8-aftermath

The sound of metal crashing and clashing against metal could be heard and sparks of fire could be seen flying in the air.

Somewhere in the chaotic battlefield, three young kids could be seen surrounding another kid of older age, the older kid was panting heavily trying to take in as much air as possible, clearly exhausted and although the ones surrounding him looked a little tired they obviously had more gas in the tank.

The older kid had a bird symbol on his armour while the other three kids had the infinity symbol on, they were Sōsuke clan members ganging up on a lone member of the other clan, and Aizen was among them.

'some might frown upon this, they might think this is dishonourable, that it is cowardly, but this is war everything goes, and binding yourself with those handicaps just makes you an easier target for your enemies.' thought aizen as he rushed at his enemy.

And as if they were waiting on his signal the other two rushed right with him flanking the opponent from three sides.

Seeing the three coming at him lifted his hand, swinging his sword to his left, he was able to block the strike coming at him from that direction, but immediately after he felt a sharp pain coming from the side of his body, looking down he could see a chokuto lodged deep into his ribs all the way to his lungs, the other end of the sword was held by non-other then aizen.

"AAAGH." screaming as loud as he could the enemy ninja again swung his sword at aizen.

But aizen was already a step ahead of him as he had already taken his sword out of the enemy's body and jumped backwards.

While still in the air he took out three shurikens holding each one between his fingers and shot all three of them directly at the enemy.

Seeing the three shurikens coming his way the boy was about to raise his sword to block but just he did that he froze and looked down, another sword pierced through the left side of his back on his heart side and right out the front, at that moment he knew he was already as good as dead so immediately a fierce expression took over his face.

But, before he could try any last ditch effort the three shurikens from before came fast and lodged themselves into his body, one in the throat, one in the eye and the last one between his eyebrows, and with that his lifeless body fell into the ground.

'tsk, I need to improve my shurikenjutsu.' thought aizen as he looked at his shots, 'as it is now I will waste a lot of ammo for minimal results, if I were good enough I could have taken him down with just one.'

Although most would have thought that it was a pretty good throw for a kid he wasn't satisfied with it, one reason for it is that he could already do something like that in his previous world, when he was just a normal human let alone now with all the extra perks, 'in fact if I have to rate my self I would be disappointing.' he thought.

Observing the dead body on the ground aizen took another three kunais and threw them one by one on its vital spots just to make sure, and even then he considered throwing another explosive tag just to be safe, but in the end, he decided against it before getting closer to the body and collecting the kunais and shurikens he threw back.

"it should be over soon." said one of the kids aizen just fought side by side with.

"mm." aizen just nodded as continued removing his shurikens and kunais from the dead body.

It has been around 8 hours since the battle started, and it has been non-stop fighting and killing since then, and although they were on the winning side from the start the fatigue was still getting to them.

The kids who fought alongside aizen just now were called Yuji and Yanen, yuji had short messy hair and Yanen a long hair tied into a ponytail, aside from that no other features could be seen, all of them were covered in dried-up blood and black spots from explosions and jutsus.

this wasn't the first time they fought together though, from the old Aizen's memories he could remember that they'd helped each other quite a lot before on previous occasions, and they just happened to all meet today.

*BOOM* just as they finished here and were about to keep moving a loud explosion sound could be heard coming from somewhere on the battlefield, not long after a huge cloud of smoke rose as if a nuclear bomb was detonated in there.

"that.., The old man isn't holding back at all is he?" said Yuji his eye twitching.

An hour ago the battle on old man Yamamoto's side ended in his favour and since then he and the other two with him have been going all around the battlefield helping wherever they can, and that last..."nuke".. Could have only been their handiwork.

The moral of the enemies has already been through the ground since their leaders lost to Yamamoto, and this was the last straw that broke the camel's back.

"RETREAT." a shout to retreat could be heard coming from somewhere on the battlefield, but, there wasn't really any need for it, as half the army was already halfway through retreating already, the other half followed when they heard the shout.

"sigh it's finally over, but man I hope I had that much chakra that I could go around spamming jutsus everywhere, no one would be my opponent by then. " commented yuji while still looking at the cloud of smoke with a dreamy look on his face.

"Tsk, Idiot, first of all, you don't just go spamming jutsus you need to conserve your chakra, and secondly with your lousy chakra control you'll likely waste it all on a simple clone jutsu," said Yanen condescendingly.

Hearing him say this aizen could only sigh in his head, 'sigh here we go again.'

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME YOU HORSE TAIL WANNABE?, YOU ARE THE IDIOT, WHO DON'T KNOW BASIC INFORMATION SUCH AS SAVING ONE'S CHAKRA, PLUS THERE IS NO WAY A CLONE JUTSU WILL CONSUME SO MUCH, AIZEN BACK ME UP IN HERE." retorted Yuji clearly angry and agitated at being insulted and asking aizen to stand by his side, but, seeing yanen still looking at him with a disgusted look as if looking at trash angered him even more, "AGHHH FIGHT ME," he said as he started rushing at him.

"humph bring it on." said yanen taking a fighting stance appearing to not even take him seriously.

"GUYS." yelled aizen suddenly, "enough, the battle still isn't over we might run into retreating enemies we need to be more ca...." halfway through warning them he was interrupted by a mocking voice.

"humph, stupid brats letting your guards down just because the enemy started retreating, it's too late to regret now," said the voice and before they could see anything a shadow ran past them piercing yuji through the heart and dragging his body on the ground for at least 30m(98ft) before stopping, his blood died the earth below him red.

Now that it stopped they could see that the shadow was a young teenager of about 14 years of age, he must have run into them while he was retreating and didn't want to let his chance slip by.

With a smug smile on his face, he slowly turned to take one last look at their angry and anguished expressions at having lost one of their comrades to satisfy his ego before continuing his retreat, but it didn't go as he had planned.

The moment he turned his head around to look at them he was horrified to find that the boy he had just "killed" was standing there waving at him with a happy expression on his face as if he was saying goodbye to a family member at the port there was also a reluctant expression on his face as if he didn't want to separate with him, while the other two didn't have such an exaggerated facial expression they still couldn't hide their smirks.

"enemy san, don't forget to say hi to the shinigami for me," yelled yuji at him, although, the content of his words and his facial expressions were so opposite to one another that it'll scare anyone sh*tless, especially coming from a 5-year-old boy.

Immediately turning his head over on instinct to look at the body beneath his feet he was shocked to see that it was one of his clansmen, specifically the one the trio took down not too long ago.

What made him despair, even more, were the dozens of explosive tags strapped tightly to the body that were already releasing sparks.

F*CK... was the last word he wanted to say but he didn't even have enough time to open his mouth, *BOOOOOOM* before a huge explosion engulfed him, sending his body parts flying in all directions.

(AN: some might argue that its a waste to use all those explosion tags, but I beg the differ, all one need to make them is ink and paper, and the really tricky part is knowledge in fuinjutsu, so I argue that they're cheap af, just look how many konan used against that certain guy (don't wanna spoil for our brothers and sisters who haven't seen it, UK who am talking about)anyhow back to the story )

Seeing the size of the explosion both Yanen and Yuji couldn't help but have gaping mouths as they looked at aizen.

"wasn't it a bit of an overkill," asked Yanen his eye twitching, yuji was just nodding his head like a chicken from beside him agreeing with him, which was a rare sight.

"What? I had to make sure he dies." said aizen shrugging his shoulders, "the only reason I didn't put more is that I ran out of them".

"agh..i..i..see," said yuji with an awkward expression on his face, Yanen had the same expression but chose not to speak about it.

Earlier when aizen was recovering his shurikens he sneakily filled the body with explosive tags.

Because of his, and their past experiences were anything to go by, some of the enemies will try to take at least another person with them before retreating completely.

And they were right and his preparation paid off, at that moment before they were attacked all of them had the substitution jutsu ready so it didn't matter which one the enemy would have chosen it would have ended the same either way, maybe minus for the weird farewell given to him by yuji.

And what's more all of that was planned and agreed upon without saying a single word between them, partly because they were experienced enough and partly because they more or less knew each other and had a basic understanding of one another.

"man those basic jutsus always work best" commented yuji.

"mm, you just have to know how and when to use them." added Yanen creating another rare scene where they both agreed.

'although only as a trick and only at our level, the stronger one becomes the less useful these jutsus will be.' this was what aizen thought but he didn't say it out loud, 'they'll figure it out on their own eventually.' he thought.

"sigh, it's over let's just collect our dead people back and be done with it." said aizen before moving to a nearby corpse of what appeared to be a 6-year-old girl of the Sōsuke clan, picking her up and putting her on his shoulder he moved towards where they originally came from, the other two soon followed both with a body on their shoulders.

As they walked for a while they could see lines upon lines of bodies lined up on the ground, so they just put the ones they brought with them on the ground next in line before moving back.

All the clan members had depressing looks on their faces, no one said a thing as they moved in a practised manner and lined up the bodies.

This part was the worst after every battle, picking up their dead brothers and sisters who just hours before were alive, breathing and running alongside them just fine, and thinking when will it be their turn to be lined up in that line.

It wasn't during the battle that they are most aware of the cruelty of war.

No, with adrenaline pumping through their veins and trying their hardest to survive, they can hardly think of anything else.

It was now when they are calm and collected when they are collecting their clansman bodies and remains that they can think it through and have the freedom to let their mind wander, and if most of them had a choice it would be to go back to fighting then be doing this.

Although, they can be considered the lucky ones as they had won which gives them the privilege to collect their diseased friends immediately and give them a proper funeral, before they rot and are feasted upon by wild beasts and vultures, the same can't be said for the opposite clan.

It was basic honour and respect between clans, an unspoken rule so to say, that after every battle the winning clan will just collect their clansman and give them a funeral, mostly through cremation before leaving, and never touch the bodies of the members of the opposite clan.

And unless there was some deep hatred between both parties this rule will never be broken.

Four hours later aizen stood before a giant fire, a blank look on his face, the same as all the others, although he didn't have any deep connection to this clan he was a soldier most of his life and he understood loss the same as them.

They have won here today, they have won this battle, but they all understood, they have lost, same as the other clan, there was only one winner today, and that was the Lord who haired them, and his pockets.

(Don't forget my power stones people and review if u have time)

___________________________________

AN: if you like my story you can support me on pa-tre-on, it'll give me the motivation to keep delivering more content and you'll also get early access of up to 20 chapters.

Pat reon.com/xXTheDarkOneXx(without the space)

Also, don't be shy to drop me some of your power stones.

And lastly, I'd appreciate it if you guys left a review, whether it is good or bad, I appreciate healthy criticism so I know what areas to improve in my writing.