Deceiving Appearance
Disclaimer- I don't own this story or the characters in it.
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"Speaking"
'Thought'
"Demon/jutsus"
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A blast wave ripped across the land, uprooting trees and causing the very earth to tremble and crack.
And at the center of the destruction, a monster that had not been seen for over 14 years stood there, its nine tails weaving back and fourth.
Next to the Kyuubi another demon arose, this one made of sand and blood, the Ichibi.
Facing the two demons were some of the most powerful shinobi one the entire planet. The seven different Peins, Konan, and Deidra. The rest of the Akatsuki members had already evacuated the area, taking their prizes of the wounded and unconscious Jinchuuriki with them.
All that was left was to subdue to two Jinchuuriki in front of them and their plans for world domination would be one steep closer to completion. All they needed to do was subdue to two Jinchuuriki…
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Deidra flew high into the sky on the back of his clay bird. Let Pein take care of the Kyuubi, his goal was the Ichibi.
Hearing the flutter of paper next to him he saw that Konan also joined him in the sky.
'So Leader-sama wants to take on the Kyuubi all by himself? Fine by me, as long Konan remembers the Ichibi is mine' he mused to himself, an insane smile forming on his face.
From her vantage point Konan was able to take in the entire battle field. Were once was a beautiful forest was now a sea of destruction. All the trees were destroyed, and the area closest to the Kyuubi was on fire. And by the Ichibi, the ground was slowly being turned into sand, forever destroying its ability to grow trees and expanding the vast desert of Wind country.
'Selfish creatures' she thought to herself, 'costing the world so much just to attempt to prolong your pitiful lives. God has willed it that you give up your power to aid him in bringing peace to the world, and still you resist?
"Unforgivable" she muttered to herself.
As if hearing her distain for their continued resistance, the Ichibi looked up at the two figures in the sky, and attacked.
Multiple blast of condensed air ripped through the sky, turning the once calm skies into a turbulent maelstrom.
It took all of Deidra's skill as an aviator to avoid getting hit or loosing control. Tossing and turning in the air, he barley avoided an oncoming blast before he was sucked into a vortex of swirling air.
Gritting his teeth, Deidra was able to ride out the temporary tornado and just as he was able to gained control of his bird, he saw another blast of air coming up from the ground.
But this blast wasn't aimed at him. Looking to were it was going he saw Konan also just emerging from a similar maelstrom that he was caught in. With no time to move and no hope of blocking the attack, the blast of air hit her dead on.
But instead of having her bones crushed or torn to shreds by the rotating air currents, she exploded into pieces of paper.
But she was not dead yet.
The fluttering pieces of paper suddenly stiffened and each on formed into an origami swallow.
Then as one, the newly formed flock of paper birds descended as a group, directly at the Ichibi.
The Ichibi tried to swat then out of the sky, but there were too many and they were too small.
As Deidra watched, each bird sliced deep gashes into the form of the Ichibi, cutting tendons, and shredding flesh. Or at least they would of, if their opponent was not made of sand.
Seeing her attack, Deidra unleashed his own swarm of clay birds. But when they made it to the still distracted Ichibi, these birds didn't just cut into him.
Diving head long into the Ichibi's sandy body, the clay birds went as far as they could before detonating.
Six explosions rocked the Ichibi, causing one of his legs to collapse, bringing him to the ground.
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All seven Peins surrounded the Kyuubi, launching attack after attack, and avoiding the attacks sent by the Kyuubi.
So far they were at a standstill.
The Pein's couldn't get close enough to damage the Kyuubi, and Kyuubi couldn't hit them thanks to the Rinngana. As the battle progressed, the Peins were able to lead the Kyuubi away from the Ichibi, separating the two and making it easer for each group to bring down their demon without the other demon interfering. But this was something the Kyuubi was waiting for…
Inhaling deeply, the Kyuubi let out a river of blue plasma over the entire landscape.
The Preta-Pein tried to absorb the attack as it raced across the landscape towards the Peins, but was quickly overpower. -1-
The rolling plasma burned him and the entire forest to the ground. Nothing of him remained for the other Peins to save. The very earth caught on fire and the sky soon became blacked with all the ash in the air.
Landing on the ground, the Deva-Pein heard the sound of glass crack under his feet. The entire ground for kilometers around was nothing but a sheet of black glass.
Only the Preta-Pein was lost in that attack, but all the others were bunt and injured, Deva-Pein included.
The Kyuubi was just too big of a target, too strong. They needed to even the odds.
The Summoning-Pein and Animal-Pein both simultaneously jumped forward and in quick succession began bringing forth all sorts of giant beast to try to bring the Kyuubi down. -2-
A three headed dog leaped at the Kyuubi's right side, while a giant gorilla with two heads and a massive crab attacked from the left.
Two tails intercepted the dog in air, gutting it and sending its blood and guts all over the glass plain before it disappeared.
The gorilla meet a simulate fate, its limbs and heads lost to three of the Kyuubi's tails, but the crab was able to get close and latch onto the Kyuubi.
Holding the Kyuubi down and distracting it, the crab bought the Peins enough time to charge in close to the Kyuubi.
Unleashing a blast of pure chakra at the crab, the Kyuubi blew it up completely before it noticed the Pein's closing in on it. But it was too late.
Attacking as one, the Peins caused the Kyuubi to fall back, just as the Ichibi legs were taken out from underneath it by Deidra.
Unleashing a roar of rage, the Kyuubi brought all nine tails slamming into the ground, causing the glass plain to shatter and explode in millions of pieces of razor sharp fragments.
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Seeing the Ichibi fall, Deidra smiled at his apparent victory. But soon the color drained from his face. The Ichibi's leg reformed and now its attention was fixed on him.
For a moment it seamed like the enter body of the Ichibi was melting back into the ground, but then arms of sand exploded from the ground.
Instead of waiting for him to join him on the ground, the Ichibi decided to join Deidra in the air.
Claws of sand ripped at him and Konan everywhere they went, and as Deidra dodged left to avoid one hand, he came face to face with the head of the Ichibi.
Quickly diving to avoid being eaten, Deidra sent a clay centipede at the head, exploding and disrupting the sand before it reformed. But in that time, Deidra saw the chance for victory, Gaara was inside the head.
Preparing his biggest bomb, one powerful enough to take out a city, Deidra singled Konan.
Diving towards the head of sand, Deidra tried to avoid the hands of sand, but they were unavoidable.
Releasing the bomb he activated it with a smile as his clay bird was torn to spreads beneath him. A sand claw grabbed his legs around the knees and crushed them mercilessly, as did another hand of sand crush his left arm, ripping it right off.
But it was too late. The bomb reached the Ichibi's head and exploded.
The blast singed his flesh and hair and disrupted the sand holding him, sending him flying away.
The Ichibi's head was shredded in the explosion, just barely protecting Gaara enough so that he wasn't injured, but he was left open to attack.
Quickly Konan covered him in her paper, binding his entire body, holding him down. Gaara struggled with all his might and sand clawed at the paper covering his face, but soon the lack of oxygen combined with the stress of releasing and controlling the Ichibi's chakra took hold and he lost consciousness.
As he fell out of the sky Deidra saw the sand all around him fall back to the earth and Gaara being lowered to the ground on paper wings.
Smiling he marveled at the different kind of beauty the falling sand had. Not art like his explosions, but a different type of beautiful destruction. Suddenly, he felt himself stop falling and a pair of hands holding onto his injured body.
Craning his neck back, he saw Konan holding onto him, lowering him to the ground on her paper angel wings.
Laughing to himself he thought, 'from this position she does look like an angel.'
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Spiting blood out of his mouth, Deva-Pein glared at the Kyuubi from across the battlefield.
All the remain Pein's were hurt badly, the attacks of the Kyuubi having ripped though them, killing the Human-Pein and the Summoning-Pein.
Even now, every step they took tore through their feet as the glass shards from the shattered glass plain tore through their shoes.
But the Kyuubi was not unharmed either. The battle has taken a great deal of its energy and red smoke could be seen drifting off of it's body. Every second that passed, Pein could feel it's energy levels dropping as the host's body couldn't handle the corrupted chakra of the Kyuubi for extended periods of time.
Suddenly, over where the Ichibi was battling Konan and Deidra, a massive ball of fire was seen, followed by a defining explosion. The Ichibi's chakra signature disappeared, leaving only Konan and Deidra.
'All according to plan'
Seeing the Kyuubi distracted by the explosion, Animal-Pein and Deva-Pein acted as one.
Deva-Pien pulled the Kyuubi towards them right as Animal-Pein summoned a massive Centipede.
The two monsters crashed into each other but instead of the centipede falling, it was the Kyuubi's turn to fall onto the ground.
The centipede held onto the Kyuubi, ignoring it's own burning flesh from the direct contact with the Kyuubi until the Kyuubi started to dissipate back inside Naruto.
It's job done, the centipede fell off to the side, twitching and convulsing until it too died from it's exposure to the Kyuubi's poisonous chakra.
Animal-Pein walked up to Naruto's body, blood and black liquid pooling on the ground around Naruto as the second skin was partially melted due to the Kyuubi's chakra.
Without remorse or even the slightest bit of care, Animal-Pein threw Naruto over her shoulder before tuning to head back to Akatsuki's base.
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Elsewhere, the coalition forces having gathered to take down the Akatsuki threat waited the arrival of Suna's forces.
Already some of their teams arrived, but the Jinchuuriki and their ANBU protection squads were no where to be found.
Standing with the squad commanders from the other villages, Jiraiya and Kakashi pondered what to do. They had conformation from Suna that the Jinchuuriki group did leave safely, but after that, they disappeared.
"We know they were traveling in this rout," said Jiraiya tracing his finger along the map. "So all we have to do is head in that direction to meet up with them."
"But if they deviated from this course at all then we would miss them entirely," said a muscular jonin from Kumo. "I say we split our forces and cover the entire area, just to be sure."
Nodding his head to the man's logic, Jiraiya could help but agree with him.
"We'll split up into our squads, forming a line as we move towards Suna" said Jiraiya pointing at the map and looking at everyone present. "We'll stay in contact via the radios. If you find something, report it. The closest squads will be there in matter of seconds to help you and they will pass the word down to everyone else so that we can all quickly converge on your location. Clear?"
"What happens if were confronted by border guards? This rout has us going over the Land of Fire" asked one of the Iwa Jonin.
"All border patrols have been notified of your presence and will let you through unopposed. But just in case, we'll stager the squads so that members of different villages are closer to each other than those from their own village. This way, whoever we may meet will be faced with shinobi from multiple villages."
Seeing that all assembled were in agreement, Jiraiya assigned them their positions on the line and dismissed them
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Team seven, consisting of two jonins, Kakashi and Sasuke, and two chunins, Sakura and Sai, moved silently through the forest. To their left was an Iwa ANBU team, and to their right a Kusa chunin team lead by a jonin.
Moving along the supposed traveling rout of the Jinchuuriki, Kakashi had time to reflect upon the different paths his students took.
Sakura was the apprentice to the Hokage and soon to be the village's top healer.
Sasuke was the apprentice to none other than Jiraiya, the legendary toad sennin. He remembered when Sasuke first came to team seven, so full of angst and hatred for his brother that he would barely lift a finger to help anyone else. Hell, his quest for power almost drove him to abandon to village.
But since his hated brother's death and his apprenticeship under Jiraiya, the boys power and potential had exploded and he even came out of his shell and opened up a little, to Team Seven at least.
Thinking of the old Team Seven always ended with him thinking of his third genin student…Naruto.
It had been a shock to see that Naruto was actually a girl, and then to see her power level and potential literally explode right before his eyes.
Being made into a chunin by the Hokage, then killing Itachi, and earning a place in the ANBU. Every now and then, while she was still in the village, he would check up on her via his connections with the ANBU or by reading the mission reports. Truly she had gotten strong…her parents would have been proud.
Thinking about Naruto always made him feel bad. He did abandon her at the Valley of the End and then latter by only focusing on Sasuke. At the time he felt that Sasuke needed him more than she did, but he would be lying to himself if he still believed that.
Suddenly a massive wave of air slammed into Team Seven, ripping him from his thought and almost sending him flying.
Most of the trees stayed standing, but leaves and branches were blown off and over the radio he heard the commotion that told him all the other teams in the coalition were hit by the same force.
"Kakashi-san" came to voice from the lead Iwa ANBU, "Jiraiya -sama has sent orders to all teams to investigate the source of the shockwave. He feels it was caused by one of the Jinchuuriki."
"Roger" replied Kakashi before he turned to Team Seven. "Double time people. That shockwave could have been made by one of the Jinchuuriki and that means they are in trouble."
Sasuke, Sakura, and Sai nodded their head before they all took off, faster than before.
Traveling for over an hour, the pit in Kakashi's stomach filled with dread.
As they neared the epicenter of the blast, the trees went from damages, to knocked down, to uprooted, to completely destroyed.
Coming to a clearing, Kakashi's one visible eye opened wide in disbelief.
For miles around there was a plain of black glass and ash was falling from the sky as though it were snow.
Kakashi had seen this before, it was the aftermath of Naruto's plasma attacks. But never had he seen so much destruction from her before. Hell, even the Kyuubi never caused this much damage before.
After radioing in what was found, the stunned Team Seven moved onto the plain of black glass.
Quickly running through the hand seals and bighting his thumb, Kakashi summoned his pack of dogs to aid in the search.
"Do you want some of my toads to help out too?" asked Sasuke as he looked around at the plain of glass with calculating eyes.
"No, keep them in reserve" said Kakashi absentmindedly as he continues his search, still stunned.
Soon Team Seven was joined by the rest of the taskforce and together they began to investigate the area.
They found that about halfway through the glass plain their progress was halted as the glass on the ground was shattered, causing the ground to become a field of razors.
Continuing around the plain of grass they found other sings of the Jinchuuriki's battle, with multi-elemental damage to the area, scorched earth and even a small desert which could be attributed to Gaara.
Besides the physical damage, the entire area was completely saturated in the very different and unique chakras of the different Jinchuuriki and their demons.
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"It looks like our worst fears have been realized" solemnly stated Jiraiya as he read over a letter the following day at the battle site.
Looking up at the gathered ninjas from all the different villages, Jiraiya continued, "This if from Suna. They were attacked by a single Akatsuki member. From the reports he was able to evade all attacks, killed all the shinobi guarding the twin Jinchuuriki children left in Suna and took them away."
"Are there any leads as to where they were taken?" asked a frustrated Kumo-nin.
After finding the battle field, the gathered shinobi spent every waking moment combing for any clues as to where Akatsuki might have taken the Jinchuuriki, but to no avail. All bodies, weapons, and any other possible clue as to where the Jinchuuriki might have been taken were gone.
"We must continue to look for evidence, any clue as to where they have been taken. Time is running out!"
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In a dark cave hidden in the Land of Rain the nine Jinchuuriki and the one free demon were unconscious and in the center of their own individual confinement circles, the seals surrounding them glowing slightly.
The Akatsuki members knew that the other villages would double their efforts to find them, but they needed to recover.
Deidra had his arm sewn back on and was given prosthetic legs from Sasori due to the inability to recover his damaged legs.
All the Peins needed extensive healing on their shredded feet and black makes covered their skin from the Kyuubi's chakra.
The other Akatsuki, while not as injured as Deidra and Pein, used the day to recover from their own injuries and chakra exhaustion.
They would have liked to spend a little more time healing, but time was not on their side.
Gathering around the contentment circles, a massive stature with nine closed eyes rose from the ground.
The four surviving Peins, as well as two new ones, and all the other members Akatsuki took positions on the fingers of the stature and on the ground (the other Peins) in front of the stature.
"We will seal them all at the same time" said Deva-Pien. "Prepare yourselves."
A glowing mist extending from the statue's mouth and the extraction process got underway.
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-1- Look at "Naruto Wiki" and search "Pain" for the different forms of Pain.
-2- Summoning- Pein is the first one (with long hair) while Animal-Pein is the one who has the body of Kushina. I know this doesn't fit with the whole 6 paths of Pain/ways of a ninja, but think of it this was, being a ninja is also part deception and trickery. Animal-Pein used deception against Naruto and summoning is also part deception, because you think you're fighting a person and end up fighting a giant animal.
Sorry for the delay, this chapter was hard to write.
So, should the Jinchuuriki be saved or should they die? I want to hear your opinions.
Ja ne!