Seeing Red [Naruto]

Land of Snow 6.8

Hisana decided to stick around until the breach was won - she'd do her best to keep these samurai alive, she decided. Her hands blurred through handseals, and she spat fireballs into the path of an oncoming squad of Doto's samurai. They scattered backwards, some cutting through the small projectiles. That was okay with Hisana - she'd gotten what she wanted out of the jutsu.

Her phoenix sage fire jutsu had melted enough water that she could finish the seals for the jutsu she really wanted to use before the samurai closed with her. Half a dozen clones of her rose out of the melted ice, and then she drew her blade and engaged the samurai sword to sword. She cut down one, and then another, with the flowing motions of Leaf-style kenjutsu. Hisana and her clones were in perfect sync, and the squad of enemy samurai fell before them.

One group of Snow ninja - three genin and a chunin - had managed to get some of the kunai launchers turned around. Hisana dodged between the hail of metal, and Hinata shielded herself and Karin with her own defensive jutsu, but half a dozen of Sandayū's samurai fell dead in the water-logged rubble of the breach.

Hisana's hands moved through handseals so fast they were nothing but blurs as her lightning blood seal activated. She leapt up into the air, propelled by a wind jutsu, and finished her handseals. She put her fingers to her lips, and let loose a thin beam of white-hot fire. She swung it across the top of the palace walls, setting all the kunai launchers alight and killing half a dozen samurai archers. The snow ninja's chakra armour protected them, and they leapt down into the breach.

One of the snow ninja - the chunin who had got the kunai launcher turned around - leapt towards Hisana and a pair of ice dragons followed. Half a dozen ranged jyuuken strikes slammed into him, collapsing his chakra field, and Hisana met him in mid-air. Her blade cut his head from his shoulders, and then her seal faded.

The palace walls were aflame, and secondary detonations started to blast out from the kunai launchers. It seemed that they did not react well to large amounts of fire. Hisana's water clones, Karin, and Hinata were keeping the Snow Ninja from attacking the breach, and making openings for Sandayū's to advance into the palace compound.

Sandayū himself was fighting one of Doto's samurai, the two of them striking at one another in blurs of motion; visible only as streaks of light from their chakra sabre techniques. His opponent made a single mistake and paid for it with his life. Sandayū cut his head cleanly from his shoulders - the old general was still a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

"We have the breach, and are into the compound - go, young shinobi!" he shouted, fending off another assailant.

"With me!" Hisana shouted, and made her way through the winding alleys of the palace compound. Her water clones stayed behind to cover the samurai, slowly being felled one by one, while Karin and Hinata followed her. The sound of the storm, the battle, and the fire seemed to blend into one constant wall of noise. The three of them came to a large square just before the central palace structure itself, and waiting for them were three Snow ninja that looked a little more powerful than the ones she'd fought so far. A tall, lanky man with a powerful chakra signature, flanked by a pink-haired woman and a huge muscular man.

"So, it's true - Koyuki has hired the student of Sharingan Kakashi to stand against us. A pity he isn't here to fail a second time," the leader of the trio said.

"If he were here, you'd already be dead," Hisana replied, keeping both hands on her katana. Hinata settled into a gentle fist stance beside her, and Karin had one of her golden chains coiled and ready to strike out.

"You gotta admit boss, that's an impressively well-bred pack of brats," the pink-haired woman said.

"Then we will learn much from their corpses - kill them!" the leader shouted, and everyone started moving. Hisana blurred forward, her own sword blade meeting one formed by the leader out of ice. Her chakra flow pushed against the ice-sword, and the instant she noticed a crack she detonated the chakra flow. Fire spilled across the Snow jounin's face, and he pulled away his burning forehead protector.

Karin's chain whirled out, narrowly missing the pink haired woman. Her armour sprouted wings and she leapt up into the air. She laughed and flung a barrage of ice-birds at Karin, but she was unable to hit her. The huge man charged at Hinata, only for her to stop him dead in his tracks with some kind of wind-palm jyuuken move. He went flying backwards, smashing through deserted merchant stalls.

The jounin - Nadare, Hisana remembered - reformed his ice sword and charged at her. Twin dragons formed from ice rushed ahead of him. Hisana finished her own handseals, firing off massive bullets of air from her mouth that smashed apart the ice dragons. The two of them clashed once again; chakra-steel and wind against ice. Hisana felt the small ping of chakra that said her seal was ready and smiled.

Her lightning blood seal activated, and Hisana blurred forwards. Her sword met Nadare's ice blade, the jounin just managing to parry, only for Hisana to detonate her chakra flow. The explosion blew apart his sword and sent chunks of deadly sharp ice spraying across her reactive chakra armour. Lightning spread up the jutsu formula inscribed on her sword, and her adaption of her teacher's only original jutsu split Nadare's head in half.

That had taken a lot of chakra, Hisana thought as her seal cut off. Against genin and chunin, she could fairly easily get in close enough to drain their chakra fields - but against a seasoned jounin like Nadare, her taijutsu simply wasn't good enough.

"Nadare!" shouted the pink hair woman, turning to look at his corpse. Karin hit her then, coiling a sealing chain around her. Her charka armour sparked and she writhed in pain before going still - unconscious but alive. The huge man charged forward, and then Hianat was there. He was in the range of her divination, and there was no escape. She struck his tenketsu with blinding speed, and he barely had time to scream before he was reduced to a twitching, crippled mass on the ground.

"We need to get a move on before Doto escapes," Hisana said, and her two subordinates nodded back at her. Before they could get far, though, a figure dressed in ornate robes burst through an upper story window. For a moment Hisana thought Doto was going to kill himself rather than be captured, but then she saw the black wings spread out from under his robes.

He had chakra armour and ninja training too, she found herself reminded.

"That's him!" Hinata confirmed.

"Alright then, we're going in pursuit. Hop on, everybody," Hisana said, as she bit her thumb and pressed her hand down onto the snow covered ground. Ink spread out from her palm to form a complex seal, and then in a huge puff of white smoke emerged a raven the size of a small elephant. She was dressed in black-lacquered armour, and her talons looked to be the size of shortsowrds.

"What do you need of us, Lady Uchiha?" the raven asked, bowing her head.

"We need to chase down that man," she said, pointing out Doto, and the raven lent down to allow the three Konoha ninja on her back. Hisana clambered on, and then they were away. The raven climbed incredibly fast, her wings beating in the patterns of her clan's wind jutsu.

Doto turned and saw them, but his ice jutsu would be useless in an aerial battle. He merely turned and redoubled his speed, diving low over the treetops. The raven followed, and Hisana fired kunai laden with explosive notes from her ejecting seals. A few of them bounced off of Doto's chakra field, and she noted with despair that it didn't seem to have the same weak points she and Hinata had been able to use to shatter them.

Hisana was running low on chakra - she had less than a fifth of her total capacity left, before her seal. She'd been saving it for this fight, though, and would be able to go into the confrontation with Doto with the entirety of her Final Hurricane seal intact.

Doto dived even lower, obviously landing, and then a dragon formed of black ice roared up from the ground towards them. The raven dodged, winging up a little.

"We're here - circle up above out of range of any ground-based attacks. Yatta will be very angry if I get his daughter hurt!" Hisana said, and the raven gave an amused caw in response. Hisana, Hinata, and Karin jumped from her back, and they landed in the same large open space Doto had.

It was a huge, snow-coated and obviously, man-made expanse. Massive rectangular shapes rose up from the ground at regular intervals, with a small shrine in the centre. This was the machine from the movie, Hisana thought. But what was Doto doing here, she wondered. He didn't have the princess or the hex crystal.

Three more snow ninja stood near Doto, all of them in the same black chakra armour as him. They wore face masks that marked them as elites - Snow's equivalents to Hunter Nin or ANBU.

"I see the brats from Konoha have arrived! You three have made my life so damned hard over the past week - why did you have to through yourselves into this battle!" Doto shouted, and Hisana noticed with a start that he was holding the hex crystal in his hands. Dread ran through her at that - had he got to Koyuki?

"Well, we were hired to guard the princess. We're just being proactive about it, that's all. After all, nothing you've thrown at us has been outside the bounds of the A-rank mission her manager paid for," Hisana said, as she advanced slowly forwards. Her sword was sheathed, but she was ready to fight at a moment's notice.

"She chose her bodyguards well. I couldn't get to her even with half the Snow Village - but at least I could corrupt a maid or two. They served to bring me this - the key to the Kazahana fortune! My fool of a brother was building something here, something he poured money into. I'll activate his secret weapon, and I'll wipe you three and that stupid princess off the map!" Doto shouted.

It was at that moment that Hisana noticed the director and his camera crew concealed under a blind some distance away. There was something about it - some subtle genjutsu. Her eyes narrowed. This could only be the work of the Trenchcoats. They had probably ensured Doto had gotten his hands on the crystal. It felt very odd to benefit from their actions for once, but Hisana couldn't complain.

"My allies have abandoned me in my hour of need, even after all the armour and technology I provided them! I thought they would want to kill you three brats after what you did to their forces when they tried to invade you - but they simply melted away! My ninja, however, have proved a little more loyal. Deal with these brats!" Doto continued.

The three masked snow ninja stepped forwards. One drew a pair of short, straight swords. Another formed claws of black ice around his fists. The last one, the leader, made no obvious signs of readying himself, but his chakra spiked.

"What's the play here, boss?" Karin asked as Doto plunged the Hex Crystal into the control slot Hisana knew was in the shrine.
Hisana responded...

[x] "You two deal with these three, and I'll deal with Doto,"

[x] "I'll deal with these three, you start on Doto,"

[x] "We'll take on these three, and then finish off Doto,"

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