AN: Chapter title: Daimyo Days Part 2.
A cloud of smoke dropped down on top of them. It was rich in Chakra, rendered the Dojutsu of three of the Daimyo Escort Squad's members nearly useless.
"We're under attack!"
"Gai, Ko, secure the Daimyo." Asuma's order was absolute at the moment. His trench knives kept the blades of two of his attackers at bay. They were only two of the several dozen that had suddenly descended on the caravan, made their target obvious from the shuriken and kunai aimed at the Daimyo.
Kakashi had been the first to counter, Sasuke following. Where the masked Jonin had limited himself to two kunai as he put himself between the Daimyo and the attack, the Uchiha relied on an abundance of shuriken thrown with precision to knock the enemy projectiles off target.
Asuma overpowered his opponents with a surge of strength and Wind Chakra sharpening his own blades, cutting through steel and flesh with ease. He retreated from the two bodies at the same time he shifted his hold on his trench knives, rushed through the needed hand signs for the technique he had in mind. He breathed out a gale to clear the smoke, up their visibility. His eyes narrowed at the figures he saw only for a moment.
He recognized the masks they were wearing.
'The Pranja Group. What are they doing here?'
Another cloud of smoke descended on them, smoke bombs this time. It limited his visibility but he didn't need his sight to know where the enemy was. His senses were honed to a razor's edge, only heightened as adrenaline surged through his veins.
"Squad, on me!" Ko and Gai would've already moved the Daimyo either to safety or to the core of his samurai bodyguard. That still left the bearded Jonin with five other Shinobi to join him as another wave of smoke bombs descended on them. He could hear Hana growling along with her ninken partners as she arrived, felt more than saw the kikaichu of Muta begin to settle around the Konoha Shinobi as the Aburame readied for the battle ahead.
Kurenai's presence was too familiar to not know, the two seamlessly coming together.
Kakashi was simply there, silently waiting.
The Uchiha was on the opposite side of the masked Jonin, no doubt guessing that it was best to use the three Sharingan between the two of them to cover as much as they could.
"There's fourteen ahead." Sasuke didn't bother keeping his voice low, announced it for all to hear.
'That's not small but not big either.' Asuma didn't risk distracting himself by radioing the Daimyo's security. There was plenty of time to talk about the attack later, once they lived through this. Gai would at least keep the man safe if they couldn't. 'Did they know the Daimyo was at the front today or not?'
"Kakashi, Hana, with me." Asuma allowed Wind Chakra to flow over his trench knives, drastically lengthen the blades as he reversed his hold on both. They were more akin to swords now. "Muta, Sasuke, give us some cover."
Kikaichu swarmed ahead as Asuma led the two other Jonin with him forward in a dash. A moment later, fireballs were weaved between the swarm already dividing itself, turning into streams to cut through the air. Hana dropped to all fours and was ahead of both of the Jonin, the three Haimaru Brothers running at her sides.
"Beast Human Clone!" In a puff of smoke, two feral versions of Hana Inuzuka met the blades of two of their attackers with deadly razor-sharp claws covered by Chakra. Both were equally vicious as they trapped the blade and their owner. The remaining two Haimaru Brothers went for the throat with wide open jaws.
'Two down.' It was bloody but swift, two corpses being tossed away. The two pairs continued their near feral attacks, charged into battle with deadly accuracy and ferocious skill.
Shuriken and kunai sailed out from the trees but didn't make it to the Daimy Escort Squad. Sasuke answered each of the enemy projectile with one of his own, his Sharingan letting him further hone in on their hidden attackers. A voice cried out in panic before an explosion tore through the trees, Asuma spotting figures leaping away from the source.
'Three down.' He kept count as his Chakra extended blades helped him cut through the sword wielded by another member of the Pranja Group. 'Four.'
At his side, Kakashi moved ahead. He had revealed his Sharingan once the attack began but the eye was currently closed. He was rushing through hand signs with a Shadow Clone at his side. A moment later, one breathed out a torrent of water and the other held an electrified hand out to it. The combination was simple but effective, the electrified water sweeping over the trees and flushing out the rest of their attackers.
He met a pair of red eyes, didn't need words to communicate his plan.
'There's more.' Asuma released his hold on his trench knives, sent them up into the air. "Futon: Shinkujin!"
Kurenai had already thrown a volley of shuriken forward, each of his wind bullets striking one and turning them into truly deadly projectiles. Fireballs bearing shuriken soared overhead, Asuma not surprised that the Uchiha had seen the technique coming, had added his own into the gaps left by Asuma and Kurenai's combination attack.
'Nine more down.' It was beyond effective, lacerated and charred bodies falling to the ground. Fourteen may had ballooned to twenty-two but they had dropped to eleven remaining. 'Won't be easy.' With their high casualty rates, with how swiftly they had replaced their numbers, they could be facing waves of attackers.
Even with Kakashi here, those numbers didn't bode well.
They could get overwhelmed. Get sloppy. Exhaust themselves if they weren't careful. All it would take was one slip up to drop them from six to five and that could quickly snowball. The entire squad could be wiped out if they made a single mistake.
"Sasuke! Get us some reinforcements!" It was an order. He didn't turn to the Uchiha, was already engaged with another charging attacker. His trench knives met a tanto paired with a longer blade, both enhanced by Chakra Flow. Even with his Wind Chakra Nature, this fight would take longer than the others.
He settled to end it as quickly as possible, take the life of this latest enemy. He couldn't afford a drawn-out battle.
Kurenai moved, a pair of Shinobi attacking where she had been and already under her Genjutsu. Each of the masked attackers turned to their partner, lunged forward with their blades. Only one snapped out of it in time to avert a lethal blow, died on his comrade's blade before he could shout a warning. The Jonin filled the other with a half dozen kunai before he could break out of the Genjutsu, left them both to die where they stood.
Asuma noticed Kakashi missing, spotted a silver-topped blur for only a moment as he joined Hana and the Haimaru Brothers in their attack into the forest. In the blink of an eye, Hana had an identical doppelganger moving with her.
Muta remained in the rear, his kikaichu pressing the enemy to come at them from the front instead of the sides. They would need to get through the Jonin or risk being swarmed by the bugs driven into an eating frenzy. Two had made such an attempt to flank the Shinobi, were still screaming as they were consumed by a writhing black mass.
The telltale smoke of the Summoning Technique wafted over the ground at his feet.
"HOO!" Sasuke seemed to have delivered on the reinforcements, a Centurion leading a charge into the trees.
'Looks excited.' Asuma dimly noted such a thing, his opponent's surprise at the sudden force of clones costing him his life when he ran a blade of Chakra through his chest, another over his throat. He left the dying Shinobi behind and took in the battlefield.
The sudden addition of a hundred clones turned the battle decidedly in their favor. The sole Chunin among them fired off another set of fireballs into the forest already aflame, a handful of the clones following his example. Pilum and arrows followed after the fireballs, deadly accuracy exchanged for the sheer number of projectiles to either slaughter or drive off their attackers. They would assuredly regroup, launch another attack, but they had the moment to reassess, to plan.
"On me!" He already knew Hana, her ninken, and Kakashi had vacated the forest before the clones had finished their charge, Kurenai retreating back to Muta once the clones arrived. It took all of a moment for the remaining members of the Daimyo Escort Squad to form up around him, the Uchiha the last only because he gave orders to the clones. "Ko, give me an update on the Daimyo."
A roar of static answered back from his earpiece.
"Great. They're jamming us." At least they had a backup plan. "Hana, take Sasuke and track down Ko. The rest of us will do a sweep of the camp. If you find him, stay with him. Once we're done here we'll catch up with you."
"I'll find him." Hana turned from Asuma to the Uchiha. "Let's go." One of the Haimaru Brothers trotted over to Sasuke, his two brothers remaining with Hana.
The two Shinobi took off to find Ko's trail deeper in the stalled caravan.
"This is going to be a problem." Kakuzu removed his bloody hand from what was once a fully intact skull, half of it and the contents within now splattered against the bark of a tree. Green eyes turned to his partner. "You find him yet?"
"He's nearby." Konan's Paper Clones had reported back, had given her the general location for the majority of the samurai, Shinobi, and the Daimyo himself. The Pranja Group insured that the convoy wouldn't be moving anytime soon, their ambush continuing even if it was doomed to fail. "This next part is critical." She looked to the body Kakuzu had let drop to the ground with distaste. "But without him we'll need another way to direct these mercenaries."
"Not my fault he started asking too many questions." The man was more observant than either member of the Akatsuki had considered, had realized something was wrong. It had been too late to truly change anything but the man had still tried. His attempt to leave had caused an annoyed Kakuzu to shatter his skull. "We were going to have to kill him anyway at the end of this. He saw our faces."
"After he had served his purpose. He was the Pranja Group's field commander." Konan lifted a hand, her paper emerging and beginning to settle over the corpse as a starch white cocoon. The color of each sheet began to shift to something closer to flesh. It wasn't perfect, was far from it, but it didn't need to be flawless. The head was wrapped in a thick shell, blood staining the paper as it shifted colors. "This will take time."
Kakuzu made himself comfortable against a tree and settled in to wait. It would take time for her to create a proper façade of a living Shinobi using her paper. Until then, they would need to wait to make their move on the Daimyo.
'This better be worth it.' The way things stood, he wouldn't be getting that first payment back from the mercenaries. 'Smart to ask for half upfront.' If there was one good thing from this, he had gotten to kill the man who had suggested it.
The pair of Shinobi and trio of ninken sped through the camps, avoided panicking servants, wounded bodyguards, and those rushing to whatever new foe emerged. The caravan was still in chaos but it was slowly coming to order, the attackers in the process of being successfully repelled and their primary target out of their reach.
"Any updates?"
"The remaining Centurions have joined with the Daimyo's samurai guard. These attackers are proving…problematic."
"No surprise. The Pranja Group aren't slouches when it comes to attacks like this."
"Pranja Group…" Sasuke honestly had no idea who they were. "I'm unfamiliar with them."
"Sometimes goes by Hannya Black Ops, an old ANBU regiment based out of the Land of Woods. They've tried to upend the Land of Fire before, must've heard we were escorting the Daimyo and decided to make a move."
"That's unlikely." It was an understatement. It was impossible.
Hana didn't argue with the Uchiha. "I know. Someone tipped them off." She followed Ko's trail. "Our job is to survive this and find out who."
"It almost sounds easier just to die." Sasuke's words earned a sharp bark of laughter from the Inuzuka, her ninken joining her judging from their yips.
"Sometimes." Hana took a deeper breath, picked through the smell of blood, iron, and more for what she was after. Ko probably didn't even know that his shampoo was strong enough to make his scent stand out, that it made him an ease to track even on this battlefield. "I've got him."
She put on a burst of speed, the Chunin with her keeping pace.
They arrived to Ko and Gai's position just as the Taijutsu expert delivered a bone-breaking blow to another attacker. He noticed their arrival, a bright if subdued grin taking hold of his face.
"Hana, Sasuke, it's good to see you!" Gai shot the two a thumbs up. "I've got things under control here!"
Ko remained with the Daimyo, had assigned himself to guard him from any projectiles sent by his attackers. Shuriken and kunai littered the ground in front of him, craters from deflected explosives surrounded the two. Despite the situation, the Daimyo seemed rather collected for a man in the middle of an assassination attempt.
"They've still got us surrounded." Hana didn't need her nose to know perhaps six attackers remained from the Pranja Group. It was only six but they were able to get this far.
And now they seemed content to wait.
'Why hold back?' She didn't need to look at Gai to know he was thinking the same, that he was coiled like a spring, waiting for the moment to intercept. The bulk of their forces may have been involved in their encirclement, keeping the Daimyo trapped, but this was clearly the assassination team.
'Are they waiting for something?' She didn't like that in the slightest. One kill team would be hard enough to take on even with Gai backing her up but a second? It would quickly become suicide. 'If they're waiting for another…We'll die in a delaying action, have Gai rush the Daimyo out of here.'
Growls came from her side, hackles raised.
She wasn't surprised that her ninken felt her shift. She was holding back her bestial instincts at the moment, needed a clear head for whatever came next.
Sasuke remained at her side, his Sharingan sweeping over the trees around them. He was good at hiding whatever he was feeling, that he seemed almost at ease with what was about to happen.
He was at least in his proper position, holding the middle ground between Hana and Gai.
"There's no use waiting for them to make the first move." Hana made the call, allowed her appearance to turn bestial as she fell to all fours. "Gai, with us. Ko, the Daimyo's safety." Her fangs lengthened, her nails sharpening into claws, and a feral energy filled her. "Let's go!"
With a howl, she charged forward.
Gai and Sasuke followed after her.
AN: 3/5 for this update.