Lost on the Road of Life (An AU Naruto Quest)

The roar of the Six Tails echoed in his ear drums as a thousand thoughts, ideas, and battle plans raced through Kakashi's skull. As the massive slug-like beast swam towards their rickety little boat, one thought stood apart from all the rest.

This is an excellent time for parallelization.

Kakashi formed a cross-shaped handseal. "Shadow Clone technique!" Kakashis Alpha, Beta, and Gamma materialized into existence. Alpha began brainstorming ways to distract the Six Tails while the rest got away, while Beta and Gamma went down to Sugiyama's chambers. Kakashi tossed Alpha his spare weapons pouch and ran towards Shizuka's room at full speed, sidestepping and pushing sailors out of the way to get there faster.

"Shizuka!" Kakashi screamed from down the hall. "Evac, NOW!"

Kakashi ripped the door off of its hinges.

"I'm getting dressed you—"

A quick split-second scan revealed that Shizuka was mostly ready to go. She was equipped with her mask and weapons bandolier, the only difference was that the Rain-nin was sans her usual camouflage bodysuit.

"No time," Kakashi said, as calmly as he could manage. "Tailed Beast attack. Not joking. Leave now."

It was sometimes important in a crisis situation to give a small amount of context before you began belting out orders.

We should make coded phrases for this sort of thing in the future.

"What are you talking about?"

Kakashi tackled Shizuka through the wall and out the side of the boat.

Beta and Gamma will grab Sugiyama and their precious backpack of stuff and hopefully already be out here. I should probably take the backpack, the clones won't last too long and we're in the middle of the ocean.

Kakashi landed on the water with a slight splash and adhered to the surface with the tiniest mental nudge of chakra manipulation. Shizuka did the same, though she looked pretty pissed off. Two more splashes signaled the arrival of Beta and Gamma, each carrying one Sugiyama and one Giant Backpack of Stuff.

Note to self, thank Shizuka for not putting a kunai through my head.

Maybe we should give some thought into implementing a policy about sleeping in your combat gear and not your lingerie-pajamas or whatever those are.

Maybe if they survived the night Kakashi would bring it up later.





Kakashi Alpha adhered to the top of the crow's nest as the Six Tails neared the ship. Alpha hefted a heavy-ish barrel— filled with ale, or something, given its weight— over his shoulder.

As the Tailed Beast closed in, an oppressive cloud of killing intent began filling the air. Some of the sailors below started freezing up, but Kakashi Alpha was ready for it. When the Nine Tails attacked, it had blanketed the whole Leaf village with a boiling miasma of terror, and he had little reason to expect the Six Tails to be different.

Alpha waited patiently for his moment.

Why am I always stuck with the shitty work? Kakashi Alpha thought. The sentiment was true, in a roundabout and non-linear way. The Shadow Clones that bore the Alpha moniker tended to be the clones that had to do the annoying decoy work, or act as suicidal attackers, or otherwise do things that were too dangerous or bothersome for the original to do himself.

Granted, given our chakra reserves, most of the clones ever created have the moniker Kakashi Alpha, Kakashi Alpha thought. But whatever.

Alpha only had a few minutes to live, tops, so he figured he could permit himself some ass backwards thinking if it helped calm his nerves. Not that he would ever admit that to Kakashi Prime…

Well, I suppose he'll find out when I pop anyway, but—

The killing intent increased dramatically as the Six Tails reached the boat. A wave of displaced water preceded the Tailed Beast as it closed in.

NOW!

Kakashi Alpha threw the barrel of ale upwards with all of his might. Alpha bent his chakra construct legs and jumped after the barrel moments later, right as the bow wave of the approaching Six Tails slammed into the boat like the fist of a wrathful deity.

Alpha soared through the air and caught up to the barrel. He reached out and grabbed the heavy object in his palm, sticking to it like glue with a bit of chakra adhesion, altering the momentum of the barrel as he did so. The wood splintered slightly under the shear force, but it held, and Alpha climbed on top of it and positioned his feet correctly. Alpha fought the urge to vomit— not that he could (or could he? Prime! New experiment!) — as the barrel spun through the air.

Alpha used the heavy barrel as a platform and launched himself as high as he could manage.

The sailors below screamed in terror as the wave hit them and sent the boat rolling through the ocean. Moments later the Six Tails passed underneath Alpha and swum right by the side of the boat. The giant beast roared, and the sound itself was almost loud enough to physically damage Kakashi Alpha's chakra construct body as he tumbled through the air.

The Six Tails cracked the ship in half with an errant sideswipe of one of its tails. It veered and swerved, bringing its massive body around to face the ship once more. It swam towards the ship, much more slowly this time.

Is it… playing with us? Alpha thought, as he somersaulted through the air. He drew a couple of explosive tags that Prime had passed to him. Why didn't it just smash the boat and be done with it?

Whatever the Tailed Beast's motives were, Alpha had a job to do. He had to distract the thing long enough for Prime and the gang to get out alive.

Alpha landed on the water and surged forwards, explosives in hand. He hoped that the loud blasts of fire and concussive force would be enough to grab the leviathan's attention. Alpha tossed a kunai upwards into the air as he came up the side of the boat. Half of it, anyway. The edges of the wood were sizzling, melting almost, as if the thin film of mucus stuck to the planks was literally eating away at the wood.

Is that the port or starboard side? Alpha thought. Oh well. It didn't matter either way.

The explosive tag detonated in the air between the Six Tails and the sinking ship. The Six Tails locked on to the explosion and cocked its head.

Great, this—

The beast roared and Kakashi Alpha felt the ocean vibrate around him.

But the sound was nothing next to the killing intent.

It was like being bathed in malevolence itself.

Kakashi Alpha had all the memories of Prime. He recalled the Nine Tails attack and noted how different this was in comparison. He recalled how the masked attacker had literally paralyzed him with a concentrated burst of killing intent, similarly to how the oldest ninja could concentrate their own auras offensively to freeze up an inexperienced opponent.

This was nothing like that.

The Six Tails hated every single sailor on that boat. It hated Kakashi. It hated every living breathing human on the open ocean. It wanted them all to die. Personally. It willed his death with a depth of need that Kakashi Alpha struggled to wrap his mind around it. He froze.

I'm already dead. I'm dead, so dead, I just haven't stopped thinking yet. Inevitable. Can't escape. I'm going to—

Alpha clenched his fist.

But I'm a Shadow Clone. It's not like I didn't already know that.

Alpha focused his thoughts on the mission. All he had to do was distract the titan as long as possible. Every second counted.

Alpha started moving again, burning a mass of chakra to accelerate as he did so. The Six Tails reared back, and flexed its acidic appendages. Alpha's eye darted over to a piece of debris far off to the side of the sinking ship and Substituted.

There was a thunderclap.

Alpha barely registered the attack, but a cloud of shrapnel and detritus exploded out into the open sea as the Six Tails erased the sinking ship.

That blow struck so fast it had its own shock wave. I can't— there's no way! I need to—

No. Stop thinking, Alpha thought. He tossed another explosive tag at the beast. This one landed right between the eyes. The explosion washed over the beast for an instant, but the Tailed Beast seemed entirely nonplussed. Its eyes tracked the waves. It took a few seconds, but eventually the Six Tails spotted him and swam forwards.

Well, th-that's all I got. Alpha stood on the open ocean and raised his right hand, middle finger extended. He had no chakra left for another Substitution. The next blow would take him out.

A massive eye peered down at him and the oppressive killing intent spiked once again.

▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅ !


Kakashi Alpha popped.







They made it most of a mile away when Kakashi felt his shadow clone's demise.

"AH!"

Kakashi seized up as the memories from Kakashi Alpha slammed into his brain. His chakra control slipped, and he felt his feet sink several inches into the water before he was able to regain his focus. His vision blurred and his head swam as he felt his other two shadow clones pop in response to the secondhand mental trauma, their own distinct memories of the last few minutes slamming into him as well, compounding the issue. He grit his teeth as he wobbled drunkenly in response to the deluge of information worming its way into his brain, an uncomfortable sensation that was kid's stuff next to experiencing the massive killing intent of the Six Tails three times over. Certain death was several hundred yards away, and the Six Tails was surely right behind them, gaining speed once more and—

"No!" A voice yelled in his ears. "I WON'T LET IT END LIKE THIS!"

Kakashi rocketed forwards as fast as his limbs could carry him, but his body was sluggish, and every movement burned. Kakashi's body was still healing from the damage done to his chakra coils during his battle in Honey, and his limbs, though striding forward dutifully, were shaking slightly from the mental assault that he had just experienced. Even so, Sugiyama and Shizuka barely caught up to him a few seconds later. The medic was clearly straining with all of their might to go as fast as possible, and probably burning a massive amount of chakra in the process.

An earsplitting roar echoed from behind them, sending a shiver down Kakashi's spine. Kakashi did his best to ignore it— there was no hope of dodging the thing now, if it actually caught up to them. Their only chance was to outrun it.

Kakashi locked his gaze on the horizon, and he focused on moving forward.

That's what we have to do, right Rin? We have to keep moving forward. You said so.

Right?

…

…

...

"Hatake!" Shizuka yelled.

Kakashi whipped his head to the side but didn't alter his course. "What!?"

"It's been two hours," Shizuka said, in-between a few ragged breaths of air. "What's the plan?"

Kakashi was momentarily gobsmacked. He took a couple heartbeats worth of time to collect his thoughts.

"Plan? Are you kidding me? There's no plan!" Kakashi exclaimed. "That was the Six Tails and we're alone in the middle of the Nanmen Ocean! The plan is run the fuck away, in this direction, until we find someplace to collapse!"

"At the current rate," Sugiyama rasped. "That will be quite soon. We will encounter debilitating exhaustion, dehydration, and sun sickness in the next two hours."

Kakashi took a mental inventory of his physical condition, and concluded that his weary and injured body probably had another eighty miles—which at this pace was about ten to twelve hours of running— left in it, at an absolute maximum.

Sugiyama and Shizuka would probably not make it that far though.

Shit.

The straps of Sugiyama's backpack were beginning to chafe into his shoulder.

"Alright. Slow the pace slightly. We'll keep an eye out for a place to stop," Kakashi said. He paused to take a controlled breath. Inhale through the nose. Exhale from the mouth. "But that's it. We really have to just deal with it for now." Kakashi formed a few handseals. "Earth Element: Earth Clone!"

An Earth Clone materialized beside him and matched his pace immediately. Kakashi dug through his flak jacket and handed the chakra construct a pair of storage seals.

"Clone, get six spare canteens out of the topmost storage seal and hand them out," Kakashi ordered. The clone unsealed the storage seal's contents, and a massive pile of water canteens popped into existence. The clone hastily grabbed six of them, leaving the rest to fall into the sea. "Do the same for the vinegar in the second seal. Pour a small amount into each canteen before restoring the vinegar and handing two of the canteens to each of us. Return the spare seals to me."

The Earth Clone dutifully obeyed.

"What are you doing?" Shizuka asked. She sniffed at the open canteen and made a face. "You expect us to drink this?"

"Old ANBU trick," Kakashi said. He took a small swig and winced at the taste. "Helps with the muscle cramps and dehydration, for a time. Small sips. I have some better supplies stored somewhere, but rifling through half of my inventory is going to take time that we can't spare right now."

"But—"

NOPE.

"Look!" Kakashi spat. "Option one: the massive village-killing monster found something better to do. That's fine, good for us. Options that aren't option one: It's the end of the line for us. Period. Kiss your hopes and dreams for the future goodbye, because if the Six Tails pops up near us again, we are capital 'D' dead, and there's nothing at all any of us can do about that. The only thing we can do is run far the fuck away, and as fast as we possibly can."

Kakashi's sitrep was met with complete silence.

"Sip the fucking drinks," Kakashi said. "Shizuka, we'll alternate carrying Sugiyama when they get too tired in a few hours. Ten minutes every sixty, just to give them a bit of a break. Sugiyama, if I start slogging, I'm ditching the backpack. Am I understood?"

"Yes," the two of them responded.

"Sugiyama," Kakashi said, as a thought occurred to him. "Is there anything you know about the Tailed Beasts? Anything important?"

"I know much about the Nine, of course," the fortune-teller replied. "There are a grand multitude of stories, yet… nothing that would be useful in our escape from the Drowned God's domain."

Of course.

"Right," Kakashi said. "In that case, please instruct Shizuka and I on how to perform any basic medical care that you would expect would be necessary once we finally stop. Dehydration, sun sickness, whatever we need to do let us know now."

Kakashi hoped that it wouldn't end up being necessary, but he wasn't going to bet on Sugiyama remaining conscious for long when they finally reached land.





Kakashi tensed as a smudge appeared on the horizon in front of them.

A ship? Kakashi thought. He wiped rivulets of sweat and sea spray out of his eye. The smudge became slightly more defined after another minute of forward travel. It wasn't tall enough to be a ship. It looked like a large sandbar or a small island of some kind. But all the way out here? How? We're still in the middle of nowhere.

"Land ahead," Kakashi said calmly. "Ten more minutes until we get there."

The ragged and tortured breathing of his two companions grew slightly more excited. Kakashi burned a large fraction of his remaining chakra reserves to create two more Earth Clones.

"Carry them."

The small island— an atoll, Kakashi realized, as they closed in— was a small, vaguely circular pile of sand and rocky coral with a blue-ish lagoon in the middle. It was barely larger than the top floor of the Hokage Tower, lagoon and all.

But all that matters is that it's solid. Kakashi thought. He would have to quickly set up camp and put down a Multiple Earth Wall or two before the others took a dirt nap. Sugiyama was probably barely on their feet at this point, and Shizuka was also in lousy shape from the sounds of her huffing and puffing. Kakashi hadn't expected the Rain ninja's physical stamina to be this vastly dwarfed by her other abilities.

Heh. Maybe Zabuza was right about the physical conditioning.

Kakashi's sandals hit the sand of the small island's shore and he wobbled slightly. Running in a straight line using the water walking technique for long stretches of distance did strange things to your sense of balance for a little while afterwards.

Kakashi's hands blurred into the requisite handseals. "Multiple Earth Wall!"

He cast the technique properly and slowly, carefully forming the granite wall's structure into a wide, flat rectangle. The end result was something that was more a granite foundation than a granite wall, but having a foot or so of solid stone in between your campsite and the ground immediately below it would prevent you from being eaten alive by all sorts of subterranean chakra beasts.

"Set them down over there," Kakashi commanded his clones. He stumbled slightly and his vision swam. "Start piling clean sand up on the granite."

Kakashi fumbled through his storage seal collection with violently shaking hands. Eventually he managed to unseal a tent and some basic camping equipment— which he ordered the Earth Clones to set up, of course— and a few assorted jars of pickled vegetables. He unscrewed the lid of one, tipped his soaked mask off with one hand, and started gulping down the salty brine.

Not bad, I guess.

Kakashi wobbled on his feat and reflexively bent over.

Wait.

"HRK!"

The contents of his stomach evacuated themselves onto the surf. Kakashi shivered and shook his head before unscrewing another jar with a grimace.

Down the hatch.

Kakashi grabbed the remaining jars and tossed one to Shizuka. Kakashi winced as the jar tumbled into her stomach as she fumbled the catch a bit.

"Fuck!"

"Sorry," Kakashi said. "Drink it down quickly."

There was a soft thud and Kakashi turned his head and saw Sugiyama collapsed forward in a lifeless heap.

"Shit," Kakashi said. He hobbled over, his unsteady hands trying to pry open the last jar, which was sealed tight. He strained against it for a second longer, before giving up on prying it open.

"Fuck this shit," he muttered. He channeled chakra to his palms and twisted violently. The lid snapped off like a twig. He forced Sugiyama's prone form upright with one hand and pried their mouth open.

I don't pay me enough for this, Kakashi thought to himself. He started channeling medical chakra to his hands and performing the various care instructions that Sugiyama had helpfully outlined earlier. Maybe after this Rain mission we can head to Hotsprings for a few cold ones and a nice soak.

After Kakashi was satisfied that their medic wasn't going to die on the spot, he turned to Shizuka, who was…

"Snfnfrk."

… asleep?

…

…

"Alright," Kakashi said. "Earth Clones, take these two into the tent and get them comfortable."

Kakashi sat down beside the tent with a wince. His legs were screaming at him, but he knew that the worst of it would come in the morning when the adrenaline faded and his muscles had some time to stiffen up.

"Looks like I have first watch," Kakashi said to the empty island. He shifted slightly. "Hope that nothing more dangerous than a beached shark shows up." He considered unsealing one of his books to read to pass the time, but for the first time in a long time he was too tired to read and stay awake and alert, so he passed the time drawing imaginary figures in the sand with his thumb.

Wait.

There was no way in hell that Shizuka and Sugiyama hadn't noticed him getting the memories from his Shadow Clone earlier. The sensory feedback was obvious.

Damn it! Kakashi slammed a fist into the sand beneath him.

Hopefully it wasn't so obvious to them what was going on. I should figure out a good lie for that one at some point, if either of them asks…

…

...

Kakashi waited eight hours for Shizuka to wake up. Just before sunrise, he dragged himself into the tent. After performing a quick diagnostic jutsu to verify that Sugiyama was alive, Kakashi collapsed on top of the corner sleeping bag and fell into blissful unconsciousness.





Kakashi wiped literal and figurative sand out of his eyes as he woke up. He looked around the tent, but there was no one else to be found.

Good. That means that Sugiyama woke up, at least. Kakashi thought. Probably, anyway.

Kakashi slowly lifted himself off the ground. Pain shot through his lower body, up his back and down his legs. He ignored his sore muscles and forced himself upright. His clothes were drenched in sweat— it was entirely too fucking hot—and his mouth felt like it was made out of sandpaper. He took a swig of lukewarm water from his canteen and formed some handseals.

"Fire Element: Hot 'N Cold."

A shimmering film of fire-natured chakra surrounded him, cooling the ambient temperature around his skin and venting the excess heat out to the technique's exterior.

At least, that's probably what it's doing, Kakashi thought. He hadn't found the time to experiment with the technique yet to figure out the ins and outs of it from a theoretical perspective. It was one of the many Fire Element techniques that he'd picked up in Snow Country. This one in particular was copied from that chuunin girl, Mieko, after he had punched her lights out and captured her.

Kakashi walked out of the tent and looked around for his companions. He didn't have to go very far, since both of them were sitting outside of the tent on some camping chairs, eating something that looked like it came out of a storage seal.

Sugiyama looked like they had crawled out of Naraka. The usually serene medic was puffing slowly on their pipe (producing some gray smoke which smelled different than Kakashi remembered). They had dark rings around severely bloodshot eyes, and their painted lips were stretched into a thin line, as if they were dealing with some sort of chronic pain.

Lips painted differently, Kakashi observed. That meant the fortune teller was alive enough to apply makeup, which was a good sign, or so he figured. Kakashi glanced over to Shizuka.

Shizuka just looked plain exhausted. Her dark brown hair fell limply over her face, and her blue eyes looked red around the edges. There was a profound sense of relief in the Rain native's posture, as if the novelty of surviving certain death had not yet worn off for her.

"Morning," Kakashi said. He gave them his best irritating smile. He peered upwards at the clear sky and took note of the descending sun across the horizon. "Or uh, early evening, I guess. Funny, that."

"Greetings, Copy Ninja," Sugiyama said. The Demon native broke off into a light coughing fit. "It is my expert opinion that we should stay here and rest for a full day before returning to the road."

"The sea," Shizuka corrected. Kakashi chuckled. Sugiyama waved a hand dismissively but didn't say anything to interrupt her. "And yes, I feel like I've been beaten black and blue and subsequently fed some serious sedatives. How in the great lizard's gizzard are you so chipper?"

"Trade secret," Kakashi said. It was pretty straightforward. Anyone who had Gai as a part-time workout partner had to endure some amount of ridiculous physical conditioning, from time to time.

Though Kakashi had been slacking somewhat on training secondary combat skills— it was hard to do proper endurance training while you were stuck in a hole in the ground, learning how to call monsters from beyond the Human Path, or on a cramped piece-of-crap boat— he had earned both his promotion to jounin and his lieutenant rank in ANBU with hard work and results.

Gai probably would have been fine going all the way back to the mainland, Kakashi thought, with a small snort. Maybe even carry me half of the way too.

All in all, their escape had been taxing for him, but not dangerously so. His exit from Snow Country over the Land of Lightning had probably come significantly closer to killing him— Tailed Beast aside, of course.

"Anyway," Kakashi said. "Speaking of returning to the road...we should think about where to go next." He looked over at Shizuka. "We need to be somewhere in Rain, right? We're on a tiny island that's probably somewhere in the south end of the Hanguri Gulf. That leaves us with a couple options."

Shizuka nodded. "We can head west to the Land of Wind, and then go to Rain directly or cross into River. Or we can head east, to Tea Country, and try to cross via the Land of Fire or dip back over the gulf to traverse River country."

Kakashi hummed. "Or we can just slog the rest of the way over the ocean to River directly. That would be the most direct, as the leaves blow, but also the most exhausting. River's geography is also potentially problematic. There are routes through its network of valleys that go east and west, but not any north that I know of, so there would be a lot of legwork. Hidden Valley is also near the northern border, or so the Leaf intelligence reports say. We'd run into patrols."

Shizuka nodded. "Valley is near the northern border. That's not an ideal route to take if we're going to be exhausted by the trip over the water. It would cost significant time, and we'd be vulnerable once we reach the shore. While theoretically the most direct path, I am not sure that is wise to take." The poison user gestured at him with her hand. "I'm going to guess that going through the Land of Fire will be considerably dangerous, given your presence, Hatake?"

"Yeah," Kakashi said. He drew out the last syllable for quite a while. "I'd sort of prefer if we don't do that. All it takes is one Hyuuga on patrol to spot us, and then we'll have a squad of ANBU on our tail."

Or worse, Kakashi thought. He wasn't quite sure how fed up Leaf was when it came to the subject of the missing-nin Hatake Kakashi, but he would bet that it was a considerable amount. If one of the Clan Heads or the Legendary Three were available to send out to drag him back home, and Leaf got a report that he was inside Fire? It wouldn't be pretty.

"Leaf patrols the border with Rain fairly heavily too," Kakashi added. "But I suppose I could be convinced, if it's our only other option. Tea Country is nothing to be concerned about. We could travel up through Tea and head to River anyway, but that would take much longer."

"It seems that there is a similar downside to the Land of Wind, is there not?" Sugiyama asked. The fortune-teller had furrowed their eyebrows together in consideration. "The Sand is allied with the Leaf?"

"Yeah," Kakashi said. "But the deserts of Wind are going to be a slow hike. It gets ridiculously hot there during the day, and there is very little cover in the dunes to hide from patrolling Sand ninja on their eastern border. Wind is massive though, and unlike Fire we won't have a thousand sensory bloodlines to worry about, so we can probably rest once we reach the mainland shore. After napping in a random fishing village? It'll be absolute hell, it's the worst terrain in the known world to travel through, bar none."

His companions grimaced at the thought.

Hmm. Maybe I'll be able to do some intel gathering about that missing sealmaster while we're there.

"And heading directly to River would leave us as tired as we are now," Shizuka mused.

Sugiyama coughed. "I confess that the prospect of traveling across the ocean for another full day is not appealing to me."

"Yeah," Kakashi said. Shizuka nodded as well. "Hmm. Guess that leaves us with three shit options."

Kakashi scratched his mask.

---

Kakashi has earned 2 Fate Points. One from the Mild Consequence (courtesy of Kakashi Alpha) and one for surviving the update. The Mild will heal by next update.

Shizuka has a Mild ('Stamina More Like Stami-Nah!') that will also heal by next update.

Sugiyama has a Moderate Consequence ('Ran Beyond My Meatsack's Limits'), which may take several days to heal.

The suggested routes, ordered by how long Kakashi and co think they'll take :

1) Island → River → Rain [Quickest]
2) Island → Wind → Rain
3) Island → Tea → Fire → Rain
4) Island → Tea → River → Rain [Slowest]

Kakashi and co think that route 4 is also the safest. Any path that leads through the Land of Fire is likely the most dangerous for obvious reasons, but the other two are about even in terms of general danger and shitty physical exertion.

This vote decides the course of the next couple chapters at the very least, so make sure to toss your hat in the ring!


Voting Time! What do you do now?

Here are some options to get you started.

[]Go ashore in Wind Country. Rest for a few days, then move towards Rain. Snoop as you go, if opportunities present themselves.
[]Go ashore in Tea Country. Rest for a few days, then cross over to the Land of Fire. Book it towards Rain. Do not stop, do not collect 200 ryo, do not look back.
[] Traverse the rest of the Hanguri Gulf and land in River. Rest for a few days, then slowly make your way northwards through the maze of valleys. Try to dodge patrols near Rain's border and cross into Rain there.
[] Go ashore in Tea Country. Rest up, then cross the northern part of the gulf to go through River. Make your way north into Rain Country.
[] (Write-in)




Remember, we use approval voting, so you can vote for as many plans as you like. Feel free to ping @Paperclipped or @MMKII to ask setting or detail questions that Kakashi could plausibly know.


Voting is open, and closes in about one week at 5pm Pacific time, Friday September 16th.

Darui struggled to keep his temper under wraps. C's performance was the height of rudeness and the very definition of provocative, but she was also C. There was little he could do about it without losing face. Any outbursts would reflect poorly upon himself, as well as Storm's Fang.

Not to mention the embarrassment that would come if she kicked my ass, Darui thought grimly. C was undoubtedly the weakest of the A-B-C trio. The kunoichi usually acted in a support role compared to A or Killer B, but she was still an elite jounin, while Darui himself had been promoted to jounin rank just before the last war. While he had a lot of aces up his sleeves, an actual fight between them would be too much of a toss up for his liking, even if C was already a few drinks in tonight.

Darui reached out and took his pipe back from Raizo.

Keep smoking, act nonchalant. It doesn't matter. If he kept himself occupied and just tried to enjoy the rest of the night and relax, it was likely the crowd would forget...

The audience's laughter trickled down to a murmur. There was an awkward tension in the air, as some of the ninja in the audience looked at the rest of the crowd with pursed lips and glares. The discontent was being openly displayed by a small minority of the audience, likely old timers and young patriots that apparently weren't liking the inflammatory nature of C's performance.

I wonder if any of them are fans of mine?

Some of the more self-aware laughing ninja shuffled nervously, but most didn't seem to care.

Darui's eyes flickered as he noticed B moving forward. Killer B walked up to the stage, slowly, calmly, like a mighty, predatory cat lazily stalking through its hunting grounds. The noisy din in the tavern smoothed out into a curtain of silence and soft murmurs.

Darui leaned forward in interest. Killer B literally spoke in poetry, but it was a rare night indeed that he would deign to perform publicly— a performance he could give at any time and any location he pleased, of course. The man was just that good.

Darui had been a fan since a young age when he saw one of Killer B's performances at the fall equinox festival. His talent was almost supernatural in its ability to stir emotions in others; his verbiage was deep, layered in meaning, and evocative without being overly melodramatic or dramatic. Yet at the same time he created a type of rhythm that was hard to categorize.

The jinchuuriki of the Eight Tails planted his feet on the center floorboards of the stage. He cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck, as if preparing to do some great work of manual labor. Killer B coughed audibly, and the trickle of hushed whispers echoing through the crowd gave way at the noise, as the entire captive audience held its collective breath.

Darui leaned forward in the cushioned booth in anticipation, just enough to get a slightly better view, but not enough to cause the wooden frame of the bench to creak or groan.

This should be interesting.

Killer B pointed at the bar as C slammed her drink down, before raising an index finger in an exaggerated fashion.

"A cups at C's cups."

What? Darui quirked an eyebrow.

There was a sharp bark of laughter from somewhere in the audience that quickly strangled itself. C started choking on her drink.

"Damn," B said. He nodded appreciatively. "Those are really somethin'!" He gently patted his own chest. "These? Killer B-cups." The jinchuuriki made a quick kissing motion.

The audience laughed freely this time, since that marked the end of one full haiku, and it was clear that the legendary performer was aiming for comedy. Darui chuckled quietly, though his eyes darted over to steal a glance at the sputtering C. Killer B was probably trying to lighten the mood and ease the tension.

Killer B held up a palm and the laughter vanished as quickly as it had arrived. "Scraps, spats, by wet cats?" The man frowned and spread his arms wide, as if to give the audience a bear hug. "Many ninja." He lifted a clenched fist. "One team. Cloud!" The jinchuuriki folded his arms. "So let's settle, yeah?"

The audience broke out into interested mutterings and whispered speculation.

Darui narrowed his eyes. Where's Killer B going with this?

And why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like it?

Killer B extended his left arm and gestured at the bar. "C dropped the challenge." Killer B did the same with his right arm. Darui froze as the outstretched limb pointed towards the table that Storm's Fang was currently seated at. "Darui yet to respond."

Shit. Shit shit shit. Darui cursed mentally, as adrenaline-fueled nervousness cut through the alcohol in his system.

"But he'll respond, right now!"

Wait, what!? Darui's lips parted as his heart dropped to his stomach and his intestines redoubled their efforts to tie themselves into a sailor's knot. Storm's Fang were still as statues in their seats next to him. Any one of them could be knocked over with a drifting feather. C scowled at the stage from her perch at the bar, but she stat there patiently. The rest of the audience roared, stamping their feet on the floorboards and hollering loudly.

Killer B clapped his hands together, once, twice, three times, before the man spread his arms wide and his shoulders lifted into a carefree shrug. "Saturday night live!"

The crowd kept up their applause and Killer B started making hand-signs at an absolutely glacial pace.

Even B is wary of spooking a tavern full of ninja too much, I guess.

"Lightning Release: Bright Spotlight!"

A pillar of rotating electricity appeared in the air above the stage, directly in the center where B was standing. The light given off by the technique was bright, almost blindingly so, and Darui would bet money that Killer B had commissioned the flashy technique purely for situations like this.

I wonder if he has others for different occasions. A first line opener or a third line finisher?

Killer B sidestepped away from the pillar of light. The legendary shinobi gestured to the center of the stage as if he was about to unveil something spectacular.

"Darui, come up!"

Storm's Fang exploded, cheering and yelling and waving wildly at him.

Stunned, he walked up to the stage, thoughts racing.

Once in a lifetime chance to have Killer B as your hype man, Darui thought to himself. Make it fucking count.

It would be a great opportunity, if he had anything prepared. But he had nothing, and his mind was currently swimming through the clouds.

So he'd just have to go freestyle.

Darui walked slowly and lazily, attempting to mirror Killer B's own entrance. It was a bit of showmanship intended to give off an air of confidence, and also to give himself time to think of something to actually do with this unexpected invitation to perform.

Darui stepped across the stage and stood in the center of the pillar of light. Static electricity collected in his body as he walked across the stage, a side effect of the lightning chakra flooding the air, and he dispelled it with a basic chakra control exercise. Lightning chakra could have strange effects on the brain if it was running through your system, and he needed to think clearly and with an unadulterated mind if he was going to come up with a creative performance on the spot.

Darui felt the collective attention of the building focus on him. The presence was almost a physical force instead of a psychological one, and it pressed on him like a ton of bricks.

Darui stared back at the crowd, who were shifting around in anticipation like a formless mass of starving insects. They were likely eager to see where this performance was going. He glanced over to Killer B, who was giving him an inscrutable look from behind his tinted spectacles. Finally he looked over to C, who was watching smugly, her eyebrows raised, all but asking him to take his best shot.

Darui's mind had run through a thousand thousand angles and lines as he walked up to the stage, and did a thousand thousand more as he stared out at the crowd, who looked like they were getting a bit impatient.

Darui thought about the last couple days he had gone through. He thought about the prisoner that had escaped, and the man that had died trying to stop him. He thought about kneeling silently in the temple in front of that ninja's ashes.

And all of the things he could say just seemed like they were…

Pointless.

Like this little confrontation just… wasn't all that meaningful in the grand scheme of things.

...

Critique from the stage, huh?

Okay.

Darui's arm lanced out, his palm outward, facing the crowd. It was a piece of body language that asked, no, demanded that they stop and pay attention to him.

Showtime.

Darui inhaled deeply, and he pointed at Killer B. "Rhyming about cups?" He pointed at C, who was still sitting pretty at the bar with that fucking smirk on her face. "Losing ourselves in the drink?" He brought his hand back and jabbed himself in the forehead with the same index finger he had used to point. "Does it really click?"

Silence.

Darui shadow boxed quickly, giving a fast one-two punch to the air. "Fighting." He channeled lightning chakra through his hands, transforming the sparking energy into arcs of obsidian voltage as he did so. "Black lightning." He clapped his hands together and the sparks vanished. "Gone. Quick as a thunderclap."

He gestured at the ground angrily. "Blood pooling like rain."

Darui kneeled down on the stage. "Young sealmaster dude." He brought his hands up, fingers clasped, as if he were about to pray. "Couldn't get there quick enough." He bowed his head. "Comrade, I'm sorry!"

Darui held the pose for a moment, before standing up and looking at the crowd. He tried to his expression neutral, but inside he was flipping his shit.

Was that too much? Too gaudy?

Too real?

…

The silence was broken by the sound of applause from his left. Darui glanced over, and he saw Killer B. The jinchuuriki was nodding slowly, his expression considerate and interested, his eyebrows raised slightly. The jinchuuriki jerked his head to the side ever so slightly, as if to signal that Darui should step out of the way.

So he did.

Darui ceded the space on the center of the stage back to the man with a wide sidestep, knowing that in this time and place, the spotlight was merely a possession of Killer B's that Darui was borrowing momentarily. Killer B came forward and stepped back into the spotlight, and the crowd roared once again.

Killer B put up a hand to quiet the assembled masses. "Obituaries! That's the real five-seven-five." He grabbed Darui's right arm and lifted it into the air. "Respect, Little D!"

The crowd applauded, this time for him. Darui's jaw dropped in response, but he quickly closed it before he started looking like a fish out of water. Killer B dropped Darui's arm to make a spreading motion at the crowd with his hands, as if they were a bed sheet he was ironing out, and the room went silent once again.

"Moment of silence," B said. The jinchuuriki of the Eight Tails clasped his hands together and bowed his head down. "For those who lost the good fight. We carry onwards."

The room stilled, the atmosphere becoming mournful and respectful for a few seconds. It ended as Killer B raised his head and walked off of the stage. Darui took that as his cue to leave, and he made his way back to the rest of Storm's Fang.

"That was great, man!" Kaien said. Raizo was giving him a massive grin, and Sen was all but jumping up and down in her seat.

"Yeah," Darui said. His eyes glanced over to track Killer B, who was now standing at the bar with C, the kunoichi had a frown plastered across her face, but her overall expression was neutral.

But she didn't look his way. There was no tip of the hat at his wordplay or raised middle finger in response to his choice of words.

No acknowledgment whatsoever.

Some of the veteran jounin and older chuunin used the lull in performances as an opportunity to socialize. They closed in around B and C quickly, and soon the bar was a hotbed of socialization between the elite of the Hidden Cloud. It was a throng of shinobi a few dozen strong. The best of the best at their jobs, martial, political, or otherwise. The only major players that were missing were the Raikage and a handful or two of workaholics and Clan Heads that were doubtlessly too busy to attend tonight.

Darui looked on thoughtfully. He couldn't help but notice that the group seemed so far away from where he was sitting. Despite the earlier recognition, despite his own combat prowess and stellar mission record…

Anyone who was anyone in Hidden Cloud was all the way over on the other side of the building.

And he wasn't standing there with them.

---

Howdy folks. Here's part 2 of Darui's interlude.

Voting is still open!