Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
[ https://www̧̧.patreón.com/fictiononlyreader ]
The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
The canopy acted like a jagged sieve, casting flickering shadows over the ROOT agents as they navigated through the dense forest. Behind them, the roars of battle gradually faded into the rustle of trees.
Itsuki, the jōnin leading the agents, looked over his shoulder as he leapt from one moss-slicked branch to another. A shrill whistle from him alerted his subordinates; their formation became sharper, and their hands drew closer to their weapons, ready to spring into battle. They continued to run as Itsuki scanned the dense greenery.
"Did you hear that?" he asked.
"Hear what, sir?" the agent to his left responded.
Itsuki didn't respond. He tilted his head, his ears straining against the gentle winds that flowed between the leaves, and suddenly heard the faint sound of a wet branch snapping, followed by a rhythmic huffing that didn't seem to be human. A wild animal? With all the battles occurring, all the residents of the forest would be running away from the dangerous noise.
"Nothing, sir," the second agent replied.
"Sensory?" Itsuki asked, his hand drifting towards the hilt of his short sword. In their situation, it was wise to treat even an innocent squirrel dropping an acorn with the seriousness of an ambush.
The sensory-nin responded in the negative, but then focused deeper to sharpen his chakra sense for another check, but a loud explosion ripped through the trees, causing a shower of leaves to flutter down. Through the canopy, everyone saw a gigantic dome of spinning hellish flames visible in the distance.
Itsuki recognised it as coming from the direction planned for Lord Danzo's escape. He clenched his fist and swallowed nervously, thinking about the worst-case scenario. The last-minute decision to have Orochimaru as his guard was something he had vehemently opposed, but with the threat of Leaf's forces right outside, he wasn't given the chance to persuade Lord Danzo otherwise. He had no illusions about where Orochimaru's priorities, much less his loyalties, lay. He'd abandon and betray them the moment things got ugly.
The only comfort—if one could call it that—was that there were a rare few in the world capable of making the Snake Sannin feel threatened.
Itsuki shook the thoughts from his mind. His group was the first to leave and consisted of the fastest legs ROOT had to offer. His objective was clear: evade a fight altogether and put enough distance between them and the battle that even if the Hyūga's Byakugan could spot them, they would conclude that a meaningful chase and interception were infeasible.
He was carrying a record of ROOT's organisational knowledge. The personnel ledgers of active sleeper agents, the orphanage pipelines, the financial web that supported their activities, the location of various safehouses, ROOT's communication protocols, and the vast amounts of information they had about diplomatic secrets, clan vulnerabilities, and intelligence on other villages—the leverage they used to move the world despite being a small organisation. Their base had been stripped of that information, the evidence burned. They were realistic about what was going to happen: the Leaf forces outnumbered them, the total loss of lives was all but guaranteed, and with it, the destruction of knowledge in the agents' heads. If ROOT was to sprout again from scorched ground, they needed the essential information to be safe so it could be used to kick-start their regrowth.
Lord Danzo had entrusted that key of revival to him to keep it safe and get it out of danger.
"There's too much chakra in the air, sir," the sensory-nin said with a hand over his forehead.
It didn't matter because a moment later, a piercing yelp sounded in the east. Before Itsuki could formulate a command, a second bark answered from the west. Then another from the south-west. Barking. Howling. The frantic, heavy panting of large lungs. Within heartbeats, the ROOT group became aware that they were surrounded.
The sounds weren't stationary; they were closing in with terrifying speed. The agents looked around, but the dense undergrowth masked the true numbers. The trees themselves made the sound into a maze of false echoes.
"Inuzuka," Itsuki muttered loud enough for his subordinates to hear. He also considered Hatake Kakashi for a moment before scrapping the thought. "Form up! Back to back!"
A trained team of Inuzuka was infamous for their battlefield efficiency. Their coordination was a perfect mix of human intellect and canine instinct, granting them an unsettling mix of sync and efficiency that allowed them to rip through enemies in a whirlwind of fur and steel without giving their enemies a chance to put up a defence.
Who was it? Itsuki's mind raced as he tried to think of who was leading the team, because the leader could change how the team operated. His objective was to avoid the fight entirely.
"Nine o'clock!" the sensory-nin shouted.
Itsuki jerked his head to the left as a grey blur flickered between the trunks. A sudden explosion of smoke and splinters followed, and before the snapped logs could fall through the smoke, a three-headed beast the size of a large building exploded forth in a rain of splinters and shredded needles as it tore through trunks as if they were dry twigs. The ground groaned under its weight as the monstrosity charged, its massive claws gouging the earth and three sets of fangs gnashing in a deep snarl.
Itsuki didn't have the time to weave hand seals as the beast was already upon him. His heart lurched upon seeing something that big moving at such a high speed.
The centre head, a maw of obsidian gums and yellowed fangs, slammed into his chest before he could even trigger a last-second Body Flicker. He felt his ribs cave as he was driven backwards, his heels carving trenches in the dirt as he was pinned against an oak that snapped on impact.
Suddenly, the view was nothing but snapping jaws.
The left head lunged for his shoulder, its breath hot and raw. The right snapped at his leg with the force of a bear trap. Itsuki barely managed to avoid getting his limbs torn off and instantly ducked when the centre head retreated to bite at him, snapping around the trunk, which exploded from the bestial bite force. If it had been his body, he would have been turned into minced meat.
Itsuki rolled to the side, but the beast was so big that he was still within the left head's reach, which immediately snapped at him. He slid under it while drawing his short sword—a blade forged from chakra-conductive steel. With a desperate surge, he raked the blade across the beast's flank. The steel hit the grey fur with a screeching ring.
The blade didn't disembowel. It didn't even draw a bead of blood. Not a single strand of fur fell from the body. The sword skipped off the hide, leaving nothing but a faint line of friction.
Itsuki looked up to find six burning eyes of an Inuzuka jōnin. This wasn't the clumsy and uncontrolled power of a chūnin's Human-Beast Transformation. The size of the beast and the toughness of the skin could only be possible by a master of the Inuzuka's Imitation Beast Ninja Arts, until there was no difference between man and beast other than the basic form. Before his mind could catch up to the jōnin's identity, he heard the screams of his men.
Behind him, the forest had become a centrifuge of fur. Four ninken, massive and silver-grey, were flying through his men as they launched into the Inuzuka clan's Fang Passing Fang. Four furious cyclones tore through various points in the canopy and undergrowth, and were upon the group before a single hand seal could be drawn. The rotations and momentum were so violent that one dog slammed into three agents without losing speed. The second dog bit an arm and ripped it right out of the socket as it rotated past the agent. The other two ninken bounced off each other and their targets, leaving behind rows of gashes from their sharpened claws. Before the agents managed to get their bearings, significant damage had been inflicted. The earth was gouged into deep trenches with jagged marks, the soil steaming from friction and chakra.
Itsuki didn't have time to bark orders as a paw larger than his height swiped at him. He went flying across the air, but this time he was ready and regained control quickly mid-air and landed parallel to the ground, his legs on a trunk.
His eyes went around the battlefield, where he noticed the four dogs. Inuzuka shinobi never sent their partners alone into the battle; they were always there right beside them. And right now, he couldn't see the shinobi—only the ninken. Maybe the Inuzuka shinobi had transformed them into their ninken, but the four dogs were distinct from each other, which wouldn't be the case if they were transformations.
He looked at the three-headed beast and then at the four dogs, and the realisation struck.
They weren't fighting a team of Inuzuka. They were fighting one man.
Inuzuka Gaku, the Unfailing Hound.
He wasn't given time to think as the three-headed beast moved. Itsuki got ready to defend, weaving hand seals, but then the four ninken around the agents leapt away, and simultaneously, the beast went for the agents. It leapt into the air, curled into a ball, and then rolled at a ferocious speed as though chasing after its tail. The beast's rotational speed blurred it into a grey wheel as it hurtled towards the agents.
Tail Chasing Fang: Fang Rotating Fang
The ultra-violent rotation tore through half the team, even though most of them managed to successfully put up impressive defences, but the steel-like body, the weight, the speed, and whatever else Gaku might have put in ripped through them all and the trees afterwards without the slightest wobble.
The moment the beast passed and the surviving agents were finding their footing, the four ninken seamlessly moved in before the blood even splattered on the ground and picked off two more agents. This was the threat of the Inuzuka—they operated with impeccable teamwork. Usually, it was with a shinobi and one or two ninken, and in rarer cases, a bigger team of Inuzuka shinobi. But this case was unique even among them all.
Inuzuka Gaku, a jōnin on his own, worked with six ninken—six very strong ninken—a high number in the clan. When put against a jōnin-led team of chūnin who had years of experience working together on high-tension missions and a top-of-the-line success rate, Gaku and his ninken had beaten them soundly in a war game.
Itsuki looked at the remaining agents and instantly made his decision. He ran away, choosing to abandon them without looking back.
Gaku was known as the Unfailing Hound because once he had the scent, he never let his target go, even if he had to chase them down across borders. He had got in trouble for breaching into other countries during his pursuits, creating a lot of diplomatic tension between villages because no one liked a foreign jōnin in their lands. The only way to make sure to evade him was to avoid him altogether, which was more than difficult with his pack of ninken.
However, Itsuki's objective was to keep the information he was carrying safe. Fighting would not only keep him in place, but it would also prevent the Leaf from sending backup, which would further put him in danger. He was chosen for a reason, and that was because he could get the information out of reach. Additionally, he was currently uninjured and in his best condition to undergo a drawn-out chase. So, despite the reputation he was facing, he trusted his own ability.
"Hold him back!" he yelled to his remaining subordinates and ran. He didn't believe they would do much good, but anything was better than nothing.
He heard loud laughter followed by a shout calling after him.
"Yes, yes! Run! A hunt without a chase is just not fun! Run, my dear prey!"
Itsuki looked back to see Inuzuka Gaku standing in a cloud of smoke with his two ninken, reverting from beast to man, thereby proving his speculation of his enemy. He had a feral grin on his face with a look of pure thrill in his eyes as barks and growls mixed with screams behind him.
.
———
Chat with me and the rest of the community on our DISCORD server.
The link is in the synopsis!