And so it Begins

We didn't talk much on the way to Suna, the urgency of the mission killed any kind of light-hearted mood that could be built. It took a couple of days for us to reach the border outpost, where Suna nin were waiting to lead us toward the village.

We followed them for a few hours before reaching the front gates of the village. We were all tired as we only slept for one day on the journey, using soldier pills and the like to push through the exhaustion. Well, most of us. Me and Guy were fine, Guy because of his experience and me because of my physique.

But we didn't even enter the village when a dog stopped us at the gates.

"Team Kakashi left an hour ago; they left me here to lead you in their direction." The dog spoke in a gruff voice.

Guy nodded like he was used to it, but the rest of us had to take a minute to get used to the fact that a dog was talking. I mean, it's one thing to watch it and hear about it and another to experience it.

The dog hopped over and started running off. Guy woke us out of our stupor, looking over his shoulder as he ran after the dog.

"There's no time to waste. It's time to show the Akatsuki Konoha's spirit of youth!"

I shook my head and started running after him with the rest of the group. We traveled for a couple of hours, making our way out of the desert again and back into the forests. It didn't take long after that for us to find visible signs of Team Kakashi's trail.

"Neji, activate your byakugan and scout ahead of us. We're close," Guy said.

Neji did as he was told. A few minutes later, he spoke up.

"I sense them 800 meters ahead. They're confronting two other chakras; one has even more chakra than Naruto."

Guy got serious.

"Kaen, you and I will go on ahead. The rest of you stay back a little and wait for an opportunity."

I nodded before me and Guy rocketed forward in a burst of speed while the rest of our group started spreading out.

We reached them in less than a minute, where I saw what I knew to be clones of Itachi and Kisame. Even without canon knowledge, I would've known. Mainly because I fought the originals before.

I landed next to Team Kakashi and Chiyo with Guy, unsheathing my sword. Kisame gave me a shark-like grin.

"So we meet again, brat. I still owe you for the new scar you gave me."

I smirked, "Maybe if you were actually here, I would be more worried. As you are, you don't stand a chance."

The smile fell off his face, "Che. Of course, you can tell."

The rest of the group looked confused.

"What do you mean?" Kakashi asked, still eyeing the duo wearily.

"They're not real; they're clones of some sort. I've fought them before, so I would know."

Kakashi grimaced, "A diversion, then."

Guy smiled brilliantly, "Worry not, my friend! You go on ahead; Kaen and I can deal with these two."

Kakashi nodded before they moved to follow Deidara and Sasori's trail. Itachi and Kisame moved to stop them, but a wall of flame sprung up around them.

Kisame grimaced while Itachi looked calm as ever.

"Let me take Kisame," I said, "I know how he fights. He won't be able to beat me with his current strength."

Guy glanced at me, "I'll take your word for it."

I smiled viciously as I took a few practice swings with my sword, stalking toward the shark man.

"You ready for round two?" I asked mockingly.

He growled, "I might be weakened, but don't underestimate me!"

As if that was a signal, me and Guy both charged our opponents at the same time.

Kisame tried to form a jutsu, but he was too slow as I flash stepped in front of him. I swung my sword around, sending an arc of flames at him from point blank. He repositioned Samehada to absorb it. When he lowered the sword, I was already gone.

"Behind," I said as I swung my sword again. He threw himself to the side and avoided the lethal blow. He grimaced as he raised his sword with one arm, his other one landing on the ground a distance away.

"You've gotten better," he spat.

"I picked up a thing or two over the years."

This time he took the initiative and launched toward me with an overhead strike, hoping to leverage his physical strength. Our swords clashed as I stopped Samehada in its tracks with only one hand on my sword.

His eyes widened in surprise.

"I've also gotten a bit stronger," I smirked.

I lifted my leg and buried it in his stomach, making him spit as he flew back. Unfortunately for him, he hit a wall. Specifically, my wall of flames. He howled in pain as he tore off the singed remains of his Akatsuki cloak, his back thoroughly melted.

My sword sliced through the air faster than the eye could see.

"Hitotsume, Nadegiri."

I turned around and started moving toward Guy, who was close to finishing off Itachi's clone. Kisame got up grinning and tried to attack me from behind, but as soon as he moved, he fell to the ground in two pieces. He didn't even have time to be confused before he reverted to whatever poor soul was sacrificed to make the clone.

I went over to where Guy and Itachi were fighting and waited. Right now, Guy was pummeling Itachi, who was only on the defensive. Obviously, he was stalling and wasn't even using the full amount of strength he had available. Soon, Itachi got hit by another devastating combo from Guy and flew backward, trying to maintain distance.

I flash-stepped into his trajectory.

"Onibi."

Before he could even turn his head, there was a large hole where his heart used to be. He spit out a little blood before his visage dissipated into a young but clearly dead man.

"Thanks for the assistance!" Guy said exuberantly, "Let us make haste towards the others!"

Damn, he barely broke a sweat. I guess he has experience fighting sharingan users.

We rushed to meet the others, who were surrounding what looked to be the entrance to a cave. It was blocked by a barrier made out of four separate seals that Kakashi was analyzing. He turned his head when we landed in the clearing, relieved to see us alright.

He was surrounded by the rest of the group, who were slightly spread out in a defensive formation.

"What's the situation?" Guy asked seriously, his usual excitement not present.

"It looks like the barrier needs all four seals to be removed at the same time to dissipate. There's also a trap attached to it that I can't identify." Kakashi replied, pointing out the four seals.

Guy stepped forward, "Leave it to us!"

Kakashi nodded and directed them to each seal. The rest of us stayed alert for the trap that was going to activate.

"On my signal," Kakashi said.

"Now!"

Each member of Team Guy ripped off their respective seal. A puff of smoke went up as the paper used to create the barrier disappeared, leaving behind four clones; each a copy of a member of Team Guy. The imposters leaped forward, each one mirroring the real members of Team Guy.

"Tsurugi, support Guy. Naruto and Sakura, with me!" Kakashi shouted.

Ayame's sharingan spun to life and flames coated my sword as we jumped to assist Guy's group. Team Kakashi moved into the cave entrance with Chiyo. Ayame went to Lee and Isamu went to Neji. I headed straight for Tenten since I knew I would be able to end that fight the fastest.

As Tenten was about to engage her doppelganger, I was in between them. I struck out with my sword and formed a Shakkaho in my offhand. The fake barely dodges my sword by jumping back but was too slow to avoid the Shakkaho I launched immediately afterward. The clone exploded into smoke and flames.

Behind me, Tenten just sighed, "There goes my chance to be useful." She grumbled while moving over to help the others.

I ignored it and moved towards Guy's fight, where he was engaged in a fierce taijutsu battle.

"On your left!" I yelled out to the real Guy before sending a wave of flames at the enemy.

The Guy clone was forced to jump over the fire. They dodged most of it but their legs were singed, hampering their mobility. That was the goal as the original Guy jumped back into the fray, putting an absolute taijutsu beat down on his other self now that they were injured.

I looked back over at the other fights, ready to intervene, but it wasn't necessary. Ayame had caught the Lee clone in a genjutsu, which allowed the actual Lee to beat them. The Neji clone was taken out by a kunai from Tenten while trapped in the earth, courtesy of Isamu.

I heard a loud crack as Guy snapped his clone's neck with a well-placed kick.

"Is everybody alright?" He asked, dusting himself off.

"Yep," Isamu replied, the others giving similar responses.

"Ok, let's-"

That was as far as Guy got before we all sensed a chakra spiking and jumped back. Not a second later, the top of the cave was blown off, raining molten chunks of rock and dust where we were standing earlier.

A large clay bird flew out with a figure that I assumed to be Deidara riding on its back. Shortly after, Naruto and Kakashi rushed out of the cave.

"Chiyo and Sakura need support," Kakashi said, "Naruto and I are going after Deidara."

They turned and ran after Deidara, not waiting for a response.

"Kaen, go with your team to help Sakura; we'll go after Kakashi," Guy said.

"Ok, you heard the man," I said, turning towards my teammates, "Let's go!"

Team Guy left in the direction Kakashi and Naruto left while I dashed into the cave, flanked by Isamu and Ayame.

We were barely in the cave before we broke into daylight again, finding ourselves in what would've been a large dome if the top wasn't blown off. Sasori was in his disgusting puppet with a tail and on all fours, facing off against Sakura and Chiyo.

My sword formed flames around me, raising the temperature of the room significantly and grabbing Sasori's attention.

"You're the one the killed Hidan and Kakuzu, hm? You'll be a masterpiece." He said, his voice distorting through the puppet.

"Yeah, I'd be a pretty damn good puppet for sure. That's only if you live long enough, though."

I signaled Ayame and Isamu with my hands and they jumped over to Sakura and Chiyo, whispering to them. When fighting extremely dangerous opponents, I would confront them first and force them to reveal some of their abilities. My teammates would flank the enemy and corner them, forcing our unlucky foe toward me. Usually, Shikai would be enough to end them at this point; if not, it only takes the slightest contact from my Bankai to end it.

There were some cons to it. Since my Bankai flames are chakra-natured, opposing chakra makes it less effective, which is why I didn't incinerate Kisame instantly when I first fought him. At this point, though, I don't think anything less than a Susano would be able to last longer than an instant.

Ayame would usually use genjutsu as well, but I'm pretty sure that won't work on a literal living puppet.

I started walking in Sasori's direction, reigning in my flames a bit so that I didn't put my comrades in danger.

As soon as I got into his range, the puppet's mouth opened, shooting out a volley of poisoned senbon. I just waved my sword casually, incinerating the senbon and the poison on them. While this was happening, the others had moved to his sides, getting ready to join the fight.

Sasori didn't look worried though, which wasn't surprising. With his puppets, fighting numerous opponents didn't make a difference. I condensed my flames further, concentrating them on my sword. Not as much as Bankai, but enough to significantly increase its destructive power.

I started to advance again, the other members of Team Kaen making hand seals to prepare their own attacks.

Unbothered, Sasori opened a multitude of compartments on the puppet and released a hail of metal weaponry. At the same time, he swung his poisoned tail at me. I lifted my sword.

The fight was on.

///// A/N /////

Hello. I have a few things I want to say. As this story has progressed, more and more people have complained about the system being too underpowered. Yes, it is nerfed. He is not as strong as a millennium-old Soul that has been in wars that make the fourth shinobi world war look like a water balloon fight. I will admit that it is my fault for not making this more clear, but as I write more and more, I realize that I don't want to write someone that overpowered. It would just make the fights boring to write for me.

I want Kaen to actually struggle because, without hardship, he can't develop as a character. Sure I can develop him in other ways as well, but I suck at drama as of now. So yeah, take it as you will. I'll probably make an auxiliary chapter explaining some of these things so that no one reads this and is just disappointed the whole time.

Another note: Some of you might wonder why he doesn't just use flash-step to get close and Bankai to finish the job for every fight. Same reason as above, I don't want to write it and you probably wouldn't like reading it. My more logical reason is that it's not a guaranteed kill on some of the stronger opponents. And, with his somewhat lacking meta knowledge, he doesn't know what abilities everyone has, so he could easily be taken off guard if he closes in on opponents unaware.

Last thing since this not is already way too long. If you leave a bad review, don't leave spoilers in it, even if you have it tagged as a spoiler. I will delete it. If you leave ANY review in a language that is not English, I'm going to start deleting them. Mostly because it doesn't help me be a better writer in any way because I can't read it. If you leave a bad review without offering legitimate criticism, I will delete it.

I can handle bad reviews. Sure, they affect me and hurt my motivation to write. I don't like people trashing my story, even when it deserves it. But I can accept that I make mistakes and that not everybody is going to like what I write. So feel free to leave a bad review. But if you have nothing helpful to say, don't waste my time, and don't waste your time on writing the review.

I think that's it, so leave a review!