***Author's Note: Apologies for the delay… My hand's all good for the most part now. Back on normal schedule again.***
~Soutarou POV, scene continues~
Soutarou glanced back as he continued to jump around with Naori now on his back…
With Tetsuro on their coattails, rapidly firing 'Earth Style: Earth Flow Spears' somehow. Soutarou's expression turned darker and darker as their escape routes started getting cut off.
Just as Soutarou started losing hope, a flash of inspiration flared through his mind.
'Wait a second… We're still within Konoha… No matter if the barrier is hiding us…'
Soutarou fumbled his hand through his ninja pouch and sure enough there it was…
A single signal flare, an emergency flare, just like the one from the Konoha attack.
'I had forgotten about this… They gave me this after the last incident, as a sign of trust… Using this is going to throw the entire village in panic… But screw it!'
Soutarou created a shadow clone with the scraps of chakra that had regenerated after using the Water Style: Colliding Wave.
The shadow clone took the flare and flared its chakra into its feet and shot into the sky like a bullet before feeling a slight wall and smashing with all of its chakra in a firework like explosion causing a cracking sound to resound and for Soutarou, who was jumping around and flickering from tree to tree, to in response fire off the signal flare.
A fizzing hiss rang was heard, before a concessive *THOOM* of the flare shooting through crack of the barrier rang out, and then the *BOOM.* The flare went off only to be immediately met with the war cries of hawks across the entire village…
At the same time the frequency of Tetsuro's attacks had suddenly decreased and Soutarou made a realization…
'This bastard! He was using the barrier's chakra! No wonder he could fire off so many jutsu back to back! It's over now!'
Drilling under the ground and shooting out towards Soutarou like a bullet, Tetsuro bullet rushed towards Soutarou.
Tetsuro's eyes were bloodshot and he screamed, "YOU AREN'T LEAVING HERE ALIVE! DAMN BRAT I'LL KILL YOU!"
Soutarou's eyes flickered before the sluggish Naori's hand which had been holding on to Soutarou's neck shot into her ninja pouch and then out with vigor. The Naori sent kunai flying while Soutarou immediately backpedaled.
Tetsuro's eyes didn't even flicker at the fact that Naori could still move around or her kunai skills at all. In fact Tetsuro ignored the flying kunai and bombrushed towards Soutarou and Naori like a raging bull. To which Soutarou had no choice, but to shrug his shoulders to tell Naori to get off.
Naori got off and leaned against a tree, while Soutarou met Tetsuro in a head on clash fist for fist, kick for kick.
Soutarou relying on his smaller build weaved through Tetsuro's less nimble strikes and continued to batter the man as his senses confirmed that Kakashi and Tekuno had finally gotten back up and were now rushing towards Soutarou's location along with a dozen other Jonin level chakra signatures.
Tetsuro's expression turned more and more grim before he flickered back and kicked up a cloud of smoke obscuring the field. Soutarou stared at him with a smile and said, "What was it you said…. 'No reinforcements?' Did you forget where we are? This is the strongest shinobi village in the entire world. Unlike you chums in Iwa we might not have tens of thousands of fodder shinobi… But we sure as hell have quality. Just like you tried to kill me, one of the greatest quality shinobi of this generation. Don't worry, I'll make sure to raze your village in the future and let them know it was all the 'Great Tetsuro's' will."
Tetsuro's gaze turned grimmer and darker by the second, before a rock clone appeared behind him and shot off. He glanced at Soutarou and closed his eyes before opening them with a determined expression and Soutarou immediately felt a chill down his spine. Seeing the intensity Tetsuro stared at him with.
Causing Soutarou to mutter, "Hey man… I only swing one way… I'm also six stop staring at me like that T. fucking Diddy!"
Tetsuro's expression blackened, despite not knowing what T Diddy was, he just threw himself at Soutarou before throwing his ionic red Iwa Jonin vest off revealing a chest tagged with dozens after dozens of explosive tags and Tetsuro peacefully smiled, "You're right… I'm dying here… BUT WE'RE GOING TO HELL TOGETHER BRAT! FOR LORD TSUCHIKAGE! FOR THE WILL OF STONE!"
Soutarou's heart dropped and just as Kakashi and the other came into range they saw the scene of Tetsuro's attempted suicide bombing.
Just as Tetsuro was about to reach Soutarou and the sizzling of the explosive tags on his body became louder and louder. Soutarou's frightened and horrified expression along with Naori's suddenly turned into smiles.
Both 'Naori' and 'Soutarou' rushed into Tetsuro and exploded sending the explosive tags into a cascade of explosions, sending leaves, dust, and dirt flying.
Finally revealing charred and blackened Tetsuro, who was still somehow on his knees. Before Soutarou and Naori on his back flipped down from the underside of a tree.
'That guy was sensing us through vibrations on the topsides of trees… But the bottom sides have weight that can be mistaken as branches! Especially when I just stuck my body to the underside of a tree and hid! All while Naori created shadow clones and lucky me she had her sharingan active earlier and copied that shadow clone explosion jutsu….!'
Soutarou landed and Naori on his back was heaving heavily and clutching him tight, making Soutarou's face harden for a second as he thought, 'WHY ARE YOU MAKING THAT FACE AND HOLDING ME TIGHTER?!?!?'
Soutarou looked back in disgust for a moment, before shaking his head and then turning to see Kakashi, Tekuno, and a dozen Jonin led by a red eyed man, who Soutarou immediately identified as Shinku Yuhi.
Soutarou glanced over and deadpanned before annoyedly saying, "You damn bastards sure took your sweet time! Any longer and I would have been a burnt toaster strudel like that damn Iwa rock humper over there!"
Soutarou shot Kakashi and Tekuno a nasty look before letting Naori down and slowly limping over to barely alive Tetsuro and taking a kunai out without saying anything else and jamming it into Tetsuro's skull, straight through his pterion (anatomical weakest point of the skull) right at the junction of his temporal, sphenoid, parietal, and frontal cranium bones.
Soutarou grimaced and flinched hard, physically cringing as brain matter landed on his clothes, and his hand, sleeves and cheek got splattered with blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Just as he was about to pull away the smell of a burnt corpse hit him. His grip tightened instinctively, breath hitching in his throat as the metallic scent of blood hit him. For a split second, he couldn't move… He couldn't think… He just stood there, hand trembling, acutely aware of the sticky heat soaking into the fabric of his clothes.
He swallowed, jaw clenching, forcing himself not to look down at Tetsuro's now collapsed corpse. The reality of it began to press in heavier than the sound of the impact ever could. He, Soutarou Morita, had killed someone for the first time.
As the exhaustion and adrenaline finally began wearing off, Soutarou swayed before collapsing backwards. The world seemed to slow for Soutarou while he collapsed slowly into consciousness and thought, 'Ah… I see… I see… Even if… Even if I always criticized those main characters from those novels for being weak… It wasn't that they were weak… It was the smell.. The visceral feeling of ending a life…The splattered blood… and the realizaiton… I might become something I won't recognize later…'
'It's not easy… Modern people… We aren't built for this… We live in a bubble… Even if he was in the wrong… and I wanted to do this… Still I feel like this…'
'I guess I was right… I really won't recognize myself in a few years… Well… I'm not the person who came to this world… No… I'm just Soutarou Morita now.'
'I see…'
Soutarou ironically thought as his vision blackened and his consciousness finally sapped and he hit the floor, just as his head was about to hit the ground Naori who's sharingan had flared instinctively again launched at him and caught him laying his head in her lap, while staring down at his closed eyes with her spinning three tomoe.
~Kakashi, Tekuno, Shinku Yuhi, and background Jonin POV, 20 minutes prior~
Kakashi's ninjato flashed in sparking blue light and his left eye swirled with Three Tomoe as he battled the light skinned man across from him, while obviously not a Konoha Shinobi the man, still in disguise, wore a Konoha Headband. Behind Kakashi who was directly engaging him and Tekuno who had just secured a dark skinned man's corpse with a white jonin flack jacket and a Kumogakure headband into a scroll. Before the two tag teamed the other Kumogakure shinobi and quickly dispatched him and secured his corpse as Kakashi used his signature 'Light Style: Chidori'and Tekuno blocked the Kumo ninja's escape routes with his unique explosive tag style. The result was a chidori through the chest, before immediately storing it in a scroll. The pair glanced back and tapped the area behind them revealing a barrier that prevented them from leaving. Tekuno quickly called out and said, "High level barrier… I can't break it… Honestly, this level of preparation…"
Kakashi grimly nodded and his eyes turned sharp behind his ANBU mask, before silently questioning whether they should engage or not, with both coming to the quick understanding they needed to reinforce Soutarou immediately.
Just as they were about to make a break for Soutarou, both with grim eyes stared ahead as four more Shinobi showed up, two Iwagakure and two from Kumogakure.
Kakashi and Tekuno both quickly assessed and realized they were fighting three higher-end jonin. What's worse both Kakashi and Tekuno saw two corpses of a pair of unmarked ANBU shinobi.
Both glanced at the other thinking the same thing,
Kakashi and Tekuno prepared to engage, before a crashing explosion rang out and a barrier flickered behind the Iwa and Kumo shinobi. A cracking sound echoed across the entire area, and a blaring red flare shot into the sky. Hawks screeched across the entire village, and Kakashi's and Tekuno's grim expressions immediately changed. Kakashi's hands flew through handsigns and slammed against the ground, while Tekuno sent dozens of explosive kunai flying and he too began forming handsigns, before using a jutsu to set the strings of the explosive kunai on fire.
As both Tekuno and Kakashi expected, dozens of Jutsu could be heard being used outside of the barrier, making the Iwa and Kumo shinobi's expressions tighten and become increasingly grim. The Iwa and Kumo shinobi immediately tried to engage Kakashi and Tekuno, who in turn kept kiting them, with Tekuno trying to find a flaw in the barrier separating them from Soutarou and the barrier from Konoha reinforcements to them. Before he suddenly launched a ball of explosive tags and formed a ram handsign.
A massive *BOOM* rang out and sent dust flying before the previous cracking sound multiplied and a shattering noise was heard by all the shinobi.
The Kumo and Iwa shinobi immediately found themselves under a genjutsu, before a charged ninjato pierced one of their hearts. While Tekuno retreated to Kakashi's side, as Kakashi politely said, "Shinku-san."
The man with red eyes just nodded and grimly said, "What's the situation?"
Kakashi shook his head and said, "Unclear. We need to clear out these shinobi immediately."
The man nodded and a dozen jonin formed up behind him and they rushed forwards, before finding another four Kumo and Iwa shinobi who were quickly dealt before finding the scene of Soutarou and Naori exploding against a stronger Iwa Jonin in an isolated area with dozens after dozens of earth spikes and remnants of a hard clash.
All their gazes tightened preparing for a hard clash, only to see the dust clear and his crisply burnt corpse becoming clear.