Pre-Chapter A/N: So here we are back on our regular upload schedule. Sunday and Tuesday/Wednesday. I've put systems in place to ensure we don't fall behind again so yay. I look forward to stress-testing them as the madnesses of life stack up (Now close to a week in and things look great. Experimenting with a Saturday upload to allow more space between uploads so here you go). To celebrate the scale of our achievement, we've got a cheeky little discount for the whole month (code: MAY01) on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga). Next five chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXXX - SHORIRAMA SENJU
I was not surprised to be told that Shika had succeeded in her mission. We would have to commit close to the full force that we had set as the limit before negotiations began, but that was not a bad thing. It meant that Yaga was at least competent enough to give Shika a good dance on the negotiation board. Well, either that or he had the good sense to have someone who was better at such things take the lead. Either way, the core point was that he had a good head on his shoulders.
The fact that he was not a complete idiot probably made him a better ally than the majority of people who called this world home. It was something at least. I signed off on the deal after giving the full terms and Shika's comments a read. It would get sent back to her with my own comments by the end of day through our special fuinjutsu messenger boxes, and she would then be able to formalise the agreement and begin making progress on the goals that they had laid down. I considered the timeline that she had somehow been able to get Yaga to commit to for achieving our war goals.
He would lose men from moving as quickly as Shika wanted. She did not care, because the weaker he was, the less likely it would be for him to get the urge to do something stupid in his mind when the opportunity arose. If he still had the forces necessary to sustain a war after we placed Ame in his hands, what were the chances that he would do what was wise and put it in ours shortly afterwards?
Close to zero. Very few men would look power in the face and spurn it. And Ame was power. Hanzo had been dead for a while now but a lot of the things he had created still remained. The industry whose growth he had supported now fed hundreds in one way or the other. With Iwa gone, Ame stood a good chance of inheriting its place as one of the great Five. Would Yaga the Beheader look at power like that and say no? Normally, I would not much mind finding out with time so I could learn as much about him as I could, but Konoha shinobi would bleed for this campaign. And if there was a way to ensure that things did not go badly, why would I not take it? If you could guarantee obedience, why not?
Shika was doing that now by forcing him into a timeline where the only way he would win would be to lose a good portion of his army in taking the crown, and therefore would have to rely on us to prevent his head being removed from his shoulders after he sat on that throne. In that case, his loyalty to us would not just be out of obligation. It would be a necessity to keep his hard-won position. My shinobi would give him Ame. All he had to do was give it to me in turn.
And when that time came, he would do it with a false smile on his face because he had no other choice. I wrote down what I had to say about the deal, my approval for the timeline, and my next orders to Shika -- one of which was for her to hand over operational command to one of the Anbu and begin to make her way back to the village. While she was an active shinobi and it was expected that she would have to risk her life for the good of the village, it still brought a feeling of discomfort to my stomach -- having her out there.
There had been the risk that she would have died on the way into Ame. There was the risk that Yaga would have refused to discuss and would have attacked instead. Toad was strong. She was one of the more powerful Anbu captains with her unique abilities, but she was not yet at that level. S-class. That level that meant most of the world would move if you willed it. The level that meant that you could stare the world in the eye and force it to be the first to look away.
From all indications, Yaga was at that level. If he wanted Shika dead, there was nothing short of triggering the hiraishin to get me to arrive that would have prevented it from happening. Of course, in that case, I would have killed the man, all his people, and then the other two warlords just to send a message that no one messed with what was mine, but that would have been such a waste. And I would never forget what had happened with Kizuru. He had been killed before he could trigger his own failsafe and get me to help. It brought home the fact that the hiraishin was not a perfect failsafe. I could still lose friends. Shika had something slightly better than even that to help out, but better safe than sorry.
When I finished writing my response, I sent it and turned to my next missive. Uzume had been spotted with Minato and Mikoto crossing into the Land of Rivers and then the Land of Wind. I sighed, pinching my forehead. I would rather not have pissed off the Kazekage -- a monk himself -- by attacking the temple so early. I would have waited till Ame was on-side and we had begun moving into Rivers seriously before kicking the hornet's nest that was Sunagakure, but Uzume had plans of her own it seemed.
And I knew her too well to think that anything would manage to get her to vary the path she had chosen. When met with a wall, my fiancée had only one response. She would bang her head against it until either it broke or she did. So far, not a single one had managed to break her, so I couldn't really knock the effectiveness. A strategy that worked was always --
"Hokage-sama," Donkey said, body flickering into the room.
"Report," I barked, rising from my seat. There was only one reason a member of the Anbu would body-flicker into my office like this. I felt at the hiraishin marker placed on Shika. It was still intact. Things hadn't changed there then. So where had the emergency come from?
"Deep cover agents within Takigakure have sent reports in that the village has been attacked by Kumogakure," he said, voice crisp and clear. My heart slowed its frantic beating. Okay, it was that type of emergency. Those I loved still lived. This was a problem for Shorirama the Hokage, not Shorirama the friend.
"What details have you been able to extract?" I asked.
"An advance force of Kumogakure shinobi including the Raikage gained entry to the village using the hidden entrance and put the Head of the Village to the sword. Its forces have been decimated and both the Nanabi and Nibi have been captured by Kumo," he said.
"The Nibi? Taki had the Nibi?" I asked, shocked. Those sneaky fuckers.
"It seems so. Three different reports speak of a tailed beast with two tails and a fiery blue aura around it," he said. I nodded.
"What is the situation regarding our agents?" I asked.
"It is doubtful that they will be able to send reports in for a while. The bulk of the village's civilian and non-combatant population will be evacuated to another location. They should be able to maintain cover but we cannot expect reports to come in as often as they used to," he said.
"Fair enough. Write back that they should focus on maintaining their cover. Also convey my displeasure that this is the first I am hearing about Taki acquiring the Nibi," I said. He nodded, body flickering away. I returned to my seat with a scowl forming and a headache not far behind.
Kumo was going to be even more of a pain in the arse now. Two tailed beasts. They would put them in hosts as quickly as they could if they had any sense. It was probably better for me to move on the village now, but that would throw a wrench in the plan. The Nibi and Nanabi were powerful on account of them being tailed beasts and all, but Konoha already had three -- two of which were stronger than their two combined. Any person they sealed a beast into would be a child now. A pre-teen was the oldest they could go with if they found an unnaturally compatible host with either of the beasts. There would be years between sealing and them being able to be used in combat. In that case, it was probably best if I left it alone.
By the present schedule we were at the very least a decade away from being ready to face and fully integrate Kumo into our operations. Most likely, we were even farther away than that. Let them train their jinchuriki. Both Kushina and I would keep getting stronger. A new generation of Konoha shinobi would be born and given access to training tools and facilities that would put Kumo to shame. When the time came, it would not be a fight. Jinchuriki or not, Kumo would never stand a chance.
XXXXXXX - A
C's warning had come too late. The pot was shattered, and the Two Tails was unleashed upon the world once again. Except that this time he did not have Stage 3 of the Lightning Armour to rely on. Feeling at his reserves told him even a few seconds of Stage 2 would be too much for his body to sustain as things presently stood. The landscape of the fight for Taki had shifted, and he was not well placed to deal with this shift.
The Nibi roared, its caustic chakra feeling even more wrathful than it had the first time they had faced it. Its fiery aura burned a nasty blue that lit the ground it stood on on fire in places where there was grass to burn. And then in places where there was not, it began to bake the sand they stood upon. A flared his chakra, entering the first stage of the Lightning Armour to stave off the burning sensation that just being in the beast's presence was beginning to trigger.
"Anything left in the tank?" D asked, stepping next to him. A looked over at his oldest friend. This was not something he would admit to most others. It was not even something they would know to ask. But years together had turned him and D into two halves of the same whole rather than two distinctive beings in their own rights, sometimes.
"Only enough for this and not for too long," he said as the Nibi began to thrash about. The women that had released it were the first to fall victim to its rampage. Those too close had just caught on fire from the beast's arrival. They were the lucky ones.
The others tried to run but the Nibi was not in a merciful mood. It chased them all, grabbing and eating them when it could, crushing them underfoot when it couldn't do the former, and incinerating them with its breath when they managed to make it some distance away. And then when it finished with the women, it turned its attention to the Kumo contingent.
His father had taught him that the Eight Tails was more than just an animal. It was not human but it had an intelligence of its own. He had believed it because he believed everything his father said, but he had not truly internalised it. Not until now when he could see the glint in the beast's eye as it spotted them.
It remembered who had sealed it the first time, and it did not seem to be all that pleased about it. It pushed off, and A reached out, placing a hand on D's shoulder and pushing him away before crossing his arms in a block and reinforcing said arms with his lightning release chakra to increase the defence capacity of the armour.
That was probably all that saved his arms from being torn off his shoulders. Because even with the defence, it felt like they had near been wrenched away.
He pushed at the tailed beast, not surprised when it did not give way. It was a feint, however, as he twisted around it and tried to attack from the left, jumping so he could get at the creature's head. Its ears were a well-known weakness according to the reading that A had done in preparation for the fight. It twisted, tails lashing out and slamming into him. Mid-air, there was little he could do to brace himself so he took the attack head on, only managing to twist his body into some sort of guard at the last minute.
He crashed into the ground. They were in trouble, he could tell already. It stung, but there was only one order he could give. They had taken out the Seven Tails. They needed to secure the unconscious body and leave. He could return to Taki at any time to finish his score with the Nibi. There was no point losing his life or that of his shinobi here when they could always come for the Nibi a different time.
If Konoha somehow managed to capture it before then, then that was just fate. He rose from the ground, the order for the retreat on his lips before he felt an explosion of chakra. His senses were strong, but not so attuned that he would have felt something small from a distance. No, this was big.
He pushed his way out of the remains of the house he had been sent into. He hadn't even felt it when he had hit. That was a testament to just how hard the Two Tails had hit him. The left side of his body was going to be just one massive bruise by the time the morrow came around. Well, that was assuming that they lived to see tomorrow.
He walked forwards and was met with a sight that took his breath away. The chakra explosion had been D. He was bouncing around the Two Tails, dodging its attacks like it was standing still while landing devastating punches that the beast was definitely feeling.
He would have thought D had managed to replicate the Lightning Armour if not for the fact that the cloak that surrounded him was the green of neutral chakra and not the blue of lightning-natured chakra. So what was this, he wondered, as D landed on the ground before hissing off and towards one of the beast's feet this time. It sensed the approach and twisted, trying to get him with its tail, but then D did something that should not even have been possible -- he grabbed the tail that tried to slap into him, hands spread wide, and then tightened his grip before heaving. With visible exertion, he managed to use the tail he had grabbed onto to force the beast to move. He spun, wrenching the creature out of its position on the ground and then tossing it straight into the tree at the centre of the village.
Fire spread from its aura and then the great tree began to burn.
A could not put what he was seeing into words. No, scratch that. He could describe it. It was bullshit. Was that a good enough word? Impossible was not the word to use, because it was happening. Since it was happening, it could not be considered impossible, but it still did not fit in with any of his previous conceptions or models of reality. He knew how strong the Nibi was. He knew how strong D was, and while he would never have referred to his friend as weak, he knew that in the first stage of the Lightning Armour, he and D were close to evenly matched at best -- and that was a charitable estimation of D's strength.
But D was doing things now that A could never have -- not with the first stage of the Lightning Armour at least. And then there was the aura around him. What kind of armour was that? It felt like pure chakra to his senses, but surely that could not be the case. Outputting that much chakra in an aura that accomplished nothing? D would keel over dead in a matter of minutes. There was a reason most chakra usage was invisible after all. It cost too much to bring things to the visual realm.
The Nibi managed to right itself, but it did not seem to matter much as D was already sprinting at it. He pushed off against the ground, leaving footprint impressions everywhere his feet touched as he covered the distance between himself and the Tailed Beast -- the edge of Taki to its centre -- in a matter of seconds.
The Nibi tried, bringing its tail to bear even as it breathed a sea of flames out at his friend. D managed to avoid both, leaving an afterimage with how quick he was moving as he smashed a punch into the beast's snout from the side. He kept his momentum and rose above the tailed beast. He spun in the air and as his momentum went down to zero and gravity took hold again, he shifted so his foot was stretched out and poised. He smashed the axe kick downwards, hitting the beast right in the head. It slumped downwards, hitting the ground with an explosion of dust. He reoriented himself again as the beast hit the ground right before he did, so he could land smoothly in front of it.
The rise and fall of the Tailed Beast's chest said it was still alive, but A would reckon that his first take-down of the beast had been what made D's own victory possible. Now, if it escaped again, they should have an easier time recapturing it, but then there was the problem of the shattered pot.
"D, what was that?" He called over.
"A second," D's voice came out in a rush as he sprinted towards C.
A/N: Yes, D has the Eight Gates (with some caveats). Not like Konoha invented the technique so it makes sense for someone from another village with a focus on taijutsu to figure it out on their own. Kumo wins at Taki, but it runs a bit close. Still, a win is a win and I don't think they'll be unhappy about it. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early. Discount available with the code MAY01– have fun.