NRaO Chapter 66 (Patreon)

Kazekage’s Point of View

I knew I fucked up. Going to war with Konoha should have been an easy way for my people to get some money and food. It just made sense as almost every other shinobi village was fighting against them so I assumed they’d have much more lax patrols and we could just mimic what we did the first war and steal their valuables near the border before retreating.

The hidden mist village was defeated in a week. I knew deep down that if they wanted to, they could have easily taken control of our town but the true leaders of the world wouldn’t allow it to happen. It was still disheartening, I was being blamed for our lackluster progress as we hadn’t taken a single foot of their territory for ourselves this time.

My days were most likely numbered unless something good happened to our village. Suppose Konoha fell from a joint attack like the hidden Whirlpool village then we could take as much of their land as we wanted. I don’t know who the genius who put the Whirlpool attack plan into place but that was yet another reason why most of the village wanted to oust me.

The plan not only failed but everyone who took part lost thousands of shinobi in the surprise attack and many Uzumaki managed to survive the attack. The original plan was to defeat the village and take the survivors hostage with each village incorporating the children born from the Uzumaki as their new Jinchuriki vessels. They were the best hands down, but with the destruction of the entire island they lived on, there weren’t many Uzumaki left captured and alive for us to take back.

Many of our best shinobi were killed, Granny Chiyo was even poached by the man who made all these problems for me. If I could kill Orochi before I died I’d be satisfied. With a manic grin, I squeezed the voodoo doll I had made in his likeness as I stabbed it with a senbon until I calmed myself down. I was halfway through doing the tedious wartime paperwork when the village was rocked by a giant explosion.

I knew it was a trap but I had to go regardless. If I shied away from a conflict like this I’d be dead by poison the next day. At least heading there I’ll have a chance of killing my assassins. The way the village was designed is if you were ever assassinated, the assassin would become the next Kazekage. The person was copying the same exact method of causing an explosion at the edge of town so he had to investigate where I killed him outright after telling him he failed the village.

As I get to the area, a crowd is already forming knowing what's to come as they won't help me at all. I’ve already proven my leadership abilities and only by defeating this assassin would they forgive me for my mistakes. It wasn’t just a single challenger though. Three people stood inside the assassin's circle as I walked in on the opposite side. I recognized one.

Rasa was an Uzumaki who had moved to the village to become the Jinchuriki, but at the time he was in line for it the previous Kage went against the contract they had in place and put one of his relatives as the Jinchuriki, which is why our current Jinchuriki was so weak and useless. He was nowhere near as fit as the old monk sage and they also did experiments with him which made him hate people even more. Rasa was too young to challenge me currently, if he’d trained a few more years he might have been able to defeat me but as he was now he stood no chance.

The first woman looked familiar, she was missing an arm and had a large puppet arm as a replacement. I think I remember her, she was the scorch release user in our village who blew herself up. I was going to set her up with a breeding program to have her kekkei genkai live on through someone more easily controllable but that doesn’t seem to be possible now as I have to kill her.

The final one is completely unrecognizable to me, I did get a hint of familiarity like she was related to someone I knew. She triggered my danger senses the most. If she wasn’t here to kill me I would like to take her as a wife or concubine, she was that beautiful. Black hair, a perfect almost divine face, and a body that made her look more like a courtesan than a shinobi. As our eyes met and she smiled my brain triggered my fight or flight response even harder.

We talked first. “Normally, these challenges only have one person. How do you want to do this? One at a time or will all of you come at me at once?” I couldn’t help but hold back my smugness, the less I looked at the secret beauty in the back the more I felt I could win this before she spoke up. Even her voice puts me back on edge. “I’ll let my two disciples fight you. If you can defeat them I’ll give you a week to leave the village before I hunt you down.”

I couldn’t help but instinctively gulp as it felt like I was in the eyes of a predator. I still had to show my strength, as much as I wanted to run I rather die than be remembered as a coward. “You act like you’ve already beaten me. Do you think I can’t kill your two disciples and escape myself?” She let out a cute little laugh. Mine and the crowd's hearts both sped up but for different reasons. They were completely enamored by her looks but I could still feel the bloodlust oozing from her being.

I wait for the other two to talk but they just prepare for the fight so I do so as well. Slowly we made our way to the center of the circle so the watchers didn’t get caught in our attacks. Both the iron sand and gold dust Rasa and I used were better for large-scale fighting. Walls of our sand came out and clashed together, I couldn't help but notice mine was slowly pushing his back.

The lack of vision was shattered as both our waves were split in half by a giant cannonball flying towards me. If I was less prepared it would have killed me right away. If they ambushed me instead of setting up this impromptu kage challenge I had no doubt I’d have been severely wounded if not killed outright. Because I was ready I managed to avoid it.

The expected explosion from the cannon didn’t come as the scorch release ninja jumped through the gap her cannon made as her arm came down covering the hidden cannon inside. I smirk as I try to move my sand back to engulf her but I struggle to pull it away from the gold. Our gold and iron sand somehow cancelling out and any changes made to either would be harder and more expensive chakra-wise to do.

I pull out another vial of sand to prepare my defenses as she gets closer. Just as I prepared for her to clash against my sand I felt a pinch on my leg and it was hard to keep my eyes open. I only managed to look down and see that the cannonball was actually a mechanical puppet spider that just injected me with some type of poison.

Their carefully laid plan for my defeat came to fruition as I lost control of my sand and her hand formed into a blade and pierced my chest. I couldn’t help but look on in shock as I was so easily defeated. The last glance of life I had looked at the woman who didn’t even take part in the fight. I recognized that smirk just as her ten puppets emerged from the sand and she exclaimed.

“None of you may recognize me but you should know my name. I am Chiyo Chikamatsu. Some of you may know me as Granny Chiyo and I’ve come to take my rightful place as Kage of the village.” My eyes grew heavy as I fell down. The last thing I could hear was the crowd cheering for their new leader.