He could see Joru a short distance away, touching the head of who assumed was a chunin. The enemy ninja's eyes dulled briefly, before with an agonized face, he turned and attacked his comrades, skewering a genin through the face with a kunai. He could see the amusement on Joru's face even from this distance.
Fuck Yamanaka's can be scary when they want to be.
A wet sound to his right had Naruto ducking under the swipe of a short sword.
Grabbing the woman's wrist, he twisted, throwing her around in a wide arc toward the trench wall. Her back crunched against the wall, opening up open impact and spraying blood in a halo around her body, the red liquid mixing into the wet earth.
Stepping backward, he narrowly avoided two thrown kunai from a jonin about four metres away. He braced his legs, throwing a painful amount of the Kyuubi's chakra into them, and threw himself toward the man. With another sickening crunch he drove his shoulder into the man's midsection, his ribs giving way to the bull charge.
Naruto felt the blood matting his hair now.
None of this had been clean from the beginning, but now, in the midst of the battle, he felt dirtier than he ever had.
A shout from behind him. Or was it a battle cry?
Glancing in the direction of the sound. He found a small boy no older than twelve charging at him, his face a bizarre mix of fear and resolve, kunai in hand.
Naruto swung a heavy fist at the boy, his hand making impact with the top right of his head. As the connection was made, almost as if in slow motion, the boy's head caved in. small chunks of skull flew from the point of impact, pieces of shrapnel that sought and found more bodies to bury themselves into. One piece lodging itself into the back of another ninja's head, killing him instantly.
He surveyed the area again, his eyes darting at such a speed it almost made him dizzy. Only two more shinobi in his immediate vicinity. One chunin and a jonin. The chunin had a spiked chain with one end wrapped around his hand, swinging the other menacingly beside him.
The jonin had quite a nasty looking sword hung over one shoulder. This one was eying him carefully. No bluster. No impulsive shouting. No menace. Just the concerned assessing of a man that knew he was in imminent danger and was trying his best to figure out how to survive.
There were never any survivors.
Shooting forward at a blinding speed, he dove underneath the chain swinging to take his head off. Now crouched at the directly below the chunin he made to drive his fist into the underside of the young man's chin. Only to have to abandon his attack to avoid the sword swing of the jonin. Skirting away, dodging the sword by mere centremetres as he did so, Naruto quickly went through five hand signs.
Fire style: Scorched earth
Bringing his hands together in front of his mouth, he breathed out a long stream of dark red flame. It spread out from its impact against the ground, leaving a thick layer of flames there. Not affected by the rain or mud, it stayed burning, leaving the ground un-occupiable for the time being.
In response to this, the two enemy shinobi stuck themselves to the side of the trench wall, avoiding the flames.
Going through a second set of seals immediately as he finished breathing out, Naruto slammed his hands squelching into the mud.
Earth style: Rising pillar
The side of the wall burst forth desperately trying to meet its counterpart. The jonin reacted instantly, having noticed Naruto's second set of seals, jumping off of the wall and onto the flat ground above the trench. The chunin wasn't so lucky.
With a sickening splat sound, the chunin was crushed betwixt the two walls of earth. One of his arms lay outside of the now conjoined wall, his hand locked in a gesture, grasping for freedom that would never come.
It was always worse when the ground was muddy.
They never died instantly.
Rolling backward, mud and fecal matter caking along his back, Naruto avoided a hail of water bullets from the still living jonin.
They engaged each other in combat. One with a sword. One with gauntleted fists. The fire rising around them, its dark red hue lighting their grim expressions.
Naruto was on the backfoot for a short while. A stab through his midsection slowing him down while it healed. It wasn't to last long.
With a great step forward the man lunged his sword at Naruto's head, which he avoided by strafing to the right. Now overreached, Naruto capitalised on the misstep. Twisting fully around, Naruto threw a swinging backhand at the man's face, aiming for his temple. A one shot kill to end their little bout.
He missed.
He missed in the worst way he could think of without it having gotten himself killed. His fist had connected, and in a way that definitely ended their duel. It was just such a cruel end.
The jonin's jaw hung off one side of his face, having disconnected from the right side. Blood flowed freely down his neck, soaking into his torn shirt. It almost painted the material black in its thickness. The teeth along the top of his mouth were either missing, broken, or bent at angles that drove them into the roof of his mouth. The muscles along his cheeks would twitch and spasms at random intervals, searching for a connection that was no longer there. And the worst were his eyes.
His eyes were bloodshot and filled to the brim with tears that would streak down his face whenever he would make a gurgling hiccup or sob. They darted around rapidly, looking down more often than not, trying in vain to see the damage that had been done to him, before finally settling on Naruto. They begged for mercy, any kind of mercy from the pain that he was in.
"Fuck man, im so sorry. I was trying for a clean kill." Naruto said, panicked layered in his voice. "Stay still and I'll end it, there's no fixing this."
Quicker than lighting, Naruto's hand shot out, gripping the man by the top of his skull and crushing it inward, killing him in as brief of a moment as he could.
Naruto pushed the man's body back and into the surrounding flames, so that if by chance the man had loved ones that would come to retrieve the body, they could not see the way the man had died. No more trauma than was needed. He owed them that much.
He sat down, gathering his thoughts. Around him he could hear the continued sound of violence. Their men had now joined the fray, driving deep into the enemy lines, weeding out any and all ninja.
It was a complete route.
He could see, perched atop the trench wall as he was, the ongoing battle between Mimiko and her sector. She was now clad in full samurai plate armor, entirely made out of wood. He winced as she struck down a jonin with a spiked, long hafted club. She was cleaving her way through the few remaining opponents one by one, nothing slowing her down. He could hear her laughs carried gently over to him on the building wind.
She was a good teammate. She was monstrous. Not a care in the world for the wellbeing of anyone other than leaf shinobi. She disgusted Naruto to no end because, for everything that she did, all the vile and horrible murder. She was still better than he was.
But she was a damn good teammate.
Approaching her location, in a strolling swagger, was Joru. The man had not an ounce of blood on his entire body. He had two chunin following him. One was missing an arm, torn off at the elbow, the blood from which flowed down his sleeve in great gushes. The other had half his face ripped off, shredded beyond recognition.
He saw Joru point at a small cubby inside of the trenches wall. The men dragged themselves inside at his gesture.
The screaming of genin came from inside.
Joru laughed.
The wind was really picking up now. The sky bellowed and thrashed, whipping his coat in a great many directions. It funneled into the dugout, whistling and crying, scattering the ash from his fire, now barely more than a small bonfire, into the air. Debris flew about, clattering against the trenches.
His eyes stung and began filling with tears.
Joru's laughs grew louder still.
"Captain Kenzo, we need you for a mission." Mimiko said, all sweet and placating. "Naruto, Joru and I are meeting a team north of here. It's a small team, but ideal for what the hokage has tasked us with."
Focusing all her willpower to be as doe eyed as possible, playing with her hair, she leaned toward the disgusting little shit of a shinobi.
"We need someone with more experience than us to lead the team behind enemy lines and into their encampment." she had to fight the urge not gag then and there. Why did the other two always make her do this? It was so much better when Kanjiro and Sumihiro were still with them. Those two could talk to little cunts like this as if it were a natural thing to do so.
The captain stood to attention. A look of self assured pride crawling its way onto his smug, ugly face.
"Why of course Mimiko, anything for lord hokage." he said. His voice was slick and slimy to her ears. How did people like this even become captains? Who would follow such a low life into battle. Trusting their health and wellbeing with selfish sycophants, only truly looking out for themselves and their glory. "Lead the way."
Their journey away from the camp to the other two did not take them long.
Naruto was still covered head to toe in blood. The sticky substance adhering his shirt and pants to his body. It clung to him drawing the clothes tighter with any move that he made. He was sitting there, talking in a hushed whisper with Joru, who had nary any blood on him.
The fucking coward. He fought like a pansy, only ever using the Yamanaka hidden techniques to kill, never actually getting his hands dirty.
Upon noticing their arrival, the duo promptly ceased their conversation in lieu of greeting her and Kenzo.
"Ah captain kenzo, it's good to see you." Naruto said.
He looked so ragged. His eyes had sunk a great deal, leaving great, drooping, black bags under his bloodshot eyes. That with the blood smeared all over his face, now going a deep coppery brown, made for the appearance of a ghoul or the walking dead.
She couldn't tell, what with the identical coloring, but would bet that the blood had made its way through his hair too.
"You too Uzumaki." Kenzo replied, his tone terse and clipped. "Now where are we headed?"
Looking back over her shoulder, she confirmed to herself, for the fifth time now that they were out of sight of the leaf's encampment.
Turning around, she looked over captain Kenzo's turned shoulder to make eye contact with Naruto.
He tilted his head almost imperceptibly in confirmation.
Without drawing any attention to herself she went through a series of hand seals, going through great pains to make sure the movements were silent.
"That's a great question." Naruto said. He paused as if in great thought.
Wood style: binding
Roots cracked and sprung from the ground. The tendrils snaking their way up the captain's left leg up to the mid thigh. And with an extra pulse of chakra from her, they constricted tightly around the limb.
Crunch.
The leg snapped cleanly in two, effectively immobilizing the shinobi.
With a quick step, Joru was on top of the man, placing two fingers each to both of his temples.
"Silence"
Kenzos face contorted in agony, mouth agape. But only small gasping breaths of air shuddered out of him, not the scream the man had been trying, involuntarily as it may be, to let loose.
Naruto spoke with a voice full of authority that she so very rarely got to witness from him.
"For the crime of treason against the leaf village, i Naruto Uzumaki, with the leave of the hokage of the hidden leaf, sentence you Kenzo Utagawa to death." his eyes held none of their ordinary, almost ever present compassion. Replaced instead by the cold calculating eyes of a seasoned shinobi. "Do you have any last words before I carry out this sentence?"
Turning his head toward the waiting Joru, Naruto nodded. Joru, with an anticipatory smile, withdrew his fingers from the now sweating man's temple.
They gave him a moment for the whimpers and groaning to subside. Rasping for air, he eyed Naruto speculatively.
"You've turned into a very good weapon, Uzumaki, one better than I think even they were hoping for." he coughed violently into Naruto's face. Not bothering to cover his mouth. Why would he, they were his killers after all. "Why haven't you gone rogue yet hmm? All of their other little weapons have."
He looked around her and the smiling Joru.
"It can't possibly be these two keeping you here. They're only half the team that was formed to subdue you, if you were to step out of line that is."
"This is what you want to spend your last moments speaking about. My having not betrayed the village." Naruto ground out.
"Maybe I just want to get in one last jab before I go." he looked down toward his mangled leg and winced. Sweat was pouring freely down his face, and he may have shit himself due to the pain, if the smell was anything to go by. "I will tell you this, seeing as I'm going to die regardless and i want to sew as much distrust as i can. I was not working for the mist. Sure i was relaying information to them, but it was not at their orders." he focused more intently on Naruto's eyes. "I've been working for the man that's been controlling the mist, and he and his group have a very keen interest in you."
Naruto now looked a little concerned, fidgeting on his left foot.
What kind of group could have an interest in Naruto? An assassination team or a retrieval team. Worse yet a sealing team? But that wouldn't explain what he meant by the man or group controlling the mist.
"The hokage and the rest know as far as i can tell. Having seen root shinobi being captured trying to gather more intel about him in grass country. And they haven't even told you a thing, they haven't even warned you of the danger these guys po…"
Fire style: Fell Flame Immolation
Before he could finish he was ignited in the deep red flame. Screaming in stunned agony, he thrashed about himself, sending flames spewing around in wide arcs that she and Joru only just managed to avoid.
"Lets go, we have someone's family members to kill."
And with that, Naruto began walking in the known direction of the mist encampment.
This was a bit more of a slog to put out.
Also just so you guys know, I'll be going back through these to edit them at some point. when i get a little bit better at writing.
