Kin Tsuchi
Darkness had claimed the compound when two frail shadows slipped down into its bowels. A single match flickered in the gloom, its trembling flame a pitiful defiance against corridors that seemed to stretch into infinity.
Their purpose as dasperate as it was profane; a plea for quick boost to power through more..
unconventional way.
The lower levels of the compound stank as much as she always imagined they would, with smell of chemicals, plastic and decaying flesh being the most conspicuous amongst the others. Though it was not the smell that turned her stomach every now and then.
Kin stopped to take a deep breath, inhaling the damp air while her hand preesed against the wall for support. It was cool in touch, smooth and luxurious with panels of white, that made her feel like she was touching a marble.
Benjibaru glanced back, his footsteps faltering. "...Are you sure about this, Kin-san?" The tenth time he had asked. His voice trembled with the same dread that gnawed at her, and it filled her with rage.
Do I really look so pathetic right now? She bit her tongue until she tasted copper.
"...Yeah. Let's go."
Kin already felt bad for her previous outburst. The boy was simply as scared as her.
They descended further. Footsteps echoed like the slow dripping of ichor in some abyssal cave. With every turn, the urge to flee back to the relative sanity of her cell grew monstrous. The air itself seemed thicker, heavier, pregnant with death.
"Are we even going the right way?" Her eye twitched when she heard her voice crack.
Bejnibaru hummed in response. "Well… Kentarō-san did say Orochimaru-sama should be in a new section at the end of the lower levels, working on some additional arrangement"
"Which is?"
"He refused to say, and I did not wish to impose." The boy smiled apologetically.
The words only tightened the noose in her gut. She had resigned herself to her fate when at last they stood before massive double doors of black metal, cold and wrong. Etched with patterns that looked like both serpent and seals. They stared for an eternity, before Benjibaru gave a nervous chuckle. "Should we knock or-"
Kin groaned. "Just shut the hell up." She shoved past him, pushed and the doors opened with a sigh of an escaping breath.
The chamber unfolded before them like a wound. Rows upon rows of human-sized glass tubes dominated the chamber, filled with a viscous, faintly glowing nutrient fluid that swirled with unnatural, sickly green. She counted forty or so, with yet enough space for more to come.
Kin quickly found a man she was looking for, standing before one of the chambers.
This one, had a body inside.
Inside floated a slumbering boy, Kentarō's age, with brown hair drifting like seaweed in the current. His chest bulged grotesquely with white before smoothing once more. Kin shivered at the sight, something nasty was being injected into the kid.
"I have finally found a use for you, Yateki-kun…"
Kin's spine turned to ice when he looked their way, his face pale as a corpse long drowned.
"Ara?" The Sannin smiled. His golden eyes narrowed with predatory delight, the vertical slits dilating as they fixed on the intruders. The very air around him seemed to ripple, heavy with the scent of ozone and flesh. "What could possibly goad two lost little mice to interrupt my work?" Orochimaru tapped a long finger against his chin. "Explain. Now."
Kin's legs betrayed her, moving forward on instinct. She dropped to one knee on the cold ground along with Benjibaru who followed a breath after. No one of them dared to look up.
She had never wanted this, but crying right now would be hypocrisy.
Her body was the last pure thing she had left, the final memory of her parents that was untainted. Yet now she would surrender it. She would let her master change and defile it, so she could become stronger. Weakness was a far slower, crueler death in this world. Villages burned the frail. Wars devoured them and only the strong survived this endless cycle.
So just to preserve th lofe her parents gifted her, to survive; she was eilling to become a walking freak of nature.
'Strength is everything. Only the strong survive.'
Kin looked up from the ground, staring directly into the piercing, gold eyes. "Orochimaru-sama…" Her voice shook but did not break. "We are ready to receive our rewards."
A low, bubbling chuckle slithered through the chamber.
"…Kukukuku…"
Benjibaru
Since the last two months, Benjibaru never felt this strong. The additional set of hands changed everything and now, he was nearly unmatched in taijutsu and could cast two jutsu at one time, though nothing flashy, as the arms were still a prototype and he had yet to get used to them. Still, it did not stop him from winning almost every bout he had thrown himself into, be it in the arena or the training grounds.
Almost, as it changed short of nothing against the genius hidden behind Kentarō-san skull. While Benjibaru now stood a chance against him in pure taijutsu, the older still managed to find a way to win in spars that allowed chakra to be used.
He was glad his teammate had grown so strong in body and skill. What worried him was what kept festering inside Kentarō's mind.
Kentarō had started drowning in his own pride, blind to it entirely. It had gotten worse a month ago, when he simply stopped losing, not to any of his teammates, not to Benjibaru, not to anyone.
Perhaps he should have cooled the heart in his chest a long time ago. Perhaps he was growing too sentimental, but this team was like a family for him; he had no one he could call such beside this little band of misfits, so it hurt him to see them starting to grow apart from each other after each spar.
Which was why they decided to fight him four to one in the training ground he was allowed to choose. It was best they humble him before it's too late.
To his shock Kentarō-san agreed, choosing forest as their battleground.
Benjibaru held Kentarō's gaze, searching for any sort of unease as all of them circled his form, ready to pounce upon him at any sign of weakness.
Kentarō just stood there, arms folded behind his back, utterly at ease, with only a slight amused smirk creeping its way upon his lips.
"Well? Are you going to actually do something, or should I be the one to start?"
Benjibaru felt sweat build up upon his forehead. Surely he was not delusional enough to-
His thoughts died as Kentarō's smirk transformed into a full blown, wolfish grin.
"Very well then."
He lunged at Kin Tsuchi first, who bolted the other way, opening the distance, while the other three closed in on Kentarō from behind. The boy stopped the chase almost immediately, a feint; before performing clone technique and letting the false copy vanish in a puff of smoke almost before it existed.
His hands flew through another set of signs. "Kemuri Kakuchō no Jutsu." (Smoke Expansion Technique.) A heartbeat later, his whole body and everything around it vanished into a cloud of smoke, that rapidly billowed outward.
All of them skidded to a halt at the edge of the cloud. Zaku thrust his hands forward, and a burst of wind screamed from the pipes embedded in his palms, tearing into the smoke.
The smoke thinned, and three Kentarōs came tearing out of it, one for Benjibaru, one for Zaku, one for Dosu. At the same instant, a massive fuma shuriken wreathed in fire came howling toward Kin Tsuchi, its flames hotter through the wind still gusting from Zaku's pipes.
Benjibaru dropped into the Viper stance, tuning out Zaku's furious shouting about people using his "fucking pipes as they pleased," while Kin threw herself into evading the incoming projectile.
He frowned when the shuriken changed course to track her through the trees. Kin skidded to a stop and unleashed a scream through the pipes fused into her throat, aiming the sound straight at the blade.
The sound waves clashed against the shuriken. It slowed for a brief moment, before flying at her with greater velocity.
At the same time, the three of them engaged their respective Kentarō's with a series of vicious strikes.
What followed were three puffs of smoke.
Benjibaru's eyes widened in horror, his gaze immediately averting to Kin. 'KAI!'
The reality shattered, the image of fuma shuriken following Kin broke like a glass, revealing Kentarō standing above her unconscious form, her hair firmly clutched in his hand.
The boy chuckled. "Poor Kin, she didn't even have a chance to shine…"
'Environmental genjutsu.' Benjibaru gulped down the lump in his throat. 'When did he… oh. He made it in smoke…'
Kentarō let go of Kin and charged at him next.
The reaction was immediate. He and Zaku closed the distance between each other, with a small distance between their bodies. Dosu stood at the front, the Echo Resonating Speaker Prototype ready to be used.
They stood in the triangle formation and waited.
Benjibaru caught the gauntlet vibrate slightly, saw Dosu's eyes narrow. The instant Dosu lunged, Kentarō's arm morphed into a bouquet of snakes that drow their slithering forms into the ground. Kentarō used them as an anchor, lifted his body skyward by the serpentine arm, and hurled himself at Zaku like a spear.
Shocked, the boy barely blocked the fist approaching his face. He managed to catch the flying Kentarō by arm and rammed him to straight into the ground.
Kentarō only grinned wider. Snakes coiled around Zaku's legs, hoisting him off the ground and hurled the screaming Abumi towards the incoming gauntlet strike.
Dosu wrenched his strike off-course just in time to avoid hitting his own teammate, the echo instead detonating against a nearby tree trunk and reducing it to splinters. Zaku still crashed into him regardless, and both boys went down in a tangle.
Benjibaru hadn't been idle this whole time, his both sets of hands blurred through the seals for Body Replacement.
Two of his forms charged at Kentarō, while one stayed behind. Without even turning, the long haired boy flung a kunai at the one that stayed behind.
It struck true...
...and dissolved into smoke, revealing only a wooden log with a kunai buried in it's side.
Benjibaru and his substitute charged from one side, Zaku and Dosu closing in from the other. Dosu's hand thummed with barely contained sound and Zaku rushed in with both palms leveled at the long haired boy.
Benjibaru could see gears turning in Kentarõ's head, his eyes darting from left to right.
Then they clashed and Kentarō gambled, blocking the strikes from one of Benjibaru's forms with palm and elbow.
The form burst into smoke that revealed a log upon an impact and the real Benjibaru landed four clear blows on the boy, two to the head, one on the stomach and the last in the groin, which made Kentarō release a breathless gasp.
At the same time, his slithering hand engaged the other two boys. The approaching snakes trembled in their advancement, which allowed Zaku to blast them away with his windpipes, creating an opening for Dosu, needed to drove Echo Resonating Speaker straight towards Kentarō's chest.
Through the pain that burned his muscles, Kentarō forced the Hidden Shadow Snake Hands to increase in length, lashing towards Zaku faster than he could pull away and coiling around his arm.
Kentarō cried out in pain while vibration tore through his insides, but so did the Abumi boy when the waves finally reached him.
The serpentine hand shrunk in length and Kentarō was thrown towards still shaking Zaku. The long haired released a hold on Abumi, safe for one snake that weakly wrapped itself around the badmouthed boy's throat.
The other two boys lunged after them, only to stop in their tracks when the snakes wrapped around the high branch of the tree, lifting Kentarō along with Zaku high above into crowns. A few rustles of leaves followed, before nothing but silence remained.
A few moments passed by, with both boys helplessly staring above. Dosu tried to launch a vibration through the wood, but not a single cry of pain followed.
Dosu scowled. "He's hopping from tree to tree in a circle around us. I can hear it."
Benjibaru was not surprised. Dosu had superb hearing after all. "Can't you just use your gauntlet on a tree before he jumps in it?"
"It will not reach in time, the bough is too long."
While staring above, Dosu made a single hand sign. "Kai."
…
"...The sound is still present, no break in the pattern. It's not genjutsu."
Their eyes snapped at the loud sound of rustling leaves and breaking branches. From there, an unconscious form of Zaku plummeted towards the ground. Thankfully Dosu managed to catch him very swiftly.
"Zaku-san would not like the princess' carry." Benjibaru mused.
"He would not appreciate his face splattered on the ground either." Dosu grunted in response. He dumped the boy on the ground, his eyes never leaving the crown of the trees.
"Yeah… what now?"
Dosu's response was swift. "We wait, unless you know how to walk on trees."
Of course he hadn't. None of them had advanced their chakra control to that level yet, at least not enough to sprint along vertical surfaces. Wobbling along tree trunks with nothing but raw concentration to occupy the mind was manageable in training, but in actual combat it was worse than useless. One misstep at this height, surrounded by the towering forest canopy, would mean a fatal plunge.
If not for the books granted to Kentarō, they would not even know that such a method of training chakra control existed.
"We are weak Kentarō-san, can't you see? Being the strongest amongst the weak does not make you strong."
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, the not so agreeable answer came crashing down on them. Thirty-odd thick wooden logs plummeting from the branches above, hurtling toward them and the surrounding clearing at once.
Both Benjibaru and Dosu tensed, bracing for whatever trap Kentarō had set. Instinctively, their hands flashed into the seal of release.
Dosu's eyes narrowed behind his bandages. "He's stopped jumping around. Be careful-"
The logs slammed into the ground with a thunderous impact, several splinting and splintering on the ground.
They heard a voice spread throughout the clearing.
"Reverse Body Replacement Technique!"
Poof!
One log erupted in a thick plume of white smoke. In the same heartbeat, both of them were already surging forward. Dosu's gauntlet, the Resonating Echo Speaker, hummed to life, its porous metal surface visibly vibrating with building power. Benjibaru hung back to the left, close enough to support but safely out of immediate range. He had no desire to end up like Zaku.
Dosu'sfist tore through the dissipating smoke...
...and met yet another log that shattered upon the impact.
The cloud thinned rapidly around, revealing a roaring ball of fire streaking toward them from between the trees, launched from the very spot the smoke had concealed moments earlier.
Zaku leapt sharply to the left. Dosu bounded to the right.
He saw something shifting in the bushes, before Kentarō springed out towards Dosu, closing in for taijutsu.
Kinuta's Melody Arm swung above black haired boy's head who ducked under the strike in one fluid motion, who kept runningz now aiming towards Benjibaru.
Kentarō swung towards him, who caught the wrist with suspicious ease, and answered with three rapid counter-strikes. Behind Kentarō, Dosu was already charging the Echo Resonating Speaker for a devastating follow-up.
The captured hand suddenly morphed into a writhing mass of snakes, just as Benjibaru had anticipated. He allowed the serpents to coil tightly around his arms, deliberately halting his own punches. His sole objective was to pin Kentarō in place long enough for Dosu's sound waves to charge and put the boy into a not so sweet embrace of sleep.
Then he felt an unexpected additional weight pressing on his whole body.
Kentarō had used the firm grip of the Hidden Shadow Snake Hands to hoist himself upward, vaulting clear of the incoming Melody Arm strike. With a twist, he swung his entire body downward, legs ramrod straight and aimed directly at the gauntlet.
Crack! Poof!
The Resonating Echo Speaker shattered instantly. A jagged fragment of metal tore into Dosu's own arm, drawing a sharp grunt of pain and fury from the bandaged boy. Two quick puffs of smoke followed, revealing two heavy stones lashed securely to the soles of Kentarō's feet with leafy vines instead of his boots.
Before Benjibaru could regain his footing, the Hidden Shadow Snake Hands suddenly contracted, yanking him violently forward. Kentarō flew at him like a human projectile, both feet aimed squarely at his chest.
The very hold meant to immobilize the black haired boy became the instrument of Benjibaru's downfall.
With no room to evade, his footing unsteady; the twin stones slammed into his ribcage with brutal force. Bones cracked audibly beneath the impact that drove the air from his lungs in a breathless gasp. He fell backwards, clutching his shattered chest. Waves of dizziness and searing agony crashed over him in the same moment.
Through the haze of pain, he glimpsed Kentarō wheeling toward Dosu. Without the Melody Arm's debilitating sound waves, the long haired boy fought with unrestrained ferocity. Relentless, precise, and utterly merciless as he was wont to do.
Benjibaru tried to push himself up when he saw Dosu being cornered, but the searing pain in his chest pinned him in place. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, not just from the physical torment, but from the crushing wave of sorrow and disappointment that followed.
'We... we have failed...'
Was his last thought before Dosu's body hit the ground, unconscious, and his own vision became dark.
Kentarō
Lately, Kentarō felt powerful.
He sat alone on the edge of his narrow bunk in the dim confines of his cell, the stone walls pleasantly cold against his still hot flesh, numbing the pain and exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm his body.
The faint glow of a single lantern cast long shadows across the sparse room, all his books opened on the rough blanket beside him, a few scattered training weights he recently acquired; pushed into the corner, and the faint scent of damp earth clinging to everything.
Outside, the muffled sounds of the facility drifted through the heavy door. Distant footsteps, the occasional clink of metal doors being shut behind, voices of weaklings too low to make out.
But in here, basking himself in his own glory and superiority, developing his first technique.
After all, was he wrong, to think himself superior?
Was it not his superiority that allowed him to completely overpower Kin Tsuchi, even after she had gone through such severe modifications to her throat?
Was it not his superiority that let him control Zaku like a puppet, using the boy's own windpipes according to his will as if they were strings?
Was it not his superiority that let him defeat Benjibaru, even after the boy had gone through those drastic body modifications to gain four arms?
Was it not his superiority that let him defeat Dosu, the one everyone considered the strongest of their group?
If it was not his superiority, slowly awakening and breaking free from the confines of his mind, then what else could explain this beautiful and intoxicating feeling of strength when he defeatem them all at once?
Even now, with only a single strand of his long hair obeying his will, he felt no frustration but a satisfying sense of conviction. It was proof that in time, he would be capable of bending every inch of his flowing mane to his command, turning it into a powerful weapon or shield that would widen the already vast gap between him and the rest of this pathetic facility.
'I am the strongest here.'
He liked it that way.
He intended to keep it that way, for as long as he was here.