Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX- UZUME
In the end, her choice was taken away from her. She spotted some Kumo shinobi headed towards the Hokage's slumped over position, and body flickered in their direction. The pair, two women, made an attempt to resist her will, but the first met her eyes in shock and turned to the side, stabbing her partner with a kunai right in the throat before freezing in the complete motion and allowing Uzume to bury a shuriken into her neck before jumping over to the Hokage.
She kept a watchful eye on the Raikage, who seemed amused by how quickly she had dispatched his shinobi more than anything. When she reached Hiruzen, she expected him to do something, but he just watched her even as he weaved through Sensei's furious offensive, treating the man like four opened gates did not matter. Each slash Sensei made with his created arcs of cutting chakra that broke against the Raikage's black lightning like water against the shore.
The situation was bad enough that she felt herself stepping forward to join the fight, Hokage be damned. She couldn't watch her Sensei die here. At least that was until the ground behind the Raikage exploded and unleashed a monkey of all things. The monkey was a massive thing— about six feet tall and a mountain of muscle wearing a Konoha headband of all things. It kicked the Raikage right in the side and for the first time in the fight, she could tell that the Raikage felt that one.
"Go girl" The monkey shouted in her direction. She just sent a glare in its direction. The audacity of a primate to assume she took orders from it, of all things.
"Uzume!" She heard her Sensei's voice, and made her choice. She turned to the Hokage, wrestled the man to his feet, and leaned his body against hers.
"Retreat! Guard the Hokage!" She heard a voice scream, until she realised with a start that it was hers. She began running forward, taking some care not to worsen his situation but recognising that she had to leave as quickly as possible. She heard the sound of rushing footsteps behind her and the sharp breath of a man's lungs. She prepared herself to kill the fool, but needn't have bothered. Another rustling motion marked a friendly arrival. She knew those near silent steps. When the man went down, she did not expect him to get up again, and he didn't.
Uraume appeared at her side. "We'll form up around you. Arrowhead formation straight back to the village" She said in a rushed tone. Uzume nodded, still moving, not able to afford to stop. The Hokage was not heavy to her, but the way the weight was distributed, and his injuries, made him unwieldy to carry.
Uraume nodded to her, and then turned right around.
"Come at me" She screamed at what was clearly an approaching Kumo team, taking her stand.
'Don't fucking die. Shori will kill me if you die', Uzume thought as she continued to run.
XXXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
Yeah, I get it now. I get why this man was enough of a deterrent to basically make this strip of land between three great nations a no-go area in canon. It was actually impressive how strong he was. And this was all talent. Hanzo never could have had the kind of tutelage that people like Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru boasted. Neither could he claim the pedigree nor the access to resources. Regardless, he was stronger than they were, and possibly even stronger than I was, but the both of us were still a ways off from going all out so it was difficult to tell.
I ducked underneath a slash of his scythe and pushed into his space. His footwork was immaculate as he danced out of the way of my grasping fingers as I sought to force some of his chakra points closed. We wove through the ground as ran fell around us and unto our bodies in a continuous dance of attacks and counterattacks.
When I felt him begin to get into a lull, I flared my chakra and turned the ground around us into mud, forcing him into my element and commanding the mud to rise and encase him with a single handseal. Victory. At least, it was victory until I felt the control of the mud be snatched from me as I watched his chakra worm into the mud itself and force it away from me. "Earth release creates the substance, water release makes it malleable and allows seamless control. A powerful kekkei genkai." He said as I watched him do the impossible— beat me in a contest of chakra control.
"Perhaps I might have enjoyed facing your Grandfather. He was famed for his water release, while you are sloppy with the world's most powerful element" he said and the scoff was audible in his voice.
"Granduncle"
"What?"
"Tobirama was my Granduncle, not my Grandfather" I corrected, while I secretly wished he kept on talking as I felt Kurama get to work, building up to something.
"Oh, apologies for misspeaking then. The names are so confusing, you know?" He said with lips drawn ino a thin line.
"Please do send him my apologies when you meet in Naraka," he said, rushing at me.
'Kurama' I yelled mentally.
'On it' his reply was instant as I felt nature energy flood my body. I partitioned my reserves like the hero water had done instinctively, and balanced the smaller portion with the nature energy that Kurama had just fed me to turn it into nature chakra. It wasn't a lot, but I could make do in the end. I just had to make sure that this fight came to an end when I needed to.
I could feel it in my bones as Hanzo moved, moving nearly twice as fast as he had been before, showing that he was holding back, back then. I waited for him to get close and swing his scythe before I stepped into the swing and let the scythe's shaft slam to my neck with no effect while I punched straight through Hanzo's body as his midsection turned into water before reforming itself after my fist had passed.
"How the hell do you do that?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"The body is already seventy percent water. I just use chakra to take that number up a notch or two" He said, genuinely seeming like he was giving me the information. It wasn't like what he gave me was enough to use the jutsu, as even with my eyes I could scarcely understand what exactly he was doing. Perception did not equal understanding and even if I could perceive his chakra's movements, it did not necessarily mean that I understood and could replicate them— especially with the added context of the fact that the jutsu wasn't a fireball or something that allowed for massive trial and error. He'd turned his lung into water and back into an organ in a matter of seconds— pardon me if I wasn't champing at the bit to try something like that and risk fucking it up.
We met in the middle, and I could see his muscles bulging underneath his armour and this time when he stepped up to me, he led with his fist from his other hand, not the scythe in his right. I felt it as I blocked, expecting sage mode enhanced durability to carry the ay. It seemed, even for sage mode, he had a counter. When the two of us fought now, it was cleaner, sharper, deadlier.
The rain droplets dropping on my skin fell into his control, hardened to ice and stabbed at me. I flared my chakra, sending a blast of wind that tossed everything backwards, forcing Hanzo to brace to keep his footing. I shot at him, the ground beneath me scattering as mud flew backwards from the speed of my takeoff.
I punched at him, and he blocked with the shaft of his scythe. We strained against each other for a second or two, and I felt him shift his weight to allow me to overextend. He spun, bring the scythe to bear with its sharp end aimed right at my neck. At the last second, I bent with unnatural flexibility to allow it to miss. We were close once more and I spartan kicked him straight in the sternum even with half my body nearly horizontal, parallel to the ground. The attack landed, but I was surprised little when my foot hit naught but water. He pushed on with the attack, the scythe coming around again as I began to straighten up. I leaned into it, grabbing the blade with my bare hand.
I revelled in the shock that showed on his face as I snapped the chakra metal into pieces with my bare hands, leaving him with only the shaft, bladed end gone. He danced backwards, feet ghosting over the ground as I stomped the earth with my foot, creating a mini earthquake aimed at destabilizing him. I might as well have done nothing as his feet moved surely over the unstable and shifting surface. It was like he couldn't even feel the earthquake itself.
He spun and as he turned, there was a lance of water screaming through the air as it came in my direction. I crossed my arms in front of me and tanked the attack. With sage mode, it wasn't even enough to scratch my skin. Nice. If his attack's failure meant anything to him, then Hanzo was too experienced to show it. Instead, the temperature around him fell. He stretched a hand in my direction. Only my byakugan allowed me to see the shards of ice he created right in front of his hand. They spun, moving so quickly that it was difficult to imagine that he could control objects that small moving that fast with any degree of precision, but that was the only conclusion that made sense considering what happened next.
The ice shards hit each other at an angle too acute to be accidental, creating a spark. The spark was all the warning I had to cross my hands in front of my face. Next thing I knew, all my world was lightning. I had lost unconsciousness for a brief second, I was sure. Because when I came to, my vision was tinged in red.
"Kurama?" I asked out loud.
"You fool. Did you genuinely think your paltry mastery of nature chakra would allow you to survive an attack like that one? You fucking idiot. Who did I fucking offend? Why have I been cursed with an idiot for a host? You'll get us killed, you fucking…" I tuned him out in favour of checking my wounds.
Even with Kurama's chakra shielding me, the top layer of skin covering both my arms had been burned right off. Fuck. With just nature chakra— since kurama's own chakra stacked in on top of that, I would have lost both arms and probably much off what lay behind them— my head. The injuries were already beginning to scab and heal over— such was the vitality of Kurama's chakra, but still, they did a lot to drive home the threat this man posed.
"Jinchuriki" Hanzo drawled with audibly disdain as he tossed the shaft of his scythe off to the side. I shoved Kurama's chakra inwards, back into the seal and the world stopped being tinged with red. I wasn't good enough with Kurama's chakra to rely on it for a fight like this one. The threat that he had something waiting in the winds that could kill me in one fell swoop was too acute for me to fight in a state I was not fully familiar with. Hanzo wasn't the kind of opponent to be overwhelmed with sheer brute force— especially now that he was in the prime of his life.
I reached behind me into my kunai pouch and grabbed a set of six in each hand, sending them flying about the place, giving me spots to teleport to if the situation became dire.
"A recent addition. Now, are we going to stand around all day, or are we going to dance?" I said, smile wide and leaning heavily on my naturally annoying personality— at least that was how others described it to me.
"Are you stalling to allow your cousin heal those teammates of hers? I assure you numbers matter little against one such as I" If he was expecting anything to his words, then it definitely wasn't what I gave him. Laughter.
"As if I'd need help to kill someone like you. What are you again? Some up-jumped rice farmer from a minor county too unimportant to be remembered in history as a place where your betters do battle." That one got under his skin, I could tell. Rebreather or not, I could see it in his body language, in the way his eyes tightened. Was I taking advantage of meta knowledge to be an even more effective arsehole? Yes. Yes, I was.
"With the others, I killed them because they were in my country. It wasn't personal. I was just doing my duty. With you, Shorirama Senju, however. What I will do to you, I will enjoy".
"Did you have to make it sound like a weird sex thing?" I asked. His face tightened further behind the rebreather, but he said no words. He was going to let his ninjutsu speak for him. He began to weave seals faster than I'd ever seen anyone— not even Hiruzen could weave seals so quickly.
"Suiton: Bakusui Shōha" (Water Release: Exploding Water Colliding Wave), He intoned, and then the world became water. Or at least that was what happened if you elected to avoid describing the beginning stages of the jutsu. I wouldn't do that here because the jutsu's formation itself was fascinating enough to necessitate description. As a native of the land of rain, his water release began with the rain itself. The rain that fell around us halted in the air, arranging itself into one stream even as water rose from the ground to join it, and then there was the water from his mouth. The water erupted into the air, exploding like a geyser, and creating a giant wave that came down in all directions.
I had blood aplenty from the earlier injury I'd sustained, so I took a small amount of it on my fingers and began to weave seals. Eight seals in all before I flared my chakra, committing about half of it before I slammed my hand to the ground and seals began to spread. "Kuchiyose no jutsu: Jinpei" I whispered, creating a large plume of smoke as I felt my feet leave the muddy ground in favour of Jinpei's smooth hide. The water parted as it came toward us, parting the water with his superior control of the element.
"Kuchiyose" I heard from the other end of the field and a creature that I had previously only seen on the small screen took shape before me, Ibuse. Both of the creatures towered over the battlefield. Jinpei was bigger— about double Ibuse's size, but that was not to take anything away from the other creature. In fact, it was a credit to him that he could be half Jinpei's size. As a whale, there were few things that could claim such a feat.
Ibuse seemed to take a breath, and then spewed a massive cloud of purple gas— poison. If my memory of canon served, then this was the poison that had given him the upper hand when he fought the allied shinobi forces. I reached to my neck and unsealed my fuinjutsu enhanced gas mask— the same one I'd used against Chiyo while Jinpei did something more impressive. With aa growl, the water rose under his control and swallowed up the gas. For some reason, he managed to control the water so perfectly that all the gas was trapped within. Then he sent that ball of water flying straight for Hanzo's position atop Ibuse's head. "Nice one, Jinpei" I said with a stomp on his head that he probably barely even felt.
Off to the side, I could see Katsuyu getting the hell out of dodge. Within her mass, I could make out the familiar signatures of Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Renjiro. Good. That was one less thing to think about.
Hanzo stretched out his hand, and did the impossible. He snatched the water from Jinpei's control, leaving the both of us shocked and reeling. We struggled to manage to avoid it in time, as Jinpei commanded the water beneath us to move his massive bulk out of the way. He hissed as the water hit the area we'd occupied at about double the speed he'd sent it at Hanzo with. Some droplets splashed both over Jinpei and I. Fuck. Was the poison contact-based? It definitely felt like something had hit me that wasn't water, but that could be psychosomatic.
When the ground beneath us erupted, it was another shock as the Ibuse Hanzo stood atop dissolved as a mirage and the one beneath us slammed into Jinpei's form from underneath. I teleported to the side, and was instantly beset by icicles from all sides. I chained my teleportation twice and was forced into a Kaiten when the ice managed to somehow keep coming my way.
I was reeling, struggling to react. I couldn't see through the Kaiten, but he couldn't see me either. But then it wouldn't matter where I teleported to, he'd have an attack waiting for me. And then there was the water that had splashed on my skin. I could feel part of my body beginning to go numb. Fuck.
"Retreat" Kurama barked in my mind.
"Like hell" I said, not even considering it. No one is unbeatable, and Hanzo definitely didn't have me beat. I just had to outmaneuver him. At least that was my thought until I felt my connection to Jinpei snap. He'd returned to the ocean. Hanzo and Ibuse alone? I could still do it, I thought as I kept spinning.
"Was the goal to rescue your cousin or to kill the Salamander?" Kurama asked.
"Fuck you"
"You know I'm right. You can come back to fight him another day when you aren't already half-tired from fighting and then sprinting to Konoha, and your supplies are not so exhausted." He was right. I hated it, but he was right.
"Do the wise thing" he said.
When the chakra dome that marked the kaiten disappeared, I was not there.
A/N: And so Shori v Hanzo ends with a tie, with Shori being the one to retreat in this case. Next three up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.