Reborn in the Mist

The skies had changed colour since he was last awake—thick with smoke, dust, and chakra more oppressive and suffocating than anything Genma had felt before. Against the Seven Swordsmen, he could still catch his breath, find a plan to trust. But now, every sense was dulled by sheer destruction.

Ao, the Byakugan Killer shoved him aside just as another one of those Chakra-draining plant men surged out of the ground. Ao struck the pasty fiend with a deadly palm strike that dislodged it from the earth and sent it flying. Ao spun around and grabbed Genma's arm, "Hurry!"

Genma dashed forward, ducking under another clone's wood spike and pushing himself onward. He needed a fair distance to execute the jutsu—to summon the Fourth Hokage. But even with Ao's support, escape felt like a faint hope. His foot burned, scalded from when the Mizukage was forced to save him, the injury born of the corrosive chakra that coated every inch of his body. Genma had been briefed on everything Konoha knew regarding the Mizukage, including the newest fact that he was the Jinchuriki of the Three-Tailed Beast, a veritable weapon of mass destruction, a chakra monster.

It was already difficult wrapping his mind around the fact that the young faced man was a Kage of a great shinobi village, though Genma quickly got over such reservations when he summoned that giant eel that nearly drowned them. And now, as the skies had darkened, clouds congealed into black cushions of smoke and dust, it wasn't at all far-fetched to think of the man as one of nine Jinchuriki world wide.

The Mizukage's assistant spat a bolt of water past him, piercing the head of another clone as Ao stayed at his side, weapons ready to defend him. Genma ignored the pain in his foot, the effort of each step pulsing through him, and spit chakra-propelled senbon at another clone. It staggered back, dropping its stake, just in time for Ao to slice it in two.

"They keep coming!" Genma's every step felt like fire, sweat of exertion and fear pouring down his back. Farther behind, the real chaos surged.

A colossal chakra arm tore into the earth as the Mizukage's demonic Jinchuriki form released a guttural shriek, slamming the ground and trading destructive jutsu and attacks with the masked man. The sight churned a question in Genma's mind: Could he really be an Uchiha? But there was no time to dwell. His senses scrambled as Ao's sword flashed and yet another clone went down.

"Just what are these things?" Junichi gasped, his breathing greatly laboured and weathered in much the same way Genma felt, "Their spores…it drains chakra and I.."

"Concentrate Junichi!" Ao said, skidding to a stop as neither Genma nor Junichi could keep sprinting through the tall grasses. At the very least they'd put good distance between themselves and the Mizukage's destructive battle. "Yagura-sama ordered us to protect the Leaf shinobi. We make our stand here! And you—hurry up and perform your jutsu and-!"

A brilliant light detonated across the field, forcing all eyes to the sky. Even the multiplying plant clones halted, awed as the light punched through the blackened clouds.

Ao was the first to react his hands clapping together at the end of a sequence of hand seals too fast for Genma to keep up with, "Water Release: Water Barrier!" The Jounin's jutsu transformed his chakra into water, shaping humid molecules from the air around them and forming a massive dome of water that shut around all three of them just as torrential winds blasted across the field.

The barrier protected them from the clones outside but there was little need as the blast from the explosion sent chunks of earth and minerals soaring throughout the island. Scorched rocks and flaming shards of earth rained down, and Genma could feel the heat even through Ao's barrier. Outside, the once-verdant grass lay flattened, the landscape littered with clone bodies, fires, and shattered stones.

A rogue flame licked through the field, running its way into the small forest they would've escaped into. The clones that assaulted them were buried underneath the fallen rubble and skewered by flaming shards of rock, their bodies disfigured with nothing to shield them.

A frightening silence overtook the scorched and battered battlefield, christened so by the sheer amount of destruction. "Is it over?" Junichi asked, his eyes wide as he stared into the dark mushroom cloud that haunted where they'd left the Mizukage, "Did Yagura-sama win?"

Ao released his jutsu, the barrier dropped and flooded the field, sweeping up clone bodies and putting out fires as the Jounin swiftly reoriented his mind, pouring chakra into his sole Byakugan. He stared intently at the pillar of smoke a distance away, his brow furrowing deeper with each passing second and his lips thinning. 

Genma got on his feet, ignored the pain and began unravelling his bandana to finally begin the process of summoning the Fourth Hokage to this location. He wondered to himself, if it was still a wise idea to bring the Hokage to a battle. This was meant to be a meeting between our village Kages…this might entirely be a Kirigakure concern. He squeezed the Flying Raijin seal inscribed bandana in his fist, torn on the right thing to do. No, that masked man, if he is an Uchiha then Minato-sama should be made aware and even if he isn't, I'll die here if the Mizukage doesn't fend them away.

Resolved on what to do, Genma folded the bandana against the earth so the Flying Raijin seal was complete. He was folding his legs into position when Ao broke the silence. "We move, now!"

"What—?!" Genma barely had time to react as the Jounin grabbed him by the collar, hauling him to his feet. Stumbling, he managed to scoop up his bandana, and quickly realised the urgency. Tremors ran through the earth, rippling through his bones, as he turned in time to witness a scene that seemed conjured from a nightmare.

From the ground erupted a forest—gnarled and twisted trees clawing skyward, their dark limbs straining toward the Mizukage's figure blazing red against the smoky sky. Cloaked in the densest chakra Genma had ever seen, the Mizukage unleashed a shriek that split the air, obliterating the advancing wood with the raw force of his cry, his back turned against them as he guarded their escape.

They reached the edge of the ravaged forest, where Ao skidded to a halt. His katana gripped tight, jaw clenched, Ao barked, "Hurry, now! Execute your jutsu if it'll do any good!" Sweat streamed down his face as he watched the Mizukage, in his demonic Jinchuriki form, gather chakra for what Genma suspected would be another devastating blast.

Genma got to work, quickly folding the bandana the way it should across the dirt. The noise of a creeping, unending forest growing towards them spurred his fastest movements.

"Yagura-sama!" Junichi yelped haplessly as Three monstrous stakes drove through the Mizukage's chakra cloak, shuddering his form, yet he held on, continuing to charge his jutsu.

Genma did the same, but fear creeped in his heart as he wished for even a sliver of chakra to hasten the process. And yet before his eyes, the Mizukage's Jinchuriki transformation was being undone. The three stakes piercing him were not stakes at all but thick roots syphoning away the demonic chakra, feeding it back to the source of the surging dark woodlands. Bit by bit, his once-intimidating aura faded, the three tails whittling down to a thin, wavering layer of boiling red.

But the Mizukage persisted. He released the gathered ball of chakra at the darkwoods that had overtaken the island, a searing beam of light cut through their crooked roots and branches, tearing up the earth and decimating all in its path.

Genma looked away, his fingers pressed together as at last, he gathered enough chakra to send the required pulse through the seal. He reached for it but a menace overcame him as he did, he glimpsed over his shoulder and found the same masked man the Mizukage had just blasted a chakra cannon at reaching for him, a spiralling Sharingan glared murder through the mask's eyehole.

"No, you don't!" His Sharingan morphed into the strangest thing and a vortex spun out of it. Genma felt the hairs on his head get ripped out of their pores, his instincts screamed at him to glue himself to the ground but he'd gathered all his chakra to the fingertips reaching for the Flying Raijin seal.

"Genma!" Junichi leaped at the masked man, tackling him and becoming subject to the pull of the vortex. Genma blinked in relief and seized the opportunity. He pressed his fingers against the seal and sent the pulse.

"Kai!"