Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX- A SHADOW CLONE'S CHRONICLES
He ducked underneath the kunai slash his new student sent right at his head. Come at me with the intent to kill, he had said, and to his surprise these young ones had not hesitated even for a second. Not even his cute little sister had done more than give him a questioning look before unleashing the full scope of her power towards achieving that goal. Speaking of little sister, he moved like water to avoid the golden chains that attempted to encircle him in their grasp. It was like a clock— a masterpiece of engineering, many small parts working together to achieve a big, but simple goal. And just like a clock, it was predictable what came next. Mikoto Uchiha wormed through his mud and sent a storm of shuriken his way.
He hardened his fingers with nature chakra, a trick he had learned after spending enough time in sage mode and understanding how nature energy enhance his body, and deflected the shuriken without picking up a weapon of his own. That was one of his self imposed handicaps for this test. Was it even fair to call it a test at this point? They'd passed with flying colours already— not that he was ever planning on failing this team. He'd chosen them, after all.
Unlike a clock for a second, they managed to surprise him. At least he pretended not to have seen the chakra furnace posing as a shuriken as his little sister transformed back to her original form after being deflected and made an attempt to snatch the bell. A good plan, he judged. He could see the disbelief in Mikoto's eyes that it had worked, the triumph in Minato's, and the naked anticipation in Kushina's as she stretched out. This was as good a time as any to teach them their second lesson. They'd learned the first in record time so maybe this one would come as easily. Faster than she could blink, but not as fast as he could move, his foot lashed out and stamped her in the chest, sending her flying into a tree.
The Uchiha was next. He shattered her clumsy attempts to place him under genjutsu, staring into her spinning red eye all the while. She lashed out with a fist once he was close enough. He parried it with contemptuous ease and tapped her twice with his fingers. He spun around her and tapped her once on the spine. She fell to the floor, temporarily paralyzed.
Namikaze watched the whole thing, blue eyes wide and shaking. He was next. His sensei body flickered to the side, and then to the side again, before running straight at him. Namikaze managed to react to the slowed down but confusing approach, slashing straight ahead, but hitting naught but air as his sensei backflipped over him. He tapped him once on the neck, putting him down for the time being.
Kushina was struggling to her feet next, and he could see the red beginning to seep into her eyes. Better to put that to a quick end, he thought. One body flicker later, and she lay paralyzed next to her teammates.
"Okay, so what did you learn from that?" I asked, sitting in front of what was to become my team of genin. I felt a strange attachment to them. These people that I had known as characters in another life, and who I have only known about one in this one. Kushina's eyes were dim, disappointed. Even Mikoto was downtrodden. Namikaze on the other hand seemed to be watching me like a puzzle he was trying to solve.
"We should have gotten your hands locked up first to prevent you from using that nasty taijutsu early on" I scoffed instead and leaned backwards against the tree.
"Look at this tree I lean against. It's massive. Not the biggest one I've ever seen. Not by a long shot, but it's still big enough to drive one your lesson home" I said as my fingers stretched out to grab a hold of a fly between them.
"No matter what this does, it will never harm the tree. That is the gap between their existences. As far as strength is concerned, there is a similar gap between you and I. Your first lesson was teamwork. Your second was learning when you are outmatched and how to deal with that. The third lesson? Well, that's the ancient and time honored art of running away.
— THE ORIGINAL
I gasped as my clone punched me through the wall of the makeshift battleground we had formed within the special area reserved for the Hokage. I pushed out of the wall, and dodged around the fist as it buried itself into the wall where I had been. My tail lashed out, slamming into the clone and sending it flying backwards. It managed to block in time, nature energy coursing through its frail form and enhancing it beyond all expectations. Another clone came in from behind, executing a picture perfect lariat that I ducked underneath it.
Looking at the ground, it was the first time I looked at it truly since the spar had begun and it was then that I noticed that their third was not truly out of the right. He emerged from the ground atop an army of spikes. 'Kurama', I mentally called and my number of tails went from one to three in an instant. The spikes crashed into me then, a good option of them broke against the strength of my cloak while one of them managed to dig into it and draw blood even as the spikes tried to push me from the ground.
I would not be having it for long though, as my tails lashed out breaking the top of a few of the spikes before they began spinning and then destroyed all the spikes around me in one fell swoop.
I looked up and came face to face with a massive fireball instead of the stones that had surrounded me earlier. I took a breath and then roared, forcing the fireball to explode a few inches from me instead of hitting me before doing so. Still, it exploded with so much concussive force that I had to stab my tails into the ground to avoid being thrown off.
The nature chakra enhanced clones came immediately in the aftermath of that attack, and it was only Kurama in my head warning me of their intentions that allowed me to avoid the first attack from underneath. I felt the ground beginning to shift into mud and I put my own chakra into the fray, trying to force it to maintain its solid state. My elemental manipulation was too sloppy in the tailed beast cloak to consider allowing them to change the environment like that. Fighting them off was just a matter of pledging more chakra to the endeavor than either of them could muster. Nature chakra or not, they were still clones with fixed reserves. Reserves made even more precarious by the fact that they would dispel once they ran out of the natural energy I had used to spawn their existence.
I dug into the ground with one of my tails and then brought it up right in front of a clone. Said tail whacked the clone straight across the arms it raised to block its attack. I moved then, pushing against the ground to move faster than I should have been capable of without teleportation. Both my clones grit their teeth before they matched my charge.
—
"So what do you have for me?" I asked as I sat easily in the Hokage seat. Training had been productive, with Kurama and I getting more and more used to working together while my clones helped me double time on getting used to fighting with nature energy. And then there was the work my clone was doing with my newly acquired genin team.
"Frost is entirely under Kumo's control now. The same can be said of Kusa with Iwa. Suna is attempting another push into Rivers and we expect that they will succeed this time if you continue with this policy of yours" Danzo said, not even trying to hide the fact that he considered my plan a mistake. Of course, his opinion mattered little and it was just a matter of time till he did something that would give me the excuse to kill him. Sadly my position as interim head of the Konoha council didn't just authorize me to kill clan heads— minor as the Shimura clan was— at will.
"Then everything is proceeding as expected on those fronts. Has Iwa taken the bait with Taki?" I asked.
"They are hesitant about making another approach through the Land of Waterfalls." He said, and I nodded. That was good. It meant they could be taught. That was what this war would become in the end, a chance for me to teach the ninja world a few lessons.
"And Mizu?"
"We expect their raids along our coastal neighbours to intensify after the abandonment of our attempts to stop them there" He said. I nodded. Four hidden villages coming straight at us. Insurmountable odds to most. Just what I wanted, as far as I was concerned. Because when we won this, there would be no doubt who the biggest, baddest, scariest kid on the block was, and then we'd see how they reacted and act accordingly— the silk glove or the iron fist. It would all be up to them.
—
"I overruled your decision" I told Uzume, staring her right in the eyes. I knew I was going to be faced with anger, raw fury. The kind of fury that meant that I had assigned the duty of informing her to three different secretaries only for the task to find itself on my desk again and again. I could have forced the issue but a good leader knew when to push and when to pull back/ Informing Uzume that her will had been discarded and she would be forced to do something she did not want to do was the kind of thing that would quite understandably frighten many off. Especially gather the reputation she had been getting in the past few weeks
"What?"
"You failed your team. I passed them. I'll expect you to report to training ground 41 every day from 0600, and train them either until they are physically incapable of training any further or until 2100 hours, whichever comes first" I ordered. Because that was what it was. I did not bother dressing it up as less than what it was in truth. It was an order and one with a very clear loophole. Something that Uzume would have no problem recognising. Her narrowed eyes said she'd already figured it out even.
"And if I don't?" She asked, and this time the crowd that was around us didn't even bother pretending to not be listening in anymore. There was a hush in the Jonin filled bar that I'd found Uzume in. It was probably a question that a lot of them had on their minds in the weeks since I'd taken power. I'd done no shortage of unpopular things since taking the top spot— withdrawing from all fronts, forcing a moratorium on missions, and then there was my latest stunt to their eyes— forcing each of them to take on a genin team. They wouldn't care that I'd painstakingly trawled the list of genin and given them only the most promising ones, ungrateful shits that they were.
"I'll kick your ass and then make you" I said with bared teeth. I knew when Uzume was spoiling for a fight. I could smell it from the bar's entrance the second I'd stepped inside.
"Big words" She said and then put her hand in her kunai pouch. I felt my eyebrow lift against my will.
"Really?"
"Scared to back up your words, big man?" She asked with a smirk as she dropped the kunai blade first right next to my foot. I didn't even flinch as it moved.
"Terms?" I asked tersely.
"Dismemberment or death" She said, teeth sharp. I was about to say yes before someone appeared between us.
"As someone actually down a limb, I'll intervene here" Uraume said, staring down the both of us with a look in her eyes that said— 'really guys?'
"First blood, unconsciousness or surrender. No killing blows" She said, laying down the law and glaring at the both of us until we nodded.
"Good. Dawn tomorrow" She concluded, looking up from us and into the crowd.
—
"Did you see that?" I asked Uraume now that we had retreated to my office. "That girl, she has no understanding of time and place. To challenge me like that in front of all the Jonin. What the hell was she thinking?" I ranted, feeling frustration take over. I honestly had way too much on my plate— between training, working on my side projects, and preparing the village for invasion while looking like I was doing nothing but whiling away the time as the spies from other villages were left confused and unable to understand what was happening. All that had to be placed on a hold while I fought Uzume, because going at her with anything less than—
"She was thinking that you needed a reputation boost with the other Jonin to get them to respect you" Uraume cut into my thoughts as she spoke.
"What?"
"You heard me. You're not the Hokage. You're the head of the Clan Council. Instead of our military village being headed by a military dictator— the strongest in the village, it is now headed by what some of the jounin view as a glorified paper pushing nepo baby" She said.
"What? I killed the fucking Gobi" I said, looking at Uraume like she was insane. My kill list shouldn't leave anyone with doubts about what I was.
"And everyone who witnessed that is dead. The same with the thing with the Raikage where everyone who saw it seems to have been sworn to silence. There's no one spreading your legend in the village, and a sizable chunk of our forces think you're all hype."
"And challenging me to a spar in front of everyone was going to accomplish that?"
"She thinks you'll win," She said, almost like she was just realising something.
"I know I'll win," I pressed. I'd seen Uzume and knew what she had to offer. Even with her mangekyou, sage mode gave me enough of a buff to drag our fights into a stalemate. Harming her was impossible with her mangekyou ability but that didn't mean that I couldn't force her to use it as many times as possible to make her run out of chakra and secure my win.
"That's why she challenged you. Doing it like that means there's no chance you guys won't have an audience. Chances are every jounin and even most of the chunin will be there watching. If you win in front of everyone then no one can doubt your strength" She said.
"Because Uzume's been winning in the league?" I asked. Uraume nodded. Bringing all the jounin into the village had left many of them bored and seeking entertainment. That led to the Jonin sparring league. I'd heard of it and knew Uzume was in it and had some sort of record but hadn't paid much attention other than that.
"She trounced Jiraiya three days ago. He didn't even manage to scratch her" Uraume said, and I whistled.
"Okay, so beating someone that everyone knows is strong is going to make them accept me as strong," I said, drawing a scoff from my cousin.
"Uzume isn't just known as strong. She's undefeated. People call her Konoha's strongest Jounin." Uraume said.
"Okay then. I'll be ready" I said with a smile. A good fight might just be what the doctor ordered. It meant all of tomorrow morning would be gone in terms of productive time but from what Uraume was saying, then it was going to reap enough dividends to be worth it.
—
With my activity for tomorrow decided, I decided to spend the rest of the day crossing as many things off my agenda as possible. That meant clones, and a lot of them. One clone was sent to the Uzumaki compound to speak to Uzume about the relay project. The chunin planters had been sent out days ago and assuming everything went according to plan, the last of the relay rods would have come online by now. The map would have to be moved from the Clan Compound to the Hokage tower. But then I would have to sign documents stating that tit was uzumaki property being lent to the office for my tenure in power to prevent Hiruzen waking up and claiming it, or something like that.
That was only one of the things I had to do. I had another clone training my team of three now. He was working them through elemental manipulation. The team of prodigies that they were had made easy work of both tree and water walking. Rather, both Kushina and Mikoto had learned the skills from their respective clans while Minato had taken one look at what they were doing and went, 'aiit…bet', before copying it so perfectly, Mikoto began searching his blue orbs for glints of red.
Another clone was stationed with the barrier team, working with them to upgrade the detection matrixes around the village, ensuring that we'd know damn sure who was entering the village at any time. And me? Well, I ended up being saddled with the duty of welcoming our 'surprise' visitor. From the corner of my eye I could see Danzo's smug face as I waited at the gate for the Fire Daimyo's procession to come to an end to reveal the man in his grand palanquin.
Two servants appeared from the sides, assembling a set of steps that the man used to dismount from the monstrosity of cedar and gold he moved around in. As he turned to me, I fell into a bow. Not to my knees of course, just a respectful bow.
"Konoha is yours, my Lord," I said.
"Is it?" He asked with an arched brow, stunning me. That wasn't the script. Still, I was nothing if not adaptable.
"Always, my lord."
"Then why does Konoha sit idle while my lands are razed and people put to the sword?" He asked. Fuck. I scrambled to reply, trying to think of something, anything.
"Perhaps we should retire to the Hokage tower for this conversation" Uraume cut in, stepping to my side. It felt like she was an anchor in a storm I hadn't seen coming.
"Yes, yes. We must" I said, while trying to hatch a plan to get this man onside.
A/N: Did Shori go ahead and think he could just do whatever he wanted? Yes. Next three up on patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)( same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.