The confrontation
Naruto watched as slowly but surely the daimyo and his escorts came into view. The Uchiha squads remained as they had before, but this time the samurai were tighter knit in their formation as well as closer to the carriages of the daimyo and his daughter.
Naruto waited and observed, watching as Izuna scanned the area with his sharingan active. Judging by the darkening of his signature, he had by now noticed the attackers lying in wait, but he had yet to move. However, there was also something like a dull sense of confusion and worry in his signature as his eyes restlessly flickered over the mountain side. Naruto wasn´t sure what exactly he was searching for, but Izuna was not giving any sign of distress externally, so he assumed it wasn´t too big of an issue.
Naruto´s own gaze swung over to the leader of the group. His hand was raised, still holding the archers back from shooting. Four were right in Naruto´s immediate range while the other three were a little further away, and all of them had their eyes fixed on their leader, waiting for their signal.
This was Naruto´s chance.
As swift and soundless as the wind, Naruto was right next to the first archer. All it took as a quick strike to the vagus nerve and the man fell limp into his arms, too quick and silent for anyone to notice. Carefully, as to not alert the others, Naruto lowered the man to the ground and slapped a seal onto his forehead in order to make sure he wouldn´t wake up for at least a few hours.
Naruto hissed lowly when the bow in the man´s grip clattered to the ground as his grip around it loosened, however the only two to hear were the ones right next to them.
Two pairs of eyes widened and both moved to attack, mouths wide open to alert someone, but not even a sound escaped before Naruto had slapped the seal on both of them. Their eyes rolled to the back of their heads and the last thing they saw was the dangerous blue glint in Naruto´s eyes that shined just between the slits of the Kitsune mask.
Three down, four more to go.
The last one, also relatively close to him, was the only one to notice when Naruto suddenly appeared behind him, his instincts honed better than those of the other three. The man spun around, bow clenched tightly in his hand and attempted to strike, but the blonde simply snatched his writs before the punch could reach its target and delivered a quick blow to his neck, knocking him out in an instant.
The other three were further away and before Naruto moved, he spared a second to glance back down at Izuna to see how they were doing. No one had attacked yet but Naruto could feel the tenseness in their presence even from up here. Their steps were slow and steady as they huddled a little closer together since the path began to become narrower. No one was speaking, but Naruto could see each of them slowly grip their weapons tighter, careful not to alert the attacker that they were aware of their presence.
It backfired.
The leader noticed something off about the way they were reacting and his eyes immediately zeroed in on their hands. With the weapons ready, it was clear the Uchiha were aware of their presence.
Naruto could hear a strained curse from under the scarred man´s breath and his raised hand balled into a fist before pointing two fingers up.
That was the sign for the fire to start.
Naruto cursed as the three remaining archers snapped to attention. Fast as lighting, he pulled out three marked kunai from his storage seal on his arm and with a quick flick of his wrist, all three of them were sent towards the three men hidden in the walls with deadly accuracy. Wind chakra coated them to make the kunai even faster, even deadlier, even more accurate.
There was a muffled gasp, a loud curse and a chocked cry before Naruto activated his chakra, using the hiraishin to teleport before the kunai had even embedded themselves in the stone wall. In less than two seconds, Naruto had reached each of them, snapped them together and slapped a seal each on their foreheads.
Now, having used the hiraishin, his chakra wasn´t suppressed anymore. The sensor from before whipped around to pin him with a shocked glare.
“We´ve been found!”
Great.
As eighteen pairs of eyes snapped to where the sensor was looking, zeroing in on him, Naruto could feel the bloodlust and anger rise in each of them. Like it was nothing, he shrugged it off and wasted not a single second to immediately jump down, using the wall as a springboard to boost his speed, and jump square into the sensors face.
The man reached up to block, but Naruto´s hit was too strong, leaving both of them being flung backwards from the force of it. The man next to him called out for him, but his eyes were too slow to follow the movement.
Chaos erupted.
The leader was yelling commands at his men to attack and leave the archers behind, seeing as they were out of commission.
Izuna also barked out an order. In the blink of an eye, each present shinobi was armed and ready to begin the fight. Shouts and cries of rage at having been tricked rang out from the hunters and they lunged forward, weapons in hand and anger burning in their eyes like a wildfire.
Naruto still had the sensor pinned under him. The man´s sword was ripped out of his grip and broken in two, leaving him with only a few kunai in his pouch. He snarled, baring his teeth at Naruto like he was threatening to bite his hand off.
“Kitsune!” The name came out like a curse, venom dripping from his voice, but Naruto only raised an unimpressed eyebrow. He didn´t have enough time to focus on this man individually as he spread out his senses and cataloged everything that was happening, making sure there was nothing going wrong.
The blonde raised his hand, intending on swiftly knocking him out with a good punch to the face, but he had to dodge as bunch of kunai were thrown in his direction. With an annoyed click of his tongue, Naruto rolled to the side, eyes immediately snapping to the person responsible. The sensor leapt away with a huff and clutched his arm, with which he had tried to block Naruto´s assault. It was swollen already and very likely broken from the force of the hit.
However, that´s not what Naruto was focusing on. The horrible stench that flew past him that came from the kunai had his eyes widening.
Poison.
“Everyone! The weapons are poisoned! Be careful not to let them graze you!”
Izuna swiftly struck down the man he was fighting against and dodged another flying kunai that came in his direction before his attention split, focusing slightly on Naruto. The sharingan was spinning violently and pinning Naruto´s own gaze, and for a second Naruto feared he might not have understood over the sound of battle, but the nod that came as an answer let relief wash over the blonde.
Back to his situation, the woman that had thrown the poisoned kunai snarled at him, fist tightly clenching around her weapons. “What kind of freakish sense of smell do you have, you bastard?! You weren´t supposed to know!”
Ah, well, Kurama did enchant his senses a lot, so he had to thank his friend for that.
Instead of saying that however he just shrugged, a smug grin under his mask. “Well,” he mocked, “I have a pretty good sense of smell. That also means I can smell that you haven’t taken a bath in probably years.”
The woman´s face took a bright and angry shade of red and her features twisted into an ugly grimace before she threw herself forward with a battle cry. Naruto allowed himself a smug moment of satisfaction, knowing that he still had it in him to absolutely piss his opponents off. He was good at being very annoying when he wanted to be, after all.
Naruto dodged swiftly and then coated his hands in chakra, similar to how Sakura did it, before landing a solid punch in the gut. She chocked and doubled over in pain before the sensor used her as a distraction, trying to attack from behind. Without looking back, Naruto twisted and kicked the man right in the chest, sending him flying back a few yards.
Not having seen that coming, he collided with one of his partners who was in the middle of forming hand signs to send an earth jutsu towards Rasa, sending them both flying back.
Naruto landed right behind Rasa, securing the man´s back to give him a second to recollect himself. “Are you alright?”
Rasa gave a curt nod before leaping away, onto the next opponent.
Naruto did the same, not wasting any time in attacking where he saw someone struggling.
Suddenly, catching his eyes, in the corner of his vision were two men, the scarred leader and someone else, who were quickly forming hand signs for an earth jutsu. They were currently blocking the path that would have allowed them to move forward, before simultaneously slamming their hands down onto the stone floor.
“Doton: Chidokaku!”
Four walls made out of stone began to rise all around them, narrowing them in even further. The carriages had long come to a stop and were rattling as the earth shook around them. Naruto grit his teeth and tried to send an earth jutsu of his own to shield the carriage so that he could focus on attacking. Channeling chakra into his hand, he slammed it down to the ground with a force that send fractures into the stone. A quick shock wave was sent to the floor and suddenly both the daimyo´s and the daughter´s carriage were hidden by a thick wall of stone. At the same time, the explosive kunai aimed at the daimyo embedded themselves into the wall and went off, but Naruto´s stone protection held strong. Despite earth not being his primary nature, Naruto did have high mastery over it.
Now with both of the nobles secured, Naruto turned to look at the fighting.
They were enclosed in a tight space. Akito´s squad was locked in combat with five other attackers. Izuna was currently relentlessly attacking the woman with poisonous weapons, who had recovered from his previous blow to her abdomen. Two samurai were injured, resting against the wall while trying to defend themselves from two other attackers. Without thinking, Naruto flicked his hand in their direction and slammed the two aggressors into the wall with enough force to make a large dent into the stone, using his wind to form a whip. Their chocked cries were drowned out by the sound of their bones snapping with the force of his attack.
The samurai´s chakra surged in relief, but Naruto didn´t dwindle any longer. Taking a deep breath, Naruto clasped his hands together in a single hand sign and closed his eyes, making sure to exactly pin each chakra signature and separate between ally and enemy. Before he started, his with authority filled voice boomed over the field.
“Incoming!”
Large amounts of wind started to amass around him in whipping tendrils, whizzing past him and gaining in speed. In the middle of it all – in the eye of the storm – stood Naruto, calm as the dust and debris around him was lifted into the air by the sheer force of his wind.
He could feel some of the chakra signatures around him surge in surprise, but he paid no mind. Eyes still closed, his focus was solely on maneuvering the wind between his comrades, careful not to hit any of them with it. This sort of technique in this kind of space required a fine control, especially with enemies and allies alike on the field, but in this case it was necessary.
Seconds later the four walls that had been around them started to crumble into large pieces of debris as Naruto worked to tear them down. The chunks of stone threatened to fall, but Naruto reinforced his fuuton and lifted them higher up before launching them over the high cliff side, clearing their path and allowing them more room to move. Those who had been closest to the walls were also taken away and their screams of surprise could be heard as they flew over the edge, following right after the stones.
A quick check on the chakra signatures around him confirmed that he hurt none of his allies in the process, as they had ducked as soon as they heard his warning.
Rasa was staring at him with wide eyes, absolutely floored as he watched the wind dance around them in a deadly waltz, tearing down whatever was in its path. Hikaku was equally stunned by the fine control Naruto had over the wind nature, but was too busy blocking a sword strike to further look.
Naruto had to be careful not to use too destructive techniques, seeing as on one side they had an unstable wall that could come crashing down on them at any time, and on the other side was the edge of the path now that the four walls around them were torn down again, meaning that anyone who came too close to that edge would risk plummeting to their death.
Wonderful.
There weren´t many left. The seven archers were still unconscious and out of commission on top of the mountains. No one had checked on them, assuming they were dead. Nine people were injured or killed, five had been launched out by Naruto´s futon technique and only four were left.
Those four were now closely huddled together at the front, obstructing their way. One of them was their leader, who still looked relatively uninjured. The other was the poison using woman who had a nasty gash on her side from where Kasumi had struck her with her dual blades. She was supported by the sensor that somehow managed to sneak away from the turmoil and retreat. The last one was the man with auburn hair who had helped the leader with their doton jutsu. He too was suffering from an injury and a bad looking burn, likely a katon jutsu that he got caught up in.
Naruto jumped in front of the group, right next to Izuna. Both of them took a protective stance as the shinobi and samurai behind them were allowed a second to breathe, now that all their opponents were perfectly visible right in front of them. There were some injured on both sides, but most of the daimyo´s guards were standing, none were dead. The corpses only consisted of the bounty hunters and Naruto hid a quick wince at the sight.
He despised killing, but it was the way of the shinobi during this time, where not killing and only maiming the enemy could take your life instead. He had been too focused on making sure his comrades weren´t injured. Naruto wouldn´t have been able to make sure that no one was killed without starting a possible conflict between the Uchiha and him for protecting the enemy. Bounty hunters especially, since they were out for Izuna´s head as well.
In this time, Naruto couldn´t save everyone.
Speaking of Izuna, Naruto let his gaze slide over to the man, glancing over any visible injuries. He seemed fine so far with only few scrapes and not much of anything else. Although the sleeve of his robe was slightly scorched.
Izuna looked back at Naruto as well, his sharingan slowly stopping in its pin. Three now unmoving tomoe were focused on him and the clan heirs head tilted in silent question.
Giving a curt nod, Naruto answered in a low voice. “These are the only four left. I took out the seven hunters at the top. They´re after your bounty and after the daimyo.”
As soon as he finished the sentence, Kasumi, Rasa and Hikaku all appeared behind them, falling into formation behind Izuna. Now, four pair of sharingan eyes and one pair of glinting blue ones were fixated on the four bounty hunters in front of them. The samurai and the other squad had fallen back, still surrounding the daimyo and his daughter in order to protect them.
Izuna nodded, expression grim and understanding, but before he could answer, the leader of the fraction spoke up, voice venomous and filled with anger, “You!”
His piercing grey eyes were fixed solely on Naruto, almost like if they held enough hatred and anger, they could kill Naruto on the spot.
( The only time where that would likely be possible was with Sasuke´s mangekyou. That one time he´d used amaterasu on him Naruto just barely managed to protect himself with a layer of Kurama´s chakra.
The bastard had taken the phrase “if looks could kill” a little too seriously. Actually, this applied to every sharingan user that Naruto had fought against so far. )
Naruto tilted his head to the side, calm and collected as he evenly met the man´s dark gaze. “Me.”
The scarred man was not amused, very obviously, and snarled. “If it hadn´t been for you screwing this up for us at the beginning, we would have made it!”
Naruto could feel a faint offense in the Uchiha´s chakra next to him, showing that Izuna clearly thought otherwise.
Naruto shrugged before scratching the back of his neck, voice chipper and unbothered. “I´m not really sure about that. They´re pretty strong, even without me. And honestly? Those few people you had were a little too easy to take by surprise.” The blonde took great pleasure watching the man´s face redden with every word he spoke. Hikaku seemed to enjoy it too if the poorly hidden snort of laughter was anything to go by.
“You should leave,” Naruto said, startling all the people in hearing rage before anyone could answer. The chipper tone in his voice was gone, replaced with an even one. His chakra leaked over the place with purpose, creeping towards the four hunters. It wasn´t quite killing intent, not full force, but it was enough to make them stumble a step back at the feeling of it. Like biting cold water, it washed over them and forced them to step back with the flow, lest they wanted to be crushed by its overwhelming force.
“What are you doing, Kitsune?” A low hiss came from his side, making Naruto tilt his head back ever so slightly in order to subtly glance back at Kasumi, who had been the source of it. He didn´t answer her, and instead continued to speak to the scarred man.
“Not only are you outnumbered and most of your forces dead, one of your people left is also injured. Leave.”
There was no room for argument in his voice and one of the people, a man with auburn hair, actually took a step back. He had been the one to put up the doton jutsu with the leader, but a quick glare from said person was enough to stop the man dead in his tracks.
A moment of tense silence passed between them and neither person moved.
Suddenly, the leader´s previous furious expression was replaced with something manic and wild as he raised his hand and pointed two fingers up. It was the same sign he had given at the beginning, but this time, it wasn´t the archer who answered. One of the men laying only a few feet away from them, injured, barely conscious and unable to move, had his eyes fixated on his leader the entire time and then proceeded to rip his jacket open at the signal to reveal a bunch of explosive tags.
A suicide bomber?!
It seemed to be a last resort meant to take out their forces, because as the tags started to fizzle the leader once again used the same jutsu to make sure he and the three other people next to him were even remotely secure.
At the same time, right before the stone wall enclosed them, the woman´s face twisted into a wicked grin and she threw her poisonous weapons right at their group, as well as slightly off. If they reflected the weapons, they would be caught in the explosion, and if they tried to dodge the suicide bomber, the weapons would be in their way. Naruto didn´t know if the poison was lethal or not, but he´d rather not find out.
Quickly and without thinking he pulled up his storage seal and pulled out a regular barrier seal, attaching it to the kunai in his hand. What he was about to do was positively stupid, because normally barrier seals aren´t used to contain something – explosions for example – but for protecting, but right now that seemed to be the best course of action. Activating it like this, from afar, would be a strain on Naruto´s own chakra reserves, however it was worth the risk.
Reinforcing the kunai with fuuton, Naruto threw it through the air. The sharp whistle sound was drowned out by the fizzling of the explosions tags as the kunai embedded itself right in front of the already injured man.
“Fuuin!”
Naruto´s own tag expanded and purple chakra shot out of it, immediately wrapping around the man and containing the explosion. Blood painted the barrier and smoke immediately filled the view, obscuring the man´s death.
At the same time, Izuna had brought his hands up to form a quick sign, furious scowl on his face and sharingan flaring to life.
“Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu!”
Aiming to destroy their earth wall, Izuna released a ball of fire towards their opponents while Kasumi and Rasa were forced to jump back to avoid the oncoming onslaught of weapons.
Then, two things happened at once.
One; one of the poisoned kunai flew straight at Izuna while he was still spitting fire. Izuna definitely noticed by the way his eyes widened and flickered to the weapon, but his reaction was too slow, being mid attack and all. Naruto on the other hand did the only thing he could think of and, out of pure instinct, shoved the Uchiha aside, which unfortunately ended up with the kunai stuck in his side.
Izuna´s eyes widened in absolute shock as his fire slowly ceased. The heir turned around to Naruto to see the damage, ignoring the sound of explosion as his fire ball collided with the earth wall, but Naruto waved him off.
“I´m fine! Make sure the –“
“Hikaku!”
And that´s the second thing that happened. Immediately after the shout sounded out, both Izuna and Naruto turned to see the cause of it.
The fire ball colliding with the earth wall and the contained explosion had both caused the ground to shake. The place where Hikaku stood cracked and right under his feet, the edge of the path broke away.
Shit!
Kasumi tried to reach out for their youngest, but Hikaku´s grip slipped from her hand as he fell right off the edge, losing his footing. There was nothing he could attach himself to with chakra, since the ground right underneath him broke away and was falling in loose pieced right with him.
Naruto´s chakra flared and he did the only logical thing he would have done for anything else too.
He jumped.
.
Izuna thought, at the beginning of this entire fiasco, that everything went rather well all things considering.
He had watched as Kitsune took down the archers at the top as silently and swiftly as possible. He had witnessed the blonde man suppress his chakra once, but he seemed he forgot just how well he could do that, seeing as Kitsune´s presence was just so bright usually.
Then things started to escalate. He had to refrain from his usual fire jutsu and stuck more to combat and genjutsu, seeing as the place was narrow and easily shaken. His eyes took in the details around him at rapid speed and he could see that Kitsune had everything rather well handled. The stone wall around the daimyo was solid enough to allow them to focus on themselves for a second, so that was good at least.
Then Kitsune surprised them all by his absolutely flawless control over wind of all elements.
Izuna had thought, with how well his earth jutsu were, that he was an earth natured person. However, seeing the fox masked man manipulate the hardest to control element so easily and swiftly was mesmerizing.
As soon as he heard the warning, Izuna jumped back from his current opponent and watched as the wind tore the man away. The walls around them started breaking, but instead of the expected crash of stone on stone, the wind simply continued to carry everything that might come them to harm away. Kitsune meanwhile stood at the center, calm and deadly in his task.
Above all that, the man´s eyes were closed.
Looking closer with the sharingan, Izuna could see the way the wind maneuvered perfectly around everyone it wasn´t supposed to harm and swept away those who had to be dealt with. Such fine control over the hardest to master element was, once again, amazing. Dully, it reminded Izuna of Tobirama´s excellent control over water. The same deadly precision and perfection, only differently executed.
Their numbers dwindled and the group assembled at the front of the road. Kitsune took over the lead once the four remaining bounty hunters refused to give up, and Izuna let him.
It didn´t work, however, and the entire situation once again turned into chaos as a suicide bomber of all things decided to throw himself into the fight as well.
Kasumi and Rasa wisely enough jumped back, while Kitsune did – something apparently to stop the explosion. Izuna had seen it, granted with his excellent vision and his bloodline activated, but that didn´t mean he necessarily understood what he saw. It was a seal of some sort attached to a kunai that perfectly contained the explosion.
Izuna used the distraction to attack.
Only to miss that there had been a kunai flying his way.
He´d seen it, he´d registered it, but he didn´t manage to dodge. And frankly, Izuna thought dryly, he had no desire to find out if the poison was deadly or not.
“Madara´s going to murder me if I take the risk though. Or, since that´s counterproductive, lock me up somewhere if I do survive the poison. I´ll be put on medical leave for at least two months, dammit.”
Before anything could happen however, he could feel a hand quickly grab him by the arm and pull him aside, switching positions with whoever saved him from that injury. His heart stopped for a second, afraid that it might have been one of his clansmen, but when he whirled around to see it was Kitsune, his eyes widened in surprise and muted horror.
He hadn´t expected a complete stranger to reach out and take a poisoned weapon for him.
But Kitsune did. And the blonde didn´t even wince as the kunai ripped into his skin – skin with too little cover. Almost no armor on it besides the thin mesh shirt and the under shirt.
Izuna´s heart skipped a beat and he wasn´t entirely sure whether it was because of the general situation or because it was Kitsune specifically who had reached out and saved him from finding out whether or not that poison was going to cost his life. His hand reached out for the blonde, but to his absolute anger, Kitsune was so stupidly calm! Even with the sharingan, Izuna could detect no fear in the man´s frame. Only the slight twitch from the injury, but nothing more.
The man´s – the young adult´s, Izuna reminded himself, because Kitsune was only eighteen years old, barely into adulthood, and he had taken poison for Izuna. What sane person would do that for someone they barely even knew? – voice was calm and clear as he barked out something to Izuna about him being alright, but he didn´t even get to finish the sentence as Kasumi´s scream pierced through the air, louder than the sound of fire exploding against stone.
“Hikaku!”
Izuna watched in horror as his little cousin´s footing broke off the edge off the cliff. The sharingan practically burned with how intensely he was staring at the scene, but Izuna was too far away to get there in time, realizing this even as he was already moving. Not even Kasumi, the one closest to Hikaku, reaching out helped, because their hands slipped apart and Hikaku fell with wide and horrified eyes.
“No, no no no, please dammit! Move!” Izuna´s mind was screaming at him to move, act, do something but he was too slow for the second time during this fight.
His voice tore itself from his throat involuntarily. Izuna wasn´t someone who yelled often, but as his cousin fell to his death, composure hardly mattered “Hikaku!”
Out of the corner of his vision, a blur of bright yellow flew past him, faster than he could react, and suddenly Hikaku wasn´t the only one falling.
Izuna, Kasumi and Rasa watched as Kitsune of all people jumped off the cliff, right after Hikaku, and stretched his hand out for him to take. The stone collapsing whirled up the dust all around them and it was getting increasingly harder to see anything. The sharingan helped him see the faint outlines of his cousin and Kitsune, but the deeper they fell, the harder it was getting to see.
“Lord Izuna! Everything is secured back with the daimyo and his daughter, but we heard screaming from here! What happened?”
Akito was running up behind him with his second in command in tow. Izuna had seen them briefly during battle. They held the front and protected their client as they were supposed to, but over time the clan heir lost sight of them. It was a relief to know that they at least were fine.
Still, the clan heir watched with dawning horror as neither Kitsune nor Hikaku emerged from the cliffside.
A moment of utter silence passed.
Well, at least it felt like that to Izuna. He could numbly register the servants and the samurai around them compose themselves now that the explosions have passed. He could hear one of them confirming that the four attackers died due to the impact with his explosive fire. He could hear them fretting and getting aid to those that needed it, some also checked on the daimyo and his daughter who were completely unharmed thanks to Kitsune´s protection and their combined efforts.
But all of those sounds were muffled to the clan heir as he simply stared down the edge, waiting for the dust to clear to see any sort of life-sign. Anything to tell him that his little cousin found his footing or managed to reattach his feet to the wall with chakra, even if that was impossible, since the very stone was had been crumbling apart. Attaching himself wouldn´t have helped, Izuna knew, but refused to entertain that train of thought any longer.
Rasa was holding Kasumi back as she leaned over the edge, trying to reach for something that had long fallen. Akito was still talking, but the sound of blood rushing in his ears was too loud for him to register anything else.
His hands gripped the edge of the path so tightly that they turned white with the pressure.
Izuna waited as the people around him scrambled to regain their composure and tend to the wounded.
He waited as the scene replayed in his head, forever ingrained in his memory because of the sharingan that had been fixed on it from the beginning to the end.
He waited.
His heart seemed to pound louder with every second and distantly, Izuna was aware that maybe it was too late. Maybe he really had just lost his cousin. Maybe he –
“I hate the mountains! We should have taken the goddamn detour after all, dammit! Stupid old geezer and his stupid demand of going over this stupid mountain pass! When I get my hands on that bastard, the sage protect him because I won´t!”
The dust cleared as did the view downwards, and Izuna watched with wide eyes as Kitsune hung from the mountain side, one hand attached to a jagged piece of stone, bleeding and strained while the other was securely gripping Hikaku, stopping both of them from falling to death. His arm was slung around their clansman´s torso so that Hikaku was facing upwards.
There was a small hairline fracture in the man´s mask that suggested rocks falling down on it, but Kitsune had held strong and had shielded Hikaku.
Hikaku meanwhile was tightly gripping the blonde´s arm with wide and frantic eyes. Then, breaking the completely stunned silence, Hikaku let out a laugh that sounded a mixture of disbelieving and slightly horrified.
“Is – Is this really the time to curse out the daimyo?”
Izuna didn´t even have to see Kitsune´s face to know the blonde was rolling his eyes. “Sure is,” he answered, entirely deadpan.
The other Uchiha just… stared. Because what in the world?
Kitsune was acting like he hadn´t just jumped over a cliff to save a member of the clan head´s family. He was acting like he had not just risked his life moments before for a complete stranger, hadn´t taken a poisonous kunai to his side – which was still somehow stuck in his torso to Izuna´s horror – and could have almost died.
“Yes, that´s it. He´s a martyr. A moron. That´s the only explanation.” Izuna thought as he watched, completely stunned, how Kitsune hauled himself up the wall with Hikaku in tow, the Uchiha still tightly secured in his grip.
Then, to top it all off, Kitsune´s gaze flitted upwards to where Izuna and the other Uchiha were staring at them. His eyes widened and he tilted his head to the side. “Is everyone all right up there?”
Right.
“You –“ Rasa started, but doesn´t even finish, because what does one answer to that kind of question in this situation?
With a low grunt, Kitsune pushed his feet against the wall and channeled chakra into them before launching himself upward and twisting mid-air, making Hikaku in his grip yelp in surprise. Izuna stepped back immediately allowing the both of them to land, and Kitsune stuck a perfect landing on secure ground before gently putting Hikaku down on his own two feet.
The Uchiha stumbled a little but straightened himself just as quickly before letting out a relieved sigh. A hand placed over his side where the blonde´s arm had dug into and he winced ever so slightly. The abrupt catch saved his life, but it would definitely bruise.
Kitsune straightened and then looked around, humming as he seemingly scanned the area.
“It seems like no one is seriously injured. That´s great. I´m assuming the other four are dead? I can´t feel their chakra anymore.”
Because Izuna was still clan heir and the temporary leader of this squad, as well as a seasoned shinobi, he managed to somehow regain his senses and properly answer Kitsune´s question. Staring further at the man in disbelief is only going to damage his dignity.
“Yes, they´re dead. The road crumbled with the explosion and they fell down the cliffside,” like you just did, Izuna thinks but doesn´t say. He´s still floored with the way the man seemed so utterly unbothered and unconcerned by his ripped open and bleeding hand, as well as the very much poisonous kunai stuck in his side.
Kitsune stilled before letting out a heavy sigh. His head then turned and he let his eyes pause on the destroyed path. There was now a large gap in that mountain pass.
With a sigh and a quick motion of his hand, Kitsune slammed down onto the floor. “Doton; fukyuu no jutsu.”
With a burst of chakra the earth and stone around them began to raise ever so slowly, restoring the damage down to the path and allowing them to now further pass as soon as they were ready.
Kitsune stood up, dusting his hands off before shooting a grin towards the group – at least Izuna thinks it´s one, because he still can´t see the blonde´s face, even with the small cracks in the mask, and for some reason it´s just makes him even angrier. Izuna isn´t one to be angered quickly like his brother, but somehow Kitsune was capable of doing that.
“Then I think we´re done here!”