Disclaimer: Naruto and all associated characters are a property of Masashi Kishimoto. Motoko Kusanagi and all associated elements and characters of Ghost in the Shell are properties of Masamune Shirow.
Jutsu: Original (Translation)
Bijū/Summon/Android Speaking
Bijū/Summon/Android Thoughts
Mental Communications
[Chat Box/Text communication]
Edit 1/28
Beta v.1.7
Ame Central Broadcast Tower
A small red light shines in a darkened lounge casting a faint and eerie glow over the ten unconscious genin who lie bound and gagged on various chairs, couches, or even the linoleum floor. With a soft beep of confirmation, the red light changes to a green hue before a clicking sound echoed throughout the silent room. Shortly after the clicking sound is heard, the door is swung open and the darkened lounge is bathed in a dim yellow light shining in from the hallway. The silence of the room is now broken by the sound of conversation and footsteps from the pair of men assigned to deposit their latest "recruit" into his makeshift prison.
The man flips a switch on the wall allowing the fluorescent lights to slowly flicker to life, dousing the room in a vibrant white light. If the teens hadn't been drugged so heavily, they might have stirred from the sudden change in lighting, but for the moment, they lay quiescent. The man studies the room for a few moments, looking for a spot to place his burden before making his way towards an empty love seat tucked into the far corner of the room.
"Tch. Some idiots can't follow a simple order unless you hold a kunai to their fucking throat. Yahiko says to treat the prisoners with care, but what does Toshiro do? He drops that hot little bundle on the ground like an inconsiderate ass." The first man grumbled as he eyed a bluenette kunoichi from Konoha lying face down on the linoleum floor in front of a couch occupied by a feral looking teen male with red markings on his cheeks.
"Who cares." the second man huffed. "Most of them won't survive Nagato-sama's jutsu anyways; especially the kunoichi."
"I wonder why that is?" the first man asked quietly after setting Naruto down on the couch gently.
"Something to do with chakra reserves is the rumor I heard. The smaller reserves they have, the more likely the chakra receivers are to burn out their chakra system instead of taking control of it."
The first man grunted in thought picking up Hinata and placing her on an empty lounge chair
"A real shame if this one dies." the man said as he studied the unconscious Hyūga with lusty eyes. "She's already quite the beauty and look at the rack she has on her." the man added with a low whistle.
The second man chuckled. "Let's hope she isn't a fighter like that blond brat. She might live long enough to reject your ugly ass."
"Fuck you, Hyōga." the first man said with mock anger as he made his way towards the entrance.
"Hey, it's not my fault you're fucking ugly." the second man said with a bark of laughter. "At least I don't have to pay my hookers an additional ugly fee."
"I'll be sure to thank your mother for not charging me extra then."
"..."
"..."
"Asshole."
The sound of the door shutting drowned out the rest of the bickering from the terrorists and the room fell silent once more.
Current Time - 70 miles outside of Ame
A trio of helicopters speeds toward the "Hidden Rain" village (As it was labeled by those outside of the Genso no Kuni). While the overcast skies and lack of moonlight would make it difficult for anyone to spot the choppers as they flew by, the fact that these particular helicopters were outfitted with the latest in stealth technology made it impossible but the most sophisticated radar systems to detect their presence. Even the typically noisy rotors were surprisingly subdued, only becoming audible to those within 30 meters of the high tech bird.
The choppers were even more difficult to detect visually due to the highly sophisticated thermal optic camouflage that cloaked them in shadow. To the naked eye, the helicopters were completely invisible and would appear as nothing more than a very subtle visual distortion when viewed through the infrared spectrum. Despite the heavy rainfall, the profile of the heavily modified Jigabachi was still camouflaged perfectly as it descended closer to the group and flew low over the vast waterways surrounding Ame.
While the wasp-like model of helo was quickly becoming the standard transport for most militaries in the world, due to their versatility, it was a commonly known fact that only countries with close ties to the Nehan Empire were able to purchase the latest models. It was for that reason alone that the current group had been allowed access to these top of the line prototypes. The existence of these particular helicopters was highly classified and reserved only for the top special forces and black ops groups that operate in the interests of the Emperor's directives.
A very small and elite group of individuals that operate in complete secrecy under the direct order of the Emperor and his closest advisers. This group was formed to do the empire's dirty work at any cost and leave no trace of evidence behind; all to ensure that empire could never be implicated on the global stage. Actions that were usually denounced and markedly forbidden within the empire, but were still considered necessary for the greater good of the empire or furthering the Great Establishment.
Inside each helicopter is a team of six elite black ops agents that specialize in infiltration and anti-terrorism tactics. The specialists were currently running their usual pre-op equipment and weapons check in preparation for their upcoming mission and to settle their well-masked nerves.
The stakes for this current operation were quite high and the margin for error was nonexistent.
They would be making their insertion into a hot zone with little advanced intelligence. They would have to identify and eliminate their objectives without revealing themselves or their usage of advanced weaponry. Finally, they would need to gather any and all intelligence using unfamiliar systems and technology without the locals learning of their security breach. And just to make things more interesting, their total operation time within the area was restricted to no more than two hours at most. If they failed to reach the extraction point, with all objectives met, by the end of that second hour, they would be disavowed and left behind in hostile territory.
Even if they were likely to escape this continent and make it back home without leaving any trace of their presence, their careers would be over. For specialists like themselves, that usually meant dodging assassins until you managed to hide in some forsaken backwater on the other side of the world. If they were extremely lucky, they could land a gig in Public Security or one of the various mercenary and private security groups. Those jobs, however, were few and far between and most of them didn't provide immunity or protection from the Imperial Erasure Corps (A group that ensured that "rogue" or "treacherous" elements within the military were eliminated without a trace).
Failure of any objective or delays of any sort was simply not an option.
Avoiding detection, however, would not be an easy task. Of all the villages in the Elemental Nations, the Hidden Rain village was the most technologically advanced. Hanzo the Salamander had eagerly embraced any and all advanced technologies offered by his corporate diplomats without adopting any of the restrictions or limitations of the other villages. This included incorporating some of the most advanced sensor arrays and surveillance equipment to the standard seals and physical defenses used by most shinobi villages.
At least, they were given the most advanced technologies that the corporations were allowed to give them.
For any special operations team- like the ones in the trio of choppers- such technology was easily bypassed with the right equipment. With this particular operation, however, the emperor had ordered only the best of the best be utilized to correct the situation. These specialists were within the top ten of their chosen field of specialization and were called upon for their capability to adapt to volatile situations with little to no advanced intelligence to support them.
With the world watching the events unfolding live, the specialists would have their work cut out for them. Not only were there billions of eyes watching the events, there was also the unknown quantity with the mysterious Fūinjutsu barriers and detection seals that most shinobi villages used to deter intruders. Add in the vast amount of shinobi concentrated within the local area and the odds of running into one of the organic shinobi sensors was increased dramatically.
This would be the Nehan Empire's first serious attempt at conducting covert operations within the Genso no Kuni and probably it's most challenging attempt in the history of the empire's existence.
In the lead helicopter, the commanding officer for this operation begins the final debriefing before com silence is enforced. Once they reach the point of no return, all members are expected to run in complete autistic mode; relying on visual hand signals for communication and the strict point by point timeline for direction.
"Alright, boys, from here on out the level 5 ordinance and technology restrictions are in full effect. No weaponry without the fully autonomous self-destruct mechanisms are allowed out of the birds. The brass would prefer that we stick to native weaponry as much as possible, but the primary objective is to remain undetected at all costs. If that means using an unsanctioned weapon to maintain cover, then do so. Just be 200% certain that there are no witnesses left behind, even if they are non-combatants." The leader said with a firm cadence as their gaze swept over each subordinate. "As long as we keep to the schedule and don't deviate from the planned routes, everything should go smoothly. After receiving last minute intel, brass has decided that the main body will take route Delta to move towards Point Alpha instead of taking Point Beta as planned during the debriefing. Team Theta's goal will remain the same as planned. Once we have secured Point Alpha along that route, we will wait for the signal from Team Theta before we move on our target. Any questions?"
There was a round of negative affirmations proving that the group had studied their mission packets and were ready to complete their task. As per usual, the casual banter between this group of long-time companions began immediately after the leader turned their attention to briefing the other teams through a direct link to their cybercoms.
"Man, I can't believe we have been reduced to using these antiques. Hasn't anyone sold these guys some real combat knives or guns?" a deep voice complained.
"From what I heard the general populace isn't allowed to arm themselves." a bored sounding man responded. "They have to rely on the Shinobi or Samurai to protect themselves. Besides, there is nothing wrong with having a good knife fight once in awhile."
"It is likely that the native populace doesn't deem projectile weaponry as an efficient means of self-defense or combat" a high pitched digital voice stated. "The primary threat to most civilian villages is the roaming groups of bandits that are rarely equipped with nothing more than primitive bladed weaponry. Those groups are easily dispatched by the established Samurai presence and routinely purged by the local Shinobi village. The second biggest threat to civilian villages is the presence of rogue shinobi or those called 'missing-nin' by the natives. With an estimated 48.3% of shinobi being capable of evading fully automatic machine gun fire, the odds of a trained civilian militia eliminating a threat with the use of small arms is quite low. When you factor in the monetary incentives each village offers for information on these rogue elements, the civilians are more inclined to simply report the presence of the rogue and claim the reward. It's only logical that they choose an action that provides the best benefit with the least amount of effort and risk." the digital voice concluded.
"A shinobi might be able to avoid small and moderate rates of fire when they are aware of the threat. I'd like to see one dodge a high powered round fired from over a kilometer away." another man said gruffly.
"I've heard rumors that the shinobi are capable of evading damage from an attack of that type through the use of a technique called a 'jutsu'." replied the high pitched voice. "There are reports that they can use a chakra manipulation technique to redirect any damage they take to a small section of organic bole. Oh! I really hope we get to see that jutsu in action! It would be fascinating to witness a high-speed transfer of objects in a rotation manner through the use of chakra alone." the voice hummed in thought for a moment. "I wonder if the use of a log is a mandatory requirement for the jutsu or if there is some other form of social or religious connotation that designated its use as the object of choice. Considering the dangers of their profession, one has to wonder if said object would have eventually become a source of religious doctrine if it hadn't started out as one in the first place. Perhaps I should take some samples of the local arboreal-"
"Don't get too excited now." The deeper voice interrupted. "We can't have you wandering off on this mission."
"Awww. What about making a few observational recordings for documentation purposes?"
"No fooling around this time, I mean it!" The deeper voice said seriously. "We can't afford to screw this up, so stay focused on your objective. No uncloaking, no recording of non-mission related subjects and definitely no souvenirs. Got it?"
"Yes sir." the response was given in a reluctant tone.
"Cut the chatter. We are five minutes out so I want complete com silence from now on. All communications should be through hand signals. The only acceptable use of cybercom link ups is a direct link to team leaders in order to notify them of a Priority 1 emergency." the leader said firmly.
"Roger" the group chorused before falling silent.
After a few minutes, the leader formed hand signs to instruct the team to prepare for their assigned insertion. It wouldn't be long before they reached the primary drop point for this operation and most of the team would have to perform an aerial dive into a large waterway on the outskirts of the village. The tense silence was only broken by the sound of straps being tested, boots being tightened, and weapons pouches being secured.
The timeline was quite tight, even for professionals like themselves. Fortunately, most of the team had fully prosthetic bodies so the long swim underwater wouldn't reduce their combat efficiency. Once the ground team was dropped in, the pilot would have to successfully deliver their support specialists without being detected. If the pilot succeeded in that task, the operation would be given the green light and all teams would begin their advance.
For this particular team, they would be securing two locations and facilitating the elimination of two targets of opportunity. Once they had their targets in sight, they would have to read the situation and wait for the natives to respond before they could take action. This was where the operation could get risky and the entire team couldn't help but feel nervous and excited for it would be the first authorized mission that directly pitted them against the elusive organic superweapons known as Shinobi.
Despite the empire's best efforts, very little knowledge has been gained on the true extent of the shinobi's combat effectiveness and limitations. Even with the massive gains made on the political, economic, and sociological fronts, the shinobi had proven to be completely inscrutable. In spite of the increasing amounts of shinobi adopting cyberization, prosthetic limbs, or even fully prosthetic bodies the enigmatic warriors had managed to keep a tight lid on the true extent of their chakra manipulation abilities.
Despite over a decade of study and research, Nehan scientists and military personnel were no closer to documenting or understanding the full extent of organic chakra manipulation. Beyond having advanced strength, speed, and reflexes, the shinobi were capable of utilizing a host of undocumented abilities in combat. This fact was only further complicated by the various chakra fueled abilities that were granted by bloodlines and other forms of genetic mutation. Not to mention the fact that there were an endless amount of chakra manipulation techniques or "jutsu" that a shinobi could utilize simply through study and training. What was even more fascinating, and scary, to the scientists was these jutsu had a seemingly unlimited potential. The shinobi had managed to create jutsu that were capable of simple matter or energy manipulation to esoteric concepts like quantum mechanics, time manipulation, and matter conversion.
Fūinjutsu, in particular, had garnered a great deal of interest, but learning the archaic and complicated art was extremely difficult for even the natives to learn. For the scientists of the Nehan Empire, it was practically impossible for them to study and replicate. Many scientists had considered the subject as a form of misdirection or hoax on the part of the shinobi to conceal their secrets until demonstrations of the basic seals like "explosive tags" and "storage scrolls" had been provided.
The fact that one could create a pocket dimension to store objects in with chakra-infused ink and parchment paper had been astonishing to scientists. When they learned that storage scrolls were considered low level "seals" it was somewhat understandable that the residents of the Elemental Nations had managed to seal off their continent from the world at large while simultaneously controlling the climate and flow of time.
Confounding but understandable.
The group had spent a great deal of time watching the various clips and videos the empire had amassed on shinobi in combat, but most of those clips were almost a decade old. The most recent footage of the current military exams in the Hidden Village of Rain had been eye opening to the seasoned war veterans. Never before had the shinobi allowed this "Chūnin Exams" event to be recorded or even streamed worldwide. The display of strength, tactics, and manipulation of elements by children had been a shocking revelation.
If 12-year-old shinobi, fresh out of the academy, were this well versed in combat then the group could only wonder what a shinobi war veteran was capable of doing.
In many ways, the leader was grateful for this turn of events. While it was always fulfilling to root out and purge the government of corrupt officials, the last operation had been extremely dangerous to the team. Exposing the conspiracy surrounding the Laughing Man incident and the Murai Vaccine had unveiled a level of corruption so deep that it would have completely shaken the public's faith in the pseudo-democracy that was set up by the emperor to handle domestic issues. With the lower house elections around the corner, the Prime Minister refused to take action against the corrupt officials in fear of the government being labeled as defunct by the emperor. (In other words, he wanted to cover his own ass in the hopes he wouldn't be eliminated by the Imperial Erasure Corps) In order to prevent the guilty officials from covering up their crimes and escaping punishment, the Chief was forced to take drastic action that would leak the news to the public and force the administration to cave under public pressure. With the scandal leaked to the media, there would be no way for the guilty parties to bury or escape punishment and the Emperor might even see fit to eliminate them publicly as a lesson to the rest of the politicians.
Unfortunately, this method of action took a great deal of time to become effective. Time that would allow the ring leader, Secretary General Yakushima, to run his own publicity campaign to label the team as nothing more than a rogue military group attempting to overthrow the government in some form of coup. Calling on all his political clout and contacts, the Secretary General had an elite military unit- the Umibōzu- sent out to eliminate them all and bury the evidence of his corruption.
Fortunately, the team was able to avoid capture and leak the information before going to ground and waiting for the public outcry to oust the corrupted officials. Until that information gained steam in the public eye, however, the team would have been forced to lie low and dodge assassination and capture attempts by the Umibōzu. Before the leader could leave the country, however, she received an encrypted message on one of her fake email accounts. The offer extended an invitation to the entire team to join the Gogyō task force and offered immunity from the Umibōzu and the current administration in exchange for their help securing the Elemental Continent.
The rest of the team happily agreed to assist the government task force. Not only would they avoid the boredom of a forced vacation, but they would finally get to face a real challenge. Most of the former members of Section 9 were war veterans and considered themselves the best of the best when it came to combat, tactics, infiltration, assassination, and information warfare. It was only natural they would want to test themselves against the mysterious Shinobi.
The fact that they were receiving a nice paycheck for their services was simply a bonus to them.
It didn't take long for the helicopters to reach the primary drop point. One by one the choppers lowered themselves towards the water as much as possible before the stealth systems were disengaged and the side doors slid open. In a well-rehearsed maneuver, the black ops team dropped into the water one by one as the chopper slowly moved forward. Once the last of the team was dropped, the door slid shut and the stealth systems re-engaged so the next drop could be made immediately.
Two of the choppers immediately gained in altitude and moved to hover far over the village of Ame where they would provide long-range visual support until it came time for the extraction. The last helicopter had been slower to re-engage its stealth system and left the side door open for several minutes before gaining altitude slightly. Once the door slid shut, however, the stealth systems were quickly reactivated and the chopper sped towards the Ame skyline to deposit the rest of its cargo.
The hidden helicopter made its way towards the city low to the ground to further decrease the chances it was detected by radar. Once in position, the chopper gained in altitude before pausing to hover over a moderate sized skyscraper located several blocks from the brightly lit arena. The cloaked chopper remained in place for several minutes before eventually climbing to join the others above the rain-soaked city.
In the heavy rainfall, no one would notice the strangely shaped blur that swung from the top of the building and began making its way across the rooftops towards the arena at a rapid pace.
One Hour Later – With Naruto
Naruto awoke, groggy and light headed, from the effects of the drug he was injected with. Blue eyes opened quickly, only to snap shut just as quickly when the bright florescent lights flooded his optic nerves. Naruto paused for a moment before slowly opening his eyes to adjust them to the light. Even after his eyes adjusted to the light, he found his vision to still be blurry and swimming from the remaining sedatives in his system. He let out a muffled groan as he tried to sit up, but only managed to move his torso half way up. Being bound and gagged with chakra suppressors didn't allow him to do much more than squirm about futilely, but his stubborn Uzumaki nature forced him to keep attempting for several more minutes before the blond finally relented. Flopping back down after his failed attempt to sit up caused the room to spin and Naruto let out a muffled groan of protest. Naruto closed his eyes and forced himself to settle down before his stomach became unsettled.
He did not want to find out what would happen if he puked while gagged; it was certain to be unpleasant at the very least.
Kyūbi was making quick work of purging the sedative from his bloodstream, but with his own chakra system being blocked, the process would be much slower for his tenant. Until then, it was pointless for him to try and struggle out of his bonds. What he should focus on first was assessing his surroundings for any immediate danger. It would be pointless to start breaking out of his bonds if there was a guard on the other side of the room.
In his current state, he wasn't even capable of sitting up and looking around the room, so his best option was to get his sensory ability back up and running. With the chakra blockers on his body, it wouldn't be easy but it was possible to reconnect to his chakra system and access his reiki so he could sense life around him.
In truth, it was impossible to block someone from their chakra system completely without killing them. What most people labeled as "chakra blockers" were actually seals that dramatically suppressed the flow rate of a person's chakra system. The seals performed this task by attempting to reverse the flow of chakra based on current rate of movement within the chakra system. With the constant pressure against the natural flow of a person's chakra, it became impossible to use jutsu or call on their chakra to enhance their muscles. Not even people with top notch chakra control would be able to counteract the seals for very long, as the seals were constantly readjusting to the current rate of chakra flow. Naruto had an advantage in this situation, however, as he had a secondary source of chakra that wasn't controlled by his system directly.
While the Kyūbi's chakra system was partially tied to his own, it wasn't completely tied in. This allowed the Kyūbi to exert a subtle amount of control over Naruto's chakra system and vice versa. With Naruto helping to counteract the reverse flow of his chakra, they could work together to generate more reiki that wasn't affected by the seals. The only problem he had at this moment was the sedatives causing his chakra control to be completely shot.
Until the drug wore off, or the suppressors were broken, his sensory skills would be greatly subdued.
With resignation, Naruto decided to lie completely still and allow Kyūbi to finish its work. Every time he tried to slip into a light trance, however, a hypnic jerk would jar him from his partial meditative state. It felt as if he was flipping backward as he fell through the couch he was resting on. Resisting the urge to snap his eyes open and flail about in a futile attempt to catch himself, Naruto took a deep breath through his nose and held it for a few moments before slowly exhaling through his nose. His heart was racing from the strange, and persistent, vertigo sensation he was currently suffering from and his reactions weren't helping Kyūbi with its task.
He needed to calm and center himself so it would be easier for Kyūbi purge his body of the sedative and begin forming more reiki.
With his mouth sealed shut by tape, his usual breathing exercises wouldn't work, so Naruto took a minute to think of all the different exercises he had learned and modified one to fit his current situation. After several minutes of trial and error, he finally managed to enter a light trance. Relieved that he no longer felt like he was falling head over heels into an endless abyss, his mind began to clear up and his senses slowly began to return to him.
The first signatures he recognized were Hinata, Neji, and Kiba. He did not pick up on Akamaru's signature anywhere and wondered what these cloaked men had done to loyal hound. Akamaru was quite large and dangerous, so Naruto did not hold out hope that Kiba's faithful companion was still alive. Most enemy shinobi eliminated captured ninken right away because of the problems the intelligent and well-trained dogs could cause. Most ninken knew various methods to escape from cages or leashes and had some training in stealth and infiltration in order to help free their masters from imprisonment. If these terrorists had any trained shinobi amongst them, it was likely that Akamaru was already dead.
Naruto couldn't help feel a bit of sympathy for the feral boy. Kiba and Akamaru had been the closest thing to friends that he had in the Academy. While they had never spent a great deal of time together because of training and other responsibilities, Kiba and Akamaru were the only ones who were willing to meet up with the blond after school. Because of this, Naruto knew just how much Kiba cared for Akamaru and just how devastating the young dog's death would affect the Inuzuka heir. For an Inuzuka, losing their hound was almost akin to losing a sibling and Kiba was far more emotional than typical members of his clan. Naruto wasn't certain if Akamaru had been augmented recently since the Inuzuka had only recently started to augment their dogs. If Akamaru did have some cybernetics, it was likely he was still disabled within the stadium and possibly safe from harm.
In addition to the signatures of his fellow rookies, there were nine other chakra signatures he could detect inside the room. All but one of them were unfamiliar to him, so he hadn't encountered them long enough to bother memorizing their signatures. Naruto ignored the familiar signature for the moment, more interested in studying the unfamiliar ones so he could acquaint himself with the feel of their chakra. Once he had them all memorized, he studied the one familiar signature and had to fight back a groan of annoyance.
The signature he had recognized was of the Iwa genin Katsuo, the Doton user he fought in his first match during the finals. It had been easy to see that Katsuo held a grudge against him simply because he was from Konoha and eliminating him from the exams had probably only served to deepen that grudge. Knowing his luck, the Iwa genin would rather spend his time picking a fight or making things difficult for him instead of focusing on escaping from this mysterious group of terrorists. Hopefully, the guy would see reason and set aside his hatred until they had managed to escape.
Naruto doubted it would work out that way, especially if he was the one who tried to pull the group together. If someone else decided to take the leadership role, then Naruto would be more than happy to allow it to happen. If not, then he would do it regardless of how many enemies it made him. In this type of situation, time was of the essence and they couldn't afford to sit around and argue about who was in charge. They would be lucky to get a small window of opportunity to escape and failing to take advantage of it would only make things worse on all of them.
Once they were free, then they could hate him all they wanted. They would just have to get in line behind the rest of Konoha. It wasn't like he was unused to dealing with misplaced hatred for most of his life already.
As he felt the last of the sedative burn out of his system, Naruto began to divert his attention into breaking the chakra suppressing shackles on his hands and feet. Despite the advantage he had of working together with Kyūbi, the fluctuations within his chakra were too constant to exhibit the control needed to break open the shackles. While he could convert his reiki back into chakra, doing so would dampen his senses and that converted chakra would still be influenced by the suppressors. With the constant tug of war on his chakra system, he couldn't maintain the level of control needed to cut through the bindings with Fūton chakra or enhance his arms long enough to simply break the chains. That left only one option: To use Kyūbi's corrosive chakra to destroy the seals themselves so he could manipulate his own chakra and break the shackles.
The only problem with that option was that bijū chakra was extremely noticeable. Even an untrained civilian could sense bijū chakra.
Naruto tugged on his bindings in frustration before letting his head fall back onto the couch he was laid out on. As his mind raced through various ideas to try and escape, he was distracted by another explosion going off nearby. Unlike the explosions that rocked the stadium, this one sounded much smaller. The building still shook quite violently, however, leading him to believe that someone had set off the smaller bomb inside the building for some reason. Reaching out with his senses as much as possible, the bound blond tried to feel for any agitated chakra signatures or chakra flares that would signify combat taking place, but he couldn't sense anything significant.
What he did notice was that the guards by the door had rushed away from their post and were apparently making their way downstairs for some reason. Another quick scan revealed that there were no other chakra signatures within range of him. While his range was severely hampered, Naruto was hoping that the explosion would be enough of a diversion to distract any guards that he wasn't sensing. It was a big risk to take as any sensor nearby would be immediately alerted to his actions, but after a quick internal debate, Naruto decided to risk using the Kyūbi's chakra to break free.
Kakashi had always taught them that opportunities to escape capture were usually rare and always high risk. If they didn't take advantage of the brief lapse in security, they would be unlikely to find another one. Besides, it wasn't like they were going to torture them less for being complacent; shinobi prisoners were always tortured to some extent.
Might as well try to avoid it if you can.
Naruto sent a silent request to the Kyūbi to lend him some chakra. It didn't take long for him to feel the rush of his tenant's chakra surging through his veins accompanied by the burning sensation and slight pain that came along with it. Naruto had to grit his teeth as the searing hot pain of Kyūbi's chakra spread through his system and began to corrode his skin. Even though he was on somewhat friendly terms with the bijū, he had avoided requesting the use of its chakra as much as possible. As a result, his body was ill adjusted to the effects of bijū chakra. Even the smallest amounts caused him pain and slight muscle damage. While he could acclimate to the use of some of Kyūbi's chakra through time and exposure, he knew of no way to eliminate the negative effects completely; so he didn't bother training himself to use it. If the Kyūbi knew how to eliminate the side effects, it wasn't inclined to share the process with him and Naruto wouldn't press the bijū on the subject.
Soon, the blond could feel the chakra suppression seals fluctuating as the corrosive chakra began to overpower them. Naruto let out a muffled grunt of pain as the Kyūbi increased the flow of its chakra to overpower the seals completely. After a few more seconds, the bijū chakra receded back into the seal leaving the seals, and Naruto's skin, smoking from the damage caused.
Taking a moment to calm his breathing and allow his tenant to heal his wounds, Naruto began centering himself to regulate his chakra flow. Once he felt the last bit of Kyūbi's chakra dissipate from his tenketsu and chakra core, he slowly began building up the chakra in his arm muscles while straining against his bindings. It didn't take long for the shackles to loosen up enough for him to slip his wrists out, but he received a few cuts for his efforts.
Once Kyūbi had finished healing his wounds, Naruto set to work freeing his feet and removing his gag. Naruto jumped to his feet and ran through a quick stretching routine to get his circulation back to normal before studying the room around him carefully.
The windowless room was nicely furnished and there were a few vending machines, refrigerators, and drink dispensers as well as a sink. The only other door he spotted within the room was one clearly labeled as a restroom, which he would be taking advantage of soon. While it wasn't pertinent for making an escape at the moment, at least he would be able to replenish his energy and soothe his hunger. Being able to relieve himself comfortably was always nice, a thought he was certain the kunoichi would share.
His eyes were drawn to a clock on the wall and he fought back a curse. If that clock was accurate, then it had been over two hours since he had been captured. In the overall scheme of things, it wasn't a great deal of time. In this type of scenario, however, two hours was a very long time to be out of contact and out of touch with the situation. The terrorists could have easily secured and fortified their positions in that amount of time. Who knew what the current situation was in the stadium where his team lies helpless.
First things first, he needed to scout for information in the best way that he could.
Naruto sat back down on the couch and quickly entered a light meditative trance to convert some of his chakra into reiki and study the signatures of everyone in the building. The various walls and hallways of the building would render his sensory net kind of useless, but he didn't need it in this scenario. Just through focus and the flow of reiki through his body, he would be able to pick up the signatures of everyone in the building and possibly a short distance outside of it as well.
In his mind's eye, the building came alive with chakra and reiki signatures of all living things. Most of the terrorists appeared to be concentrated at the bottom floor for the moment, with some slight agitation in their chakra systems. Likely they were on alert and tense because of the explosion, which could only mean that someone else had set it off.
Perhaps the regular Ame forces were enacting some kind of counter attack?
That didn't seem likely since he couldn't sense anyone else outside the building. Maybe they were simply out of range and attempting to lure the terrorists out? That didn't seem feasible considering the terrorists could use them as hostages. And it was unlikely the terrorists would remain quiet about their prisoners because it was the most effective way to prevent the Ame security forces from storming the place.
The next group he focused on was a large cluster of low-level chakra signatures a few floor down from their position. As he studied them closely, he realized that their chakra signatures were sluggish and unresponsive. Judging by how close they were together and the lack of movement, Naruto was certain that group was another set of prisoners the terrorists had captured. If Naruto had to guess, he would say they were a group of civilian workers from this building. It was likely they were bound, gagged, and drugged like they had been and were, therefore, a non-entity in terms of threats.
Moving on from the other group of prisoners, Naruto focused in on the small clusters of moving signatures on different levels of the building. Based on their movements alone, Naruto suspected these were patrol groups, especially since they seemed focused on moving between the stairwells and elevators. Their chakra wasn't fluctuating in any abnormal way, so it was likely they were calm or confident at the moment.
From his own experiences with sensing, Naruto had learned that not even Anbu were capable of suppressing the natural fluctuations in their chakra when certain emotions were triggered. When a person was curious, anxious, suspicious, scared, or angry, their chakra flow would increase and, depending on the emotion, would become turbulent or chaotic where it pooled in the tenketsu or chakra core. The Kyūbi had mentioned that it had to do with the subconscious mind preparing the chakra system to be used for attacking with jutsu or enhancing the body for defense or fleeing.
The next few floors were empty of signatures, which allowed Naruto to relax a bit. As long as the guards remained downstairs or patrolling the lower floors, he would be able to wake everyone else up without worrying about chakra flares or making noise. As long as no one started shouting, they could smooth out any conflicts and make a plan that everyone could agree with.
There were a few signatures above them, but they appeared to be several floors above them. Those signatures were also clustered in a single room and were moving about methodically. There was one signature amongst the group that had all the traits of a high-level Jōnin shinobi, but the rest of the people with them had civilian levels of chakra. Naruto couldn't determine what they were up to, but their chakra systems were slightly turbulent. Naruto equated it to anxiousness or excitement. Whatever they were up to, it had their full focus at the moment and they should be able to avoid attracting their attention if they avoided combat as much as possible. Once they were several floors down, they should be able to escape detection if that Jōnin level shinobi wasn't a sensor.
Naruto then turned his focus onto each patrol group below them and studied their threat levels and movements. Each group was made up of three average to low chakra level people with one Jōnin level shinobi in their group. The smaller signatures had little to no elemental natures to them, which signified that they were partially trained civilians or low genin and chūnin level shinobi. If it came down to a fight, the group surrounding him should be easily able to dispatch them all with low profile attacks.
The only problem with that scenario, however, was the Jōnin level shinobi that was patrolling with them.
All of the Jōnin level shinobi he was sensing were quite high level in strength. From what Naruto could tell they were, at least, B ranked threats with one of them easily being A ranked. With the right tactics, it should be easy for a group of their number to take them down, but the problem was preventing the Jōnin from sounding an alarm or attracting the attention of any possible sensors. The Jōnin would be far more difficult to ambush quickly, and all it would take was a simple chakra flare or low-level jutsu to alert the other Jōnin patrolling the building.
That was something that had to be avoided at all costs.
They could probably avoid the patrols completely if they split up into smaller groups and took separate routes out of the building. The only problem with that idea was convincing the others to regroup after the fact. If they wanted to enact any sort of plan to free their comrades from the Arena, they would have to stick together. The number of terrorist forces in the stadium would be difficult to deal with even if they were all working together. To break up into smaller groups would almost certainly result in them being captured again.
With a group as eclectic as this one, it was unlikely that they would want to work together to escape, let alone face a superior force.
Naruto memorized the patrol patterns for several minutes before he left his trance and set about freeing the rest of the prisoners. All his ideas and plans would be for nothing if he didn't manage to get the group awake and unbound before the guards decided to return. Once all the prisoners were freed and awake, he would worry about suggesting his plans to the group and hoping that they could come to some kind of agreement.
Rising up from his seat, Naruto set about freeing the others as he thought of convincing arguments to encourage the group to work together. Once the chakra suppressors were removed from their systems, it shouldn't take long for their bodies to purge the sedatives naturally. Chakra had a strange aversion to any sedatives and they never lasted long in shinobi unless there was some form of immune or chakra suppressant included.
While the others recovered, he would raid the fridges and snack machines to silence his rumbling belly. He had already noticed that the coffee maker had a built-in hot water dispenser. If he found some instant ramen cups, he was good to go.
With Team Kakashi
Kakashi extracted his kunai from the corpse of another terrorist before wiping it off on the man's cloak and placing it back in his holster. So far they had been successful in clearing out two dozen terrorists from this section of the arena. Sakura had made some progress disabling the emitters, as they moved along the upper level of the PoseiDome, but it was only a very small fraction when compared to how many emitters were planted around the entire arena.
Unfortunately not everything was moving according to plan. One problem Kakashi had overlooked was the civilian spectators that were now beginning to gain consciousness and functionality. Many of them had woken up in a panic, screaming and flailing about until they were knocked unconscious again. It was fortunate that he had been placing silencing tags over each section as they moved, otherwise the panicking idiots might have attracted the attention of the entire terrorist force.
This problem caused a brief debate on how to deal with the spectators until they had successfully whittled down the terrorists to a manageable level. Evacuating them might cause the terrorists to panic and blow the stadium, but leaving them in the stadium kept the hands of the Kage and Daimyō tied.
In the end, Kakashi decided they would put in the effort to evacuate the ones that were freed as they made their way around the arena to eliminate the terrorist forces. The last thing they wanted was for the civilians to wake up and give them away and the only way to ensure that didn't happen was to control their movements until they were no longer a risk to their plans. Removing the hostages from the situation might raise tensions even further, but Kakashi would bet his Icha Icha that they were counting on that pressure to force the Daimyō into capitulating to their demands.
Most terrorists didn't have the balls to carry their threats through anyways, especially when it came to ritualistic suicide. Of course, these people could be fanatics, in which case Kakashi was certain they were all pretty much screwed anyways. Fanatics had absolutely no qualms about blowing themselves and taking as many people with them even if it amounted to nothing. The only way to deal with fanatics of that level was to eliminate them all without prejudice. That shouldn't become a problem for their group since they weren't planning on freeing everyone in the stadium at the moment. That would take far too long and they simply didn't have the luxury of time or resources to do so.
No, it was best to evacuate those lucky few that happened to be along their path to the VIP box. With a quick suggestive genjutsu or threats of violence/death, the civilians should remain placid until they dropped them off somewhere outside of the stadium. Then they were no longer his problem and he wasn't responsible for what happened to them. If they were smart, they would high tail it out of the damn village and stay away for a few days at least, but you never really knew with civilians. Most of them were really quite stupid.
With a stadium this large, however, it would be easy to conceal small evacuation groups if they were quite and careful. In that field, Kakashi was more than confident himself and Zabuza would be capable of masking their actions before the leaders figured out something was wrong. Once they had secured their route to the VIP box, the risk of discovery would be minimal. All they would need to do is await the opening needed to eliminate the bastards and free their commanders. That lead Kakashi to think about the second problem they had discovered recently.
The second problem was the presence of high yield explosives that had been planted on some of the Arena support beams. Unlike the hardware on the emitters themselves, Sakura found the bombs to be very sophisticated and difficult to diffuse. The only vulnerability she could find had something to do with the signal sent by the remote detonator.
Kakashi was quite an intelligent individual and was hailed as a genius for his capability to get the gist of things quite easily, but Sakura had gone off a technological wavelength that was mostly beyond him at the moment. From what he gleaned from her little lecture it would be possible to block the detonator's signal and prevent the bomb from triggering on command if they sent out a larger signal of their own to block the first signal. It was a risk since they needed to ensure that the signal was far stronger than the detonator, otherwise, the bombs would only be delayed for a few seconds before going off. Sakura was confident she would recognize a system powerful enough to emit this jamming signal, but it might require them to leave the stadium and approach the Central Broadcasting Tower. That was something Kakashi wanted to avoid since they had the advantage of stealth at the moment. The terrorists were not expecting an internal threat and had likely secured the arena from external threats. If they left, there was no guarantee they would be able to return undiscovered. And that was only if they managed to stay out of the loyalist forces' grasp.
If the local forces spotted them they would either assume they were part of the terrorist plot and attack them or would demand that they follow their own orders or step aside completely. That was something Kakashi would not allow in the least. He would not put the Hokage's safety into the hands of an isolationist nation that didn't even bother to hide how much they despised Konoha.
The Ame Genin, Hitomi, had actually provided an alternative solution to that problem. She knew the location of a broadcasting booth used by one of the local stations to stream live events from inside the Arena. The booth was only used when the station was broadcasting locally, so the booth should be cleared of personnel at the moment since the Chūnin exams were being broadcast worldwide from the central tower instead. Sakura wasn't certain if the booth would have the equipment necessary to transmit a strong enough blocker signal, considering it was designed to send a local area signal instead of connecting with a satellite uplink. Since the booth was nearby Kakashi decided to send a small recon force to seize the booth and check if it would be viable for their plans.
Sakura, Sasuke, Gai, Hitomi, Genjuro, and Kimiko would make their way to the booth to investigate if it would suit their purpose.
Kurenai, Pakura, Sango, and Mitsuki would focus on evacuating small groups of civilians while the other group ensured to keep the evacuation path clear for them.
As the makeshift counterterrorist team moved out towards their new assignments, none of them noticed the strange, distorted blur that was following them from a distance.
1 Hour Later - With Naruto
Naruto ducked behind a filing cabinet and scanned his surroundings cautiously. His senses picked up the locations of their attackers despite their best efforts to conceal their location. Catching Shotsuchi's eye, he relayed the information through the hasty series of hand signals the Iwa Jōnin had quickly taught them as they made their escape plan. While the signals were not completely dissimilar to the ones used by Konoha shinobi, there were still foreign enough that Naruto had to form them slowly and could not try to mask them in any way.
The Iwa Jōnin had been quick to assume control of the ragtag group of prisoners once it was revealed that everyone else were either first or second-year genin. Surprisingly, there had been few complaints or disagreements once the group got together to form a plan. Naruto was more than happy to avoid drawing more attention to himself by trying to become the leader. Since the Jōnin was actually accepting input from the genin on their plan of escape, Naruto was more than satisfied at the moment.
Kiba had been understandably distraught when he woke up to find Akamaru missing, but Naruto was able to calm the feral genin down before he caused too much of a scene. The fact that Akamaru had not been augmented recently was unwelcome news to the blond since it only made the situation worse. Kiba was no fool and knew as well as Naruto did what the practice for handling ninken was in a captive situation. As a result, the Inuzuka heir was still quite surly, but he had become grimmer and focused instead of loud and brash.
Neji and Hinata had been wary of the Kumo genin at first, but Satoshi and Shima had been quite indifferent to the presence of the Hyūga's in the first place. It didn't take long for the Hyūga pride to kick in and force Neji to behave in his usual professional and somewhat arrogant manner and Hinata was simply too kindhearted to be cold to anyone who wasn't outright hostile towards her.
Katsuo had made some snide remarks and tried to pick a fight with Naruto while he was debriefing the rest of the group on what he had learned and sensed, but a quick glare from Shotsuchi had shut the mouthy genin up fairly quickly. Katsuo still occasionally grumbled under his breath around any of the Konoha genin, but his teammate Mai was quick to silence him with an elbow to the ribs before they drew their Jōnin sensei's wrath.
Once Naruto saw Shotsuchi's signal to attack, he moved to cover Michio's- the kunoichi he labeled as "Suna Tenten" in his head- advance. Michio had just unleashed a wave of shuriken and senbon before being pinned down by a round of attacks sent by the terrorists. Flipping through hand seals, Naruto rose up to unleash a volley of water senbon towards the terrorist that was using some strange- and very noisy- projectile launcher to attack Suna Tenten.
When they first encountered terrorists making use of those strange objects, the group had been caught completely off guard by the loud noise and the speed of the small metal chunks that were sent flying their way. If it weren't for his instinctual reaction to evade when he saw the woman point an object at him, Naruto was certain he might have been hit right off the bat.
The Suna wind user, Taka, had not been so lucky.
While Taka had successfully sent a wave of cutting air to bisect the woman, the projectile had still managed to push through his Fūton attack and strike the Tessen (War Fan) user in the shoulder. The hole left by the metal chunk made the wound bleed quite heavily and had caused extensive tissue damage before it partially lodged in his bone. Fortunately, Hinata was able to see the object with her Byakugan and dislodge it with a small Jūken pulse before fishing the object out of his arm with a pair of senbon. While they didn't have stitching thread to seal the wound completely, Hinata was able to make do with bandages and a few healing jutsu. Unfortunately for Taka, the damage caused by the attack had rendered the wind user's Tessenjutsu completely useless. If he hadn't been able to form hand seals and use Fūton jutsu without his fan, he would have been out of the fight completely.
The terrorist was forced to duck as the needle-sharp barrage of water began shredding up the wooden desk he had taken up refuge behind. As Naruto had planned, the terrorist began attacking him instead, but his aim was wild. Naruto was quick to follow up his Tenkyū (Heavenly Weeping) with Suiton: Mizu Shuriken to destroy the desk the terrorist was hiding behind. That should flush him out of cover and give Suna Tenten an opening to attack with her next volley of kunai.
A dozen water disks made quick work of the wooden desk, forcing the terrorist to make a strafing run towards a doorway leading to the next office. The terrorist sent several attacks his way, forcing Naruto to duck behind the metal cabinet once more. It was a close call as he heard the metal chunks strike the cabinet almost as soon as he ducked and one of the chunks had successfully punched through the cabinet a short distance away from his shoulder.
Michio had been ready with her attack, however, and the terrorist didn't make it back into cover. A pair of shuriken and a single kunai struck true and the terrorist crumpled to the ground with a gurgle.
Naruto peeked around the corner and saw that the terrorist had taken a shuriken to the hand and throat while the kunai had been buried deep in his chest. Suna Tenten was making her way towards him cautiously to either finish him off or reclaim her weapons, but Naruto doubted the man would be able to do much of anything. Not only did the man have a shuriken stuck in his throat, but Michio had been able to disarm him completely. Naruto could see the projectile launcher on the ground several feet away from the terrorist. Naruto was tempted to pick it up for Sakura's sake but decided against it in the end. He couldn't be certain that it wasn't protected by traps or seals of some sort and, knowing his luck, he would trigger it on accident and injure himself.
The rest of the terrorists in the area had been quickly subdued by a combination attack from Katsuo and the Kiri genin that was using one of the infamous blades of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist: the Hiramekarei.
Naruto didn't know much about the sword, beyond the fact that it looked quite strange, but Suna Tenten had been quite excited when she noticed it. She had quickly rambled off a bunch of facts about it that Naruto hadn't paid attention to because he was too busy wondering why the terrorists hadn't taken the weapon for themselves. That only made Naruto wonder why any of them still held weapons in the first place. The first thing the terrorists should have done was strip them of any dangerous objects that would aid in their escape. Yet, the terrorists hadn't bothered to take their weapons pouches or search them for hidden weapons.
Either the terrorists were completely unorganized and inept, or they weren't concerned about them escaping in the least. That was highly suspicious to the blond since he remembered the so-called advice the terrorist had given him before he was injected with the sedative. Naruto suspected that the man he sensed upstairs was this Nagato character that he had been warned about.
Naruto's suspicions had only continued to grow as they made more progress in eliminating the terrorist patrols. Their group had only managed to successfully ambush five patrols before some weird alarm was triggered. Not only was the siren annoying and loud, but hallways and offices were lined with flashing lights that were similar to the flashes he had noticed from those strange projectile launchers. It had made the group even more jumpy and tense, and more than a few kunai had been wasted eliminating an oddly shaped plant or coat hanger that gave off a similar silhouette of a person.
Despite all this ruckus, however, the man upstairs and his little group hadn't moved an inch. Naruto had expected their chakra signatures to become agitated or for them to take some sort of action but they hadn't moved at all. In fact, whatever tension they were feeling before seemed to have vanished completely. The terrorists were completely calm and at ease, especially the high-level Jōnin.
It almost seemed like the man had been expecting them to make some kind of escape and was simply waiting for the right moment to confront them.
That thought made Naruto even more nervous.
He would be the first to admit that the people around him were quite skilled. Far more skilled than he had expected if he were honest. Yet, they still didn't hold a candle to that guy upstairs. Not even witnessing Shotsuchi's power firsthand had convinced the blond that the Iwa Jōnin was capable of taking that man on. While Shotsuchi wasn't a pushover, he was nowhere near the level of Kakashi. From what Naruto was sensing, even Kakashi would have a hard time dealing with this guy in a direct fight.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like they were walking into some sort of trap.
When the alarm had first sounded the terrorists had formed up near the bottom of the building to seal off all the exits, as was expected. The patrols had stopped their leisurely movements and began to make their way upstairs towards the group.
What was strange, however, was that the patrols or even the larger group of terrorists hadn't bothered to coordinate their efforts. The patrol groups sent upstairs were sent in one at a time, making it easier for them to be eliminated. Even now, after the sixth patrol group had been wiped out, that large group of terrorists on the first floor and the group upstairs remained immobile.
The prisoners regrouped in a larger office and posted lookouts while they rested and prepared for the next round of attacks. None of the genin were especially tired at the moment, considering the odd movements of the terrorists, but no one would complain about being able to conserve their energy in this situation. That would just be extremely foolish.
"What are you Konoha-nin seeing and sensing?" Shotsuchi queried. "That other group should have attacked us by now."
"I don't sense any movement from the guys upstairs and there are no other patrols heading our way," Naruto answered after a few minutes of sensing. "The group downstairs has grown a bit, however, and is now 35 members strong. From what I can sense, they are mostly low-level chakra users with a few Chūnin and Jōnin level shinobi. I would guess that most of them were civilians that have started receiving training recently."
"Which means most of them are probably using those projectile launchers," Michio noted.
Shotsuchi turned his attention towards Hinata who was taking her turn at scanning with the Byakugan.
"I don't see anyone moving towards us or any genjutsu being used, so I can confirm Naruto-kun's report," she replied without prompting. "There has also been no action or movement from the group upstairs."
The Iwa Jōnin fell silent as he leaned up against a damaged cabinet and began stroking his chin. The rest of the group was carefully picking through drawers and cabinets to see if they could find anything of use, but for the most part, the office was bare of anything of interest to shinobi and completely trashed.
Naruto quirked an eyebrow at Hinata's use of an affectionate honorific with his name but decided not to say anything. While Hinata had been kind to him whenever they interacted, she seemed to avoid interacting with him unless absolutely necessary. She never made any overtures of friendship towards him at all and barely spoke to him directly unless they were involved in a group activity. On some level, Naruto suspected that she had avoided befriending him because her clan had warned her away from the "demon brat" based on how his first attempt to befriend her had turned out.
If she wanted to refer to him in such a familiar manner, he wouldn't complain about it. But, he would never consider her a friend if she lacked the courage to openly befriend him. No matter how kind she was to him in private, Naruto would still view her as just another one of those narrow-minded idiots that couldn't be trusted or respected if she felt she had to hide her association with him until it was "socially acceptable".
After a few moments of silence, Shotsuchi spoke up once more.
"It seems as if they have decided to simply wait us out at this moment." The Jōnin stated. "I had expected them to try and box us in and overwhelm us with numbers at some point but it seems like they are content to hold their position."
"What if we attack the group upstairs. You said they had to be important to their plans." one of the genin suggested.
"Are you some kind of idiot?" another genin snapped. "If those people are important then attacking them will only cause that large group of people to flank us!"
"It's not like we have any choice at the moment!" the first genin retorted. "If we move fast enough we might be able to take the important people hostage and use them as leverage to make it through the large group."
"The only problem with that plan is that the guy upstairs is the strongest person in the building by far," Naruto interjected. "It won't be easy for us to take that guy down. He has to be, at least, high A or S-ranked if his chakra is any indication."
"What makes you think that guy is that strong?" Kiba asked.
"Like I said before, his chakra reserves are quite large." Naruto reiterated. "Not only are they far larger than most of ours, but I can clearly sense a perfect balance of all five nature releases in his chakra. That means he has mastered each element. The only other person I know with chakra like that is the Sandaime."
"That means whoever that person is they are a serious threat." Shotsuchi agreed. "It takes decades of hard training to accomplish such a feat. If this person is that dedicated, that can only mean they are highly skilled or have some form of undocumented bloodline. Maybe even both."
"Exactly. There is no way we can just rush in and take that guy out before the large group reaches us." The second genin said smugly before sticking her tongue out at the first genin.
"It seems we have no choice but to confront the larger group in the hopes that we can separate them somehow," Neji spoke up. "If they are smart enough to stick together, then we have no choice but to confront them all."
"Um, it looks like we won't have a choice after all," Hinata spoke up. "The larger group is moving out in force now. They are splitting up to cover all the stairwells and elevators."
Naruto frowned as he focused in on the group of terrorists. He hadn't sensed the usual fluctuations that were common for people about to enter combat. There should have been small spikes in their chakra as they were given the order to move out. Even the most experienced shinobi would have a small surge of adrenaline once their minds registered that combat was to begin soon and that small surge would have triggered the body to prepare the chakra system for use.
Their chakra would begin flowing faster through the gates and building up in the tenketsu. The chakra core would become more turbulent and "spiky" as it stirred up the reserves in preparation to be channeled and molded into jutsu.
For some reason, this group seemed almost resigned or bored if he was reading their chakra system accurately. In fact, Naruto would say their chakra felt subdued; as if they had recently awoken from a deep sleep or were all in some sort of deep meditative state at the moment. It was completely bizarre and made Naruto want to scratch his head over what he was feeling. He had never felt anything like this before, and his mind quickly went back to the various sensor books he had read during the training period for the finals.
Then it suddenly hit him why it was so strange. Every person in the group was exhibiting the same exact chakra flow rate.
That was something that should be completely impossible since everyone had a different level and density of chakra within their bodies. Not even identical twins had the same exact pattern and rate of chakra flow. It was like the entire group had synchronized their chakra with each other for some reason.
Before Naruto could ponder what type of effect the group could be using to synchronize themselves in such a manner, the Iwa Jōnin's voice caught his attention.
"How much time before they arrive here?" Shotsuchi asked.
"With most of the group taking the stairs, I would say the bulk of the group will be here in 15 minutes at the rate they are moving. A group of 8 is moving towards the elevators, however. If they decide to exit on this floor, they will be here in 5 minutes at most." Hinata replied.
"We have to move quickly." Shotsuchi began moving towards the elevator lobby. "We will have to do block or collapse two of the stairwells without damaging the building too severely. The rest of the hallways we will layer with traps to funnel the group towards that large receiving area in front of the elevator bays."
"Something isn't right about this," Naruto said uneasily. "There is something wrong with those people."
Shotsuchi paused for a moment and looked back at Naruto.
"What do you mean by there is 'something wrong with them'?"
"Their chakra is acting...strange," Naruto said before exhaling in frustration. "I don't know how else to explain it, but they all seem to be under the influence of- something."
"I don't see anything with my Byakugan," Hinata stated.
"I don't know if you could see it." Naruto looked at Hinata from the corner of his eye. "Their chakra is all flowing at the same subtle rate. Usually, that would mean a genjutsu of some sort, but I don't sense the invasion of foreign chakra in their bodies. It's like something is synchronizing or controlling their chakra for some reason." Naruto sighed before rubbing the back of his head. "It just doesn't make any sense for them to align their chakra in such a way unless someone was intentionally controlling it for some reason. Whatever the reason is behind it, it can't be good for us if they waited until now to use it before attacking us in force."
"Who gives a damn," Katsuo said with a snort. "If someone wants to mess with their chakra, I say let them. Makes it easier for us to kill all this trash and move on to what is important."
"And what is it that you think is so important anyways?" Taka asked Katsuo.
"Getting back to the Tsuchikage so he could reward us for purging this filth and freeing him, of course," Katsuo said confidently.
"While I agree with the rock head on some level, the fact is that the terrorists wanted us for something," Michio stated. "The real question is why did they bring us here alive but leave the rest in the stadium?"
"When the group attacked me for capture, one of the men mentioned that the leader had a way of changing people's minds through the use of a jutsu. I don't know if that has anything to do with what Uzumaki-san has told us when we first planned our escape." Chōjūrō replied quietly.
"None of that will matter if we manage to defeat this group and make our escape," Shotsuchi said in a dismissive tone before making his way down the hallway. "As long as we effectively disable the elevators and control the stairwells, we can force the group to split up into more manageable groups. If we follow my plan to the letter, we should be able to defeat them all with minimal risk to ourselves. Once we overcome that challenge then we can decide our next move."
The rest of the genin remained silent as Shotsuchi proceeded to dish out instructions for the upcoming siege. Two pairs of genin dashed towards the northern stairwells and planted explosive tags on the flights of stairs above and below their current floor. One genin remained posted near the entrance of each, waiting for the first sign of the terrorists to near their current floor before they would set off the explosives. This would force the terrorists in the northern stairwells to fall back and make their way across the building to the southern stairwells or towards the center to take the elevators.
With the Northern approach covered, the genin would have an easier time covering the elevator lobby and the southern stairwells. To cover these areas, the prisoners split into three groups to cover each area that the terrorists could emerge from.
Covering the elevators were all the taijutsu and kenjutsu specialists like Hinata, Neji, Chōjūrō, Kiba, and Katsuo supported by Shotsuchi.
Naruto, Michio, and a Kumo ninjutsu specialist named Satoshi would cover the southwestern stairwell and flood the narrow area with as much low-level jutsu and projectiles that they could manage. With Naruto's Kage Bunshin, Michio would be able to reserve her own weapons supply while still contributing to the fight. Naruto's- now infamous- Suiton affinity would work perfectly with Satoshi's Raiton affinity to keep the stairwells dangerously slick and electrified at the same time. This group would focus on eliminating as many terrorists as they could. If they were about to be overrun, Naruto would trigger the explosive tags he had planted and they would fall back to help the southeastern group.
The southeastern stairwell would be covered by an Iwa support specialist named Mai, the Suna wind user Taka, his teammate a Suiton/Doton specialist named Tatsuo, and finally a Katon/Raiton user from Kumo named Satoshi. With the different combinations of nature releases in this group, Shotsuchi was confident they could keep this particular staircase blocked almost indefinitely.
While Mai was trained as a combat medic, she was proficient in the use of Doton: Iwadeppō no Jutsu (Rock Gun) as every good Iwa shinobi should be. Unfortunately, her chakra reserves were sub par due to her civilian heritage. Shotsuchi assigned her to a simple task of flooding the stairwell with as many boulders as she could safely form before she would fall back to mold chakra. Once the terrorists managed to clear a pathway through the boulders, Tatsuo and Satoshi would electrify the stairwell with a Raiton/Suiton combination until Mai had enough chakra to form another blockade. If the terrorists managed to break through that combination, Taka would hinder their progress with his Fūton jutsu until backup arrived from either Naruto's group or the central group.
As Naruto closed his eyes to focus his sensory skills on the incoming terrorists, he caught a brief flicker of something making its way towards him down the hall. Instincts drilled into him from Kakashi's harsh training caused him to immediately fling a kunai towards the disturbance before he whirled about in a defensive stance. Tensed and ready to fight, Naruto tried to figure out just what he had felt and how the hell it had managed to get so close to him before he noticed it.
He knew it was a foreign signature because he had intentionally memorized all the signatures of those within his group. The blonde was also quite familiar with all the high-level terrorist signatures in the building, a side effect of unlocking his ability to sense and manipulate reiki.
Naruto had never been the smartest person in terms of long term memorization or complex strategies, but his ability to catalog the chakra signatures of large groups of people was quite impressive. The Kyūbi had mentioned something about his mind and body being affected by the increase in reiki within his body but would provide no further details when Naruto prodded him for more information. In the end, Naruto chalked it up to his reiki "recording" unfamiliar signatures in an attempt to connect to it in some way. Naruto didn't know why reiki acted in such a way, but the more he used and manipulated the mysterious energy, the more he could feel it behaving in a way that he was beginning to understand but couldn't describe if his life depended on it.
His eyes scanned the empty hallway and nearby conference room that had glass walls revealing the interior. The other genin with him were also looking about warily, knowing that he was a skilled sensor to be trusted. Naruto knew he felt someone, but the signature had been brief and minuscule. It almost felt like reiki alone, but the whiskered blond wasn't entirely certain.
Maybe a clone or some type of spying jutsu?
"What is it?" Suna Tenten asked him in a low whisper.
"I'm not sure," Naruto replied after a few minutes of silence. "I think it might have been some kind of clone or surveillance jutsu. What I sensed was very small and lasted only a second at most."
Michio hummed for a moment before replying. "I hadn't planned on setting any traps behind us, do you think I should place one? At the least, it would give us a bit of warning."
Naruto shook his head. "No, save your equipment for the stairwell. I'll cover our backs with a few clones." the blond said before he created a pair of shadow clones to watch the hallways.
Michio shrugged before turning back towards the stairwell to prepare. "How much longer do we have?" she called out over her shoulder.
Naruto scanned the hallway once more with narrowed eyes before turning back towards his partner to respond. "Probably four more minutes at the rate they are climbing right now. I would say they are five or six stories below us now."
Michio merely nodded and entered the stairwell to finish setting up the rest of her traps using the equipment one of Naruto's clones had given her. Naruto followed after her, eager to study trap setups by foreign shinobi.
In the empty conference room, one of the "empty" chairs spun slowly, and a distorted blur made its way out of the room and down the hall away from the distracted genin. It had been a really close call, and the Leader had no idea how that blond had detected her presence. It was something she would have to think on later. Right now she had to set everything up so that the terrorists would fall at the hands of these prisoners.
Perhaps she would dump all the credit for her work on that blond. No one had ever detected her before during an infiltration mission, at least not unless she wanted them too. Not even during training had she ever been so close to being caught.
As she made her way towards the next rendezvous point on her schedule, Motoko pondered the blond with the strange marks on his face. There was something special about that boy but the Major had no idea why her ghost had taken such an interest in him. While it wasn't in the mission objectives, Motoko decided she would hack the surveillance cameras and download their contents so she could analyze the boy more. The footage might come in handy later on if they needed to perform some kind of cover up.
AN: I apologize for the delay on this chapter, but things have been busy for me and the challenger. There was also a bit of a dispute on my plans for the future of this story, but those have been ironed out. Not anything major, but important none the less. I know I had told a few reviewers that Motoko wouldn't appear until later, but I decided to give Section 9 a bit of a cameo in the prolog chapters. There won't be a great deal of interaction with the team, given their mission parameters, and Motoko still won't come into play until the main story arc begins.
This prolog arc will be ending in 2 or 3 chapters at most, but I might be able to tone it down to 1 or 2 if some of the planned changes are approved.
At any rate, I thank all of you who are following along and I appreciate those who have taken the time to review or have sent me messages.