Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. 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. Next five chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX- MIKOTO UCHIHA
She saw Kushina shoot through the wall a few floors above her through the window she looked out as she stitched up a new pair of acolyte robes. She slammed into the ground with force and then one of the Monks— Abbot Ryu, she recognised, shot out after her and smashed a kick into her guard. Mikoto rose. Of course their cover had been broken.
Abbot Uri, the one in charge of the tailoring group, sighed as she rose.
"Can we not do this, Mikoto Uchiha? Just remain still until my brothers finish with your teammates and then they can come for you," she said. So even her cover had been pierced. Had to be Kushina's fault, she thought. Minato had been a terrible liar as a genin, but he picked up everything their sensei taught— knowingly and not— and their sensei was one hell of a liar. Kushina was unfailingly earnest.
"Just let me leave then," she said, watching as the other acolytes began to lean away from her— the ones with brains in their heads at least— some of them still seemed too confused to realise what was happening. She destroyed the seal on her stomach and felt her chakra return to her control.
The needle she had been stitching with shot out as she flicked her wrist. The Monk twisted her head out of the way and it buried itself in the wall behind her. Mikoto used the opportunity to contort herself and shoot out the window. As she sailed through the air, she formed a plan. First things first, find the Head Abbot. He wore the compass around his neck. The distraction of Kushina's fight would give her the chance to get him alone and—
A piece of cloth wrapping itself around her arm drew her from her thoughts. And then there was one around her other arm and then her legs and finally her neck. She was lifted back up to the window and found Abbot Uri looking at her with disappointment as she controlled the cloth with gestures. What an interesting ability. The world came into razor-sharp focus as her vision tinged red.
She flexed her chakra and spat out a fireball that flew through the window and expanded within, destroying much of the room. The cloth that held her had burned as well and she returned to her freefall. She twisted and stopped herself against the wall. She then began to run straight upwards. The Head Abbot's office was at the topmost floor and by this time, he would be praying.
There was a shout behind her and she turned to see Abbot Uri running along the wall as well, several masses of cloth behind her.
She paid her no mind, increasing her speed. As long as she could not reach her until it was too late for it to matter, then there was no point in wasting time in a fight that was not going to advance her goals one way or another.
She remembered Sensei's admonishment from when they were younger— "the mission, the mission, the mission. That's the priority. Don't let anything else get in the way of it, and don't let yourself get so distracted that you start defining success by other metrics. Only one metric counts. Did you accomplish the mission?"
When she reached a window on the topmost floor, she twisted and drove her feet down, crashing through the wooden covers and squatting against the opposite wall. And then something came flying past her. It took her a second to recognise her teammate without his trademark blonde hair. She reached out and caught his robes in her chakra threads, bringing his momentum to a halt. He looked up at her, recognition flashing in those blue orbs.
"Thanks," he said, standing on his own two feet.
"What's going—"
"Fighting the Head Abbot. Please see to it that we are not disturbed," he said, and then there was a stillness to the wind before he jumped back in the direction he had come from. She could see the Head Abbot in the distance, wreathed in a gold aura that was made of something that was both chakra, and not quite chakra at the same time. From the body of it came over a hundred hands that all struck out at Minato as one as he approached.
She turned around, taking her stance as Abbot Uri crashed in through a different window.
"Could we not have settled this like civilised women? Leave the brutality and fighting to the men?" she said.
Mikoto just scoffed. She didn't have any ninja tools on her. They'd hidden them in the Land of Frost before making this journey. So that meant she had only her chakra, her body, and her mind to avail her for the fight to come. It was a good thing then that that was all she needed to win. She twisted through the tendrils as they tried to grab hold of her and then began closing the distance. More and more cloth came to the Abbot's aid as she got closer, but even the best of haters was no match for the predictive abilities of the Sharingan. If there was an opening, she would find it.
And everyone not named Shorirama Senju had openings. She pushed off the ground, twisting and folding her body so she passed through the gap between the tendrils that approached. She landed within punching distance and that was exactly what she did. Uri blocked the first one, moving her feet backwards. Mikoto had observed the martial arts training of the monks a few times. They learned a taijutsu style that focused on blocks and parries with little options for direct attack. All defence, no offence. She would punish the naïveté. She kicked out next, the Abbot lurched out of the way of the attack, and spotting something from the corner of her eyes, she backflipped to avoid the mass of cloth that would have caught her out from behind.
She formed the tiger seal as she rose and breathed out a fireball that the Abbot was forced to block with her cloth. Now that she was sticking around to see the effects of her technique, she could see how the cloth rejected and then eventually killed her flames thanks to the chakra that they had been steeped in. She had woven them with chakra involved in every part of the process. They were basically parts of her at this point.
An interesting technique, for sure. She could just imagine the things she could build with that sort of principle applied. If she learned blacksmithing, would she be able to create ninja wire that responded to her thoughts just as seamlessly? That would be interesting.
But that was a question for another day. Today's goal was victory, and there were other options open to her when it came to her. She wove more seals and when she landed on the ground, she stretched out her fingers. Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder.
The waves of punishing lightning arced out, flowing through the air and forcing her into another block with her cloth. Just as Mikoto intended. Blocking with her cloth, she lost the ability to see her. Mikoto twisted her chakra, not needing seals for this level of earth manipulation even though it wasn't her primary affinity, and directed the earth to lift up in a series of spikes from where her opponent stood. The cloth stood still and fell as Mikoto was then met with the sight of her opponent skewered through from the sole of her left foot up to the point where it came out of the flesh between her clavicles.
A shinobi would have sensed the movement of the ground and moved out of the way. A Monk did not have the same instincts. She turned her gaze to find Minato had separated into four clones. They zipped around the multi-armed chakra shroud that the Head Abbot had formed around his body in a series of motions designed to confuse as much as they were designed to avoid the grasping hands. One of them broke through the guard and made it close enough to press a rasengan into the shroud. It remained resolute, but then another broke through as well, doing the same thing.
The Monk refocused his energy from offence to the defensive aspects of his shroud and that allowed the third and then the fourth clones to make it through as well and press their own rasengans into the shroud. If it had been made purely of chakra it would have broken already, but there were other aspects to the technique that made it unnaturally good at resisting chakra. At least, that was until a fifth Minato formed with something held in his hands.
The whirling and grinding sound told her exactly what it was and she sighed. She would have to have another conversation with her teammates about overkill.
Minato shoved the wind release rasengan into the shroud and it popped like a balloon as he channelled the explosion of force straight into the cloak of golden power. It fell away in small wisps of golden light that bathed the hallway they stood in. The force had blown the roof away and shattered the walls to their side, exposing them to the elements. The body of the Head Abbot fell to the ground, bleeding from multiple points.
The microscopic wind blades that made up the wind release rasengan had torn him near to shreds. It spoke to his durability that his body was mostly in one piece, in truth. Minato reached down, ripping the compass from his neck and pocketing it.
"Let's get going," he said. She nodded. There was no chance that this hadn't drawn the attention of Kumo already. They would have to escape the Land of Lightning at pace.
They jumped down to the courtyard right as Kushina's fight was coming to an end. Her chains wrapped around her opponent, strangling the golden shroud he had managed to activate and knocking him unconscious.
"Come on, Kushina," she said, running past. Their third teammate turned to see them, and wasting no time, followed them as they began their escape from the temple. Two dead Abbots in their wake and one unconscious meant few people stood in their way. Those who did fell to her approximation of the gentle fist. It took only seconds for her to end each one that came in her direction. Minato did the same on the other side, while Kushina brought up the middle and charged on ahead.
They had shut the gate in front of them but that was insufficient. Kushina slammed a rasengan right in the middle of it, blowing it off its hinges and clearing the way. The cold, they ignored, now that they could fully bring their chakra to bear. Mikoto converted small amounts to fire-natured chakra to warm her up. Minato did the same. Kushina just sent the occasional wave of tailed beast chakra through her body, warding off the cold and banishing it from her body.
"Kushina, keep your senses stretched out. I want to know when someone approaches. Mikoto, plot our course. I'll trust you to find us the quickest and most direct route while avoiding what patrols we can. I'll bring up the rear and deal with anything that tries to stop us," Minato said, giving out the orders. She nodded and saw Kushina do the same.
Her sharingan spun as she watched the ground for signs of movement or traces that someone had been along recently while she led them through the route she had memorised from the map earlier. She felt Kushina's chakra wash over her as her teammate's senses stretched out to their full range. Minato was silent as he brought up the rear.
"Anbu patrol to the west. Six clicks," Kushina said. Mikoto nodded, and changed their route in accordance to let them avoid it.
"Patrol straight ahead. Nine clicks," Kushina said some minutes later. Mikoto changed their route again and they kept going.
"Patrol coming straight for us from the northeast. Five clicks. They have a sensor," Kushina said.
"Intercept," Minato ordered. She nodded and led them straight on their course. They would allow the chasing group to intercept and deal with them when they were close enough. Having a sensor behind them would make things unnecessarily complicated. In a matter of minutes, they were close enough for Mikoto to sense them and she moved to the side as Minato raced ahead of them. She watched, red eyes spinning, as he reached the anbu squad. There were four of them.
Their sensor gave them warning of Minato's approach, but you could see a storm coming and that meant nothing when it came to surviving it. The first one aimed some kunai at him. Minato caught one by the hilt and blocked the other two with it. He reached him and blocked a slash of the man's katana with it. Then he twisted past the man in a clean and simple motion. The man's body fell in two halves as Minato passed.
The other three tried to surround him. One of them was a genjutsu expert. Mikoto and Kushina kept running on their chosen path but she stretched out her chakra and shattered the genjutsu before it could take hold. That one was the one Minato killed next. One of them tried to weave some seals but his hands fell off his body a second before he could complete the jutsu and the final one barely managed to raise a hand to block as Minato reached her.
She tried to punch out at him but he wove past and pressed two fingers against her chest, snuffing out her life in a second before jumping away and returning to their group. They kept going before Kushina warned again.
"A chasing group. Three shinobi. One with nearly as much chakra as me. Seventeen clicks," she said.
"Keep moving," Minato said, making the decision. A protracted battle would not work out in their favour. They were within the Land of Lightning after all, and if they got delayed for too long they would have the whole of Kumo falling down on them and then they'd have to call Sensei for help and forfeit the mission. She didn't know about the others, but she didn't shave her head and spend weeks listening to Monks and their ravings only to then fail the mission and lose the pay.
They kept running and Mikoto noted that they were only about two dozen kilometres or so away from the border with Frost.
"They're gaining. Twelve clicks," Kushina said.
"Maintain present speed. We reach Frost first and then we confront," Minato said a few seconds later. Mikoto wasn't sure they'd make it at present speed, but she had to trust that Minato had done the math.
And so they did. They kept going along the path she plotted out for them as Kushina reported the locations of their enemies whenever they gained significant amounts of distance on them. They had to be running themselves ragged to gain on them as much as they were. When they eventually stopped to face them, the odds were going to be tilted in their favour. Minato had come up with a good plan.
They reached the Land of Frost with their enemies four clicks behind. They sprinted a bit further into the country before stopping at a plain stretch. There were no trees for miles, giving them plain ground to work with. Minato walked to a seemingly random part of the ground before shoving his hand straight in. He took out her pack and tossed it to her before doing the same with Kushina.
They didn't have the time to change, but she felt much more comfortable with her kunai holsters, shuriken pouch, and senbon holder strapped to their rightful positions. They waited and their enemies made themselves seen in a matter of minutes.
There were three of them, but the one in the middle drew all the attention. He was dark-skinned, and built like a tank. Taller even than Sensei, he was a giant of a man with the width to match. His upper body was covered only by an open haori and around his waist was a belt with a gold centrepiece. Ay, the Raikage of Kumogakure, she recognised from the Konoha Bingo Book. On either side were men that he dwarfed. One was blonde just like he was, but instead of slicked back, he wore his hair in a long ponytail that complemented his lithe form. The other was a muscular, if slightly less so, man who stood about a head shorter than the one in the middle. Dee the Indomitable, and E the Electrocutor. Both A-ranked threats while their Kage was just like any other Kage, S-ranked.
Was it reckless of her that she fancied their odds? Or was it just the rightful confidence she held as a student of the strongest man in the world? She'd sparred with Shorirama Senju. What could a lesser Kage do to her?
"Konoha scum," the man in the middle spat out, spitting on the ground as if the vitriol in his voice did not do a good enough job of communicating his hatred.
"Sup," Minato replied, waving casually.
"What business did you have in the Temple?" the man asked.
"Prayer. Things just got a little out of hand, you know how these things can go, Ay-chan," Minato mocked further. She sighed. Like she'd thought earlier, he learned from Sensei a bit too much.
"Keep your secrets. Your corpses will tell me all I need to know," he said, and then he shot at Minato so quickly that he was a blur even to the Sharingan.
Her blonde— did he still count as blonde even with no hair?— teammate managed to react in time, substituting himself with the very willing Kushina at the very last second.
A/N: And so we get a chapter and the first confrontation between Team Minato and foreign world leaders. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.