Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. This is fanfiction, after all.
Forests near the border of Land of Hot Water, Land of Rice Fields, and the Land of Fire – March 14, AK 22
"Finally! Mission accomplished!"
Hanabi stared stoically at her brown-haired subordinate who had a wide grin on his face. "Say that after we're safely clear of the Land of Hot Water and back to Konoha. Make sure to keep your guard up on the way back."
Taichi Io crossed his arms. "Aw. Don't be like that, Captain. We just spent a week on edge because we were guarding a daimyo during negotiations for the price of rice wine. We all know that nothing ever happens on these kinds of missions. It's just that the nobles are paranoid and self-satisfied pricks that they pay for an A-ranked mission."
"That may be the case, Io, but never let your guard down," she returned in a soft voice.
There were so many situations in the past where letting her guard had cost her. Her own teammates had died because of an ambush. If she had had the sense and the awareness to activate her Byakugan earlier, then they might not have died. People said that she was too harsh on herself, but Hanabi knew it had been her job to prepare her teammates for any possible attack. It wasn't feasible to keep her bloodline on all the time, but she should have had activated it at random intervals and done regular checks whenever possible.
"The kid does have a point, you know." Hanabi turned to the other female member of her squad. It was Tenten, her late cousin's old genin teammate. "I could definitely use the extra pay so I'm not complaining, but this mission was a total bore."
"I agree. There was not enough youthfulness on this mission! I must make up the lost time with extra training! I will try to lift up this rock with one my nose! If I can't to that, then I'll—"
Hanabi tuned out the vigorous statements of "youth" from the final member of the squad. She never understood how Neji dealt with Lee back when the two were genin teammates. She was fairly familiar with him and Tenten since they often visited Neji when he had been alive and because she worked with them on quite a few missions, but she still couldn't help feeling irritated by Lee's antics.
Still, she wouldn't admit it, and least of all to Io, but there was something off about this mission. Hanabi had learned in her classes that before the Fourth War, scrupulous nobles regularly hired A-ranks for protection in addition to having their own samurai guards, each of which could stand against a chuunin or even a jounin. But even then, only one A-rank would be requested and those were more dangerous times. There definitely was no need for two A-rank ninjas on this mission even if one of those two was officially classified only as a special jounin. Perhaps there was a shady deal going on that required more protection.
(AN: Genin are D-rank by default, chuunin are C-rank, jounin are B-rank by default, with special jounin being somewhere in between B and C. Elite jounin are A-ranks. There are no more than a couple dozen A-ranks at most in each village. As for S-ranks, there are only a couple dozen of these across the entire Elemental Nations.
Note that there are exceptions. Naruto was classified as S-rank as a genin after the war and Lee is currently an A-rank as a special jounin. But Tenten is the typical B-rank, as are most members of the original Rookie 9.)
"Ah well, I suppose Captain Hyuuga does get paid to be paranoid." Io rolled his eyes while speaking in a mocking tone. "She's the captain for a reason."
Hanabi felt tempted to snap at the boy. As a Hyuuga who was trained to read others, she knew that older teen had something of a crush on her. Hanabi initially didn't want to comment on it because it wouldn't be proper on a mission, but she was reaching breaking point. His little crush on her was flattering, but she could do without the attention and the little jabs here and there.
"Do you really have to bring that up every minute or something?" Tenten grumbled. "We get it. You're feeling emasculated because you're taking orders from a girl."
"It's not that!" Io protested. Hanabi would have rolled her eyes at the chuunin's protests and his attempts to explain himself.
Tenten had something of an inferiority complex so she would often automatically jump to the conclusion that the world was considering her and other kunoichi weak. That mindset prevented Tenten from seeing the true reason why Io kept pestering Hanabi.
It worked well in this case. Hanabi did not want to spend the next few days being teased by her older teammates. Lee especially would shout something about the "springtime of youth" and how "love was youthful."
Speaking of which, Hanabi turned to her other teammate. She felt herself about to twitch in annoyance when she saw that he was trying to climb a tree with two fingers. Lee would never change.
"Then what is it?" Tenten demanded.
"I'm just trying to get a reaction out of her!" Io quickly explained. "It's just that the elites have some kind of…" he too turned to look at the spandex wearing ninja, who was now trying to use his forehead to knock down a tree, "um…strange quirk. Lee-sempai can't speak ten words without saying something about 'youth' and Captain Hanabi is like the Ice Princess or something. She won't even call me by my first name even after two weeks! I'm trying to figure out how to advance in my career, you know, so I'm paying attention to how my superiors are."
He was lying, of course, but Hanabi allowed him to save face in front of Tenten. More importantly, his comment made her pause for a moment. Io did have a point; Hanabi herself felt the same way about Uzumaki. He had some interesting quirks himself.
She shook her head. Even after nearly two weeks, she couldn't get her mind off the Toad Sage. The feeling of his powerful aura when blocked her Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm was fresh in her mind and the embarrassing situation during their training accident did not help her to forget about him in the least.
There was also the fact that he was intriguing. The Main House generally did not like the Toad Sage. They grudgingly accepted that he was physically strong and had the respect of most of the village, but they claimed that he was too idealistic and too disrespectful. The Hyuuga clan respected order and hierarchy, which was everything Uzumaki stood against. Uzumaki was too kind to others and showed too much empathy and softness towards others.
Yet, in her meetings with him, the Toad Sage challenged her original perceptions of power. He was brash, but he was charismatic. He wasn't stoic, but he still felt deadly. It was hard to get a complete read on the man. For someone who was supposed to wear his emotions on his sleeves, Uzumaki was quite the mystery.
Crackle!
Hanabi instantly tensed and got ready for battle, noting with satisfaction that both Lee and Tenten heard the noise also. She had done a check in the area ten minutes before so it couldn't possibly be an enemy. But the noise was too loud and deliberate to be some wild animal. There was no ominous chakra being emitted, but a chakra signal could be always be hidden through special armors. Hanabi quickly activated her Byakugan to check once more. It may very well be an incredibly fast enemy.
Byakugan! She intoned mentally.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Io asked, noting the shift in attitude around them.
Hanabi's eyes widened as she tried to push Io out of the way. "Watch ou—!"
Before any of them could react further, a huge man jumped in front of the brown haired teen and hit him with a powerful punch. Her Byakugan told her that Io's entire chest was crushed and that fragments of his ribs were puncturing almost every organ. Io was dead before he even hit the tree.
Hanabi ducked under his second swing and let the huge fist pass over her.
She and her remaining teammates jumped back and stood in a triangular formation.
"Weak!" the man shouted. "Ninjas from the great villages are weak!"
Hanabi frowned at what her Byakugan was telling her and ignored the fact that one of her teammates had just died. Hanabi felt a pang of guilt, but she would worry about that later, especially since this man appeared to be incredibly fast, just about as fast as she was. There was nothing she could have done. If anything, she had just barely dodged the second blow herself.
The man was covered in strange flame-shaped markings and had a circular seal with the yin-yang-like symbol on his forehead. The strange part was that the two swirls of the yin-yang circle were separated, making them look like two different commas going in opposite directions rather than a full yin-yang circle.
Furthermore, Hanabi couldn't see any chakra. She could see inside of him just fine, but she couldn't see any chakra flowing through the body. Even a dead body would have a foreign source of chakra to power it. The only thing this person had was an extremely thin layer of chakra surrounding his entire body. It was so thin that she could barely see it.
It must be fuinjutsu preventing my eyes from seeing any chakra inside of his body. But only the Hyuuga could come up with a seal that blocks our own eyes.
And what she saw confirmed that it wasn't a Hyuuga seal. Why would someone create a seal that only blocks visualization of chakra flow? It appeared almost as if the person who designed those seals forgot that the Hyuuga can attack more than just the chakra points.
Still, she would proceed cautiously. She wasn't ready to die just yet. She still had lots of things in life she wanted to do. She wanted to explore the countryside, take a trip across the ocean, and of course, find a person to love. None of those things were really possible while she was the Hyuuga princess, but she always hoped that she would one day be free. There was no way she would let her life end because of a careless mistake in some random forest.
"Lee, take point. Tenten, provide ranged support. I'll jump in if there is an opening."
"Alright, sounds like a plan," Tenten agreed as she took out several large scrolls. "Let's kick this guy's butt for what he did to Taichi."
"Yosh!" Lee shouted out, half in anger about the death of their teammate and half in excitement for the battle.
Hanabi and Lee ran towards the burly man as Tenten provided ranged support to prevent the man from maneuvering to the sides and outflanking them. Strangely enough, the man did nothing but snarl. He drew his arm back just as Lee started to attack.
She frowned; she couldn't any chakra being used or expelled as the man took his swing. That ruled out ninjutsu. Nonetheless, the swing was powerful enough to make Lee to wince in pain even with his guard up. That made no sense. It was almost impossible for anyone to have strength to hit Lee head-on and come out on top without the use of any ninjutsu.
Hanabi observed as Lee ducked under the next kick, clearly electing to dodge rather than block. The man's fighting technique was rather poor and easy to read, but there was some trick to it that she couldn't figure out.
Seeing an opening, she quickly flashed forward with a palm strike. Even if she couldn't see the chakra points, she could still see his organs and damage those.
To her shock, however, the chakra in her hands dissipated as soon as she got close.
"What the?"
"Hanabi, get out of the way!"
Focusing on the situation at hand, she jumped over the downward punch as Lee kicked the man in the back of the head, knocking him forward.
Close-range battle was dangerous. She needed to get more information before she jumped in. Her mind flashing back to Uzumaki, she quickly flew her hands through signs. "Water Release: Burst Whip."
"You little pests! Die!" roared the burly man as Lee tried an uppercut.
"Lee! Back!" she shouted as she jumped back to where Tenten was. Using her water whip, she tried to grab onto the man only to find the water falling out of her control before disappearing altogether when it got near him.
Lee had noticed it as well and swerved midway through a kick.
"Tch," she heard Tenten mutter from next to her. Just as her water technique disappeared, Tenten had launched a spiked cannonball with an explosive tag on it.
Boom!
"Tenten, that's not going to work," Hanabi said, seeing through the explosion.
"What the hell is he?" Tenten muttered as the smoke cleared. The man was hurt, but only because from the broken pieces of the ball that had been blasted towards him from the explosion. The explosion itself didn't hurt him.
"You saw it, didn't you, Lee?" Hanabi asked.
"Yes. Just as I hit him, I felt the part of my foot that kicked him lose its youth. I also had confirmation when I saw that your water technique dissipated as it got close to him. Those markings look somewhat familiar. I believe that it is the source of his power."
If the situation were not so dire, Hanabi might have rolled her eyes as his comment about youth. Even during a battle, he spoke in that ridiculous way of his. But Lee was correct; the man had some ability to reduce their fighting strength. Furthermore, he was somewhat difficult to see with her Byakugan because he had no chakra flow. She had grown accustomed to differentiating the different chakra signals when she had her bloodline activated, but all she saw was a black spot with gray organs. It was probably why the man had been able to sneak up on them. It was likely that she assumed that he was something dead or inanimate when she did a quick sweep of the area with her eyes earlier.
"PATHETIC! How did the great villages control the world for so long with such meager strength?!" he shouted.
While the man was ranting and pounding his chest like a wild gorilla, the man was dangerous and Hanabi made sure to keep her eyes on his as she talked with her teammates.
"You mean that he has some kind of power that weakens us?" Tenten asked.
"It's hard to say," Hanabi answered. "This is merely a hypothesis at this point, but I think his body repels and disperses all forms of chakra. I noticed that the chakra in my hand disappeared the moment it came in contact with him. The same was true for my water technique. We all use chakra as the basis for all our techniques, so our attacks become ineffective the moment we touch him. Chakra-based techniques are completely ineffective. I think it has to do with some of the seals he has on his body."
"That would explain why the explosive tag didn't work because the explosion itself is chakra-based. But Lee only uses taijutsu," Tenten frowned. "That doesn't require chakra."
Hanabi shook her head as they dodged the charging man. "No. All living things have chakra. So even the most basic movements require some chakra. It is the reason why the people cannot even stand when even only as few as sixty-four of their 361 chakra points are hit. Lee is only unable to mold and shape that chakra; he still uses it to enhance his muscles."
"Then how is he using so much power without chakra?" Tenten demanded. "If his seals are what is making him immune to chakra, then they should work both ways. Seals that distinguish the user from the surroundings are incredibly complex and difficult to make."
"It's not just chakra nullification," Lee said as he flipped over the man and landed another kick on him that lost most of its power. "I remember now where I saw these seals or at least the ones with those flame patterns that are all over his body. The legendary Sannin Orochimaru used to place these on his men as an unyouthful way to boost their power. He might be using the flame-shaped seals as a power boost while the other strange circular seal that has the yin-yang-like symbol on it might be preventing attacks from affecting him."
"You call that a kick?!" roared the crazed man. "That felt like a love-tap!"
Hanabi frantically tried to figure out what to do. There was no point in arguing over what gave the man his strange powers. None of that changed the fact that they were fighting an opponent who had a massive boost in power, while their own techniques were completely ineffective.
Lee voiced her thoughts. "What do you suppose we do? Both your Gentle Fist and my Strong Fist are ineffective against him," Lee grunted out. Their opponent had clearly decided that Lee needed to be the next one to die. Hanabi briefly wondered if the man was attracted to green akin to how bulls were attracted to red.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!" the man roared, charging straight into another tree and destroying it.
"Fortunately, as long as we maintain our distance, we won't die. He's fast, but he doesn't seem to be agile as we are. Keep jumping around and making sharp turns. Just make sure to not get touched. If he grabs a hold of us though, we'll be helpless."
"That doesn't solve our problem. I doubt he'll just let just let us keep dodging and we don't know whether or not we'll end up tiring before he does. We need to fight him here while we have our full strength."
Hanabi went through all the available information. Pure taijutsu was ineffective. That took Lee out. Ninjutsu, taijutsu, or chakra-based taijutsu were out. That ruled her out. Tenten's fighting style revolved heavily around the use of explosive tags and those were only minimally effective. Hanabi supposed they could try to draw him into the center of a trap and knock all the trees down at once with the tags, but that was probably too difficult given that their enemy just kept smashing any tree in his way. Fuinjutsu, Tenten's secondary specialty, was no good either.
She looked at Tenten who threw a dozen projectiles to give Lee the space to dodge. Projectiles themselves were too weak and were too easily dodged.
Wait!
"Tenten, what's the deadliest longest ranged weapon you have while still maintaining a high degree of speed, accuracy, and agility?"
Tenten's eyes widened in realization and thought for a second. "I suppose a sword, staff, or spear. I have a more weapons that provide range, but they're all too easy to dodge and would leave me completely open to a counterattack. Those tools are only good for one hit."
"I was hoping for something longer, but it'll have to be a sword then," Hanabi remarked as she caught a katana from the other girl. She wasn't an expert, much less an elite, with weapons, but she could still hold her own for some time.
"I wasn't aware that you knew how to fight with weapons. From what Neji used to tell me, the Hyuuga clan never allowed any of their members to use anything other than the Gentle Fist. I was already shocked that you just used water ninjutsu."
Hanabi nodded. "You're correct, but I still had to go through the basic jounin training. You will have to take point though. I can only fight a delaying action with a sword. Let's go relay the message to Lee so he can start using his nunchucku. And make sure not to channel chakra into your blade."
She thanked whatever deity out there for giving her the foresight to practice with other styles of fighting. It probably was going to end up being the thing that saved her life that day.
"Roger."
Oto, Land of Rice Fields - March 14, AK22
"Kabuto."
Kabuto almost jumped when he heard the voice, but gave no indication that he had been startled. He was feared shinobi for a reason, after all. He couldn't let people know that he felt fear himself.
"Ah, it's you again. Taiyou no Kuroi Kokuten. You know it's rude not to knock." Kabuto said in a pleasant tone.
"Spare me the pleasantries, Kabuto," came the curt response. Kabuto frowned. As always, the man was cloaked, hooded, and masked so it was hard to tell who it was. The voice sounded slightly garbled, no doubt with a voice modifier. And the man spoke in an irritating archaic manner. "I'm here to deliver the next batch."
The man pulled out a box containing many small sheets of paper.
Kabuto nodded as he examined the seals. "The design inside the yin-yang components looks slightly different from the last batch. What changed?"
Kokuten was silent for a moment, no doubt thinking how to phrase his response. If there was one thing certain about this man, it was that he was quite deliberate, even with his words.
"While the Dispersion Seal protects the user from any chakra-based damage, the converse is true as well. Since chakra is disrupted the moment it crosses the seal, which is placed on the skin, the user is also unable to use anything other than taijutsu. I am looking for a way to circumvent this flaw."
"Considering that most ninjas rely heavily on ninjutsu, the seals are quite effective as is," Kabuto casually remarked. "Even taijutsu relies on subconscious enhancement of muscles with chakra. I wouldn't go as far to say that your seals have a flaw. You were already able to increase the nullification range to one centimeter away from the user while still allowing the user to use chakra within his or her body. It's quite the accomplishment."
"The payment?"
"You still didn't answer my question," Kabuto said with a small frown. Kabuto had no doubt that the person in front of him was quite strong, but he had a couple of trump cards of his own. One of which included having found a way to reuse the previous sets of seals that he received. With a few more sets of these seals, he would no longer need the cloaked man. "It would be nice to know what these seals do before I let my men use them."
"The new effects are in the testing phase. I cannot say with any certainty as to what they will do. The only thing I can say with certainty is that they will not die."
"Ah, but tell me what they're designed for," Kabuto returned. "I'm not quite a fuinjutsu master, but I am an academic and can appreciate a nice long conversation of chakra theory." Kabuto decided to throw in a veiled threat. "I've studied the Sharingan and the bodies of different members of the Uchiha for years and know quite a lot of forcibly molding chakra."
Kabuto prepared himself for an attack. Kabuto suspected that his last statement meant something to the cloaked man.
"Do not waste my time," Kokuten replied, not giving any indication that he cared, "much less try to figure out who I am."
"I did no such thing," Kabuto said silkily, even though he was lying. The other man was quite skilled in hiding his emotions and even better at reading them. Kokuten was dangerous.
The man's tone became serious. "I require the payment now. I should remind you that I have no true need for you. I can always find other buyers for my seals. You, on the other hand, need these seals to keep your operations going. Your Sound forces are outmatched in both quality and quantity. These seals are the only things keeping you going. Not even your pathetic research has provided you with a way to keep up with the great villages."
Kabuto resisted the desire to grit his teeth in anger. Kabuto was normally mild-mannered, but Kokuten always took the opportunity to insult his work and his efforts. Kabuto didn't care about strength, but he did care about his research. Strength was only a means to an end. Strength allowed him to gain better subjects and more funding for his research. Research that was invaluable to the world and help in the evolution of mankind.
Kabuto took a few deep breaths to calm down and gave his best smile. Kabuto wouldn't let his opponent know that he was irritated. Emotions were like cards in a game of poker. They had to be play carefully and at the right time.
"How about a business transaction then? As you mentioned, I am outmatched in numbers. So I can't simply use unknown seals on my men. While they might not die, there might be effects that prevent them being able to fight again or reduce their usefulness. That is something I wish to avoid. So, for information on your newest and subsequent batches, instead of giving you written reports, I'll give you information on where I'm sending my men so you can see your seals in action for yourself when they encounter hostile ninjas. Think of it as a field-testing for your experiments."
There was a long pause. Kabuto knew that he was grasping at straws because not a single man had died as a result Kokuten's seals. If anything, given Kokuten's mastery in fuinjutsu, these newest batches had already been perfected in terms of adverse events. Even the "failures" in the past did nothing to negatively affect any of his men.
Still part of what Kabuto said had been true. He did appreciate a good discussion on theory. He wasn't as obsessed with finding the meaning of the world as Orochimaru was, but he did want to have the knowledge and the infinite amount of resources to carry out experiments in order to create a much more beautiful world.
"I do not need to observe the results myself. Furthermore, I tire of your constant attempts to find loopholes in my orders. Do not think for one second that I don't know that your men are goading ninjas from other villages so your men can 'act in self defense.' You are intentionally trying to move against the great villages and the big five nations without my approval."
Kabuto frowned. How did this man know that? Was the man following his men already on their different missions? If so, Kabuto needed to take care of Kokuten as quickly as possible. Right now it didn't appear as if Kokuten knew of Kabuto's ultimate plan, but that may change.
"Ah. I shall relay strict commands to my men," Kabuto said in an apologetic tone. "It may appear as if I gave that order, but because of the background of my men," most of his forces were bandits and low-class missing ninjas, "it is rather difficult to fully control them. They are like raging beasts, you know. Not at all like cultured and educated men as we are. I assure you that this will not happen anymore."
Kokuten paused before nodding. "Very well. I accept your apology and, for now, I will even ignore your little tricks. But I will ask for double the payment."
Kabuto frowned. Money wasn't too difficult to get not that he was going after missing ninjas, but double the amount he normally paid was a high price. Still, information was useful and more important than money. So Kabuto nodded in agreement.
"Agreed. Now the explanation?"
"What do you know about using other sources of power instead of chakra?"
Land of Hot Water – March 14, AK22
Hanabi panted lightly as she dodged a kick. Hanabi flipped over while slashing with her sword at her newest enemy who had just arrived. She then quickly body flickered back to where her two teammates were.
All things considered, their plan to only use weapons and with Tenten taking the lead had gone well. Tenten had managed to cut the big crazed oaf down, but apparently the enemy had been part of a squad. They were now facing off three more ninjas. While they did not appear to be physical tanks as the first ninja who had kept fighting despite dozens of deep wounds, these three seemed to be much more intelligent. They also looked furious at seeing their teammate go down.
Hanabi glanced at her teammates with her Byakugan. She and they had wasted too much chakra trying to deal with the first ninja. They weren't wounded in the least, and still had plenty of energy left, but they were starting to get tired from spending too much chakra in an effort to dodge all the blows. An example was when Hanabi had found herself a few centimeters away from being grabbed. She had instinctively spun into a Kaiten, but instead of knocking the man back, all it did was slow him down as the dense chakra slowly dissipated on contact with the man. That extra second or two provided the time she needed to escape, but had cost a significant amount of chakra.
She was sure she was fairly certain that she was stronger than all the three ninjas in front of her combined, but with her best techniques ineffective, she was worried she might tire herself out before we could find a proper opening to kill them.
At the moment, though, it didn't appear as if she was going to be attacked.
By default, her range with the full 360-degree vision was around a kilometer, but she could extend that to nearly 10 kilometers by focusing in just one direction. Conversely, she could narrow the vision to 50 meters around her if she wanted even greater clarity of vision over range such as seeing the chakra points of her opponents, which she usually did in a battle. Right now, however, she needed to check to see if there were going to be any more enemies. Hanabi consciously extended the range of her Byakugan and quickly did a visual sweep of the area.
I see someone in a cloak a little more than a kilometer away, holding a telescope towards this direction. Was he watching this battle the whole time?
Hanabi did not miss the fact that he stood just outside the range of her Byakugan. That was no accident. The man was clearly informed of the capacities of the Byakugan and the habits of the Hyuuga. Hinata, being the only Hyuuga to be a regular part of a scouting and espionage squad, regularly used the telescopic capabilities of the Byakugan, but most Hyuuga were combat-oriented and preferred not to sacrifice the 360-degree vision that came with their regular Byakugan mode. They too, like Hanabi, preferred using the narrow and microscopic 50-meter vision so that they could see the chakra points in their opponents' bodies.
In any case, she would not have found this strange, cloaked man without shifting to the telescopic abilities of her eyes. This man was already aware of their identities.
Her eyes narrowed as she shifted them back to the default state to regain the full range of vision around her.
"We've been ordered not to avoid fights with ninjas as much as possible," one of them said, while taking up a battle stance, "but those orders didn't include times when we were attacked first."
"Hey! Your buddy down there attacked us first and even killed one of our teammates!" Tenten shouted. She glared at the red-haired man who looked ready to kill.
The enemies ignored Tenten. Another one placed his hand on the shoulder of the one who assumed a battle stance.
"Hey, stop it. Boss is going to be mad. No one's going to miss Mouzo. Besides we're running low on time. I estimate there's only about five minutes left at most."
"Five minutes is more than enough to take out these pieces of trash. This mission was a waste of my time and I'm in the mood for nailing some ladies. The one with the white eyes looks rather exotic."
Hanabi felt a surge of rage at that comment, but stamped that down in favor of regaining as much chakra as she could. She made a note to thank Uzumaki again for preparing her to deal with lewd comments and then internally groaned when she realized she had been thinking about him again.
Damn it, she was becoming worse than Hinata.
Hanabi made a sarcastic mental comment to herself that such traits must run in the family.
"Trash?! Do you not recognize her?" The lone female member in the squad was pointing at her. "That's Hanabi Hyuuga. You're going to get us killed, idiot! Get laid on your own time! Not while on a damn mission."
"Get your hands off me! A Hyuuga? That's even better! I bet Boss will reward us if we manage to capture her. Of course, that's after I've had my way with her!"
Hanabi readied herself and saw her teammates getting ready for battle as their enemies tried to stop their red-haired teammate.
She whispered to her teammates, "These guys have the same abilities as the first. Do not let them touch you. Also, there is someone about a kilometer away watching us. It may be an enemy so we'll have to conserve as much chakra as we can to escape or fight if he comes."
She received quick nods.
"If you bastards want to go back, then you can go by yourselves!" the first man roared as black marking covered him.
Hanabi pulled her sword in front of her to parry when the man she saw in the distance suddenly appeared before them and grabbed the blade with a gloved hand.
Instantly, she and her teammates jumped back into one of the trees to avoid whatever danger that might have appeared.
When it became clear that it was the same man that Hanabi had warned her teammates about, Tenten turned to her.
"Hanabi, I thought you said you said he was about a kilometer away!" Tenten hissed in an alarmed tone.
"Tenten, Hanabi wasn't wrong or trying to mislead us," Lee said before Hanabi could defend herself. He was uncharacteristically serious, "That was a space-time ninjutsu. An incredibly advanced one at that."
Tenten froze at that. It was well known that space-time ninjutsu could only be used by ninjutsu masters. This man was not weak.
Hanabi kept her eyes on the man while keeping up her guard, "Yes. He's quite skilled if he was able to cross a distance of more than a kilometer in less than a second with such precision. That's difficult to do even with space-time ninjutsu."
"Hey! Who the hell are you?"
"You were ordered to never be the aggressors," the man said in a slightly garbled voice. "It appears that Kabuto really does keep his men on a rather loose leash. Oh well, I suppose I already agreed to overlook the rash and reckless actions of his foolish followers."
"Kabuto?" Lee asked in a low voice. "Wasn't that the one who created those undead bodies during the war?"
Hanabi didn't know. She was far too young to be a big part of the war. She looked to Tenten for confirmation, but Tenten was too busy observing those below them.
"How do you know about Lord Kabuto?" demanded the kunoichi as black markings started covering her too. "Change of plans. We can't let anyone in the area get away with that information. Attack now!"
The red-haired ninja ripped his sword out of the man's grip and tried to thrust the sword forward as the other two rushed forward to help.
The cloaked man merely held up a single hand sign and held his other hand out.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Flame Burst."
Hanabi had to shield her eyes as fire natured chakra erupted from the man's hand in the shape of a huge firebird before flashing forward at an incredibly fast speed. The chakra from the technique was intense.
Such amazing power! That's more chakra than I have in my entire reserves!
The huge wave of fire disappeared after about ten seconds, revealing three completely charred bodies.
Her jaw dropped. There was an indent in the earth three meters wide and a meter deep that extended for almost an entire kilometer. She personally hadn't seen such damage since the crater left by Pein during the Akatsuki invasion. She wasn't there to see the actual attack but she did get to see the results.
"What a shame," the man remarked as if he talking about the weather. "The chakra dispersion limit was much lower than I thought. The seals are too easily overloaded when the input of chakra is that high. I had hoped that they would survive with those seals on. But it seemed like all it did was to reduce the damage to keep their bodies in one shape."
Hanabi shivered slightly at the detached tone, not even bothering to hide her fear. The last fire technique contained more chakra than she had at full power but the man didn't even look winded. If the man wanted to kill her, there was nothing she could do about it.
Hanabi just continued to stare at the man with her mouth open, not caring about the undignified look she had on her face.
This…this is the true difference in power between an A-rank and S-rank. I can see that the S-ranks are called masters for a reason. The power gap between elites and masters is absolutely ridiculous. Is…is this the realm that Naruto Uzumaki lives in?
Uzumaki again.
She resigned herself to having him on her mind. There was a chance she could die and she might as well indulge herself before she did.
Hanabi reflected on what people said about him. Some said that the Toad Sage was an idiot with too much power, but it was at that moment that she realized just how inaccurate that was. A fool with this much power would have already destroyed the village at the first insult hurled at him. If he was being an idiot, it was because he chose to portray himself as such. To control this amount of power required a tremendous amount of maturity and wisdom.
Just how much did Uzumaki hide about himself from the world?
She shook herself out of her thoughts and looked at the cloaked man. It appeared that he too was wearing something that circumvented the Byakugan's ability to see chakra flow. However, instead of the emptiness that she saw in the previous ninjas, she just saw a dim yellow light without any pathways or chakra points. Hanabi guessed that his chakra signal would be blinding had he not worn those black chakra-muting robes and cloak.
The man turned to face them. Hanabi saw that even his face was covered with a black mask. There was nothing to tell her where he was from.
"Now then, Konoha shinobi, what shall I do with you?"
Hanabi didn't dare answer and just stood there shivering in fear. Despite the lack of killing intent in the air, the man's aura was heavy. She looked at her teammates. Tenten wasn't faring any better and looked like she was about to pass out. Lee seemed to handling it much better than either of them, but Hanabi suspected that that was because he experienced extremely high levels of killing at close range during the Fourth Shinobi World War. On the other hand, for Hanabi, it was the first time she was facing anyone putting out this much power.
Lee jumped down smoothly, not appearing to care about pressure in the air. Hanabi knew better though. Her Byakugan saw through the act. Lee was extremely wary of the man and was looking for a way to escape.
"We do not wish to fight. We were merely fighting a defensive battle with those other ninjas."
"To think that you can move so freely under the full unrestrained pressure of my aura," the man commented in an impressed tone. "Fantastic. Even the Hyuuga. While she is mentally afraid of action, it appears that she is able to move her body at will. Your last teammate just fainted from the pressure, but still lasted quite longer than I expected. Not at all a bad squad, all things considered. Konoha has some talented ninjas."
Hanabi forced herself to stop shivering and consciously expanded her chakra around her to shield herself from the effects of the chakra pressure a bit more.
She felt the pressure diminish slightly, but not disappear.
But it did become easier to ignore the part of her brain screaming at her to curl up into a ball and cry.
She jumped down next to Lee. The man didn't seem bloodthirsty so there was a chance that they might be able to talk their way out of this situation.
"My teammate is correct. We were finishing up a mission when we were attacked by what appeared to be a rabid ninja who had lost any sense of reason."
Hanabi desperately prayed that this man would just walk away. A fight would not end in their favor.
The man chuckled. "And you want me to let you leave with your lives because you have no desire to fight me. What would you do if I said no?"
Hanabi didn't get a chance to contemplate her response as she saw Lee press the release on his weights, instantly open up four of the Inner Gates, and rush towards the man at incredible speeds that she herself was not capable of reaching. The entire process took less than quarter of a second.
His incredibly strong kick created a pressurized airwave that ended up knocking down more trees than she cared to count.
But he still only hit air.
Hanabi had her Byakugan on and was still not able to completely catch the motion. It was one of those rare moments she wished she had the Sharingan and its ability to perfectly catch, predict, and memorize motion rather than the distance, depth and range of vision that the Byakugan provided. Although, if she thought about it a second time, perhaps it was better that she couldn't see how outclassed she was.
"I suppose you answered my question," the man said in an amused tone, "but your answer is quite foolish. It is especially foolish considering that I usually only attack those who attack me first."
The man had somehow managed to outflank Lee and had gotten behind the kick. The man grabbed the back of Lee's neck and held him in the air. Lee screamed in pain and then stopped struggling altogether before he was tossed to the side.
Lee didn't twitch.
Something snapped in her as she saw her second teammate go down. Hanabi had already one teammate die today and the dam she placed over her raging emotions burst.
Without any regard for her own life, she charged at the man with a wild scream, unconsciously activating the Gentle Fist Twin Lion Fists and her personal invention Gentle Fist Twin Lion Feet as she ran.
Arms and feet blazing with blue chakra she jumped into the air and went for a kick with her left foot.
The man ducked.
She landed and twisted in one motion as if it were a dance and swung her right arm…
…and felt a jerk the instant she swung.
Coming back to her senses, she realized that he had grabbed her palm. She didn't even know where to begin in figuring out how he grabbed her chakra-charged fist with no damage, but she reacted without even thinking. If pure chakra wasn't going to do damage, then…
Water Release: Burst whip!
She swung her other arm as quickly as she could and saw it hit his face, knocking his mask off and sending him to the ground. She frowned. There was something odd about this. How did she manage to hit the man when Lee had failed even after opening four of the…
"Release!" she shouted as she broke the genjutsu. Her Byakugan had told her that a foreign force was manipulating her chakra. The genjutsu was highly subtle, as very few things about the scene had changed. It was probably why she had taken so long to figure out she was in a genjutsu. Being a Hyuuga, she usually detected and broke the genjutsu techniques before they even took effect in her mind. This time, she had taken five seconds to notice something wrong with her system.
The situation was never good to begin with, but this made it even worse. Her enemy was already skilled in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and fuinjutsu. But he even showed enough skill in genjutsu to fool her Byakugan for a few seconds.
Forget S-rank. Forget master level. This man was a god.
"I'm impressed," the man intoned from behind her.
When did he?! Hanabi frantically thought she as twisted and slammed her uninjured palm forward as hard as she could.
Once again she felt a jerk a millisecond after she swung.
And once again, the man had grabbed her hand.
This time she flowed with her still present momentum from her initial twisting and shifted her feet in that same direction to activate Kaiten.
Her Kaiten died before it even started and the chakra surrounding her limbs began to fade. She struggled to keep her techniques active. This man appeared to have some kind of ability to negate pure chakra attacks.
It would have to be another elemental attack then. He had dodged the last one so elemental attacks must be his weakness, if it could even be called that. At the very least, he would be forced to dodge again.
But given the state her hand was in, she wouldn't be able to channels wind properly. Hanabi grit her teeth. She would be hurt, but she would at least do heavy damage to the man.
"Wind Relea—!" she began.
"Stop," he commanded forcefully. "If you activate that technique, you will die."
He crushed her hand even harder.
Hanabi stopped resisting once the pain became nearly unbearable. She let the chakra in her arms and feet die out. She resorted to glaring at the man, ignoring the pain in her hand from his tight grip. She still did not understand how the man had blocked her attack so easily.
"The look on your face is asking 'how did he stop my blow,' correct?" The man didn't even wait for her response. "Chakra theory is quite fascinating to anyone who studies it religiously. Anything made with chakra," he recited, "can be destroyed with chakra. I just dispersed your Gentle Fist techniques by forcing even more chakra in the reverse direction. This is quite similar to how Gentle Fist users repel blows from other Gentle Fist users. It's quite simple."
There was a pause gazed intently at her. She couldn't see his eyes through his mask, but she could feel his look on her.
"Well then?" he inquired as he strengthened his grip. "Will you beg for mercy? Will you plead for your life?"
"Save your breath. Hurry up and just have your way with me," she spat out defiantly despite having fallen on one knee from the crushing pain in her hand. Even while completely outclassed, she would go down with pride. "Hurt me, rape me, kill me, whatever you want!" she spoke with gritted teeth. It felt as if all the bones in her hands were being crushed to dust. "It's not like you'll get your way with a woman any way else," she taunted. "I bet that's the reason why you have your face covered. Women probably run away from you, screaming their heads off."
It was an immature insult and one that would do nothing to change the situation, but Hanabi couldn't think of anything else to show her defiance.
She gasped as a wave of killing intent washed over her for the first time in their one-sided battle. She found herself unable to breathe or even struggle anymore. She fell to the ground as the man let her hand go.
She found herself looking straight at the man as he grabbed her chin with one hand and forced her head up.
"Hurt you? I have already done so without even trying," the man said slowly as the killing intent continued to increase. Hanabi held back a whimper. "Rape you?" There was a small pause as he gazed at her. "I have no desire for what your body has to offer. Do not insult me. Tell me, girl, would you sleep with an insect?"
Not able to control herself once again, Hanabi screamed in anger and started kicking him while attempting to pry the man's fingers off her neck with her badly injured hands. She could accept that there were stronger people than her. But she would not take insults to her pride. She was not a worthless insect.
She instinctively channeled even more chakra into her eyes. She could barely move but maybe if she wished it enough, she could burn him to death with her eyes. Perhaps she was weak, but she was not pathetic.
"Kill you, was it? I like that look in your eyes. It would be a waste if you died."
Hanabi vision changed for a second and she thought she could see red eyes behind the mask. Then she saw black.
AN: And that's the end of the introduction arc!
I envision it like this. There are ~10,000 ninjas for each of the great villages; the bulk of which are chuunin. A little more than a tenth of that will be special jounin, which includes ANBU. A tenth of that—so we're now down to only a 100—are jounin. Maybe twenty or so of these jounin are A-ranks and a couple, if that, are S-ranks. One of the S-ranks will be the kage.
In this story, I have the Rookie Nine as special jounin and jounin. They are all at least B-rank, which is incredibly powerful. Konoha has only three S-ranks ninjas at the moment: Gai, Kakashi, and Naruto. Four if you want to count Temari. Sakura was very close to being an S-rank before her untimely "demise."
I'll post up a "chapter" after every arc showing the updated stats of the relevant characters.
I always found it annoying to see everyone being listed as S-class and then SS & SSS ranks being introduced to make certain characters even stronger. What's the point of having a secret "S" rank if everyone ended up being an S-rank?
A few questions might be asked here, one of which being: "Does that mean S-ranks will always beat A-ranks?" No. There are other factors like intelligence, tactics, fighting styles, and special abilities that go into play. You'll see this in the future.
I'm going to use the following terms somewhat interchangeably since it's rather annoying to say S-ranks all the time.
D-rank = Genin = Trainee/Beginner
C-rank = Chuunin = Practitioner
B-rank = Jounin = Expert
A-rank = Elite Jounin = Elite
S-rank = Master