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

The raindrops slammed into his face as Kakashi struggled to think of a plan.

Okay, four ninja behind us, closing in. Numbers disadvantage. Sugiyama is useless, I'm still injured, so Shizuka and Kagato are our best shot. Toss some wind jutsu down and fireball them half to death? Then the other two can pick off the rest after they're done frantically dodging.

Yeah. Sure.

Kakashi ripped the backpack off of his shoulders and thrust it out to Sugiyama. "Sugiyama, take your shit, keep running." The medic nodded, and slowly quickened the pace after a short coughing fit. "Shizuka, wind wall thing to stall. Kagato, get ready to dodge some jutsu."

The Mantis Summoner pointed forward at Sugiyama, and the lone summon Kamasitari bounded forward to flank the fortuneteller. Shizuka started making hand seals, before skidding clumsily to a stop in the muddy Rain Country terrain. Kakashi slowed, pushing more chakra to his feet to better adhere to the ground, and came to a stop as well.

"Wind Element: Wind Wall!"

A whirling barrier of wind appeared behind them. Normally invisible, Kakashi could use the faint displacement of swaying branches and disturbed dirt to mark the borders of the technique, which stretched from one particularly large oak tree to another.

Kagato stopped his sprint in a heartbeat and backflipped in the direction that the enemy ninja were supposedly coming from, taking his kusarigama while he did so.

Guy's fast, Kakashi thought. He took a small moment to admire the sheer agility that the Mantis Summoner displayed before he pulled down his headband to give Obito's eye a clear view. Lightning flashed in the clouds overhead, and the gifted organ picked out four blurry silhouettes from within the flash. Four ninja moving towards them at an alarming speed, darting over and around the trees as they navigated the thin woods of Rain Country.

Here we go.




Kakashi's mind raced as the enemy closed in.

One was a jounin for sure, a kunoichi in her twenties leaking killing intent, with strange armored gauntlets that had thin metal blades jutting out at the wrist. Another shinobi, this one male by the looks of it, was a miniature version of the kunoichi, and also wore similar wrist-blade equipment. A third shinobi, this one female, had no weapons or ammunition pouches on her figure. Probably a ninjutsu user. The last was—

Kakashi blinked as Obito's eye registered a bearded ninja about his age, who had a heavy metal parasol slung across his back.

Seriously? I thought Shizuka was pulling my leg about the combat umbrella guys?

The enemy ninja arrived at the wind barrier in a heartbeat.

Kagato started moving an instant before they arrived. The Sharingan perceived the Mantis Summoner vault up and over the Wind Wall, before engaging with the oldest looking ninja. The two blurred, and it was only the Sharingan's superior vision that allowed Kakashi to track the two as their limbs flickered back and forth, blades clashing and slashing and—

A heartbeat passed and the enemy jounin suddenly veered away from Kagato, spinning with the momentum of one of his strikes, and ran straight towards him and Shizuka. The kunoichi ran through the Wind Wall as if it wasn't even there. The moment she stepped through the barrier, the woods were filled with a shrill screaming noise, one not dissimilar to his own Chidori.

Sound based technique. Fukuro clan, right?

The jounin ran right at him, and Kakashi glanced around to find a Substitution target, but the ninja swerved drunkenly at the last minute and slashed forcefully at Shizuka with one of her wrist blades.

"Agh!"

Shizuka twisted to the side, trying to move out of the way of the wide slash, but she was too slow. Blood shot into the air as the blades bit into Shizuka's forearm and cut up to her shoulder. The Sharingan dutifully tracked the trajectory of the crimson liquid as several droplets smashed into Kakashi's face. Shizuka, eyes wide in shock, was replaced with a downed tree branch in a burst of smoke.

The water in the clearing wobbled under the Sharingan's gaze, and instinct had Kakashi moving before the water jutsu actually took effect. He leapt backwards and skidded to a halt, a storm of watery senbon raining down on the location he was moments before. Kakashi's hands quickly flew through familiar motions as he dodged, and suddenly a second wind technique blanketed the area the jounin was standing in, hampering her movements.

Perfect.

"Fire Element: Fire Dragon Bullet!" he roared. A dragon of flame burst into existence with a roaring explosion of its own, and surged forward. First into the treeline where the jounin was currently standing, and then forward to where the others were. Kakashi had no idea if Kagato was still on the ground, but he figured it wouldn't be too hard for the guy to dodge.

The fire leapt from his mouth as he fed the technique with more breath, taking Uchiha Fugaku's advice to heart.

KA-THOOM!

The Fire Dragon Bullet reacted explosively with both of the wide-area wind techniques it ran into, and the battlefield of damp muddy forest was quickly transmuted into line of smoke and blazing cinder. The curtain of smoke wavered in the late winter breeze, and Kakashi saw two of the other three ninja Substitute to the Fukuro jounin's side. The younger Fukuro shinobi finished a chain of hand seals that didn't appear to do much but spread and manipulate some wind chakra in the area. The other ninja, the umbrella lad, confidently tossed out a ninjutsu of his own.

"Fire Element: Walking Wildfire!"

Fire chakra swirled around the man, cloaking him in a thin aura of flame and smoke. The muddy ground beneath his feet seemed to smoke with serious intensity, as if the man himself was as hot as a roaring campfire. Obito's eye copied the technique as the man cast it.

Kakashi darted to the side— staying still in a fight was dumb— as he observed the battlefield.

The chain of Kagato's kusarigama snaked down from the treetops towards the enemy jounin. A whirring, vibrating blade snapped out to guard against the attack, but a formless shape — an arc of razor-thin wind chakra that Kakashi saw through the Sharingan—appeared next to the kunoichi in a burst of wind, and a thin jet of blood shot out from her neck.

Chain was just a feint. Damn, he's fast. Kakashi knew that Kagato was a strong fighter, and had gotten to see some of his capabilities back in Demon when they were ambushed by Dragon, but clearly the Mantis Summoner had been having an off day then.

While Kagato was busy, Kakashi heard some activity behind him, from where Shizuka had likely Substituted off to. He tensed slightly, his stomach doing some aerobics.

Is she okay? Under attack? Does she need backup?

"Wind Element: Chartreuse Gale Barrier!" Shizuka yelled. Kakashi's stomach ceased doing backflips at the confirmation that she was alive and that he hadn't just stood there while a teammate died in front of him. A blanket of twisting wind covered the area of woods behind him.

Putting up a defensive barrier. Solid idea.

Kakashi glanced over as the other kunoichi, the one who probably threw out the water senbon technique, turned on her heels and ran in the opposite direction.

Wait. Shit. Is she running for help?

Kakashi made a long series of hand seals. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as static electricity charged up around him, a consequence of the massive amount of lightning chakra he was forming and weaving into his next technique. Obito's eye dutifully picked out the targets: the remaining Fukuro, Umbrella Guy, a tree to close the distance, and lastly the fleeing kunoichi.

Can't have you getting away.

"Lightning Element: Lightning Dragon Bullet!" Kakashi yelled, right as the technique completed. The gathered lightning chakra coalesced into a dragon-shaped construct and shot forward with a roar. The two targets closest to him, Umbrella Guy and wrist-blades girl, vanished in a puff of smoke as the lightning screamed towards them.

Miss and a miss, Kakashi thought. His spirits fell a bit, but those two weren't the real targets he had in mind. They were just on the way there.

The draconic bolt of energy arced to a tree, the tall oak that Shizuka had placed the Wind Wall against earlier, before smashing down into the fleeing ninja.

The water elementalist Substituted with a rock, and the Lightning Dragon Bullet left glowing trails of molten stone as it raked into the small boulder. It turned towards where the fleeing ninja arrived and attacked again. This time it hit.

The Lightning Dragon Bullet attacked a third and final time before vanishing into an explosion of static. The fleeing kunoichi was still alive, but she was standing ramrod straight. Stunned.

Kagato blurred towards the paralyzed kunoichi, and a bolt of adrenaline raced through Kakashi's body as he realized two things. One he'd lost track of one of the enemy combatants.

"HAYAHHH!!"

And two: he was out of chakra.

Kakashi twisted his head as a shout filled his ears, accompanied by the rising shriek of some sort of sound-based ninjutsu. His chakra coils burned beneath his skin as he drew from some of the internal reserves of energy that kept his body moving, a mental motion that he was getting all too comfortable with.

Kakashi's opponent burst into view as a surge of power coursed through his veins. His heartbeat leveled out. His opponent was likely just a chuunin of some sort.

This is Tuesday. Business as usual.

The remaining Fukuro clan ninja rushed at him with some serious speed, his knives shaking violently as he slashed forward. Kakashi ignored the blades for a split-second and used Obito's eye to assess the boy's trajectory. He quickly planted his left foot firmly on the ground and lashed out with a vicious roundhouse kick. Kakashi's shin impacted his opponent right in the boy's ribcage, and knocked the chuunin to the side mere moments before the dagger would have bit into Kakashi's left lung.

Power of Youth, motherfucker.

The boy smashed into a nearby tree and pivoted off of it quickly, one of his screeching blades gouging an inch-deep trench into the bark as it absentmindedly swiped over it.

Are they using… sound to cut stuff!?

Kakashi rushed the blade-wielding chuunin. A shuriken sailed from behind him as he did so, and sliced a thin line of red into the boy's cheek.

Shizuka trying her best still.

The strike had done little damage to the chuunin, but the distraction gave Kakashi an opening. He rushed forward and sidestepped a drunken slash. Kakashi rocketed into the chuunin with a series of punches to the torso and the face, before knocking him into a tree with a well-placed double-fisted punch.

Kakashi always thought the strike resembled more of a shove, but Gai had always insisted otherwise.

Kakashi launched off the ground and into one of the Strong Fist's signature attacks. "Leaf Whirlwind!"

Kakashi's leg impacted his opponent's midsection while the guy was still up against the tree. There was a loud cracking noise as the tree trunk splintered under the force of the blow. The Fukuro chuunin crumpled to the ground lifelessly, the blow having broken his back in two as surely as it cracked the tree trunk.

"EAT SHIT!"

A burning meteor entered Kakashi's field of view, and his eyelids popped at the sight. Umbrella Guy, now shrouded in a massive cloak of burning flames, swung his giant, also flaming(?) combat umbrella in a powerful side swipe.

Kakashi began executing the almost-instinctual internal chakra manipulations of the Substitution technique.

If he were completely healthy and at a hundred percent fighting capacity, the dodge still wouldn't have been too hard, especially with the Substitution technique. But the chakra flowed sluggishly through his system, as if in payback for all of the times he'd been forced to go beyond his limits or strain his coils the last couple months.

The burning umbrella impacted his chest with a painful, searing thud. Kakashi felt his jacket heat up quickly as the flames burned through the garment's exterior.

And then he vanished, Substituting with a log, and reappeared at Shizuka's side. He completed the Substitution technique before the follow-through could really do some damage, but the strike would definitely leave a bruise. Maybe a burn too?

Alright, Kagato's on clean up duty. Time for us to go.

"Run!" Kakashi shouted. Spots danced across his vision as he quickly smothered the leftover embers that clung to him with a pat down. He took care to be gentle with the still-smoking pouches of his flak jacket.

Shit, my seals are in there? Did they get torched or damaged? No time, later.

Kakashi and Shizuka darted across the ground as the umbrella-wielding ninja attempted to pursue them. Kakashi didn't bother looking back at the guy. Given the speed Kagato had displayed—probably due to some sort of movement boosting ninjutsu — he'd be taking care of the guy any second now. Kakashi closed Obito's Eye and covered it once more. Combat was done.

Now it was time to continue running for their lives.

Kakashi glanced over to Shizuka. Her left side was absolutely drenched with blood from the wound she sustained. Shizuka was cradling the wounded arm in her other one, applying pressure to reduce the bleeding as faint sparks of green medical chakra flickered from her good hand.

But she probably doesn't have a lot left in the proverbial storage seal either.

"Are you good to keep going?" Kakashi asked. Shizuka grunted an affirmative in-between panting breaths. The two reached Sugiyama, who was still jogging steadily with that ridiculous backpack bouncing up and down. Kamasitari was scampering across the ground ahead, likely protecting the medic from any pitfalls or keeping an eye out for hostile wildlife. Kakashi blinked, as he realized that that was obviously what Kagato had intended in the moment. Thoughtful of him.

"Sugiyama, Kamasitari! It's us!" Kakashi yelled. "Keep running!"

A garbled scream echoed from behind them, but it was cut short. Kagato caught up with them soon after.

"That did not go as well as it could have," the Mantis Summoner said, shaking his head. His expression stretched into a grimace. "We must push forwards."

"Just keep fucking running," Kakashi said. Tiny black spots danced across his vision. "Not long until we hit the border to Grass."

Kakashi swayed mid-step, as pain from his injuries— those self-inflicted and received, old and new— flared intensely in a crescendo of agony, but he kept moving forward in spite of it.

KA-THOOM!

The rain thickened into a great deluge as thunder and lightning warred overhead. His gaze was drawn to Shizuka, running at his side. A trickle of blood flowed steadily from her wounded arm, falling to the muddy dirt beneath them in dribs and drabs as they ran.




Suddenly, Kakashi was lying on a pile of soft, scratchy material that did very little to support his lower back, which was mildly sore. He propped himself forward, wincing as a wave of agony washed over his torso.

Ouch.

The ridiculous flaming umbrella guy had only gotten one hit in with his weapon of choice, but one hit with a burning—oil soaked? Some sort of jutsu maybe?— was all that it took. The boiling flames had reacted violently on impact, searing Kakashi's flak jacket and burning some of the skin underneath it something fierce. While it wasn't a major wound by itself, combined with the general exhaustion and the damage to his chakra coils that he was healing from in spite of his best efforts to the contrary…

Kakashi blinked away the pangs of weariness as his exhausted body struggled to climb back into a state of combat-ready alertness.

Must have dozed off, Kakashi thought. Wait? Where are we again?

Kakashi looked around.

The building that he found himself in consisted of a large open space in the middle, several dozen wooden stalls, and a second floor built into the rafters. The ceiling was in disarray, with rotting dilapidated boards of wood having fallen through in a few places. The main floor was covered in puddles of slushy dark brown liquid. The half-frozen pools of slush were—judging by the smell and color— stagnant water or runoff or animal waste that had small clouds of insects buzzing in and around them.

A livestock barn?

Kakashi was in one of the cleaner stalls, laying on what looked like a pile of dirty brown hay.

The air reeked of stale sweat, urine, and cow shit. The stench that clung to the air mixed with the scents of burnt flak jacket and soggy, damp ninja gear to create one of the foulest odors that Kakashi had ever experienced. It was a hair below some of the rooms in Orochimaru's laboratory—at least those that Kakashi had passed by, at any rate.

A frigid breeze blew fresh air into the barn, and Kakashi shivered. With an ounce of will, he clenched his muscles to halt the reflexive trembling, and turned his head to glance at the pair of figures beside him.

Kakashi twitched as he heard a familiar voice.

"You assuredly know this, but do not agitate the dressing, lest the thread tear and the wound heal improperly. One must not allow the forces of ill-will any extra opportunities to assault the body," Sugiyama said. There was a muffled response that Kakashi couldn't quite make out, and a series of footsteps slapping against the cold mud, as the fortuneteller from Demon Country slowly limped their way into Kakashi's stall.

"You are awake, Copy Ninja," Sugiyama observed.

Kakashi snorted. "Barely."

Sugiyama looked like they were halfway to death's door. Their usually well-taken care of face was marred with streaks of runny purple paint and speckled with dirt and mud. Their eyes were bloodshot red orbs surrounded by dark rings. They were shaking in place, ever so slightly, and distinctly leaning away from one foot.

"You astutely observe the results of miles upon miles of labor without rest," Sugiyama said. They smiled tiredly, but the reassuring piece of body language fell far from the mark. "Our companion from Rain is more the worse for wear, as I'm sure you can imagine. She and I have seen to the worst of her injuries. Which leaves you."

"I feel like a chakra beast swallowed me whole and shat me back out," Kakashi said. The words rasped against his throat. Dehydration, maybe? He should have paid more attention during Tsunade's lessons.

The medic nodded. "Just so, I've already inspected you while you were asleep. Your chakra system should see to itself in the next couple days. Three or four, by my guess. Perhaps a week more for you to heal from the burns."

Kakashi coughed. "Is there a reason I'm sleeping in this cold barn stall?" He pointed a thumb at the neighboring stall. "And is that Shizuka over there?"

"No, I believe you collapsed there." Sugiyama shrugged. "The Young Salamander required more involved attention to her wounds, so she has the larger one next door. Perhaps you were being considerate so as to preserve her modesty? The journey here was a desperate one, and all involved were barely conscious by the time we arrived."

Why is it that I can hear the capital letters there?

Kakashi grunted. "And Kagato?"

"My fellow ghost was keeping watch in the rafters, though I believe he has departed across the paths for respite."

So he's in the Seventh Path taking a nap. Kakashi translated. Great.

Sugiyama waggled their fingers ominously. "I have given the locals the… how would one describe it… 'a story' and a handful of silver for their trouble. They believe we are ninja from this country's hidden village using their property for our nefarious purposes, and were not inclined to question further. A simple enough explanation that should suffice for now, but we should consider giving some thought as to how to proceed." Sugiyama paused to sniff the air. "And preferably do it in a more luxurious place? One with real beds, perhaps? And ideally with no shinobi hunters attempting to skin us alive and suck the marrow from our bones?"

"Yeah, that sounds good to me..." Kakashi said, trailing off. He hadn't really thought of what to do after they left Rain, outside of entertaining the idea of doubling back to Sand and going on a hunt for that seal mistress.

What did they do now?

…

…

…

Kakashi mulled the question over, but no brilliant three-step master plan came to him.

Just more tiredness.

"You said that you convinced the locals that we're Grass ninja using their barn for something? Told them to be quiet about it?" Kakashi finally asked. At Sugiyama's nod, he continued. "Alright, how long do you think we have until they start getting suspicious enough to gossip about it?"

Sugiyama hummed in response. "Perhaps three days? Four? It is difficult to say exactly."

"Cool, three days then." Kakashi replied. "Tell Kagato that my genius plan is to nap until then and figure it out later."

Kakashi slumped backwards onto the makeshift bed of hay with a wince. He closed his eye, and let the rising tide of brainfog sweep him back into blissful unconsciousness. Or what would be blissful unconsciousness, if he was lucky enough to not have any haunting nightmares today.

Heh. Good joke, me.

---

Shizuka earns 3 Fate Points for participating and surviving a deadly encounter, as well as for Consequences earned in the course thereof. Kakashi gets 2 FP(overdraw Consequences do not give Fate Points), while Sugiyama gets 1 FP.

You are hiding out in a random barn in the middle of Grass Country. Sugiyama has done some social magicianry to keep the farm workers (and owners) quiet about it, but you cannot stay long. The current plan, absent player input to the contrary, is to stay for another day or two to get some of Kakashi and Shizuka's injuries under control, before heading out somewhere safer (and at least another border away from Rain) to hide and plan next moves.

Where do you go?


Voting time! What do you do now?

[] Land of Hot Springs. This country has a spotless reputation of absolute neutrality and safety. While it's a few border crossings away from your location, you're all very due for a vacation and the bars and vacations spots here are second to none.
[] Waterfall Country. Though they're a bit too friendly with Leaf for your comfort, they're close by. Surely there's a spa or cozy town for you all to hide out in?
[] Land of Frost. They rarely get involved in anything, and this is where those missing-nin you met in Snow probably left for. Might be worth a shot?
[] Land of Iron. Iron is a bit of an odd duck as far as countries are concerned. There are not really any ninja here, but there's not much of anything there anyway.
[] (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 at 5pm Pacific time, Wednesday, November 2nd.