Chapter 60:

Book 2: Chapter 6: Team 9 vs Kimimaro!!! Part V

Naruto: The Tale of Yuki Uchiha Volume 1 and 2


Book 2: Land of Sand

Chapter 6: Team 9 vs Kimimaro!!! Part V

“Damn it little bro! It’s been less than a day since I promised to protect you, and I already have to save your ass!” Tayuya shook her head as blood dripped down her arm. “I guess I should’ve known protecting the crybaby Uchiha would be a fucking pain.”

“I am not a crybaby!”

“Could have fooled me. You’ve even upgraded to tears of blood from all your whining.”

“Tears of what—”

Sui grabbed my neck, wringing me out. “Yuki! When are you going to listen to me! Do you want to go blind!”

“Can’t breathe… Blind…. how was that…. going to… I don’t have a—”

“A Mangekyō Sharingan….” Kimimaro muttered as he walked through his forest of bones, spitting out broken bones along the way. “So it’s true…. Orochimaru would want him as a vessel… Even more than me… I… I can’t have that! Dance of the Sycamore Tree!”

The bone forest seemed to react to his emotions as they rose further up from the ground, only to sink deep into it. Soon enough, bones began to protrude and wrap around Kimimaro’s body, encasing him in some sort of bone armor. The ground even cracked beneath him from the weight of it all as the bones on his right arm grew into a bone shield to pair with his lance. I had no clue how he went from a dinosaur to a walking knight, but I knew it wasn’t good. As the bones around his mouth cracked, snapped, and popped just so he could speak with barely any trace of humanity.

“Yuki Uchiha! I’ll kill you!” Kimimaro roared before the bones reformed around his mouth, leaving just his eyes and hair uncovered.

“Shit, that’s new….” Tayuya muttered as the black lines from her Curse Mark spread across her body. And soon enough, she tossed her cap aside as her red hair grew along with horns that took its place.

“Tayuya, how in the world?” Sui said, staring at Tayuya clearly using her a Curse Mark Stage Two, which thankfully, got her to stop choking me in the process.

I let out a cough as I rubbed my neck. “I thought you had that sealed?”

“Naïve Little Brother. Did you forget who the hell I am! I’m Tayuya Uzumaki of the North Gate! Summoning Jutsu!” Tayuya placed her hand on the ground summoning three large Doki, each standing well above 30 feet. There a demonic smile grew on her face. “As if a seal made for Anko’s shitty version one Curse Mark would work on mine. That stupid old geezer treating me like I’m some sort of fool.”

“Hey Sui, did you hear what I just heard?” I said with a goofy grin.

“Yup.” Sui nodded, grinning with me.

“Are you two even listening to me!” Tayuya yelled.

“Yeah, we hear you loud and clear Tayuya Uzumaki,” I said, feeling the realization kick in for Tayuya. She didn’t even try to deny it, simply blowing into her flute as a baby Doki appeared beside her.

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Wait, not the face!”

Sui stood up, shaking her head as I tried my hardest to keep the little pink bastard from clawing at me. Though while we were having fun, Kimimaro didn’t seem too pleased by us as he roared once more, splitting our ears.

“Tayuya! You Traitor!”

“Traitor?” Tayuya turned away from us, dispelling the baby Doki as she glared at Kimimaro. “I don’t remember killing Yuki to be a part of the plan. In fact, you were so caught up in your bullshit you didn’t even wipe the Fourth Hokage’s personality. All of this prep work, and you wasted the perfect opportunity to test Lord Orochimaru’s Jutsu. If anything, you’re the traitor. Worthless vessel.”

“I… No…” Kimimaro held onto his head as the bones around his face reacted to his emotions by falling off him only to reform and then break off again, repeating the process while he questioned himself. “I failed Lord Orochimaru—”

Kimimaro stopped mid-sentence, and it was there I noticed Tayuya was playing her flute. Her body trembling as she went through every note. Drops of sweat fell from her forehead, where she managed to spit out a few words for us.

“Guys… I can’t hold him for long…. Run!”

That was when I came to realize Tayuya was an amazing performer. Everything she did was for spectacle. Hell, she might even be better at lying to herself than me and Sui because, for a moment, I had thought she was confident in fighting Kimimaro. Where before, without even his stage one Curse Mark, she cowered below him. Taking his punches and insults. Yet even then, like now, she mustered up the courage to face her fears. All for the people she called family.

“Like hell are we going to run!” I stood up with my Two Tomoe Sharingan and glanced at Sui. “Right?”

Sui nodded as she activated her Byakugan covering her Sharingan to conserve chakra. “Of course. We can’t leave our cute little Tayuya-neesan to face her demons alone.”

“I… I hate you guys.” Tayuya said with a half-smile as the three Doki in front of us were turned into clouds of smoke. In their place were three pillars of sharpened bone that shot up from the ground then sunk back into it.

That time Kimimaro didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. The resolve in his golden eyes said it all as the bones around his face no longer broke. We were in a fight for our lives. And the only way out was if we worked together in our weakened states. So when Sui warned us of the bones underground, we jumped out of the way, avoiding being impaled.

2

“Sui, do you know the range of Kimimaro’s roots?” I asked while Sui just shook her head.

“It’s the entire area. There’s no getting out of it unless you can fly.”

“Hey Tayuya, by any chance can you—”

“No you fucking idiot! What makes it look like I know Jutsu that can make us fly?” Tayuya said, giving me the ‘are you fucking stupid or what?’ look.

“Well it was worth a shot—”

“Roots incoming! Multiple covering our retreat.”

The three of us jumped around, avoiding the bone roots that tore through the ground. Yet all that did was pressure us closer to the monster we were trapped with. I wanted to stay as far away from Kimimaro as possible because I wasn’t sure how we’d do in close range, seeing as he made no effort to charge us. Instead, he simply took his time walking to close the shortening distance between us. Like he was savoring the moment, or maybe he knew about the cornered rat and was anticipating some sort of last-ditch effort.

Either way, I’d have to give him props for being patient, as we were caught in his trap long ago. Though there had to be a weakness. The bones were fast but not fast enough for us to be unable to dodge them. The tricky part was spotting them in time—Thank you Sui’s Byakugan—But if they were roots like how Sui described them, then it made sense why Kimimaro didn’t rush. There was a possibility he was rooted to the ground and had to readjust them simply to move. Well, only one way to find out.

I grabbed two earth-tagged kunai, and as we dodged the next wave of bones, I threw them at Kimimaro, followed by a trail of lightning. Yet before they could even reach him, bones shot up from the ground cutting the wires. Then with his bone shield, he knocked the kunai away. Now I didn’t know if he did that because he couldn’t dodge them or because he didn’t need to. Either way, we’re so fucked if he can use those bone roots in close range while still being able to use his lance.

“Tayuya, new plan. Can you put him under a Genjutsu?” I asked, grasping at straws at this point.

“No can do.” Tayuya shook her head. “The fucker used bones to close his ear canals. It’s how he beat us before.”

“Beat us before?”

“Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you Kimimaro soloed the entirety of the Sound Four? It wasn’t pretty.”

Hearing Tayuya sound so matter the fact about it told me the trouble we were in. Almost like it was the easiest fact to understand that Kimimaro could beat four ninja with ease where I struggled against one of them on a consistent basis. “Oh, we’re so fucked.”

“I warned ya.”

“Incoming!” Sui screamed.

Once more, we dodged the next wave of bones. Getting closer to the monster, who seemed to almost smile. I did not like the look of that. Especially since the bones around his mouth didn’t exactly move.

“Well, we can’t keep dodging them,” I said, catching my breath as a plan was starting to form in my head. “Can you at least summon more Doki?”

Tayuya shrugged her shoulders. “I can, but it wouldn’t be the big ones. They take a while to reform, so you’ll be stuck with medium-sized Doki. Not that size matters when it’s a lot to dodge the bones and play the flute to make sure they can dodge too. And by a lot, I mean impossible.”

“Perfect. Now Sui, can you knock out his chakra network?”

Sui chuckled while still looking out for the next set of bones. “Maybe, if I can penetrate his armor. Not to mention he has to not rearrange his bone structure like he’s been doing for the entirety of the time we’ve been fighting. It’s like the guy isn’t even human. I’d hate to be him when he’s sick. No doctor in the world could save him.”

“Alright, great, so here’s the plan.”

3

Not even a second after I told them the plan while avoiding Kimimaro’s bone roots, Tayuya had this to say:

“Are you out of your fucking mind!”

“Hey if you have a better idea, tell me,” I said, tapping deeper into my chakra reserves even more than I already had. It was all or nothing, so who cared if I was going to be on death’s door by the end of it. Better to be at the door than inside, my dad used to say.

“Sis, tell him he’s crazy.” Tayuya continued hoping for Sui’s support, only to see her scratch her cheek.

“Sorry, but I’m with Yuki. I think it’ll work if I use my lightning cloak around my hands.”

“And if it doesn’t, you two are dead.”

“And if we try nothing, then all three of us will be dead,” I said, noticing the wall of bones form up behind us. Then in front was the walking monster who didn’t even bother sending up more bone roots. Yet Tayuya kept trying to convince us to reconsider our options when we were running out of them!

“What if we wait for the old geezer?”

“You think Hiruzen-sensei is beating the Yellow Flash?” Sui said as we both stared at Tayuya like she had lost her damn mind.

“No shit he’s not going to, but the entire reason for this ‘test’ is to see if the Reanimation Jutsu had a strong enough hold on ninja like the Fourth Hokage. Since Kimimaro botched it, there’s a good chance the Fourth isn’t under Kimimaro’s control.”

“And if you’re wrong?” I said, trying to be a voice of reason since, no offense, I didn’t think of my big sis as the brains of the Sound Four, and the way she shrugged proved my point.

“Then we’re all dead, including the old geezer.”

“But if we win, we just saved Hiruzen’s life and freed the Fourth Hokage.”

“Yeah, but…” Tayuya trailed off, staring at her flute, and that was when it hit me.

“If you’re worried about your place in the world after this is done. Remember, you’ll always have a home with us. No matter what.”

“Yeah, I know… It’s just…”

“It’s not so easy, is it?” Sui said staring at us, yet for once, I don’t think her eyes really saw anything. “They’ll see you as a traitor even though you’re doing what you think is best for them.”

“I don’t give a shit about Kimimaro!”

“I wasn’t talking about Kimimaro. Orochimaru needs him alive, doesn’t he? For someone to be his vessel.”

“He’ll die without one,” Tayuya said with what I thought were almost tears. Yet I didn’t have the chance to confirm my suspicion as I heard the rattling of bones in the wind.

“Then let’s figure that out once we’re not about to be skewered because here he comes!”

Kimimaro lunged at me as I placed my hands on the ground. A wall of earth rose from under us, taking me, Sui, and Tayuya with it, avoiding the Kimimaro’s lance and bone roots as they sprouted from the ground. Yet a moment was all it took for another sprout of bones to tear through the wall and bring us crashing down.

Tayuya’s hand dripped with blood as she did another summoning Jutsu bringing out three Doki the size of grown men. There she played her flute, forcing chakra worms to come out of their mouths as we used the falling debris as platforms to cover our landing. It was how the six of us managed to dodge the next wave of bones that shot up from the ground.

However, Kimimaro seemed to have finally grown impatient because instead of receding the bones back into the ground, he sent out even more, creating an unexpected issue. All the debris were destroyed in an instant, and the only place to land was the slanted bones that he didn’t recede. There we were sitting ducks caught out in the open for his next volley of bone roots.

I would’ve stopped them, but I needed to conserve chakra for our plan to work. And there were too many for Sui to stop without sacrificing the Doki. Luckily our sister had it covered as a wave of wind blasted through the bones, clearing a path for us to run straight at Kimimaro, who slapped away the wind with his shield arm only to come face to face with me and my red eyes.

“Sharingan: Partial Tsukuyume: Memories!”

By creating a field of debris with my mud wall, I forced Kimimaro to keep his eyes focused on trying to spot us. Though there were many targets, he couldn’t hear us, so he had no choice but to rely on sight. This is where I’d come in by getting up close and place him under my strongest Genjutsu, which I had no control over. Though that little tidbit didn’t matter as long as it kept the bastard from moving long enough for Tayuya’s three Doki to latch onto him. Where they would absorb his chakra and weaken the bones of his Shikotsumyaku. Hopefully enough that Sui, even in her weakened state, could strike through his armor and knock out his chakra points with her Sixty-Four Palms!

It was the perfect plan, and the execution was flawless. We just didn’t expect Kimimaro’s mind to be so incompatible with my memories. If I had to guess, he got the Uchiha Massacre, and that caused all of the bones in his body to sprout out like a porcupine. An automatic defense mechanism to protect him from the pain. No one had ever gotten a panic attack from my memories, albeit the two people who had experienced them were by no means normal. I just didn’t expect Kimimaro to lash out at everything around him. The only one who predicted that outcome was Tayuya, who managed to pull us out of the way in time.

Though, I wished the same could have been said for the Doki that didn’t have a chance as bones tore through their body. But that was the least of my worries as Tayuya dropped to the ground bleeding from multiple open wounds all across her body. There were so many that she lost her Stage Two form. Where she became so red…. The world had become so red…. Like a crimson night… there was nothing more to see…. As I thought she was dead from the moment, she said:

“See… your big sis kept her.... promise….”

T.K. 月狐
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