Chapter 28

Three months passed since the greatest calamity that befell Soragakure. The floating, majestic village ceased to exist as most nobles were either killed off buy Konoha's forces to prevent any form of retaliation the few that remained fell into despair as their lives fell apart overnight, from worshipped nobles of Soragakure to nobodies. After that, the aggressors lost interest in the fallen village and disappeared.

That was only the beginning, with nobody to govern the people and keep order. Competition for essential resources intensified as stalls were raided, storehouses were looted and no stone was left unturned.

Bandits ran rampant across the entire landscape and raided, burned and raped with nothing to hold them back, and the shinobi that once protected the lands holed up whoever they could and hoarded any valuables. The fragile system that maintained order disappeared and nobody appeared to restore their once peaceful lives.

A few groups banded together to protect their villages and share resources but even those alliances were only in name. Amidst all the paranoia, starvation, shock and violence friends were fickle, and anyone with half a mind knew that survival meant sometimes stabbing your ally in the back.

Amidst all this chaos though, one group benefited the most and naturally it was Nero's. Orphaned and starving children disappeared by the dozen everyday and nobody was none the wiser, better yet nobody cared. Their deaths only meant there was less competition for resources.

Most of these children were in their mid teens, or even younger and more malleable and suggestable. All of them were utterly recruited on a large scale by Nero and his subordinates who had now fully gotten used to their powers.Sadly only nine people returned after leaving to fulfill their own devices. The rest died due to biting off more than they could chew.

The newfound freedom of having someone else sit in a lab for weeks and do research eased Nero burden immensely and helped him relieve some pent up stress. He never thought he'd find himself missing he cruel and familiar scent of war and despair lingering in the air.

Opting to travel alone and leave Ichigo to guard the base and watch over it's expansion. He felt it much better to spend his time picking out human resources to expand his operations as quickly as possible.

Over the past months he has been doing just that, with everyone else fo focused on preserving themselves and no notable ruling power in sight. Everyone ran rampant and did as they pleased, others resorted to extreme measures to survive. Such people often becoming bandits and robbing others.

Whenever Nero ran into such groups he didn't hesitate to take them off the census, if someone promising was among them he would spare that particular person and send them off towards his base where safety, food and a warm bath awaited them. Nero of course didn't force those people to join him. He simply pointed them towards a direction and urged them to arrive at a set time or lose out on a chance of a lifetime.

For those broken and weak willed teens, it worked most of the time. He had already left Ichigo in charge of training the new recruits and picking out those with potential. That included but was not limited to fighting, he also gave Ichigo basic text books to teach those who were unqualified to become soldiers. Brute force was not always the answer afterall, other people were more suited to becoming scientists teachers, political figure or merchants.

For those that passed the soldier tests, they were accepted as apprentice agents within the organization now promptly named Inferno. Since Nero planned to swallow everything like a raging flames and use it to further grow himself and his organization the name was quite fitting.

In a year he would hopefully see results, and until then Nero planned to move as silently as possible and create branches of his base to cover more ground.

Nero's current destination was a relatively large mining and smithing town. Amongst all the chaos it was one of the few safe heavens that still had some semblance of order. Along with three other towns that still had shinobi protection.

He set his sights here for obvious reasons and as an added incentive, Ichinose had invited him. As he approached the town, Nero's smile widened as he approached the vigilant guards posted on the walls and gates.

"Halt!! State your purpose traveler." One guard, a samurai asked.

"I received an invitation by lady Ichigo noble of Soragakure and member of the research team." Nero stated plainly, his eyes wandered the walls and looked for any signs of ambush as he tensed his muscles and had his suit ready to deploy.

The guard whispered to his companion who swiftly ran inside. A minute or two passed before a man came out. Looking at his features, Nero naturally knew it was Rei, Ichinose's faithful guard dog.

"It's a pleasure to see you sir Ryū, this way please." Rei spoke calmly as he turned and headed back in.

Nero just raised his brow in mild surprise, he had never told Ichinose his alias and only Ryoshi, his men, the slaves and Ichigo knew it. Guessing it was just Ichinose's show of power Nero smiled and entered the compound.

The strong scent of metal assaulted his nose as flames bellowed from huge forges where muscular men pounded the metals and shaped them. Some huddled together and inspected a crude looking weapons likely meant to imitate the P90 assault rifle he gave them.

Although they had the blueprint they still made a few mistakes here and there but slowly those were being hammered out.

"You have quite the skilled blacksmiths working here." Nero commented.

"Yes, they are all renowned craftsmen on this side of the world. They gathered here for safety but most importantly they all wanted to study your creation. I hope you can leave a few pointers to help us speed up the process." Rei narrated seriously as he strode across the neatly lined up buildings with Nero following behind.

"Of course, it's the least I could do after failing to assist lady Ichigo as promised." Nero said humbly.

"Hmph." Rei just snorted.

Not bothering to learn why he did that, Nero simply followed him into a huge Japanese estate with dozens of guards. They navigated through the house and headed to a room where a low table sat along with two cups of tea and an empty mat for Nero to sit.

Seeing Nero Ichinose was mostly indifferent, she just responded to his greeting with a smile and engaged in casual conversation for a while.

As time went on the topic took a darker turn about the war and the future.

"Is there something you want to ask lady Ichinose?" Nero asked as he calmly took a sip of his tea, not fearing any potential poisoning since his nanites would break them down and convert them to mana.

"Lord Nero have you personally seen the 0 tails?" Ichinoses probed.

"Of course not, but I do have it in my possession if that's what you're asking." Nero spoke calmly with a smile as he shrugged off a powerful killing intent from the shinobi in the room.

"Oh..May I ask why you stole what's mine? I thought you were a man of honor." Ichigo stated with a cold tone.

"I simply didn't want such a thing to fall in the hands of the enemies. I can't deny that I was also intrigued by having the chance to study such a specimen. Besides I never stole it, my subordinate found it and I decided to 'safe- keep' it for you." Nero spoke without missing a beat.

"There's no need to 'safe-keep' My property I'm fully capable of doing thag myself." Ichinose stated.

"I won't be giving it back at your whim lady Ichigo. Before you get it back I want you to cement your rule in Soragakure and give me half of all your mines." Nero replied casually.

Although his words were casual.His eyes showed a cruel glint.

*CLACK!!*

a violent sound of metal clashing with metal rang out in the room as a sword that was aimed to cut off Nero's head stopped I place. Nero frowned in displasure as his skin started visibly turning black as a metallic sheen instantly cover his entire body in a modified lurker suit. The armor looked much more jaggared and savage as hornlike protrusions appeared on it's head, forearms, shoulders and spinal area. Blur glowing eyes stared at Ichigo and made her falter.

The attacker couldn't even react as a powerful grip latched onto his face and he started screaming in agony before turning into a shriveled corpse in fron of all the terrified spectators.

"Should I assume this is you refusing to coorparate?" Nero asked the shell shocked Ichinose in a grinding metallic voice.

"I'd rather die that put my trust in you again. Treacherous dog!!" Ichinose spat as she ordered he men to attack.

Nero shook his head. It was truly a shame that she'd die here. Along with most of the guards and any who resisted. But she had made her choice and now she must suffer the consequences of said choice. Nero approached, ready to suck out her chakra and finish everyone else.

Rei suddenly appeared before Nero and swiftly kicked him on the chest with enough force to send him skidding backwards through the thin walls and outside were projectiles and various combos of jutsu rained down on him.

To their utter shock, Nero's suit glowed in a blue hue before slowly absorbing the elemental attacks and shrugged off the kunai and rocks that broke on contact.

The flames visibly died down while the lightinging eagerly claimed onto his suit and arced around his body like a faithful pet.

The powerful force of the water didn't even push Nero off balance. Nero raised his right hand and opened his palm charging a fireball that was compressed and fed generous amounts of oxygen. He released the intense ball of flames onto the building where Ichinose was and watched as am explosion shook the entire compound.

Rei rushed out with his face burnt heavily and his right arm useless.His eyes shook in undiluted rage as his beloved mistress just died at the hands of such a detestable man.

"Kill him! Kill this monster and leave nothing not even ash!!" The calm man ordered the stunned ninja who jumped into action.

A few samurai also started attacking at a distance using arcs chakra projectiles. Various screams and war cries could be heard as they all threw what they had at Nero.

This time instead of taking the hits head on, Nero shot up into the sky using powerful explosions to propel him higher. After escaping the barrage with only a few dents on his armor, Nero dived back into the fray.

He formed two swords on his hands and two a cannon appeared on his shoulder and shot out bursts of fast and deadly bullets.

Using his speed, Nero avoided the elemental attacks and engaged the samurai in a close range battle. As the man swung his sword intent on cutting him in half, Nero watched in amusement as the sword simply broke.

He impaled the stunned man and started suckig his chakra to fuel his armor and refilled some of his lost mana.

Screams of panick rang out the entire place as this who couldn't fight decided to run. Seeing this, Nero quickened his pace and started killing off the small fry until only 6 people remain from the original 50.

His suit, now coated in blood that evaporated under the heat radiated by the suit causing a red mist to form.

"Hahahahahahaha!!" A terrifying demonic laugh that shook the six jounin ninja resounded within the compound.

All of them gulped in fear and readied themselves, they had long since resigned themselves to death after failing to save their mistress.

Nero slowing walked towards them and brandished a sword on his right hand and his Beretta 92Fs Inox a carbon copy of Revy's gun lay on his left hand, although it looked exactly like Revy's gun it was reinforced with runes and stacked with much deadlier bullets that could rival the strongest sniper rifle in power.

Once he was close enough, Rei who had somewhat healed and the 3 people of his team rushed in to attack or buy time for the other 3 to perform an attack that could harm Nero.

Nero evaded a flurry of significantly powerful blows and elemental attacks from the three elite jounin who didn't let up and attacked with perfectly timed choriographic attacks. Being pushed back slowly, Nero decided to take a hit from one of them and retaliated with a gunshot that went through his shoulder and disabled his arm.

In exchange Nero got a slight headache and his AI's auto aiming function was offline. Nero smiled even more as he gleefully jumped back into battle.

He impaled one of them with his sword and jumped 8 meters into the sky before firing off his gun at the ones who attacked from behind with jutsu.

He manged to kill one as thr rest took cover behind the crumbling walls. Once he landed he Once again begun his clash and slowly started gaining ground. His nanites learned and absorbed information at a rapid pace. His torn ligaments and strained muscles were rebuilt much more optimized for battle than before.

The sounds of clashing died down after 30 minutes as Nero sat down on a dead Rei's corpse. His suit's mask had retracted to reveal a cruel smirk as Nero absorbed all the chakrw from the freshly dead corpses.

"Time to recruit some craftsmen."Nero rose from his seating position and looked at the now destroyed city and shook his head.

Most of the city was destroyed but the few forges and houses that survived was still valuable.

He spent the whole day head hunting 250 escaped men and restraining them back in the city. Where he gave them a choice. Submit or die. Safe to say they all choice the former.

With a satisfied smirk, Nero told them to clean up the shriveled corpses and rebuild the entire place. After that he ordered Ryōshi to send some men to guard the facility.

.....

Haa that took a while, but hope you like it and please provide some powersrones if you did.