Chapter 7: Rain Of Blood

"That'll be 15,000 Ryo for 100 strips."

The Anbu shopkeeper spoke as he handed a stack of pitch-black paper strips with miniscule see-through seals built in within them.

Izuryu felt his heart ache as he handed a year's worth of allowance to the shopkeeper. He took the chakra paper strips as he walked to the changing room of his squad.

It had been a few months since Izuryu joined the Anbu. He started from being a total noob at practically everything to the Vice-Squad Leader of his squad.

What was interesting was that his squad leader was no one but Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang of Konoha. He was 24 years old this year, with no sign of Kakashi being born anytime soon.

'I did wonder who Captain's lover and Kakashi's mother was… Haven't found out till this date…' Thought Izuryu as he taped the chakra paper strips onto his mask's eyes, making them pure black from the outside instead of them showing the eye's pupils.

'This will allow me to use my sharingan without hiding it due to the red that could be seen from my eyes.'

Izuryu had already become dependent on the sharingan because of the multitude of strength boosts it provided. As such, not using it during Anbu level missions had hindered his combat power a lot. As such, when he found out about the existence of chakra strips, he was overjoyed. The chakra strips were like a one way mirror, one could see what was happening from the inside but from the outside, it would look completely black. They isolated all chakra, including the one emitted by his sharingan. Izuryu put on his mask once more and activated the sharingan. The three tomoe sharingan was a matured sharingan. Every detail around the room was clear in Izuryu's vision.

From the dust particles floating around the room to the chakra flowing around in the earth, Izuryu 'saw' everything.

Izuryu turned off the sharingan and walked out the changing room to Sakumo waiting for him.

"You done?" asked Sakumo as he stood up and stretched his limbs.

Izuryu nodded and walked alongside Sakumo to the mission hall.

It was similar to Konoha's Mission Hall except the stakes involved with each mission and the danger involved in each mission was sky high as well.

Sakumo took a mission scroll and walked into their squad's building.

Inside, 7 Anbu members were doing various things. Some cleaning their swords, some sharpening their kunai and shuriken and some simply napping.

Sakumo handed the scroll to Izuryu as he enveloped his hands in chakra and clapped, sending the noise all around the room, instantly alarming everyone up.

"Alright everyone, listen up. We're going on a new mission to assassinate members of Iwagakure that are setting their base up in Kusagakure. These bastards have slowly creeped up nearer every time on Konoha territory and we don't want that happen."

Everyone nodded as they started arranging and readying themselves for the mission. Nothing else needed to be said, the mission was there and they had to complete it.

Izuryu walked towards his locker as he brough out a katana.

It had a 3.5 ft blade and 4-inch handle to come at a total of 3.9 ft. Izuryu was around 4'3, his body developing quite quicker due to the environment of the shinobi world constantly developing his body. Chakra flowed in his veins as his muscles and bones were constantly being tempered, while in little amounts, it still worked in making Izuryu have an extremely strong body.

As the squad finished preparing, they moved out from the base, heading northwest towards Kusagakure. All 8 were wearing black cloaks while Sakumo's had white lines around his, signifying his role as the captain of the team.

As they neared to the border between Kusagakure and Konohagakure, Izuryu opened his sharingan, detecting threats around them.

As he and his squad kept moving forwards, Izuryu suddenly noticed chakra signatures near them. Several humanoid figures were spread around the border as many more were in Kusagakure, their chakra signatures varying in size and purity.

"Captain!" called out Izuryu as Sakumo stopped and waved his arms, making everyone stop.

"Chakra signatures are spread all around the border, more behind the border line."

The squad members instantly pulled out their weapons, as they started concealing their own chakra signatures, trying to hide themselves to the best they could.

"How powerful?" asked Sakumo.

"The ones in the border are mid to high-Jōnin, the rest isn't clear but they should be weaker than the border troops."

Sakumo nodded and made the decision.

"Me and Fox with infiltrate the base and try to destroy as much supplies as possible, while the rest of you will divert the border troops' attention. Remember, the priority is to send the Iwa troops back to their caves and not to assassinate all of them, try hurting as little troops as possible."

While Sakumo was only 19, the values of his future self-had already bloomed within himself. A sense of comradery with each of his squad members, perhaps.

The squad nodded.

Sakumo pulled out The White Light Chakra Saber from his back and so did Izuryu with his katana.

The two blades shined with a white light, reflecting sunlight onto the trees.

Beautiful yet dangerous.

As Sakumo and Izuryu got into their positions as the other squad members started making hand-signs.

At moment, Izuryu felt his blood boil as his face morphed into a blood-thirsty smile.

"Doton: Dojo Funjin Haretsu!" (Soil Dust Rupture)

"Katon: Dai Hono Funka!" (Great Flame Explosion)

"Futon: Fū Ryū Tatsumaki!" (Wind Dragon Tornado)

The three jutsu collided into each other to create a miniature dust bomb.

The explosion exploded the land around Izuryu and Sakumo, raising a lot of dust and immobilizing most people's vision.

The screeching wind dragon made it so that sounds could be barely heard, making a perfect opportunity Izuryu and Sakumo to rush into the base.

The two silhouettes rushed into the opening made by the shinobi who left their positions as they rushed into the 'base'.

The Iwa shinobi that were rushing out the base were instantly ambushed by the two.

A white line was made every time Sakumo swung his sword, leaving nothing but a scream and the sound of blood gushing out of the body.

All that was needed was a single swing.

While not as exaggerated as Sakumo, Izuryu was doing his fair share of killing too.

Izuryu stabbed his sword into a Iwa shinobi's throat and sliced upwards, cutting the head in half, revealing the brains inside.

Blood splashed onto his mask yet all there was, was a fox mask.

The black cloak slowly started turning red as it absorbed all the blood, giving it a ghastly shade of red.

As 4 shinobi ran towards Izuryu, he jumped up and threw his sword at one of the shinobi that was rushing at him.

"Doton: Doryuheki!"

A wall was erected in front of Izuryu's sword as it hit the wall and was stuck on it.

Izuryu jumped towards the wall as he pushed the sword forward, successfully breaking through the wall.

The Iwa-nin was about to use another jutsu when Izuryu suddenly lifted and made eye contact with the shinobi, putting him in a trance.

The dazed man's head was cut off from his head, leaving a body that was gushing blood.

Izuryu bathed in the blood shower as he pulled out 10 explosive tags, sticking them on another Iwa-nin as he threw him towards another one of the Iwa-nin.

The Iwa-nin quickly rose up a earth wall but the consecutive explosion didn't last long as both of them were pulverized by the explosion.

Izuryu suddenly felt a sharp and searing pain in his back as he turned backwards while retreating.

A tanto had into his shoulder blade but the cut started from his his shoulder blade but ended up cutting through his back to his waist.

The cut wasn't very deep but the constantly movement of Izuryu and the thick breastplate that touched his back made it hurt like hell.

Izuryu felt furious as his eyes started glowing blood-red.

He lunged towards the Iwa-nin who was running from Izuryu with a look of despair.

Izuryu used the tanto that was stained with his blood as he quickly ran up with the Iwa-nin.

The earth pushed Izuryu as the wind reduced his drag instantly bring him a mere 20 centimeters away from the Iwa-nin.

Izuryu stabbed the tanto into the shinobi's head, instantly wrapping it in flames.

The blade burned the Iwa-nin as he died soon after.

The dust settled as Izuryu's vision cleared. He saw that Iwa-nin were looking at him with a look of extreme fear and despair.

They quickly ran away as they disappeared into the forest.

Izuryu wanted to chase after them but as the adrenaline rush subsided, the extreme searing pain reappeared from his back.

Izuryu fell onto one knee as he started sweating cold sweat.

His back was burning, he felt like he was going to vomit blood.

Izuryu could feel the heat inside his back and shoulder blades.

He checked his shoulder blade and he felt something was cut and was leaking blood, the muscles were cut like a ravine and had almost touched the bone. His muscles were feeling like they were torn apart and his bones were feeling like they were on burning fire while being scalded with smoldering coal.

Izuryu got to his feet slowly and placed his hand on his blade.

It felt like the white sword he held was something that was about to explode.

The tanto felt like it was about to explode. It was a chakra weapon, meaning it could circulate chakra to enhance it's performance yet the sheer amount of chakra Izuryu circulated through it made him feel like it would burst into several pieces at any second.

It kept heating up to the point that it felt like a piece of solid lava. Izuryu felt his flesh burning as his blood stained the blade once again.

Yet something unusual occurred.

The blood that fell on the sword was slowly absorbed by the blade as the pure white blade started having black spots appear on its blade.

The black slowly moved upwards until it engulfed the whole blade, turning into a shade of black, as black as the night sky itself.

Markings appeared from the blade's handle as they moved upwards from Izuryu's palm to his upper arm, slowly resting at his heart.

A black moon that was stabbed by a blade appeared on top of Izuryu's heart as the heat slowly subsided.

Izuryu completely collapsed as he fell on the floor. The burning flesh slowly healed as the pain slowly subsided. While not exaggerated as Hashirama's healing prowess, Izuryu had an advanced one compared to the average jonin.

Izuryu took deep breaths as he calmed his burning body down.

After a few minutes of rest, Izuryu stood up and headed towards the base the Iwa-nin had prepared. Many crates were lined up as a few sealing scrolls were stacked into a pyramid.

Izuryu opened a random crate to see that it was full of food and clothes. Perhaps this was their supplies for the time they'd be staying in Kusagakure.

Izuryu emptied the crate and moved towards the stack of sealing scrolls.

He placed them into the crate and put on the lid. Making a handle of sorts with earth, he carried it away.

Izuryu faced the base as he made hand-signs.

"Katon: Great Destruction Dragon Flame!"

A giant fire dragon was ejected from Izuryu's mouth as it moved towards the base, burning any thing in it's way.

Izuryu carried the crate and walked away, not bothering to look after the fire.

What he didn't notice was that inside the fire, a liquid like 'thing' was facing towards Izuryu, with unknown intentions within its eyes.

Yet, within the Bingo Book, two new names were written.

"The White Fang"

"The Little Reaper"