A/N: My lovely instructors have decided to line up their tests all on the same day. A Monday no less. Three tests in one day, and an essay due on Tuesday that I haven't started yet. My brain is going to be mush by bedtime tomorrow.
I'm just under 10k words from 200k of actual content. I sorely underestimated how long this would be when I started.
"That was... the strangest thing I have ever seen," the old smith admitted as the last and largest group of Shun's citizens followed him and Osamu towards their haven, "You are like a walking font of unreality, child."
The boy was panting from the effort of inducing calm into fifty people at once, and then causing various guards around the town to simply ignore what was happening right in front of their faces. Due to the strain on his mind, Osamu hadn't targeted the last few genjutsu as well as he might have. His chakra, naturally hallucinogenic when unmoulded, had caused Takashi to experience a series of visions trippier than that one time he'd eaten those cave mushrooms in his youth.
"I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not," Osamu smirked at him.
"Are you going to be ready for battle," the samurai asked the boy with a hint of concern, "You certainly look winded."
Osamu waved off his concern, "I'll be fine. I've still got a good half of my chakra left. It's just taxing to use so much at once."
"Half?" the smith was taken aback, "Boy... I won't pretend to know what your techniques take, but I'm pretty sure you should be out after forcing unnatural calm on close to two hundred people and fooling half the guards in town on eight separate occasions."
Osamu shrugged helplessly, "My doctor says chakra is hard to quantify. You can compare capacity, but there's no real good measure."
"That's true enough," Takashi agreed with a nod, "I once suggested that you could use the baseline needed to support life in a human."
"That sounds reasonable," the boy scratched his head, "Wonder why no one else has suggested it."
"Probably because no one is actually sure what is required for life," the old smith explained to him, "The chakra pooled in your organs, keeping them running, is immense, but each person will find their limit of pulling on it different."
"So even two people with similar usable chakra pools could have vastly different requirements for sustaining their bodies," Osamu caught on, earning a nod of approval from Takashi, "None of my Sensei have mentioned that."
Finally they managed to get the last group to the cave Hiroto had carved out. It disturbed Takashi slightly that the people of Shun had followed meekly like sheep while under the effects of Osamu's technique, but he supposed that was better than them panicking.
"How long will they be like this?" he asked with worry.
"They'll shake it off soon," Osamu told him reassuringly, "Chakra users clear it in about five minutes without me sustaining it. Others take about ten times that length."
Takashi accepted that. So far, the shinobi from Konoha had acted with a level of honor that he found surprising. He wanted more time to converse with them, but for now he had a job to do.
He placed his feet shoulder width apart and pulled his fists tight against his waste. He pushed both out suddenly with his arms parallel to the ground.
"Shiah!" he grunted out as loud as he dared as the chakra he'd built swirled into the ground.
A moment later, ten stone statues rose from the ground. Each was stylized to look just like an armored samurai, and they all held naginata made from the same stone they had risen from.
"Cool," Osamu looked on, thoroughly impressed, "So that's samurai jutsu..."
"Kiaijutsu is the formal name of our arts," Takashi told him, "This one is my own devising. Ishiguntai."
"You didn't exactly shout right there," the shinobi observed with interest.
"My control over my chakra is very refined," he admitted with a smirk, "You might catch new recruits yelling themselves hoarse to mould their chakra, but I can do many of my techniques without so much as a whisper."
"You still sound like a herd of elephants when you move," the boy jibed at him with a smile, "I need to get going. The sun will be rising soon."
"Fight well, boy," the smith gave him the traditional send off, "And may the Shinigami turn his face from you on the battlefield."
XxXxXxX
Yasu awoke before dawn, as he usually did, and dressed quickly. His morning training was very important. The fools in Kumo couldn't see his genius for what it was, and so he had left the academy there to strike out on his own. Luckily he wasn't considered a nukenin because he had left just before graduating.
It had taken years of bounty work to garner the skills he now had, but he was one of the few people who could honestly claim to be an free-lance shinobi in this day and age. Once Gato had found him and recognized his usefulness, he had all the time and money he could ever want to perfect his art.
He really didn't know why his employer had gone and bothered to hire the Kiri nukenin, but he wouldn't split hairs. Instead of stalking some hapless bridge builder, he was training and becoming better.
He picked his way quietly down the stairs of his stolen home, and then through the passed out forms of the smuggling crew. He paused for a moment, feeling that something was off. He couldn't quite place his finger on it, so he made his way outside.
He made it twenty meters before the sun began to peek over the horizon. It suddenly hit him that there hadn't been a single woman from the town amongst the smuggling crew. They usually had close to a dozen with them every night...
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he heard the gleeful shout of a voice he didn't recognize.
His danger sense screamed at him, so he shunshined as far as he could go down the road. Not a moment later his home was host to the biggest explosion he'd ever seen. The blast knocked him off his feet, and the heat dried his eyes, but he was essentially unharmed.
"So you are a shinobi," a new voice commented from above, "You should tone down the outfit. Stealth isn't just about hiding in shadows."
Looking up revealed the silhouette of the speaker crouched on the roof of a nearby home. He cursed as he got to his feet and launched a few shuriken at his foe.
The man dodged by leaping down onto the street. Without the glare of the sun behind him, and in the rising light of dawn, he got a good look at the enemy. His plain face and short, spiky brown hair sparked a bit of recognition, but not enough for him to place from where. The hitai-ate tied to his arm left little doubt as to where he was from at least.
"Arata should have warned me about any nearby enemies," Yasu hissed angrily.
"Putty-nose is long gone," the Leaf shinobi replied, "He let himself get captured so he could cut a deal."
"Traitorous prick," the black-clad man cursed, "His little girl will pay for his betrayal after I kill you."
The other man snorted in amusement, "Fat chance of that."
Yasu drew his ninja-to and prepared to fight when the rubble of the burning mess that had once been his home burst up.
"WHO'S THE SORRY SON OF A BITCH GONNA DIE FOR TRYIN TO BLOW ME UP!" Itsuki screamed in fury. He was surrounded by a corona of mist and looked miraculously unharmed.
"Well fuck," the tree-hugger cursed before letting loose a whole brace of shuriken to cover a tactical retreat.
"COME BACK HERE YOU FUCK!" Itsuki's spiral eyes glowed bright as water condensed directly out of the air and formed into serpentine whips, "I'LL TEAR YOU TO PIECES FOR KILLIN MY CREW!"
Yasu leapt to the side. He knew damn well the temper the smuggler had, and with his command over water, calling him dangerous was like calling lava hot.
The tree-hugger proved nimble as he leapt over the first water lash. He watched as it cut straight through a nearby house, collapsing it.
"That can't be good," he commented blandly.
He ran through a set of hand seals and a thick, low rampart of earth rose in front of him.
"COME OUT LITTLE NINJA!" Itsuki yelled belligerently, "TAKE YOUR DEATH LIKE A MAN!"
He sent his next water lash straight at the wall like a spear.
XxXxXxX
Hiroto keyed his radio as soon as his wall was up.
"Twitch, Front," he spoke rapidly, "You'll be alone against the thugs."
"COME OUT LITTLE NINJA!" Itsuki yelled belligerently, "TAKE YOUR DEATH LIKE A MAN!"
Hiroto was about to give some instructions to his team, trusting in his chakra reinforced stone wall to protect him from the mans powerful, if unrefined, water manipulation. Earth, after all, absorbed most water techniques.
Most...
The sound of cracking was the only warning he got. A jet of water burst through his wall just as he dove into the ground using his chakra to form a tunnel. The jet of water demolished his wall and soaked his back as he quickly moved a street over before resurfacing.
"This is going to hell in a hand basket," Hiroto sighed. He really wish his team had been given more time to gauge the opposition, but Team Seven would have paid the price. He had thought the explosion would kill the smuggling captain.
Hiroto could hear Itsuki raging on the other street, trying to find him. The man obviously wasn't formally trained, but his control over water was intense. Here Hiroto thought that Yasu would be the greatest threat.
He went over his list of ninjutsu and decided his primary affinity was out. He did not want to try a control battle with that man. Wind wasn't much of an option either, since his lungs were still hurting from chakra burn. That left earth, but Itsuki had already proven the power discrepancy there.
For the first time in a while, Hiroto felt he would need to dip into his small repertoire of genjutsu.
The first one he weaved would make it hard to spot him. All he left was a slight distortion in the air. After that he jumped back onto the buildings so he could get line of sight on the crazed sailor. He frowned when he noticed Yasu was missing, but he had a bigger threat to deal with.
Working the seals for his next technique, he wove into his enemies sight a serious error. If he ever did spot Hiroto, he would begin to see double and triple. Neither illusion took much to maintain, so he hoped the captain's chakra would peter out before his own.
XxXxXxX
After the explosives were set, Masaru had prepped his chosen battle site carefully. A few of the homes would be sacrificed, but he figured that was a small price to pay, since his Sensei was going to focus on their leader, leaving him and Hotaka to take care of the thugs with ranged support from Osamu until the jonin was done.
The street was out of the way, and rarely patrolled, so he had a good three hours before sunrise to really set up a nice little nest of death. Kunai launchers, explosive caltrops, poison gas bombs, and other nasty little surprises would be in store for anyone running his way.
The main issue would be getting them to run his way. That would be easy, though. He grinned as he held up the detonator for the explosives he and Hotaka had set up. Normally, killing so many people at once would give him pause, but after Osamu had led seven women, ranging from fourteen to thirty, out of the main structure, he would gleefully immolate the fuckers left inside. When the only adult influences in your life were feminine, you developed a certain distaste for anyone who would exploit the fairer sex.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he shouted as loud as he could when he saw the sun peek over the horizon. He pressed the safety trigger, then mashed the detonator button. The explosion was as big as he had imagined it would be, but there was something missing from it.
He didn't have time to dwell on it as he heard running footsteps coming his way. Two of the thugs rounded the corner of an alley and spotted him easily.
"There he is!" one with a a large club cried.
"Get 'em!" the other shouted lofting his katana over his head.
They charged together... right into a trip wire that set off two of the kunai launchers. They were perforated from either side by at least twenty of the throwing knives apiece.
As they lay bleeding in the dirt, unable to move, Masaru unsealed his bo-staff and muttered darkly, "Welcome to my parlor..."
XxXxXxX
Further south, another street over, Hotaka had scoped out the sleeping quarters for a third of Gato's men, and was perched on a nearby roof. He knew Masaru's plan, but felt it would be in all their best interest if he kept too many people from running into his web of traps and overwhelming the large genin.
He might have been there to watch his back, but Masaru's preferred method of fighting clashed with his own in most cases. Osamu would bridge the distance between them with his genjutsu and bow anyway.
As the sun crested the horizon, he heard the crazy fucker announce his presence to the world, then heard and felt the massive explosion. Not long after, the thugs came out of the houses they had commandeered, weapons in hand. Lazy they might have been, but they were pretty quick to react.
"We should find the guy who set that off," one said with certainty. He sounded like a natural leader.
He fell to the ground, dying with a kunai through the heart. Hotaka jumped down from his perch and took his stance, hands up to guard his face with his palms towards his enemies. Hiroto had said to make a serious impression, and flitting about launching kunai and shuriken wasn't the way to do it. At least that's what he told himself.
He'd found in his last serious fight that the adrenaline of close quarters combat gave him a high like no other. He desired that feeling again. He might have been trusting his taijutsu a little too much, but that was the whole point.
"It's just a fucking kid..." a man with a green mohawk and a long straight sword looked on in amazement.
"Look at his belt, dumbass," another thug, this one bald, waved a flanged mace in Hotaka's direction, "He's a ninja."
"Who the fuck cares," this one had greasy black hair down to his shoulders and some spiked gauntlets over his hands, "There's still nine of us, and one of him. Kill em!"
With nods of agreement, the three who'd spoken charged him without any semblance of unity. Bad idea for them. Worse was their comrades sitting back to enjoy the show of watching some punk ass kid get his. Said kid was a tad disgusted they had barely reacted to the death of one of their own.
Greasy reached him first, and leveled a decent haymaker at his face. Hotaka ducked the blow, and tagged him with a few good jabs to the ribs, forcing the man back. If he didn't have a few cracked bones, he would have some serious bruises.
Before he could press the advantage, Baldy came in from the left with a downward smash of his mace. The ninja spun away from the blow, feeling the air displaced by it on his back, and used the momentum of his dodge to plant a full power round-house into Baldy's face. He flew off into an alley, and didn't get back up. One down.
Mohawk was next, and proved to be more trouble than the other two. His sword darted in low forcing Hotaka to take a measured step back. Before his feet where even reset, the sword was retracted and sent at his face. The genin threw himself backwards, and Mohawk followed thinking he had him on the ropes.
He couldn't have known that Hotaka's style was called Koodorikaze for a reason. His father had invented, then mastered the style. Gai had once said of the man that during his last glorious moments he was as untouchable as a dancing wind, giving Mayu the idea for the name.
Hotaka planted his hands on the ground as the flexibility he'd trained so hard for came into play, his body folded almost in half. Tightening his abdominals suddenly caused his lower body to shoot up towards the vertical. As his feet rose, he kicked Mohawk's sword up high as it attempted to spear him.
Undeterred, Mohawk attempt to slash the boy's back. Figuring a strike was coming, but unsure from what angle with his back turned, Hotaka allowed the momentum of coming into a handstand continue until he lay prone on the ground. He got a good view of Mohawk stumbling a bit from his powerful strike. He recovered quickly and moved to stab Hotaka in the face.
The genin heard a battle cry, and realized Greasy hadn't been put down by his love taps earlier. He had circled around to flank the genin with Mohawk.
Pushing himself up into a pushup ready position, he kicked his legs out to his right and twirled them around to his front, lifting each hand as his lower body came around. The sweep forced Mohawk to come up short, ruining his next jab.
The dull thud behind him told him that Greasy had indeed tried to break his back. His legs shot out behind him again as they continued their rotation, and he was rewarded with the sickening crunch of breaking bone and a scream of pain as the thugs arm broke from the sudden impact.
His eyes never left Mohawk. His last attack had been brought up short, unbalancing him, but he was ready to come in again. He made for a downward chop on the seemingly disadvantaged genin, only for the boy to flip himself onto his back and catch the strike on his metal bracers by crossing his arms.
Mohawk refused to give up, as he tried to overpower the genin, and with his leverage, he might have. Hotaka, unwilling to test his strength against the larger man, supine as he was, guided the blade to the left suddenly and allowed it to hit the ground. While Mohawk recovered from the jarring shock of hitting the ground, Hotaka kipped up, only for a gauntleted fist to come flying at his face. Greasy, it seemed, still hadn't had enough.
Once again, Hotaka ducked under the blow, but this time he slid his leading foot past his injured foe. He planted it and used it to pivot his body. His other leg came up and slammed into Greasy's shins as he rotated, tumbling him right into Mohawk's sword, which had been attempting to stab Hotaka in the back. Two down.
Surprised, Mohawk let his dying comrade slip off his bloody sword. He seemed to remember what was going on and looked up just in time to receive three rapid fire snap kicks to his groin, gut, then face.
He fell to the ground writhing in pain, where he received a stomp to his neck to end him. Three down.
"That the best you got?" Hotaka asked with a raised brow as he retook his initial stance.
The other thugs looked on, dumbfounded, for a few moments. Finally, an angry cry rose up and they charged all at once.
XxXxXxX
Osamu shook his head as he heard Masaru yell out and set off his 'fire cracker' as he had jokingly called it. Sitting up in a tree at the top of a hill gave Osamu a good view of the whole town. He watched as the first of Masaru's victims went down, and he was even able to read his friends lips as he spoke.
"Said the spider to the fly," Osamu finished the saying for his friend with a dark chuckle.
Hotaka, for his part was picking apart the three thugs who had foolishly chosen to fight him without absolutely overwhelming numbers. The three of them were done in little more than thirty seconds.
The screaming from the center of town pulled his attention back to his Sensei just in time for him to hear the warning over the radio.
He frowned as he watched a corona of mist catch the light from the rising sun. It all centered on a man that Hiroto had described as the leader of the smugglers. Osamu might have sent some arrows his way, but his perch put him outside of his effective range to support his Sensei. He would have to hope he would be alright as he helped his teammates.
Osamu checked on Hotaka first as his situation was more immediately dire. The small boy set an arrow to the string of his bow and pulled back to a half draw to wait for a good opening to kill or cripple one of the thugs. He didn't quite trust his marksmanship enough to fire directly into a melee where an errant arrow could maim, or worse, one if his friends.
He didn't have to wait long. Hotaka was surrounded by now and dodging and parrying blows like mad. Osamu pulled his bow string to full draw and took aim at a man standing farther back from the melee with a spear. He was harrying the shinobi to prevent him from capitalizing on any openings he might have seen.
The arrow flew, cutting the air with a whizzing sound, and punched straight through the spear wielders thigh. Osamu heard the scream of pain, and many of the man's allies started in surprise, giving Hotaka some room to breath.
He glanced back towards Masaru just in time to see a house collapse on five of the goons who had thought to go through it to avoid the trapped street. No one had yet reached the large genin, who was shouting mockery at his foes to egg them on.
The youngest Sakibou again focused on the fight with Hotaka. The spear wielder had fallen to the ground with a glint of metal visible in his ribs. The lanky genin must have used his respite to finish off his most troubling foe.
Osamu drew another arrow and lined up a shot on a thug with a pair of swords who looked like he knew what he was doing. Hotaka managed to push him back with an otherwise ineffective snap kick. The cat-eyed boy let fly immediately and pegged the dual wielder in his gut. He wouldn't die any time soon, but he was out of the fight.
Checking again on Masaru, he found that by some chance, maybe just pure dumb luck, a few thugs had made it through the gauntlet alive to try their hand at fighting the large teen in close quarters. Judging by the way one was favoring a leg, they hadn't made it through completely unscathed.
As he watched, some more of Gato's men took up positions behind Masaru outside of his killing field brandishing bows themselves. With three there, Osamu couldn't just take them down with arrows before one managed to shoot his friend in the back.
Instead he couched his bow in the crux of his elbows and flashed through the seals for a genjutsu he rarely used. It was simple enough, but he found it to be a bit too obvious for his liking. At this range and to affect more than normal, he was forced to put exponentially more chakra into the technique than normal, causing beads of sweat to form on his head. He hoped it would be last technique he needed to pull out. His reserves were low after that.
"Magen: Narakumi," he incanted to help the technique form properly.
Suddenly, the three archers were screaming an abject terror at whatever they were seeing. One suddenly stopped moving as his heart gave out for the fright he was experiencing. Osamu dropped the others with his bow, trying to ignore the crawling sensation he got from their collective fear.
He turned his focus back to Masaru himself and saw the injured man had been at least knocked out. The other two were pressing the trapper hard, however. Osamu helped even the odds, by pinning ones foot the the ground when he stopped moving for a moment. It was the closest he was willing to shoot towards his friend.
Figuring his large friend could handle things from there, the archer turned his attention back to Hotaka. He was down to three enemies, and he had managed to break away. He was limping slightly, but he was now making use of his tethered kunai to keep his foes at a distance.
Osamu took aim and was about to bring another one down with a shot to the face when motion caught his eye. Nearby, a man in black was moving with unnatural speed into the woods in the general direction of their camp.
"Shit," the boy cursed quietly, "Kaede-san."
He glanced back at the fighting to see both his friends had brought down another thug apiece. Seeing that they had things well in hand, he began to bounce from tree to tree. He couldn't let that man hurt Kaede after she had shown so much trust in them.
XxXxXxX
Hiroto cursed as the last of his shuriken were sliced from the air by those damnable water whips. It had to be the mist. Itsuki was somehow sensing incoming attacks with it. It did explain why his genjutsu had been absolutely useless at least.
The smuggler was still livid, but had already shouted himself hoarse. Luckily for Hiroto, he had proven that he wasn't formally trained; otherwise, the Leaf jonin would have been dead by now.
He couldn't get him from a distance, and his ninjutsu wasn't doing much. That left one option. Hiroto summoned his shields, giving a silent prayer that they would hold out, and he made use of a shunshin to close to melee as fast as he could.
"Finally!" Itsuki coughed out roughly, "Come to die?"
Hiroto danced away from one whip that tried to come down on top of him. Another took a swipe at his legs, and he jumped it. The first water lash swept across to take him in the side while he was airborne and unable to dodge. This was the moment of truth. He raised his shield and slammed it into the animated water.
To his relief, the whip rebounded from the enhanced steel without so much as a dent.
"What?" Itsuki wheezed as the Konoha jonin dropped back to the ground.
Hiroto got in close and began to slash and stab with the tips of his shields. Every attack was turned aside by water appearing straight out of the air.
His danger sense went off, and he dove to the side just as one of Itsuki's whips flew through where his head had been. He rolled back to standing position before another whip tried to spear him while he was on the ground.
He frowned as he realized he was growing thirsty at a rapid rate.
"Feel it do ya?" Itsuki chuckled hoarsely, "At this range I can pull the water right outa your body."
Hiroto scowled. If it was a race against time, he didn't plan on finishing last. His breathing slowed as the battle trance fell over him.
A whip came at him, flying gracefully through the air towards his legs. He jumped it, blocking the one coming from the other side to catch him in the air. His slow desiccation picked up as Itsuki realized the jonin had just stepped up his game.
Stepping back into striking range, Hiroto began a pump his arms in vicious and quick jabs too fast for Itsuki to block them all with his water, forcing him to back pedal. Hiroto kept up the furious assault as he began to gather chakra for an old trick. He trickled it into the ground, and just as Itsuki took another step back, he formed a divot under his foot.
The captain stumbled to a knee when his foot didn't land right and twisted awkwardly. The pain caused his concentration to falter. It was all the opening Hiroto needed to swipe a shield tip across his throat.
The water raging around them fell to the ground as Itsuki tried to keep his lifeblood from draining out of his neck.
"You fought well," Hiroto panted to him with a nod of respect.
Itsuki gurgled out a curse as he died.
XxXxXxX
It was all Osamu could do to keep up with the free-lance shinobi. If it weren't for his Reimokushi, he never would have been able to track him. They weren't headed straight for Team Five's camp, but if the guy got anywhere close to it, he would easily spot Kaede.
The sound of a stick breaking caught his attention, and judging by the way Yasu's magenta aura came to a stop, he heard it, too.
"Fine time to be collecting firewood, Kaede-san," Osamu muttered to himself.
He saw the purple aura pulse with something akin to delight with undercurrents of something darker. It was a far cry from the seething anger he'd been seeing, but it didn't bode well at all.
Osamu leapt to the ground. He was meant for ranged support, but he doubted this guy was going to get caught by anything the boy could throw at him from a distance. The only reason he hadn't been detected yet had been because of the distance he had kept; he was sure of it. Luckily, Yasu was content to stalk up to the camp.
Osamu felt a spike of alarm from his connection to his familiar. He sent her the distinct impression that she shouldn't let on that she had sensed the incoming threat. That would only cause their enemy to act before Osamu was close enough to intervene. Yancha, still crabby from suffering through her first heat, flooded their connection with annoyance, but he gleaned that she would comply.
Seeing that Yasu was getting extremely close to the pastel green of Kaede's aura, Osamu broke into a run. He wasn't about to let another innocent person come to harm because of him. He purposely allowed his feet to make sound, so she might have at least some warning.
XxXxXxX
Kaede tossed another stick onto the fire and watched as the water in Masaru's large pot began to boil. Yancha had been kind enough to go and catch her some sea birds, boobies if her guess was right, when she asked. She had thought it odd when Osamu had talked to the cat as if it were just another person, and was surprised when the feline seemed to understand her as well.
She had cleaned the birds, three in total, and had them hanging from a tree limb. She would cook two for the team and leave the other untouched for Osamu. She felt it was the least she could do for the shinobi for treating her so well.
She frowned when she heard Yancha growling low from her perch above the birds. The cat had been irritable since the explosion earlier. She obviously didn't like her human entering combat without her. Kaede didn't like the idea of the small boy, or his friends for that matter, in battle either. She wouldn't shed a single tear for Gato's men, but no one her age, much less younger, should have been in that fight.
The sound of rapid yet soft foot falls caught her attention, and she turned to them. She caught a glimpse of a black clad figure reaching for her, and then she experienced the most disorienting sensation.
It felt as if she had been pulled inward starting at her naval, and then sucked through a straw. It was the only analogy her mind could come up with. She found herself looking at the back of the figure.
"Oh you are a clever little shit," the man gave a harsh laugh, "Kawarimi to save the girl. Looks like just that tired you out, though. The hell kind of shinobi are you."
"What?" Kaede asked in utter confusion.
The man turned to reveal he had Osamu by the throat. His face was covered in sweat, and it was starting to turn read due to lack of air.
"Osamu-kun!" Kaede took a step forward.
"Ah ah!" the black clad man pulled a short blade from his back and placed it to the young shinobi's throat as he pulled him back against his chest, "You wouldn't want him to die after such a heroic gesture would you?"
Kaede bit her lip and tears sprang from her eyes. Osamu barely knew her, and he had just saved her life.
"Run, Kaede-san," he choked out through the grip his captor had on his throat, "I'll be fine. I can't do anything when he might hurt you. Just run."
The look of calm in his amber eyes startled her, and she nodded. She took a step back, then another. She did this for a few more step then turned and ran deeper into the woods.
"That was a rather cruel lie, boy," Yasu chuckled darkly after Kaede had disappeared, "Making her think you would survive."
"Who says I was lying?" Osamu replied back. Yasu had loosened his grip slightly, allowing him to breath better.
"Please," Yasu put his blade up and made a few half seals, "You're obviously a genin... and not a very good one if Kawarimi tires you out."
Osamu felt his body sieze up when Yasu was done with his jutsu, "There now. No more trouble out of you."
The small boy attempted to pause his chakra flow to disrupt what he thought was a genjutsu, but it didn't allow him to move. His surprise grew when he began to walk of his own accord, then run.
A ninjutsu that paralyzes and allows the user to control the victim like a puppet, he thought in grim amazement, Oh this has the potential to be horrible for me.
As a consolation, he could feel Yancha stalking them from behind. She was keeping a good distance at his behest. It wasn't time to strike yet. He could still feel his chakra, and Yasu was keeping in direct contact with him. He didn't have a whole lot left, but if he trickled it slowly enough...
XxXxXxX
Hotaka cursed when the large man with a serious body odor issue dropped his curved sword to catch his foot with both hands. Hotaka was strong, much stronger than anyone his age had any right to be, but a full grown man, chakra or no, could still overpower him.
Movement to his right caught his attention. A tall, thin man with a pair of cutlasses was swiping down on his trapped leg. Thinking fast, Hotaka hopped to the left as far as he could with his leg still trapped. The act saved him a terrible wound. One of the blades missed his leg by a hair, but the other managed to part the material of his deep crimson pants and put a shallow slice into his thigh.
Thoroughly done with being grappled, and knowing the other two thugs had only been staggered by his last blows on them, Hotaka brought to bear his own weapons. Jumping with his one free leg, he brought it up and twisted to pivot around his trapped leg. He smashed his left foot into his captors face as it came around, causing him to drop his hold so he could cradle his busted jaw.
Simultaneous to the kick, the young shinobi brought his left arm around in a throwing motion and sent a pulse of chakra down it. His bracer reacted immediately by sending its blade directly into the cutlass wielder head with enough force to pierce his skull.
Hotaka stepped closer to his latest kill with a wince. His leg was oozing blood and hurt like hell, but he was able to walk. He gave the wire connecting him to his blade a sharp tug that extracted the weapon with a whipping motion to clean off the gore. With two quick pulses, it retracted back in place, ready to fire again.
He hopped further away from his enemies as they recovered. With his leg injured he wouldn't be able to make the best use of his taijutsu. There was a moment of calm as Stinky took his sword back up. He was apparently not done yet.
The other two, a small man with an eye-patch and a spiked chain and an ugly guy missing his whole upper lip with a couple of hooked swords, stepped up to either side of him.
Before they could charge him, Hotaka launched both his blades at them. They scattered to keep from getting hit, but the boy was far from done. He set them at half their six meter range, and began to spin.
The blades followed the motion of his body and began to pick up speed. When Stinky tried to get in close, he angled his right arm so the blade buzzed right in front of his face, stopping him short. That was good, since Hotaka wasn't ready to unleash the full force of his technique.
Sending chakra to his legs to speed up his spin he was soon whipping up dust. Finally, he created a cushion of chakra under his feet that continued to push his spin even faster. He retracted his whirring blades and slowed his spin marginally to bait them in. Two of them took it, thinking his trick over.
"Kamisorikaze!" he shouted as he pulsed the chakra in his arms and ramped his spin back up to full speed.
His blades popped back out to full extension suddenly. Cyclops managed to duck in time, but Smiley wasn't so lucky as he found the wires digging through his soft flesh like a hot knife through butter. He fell with his neck shredded and guts spilling out. The wires snagged momentarily on bone, but the force of the spin pulled them loose while the strength of the wire kept them from snapping.
Cyclops tried to stay low, but Hotaka angled his arms so that the wires would go lower. He had nowhere else to go, and the blade tipped wires shredded his face off, leaving his skull bare.
Hotaka watched him fall over as he came to a stop, then looked back up to stinky as he whipped his wires free of blood and gore before reeling them in.
"Well come on," he retook his stance and beckoned the man impatiently. He was high on the adrenaline of the battle and craved more.
Stinky had had enough. He turned and ran.
XxXxXxX
Masaru actually laughed when he heard the screams behind him come to a stop, causing his current foes to falter some. One payed for his lack of motion by having an arrow suddenly pinning his foot the the ground.
Masaru wasted no time in placing a palm against the man's chest as he froze in pain and sending a kunai straight though his sternum with a burst of chakra. He collapsed bonelessly, but Masaru had turned back to his last foe to give him a wicked smile.
"Fuck this," the thug ran for the house behind him.
"I wouldn't..." Masaru called after him.
It was too late, the man had hit a trip wire and activated the det-cord placed to collapse the structure on those caught inside. Judging by the screams, he hadn't died instantly.
"Should have just surrendered, dumbass," Masaru called out in irritation.
He could hear the sounds of battle dying down. He felt a flash of worry for his Sensei that he hadn't had time to feel in the heat of battle. The radio message had been followed by some serious noise from the center of town.
He took to the roofs to see what was going on. He saw Hotaka doing the same, though he was favoring his right leg.
"You alright?" Masaru shouted over to his friend.
"One of them gashed my leg," Hotaka replied as their paths joined up, "Not all that deep. Sensei can patch me up."
"If he isn't too messed up himself," the large teen said back with a frown.
"Heard it, too, huh," the thinner boy smirked, "I bet he kicked ass."
True to Hotaka's prediction, they found their Sensei sitting in the middle of the street guzzling water from his canteen.
"You look a little worse for wear, Sensei," Masaru joked, happy to see him in one piece, "What happened?"
"The captain of the ship survived the explosion," the tired jonin replied, "Turns out he was a hell of a chakra savant. Might have even had a bloodline."
"Why not call the tigers?" Hotaka asked curiously.
"They're each bigger than most of these houses," his Sensei looked at him incredulously, "I wanted to win, not demolish the whole town."
"What about that Yasu guy you told us to watch out for?" Masaru asked, looking around, "Did you get him, too?"
Hiroto shook his head, "He got the hell out. I couldn't chase him with Itsuki going berserk. Probably halfway across the island by now."
The jonin looked his genin over and motioned the injured Hotaka closer, "Let's see to that wound."
"Thanks Sensei," Hotaka sighed in relief as the worst of the damage began to mend.
"Where's Osamu?" the hazel-eyed man asked as he worked.
"He's right here," another voice said menacingly.
They looked to see their smallest team member held in front of the black-clad Yasu with a short blade to his throat.
"What do you want, Yasu?" Hiroto growled, taking a step forward.
"Not another step," the other shinobi pressed the blade closer to his captive.
The gesture had the intended effect as the Leaf jonin stopped.
"There we are," the man grinned, "No need for little Osamu-kun to get hurt now is there?"
"What," Hiroto's voice held a very dangerous tone as he repeated his question, "Do you want?"
"There's something in that rubble there that I need," Yasu nodded towards the destroyed building that had been his home for some time, "A fist sized orb of onyx, lots of etchings. I suggest you get to looking."
"Sensei?" Hotaka asked with concern. The sight of his friend in such a predicament had actually put a quaver in his voice.
"You and Masaru find what he wants," Hiroto didn't take his eyes off of the captor.
Silence reigned for a few more moments before he heard the two boys move to comply.
"I figured you would be back with your master," the jonin might have sounded like he was making light conversation if he didn't have such a hard edge in his voice.
"Oh my master would never forgive me losing such a precious item," Yasu replied, his smile never faltering, "I was going to have that fool Gato help me get it, but your camp in the woods provided such a good opportunity."
"Kaede-san..." Hiroto whispered with wide eyes.
"Oh don't worry," the black-clad shinobi shook his captive a bit, "Osamu-kun here is quite the hero. His little stunt saved the poor damsel in distress."
Hiroto couldn't help but feel a bit of pride for the young Sakibou, but he also cursed the boy's courage for getting stuck like that.
A glance at the boy's face showed him he was calm as could be.
"You look familiar," Hiroto suddenly changed topics.
"I could say the same about you," Yasu frowned, annoyed that he couldn't place where he'd seen Hiroto before, "I swear I've seen your face before, but we're from different villages."
"I wasn't always a Konoha shinobi," Hiroto replied, glancing again at Osamu, "I defected from Kumo about twelve, thirteen years ago."
Yasu squinted at him before letting out a bark of laughter, "Bonjin!? Is that really you? Yea... I can definitely see it now."
Yasu's own recognition didn't quite spark Hiroto's, but he still couldn't shake that familiarity.
"I don't blame you for not remembering," the other shinobi smirked at him, "I dropped out of the academy before graduation when Master found me."
That did it.
"You were top of the class," Hiroto's eyes widened, "Why would you leave?"
"They refused to let me graduate early," Yasu spat angrily, "Plenty of the clan children did, but I was just a lowly orphan. How could I possibly be as talented as they."
That seemed to open a flood gates as Yasu went on a tirade about the injustice of it. He went on to talk about how his 'Master' saw his genius and nurtured it. He even gave the budding ninja a powerful item to protect. He went on for ten minutes like that.
Oh Kami, the Leaf jonin thought, He thinks he's a damn divine gift to the world.
Another glance at Osamu showed him smiling. Hiroto had bought him enough time.
"You can shut up now," he interrupted the monologue, "I suggest you let him go before you die."
"You can't bluff me, Bonjin," Yasu sneered at him, "I hold all the cards right now."
Hiroto gave him a nasty grin, "You should be feeling it about now."
"What..." Yasu's confusion compounded when he realized the sky was green for some reason, "What?"
"Osamu there has some unique chakra," Hiroto's smile grew wider, "Terrible for ninjutsu, but great for genjutsu. It's naturally hallucinogenic even without being moulded."
The freelancer blinked, and suddenly he could feel colors. Every shade produced a different sensation.
"Bullshit!" Yasu spat out.
As if to mock his disbelief, one of the houses nearby began to sag and run like a melting candle. He began to feel as if there were ants crawling around inside his skull.
"Ten minutes is enough time for him to really dose you," Hiroto actually laughed, "Even if he's trickling it to keep you from noticing. I bet he's been doing it since you captured him."
"That doesn't matter!" the free-lance shinobi shouted, "You still won't get near me before I slit his throat."
"You're right," this voice was from right in front of him, but that wasn't right. The boy couldn't move a muscle unless he willed it, "But Yancha, my cat, can."
"The fucking house cat?" Yasu laugh sound a little strained, "That thing couldn't do shit to me."
"Actually," Osamu replied calmly, "Sakibou familiars are known for their ability to grow in size for combat. Yancha just reached the point where she could do that."
Yasu felt something heavy strike his back. He should have heard anything aproaching him, but his ears were ringing. He tried to run his blade along the little shit's throat, but he was suddenly not where he had been. Osamu wasn't in his grasp either.
A guttural growl sounded behind him, and he felt multiple sharp objects pierce the flesh of his back.
XxXxXxX
By the screams of terror and pain and the growls, Yancha was most certainly tearing Yasu to shreds.
"Holy shit!" Masaru was still frozen in shock at seeing the normally amicable cat in her combat form, "Did you see how big she was!?"
"Lynx my ass," Hotaka added with a slack expression, "She's bigger than the tiger back at Osamu's."
Osamu turned and headed for where the growls were still emanating. The screams had stopped, which meant she was done with her savage work.
The rest of Team Five tried to follow, but Osamu held up his hand to get them to stop.
"If she goes berserk and attacks anyone, it needs to be me," he told them seriously, "If I die, she dies, and no one else gets hurt."
"Osamu..." Hiroto began.
"No, Sensei," the boy interrupted moving forward again, "I allowed her to change, knowing the danger to her mind if she was allowed to kill during her first one. I won't let anyone else pay for my mistakes."
The jonin could definitely identify with that attitude. He let him go.
Osamu found his feline in an alleyway with her prey still in her maw. She looked at him, laid her ears back and let loose a warning growl.
"It's okay, girl," he said soothingly to her, "It's me... remember?"
The growling stopped, but her ears stayed back and her hackles were up. As soon as he tried to take another step forward, she began to growl again.
"It's Osamu, Yancha," her ears stood up at the sound of her name and the growling stopped once again, "That's right girl."
Her muscles began to relax, and she dropped the remains of Yasu. There wasn't much, just a bloody mess, really.
"Good girl," he took another step closer and reached out, "The fights over, Yancha. We're safe."
She sniffed at his hand cautiously before beginning to purr. She took a step forward and began to shrink. Soon she was back to her normal size, meowing plaintively at her human. He scooped her up, despite the blood covering her and began to stroke her fur.
"Good girl," he gave her a squeeze and carried her back to his team with a sigh of relief, "I'm so proud of you."
By the time he got back to his worried team, she was fast asleep in his arms, exhausted from her first transformation.
XxXxXxX
The few of Gato's men that had gotten away stood in his presence, exhausted from their terrified flight. The short business man stared at them menacingly through his sunglasses from behind his desk.
"You mean to tell me," he began quietly after hearing their story, "That a team of shinobi from Konoha took out thirty of my guards, twenty hardened sailors, and their captain, who I know to be a literal monster in combat?"
"Yea boss..." the speaker for the beaten thugs, Stinky, nodded, "They blowed up the smugglers and kilt the rest."
"Who were they?" Gato was having a really hard time remaining calm. First the debacle with Tazuna, and now this. He needed to find out how Konoha had found out about his little venture here.
"Well..." the large man with a foul odor replied, "Don't know much bout t'others, but I fought a wiry little bastard. Took out nine o' us with tha help o' some archer type."
"One man?" Gato's fist clenched in anger.
"Boy actually," Stinky corrected sheepishly.
That did it. Gato screamed in incoherent anger and leapt on top of his desk.
"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME," he yelled at them, "THAT YOU WERE BEAT BY A BUNCH OF FUCKING KIDS!?"
The thugs nodded in fear.
"Kill them," Gato waved his hand in their direction with disgust.
His other men moved in and attacked without mercy, making short work of the tired and beaten men.
Gato didn't stick around to watch, instead heading down through his compound to find the man who had assured him that Tazuna would die, his two primary body guards following him. He didn't care if the man was injured. This shit needed to end now.
I was on the fence for a good two weeks deciding whether or not Kaeda was going to die in this chapter. I decided she makes a good tool to showcase the civilian aspect of this world with a single character, especially civilians with a direct connection to shinobi. I also want Team Five's first brush with loss to hit a little closer to home. So far all of the deaths have been pretty much faceless grunts or 'bad guys.' So who do you think the first major death will be? Could be canon or OC.
Hope you enjoyed the battle for Shun. I know I didn't do much for Masaru here, but it wasn't a great place to showcase his abilities. That will likely come full force in the next arc. I think I'm going to do a databook style entry for each of them at the end of this arc. Might do Team Seven, too, since they've been given decent training up to this point.
A Short Primer on Kiaijutsu
By: Seika Takashi
Of the three primary arts of the samurai, the shouting arts are our most versatile. They are essentially similar in nature to shinobi ninjutsu, producing all manner of effects based on the shape and nature of the chakra produced for the technique.
The name arises from our tendency to shout as a means of focusing our chakra just before final release. In truth, the name was derived, so the stories go, from a joke. During the days following the Great Sage, a budding shinobi quipped to his samurai kin that they simply shouted at the world to do what they wanted and it complied. Kiai had already been a long standing method of focusing ones effort, and so the name was born.
In truth, the shout is no more necessary to a technique than the incantation that many shinobi use with their own techniques. The real work is done by the position of our bodies as we flow through combat. This is a great secret of samurai combat that shinobi are still trying to puzzle out since the movements do not inherently mould chakra any more than hand seals do. Like the shout or incantation, it is merely there to aid us in shaping the chakra into the proper pattern. The somatic components of our techniques are far more powerful a tool than the shout, however. It is a rare individual who can perform anything more than rudimentary moulding without the aid of such mnemonic devices.
Ishiguntai (Stone Army)
Type: Kiaijutsu (Earth, Supplemental)
Rank: A
Effect: The user raises warriors of stone from the earth to serve as foot soldiers. Their skill in combat is only one tenth that of their summoner, but they are immensely durable. Advanced users can increase the versatility of the technique by imbuing their creations with other skills besides combat, though the original limitation remains.
Kamisorikaze (Razor Wind)
Type: Taijutsu/Bukijutsu (Offensive)
Rank: C
Effect: By first boosting, then using chakra cushions under the feet, Hotaka propels himself into a rapid spin. At max speed, he releases his bracers' kunai. Moving at high speeds, the wires and blades can cut through soft flesh easily. Hotaka needs time to generate the speed necessary for the technique and can only maintain it for a short time before he risks severe disorientation.