Chapter 14: Ambush

There was a dreadful silence in the air as Tsunade's question brought up the thing Izuryu never wanted to talk about.

He was never one to be afraid of taking risks yet that was when he was sure that he was able to come out of it one piece.

Cold sweat enveloped Izuryu as his mind raced, unable to answer the question.

He didn't know if he should act ignorant or act as though he knew about it the whole time.

"I- I… I- don-"

He stuttered through his answer, unable to bring out what he wanted and needed to say.

He wanted to speak again but Tsunade's words interrupted him in the middle of it.

"You know what, just tell me when we get back to the base. However, it has to be a satisfactory answer and not just you trying to muddle through it."

After her words echoed in Izuryu's head, he nodded like a chick eating corn kernels.

***

Katomo felt weird that Izuryu wasn't bickering or taunting him but was keeping quiet. He sensed the atmosphere however and kept quiet the whole way.

***

A few hours later, Tsunade and Izuryu were in an isolated tent. Izuryu had learnt some basic sound concealing seals within his time in Anbu Academy so he put that knowledge to use and made it so that no sound would escape the tent.

Now that some time had passed and that Izuryu and Tsunade weren't within the dust-filled environment, Izuryu was not very nervous anymore. He was feeling a lot more relaxed and had a proper answer this time.

Tsunade took a sip of sake and asked Izuryu relaxedly.

"So, telling me about your sharingan anytime soon?"

Izuryu took a sip of orange juice nodded but kept drinking.

"Slurp…"

"Sip…"

"Slurp…"

"Sip…"

"Sigh…"

Tsunade's fist that was about to bang the table were taken back as she listened to Izuryu talk.

"While my name is 'Izuryu Tsukisumi', I'm not from my father's biological son. He found me in the Land of Snow when he was coming back from a mission."

"Sip…"

"Slurp…"

"I didn't know anything about the clans in Konoha, all I knew was that I was much stronger than children my age. Much, much stronger."

"I got into the Academy and stayed there for a year but found the lessons uninteresting. So, I applied for an early graduation test. I passed the Taijutsu and Ninjutsu test pretty easily but something happened during the Genjutsu part of the test."

Tsunade started intently listening at these words. Something related to Genjutsu that a sharingan user would experience was definitely something great.

"I 'saw' something."

"A pair of blood red pupils stared at me. There was no voice, no threat, no pain nothing. Yet within the void that was in, the red pupils brought out the deepest fear I ever felt. A great sense of despair overwhelmed, as though drowning within lava, my body tried struggling but I kept sinking deeper and deeper, yet those pupils kept staring at me. Just as I thought I'd die; I woke up and immediately fell into unconsciousness."

Tsunade's frown deepened as she heard Izuryu's words. The blood-red pupils Izuryu saw was definitely the Sharingan, yet she wondered why Izuryu would see the Sharingan within his graduation genjutsu.

While on Izuryu's side, he could barely face a serious face as he kept spewing out bullshit. His eyelids and lips twitched furiously as he almost leaked a laugh from his mouth. Sweat started appearing on his forehead as his vein bulged from his forehead.

While Izuryu could barely stop himself from laughing, Tsunade thought Izuryu could still feel the "despair" and "dread" from the Genjutsu that Izuryu went through.

She brought some chakra into her palm as she brought her on Izuryu's forehead and let it circulate through, trying to calm him from his "fear".

As the vein stopped bulging and the sweat stopped flowing, Tsunade stopped her 'treatment' and thought it was successful and calmed Izuryu down. She beckoned him to continue as she intently stared at him.

"The next day, when I was training and felt frustrated at how I could increase my strength, I started having conflicting and chaotic emotions. Just as I stopped and sighed, I found out that I could 'see' a lot more things. Details that I'd never noticed before evident to me and all my surrounding felt like they had a lot of things hidden within them. I quickly found out that something was wrong with. There was definitely something up with my sight so I checked my eyes and lo-and-behold, I had the exact same eyes as I saw in the genjutsu, except the fact that in the genjutsu, the pupils had 3 tomoe and that mine only had 1."

"I was very curious about my eyes too. So I started visiting the library to find out anything about my pupils. After spending a week or so's time in the library, I finally found out a book about my eyes."

"That day I found out that I was an Uchiha. I was not Izuryu Tsukisumi but Izuryu Uchiha."

Izuryu took a big gulp of the orange juice in order to moisturize his throat and calm his 'raging' emotions.

Tsunade picked the bottle up and filled his glass with orange juice.

"I didn't know what to do, but all I knew was that having the sharingan was a very amazing gift."

"So, I did just that. I did not think of myself as an Uchiha. I simply treated my sharingan as a 'gift'."

"Slowly, in the span of a month or two, my one-tomoe sharingan morphed into a two-tomoe sharingan."

"Within that time, I was recruited into the Anbu. Within the Anbu, I found a lot more information. And most of it was something that would help me a lot."

"Yet no matter how hard I tried; I couldn't evolve my sharingan from two tomoe to three tomoe."

"I had to go in a mission one time. It was s mission to exterminate an Iwa base in Kusagakure."

"Everything had gone well until hidden Iwa reinforcement came from behind the lines."

"Within that fight, I hovered between the Pure Land and the Mortal World, walking along a knife's edge, I killed many and was injured quite a few times too."

"That blood-bath was exactly what I needed however. My 2 tomoe sharingan that had stagnated for quite a while had finally turned into a three tomoe sharingan."

"After that, some Iwa shinobi noticed my red eyes from within my mask. Yet they didn't notice that my eyes were the sharingan, only the fact that they were blood-red."

"From that day, I had gained the title of the Red Eye Reaper and The Little Reaper, One because of my sharingan and one because of my age."

"I've been trying to hide my sharingan the best I could the whole time but I didn't think I would be exposed by my mask breaking."

Izuryu smiled bitterly after speaking and gulped down the orange juice.

He took back the seals and let the sound of the rain in as he laid down on the futon within the tent.

"Well, that's basically it."

Tsunade nodded in realization after knowing what happened to Izuryu. Yet she was confusion about something.

"If you knew you were an Uchiha then why didn't you go to the Uchiha Clan Leader? A genius like you would have definitely been able to get a good position in the Uchiha clan."

Izuryu had a contemptuous expression on his face as he replied.

"Hmph! Where were those arrogant punks when I was found by my father? If I went to the Uchiha Clan then wouldn't it basically be like me begging to join the Uchiha Clan?"

"So much pride for a 7-year-old huh…"

Tsunade snickered at Izuryu's prideful words.

"Well, go to sleep, you'll be leaving in a day."

"Sure…"

The lights in the tent went out as Izuryu fell asleep.

***

"Argh!"

A Rain Shinobi fell on the ground with a thud as his blood spread around the ground, the rain slowly diluting it away into nothingness.

"This the 11th one today..."

Izuryu muttered with furrowed brows. Many rain shinobi had been trying to infiltrate the Konoha Base but with failure each time. Their strength however had been increasing with each shinobi. It had started from Mid-Low Level Chunin and the shinobi this time already was High Tokubetsu Jonin level.

Izuryu looked towards the other side, his sharingan leering at the Rain Village in the distance.

"What are you trying to do Hanzo..."

The rain dripped down from his mask, as the water, cleansed his blade and body of blood.

***

On the other side, a burly man wearing a sophisticated gas mask was listening to his subordinate's report.

His long blond hair was wet due to the wind as a scar could be seen that ran through his cheek.

"The Tokubetsu Jonin we sent this time was killed as well, Hanzo-sama. What should we do now?"

"Hm…"

With a nasal voice, Hanzo replied to the kneeling subordinate.

"Cease the probing for now, it seems there's no chance to infiltrate the base unless we send Jonin level troops. And there's no need to escalate the conflict to that level right now. The war hasn't started yet and there's no need for us to start it right now. As for now, keep training the troops and find orphans to bring within the army in order to replenish the ones we have lost…"

"Yes sir!"

A small salamander crawled onto Hanzo's body and rubbed itself on Hanzo's cheek.

Hanzo brought it on his palm and started stroking it.

"As long as we can gain this land, Amegakure can be able to thrive a lot more. Konoha will lose a lot of land, effectively making them lose a lot of strength, and with the joint attack of the other 4 villages, the advantage Konoha has will be reduced. The 4 villages will gain benefits through the war as well. As long as all 4 villages are satisfied with the benefits they gain through the war and Konoha loses its advantage then peace between the 5 villages will be achieved. And with the land we'll have taken from Konoha, Amegakure will have a lot of room for development."

The dying figure of a girl (OC) appeared in Hanzo's mind as he shook his head and walked back to the village, the rain echoing behind him.

***

"We'll be leaving now, thank you for the hospitality."

Izuryu smiled at Tsunade as he and Katomo bowed to the shinobi next to him.

"No need to thank us, you've helped us for all the things you've done during your stay."

The shinobi smiled and waved his hand.

"I don't want to leave…"

Katomo kept muttering with a despondent expression, unwilling to leave.

Izuryu turned around and was about to flicker when he heard Tsunade's voice.

"Don't die anytime soon, brat. I don't want to see your grave."

Izuryu felt warmth in his heart as he smiled and waved his hand too.

'I definitely won't die…'

***

"You sure that the scroll is in safe hands?"

Izuryu asked Katomo with a doubtful expression as he looked at the rock covering the scroll had.

"Hmph! Don't underestimate me."

Katomo snorted and accelerated as he started running forward.

"Heh, trying to outrun me?"

Izuryu smirked and was about to accelerated when he saw a flash of light about to hit Katomo.

Izuryu flickered next to him as he pulled out Muramasa and blocked the flash, which turned out to be a kunai.

"Enemy Attack!"

Izuryu opened his sharingan and looked for chakra signatures. He noticed 20 chakra signatures and signaled to Katomo.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"

"Suiton: Ryūsuisō!"

A giant fireball and a water spear were shot into different directions and hit the shinobi who were surprised by the sudden attack.

Izuryu flashed next to a chakra signature to reveal a shinobi wearing a cat mask with red marks. The shinobi was wearing a black cloak that disguised the shinobi within the dark.

Izuryu slashed as Muramasa collided with the shinobi's sword. Izuryu added chakra into Muramasa as it cut through the shinobi's katana and cut into his heart, killing him instantly.

Izuryu bent down to remove the shinobi's mask.

He created a rock stick and opened the shinobi's mouth and brought out his tongue.

The tongue had a black mark on it. The mark had the shape of three solid lines and two broken lines from the back of the tongue to the tip.

It was the seal that all members of Root bore.

It was The Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal.

"So you've finally made a move Danzo…"