Chapter 16: 16: One Down
Kaowru was humming to himself as he headed away from the caravan and into the forest. It had been a good eight or nine months since he pulled in that big deal with the shinobi girl and the caravan had almost completed its journey through the Land of Rain.
Now heading back, the caravan stopped just next to the woods that bordered that very same small town so that everyone in the merchant group could go foraging for berries, nuts, and various fungi to supply them for the trip back to the Land of Grass, their homeland.
Kaowru was only carrying a small basket of berries on his person, but his system's Inventory held a few dozen explosive tags, just for self defense. Not that he really knew how to throw them, and could only barely use his chakra to trigger them. The inventory also held his points and his only quest reward, a single scroll that he couldn't use because he lacked the knowledge of how to do so.
'Bloody gacha...'
Abacus chuckled in his mind.
"[Heh... let me guess, you're still mad at yourself that you didn't think to ask her?]"
'Of course I am! Had I been thinking straight at the time I could've had her teach me the basics of how to properly use chakra! Now I'm stuck until we get back home, and even then I'll have to ask dad to take me to Kusagakure when he does his next deal there.' Kaowru complained.
"[You do realise that means you'll have to actually attend the Kusagakure Ninja Academy, right?]"
'Yes, Abacus, I know! But if I wanna survive in this world I need to learn how to use chakra. That feeling of missing something is getting stronger every single day and I really don't want to be defenseless when whatever is going to happen, happens. This scroll I got is useless until I can use the Summoning Jutsu.'
As he hiked his way through the small patch of woodland he spotted something in the distance. Against the rainy gray sky, the dark pine trees, and the green ferns that dominated the ground-level of this place, the orange glow of a large campfire was unmistakable even at a distance.
'Huh, someone camping out here? I could've swor-' Kaowru was interrupted by an urgent alert.
"[BOY! Throw your tags in front of you, NOW!!!]"
'Wh-!'
He was caught off-guard by Abacus' sudden shout and immediately threw out a handful of tags on reflex and stumbled backwards. Something had leapt out of the foliage in front of him and quickly swerved left to dodge his attack.
*pop, crack, pop*
His tags were barely more than firecrackers with a bit of concussive force behind them, but they were the best he could make with his Fuinjutsu Skill at only 9% mastery even with his 'Fuinjutsu Talent' wish speeding up the process. He quickly pulled another handful of tags out of his inventory.
"Grrrrrr..." When the smoke cleared Kaowru's blood ran cold. Not because of what had attacked him, but because of what it was wearing, and how it triggered all kinds of alarm bells from his locked memories.
Before him stood a dog. Brown and white fur, head coming up to his thighs, and about as long from nose-to-tail as his own height. It wore a metal headband around its neck adorned with the Konohagakure symbol, and a dark blue flak jacket.
'A dog... with a flak jacket and Konoha headband. That-'
*Shik*
Kaowru looked down. He had felt no pain, no sudden shock.
But a glowing, pearl-white tanto had pierced through his spine, heart, and sternum, and was now sticking out of his chest.
"Who... w-why..." He collapsed to the floor, the blade pulled out of him.
"I know, kid. I know and I... I'm sorry. At least you can be with your family now... together in the Pure Land..." The voice of his unseen attacker, a man, spoke to him softly. Full of regret and resignation.
It was the last thing Kaowru would ever hear.
- - -
The masked man wiped the blood and rain off his blade before sheathing it. He turned around when his dog shifted itself to face something and he heard footsteps in the grass behind him.
His current Commanding Officer, a man called Hiiro Hyuga, looked down and frowned.
"You didn't have to kill the boy too, Jonin Hatake. We already ransacked the caravan." He scolded. The masked man shook his head and responded.
"Sir. We couldn't leave a witness. He saw the camp."
"He did? Hmm... very well. Here, you have new orders from High Command." Hiiro handed him a bound scroll.
Unfurling it and unsummoning his dog, he read through whatever his new task would be.
"Land of Stone? I thought I was on scouting duty down here in the Rain?" He was confused as to why he was being reassigned now, of all times. His dogs were perfect for scouting.
"Your skill with a blade outweighs the utility of your summons. Doubly so in this awful weather, where their noses are less useful. Thus, you will be sent off to a battlefield where your skills can be made better use of." The commander explained.
"Oh, and we'll be moving the camp further west from here. Clearly we're too close to the road if a damned civilian can find us here." With that, the commander left.
'*sigh*... of course. More killing.' Sakumo Hatake grimaced behind his Anbu mask. 'At least I won't have to spill even more innocent blood. The group here will begin their occupation of that small town in a month or so. It's supposed to be a peaceful takeover... but they never really are.' He looked down at the boy he had slain. So young, so innocent.
'My hands will never be free of blood, will they?' He placed one hand on the ground in front of him.
[Earth Style: Earth-flow river]
The ground beneath the boy's body flowed like mud and caused him to sink deep into the ground.
'It's not much of a burial. But it's the best I can give you.'
He vanished from the small clearing, not having noticed the small, digital scroll lying on the ground, and not aware that his actions had just been broadcast across the world to a select group of individuals.
- - - - -
[-World Message-]
[-Reincarnator #9 has died. Cause of death: Impaled by named character 'Sakumo Hatake'.-]
Seija's hand nearly exploded when that message suddenly popped up out of nowhere. She had been in the process of attempting to create a Rasengan. Her newest memories, unlocked when she turned 8 years old, informed her that learning the A-rank Jutsu would be an excellent chakra control exercise. Plus, she would have a somewhat modular Jutsu that she could add new elements on to, including Kekkei Genkai should she awaken any.
She was actually nearly done with the Jutsu, but the last step was giving her some trouble. She was still at the point of trying to maintain the rotation inside of a water-balloon without breaking it. She'd nailed the first two steps in just a few days since they mostly just required power, something that her chakra was absolutely never lacking. But this final step was proving rather difficult for her.
Medical Ninjutsu had been well worth learning as well, and it wasn't too hard to act like she was learning it faster because of her Shadow Clones, rather than because she already knew plenty of biology from her previous life. It even synergised with the few scraps of her Senju DNA, allowing her to passively heal even faster and improve her tolerance for pain.
She spoke to her System Breaker as the torn skin on her hand knitted itself closed before her eyes.
'Firewall! That was the merchant boy, right? I remember the Global Chat for that day suggested he was number #9.'
"[Correct. More alarmingly, do you remember the merchant's schedule for your town?]"
'Yes, that caravan was supposed to be here... tomorrow...' She realised.
'...Fuck.'
"[Indeed. Sakumo Hatake, and presumably a unit of Konoha shinobi must be somewhere nearby, at the very least within the Land of Rain.]"
'So the war rumors were true then. Our town would make an attractive target for occupation. A safe-ish place for a hundred or so ninja to hide out and take food from...'
She recalled all of her clones and winced slightly at the sudden rush of information from their own training, before creating a new set, a total of twelve now, and having them transform.
In a puff of smoke, a squad of randomly dressed shinobi of various heights and weights appeared before her.
"Okay you lot, I need you to sacrifice yourselves by running out into the distance around the forest, two at a time, one slightly ahead of the next. Your job is for the first ones to die and then the second ones to find out what killed them. Scatter!"
""Right!"" The ever-loyal Shadow Clones responded before flickering away into the distance.
'While they're doing that, I'll head for home. I don't have any evidence yet to tell mom and dad about the war being real, not without revealing my past life. I'll have to wait for the clones to find something.' She reckoned.
As she headed back through the forest she decided to check the Global Chat for comments about the World Message.
[-Global Chat-]
[-Reincarnator #5: "No fucking way... are you guys seeing this too?"-]
[-Reincarnator #7: "Damn..."-]
[-Reincarnator #2: "The hell? Didn't he only see his first ninja a few months back? How the fuck did he get himself killed by a legend like Sakumo? What shitty luck..."-]
[-Reincarnator #11: "Oh my..."-]
[-Reincarnator #8: "He was the one just after me... Rest in peace..."-]
[-Reincarnator #6: "Did anyone know his name? When the Group Chats unlock we should create one solely to remember those of us that died. As it stands we need to wait for #12 and #13 to awaken before we can do that though."-]
Seija stopped and pulled some of the old disarmed explosive tags out of her scroll, which she hadn't found a use for yet. She checked them for any type of signature.
'There, the one at the very bottom of the stack. I'm guessing that's the first one he made.'
Sure enough, the one on the very bottom of the stack had a line of text on the other side, scrawled in a child's untidy handwriting: 'Kaowru's first explosive tag'
She sighed.
[-Global Chat-]
[-Reincarnator #1 has unmuted the Global Chat.-]
[-Reincarnator #1: "His name was Kaowru. It was written on one of his explosive seals."-]
[-Reincarnator #1 has attached an image: -] She had Firewall post an image of her gloved hand holding the tag, before muting once again.
[-Reincarnator #1 has muted the Global Chat.-]
[-Reincarnator #7: "Holy shit even number #1 came in to talk. Kaowru, huh? Yeah, that suits him I think."-]
[-Reincarnator #4: "Isn't that the first time number #1's said anything here? How did they know that his name was written on that seal? How did they even get that seal? Did they meet him somehow?"-]
[-Reincarnator #11: "U-Um, number #1's really never posted here before?"-]
[-Reincarnator #6: "Regardless of the origin of number #1's information, it's all we have. We may never know the names of those who have died before awakening: numbers #3, #10, #14 and #19. But at least we can remember Kaowru. I'll make sure that image is re-posted into the Group Chat, whenever I make it."-]
Seija closed the chat. She didn't want to think about the fact that a young reincarnator who she had met personally had died, not any more than she needed to. She would not cry about it, since she didn't even know his name before checking the tag... But there was something melancholic about knowing that she was now the only one who held a piece of Kaowru's life within her possession.
Something about that made her eyes itch for some reason... Which was strange since she was wearing her mask and nothing could've got into them. She dismissed the thought when the feeling faded after a few seconds.
As she approached her home after running back through the woods, her first clone vanished.
'Let's see... Konoha headbands. I thought so. There were three of them in that group that killed the clone. They were actually fairly slow, were they only Genin? Could that clone have killed them if I'd told it to do so? Maybe... my clones are more durable than a normal Shadow Clone, I don't think a stray kunai or shuriken hit would've destroyed it immediately...'
That was a morbid thought. She had never actually ever tested her strength against a real enemy, only sparred with her mother, and even then the last time they'd sparred was before she learned the Shadow Clone Jutsu. She would have to come to terms with the reality of her strength if she ever made contact with the enemy herself.
She would think about how to fight people without killing them, later. She was back home, and she could smell dinner cooking.
'I'll just relax for now. The clones will find something in the night, I'm sure.'
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Short author note time!
It's not going to be relevant again for a little while yet, but I've decided to change all the previously Japanese hand seal names to their English names instead. (I.E: Inu->Dog, I->Boar, Hitsuji->Ram, etc)
I don't know what I was thinking by making them Japanese in the first place... I don't even speak Japanese...
I've already combed through the older chapters and changed them there too, though I might've missed some. I'll post a comment on this author note so you can see the diagram of all the common hand seals and their names.
So that's it! That's the entire author note! Have a nice day.
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