NOVEL NEXT 52: Against All Odds…
Dan Katō surveyed the gear left in pouch one last time, peering out from the stone cracks of his vantage point.
Though he was wincing in pain, he would use everything he had left - give it his absolute all. Even wounded, even out of chakra - Dan was a lethal shinobi, forged by countless battles.
It was never wise to underestimate a Konoha Jōnin!
Nearly at the highest point in the clearing, he could see three of six opponents heading his way, each searching a moderate distance from each other as they hopped from stone to stone, ever ascending closer. The other three, including the raspy leader, still searched near the base of the rocky outcrop.
Sliding the last of his shuriken into his sleeves, Dan figured this was the best chance he would get. And a poor chance it was.
Flexing his fingers over the handles of the kunai in each hand, he steadied his nerves and caught his breath for one last time.
Footsteps, closer.
Closer.
Crunches of gravel ringing out like death knells, tolling for the end of his life... and warning him. Warning him that there were no more chances for failure now.
Closing his eyes, he killed the fear within his heart. The landscape of his homeland appeared behind those eyelids, the country he fought for time and time again, the country where his most precious family lived and loved.
Whether words or weapons, assault or deceptions - a Jōnin used everything at his disposal. A shinobi endured whatever it took to achieve his goals and fought to the last. And a Man fights for a purpose, for those he loves.
With a lurch, Dan burst forth from his crevice in the stones just as the closest assailant drew before him.
The robed man barely had a chance to gurgle out a shout as Dan's body slammed into his gut kunai-first, sending the cultist tumbling backwards and leaking blood. Though a desperate vertical swing of his spiked quarterstaff flung down towards Dan's head, the Konoha shinobi leaned back out of its reach.
But with the shout, all of the others were alerted to his location.
The two ascending the slope neared rapidly, the three at the base cackling menacingly as they followed suit.
Dan waited, arms in a steady guard around his wounded side as he kept his body crouched close to the ground.
When the two closest were within fifteen meters, Dan held up a handsign and activated his final explosive tag.
It was all timing now.
He would have to make the terrain fight for him, control his opponents' movements where his own was severely hampered.
A rumble and explosion shook the outcrop, exploding stone and boulder fragments up and outward towards the slope. The bright flash of light flared out against the darkness of the sky and near-dawn horizon.
At the sight of an oncoming avalanche of debris, the two cultists flinched and hopped backwards right into the midst of their oncoming comrades. All of their vision was somewhat obscured by the sudden light and dust in the early-morning darkness.
The instants of confusion occupying their attentions were all Dan needed.
With the tremors, the gravel upon which Dan lay loosened, shifting into a flow of pebbles and loose sediment that carried him nimbly down the slope as well. His metal-plated flak jacket skidded and sparked against the rough ground as he braced his arms to attack.
And soon he slid right past his grouped-up enemies, the blades of his kunai deftly severing the ankles of one cultist's feet. The last of the shuriken up Dan's sleeves embedded themselves all along the back of another opponent as he passed.
Three down, three to go.
A battle to the last ounces of Dan's strength and wit.
The sliding gravel eventually settled as the terrain leveled, his remaining opponents fast approaching as they avoided the last of the falling rubble.
Shoulders and back trembling from the exertion and bruising, Dan forced himself to stand once more, though he could only hunch around his bleeding waist. That whole maneuver had taken more out of him than he realized it would.
Still his assailants approached, seemingly unafraid.
Dan could hardly believe how doggedly they pursued him. He had killed so many, and yet they never bat an eye at the deaths of their companions. Did they feel nothing?!
A sad anger twisted in Dan's heart as he staggered forward, back towards the treeline.
So close, and so far.
As his wounded side faltered, Dan fell to one knee, unable to continue another step. He truly had nothing left to use, all but the very dregs of his arsenal expended.
The bloodstained kunai in his left hand clattered to the ground through loosened fingers.
Why? How could this happen? He still had so much he wanted to do, so much life left to live. The bitterness was too cruel.
The cackling behind him drew ever closer, but it faded from his ears.
Though his whole body trembled and his senses grew vague, he no longer cared. Dan cast his eyes downward, long pale hair flowing over his face as he struggled to dig around under his collar.
He grasped with fumbling fingers at that turquoise crystal dangling from his neck, one last time.
A few teardrops fell onto the sparkling crystal's surface, from Dan's dry, exhausted eyes. As the liquid spread out, the gem almost seemed to glow.
"Tsunade... I... I don't want to die yet. I... don't want to die alone. I-"
The glow of the crystal before him seemed to brighten as his sight blurred, a pale green light making him squint. The sound of metal rattling and dull thunks echoed from behind him, bringing his hazy mind back to reality.
As he slowly twisted his neck up and around, he peered behind towards the enemies who sought his end.
Instead Dan found their faces mashed into the ground, blood pooling around the raspy leader from before. Whirls of violet and amethyst light dissipated from around the deformed necks other two robed enemies. A pair of sandals stood on one of his assailants' back, a hand extracting the blade of a tantō from this corpse's heart.
As his blurry gaze trailed upward, a grey-robed figure nodded to him. A somewhat short person, their face was obscured behind an unfamiliar ANBU mask and a hood.
Flicking the blood from their blade, the figure spoke, "Then... I will assist."
The soft voice, measured and calm, continued further, "I've dealt with seven more north of this clearing... besides the ones chasing you." The figure then tilted their head to the side, seemingly focusing, "I... think I heard more to the south. Four? Five? They're... weird?"
Dan was still in shock. R-reinforcements really came? But... heard, not sensed?
"You.. you killed them yourself?" he managed to stammer out, trying to clarify to most important parts.
The masked figured nodded once more, sheathing their tantō behind their back. Their next words were steely firm, words Dan recognized as murderous resolve, "Mortal enemies. Would kill them all... if possible."
Dan's grip slacked on the still-glowing amulet in his hand, a smile twisting the corner of his lips,
"W- Then, I'm... really not dead yet. Hahah... hah. Thank you, stranger." He murmured tiredly, plopping himself off his knees and into a sitting position. He placed both hands against the wound on his waist, pressing against the makeshift bandage. Now... he had to keep himself from losing any more blood. He didn't fight for days just to bleed out from a single aggravated wound.
"A-... any chance, you're a medic?" Dan grunted, using the light from his glowing necklace to peer more closely at his side, "I could... really use one."
Glancing up, Dan saw that the figure stiffened up looking at him, no... looking at his necklace, before shaking their head slowly.
Still, they knelt down in front of Dan, extending a moderately youthful-looking hand. The forearms of their cloak's sleeves were heavily stained with blood. An adolescent... ANBU? The blood showed that this person told no lies about killing.
The weary Konoha shinobi's eyebrows quirked at the seeming contradiction. But now was a time of war, it was possible.
But in that moment, the robed figure wrapped their extended hand in a dense aura of amethyst-colored chakra. It's intensity was enough for Dan to do a double-take. Such a unique feeling, where had he felt something like this before?
The crystal of his necklace suddenly flared a bright green in response to the chakra as well, floating up slightly towards his savior's hand and startling them both.
But the mask figured in front of him flinched violently and yanked their hand backwards, slipping and stumbling back so quickly that their hood dislodged.
Flowing locks of vibrant maroon hair greeted Dan's eyes as the... girl? As the girl steadied herself, lost in some sort of reaction.
She held her hand aloft before her eyes, grasping it with her other hand. The hands of a child? A young girl? She didn't even seem to notice that her hood had come down.
Dan's expression softened, concern stirring around in his heart for this person who saved him. This hair color... was not a common one. Could it be...?
He was about to press further with questions when the girl gasped suddenly, whipping her head around to face behind her, to the south? Oh-
"The other ones are here." her voice uttered, confused but not panicked.
However Dan was once again speechless. He'd barely processed her words, staring at the back of her head as she faced away.
Because he saw something he could not ignore. Gleaming in silvery metal, the sigil of the Senju stood proudly engraved on the face of the girl's elegant hair ornament. And its carved contours glowed faintly with the same pale green light as his necklace.
Dan's eyes could not have opened any wider. "Tsunade's clan...? A relic... of the First Hokage?" he whispered.
He barely registered the girl's ears twitch at his words, only noticing once she glanced towards him slightly.
But just as he was thinking of his lover and her clan, the same all-too-familiar voice shrieked out from the distance in front of him,
"DAN!"
A hallucination? Dan shook the remaining bleariness from his head. It.. it can't be, wait?!
"Tsunade!?" he called out, raising his voice as best he could. It sounded pretty weak even to his own ears.
Sure enough, the figure of his most beloved appeared from the treeline before him, framed in the light of the rising dawn. It was a beautiful sight that brought tears to his eyes anew, one he would never forget if he made it out of this alive, but-
But wait-
"Tsunade, wait!" he cried out, too late, as he saw the passionate expression on her face. A face filled with a bursting mix of emotions - fear, desperation, concern, anger, relief, but most all... resolve. It was all there.... in the few instants he could see as the Legendary Sannin reeled back her fist and slammed it into the ground with all her might!
The resulting explosion obliterated the ground before Dan and his savior for dozens of meters, but the brunt of the force was directed at the young girl a few paces in front of him.
All he saw was the cloud of dust and shattering earth overlap his savior's figure as the force spread out in front of him.
But before the debris could reach him, Tsunade and the squad accompanying her had already reached his side.
"Dan!
Dan, no! You're hurt-""T-Tsunade, wait!" Dan managed again, coughing from the dust, "The girl! Tsunade, she's an ally. She saved me before! You've- you've got to listen-"
Kana groaned where she sat against a large tree at an edge of the rocky clearing, flexing her arms and dusting herself off. Her overcloak had already been coated in blood, but now it was even more frayed and covered in dust. But all seemed to be well with her body.
She shuddered slightly at that thought of what just happened. W-what a sequence of events... her mind was barely keeping up.
She felt largely alright, a bit choked on dust, but a decent chunk of rock and debris had still forced her backwards. Fortunately she was agile enough to dodge up and away from the worst of it at a moment's notice.
There was too much going on, she needed to slow things down and figure out what to focus on first.
As Kana pushed herself off the tree's trunk and onto her feet, a chunk of her ceramic ANBU mask towards its bottom-left cracked and fell to the ground, where it promptly shattered. Thus exposing a decent portion of her lower face.
Kana only stared at the fragments and coughed out a brief sigh. T-two masks in one night, really?
But still, she had more pressing concerns. That blue-haired man... and those Konoha shinobi...
That woman with the pale yellow hair... Kana's mind desperately tried to sort all the pieces of the picture together. Kana's senses screamed danger when that woman appeared. And apparently for good reason.
A few more ceramic fragments fell to the ground as Kana gripped the sides of her head in frustration.
She was pretty sure she'd pieced one thing together by now, and she didn't like what she was thinking. Only one person she'd heard of matched that description, a powerful kunoichi from Konoha with yellow hair and crazy brute strength. She'd heard about one... from eavesdropping back when she stayed with Michiko. Her name...
Kana was pretty sure she heard the blue-haired man - he was called... Dan? - he called out several times: "Tsunade!"
Senju Tsunade. One of the Legendary Sannin, one of Konoha's heroes that the Land of Fire's villagers spoke of.
And probably nothing but bad news for Kana.
Kana's impression of Konoha was as fearful as ever.
It was like that white-haired man from back in the Land of Grass... Konoha fielded certain shinobi-heroes of frightening strength. Terrifyingly effective at killing, as Kana'd witnessed firsthand two times now.
Kana didn't even want to think of the mess she'd stumbled into, her heartbeat accelerating the more she did so. The regret and frustration mellowed her already-fading anger from before.
She got the urge to flee, but there was likely no running away this time, the situation was just too much. She would have to do her absolute best here. If all else failed... she would probably have to... show her strength. A bitter thought, one best left for a time when it was needed.
However, Kana's ears pricked up suddenly as she heard some interesting words exclaimed in the distance.
Even now from many meters away, Kana could hear Dan and Tsunade speaking frantically.
Did they... did they think she couldn't hear them?
Maybe that was for the best, to just listen for a while...