Okay, I didn't think it would be, but it looks like today is another two-chapters-in-one-day kind of day.

Review response time!

1. draven32: Thanks! Because I cranked it out really fast, I was a little worried that it wouldn't hold up quality-wise. Glad to know I was wrong!

2. OneLunchMan: Yeah, Zabuza's honestly one of my favorite characters in the series and given how he's supposed to be legendarily strong, that basically means that his canon death equates to, "going out like a bitch." I ain't havin' that shit, and really this Kiri Rebellion arc was just an excuse to write some stuff about Zabuza.

3. Nethis: Yeah, I don't really like NaruHina either, even though it was the only one Kishimoto would have pulled since NaruSaku was never gonna happen in a million years, especially not with the bullshit that was Neji, "freed from his cage."

4. gunslinger20121: I do it because, as an author, you really kind of have two choices to shock and provoke your readers into continuing the book/series. Either you keep spoonfeeding them cliffhangers, or you start killing characters. Basically, you have to choose whether you're going to be Stephen King or George R.R. Martin. I try to lean towards the former option.

Thanks to everyone else who's read, reviewed, followed and favorited this story so far!

Let's get this trainwreck moving.


Yagura's army was out in full force, clearly looking to eradicate the rebellion once and for all. With a savage grin at that revelation, Naruto performed a fast henge and went up, while his own clones modified their transformed appearance. Handing them out and preparing his falx, he laughed.

"Like father, like son...throw on my signal." He told the rebels already above ground, and they passed more out to those who were still coming up. "And when they return, keep throwing. If we're lucky, we won't have to fight a full-scale battle.

It was easy to wait until they were well within throwing range...after all, he had god knows how many clones transformed into the appearance of his father's signature triple-pronged kunai.

"Fire!"

There were a great many ninja in Krigakure who'd heard of the man known as the Kiiro Senko. There were some, attending this battle, who'd seen him in action during the Third Great War.

They knew that those kunai, arcing to land in front and behind them meant death.

His falx was in his right hand, and he had a Rasengan charged in his left. To all the world, and all those watching him, he was Namikaze Minato's vengeful ghost who had come upon them. Though her death had weighed much more heavily on her teammate, Hatake Kakashi, it was no secret that Nohara Rin's death had come at the hands of Kiri-nin.

"Fall back!" An unknown ninja yelled, and some in the group wheeled around...only to come face-to-face with Tayuya, who didn't even need a henge to pull off the look of Uzumaki Kushina.

Tayuya weaved arbitrary hand seals, and Naruto summoned chakra chains that ran through cross-sections of their enemies. Without warning, he used a kawarimi with one of his transformed clones and swung his sword, all while willing his chains to move and kill more of the Mizukage's loyal forces.

Tayuya vanished out of range in a shunshin that left Naruto alone within the enemy group, and in seconds they were surrounded by dozens of the blond man's clones. While most of the enemy died, two began to flee. Preparing himself, he asked the watching Mei a question:

"How many men does it take to deliver a message?"

"Their message was received a long time ago, impostor." A voice came from behind Naruto, and the sharp end of a hooked battle-staff rested against the blond's throat. Seeing no reason to continue using his henge, Naruto let it drop, though there wasn't much of a difference between the truth and the illusion. "Why would Konoha aid the rebellion?"

"Because it's the right thing to do. A tyrannical Kage who believes himself above the law must be eliminated." Yagura found himself with a kunai touching the skin between his shoulder-blades, one of Naruto's clones perfectly ready to kill Yagura in an instant.

"And yet, those who defy their Kage are traitors whose only reward is death. It seems that we're at a moral impasse...would you suggest a battle to see whose will is stronger?"

"Oh, please, as though a Biju whose tail count is as low as the Sanbi could threaten me."

Naruto's clone was destroyed, and in that instant both Jinchuriki leapt away.

"Get them all out of here...we're about to have a landscaping meeting." Naruto joked to Tayuya, who paled.

"Slight problem with that, piss-brain!"

A gargantuan force, several times larger than the one Naruto had slaughtered, had made its way to the clearing where all the rebels were gathered. At the head of that group stood three other ninja; while Naruto recognized none of them, he could pick out that their chakra was just like his: warped from years of hosting a Biju.

"Oh, son of a bitch. All four of you?"

The help he'd sent for couldn't get here quickly enough.


"Well, I'm just gonna say what's on all of our minds here: we're fucked, plain and simple." Zabuza said. "Still, I may be able to even the odds a little bit. I know there are five Jinchuriki here, but they don't call me a demon without reason."

"They call you that for your lethality and your temper, Zabuza-sama. Not your overwhelming power."

"Goddammit, Haku, play along."

"A thousand apologies, Zabuza-sama."

"If you think you can do something," Jiraiya said, "then go ahead and do it. I'm all ears for a plan, and there's absolutely no way that Naruto will manage to take on four enemy Jinchuriki by himself."

"Are you doubting me?" The blond said, to the shock of all those who hadn't noticed his presence. "Yagura's over there fighting one of my clones. Honest to god, I have enough of them in different henge techniques that it could take him hours to finish all of them off. They're only good for one or two hits, but that's all the difference between them and me. They even have access to the Kyuubi's chakra."

"So you're telling me that, potentially, every single one of your clones could go into a full-possession mode and we could have a thousand or more copies of the Kyuubi running around?"

"Well, not to that extent, I don't think? But they can all draw on its power without affecting my ability to pull from it." Naruto could see a blot of brown on the horizon, in the air. Help was coming.

"Wait. You're holding off the Mizukage, the Sanbi Jinchuriki, with nothing but shadow clones? Are you joking?" Zabuza seemed dubious.

"Well, is he killing us right now? I don't think so...which means he's being held off. So, yeah, just a few clones."

"You're bullshitting. Please tell me you're bullshitting." Jiraiya was incredulous. He knew that Naruto had held off the Ichibi Jinchuriki during the invasion of Konoha, that had been how he really earned his Chunin promotion, but to keep a Jinchuriki at bay who had full power over their Biju?

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, Ero-sennin. Just remember that my ability to evade logic is what gives me the power to win, no matter the odds. So...time for a show. Again, you chucklefucks, get the hell out of here."

"Oh no you don't. You can have all the fun once I'm finally through living. Until then, I'm gonna kill my enemies."

Ao rotated his left eyepatch up, and Naruto saw the secret that he'd been keeping so desperately; not only did he have a Byakugan, but a Sharingan as well.

The thought that he could have and use both Kekkei Genkai congruently without having been born into either one...it was mildly terrifying. The kind of mental fortitude it would take had to be massive.

"His name was Uchiha Shisui." The blue-haired man said, noticing Naruto's stare. "And he had a particular strength for mind-altering jutsu...I can use it to forcefully override one of the enemy Jinchuriki's brains if I make eye contact with them, to make them join our side. I can only use it once, though, and the one with sunglasses can't be affected."

"That's the Hachibi Jinchuriki, younger brother of the Raikage. He'll be our biggest concern, even more than Yagura. The other two are Utakata, the Rokubi, and Yugito, the Nibi." Jiraiya said.

"Do you have a preference?" Ao asked Mei.

"No...whichever one makes eye contact first, that's the one you need to go for. Don't waste your time hunting for one or the other."


"Remind me again why we literally just crossed the whole continent, plus an ocean, to get here? Karasu is gonna get water in its joints!"

"Shut up, Kankuro. We're here because the Kazekage told us to come with him." Temari groaned, and she would've smacked her younger brother over the side of their ride were it not for the fact that it would have been a long drop. They had to be at least a thousand feet in the air.

"I'm right here, you know. Besides, you don't have to refer to me so...formally."

"I know, it's just habit. Besides, you earned the title! Why shouldn't I call my little brother by his rank?"

Gaara smiled as his older siblings began to bicker back and forth, recalling Naruto's words during the invasion of Konoha.

"I fight for others because I trust that they would do the same for me. You fight for yourself because you don't believe anyone else would. One steel cable alone, can be severed...but if you bundle enough of them together, you won't be able to cut through them all."

He had started to collect those metaphorical cables, one by one.

From above, he managed to pick out several blond ninja attacking another, whose hair was close to the color of his sand. The Ichibi had heightened his senses, and he saw another amid several hundred other ninja, staring down a force many times larger than their own.

That would be the real one.

"There you are."

The sand beneath him opened, and Gaara rocketed down until more sand rose up from the ground to meet him.

Naruto turned, saw the Ichibi Jinchuriki, and grinned. "Gaara!"

"Naruto, you mean to tell me that the aid you requested...was the Kazekage?" Mei asked.

"And his older siblings." Naruto said as Temari and Kankuro landed behind their brother.

"Introductions later. Kazekage-dono, we were trying to come up with a plan, since they've been gracious enough not to attack until Yagura orders it or we strike first. Do you have any ideas?"

"I am the host of the Ichibi no Tanuki, and while the options that gives me may not seem obvious...as everyone knows, Shukaku is a sand-and-wind demon. Naruto."

"Yeah?"

"Where are we?"

"Uh, Kirigakure."

"And what is Kirigakure?"

"A collection of islands."

"And what do islands have?"

"Uh...beaches?"

"Correct. What's on beaches?"

"Sand. Lots, and lots, and lots of sand. Even under the ocean." Now, Naruto was getting a clearer picture.

"And I am an undisputed master of sand. Shukaku's chakra is not limitless, and my control over it is moderate at best, but even now...the soil over the sand in this area is very thin, despite the bedrock underneath. While it will take a massive amount of chakra, I can almost instantly grind all of that soil into sand."

Two Jinchuriki on four; the odds were looking much better for the rebels, even if they were still enormously outmanned and outgunned. Once Ao managed to make eye contact with Utakata or Yugito, it would be an even three-on-three battle that all the rest could evacuate from.

Those who had seen Gaara's proclivity for murdering with his element knew what would happen once he'd made this battle's stage into his own arena.

"Try to kill as few people as possible, if you could...we're already stretched thin, I would hate to see more ninja die."

"Noted, but I will defend myself and my siblings."

"I wouldn't ask you to trade their lives. I just want as little bloodshed as possible."

"I understand."

"On my signal. Three...two...one..."

Inside the seals that contained them, six demons roared as one. Incongruous, raging at the setting sun, each swore that it would leave the day in victory or death.

"Go."

The ground around them shifted into sand, which Gaara flung as mightily as he could.

"BE GONE!" He shouted, the manic look on his face something that only three in attendance remembered. "Flee now, unless you choose to die!"

Ao grinned as both sides fled the battlefield. He'd managed to activate Shisui's eye on a blonde woman, the Nibi Jinchuriki. She would remain in a coma until he reactivated the technique.

"Yugito-chan! That sucks, man..." The muscle-bound Kumo-nin said. "I'm Kirabi, and it's pain you'll see since you've messed with me!"

"Does he do this all the time?"

The Rokubi Jinchuriki, and the only one who had yet to introduce himself, sighed. That meant he was Utakata.

"Yes, unfortunately."

"Don't diss my rhyme, or it's slug-clobberin' time!" Naruto didn't read comic books, but even he knew that was copyright infringement.

Two-on-three odds were mildly better than four-on-two, though it would have been better if Ao had fully succeeded in making one of the enemy Jinchuriki convert by force.

"Kirabi, brother of the Yondaime Raikage. Yagura, the Yondaime Mizukage. Kihou o Fudou no Utakata, grandson of the Nidaime Mizukage. Myself, Sabaku no Gaara, the Godaime Kazekage."

"Uzumaki Naruto, son of the Yondaime Hokage...damn, is this a royalty meetup? Should I get Tsunade obaa-chan, so she can brag too?"

"Don't disrespect ya elders, ya sand and forest dwellers!"

"Okay, I've had about enough of whatever the hell kinda bullshit you think is coming outta your mouth. Consider this beatdown officially fucking started!"

Thankfully, Jiraiya had the foresight to negate both the Slog Seal and the chakra limiter that Naruto still wore in the moments prior to being cast aside by Gaara's sand. With nothing but natural speed, surpassing even Kirabi's Raiton-enhanced reflexes, Naruto's falx managed to cut a long line into the black man's face. The sword's edge had tugged along the Kumo shinobi's cheek, drawing all the way back to his neck before Naruto finished passing him. Kirabi turned, and Naruto saw the gash slowly mend in front of his eyes before leaving a scar.

"I can heal perfectly, but I think I'll leave that be. A reminder not to underestimate a ninja with a sword that great."

"Oh my fucking god, do you ever stop?"

"Make me take you fo' serious, fool, ya fool!"

"Fuck this. Katon: San-Yajirushi no Jutsu!" The simply-termed Three Arrow technique shot one lance of flame at each of his enemies.

"Sabaton: Sabakukyu!" Gaara smirked, dry sand wrapping around Utakata's legs until an exploding bubble shot the Kiri-nin skyward. "You think you can outmaneuver me?"

Wordlessly, the Rokubi Jinchuriki fired three bubbles from his long pipe, which Gaara dodged before they landed; the explosions they caused told him that his instincts had been right.

"'Floating Bubbles,' my ass!" Naruto yelled, seeing the attack, and barely dodging Yagura's hooked staff for the trouble.

"Utakata, keep the Ichibi busy. Kirabi and I will deal with the Kyuubi." The Mizukage stated.

Gaara attempted to lash out at his fellow Kage in defiance of that directive, but more exploding bubbles destroyed the sand-based attack before it could begin.

"Your opponent is me." Utakata chastised the redheaded Kazekage, still using his pipe to create more bubbles, the upward force of which kept him floating in the air. "So focus on that. Honor among thieves, as the saying goes? You won't have to worry about them until you defeat me. After all, if you can't do that much, then you don't stand a chance against either of those two."

"Your blood will be a perfect offering to my mother's spirit." Gaara said monotonously, the dark rings around his eyes seeming more menacing than they had before.


"So how long do you think you can keep me on the defensive?" Naruto said, grinning. "Yagura, all due respect, you don't really seem that strong. I kept you busy with a few clones for like...five minutes? And you only killed two of them. What, did they just give you the Mizukage hat out of pity?"

While Kirabi had managed to keep up fairly well, despite being slightly slower, Yagura was practically being left in the dust; he was younger than Naruto, and despite his Kage status, he had the stamina of a child to go along with it...or maybe he was just outclassed by Kirabi's muscle and Naruto's heritage as an Uzumaki.

"Silence! You have no idea what this station means!"

"I know enough to know that you're a failure, as a Kage and a Jinchuriki. I know that you're beneath me, in power and number of tails. God, is there anything you can do right?" Naruto goaded.

"Don't listen to him, Mizukage-dono!" Kirabi said, wielding a blade in each hand.

"Besides...that's not even how you use a weapon with a hook, you dumb son of a bitch. This is how you do it!"

As the pair had chased him around, Naruto had dropped a kunai or shuriken every so many feet, and now both of his enemies were right in the center of his trap. Swinging his falx down, Naruto loaded Raiton chakra into it and sent it flying out. "Raiton: Dai-Raigen'ya!"

The Great Lightning Field technique required metal markers in order to work, unlike its basic version which connected a circuit between whatever material Naruto placed his hands around. He felt bad about re-using the same technique and making it stronger, but it was just so goddamned useful. It wasn't like Jiraiya's nearly comical attempts to make a bigger Rasengan, which only had one purpose. He could use it as a tripwire, a rudimentary barrier technique, and even an assassination technique.

While Kirabi was less fazed by the attack, due to coating himself with Raiton chakra, Yagura yelled in pain as the lightning jumped from a fallen kunai to his staff, and up his body.

That was the problem about being the host of a Suiton-based Biju: Yagura was much more vulnerable to Raiton techniques.

"It doesn't even matter if you have a perfect relationship with the Sanbi. This place will be your grave."

Naruto wished that he could believe in his words with the same certainty in which he spoke them. The Kirigakure rebels had filled him in on the fact that Kirabi and Yagura were the only two Jinchuriki in known history to have been in perfect sync with their Biju, something that made them infinitely more dangerous beyond their individual combat skills. Utilizing the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu for what had to be at least the millionth time in his life, he prepared to engage the two as their respective demons' chakra started to coat their bodies.

He elected not to copy after them, wanting to see how far he could push before being forced to escalate his strength as well...though he got the feeling that Kirabi was only doing it to play along with the Mizukage, who'd been sent reeling after Naruto's last attack.

One way or another, the blond knew, he was going to hurt like hell when this battle was all said and done.