Unyielding Ch 14

Not dead, just making sure I can keep writing and enjoy it! No point in pushing out weekly chapters and worrying about it, so I'm being more relaxed about uploading. No way in hell I'm not going to finish this fic tho, and we have a long way to go!

To those that left reviews and you know who you are the replies are here: I dislike 5-year-olds being OP, Shisui will be dangerous don't worry, romance only comes when the characters are much older, does Gekkou survive! Will Goku unlock a new form? Sorry Asahi won't be getting a fuck-off big hammer & Alpha I'm not leaving and you're cute for leaving that comment!

Reviews are my Ambrosia & Nectar so feed me please people!

Kineticals

Unknown Mist Shinobi POV

It had all happened so quickly, it was hard to believe that we were actually doing this, actually betraying our village and leaving our home behind. Things had been tense for so long that it seemed like nothing would ever come of it, that eventually everyone would just accept it as the new normality and move on with their lives.

Too many harsh whispers behind powerful shinobi's backs. Too many civilians acting superior to those that could kill them in an instant, buying into the Mizukage's ravings, and they were ravings after a while. Even if the Kekkei-Genkai clans were a bit freaky, I never really understood why so many people so readily turned on them. Just another way of coping with their own shitty lives, I guess.

I was with five others, I hesitated to call them friends, it was hard to trust people knowing that everyone had stabbed their own classmates in the back, just as you had. But they were closer than acquaintances at least. We were like-minded individuals, having banded together to get the hell out of Kiri in case Civil War really did erupt. Sure, the Mizukage was strong, but we all shared the opinion of his descent into madness. I'd seen how effective a clan shinobi was in comparison to us regular ones, even if they were vastly outnumbered it was a much more even fight than the civilians would think.

We weren't alone either, we had run into multiple other shinobi fleeing the Mist just as we were. Something of an uneasy truce always seemed to be in place, you don't bother me, and I won't bother you type situation. We had run across the sea and waves, flitting between numerous small islands on our path out of the Land of Water. Everyone knew that as soon as the higher-ups still loyal to Kiri got organised, we would have the Hunter-nin on our asses, and we needed to make as much ground as possible before that happened.

The conflict had started in the dead of night, explosions lighting up the normally misty Kiri skyline and rousing everyone from their sleep. Looking out of my window, and seeing those orange flames resulting from exploding tags, I knew then that it had begun. We'd made good progress and had decided to blend into the mass of civilians travelling along the main trading road into the Land of Fire.

Annoyingly we weren't the only ones to have had such an idea and had wanted to avoid the random Konoha patrols that undoubtedly took place in the areas where there weren't manned defences. When we arrived, the checkpoint was already in flames and the sounds of battle could clearly be heard.

Knowing that at any moment the Hunter-nin could show up we were forced to press forward. At least this could be a chance for some stress relief, nobody would willingly pass up gutting some Konoha dogs anyway.

I leapt through the remains of the gate, eyes darting around for any threats and ready to defend myself. There were far more Leaf shinobi here already than was good for our health, so we quickly darted forward.

"Kushimaru!" shouted the man beside me, surprise and shock evident in his tone. I turned around and saw him, just as he slowly collapsed into the mud and the hand that had been lodged in his throat was pulled away.

I was angry. The swordsmen were almost mythical figures in our village, and even if I no longer had that loyalty anymore, the reverence in which they were held remained. With a battle cry, we launched ourselves forward, committed to avenging the fallen swordsmen and then making our escape.

Leaf shinobi responded, leaping forward to defend their comrade, who had now collapsed and spluttered weakly on the ground. He didn't look like he had long left anyway but damn it I wanted to be the one to put him down. I weaved under a kunai strike and in my peripheral vision saw my comrades being engaged in fast-moving taijutsu or knife fights. Realising that I wouldn't make it to him in person, I reached into my leg pouch and withdrew a kunai, palming it briefly before sending it flying at the fallen Leaf shinobi's head.

My awareness was temporarily muted as I watched the kunai soar into the throng of people battling and successfully emerge on the other side, perfectly on course. It was right there; it was going to hit!

A clang ran out as a figure blurred into place, deflecting the kunai with one of their own and tracing its path, its faceless mask staying back at me. It tilted its head slightly, and before I realised that the gesture wasn't meant for me, my danger sense blared and as I half-turned I caught a faint glimpse of steel before….

Unknown Leaf Shinobi

I wiped my blade clean and blurred in place, reappearing beside my masked captain, who was crouched down next to the Hyuga.

"He alive?" I asked.

"He is", my captain replied, "injured pretty badly, but nothing too vital has been hit, pretty good result seeing who he was up against", he said, indicating the sword that was currently still lodged him.

"Not a bad haul, getting the blade as well", I replied. "Orders Sir?".

"Join the rest of the rabble in clearing up these fleeing Mist scum, then meet me back at Hayakanai, we're going to base our sweeps out of there, use it as a temporary base", he ordered standing and moving away from the unconscious body of the Hyuga. With another gesture two more masked figures appeared, one's hand lighting up with a strong green colour and the other standing by.

"Keep him alive and safe" he ordered before vanishing towards the nearby town with a shunshin.

Asahi POV

We were just waiting. Not that we could do much else seeing as Gekkou Sensei had given us a very clear order to stay put and protect Goro & his family, but still I wanted to do something that didn't involve just standing around!

The only change that we could really see was a gradual increase in the amount of smoke in the sky, that was it.

"Anything Anko? Shisui?" I called out, hoping that they had seen anything slightly more interesting than I had.

"Nothing".

"No change", came their replies and we fell into a tense silence once more.

The number of people on the streets had fallen drastically now, most having finally sequestered themselves away in their homes. Those that had been frantically packing up their businesses had mostly cleared out, having taken their most essential/priciest items with them, however, there were still a few figures still moving about, perhaps not having taken the warning as seriously as they should have.

Minutes passed with little change and all I could think about was what Gekkou Sensei might be doing or going through right now. He had left on his own, and even though we weren't on his level, we still could have been decent backup for him.

A piercing scream suddenly rang out, made clearer due to the lack of noise as a result of the majority of people clearing out of the streets.

"No! No! Leave me alone!", came a female voice from only a few doors down from us.

"I don't want you, you brat", a gruff voice said, "just your stuff, now get out of the way!" the man said his voice rising in volume towards the end of his retort as he swung his leg forward and kicked the young woman hard in the stomach.

"Anko?", I whispered.

"He's rooting through the stands, taking anything of value and any food he comes across", she whispered back. "Wait there's more of them, at least four now I think, they're not exactly playing nice with the civilians".

I frowned slightly whilst in thought. Either these people had given Gekkou Sensei the slip and he hadn't had a chance to take them out or he let them pass. But that didn't make sense unless he was forced to leave them alone because he had more important things to deal with. The other option, of course, was that they had killed him… but I didn't really want to consider that. Besides he was strong, and I doubt they would be so casual if they had come across him.

"Asahi, Shisui come here", Anko whispered speaking to us again, resulting in us leaving our previous posts and joining her on the ground floor. Shisui and I crept up to the window that she was peeking out of, making sure that we couldn't be seen from the street outside and positioned ourselves so that we could peek out of a corner as Anko was.

"Look at their headbands, I'm pretty sure that they're all Kiri, but some of them have cut a line across their headbands, that's what missing-nin do!", Anko said her whisper raising in volume as she spoke.

"Why the hell did Sensei run off if he wasn't even going to take these guys out", Shisui responded, "he must have left them for us to take out!".

"You know that he wouldn't have done that, come on", I replied, "but if they are here then it means that he's preoccupied with something or someone else that's probably more important. What do you guys think?".

Anko bit her lip as she considered my question before answering, "They're breaking into some houses and if you listen closely there's not just these four here, there are others as well".

I scrunched my face as I focused on my hearing, if you concentrated enough then you go hear the faint shouts and screams of village residents as their homes were broken into and their kitchens riffled through. Those that put up a fight were being put down hard, permanently in some cases.

"Look it doesn't matter why there here, only that they are", Shisui replied. "If they're going to search this house eventually then we might as well go on the attack now! Take out these guys and then keep going, it might not be our mission and Sensei did tell us to stay here but there's no way he knew this would happen!".

"True", I replied, "he knew something was wrong, but I doubt he anticipated a bunch of ex-Mist shinobi trying to take over the town or I guess rob it".

"They are citizens of the Land of Fire", Anko added, fingering a senbon in her left hand as she straightened up. "We might not be samurai with all the honour and duty crap, but we still shouldn't just let them get killed.

"I agree", Shisui added, looking like he already would have left to help if he wasn't aware that it needed to be a team decision. I honestly was pretty sure that if Gekkou Sensei was here he'd forbid us to leave. These weren't our fellow classmates back at the academy, it wouldn't be a friendly spar where the worst result was being thrown outside of the ring, or maybe a nosebleed if someone misjudged a punch. It wouldn't be like going up against the bandits either, they have trained shinobi in their own right and even if they had fled their village or weren't seen as a high priority by Gekkou Sensei that didn't mean they would be weaker than us. Gekkou Sensei had demonstrated when we first became a team the distance between all of us to him.

But that had been months ago, we'd gone through hellish training sessions, and learnt new jutsu and chakra control techniques. We'd been on multiple C-rank patrol missions and were all killers in our own right. Sure, I might not love killing people, but I wasn't going to freeze up again if I did. But this was still different. Previously Gekkou Sensei made sure that we each took out one of the bandits. If we wanted to, we could hide upstairs with Goro and his family. Hope that the missing Mist nin would skip over their house and wait until our Sensei returned.

But that wasn't the type of person I wanted to be or was going to be. This was a chance to fight against actual enemy shinobi and all we'd lose by not attacking now would be our advantage of surprise. They were likely going to break into the house and attack those inside it. So, it was better to take the initiative and attack them first, and if they had to die, then fuck it that was their choice. They were the ones invading the Land of Fire, the ones attacking those that couldn't fight back and taking whatever, they want. We didn't know why they were here but whatever the reason was it didn't give them the right to do that.

"We make the first move", I said looking over at Anko and then at Shisui. "I'll attack first and you two follow up after I've caged them in". They both nodded and we moved into position. Anko stayed downstairs with me, whilst Shisui silently ran up the stairs and positioned himself by a similar window to our own, just one floor higher.

The missing-nin had continued working their way along the street whilst we had been talking and had taken to ejecting the residents of the house that they were searching. They gathered in a small group to the side, watching dejectedly as their possessions were rifled through and the prettier among them were being leered at. Thankfully none of the shinobi was stupid enough to think they could afford to 'play around' with any of them, considering that they weren't in their homeland anymore.

I waited silently, looking for just the right opening to launch my attack in. Ideally, we'd trap all four and kill them easily, but they were to spread out for that work in practice. Opening the front door slightly, leaving it ajar and sending a nod to Anko I started weaving through my initial Jutsu's signs.

With a loud bang! The door burst open as I leapt out into the middle of the street, its hinges whining as it slammed against the wall.

"Doton: Doryheki!" I shouted, pressing both hands on the ground, more for Shisui's benefit than my own, as I was confident enough in my proficiency to not need to shout the technique. With a loud crack, two walls sprung up from the earth, forming an L-shaped wall that blocked off two missing nin from entering another house.

With a dramatic shout and the breaking of the upstairs window, Shisui emerged from the house as well, his hand already locked in the Tiger seal and blew a large Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu down onto the two shinobi, his technique crashing against my Doton walls, causing a brief explosion. The flames raced up the walls seeking to escape from the confines that they had been sent into, and the brief cries that the two ninjas had begun were quickly silenced.

Taking my hands away from the ground, I allowed the walls to collapse/sink back in the ground, exposing the final two enemies that had previously had their sightlines cut off. Just as they saw us one cried out in pain, looking down at his leg where a vicious-looking viper had sunk in its fangs. Having fulfilled its duty in dispensing its poison it vanished in a poof of smoke, not giving its victim a chance to retaliate.

The final enemy having seen the charred remains of his former companions and realising that his companion next to him wouldn't be making their first move stepped forward and at a quite fast pace ran through a set of seals. Tiger – Ox – Tiger – Rat, "Suiton: Suidan No Jutsu", he yelled out sending a barrage of water bullets towards my centre mass.

I smirked back at him and quickly channelled my chakra sunk down into the earth, ending up with my upper body still above the surface, but allowing the condensed water globes to soar over my head impacting the wall of another house behind me. Noticing Shisui out of the corner of my eye I palmed two kunai and sent them towards the other shinobi at the same time that Anko launched a pair of her own senbon.

Both struck home the two senbon's in his neck, laced with a paralysing agent and my kunai lodging themselves in respective kneecaps of the unfortunate ex-Mist nin. He collapsed with a shriek, and I honestly did feel a brief moment of sympathy for him, he hadn't had the best luck in this fight.

"You're a fucking coward, going after him instead of me!" the opponent that had spat the water bullets roared, "You just wait until I get me a hand on you, you filthy little….

His words were suddenly cut off, and a confused look gradually appeared on his face. He froze there for a moment before his legs collapse from underneath him and his head went bouncing away from his body.

"Did you have to decapitate him", I asked exasperatedly.

"Come on you know that it was cool", Shisui said popping into existence beside me. "He didn't even know what happened! He was all like you will die! I will avenge my brother! And then his head just fell off! Hahahaha!"

"Not at all what he said but fair enough", I replied snorting at Shisui's antics. "You've gotten damn fast with that shunshin you know".

"Appreciate it brother", Shisui replied, slinging an arm around my neck, "I don't know who invented it but if anyone does, they're soon going to forget when they see me use it, or rather don't see me use it," he said, jabbing me in the side and pointing to the headless body just ahead of us.

"You guys are getting morbid" Anko added, a disgusted look on her face that I knew totally meant she loved the both of us.

"Want to see what the hell is actually going on now", she added gesturing towards the remaining living ninja, who was attempting to crawl away with a snakebite, kunai in each knee and two senbons sticking out of his neck both laced with paralytic poison. Needless to say, he wasn't having much luck. We approached him together, still on guard in case he tried something, but relaxed slightly once I unsealed some rope and we tied him up.

"Mind if I take the lead on this", Anko questioned glancing at myself and Shisui. "I kind of want to go into the Torture & Interrogation unit in the future, plus I've seen my old Sensei do some messed up stuff to people".

"Yeah… you go ahead", I replied.

"I'm not sticking around for this", Shisui added, "I'll be on that roof". He quickly ran up a nearby wall and assumed the role of a scout, his bubbly personality not quite comfortable with torture, even if he could make jokes about decapitating people.

"Weird where people draw their lines huh", Anko added, before turning her attention to the shinobi in front of her and summoning three more snakes, that slowly began to coil around his body as she spoke, flashing their fangs whenever they were in the prisoner's sightlines.

"Now let's see what cool things you know", she said with a cheery smile, leaning forward aggressively.

It didn't actually take too much to break the poor guy, likely because the information he had wasn't anything that we wouldn't have found out soon anyway. He had fled his village so wasn't particularly keen on getting tortured to protect the limited amount of 'secrets' that he knew.

All in all, after a few more snake bites each with a different venom that just burned oh so good, and a few threats to his manhood with a rusty old kunai that Anko fished out he was ready to talk.

He ran us through the initial outbreak of fighting that had taken place in Kiri and his subsequent fleeing along with quite a large number of others. Interestingly he had already seen some glimpses of the notorious Mist Hunter-nin but presumed that he wasn't considered a big enough target for them to prioritise so had managed to reach the Land of Fire. He had skirted around what he called a fuck-fest of a battle that was taking place along the main trading path into the Land of Fire and had been planning on stocking up on supplies in Hayakanai, although he didn't know the town name, as he hadn't had a chance to bring much with him.

Anko sweetly thanked him and drove a kunai into his skull.

After reassuring the civilians that they could go back into their homes and that they would be around for a while longer Anko and I joined Shisui on his rooftop, where he looked a bit queasy.

"I know I said that I wasn't going to look, and I tried really hard not to, but I still did, and now I'm terrified of you and think that I'd rather just kill myself rather than get tortured", he said all in one breath.

"You know if you never lose a fight then it'll never be a problem, right?" I said, arching an eyebrow.

"Why didn't you say that sooner" he replied perking up immediately, "guess I really don't have anything to worry about then".

"Ass", snorted Anko, pushing him away and taking his place looking over the town. "See anything?".

"I did yeah", Shisui replied, his tone more sombre and proving that for all his joking he knew when to turn it off. "There's at least 15 more missing Kiri nin in the town and that's just the ones that I can spot, on the plus side I've seen multiple messenger hawks go by, so hopefully we'll have some backup coming our way sooner rather than later".

"If we're lucky then some of the patrols that saw the fire will stop by here as well, or maybe come from there directly" I added. "If there's a lot of fighting going on there like that guy said, then these must be the dregs that have slipped by or avoided the fighting all together".

"They are on guard though", Shisui interrupted to add. While they may not have seen what happened the noise that we made was definitely recognisable as Jutsu being used. "I'm not saying it was the wrong choice", he hastened to add as I went to speak, "but it does mean that we probably won't be able to surprise them anymore".

"Ok then", I began, "so we have a large number of enemy shinobi terrorising people of the Land of Fire, we can't just ignore them, since even though we're not samurai and sworn to protect them we're also not scum, actually where are the gate guards Shisui?"

"Not seen them, they could be hiding, dead or fighting right now for all I know", he added.

"Ok, right Shisui you're on what you did to that guy that used to have a head duty, I'll frontline like we've practised, with Anko backing me up, while you're flitting in and out. Anko, I don't think your smaller snakes will do much since they're all going to be on guard… actually wait how big a snake can you summon?"

"Err, I don't actually know, I haven't tried a really big summon in a while" she replied.

"Well don't run out of chakra, but maybe having a fourth teammate would be useful for this" I added, "it's up to you".

We ran across the rooftops towards the largest group of missing-nin that we had seen, leaping down in front of them in order to interrupt their beating of some poor old man.

"Let him go now!" I yelled assuming a fighting stance alongside my teammates.

"What the hell is this, a bunch of Genin?!", one of them shouted obnoxiously. "You would have thought that the Leaf would care more about this place than to just send you three, but then again these people are little more than worms," he said, his tone growing cold as he through the man to the ground and stamped on his head, crushing his skull like an egg.

The blatant disregard for someone so much weaker than himself incensed me, and I rapidly ran through my hand signs and launched my attack, multiple spears of earth rocketing towards the missing-nin in front of me and his teammates behind him. I had been practising intensively with the technique and was light-years ahead of where I was when I had speared that random bandit months ago. The results of my training were at least 15 individual spears of earth emerging from the ground beneath their feet, breaking up their grouping and striking home on one of the younger-looking individuals towards the back.

Anko followed up on my attack as planned with the clear space in between the earth spears being rained down upon with a hail of senbon, as well as the occasional kunai from yours truly. Shisui took advantage of the confusion as well, zipping in quick as lightning in an effort to replicate his previous success, but found himself stalled when he attacked the burly shinobi at the front and began a vicious slashing match with the one that had executed the civilian so brazenly.

This meant that Anko and I had to ensure that attacks of the remaining six shinobi from the group, minus the one laying in a pool of his own blood, having slid off of the earth spear.

Multiple kunai were launched through the air by the opposing side and were followed up by taijutsu combinations and sword strikes, all of which we desperately tried to avoid. Our speed was high, but we were at a disadvantage in so many ways from height to physical strength and jutsu repertoire. I successfully managed to disarm an opponent, knocking his sword from his hand and also taking off his little finger in the process, but he swiftly came back after using some Suiton technique to form a jagged blade out of water.

Anko would have incapacitated another with her weird snake hands technique but was forced to jump out of the way of a stream of lightning that someone had launched.

"That's just not fair, I thought these Mist bastards could only throw water balloons at us!", I yelled to her.

"Apparently not!", she replied, ducking under a sword strike, before acrobatically flipping out of the way of a hail of kunai. "Any idea's here, we're a man down with Shisui fighting the big guy".

I looked over and saw that Shisui's situation remained unchanged him and his opponent still going at each other in a twirling dance of steel, made slightly less beautiful by the multiple cuts and drops of blood falling off of both of them.

"I think it might be time for you to call in some help", I shouted over to her, pirouetting around a kunai thrust, whilst sinking into the ground and slashing at the ankles of the enemy that had attacked me, who would have been severely injured if it wasn't for his colleague blocking the strike.

"Weren't you Mist Ninja supposed to hate teamwork" I yelled at them as the fight continued.

"We're not in Kiri anymore boy" one replied leering at me as he successfully scored a hit on my arm.

We were being worn down quickly, Shisui was struggling with his opponent, who must have been far stronger than a Chunin to be giving him so much trouble. Recognising that we were currently losing, Anko leapt backwards and slammed her hands down on the ground, expelling a large amount of her remaining chakra whilst focusing on bringing forth a single summon, rather than the multiple that such an expenditure would normally have brought.

Unnamed Snake POV

Oh, dinner was looking good tonight. Several cat-sized rats were laid out in front of me, the result of a successful evening hunt. I had successfully managed to chase away any of the stragglers from interrupting my meal and would likely be able to nap for days with the energy that this would give me.

Just as I spread his mouth wide to take my first bite, I felt an unfamiliar sensation in my gut. The feeling quickly grew stronger, and I found myself almost fighting against the sensation before I found myself being quickly overcome. There was a lurching sensation and suddenly I was surrounded by smoke, with clanging sounds coming from in front of me and the scent of blood thick in the air with my advanced sense of smell.

"What the hell is going on", he muttered to himself, not expecting an answer and so being surprised when one came.

"I err… I summoned you", some small purple-haired pale, furless monkey said, peering up at him from below. "Wow, you're really freaking big! Wait until Sensei sees you, he's gonna be so impressed with how much chakra I've regained".

The reality of the situation quickly dawned on me as I looked around, I had of course heard of summoning before, who hadn't? But the summoner of the clan had never had use of me and honestly, I had been fine with that, plenty of things to hunt at home thank you very much. This oh what was it… ah yes human, didn't match the descriptions of what he was meant to look like, so I informed it as such.

"Firstly, I'm not an It. I'm a she and I am a summoner of the snake clan too you just haven't heard of me yet, and we don't have time for this my friend needs help.

I glanced over at the other furless pale monkey… no call them what they are damn it, human and watched for a few seconds as he desperately dodged around the people attacking him with sharp sticks, beginning to get grazed more often than he was managing to avoid.

"Any time now Anko", he yelled over at us, eyes slightly widening upon seeing me, "holy shit did you summon that?! He's as big as a car!"

"What's a car", the purple one muttered to herself.

"Look human, I don't appreciate being interrupted right before dinner, where are your manners?"

"But how was I meant to know that", she replied "I just needed a really powerful snake to help, and you showed up," she said twitching her face at me.

"Well, you're not wrong but It's still rude" I replied. "And you're supposed to provide me with sacrifices, that's what the others say, where are the sacrifices!".

"Err, you could eat them," the purple one said pointing to the group of shinobi fighting.

"Hmm, I've never had a human before", I replied, considering to myself the pros and cons of the situation at hand. "Urgh fine, I'll eat them, but you better summon me before your next fight. I'm being nice for now but we're both supposed to benefit from you signing that contract!" I said slithering over to the group fighting quickly and lunging with my mouth spread wide at the nearest one.

"Don't eat my teammate", the purple one shouted after me, before I tore in half my first new piece of food.

Which one was her teammate again?

Asahi POV

I don't think I have ever seen anything more terrifying than seeing a man in front of me torn in half, in a single bite from a snake the size of a car. I know that animal summons were meant to be big and that this guy was tiny when compared with the boss summons, but even so. I shuddered to myself at the site, pushed it to the back of my mind and moved on.

The snake was damn intimidating to me, and I wasn't even the one that it was attacking. The crunch that had rung out had stopped everyone in their tracks, all of us looking in horror at the two lower legs that were all that remained after a single bite.

The snake seemed to raise its head and then tilt it a little to the side, its forked tongue leaving and entering its mouth a few times as if it was considering the taste of the person that it had just devoured. It hissed rather loudly and then went back on the attack, slithering forward hastily and lunging towards another ex-Mist nin.

"We do not taste like chicken!", I heard Anko yell from behind us, although the snake ignored her in favour of gobbling up another missing-nin. With their large number advantage now taken care of, we made short work of the remaining shinobi. Although they were likely ranked as Chunin we didn't have much trouble in clearing them up. The massive snake had unnerved those that remained, and their attention was partially occupied with ensuring that they weren't going to be its next victim, which instead meant they fell to my earth spears and Anko's fire.

Meanwhile, Shisui had continued his kenjutsu battle with the most dangerous of the missing-nin in the group and was littered with cuts and scrapes. He was slightly robbed of his glory when we joined the fight, but hey we were ninjas and were never going to fight fair. Still, he had done a good job in holding his off for the entire battle, as if he had been allowed to cover for his companions or pressure us alongside them in a group format, then we may have been in significant trouble.

Anko's snake hissed at her aggressively for a few seconds, before vanishing in a puff of smoke, returning to his home now that there were no humans around that it was acceptable for him to eat.

"What did he say?", I asked.

"Just a bunch of stuff about sacrifices and ensuring I've made the proper offerings before I call on him again, especially for battle yada yada", she replied. "Honestly I think he quite likes me", she said smirking at the two of us.

"Yeah, yeah you have a super big badass snake and it's awesome, move on", Shisui replied.

"Aww is someone bitter that he couldn't win the only fight he got into", Anko teased him.

"You know damn well that if you two hadn't interfered that I would have won that" Shisui retorted, taking the bait that Anko had laid out for him.

"Hmm I don't know, you were looking a bit bloody for a bit there", I mused shooting Anko a grin as I continued Shisui's torment.

"I have to agree with Asahi", Anko added, "we were really worried that you weren't going to make it for a moment there".

"You both suck and I want to go home", Shisui announced pushing past both of us a running up the nearest wall, returning to a higher vantage point.

By now additional Leaf Chunin teams had arrived in Hayakanai, whether they had come from the other battleground or general patrols it wasn't obvious. We met up with the nearest one and played back up to them until the all-clear was called, not being allowed to take a leading role once they saw that were just genin.

Goro and his family had remained unscathed, with the only damage to their house being from Shisui's dramatic jump through their upstairs window, which he quickly, albeit sheepishly apologised for.

"Wonder when Sensei's gonna show up", Shisui commented as we rested on the roof of our client's sister's house".

"I'm sure he's fine", I replied they probably had way more to deal with where he was than here. I'm sure he'll be back soon.

Feed the author to motivate more chapters - it's an easy exchange!

Kineticals