Onryo Kage - The Master of Roles
Inspired by the story of Harriet Tubman. A true ninja.
It is a long and difficult road to lead a life. Many of us forget - by the foresight of our ancestors - that the battle has no end and know beginning. War shadows us, passed from one shoulder to the next. However long the era of peace is, the chain will eventually room with anger and violence. The wise give us a face and a place to stand. The greedy will demand to stand for everything. Those who accept failure will emerge in the face of that conflict, while those who refuse to bend will never make it that far.
The shadow steps forward. A chain of orbs float in the air around him. A river of ink flowing between the links transforms his flesh. Within his eyes the sky is cut to pieces. His right leg; animated by narrow rods. Across his jaw a distant howl echoes; fur and fangs framing his face. In one hand he bears a scrying globe. One the opposite shoulder, a scrap from the aura of death. Those who have seen his wrath will remember the hiss of the snakes, but seldom speak of what emerged from his shadow. They draw a tendril emerging from a pit.
Every day, the battlefield changes and new challengers step forward. They wear the face of humans like a mask, turning friend to stranger and grief to favor. In his aura, the fallen return to front. Diverting the frenzied spirit and encompassing arrogance.
His children roam the forests, discovering friendship and fleeing when kindness is overtaken by censure. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be helped. It is the role of the shadows to divine truth from misfortune, and to cast a path in light of the future.
By one banner many names were brought together. Under that banner emerged several powerful leaders. One day the banner would fall, but those familiars would shape the world forever.
---
Summoning jutsu!
Air writhed along his skin as a bulk of chakra wormed its way down my arms. Wave after wave of illusion breaching the surface of the mind as seals were set into place. Fine jets of ink welling into the palm of my hand as though drawn from nothingness.
A shiver passes through my spine as I imagine the dark globs as nursing fairies, their wings dancing across my skin. A burst like victory’s cry spun out through the air as a gate between worlds was opened. Tendrils of light shrouded in mist danced through the palm of my hand, eager to welcome my patron.
What they found cast shadows in all directions. My spirit balked and shivered at the emptiness of space while my body insisted that a profound and devious creature had emerged.
The serpent tenet did not simply devour chakra. The bond between yin and yang was unmade, creating a void between the elements. This third element did not belong to either of them, and yet every bit of its territory shared their properties. No mere incantation could match this creature. No amateur blade would even meet its flesh.
Earth, water, wind, fire. No single element would defy the great green serpent. Gathering actors beneath its boughs and extracting elemental energy like juice from a lemon.
Never would she invoke terror, nor act out of malice. At the same time, she would not protect persons from their own demons, lest they part with them willingly. Their defenses would dissolve completely.
That vulnerability she inspires in others is the very reason I formed a pact with her. Anguish holds no power over those who cannot and need not insulate themselves. There are those - when faced with the serpent - who’s waking minds are swallowed whole.
The serpent’s price was cruel. Shock like flying whip would follow, and that vulnerability would remain in her absence. Some defenses would not revive on their own, and people changed by the experience.
I invite this change. I thrive on the taste of evolution it brings. The nature of the world bared before my eyes. Her name is awe. Her voice is akin to the dance of leaves, a steady curious whisper. The forest dances on her shoulders.
It is you my love who ride on her branches, watching over the others, and guiding them through the battlefield. Even where chains of grief and danger appear. You are not always treated kindly. Some have even sworn to destroy you, and among them my closest friends.
Like the serpent, you never sought them harm, yet you stand and persist where she would retire. I wish I could stand where you are, and I pray that I do right by you.
One shall not kill. One shall not lose to death.
---
Overcharged - We the elemental
A bell rings, the earth quakes.
“The snake did not hold up his end of the bargain”
Lee rests on one knee, blood running down the side of his head.
“I’ve burst your inner ear. Frankly, it’s impressive that you’ve managed to stay upright.”
A hand falls on the boy’s shoulders, turning his body to stone. Six green tendrils form a mane around him, the air hissing about them.
“Don’t salt yourself. You’ve done well.”
A hungering resonance, wrapping the ear and flowing along the arm and shoulders like a storm surge. Several symbols formed on the fan mounted on her left ear.
The boy Zaku called, “You have a lot of nerve, and a lot to answer for.”
Rin thrust her arm out to the side, staying him, “What are you doing here?”
The eyes of the two kunoichi meet. The former speaks, “I’ve some to raise the stakes.”
The earth splits, and several trees are hurled forward. The sound three jumped back frantically.
Dosu’s eyes narrow, “Do you know who you are messing with?”
She nods to Dosu, “The stone,” to Kin: “The veil,” and to Zaku, “The spear.”
“The messengers of death. Fortunately for yourselves, I am not in the business of icing the messenger. Frankly, I am disappointed.” She glares at Zaku.
Zaku see’s a vision. A kunai embedded in each hand, then a thousand cuts erupted from his body. Even as the illusion broke, It was as though the forest had collapsed on his arms. He staggered back, flinging his arms into the air and screaming in perceived agony. The stranger’s eyes softened and he whimpered as a wave of relief flowed over him, “My apologies. It seems I have interrupted the fates after all. Beware the wolf. There is only one wind bore. For one to claim its power, the other must surrender it.”
Kin balked at Zaku’s plight, then regarded the other girl with a defensive stance, “Our score is not with you. Perhaps we can make an arrangement?”
Dozu bit back a curse, “Kin!?”
---
Kakashi looked over the gauntlet, recovered from the scene of the assault. It hadn’t been easy. The sand siblings were not about to surrender evidence without a fight. Every political angle you could imagine. Those three really were raised within the nerve center.
The sound ninja weren’t passive either. From the moment he held it in his hands, Kakashi felt a killing intent the likes of which would have an enemy leader salivating. The promise of death, of reaping away all that was trusted in this world, family, kin, his own precious students.
Even the third Hokage was wary when Kakashi presented his case. Something resonated within. Something ancient. Something wild. Something that could threaten the very foundation of the village, yet as Kakashi looked over the ninja tool, he felt no fear.
He saw a mountain rising behind the ninetails, driving it forward toward the village. He cradled the armament, and it felt as though he were standing in his mentor’s shadow. Kakashi saw his student and saw the screech of the nine-tails silenced.
As he placed the gauntlet on his arm, he felt a sting in his chakra. This was it. No turning back now. The roar of waves and crash of crushing timber reduced to a whisper in his ear. The chidori came alight in his palm.
This was something Kakashi wasn’t prepared for. In his eyes, his fingers turned red. Obito’s goading in his ear and the flesh of enemy ninja squirmed around his kunai knives. Minato’s warning - to never use it again - echoed with every heartbeat. His blood itching, buzzing louder with every iteration. A panic in the back of his mind that the chidori would not be dismissed, that even his sensei - through force - might not be able to stop it.
The lightning coated his fingers like claws, drinking the blood his mind fed it. Kakashi felt relief, then shook his head, refusing to allow it anywhere near the memory of his fallen teammates.
The lighting erupted into a web, coating his field of view. Like drawing their photo out of a pocket, the memory unfolded around him. Painful trauma dissolved into vivid detail. The forest, the barrens, the cave, the bridge. All of it became real again. Kakashi turned, and flinched as his old outfit brushed his frame. He knew beyond reason that Obito was there, on that branch. Rin was there, crouched nearby. Turning to face them wouldn’t do anything. Merely asserting the same illusion.
But their voices were too strong. Their presence; too comfitting. Kakashi reached out, begging them in sign to let him be. The memory dissolved around his hand like the stirred surface of a lake, and through that distortion he peered out at the true Konoha. The memory etching itself into every corner. Every leaf, pebble, and rodent wrapped around the mundane denizens and their home.
Did he never leave that place? Was he really supposed to believe it was all an illusion?
Rin took his hand, and Kakashi flinched back, regarding her with trembling arms, “Are you real!?”
“We have always been ‘real’ kakashi. Just as your pride in your father is.”
Rin would never say those words.
A hand flowed around his shoulders.
Rin would never dare to cross that line, to agitate his past like~
Her frame beat against his and Kakashi coughed, biting back a sob.
Obito grabbed his fist, the former’s presence wrapped around his hand like chains, refusing to let go as Rin spoke again.
“I’m sorry we didn’t have time to say all that went unsaid. Watch over us Kakashi.” She frowned forlorn and reached down for Obito’s wrist. A dark look, one of menace and hate, contorted around the boy’s face, laced with thin and constrained fear and hope.
“It won’t be the last time we meet~” Thememory began to dissolve into sand, and Kakashi could only stare in rapt attention as the movements of her lips merged with the shaking of his field of view.
Kakashi shook his head, swinging his fist as though to clean blood from a blade, feeling the weight of Obito’s presence wane as he did. Kakashi looked at his hand in askance, but regret was being overtaken by pride in his team, and determination the likes of which he’d only known a fraction of throughout his entire life.
Blue flame wrapped itself around his heart, and his chakra network sang with the chorus of a thousand birds. The chidori was but a scrap of that power put aside, and he would use every scrap he could find to protect his team.
This time the web flowed outward rather than in.
Kakashi blinked and tilted his head at the deafening crack that the melody gauntlet released in response. Rubbing the gauntlet as the world around him began spinning.
“Hmm. That won’t do~”
Kakashi was going to have to see a specialist about renting some tools. He’d order a custom set eventually, but Sasuke’s training came first. Sarutobi’s cryptic words reached him with fresh eyes. Combined with the ever present sense of scrutiny, Kakashi felt a dark through unravel, and couldn’t reason it away.
Konoha was coming under siege. Fortunately, it hadn’t started yet.
Containment
And so they fought. With a thrust of his palm the rasengan formed. Catching the light of the moon among the shadows. Throughout the war, pain and necessity honed his use of the flying thunder god technique. He migrated toward blindspots and frail guards instinctively. Placing himself in a vulnerable position would have taken more chakra at this point.
Every action had a price, and despite the many illusions about what dangers people faced, Minato followed the path of least resistance. Few who harbored resentment could keep up.
The hand is a very delicate structure. Tens of tiny bones, vulnerable tendons and complicated veins. Precious to just about every technique a human can perform. The rasengan is effectively a shaped charge. An explosive. It is not something one simply catches.
To his credit, Minato didn’t hesitate much. While his technique was stopped dead, he was already beating a retreat, adapting his approach.
I’ll admit my brow rose. This man is far more than his techniques. Sharp enough to adopt contingencies which implied something had gone catastrophically wrong within his own house within seconds.
Even with the protections afforded by my penultimate technique, I felt a shiver running down my spine. The elements continued their dance, and before fear could become a suggestion, the exchange continued.
The name ‘shadow’ fits Minato like a glove. His movements and timing were deft enough to convince an opponent they were hallucinating. Tracking him pushed my chakra reserves to their limits, filling them to capacity and rapidly draining my physical and mental energy. The steady buzz of overload made the chakra flowing to my palms ache like impressed glass.
Like water like wind, the two techniques swept over my palm as I dipped into the linked domains. A ray appeared from my hand as I turned in place, Leveling the forest five trees deep. Everything at chest height was carved clean. Save for the much more maneuverable ninja. Breathing a mist from my lips, I flexed my fingers and straightened my back, extending both arms out beyond a justifiable guard.
“Never let an enemy get behind you”
“Said no infiltrator ever.”
“Time limit: Second stage - Rotation.”
A calm fell over the forest, Drawing my focus out in 360 degrees. A shadow at my back rippled as I began to spin. Once, twice, and three times, A vibrating sliver appears at the edge of my senses.
“Two palms!”
My orientation suddenly flipped, bringing my front to where my back had been. One palm has already deflected against the Rasengan that appeared there with a flare of blue light. My eyes caught up with the world around me as the second palm knifed through the thing. Minato was drawing back again, but this time~
“You are within range of my divination.”
The spinning stopped. My front facing the ground, my legs out in front and my hands out to the side, I glanced up to meet the Yondaime’s eyes. The world around us began to spin.
“Those who approach the outer path from within are consumed by lighting.”
Minato’s Hiraishin anchors appeared amidst the whirling scene. Fading in on a vortex of forest before wobbling and blurring off in a random direction. I could Taste Minato’s aura in the air as he attempted to reach out and fuel one after the other.
Each time his Chakra neared the barrier around us, the thread twitched and forked. Each time growing louder and louder. It didn’t take long for Minato to grasp for the one at my back. When he did it was like I was seeing the swirling globe from the outside.
He didn’t use it. We both know you don’t attack where the enemy expects you to be, and I’d already proven I could intercept what I couldn’t see.
The Heavenly rotation technique relies on the zero point, which rapidly floats around the body as the chakra network performs maintenance. This process siphons off a bit of potential energy from each tenketsu that it passes. Synchronizing a technique with this effect allows the body to inherit a tremendous amount of momentum passively - by using zero chakra beyond the typical state of consciousness. Even after stopping my rotation, I’d continued to amp up the zero point, allowing my penultimate skill to absorb sage to terrific effect. The wall of swirling chakra twisted ‘reality’ between two barriers in rapid and extremely random succession.
One could theoretically punch through~ ~if they had the ability to track the zero point in the first place. The byakugan is actually too good at what it does to achieve this. It can ‘see’ the energy stoked up by the zero point, but doing so consumes a lot of focus. Users of the eight trigrams technique can revert some of this energy back to create a feedback loop, one which the byakugan can study and follow. This pattern awareness allows the Byakugan holders to perform and master techniques that shadow the zero point.
Detecting the behavior of the zero point is a completely separate skill however. I personally love the way probing it fucks with conventional senses.
I raise my arm to block a retaliatory strike. Minato isn’t the strongest ninja physically, but his moves are direct, efficient and clever. Not to mention that damocles' sword hanging over my back that no one better than he can know when he’ll use.
Alright so that’s a bit of a fib. It’s a bit of a coin toss. Talented as he is, Minato’s poker face is not his winning quality.
I saw darkness creeping in when I realized my mistake. The rasengan uses a lot of chakra. Chakra drains a lot of focus and stamina. Minato’s reflexes with a kunai are substantially faster with a kunai than the Rasengan, and I failed to intercept the former.
My abdomen sloshed around the blade as my body settled in. Half of me was convinced that he was playing with the blade to be mean, but the other half knew he’d withdrawn as I groused.
Alright. Point taken. But you better not overestimate your achievement.
A shadow clone of the blade appeared as I withdrew the original, melding and mending flesh with carefully arrayed form control.
Forbidden art: Save scumming technique.
I let out a restorative sigh and lifted the very same kunai to intercept another attack. Dripping with an aura of green. Life force, salvaged from what was removed, and affected by the very same technique as my presence melted into the surroundings.
The tormenter Minato was still present in my mind. As real as any physical opponent. I allowed my alters free reign to address that demon. Odds are good that Minato has exasted a similar amount of mental energy in the fight thus far, and similarly good that whatever shadow Minato was made of would become relavent sooner than later.
If you can convince a kage to take your side, it’s worth a shot, even if it is a doppelganger.
Minato drew back and bobbed his head a few times before throwing a custom kunai. I moved to deflect it, and instinctively made a note of it for later.
“You’re not bleeding.”
I smiled, “You know, you’re cute when your thinking.” And it really is fun to see how different thoughts process’ affect a persons temperment. I may not be able to read minds, but I’m not blind. Every individual has an internal clock and - to accomplish the elaborate task that we mortals are fond of - it takes a moment to cope. It is incredible that some people can identify coping mechanisms at a glance. Even better that we outwardly pretend that most of them are ‘imaginary’, and think there’s was nothing to see.
It tickles me in a fun way, to think that i might have an ability like that.
Minato glanced around at the swirling wall of chakra. Throwing a kunai at the barrier while simultaneiously reaching out for one of his anchors. His chakra managed to reach and spread across the barrier, but he missed the vortext that depicted his anchor by a bit too much, and the connection fled faster than he could correct his aim.
“Tch, that is an insideous barrier.”
“Talk no jutsu?”
Minato scoffed, “I’m willing to bet that something strong enough to hold down a Kage has been tested a few times. The question is, why have I never seen your face?”
“Hard to see someone who can hard counter your skills, huh?” I shrug, “A lot of people dissappear. I used to get really angry when they’d talk you up. All your deeds and exploits. People aren’t aloud to know who you are or what you do, but we were sure as hell were forced to pretend we did. The average shinobi is built to die delusional or fade into obscurity. Frankly, I’ve seen enough theatre about dead heroes.” I drew my own short sword, “I want to embrace what they left behind.”
Shadows flowed around my shoulders. Green lights and narrow films reflected down my arms as the shell around us began to bend the sky to shadow my movements. The wind groaned and coughed and breathed labored breaths as blades chirped along the edge of my vision.
The man before me lit up in a swirl of blues and greens. Red flaring around his joints and hands. Yellow reflected in his eyes, stomach, and glinting off his blade.
“Human path: Time limit - Four element spirit eater. The world before my eyes began to fade until it was a shell of itself. Aura blazed from my body, to each direction a different color. I felt tension lacing my veins. my limbs trembling.
I moved and felt my body move in four directions at once.
The barrier released, reclaiming it’s spherical form and drawing my chakra in. Each one joining the flow of natural energies seeking a new host. Amidst this barrier or altered space, one stood out like a sore thumb. Sealwork sprining up beneath his flesh before he even realized it.
Minato’s gaze moved to his six before my form dissolved. A phantom emerged ominously and he countered a weapon strike from that axis. Twice more, phantoms attemped to flank him, And Minato reached for a second Kunai when he noticed my original position was vacant.
He quickly abosorbed what he could, and counted off the sound of bodies moving around him, quickly arriving at the conclusion that i wasn’t moving as the average shinobi should be. His focus turned to his blade and footwork, as he passively scanned his surroundings. I wasn’t there, and yet he felt my presence growing stronger.
One of the Phantoms managed to disarm him, yet Minato found he wasn’t able to drop the blade. Going through several steps and exercises to release the entity from his grip. By then another presence began crawing up his other arm, where one of the phantoms had manage to catch him.
Minato tensed and pulled back, warding away the other phantoms as he went. From his shadow he felt more of them creeping up his stance. He held them off for as long as he could. At one point, he realized he was approaching a turning point. hunching low, he adopted a horse stance and formed a ram seal before reaching out for one of his anchors.
To his surprise, the barrier flowed around him like a tunnel and the naked night sky filled his senses a heartbeat later. The invasive chakra was gone, as was the barrier.
“An… Illusion?”
Minato gripped his head and turned his gaze to the treeline. He’d wasted far too much time already.
