Part 10
Nagato stared at the small toad. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, brat! Yahiko says you'd better hurry up, Konoha's in trouble!"
Nagato was silent for a minute. "It appears that I need to return and bail out my teammate. Heh. That's just like you, Yahiko, biting off more than you can chew."
The toad in his hand popped out of existence.
"Anko!" he called.
"Yes, sensei?" The purple-haired girl that had started this journey with him was now a woman in her mid-twenties. He was beyond proud of the ninja she'd become, and he had long since determined that she was smarter than him. Even if she had the tendency to dress...provocatively, it was either a front to annoy him or a way to keep people off guard. Probably both.
"We've got to head back to the Leaf."
"Ohhhh," she sounded almost disappointed. Huh. He would have at least thought that she'd be excited. Even after more than a decade together she could still surprise him.
"You don't sound too pleased."
"No, I'm happy to go back to Konoha. It's just, sensei, it's been so long, and you just drop everything when your old teammate calls?"
"It's time I returned anyway. The rumors of this Akatsuki have been dangerous enough," Nagato paused, considering. "And Konan would be way better because she's so close. If he's bothering to call me, it's because he really needs help."
"Ahh, sensei, I see. So we should probably head out soon. It'll take us a few hours to make it all the way to the Leaf."
Nagato grinned. "Not quite. Take my hand."
Anko raised her eyebrows curiously, but took his hand anyway.
He closed his eyes, and a red cloak of immense, overpowering chakra oozed out of him to cover them both.
"The trip will be significantly shorter if we borrow the might of the Kyūbi."
Her eyes widened in shock, and he smirked, triumphantly.
The master had some surprises left, as well.
"Let's go!"
He surged forward.
Minato frowned, and dodged to the left. He was faster than the Kazekage, and the advantage of speed was keeping his opponent on the defensive. Unluckily, however, the Kazekage was very good at defense — the strength of his Gold Dust rendered him nearly untouchable, even at his regular speeds.
Rasa was no idiot, either, and while he was perfectly willing to allow Minato to practically run circles around him, he was significantly less permissive when it came to hiraishin kunai.
It was a subtle dance — Minato was fast enough to outrun Rasa, who was skilled enough to deflect that prodigious speed.
Time to get serious, then. Speed wouldn't be enough, and he would have to use that technique.
But first, he was curious. "Kazekage! The Sand and the Leaf have been allies for years! Why did you attack the Hokage like that?"
The man's face twisted with anger. "The Sand is not what it once was! What recourse do I have when even our country's own daimyo is willing to take his business to Fire Country? What does that say about my people!?"
Two waves of dust attempted to squish him between them, so he teleported to a kunai behind his opponent, throwing another from his belt at the Kazekage's back.
"But attacking us isn't the way to fix that! Even if you do succeed in destroying the Leaf, that won't make the Sand strong!"
"No, it won't." The man's head was slightly turned, so he could watch Minato out of the corner of his eye.
Minato started slightly.
The Kazekage continued, "But it will prevent you from strangling us out of kindness. The Wind Daimyo wants to go to the Leaf for missions? What kind of message will it send to him when the Leaf is destroyed? He won't dare to hire a ninja outside of the Sand Village ever again!"
He punctuated this statement with a spear of dust flying forward towards Minato. He jumped left again, and in one hand he began gathering a ball of swirling chakra.
Minato prepped the rasengan. "That's not how the relationship between a Kage and his daimyo is supposed to work! It's a relationship built on trust!"
He jumped to another kunai, this time dashing forward and thrusting the justsu forward...into another cloud of dust, which resisted the spin with its weight. The attack petered out.
The Kazekage just sneered at him. Minato needed bigger guns.
"You are a sentimental fool." Well, Kushina said something similar about once a week. He couldn't really disagree.
Minato grinned. "Well, maybe you're right, Rasa. But you could have said that about Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara once upon a time. If we're going to change this world, it has to start somewhere. Why not with the man who is feared across the continent?"
His opponent frowned, as if waiting for Minato to strike again.
"I don't want to fight you," he admitted. "But when you come into my home, and attack my village, what is Konoha supposed to do? You yourself admitted your village was weak, surely you don't expect to win this."
The Kazekage shifted his eyes to the center of the arena, where a gigantic raccoon dog made of sand was rampaging. Minato could spot the red hair of his wife, summoning her family's chakra chains in an attempt to restrain it.
"The Sand's greatest weapon. My son. He is far too bloodthirsty to be controlled, but he can be pointed in the right direction," he said.
All Minato could think about was the dispassionate way the man was talking about his son. What kind of father was that careless with his child?
His eyes tracked Kushina, and his heart swelled with pride. She could take care of herself, even against a murderous jinchūriki. And she was particularly effective against that particularly enemy, anyway, because of her heritage, and Kakashi's genin team were keeping the Kazekage's other children and assorted Sand ninja away from Kushina. If the Kazekage was relying on his son to win the fight, this was poorly planned.
In fact, this whole thing seemed poorly planned. Minato didn't see any real advantage the Sand had. The strange Rain ninja that had confronted Yahiko and his sensei had moved away, but Yahiko could hold his own.
It almost seemed like all of this was some sort of stalling tactic.
The realization hit him like a lead weight in his stomach.
"You're stalling me," he said.
"Yes," his opponent admitted.
A wave of gold dust rushed him, and Minato dropped his kunai into the roof of the arena before hopping backwards, drawing the attack away from the Kazekage. Once the attack cleared, he flashed back to the kunai and jumped up.
Then he punched the Kazekage in the face.
"Who could you possibly be buying time for?" he asked.
"That would be me."
He turned towards the speaker, and felt his jaw drop.
Unruly A, the Yondaime Raikage, stood before him, practically vibrating with lightning-natured chakra.
The large man said, "Kumo has a bone to pick with you all, and I want a rematch, Yellow Flash."
Minato closed his mouth and felt his jaw tighten. "So be it."
He flashed forward.
"Stay down!" the redhead commanded, as enormous chains erupted from her back, wrapping around the giant sand monster.
Orochimaru wasn't sure when his promotion match turned into a full-scale assault on the village, but he'd gotten very used to rolling with the punches with his teammates around, and really, compared to his team's usual antics, the Chūnin Exams had been very calm so far.
So really, it shouldn't be a surprise, he considered. Jiraiya in particular seemed to have this weird propensity for property damage.
Maybe it was a bloodline talent.
Speaking of the walking ball of trouble, his teammates appeared next to him on the arena floor.
"What's going on?" Jiraiya asked.
"Idiot. We're under attack!" Tsunade berated.
"The exam proctor is attempting to defeat the beast. We should prevent anyone from interfering." The other two Sand genin in the finals, Gaara's teammates, had shown up too, and the blonde girl looked about ready to swing her fan.
"Got it. Hey! Puppet-coward! Come and fight me!" Jiraiya called. If nothing else, it was effective, because the puppet-user that had surrendered earlier immediately shouted and summoned his puppet to attack him.
"And you can leave the wind-girl to me, Orochimaru," Tsunade said. "It's not like I can afford to lose again if I want to get promoted, right?" She offered a hopeful smile.
"You cannot. It is unlikely that you will be promoted in the first place, considering you lost your first match," he replied. She narrowed her eyes in anger, but caught his small smirk.
"What! You're teasing me! Oh shit, Orochimaru is teasing me! Of all the times to develop a freaking sense of humor, honestly." And then she was gone, cracking her knuckles and dashing away.
Orochimaru was left without an immediate challenger, so he turned his attention to the Uzumaki, Kushina. She had wrapped a number of iron chains around the sand beast, who was laying on his back, struggling to break free. He thought it was rather curious that the sand monster couldn't just pass through the chains, seeing as he was made of sand. These were no ordinary chains, then.
As he watched, an enemy ninja in a Suna flak-jacket, snuck up to her, with a kunai in his hand. Orochimaru didn't panic, and instead let loose with a few kunai of his own. The other ninja spun and dodged most of them, deflecting one off his own kunai.
The Suna shinobi hurled his kunai in return, and Orochimaru had to move out of the way to avoid it.
His opponent then hurled shuriken, which he dodged again. A part of him wished that he had the reach to stop throwing things, but as he let loose with another kunai, he figured that was probably a project for another day. The Suna nin ducked, and brought his hands up in a complicated-looking gesture.
A puppet user? But Orochimaru didn't see —
Wires! The shuriken leapt from the ground towards his back, and he was forced to painfully contort himself to avoid them. Still, one scored him along the thigh. He cursed.
Looking up, he could see the man following up with a number of hand signs.
Orochimaru answered with some of his own. When the Suna nin released his jutsu, Orochimaru inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, and released his own only a heartbeat after.
A torrent of wind met a column of fire, and the fire surged through the blast of cutting wind. The man tried to jump away at the last minute, but the fire caught him and lit his entire side on fire.
Orochimaru grinned. Then he pounced forward with another kunai and cut the man's throat.
He went down in a gurgle of blood.
Orochimaru looked up from his fight — his teammates were still fighting, although it looked like Jiraiya might have the upper hand. The Ichibi was still tangling with Kushina, unable to really get free from her chains, but she was too occupied holding him still to put him down permanently. He moved to assist her, but his way was blocked by — a Cloud ninja?
What the? What was the Cloud doing here? The Leaf and the Cloud didn't have a great relationship, but they also hadn't even been at the exams. Still, Orochimaru drew his standard ROOT shortsword and dove into close-combat.
He led off with a short, low jab, but the man was fast.
Immediately, the Kumo ninja had a kunai out and Orochimaru was blocking his strike, struggling not to be driven back by the knife on his blade. Sparks flew, and they both disengaged. Orochimaru tried to go for a horizontal slash but the enemy danced out of the way and made to stab him.
He aborted his slash, and dove forward into a roll, coming up and around to block the next strike —
The man was standing, eyes wide at the gaping hole in his chest. Standing behind him, fist crackling with electricity and currently inserted in the Kumo shinobi's chest, was Kakashi-sensei. Orochimaru distantly noted the sound of birds chirping, which he hadn't heard before, was now fading.
"Maa, you alright?" he asked.
Orochimaru nodded.
Two more Kumo shinobi landed in front of them.
There was a brief staredown, until out of nowhere came a cry of "DYNAMIC EEENNNNTRRRYYYY!" and a green blur flew through the air and clocked one of the men in the face, sending him flying away.
"I will not let you defeat more opponents than me, Kakashi!" the green-clad man, Gai, proclaimed, and then he was away, capitalizing on his advantage.
The remaining Kumo shinobi regarded Kakashi lazily through the half-lidded eye that wasn't hidden by shaggy white hair. His sensei mirrored the man's casual slouch.
"You're the copy-nin," the man said.
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with you," Kakashi replied.
"Ahhh, that's okay. I'm Darui."
"Well, it's nice to meet you."
"Likewise. I'm sorry, but I think we're going to have to fight."
"It would seem so," Kakashi agreed amiably. Orochimaru could tell he was smiling under his mask. "Orochimaru, you should go see if you can help Kushina."
"Of course, sensei," he said. The other man drew his sword, a flat, cleaver-like blade, from his back.
Orochimaru turned and ran, to the sound of blades clashing.
Kushina was still struggling with the bijū, who had gotten himself turned over, arms, legs, and tail flailing wildly in an attempt to crush her. She simply danced out of the way and wrapped more chains around him.
Orochimaru jumped in next to her, and asked, "What do you need?"
"See the kid?" she shouted. "Take him out!"
"On it!" he replied. He could see Gaara, his opponent in the first match, embedded slightly in the head of the thing. He looked unconscious, head lolling lazily in time with the bijū's movements. Well, since obviously unconsciousness wasn't going to help, he was being asked to kill Gaara. That, he could handle. Danzō had often asked it of him, and he was far more suited than either of his teammates for such work. He would have to suffice.
He dashed forward.
Konan started, up from her desk as the door exploded open. A pink-haired woman wearing a black cloak with red clouds strode in, looking about.
"Where is he?" she demanded.
Konan calmly stood up, and asked, "Who?"
"Shimura Danzō. The man who runs his own private block-ops organization in Konoha."
"You are well-informed."
The pink-haired woman's eyes turned triumphant. "Akatsuki has spies everywhere." If nothing else, that was interesting. Konoha had been receiving rumors of a high-end mercenary group of missing-nin called the Akatsuki for years. No one could really pin them down, however, and information was sparse, and they made a point to evade the areas which she monitored.
Which meant that this encounter would be informative, if nothing else.
"What do you want with him?"
"If you tell me where he is, then I'll tell you why I'm looking for him," the woman offered.
Konan thought about that. It was sort of obvious, really, what the Akatsuki member wanted with Danzō. And it wasn't like she would get away with it.
The village's evacuation alarms sounded.
Konan cursed in her head. Time to speed this up, then.
"Danzō is dead," she admitted.
"What?" The woman looked shocked for half a second, before she recovered. "How?"
"Does it matter?" Konan asked. She wasn't going to explain the inner workings of Konoha politics to some outsider.
"Yes!" the woman shouted vehemently. "I wanted him to suffer! He helped — he murdered Sasuke!"
Konan wasn't sure what to say to that, although she could sympathize. His ROOT was twisted and diseased, and had needed to be culled.
"You have my condolences," she said.
The woman nodded.
"But I can't let you leave here unchallenged," Konan declared. Even if her revenge was ultimately pointless, the fact that she was here for revenge remained.
"You are Shimura Danzō's successor, then?" the woman asked.
"After a fashion, yes."
The pink-haired woman grinned in response. "Then perhaps the trip here wasn't wasted after all."
She launched herself at Konan. Konan jumped to her left, out of the way of the other woman's fist, which shattered the stone wall behind Konan's desk.
Her form rippled, and the sheets of paper flowed out of her center mass, joined by the paperwork on the desk, until a tornado of paper was swirling around the room. The Akatsuki woman glanced around for a second, before gathering up her chakra and unleashing a gout of fire from her mouth.
Konan quietly reformed behind her, avoiding the fire in the tight space. When saturated with her chakra, her paper was resistant to all types of elemental jutsu, but there were enough advantages to dodging a blow that she often did anyway. It was helpful to gain the element of surprise, and even more so to perpetuate the illusion that she was vulnerable to fire release. Although it was the element that was most effective against her paper, it still wasn't particularly dangerous to her. A technique that turned oneself into paper would be a lot less useful if it also came with a crippling weakness to fire when a significant number of shinobi were capable of performing fire techniques.
In return, she gathered her chakra and threw a storm of paper shuriken at the woman, who turned and dove out of the way, dodging most of the attack. Only a few shuriken connected, and the pink-haired woman grimaced and held her hands together in a seal.
The projectiles pushed themselves out of her, and her wounds closed. A medical-ninja, then. Konan had to dodge again as the woman launched herself into more devastating taijutsu attacks. Holding herself together loosely formed out of paper allowed her to obviate the damage, but as she ducked away from an axe kick the shattered her desk, Konan realized that this woman was dangerous enough that she would be unable to defeat her in close-quarters. She needed to move to a different location, because the confined space of her office heavily favored her more close-combat focused opponent.
Time to move, then.
Konan let herself flow into a paper state, flowed around another fire jutsu, and reformed in the hallway. The woman busted through the doorway after her, and shouted, "Don't you run away from me!"
Konan grinned, and sent another cloud of paper weapons behind her. Abandoning the use of legs altogether, she formed a pair of paper wings on her back and took off down the tunnel. Her pink-haired opponent was hot in pursuit, but Konan was faster. She turned a corner, and let herself slow a bit. She didn't want to lose an S-ranked ninja completely when the village was under attack. The other woman appeared a second later, kunai flying from her fingertips. Konan didn't bother dodging the projectile, and instead let her speed do the talking.
Konan proceeded to lead her on a merry chase, through the tunnels of the underground complex once used by ROOT.
She only stopped once they reached an old underground training area, dusty and filled with cobwebs. Where the man once known as the Darkness of the Shinobi once conducted his operations, there was nothing now. Instead, Konan kept the base for her semi-sanctioned activities in the tunnels that were left over. Yahiko knew what she was doing, but that was it — otherwise, she worked alone. She preferred it that way.
Arriving in the large chamber, Konan flitted away to hover near the ceiling, away from the door.
The Akatsuki woman entered the chamber, and glared up at Konan, a few cuts closing on her skin. "So, you done running yet?"
"I am."
"Aren't you going to summon your little minions?"
Konan raised an eyebrow. "I don't have minions. The organization known as ROOT is no more, as it died with its leader, Shimura Danzō."
The woman's eyes widened. "Damnit!" she shouted. "I don't care about some Konoha shinobi, even if you are one of the Sannin. I came to kill a certain man, not to fight someone to prove my strength." She dropped her hands.
"But you were so willing to fight me before. What is different, now?"
"I thought you were just like him! A coward, who hid behind his men and ordered the death of my friend for no reason other than his own personal gain! We posed no threat to him, or to Konoha! All we wanted was peace! But here you are, fighting me yourself to defend your village. I don't want to kill someone like that."
Konan understood. "So your purpose here was impossible. Again, I apologize for denying you your vengeance. I do question, however, what it is that you will do now."
The woman bowed her head. "Even if my personal goal here is impossible, the Akatsuki will not fail."
"No? So Akatsuki is not here to kill Shimura Danzō. Interesting. You know, of course, that I cannot let you achieve whatever it is that your organization seeks to accomplish here."
"Of course not. But you're mistaken if you think you can stop us." An explosion shook the room they were in. "Our plans have already begun."
Konan spread her hands out, and her paper streamed out into two large disks, held out to either side.
"So be it."
The woman grinned, sharp and predatory. Konan started the fight by launching one of her chakrams spinning through the air at her opponent. She just dodged. Konan followed up with a storm of flying paper projectiles, flying at her opponent from all directions. Her opponent used an earth jutsu to block half of them, and her hands to deflect the other half. Konan's other chakram smashed through the rock wall, but the other woman was already jumping away.
The pink-haired woman ducked under another chakram, and flung herself at Konan, almost too fast to avoid. Konan was forced to dissolve into paper, and this time two blue-haired women with Konoha headbands appeared on each side of the room. The storm of paper continued — to the point where it consisted of significantly more paper than constituted the volume of a human body. The woman was almost a blur as she evaded the cloud of shuriken flying around like locusts pillaging a crop. They didn't strike hard or deep, but enough stings could bring down even the mightiest of opponents.
A chakram careened towards her, and she planted her feet. A bladelike wheel of paper met a chakra-reinforced fist, and the projectile broke on the woman's defense and flitted away, reforming again.
Dropping back, the Akatsuki member performed a number of handseals. One of the Konans just raised her hands and two more chakrams formed, joining the remaining original in flying towards the woman.
A cloud of fireballs erupted from the woman's mouth, consuming most of the projectiles that flew towards her. Each chakram met a fireball, and plowed through, but not without igniting. Although she was beset by still more paper, she darted forward and spat a water bullet at one of the paper women. It took the blow and disintegrated into a swarm of paper.
Konan used this moment to dart forward on wings of paper, a paper sword thrusting underneath the other woman's guard. The enemy kunoichi's green eyes widened in amazement, so close to Konan's own amber ones, until she smirked...and was replaced by a loose stone in a puff of smoke.
The Akatsuki then came out of nowhere with a metal pole — Konan deflected it with a strike of her own, and the other woman feinted low, and then punched her in the gut. Konan took this blow, feeling her ribs bruising almost instantly, and danced away a bit before leaping in with a kick. The woman was caught off guard enough to barely dodge, but struck back just as fast. The previous duel turned into a brutal taijutsu bout that lasted for barely a minute before the pink-haired demon landed a punch across Konan's cheek that sent her flying across the small space.
Konan caught the small smile on the other woman's face as she bounced to a stop on the ground. She flipped up, and held out her hand.
The paper chakram sheared into the Akatsuki woman's side almost to her spine.
"Ahhhh, fuck!" she shouted, hands going to her wound, even as another chakram wheeled towards her. She spat another water bolt to break it up, and Konan used that brief lull to catch her breath. She hadn't been challenged like this in a long time, and despite feeling it in both bruises and her depleting chakra reserves, she was almost exhilarated.
"Your jutsu is impressive."
The other woman flashed a smile. "Thanks. I always looked up to you, you know. Konan of the Sannin, the woman who turned a useless kunoichi skill into an art form."
She nodded her head in assent. "I would know your name, if only to honor you if you fall today."
"I'm called Sakura."
"Hmph. Fitting."
Sakura beamed. "Of course. People always underestimate me, because of the hair and the name and the fact that I'm a medic."
"Then they are foolish indeed. I have fought very few of your quality. Prepare yourself, Sakura of the Akatsuki."
Konan then flew through a few handseals, which produced a gust of wind that erupted through the chamber, throwing the woman off her feet.
She flew towards the other side of the room, where three paper chakrams were already arcing towards her. The first was deflected with a chakra-sheathed fist, but the second pierced deep into Sakura's thigh. She just grimaced, and dispersed it, hands already glowing green.
But Konan was already flying towards her, on a storm of paper. Instead of striking, she merely flashed into Sakura's face and grabbed her wrists, letting the paper surrounding her envelop the other woman's body completely.
She struggled, undoubtedly, but Konan held firm, and reinforced her grip with paper shackles. After a minute or two, she was cocooned thoroughly in the paper, with only her mouth visible. Konan made sure to press down on the wound, to ensure that she didn't bleed out.
"Why would the Akatsuki attack here? What are you after?" she asked.
Sakura just grinned, and said, "You are in charge of intelligence in Konoha, are you not? The Kyūbi has been hidden for decades, so we had to draw him out."
"So you just rampaged through our village until a jinchūriki showed themselves?"
"Of course. Suna and Kumo were happy to assist, naturally. It seems like grudges against Konoha are easy to come by. I came here because I had a score to settle, but I wasn't the only one."
Konan impassively let a piece of paper cut off the other woman's air supply, suffocating her into unconsciousness, but inside she was cursing. Konoha had known that Suna might try and pull something, so they were by no means unprepared, but the Akatsuki and Kumo's involvement complicated things greatly. And if people held old grudges, they would almost certainly start at the top.
Which meant Yahiko.
She extended her senses to the vast network of paper trinkets that she kept around the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She'd had to draw heavily on her reserves of paper for this fight, and the network was sparse compared how it usually operated, but it was more than enough to feel the power of a bijū in the arena, and numerous other battles waging around. Concentrating, she felt around for her old teammate, and the one man she trusted above anyone else. There!
He stood alone, his chakra cool and smooth like always, fighting an opponent that shone like a miniature sun.
The roar of a jutsu brushed against her senses, and Yahiko was flying like a rag doll.
Konan didn't bother thinking twice — she flew forward.