Chapter 15: Invasion

“What the fuck just happened?” Anko asked in confusion looking down in the arena.

She wasn’t the only one. All the genins were looking at Izumo and Kotetsu to try to know more about what Riku had just done, so were most jonins, and as result completely missed the end of the match. The only exceptions were Gai and Kakashi. The former because it was his student fighting, the latter because he was really curious about the kid the Hokage had said was like his sensei.

“From the cloud of smoke, Riku kept throwing his special shurikens relentlessly which forced Neji to maintain his Kaiten. Then suddenly…” the cyclops began.

Two hands bursted from the ground, kunais in each of them. The faint blue-ish glow of each of them was a clear indication that they were coated in wind chakra. Unfortunately, since they came from right under Neji’s own feet, who were located inside the very opaque dome of spinning chakra, nobody saw it. Not even the Hyuga himself. Two simultaneous swings later and the dome disappeared, revealing to the public a footless and ankleless Neji spiraling in the air, leaving two trails of blood. The rookie of the previous year barely hit the ground with his face that Riku was already on his back and pinned the two kunais in his hands into his opponent’s shoulder blades. Seeing that Neji couldn’t move, Genma called out the match in Riku’s favor.

“B-bu… But how did he do that?!” Kiba asked in a shout of disbelief.

“Look.” Kurenai pointed down at the cloud of smoke that was now dissipating and revealing a second Riku. This one didn’t exist for long as it simply popped.

“Riku made a shadow clone inside the cloud and went underground to reach Neji, bypassing the Kaiten. He then used a variation of the Double Suicide Decapitation Technique to maim Neji’s legs.” forwarded Gai.

“That’s impossible! Neji has the byakugan, he would have seen him go underground.” Tenten commented.

“He couldn’t.”

“But why sensei?”

“The shurikens. Be it the explosions, or the flash ones… Even the smoke was filled with chakra. Riku’s chakra that was all around. With Neji’s spinning speed, the blinding lights that may have greatly impaired his vision further and the shurikens kept coming from the smoke… Neji didn’t and more importantly couldn’t notice Riku moving underground.” Kakashi explained further instead of Gai, pulling down his head protector to cover his sharingan.

Everyone looked back down at Riku who retrieved his kunais from Neji and left him with some parting words.

“I guess that’s what people mean when they say ‘Sweeping someone off their feet, huh?’. Anyway, fate is a coward’s excuse to justify they’re losers. Those kinds of people… They will always be limited by their own mind and insecurities and never reach the stars. If that’s what you want in your life? Then more power to you, just don’t force your belief onto others, that’s… un-youthful.”

With that said, Riku made his way out of the arena, coming across the medics that came for Neji.

“OH Kami! The shit is cracking me up! ‘Sweeping someone off their feet’? Hilarious!” cackled Anko.

“Personally, the dig about being un-youthful was better.” Kotetsu commented.

“It’s like you berated your own student, Gai.” Asuma added.

“Must have stung a lot more.” the green beast agreed verbally. On the inside he was grateful because that little jab may have pushed Neji to reach for him even more because of his defeat.

“But… isn’t Neji's career over?” Sakura asked.

“Not at all. Riku used wind chakra to maim Neji.” Kakashi said.

“Yeah, from what I can see from here, he really has a good handle on his wind, the cuts are thin and clean. The medic-nins won’t have any problem reattaching his feet and fixing him back to 100%. Had he used another element however…” added Asuma.

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Up in the stands, in the Hyuga area, Hinae couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed. Not that Riku won; after two months of knowing him, she knew he would. What she couldn’t believe was that he won by completely destroying one of the main branch secret techniques. She, a side branch member, was allowed to learn it because she was a jonin on the field. There weren’t many in the clans and so the elders and Hiashi agreed that she needed Kaiten to protect herself better. A simple preservation of precious resources. Yet she never showed it to Riku and he overcame it after seeing it only once during the fight.

‘And Neji barely stopped using it when Riku already had six ways to counter it on the spot. That kid is really a prodigy.’

“Hinae, did you show him the Kaiten during your sparring sessions?”

“No, Hiashi-sama. Our sessions were more about how it felt to be hit by the Juken. To get used to it and find ways to doge the strikes. I was never in a defensive position and even had I been, I wouldn’t have used the Kaiten.”

“I see… Then perhaps, that young man is every bit the prodigy you believe he is.”

“I’ll stake my life on it, Hiashi-sama.”

___________________________________________________________________

“What a clever way to deal with an ‘ultimate’ defense.” the Kazekage said, quite impressed.

“Indeed. And to come up with it on the spur of the moment…”

“It seems, you already got your next chunin.”

“It seems so, yes.”

___________________________________________________________________

Back at the gambling booth, Riku with Karin by his side, was sealing his hard money inside his book of seals. All 250 Million of it.

“You’re not betting anymore?” the redhead asked.

“Not confident in your victory against the sand boy?” Anko teased. Though after looking at the tapes of the second stage of the exam, she knew that Gaara was the real deal.

“No. This time the odds are really not in my favor.”

“I’m glad I forfeited, there was no way I would have won.”

“Yes. I'm glad you did, because I would have lost my new roomie and I wouldn’t have like that.” Riku replied, putting back his book inside his pouch.

“Aww, but I wanted to earn more.”

“Don’t be a petulant child, Anko. You’re already 250 Million richer than when you started the day.” Iruka chastised her while putting away his own 125 Million.

“True.”

For the second time in the day the group separated. Riku and Karin came back to the contestant area only for them to see the end of the penultimate match. Yuuna looked like she had gone to war, facing a bit burnt but still good to go Lee. With how hard his teammate was breathing and the state of her body that had more blue than its natural slightly tanned color, Riku believed that it would be the end in mini-Gai’s favor. Unexpectedly, Yuuna pulled up a nasty genjutsu on her opponent, who screamed very loudly and fell unconscious, before fainting herself.

“END OF THE MATCH! IT’S A DRAW!”

“Wow. She really gave it her all. Was he that good?” Riku asked Gou.

“That and more. He’s like me, a taijutsu specialist but the difference is… it’s the only thing he can do.”

“What do you mean?” inquired Karin.

“Because of a medical condition he’s unable to use chakra properly so no Ninjutsu or Genjutsu for him. As a result he focused all his training on Taijutsu to the extreme.”

“With Gai as a sensei, he must be quite the little monster in strength and speed.” Riku stated.

“You don’t know the half of it. Yuuna held like a pro, despite taijutsu being her weakness but her odds weren’t very good. She took quite the beating, though she’d be pleased to know she technically didn’t lose.”

Riku nodded and Gou left to the infirmary wing to see their teammate. The former wished to go too but his match was about to begin. Just as he began to walk to the stairs to go down, Karin grabbed his arm.

“Don’t die.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll forfeit if it’s too dangerous.” he gave her a smile but that didn’t seem to ease her worry a bit.

On his way toward the arena he began to review what he knew about Gaara and how to defeat him.

“Okay so that guy is a psycho so he probably will try to kill me. Using sand. Sand that he controls at will. No close quarter then or I’ll be caught. Explosive tags won’t damage the sand which protects him, but flashbangs and smoke may still be useful. Except I don’t have many of them anymore because of Neji. I may box him in a barrier. Sleeping gas may not work but removing the air may. Unless he hides behind his sand to make a close space. In that case, victory will be determined by air or my chakra going out first. I may also deal directly with the sand but that would be even more chakra extensive. Dealing with Neji took a good third of my reserves. I shouldn’t have used that much chakra to overpower Gale Palm and Great Breakthrough but then again I may not have been able to keep him away. At least Gaara is stationary, uber confident in his defense, so I have some leeway.’

His thoughts stopped there when he ended up face to face with his opponent in the middle of the field.

“Mother wants your blood. She will get it.”

Riku raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘say what now?’ but said nothing and just took a stance. Once again Genma let the tension build but this time more than he usually did. When he moved his arm to signal the start of the match he jumped backward to get out of the way. Riku did the same and got way out of reach from the sand attack that came towards him. He threw kunais and shurikens coated with wind chakra at his target and while they went through the sand, its thickness slowed their speed considerably. Enough to make them useless.

‘Kunais and shurikens are out then. Option B.’

He created a smoke cloud at his feet and out of view of anyone made two shadow clones who used their speed to run separately around Gaara creating a diversion by throwing shurikens and kunais. The sand tried to keep up and barely succeeded. With nobody knowing he was still in the cloud, Riku took advantage of Gaara's stationary position. Unsealing the last ten of his explosive shurifuins which were special ones as they were hyper charged, he threw them towards his target and used a jutsu he had developed in secret behind the Hokage’s back.

‘Shurifuin Shadow Clone Technique!’

He pumped half of the chakra he had left after creating two kage bunshins to multiply the shurifuins to a good hundred. Knowing that his timing was perfect, he knew without being able to see that Gaara’s sand would not be in position to block this attack.

Up in the Kage’s booth Hiruzen’s eyes grew four times in size when he saw the shuriken multiply.

‘HOW?! Did he recreate my jutsu from sensei’s notes on the kage bunshin?! In A MONTH?!’

The hundred of shurifuins exploded on their target, the cumulative shockwave they created making enough wind to blow away the cloud of smoke Riku was hiding in. With now an unobstructed view he was able to see that his attack had been mostly useless.

‘A dome of sand?! REALLY?! Fuck me! I can’t deal with that one like I dealt with Neji’s. Option C then. Chakra exhaustion here I come.’

Riku dispelled the shadow clones, gaining back their chakra, and quickly pulled out four Kunasi from his back pouch. After a small run half around Gaara he had thrown them all in a square pattern and made the hand seals to activate the barrier. Pulling out his books of seals he unsealed some tags in page 69 and put one of them onto each side of the barrier. Once done He made another sequence of hand seals and fire and wind burst from the new seals in the direction of the sand dome. He would have prefered lightning for the occasion but he had yet to finish working on Earth manipulation.

After five minutes of spending chakra maintaining the fire and the wind, Riku stopped. With the raging inferno inside the barrier gone, everyone was able to see that the sand had turned to glass. Quickly, he put down the barrier and with a kunai laced with wind pierced the now fragile defense of the Suna-nin. The scream of pain resulting from his attack told him he had struck true. Just as he was about to launch a few more, ignoring the psychotic rant of his opponent, feathers began to fall on the stadium. On the spot, Riku did a rat seal and spiked his chakra to quickly dispel the genjutsu that someone was using. He tried to look around but a sudden attack from the side took him unprepared. Fortunately for him the blow was blocked by Kakashi (if he remembered his name correctly).

Despite how tired he was with so little chakra left, Riku was able to understand that Suna was attacking Konoha. Or at least that’s what his exhausted mind got from the sight of plenty of Suna-nins attacking Konoha-nins. Looking back to Kakashi, he saw his opponent was the Suna siblings’ Sensei. Speaking of the siblings, they picked a deranged Gaara away from the stadium.

“Join the other genins, reach a shelter, help if you can on the way there but don’t go start a fight.”

“Understood.”

He may have said that, but he did otherwise right off the bat by activating his barrier again and trapping the Suna sensei inside of it. The man had landed Right where Gaara used to be.

“It will last a couple hours I think.” Riku said to Kakashi who turned his head around and gave him a look. “Though if I do this…” This time he put a vacuum tag on the barrier and when all the air was gone put a sleeping tag. In two minutes the suna jonin-sensei was down for the count. Meanwhile Kakashi was dealing with the small fries around letting Riku do his thing. Removing the barrier, the genin put a paralysis tag on his down opponent, put him in a crate he had unsealed from his book and dealt with the man like he dealt with the Oto prisoner in his A-rank mission.

“Kakashi-san. I captured him for later interrogation! I’m joining the others! Good luck!”

Not waiting for an answer from the cyclops, Riku went to the contestant area for Karin. He found her asleep and immediately broke her out of the Genjutsu.

“Riku? What are you doing here? Is the match over?”

“Oh, yeah it’s over! Replaced by Suna invading Konoha! This is war, Karin. We have orders to avoid fighting and reach the nearest shelter. I will lead you there.”

“Oh..O-okay!”

He grabbed her hand when he heard a big explosion coming from the other side of the stadium. Giving it a look he saw a huge purple barrier erected.

‘Four Violet Flames Formation. Shit, that’s not good! Is that the Hokage in there? Wait! Trees sprouting out of nowhere on a roof? Mokuton? What the hell is going on?!’

“Karin, change of plans!”

“W-what?!” she exclaimed, scared out of her mind.

“The Hokage is in a bind. Trapped in a barrier. I’m probably the only one present with any knowledge on fuinjutsu that could help. I have to, meaning I can’t lead you to the shelter. So find…”

“Don’t leave me here!”

“Okay. Okay… Just… Come with me and stay vigilant, there are Anbus up there so we should be quite protected but still.”

The redhead nodded, unsure of herself but trusting in Riku. Both genins got up in the room and ran all the way toward the barrier location.

“YOU! GET OUT OF HERE!” shouted one Anbu with a bird mask.

“We’re here to help!” replied Riku.

“As if two genins could help with the situation. Now Go!”

“You know what?! Fuck you!”

Riku made a shadow clone and gave him five particular tags from his journal. He then left with Karin, going down to the floor right below. They got inside the building and Riku hastily began to pull out all the medical supplies he had in storage.

“What are you doing?” inquired a frantic Uzumaki.

“That barrier above is the Four Violet Flames Formation. It’s powerful but has a major flaw. You can get out by going underground.”

“You want to go inside by going through the roof? Are you insane?! Didn’t you see?! It’s Orochimaru in there! The boogie man of the Elemental Nations!”

“There are also the Shodaime and Nidaime Hokage with him. I don’t know what Orochimaru did but whatever they truly are, they are under his control. That’s not my plan though. I’m not going in, I'm getting the Sandaime out!”

___________________________________________________________________

Back on the roof, Riku’s clone had not been inactive. He put a tag at the corners of the barrier and put the fifth one in the middle of two of them.

“Kid, I told you to scram!”

“And I told you to go fuck yourself! Now shut the fuck up and let me work in getting the Sandaime out of there.”

The bird Anbu tried to grab him by his collar to throw him away but his arm was grabbed by a newly arrived Neko.

“Let him.”

“But Taicho he-”

“Is a fuinjutsu expert and knows what he’s doing. Genin Warudo, what is your plan?”

“Create a barrier above the enemies’ to lock them inside on our terms.”

“Why?” the bird Anbu asked.

“Sooner or later they will release their barrier and try to flee. That way they will be contained. Good idea Genin, but that doesn’t help Hokage-sa-”

Neko stopped there when out of nowhere a cloud of smoke suddenly appeared from the ground and hid Hiruzen. Riku reacted fast and slammed his hands on the tag on the ground in front of him. A blue-ish white-ish barrier appeared around the purple one.

“Shit! The area is so big, the chakra consumption is insane. Anyone have chakra pills? I won’t last long.”

Neko picked a small pouch of them and put one in his mouth.

“Thanks, Neko-chan. You better keep them coming because boy one won’t be enough.”

“Your body won’t be able to withstand the side effects if you take too many.”

“Yeah, well thankfully I’m just a kage…” he stopped there as a thought crossed his mind.

___________________________________________________________________

“Riku?” Hiruzen said as he coughed away the smoke he inhaled.

“Yeah.”

“What did you.. Where are we?”

“The floor right under the roof. Karin used her sensory abilities to locate you then I busted you out and locked them in. They can’t follow.” the dirty blonde said quickly as he used a diagnostic jutsu on the old man. “Shit, you’re pretty bangled up.”

“Well… fighting my student and my predecessors on my own was not easy.”

“Here, drink this.”

Riku handed Hiruzen a vial who drank it without thinking about it twice. He then warped a tight bandage above his patient’s left elbow to make a tourniquet. Everything below was beginning to turn purple and black.

“It’s an all antidote for the most common poisons. Doubt that will have any effect on the one in your system but you never know. I made a tourniquet just in case. Amputating may be the only solution.”

“It’s a rare and unique one from the famous blade Kusanagi.”

“Yeah? Well… Let’s wait a bit before removing a good 3kg from you.”

Riku began to look at the other wounds all over Hiruzen’s body. Some were just scraps and shallow cuts but some were serious.

“Okay. Good news, I can fix you. Bad news I have to use the Mystical Palm and I never used it on a human.”

“Either by poison or blood loss I’m going to die anyway at this rate so go ahead.”

“Wait!”

Both male turned toward Karin who had a conflicted expression on her face.

“I have a better way.”

““You do ?””

“It’s… an Uzumaki secret I suppose. I didn’t say anything because… I didn’t want Konoha to treat me like Kusa did.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hiruzen.

“As you know my chakra is special but more than you thought.  It has… extraordinary healing properties. If you bite me, your wounds will heal in a matter of seconds.”

“That’s… Kusa sucked dry your mother, didn't it? And were doing the same to you.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to worry young, Karin. This is an Uzumaki clan secret and I won’t share it. I’d be in big trouble otherwise. I may be the Hokage but I’m not all powerful regarding politics. I have to respect the laws about the clans. I’m sure Riku will keep quiet too. You don’t have to worry, Konoha won’t treat you like Kusa did.”

Karin nodded and opened her jacket, revealing multiple dozen bite marks on her shoulders and arms. That made Hiruzen and Riku frown but they said nothing. Just as she was about to give her arm to Hiruzen, Riku interrupted.

“Wait! Does the healing deal with poison?”

“I… don’t think so?”

“Then amputation first. That thing is potent, without the tourniquet it would have already reached the heart.”

“Then do it quickly.”

“Alright. Here goes my last drops of chakra.”

Riku channelled his wind chakra into some ninja-wire and tied it in a loop just above the tourniquet.

“On Three.” Riku said and Hirzuen nodded, preparing himself for the incoming pain by putting a kunai in his mouth. “Three!”

Riku pulled with all his remaining strength the wire whose loop shrank on itself. It cut through Hizruzen flesh as if his arm had been made of paper. The old Hokage’s scream had been quite loud despite being muted a lot. Riku quickly sealed the amputated arm away for a later study of the poison while Karin ditched the kunai in Hiruzen’s mouth and replaced it with her forearm. The effect was immediate. A green glow surrounded the old man’s body and his wound began to heal at a rate only Tsunade could outpace. In less than half a minute not only all his wounds were closed and he wasn’t bleeding anymore but his chakra reserves had been replenished to their fullest.

“Thank you. The both of you.” Hiruzen said after removing Karin’s arm from his mouth.

“Your thanks are unnecessary. Genin or Hokage, it doesn’t matter. We’re simply ninjas of the leaf and we help each other. Especially when some fuckers attack our home.” Riku said and handed him his book of seals. “Page 17 is a butt load of paralysing seals. Page 71 are crates. Page 42 are barrier tags. Page 88 and above are empty storage seals.”

“For the Shodai and Nidai?” inquired Hiruzen, taking the book with his only hand.

“Yeah. Now go feed that snake his own tail, Hokage-sama!”

“I will.” the Hokage replied with a confident smirk on his face.

Making his way outside he smiled even more when he heard two thuds behind him. He knew he had drained Karin of almost all her chakra and Riku had been running on fumes after three matches. Yet they gave their all.

‘They remind me so much of them. Perhaps… No, that’s a thought for later.’

Jumping up to the roof, Sarutobi Hiruzen was ready to kick some ass. Fortunately for him, he didn’t need his arms for that.