Summary: The creation of an ascended being puts a strain on reality. A little too much effort on his part or even just a slight loss of control may very well result in a tear—a warping of time and space itself. Unfortunately, Naruto and Sasuke have to pay the consequences. [Time-Travel. Warring Clans Era. No Yaoi. No Bashing.]
Hands of Time
Chapter 3: Restraints
~o0O0o~
For what seemed the millionth time that day, Sasuke struggled against the rope that held him down. It had been a week since he had woken up, and he honestly wasn't sure what to think. He was fairly certain that he and Naruto had been fighting Obito alongside the resurrected Hokage, but afterwards . . . nothing. Afterwards, it was like his memory had just vanished. There was no wall blocking him, there was no intricate puzzle that he had to solve to regain access. It was just gone. That more than anything put Sasuke on edge.
For the moment though, he was content with glaring a hole through the back of Masaru's head, watching as the Senju sharpened his kunai where he sat comfortably against the stone walls of the cave opposite to where Sasuke was tied up. The torchlight, dim as it was, did wonders for Sasuke's vision in the darkness of the damp stone cavern.
The red-gold light flickered to and fro in response to a breeze he couldn't feel. The repetitive motions of the kunai against the grindstones reminded the Uchiha of Suigetsu, always obsessing over those swords of his. He absently wondered how everyone had fared the battle. Who had survived and who had perished? It was an admittedly unpleasant thought, but he had been avoiding the subject for quite some time. Why; he couldn't exactly say.
Sakura had certainly gotten stronger since the last time he saw her, but she had a tendency to attack without reserve whenever she saw an opening, which often left her back wide open. He checked her off the list. For the heck of it, Sasuke decided to review the chances of survival for the rest of the 'Konoha Eleven' as they had supposedly come to be called.
Neji was lying on the ground with a gigantic wooden spear skewering him from behind—Sasuke had passed his corpse on his way to the battlefield. He checked him off the list as well. Lee, on the same Genin team as Neji, was one of Konoha's best taijutsu specialists. That meant, unfortunately for him, that his only option for fighting was to get up close. That would never work against Obito. Lee joined Neji and Sakura in the "presumed dead" section of the list that Sasuke was compiling. Well, in Neji's case, it was far past "presumed".
On the same squad as Neji and Lee, Tenten was a weapons specialist, able to wield just about everything that the shinobi world had to offer. The brown eyed brunette with hair tied up in twin buns also had an affinity for summoning scrolls, if Sasuke recalled correctly. But even if she was a ranged weapons expert, Obito had absorbed a god. Obito could compress Tailed-Beast-Bombs to the size of a small coin and manipulate them at will. Sasuke checked Tenten off the list.
Then the Uchiha got annoyed and checked everyone off the "living" section and into the "presumed dead" section. He had a feeling that Naruto would have yelled at him for that, but he didn't give a damn. If anyone was going to survive the Jūbi Jinchūriki, it would be Naruto. So long as the blond was alive, Sasuke didn't really care about anything else.
Even if Konoha, the village he had sworn to protect, was reduced to rubble, Naruto was the embodiment of its ideals. Naruto was the Will of Fire made flesh. Heck, even that strange chakra-cloak of his represented a wreath of flames. So long as Naruto was alive, the Konoha that Itachi strove to protect would live on. And Sasuke knew that his old teammate was alive. It was almost like an annoying pulse of power. He had felt it a week ago, but there was no denying that it was there. The feeling was unmistakable: Naruto had been using the Kyūbi . . .
"What're you staring at, Uchiha trash?"
Sasuke looked up at the venomous snarl and into narrowed green eyes. The Senju before him would have looked impressive by normal standards, broad shoulders and a tall, muscular build—but shinobi judged strength differently. Among ninja, strength is something above mere brute force. Strength is the ability to overwhelm and dominate, whatever the means. Strength is the means to outsmart and to outmaneuver. It is ruthlessness and cunning in a horrifying combination. But above all, strength is skill.
Skill among shinobi is the sheer talent of ending another life: the fierce ability to kill.
Sasuke knew from the look in his eyes that this Senju had that inner strength. He knew that his jailer was long past the hesitation and guilt that comes with murder. He didn't know why, but it comforted him that his jailer wasn't an amateur. Perhaps, he thought, it was because his pride could suffer a bit less under the knowledge that he had been captured by a skilled killer rather than some greenhorn dabbling in chakra.
"Cat got your tongue?"
Sasuke snorted but looked away, not dignifying the jab with a response. The Senju, Masaru, growled under his breath, but went back to sharpening his many kunai, filling the cave with the sharp metallic echoes of the knives against the grindstone.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Sasuke's nose twitched. This damn Senju, or so he claimed to be, seemed dead-set on annoying the crap out of him. He'd been keeping this up for the past week: sharpening kunai, pounding makeshift armor back into shape after damage from who knows what creatures, gutting animals for food, pounding grains. For some reason, Masaru did everything that involved noise in front of Sasuke, just for kicks.
Scraaaaaaapppppeeeeee.
Sasuke cringed at the extented cacophony that seemed to drive nails through his eardrums, ever so slightly straining against the rope that had sealed away his chakra. When, as expected, his restraints didn't yield, he settled for glaring at the brunette Senju who in turn smirked triumphantly.
"What? The widdle Uchiwa doesn't wike the noise?" Masaru adopted a wide-eyed look with a trembling lip. "Does he want me to stop?" So damn condescending . . .
Sasuke was sure a vein had started throbbing just then. He couldn't reach his head to confirm it, but he could feel the pulsating sensation nonetheless. Damn. He had shown emotion. Masaru: 54, Sasuke: 52. Oh yes, it was a competition.
Sasuke was sure he was going to have to endure more torture of simply being in the other man's company when he heard it—the sound of salvation.
"Masaru~!" Hikari skipped in through the cave entrance, brushing aside the deer pelt that separated Sasuke from the rest of the cave system. Her black leather armor stuck to her form like a second skin and her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Amber eyes shone in the torchlight, full of life. All in all, Sasuke deemed she looked a bit too perky to be a ninja, but as he'd established before, appearances did not determine strength in the shinobi world. Obito was a glaring exception to this rule, having taken the form of a demonic man with bony spines protruding from his back, but he was more or less a singularity.
Sasuke was especially glad to see the woman because in her presence, that insufferable brother of hers was incredibly well-behaved. It was almost like she'd trained him or something. As soon as the amber-eyed female had bounced sunnily into the torchlit cave, her brother clammed up and went back to sharpening his kunai like it was the only thing he wanted to do. It was almost laughable.
Almost.
"Ah, Uchiha-san! You're up!" She bounded over to him.
"Hn . . ." Sasuke didn't understand what she was trying to say with such an obvious statement as her greeting. She didn't seem to be deterred by his lack of a response from trying to make conversation with him. If anything, his overused grunting only made her more determined to talk, much to Sasuke's chagrin. Hikari might have been aesthetically pleasing, but gods could she talk.
It was worse than listening to Karin and Suigetsu pestering one another. Hikari didn't seem to need another person to converse with, she carried the conversation like she was a one-woman crowd. Sasuke had the feeling that the woman could talk to a wall if need be.
"So I was wondering . . ." Sasuke looked up when Hikari addressed him again, apparently refusing to let the conversation—if it could be called that with only a few words and a grunt exchanged—die, "What do you know about cooking?"
". . ." Sasuke raised a brow and Hikari tried mightily to hold back a blush. It was easy to tell that he wasn't directly the cause of said blush: the woman was embarrassed about something else . . . perhaps a potential lack of domestic skills?
He noted that the only food he had ever seen and received in his time as a captive of these Senju siblings was pre-made rations—food for a war, definitely not for taste. And Hikari and Masaru couldn't cook to save their lives, but it was nothing Sasuke wasn't used to. Karin, for all her traipsing around trying to be his wife, didn't know the first thing about using a kitchen.
He decided to speak then, never one for unnecessarily prolonged conversations. "I can prepare food adequately," he admitted. The information was harmless to his current position. It wasn't like things could get much worse for him anyway. He, the last of his clan and one of the most powerful ever had been captured and restrained. If that wasn't a huge blow to his pride, then Sakura's hair was green and Karin loved Suigetsu.
Bad move. Hikari grinned maniacally.
"Good!" She pulled a rabbit carcass out of nowhere along with some nuts and berries and shoved them in his face. "You're making dinner tonight!"
Sasuke blinked incredulously for a moment, then deadpanned, "I'm tied to your bed . . ." He heard Masaru snort from the corner of the cave, but Hikari's grin didn't falter. She snapped her fingers.
And the rope fell loose.
Sasuke fell to the uneven, rocky floor, grimacing as his arms and legs began the uncomfortable process of restoring bloodflow. Unfortunately for him, Hikari seemed to notice when he tensed his muscles in preparation to flee, or to rip her head off. Who was he kidding? He was going to rip her head off.
"I wouldn't bother, Uchiha-san." Her voice might as well have come from an ice-queen. It was cold and every bit as imperious as he would expect from royalty of an ancient bloodline. Sasuke looked his captor in the eye and almost flinched at what he saw—undeniable confidence, unshakable determination. It was as creepy as trying to stare Naruto down.
"Those ropes are infused with Uzumaki seals." At that, Sasuke tensed. Karin had been an Uzumaki, and so had Naruto. However, it was from Karin that Sasuke had learned of the clan's infamous reputation with seals. There was a saying; never get an Uzumaki worked up—they're bad enough on their own. Anything made by them was something to avoid at all costs.
"And now they're keyed-in to your unique chakra signature." To demonstrate, the Senju woman quickly made a few hand-seals and released a small, almost minuscule burst of chakra. "Fuin!"
The rope found Sasuke like it was a starving snake and he was the plump mouse. Within moments, he found himself struggling on the floor against the infernal piece of twine. His chakra, which had just been about to resurface, once again retreated to the inner depths of his coils.
He gasped, his pupils constricted, and his heart thundered in his chest as his potent life-force was ripped from his grasp once more. The pain was enough to kill a man three times his size, but he gritted his teeth and endured.
There was always a smarter way to do things. One way or another, he would escape, and he would have his vengeance for this utter humiliation.
Hikari beamed radiantly, the torchlight giving her a ghostly allure. "Nothing beats Uzumaki sealing! This way, we can guarantee your cooperation!" Sasuke would have cursed at her, but the rope had taken it upon itself to snake its way into his mouth and around his head, effectively gagging him. He growled, but the sound was muffled by the rope, ruining the dramatic effect.
The girl giggled, causing Sasuke to glare. That only made her laugh harder.
He began pondering on the most painful ways to make her die.
Meanwhile, Masaru cackled like a hyena in his corner of the cave.
Sasuke trembled in impotent rage. Whatever he did to Hikari, Masaru would receive ten times over.
~o0O0o~
The Nine-Tails stared in utter disbelief as his container fell to the watery floor at his feet, dead to the world. Of all the fucking times to lose consciousness . . .
However, Kurama had lived for far too long to panic at a time like this. At an age of over two thousand, he'd pretty much seen it all. He'd seen puny empires rise and fall. He'd witnessed the birth of new bloodlines and ingenious architecture. He'd watched as brilliant leaders blazed with an overpowering light, only to be snuffed out by the fearful and the jealous. But most of all, he'd seen war for what it truly was: countless skirmishes that took the lives of millions—innumerable sackings of towns and cities.
War is a disease, and there is no cure.
If Kurama ever truly had a purpose, it was to fight and eliminate the festering hatred that would inevitably surface whenever the humans converged. He was meant to be a cleansing force of nature that washed away diseased civilizations and allowed humanity to start anew with a newfound aversion to fighting and death. Yet they never failed to forget the price of a foul mind and tainted soul, so his job resurfaced every few decades or so.
Now though, he was confronted with the little apes he hated above all—the blasted Uchiha clan led by Madara himself! Although he dearly wished to rip their flesh and break their bones—Madara especially—his first priority was to save Naruto from these excruciating black flames.
Kurama heaved a sigh. This would have been far easier with Naruto awake to channel his power. He couldn't help but seethe at the blond's unconscious form. "I guess I'll take over for now, brat."
He reached out across the mindscape unhindered, his cage having been deemed unnecessary by his Uzumaki partner, and lightly tapped Naruto's stomach with a razor-sharp claw, careful not to skewer him like he had the boy's parents.
"I'll be taking your body for a moment." The air hummed with the spontaneous release of pure, unadulterated power—chakra at its finest—as the Tailed-Beast allowed his godlike strength to flow through the human body of his container.
When the Kyūbi finally looked through Naruto's eyes, using the blond's sight as his own, the world around him roiled in chaos.
He grinned. If there was anything he liked in particular, it was chaos. He thrived in chaos.
It was his purpose, his calling.
~o0O0o~
Madara, head of the Uchiha, watched in approval as the blond shinobi burned to his death in what was undoubtedly the most powerful, hottest fire-ninjutsu ever created. There was a certain sadistic satisfaction is watching his enemies suffer, but there was a reason he couldn't.
Watching this strange yet powerful ninja barely out of his teens melt in the black flames of Amaterasu was wasting time, and there was every chance that the Sarutobi would call on the Senju to retaliate. He needed to get back to the rest of his clan as fast as possible, especially in his state.
The Clan Head very suddenly and very severely realized that he'd been unnecessarily powering his Susano'o, sacrificing his tremendous portions of his chakra to sustain it, while the threat of the whiskered blond had more or less been eliminated. With a gasp, he released the otherworldly warrior back to its own plane of existence. Just like that, he could breathe again. His knees trembled from exhaustion and overuse, but Madara refused to falter in front of his men. He stood tall, despite the fact that all he felt like doing was lying in bed for a week.
Inwardly, he groaned. This was why he considered the Susanō a last resort. Not only did its usage slowly deteriorate his eyesight, something every Uchiha took immense pride in, but it also brought him to his knees with a severe case of chakra exhaustion. If it wasn't for it the brilliant combination of attack and defense the Susanō provided, Madara would have never used the technique for the sheer inconvenience afterwards.
"Madara-nii?" He turned his head slightly to examine his younger brother. Izuna was fairing far better than him, but that was exactly as he'd intended. He'd sooner take his own life than watch the last of his brothers die.
". . . Madara-nii?" Izuna was slightly more concerned than before, having received no response from his brother. Madara coughed, grimacing at the metallic taste of blood as it seeped into his mouth. He was used to it, but he'd never really liked the sharp tang of iron on his tongue. It was bitter, raw, and it was a constant reminder of this miserable world in which he lived.
Madara's sharingan reverted back to its three-tomoed state, reducing the stress on his eyes immensely.
"Izuna."
"Y-Yes, brother?" At the moment, Madara's voice was about as cold and uncaring as a blizzard, something he'd never before used on Izuna.
"Finish him."
They both looked at their blond assailant who was still writhing in unimaginable pain as the black flames of Amaterasu burned him into nothingness. Madara frowned at how long it appeared to be taking.
"I think that's unnecessary, brother. He's about to—"
"Izuna. Now." No chances could be taken with anyone who'd forced him to use the Susanō. It was sheer stupidity to leave loose ends as they were.
The younger Uchiha faltered for a moment, a bit on edge by the sudden frostiness of his brother, but ultimately he bowed.
"As you wish, Madara-nii."
Izuna advanced on the dying shinobi, pulling out the kunai that he intended to shove into the burning man's jugular as he had so many others. Just as he was close enough to ram his kunai through the burning body, he froze. Madara was about to snarl at his brother to finish their enemy when he felt it—overwhelming power, far greater than before. It built up in a monstrous wave—the size of which caused Madara's eyes to bulge and the rest of his clan to gape in shock and fear—and then it surged forward in a single, overpowering blast.
BOOM.
A pillar of golden light exploded from the blond's body and reached high into the heavens, blasting away the black flames like they were cobwebs. Izuna who had been a mere three feet away was blown clean off his feet, as though he were just a leaf. Madara scrambled and caught him with a grunt, ignoring the groaning protest of his limbs and ribcage as he barely stopped his brother's body from smearing on the ground.
All the while, the pillar of golden light reached higher and higher into the smoke-filled sky until it burst in the air, creating a shock-wave that spanned for miles, blowing every cloud right out of the sky in the process. Then the fluctuating light retreated until it caressed the horribly burnt form of the blond shinobi and—unbelievably—began to revitalize him, mending his cuts and banishing his burns. Wounds that would normally take weeks to heal closed in seconds. Burns that would leave scars for a lifetime were removed without a trace. The process left Madara dumbstruck.
As soon as the light was finished healing the blond, it plunged into him, saturating his being with its power, raw as it was. Madara decided that he probably should have attacked while the light was occupied.
He looked at Izuna reproachfully. "Don't ever hesitate. Ever." Izuna never even looked at him, his wide eyes completely focussed on the now-glowing form of the orange-garbed male who'd attacked them.
Turning around, Madara succeeded in capturing the attention of every Uchiha clan member out in the field with a single crimson glare, despite the fact that they were petrified at the events that had unfolded before their eyes.
"Fall back to base! This is not a power you can handle!" They hesitated for a moment, obviously unwilling to leave the heirs to the entire clan behind in the face of an unknown power, but the relented at the look in their Clan-head's eyes.
A burning determination, a fiery will to survive.
Fists clapped to breastplates in a cacophony of metal striking metal. "Hai, Madara-sama!"
With a collective bow, they turned heel and fled, trusting in the power of their leader to deal with this foreign threat.
Turning back towards the upwards-reaching beacon, Madara focused his attention on the shining form of the shinobi who had very nearly destroyed him. He didn't like the look of that golden aura that was surrounding the unconscious body, and he especially didn't like the way it continually repaired the damage to the enemy ninja, restoring his body as though Izuna had never cast the black flames of Amaterasu. That was another thing that Madara really didn't like—someone had actually survived the ultimate fire ninjutsu after it almost melted off their face.
He would have immediately attacked—just to keep the ninjutsu's track record clean—had the earlier bout not given him a healthy sense of caution.
Izuna placed a hand on his shoulder, giving him support he hadn't realized he'd needed. Madara looked into the whirling eyes of his brother and he could clearly see the emotion brimming in the surface. Rage, sorrow, determination, but most of all, fear. Izuna was afraid that he would die today.
He would never let that happen. He would never allow his brother to die, not for him.
That more than anything fueled Madara's fury as his sharingan pulsed with a fresh flow of chakra even though moments before, he had been about to collapse. That singular purpose drove him forward, made his fighting spirit blaze.
Suddenly, there was an impact on the side of his face and the world tumbled around him at crazy speeds. It hurt like hell.
~o0O0o~
Kurama breathed in deeply—something he hadn't properly done in decades. It felt nice, even if it wasn't through his own body. He could feel his chakra revitalizing Naruto's broken form, healing the cuts and banishing the burns.
It was a good thing that he and Naruto had been bonded for as long as they had, because the blond had developed a resonance with his own potent chakra. For the moment, the giant fox was able to force himself into control of Naruto's body, but he was still restrained.
In this forced takeover of his partner's body, he only had a few minutes: six at the most. Internally, he cursed his container for leaving him to do all the work. Internally because he was still working on gaining control of Naruto's jaw. No, wait . . . he got it!
The ninth Bijū wiggled human fingers and shook human limbs as he forced a head that was not his off the burnt, almost glassy ground. His breath caught in his throat when he saw them.
Uchiha.
If there was any single part of humanity that deserved to be eradicated, it was the Uchiha, and to a lesser extent, the Senju. Ironically, the descendants of his creator, the legendary Sage of Six Paths, were the ones who least carried his legacy. Those clans more than any other spread war and suffering. They tainted their souls as they fought one another for control, both sides committing unforgivable crimes in the process. Their constant betrayal and backstabbing stained their souls black with sin, and it always showed clearly whenever he sensed their chakra.
Kurama shifted a bit in Naruto's body, transferring most of the body-weight to the palms of his hands, raising his skull. His back arched and his vertebrae popped back in place as his condensed golden chakra did its job with an urgency that could be felt in the air.
In those two clans were some of the foulest humans that the Bijū ever had the displeasure of sensing. Were they not the last remnants of the mythical man he had considered his father, he would have wiped them out long ago. Such was his duty after all—to rid the world of its vilest vermin and scum so that all the rest could live their lives in peace. That was Kurama's charge, as mandated by his father on his deathbed.
But now . . . Uchiha Madara stood before him. Those damnable crimson eyes whirled like they had so often before, the same eyes that had controlled him, that had dared to use him. Now, Kurama finally had his chance to rip the man to shreds as he deserved, to tear his flesh from his bones and to crush his skull.
The chakra finally settled around his form, giving his being a golden embrace, and the Kyūbi blurred into action. One second, he was lying disoriented on the ground, and in the next his human fist was colliding into Madara's face with a satisfying crunch.
Revenge was a beautiful thing indeed, especially the physical kind.
He stood there with his fist still outstretched as he watched Madara's form blast away from the force of his blow. The giant fox smirked, drinking in what had to be the most beautiful sight in the world as Madara Uchiha plowed through a rocky ground with speeds that would tear most men apart. He was enjoying this way too much.
"MADARA-NII!"
Kurama flinched at the panicked scream that sounded off right next to him. He had been so focused on correctly maneuvering Naruto's body and on destroying Madara that he'd made the rookie mistake of not paying attention to his surroundings.
He whipped his head towards the noise even as Naruto's body slipped into a defensive crouch on instinct. Kurama was rather impressed—the brat had trained so hard that it wasn't even necessary for him to have complete control over Naruto's body! The Uchiha that stood before him wasn't even paying attention to him. Rather, he was staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the tumbling form of that bastard Madara.
Kurama watched in fascination as the young man's sharingan captured every detail of the great Uchiha Madara being thrown across the landscape. When a tear fell down his cheek, Kurama snorted; he hadn't seen Naruto's fight, but this one didn't seem worth his time. The Nine-Tails then stretched, inducing a series of satisfying pops in his joints.
"I've been wanting to do that for such a long time." Oh, good. He'd been able to keep his voice. Kurama didn't particularly like the high-pitched squeak that humans seemed to possess.
The Uchiha stiffened, fists clenching and shoulders trembling violently.
"And I'm not even done yet. You know, for all the time I've wanted to kill Madara, I've never put much thought into how . . . Should I rip out his guts? Grind his bones? Drink his blood?"
All the while, the Uchiha stood locked in place, his eyes red from more than just the sharingan and his body shaking with fury.
Kurama frowned; this was no fun. He only enjoyed himself if his prey actually responded. Sighing, he turned back to Madara. That man, Kurama would enjoy destroying no matter what. The world blurred around him as once again, Naruto's instincts took over. Kurama vanished in a golden flash and reappeared next to the spot where Madara had finally rolled to a stop on the burnt rocky ground.
Absently, he flexed Naruto's fingers, opening and closing his right fist. It appeared that while in control of Naruto's body, he had access to the majority of the blond's skill. However, Kurama didn't know how to access any of it yet. So far, it had just . . . happened, obeying his will without conscious thought.
The taijutsu stance felt natural, as it should have for any shinobi, but Kurama wasn't sure how he had managed to move fast enough to literally blur. From what he had seen, even Naruto when he was fully conscious had to concentrate immensely to sprint at such speeds. Perhaps it was because even as incapacitated as Naruto was, he kept on fighting, never once giving up, never once backing down.
It was times like this that made Kurama truly respect the brat.
At his feet, Madara suddenly gasped, greedily sucking in large mouthfuls of air. Kurama quirked an eyebrow, or at least tried, because he ended up wrinkling his nose instead. It seemed that his control over his partner's body wasn't as complete as he'd have liked to believe. As it was, Madara didn't seem as though he was in any condition to fight. He would be like putty in Kurama's hands—easily manipulated and incredibly weak.
Then his vision filled with a brilliant sapphire-blue as the world careened around him. There was a sharp pain in his stomach and it felt like one of the stakes of his damnable old seal was impaling him once more. Looking down his torso, Kurama saw a giant blue sword piercing through the protective golden chakra-cloak and into his stomach.
The pain was agonizing, hacking through his nerves and paralyzing his limbs with with excruciating efficiency. Barely able to follow the blade with his eyes, the Bijuu eventually saw the one and only Uchiha Madara, badly injured with a swollen face, fractured ribs and a bloody mouth, standing over him in victory.
The Susano'o stood guard over Madara once more, pupil-less alien eyes staring into Kurama's soul. The Bijū decided then that if there was one thing in the world that he absolutely despised, it was the sharingan. Growling, the Kyūbi flared his chakra and and shook off the crippling pain. If Naruto could get up from something like this, then like hell he couldn't!
Powerful claws of potent golden power reached out of Naruto's body and shoved the Susano'o's sword away after a careful extraction. Madara glared through a coughing fit as Kurama once again healed his container's body. It was then that Kurama noticed his power was slightly harder to call upon than before, a bit slower to respond.
Damn . . . He'd been taking too much time. With a gaze that could melt steel, he looked up.
"You . . . did you really think something like this was enough to stop me? ME?!" Superheated air blasted away from him as the ground cratered around his body, leaving him standing shakily in the center of a cavernous hole.
Madara stared in undisguised horror. "What manner of hell-spawn could possibly survive that?" He paused as he coughed out a globulous red fluid. When he looked up, his warped sharingan were whirling at a furious rate, so fast that the black designs blurred to form a series of concentric circles, alternating between red, black, and red again. "What kind of monster are you?" He said the word monster like it shouldn't exist.
Kurama couldn't help but chuckle at that, purring with satisfaction as the last of the injuries to Naruto's body steamed and closed as though they never were. Making sure that Madara was watching him from his position six meters away, Kurama forced as much chakra as he dared into Naruto's body, confident that his jinchūriki could handle the strain.
The air turned to syrup.
Madara's sharingan bulged as he gasped and fell to his knees. The blue-hued Susano'o, however, remained unaffected.
"What kind of monster am I?" Kurama chuckled again, but his eyes turned crimson and slitted as he finally got the right amount of chakra through his partner's body. His laughter became far more sinister as adopted a deep guttural quality. Suddenly, everything looked clearer, every smell sharper. He could feel nails hardening into claws and canines bulging familiarly in his mouth and all of a sudden, Madara looked far more afraid. The fox loved every second of it.
"I'M THE STRONGEST!"
With a roar, he slammed a chakra-laden fist into the four-armed Susano'o, staggering it with the power of his blow. Madara looked up in a panic, his eyes leaking liquid scarlet trails. He appeared to be losing his large vernacular in the heat of battle. "What the hell are you?!"
Kurama laughed as he dodged a swing of the Susanō's sword, ignoring the question. He didn't put it past the blasted Uchiha to try to catch him off guard like that. Madara knew exactly who he was. That is, until he got a closer look at those accursed eyes. He froze, and it almost cost him everything. As the Bijū narrowly avoided another swipe that was inches away from taking off his head, only one thought was on his mind:
'His eyes . . .'
He ducked under a swing as the colossal blade barely missed his form. Kurama moved in closer to his larger foe, obeying the instincts still present in his container's body. Years of fighting life-and-death battles were beaten into his muscles, engraved in his bones. Naruto's body knew what to do—Kurama just had to let it all flow in harmony.
'They're different . . .'
The Susano'o swung heavily with the sword in one of its left hands while simultaneously bringing the blade in its right hand down like a hammer of god. Kurama ducked under the left-handed swing, feeling the edge of the blade graze against his chakra-cloaked skin without breaking it, but he panicked when he saw the second sword. It approached with the finesse of a meteor, blasting away the air in front of it as it neared.
"Che!"
Kurama threw his body forward, crashing into the sapphire giant himself as the ground behind him was decimated with the punishing force of the blow. The air filled with all manner of dust and debris as the ground split under the force of the ethereal blue sword. Immediately, he peeled himself off and backpedalled to what he deemed to be a safe distance away.
As he struggled to put distance between him and his opponent, the Susano'o slashed wildly at his golden form, forcing him to bob and weave like a ferret gone mad. While he fought, Kurama lamented the fact that he could not use his own body for the fight, for it was far harder to try to do battle in Naruto's. Nonetheless, the fox avoided the otherworldly blade with a desperation. One slash of that and he'd go from one Bijū to two Bijū pieces. He didn't like the idea one bit.
Kurama rolled to his left as the gigantic sapphire sword shattered the ground where he had been less than a second earlier. The earth groaned as dust spewed into the air, temporarily shrouding the area.
As the Tailed-Beast dodged yet another swipe, Madara let out a frustrated yell and redoubled his efforts, causing his eyes to bleed even more. The Susano'o flickered for a moment, then in addition to the armor it already wore, it donned a hooded grey cloak with a ceremonial mask of sorts, causing alien eyes to gleam from under the darkness. Madara's breathing was ragged and raw as he struggled to stay upright, his eyes were leaking bloody tears, and his skin was unnaturally pale.
Kurama took the opportunity to retreat and try to come up with some kind of a strategy. As he was, he couldn't just power his way through Madara, however much he wanted to. Kurama was strong, but by no means was he a block-head. He understood the need for craftiness, respected those with cunning. He leaped backwards by a good fifty yards, his golden chakra augmenting Naruto's physical capabilities greatly.
All of a sudden, the Tailed-Beast felt an almost imperceptible shift in the air as the hairs on his neck stood on end. He spun around, only to find that other Uchiha, the one he'd deemed not worth his time standing right behind him, glaring at him like the look alone would do him in. After a moment of tense silence, Kurama snarled, "I think you're lost, little Uchiha." The man didn't so much as flinch at the earth-shaking voice. The only thing he did was stare. And stare.
There was a pulse, and the Uchiha's Sharingan stretched violently. Kurama cursed not having watched Naruto's battle earlier. He had known that Naruto had been badly burnt, and he knew that his partner was fighting Madara: but beyond that, he was in the dark. This was how Naruto had almost gotten killed.
Mangekyō . . . Even though he had never seen this one that looked like three thick black stripes connecting to a black circle which surrounded a red pupil, it still looked familiar. Then it dawned on the Bijū.
'If you put this one with Madara's . . . Damn it Naruto, what happened? What has Obito done?'
Deciding that it didn't particularly matter at the moment how splitting of an Eternal Mangekyō had occurred, Kurama decided to eliminate the threat before him.
The entire thought process took less than a second.
Holding out his hand, he condensed positive and negative chakra in a careful ratio of 8:2. Golden hands sprouted out of his chakra-cloak and started to add to the mixture, until a dark purple ball formed. It was fortunate that Naruto was so used to making that Rasengan of his, because it allowed the chakra to flow more smoothly for what Kurama was attempting.
A Bijū-Dama.
The ball of explosive chakra hovered over his right hand, being tended to by two golden chakra-hands that had sprouted out of the cloak. It grew by the second, having started out as not much smaller than a coin, but now fast outstripping Naruto's head. It was more than enough for any Uchiha, powerful enough to take out entire villages. He could smell the fear of Madara and feel the terror of the Uchiha frozen in front of him. Kurama smirked in victory.
And then, disaster struck.
The Tailed-Beast-Bomb, which had been growing just fine until then, froze and shattered, revealing a dull rocky interior. Kurama felt his power rapidly retreating to the depths of Naruto's body, into a place where he couldn't use it to fight the Uchiha.
'No! I'm running out of time!'
Now in a full-blown panic, the ninth Tailed-Beast leveled one last glare at Uchiha Madara, just as he felt the weirdest sensation. It was like . . . he was being pulled. There was no other word for it. It was like he was being forced out of existence. He looked down to his belly only to see a crazy distortion in the air, along with the beginnings of a sphere of the purest black.
Shit. That was what the other Uchiha had been trying to do. Black flames and now this?! Damn Sharingan . . .
The real concern appeared when Kurama found it difficult to move. "What the—!" Then impossible to move. "NO!" He struggled like the beast he really was, snarling and flashing fangs that were far longer than they should have been, his red eyes glowing with a strange light.
"Something wrong?" It was that other Uchiha, the one who had a part of Madara's Mangekyō. His voice . . . it sounded so cold that it gave him chills. His was the same voice that Madara had used the night that he bound him under his control, the same imperious tone, the same consuming rage. It was enough to make Kurama bristle in defiance and bare his teeth in clear, vicious intent.
"No one escapes the Kamui. Disappear in my Divine Judgement." The Kamui. The fucking Kamui.
Kurama snarled, putting up a brave front. He was running out of time and he knew it. He was running on barely a minute, and he didn't have enough time to charge another Tailed-Beast-Bomb. He knew that fate was closing its deadly claws around his being, since the Kamui was starting to tug painfully at his stomach. This was nowhere near as fast or efficient as when that brat Kakashi used it though, so the fox counted himself lucky.
"Do you really think this will stop me?" The Uchiha remained unaffected, steadily widening the dimensional tear that threatened to suck Kurama into the void. He ignored how the veins of his eyes bulged and how tears of blood leaked down his cheeks from the strain.
Kurama growled. At this rate . . .
Then he saw something that renewed his hope, rekindled his will to survive, revived his desire to dominate in the heat of battle. A chance for victory was in sight, small, but a chance nonetheless.
"Madara looks like hell," Kurama remarked with an undeniable glee evident in his voice.
Unbelievably, that actually worked as a distraction. The Uchiha looked over Kurama's shoulder to where Madara had fallen to his knees, Susano'o long since dissipated. A pool of blood was rapidly forming underneath him. It looked like he could only use the otherworldly warrior with the Eternal Mangekyō after all. Without it, the Warrior God crushed his body and spirit like it was nothing. The power was just too taxing.
"Madara-nii!" The pressure that immobilized Kurama lessened for an instant, almost imperceptibly. It was enough. The Tailed-Beast burst into action, taking one of the few options available to him before he could be captured again.
BAM!
Kurama rammed his forehead against that of the Uchiha's, the metal of Naruto's hitai-ate inducing what would no doubt be a mild concussion.
The pressure vanished and reality returned to its normal state as the Uchiha lost focus. Kurama shifted, testing his range of motion even as the unknown Uchiha fell over in a disoriented heap, blood cascading down his forehead, bleeding profusely as head-wounds usually do. Kurama stared at the injured man's dulled eyes for a moment. Perhaps he'd hit too hard . . . No, he didn't mind if he killed an Uchiha.
Then, the Bijū felt the last of his power slowly starting to retreat, stripping him of his strength. If only he had more time . . .
Not wasting a moment to think on why the Uchiha before him had called Madara his brother, Kurama used Naruto's body to its fullest potential and vanished in a golden flash, leaving two bitter and bloodied siblings in his wake.
~o0O0o~
Author's Note: I feel rather dissatisfied with the fight scene, enough that I might actually go back and edit a lot of it. Anyway, I tried my best to keep anyone relatively in character. Let me know if you don't think I did my job on that aspect.
As for Hikari and Masaru, I really enjoyed writing their characters, just 'cause I like annoying the crap out of Sasuke. I don't know why . . .
Also, the reason that this story even exists is because of two people: Hmm, the one who brought to my attention that The Clan Wars could have been better, and Infamous Storm, my friend and fellow author (who happens to be much better than I am) who encouraged m to write a new version of my first story.
The reason I bring this up is because I'm recommending Infamous' story to all of you. It's called 'A Different Legend' and it's... actually a bit hard to explain without giving away the plot. Well, the humor is outstanding, the action is breathtaking, and the conversations are actually written like real conversations. It even has a good plot! Here's the summary:
Naruto is literally one of the most talented shinobi to have ever graced the ninja world in the past five hundred years, yet he uses his brilliance to get out of work rather than do it himself. Too bad having a fox in your gut complicates things... AU. Pairings in the works. I own nothing.
I promise you, it is totally worth the read. However, if any of you have specifics on what you like to read, just withhold your judgement until at least chapter thirteen.
Above all, I would like to thank my beta sendicard for his tremendous amount of help. Seriously, I don't know how I'd navigate the raging sea of typos and grammar fallacies without his guidance.