Dead Man's Hand Shadow Clones
Jim's shadow clone camouflages itself within the ruins of a rundown apartment complex using genjutsu. With the Anbu unaware of its presence, it surveys its prime target's relative position from the Marine Contra's approximate line of sight, 'Can the round continue its trajectory through the initial target? Will it travel within the other's skull and impact the tertiary target's center mass?' The duplicate grows anxious as it maintains the genjutsu, anticipating the moment to strike. In an instant, the temperature plunges while a deafening silence enshrouds the alleyway.
Layers of palpable tension, unspoken hate, and betrayal saturate the air before a tsunami of killing intent washes over the Anbu. Though ineffective against jōnin (High/Elite Ninja) being no more than a slight annoyance, the diversion prevents them from noticing Mantis opening her eyes. A gut-wrenching death scream shatters the deafening silence as fear and white-hot agony sear Crane into near unconsciousness. Blood and chunks of flesh splatter the side of Parrot's mask; a round grazes the top of his head before tearing off Pelican's arm.
"Aaargh! My arm!" Pelican screams, gripping the bloody stump where his arm hangs from the bicep by a few tatters of flesh.
"Sniper! Get down!!" Raven warns.
From the radio room to the rundown apartment complex and the opposing skyscraper from the original, Jim's clones watch in disbelief as a SNAFU unfolds before them. At an inopportune moment, the dead kunoichi reanimates and attacks the medical nin. The assassins react, and the round is off trajectory by centimeters.
'Hmm, a rather interesting turn of events,' the duplicate observes the developing circumstances amongst the ensuing chaos. Despite a one-shot, three-kill opportunity slipping through the mass murderer's fingers, he neutralizes his target and wounds another. The shadow clone's proximity and experience enable it to speculate and differentiate the specialties of each enemy operative. Given the Anbu's varying attire, armor, weapons, and equipment, its suspicions lie on the possibility of at least two or three being combat medics.
Although a slight deviation from the intentional outcome, Jim's shadow clone insurgency exceeds his expectations. The zombified Anbu Captain infecting one of them is just icing on the cake. They vanish in less than a second; the doppelganger makes its move. It stalks the cold, uninviting gap between derelict buildings, cautious of the potential dangers. The howling winds do little to suppress the undead moans in the distance. The clone stays in the shadows, mindful of the Anbu nearby.
The red hue of the twin moons unveils a dangerous miscalculation in the war criminal's shadow clone insurgency. The operation in jeopardy prompts haste over the replicate as it races to salvage its failure; however, it suspects its purpose may be a lost cause. 'Can I prevent the infection from reaching the eyes if I sever the head?' Before Mantis can infect the Hyūga's body, a ricocheting bullet, then flesh and bone torn asunder, derails the shadow clone's train of thought.
Gone are her upper and lower jaw; all that remains are bone fragments and tatters of flesh where the tongue now hangs out from the neck. Which does nothing to deter the mutant kunoichi as she tries to consume the corpse without a mouth. The imitation attempts to drag the body away; instead, a tug-of-war ensues as both contenders vie over-leverage for their ghoulish prize.
"Grr!" the clone growls through its gritted teeth—it tugs on the dead Hyūga's arm, unaware of the round fragmenting the spine. 'C'mon!' too little, too late does the body double notice the baseball-size entry wound on the corpse broadening, 'Let... Go! Darn, it!' With a chakra-enhanced pull and the zombified Anbu Captain's inhuman strength pulling in opposing directions—the torso ruptures.
"Oh, how quaint," the shadow clone deadpans as the Hyūga's internal organs slosh on the ground; it can almost feel the collective facepalming of its shadow clone brethren. It moves to retrieve the rest of the corpse but halts in its tracks. The duplicate's blood (assuming it has any) runs cold, not at the arm or mirror easing from the window above but at the reflection. Red bioluminescent eyes distinguish themselves from the silhouettes residing in the darkness.
A round shatters the mirror, a hair's breadth away from a disastrous blunder; a chill shoots up the clone's spine the second it recognizes the three-tomoe pattern in Raven's eyes. The doppelganger sits against the wall, with its heart pounding. It eavesdrops on the Anbu as they re-evaluate their strategy. 'Somehow, the Uchiha is aware of their exact locations!'
'Nonetheless, this dreadful revelation should be unsurprising given my firsthand experience of what the Sharingan can do on a bad day.' The shadow clone shudders, recalling the constant Uchiha incursions upon the colonies and fending away the random Susanoo specters that appear. In gruesome detail, it overhears how the Anbu plan to butcher their target in the most agonizing way possible before escaping and warning the ASF about the outbreak.
With the Anbu's scheming concluding, the replicate wonders 'if seizing the lower half of the Hyūga's body without drawing attention is possible.' It considers snatching the lower section and fleeing, but 'carrying both halves will be messy and cumbersome.'
A chain-link gate swings open, alerting the clone. The haunting groans of the undead draw nearer; the crows fly away as they approach from the surrounding wreckage. It shoves the Hyūga's internal organs into an old garbage bag. Smoke bombs fly from the windows, and ruined sections of the walls then explode, releasing a diversionary smokescreen. 'It's now or never!' Seizing the opportunity, the imitation punts Mantis into a cluster of metal garbage cans; it seizes the lower segment of the Hyūga's corpse and flees.
After reaching a somewhat safe location, the shadow clone sits both halves of the body against a wall, careful not to spill the intestines from the lower portion. It scavenges the carcass for supplies and finds a storage scroll to preserve the body. During the sealing procedure, the body double peers around the corner at the figures fumbling around in the smoke.
"It was just here. Where did it go!?"
"There's no way those things could've gotten to Hawk's carcass already."
"We would've heard something if that were the case, right?"
"Did anyone, though?"
"Maybe he got up and walked off somewhere by himself?"
"You mean… how Captain Mantis did!?"
"What? It's plausible; besides, I'd rather not stick around and find out, don't you know!"
"Sparrow, where's Parrot?"
Screaming disrupts the silence; the call for help is stifled and strangled, but all the more ear bleeding. The Anbu disperse into teams of two; the clone finishes sealing the dead Hyūga inside the storage scroll without distraction. After securing its objective, hoarse breathing from an emaciated corpse dragging against the ground draws the duplicate's attention.
It chuckles at the mutant kunoichi's persistence as she crawls closer from around the corner. The shadow clone recognizes the undead Anbu without her mask; the long platinum-blond hair and porcelain skin is hard to overlook, 'Inori Yamanaka!? What a rather depressing sight to behold. A once-proud Anbu Captain who's risen through the ranks by sheer merit alone is now nothing more than a mindless rotting corpse slithering in the mud.'
"Well, aren't you a miserable piece of…" the zombified Yamanaka lunges at the doppelganger, "Shit! Get the fuck off me!!" her tongue flails around willy-nilly. A perpetual air intake akin to a vacuum emanates from Mantis's throat. The clone thrashes about, struggling to escape the flesh-eating ghoul, pulling herself closer for reasons the replicate dares not wish to fathom. Despite the mutant kunoichi's eye-opening speed and freakish strength, the shadow clone overpowers and restrains the abomination. "Even in death, you still find ways to piss me off, fucking nympho!"
An immense alteration in pressure from a sudden chakra depletion almost withers Inori to nonexistence. The zombie-like creature's bones implode, then splinter as frigid vapor accumulates. The instant the residual chakra leaves her body, she erupts into cold blue flames, forcing the imitation to step back. It stares at the freezing ash pile in disbelief, questioning if the sight before its eyes is genuine.
All too eager to dispel itself and pass the information onto the original, the clone pauses, remembering it still has another task to complete. The body double removes an empty storage scroll from the bisected Hyūga's 20cm HV Penetrator. A quick examination reveals vast improvements over the previous design, impressing the shadow clone, 'Huh, this must be the Allied Shinobi Force's new A3 model. The handheld kunai launcher has a decent pistol grip, adjustable shoulder stock, iron sights, and a Picatinny rail system. Too bad there are no custom sights. Then again, why would a Hyūga need any?'
It crouches on a dumpster, crossing its index and middle fingers over one another, targeting a kunai, "Multi-Shadow Kunai Jutsu!" Without smoke or sound, thousands of razor-sharp blades phase into existence, overflowing the alleyway. The duplicate steers clear of the kunai filling the aisle and tosses the storage scroll into the black metal sea. After a brief sequence of hand seals, a vortex pulls each blade into the scroll. The alley is clear in less than a minute; it grabs the storage scroll and loads the parchment into the handheld launcher.
"Hello, beautiful. I will *cock* you gently," the clone pulls back the charging/summoning handle, chambering a kunai; an analog designator displays a six-figure ammunition count on the weapon. A Red Zetsu stumbles into the narrow path; a volley of chakra-conducting metal surges at the abomination, crucifying it against a brick wall. Another unlucky mutant wanders by but suffers a similar fate.
The Red Zetsus stream after the doppelganger; limbs, tentacles, and other unrecognizable inhuman extremities burst from the soft soil. The zombie-like creatures arise from the dirt, encircling the shadow clone. It dives through a broken wall before smashing a mutant's jaw with the 20cm HV Penetrator's shoulder stock—a full-auto barrage of cold steel rains down upon the horde bottlenecking the staircase.
The replicate hoses them down with a cascade of chakra-conducting metal, "Rat-a-tat, tat! Meat sacks!" Nevertheless, the flesh-eating ghouls continue their unrelenting advance. They shatter the windows, rush into the rooms, and flank the clone. It sticks an explosive tag on a kunai; the imitation throws the paper bomb at the cluster of abominations clogging the staircase. The explosion destroys and seals off the stairs. It subdues a mutant rushing out of a closet, then absorbs the abomination's chakra without restraint.
"Get fuck fried fuckin' freak fuck!" the cannibalistic fiend implodes, then ignites. The shadow clone crosses its index and middle fingers over one another, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" A second body double phases into existence, "Oh, come on! Why couldn't I copy the launcher!?"
"Forget about it!" the second clone says. A sword slides into the duplicate's hand from its sleeve, "Let's just get out of here!" In the blink of an eye, it blitzes a Red Zetsu rushing down a corridor. Both halves of the abomination separate down the middle yet continue dragging themselves along the floor. The shadow clone exhibits inhuman agility and responsiveness as it carves a swath past the flanking mutants in an elegant dance of mutilation and savagery. Every cut or motion is clean, swift, precise, and without hesitation, "K to the I to the A, zom-bitch!" Back to back, both doppelgangers fight their way through the war-torn skyscraper, ascending past the forlorn blood vapor.
"They're swarming; watch out!" the initial clone warns. An endless stream of chakra conducting metal dismembers, punctures, or pins every Red Zetsu in its trajectory against the vertical and horizontal surfaces lining the halls. The replicate takes full advantage of its environment. It uses the 20cm HV Penetrator to set off explosive barrels and gas lines to collapse weaker sections of the floor or ceiling to crush and blockade the horde. Even with an absurd munitions capacity, fending off the mutants is like attempting to extinguish an ever-encroaching wildfire with a garden hose, "Hey! Is it weird for a shadow clone to have an erection!?"
"It'd only be weird if you didn't!" The second imitation jury rigs a bundle of explosive tags and kicks the concoction down at the horde, "It's a chew toy, freaks. Now chew it!!" Both clones take cover behind the columns lining the stage.
"And the limbs go flying!" The explosion destroys a large portion of the audience chamber, almost collapsing the entire theater, but awards the body doubles momentary leeway to retreat behind the stage—a severed head plummets beside the second shadow clone.
"Oh no! Its bitey area's closer to my fun-fun area now!"
"Hey! That little bastard's still trying to bite you!"
"I hate you demonic bootlicking ankle biters!" the second duplicate rears its leg, "toot it and..." then punts the detached appendage, "BOOT IT!!" toward the projector window, "dang it! I missed!"
"You wouldn't even hit my second wife's ass with that aim!"
Sibilant screeching and haunting wails drown out the brief silence. Hundreds of glowing eyes appear within the smoke as silhouettes of all shapes and sizes arise from the burning debris. The Red Zetsus resume their unrelenting descent upon the clones. The doors bend and rattle; they barricade the backstage entrance with Earth Release. The initial doppelganger crosses its index and middle fingers over one another; a stack of explosive tags appears from thin air.
"Are you trying to atomize this place along with us!?" the second shadow clone says.
"Quickly, down here!" the replicate discovers a hidden trap door. The Hyūga's sword slides from the clone's sleeve into its hand; it gives away the blade and the rest of its weapons and supplies.
"What the devil are you doing?"
"This place is about to blow much sloppier than a Suna kunoichi with a giant fan!" A few quick hand seals and the stack of paper bombs mummify the imitation. "This is the *one* time I'd suggest bailing before that happens!"
"You crazy, son-of-a!!"
In the audience chamber, a cock-eyed mummy with an erection leaps off the theater balcony onto a horde of mutants, "ALOHA SNACK BAR!!!"