( Daiki POV )
I perceived the healthy form of an enemy shinobi snap his wrist in a throwing motion, the twisting hips of a kunoichi about to hammer her heel in my left temple, the bodies moving around me were like colours on a canvas.
And exactly like images on a painted surface, to my senses and reflexes, they appeared almost still.
My right hand shot forward and choke-slammed the first against the second, the windpipe crushing beneath my fingers and the skull of the kunoichi cracking open under the pressure I exercised upon the body of her fellow countryman.
Without stopping, I kicked away the head of a third man and enjoyed the surprise of the fourth when the kunai that he tried to plunge in my neck broke against my toughened skin before slamming my left elbow through its skull.
It was almost like I was a man of iron tearing through origami. The sage-mode granted me a form of invulnerability that in the manga only people of at least Pain's caliber had managed to crack.
Along with it, enhanced senses and reflexes that paired with a strenght and speed that was beyond what anyone but S-class shinobi could hope to withstand.
Sage-mode equals cheat-code. I sing-songed in my head, trying to not focus on the dying men around me.
More chakra one consumed, faster the senchakra would be depleted, and that was why I was carrying on with only a little ninjutsu, and I left a shadow-clone to support me with genjutsu.
And it was also the optimal strategy because of the number of deaths I was causing. Wide area of effect jutsu would easily be opposed by groups of enemy shinobi, with the Hinokami no mai I could kill a dozen of them, before another group could counter it.
Using taijutsu, I was tearing apart the enemy lines, grabbing the occasional shinobi an hurling it through trough the others, and the psychological impact was starting to be felt.
Having a natural affinity for suiton, however, and one as trained as my own was, meant that with a half-ram hand-seal, the small course of water that Kakashi had tried to use to lose his tail followed my will with barely a twitch of my will.
My own chakra crushing the feeble attempt of the Iwa-nin to gain control upon the humongous amount of liquid that moved around me like a twister.
Instead of blades of wind, whipping tendrils of water that were capable of tearing through or drowning my enemies in response to their reaction surrounded me, following my path through the Iwa-platoon.
When the last Iwa-nin fell, disappearing from my senses like a candle snuffed out, it started to rain, the heavy clouds finally deciding that they had enough of waiting.
"You're welcome." I drawled eyeing Kakashi, who was doing his very best to not show the exhaustion that undoubtedly had creeped out on him, very few things can be hidden from a sage.
"You' re officially dead." he retorted, making me shrug.
"Sandaime's orders, Konohagakure higher-ups are compromised." I saw no reason to not propagate the lie I had seeded in Konoha, if I was lucky enough, Shikamaru would end up with a sudden ally eventually.
The Copy-nin made no motion towards lowering his headband, not that he expected to have a chance against me if I were to attack, it was more of an act of respect if I were to guess.
With a sigh, I let the Nature chakra seep out of my coils and back into the world loosing the golden eyes that undoubtedly were freaking out the Copy-nin, rolling my shoulders to let the kinks out of them.
I wasn't tired, since I had used only a minute amount of chakra to fight. I had wanted to fight without Nature-Chakra, relying only upon the improvements that my self imposed murder-training had bestowed on me, but I wanted to finish it quickly.
"Any reason why the current Hokage would have asked me to look into your 'death' if the opportunity arose, and why it's a standing order for at least five other shinobi that I know of?" he asked me, making me scratch my jawline thoughtfully.
"Eh... It's a bit complex ... have you heard anything about my cute little genin?"
"They're chunin, and I won't tell you anything, since you're a nuke-nin now." he retorted, not giving an inch of information.
I scoffed, rising my head towards the sky in order to let the rain wash away most of the gore and blood that the Iwa-nin had left on me, helping it along with a bit of seal-less Suiton manipulation: "I don't hate Konoha."
"Why reappearing now?" he asked, exciting another shrugh from me.
"It's the 5th of November, and you needed a hand."
The Copy-nin blinked, trying to figure out how much I was shitting him: "Why is the date relevant?" he asked, completely dismissing my claim that I actually wanted to help him.
I snorted, unable to resist: "Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I see of no reason Why Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot."
"I can't really trust you in any case." Kakashi pointed out, dismissing my answer.
I nodded: "You'd be right."
My shadow-clone, who had abandoned Sage-Mode at the end of my fight against the Iwa-nin, chopped the Copy-nin over the back of his neck, compressing a chosen nerve, that caused Kakashi to slump forward, unconscious.
I moved quickly and with certainty, chakra with a green tint covering my hands while my clone hands rested upon Kakashi's head: the one over his forehead keeping him unconscious, while the second rested at the base of his spine, keeping him still through an unlikely application of medical chakra.
Swiping on a seal over my forearm protector, I summoned a glass container full of an inert solution. "Sorry, Kakashi." I muttered as my hands opened the eyelid that his Obito's Sharingan, still active and consuming Hatake's chakra.
With a wet plop and a lurch that thankfully was covered by the heavy rain, I removed my objective by the Copy-nin's orbit, placing it safely in the container I had prepared before sealing it back in the storage seal on my forearm protector.
"Don't be an asshole." My clone told me, making me raise an eyebrow at him.
With his head, he pointed to the very fresh bodies surrounding us: "At least give him a nice blue eye to dazzle the ladies with."
I snorted, but acquiesced to my shadow clone's request, Kakashi was kind of alright on my books. An asshole, for sure, but one of the good ones.
Finding a compatible eye took fifteen minutes, restoring it to an acceptable level in order for it to be transplanted another five minutes of careful application of medical chakra, while the operation, which I had looked up back when I was a genin, exactly for the possibility of taking up an OP doujutsu later down the line, took twenty minutes.
For some reason, his optical nerve was less than receptive to my efforts. If it was because his body instinctively opposed every chakra that it identified as not-me, I couldn't tell.
Once I was done, my clone dispelled, and I took Kakashi over one shoulder, disappearing in shunshin across the barren land of Iwa, pointing to the closest tree line that indicated the proper beginning of the Land of Fire.
I dropped Kakashi in a hidden enough position among the branches of a particularly tall birch tree, before running across the forest, sneaking my way across the border with Iwa a couple of times before I felt something through the water that I habitually used as an aid to perceive the world around me.
I was being followed.
Whoever it was, it had kept crossing the boundary between nations like me, indicating that it wasn't a common shinobi, those would have been at least careful when doing so.
I reached a vast clearing, where a small course of water sneaked through, enlarged by the downpour.
After a flash of lightning that blinded the world, a couple of shinobi appeared less than twenty meters from me.
Dark cloaks with red clouds, Itachi and Kisame were staring me down
...
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