So this was it. Nagare stood at the main gate of Konoha, fully prepared for whatever was to come in the next few hours. Missing-ninja were a growing problem in the five nations those days, and here he was, putting himself on the line to save another village from their imminent threat. Was this natural to him? No. But since becoming Sannin, Nagare had gained an innate sense of justice, and he knew that he needed to come to Konoha to help, to at least do something. He was powerful enough to fight back, and that made him the perfect candidate for the mission. He'd seen the destruction that one rogue could do, but a band of them plotting against Konoha...the village had little to no chance of surviving, if their goal was a success.

Nagare looked to his right to find two people, both wearing Konohagakure flak jackets around their torsos and bearing solemn expressions. The bite of anxiety and fear gripped Nagare in a chokehold, but he released himself and said a word to greet his temporary squad. "Hello." They merely gave him smiles that lacked luster, acknowledging he was there but showing that their minds were somewhere else. He cleared his throat and faced the forest behind them. "Ok. Let's go, no time to waste." The two Jounin nodded, and they all took off sprinting into the brush.

Based on the map that was given to Nagare, they were nearing the headquarters at a fast rate. "We should split up and attack from different angles...that way, we can get them surroun--" a loud crash echoed from behind, and the sound of leaves rustling alerted the three. The rustling grew more intense, and cracking noises were trailing behind it. They stopped, landing at different points in a large tree nearby when they saw it. It was a man, a tall one wearing some sort of armor. That wasn't what surprised them about him, though...it was rather the fact that he was toppling trees with his punches as he was sprinting right towards them. Nagare smirked. "I should've figured that they would be expecting us."

The assailant reached the tree that they stood in and smashed right through its base, making it fall over immediately. They scattered, and Nagare landed directly in front of the missing-ninja. "You must be Iro, infamous beast of Taijutsu." Iro made no response, instead stepping forward with a clenched fist. He moved fast, but Nagare was faster still, and he dodged the punch by a fraction of an inch. He followed up with an elbow hit, that was dodged again, but he caught Nagare by surprise with a foot sweep and grounded him. Struggling back to his feet, the Kumo-nin worked quickly, but Iro grabbed his arm and threw him. He smashed into a tree that was at least 30 meters away, with a loud crash. The tree toppled over, and he stood back up.

"Traps, set!" called out one of Nagare's squad members from the trees. The other one came into view, and pulled a wire from the ground. A series of subsequent wires came from all directions, wrapping around Iro and keeping him tied there. Nagare looked from left to right and noticed that each tree in the direct vicinity had a large paper bomb attached to it. This would be good...he jumped into another treetop, facing the headquarters. "C'mon, we're done here." he said, before he took off running. His squadmates followed, and the sound of the paper bombs detonating all at once resonated through the woods. Iro was gone, which meant two missing-ninja were remaining.

The squad arrived at the clearing, and a large fuuinjutsu seal was inscribed into the ground. This must've been the entrance. Nagare's squadmates approached him. "Nagare, how are we going to get inside. Neither I nor Mako here know any sort of sealing jutsu." Mako spoke up afterwards, stating, "Yeah, me and Tsuha only know Ninjutsu." Nagare turned to face both Mako and Tsuha, and raised a hand.

"Don't worry, I learned Fuuinjutsu not too long ago. I can handle this." he said as he pressed the hand onto the seal. It glowed for a moment, and began to fade away, revealing a trapdoor. The trapdoor swung open and led down to a staircase. Nagare gestured for Mako and Tsuha to follow as he descended...The main corridor was empty, with no signs of life aside from the torches the lined the walls. The air was humid here, and it smelled heavily of rotting flesh. There were corpses here, Nagare was sure of it. They finally reached a large rotunda, with a high ceiling. Fuuinjutsu seals were scattered all over, most likely traps...a woman came into view , with long blonde hair and purple eyes. "Is this where the carnage begins?" she asked, ever so quietly. The ground began to shake violently, and giant pillars of rock began to rise in front of her, one by one, headed straight for Nagare, Tsuha, and Mako.

Nagare efficiently dodged the pillars, but Mako got hit, and thrown back rather far. Tsuha used a paper bomb to destroy the pillars in his way before dashing around to the woman's side. He made a long string of hand seals, finishing the combination right as he neared her figure. "Water Dragon Bullet!" he called out; the Water Dragon rose up and grew close to her, but she was fast in reacting. A wall of earth blocked it as it appeared, and both jutsu dissipated. She created a large spear of rock and threw it directly at the vulnerable Tsuha, who was stabbed directly through the torso. He fell back to the ground, and now only Nagare and the woman stood, facing each other from a distance. "Hisaka Sarutobi, Doton extraordinaire." The woman smiled and pushed back her hair.

The ground began to quake again, this time turning and crunching beneath Nagare's feet as he began to sink. No time to play around, he needed to get serious. He made a hand seal, and Horui appeared. Horui charged forward with his fist and gave Hisaka a weak punch followed by a use of Raiton: Ascending Charge. She fell back, obviously hurt by the blast, but rolled to her feel and made another smirk. Horui began to sink as well....Nagare summoned Takeshi, who used Wind Release: Vacuum Wave. The wave fast approaching her, and she didn't have time to react, when something intercepted. The wind dissipated upon contact with a man, who jumped in front of Hisaka at the last second. He looked up to face Nagare.

Both Nagare and Horui stopped sinking, and he quietly said, "You're the last of my targets, and the leader of this group...you're known as Shadow, and nothing more. A Nara Clansmen." Shadow didn't change his expression, his dark hair covered both of his pitch-black eyes, but his mouth was held in a frown. "You'll be one with the darkness of death, soon." His shadow exploded into an array of giant tentacle-like tendrils, all moving towards Nagare and ready to pierce through him. He struggled his way out of the ground, and managed to dodge the brunt of the attack, although he still sustained some minor cuts across his arms and torso. The sound of a crash from behind made the three turn. Iro stood at the entrance, with an angry look. This wasn't going to be easy: 2 against 3.

Horui got back to his feet and took a battle stance. At this point, Tsuha was unconscious in the corner, but Mako re-entered the fight with a bruise on his face. Down, but not out, they say. The fight was more even than before, at least, a 3 on 3. Iro made the first move, dashing to Nagare at full speed and grunting like a bull. Hisaka appeared behind him (she had used Double Suicide Decapitation to travel beneath the ground) and tried to encase him with earth so that he could not dodge. His left foot was caught by the earth, but he still managed to break free, though he fell to the ground after dodging. Looking up from the painful thud, he watched as Iro collided with Hisaka and the rolled away in a heap.

Horui and Mako charged at Shadow from different angles, both ready to attack. They nodded in unison. Horui spat a large fireball, while Mako used Water Release: Gunshot to blast a ball of water. They slammed into Shadow full-force, but he wasn't phased in the least. Though now burnt and also wet, he made a Rat hand seal, and shadows came from all sides, stabbing at both attackers. Nagare looked over and noticed Mako being consumed by the wave of shadows. He couldn't hold back any more, else someone would be killed. Dark flames enveloped him, as they had when the missing-ninja invaded Konoha, and he entered Hell Form.

With a twist of Nagare's wrist, Takeshi was desummoned. Horui looked over and noticed him suspended in the air by his burning wings. He hesitated, just in case Dark Nagare had already taken over...he hesitation was just. Nagare looked over, with deep maroon eyes, darker than their usual shade. "This is my revenge for stopping me back at the hospital in Kumogakure." Before Horui could escape, Dark Nagare pointed a finger at him, and used the Great Fireball technique from his fingertip. It burned through the air of the rotunda before engulfing Horui and killing him. He faded away in a red light. Of course, killing him meant that Nagare's chakra supply wouldn't revert to what it usually was for a long while, but Dark Nagare didn't care.

The Demon's dark eyes set their sights on the three below him. Iro, Hisaka, and "Shadow". Nagare was the only true shadow here, a being made of darkness and maligned to the light...he denied it at every turn, but it was in his essence. Darkness and despair was a part of him, and in this form, he could use it to kill. He made a Dragon hand seal as he looked at them with hatred. They made a battle formation and started weaving hand seals of their own. Iro slammed the ground, shaking the entire foundation of the rotunda, and soon it began to cave in on itself. Nagare found no qualms with this, he would be able to kill them all and leave in time before they could escape. Hisaka used her Ninjutsu to remove the Doton from the entrance, freeing a path for them to leave, but Nagare launched another fireball there, and left it in flames. The entrance was long gone, and they would need to suffer here. Shadow made an effort to fight back, releasing a Shadow technique that created giant arms to try and pull Nagare to the ground, but Nagare simply burned through the shadows with his intense flames. "You'll soon be nothing more than ashes..." Nagare said as his hand seal sequence reached completion. He spat three meteor-sized fireballs, his Hunter Cerberus Bombs jutsu, and they each went to one of the rogues. Iro was engulfed, and once the smoke cleared, he was a small pile of ash. Hisaka attempted to dodge it, but was singed as she jumped, and the pain in her leg made her trip, leaving her to be burned beyond recognition anyways. Her cries of terror eventually stopped, signalling her death. Shadow used a defensive jutsu, putting up a dome of shadows, but it stood no chance, and he was inevitably consumed by the fire as well, becoming ash within seconds. The three were obliterated, their headquarters crashing down around them, and the mission was complete. There was still Tsuha and Mako to worry about...

Nagare flew to the ground and picked them up, burning their flak jackets with his touch, and he flew them out of the rotunda that was falling down. The now-faraway destruction stopped, over time, and all that was left was ruins. Nagare turned once or twice to see what was left of the headquarters, but focused his attention on how he was holding the two ninja, to avoid burning them. He suddenly realized that the Demon was gone, at least for now...that was a good sign, but the bad thing was that he could feel himself running out of chakra. He soon crash-landed outside the village and reverted to his normal state, unable to move independently. The pain shook him violently, and he had landed quite hard...and the Chakra exhaustion...he was sore all over, and his wounds were still actively bleeding. Mako and Tsuha were okay, though, as he had taken the brunt of the fall. A few other ninja found them at the gate, and began calling for medical ninja. Apparently, when you fall from the sky with two unconscious Special Jounin, people notice...when the medics showed up, they moved the three ninja to the hospital to treat their wounds, and Nagare blacked out.

When the Kumo-ninja awoke again, he was in the hospital bed, near a window. This scene was all too familiar, yet so different. He missed Jishin, and how she had kissed him when he had broken his arm...so alone now, so dark, so beyond help. He wasn't the same man he was before. He was deteriorating, both mentally and emotionally, as he morally spiraled into darkness. 5 years would've usually meant improvement, no? Yes, Nagare was stronger, and yes, he held a position of great respect, but it was time for a change. He had the power, for once, to meld his own destiny, to change the path he was on. He wanted to be a good man, both for his village and its people, but for himself. It would be a long process, but he would start at the beginning; throw away the past. Maybe it wasn't as important as the next few steps, but it was required if he was going to be a new man. He had always dwelt on the past, worrying about Gakuto, Jishin, his parents...whatever emotion it was, he couldn't let it go. But now, he would finally be set free from his own experience. He had brought Shōgeki, Gakuto's sword, with him. He would have it reforged in the morning. He would throw away the mementos of his relationship with Jishin. He would cut off all ties with his parents. And next...he would deal with the demon inside, and use Fuuinjutsu to stop himself from destroying everything he loved. Nagare looked out of the window, at the sun shining above, at the village thriving below. His mission was finished, but his real journey had only begun.

This was it.

---

Mission Word Count:
2,516/2,500

Mission Complete