WAR NEVER ENDS – A FLAME EXTINGUISHED
The Valley
The air is still freezing in the darkness of the night. The moon shimmers through the crystalized air as the top layers of the disfigured river slowly begin to turn to ice. In the centre of the brilliant white scene, two lights illuminate the darkness, brighter than the moon and bringing more hope than the sun. One aura is golden, an aura of raw power from which the cold has descended. The other, an orange aura of flame, burning through the cold, leaving perhaps the only few meters of safety for miles around. All life would freeze to death here, save for one man, Kato Dan.
Elliot's calm demeanour has remained, his personality in keeping with the ice-cold atmosphere that he has surrounded the duo with. It is not as before though, he is no longer looking down on everything before him. This is no longer a pathetic world, an easy job for him. He is focused, calm but focused as his eyes rest on his opponent.
Dan has done what Elliot has never seen before. For the first few moments, the General could have sworn that the cold was distorting his own vision. This local, this insignificant local has actually manifested an elemental cloak. A cloak of fire. That is not something that he has seen before. As far as he is aware it has never happened before. According to the military records, Kato Dan is now the most advanced local they have ever encountered.
The headmaster of the new academy launches towards the invading General, his long blue hair trailing behind him like the main of a horse. He arrives before his opponent quickly, before he has a chance to react, or at least before he does react. He holds nothing back as he swings his fist forward, landing a painful blow to the centre of his chest. A source of freezing cold energy just moments ago. Previously the flames appeared overcome by the cold, now, the fire is fighting back.
Elliot creates a layer of cold air around his entire body to protect him. Anyone else who would punch this layer would find the temperature almost unbearable. A weaker man's hand might freeze altogether. Dan is in the perfect position to overcome that though. There is a slight pain but as he forces his hand forward, the General's feet part from the ground beneath him and his body twists as it soars back through the air.
Elliot rolls in the air, his body lengthways, parallel to the ground beneath him. His vision filled with the interchangeable view of the frozen white ground beneath him and the cold black night above. He twists his hips, shifting his body abnormally through the air in a way that only the most powerful of warriors could. When his feet hit the ground he digs them in, launching mud from the ground behind him as he grinds to a halt.
As the soldier comes to a halt he readies himself for the next attack. He is after all a professional fighter, it is his job not to lose in situations like this. He is impressed with his opponent's ingenuity. Dan places his hand behind him, using a beam of fire as a boost, thrusting he and his invading counterpart together.
Elliot raises his foot vertically, kicking up a stray stone from the ground like a kid with a football. The rock raises to his hand and the moment he catches it he concentrates his power. The rock instantly turns from brown to white, frozen. He places his left leg forward, his height is average but he is built like a soldier, he swings from his core and throws the frozen stone as hard as he can towards the incoming shinobi.
'Fast'. Dan didn't expect the difference in their strength to be this great, especially not after activating his fire cloak. He changes the placement of his hand, switching the beam of fire from his behind to his side. The rock grazes his hand as he haphazardly hurtles sideways, a small fleck of blood dropping where his skin is peeled away.
The change in direction has Dan off balance and that is not something which Elliot will miss. He rushes his younger opponent, arriving before him and delivering a punch just like the one he received earlier, only this time to Dan's stomach.
The shinobi activates his beam of fire once again, this time to slow his own backward momentum and grind to a halt opposite his opponent. 'This fight won't be easy'.
Nearby
The students chatter their teeth. The cold reaching even far enough to influence them here. They huddle in a tight circle around a fire Mirai lit herself.
'Incredible, even at this distance I feel like my entire body is about to freeze. This guy is on another level…' Mirai makes this terrifying discovery. This man gives her the same feeling she had three years ago when Naruto fought Clyde. 'Dan, how can you fight someone like this?'.
The Valley
Dan's fire cloak dwindles for a moment so he draws some additional energy from his body and the stone tablet to keep it alight. 'When he hit that last punch, it felt like my blood itself was freezing. This guy wasn't bluffing, his element isn't ice. It's cold'.
As Elliot's feet leave the ground and his sturdy body approaches Dan, the shinobi has an instant to consider a strategy, a method to defeat his opponent. 'However, he is merely a fight. I am a shinobi!'.
Dan creates a barrier between them. A column of pure flame so violent it shakes the earth from where it begins. It travels high up into the sky, stretching from the earth to the heavens.
The column doesn't perturb the incoming general, he has experienced flames far hotter than these and lived to tell the tale. He tightens his fist and strengthens his resolve, and with a single bead of sweat on his brow he shows his value as a soldier. He plunges his hand into the flames and reaches for Dan on the other side. Just a few moments of contact may be enough for him to kill his opponent. A single opening is all he needs. But then he spots it.
Around the side of the column runs the shinobi. It is not the speed he has gone around the column that surprises Elliot, it's the quickness. As a shinobi, Dan is far nimbler than his opponent. Through years of fighting against many opponents and against great odds, shinobi have perfected fighting arts to help them battle adversaries with a similar degree of power. To outmanoeuvre an opponent is something a shinobi trains his entire life for and a soldier dedicates little time to.
This is an opening.
Four times.
Dan hits Elliot unimpeded four times in sequence, each blow stronger and more impactful than the last.
As Elliot launches a counterattack, he realises he has done what a soldier must never do. He panicked. He attacked in haste.
Dan dodges beneath the punch and crosses his fingers, creating a single clone of himself. The clone hasn't the same power as its creator but it is significant enough for its purpose. The clone returns to the former action, swinging a fist towards the general aiming straight for his calculating eyes.
This attack is easy to see through for the general. He simply swings his head to the side, avoiding the incoming punch before tightening his own fist. He swings it, a counterpunch. A counterpunch so strong that it destroys the clone the moment it impacts. Unfortunately, for Elliot, he hadn't realised that the clone would be so much weaker. He believed it had been for some complex tactical purpose. It wasn't. It was simply a distraction.
As a hand takes hold of Elliot by the back of his head. He feels the pressure of five fingers pressing into his skull through his jet-black hair and he starts. Dan has got him.
Dan channels everything through his hand. His charka, all the energy he can take from the stone tablet. Everything. Flames burst from the palm of his hand, engulfing Elliot's head and everything up to ten meters beyond it. The formerly frozen grass begins to melt as the burst of orange and red lights the ground for hundreds of meters. The flames persist for several seconds as the surrounding ground shakes. Dan gives it everything he has got for as long as he can before stopping.
All goes quiet, save for a few deep struggling breaths.
"You almost had me there".
Dan releases his grip on Elliot's head and stumbles back. "How… how did you survive?".
"Anybody with enough power could survive that attack. They only need to create a thin protective layer around their head" Elliot explains as he reaches behind his back to find a few centimetres of singed uniform. He rubs the burnt fabric between his fingers, watching it trickle to the ground with a displeased look.
"Still, I mentioned it once already, didn't I?" Elliot asks. "My element is perfect for a battle against yours. The moment this fight started, you had already lost".
Between the Valley and the Leaf
The otherwise quiet countryside is awakened by the sound of whooshing. A shinobi is passing through at unimaginable speeds.
Uzumaki Naruto.
'Hold on Dan. Just hold on'.
Sarada's House
The door creaks on its hinges before slamming shut. It's a cold night outside, the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees in the last few minutes. Boruto shivers and hangs his jacket up on a coat hanger by the door. He looks to his rear to see that Sarada has just left her living room, approaching him.
"I'm home, Sarada" he declares with a smile.
The 9th Hokage is not in the mood to beat about the bush. "Did you tell your father?".
"I spoke to him about our relationship" Boruto begins, recalling the exact conversation he had with his father. A conversation he had been nervous of for a very long time. He then considers what he actually said to Naruto. "But, I didn't tell him as such".
Sarada doesn't wait for the explanation Boruto is about to give her. Subconsciously she activates the Sharingan. Boruto has always said that those eyes terrify him, not because of the power held within them or the innate talents that come with them but because if he saw them it meant that Sarada was angry with him. She is. She reaches to her side and grabs hold of the nearest object she can, an apple. She amplifies her strength through outstanding chakra control and launches the apple towards Boruto.
Boruto's mouth drops as he dodges to the side at the very last second. He hadn't expected Sarada to be quite this angry. She was angry enough to attack him, to throw an apple at the wall of their house. He then looks at the impact zone, a hole and realises that he was wrong. She was angry enough to throw an apple through their house.
"The neighbours will probably…".
Sarada shouts at him. "Who cares about the neighbours?".
Boruto raises a hand slowly towards Sarada, as if dealing with an enraged gorilla, something which would scare him less than enraged Sarada. "Calm down Sarada".
"We have been together for so long now. Initially I understood your desire to keep it quiet" Sarada begins as she realises what she just did and deactivates her Sharingan. "It complicates things in an official capacity I thought, but then I realised, no, it doesn't. We've been friends since we were small children, since we have become teammates and many recognise us as the closest of friends".
"Sarada…".
"I'm not finished" the Hokage continues.
'She's just like Lady Sakura when she's angry' Boruto thinks to himself but doesn't dare to say aloud.
"Then, I said to you that we should tell people. That we should stop hiding and you reluctantly agreed with me. Yet time and time again you find a reason not to" Sarada shouts at the top of her lungs. If people didn't know before one or two are sure to now. "What are you afraid of?".
"Are you ashamed of being my boyf…".
Slap!
Boruto cuts her off mid-sentence with a slap. "You don't get to say that. I would never be ashamed of that. Being with you is a privilege for me, a pleasure even greater than being shadow Hokage. Far greater".
"Then why…".
"You misunderstood what I said earlier, you didn't let me finish" Boruto explains with a smile. "My dad knows about the two of us now".
"But you didn't tell him?".
"I said that I didn't tell him, as such!" the blonde shinobi snaps. "That means something else altogether".
Sarada apologises for what she just did before reactivating her Sharingan once again. She looks through the walls of the house to see if anybody is outside. There isn't anybody there, nobody is about to knock on the door and complain at least. That's not to say that the neighbours didn't hear them, they almost certainly did the way she was shouting just a moment ago.
"I spoke with him but not in his capacity of being my father. I spoke to him in the capacity of being your teacher".
"My teacher?".
"Yeah, I had to ask him some things about you" Boruto explains as his voice softens. "Because your mother, my master, they're… they're not here anymore".
Sarada is silent for a moment, thinking of her deceased parents and what they would think of this relationship. "You asked about me? Why couldn't you have just asked me whatever you wanted to ask?".
"Shh". Boruto demands silence and places a finger on Sarada's lips. "No, I couldn't ask you this. You are the one person I couldn't ask this Sarada".
"However, I do now have something else to ask you. Something very important".
The Valley
Dan's heart starts to race as he searches his body for more reserves of energy. There isn't much left, just a few traces of chakra and a relatively small amount of energy hidden within the stone tablet. It looks like this is the end for him. It seems there is nothing left that he can do. Still, this doesn't stop him from searching through his head for anything he can think of. He is a brilliant shinobi, he must have some way of surviving in his head.
'If I use the spirit transformation technique I could… no, no, he will kill me before I can possess him'. Tens of ideas pass through his head, ninja tools, summoning's, substitutions, clones but none of them are good enough. They would be enough to survive against almost any shinobi but definitely not against this man. So, he resorts to the only thing he can. The survival instinct. 'I just need to stall for as much time as humanly possible'.
Dan raises his hands, creating a pair of fiery phoenix and sending them towards Elliot.
The general makes quick work of the two flaming birds, a single punch with his freezing cold fists is enough to destroy each of them. A small smile comes to his face as he realises that this is it. He has seen plenty of desperate attacks before, the attacks of a man who has run out of ideas, who is running on fumes and a prayer.
Next, Dan fires a high intensity beam of fire towards Elliot but again the attack is unsuccessful. The cold user simply covers his body in a thin layer of his elemental power as he had before. He walks towards the shinobi headmaster, stepping methodically through the flame. He is slowed by the oncoming inferno but isn't stopped. Step-by-step he proceeds, all the way up to Dan's face.
The pale-haired shinobi refuses to give up until the last second. He has been taught that lesson by so many great shinobi, by the best in history, by every Hokage. It seems to be in vain though. As the seconds tick past the beam of fire weakens and his elemental cloak disappears. Another moments delay is all it takes. Then fire stops flowing from his hands altogether.
Dan's body slumps but he remains defiant. With the little power he has left in his body he throws a kick towards his opponent, missing dramatically due to his own lack of energy.
Elliot uses the opening from Dan's kick. He stamps on the back of his leg, crippling him for the foreseeable future. That foreseeable future is sadly short.
"You did well local but it looks like your efforts are in vain" Elliot muses, "Don't worry though, I will reward your hard work. I will spare the children, at least for today".
A laugh escapes Dan's lips in this moment. He has never felt pain like this before but he can still manage a chuckle at the situation.
"Is something amusing to you?".
Dan looks Elliot in the eyes, "You won't win. Not against Tsunade. Not against Naruto. Not against Mirai. And definitely, definitely not against the Hidden Leaf". The shinobi begins to laugh once again.
Elliot joins in with the laughter. A delusional man or so he believes. He stops laughing and places his hands on the shoulders of his beaten and bruised opponent.
A whoosh of wind comes from the distance and the loud scream of a young man. "STOP!".
It is Naruto.
Unfortunately for Dan, Naruto is too late.
Elliot freezes his body solid before stepping back and swinging his leg as hard as he can at the shinobi. Shattering him to pieces.
Kato Dan is dead.
Naruto stops just a few tens of meters past the children, looking into the distance at the general who just killed his friend. He uses the power of the invaders combined with his own chakra to amplify his eyesight. He spots the general flying into the air, his golden cape floating behind him and his immaculately polished number 1 emblazoned on the chest of his military jacket.
Elliot takes in a deep breath, loudening his voice using the power from his stone tablet. "Tell Clyde it's too late now! War is already here!".
Having made his threat, Elliot keeps his word to his fellow warrior. He turns and flies away.
Naruto takes a step forward, meaning to pursue the killer but something stops him. An invisible force. Kurama's voice. "Naruto, look behind you".
The 7th Hokage does just that and is horrified when he does. He sees what Mirai saw not too long ago. The terrified faces of children whose lives have been in danger. They may well know that their headmaster has just been killed. From the looks on some of their faces, they are relieved, the hero of the hidden leaf has just come to keep them safe. After that, how could he bring himself to leave them.
Naruto sighs and prevents himself from pursuing the enemy.
"Don't worry everyone, it will be fine now".
The first battle in this war, is there loss.