Chapter 20 - Kamikaze Onbara: Boom!

The first place he tried was the park, then the training grounds. He even went to Ninja Academy. Sasuke still found no sign of Sarada or Hana.

While leaving the academy's grounds with a scowl on his face, Sasuke felt his phone vibrate.

He saw his wife's name on the caller ID and answered. "Sakura? What is it? Did you find them?"

"No, but I just called Hinata to see if she could ask Bolt if he knew anything. When she did, he wasn't in his room!"

Sasuke's scowl got harsher. "...so Bolt is missing too?"

"Ahh...! Where did the three of them go?!"

"I don't know, but I'll keep looking. You should call Naruto in the meantime. Hinata probably already did, but still."

He heard Sakura sigh on the other end. "Alright... Be careful. Bye."

The phone clicked. Sasuke hid it away and gave a sigh of his own. 'Things like this have been happening ever since I came back with Hana. All of this could be my fault somehow...'

His thoughts of self-blame got drowned out by the sudden rain shower. Sasuke sighed again. He just remembered what the forecast for tonight was.

"I should have brought an umbrella."

"Why? It's so refreshing to be hit by a nice rain shower," a voice said.

Sasuke's eye widened as he looked up. Standing on a small store's rooftop was a woman with dark shaggy hair and gloomy eyes. She kept a smile while looking down at him.

"Sasuke Uchiha... I've always wanted to meet you one day," she said, still smiling.

"...who are you?"

"Someone who knows where your adorable children went."

Sasuke's visible eye widened then immediately sharpened into a glare. "...where are they?" he asked.

"So blunt. You could at least play along a litt-"

The woman stopped when Sasuke disappeared from where he stood in the street. Suddenly, a kunai was held against her neck.

"I don't have time for your games," Sasuke said from behind her. "Tell me where they are." He brought the kunai closer to her throat. "I won't ask you again."

The woman was silent for one moment. She burst out laughing the next.

"Wow! So cold-blooded!" she harked. "You really live up to your reputation, huh?" Her laughter gradually died down as she pointed up at the metropolis above the Hokage Monument. "They went to Konoha City. Specifically, to an old shut down casino called Imaeda Palace. The blonde boy followed them too."

"Bolt did?"

"Oh, is that his name? Well, that explains why he was wearing one around his neck. Anyway, it's been fun, Sasuke." The woman titled back her head. "Hopefully, my job will reunite us one day..."

She grinned again, and her body began to change. Her skin lost its friction, and it's shade turned dirt brown. What's more, part of it leaked onto Sasuke's kunai.

Sasuke backed away just as the shady woman's body decomposed into a puddle of mud.

'She can morph her body?' Sasuke wondered while the rain washed the mud away from his feet. 'Just like Suigestsu ...'

Sasuke watched the rain clear the mud away, then looked back up at Konoha City. Imaeda Palace – that was where Hana, Bolt and Sarada had gone.

"I should hurry," Sasuke said.

He started flickering across the rooftops.

Hana was at a loss. As the yakuza formed a large circle around him, Bolt and Onbara, he had no idea what to do. His injured leg and carrying Bolt prevented him from running. They also prevented him from defending himself. He couldn't properly swing the sword he was balancing himself on either. He was helpless.

Just as this thought set in, he noticed someone's shadow looming over him and looked back. A large Shimamura yakuza was glaring down at him.

"Why are these two brats here?" he asked.

"W-we came to rescue or friend-"

Who cares?" another Shimamura interrupted. "All I know is that they're in the way!"

With his hands still in his pockets, he kicked Hana in the ribs. Specks of blood flew from Hana's mouth as he and Bolt were sent rolling across the show room floor. They stopped just short of a black jack table, which was one of the few things in the room that had remained intact.

"Geez... You should be more gentle with kids," Onbara said. "Then again... Maybe I'm not one to talk."

A large circle of suits had been formed around him.

"Don't tell me you let those brats beat you up like this," one of the Sakata mocked.

A Handa clan member laughed. "How the mighty have fallen, eh, Onbara?!"

Onbara shrugged. "Yea, so I let a twerp or two bang me up a bit. At least they made me sweat. Compared to you chumps those brats are pretty much Anbu Black Ops members."

The laughter stopped. The malice Hana sensed earlier returned in waves. Hana couldn't see from behind the wall of thugs, but he could hear weapons being unsheathed.

"What's with all the knives, guys? You want me to perform a yubitsume(1)? Sorry, but I like both my little fingers." Onbara held them up and started wiggling them. "Don't think I'd even be able to choose one."

From the sights of gritted teeth, Onbara knew the four clans had had enough of his taunts. He pulled back his little fingers and stuck out his indexes.

He made a gesture with them that said "Come on."

Several battle cries and roars were heard when the yakuza charged Onbara at once. He grinned.

"Boom!"

Eights explosions went off. Eleven men were killed in a single instant, and six others were injured.

"W-what the hell?! He set bombs on the floor!" a Sakata who barely escaped the explosions shouted.

"Oh, yeah~ I forgot to mention that, didn't I?" Onbara asked humorously.

One of the Kato looked at his clanmate who had been caught by one of mines. "You son of a bitch!"

He took his late clan member's tanto and charged at the notorious bomber's back. Onbara ducked, grabbed his arm and flung the Kato into a small group of Sakata and Handa. When the Kato got onto his knees, he noticed six miniature explosives tags on his arm.

He and the two yakuza he was on top of screamed when the tags detonated. Other yakuza continued attacking Onbara, but he was still agile despite his wounds. He weaved around tanto slashes and ducked punches and kicks easily. Every few seconds another small "boom" could be heard, and another yakuza would hit the floor. Factor in the mines that went off every other minute, and it would be fair to say that, at one point, had been a lobby for entertainment had transformed into a hellish battlefield.

Though, throughout all this, Onbara just kept smiling.

'Yeah... This is how it should be!' he thought while he fought. 'Forget Benny. Her gramps. The kiddo. This is what you live for, Onbara! It's the only thing you know. ...the only home you've got...'

"Ma... when is it gonna stop?"

Bits of the ceiling sprinkled on top of Itsuko while she coddled her son under her. "Soon, Onbara. Soon. Just stay still a little while-"

"Boom!"

Itsuko held Onbara close when the next wave came. Outside their home and above their village, hundreds of specially specially trained hawks were flying were above the village. They carried boxes full of hundreds of explosive tags that they would drop and sprinkle over the village. This deadly air raid tactic came from the two neighboring villages who had joined forces to annihilate Onbara's. He never knew why. Maybe it was over territory, or maybe they just wanted to kill everyone.

All of the village's ninja would work together to try to shoot down as many hawks they could with shurikens, kunai or jutsu. There were always too many hawks, and too little ninja from the village.

Over half of it had already been destroyed in the past two weeks, and everyone knew it wasn't going to get better.

Itsuko heard one more explosion, then held her head up.

"Is it over, ma?" Onbara asked.

She sighed and tussled her son's hair. "Yeah, sweetie. It's finally over."

But it never was.

It was only a short time after the Fourth Great Ninja War. A blooming sense of camaraderie had been born among the Five Shinobi Nations. Thy finally put aside their past and started working together to build a brighter future. War was the furthest things from their minds.

Though, that was only true for the Shinobi Nations. For the smaller countries that bordered them, many weren't ready to just forsake the past. The Kages were aware of this, and made efforts to change nindo of these villages. Despite their best efforts, there were places they just couldn't save in time.

Onbara's country was one of those places.

"Make sure you watch where you step! We don't need anymore paper tags setting off!" Kengo advised.

The children were as cautious as instructed while looking for undetonated explosive tags.

There were sometimes lucky occasions where explosive tags wouldn't immediately detonate when they hit houses or the ground. This also meant there were unlucky occasions where someone would walk too close and set one off. To prevent this the village started a small labor force that searched for these tags. However, the small number of ninja the village had were busy preparing for the next air raid. Meanwhile the adults were preoccupied with maintaining what infrastructure the last raid had not completely destroyed. This left the village's children as the only viable volunteers.

Parents didn't like the idea at first, but after a ryo reward was added, more children began to sign up. Onbara was the only one to sign up without his parent's up foreknowledge.

An explosion went off during a morning's search, followed by a scream. Everyone looked and saw a girl on the ground, holding onto her leg which was bleeding terribly.

Kengo sighed "Didn't I just tell you to be careful. Geez, you brats are useless..."

Onbara clicked his tongue. "Loser..."

His feet left the ground almost immediately.

"What was that, Onbara? I couldn't hear you," Kengo said while he hauled Onbara up by his collar. "Is that how you talk to one of the guys protecting your village?"

"You guys aren't protecting crap!" Onbara exclaimed while he struggled. "If you were, everyone wouldn't be dying! ...you haven't even noticed yet, have ya? Half of the kids who were picking up tags are gone! I bet you don't even know why!"

Kengo threw Onbara against the ground with enough force to make him cough up spit.

"Like I've got to time to worry about what happens to a couple brats. They probably wondered too far away from the village and got caught by some stray bombs," the ninja said matter-of-factly. "If they had just did what I told them, they would've survived." The ninja dug into his vest and dropped a single ryo dollar at Onbara's feet. "That's all you get for today. Now, go home. Kids who don't do as they're told are useless."

Onbara glared holes into Kengo's back as he walked away. He stared at the ryo in front of him. He wanted to rip it apart in protest, but some part of him that he was ashamed of wouldn't allow it.

Onbara was still angry at himself when he made it to his home. A crater from a week-old raid remained in his roof, but nobody in the village had time to attend to it or their own homes. He smelled food being cooked and headed for the kitchen. His mother, who was cooking what was left in their cabinets, saw her son and immediately picked up on his mood.

"Onbara? Are you okay?" He was silent. He just stood by the table with the ryo dollar in his hand. "Where did you get that? You didn't steal money from anyone did you?"

"I earned it."

"Earned it? Where?"

"...you know about the kids who have been picking up explosive tags around the village?"

That one sentence was worth an entire confession to Itsuko. "Onbara! I told you before that you couldn't sign up for that!"

"But... what else am I supposed to do, ma?! I can't fight like the village's shinobi! I can't fix stuff like the adults! I can't even cook for you! How am I gonna protect anything by just sitting around letting you hug when the air raids start?!"

Itsuko gave her son an sympathetic look. "Onbara...is this about your father."

He looked away. "Dad died protecting us and the village. If he did it, I can do it too..."

His mother dropped to her knees. "Onbara, listen. Your father died protecting this village; protecting you, but if he had to option, I know he would have lived so he could keep protecting us both. Dying in a blaze of glory just to prove something won't save anyone."

Onbara blinked. She was right, he knew she was, but something in his gut just wouldn't let him admit it.

"You... You don't know what, you're talking about, Ma!"

Onbara broke from her grasp and ran from the kitchen as fast as he could. He could hear his name being shouted behind him, but he didn't look back. Once again, a part of him he was ashamed of wouldn't allow it.

Nobody knew when another air raid was coming, so the village issued a curfew at night for everyone except village's ninjas. The only person who didn't follow curfew that night was Onbara.

He was picking up explosive tags he found at the village's outskirts. It was like Kengo said earlier – there really were lots of stray tags lying outside the village.

After gathering enough to make up for what he lost that day, Onbara started heading toward the village. Then he heard the something go "crack." He looked back and saw a small figure walking his way.

He recognized it. "...Jun? Is that you?"

Jun was a childhood friend of his who he used to play with all the time until the war started. He was also one of the first kids to go missing.

"Jun! I can't believe you're-"

"Run..."

Onbara made a face. "Huh? Jun, what are you-"

"Run, Onbara!"

Onbara looked more closely at Jun. He noticed something familiar was on his clothes. His eyes shook when he realized what they were: explosive tags; dozens of them. From the shadows behind Jun, more of the villages missing children came. Like him that all had tags stuck to them. Finally, a man with a sword in his hand appeared behind them.

He raised it. "Everyone of you brats, run forward until your lungs give out! Anyone who trips or is caught moving slow gets cut down!"

Fear dancing in their eyes, the children started running. Onbara still had the tags stuffed in his clothes when he sprinted toward the village. When he cleared the woods, Kengo was at the village's outskirts waiting for him.

"Onbara, you brat! How dare you break cur-"

"Bombs!"

"Huh?"

"All the kids that went missing in village... the other villages kidnapped em, and made them into walking bombs!"

On cue, the missing children appeared from the forest. Despite returning home, they all had despair in each of their faces. Kengo saw the the explosive tags on them, and copied their expressions. He could shoot down hawks, but what were they do against the children of this own village? The shinobi closed his eyes and thought.

He reopened them and said "Sorry..."

Kengo made hand signs then touched the ground. "Earth Style: Mobile Core!"

The ground beneath the children's feet descended quickly. Kengo bit his lip when a deafening explosion occurred from the pit that were trapped in.

Onbara couldn't believe it. He dropped to the knees and began staring into space. He should have followed curfew. If he had followed curfew, none of this would have happened. Kengo stood and saw the trauma the boy in front of him had been struck with.

"Onbara... Hey!" Kengo's yell brought Onbara back down to some level on consciousness. "Your mother's probably worried sick. Go home."

For once, Onbara did as Kengo said. He wanted to see his mom badly.

Just as he got up to leave, he and Ricken heard a echoing squawk. They looked toward the sky and saw them – hundreds of them. It was the worst wave the village had seen by far. Kengo's clenched his fists.

He looked down at Onbara. "Didn't you hear me, ya damn brat?! Go home!"

Onbara did desperately. He was even faster than he was when running from Jun and the others. He looked back at Kengo who tried to shoot down as many birds he could. He only got seven before the bombs took him out.

Explosions where happening to the point that running forward was the only option that made sense. If Onbara got unlucky he would die wherever he ran anyway, but he didn't get unlucky. Everyone else did. The houses that had maintained up until this point finally started to fall. Onbara could hear screams in every directions. If was like running through hell, but everything would be okay once he made it home.

When Onbara finally made it there, half of it had collapsed, and under the rubble was his mother.

"Ma!" he ran up to her and started moving as much debris off her as he could.

She looked at him weakly. "...Onbara? You... You're alright... Thank goodness. When you left I-"

"Ma, don't talk..." Onbara said while pushing away the last of the debris. "I'm gonna get you somewhere safe. I swear I will!"

Itsuko smiled at how much Onbara reminded her of her husband at that moment. She gazed up at the sky, wondering how proud Toyo must have been.

Then she saw one of the hawks. It dropped its box, and explosive tags scattered from it. Onbara wasn't paying attention. He was too preoccupied with her; so Itsuko did the best she could with her broken body, she jumped on top of her son.

Onbara didn't recall anything else from that night. The shock from the explosions had knocked him out. He could never forget the morning after, though. His mother's body was somehow still warm when he awoke.

She had died along everyone else in the village. Someone else might of survived but Onbara find them the next day. Having lost the one thing he held close, he left the broken village, and the country altogether, with nothing but the clothes on his back and the explosive tags he still had in his pockets.

He drifted from place to place for the next few years. Everywhere he went he seemed to attract trouble and leave smoke. Eventually, he arrived in the Land of Fire, and later the Hidden Leaf Village. It wasn't long before he got into trouble with the yakuza, particularly the Yamabe clan.

He had caused so much chaos that when the Yamabe finally caught him, he was brought before Minoru himself.

"I heard you're quite the risky fighter," Minoru said while he sized Onbara up.

Onbara looked at him with dead-eyes while Yamabe yakuza held him on his knees. "Yeah... What about it?"

"You have a habit for getting caught in your own explosions too. It's almost like you're suicidal."

"Heh. And what's so bad about that? We're all gonna die anyway. May as well go out with a... boom!"

The shoulders of the two men holding Onbara exploded. They hadn't noticed the tags Onbara put on them when they first grabbed him. Onbara charged at Minoru who had yet to react and thrust out his hand.

Minoru smiled. With a single palm thrust, he broke every finger on the bomber's hand. Onbara crumbled to the floor, holding his hand and writhing in pain.

"Hmm. It's been a while since anyone ever dared to attack me head on," Minoru said. He cracked the fingers on the hand he countered Onbara with. "Brings back memories. What's more, it looks like I was right: you really are suicidal." Onbara glared up at him. "Don't give me that look. I'm just pointing out the obvious. To be honest, though... it would be a shame to let someone like you just die in the streets like a stray dog, so how about this:" Minoru extended his hand. "You come work for me."

Onbara stared at Minoru's hand. Just like that he became attached to one of the most notorious figures in the underworld. Onbara fulfilled all of Minoru's expectations, and then some. He went against any clan, fought any number of men, sabotaged any hideout and never steered away from a dangerous mission. Eventually, his record earned him the title Kamikaze Onbara. It was only a matter of time until all of this caught up with, however.

And when it did, he ended up meeting a girl in a cheongsam in a weird part of town.

"Boom!" Five men. "Boom!" Eight men. "Boom!" Three men.

The show room lit up again and again as the yakuza went flying in every direction. The yakuza who were so confident attacking Onbara before, didn't know what to do now.

"I-it's impossible..."

"He's a monster... A damn monster!"

"Dammit, that gloomy-eyed bitch who sent us here set us up!"

Onbara stopped detonating mines and took a quick survey of the room. The will to fight had all but left the building. Onbara smiled. He knew exactly what was going through their heads: the shock, the fear, the numbness. That's why he had never lost a fight.

"Hey, Kamikaze bastard! Over here!" someone shouted.

Onbara looked, and his eyes widened. Abroad-shouldered Shimamura yakuza, nearly as tall as Fudai, was holding Hana and Bolt up by the back of their necks.

"These two brats... I've been wondering who they were for a while. The girly-looking one told me they came to get a friend." The Handa met eyes with Onbara. "Would that friend happen to be you?"

Hana gagged. "N-no... Onbara's not-"

The Shimamura squeezed Hana's neck until he could barely breathe. "I wasn't talking to you, runt. Shut up when adults are talking."

Onbara's brow twitch. It was so subtle nobody should have noticed. Unfortunately, the Shimamuras were master of picking up on things nobody should have noticed.

He smiled. "So this one's your favorite, huh?" Hana's neck was clenched tighter.

Onbara watched Hana kick his legs as he struggled. He wanted to stay still; to just watch Hana die and be done with him altogether, but he couldn't.

For once, he wasn't going to let the part of him that he ashamed of get the last laugh.

He smirked and strolled forward. "Hey, fatass! How about picking on someone a little-Ugh...!"

Onbara stopped. He felt a burning pain and looked back. Standing behind him was a member of the Kato clan who had jammed a tanto into his back. Onbara tried reaching for him, but from seven other directions, seven other stabs came.

Hana eyes shook as he watched Onbara crumple to his knees and cough up blood.

"S-shit... You can't be serious... This is how...?"

"Hey, don't die on us yet, Kamikaze," the heavy Shimamura commanded. "Not before you watch your little friend get his neck snapped."

He squeezed Hana's neck as tightly as he could. The young Fujikaze gripped the yakuza's hand in protest, but his strength was too much. The other yakuza cheered on and laughed while Onbara helplessly watched Hana's eyes roll to the back of his head.

'Are you shittin me? This is how my last moments are gonna go?' he wondered. 'Watching some kid get strangled to death before bleeding out? Heh. I guess for a guy like me, it's kinda fitting. ...sorry Dad. Looks like I couldn't protect a damn thing.' His vision of Hana got blurry. His consciousness was leaving him. 'There's no way I'm goin where you and Ma went, so I'll never get to say this person: Sorry for being such a crappy son...'

Onbara took one more look at Hana before closing his eyes. When he heard a "schwik" and a bloody holler, his eyes leaped open again. Standing with his back to Onbara was a dark-haired man in a black cloak. Under his left arm was Bolt who was still out, and in his right bandaged arm was Hana who was coughing for air. Laying at the man's feet were the arms are the yakuza who had just sliced off with his chokuto.

"Anyone who tries to touch these kids again ends up like the guy in front of me," Sasuke said coldly.

The yakuza who's arms had been amputated, was on his knees seething in pain. The other yakuza were once again in disbelief.

"Isn't that... Sasuke Uchiha?!"

"Are you shitting me...? Sasuke's here too?! What the hell is going on?!"

While the yakuza were all distraught about the situation, Sasuke peered back at Onbara. "You... Are you also responsible for hurting these two?"

Onbara blinked. Then a chuckled, though it became a cough halfway through. "I'm not with these bozos, but yea... Most of those bruises and burns came from me."

Sasuke glared. He flipped his grip on his chokuto as he turned toward Onbara.

"Master, wait!" Hana pleaded. He had recovered enough to speak. "...can you put me down?"

Sasuke looked at him. "Hana...? Is this the guy you were talking about earlier?"

Hana nodded and was released from Sasuke's grasp. He walked over to Onbara, and though he had a limp, stood before him brazenly.

"Kiddo... How's it goin?" Onbara asked, coughing in-between every clause. "You finally ready to play Thirty Questions, huh?"

"No. I just want to ask you one. One that I've been wondering about for a long time." Onbara saw the sincerity in the boy's eyes. "What is the real reason you never told Miss Beniko the truth?"

Onbara stared blankly at him. He looked toward the floor as if he was going to find the answer there.

"I had a home once, kiddo. I had a mom, a dad, a village, friends. One by one, I ended up losing everyone of em. Eventually, I started to get used to having nothin. Ya never have to worry about losing anything again, and you never have to put your heart on the table. But then... I met Beniko, this nosy girl working at a shoddy restaurant who just couldn't stop trying to be helpful. I started to remember what it felt like to give a damn, but I also remembered what it was it like to lose what you gave a damn about.

"So... I lied to her. Better that she not get involved with me anyway, was one of my best excuses. I was fine with that. And then..."

He looked up at Hana. He remembered just a few moments ago when he called him a coward. "You just had to throw fuel onto the fire, huh?" He "Being a cold son of a bitch was goin smooth until you showed up." Onbara began to laugh. He had to stop once he started coughing up. "...so there. That's my answer. Now, can you answer a question for me?"

Hana made a face. "Y-yes.. What is it?"

"My vest and the shirt under it; can you pull them both off?"

Hana was confused, but he nodded again and started pulling the tanto out of Onbara. He then lifted up his burned clothes, until his chest was bare. What was underneath shocked Hana, Sasuke and all the yakuza who had been forced into silence until now.

There were several seals over Onbara's now bleeding bloody.

"O-onbara... what are those..?" Hana asked nervously.

Onbara pushed Hana away from him then clapped his hands together. "Kamikaze Festival!" From the numerous seals on Onbara's body shot cables in every direction that stuck to the show room's walls, floor and ceiling. The yakuza's eyes widened once they realized what on the cables: full-sized paper tags. Tens of thousands of them hung off the cables in rows. A forest of bombs had just been created and they were all still connected to Onbara's seals.

"Onbara, what are doing?!" Hana shouted.

"Hopefully, making my dad proud for once. Kiddo, you still got that necklace, right? Give it to Beniko... and tell her I'm sorry."

Hana held it out toward him. "You can tell her that yourself, you idiot! You don't have to-"

"Hana." Hana stopped once he heard Onbara say his actual name. He saw the dying man smile. "It's been fun."

He put up two fingers and every yakuza ran from the show room as fast as they could. It didn't matter where they ran, though. An explosion this big would take out everyone on this wing of the casino. Hana knew that meant Onbara. He tried running up to him, but Sasuke grabbed him and activated his Rinnegan.

When he saw the three vanish, Onbara felt a wave of relief wash over him. 'Ma, going out in a blaze of glory probably won't save anyone, just like you said...'

"But hey... I might as well go out with a..."

Sasuke warped outside Imaeda Palace in time to watch half the building go "boom." Hana saw the flames and smoke bellow from the casino like a pit of Hell. The rain did little to suppress it.

When his master finally put him down, he punched the soggy earth, Onbara's necklace still clenched in his hand.

"That... idiot..." he whimpered when the tears began to fall.

1. A yobitsume is a Japanese ritual used to atone for offenses, and involves the offender cutting off their own little finger. It is mostly practiced by the yakuza.