ALL NOVEL Bone Hunting
My Bo-staff’s large hook grabbed hold of the man’s neck and I yanked him onto my Wind Blade. He gasped and gurgled blood as his knees gave out beneath him. Yagura dragged the Wind Blade diagonally, cutting through his organs and slicing out his pelvis.
He crumpled at my feet and just as I was about to leap off to find the next, he grasped my feet, clenching onto it like it’d do anything. I spared the man I’d just laid at death’s door and found that same disgusting grin every damned crazy Kaguya wore.
His mouth was brimming with blood as he choked out, “We..weee…we will be—”
I snatched my feet away and sneered down at him, tempted to bring his death closer still but Ao shutters nearby, his fingers held in a Tiger hand sign and so I move on, “Have you found the next?”
I’m glad I recalled Ao to my side long ago, his Byakugan made patrolling and exterminating the invasive Kaguya a breeze. Yagura’s Mist Perception allows me to perceive people and items moving through the mist but it doesn’t let me differentiate between them. Ally and foe ring the same bells and so I tried not to rely on it.
The emergency I ordered forced everyone into their homes, all shops and services closed. Every active and available Chuunin and Jounin was moving across in teams of three with orders to search and exterminate the invasive Kaguya. It’s not at all the kind of orders I wanted to give considering a massacre is exactly what I wanted to prevent.
But alas, I am Mizukage. My duty was to protect this village.
Standing atop a rooftop and gazing through his Byakugan, Ao nodded and I leapt to his side. He pointed, “There are three further north on this street and another two over to the west but someone’s engaged them already.”
The streets are drained of life but full of mist, thicker mist than usual as the [Hidden in the Mist] technique shapes the entire village into a battleground favouring Kiri shinobi.
“Are the Kaguya bone-users?”
Ao frowned, brows furrowed in concentration as the Byakugan’s use ate more chakra, “Yes, at least C-tier users, the three at the north are made up of D-tier users though.”
Eiko’s report was truly valuable. His breakdown on the Kaguya clan’s bone manipulating technique classified them into tiers of ascending threat levels. They were rare, truly, but not so rare that I wasn’t already tired of seeing them.
His classifications put the Kaguya into four tiers. D-tier, bone users that could grow and enhance their skeletal structure, giving protection where there shouldn’t. C-tier were the users that could emit their bones outside their body to a lesser degree, usually only wielding a bone sword still attached to their skeleton.
B-tiers were the users who seemed to have mastered the technique enough to mass produce their bone weapons for the numerous clan members that didn’t express the dangerous Kekkei Genkai. The A-tiers were those that begun to resemble Kimimaro, the ones would could easily regenerate chopped off fingers and toes, the ones that didn’t mind if their spine was broken or their skulls shattered.
The A-tiers were the true threats as [Shikotsumyaku] manifested well in them, giving them power to produce bone even outside their body to display sheer destructive power. So far I’ve only faced one of these A-tiers and that was over two weeks ago when they attacked the Hozuki.
Judging by the ratio of normal clan members to bone users reported anyone could discern the Kekkei Genkai was rare but the A-tiers were particularly so. A fortunate thing to be honest as I didn’t know how many of the Kiri shinobi running around could stand up against them in an encounter.
“To the C-tier then.” I said and Ao quickly led the way, leaping through the rooftops.
Eiko’s report on the Kaguya’s bone-user capabilities was distributed amongst the rank and file, Jounin and Elite Jounin leading teams would inform their mates what to be wary of should and encounter occur but after that, it was left to the Kiri shinobi to bring them down.
Knowing how dangerous they are I personally prioritized hunting down the highest tiered bone user. Whoever was facing those two C-tier’s now couldn’t be having a good time.
I wanted to asked Ao if there weren’t any more Kiri shinobi facing them, I’d ordered Elite Jounin and Jounin to pair up in teams with Chuunin so the only reason a singular person would be fending off two C-tiers is if their entire team was taken down.
Fist clenched around my Bo-staff I refused to voice out the concern lest it become reality but Ao seemed to sense my apprehension, “Only a bit further, Yondaime-sama.”
I nodded and glimpsed the pale moon peeking out above the village, shining bright enough to illuminate our steps through the mist. It’s been a whole day of this already without rest. According the Sensor Division just over seventy of the hidden Kaguya had been snuffed out of their hiding places and executed.
My gut tumbled every time I heard a report of such a finding. Over the two weeks the Kaguya had slipped in and camped, they’d made quick work slaughtering civilian and even some shinobi families in the Caste District where our attention was least expected.
Several homes were invaded and occupied by the damned Kaguya. They raided and left to carry out more atrocities throughout the Caste District without a single report appearing on my desk until a few of them dared trifle with the rich and prosperous stores owned by prominent clans in the Business District.
So many of their victims are…were victims of Kirigakure. I wondered how about my plans to integrate the sane population of the Kaguya clan into Kiri and I doubted it would fly at all. It was my intention to find a place for them in the Caste District but after this incident, even the Castes wouldn’t sit idle if relatives of their murderers and rapists came to make a home.
Fuck, this is messed up.
Finally, Ao came to a halt but I leaped forward, already hearing the cries of battle raging below. Soaring over the rooftops I have a look at the scene below and quickly identify my enemies.
One C-tier stood behind and cackled as she supported her partner’s wild swings and dances with finger bone projectiles. Her partner disturbed a young child managing to block his flailing strikes with a kunai that was quickly getting chipped.
I sneered and descended. The projectile user took note of me first but Ao didn’t spare a moment and quickly engaged her. With his Byakugan on her movements were paltry to decipher even though I’m certain her skin would be harder than steel.
Yagura dashed out with a vengeance, the Bo-staff swung out in an arc that smashed through the bone-user’s legs, sweeping him off them as they cracked and bent awkwardly. As he fell the child he’d been trying to murder is revealed and before me stands a chakra exhausted but relatively unharmed Mangetsu Hozuki.
“What are you-!” My shock is doubled as the crippled Kaguya leaped out and stabbed my foot with a bone sword.
Instinctively I tried to move away but he snaps it off, leaving it impaled in my foot and me pinned to the ground as one of his legs snap back to form in time for him to push forward. His throat protruded with another oddly placed bone sword looking to poke out my eye.
He doesn’t get the chance as Mangetsu snatches his head of hair and presses his kunai to the man’s strangely built throat. Using all his strength Mangetsu buries the chipped and blunted kunai deep in the man’s throat before any more bone reinforcements can form out of his body.
Blinked back to my senses I snatch Mangetsu out of the way with one arm and hammer my Bo-staff into the Kaguya’s skull before he can get a grip on the kunai lodge in his throat. His head caves in, soaking hair and my Bo-staff with his blood as the light in his squished eyes goes out permanently.
“Mangetsu! What are you doing here?” I snapped at the child I still held up with one arm. I glanced over my shoulder and found Ao had already finished dealing with his opponent with minimal water damage to the surroundings.
The Hozuki prodigy just stared blankly at me, “Mizukage-sama ordered all available Chuunin to take to the field.”
Right, fuck me, I promoted this child to Chuunin. “Yes, but in teams, where is yours?” I asked and set him down.
He looked left then right and pointed down the street. I couldn’t see what was down there but I had a feeling. I reached down and yanked the bone sword pinning my foot and hissed, “I’m sorry. You’ve done well. We’ll be your new team now.”
His face betrayed no emotion but looking at him reminded me of…Rina! I blinked over at Ao, wondering if I should ask him to search for her, alternatively I could just ask the Sensor Division where she’d been deployed through the earbud but I restrained myself.
Now wasn’t the time for favouritism or weakness. I’d ordered every Chuunin to the field and so every Chuunin took to it. “Ao, he’ll be joining us, give him a pill. Where’s the next set?”
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