Chapter 5
Back in the town the streets were quiet. A few buildings were left torn and broken in spots following the thieves' attacks but repairs were going to have to wait until morning. With the leaf ninja being able to successfully chase off the bandits the townspeople were left to sleep in relative peace that night little did they know they weren't quite as safe as they believed.
An invisible assailant crept through the town, one of Sayaka's clones. An unseeable assassin sent to finish the job and pick off an injured target. The see-through clone silently made her way through the village until she came across the clinic with the door left open by a crack.
'You're kidding. There's no way it can be THIS easy.' She thought as she slowly and quietly opened the door, stepping through as she did, unaware of the trap that had been laid for her. FWOOSH an open bag of flour from the general store spilled all over the invisible clone creating a white silhouette as plain as day to see.
"GOT YOU!" A still bandaged Ino exploded from her hiding spot in excitement. "So much for your invisibility! Good luck trying a sneak attack now! WOAH!" She shrieked as she just barely managed to duck away from an incoming slash of Sayaka's flour covered katana.
Seeing it as a waste of chakra Sayaka's clone dropped her invisibility and changed strategy for a more direct approach following up her slash with a jab. CLANG! Ino with her good arm managed to deflect it with a Kunai before rolling out of range and hopping to her feet.
"Gah!" Ino grabbed her side, making such an athletic roll aggravated her injuries. Sayaka remained on the offensive and Ino wasn't gonna be able to escape in her state. The best she could do was keep enough distance between the two of them where she could keep deflecting forward jabs with her kunai as she backpedaled but this came to an end once her back hit the wall.
"Crap…" Ino muttered, looking back to find she'd ran out of room to run. When she returned to her foe she saw Sayaka smirking menacingly as she reeled back a slash Ino wouldn't be able to block one handed. Ino winced as she braced for the finishing blow but before it could be dealt Ino looked back up and witnessed as the clone melted into a puddle of water signaling the real sayaka's defeat.
"Haaaahhh…." She let out a relieved sigh. "That was too close… I probably need to thank the guys for the save. I guess they must be doing pretty well if they already managed to take care of one of them."
(Meanwhile in the forest)
KRAKOOM! Ban's body was quickly struck by blinding blue lightning and by the time it faded his body had changed again. He had returned to his human size and body shape but kept his blue skin and horns. His hair had changed from black to white and had grown past his shoulders and he now wore the pants from his human form.
"I'm not used to this transformation so it's still very unstable." Ban said as he studied his hand, lightning began to crackle across his skin. "It stings… Like every inch of my skin is covered by bug bites. So forgive me if I'm in a hurry to finish you off."
Ide unsheathed his sword as he, Shikimaru and Asuma took defensive stances. "Ide!" Asuma called out. "I need you on lookout duty, use your sharingan and let us know if he makes a move towards any of us."
"Right!" Ide confirmed and tried to reactivate his sharingan but while his sharingan did manage to activate it only lasted a moment before his eyes reverted back to their base form. "Crap… I don't have enough chakra left!" Ide called back.
"Damn! Alright I need you to fall back to the village." Asuma instructed. "Shikamaru and I can handle this together. You don't need to be here if you can't use jutsu."
"Right!" Ide agreed and turned to retreat. 'A ninja team is only as strong as its weakest link and at this point I'd just be an unnecessary liability.'
"Hmmm…" Ban muttered as he watched Ide turn his back to flee. "No I don't think so." In a split second he disappeared in a blur, appearing once again directly in front of Ide.
'He's fast!' Was all Ide managed to think before a blue fist was buried into his stomach. Ide was launched through the air being sent flying and crashing hard into a tree more than a hundred feet away and leaving a body shaped indent in the wood.
Ide couldn't remember the last time he'd been hit that hard, clutching his forehead in pain as he managed to pull his body out of the wood. When he looked up he saw Ban already looming over him, having closed the distance between them in less than a matter of seconds.
"Time to die, Leaf Ninja!" Ban raised his arm, conjuring another ball of lightning chakra in his palm.
"Shikamaru!" Asuma called out as he sprung forward.
"Gottcha!" Shikamaru answered knowingly as he aimed his shadow possession at the half demon.
Ban vanished once again with his speed appearing once more just behind Shikamaru and hitting him with a powerful spin kick to the side that sent him crashing through the trunk of one of the forest's large trees and creating a noticeable hole.
"Shikamaru! Are you alright?" Asuma called out as he launched one of his Chakra blades at Ban who managed to escape it with another high speed vanishing.
"No!" Shikamaru groaned back from his wooden crater in his standard pessimistic tone indicating he was in fact alright. Meanwhile, Ban reappeared on a large branch at the other end of the forest.
"Damn,he's too fast for us and he still hits just as hard as before." Ide assessed as he managed to regain his footing.
"But he's not invincible." Asuma responded. "If it was, he'd have used that form from the start. The big transformation gave him incredible strength and none of my jutsu could so much as scratch him, not for very long but that came at the cost of his speed. Now he's too fast for us to keep up with and he's hitting just as hard as he was before but I bet he's sacrificing his defense to do so."
"You might be right." Ide agreed. "But that's only beneficial to us if we can actually land a hit on him. Maybe if I could still use my sharingan ..." Ide's eyes widened as he realized something. Looking back at Ban who remained standing on the same branch as before confirmed this. "We don't have a sharingan but neither does he."
"Hmmmm?" Asuma wasn't quite sure what Ide was getting at.
"Moving at those speeds it's likely he can't even see which is why he has to pause like that." Ide further explained. "And if he can't see while he's moving then he also can't attack while he's moving. Both times he was going to attack me he stopped before he hit me, same with when he attacked Shikamaru."
"Then if we stick together we can counter attack." Shikamaru chimed in with a whisper via the radio in the leaf ninja's ears as he regrouped with the other two. "I figured talking this way would be better than shouting our strategy to the enemy."
"Good call Shikamaru." Asuma whispered back. "So what's our next move? Any ideas?"
"Yeah, I have one…." Ide answered before he softly whispered his strategy through the radio. "... Everybody got that?"
"Right!" Asuma and Shikamaru confirmed in unison. "Fire Release! Ash Pile Burning!" Asuma called out as he unleashed a cloud of ash from his mouth that enveloped the three ninja and obscured them from Ban's view.
"Huh? What the hell? That fire breather is using his ashes as some kind of smoke screen now." The half demon squinted as he studied the ash carefully for their next movement but his observation prowess wasn't good enough to notice Ide slip through the ash behind him.
"HAH!" Ide thrusted his sword at Ban's stomach. His battle cry provided just enough of an early warning for Ban to take a step back just out of the range of Ide's blade but not enough time to look for an escape, his eyes locked on the closest branch to him zipped over there at lightning speed.
'Damn that was a close one.' Ban thought as he took a moment to gather his surroundings but he fell right into another trap as Shikamaru emerged from below landing on Ban's branch.
"Shadow bind technique!" Shikamaru announced as his shadow latched itself onto Ban, freezing him in place but Ban immediately began fighting his hold. "Damn he's strong!"
"Just a little longer!" Asuma called out as he charged his chakra blades. "Release! Now!" The Jonin called out as he threw one of his blades at Ban.
"Hah!" Shikamaru called out as he released his hold of Ban just in time to save himself as Asuma's blade struck Bon's arm cutting it off just above the elbow.
"AAAAHHAAAHHH!" Ban roared out in agony as blood erupted from his arm but this wasn't the end as Shikamaru swept his legs and knocked him off the branch. He fell a few dozen feet crashing through smaller weaker branches on his way down before managing to catch himself.
With his only remaining arm he managed to pull himself back onto a branch to rest. His defenses truly were depleted in this form as the fall and the branches caused bruises and bloody scratches to decorate his body. 'This is bad….' Ban panted as he desperately looked for something that would help him, but then his eyes went to Sayaka's unconscious body which had been left unattended. 'This isn't worth it, might as well retreat. Even in my state and having to carry Sayaka, there's still no way they'll be able to catch me in this form if I just make a break for it.'
Ban picked himself up and fought through the pain. He rushed over to Sayaka but as he went to pick her up he noticed a white piece of paper with a red border outlining it stuck to her back with a seal written on it and when Ban moved her body Ide detonated it. KABOOM!
The explosion consumed both Ban and Sayaka, launching the former away and leaving his body smoking while at the same time blowing a chunk out of the other leaving her dead and leaving both Shikamaru and Asuma stunned.
"Y-You planted a paper bomb on her? After rendering her unconscious?" Shikamaru muttered back.
"Yes." Ide didn't deny and his face remained serious. "If we would have apprehended both targets without resorting to that I would've deactivated the bomb and we could've brought them in alive. Unfortunately as shinobi we can't afford to grant an opponent any leeway." Ide said as he sheathed his sword indicating the fight was over. "I am sorry it had to come to this."
"He's right…" Asuma nodded as he lowered his weapons and eventually Shikamaru accepted it and dropped his guard as the three turned to leave Ban erupted from the pile of leaves his body had crashed into.
"BASTARDS! YOU KILLED HER!" Ban roared, his body still smoking as another massive blast of lightning exploded from his mouth directed at Asuma.
With none of the ninja in a position to defend himself, Ide had no choice even with his chakra as depleted as it was he activated his left Mangekyou and the blast of blue lightning was forced directly back down Ban's throat frying him from the inside. With that the two thieves were finished off and ide was left to deal with the consequences.
"AAAAAHHH!" Ide roared as he dropped to his knees once more but the pain this time was leagues above what it was before. Ide desperately covered his eye with his palm. The pain was intense but it faded rather quickly but when Ide was finally able to remove his palm he looked to see it covered in blood with a small stream of blood still trickling from his eye even after the pain had subsided.
(Leaf village, a few months later)
FWOOSH! Ide hopped from tree branch to tree branch at high speed his sharingan activated, scanning the forest taking in Ide's surroundings and almost planning his next step for him like some kind of auto pilot. Ide was making use of the Leaf Village's training ground, working on strengthening his sharingan's endurance for prolonged use.
Bee-Beep! Ide's wrist watch went off and he checked to see that he'd passed the two hour mark on his training. '2 hours…. If I can just make it another 150 seconds I'll break last week's record, then I'll take the rest of the week off.' Ide tried motivating himself but it was no use, his vision already started to blur. 'Damnit!' He thought as he took one major misstep that caused to fall from the tree branches.
WHAM! Ide fell face first into the dirt and when he stood up the world was spinning even after he dispelled his Sharingan. 'Oh well. We'll try again tomorrow.' Ide popped a food pill into his mouth replenishing his chakra and making his newly acquired headache feel a little better.
'That's it for the sharingan, time to move on to the next bit of training.' Ide picked out a spot for himself in the clearing one that overlooked the water and had a nice breeze blowing through it. "Whoooohhhh…." Ide let out a deep breath as he bent his knees and held his fists out in front of his chest.
'Fire chakra and earth chakra.' Ide said as he focused on his fists each began to channel a different element. 'An adept ninja can combine them to perform Lava Release but user's of a cooling element can take that principle and form something greater.' Ide thought as a small veil of wind began to circle around him.
Ide shifted his stance into a tiger-style martial arts pose making his hands into claw shapes. 'Control your breathing…' Ide told himself. "Steel Release! Iron Claws!" Ide extended his right palm but at the last second he took an accidental sharp breath and as he extended his palm all the fire chakra was expelled out of it by mistake Knocking Ide back onto his butt.
"Gah! Damn!" Ide cried to himself in frustration as he picked himself up. As Ide climbed back to his feet out of the corner of his eye he saw the leaves on a tree nearby move unnaturally. 'Huh? So my Anbu babysitter is back again today. Well as long as I'm being watched I might as well put on a better show.'
Ide put himself back into the starting stance planning to start the exercise over but before he could begin a familiar face emerged from the forest. Walking stick and still bandaged nearly head to toe, Danzo limped towards Ide.
"I recognize that technique, it belongs to Steel Gaze Maede." Danzo evoked Ide's cousin as he made his entrance. "His talents went underappreciated as far as heroes of the 3rd great war are concerned. I approached him to join my organization before the war, even then I recognized his unique talents but he believed his purpose was teaching. Good for him, it looks like his teachings have lived beyond him."
"So I assume that's your agent who's had his eye on me the last few weeks?" Ide countered. "That's reassuring, now I know if I see him again I can deal with him as I please since They are not connected to the 5th Hokage." Ide's eyes narrowed as he didn't give Danzo an inch. "I've done my research since our last meeting, Danzo. I know your organization is no longer affiliated with the Anbu and if what I've learned about you is true Danzo, then it doesn't surprise me in the least that Maede rejected whatever you offered him."
"My unit may not be an official part of the Leaf's shinobi force but trust me as far as protecting the village is concerned, my unit and myself are still very much involved." Danzo's eyes narrowed to emphasize his seriousness to Ide. "The safety of the village is the very reason I approached you today. I wish to discuss your teammate Naruto Uzumaki."
"I'm sure by now you've been informed that Naruto is the current Jinchuriki for the Nine-tailed fox." Danzo continued. "You also must've read the leaf's "official" report as to what happened the night of the Nine-tails release and the death of the fourth hokage-"
"Let me stop you there." Ide interrupted. "I don't need a history lesson from you. I also won't let you sow seeds of distrust for a teammate I haven't even met yet. Nine-tails or not, a comrade is a comrade. I've heard everything I need to hear about Naruto Uzumaki. Every rumor, all the gossip but what this generation seems to forget is that no-one in this world is a Jinchuriki by choice."
"I see. I guess there's no convincing you is there?" Danzo's words seemed to convey disappointment but his face wouldn't show it. "Then I'll just remind you that the 3rd Hokage put the last remaining Uchiha in the leaf village on the same team as the Nine-tails Jinchuriki for a reason, the same reason the 5th Hokage did. Unlike Sasuke however, if the Nine-tails becomes an issue I believe you'll be able to do what it takes to protect the village, which is why I think we should be friends." With his good arm Danzo tossed a container of food pills to Ide who caught them easily. "Take one of those after using your Mangekyou. They should help with the pain and they'll replenish your strength."
Danzo turned to leave and once he had vanished through the trees Ide took a moment to study his new gift before he eventually decided to accept them, placing them in his ninja bag.
(The next day)
Ide had returned to the training grounds the next day but keeping an anxious eye out for members of Danzo's organization was really throwing a wrench in the progress of Ide's training. "Damn!" Ide swore under his breath. "One more time…." Ide took a deep breath, bent his knees and balled his fist out in front of his chest but before he could continue he was met with an unexpected interruption.
"Hello there, young man!" Suddenly a man with a black bowl cut, sporting bushy eyebrows and dressed in a green jumpsuit with a Jonin jacket appeared, leapt from the trees and landed dramatically in front of Ide. "Are you Ide Uchiha? Well, good news!" The man spoke in an odd but enthusiastic way. "You've been drafted to serve under the illustrious Team Might Guy!"
"Guy Sensei!" Another voice called out as a green blur came bolting through the woods. Another bowl cut sporting individual, much younger with equally bushy eyebrows but rounder eyes, stood tall as he addressed the Jonin. "That race was not fair! You did not tell me we were going to the training ground!"
"That's right Lee! It was a test!" The bowl headed Jonin exclaimed. "You see, a truly splendid ninja can navigate effectively without the need of mere directions."
"Oh! Now I understand!" The bowl headed student replied before genuflecting. "Forgive me Guy sensei! I'll do much better next time!" As Lee continued his bowing, an exhausted girl with her hair tied into twin circular buns emerged from a nearby bush.
"Haaahhh…. There you are…" The girl took a series of deep breaths as she spoke. "You guys… It's too early for you to have this much energy."
"AHEM! Back to business." Guy turned his attention back to the Ide. "With Neji busy with a Hyuga family matter you'll be coming with us on our next mission. I hope you're ready to go!"
"Very well…" Ide nodded in acceptance. "I'll be ready when the rest of you are."
"So you're the new Uchiha?" Lee perked his head up from his bow and locked eyes with Ide, he got real close to Ide and examined every inch of him. "I see! Guy Sensei!" The boy roared loudly, getting Ide to close his ears with his hands to avoid the loud shriek. "Before the mission you must allow me to have a sparring match with the new Uchiha!"
(End)