"Any luck?" Naruto asked as he walked into the training ground, before wincing at a massive eruption of fire. "Ouch…"
Sakura walked over, panting. "Phew. Finally got that fire Big Ball Rasengan down. Anyway, apart from that not really. Several ideas but nothing concrete."
"Well, a mission came in and the Hokage assigned it to us."
"Why?" Sakura asked. "We're assigned to a mission in a month and to train for that, right?"
Naruto shrugged. "Seems that the old man decided that a good test for fighting a Bijuu would be if we got all the missions related to other sorts of demons. In this case, demon country."
"I have to admit, it'd be interesting if I can apply that suppression seal of mine to a resisting target," Sakura mused. "Right, I'll go get Sasuke."
"What's he been doing?"
"Messing around with the more esoteric sides of the Lightning element. He said he got some interesting ideas after seeing the Iron Sand in that last battle."
A greasy feeling developed in the air, like standing near a power line. Static sparks hummed on exposed metal tips.
Sasuke pointed the hilt of the Raijin towards a large hill, one that already bore the scorch marks of heavy use as a technique practice backstop. With his off hand, he took a small coin and dropped it, igniting the legendary weapon-
There was a bang, a hiss, and molten metal splattered on the ground.
He sighed. This should work, but he couldn't quite make it. A pity, really, as if he could it had the potential to match some of the great historical S-rank techniques. Forget the Chidori and all its' manifold variants; this one was his answer to Naruto's Rasenshuriken.
It was just too hard to shape the electric field that precisely. Yet. He knew the Raikage could use Lightning as an armour, so there was nothing theoretical against it.
Perhaps if he used metal supports to hold the charges required?
"Sasuke!"
Sakura came running up with details of their latest mission, and he filed away the prospect for later.
"So. Demon country sent for aid." Sasuke's Sharingan flicked off, having memorized the orders scroll.
"Yes. We need to go protect their high priestess, which of course means we need to work out a bodyguard plan." Sakura began flicking through her library of illusions.
"Twenty or so shapeshifted shadow clones a good start?" Naruto asked, and gestured for the team to move out. "Let's see… I think I can get Kuda to hide on her for a bit, which'll allow him to summon me to her if she's in immediate danger. Any details of the opposition?"
Sasuke shook his head. "The details said that all their Jonin – there are only three of them in the country – are accounted for, so that's good news."
Sakura took over. "Bad news, though, is that Moryo's a demon who was known for giving his subordinates upgrades that amount to something not unlike the Curse seal. Extra chakra source, more potent, that sort of thing."
Both the boys glanced at her. "You're the one with the most spiritual knowledge. What does demon mean in this case?"
She closed her eyes, rolling the name around in her head. Moryo…
"Demon country demons are all pure black chakra, which means they're unnatural and powerful but for the most part their bodies are weak – they're not anchored to the world like we are, so their chakra doesn't regenerate without a connection to a more powerful source. Moryo's name means… I think it's an echo of his true name, most exotic chakra beings have common names related to their true names. And I'm getting a sense of, of the many."
"So you think he's a sufficient source of power, then?"
"Yes. Above a certain point, inhuman chakra becomes alive like human chakra always is and is self regenerating."
Naruto shrugged. "So much for just letting him exhaust himself. Anything else?"
"Yes. Moryo appears in legends – indeed, in some history books. He tried to conquer the world with some kind of terracotta army, but didn't get far and all the soldiers of it were sealed away with his mind in one shrine, his body in another."
"And if one of the shrines was attacked, then it's going to have been the one with the mind." Naruto said with certainty.
The others looked at him. "What? Minds weigh less than bodies. Imagine carrying a demon body dozens of miles to the mind shrine."
"Okay. So we need to keep an eye out for enhanced soldiers." Sasuke brought them back on topic. "And some kind of terracotta army. That one'll be hard to deal with, Terracotta's an excellent insulator and means that the offensive elements don't work well against it."
"Would it be bad form for me to go Chakra Cloak?" Naruto asked innocently.
"Bad form? More like, never even try it." Sakura said. "It's a country whose entire point is containing demons, having one of the Nine apparently breaking free would mean they'd forget going after Moryo and switch to you."
Naruto winced. "Right, forget that." He nodded to himself abruptly. "Okay, Sakura should be the close-in support. She's got the most options. Sasuke, scout high and let us know if anything's coming in, then engage. I'll keep out a clone perimeter out and go for whoever Sasuke's not."
Sasuke nodded his approval. "Works for me. Infiltration countermeasures?"
"You two, and I'll stop to recharge Sage mode every few minutes. Should give us enough warning."
Sasuke then smiled slightly. "Convenient. We get a live fire test of our newest techniques. Pity I didn't make much progress on my current one, though."
"Which current one's that?" Sakura asked with a grin. "Don't most of them use current?"
"Nice one, Sakura!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You're corrupting her, Naruto."
"Ah. Good. The Ninja have arrived." Shion looked over Team Seven. "I have to say, I am less than impressed."
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, we get that a lot. Hidan and Kakuzu could correct you there, though."
Shion blinked, then looked more closely at him. "You have some kind of… taint to you. I can't tell what kind." Then she looked at the others. "And both of you as well. Why?"
"I've got kami blood way back in my family tree." Sakura shrugged. "Less sure about where Naruto and Sasuke get their traits from ultimately, but both are descended from the Sage of Six Paths."
"I see." Shion frowned. "So, which of you is the strongest?"
Sakura and Sasuke pointed to Naruto. "Skill is something we have much more of," Sasuke began.
"But in terms of pure strength, you can't beat Naruto."
Naruto pouted. "That's mean…"
"Good." Shion said. "That means he will be the one to carry me."
"Wait, what?"
Then Shion's eyes flickered into a strange purple pattern. When they stopped, she looked Naruto in the eye. "You are going to die."
Naruto winced, then shrugged. "Kinda figured. When? At the age of ninety-three, with Konohamaru as the Sixth?"
"No! In the next few days! Moryo's soldiers will kill you!"
Sasuke frowned. "How? And how do you know?"
"I see the future. And sometimes I… predict the death of someone near me. That's why there's so few attendants actually here in the inner sanctum, they're afraid of it happening to them."
"I repeat. How?"
Shion went over the received memory-of-the-future. In it, she had been stabbed in both lungs. So, as usual, she explained to one of the people around her that they would die in this manner – thus changing the future so they would protect her fatalistically and she would survive.
It was a cruel and heartless thing to do, maybe. But she had to do it – only she could seal Moryo. It was for the good of everyone.
Naruto snickered. "That's it? Did you actually see me die?"
"No, but it's obvious you did. Nobody survives having punctured lungs."
"Actually, Naruto can regenerate. Hell, I think Sasuke took out half his liver when he first tested the Sharp Spear and misjudged the length."
The jinchuuriki winced with the memory. "Yeah, that kinda stung. So don't worry, I'll be fine."
Shion braced herself for another future vision. Nothing.
Well, that was either very bad or very good. Either she'd die to the method she'd just seen, or she'd live.
"Actually, Naruto, thinking about it," Sakura mused, "Might be a good idea if she had some kind of body armour. She's not got a conditioned body like we do."
"If people are going to be throwing around ranged stuff? Good thought." Naruto thought for a moment. "Tell you what, I'll lend her my Chunin vest. That'll stop most bladed weapons, and I'll just substitute it with a Sage charge-up."
Both his teammates eyed it with some distaste as he took it off. "What possessed you to dye it orange, anyway?"
Naruto shrugged, and handed it to Shion. "It's my colour scheme. My mum was the Red-haired habanero, my dad was the Yellow Flash, it's frankly inevitable. I'm almost annoyed that my nickname has nothing about orange in it."
"Demon Wind is good enough, quit it. Remember, one of the Kage of Stone is called Onoki the fence-sitter."
Shion winced despite herself. "That's the name of a ruler?"
"Yep. Old Man Hokage has a much cooler one." Naruto hoisted her onto his back. "He's called the God of Shinobi, or the Professor. Well, we better get going. Where's that shrine with the body of the demon?"
"Swamp Country."
Naruto let her down again. "That far? Sasuke, you up to giving us some transport?"
Sasuke nodded. "Better do it outside, though. They don't like buildings."
"Oh!" Shion said suddenly. "We'd better get Taruho – my armsman."
"Where's he, then?"
"He showed us into the building, Naruto." Sakura sighed.
"Wow! This is amazing!" Shion laughed, raising her arms above her and feeling the rush of air over them.
Naruto made sure he had a proper grip on her. It wouldn't be good if the priestess of Demon Country fell off the hawk, after all.
"I… I'm sorry."
"Pardon?" Naruto frowned, looking more closely at her. Her entire demeanour had changed in just the last few seconds.
"I said I'm sorry. When I told you that you were going to die… that wasn't true. I was going to die. It's how my power of prediction works. My soul jumps back in time after I die, and then I tell someone else they're going to die, and that way I survive."
Naruto shrugged. "Not a problem to me. But it might work better if you just said you'd received a vision of your own death and gave all the details you could, that way they'd be able to protect you better, right?"
She smiled. "I suppose I'm unlikely to get stabbed in a forest today."
The Gang of Four continued their stakeout of Shion's shrine.
"Uh… boss?" Shizuku ventured. "How long are those ninja going to be in there?"
Kusuna shrugged. "Let's force them out. Gitai!"
Gitai took in his Dark Chakra enhancement, and slammed all four hands on the ground, sending bombs to blow up the structure.
They watched as the dust settled.
"Did we just kill them?"
Setsuna frowned. "Who did our recon genin say the Konoha team was again?"
"Three of the Four Seasons, I think." Kusuna volunteered.
"You idiots, they have two flight-capable Ninja on that team! They might have left hours ago, we'll have to go and head them off before they reach Lord Moryo's body."
Kusuna gave Setsuna a glare for showing him up, then recharged Gitai's serpent and they all began running for Swamp Country.
"Hey, look." Sakura pointed, and the rest of the group spotted the terracotta army standing guard outside a structure below.
Shion frowned. "I think that's the other shrine. They must have got here before us."
The three ninja exchanged speculative glances. Naruto came to a decision first. "Sasuke, I need to get on solid ground to charge up my Sage Mode, but once I am I'll cut you a path."
"Got it. Sakura, bring Shion with you." Sasuke tapped the wing of his mount, which began to slip sideways in the air towards a nearby hill.
"What? You're going to stay behind, Naruto?" Shion asked.
"Until those stone things are all destroyed." Naruto was unusually grim as he jumped down with the priestess. "Those things levelled villages on the way here, I want them gone." Once they were on the ground, he passed her to Sakura (who was enveloping herself in a haze of water) and began to concentrate.
Shion watched, intrigued, as Naruto's chakra morphed into something else unusual, and his eyes slit.
"You ready, guys?" Naruto asked. "I'll start blowing them up, then work my way left. You head right."
Both the others nodded, so Naruto formed a trio of clones and built himself a Rasenshuriken.
The Army of Ghosts turned, sensing in some way a new threat to their master.
Then some of them blew up.
Sasuke's Sharingan blazed. "Naruto, you got full destruction of them within ten feet of the epicentre. Ten feet beyond that they're mission killed, but after that the stone armour seems to have stopped the Wind chakra doing enough damage. I'd say switch to close-in."
"Got it." One of the three clones dispersed, and another two formed to continue charging. "Okay, two Wind Rasengan each I think, and I'll do blades."
The Narutos leapt into the thick of the battle.
Sasuke cloaked his presence with a fairly generic invisibility illusion. The constructs seemed to be more than mere golems, but he couldn't take the risk of the more esoteric Sharingan perception illusion. Glancing over at Sakura, he saw she'd done the same and added a neat little mist trick on top of that, using the droplets of chakra-saturated water in the air to refract her position relative to the mist. "Nice. Can you keep that up for long?"
Sakura nodded confidently. "Once the water's chakra charged it takes very little power to keep it in place. And it's also reconstitutable into a quick cutting water dance."
"I approve. Okay, I'll go in five." A massive detonation sounded from the valley below, where one of Naruto's clones had fired off something that looked a lot like the Atsugai technique Kakuzu used. Another, which Sasuke guessed was the original since it had the chakra-blades coming from elbows, knees and fingers, began the Third Form of the Fox style, savaging a pair of opponents then leaping back into empty ground to pounce again.
"Now!"
Apparently Naruto heard him, as a Rasenshuriken screamed in from the two clones left up on the ridge, flew over their heads and annihilated part of the shrine wall nearest them. This revealed a corridor that would allow them to bypass the melee at the main doors.
"Here's the seal containing the body of Moryo. It still seems to be closed, thank goodness." Shion sighed in relief, and her armsman patted her back.
"We're almost done, my lady."
"Okay. Everyone, stand back. I am going to perform the Shrine Sealing ritual."
Sakura frowned. "Why?"
"To… seal… Moryo's body?" Shion replied uncertainly.
"Why bother? He's sealed away alright."
"My understanding is that this version of the ritual is permanent, and will prevent Moryo from gaining his body back in any way."
"Well, if you say so." Sakura muttered to herself.
As Shion began, an enormous explosion sounded from outside and Naruto came flying in, hitting a pillar. "That hurt! Take this-oh." His voice dropped in disappointment.
"Problem, Naruto?" Sasuke asked idly.
"Stupid kill-stealing clones… nah, I'm alright. Most of the stone golems are destroyed and the rest are lacking most of their limbs."
"Good, good," came a voice. The team's heads snapped around, Sakura's misty sheath beginning to swirl more violently as the boys built up their signature techniques.
"Oh, no need for that." Yomi advanced from one of the smaller holes blown into the shrine. "Everything has worked out as I-" he dove to one side as a Wind Rasengan attempted to occupy his torso, then jumped straight into the barrier around Shion's sealing justu before Sasuke managed to electrocute him.
The voice of Moryo continued as its' host body fell apart. "The purpose of all this was to hijack the ritual. You see, the true purpose of the Shrine Sealing ritual is both to unlock my true body, and to merge the participants, who cannot leave the shrine until this is complete. Which one comes out dominant is determined by the strength of their chakra, and that's exactly how I came about in the first place! Your dear mother made me what I am when she performed this ritual."
Sakura cricked her neck. "Yeah, I'm going to say right now, that's a lie. The last bit, anyway – if you'd been created in the Shrine Sealing ritual, you wouldn't have had a chance to do anything last time."
"Good point." Sasuke nodded. "So, this means?"
"We wait for him to take corporeal form, then Shion drops the barrier and we blow him to bits thoroughly enough that his chakra is the weaker one."
Sasuke split off a shadow clone, who went to suggest something to Naruto. The blond nodded enthusiastically and made a horde of shadow clones of his own, before sending them all rushing off outside.
The roof blew in as the two Sage Mode clones outside expended the last of their Sage Chakra by blasting the top off the shrine.
"Was that a good idea?" Sakura asked, keeping one eye on Moryo as he impatiently waited for the seal on his body to release.
Sasuke spun the Raijin. "Yes. It's setup."
"Alright, then… Naruto'll be able to explode bits off him with insert A ranked technique-"
"I resent that!" Naruto called. "I'm using Rasenshuriken." Outside, massive gouts of wind-boosted flame began shooting skywards.
"S rank, then… and I'll just see what happens if I ram a Youkai suppressor onto his face." She flicked through her set of tags. "Ooh, I forgot about this. Gold chakra explosive tag!"
"Wait, what?" Moryo shouted, having overheard her. "How is there someone with Gold chakra here? I made sure the only one died!"
"Two points." Sakura gave a cocky grin. "First, you missed the people with recessive bloodlines. Second, you just more-or-less admitted to me and to everyone else in the shrine that Shion's mother had Gold chakra like me. And, since it's hereditary, like Shion herself." Thunder rumbled outside as a huge storm developed.
"How do you know all this? This lore was forgotten!"
"I have seen and understood all things." Sakura whispered to herself.
The seal unlocked, and Moryo shot into his body as fast as he could. The great dark mass of evil arose from the pit in which it had been contained, malevolence oozing from it.
A quick poof of smoke, and Shion was replaced by a Naruto-clone. "Go ahead, Sasuke!"
Sasuke raised the Raijin. "Kirin."
A great beast screamed, and lightning connected heaven and earth.
Naruto was the first to look back at the glowing crater at the centre of the shrine. "Guys – did we get him?"
Moryo howled, reforming rapidly, but sizzling where his dark form touched the semi-molten stone.
"Guess not. My turn!"
Fifty shadow clones formed with a thought, and the screeches of many Rasenshuriken filled the air.
"Oh, come on."
"He's still coming back?" Naruto asked incredulously. "Sasuke hit him with a three foot lightning bolt and then I applied something that could give Millie a hard time!"
"My turn now." Sakura lobbed a Kunai into the (by now rather deep) crater.
A flash came out, then a horrible scream. She turned to the others and looked smug.
"Yeah, yeah…" Naruto muttered. "You have the gold chakra to a level usable in jutsu and seals, go you."
Sakura threw a v-sign, then frowned. "So it wasn't the tag I was picking up… Shion, mind letting me have a look at that bell?"
Shion shot a glance at the thrashing form of Moryo, and walked over.
"Hmmm… Interesting. This seems to have some kind of switch function, currently it's sealing away your gold chakra. But the bad thing about it is that it doesn't allow for a mix state like mine – either you're pure blue or pure gold, though it does let you use the other type via the bell." Sakura straightened. "Okay, I know how to do this. First, if you switched you could destroy both Moryo and yourself. Second, there's no need for it. Get over to Naruto and give him some of your chakra – via the bell, okay? Naruto, go into Sage Mode and build a Rasenshuriken with the contributed gold chakra. Gold and Black in their pure forms tend to negate one another, and that'll make this Rasenshuriken actually have some bite against him. Do that, and the merger effect will end with Shion in charge."
Naruto bashed his fists together, already in Sage Mode. "Right! Let's do this, Shion!"
"Can you control chakra that's not your own?"
Naruto grinned. "Most of my combat style revolves around it, whether it's from a clone, nature or the…" he tailed off. "Never mind the last one. So, here we go. Stay down as it forms."
Moryo finished regenerating yet again. "Okay, that was extremely annoying. Where are my four ninja, they could be really useful at a time like this."
Once more, the screech of a Rasenshuriken approached. "This again? It didn't work last ti-"
Sakura had underestimated the effects. The gold chakra in the Rasenshuriken reacted with the black chakra of Moryo's form like explosives.
When the three Konoha nin picked themselves up again from the increasingly unrecognisable ruins of the shrine, they saw two things. Shion, glowing a faint gold as she absorbed the power of Moryo safely, and a hole so deep it looked like lava was coming out.
"Well, not much point trying to fulfil the plan." Shizuku muttered, staring at the volcano that had replaced the site of their benefactor's body.
"You think?" Setsuna asked. "Right, let's just go find some village that's willing to take us in. I hear Kiri still have shortage problems with skilled personnel. Or we could go join Oto?"
"Given our extensive criminal records, Oto sounds better."
Kakashi frowned. "Run that by me again? Sasuke called down lightning?"
"I call it the Kirin. The strength of the thunderstorm determines its' strength, and it costs essentially no chakra. Definitely a good finishing move."
"I see. And it worked to at least temporarily damage Moryo. Good to know. Now, what about that seal of yours?"
"I decided it would be easier to just blow Moryo up repeatedly so that Shion could absorb his chakra. It's helped in one way, her chakra reserves are now respectable enough that she could probably undo the bell seal in another couple of years and from there it's not far to ascending. It is my judgement that her descent stems from Ame-no-Uzume."
"Bringer of dawn. Interesting. Well, I'll let the Hokage know what happened sometime this month."
Naruto shook his head. "You have no concept of the chain of command any more, do you?"
"Only where it pertains to my subordinates, which you three still are." He looked contrite for a moment. "Just."
"Naruto. Trouble."
Naruto looked up from where he was monitoring a thousand or so clones trying to create a tornado. "What is it, Sasuke?"
Sakura flickered into the area. "Apparently Konoha had some trouble before we got back with ninja on flying machines. Well, they're on the way again, and a mission Team Kurenai were on seems to be mixed up in it."
"Gotcha… kind of. What mission were they on?"
"Escort. Some girl called Amaru showed up to help Tsunade heal everyone, and we offered here an escort back home. But there were complications – she was shadowed by Sky-ninja, and they destroyed her village while she was away."
Naruto suddenly looked northeast, cutting Sakura's explanation off. "Never mid, I think I know most of the rest. She was shunned growing up, she had a demonic beast inside her, and despair set it off."
Sakura looked startled. "Er, yes, that's what the report said they'd managed to infer. How?"
"Millie's awake. Big blast of youkai from the northeast, and it's not one she's familiar with."
Sasuke picked up on the terms. "Youkai specifically?"
"Yep. And she should recognize any youkai on the planet. But it's also got some of the properties of that black chakra Moryo had."
"So that's how you were able to tell the rest?"
"Yep again. Jinchuuriki territory, all right. Sasuke, get us some height – I don't want to have to fight whatever's coming inside Konoha itself."
Sasuke nodded, slashing at his thumb in a practised motion. "Intel?"
"I'll check with the old guy once we're airborne."
"Youkai? You're sure?" Mandias closed his eyes, and sniffed. "Yes, there's something in the air. You say Millie doesn't recognize it?"
"No, not at all. Which really worries me." Naruto adjusted his grip on the elderly sage slightly as the hawk banked. "Youkai's fragments of the Ten-tails, right? Could this just be a tiny little bit?"
"Possibly. We never did work out what happened to the consciousness, though none of the Nine have anything that can be traced back to it. The Ten-tails was pure malevolent evil, and we're lucky it moved slowly enough life could survive where it wasn't."
Naruto shrugged. "Couldn't it have just vanished?"
"We could be that lucky, but I've learned not to bet on things like that. Especially around Millie."
"Fair point."
Everyone was silent for the next few minutes as they headed towards the direction Naruto had pointed. One of the hawks broke the silence first.
"What is something that big doing in the sky?"
Sasuke glanced down. "I don't quite see it yet." His sharingan flashed on for a moment. "Wait, there's a dot… but I can't get anything more from it."
"It is some kind of, fortress, or city. It is huge."
"More than that," Mandias said, suddenly tense, "The area of youkai ahead has greatly expanded. I think the flying object is being powered solely by whatever is giving it off."
Millie snarled inside her host. Something about it not being an ethical power source, and an old enemy called 'Mr. W.'
"Wow, she's really keyed up at the moment." Then the hawks broke formation, diving to the sides as a number of one-man flying machines bore in on them.
Sasuke's eyes flicked on. "That gear of theirs drains their chakra to run it."
"Neat." Sakura narrowed her eyes for a moment, Flickered into empty air and then Replaced with one of the pilots. "Naruto! Dismiss Mandias for a bit, I've got you a better ride!"
"I like how you think, Sakura!" Naruto replied, the Fox sage vanishing from his lap as he got ready to switch with her. "You want me to go ahead and summon you in?"
"Yeah!" Then a thought occurred to her. "Just be careful how much you pump in, all right? Don't blow this up!"
Naruto winced. "Good point. Okay, two, one, go!"
A horizontal comet flew straight into the forward superstructure of Ancor Vantian, and exploded. Naruto tumbled from the wreckage, coughing.
"Damnit, still too much…" he steadied himself, landed in a crouch, and bit his thumb. "Summoning: transport!"
As his foxes, then his teammates, appeared in puffs of smoke, Naruto connected himself with the natural world and entered Sage mode. "Summoning: again!"
Mandias shook his head. "You and your silly comments…" He closed his eyes and entered Sage mode himself. "Yes, there's definitely something very powerful here. There's also…" he paused. "They're familiar. The boy with the half-dog bloodline, the boy with the hive and the Hyuga girl."
Sakura blinked. "You remember Hinata's family name but not the others?"
"She's got a Dojutsu, those are important." Mandias indicated one of the large buildings making up the flying fortress. "In there, I think she's fighting someone."
Hinata spun away from a shockwave of darkness, executing a nearly instantaneous Kaiten to deflect the attack, and Body Flickered behind Shinnō to attack. He created a shield out of shadow arms like the Leech had, stopping her from targeting his Tenketsu, and she danced back out of close range to refocus.
Things weren't good. Kiba and Shino had been caught with a Darkness Wave earlier and were incapacitated. Poor Amaru was still recovering from having the beast forcibly ripped out of her, and her own Jyuuken attacks were being easily blocked.
Always blocked, though. Never dodged.
Idea.
She darted back in, chakra building in her hands, and a palm strike flashed out. As normal, he created the shadow arms of the Leech and blocked her.
So she took one of those arms, anchored herself to the floor, and used those points of contact to swing in a Lion Fist charged to about her maximum safe level.
That sent Shinnō into the wall, and nearly herself as well – only her quick reflexes allowed her to let go of the arm before it pulled her along with her enemy.
Kiba coughed. "Took you long enough."
She looked at him blandly. "My normal approach is useless here. Though his chakra is sufficiently out of control that I think sealing up his tenketsu might make him explode."
Shino looked their opponent over, swaying slightly. "How is it that he is able to react to your attacks?"
"I think it's some kind of mental reading effect. When I was indecisive about my response a moment ago, he didn't guard anywhere until I made a decision – and then he was limited to the least dangerous choice."
Amaru's voice came from the corner. "The zero-tails… it can do that, yes. It's like it has a mind that stretches out of its' container, like there should be an intelligence big enough for it." Hinata and her team turned to her. "I've had it happen a few times before – I can sometimes tell when people are unhappy, when they're upset…"
"And only now do you know what was really going on." Hinata said, understanding.
A roar made them look around.
"I will kill ALL of you for that!" Shinnō bellowed, as he tore the wall apart with his shadow-hands.
Hinata simply smiled. "Three… two… one…"
The roof came imploding inwards, with a shape of red and orange falling through it. "Hey, bastard!"
Naruto arrived, claws first and six solid tails lashing. "Let's fight."
One of the great stone faces of Ancor Vantian collapsed, Shinnō's flying form going straight through the cheeks. Naruto leapt after him, wincing as his Second Stage form shuddered a little with instability. Damnit, Millie, what's gotten into you?
Don't… know. It's just making me angry, just like I was when Madara controlled me.
Are you smashing up my mindscape?
…maaaybe.
Jump in the damn ocean! It's much harder to break – and don't take that as a challenge.
Awww.
That and it's the representation of the influences of my parents on you, both of whom are related to water.
Naruto returned to the battle, and just barely stopped a sort of dark orb of the Black Chakra, held in his opponents' hand. "Hey! Copyright issues!"
Three of his tails pushed him up as he sprang backwards away from the deranged doctor. "This is how you do it." Millie?
You mean it? Time to blow something up without consequences?
This once, yes.
Naruto surrendered control to Millie, who took some of his offered chakra and mixed it with her own. You know, I'd never have the concentration to do this were it not for the way Ozzie tricked me. He didn't tell me how long it would take to learn how to blow things up with my mind. As she finished, the Bijuu ball formed in her mouth. Now, how do I fire it again-ooh, shiny! With that, she lost concentration.
Good thing the Bijuu Ball was forgiving as attacks went.
An enormous directed explosion of chakra shot out of her/their mouth at Shinnō, who moved his shadow arms in the way but wasn't able quite to properly block it.
Naruto reassumed control as he landed on all fours, and noticed a flicker of movement over in the scorched crater that looked like it went most of the way through what was left of Ancor Vantian.
Hinata blurred to a stop, a satisfied expression on her face. "I thought so. The amount of chakra in the air was sufficient to overload his senses." With another little chakra flare, she vanished back to the room the rest were in just as Shinnō's system overloaded.
Naruto watched as the Zero-tails burst out of his body. "Ouch… now that's why you need to watch out for how old you are when you put insanely potent chakra sources inside your body. For starters, if you're old enough to do it yourself, you are too old."
The Leech began to advance on Naruto, building up an unusually large amount of chakra by drawing from Ancor Vantian instead of the other way around, but was interrupted by a blizzard of Chidori senbon and a B-ranked Water technique to the face.
"Naruto!" Mandias called, running into the room on the heels of the two Special Jonin, "I've worked out what it is! It's the Ten-tails' brain!"
"What?" Naruto replied, keeping one eye on his tails as they fended off the Leech's arms, "You mean this is the thing's mind?"
"No. Only it's brain. A huge fragment of thinking chakra, with nothing to fill it, so it seeks out the emotions of others. I think it was transferring some of the old instincts of the Ten-tails to Millie, though luckily her own personality is stronger."
"Great." Naruto began to slide across the floor as the Zero-tails started to reel his transformed body towards it. "Anything I can do about it?"
"Oh, I see. There should be some kind of control mechanism somewhere on the fortress, destroy it and it'll be unable to maintain what sanity it has."
With a quick bite, Naruto removed one of its' chakra arms and spat it out. "Disgusting. Why do you want to send it insane?"
Sasuke had already left to go find Hinata. Sakura shrugged. "If it can't think, it can't plan properly?" With that, she followed him.
"I have to admit, it's the best plan so far. Damnit, stop trying to remove those!" Naruto briefly reabsorbed a tail to get the dozen or so hands clinging to it to let go, then remanifested it and bundled them up with it. "I'd love to actually let loose on it, but like this my choices are basically physical combat or hundred-foot crater, and it's moving too damn much to aim! At least Shinnō was kind of slow!"
He glanced over at his summons. "And you're not helping!"
Aya shrugged. "Big fights are cool!" Niyi looked across at her fellow summon for approval, and took some of the food he'd taken out of nowhere.
Mandias looked disapprovingly at the bucket of popcorn. "Be that as it may, Naruto, there is no need to worry. You're drawing on so much power compared to… it? That the Zero-tails can't possibly do any permanent damage to you."
"That doesn't make it hurt less!" Naruto's voice cut off in a yelp as one of his tails gor pulled especially hard. "I knew there was a downside to transforming like this!"
"At least your skin hasn't exploded. That was a possibility for this few tails."
"Now you tell me…"
Abruptly, the Zero-tails' arms all went completely stiff, flinging Naruto towards a wall (which collapsed when he hit it, adding to the general rubble), and it screamed.
"Finally!" Naruto said, shaking his head to clear it, then inhaled massively. I hope this works… his tails came up around his muzzle and he exhaled a great blast of chakra-laced wind. The six tails caught the stream of air and added rotation to it.
"Spiral wind cannon!"
The original attack that he'd learned off the Forbidden Scroll all those years ago hadn't been very clear on how it was to be executed, and every other time he'd tried it hadn't worked. The main problem was just that he couldn't work out how to add the rotation before it left his mouth without destroying said mouth, and afterwards it was usually too late. By the relatively low stability of the vortex that he produced now, actually, it wouldn't have worked with fewer than six tails to get it rotating.
But it was enough to tear a hole right through the body of the Zero-tails, and it began thrashing about wildly in what were clearly death throes.
The entire structure shuddered as something important broke with a sizzle. Ancor Vantian began to list.
Naruto raised what was technically a paw. "Abandon ship?"
"Aye!" the three foxes replied in unison, and vanished in puffs of smoke.
The Jinchuuriki loped for the side and leapt off. Well, they say cats land on their feet… that's true for foxes too, right?
WHAM.
"Ow…"
Naruto rolled upright, shook himself, and released Millie's chakra, with a wince at the feeling of his chakra paths contracting. He shrank back from the fifteen foot or so fox form he'd been in to his normal human shape.
"Man, I didn't pay Jiraiya enough for the seals on these things…" he grinned, checking that his clothes were all still there. "Right, where are the others?"
"This is all quite worrying." Mandias agreed, seated on his haunches. "If the brain of the Ten-tails survived separate to the other pieces, then it's possible – possible – that the intelligence did so as well."
"Does that mean something bad for it now that we killed the Leech?" Naruto asked.
"To be honest, I have no idea. It might interfere with any plan to put the Ten-tails back together again, or it might make it easier. We can't tell."
Lani had looked unsettled for the last few minutes. "Mandias, I have a problem. I think some of my records may be inaccurate – I was looking into them to see what we had on Madara."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed for a moment at the name.
"Who was our first summoner?"
Mandias closed his eyes, casting back through his long memory. "I think it was one Mari. The girl whose nickname was 'the beast'."
"Second?"
His voice was more confident now. "Shuichi."
"Third?"
The old sage listed off the names one by one, Lani checking them off against her small archival scroll and looking increasingly worried.
"And tenth?"
"Naruto here."
"And you're certain you didn't miss one?" She pressed.
"I was here when the summon scroll was first made, and I have guided every one of the companions of the Fox. I remember them all well."
"Right." She unrolled the big scroll. "Because there are eleven spaces filled."
"How very strange." Mandias looked disturbed. "I didn't know anything at all could interfere with the connection inherent in the scroll. Hold on a moment."
He closed his eyes again and slipped into Sage mode, running back through his memory like the pages of a book. "The first to sign did so at the left end of the scroll… nothing wrong with the second… third… fourth… fifth… sixth, heh, she never could form the characters right… seventh… eighth… ninth…" His eyes snapped open. "It's Naruto's signature. That's the only one out of place. Madara's signature was in the ninth slot, and now it's in the tenth as well. But he only signed once. Someone has snuck their name onto the scroll, and it's Madara Uchiha – which is impossible, because if he's in the ninth slot, then he's dead."
Sasuke blinked, shocked. Sakura frowned. "Is it possible to fake a signature on the scroll?"
"No. It has to be a name that's yours somehow. A birth name, a given name, a true name… but not a false name."
"Then…" Sakura's mind flickered with concepts. "Is it possible to change your name somehow? For the purposes of this? I mean, could someone change their name to Madara Uchiha, sign the scroll – or get their name on the scroll by that connection otherwise – and change it back?"
"That's… disturbingly possible. It would be incredibly hard to change any of the names in question, since they're fundamental parts of the person, but if our Uchiha-massacaring hypothetical villain did manage that then they would be able to add themselves to the scroll like renewing a contract, reinforcing it. It wouldn't even need them to be in the same plane as the scroll."
"But who would do such a thing? And if this is the person we've all spent the last decade and a half calling Madara, then why pretend to be him?"
Sasuke slowly raised a hand. "Just so I can be sure, this hypothetical villain did do all the things that I hated about who we thought was Madara, right?"
"Yes."
"Then it appears that I still hate the same person, just under a different name. What's the fake name they're using?"
"I think Itachi's letter to you said 'Tobi'."
Sakura turned chalk white. "Kun numbers."
"Pardon?" Sasuke asked. Sakura turned to him, and began counting.
"Hitobi, Futabi, Mibi, Yobi, Itsubi, Mubi, Nanabi…"
Everyone's minds raced ahead of her.
"Yabi, Kokonobi…"
"Oh, crap." Naruto breathed.
"…Tōbi."
There was silence for a minute.
"This explains… much." Mandias said softly.
Thorougly shaken, the three swore among themselves to never mention that in the Elemental countries, and returned to Konoha after deciding that if they ever met Tobi on their missions they would just run. If he was Deidara's team mate as Itachi's letter had suggested, it wasn't exactly as if they'd want to stay near the duo even under normal circumstances.
"Hey, guys."
Sasuke and Naruto froze, before carefully retracting their knife-hand strike and sweep kick respectively. "Sakura?"
"It's time. One of the teams in the area had a Yamanaka, and they reported to Inoichi. The Three-tails has finished reforming."
"Well, here we are." Sakura glanced over at the scratch force. In addition to her own full team, Shizune, Tenten and Ino had been brought along for the sealing. Lee, Kiba and Shino completed the ranks – unfortunately Hinata and Neji had both been occupied elsewhere on clan business and there hadn't been the time to make up their teams.
Their mission was simple: Seal the three-tails in a storage scroll. Apparently Jiraiya had some kind of special seal design that could take three tails of power. Sakura had looked it over and pronounced it "possible".
The problem was watching out for anyone else in the area. That was what most of the ninja were along for.
Shizune gestured to the three other sealers. "Come on, we need to set up the Search mode."
The other three kunoichi moved to the corners of a square, and raised their arms with Shizune. On a signal they all cut their thumbs, activated their copies of the seal technique and fed them chakra.
The complex seal array instantly blossomed into the sky, thickening and solidifying so that when they cut the feeds it stayed there, before floating off to begin quartering the vast lake.
Naruto watched it drift over the water. "That's really, really impressive. That something like that could seal an active, uncontained tailed beast… I mean, most of the time they have to be fought to a standstill."
"Yeah, heh… about that…" Sakura said nervously.
Naruto didn't even turn around. "I have to fight it, don't I."
"Pretty much. Most of the power is in the containment array, there wasn't much left for the capture array. Just hit it until the barrier can solidify properly, then we'll get a fox to summon you out."
His eyes closed, and he drew in nature's power. "Okay. Ready now. And just in time, too."
Sakura blinked. "How can you tell?"
"A Tailed Beast? Any sensor worth their salt could sense that once they were within their range, and being connected to nature gives me a lot more than normal."
Sakura cursed inventively. "I can't believe I forgot that! Of all the times to have that Hyuga clan meeting… we could have sorted this out much more easily."
"Not every day that their clan head's second child heads off to a chunin exam. Ah well, we're here now." Naruto formed a small squad of clones, and began spinning up a Rasenshuriken. "Three, two, one…"
He hurled it.
Less than a second later, the Three-Tails emerged with a roar from the water-and got a Rasenshuriken to the face.
"Sasuke?" The jinchuuriki asked absently.
"Not much damage, that shell must be one of the toughest things in existence. Get some good storm clouds going and I'll be able to blast it when you want."
"Sounds good to me. Guys? Two of you charge up and help boost Sasuke's fire, other two come with me." The three Sage mode Naruto charged off in unison, all three of them working the seals for Driling Fang Bullets.
Shizune watched the explosions start. "Wow… I never really grasped the kind of thing Team Seven deals with before…"
Kiba chuckled. "What are we, chopped liver?"
Akamaru barked something. Kiba turned pale. "What! No, you can't take a taste to check!"
"He has a point." Shino stated in a monotone. "Our last major mission involved a demonic entity on the same order as a Tailed Beast… although our utility was limited."
"Heh, yeah. That mission was confusing."
"Why?" Tenten asked, unsealing the Garian Sword and spinning it around her palm for a moment.
"Our enemy was called Shinnō."
"But are you not called Shino, my youthful Aburame comrade?" Lee asked, confused.
"Exactly my point."
"Ah, I see!"
"Er, guys…" Ino asked, looking up. "Was there a massive thunderstorm here a minute ago?"
A two-foot bolt of lightning hit the water and blew a crater in it, then a pair of Rasenshuriken hit the Three-tails in rapid succession.
Naruto dispelled the last of his charging clones. "Damn, not long left. Sakura! I've got two options here!"
"What are they?" She called back.
"Get eaten or go fuzzy!"
Sakura shook her head for a moment. Naruto considered being eaten a viable option? "Second one!"
"Okay!"
He dumped his Sage chakra in a single massive Pressure Damage, then drew out seven tails of chakra. That was the point his second stage actually started getting really big.
The Three-tails sensed the presence of another like it, and obeyed the relatively primitive animal instincts it had reverted to on reincorporation. Rival! Fight! Kill!
Everyone watched in awe as the two titans battled, Naruto's fox paws glowing with red-orange youkai as he applied the Water Walking exercise on a grand scale.
"Does somebody have a can opener the size of the Hokage monument?"
A few people sighed with relief, not quite believing before that that this really was Naruto in control.
"Yipe! Why do tailed beast things always go for the tails!"
A massive tidal wave splashed up from the impact as Naruto shook the Three-tails off.
"I suggest we run." Shino calmly stated.
"Okay, Yūkimaru, you need to take those pills in order to increase your natural link to the Three-tails."
"Really?" the boy asked. "What for?"
"So you can call it to the surface, of course!"
"But it's right over there." He pointed, and the Sound-nin followed his finger.
The gigantic turtle appeared for a moment flying through the air in an eruption of water, before a huge lightning bolt shot down from the still-present clouds and slammed it back into the lake.
Nurari gaped. "How did we miss that?"
"Who knows." Rinji muttered.
"I don't?" asked Gozu, sounding uncertain.
"Who cares how, let's get over there!" Guren shouted, and took off over the water with her team in pursuit.
"That's me out." Sasuke stated, gauging the disappearing clouds. "That last one exhausted the storm cell, no more Kirin today."
Sakura winced at the impact from the Turtle hitting the Fox in the chest with its' tails. "To be honest, I think Naruto might do better if we were standing a bit further off."
Sai gave his normal creepy smile. "Exposing people to the fear of inflicting collateral damage is a major problem among high level ninja battles."
"I knew it!" Sakura said, fight temporarily forgotten. "I knew all of those bland sayings of yours were from a book! I was reading that one last night!"
"Clearly you are not very far into Danzo's Big Book of Ninja. That's in the first chapter." His smile changed slightly. "Though I think the third chapter is more appropriate here. There's a quote that says, if most of the force is on the sidelines, nine times out of ten the battle gets bigger."
"Attack!"
The team spun, seeing Guren's squad approaching.
"Oh, look. Orochimaru's experiments." Sakura cracked her knuckles. "Earth, Fire, Water and three unknowns. One of them has a kekkei… toru."
"Toru? Three elements?"
"Yes. The leader, the woman with the green coat. There's Earth in there, but I can't quite tell the other two elements. Possibly it's like Ice with Earth added."
"You want to take her, or should I?"
"You do it. The Earth and Water outweigh the Wind – her element is vulnerable to electricity, if it follows normal rules."
Sai drew his sword in one hand and his brush in the other. "Sakura. I will engage the one with the grenade launcher."
"Got it. I'll deal with the gas-mask guy." A swirling mist of water built around her.
"Hey!" Kiba shouted. "What are you guys looking at?"
"Sound ninja!" Sakura called back, and advanced wrapped in thin streamers of high-speed water.
"Now she tells us…" Kiba tossed his head. "Come on, guys!"
Flawless crystal met chirping blade, and gave way to it. Guren scowled, discarding her Lance. "Damn you… what is that?"
"It's called the Lightning element. It is weak to Wind, and strong against Earth. Water enhances it."
"I didn't mean that!"
"Oh, the sword. Not telling." Sasuke spun away from her next attack, a salvo of crystal shuriken, and Flickered behind her.
"Crystal imprisonment wave!"
That Sasuke dissolved into nothing as the attack hit it. "One handed hand seals. I see. Electric Aura Armour." A curtain of electricity sprung up over the body of the original, who hadn't moved. "Am I right in thinking that since electricity disrupts the structure of your element, then your indirect-attack entrapment techniques don't work now?"
Guren frowned for a moment. "God's Crossings!"
A series of clear crystal obelisks erupted from the ground in a line marching towards Sasuke. When the final one was about to appear directly under him, he gave a little smirk.
Nothing appeared.
"Thought not."
"Why didn't you even dodge? Don't underestimate me!"
"Sharingan."
Guren flipped through a series of handseals again. "Jade Crystal Wall Eighth Formation!"
"Lightning element."
"Jade Crystal Prison!"
"Lightning again."
Guren almost snarled. Pulling up a massive amount of her remaining chakra, she slammed her hands on the ground.
"Jade Crystal Labyrinth!"
An enormous, gemstone-shaped prison formed around Sasuke, coming together from a number of flowers in seconds.
Sasuke experimentally pushed the Raijin into the wall, and it sizzled but only broke up a small area. On removal, the area healed up again.
"Interesting. The large structure disperses the electricity."
Guren's voice echoed through the maze. "Give up! You can't keep up that Lightning armour forever, and your Sharingan is no help here! There's too much to see, not too little!"
"I'm not just my eyes." Sasuke's free hand began to chirp, and the Raijin's edge lengthened. "An important principle is that you can't just maintain something with no cost. And I imagine that this enormous cage of yours takes up a lot of chakra to maintain, even without having to repair it. So, how much chakra do you have?"
Sasuke barraged the walls with Chidori Senbon, then stabbed the enlarged Raijin into one of them. "And in a Labyrinth, the way out is just to keep your hand on one wall."
Sakura frowned as she ran into a dense smokescreen. The fire-user was clearly more skilled in indirect arts than most Fire nature wielders – seriously, how many ways did you need to set something on fire? – but her Water nature made her a hard opponent for any Fire user, and True Sight made a smokescreen worse than useless.
She coughed. Well, if you remembered to cover your mouth, anyway. A quick improvised Water technique and the soot left her lungs, and moving her water-soaked Forehead Protector band across her mouth dealt with any more on the way.
"Who are you?" A voice ghosted out of the mist. Sakura ignored the direction it was coming from, closing instead on the real Kigiri. "Nobody develops Water techniques for that specific a situation."
Smoke clones loomed out of the mist, and his voice continued. "It does not matter. You cannot fight an enemy who is like smoke."
The swirling aura of mist around Sakura abruptly sharpened, becoming thin razor blades that spun in an intricate pattern. "Cutting Water Dance."
"Heh, you see, that doesn't work. The smoke clones just reform, and – hang on, shouldn't the technique have ended by now? Er, Binding Smoke Prison!"
Sakura blinked, shifting her other element from Fire to Wind. "Dispersion of water."
The watery streamers slowed, joined into a continuous bubble, then blasted outwards in all directions.
Kigiri staggered back, startled, as it began to rain black water. "That picked up all my smoke particles!"
"I know. That's why I did it."
"Exploding flame shot!" Kigiri rubbed his hands together for a moment, then produced a shower of fireballs and shot them at Sakura. "Take this!"
"No thank you." Analyzing the chakra release, Sakura determined what he was doing to create the fireballs like that. "Neat. I have to say," Water rose up in front of her to block the fireballs, "You've got a much more diverse selection of fire attacks than most people I run into. Here's one of mine."
"I thought you were a Water type!" he shouted. "That and Wind! How are you going to-"
Sakura blinked, and the water shield fell away. The next fire shot hit her and splashed off her, thanks to her fire aspect's fire resistance.
"Dance of the firestorm."
Just like the water had earlier, the fire and wind wrapped around her body, screaming with speed and power.
Then she vanished.
Kigiri took a moment to work out where she'd Flickered to, and that was too long. Her snap kick took him in the right kneecap, and the hungry flames took him.
"That was less than pleasant…" she shuddered, switching back to water and washing off.
Then she staggered. "Wow, that took more out of me than I thought. Suppose it must have been overwhelming his chakra in the smoke."
"Dark smoke sphere!"
Sai batted away the grenade that was headed closest to him, and unfurled his scroll. "I see you use smoke attacks. Is there a reason for that?"
"Huh?"
"Now, tell me about your mother." Sai put brush to scroll. "I've been trying to work out how Naruto does his friendship attacks, but all the psychology books seem to go on about something that hardly seems related."
Kihō shook his head in confusion. "I don't know what you're trying to talk about! "
"Clearly."
"Was that an insult?"
"Yes." Sai continued painting.
"I don't have to take that from you! Smoke Dragon!"
"Smoking does not make you look cool, and I shudder to think where the dragon bit comes from." Sai flourished his scroll, producing an ink gryphon from it, and nodded appreciatively as it swallowed the smoke dragon whole. "My attacks are Water natured. Water makes it so that smoke is washed out of the air."
"Er…"
"You are out of moves already? That is sad." Sai gestured forward. "Get him."
"Wait, wait, no! Please!"
"You shot me with a grenade launcher." Sai shrugged. "I have no sympathies."
Tenten shook her head sadly. "Bats? Really? You sure you want to do this?"
Rinji shrugged. "My bats are useful."
"Oh, I'm sure they're a good utility power, it's just that… they're regular bats. Not even large."
"Really? Well, can't you hear something? Just on the edge of hearing, this ringing sound? Makes you feel woozy, makes you feel-"
Kiba and Akamaru kicked him in the head. "Shut up! That sounds like a dog whistle going wrong!"
Tenten blinked, then shrugged. "Works for me. Shall I finish him off?"
"Go ahead."
She unfurled a scroll. "Everything including the kitchen sink attack!"
A number of large appliances flew out of the scroll and pummelled Rinji, ending with a metal sink and pipes.
Kiba frowned. "Not that I'm complaining or anything, but… why?"
"Comedy value. I filled it last month when we had to demolish a house."
"I see you are a most supple and youthful opponent!"
Lee launched a series of kicks, and Nurari flowed out of the way of them effortlessly.
"Marvellous! I can see that this is a true test of my youthful skills!"
"Do you always say that?"
"But of course! Youthfulness must be proclaimed constantly!" Lee finally managed to land a hit – though Nurari deformed with the blow to avoid being damaged – and found that his hands were covered with a strange, slimy substance.
"Ah, I see you discovered my slime suit. It will stop you from moving, resisting your attempts to move even as I rob them of their force." Nurari giggled.
A light gleamed in Lee's eyes. "A challenge! Sixth Gate of Joy!"
"Wait, what?"
"Morning Peacock!"
Nurari discovered to his dismay that his Slime Suit was not in fact immune to evaporating.
Gozu slammed his fists together. "Puny little Konoha ninja! I will break you!"
Ino glanced over at Shino. "Is he on steroids or something?"
"I do not know." Shino formed a handseal, and a number of bugs swarmed out. "Can you target him with a mind-body switch? It would be helpful."
"He'd need to be fairly still first. Dad taught me the faster version, but it still takes a second or so."
"Then I will hold him still, so you can do that." His bugs coalesced into a pair of clones. "Iron Mountain Leaning."
Ino watched his attack. "How does that even deserve a name! It's a tackle!"
Shino strained, trying to hold the larger ninja as his muscles swelled alarmingly. "Now, please."
"Oh, sorry! Mind/Body Transfer!"
Gozu struggled for another second or two, then stopped and grinned. "Done!"
"Very well." Shino released the possessed Ninja. "Please hold still."
A few orange-red ants crawled out of his clothes. "These are the single most venomous insects that do not naturally enhance their venom with chakra. I have enhanced them with chakra. They will sting the body of this Ninja so that he will die, then you will leave his body."
"Got it! Ouch. Ow! Ow! Those things hurt!"
"Usually that is the primary purpose of an insect sting in any case. The venom will take effect shortly, end your technique."
Ino's body jerked back to life. In the intervening time, it had fallen over and begun floating in the lake. "Damn, that was rough…"
Gozu seized up and keeled over.
Sasuke came to a blind wall. "If I have this layout correct, this is going to be the centre through here."
"Go 'way. Leave me alone, I'm tired." Guren mumbled, almost out of chakra.
The Raijin carved through the wall. "Surrender, and you'll get to live, though you're not going to be using any jutsu any time soon."
"Why are you sparing me?"
"Because you're the leader of this team, and you presumably know a lot about Orochimaru's plans." Sasuke swung his legendary sword, and Guren let out a short cry as it sliced off the two last fingers on each hand.
"That should stop you from performing any handseals." He picked up the fingers, and sealed them into a spare scroll. "If you cooperate, you may get them back."
The crystal labyrinth dissolved.
Sasuke looked over to the main fight. "Naruto! How much more?"
Naruto had pulled out an additional tail at some point, and had the Three-tails in a choke hold. "I think it's weakening!"
His eyes flickered up. "But I broke the containment seal. Probably when I had to use a bijuu ball against this guy."
The turtle thrashed one final time and stopped moving.
Shizune called to the sealing team and got them to rally to her. "Quick! Before it recovers!"
"Finally." Sakura sighed, leaning on Sasuke for support. The technique had taken hold, and the Three-tails was trapped inside the barrier.
Naruto slumped down next to them.
"Tell me about it. I'm just about wiped out after that. Channeling that much chakra for that long burns."
"Everyone else isn't in much better shape either." Shizune said. "Tenten and Kiba are in the best shape, then Sai, Shino and Ino, but everyone else has hardly any chakra left and Lee's muscles are badly overstrained."
Sasuke glanced at the hilt of his sword. "Were it not for that, I'd have run out of chakra there."
"Still, we won." Naruto said. "And that means-"
A flicker of motion slammed into his side and exploded.
Sasuke's hand grabbed the Raijin so fast it looked like he'd flickered it into his hand. "Akatsuki attack!" A second explosive came in and he sliced it in half before it detonated.
"Naruto!" Shizune ran over to him.
It didn't look good. The explosive had been a small one, but it had blown his arm off at the elbow and he seemed to be going into shock.
"We've got to get out of here." Sakura said quietly. "They're after the Three-Tails, and we can't contest it. Not with only Sasuke still in fighting shape."
"I hate to do it, but you're right." Shizune said. "That all this was worthless, though…"
"It wasn't worthless. We stopped Orochimaru from getting it."
"True. Everyone! Retreat to the rally point!"
Tobi waved at the retreating Konoha-ninja. "Goodbye! Come again soon!"
"Tobi, you really annoy me."
"Do I, sempai?" Tobi asked innocently. "Is that a good thing?"
"Shut up." Deidara took a scroll out of his jacket. "Time to blow this barrier wide open, yeah!"
"Ooh! Is that one of the big, big fireworks?"
"…yes, Tobi, it's a firework."
"I see." Sarutobi shook his head sadly. "It's a pity that we couldn't deny Akatsuki the use of one of the Bijuu, but we have at least managed to obtain useful information on my former student's plans. Oh, how is Naruto?"
"Still unconscious."
"Did someone get the number of the Bijuu that ran me over?" Naruto muttered, as he came back to woozy awareness.
Then he spotted his arm. "Oh. Right. Better deal with that first, then." Closing his eyes, he concentrated hard.
Slowly, with a few stops and starts, he shapeshifted his arm back to normal."Ergh… that took a lot out of me."
Shizune came in. "Naruto, you're… how did you do that?"
"Regeneration. Now, I'm starving. Regrowing an arm does that. And what the hell happened?"
"Well, that sucks."
"Tell me about it." Sakura sighed. "All that effort, and then Akatsuki come along and steal it."
"I suppose so. Though at least we got out of there before they managed to learn anything about us."
Itachi coughed wetly, then looked at the blood-spattered hand he'd covered his mouth with. As expected. I will have to fight Sasuke within the month. I think I have the adaptation to my eyes' chakra network completed – I hope it will affect the Amaterasu correctly.
"Kisame. Leave me, I have private matters to deal with."
Kisame grinned. "What, writing a letter to your girl again? Sure, Itachi, I'll let you have that privacy of yours." The shark-man shifted his legendary sword on his shoulder. "Don't know why you're so hung up about it. So what if you were a clan heir, that was seven years ago! And it's not as if you enjoyed it anyway, least I think that's what you were trying to say with the whole murder thing. Or was it that they just didn't like the girl?" He chuckled, then left the room they were staying in in a small town on the border of Fire country.
Itachi said nothing more. He'd carefully crafted the image of some secret paramour, but he didn't think Kisame actually believed it. Brash or not, the man was an S-ranked missing nin. No, it just gave him the excuse he needed to look the other way whenever Itachi did his "private matters".
He silently gauged his chakra. Good. The disease has not affected that, at least.
Sitting down at the ratty table provided, he began to write two letters.
One, to his brother, detailing the battleground he had chosen – a fortress dating to before the Founding – and how to disarm the multitude of traps leading into the Uchiha fortress. He left out one in every ten of them, of course. No sense letting his brother grow complacent.
The second was simply addressed to "bearer."
You have received this letter because you are the one gauged by the Crows to be the best hope for them to continue. The summons under the banner of the Yatagara are exacting, precise, and demand that the individual consider themselves as part of the collective. You will find them to be loyal, so long as you can meet their high standards. You will find them to be skilled, so long as you display skill in return.
Continue their legacy.
Itachi, of the Uchiha Clan.
He carefully rolled up both letters into scrolls, then his hands flickered through the handseals of summoning at the kind of speed that explained why he was – even now, dying of lung cancer and with his eyes barely able to see in black and white – still worthy of the name he'd been called in Konoha.
Paragon.
Not a prodigy of the ninja arts. Prodigies could be skilled in Ninjutsu, or the subtle art of illusions, or in seals. There were even prodigies in specific fighting styles. No, Itachi had been seen as the next God of Shinobi, a man to whom all the ninja arts came as naturally as breathing. More naturally, now.
And, like the last, he despised the need for them. Such were the ironies of history.
His palm hit the tabletop with no more force than was needed, and a trio of crows materialized.
He handed the first letter to one. "Go. It is the Hawk summoner you are to seek." That one would not be stopped by Madara. With Itachi's illness advanced to this point, Madara knew that he would be contacting Sasuke for his last desire – a death by his brother's hands. And that would, as far as Madara was concerned, make Sasuke finally out in the open and manipulable.
He put it out of his mind, and turned to the larger two. One of them bore a scroll in her claws, bearing the emblem of a three-footed crow – this was his summon contract. The other was older and only a little larger, but had taken Itachi the most chakra to summon. This was the Crow's Boss.
"Magoichi." Itachi inclined his head. The term was part name, part title – the leader of the Crows was always Magoichi, and their previous name never referred to again.
"Itachi. Why?"
"It is time. I will not last out the year. You must find another."
"Indeed."
The younger crow looked out the window. Itachi raised his hand, and the Magoichi laid a wing on her back. "No, Sayaka."
She frowned, then nodded. "I see. A messenger is one thing, but this another."
One of the reasons Itachi prized his summons was their keen intellect. Like him, they rarely needed many words either to say or to hear.
"I will summon Sayaka and yourself as part of my murder in my next skirmish. Let Madara think I was ill."
"And made a mistake." Hence the unusually high chakra cost.
"Yes. Seek out the summoner best for you. My preference would be Konoha." But I would not mind if you went elsewhere. The words did not need to be spoken.
"We will do as you request. Let the red bell toll once more."
Once more, the Uchiha nodded. This time in memory, of when it had tolled for him. "Is he ready?"
Magoichi cocked his head. "Close. The transplant is done. It will be three months before the eye has recharged."
"So be it, then."
With that, both crows dispelled themselves.
AN: Yes, I think that's who (or what) Tobi really is in the manga. The mind of the Ten-tails.
Because it would explain why he's been systematically wiping out everyone who might possibly be able to control a Bijuu, as well as why he's reforming the Ten-tails, why he's got the most foul chakra… even why he's happy when Sasuke becomes eviler.
The Crows are based off the Saika faction from the Sengoku era, specifically as portrayed in the Sengoku Basara games. Sayaka is the real name of the Magoichi seen in the third game.
A Yatagara is a three-footed crow which was the historical symbol of the Saika.
I think the Crystal release makes sense as a Kekkei Toru - it has a lot more versatility and is a lot more broken (except against Sasuke's lightning, of course) than most other elements, and it looks a lot like the Ice element techniques.
I think this is the first time outside the side stories that Millie actually got any dialogue, interestingly.
