4.9

4.9

The screams of the dying crowd hit me first, then a thrown kunai, and the explosion from an exploding tag. Like a moron, me and my clones stopped to watch the rooftop in the middle of an active battlefield, of course the enemy took the opportunity to attack. The kunai punctured my arm, the tag took out my clones, fire and shrapnels pierced my skin, sent pain into my body. I fell back, hit a wall. White filled my vision. Pain dominated my mind.

Even through the haze of pain, I saw things on top of the central viewing area had become even more frantic. Detonations and the impact of S-rank jutsu used by S-rank shinobi shook the whole arena again and again. Tore chunks out of the surrounding.

I got up, pulled the kunai from my arm, prayed to any god out there that it wasn't poisoned. Drank an antidote, just to be sure. I looked around for my enemy. My clones had dispersed, and the shinobi who attacked me was dead already. Near the dead enemy, another Konoha’s shinobi fighting two Oto-nins. Right, gotta get my shit together. I looked at the stands again. I couldn’t see Naruto, Sakura, Shikamaru or Shino. Did Kakashi send them after Sasuke like he did in canon?

This was uncharted territory for me. Things changed, even if I had not personally intervened. Why? Fate-kun had been insistent on keeping things as close to canon as possible. I didn’t know if this was a better outcome. I would reflect on that later, right now I had to do what a shinobi had to do. A quick glance showed that most of the shinobi ignored the civilians, often fighting around the sleeping people while Konoha’s shinobi tried to force the enemies away. Kakashi-sensei and Gai were nowhere around, same as most of the ANBU. None of the Konoha’s shinobi fighting near me were people I knew, which decided things: I was armed and dressed in my custom shinobi gear, most people saw me fight in the first match. I was a target. Staying near the civilians would only cause more trouble for them. I turned from the stands, flickered down toward the arena.

The battle still waged there.

I pumped my body full of chakra, flickered behind an enemy. Stabbed their back with my special exploding kunai, or that is what I tried. By this point, I guessed all the weak shinobi had either died or retreated already. The Suna shinobi whirled, deflected my attack. His hands blurred, and the earth beneath me shook. An earth spike lanced up toward me. With a burst of speed that would leave Emosuke jelly, something I wouldn’t have been able to do before hell month training, I dodged, moved behind the Suna-nin. I threw a kunai as a distraction. While the shinobi blocked my attack, four paper seals flew from my hands, lodged around the poor bastard.

I flickered back, watched the barrier sprang into existence. The four tags that created the barrier exploded. The enclosed detonation exploded the enemy into little chunks. It was gory, but oh so beautiful.

From the corner of my eye, I saw another Otogakure shinobi running toward the other side of the arena, almost as if fleeing. They passed nearby me. I reacted on instinct, threw an exploding kunai. The kunoichi moved fast, changing direction abruptly, evading the explosion. She was a pink haired, slender woman, wearing a black shirt under a tan tunic with short sleeves. The tunic had a modified yin-yang symbol on the hem, it was all white with no black part. She wore black arm-warmers, black skin-tight shorts, traditional black shinobi sandals with calf-length leg warmers covered by bandages, and a purple, rope-like belt tied in an inverted bow around her waist.

Something in my brain squealed at that image. I’m certain she was someone from the story, but I couldn’t put a name to the person.

The woman narrowed her eyes, jaw tightened. I flickered forward, ready to also explode the woman. It didn’t happen. The kunoichi fled with a burst of chakra and speed that surprised me. I chased. Pink-chan evaded my throw kunai, shuriken wasn’t enough to stop her, every burst of speed from my side was matched with another by hers. Her chakra kept getting higher and higher.

Pink-chan carried a tube-like thing, which turned out to be a flute. Even while fleeing and evading me, the kunoichi had the time to play her flute. The resulting melody was a tune that carried a discordant, chilling vibrato that creeped me out. Even more when chakra tendrils crawled inside my head. Fortunately, aside from Orochimaru, it didn’t seem any other person could put me in a genjutsu. My own chakra surged, slurped the invading technique.

“Running away from me again?” Kakashi taunted.

“For now, yes.” Kabuto admitted. “I don’t want to show you my jutsu so you can copy them. Even if it seems you haven’t fully mastered that eye.”

There was a tense moment of silence. It broke when Tayuya cursed, before joining back with the other three. “Fucking hell.”

“Well then.” Kabuto said. Smoke exploded from their location and when it cleared, none of the four were in sight anymore.

Before I could think things through, I flickered up toward the Hokage battle. With Kabuto gone, the genjutsu he used to keep people asleep dispersed, and now the civilians started to panic, yell and cry. The rooftop was a maze of roots and branches. A few ANBU shinobi were around.

Standing over Orochimaru’s dead body were a few shinobi of note: The third Hokage, dressed for battle in his black ninja gear. A tall, muscular monkey, dressed in shinobi gear, with long flowing white hair, the Third summon’s: Enma the monkey king. A dark haired man dressed in white kimono. Like he had eyes in the back of his head, he turned at my approach, looked at me with his white eyes. The Hyuga guy looked a lot like Hiashi, but the lack of open hostility in his eyes told me it was uncle Hizashi instead. Hizashi gave me an almost invisible nod.

What? Wasn't he mad I almost killed Neji?

His action attracted the attention of other shinobi. A couple of ANBU nearby turned and looked at me as well. One particular ANBU had a mask with a red inverted triangle in the forehead, with lines from the border of the mask to the eyes. Red wave patterns on the side. It resembled a bird beak, like a hawk. The mask wasn’t the problem. What scared the crap out of me was the red eyes that watched from behind it. Like a four point shuriken.

It was just a brief glance, but one that shook me to the core. Wasn’t that Shisui?

More and more shinobi arrived. The third didn’t seem to be in a good shape. But I also didn’t see any sword wounds on his back. The ANBU I was pretty sure was Shisui leaned closer to the Third, whispered something. The old man nodded, turned to face me.

There, on his torso, a strange spiral seal, which reminded me a lot of Naruto’s own jinchuriki seal. The mark of the Shinigami. My face fell. In the end, none of my meddling changed the outcome. The old man died. Even if he was still alive.