Necessary Corruption 39 (Patreon)

Necessary Corruption
Chapter 39

-VB-

Hatemiho Kenji

Mother used to tell him that their family used to be nobles up in the Land of Lightning.

That changed when Konohagakure burned a swath of land during the First Ninja War. His family had just been caught as collateral and lost everything but the land they owned.

But then his family’s peers used the disaster as an excuse to strip them of their land. Great-grandfather died trying to protect the family’s land with only seven house guards against an army of three hundred.

Kenji didn’t know whether he should believe that or not, because he was born in Kusagakure, which was pretty fucking far from where the Land of Lightning was.

History liked to repeat itself, though, because when his father died during a mission, some of the ninjas wanted mom and decided to come to their house. At once. Independently.

When those ninjas, lusting after his mother, killed each other in their passion, mom and he were blamed for shit they didn’t even do. He managed to escape but he got separated from mother when … she pushed him out of the way and into a ditch hidden from the villagers and irate ninjas.

He still heard her screams sometimes.

If he was certain about one thing, then it was that he hated Kusagakure. He’s lived so far with the promise that once he was powerful enough, he would make Kusagakure suffer.

To become strong, he joined up with the newest of the hidden villages, the Sound.

They weren’t anything like Kusa.

They were worse.

It was like Orochimaru, one of the Sannin, didn’t care for his own creation…

As time went on, his observation only became more consistent. Sound was nothing but a patsy for Orochimaru’s own goals.

He could see it. It wasn’t hard to.

Orochimaru wanted some sort of revenge just as well as he did. Kenji could respect that, but he couldn’t tie himself down, even if he did get some training out of Sound. Once the invasion was over, he would leave and be on the road again. Sure, he was only as strong as the average chunin, but he had to make do with it. Sound had no future, after all, which was worse than an uncertain future.

“Go go go!” his supervisor - not superior - shouted and Kenji, along with seven others, broke their henge and began their assault. His squad’s goal was simple: cause as much arson damage as possible.

He split himself off from his squad, blitzing his way more towards the periphery of the road. With the only fire ninjutsu he knew, he threw small but sticky and long-lasting fireballs. Windows shattered as the solid fireball broke through them and littered the shop floors and ground outside with glass shards.

Honestly, it felt more like a job than it did an invasion.

Kenji almost let himself lower his guard.

Almost.

He whirled around and threw kunai at a spot in an alley.

And … hit nothing.

He frowned. ‘Am I too high-strung right now?’ he asked himself before he turned to throw more chakra-efficient fireballs.

But froze.

He didn’t freeze because he saw something terrifying or because he realized something.

No, he froze because he physically could not move.

‘What the hell?!’

“Look what we have here,” a voice drawled out from the alley Kenji had thrown his kunai at.

He grimaced as a black haired and tired looking Konoha-nin walked out, wearing a jounin vest.

Shit. Shit shit shit shi-!

He quickly flushed his system with his chakra, but it didn’t free him. This wasn’t -.

He felt his bones break as he pumped chakra into his muscles to dodge a kunai slice to his throat and retaliated by headbutting the surprised Konoha-nin.

The Konoha-nin gasped in pain but was quick to recover, but by then, his hold on Kenji had broken.

Instead of fighting the nin with a broken left tibia which was what allowed him to change his weight and fall minutely to avoid the attack, Kenji threw a smoke bomb on the ground and got out of there.

The Konoha-nin lost him in the smoke while he jumped away to a secluded rooftop and began to apply shosen jutsu, or as most ninjas from Sound called it, healing hands.

He winced as he felt the shattered bones realign themselves. Thankfully, part of healing hands’ capability was minor pain numbing. Otherwise, he would be screaming as his bone shards pulled themselves out of his flesh and molded together and nerves fixed themselves.

Kenji tsked as he felt his chakra reserves hit bottom quarter and stopped using healing hands. He wasn’t proficient at it and it cost him more chakra than it should for him but it was better than limping and vulnerable to both his “comrades” and enemies.

He stood back and looked around.

“Ho.”

Kenji wanted to scream. He let another person sneak up on him!

He whirled around and found himself…

“What the fuck?”

What else was he supposed to call a horned and beaked lizard the size of a chakra beast?

“You are one of the Sound.”

“... So?”

“And you can heal?”

“And?”

“I am not a Konoha ninja. I serve Lord Takanori of the Land of Rivers. I offer you asylum in the Land of Rivers if you surrender yourself to me right now. My lord has been on the lookout for ninjas capable of iryojutsu.”

Kenji stood there for a second while the rest of the village around him was consumed in the fight.

“And if I don’t?”

“Take a look behind me.”

Kenji did, and grimaced. This beast hadn’t just climbed up the side of the building and found him. It bad bulldozed through his old squad by itself, and from the lack of blood dripping down from kunais stuck on its scaly hide, it was naturally tough.

On top of whatever that let it take out his “comrades.”

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled as he pulled his Sound headband and dropped it along with all of the weapons on him.

Just his luck.