Chapter 45.2- Gamer of the Desert

XXXXX- KITSUCHI THE EARTHSHAKER

If someone had warned him that this is what would have happened if he involved Roshi and Han in this fight, then he’d probably have let the Kazekage brat do as he willed and left it that. Because as bad as it could have been, it would never have gotten this bad if the brat was left alone to his own devices. 

The brat fought like a regular ninja. A regular ninja strong enough that even Kitsuchi knew he had no chance against him. But at the end of the day, a human was a human. What had been unleashed on the village hidden in the stone was no human. There was nothing human about it. The Yonbi had done what four Great Ninja villages across three wars had failed to do. It had brought the Great Stone low. Before him, he could see another building sink into the lava as the fight between Han and the Four tails continued to rage in what had become the ruins of his father’s legacy.

His right hand had been crushed to a pulp, so he was well and truly out of the action, but he knew that even if he’d been whole, fresh, and rested, this fight would have been leagues beyond his pay grade. He knew he wasn’t ready to be Tsuchikage. He knew he didn’t have the strength to compare with the S-rank monsters who wore the hat, and now it was obvious to not just him but his entire village.

The Yondaime Hokage had died sealing away a rampaging Nine tails while the Yondaime Tsuchikage stood at the top of a building, watching his village sink into lava as a rampaging Four Tails proved that he’d be no match for it. The comparison was obvious, and it irritated him to no end. Kitsuchi had lived with the shadow of Minato Kamikaze hanging over his head like a sword poised for an execution. And even after succeeding his father, that shadow would never leave him. Because he could already tell that no matter what happened, History would remember him as the Tsuchikage that lost Iwa to their own weapon. 

And what made it worst was that whatever Gaara of the Desert had come here to accomplish was probably still happening without any delay. 

Kitsuchi ground his teeth watching them fight, and then the devil began to whisper in his ear. He could see it there, the sand platform that carried the unconscious body of his enemy. He ached to jump upwards and take revenge for his father’s village with his own two hands. He wouldn’t be able to save Iwa, but at least he could give them the head of their enemy. Rather, he would have been able to if the bastard hadn’t crippled him. Some ninja could learn to work with only one limb, but that was after years of training and experience.

“Head” He said, acknowledging the man that dropped from the air and landed next to him. 

“The attack from the Kazekage was a distraction. Several ninja have come in contact with shinobi of the hidden sand hidden around the village. None was captured, but we have a good enough idea of their targets” He said, making my scowl deepen. Something had been foul about this attack from the beginning. I’d assumed it was the arrogance of youth who believed in his own invincibility, but now I could see that he was acting like the Raikage of old. It was a strange way to play the game. Putting the King out in the open and using him to cause chaos and draw enemy attention while the rest of the pieces moved on the board undetected and unnoticed, free to do as they placed and achieve the goals. 

“What are the probable targets?”

“The Ninja Academy, The Morgue, The Hospital, and the explosion corps headquarters were all broken into during their raids. We know that at least two users of the explosion release have been captured and that the Ninja Archives was looted to the end. An operative was able to observe the Kazekage’s siblings and their sensei in combat with Jonin Kurotsuchi, and the Kage Vault was also empty.” He said, making Kitsuchi clench his one remaining fist. 

This attack had been specially designed to cripple their means of waging war. And even his daughter had gotten caught up in the madness. He knew she’d be fine, she was already stronger than he was when his wealth of experience wasn’t taken into account, and all their reports suggested that the Kazekage’s siblings were lesser versions of their younger brother, failing to be anything more than average chunin at the last estimation. 

_ Switch to First Person POV_

“Send a team to Kurotsuchi for backup. Ebizo of the thousand fists is not one to be underestimated. After that, assemble a team of the best jounin.Scramble them across all the priority targets in the village. Hunt down the Suna operatives. We might not be able to do much about that clusterfuck at the center of our village, but we can still make sure the Suna brat doesn’t achieve all that he hopes to. We are the stone. We have the will of stone. We will break before we bend, and some brat from the Sands and a mindless monkey will never manage to break us. They’ve enjoyed the initiative, but that ends now. Our counterattack begins now” I said, tossing a kunai into the ground as a symbol, and all the ninja who had been around me, from genin to chinin, to Jounin and anbu stood a bit taller at those words of mine. I might have been the lesser son of a greater sire, but Father was gone. I was all the Stone had now, and I would not see her break. Not while I had breath in me. 

“You should take it easy, Tsuchikage-sama” The medic that had been tending to my hand whispered as her bandaged it up. 

“I haven’t the time, Saiko” I said, using her name with an easy smile on my face. 

“I will take it easy when I’m dead” I told her before walking forwards abruptly and jumping off the rooftop, heading for the next one. 

Her shouts for me to slow down were left behind. Shoulder and Knee followed me as I jumped through the village, heading for what many would consider the priority target One. The Academy. I’d take over the evacuation efforts on that end while keeping an eye out for any sand bastards. While I wanted to be at the front lines, keeping my people safe and hunting down every invader, I knew Saiko was right. I couldn’t rob thew village of a Kage in its present condition. That had definitely been one of the reasons why the original attack had been so close to the Kage tower. He’d aimed to draw me out to kill me. Staying alive would have to be the vengeance I exacted on the Suna brat for his actions. Just the knowledge that who the one who the Kazekage had intended to kill above others still remained alive would be enough for me. It would have to be.  

Apart from the academy, the other priority targets would be left to the others. Han was doing a good job of isolating the fight with the Yonbi and preventing the beast from causing any more widespread chaos. My earlier thoughts had proven to be a bit dramatic. If the fight ended now, a good portion of Iwa would survive. The repairs would be expensive, and the knowledge that the Kage vault had been looted brought me no small amount of fury, but Kurotsuchi would handle that. I had to have enough confidence in my daughter for her to do that little, at least. Especially with a full team of ANBU agents at her back. 

XXXXXX- SASORI OF THE RED SANDS

“Were we not supposed to start with the Ichibi no Shukaku?” He heard Kakuzu, the greedy bastard ask. 

Since the Ichibi brat had been taken off the official bingo book as a result of his rise to the rank of Kage, his value on the black market bounty hunting books was consistently on the rise. Satori was not one who made the time and put in the effort to keep track of such things but even he knew that the value of the Kazekage’s head had swelled beyond that of all the other kages. He was reportedly worth as much as the others sans the Raikage combined. It wasn’t entirely a function of his notoriety, but Satori knew that at least part of the reasoning for rating was the lack of notoriety enjoyed by the remaining three. Somehow or another, four of the five kage seats had changed hands in the span of two years, and that was having resounding echo effects 

A/N;Raw. Part one. Working on it.