Naruto: Threads of Crimson

Me and I flickered along the high branches of the forest we had been raised in. My eyes were glued to the front of me, and my sharingan was looking at every little thing that moved. However, I could feel Shisui's eyes on me, as if he was waiting to speak, but he was hesitating, his leaps quick and quiet.

After a long pause, he finally came up next to me and broke the silence, his voice gentle. "So… how've you been holding up since… you know, since your father's passing?"

A flicker of sadness but for the most part only anger rose within me though, I quickly tried to push it back down. I wasn't going to dwell on it now, not when we were on a mission and needed to focus.

I glanced sideways at Shisui and offered a tiny nod. "I'm doing better than I have been since learning about the burial the clan is planning for me and my mom. It's supposed to happen at the clan's graveyard in a few days, and I'm hoping I can make it. It'll be good to have that final closure and see him again once more."

Shisui's face softened, and he gave me a slight nod. "I'm glad, Shiro. You have just seemed a bit more on edge than your usual self." But there was a slight shadow in his eyes, as if he wanted to push further but chose not to, at least, not right now. 

We were nearing our target site now, and both of us had our Sharingan trained at the clearing ahead where a small utility building was constructed. Using the trees as cover we made sure to stay on the backside of the trunk to make sure we were hidden. Keeping our eyes on the targets we both took in the details of the guards standing around the small building.

"Looks like they're only low chunin-level," I muttered, frowning slightly as I assessed the amount of chakra each one held. "Not nearly enough to get any good practice or have a good fight with, they're all too weak."

Shisui nodded beside me, his eyes narrowing as he took in the sight of our unknowing targets. As we stayed there I channeled chakra into my ears trying to hear what the guards were saying.

"Seems like the war's finally winding down," one guard sighed, sounding both hopeful and tired.

"With any luck, we'll make it back in time to see our families before the holiday," another responded, his tone wistful.

The first guard scoffed, glancing toward the outpost. "Wouldn't that be nice? Instead, we're standing guard over one prisoner in the middle of a war. I still don't get why Lord Tsuchikage didn't just tell us to bring him back to the village where our interrogators could pump him for information."

His partner shrugged, voice low. "What if he's got some sort of suicide trap, like paper bombs secretly strapped to him or something? Take him back to the Stone, and he sets them off—then what?"

"But we already searched him," the first guard muttered, clearly frustrated. "He was clean."

Another guard hummed thoughtfully. "True, but what if he has some kind of kinjutsu? Like the Tsuchigumo clan's kinjutsu?

"Tsuchigumo clan's kinjutsu? What the hell is that?"

"Well, from what I've heard, the Tsuchigumo clan has developed a superpowerful sealing jutsu that allows them to create a bomb on someone's body at any time. They can then send this person into an enemy village and destroy it all with only sacrificing a single person."

"Holy crap, how can someone even devlop a jutsu like that? It could hurt a lot of innocent people." His expression turned slightly pale as the implications set in a little further. "What if it were to be used against us?"

"This is probably what Lord Tsuchikage is worried about. The rumor is that our village just found out about it towards the back end of this war, but when the Tsuchikage reached out to the clan about it and to make an alliance, they said that they had already allied with the Leaf." A slight scowl appeared on his face.

"Which means those tree huggers could very well have their hands on this jutsu and might have already implanted it into a few of their ninja." The other guard finished off as sweat began to bead on his forehead.

"Exactly, so that means we could possibly be guarding a ninja that could blow all of us up in a matter of seconds." 

Gulp

A slightly deranged smile tugged on my lips as I watched the two become extremely uncomfortable at the possibility that they were guarding someone that could possibly blow them all up in a matter of seconds.

Reaching into my ninja pouch, I pulled out a couple of small, unassuming balls. The size of Akimichi ration pills, they were almost easy to overlook.

Shisui's brow furrowed as he watched me, clearly wondering what I was up to. Without saying a word, I looked into his eyes and cast a quick genjutsu over him to pull him into an illusion where I could explain without alerting our targets.

"These look like regular food pills, right?" Shisui nodded as I held one up between my fingers. 

"They are actually scentless air fresheners. They dissolve into the air when you feed them a small amount of chakra, creating a fine, invisible cloud that drifts wherever you initially aim it."

Shisui's eyes widened ever so slightly as he caught on to what I was implying very quickly.

"Originally, my parents just got them to make the house smell good, but I had an idea after I grabbed one and seen how it was able to dissolve almost instantly. After thinking about it for a few minutes I asked my dad to order a couple of the scentless ones."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A couple of days later

Masaru Akamichi, one of my dad's friends, showed up at our door carrying a small box of the scentless air fresheners I'd requested. 

Seeing his friend at the door my dad popped the door open and greeted the man who had made the fresheners for me. After explaining to Masaru that I ordered them he turned to me, as I just appeared next to my dad and smiled.

Nice to see you again Shiro, I feel like I haven't seen you since you were still in your nursery." 

I turned a little red as he began to let out a deep belly laugh. "Nice to see you again too." I muttered and bowed my head a little.

As soon as I stood back upright he handed the nicely craved wooden box to me, raising an eyebrow. "Not sure why you'd want these scentless but considering you're your fathers son I'm sure there's a reason," he chuckled, patting the box.

I grinned, shrugging. "Thanks, Masaru. I would tell you what I have planned but then my dad might overhear." I winked at him and turned to give my dad I sidelong glance.

He laughed as I felt a hand slap down on the back of my head. "Just don't go terrorizing your mom and dad with whatever you're planning."

I grinned while saying "No promises"

My father looked down at me with a qustioning glance but before he could ask me anything I was already off running towards my room going through the plan in my head.

Later that night, when the house had settled down, I quietly made my way down the stairs, one of the scentless balls in hand.

My dad was sitting in the living room watching the TV, monitoring the clan grounds, completely oblivious to the experiment I had in mind.

Standing on the stairs and ducking around a post I kept my chakra steady, I dissolved the freshener in my hand, focusing on directing it toward my dad. The transparent cloud floated out, moving through the air toward him as my chakra slowly started to warp his senses.

I watched carefully, waiting for some sort of reaction, and then it happened. He went still, his posture softening ever so slightly, as he fell into the genjutsu's subtle hold.

Not even a second later, his eyes lit up with surprise as he blinked, breaking free. He turned around in the couch, a smile tugging at his lips. "So that's why you wanted those fresheners to be scentless," he said, shaking his head.

"I have to hand it to you, bud—this is clever. Scent-based genjutsu is one of the toughest to detect, as I've said before. Having something so easily available and non-detectable, like this air freshener is a very big advantage, especially if you need the jump on someone."

I smiled and scratched the back of my head, feeling proud that my experiment recived some praise from my father. "It worked better than I thought it would, honestly."

He got up and came over to the stairs where I was crouching and ruffled my hair, looking almost as impressed as he was proud. "I'm just glad I'm not on the receiving end in an actual battle. Keep working at it, and you'll have a powerful advantage, Shiro."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Shisui's eyes widened, and he nodded appreciatively. "Interesting, so these small balls allow you another avenue to sneak up on someone and get an upper hand without them really noticing." I allowed a small grin to form as I bobbed my head up and down, before focusing on the task at hand.

Carefully, I let a thread of chakra flow into the balls, watching as they dissolved into a mist that I could just barely see even with my three tomoe Sharingan. The mist floated gently toward the guards, who were none the wiser. Within moments, I saw the effects take hold as one guard became alert, then three, then all eight of them were glancing into the forest, opposite of where we were perched, with varying degrees of wariness.

"You hear that?" one of them muttered to his squadmates, squinting suspiciously into the dense trees. They brought out their weapons and walked toward the sound, leaving the outpost unguarded and their back to me and Shisui.

"Nothin' over here," one muttered, looking around, obviously confused, and scratched his head.

Seeing our chance to attack with their backs turned, Shisui and I slipped silently from the shadows, our hands on our weapons as we moved in. I took a deep breath, feeling the cold adrenaline of an attack where the enemy had no idea what was about to hit them.

We closed the distance in silence, and just as we were upon them, I let my gaze settle on two of the chunin's back. Without another thought, my ninjato sliced through the air and barely cut through the necks of the two guards who were the closest to me.

The first slice went through the guard's neck with some difficulty, decapitating him. The same thing happened to second guard, though the sword didn't go all th eway through this time, it caught a little on his spinal column and only went about halfway before I had to yank it out, leaving him to bleed out, paralyzed.

"Damn, I really need to find a teacher for my kenjutsu, my technique is not up to par at all. It kind of just feels like I'm using an extra large kunai out here right now." I frowned as I flicked the blood and tissue off of my blade.

Hearing three distinct thuds and feeling the splatter of blood, the other five guards quickly turned around and looked at me and Shisui, who had already taken out the three guards closest to us.

Seeing as the last five had already somewhat split themselves up with no help from Shisui or me, I took the three on the right and Shisui took the two on the left. Looking into all three of their eyes they stiffened and held their weapons in front of them.

In their minds eye all three of them were being imapled and pinned in place by gaint rusty spikes going through every part of their body.

"What the-" The guard with the most chakra barely got out as his arms suddenly disappeared from his body and searing pain began to burn through were his arms were severed. Before he knew it, he looked over to his two other comrades and they two were standing without arms.

He could barely think as he stared wide-eyed at me while I stared back with cold eyes 'What is happening? How is he so fast?' His mind couldn't comprehend how fast things were progressing. Suddenly the sound of two more bodies hitting the ground made him whip his head over to where Shisui was facing off against the two others.

As he stared at the scene he saw the other two squadmates on the ground with kunai's all the way through their neck. Before he could think anymore a wave of dizziness came over him and he fell to his knees.

The ground was soaked in his and his comrades' blood but he couldn't think about that, he had to find a way to turn this situation around. Suddenly, I burst into thousands of tiny motes of light and disappeared from in front of the three of the people I was taking on.

Suddenly, the leader had a kunai to his neck as I appeared behind him. "A genjutsu-" He stopped talking abruptly as I moved the kunai from his neck up to his hairline. Without further a doo I swiped the kunai from front to back, peeling away his scalp as the man screamed out in pain.

The other two guards behind me began shaking as I turned around and gave them a slight smirk, which made them even more desperate, and they began to try and crawl away the best they could without arms. Walking up behind them I proceeded to do the exact same thing to the last two fodder ninja. 

Dragging the other two back over with their leader, I watched as their screaming winded down, and their eyes became even more glassy by the second. Having both of their arms cut off and then being scalped had taken its toll on their body, and they were beginning to breathe in shallow breaths.

I wanted them to understand their weakness, to feel the pain their weakness caused, and to recognize that they'd never been a match for me or Shisui at any point in their lives

"If you three weren't so weak," I murmured, "you wouldn't be in so much pain right now."

My voice was barely above a whisper, almost lost in the dying breaths of the three in front of me, the anger and frustration inside me flickered briefly before fading as I kicked their corpses.

Shisui appeared beside me, his gaze sharp and a little hostile.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

(A/N: Not much to add here tbh, just wanted to show the sadistic side to Shiro. I'm aware of how edgy it makes him feel but he is not currently aware of his behavior and will get slightly better in the future I promise;)

Powerstone Goals:

25 by Sunday = Extra Chapter

50 by Sunday = 2 Extra Chapters