( Daiki POV )
The wind whipped harshly across the land, the grey clouds that hid the sky were bloated with water that they didn't want yet to relinquish, while the trees and the men whispered among themselves, rustling the first and gesturing the seconds, both knowing, albeit in different ways, that a storm was about to break the tense air that had them jump at every shadow.
With a deep breath, I walked out from a small outcropping of trees, looking over the barren land of Iwa, seeing as how they were starting to enclose upon the Fire Nation' territories thanks to my enhanced Sage-senses.
I had intercepted an Iwa team made of four chunin, who ha been depleted rather suddenly because of 'an asset that had to be captured by all means', namely Kakashi, who had gone on a surgical killing spree, removing no less than twelve Iwa-jonin before that could even be deployed.
"I hate this part of my plan." I muttered to myself, starting to trot downhill, picking up speed as my chakra churned tightly in my coils. The Akatsuki was something that I would be able to deal with, one piece at time. Between my skills and the knowledge I had of their techniques, I had a definite leg up.
But my main objective wasn't to fight the Akatsuki, was it? I wanted to change the world, the S-rank group of nuke-nin was a secondary branch of what I wanted to accomplish, I needed to foment malcontent and fear amongst the civilians, while keeping the shinobi forces of their countries too busy to keep track of meetings between book-lovers.
It was a complex endeavour, made all the more difficult by the impending apocalypse if I didn't manage to take Obito and Black Zetsu out of the game before either of them took notice of my movements.
Sadly, that implied figuring out a way to bypass Obito's 'I can phase through things' gimmick, which was supported by some bastardization of mokuton.
That left me with a very limited pool of options. Having both Nidaime and Shodaime at my beck and call was useful, undoubtedly so, but I also needed to carefully manage the flow of information they were exposed to.
I could return them to a proper Death with a few handsigns, but losing them only because I got sloppy and they managed to figure out that my actions harmed equally all the nations, including their own very much beloved Konoha, it would be a waste.
To overcome Obito, I needed to block his eye's capabilities. Sadly, I could only replicate Seals, I was no genius with them, I lacked the proper 'forma mentis' for that, and improvising bullshit on the fly like Minato Namikaze could, was very much beyond my reach, even with the short tutoring that the Nidaime had deemed me worthy of. So, Fuinjutsu was out.
That left me with three other options: hope that Nagato was stronger than him, and engineer a conflict between the two. Which was risky and brought with it a series of complications that I couldn't reliably predict.
I could take Nagato' eyes for myself, hoping that they would work properly for me, and that I could figure them out before everything went to shit.
And that was only after an unavoidable fight with one of the most powerful being on the continent, one that Naruto won thanks to Sage Mode plus Kurama, with a powerful clan of toad summons on the side as support.
Oh sure, he had reacted to an attack, Naruto had no plan, he was on the backfoot, forced to protect his village instead of being proactive about it.
Ambushes were much more effective to kill someone. "What is a shinobi, if not someone weak that learns to kill someone stronger?"
I murmured as I started to move full sprint, mulling over that idea. Shinobi were never meant to be honourable warriors, those were the samurai, and there was a reason if only a small nation relied on them while all the others had a proper system that kept a stable force of shinobi on hand.
I could plan to infiltrate Ame and assassin Nagato in the dark. Sadly, Jiraya had been spotted in the manga, and he had a vastly more effective method to infiltrate. More likely than not.
I would end up fighting openly in enemy territory, something I was unfamiliar with, and even with Hashirama and Tobirama at my side, open fights were never clear and cut. Maybe the King of Hell thing that Nagato could do was able to subvert the Edo Tensei, I had no idea, but risking it was foolish.
Much more simple, even if distasteful, was taking Obito's free eye from Kakashi. Cunning Kakashi, adaptable Kakashi, smart Kakashi, 'my dogs will tell me you're about to get the drop on me an hour before the actual ambush' Kakashi.
Someone that was just on the edge of being S-rank, someone that I suspected was far more skilled than me at the stealth game, even if the meditation state of Sage Mode could allow me to remain invisible from his senses, as soon as I moved, he would feel me coming.
Discreet was not a term that could be ascribed to Sages after all.
But opportunities like the one I stumbled upon were worthy exposing myself for.
...
Kakashi was exhausted. He ran, chakra churning tightly through his coils and breath heavy in his chest, even if no sound betrayed his presence, no leaf quivered because of his movements.
Three days. He had managed to gain that lead on the pursuing enemy, then, two days before, a mistake, something that was dictated more by the enemy's luck than his own he was less than a thrown kunai from a Konoha outpost when he spotted the lack of chunin among the trees.
The lack of living ones at least.
So, from an instant to the latter, instead of finding himself a few minutes from safety, he had found himself at the centre of a classic pinch manoeuvre.
He hadn't managed to get a clear reading on the Iwa nin that slowly but surely worked to surround him, cutting every avenue of escape in order to force a confrontation. Even then, worry and fear were far from his mind.
He had lost them in with his first foray into the previous war, there was only constant adrenaline, controlled breaths, trap disseminated in order to create a false trail, his summons unleashed to muck his trail and war him with their superior senses if something was wrong about the direction he moved in.
He ducked under a branch and sprinted over the ground, no doubt barely appearing as a grey and black blur to the unfortunate chunin that fell to the ground with a slit throat.
Kakashi grimaced, knowing that he had left a clear sign of his passage, something that forced him to change direction and run in the open for more time that he would have liked to.
Kakashi wasn't your regular jonin. He wasn't your regular shinobi, period. Hunting him was just as dangerous as fighting him in the open, death was in the details, he knew, there was no optimal angle, no 'most reasonable approach', everything was classified in terms of effectiveness and risk.
He discarded the highest risks without a second thought, one did not survive by taking risks after all, focusing instead on the optimal course of action that enabled survival.
Kakashi had witnessed much in his life, more than most should, and for every act of abject horror and depravity that marred his memories, he had learned, he learned from his enemies just as much as he had learned from his fellow Konoha-nin, Obito's eye, and his heart lurched with a familiar pain when his thoughts went in that direction, had proved itself invaluable.
Kakashi of One-thousand jutsu, Copy-nin Kakashi.
His friend's eye surely had helped his career, but the only thing everybody had focused on was his ability to manipulate all the elements, with jutsu that would have required more time to be learned that the amount of time Kakashi had spent alive, fears and suspects that undoubtedly had been overblown by his own Village counter-intelligence.
Still, it was something that helped him, given his own penchant for freaking out the enemy, putting him on the backfoot even before the fight proper started.
What everybody seemed to miss, and Kakashi was careful to not correct their assumptions, was that if the Sharingan allowed learning every jutsu with a single glance, why shouldn't it have allowed learning mannerisms, movements, tactics, taijutsu forms and everything else just as well?
Kakashi had been a blade in the dark, completing five missions nobody ever learned of for each that his Village used to parade him around, keeping the vultures at bay, nurturing the illusion of Konoha's strength, a strength that had been utterly lacking after the Yondaime's death.
Too few shinobi after the previous war, the attack of the Kyubi in their own home hadn't helped.
Konoha had been close, very close, a few years from having the adequate numbers to keep up the appearances.
A couple of years after the Crush the hopeful 13 years old chunins would have started to actually blossom, their chakra reserves expanding with puberty, their tactics and techniques refined carefully, ushering in a whole generation of jonin. Which was unheard of.
Kakashi kept running, following the lead of Bisuke, who had found a hole in the net his opponents' were tightening around him.
...
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