Hiruzen pressed a hand to his desk.  He had been, quite literally, floored by that pressure.  He had felt it once- Exactly once before, following the sealing of the ninetailed fox.  It should not have been.  Any sealing technique in history took effect very quickly.  It’s cost and effects determined from the outset.

This aura… it ate at that which he feared most.  Not even fear, but loss incarnate.  Pain and regret that he’d since become accustomed now bled through.  An Injury made fresh again, and piled on with a handful of others.

It hadn’t even hit him worst, as the shriek of an anbu operative echoed down the hall.

With renewed conviction, Hiruzen fought down his panic, and made for the door.  This attack would have to be stopped, and yet before he could get a read on the victims, the pressure faded as quickly as it had come.

His eyes tracked through the wall, and to the distant part of Konoha.  He could feel the pressure recede, and could almost pin it’s source within Konoha.

“Anbu, To my side.”

He was already down one eye.  The veteran cursed his assailant, and drew on his chakra.  From the moment he stepped outside, he knew that he’d be facing a terrible threat.  To think it would take so long to gauge the situation.

The blade swept down with a squeal.  The flesh in its path blackened and sealed, however this one cut the momentum from the strike.

Glancing to a nearby house, the guardian found a collection of firewood rapidly distorting.  The old man stepped away warily, but as resolute as ever.

“Tch, you’re learning.”

The Uchiha formed ranks, and prepared to lay siege to the location.  Already, some of their most talented Shinobi were in route, and every string was benignly pulled to give them the best window possible.

Children and non combatants were quickly evacuated, and the invader given a wide berth.  The Uchiha seldom afforded negotiations, but they had to secure the weapon and contain it.  The aura exuded from it-

No.  All that escaped proximity to the sword was a silent plea.  To contact the blade of exile promised catastrophe.

The guardian looked, and those before him flinched, “Do you see death?  The end of all that you hold dear?  Embrace it.  Do not turn away, for the moment you do, you will be reduced to ashes.”

Anger, defiance.  A call for retribution.  The Uchiha stood their ground, intent to weather the attack, and withhold all that the monster would ask for.

The guardian fed on this intent directly.

A squad of shinobi saw their life flash before their eyes, and one in particular felt himself catapulted from the threshold of purgatory.

The phantasm of the cursed sword appealing overhead, and sent the Uchiha reeling like dominoes.

“I said: Do not turn away.  This subterfuge will be your undoing.”

He dropped the sword, and the crowd froze.  A vision of the earth beneath them drawn into an irretrievable void.

The sword fell, and sheathed itself in a portal.  For a second, they believed they had a chance.

The man crossed his arms over his chest, “I promise.”

“He uses Wind chakra!” “Burn him out!”

It was a split second before the accord struck.  Streams of fire chakra surged across the street.  Many were signed by the flame, but as the Uchiha pulled back, they too added their chakra to the blaze.

The wall… the pillar of fire, fused with so much energy.  Not only blinding, but piercing exposed flesh.  The air was dehydrated in a second.  Houses melted and sucked into the blaze a moment later.

One by one, the streams were cut off.  Eyes shielded and heads turned away.  Unlike before, the Guardian did not retaliate.

However, as the fires ebbed, a form stood.  Indistinguishable as heat mirages obscured his form, but the guardian stood.  The air around him mixed with trails of chakra.  The web of light radiating off his person, and threads of perspiration shifting with his every move.

In the wake of the pillar of flame, this network of chakra rose skyward.  Branching outward to connect where thunderclouds formed overhead.

A tree of light, and as the weather picked up, arches of light ebbed and flowed across it’s form.

Two assassins made their way into the center of the Uchiha district.  The shadowed form turned to regard them, drawing threads as it did.

Itachi’s blade sank to the hilt in a stray cousin.  The third since the attack began.  Still there was a problem with his main hand.  A black hole had opened with every strike.  Concealed by his palm but preventing the kunai from hitting the mark.  His alternative was messier by far, and they were on a timetable.

“Itachi, are you holding back?” Shisui had taken to hiding bodies, and confirmed their lifesigns, but he wasn’t seeing any blood.

“This is a problem.” Itachi drew his blade over his palm.  Enough to perform a summoning, but not much beyond that.  No trace of the rift.

“Ita-!”

Itachi’s focus was elsewhere, but he’d reacted to the unseen threat.  He was fast enough to put up his guard, but by then Shisui was already sprawling from an unseen blow, “What-”

A green light strobed.  Jack’s feet glided across the ground, and he poised to strike.  Itachi managed to catch the glow of chakra before the strike came.  Even then, it was a paltry defense.

Muscles twinged as honed reflexes backfired on one another.  He’d blocked one attack, but he didn’t even see where the second was coming from.  The third left him no room to defend.

The air pressure surged behind Itachi.  Jack pressed his hand to the teens chest, and reversed the flow of the technique.  The ball of expelling force collapsed abruptly, then exploded outward, driving the wind from the teen.

His body went slack, slamming into a wall before the last of his breath left him.  A quiet groan, a silent scream, as streams of light descended on the village.

The anbu were coming.  From the moment the first shinobi fell, the entirety of the shinobi corps had been stirring.  A pin dropping would be enough to spark a call to arms.  An entire platoon and the Hokage himself were coming this way.

Jack crouched, setting his sight on the mark, and intercepting the Hokage.

His back was turned and one of the Uchiha Jonin took this opportunity to attack.  By instinct another cast a wire snare, while another yet laced the thing with ninja tools.

A web, barrage of steel, and an assassination technique converged.

The latter saw his shadow.  A glow cast over his shoulder, as two beams of light shot up into the air.

Jack alighted on the rooftops a moment later, launching himself across two rails and skating across the open air.  Even below the sound barrier, the draft roared about his person as friction and drag conspired to ground him further.

The trail of light proceeds to trace it’s way across the Uchiha district.  Landing with a heavy thump.

Shisui was within earshot.  He stood over his partner, the form of Itachi Uchiha.  The latter shook.  Conscious, but only just.

Jack wasn’t far, but his interest lied toward the gate.  The moment he composed himself, another appeared.  A pair of sandals.  Briefs and garbed in combat gear from head to toe.

Hiruzen Sarutobi.  He was flanked by two guards, and Jack could tell there were more in hiding.

This wasn’t a social visit, it was an intervention.  Even as the third Hokage spoke, Jack could feel him moulding chakra, “Identify yourself.”

“Jack, Guardian of the wind.” It was barely off his chest before a wave of pressure came over him.  One by one.  Sight, smell, sound, touch.  His very awareness sank into nothingness.

“Marco.”

Jack's smirk was manic, “You’re really in your element aren’t you?” Jack juked slightly to the left, and raised both hands to block.  The moment he did, he felt a catalyst for the technique forming along his arm.

His knee raised instinctively, and a brief jolt appeared there.  It all fell away a moment later, and Jack felt himself frown.  He’d probably just lost his footing, “You still wanna dance or-”

His vision filled with a grey scale.  A creature with black fur and white eyes looked down on him from above.  Jack felt his reflexes coil around his forearms, his legs, his abdomen.  Like a great creature gripping his shoulders, and dragging him down, away from the beast that might take his head.

Grey chakra strangled his heels, while a green light forced its way to the surface.  The blades of once before barely responding as they should.  The genjutsu was oppressive.

“You’re gonna have to make do for a moment”

“Makers knowing, I am not cool with Genjutsu.”

The shadowy figure paused, shifting his weight defensively.

On the other side of the technique…

Aura.  Green light poured off the intruder in waves.  Rivulets of water wrapping around his person, like snakes struggling to get a grip.  The earth hiss and shone with a shadow of his contact, while the light of his exposed skin was blinding in the twilight sky.

Hiruzen signaled the Anbu to stay back.  They had attempted to intervene when the young man wormed his way out of striking range.  Even they could see that something was wrong.  The eternal room of shadows suppressed all senses, an rendered one completely immobile.  Even if he did have some workaround, the ability to maintain balance just wasn’t there.

This man avoided him, and managed to get his feet back under him.  That pyre of chakra was oppressive enough to hold off two of his personal guards, and by all appearances, they didn’t need to see them to adapt.

It was an abysmal waste of chakra, and led the god of Shinobi to believe this man was a jinchuriki of some kind.  It was terribly unlikely that one of the originals were sent here.  Even the most powerful shinobi could not escape the full might of a hidden village.

Hiruzen’s assumption was seriously tested, when the pressure spiked.  The intent of something truly ominous panned out before them.  The aura of it compressed, intensified, and bore itself for all to see before exploding outward.

A mesh of chakra extended all around them, and Hiruzen realised to late that it was a barrier of sorts.  The grid of a barbed electric fence charged the air.  Not one of them attempted to get past it as a trashcan down the street folded in on itself.

The barrier swelled briefly before softening.  The lines blurred, and a tree of light formed from the top down - The same one that appeared over the whole of Konoha - and crashed down on the man before them.

His sclera had turned black, and faded to normal as a second web of chakra burst forth.

The anbu had raised defenses against the recurrence of the technique, but it lost momentum before reaching anyone.  The barrier fell, but that pull in the air was still present.  The heat died down and anyone could have stepped away from that.

Except they all had a greater mission to protect, “Stand down.” He gave the word, and at the same time, signaled for the ready sealing measures.

Jack felt them, the moment they were brought up.  The dome of chakra had the potential to overpower any invading mechanism.  But he knew from past experience, they were not without consequence.  He would never cede on behalf of authority again.

That didn’t mean he would rely solely on a show of force.

“I stake my claim on The Uchiha clan.  So long as there is a rogue faction, I will harbor them, and shield them from harm.  I will bear insult and injury to that effect, but I will not lose a soul.  The blade of exile - the sword that weighs over the heart of the elemental nations - has been sealed as collateral.  It’s human host, a patriot of the hidden leaf, is marked by the shadow of his right hand.  His will and chakra sealed, and by my power, the future of his kin sustained.”

Hiruzen countered, “You would do so, making an enemy of the leaf village.  Yourself, and all those who stand with you?”

Jack raised both hands, “I have nothing to lose.  Should the leaf see me as it’s enemy, I will bear that too.  All it takes in one soul, and the judgement of an entire nation be damned.  Once and evermore - I will stand my ground for all eternity.”

The breeze stirred the branches.  An aura that reshaped even the surroundings in his mind's eye.  Hiruzen glanced at one of the Anbu and signaled, speaking to the guardian in turn.

“Where is he?”

JosephIMA12

*Facepalms* What a piece of work.  Balancing this guy is gonna replace scenes by half.  I have the framework and bearings at least, but plot was really on the back foot in this take.