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I couldn't sleep.
The only light source in the room was the clear moonlit sky coming in from the slightly open window, but even that failed to illuminate the entirety of the room. I lay awake on the hard wooden floor, staring at the ceiling and sighed.
"Naruto," Choji's voice sounded from beside my head as a whisper, "are you awake?"
"I am," I whispered back. "What's wrong?"
He was silent for a long, long moment.
"What do you think about it—about killing?"
The conversation we'd had as a team seemed fresh in both of our minds seeing that he was still up.
"Killing, huh?" The word itself carried a weight that both of us could feel. "It's a response beyond the pale in most cases. As shinobi, it's necessary, but that doesn't mean it's supposed to be easy."
"I've thought a lot about killing, even during the Academy. We were only killing animals on field trips, but that was for food as much as it was to get us used to blood and the other stuff." He stopped speaking but in the silence, I could hear the intake of air as he tried to formulate his next sentence. "In our clan, there's a way to going about killing animals: you make sure they don't suffer needlessly and before and after eating, you have to express gratefulness—but humans aren't animals."
I snorted. "There's a whole argument to be had about that."
"Not like that," he huffed, nudging me with his elbow, "I meant that animals give us nutrients and their fur protects us from the cold; their fat can be used in candles or as soap. There's a purpose to killing them that isn't just killing."
"I hear you, man," I said, smiling even though he couldn't see it. Choji was a soul-crushingly kind kid. "The reason why we kill animals and make use of every part of them is because of survival."
"Right—that's it. But with killing people, I can't help but wonder why, you know? We all have friends and family who love and depend on us. Finding out someone you care about is dead is painful enough so why make people experience that sooner by ending their life—why?"
"It's for the same reason, Choji—survival. Conflict and violence… they're wired into us; for some people like Kiba, it's a little bit more, and for others like you, it's a little bit less."
"But what does that have to do with killing?"
"I'll get there, I'm just setting the scene first." I took a deep breath and freed my arms from the sleeping bag, laying them across my stomach, and clasping them together at the fingers. "Your family hunts a lot so you should know about survival of the fittest."
"I do, yeah."
"In the wild, there's always something animals stand to gain by killing, right? They eliminate a potential threat and receive food or territory—heck, they get to keep their life. Human beings aren't all that different even if we're a little bit more complicated. That same brutal violence is wired into us even if we can communicate on a deeper level than animals."
"That might be true," said Choji with his voice heavy with doubt despite his words, "but then why isn't everyone killing?"
"Because not everyone wants to kill—but there are still people who do because there's something to gain." I tried to keep the heaviness out of my voice with the next sentence but I must've failed because Choji stiffened slightly. "Killing won't ever stop because while some people don't want to kill, there are people that do because they have something to gain from it—physically or otherwise—and that's not even the worst of it."
"It's not?"
"No—what's worse is that killing won't ever stop because so long as there are people who kill, their victims will hate and kill them in turn. Over and over and over again because as much as the law punishes lawbreakers, an eye for an eye is a tale as old as time."
The two of us lay there on the floor, waiting for the other person to say something, but neither of us uttered a word. The conversation about killing had brought the mission even further to the front of my mind and once again, any exhaustion I felt was banished by a chill.
"Naruto?" asked Choji. "What do you think about why people kill each other?"
"Me?" I sighed, thinking over my answer slowly. "I… understand why people kill and even agree with some of their reasoning. Killing for no apparent reason is wrong, but when that person has killed someone you love? You can't condemn them for wanting vengeance."
"Okay, but what if you kill someone who hasn't done anything to you, like personally?"
My lips twitched upwards at the lack of subtlety in the question. "So, we're talking about the mission now, huh?"
He didn't say anything, but he let out a strangled hum at having been found out.
"Okay, think of it this way: tomorrow, we're going to go out there to siege the outpost, whether we want to kill the Jagged Blades or not. We can talk as much philosophy about why people kill as we want but tomorrow, they're going to try to kill us to stop us from doing the same to them."
Those were the facts.
In an ideal world, everyone would be able to live without conflict and in relative peace, but life was anything but ideal and the sacrifice needed for peace would always be war, violence, and death. That was as true in my past life as it was in this one and I felt my frustration rise at everything.
So, was it surprising that power was prized above all in this shinobi world? For all my pointing out the shinobi system's faults, I accepted the necessity of fighting to kill so that I could survive, embraced my desire to kill Obito for killing my parents, and willingly put myself in an avoidable kill-or-be-killed scenario to achieve both those goals.
Because until I had the strength to do something about it, I was beholden to the world's rules, as countless other shinobi were.
"So that's it then?" Choji asked. "Kill, otherwise you'll die."
"Yup—that's the bottom line."
I'd said that to him before we'd drifted off into a light nap preceding our move on the outpost, but felt a lot less certain the closer we drew to the watchtower and the further we left Tenka Village behind. The sky above was lightening from pitch-black to a deep, dark blue and while our surroundings still weren't visible, Hinata led us from the front at a steady pace.
We circulated our chakra to keep our networks primed and ready even if no one attacked us on the way to the outpost. Armed to the teeth and clad in my brown flak jacket, the mesh shirt, and the concealed weapons, I was… uncertain. All my training and preparation—it was all for this. To take the skills I'd learned, the techniques I'd honed, and use them to kill.
But I wasn't scared or excited at the prospect of doing so. Just empty—grudgingly accepting.
We stopped at the edge of the forest, peering over the undergrowth at a stretch of several dozen metres of grass where the outpost stood tall. It was fenced in by several wooden spikes plunged into the earth. When I squinted, I could just about see two men standing guard at the front of the gate facing us and there were probably three more pairs stationed at each side of the fence.
Torchlight bobbed between the wooden spikes, bathing the ground in an orange glow.
"Hinata, where are the shinobi?" asked Asuma.
A moment later, she replied, "All of them are asleep but there's an archer with a telescope at the top of the watchtower."
Taking a closer look, I noticed the glint of a lamp, like a firefly, on top of the outpost.
Asuma smiled—but this smile was unlike his usual ones. There was an edge to it; I wouldn't call it bloodthirsty, but it was unnerving.
"Hit 'em hard and hit 'em fast," he said, looking at Choji. "Body flicker down there, bust down the walls."
He nodded.
"Naruto, go with him and bring down the wall—but wait until Hinata is with you."
I nodded.
"Hinata, I want you to take out the other guards stationed around the perimeter while these two focus on the front entrance. Then, go up there and deal with the guy on the watchtower."
Again, I nodded to myself—this was doable. I just hoped the adrenaline and muscle memory combined would be enough to stop us from freezing, but after the conversation I'd had with Choji, I couldn't be so sure.
So, I tapped his shoulder.
He looked up and I could see duty warring with doubt and indecision in his brown eyes.
"Let's do this," I said, standing in front of him. I took all the moral quandaries and shoved them as deep as they would go, staring at the outpost and circling chakra around my body. "Don't think—just follow me."
I blasted out of the undergrowth.
The world wrenched past; chilling winds ripped through my hair and eyes but I kept them open, touching down a few metres in front of the guards. They froze at the sight of me and I saw one go for the blade at his hip. Dividing the moulded chakra I had left after using the Body Flicker, I sent half to my feet, closing the gap between me and the two guards in the blink of an eye.
Making use of the rest, I swung for the one going for his weapon, spinning on my heel before he even hit the ground. Something warm and wet splashed across my face at how fast I'd turned—I ignored it. Slipping into my pouch, I hurled a kunai at the other guard's exposed throat and he toppled back, gurgling.
I turned after registering someone's footsteps. It was Choji. He looked between me and the bodies and froze. I swallowed—when had my throat become so dry?
"Break down the wall," I croaked, using the clean plate on the back of my right hand as a mirror. A still-wet bloody smear ran across my right cheekbone, trailing down to my jawbone. I stared at my reflection until the front gate exploded in a shower of wooden chips and a chorus of low thuds.
Choji's enlarged fist shrunk back to normal size. He slammed his palms onto the ground, finishing his series of hand seals. Clumps of earth coated his hands completely, coalescing around his forearm into two hardened gauntlets.
"I-Intruders!"
It was obvious that we'd caught the Jagged Blades with their pants down. Six of them were milling about the courtyard and scrambled for their weapons when we busted down the front gate.
The distant but clear bellow of a horn broke out across the outpost before that same sound was echoed two or three times over. I gritted my teeth and used Great Breakthrough, aiming for the two-storey building where the rest of the forces and the three shinobi were sleeping. It wouldn't kill the shinobi, but it would kill the stream of mercenaries bolting out of the windows and doors.
My lungs expanded as the chakra I'd gathered there transformed into violent winds. I jumped up before releasing it all at the building. Cupping two chakra-coated hands in front of my face, I shaped the jutsu into a targeted cone of sheer destruction. It expanded as it left my hands and kept me in the air.
I swept the violent wave back and forth, causing as much damage as possible while slowly returning to the ground. It slammed into the building destroying its entire front face and levelled the rest of it with little resistance. At least four of the stragglers escaping the building were blown away and the unlucky few left inside were soon crushed underneath wooden beams and tiling.
The ones on the ground scrambled out of the way, rushing towards us with their weapons raised.
"S-Shit!" The group we'd run into after busting down the door put their weapons between us and them. "It's the Hidden Leaf—shit. I didn't sign up for this!"
"Choji," I nodded at the wrecked building, "most of them are dead but the three shinobi and whoever's left are going to come busting out of there pretty soon, come on."
Without waiting for his reply, I threw myself into the thick of things—there was no thinking.
A sword came for my head so I ducked low, sweeping the assailant off their feet and then slamming my foot down as I rose.
Something crunched beneath my heel.
In the same breath, I pulled out two kunai from my holsters and brandished them, stepping forward with a burst of chakra under my feet. Forcefully breaking into the formation of four mercenaries, I plunged the blades hilt-deep into two of them and knocked the other two back with enhanced punches to the chest.
The last of the final two coughed at a bloody globule into my face before hurtling several metres away from me. I wiped it away, more disgusted that he'd spat at me than the blood covering my face, hands, and boots.
And thank fuck I wasn't wearing open-toed boots.
"Naruto!"
Choji bellowed, raising his fists as another group of mercenaries stormed forward.
The horn continued to below, even as the clang of weaponry and rousing battle cries filled the outpost. He stood at my side and planted his feet as a horde of mercenaries wielding swords and sabres charged. I punched at—and through—one after the other—only stopping to give Choji a wide enough berth to exhaust his stone gauntlets.
By the time I'd managed to get enough space to look at him, his stone gauntlets were broken away in chunks and painted red with blood. That said, he seemed too hopped up on adrenaline to pay attention to the bodies surrounding him.
Gritting my teeth, I hurled a volley of shuriken at an oncoming wave of mercenaries.
"That ain't reaching us, you evil little bastard," one jeered, raising his sword.
I smiled humourlessly and brought my palms together to finish my hand seals. A powerful draft of wind surged out from me and propelled the shuriken even further. Some of the mercenaries had shields raised but most were fooled into believing my weapons wouldn't reach them.
Before I could close in to end their suffering, something dropped into the group from above. I caught a twin cobalt flare before the glow vanished into their midst. Hinata emerged from their corpses, dispelling the chakra coating her hands to tie her hair back into a ponytail.
She probably should have done that earlier, but I shook the thought off. As she drew closer, I noticed that she didn't have a single drop of blood on her—unlike Choji and I. The worst of it was a light sheen on her slightly flushed face.
The commotion behind me gradually eased off. I turned to see Choji surrounded by at least five bodies—and they hadn't died easily. Two'd had their heads smashed repeatedly; one was laying down, his chest caved in; and three had fallen in a tangle of bladed weapons, impaling each other.
All the while, he stood in between them—his stone gauntlets were gone and his knuckles were raw and red.
"Choji?" I ran up to him. "Hey!"
His listless eyes were pointed at the three impaled mercenaries. I yanked him by the shoulder.
"Listen," I hissed, purposefully squeezing him tightly enough to cause pain—to bring a flicker of life to his eyes—otherwise he'd shut down completely, "do you hear that?"