Pre-Chapter A/N:I think at this point, we just have to accept that I will inevitably show up with two chapters a week. As for when those chapters show up, I think it's best I not make any particular promises. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
— Nara Shikahime —
"He's been waiting for about five minutes now," she said, trying to convince her fool cousin to finally get moving. They stood atop Konoha's walls watching the canopy that had been constructed as Uzume and the Kazekage sat across from each other while his guards remained around him and a bundle of cloth lay near his feet.
"Is everything ready?" he asked.
"It's all been ready since the last time you asked about it, and even after that. Can we get moving already? Leaving a foreign and possibly hostile Kage alone with Uzume is giving me heart palpitations," she said. He turned to her with his classic quizzical look.
"You don't think she can take him?"
"I think I don't want to find out the answer to that question at our walls. This is the closest war has ever come to Konoha proper. If things go wrong, the results could be disastrous," she said.
"Well, I think we can go now. We've done enough waiting and I'm just about done healing," he said, and then tapped her. She nearly panicked as she felt all her weight disappear.
"Don't panic. Just stay still and try to look cool," he said, and then he shot into the air. She felt her body follow his as she felt far less graceful in flight than he did. Since when could he even fucking fly? And he hadn't even warned her that they were doing this. They were so high up. There was nothing to break a fall with other than the unyielding ground. Oh, that was going to fucking hurt.
She tried to turn her attention to anything else. Anything other than the ground. He looked good while flying, she realized on looking at him. Especially with the Hokage robes flowing around his form. Thankfully for her mental health, she'd never developed the same crush on him that Uzume, Uraume, and Kizuru struggled with, but she could admit that she could see the appeal. If only he wasn't so troublesome. Well that, and Uzume being murderous as all hell.
Of course, she cleared her mind of all such thoughts the second they were within view of the Kazekage and his entourage. The Kazekage wore robes similar to Shori's, and with his hat on his head, only the barest hint of the tattoo around his eye was visible.
Shori landed smoothly, and she did the same, if slightly heavier, as she was jolted by the sudden return of her body weight. Only years of ninja training prevented her from falling to her arse—and even then, it was a close thing as Shori walked away from her and to the seat next to Uzume.
She watched as Uzume rose as he sat, moving to stand behind him. She moved to take the spot by Uzume's side, watching everything with a wary eye.
'Everything okay there?' she heard Inoken's voice in her head.
'Yeah, I can hear you loud and clear. No movements from the Kazekage yet. Will keep you updated,' she told her teammate and old friend.
"I was surprised to receive your missive, Hokage-dono."
"And I was surprised by your seeming lack of response. I take it that the fact that you are here now means that you have come to agree to my terms," Shori replied, his voice carrying across the space.
"Peace between our villages. It would be good to avoid the fate of Iwa, is what you would expect to hear me say in this situation, yes?"
"I find it hard to imagine you would want a giant trench carved into the middle of your village and then the whole thing being blown up in the biggest concentrated explosion the world has ever seen."
"And yet you would ask me to do something even worse. To betray one of my own to you."
"One life for thousands. One of those numbers is not even large enough to count as a rounding error when compared to the other. To equate them is shortsighted."
"And yet the role of Kage does not allow me to be so callous."
"It does not allow you to be so reckless either. Would you risk the lives of thousands of others just like the one I asked you for, all to avoid offending your conscience? Besides, I promised you the boy would not suffer any harm under my care. I simply need him to get his Grandmother to stop hiding and face me," Shori said next. While she felt his fixation on the Chiyo woman was somewhat improper, she could understand it well enough. If that man that had killed Choni was not already dead, she knew she would have hunted him to the ends of the elemental nations to get her vengeance.
"Indeed. And if I told you I brought her here with me now?"
"I'd ask why the puppet underneath my seat has been wasting so much time in triggering its trap. It was getting boring pretending your voice was anything less annoying than the sound of nails on a chalkboard," Shori replied, and she did her best not to flinch at the knowledge that there was some sort of trap being triggered beneath them. She would have to trust Shori to get them out of it if the situation turned dire, then.
"Indeed. When I met her with my plan, she was all too willing to do this. I have no desire to continue a war against Konoha. We received assurances from both Iwa and Kumo that ended up not being true. We lost a sizable portion of our army in Rivers. This is me bowing out of this entire mess," he said, nodding his head.
"And what if I say no deal? You brought Chiyo to me, yes. But you ignored the terms at which I offered peace."
"Are you in any position to reject peace, though? How many men do you still have? Nine hundred? Not even half that? Suna suffered her fair share of the losses. Is it not better if we just leave things as they are? What say you, Hokage-dono?"
"I say you seem to have found yourself in a very favorable position. Chances are Chiyo was being a subversive element in your village with her inanity. Like this, you get me to get rid of her, or in the unlikely situation that she kills me, you get to remove me from the board entirely," I accused.
"Indeed. But such is the way of things."
"Yeah, you see, I'm not really down for that deal. Have Chiyo trigger her trap or whatever you want, but know you won't leave here alive. Neither will she," Shori threatened, and she watched the Kazekage's fists tighten.
"You dare, boy? You might be strong for our age, but I was—"
"Killing men before I was even a twinkle in my father's eye?" Shori cut in, and the Kazekage seemed too shocked to even say anything.
"Chiyo seems to be done preparing her trap. Uzume, Shika, I would like the Kazekage's head for my collection. Chiyo is mine," Shori said next, and then the Kazekage shot off his seat, face reddening.
It was well enough as he rose just in time for a kick from Uzume to crash into his head, pushing him backward. The body smashed into wood, and one of the masked men in the Kazekage's entourage removed his mask, revealing the Kazekage's true form behind it. The ground beneath Shori exploded in one massive conflagration.
Shori remained in the center, untouched. Even his clothes were unmarked. He probably used his chakra as a shield to protect himself from every aspect of the explosion.
"Surely that is not the best you can do." And Shikahime saw a face she never expected to see again. The ground parted and from it came the form of Shorirama's sensei.
— Shorirama Senju —
I disturbed my chakra network. Twice for good measure. And it confirmed the truth before me. It wasn't a genjutsu. Sensei was alive. And somehow, Chiyo had managed to get to him with her jutsu. How the hell had she even managed that? And when was she going to come out herself? I had some things to say to her. Of course, by say, I meant drive into her heart, and by some things, I meant my fist.
Red sparks of chakra rose all around the two of us, forming a barrier. Some variation of the Four Violet Flames Formation if my eyes weren't deceiving me, and they never were. And that brought back the elephant in the room—a barrier.
"How?" I asked. If I expected a reply, I never received one, as Sakumo moved.
His blade came so close to removing my head from my shoulders that I felt my whole body kick into gear. A mistake here—sensei or no—would mean death. And this would not be the place I died.
I dodged past the blade, and then his chakra snapped in, lengthening it in an instant, just as the blade was right in front of my neck. I'd seen him kill many a shinobi with that trick. I snapped my head downward even as my foot lashed out, aiming to kick his hand upwards. He retreated with his blade and then snapped forward again. I allowed the blade to pass to my side as I closed the distance along with him. My fingers stretched out to block his network, and then the blade was back again, blocking the hit and nearly taking two of my fingers with it. I danced backward as he slashed out again.
If the context was different—that is to say, if he wasn't clearly aiming for a killing blow—this would have felt like a spar more than anything else as we danced past each other. I knew how Sensei fought almost as well as I knew how Uzume and Toshiro did, and that was why I could tell he wasn't all there. Sensei was a careful fighter. He never dove heedless into battle, preferring to keep his fights more like chess games when he found himself up against an equal foe. In this case, he was doing the opposite. He was attacking, heedless of the openings he left behind.
And he only defended against non-fatal blows. I could see the game Chiyo was playing here. Force me to kill my Sensei first, and then attack in full force while I was either tired out from it or mentally out of it. Not a bad plan, all things considered, but sadly for her, I had outgrown such tactics years ago.
I allowed natural energy to flow through my body. I tweaked the ratio to 50:50 almost instantly, and then all of Sensei's moves seemed to happen in slow motion. He lashed out with his blade again. This time I tracked it perfectly with my byakugan, but instead of dodging, I caught it in my grip. I had sent so much chakra to my hand that it glowed like a sun to my eyes. And even then, I could feel the chakra saber begin to cut into my skin. That wouldn't do.
With a twist of my chakra, there were three of me. The other two dove in. And even with his blade in my grip and one of his hands busy fighting that battle, Sensei managed to react in time. He dispelled one with a kick and a knife hand dug into the neck of the other, but they had been a distraction and nothing more. Forcing him to abandon his solid stance meant I could pull the blade towards me.
And it showed that Sensei was not the one in control because instead of letting go of the sword, he came towards me with it. He aimed a knife hand right for my neck. Foolish. I hardened my neck with earth-release chakra and tapped him twice in his chest. Once to disturb the control of his chakra and make the knife hand far less potent, the other to apply my newest jutsu on him. He sank to the floor, now weighing more than a mountain.
"Is that the best you can do, Chiyo?" I asked. I couldn't see her in truth. I'd bluffed about the trap thing because I'd felt my instincts triggered by the Kazekage's words. But her seals for blocking the Byakugan, much to my chagrin, were perfect. I would have loved to find out how she figured that out. Because if she had made the seal herself, then that meant Suna had a byakugan in their possession.
Kurama might have been able to talk me out of razing the village for revenge. But for that afront? That one was worth a dead village.
"Say ahh, Shorirama," I heard Sensei's voice from his position at my feet, and then he opened his mouth. A mouth filled with some white clay thing. Some very familiar white clay thing. I felt for the hiraishin seal I'd left behind and teleported back to the walls of Konoha. From there, I watched the barrier I'd been enclosed in swell with the force of the explosion as dust went everywhere. I flew back down, shooting off as I weighed nothing and enhanced my motion with a blast of wind chakra. I floated right above the barrier as it fell.
And once the dust scattered, there she was. She was surrounded by six people, and then there were the puppets. Ten of them. Sixteen. Adding her made it seventeen.
The one that drew most of my attention was the Raikage. His eyes, previously filled with fire and passion, gazed towards me with nothing in them.
"So this is the best you could do? The best force you could assemble to secure my death? For your own good, I hope they manage to last more than a few seconds," I scoffed as I lowered myself to the ground. I could see the girl with the explosion release. She was the one at the back of the formation. The other five human puppets were at the forefront with the puppets sprinkled in between them.
"This is my Black Secret Technique. I call it the Funeral of the Damned Soul. Say your prayers to whatever gods you hold dear, Shorirama Senju. For you will be the first to die to this technique," she said from her position.
"Your son. You know he never got to say any prayers before I removed his head?" I said, enjoying the way her eyes flared with rage.
"Your cousin never even saw the blade that removed her head," she retaliated. I paused, tilting my head at her.
I hope you're watching, Tsunade. This one is for you. I breathed, and then I pushed off the ground. The first puppet to meet me was the Raikage. Nope. I wasn't going to get bogged down in that. A shadow clone formed right in front of me, snapping a punch at his head that he had to block. I ran past him and met the swordsman.
Hayate of the six blades or whatever. His first strike was a perfect execution of iaido. At least as perfect as I'd ever seen Sensei do it. I ducked underneath the blade, grabbing hold of his vest as I did so, and lifted him up. I slammed the body into the ground, and before any of the other puppets could intervene, I'd reached for his head. With a heave, I ripped it off his shoulders.
"Who's next?" I snarled, looking up at the group. They dove in as one to their deaths.
One of them had an aura around his body. A form of chakra armor that gave him strength and speed on a level that approached the Raikage. That made him the first to reach me by some margin. Unfortunately for him, approaching the Raikage was still short of me. I watched the punch he sent as it approached. I stepped inside his guard, gliding past his attempt to cause me pain, and then increased my mass by an order of magnitude right before I struck. My hand punched straight through his chest, destroying his heart and making the body slip against mine. I used it as a barrier between me and the next man.
Red hair, bright red eyes, and fire gathering around his fingers made it clear it was the Desert Blaze I was facing. His fire burned through the other man's body and rushed at me next. I slammed my foot into the ground, lifting up a wall that blocked the attack. I had two options—wait behind the wall or go around it. I took option three. With a single punch, I shot the wall off the ground and straight towards my target. Three of the puppets surrounded me in a triangle. With my byakugan, I could see a seal around their throats begin to glow.
That couldn't be good news. I aimed a kunai straight at Chiyo, lightened its weight to little more than a feather, and let it fly—rather, with my strength, it was better to say I shot it like a supersonic bullet. The last of the human puppets managed to get in its way, deflecting it with a short sword. And then I was there. He managed to lunge at me with the blade, but in a single motion, I'd ripped his head from his shoulders and stepped past him, now face to face with my target.
The girl with the explosion release tried to step into the fight. I lightened myself by several orders of magnitude, pushing off in one motion and moving so quickly that only the fact that I had decided my actions well ahead of time allowed me to grab a hold of her neck, and then Chiyo's, before I returned my body to normal. Everything had happened in less than a few seconds.
"H-how??" I heard the woman manage to gasp out under my grip.
"Foolish woman. Every day I grow stronger. You waited too long. By the time tomorrow comes, I will be even stronger still. And stronger the day after, and so on. If you wanted me dead, your best bet was to have done it years ago. I outgrew you so long ago that I struggle to remember when."
"Wait-wait—" I heard her begin to beg, but this woman had killed my cousin. What right did she have to have her last words heard? And so I began to squeeze.
"If you kill me, you'll—" was all she got to say through the girl's mouth before her head popped straight off her shoulders. I dropped the body to the floor, and then I heard it. Rather, it was better to say I felt it before I heard it.
I turned around, struggling to comprehend what my byakugan had been telling me was behind me. Konoha was in flames.
"Shori," I heard Uzume's voice, but I was already off.
A/N: Chiyo tried her best. She really did. But with his pace of growth, giving Shori so much time to prepare for her tricks and whatnot meant she stood no chance. Of course, she managed to get her licks in. Next six up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.