I needed to do some maintenance of course.
Stats:
Strength: 100
Agility: 100
Perception: 120
Intelligence: 100
Chakra: 250
Luck: 72
Points: 61
From the 100th point in all of those stats, I got a large number of perks
Strength: Inhumane Power
Allows the user to exhaust their body completely, destroying their muscles but allowing them to exceed their normal human limits. Can be varied, but will allow you to go past what the normal human mind is capable of, like with adrenaline.
Agility: Dancing
Your steps are perfect, they perform to any rhythm you choose. Change it, and your steps will too. This allows you to change your perfect pattern, and take advantage of your opponent's flaws.
Perception: Radial vision
Allows your brain to process what your eyes are seeing at a ridiculous pace, such that even 1000 flies are countable with even a single look.
Intelligence: Instinctual understanding
Allows you to understand and progress your own self and body almost automatically. You know how much food you need, how much more work your body can put out, how to use all of your chakra, and more.
I had also learnt a fair number of jutsus. I will only note some for brevity, but I have so many I wonder if I count as a ninjutsu specialist now.
Fire dragon: Launches a dragon of fire from nearby flames. It somewhat directable after casting, and has huge destructive capabilities, including being able to shoot flames from its mouth at higher levels.
Water dragon: Launches a dragon of water from nearby water sources. It somewhat directable after casting, and has huge destructive capabilities, including shooting out high pressure water beams.
Mud dragon: Rips a dragon of dirt from the earth. It somewhat directable after casting, and has huge destructive capabilities, including being able to fuse with fire and water dragons to improve its strength.
Good stuff.
…
I deflected 3 strikes, then ducked as Tanuki's unfolded giant throwing star horizontally bisected the man attacking me.
In return, I body flickered behind a kunoichi flanking him, sinking my tanto into her spine, severing it with a tug.
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
Then I leapt up, deflecting a barrage of projectiles back at the 3 throwers with a wind jutsu. They deflected the return, but the point was a distraction, my shadow clone on the other end launching a fire ball at them. They dodged, predictably, and so I used the incident fire flying towards me, turning it into a fire dragon, the jutsu twisting back around tackling and incinerating a man.
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
One of his allies was distracted by the dragon, and hence had a shard of rock pierce his stomach, cast by my shadow clone.
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
The last one, a jonin had dashed towards me, smashing his fists against my guard, a punch, a kick, flipping a throwing a shuriken into my unsuspecting shadow clone. This guy was good.
We fought close range, dancing in a macabre tango, until I switched the pace, faster, faster than he thought I could go. I had a knife in my hand, and all it took was a faster step, and his heart was punctured. He over extended.
[Jonin killed: 12500xp]
And then I continued, rushing ahead, slamming a fist into a ninja killing him on the spot, ducking under another cut, then twirling around with my own blade, cutting their leg off, then chucking a shuriken into their skull. I rose to my feet then, slashing through another nin, then leapt of their body, casting and throwing a fireball below at a group of 3.
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
[Jonin killed: 12500xp]
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
Level up!
Level 20
[2500/20000xp]
And the sounds of those pings felt better than ever. I landed, rolling to a knee, then diving away from an axe kick, letting Onryō battle him instead, choosing to sprint over, spearing a man in the gut with my shoulder, then stabbing into him with an unbandaged kunai, once, twice, thrice, then spinning off to the side off him. I used the momentum of that roll to slam my palm into the ground, shards of rog piercing the couple of fools still courageous enough to attack me, the spires stabbing through their spine, lifting them up in the air, extracting scared, stunned screams and a waterfall of blood.
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
Chunin killed: 2500xp]
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
[
Then, wind rushed through my ears as I moved, body flickering to someone Kitsune had just threw into the air, me leaping, and rotating in a spinning kick, connecting with his head, snapping his neck and sending his corpse into the floor, colliding and splashing into mud, fleck of the brown dirt hitting my boots at I landed after him. I looked, analysing the situation. Kitsune had one left, Tanuki was fine, but Onryō was getting overwhelmed.
[Tokubetsu Jonin killed: 7500xp]
I flickered again, launching fireball at them, then flickered in front of it, timing a wind gust so that when it hit the fireball was lined up, read to be amplified. What resulted was a hot jet of flames devastating dirt and trees and ninja, burning them alive in an instant.
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
[Chunin killed: 2500xp]
The remainder was burning himself but still thought good to attack Onryō, who riddled him with finger strikes, sealing all of his organs, the only thing expelled out of his mouth after being a sick stream of thick blood. She nodded to me, and I did a head count.
"All hostiles eliminated" Onryō spoke, her eyes a boon. They allowed us to ascertain any stragglers at the end of a fight, made us better at communicating.
Tanuki landed, his body covered in small scratches and wounds, but that was the mark of a good ninja. Being able to just nearly get by without exceeding your station, just below what they think you can do so you can kill them when they get too greed. But a great ninja didn't need to bother, just killed them with overwhelming strength, but you need to start somewhere.
His kit, abilities-wise, wasn't that crazy. He had a fire element, like most Fire country peoples, and employed utilities like earth walls and wind, as well as camping jutsus most ninja learnt, but the way he used them! He timed them perfectly, used explosive notes to fuel fire, could make his enemies do the hand signs for him. He wasn't the strongest caster, but he could cast quick. Almost half of his jutsus he had just to one hand sign, and the rest? 3. A ludicrous amount of skill. I respected him a lot.
Kitsune could change and swirl chakra like a second arm. He could entrap you in the most wonderful dream, and then plunge you into a hellish nightmare the next. His control and understanding of the mind was a little terrifying. I wondered how much he knew about my mind just from working with me.
Genjustus are in two parts really. External and internal. Internal is the mind fuck stuff, the reprogramming minds and making you see what isn't there. It is strong, but doesn't work if a person is a genjutsu master, or just has a really trained brain. Me and my team had been drilled though, mental strengthening they called it. Really hard stuff. External is different, actually puts the fucking weird fake thing there, in physical space, but if you'd touch it, nothing. This is where the line between genjutsu and ninjutsu gets fuzzy though, because you can give feel, give touch. It takes a lot of chakra, but you can make people feel fire and have their skin turn red, have their lungs squeeze like they are drowning, corrupt their minds in real time, by giving them a brain aneurism, but it is harder and more chakra intensive to do so.
Onryō, was a force of nature. We all were good at taijutsu, but I don't even think Tanuki looks forward to their duels. He fists are a force of nature, her use of her clan's gentle palm insane. She can even use the chakra sealing blows with her legs, allowing her to subvert the expectations of more learned foes. And my word, seeing her move at that speed, with that dexterity, it makes me excited.
Her traps too. Almost sadistic, the way they wounded and maimed. Once we camped out a medic's camp for an entire week, just sending back wounded men. We didn't kill a single one, and the medics ended up so overwhelmed a majority died anyway. The moral of the camp was decimated, and only then did we massacre them all. Onryō's traps were most of that equation.
They were all strong. So strong I respected them more than anyone else in the world. Out teamwork was unrivalled.
We moved forward to our allies we had been sent to rescue, holed up in a cave. It was set up with rudimentary traps, but nothing compared to what Onryō could do, and see, so we cut down and avoided them all.
When we appeared in front of them, first their faces painted fear, then it shifted to hope.
"We are your rescue detail." Tanuki spoke, voice deep and commanding and comforting somehow, all at once.
"We'll carry the wounded, the rest will have to keep up with us."
I found a genin, probably the same age as me, lifted him on my body, and my word he was light, and exited with the rest of my team.
Another mission success.
…
"Your third meeting with me, Kizashi. Most only get 2. Even then that is rare."
"Because they die before you get the chance?"
Danzo's sole (visible) eye bored into me, as unimpressed as its owner. "You have been called here because as of recent, throughout this past year you and your team has done exceptionally well. So well the Lord Hokage has taken personal notice."
"In me or the team?"
His face remained still, answering without missing a beat, yet still thinking calmly about the statement, deliberating about his answer as much would ever be needed. "The team. Specifically, how the team was made. I personally assess yours as a mix of unkillable misfits, able to adjust to any unwinnable situation at the drop of a kunai. Hiruzen thinks otherwise. He thinks that well trained teams of ANBU like yours, with specific goals would benefit the leaf more."
"Well, he sounds like he knows what he is talking about. Being our leader and all."
"That may be, and in an ideal world I would be able to agree with him, but I am being blamed for our poor performance in the war. Despite ANBU having saved the village more times than you could, they think I wasted resources, killed good men."
And now it was my turn to stare at him, deadened green eyes open. "Fun story, but what does that have to do with me? Why even tell me this?"
"Because they will ask you and your team to testify how effective you have felt the team is. And you will say that it is effective only as a number of brilliant individuals, not as a combined force, that being om ANBU taught you little of the importance of teamwork, that you could have done as much, if not more, alone."
"What is in it for me?"
"That's the simple part. You don't die. You get a good mission, and your team lives."
We sat in silence then, a few great decades of minutes passing by, until the almost still air in the room moved with:
"Ok then. I will. You have my word."
"As valuable as a ninja's word is, I will need the rest of your team's agreement too. I will let them decide after the next mission, which you will be given in the morning. Until then, dismissed!"
My team wouldn't return from that mission alive.
…
A/N: The plot thickens.
The next chapter is basically one of the main things this story revolves around. It will be brutal. Some of you may get mad at me.
Also, I made another story. It has a title so insane that if I read it as another's work I would laugh at it. I have actual aspirations for it though, so keep on the look out for that. Also, look underneath the underneath, if you get what I'm saying.
Kizashi is getting attached to his team. They are one of the few things in this world that give him happiness, that makes him feel things. He is getting to the point of a weird kind of obsession, where losing them would break him. He needs, always needed I guess, human companionship, and his team serves that purpose, even hidden behind masks and business. I haven't written them getting drinks and shit, because they are soldiers in a war. They don't get to relax, according to Danzo.
I have also always wondered about why Danzo was given root instead of ANBU. My conclusion is that he was the ANBU commander for a while, but was taken off at the end of the 2nd shinobi war. In this fic, he killed most of the ANBU as a kind of sacrifice to stop the Leaf from losing ground. This allowed a few exceptional ninja to not die as kids early on and become legends later on, and for older fighters to be able to rest and recover.
The 3rd generation is the Kakashi esc squads you see in the rest of fanfiction, and Kizashi's is the blueprint for what would come after.
Also note, ANBU never get another mask. They get their mask, and keep it, even across generations. The fact you haven't seen another gen 2 mask, means they must all be gone.
Also, Kizashi will see Orochimaru again.
See ya next time, remember to review and thanks for reading.