aiko WAP 28

Chapter 28

He didn't like the situation in the least. Tobirama set his face in cold impassivity but inside his mind was racing.

He'd felt the priestess's chakra disappear and reappear.

It was the same as her apparition from the mountain temple. She was simply gone in the space of a thought.

Witch.

The taste of her chakra was metal in his mouth. There was something desperately wrong with her. She was no holy woman.

He didn't discount the possibility that she was a servant of a god. But there was no divinity to such a person.

'This is the most dangerous person here.'

He lifted his head to meet her stare. The look he got back was just shy of human, predatory and cold.

She had abandoned her early play-acting. He preferred her this way. Her little show had been a cynical mockery of dutiful hospitality. She had only intended to manipulate people who she had no right to control. Certainly she could not be called gracious for it.

What had she spoken with Hashirama in regards to? They had been alone in the meeting room for minutes.

She was still holding her stare.

Discomfited, he gave her a nod of acknowledgment. Then he broke his stare to survey the field. It was an impressive showing.

Both clans had brought the full force of their military might. It was the first occasion for a true battle since the bitter months after the last clan head had perished. Winter had brought a cessation, but solved nothing.

The Uchiha looked healthy. Bright eyed. He looked through their line for signs of malnutrition and found none. They had managed to get enough provisions, perhaps. The recent drop in the price of iron ore had drastically reduced the value of their metal works, so there had been hope that poverty would bring the Uchiha low.

He sought out his de facto opponent. Izuna, pretty boy fool that he was, was making cow eyes at the witch in the tree. Tobirama suppressed a snort.

Of course the rumors were true. It was so ridiculous that it must have veracity.

It was still egregious that the fool had spent weeks batting his eyes at a priestess. Regardless of what was clearly wrong with her, she had that station.

The hair raised on the back of his neck. He didn't turn his head or lift his eyes. He knew that the weight was her gaze. Surely she would become bored without a reaction from him.

'She does not seem emotionally stable.'

Her chakra was roiling, a furious miasma above the crowd. It was a fascinating turnaround from her earlier output. It could have been a different human being, if it was possible for two different women to have such a large concentration of energy that he could only describe as upsetting.

He could not even identify her chakra nature. It was a sick mixture of yin and yang, cold and hot, wet and dry. It was heavy and oppressive.

Tobirama split his attention between his comrades, their enemy, the leaders, and the monster lounging above them. He felt the distraction impinged his ability to do justice to any of his priorities but he lacked other options.

Izuna was fingering a spool of wire. Tobirama resisted the grimace. It was a nightmare to evade. He would eventually be unlucky. He needed something new. He needed to be faster.

There were bare seconds now. Uchiha Izuna was grinning, blood thirsty and sharp. Tobirama steeled himself on light feet. He was ready to move. Ready to fight, ready to die.

“Fight!” Uchiha Madara bellowed.

Two things happened in the same millisecond. Madara and Hashirama leapt forward and clashed, out of the way of the opposing armies.

The second thing was a monstrous flush of that ugly chakra down in furious spill, down the tree trunk, and into the soil.

He was feet in the air before he could even wonder what she was doing. Tobirama landed on a tree, balanced with a hand on the trunk and one foot twisted flat for balance.

The battlefield shifted with a massive displacement of air. It blew his hair back. A hundred fighters were abruptly about a meter lower than they’d been an instant before. The chakra left the ground as quickly as it had come, leaving two armies constricted in hard earth.

He jumped down. “Oh.” He fixed his eyes on Izuna. The Uchiha was buried up to his ribcage. He was one of the few with an arm up instead of trapped at his side, but that would hardly save him. His usual arrogance was shaken in a way that Tobirama found extremely pleasing. Those dark eyes were wide as they fixed on Tobirama with a sudden recalculation of his mortality.

It wasn’t an accomplishment to kill a man when he was trapped, but it would have him dead all the same. Tobirama pulled his sword.

"Do not!" The Priestess's voice rang out. Her face was twisted in a snarl. She stood on her tree branch.

Tobirama twisted his head to the side like an owl. He waited a moment to see what she would do. He had been right to see her as a danger. That did not mean he was unwilling to fight her.

She alighted from the height gracefully. Her fingers were still wrapped around the bow.

No arrow. Why?

He ran through a mental list of potential ways to use a bow as a weapon without a wooden arrow. Perhaps she could create an arrow from a nature transformation. It was possible that the bow was another type of weapon disguised as a traditional accessory.

The field was nearly clear. He spared a glance for Uchiha Hikaku and two of his own cousins, standing in an electric silence. The only other free combatants were their leaders.

One Uchiha. Three Senju, and the witch.

‘I must kill her first, and trust that they can handle Hikaku.’

“Stand down.”

He repressed any reaction at her hard tone. She didn’t speak like any woman he’d ever heard. She spoke with the absolute authority that his Father has used. Heavy. Steely. Prepared to punish any lack of obedience.

But she was not his clan head. Tobirama adjusted his stance to face her and saw the moment her cold fury turned to sadism.

“As you will.” She moved. He prepared to block-

And skidded backwards across the clearing out of control. His chest ached a moment later from the force of what he belatedly recognized as a spiteful kick.

‘How?’

He righted and moved again, mind working at top speed to deconstruct the attack. Was she simply that fast? Impossible, so far as he knew. Had it been a genjutsu that made him misjudge distance? Had she switched her position with something?

He saw the next blow coming. She came streaking in, a furious cold star, fist first. She still had the useless bow in her off hand.

A fist against a sword? He made to cut the hand off

And

He missed?

The fist cracked against his face. He managed to turn so that his faceplate caught the blow. It should have hurt her hand far more than it hurt his head, but his animal instincts now told him to put distance between him and this fury. He moved with his top speed, toward the river. His heartrate was fast now despite his careful control.

What was she doing? Why did she fight this way? What was the trick, he didn’t see it.

She pursued him. He could feel the heat on his heels. He reached out to the water before he touched down, infusing his chakra into his biggest tactical advantage. He had to keep her back. It was clearly her preference to close the distance. He sent up a hard spray to blind her and force a stop. It bought him a second to put further distance and spin around to face her.

The sounds of other combat were a distant roar. Fire clashed with the creaking of wood and the the shriek of steel. Even fighting alone, the clan heads could create such a racket that it might as well be an army. It sent familiar war drums ablaze in his heart.

He had to do this. He had to kill her and finish this for once and all. He prepared a water dragon.