Chapter 9

General Hitstapa grinned in satisfaction, his pale face pulling back his long red lips as his large, bat like wings heaved up in excitement with a rustle of the black chain mail armour that he was wearing. His bipedal, skeletal steel rattled gently beneath him as the bony toes marched upon the green grass, killing them as soon as they made contact with the black, corrupted bones. Underneath his black helmet his red eyes were glowing with an insatiable hunger as they stared at a cliff nearby. His gauntlet-clad hands tightened their grip on the harness.

His Nathmenid senses were tingling as the combined powers of the Kyubi and that of two other Nathmenids overwhelmed them. The general did not pay any heed to his kind, but the youma was important to him. If he was able to capture the Kyubi vessel now, not only the reward would be unimaginable, but also he would have outdone that upstart Kabuto.

Kabuto. Even now he could not understand why the King would put so much faith in that wraith. After all, what was he compared with Hitstapa who, much like his forebears had been loyal to the Datunya family, risking to become the next target of the other clans' despise? Five years was a very short time by demonic standards, and yet that was exactly how long Kabuto served the King. Other than the fact that Kabuto had an extensive knowledge of the human lands, and maybe slightly more powerful than a normal wraith, the general could not see anything special about this Kabuto. Was the Kyubi that important to the King? But now with Kabuto and his army bound to the Sound Country on a mission concerning a human named Orochimaru, it was his chance to show that he, Hitstapa, was more worthy than that mere wraith.

Hitstapa closed his eyes and let his mind to connect with the troops about to engage with the Kyubi vessel. Despite the fact that he had to control them through the Skeletal Raisers, this he did easily according to the King's instructions. His mind released a silent command, and he felt the soldiers beginning the assault.

---

Mardonius glared at the oncoming Undead, his eyes registering the patches of red muscles showing from underneath the black, rotting skin and the entrails that the zombies dragged on the ground. Their clothes were torn, and some of them were wearing headbands which, from his earlier travels in the Sand, he recognized to be Sand headbands.

These were used to be Sand ninjas, who were unfortunate enough to be killed by Kunbujiya's army and raised as zombies to become the Death King's slaves.

In his heart, Mardonius felt pity for them, even though he knew that would not make much of a difference. No one deserved this evil fate, not human, and not demon. Not only their lives were ruthlessly taken away, but also their bodies tampered and mutilated until they became unquestioning slaves to King of Death's bidding. The Nathmenid clutched his fists.

More and more zombies began to emerge from the trees, and Mardonius' red eyes darted here and there, his mind calculating his situation in detail. He and his companions were getting surrounded, trapped by the army that marched beyond the cliff behind them. The cliff offered no problems for him and Atossa, who could fly, and Naruto and Hinata could be carried off by them. However, his experiences told the Nathmenid that Kunbujiya would have prepared for aerial combat, and Mardonius was not so sure how well he would fare with one of his arms unusable as it wrapped around Naruto to protect him from falling to his doom. If they could reach the forest, then maybe the trees could offer more protection.

Muttering an incantation, the Nathmenid felt the familiar tingling sensation in the center of his palm, where a white orb of energy gathered. From the corners of his eyes Mardonius saw that energy also gathered in forms of the same white orbs all around him. They all stretched into the shape of swords, about one meter in length, floating in the mid-air and one of same size and shape on his palm.

He grabbed his Kataya, but his mind was not onto battle, not yet. Instead, he was focusing onto controlling the space-time around him. Like most Nathmenids, he had basic training in controlling energy, space-time and matter, though he was adept in controlling energy, just like Atossa was adept in controlling space-time. He could not control time as well as his girlfriend, but at least he could slow it down.

When the Nathmenid saw that the movements around him began to slow down, he knew that he was successful. However, his movements, and those of his summoned Kataya, were still at their normal speeds, unaffected by the slowing of time that he willed to happen.

The floating Kataya struck first, dashing towards the Undead, their energetic blades menacing as they slashed through flesh and bone. With those as cover, Mardonius charged and started to cut down the zombies one by one.

---

Naruto was still staring at the Undead, in surprise and in horror, when Mardonius made his attack with the energetic swords he summoned known as the Kataya, who were shooting themselves at the Undead like a rain of deadly missiles. It was not the sight of the rotting gore that horrified him, but it was the Sand headbands that some of those Undead wore. This reminded him that these were once human, ninjas who died in sacrifice for their village, and now forced to become monsters under the evil of Kunbujiya. They reminded him… of him and his Konoha friends.

A sudden voice broke his revere.

"What are you doing?" Mardonius shouted. "Defend yourself!"

Out from the corner of his eye, the blonde saw that Hinata positioned herself in an attacking position, ready to strike at any Undead that strayed too close. Atossa, curiously, closed her eyes and raised her hands.

If his friends were fighting to defend him, then, Naruto felt, he should not be just lying there and stare.

Naruto leapt to his feet, charged up his Chakra, and did a few hand seals to perform his primary jutsu.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

The smoke released quickly dissipated to reveal several Naruto clones. The blonde and his clones were about to grab for their kunai when Naruto saw a zombie still fighting with its head and an arm severed by Mardonius' Kataya. Kunai would not do much here. Instead, Naruto turned to use another jutsu.

"Rasengan!"

Swirls of Chakra formed in his and his clones palms. By now Naruto had so much chakra control that he could use Rasengan even with his clones on every hand. Even without assess to his Kyubi chakra his own chakra, which increased during the past five years, was enough to maintain several Rasengan at once, though the jutsu would become less effective.

With little thought, the blonde and his clones charged. Under the cover from Mardonius' swords, they broke through the lines of the Undead.

---

The zombies reached the team quickly, rather too quickly for Hinata's tastes. The pungent smell of decay became stronger, and she could almost hear the sloshy sloshy sound of the body fluids rattling inside those walking dead bodies. It did not made much difference to her before and after she activate her Byakugan, for the insides of these Undead were almost on the outside. Hinata gagged at the sight of the leaking entrails and the exposed brains, but that did not change what she had to do.

The hunter-nin knew very well what these zombies were after. There was no way in this world that would take her Naruto-kun away from her, not while she could help it. It was not just about protecting her love from this unspeakable evil that took the form of the walking dead that were now marching towards them. Hinata knew that she had been so timid, so shy in the past that she almost lost the blonde. She could not allow her weaknesses to become a barrier that stood behind her and Naruto anymore. In order to make herself worthy for her love, she must prove herself strong. What other method could be better than to help in protecting him now, when he was in the greatest peril?

Hinata activated her Byakugan- by now she was so adept in it that she did not require a hand seal- and raised her arm, poised in a defensive position. The Undead, snarling their sharp teeth and waving their claws, approached even closer as Hinata began to strike.

She lunged at the nearest zombie, her palm landing on the chest with a squish. Hinata forced her chakra through her Tenketsu into the Undead at the moment of contact. She spun around, dodging a slash from a nearby Undead, her other palm hitting another zombie, landing right on the neck, and like before she forced her Chakra out through the palm into the walking corpse.

Something suddenly crossed her mind. Hinata quickly broke off contact and wheeled around, stopping at the edge of the cliff. Her white eyes glanced at the zombies she attacked a moment before. Just as she had expected, they were unharmed, and continued their slow march towards her. Her Hakkeshou style was designed to attack the inner coils systems of the opponent, damaging the internal organs in the process. However, the Undead were little more than animated dead corpses. Such an attack would be useless as their internal organs were dead anyway.

The traditional Hyuuga style would not work against these creatures, Hinata smirked. She would have to use another, more unorthodox method.

She had been practicing it for a while now. She did not know if it would work, but she had to try.

Hinata charged up her palm with Chakra until it felt as if it were about to explode. With all her might, she pressed it onto an oncoming zombie, forcing out every single drop of energy gathered in her palm. The energy overflowed the dead inner coil systems, and the creature exploded into pulps of flesh and bone. The hunter nin smiled.

That worked better than she expected. "Not bad for a first," she mused.

Her smile faded as soon as she saw more Undead coming after her. Hinata let out a small sigh as she poised for another attack.

---

From the noise that she was hearing, Atossa could tell that her friends and lover were fighting very hard for their lives. Pushed at the back of her mind was her desire to cease her spell-casting and join. However, she knew very well that if she managed to throw out her time-stop spell, it would even the odds a lot against an army of at least fifty or sixty thousand strong. Thus impatient as she was, she continued to have her eyes closed and focused on concentrating mana, or Chakra, as the humans called them, onto her hands.

Slowly, the familiar, tingling sensation began to gather on her palms. The amount of energy used must not be too little, which would fail the spell, or too large, which may have explosive consequences. The amount had to be just right…

There. By the tingling feeling on her palm, the Nathmenid knew that she had gathered enough energy to progress onto the second stage of spell-casting. Her mind focused as she mentally manipulated the energies on her palm, trying to make them do what she wanted them to do. It was not the first time that she did it. Therefore it did not take very long when the noise of battle around her suddenly died down, which told her that her spell had succeeded.

Atossa opened her eyes. Everything around her, outside of her time-frame, was paused, stopped due to the effects of the time stop spell. Mardonius' swords hung in the mid-air while their demonic owner had place the one in his hand over his shoulder, ready to cut down the zombie in front. One of the clones of Naruto was frozen in mid-air in the middle of a jump. Hinata was at the point of making another strike at a nearby Undead when the spell began its effect. Atossa smiled at the zombies that were frozen in their place. Now she could do anything she wanted without any fear, if she was quick enough.

Knowing that her spell could only last five minutes in her time-frame, Atossa hurriedly summoned her own Kataya and rushed to slash it at the Undead. The purple, energetic blade seemed to pass through the rotting bodies without doing anything, but the Nathmenid knew that any effects done would have to occur only after the duration of the spell was spent. She would know whether she missed, which was very unlikely, or not when the time returned to normal once again.

She continued hacking and cutting her way through the mass of the zombies, all of them staying in their same positions as when the spell was cast. Atossa was careful not to approach her friends, however, since she knew that she may make a mistake and cut them without knowing it. After all, she was not as good with a blade and in the arts of combat as Mardonius.

The Nathmenid soon returned to the cliff, knowing very well that her spell was about to expire. She knew better than to become stuck in the middle of the zombies when that happened.

The spell expired as everything started moving again. Atossa grinned to herself as all the Undead she attacked split into halves.