A Ballad of Blossoming

But alas, his sensory abilities were not always correct. He vaguely felt something akin to a roar as incredibly dense water spurt towards him with the intensity he was afraid to near.

Ren seethed as one moment of carelessness cost him, unable to completely mold chakra to form what he wanted. He leaped away, but it was a move which could be easily predicted. A kunai flew at him and he barely managed to evade from having his vitals struck.

A superficial wound; he exhaled.

A lucky ending to a mishap.

Not being one to let a singular mistake hinder his focus for too long, the red-haired genin spat out a storm of wind at the direction of where the water had appeared from.

Wind Style – Great Breakthrough!

A gale of ferocious wind split – cut – apart everything in its way. The field was engulfed in a vigorous amount of chakra molded into the element of wind, a statement to how sure Ren wanted to be that they were caught in the ninjutsu.

During this moment of silence, Ren's brain went through a chain reaction of thoughts, judging by the lack of sound, he had either killed the initiator or had failed to strike his mark completely.

A misstep from one of his opponents- a snap of a twig meters away - was all it took for Ren to snap into action.

One moment he was there – the next he wasn't. His body shattering the barriers of sound with insane precision. The ground where his feet had once been, pressed downwards at the pressure created. A bone-crushing sound was emitted as air surged around, trying to confine him to some sort of earthly-limits that Chakra granted him the ability to break.

Ren's eyes connected to one of his opponents, who strangely was staring at him with panic-filed eyes. His sensing had been off-the-mark his entire time here, but he could still vaguely make out the location of at least one of them when close.

'An odd Ninjutsu. If it was a genjutsu, I would be able to break it apart quite easily.'

All he saw was that they were shrouded in shadows. It reminded him of a Bloodline Release - or something trying to imitate it.

That alone wasn't a problem, the fact he had been discovered so fast was the issue. He hadn't been using any sort of movement technique, but his speed easily surpassed most chunins, and enhanced by the new quality of his unique chakra, he would be a force to be reckoned with.

So this could only mean one thing –

"That talisman wasn't as much of a low-quality one as I originally thought." Ren's eyes widened as he attempted to dodge an incoming projectile – a blade – as fast as he could, but did not escape unscathed. The sides of the blade cut through his skin, allowing blood to freely flow out.

'These bastards are purposely giving me openings to use so they can strike me patiently. I'm out of the range of most ANBU patrols too, this is going to be difficult.'

It was at that moment that his amethyst orbs connected to the most valuable piece of the puzzle. Something so obvious that he had failed to notice it on first look. It was akin to a rat staring at the larger piece of cheese, ignoring the smaller portion closer to him, and much easier to notice.

A secondary formation, one which served as a supporting-type, which empowered the first one. Something that most Fuinjutsu Masters ended up ignoring due to the fact that most Primary Formations possessed at the very minimum one supporting formation.

One meant to act as a distraction from anyone nearby, which would camouflage the environment into looking as nothing out of the normal to others outside it.

'These bastards, they really want me dead.'

Ren seethed inside. Of course they would not engage him out in the open. Their goal most likely was to try to drain his reserves as much as they could, and end him in one go. They had time to spare after all, and a kid's reserves could only be so massive, even for an Uzumaki.

At that moment, he felt like going on a rampage, killing all three of them until nothing remained of them, but he quickly recovered.

'Is this the influence of the chakra I absorbed from the Kyuubi? Fearsome… Apparently, I have not fully absorbed it as much as I originally thought I had.'

Slapping his face with one of his hands, he inhaled deeply and exhaled equally as deep.

He was in a precarious situation – could he get out of this alive?

It wasn't that they were stronger than him, but he was fighting them at their own game, own conditions and also god knew what sort of ninjutsu they had mastered.

Just the thought of 'dying' would've had most people shivering to their timbers at the chance of it, but a shinobi like him knew that a moment out there was a moment he was blessed to continue living.

How would he work against all of this?

Should he use his superior fuinjutsu to discover flaws in their formation; beat them at their own game; Use raw power – ninjutsu – to tear apart all of their plans, or simply let them decide the flow of the battle until he found the perfect chance to interrupt it.

Turns out he didn't have to do anything -

One blink was all it took for him to blackout, his vigor seeping out faster than he could even notice.

"Ren!"

xXx

"FUCK!"

The red-haired boy shot forward, his hands tightly holding onto whatever they could grab as sweat dripped from his forehead.

"Finally up?" The collected and somewhat bored voice he found familiar resounded in what he identified as a hospital room.

"Teacher," Ren muttered out with what little strength he could muster out. His entire body felt sluggish and felt weaker than ever.

"You shouldn't be moving that much after what happened to you."

Memories of what had transpired before his consciousness had slipped away played like a video inside of his mind.

It didn't take long for him to start questioning why there was a memory gap, or how was he possibly alive. If the ones who had attacked the Third –

That was a foolish view of what had happened to him.

Those three were not strong enough to deal with the aging but still fit shinobi. No matter what sort of tricks they used, Hiruzen was still undoubtedly one of the strongest to have ever existed in the entire history of Hidden Villages all across the Elemental Nations, let alone Konohagakure.

"What exactly happened to me?"

Ren spoke out. A half-lie, half-truth; Kakashi would realize hopefully. It was true that he did not know clearly what had happened to him after he fainted.

"Now, I wonder about that myself too. The ANBU patrol found you unconscious around the Sarutobi Compound Forest. With the amount of raw chakra around the area, it's a shock to me that no sensor picked the suspicious signatures in their "radar."

Kakashi chimed much to his ever-growing uneasiness.

"I had my Ninken look over the field as well, but they did not pick anything strange excluding what was already obvious."

Fixing his head protector's position slightly, he stood up from his seat and narrowed his remaining eye, which glared at his student.

"The Hokage wanted to have a Yamanaka check your memories in case you did not remember the battlefield - but I found the need for one unnecessary since he is near retirement."

"Tell me, do you remember anything?"

"I…"

xXx

*cough* *cough*

The wrinkled hands of the aged Hokage nearing retirement went over his mouth.

'I am getting sicker day by day.'

Hiruzen could not deny the obvious. The opponents he had faced - the assassins - were not at the level required to kill a Kage, much less the strongest of them all, but only now had he realized their goal.

It was not to kill but weaken.

His body was frailer than it had ever been before. Even molding Chakra for the easiest of techniques took a toll on him. His stamina had hit a peak-low.

News of what had happened to the younger Ren had taken his alertness to an entirely new level. He had to know if the people who had struck the Uzumaki had been the same who had attacked him.

Clad in an odd technique that covered their entire body in a shroud of darkness made it hard to identify their village - if they were in one for that matter - and no spell he knew was capable of helping him in this.

Or was it just his age?

He sighed.

The Professor.

People thought he was invincible, a man of incredible feats, chosen by Lord Second, Senju Tobirama as his successor decades ago. But also a man of many flaws.

He had permitted the Uchiha Massacre half a decade ago. He had hesitated in acting against the Kyuubi - he could've sacrificed himself instead of Minato.

He had confirmed the near extinction of the Senju Clan through several means. It was necessary, to see the balance of the village not to rely on two clans alone.

His elder son died in a mission he knew for sure that with his capabilities he could not manage to survive.

He had turned a blind eye and kneeled to Kumo as they kidnaped one of his own, fully aware of what they wanted when they had first come to negotiate.

Did he regret any of his doings?

No.

Danzo Shimura was often considered the evil guardian of Konoha, but he could not be considered as the light of the village. At least not in his eyes.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was the necessary iron fist of peace.

"Aino, call Tsunade over. It's time we make this all official."

A slight rumble was heard as the sliding door to his solar was opened. A frail-looking middle-aged woman wearing white clothes walked into the room, her head looking at the floor.

Despite the fact that there was nothing wrong, his senses kept telling him to be alarmed.

"I'm afraid that will be unnecessary, Sensei."

"You!"

Hiruzen's eyes widened, noticing the change of tone and voice from the woman who had served the family for a decade and more.

The face looked straight at him, and disturbingly the frail woman's face had started to peel off., her normally tanned skin was paler than ever. Slitted-eyes with a golden glimmer stared at him and produced a grin.

At his peak, these short moments of anticipation would've been enough to allow him to use several techniques in a session of bursts, A sword extended from Aino's hand straight into his chest, piercing his heart in one go.

"This sword… Kusanagi, Orochimaru, how did you get into the village?!" Hiruzen's eyes started to lose the life they had possessed a moment ago, and even a shinobi of his capabilities struggled to keep his heart pumping with the chakra he could mold.

"Rest easy, sensei. I will make sure the village follows you to your inevitable demise. I apologize for not being able to defeat you in a fair one versus one, but our little acquaintance Danzo was incapable of killing you with that poison alone."

"Kuku…"

The aged Hokage attempted a last-ditch attack on the snake-man Rogue Ninja, summoning several shurikens straight at the Sannin, but they were all effortlessly dodged.

"It's a shame I couldn't kill you at your peak, but it's still worth something I assume." Orochimaru gave his former teacher a last-minute wave as if he already knew the ending of what was to come.

The Third Hokage saw the light of the Sun for the last day. His blood splattered around the floor forming something akin to art. He saw pink petals go and come outside the window and smiled.

'Ah, has the time for Sakura's to blossom already come?'