BURNING CORPSES
Underlined - English
‘Italicised’ - Thoughts
In Text Bolded - Tailed Beast
OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI
Being trained by one Sannin does not prepare you to take on another. But it is quite possible that having nothing to lose might just get you there.
As I dance around the Sannin, sending devastating punch and well placed senbon and waves of water and flame I realize that I don’t want to die.
But if I did … that would be okay.
Kabuto is dead. The Fourth War would never be fought against the dead brought back by Endo Tensi.
Itachi is dead. Sasuke will never turn against the leaf in the middle of the war.
Kisame is dead. There goes all the major attacks against Bee, meaning that there is just that one more step before the Akatsuki can get the Eight-Tailed-Beast. And I warned Guyki. He can tell Bee and tell Yugito, and then they’d be on guard.
I left my notebooks behind. Shik … Konoha and the Nations will have the extra boost needed to prepare for Akatsuki. To prepare for Zetsu and Kaguya and the Eye of the Moon.
I left all I could to prepare Kakashi for the truth about Obito.
If I died here, what could really be lost? Another medic? A good fighter?
If I died, then after the war was resolved then maybe everything would go back to how it was. Have a happily ever after, just like they deserve.
Too much to hope for, maybe.
But I don’t want to die, so I fight with everything I have. I counter every time and heal myself as I go. I destroy and cut and slash and crush, and he matches me every time.
The fight - stretching forever and over in an instant - comes to a climax -
Kusanagi is coming at my neck at a speed I can’t avoid and my eyes flare to life, chakra rushing to fill my sockets like water from a shattered damn.
My vision is tinted red -
Everything slows down -
Becomes clear -
And a flare of chakra brings the sternum of Susanoo around me in a firework of purple, just enough to throw him off - catching the final blow and allowing me an instant to reach out and jab a chakra scalpel right into the throat of the first Otokage and he freezes .
A labored breath of mine later and his head tumbles to the floor.
Another purely instinctual flare of chakra leaves his body and head crumbling to dust and ash under the brunt of the ever burning black flames of Amaterasu. My head aches -
It takes a moment for me to remember to kick away Kusanagi before it can become nothing more than scrap metal.
I pick it up. Seal it away.
Lob Kabuto’s body into the still burning pyre of his master and watch as the two disgusting, sadistic, inhuman semblances of men create an inferno - the air becoming thick with the smell of their burning death.
The Oto nin, gathered around the barrier ready to attack, are silent. I let my chakra rush in a dramatic, instantaneous move to pull from my thus untouched Yin Seal and heal myself back into peak condition in a show of might.
Then I drop the barrier.
Otogakure burns with a cacophony of deafening explosions and singing flames.
I try to muster up any semblance of regret: I fail.
Otogakure was not like the other villages. The Land of Sound had civilians, yes. But the village did not, not really. Everyone was either an experiment, a prisoner, or mad scientist drunk on power. There were no exceptions.
I had checked, of course. Let the newest prisoners escape and put the most pitiful out of their misery … but it was the very pinnacle of how depraved humanity became once they tried to play God.
So I burned it. Burned all the research, the materials. Reduced the experiments and Orochimaru’s backup bodies into cinders and kindling. Wiped Otogakure off the face of the Earth.
Well, the Elemental Nations at least.
But not before I got a list of every single one of Orochimaru’s bases across the continent. Couldn’t leave this to chance, after all.
I had some hunting to do.
UMINO IRUKA
When he finally hears the whole story, it’s Naruto giving him the rundown behind privacy seals over a couple dozen bowls of ramen four months since Noa … disappeared. Two months since Elder Shiamura Danzo-sama had been declared dead due to acute heart failure.
After his old student finished, Iruka has to finish swallowing his ramen with difficulty - has to excuse himself. He told Naruto that he’d catch up later, that he just had a lot of papers to grade.
Iruka beelines for his apartment, long strides crossing to the corner of his kitchen to dismantle his traps and crouch to ply up a loose floorboard. To remove the packages beneath.
He hadn’t known what to do when Noa had … had defected. She wasn’t dead … but they had barely talked about the books at all, much less what to do if she defected from Konoha .
Such an impossibility had never been a consideration.
Eventually he had sat on them, holding them close through his uncertainty of Noa’s guilt.
But now he had the whole story - or as much of it as he could have. And he had to do something .
Noa had said to give it to an English speaker, but if it was from Noa …
Then he needed an excuse to corner Shikamaru.
OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI
“Quite a name you’ve developed for yourself, you fucking heathen.” I hear behind me, not bothering to pretend to flinch - to pretend that I didn’t know they were coming. “Jashin would love to have you. Priest, sacrifice, whore - it doesn’t really matter to him. Or to me.”
I turn to face Hidan, scowl worn openly as I assess the man. My eyes flicker to where I can feel what must be Kakuzu on the plateau behind the Bloody Priest.
‘At least I finished destroying most of the bases,’ Is all I can think before I pull out my tanto, ready - though a bit unwilling - to dance.
“Hidan,” I semi-greet him. “Jashin would be disgusted by a sacrifice like me.”
“But you’ve destroyed an entire Hidden Village!” He laughs, his white white teeth shining in the tundra sunset. “Not even I have done that!”
“Which makes your bounty very high,” Kakuzu’s grating voice appears behind me, and I lunge sideways to keep both of the Akatsuki members in my line of sight. “Which means that I’ll be taking your head , Fukushuu no Megami.”
The Vengeful Goddess.
Flattering.
“How high?” I ask, honestly curious. I’d been unable to get my hands on a bingo book in the half a year I’d been a missing nin.
“It’s impolite to discuss money,” said the century old murderous miser. “But let’s just say you’ve broken some records, shall we?”
…
Well FUCK . The last person to do that was the Yellow Flash when he got the order of Flee on Sight .
WHAT THE FUCK DID I GET?!?!?!
No way I was getting out of here unless either the both of them were dead or I was.
I waste no time, lunging for Hidan and slicing at him with my tanto - activating the barrier the moment that I was far enough from Kakuzu to keep him out and me in .
I would never make it out if they used any semblance of teamwork - not that the Akatsuki were very well known for such.
Keep Hidan moving. Don’t let him get your blood or draw his sigel on the ground. Destroy him so much Kakuzu can’t put him back together again.
Simple.
Right?
NARA SHIKAMARU
“Have you seen the updated Bingo Book?”
Shikamaru looked up at his father, looming above where he was sat at their Shogi set. The Nara Clan Head was frowning at a copy in his hand, passing it down to him.
“What are you …” Shikamaru trails off once he catches a glimpse at the order.
“Flee on Sight? The last person to get that order -”
“Was the Yellow Flash after he turned the tides of the Third War,” Shikaku finished for him, grimacing. “Look at how this woman got her order.”
He continued to read, noting characteristics like hair color (silver, maybe from Kumo?) and approximate age (mid to late twenties) before he saw it.
He had to reread it. Twice.
“She destroyed Otokagure no Sato ,” He deadpans, unable to even comprehend such an act. “She killed Orochimaru . She destroyed an entire hidden village. By herself. ”
“In fairness, Oto was not the most sound of villages - and certainly not the most powerful,” His father points out tiredly, rereading over his shoulder. “But she still managed to kill a Sannin - past his prime or not - and destroy an entire established base full of shinobi in a night .”
“Do we know where she came from?” Shikamaru asks, fingers letting the Book drop as he steepled his fingers. “Affiliations, names, anything ?”
“They’re calling her the Vengeful Goddess in place of any name,” Shikaku tells him, sitting across from his son. “She spoke in a Kumo dialect, and there was tell of a traveling storyteller called ‘Okurimono’ that matched her description floating around there a couple months ago. Apparently Kumo’s Jinchurkis are claiming that she -” the scarred man nodded at the Book “- killed Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame.”
He swallowed dryly, “Does Sasuke know?”
His father nodded grimmly. Shikamaru had to push down the urge to growl.
“Just after his name had been cleared, too,” He lamented. “He must be devastated.”
“It was always a possibility,” Shikaku reminded him, but he wasn’t contradicting him. Just stating a fact.
“This …”
He was lost for words.
“Yeah,” His father sighed, pushing forward a shogi piece. “Yeah.”
OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI
As I burn the last of Hidan, the cloying smell of what was his charred flesh rides on the smoke, steadily choking me out. I pull a Hidden Mole and drop beneath the earth just as I drop the barrier, feeling as a very much enraged and determined ImmortalTM barrels over to see if there was anything salvageable about his partner.
Answer: no. I made sure of that.
Always burn the bodies. Any semi educated 21st century teenager could tell you that’s how you kill an immortal. (Or any fucker that you want gone for good. Yay incineration.)
And once upon a time, forever ago, that’s exactly what I was. Normal, 21st century, teenager.
Once upon a time.
Let’s just hope the motherfucker didn’t have some goddamn horcruxes and we’re good.
Time for take two. I shift, with my chakra pulled in tight, underneath the feet of the Kakuzu of the Threads and activate my barrier.
NARA SHIKAMARU
“Shikamaru?” The Heir’s old Academy sensei’s voice sounded from the doorway. “Sorry, am I interrupting something?”
Both Nara men looked up to see the scarred man shuffling in the doorway.
Shikaku shook his head, looking at the game that had come to a stalemate twelve turns ago. “No, this game was stagnating. I should check in with Hokage-sama, anyway.”
They both watch his father leave and Shikamaru nods at the vacant pillow, smiling fondly as Iruka sat down with the kind of polite awkwardness he remembered from his Academy days.
“What can I do for you, Iruka-sensei?” He asks with a crooked smile, reaching down to push the pieces back into their starting positions. “Did Naruto do something again?”
“Ahh,” the chunin rubs the back of his neck wryly. “If only it was that simple.”
He watches as the teacher pulls out a sealing scroll, pushing chakra into it to release a pile of well wrapped packages. Shikamaru feels his eyebrows furrow as the pile is pushed towards him.
“Sensei …?”
“These are - were - Noa’s,” Iruka told him abruptly, cutting him off and stunning him into silence. “She said to give it to you or Team 7 when … if she died. I didn’t know what to do after - well. I got the rundown of what happened from Naruto yesterday, and I …”
Shikamaru’s hands shake ever so slightly as he reaches out, fingers skimming the top of the stack. He swallows thickly.
“Thank you, Sensei.”
Iruka nodded, scratching the scar across the bridge of his nose as he clambered up, the oddness of the situation belaying his usual grace.
Shikamaru picks up the first and tears into the paper, holding his breath.
OKURIMONO NO CHISHIKI
We end up locked in a parody of an embrace, in a way. His hand locked around my neck, one of mine around his last heart and the other with a kunai shoved up under the tender flesh of his chin.
“Where is your base?” I ask, eyes narrowed and unheeding of Kakuzu’s grip tightening around my larynx, his fingers so long they dug into the protrusions of my spine. “Where is the Mountain’s Graveyard?”
“I was paid never to say,” He growls, the muscles in his arm flexing with some held back reflex.
“Money is worth nothing to the dead,” I try to reason, pushing sound through as I reinforced my body even further with chakra. I was running seriously low on chakra after running nonstop for months and fighting the whole time. If he tore into me I would survive … but it would draw too much out of me to live for long.
The immortal, sent once to kill the Hokage - the first Hokage - (and managed to get away with his life even if he didn’t manage to complete his mission) simply laughed.
“But I was to never die,” He chortled with gallows humor.
My Sharingan saw as he prepared to rip out my throat. I destroyed his final heart before he could even twitch.
His huge body collapsing nearly pinned me, but I manage to stumble back. Fall back, really.
Holy shit.
I just killed two immortals.
I just killed two immortals .
I light Kakuzu on fire - with normal Katon, not having the chakra to waste on Amaterasu - and ungracefully scooch back, back coming to rest pressed against the barrier.
‘ When did I get this powerful ?’
I was … I was an apprentice to the Sannin. Trained in Taijutsu by Gai. Trained in basically everything by Kakashi. Reflexes because of Anko, aim because of Genma …
And all of it lead to me and two jinchuuriki taking down Itachi and Kisame. Lead to me getting the Sharingan, the ultimate cheat. Defeating the Rogue Sannin …
And ending up here.
‘The Vengeful Goddess,’ Kakuzu’s name for me echoes around my head.
The adrenaline crash hits me, I feel my eyelids flutter as the weight of the world finally hits me.
As I fall, slumped to the side, the light of a burning dead man sears my eyelids.
The light fades to darkness as exhaustion claims me.