Destiny is a Hazy Thing

by Calanor

The Yondaime had a plan, Madara had another. They were not the only ones who wanted their own vision to come to pass, but the future is never certain. When all plans of gods and men fail Naruto is suddenly free to choose his own destiny. Slow development

19. Chapter 18: First encounters

Disclaimer: See my pockets? They are still empty, which wouldn't be the case if I owned Naruto.

Chapter 18: First encounters

Under a late morning sun Team 11 was walking at a leisurely pace on the mountain road. The last patch of broken country had been rough to traverse even for shinobi and they were taking it easy for the moment. Choji had opened a new bag of chips, Naruto was observing the unfamiliar terrain with interest and Anko and Hinata were talking about the merits of different infiltration methods. Plant life was somewhat sparse, but they were still below the tree line.

It was their third C-rank mission in their career as genin. The second one had barely rated C-rank; it had been a simple case of a missing person and had only taken two days to solve. The son of the elder of a village in the vicinity of Konoha had disappeared while hunting in the woods and the elder had cashed in a voucher some Konoha shinobi had given him for services rendered in the past. Choji had gathered all the information about the young man who was incidentally the best hunter of the village. After that Naruto had tracked him with occasional help from Hinata starting in his favorite hunting grounds. It hadn't taken long for them to find him. While the man wasn't a bad hunter and had covered his tracks well his skills were simply no match for Naruto and Hinata's byakugan. A few hours after their arrival they found him in a hidden shack in the woods. That he wasn't alone had been expected, after all it was possible he had been abducted. That his company consisted of a beautiful young woman and the two were so engaged in certain activities that they had completely lost track of time came as a surprise though.

As it turned the girl was the daughter of the headman of another, neighboring village and the two lovebirds had an affair going for quite some time without the approval of their families. After a short discussion the team had decided to try reaching an official accord. Their mission clearly stated they had to bring the young man back, but they didn't really want to drag him the entire way. The rest of the first day and most of the second was spent with going back and forth between the two villages and the couple and acting as mediators. It involved a whole lot of haggling and screaming, but in the end they managed to hammer out an agreement that was acceptable to all sides. The couple got a marriage arrangement and received some fields that had been a point of contention between the two villages for years, thereby defusing the conflict. When they left the village during the late afternoon everyone was more or less happy with the entire thing. All in all it had been a valuable lesson in diplomacy.

Naruto listened with half an ear to Anko-sensei's explanations while keeping in front of the rest of the team.

"… and that is why you only use a henge for short durations and stick to conventional disguises otherwise. Many shinobi can detect the chakra emissions and it takes only one slip in attention for the entire thing to dispel."

"Then why is it taught at the academy if it has so f-few true applications?" Hinata asked curiously.

"Because it teaches you several valuable lessons while you master it. You need to able to concentrate intently and hold that concentration; it requires a fine eye for details and good memory to copy someone else convincingly; acting like the person you copy teaches again observation and acting skills, and so on." their sensei explained. "Pretty much the same is true for the bunshin. Additionally it enables the instructors to estimate the student's ninjutsu aptitude, chakra reserves and control. Once you're out in the field the kawarimi is the only one of the academy three you use regularly, and that one has its own problems. Sometimes there isn't just an object of the right mass in the vicinity, and a capable opponent won't give you the time anyway. Some people thought to chain several kawarimi in a row to either cover long distances or to continually change position in battle, but..."

"Yes?" Choji prodded.

"Well, let's just say the human body doesn't like being subjected to that jutsu at short intervals." Anko answered with a shudder.

"It messes with your sense of balance. One is harmless; two gives you some slight problems. Five makes you want to puke your guts out." Naruto inserted himself into the conversation.

Anko nodded. "That's correct. How do you know that? They don't write that effect down."

Naruto scratched his head sheepishly. "I tried it out. It seemed a good idea at the time."

They all laughed for a moment before Anko continued speaking. "Back to the original topic. In the best case no one will ever know you were there after an infiltration. That often means you can't use chakra for some critical parts like convincing other people that you belong there and similar things. This is where your skills of burglary, acting, mummery and forgery come in. Seduction is also sometimes a part of that, unfortunately."

"Did you have to do that often, sensei?" Hinata asked.

The purple-haired woman shrugged. "A few times, but luckily I got good enough quickly enough that it was a relatively rare occurrence. Mostly I used other means to get to my targets. "

Hinata seemed to think for a moment. "What about genjutsu? I d-didn't think we kunoichi had to actually seduce people."

Anko sighed. "Hinata, how many people of your graduation cycle do you think can produce a convincing henge under stress, let alone use genjutsu to a degree that the victim doesn't realize he was affected by one?"

"Well, all our classmates could use the henge successfully. I'm not sure if they could maintain it in a very stressful situation." Hinata thought for a moment. "Yakumo and Ino could certainly do it with genjutsu or clan techniques, but n-nobody else out of our class."

Their sensei nodded. "And that's what, two out of more than thirty people? They all belonged to the elite class, meaning they are the cream of the crop of your cycle's student population. Sure, there are always some students almost as good in the rest, but the overwhelming majority will never reach such a level. Hence the need for actual seduction. I give you a few numbers to illustrate the situation. Konoha currently has over ten thousand active shinobi, which seems an enormous number, but it includes barely combat capable specialists. If they live that long without crippling injuries most people retire permanently in their early forties, their bodies simply can't keep up with the strain any longer. Thirty years of service means that each year around 330 new genin are needed theoretically just to replace retiring shinobi. The actual number is closer to five hundred because of factors like early retirement, crippling injuries or premature death."

Naruto nodded. "That means around two hundred fifty genin graduated along with us, but aside from the four teams they all have around two years more academy time."

"I'm not sure how much you know, but relatively few of these other graduates will ever reach your current level. All shinobi need to be able to mould chakra in useful quantities, for jutsu as well as physical improvement. Many of them will never achieve anything better than genin level reserves even with more than a decade of training after they graduated. That means they can get perhaps up to a dozen D-rank jutsu off or one or two C-rank jutsu before their general performance begins to suffer due to low chakra levels. Clan shinobi are generally better off, but even their reserves stop growing at the nebulously defined chunin level more often than not." She paused for a moment. "It's a bit unfortunate that rank and actual skill level are mixed together; it only makes things more confusing. Anyway, most shinobi aren't all that skill- or powerful. Think of our first C-rank. It was a job shinobi could do much better than anyone else, but it needed only very basic skills. The majority of missions are like that. The truly skilled shinobi are reserved for the high-profile missions and their numbers are never enough. There are far too few genjutsu specialists or Yamanaka mind walkers to cover all the occasions that call for unobtrusive infiltration or information gathering. That means its back to the good old seduction without aid. It isn't an especially nice job, but it has to be done."

"Still, ten thousand seems to be a large number." Choji remarked after a while. "I didn't think there were that many shinobi in the village. The numbers are highly classified and we had to guess most of the time."

"That's right, even I don't have official access to exact figures. It makes assessing the true situation of the village more difficult, but it is really sensitive information. Many shinobi are actually tied up in administrative work or other duties, Choji. For example, your father only leaves for high-profile missions that require his specific skill set or diplomatic negotiations due to his fame. The rest of his time is spent in village politics and clan matters. The same is true for Hinata's father or the other clan heads. Others are more or less on standby. Less than half of all active shinobi are actually in the village at any point in time. Many are away on missions and Konoha maintains several hubs in different large cities with a small contingent of shinobi on call if relaying a mission request to the village would take too long."

After that the conversation turned to the logistics of the village and mission system. During the entire time Naruto kept an eye on the surrounding landscape looking for signs of trouble as unlikely as that may seem here in the wilderness.

One of the nobles of the Land of Fire had hired them to bring his aunt notice of his son's impending marriage and ask her to visit. Normally it wouldn't have been necessary to involve shinobi, but the normal route to the noble lady's retreat in the mountains near the northern border of the Land of Fire had been hopelessly blocked by several mountain slides and there weren't any messenger birds with that destination. There was another route, but it was much longer and required going around the entire mountain range through dangerous bandit-ridden territory. The noble had sent an envoy with a large armed escort, but he had hired them to inform his aunt so that she could set out earlier and make it in time for the wedding. Additionally they were to provide security until they met the escort on the way back.

The mission request had just arrived via messenger bird when they visited the mission office, and Anko took it after a moment of consideration. Their sensei didn't like escort or bodyguard missions, but unfortunately they had to take some of them in the interest of becoming familiar with that type of shinobi duties.

Until now the mission wasn't much different than their first one. Well, aside from the mountainous terrain. Naruto estimated the road would be impassable for normal traffic for several months, if they ever got around to clearing it. From what they had heard in the last town before venturing into the mountains traffic on that route had become steadily less in the last years and it probably wouldn't be economically justifiable to invest the money and labor necessary to restore the road.

'I wonder how things are in Konoha?' he idly mused.

---

Mizuki was in a bad mood. The next academy term had started and it was back to teaching idiot children for him. With the study group disbanded his pay had been reduced to the standard level, but due to some paperwork that had been creatively and carefully lost he still only had to work reduced hours. He was bored to death and stressed out beyond belief at the same time. The only saving graces were the development of his own jutsu, his regular contact with his master and the now bi-weekly meetings with Anko when she was in Konoha. He liked spending time with the woman; a feeling which seemed to be mutual.

He was currently overseeing the kunai throwing exercises of his new academy class together with Iruka. Most of the children's skills were nonexistent, but that was nothing unexpected from a first year academy class. He was about to correct the grip of the child before him when a shout drew his attention to the other end of the yard.

"I don't need your help! I will become Hokage in no time; then everyone will acknowledge me!" Konohamaru Sarutobi shouted before disappearing over the fence, leaving a startled Iruka behind.

Shaking his head Mizuki turned back to his current pupil and continued the lesson for the rest of the children. Konohamaru was one of this year's problem children and he quite often disturbed the lecture.

'What did that idiot Ebisu do to the kid? He's almost completely out of control.'

Konohamaru had joined the academy after being tutored by the special jonin for more than a year. In Mizuki's opinion that special treatment had done no favors for the boy. Ebisu was a highly capable if quite arrogant shinobi and renowned private trainer, but in this case he seemed to have done more harm than good. Instead of training the boy constantly bragged about becoming Hokage, played juvenile pranks and ineffectively attacked his grandfather at every opportunity. The saddest thing was that Mizuki saw a lot of potential in Konohamaru that the boy was about to squander away in his quest for attention.

'Perhaps I can do something about the kid. If this behavior continues it will drive me spare. Even worse, he seems to drag Udon and Moegi down.'

His eyes fell on the second and quite different problem child of this class. Hanabi Hyuuga was everything Konohamaru wasn't: Skilled, self-controlled and sure of her place in the world. Unfortunately Mizuki had already learned that the girl was developing an astonishing amount of arrogance and the typical superior attitude of the Hyuuga. Hinata had spoken with him at length about the topic of her younger sister and asked him to do all he could to keep her from becoming another Hyuuga ice princess. With Hinata often busy with training or out on missions she feared that the influence of the Hyuuga elders and her father would undo years of work on Hanabi.

Suddenly an idea came to Mizuki and it was all he could do to suppress an evil smirk. He would pair Hanabi with Konohamaru whenever possible and make the girl responsible for keeping him in line. If he couched it in terms of taking over more leadership duties as reward for her excellent performance the girl would jump at the opportunity to prove her superiority. He wondered which of them would break first. It would be fun to watch in any case.

---

Kiba winced slightly when Akamaru touched one of the larger bruises on his body when they settled down to sleep, but his canine partner was too tired to notice. In fact the small dog had already begun to snore softly. Since graduation Kiba had gone to bed covered in bruises more often than not; their murderous training regime saw to that. Asuma-sensei was very laid back, but Shino was a slave driver.

'I never even suspected how good he is.'

The gap between his and Asuka's skills in comparison to Shino's could have been disheartening, but after demonstrating his superiority by completely trashing Kiba, Asuka and Akamura simultaneously in several spars Shino had begun helping them to get stronger. The training was grueling, but Kiba's pride wouldn't allow him to give up. The physical training while hard he could have taken in stride. That Shino forced him to study up on chakra exercises and other theoretical subjects was a completely different kettle of fish. Kiba hated studying academic stuff, but he couldn't argue with the necessity or the results after Shino demonstrated what could be done with advanced knowledge.

It was during one of their three-to-one spars that he had spied an opening in Shino's defenses. He had jumped at the Aburame's seemingly unprotected back… only to collide face first with a solid chakra barrier that sprung up in empty air. It was only later that he learned of Shino's knowledge of barrier jutsu… and that he could use his kikaichu to create these barriers quite a distance away from his body even if they were short-lived. Asuma-sensei had been impressed.

Practically since the first day Kiba and Asuka had been forced to play catch up. It had hurt both their egos that they weren't as good as they always believed themselves to be, but he couldn't dismiss Shino's hard work. Their female teammate didn't take it as gracefully and Shino had to literally beat her down each time she threw a tantrum. It was a leader's duty to keep his pack in line, after all. Kiba wouldn't have wanted to be in his shoes; Asuka packed a mean punch when she was angry. Thankfully her uncontrolled violent behavior was largely a thing of the past by now. Not that her controlled violence was less scary. She was one girl he would never consider dating despite her beauty; what she had done to that pervert who had pinched her ass four days ago had looked extraordinarily painful. Kiba idly wondered how long it would take for the man to be able to walk normally again or when he would regain the use of his hand. Luckily, as long as he didn't do anything perverted and paid Asuka the respect she felt she was entitled to due to her skills she was easy to get along with.

'How is it possible that Shino got so good? It must have been that study group of his.'

It had to be; what other explanation was there that the one team solely composed of members of that study group was already on their third C-rank mission and the team with two members was beginning their first C-rank? His only consolation was that the Uchiha was likewise still stuck in Konoha. It caused him to wish he had taken his academy time more seriously and paid more attention to what Naruto, Shino and Choji were doing. Besides, with Hinata, Ino and Yakumo they hung out with the cutest girls. When he had asked Shino why they didn't invite him to the study group the answer had been devastating. They hadn't believed that he would have been able to keep their activities to himself and resist the urge to show off.

Kiba hadn't been able to argue with that; he knew he was very impulsive and tended to blurt out things that would have been better left unsaid. Well, being around Asuka was teaching him to think before he spoke and lately Shino had taken to deliberately provoking him during their spars in an effort to curb his temper. It was almost scary how Shino seemed to have a detailed plan for their training and everything else. Heck, he had even drawn up a training schedule for Akamaru. Even most Konoha shinobi without long, direct contact with an Inuzaka didn't treat the canine companions as full persons.

He sighed. He had made a lot of progress since their graduation, but his teammate was keeping the gap open by steadily becoming stronger. Shino was currently in the finishing stages of training his elemental manipulation of the lightning element and working with Asuma-sensei to incorporate it in his fighting style while learning kenjutsu and other high-level skills. Kiba had originally thought to rely on his clan's jutsu, but Shino had made the point that their opponents would expect that. There wasn't any sort of rush, but sometime in the near future he should begin learning another specialization. The only problem was that he couldn't decide what he wanted to do.

'Well, perhaps something will come to mind during our first C-rank mission in a few days.' A grin appeared on the features of the already half-asleep boy. 'We still have Sasuke's team beat in getting a C-rank. Take that, rookie of the year.'

---

'Anko-sensei has it right; escort missions suck.'

It wasn't as if their client wasn't cooperative, the elderly Lady Haruka was in fact very nice and personable, but the caravan was just moving so slowly. Upon hearing the happy news of her nephew's impending marriage Lady Haruka had immediately ordered her household to pack up and get ready for travel, but even that had taken almost two days of frantic activity by the woman's servants. Her estate was quite large and one of the major employers of an otherwise economically downtrodden area. The Lady's late husband had built the estate at this completely out-of-the-way spot ostensibly because he enjoyed the fresh mountain air. Naruto was more of the opinion that something had required the man to vacate the capital very quickly and permanently with the option to leave the country entirely if need be. The border to the Land of Hot Springs wasn't that far away, after all.

Anyway, after two days of boredom for the shinobi they had finally departed. The caravan consisting of Lady Haruka in her palanquin, five armed retainers, thirty servants of different varieties and several pack animals was now creeping through the valleys into a roughly southeastern direction, following one of the two routes negotiable for non-shinobi. Team 11 mostly scouted ahead, but at least two of them always stayed by the noble lady's side in case something unexpected happened. Today it was Naruto's turn to take point.

The first sign that something was very wrong was the smell of burned wood and pork, and it wasn't the sort of smell one would associate with a feast. Naruto slowed his pace, but aside from the faint smell he found nothing suspicious. A mountain pass blocked his view forward. When Naruto reached the apex of the road he took care to stay hidden while hazarding a look. His caution proved unnecessary; there was no one in the vicinity who could have spotted him. That wasn't to say everything was fine. No, it appeared they had a large problem.

The source of the smell was situated on the floor of the next valley. Originally it had been a village consisting of several dozen houses. It was still quite a distance away, but Naruto could clearly see that at least half the houses were on fire. The wind was blowing the smoke in his direction, but the distance was large enough that it didn't hamper his breathing. Small figures were moving in the remains of the village, but he couldn't make out any sort of details.

'That's not good. It looks like a full-blown raid with several dozen attackers. I need to report back to the others.'

Turning around he quickly made his way back to the slowly approaching caravan. It only took a few minutes for him to reach them. One of the guards was walking at the point position with several servants behind him. Naruto took the time to address the man. "In about two hundred meters there is a good place for a stop. We might have a problem in the next valley. I don't think it's safe to continue onwards, but I have to talk with the others."

The man gave him a nod. All of the guards treated them with a wary respect. They were retainers instead of mercenaries and had been sworn to the lady's service for years. Naruto thought them competent but no match for shinobi. Finally he arrived at the noble lady's palanquin. The curtains were drawn closed so the woman was probably taking a nap. Not that it mattered, the persons he wanted to talk to were Anko-sensei and the captain of the guards, both of whom were walking besides the palanquin.

"Sensei, we have a problem. The village in the next valley is under attack. I couldn't make out details, but there are likely several dozen attackers. Half the buildings were aflame when I watched. I asked the guard at the front to stop at the next suitable spot until we know what to do." he reported.

Anko seemed as if she wanted to curse for a moment, but considering their company she kept her tongue in check. "There goes the afternoon. Okay, I will have to take a look. Hinata, you will accompany us. Choji, stay here and stay on guard. Do you have any objections to my pupil's proposal to stop the caravan?" she asked the captain.

The grizzled man shook his head. "No, I agree with the young man. Bandits are common here, but if they are ransacking the town they have to be one of the larger groups. We don't want to run into them. I will await your return."

The three sped back to the mountain pass as quickly as the road allowed. The village was still burning, but there were several new smoke columns originating from the isolated farmhouses in the vicinity of the village. A shift of the wind drove the smoke into a different direction, enabling them to see more clearly. In the distance another large column of smoke rose, indicating a previously sacked village.

This time Anko did curse. "Hinata, can you tell us more about what is going on down there?"

"The v-village is beyond my actual range, but I should be able to make out more details." Hinata answered.

"Do that." Anko commanded.

Hinata simply seemed to stare into the distance for a minute with her byakugan visibly activated. "The attackers seem to herd the villagers together on the village square. They are all armed with an assortment of different weapons and they seem much more disciplined than normal bandits. No drinking, wild looting or rape as far as I can see. I can't make out enough details to see if they are wearing an identifying symbol. They don't seem to be soldiers, though. Numbers are hard to guess, but I estimate around forty or fifty attackers in the village proper alone." She began to frown. "About twenty more persons that are escorting more than a hundred people are approaching from the far side. It looks like they are coming from the other destroyed village. There is something that looks like a baggage train. That's all I'm going to get at this distance."

Anko cursed again. "Damn, that doesn't look good. Naruto, you told me about your listening jutsu. Does it work here?"

"I'm already at it, sensei."

It was difficult. The distance was too large, there were too many other sound sources, the villagers didn't know what was happening and most of the attackers didn't say anything relevant, but after a few minutes of trying Naruto managed to get some snippets of a conversation.

"… make good sacrifices… this night… Jashin-sama… divine gifts… scour this valley clean of heathens… meet up… Hot Springs Country…"

'Jashinists. Shit, shit, shit. Of all the things it had to be them.'

"They are followers of Jashin, sensei. It seems they are on their way to the Country of Hot Springs and want to sacrifice everyone in their path." he announced after ending his technique.

Hinata's features froze for a moment and she exchanged a meaningful look with him, but Anko was too busy with swearing to notice. After a few seconds their sensei caught herself. "Okay, back to the caravan. We need to include the others in this discussion."

Ten minutes later all four shinobi, the captain of the guards, the chief servant and Lady Haruka gathered a short distance from the main camp of the caravan. They had made camp on a meadow to the side of the road. There were enough trees and boulders to keep the worst of the wind away, but it was a far cry from an ideal resting place. Anko was just finishing her explanation of the situation.

"… We won't be able to protect you against this number of enemies, especially because we don't know if there are any shinobi among them. They are obviously coming towards us and there aren't any lateral valleys we can duck into to avoid them. The valley we are currently in is wide enough that creating a chokepoint is impossible, but too small to hide this number of people. The pass is too broad to defend; there aren't any suitable locations to cause a mountain slide either."

The chief servant spoke up next. "We can't outrun them. The caravan is too slow, and from the description it appears as if they always send a lightly loaded fighting force first."

"We are prepared to make a stand, but I fear the only option is for the shinobi to carry you to safety, Haruka-sama." the captain of the guard added.

The noble lady was having none of that. "That is completely out of the question. I will not leave my household to be slaughtered. Mitarashi-san, is there anything else you can do?"

Anko seemed to think for a moment, and Naruto could make some educated guesses what her thoughts were about. The threat level clearly exceeded the mission parameters, but Lady Haruka was from a very rich and influential family. Letting her die or rescuing her alone against her wishes would do immeasurable damage to the village's reputation. Besides, with their enemies' skill level unknown it was far from certain that they could get away successfully. Or that the elderly lady would survive being carried on their backs in the relatively harsh conditions of the mountains.

"There may be something we can do. It seems the cultists haven't noticed us until now, but they will soon leave in this direction. Your caravan will immediately turn around and try to reach the next village. If you can recruit the villagers and barricade yourself you may survive. In the meanwhile my pupils and I will enter the next valley and attack them. In contrast to this one the next valley is large enough for us to conduct hit-and-run attacks. In the worst case we will buy you time. Most likely we will whittle down their numbers so they become more manageable for you until we have to disengage. In the optimal turn of events we may be able to defeat them in detail." Anko explained.

The captain of the guard nodded hesitantly. "That course of action is the next best after bringing her ladyship to safety directly."

Naruto could feel the noble lady's gaze wander over him and his two teammates. He wondered what she was thinking. Child soldiers weren't uncommon, even if the gaggle of children following the mercenary units around usually didn't fight until their bodies had developed more. No shinobi no matter how young expected mercy because of his age. Well, at least no one with a realistic view of the world.

Finally the old woman spoke up. "I agree with your plan, Mitarashi-san. Is there anything you need from me before leaving?"

"I would like our orders in writing. Otherwise it might be seen as abandoning you. Immediately after this meeting I will send a message to Konoha and the nearest military outpost. Unfortunately any response will come too late to do us any good. I assume you are aware that the village will bill your family drastically more even if we won't survive?"

Haruka nodded gracefully. "Naturally. I wish you the best of luck, Mitarashi-san."

---

'And here I thought the curse of C-ranks was a myth.' Anko thought.

It was a common rumor that on one of the first three C-rank missions a new genin team did something would go catastrophically wrong. As far as Anko knew nothing had happened to last year's teams (the one were the two young female team members got pregnant didn't count because that didn't have anything to do with the missions), but the originally assigned jonin of Team 9 from last term had died due to a very unfortunate chain of events on their second C-rank mission. Now it seemed it was her team's turn.

Anko had seriously considered ordering her genin to retreat. If they had been the normal crop she would have done that without a second thought, but her genin were far from normal. They could be a real help, and she would take all the help she could get against this many enemies. There didn't seem to be any obvious shinobi, but fighting against large numbers was tricky business. A single enemy below jonin-level was hardly a serious threat for a kunoichi of her skill when she fought to kill. Fighting against several enemies at the same time was another matter entirely. Her attention capacity was ultimately limited, and it would only need one mistake on her part for an attack to slip through and wound or kill her. An injury would slow her down, making it easier for another attacker to succeed. The risk was simply too high.

Unfortunately Anko's abilities weren't well suited for dealing with a large number of targets at once. She had specialized in infiltration, assassination and taking down small numbers of strong enemies. Sure, she had some wide-area techniques, but they all did take time to perform. Time she wouldn't necessarily have when the buddies of the people she had killed with her first attack charged her and charge they would. Anko had dealt with Jashinists two or three times in the past. They had always been fanatical and didn't care if they died if they could only take some of their enemies with them.

The proper course of action for engaging a mass of enemies with unknown skills was to lure them into ambushes, killing a few of them each time before disappearing and striking again from the shadows. Unfortunately they didn't have enough time or materials for setting things up properly and the available space wasn't large enough to properly shake off pursuit. They had done what they could and build at least some traps, but it would likely come down to their direct battle skills. It had already grown dark during their efforts and now they were lying in wait until Anko chose to begin the attack. The timing had to be just right.

There were slightly less than one hundred enemies gathered on the central square of the now destroyed village together with easily thrice their number of villagers, but the number of the latter was dropping rapidly. Occasionally small parties of cultists with additional prisoners arrived. The Jashinists had begun killing their prisoners earlier in the day. Unfortunately there had been nothing Team 11 could do about that without running the risk of premature discovery. If they failed not only would the current prisoners die, but all the villages on the way to the border would be destroyed, too.

On occasions like this she wished that she were on better terms with her summons. A giant snake or two would be very helpful, but any snake larger than about man-sized refused to work with her more often than not. Given the current situation she didn't want to expend the chakra to summon something of dubious loyalty. Perhaps they were angry that she used the snake techniques her sensei had taught her less and less, but there was no way that she would make skills integral to her fighting style that relied on her remaining a signatory to the snake contract. Orochimaru could remove her name from the snake contract anytime he wanted to, and she was sure her hated teacher would choose a moment when she could least afford it. Being a cadet summoner sucked if you didn't get along with the master summoner.

Another look towards the fire-lit village showed her that it was time. 'It seems the cultists are more or less gathered together. Shame about the villagers caught in the splash damage, but I have to take out as many enemies as possible in the initial strike or they will all die anyway.'

Anko inhaled deeply while carefully performing a long string of hand seals.

'Fire Release: Flight of the Grand Phoenix'

Then she exhaled. A mass of flames burst from her mouth, forming a giant bird made out of whirling fire. She immediately directed it towards the center of the square. A few seconds later three small fireballs erupted from different locations and likewise converged on the village square. Anko tensed her muscles. Depending on the results of her attack she would either disappear into the darkness or attack. Just a few seconds more before a large percentage of their enemies would be incinerated. If they were lucky the A-rank technique might even get them all.

Then everything went completely wrong.

---

Hinata watched anxiously as her small fireball streaked towards one of the clustered groups of guards at the edge of the square. Thanks to her improved byakugan she had been able to observe the cultists during the last hours. It had been sickening. Old, infirm, man, child, mother, baby; it made no difference to these people. All were mercilessly and very painfully sacrificed. Each time one of them died Hinata felt… something. The best she could describe it was a faint echo of a sucking sensation, like something disappeared to somewhere and something different came back in exchange. Her best guess was that it was the chakra of the sacrifices that was sent to Jashin. She dearly hoped that it didn't include the souls of the victims.

Sacrificing the soul of another, unwilling person wasn't easy and required either special circumstances like a major consecrated temple, specifically prepared artifacts or ceremonies or the direct, corporeal intervention of a being of some power. She doubted the makeshift sacrificial altar that had been erected in the center of the village square sufficed for that. Some villagers had tried to escape, but they had been brutally beaten down. The cultists were competent with their weapons, but luckily none of them seemed to be shinobi.

Still, Hinata would take considerable pleasure in seeing these cultists burn, which was why she kept her gaze directly on the head priest. He was an elderly man with silvery hair and a goatee clad in flowing red-black robes. If he hadn't been so busy sacrificing people he would have looked like everyone's favorite grandfather.

When Anko-sensei's fire technique had traveled half the distance the man turned around. Hinata could see his eyes widen for a split second before he hurriedly grabbed the large single-bladed battle scythe one cultist nearby had been holding. He raised the weapon above his head and shouted something. Suddenly Hinata could feel it. The sensation was similar to when she was nearby when Naruto called upon the divine power of his parents and entirely different at the same time. All the shadows seemed to darken and the light of the fires dimmed.

The giant bird of fire was almost there when something appeared directly in its path. It was a black hole in the already dark night. The moment the fiery inferno reached it, it came to an abrupt halt. For almost a second it stood frozen in the air before the flames were sucked into themselves in a fiery vortex. When Hinata tried to take a closer look her eyes hurt and she hurriedly shifted back to her former perspective. With a flicker the last flames died and the unnatural darkness disappeared.

The small fireballs she and her teammates had launched arrived unimpeded, but unfortunately didn't do much damage. After launch they were unguided and it showed. Naruto's fireball had missed its intended target completely while Choji had hit two people. Her own fireball had been spot-on and set three people on fire.

Hinata almost jumped when the voice of the obvious cult leader reached her ears. It shouldn't have been possible, but it sounded as if he was speaking directly besides her. The voice was a deep baritone and ideally suited for speaking to large gatherings. "We are being attacked by infidels! Find and kill them all, my children! No heathen can be allowed to live!"

The crowd shrieked in bloodlust, but Hinata wasn't especially worried about them finding her. She would observe for a few moments longer before making her escape and meeting up with Choji at the preplanned location.

In the meantime the leader had knelt down. "JASHIN-SAMA! Your humble servant implores you! Set free the power you bestowed on your followers and lead them to their prey!"

Again Hinata felt a surge of power, but this time it wasn't localized to a single source. Instead the whole crowd was involved. For a short moment their skin turned pitch black and white bone markings appeared on their bodies only to disappear in the blink of an eye. One of the people raised a blood-thirsty scream only to be joined by the others a moment later. The part of the crowd nearest to her position suddenly turned directly towards Hinata, making her feel very exposed.

'Time to make my retreat.'

Abandoning her hiding place in a treetop at the edge of the village Hinata jumped down and started to run away through the fields while still keeping her gaze fixed on the village. The moon was three quarters-full and there weren't many clouds, enabling her to see the surroundings good enough to run and fight. More than a dozen enemies were running in her direction and they were fast. In fact, they were faster than her. That should have been impossible for non-shinobi.

A third surge of power pulled her attention back to the leader. The man had finished another invocation and now started to slaughter the prisoners with powerful swings of his scythe. There wouldn't be any villagers left to save. When he finished the last survivors he took off in the direction of Anko-sensei, but Hinata wasn't able to observe further. She had her own problems to deal with for the first of the people chasing her had almost caught up.

"There is the bitch! Kill her!"

Hinata stopped for a moment to throw several shuriken in the direction of her enemies before she continued to run. Several meaty thunks indicated that at least some of the projectiles had hit flesh. Then she frowned. There hadn't been any cries of pain and the number of pursuers was still the same, but due to the moon being in her back she couldn't make out anything besides chakra-filled silhouettes.

The fastest of them were about to catch up to her when she reached the edge of the fields. Hinata abruptly changed the direction of her sprint and charged directly at the five closest to her. Others were not far behind, but she had half a minute to deal with them before she would have to run again. In the first few seconds of the fight she learned several valuable facts about her enemies. They were fast. They were strong. They were nimble. They didn't have any training to make optimal use of these physical traits.

She ducked under the sword strike of a man with a scar running the entire length of his face and sent a devastating Juuken strike directly into the man's chest before using his ribcage as a springboard, launching herself backwards in a somersault over the others coming from behind. Quickly adjusting her trajectory she used her right hand to push herself off the head of a blond woman while frying her brain with another Juuken strike in the same moment. While still in the air she pulled a kunai from her pouch and sliced open the carotid artery of the man who tried to intercept her landing.

'Three down, two to go. Fifteen seconds left.'

Hinata threw the kunai into the throat of the uninjured man nearest to her before rushing through hand seals.

'Fire Release: Small Fire Stream'

The flames spewing from her mouth hit the fifth attacker front-on, but contrary to Hinata's expectations the burning man continued to run at her instead of collapsing in pain. Hinata dove out of the way not a moment too soon.

Suddenly her eyes widened. The four attackers she had disabled earlier were standing up again and encircling her. That wasn't possible. All her hits had been killing blows.

"You are dead!" she shouted.

Scarface spit out some blood. "Jashin-sama has graced us with his power."

The man she had set on fire stood up again, burn wounds covering his body. Hinata could actually see how the burned flesh flaked off, leaving unblemished skin behind. "We are Jashin-sama's chosen. We cannot die."

"Give up now and we might only stretch your death for an hour. Resist and you will be screaming for days." the woman among them announced.

In that moment the reinforcements arrived. Hinata was now encircled by nine enemies instead of five and still more were approaching. She had to escape somehow. Before she could settle on a plan half of her enemies attacked while the others kept their distance and a chaotic melee ensued.

Normally Hinata could have defeated them with some effort. It was impossible to surprise her thanks to her 360 degree vision and her flexibility and fighting style were ideal for close-range engagements. Discounting bad luck she would have been able to evade her enemies' attacks long enough to kill them all by striking critical areas. Unfortunately that didn't work against enemies who couldn't die and healed almost immediately. Her Gentle Fist was almost useless. Oh, it did damage, but it fixed itself in seconds. Shuriken simply annoyed the cultists and her kunai didn't do enough raw damage to put them down. She supposed cutting off limbs or heads would work, but if one cultist went down the others covered him against her. Her ninjutsu techniques didn't yield better results, and the disorientation genjutsu she attempted broke almost immediately.

Three times Hinata had to use kawarimi to save herself, but that didn't give her more than a short breather before the cultists were once again upon her and she began feeling dizzy from the technique. Then it happened. Several attacks were coming at the same time and there was no way she could avoid them all. She bent around a spear strike, deflected an axe with her kunai and jumped above a club, but the final attack connected. Something cold struck her left arm and she could see a sword continuing its arc with drops of blood trailing behind it. She gritted her teeth when the pain struck. The wound was deep and she would shortly lose the use of her arm if she didn't do something about it.

Once again she used on of the cultists as a spring board to jump high into the air. She would land on a currently free spot, but her avenues of escape were already being blocked. Despite the burning pain she willed her hand to go through the necessary hand seals for what she planned.

'Earth Release: Underground Move'

Hinata threw herself flat on the ground the moment she completed the jutsu to evade the attacks. The next moment she was safely below the surface. Then she encountered a problem. The version of the technique Mizuki had been able to teach them had only limited functionality. Most importantly in her situation it only worked on soil, not massive rock. Unfortunately she was currently in the mountains, and while the soil layer was about three meters thick in her current location at the edge of the mountain forest it wasn't deep enough to make her escape. There were rock formations everywhere, making a clean getaway impossible. If she had been just two meters to the left she wouldn't have been able to phase into the ground at all.

Concentrating on a medical technique while keeping the earth jutsu active was difficult, but she couldn't wait. Her arm had been cut to the bone. Any longer and she might bleed out. Luckily she had lost almost no flesh; the sword had been very sharp. Under her expert ministrations her flesh knit back together, leaving no trace of the injury. A resounding boom shook the ground and Hinata began to smile maliciously. The exploding tags she had left behind had done their work. Her eyes narrowed when she observed the aftermath. Her vision was somewhat degraded because of the earth above her, but she could still make out the generalities.

'The two closest to the blast have been ripped to pieces and their chakra is fading rapidly. The one I killed ten times seems to take longer to recover. It seems either massive damage in one go or killing them repeatedly will do the trick.'

Unfortunately she had used most of her supplies to create the traps in the forest and she didn't believe she could reach them in time. Then she felt it. Her pursuers had begun digging. She had to move.

Hinata silently cursed. She was moving far too slowly, and somehow the cultists seemed to be able to track her. The underground move jutsu was designed for sneaking and hiding, not rapid movement. Then she saw it. Originally it had been a cave on ground level, but a long time ago it must have been blocked by trees or something else. Over the decades soil created by decomposing plant life had slowly filled the valley. Now it was filled with earth and not visible from the surface. If she used it for her escape the cultists wouldn't be able to follow her directly.

A few minutes later Hinata emerged from the ground some distance away. The cultists would need some time to reach her to get around a ridge. Time to take stock of the situation.

'Escape is impossible. We have to kill them all. I need something that can cause massive damage, after that I have to find Choji. Naruto is closer to sensei's position than us. The two can probably survive on their own for now.'

She had only four exploding tags on her and luring the cultists into the prepared traps would probably not work. They were too fast. A small brook to the side caught her attention. Hinata knelt beside it and channeled chakra into the water. She wasn't really ready to try that idea in combat, but it seemed she had no choice. After she had woven her chakra tightly through several liters she activated the next stage of her idea. A mass of water rose weightlessly from the brook into the air, forming something like a cross between a sword and a club. One end of the construct was still connected to her hand.

Hinata swung the water blade several times back and forth. Keeping it in the necessary shape was difficult and chakra intensive but possible. She would have to invest more training and research as soon as she found the time. When she brought the blade down hard the stone under it shattered. Some drops left the main mass but returned immediately. The blade wasn't especially sharp, but she could twist it around whenever needed and her chakra made the improvised weapon much more dangerous than any captured weapons from the cultists. It was more an extension of her body she had full control over.

'This will do. We shouldn't have separated, but it seemed a good idea to leave the cultists in the dark about our forces and the direction of the attack. Now to find Choji.'

---

Choji was fighting for his life. He hadn't stuck around after launching the fireball, but he had heard the cult leader's voice despite his distance. The following blood-curdling screams had sent shivers through his body. It hadn't taken long for his pursuers to catch up to him.

'This is a nightmare.'

Another cultist jumped at him. "DEATH FOR THE DEATH GOD!"

His enlarged fist swiped the man out of the air and hammered him into a tree with all the strength he could muster. Choji could feel bones breaking under his fist, but that wouldn't be enough to put the man down permanently. He wouldn't repeat the mistake that had cost him already several injuries. Plucking the body out of the impression it had left in the tree he threw the cultist to the ground and didn't stop trampling him with his increased weight until only fleshy paste and an unidentifiable mess of bone fragments were left.

After returning to his normal size Choji tried to catch his breath for a moment before retreating further into the forest with a pronounced limp. His frontal armor plate had been shattered when he relied on it to take a hit from a cultist armed with an axe and he was bleeding from several deep wounds. He had totally underestimated the strength of these guys, and he had paid dearly for it. While he was the right kind of fighter to deal sufficient damage to them to put them down permanently he couldn't take their hits in return, at least not for long. They had strength, speed and unnatural resilience. The only reason he wasn't dead was that they had hardly any skill.

The fights had been like a bear against a pack of wolves. Individually he could kill them easily, but while he was busy with one several others attacked his flanks. Even the ones he smashed tried to wound him without showing the slightest regard for their own survival. He had killed around twenty of them, but there always seemed to be more and by now he was seriously wounded. His eyes desperately searched for some location he could use for an ambush to whittle their numbers down.

'There!'

A deep but narrow ravine that was only visible when you were almost falling into it lay before him. A careful look showed him that it was filled with sharp rocky spires. If anyone fell down there he wouldn't walk away. Choji bent down while suppressing a grunt of pain and pressed his hands on the ground.

'Earth Release: Slippery Mud Field'

He pushed more chakra than normal into the technique. That would cause it to last several minutes longer without requiring him to maintain contact. The forest was dark enough that nobody should be able to see that something was wrong with the ground before it was too late. Carefully sidestepping his trap and the ravine he continued on his way, silently cursing his limited repertoire of techniques.

The mud trap had proven insufficient to hold the freaks, the fire stream and fire ball didn't put them down permanently while the blazing embers was intended for arson, not direct combat. The sloping underground made using his human boulder technique too risky; he wouldn't be able to build good enough momentum to hit the cultists before they jumped out of his path and he didn't want to fall into some chasm.

"There he is!"

'Great, another pack of cultists. At least I have time for one or two attacks until they are in melee range.'

'Earth Release: Stone Shuriken'

Choji used his good leg to stamp hard on the ground while overpowering the technique, causing a chunk of earth half the size of his torso to rise up into the air, shaping itself into a giant shuriken and hardening to a stone-like substance. With another burst of chakra he caused it to begin spinning before launching it at the approaching gaggle of cultists. There were too many people in the room between several large boulders. If they had been normal people he would have gotten them all, but with one exception they used their unnatural strength to jump high into the air, thereby evading the missile. Choji grinned when he saw that the one unlucky cultist was horizontally bisected by the shuriken. 'Get up from that, asshole.'

The remaining six cultists howled in anger and charged at him. Choji's smile grew even larger when they slipped on the mud field he had created. To his disappointment only two of them disappeared down the ravine, the other four either managed to stop themselves or jump over it. Choji braced himself. 'Time for another round.'

"Die, infidel!"

'Partial Multi-size Technique'

Choji's arms suddenly doubled their size. Normally he would have preferred to enlarge his entire body, but being bigger meant that there was more surface area to hit. Additionally he was running dangerously low on body fat. Despite years of study he still hadn't unlocked all the secrets of his clan's calorie control, meaning he lost body mass each time he used one of the Akimichi clan techniques. Until he figured it out he could only increase his size for short periods of time, not use it constantly in a protracted battle like this. He began the fight with an uppercut that smashed the head of the first cultists to enter his range to tiny pieces in a spray of brains and bone fragments. A back-handed blow catapulted another cultist out of the fight for the time being. The third cultist he caught between his hands. The slap probably broke all the bones in his body and covered his hands in even more gore, but not before the man managed to stick a dagger into his right hand, crippling the appendage for the time being. Choji felt an attack from the fourth attacker connect with his back, but his hidden armor plate held and blunted the blow. He whirled around as fast as he could, but the man still managed another swing with his club that rattled Choji's head even if there wasn't that much force behind the strike. In retaliation he used his left hand for a vertical blow that turned the cultist into a pancake.

The recovered second cultist suddenly tackled him from behind, ramming a dagger into his side. With a screeching sound it slid off one of his hidden armor plates. With a roar Choji ripped the man's arm off and didn't stop beating him with it until he was convinced that the cultist wouldn't get up again.

He carefully looked at his right hand, trying to clear his ringing head. The force of his own blow had driven the dagger completely through the hand. Without medical aid he wouldn't be able to use it anymore. Choji carefully removed the dagger from his hand before returning his arms to their normal size. He breathed heavily. There was something he was forgetting.

The intense pain hit Choji completely unexpectedly. It was like somebody had driven something through his entire body. When he looked down he saw a bloody spearhead protruding from his left side. On his right side stood a black-haired woman holding the shaft of the spear that had just pierced him, grinning in triumph. It was one of the attackers that had fallen into the ravine earlier in the fight.

"Oh." was all he managed to say before the pain overwhelmed him and his vision went black.

---

Hinata almost panicked when she saw the cultist drive a spear through Choji from the side. Clearing the last two dozen meters in a sprint she brought her watery weapon down with all the force she could muster. Her first swing shattered the bones in the woman's arms and her following upwards kick would have broken a normal human's neck, but the cultist was made of sterner stuff. Hinata barely managed to evade the woman when she threw herself towards the young kunoichi in an effort to head butt her. A horizontal swing of her sword bashed her skull in and she went down for a moment. Exploiting the opening, Hinata continued to strike until she had thoroughly pulverized the head. For good measure she used her last kunai to cut the limbs off before she turned to Choji while keeping watch on the surroundings. It seemed Choji had already taken care of his other pursuers, but Hinata could see movement in a nearby ravine and more cultists coming up from the valley and behind her.

'I have to get him away from here. The spear has to wait for later.'

In a display of strength that would have surprised many people Hinata picked Choji up and carried him on her back away from the site of battle while channeling medical chakra into him. That much physical reinforcement was enormously chakra-intensive, but she had still the chakra to burn. Kage-level reserves were really a wonderful thing. It would likely aggravate his injuries further but she had no choice. A frantic search with her byakugan later she changed her direction slightly. After running at the best speed she could manage with her load she reached a sheer rock spire. Hinata didn't even slow down when she jumped on the vertical surface and continued directly upwards. The five meter wide top offered some cover due to the edges of the spire being slightly higher than the center and the cultists wouldn't be able to follow. At least she had never seen them use chakra, so hopefully they wouldn't be able to climb here. Well, she could always transform her water weapon into a whip or spear and shove them off if they tried.

After wiping her blood-covered hands clean on her clothing she began a medical scan of Choji. It didn't look good. Aside from over a dozen medium wounds, a concussion and his crippled hand the spear had done enormous damage. It had destroyed his left kidney, pierced his right one, practically shredded his intestines and injured several other organs to varying degrees. Her carrying him had probably aggravated the injury, and there was heavy internal bleeding. She wouldn't be able to fix this with her own skills alone. He would die in a few minutes at the latest. It was a wonder he had held onto life to this point.

Hinata came to a split-second decision. Choji was too important in a personal sense as well as for his role in their plans. There was a way to heal him, but she would have to take an extremely dangerous gamble. Especially considering who their current enemies were.

'The spear has to go first.'

She used her water to break off most of the protruding handle before she formed it into a levitating ball and put it out of the way. Then she gripped it directly underneath the spearhead and pulled with all her strength. It came free with a repulsive squelching sound, followed by a rush of blood mixed with the contents of his intestines. If she hadn't been already covered in blood and gore the smell would have probably been insufferable. Hinata proceeded with channeling medical chakra into him while she marshaled her magic for the most important task.

"Mother of Life, I ask for your help. Grant me the power to heal my friend."

A moment later Youko's power filled her and golden light emerged from her hands, entering Choji's body. Naruto's parents were probably wondering what the hell was wrong. If Jashin paid close attention to this fight she had probably just signed their death warrant. She had used the least amount of divine power she could that was still able to do the job, and she watched in wonder as Choji's body was miraculously healed. Missing flesh grew anew, the wounds closed, blood was replenished and the filth was removed from his body before the divine power disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

Hinata had to concentrate hard not to be swept away in the elation that always went along with such an invocation. She hadn't used that much power and managed to keep her thinking rational. The emerging feeling of emptiness helped with that. It seemed she had expended her entire personal pool of magical power in that invocation.

Suddenly Choji's eyes snapped open and he sat up. "Hinata? What happened?"

"You overlooked an enemy." Hinata pointed at the bloody spear shaft. "I arrived just in time to save and heal you. We are safe at the moment, but we have to get going as soon as possible. You have a few minutes to rest up."

Choji looked at the levitating ball of water curiously, but refrained from commenting in favor of leaning back and closing his eyes. He would need all the rest he could get. While his wounds had been healed he was still weak.

Hinata had to suppress a gasp when she felt another eruption of Jashin's power. She quickly scanned the landscape in search of clues. Finally she found out what was happening. Some distance away the pieces of a recently dispatched cultist dissolved into black goo, flowed together and reformed the man. Desperation filled her. It simply wasn't fair. In the next moment a wave of malevolent bloodlust seemed to wash over them and a deep roar could be heard echoing in the valley. In the distance a red glow became visible. Suddenly their position didn't seem so hopeless.

"What was that?" a shuddering Choji asked.

Hinata decided against telling Choji about the resurrecting cultists. "Naruto is using the Kyuubi's chakra. It seems he is in a desperate situation."

---

Naruto was slowly getting desperate; he was almost out of weapons, he had lost his knives when they got caught in the ribcage of one of the cultists and none of his jutsu seemed to do enough damage to put them down permanently; they just kept coming. Their enemies weren't very good; in fact most of them were barely above random mercenary level in skill without their supernatural enhancement. THEY JUST WOULDN'T FREAKING DIE!

Even now as cut some of them to pieces with wind chakra enhanced kunai others were trying to attack him from the sides. The crazy cultists were either not feeling pain from their injuries or ignoring it. Deadly wounds were simply shrugged off. If they received crippling injuries entire body parts dissolved and reformed in the span of a few seconds. Granted, if you killed them often enough or completely cut them to pieces they died for real, but anything less simply wouldn't stick.

He had been almost constantly under attack since the cultists took up the pursuit. The valley was simply not large enough to evade the enemies for long, especially enemies that displayed no signs of fatigue, didn't stay dead and always seemed to know where he was. Not to mention their crazy strength and speed. The only saving grace was that they apparently weren't completely used to that level of power.

Finally he managed to cut off the head of the last attacker. For good measured he cleaved the corpse into three pieces. It was not a moment too soon, for his last kunai crumbled to pieces. Normally you needed weapons made of chakra-conducting metal to properly utilize elemental chakra. A standard kunai wasn't able to withstand the involved forces for long without being damaged, especially because he still hadn't figured everything out he needed to know about using chakra flow to improve his weapons.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he leant against a nearby tree for a moment. His clothing was stained with blood and gore and he was bleeding from several minor wounds. He had to find Anko-sensei.

Two minutes later he finally saw her. She was currently battling with the leader of the cultists and it seemed she was winning. Judging from the burned countryside strewn with mutilated corpses she had used some higher-rank jutsu that were effective against these freaks. Suddenly the silver-haired man batted her away and stretched his arms into the air. Naruto was too far away to hear him, but the following surge of foul power left no question that he had once again called upon the power of his god. For a few seconds nothing seemed to happen, but then Naruto saw the dead cultists coming back to life. Their forms were often misshapen, but judging how they attacked Anko-sensei their speed and strength had increased once again. Some of them turned towards him, and soon he would be in battle once more. A battle he doubted he could win in his current state.

Naruto stared blankly at the sight for a few moments. "Okay, this is so not on."

It seemed desperate measures had to be taken. Naruto reached deep into himself. He knew how to access the demonic chakra that was trapped in the seal, but normally shied away from using it. It just didn't feel right to use the power belonging to his mother. Besides, it was painful and the associated rage and power trip threatened his control over himself. But today he had no other choice, and he grasped the power tightly.

Liquid fire seemed to run through his veins as a red haze obscured his vision. He could feel power, incredible power. His fingernails transformed into claws, the whisker marks deepened while his teeth and hair grew longer and red boiling chakra formed a protective cloak around him. He drew even more power, and a single tail rose behind him. After a moment of thought he increased the draw and a second tail emerged. The wild and malevolent power threatened his control, but he would take no chances.

He roared before grinning at the approaching resurrected cultists. "Now we will see if you are truly immortal."

---

'Fire Release: Dragon Fire'

Roaring flames shot along the wires Anko had trapped four cultists in and burned them to a crisp. She had to use the B-rank version of the technique; earlier attempts had shown that the flames had to be hot enough to melt stone to actually put these freaks down. A moment later she had to let go of the wires to evade another attacking group.

In her life Anko had encountered a lot of weird techniques and fought (and usually killed) their users, but you didn't encounter super-strong, super-fast and almost immortal enemies every day, especially not dozens of them at the same time. Luckily none of them were shinobi or familiar with high-power fights. The best cultists seemed to have training as basically competent soldiers while the rest was more on the skill level of bandits. If it had been otherwise she would have been dead by now, but as things stood she had only to keep her distance and avoid being mobbed.

'Okay, that group over there is nicely clustered.'

After jumping to the side to avoid another suicidal charge from a cultist she ran straight up a tree making hand seals before she jumped into the air.

'Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet'

Once again flames shot out of her mouth and assumed the shape of a dragon. One of the cultists managed to evade the fire, but three others didn't. A moment later Anko cut his head off with a chakra-enhanced dagger. The remaining two cultists met similar ends.

"That hurt, you bitch! Jashin-sama will drink your blood." one of the disembodied heads shouted.

Anko blinked before pulping the head. "Okay, that was just creepy. Now I have to pick up my genin before they die."

Hopefully they would have survived until now. With their skills they could probably hold out for awhile, but these cultists were bloody dangerous. If they hadn't come at her piecemeal she would have been in real trouble. The entire battle was massively fucked up, but that was hindsight.

She was just about to take to the trees when she caught some movement out of the corner of her eye and barely managed to duck in time. The tree behind her wasn't so lucky and disappeared in a great cloud of splinters. Turning around, Anko saw the head cultist standing behind her.

"Heathen whore; you have decimated my flock and interfered with Jashin-sama's commands. For that crime I will sacrifice you… slowly."

Anko forced a smile on her lips. "You can try, sicko."

The man's expression turned into a malicious smile. "Oh, I will do more than try. First I will cut off your arms and legs; then I will rip the hearts out of the dead bodies your companions and feed them to you. Jashin-sama has blessed me with his power. You cannot defeat me." Without another word he jumped at her, trying to cleave her in two with his scythe.

She had to finish this quickly and get to her pupils. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. Seconds turned into minutes, and the fight was still going strong without a clear winner. The man wasn't a shinobi or any other sort of chakra-using warrior, but he was far stronger and quicker than all the other cultists. Every time she tried to use a jutsu he would press the attack, preventing her from completing the hand seals. As time went one she managed to get more than one hit through, but the body of the man kept regenerating even when his clothing was completely shredded. He was indeed an old man, but outside of a very few people she had never met anyone stronger. She had to play it carefully, one hit from the seemingly indestructible scythe and she would be a goner.

Minutes turned into half an hour and she felt fatigue slowly settling in. Fighting against a physically superior opponent took its toll after a while. Several times she had only evaded a decisive hit by a hair's breadth. If her opponent had been a normal human she would have killed or crippled him more than thirty times, not to mention all the poisoned senbon that seemed to have no effect. She needed to end the fight at all costs. With a sudden change of direction she got inside the man's guard. The handle of the scythe slammed painfully into her left shoulder, but it was too late. With a quick slash she drew her dagger across the man's eyes, blinding him for the time being. She already knew from earlier when she had pierced his eyes with senbon that they would regenerate. Another slash with her chakra-enhanced dagger separated the man's right hand from his arm in exchange for a cracked rib on her part.

"NO! I will not be defeated by the likes of you!"

An unexpected back-handed blow connected with her, propelling her backwards. The air was painfully driven from her lungs when she collided with a tree.

"Oh Lord of Death, hear my call and let my flock rise anew! Let them succeed at their task in death they failed at in life."

When Anko finally cleared her head she saw that the man had already regained his eyesight and picked up his lost hand that had crawled back to him. Considering the experiences of the battle it didn't surprise her when it connected back to his body without problems. More worrisome were the figures that rose all around her. If she had hacked a cultist to pieces his body parts liquefied into black goo, flowed together and formed a new, grotesquely deformed body. The more intact corpses rose even earlier. At least the ones she had burned to ashes didn't rise again. After making that observation Anko didn't have any more time to consider things. The resurrected cultists swarmed her, and this time she couldn't put them down. A few seconds of frantic dodging later she was bleeding from several wounds.

'Shit, there are too many threats. I can't keep track of them all.'

Absentmindedly she noticed the appearance of a massive source of malevolent chakra somewhere in the vicinity, but she had no time to think about it. Survival came first. Suddenly she felt herself being grabbed and slammed into the ground while dislocating her shoulder violently. The pain brought tears to her eyes. A moment later she felt people holding to her arms and legs, pinning her to the ground.

The man with the scythe approached her, his weapon raised above his head. "Now you die, filthy infidel. Jashin-sama shall rule supreme. I am the unstoppable instrument of his divine will."

The blade of the scythe descended down towards her. The grip of the cultists was like a vise, making her attempts to free herself futile. Suddenly a sickly red light filled her blurry vision.

"Not so fast, gramps. I won't let you or your freak show kill my sensei."

Anko finally managed to blink the tears away. Naruto stood before her, and he was very obviously using the Kyuubi's chakra. Up close the dreadful feeling of malevolence, hate and rage was almost overwhelming. The red chakra cloak with two chakra tails that had just impaled two of the cultists holding her down was a dead giveaway. Two additional limbs of chakra had emerged and were in the process of crushing the other two cultists. Another chakra limb was holding the scythe, preventing each attempt of the leader to wrestle it free. Anko clearly saw the bodies of the cultists blacken. It seemed the Kyuubi's chakra was eating their substance away, and the same thing was happening to the scythe. Suddenly the men exploded in showers of gore, the scythe snapped and the chakra limbs retracted.

"You dare interfere in my task? What is this foul power?" the clearly shaken cult leader shouted.

"I am your death. That is all you need to know." Naruto growled before swiping at the man with a chakra-covered clawed hand. The swipe shredded the man's left arm to a bloody mess. Hissing in pain he tried to escape, but several new chakra arms emerged from Naruto and grabbed the man despite his supernatural speed, lifting him into the air. The chakra was very obviously burning his body.

"No, it can't end that way! Jashin-sama, help your faithful servant in his hour of neeee… " Before he could finish the chakra claws ripped him to pieces. Anko saw the pieces of flesh dissolve into nothingness from the contact with the Kyuubi's chakra.

'Good, that will make sure the guy won't come back.'

A screeching sound drew her gaze towards the blade of the destroyed scythe. The thing seemed to vibrate while the sound grew louder and louder until the weapon shattered, leaving only black dust behind. When she looked around she noticed that the resurrected cultists Naruto hadn't gotten around to destroying had stopped moving and seemed to be dead, this time for real. Redirecting her gaze back to Naruto, she met the boy's now blood-red slitted eyes.

There was a large amount of bloodlust in there, and for a moment Anko feared he would attack her. Then the first of the two tails receded, lessening the oppressive feeling considerably. In addition Naruto's features lost a lot of their feral look. He gave their surroundings a careful look before he turned back to her. The second tail disappeared and a moment later the red chakra cloak dispersed. Naruto's eyes returned to their normal blue hue and the dreadful feeling of the Kyuubi's chakra went away entirely.

'Good, it seems he is in full control.' she thought

"Are you alright, Anko-sensei? Sorry about not being here earlier." he asked worriedly.

She shook her head, still a bit stunned. "It's alright, Naruto. Thanks for saving my life. Can you set my shoulder? It got dislocated earlier and I want it fixed before swelling sets in." Better to get that out of the way immediately.

"Sure."

A sharp spike of pain and application of first aid later Anko stood up and looked around. Some of the fires she or Naruto had caused were still burning and illuminating the landscape. Now that she could properly survey the countryside the swath of destruction Naruto had caused was clearly visible. The trees around the place of his initial transformation had been snapped like kindling in a circular area and practically everything in his path from there to here had been destroyed. Not that she herself had left anything more intact when she had resorted to every jutsu she could think of. On the other side of the valley several other fires burned, probably caused by Chojhi, Hinata or both. When she looked at Naruto she noticed multiple holes in his clothing, but the underlying flesh seemed to be intact.

'I guess using the Kyuubi's chakra healed him.'

"Okay Naruto, first order of business is finding Hinata and Choji. We have to mind possible enemy stragglers, so keep your guard up. After that we skim the valley for survivors, both Jashinist and civilian. Sometime later we have to speak about what happened today." Anko ordered.

"Okay, Anko-sensei."

---

Choji looked around sorrowfully. When the morning sun finally had risen above the mountains it revealed a scene of devastation. What had once been a relatively poor but lively village was now a smoking ruin. It had come as a relief to him when Hinata spotted Anko-sensei and Naruto searching for them last night. After they met up Hinata had taken care of all their remaining injuries and they had scoured the valley for anyone alive. Eleven Jashinists had been found, but they had lost their supernatural strength. Still, they rather killed themselves then being taken prisoner. Choji wouldn't shed a tear for them.

Other than them they had found two families of five who had managed to hide in caves and four frightened children and a pregnant woman in different hidden cellars under the village. Without Hinata's byakugan they would have died under the rubble. At least they wouldn't want for anything. The cultists' baggage train contained enough money and valuables for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives even after the shinobi took their share. He doubted it would compensate them for the horror and the losses of this night.

His foot hit an obstacle and he looked down. It was a half-burned doll. Picking it up he wondered to whom of the hundreds of corpses in the village square it had once belonged. They had just finished piling them all up before Anko would cremate them later. There were just too many to do otherwise. Anko had already sent one of her messenger snakes back to the caravan. As soon as they arrived they would be on their way and take the survivors with them. He didn't look forward to seeing the other destroyed villages the Jashinists had left in their wake.

'Why did they do what they did? How did they get their powers?' Choji wondered.

The Jashinists had been all completely fanatical. There just seemed to be no rational reason for committing this atrocity. They didn't do it for the loot like bandits or in the course of warfare. Choji would have understood that. He didn't like it, but he would do it if it became necessary in the course of his duties. It was almost certain that he would be forced to do something similar at some later point of his life, even if the normal population was rarely slaughtered by shinobi. They produced the taxes, after all. Anko had muttered something about blood rituals, but even she knew nothing definitive. Whenever the faith of Jashin appeared his followers spread senseless slaughter and destruction until they were stopped. Apparently their religion called for the eradication of all non-believers.

He sighed. There would be no answers to his questions here.

---

The entity known as Jashin was a bit surprised when a particular influx of sacrifices stopped and instead the souls of the followers doing the sacrifices arrived. If things had followed the original projections it should have gotten at least an additional month and several thousand sacrifices out of that specific group before they were expected to meet any sort of real resistance. Plans would have to be postponed significantly.

Jashin was currently too busy to pay attention to the Elemental Nations and had just bestowed more power when it was asked for without investigating, within limits of course. The takeover of Plum country far in the west, Midland on the eastern continent and the formation of a formal church on the southern continent required close supervision. Things couldn't be allowed to stray from the predetermined path if one wanted the optimal outcome; that being a self-perpetuating stable cult who would spread and provide sacrifices without needing constant oversight and support.

When Jashin finally could spare the attention the entire thing was already over. From the memories of the followers Jashin discovered that they had the bad luck to run into a group of high-skilled shinobi including the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. Jashin had been worried at first when it had discovered that the Juubi had been freed. The devourer of gods would have been a dangerous opponent, especially because they had clashed in the distant past and Jashin had no desire to repeat that experience. There was almost no possibility for the Juubi to win in the present day, but the victory would cost it much. Luckily somebody had taken care of the thing and divided it into nine separate beings, none of whom was on a level where it would be dangerous to the dark god. Even more fortunate was that they had been sealed in different mortals, which further reduced their power. Currently Jashin left them alone until other plans were well underway, but a time would come when it would suck every little bit of power out of the bijuu and make it its own.

Jashin was about to discard the entire event as an unfortunate fluke when it noticed a short-lived spark of divine power one of the men had witnessed. The follower had been too far away to make out details and hadn't known what he felt, but for Jashin the resonance between the sliver of power it had bestowed on its servant and the foreign source was a cause for great concern. It had been a young girl who used it. A young girl with peculiar white eyes. It seemed the spawn of the all-seeing lord of law and judgment was still at large in the world. They should have been stamped out on his last visit. Even worse, some of them might be capable of ascending if this event was any sort of indication. That couldn't be allowed. Steps would have to be taken to remedy the situation before any sort of real problem arose.

After extracting every little bit of useful knowledge it devoured the souls of its followers. Jashin didn't maintain an afterlife; it promised its followers immortality and power as long as they served faithfully and successfully. The only fate that awaited failures was destruction.

They all failed eventually.

---

Author's notes: Thank you all for the many reviews (and the favorites, alarms and C2 additions). On that note, I always answer reviews via PM, but some of you have deactivated that function, so don't expect an answer if that is the case. I might forget that I didn't already answer these reviews when I get around to writing the next author's notes.

Not all Jashinists will be nearly immortal fighters. Most are just normal but very fanatical humans. There are some specific reasons why this particular group was so bad that will be revealed later.

If you are wondering where the shinobi numbers come from: It was mentioned in the manga at some point in the Shinobi world war arc that the allied forces numbered 80.000. Since they consist of the combined forces of the five great villages and the samurai one sixth of that would be around 13.000. Naturally that disregards differences in population, events like the Sand/Sound invasion and so on, but it means there have to be several hundred graduates each year to keep the ranks stable in each village. The nameless mooks that are slaughtered (and nobody cares about) at every opportunity have to come from somewhere, after all.

So long.