Raid (Shadow Legends)

A/N: Hey guys. It's me! Di- uh I mean Author-kun! I just wanted to let all of my fans(?) know that I am alive and well. Well not really, but I am alive. The upload schedule should be more stable as soon as my job fires me. Cutting my hours and having me train someone to do my job really doesn't make it subtle.

Anyways, I just wanted to let you know that I might have a lot more time on my hands in the future, so in the next few weeks expect a more consistent upload schedule. Also if anyone is hiring in North San Diego County in California, I could really use a heads up. Thx.

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After greeting everyone, I decided to turn in for the night and skip dinner. I wasn't particularly tired after my fight with Zabuza, but I wanted to get a good night's sleep, since I would be scouring an entire country tomorrow to route and eliminate Gato's Goons and seize his assets. I would begin with scattering bone clones all around the village and the Land of Waves as whole tomorrow morning, and I probably wouldn't be able to rest for the rest of the day or even two, depending on how slippery Gato was. I wanted to find him as quickly as possible tomorrow, but Zabuza's information about soldiers working for him, rather than shinobi or mercenaries, was of great importance.

In the Naruto-world, Soldiers are just normal people who have chakra-enhanced strength but didn't go down the different path to becoming Samurai or Shinobi. They are generally much more skilled than Thugs or bandits, but less skilled than a capable Genin would be, so they shouldn't be a threat. The main concern I had was where Gato got them from.

The Land of Waves is poor, but even still, the Daiymo had a large amount of wealth stored up from taxes on Gato's businesses. Even Gato can't act against a Daimyo, since there is an unspoken rule about not provoking them. Democratic Revolutions have occurred across the Continent a few times, but the Daimyo from the different nations will always pool their resources, shinobi villages, and money, to squash any political system other than the feudal one they live in to maintain their power.

Even if Gato had more political power than a Daimyo, in their own land, if he tried to depose the Daimyo, other lands wouldn't allow him to trade with them at best or would conquer the Land of Waves and install a puppet at worst. Long-story-short, Gato still has to pay his taxes and give face to the Daimyo, which also means the Daimyo should be keeping an eye on him enough to force him to disband any soldier groups he has. It's possible that the Daimyo has lent Gato a few soldiers and is corrupt. A lot of Daimyo, especially from smaller nations, are corrupt, but they almost never lend out their trained soldiers.

After pondering this question for a while, I decided that it wouldn't matter in the long run. So long as I kill Gato and use [Starlight Trace] on the soldiers, I would get my answers. I marked my room with a FTG seal and turned in for the night. No use pondering it right now when I wasn't going to be making a move until tomorrow anyway.

...

It was roughly midnight when I awoke. I had smelt smoke coming in through the window in my room and was immediately alerted. I jumped out of my futon and quickly put on my clothes. I activated my Byakugan and saw the village burning in the distance. I created three clones to wake everyone and jumped out the window, though I still had my Byakugan active at the time. I noticed that Amaru and Inari weren't back yet.

'Damn!' I thought as I searched for Amaru's FTG seal. I found it in the village and immediately teleported there.

*Whoosh!*

I was teleported into the town square. To my left, a large burning building, to my right, Amaru, who was using media ninjutsu on a woman with large burns covering her body.

"Amaru!" I said as I ran up to her. I filled an empty cloth bag with Senzu Beans and gave them to her as I knelt down next to her. "What's going on? Who is attacking?"

"I-I don't know! I was with Inari at one moment, then I saw the smoke and sent him home while I checked this out!" She said.

I nodded at her before extending my Byakugan's range to the limit. I couldn't find Inari nor could I find where any of the attackers were, so I created two dozen bone clones to deal with this situation and extend my visual network like I did when searching for Jugo all those years ago. Half a dozen would scower the village and bring the villagers here for Amaru to treat, another half dozen to use water-release jutsu to put out the fires, and the last dozen or so to increase my visual range. One of my previous clones would lead Shizune's team here and inform them on what was happening, and the other two would go to guard the bridge Tazuna was building.

This town has no strategic value other than the bridge being nearby, so if there was an attack here, the next attack would probably be there, if it wasn't happening already. As I began helping my clones with the wounded, I received an update that shocked me to my core. One of my clones popped itself to let us know what it found.

'Flying Shinobi!?! F*ck this is the Land of the Sky!' I thought to myself. I didn't think about it too hard, but it makes sense. The Land of Waves is relatively close to Konoha and the Land of the Sky has a grudge. With the war looming, they probably wanted to secure a difficult to invade island fortress off the coast to harass Konoha from the air.

It might have worked too if it wasn't for the fact that I was here. I immediately made my way towards Shizune while guiding the villagers to the meeting spot just out of town. When I saw her healing the wounded, I decided to take charge of her team for a bit.

"Shizune-san! I've found a lead on who did this. From what I saw, it was soldiers from the Land of the Sky. I remember seeing their headbands from lectures in class about Konoha's history." I said to her. Shizune was momentarily shocked but before she could say anything, I continued "I will deal with them. Please help heal the villagers here with Amaru. My clones will deal with the fires and Guren and Sora will guard the surroundings."

Shizune looked conflicted for a brief moment before she sighed heavily and nodded. I looked at Guren and Sora who both gave me somber but determined nods before they scattered. I was about to turn around and leave, but Amaru stopped me.

"Haruka-sama! Did you find Inari-kun?" She asked.

I was silent for a moment before somberly shaking my head. "He was probably captured, but for what reason, I do not know," I said.

Amaru looked shocked for a moment before a look of resolve appeared on her face. "Alright. Then I am coming with you!" She proclaimed. I didn't have time to argue with her and she was always headstrong, and I knew when she put her mind to something, she wouldn't give up until she finished it. Her stubborn nobility was one of the things I liked about her so much, so I simply nodded.

Amaru gave the bag of Senze beans to Shizune who looked at them for a while before nodding. "Be safe" she pled.

"Don't worry. Haruka-sama is here. With him around, I won't even get a scratch on my body!" She bragged while holding up her arm like Rosie the Riveter with a shit-eating grin on her face.

"Alright enough of the drama! Let's go!" I said as I picked up Amaru into a princess carry and used Body Flicker to disappear. If I used swift release, not only would I drain my chakra quicker, which was already quite drained by my large number of clones, but Amaru would likely get motion sickness or pass out due to not being used to accelerating to such high speeds. I didn't notice at the time, but Amaru was blushing something fierce.

...

After tracking the Sky Soldiers for an hour or so through the thick forest, we arrived at a large clearing, easily big enough to fit a stadium from my world. In its center, we saw a large group of soldiers with golden wing devices strapped to their backs. They seemed to be pretty calm and I know for a fact that they weren't on guard, due to them not expecting Hidden Leaf Ninja to be in the country.

I put down Amaru and activated my Byakugan. I tried spotting Inari, but I couldn't see him. "Inari isn't here, so this can't be their main base of operation. Nonetheless, these are definitely the guys who attacked the village. They are all low on chakra and they are armed with Fire-bombs." I whispered to Amaru.

"Hmmm... then we should take these guys out before looking for Inari-kun." She said as she punched her palm.

I smirked at her confidence. Because of my training, Amaru should be at the mid-chunin level of skill. She just doesn't have any of the experience Haku, Jugo, and I have, so she should be fine in a fight against regular soldiers. I also called these scrubs soldiers rather than shinobi, because even though they are wearing shinobi gear, their headband is for their land, not for their village, implying they either don't have a hidden village, or they aren't a part of it.

I ejected two bone swords from my palms before marking them with my FTG sign. "I'll take out most of them, you get any of the stragglers or whoever is lucky enough to slip past me" I say as I through the swords into the sky.

"[Bone Release: White Deathstorm]" I say as my two swords suddenly bust into several thousand cones, which begin to fall towards the encampment. I suppose that they are better soldiers than most, given their gimmick, they actually look out for ariel attacks, so when a hailstorm of Sharp Blades started falling towards them, they were alerted. not that it did them much good.

"Agh!"

"Gyuuuaaaaahhhhh!"

"Aaaahhhh!!!"

The screams from their encampment could be heard from the treeline we were in. Amaru's mouth was twitching at seeing the total carnage in front of her before a large tick mark appeared on her forehead. "How am I supposed to get any action when you massacred them all like that!" she yelled in exasperation for my accomplishment.

I pretended to be offended and looked at her with eyes saying 'how is this my fault?' but I didn't get to say anything as Amaru just karate chopped my head and sighed before turning to the devastation and charging in.

Despite my best efforts, a half-dozen or so managed to make it out of the death storm with only minor cuts and were still in fighting condition. As a matter of fact, only a few of them actually died, most were just severely injured and waiting to bleed out.

Amaru ran to the first of the bunch and balled up her fist before shouting "CHA!" and pounding the ground. I think she may have been hanging around Sakura too long during their training under Tsunade, but the results speak for themselves, as a massive explosion decimated what was left of the soldiers.

I walked over to Amaru and looked at the now-massive crater where an encampment used to be. "Whoooo. Not bad!" I said as I walked over to Amaru who looked at me and did a victory pose. I looked to one of the last remaining survivors and instantly cast [Stalight Trance] on him. It was time to get some answers.

He immediately lost all of the light in his eyes and sat up from his crawling position. He looked at me and Amaru for a moment before I began the interrogation. "Hello there. Care to tell me why you bombed the village over there?" I asked. I knew the answer, but I still wanted to get confirmation.

"The shinobi that Gato and our boss hired hadn't come back, so we assumed he ran away. Since he didn't do his job, we had to use force."

"Why no just bomb the bridge? Why attack innocent people!?" Amaru chimed in, very clearly upset with their reasoning. Even if she was chipper a moment ago, she was still rather upset with them.

"The next attack would have been on the bridge, but we needed the villager's negative emotions as well as the negative emotions from the country as a whole to fuel the Zero-Tails." He said.

"Zero-tails?" Amaru asked with a skeptical look.

"It's probably a pseudo-tailed beast created with large amounts of chakra and negative emotions," I explained. "If these guys are trying to create such a creature, then they are gearing up for war, and given the location of the Land of Waves, they are probably going to try to sneak attack Konoha when the war starts."

"They would attack us at our weakest! They're cowards! If they want to fight, at least be honest about it!" Amaru said. She was getting quite heated now. In truth, this was the perfect strategy for shinobi, since we don't care about honor and whatnot like the samurai do, but Amaru had a very black-and-white sense of justice. She was a lot like canon Naruto, and she is still naive about the world, even though she doesn't hesitate to kill her enemies.

I turned back to the soldier. "Tell us where you're keeping this, Zero-tails" I demanded.

"We found a kid with a huge amount of negative emotions in that village. We thought he would be a suitable host for the Zero-Tails, so they are probably going to seal it in him at the main base in the morning."

"Where is this base?"

"It is on a carrier type ship docked in the main city of the Land of Waves, Michishio. Gato was renting out the docks to us."

"Thank you. Sleep" I commanded. He slumped over immediately, never to wake up again due to him bleeding out.

"Alright. We need to get to Michishio as soon as possible." I said as I went up to her and prepared to pick her up once again.

"Wait!" Amaru yelled. I raised an eyebrow at her not understanding what she wanted to do.

Amaru gave me an evil smirk and looked over to the supply crates in the encampment. "I have a great idea!" She said.

Somehow, I knew it wouldn't be so great for me.