Naruto: Chronicles of A Fire Ninja

Kaida was standing in water with a white flag in his hand. In front of him was a ship big enough to house tens of people. Since it was made of wood, both the smell of wet wood and salty sea kept invading his nose. The mildly cold air was really refreshing to breathe. If not for the stares he was getting, this really would have been a peaceful moment.

From the deck of the ship, many people—some ninja, some normal pirates—were peeking below. The ninjas had their kunai and explosion tags in hand, with some ready to form hand seals at a moment's notice.

While on the other side, Kaida just kept standing there, waiting for the leader of the ship to come for a talk. After waiting for a few minutes, a ninja came to the front of the deck, standing with confidence.

"I was informed that you have something you want to discuss with me?" the ninja said.

Kaida looked up toward him, then at the ninja standing behind him. "I wanted to speak with the leader, not a proxy. Can we have a direct conversation rather than this façade?"

"Hahaha, so young and this intimidating. Good, very good. As you wish, boy, let's have the conversation you wanted, though I will not be able to invite you to the ship," Ryuga said. Even though his acting as a free-spirited pirate was impressive, Kaida already had doubts about his identity, so that acting was easy to see through.

The leader was watching all of his moves like a hawk, waiting for any wrong move to give orders for an attack.

"I don't want to be on your ship either. I am just here to negotiate a deal. We know you guys are not normal pirates," Kaida said, looking straight into Ryuga's eyes, "but even if you think you are powerful, that other ship had four jonins from Konoha. The difference is too much for you guys to overcome. The only reason I am here is because we know if the fight happens, we will also not come out unscathed. So let's do the reasonable thing and take care of this peacefully. We are ready to provide 1 million Ryo as a fee to evade this fight."

The moment Kaida finished his words, murmurs started happening all around the ship. The pirates on the ship were more than happy with the deal, as they wouldn't even make this much even after tens of raids.

But the ninja were different. Their village had already taken charges for this mission, which was many times the amount the boy was offering. Also, even though they knew that the other ship had four Jonin, they were not overly worried. They had way more ninja and terrain advantage, so this gap was not so big for them. They had no plan of giving up on the mission at all.

Kaida could see this easily. This was the reason he gave the wrong information to the pirates.

"Sorry boy, we don't have any interest in puny change. I want all of the wealth of that ship," Ryuga said with a menacing grin on his face.

"Well, I would have been highly disappointed if you had taken my offer," Kaida said, and his eyes suddenly turned red. Ryuga quickly turned his head away from the boy as soon as he saw the red glow in his eyes.

'Shit, an Uchiha,' was all he could think before a kunai flew past his head. If he had not moved his head at the right time, it would have been impaled by cold iron.

Aahh, grrrl, pssh were the various sounds of weapons impaling flesh, necks being sliced, or fights happening that started coming from behind him.

Ryuga didn't even think about turning, as there was an enemy in front of him—the reason for all this. He knew his second in command would at least have the instinct to not fall for this genjutsu, meaning there was still a chance of 2 vs 1.

'I just need to make sure these fuckers don't disturb us,' he thought before turning and firing a water bullet toward the Chunin who had thrown a kunai toward him.

The water bullet just grazed the leg of the ninja, not actually giving any actual injury but enough pain to make him come out of the genjutsu.

"Boss, there were those Konoha ninja—"

"Not the time! Everyone is in genjutsu. Handle—"

Swoosh

"I don't like when people ignore me, you know," Kaida said, standing at the deck of the ship now. Once again, Ryuga was able to evade the lethal strike, but not completely.

There was a deep wound on his back now. He could also see the same person in various other positions as well.

'Clones? Or am I under genjutsu?' Just to be on the safe side, he dispersed his chakra, only to confirm that the others were clones of the boy who were completely decimating his allies.

"Don't underestimate us!" Ryuga shouted and took out his blade.

Tang

"Nice blade," Kaida said.

"Liked it? I will let this be the blade which will take your life," Ryuga said and coated the blade with earth chakra.

Unlike other chakra which enhanced one aspect of the blade—like wind increasing the sharpness, fire increasing the temperature to give nasty burns, or earth increasing the weight and durability of the sword—water was different. In a sense, one could say it was perfect for swords, as it increased the fluidity of the movement, increased the sharpness (though not at the same level as wind, but still more than a normal sword), and could be used to increase the reach of the sword at a moment's notice.

Due to these features, Kirigakure, the village where every ninja specialized in water Jutsu, focused on kenjutsu. The water chakra simply provided too many advantages to ignore.

So when Ryuga took out the blade, Kaida was not ready for what was about to come. The sword followed a weird snake-like path, which should have been impossible with all of the air drag and wind pressure, but like evading all of the physics rules, the sword reached Kaida's face in a moment's notice.

He quickly brought his own sword to intercept the sword, but once again it did something completely absurd. Without losing any momentum, Ryuga diverted the sword and slashed the hand Kaida was using to hold the sword.

But unlike his expectation to see blood, the boy in front of him vanished with a poof.

"Woah, I didn't expect you would be this good with the sword."

When Ryuga turned to see where this voice was coming from, his heart nearly escaped from his mouth. The fucker was standing next to his second in command, the only other Jonin on the ship, with his blade straight through his friend's heart.