Chapter 23

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Chapter 23

"You'll be watching the Kumo delegation tonight."

Raising an eyebrow, Akari waited for the Hokage to elaborate on her orders. "The ANBU who have been observing them strongly believe tonight to be the night they attempt something. The non-aggression pact was signed today, meaning that while diplomatically it would be extremely rude for them to simply leave without a proper departure, they could do so. You are to don your 'Kara' persona and be a visible guard. Hopefully, your mere presence will deter them from any actions. If we can keep this all peaceful, we just might have a longer-lasting peace."

Shrugging, Akari frowned. "I doubt it. If they try something tonight, I'll put a stop to it. If I have to, I'll use my tenants Chakra to ensure it, damn any consequences. If they want to walk into a den of wolves then try to leave after what they plan, I'll make them pay for it with tooth and claw." Hiruzen raised an eyebrow at her casual referencing of the Kyuubi.

Of course, she had informed him that she had reached an accord of sorts with the nine-tailed fox during the battle with Orochimaru, meaning she could use his power, but she had been vague about what exactly the accord was. Since Akari wasn't acting too worried about the prospect of using Bijuu chakra, he didn't push her, only acknowledging the advance warning that if the Chakra of the Kyuubi was sensed, that meant something had happened. He quickly dismissed Akari, getting back to his paperwork, letting her leave the room and read her updated quest, smirking to herself.

Quest received.

Eyes of the Beholder.

Objectives:

Escort the Kumo Shinobi within Konoha.

Stop whatever plot they are hatching tonight.

Reward: 150,000 experience.

Hidden Objective:

?

Without even meaning to, her quest had inadvertently confirmed to her that something was going to happen tonight, something the Kumo-nin were planning. Given how suspiciously the Head Ninja of Kumo was acting, it was pretty obvious that they had some kind of plot they were hatching, but to have it confirmed was nice. She swiftly left the Hokage tower, coincidentally passing the same Genin who tried to pick-pocket her a few days ago. He blanched as he looked up and saw her pass him by with a grin on her lips, checking his pockets hastily when he was a few feet away.

Speaking of pockets, Akari pulled a little vial out of one pocket, gulping the small amount of fluid contained within down quickly, and grimacing at the nasty taste. She had realized when looking through her stats that she actually did have poison resistance, her Vitality gave her a natural resistance. Because she didn't often look at her expanded stats, she forgot all about it. As such, she brewed an incredibly weak poison, then tentatively ingested it. When she swallowed, a menu popped up.

Poison Resistance, Diluted Poison (Danger Rating - 1)- 55.5%

Resistance Calculation: Times Ingested + ((Vit+End)÷2) - Danger Rating = % Poison Resistance

It was a weirdly simple calculation, but she supposed it worked. The poison she used on that prisoner had a danger rating of 10! That meant she had a resistance of about 36.5%, since she had 93 when adding Vitality and Endurance together, divided by two for 46.5, then since she hadn't ingested it herself yet she had no extra to add, but instead had to remove 10 points of resistance for the danger rating, meaning she ended up with 36.5% resistance. Since it did 13,500 damage, if she ingested that poison, she would take about 8600 damage, rounded up to the nearest hundred.

The diluted poison she was currently maximizing her resistance to was one she had been playing with for a little while, but she was still working at it, ever since she got the idea to turn it into a gaseous form. The basic idea was that while she could be 100% resistant to the poison, everyone else would be affected by it. Granted, it wouldn't do much, but as she got more and more resistant to more types of poison, each one being unleashed in an absolutely toxic combination of gas, anybody who entered the gas cloud other than her would die in seconds.

It would be...glorious.

"Let's move."

Tapping his partner on the shoulder, the two Kumo shinobi departed from their lodgings, the diplomatic envoy of Kumo having already snuck out of the village. The watcher they'd been assigned was practically sleeping on the other side of the building from where they departed, so they had no trouble evading her. Their target? Bloodlines. Coming to a stop, the head Ninja unsealed several scrolls, handing them to his partner. With a single curt nod, the pair split away from each other, heading for individual targets.

His partner was to attempt to find a Kurama clan member and an Uchiha. He, on the other hand, was to attempt the more dangerous objectives. A Hyuuga was the first on his list. But, he also had the most dangerous and most rewarding target on his list. The last confirmed Uzumaki living, one Uzumaki Naruto, known to be residing within Konoha.

The only problem was that he was living with the Crimson Medic, the Jinchuriki for the Nine-tails, so a direct confrontation would be extremely visible, likely ending up with the entire Shinobi population of Konoha dog-piling onto him. As such, the Uzumaki was to be left until last, since if it was decided retrieval was too difficult, he would be able to flee with the sealed bodies of a Hyuuga and Kurama clan member. Even if his compatriot failed, they would get two bloodline clans, one Dojutsu-wielding clan and one with extremely powerful Genjutsu.

Getting the Uzumaki though, that was the real prize. The boy was still young, so they had a good window to turn him against his home village, keeping him loyal within Konoha and producing more Uzumaki when he became viable. The only problem was actually retrieving him. They knew where he lived, but, every time they tried to plan how to extract him, the wild-card of his guardian would come into play. The presence of a Jinchuriki made many plans unviable, owing to the lack of intelligence regarding her connection with her Bijuu. If she had even the same level of control as the container of the two-tails had, she would be able to easily fend off a normal attacker thanks to the comparative strength of her Bijuu. Taking her on would require a Jinchuriki of their own present, but Konoha would never let a potentially hostile Jinchuriki into their village.

As his mind ran over ideas, he was unaware of the figure stalking him.

Akari was a bit miffed that the two Shinobi split away from each other, but the two ANBU who were also assigned to his mission went after that one, so that wasn't an issue.

Looking around to reconfirm where they were, Akari frowned. They were approaching the Hyuuga compound. Scratch that, she watching the man leap in one bound straight over the perimeter wall, silent as a cat. They were now intruding upon the Hyuuga compound. She followed him quickly, her mind clicking information together.

So, he was here to steal a Byakugan? She prepped a handful of Senbon, all especially poisoned with her 'potent poison' mix. Each one could inflict the poison strong enough to nearly kill her, so against someone only 4 levels above her? Two, maybe three senbon should guarantee death. Of course, if he had a ridiculous level of Vitality or Endurance he would possibly be able to survive it thanks to a mix between high resistance and a large health pool, but it was unlikely. Most people seemed to be pretty evenly balanced, only a few...unique characters having any difference.

She scampered up the side of a rooftop in pursuit of the figure, hearing a very quiet squeak of surprise from somebody ahead of her. Cursing quietly she redoubled her pace, coming to a sudden stop at the edge of the roof, just in time to watch a small figure disappear into a sealing scroll. Her Sharingan came on instantly, memorizing the tiny face just as it vanished into the sealing scroll. For the brief moment she saw the little figure, she could tell that they were breathing still, her mind instantly put together what that meant...Kumo wanted them alive to continue the bloodline.

Somehow, the mere consideration of what they would do sent anger flooding through her veins. She knew that if she wasn't careful, she would unconsciously pull Kurama's chakra through her coils even if he didn't want to give her it, so despite how much she wanted to rip and tear the bastard apart until he was scattered guts on the grass, she tempered her anger from the fiery rage it was into a cool, collected fury focused entirely on that one man.

As he began getting back up from his kneeling position, Akari's arm slung outwards, releasing a flurry of poisoned Senbon, already pulling more from her inventory. Experienced Shinobi possessed a weird knack for simply feeling when something was about to happen, be it a very faint smell, or sound, or something in the back of their mind screaming.

As such, when the man dodged to the side, letting the Senbon hit the ground next to the sealing scroll, she wasn't surprised. Grinning to herself as she broke the Kiri-Woka no Jutsu, she allowed herself a mere moment to glare at him with red swirling eyes, even if the intimidation didn't seem to do as much as she expected, before her hands flashed through three seals, having deposited the Senbon away in favour of a different approach. "Raigeki no Jutsu!" She snapped one finger out to point directly at the enemy Shinobi, a bolt of blue lightning forming before blasting towards her opponent at extreme speed.

Unfortunately, the technique wasn't nearly strong enough to pierce his vest, leaving a heavily-singed patch but no definite physical damage...at least, not outwardly. Internally the lightning would have jumped from the metal plates in his vest straight into his body, electrocuting him. He wasn't idle though, returning her attack with one of his own, his agile hands forming the five seals necessary without effort. "Raiton: Jibashi." He intoned, having schooled his surprised face at seeing Akari use an actual Jutsu, his hands blasting out a wave of electricity with enough force to blast the building Akari was residing on to smithereens.

Akari used a Shunshin to evade the attack, drawing another handful of Senbon to underhanded throw them at her opponent, one hand forming another sequence of hand seals. "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" A giant ball of fire, larger than Akari was tall, formed from her lips, being led by the Senbon. The Kumo Ninja had to abandon the hand seals he was forming to avoid the attack entirely, leaving to score across the ground before slamming to a stop against another building. "Whoops." Akari muttered, but managed no more as she was forced on the defensive.

"Jigokuzuki!" The Nin wreathed his hand in Lightning Chakra, getting in close to Akari to try and stab her with the blade-like lightning around his fingers. Akari blinked in surprise. The man was literally trying to hand-to-hand against someone who spent 8 years as a Bukijutsu wielder, on top of that possessing a Sharingan? Either he was extremely confident in his hand-to-hand, or he hadn't learned much about her.

Her Sharingan aided her immensely at avoiding his blows, spotting feints and false openings quickly, letting her focus on the real openings, capitalizing on this advantage mercilessly. She ducked under one finger-strike, her palm snapping up to hand a sharp blow against his elbow. The man pulled his arm up to flow wit the strike, his leg kicking up to attempt a strike at her stomach.

Akari avoided this by merely breaking off her palm-strike, leaning backwards then rolling to the side as he pivoted into a roundhouse kick, her fingers forming three hand-seals. "Katon: Zukokku!" She carefully controlled the amount of Chakra she pushed into the Jutsu, just enough for a wave of flame, but not enough to spread into the surrounding areas, then formed another four hand seals. "Raiton: Raikyu!" Several balls of yellow energy popped into existence, immediately flying into the inferno and seeking her target, handing several electrified blows on him before he emerged, a snarl on his lips, one Akari met with a wild grin of her own, unsealing her daggers into a ready stance.

She snapped one arm up to deflect a Kunai thrown, her eyes not leaving her opponent as he closed the distance, lightning still cracking along one hand, whilst his other one-handedly flipped through seals. "Raiton: Raiju Tsuiga." A strand of lightning snapped away from his hand, quickly forming into a dog shape, which then began charging Akari, forcing her to split her focus. She threw one of her precious knives in order to buy some time, making the hound dodge as she dipped beneath a Kunai strike, slapping her hands together before channelling lightning-nature chakra into the flat of her palm, then pressing outwards with a thunderclap of force, striking her opponent straight in the chest with enough force to send him a few dozen feet back, which also split the connection he had with his lightning beast, electricity still crackling over her skin before she forced it back to her coils, denaturing it again.

Her hand felt a bit tender and was visibly red, but she could still fight just fine. She swept her knife back up while her opponent recovered, then initiated a Shunshin to close the distance, swiping one dagger at his throat whilst the other was held defensively at her midriff, a prudent choice as she deflected an underhand Kunai strike the man threw at her. He tipped his entire body so the knife struck his cheek, dropping backwards and snapping a foot up to kick at her chin, planting one hand firmly on the ground. Akari merely backstopped, watching the man swiftly flip himself upright and growl at her.

Her opponent had already ascertained that she had some kind of advantage in hand-to-hand against him, using another Raiton: Jibashi to open distance between the pair. He began forming five hand seals then thrusting his hands against the ground. "Raiton: Shichu Shibari!" He forced four pillars of stone out through the ground, one of which smashed apart another building as it emerged.

Sparks ran up the rocks, the only warning Akari got before they erupted, lightning spraying wildly in spears between the four rocks. But, right in the centre, Akari smirked, unmoving and uncaring as the bolts speared towards her. "Raiton: Ryushu." A cloak of lightning began warping around Akari, each strand destined for her body being swatted out of the air by the cloak. "Like it? I admit, I got the idea after the Kyuubi described how a Chakra cloak worked." The enemy Ninja gawped for only a moment, testament to his skill as he changed to another Chakra Nature.

"Futon: Fuhakujin!" He swiped his hand sideways, a barely-visible blade of wind rocketing forwards and disrupting Akari's concentration, forcing her to Shunshin away. As the four earth pillars crumbled from the lack of Chakra maintaining them, the two nin glared at each other. Akari rolled an arm, surreptitiously checking her status.

She had used about twenty percent of her Chakra during the fight, but because of that, she hadn't lost more than a few hundred hit-points from light scrapes and shocks during the hand-to-hand she entered briefly. By contrast, she expected the enemy nin to have used more Chakra than her, and lost more health, since she'd hit him several times already, even if she couldn't get a Senbon or Jutsu to breach his defences. Mentally going back in the fight, she cursed herself for not using her inventory to slip a Senbon into her hand once it was past his guard.

But, she couldn't change the past, so instead she mentally prepared for...oh, that was just precious. "Kai!" She yelled, immediately rolling to the side to avoid another wind-blade. "Did...you really just try to use a Genjutsu on a fucking Uchiha?" She shook her head. She expected the man to be smart, but he tried to Genjutsu an Uchiha. Literally the worst targets for a Genjutsu. Wait a minute...she was still! "Kai!" She flexed her Chakra again in a hurry, revealing that the man was already lunging forward with a lightning-wreathed hand, having used the brief time the two illusions bought him to close the entire distance.

As it parted the skin and began digging into her abdomen, his fingers curling into her intestines, Akari yelled out in surprised pain, before wreathing her hand in pure Fire-natured Chakra which blackened the skin of the Kumo-nin as she snatched his wrist, forcing him to retreat without wounding Akari further. "Fucking prick." She muttered, having released her grip on him to instead stifle the flames on her arm. She checked how much health she lost and blanched.

-4626HP.

That seemed like an unfair amount of health to lose. Then again, he did curl his fingers inside of her to try and rip as much damage into her internally as he could, then on top of that she literally lit her arm on fire to make him let go of her. The skin there was blackened and cracking, the pain excruciatingly bad as the nerves fired repeatedly about how fucking painful the wound was.

For a moment, she considered perhaps developing a Jutsu or poison to inhibit pain, but that was a dumb idea, pain told her where she was wounded, without it she could be walking around with a hole in her back. The Kumo-nin definitely seemed wary of approaching her now. To be fair though, fighting an enemy willing to light themselves on fire to get their assailant to back off was a fair reason to stay away. Akari flexed her burnt hand with a grimace, she couldn't form hand-seals with it any more, meaning anything that absolutely required two-handed seals like her more heavy-hitting Jutsu were out.

Considering they were in the Hyuuga Compound, she wanted to avoid using them anyway, so it wasn't a huge loss. She pondered her options, keeping a wary eye on her opponent, whose eyes flickered between her and the abandoned scroll behind her. He hadn't noticed until too late that Akari was pushing him away from it. He raised his hands to form seals again, but he was hit with a wave of nausea and pain from nowhere.

His opponent hadn't moved, but a grin was now on her lips. Staring at her for a few moments, his eyes widened, pressing his hands together as quickly as his nauseated and pain-racked body could manage. "Kai." He spoke through grit teeth, dispelling the second layer of False Surroundings Genjutsu just in time to see Akari stab another two senbon into his chest next to the first two, which had dispelled the first level of illusion as he was struck.

"You know, you really should read up on the Uchiha...if you survive this." She then brought one leg up, axe-kicking the disoriented nin right in the top of his head, knocking him out, before sighing. She knelt down, making doubly sure he was unconscious before applying a paralysis seal then using the Poison Extraction Jutsu to make sure he didn't die. "Idiot."

Then Akari realized why he'd done what he did, and felt like slapping her own face out of the stupidity. She was still using her Nikutai-Teki Sakkaku Fuinjutsu, so he saw Akari, not Akari. That meant he had no idea she even had a Sharingan. If she was more adept at using the illusionary techniques that the Sharingan gave, she would probably have been able to end that fight way quicker, as he had met her eyes numerous times during the battle. But, that didn't matter.

Her guts felt like they were burning, and her hand and arm had literally been burnt, but she wasn't losing HP, which meant her regeneration had already kicked in, slowly closing her wounds. On the other hand, the unconscious nin in front of her would die from the poison of her four Senbon if she didn't remove it, making him a higher priority than herself, even if she did want to stop the rictus of pain her body was in from plaguing her.

She glanced over at the scroll containing the captive Hyuuga, relieved to see that it was still in one piece. Hopefully, it was the kind that had a failsafe if the scroll was damaged, but considering Kumo-nin weren't great with Fuinjutsu, chances were the body of the Hyuuga would have just been lost to the void if the scroll was damaged. Cracking her neck, Akari kept filtering the poison out of the Kumo-nin's body, stopping when she was confident that he would only take a mild amount of damage. As she stood up to approach the scroll on the floor, she silently brought up her notifications.

Random status inflicted: Nausea

That explained why the guy didn't just look like he was in extreme pain, but also looked ready to throw his guts up. That was quite useful. "Wow, this fucking sucks." She remarked upon taking longer to actually look at the crude Fuinjutsu scrubbed on the scroll. It was a miracle that the body was actually contained, it was just as likely that the body would have been grabbed, then mulched into a ball of flesh, before being spat back out as the scroll would then burn into ash.

Shrugging, she planted one hand on the scroll, having identified the release point of the scroll, then pushed a small wave of her Chakra into it. The small girl she'd seen placed within the seal appeared on the floor, fearful lavender eyes darting around for a moment before spotting the unconscious body of the Kumo-nin, with Akari kneeling beside her. "W-what happened?" She asked, rubbing her head with a wince.

Akari could see a lump forming on the side of her head under her hair thanks to her Sharingan, so evidently the Kumo-nin didn't even have a paralysis tag available to him. "You almost got captured by an enemy nin, little one." Her eyes widened dramatically. It was honestly adorable. Not quite as adorable as Naruto could be, but cute. "You're fine now, but maybe we should find whose responsible for you, hmm?" The little girl nodded emphatically, her eyes tearing away from the unconscious body to look at Akari's, directly at her eyes.

Normally, nobody would meet the eyes of an Uchiha using the Sharingan, too afraid of being caught under a Genjutsu. Since she was still using her scroll, the girl had no idea who she was actually looking at. "C-can I hold your h-hand?" She asked sheepishly...one foot toeing the ground beneath her. Akari couldn't resist any more.

"Oh, you are just adorable!" She claimed, picking the girl up and planting her up on her shoulders, ignoring her squeak of surprise as she looked around. Casually unfurling a body-holding scroll, she threw it at the Kumo-nin, the end of the scroll smacking him in the face and making the girl on her shoulders giggle. She knelt down to plant a finger on the scroll and seal his body, one of the few times an open-toed set of shoes would be better than the boots she wore, then picked the scroll up and replaced it in her inventory. "By the way little one..." She de-activated the scroll she was using, surprising the girl as her entire appearance changed. "Nice to meet ya, I'm Akari."

The girl looked a bit afraid for a moment as she saw Akari's crimson eyes turn to glance up at her, but the grin on Akari's face offset any lingering fear her family had instilled about the Uchiha. It helped that she was so young, an older Hyuuga would probably have never trusted her like that. "I-i'm Hinata...Hinata Hyuuga..." She spoke sheepishly, squawking in surprise when Akari poked her forehead, making her look down to her in surprise.

"None of that Hinata-chan, though I'm glad they haven't found a stick to use on you yet!" The girl was obviously confused about the allusion to Hyuugas with sticks up theirs, but that was fine. "Now then, which of these lovely, totally-not-on-fire houses is yours?" The girl took one hand off of Akari's shoulders to point towards a building. "That one eh? Well, let's go say hello, since it seems people are very happy to just watch us warily!" She yelled the last part, unfortunately startling the girl on her back, though she quickly reassured her, then glared up at the rooftops where she could see assembled Shinobi merely watching. "Is anyone going to use a Suiton, or is today the day that the Hyuuga compound burns down in a giant fire?"

Several of the Shinobi disappeared, leading to hissing sounds as fires were put out. One Shinobi approached, clad in the robes of the Hyuuga, and peered at Akari suspiciously before looking at Hinata. "Uchiha-san, what exactly happened here for you to light our compound alight and walk with one of our own on your shoulders? If I do not like your answer, I will capture you before bringing you before the Hokage to resolve this matter." Akari rolled her eyes.

"Well, little Hinata-chan here-" The Hyuuga's cheek twitched at her use of suffix. "-was about to become very well acquainted with Kumoese society. I was assigned to keep an eye on the Kumo delegation, so when I followed him and saw him sealing little Hinata-chan-" He twitched again, eyes darkening slightly, which on a Hyuuga was pretty amusing to see. "-I stepped in and stopped him. Since he didn't want to come quietly, I had to fight him, leading to...well, all of this." The man eyed her carefully, then looked up at Hinata, who after a moment of looking down at Akari, nodded to the man.

"I...see. Well, I'm sure the Hokage will clear all of this up then?" Akari grinned and nodded, surprising the man.

"Well, he's the one who ordered me to stop them should they try anything, so considering I didn't use the Kyuubi's chakra, he'll probably applaud my restraint." The man blanched, making his already-pale skin look ghostly. It was hilarious, but absolutely infuriating since the current situation meant bursting out laughing was one of those things she just wasn't allowed to do. "Now, can I ask where exactly this little one is meant to be?"

She bumped her shoulders up once for good measure, Hinata giggling slightly at the motion. "She is to be returned to the home of the Clan Head, Hiashi-sama." Now it was Akari's turn to be surprised, raising an eyebrow as she turned her head to look up at Hinata, who wilted under her gaze and gave a sheepish, almost afraid nod, hiding her face behind Akari's head.

"Well, better not keep him waiting, I'm sure Hiashi is worried about his daughter." She muttered, jumping her shoulders once then setting off for the home of the Hyuuga Clan Head. So, it turned out that the little girl Kumo tried to kidnap was actually the daughter of the Clan Head? That was ballsy. But...Hinata's reaction to her father was extremely off-putting to Akari...

As was the tightening fists she could feel on her vest as they got closer to Hinata's home...

Okay, the Hyuuga Affair has now kicked off.

Akari defeated the Kumo Head Ninja without killing him, so one of their best arguments for receiving a Hyuuga as payment has been kicked in the teeth...twice. First, because he isn't dead, and secondly because it wasn't a Hyuuga that defeated him.

Akari has now met Hinata, and summarily decided she's adorable. I don't know what I'm going to do with her, the last little tidbit of unspoken backstory being a bit of my own head-canon.

The quest Akari was assigned, so nobody asks why it hasn't popped, will be completed after she gives her mission report to Hiruzen.

ALSO! Akari was still using the Nikutai-Teki Sakkaku Fuinjutsu, she merely disabled the Kiri-Woka no Jutsu, her stealth cloak she learned from the Pandas. That was why he didn't know that she was an Uchiha, visible she was still Akari, meaning he got thrown off, since she was fighting at a level far higher than a Chunin.

Name: Akari Uchiha

Level: 53

Age: 16

Experience: 46,445/53,000

To Next Level: 6,555

Title: Sannin-slayer - Defeating one of the three legendary sannin is no easy feat, but you managed it. Future opportunities unlocked.

Secondary Title: Tokubetsu Jonin - +25% experience gained during solo missions.

Health Points: 11,030 - (100 Base + (Vit x End)) x 5

Regeneration Rate - 2106/m - 35.1/s - Vit x End - Halted when afflicted with bleed status.

Chakra Points: 32,620 - (100 Base + (Int x Wis)) x 5

Regeneration Rate - 6424/m - 107/s - Int x Wis - Halted when continuous chakra drain Jutsu in use.

Strength - 66

Vitality - 54

Endurance - 39

Intelligence - 73

Agility - 65

Wisdom - 88

Luck - 41

35 Skill Points Available