Pre-Chapter A/N: Please do check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on up on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)- it's completely free to access. What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) and read the next three chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read.
At least this time, I wasn't expected to ship out for war in a matter of days. NNo. Instead, I would have a week to prepare as forces were amassed and things were put in order. I would be leaving with chunin to assist. Takigakure's Jonin commander in fighting off Iwa's Jinchuriki and whoever else it was they would send off to the war effort. I entered the house with an exhale, allowing the door to softly swing itself closed behind me.
"The meeting is one already" Grandmother Mito was sat at the entrance hall in seiza with a giant scroll opened before her. Before I could even ask what she was working on, she hushed me and gestured for me to come closer.
"Something for the hospital?" I asked, as I noticed Kanji for body, healing, and a few other things that would only make sense if the seal was a healing one.
"Yes. Tsunade-chan keeps complaining that the younger doctors and med-nin have a terrible time with using the diagnostics jutsu properly. This is basically like a diagnostic jutsu in seal form, so patients placed on this can have all their information available in a matter of seconds" She said with audible pride. I smiled as well, already imagining the Ryo sounds that would be made once the hospital and their very deep pockets got a hold of this. It had shocked me in the beginning, the thought of chagrining the village for our services and creations. Everything Granduncle Tobirama and I made had gone to the village almost automatically. But it turned out that was something only the Uchiha clan did.
The Nara charged for their medical knowledge, the Akimichi charged for their unique soldier pills, the Aburame charged for their silk and other products. It was how things worked. We sold stuff to the village on the relatively cheap, and never sold to other Villages in exchange for protection within the Village's walls. Of course, we also gave our lives for the village in war. It was a mutually beneficial agreement that benefitted each clan in its own way.
"It's brilliant" I told her and joined her sitting down to work on the seal. I could see where she'd gotten stuck, and looking at it reminded me of something I'd needed to sort to figure out my prisoner capture seal.
—
"So there's nothing we can do to speed up learning sage mode before I ship out?" I leaned against the cavern that was Kurama's seal as I spoke.
"I don't even see what you need that for. I told you you can use my power as you wish. Son Goku and Kokuo can't hold a candle to me if I even slightly try" He boasted. Well, not like it was much of a boast. Kurama was as strong as the other eight tailed beasts combined.
"Stronger" He corrected with a growl on hearing my thoughts.
"Of course. I'm sorry for underestimating you" I snorted as I spoke, unable to maintain the fake deference for long.
He growled, not bothering to reply to what I said.
"Either way, we need to do this now" I said in reply. I had spent the last few weeks getting used to having Kurama's chakra in my system for one key reason.
"You do know that there is no going back after this" He said. He wasn't discouraging me, just making sure that I knew what I was doing here.
"There hasn't been going back for a long time. If I opened the seal between us like I was about to, Whale Saga Mode would be gone. I'd asked Boss about it and he had been very clear. If there was a seal, it was possible. If there wasn't, then it wasn't. But it wasn't like there was much of a tradeoff there. Sage Mode would have made me one of the strongest humans on the planet. Doing this would make Kurama and I the indisputable top dog. I pushed off from the wall and knelt against the line in the ground that represented the seal.
__
'Twelve Uchiha, Sixteen Hyuga, Eight Inuzukas, Four Aburame, Nine Naras, two Yamanakas, six Akimichis, seven Sarutobis, and Five civilian born chunin, making a combined force of Sixty-Nine chunin', I counted in my head as they lined up before me at the Village's gate watching my every movement with careful eyes as they whispered to themselves. I wasn't sure what Hiruzen was pulling by having my departure be so public. My best guess was that it was to give Iwa some sort of warning from the spies they undoiubtedly had within the village.
If he warned them, I was coming to Taki, then they might end their advance in Kusa with the hopes of stalling me in Taki. It would be tantamount to using me as bait though, and part of me was unwilling to believe that my Granduncle's favourite student had fallen so far.
"Attention" I called, and everyone straightened up. They were staring at me, judging me. I wore a Jonin vest over the standard Konoha combat fatigues. Shedding the armour had been something Grandmother Mito had vehemently opposed. My argument that the people I led needed to see me as one of them and that my partnership with Kurama would give me more protection than any armour ever could hadn't done much to convince her. Even now, I could see her pursed lips as she stood with Kushina by her side off behind the gathering of shinobi. Kushina was quietly huddled against her skirt. That had been a more emotional goodbye than I'd expected, but I couldn't dwell on it.
"Our orders are clear. I am to lead you in combat against those from Iwagakure who would dare incur our wrath. To do this, we need to be one unit, so I would beg that you put whatever clan allegiances you hold to the side for the time being. Out there we are not Uchiha, or Senju. We are Konoha shinobi, and we will act as such." I began, trying to come up with words to say to make this clearly doubtful lot believe in my leadership.
"Actions speak louder" Kurama's gruff voice echoed in my head.
"You don't have any reason to believe in me, and I have no reason to believe in you. All we share in common is this headband" I said, pointing at the Konoha Hitai-ate with my thumb and smiling at them.
"Let's work to make our village proud, and maybe along the way we'll learn to trust each other." I said before turning away from them. They would follow me, I had no doubts about that. Someone different more personable, would have managed to charm them easily but that just wasn't me. Kurama was right. They would learn to trust me once they saw me fight.
We began the journey to Taki easily. As with the first time I shipped out, we left close to mid day. The land of Fire was large, and the Hidden Waterfall was far to the edge of the NorthWestern end of our border. Farther from Konoha than Rivers. And this was a much larger force than I'd taken then so it was even more important that we make camp. We ended up stopping only a few miles out of one of the many merchant settlements that were popping up in the Land of Fire now that SHinobi ere no longer fighting and burning the land willy-nilly like they had in the warring states era. I took a place next to one of the trees after setting up a rotating group of Hyuga, Uchiha, and Aburame to keep watch. The three clans were easily the best when it came to sensing threats and enemy shinobi.
I laid near the tree, marking it with a hiriashin seal before slumping against it as I returned to my seal. Or rather, what remained of it.
"What do you want?" Kurama asked on seeing me.
"To talk" I said.
"You already know everything there is to know about me" He said.
"Yes. But l want to talk nonetheless. Tell me about your siblings, Kurama" I said, taking a seat and making myself comfortable.
—
"I am Shino, Jonin Head of Takigakure. Please state your name" He said, appearing from the waterfall in what might have been an impressive gesture if we didn't have Hyuga capable of spotting hum from miles away.
"I am Shorirama Senju, Jonin of Konohagakure. We were sent here to reinforce you against Iwa's aggression."
"Finally" A woman sighed, coming out of the waterfall as well. The jutsu they used to hide within the flowing water was a fascinating one to my eyes, but nothing that could fool the kind of sensory power Konoha could bring to bear. It reminded me of the Secondary Purpose of this mission beyond stopping Iwa.
"If possible, find the location of the village hidden in the Waterfalls" Hiruzen had told me a day ago when I'd been summoned to relieve my final orders.
"You guys sure took your damn time, didn't you" Another woman said, this one purple haired and stern in contrast to the black hair sported by her compatriots. Purple was a completely normal hair colour in this universe for some reason.
"We came as quickly as we could." I said with a calm smile, not allowing myself to be caught in the indignation that was spreading through the shinobi behind me.
"Be kind, Maki. These people are here to help us."
"Not like Iwa is only here because of their damn war" She retorted sarcastically.
"Please forgive her. She's lost her whole team to the Iwa attacks" Shino said, turning to me instead.
"Worry not. Konoha can afford to forgive a slight or two. I mean I am here now even though your village elders sent a shinobi to assassinate my Grandfather and then disavowed him when he failed" I said, adding the dig with a subtle flex of my chakra's weight. That there was no seal separating what was mine from what was Kurama's meant that when I wanted to flex my weight, I ended up flexing a bit of his as well. And let's just say, he had a lot of weight to throw around.
They went still. Only for a few seconds, but it was enough to show that they knew they were in front of a much bigger dog.
"As I said earlier, please accept our apologies."
"All is forgiven. We're all friends here" I said with a smile that didn't reach my eyes.
"Now, what can you tell me about the Iwa shinobi attacking you"
"Well, we've only had a few skirmishes so far. They are trying to find our village and that has taken the most of their time."
"Have they succeeded?" Did Iwa have knowledge of Taki's location?
"No. They're still quite a bit far off."
"So you know where they are" I said with a hum.
"We do. This is our land" He said with some authority.
"Now tell me about their camp. What are their numbers? How many do they send to searching at a time? What is the army composition? Leave not a single thing out" I ordered.
—
"Doubting yourself serves no purpose" Kurama said in my head.
"And yet, I can't help but worry. The last time we went to war on a plan of mine, people died. My friends died."
"For one, this plan is much better than that silliness you were up to in the Land of Rivers. For another, these people are no friends of yours. You might want to care but you don't. There's nothing wrong with that. And this plan is no more likely to kill them than any other so it is not that you are throwing away their lives on a whim. Humans die. That is the thing you do" He said simply.
"That's not very reassuring"
"Okay. Let me reassure you then. If you do not manage to remove your head from your arse, Son Goku and Kokuo will enjoy removing it for you".
"Well, that's one way to go about it" I said before slapping myself in the face. We wouldn't be attacking them in the middle of the night or anything like that. They were shinobi. Any shinobi worth their salt would see it coming and while Shino and even my own chunin subordinates had their doubts about the plan's potential, they were wise enough to keep those doubts to themselves. Today was going to be the day the world met the Purple flash. I actually felt guilty at the fact that I'd stolen Minato's thunder not once, but twice. I'd make it up to him for sure.
I took a deep breath and then flared my chakra, instantly incinerating the seal I'd attached to my flak jacket. All the eyes in the wide Iwa camp snapped in my direction. I smiled and then the kunai flew. I didn't have the time to design my own type of kunai and my aim was terrible, but that didn't matter when the goal was just to send as many into the space as possible.
These were trained shinobi, and I wasn't surprised to find not a single one managed to claim a life out of the dozens of chunin and jonin that adorned the camp. Wait. Scratch that. Somehow one chunin had managed to deflect a kunai into the foot of another and that one was screaming bloody murder.
"Good Afternoon, I am Shorirama Senju. I'll be your pilot on flight 5571 to the Pure Lands today" I said, stepping out of the foliage and into the clearing proper. In a flash, I appeared next to the chunin still screaming. I ripped the kunai from his foot and carved a second smile into his throat. A second later, Han, Kokuo's Jinchuriki landed on the ground where I'd been standing with seam wafting off his body.
"Stay calm, and I'll get to you all in a second" I said before appearing next to another shinobi. This one also didn't manage to react as I scrambled his brain with a single forehead poke. Next I was in the middle of a group of three. One of them even managed to begin to start turning around, but that didn't matter. I spun for a second, sending a wave of cutting winds flying in all directions, butchering the group in one shot. Next I was in the exact opposite end of the clearing and tapped one Chunin on the chest before disappearing to the left and then returning immediately after the Jonin's fire ball jutsu had passed the spot I'd been standing in. He never managed another jutsu. I tapped his chest and that was it. I was off again.
The byakugan felt like cheating. Sometimes, I lamented my lower range compared to most other users, but that didn't mean anything when I was zipping around a clearing not up to a kilometer in diameter. I could see all my kunai. I could see where each one was and what state they were in as well as where all my enemies where at the same time. That meant I could avoid Han's lunges and charges while butchering the pitiful army he had been saddled with. I could see the Four Tails Jinchuriki watching my path with wide eyes but kept a careful watch to make sure she didn't escape.
The next group of shinobi were already beginning to grow wary of my sudden teleportation and even managed to flinch when I appeared in their midst. It didn't matter though, as I cut through them run a blur of taijutsu. I'd never felt so dangerous before.
"He's teleporting to the kunai. Destroy the Kunai!" The four tails host screamed in that high-pitched voice that children often did. It struck me how young she was. In another world, she wouldn't even be old enough to have a boyfriend. In this one, she was old enough that she got to gasp as I body flickered in front of her, attention too fixated on the kunai scattered about to see me coming, and opened her throat from one ear to the next. She gurgled, choking on blood, and I was off again.
She was a jinchuriki so she had a fairly good chance of surviving it, but that had to be enough to put her out of the fight. The next set of shinobi had already begin to turn to my kunai before I even arrived. It availed them little. I clapped my hands together and all four of them sunk down to their knees in mud— well, three of them. The last one was so short he went down to his waist. A spin and flick of my wrist later, and three heads fell to the floor. I buried my kunai to the hilt in the neck of the last one and was off again.
It was exhilarating, the feeling of dropping in and out of reality. I felt untouchable. Someone sent an arc of electricity at me, and it hit nothing but wind as I was off again. When I appeared to the side this time, I sent another set of Kunai flying into their midst, furthering the confusion. Han was clearly far from the man he would one day become, watching the slaughter with wide eyes as I left him in my dust. I killed another dozen before they broke and began to run. I made to pursue but found an armoured Han right in my face. He looked pissed. Like Pissed with a capital P. I cld teleport past him, but I didn't even need to. The plan had considered the possibility that the Iwa shinobi would flee into the forests. That was where my squad of chunin and the Waterfall shinobi would come in.
"You look angry" I said with a smirk before teleporting over to a kunai a few feet away as he kicked right at where I'd just been. The kick generated enough force that it leveled half a dozen trees from the shockwave it created.
"Ready Kurama?" I asked as I began to pull at his chakra.
"Always" He roared his enthusiasm in my head.
"Don't die too quickly, Han" I said right before I struck with the force of the ninetails.
A/N: And so we get the Purple Flash. As always, the next three chapters are up on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga). If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not necessarily the daily updates available with a regular patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy!