Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Hidden Villages ❯ Flashback! Part 2 ( Chapter 15 )

“There is nothing to compare to the fear we felt that day as we watched the enemy overrun our position. But nothing can compare to the courage we showed as we fought to the last to halt their advance; and nothing can compare to the determination shown by Kuroudo either.” –Shinji Minotoku, Paradiseo Regular 5th Guard’s Regiment, Oh-Ka Pass


Kuroudo fired a heavy round into a soldier’s chest; the heavy 197-grain jacketed soft point round likely mushroomed from its original 7.92 millimeter diameter to closer to a 12.5 millimeter as it smashed through the man’s chest plate and into his lungs and heart, death would be nearly instantaneous. Kuroudo worked the rifle’s bolt and he sighted another soldier’s face.

“Good night sweet prince,” Kuroudo said coldly as he gently squeezed the Mauser’s trigger and sent another round down range; it obliterated most of the man’s face, replacing skin and features with a red spray of blood and bone fragments. The LOM troops were still over one hundred yards away; Kuroudo gave another order, “Fix bayonets! Get ready they’ll be on us in a matter of minutes!”

Kuroudo pulled out a Mauser bayonet he’d taken from a fallen comrade and fixed in to the rifle, glancing nervously at the advancing enemy; they had at least a 1000:1 advantage over his troops, not counting the artillery crews that were blasting the LOM troops into bloody, but still festive, confetti. He calmly looked down range as the artillery continued to punish the LOM troops and the Regulars cut them down with their well-placed rounds. Kuroudo carefully aimed his rifle at some of the advancing enemies. The Land of Mountains had Paradiseo’s forces quiet heavily outnumbered but the pass was the LOM’s last chance to get back to the gates of Paradiseo itself and if they failed to take it and quickly rush to the Capital itself then the rest of the war would be fought on their soul and that soil would surely be soaked with the blood of their families. Too bad they’ll never get pass me, unless they can manage to kill me.

Kuroudo sighted another soldier and fired again, this time not bothering to assess the damage done, he just worked the bolt and fired again. Around him the Regulars were running out of ammunition and several were already using the captured enemy rifles; the scene was one of barely managed chaos and carnage but none of the surviving Regulars had been hit yet.

Empty, they’re sixty yards out.

“Momoko, now!” Kuroudo said as he looked to Momoko and he brought out the stripper clip to reload his rifle, “They’re at the hill, give ‘em your welcoming gifts!”

“With pleasure,” Momoko said harshly as she held up a ‘clacker’; a remote detonator for the claymore mines she’d laid out in the field. When she detonated the mines the effects were immediate and horrifyingly effective; each claymore mine was basically a super-shotgun loaded with hundreds of steel ball bearings launched outward at a high velocity and since she’d placed all forty of her remaining mines on a slight hill in the otherwise flat field it was an unavoidable welcoming mat of over ten thousand deadly steel balls each larger then a human eye ball rocketing down range each with enough kinetic energy to tear a leg off of a body. These tore through the advancing troop’s legs and chests; shredding them like wet tissue paper. Men lay with legs shredded and arms ripped off, Swiss-cheese chests and shattered faces for over forty yards but the rest of the Pike-men ignored these men, merely leaping over them and continuing their suicidal advance, and they finally entered the fifty yard mark.

“Wait for more to close in Jenkins, Kitty…” Kuroudo shouted out as he pointed to the Thompson holding woman, “Introduce them to Tommy Chopper.”

“Chop; chop better than an ax I say!” Kitty shouted with twisted glee as she braced herself, holding the submachine gun tightly underneath her arm pit, and she opened fire. The Thompson’s heavy .45ACP pistol rounds launched from the barrel and tore brutally into the advancing soldiers. The only thing that could be heard over the high explosive war cry of the barking gun was the screams of its victims as their bones were split by the heavy 250-grain jacketed hollow point rounds. The .45ACP hit with enough force to knock the wind out of a man even if they wore heavy body armor and the .45 was a nasty round to have rip its way through you, even with full metal jackets they tore some pretty impressive holes; hollow points like Kitty used tore bigger holes than the Mausers did. And at 600 rounds a minute the stream that the high caliber weapon barked out was enough to shred a human body in an instant. Then the fifty round drum magazine fell silent, Kitty reached for her ammo pack and ducked as she barked an order, “Cover!”

Kuroudo joined in with the Mauser, firing off all five of his remaining rounds in twice as many seconds, giving Kitty the time she needed to reload. But before she could go to work they noticed that the LOM soldiers were within fisticuff range.

Then they heard it, that sound; that unforgettable roar of explosive rage that haunts the dreams of anyone who’d been on the receiving end. Jenkins had cut loose with the MG42, the sound of that weapon was something you could never forget; the loud roar that personified war as the heavy 8mm slugs tore down range with no mercy as they ripped through man after man. The MG was always fed with FMJ rounds, armor piercing steel core rounds; they would tear their way through one man and into the man behind him and the man behind him. Fed by a four hundred round belt and in the hands of a capable man like Jenkins who had the proper trigger control, the weapon could spell the death of over one thousand soldiers before the barrel would overheat. Which it did, the stream of heavy slugs tore out and tore through anything and anyone in front of them, the gun greedily eating up the rounds on the belt and eating through soft flesh.

Kuroudo watched as the advancing troops were cut down by the machinegun; their bodies writhing as they died from gut and lung shots. Men fell by the dozen as they charged toward the wall of hot lead that the Regulars were spitting out; the rifle and machinegun fire ripped the large ranks that had seemed so imposing only a minute before into bloody pieces. Some of the ones who were merely wounded by the stream held onto their shattered legs and screamed, but their cries were muted by the high bark of the machinegun and Kitty’s Thompson. Their wounds spelled their deaths for sure and many of them were cut down anyway, but their comrades also kept coming; ignoring both their friends’ pain and the roar of the automatic weapons, the pounding of the artillery shells and the rifle fire from the Regulars themselves. They did not retreat even in the sundering storm of Paradiseo’s war machine, and their determination finally paid off as they closed the distance and stormed into hand to hand combat against the Regulars; the MG42 and the Thompson fell silent as they ran out of ammunition.

“Now,” Kuroudo howled as he thrust the bayonet into the closest man’s throat and swung the rifle towards the next, slicing both men’s jugulars. Kuroudo thrust the blade into another man’s chest as a spear pierced his shoulder. The bayonet broke as he twisted it against the man’s armor. Kuroudo threw the rifle so it spun in front of him and he gripped it by the barrel, swinging it like a club he smashed another man’s face in with the heavy wood stock. Teeth and blood spewed from the shattered face as the man fell to the ground gripping at the bloody mess that was once his face. Kuroudo swung the rifle again and again, smashing faces and knee caps; the cries of pain from the injured men were enough to make any normal man cry out for it all to stop. Then he dropped the battered rifle and gripped his sword; standing up straight as he drew the blade. As the sword unsheathed he said, as creepy as he could, “Here the real fun starts.”

The Regulars grappled with the Pike-men over rifles and spears, they shot and stabbed at each other and they beat and strangled their foes to death. The battle had become a nightmarish whirlwind of bullets and men; bullets tore through the allies of those who fired them before striking their foes and some of the Pike-men were beating their own allies to death in the confusion. It was a scene from Hell, written by the devil himself as the chaos only grew and grew; the pounding of the artillery only served as a deafening background noise to the horror in front of Kazuko’s very eyes.

Kuroudo swung his blade, slicing a man’s head off with the sharp steel, he aptly and gracefully danced a death dance; slicing, stabbing parrying and bathing in the raining blood of his foes as their limbs were hacked off. Their screams rose as one hell worthy cry. Then another spear pierced Kuroudo, going completely through his upper torso, Kuroudo gripped the spear and pulled it towards him, pulling the wielder in as he did so. And in that same fluid motion he sliced the man in half and the shaft of the spear. Kuroudo winced as he pulled it out of his back. Blood poured from the nearly fatal wound, but Kuroudo didn’t falter; instead he sliced another advancing LOM trooper’s arm off.

Kazuko watched as Momoko viciously shoved the barrels of her shotgun into the mouth of an advancing soldier; and pulled the trigger. Momoko used 12-gauge 000 buckshot in her shotgun, the effect on the man’s head was the stuff of nightmares; the head disappeared, becoming a horrific display of gooey red liquids and shattered bones launching up into the sky. Momoko tossed the empty shotgun and drew out her revolver, taking careful aim. Kazuko turned her head and watched as another soldier brutally beat down a LOM soldier with the butt of his rifle, hammering the man’s face in the steel butt plate, howling the entire time like a mad jackal.

Kuroudo slashed another man in half as another spear was driven into his back. His whole body was alive with sharp pains, the pain was causing his vision to double; he’d been skewered at least a dozen times and was practically swimming in his own blood.

“IS THIS ALL YOU’VE GOT!?” Kuroudo howled as he gripped onto the shaft of a spear, and began laughing. Not a joyous laugh but a terrifying howl; the laugh of a demon, a monster’s laugh. He was skewered and dying but he howled out his enjoyment even as another blade jammed into his chest. He let the spear go and he said, in a terrifying voice, “I can’t remember the last time I’ve had such fun! I’m so jacked up I can’t even see straight!”

“M-m-monster!!” Two LOM regulars turned to run, but Kuroudo sliced their legs off. They fell to the ground screaming, not in pain, but in fear. The unmitigated terror of their voices echoed across the field, somehow louder than the still falling artillery shells; but not louder then Kuroudo’s howling laughter.

“Let’s really get the party started!” Kuroudo said grimly as he sliced into another man, he resumed his deadly dance of death, slicing and slashing. Adding more screams of terror that echoed throughout that nightmarish sky. Kazuko watched as more spears sliced her cousin’s flesh, but yet Kuroudo refused to fall. He stood tall and fought all the more furiously with each wound he got, it was actually quite frightening to see a man covered in his own blood slashing away like Kuroudo was.

“Shoot him!” One of the Pike-men shouted as he held up a Krag and fired; the round struck Kuroudo in his left thigh. Kuroudo, on more of reflex than anything else pulled out a kunai and threw it at the rifle-man, the sharp blade jammed into the man’s right eyeball. But Kuroudo was now having trouble standing on his left leg; the round had likely shattered the bone. Kuroudo sliced another LOM soldier as another slug tore through his gut; he fell to the ground and vomited blood. He was in bad shape; still injured from the previous days’ battles and now with more than a dozen potentially fatal wounds his body refused to move. Kuroudo weakly looked to Momoko, who was holding her right arm up in a useless attempt to block a blade that was about to slice into her.

The man smiled as he swung his sword; but he didn’t get what he expected. Instead of killing the girl, Kuroudo held the sword blade in his now bleeding left hand; he was panting wildly and bleeding badly. The pike-man tried to say something but all that came out was a gurgle and blood, then he felt a sharp pain from his stomach. The man reached down and felt the sticky goo of his own intestines; Kuroudo had sliced his gut open. The man looked into the eyes of Kuroudo; they held no malice or glee, just cold emotionless eyes that seemed to study him as he fell over and died.

Kuroudo forced himself back up using his sword as a crutch, but another slug tore into his left leg, then another into his right. But Kuroudo still stood, even with the extreme damage to his legs he stood. And even as another round tore into his left shoulder the boy stood, supported only by his own stubbornness to not die he stood to face the onslaught before him. Kuroudo un-holstered his Luger, aiming down the weapon’s sights and targeting a pike-man; Kuroudo pulled the trigger sending a .45 into the man’s face. At this point in the battle the only point of continuing was to try and delay the enemy more.

“Kuroudo,” Momoko grabbed his leg as she choked out her words, “release, let’s see how many you can hack apart before they manage to subdue you.”

Kuroudo dully held his hand out and snatched a thrown spear by the blade. Everything seemed to stop as Kuroudo holstered the Luger and began crushing the spear blade itself; the look on Kuroudo’s face went from depressed to utterly joyful as his body became covered in black fur and his face elongated into a muzzle and once that was formed Kuroudo threw his head back and howled out his rage filled laughter into the nightmarish sky.

“What the!?” A LOM regular screamed in terror as he fired his rifle directly at Kuroudo’s head; only to watch as Kuroudo turned his head slightly, avoiding getting hit. The LOM Regular panicked but managed to try and fire again, only to hear the dull –click- of an empty chamber. He screamed as he dropped his rifle and ran, fleeing as fast as his legs would carry him, screaming his fear to his comrades, “IT’S THE BEAST! THE BLACK FOX!! RUN!!”

He didn’t get very far before Kuroudo appeared in front of him; in his ‘true’ form, Kuroudo gripped onto the man’s head with his right paw and smashed his face in. Smiling Kuroudo swung his sword around and sliced another soldier’s throat open. The LOM soldiers threw themselves at Kuroudo stabbing at him and firing their few rifles, Kuroudo began slicing back and body parts rained down from the maelstrom that the battle had become. Momoko watched in dull terror as she watched Kuroudo get skewered over and over again, she cried as she watched a round tear through his chest but her lover did not fall. Kuroudo, in sheer impossibility stood almost unfazed by the hundreds of deep gashes; he tore through hundreds of enemy soldier in an instant. Anyone fool enough to get close to Kuroudo was shredded to pieces by his blade.

The sound of Kuroudo’s mad war cry was surely heard all the way to the Sandline pass, he didn’t just scream; the sound that escaped from Kuroudo’s mouth was nothing short of the cry of hell’s own horns. His paws tore through men like they were tissue paper, the blade he swung sliced their bodies to pieces. Kuroudo was another kind of being, he was a monster; a close combat killer that ignored pain and defied death. One could not count how many men were felled by Kuroudo, their twisting and writhing bodies were almost buried underneath their own blood and body parts; the sky above seemed to be crying blood even as more men fell and Kuroudo took more wounds.

Although he seemed unaffected by them Momoko knew that in all truth Kuroudo felt those wounds, but his conscious mind just didn’t register them as existing while he was transformed like that. And she also knew he couldn’t stay in that form much longer, his chakra was too low and what little reserves he had were being used to try and abate the bleeding. He had maybe ten seconds left before he’d revert to a very exhausted and injured Kuroudo, a mere mortal. Kuroudo broke away from his fight by slicing his way towards his lover and he leapt in front of Momoko, as soon as he landed he fell to one knee and reverted, just as Momoko predicted back to his human form.

“Shit…” Kuroudo drew his Luger and tried to sight but when he pulled the trigger the two rounds he fired simply went wild. Kuroudo strained trying to steady his violently shaking hand; he howled his frustration as bloody spittle launched from his mouth, “STOP SHAKING DAMN YOU!!”

The LOM troops began to charge at Kuroudo who squeezed off another two rounds but only managed to blast out one man’s knee cap. Then Anasake landed in front of the LOM troops, jamming his Zanbatto into the ground and staring down the advancing soldiers with a cold look in his eyes.

“I have a special gift;” Anasake said as he began to sign rapidly, “my gift is to turn those who offend me and everything before my eyes; to ash.”

Anasake became engulfed in blue flames and he slowly reached down and grabbed the hilt of his Zanbatto. “Phoenix Feathers jutsu.”

Anasake ripped the Zanbatto from the ground and swung it at the LOM troops, who were then engulfed in flame themselves, only their skin and organs began to roast as the hungry flames devoured them. Anasake rushed forward, his flames turning the sand beneath his feet to slick glass and the field itself became an inferno. Anasake slammed his Zanbatto down onto any straggling LOM soldiers. But soon he rushed back to where Kuroudo and Momoko were, and collapsed just beyond the reach of his flames and the feathers that surrounded him went out. Anasake had expended his last reserves to try and buy some more time, Kuroudo studied Anasake’s body as best he could from where he was he could tell that Anasake had gotten pretty banged up in the battle and since his feathers, the blue ones especially ate up chakra at dizzying rates he was down for the count. Kuroudo still held his Luger at the ready, slowly scanning the flames with his tired eyes.

And then they came, rushing out of the burning field, the LOM soldiers came running towards their objectives, even though they were set ablaze. Kuroudo fired a round into the face of the only one who made it more than three feet from the inferno.

“Will that stop them?” Kazuko strained as she spoke, “Will the flames finally stop their advance?”

“Not for long,” Momoko panted out as she checked the .357’s cylinder; two rounds left, “They’ll dawn flame retardant suits and charge through those flames towards us in less than a few minutes.”

“I’m on my last bullet and I can’t get my left arm to move.” Kuroudo said flatly, “I’m done; I can’t even force myself to stand up.”

Kazuko scanned the area, all the Regulars were on the ground; either dead or dying. Kuroudo, sadly enough was the one in the best condition to fight. Yeah, we’re pretty fucked aren’t we?

“We’re going to die here aren’t we?” Kazuko said with tears in her eyes, “We aren’t going home are we Kuroudo?”

“No,” Kuroudo said as a smile spread across his lips; he saw Anasake’s pocket watch lying open in front of him, “We’re going home.”

As Kuroudo spoke thirty LOM soldiers came bursting from the wall of fire like a platoon of demons. Kazuko saw Momoko fire off both rounds from her .357 and throw the revolver at the advancing foes. Then she saw Kuroudo’s head jerk back and a spurt of blood come from a hole in his right forehead, a hole about the size of a dime; Kuroudo had taken a bullet to the brain. But the injured boy jerked his head forward again and amazingly forced himself to stand up and press the muzzle of his Luger against the face of the man who shot him, and he pulled the trigger, dropping the soldier in a gruesome spray of blood and bone. Kuroudo stood panting and bleeding, loosely holding the empty Luger in his right hand, then Kuroudo screamed to the remaining soldiers.

“COME ON!” Kuroudo howled in rage as he dropped the Luger and held up his right hand and curled it into a fist, “COME KILL ME! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!? CAN YOU NOT KILL THIS MERE MORTAL!?”

Momoko watched in horror as one of the LOM troops aimed a Henry rifle at Kuroudo’s chest and fired. Momoko watched in horror as the soldier worked the lever, ejecting a spent shell and she screamed as she saw a red flower open up on Kuroudo’s chest. Momoko leapt up and grabbed onto Kuroudo’s shoulders.

“Don’t go!” Momoko cried out as she squeezed Kuroudo tightly with tears in her eyes, “don’t die on me! I, I need you please!”

Momoko heard another gunshot and felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder, she slowly looked at the wound; she’d been shot and her shoulder was blasted into bloody pieces. Then she heard something else as she watched the LOM Pike-men lining up their final shots; a tapping sound and footsteps coming from behind them inside the Pass, it sounded like one man walking with a cane.

“You young pups are pointing your toys in the wrong direction.” A strong but aged voice said from behind Momoko.

“It can’t be…” Momoko said in pure shock as she turned her head to see the speaker. Her mind raced with panicked thoughts; he shouldn’t be here… Oh my Goddess; if it’s him though… this battle is over!

And she was stunned to see that it was him; the oldest and most feared soldier in Paradiseo and maybe even the world. Many long years had given him many wrinkles on his aged body but he was a tall man and his posture was still very strong but time had taken many of the strong muscles he’d had in his youth. His hair was long and tied into a loose ponytail and he’d grown a long goat beard over the years that had trued his hair from black to white. He was once among the most handsome young men in Paradiseo but time had taken his youthful beauty and left his skin wrinkly and surely with many liver spots but this served to not disfigure but give a look wisdom in place of the look of youthful arrogance that once graced his face. But this man was the former eighth Inukage; the living legend himself, Kamekami Okamimaru, the Snapping Turtle. Kamekami walked with a cane and he wore a light green hakama and kimono, in all he didn’t look very threatening but he had an air of power around him, a type of demeanor that demanded respect from everyone around him. Kamekami had seen the rise and fall of empires in his many years in world and he’d been trained by the founder of Paradiseo; those who underestimated him paid a heavy price.

“For one hundred and seventy three years I have walked this Earth, and for one hundred and sixty one years I have battled to defend that which I hold dear,” Kamekami said with a voice that sent shivers down the spine as he looked at the LOM troops. He his arms and slammed his cane against the hard stone ground as his facial expression became one of insatiable rage; the ground itself sundered, cracking and splitting like a cannon round had hit it. “And that young lady whose shoulder you just blasted apart is a very important person to me, she’s like the granddaughter I never had.”

“You’re five minutes late, old man,” Kuroudo said weakly as he slumped to the ground, setting Momoko down and pressed his hand against her shoulder. “I had to improvise to hold them back, you owe me big time.”

“Sorry about that,” Kamekami said flatly as he stalked forward, “seems you got a bullet in your brain for your troubles.”

“Nah,” Kuroudo chuckled as he pressed his hand against the wound, “the slug didn’t go in; it ricocheted off my skull after fracturing it.”

“Boy, sometimes I really wonder if you’re immortal or not.” Kamekami said with as scoff as he turned to his foes, “I’ll handle these fools; the rest of the reinforcements should be here soon.”

That’s how our battle ended that day, the battle of Oh-Ka Pass. We all bear those scars, reminders of the pain we endured for our homeland, memories of bloodshed with comrades who didn’t came back home. My scars on my legs are the reminders I bear, like my ears and tail of the fact that you never gave up, on me or on anything. Now you’re fighting the beast of beasts, Juubei himself and you’re giving your all to try and kill the un-killable. No, Kuroudo you’re the beast of beasts, Juubei is merely chasing your shadow. Crush him and I’ll be there… I’ll be there to bear witness to your kills; I’ll always be there… I can’t die here, no not now… I still have fucking work to do!

“I don’t have time to die!” Kazuko screamed as she opened her eyes to the present; her gaze finally directed away from the past and now she looked into the uncertain future.

To be continued…

-Kazuki Ferret

Next time; Back to the present, Phoenix Rising