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 four chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Had my birthday yesterday and got another year older (boo), so there's a discount on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) for the next week for anyone interested in that (yay)
Kushina's body bubbled with Gyuki's chakra as she caught Ay's fist in her hand, bringing his momentum to a clean stop. He strained against her, but the strength of a tailed beast was not something to be trifled with. Even Sensei did not bother wrestling with Kushina these days without having his Sage Mode active. It was just a losing battle.
She dragged him towards her with the grip she had on his wrist and tried to bring the fight to a quick end with a finger aimed for his heart. His chakra output spiked and he twisted out of the way while ripping his hand from her grip after flooding it with enough lightning chakra to stun her even through the tailed beast cloak.
Mikoto lurched to the side, eyes spinning as she dodged out of the way of a blast of storm release. Her opponent, the blonde one, had struck by bringing his hands together. He clapped again, and this time a disc formed in front of his pointed fingers and released a dozen lasers that were aimed straight at her. She twisted, weaving through them by cleverly contorting her body to avoid all of them. She shot out for her opponent even as from the corner of her eyes she could see the trajectory of the laser beams shift to come for her.
So he could guide them after releasing them. She noticed the set of his face and how his eyes tracked her. He needed to concentrate to guide them. That meant the fight was hers. Because he would not be able to maintain his focus while facing her in taijutsu and she was fast enough that she would reach him before the lasers reached her.
Her win, she thought as she made it in striking distance. And then from his disc came another set of lasers so close that most shinobi would have died instantly. She however, was a student of Shorirama Senju. She was not so easily beaten.
She twisted her body to the side at the very last second, sustaining a scratch to her shoulders while her kunai went for her opponent's neck. The lasers that came from behind had just been seconds away from ending her when he was forced to abandon the technique to guide her thrusting blade out of the way of his carotid. From her position, she lacked the leverage for a subsequent fatal attack. So she completed her movement, hitting the ground with one hand while her feet came up. He blocked the first kick, feet dancing as he moved backwards. She flipped to standing upright and her kunai was nearly buried in his eye, only him managing to lean his head to the left at the last moment preventing the fight from coming to an end.
He jumped backwards, already able to tell that close combat was something she had him beat with, and she gave him a parting gift of a senbon buried in his thigh. He slapped his hands together again once he gained distance. She weaved seals of her own, slamming her hands into the ground.
The frost-covered earth rose with her will, an earth wall multiple inches thick. She'd copied the jutsu from Sensei himself. She left a clone behind as she submerged herself in the ground. She felt the storm release lasers tear past the wall like it was not even there before tearing through her shadow clone. He went still for a second as he tried to confirm his kill, and that was his mistake.
She shoved her right hand out of the ground, grabbing his leg and filling his body with earth release chakra before dragging him into the ground and rising in that second. He was buried up to his neck while she stood over him. "Double Suicide Decapitation," she said, smirking at the complete jutsu before she sensed something out of the corner of her eye.
It was only the sharingan that allowed her catch the slight fuzziness in the air before the kunai could remove her head from her shoulder. She dodged to the side, and then the body she had dragged into the earth dissolved into lightning that shot at her body, ignoring everything else.
She had two choices— block the shimmer in the air that marked the kunai about to slam into her chest and let the lightning hit, or vice versa. She chose the third option. She braced herself, this would hurt. She caught the blade in her bare palm, allowing it to stab straight through her palm before wrapping her fingers around his fingers. He was shocked, and that made the manoeuvre possible in the first place as she used chakra-enhanced strength to drag him forwards and in the way of his lightning technique.
It struck him but none of the pain she had expected came. Instead, she felt a jolt as pain coursed through her body and locked her muscles up. She dropped to a knee and the kunai left her palm with a squelch.
"Reinforcements. Thirty shinobi. Fifteen clicks," Kushina spoke out in the spoken language of the Uzumaki sealing script— their team's chosen code for situations like this.
Mikoto watched as her opponent brought his blade around again, aiming for her neck. She could scarcely move, muscles locked from the electricity that wreaked havoc through her body. She just barely managed to spit a fireball that forced some distance between her opponent and herself. He came back around a second later, not keen on giving her a second to recover, but then Minato was there. Their taijutsu exchange lasted less than two seconds and the Kumo nin was flying backwards. Minato appeared at her side a second later and grabbed on to her shoulder.
"Raikage, that's enough," Minato said from her side, forming a tiger seal. The Raikage's lightning cloak sputtered and died. Kushina slammed her foot into his chest, sending him backwards. Even without it, he was still an impressive specimen as he rolled along the ground for a few metres before pushing himself upwards.
"We're leaving. Follow us and your teammates explode," Minato said. Then she realised that the man Minato had been fighting lay bound on the ground with several seal tags on him. The one she had been fighting removed his meisaigakure jutsu to reveal several tags on him as well. He remained still, looking down at them in horror.
"Damn that," the Raikage said, taking a bold step forward before he looked down. His trademark lightning armour, for all his efforts, refused to activate. With her sharingan, she could see the way his chakra surged and shifted within him, spurred on by his rage.
But like waves against a stone cliff face, it roared and raged but could do nothing within the terms set by Minato's barrier. If there was one thing her teammate was the best in the world at, it was barriers. Even Sensei couldn't replicate his jutsu-denying barriers. Sensei hadn't tried all that hard, but there were few things Shorirama Senju could not figure out in a single try. It was just the truth of it.
"Come on," Minato said to them in the Uzumaki language.
"If you step more than a certain distance away from them, the seals will activate and they will die. I advise you wait for the team that approaches and hope they have a fuinjutsu master who can undo my work," he said, and then body flickered away while carrying her. Kushina followed in their wake.
Kushina who had just fought a Kage to a standstill. Minato had just defanged one and left him looking listless and lost. She'd lost to an A-ranked shinobi. He was crafty, yes. But that was no excuse.
"Chin up, Mikoto. I saw the fight. You had him beat in power and skill. He just happened to be a shade craftier," he whispered to her after running for a few minutes. He kept a gruelling pace even though he had to cope with her weight.
"And that would have been the difference between life and death today," she said, not consoled much by the platitude. She had lost, and that was fine.
Because she had lived. Not many shinobi could lose and still live. And living meant she could get better. Every day she could improve and when the time came again that she faced E, he would be the one left at her mercy.
"I'm good to run on my own now," she said, a few minutes later after cycling through her body. She could feel sensation returning to her limbs now.
Minato looked down at her.
"Sure. Let's just keep going for the next half hour to let you rest a bit more and then we can have you try your feet again," he said in that voice that brooked no disagreement and she flushed but remained silent.
"Are you going to detonate the seals?" Kushina asked from behind them.
Minato was silent for a few seconds before he finally replied.
"No. Our mission was the compass. Not the slaughter of Kumo shinobi. If they posed some threat to us, then I would not hesitate to put them in the ground, but doing so now would be needlessly cruel," he said.
"They are enemy shinobi," she spoke even as she wished that he did not kill them. Those wishes were wholly selfish though. She had thought herself invincible as far as trifling threats were concerned and that man had proven that not to be the case. She wanted her revenge, but she had the good sense to remember what their Sensei taught. The only good enemy shinobi is a dead enemy shinobi.
"And if the time comes that they raise arms against Konoha, I will carve open their throats myself," he said.
"And the shinobi who they kill before you get to them?" she pressed.
"Those deaths, I will carry on my conscience. But I will not bring myself to execute men who pose no threat right now," he said, and they continued the rest of the journey in silence.
XXXXXX— SHORIRAMA SENJU
The New Stone was an interesting endeavour in truth. So many had survived our carving apart of Iwa. Shinobi had fled in their hundreds once Kumo had breached the walls with their next generation carried away. By the time we had arrived, they were already gone. We fought the dregs.
We fought those who had already decided to give their lives to secure their next generation and it was impressive what their sacrifice had enabled. The rise of a hidden village operating in five distinct sects.
Each one like the head of a hydra. Cutting it off left the others alive and with more potential to grow. That they had the resources to manage it told me one thing. The Earth Daimyo was a lying bastard. Every bit of correspondence was shrouded in two different encryption layers, but Shika and her people were already on it. Not like I needed to see what their investigation yielded to see the truth though. The Daimyo had supported this.
There was no way they would have managed to fund something of this scale without him. I had Iwa's treasury in Konoha so there was no other place for them to get the funds. He might have used multiple intermediaries, but there was no doubt that he had done it and now he would suffer the effects.
I waited at his gates with a man held in my grip.
"Tell the Daimyo that the Hokage of Konohagakure is here to see him," I shouted up at the gate guards. They moved to get to work and then my grip on the man tightened before I body flickered into the Capital. They would be at peak alert now. The guards at the palace would be warned at their best. Just like I wanted them to be. I was here to send a message, and I would see it delivered.
The city was on high alert in a matter of minutes. I watched under a perfectly crafted meisaigakure no jutsu— my chakra control had been trained to the point where not a single drop left me radiating into the environment. The shimmer that should have marked the jutsu's use reduced to a mere wisp in the air. A heaviness that none without a doujutsu would ever manage to track.
I waited for it to be at the very best of its game and then I picked the man I held. I did not need to wrestle his body into submission. A kanashibari no jutsu bore that burden for me. Not like this man would move if he could either way. After watching me slaughter my way through his household he knew better than to test my patience. As far as he was concerned, that patience did not exist.
I led him through the shadows of the capital. Patrols were noted and bypassed. The byakugan was cheating in a situation like this as I ran circles around them, leaving hiraishin markers in a few choice locations before I made my way into the palace itself. The Earth Daimyo's palace was every bit as splendid as that of his Fire counterpart. It was multiple floors tall and towered over the Capital like a cliff face over the sea of buildings that laid in its shadow.
We passed through the gate with no problems, and then beheld the true wealth on display. Marble pillars that reached high up to the palace's roof. Doors of iron with gold veins running through them. The Land of Earth produced most of the world's gold, and its Daimyo controlled the supply, keeping the vast majority of it for his own use, making it a scarce and thus expensive commodity.
I ignored the door and went to the wall right next to it. The earth was my element, and as always, it listened when I spoke. The earth parted before me like the sea parted before Moses in a tale from my first life. I walked through and it sealed itself behind me. At the end of the entrance hall was another set of doors. These ones not just gilded with gold, but plated with the thing from top to bottom. I had chosen this time on purpose. The Earth Daimyo had been holding court and for all their alarm, I knew the man would be too stubborn to run from his own palace.
The Daimyo had a mistaken belief in the efficacy of their guards and countermeasures. One S-rank shinobi could bring a nation to its knees. What did they think their legions of Samurai were to power like that. I noted the contingent of Samurai at the door. Twelve of them in all. I stepped away from my hostage and dispelled my camouflage. They wasted no time in sounding the alarm and falling upon me with drawn swords.
And when they fell upon me, they never rose again. I had grown used to fighting shinobi, I realised. Day and night I sparred with clones of myself, with Uzume when she was available, with my team when I could get all three together, or with Uraume when the desire hit her. I fought masters of their craft. Compared to them, the Samurai were…wanting.
They wore thick plates of red armour that would have offered protection from blades like their own even as they attacked with swords sharpened to an unnatural edge by chakra trained and controlled until it was as much a weapon as the blade itself. Neither of those were a problem for me. Blades did not matter as they could not touch me. Perhaps there were simply too few of them. Maybe two dozen more would make me have to try.
As they were, the twelve of them did not have the attack vectors to force me to do more than weave through their attacks. And when I passed, they fell. Their armour was thick and strong, made to deter even the sharpest of blades. But the gentle fist did not care for it.
Not in the way I wielded it at least. I tapped men on the chest or on their helmets, or on their throats, and they fell dead. All fell dead before me because resistance in the end was futile. And when I had finished my bloody work— ironic because I had managed to complete the killing without spilling a single drop of blood.
These men for all intents and purposes could have been mistaken for simply being asleep. I kicked the door open, blowing the symbol of wealth off its hinges as I dragged my hostage forward. The Daimyo, covered in his regalia, was a spec to the ordinary eye from the distance between the door and the throne. A distance I closed slowly and surely. Whatever had been being said ended as I walked in. The man who had been speaking looked behind him, caught my visage. Dressed in the armour Hashirama himself had once worn— now I had grown to the point where I could wear it proudly— I stalked up to the throne.
A wolf walked into their henhouse, and there was naught they could do to stop me. But they would try. By the gods would they try. The first of the Earth Daimyo's guardians tried to wield the earth against me from underneath. I buried her in the element she thought her own and she died with nary a whimper. The ground did not even shake. The second jumped forwards, kunai hissing with lightning. I was faster by far, and by the time we had crossed attacks, he was the one falling dead. I walked on, dragging my hostage behind me.
The third began to weave seals and then the Daimyo finally was able to recognise just who I held.
"Hold," he called for his guards.
A/N: Concluding with Team Minato before jumping back for a Shori POV to put things to rest. How's it looking? Next four up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early. Discount on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) so do check that out.