Chapter 12: Sharks and Hawks
The wind rushed through Kaito's hair as he leaped over an ox-drawn cart and darted into an alley. Ahead of him, he caught a glimpse of the scarf his prey wore disappearing around the corner. Then, with a few well-practiced hand signs, Kaito enveloped his body in wind-natured chakra. The mangled curtains of a nearby window and the cloak he wore around his body swayed from the gusts generated by the technique.
Kaito wind-dashed down the alleyway in the blink of an eye. The shutters dotting the alley swung on their hinges, setting off a chain reaction of barking dogs and confused yells. He turned the corner, released his technique, and reached out with his hand in one smooth motion.
"Got you now," Kaito remarked as he smirked at his prey.
His fingers closed around the collar of his target, and with a vicious tug, he threw the man into the brick wall to his left. The impact created a round crater. Dust and mortar shook loose from the wall and mixed with the muddy alley floor.
The man gasped in pain and crumpled to the ground. His chest heaved as he desperately tried to fill his lungs with air. Kaito's firmly placed boot on his chest denied his lungs the relief they desperately needed.
A commotion to Kaito's right revealed a young boy poking his head out of a window. Not good; the more people who saw, the more attention drawn. Kaito directed a small amount of chakra laced with killing intent toward the boy and motioned for him to disappear with a flick of his gloved wrist. The blood drained from the child's face, and he quickly disappeared back into his abode.
Now, back to...
A vice-like grip wrapped around Kaito's ankle. Before the man could use the leverage, Kaito pressed down hard. A muted crack vibrated through the soul of his boot, and his foot sank deeper into the man's chest. Another pained gasp escaped from below, except this time, a gurgle of blood was also present.
"That's enough of that," Kaito said and grasped a tuft of the man's hair. He tilted his face up, and a mist forehead protector glinted in the stray shafts of sunlight that filtered through the overhanging rooftops of the hidden alley.
"You know what I want. Just tell me where it is, and I'll stop."
The mist ninja glared up at him and smiled. Then, he pursed his lips and spat a glob of blood at Kaito's face. Thankfully he'd been expecting this; Kaito blocked the disgusting projectile with his free hand. Mist ninja were always so rude.
Kaito sighed and backhanded the man. The ninja's head snapped to the left, and another mix of spit and blood flew from his mouth and splattered on the mud below.
"I..ain't.." the ninja said between wheezes, "telling…you…shit."
When Kaito served as Hokage, he valued loyalty to one's village and friends above all else. It was a trait that filled one with confidence when battling alongside comrades. You knew they had your back, and if things went sour, you trusted they would always make the hard choice.
But when integrating someone, loyalty was very…troublesome to take the words from one of his dear friends. Kaito didn't have the time for a prolonged interrogation, and the mist ninja knew it. The rebellious glint in the middle-aged man gave it away.
"I don't suppose you'll change your mind if I offer you asylum in my village in exchange for the necessary information?" Kaito asked halfheartedly.
"Fuck you." The mist ninja growled between another coughing fit.
Damn.
Kaito bent down and slashed the man's throat with a kunai, stepping back to avoid the spray of crimson blood spewing from the soon-to-be-dead man's neck.
The past couple of days have been frustrating. The Leaf had received reports of a Mist paper bomb factory somewhere in the Land of Noodles. Due to the weather phenomenon that gave the Hidden Mist Village its name, the large-scale production and storage of paper bombs were unreasonable within its borders. The constant dampness in the air wilted the specialty paper and caused the chakra ink to run. For short periods of engagement or operations, it was fine. But when you're preparing for war and need to store a large number of paper bombs for an unknown amount of time, it is incredibly wasteful. The humidity would claim a significant amount of their stock every few months.
So, the Hidden Mist looked elsewhere, and the Land of Noodles was a perfect spot. Despite being situated on a peninsula, Noodle country had relatively low humidity. In addition, it had numerous ports where ships could dock safely and unload Mist ninja. But most importantly, it bordered the Leaf.
A well-hidden location a short distance from the front lines supplying an endless stream of paper bombs to Mist forces was not a reality the Leaf could allow.
Information gathering had been slow. Kaito had hopped from informant to informant and hit nothing but dead ends. But unfortunately, dead ends tended to produce dead bodies in his line of work, and dead bodies produced attention. So, as soon as he exhausted his intel and overstayed his welcome, it was time to go before the Mist Hunter-nin swarmed in.
Perhaps it had been his experience, or maybe Kaito's unwillingness to return home empty-handed, but eventually, a nugget of information was all but dropped in his lap. No, who was he kidding? It was the volatile combination of dumb luck and alcohol that had led him here.
An insignificant bar in some backwater town is where Kaito made his breakthrough. With a mug full of ale and disguised as a merchant, he watched a drunken Mist ninja continuously dig his own grave. He had been all too content to watch the fool drunkenly argue with his superior. That was until the man whipped out a roll of explosive tags so thick it could have blown Minato's pretty face off the Hokage mountain.
After an hour of tailing the drunken duo back to their camp, followed by ten minutes of the Mist ninja captain integrating his subordinate on where he got a roll of paper bombs that big and Kaito got his answer. With the morning sun at his back, Kaito descended from the clouds on his hawk summons to the port city of Niseko.
That was two nights ago, and there had only been more dead ends since then. This was the second Mist ninja he'd captured and interrogated here, and like the first, no helpful information had passed through the ninja's lips.
Kaito leaned down and removed the gloves from the dead man's cooling hands. He turned the hands over and found what he was looking for. Ink, splotches of it, stained the man's fingers and coated the underside of his nails. The factory was here, if not in the city, then in the surrounding mountain range.
Before he could dig into the Mist ninja pockets, the hairs on his neck rose. Driven by instinct, Kaito dove to his left. He heard the familiar hiss of an explosive tag light and, out of the corner of his eye, saw a kunai with the burning note embedded into the chest of the deceased ninja.
An explosion crackled through the narrow alleyway. The previously damaged brick wall blew inwards, revealing a living room through the dust that filled the air. Blood from the deceased man splattered across the alley and dowsed him in a mist of crimson.
Kaito narrowed his eyes and squinted against the sun. Above, a large figure stood on the shingled roof, his form silhouetted by the sun at his back. His face shadowed, but the all too familiar silver glint of a Mist headband shone on his forehead.
Then another figure stepped to the roof's edge and crouched next to the first. Kaito rose slowly from his kneeling position. Looks like it's time to go. His mission was to find the paper bomb factory, not to engage in a prolonged battle in the streets of this neutral country. Unfortunately, he had yet to find the exact location but knew with reasonable certainty it was in or near Niseko.
"Senpai," the crouched form still shrouded in shadow muttered. "Looks like we found our man."
"About damn time." The larger form grumbled while adjusting what looked like an enormous cloth-wrapped object on his back. "Following a trail of dead bodies was getting tiring."
No use restraining his sensing now. With a single hand seal, Kaito extended his Wind Dome sensing technique to encompass the two Mist ninja above. Immediately Kaito's skin prickled, and his chakra stirred in his core.
These two are…
"Do you feel that, Kid?" The larger one said.
The smaller and now obviously younger one nodded, "yes, but it's faint. His chakra is enveloping us. Probing us."
Dangerous.
Both dropped to the alley in unison, and Kaito took a single step back. Now without the sun at their back, their features became visible. The large one was immediately recognizable: Fuguki Suikazan, member of the Seven Ninja Swordsman of the Mist and wielder of Samehada.
The other wasn't someone Kaito recognized, but he was striking all the same. Grey-blue skin covered what was visible beyond his standard Mist Ninja uniform. Sharp teeth darted out from behind his grinning lips, and weird gill-like features sat just below two beady white eyes.
The teen must have been a member of the Hoshigaki Clan. A strange clan known to display shark-like features that resided in the farthest islands east that were still under the control of the Land of Water.
A movement from the cloth-wrapped sword caused Fuguki to peer over his shoulder. One of his hands reached back and stroked the weapon tenderly. "My my," the large man said as he patted the fabled sword on his back. "Samehada hasn't been this excited in a while."
"Is he strong?" the Hoshigaki questioned.
"His chakra certainly has Samehada worked up, and he's usually a good gauge of character," Fuguki said with a sneer.
"Could he be the one who killed Jūzō?" The shark-like ninja said while reaching for the katana sheathed on his back. Seeing his master's sword react to Kaito's chakra must have sent him on edge.
"Kisame," Fuguki said while shaking his head. "The world is big, and Jūzō was weak. Many could kill him, so let's not jump to conclusions." They both edged closer, and Fuguki reached for the sharkskin sword on his back, "Instead, let us test Samehada's taste in chakra."
Kaito took another step back. Judging by the reverberations he was getting back from his wind dome, both of these men had enormous chakra supplies. But what surprised him was that the younger one's chakra surpassed that of his master and sword combined. Thankfully it felt relatively raw and unrefined compared to Fuguki's.
He reabsorbed his wind dome and steadied his chakra. Unfortunately, there was no easy way out of this. Kaito was going to have to fight. He grinned under his cloth mask. Might as well get this started.
Kaito twitched his finger, and immediately the Hoshigaki shot toward him. With practiced ease, the mist ninja's katana slid from its sheath and glinted in the shafts of sunlight.
Kaito dropped into his stance, one hand going to his weapons pouch. He whisked out a kunai with a smoke bomb tethered to it, activated the tiny seal on the bomb, and flung it toward the Shark. Kaito quickly took account of the positions of both adversaries, then brought his hands together and burst into motion.
Kisame, seeing the attached smoke bomb, elected to dip to the right instead of blocking the kunai and setting off the highly sensitive bomb. But Kaito had expected that and had already lit the seal. A tiny spark was the only warning before the alley was enveloped in black smoke. Then, just as his hand seals finished, he slammed his right foot on the ground.
Earth-style earth pillar jutsu!
Two pillars shot diagonally out of the ground. One pierced through the smoke cloud and slammed into the blinded Kisame. A grunt echoed out, and the ninja's contoured body shot out the left side of the smoke and into the brick wall of one of the buildings forming the alley. The wall gave and crumbled around the shadowed form of Kisame.
Kaito couldn't tell if his other pillar was successful, but judging by the build-up of chakra on the other side of the cloud, he guessed not.
The shadowed walls that formed the alley were cast in a blue hue. Then, like a gust of wind, pure chakra exploded out from Fuguki's position dispelling the smoke cloud. Kaito lifted his arm and shielded his eyes from the incoming wave of smoke, dust, and grit. Once clear, what he saw all but reaffirmed his suspicions.
To the right of Fuguki lie the remnants of the second earth pillar. While the one that hit Kisame still stood, the second was nothing but a pile of dirt. Fuguki had blocked it with the enormous, wrapped sword. Where the pillar had struck, it only managed to tear some of the white cloth. Underneath, blue scales poked out, and the entire blade shivered.
The information in the Leaf's bingo book appeared accurate. Samehada was alive, and it fed on chakra. The blade had nullified his attack by eating the chakra within the earth pillar.
A low guttural laugh echoed out of the large swordsman, "You never learn, do you, Brat?" Fuguki managed between undignified snorts.
Kisame punched out of the rubble with a groan. His clothes roughed up, but besides a few scratches, he appeared fine. The earth pillar Kaito used was different from the training variant he implemented when sparring with his anbu squad. This one should have crushed bone.
"I didn't expect he'd be that fast at weaving jutsu." The Shark said. He shook loose the last of the brick rubble from his clothes and rolled his shoulder.
"Oh," Fuguki said with an eye roll. "How would you expect anything? We have no intel, no name, no description. Just a trail of bodies."
"Well, now we know he can use earth jutsu," Kisame said as he patted the earth pillar jutting out of the middle of the alley.
"Yes, and now he knows you're an idiot."
Kisame growled, if you could even call it that. To Kaito, it sounded more like a knife scraping the scales of a fish. The Hoshigaki bent down and picked up his katana. Kaito unsheathed his own from his back.
"Now let's try this again, except this time with a little more tact, hmm?"
Kisame sneered at his superior, "After you, senpai."
Both began slowly stalking forward. Fuguki took the lead, Samehada held effortlessly in one hand as if it weighed nothing more than a small twig.
Kisame prowled behind his senpai, weaving back and forth, the tip of his katana hovering an inch above the cobblestone street. The boy's eyes betrayed the calm facade his body displayed. Within them, excitement danced, eager to get payback for the embarrassment handed to him moments before.
Kaito breathed deeply and relaxed his body. These two were strong, but nothing he hadn't experienced yet. Two wars, hundreds of life and death situations, the fucking Nine-Tails. Even in the upper echelon, there are tiers. He would make sure these two knew they overstepped.
With his left hand, Kaito formed the required seals for his Wind Walker jutsu. Like a comforting blanket, his chakra enveloped him, at first raw and natureless. But it quickly transitioned from a blue hue to a ghostly white cloak. The cloak clung to him, but wind, by its nature, was the freest and formless of the elements. As if it was alive, tiny tendrils of white chakra coiled and swayed, like how fog reacts as objects pass through it.
Samehada shivered, and Fuguki lunged. The beast of a man was fast, faster than anyone that size had any right to be. But Kaito was faster. He wind-dashed forward, closing the gap between them in a blur. With a simple twist of the wrist, Fuguki swung Samehada at Kaito's chest. Scales rippled, shredding the cloth wrap as the sword shivered in excitement over the meal it was promised.
Before the blunt sword tore through him, Kaito planted his foot on the ground and dashed right. Wind chakra exploded outward and shot him toward the wall. Ghost trails of white were the only meal the sword devoured as it swung through the empty spot he was supposed to be. The ground rumbled from the impact of the sharkskin sword. Cobblestones shook loose and shot out in every direction, pelting the walls and shattering glass windows.
Kaito hit the wall hard, knees and chakra coiled like a spring ready to explode. He pressed hard, both with muscle and chakra. The wall cracked as he kicked off and dashed down toward the shocked Kisame, who scrambled to cancel the jutsu he had been previously preparing.
Kaito landed right in front of the boy, his sword already coated in wind, ready to slice through the teen as if he were nothing more than the thin rice paper walls that adorned many of the clan compounds back home. But the Hoshigaki was fast and much more skilled with the sword than Kaito had imagined a boy no more than 16 could be. Kaito's wind-coated katana clashed with Kisame's barren silver blade in a vicious upward slice. Kisame managed to deflect the slash away from his chest, but it was too much for his makeshift grip to withstand. The sword leaped from the Mist ninja's grip and flew into the air, twisting end over end until it disappeared into the glare of the midday sun.
Kaito felt a disturbance in the wind behind him. He dropped low and rotated. Samehada passed overhead in a blur, its scales sliced through the part of his wind cloak that lagged behind. The wind surrounding his body dissipated, torn from his body to join Samehada. Still rotating, Kaito ignored Fuguki, extended his leg and lashed out with a brutal kick aimed at the still-stunned Kisame's leading knee.
Kaito's foot hit the side of Kisame's knee, right where the ligament would be weakest. The joint buckled and twisted unnaturally. The pop of torn tissue and dislocated bone rang out, closely followed by the mist ninja's pained growl.
Kaito rotated his wrist to slice his sword through the boy's neck but abandoned the finisher as Samehada appeared again in his peripheral vision. With his wind cloak gone, he lacked the speed to dash out of the way. So, he rotated and raised his katana in defense. Kaito pumped as much chakra as his lethargic system could manage, still reeling from the effect Samehada's last pass caused.
Fuguki brought Samehada's full weight to bear with the sideways swipe. The scaled blade crashed into Kaito's weakly fortified katana, devouring the chakra almost instantly and sending him crashing into the wall behind him. The wall gave, and Kaito flew through into the interior of the building. He tumbled through furniture and walls until, finally, he crashed into a refrigerator and came to a stop.
Fuck that hurt. Kaito moved a shaky hand over his chest. Nothing appeared to be horribly out of order, but it did hurt to breathe. Something cold dripped onto his head and then cascaded down onto his shoulder. He looked up into the destroyed contents of the refrigerator he lay in. A carton of milk lay on its side on the shelf above him. Its top half was cut clean off from his impact with the appliance. Its cold white contents spilled onto the shelf and dripped over the edge.
A startled shutter of a breath drew Kaito's attention to a dark silhouetted form hidden by the dust kicked up from his journey through the apartment. A woman with a child pulled into her lap, huddled in the corner. Both wide-eyed, the child whimpered through the muffling hands of his mother.
"That's a neat trick you got," Fuguki said from the hole in the wall leading to the alley. "My poor apprentice is going to need surgery on that knee."
The giant mist ninja slowly stepped through the opening in the wall. The rubble under his feet crumpled from the weight.
Kaito again looked at the two civilians and waved them away. With their lives in his hands it would complicate things. But they stayed put, too shocked to move a muscle. So Kaito willed his lethargic chakra to action. He pulsed a little killing intent at the mother to try and scare her off before they became red paste splattered against a wall.
It appeared to work if her widening eyes and intense shivering were any clues. She pulled her child into her arms and dashed out the front door and into the busy street.
"I've never seen Samehada act this way," Fuguki said while nodding to the growing sword in his hand. The shark-skinned blade was now more bulbous than before. Its mouth at the tip, chewing on the chakra it had absorbed. "He's never been this gluttonous before."
Kaito pushed himself to his feet, still slightly shaky from the impact. Thankfully the sword wasn't built for cutting, or he'd have been in much worse shape. But the chakra-eating ability was just as big a problem.
A limping Kisame appeared in the opening behind his senpai, one hand on the wall, the other cupping his destroyed knee.
"I'm going to destroy him!" The boy growled, "tear him into tiny pieces and feed him to my sharks!"
Fuguki laughed and swung Samehada onto his shoulder. "Boy, judging by what we just saw, you're ten years too early to fight him. You'd be the one turned into fish food."
Fuguki turned back the Kaito, sharp pointed teeth poking out from behind a vicious grin. "This man," Fuguki began as he pointed a finger, "is a true ninja. A monster among men. A cold-blooded killer. Compared to him, you're but a pup."
Fuguki dismissed his apprentice with a wave and stepped further into the apartment, "Do me a favor, Kisame and stay out of this. You'd only get in the way."
Behind him, Kaito heard a commotion outside. He winced at every panicked scream from the women he had sent running. Every mist ninja in this damn city would be on him in less than a minute. He had to end this quickly or make a run for it now.
In a more open setting where the potential reveal of his identity didn't matter, he was confident he could kill both of them using his summons and more destructive abilities. But here, with the Leaf and Mist technically not at war and the innocent civilians of this supposedly neutral country around, that wasn't a possibility. He had to use restraint, and that played into Fuguki's hands.
Kaito tossed his crumpled katana to the side and pulled out a shuriken. He flicked his thumb across one of the spikes sending it into a spin on his index finger. He'd have to distract that sword, give it something to chew on while he got in close between Fuguki's guard.
In his other hand, he formed a single hand sign, willing his charka back to life. It moved from his core, down his right arm, and latched onto the shuriken. Blue turned a wispy white, and air circulated through the apartment.
Fuguki grinned, and so did Samehada. The man lunged forward with Sharkskin in a low grip, the already large sword slicing a jagged scar across the wooden floorboards.
Kaito whipped his right arm forward and released the shuriken. A thin coat of ghostly wind chakra encased the spinning projectile. He kicked off hard with his legs and launched ahead.
Both hands blurred in motion. He'd practiced wind nature until his hands were raw. Until the very air he breathed was filled with his chakra. Until the wind came to him with the littlest of beckons. Each hand wove a different sign, a different jutsu.
He finished his left first, and with a pulse, the chakra around the shuriken expanded. Blades of wind rotated around the metal core, slicing through the walls and wooden support beams as it raced toward the startled Fuguki.
Fuguki skidded to a halt and raised Samehada in a panicked parry. Instead of flicking away a tiny tool, he was now forced to brace against an enormous wind-enhanced shuriken. Its destructive power many orders of magnitude larger.
The skilled swordsman caught the wind shuriken with an upward parry. Samehada went to work immediately, devouring the wind surrounding the attack. But the impact force still deflected the sword up and into the ceiling. The apartment complex shook as wind exploded out before getting absorbed into the blade.
The now-growing Samehada became lodged in the wooden ceiling, its wielder stumbling backward from the force.
Kaito's right hand finished the last sign.
Chakra enveloped his entire arm and formed a wind blade. It extended past his fingers slicing into the floorboards as he raced toward his target. Fuguki wrenched the arm holding Samehada forward, but the now bulbous sword refused to budge from the ceiling.
Kaito closed the last bit of distance in a blur. He swung upward, aiming to slice the swordsman in half from hip to shoulder. But just as the tip of his sword was about to taste blood, a tendril of water wrapped around Fuguki and wrenched him backward. But Fuguki didn't escape completely. Kaito's blade sank into the man's still-extended sword arm. It sliced through flesh and bone with ease.
A scream of pain rang out as the large appendage released its hold on Samehada and fell to the ground. Blood spurted out from the clean cut, quickly coating the floor in crimson.
Fuguki kneeled in the alleyway, his only remaining arm trembling as it gripped the spot where his sword arm had previously been attached to his shoulder. Blood poured from the wound, seeping through his fingers and soaking his grey tunic.
Kisame's water whip slowly lost its form around his master's waist and sloshed to the floor. He looked down at his trembling master, and for the first time, Kaito saw fear in the Hoshigaki's beady white eyes.
Kaito paced forward; killing them both here and now would greatly help the Leaf in the coming conflict. To eliminate not only another one of the Seven but, no doubt, a future member would be a considerable hit to their strength. But the crunching of gravel from multiple footsteps outside ended the thought. It was time to go. He'd far outstayed his welcome.
Shadows danced across the glass windowpanes behind him right before a kunai with an explosive tag pierced through and lodged into the floor a couple of feet to his left.
Kaito gave one last look at the mist duo in front of him before diving into the room to his right as the tag exploded behind him.
"Get him!" Fuguki wheezed out as more glass shattered from incoming Mist ninja.
Kaito didn't look. He dashed towards the closest window and dove through. His elbows hit the glass first, which shattered around him, sending razor-sharp shards of glass in every direction. He twisted in midair and rolled on his back into a busy street.
Someone gasped in front of him and two feet backpaddled until they tripped on a raised brick in the road.
A woman lay on her back, tightly gripping a handful of vegetables. Another whistle overhead, and Kaito pulled out a kunai just in time to deflect a poorly aimed shuriken from skewering the defenseless women.
The woman scrambled away and faded into the quickly growing crowd in the street. Kaito sprinted across the street. The crowd parted around him like a school of fish evading a predator. Behind him, shouts from the pursuing ninja rose above the hustle and bustle of the busy street. He darted into another alley, cutting the line of sight, and immediately performed the transformation jutsu.
His black-cloaked form with a grey face mask disappeared, replaced by the visage of a middle-aged man covered in dirt and grime from a hard day's work at the docks. Kaito suppressed his chakra to the levels of an ordinary civilian and slipped into another alley just as his pursuers entered the one he had just left. He quietly returned to the street and seamlessly blended into the confused crowd.
Shadows from ninjas leaping back and forth overhead cast down upon the ground. Kaito paid them no heed; he gently jostled his way through the crowd towards the southwest, where the mostly flat terrain of the coastal city and ship-filled harbor transitioned into steep cliffs jutting up against the rough waters of the Kanshii ocean to the south. There, his hawk summons Tachi waited, tucked away in one of the many recesses that dotted the cliff faces, no doubt gorging herself on the local birds that nested there.
Another group of ninja flew past overhead, startling several civilians around him in the streets.
The amount of mist ninja brazenly jumping around had him worried. When he'd first entered the city, he'd seen a few. But now that the alarm was raised, there were far too many mist ninja in the Land of Noodles. A simple mission wouldn't warrant this many personnel, nor would any sensible independent nation allow this amount of foreign ninja within its borders at any time.
He was beginning to believe another nation like the Land of Waves had either joined the Mist's side or been strongarmed into an alliance. More bad news for Minato, he thought as he glided past a group of jostling children.
At this rate, conflict was inevitable, and Minato had to know this. First, the Land of Waves, then Kano in Hotsprings, and now the Land of Noodles. The Hidden Mist was establishing a military presence in foreign nations, all either boarding the Land of Fire or presiding over essential shipping routes in the eastern seas.
They were gearing up, taking advantage of the Leaf's weakened state to ensure their supply routes were viable for the conflict to come. Typically, the Leaf would have pushed back harder, maybe even made a show of force.
Prior to the Nine-Tails attack, that's what Kaito would have done. He would have made sure that if they continued, then they would know fear. The shadows from his hawks' wings would descend upon their precious islands and bring death.
He had not dared voice this option to Minato. He knew the blond would vehemently disagree, and so would Jiraiya. Other than their abilities, it was the biggest difference between him and Minato. Minato was like a ray of light, warming everyone and everything around him.
But Kaito was the wind. Sometimes gently and caressing. Other times a storm, unrelenting and unmerciful.
Kaito brushed past the last of the crowd meandering through the main road and turned off onto one of the many side streets. Immediately the colorful and lively atmosphere of the main road disappeared, replaced with the smell of feces and a general sense of despair.
The city of Niseko was ancient, much older than the great ninja villages. It was once an independent fishing village, small yet strategically located. Its bay, a unique combination of deep yet calm waters, allowed large ships to anchor.
One day the Land of Noodles Daimyo approached the village with a deal: agree to join the Land of Noodles, and his estate would invest heavily into the town and turn it into a great city.
The villagers agreed, and with the monetary support of the Land of Noodle's Lord, the small village turned into a regional trading post, becoming a hub for all trade from the southern seas to the Land's interior. Soon after, it became a full-blown city and blossomed into one of the Land of Noodles' largest economic hubs.
A central road from the docks to the main market quickly became the city's focal point. Shops, food, and the rich set up residence along it. But as Kaito zigzagged his way through the streets and got further and further from the main road, it became clear that the city's rapid growth had left many behind.
After several minutes of walking, the high stone walls of the Southwest gate began to peak above the surrounding buildings. He rounded the last corner but immediately jumped back into the alleyway. The iron gate was closed, and in front of it, two Mist ninja waved annoyed merchants away from the exit.
Kaito scanned the rest of the wall, hoping to find a less populated stretch to climb, but his hopes were dashed as more and more Mist ninja landed upon the sturdy stone wall. He'd have to find another way out if we wanted to avoid a full-on battle.
Kaito slinked back into the alley. He could try the north or east wall, but it would take too much time to traverse the entire length of the city. The risk of being spotted would be too high. To the south was the harbor. There was no wall, but it was wide open. They would be patrolling the docks and spot him immediately if he attempted to run across the water toward the harbor inlet.
Kaito found an inconspicuous wooden crate and plopped down to think. Around him, civilians went about their day. A man to his left swept dirt from his shop into the already filthy side street. Across the narrow road, a woman thrust open the wooden shutters of her two-story home and dumped a bucket of fowl-smelling brown muck into the street below.
"Excuse me, sir." A young child to his right whispered tentatively. She was filthy. Her clothes were covered in grime, and toes crusted in muck. She appeared nervous but still pointed toward his foot. Kaito followed her finger and noticed his boot was blocking a shallow stream of water. A small wooden toy sailboat bumped against the side of his boot.
Kaito smiled back and raised his boot. The girl giggled and hopped down the alley in pursuit of her toy. The wooden sailboat bobbed up and down in the stream, comprised entirely of runoff from the surrounding buildings. It floated down the garbage-filled alley until it reached a split in the stream. The toy veered left, following one of the paths into another street. The girl jumped playfully over the creek and disappeared around the corner.
The other path continued down the alley Kaito sat in and terminated at a metal grate embedded in the wall of one of the adjacent buildings. The small stream tumbled through the grate and splashed into the darkness below.
Kaito stood up quickly, toppling over the wooden crate. Sewage! He screamed in his head. A city of this size would need a method of draining water from the storms that blew in from the southern seas. The drainage system would flow downhill towards the sea. Which just so happened to be where Tachi was. With any luck, it would be large enough for him to crawl through.
Kaito reached down and lifted the metal grate. It swung upon its hinges, releasing a grinding noise into the alley. He looked around; oddly, no one seemed to care about his weird behavior. The last time he checked, an older man jumping into the sewage system wasn't normal.
Kaito swung himself through the opening and fell for several feet before his boots hit wet gravel. He crouched low, released his transformation jutsu, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. But even before his sight normalized, he realized why no one from above batted an eye.
The sewage drain, no that wasn't quite right; the tunnel was a better description, was ten feet in diameter and filled with people. People who made the impoverished up above look like nobles. Some sat, others leaned against the walls, but all looked pale and sickly. These people weren't just poor; they were forgotten.
Kaito stepped over a beggar lying across the damp floor. The man didn't raise or even acknowledge that he was lying directly across the only path through this section of the sewers. Through dirty, unkept hair, blank eyes stared at him. Kaito knew what the look meant. He'd seen it many times on the faces of prisoners of war. The man had given up. He had resigned to his current state and no longer cared.
Kaito took another look at the walls as he traversed down the tunnel. The walls were impeccably smooth and comprised entirely of stone. He ran his fingers along the smooth walls and realized that it hadn't been constructed but instead carved.
As Kaito continued down the tunnel, he soon realized it wasn't just one tunnel but a series of tunnels that must have traveled in every direction under the city. More minor drainages from different sections of the town all traveled south towards the sea, linking up to form larger and larger diameters. Kaito peered down several offshoots and saw yet more people occupying them.
He knew the city was old, but a project of this magnitude must have taken decades. Impressive, however, tinged with a shadow of despair. This drainage system was built to serve the city, to help drain its streets of waste, and to keep the population healthy. Yet, here it was being used as a dwelling for the city's poorest. The filth it was designed to discard now infected the people who called it home.
Kaito continued down the tunnel, and the sound of running water increased each time his tunnel joined another. When he had first dropped in, the water along the floor had been nothing more than a trickle. Now it rose to his ankles, threatening to pull him along with it if it weren't for the chakra he used to stick to the floor.
Eventually, the darkness began to fade. The sound of seagulls echoed along the stone walls of the tunnel. A gentle breeze tickled Kaito's nose, bringing a salty smell that could only mean one thing.
There were far fewer people in this part of the tunnel, most likely because of the higher water level. But still, some picked through the trash, looking for anything they could use.
To his right a young boy clothed in rags carved an intricate pattern of swirls into the wall. The white stone he used left clear white streaks against the dark rock backdrop of the tunnel facade.
Kaito stopped in his tracks. He turned back and walked closer to the boy. He peered over his shoulder and watched the boy finish his drawing. The boy had drawn an oval and, within its boundary, added all its details. Offset to the left side was a single circle. Curved around it were a series of arched lines, starting from the left and arching around the circle and then straightening to the right, where they terminated.
Kaito had seen this design before. It plagued his dreams and corrupted his thoughts whenever he sat idle. It was the same as the mask of the man responsible for his wife's death.
The tunnel grew cold as chakra filled the underground corridor. Like molasses, it oozed over everything in its path. Suffocating and thick, Kaito's killing intent coated everything with dread. The boy collapsed against the wall and slowly turned toward Kaito. He lay there frozen in place, eyes wide and body shaking from the sheer pressure Kaito's chakra exerted upon his tiny form.
Kaito raised his finger slowly and pointed. "Where did you see that?" he whispered, yet his voice like thunder reverberated through the very stone that surrounded them.
The boy slowly glanced at the carving and turned back toward Kaito. "A man," he stuttered. "A man with a mask came down here."
"How long ago?" The boy winced at every word as if they were blows aimed at his face.
"One month ago." The child whimpered from his curled-up position.
Kaito leaned closer, his chakra without restraint running rampant in his coils. "How many times has he been here."
The boy didn't respond. Instead, he slinked away and made a run for the exit. Kaito slammed his foot against the wall sending a spiderweb of cracks into the stone and stopping the boy in his tracks. "How many!"
"Please, I've only seen him twice." The boy whimpered. His entire body shivered, and tears cascaded down his cheeks. "I...I don't know anything about him. I only saw him."
A commotion from the way he'd come drew Kaito's attention. Two Mist ninja dropped into the shallow running water from a hole in the wall. They immediately pointed at him and sprinted down the tunnel.
For a moment, Kaito entertained the idea of eradicating them. His chakra ripped through his body like a storm, ready to burst forth at the slightest opportunity. It would be easy, oh so easy. Then he could question the boy further. But a glance down at the shivering child reaffirmed what he already knew. The boy knew nothing beyond the man's appearance.
Kaito swallowed his rage, the instructions from Minato to keep a low profile repeated in his head. He took one last rage-filled glance toward the carving on the wall and then sprinted down the tunnel toward the light. He could feel Tachi's chakra near, pressing against his like a comforting pillow. He pulsed his own, letting her know where he was and that he needed her.
Kaito heard shouts behind him. They echoed down the tunnel and clashed against the sound of waves crashing against the rocky shores ahead. The sunlight from outside blinded him, and he squinted as the tunnel opening grew closer.
Kaito pushed chakra to his feet and leaped out of the tunnel into the salt-filled air. The wind ripped at his clothes as he twisted midair, looking for Tachi. The Kanashi Ocean battered against the steep cliffs two hundred feet below, sending ocean spray high into the air.
To the east, staying low and hugging the cliffside, a familiar silhouette raced towards him. Her wings tucked close to her body allowed her to gain speed and weave between the rock spires that jutted out of the ocean like spikes pointing towards the heavens.
Above, the ninjas chasing him had yet to reach the opening. Kaito performed the seals needed for the wind walker jutsu. Immediately his charka burst forth from every tenketsu point and wrapped him in wind. He transferred most of the chakra to his feet and pushed it out hard. The force launched him parallel to the cliff and in the same direction Tachi flew. The ocean grew closer, but so did his hawk. She arched up, away from the water's surface and towards him.
Kaito reached out and grabbed the pommel of Tachi's saddle. His joints creaked under strain, but chakra reinforced his muscles, preventing them from tearing. He swung himself into the saddle and leaned forward, signaling Tachi to lower back to the ocean's surface. He glanced back over his shoulder, and just as he and Tachi rounded a corner in the cliffside, two heads poked out of the tunnel entrance. They scanned the ocean, but he was long gone.
"Where to?" Tachi rumbled from below.
"Back home!" Kaito yelled over the sound of the wind, and immediately Tachi shifted under him. Her wings extended out, causing them to gain altitude and change direction toward the Leaf Village. He released his hold on the wind cloak, and it dissipated into the air.
"Your chakra is agitated. What happened?"
They had a close bond; she was one of the only crossovers from his life before, and because of that, Tachi watched him like the hawk she was. Always observant and constantly worried. Most times, it was a comfort, but other times like now, it was an annoyance.
"There was a boy in the sewers. He was drawing a mask on the wall that he saw someone wearing."
"Was it.."
"Yes," Kaito said, cutting her off. "It was the same one."
They flew silently for a few minutes, Tachi internalizing the information. The large hawk was family and had been close to Kushina. She was hurting as well, and Kaito hadn't done the best job checking in on her as he should, something he'd have to remedy in the future.
"What are you going to do?" She questioned. They flew through a cloud, and the humidity soaked into his clothes.
"I'll inform Minato, and we'll make a plan. But I assure you, the end will remain the same. I'm going to find that man and kill him. It doesn't matter if it takes a month, a year, or a lifetime. I'll watch the life drain from his eyes."
Author's note 3/11/2023:
Wow, sorry for the long wait! I got busy with life, editing other authors stuff, and writing other stories.
First of all, despite my long breaks between uploads, I got several really nice reviews months after my last update. Thank you all! I love reviews and when a notification pops up, I always get excited to read it.
This chapter was super hard and fun to write at the same time. It was fun brainstorming the fight between Kaito and Fuguki and Kisame. Part of me wanted a super large fight with a bunch of jutsu shooting everywhere. But I decided to keep it more restrained. Partly because of the setting, but also because of the large mega fights the anime turned into is what kinda reduced my love for the series. Especially near the end.
But Kaito is still OP and this is still a power fantasy trip so yea.
I've got part of the next chapter written already. So hopefully the next update doesn't take as long as this one.
Thank you all!
-V3X