Naruto : Domination: Chapter 87

I insulted myself even as I left a Kage-bunshin burrowed in the ground, busy accumulating Nature Chakra.

I would prefer to complete my self-imposed task quietly, and I had the skills to fight on the lower end of S-rank even without my trump card. Given my superb chakra control, I could be stealthy enough, but from there to be actually capable of infiltration there was a long step to make.

...

Back as a genin, when I was being molded for subterfuge and infiltration, I had in a couple of occasions managed to trick an enemy shinobi, but I had succeeded only because I made use of my quite real distaste for the Elemental Nations' situation, which wasn't a lie on any level.

Infiltrating an enemy stronghold, even one that expected an eventual enemy force to come from the opposite direction, wasn't an easy task: so I waited, biding my time.

In Sage-Mode I was pretty sure that I could escape any platoon, no matter the kind of strategy they employed, but I didn't want to face a whole army on my own.

It was a waste of resources and time, besides, if I was to spring out any prisoner that would eventually help me, it would be better to have the surprise on my side: that didn't stop me from leaving a Kage-bunshin to accumulate Natural Chakra.

I would either use him as a distraction or as a sudden trump card. As a Sage, I was unreasonably powerful, that meant that each step could bring me further and much faster than anyone had any right to suspect.

Even so, infiltration of an enemy camp was good training for my less flashy skills, which, to be entirely truthful, didn't quite agree with me. If because of my own affinity with the Elephant tribe, or because I never truly needed those, I couldn't say.

The camp had been clearly realized with a heavy application of Doton, and it was more or less a stronghold grown out of a hill, and I was observing it from one of the last outcroppings of trees that became rarer and rarer the deeper one trailed in the Land of Earth.

If not for the importance of the small forests for the wildlife that counted as perfect emergency rations for hungry shinobi, I had no doubt that all of the trees would have been already cut down, for they obviously gave cover to people that didn't want to be seen by scouts.

Even so, having an outcrop of trees so close to a stronghold, even one so clearly well-defended, sounded... needlessly risky. I grimaced as I considered my options, quickly realizing that to be sure, I had to ask my betters: one, in particular, was perfectly suited for the impending task.

Cautiously moulding my chakra, I performed the necessary hand signs to make use of the Elephant Summoning Contract on the arm opposed to the Snake Contract I had stolen from the dead body of Orochimaru.

With a puff of chakra, a roughly two meters tall coffin appeared in front of me, and in less than a split second, a shinobi clad in blue armour not unlike mine left its wooden resting place.

"Boy," Tobirama greeted me with an open frown on his face, "We told you that until we managed to confirm your words with this Itachi Uchiha we wouldn't do your bidding."

I stopped myself from rolling my eyes: "Yeah, but that is an Iwa prisoner camp, and we're next to the border with the Land of Fire."

"I remember the location of the Elemental Nations, boy." the Nidaime Hokage cut me off, his red eyes already trailed over the Iwa outpost.

"I want to get in, check on the prisoners, and free the ones with bloodlines that are better not spread around." I explained quickly.

"A quiet operation, or the prisoners you hope to free will be killed." Tobirama nodded, turning his head towards me with a cold gaze intent on pinning me down.

And I would have been on guard, had I not been able to dispel him immediately in case he turned out to be hostile. "I recognize Iwa's style, so I will help, for I know what will happen if you botch this, but it won't happen again, am I clear?"

At my nod, the Nidaime turned his head once more towards the fort: "The bloodlines Iwa-scum hopes to steal will be kept in a higher security area, but there will also be a list of the prisoners there, either for ransom purposes or because they're going to be sold off to the best buyer."

Without words or hand signs that I could see, Tobirama's chakra seeped lightly into the ground around us, before extending further and further.

I could sense it only because I was so close to its origin because otherwise, Tobirama's presence didn't register at all on my senses: "Circle back and approach from the Northern side of the camp."

I simply nodded and darted out of the small outcropping of trees just as a faint mist started to rise from the ground, clearly Tobirama's work. The extraordinary thing about the Jutsu, besides its unreal 'quietness', was the scale: as far as I could see both South and West, mist was starting to swirl forward.

Once more I was reminded of the kind of skill that those grown up in the Warring Clans Era could casually wield.

And having access to infinite amounts of chakra is cheating, I don't care how you phrase it.

I withheld a snort: that Konoha had a technique like the Edo Tensei under her belt and never used it in canon was mind-blogging: sure, there weren't that many extraordinary shinobi that couldn't be overcome by a selected team, but why in the nine hells didn't Danzo exploit the Forbidden Technique? He hardly looked like someone with tall morals to respect.

Hell, having a reanimated Hashirama ready to be deployed would have been dead useful against the Kyubi, sparing Konoha the loss of Minato.

I understood that the perfected technique was something that very few were actually capable of accomplishing, but even then, while the best result could be obtained only when the reanimated body was willing to complete the mission he was tasked with, it didn't mean that reanimated people were useless, like Orochimaru had proved.

I ran a large circle in order to approach the camp from the Northern side, mindful of spotters and traps alike as thin droplets spun ahead of me 'pinging' off invisible ninja wires that would have alerted everyone about my approach, while my perception of said drops wavered imperceptibly each time they hovered above a seal.

In less than three minutes, I had reached the base of the giant ant-hill that had been built by Iwa-nin in order to act both as an outpost and as a prisoner camp.

Remaining cautious of eventual traps or ambushes, I slowly made my way up the artificial hill, ignoring the holes that promised an easy entry into the enemy's camp: a more obvious trap I had never seen.

Still, from my advantageous position, I could see the barren land both South and West from my position slowly disappear under a thicker and thicker cloak of mist.

It wasn't an ordinary climate in the Land of Stone, and that was why I had such an easy time in reaching the top of the hill: every guard had temporarily directed their attention towards the unusual event.

Far into the West, the sun was completing its descent, almost setting over a white sea of mist that its warmth apparently could no longer pierce.

To be truthful, it was obvious that it was either a trap, a distraction, a bait, or a proper invasion that Kiri had no hope to actually hide.

I smiled as I felt the soft bond that I had with Tobirama's reanimated body ping off in random direction over the Land of Stone: he was almost flaring his chakra, managing to make it appear slightly different each time.

It wasn't enough for a sensor to pick up, not unless there was someone with a bloodline related to actually sensing chakra, and last I heard, there wasn't one in the Elemental Nations, even if the Yamanaka could pull off some insane shit thanks to a combination of their techniques and fuinjutsu.

Once at the top of the artificial hill, I slowly climbed up the earth wall that surrounded the small dome built to facilitate the best spotters work. Only, the most likely assault would be coming from East, where the boundary with the Land of Fire did lay, or South-West, where the strange mist was acting up.

Still, as I forced my muscles to leverage me over the wall, not using chakra in order to not be spotted since I was so close to the sensors available to Iwa, I could hear that the alarm hadn't been given yet.

Why? Because that mist, even if unnatural, could be used for something completely unrelated to the outpost, and the explorers that had been sent into it in order to investigate weren't encountering any problems, even if Tobirama was running circles around them and keeping them just on the edge between calling for reinforcements and going back to the base in order to relax.

The room hadn't roper doors, but simple openings at regular intervals in order to let people in and out. With my trick of drops of water clearing the way in front of me, I ignored the first three entrances that I had been offered, sliding in through a third, smaller hole on the left.

The first guard fell to the ground quietly as I placed a paper tag on the back of his head, while the second didn't manage to give the alarm because my arms were already clamping down on his airways, my chakra smothering his so that he couldn't call reinforcements by wildly fluctuating his own.

My eyes scanned the room quickly while I put to sleep the second guard, my attention dropping briefly on a desk holding the observations of the spotters before focusing on a small staircase that led both upwards and downwards.

I didn't take risks and planted paper bombs that would be destabilized with the first wave of wildly fluctuating chakra, which would be caused by the first slightly inexperienced idiot that roughly checked for genjutsu once the unconscious guards were found.

I quietly crept upstairs, were a couple of sensors were using their chakra to deep scan the humungous amount of mist creeping in from South and West. Is this how I felt using the knife to kill campers in MW3? My lips twitched upwards as that old memory of mine resurfaced.

Even as I quickly turned the two sensors unconscious with a twin blow carried out on the base of their necks, a frown marred my forehead: how long had it been since I last thought about my previous life?

If not to leverage my metaknowledge of memory of either movies or random things in order to set up my small economic empire, I had never actually thought about my past. What does it say about me that I feel more alive and necessary here than I ever did back on Earth?

...

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