Itsuki Kaguya, Land of Hot Water
Every battle had come to a screeching halt. Nobody moved, nobody dared to utter a word over the faint squelching noise of the Akimichi rolling away into the distance. Flowing behind his enlarged remains was a long, scarlet river that had carved its path across the battleground, soaking deep into the barren terrain and wafting its pungent, metallic scent into the air.
And right at the beginning of it all was a young boy, a young boy who was feeling pretty pleased with himself right about now.
Leisurely standing up at the centre of everybody's attention, I rolled my shoulders and felt the waves of the killing intent crashing against me from all sides increase in ferocity. It came especially strong from a certain blonde haired kunoichi over in Ryota's direction who seemingly couldn't hold her anger back as well as the others.
Ah, there's the Yamanaka.
The game had changed. The table flipped, stomped on and thrown out the window.
Where before the enemy nin viewed me as an impressive Genin, now they saw me for who I truly was.
And that was the boy who had been at the heart of so many problems for Konoha, the Kaguya who had supplied the entirety of Kumo's army with weaponry so Chakra conductive that they rivalled some of the best that money could buy. The one who had inspired Kiri to do the same, and the reason why so many more of their numbers had died during this war than in canon.
Whatever mission they were on this deep in our territory was inconsequential now; they had a task far more important before them, and no words needed to be spoken between them to understand what that was.
They had to kill me here and now to avenge their comrades and prevent the problems I was bound to cause them in the future, or at the very least escape with this new information. Every shinobi present knew it, and every shinobi present felt the tension that came with it. My potential was just too great. It didn't matter how many of them had to die to achieve it, failure was not an option they could afford.
But their numbers weren't looking too great anymore.
What was once nine had dwindled down to just four, and each of their gazes flicked between one another with a quiet understanding passing through before they turned back to me.
They didn't see me as a child anymore, they saw a monster who was a threat to their entire village.
To think I tried to get out of this mission!
"Who would've thought Kumo would let their Kaguya enter the war?" The Special Jonin I had been fighting snarled under his breath as we locked eyes, a careful rage held deep inside them while he watched me with far more caution than he had shown previously.
I shrugged at him, "not the Nara, that's for sure." By the minute twitch of his brows, I didn't think he had taken that answer too well.
"You better pray, boy. Pray to the Sage that you're fortunate enough to die here today." There was a certain intensity to his face, a look of such determination with the will of tens of thousands behind it that most others would describe it as unnerving. "Because I promise, if you don't, your life will be a living hell once I've dragged you back to Konoha."
"That's the spirit." I chuckled, tilting my head to the side to make room for the long, sharp bone that was slowly protruding from my shoulder. My eyes never left his while I reached up, pulling it free and pointing my new sword straight at him. "Come and drag me to hell!"
He must've been more excited than me because he was the first to resume the violence by flashing through some hand signs.
With months of practice behind me, I bent my Chakra to my whim in preparation for his attack and changed its neutral state into lightning, then sent a portion of it into the tips of my toes, giving them an ethereal blue hue as they glowed from inside of my sandals.
A concentrated, thin slash of wind blew out of the man's mouth that I narrowly avoided, twisting my body away. It split not just the ground between us but also far beyond, carving a line in the earth that reached past even the Genin.
'What Jutsu is that?' My slightly eyes widened at the sight. That was the issue when facing an unknown technique, you had no idea just how strong it would be. The best bet was usually to just avoid it entirely.
His follow up came immediately afterwards as he swished his head and sent two more slashes tearing through the air towards me. I leaned away to evade the first then put my ninja flexibility to use by bending my body far back to limbo underneath the second, imbuing Chakra to the soles of my sandals to hold me steady.
'My turn!' I used the brief opening break away towards him, each step crunching into the ground faster than before while my toes illuminated an electric blue from under my skin, watching the Wind Specialist reach into his pouch and launch projectiles at me.
Even with the minimal amount of lightning I could control in my feet, it still gave me a small boost in speed that was very much beyond what I was using previously.
Bobbing and weaving through the wind coated shurikens that whizzed by, I avoided all but one which I allowed close enough to slice through my cheek as it flew past. It left a deep gash right beside the wild smile still looming on my face.
I had already lowered my concentration over my Henge — not completely, just enough, enough to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his grimace as he watched the wound fade before his very eyes as fast as it came.
There was no need to hide it anymore, Konoha knew all about that little caveat of my bloodline, and now the man got to witness first-hand just what he had gotten himself into.
Bone against steel, a loud thud sounded out as our weapons collided. He tried to parry my first strike, an attempt to gain an early advantage to end things quickly, but I shut it down by springing out another bone from my palm and aiming low, changing the nature of my Chakra once again to harden it with Earth.
Abandoning his attack, he had no choice but to block the swing that targeted his legs, and was then forced to readjust himself as I got in close, minimizing the advantage he had with his longer reach. I threw out an elbow coated with the bones that had sprung forth from my forearm right at his midsection.
He managed to divert the attempt, barely, but I didn't let up and launched a sharp spinning heel kick towards his head, all the while poking out spikes from my shoulder blades and legs to close down any openings for him to exploit, causing him to lean away.
He stayed on the defensive, biding his time battering away my stabs and slashes before stepping back, then masterfully weaved his way through the tiny gaps in my guard to cut into me.
His blows were still heavy — the advantage he had in physical strength was no small thing — and his strikes were lethal.
…Lethal against anyone else that was.
I could see his mounting frustration at the sight of his cuts, which should have torn through my organs and finished me off, being rendered shallow instead. My ever-repairing, hardened bone armour was working overtime to weather his assault and mitigated the damage to merely being skin deep.
It was a completely different fight now. He may have been stronger than me, faster than me, and a much better swordsman too, but my glorious bloodline had evened out that edge.
Seeing through my next move, he diverted a thrust I sent towards his chest and pushed my ivory-blade to the side, a wave of wind was sent coursing through his weapon as he did so. The experienced nin used some kind of technique to increase the length of his sword with wind and did so fast — too fast for me to dodge or stop it from piercing into my throat.
Pain exploded throughout my neck at the impact; the translucent, elemental extension had ravaged its way through cartilage and tissue, only stopping after thumping against my spine.
My neck was one of the few weak points in my armour, a chink in my defense which he had taken full advantage of.
But it was a mutual exchange, and I made sure to take my pound of flesh by focusing Chakra into my own blade. Several smaller bones grew and raced out from its side towards the Special Jonin, aiming to do as much damage as I could before he pulled away.
And with his arm being so close, he didn't have enough time to move without taking a few punctures across his forearm. His teeth gnashed together as one nearly managed to tear all the way through to the other side.
I had faced shinobi like him for years in Kumo; I knew how I needed to play this. It was a battle of endurance, and he had just made the mistake of putting me ahead.
The sharpened Chakra blade in my neck fizzled out from existence and I gave the man a crazed, bloody grin. "That looks like it hurts," I choked out, my assault becoming more aggressive while my body swiftly stitched itself back together at the cost of some of my Chakra pool.
He ignored me, electing to spend his entire concentration on defending against my attacks.
My injury had already sealed shut, fully repaired as I freely hacked away at full strength whilst red droplets fell to the floor from my opponents appendage. He could still fend off my assault, but his movements were becoming a little slower now, a little more stiff, a little more predictable.
And that gave me ample time to duck under the blow that aimed to see me decapitated. Then, with my best impression of a Hedgehog, I hunched further down and pushed out large spikes all around my back, making him immediately abandon his attack to jump away.
But the panic was clear on his face the moment he realised I was holding up the Ram seal.
Activating the Body Flicker, I shot forwards, giving him less than a fraction of a second at our close proximity to react, but react he did, just about managing to maneuver his body in time by raising his arms and legs high enough to avoid becoming Shish-kebabed.
As impressive as his reactions were, they weren't enough for him to leave unscathed. I felt the highest of my bones rake across his lower body as I sped past underneath him, leaving deep gashes shredding down his form while he hissed out.
I quickly ended the Jutsu just metres after its activation and wasted no time spinning around, stretching out my arms with two fingers moving to take aim at the still falling man during a tense split-second where his eyes widened, knowing full well what was about to happen to him next — he was staring down the barrels of my finger guns.
"RATATATATA!" I giddily shouted over the crackling screeches firing out from my fingertips, retracting the bones into my back while I straightened up and mounted on the pressure. An unrelenting stream of rapid-fire Bone Bullets filled to the brim Lightning ripped through the air at him as he flipped across the battlefield to avoid the mini projectiles.
His uniform was in tatters as he tried to escape, dodging most, but at the speed they were moving he wasn't able to dodge them all, a couple had pelted their way straight through his leg.
"Urgh," he cringed at the injury for a moment before hardening his expression, eventually finding enough space to righten his body and jump back while weaving through hand seals.
A wall of wind whirled into existence before him, stopping my Lightning infused attacks dead in their tracks with its elemental advantage to give the Leaf nin some reprieve from the child that was beating his ass.
"Behind you, Itsuki!"
Just as I was about to drop my hands and get in close, a shout from Ryota saved me from the incoming senbons thrown by a furious looking Yamanaka running towards me, determined to see me become a pincushion.
I jerked my head to the side and shouted at her, "haven't you learned anything today? Rushing in like that can get you killed!" My kind advice only seemed to anger her further as I pointed a finger her way and fired. "Bang!"
The Special Jonin hadn't been idle and finished up making some hand seals, taking a deep breath in and saving the Yamanaka from the ass kicking she was about to receive as I chose to retreat. Making a couple signs of my own, I sank underground before a violent torrent of wind tore at the earth above.
'Okay, I'm working on a little under half my reserves right now,' I thought as I burrowed through the dirt, sensing everyone above me on the surface as per the Hiding Like a Mole Jutsu. 'This is probably the last of them, but I can't rule out surprise attacks from any nin that have been hiding this whole time.'
'Probably four, maybe more,' I nodded to myself, creating an Earth Clone with minimal reserves.
If I had to fight the Chunin the Genin were battling after this, it shouldn't be much of a problem. But the same can't be said for the Uchiha however if Ryota happened to die. If I had to kill him… any chance I'd have of finishing him off would hinge on me having enough reserves left in the tank to do so.
…and a lot of luck, if I'm being honest.
I had to beat these two without allowing myself to get dragged into too much of a Jutsu battle, too many what if's were at play that I had to be prepared for just in case-
'Alright, what the hell am I sensing right now?' The activity between the Special Jonin and Yamanaka wasn't making much sense to me as I finally reached my position, 'am I missing something here? Because no way are they doing what I think they're doing.'
I abandoned my original intentions of springing up from under the Yamanaka's feet to instead reemerge a short distance away from the duo to get a better read on the situation. Rising into the air as I breached the surface, my eyes widened at the sight of the Yamanaka Kunoichi launching explosive tags at the Special Jonin.
'They are! What the hell is this!?' I gawked. They were really going at it, but on closer inspection, I could faintly make out what looked like Ryota's toothpick sticking out from the blonde's neck.
I briefly caught the eyes of our team's Jonin Captain for a moment while he struggled with the Uchiha, giving me a quick, brief nod before turning away to resume his fight.
Did he just…? Holy shit, he did!
…
With Ryota
The others hadn't been idle since Itsuki began fighting.
After carefully watching his battle for a few moments, Ryota was the one to respark the conflict for the rest with a raise of two fingers, activating a Body Flicker to quickly blitz through the woman who had been badgering him with senbons. Because, from her seething expression, it wasn't hard to guess where she planned to head next.
But the Uchiha saw through his intentions immediately with the first twitch of his hand and rushed back with a Body Flicker of his own. The superior perception granted to him by the Sharingan allowed him to easily intercept the strike that would have skewered the girl's brain.
Only then did the Kunoichi realise just how close she had come to death, flinching away and stepping back with shock written on her features.
"I've got him. Go!" The Uchiha, Jomei whom Ryota had long since recognised from his Bingo Book entry, called out to the Chunin without taking his Dojutsu off of Ryota.
She nodded, with fury returned to her face, and rushed over to the kid.
'Damn,' Ryota cursed. "Behind you, Itsuki!"
Jomei had lost his previous smirk. His confidence now fractured as he parried and blocked Ryota's sword, all the while watching on, unable to stop the hand seals the Phantom Blade was making with his free hand. His confusion was evident, he was clearly expecting a Genjutsu to attack him but saw all of the Chakra being concentrated into the toothpick in Ryota's mouth instead.
Then in the distance, when the Yamanaka began launching her needles at Itsuki, Ryota found his opening.
The Jutsu had already been completed, so he made space by forcing Jomei to intercept a wide strike to his side, giving Ryota room to turn his head and spit the toothpick towards the blonde Kunoichi. A final sign activated the meticulously crafted tiny seals that covered the seemingly harmless object as it sailed through the air.
It was timed perfectly, sinking directly into the side of her neck just as Itsuki fired off a Bone Bullet at the girl which she managed to avoid in reality, but in the illusion she now found herself in, the bullet had just scraped past. And that pain would hide the impact of what truly occurred.
The Uchiha's call for warning wasn't heard fast enough to save her.
He'd paid old man Saturo top Ryo to make that sealing array at his fuinjutsu store; it was one of his niftiest and strongest hidden moves, a repurpose of a formula plundered from the ruins of Uzushio.
Its function was simple: to store Chakra that he filled it with and upon activation, it would slowly release that Chakra back out onto the toothpick, a toothpick made from the kid's Kekkei Genkai.
Whatever Genjutsu cast on the tiny bone would be reinforced and cast over and over again, trapping whoever was injected in far too many layers to count with the bit of Chakra he had saved up in there.
It was a nasty thing to get caught in. If you didn't catch on immediately in the earliest layers, it was a monumental task for anyone to escape without destroying that seal and being saved by someone else.
And with her current bloodlust, it was a simple thing for him to guide that anger towards believing that the Special Jonin was Itsuki and vice versa.
In other words, unless the boy fucked up somehow:
"She's dead." He simply informed the Konoha nin as he pushed onto the offensive to try to wrap up this mess.
"Tch," Jomei held back his anger well, but Ryota could see through the veil. He had lost far more than he would have ever imagined in this little ambush.
Itsuki's surprise was on clear display when he looked upon his handiwork. Their eyes briefly met and Ryota gave him a sharp nod.
'Go get 'em, kid.'
…
With Itsuki
'You got it, Captain.' I grinned, looking at the effects of an illusion that was probably far more complicated than I could properly appreciate with my lack of knowledge, because this looked like some Shisui level nonsense.
'Maybe I should make some time to pick up Genjutsu one of these days.' It would probably take a long time to reach his level though.
Before the Wind Specialist could close in to break the illusion on his teammate, he had to swerve back to avoid the Bone Bullets I sent hurtling his way before Body Flickered towards the pair in time to defend my new ally.
"Let's get this Kumo dog!" I shouted at the Yamanaka, bone swords raised in the air as I lunged at the man, laughing at his expression all the while as he now found himself on the receiving end of the jumping.
"Bastard!" He had a slight limp to his step now which slowed him down, courtesy of the holes I left in his left thigh earlier, and that was a weakness I ruthlessly exploited by targeting his right side to pressure him onto his left foot.
I sliced at his midsection with one arm and swiped lower with the other. He expertly managed to block by angling his blade downwards, extending its length with Wind Chakra once again to stop the second and stab into my foot before I could protect it with the Earth element.
He had no room for a follow up attack however as he was forced to guide his body away from the senbons that sailed millimetres away from his shoulder, but becoming distracted was a deadly game when faced with a Dead Bone Pulse user as one of my ribs tore through my skin and lashed out towards his stomach.
And at the same time, with my foot already healed, I lifted a few of my fingers up to fire bullets at near point-blank range towards his chest. With the little time he had to dodge, he knew it would only be a matter of minimizing the damage, not escaping it.
I heard his wince as three of the bullets struck, barely missing his heart while a little further below, a large, dense rib narrowly sunk into his gut before being dislodged out by him moving back quicker than my bone could extend to chase him.
He wasn't given a moment's rest as the Yamanaka and launched more and more needles at him, clearly unsatisfied with the current living status of the Wind-user.
"Ha! We make a good team!" I praised the Kunoichi's hard work.
"Inoyuri! Snap out of it! You're under The Phantom Blade's Genjutsu!" Distress seeped into the Wind-specialist's voice as he called out to her. He was sweating, barely managing to avoid being impaled by the Kunoichi's attacks, attacks I noticed he seemed far more desperate to evade than my own. "He's the Kaguya, not me!"
Whatever this Genjutsu was, it must've been a strong one because she didn't seem to be listening to a damn word he was saying, the anger still burned bright in her eyes as she threw her needles.
"A devious trick, Kaguya!" I fought at his defenses, cutting off every attempt he made to get past me and break the illusion, "you might be smart, smarter than anyone I've ever met, but there's no fooling Inoyuri here!"
He was getting overwhelmed slowly but surely; all the damage inflicted upon him was taking its toll and wearing him down, while everything he dished out at me was regenerated, keeping me fighting in pristine condition.
And all the while as he dealt with me, he also had to watch out for the bloodlusted Yamanaka a short distance away as she launched senbon after senbon at his blind spots in an attempt to avenge her fallen comrades.
But his skill saved him from the onslaught eventually as I fell for his feint, allowing him to stab into my leg with his Wind Blade and jump back, flashing through hand signs as he did so.
I turned and flickered over to the Yamanaka, taking cover behind her to once again avoid being sliced in half by the same Wind technique he used earlier, which I had mentally taken to call the 'Wind Splitter Jutsu'. The concentrated attack stopped short just before it reached us.
Kakashi would've liked the guy, he hadn't abandoned his comrade.
Good to know.
He was in a dangerous predicament now. Ideally in this fight, he would wear me down with long range ninjutsu and lessen my reserves to regenerate. But he couldn't do that here, it would run the risk of me just fleeing from the scene and escaping all together.
There was little choice but for him to chase me and close the gap, but he was all too aware now of just how dangerous it was to get in close against the Kaguya Clan's Kekkei Genkai, especially with the damage he had already sustained and his apparent reluctance to risk the Yamanaka's life.
So the question was: what would he do now?
"Phew. That was a close one, Inoyuri!" I casually chatted while quickly making an Earth Clone, the Yamanaka didn't seem too keen on making small talk however, keeping her silence while running away to find a better angle on him.
My clone and I trailed right behind, keeping her between us and the Special Jonin, while a pair of blurs flickered towards us.
'He's made a clone of his own,' I observed.
I hadn't wasted any time and neither did my clone as he broke into a chain of seals while I slammed a hand onto my sleeve - the only part I made sure to not become tatters with my bones sticking out - and pushed Chakra into the storage seal on my haori.
Through the puffy smoke, a dense, heavy, white slab of bone as big as my torso appeared in my hands, a shield that was only really usable by myself since it had no handle. I tossed it to my Earth Clone and began a seal sequence just as the wind-user came into view beside his copy, one unleashing a barrage of Wind coated shuriken on his arrival and the other using the Shadow Shuriken Jutsu.
My clone caught the shield not with his hands, but with the spikes that had grown out from his ribcage and fused with the slab on contact, securely attaching it to his skeleton.
I saw the trajectory of the mass of ninja tools and knew from the Kunoichi's very Chunin level of speed what was about to happen. So I made a judgement call and hoped my clone would know what to do.
Jumping onto her shoulders, I launched myself past her and into the air, noticing that many of the shuriken began to change course, some redirecting themselves up at me with what must've been some kind of projectile controlling Wind Jutsu, and others swerving around to hit my clone from different angles.
But it didn't matter, I had already completed my hand seals.
'Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!' I fired. Waves of lightning stormed down on the earth at the Special Jonin and his doppelganger, popping many in the hail of shuriken as it slammed down.
But a few of the earliest thrown had already passed the area before I had fired, one cleanly passed through the toothpick in the Yamanaka's neck and another grazed the side of her arm.
"What…?" She murmured, sparks beginning to crash nearby as the slight injury had been enough to break her free from the illusion. She stood confused for a moment, a hand to her head while she tried to get her bearings of what was happening while I watched one of the men create a large dome of wind to protect both himself and the other controlling the shuriken.
'Wrong move.'
The mass of shurikens was feeble in comparison to my jutsu, most were destroyed, but some managed to slip through and thumped into the shield of my Earth Clone after snaking their way towards him, unable to penetrate through its thick layers after being reinforced with Earth Chakra, while the rest flew up towards me.
As gravity began to pull me down, I flipped around and took aim at the Kunoichi while upside down. Her eyes widened in panic as she had finally looked up after coming out of her daze, but it was too late. The bullet leaving my finger spelt her end, ripping straight through her forehead and killing the last of the Clan trio instantly.
My clone didn't even turn to look at her body slumping beside him, his focus was entirely on the bigger threat as finally completed his seals and slammed his hands to the floor. 'Earth Release: Quicksand Dune!'
Immediately, the ground in the area began to soften and shift. The corpse of the Yamanaka started sinking into the earth, just like the feet of the struggling Special Jonin were. The Jutsu was cast right after mine ended, timed perfectly with the Wind Dome ending up as the man's own downfall as it prevented him from jumping away during the split-second it took to deactivate.
The bones in my forearm grew and intertwined, bursting out of my skin and spiralling together to rapidly create a massive bone drill thrice the size of my body. I infused it with Earthen Chakra as I fell, increasing its already heavy weight to boost my speed further, and stabbed down at the one who made the dome.
We both knew that he wouldn't have the time to escape the Jutsu or cast one of his own before he got skewered.
But being on the outside rather than the epicentre, the man controlling the shurikens stopped the Jutsu immediately and despite the delay, despite the injuries he had sustained, he showed that he deserved his rank by jumping into the air with the brief instant he had to escape before being sucked into the floor. He believed himself to be safe.
But then he looked down to see an identical drill breaching through the ground and heading right towards him.
It was the same clone I made earlier in the fight and had stay hidden underground, his approach had been completely concealed by the softening of the Quicksand Jutsu.
The giant bone tore through the airborne nin while I shredded the one stuck in the ground, blood spraying down from the air above while a pop of smoke rose from below. The force of my attack pushed into the dirt as my clone rose up from below the surface beside me, both of us grinning and shooting a thumbs up at the other with our free hands as we passed.
My momentum finally came to a stop when my shoulder neared the ground. The colossal bone weapon over 12 feet in length had driven deep into the earth, and I looked towards my clone, seeing him standing with a proud expression on his face and a hand in the air. Attached to him was an equally large drill, and high up at its peak laid the limp and lifeless body of the Tokubetsu Jonin.
Gotta love clones man.
…
Ami, Land of Hotsprings
Ami gritted her teeth at the fleeing woman, exhaustion and frustration warred inside of her as she began to give chase.
"Let her go, Ami."
But was stopped by the sound of Yuto's voice.
"She's gonna get away!" She protested, adrenaline and anger coursing through her at the day's events and the woman's cowardice. She knew she wouldn't stand a chance against the Leaf Kunoichi alone; she needed her team to join her. They had to at least try! "We have to stop her, she knows all about Mr Itsuki! C'mon we have to hurry!"
"How? We couldn't catch up to her even if we weren't worn out. We've got no chance now, she's already got too big of a lead on us," he panted, a tired hand wiping at his forehead to stop the sheen of sweat from dripping into his eyes.
Yuto's eyes drifted over to the side, where Komoi laid on the ground. Ragged coughs wheezed out as he clutched at an Earth Spear embedded in his stomach, "it's a miracle that we even survived this, let's not push our luck any further." Yuto breathed out an unsatisfied sigh and he walked over to Komoi, still alert as he stood guard over him.
The feeling of helplessness that bubbled up within did nothing to disprove what he said. He was right, they had managed to hold her off. They had managed to survive this. It was a battle nobody would expect a trio of Genin to succeed in.
But why did it still feel like they failed?
Frustration began to win out as tears pricked at her eyes, barely feeling the pain of the gash that ran across her face from brow to cheek. She rushed over to Komoi's body and knelt over him, resisting the urge to give him a hug for fear his injuries would get any worse.
But she wouldn't allow herself to cry. Not now. There was no time for it.
"I'm so sorry, Komo. This is all my fault," she choked out.
And it was. That Earth Spear had been heading for her; Komoi was the only reason she was still alive.
"Ah, it's all good," he looked up at her. "I eat Earth Spears for lunch… Get it? Because it's lunchtime, and this might've gone through my stomach. Hehehe- uhugh!" he broke out into a bout of coughs at his terrible joke, the blood rasping out a sign of his internal bleeding.
Yuto kept an ear out to their conversation, but most of his focus was spent trying to track the fights far above his pay grade.
"Okay, I say we stay put. No way should we be getting involved in any of that, we'll end up holding sensei and Itsuki back." He squinted, "I think they're winning too, but I honestly can't even tell."
She had never felt so useless. Mr Itsuki was the only one on the team capable of healing Komoi. But she was too weak to even support him, one of the most important people in the whole of Kumo.
All she could do was wait around like a bystander and pray he made it through.
A hand fell on her head before she could spiral further, Yuto's kind smile looked back at her. "Seriously Ami, don't beat yourself up about this. We did good today. You did good. Me and Komoi would both be dead if you weren't here. We were just unlucky this even happened."
"For real," Komoi grumbled. "You were kicking ass Ami."
"Please don't talk, Komo. You'll make it worse," she weakly lectured him about his injury, but couldn't stop the blooming smile from creeping on her face. "Thanks guys," Ami said a bit quieter.
Just as she said that, a pair of giant, white spiralling structures that took the form of drills appeared on the battlefield. One splintered into the ground as it slammed down, forming a crater at its destructive impact, whilst the other stretched towards the sky in an opposite motion.
And at the tip of the rising bone drill, Ami could just about make out the writhing form of the dying Special Jonin, struggling to get free in his last moments.
His movements came to an end however when a much smaller and thinner bone slipped out through his skull before retracting as quick as it appeared. His head became a fountain for the red stream gushing out from top of his scalp while the rest streamed out from his gut down the sides of the massive structure.
As glad as she was, Ami couldn't help but feel a bit queasy at the sight.
"...Aright, I'm a bit more sure now. I think Itsuki won," Yuto held an expression of grimace but the relief was palpable in his tone.
"He did?" Komoi slowly swivelled his head around, "oh shit! He did! Hahaha-uhugh!" Ami shot him a warning look as he broke out into another fit of coughs.
Their joy was quickly dashed however when a blinding flash of light filled the air. A titanic ball of fire rocked the entire battlefield as an explosion far bigger than any Ami had ever seen erupted from where Ryota-sensei was fighting.
'Sensei!?'
Two copies of Mr Itsuki appeared before them and one quickly asked, "where's the Chunin?" His eyes darted between all of them while lingering slightly longer on Komoi.
"Ran away a couple minutes ago," Yuto rapidly answered, though his eyes remained on the smokey remains of the fire far away from them.
"That way," Ami's voice was empty as she pointed behind herself, her gaze staying ahead much like her teammate.
The clone took off in a blur without saying another word and the other knelt beside Komoi, holding a glowing hand to his body.
"Is Sensei…?" She shakily asked, not willing to voice out the rest of the question.
"Not sure, my main body's checking it out," the clone's hands dimmed as he yanked out the spear. Komoi let out a sharp hiss before breathing out in relief at the return medic's healing glow. "If worse comes to worst, we might have to bail. I'm not sure I have the Chakra to take that Uchiha."
The smoke slowly cleared, and from where Ami stood, she couldn't see much. But she knew it would be enough to haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.
A vast crater devastated the ground beneath the thick, ashy plume as it blew away. Chunks, mush and pieces from what, who, she didn't want to think about, spilled out over its sides. And crouching down over its edge was Mr Itsuki, turning back and shaking his head at them.
…
Orochimaru of the Sannin, Jonin of Konoha, Hidden Steam Village
The Sannin heard the faint horde of footsteps long before they arrived on his training ground. His Genin were none the wiser, blissfully continuing in their struggle to defeat Orada, a large serpent he had summoned from the Ryuchi cave.
He turned to face the entrance where the disruption was entering from, the heavy, rushed steps finally gaining his students attention.
"Woah, are you okay lady!?" Nawaki shouted, worry trailed through his tone as he rushed over to provide his aid.
A woman, Rina, whom Orochimaru recognised from Jomei's infiltration squad, came panting onto the field looking as though she would collapse any second.
Several concerned medics had come trailing behind her, likely believing the same at their urging for her to slow down. But they went no further than the outskirts of the training ground, lingering by its entrance as they waited for his orders.
Orada had stopped his assault at the interruption, eyeing the Kunoichi for a moment before spitting out a disgusted Hitoshi Hyuga from his mouth, splattering the boy onto the ground.
"Ugh," the team's Taijutsu expert moaned, drenched and perhaps slightly traumatised if his silent shiver was any indication. He began to noisily voice his complaints about the large summons hygiene, lucky that Orada was one of the more level-headed members of his species, else he may have found himself returned into the titans' mouth without being allowed to escape.
Orochimaru paid him no mind and kept his focus on the haggard Kunoichi before him, now supported by Nawaki as she sluggishly stepped forwards with a mangled arm hanging limp at her side, the other rested over the shoulders of the young Senju.
'Discolouration of her skin, dilated pupils, a fluctuating and dim Chakra signature.' The girl was clearly on the verge of Chakra exhaustion, and given her hastiness and injuries, it was likely the after effects of consuming a Soldier Pill.
A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, and none were good.
She came to a stop in front of him and her legs finally gave out, but she was saved from collapsing into a heap by Nawaki who clutched tight and steadily lowered her to the ground. Orochimaru held his questions for a moment while she caught her breath.
And he had questions. The one prominent being: where the hell are the rest of her team?
"...Kaguya," she whispered through deep, ragged breaths.
"Kaguya?" His eyebrows raised, "you faced Kiri forces whilst on your mission?" That was a concern for many reasons.
"No…not Kiri," her eyes were beginning to lose focus. "Kumo…the Kaguya…the boy…he killed Choko and Shikato…then chased me down."
His eyes had widened in shock at her words. Quickly squatting down, the Sannin lifted her face and hurried to ask her for confirmation before she passed out, "you saw him? You're sure? You witnessed his Dead Bone Pulse?"
A faint nod in his hands was the only response he received before she drifted off into slumber.
Orochimaru stared at the Kunoichi for a brief moment longer, completely caught off-guard by the news, before snapping his eyes over to the Medic nin and signalling them forward, while carefully releasing her unconscious form.
This was it. They had finally found him.
Seemingly through sheer chance, Rina and her team had stumbled upon the bloodline user Konoha had been searching for for so long, and that chance seemed to have gotten them all killed.
Almost all of the spies Konoha had planted inside of the other Great Five Nations had been captured and culled; restrictions and scrutiny of all citizens became far more severe by all during wartime. Especially in the Cloud, the already tightly guarded mountainous village had managed to weed out each and every one of their agents weeks prior to the war even officially beginning.
But few had managed to go undetected by their enemies, and from those in the Water Country, rumours had circulated back to the Leaf's ears in the early stages of the war. Seven years ago, they were told the story of a Kaguya mother fleeing the Hidden Mist with her newborn child after a violent dispute with her Clan Head.
She had been hunted down and killed by her clansmen, but the only body that was returned to Kiri was her own. The babe had never been found.
The conclusion of where he ended up became obvious just a few years ago when Kumo had decided to unveil their new weaponry, but now they had direct confirmation of it. How fortunate they must have felt when he awakened his bloodline so soon after another user, it was an improbability that went against the recorded history of the Kaguya's inheritance cycle.
Why the Mist had refused in joining them to destroy the Cloud still baffled him, but common sense shouldn't be expected from a maniac like the Mizukage.
"Orada," a cruel, vicious grin had found its way onto the Sannin's lips as he addressed his summon. "That will be all. I thank you for your assistance."
The summon hissed and nodded, vanishing in a puff of smoke as he spoke to his students. "Training will need to be cut short today I'm afraid. We'll reconvene in a couple of days at our normal time; you all know what you must work on until then."
The Genin's mouths were still open in shock, the gravity of what they had just heard was not lost on the children, but they accepted the dismissal without a word, understanding how busy their sensei would be.
Out of weariness of Konoha's mind readers, enemy villages fit their ninja with suicide pills as a last resort to help prevent alive captures. The Yamanaka's had a much harder time sifting through the brains of those already deceased, anything other than surface thoughts are often impossible to gather.
But of the handful of Cloud ninja they had been able to take alive, they had gotten a name.
Itsuki Kaguya.
A prodigious, hardworking child who exceeded all in his class within Kumo's academy and was provided with the best training that his village had to offer. But beyond that, they knew nothing about the boy.
None of the prisoners had ever actually seen him before, they had only heard rumours from others of the Cloud.
But now they knew that Kumo had brought him out to the war. And now with Rina, they shall have so much more.
The Sannin flicked his eyes back to the Kunoichi, who was drifting in and out of consciousness while being lifted onto a stretcher by several Medics. "Prepare one of the private rooms under the Yugakage's residence," he ordered one of his guards before they flickered away to secure space in the most secure rooms in the Hidden Steam, he would take no chances.
He would have a Yamanaka scour through her memories; it was of the utmost importance that Orochimaru heard a full retelling of the encounter.
And now that they had his appearance, not a single Shinobi in the world would fail to recognise the boy. Every ninja under his command would know the priority it was to dispose of him.
The fact Kumo felt bold enough to send out their prized weapon into battle at only seven years of age meant he would likely not be an easy foe for many to defeat. Any attempt to kidnap him would mean more room for failure. More opportunity for escape.
They could not allow yet another fully realised Dead Bone Pulse user to combat the Leaf, nor could they let Kumo host such a powerful new Clan.
A more lethal approach would be the logical choice. A shame, he would've liked the chance to study such a unique Chakra mutation. Perhaps an opportunity for capture would present itself.
"Sensei will need to hear of this…" he muttered to himself, plans within plans forming and being discarded just as quickly within his mind as he went through every possible angle of how to deal with this with the limited knowledge he had, and who he should send to revisit the site of the battle to investigate further. "His face will need to be added to the Bingo Books."
"Hen…" Rina mumbled something barely intelligible as she struggled to claw her way back to consciousness.
"Yes, Rina?" he asked, holding up a hand to the healers to halt and leaning close.
"He had on…a Henge," She mumbled out, finally succumbing to her body's needs and passing out.
'...he was using a Henge…'
Orochimaru gave a deep sigh.
AN: I have returned! …again.
Life got very busy. I would say I'll be back writing at a faster pace (and I do plan to be, I've already written out some of the next chapter), but I don't wanna end up not sticking to what I said like in the last chapter.
Side note: someone pointed out in the last chapter that elemental clones should only be able to use jutsu from the element they're made of. And while it's not directly stated if they can or can't, I like the limitation and it does make sense. So I went back and edited out the clone using lightning bullets and replaced it with earth ones.