Chapter Sixty-Two

Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for. 

XXXX- KITSUCHI 

He weaved seals faster than he ever had in his life, moving like his life depended on it. It did. He slammed his palms on the ground, executing a perfect earth-moving jutsu to move the piece of earth he stood upon above the surface and neatly avoid the fireballs that shot through the air. He weaved seals again, enclosing his fist in a stone fist and catching the young man that had been foolish enough to jump straight at him in the stomach. He pushed forward, sending the man back to the ground and thus forcing his body between Kitsuchi and the shuriken that one of the Konoha Jonin had sent his way. 

He felt his senses scream at him, and it was all he could do to dodge backward from the woman that appeared out of his own shadow, wielding a short blade. Her hair was tied up in a topknot, and she wore a Konoha Jonin flak jacket. Beyond those two facts, the only thing that was noteworthy about her was her eyes. Coal black eyes that regarded him with boredom. As if he was a puzzle that she had solved a thousand times already. 

He dodged backward again and lifted his stone-covered arm to block the next slash of her blade. The short sword bit into the stone but struggled to find purchase. He then took the chance to punch right at her head only to find his body frozen in place from the neck down. 

"Shadow possession jutsu complete," she said with a smirk across her face. A smirk that reminded him of that girl. That Jinchuriki. The one that had robbed him of the chance to participate in much of the war by shoving a tail into his stomach. Perhaps it was that resemblance that made him act earlier than he should have. 

"Katsu," he said, triggering the explosives beneath their feet. She was already moving before the first syllable had even left his mouth. But she managed to keep her jutsu active for long enough that he barely had half the time she did to escape the explosions. He jumped backwards with all of his strength, falling from his platform a mere second before it exploded to pieces from the paper tags he'd hidden within it. The explosion blew him backwards even as several rocks pelted his body. Still, he managed to flip his form in mid-air to land with bent knees. He looked around the battlefield and scowled as his attention was drawn to the Uchiha. Kaen, Tsubasa, and Takeshi were all struggling to pin her down as she ran circles around them. 

One second she was overwhelming Kaen with fast-paced taijutsu that even his Explosion Release could not contest with, the next she was using Wind Release to cool down Tsubasa's lava and force him on the back foot, and then in a flash she would be cutting through Takeshi's Earth Release with her lightning-charge gunbai, forcing the immovable mountain to dance to her tune. 

He contemplated jumping in on that fight before he noticed that he was surrounded. His opponents came out of the shadow, one from each direction. 

"This the one?" one of them asked, a boy with silver hair and a blade in his hands. 

"Yeah, the Tsuchikage's son. Shori wants him alive," the girl replied. The same girl that he'd almost gotten with his trap earlier. The other two, a blonde boy, and a Hyuga girl with one arm, stared at him, shifting their stances slightly as they waited for him to make the first move. 

"Is this all Shorirama Senju can send?" He asked with a laugh, portraying humor that he did not really feel. In truth, he had felt his stomach drop. That girl alone had almost been able to take him out. Now there were four of them. He could recognize Uraume Hyuga, and he knew she was the kind of opponent that he would ordinarily need his full focus on. And she had three others here that might have been equally as dangerous. But this was the life of a shinobi. Like the stone, he could not bend and he could not waver here. 

He swallowed and looked between them. The standard procedure when faced with Konoha teams: Separate them—target weak links first. Uraume Hyuga was clearly diminished—one arm gone. But there wasn't a single stain on her, no sweat, no blood, nothing. Either she hadn't been doing any fighting or she was still dangerous enough to kill without effort like she was famed for. Not her. Too risky. The blonde boy shifted with the moment, clearly feeling some tension in the air, and Kitsuchi found his target. 

He slammed his foot into the ground, activating the jutsu he'd been preparing. All four of them jumped back from the earth spears that tore out of the ground a second after he slammed his foot. He body-flickered straight left, heading for the blonde one. The boy brought his own short blade around, but Kitsuchi had fought the girl already, and to be honest, she was better. He ducked underneath the straight slash and slammed his shoulder into the boy, taking him to the ground. The boy tried to roll him around, but he held his ground. The sissy couldn't wrestle, just as he expected. 

Kitsuchi straddled him, holding him down with his thighs and legs with barely any effort. The boy tried to lift his waist up to get some leverage, but Kitsuchi would have none of it, punching him straight in the face, enjoying the feeling of flesh and bone warping under the force of his blow. He lifted his hand for another punch, and felt a palm straight in his midsection that sent him rolling off his quarry. His eyes found the Hyuga girl some distance away in a stance like she had pushed him from a distance. That Vacuum Palm Jutsu of theirs? 

He turned to the side, dropping one arm towards the ground and cloaking it in a rock fist. It was barely in time for him to catch the blade sent his way. The white-haired one met his eyes, and he could see a casual disregard of who he was and the power he had worked so hard to gain. He focused his chakra and slammed his foot against the ground. Several earth spears shot from the ground, skewering the man to death. His earth spears were crushed then as two of his own men came at him. 

"Daisuke, Satoru, what is this?" He asked as the Chunin, Daisuke, attacked first, unleashing a barrage of furious taijutsu in his direction. It was child's play to dodge out of the way or block all the attacks. Daisuke was nothing special when it came to taijutsu. But Kitsuchi wondered why he was attacking him. 

"Are you a traitor?" He asked the obvious question even as he continued to fend off the attack. "Katon," he heard Satoru intone, and he moved faster than he had since this battle began. Even if Daisuke was not a traitor, he had become a tool of the enemy, and it was Kitsuchi's duty as a fellow Iwa nin to put him down to make it impossible for the enemy to continue using him. That was why he stepped into his subordinate's guard and smashed one fist straight to his face, breaking his nose. While his ally turned subordinate was reeling, Kitsuchi grabbed him by the neck, and brought his body around, placing him between Kitsuchi and Satoru's Fire Release. 

Daisuke's screams as he died were just one more thing that would haunt Kitsuchi for the rest of his life. He could still remember stepping in to help the boy complete his earth wall jutsu so he could graduate the academy barely two years ago. Now, that boy was dead, and somehow it was Konoha's fault. Satoru was a fellow Jonin, and Kitsuchi did not anticipate an easy time. Still, he breathed in and breathed out. It was his duty to see to him, he thought until he froze. 

He felt something slide into his body. He almost did not believe it. It had to be a genjutsu of some sort. But there was no fluctuation in his chakra as reality shifted. The white-haired boy he'd skewered with his rising earth spear was standing right in front of him with a blade stabbed straight through Kitsuchi's chest. Not through his heart. He could feel it. That difficulty breathing meant the bastard had taken a lung. Kitsuchi lunged, trying to clobber him but fell to his knees instead. 

"H-how?" He barely managed to grind out. 

"Always check for genjutsu," the bastard said before leaning down towards Kitsuchi. The Tsuchikage's son, for that was what he was, could not go softly into the good night. His chakra was still there. He spat an earth bullet quick as he had ever formed one, and it shot straight to the boy's head only for the body to disappear once the stone hit it. 

"Not a bad final shot," he heard from behind him and then there was a hand on the back of his head and he heard no more. 

XXXXXX- UZUME 

The three of them worked well together, she thought as she traded blows with the one with Explosion Release. He punched an explosion in her direction, but it was child's play for her hand to reach up and smack his wrist, guiding his blow over her shoulder and away from her. His taijutsu might have been special for an Iwa shinobi, but Uzume had grown up with prodigies like Uraume and Shorirama himself. Compared to them, this man's taijutsu, for all its explosive nature and the danger that inevitably came with that, just fell short. It lacked the sharpness that they had, the crisp perfection in every move that sang of years of painstaking practice. His taijutsu was hollow. 

She ducked underneath a sweeping high kick and stepped into the man's guard, forcing him to backpedal to avoid the punches she sent straight at his face. His attempt at a return haymaker failed as she dodged around the telegraphed attack and snuck a punch into his midsection. Even with so little energy put into it, he still nearly doubled over, and just like clockwork, she turned in time to see a ball of lava heading her way. 

She breathed out, pulled at her chakra, and spat out a torrent of cutting water that sliced the lava ball into two before she dove between the pieces right at their source. And just as expected, the big one was in her way, his Earth Release sending massive earthen spears in her direction. She reached behind her and unsheathed her gunbai, running Lightning Release through the weapon and using it to slice through the spears as they came her way. She ran right at him, and he moved backwards as the one with Explosion Release was in her way again. 

He was the one with the most short-range skill, middling as his taijutsu was. She leaned backwards to avoid a stretched punch. Just as expected, he released an explosion in her face. Fudo meant that she felt none of it, her Mangekyou ability even protecting her eyes from the sudden influx of light. So instead of reeling like he would have expected, she came further in. His eyes were wide and shocked, and she caught him in her genjutsu almost instantly. He'd been doing a good job of avoiding eye contact, but the surprise at seeing her emerge unscathed from his attack must have overwhelmed him—if briefly. Brief was all she needed, though. 

With his body frozen, she stabbed her gunbai straight into his neck, still filled with Lightning Release. His head fell to the ground, the smell of roasting flesh spreading all over the place. She went around his dead body right for the big one. She watched his eyes widen at the death of his ally, but he was not sloppy enough to meet her eyes. Instead, he slammed his hands into the ground, forming an earth wall between her and him. She scoffed and sliced through the wall with her gunbai, and just as expected, he was waiting with a trap, kunai aimed right at her neck. 

She allowed him to make contact, and just like his friend, he was too shocked by his attack not even managing to penetrate her skin that she didn't need to do much to deal with him then. She swept his feet down from under him. He fell to the ground, and began to roll away, but before he could make it far enough, she formed her Susanoo around her—just the ribcage and one hand was enough. The hand caught him as he tried to escape. 

The lava release man sent a stream of the hot stuff at her, but it failed to do anything to her Susanoo. Instead, she turned her attention to the one in her grip and with one breath, her Susanoo's hand crushed him in its grip, blood splattering all over. The Lava Release user had the good sense to tell he was clearly outmatched. The only issue being that he had taken too long to notice it as he began to run backwards, fleeing the battle. 

Her Susanoo formed a bow in the hand already formed, and a second arm formed from the other side. Shori probably had no idea just how much practice she had with archery thanks to his obsession with the stuff. It hadn't surprised her that her Susanoo had manifested a bow as its long-range weapon. She aimed carefully, not for where he was, but for where he would be in two seconds. Then she exhaled and fired. The arrow went straight through his chest, pinning him to the ground just as planned. As she inhaled, she released the grip she had on her spectral avatar, dismissing it. 

XXXX- KUSHINA UZUMAKI 

When her brother had told her that he would be taking her off to war with him, this was not what she had expected. If she was being honest, she had been more than a little bit scared. Especially since Grandmother Mito and Big Brother had fought about it. They had tried to keep her out of the room, but she'd figured out their barrier seals years ago, and they still hadn't caught on that she could listen in on them whenever she wanted to. Probably because she rarely ever wanted to. All their conversations were about boring adult stuff, but that conversation. The one about her, it had been something else. 

"She is one of Konoha's Jinchuriki, whether we like it or not, and the Uzumaki are already beginning to to get looks from the other clans. I have obeyed your terms as you set them, Grandma. No Uzumaki are going to risk their lives for the village that took them in, but unless you want that village to turn against them in what I can guarantee you will be one of the ugliest things ever seen. This is war, Grandma. We need to be seen to be giving just as much as they are, and I'm not enough. Even Kushina might not be enough, but she could be the next Clan Head, and she needs to be seen pulling her weight." She had left after that then. Jinchuriki. She knew what that word meant. How could she not? 

It was all the old, stuffy Uzumaki cousins could think of when she was near them. They weren't afraid of her, but they still held her apart like she was something different. Something other. She had expected it from everyone, but not him. Not her big brother. But she could not dwell on that, now that she was here at war. She knew what she'd been brought here for—to protect her teammates. They weren't Jinchuriki like her. 

"He's unreal," she heard Mikoto whisper to herself and was jolted out of her thoughts. 

"What?" 

"Sensei. He's unreal," she said, pointing to the side where big brother and the Tsuchikage were exchanging blows. The Tsuchikage's jutsu was something she had never seen before. The way he formed shapes with light from his own chakra and sent it firing away was something else. She'd seen one of those bolts hit the forest when Shori dodged an attack, and everything it touched was just gone in the next second. She had no idea how you'd even fight something like that. Someone who's jutsu just made everything go poof. 

But somehow, Shori was doing it. He was teleporting all over the place, catching the Tsuchikage off guard and forcing him into taijutsu exchanges every now and then, but beyond that, was content to just keep distracting the Tsuchikage while his clone did something that she hadn't even known was possible. Her team and big brother's friend were here to protect the clone and prevent Iwa from getting to it, but they hadn't even had to move all through. After that jutsu big brother had used—he still hadn't taught her the Rasengan yet even if he'd taught Minato-baka. Said something about it being Minato's right to learn it. Like she wasn't his little sister and the one with all the rights. Yeah, that's right. Maybe he didn't see her as that. He called her Jinchuriki after all. She was no longer just Kushina to him. 

One mud clone loosed a war cry that all the others joined him in as he jumped at the rushing Iwa shinobi. The clones were barely managing to achieve much, losing three for every Iwa shinobi they took with them, but they had one advantage the Iwa didn't: near-infinite numbers. The clone that was on top of the whale with them just remained in that stance and more and more clones were coming their way. 

"Jinpei, dig," she heard the clone suddenly say before her eyes snapped up to where his were looking. The Tsuchikage's light thing. And it was heading their way. 

A/N: And so Iwa falls. At least half of it. How'd you like my attempt at getting into the head of a twelve-year-old girl with ADHD? 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.