Sima and Tonoe - A Clone's Mission

(Kamui's Shadow Clone's Point of View) (Time: Start of the Engagement)

Kamui's shadow clone rushed through the tree line toward Tonoe's position. The original Kamui was supposed to be doing this, but with the Kagari's intervention, Kamui shifted plans and created a reinforced shadow clone.

This shadow clone represented one of the primary differences between her and her blond knuckleheaded brother. He liked to create mass amounts of clones that, while individually weak, worked together to take down an enemy. She believed in having very few reinforced clones that could channel most of her powers and sustain themselves in active combat. It didn't help that her pride prevented her from allowing a shadow clone with her image to go down in a pathetic fashion; they needed to be individually strong.

That was why she wasn't too concerned with sending the clone to find Tonoe in her place. After all, all she had to do was mark them for teleportation and she could technically do that with her sharingan. Then, her sensei and her original would clean up.

Arriving at the front of a nearby hillside, the clone slowed down and moved slowly. Based on what she could see with her sharingan, the enemy wasn't using the dust for scouting purposes; she couldn't detect any ambient chakra in the air aside from the natural energy that was always present.

She slowly came to a clearing in the wood line and saw what she was roughly expecting. In the hillside was a cave clearly created with earth release. You could see the straight lines they unnaturally cut into the earth. There also seemed to be a channel created to divert one of the nearby rivers to this area for bathing and drinking water.

That was one of the cool known things she'd read about Iwa. One of their shinobi developed a jutsu with the ability to separate sediment from water using earth release. Doing so with water release is harder than one would expect due to the amount of control needed to separate the mixture. That being the case, few shinobi are capable of doing it during a war-like scenario. Iwa was able to develop an earth release method that was apparently easier.

Onoki, the Tsuchikage, even banned its use unless it could be done without hand signs. Apparently, he was wary of Uchiha theft, a wise concern. It made sense though, most Uchiha need the jutsu caster to perform the hand signs to copy the jutsu. Hand signs make the summoning and moulding of chakra easier for sharingan to see as it separates the smooth process required to use a jutsu without, into blocks that are easier to understand. Considering hand signs were invented by the Uchiha clan's ancestor, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that they were created and spread across the continent as a way for other ninjas develop and feed the Uchiha clan jutsu.

Focusing back on the matter at hand, Kamui looked around the clearing and found her target having a conversation with another man.

One was a fair-skinned older man with a bald head and scars littering his form. He was pretty small, standing at a glorious 58 inches tall. He also wore a similar outfit as his comrades, a dark brown leather jacket with a single long-sleeve. The other arm was sleeveless.

'If I were to take a guess, this must be Tonoe. His small frame makes genjutsu use almost a necessity. I'm just surprised he managed to do it with clouds of dust as the medium; I hadn't even considered the possibility. I just use earth-type genjutsu for the vibrations. Just how committed were these chuckle heads to keeping the earth motif that they developed something like this?' The clone thought in wonder.

People like this reminded her that she wasn't the only creative one in the elemental nations. This man was likely raised as a civilian and needed to develop a method of fighting he could employ with his small frame.

The other ninja was a tall 74-inch dark skin man with shaggy black hair and deep black eyes. He wore a dark brown sleeveless leather coat and black shinobi pants.

'I guess if you're posing as a bandit group, then you need some form of common uniform. Considering they're Iwa ninja, they must have wanted to avoid attribution to their home village. They kind of messed up on the sleeves though. Even if you don't consider the other three, Tonoe's style is clearly inspired by his home village. Now, what are they talking about?' She thought as she got within hearing distance, her presence still concealed.

"Did the operation succeed Tonoe?" the dark-skinned man asked.

"Yeah, Sima. Suzune and Kagari are taking care of the survivors and preparing the scene as we speak." Tonoe said to the now identified Sima.

"Good. We need to make sure everything looks good for those Konoha ninja." Sima said with a vicious smirk.

'How did they know we were coming and what did he mean by prepare the scene?' Kamui thought to herself, internally amazed that things lined up so well for her to get to this position. The fact that Tonoe didn't know they were engaging their friends must imply that he didn't follow standard shinobi protocol. Normally, he should have watched them from the sidelines until they finished their mission. They were probably getting complacent from having an easy time acting as bandits for so long.

Tonoe continued to speak. "Is all this really necessary Sima? We've been out here for months killing innocent civilians who were just unlucky enough to use the main road. I can already tell Suzune is reaching her breaking point. This is too much. Why don't we just assault Konoha outposts? With Suzune's power, surely we can – "

Sima loudly interrupted, "Enough! This is the safest course of action for our team. We can bleed the land of fire of its resources, weaken the trust between it and the land of wind, and crush that monster's credibility. We can do all this by acting as common bandits. Is that not enough for you!?" he shouted as breaths grew heavy, showing how angry he was at being questioned.

Hearing his old comrade, Tonoe sighed. "Fine Sima, but we need to leave when the Konoha shinobi arrive. Considering that this would be labeled as a C-Rank mission based on the information we provided, there's a high chance we would be killing clan heirs; they just graduated after all. We'll need to run as fast as possible once the job's done."

Hearing this, Sima let out an anticipating smile. "That's a no brainer. We'll do just that. I already have an in with their S-Rank criminal Orochimaru. Once we're done with this, we'll rush over to the sound village. He's the kage over there and that village was created with the sole purpose of crushing Konoha. It'll be perfect for us." He said with a blood thirsty smile. The clone just knew that smile promised blood for every Konoha shinobi he could get his hands on. The intelligence was useful though; the fourth would love it.

A village created by an S-Rank criminal designed exclusively to crush Konoha was great news to get in advance, especially with how diplomatic their village was. It was likely that they would invite the kage over for tea. Knowing that it's a trap in advance would help. She had a feeling that this wasn't new information though. It was too big to properly hide and with people like this knowing and talking about it, the fourth likely already knew.

"Are you sure Sima? That would be a risky move. I'd probably be fine, but you have a bloodline release. You'll be the perfect test subject for that psycho." Tonoe cautioned.

"Don't worry, Suzune will make the perfect offering. Like you said, she's reaching her breaking point. Through one last act of service on her part, our revenge will be assured.

Kamui couldn't believe what she was hearing. They'd just throw their comrade away just because she was softer hearted than they were. Was this really a viable strategy for them?

Just then, the clone received a communication from her original with a plan on dealing with the problems on both sides. Hearing the plan, the clone acknowledged with a smirk.

Looking at the two ninjas, Kamui gazed at them with her sharingan. In an instant, her intent passed through her eyes carrying two teleport markers that landed on the two ignorant shinobi in front of her. Then, she created another shadow clone in her current position to confirm that they don't dodge.

That done, she focused her eyes on a location at a distance she expected would be clear of the blast and teleported.

Back with the newly created clone, it watched as a glowing yellow orb flashed into existence above Tonoe's head causing both to bolt as far away as they could. One thing both started realizing pretty quickly though was that substitution wasn't available. They weren't able to use the jutsu at all. Terrified at the consequences of getting hit, Sima managed to react just fast enough to put up the biggest earth wall he could muster on short notice. Then, everything went white.

A massive tailed-beast level explosion rocked the hillside as the two ex-Iwa shinobi re-learned in their final moments why their female comrade was named the seismic cannon. Tonoe didn't stand a chance; his physical performance was weaker in the first place. The result was his immediate incineration.

Sima wasn't much better. Though he may have been in a better position, his body was still covered in third degree burns. His limbs were useless, his shaggy hair was gone, and he had an unknown number of broken bones littering his body. While the distance and earth wall helped, they only delayed the inevitable. While most would give up in this situation, Sima didn't, he started to crawl toward the water as if it was a sanctuary that he could use to escape whatever caused that explosion.

'I can't die here.' He roared in thought in a haze as he continued his crawl.

'I can't let everything we've done be in vain.' His face contorted in pain as he drove his useless arms to pull him forward centimeter by centimeter.

'I will kill him. I will make him suffer. I will kill him. I will make him suffer. I will kill him.' He repeated in his mind continuously in a mantra to motivate himself to survive this predicament. He couldn't bring himself to think of how it happened; it didn't matter. All that did was survival.

Soon though, that hope was dashed when he saw a silvery-white flash in front of him and then one of his revenge targets stood there. He initially tried to pass it off as a final vision of hatred before the end, but then she did something that made him realize she was actually there. Her active sharingan began hypnotically rotating, ensnaring him in a genjutsu that ripped the secrets from his mind with the subtly of an elephant. He didn't receive any mercy as his mind was flayed apart, every relevant bit of intelligence was torn from him. Minutes later, his struggle ended. He didn't even get a chance to fight. Sima, the second coming of the demolition fist, died at the hands of the comrade he was trying to sacrifice.

Looking down at the pathetic corpse, the clone shook her head in irritation before starting her inspection of the scene. If there was anything that she would remember about this man aside from his callousness, it would be his persistence. To live that long on hatred alone was astonishing to say the least.