A strange new life

5.11

Tree hopping was, at least for me, one of those quintessential ninja staples. I mean, who doesn’t remember those moments of Naruto jumping from tree to tree, and the image of those same trees blurring past? Or that impression of movement, in which most ninjas didn’t really hop from one tree to the next, but threw themselves, like a toss from a slingshot, with turning in the air and landing with an impact and all. I didn’t have it in me to do that, even if envy burned inside me at seeing Hayase do just so.

He threw himself from one branch to another, flipping upside down before landing on the next branch.

My thoughts didn’t stay in ninja hopping for long. In the distance, roars of an unknown creature, and the sounds of battle, took all of my attention.

The sounds weren’t anything I could place. It didn’t sound human, not any animal I knew. The place of battle wasn’t even hard to find. Not with huge branches popping out into the sky. Yamato was going all out. Which didn’t bode well. Yamato was a strong jounin. He had the experience, the techniques, and his kekkei genkai. From what I knew of the man, he preferred small scale attacks. His mokuton lent well to restraining enemies, and if he was forced to bring out the big guns, then whatever he was fighting wasn’t anything easy to deal with.

Hayase sped up, a muttered curse under his breath. “Shit.”

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I understood his sentiment. I didn’t know what enemies we were facing, but I could at least plan. For some reason, Yamato didn’t want me using Mokuton. The first day of our mission, he called me out away from the others.

“Hinata-san,” the man started in his serious voice, big black eyes staring at me. “Unless it’s an emergency, please avoid using your Mokuton jutsu.” I tilted my head, unsure of why. “It drains too much of your chakra.” Yamato had explained.

That was a few days ago. It smelled of hogwash for me, but I wasn’t about to disobey. I could see the advantage of keeping my abilities secret. I don’t think it was widespread knowledge yet, even in Konoha, that I had the same ability as the first Hokage, even if it left me gimped in the chakra department.

Mid-jump, I picked up several kunai. Tied explosive tags around them. With a few others, I wrapped with my Kekkai Hōjin tags, the non explosive version. Our mission was to gather information, I would try to capture instead of kill — another howl cut the afternoon air, a distant explosion sent a plume of smoke up to the sky — even if I didn’t think whatever was roaring like that was human enough to be interrogated.

We arrived at a scene of chaos straight out of a demented nightmare.

Fighting against Yamato and Sai’s ink animals was something that might once have been a human. It had legs, arms, heads. I counted three legs, seven arms and five heads. The amalgamation of what once was a human was tall. Two of me on top of each other might not be as tall as the thing. Two normal sized arms protrude from the front. It held a huge fuma shuriken. Another arm, protruding from the shoulder, was almost as long as the creature was tall. It was bulging, muscular and held a sword that wouldn’t be out of place in the hands of some berserker anime characters. Another hand had claws like fingers. Other hands held kunai, shuriken and wires.

The creature had one head in what might have once been its chest. The face looked like an enraged man in his early forties. Black hair, prominent tear troughs. Somehow, that head still had a red bandanna around its forehead. The head on the right shoulder was of a young woman with long black hair. The woman’s face resembled those evil spirit faces. The mouth, too large for the face, the eyes all white. The hair moved like it was alive, clumps forming into what looked like spears and spikes, lashing at everything nearby.

The back of the creature bulged, in a way that made me think of an even worse Hunchback of Notre-dame. There were heads at the creature’s back, screaming as if in pain. Two were female: one had short green hair, while the other a mane of orange. A pang of something uncomfortable hit me in the chest. Linlin’s crying face intruded in my thoughts. The last head was of a male in his twenties, with purple hair.

The creature's stomach had a huge mouth, with serrated teeth.

Yamato-One was crouched, hands on the ground, face serious. Yamato-Two dashed in and out in a frantic battle with the enemy. A third Yamato was near Sai, wrapped by blue strands of hair coming from the enemy. Wood and roots and branches tried to tie down the enemy to no avail.

Sai sat down, leaned against a tree. Hands on his stomach, blood pooling out of a wound. The other hand on a scroll laid on the ground. Around the battlefield, a group of ink tigers harassed and distracted the monstrosity.

In the moments I stood there gawking at the scene, the living black hair pierced through Yamato3. In a puff of smoke, Yamato-Three transformed into wood. A mokuton clone. But the clone’s defeat left Sai vulnerable to enemy attack.

The ink tigers leapt in the hair’s path, protecting Sai, but the situation wasn’t sustainable.

The many combat scenarios Yamato had us discussing in our strategy meeting at nights came to my mind. None of them covered this exact situation, but I knew what was expected of me. In team seven, my usual role was one of support and control. Sasuke and Naruto were good at engaging the enemy head on, and improvising mid fight and abusing opportunities to turn any fight in our favor. My role there was to distract, create opportunities, reinforce them when needed. In this mission, my role was similar. Create distractions and opportunities, set up traps, precision strikes whenever possible.

With a single glance at Hayase, who gave a brief nod, I prepared to engage. My hands flashed with a Tiger seal. I pushed my chakra in the necessary pathways. By my side, in a puff of smoke, out popped two shadow clones. Without waiting, I dug into my pouch, share some of my tools.

Clone-chan 1, newly dubbed Distraction-chan, took the smoke bombs and explosives. Clone-chan 2, aka Seal-chan, took my prepared barrier kunais, among other supplies, gave me a grave nod. I took out some of my special explosive seals. Giddy excitement bubbling in my gut. It was finally time to explode things! Err, no, it was time to save our teammates and do cool ninja stuff.

I glanced at Distraction and Seal-chan. Both had this silly, goofy grin on their faces. Feet boobing, body coiled, like they were trying not to move. I shook my head. My clones could be so silly. They didn’t have my amazing self control. With one last nod the clones flicked and operation Explode stuff… err Rescue Annoying Sai officially started.