Contact 8.9
"Did you all get the hang of that water-breathing jutsu?" Kakashi asked and Hisana grinned.
"We can all hold it long enough," Hisana replied. If they weren't able to use chakra to enhance their senses, none of Team Seven could have possibly heard one another over the sounds of the battle.
"They're about to assault the trench lines. Now's our best chance to slip away," Sasuke said.
"We've seen enough. Back to Konoha, as quickly as we can," Kakashi ordered.
The invaders were indeed forming up for an assault, as far as Hisana could tell. The walkers took the front position and some of the slower, quad-legged walkers projected a field of shimmering green chakra to protect the infantry behind them. One final barrage from the artillery went in and then the Americans (judging by the flag) charged out of their cover.
Samurai arrows bounced off the chakra fields, despite the crackle of lightning chakra flow or the whistling razor-edge of wind chakra flow. Several of the quad-legged walkers had more of the gattling railguns mounted on them, and they sent out a constant crack-crack-crack of fire that suppressed the samurai. The bipedal walkers rushed ahead of the general assault, using their human-like agility to clear the outer trenches.
As Team Seven reached the water, the bipedal walkers smashed into the samurai trenches. They used huge white-hot blades and flamethrowers to clear a path, though several were lost. One brave samurai managed to cut through a burst of fire with several chakra slashes and leap through the hole. He landed on the walker's cockpit and cut through the weaker glass with one strike. His next slew the pilot, but that made the controls spark and explode - and sent the machine stumbling wildly. It toppled over and the samurai was flung free of it as it collapsed into a shell crater.
The samurai got to his feet and for a moment he faced off against the entire assault, his sword held resolutely up. Then one of the gattling railguns on the slower walker tracked its fire across to him and cut him apart into a fine red mist.
Hisana ducked under the water after that. She shaped chakra around her mouth and nose as she activated her personal refinement of the water-breathing jutsu. A faint red glow lit up the water around her for a moment, but then it faded and she kicked down into the depths. Team Seven made sure to stay in visual contact as they dove deep, but the lack of light made that difficult.
A dozen Narutos shimmered into existence ahead of them and spread out, forming a shell around Team Seven in every direction. Then, as an extra flourish, they all transformed into various forms of sea life. Most were fish but Hisana couldn't help but smile, despite everything, when she saw one turn into a shark.
About a minute after they'd started to swim, Hisana felt the first explosion. There was no chakra signature, so it had to be a chemical explosive - and judging by the flash she saw in the water ahead, she had a fair understanding of what it was.
Quickly, she signed for the rest of the team to head and that she'd meet back up with them at the rendezvous point on land. Kakashi hesitated for a moment, but he did give her the affirmative sign. The rest of Team Seven swum away, deeper and faster, whilst Hisana headed to the surface to take care of any pursuers.
Her seal activated, slowing the water around her to a standstill. Her chakra shroud covered her, pushing the water away from her. As it surrounded her she formed a hexagonal orange shield from one of the jutsu formula on her forearms and held it above her. Then she made the pseudo-handseal of her flight jutsu and activated her body flicker.
She exploded out of the water with incredible speed and violence, the shield above her head pushing the water out of the way and allowing her to form a bubble of rapidly vapourising water around herself.
A bulbous-looking flying machine, like one of the attack craft but swollen and rounded, hovered above the water. Something extended down from it, attached by a cord, into the water. Another two of them were spread out in what was clearly a search pattern. The pilot of the craft was reacting, but he was reacting far too slowly as Hisana blurred past the slow-moving craft. She left behind touch-blast seals that expanded in her wake like spider webs of ink.
Her seal cut off, and all three of the craft exploded in a trio of tremendous fireballs - that whatever explosive they had put into the water soon amplified, lighting up the sky with balls fo orange flame.
Then she saw it, only the foresight of her sharingan allowing her to react in time. She unsheathed her sword and sent out a crescent slice of wind chakra that cut the missile in two moments before it would have reached her. Both halves slid past her at multiple times the speed of sound and exploded behind her. A few pieces of burning missile impacted her, but her wind shroud and reactive chakra armour stopped them easily enough. If she had been looking in the wrong direction, Hisana was sure she'd have died.
More missiles followed the first, and they moved just as fast. Now that she was prepared for them, though, it was a different matter. Her seal activated, the cycle time just met, and Hisana's hands blurred through seals.
"Water Release: Gunshot Bararge!" she shouted as dozens of deadly spears of water rose from the sea and roared towards the missiles. The missiles were much faster than the jets of water, but the water was much more maneuverable - and there were a dozen to each missile. It took time, but well before the last missile would have reached Hisana it slammed into a jet of water in its path and exploded.
She pushed chakra into her eyes to increase their magnification, but she couldn't see whatever had launched the missiles. She had been afraid of something like this - it was why she'd suggested they go out over water some distance first before taking to the air. She also couldn't see any more bulbous submarine-hunting craft - that was what she assumed they were - and ducked back beneath the waves, safe from any air-to-air missile she could think of.
Hisana's escape from the Land of Sea was cold and lonely. The depths under the ocean were dark and only her sharingan allowed her to see through them. She could only swim through them so fast, too, but they hid her from any further attack by the invaders.
She had a lot of time to think as she swam for safety. Her mind raced through terrors and dreams as she tried to think about what had happened. There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach like the feeling one got after missing a step. An awful lurch. A part of her thought that what she had just seen was the signal for the end of her world - the one of ninja she had come to know.
Another part of her remembered what the Nine-Tails' chakra had felt like. Remembered what she had seen it, and all the other Tailed Beasts, do in the cheap ink of manga pages. Remembered what little had been written down of the First Great Ninja War.
As she broke the surface of the ocean one more and lazily took her hands through the seals of the summoning jutsu, a part of Hisana's mind couldn't help but worry that soon enough she would see the eye-searingly bright flashes of a Bijuu Dama on the horizon.
She placed her hand on the ocean, a tiny drop of blood extending into a web of chakra ink, and a raven wearing black lacquered samurai armour appeared. He nodded his head towards her and cawwed in greeting.
"Time to leave, lady Uchiha?' he asked and she nodded. Hisana leapt atop his back, keeping an eye on the horizon, and the raven winged into the air with a burst of speed and chakra.
The setting sun lit the ocean up a brilliant orange, a burning disk on the horizon as Hisana flew for home.
When she returns to Konoha, what will Hisana work on? Choose two of the following.
[x] Work on her Iaido
[x] Analyze the sealing tech recovered from the Camo Cloaks and reverse engineer...
[x] The Chakra Railgun. This could be adapted to a simpler jutsu formula given Hisana's ability to convert lightning-natured chakra, or even to a jutsu.
[x] The Insectoid Armour. This armour uses chakra to reinforce the armour, rather than the shield projected by chakra armour. Its technique could be applied to a personal seal, or to nintaijutsu.
[x] Have a set of existing Uchiha chakra metal armour fitted to her and learn Earth Release chakra flow.
[x] Knowing that if she wants to be a Sage, she'll need enormous reserves of physical and mental energy, Hisana works on something better than a standard resistance seal for physical training.
[x] Analyse what she knows of the Gentle Fist and its techniques to create a style of taijutsu suited to the use of touch blasts instead of strikes at chakra points.