The first time is always the worst

This would have been updated earlier by a few days, but a buddy of mine and I were talking for hours at a time about multiple different subjects that delayed me in updating this chapter, which included but was not limited to details about Indelible, the Star Wars fic I'm writing, other fics I have planned, AI generated images of Hitler smoking a blunt outside of Auschwitz, Hitler crucifying Jesus, the merits and legality of shooting somebody after they kick a door in, beheading a home invader and whether it would be legal to keep the head as a trophy, the morality of universe hopping to have sex with somebody's daughter in that universe and coming back with pictures, and if it would be considered theft, defrauding, or rape if you paid a hooker with counterfeit money willingly and knowingly.

Yeah, neither of us are completely sane.

Anyway, here's the newest chapter of Invictus.

Hope you enjoy.

/////////////

A blade came down towards my face, tearing into my Hitai-ate and going down my face and my collarbone.

I screamed and got kicked away violently, my opponent hazy and difficult to see as he charged at me without holding anything back.

My sword came up to protect my chest and ward off the stream of blistering attacks, the force behind them making my arms shake as one screeched across my blade and twisted to try and slash at my face again with the tip of the blade.

"There is no escape." The scene shifted to Orochimaru's disgusting hiss of a voice, terror running throughout every inch of my being as I struggled to evade him in the forest.

My chest burned as I fell to my knees, wheezing as I struggled to not choke on my own blood, everything hurting as I saw the familiar three tomoe of a Sharingan looking straight into my eyes with horror shining in them.

"I choose you." Orochimaru's voice hissed, my entire body exploding in agony as a scream was torn from me, my vision doubling over as Killing Intent overwhelmed everything.

All I could see was my own blood on the ground, everything red and stinking of the coppery scent of it.

It wasn't ending, and I felt as if I were suffocating under an unconquerable weight, my arm grasping desperately for a sword that wasn't there.

////////////////////

I bolted awake, attached to a large tree so I didn't fall out of it.

'Son of a bitch.' I took several deep breaths to try and calm my racing heart, clenching my fingers to stop the shaking in my hand.

The nightmares I periodically had weren't pleasant, but they were manageable. The bad part was that they had gotten worse over the last few days, and I didn't know why that was the case.

Pinging my senses out to feel for everyone, I located the dozen or so clones out on patrol, most being mine while Kakashi had two of them out there.

Speaking of the man, he was fast asleep along with the other ANBU, save for Neko, who was on alert for this shift.

Judging from the sun just about to peak up from the horizon, we'd be departing soon to get the rest of the way to our destination, so I decided to just stay awake instead of trying to sleep for maybe an hour at best.

Stretching my legs, I disconnected the wire holding me and I leapt down, tucking into a roll as my feet hit the ground to reduce the strain on my knees.

I straightened up and walked towards where Neko was, the purple haired ANBU acknowledging my presence as I reached the cluster of trees being used as cover.

"You have an annoyingly bright signature." She said, her eyes squinted behind her mask. "It itches when I sense you up close."

"My sister is even worse." I shrugged, not embellishing at all.

My chakra was more dense than hers, courtesy of me using it in a much wider variety than she did. But her chakra was the brightest I ever felt, likely from her having Ashura's chakra interwoven in her own signature.

"And she's not here in front of me." Neko pointed out, giving me a wink.

I shrugged my shoulders again and grabbed a storage seal from one of my pockets, popping it open to grab a ration bar.

I didn't say a word as I ate it, scowling at the taste and texture. It was more calorie dense than the ones that tasted somewhat alright, but it felt like I was chewing on an eraser dipped in rubber glue.

'All I need is a box of crayons and some glue for dipping sauce to be a marine.'

"I'm not going to ask what had you feeling amused." Neko said, probably sensing the shift in my chakra. "But I need to say something." Her tone changed at the last part.

My eyes flicked to hers, the cool professionalism of an ANBU operative giving way to a more soft-spoken tone.

"Hayate is a very dear friend to me, and you saved his life during the exams. I wanted to thank you."

I swallowed the last bite of the bar and digested what she said, somewhat uncomfortable with how I didn't know how to respond.

"I just, I was just doing what he would have done if I was at risk. Shinobi are to watch out for their comrades."

Neko laughed lightly, pulling out her own ration bar.

"Then I guess you learned that lesson very well." She finished, taking a bite of her breakfast.

We stayed in a companionable silence for some time, the rest of our group eventually waking up. Once they did, we packed up all the gear and took off, only waiting until all of us had ate some.

If this was what ANBU missions were like in-between combat, I could get use to it. Calm. Tranquil. Sometimes boring.

It's not like shit would blow up in our face for no reason.

/////////////////

'Yes, try breaking through the seals.'

Kabuto grinned, his bunshin he left behind popping to let him know everything was in place.

Konoha ANBU were working alongside Kumo to breech the facility, which suited Kabuto perfectly.

The experiments and prisoners within were too difficult to extract with the limited timetable he had from having to evade the initial patrols set out, but that was an acceptable tradeoff for what he left to hopefully kill them.

An S-rank threat that was incapable of being killed would be more than enough, and the thought of what could be done with them was limitless.

Sure, it was nearly sacrilegious to do it, but Kabuto didn't care. He was already a wanted man, and this would be a message to Konoha and Kumo that he was more of a hassle to deal with than what it was worth.

It was unfortunate that he had to use this one. It felt... wrong to be this dismissive about it. But the other samples Kabuto acquired weren't useable for more than one reason.

He wasn't skilled enough with the technique yet, and the others could break the leash potentially.

With that thought, Kabuto continued on in his journey, attempting to get more priceless objects from Orochimaru's bases.

////////////////////

'Two miles out.' Kakashi signaled with his off hand as we kept racing across the flat plains, a small cluster of trees ahead of us.

'So that's where they're held up.' I thought, keeping a constant flow of chakra circulating in my legs to ward of any muscle fatigue.

We'd been at this for several hours, a constant race towards our destination that was only interrupted by a piss and shit break that involved me having to give a few of my storage scrolls to use as a toilet for them.

Absolute barbarians.

I don't care that I thought of that on my own to ward off being tracked, the fact that Kakashi ordered me to use my ink and paper to make portable toilets for the group was a knock against my pride.

I was the sensor and seal expert, not waste disposal.

We finally reached the woods and Kakashi stopped right at the edge, whistling loudly.

"Axel!" A voice shouted from our left, giving a code phrase.

"Wax!" Kakashi responded, the two halves of completely separate things being paired up as a phrase.

With that announcement, the Kumo ANBU came out of the woodwork and appeared in front of us, the faint shimmer of their chakra cluing me in to their wariness.

3 guys and one female, said woman being the probable sensor of their group because she was staring at me specifically.

Their armour wasn't that much different from ours, but it had a few aesthetic differences.

"Good to see you." Kakashi nodded at who was likely the one in charge of the four, the man being older than the others based on the faint greying of his hair.

"Likewise," The leader nodded, pointing towards himself, "Call me Zee. These are E, T, and Di." He gestured towards the others one by one.

Evidently, Kumo ANBU used a different codename system than us.

Kakashi then introduced us, pointing at me last.

"Our seal expert and sensor."

Zee nodded towards me, his eyes flicking towards my hair for a moment.

"Have you found anything out before we arrived?" Kakashi asked, drawing a faint scowl Zee.

"We've scoped out the general area." The Kumo nin said gruffly, nodding at the rest of us politely. "No explosives or traps outside of the bunker, but the entrance is a different story." He then signaled for the one next to him to speak.

"Low yield explosives throughout the entrance hall," The younger of the two, E, explained clinically, his eyes darting around quickly, "Can't be sensed from the low emissions."

'That sounds like some of the tags I make to not be detected.'

Exploding tags with intentionally small blast yields could be modified to be nigh undetectable, if you knew what your were doing of course.

"Couldn't you have flooded the area with water and lightning to trigger the seals?" I asked, tilting my head curiously.

Most seals that were triggered by chakra couldn't tell the difference between two different chakra laden elements and a human, while the weight of water would trigger the weight ones.

"Already tried it," E replied, his eyes avoiding mine, "Storage seals inside sealed away the water before anything could be done."

'Damnit.' I hissed internally, expecting something like that from Orochimaru. Flooding water or flammable liquid underground would be a deathtrap, so seals like that would be a good insurance policy.

"Do you have any other input we might not have, Fox?" Zee questioned, his focus on me.

I shook my head.

"I'll think of something on the way. I can use bunshin to trigger individual traps, but I don't fancy getting the experience back."

Zee nodded and turned towards Kakashi.

"The entrance is four miles out to the north. Follow us." The man then Shunshined away, followed by his team and ours.

A short minute later, we were several hundred yards out near a temporary trench in the ground that was probably made by one of the Kumo ANBU and I could sense muddled signatures of chakra not far from us, but the earth impeded it somewhat.

"The flag is where the entrance is," Zee pointed at the obvious vertical pole in the ground next to what was the presumed disguised entrance, "Have a gander if you want." He looked at me, which I nodded slightly to acknowledge I heard him.

I looked at Kakashi, who gave me a faint nod of approval, and made a clone, handing it a few scrolls, a small pot of ink, and a brush if it needed to fool around with a seal or two.

The clone Shunshined towards the flag, stopping and kneeling to begin looking at the current state of what needed to be done.

Our entire group kept silent as we looked at the clone do its work, no sound aside from the faint rustling of the wind.

With nothing better to do, I thought of the different things I was going to ask Jiraiya to help me with when I got back.

'I need to get started on Earth release. Lightning gives me offense, water environment control, and earth will fill that in nicely.'

I'd shirked doing it because I wasn't in the best of moods. Rin being gone still made me uncomfortable, but it was more of a minor ache instead of the near debilitative sadness that I had feared it would be.

It left me short-tempered at times, and learning an elemental release contrary to lightning would be difficult enough to have me raging at it. So I decided to delay it.

But no more. I needed the diversity in Ninjutsu, and it'd be cool if I learned how to fly.

Using that invisibility crap Mu and Ashina used sounded fun as well for water.

The series of thoughts that went through my head were interrupted by the clone whistling, followed by it popping to relay information.

Just as I ordered my clones to do, this one had the necessary message and experience at the forefront of its mind, making it easier for me to decipher the influx quickly.

"Just as I suspected," I sighed, unable to keep the faint irritation from bleeding into my voice, "The seals at the entrance are extremely sensitive and connected to the others via chakra conductive wire built into the stone."

It was an extremely difficult and intricate web that was almost impossible to dissect without overwhelming the entire system.

"How do you reckon that?" Zee asked, a curious lilt to his voice.

"The clone pinged chakra through the seal and sensed where it was going ." I explained, having only covered these types of traps in my studies a week or two before the Chunin exams. "The chakra bled into different seals at certain intervals, so we can't overwhelm one seal to cause a cascading collapse."

Again, an extremely sophisticated trap that was going to be difficult to disable without blowing everything up.

"Even when dead, Orochimaru finds a way to complicate things." Kakashi mused, sounding less than pleased.

If Kakashi knew what my thoughts were, he'd be concerned for me undoubtedly.

Orochimaru may be dead, but I knew for 100% certain that he was still capable of coming back, and the thought of that terrified me.

Anko's seal was still there, and he'd be out for my blood personally for stopping him and Ashina killing him.

"Any thoughts on piercing it?" Zee queried, drawing a scowl from me, "I've dealt with traps similar to this before, but not as sophisticated as you're describing it."

The scowl that was hidden by my mask remained in place, the only potential solution I could think of to not blow up the base not an appetizing one.

"Yes, but it involves my clones getting blown up or sucked into pocket dimensions that eject them out in pieces seconds later." I remarked, shivering faintly at what I was almost certain of was in there.

"At this point, you might need to do that." Kakashi said seriously, "But try and troubleshoot for now. We could be here for a few days."

'Ughhhh.' I managed to not audibly groan at that, but I was still displeased with it.

Making a few more clones, I sent them to try and figure something out, the necessary ink and scrolls still at the entrance from the first clone.

"This'll probably take awhile," I warned them, gesturing at my clones as they hurried along, "As in hours of testing stuff out."

With me saying that, we basically did hardly anything else, waiting for whenever my clones figured something out.

/////////////

Night had fallen and they were still outside the entrance, Naruto trying to break the trap as carefully as possible.

Kakashi took a swig of water from his miniature canteen, pulsing chakra into it to close the storage seal etched on the inside of it to close off where the water was exiting.

Contrary to what Naruto probably deluded himself into thinking, arrogant little gaki that he is, he wasn't the first to think of having portable water for Ninjutsu or other uses. He was the one that had the most seals on his bracers though, and used massive area of effect Suiton techniques better than most. Only Kushina and Minato-sensei managed to put more on one object with destabilizing the object, and Naruto was already able to have four on each one.

Speaking of the redhead, he was currently occupied drawing up a rather complex seal that looked rather sinister, a few portions of it familiar to the silver haired Jonin.

If he had to guess, Kakashi would would say it was a type of... what did Naruto like to call it, Trojan horse? It was a strange tale Naruto told him about subterfuge and using religious beliefs to take advantage of people you were trying to destroy. Slot in a hostile object disguised as something good to cause chaos.

He wondered whether it was a coincidence that Naruto's pranks involving him acting as this 'Odysseus' was tied to the same strange named person who came up with the horse plan.

'Who am I kidding, Odysseus is probably one of the voices in his head.' Kakashi snorted to himself, deciding to talk with Naruto about something that was rather awkward for him, especially since he'd trained the kid for the better part of 7 years.

He got to his feet and walked over to him, his eye looking at the minute idiosyncrasies displayed by Naruto when doing complex seal work.

Faint tapping of his fingers against his leg or a desk if he was sitting, hair kept out of his face while he shifted his head back and forth lightly, and singing almost imperceptively under his breath, the words not understandable.

"I am occupied." Naruto said laconically, not looking away from the seal as Kakashi approached him, "I've been at this for an hour, and I botched it earlier."

Kakashi refrained from commenting about the lack of respect shown, especially on an active mission, but he'd give him a looser leash because of the complex nature of what he was doing.

After close to half an hour of continued adjustments and continued odd words and tunes, followed by Naruto pulsing chakra into the seal, he set the brush down and waited for the ink to dry before gingerly folding the paper, making sure not to mess up the pattern.

"Done." Naruto sighed, hissing as he flexed his fingers. "I'm going to get carpal tunnel at this point. Stupid Fuinjutsu."

"And not have all your eggs stored safely?" Kakashi asked lightly, drawing a snort from Naruto.

"Funny." The redhead rolled his eyes, looking at him directly now. "But what were you wanting to talk about?"

Now that he had Naruto's attention, he felt hesitant on asking. It was, to put it at its most blunt and simplistic, embarrassing and a hit to his ego.

"You know how you managed to think of different variants of the Chidori?" Kakashi asked, deciding to rip it off like a band-aid, "And you figured out the Raikages' Lightning Armour by just working at it?"

"Yes," Naruto said slowly, a hint of curiosity in his voice, "What is it you're asking?"

Kakashi hated to admit it, now that he was more motivated and driven than he ever had been in his entire life. Before he started training Naruto and Rin, he was fine with skating on his quick thinking and overall better mind than most Shinobi. But they were facing enemies on the horizon that required more than him just being a simple low S-rank like he was now labeled as to fight.

He needed another weapon.

With an audible exhale, Kakashi asked a simple question. "Would you be able to help me out with attempting to use the Lightning Armour?"

Aside from a raising of his brow, Naruto showed no outward reaction.

Moments later, he replied.

"Is your control good enough?"

"Is yours?" Kakashi countered, causing Naruto to scowl.

"I don't think you did as much study on the theoretical parts as you claimed, Kakashi," Naruto muttered his name, "I did the legwork to make sure I wasn't going to kill myself when channeling lightning through my body. You either need extreme chakra control to not blow out your tenketsu, or have extremely large pathways. Hiruzen had mine checked when I asked him for help, and they're already wider than his were when he first retired."

Kakashi stilled at Naruto revealing that. The subject had never been brought up in-depth, so he hadn't been aware.

"I can keep it on a less tight leash because my tenketsu can handle it, yours wouldn't." Naruto finished.

For once, Kakashi was left stumped by that. He had hoped that Naruto had figured something out that enabled him, a thirteen year old, to use the technique in ways nobody else had. But it turned out to be hardier nerves and wider tenketsu.

"I will discuss it with Tsunade-sama then." Kakashi admitted defeat for now, "If anyone knows how to improve control, it'll be her."

His chakra control was good, but it wasn't the monstrously good kind that Tsunade or elite Iryo-nin had.

"Sorry I couldn't be more helpful." Naruto said apologetically. "It's just... I have no clue how I did it. I healed from any damage done and I just kept at it until I could ride the wave properly."

It still astounded Kakashi, even after many years of knowing about the insane reserves of the Uzumaki, that they so effortlessly possessed so much chakra.

"You'd conquer the world if you wanted to." Kakashi scoffed, a faint amount of exasperation lacing his voice.

Naruto laughed lightly, uncrossing his legs and standing up.

"I can break the the trap network right now," He said seriously, "We either do it now or at dawn. Thoughts?"

"Now." Kakashi said without hesitation. "Break it and send clones in to investigate. Grab everything possible and get out. Simple plan."

Naruto nodded and turned to walk towards the entrance, Kakashi going to alert the two ANBU units of Naruto's success in making a seal.

//////////////////////

I got to the partially hidden entrance that reached into the underground and saw two of my clones, the one constantly pulsing a stream of chakra into the seal to loosen it.

"Budge over." I said, the one clone shifting so I could get to work.

Unfolding the paper, I glanced at the clone currently keeping the detection seal destabilized, said copy of me giving a nod of acknowledgement.

With a deft touch of my chakra going through it, I slowly pressed my seal over top of the one that was my current target, pressing firmly when I felt it sink into the other partially.

With a faint sizzling noise and a small leakage of chakra that definitely wasn't mine, the seal broke down and was replaced by mine, my chakra snaking through the seal matrix.

'Bingo.' I grinned, pinging chakra through the wire connecting the seals.

Just as my seal was designed to do, the others weren't tripped by my chakra anymore because my seal bled chakra into the rest of them, smothering them somewhat.

It was an extremely difficult seal to make and practically useless for anything other than subverting a trap like this.

I reached out to sense around me and felt the ANBU watching me, so I whistled as a signal.

"Be prepared!" I called out, going through hand seals and pooling chakra in my gut.

Suiton: Kirigakure no Jutsu.

I directed the mist I expelled from my mouth into the entrance, my elation at the seal working going up a notch.

When I completely covered the inside of the area, knowing because I was pinging my chakra through the mist to get a 3D readout of the interior, I made close to a dozen clones, ordering them to start dismantling the trap.

My clones rushed into the bunker, doing as instructed while I turned to look at Kakashi from afar and signal for them to come over.

The two ANBU units approached me and Zee in particular was the first to get to me.

"How the hell did you figure that out?" He asked, sounding genuinely shocked, "We couldn't after over 24 hours. You did in only a few."

"Konoha has the best Fuinjutsu techniques out of all the villages." I didn't give a straight answer, merely stating a fact about the village instead of me personally.

Noticing that I wasn't going to elaborate further, he didn't press and they just remained there, while I kept pinging my chakra through the mist to feel more closely where my clones were.

It took perhaps ten or fifteen minutes to clear out the traps, but it was finally done and we were clear to enter.

"Take it easy and be on the lookout." Kakashi warned, walking forward and entering first. "Clear the mist out." He ordered to me.

I nodded and made two hand seals, dissipating it so everybody else could see.

Noticing Kakashi adjust his mask, I guessed he took the patch off his eye and had it open, his back towards me so I couldn't see for sure.

"How many clones do you have inside?" He asked, his posture poised as he walked forward without making noise.

"A dozen," I replied, "They're in a tight formation, exploring the center pathway where it branched off."

Kakashi nodded, taking point still.

All of us entered down into the tunnel, a defensive formation formed just in case something jumped out and attacked us.

The walls were made of regular stone, nothing particularly special, but the simple nature of where we were made it a little disconcerting.

Our footsteps were silent as we came to the split in the walkway I mentioned, torches still lit for lighting while the electricity looked to no longer be on.

The torches probably had a storage seal for oil inside the handle.

"Split right." Kakashi instructed quietly, tossing a radio to Zee. "Don't lose this, please."

Radios weren't the most commonly used in mass warfare because a sufficient saturation of wind chakra in the air could mess with electrical signals, but small missions like this were fine.

Zee accepted it and our two groups split, the Kumo group going left while we went right.

To be honest, I was already sweating a bit under my mask as we crept through the base. This was my first ever mission doing this type of stuff and it was in a base for Orochimaru. Experiments were bound to either be here or documents of them were.

'I swear, if there's weird Daemonculaba shit here...'

The only sound to be heard was our breathing, the chakra signatures of my fellow Konoha Shinobi shimmering faintly with each breath as it remained mostly suppressed.

"Keep sensing, fox." Kakashi muttered, stopping at a door and pushing it open while the three of us were still on guard and on the lookout.

The door opened and revealed what looked like sleeping quarters, a thin layer of dust covering the bed and papers on the desk inside.

Kakashi made a clone and sent it to check the papers, my senses on alert and looking around for any hint of an enemy or trap.

After a couple minutes of reading through them, the clone snapped its fingers and signaled for something.

Kakashi turned to me and said one word. "Seal."

I nodded and chucked one towards the clone, the papers being sealed inside promptly.

We moved on to search more rooms, turning up empty in most cases. But when we got to a metal door that we stopped at, I spoke up.

"I can't sense anything beyond the door." I said, narrowing my eyes as nothing seemed to work.

Knowing Orochimaru, he probably coated the walls with extremely sensitive seals that absorbed the chakra radiating from inside, creating a sort of bubble that was next to impossible to sense the inside of.

Now on edge, Kakashi sparked lightning chakra through his fingers, pressing the digits against the door.

It was a trick Kakashi had taught me, so I knew what he was doing. Pulsing lightning through a metal object and looping it back to you to feel things on the other side.

"I don't feel any traps on the door." He mused, keeping control of the lightning so it arced back to him only. "Might as well open it." He finished, pushing on it so it opened and a rather large area was revealed to us.

And by God did it have shit in there.

Body parts were suspended in jars along the walls, a type of transparent tent was in place that had a rotting corpse in it, the faint feel of chakra coming from it that shouldn't be coming from a body that decomposed feeling unnatural, and many other things.

Neko suddenly gasped and hissed under her breath, clutching at her temple.

"Wasn't expecting that." She muttered, convincing me to stretch my senses out further than I did at first. My eyes widened when I realized what it was I overlooked at first glance because of how my own chakra had felt since the day I was born.

There was Bijuu chakra here.

With lightning chakra being used to enhance my thinking speed, I rapidly went through the memories I had of the crazy shenanigans Orochimaru got up to before his defection. Out of all of those, one stood out as I walked up to where the chakra signature of one of the nine tailed beasts was coming from, breaking formation to look at it.

It was a fragment of a horn, similar to that of a bull, but much larger.

The memory of the flashback in the series of the horn of Gyuki being sheered off by the Sandaime Raikage went through my head, a chill going up my spine as a terrible thought went through my head.

Orochimaru was still a Konoha Shinobi when he sabotaged Blue B's seal to cause Gyuki to rampage.

Fuck.

My head jerked to look at Kakashi, a great deal of effort on my part being put into not sounding as scared as I felt at the very real fear that our alliance with Kumo might just crumble if this was discovered.

"We need to find any records of experiments of this." I said seriously, pointing at the colossal container that held the artificially grown horn, "That's the Hachibi's horn."

Kakashi looked at the horn, then to me.

"Make some clones and have them guard the door, an-" Kakashi was cut off by the crackling of his radio.

"Inu, come in." Zee's voice came through the speaker, his tone sounding icy.

"This is Inu." Kakashi spoke into it, letting go of the button.

"Found a few rooms with experiments and stray notes," The Kumo ANBU said, a faint curse coming from him, "We found... parts too small to be adults and had underdeveloped chakra networks."

I gritted my teeth at that, my hand clenched in a fist and my chakra swirling under my skin tightly.

After a few seconds of silence that stretched out for what felt like much longer, Kakashi spoke back into the radio. "Keep us informed, we found a few notes among other things."

A faint comment of acknowledgement came from the radio and the call ended, leaving Kakashi to give more instructions.

"Grab everything that isn't bolted down and seal it in scrolls," He ordered, "We're taking anything of value."

Me, Bear, and Neko nodded and immediately started grabbing whatever we could, Kakashi heading towards where notes on experiments would likely be.

I went through almost a third of my storage seals within about ten minutes of stealing all the disgusting crap Orochimaru had stored up in just one base, and we were maybe only half done with one big room.

Right as I had a jar with a human head in it, a third orbital socket successfully made in the middle of the unknown man's forehead, a loud bang echoed through the room, everything rumbling.

The next thing I knew, a massive backlash of experiences hit me, courtesy of several of my clones getting killed, and the jar slipped out of my fingers, shattering on the ground.

"The hell was that?" Bear asked, turning to face the door along with everyone else.

"My clones just got killed," I groaned, massaging my temples as I recovered from the phantom pain of getting blown up and having my head caved in by something, "Some explosion and I don't know what else."

I sifted through the memories as best as I could, trying to straighten them out. Once I did, I recollected what triggered the explosion.

A vault door blew up.

"Inu!" Zee's voice crackled through, the sound of steel striking something solid echoing in the background, "That explosion opened something up from underground. Creatures have been pouring out and attacking us and we need to get the Hell out of here now!"

A screech came through and Zee swore, before it cut out.

The slight silence felt almost deafening, before Kakashi broke it.

"You heard him," Kakashi's voice held an iciness to it that I seldom heard, "Kill anything that gets in our way."

I let the suppression on my chakra slip, its flow back to freely going through my tenketsu, ready to be unleashed if need be.

Everything else here was obviously not getting brought back to Konoha.

Drawing the Kusanagi from its designated storage seal in my bracer, I readied it as my hearing picked up faint screeching and several chakra signatures started popping up.

The screeching got louder and I realized there was over 100 of them, their chakra spasming and stained by Orochimaru's signature like how Kimimaro's was.

Curse Seals.

"Bottleneck them at the door." Kakashi ordered, going through hand seals and pressing his palms into the ground, his chakra flooding the earthen ground to form a spiked barricade in the doorway.

Right as I caught a glint of something in the doorway, I blurred through hand seals, clenching the muscles in my jaw and unleashing the chakra I built up in my gut.

Suiton: Water Severing Wave.

The compressed blade of water shot forward, tearing through multiple targets with a wet ripping noise, animalistic howls echoing as I saw a couple of limbs fly off and into the room.

The remaining wave of creatures that weren't struck crashed into Kakashi's makeshift barricade, trying to climb over it.

Bear and Neko followed up with hitting them with two fireballs, which Kakashi fed with a C-rank Wind Jutsu that incinerated the first wave.

"Lightning, fox!" Kakashi barked, which I followed to a T.

Raiton: Gian.

The bolt of lightning I sent tore through them once more, exploding down the hall and illuminating the silhouettes of even more.

The staggering amount was enough to make me hesitate briefly, before shaking myself from it.

'How the hell many failed experiments did Orochimaru make and keep?'

I made two clones to help me out, Kakashi letting out a curse as he saw how many there were when I did.

"Cover me while I clear another path!" Kakashi shouted over the screams and beating of my heart, Neko and Bear continuing to hit them with fire.

Right as Kakashi turned and ran towards the wall to our left, one of the creatures came barreling through, on fire and screaming towards him.

Without missing a beat, I flung a lightning coated kunai at it, tearing clean through its head and killing it while I used my other hand to make a half seal that sent a concentrated ball of water at the rest, knocking them back while I shouted at my clones to keep firing Jutsu.

The fire from Bear and Neko wasn't cutting it, because some were getting through, albeit on fire. But the flames didn't seem to bother them, so it looked like dismemberment was the way to go.

Three of them got through, my clones stopping the rest as they were being successfully funneled into a death trap that was slowly piling up.

I Shunshined forward and ducked under a wild swing from the first one, taking its hand off with a flowing movement of my wrist and its head was taken off a moment later. Before its head even hit the ground, I was already in motion, sending a water senbon at one while I stabbed the other through the chest.

The senbon hit my target clean through the heart, causing it to stagger, while the burning target of mine that had my sword hilt deep in its chest snarled and tried to bite at my face, giving nice and detailed look at its face.

It was once human. Foul and disgusting Chakra was being pumped into its chakra network from a horrifically botched curse seal. It was everything that Anko's seal was, but magnified by a hundred in how awful it felt.

The face was ashen gray, gaunt as hell, looked like an emaciated skeleton, and disfigured by what I assumed was nature chakra twisting it, and I nearly recoiled in disgust.

Jerking my arm upward to twist the blade in its chest further, I punched it in the face with my left arm, kicking it off my sword when it staggered, and I finished it off with a backhand slash at its throat, cutting through the trachea and spinal column.

The last one that had gotten to its feet got a half hearted kunai throw to the skull, burying hilt deep as it fell to the ground dead.

It all happened in the span of about four seconds, and I went back to blasting the ones in the corridor apart alongside my clones, slowing marching forward to close the distance.

"I'll keep this up!" I shouted at Bear and Neko, "Watch Inu and kill anything that gets through!" I gave an exclamation to my last word by stretching the Kusanagi forward, pulsing my Bloodline ability through it and stabbing through several of them, my off hand reaching into a pocket and flinging an explosive tag.

The tag detonated and my clones immediately started sending more Jutsu downrange when I ducked and rolled back, taking a moment to wipe some blood out of my hair from one of the beheadings I did.

I glanced at Kakashi for a moment, who was struggling to tear his way through the wall, but it looked like it was fighting him every step of the way.

Twisting my fingers to make a cross sign, I formed three more clones and ordered them to keep pelting the everliving hell out of the horde, before darting towards Kakashi.

"What's taking so long?!" I shouted over the deafening explosions going off behind us, Neko blurring forward in a Shunshin to slash apart a few more that got through.

"Something's in the wall that's resisting my chakra." Kakashi gritted his teeth, his chakra flaring to try and crack the wall more, only getting a few inches deeper.

Right as I was about to recommend blasting through it with lightning, damning all risks of a cave in, Kakashi's radio went off again.

"Inu, where the hell are you?! We're close to getting overrun. Assistance is needed!"

Both of us looked down at it, then my eyes and his Sharingan met.

If nothing was done, they would probably die. The risk of them finding out about Orochimaru sabotaging Blue B's seal would be ende-

'Shut up.' I snarled internally, refusing to go there. They were allies and they needed help, damn all risks.

"Permission to use the lightning armour to tear through the line and try to link up." I said slowly, hiding the unnerving thoughts in my head while knowing the risk I was offering to take.

I didn't know how much longer we could hold them at the entrance, and whether or not there was a way to get out. But it was worth a shot.

"Granted." Kakashi nodded, sounding neutral despite me knowing he was concerned by the situation we were in.

I raced back to the entrance, noticing more starting to break through.

Whatever type of mutations had afflicted them, they were more resilient to Ninjutsu attacks. What should have ripped them in half only shattered bones and they still kept charging.

"Fox!" Neko shouted, twirling in a circle to fight off three of them before leaping over one and severing its spine. "Now would be a good time for something big and furry."

As if I need Kurama. I thought with a dark smirk, focusing on channeling lightning throughout my chakra network, invigorating my muscles and everything slowed even more to a crawl.

Taking a step further, my peripheral vision was overcome by a purplish blue colour and the screech of lightning assaulted my ears, before I shot forward in a flash, tearing clean through the remnants of Kakashi's barricade and anything made of flesh and blood.

I managed to be nigh indestructible for 2.79 seconds, that was when it gave out and a pounding headache hit me, the lightning discharging and flinging several of them back.

'Ugh, damnit.' I hissed, feeling pins and needles travel along my spine and the main nerves that went from my neck and into my arms.

Needing to not use the processing speed enhancement for a few seconds, I opted to send another blade of water around me, swinging the Kusanagi wildly to ward the rest off that didn't get torn apart by my Jutsu.

I Shunshined down the hall after I got a brief opening and jumped over another crowd of them, flipping midair and sticking myself to the ceiling to keep racing towards where I could sense the Kumo ANBU.

As I rapidly approached them, I dropped explosive tags, knowing they would come in handy.

Seeing the entrance towards the room I could sense the Kumo Shinobi were in, I dropped to the ground and bisected one of the experiments, adjusting my slash to use the momentum to carve through another at thigh level.

I channeled a Chidori through the sword and tore apart everything in front of me at a faster rate, randomly flinging explosives behind me with my left hand to cover my back.

The tunnel opened up to reveal some type of atrium looking room, almost like an arena. Dozens of the creatures were here and I zeroed in on the sound of combat.

The ANBU were currently huddled in a thin defensive shell, one of them on the ground with a bandaged arm and leg, but a tanto in his good hand.

Without saying anything at all, I made three clones and Shunshined directly towards them, stabbing through one of the creatures from behind, a chakra blade from my off hand stabbing into its temple.

It dropped to the ground and I kept at it, finding target after target alongside my clones.

With the Kumo nin safe from being overrun, I turned and detonated the tags, a series of explosions going off and a wooshing noise washing over us as the displaced air was forced towards us.

"Stabilize him, I'll keep them back." I said simply, pointing at the wounded one, who I realized was their seal expert, and went flying towards the twisted monsters that were once human before Orochimaru got his claws into them.

I would free them from their pain.

Everything became a blur of claws, teeth, and steel singing as I cleaved through flesh and bone, the hammering of my heart like the drum beat of a war god of old in my ears, and my chakra burning like liquid fire in my veins with my near manic thrill at feeling so alive.

Limbs went flying as I weaved a dome of crackling lightning around me, nothing getting through as I switched from defense to offense seamlessly.

My arm shot out towards one that got within my guard and I struck it with a fist, my blade twisting around me to protect my blind spot as I lashed out with a kick, sending it back to catch a sword to the throat.

My mind sunk back into the thrill of battle, everything blurring once more.

No drug could replicate the potency of all the colours and sounds. I was the most alive when I was dancing on a razor's edge, a veritable island that had the entire ocean raging upon it.

The legendary Kusanagi was an extension of my will, just as my fingers and hands were, and my will was made manifest in the slaughter I was bringing.

After what only felt like a few short minutes, the numbers slowed to a trickle, everything snapping back into focus as I was not being fed enough enemies to keep the mind haze going.

"Agghh," I snarled as I shoulder checked one of them that got too close to slash at, my fingers splayed like claws as I jabbed forward with small chakra blades coming from my fingers.

I tore its heart out completely, and part of its spine.

It fell in a boneless heap and I dropped the heart, flicking the blood off my fingers and shooting a ball of water down the tunnel, then turning and darting towards the few remaining ones, cutting them down like nothing.

Once the last one fell in two cleanly sliced through parts, I took a deep breath and looked down at myself, disgusted by the state of me.

My armour had some scratches in it, but I had what looked like bites taken out of my sleeves, and a hellacious amount of blood on me, the smell hitting me now in all its foul nature.

"Fuck." I exhaled, looking at my remaining clones and aiming at the tunnel with my sword. "Make sure there's none left."

They followed my order and I walked to the Kumo ANBU, mindful of how slippery the ground was with blood.

'I take back anything I said positive about ANBU missions. Fuck this.'

I reached them and I glanced down at the wounded one, his condition looking better now after his wounds were cauterized, judging by the faint scent of burned flesh coming from him. It also helped they were bandaged properly.

"Consider my doubts I had about your competence as a kid null and void." Zee said, his eyes trailing across the corpses left in my wake. "I just thank whatever gods there are that you're on our side."

"I just want to get the hell out of here." I said tiredly, not wanting to talk after what I just did.

I felt dirty after what I did, the thrill completely absent now. Those had been people at one point, twisted and mutilated into crude mockeries of life as whatever Orochimaru did to them turn them into that.

Zee let out a short laugh at my short reply, followed by the two unwounded ones.

"No objections to that. Your village really knows how to make the worst enemies." He then pointed towards everything, "Any clue what they were?"

"Random people mutated by failed curse seals attempting to act as a foci for Nature chakra." I said simply, not mincing my words, "I fought someone with a properly made one, and it feels similar."

The woman, the sensor, predictably grimaced under her mask, knowing how sickening it felt.

"Hundreds of them..." Zee murmured in an astonished tone. "Barbaric."

I nodded in agreement, before my eyes flicked towards the radio.

"Give me the radio so I can tell Inu I reached you." I requested, Zee taking it from his belt and handing it to me.

I flicked the button and spike into it. "Inu, you there? I linked up with them and they have one wounded, unable to fight."

No response.

"Inu?" I asked again, waiting for him to reply.

Again, no response.

"Inu, I swear to God if you don't answ-" I was cut off by a voice that had my blood freezing.

"I was wondering when I would hear your voice again, Naruto-kun." The voice of Orochimaru seemed to slither into my bones, coiling around my heart tightly. "Kakashi is rather... indisposed right now."

It was impossible. He couldn't be back, not without warning. He was dead. It was a lie, a trick.

"I don't know who the fuck this is, but it isn't Orochimaru." I snarled into the radio, my chakra frothing through my tenketsu from my fury, "So tell me where he is before I send you screaming down to hell with your dead master."

I sensed as best as I could, trying to penetrate through all the echoes of death and combat to try and find Kakashi.

I couldn't feel him.

"Kukuku," That infernal chuckle came through, making me grit my teeth, "I will be sure to aim for your head instead of your neck this time."

My grip tightened so much I shattered the radio, my breathing erratic as I felt some of Kurama's chakra leak into my own as my Killing Intent raised up a notch.

I was going to murder anybody who threatened Kakashi. He was my mentor, my oldest friend and the closest thing I had to a brother in this life.

Making a hand seal, I opened up the First Gate and I shot towards the tunnel, ignoring the Kumo ANBU.

///////////////////

'Fall for the trap, bastard.' He thought icily, dropping the radio and stomping on it, crushing it beyond repair.

There was a reason he was able to mimic Orochimaru-sama to such an adept level. He had spoken to and been around him for so long, being a loyal servant.

It was quite easy to rile up Uzumaki. Orochimaru gave him and Kabuto information that Uzumaki's greatest weakness that made him tunnel vision was the threat of his friends being at risk.

Hatake Kakashi was definitely a close friend to the red haired bastard, and was currently locked behind an extremely dense cocoon that would take quite some time to tear through, enough time for him to have his revenge for the death of his master.

If not for his current state, thanks to Kabuto, he would have been struck down by Hatake with his Sharingan and lightning techniques.

Looking at the slightly reflective portion of the wall, he scowled at how he looked. He looked monstrous, unnerved by it even after Kabuto warned him of how he looked.

And his thoughts were more dull. The only thing that he could feel properly was rage at Orochimaru's death and glee at the thought of killing Uzumaki, and his thoughts themselves were a bit stuffy.

Thinking of his friend, who was probably still in another base, he lamented the fact that he could no longer be his cage.

He was defeated once before by the current leader of the Uzumaki clan, a battle that was as violent as they came.

But this time, Uzumaki Naruto would be the one to die.

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Chapter was too long. part two will be out shortly.