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.
He was on a collision course with the beast even as it completed the attack that would spell doom for him. Its position shifted, and he moved to take advantage of the hesitation before he watched the ball that was quickly forming begin to destabilize. The spheres of black and white power were flowing back inside the beast's mouth instead of forming the attack.
He had learned very early in life not to spend his time staring a gift fish in the mouth and shot right for the beast's eyes. It roared in pain as he stabbed Kubikiribōchō straight into its single open eye. Its attempt to close the lid at the very last second had been too little and far too late to stand much of a chance in stopping him.
The beast's screams sent vibrations through the water as it struggled through the pain. Through its open mouth came a surprising form: Kuren swimming out, looking none the worse for wear. In fact, she looked better, with Samehada having grown to the point where the sword was now easily twice as large as the woman who swung it about. She screamed a cry that the water swallowed before shooting at the beast again.
It struggled as she placed Samehada right next to its head and began to shave through the creature's tough skin with the blade's rough edges, made even rougher with its expansion. Every bit of contact released small bits of the beast's blood into the water, and with each one, the creature's already feeble struggles died out. Suiren felt the constant spread of the coral at the edges of his water prison come to a stop as another sign that the beast was weakening.
In the end, it was a matter of time, and that was one thing they had on their side that the tailed beast did not have on its. Kuren slashed at it over and over again, and it lost more and more of its power until it finally stopped moving. Kuren turned to look at him, a savage smile on her face, delighting in her victory. She had been taken out of the fight very early and had now come in to finish it at the perfect moment.
However, her being taken out had prevented her from realizing just what kind of beast this was. So with her attention shifted, Suiren was not surprised to see the Sanbi return to life for a split second, moving with speed that belied its enormous size as it moved to swallow her with one move. The water that formed their prison bent to his will. Kuren was dragged to his side, and he was dragged to hers. Water surrounded his hand, forming a limb made of water several orders of magnitude larger than his natural hand as he punched down at the beast from above. It broke through the water prison and the coral beyond it before landing in a crater on the ground.
It moved no longer.
"Fuck, that was a nightmare to put down," Hakoda sighed as they converged around the downed beast. Suiren looked at the thing. Now that it was finally still for more than a few seconds, he could truly appreciate the scale of what it was that they faced. What it was that they had beaten—a tailed beast. Sure, just the third of nine, but none of them had gotten the chance to truly go all out as they would have against a normal foe. It was a victory, all things considered. And he had a duty to ensure it remained such.
He stepped closer to the beast, and then feeding his chakra to the ever-hungry Kubikiribōchō, he cut a straight slash across its shoulder. His teammates flinched at the sudden motion, with Mahito raising his own blade in defense, in case the beast moved. It did not.
"Kuren," he called out, gesturing towards the slash he had just created.
"Right," she said, walking forward and stabbing Samehada straight into the space he'd created.
The semi-sentient sword seemed to purr as it was fed with more than enough chakra to fill it up several times over.
"So now what?" she asked, looking at him.
"Now, we summon the sealing corps and tell them we are ready. The goal is to make a jinchūriki, after all," he said.
XXXXXX- TAERU OF THE NEW STONE
"Another one." He looked through the report with a scowl. Another sect of theirs had been found by the tree-hugging dogs and slaughtered to the man. They had figured that none of the sects knew where the others were and now weren't even bothering to take prisoners anymore.
"What do we do, brother?" she asked from across the desk.
"I don't know. I thought we would have more time. I knew we would have to fight Konoha one day. They would never let the Stone rise again without trying to crush us underfoot, but I thought our methods would give us some time at the very least." He humphed.
"At least the supplies are still coming in. Both Cloud and Mist have been generous. We are not without support, and Konoha will not find us so easy to crush. Not again," she said.
"Remember that neither Cloud nor Mist will lift a finger to help us if it comes to open combat. They send us supplies now because we prevent Konoha from fully integrating Kusa and getting even stronger. They use us as a distraction for their great foe while we use them for the help they can provide. Do not mistake this for anything more than that, sister."
"I won't. It's just—"
"I know. Without allies, it becomes clear that we find ourselves in a terrible position. But the Stone will always endure," he said.
"The Stone will never break," she returned.
"But what will we do about Konoha, though?" she asked.
"They have their Anbu sniffing through the mountains, using those kekkei genkai of theirs to find our bases where they can. Take five of the stealth suits and a kill squad. Make the mountains uninhabitable for them," he ordered. She nodded, and then she was on her way.
He turned to the rest of the files that had been sent to him. He was not the Tsuchikage. The Stone was neither united enough nor strong enough to have one. Instead, he ruled as one of five shadows that were in charge of the direction of the village.
He felt he was the one best suited for the position once they managed to fully restore the Hidden Stone, but he had no doubt that his fellow members of the Council thought the same about themselves. That was why he was tempted not to include the news of Konoha's progress in his latest council report. There was every chance that the other Shadows were aware of Konoha's incursion, but then again, there was also the chance that they were too; and no matter how he felt about them, the New Stone was not at the point where he could afford to sabotage his fellows.
He wrote down the message and copied it three more times before placing it in the out bin and flaring his chakra to summon a messenger to take the message out for delivery. The next thing on his table was a report with the equipment situation. Donations from Kiri and Kumo meant that they were not as hard done by as they could have been, but things were still far from being perfect by any means. They did not have enough that he could afford not to have to think about it, and so he received reports that told him the present state of their armory, the numbers of kunai, shuriken, swords, and seal tags they had for their use as well as their present rate of usage.
The bottom part of the report had a recommendation to approve the graduation of the new set of recruits from their academy. They could afford to arm and armor them now as long as they kept quotas the same. The second recommendation was to keep the quota system as it was with the numbers remaining the same for the various mission classes. He approved both and moved the report to the outbox, and next was a mission request from the Daimyō himself—the only kind of mission requests that still made their way to him at this point.
It was for the elimination of another bandit group. Except that this one had decided to step too close to the Capital City for the Daimyō's pleasure. Taeru sighed and mentally checked for their available jōnin. He could not afford two out at the same time with Konoha breathing down his neck, so he assigned Hakoda and three chūnin for the mission. The bandits were more likely than not going to be some of those genin who had survived the fall of the Old Stone, and instead of dedicating their lives to her restoration, they had chosen to use their training and skills to make nuisances of themselves in the Land of Earth. They were lower than scum.
XXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
I slid backwards from the impact of the punch against my guard. He stepped closer, coming for the next attack. I allowed his kick to sail past the space my head had just been before I stretched out my own leg to kick at the one that remained on the ground. He pushed off with that leg. I tilted my head to avoid a kick as he turned the motion into a backflip. He landed on his feet and as he did so, his cheeks bulged and he spat out a series of wind bullets straight at me. Hardening my skin with Earth Release, I stepped straight through them and Spartan kicked him.
He crossed his hands in front of himself. The impact sent him into a tree. I followed after him, and then the ground between us exploded. I avoided the Rasengan she came roaring at me with while grabbing her wrist and directing it back at the ground. Our eyes met; my pale, pupil-less orbs reflected in her red gaze.
"Stay still and let me hit you, Sensei," she growled, tails stabbing out at me.
"Nope," I said, stabbing my fingers straight at her forehead and scrambling her brain in the meantime. I'd found that there was very little damage I could do to Kushina that Gyūki would not be able to fix in a matter of minutes.
The ground beneath my feet began to shake as more tails grew out from behind her. I attempted to teleport to the side only to find myself unable to move. I looked over at Minato to find him smirking straight at me.
"When did you even manage to figure out a barrier to block space-time ninjutsu?" I asked while jumping backwards away from Kushina.
"Two days ago. Why else do you think we approached you for a spar?" His smirk widened, and I slid away from Kushina's outstretched tails.
"And the barrier to stop me from absorbing nature energy?"
"That one came together last week. Sorry, Sensei. We've thought of everything. It's finally time for you to know the bitter taste of defeat," he said.
"Well, there is one thing you forgot about," I said, feeling my own smirk grow. It widened as his began to die.
"What?"
"Kushina wasn't Konoha's first jinchūriki."
'Want to stretch your legs, Kurama?' I asked.
'Sure, I'll bail you out and save your pride.' The grumpy grinch growled from within, and I felt my chakra pathways flood with power.
I caught Kushina's next punch straight in my grip and then tossed her back into the forest she had come from. Minato, eyes wide like he was being faced with death, Body Flickered backwards. The bastard was fast—faster than I was in base even after all my training—but I had the chakra of the Nine-Tails running though my body with no limits. I caught up to him in a matter of seconds. We locked eyes.
He attempted to sweep my feet out from under me. I allowed it to hit me, and his kick achieved nothing as I stood firm in the face of it like a stone that waves washed against with no effect. I lashed out with a knee that he managed to raise a guard in front of. I stopped my knee just short of his guard and the ground beneath him shifted to mud that threatened to swallow him whole.
His whole body arced with lightning for a split second and he was off to the races. I scoffed and took my stance again as I prepared for his counterattack. There was a second of delay, and then I saw him shoot out of the foliage with his left hand outstretched. I knew this technique. I'd seen it before a dozen times. I tilted to the side, avoiding the Hell Stab before I shoulder-checked him back into the foliage. Or at least I tried to. His body did not move like it ought to when faced with superior strength. Instead, he braced and took my charge head-on.
I heard a chittering sound and then the ground below me exploded. It was all I could do to jump in the air with the force of my tails pushing me upwards. The wooden serpent damn near swallowed me whole still as it made its way from the ground.
'This isn't real,' I heard Kurama's voice growl in my ear as I pushed myself to the side with an application of Wind Release. Minato had a barrier blocking Earth Release around as well. I twisted to avoid a spider that jumped out of the foliage to meet me mid-air and just as I was about to crash to the ground, I used my tails to grab hold of one of the trees behind me and stop me just in time. It was the wise choice as the ground itself began to dissolve into sludge.
I turned, waiting for Minato. It was just his thing to take advantage of any second of distraction to his opponent.
'Wake up, you damn fool.'
'Not now, Kurama,' I growled back as I watched for any hint of him in the treeline.
'How stupid can you be and still breathe? Can you not see that we are in an illusion?'
A genjutsu? Impossible. I was using my…
No. No, I wasn't.
"Byakugan," I snapped, activating my dōjutsu. And just like Kurama said, everything snapped away in an instant. I was at that beach again and this time instead of a woman, there was a young boy. Just like the woman, he shared the Hyūga face except instead of black hair, he had plain white hair. He looked almost like an Ōtsutsuki. Perhaps one of the early Hyūga in Hamura's line. He stood near the waterline, so close that it looked like one surge from the sea behind him and he would find himself drenched. Of course, that was unlikely. As always, the sea was still. Completely unmoving. Deep blue and beautiful, but dead and lifeless at the same time.
"Who are you this time?" I asked, walking towards him. Just like the woman I had met before him, he smiled, a thin quirk of his lips, and then he echoed my words.
"Who are you?" he responded. Not in the mood to play the game this time, I just went straight to the point.
"Are you me?" I asked. This time the dream did not end; I could see his lips quirk at my answer. He said nothing, turning to the sea. Something still felt wrong about that answer in particular.
"You're not me," I said.
"Who are you?" he returned.
"Okay, let's skip that since it seems you can't answer that bit. What do you want with me? Why are you here?"
"Who are you?" he asked instead.
Trying to close the distance was useless. Even though there should only have been a few steps between us, the more I walked, the more the space between us seemed to lengthen. The closer I got, the farther I seemed. It had to be some sort of trick.
"I am Shorirama Senju, grandson of Hashirama, Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato. Now answer my questions before I lose what patience I do have for this nonsense."
His smile just widened, like the idea of me threatening him seemed to be amusing to him.
'Can you see this, Kurama?' I asked mentally.
'I can,' the tailed beast responded. The boy's eyes widened at that.
"Abomination," he seemed to snarl, the smile on his lips dying out. The distance between us was nothing; his hand was around my head and he was shoving me into the sand a second later. I felt my own snarl reach my face. I liked puzzles well enough, and this was an amusing enough one, but there was something I liked even more—a good fight.
I grabbed the hand that was around my head as my nails lengthened into claws from the surge of Kurama's chakra. I pulled at the fingers, trying to snap the grip open, except that it would not budge.
"Do not sully this body any further, boy." And then I felt myself begin to fall as he pushed me further in the sand. I fell until I snapped to wakefulness, gasping for breath.
I sensed my door snap open. There was a masked agent at the door.
"Hokage-sama?" He asked, the question unsaid.
"Nothing to worry about, Bear."
"Hokage—"
"Leave me," I snapped, regretting it even as I did so.
'Kurama, what the fuck was that?' I asked, not sure what answer I wanted to hear.
'I have no idea.' I knew that wasn't it though. Fuck.
A/N: New chapter done, how's it looking? 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.