground. "I hate this desert! There's wind and sand every-fucking-where!" He wasn't wrong but that wasn't why this sandstorm decided to appear.
When the wind finally started slowing down they opened their eyes and saw where the sudden winds came from and they were in awe at what they saw. "Isn't that- No way."
"What did he just do?" Goji knew who probably did that and he was going to ask about it the first chance he got.
Yuuji was still staring at the event in question and so were the other people on the street living their lives. Some of them were adolescent boys and girls using their bodies as shields for a particular girl who practically glowed from her radiating beauty. "Protect Asui-san!" She was safe from the sand but the awe of the destruction made her gasp in shock.
Their eyes were all stuck on the wall where a fight was going on, one that they were ignorant to, and that wall was now missing a giant piece. If someone were to give a rough estimate they'd say that the spot was twenty meters deep and in total, forty meters long. Pieces of sandstone were still flying through the air as the dust started falling from its high point in the air.
Yuuji almost wanted to shake his head because he had an idea of who did this but he had absolutely no idea why. All he could do was look and marvel at the sudden break in their wall that was almost a quarter long as it was tall.
"What happened? Zeko? Are you okay?" Hanatsu was looking around the rubble of their area and could barely make anything out in the dust that was heavy in the air. She looked around but she couldn't see Zeko and even worse, she couldn't see Hiro. Primal instinct wasn't enough to save her from the twin stingers of an impossibly large scorpion, no, sand did that. The sand wrapped around Hana and stopped the stinger from getting into her body. Hiro was on the scorpion's back with a scowl on his face. His outfit was shredded by all means, his tunic was in tatters and his pants weren't much better since there were holes revealing his cut and scraped legs.
"No surprise that he'd make sure you were protected, but, how can he protect you when he can't protect himself?" She heard a noise behind her and when she turned to see what it was she froze. Her only teammate was impaled by a stinger from behind, he really chose to protect her before he did himself. Her ears flattened against her head and her nails sharpened enough to cut through anything Hiro would throw at her, and the first thing they cut into was the oncoming pincer of the scorpion ahead of her. It's chitin didn't stand a chance against her claws and it's right pincer was turned into ribbons, Hiro sent a vacuum blast at her but it didn't even come close.
"Yasei tsume!" (Feral Claw). Feral cats were the most dangerous because they were even more unpredictable than a normal feline, now Hana couldn't be read prematurely and Hiro was at a disadvantage since he could see her attacks… but didn't know how to dodge. She was like a little whirlwind slashing one way then another and it actually started pushing Hiro back, the scorpion he was on vanished in a puff of smoke and it was just him against the angry cat girl. The eye in his shoulder was working in overdrive to see every angle she could attack from but it was only doing so well in keeping him from getting hurt since scratches and cuts started appearing across his body as time went on, but his hesitation broke when she nearly took out one of the sharingan in his forearm.
He spun and kicked her with enough power to fold her like origami but instead of seeing her skidding back unable to fight, he saw her skidding back in a ball of iron sand with the face open and her eyes locked on him. Even while he was impaled Zeko refused to let her get hurt and she turned to see that he was still focused on protecting her… but she failed to protect him. Nothing mattered to her any more in that moment than to rip out chunks of his flesh piece by piece. "That venom won't kill him… at least not quickly. Gives us time to-" History repeats itself and the universe is often ironic when it comes to teaching lessons, and Hiro would learn that firsthand when Hana flew by his upper body and took two important things from him; one of the sharingan in his arm, and the eye in his head… one he was born with.
She didn't see any reason to taunt him and so she crushed the sharingan into paste while her nails dripped with the viscera of his normal eye. "You stole his dad's eye, so I took yours." This was a lesson to the man but he didn't feel like learning and with quickness he plucked Akira's eye from its spot and started fixing it into his empty socket. His arm expanded then shrunk back to a normal size but now it was adorned with black thorns that had red tips.
"Fine!" He moved with speed he didn't have before and Hana could tell that whatever happened with his arm was responsible. He was on her like mud on swine, he swung his mutating arm to separate her head from her body but her nimble body weaved between his attempts on her life with ease. She ducked under his swing and jammed her nails into his liver with every ounce of anger she had.
That one left a mark and the recipient spat out some blood from the organ damage, but he wasn't without his own tricks. Small holes opened on his thorns and he started funneling chakra through them which released tiny air bubbles from his arm and Hana was too close to avoid whatever he was planning. 'Kaze bakudan danmaku.' (Wind Bomb Barrage). She was blown clear but that was a double edged attack, Hiro was just as close to the explosions as Hana but the damage they took was not equal. She was worse for wear but her spirit was strong and her body matched it. She looked Hiro dead in the eyes and he went from having an aggressive scowl to a more calm smirk, and she didn't like that. She planned to take out another of those eyes in his arm so she leapt at him like a tiger going for its prey, however this time something was very different…
He dodged her, but it wasn't the dodging he'd been doing, it was like he saw through her moves and knew exactly how she'd attack before she did it. He grabbed her ankle and slammed her into the debris at his feet, he was about to finish her off when he heard a noise and saw Zeko twitching. In his lack of attention, Hana slipped away and was on all fours a bit closer to her teammate. With a sick smile, Hiro put his left hand into a half seal and the scorpion raised its tail even higher to put Zeko on display like an art piece.
"Like father like son, dying to a scorpion. I fought Akira a lot when we were younger adults, but I never could beat him." He started to laugh and he comically wiped a tear from his eye. "Who'd have thought that getting the woman he married killed, and then killing him would lead me into killing his son?" Those words had enough weight to break an elephant's back. He just admit that the reason that Yokano died was because of his petty rivalry. The reason Akira died… The reason his family was gone… "It was fun finding out that this eye can actually see someone's future, makes up for me not reading your movements."
The human brain was impressive in the fact that it's sensory capabilities were able to be honed to incredibly high levels, such as someone being able to process incredibly high speed things such as lightning. The sharingan increases perception to such a high degree that it can predict movements before it even happens, but there's a drawback for someone who implants one or more in their eye socket: They have to have the capacity to process the increase in perception to be able to predict movements and copy jutsu, and very few people who aren't Uchiha have that ability… Hiro wasn't one of them.
"Seeing… someone's future?" Hana caught the most important part of that sentence and questioned him about it. "Nobody can just see the future, you're full of more shit than a septic tank!"
Hiro clicked his tongue twice and wagged his finger in defiance of her accusation. "Akira was a very unique man so of course he'd have a unique ability with his eyes." He looked at the raised form of Zeko who was limp save for his twitching fingers. "It was all worth it to get just one of them."
"So the reason that he always got quiet about parents-" Her teeth were sharpening. "The reason he goes home to an empty dorm-" More hair grew on her forearms. "And the reason he-"
"The reason I cried so much…" That voice was welcome to Hana's ears and it soothed her anger just a bit. "The reason I wanted to die…" A hand clenched tight enough to draw blood out of a palm. "It was all because of you?" It came out as a whisper and the response to it was another chuckle from Hiro.
"Yep." He didn't hesitate to give that short answer just to spite him but that wasn't the best of ideas.
With a battle cry that would inspire even a coward to fight by his side, Zeko raised his hands and grabbed a segment of the tail, raising him in the air. With nothing but the idea of revenge in his mind, he tore the stinger off the scorpion's tail and pushed it out of his abdomen only to stab it straight into the giant arthropod's face. He walked right up to Hana after picking up his weapon and his borrowed right eye was spinning in its socket. "You're doing a lot for someone who stole other people's power!" He cracked his neck and pointed at Hiro's shoulder. "I'll make sure they get back what's theirs, and I'll rip yours out myself..." The words were said and now it was time to act, and act they did.
Hana's claws were in the right arm while Zeko's ninjatō was in the left forearm of his previous mentor. "Keep it up you two, you might get me to try."
"Hana, don't look him in the eye!" A simple statement but it was something that would prevent Hiro from seeing through anything they could do. Zeko raised his leg for a fast kick to Hiro's temple while Hana dragged her nails along his torso, they were working in tandem to grind him down. Their attacks were stopped by a sudden bubble around Hiro, but it didn't stay up for long since he popped it from the inside and sent a burst of wind at the young shinobi. They were pushed back but still on their feet and they rushed right back into the fight without even taking a break. As long as he didn't look them in the eyes he couldn't read what would happen, and if he couldn't read what they'd do then he couldn't predict them. Their barrage on him continued but he was still dodging most of their attacks and he was returning his own with even less restraint, it was starting to whittle down their endurance and they were only getting more sluggish.
The donated eye that Zeko had was doing wonders for this fight. While his normal eyes could already read and predict movements the mangekyou was predicting all possible actions just from a muscle tensing, meaning that no matter what Hiro was going to throw at them he could counter it. "Yasei mō kōgeki!" (Feral Onslaught). Hana rushed in close and started ripping and tearing away at Hiro's body, her barrage of feral attacks managed to catch another one of the eyes implanted into his arm but he was more concerned over the boy who was about to catch him from behind.
A hand was dangerously close to his shoulder and without that eye he'd lose a lot of his leverage in this fight. He let his arm run free for a moment and with a burst of chakra did he stop Zeko in his tracks. "Toge jigoku!" (Thorn hell). It was definitely hell to deal with. Zeko was stuck in the air with his body trying it's best to not be gored by the modified arm's emergency response, but he was stuck in place with some spikes going through his left bicep and right thigh. Hiro kicked Hana away and turned around with a smile on his face. "Give me that eye!" He reached out and in panic Zeko did something impressive. His chakra molded and pulled a mass of iron sand towards him from the front, simultaneously he pushed any and all of the iron sand on his body outwards to Hiro who dodged the first half.
A magnetic field that's positive to push something both towards someone and away from someone else, but what happens when those magnetic fields collide? Hiro dodged the masses of black sand but the next part wasn't going to be as easy to avoid.
The masses of sand collided and their magnetic fields pushed the other away with so much force that it formed an unintended but dangerous effect. The iron sand branched off in so many random directions with absolutely no means to track where it would go, and Hiro was still right by it. He moved and dodged as well as he could but no matter where he went after avoiding one, there were three more branches of metallic sand trying to impale him. Some succeeded and ripped right through his abdomen with enough power to spray blood across the sandstone. Suddenly Hiro vanished from where he was when he took that lethal damage.
Hana was quick to track him with her sense of smell while her friend ripped through the genetic mess that trapped him, some iron sand still branching off from the power of magnetism. 'What was that? I think it saved my life.' His attention went back to the present where Hiro was standing above them on a part of the wall that wasn't blown away. The last sharingan in his forearm was now white and his arm was disproportionately large, to the point where his hand nearly touched the ground.
"You little fucks!" Oh so now he was dropping the faux formalities. "I'd like you both a lot better if you were dead!"
Zeko had a smirk on his face from seeing Hiro lose composure. It was amusing to him and he had a taunt. "I like you better when you're mad."
That pissed him all the way off. He raised his normal hand into a different half seal and Hana yelled in pain, black lines started spreading across her skin and the light blonde fur on her body. "Okay I'll play that game, but let me ask you something. How mad would you be if I took over her body and killed you as your only living friend?!" This was the feeling of deja vu and he didn't like it. Those lines resembled the ones that the curse squad had and that told him a lot in that moment. "Tell me… Tell me! TELL ME NOW!"
Zeko raised his head as his right eye started bleeding and he felt his own chakra drop significantly. Hiro looked the boy in the eyes with a manic grin on his face but he was surprised when panther shadows started phasing out of Zeko's body. The sight of black panthers running through the air was terrifying on its own but when Hiro turned around he nearly had pants that were a few pounds heavier.
"This- You- You're dead!" A younger man was standing there, fair skinned with white hair. His body wasn't as wide as it'd been but that was because of age. His crimson eyes were burning into Hiro's soul and yet his face was giving a friendly grin.
"Funny how the thing you're scared of the most is your own past. Eh Hiro?"
Hiro's breath hitched. "Akira?!" He was there in the flesh but it couldn't be. He was fucking dead! The Byakugan in Hiro's shoulder let him know that he was under the effect of a genjutsu and his fears faded. "Nice try!" He swung his massive arm and it turned into a giant blade as he did but it didn't connect with nothing, it hit something… Akira grabbed the arm bare handed and dug his fingers into the steel like flesh. "This- This is an illusion!" He put his other hand up and pulsed his chakra. "Release!" Nothing happened. "Release! Release! Release!" Something released, and it was Akira's temper. A foot sailed into Hiro's throat and sent him flying backwards.
Zeko watched Akira walk out of sight and he took the chance to help Hana however he could. She was still groaning in pain but the seal on her was fading away, and he caught her once she fell backwards. "Hana-chan! You okay?"
She was breathing heavily and had just as many injuries as he did but she was going to be fine. "Yeah, what type of genjutsu was that? Akira-san died and- Your eye is bleeding!"
"I know. It was his eye, and it's bleeding because I used his ability. I'm nowhere near as good as he was but he could affect a person's past even to erase their memories."
Hana stood up on her own and stretched an arm as prelude to another question. "But how is he here?"
"I'm not him so it won't last long, but he could even bring your past to life." At that moment he felt a pain shoot through his eye and he clutched a hand over it. "We have to get up there before it wears off." He jumped from rock to rock and Hana was on his tail, and they both landed back up where the wall was in better shape to see that Hiro was not doing well.
Akira laughed heartily as Hiro's face healed from having gashes across it, his exposed torso doing the same. "Come on Hiro! You look a little tired, old age getting you?" It was made funny by the fact that the present Akira was in his very early twenties, if not only twenty.
"SHUT UP!" He infused his chakra with the air and blew out another air bomb that flew at Akira with even more speed than it had before. He was unabashed.
"Hey now," Akira swatted the attack aside like it was a fly that got too close. "Don't be so rude, especially since my time's up." He started to turn translucent, the reality breaking illusion clearly running out of time. He turned back to his son while Hiro caught his breath. "Zeko, can you finish this one for me? It'd mean the world if you did." He was nearly gone and his son's other eye was crying it's own tears, not of blood but just normal salty fluid.
"Of course! He's all ours Tou-chan!" Akira smiled as he faded away but he left two words that lit a fire in his son's stomach.
"Thank you."
Their eyes turned to Hiro once again, more specifically the freakish arm that dangled to the ground they stood on. He slammed his limb onto the ground and announced his spiel. "Come on! Let's prove the dead man wrong!" They all ran forward with intent to kill. Hana jumped and Zeko pushed her heels so she'd get the higher ground. Hiro looked upwards as planned and got knocked off his feet only to get a long gash across his chest from her claws. He wasn't out and lashed his giant arm down to send Hana crashing with it and into a fresh crater, but there was still another one to worry about.
This time he didn't fail, and his intent was simple enough. Zeko was at Hiro's shoulder and with a swift grab he ripped out that which didn't belong to Hiro, along with some of the flesh surrounding it. Right then and there did the arm lose all control, it was just like the iron sand from before and it forced spikes in all directions but Zeko used a body flicker to evade with Hana in hand before they got too hurt, of course they were still hit but shoulders and a collarbone weren't vital spots… right?
Zeko got his friend away from danger without as much injury since she got hit in the shoulder but his clavicle was clearly broken. 'Don't look at me, I had to use a lot to make sure the venom didn't kill you.' Isn't that just life for you?
Hiro stood up while his arm was making random motions and even bulging at times. "I hate you both… You've turned it all to shit. They just wanted a Nekoma… And a nearly pure Uchiha. You both weren't worth the trouble anyway, even if I gotta die-" His arm turned into- The best way to describe it was a bunch of scorpion stingers protruding from his shoulder while his stolen eye started closing, his body not handling the chakra cost as well anymore. "I'm taking you both with me!" The stingers extended and the venom dripping from them told the vengeful pair that just one hit would put them down for good.
"Cut them off!" Hana announced and Zeko obliged. The both of them started slashing with a near recklessness but they noticed something quickly, each time they cut off one stinger another two replaced it. They started to focus on evasion but there were just too many to get away from.
"Katon: Goryūka no jutsu!" (Fire Style: Fierce dragon flame). Fire turned out to be effective in pushing the stingers back. Some burnt to a crisp while others had the shelter of the burnt ones and were only pushed back. A quick summoning brought Randa onto Zeko's left arm, he couldn't speak but he could follow instructions. "Take this." He handed the chunk of flesh with the Byakugan off and Randa expanded his jaws to hold it safely and vanished in a puff of smoke.
"Just fucking die!" The tails came back but there was a high cost high reward plan in place.
Zeko grit his teeth and held his ninjatō with both hands despite the burning in his shattered collarbone. "Hana cover me!" She hissed in response and was by his side one hundred percent. They both rushed forward with one having the objective to keep the other safe, and this time she'd succeed.
Her claws ripped through three stingers in a row. "That's for making everyone think I was dead…" She cut through even more as Zeko dashed forward with both eyes wide open. "These are for putting me in your stupid group." Zeko weaved a few seals around the hilt of his weapon and exhaled fire straight onto his blade. "Those are for Akira-san." They both leapt into the air and a flood of stingers flew at them, all just hoping to get a scratch. Zeko saw how Hana was dancing around each of them and slicing them apart without hesitation, no matter how many there were she just turned them to paste. "And this is cause I wanna!" She turned into a spiral of angered slashing and none of the stingers got close to breaking her skin, and she parted a perfect route for Zeko to fall right onto Hiro and embed his flaming sword into where his arm met his torso.
"No! No! NO!" Hiro threw a punch with his normal hand but Hana was there to hold it aside with both of hers. 'She's holding me back?!' Zeko started to push harder against the flesh in his way and Hiro was panicking. "Get off me!" He tried to kick the boy away but he felt something grab his leg and when he looked down he saw a ghostly figure of a transformed boy who just made a mistake in the end. This- This was the power of team Bōkō.
Zeko grit his teeth and felt an extra presence that pushed him even further. "Say goodbye to this stupid arm!" He clenched harder and the flames turned even hotter. "Uchiha Ryu: Taiyō Hashira!" The flames molded and rose with all the fury the team had between each of them, and it turned into a giant column of fire that could be seen from the very edge of the Hidden Sand. Hiro screamed as he felt the pain of losing his modified limb, all that he went through just turned into nothingness with the power of some kids.
The pillar of fire finally dispelled to reveal that Hiro was still on his feet and Zeko was a few feet away from him. However he had a hostage. Hana was being held around the neck by a single arm while the grown man was trying his best to catch his breath. "This all went to shit fast, but if you don't want to lose the last friend you have I'd suggest you stay back!" He started to back away and Zeko didn't budge. "I'm getting out of here and I'm taking her with me. The Ao Akuma will make me another arm if I bring them something they couldn't get." He took a few more steps back and Zeko just stood there with an eye closed.
"You took the wrong one hostage."
Hiro was lost. "I did wha- Hurg!" He looked down and saw that there was a hand in his stomach, not his abdomen, and not somewhere random in his gut area. Her hand was in his stomach, where his food was digested. He let her go and she turned to reveal that her arm was double jointed since it was at such a weird angle.
"And this is for me…" She tore her hand out and with it came a slew of bile and blood that spilled onto the dry ground. Zeko sheathed his weapon and came closer while Hana stepped aside to let him have his moment.
Hiro was on his knees and holding his body above the ground with his only hand. He growled and lunged. "Gah!" He went for the boy's borrowed eye but didn't even come close before his wrist was grabbed.
"Stealing eyes…" Zeko reached out and took that which was his in a brutal manner. More blood spilled onto the ground and Randa appeared again to take the organ, Zeko was going to talk to him since he never actually left the area and that was reckless… of course he did launch an attack on a councilman's office based on no real evidence but that was different.
"I should've killed you sooner. It was my mistake to let you go on so long!" Zeko punched him dead in the cheek and put him back on the ground where he belonged. "This is the cost of my accidents, but it won't bring Yokano or Akira back!"
Zeko clenched his fists but he relaxed and chose to smile at the walking dead man. "Remember what I said earlier? Returning what belongs to them?" He lifted his foot and kicked Hiro across the face. "Taking yours?" He grabbed the man around the neck and gave him two hits to the cheek, splitting his face and letting fresh iron rich fluid drip down his face. "I don't care about these Blue Demons." Zeko threw Hiro near the edge of the wall and started approaching. Hiro crawled with his one arm to try and have a quick death but he was pulled away from the edge and his chest lost skin from the motion.
"Agh!" Zeko flipped him over and stepped onto his solar plexus with his heel.
"Hurts?" He lifted his foot and dropped it down onto the traitor's rib cage. "I hope it does." He picked his foot up and dropped it again. "It wouldn't matter if it didn't." He kept dropping his foot with a serene smile on his face all the while, his sadism would've scared a softer person but Hana was enjoying the show just as much as he enjoyed doing it… They could use therapy but that was for later, now was torture.
Hiro weakly grabbed his ankle and tried to push it off but Zeko wasn't letting it be that easy. He stomped with all the force he could manage and felt the cracks that put Hiro into agonizing pain. "Agh! Stop, please! I'll go pay for what I did! I'll confess!" Zeko took his foot away and lost his smile for a moment.
"I'm your judge right now." He grabbed Hiro by the sides of his head and lifted him, the man panicked and started trying to push the boy away. "And I say that it's an eye for an eye." Hiro gasped since the last thing he saw was a thumb over his eye.
"AAH!" Zeko ground his thumbs into both of the eye sockets, his smile was on his face again while Hiro did everything he could to struggle against the agony. "PLEASE STOP! I CAN'T TAKE IT!" That was all he wanted to hear and he locked his thumbs into the gore that was now Hiro's face and pushed with more force than needed.
Hiro wasn't in pain anymore and he got his earlier goal of falling over the edge, of course he wasn't alive in doing it. He fell down the wall with all the grace of a noodle in a storm, but Zeko was still smiling as he watched the man fall… with his head backwards. No returns, no retries, no escapes by the skin of his teeth, nothing that would save his life from desire of not wanting to die, and no forbidden techniques that undo death temporarily. Hiro was dead by their hands.
Zeko fell onto his back and Hana did the same as her Nekoma transformation faded and she went back to being a housecat. It was odd to feel so happy at the prospect of murder. Zeko never felt happy killing anyone, even when it was deserved, he saw them as a threat that had to be put down so it was just business. Hiro… Hiro made him feel happy to kill. More happy than finding out Hana was alive, more happy than seeing Ichika whenever he did. Of course he still had something to do.
Zeko was in the Kazekage's office and she was not only confused but she was also angry. "Alright so who's going to explain why the hell part of the village wall just vanished?" Zeko was nervously rubbing the back of his head and Hana was looking down at the floor. "Can't do that? Well can someone tell me why and how Nekoma Hanatsu is alive?"
"She didn't actually die." Yuno wanted to be angry at that but she did set the bar pretty low.
"I deserved that I'll admit. Okay, why is Hiro dead and Uso's office in pieces?"
Zeko actually had an answer for that one. One that would only make Yuno even more confused. "I figured out that either Uso or Hiro was responsible for not only Akira's death, but also Yokano's. And I launched an attack on his office by myself to figure out if I was right and to punish the traitor responsible. Turns out it was Hiro and he was working for the Ao Akuma."
Yuno rubbed her temples while Yuuji's eyes only widened more and more as the boy spoke. "So Hanatsu wasn't dead all this time? That makes me feel a little better. I just thought I was a bad leader." His relief made sense the more you thought about it. It was a mission he led so feeling responsible for anyone dying was reasonable, and to find out that it wasn't as bad as it seemed lifted a weight off his heart.
"I'll have to notify her clan that she survived, and as for you…" She looked directly at Zeko and he felt all her irritation coming down onto him. "Why did you go off on accusations for something so important?"
He didn't have an answer. He kept forming words but he couldn't make a sentence that would give her any sort of reason to excuse his behavior. In the end he just stood there silent while she stared at him expecting even something dumb but nope, he just had nothing. "Maybe it was my mistake giving you enough responsibility over yourself like you have, knowing your mother and how she was…"
"Hey!" She looked at him with a raised brow and shut down any retorts he had, since he knew how his mother was as well.
"Putting that aside, I'll have to look into the Kusanabe family taking you in so that you have at least some of a leash on you."
Now that wasn't fair, sure he was reckless with what he did but it worked out in the end. The means of it were dicey but the end result was good for everyone. "If I didn't do that then Hanatsu wouldn't be here like this and Hiro would've eventually gotten Touka-chan." That made Yuno look at him and a slight temper was behind it. "He admit that they kidnap people with rare bloodlines, and other than you she's the only one with crystal release."
"Be that as it may, I can't overlook how you kind of just- Oh I don't know- Attacked a councilman's office. I haven't made my choice yet but I'll look into it, as long as you don't do anything irresponsible for a while I might just change my mind." She shooed them away and they left her office quickly. "Well Yuuji, your mission didn't go as badly as we all thought."
"Is that a compliment? It didn't seem like one… at all." It probably wasn't but he couldn't do much about it.
Yuno leaned back in her chair and sighed. Yuuji wasn't half bad though so this just made up her mind on what his next move would be. "Well you better start studying."
"Uh for what Kazekage-sama?" He was confused since he was done with school by all means.
"For the Jonin exams, as far as I've seen you've got the skill level. You stabbed a jinchūriki with a kunai, that takes balls." He was flustered at the praise and he lowered his head.
"Oh well I mean, uh thank you."
She just leaned back up and looked out her window with her chin on her hand, thinking about how her friend was just avenged by her son nonetheless. 'Kid's definitely strong, maybe… Nope get that idea out of your head.'
Outside of the office two kids who still had their battle injuries were leaving the building and ran into a man who had the utmost respect for them both, Zeko knelt while Hana just stood there. "I take it the mission was a success?"
"Yes Uso, Hiro is dead because of our hard work." He stood back up and the old man nodded in pride.
"Good. A man like him shouldn't be allowed the chance to scurry back into the cracks and plan again, I'll let you two go on your way." He continued walking while the kids did the same.
Hana was scratching her face idly while Zeko realized there was something important he had to do. "I need some flowers."
"Why? Shouldn't you go home and rest?"
He looked at her with an attitude all over his face, a look that showed that he should be asking her the same thing. "I have something to do, then I can go home. You should probably wait until your family knows you're alright before you go back."
"Eh, they'd know it's me by smell. I can go back right now but I wanna tag along with you."
Zeko just sighed and lifted his arms over his head. "You mean you just want to annoy me until I'm done don't you?" She fell onto his shoulders with a grin on her face.
"You know me so well, let's go get those flowers."
A bouquet of lilacs that were purple, his favorite color, were in his hand. "I'm sorry that we haven't talked in a while, but I've been really busy lately." He had a spectator but she was there because she helped him out with the issue. "Okay so a lot of crazy stuff happened ten minutes ago and I wanted to give you these." He put the purple lilacs somewhere nice, somewhere she could enjoy them. "Okay so I figured out who did it and I guess why. I don't know the big guys behind it but that doesn't matter to me, not yet. I'm sorry for what I did…" He stopped to wipe a tear from his face. "I didn't know what I was doing and it- It happened by accident." He stopped to take a breath. "You don't have to forgive me but I wanted you to know."
"I think she forgives you Zeko. Tell her what happened." Hana put a hand on his shoulder from behind and he shook his head to think straight.
He inhaled and started the story of how he managed to work the pieces together earlier that day and the conclusion he came to. He talked about how hard it was, implanting an eye into your head after taking yours out. "But the hardest part was taking him down, if I didn't have Hana then- I might've just died. Who am I kidding I'd have figured something out." That made her push him to the ground and look down on him.
"If it wasn't for me you would've bit the dust."
A perfect time to table the tables. "Ara ara, I didn't think you'd force me down to sate your lust Hanatsu~" She looked at their positioning and saw that she was straddling his waist and forcing his arms to the ground under them, it definitely didn't look appropriate now that she saw what was happening and she turned cherry red. "But if it's what you desire then, you can have my body." He turned his head and closed his eyes to symbolize his relinquishment of his own body. Hana got off him as fast as humanly possible and he sat up to keep talking. "It was really hard to do but- But it was worth it for your sake. I hope- I hope you're proud of me."
Hana hugged him from behind and had a smile on her face with a single tear coming down from her eye. "I'm sure that she is, now come on. I still have a teammate who owes me a new hairstyle."
"I like your hair when it's short, can't you keep it this way?" They both walked off with a slight limp since their bodies were nowhere near recovered, and as they did two people watched them.
One of them was fawning over how adorable they were together and the other had his arms crossed. "I'm pretty sure he knows you forgive him. At least he solved the case."
"Oh Zeko-chan! The flowers are so beautiful!" She admired the lilacs as well as she could while he just chuckled with joy. "Hey what're you laughing at?"
"Just at how beautiful you are when you admire the little things. I'm glad he's turning out so strong already, but I'm also a little scared at what'll happen when he meets his other half."
She waved him off with a groan. "Quit being such a little girl, he's gonna be fine. Let's just go back, I'm putting those in a vase when we get there." She took the flowers and they took their leave.
"Huh?" Zeko turned around and saw that the flowers he set down were gone, vanished without a trace.
"Something wrong?"
He turned around and felt a darkness leave his heart, not all of it but some of it. He felt better than he had in months and he just shook his head at her. "Just the wind."
Back where he looked he just saw something that he could finally let rest, something that ate away at him for so long.
Kusanabe Yokano, wonderful mother and perfect wife
Author's notes: I'm not crying, you're crying. This was was a long time coming and cathartic as it was, there are even more questions. See ya next time
