Running on the tree tops, a ten year old Chiba felt his stomach start gurgling as he felt the rain pelting onto him. After returning to the war and rejoining Hanbi, they we're both stationed with a large squad in Kirigakure, the land of mist.
Chiba immediately request to transfer to a different location but was denied, he wanted to try again but decided to give up after his first transfer attempt. He didn't want others to find out why he was so desperate to not enter Kirigakure, a secret should remain a secret.
Chiba didn't want to become like superman, where even though his weakness was an incredibly rare and hard to obtain mineral, every opponent of his seemed to have it. This wasn't because kryptonite wasn't rare, but because they specifically sought out kryptonite to use against him.
The rain itself wasn't the problem, the problem was that it rained constantly in the land of Mist and created thousands of small puddles throughout the lands. If Chiba were to make a mistake and step into a puddle bigger than an inch, the curse would take affect and he'd be hit with a wave of weakness.
It's not too much of a problem just running through the country, the problem is that mid battle Chiba had to watch out for any puddles he may step in.
He'd been stationed in kirigakure a little over a three months now, he had joined a squad as the Teams sensory Ninja and together they would target and destroy important areas before going into hiding, earning Chiba a promotion.
Chiba was very good at sensing the enemy, too good as he notice that the Kirigakure Ninja actually began targeting him as the infamy of his sensing abilities spread!
Not wanting to be put in the bingo book and have Ninja gunning for his life to earn money, Chiba bought a cheap featureless white mask that had no eyes, nose or mouth. They'd still target him at war since his mask was rather eye catching, but when peace time began he wouldn't have to worry about trying to be assassinated.
After every battle, the squad would watch as the little blind boy was covered head to toe in thick red blood, only for it to be washed away by kirigakures seemingly perpetual rain, revealing the featurless white mask underneath.
Chiba unnerved the squad but thanks to his powerful sensing abilities, Chiba allowed the squad to to get an accurate number of enemies and their strength level before they fought.
He also guided the squad away from enemy ninja who he knew were too powerful for them to face, these actions made it so that their squad had yet to lose a single shinobi during the 3 months he's worked with them.
Unlike during the times of peace, all Chiba got for becoming a Chunin was a letter that said he had met the skill requirement and it was signed by Hiruzen himself. He was thankful all it took was a letter, he preferred not to waste his time going through the Chunin exams.
As Chiba jumped from tree to tree, he couldn't help but compare this world to his past. The World Wars in his past were won by the deaths of thousands of soldiers just so that they could advance ten feet on the front line.
Meanwhile in this world, a single powerful ninja could decide whether a side won or lost as numbers really didn't mean much. There was no real 'front line' where two sides were opposing each other from opposite directions, they were ninja after all! All sides used guerilla warfare tactics to send small units into enemy territory to do as much damage as possible.
The main objective in ninja warfare wasn't to kill the enemy villages ninja, it was to deprive the nation that backed the enemy Ninjanof resources and force them to surrender before millions of people starve to death.
It didn't matter if you were the strongest ninja in existence, if the Daimyo of your nation tells you to surrender, you surrender. It is for that reason that the most heavily guarded areas in this world weren't bank vaults but the farms!
With that in mind, Chiba and his squad were within enemy territory destroying kirigakure's agricultural infrastructure. They had to starve the nation into surrender if they wanted this war to end.
The squad of eight that Chiba was in, were cautiously running through the forest near a mountains as this territory had become a hot zone where conflicts tend to happen, one could smell a faint metallic scent in the air from the constant death.
As Chiba was mid air, He suddenly sensed a ninja and quickly expanded his Haki range and saw them! Chiba immediately unsheathed his repaired sword.
"Enemy Shinobi's to our 2 o'clock! 31 in total, 3 Jonin 11 Chunin and the rest Genin! They are heading south west, away from us." With a nod from the squad leader, there was a half a moment if silence as he thought about the next course of action.
The squad leader, Genru, knew how reliable Chiba's sensory ability was after all of their time together..
"With that caliber of ninja and given the direction they are heading, they must be heading back to their village. They must be carrying Intel on why they've begun gathering their Shinobi. Split up and attack from the sides, Hanbi you lead a squad and go right, ill go left." With a nod, squad spit up into 2 groups of five as Chiba went with Hanbi.
Running behind in the 5 man squad, Chiba opened up a small bag to reveal it was entirely full of senbon metal needles. After awakening his devil fruit, he completely got rid of his Shuriken and put these in there places.
Reaching in, he grabbed a handful and threw the tiny and extreme thin needle into the air as they began hovering, Chiba felt a slight and almost non existent drain on his stamina. He raised them over a hundred feet in the air as they had become nearly invisible from that height.
As they circled around from the sides, Hanbi did not want to give the enemy ninjas a chance to sense them and began attacking the moment they saw them
Hanbi immediately tried to possesses a Jonin who dodged the attack, forcing Hanbi to switch and possess a Chunin who was caught unaware. Chiba ran forward, his target was the 5'7 ninja who looked like he was in his mid thirties.
Stabbing forward, the old Chunin parried the sword attack and tried to counter, only to see Chiba's gloved fist smash him in the face sending him backwards. Seeing the uniqueness of Chiba cane sword and how good he was, the man understood that Chiba was a close ranger specialist.
As Chiba dashed forward, the man started performing handsigns as Chiba didn't seem to care about and continued running at him. The man had just finished his handsigns as Chiba was infront if him, seemingly about to be hit by the jutsu!
"Water release: Water serp-" as the Chunin was about to unleash his jutsu, he suddenly felt danger and dodged to the side, only for a senbon need to pierced through his left shoulder.
Capitalizing on the opening, chiba slashed his sword at the man attempted to block with a kunai, only for his right arm to be unable to move as another senbon quickly pierced through it! Chiba didn't hesitate, he stabbed his sword forward and pierced the mans eye, killing him as his sword pierced his brain.
Just then, a genin Shinobi snuck up behind Chiba and thrusted his knife as Chiba's throat but the blind ninja didn't pay him any mind.
Just as the sword was a few inches from Chiba's back, the Genin crumpled to the floor as just the tip of a needle was now sticking out of his right eye.
'The senbon are too slow to kill a Chunin but fast enough for the average genin. Looks like I won't need to use my new technique in this battle if i just focus on the Genin.' Coming to this realization, Chiba began to covertly began raining down senbon needles onto genin, he carried senbon in his hand to make it seem like he was merely throwing them.
Chiba knew that keeping his gravity powers a secret would be impossible in a world full of hyper attentive Ninjas, but he wanted to hide his powers for as long as possible.
Dashing forward Chiba's blade clashed with a Chunin's, the kirigakure ninja was older and stronger than Chiba forcing the boy backwards. It appeared to be a losing battle for chiba when suddenly a shadow stealthily attached itself to the Mist ninja, freezing him in place allowing Chiba to immediately decapitated the ninja.
Giving a quick thumbs up to Hanbi, Chiba threw himself into battle once more and continued to slaughter the mist ninja's Genin and occasional Chunin.
The Kirigakures force was being whittled down by the more experienced and skilled strike force that was Chiba's team. By now he stopped using his senbon as the enemy numbers decline, not wanting to make his gravity ability obvious.
As the last Kirigakure Shinobi saw his ending coming near, he backed himself into a tree before throwing a scroll into the air. As the scroll was airborne, the mist ninja began doing handsigns with his last bit of strength he had.
The Jonin Kirigakure ninja took a deep breath as he started spewing a large fire ball torward the falling scroll!
A kunai immediately sunk into his brain of the mist ninja by the Konoha commander, killing him, but the fire ball continued on as it turned rain into steam.
At this moment, a cane quickly flew in and suddenly slammed into the scroll, knocking it out of the way of the fireball. This action saved the scroll but the cane got burnt to cinder, causing the bloodsoaked Chiba to frown under his mask. He could've just used his gravity power but that would've been too noticeable.
"Good job Chiba," the commander Genru said as he quickly picked up the scroll before it got soaked in water and took out an additional piece of paper from his pocket.
Using the identification key the konoha intel team had given him, he started translating the scrolls content.
"Hmmm, this doesnt have the Intel we are looking for but it does tell us where to find it. They have a secret base hidden at the bottom of the Biwa lake, if we strike there, we will find the Intel we are looking for."
All of the Shinobi in the sqaud nodded, even Chiba nodded only for his face to be filled with dread underneath the emotionless mask.
'A secret base.... under water...'