NARUTO SI: A Burdened Soul (Elder Brother to Itachi SI)

Chapter 26

Back in Konoha, two female kunoichi's found themselves held back in the classroom even as the rest of the students all left for their respective teams and assignments.

"Why have you kept us waiting for so long?" asked the black haired Uchiha Saiko, as their teacher looked at her and answered.

"Becau...."

"Because of me," a voice came suddenly and Saiko Uchiha turned around and stilled as she saw a person standing behind them, and felt a chill run down her spine as she realised that she had not even felt his presence at all.

"Ayyy...." the girl besides her screamed as well, while jumping back as she stood rooted on the ground.

He wore the standard jounin uniform, and wore the hitai-ate on his forehead as was standard, and yet he was no ordinary shinobi. She doubted anyone in the village would not know him, given his fame.

His golden eyes, and unique whitish skin made him stand out, for he was Orochimaru-the Snake Sanin.

"Orochimaru-sama," the chunin teacher greeted the man, whose eyes were looking straight into her own.

"No need to be so afraid," the man said with a smile as he smiled, and yet she felt no warmth from it, as the man turned towards the other girl—Anko was her name from what she recalled.

"From this day onwards, you two are under my tutelage...."

0000

IZUNA UCHIHA

It took him a second to realise just whom they were facing, and he was not happy about it. Not all.

Kushimaru Kuriarare, was one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen. He was the wielder of Nuibari, a blade-shaped in the form of a stitching needle, and the man-made quick use of it.

They had been separated, with Ameyuri Ringo going after Kakashi as Izuna stood on the ground and looked at the Kiri Swordsmen, looking down at them through his ANBU mask.

"We need to get out of here," he said to Nohara Rin as he took out his tantos, knowing full well that this was not a fight they could win.

At least not like this.

His fire-style jutsu had thinned the air, making it impossible for the Kiri-nin to reuse his Hidden Mist jutsu, but it had also taken quite a bit from him, and he saw the Kiri-nin raise his blade before he plucked it into the ground.

"RUN!" he said as he heard the man's cackling voice.

"Ninpo:..." and they immediately tried to rush out of the small clearing, towards Kakashi when suddenly, they were surrounded by over several dozen of ninjas, some of them dead, some of them alive.

"....Death Dance Part!" and Izuna stilled for a second as he saw their uniforms and their hitai-ate's. Their faces were covered by masks, and Izuna had a suspicion that they were not all Konoha nins.

No, powerful as he may be, Kushimaru Kuriarare was no puppeteer from Suna. So, he could not control these many people with chakra strings, let alone regular shinobi wire.

No. This was a psychological play.

"These are..."

"Konoha nin," he finished as he pushed up his blade, yet he did not miss the strings attached to them.

"Not all of them," he answered as he gathered his own chakra.

He could try to cut through the strings, but he did not know how many of them had paper bombs on them. And they did not have time.

The only reason Kushimaru was not attacking them directly would be because the earlier ninjutsu must have taken much out of him, and the man was recuperating.

Or this was his idea of messing with them.

Regardless, they had an opportunity here, and Izuna planned to use it to its fullest.

"Follow my lead. We cannot save them at this point. Our first priority is to get out of here," he said as he looked into Nohara Rin's eye.

"But there are..."

"Yes, there may be a few Konoha in amongst them, but they are all probably dead. If you hesitate, you will die or, worse yet, get captured," he added as the many shinobi closed in on them.

"Let's go," and with a single seal, Izuna took a deep breath as he opened his mouth once more.

"Katon: Fireball Jutsu!" and he spewed a regular fireball at the ninja in their paths, and he felt screams fill the area, screams real and artificial before half a dozen nin came infront of him.

Their uniforms all belonged to Konoha's. And yet he readied his tanto, and as the first one lunged at him, he took but a second to cut through his arms as blood spilled on his face, and he heard the shinobi's screams, but he did not stop.

The next came, and he did the same, tearing apart his arm, and sliding underneath it, he slashed at the legs of the next one, and then the next one, and just as he was almost through the entire crowd, he heard a scream from behind him.

And glanced back.

"RIN-SAN!" he screamed as she saw the girl get surrounded by three of these nins, she seemed clearly overwhelmed by emotional toll, as tears slipped down her eyes.

"NO! STAY AWAY!" she screamed as Izuna tried to jump in, but suddenly he saw a sword rippled through the air, and he twisted his body in the air, and tried to deflect it, yet it moved in the air slightly and whizzed past his blade and pushed itself through his shoulder.

"SHIT!" he cursed as he realized that it was Nuibari. The thin blade and his sharingan caught the thin chakra string attached to it, and as the Kiri-nin appeared infront of him, he laced his tanto's edge with his chakra as he cut through the string, and avoided the attack from the Kiri-nin who pulled on the string.

But Izuna had jumped back by then, and Kushimaru Kuriare seemed to straighten up as he looked into his eyes. The man did not speak as he saw Rin Nohara vanish into the crowd of these bodies, but then it registered to him.

It took him a few seconds to understand what was happening to his body.

"Poison," he whispered as he realized that the sword was laced with a paralytic, a strong one at that, and he did not have much time.

He had to get away.

But then he would have to give up on Rin.

Yet if he stayed, he was not certain that he could win. Not like this, with poison running through his body, his reserves nearly half empty.

And so, his decision was made as Izuna leaned down and put his hand on the ground.

"I will be back," he whispered as he looked into the Kiri nin's eye, which blurred through the air and appeared right behind him as he pushed forward his blade, but Izuna was banking on that as a sealing formula expanded out of his hand.

"Ninpo: Time Prison!" that was the name of the sealing technique he had made, and as the seal expanded, it covered up the Kiri-nin. With his blade inches from his skin, Izuna's body dissolved into half a dozen crows as he fled the area and headed straight towards the place where Kakashi was fighting the other Kiri Swordsman, as he actively pushed back against the Kiri nin's poison.

BOOOM!

And the area behind him exploded as his other seal must have activated. He had put a few poison tags in the seal hoping to catch the Kiri-nin off guard, though he had little hope that the man would die, given his rank and prowess.

"Let's just hope that this keeps you off my back...."

0000

KAKASHI HATAKE

As Kakashi lay in a cave with his other teammate, he was taken over by a sense of failure.

This was the second time he had failed to protect his teammate or uphold what it meant to be a team leader, and both times, others had paid the price for it.

Last time it had been Obito, and now it was Rin.

Izuna and him had taken refuge in a cave half a day's journey from the camp where they had faced the Kiri nin. It was the most secure location for them to rest, recuperate, and reorganise.

But they were running out of time. Rin had been captured once more, and it was all his fault.

"It is all my fault," he screamed as he hit the wall, his fist throbbing with pain at the impact, yet he did not relent.

SMASH!

"It is all my fault," he lamented as he punched the wall again and again.

"Rin-san was with me," the young Uchiha added from behind as he bandaged his wounds. It had taken the young chunin an hour to clear his body of the paralytic the Kiri-nin had used, but then he had to heal both their injuries, further utilizing his already dwindling reserves.

"It is my fault as well," and perhaps it may be, but Kakashi was the captain here.

"No. I am the captain. I should have been more cautious at the beginning of the mission," and they had thought it as a simple reinforcement mission, and yet it was anything but.

This was a trap.

And he had led them straight into it.

And now, once again, he was forced to rely on their sensei to save him and Rin once more.

"How certain are you that Rin is still alive?" he asked the Uchiha chunin, as Izuna Uchiha closed his eyes before he answered.

"Around ninety percent. There were many opportunities to kill her, but the Kiri nin never took them. The way they surrounded her, if they had wanted to kill her, they could have done it in a second," and this was even worse, not even knowing about the fate of his teammate.

"No. I believe they have captured her," he finished, but this was speculation. They had to be sure.

"We need to capture a Kiri-nin," he suggested, and Izuna Uchiha nodded.

"That would be the wisest course of action. We must find and capture one of them and force him to spill their plans, their hideouts, their numbers," because right now, he could with certainty say that Kirigakure had compromised their information system.

"And Rin's location?" he added, hoping that the Uchiha's conjecture was right and that his teammate was still alive.

"Yes, that as well," but they had both been injured heavily.

"I will go," Kakashi nominated himself.

"I have just healed your arm and ribs," the Uchiha added, and Kakashi nodded.

"And that is exactly why I should go. Your reserves must be running low by now, after healing both our injuries. In comparison to that, my own reserves are almost full again," and that was a lie.

The Sharingan was taking a massive toll on his reserves and Kakashi was still having a hard time utilising the doujutsu to its full potential, but this was his mistake and he had to make up for it.

"Moreover, I will have an easy time tracking the Kiri-nin with my nose," and that was his biggest advantage, for Kiri had once again plunged the area into a thick smoke, with all their shinobi using the jutsu as a cover.

"With the Sharingan and my nose, I will track a Kiri nin and capture him," he suggested.

"I will handle the interrogation," the Uchiha chunin added, and Izuna Uchiha was pragmatic enough to see the advantages of this plan.

The boy was an Uchiha, and he had heard great things about his genjutsu. It would help them extract information quickly.

"Good, you should rest. I will go and see it done," he finished and as he was about to walk out the cave, the boy called out.

"You sent a report to the village, right?" he asked and Kakashi nodded.

"I dispatched one of my summons to the village, but we cannot wait or depend on help. Kiri could kill the summon, but even if it reaches the village, it will take sometime, for reinforcements to arrive. If we are to rescue Rin we must do so ourselves and within the next twenty four hours," he finished, for that was the standard time any village would keep the captured nin alive.

Usually, after that they would become a liability and would be slaughtered.

And he could not let that happen.

"Wait for me," he said, and the boy nodded as he finished his bandage.

"And if I don't come back," he remembered, as he looked him in the eye.

"Do not come after me. Wait for reinforcements, that is an order," he said and the boy did not nod as he looked him in the eye.

"Let us pray it does not come to that...."

0000

Ameyuri Ringo walked into the cave where they were supposed to rendevouse, and as she walked in and she saw her squadmate sitting there with the captured Konoha kunoichi lying in front of him.

Though his own condition was far worse than the girl in question, with his mask cracked and severe burns covering his body.

"The boy did quite a number on you, Kushimaru," she teased as those eyes narrowed at her though the slits.

Not that she cared, either for the wounds or for the glare.

"What! You are a disgrace to let a kid do this to you," she laughed as Kushimaru glared at her.

But then in an instant the ANBU commander appeared behind her.

"Ringo! Kuriarare! Your mission is done, you are to return to the village now," he ordered as Ringo raised a brow, and she shrugged not caring at all.

"No." Kushimaru's thick voice came out as her teammate stood up and walked up to the ANBU commander.

"I will stay..." and with that simple answer he walked out the cave, probably to go and play with his corpses as she smirked as she looked at his retreating back.

"It seems that the boy wounded his pride. But still to think that Konoha had such a heartless shinobi in their ranks," and indeed it was a surprise.

Few shinobi had the mental faculty to stand against Kushimaru's twisted techniques. To fight and kill your own allies. It was not easy. Not at all. All it would take was one second of hesitation, one delayed kill, and Kushimaru would take the opportunity and add your body to his little collection as well.

The trick was especially effective against Konoha nin, who seemed to care so much about their colleagues.

If it was any competent Kiri-nin in their place, they would never hesitate to swing that blade. After all, what mattered most for a shinobi was their life. But those tree huggers were different.

"Well, I have no desire to put myself in danger..." she said as she walked out of the cave.

"So, I will be leaving," and as she walked past the commander of the Hunter-nin's she gave him a smile.

"Best of luck with your little ploy...."

0000

Read ahead and support me on Patre 0n. Help me write this and other such stories by becoming a Patr 0n. It would be pretty awesome of you and would mean a lot to me.

www.Patre 0n.com/Drkest

Have a nice day!