AS chapter 50 (Patreon)

Island of Houki

Land of Water

Clone Basara POV

Being a clone was weird.

I—we—knew we were not truly living beings, only facsimiles. From what I could tell, most other clone techniques did not have sentience, except, perhaps, the Shadow Clone.

That would make sense, after all; Tobirama Senju had based the jutsu upon his brother's clone technique.

The Wood Clone Jutsu.

Even now, racing towards the waning flare in the sky, obscured by the canopy of the thin forest, I—we—could feel a strong connection to the main body. We were able to communicate and, if needed, allow the main body to take control of mine, an offshoot branch of the trunk.

Hopefully, our team is fine...

Feeling a wave of concern, I—we—pushed through, forcing aside branches and channeling Chakra into my limbs. One of the current clone technique's weaknesses was its inability to replenish chakra. From the scroll Hashirama had left behind, I should have been able to draw it from the surrounding trees. We had not reached that point of mastery yet.

Multiple chakra signatures flared ahead, with attacks being thrown. The fight was already in full motion, and we had almost crested the slope of the forest.

"Spread out," I called to Riku and Ryotaro-san. "I sense seven signatures fighting our people. Three of them feel quite strong."

Noting their serious nods, we continued to race across the treetops, leaping from branch to trunk. A bright flash bloomed ahead, then turned a violent red. The forest went quiet for a heartbeat before the wind roared—someone had just used a sizable Fire Release.

Mayumi-san, I thought, frowning.

I took a breath out of habit, then paused when I remembered I did not need to. Quickly, I flashed a hand sign to both my compatriots:

Support and Engage.

We burst into the battle area just as someone shouted—

"RIN!"

I clocked her instantly. Rin was fighting horizontally along a tree trunk, forced into a corner by two Kiri-nin. One had her pinned on the tree, while the other was coming up from below, his sword swinging to cut off her legs.

I formed a half-Ram seal, surging chakra into my wooden legs and shunshined right between her and the blade, catching it in my forearm. The grimy shinobi's mouth parted in shock.

Ignoring his shock, I wrenched the sword aside. The man jumped back to create some space. My free hand snapped up with an open palm toward the second Mist-nin still on the trunk above.

Rin, to her credit, understood immediately and cut the chakra running to her feet, dropping toward the ground. A sharp wooden spear erupted from my palm and punched through the wide-eyed man's chest, right where his heart would be.

"Fu...ck," he gurgled.

Mokuton: Mokuzō no Kui—Wood Style: Wooden Stake.

I ripped the stake free and sidestepped the falling corpse.

The brunette was panting, covered in shallow cuts. I frowned. The attackers hadn't been that strong. Then I snapped out of it.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm... fine, Basara-san," she managed.

I nodded. "Let's help the others."

Mayumi-san had already roasted one mist-nin and was holding her own against three more, with mixed results. Then Ryotaro slammed furiously into the fight beside her, his Sharingan blazing. Riku and Yukimaru smartly jumped in with Kakashi and Obito, who were locked in battle with a kunoichi that felt like a Jonin. The tide was turning in our favor.

The grimy shinobi I had disarmed earlier was not finished. He snatched a kunai from his pouch and flashed through a couple of hand seals. His cheeks bloated, and he spat a stream of baseball-sized, pressurized water bullets.

I charged him, staying low to the ground, slipping between the shots and closing in. I pressured him into hand-to-hand combat, slowly overwhelming him blow by blow. It would have been easier if I could have used the Senju katas properly and ended it with a single pressurized chakra punch. But as a clone, I didn't have the necessary control, and trying it would have blown my own hand apart.

The man tried to peel an explosive tag from his pouch.

Nope, not happening...

I drove him back, caught his wrist, ripped the tag free, and slapped it onto his own chest as I forced the activation. Then I kicked him away, jumping back to avoid the blast radius. The explosion tore a chunk out of the earth and shredded a pair of nearby trees. When the smoke thinned, the grimy shinobi was gone with it.

Taking in the situation, Rin had joined her team, supporting them with throwing weapons from a longer range. Watching Kakashi fight put into perspective why people called him a prodigy; he didn't use flashy jutsu, but his battle IQ was off the charts. Every attack flowed into the next, and with Riku, Yukimaru, Obito, and Rin backing him up, the sharp-toothed kunoichi was clearly feeling the pressure.

They'd be fine...

I focused on the Uchiha duo being pressured by a trio of Kirigakure shinobi who were showing surprisingly good team tactics, which was highly odd. I held a snake seal and pushed chakra into a tree right beside the Uchiha.

The tree shuddered, coming to life. Massive branches smashed down on the trio of mist-nin.

"Fuck—!"

"Shit...!"

"It's him—"

The last one never finished as his eyes turned red and his body locked up, allowing me to smash his body into the ground, mulching it and killing him instantly.

Ryotaro and Mayumi-san finished the remaining mist-nin they had been fighting with genjutsu-assisted cuts to the vitals. It was a reminder of how dangerous bloodline-backed genjutsu users could be.

I called out across the clearing towards Kakashi's

group, "Leave the kunoichi alive! We need her!"

The last Kiri kunoichi cursed and tried to break away. She didn't get far, as Obito sucker-punched her in the back of the head, crumpling her to the ground. Wooden beams erupted from the earth, surrounding her at my command, imprisoning her.

She was going nowhere...

Once everything was done, we circled her. Seeing there was no escape, the lone kunoichi tried to bite down on her tongue but was rebuffed by Mayumi-san, who flashed forward, prying her mouth open, ignoring how sharp the teeth were.

"Not so fast, skank. You only die when we tell you to."

Whoa, intense...

I side-eyed the Uchiha woman, then decided to take control of the situation.

"Is everyone fine?"

I received tired nods; everyone was fine with only minor injuries. That was a win in my books.

"Does anyone have experience with interrogation? We need answers."

We had to know. Only then could I decide what direction to take. If the Yuki clan had betrayed us...

I thought grimly. I had zero real experience beyond the academy basics. Seeing this, Ryotaro stepped forward.

"Let me handle this, Basara-san."

Mayumi immediately understood what her fellow Uchiha wanted. With a grin, she held the struggling kunoichi down and pried her eyes open. It was a miracle they didn't pop. Everyone watched, even if some were reluctant.

Interrogation required a specific mindset.

Ryotaro formed a Ram seal.

"Sharingan: Genjutsu."

The struggling woman slumped with a slack face. Ryotaro gave me a nod. Impressed, I stepped forward.

"How many of you are there?"

She answered in a dead voice. Yes, she was part of an assault group. She did not know if there were others there. About two hundred on the island, as far as she knew. When questioned about the Seven Swordsmen, she did not know where they were or what their mission was. Their orders for the villages were simple:

Kill them all.

"And the Yuki clan here on the island—did Kiri know about them, and what were you to do with them?" I asked.

"Yes, Kiri knows about them. We were ordered to capture or kill."

I relaxed a fraction; at least we weren't betrayed.

"Where is your camp?"

"At a rock cave near the ocean, on the north side of the island."

We all shared a look at that. This was a golden nugget of information. This had to get back to base immediately.

Obito frowned at me. "What did you mean by the Yuki clan?"

I filled in the ones who had not been at the meeting—what we had found, what Yukihime had asked for, and what I was considering. Kakashi shot the relocation idea down immediately.

"I don't think this is right. We can't take them to our camp."

He stared, dead-eyed, into mine. I considered his words. They weren't entirely wrong. But what other option did I have? Leave them here and come back with reinforcements? A force of two hundred in one known camp, plus the possibility of more we didn't know about, and Kiri actively hunting the Yuki.

But what do I do...?

"Do you have another option?" I asked him, then the others.

Everyone went quiet, thinking through our options.

Rin spoke first, looking towards her team. "Maybe we should call Sensei. We have his kunai, right?"

I shot that down at once.

"I doubt Minato-san gave it to you for anything but an emergency. We don't know what situation he's in."

Mayumi-san folded her arms. "Then we don't take them to camp. We take them somewhere else. That way they're at least somewhat safe."

That was better. Closer to what I had already been thinking.

"We send a forward team to HQ," I said. "Report what happened, especially the enemy camp location. The rest escort the Yuki."

It was the best plan I could compromise on, which seemed to be shared by the others as I received nods.

"Riku. Ryotaro-san. The three of us will go ahead to the camp and inform HQ about everything that has happened."

Riku frowned. "Should we not inform Basara-san... um. Clone-san?"

He finished awkwardly. I laughed a little.

"It's fine. The original already knows. I can communicate from here."

"Ohh."

"Right. Shall we?"

Mayumi-san, still standing over the slumped kunoichi, looked up.

"We don't need her anymore, do we?"

"No..."

I had barely finished the word before Mayumi casually drew her kunai across the woman's throat. Uchiha's man...

"Okay then. Let's head out," I said to the team, ignoring the casual violence to the raven-haired woman.

With that, we split for our destinations. Ryotaro, Riku, Yukimaru, and I sped back toward camp. It didn't take more than a couple of hours to reach the vicinity of the base, with one short stop in between for Riku and Ryotaro to catch their breath.

Being a clone did come with benefits.

By now, the original would already be moving the clan and the rest of the team west of camp, looking for a place to settle them. I eased my pace and held a fist up, signaling the two behind me to stop.

There were people ahead.

I dropped from the trees to the ground just as a man in sunglasses and a trench coat landed in front of us.

His entire chakra network felt wrong—like the man was infested with something.

An Aburame.

He didn't reach for a weapon. Instead, he gave the challenge code, to which I replied with the one I was given before the mission. Once our identities were confirmed, the man introduced himself.

"I am Shiha Aburame," he said. "What happened, Senju-san?"

"I need to report to high command immediately. We have come across some sensitive information."

He nodded, formed a short sequence of hand seals, and opened the hidden passage behind a group of trees. I sent the other character a signature flash, and we followed the man into the tunnel system

and through the camp proper without wasting time, heading straight for the command den.

Fugaku Uchiha was waiting there, seated on a stone bench behind a raised earth table where the dim candlelight gave his stern face an even more severe look.

"Report."

He looked at all of us with an unreadable expression, and I knew this was going to be a difficult conversation.

I had made my bed. Now I had to sleep in it.