Chapter 35

Quest Notification! Quest Complete!

Finally taking this seriously, huh?

Objectives;

Survive ✔

Kill Onoki the Fencesitter ✔

Kill Orochimaru x

Save Hiruzen ✔

Bonus Objectiv

Prevent Kurotsuchi from escaping x

Prevent Akatsuchi from escaping x

Kill Stone Nin (42/127)

Rewards;

5000 XP ✔

Legendary loot roll x

Weighted Boulder Technique 

Stone Golem Technique ✔

Bonus Rewards;

Lava Release Affinity x

Dust Release Affinity x

Explosion Release Affinity x

Bodies of members of the explosion corps x

I looked at the rewards with a dispassionate eye as I noted that I'd missed most of the value. Most of the real value at least, the weighted boulder and golem technique were cool, and the information that just got downloaded into my head came with a lot of ideas about the practical aspects of the move. How to implement it in combat, how to use it to fly, how to use it on others, and all that. It was fascinating, but still nothing too special. Why? I could already fucking fly.

In my opinion, that was half the utility of the jutsu right there. I mean sure, what about the ability to increase my speed or to slow down opponents by increasing their weight wouldn't apply to a sane person? The problem there was that I could already move my sandy body quicker than my mind could even keep up with, so my body definitely wasn't the limiting factor. Weight didn't matter when you had telekinetic control over your body. As for slowing down or disabling opponents by increasing their weight, I still had to touch them to make it happen, and as good as my fuinjutsu already was, in a few months, me touching anyone would be as good as a dead sentence for them.

The stone golem jutsu was even worse. It was a chakra hog, I could tell. And I could do roughly the same thing with my sand with only a quarter the chakra expenditure and even more utility, mobility and flexibility. It was like being given an inferior version of one of my favourite jutsus.

Maybe the actual truth was that the reason I wasn't looking at what I got with much value was because of how valuable what I'd missed out on was. The lava release affinity would have been dead useful, but the real prizes were dust and explosion release. Sure, I didn't have a lightning affinity, but I was dead certain that getting the Kekkei Genkai would come with the requisite affinity. Instead, I was stuck with two more jutsu that I'd probably almost never end up using.

I tried to put it all out of mind, and focus on the future. Now, the next steps were unclear. Sound or Stone. Suna had been getting ready for war for months now.

I'd have to declare a target and let loose the hounds sooner or later unless the hounds would go crazy in their cages and attempt to eat me. It was a terrible image, but no less true. The tension at the village was already close to a snapping point by the time I left. If I delayed any longer, I wouldn't be surprised to return to a village in the midst of a civil war. I'd been mandating increased training, increased the reserves, called up all the inactive ninja and asked them to begin training again, changed the academy curriculum, and a thousand other small policy changes. Only the blind and stupid could miss that Suna was preparing for something big, and now knowing what it was had caused a lot of raised tensions.

People could only live with so much nervous energy for so long. But unfortunately, they'd have to live with it for even longer. Hiruzen and I had completed our agreement and the newly reviewed treaty between Sunagakure and Konohagakure. Now, all we needed was for our respective Daimyo to consent to the deal. The Fire Daimyo had extended an invitation to both the Wind Daimyo and I to his court for the finalising of the agreement.

Normally, I'd disdain and ignore what was essentially a summons from a rival power, but now we were allies. And Hiruzen was also extremely weak. He probably had very little time left with the hat on his head. If I fucked up and offended the fire Daimyo, I'd probably end up saddled with a new Hokage who'd go back on Hiruzen's deal and then there'd be a war on three fronts for me to fight. I loved Suna, but we weren't Konoha. A war on three fronts would wipe us off the map almost completely. Besides, the land that Hiruzen had essentially granted us wasn't truly his to give. Sure, once Hiruzen ceded it to us, we could occupy it without fear because there was little the fire Daimyo could do to stop us. His armies of samurai? They wouldn't even be fodder for our genin and chunin. It was kind of a weird situation where the Daimyo owned the land but only because Hiruzen and Konoha were there to press his claim. So while Hiruzen had no legal authority to grant the land, he had the actual authority over it.

It brought another thought to my mind though. Why didn't he just kill the Daimyo and take the seat for himself? From my experience, that kind of thing wasn't that hard. Not too hard for the Shinobi no Kami himself definitely. The only reason I could see for not doing it was the fact that he didn't need to. Maybe his own Daimyo was essentially a rubber stamp. But if so, why would he issue this summons? Racking my brain over it was not doing me any good. At the end of the day, I'd find out what he wanted and what was going on. The games would reveal themselves to me sooner or later.

Suddenly, a knock rang out from the door. Surely it couldn't be them. The message had just gone out this morning. Besides, I'd have definitely been notified if my Daimyo was within the village and on his way to my hotel room.

Before I got the opportunity to so much as reply, the door swung open, and one of the last people I wanted to see during my trip to Konoha walked in. Danzo Shimura.

The Konoha elder with leathery skin spotted with wrinkles and a frown that looked to have been carved into his stone cold face. No expressions. No tells. No small micromovements to mark the passage of time as the seconds ticked by with us staring at each other. Stone. That was a good word for him. He looked carved out of the thing. Like a figure, an effigy. Wrapped in bandages across one end of his body, leaning heavily on a cane, but still strong and unyielding. Like stone. "Who are you? How dare you barge in here" I said, maintaining my sitting position but beginning to both flood the room with sand and preparing to transform into my sand form.

Either I was more distracted in my thoughts than I'd thought possible, or Danzo had somehow found a way around my sensing. Both of those possibilities were equally frightening.

"I am Shimura Danzo, Fifth Kazekage of Konohagakure." He said in a voice that was just like his face. Stone cold. No inflections. None of the pride that I'd have expected accompanying a declaration like that. No expressions. So I did the one thing from my previous life that was just as useful in this one. I got on his nerves.

"Hahahahahaha" I burst into peals of laughter and giggles. I even doubled over, clenching my stomach with both arms, showing him the weakness to see if it would provoke any attack or reaction. But nothing. Not so much as a twitch. What the fuck was this man? Was this even a man?

"You are the Fourth Kazekage, an enemy to Konoha. My predecessor was weak in agreeing to a treaty with you. It is now rescinded. Do the wise thing and surrender yourself, Ichibi. Your death will go on to serve the great tree" He said, sounding like he was reading from a textbook and not basically declaring war on what was essentially his only ally in a big dark world out to get him. Another thing I wondered about was Hiruzen. Last I checked, he was alive and fine. Even had Jiraiya with him. So where was the toad sage and what was he doing.

Oh, there he is! I disassembled my lower body and flew backwards out of the hotel as Jiraiya crashed into it from above, giant Rasengan in his hand. He smashed through the roof, and my penthouse suit before ending the jutsu and standing where I'd previously sat, staring at me with cold eyes that reminded me exactly of the man that walked forwards to stand right next to him. Well, shit.

"Ichibi, do not make this too difficult for yourself. Surrender or die. Now." A voice spoke out from my side. I ignored it. Using chakra to throw your voice was a cheap trick I'd outgrown years ago. The first time I'd fallen for it, Baki had beaten me black and blue.

And then, a hand grabbed a hold of my neck from behind before I felt myself being bound up in body slipped through the bindings as it crossed the boundary between flesh and sand, becoming something more and ether for a flip second before I reformed meters away. I could feel the bastard's body, so their attempts to run were useless as my sand chased them relentlessly. And then a beam of white light shot out of the thin air to reduce my sand to nothingness. What? Dust release? How?

Whatever jutsu had been cloaking him disappeared and I was faced with a body contained in bandages. Wrapped up from head to toe was the Null Man himself. The Second Tsuchikage, Mu. His eyes, black and pupilless, told me all I needed to know about just where he was coming from. Fuck. Edo Tensei. Something should have told me I'd get fucked my this jutsu sooner or later. I floated up a bit higher to get a good look at my opponents and as I took stock of them, I felt a smile break across my face. Danzo, Jiraiya, Mu, and several dozen members of the Anbu. This was what they'd brought to take me down.

They thought this would be enough to kill me? Bold. Bold and very unfortunately stupid. My inventory flowed open as sand appeared all around me and began wrapping around my lower body in a half dome as I used it as both a platform and gathering point to prepare myself for the fight that was coming.

Danzo's hand whipped out in a blur as a wind release shuriken was sent flying right at me. A single hand seal from him later, and one had turned into a few hundred as they tore through the skies. I became sand, allowing everything to cut through me and flow past.

I could not be killed. At this point, it might as well be a fact of life. My body returned to flesh and I chose to return the favour as I flew right down at my assailants. Jiraiya's burning flame bullet whizzed by me as I dodged it by the skin of my teeth. In the next second, I was among the anbu. The S-class ninja would give me a hell of a fight, but I'd always be watchful of them. These ones, when my guard was down, they'd be the most dangerous and were also simultaneously the easiest to take out.

One slashed at me with a tanto that bit into my neck and did nothing more. The sand that made up my body held tight onto the blade. He wasted a second trying to pull it out like a bloody samurai and that ended up being the last second of his life. I tapped him on the chest with two fingers and shot my chakra straight through his heart like a lance. Hyuga Neji's gentle fist was a thing of beauty. My mimicry from days of observation from the safety of my hotel room was anything but beautiful. Functional though? That it was.

The next two to run at me were cut down in the same motion as a swipe of Dark Sister enhanced with fire release chakra sent the fire flying at them and burned them to ash in seconds. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Another with purple skin touched two of his fellows making them run at me with hands outstretched. Ahh. The Aburame with the dangerous bugs. Nope. Not today, motherfucker. Dark Sister burned them to ash in a similar way.

This use of the sword was just [perfect. I felt like Yamamoto from bleach as with every swipe of my sword I created massive streams of flames that cut apart my enemies. And then, right through the sea of flames I'd just produced came a man. Jiraiya, hair gleaming white and snarl on his face punched at me so quickly that I was barely able to transform in time. Where my head had been was an explosion of sand. Sand that I commanded to wrap around the man's fist. His chakra lashed out, and I lost control of my sand and it fell to the floor. I reformed my head and looked up at the pissed off Sannin. A Rasengan was building in his palm. Rotation, power, and containment came together in a beautiful medley that he thrust right at me and I decided to try something risky. I met his Rasengan clad palm with my bare one, stretching out my chakra and making it flow in the exact opposite direction.

His chakra spiked for a second and the flow of his Rasengan changed in a split second before it tore through my arm and my entire left side. What the fuck? How was that even possible? That kind of chakra control would put him on the same level as some of the best medical nin I'd ever seen. Much better than mine, definitely.

I retreated, reforming my body a few metres away before collapsing it instantly to escape the box of white light that encased the space I'd occupied less than a second ago. After I lost my lower body to Onoki, turning my body into sand had become even easier. Probably because I didn't even have a flesh and blood lower body in the strictest sense of the word. Instead of transforming my body into sand, sometimes it felt like I was transforming sand into my body and turning into sand was just reversing that. That increased ease was the only reason I'd been fast enough to escape Mu's attack.

The ground audibly rumbled as multiple spikes shot out of it. Each spike was a gigantic thing that stretched to the sky. Not a single of them managed to so much as scratch me. What a wasteful jutsu with no clear purpose, was my first thought. That was until I flew close to the first one while trying to dodge out of the way of Jiraiya's fist. Mu's hands stretched out from within and grabbed at me. I let him keep the hand he'd touched as purple insects began to crawl on it.

Fuck. They were working together even better than before. They were improving as the fight dragged on. Getting used to my tricks and adapting to all my tactics in seconds. This was the danger in Kage-level opponents.

I tracked the mastermind here, Danzo Shimura. He was still in my penthouse suite, staring at the fight with a watchful eye. I blurred towards him in a sandy shunshin, Dark Sister clenched in my grip and outstretched. When I finally reached him, I stabbed him right through the chest, and felt a Kunai enhanced with wind release stab right into my own chest. We both stood there, my chest had been turned into sand right before his blow landed so I felt nothing from it. On the other hand, his breaths fell even heavier as he heaved and gasped, about to breathe his last. "Juin" He shouted, hand leaving his grip on his kunai to tap my neck. The fuinjutsu flowed across my body in seconds. Fuck. I staggered backwards, trying to rally my chakra to fight the seal's spread, but it was something that was nearly unstoppable. The seal just flowed through me and into my chakra. My chakra did its best to fight back, but the seal did not activate any of my body's defences against intrusion. Fighting against it while my body didn't really care less was practically impossible so I wasn't surprised when it ran its course and then activated. The only silver lining was that I knew it couldn't have been to kill me or to do me some serious harm. My body would have detected it. You couldn't lie to the human body like that. Not one with chakra at least.

While the seal ran its course, I watched Danzo collapse to the floor and then his body disappeared into mist before appearing a few feet away. Fuck. Izanagi. Guess he was wise enough to activate it before confronting an enemy kage in the middle of his village. This time, his second arm was visible and no longer hidden by the brace. The red eyes within it, all nine of them moved and writhed as if looking at their surroundings. This fucker. At least, there were only nine red ones now. The tenth had turned white with blindness from the effects of the illusion jutsu that changed reality. I know I've said this before, but sharingan bullshit is such bullshit.

Another storm of shuriken came from him, and once again, I turned my body into sand. Or at least, I tried to. It didn't. I flipped the internal switch that let me change my body from one state to another, and nothing happened. It was like the switch got disconnected. Fuck. The cursed seal. But how? My automatic defence made the sand around me lift itself and push the weapons aside without my conscious thought. I wasn't even sure I'd have been able to muster the concentration to focus on that as I tried to figure out what Danzo had done to me.

My automatic defence activated again to block Jiriaya's Rasengan as he jumped right at me from behind. I turned around, lashing out with dark sister, and just barely being able to nick his chest with the long blade as he instantly retreated. Mu was somewhere out there, I thought to myself as I stared right at both Jiraiya and Danzo as they walked in unison to place me between them. This was going to be a hell of a fight, I could tell. Sand transformation was no longer an option.

I clapped my hands together, calling on my chakra, and transforming it to wind in the same breath. A dome of cutting winds built around me before spreading across the room, tearing it apart and forcing Jiraiya to jump out of the way. Danzo, on the other hand, just made a single seal and tore a hole through my dome that allowed the jutsu to pass right by him. "Hiruzen was such a fool" He spoke dispassionately.

"The gentle fist, the Kaiten, and even some of the Inuzuka's sensory techniques. You've been spying on Konoha ninja throughout your stay here. What foolishness to allow the enemy remain in the heart of your home"

"Maybe he, correctly, didn't see the need to view me as an enemy and thus make me one"

"Everyone who isn't loyal to the Great Tree is an enemy." His marble-like voice rang across the room, and I felt the anbu blur into the motion. They all essentially jumped at me at once, forcing me into taijutsu, and they were all instantly given cause to regret it. Since I was no longer capable of turning my body into sand, I shunted all my chakra output into physical enhancement, going as far as my body could safely handle, and then some.

Everything slowed down just a bit and I was ready. The first one to reach me led with a straightforward stab at my head. I leaned backwards, allowing it to stop short of me, and caved in his midsection with a sand encased fist. A whistling from behind was all the alert I needed. My sand rose to block the kick that had been making its way to my head and the same sand tore the offending leg from the ninja's body with brutal efficiency. Blood sprayed everywhere, dying my red hair and even deeper red.

The remaining anbu were powerless as my sand boxed them in from outside and within. They tried to run. Tried to fight. Some even tried to attack me, but their destiny could not be denied. Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same.