Naruto: The White Spider of the Leaf

The snapping of twigs and the sound of labored breathing grew louder behind me. I could feel them closing the distance, relentless and disciplined. Escape wouldn't be an option like this, and honestly I didn't want to rely on that either. I couldn't just leave Minato back there.

But, now it should be a way more even battle. Minato can deal with one Jonin, I trust him. I'll deal with these three idiots here in the woods and then go back him up.

My body moved on instinct as I set up and stood in the dense foliage, waiting for the Genin to arrive. I could hear one of them catching up.

The wiry genin came at me fast, his short sword slicing through the air with deadly precision. I held my ground, heart steady, hands loose at my sides. As he closed the gap, the glint of his blade caught what little light filtered through the canopy. I waited for the perfect moment—timing was everything.

"Gotcha! You Leaf kids are all the same," he sneered, his voice dripping with disdain before... "Brash, arrogant, and too easy to—" 

The tip of his sword slashed downward in a vicious arc, but instead of cutting through me, it struck the steel wire I'd strung between the trees just moments earlier. Sparks erupted as the blade scraped against the taut wire, the metallic twang echoing sharply through the woods. The force of his swing caused the wire to bend slightly, but it held strong, bracing against the attack like a coiled spring.

The genin's eyes widened in shock as his momentum faltered, his footing thrown off by the unexpected resistance. That hesitation—half a second, maybe less—was all I needed.

I surged forward, pivoting on my back foot and twisting my hips to build up power. My leg came around in a perfect arc, the momentum driving my heel into his chest with a resounding thud as I felt the satisfying crack of bone beneath my foot.

"Leaf Hurricane!" I growled as the impact sent him hurtling backward, his sword clattering to the ground as he crashed into a tree trunk with a gasp. He slumped to the ground, wheezing and clutching his side.

No time to gloat, so I didn't stick around to admire my handiwork. The other two were close—I could hear the fan-wielding girl shouting orders to the stocky genin somewhere off to my left.

"Regroup! He's setting traps—watch your step!"

"NAH! I'm going to cave his forehead in!" The stocky boy shouted as he rushed after me with his chain and sickle.

"Idiot!" 

I darted deeper into the foliage, my hands already moving to set the next trap. Steel wire coiled in my palm as I worked quickly. My mind raced, plotting the angles and pathways they might take. I didn't need to beat them in raw strength—I just needed to out-think them, to make them dance to my tune.

"Shirokumo of the Leaf," the stocky boy called out mockingly, his voice cold and sharp. "Do you honestly think I'll let you just set that trap in front of me?!"

His chain spun menacingly as his grin grew wide and cruel. "Give up and die!"

The stocky genin charged, chain spinning in a deadly arc, his grin wide and cruel. He thought he had me cornered, caught off guard, vulnerable. Perfect.

I didn't flinch, didn't falter. I let my hands move slower, deliberately clumsier, as though I were scrambling to finish setting up the wire. He bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.

"Give up?" I murmured, my voice just loud enough for him to catch as he closed in. I tilted my head up, meeting his gaze with a calm that seemed to unsettle him for a fraction of a second. "When you're already in my web?"

His eyes flicked to the wire in my hands, then darted back to me, suspicion flickering across his face. Too late.

The air snapped. A taut twang rang out as the Shadow Clone I'd stationed earlier yanked on the pre-strung wire hidden in the underbrush. Steel cords shot up around the stocky genin with mechanical precision, coiling around his torso and limbs like the grasp of an iron serpent.

"What the—?!" he bellowed, thrashing against the wires. His chain and sickle clattered uselessly to the ground as his arms were pinned to his sides. He strained against the bindings, his muscles bulging with effort, but the wires only tightened with every move, cutting into his flesh.

I stepped forward, dropping the feigned panic. The stocky genin's eyes widened as realization dawned on him.

"You... You set this up beforehand!" he snarled, spitting his words like venom.

"Of course I did," I replied coolly, my hands already forming a series of seals. "What kind of shinobi would I be if I let you walk all over me without thinking ten steps ahead?"

Lightning chakra crackled to life around me as I completed the seals. The static buzz filled the air, raising the hairs on my arms as the energy surged through my body. I reached out, touching the nearest wire with a single finger. The chakra leaped from me to the steel, coursing along the lines with a fierce, crackling hiss.

The genin screamed as the electricity surged through the wires and into his body. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably, his movements jerking like a puppet on strings. The scent of singed fabric and skin hit my nose, sharp and acrid, but I didn't let up. Not yet.

"Here's a tip for the future," I said, my voice steady as I watched him struggle. "When someone's too obvious about setting up a trap, it's probably not the one you should be worrying about."

His screams turned to groans as the lightning sapped his strength. I held it just long enough to incapacitate him—no more, no less. This wasn't personal, after all. When his head slumped forward and his body went limp, I released the jutsu, the crackling energy dissipating into the air.

I crouched down next to him, checking his pulse. Alive, but out cold. Perfect. One less opponent to deal with.

The fan-wielding girl's voice echoed through the trees, distant but drawing closer.

"Akio?! Answer me! What's going on?!"

I straightened, letting a small smile tug at the corner of my lips.

"Come on then," I murmured to myself, glancing at the unconscious genin tangled in the wires. "It's time to do a team wipe."

The girl with the fan on her back burst through the underbrush, her sharp eyes scanning the clearing. Her expression darkened when she spotted her unconscious teammate bound in the steel wires, his large frame slumped over like a marionette with its strings cut. She turned her gaze to me, her grip tightening on her war fan, and the deadly calm in her stance told me she wasn't going to waste time with taunts. 

Behind her, the boy with the sword limped into view, clutching his side where I'd struck him earlier. His breathing was labored, and blood stained the corner of his lips, but his eyes burned with a fierce determination that made it clear he wasn't ready to give up. He drew his sword again, the tip trembling slightly but still gleaming with lethal intent. Together, they moved in unison, fanning out to flank me on either side, their disciplined teamwork a sharp contrast to the chaos they'd been in so far. I could feel the shift in the air—this wasn't going to be as simple as the first round.

Or was it?

As they charged at me from two sides, I flicked my wrist and hurled a smoke bomb at my feet. The small orb shattered on impact, and a thick plume of dark smoke erupted, swallowing us all in an instant.

"Damn it!" the girl hissed. "I can't risk hitting you with a wind technique! Be careful, Ameno! Let's retreat!"

Their footsteps faltered as they moved cautiously through the smoke, their silhouettes faint against the swirling darkness as they got out. I crouched low, controlling my breathing, and formed the seal for my Shadow Clone Jutsu again. The smoke hid the faint poof of chakra, and within moments, a second me stood ready.

The clone darted out of the smoke after them, kunai in hand, lunging toward the weakened sword user. 

"There you are!" he snarled, swinging his blade. The kunai deflected off the blade, and the boy lashed out with a follow-up strike, his grin widening as his weapon sank into my clone's chest. But as it dissolved into a puff of smoke, the realization dawned too late on him.

The real me stepped out of the smoke and rushed in from behind him, silent and precise. Before he could turn, I plunged my kunai into his back, piercing his heart in a single motion. His body stiffened, a strangled gasp escaping his lips before he crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

The girl's sharp cry of rage pierced the air. "You bastard!"

I turned to face her, my kunai dripping with blood, and felt the tension between us crackle like lightning. Two down, one to go. But the fight wasn't over yet.

The girl's cry of rage turned into a snarl as she reached behind her back and unsheathed her large, elegant war fan. Its surface was decorated with intricate swirling patterns, likely to channel chakra. She flicked it open with a snap, and the air around us seemed to shift, the reeds bending unnaturally toward her. The air around her shimmered faintly as she channeled chakra into the fan, the wind picking up and rustling the leaves around us. Her teammates wouldn't be in her way anymore, so I guessed she'd be using some wide area attacks.

"You'll pay for that," the girl spat, her voice cold with fury. "I'll show you why they call us Sand shinobi masters of the wind!"

She swung the fan with a wide arc, and a powerful gust of wind shot toward me, tearing through the smoke and flattening the grass in its path. I weaved several hand seals in an instant and zapped lightning chakra to my feet to leap away faster, barely evading the razor-sharp currents that sliced into the trees behind me, leaving deep gouges in their bark.

Another swing, and this time the gust caught me mid-dodge. I blocked the cut with a kunai, but the force still hurled me backward. I landed hard on the damp ground, skidding several feet before regaining my footing.

"Not so cocky now, are you?" she taunted, stepping forward with a flourish of her fan. The wind around her seemed to dance at her command, swirling and howling as she prepared another attack.

I gritted my teeth, gripping my kunai tightly. I couldn't let her control the pace of the fight any longer. Channeling lightning chakra into my feet again, I dashed toward her, zigzagging to make myself a harder target.

She swung the fan again, unleashing another gust, but I ducked low, the wind roaring over my head. Closing the distance, I threw a different kunai wrapped in explosive paper aimed at her chest. But she deflected it effortlessly with the edge of her fan, her smirk widening as the explosion sounded high in the air.

"Childish tricks," she sneered.

But I wasn't aiming to hit her. The kunai had been a distraction. With a burst of chakra, I formed the seals for a lightning jutsu I had been perfecting for weeks.

"Lightning Style: Shuriken Bolts!"

Sparks crackled around my hands as I channeled my chakra into a set of a dozen shuriken super charged with electricity. The air hummed with energy, and the girl's smirk faltered as she realized too late what was happening.

I threw the shuriken at her and a series of sharp, jagged bolts of lightning shot toward her. She swung her fan up in a desperate attempt to block it with more wind chakra, but the shadow clone I'd used earlier to spring the trap on the chain user grabbed her arms from behind, unleashing its own wave of lightning ninjutsu straight through its arms into hers. 

She screamed as the electricity and the lightning shuriken struck her, the force of the lightning style jutsu sending her sprawling to the ground. Her body convulsed for a moment, smoke rising from her singed clothes before she went still.

I stood there, panting, as the last remnants of electricity crackled around my fingertips. The smell of burnt fabric and ozone filled the air, mixing with the damp scent of the reeds. My clone also popped in a cloud of smoke.

I glanced down at her motionless form, my chest heaving. One-on-one, these Sand shinobi were tough, but they hadn't been prepared for me—or my desperation to survive. Dai-san had drilled me for months on how to deal with multiple enemies like this, and I'm damn glad he did otherwise these guys would've forced me to open a bunch of the gates again. Which, if I had a repeat of that one situation but against genin this time, would've been rather embarrassing.

Anyway, that's all three down and I only needed the second gate. I'm still fine to go for another few rounds with that Jonin!

But as I stood amidst the carnage, I felt that the world felt eerily quiet. The distant chirping of crickets and the rustling of reeds in the wind felt out of place, almost mocking the brutality that had just unfolded. My chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, and my kunai trembled in my hand, slick with blood that wasn't mine.

"What's going on?" I mumbled under my heavy breathing.

Two bodies lay motionless on the damp ground. The girl's lifeless eyes stared up at the sky, her expression frozen in a mixture of rage and fear. Her whole body lay riddled in Shuriken that still cackled with electricity. The boy with the sword slumped awkwardly against the reeds, his blood seeping into the earth. I could still hear the faint, wheezing breaths of the stocky chain and sickle user genin I'd left wrapped in wire behind me, but he was no threat now.

So then why wouldn't my hands stop shaking? 

I clenched them into fists, trying to steady myself, but the trembling wouldn't go away. 

Ah, I get it now. 

For all my training, for all the drills, nothing had prepared me for this—the moment when I'd have to take a life.

Two lives.

I couldn't help myself. I puked, hurling out the contents of my stomach just a meter away from the dead girl who died staring at me, or maybe at the sky. Whatever it was, it didn't matter anymore. 

She was dead. I killed her.

I stared down at the kunai in my hand. The blood was already drying, its metallic scent clinging to me like a curse. These weren't faceless enemies in a sparring match. They were people. They had names, dreams, families waiting for them back home in the Sand Village. 

And I killed them.

I told myself it was necessary, that they would've killed me if I hadn't acted. That this was war, and shinobi don't have the luxury of hesitation. But no amount of logic could silence the sick feeling churning in my gut. 

I wasn't from this world, this wasn't easy to accept.

"But I didn't have a choice," I muttered under my breath again, trying to convince myself, yet my voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.

The girl's scream replayed in my mind, sharp and raw, followed by the look of terror when she realized she couldn't block my jutsu. When the boy with the sword drew his last breath, the way his body crumpled with my kunai striking his heart—those images burned themselves into my memory, refusing to leave.

My previous life was so peaceful. I can't believe how bleak this second one turned out.

I shook my head, forcing myself to move. If I stayed here any longer, I'd fall apart. I wiped my kunai on my sleeve, trying to ignore the way my fingers trembled. There was no time to dwell on this. Minato was still out there, fighting for his life.

But as I turned and ran, a thought wormed its way into my mind, one I couldn't shake: I'd crossed a line. And there was no going back now.

I was a killer.

A Shinobi.

…