Howdy everybody!
GINORMOUS shout out to anthonym3 (thank you so much, man), firetemplar415, radeklegia (she might do that, yeah…), Uzumaniac, biginferno, OmegaRealism, shinobinoyami16 (maybe, you'll have to read to find out), Antex-The Legendary Zoroarc (thank you!), lord 7th, TheKing91 (I'm glad you're enjoying the story, man. I appreciate it), TigrezzTail, Saiyan prince1 (we'll see…thank you!), Arria, Bakaneko, evanescent173, bumike99 (I'm excited to write it, thanks for reviewing!) and lordshuvra (I appreciate it, man, thank you). You're all wonderful people :)
Note: A scene change in this chapter will drop you guys smack dab in the middle of the war, like…right in there. Be ready. And a warning before you guys start…this chapter contains depictions of violence and gruesome deaths. It is not for the faint of heart.
Cool?
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 19
Naruto dragged his wife into their assigned bedroom inside the Kazekage's mansion and clicked the lock on the door after him.
He spun around to Sueki and looked down, peering deep into her eyes with a straight expression. "What's happening? Where's the fire?"
The white haired woman tenderly grabbed her husband's hands and the man unconsciously rubbed his thumbs on the back of her hands, putting her at ease. She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "You know how I've been visiting my family's archives?"
"Yes…"
"I found something in there one of my ancestors wrote. She said that members of my family, pure blood Sakenomi, that is," Like herself. "Could bear only one child every sixty years. On average. She did an experiment centuries ago and found this out."
Naruto's eyebrows slithered up his forehead. "Isn't that…a good thing…?"
"I don't want to wait that long before we have a child."
Naruto sighed with a tired smile. "I'm not going anywhere, Su. What's the rush?"
"I…" she faltered in her statement and cast her eyes away, muttering. "Sensei…I want children, even if they're not my children by blood…children running around the house, making breakfast for them and getting them ready for school, patching up their bruises…Naruto-sensei…even if I am unable to have children for you…I want to be able to raise your children."
Naruto's face turned with suspicion and he drew out her name. "Sueki…"
"No…its fine…I've already reconciled myself to this option long ago. Until I can give you a child myself."
Shooting in the dark, Naruto hesitantly suggested. "…Adoption…?"
The red eyed woman glanced up at Naruto, unimpressed at him dodging her obvious message. "The children in the orphanage already see you as their father, adopting one won't make much of a difference." Naruto visited the country's orphanage regularly, and the feelings of being a mother grew in Sueki's gut each time she accompanied him. "I'm talking about…something else."
From what Naruto could remember, Sueki's mother was a very loving woman. Whether it was her own blood daughter, or him-Naruto-or their friends, she poured out her love to them.
The woman had plenty of love to give.
This amount of love was most likely passed onto her daughter, hidden deep under layers and layers of unconcern and cold, stoic indifference.
Naruto lifted his right hand, still in her soft grasp, and turned her chin gently to face him. "You have to tell me what you're talking about or else I'll misunderstand." He grinned cheekily. "And you know I probably will."
Sueki huffed in frustration. "Sensei…I'm fine with you…having children with another woman."
The blonde's head jerked back in shock. He released her hands and wiggled his pinkie finger in his ear. "I'm sorry, what did you just say…?"
Sueki smirked invisibly and crossed her arms. "I'm ok with you sleeping with another woman." She saw the joy fighting for domination in her teacher's eyes but he rightly kept it out in favour of self-control. The woman laughed airily, quickly adding. "But only someone we really trust and only as long as I have sex with you two sometimes. I've always wanted to be in a threesome. It's been on my bucket list since Kushina came out. Think of this as killing two birds with one stone; you get to nail two women and I get to nail a woman." The vampire beamed up at her husband. "Win-win."
Naruto felt heat bubble up from his gut; he covered his mouth with his hands, keeping himself from gushing and his eyes from tearing. "Sweet…kami."
"Or…you don't like tha-"
"I do!" Naruto exclaimed much too quickly and much too loudly. He rushed to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "I do."
The honesty of his words shone through his cerulean eyes.
Naruto gulped thickly at the hungry grin that cracked on her face, her seductively slow lick of her lips and her fangs gradually protruding down. He thought he had seen how far his wife was willing to take their sex life. He thought pet-play or master-slave roleplay or extreme exhibitionism was the extent of her sexual adventurousness.
But no…
Their craziest sex escapade once involved ropes, hot wax, a bar of soap and a bowl of ramen. But the whole teacher-student, master-slave roleplay was something the couple normally gravitated towards.
It felt…natural.
Weekends were especially hectic in their house.
Naruto was now seeing his wife in a whole new, much cooler light.
He cleared his throat tensely as he felt his pants tighten. "W-Who did you have in mind?"
Sueki stood up on her toes, so close to his face, and whispered. "We'll talk about that later."
The hungry woman flicked off his wide brimmed hat and hastily threw off her clothes, struggling for a moment to hop out of her pants. Naruto hurriedly pulled off his Leader's robe and tossed off his shirt. He picked up his giggling wife and brought the tittering vampire into a hot kiss, his 'lips' meshed with hers sensuously.
The couple fell onto their bed and didn't leave the room for another hour or so.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Office of the Kazekage
"I'm going to exploit a common fear."
Naruto sat back in his chair on the other side of the Kazekage's desk and looked at the Sand Leader with a raised eyebrow. "And that is?"
"Jinchuriki going berserk."
"Ah, of course…" Naruto bobbed his head slowly. "That's a good idea; it'll be difficult to logically link the berserk beast holder to any specific village."
Rasa scoffed, proud of himself. "That's why I chose it."
The masked blonde shrugged. "Whatever. Like I said before, leave the cover up to my ninjas and I." a corner of his eyes smiled lightly. "Give us a dead body and we'll make it look like a suicide."
"What if the body has been dead for…say…five years and the person died of food poisoning?"
"Even better." Naruto answered with a laugh. "It's actually much easier than you think."
Rasa's lips screwed down and he asked. "And I take it you're not willing to teach my village?"
Naruto grinned. "Nope."
The Kage grunted in displeasure and laid out his plan to his friend, while the BLAK Commander sat next to her master, writing down points in the plan to pinpoint weak spots. The Kazekage had a prominent jounin with him in the room, a bandage wrapped ninja by the name of Baki, and he also had with him a Suna councilwoman named Obaa Tachi.
Outside of the office, Rasa and Naruto's guards kept watch; the seal masters of both teams sealed off the office from being eavesdropped by any person that had nature chakra, or chakra in general, inside them.
This meant that, they were warding the place off from Zetsu, also known to Naruto and his allies as Plant man.
It was working.
Zetsu was annoyed.
Panda and Polar Bear, two high level fuinjutsu masters in Naruto's guard detail, could sense the nature chakra but the person's location couldn't be nailed down.
The Plant man was smart enough not to prod the barrier on the Kage's door.
The BLAK Chui-Inku duo, from two different teams, subtly notified their captains and the eight man guard detail swept their senses around for the spot the Plant man was creeping.
The Master of Dark country stayed professional and contributed bits and pieces of ideas to the plan, forming a solid base and building the strategy up little by little, but a part of his mind wondered to why only people born in Dark country could learn Assassination Techniques.
A long time ago, about a year after the civil war had ended, Naruto had commissioned the upper brass of the Suzumebachi clan to research and investigate into the unnamed phenomenon that all average natural born citizens of the country felt. The specific thing Naruto wanted to know was why ninjas of the country went deeper into their arts and burst into the realm of assassins.
The Wasp clan had the most comprehensive library in the country, seeing as back then there was no established Public Library, they also had the knowledge of what their new Leader wanted and how to go about finding the answer.
They did some digging.
This was the official story.
When all the present clans of the country had settled into Dark country and the clanless had arrived as well, there was palpable, toxic darkness in the air. Pockets of this darkness was able to drive a person mad or at worse kill them, but when Lord Yin-Yang had arrived he used his power to push away the darkness but he couldn't destroy it, for he said that even that was out of his power, so he collected the darkness and the deadly animals that resided in it to the place in the northern region that was presently called the Dark Forest. The animals he chased to the caged off area festered and mutated with each coming generation, becoming stronger and wilder, and it was a real task for the Dark Animal Conservation Department of the Civilian Division to keep them docile, prevent the extinction of a species and ensure the animals didn't venture out of the massive gates unless they were authorized by Naruto, and only Naruto, to do so.
The country was called Darkness, or the Country Hidden in the Darkness, because of the blackness that had once covered the land.
There was a residue of the dangerous darkness in the air but far from enough to actually be able to do any kind of harm.
The first settlers of the land had inhaled the raw, thick darkness and were suspected to be the very first to hold said darkness within their beings as a vital part of their chakra networks. The faint remnants in the air was still enough to be inhaled into the body and latch onto their chakra networks, though this could only be so for new born babies, hence why only people actually born in Dark country could use the Silent Art of Assassins.
Ginko Suzumebachi, the clan head, head of the investigation team and who would become the Director of the Shinobi Academy in a few weeks as at that time, had requested he dig further into the subject and Naruto granted him permission. The man and his team had powered through each and every aspect of their research topic, leaving no area for even logical guesses but rather tested and trusted answers, and he noted down and categorized every single morsel of information he and his team discovered.
He presented his findings to his Imperial Leader some weeks later during a council meeting.
The sunglasses wearing Wasp-eyed man had called the innate affinity towards assassination methods, Assassination Techniques.
These techniques were divided into branches; Infiltration, Impersonation, Camouflage, Suppression, Detection, Misdirection, Assassination, Cover-up, Memory, Stealth and Mastery.
These eleven branches were unique to Dark born because they did not need chakra to do much, if anything at all, and they could do it with ease. Aptitude for the techniques could not be passed down from parent to children.
At a point during Naruto's earlier leadership, he and his council had conducted an experiment; they had two groups, ten children and ten adults, both groups were split in half equally, differentiated by one half being from Darkness and the others not being from Darkness. Each group was taught the very same way with the very same teaching methods and with an equal amount of break time. The aspect of Assassination Technique they were taught was Impersonation, specifically what, at the time, was considered a simple high official impersonation.
Any decent Dark ninja should be able to do it.
Both groups with adults and children not of the country found it hard, if not impossible, to understand the lesson. The use of Henge, or illusions in general, were not involved but rather on the detail of the persons voice, projecting their voice, their targets persona, mannerism and behaviour, the curious way he walked, his peculiarities and things like that. For instance, any average person would need a touch of chakra in their throats to convincingly impersonate another person's voice but it wasn't so for the assassins of the country.
Detail was the emphasis of the Impersonation branch of Assassination Technique; Onion and Carrot did not have any formal kind of training with Assassination Techniques but they had managed to impersonate a whole family they had only read from on paper right down to the clipped steps of the grandmother, enough to fool the ambushing Konoha ninjas until it was too late. Sure, illusions were used but it wasn't illusions that changed their voices, walked for them or had them act as carbon copies of the civilian family.
Those that were from Dark country, born and raised, grasped the lessons with the speed of ravenous wolves.
Subsequently, those that were not of the country could not fathom the lessons. Further effort on their plan resulted in overworking themselves, feelings of being useless and incompetent, questioning their intelligence and purpose in life, lack of confidence in their abilities and, in some extreme cases, depression. Two of the experiment subjects ended up killing themselves for their apparent failure and a young boy had turned to burning his palms to rid himself of the irrational feeling of being looked down upon.
No one looked down on Dark born allies-that is River, Uzushio, Kiri and Suna people born in Darkness-. They had their own strengths; they didn't need to be able to use Assassination Techniques to be useful to the country. Their devotion to their precious Leader was enough. Hell, some citizens of the assassin nation that were born in the country didn't end up becoming ninjas and turned towards the civilian route.
Assassination Techniques was inducted into the school curriculum of the Shinobi Academy but Naruto ultimately decided that only natural born citizens of his country could be allowed to attend the classes so as to prevent any more cases of abject depression or suicide among his ninjas. The classes were evenly spread out among the four years, until the students graduated, where they would be tasked to Master the techniques by themselves, thereby fulfilling the last branch.
A famous case of a person outside of the country that had unknowingly taught himself Assassination Techniques was the Ghost, Naruto, who in turn unknowingly taught it to his first student, Blood, the Vampire Empress, Ketsueki.
Orochimaru had only formed the bulk of the foundations of Naruto's ninja abilities but when the man had left, assigning his former student to continue his training by himself, Naruto had consciously branched towards the quieter, more covert arts on his own volition.
There was a story being taught in the Assassination Classes of how a merchant in Hidden Salt Water had gotten himself into a lot of trouble and immediately called for help from his home country; the man had killed an aggressive councilman in self-defence and there was no rational way he could escape the country without being caught, for he was as civilian as they came. A team was swiftly dispatched to the nearby Hidden Village, one prominent member of the team was a woman named Kireina Agamori, who would later on enter BLAK and become BLAK operative Squirrel. She was a chunin at the time.
The team arrived in time and made the self-defence murder wound look like an old, self-inflicted wound. The team stayed hidden in the village, watching the trader's back, and when the Salt water ninjas investigated, their verdict was that the councilman had died from choking on a meatball whilst he was having dinner with the trader.
Even the most stoic person would have to admit that changing a crime scene from a brutal self-defence murder to choking on food was impressive.
Of course the real story was kept a secret and the trader left Salt Water months later without being held down.
A few of his ninjas who subsequently became BLAK operatives had first made their names making full use of their inherent assassin skills, like Lion, Black Bear, Cockroach, Turkey and Wolf, among other shinobi.
Naruto smirked secretly as they finished up their planning.
They could handle Cover-up.
It might sound cocky and conceited but it was the truth.
Naruto looked to his the BLAK Commander and she shook her head, indicating that there weren't any more holes to be filled. He turned back to the Kazekage after the silent talk with the vampire and asked. "When do we leave?"
"How quickly can you get your people together?"
Naruto jabbed to the other man's door. "Right now." Sueki sent a sharp hum through the BLAK tattoo on her right upper arm and three ninjas marched into the office. Naruto turned a bit to his left, casting an eye on Panda, Phoenix, Komodo Dragon and Koala went down on their knees behind him, bowing their heads and placing their hands on their hearts. He jerked his head to them and Sueki sent out a Morse code through her black ops commander tattoo to only the four masked ninjas, sending out a variation of vibrations to the seal by focusing chakra to that point on her arm. The four remained motionless as they received the message. This quick communication took ten seconds of thick silence and Sueki, looking up from her jotter, flicked her eyes to the Kazekage, then to her Leader. "Plant man."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Inside here?"
"Outside the door."
Rasa narrowed his eyes. "Can you get him?"
Sueki looked to him, sensing the man's frustration at not being able to sense the nature chakra being hiding outside of his office attempting to break through the seals. "Only if he touches the seal."
A twisted smile crawled onto Naruto's face. "He's like a stubborn mosquito." His regret was that the people he knew could nab the plant man primarily made up the DC-namely, the Hogo clan-. The mole summoning clan sustained their youth and vitality with nature chakra. A few of them were sage's but only a handful of said sage's were active members of Naruto's black ops, and said ninjas were on missions far from the country. Naruto's eyes brightened and he got off his seat. "Permit me to try something."
"Is it going to destroy my village?"
Naruto laughed. "Oh don't worry, old friend, nothing too bad will happen." He smoothly walked to the door and cracked it open, saying. "You said you're ready to go on the mission now, right?"
"Yes." Rasa answered sceptically, unsure of what was brewing inside of the other man's mind.
"Then let's go."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Ten minutes later
A team of four Suna ninjas, plus the Kazekage, and four BLAK operatives, including Naruto and Sueki (making twelve), silently blazed on the hot desert sand. Their feet crunched quietly on the sand and their heads were lowered, focused on their destination far north of the village.
Iwagakure.
Unlike the rest of the continent, there was no sign of fighting or destruction in the desert.
Simply sand.
Sand as far as the eye could see.
The sun beat down on them and the scorching wind blowing in from the east forced beads of sweat to form on their brows but the group were professional ninjas, and at some point in the past they had trained their minds and bodies in the swelteringly hot deserts of Sunagakure.
Rasa could have very well carried them to Iwa on an assembled mass of gold sand but Naruto had declined, saying they could be spotted.
Everyone was silent.
Everywhere was silent.
Naruto's BLAK Commander then mutely waved her left hand and her black ops subordinates surrounding Naruto pelted outwards, away from their master, ushering with them their Suna comrades.
Naruto clapped his hands and meshed his fingers together, shifting his hands to form the Dragon hand seal. A single bolt of lightning cracked out from the top of his head and shot into the cloudless, clear blue sky. The white hot chakra creation circled high above them in a flash of light, expelling black smoke and quickly forming a thick black cloud about two miles wide.
In a few seconds, a thunder storm was rolling through the desert, weeping jagged shards of white electricity and a light shower of inky black rain.
The droplets of Poison Smoke Rain bent away from the Suna and Dark ninjas running away from the man that had created the storm, fizzling lightly as they touched the sand, almost as if they knew better than harm them.
Naruto's white and black Leader's robe flapped wildly in the violent wind, as his comrades fled away from him for their own protection, and he stopped running, standing with his knees bent, his shoulders hunched and his fingers still curled into the hand seal.
A bigger bolt of lightning came screaming down from the centre of the summoned thunder cloud and smashed into the nape of Naruto's neck.
Naruto grit his teeth as atmospheric nature chakra poured into his body, shooting to each of his tenketsu, zapping each of his muscles and threading itself through his organs. White energy leaked into his serenely blue eyes and veins cracked out from the corners of his eyes, stopping at his ears and pulsing with white energy.
Making sure the black cloud spiralling above didn't go out of control and roll towards Suna, several miles away. The black rain lessened under Naruto's tight control. Blindingly white bolts of lightning cried and shrieked down, crashing into the sand and turning it into glass, scorching a few areas black.
Nature chakra soaked through his very being and Naruto exhaled heavy black smoke through his tightly clenched teeth, feeling the Poison Smoke Rain fall on him but not leaving a trace.
This was much more powerful than when he was seventeen years old.
Zetsus eyes widened in realization and he slipped through the ground, fleeing, as Naruto uttered two terror inducing words.
"White Noise."
The sky groaned painfully as the storm cloud rumbled.
Naruto's eyes flicked up and he grinned savagely. "Got you~"
The blonde man's Soul Form oozed out of his body, tearing through the sandy ground and leaving scorching hot glass in his wake.
"SHIT!" Zetsu yelled as he sped through the ground as fast as he could, dreading to look over his shoulder, fearing that the man giving chase was now above his shoulder.
This was the fastest Zetsu had ever run in his whole life.
No matter where he turned, the cloud of blackness above him crouched through the sky after and the bonfire of atmospheric nature chakra doggedly followed from behind him.
Naruto's Soul Form raised his right hand as his feet rushed under him, curling his fingers to form a hand gun and muttering. "Sleep Paralysis." Zetsu swerved under a giant rock jutting out from the ground and proceeded his attempt at escape. The jagged shot blew up the rock and Naruto harmlessly passed through the shower of stones and debris, shooting bolt after bolt of paralysing lightning after his target.
Zzt-zzzzt-tzzzt-ttttzzzzzt-zzt-zzzzzzt-zt-zzzzt
The relentless attacks kept coming tirelessly.
White Zetsu clones bled out of the plant man's back, flapping their hands wildly in an attempt to distract the Malevolent Spirit chasing their summoner, and rushing towards the Master of Lightning release, and Naruto shot them all down, sensing that they were all decoys for the main source of nature chakra running away from him.
In the end, being faster than the speed of sound wasn't something Zetsu could reach.
The humanoid creature giving chase sped past him with a roll of thunder from the infuriatingly stalking black clouds above them, and spun around, flowing back towards Zetsu and leading with a brain rattling straight punch to his face. The blow caved in Zetsu's face, driving crackles of electricity into its head and deep into its soul, blasting it back with an explosion of light.
The power in the single blow had his limp body careening through the storm riddled desert, crashing and smashing on the ground. His back bounced off the glassy ground and finally its Venus flytrap head crashed into an erected wall of earth, courtesy of the human-liking creature Naruto had become.
Naruto pointed to the sky, at the massive black cloud, and forcefully swiped his finger down to where Zetsu was currently reeling in agony.
A particularly vengeful arc of lightning screamed down from the heavens and ripped into the plant man.
CCCCRACK!
Naruto ran to the crater of glass Zetsu was lying into and skidded down into it, hovering over the curious looking spies unresponsive, crisply burnt body. The blondes body phased into existence once again, the one that ran about at a slower pace in turn faded out of existence, and the glasses wearing Ghost stared down at the panting mess below him.
Naruto slowly bent down on one knee and cocked his head to the side. Light from the lightning high above them glinted off his glasses, casting a grim, ominous light over his face.
The lightning monster's eyes raked over what he had done to the white and black plant man; Zetsu's lower torso was burnt right down to his knees from the last attack and green blood freely ran down his nose. His head has returned back to its normal shape but there was still a fist imprinted smack dab in the middle of his face.
Naruto recognized the mostly burnt Akatsuki robe on the plant man's body.
Naruto glared and thunder shook the earth.
He held up his right hand and formed his country's horned hand sign. "Remember this?"
Zetsu coughed out green blood, feeling his nature chakra core succumbing to the saturated atmospheric nature chakra coursing through him from the very last attack. He blinked blurrily and hacked painfully, feeling life slip out of his body.
"I don't need any answers from you, whatever your name is." Naruto said with a terse frown and he stood up. "All I know is that…Nagato is smart enough to know not to mess with me. You were followed me by yourself for whatever reason and you tried to sabotage the progress of my country."
Zetsu's hands shakily lifted up, begging for mercy. "Please-"
Naruto hummed with a smile and pointed his right hand gun down to the plant man. "Nope."
BANG!
Zetsu's head fell open.
This time it wasn't a paralyzing attack or even a painless bolt but a simple, atmospheric nature chakra saturated shot of electricity straight to the head.
Zetsu stood no chance.
"And just to make sure…" Naruto flipped through five hand seals and hopped out of the glassy crater. "Fire release: Great Fireball technique."
The man blew the tremendous inferno of raging white fire down into the deep, glassy depression the dead plant man was inside.
Naruto stared down at the burning white inferno inside the glass crater with a blank expression. Then the corners of his eyes turned down and he looked down emptily, invisibly searching for emotions to feel, for he had just killed and incinerated the person that drove a wedge between him and his very first friend, Nagato. The creature burning in the hole in the ground was the one that planted the preposterous, insane idea in Nagato's head for world peace through world domination.
The bright white flames reflected off Naruto's sky blue eyes as he looked into himself for some sort of joy.
Or relief.
Anything.
The Ghost hummed. "Strange…I don't feel anything…"
Maybe he was too emotionally foregone, that the number of bodies on his title and the amount of blood on his hands was clouding his conscience.
Or maybe, as now the plant man was dead, he had now completely disconnected himself from Nagato and Konan.
…And Ameagakure.
Rasa came up to his side, glancing over the white flames and turning to his old friend. "…Something wrong?"
Naruto was silent for a short moment, before he looked to the Kazekage with a faint smile and a sagely laugh in his eyes. "I…was thinking about lunch."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Fifty five minutes later
Earth-Stone country Flatlands
"Move forward!" an Iwa squadron commander bellowed when the ninjas in his command had trampled over the trenches and traps set by enemy forces.
"AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!"
The Iwa-Stone allied forces charged onwards, yelling battle cries and hurtling to their opponents on the other side of the flat plain. The Waterfall-Konoha allies roared in turn and sped to their enemies.
Leading the charge was the squadron commander, a tall, red haired man with a black handlebar moustache and an Iwa forehead protector with four short horns jutting straight out from each corner. The man was in a dark brown short sleeved shirt and black ninja pants with white combat sandals, a protective jounin flak was over his torso and spinning in his right hand was a blurry eight and a half foot long war hammer that expelled piping hot steam with each revolution.
The man bellowed and bent down; ramming his head into the first few ninjas he made contact with, stopping abruptly and throwing a straight kick into a Kunoichi's chest, kicking off the broken ninja and turning into another kick, one that cracked against the side of the head of a man unfortunate enough to be in his way.
Steam blasted out of the man's pores as he swung his massive hammer, taking out four Konoha ninjas.
The holder of the Five Tailed Horse breathed out steam from his nose and jerked his elbow back, breaking a ninja's face, ducked under a swing from a katana and turned around with a wicked left hook, dislodging the victims jaw.
The man's strength came from Boil ninjutsu, which in turn came from the Gobi.
The commander spun his mallet, deflecting a hail of shuriken. He grunted as two slipped past and jammed into his chest, but the man slammed the butt of his war hammer into the ground and a tsunami of steam wailed out of his form, pouring forward towards the Waterfall-Leaf side of the battlefield.
"Get back!" a Waterfall squadron leader shouted, retreating from the wall of heat surging towards him. A few of his comrades were caught in the blast, their skin turned red and harsh, cruel blistered festered on their skin. Their eyes popped and their ear drums exploded, pouring out blood from their ears. The Waterfall commander bounded three more steps forward and flipped around swiftly, flashing through some hand seals. "Water release: Water Encampment Wall!"
The man exhaled and a wide spreading wall of water rushed out of his mouth, covering him and a handful of his subordinates. The lower ranked positioned themselves behind their Waterfall commander and followed suit, flowing through the hand seals without need for command and the wall of water grew longer and larger. The thick white steam clashed against the wall and the ninjas behind stubbornly held their hand seals, baring their teeth in concentration. None of them held water affinity but that was that limitation was cancelled out as plenty of them were holding up the water wall.
They could hear the stampede of Iwa-Stone ninjas coming from the other side of the water wall formation.
A Konoha squadron commander looked over his shoulder from his own section of the wall and roared.
"Water users! Clear a path!"
The recovering allied force behind him bent down onto the ground and yelled. "Hai!" Those keeping up the water wall bent forward ever so slightly and their bodies tensed in preparation.
The true water users among the Waterfall-Leaf ninjas ran forward and used the backs of those holding the water walls as launch pads, leaping over the walls and flashing through seals.
"Water release: Water Absorption Dragon!"
The shinobi breathed out and several dark blue dragons roared out of their mouths, opening its maw wide open and flying straight into the thick steam, sucking in the water droplets in the air, as well as stray human chakra lingering about.
The ninjas holding up the wall released their jutsu and wind users flowed past them.
"Wind release: Great breakthrough!"
The Waterfall-Konoha forces ran as the wind users scattered the stray beast chakra in the air, locking horns with the Iwa-Stone ninjas coming at them and already in combat with the water users from before, the ones that had dispelled the steam the Five Tails holder had created.
The Iwa commander-the Gobi jinchuriki-was in the thick of the battle.
He brought his right foot down and flatted the foot of another ninja, snapping his leg sideways and breaking the same ninjas shin and spinning around, smashing his hammer into the victims face, tearing off his head. The head cracked into another Konoha ninjas head and felled one last person, while the culprit was handling more of his opponents.
He grabbed a Kunoichi by her face and drove his knee into her gut, breathing steam out onto her face and grunting as a two-fingered strike to his neck connected, hitting his marble hard throat, digging deep inside and pushing his jugular. He tightened his muscles, stopping himself from skidding backwards. His throat throbbed painfully and he opened his mouth, ready to bath the whole area before him in blistering hot steam in retaliation for whoever had attacked him, whether or not his Boil ninjutsu would kill a comrade or not.
His eyes turned a resentful shade of red, and he coughed.
His eyes bugged out of their sockets.
He looked around him and noticed that his side of the battle was being pushed back.
He rubbed his throat, throwing a nose shattering knee into a ninja he couldn't clearly identify and breaking the sternum of yet another shinobi. He tried to speak and wheezed in pain.
He felt foreign chakra run through his system and he bared his teeth, his throat pulsed in pain, and ran his own chakra through his system, burning the foreign chakra out of his body.
His eyes blurred and he swayed, managing to deflect a tanto with the side of his hammer but drop his weapon as most of his strength left his arms. He ducked a slash aiming to lop off his head and swung his right foot into the persons side, swaying dizzily after doing so.
'What's happening, Horse?'
The Horse tailed beast inside the seal shifted and got himself more comfortable inside the solid iron cage he had been housed in for years. "Your blood has been infected."
The Gobi holder hacked and brought his hand up to his neck. The colours and sounds of the world around him blurred and meshed together as he saw blood on his hands from his throat.
On instinct alone, the middle aged jinchuriki grabbed a fist with his now free hand and yanked it down, throwing the attacker down onto the ground and savagely stomping on his head.
'How is that even possible? When did this happen?' his bleary mind wondered as he wobbled, finally noticing the cries of death about him. The jinchuriki had total control of the beats chakra in his person and his metabolism was strong enough to expel any toxin but a direct attack on his blood of this magnitude and potency was something he hadn't ever felt before.
And it terrified him.
'Burn it out!'
The peaceful horse beast tittered to itself and perched its head on its forearms. "Don't feel like it."
The beast held no loyalty to Iwa anyway.
Why should it bother helping the village that was purposely depriving him from its freedom?
The Jinchuriki's felt his knees hit the ground.
His body flopped onto the ground.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard his Stone counterpart yell. "Fall back! Fall back!" Someone ran up to him, his footsteps thumping on the ground with each bound, and hefted him up onto his shoulders.
Slithering unseen in the mad fray for escape, a sentient glob of gold sand that had previously been impersonating an Iwa ninja, zipped to the outskirts of the battle, over to a hill on the Suna-Stone border, and slipped into Rasa pants leg, seeping into a storage seal on his calf.
When the clone-slash-Iwa-imposter had been made, Sueki had given it a single drop of its blood on the tip of its finger and kept it from coagulating by mental command. The Gobi jinchuriki had not seen the attack coming, for he did not think a comrade from his very own village would strike him with the nerve attack to the throat. The clone had introduced the vampire's blood into the tailed beast holder's blood stream via the nerve strike that had created a deep cut.
Rasa looked to Sueki, who had her eyes fixed on the battleground, her red eyes shrunk down to the size of pinpricks. Her expression gave nothing away and her dark red half mask cast an ominous look on her face. The woman's white hair billowed with the wind as she kept track of the jinchuriki she had infected with her blood.
"The Five Tails isn't fighting." She finally said, her voice low.
"That's good, isn't it?" Naruto asked from behind his BLAK Commander, holding a bento tin with one hand and a pair of chopsticks with the other. The trio of Legend Class ninjas were the only ones on the hill, as their subordinates had used the fighting to creep into the Iwa camp. Naruto picked at his food with his chopsticks and ate, humming with a smile.
"It means it would take longer for my blood to be burnt out of his system. Just about twenty minutes."
Depending on the number of tails of the beast and the amount of control the jinchuriki had over said beast, the longer Sueki could make the person her zombie. She had been taught by Naruto that if she could kill the jinchuriki before she made the person her zombie, then it would be better because not only would she have a ninja under her control but also one with a beast sealed in them.
Sueki, during the Second War, had been able to infect the immediate former Four Tails holder and the Seven Tails holder. She was fifteen at the time.
It was also during that war that she had gotten her moniker.
Blood, the Vampire Empress.
An army from Iron country of no less than three hundred master samurai had invaded Ame and the girl had halted the force with a spider web of blood attacks; she directly infected fifty, biting down on their necks and drinking their blood, those fifty would infect a hundred, those hundred would continue the string of infections until no one was safe.
All became her zombies.
Mifune accepted defeat rather than his whole country become food for the zombies, and called his forces back to the country. The pride of the samurai Leader had been struck that day but he swore to leave Ame alone.
This didn't stop Sueki from ordering her zombies to kill themselves.
Her feat had earned her an affectionate pat on the head from her teacher.
The vampire flushed a dark shade of red underneath her half mask as she remembered that wonderful day; her master's acknowledgement of her strength greatly eclipsed anything else that had happened that day, including the mass control and murder of over three hundred samurai, forcing a country to retreat and creating a powerful enemy in the person of Mifune.
Sure, Iron country hated Sueki with a burning passion but she didn't much care.
Naruto was happy.
Naruto loved her.
That's what truly mattered.
"Your seal masters would loosen the seal and I'll take him into the village." The merciless white haired lady said in a dull voice. She pulled back her long sleeved red shirt, checking her digital watch. "In…two minutes…" her eyes wondered and Naruto raised an eyebrow, pausing as he made to each a clump of coconut rice.
"What's wrong?"
"The beast…it wants to talk to me…"
The two ninjas turned to Rasa in sync and the Kazekage groaned. "Fine…you have five minutes."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Five Tailed Jinchuriki Mindscape
The Five Tailed Horse watched, intrigued, a blood red chakra rushed through the seal and swirled before its cage, forming a pale skinned lady with white hair tied into a neat pony tail that was thrown over her right shoulder. She was in a long sleeved red shirt and black combat pants with red sandals with a jounin flak jacket on her middle and a knee length black cloak thrown over her shoulders, covering most of her body. There was a large symbol for Dark country stamped on her back-a pair of curved horns pointed downwards-and a forehead protector with the same symbol proudly displayed on it. The lady wore a red half mask and her equally red eyes illuminated through the depressing lighting of the Jinchuriki's dim mindscape.
The general area was simply a tall plateau that held the solid iron cage the beast was sitting inside. There was no sun but there were still a strange source of light coming from somewhere.
The woman marched close to the cage and the beast looked on, interested.
She stopped a foot from the cage and looked up, maintaining eye contact even as the horse beast stood up onto its feet and looked down on her.
"I never would have thought I'd ever meet the infamous Blood. The one to command four hundred non-humans." It began, a sharp grin spread on its face as its dolphin-like teeth glinted in the low light. Once Sueki had infected a person without the intention of allowing said person free, the person had lost their status of being human and became zombies. A quiet laugh passed the horse's maw. "It's now clear to me why Sora lost to your blood infection."
Sueki's lips threatened to twitch down. "You know who I am?"
"This one," Referring to its jinchuriki. "Holds a grudge with many shinobi. I merely read his emotions and pick out the useful parts."
"…Is there a reason you called me here?"
"Yes…yes…" the horse settled back down and its eyes stayed with Sueki's bright red orbs. "I take it you wish to destroy Iwagakure."
"Not so much as destroy but more…cripple."
"And you also plan to do so by releasing me in the very centre of the village, correct?"
"That is correct, yes." The horse's mere presence would ebb boiling hot steam chakra about and roast alive a great many number of innocent and not so innocent people. Any kind of movement would shake off more and more chakra, like a hairy animal shedding skin. This would happen unless the beast was either sealed or the beast super suppressed its entire being, which was something tailed beasts preferred not to do for the simple reason of it being uncomfortable.
"I do not know nor do I care for the reasons you wish to 'cripple' Iwa but I wish to make a deal with you…" another grin etched onto its long, dolphin-like face. "Or do you have a way for me to speak to your master…?"
Sueki narrowed her eyes at the beast's tone of voice. "You'll have to make do with me."
The monster laughed aloud. "I did not mean to offend, vampire."
The white haired lady shook her head slightly. "What deal do you want to make?"
"…When I am released and I 'cripple' Iwagakure, as you say…I will lend Darkness my strength and my chakra but in exchange…I want to live in your country's Dark Forest."
"Why?"
"I believe this has never been written in any history book….My siblings and I…we were 'born' in the place that is now known as Dark country…"
The woman's eyebrows shot up into her hairline.
"The darkness that used to cover your country was residue from when we were separated from the Ten Tails."
"Ten tails?"
The Gobi smiled sadly. "Ah, yes, that too was never recorded."
"Suppose I believe you, that you and the other beasts were born in my country, then why do you want to return?"
"I was sold to Iwagakure by Hashirama decades ago, for the price of maintaining balance on the continent, so he said, and I have been passed on from one cage to the other ever since." It looked around at its present cage with disdain. "I want to know freedom, vampire." It sighed as it saw the suspicion on the woman's red eyes. "Dark country is my home too, our home. I suspect my siblings also wish to return to their place of birth. I only want to live in peace outside of a cage. I don't care if its in the Dark Forest, all I want is somewhere free. I won't take up much space and I don't require constant feeding, once a week or two should be enough."
Sueki stared at the horse for one long minute, then she sighed, halting the giant monsters bargaining. "You're not lying. I can tell."
The horse beast smiled gently, suspecting that the vampire could sense its emotions. "I want to go home, vampire."
The Kunoichi's shoulders sagged. "At least this is better than just showing up uninvited." The tailed beast was also offering its services to Dark country.
"I do not want to harm anyone. We are…dare I say…family…don't you think? The darkness is the result of my separation from my siblings, or 'birth' from the Ten Tails, and you humans have since made your home there." the horse's eyes dimmed considerably. "Even though I want Darkness all to myself…I cannot bring myself to kick you people out."
The giant monster was unexpectedly polite, Sueki thought to herself. The manners and attitudes of each tailed beast wasn't something anyone had ever noted before. The only person that had spoken with them for a prolonged period of time was Hashirama and he didn't give any details on their behaviours.
All humans knew was that the chakra of each tailed beast was unique and toxic to humans, and so the monsters had to behave like their chakra, as the behaviour of humans too was linked to their chakra; the Uchiha were fiery, the Hozuki were cool tempered-most of the time-and so on.
That was their logic.
Kyuubi, for example, bore the world's most toxic and evil chakra, making it the strongest beast on the planet, so strong only a person with a special strain of chakra in a specific clan could dream to contain it within themselves.
There was no way such a powerful beast with such chaotic, evil chakra could have a personality other than being evil himself.
Hence, the beasts were presumed to not have any personalities.
That was the general assumption.
It was…shockingly easy to hold a conversation with the horse beast.
Sueki prided herself on being a good judge of character and she had been able to pick out that the beast before her, who was keeping his steamy, boiling chakra from rolling over her, was quiet, somewhat humble and spoke in an old fashioned polite way.
Her naturally sceptical mind didn't want to trust the beast, for she too wanted to follow the crowd and stay on the safe side by not allowing the horse monster passage into her country, but the minute information she had gathered from the horse's character floated at back of her mind, unavoidable and undeniable.
"…Alright. I'll…I'll try and convince Naruto-sensei to bring you in."
The beast, in a sitting position, bowed its head in appreciation. "You have my thanks, vampire."
"Sueki. You can call me Sueki."
The beast felt a large, genuine smile leap onto its face. "Then you may call me…Kokuo."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Reality
With Naruto and Rasa
The two men shared a look.
No person in history had ever been told the name of a tailed beast by a tailed beast.
They were all simply named after the number of their tails.
Names in general were only shared by the bearer out of respect and as a sign of humility for the other person; it was possible for a name to become so famous every person would know it but it couldn't compare to the bearer providing it themselves.
Sueki knew this too.
"We can find somewhere in the forest for it to live in. I'm not sure if he'll fit though…" Naruto wondered with a large sweat drop on the side of his head. the BLAK HQ was in the forest and there were still many species of animals that lived in the forest.
"He sounded like it knew this too." Sueki provided. "Maybe…he knows what to do…?"
Naruto mumbled to himself, deep in thought. "We're taking a big chance with this, Su…"
"I can vouch for him."
Naruto's blue eyes fixed on her red eyes, searching for any slight doubt.
He found none.
Naruto rubbed his face and groaned into his hands. His hands dropped down onto his side again and he said. "Your senses have never failed us…I'll trust you on this one." He shrugged limply. "Besides…the Gobi could tell us about history…"
"I will take full responsibility of anything that happens during his stay."
"Let's hope nothing bad happens."
Sueki bowed deeply to her teacher.
"This won't mess up the plan, Rasa. Don't worry."
The man scoffed. "I'm not worried. Iwa still gets attacked whether or not the five tails goes to Darkness. It's inevitable at this point."
The BLAK Commander turned away from them and sent out a Morse code message to her team, to be relayed to the Suna ninjas, on the ever so slight change of plans.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
A short while later
Iwagakure
Kokuo galloped through the panicking village, prancing gaily and spreading about its blisteringly hot steam.
People screamed in agony and wailed in torture.
Skin melted from bone, human beings shrivelled up into themselves like salted snails. Iwa ninjas rushed about the frolicking beast but were unable to get closer for the steam burnt without discrimination.
Oonoki whizzed around in the air and shot down a beam of Dust release, the attack crashed into the muzzle of the horse monster and in retaliation the hair on the Gobi's body frizzed out.
The people saw it coming but could not find the needed speed to flee it.
A tsunami of steam rolled out from the monster, one that towered high above it and spread for miles around, blanketing almost half of the village in deadly white heat. The people in the steamy mist howled in torment as large, harsh blisters grew on their bodies, remnants of the beasts own chakra. Those that moved too quickly and their blisters burst died immediately, for exposing the open sore to the beast chakra ridden, skin searingly hot steamy air resulted in a full body paralysis and a nerve in a corner of the brain, the one linked to the increase and decrease of chakra in the body, burst under the strain from the rush of tailed beast chakra.
Oonoki ignored the line of blisters on his left forearm, ones he had gotten from guarding his face as he zipped into the thick white air.
A Tailed Beast Suppression seal burned on his palm.
Once he got in the very centre of the blast, he saw nothing.
Nothing but the festering, bubbling corpses of his people.
Men using their bodies to take the full brunt of the steam, guarding whoever was near them, and women hugging their children dearly, using their backs as shields to hold back the wave of steam. Buildings were crumbling as the bricks and stones used to build them lost their strength, the windows shattered at the slightest breeze and the gravel road became too soft and hot for any person to tread on.
Innocent people…dead.
Their faces twisted in various stages of torment.
Hundreds of thousands of people had died from the beast's attack.
Half of Iwagakure was cordoned off, for the fragments of malicious steam and chakra in the air seared to the slightest touch.
Some days later, the Tsuchikage called all of his forces back to the village.
The Third Great War experienced a great stumble in momentum at the exclusion of the Hidden Rock village.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The next day
Mito's Grassland
Northern Outskirts of the Dark Capital
Dark country
A pure white horse with five, long, swaying tails cantered about the expansive grassland, skipping over a small running stream and stopping by a tall birch tree, rising onto its back legs and neighing joyfully to the heavens.
The horse stood at an outstanding ten feet tall, from the top of his head to its front hooves, and its blue-green eyes danced with mirth with each unrestrained canter about the grassland. There were four protruding horns coming out from his head, his hooves were tan coloured and there were red markings under his blue-green eyes.
There was a noticeably small ebb of steam with each step but this steam only harmlessly settled on each blade of grass or on each tree.
Naruto, standing with his wife and the ink clan's head, Amara, watched the display of the giant five tailed horse running about the field.
It was much, much, much smaller than when it had first stepped into the country.
"Does his choose who gets harmed and who doesn't get harmed by his chakra?" Amara wondered and Sueki, her half mask hanging from her neck, screwed her lips to the side slightly.
"I think this has to do with it giving the Dark Forest most of his chakra."
True to what the vampire was saying, when the beast had been unsealed in the Dark Forest, the palpable darkness of the forest seemed to welcome it back and each tree bent away with each step. The beast's chakra never once left the boundaries of the forest, as each wisp of steam was either absorbed into the ground or into the trees, harmlessly contributing to the ecosystem of the evil, demented forest.
Kokuo had followed his instincts and poured out his chakra into the biggest tree in the forest, thus reducing his size from a mountain to a hill.
The forest accepted his chakra without folding.
This effect of basically storing his chakra in the tree reduced his presence and also the potential threat of death if he was in the proximity of any human. Yes, there was still the danger of his chakra growing again but that could be fixed with a short trip to the forest, and to the tree where his chakra was being housed until he needed it.
Naruto was sensibly wary of the beast, by nature of course.
It felt too good to be true to now have the physical and verbal support of a tailed beast, who gave permission for his people to visit it-within a certain time frame-and who would also teach them of history before Lord Yin-Yang had gathered the darkness into the forest. Kokuo enjoyed the peace and quiet, and the Mito dedicated grassland provided this in spades.
The Boil release would be a great counterpart for the Kemuri Smoke release, because both abilities stemmed from water affinity chakra combining with fire affinity chakra.
Still…he intended to introduce the horse beast to Kushina and gauge her reaction.
"Uncle Ruto!"
The three high officials of the country turned around to the sound of the bright, chirpy voice.
The young lady ran up to her uncle with a warm flush on her cheeks, smiling from ear to ear. "You called?"
Authors note
So ends another chapter of Silent Night.
What do you think?
I wanted to write a bit about what Minato was doing during all this but then I decided not to; this chapter is long enough anyway. Next chapter I might dive into it.
Leave a review on your thoughts, would you so kindly. Please stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.
Foy.