You know, I could have sworn that yesterday, it was February.
Uni is taking quite a lot out of my time...
25: 404ing the world.
This village's sewage system seemed unnecessarily large.
Three or four meters tall and wide, barely lit, stretching massively in complex patterns and lines with dozens upon dozens of seals that stretched across the walls, themselves barely lit with Chakra. You could host a horror setting down here, and nobody would know the difference.
Not that the lack of light bothered me, that is. I could see just as clearly down here as I could up there, perks of being a Heartless I guess.
The lack of light didn't seem to be bothering anybody else, either. The ANBU working at the entrance to ROOT's Headquarters easily moved around, carefully placing paper tags -full of Chakra and with complex diagrams laid on top- at points around the entrance. I couldn't help but notice that they went on points where the concentration of Chakra was larger, and that they formed a rectangle when done.
Hiruzen, clad in his Battle Armour, carefully examined the seals on the door, his eyes betraying his interest in them, even though his face may as well have been carved from stone.
Inoichi, Chouza and Shikaku, -all wearing a seemingly more heavily armoured version of their normal outfit, plates of metal interweaved with the normal fabric of their Flak Jackets, carefully interspersed so as to not get into the way of manoeuvrability, but protective all the same- also stood nearby. Inoichi was weaving through handseals, though I couldn't sense any Chakra from him; Chouza stood nearby, slowly going through a series of stretches.
Shikaku didn't seem to be doing anything, but there was no doubt that he was thinking and planning, creating and disregarding strategies every second.
I glanced towards Shibi, but the man was completely silent and immobile, unreadable on the outside. On the inside, he wasn't too different, his Heart holding emotions tempered with logic.
As one, the ANBU place a larger unfolded scroll over the smaller tags, before pressing their hands to the scroll. "Done."
Hiruzen stepped away from his examinations, before nodding at the ANBU.
With a quick nod between themselves, the ANBU channelled Chakra into the scroll.
There was a brief flash of light, before they pulled the scroll away, unveiling the entrance to ROOT headquarters.
Kinda boring, actually. I'd half-expected something to explode.
Quitely, the Hokage began to descend down the passage way.
The ANBU and Clan Heads followed after him, a moderate pace for the entire group.
I stared for a second, before following.
Ninjas. Never did anything you expected.
I took a second to admire the seals lining the walls on the way down, before we reached the bottom.
A 4-way intersection, actually, each wall lined with similar seals as the one that had been upstairs. At some unspoken command, the ANBU went to the left while the Clan Heads went to the right, all of them maintaining the same slow walk that had brought them down.
The Hokage continued forward, glancing over his shoulder at me. Shrugging, I sank into the ground and continued to follow him.
We walked down the hallways a bit more, passing by several different doors and intersections.
I didn't see any Hearts behind any of them, so it was probably unimportant.
I turned back around just in time to watch two ROOT members come around the corner, and then have their heads smashed into the wall by the Hokage- completely silently to boot.
They dropped to the floor -completely silent, again- but the Hokage just kept moving on like he hadn't even noticed a thing.
Several minutes passed, along with several ROOT.
All met the same fate as their predecessors.
Eventually, however, we came to a stop in front of the door, this one slightly more ornate than the rest.
I could see Hearts on the other side, three to be exact. Two were next to the third, which was laying down on something.
He breathed in, opening the door and at the same moment releasing billions of strands of Chakra from his body, flitting around the air in front of him. A dull blue aura, invisible to all but my own eyes, flitted through the air.
It was a tiny amount, truly. Barely there, so utterly minimal that even the Body Flicker would take infinitely more than this. Hiruzen could have done it a trillion times over.
I stared, nearly enamoured with the technique. Hiruzen's Chakra, expanding through the air like strings, small shreds widening and pulling in pockets of air, so little Chakra having so much of an effect.
He exhaled, a tiny breath of Fire lancing out into the cloud of Chakra and suddenly condensing air. Strings and strands of Chakra pulled tight, packets of air under so much more pressure than before.
I caught a glimpse of Danzo and two ROOT before the lance of Fire hit; and the cloud of Chakra burned.
Flames were born blue from the sheer intensity, tightly compressed air packets igniting, wind-natured Chakra feeding the fire technique into a hideously powerful conflagration. The sheer heat almost instantly dried any moisture in the room, the air suddenly drier than bone.
Danzo moved, a claw of Chakra reaching out to a nearby chair, replacing himself with it an instant before the blue inferno would have disintegrated him. The inferno went on, the chair all but obliterated, the stone wall behind it melting into magma at the touch. What didn't melt and burn was scorched a hateful orange-red, glowing dully over the room.
His men weren't so lucky, and had been incinerated by the blaze. Their ashes lit a blazing trail of the room, tiny prin-pricks of orange light dancing through the air
It was almost mocking, how Hiruzen had achieved such a blaze with but a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of his Chakra, ruthless exploitation of the laws of nature and his own unbelievable skill putting to shame any other ninja's fire, other than the flames of Amaterasu itself.
All done with no hand seals, no words, and so, very, little warning.
So this was why he was called the God of Shinobi.
Hiruzen dashed forward, a pulse of Chakra from his feet cracking the stone underneath him.
A kunai lashed out, a glowing green blade extending almost a meter from the edge, straight to Danzo's neck.
I guess he wasn't messing around, this time.
Danzo reacted rather admirably, bending backwards enough that the only thing that the deadly blade of wind managed to cut was a part of his hair.
Hiruzen turned on a dime, brandishing a second wind-charged Kunai and attempting to bisect him.
Danzo jumped back, just barely managing to dodge again, his back to me as he focused almost entirely on Hiruzen.
My claws became blades just before I leapt at him from behind, swinging wildly.
My blades struck out at his spine, and with Danzo's attention taken up by Hiruzen, they struck cleanly, severing it in two different places.
Hiruzen ruthlessly capitalized on that in the very next instant, driving a Kunai straight into Danzo's brain.
Danzo fell to the ground, his Heart pulsing before leaving his body.
Dead. Well and truly Dead.
Except…
There was something I was forgetting.
Danzo's corpse…
Something about it.
A sealing array lit up on his skin.
Oh. Right, that.
Sealing array set to go off on his death.
Being sealed shouldn't bother me, but then again, I'd never been sealed before, so I didn't really know what would happen if I did get sealed.
Why risk it?
Quickly, I started to open a Corridor of Darkness, just to get out of the sealing zone.
Just as quickly, everything went horribly wrong.
Space twisted as Danzo's sealing technique activated, 4 symbols flying through the air to hit the walls.
Hiruzen had already moved out of the way, but I was not as fast as he.
My Corridor of Darkness opened in the same moment, the twisted space not quite able to prevent its formation.
Didn't matter.
A line of Darkness intersected with the twisted space, reality briefly colliding with pure, infinite Darkness.
Reality lost.
Space and Time tore, ripping open a hole in the very fabric of the universe.
Half a second later, the seal shattered, and all hell broke loose.