Chapter 22

The truth about fighting against a ninja is that it was almost always fast. Very rarely did fights between ninjas last longer than two or three minutes. However, that rule only applies when both ninjas either have a measurable difference in strength or are objectively weak themselves. For example, no fight between equally ranked genin would cross the 10-minute mark unless they were both extremely stupid and relied only on slow-paced taijutsu. Generally, one or both of them would slump from exhaustion before so much time passed. Between Jounin, as experienced as they tended to be with closing targets and killing opponents, a fight between evenly matched ninjas could range from a few seconds to half an hour, but almost never any longer.

Why am I telling you this? Because all that was turned on its head when one considered the rare S-ranked Ninja and what happened when they fought. As both Orochimaru and Rasa were solidly Kage-level, it was no surprise that their fight had passed the 10-minute mark in virtually no time at all. And even worse, it seemed to be well placed to last even longer as they continuously faked each other out with near misses, clone substitutions, and tactical switches. Even the ANBU members that were faced against Orochimaru's guards, the Sound four, were still occupied in combat. As for me, I had my time occupied with a certain bone-dead pulse wielder.

Kimimaro was far superior to me in taijutsu, but I wasn't a taijutsu specialist, and between his durability and my chakra capacity, it was virtually child's play for me to extend our fight for as long as possible.

My sand swarmed around my head to block the bone bullets that had been aimed at the space between my eyes, and that same sand separated into dozens of bullets that flew right at my target. Kimimaro was quick, so he had time to react and dodge out of the way of the attack. He didn't risk going underground this time, though. Last time he did, it was only my desire to drag things on that made me allow him to come up for air. The near-death experience had shaken him, and he was much more wary and cautious in his approach, which played into my own goals.

What are those goals? I hear you ask yourself. Well, for Orochimaru to kill Rasa off for me. That was it. I needed the Sannin to kill the Kazekage so I'd have an easier time ascending to the throne. Was this the best time? No, but unless I chose to kill him myself, I didn't see a better opportunity to get rid of Rasa in the next few decades. Besides, I'd make a much better Kage than the man ever would. I was kinslaying for the good of the village. Oh, how proud my ancestors would be.

Kimimaro blurred around the field before diving right at me. The contouring lines around his body told me he'd slipped into the curse seal. I swung my head down to dodge his kick, and as he switched to a stab with the bone sword sticking out of his palm, I blocked with my sand before slamming that sand right into his body and sending him flying. He was probably much stronger with the curse seal active, but the gap between us was such that even with the boost in his power, I was doing all I could to prevent myself from killing him accidentally. This was the gap between A-rank and S-rank. I'd thought myself undeserving of the ranking when I first opened that bingo book, but now that I fought with my sand as much as I did my ninjutsu, I realized how little there was that could actually hurt me.

I could only hope that this strength allowed me to do what I needed to against Orochimaru. Just surviving would never be enough. I needed to kill the murderer of our Kage if I wanted Suna united beneath me. I needed them to be grateful, confident in my strength, and pacified if I wanted to get the necessary time to win them over with good policy. That was the only way my rule would stand.

Kimimaro scowled at me as he landed on his feet some distance away. He said something about a dance of the willow or whatever and changed his entire fighting style. Bone swords poked out from him on whatever extremities he had, and now he was much faster than before. Not fast enough to overwhelm me, but obviously faster than I was.

Chakra enhancement to my brain and my maxed intelligence stat were the only things even keeping me in this fight. Guess that was one advantage of Shukaku's release, aye? If I hadn't upgraded my intelligence stat when I did, I'd probably be out of my depth at this point. Kimimaro wailed against my sand, trying to both outflank me and break through my defenses at the same time, but it didn't matter where he went or what he did. He didn't have the strength to break through my defenses, and I didn't particularly want to kill him for the time being.

I turned part of my attention to the fight between Orochimaru and Rasa and watched the Snake Sannin breathe out a veritable firestorm with a single handseal before instantly enhancing it with his wind release. Rasa only stared at the jutsu dispassionately before lifting a single clenched hand. His golden dust swirled and surrounded him, doing so in layers with gaps in between to prevent him from getting cooked within his shield. It was small things like this that made me doubtful of my readiness to ascend to the throne of Kage. What Rasa just did was so intuitive, but the idea never came to me until I saw him do it. What else could I be missing due to my lack of experience? Training could be good, but could it ever match the power of experience? I didn't think so, but I had to make do. No Kage would ever be able to do things like go on missions. It would never work. Ascending meant losing whatever chance I had of being on the front lines, fighting dangerous enemies, and getting tempered in the flames of battle.

When Orochimaru's attack stopped, and Rasa dropped his shield, it was to the sword of Kusanagi flying across the space between them. The golden dust dome Rasa had just dispelled transformed into a wall to block the sword, but it did nothing as the sword passed through it much like it sailed through the air, stabbing Rasa in the shoulder. "The sword of Kusanagi cuts through all," Orochimaru cackled before recalling his sword with the hand still attached to it. The Leaf traitor's plethora of body modifications never ceased to appear most strange.

"Do not turn your attention from me," Kimimaro snarled as he slashed at the sand between him and the back of my neck. I twisted my said neck to look at him and remarked, "Prove yourself worthy of my attention, then."

He seemed to take that most personally, jumping backward and shifting as his curse mark ramped up to the second stage of its activation. His appearance changed as his already darkened skin got even darker as more and more of his features shifted to become dinosaurian. The bone tail he grew was also a

nice touch. All in all, it was a gruesome transformation.

"Die, Gaara of the Desert," he said before running right at me at a slower pace. He was much slower. I experimentally dropped a wall of sand in his path, concentrated into a shield, but he ran through it like it wasn't there. Well, that's one way to get my attention. And he was going to regret that, considering I could kill him now. Rasa was clearly already poisoned, so he had no way of surviving this since I was the only med nin in the squad he'd taken.

Multiple bullets of sand slammed against Kimimaro's hard skin, breaking against his skin and failing to penetrate but succeeding in forcing him to slow down as he blocked his eyes with his hand to protect the delicate orbs. The mountainous ground he stood upon shifted and transformed into sand as I forced my sand to multiply by weathering the rock into fine, dry sand.

With more than enough sand in my control, it was nothing to slam into him with enough sand to send him reeling. With that, I clenched my fist, and my sand surrounded him from all directions. The sand coffin I encased him in was multiple feet in diameter as I piled more and more sand in to crush his incredibly dense body.

Of course, I wasn't as surprised as I should have been when multiple bones ripped out of the mausoleum I was in the process of creating. Kimimaro rode one of those bones and jumped right at me with a bone spear around his right hand that he stretched and speared out right at me. He moved slowly, giving me more than enough time to charge up a mid-power rasenshuriken. The jutsu made a telltale whine that drew the attention of all the battling pairs in the mountain range we occupied. When I threw it, Kimimaro had no chance of dodging, and the attack cut him in half before I clenched my fist, and multiple invisible blades of wind spread out from the impact site, atomizing practically everything in its field. When the jutsu had run its course, there was nothing remaining of the dead bone pulse user.

"Kukuku," Orochimaru's voice rang out. "What a jutsu, Gaara-kun." The Snake said with his slimy voice.

I ignored him as he was forced back into combat with Rasa. Instead, I focused my energy on the sound four. For some reason, all of them had tapped into the second stage of their curse seals and seemed on the verge of killing their opponents. The ANBU guard that had been saddled with the duty of fighting the flute girl was pretty much already done. I shunshined into motion, heading for her first. She swept the flute at me, but I ducked under it and tapped her heart with a single finger, ending her life in a second. Medical ninjutsu was just so OP.

Fatso was my next target. He saw me coming and lifted an earth dome to protect himself from the ground, but I just stopped in front of the dome and touched it with a hand, flooding it with chakra and taking control of the jutsu. The ground shook as he fell to the floor dead from a spike through the skull.

The two ANBU agents I'd just saved looked at me gratefully, and I just nodded, silently instructing them to help their colleagues while I went for Rasa.

A platform of sand gave me the high ground as I flew towards the Kage-level fight. Of course, with Rasa on his last legs, the fight was turning into a completely one-sided affair.

Orochimaru weaved seals so quickly I could barely tell what was coming next. When lightning built around his forearms before spearing right at Rasa, I jumped between them, dispelling the jutsu with my wind release jutsu.

I placed a hand on Rasa, using a diagnostic jutsu to make sure of my initial prediction, and yes, I was right. The poison was wreaking havoc on his system. The only thing keeping him standing was his powerful chakra. But he would not be surviving this. No fucking way. Even if he'd gotten medical treatment the moment the blade had stabbed him, it would still have been a coin toss. The poison was just that potent, and it was also completely unique in its design. What I could intuit was a biological basis, but that was no help in treating the man.

I turned to Rasa to deliver the 'bad' news, but the man just shook his head at me. "I know," He said. "Just help me make sure I take him with me." He said after his body was wracked by coughs. I just nodded.

Orochimaru cackled. "A father-son team-up. How cute."

"You won't be leaving here alive, Orochimaru," Rasa said, and the Snake just laughed in reply.

This time, when Orochimaru weaved seals, I matched him every step of the way. Both our fireballs clashed against each other before detonating when neither could overcome the other.

Rasa's golden dust flowed around us, before rushing at Orochimaru. The snake dodged every attack Rasa sent, keeping ahead of him with a mixture of speed and maneuverability. But thankfully, he'd slowed since the fight started. Orochimaru and Rasa had both pushed each other to the max for close to an hour. All I had to do was help the old man make it past the finish line. Of course, that proved to be too much as he dropped to one knee, the poison weakening him even further.

Smelling weakness, Orochimaru flew right for us, pressing the attack. My sand shield was enough to delay his attacks and force him to shift tactics. Fighting with Orochimaru was a dance, but I had my trump card waiting. I just needed him to slip for one second, and when he did. When he was just too slow in countering a tendril of sand I sent at him, I activated it. A seal. A simple seal that did a simple thing. It flooded us with sand. It was a modified sealing scroll that only had one modification. The unsealing process. I made it nearly 50 times faster. The sand tore the seal apart, and if I wasn't who I was, it would have done the same with me. Only my attentions prevented Rasa from falling victim to my jutsu. As Orochimaru and Rasa had fought on a separate area, the ANBU had enough distance and warning to escape the sudden phenomenon. It was difficult to explain what just happened. Just know that where there was previously no sand, there was now enough to bury us all.

I floated to the top of the sand unmolested with Rasa caught in the grip of my sand dome. I could feel the Sannin in the sand, and unlike with Kimimaro, I had no interest in letting him go. Sand pressed on him from all areas. With so much sand at my disposal, his attempts to flare his chakra to disperse enough sand to move were useless. He was mine, under the influence of my sand. First of all, I crushed his hands in my grip. And then I removed his head, leaving his body

in the sand and only bringing up the head. It floated on a platter of sand as I examined it to make sure it was the real deal, and then I plopped it right into a scroll I carried in my pocket.

I did the same with his body when I brought it up, sealing both parts in different scrolls.

With that mess over and done with, I turned to Rasa, bringing the dome over to me. The three surviving ANBU agents also appeared around me as we stared at the barely conscious Kage.

"I am going to die," Rasa spoke, and I nodded. There was nothing any of us could do.

"Good. Bear, come here." He said, and the leader of his guard detail appeared. "Give me a scroll and a brush," he requested, and his request was fulfilled with no delay as the man began to write. He spoke as he wrote so there would be no doubting his intentions.

"I, Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage of Sunagakure, do hereby name my Son, Gaara of the Desert, to serve as interim Fifth Kazekage, until my daughter and heir, Temari, comes of age and proves worthy of the position." What. The. Actual. Flying. Fuck!