NOVEL WEB Chapter 17: Chap 16
=Dai's POV=
Looking at the young child in front of him, Dai marveled at lord Danzo's ingenuity. He did not know for sure, of course, but Dai knows that deep down, lord Danzo suspects something more out of Ashira Nara. After all, Lord Danzo is always ten steps ahead of even the most brilliant of men.
And the boy didn't disappoint, mid chunin level chakra, exceptional chakra control, being able to hide his presence in front of kumo chunin, crude though they may be. plus that kekkei genkai esque movement jutsu utilizing shadow. And perhaps the most important thing of all, the patience to wait and the will to kill the moment the chunin guards were down.
All that came from a boy who hadn't even donned the headband yet. He'll make a perfect weapon in his lord's hand, Dai thought.
Dai's gaze flashed with interest as Ashira's hand reached down into the shadow, and pulled out another kunai to free Kushina. The boy's own gaze never leaving him.
"Fascinating, so not only can you move through the shadows, but you can also store things in them too?" And deadly too, Dai thought.
There's a reason why storage seals are so valuable, but they are also in some way, very limited. Every time one unseals a storage scroll, one uses chakra that creates a very noticeable puff of smoke.
Only those with exceptional control can limit the amount of smoke and chakra required to open one, but even that miniscule chakra release is detectable under a skilled enough sensor's senses.
The boy's shadow control on the other hand is imperceptible to his senses, and he prides himself on being a pretty damn good close range sensor.
"No!!! I'm not leaving you Ashira." Yelled the young girl in protest at something that the boy whispered, her eyes still red and slightly swollen from tears.
"Listen to him girl." Dai scoffed, and gave the future jinchuriki the look, the one that he gave to naive idealistic fools with none of the strength to back them up.
"So you're indeed after me." The boy murmured, his head nodding at the confirmation, his eyes narrowed suspiciously at a thought.
Dai smiled at that, smart too I see, he thought, before the boy spoke up
"But how did you know I was gonna be here? Unless you have been monitoring me, monitoring us."
Dai smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Does it really matter? The fact is that you're here now, face to face against me, and with a young girl to protect no less."
Kushina gasped as he mentioned her. Eyes widened as realization of her status of being a deadweight kicked in "Leave me, and run Ashira!! You're so much stronger than most of us in class, you'll be ok." The girl muttered out with a brave front, her now freed hands slightly shaking as tears fell down from her eyes.
"Haizz, I supposed it doesn't." The boy sighed, ignoring the girl's plea, before he turned his attention back to her, though his eyes never left the perpetually smiling Dai.
The boy's hand gently caressed the girl's head as he asked. "Do you trust me, Kushina?"
The girl nodded, tears still falling down her eyes as her body shivered like a small animal amidst the cold winter wind.
"Then trust me when I say that I'll be fine. All you need to do now is to get help." The boy said as the girl turned confused at his odd request. But before she could respond, his hands blurred into motion. Palms facing inward, his thumbs crossed into a bird shape.
Seeing this, Dai wasted no time in rushing toward the boy, intending to knock him out before he could finish his jutsu. At least what he thought was handsigns for jutsu, before his eyes widened as the boy's shadow shifted into dark viscous liquid that rose up to form an orange owl-esque beast with an iron mask on its face.
Stopping abruptly, Dai jumped back with a chakra-enhanced leap before unsealing a giant scroll. He watched as the owl-like beast, 6 feet in wingspan, flapped its wings, and flew toward the jinchuriki candidate. It grabbed her with its' steel-like talons, as she squeaked in fright, before flying away toward the Senju's compound.
"Well that's new…" Dai whistled, his eyes raised in surprise, as he opened his giant scroll in preparation, unveiling paintings with ferocious tigers, and fearsome beasts drawn on them.
"Oh you have no idea." The boy replied, a smug smile on his face before his hand flashed into motion once again, forming another sign. This time, two streams of shadow liquid rose to form a pair of twin wolves, one black, one white, five feet in height.
Already prepared, Dai put his hand on top of the painting, before sending some of his chakra toward five of his tiger's drawings. Five constructs of inky, black, and white tiger jumped out of his paper and rushed toward the already rushing two wolves.
The ink techniques, a set of hiden that utilized the user's own yang-attributed chakra infused ink to create chakra constructs that he or she could then control. Despite its portent ability, a prerequisite for using this technique is the pale skin that the user needs to have. It is theorized that since the user is using their own yang chakra as ink, their skin, their appearance, or their yang need to match that of the canvas for it to work symbolically.
Dai has no idea if this is true or not, of course. But he's grateful it is so, for he was picked out of hundreds of orphans to serve lord Danzo personally.
As his and Ashira's beast drew near, they roared, before clashing, and clawing at each other, sending dirt flying, and denting the hard forest ground with clawmarks, yet despite the difference in number, the wolves would just dissolve parts of their bodies into dark oily liquid, thereby negating all the damages his tigers could do when they attacked.
Heck, one of the wolves even anticipated the trajectory of one of his tiger claw attacks, and liquidized in time for the attack to pass through, and following its own momentum, the claw struck a second tiger on the shoulder by its side by accident.
It was not long before his own construct dwindled as the last one had its right upper leg ripped off its joint by the white wolf, and its throat clawed open by the black wolf.
"Very impressive, but how will you deal with this?" Dai said, before he sent more than half of his chakra into the scrolls. A small army of inked constructs jumped out of his painting, a little less than fifty in numbers, each one rivaled an ordinary chunin in strength. Even a seasoned jonin would be troubled by such numbers.
Ashira's eyes widened, before his wolves dissolved into the shadow, as he dipped into the shadow.
"Oh no you don't!!!" Dai yelled out as he got onto one of his eagle constructs. "Where is he, Takuma?"
A small, almost imperceptible bug flew out of his sleeves before flying southeast, back toward the Senju's compound direction.
Dai sighed in relief at the fact that Takuma bugs're still able to track the young boy even when he shadow-teleported. Konoha's outer edge forest might be large, but if he were to lose sight of the boy now, he might not have been able to subdue him fast enough before the Senju's reinforcement came even if he caught up later.
Jumping on one of his eagles with his scroll, he flew toward the bug's direction as he grabbed it out of mid air, as he ordered his packs of constructs to follow.
Flying for a couple of minutes, he stopped at the bug's signal.
"So he found out we were tracking him huh." Dai mused as he scrutinized the scenery beneath him, a sea of trees with nothing out of the ordinary. "Most likely a trap then."
He waited before his veritable army came, flooding the area. But then it happened. From the opposite side of, white color bloomed into being, before swamps of hundreds of what looked to be rabbits rushed toward his army, colliding with it.
Thuds, and squashed sound reverbated through the air as flesh meets flesh, before tens of rabbits were mowed down, and bursted open in a gory shower of black blood.
If it was just this, then Dai would have nothing to worry about, but halfway through the swamps, sizzling sounds rang out as he finally noticed the couple hundred explosion tags being taped on all of the rabbit's backs
"How???" Dai questioned, his eyes wide opened in disbelief at the amount of wealth required to obtain that many explosion tags.
That amount could have bankrupted most small clans, Dai thought, before covering his eyes, and ordering all of his eagle constructs to fly upward, and away from the impending explosion.
But it was too late as a thunderous, and deafening roar shattered the silence, as light tore through the air, scattering fire and debris upward and outward. Dai felt it then, the blast, it knocked him off his eagles, as he felt, plummeting to the ground, before a sea flame licked his form, swallowing him whole.
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=Ashira's POV=
My chest fell in short, and uneven burst, as I rose from the shadow. My clothes are ripped and torn in most places. One could even mistake me for a beggar, and not the proud, and dignified son of the Nara clan.
Chakra exhaustion is a pain in the ass. Usually summoning that many rabbits would only take half of my chakra reserve. But one mechanic I found out about rabbit escape is that you can clone inorganic items attached to the rabbits as long as it does not surpass a certain size. That makes sense since when Megumi used his own cloning in Jujutsu Kaisen, he cloned not only himself, but his own clothes in the process.
The problem though with cloning explosives tags is that you're not only cloning the paper, and the ink, and the sealscripts, you're also cloning the fire aligned chakra inserted within those tags. Miniscule that chakra amount maybe, even a grain of sand if added up enough can make a castle, and to clone that many tags means using up more chakra than my body can carry. If not for the soldier pills in my shadow given by Hanabei, I would never have been able to pull off that trick.
A sharp snap echoed through the now hollowed out crater as I looked toward my left with widened eyes. Out of the shadow underneath a tree limped the figure of Dai, his shirt torn, and burnt away exposing patchwork of raw blistered flesh, and charred black crust underneath. His right arm burnt, and twisted at an unnatural angle. Yet despite that, the man still walked with maddened purpose in his eyes.
"You really did a go—good number on m—me kid." Dai rasped, his breath labored, as he pulled out a half kunai with his burnt but still good arm.
You're fucking kidding me? He's alive? I thought as I struggled to stand up only to fall on my knees again. None, nada, zilch, I have not a single drop of chakra left, and it was only through pure adrenaline that I'm still awake.
Am I going to fall like this? To some obscure root agent, and taken by Danzo of all people, only to be molded to be an emotionless weapon of slaughter?
Hell no!!! I raged. I'd rather die than live a dog's death. I thought, before I willed my trembling, lead ladened hands up to form the handsign for the Tiger.
Since untamed shikigami required no chakra to summon, my only options are the unknown Tiger, the Elephant, the deer, or Maho himself, I chose the unknown Tiger to ensure that I at least drag this fucker down to hell with me.
The man stilled as he let out a disbelief laugh. "Haha, some crazy kid you are, your chakra is empty, kid. I can feel it. There's no need to bluff."
His eyes then narrowed as he watched me gulped a mouthful of saliva before I said. "Tiger Fune-"
"That's enough, kid. You did good, now rest." An aged, gentle voice came out of my side, halting my summoning.
Looking up, I saw the familiar bull mask of the Senju's anbu that always greeted me every time I'm at Mito sama place. A red blur then hit me in my stomach, tackling me to the ground before a second, familiar voice cried out.
"Oh thank kami you're ok. I-I was so scared…" Looking up at the starless sky, relief flooded my body as I gently placed my hand in Kushina's head, before sleep took me.
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=Danzo's POV=
"Damn you Danzo!!! How could you have been so foolish?" Yelled out Hiruzen, his voice trembling with rage as he slammed his fist on the desk, denting it in the process.
"Do you know what you have done? You went over my head, and ordered root to ambush the squad guarding Kushina without my authorization. You then orchestrated the kidnapping of the princess of the Uzushiogakure themself on Konoha's soil. Not only that, you also involved the nephew of the clan head of one of our village's greatest clans, who might I add, is also in an alliance with the Uzumaki themself." The Hokage ranted, his grandfatherly image crumbled, as furnitures, trembled in the presence of his unrestrained chakra.
"I was merely serving the leaf, and her people." Danzo scoffed, his tone neutral, yet his thought was filled with rage at Hiruzen's impudence. How dare this useless, softhearted fool lecture him?
"By kidnapping her future jinchuriki?" Hiruzen asked in disbelief, questioning his sanity.
"By securing her jinchuriki loyalty." Danzo yelled back, his arm sliced through the air in protest, as he explained. "I had a team on standby, ready to rescue her the minute those cloud chunin left the village's wall. Else how do you think a ragtag band of kumo chunins were able to infiltrate the greatest village in the world? Make no mistake Hiruzen, but for all that talk about alliance with the Uzumaki, they're still outsiders. Same with the girl. Who do you think she would choose then, when her home is being invaded? With the kyubi in hand, she needs to be secured."
"And the boy?" Hiruzen demanded, much calmer now, as he narrowed his eyes in suspicion at Danzo.
"The boy was an accident." Danzo said, it was all nonsense of course, he knew the boy was gonna be there that day. The initial plan was for Dai to swap places with a clone, before splitting up from the Kumo nins, and intercepting the boy, subduing him in the process.
The boy would then be declared missing, till a fake body was prepared to write his death off as an unfortunate accident from his encounter with the groups of chunin.
Outrage would then spread, and the call for war would grow stronger in the process. All of this while he got himself a rough gem, ready to be molded by roots.
That all changed though when Takuma first felt the boy's shadow teleportation through one of his bugs. Suddenly what he thought was a rough gem turned into a polished diamond, as he ordered Dai using Takuma's bugs to stay put, and probe the boy into action.
Pulling out a stack of paper, Danzo flinged it toward Hiruzen. "Read it."
"What's this?" Hiruzen asked as he slowly flipped through the pages, his eyes turned serious as time went on.
"A battle report taken from my agent's mind. It seems that the Nara has been hiding quite a monster." Danzo scoffed as he looked toward Hiruzen with a sneer.
"Is all this true then?" Hiruzen asked, his face in disbelief, as he scrutinized the report. "Teleporting through the shadows, storing things inside them, summoning chakra constructs… and only kami knows what's more?"
"Aye, it's one scary kekkei genkai." Danzo agreed, his greed growing at the thought of the young boy.
"Is the agent still alive?" Hiruzen asked, after he finished reading.
"He is, badly injured, but he'll live. Had to scare off those pesky Senjus to save his life." Danzo tched, still pissed off at the loss of one of his best men.
"Then I would like to speak to him." Hiruzen hummed, falling back into his chair, as he continued. "Nevertheless, I could have you tried for treason for this, you know? This whole debacle could have started a war with the cloud, and once the cloud jumps in, other villages would follow."
"But you won't. Not when war is already on our door's step" Danzo responded cryptically, as he slowly sipped on his tea.
"What do you mean?" Hiruzen asked, his eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. "The cloud disavowed those chunins, and we didn't pursue that matter any furt—"
A loud slam interrupted his sentence, before a chunin ran in, his face flustered, his hand trembled with tension.
"What is the meaning of this? Chunin Fuyaba?" Hiruzen roared, rising up from his chair, as he glared bloody murder at the chunin.
The chunin cowed at the gaze, before he swallowed a big gulp of saliva, and shakily responded. "Suna, they invade lord Hokage!!!! An army of 1000 shinobies were sent to attack our border. They've breached our defensive line, some have even entered our land."
"What?!?"
AN: Ello, back with another chapter. War arc is starting the chapter after the next one, so lmk what yall think. Also shameless patreon promo. No advance chapter on it yet, but one or two should be up by the end of this week.
https://www.patreon.com/c/DannyPhantom7112