Crimson Water Incident

## The Crimson Water Incident

The Blue Dolphin Brotherhood was headquartered in a coastal town by the name of Kuromizu, named for the plunging depths right outside its bay that swallowed up all light that shone on it—giving the sea a perpetual look of foreboding darkness during daytime.

For the most part, however, their uniquely deep bay was a significant boon to trade and commerce. Many of the largest merchant vessels could only anchor in Kuromizu, and that made it an essential source of revenue for the Water Daimyo, the man that against whom the Brotherhood was rebelling. Fuyuki understood why the Feudal Lord was an incompetent buffoon who was more concerned with riches than his people. In any other world but theirs, their cause might even be considered just, but sentiment was not the way of shinobi.

It was the Daimyo who had personally requested this of Kirigakure, and the Mizukage had spotted an opportunity to rid himself of a potential rival.

Unfortunately for him, though, Fuyuki had every intention of succeeding. He supposed they expected that he would calmly assess the situation and waste valuable time gathering intelligence and infiltrate it, but that was not what their client wanted, and it would take too long.

He knew that the Brotherhood had stationed guards at every entrance questioning all new arrivals, as well as checking their wares and luggage. Precautions taken by men by who could not begin to realize the true nature of their hunter.

None of them ever thought to check the drinking water that the weary travellers brought with them, and that meant that as a member of the Hozuki Clan, he would have an easy time entering. Employing the Hydrification Technique, Fuyuki merged with the water supply of a family of nine refugees and was swiftly carried inside, indeed as irony would have it members of the Brotherhood themselves rushed to help the family and brought him through the gates.

He could have killed them then and there, but it was far crueller to send a message of a different sort.

As the men and women of the Brotherhood returned home to their families for the night several hours later, they weren't alone. Unbeknownst to them they all been followed and as the rebels stepped inside, what had at first looked like rainwater extricated itself from their clothing and pooled onto the floor before rising as Water Clones. Ordinarily, they possessed the features of Fuyuki himself, but through the Hydrification Technique, their bodies were infinitely malleable with some creativity.
He'd given each of them a different face. Still, their mission was the same as one by one they lunged forwards and murdered husbands, wives and children in equal measure before cruelly crippling the rebels themselves by slicing off their hands at the wrist and then crushing the wound shut to prevent them from bleeding to death.

He had not killed their entire families; however, he deliberately had the clones leave one member alive each to make the survivors fear losing them even more.

That each of them wore a different face made it look like there were several squads of Mist Shinobi active in Kuromizu at once, and over the next days they each played their part in reinforcing that. Soon barely even a single recruit could be found, as the torn limbs and grim faces of the rebels dissuaded further involvement.

The Dolphin found itself starved of new members and soon fell privy to the unwitting lies of their disabled members, they gathered their forces in one place and thus made it much easier for him to exterminate them all at once. Their headquarters was a large mansion with several wings that had once been a resort of the Water Daimyo; surrounded by thick and tall walls and with guards patrolling the battlements at all hours of the day.

Undoubtedly the leaders of the movement felt safe behind those walls, and to most threats they were, but in the end, those walls mattered nought to him. Water was life, and no human could exist without it, and that was what made the Hydrification Technique so fearsome, shinobi merely doing the necessary thing to survive were already at risk.

Because of the macabre theatre he'd performed the night prior, the Brotherhood was all caught up in trying to spot and shield themselves against a threat that didn't exist. Had they known who he was, they'd have taken precautions like purifying the drinking water with electricity or somesuch.

Once again, he penetrated their defences by infiltrating them through their waterlines and drinking waters. Once inside, he made his way to their barracks where many men lay sleeping soundly as a pool of water that travelled underneath the floor tile. Upon arrival, he unfurled himself into a myriad of thin tendrils of water and expertly invaded their bodies through mouths and nostrils, and drowned them quietly in their sleep.

There'd be no signs of struggle, and any other guard wouldn't notice anything off unless he were to attempt to wake them. Which gave him several hours by his calculations, and by that time barely any guards would be left alive, the puddle seeped back beneath the tiles through cracks in the floor and slowly made his way to the second barracks and calmly repeated the process. None of those warriors would ever live to see another sunrise, whatever happened to their families was of no concern to Fuyuki.

But unlike before there had been a witness to this endeavour, even he could be careless after all. He was a young man of barely eighteen winters. He had entered the barracks at precisely the wrong moment, his eyes welled with tears as he turned to attempt to dash away, but he was much too slow. Thick tendrils of water seized hold of him mid-motion and then gagged him by filling his mouth and nostrils with water, he could not scream or make even the slightest sound as his consciousness faded. He drowned soon afterwards, and as his body was in pristine condition, Fuyuki entered it fully by compressing himself and expanding through his muscles and extremities and thus wore the corpse as a second skin. As he rose from the ground clad in the boy's body, he took a moment to acclimate to it somewhat until his movements no longer came in jagged, uneven spasms. Then he exited the barracks and calmly made his way to the main building as he performed a jutsu now that he was alone, his hands moved at incredible speeds owing to more than three decades of practice as he wove the Hand Seals of his mightiest Jutsu and the lynchpin of his entire fighting style, unlike most Ninjutsu it had little in the way of overt visuals, aside from a rustle in the grass and pooling orbs emerging from the air and soil; this veneer of mediocrity was among its most significant benefits, one would expect an A-Rank Technique to be loud or overtly destructive in some fashion.

But that was merely in terms of how it looked; it still expended a considerable amount of chakra even with control as superb as his own, and the shinobi inside the building ahead quickly felt that discharge, many would call that idiocy. Still, it was all part of the theatre to come.

His shambling vessel jerked along and practically fell through the doorway into the entrance chamber of the mansion proper, his eye saw the symbol of the Uchiha Clan cleanly on one of the Ninja, and at once he summoned water from soil and sky. He formed a multi-layered screen of thin water vapours between him and his opponents that was thin enough to allow him to make out important details but simultaneously thick enough that establishing direct eye contact for Genjutsu would be impossible. From what he could make out none of them seemed to be from Kumogakure, mercenaries in all likelihood then, it was highly unusual for members of the Uchiha Clan to stoop to such endeavours, but it made no difference to Fuyuki.

There were six of them in total he noted, among them, only five wore the garbs of shinobi and the fifth wore the elegant clothes of a wealthy merchant lord. He supposed this was the founder and benefactor of the Blue Dolphin Brotherhood, a heavyset middle-aged man with too many ideas and too little wisdom.

"Yuga, what is the meaning of this? Have you gone mad?"

Yuga would not answer; however, a sickening sound broke the silence as the youth's body suddenly expanded in size and swelled like a balloon as Fuyuki's body rushed up towards his head and exited through the mouth in a gruesome display. His jaws could not take that exertion, and so they too were horrifically distended until they broke with a snap and blood flooded to merge with Fuyuki's waters turning the resulting waves that flooded the entrance a deep shade of crimson.

It was never about stealth; it was about psychological damage, he had inhabited the body of their comrade to unhinge them, and it had worked. The merchant screamed in terror and one of the shinobi, the least experienced one by his reckoning froze in place. Fuyuki never gave him the chance to correct his mistake.

Barely a moment afterwards, the Hozuki Heir had collected uncountable droplets from thin air and bent it to his will with a single hand seal. His jutsu was heralded by a loud cacophonous roar of raging currents as a dragon formed of torrential waters sprang from the empty air and launched itself at the shinobi, whom upon seeing it raised his hands in an attempt to shield himself.

The force of Fuyuki's Water Dragon was so over-excessive that it did not just kill the man; it obliterated him and ground his bones and flesh to nothing but fleshy jelly and marrow in an instant, and splattered his flattened remains across the estate walls. Death came too quickly to notice; it was about as merciful as Fuyuki cared to be.

One of the two shinobi in front, whom he presumed to be the strongest ones present shouted at the two in the back guarding the merchant "Kara and Kodai, Bring Master Ruoh to safety, we'll stop him here!"

The two shinobi nodded and took the horrified merchant and dashed towards the exit, undoubtedly believing that Fuyuki would try to stop them but they were mistaken, they still had a role in this play.

The Uchiha Mercenary and his companion immediately started forming a succession of hand seals, and Fuyuki mirrored them in speed; the thin veil of vapour and mist disguising his hands and shielding him from Genjutsu. His fingers acted on muscle memory as much as anything else, guided by some grander plot as he wove the seals of Snake, Bird, Yang Water, Rat, Dragon and Bird in seamless succession and held the last pose.

At once the water brought forth from the world by Water-Heavens Convergence coalesced into a coursing maelstrom that soon obscured his entire form before it with a shrill cacophonous roar roared out towards the two rival shinobi. Still, they had wisely foreseen the use of this particular jutsu; perhaps the mist was not quite as thick as he thought.

In unison they placed a pair of fingers before their lips and exhaled a vast blazing hot inferno to meet the massive onslaught of water head-on, fizzling sounds ensued as the elements battled for dominance. Yet to their credit, their combined prowess with the fire release seemingly won out in the end, and Fuyuki's wave fizzled away into wet steam. Momentarily encouraged by this, their false confidence made them defenceless when the steam abruptly reformed into two water dragons and did to them as had previously been done to their comrade, ending them both in an instant.

Fuyuki's pose remained unbroken as all water in the room receded violently and rushed towards him as the final part of his plan was issued into motion.

Outside Kara and Kodai were riding a couple of horses to the very limit as they sought to flee from the mansion with the merchant lord in tow. They needed to succeed, or the Blue Dolphin Brotherhood was doomed.

Yet their hopes were crushed in the next instant as the walls of the mansion broke apart. A massive water dragon burst through and rushed them down with its maws agape, animals and humans whined and screamed in terror. But the speed at which it moved much surpassed theirs, and as they vanished down its gullet the immensely focused currents within it eviscerated and crushed them in an instant, and so Fuyuki had completed his mission.