The four people standing on top of the edge of a gigantic crater continued to look down on the Tower of Bones that was just standing there – a giant obstacle in the path of the village they all came from. These bandits were a threat to not only the world peace that finally settled down after the Second Great Shinobi War ended but they also had the guts to kill Konoha ninja. Exploit Konoha's international promises as if making fun of the Great Village. It was as if the bandits openly taunted the Leaf village by posing a question: asking which was more precious to it, the village's honor and its promises or their own well-being and the short term peace they've established.
"Let us not be hasty, Howoku-chan has a lot at stake here. After the Third had passed he is one of the names thrown around by the council after all, a success of such level would basically guarantee him the spot" an elderly lady spoke up. The violent wasteland winds picked up and thrown her silver hair around forcing the lady to restrain them. The Sannin of the last generation and the sole survivor of the great battle that made this wasteland it was difficult to understand what drove the retired lady ninja to return to active duty. She was known as Raijin's Prophet – Sorano, her name coming from the great staff hanging on her back which was said to have been one of the legendary weapons of Gods themselves. Right now the woman struggled to hide from the chill of the place in her blue coat, tightening up the belt and buttoning the top two buttons.
"I could not care any less about the title of Hokage. These criminals threaten the peace your generation fought so hard to bring, Sorano-san, that is a transgression I cannot allow to go unpunished!" one of the three current Sannin, Star of Hope – Howoku spoke. He was the man who would soon become the Fourth Hokage but at that moment in time he was but a young shinobi who was in his early twenties but already a jounin declared a Sannin by the village. He was known around the world as one of the greatest defenders of peace and a great orator as well as an amazing ninja who has never taken a life in battle, his blunt-edged sword on his back was the greatest testament of that achievement. Having all that in mind, to a neutral eye Howoku may have looked like a rather puny and geeky man, being quite tall but slim and having curly and messy hair and still needing his glasses. This goofy exterior hid inside a powerhouse for the village like none other, underestimating the Star of Hope would've been a fatal and the last mistake one could make.
"Eh, who the Hell are you kidding, you and your softcore ways… Howoku. Either way, it was pretty cool of the village to authorize this mission. These limitations with them being unable to send more than five people made this really interesting, eh?" the third ninja asked, standing tall and proud over the horizon and observing the tower from the perfect place to sightsee. It was Misu of the Vapor, the past teammate of Howoku and the third Sannin – Hanasaku. The man renowned for his tricky fighting style, unmatched speed and a strategy of fighting that made him one of the least likely people to get hurt, seeing Misu being tagged or injured was indeed a rarity on the battlefield and he was also one of the best swordsmen shinobi that Konohagakure had, a man whom many placed on the level of the Kumogakure swordsmen or even the Iron Country samurai who were previously considered dominant in this area. Misu was a quite attractive young man, often he showed off his bare chest by thrusting it forward and letting his kimono slip off of his shoulders or stroking his wild hair. That being said Misu's vanity was vain by itself, there was no single woman he tried to impress, he just liked showing off.
"I'm really glad you let me tag along! I can't believe the village wanted to keep me contained, it makes me pretty angry, when are we gonna get to fight someone already!" the third Sannin – Hanasaku shouted out. The woman was by far the most tomboyish of the group often seen in male clothes she was also a halfway decent medical ninja and surprisingly enough the physically strongest and most durable ninja of the village. Normally lethal injuries like getting impaled many times over barely seemed to bother Hanasaku to the point where many may have suggested she's enjoying getting injured. Either way, out of the three Sannin even as children she was often put in tongue and cheek as compared to more gentle and soft Howoku, many spoke how the personalities of the two should've been reversed as Hanasaku often acted most macho out of the three. Konoha's "Gentle" Chestnut as she was called came both from her "tough as nuts" attitude and her chestnut colored wild hair. When Hanasaku rampaged through the battlefield often chestnut brown flash of her hair was all that her enemies saw before being brutally taken down.
"Patience, my dear." Sorano uttered before letting her voice suddenly turn wild, "Is what I'd normally say, but an occasion like this: a retired Sannin of the past and all three of the current Sannin is not something that should be put to waste. Allow me to smite those scum using the chakra I've stored up in Raijin's staff during all those years!" the old lady yelled out loud and swung her staff sending a wild gust of wind. For a brief moment there was absolutely nothing, a silence that suggested that there was nothing to the staff but then a gigantic thunderbolt split the sky in two, cutting through the impossibly thick dark clouds of the location as if it was butter giving in to a hot knife. The bolt of lightning was as wide as a vortex of pure lightning, the sound and the amount of light it made forced everyone, even the great Sannin to turn back and cover their eyes. Such power would've truly only been accessible to those wielding the power of Raijin himself as this lightning bolt could've easily caused yet another crater of same magnitude if not greater.
"DAMN IT, OLD LADY! SHOULD'VE WARNED US!" Hanasaku yelled out as her ears were still overwhelmed by the impossible amount of noise coming from the lightning bolt. Howoku removed his glasses and blew into them, "Well now you've done it, Sorano-san, I've finally gone completely blind…" he joked as he scratched his eyes massaging them carefully and waiting for his eyesight to return. It must not have been the first time that Sorano's lightning prowess caused this much displeasure for the young man as he was reacting to this loss of sight quite calmly. It appeared that Misu was the only one barely affected by the lightning. Then again, the man was quite indifferent even to opponent's attacks so something like excessive sound and light would've barely proved to be an annoyance to the Sannin. "That was amazing, Sorano-san! It seems that you've still got it!" he shouted as the staff of the old woman hit the back of his head. Strangely enough this weak attack actually hurt the man and he started scratching the aching spot and whining.
As the smoke and the leftovers of light from the lightning strike cleared and everyone affected by it regained their sight an incredible sight greet their eyes – the Tower of Bones was not damaged by the slightest. Sorano looked at a point somewhere on the roof of the tower spotting a single man, "Damn that Rinnegan user, he has already learned to absorb ninjutsu then… It is good we've come for him now before he had mastered Samsara as well." Right after Sorano's statement, noting that God-Eyes somehow managed to absorb the entirety of Raijin's fury charged for seven years straight, men started flooding from the tower filling up the battlefield in the crater, the four Sannin all shared a collective smile and jumped off of the edge right into the fray of the battle.
Raijin's Prophet Sorano danced across the battlefield like a Goddess of war, suddenly the memories of the Second Great Shinobi War made the old lady to feel right at home as she effortlessly wielded her Raijin's staff just efficiently enough to deflect all of incoming attacks. Sometimes it had appeared like she would be hit, but some astonishing chakra would leak out from the Staff expelling powerful and violent gusts of wind and pushing all the attackers away. When things got particularly difficult Sorano just pointed her staff at the enemies she wanted gone shooting off lightning bolts from her staff without ever needing to use handseals. Sorano's mastery over this lightning was unlike anything anyone had seen, not only she didn't need handseals to use Lightning Release but also the jutsu she used with the staff's aid appeared to come out effortlessly and in many various shapes: channeled beams of lightning, chains of lightning dancing and passing through all the enemies in the line, powerful lightning bolts coming from the sky or even lightning pulses running through the ground or barrage of small lightning spheres. Sorano truly earned her name as Raijin's Prophet and hundreds of bandits fell under her feet burnt and defeated by this incredible woman. Bandits that were supposed to be able to lay siege on Konohagakure itself were rendered powerless against a single woman just like the man with the oni mask had predicted.
Needless to say, other Sannin did not stand around doing nothing. Howoku graciously fought using his sword, he was more than a match for any casual swordsman so he was right at home fighting bunch of ragtag self-trained criminals. To tell the truth Howoku struggled much more than Sorano but his blunt sword found its target and the few injuries that the young man had sustained were not threatening to neither his life nor his future fighting potential. If anything else the pain had drawn out Howoku's anger, hidden will and power to fight like the man named by the council as prime candidate to become Hokage. Strangely enough just swinging his blunt sword was all that Howoku seemed to show these bandits keeping his true power to himself, whenever the situation got too difficult Howoku simply took couple of steps back letting Hanasaku or Misu take care of the situation instead of revealing all of his cards. One wouldn't have been wrong to say that the Star of Hope Howoku did not enjoy battling but still, his reluctance to fight at full strength did not mean weakness by any means.
Where Howoku held back against mere bandits worth the attention of average chuunin, Misu of the Vapor was scooting all around the battlefield. It looked like his legs had blurred and become a stream of vapor and when he got hit the man's body simply dissolved into vapor that then heated up and punished the aggressive attacker with Misu appearing behind them and cutting them down. This was the only way of fighting that the man was known to use – Vapor Mode, the mysterious and unstoppable strategy that no other ninja ever seemed to understand. Whenever the man got hit he simply dissolved into vapor like a clone, becoming just a cloud of heated vapor with the real Misu striking from an open spot. Often Misu used this quick one slash kills even without his Vapor Mode, he called the style "Deceitful Blade" with his body avoiding a strike and counterattacking quickly and pinpoint to the enemy's opening. The combination of his mysterious vapor clone technique and "Deceitful Blade" was the fantastic and awesome "Vapor Mode" that has never found a situation it could not overcome. It was said that no one had ever figured out Misu's weakness ever since he invented this "Vapor Mode"
Where her teammates were subtle, striking like scalpel or a gentle fish gutting knife, Hanasaku was like a rocket launcher. The wild woman leapt around the battlefield wildly throwing mad combinations of blows or simply leapt hundreds of feet into the air and creating mad earthquakes after landing. Out of the four Hanasaku took the most damage as she barely bothered to defend herself, the woman was not distracted by an enemy striking from behind, she always just kept punching and dashing around forward destroying the enemy ranks effortlessly. Her single punch was enough to destroy any man, even the largest ones that probably ate elephants for breakfast fell like autumnal leaves after just a single flick of the woman. Once Hanasaku bet against the village's strongest taijutsu ninja that no amount of Inner Gates would keep up with her, it was unknown how that bet went but from the tales of the ninja himself the woman could easily keep up with first four gates and to bump it up was useless because the technique actually hurt him more than a successful blow to Hanasaku seemed to do as nothing kept her down for long. After the battle was over the woman was covered with bruises and blunt traumas and had multiple swords stuck in her front and back to the point where she looked like a pin cushion. Just another mission for Hanasaku the Chestnut. That being said, the woman had the largest pile of broken bandits beneath her feet, even if she did cry like a little girl on a dentist's chair when Howoku angrily pulled out all the weapons stuck in her body and scolded her.
"Is it OK to go on? Hanasaku-chan seems injured." Sorano asked looking questioningly at Misu, the man just shrugged. "I dunno, she's always like that. Just give her five to ten minutes of rest and she'll heal herself up no problem." Howoku still did not look happy, "You'll exhaust your chakra fighting these goons, who are you trying to show up getting hurt so much?!" he yelled at the silly young woman, "That's right!" Sorano got surprised as if she just remembered something, "Every supernatural physical feat uses chakra manipulation, right? Won't Hanasaku-chan tire out?" The brown haired wonder looked at the old lady and gave her a thumb up, "Don't worry, I'm not like the other ninja, my body doesn't use chakra to maintain superhuman strength, I'm just strong cause I train a lot!" while the old lady didn't buy this Misu waved at her to let it go.
"Howoku was not referring to chakra used with physical prowess but her mediocre healing skills. Hanasaku isn't like the other physical ninja, usually there are two ways to become like her. One is to make up some sort of jutsu like imbue your entire body with chakra and give it some sort of supernatural feature native to that Elemental Release, like lightning fast reflexes using Lightning Release etc. The other is to train one's body to become strong, to find the bodily limit and keep training to break it. The problem with this method is that it'll never give you the amount of strength that the first method gives, the user of the second method will always be weaker than a user of a jutsu that enhances strength. Strangely enough Hanasaku is an exception to that rule, she trains not her body itself but her overall chakra level, seeing how physical energy of our body is an element of chakra her physical prowess seems to increase together with her chakra level. That being said, it is only because she's a silly idiot that this even worked, I don't think anyone else could pull such ridiculous concept off like increasing one's physical strength by only increasing one's chakra level. If any of us were sensors Hanasaku's chakra would feel like a Sun compared to small fires of normal ninja that is why she's such a freak." Misu explained observing the tower for any surprise developments.
As Howoku was carefully tending to Hanasaku's wounds, removing any weapons stuck in her or giving the woman a description which wounds she'll have to heal up with her mediocre medical ninjutsu skills, there was something that bothered the man. "Sorano-san, how about you? You've blasted so many people with your staff, surely wielding it tires you out, right? Lightning Release is quite a difficult Elemental Release on chakra control seeing how unstable it is. Are you going to be OK?" the young man inquired, he obviously intended to add her age into the mix but remembering how violently the woman lashed out on Misu before the clever Sannin kept it inside, just letting it float in the air and letting the woman catch the idea if she was perceptive enough but without proof of Howoku's intention of bringing it up.
"My staff of Raijin works differently. It costs chakra to use, yes, but it is a steady flow of chakra, it tires me consistently to use it unsealed, not to use techniques. Its concept is very peculiar and difficult to understand and use efficiently which is why it is likely that there will be no one to use it after my passing… Which will be in a million years! Anyways, whenever I swing my staff it generates charges of electricity somewhere inside of it, the stronger and faster the swing – the more it builds up, if it comes into contact with another body or weapon it builds up even more. It is that built up charge that is used in staff's Lightning and Wind Releases." Howoku sighed, "In other words, you do not use Lightning Release at all, you use the force built up inside of the staff but it feeds off of your chakra. Interesting. Wait… Wind Release?" the young man got curious when the woman nodded, "Yes, I can also generate weaker gusts using the same energy built up inside it, but same energy charges are used in both lightning and wind releases so it is often a strategic decision how to use the staff. It takes much more time to learn to properly use it than it takes to gain enough chakra to use it…" the old lady laughed.
With the last knife being pulled out of Hanasaku's shoulder, Howoku stood up and sighed, turning at the Tower of Bones and tightening his gloves. "Well, I think if we let Hanasaku-chan rest for the first couple of fights we can go in!" Misu and Sorano joined Howoku and once the chestnut color haired woman joined the squad of past and present Sannin the four all collectively entered the building. The figures of the four disappeared in the darkness of the Tower of Bones that no one has ever conquered before. The fight was about to get started for real with One's with the Eyes of God apostles facing off against the Sannin!
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