Warning: violence!
A/N: Sorry in advance for the proliferation of footnotes in this chapter... The sequence runs *, **, ^, ^^ because too many asterisks are weird. Enjoy this super long chapter! Splitting it up would ruin the action so I didn't. Remember when I used to write 500+ word chapters? Haha :)
With another judicious application of genjutsu to shield themselves from view, Konan's great paper birds fly Kakashi and Snake over the large lake surrounding the city and past its iron-spiked walls. They circle about the outskirts of the city before choosing an abandoned district to land.
The city's reliance on coal and steam has created a thick black smog that permeates the air, made only just this side of breathable because of the constant rain that washes it out of the sky. The ghosts descend together with the paper birds, the latter skillfully avoiding the spiderweb of telephone lines and the jutting television antennas threatening to impale them. Cement, mortar, iron and wood twist together to from patchwork buildings rising high into the sky. The buildings are built so densely together that the wingspan of Konan's birds reach from one side of the street to the other. Yet beneath all the grime, is an artistry to it — the brutalist* brick walls are mixed with the traditional woodwork of the eaves; and everything is overlain with the unashamed industriousness of the pipes decorating every building and road.
As they land in the back alley of a rundown restaurant, the unfortunate jumble of smells hit the Sakumo hard, making his nose wrinkle in discomfort. The sewer gurgles beneath a rusted grail and a pungent smell of rot seeps out of a garbage can left uncovered. "It's one of the worse areas," one of the paper birds says quietly in Konan's voice as Kakashi and Snake dismount. For someone as nationalistic as she is, it must hurt for foreigners to see this side of her beloved country. "Hanzou's headquarters are in the central district. You can find it just by following the improvement in infrastructure and hygiene."
With a rustle of paper, the birds transform into a pair of mangy black dogs. Blinking raindrops out of gold-amber eyes, one of the dogs gestures with its head for them to follow. "I'll take you to Ishijima. He'll be the one to confirm your cover story about sneaking here via his supply boats."
The dogs trot away and the pair of ANBU trail closely behind. They duck from one winding alleyway into the other, slowing down and hiding when the rare Ame-nin leaps across the rooftops. "Patrols," Konan explains curtly, the fangs of her paper dog flashing as she speaks. "As far as we know, they go one round about the entire city every hour."
Their destination turns out to be the port located at the very edge of the district. On the grey, tempestuous lake that seems more like a sea, large boats bob upon waves as stevedores busy themselves unloading crates. One of the dogs hide with the ANBU behind a stack of empty boxes while the other runs over to a small warehouse guarded by not a few ninja.
The familiar sensation of static building in the air is the only warning the ghosts get before a ball of lightning flashes down from the sky, headed straight for Kakashi and Snake. "Incoming!" Yahiko shouts but Sakumo is already moving, his tanto forming in his hand just in time for the Raiton to meet the flat of his blade and explode into a shower for sparks. Sakumo grunts as the force of the jutsu pushes him back several inches and sends static skipping down his arms.
Cursing silently in his mind, Sakumo quickly takes a sweep of his surroundings. Four, five, no— seven attackers have appeared and there are possibly more hiding within the buildings hemming them in, waiting for a chance to ambush them. They must have known that Ishijima is a contact of Konan's and planned accordingly. Kakashi stares suspiciously out of the corner of his eye at the dark alleyway they're sequestered in but none of the living seem to realise there are jutsus being thrown about.
Yahiko is already busy fending off two weapon-wielding Ame-nin and while another hurls the occasional ninjutsu from a window sill above. They obviously recognise the young man as the ex-leader of the Akatsuki. Hyaku has her scroll unrolled and a snarl on her face as she wipes her bloodied thumb along the seals drawn in the scroll. "Idiots," she growls, "only sending one because I'm a woman?" She grabs at the first punch that comes her way and her attacker doesn't even have time to shout before he is engulfed in blue light and sucked into her scroll.
Sakumo is making quick work of another two shinobi that have tried to sneak up on Kakashi, Snake and Konan - dodge, slash, avoid arterial spray, grab the next, knife him between the ribs - when Rin hurries up to him, her mouth set in a thin line. "I'll protect them, Sakumo-san."
He give her a brief nod and smile, opening his mouth to thank her when he spots a flicker at the edge of his vision "Behind—!"
Rin whips around and the Ame-nin that had tried to ambush her collapses like a puppet with his strings cut, the green light of her chakra scalpel fading from the nape of his neck where his spine has been severed. She glances back at Sakumo over her shoulder and laughs shakily. "I'll be fine."
Patting her on the head and making her scowl, Sakumo steps forward to intercept another attack. The new group is smarter - perhaps realising that his hair is silver not because he's an old frail man but because he's a Hatake - and all of them converge on him at once.
They are a team of three: one female kusarigama** user, one sugegasa^-wearing Suiton user and the Raiton user who had attacked earlier, his face is hidden by one of those rebreathers popular in Ame. Armed with a close-range weapon, Sakumo is at a disadvantage but it isn't anything he hasn't overcome before.
As he parries their strikes and jutsus, he analyses the pattern of their movements and plans accordingly, all the while letting them think he's more predictable than he actually is. Block, slash, stab, parry... Moving further down the alleyway, he lets them surround him in favour of drawing them away from Kakashi and the others.
The opening that Sakumo has been looking for comes when the kusarigama user adjusts her grip on the handle of her sickle. Taking advantage of her loosened hold on her weapon, Sakumo shunshins forward into the range of her weapon, close enough to see the sudden, shocked dilation of her pupils. At this distance, the sickle is unwieldy and she won't be able to brain him with that nasty spiked iron weight. Bringing his tanto under her left arm, he aims for the weak, unarmoured spot that lets his blade slip right into the heart. She grabs for the blade with wide eyes but her blood-slick hand gains no traction; she dies anyway when his other hand comes up to snap her neck.
(If they were in another place, another time, Sakumo would have found it reprehensible to raise his voice at a woman much less his strike her but... on the battlefield, replying a kunoichi with the same brutality that she metes out is the only courtesy he can give.)
The Suiton user goes down much the same way because he cares too much for the dead and dying. The momentary distraction is all Sakumo needs to send him following the kunoichi. Perhaps they had been friends? Teammates? Lovers? Their bodies hit the floor and they're dead (again).
The Raiton user is the most experienced of them all and the kunai he's drawn matches Sakumo's tanto in agility. Sneaking a glance at Kakashi, who's conversing with a paunchy civilian man that Sakumo supposes must be Ishijima, Sakumo lets White Chakra infuse his tanto in a burst of pure white light. Sakumo's initial element of surprise is gone but he has other tricks up his sleeve. The White Chakra effectively extends the blade using pure, condensed chakra. It triples the tanto's range, effectively making it the equivalent of a nodachi^^, but carries with it none of the drawbacks regarding weight.
With a quick few hand seals, his opponent sends magenta lightning crackling through the puddle they're both standing in. But with a little wrangling of chakra, Sakumo's lightning affinity co-opts the energy, letting it pass through him with nothing more than a mild headache. His opponent isn't so lucky though — he loses his head before he realises White Chakra does more than make tantos shiny.
And that's that, really.
Flicking the blood off his tanto, Sakumo glances about, his breathing already slowing again. He had never liked killing per se but the fight had made blood and adrenaline surge hard in his veins again— he could taste it on the back of his tongue. For a few minutes, he had felt exhilaratingly alive once more. That all of his opponents are already technically dead takes the edge off the usual guilt that creeps up on him in the aftermath.
Yahiko is finishing off his opponents, Rin and Hyaku are safe, and Kakashi, Snake and Konan are concluding their brief conversation with Ishijima. It seems that Sakumo's minimal use of White Chakra has not affected his son. Scattered about the alleyway, the twice-dead ghosts are dissolving into particles of white light, lighting up the entire alleyway with an eerie, pale glow.
"I'll leave you here," Konan says once Ishijima leaves. The paper dog's lips pull in what might be a smile. "Wish you both the best of luck."
"We'll be in contact," Kakashi assures, watching solemnly as the dogs nod goodbye, dispersing into hundreds of paper planes that shoot into the sky. The two ANBU are left alone in the dark of the night, alone in the Ame slums, their pale faces upturned towards in the thundery skies. All around them, the evidence of battle slowly evaporates like an ethereal dream already forgotten.
*you can google "brutalist architecture" to see what I mean
**the kusarigama (鎖鎌, lit. "chain-sickle") is a traditional Japanese weapon that consists of a kama (the Japanese equivalent of a sickle) on a kusari-fundo – a type of metal chain (kusari) with a heavy iron weight (fundo) at the end (Wikipedia)
^conical hat made from sedge woven on a bamboo frame
^^(野太刀): field sword; or ōdachi (大太刀): large/great sword. To qualify as an ōdachi, the sword in question would have a blade length of around 3 shaku (35.79 inches or 90.91 cm) (Wikipedia)
A/N: I'm off for my holiday tomorrow! :) Since next chapter will be in 2018 (doesn't that sound scary), I'll use this chapter to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope all of you have a great time :) *hugs*