Chapter 10
General Hitstapa bit his teeth, his eyes widened in surprise as one by one, his soldiers fell victim to the Nathmenid Kataya, the vessel's swirling mana and the girl's palms. From the eyes of his zombies, the Nathmenid general could see that his line of Undead could not keep their opponents cornered in that cliff.
The Undead were supposed to be unkillable, and should be able to attack even when in pieces. However, none of the rotting limbs that were on the ground were moving. This did not happen when he was attacking the Sand. Could this mean that King Kunbujiya was at his limits?
If that was the case, he would need to finish it quickly.
The humans were of less concern, for the general knew very well that their endurance would reach their limits very soon. His demonic oppositions, however, were far more skilful, particularly in the arts of energy and space-time control, than he had anticipated. He had a suspicion that they were Control Masters of energy and space-time, which would prove to be difficult to deal with. At this rate, it would take a considerable while to even reach the youma vessel.
However, he himself was a Control Master.
Hitstapa grinned to himself as a plan unfolded in his mind. The Nathmenid closed his eyes and concentrated, his mind turning its focus from his Undead to the humans they were fighting. Deep inside his thoughts, he pictured his mind creating a force that would lift the blonde one into the air…
---
Hyuuga Hinata was beginning to feel the strain as she blasted another zombie apart. Her clothes were soaked throughout with her sweat, and her hair matted to her head and neck. Her palm was red and stinging as she charged it up with chakra one more time and hit another Undead to push Chakra into the dead body. Her legs were starting to become wobbly as she started to feel the effects of exhaustion.
However, the Undead were still as relentless as ever. Even as the hunter nin fell one, hundreds more took its place, their teeth snarling and claws slashing. Hinata already took a couple of cuts from those foul creatures, the wounds stung as she moved. If this carried on, she doubted that she would last very much longer.
Hinata looked around. Naruto looked just as exhausted as she was. His messy blonde hair was matted to his head with sweat, as if he came out right after a shower. His clones had long disappeared, and he was drifting further and further back behind the others as they fought to protect him from the Undead. Even so, he was still slashing with his kunai, the sharp blade cutting through the rotten flesh and bone in its path.
However, Atossa and Mardonius did not look as if exhaustion had caught up with them. In fact, they were still as vicious ever, their Kataya blades cutting and, in the case of Atossa, hacking through the wave after wave of zombies. Mardonius' swords that were flying in the air were still bombarding the Undead in a deadly rain of energy beams. Occasionally some of these long beams of energy would explode upon impact, taking with them the snarling corpses in large, orange balls of fire.
Still, the Undead army still massed relentlessly before them, preventing them from reaching the safety of the trees.
It was about then the zombies stopped and scattered, as if they had lost the unifying will that forced them to attack. Hinata looked at Naruto with puzzlement, but all she got in return was another puzzled look from the blonde. She wanted to charge once again, but she found that her body refused to move any longer. Her knees buckled and the hunter-nin collapsed onto the ground.
"Whoa!"
Hinata turned around. Naruto was floating in mid-air, kicking and screaming as he struggled. Yet she could not see the force that was holding him, lifting him off the ground. The Hyuuga tried to get up, but as soon as she rose up, she felt tightness around her throat, her trachea closing as if there was an invisible hand trying to squeeze the breathe out of her. Hinata clutched her throat, struggling helplessly to try to relief herself of this choking force upon her. She could feel her conscious slipping as her body convulsed for air…
---
It was hard to believe that this is all that is of the Village of Sound, Kabuto mused as he stared at the strange yet familiar sight of the large mansion that housed the entire Ninja Village. From the branch he was standing on, the building was a little more than a silhouette against the darkness of the night. Beside him were the others of the Five, all staring at the Sound headquarters with their red eyes filled with eagerness. Right below them, marching in the shadows of the canopy under the moonlight were the Undead, their teeth snarling and claws twitching as they limped on their rotting legs towards the building.
On the surface, the Orochimaru mansion was little more than a large house. Even after three years, Kabuto could still remember what it would look like. With its white, plastered walls and green tiled roofs, it gave out an aura of tranquillity. Only the two snake coils on the walls beside the highest window marked the building as the residence of Orochimaru. However, Kabuto knew that was only a deception: underneath all that was an underground labyrinth of corridors and rooms, all designed to confuse invaders and lead them into traps and hidden passages where the Sound ninjas could hide in for ambushes.
However, Kabuto was not any normal invader. Even after parting it for two years, the Wraith could still remember every corridor, every room hidden underneath the dark dirt. If there was anyone more suited to attacking the Sound complex, it would be Kabuto.
On top of that, they had the advantage of surprise. Even the Snake Sannin could never have anticipated an attack from the Undead in the dark. With luck Orochimaru would not even know that such an army of zombies even existed.
The Wraith twisted his face with an evil grin as he motioned the others to follow. They leapt and landed onto the hard ground and headed towards the main doorway.
---
Orochimaru bit his teeth, his long, blonde hair waving behind him as he wheeled to slam his fist upon a table nearby. The shattering splinters of wood flying gave little relief, but it was not enough to quench his anger towards the betrayal.
In his heart, the Snake Sannin knew that it would only be time that Kabuto would betray him. After all, he was not truly human. Orochimaru knew that better than any other. In fact, only he knew Kabuto's secret of being a wraith. That was the reason he had kept him: the Immortality Jutsu was based on a Wraith's skill in body-switching, and to perfect it Orochimaru would need the knowledge of a Wraith. Kabuto, combined with his medical knowledge, was the perfect demon in that regard.
However, Orochimaru also knew that Kabuto was treacherous at heart, and would rebel against him should he be given the chance. Even though the Sannin was more powerful than the wraith, he knew that there were always chances for the demon to betray him. Therefore even when Orochimaru often taunted Kabuto about betraying him, in reality he never allowed himself to be off guard.
That was until now, that was.
Orochimaru bit his bottom lip as he raised his fists in frustration. He had spent so much time, so much effort in doing this. He could not believe that Kabuto would betray him by doing this, by taking him away…
"Orochimaru-sama?" a voice nearby broke his reverie.
"Yes, what is it?" Orochimaru turned and saw a Sound nin kneeling nearby.
"We… we found Kabuto but…" the shinobi hesitated. "He… he was heading to the west but… We… we…"
"You let him get away?" the Sannin shouted, his snake-like eyes blazing with fire.
"He's far too powerful!" the Sound nin protested. "Even carrying Sasuke he still managed to kill my team!"
"Then why are you here?"
With a loud boom, the dead body of the Sound nin was flung with a splatter of blood to the wall.
Feeling a bit calmer, Orochimaru turned around and reassessed his situation. If Kabuto was heading west, most likely he was going to THAT place, and there was little chance of him find him there…
Orochimaru clutched his fists and slammed them onto a chair.
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"Orochimaru-sama!"
In the darkness, the voice echoed in between the walls of Orochimaru's room with fear and timidity. However, the Snake-Sannin twisted on his bed, reluctant to heed to the calls.
"Orochimaru-sama! This is an emergency!"
Orochimaru's purple eyes slowly opened, burning with a mixture of fatigue and rage as he began to sit up on his bed. He turned to the Sound nin that had been calling him at the doorway.
"What is it?" his deep voice asked with a tone of annoyance.
"Orochimaru-sama," the shinobi stammered, fear clearly glimmering in his eyes. Orochimaru snorted, his hand twitching to kill him, which he certainly would had it not been that he want to hear what the ninja wanted to say. "We… we're being invaded!"
"What?" Orochimaru frowned. It was around then his ears picked up something else: the sound of combat in the distance, most probably from the corridors above his head. His anger subsided and replaced by shock, though that the Sannin knew better than to let that show on his face. His eyes narrowed as he glared at the shinobi.
"Why wasn't I notified earlier? What happened with the guards?" Orochimaru barked as he got off the bed and stood up on the ground. He quickly rushed towards the door.
"There're too many of them, Orochimaru-sama!" the shinobi whimpered, as he rushed to catch up with the Sannin. "We're way out-numbered!"
"Then wake up the rest of the ninja, fool! And sound the alarm!" Orochimaru ordered as he walked through the door into a corridor. "Whoever they are, they must not take the fortress of the Sound!"
"Hai, Orochimaru-sama!" the shinobi replied, bowed, and disappeared into the darkness.
As Orochimaru watched him go, he turned around and walked down the corridor in the opposite direction, where he knew that he would reach the stairs to the upper floors.
---
Due to the restricting space of the corridors and rooms, the numerical superiority did not give the Undead much advantage, Kabuto mused to himself as he poked his chakra-filled finger at a Sound shinobi nearby, the precise chakra-cut killing the ninja instantly. The wraith grabbed the dead corpse and flung it onto the corner of the room, where a pile of ninja carcasses was building up.
The smell of rot and decay filled in the entire room, where the Undead engaged with the Sound ninjas. The cries of the dying echoed in the between the walls, splattered with blood under the dim torch light of what Kabuto remembered as the underground battle arena. Even though this room was larger than most of the others, it still limited the amount of space the Undead could manoeuvre in the battle. Therefore instead of the Undead surrounding the Sound ninjas, the two sides clashed in the center of the room in more or less a straight line. However, despite this the zombies still held a greater advantage. It took only a slash of a claw or a bit in the right places for a zombie to kill, while it took more than a few dozen shuriken cuts to severe an animated dead body, though now the pieces would only twitch on the ground rather than keep on killing. That did not matter much, for the Raising Spells, one of which had just been cast upon the pile of dead bodies at the corner, helped to replenish the numbers of the Undead.
A sudden loud bang broke Kabuto's reverie. He saw with the corner of his eye the bodies, both living and the dead, being flung out of a nearby doorway leading to a corridor. Standing there, dressed in his white robes with a purple ribbon, was Orochimaru himself.
