Chapter 111: Chirping Snake

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[Kakashi Hatake's POV]

"Chidori!"

My lightning covered hand leading the way, I carved a path through the surrounding soldiers, leaving the encirclement. However, I barely deactivated the jutsu when a rain of arrows fell down toward me.

Quickly weaving through handsigns, I slammed my hand into the ground, raising a barrier between me and the arrows. Struggling to catch my breath, I formed a shadow clone about ten meters away from me, and the two of us activated Chidori.

A thin line of lightning connected both of our hands as we both rushed forward, the lightning between us cutting everything in its path in half.

Ignoring the gore around me, I took out a kunai and deflected an incoming enemy weapon, slicing the man's throat with another move as I looked around me with the Sharingan.

Things had not gone as expected. Not at all.

Or at least, we did not expect the counter measure to the Fourth Hokage to be this extreme.

Our front line had been devastated by the enemy, and we are now surrounded by the enemy, who outnumber us five to one.

But the worst were those men dressed in black cloaks, with red clouds on them. I had heard of them, the Akatsuki, a group of mercenaries.

Suddenly, I picked up an incoming attack with my Sharingan, and barely dodged the projectile, which happened to be a shark made out of water.

Looking the way it came from, I saw a large sphere of water, inside of which was trapped Fugaku Uchiha, along with the Monster of the Bloody Mist, Kisame Hoshigaki.

I did not get to care about that though as a giant snake fell down my way, aiming to either crush or eat me.

I jumped out of the way, only to find a sword to be coming straight for my guts. I hardly deflected it to the side, leaving the one wielding said sword to come even closer.

And considering the man wielding the blade, that wasn't something good.

"The White Fang's son… Kakashi Hatake, if my memory serves me right. We fought in the past already, didn't we?"

As he said that, dozens of snakes jumped out of his sleeve. In response, I clenched my fist, and using nature transformation fried everything within one meter of me with my lightning.

My opponent, Orochimaru of the Sannin, was forced back, giving me a breather which I took to properly take in my current situation.

My chakra was down to something around 60%, and while I could give Orochimaru a fight, I wasn't going to defeat him with only so much chakra. Actually, even with all of my chakra, I'm not really confident.

Moreover, even if by some miracle I managed to defeat him, I would be left with close to no chakra, and I don't fancy my chances at escaping this encirclement in that kind of circumstances.

Taking a fraction of a second to foment a plan, my Sharingan turned to Orochimaru, who had bit his finger and slammed it into the ground. The next moment, a giant snake appeared, crushing soldiers from both sides.

That's when it clicked in me. This was Orochimaru's weakness, he was not a team player.

Instead of engaging him, I ran for the water sphere, Orochimaru hot on my feet as he disregarded the soldiers his ride crushed.

Some tried to attack the great serpent, but its scales were too thick for attacks of that level to hurt it.

It was also fast enough to rapidly be closing on me, but it mattered not as I had reached the water sphere. Not showing any hesitation, I rushed in, and got a better look of the situation inside.

There were hundreds of water sharks swimming around, most of them trying to attack Fugaku but being unsuccessful at it as they all seemed to be missing him for some reason. This allowed him to fight Kisame, who looked like he had turned into a shark himself.

With my entrance, many of the water sharks turned into my direction, while the two fighters stopped for a moment. Before any of them could start attacking though, the great snake also burst into the water, Orochimaru on top.

I could see Kisame's face morphing into anger, meaning my plan was working. Closing my eyes, I was remembered one of the jutsus my sensei had created quite a few years back.

Moulding my chakra, a sphere of pure condensed chakra formed in my hand, thousands of chakra currents chaotically moving in all directions.

This, was the Rasengan.

With the appearance of the new force, the water around me started twisting as a strong current was created, messing up with the incoming water sharks as the current started getting stronger with every second.

Both Orochimaru and Kisame rushed my way, one wielding a living sword larger than a man and the other spitting out a sword that would kill anyone with a mere graze.

But I did not let my emotions get to me as I watched on coldly as they both approached, fighting against the current.

Finally, when they got close enough, I cancelled the Rasengan, and slammed my hands together.

"Suiton: Split Wave!"

A shockwave spread through the surrounding water as the water before me suddenly parted, making for a small pocket of air. Orochimaru and Kisame, who were both about to reach me, found themselves falling down without the support of water.

I wanted to use a jutsu, but my chakra reserves were too low, so I took out two kunais and threw them at the two, while I picked up on something else from the corner of my peripheral vision.

Both of the S Rank missing ninjas obviously blocked the attack easily, but that made them miss the more dangerous threat.

Before they knew it, a ridiculously large fireball was sent their way, evaporating the water it passed by as it reached the two in a second.

As for me, I was already into the ground, moving as fast as could through the hardened ground. The next second, I felt a strong tremor travel through the ground, shaking my insides as a trickle of blood flowed between my lips.

Groaning slightly on pain, I brought my hand to my chest and used a healing technique I had learned some few years back, stabilizing my condition as I emerged from the ground.

The area around us was devastated, and covered in steam that prickled my skin. Thanks to the Sharingan though, I could see Fugaku panting not far from me, eyeing me as well.

As for Orochimaru and Kisame, both had many burn marks on them, as well as a missing arm for the first one.

The snake and the shark looked at us in different ways though. One was vicious and vindictive, while the other was bloodthirsty yet respectful.

Stepping closer to Fugaku, I whispered, "We can't go on like this, we will get wiped out."

Fugaku frowned and replied, "I can see that myself, but in case you missed it, we are surrounded."

I was about to reply, but across from us, Orochimaru sneered, "What are you two whispering about? You wouldn't be thinking about bailing out on us, would you? That would be… such a shame."

Quietly taking out a kunai, I thought hard of a solution, when something unexpected happened.

One moment we were fine, and in the next it felt like a giant tornado suddenly appeared all around us. I quickly applied chakra to my feet to stick to the ground, stopping me from flying into the air, and so did everyone on the battlefield, stopping almost everyone from their fight.

And in that short moment, I saw hundreds of troops suddenly attack, seemingly unaffected by the technique as they shredded Iwa's forces.

At the same time, some distance behind Orochimaru and Kisame, stood a man I well recognized.

Danzo Shimura.