Reborn in the Mist

“Hold it, Kisame!” Junko’s sharp voice drew him back before he could zip into action.

He restrained a growl, he was doing this for her, for the clan, “What is it now?”

The cold navy blue of her lips twisted into a sly smirk, “This is what’s supposed to happen.”

Kisame blinked hard and straightened up as the tension in his muscles dissipated. Junko nodded to the Chuunin behind him, the young man gulped and stepped out of Kisame’s lumbering shadow and pressed a hand to his ear.

“It’s confirmed Junko-sama, they’re still in the munitions store, looking through the decoys.” A voice spoke in his ear and he let a nervous smile break, “They haven’t looked underneath the false bottoms.”

His eyes narrowed at Junko where her smile only grew as she clapped, “Perfect! Sabotage or theft? Any ideas?”

The Chuunin frowned, pressing on the ear piece as more words whispered in, “It’s unclear but…”

“I know,” She turned to Kisame again at last, “Now let’s go.”

Kisame fell into sprint behind her as she leapt out the window with the Funato Jounin and scout Chuunin not far behind, “I have some idea what’s going on but do you mind filling in the newcomer?”

The Funato Jounin deigned to make himself useful, “The Commander simply saw the obvious; the enemy would attack to cripple our ability to defend Koorijima’s shores from further invasion. Either by stealing or destroying our munitions.”

Kisame rolled his eyes as they skipped over another alleyway, he couldn’t identify what building was which but judging by the increase activity in certain roads he could easily determine their destination

“And so she set a trap.” Kisame nodded, watching Kiri shinobi herd the folk and shipbuilders silently away from the two storey building they were quickly approaching, “But…did you…those boxes what’s in them?”

He had his own sneaking suspicions based off what he’d gleaned from the brief back and forth as well as the urgent evacuation of civilian objects.

“Bodies.” The Funato Jounin answered.

Junko giggled, “They fed us quite a few of their one during their last visit. I wouldn’t dig a grain of dirt for fools like them but there are other ways to get rid of a corpse.”

Kisame mirrored her grin but felt sympathetic to Samehada slung on his back; the Shark Skin had anticipated battle just as much as he had, even going as far as pre-emptively boosting Kisame with a dole of the strength it had absorbed from previous obstacles.

But of course, there was often more to being a shinobi than utter destruction and chaos he’d so like to reap. Subterfuge, sabotage, deceit and all that jazz had been what he aimed to leave behind when he clasped onto the Shark Skin as its new master. Unfortunately, this war was commanded by others with finer, detailed plans and more patient minds.

Perhaps something will go amiss yet and one will turn to my slaughter. Kisame quietly consoled himself with that hope but couldn’t shake the disappointment that Junko already had a resolution that didn’t necessarily need his overwhelming strength.

They landed lightly at the foot of the munitions warehouse, a squad of Jounin had already assembled all seemingly as impatient as he but equally as disciplined to not let a peep sound from their movements even as they shuffled about surrounding perimeter.

Junko acknowledged her squad with a stern, curt nod, her bright flashing smiles dead and gone as she waved them the command they awaited and poured into the building through every open window like a host of thieves. The irony wasn’t lost on him but the pregnant atmosphere as he marched after Junko into the warehouse drenched any true spark of humour, leaving only a tamed furnace itching for battle.

The first floor of the warehouse had the basic administrative chaos and a couple of refrigerated rooms storing god knows what. Junko passed them all and for a brief moment Kisame worried the enemy they were to trap were upstairs, but all that came were more allies. They signalled that the upper floor was clear but Junko already seemed to know that as she stepped into one of the larger rooms with scores of crusty guns shelved on stands along with swords, shields and even some Samurai armour.

She passed those too, only stopping to squat at a hatch in the granite stone floor. She knocked, “Oi! What are you doing in there!” she swung it open and yawned as she deflected the kunai that zipped at her head the instance there was space enough for it, “Hahah, cornered mice, would you look at that?”

True enough there were six cloaked figures caught in the middle of deepening a hole in the ground, a separate set of them were busy sealing the crates contents into scrolls but none of the crates revealed any signs of ‘bodies’.

Kisame’s grin grew. Hasty idiots, they’ve been trapped long before we arrived and they still don’t know it. He stifled a laugh as all jumped to their feet, an all too late reaction.

Junko cackled down at them, “I can’t believe this, are you really Kumo shinobi? I thought they had better than this.”

Few of the figures had their faces out but Kisame loved the bingo books and quickly picked out two that were indeed listed in Konoha’s bingo books for a moderate reward. His eyes narrowed, ears twitched at the sight of him, a scarred and now scared man slowly coming to terms that the damp hole he’d snuck into would be his final resting place. But that wasn’t all to his feature or what began to gnaw at Kisame’s gut instincts.

He gripped Samehada’s hilt and the creature let a low growl.

Junko continued to mock them as one flared chakra, daring to attempt hand seals in their situation. A flicked wrist sent senbon three inches deep into the offender’s foot, he hissed and Junko tsk’d, wagging a finger at them.

“You should know better than that…well, perhaps not, you didn’t even think to place a lookout up here did you?”

The man Kisame recognized allowed himself a nervous smirk, “How do you know we didn’t?”

In that moment Kisame stuttered between yelling a warning and unsheathing Samehada to block the sudden bright, blinding and superheated coils of lightning blasted at them.

““Lightning Release; Lightning Blast!””

Not one but two voices proclaimed in unison as Kisame buckled behind Samehada. Arcs of blue power rocked and ricocheted around the room, burning into the dirt and scalding stray weapons as it lit up the room, revealing two shinobi with the same dirty grin clinging to the wall and powering the combined attack.

Kisame gritted his teeth as jolts of electricity travelled through Samehada even with the Blade absorbing most of the chakra from the technique. Twins, they are twins. He reminded himself, finally recovering the full breath of his memory of that particular bingo book entry.

One had a scar cutting across his lips while the other didn’t but they bore the same face otherwise. The scarred sibling in the basement lunged at Junko who hadn’t so much as moved from her place, shouting something at his comrades just before his body sublimed into a force of lightning directed at Junko— Lightning clone, that makes these two the real ones then.

Mud blew from Junko’s lips, easily intercepting and neutralizing the weak attack. Kisame, narrowed his eyes at his opponents still pumping all their chakra into the attack.

He swung Samehada, unravelling the bandages even more as he roared through the spasms jolting through his muscles and leaped at the fools. Their eyes widened in shock as Kisame slammed a fist right where one twins head should’ve been. He wasted no time and pivoted his sword arm, swinging the massive sword still crackling with lightning into the fleeing twin’s exposed left side.

The fool had some instinct to defend but there was little a paltry kunai could do to stop his body from being used to demolish a wall, flinging him out onto the wet and empty streets where doubtless a dozen Kiri shinobi were waiting for a taste of their own.

“Lightning Release; Electric Snake…uh huh?” the scarred twin at Kisame’s flank stuttered confused as a single seven inch senbon stuck out his forehead. His eyes cornered to look at it, fingers twitching to reach and pluck it out as it dripped first a green, sickly fluid down his forehead and then blood.

He fell to his knees before long and Junko pulled her sunglasses down at the shinobi still in the basement. Her glare kept them in place as she stepped away to drag the scarred man’s body over the hatch, she pulled him by his hair, exposing his neck to her talon sharp fingernails.

“Run…” the man managed to gasp out through the paralysis as Junko dragged a bloody line across his throat. She let his body uselessly tumble down the ladder even as he gurgled his last breaths.

“And that makes four of your dead comrades in that basement with you and he’s the only one not plastered with explosives. Yeah, you might want to check under the crates false bottom.” None of the remaining five moved even though weapons were clutched in their hands, none dared use them. “If you want to live, there’s only one cell in my prison and I’m reserving it for the one who can tell me exactly what Kumogakure wants in this conflict.”