The Secret Weapon - part 4
Notes: Ok, it's official - I hate the way this fic is turning out. The problem is, if I go back and rewrite it now, there's a good chance I'll disgust myself into not finishing it, so I'd rather forge ahead and then rip it apart afterwards if I still feel like it. That said, apologies for the crappy writing and I hope you can enjoy the story, at least.
04: Relapse - part 2
"You bastard!" Jiraiya heard Naruto shout before he realised just what it was his knuckle-headed student intended to do. Crossing his fingers into a familiar hand-seal, the little genin was populating the plateau with dozens of copies of himself, all bearing the same enraged scowl and all equally willing to cause serious damage to one certain Iwa ninja.
The Minato look-alike seemed unperturbed by the display. He tilted his head as if wondering whether or not the kid was a threat. He took stock of the number and position of all the orange-clad clones and waited for the next move.
His eyes were as clear and as dead as Jiraiya remembered them being in Minato's final pictures before burial, and a shudder ran down his spine. He didn't know if it was horror or excitement at seeing his late student again.
"You're supposed to be the Fourth!" one of the Narutos said. "How could you hurt granny Tsunade?!"
There was a moment's pause where Arashi stared down the clone who had addressed him. He had no idea what the kid was going on about - the Fourth? - but he was obviously very disturbed about what had happened to the Hokage.
No sooner had he thought that, the clones decided to strike.
They came from all sides packed into groups, but their attacks were straight-forward and easy to predict. Arashi had no trouble getting rid of them with strategically placed wind techniques that cut through and dispelled dozens of clones at a time. He almost felt sorry for the kid. He had guts and the sheer amount of clones he could produce without losing any strength was indication of massive raw potential. He could become a very dangerous adversary in the future - unfortunately, he doubted the kid would ever get that far. He'd get himself killed very soon if, even after seen Arashi fight a Kage, the best he could do was attack his opponents with tactics unbefitting a genin.
He had already made quick work of the majority of the orange-clad copies, when his instincts alerted him that there was danger coming from behind. Two clones holding a yellow sphere of swirling chakra were almost on him.
The technique surprised Arashi - it looked almost exactly like a one-handed technique he had created himself years ago. How the youth could have known about it, though, was beyond him. He dodged the pair and used their momentum against them to destroy both them and a portion of the rest of the crowd.
Taking advantage of the brief lull in the battle as the kid and his copies reorganised themselves, he glanced at his Iwa companions and realised that they had engaged in similar fights against the Anbu who had been escorting the Konoha delegation. Beyond them, removed from the fray, he could see the Tsuchikage looking over his troops with satisfaction. Arashi remembered the orders the man had given to his escorts on their way to the meeting then: "kill them all if you get the chance."
Technique after technique, the clones disappeared until only one little blond remained in front of him. "Lucky kid," Arashi reflected, "but not for long." He leapt at the teenager, taking a plain kunai out of his pouch with his good arm and preparing to stab him in one of his vital points. It would be so much for the promising, stupid little ninja.
His blade came away bloody, but the cut had been shallow. The kid had been pushed aside by the remaining member of the Konoha group - the middle-aged man who had been at the Hokage's side - and Arashi's arm restrained by a thick knot of white hair.
"Minato, what are you doing?" the stranger was saying. "How is it that..."
"You have me confused with someone else, old man," Arashi interrupted. "I don't know anyone by the name of Minato."
He was getting angry. First the Hokage had wanted to know who he was, then the kid had called him the Fourth and now this old man was confusing him with someone named Minato. He knew enough of Konoha's history to put the pieces together and realise who they apparently thought him to be, and there wasn't a ninja in Iwa who wouldn't be offended at being likened to the murderous demon that had been Konoha's Yellow Flash.
"How can you say that?! You look just like..." Jiraiya tried to object, but he was cut off once again. This time by a different source.
"Stop..." a raspy voice came from behind and all eyes turned towards where the Hokage had been lying.
Tsunade was slowly getting up. The front of her clothes was bathed in red, but the most remarkable features about her were the menacing black markings spread all over her face.
"Tsuchikage," she called out, breathing heavily. "Konoha concedes this match to Iwa. I believe that settles this matter."
"It is war between us, then," the grey man wearing the white hat of Earth country declared with a smirk. He wasn't pleased that Arashi had failed to end the blond woman's life, but that could be easily remedied yet.
With a flick of his wrist, all three of his escorts drew weapons and readied themselves for a definitive strike. Up in the surrounding hills, numerous ninjas were coming out of hiding, emerging from the ground like undead creatures intent on killing everyone in their way.
Likewise, on Konoha's side, many more white-masked Anbu and jounin that hadn't revealed themselves yet were suddenly standing by on their Hokage's command. They outnumbered the Iwa ninjas by at least three to one, and it brought a smirk of her own to Tsunade's face to see that the Tsuchikage hadn't seen that coming.
"What's it going to be, Iwa? Do you want to turn this place into the first massacre site of the new war, or do we just each retreat peacefully to our villages, as only appropriate after a diplomatic meeting?"
It was through nothing more than will-power that Tsunade held the other man's glare and kept herself from trembling. Releasing the seal on her forehead had taken every drop of energy she had left out of her and she was currently praying that the Tsuchikage would fold before the after-effects kicked in. Very soon, her illusion of youth and power would falter.
Her prayers were heard, and as the Tsuchikage and his entourage dropped out of view, Tsunade let herself fall to her knees, feeling the first wrinkles form on her face.
"Will you be all right?" Jiraiya was immediately at her side, with Naruto on the other.
"I'll live," she laughed. "What about you?"
The white-haired hermit had not been injured but he did not need to question what she meant.
"I don't know. I guess I need to think, make some sense of what we saw here today."
"Do you think he really was..." Tsunade stopped herself, opting instead to brace herself on Naruto's and Jiraiya's shoulders while she got back on her feet to set back to their home as the Tsuchikage had done.
Jiraiya didn't meet her eyes. He was sombre as he was rarely seen.
"I don't know," he repeated.
* * *
The wooden stick came down fast on Arashi's back, and the blond tensed his muscles and bit the inside of his cheek in preparation to take it. Behind his white mask, his face contorted in pain as the repeated strikes tore into his flesh, but none of that was visible on the outside. That was what mattered.
"I am most disappointed in you, Arashi," the Tsuchikage said as he motioned for the punishment to stop. "Your orders were to take out the Hokage, and instead of carrying out my wishes, you decided to play around and give those Konoha dogs a chance to fight back. You put us all at risk by letting them injure you."
Arashi was already kneeling in front of the man, but he did his best to flatten himself further, offering himself up to his Tsuchikage's mercy. He did not trust himself to speak.
"Not only did your failure insult the might of Iwa, it embarrassed me personally! Your disobedience forced me to order a retreat, to show my back and run away!"
"I beg your forgiveness, Lord Tsuchikage. It will not happen again," Arashi promised, mask pressed against the ground and voice raspy from the strain.
For a moment there was silence and Arashi thought that the punishment might resume when he heard the Tsuchikage's robes rustle in front of him. The pain did not come, however, and instead he felt a rough hand hold his chin to try to get him to look up. The most powerful man in Iwa was crouching in front of him and looking at him with desolate eyes.
"You're special. You know that, don't you, Arashi?" he asked and the young ninja felt his heart shatter at how badly he had failed this great man. "You also know that we can't start this war without you. I need you, Arashi, and I need to know that next time you will do exactly as I say, when I say."
"Forgive me, Lord Tsuchikage..." the blond whispered, close to tears at his dishonor.
"Do not disappoint me again, Arashi," he warned, before rising to his feet again. For the moment, he was satisfied with his little weapon's display of submission. He couldn't be too careful handling him - after all, he was playing with fire.
One more hand gesture was enough for the punishment to continue. It wouldn't hurt to ingrain his lessons of loyalty into the young man a little further.
Arashi's screams followed the leader of Iwa out the door and they kept filling the underground cell for some time afterwards. Two thoughts were at the forefront of his mind, as he attempted to distract himself from the painful lashing.
One was his promise to his Tsuchikage. He would never again let down that great man who shouldered the burdens of the entire village, who took on his people's suffering as his own and whose only desire was to protect and keep their home safe.
The second wasn't as heart-warming or as bolstering. Arashi had orders to wear his white mask at all times, even in his sleep, and to not let anyone who did not have the Tsuchikage's permission see him without it. It was odd that he had been ordered to remove it in his fight against the Hokage and the way the Konoha delegation had reacted at the sight of him was odder still. He wasn't sure what to make of it, but it had made him curious.
04: Relapse - part 2
"You bastard!" Jiraiya heard Naruto shout before he realised just what it was his knuckle-headed student intended to do. Crossing his fingers into a familiar hand-seal, the little genin was populating the plateau with dozens of copies of himself, all bearing the same enraged scowl and all equally willing to cause serious damage to one certain Iwa ninja.
The Minato look-alike seemed unperturbed by the display. He tilted his head as if wondering whether or not the kid was a threat. He took stock of the number and position of all the orange-clad clones and waited for the next move.
His eyes were as clear and as dead as Jiraiya remembered them being in Minato's final pictures before burial, and a shudder ran down his spine. He didn't know if it was horror or excitement at seeing his late student again.
"You're supposed to be the Fourth!" one of the Narutos said. "How could you hurt granny Tsunade?!"
There was a moment's pause where Arashi stared down the clone who had addressed him. He had no idea what the kid was going on about - the Fourth? - but he was obviously very disturbed about what had happened to the Hokage.
No sooner had he thought that, the clones decided to strike.
They came from all sides packed into groups, but their attacks were straight-forward and easy to predict. Arashi had no trouble getting rid of them with strategically placed wind techniques that cut through and dispelled dozens of clones at a time. He almost felt sorry for the kid. He had guts and the sheer amount of clones he could produce without losing any strength was indication of massive raw potential. He could become a very dangerous adversary in the future - unfortunately, he doubted the kid would ever get that far. He'd get himself killed very soon if, even after seen Arashi fight a Kage, the best he could do was attack his opponents with tactics unbefitting a genin.
He had already made quick work of the majority of the orange-clad copies, when his instincts alerted him that there was danger coming from behind. Two clones holding a yellow sphere of swirling chakra were almost on him.
The technique surprised Arashi - it looked almost exactly like a one-handed technique he had created himself years ago. How the youth could have known about it, though, was beyond him. He dodged the pair and used their momentum against them to destroy both them and a portion of the rest of the crowd.
Taking advantage of the brief lull in the battle as the kid and his copies reorganised themselves, he glanced at his Iwa companions and realised that they had engaged in similar fights against the Anbu who had been escorting the Konoha delegation. Beyond them, removed from the fray, he could see the Tsuchikage looking over his troops with satisfaction. Arashi remembered the orders the man had given to his escorts on their way to the meeting then: "kill them all if you get the chance."
Technique after technique, the clones disappeared until only one little blond remained in front of him. "Lucky kid," Arashi reflected, "but not for long." He leapt at the teenager, taking a plain kunai out of his pouch with his good arm and preparing to stab him in one of his vital points. It would be so much for the promising, stupid little ninja.
His blade came away bloody, but the cut had been shallow. The kid had been pushed aside by the remaining member of the Konoha group - the middle-aged man who had been at the Hokage's side - and Arashi's arm restrained by a thick knot of white hair.
"Minato, what are you doing?" the stranger was saying. "How is it that..."
"You have me confused with someone else, old man," Arashi interrupted. "I don't know anyone by the name of Minato."
He was getting angry. First the Hokage had wanted to know who he was, then the kid had called him the Fourth and now this old man was confusing him with someone named Minato. He knew enough of Konoha's history to put the pieces together and realise who they apparently thought him to be, and there wasn't a ninja in Iwa who wouldn't be offended at being likened to the murderous demon that had been Konoha's Yellow Flash.
"How can you say that?! You look just like..." Jiraiya tried to object, but he was cut off once again. This time by a different source.
"Stop..." a raspy voice came from behind and all eyes turned towards where the Hokage had been lying.
Tsunade was slowly getting up. The front of her clothes was bathed in red, but the most remarkable features about her were the menacing black markings spread all over her face.
"Tsuchikage," she called out, breathing heavily. "Konoha concedes this match to Iwa. I believe that settles this matter."
"It is war between us, then," the grey man wearing the white hat of Earth country declared with a smirk. He wasn't pleased that Arashi had failed to end the blond woman's life, but that could be easily remedied yet.
With a flick of his wrist, all three of his escorts drew weapons and readied themselves for a definitive strike. Up in the surrounding hills, numerous ninjas were coming out of hiding, emerging from the ground like undead creatures intent on killing everyone in their way.
Likewise, on Konoha's side, many more white-masked Anbu and jounin that hadn't revealed themselves yet were suddenly standing by on their Hokage's command. They outnumbered the Iwa ninjas by at least three to one, and it brought a smirk of her own to Tsunade's face to see that the Tsuchikage hadn't seen that coming.
"What's it going to be, Iwa? Do you want to turn this place into the first massacre site of the new war, or do we just each retreat peacefully to our villages, as only appropriate after a diplomatic meeting?"
It was through nothing more than will-power that Tsunade held the other man's glare and kept herself from trembling. Releasing the seal on her forehead had taken every drop of energy she had left out of her and she was currently praying that the Tsuchikage would fold before the after-effects kicked in. Very soon, her illusion of youth and power would falter.
Her prayers were heard, and as the Tsuchikage and his entourage dropped out of view, Tsunade let herself fall to her knees, feeling the first wrinkles form on her face.
"Will you be all right?" Jiraiya was immediately at her side, with Naruto on the other.
"I'll live," she laughed. "What about you?"
The white-haired hermit had not been injured but he did not need to question what she meant.
"I don't know. I guess I need to think, make some sense of what we saw here today."
"Do you think he really was..." Tsunade stopped herself, opting instead to brace herself on Naruto's and Jiraiya's shoulders while she got back on her feet to set back to their home as the Tsuchikage had done.
Jiraiya didn't meet her eyes. He was sombre as he was rarely seen.
"I don't know," he repeated.
* * *
The wooden stick came down fast on Arashi's back, and the blond tensed his muscles and bit the inside of his cheek in preparation to take it. Behind his white mask, his face contorted in pain as the repeated strikes tore into his flesh, but none of that was visible on the outside. That was what mattered.
"I am most disappointed in you, Arashi," the Tsuchikage said as he motioned for the punishment to stop. "Your orders were to take out the Hokage, and instead of carrying out my wishes, you decided to play around and give those Konoha dogs a chance to fight back. You put us all at risk by letting them injure you."
Arashi was already kneeling in front of the man, but he did his best to flatten himself further, offering himself up to his Tsuchikage's mercy. He did not trust himself to speak.
"Not only did your failure insult the might of Iwa, it embarrassed me personally! Your disobedience forced me to order a retreat, to show my back and run away!"
"I beg your forgiveness, Lord Tsuchikage. It will not happen again," Arashi promised, mask pressed against the ground and voice raspy from the strain.
For a moment there was silence and Arashi thought that the punishment might resume when he heard the Tsuchikage's robes rustle in front of him. The pain did not come, however, and instead he felt a rough hand hold his chin to try to get him to look up. The most powerful man in Iwa was crouching in front of him and looking at him with desolate eyes.
"You're special. You know that, don't you, Arashi?" he asked and the young ninja felt his heart shatter at how badly he had failed this great man. "You also know that we can't start this war without you. I need you, Arashi, and I need to know that next time you will do exactly as I say, when I say."
"Forgive me, Lord Tsuchikage..." the blond whispered, close to tears at his dishonor.
"Do not disappoint me again, Arashi," he warned, before rising to his feet again. For the moment, he was satisfied with his little weapon's display of submission. He couldn't be too careful handling him - after all, he was playing with fire.
One more hand gesture was enough for the punishment to continue. It wouldn't hurt to ingrain his lessons of loyalty into the young man a little further.
Arashi's screams followed the leader of Iwa out the door and they kept filling the underground cell for some time afterwards. Two thoughts were at the forefront of his mind, as he attempted to distract himself from the painful lashing.
One was his promise to his Tsuchikage. He would never again let down that great man who shouldered the burdens of the entire village, who took on his people's suffering as his own and whose only desire was to protect and keep their home safe.
The second wasn't as heart-warming or as bolstering. Arashi had orders to wear his white mask at all times, even in his sleep, and to not let anyone who did not have the Tsuchikage's permission see him without it. It was odd that he had been ordered to remove it in his fight against the Hokage and the way the Konoha delegation had reacted at the sight of him was odder still. He wasn't sure what to make of it, but it had made him curious.