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. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX- KIZURU KURAMA
He reached up and pulled some of his hair back from his eyes. His present hair growth was at that awkward phase where it was too short to tie back in a ponytail but still so long that it managed to get in his way more often than not.
Kagami-sensei, if he was still here, would have sat him down and sheared his hair to prevent it from being a liability in battle. But Kagami-sensei was no longer here, and Konoha was no longer at war. Even the tense peace they had enjoyed in his childhood years could not compare to this one.
They had fought the whole world and won. Their Kage was the strongest man in the world, they had three Tailed Beasts, and they were the only village to have come out of the war with more in the way of gold than they had before going in.
For all intents and purposes, they had won. And now they enjoyed the spoils of victory. One of those was mercy, and that was what brought him here today.
"Unload the wagons," he ordered the horde of genin that had been assigned to this particular mission. It was an excuse to allow their youngest to get some experience out of the Land of Fire while still being under little danger.
Rivers had no shinobi village of their own, and giving out aid and nothing else, they weren't much of a target to any of the other Great Villages. Especially when one added that attacking them here was guaranteed to get under Shorirama's skin, and the scar in the land where Iwa once stood was a reminder to the rest of the world that his displeasure was the last thing they wanted.
He watched as the genin began taking the scrolls down and unsealing barrels. The barrels contained a variety of things, from fresh fish to water, meat, and wheat—all specially preserved by seals on the barrels themselves to ensure they remained fresh until eventually consumed. This was not a glamorous job by any means, but it was one he jumped at each time it came around. Sure, he was not helping in setting up the future of the Anbu like Uzume or the academy like Toshiro, but it still showed that Shori trusted him to get the job done when it came to it. And then there was the added benefit that he did not have to risk his life to do this.
Standard missions were enjoyable enough, but he was beginning to find that the thought of risking his life on a daily basis had begun to appeal to him less and less. The effect of old age, his aunt had called it. Maybe it was because he had someone waiting for him back home. He lifted his hand from the kunai in his purse and up to the necklace around his neck. A gift from her. She always gave him something whenever he returned from such journeys. He would never admit it out loud, but she was a huge part of why he liked going on them. Part of him suspected that Shori knew, of course. Uraume, nosy rat that she was, probably spied on them more than she did Konoha's enemies. If the Kage she worked for had been anyone else, he would probably have pushed back already, but he could never bring himself to cause problems for his Shori.
Not for the boy that had been his first friend, and never for the man who, while still being Hokage, came over at least once a week to cook dinner for his aunt and him. Of course, dinner was almost always grilled meat, as that was the only thing he could prepare without burning down a kitchen. Still, repetition aside, it was a good time regardless. Aunt Ayame enjoyed being able to tell the fellow Clan Heads that she had the Hokage over at her house on a weekly basis, and he knew it strengthened his position as her heir. Shori had never made it a secret that he was the reason he devoted so much attention to the Kurama clan, a minor clan by all respects.
"What's taking so long?" he asked the genin as they were handing out the barrels.
"Nothing, Kizuru-sensei. Hitachi is just being lazy," one of them, Kirito, said. He turned to the offending genin and found him staring at the barrel he was supposed to be lifting.
"Yes, Hitachi?" he asked. He didn't make note of them calling him Sensei. Despite the fact that he had taught them only as little as possible to prevent Shori from busting his arse the way he'd done with Uzume, these children still seemed to think there was some relationship there.
"Sensei, there's something wrong with the barrel. There's a seal on it," he said. Kizuru felt a knot begin to appear on his forehead as he marched forward.
"There are supposed to be seals on them; that's how we keep them—" he didn't finish the statement as he finally noted the seal that was on the barrel. That was not an Uzumaki seal.
"Take cover!" he shouted as he jumped backwards. He knew it wasn't an explosive seal. He'd seen enough of those as Shorirama Senju's classmate to be able to identify them while drunk, blindfolded, and half asleep. It was the kind of skill you needed to escape his incessant pranks in the academy. The seal triggered, and a wave of gold shot out from it. He watched as the gold-colored material—was that sand?—wrapped around Hitachi first. He had been the slowest to move.
Kirito was next, and it was all Kizuru could do to grab onto Jinpei as he escaped the wave. He landed on one of the trees off the main road they had taken. It was an attack of some sort. But then the question became: who? Who would dare?
He tapped his vambrace, unsealed his flute, and placed it to his lips. He closed his eyes as he felt his chakra synchronize with the seals on the flute. He searched out for other chakra signatures, finding them… there! He placed his lips to it and began to blow even as he ran backwards along the tree's length to avoid the approaching golden dust. Jinpei had the good sense to follow him.
Kizuru could not yet tell who was attacking him, but he could feel their chakra, and that was all he needed. One of them was to his left, next to another. He ensnared him in his genjutsu and a second later, the man's partner was dead from a kunai in the throat. Taking hold of his assailant's five senses, it was child's play to send him running for the rest of the Suna group.
He kept playing the flute, reaching for more and more chakra signatures. He jumped off the tree as it was near fully consumed. He landed on another branch and barely managed to roll out of the way of several pellets made of golden sand that had left the concentrated mass. He felt Jinpei's chakra be snuffed out. The boy was dead. Just like with his other students, this could not be helped. It was a loss he would mourn for a while.
He tried reaching through the sand to find the chakra network controlling it, but it felt like diving into the sea. He abandoned the attempt. Maybe if it was only the sand wielder, then he would have stood a chance. But bringing someone with so much chakra under his control was going to take all his focus and then some. It was better if he spread out his attention instead.
Isolate the sand user, trap him in a coffin of his allies, and make them be the ones to put him down. Easier said than done, but possible. All of this was possible. He could still win. He felt the man under his thrall make it to the spot where another group of four were hidden.
He blew harder into his flute, changing the tune and working to enthrall the additional group of four. That made five under his control now. He planted an image of himself killing the sand wielder in their heads. He did not need to make it all too detailed. Just enough. And then he superimposed his appearance on that of the sand wielder and watched as all five of them moved on the attack.
He was finally able to stop moving as the sand wielder realised he had to defend himself from his own comrades. One unrolled a fan and sent a storm of gale-force winds in his direction which his golden sand was barely able to solidify to rebuff in time.
And then he had to do the same for a hail of explosive kunai. One of them controlled a puppet made of blades, and it got closer and closer to his opponent as he was kept busy by the others.
Kizuru kept playing his flute, layering the genjutsu over and over again to ensure that none of his charges even managed to smell a hope of escape. The one with the sand managed to free one of his comrades with a trick involving a clone and a well-placed substitution, but then almost lost an eye immediately after as Kizuru enthralled the man again. Now, he once again went for the one with the sand.
This time, he didn't need to seek him out through his golden sand, for he had revealed himself in his conflict with his teammates. He threaded his chakra into the man's senses only to find… nothing at all. It was a clone. So where was the original? He managed to turn in time for the tendril of golden sand to only catch one of his feet instead of his whole body.
The man materialized from the shadows. "Genjutsu like that should be impossible. Oh, what monsters the Leaf creates," he said. Now that they were closer, Kizuru could see that it was not in fact a man, but a boy. Barely past his teens. His chakra was massive enough that without being able to visually see him, it was easy to mistake him for a full-grown man.
Kizuru tried to jump away, realising just what kind of threat he faced. Because if this one was this strong as a teenager, then he was more like a young Shori than anything else, and Kizuru knew fighting even a young Shori wouldn't end very well for him at this stage. He tried to slash down at the sand coating his left leg as he jumped away, but his opponent made a single motion that he barely caught from the corner of his eyes, and all he knew was pain.
He barely felt his body fall to the hard ground as he missed his landing spot. His attention was—and rightly so—focused on the feeling in his left leg. Or rather, the feeling of the lack of his left leg. It was just gone. He swallowed the rest of his screams, barely managing to be lucid enough to note that his genjutsu had snapped. Fucking bloody hell, he swore inside and stilled his shaking hand before reaching for his kunai pouch. He should have fucking done this the second he had been attacked. He removed the kunai and was about to throw it when his hand came to a stop, kunai held within it.
"The Bingo Books say Konoha's Butcher can summon himself to seal points. Is that one of them?" the boy asked, dragging Kizuru over to him. Kizuru grit his teeth as his body was pulled along the rough ground. His hand, clutched around his saving grace, was useless already.
"I don't think looking at the Butcher's seals is a good idea. Who knows what kind of safeguards he has?" one voice spoke out. Kizuru grunted as he now realised those he had previously enthralled were now here surrounding him.
"What if he appears here now?" another said, sounding visibly more afraid.
"He won't," the boy replied, and then Kizuru watched with eyes lidded by pain as his one hope was destroyed. The seal was scratched off and torn by the golden sand.
"And even if he did, he'd just be coming to die. I've been training for years to kill him," the boy said, and it might have been the blood loss, but Kizuru was unable to stop himself from bursting into laughter.
"What's funny, dead man?" the boy asked, and even with him squeezing on Kizuru's hand, he could not bear to hold back from speaking.
"Shori would kill you and your squad in less time than it would take you to piss yourself once it sinks in just what kind of man he is and the difference between the two of you," he said.
"He would try, but you have no idea what I am and what I am capable of," he scowled.
"When he was your age, he'd killed a Kage. I don't even know who the hell you are and you want to compare with him? Shame," he said, and he knew that was the last straw. He felt his hand be shattered to pulp, but he had already zoned out from his mind. He took all his pain and wrapped it up in his yin chakra.
He couldn't use his flute anymore with one hand, but what did it matter? The flute was nothing but a tool. A medium for him to use his jutsu, but it was never his jutsu.
'I'm sorry, Shori,' he said internally, and then as he felt the gold sand begin to wrap around the rest of his body, he screamed.
His genjutsu never truly left his victims. There was always a trace of his yin chakra within them, and that was enough. The massive amount he released into the area around them, all his reserves and then some, resonated with the trace amount left in those who surrounded him. The boy flinched backwards from the pain in the first genjutsu. He would break it, most assuredly. It was a brute force attack with none of his usual finesse, but the goal was to get his opponent to flinch and that was enough.
He took control of the five senses of all the shinobi around him. He fed them the image of him standing on his feet and killing their leader and then standing in the boy's place, where he stood now.
And they did the predictable thing: they attacked. His genjutsu smoothed over any doubts they had, and they moved on the attack. The boy was not going to be able to react in time. One had managed to nick his arm as he scrambled backwards in a panic. Another was about to behead him.
Kizuru had already felt the surge of victory before the ground exploded around the boy. Gold sand, more than he'd seen the boy control, wrapped around his own teammates. Kizuru felt their chakra signatures snuff out, and that was the last thing he felt.
XXXXX- TWO WEEKS LATER (SHORIRAMA SENJU)
"Send out a team immediately," I ordered through pursed lips. Kizuru was supposed to have come back a day ago. Even accounting for delays along the route, an extra day was still far too much. Especially considering I had tried to port to the Flying Raijin seal I'd given to him and not been able to lock onto it.
There were very few explanations as to why that would be the case. Even if he had left it at home, I would still have been able to get a lock on it. Even if he was dead and the seal was still intact, I would still have been able to lock onto it. The only possibility was that the seal had been destroyed. But then who could have done so? Would Kizuru have done it himself as some sort of lark or joke? I doubted that. It was not the kind of play he engaged in, and he knew better than to mess around with one of my seals.
"Hold on," I told Retsu as she was about to leave the office.
I flashed in front of her and offered her a kunai.
"Tell the Anbu to use this to summon me the second they find something. I want to be there personally," I said. The most likely situation was that someone had been able to figure out just what the kunai was and managed to destroy the seal before Kizuru could trigger it. After that, anything could have happened. They could have captured Kizuru, or he could have beaten them and escaped and might be delayed because of injuries.
I refused to consider the third possibility. No one would be that stupid. To kill one of my closest friends was to court disaster at a scale that songs were written about. It was not the kind of decision that could be walked back; there was no pity in my heart for anyone who dared do such.
I spent the better part of the day in the office, anxiously waiting. The team of Anbu that had been sent out had included two medical-nin in case Kizuru and his genin needed help, but had that been enough? And why weren't they calling me? At that precise moment, I felt the seal call out to me. In the space between seconds, I was in the Land of Rivers, and I was staring at disaster.
A/N: So we get to see how things are progressing in the other villages and a bit of the wider landscape of the shinobi world. Suna is starving, Iwa is struggling to rebuild. As for Kiri and Kumo, I'm sure we'll get to look at them with time. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.