Horse’s mask broke from the surprise attack from Bull. From what little remained of the kid's head, I could tell he was young, around Kakashi’s age. Being able to join ANBU and being trusted to operate in foreign countries spoke well of the kid's talent. He was a little immature, but with a few missions and a couple of years under his belt, he could have made it to Special Jonin easily, maybe even become an elite ninja. He could have been even more if properly guided.
I really should have been moving, finding better cover, or counterattacking, but I was tired from just being woken up and sad at watching such a talented young life being snuffed out for a pointless reason. Plus, I was still gathering information. One of my many faults was my cautious nature. Pakura was still scaling the cliff face with her client; I needed to buy more time.
The lanterns I had summoned were halfway down the valley, and their lights were soft and spread out, causing the castle’s ruins to be bathed in a soft yellow light. Mixing with the starlight, the mass destruction looked almost peaceful. The only disturbance was the slushing of the water from the crash and the two dead Leaf ninjas whose bodies lay in pieces at my feet.
I looked at Rabbit and Bull, who were perched on the wreckage of the castle. They were recovering from their own surprise attack as well and studying me. I imagine I was eye-catching while being covered in blood and other fluids from their former comrades.
Reaching out with my chakra sense, I could feel the seals on their tongues, telling me that these two were members of Root. Losing my patience a little and hoping for an easy win, I first performed the academy's basic clone jutsu and made ten copies of myself. Then, I activated a simple genjutsu using the lanterns' light as my medium and used my patented "Triple Vision" technique.
I could tell from their subtle head movements that, one, it had worked and they were under my genjutsu, and two, Danzo had removed the suicide trigger he placed on the seals. It made sense; sending assassins who would die if placed under a genjutsu against an expert user would be a bad idea.
Denying my easy win, the two acted. Rabbit grabbed shuriken with both hands, threw them at all the copies of me she could see, and then, with a rapid series of hand movements, cast the Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu. Bull followed up with a wind gust jutsu that sharpened and sped up the coming shuriken.
My jutsu did its job, as their attacks accomplished nothing. They thought that what they were seeing was all my clone jutsu and that they weren't under the effect of my genjutsu. They were right to think so, as from what I could tell, they both were at Jonin rank and had been trained to resist genjutsu.
Against normal opponents, Rabbit and Bull would have been fine, but they had several things working against them. One was my lanterns; I had designed these specifically for the purpose of enemy detection and genjutsu. Second was the genjutsu I was using. "Triple Vision," being used right after a simple clone jutsu, made it look like they were one and the same, but instead of throwing off the aim of its victims a little, it threw it off substantially. Third was Triple Vision itself; it was a very basic genjutsu that I have performed and trained in tens of thousands of times. With all of those factors, the two didn’t stand a chance, and I hadn’t even started using poison yet.
Rabbit and Bull leaped back, and my clones pushed forward, leaving me behind. I was going to let them attack the illusions so that they thought they could sneak attack me. I was still buying time and wanted to make sure both of their attentions were focused on trying to find a weakness in my technique.
One of the golden rules of deception is to teach your enemy the wrong lessons. Right now, the two are looking for ways to kill me. If I teach them that falling back and jumping around like idiots will scatter my clones and leave me as an easy target, then they won’t keep looking for new lines of attack and stumble upon Pakura.
A part of me wanted to do more. I wanted to hurt these two for what they had done, for what they were still trying to do. But it would be pointless. These two were barely better than machines; they were truly just following orders. I recognized the Rabbit mask as Nami Nara. She was a gifted member of the Nara clan and was born with a large chakra pool. She was also born with the same work ethic as most members of her clan.
Danzo had pressured the Nara clan, and about two or three a generation, promising young ninja members who weren't politically important in major clans were given over to Danzo’s guidance. He had a good track record of training skilled shinobi and made sure to pay his people large sums of money, but I hated what he did to them.
He would break them, then reforge them into his tools. He claimed they were loyal to the Leaf, but seeing as I still had two Leaf ninjas' blood on me, I doubted his words. But worst of all was that he stunted their growth. I knew for a fact that Nami was incredibly talented and could have grown to even greater heights than what she was showing me right now.
The way she moved around the castle’s ruins and manipulated her shadows to fling ninja tools and other debris at my clones while analyzing their movements was impressive. I could see the gears turning in her head; she had noticed that I had not moved and was covertly signaling her partner to try to strike from my blind spot on my left, all while on the move.
Her partner wasn’t as smart as her and decided to be more vicious in his strikes, aiming for eyes and throats with a wind-sword kunai. He was clearly trying to score a lucky and lethal hit on me. It was a common mindset found in the ninja world; fast and lethal was the cornerstone of ninja ideals. The lack of education past grade school, plus the complete void of critical thinking, innovation, and diverse ideals, made many ninja burn bright, burn fast, and burn out.
After the fourth time she tried to signal her teammate, I took pity on the girl and moved two of my clones out of the way, one for each of them, so that Bull could see Rabbit signaling her plan. I could not technically see Bull's face, but I had to stop myself from laughing as I imagined he looked like a chimpanzee discovering a banana.
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Under my lantern's light, Bull was as subtle as an elementary schooler performing stage magic. He hid under a collapsed pillar and created a shadow clone to fight my normal, basic clones. Then he moved to strike from my left, just as Rabbit had instructed him to do.
I could tell Rabbit really thought that Bull’s attack was going to work. If I had to guess what was going through her mind right now, she thought that I was either overconfident or that I wasn’t as strong as the rumors had made me out to be. She was working on a backup plan, but I could tell it wasn’t an original one, just one of many backup plans from a textbook Danzo had forced her to memorize.
Pakura had just made it over the lip of the cliff, and I could tell my time was just about up. I stood as still as a statue as Bull performed the hand signs that I recognized as the same ones he made for his first wind sword. After the four seconds it took the first time while dodging my attacks, the second time also took four seconds, even though he was crouched behind some rocks. In the man's defense, he was still holding and funneling chakra into his first sword, but it did annoy me.
I wanted to shout at the man, "Why are you doubling down on an attack that did zero damage to me? Zero times two is still zero!" But I held my tongue. Nothing I could say would get through to the two brainwashed ninjas. I received the signal I was waiting for and decided to be a little petty.
Right before Bull attacked, I grabbed a kunai from Horse’s pack and readied my shot. Bull leaped out from his cover, and I used my bandages like a sling. Horse’s kunai shot through the air like a javelin. Bull’s shadow clone didn’t see the attack coming, as he had to pretend not to notice me so that I would lower my guard, and my own basic clone was blocking his vision. He was impaled by his former teammate’s weapon and dispersed into a cloud of wasted chakra.
I turned to face Bull, who was leaping at me while performing some fancy A-rank technique involving two wind swords and a cloak of razor-sharp wind spinning around his body. I deactivated my shadow clone and returned my chakra to my host body, who was still in the cave where I placed my concealment wards when I landed in the valley. All Bull managed to do in his attack was more thoroughly destroy the bodies of Horse and Rooster, turning their sliced-up bodies into mincemeat.
***
I felt Pakura make it over the ledge of the valley and could feel the ANBU ninja waiting up top to catch anyone fleeing the battle. The man attacked, but the Triple Vision, my shadow clone, performed outside, had caught the man in my lantern's light. His attack went wide as Pakura managed to dodge.
She kept running while holding Lady Chi on her shoulder. When the man got close to attack, I triggered the bandages I still had on the young girl and snagged the man before he could strike. Shooting the bandages out, I caught hold of one of my lanterns and ordered it to lift off high into the sky. The man screamed in fright and quickly left my area of influence as the lantern he was now attached to flew up, up, and away.
I ordered my shadow clone to disperse and waited a few seconds. Something must have been happening because my clone kept me waiting. Then I got the flood of memories of what had happened. I didn't recognize Horse. He must have been one of the border fort recruits.
My clone had funneled earth chakra into the bandages around his body to protect himself from Bull’s surprise attack, then used a little bit of chakra to make basic clones and perform the Triple Vision genjutsu. They don’t have suicide triggers in their tongue seals, but they still have the seals. I can detect and monitor their movements with them as long as they stay within range of my lanterns.
With the ANBU member captured, I now knew who was after me and how. Horse was the earth user who performed the Landslide Jutsu, which was why he felt so guilty. He was also impressed because he would have watched the castle crumble into the chasm and seen me leave the castle only to leap back in to save Pakura. It was probably his first time watching someone choose to go back into the range of his attack and then survive without a scratch; it would have floored him.
Rooster was a career ANBU ninja and had taken Horse under his wing. Following Danzo’s orders, he was surprised I was here. Thinking back on our short interaction, Danzo most likely lied to the man about something, and he was being too slow to realize he had been tricked. He was the team’s scout, and the fact that his Ninken hadn’t been summoned meant that the Inuzuka was following the directions of the Root members.
Bull and Rabbit are Root, and they have a third member keeping lookout. They were always going to kill the ANBU members to cover up for Danzo. The fact that I just captured the man who attacked Pakura means I just saved his life.
The third Root member won’t engage in combat. They will watch what happens here and then run off to inform Danzo of what transpired here today. The benefit of fighting killing machines was that they were slaves to their programming and predictable to a T.
Bull is in trouble, as he performed a B-rank jutsu with his surprise attack, he helped boost the shuriken, then two B-rank wind swords, and if I had to guess, that last attack he did was an A-rank technique. Unless Bull is secretly a Senju, an Uzumaki, or a jinchuriki, he will be running out of chakra soon, especially since I destroyed his shadow clone.
Nami Nara should still have some juice left in the tank, but the Naras have never been a clan known for their large chakra pools. Nami is an exception, but not by much. She has a few jutsus left in her, but then she will be done. It was about time I finished this and headed back to the village.
I stepped outside to see Bull and Rabbit crouched together discussing a plan, and I made myself known to them. They both turned around and took fighting positions. There was no point in talking; I ran at them to end the fight, which took them both off guard, seeing as I was known as a mid-range fighter. But since the Nara girl was making plans, I had to do something unexpected.
Both of them jumped back to make room for me, and Nami performed a long sequence of hand signs. I had never seen this sequence before and was too curious. The girl leaped on top of the remains of the castle, and the shadows began to shimmer and rumble all around her.
From the shadows, a massive dragon's head bigger than the girl herself emerged from the darkness. It was as black as ink, and its long, serpent-like body began to thrash. I had to dodge as its massive body attacked and destroyed what remained of the wreckage.
The dragon chased me as I dodged and weaved around it. During my evasions, I lost track of Bull and was ready for a surprise attack. Nami seemed focused on me and was controlling the dragon. The jutsu she was using seemed like an upgraded version of the Water Dragon Jutsu, but she was using the surrounding shadows instead.
The thing was rampaging and was doing a good amount of damage. The jutsu was not meant for a one-on-one fight, but Nami was doing a good job controlling it, all things considered. The Nara clan wasn’t known for its destructive power; the fact that she could do this much damage to the surroundings spoke to her potential.
As impressive as she was, I didn’t have all night. Leaping back, I summoned a clone and got to work. Sending bandages out to act like cables, I linked us together. I took out one of my jutsu tags, and my clone and I started making hand signs. I used the jutsu tag to transform my chakra to fire nature and took in a big lungful of air while my clone did the same.
"Combination Style: Burning Dragon Jutsu." We both shot out a stream of oil and fire and made them fuse together into a giant dragon made of burning oil. Both my dragon and Nami’s dragon were the same size, but the bright light from my dragon was zapping the strength from her jutsu, and when they collided, her dragon immediately started to crumple in on itself.
The burning dragon engulfed the castle's wreckage, destroying it until nothing of it remained. The waves tossed and turned, spreading the lit oil everywhere; even my lanterns got caught in the crossfire. I dispersed my shadow clone, returning most of the chakra I had just spent creating it back to me.
Looking around, I caught sight of Nami’s movements. She had gotten hit and made a run for it. Following her trail, I soon stumbled upon a pool of blood. If I had to guess, it belonged to Bull. He didn't have enough chakra left in him to run. Either Nami or Root agent number three did him in, then sealed the body in a scroll.
I still had the ANBU member in the air, but I'm going to have to deal with Danzo spinning a tale of tonight's events his way. Thankfully, I kept a mud clone high up with a camera, recording anything that seemed interesting, and demolishing a castle should fit the bill. With nothing better to do, I decided to interrogate my prisoner and head back home to the Leaf.
