THE WILL OF FIRE: 2. The Phoenix (A Naruto Fanfic)

The Phoenix, Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

I got a report that my brother was headed down to find Sasuke who had trailed after Gaara. After that, I sent the Jōnin to help others and fight, of course. I was the only one who was standing there, frozen like a statue. My brother and his teammates are handling Gaara. Lord Hokage’s handling Uncle Orochimaru. Iruka’s handling the evacuation of the citizens. The Shinobi are handling the fighting. Though I was a picture of perfect calmness, I had nowhere to put myself. I stayed in that state for a while but when I saw three giant snake heads poking at the Village defenses, I engaged.

I was jumping rooftops, but it didn’t get me high enough to attack from above. Man, if this was me and my cousin, we would’ve owned this shit. But it was just me and I couldn’t get high enough. I did get to kick some Otogakure Shinobi butt and decided to go with the simple kill. I approached the snake, gathered my chakra into my feet and started running up its body. It noticed me, but couldn’t shake me. After years of studying snakes with Uncle Orochimaru, I knew how they worked better than they did. When I got up to its head, I kicked myself up as high as I could get and used the biggest fireball jutsu I could manage. It burned all three of them and they disappeared with a puff of smoke.

When I landed on my feet again, I noticed I was surrounded by a bunch of Otogakure Shinobi. This was childsplay.

“Wait, that’s the Princess.” I wasn’t ticked off until one of them said that and I burned them all. Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head. A voice I hadn’t heard a long time now.

-That’s right. Let them burn, said Kurama. It only spoke to me whenever the negative emotions overweighed the positive.

-What the hell do you want?

-You borrowed my power, not so long ago. You showed your Uncle what true rage was.

-I was desperate.

-What’s stopping you form doing it again? You could bring this entire Village down to its knees. You could reunite my chakra and become one of the most powerful Shinobi in the world.

-You’re forgetting one thing. I’m not even a Jinchūriki. No one but my family can know.

-But your teammates do. Half of this Village does.

-Well, we need to keep that to a minimum.

-I don’t know why I waste my time with you.

And that was the end of that. I felt relieved I didn’t have to speak to Kurama any longer. Instead, I focused on the problem at hand. I needed to find the sub-source of this madness. The only problem was that the sub-source was untouchable, at least by me. I needed back-up.

“Commander Uzumaki,” said Inoichi Yamanaka and I realized I had the entire Senior Ino-Shika-Cho formation jumping rooftops with me. “We’re ready to fight.”

“Great timing, sirs, I need your help tracking down a certain someone. His name’s Kabuto.”

“What does he look like?” asked Shikaku Nara.

“White hair, ponytail, round glasses and an asshole face. You can’t miss him. Now, we need to capture him alive for interrogation. After that, you can do whatever you like to him.”

So with the support of the Senior Ino-Shika-Cho formation, we started tracking down Kabuto. I tried sensing him but with all the chaos I couldn’t focus. Then my heart sank and I stopped. The other three gave me curious looks.

“The coward! He’s already out of the Village!”

“What do you want us to do now?” asked Inoichi.