Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Prologue – Arc 2: The Daitengu

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Chapter 16: Karasu

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At the place where the group was camping last night, Kobo, Minaa and Z are still fighting against Ritoru and Chuji. Minaa has been holding her ground against Ritoru. They both use feline-like abilities, but one of them specializes in a Doton-based Kekkei Genkai while the other uses Raiton. In hand-to-hand combat, Minaa has the advantage of speed, and her outfit seems to work as a distraction with this opponent.

On the other hand, Z and Kobo are struggling, experiencing the power of the strongest of Sojobo's servants. His tengu isn't even awake yet, but his abilities are already in use. He can throw powerful chakra orbs that are very similar to the Bijudama. He can also use Jinton, the same Kekkei Tota as the Tsuchikage, but prefers to limit his use of it in fights because of the exhaustion it causes. Still with only his upgraded physical abilities and his Tengu chakra orbs, he overwhelmed both Z and Kobo. The place has been completely devastated by his repeated strikes.

With one more Tengu chakra salva, he aims for his two adversaries, who plunge away to dodge and fall to the ground.

"Did Sasuke really plan to have us fight this guy?" asks Z to Kobo.

"He surely made some wrong calculations!" answers Chuji instead, smiling.

Kobo struggles to stand up, not done yet. Sasuke asked for his help, so he has to give his best. He promised to the Mizukage that he'll come back home safe, but if the mission requires it, he'll have to forget about that promise. Chuji sees him still willing to fight and is amused, but annoyed. Kobo just holds his two swords forward, as if he was challenging his opponent to a physical confrontation, which Chuji gladly accepts.

Z does his best to stand up too and help the young Kiri-nin, but doesn't make it in time, he still tries to hurry. Chuji surrounds both his hands with chakra and shapes it into two scalpels that he enlarges to make blades. As the yamabushi gets closer, fully on for a short range, Kobo sees that he took the bait and, as soon as his enemy jumps off the ground, prepares a surprise.

Katon – Cross Fire

Th young Uchiha's two swords catch fire and he slices the air toward Chuji with them, which forms a cross shaped fire projectile. Chuji, in the middle of a leap forward, just looks agape at the jutsu coming to him and is unable to dodge. The fire cross strikes him right in the torso, and the blow throws him back. He rolls on the ground and gets on his feet again. On his chest, he sees a severe burn mark in the shape of a cross. This boy just touched him. Nobody ever touched him, but this boy just did.

This triggers Chuji who screams in anger and stands up. He raises a hand in Kobo's direction and a white chakra transparent sphere appears. The sphere visibly grows bigger. Chuji prepares to erase Kobo from this world with this jutsu but is interrupted by Z who bounces up to have the high ground on him.

Ranton – Denki Mizurappa

He spits a shoot of lightning that falls over Chuji. The yamabushi undoes the jutsu he was getting ready to throw and evades Z's attack by rolling away. But when this lightning-like water trumpet hits the ground, it splashes into many lightning rays that fly in every direction. Chuji sees the lasers coming to him and, even in motion, knows how to react. He raises a hand and quickly fires a chakra orb as a wave that eradicates all the lasers it crosses.

When Chuji gets back on his feet, he catches a kunai that Z throws at him to make a diversion for Kobo. The young Uchiha arrives in his enemy's back and tries to cut his head off. Chuji who realizes he turned his back to one of his opponents, looks back and sees him before he strikes. He turns around and blocks the sword with the kunai. Kobo takes advantage of Chuji's lack of second weapon and uses his other sword to aim for his head again. The fanatic pushes his enemy back before his strike land to evade it.

Kobo misses the neck, but makes a deep cut on his cheek. Chuji jumps back and touches his face. He feels the blood that flows down his fingers and hand, and clenches his fist. He underestimated them. To avoid being from behind or over again, he touches the ground and summons a stone column that elevates him. He detects his two enemies and thinks of a quick way to end it that they won't be able to dodge.

If he uses Jinton this once to disintegrate everything in his sight, no one will be able to stop him, he'll just have to be careful not to hit Ritoru too. He prepares a new Jinton in his hand while Kobo and Z just look at him getting higher and higher with that rock column. But before he executes his jutsu, his master's voice calls him in his head.

"Chuji, the Uchiha is here. Run away." calls the Daitengu.

"What? That should be a reason to stay!" he yells, unamused.

"Even I couldn't take him down. Just leave already! And bring Ritoru with you."

Unwilling to disobey his lord, Chuji accepts and looks for Ritoru. His teammate is still fighting alone against the woman from Kumo. How ridiculous… he's really being handled by a single teenager. His order is to leave WITH Ritoru, so he has to get him rid of this fight. To do so, he turns his hand with the jutsu ready to be thrown at Minaa.

Z sees where his enemy is aiming now, and hurries to make a move, to save his friend. Kobo, who's body moves like on its own, also hurries in. Ritoru turns his head to see Chuji getting ready to take his opponent down, so he jumps away. Minaa looks him, unsettled and disappointed, before turning to see another enemy aim for her. Chuji adds his orbs' chakra to his jutsu.

Jinton – Tengu Kaiho Hakuri

He fires the attack as a chakra beam that eradicates everything it touches and aims for the Kumo-nin. Z gets to Minaa and tries to push her away from the trajectory, but she dodges by herslef without noticing her friend's effort. So Z only manages to to get himself in the beam's aim without saving anyone. Before the attack hits him, Kobo jumps in and pushes him away. The Uchiha than hurries to get out of range too, but doesn't have the time to. The dismantling beam strikes him right in the torso and pierces a large hole on his right side.

Kobo falls to the ground under the shocked faces of Minaa and Z. Ritoru just stays there and looks at the scene, until Chuji lands next to him. Minaa directly tries to attack him but isn't a match against the two of them at the same time. When she tries to hit Chuji, she's stopped by Ritoru who confronts his claws to hers again, and pushed back by Chuji who simply kicks her away. She rolls on the ground and gets back on her feet, but when she looks in front of her again, all she sees is a thick gas cloud. When the gas fades away, the two yamabushi already vanished.

Minaa stands up and turns to Z who's now sitting by Kobo's sides. The kid's still breathing, barely. Fortunately, his heart wasn't affected, but his right lung is almost totally destroyed. Kobo stares blankly at the sky as he feels his strength leave him. He slowly loses consciousness.

Right in time, Sasuke arrives at the place with Tsubai, Daisuke, Naomi who's walking with his help, and a young girl who walks besides Daisuke. He looks at Kobo and sees his injury.

"Who did this?" asks Sasuke.

"One of the yamabushis." answers Minaa. "He used some all-erasing chakra beam to take us down, but the boy got in the way."

"All-erasing? Chakra Beam? This must be Ryutoki." says Daikoku in Tsubai's mind.

"Who's that? Can we beat him?" asks Tsubai to his tengu.

"Ryutoki, the power of Kings. He's the second born Tengu. He is said to be the strongest of us. But these sayings and myths don't include me." explains the caped ghost, confidently. "I don't know if we can beat him, but he would surely be a tough match."

Tsubai makes a worried face and looks at the kid lying on the ground. He thinks of the last words he told him and feels guilty for it.

"I'm sorry Sasuke, but one of his lungs was destroyed." says Minaa, with a sad voice. "He's hardly breathing. I don't think he'll…"

"Don't worry. I arrived in time, with just the person we need." says Sasuke who turns his head to the girl he brought with him.

She walks forward to stand before Sasuke. A young girl that looks about 15-16 years old. She has black eyes and long red hair reaching the middle of her back. Without saying anything, she gets on her knees next to Kobo and performs a complex series of hand seals.

Shosen – Fukugen

She places her hands over Kobo's chest like she is going to use the classic mystical palm jutsu, but instead emits a white colored chakra from her hands. Z looks at her in a weird manner, wondering how she intends to heal a fatal injury that is basically a body part turned to ashes. But at his surprise, after almost a minute, Kobo's missing lung magically reappears along with the missing skin and ribs. All of Sasuke's teammates look at each other like they just witnessed a literal miracle. Sasuke acknowledges the general confusion.

"You should introduce yourself." he says to the girl.

"Wait 'til I'm done." she answers, fully focused on her task, that seems to be very demanding.

Once all the missing flesh, skin and bones are back in place, she keeps performing the jutsu to stabilize all the returned material for as long as she took to restore it. Once she's done, she holds on Kobo's chest to stay up and stop herself from fainting. She then looks up to all the others, and takes a deep breath in.

"My name is Sana. I'm 15, and I'm from a village not far away from Sunagakure, or so I'm told." she starts to say, putting on a happy face. "I was born in a family in which we pass down to each generation this unique mix of Medical Ninjutsu and Space-Time ninjutsu. Basically, I can focus my chakra in an object to restore it to a past state that isn't from too long ago. Like if this man,… How is he called?"

"His name is Kobo Uchiha." answers Sasuke.

"Uchiha! Like you!…" she exclaims. "Whatever, if Kobo had been injured sooner, I would possibly not have been able to save him. But as Sasuke said. Right timing!… Whatever again, so yes this is what this jutsu does. But it demands a lot of chakra, so I can't do it on too big or too old injuries many times in a row."

"If we come to need several uses of this jutsu at once, I'll provide my own chakra to help." says Sasuke to reassure the others before going to explain how they know each other. "I met her not long before the world ending events of last year's Rinne Festival. I was in the land of Wind to follow the traces of a human trafficking market. While looking for potential future kidnapping victims of this criminal order, I found her, going after the same order because people in her village disappeared. So we tracked them down together and I got to learn about her. Unfortunately, since the moon was falling on Earth and a friend of mine got involved in some troubles, I had to make a detour by Konoha. Still I returned to the land of Wind right afterwards."

"You came back? So did you find the people responsible for the traffic?" asks Sana.

"I did. All gathered in a single house, in a bloodbath. They were all brutally murdered by someone else, who was probably after them too. But since it was none of my business, I didn't investigate further… And then I went back to the Land of Fire and met you, Tsubai."

Tsubai is like waken up by his name being called. He was lost in his thoughts with Daikoku, thinking of how to make Sasuke accept to not kill any Tengu. He watches around to see all the others looking at him too. He just makes an uncomfortable face and looks away.

While they're all focused on Tsubai, Kobo opens his eyes and sees a familiar face. A young woman with black eyes, white skin shining in the sun light. For a moment, Kobo felt like he was seeing his mother again. But soon enough, he notices Sasuke standing behind her. He stands up to sit on the ground next to the girl, and turns his head to see her again. Z and Minaa look at each other, surprised but glad that he survived. Tsubai looks at the boy who just woke up and bends down next to him.

"Sorry about what I said earlier…" he apologizes.

"Uh? What again?" asks Kobo a bit confused.

"You know… Orphan… I didn' mean it. And you know, I'm somehow an orphan myself." he adds.

"You called him what?" asks Sasuke, not sure if he heard that correctly.

"It's okay. I too am sorry for reacting violently." answers Kobo.

Sasuke sees that everyone seems okay, so he forgets about it and takes a few steps back to see all of his team gathered. Sana helps Kobo to get up and they all look at Sasuke who's about to make an announcement. He just stops a moment to watch at all of them as a unit before him. He thinks to himself that he now has a complete crew, and that they somehow represent all that he lived since the war. He gathered them all to accomplish a specific mission that he informed the Hokage of and is doing in his command.

He went through a lot of things since he left the village as a young genin. Now he was doing part of the ANBU's work on his own, but for some reason he doesn't want to lose himself in solitude only because of his job, so he brought together this team. Why was he wanting to avoid loneliness? In his train of thought, Sasuke remembers his brother, Itachi. Exactly like him, he left the village, was seen as a criminal by the villagers, and worked to make their life better from the shadows. His brother had to make this alone. Sasuke doesn't. That must be why he wanted to get this team.

Sasuke takes a decision. His goal, and this team's purpose, will be to make all of the member's respective villages safer places by fighting the battles that they don't know about. They will fulfill Itachi's mission, but for the whole shinobi world. Sasuke breathes in and expresses himself.

"Tsubai Minamoto, Kobo Uchiha, Naomi Yuki, Daisuke, Minaa Nii, Z and Sana Akage. I've gathered you all in order to fulfill a unique objective. As a team, we'll call ourselves… Karasu, the crow. Our goal is to hunt and kill Sojobo, the Daitengu, a chakra creature that occupies the body of Inosawa Yamanaka. It is the creator and leader of a group of other beings he calls the Tengu. He can use the powers of all his tengu at once and will come back to his original form if all of them achieve their reincarnation. He sealed his tengu inside of people he calls Yamabushi. To stop him, we'll find these Yamabushi and kill them and their tengu. This way we can take away Sojobo's powers and possibly stop his revival. Today, we managed to kill one of them, but still failed, as Sojobo managed to get the tengu back before it died, absorbing its power. We must kill the Tengu before Sojobo has the opportunity to absorb them."

"About that…" says Tsubai who finally decides to present his new point of view to Sasuke.

Sasuke turns to look at Tsubai, who interrupted his explanation.

"What?" he asks.

"We can't kill them, the Tengu." immediately says Tsubai.

"What now? You said earlier that you wanted to spare the Yamabushi, and now the Tengu?" complains Sasuke. "How long before you ask me to spare the Daitengu too?"

"I'm serious. I saw Tenshi, the one that was in my uncle." argues the Minamoto. "They only obey to their Yamabushi because they don't have a choice. I'm ok with killing some of the Yamabushi now, if justified. I understand that if it ain't the tengu, then it's the host."

"But we can't spare them. There's no way. Give up." promptly says Sasuke, refusing his friend's initiative.

"Yes there's one. If I seal the tengu inside of my body." suggests Tsubai.

"All of them?"

Minaa, Z, Daisuke, Naomi all look at each other, confused about Tsubai's point.

"Sojobo said my body can handle many of them. So if I have to, I'll take as much as possible."

"Tsubai, you failed at taking Sojobo's memories." says Sasuke. "You don't even know how to unseal them. Just give up. It will save us time."

"Fuck no! I won't give up." yells Tsubai, angered by Sasuke's indifference.

Sasuke walks closer to Tsubai and comes face to face with him. He takes a serious face and looks at him right in the eyes.

"I have no intention on holding back against any of them." he warns. "If I have the opportunity to kill one, I'll do it."

"Why? Do you have some kind of blood lust to please? No, you're not that much of an animal."

Naomi looks at the two men in conflict, and joins Sasuke sides.

"Minamoto, we were gathered to kill these people. So just like Sasuke, I'll kill them if I can, just like I did the winged one."

Kobo, not willing to see a new feud begin, comes between Sasuke and Tsubai and separates them.

"Come on, friends! Today I fought side by side with a shinobi and a kunoichi from Kumo that I know only for the sake of this team, and it went well. I'm sure the same happened on your side, Tsubai, Yuki, and the samurai. We're not gonna break up just seconds after assembling, are we?"

Kobo gets by Tsubai's sides before going on with his speech.

"Sasuke, all we're doing is originally Tsubai's family business. So if someone gets to choose, for me, it's him. Plus having all the tengu's powers on our side would be more interesting than having them gone. If Tsubai knows a way to spare them, I'd like to see it. If we don't have to take lives, we better not. Don't make us into killing machines again…"

Sasuke looks at Kobo and thinks of his point. To him, searching to save the tengus is just a waste of time, he won't change his mind this easily. He remembers the fourth war and is still sure that if Naruto had let him kill Obito Uchiha when he could, neither Madara or Kaguya would have been troubles. Repeating this kind of scenario is unacceptable to him. At his surprise, Z and Minaa join Tsubai's sides too, making it 4 to 2. He looks around and sees Daisuke who comes to join Naomi's side. Now it's three to four. The only one remaining is Sana. They all turn to look at her. She sees everyone focused on her, and gets nervous, but tries to act wisely.

"Um… Ok… Well then… Sasuke, I just arrived and haven't met any of the 'tengu' yet. So all I know about them is the explanation you gave. But if I have to pick a side now, I'd say… I'd think of how I met you. We were fighting against people who toy with people's lives. Now I don't know if a tengu is a person, but it surely is a living being, since you speak of KILLING it. I was on the side of life back then, therefore I must choose the side of life now too."

She ends her speech by going to stand next to Kobo. It's now five to three and Sasuke is in the minority. He stares at those who oppose him, who are now all standing behind Kobo, as if he took Tsubai's place in the debate. Sasuke looks at the young Uchiha, that he likes to see as a little brother. He remembers how they met. Kobo just made a choice for peace. If he forces him in a conflict he doesn't want to have, he'll just be as bad as the hidden lab who trained him.

"Damn it…" he says while turning around in direction of the land of Fire. "We'll see this later. It all depends on your ability to figure out the way to unseal them, Tsubai. For now, we're heading back to mount Sojo. Let's go by foot, to give us some time to think of an approach."

Sasuke takes the lead and goes forward, followed by Naomi, Daisuke… Z, and then Minaa. Tsubai and Sana stay behind with Kobo who's like frozen on place.

"Thanks kid."says Tsubai. "It's weird but it looks like you have the power to actually affect Sasuke's views on all these subjects he thinks he knows best."

Kobo just looks at him and doesn't say anything. He just thinks of the short stare-down he had with the man he sees as a mentor and older brother. The power in his eyes, asides of their dojutsu abilities,… Sasuke really looked serious about it. This frightens him, but also reassures him, to see him change his mind for him. Sasuke is the person who first showed him what being human was, after all these years of inhuman training. To see that he could send this back to him amuses him.

"That was a super cool speech, Kobo." says Sana. "I'm honestly impressed. If you didn't do it first, I wouldn't have had the courage to do it too… Oh, since you woke up later, you don't even know my name, do you?"

"You'll have plenty of time to get to know each other while we're walking." says Tsubai.

Kobo looks at Tsubai, then turns to see the red haired girl that reminds him of his mother, and smiles. All three together, they run to get back to Sasuke's side and all agree to travel together again, as one team, as Karasu.

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End of Chapter 16 – Next Chapter: A Shining Ally