Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
[ https://www̧̧.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
The humidity of the river hung heavy over the reeds sticking out of the muddy bank. The four ANBU operatives standing around the slumped body of the courier turned to look across the expanse of the rushing river at the man who had suddenly arrived at the opposite bank, bringing with him a presence that made the ANBUs' collective breath hitch.
At first glance, he looked no different from any other ANBU operative wearing a white, patterned mask and the standard gear worn beneath a cloak. However, the ANBU-nin on the mission were all disguised in non-standard gear. More importantly, the figure wore a mask without an animal motif.
This was undoubtedly a ROOT agent. He stared at them as they stared at him. Then, his gaze fell upon the slowly burning courier lying just behind the group.
"Don't move," Raven hissed, his hand white-knuckled into a trembling fist.
They didn't know his identity or rank. They could guess, but when the unmistakable, suffocating weight of his chakra fell on them—an invisible tide that pushed against their lungs—they knew they were in the presence of a jōnin: a master of chakra who far outclassed their combined strength.
"The intel," Takuma said, moving his sight away from the enemy to look down at the slip of paper in his hand. His wet fingers had blotted and smudged some of the ink that hadn't dried yet. He scanned the ROOT's base location over and over to desperately memorise it. "All of you need to get the fuck out of here," he said, his voice trembling slightly.
When he didn't hear a response, he glanced back to see everyone frozen in fear, staring at the man across the river. He bit the inside of his cheek and considered the risk before releasing his chakra to neutralise the pressure bearing down on them. There was near-instant relief as they shuffled uncomfortably. Takuma himself breathed a sigh of relief that the jōnin didn't charge at them the moment he used his chakra.
"I'll hold him back. Run towards the port," he said, his voice cracking with fear and nervousness.
He didn't need to say more. The math was simple and brutal. To this man, they were merely obstacles to be cleared. If they fought, they would likely die. If they ran away, the chances of their survival would rise; while still low, anything was better than zero.
"But—"
"Got it." Raven cut off one of the trackers.
Takuma nodded without looking back. The two trackers didn't know that he was a clone. He could die, and nothing would be lost, but real lives would be lost in the case of the others.
"GO!" Takuma yelled as he rushed through hand seals.
Across the water, the stranger's hand drifted to the swords on his back. The wind died down, leaving only the roar of the river and the frantic drumming of their hearts. The distance between the banks felt like inches.
The other three bolted, using the Body Flicker Jutsu to put the maximum amount of distance between them and the jōnin as fast as possible. They disregarded the danger because they had no control over their movement once they entered the flicker; however, their ability to move didn't mean much when they were facing a jōnin.
The short tantō smoothly slid out of its sheath, catching the sun on its blade. The jōnin leaned forward, and Takuma, who had finished his hand seals, moved to intercept him when he went after the others. His pupils shrank in shock at the speed at which the man covered the river chasm. However, he could see it! It was the fastest he had seen anyone move, but he could still follow him. Unfortunately, that was all he could do. He barely crossed his arms to protect himself before he was sent flying and crashed into a tree. The trunk snapped, and he nearly snapped a second tree standing behind it.
And yet, he was alive. It had worked in time.
Takuma got up with gritted teeth as his skin turned a matte onyx. The earth-natured chakra flowed through his body, strengthening it from within. A shadow clone was a fragile entity with a relatively low damage threshold, crossing which would destroy it. However, he found that he knew a perfect B-rank ninjutsu that could surmount that weakness.
Earth Release: Earth Spear
The rush of power that came with using a B-rank ninjutsu almost rivalled the fear he was feeling while facing a far stronger enemy. He was a clone, but the emotions that made him Takuma all remained the same. His death wasn't going to mean much, but the fear of dying still rose from the depths of his constructed being.
"Oh?" the jōnin muttered.
Takuma didn't attack or make any sudden moves. His aim was to buy time and to make no aggressive action that might motivate the ROOT jōnin to take him more seriously. He nervously swallowed when the jōnin stepped forward, but then something broke the tension as a large pillar of fire shot into the sky near them.
"What?" Takuma was taken aback because the fire came from the direction where the others had run. Had they run into other ROOT agents?
"Pesky bugs," the jōnin said, clicking his tongue.
———
.
Some distance away, the trackers dug their heels into the ground and leapt out of the way, thinking they were attacked when they felt heat on their backs a moment before the sound of accelerated fuel set on fire. They looked back, ready to defend themselves, only to see Raven shooting a pillar of fire into the air.
"What was that?" one of the trackers shouted at Raven.
"Sorry, but we shouldn't slow down," Raven said, running past them while coughing out a little puff of smoke.
"Why did you do that?" the tracker asked as they sprinted towards Fune. Shooting what looked like a B-rank Fire Release ninjutsu at the sky was utterly shocking.
"I saw crows in the sky," Raven said before turning his head to look back at where they had just escaped.
———
.
Back with Takuma and the ROOT jōnin, the tension, interrupted by the sudden fire, returned full force just as quickly. However, the man's body language now looked displeased because of what had happened.
He turned towards Takuma and said, "Operative Ratel, or should I call you Chūnin Takuma?"
Takuma knew that ROOT was aware of his identity, but he was still surprised that a jōnin knew him. He decided to speak to waste some more time. "Was I in the latest ROOT newsletter or something? Well, I did kill your daddy's favourite twins. Is he mad at me, or is he mad at you—because he for sure isn't going to be mad at himself for sending those bozos my way." By the time he was done speaking, he realised he might have been too aggressive, which was something he wanted to avoid.
The man didn't reply and instead raised his tantō, which made Takuma twitch, only to return it to its sheath while removing his mask at the same time.
"Y-You—!" Takuma physically recoiled when he saw the face of the man who had once saved his life.
Back during the first assassination attempt on his life by ROOT, a jōnin who had happened to be nearby had saved Takuma because Takuma wasn't able to finish off all of his assailants. He wouldn't come to know about his benefactor until sometime later, when he woke up from his life-saving operation and people told him more details after he had stabilised.
"Jōnin Kinoto!"
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Kinoto said with a faint smile on his face.
Takuma felt dizzy. They had only met once when the jōnin had come to his hospital room for a visit. He wanted to give his thanks to the man when he wasn't confined to the bed, but by the time he could reach a point in his rehabilitation where he could walk on his own, Kinoto was out of the village for his duties; soon after, he deployed to the Steam-Frost War. In fact, Takuma didn't know that his saviour was a ROOT agent for the longest time because of the limited availability of information at the frontline camps.
Since the day he had found out the shocking truth, he had always had one question on his mind.
"Why didn't you kill me back then?"
"Too many witnesses. But you were so injured, I was hoping that you'd pass on your way to the hospital. A pity you didn't, truly." Kinoto's smile affected Takuma more than he would ever admit. "You have caused too many problems. And while it's admirable to let your fellow operatives flee, I'll be satisfied by putting an end to any future unneeded interference on your part."
Kinoto pulled out his other sword, a katana, from his back, and then all but teleported to his position.
Focus, focus, focus, Takuma chanted repeatedly in his mind as he got ready. He could follow the man, but that was easy compared to willing his body to react in time. He raised the kunai in his hand, and to his surprise, he saw sparks fly as the long blade stopped a foot away from his face.
He was able to see and react to the attack properly. He could do this!
There was no change in expression on Kinoto as he simply moved to the next attack. Their arms turned into blurs as Takuma pushed himself to block all the sword swings. He tried to move back, but the jōnin gave him no space and even increased the pressure until he got an opportunity to kick him in the leg.
As Takuma fell, he still managed to block another swing, but the kunai that was being chipped away with each strike finally snapped. However, it was still successful in absorbing most of the swing's power, and the blade harmlessly scraped against his chest. He grabbed the blade with his hand and struck out with his other hand. He pushed the augmentation to its utmost limit—something that he could only do with Earth Spear—fortifying his body. Kinoto swiftly moved his arm to block, but Takuma pulled on the sword to shift him slightly. The fist grazed the arm before slamming right below his ribs.
Kinoto's eyes widened as he immediately moved away while pulling the sword out of Takuma's grip.
Takuma's eyes widened while his heart switched from beating in fear to beating in excitement. Kinoto felt that. He had managed to make a jōnin back away. He stood up while charging another augmentation and threw a feint with his other hand, and was going to follow with an augmented strike when Kinoto perfectly moved around him, with the sound of his sword singing lingering behind him.
Takuma felt a chill down his spine when he felt cold steel slide against his neck, followed by a sudden drop in his chakra reserves as Earth Spear burned through his chakra to protect him. He would've been dead if not for its protection.
Any and all excitement went away as he turned around to swing the augmentation, and when Kinoto effortlessly moved just out of his reach, he converted to the second form and let the burst of chakra out of his fist. The jōnin blocked it with his sword and slid a few feet in the mud but was wholly unharmed, with only his sword arm being forced to the side.
"Now, that was dangerous. I should nip it in the bud before it hurts others," Kinoto said with a shadow over his eyes. He twisted his sword, and it began to hum with an arc of lightning as thin as a hair travelling up and down the edge.
Takuma knew that running wouldn't do anything, leaving him only one chance. He was going to fight. He didn't know the reason behind the Fire Release ninjutsu, but keeping a jōnin away from them even for a few more seconds was going to be better than anything else he could do for them.
Kinoto moved, and Takuma gritted his teeth as the jōnin was even faster. His eyes strained to keep up, and he barely dodged by throwing his body behind a tree. The hair-thin arc of lightning didn't look like much, but it carved through the trunk and caused the damp wood to erupt in fire. He ran around the thick bald cypress tree and jumped parallel to the ground while throwing a bunch of explosive tags.
"Useless toys," Kinoto muttered. His sword moved with a trail of lightning, hitting each tag—cutting and burning them before they could explode.
Takuma came to a rolling stop in the water-logged mud and ran towards Kinoto. "I killed a jōnin with that toy," he said while kicking the ground hard to cause the water and mud to explode towards Kinoto.
"Yes, I heard about that," Kinoto said, simply raising his arm to protect his face with his sword ready for anything to come. "But if you think that means anything, then—"
He twitched when he suddenly felt something clamp onto his sword arm's wrist. The grip was instantaneous and impossibly tight. He looked down, and shock flooded his veins when he saw that the hand gripping him was a festering mass of rot. The thumb was missing, snapped off at the joint, leaving a jagged spur of brownish-yellow bone protruding from grey, oozing flesh. The skin sloughed away at the knuckles to reveal the sick, greyish-purple tendons underneath. The fingers dug into his skin with a gritty, grinding pressure, sliding slightly on a film of putrid slime that coated the palm.
"K-Kin-nito, h-help-p-p," said one of the Gemini Brothers.
He flinched when he felt two arms wrap around his opposite leg and looked down to see the other brother lying at his feet—a nightmare of missing pieces, his left shoulder completely devoid of flesh, a grey humerus bone jutting out of the socket, packed with mud and writhing worms.
The smell hit Kinoto then—a physical blow of rancid compost and sweet, cloying decay—as he felt teeth dig into his other shoulder. Kon, with a feral look in his one bloodshot eye—the other eye socket was empty, filled only with grass and dirt—was driven by a mad need to separate Kinoto's arm from his shoulder as though he wanted that arm to himself.
If that were not enough, he looked ahead and saw Danzo charging at him. Similar to others, but in other ways worse. The ribcage of the man he admired above all else had been pulled open, and through warped bars of cracked bone, Kinoto stared directly into a cavernous hollow. There were no recognisable organs left, only a thick, greyish sludge that pulsed sluggishly, spilling out between the ribs like rancid porridge as he charged at him with a dull hunger in the milky, deflated sphere that rolled wildly in its socket—blind but driven by a singular, hungering instinct.
It was a nightmare. His dead comrades pulled him down while his leader—not even a shell of his former self—charged at him, driven by base hunger. He felt a paralysing cold; it wasn't the chill of the air, but the deep, radiating frigidity of something he couldn't even imagine until it was shown to him.
"How dare you…"
The genjutsu shattered as Kinoto raised his hand and wrapped his grip around Takuma's neck at the same moment a heavy augmentation slammed into his stomach. The pain radiating from his body was nothing compared to the rage he felt.
"… defile him like that?!"
Takuma croaked as he was pulled by the throat, but then roared as he tucked his legs up and charged them with chakra before slamming both of them into Kinoto's chest. Even the jōnin couldn't just shrug that off, and his grip around the throat weakened.
Takuma freed himself and tried to put distance between them after regaining his balance, but trying is all he could do when a dozen slices of Kinoto's sword cut every corner of his body in less than a span of seconds. He was sent flying over the bank with arcs of electricity piercing his body.
He screamed in pain while the Earth Spear devoured chakra. He gave it full rein to take as much as possible, and for a moment, it seemed to be working, only for the jutsu to shatter. He had managed to survive but was without protection and had lost more chakra than he had ever intended to.
As he flew over the river, he knew he didn't have much time. He could feel the bonds of the jutsu keeping him together were unravelling. The fall would be enough to doom him. He turned his head to look at Kinoto with a painful scowl on his face, his body hunched forward. The All-Out Augmentation on both feet, which could take considerably more chakra than his arms, packed a punch. He could be proud that he managed to hurt a jōnin in active combat, even if it was only a little.
Fuck it, he thought—he was sure that the original wouldn't mind if he used some more.
He spun the valve open and let an ample amount of his chakra flow as he weaved hand seals. It rained down, and a portion of the rushing river suddenly calmed to the point of going still before it exploded upward, the pillar rapidly gaining the form of a dragon while the river raged beneath it.
If he were going to make a move, it would be with a bang because that seemed to be the case every time he seriously went against a jōnin.
Water Release: Water Dragon Missile Jutsu
On the bank, a calm appeared on Kinoto as he breathed out. He assumed a sword stance without a hint of wasted movement—the skill making the simple movement look elegant. The thin arc of lightning suddenly burst in size to cover the blade in pure destruction.
He beheld the water dragon as it opened its maw to roar at him.
He felt its chakra and could tell that it was on the cusp of entering the transitional stage of transformation that only a few rare shinobi ever got to touch: Chakra Enlightenment. Even though he called it transitional, most never got out of it. Those who did gained a transcendent understanding of chakra. He couldn't allow the shinobi in front of him to take that step because even if there was no guarantee that he would ever surmount the wall that a rare few could, he couldn't risk it. He had the inkling that if that day ever came, ROOT would have its worst nightmare on its hands.
Kinoto's hand trembled. The genjutsu felt too real; a corner of his heart was still feeling the chill. If it was like that now, he didn't want to imagine what it would be like after chakra enlightenment.
He didn't want to imagine it.
The trembling disappeared as he breathed out. He raised the sword above his head as the dragon charged at him, tearing everything in its path, and then swung it down in one clean motion.
There was no other noise other than that of the water dragon's violent charge before an eerie moment of silence where all sound disappeared; then, there was a loud crash as every inch of the water dragon exploded in all directions except towards Kinoto. Every single drop had its motion and trajectory abruptly changed, and no amount of chakra flowing through the mass could stop the forceful change.
Takuma watched as his strongest weapon was defeated with a single swing. A deep feeling of resentment rose in him. He didn't want to accept that there was such a gap between him and the class that stood atop the world of shinobi.
He closed his eyes as Kinoto swung his sword again and was about to release himself because he didn't want the experience of being shredded apart as part of his memories. It was then that he felt a pair of arms lift him from mid-air and carry him away.
He opened his eyes as they touched the ground and found himself staring at a pair of red pupils with three spinning tomoe. And that would be his last view as he snapped back into focus and blurted out,
"We have the lo—"
Only to explode into a fleeting cloud of smoke.
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!