A.N. The first Reflections of Exile OC popularity poll is up! Vote now for your favorites! The winners almost certainly probably won't die horribly or get maimed to the point of permanant disability!

The ideal backing track for this chapter is 'Jinchuriki', from the Naruto OST. 'The Guts to Never Give Up' would work too.

When Sasori saw a stream of water arc overhead to his left and douse the incoming acidic gas, taking it out of the air, he figured things were finally going right. He was quickly disabused of the notion.

"Your mother was a whore," The Akatsuki agent didn't recognize the voice, but it sounded very exasperated and more than a little bored, "Hello again, Sarutobi. Wish I was seeing you under better circumstances. Monkey-man."

"…What the- Tobirama-sensei?!" Hiruzen croaked, "Wha- How?"

"Bad news is, your former student knows the impure world resurrection summoning. The good news is, you're a terrible teacher. He's really, really bad at it," A lanky, white-haired man in archaic armor stalked out of the wispy remains of the acid mist, "Told me to take care of the gas, and then 'attack the third Hokage and the Mizukage'. Didn't bind my will enough to restrict my initiative, though… Say, does smearing your student count as assaulting your reputation? I think it does. The oily bastard never specified how I was supposed to attack, and insults are the least harmful way to go about it."

"Sorry, Sarutobi, but he told me to kill you and the Mizukage. Not a lot of wiggle room there," The owner of the other face to the left of Hiruzen's on the mountain stepped up to join his brother, "Wow, you've gotten old. I'm pretty sure Orochimaru forgot that when I died the second Mizukage was still in power, though, and he was like fifty. I don't actually know who Kirigakure's leader is right now."

"Lord Hashirama, if I may? The current Mizukage is Yagura, the three-tails jinchuriki," Mei piped in with a sly smile, "He's a scrawny little runt with pink eyes, a big scar down his left cheek, and a long, thorny staff. Likes to murder people for having kekkei genkai, although he got way more reasonable a few months ago for some reason. He should be back in Kiri right now."

"Huh. Okay. I'll just go hunt him down then. After all, I can't be in two places at once if I want to take down Kage-level opponents with a sixteenth of the chakra I had while alive," The undead first Hokage reasoned, "You've got until I come back to find a way to stop the edo-tensei, Lord Third, assuming Kiri doesn't figure something out."

'Thuk-thuk-thuk-BOOM!' Orochimaru flew across the rooftop, until one of Sasori's puppets broke his fall. Staggering upright, the sannin pulled a kunai out of his chest, one that all of the living ninja recognized on sight. The three-pronged point and seal-inscribed handle were instantly recognisable, assuming you'd been alive in the past twenty years.

"Fuck this. I'm out," Sasori decided, "Sucks to suck, Orochimaru."

"What? You think you can get away?" The sannin yanked another kunai out of his thigh, "I probably can, but you're no match for Minato now that he's freed himself from my control. And if you leave me here I will hunt you down! Assuming our leader doesn't get to you first for abandoning your partner!"

"Well, somehow I find myself more afraid of the biju-murdering Fourth fucking Hokage than you or our leader," The rogue puppeteer spat, "Also… I figured attacking a major village with only two S-ranked ninja on our side was a really stupid idea, so I may be operating my puppets with a remote control seal from a cave in grass country. For what it's worth, I'll probably miss you when I get a less professional partner." Sasori's puppets collapsed, and then vanished in puffs of smoke as their master triggered his emergency retrieval seal.

Flash.

Before Orochimaru could speak another word, Namikaze Minato appeared in front of him in a flare of yellow, and slammed a rasengan into the snake summoner's face. The whirling sphere of chakra chewed through a paper-thin layer of something, before grinding into flesh and bone. Amazingly, after only a few inches of penetration, the jutsu skipped off of its victim's bones. A few inches was still enough to be fatal, but…

"That wasn't Orochimaru," The fourth Hokage declared, "The only thing I've ever hit with a rasengan that felt like that was this crazy guy from Kiri. He kept pulling his own bones out through his skin and throwing them at me, and took an absurd amount of punishment to put down."

"Damn, one of those loons? I don't suppose you've been hiding how Orochimaru had the dead bone pulse kekkei genkai all these years, third Hokage?" Mei asked, already anticipating the negative answer, "Then… Where the hell is he?"

"Not our biggest problem, as strange as it feels to say that about my former student," Hiruzen decided, "There's a biju. It needs to be stopped."

"Still not your biggest problem," Tobirama cut in, "Does anyone else see my head smoking?"

It wasn't, not exactly. That particular noise and sensation, Minato identified through long experience as the sound of a very complex and chakra-intensive seal about to go off. The fourth Hokage's eyes met his predecessor and successor's for barest seconds…

And the Yellow Flash whirled, slapped a hairaishin seal across Mei's forehead, and hurled a kunai outward with all his strength.

Flash.

Terumi Mei sat up on a rooftop, gaping openly at the roiling cube of black where she assumed she had been seconds ago, halfway across the village. As she watched, the dark solid sullenly faded from view. Left behind was a perfectly square crater, as though some cosmic cookie-cutter had taken the house she had been on and a fair portion of the surrounding area out of existence. A matching cube had appeared and vanished a few hundred yards from Konoha's walls. Of the Hokage, living and otherwise, there were no traces save a single, three-pronged kunai embedded in the tiles by her feet.

The aspirant Mizukage considered her options. On the one hand, fighting a biju is a daunting proposition no matter how skilled you are. On the other, the current Hokage had, for whatever reason, sacrificed his life to preserve hers. And there were still mist ninja back at the arena. Kiri couldn't afford to lose Hiramekarei or those genin; all of them were clearly future jonin, and thus irreplaceable.

Sigh. Biju fighting it was. Pausing only to scoop up and stow the fourth Hokage's kunai, Mei leaped off the roof, bounding back toward the arena. The first enemy ninja to get in her way never knew what hit him. But his teammates had a little forewarning, and one of them had a whistle… Sigh.

Sakura? What's the plan?

"What?! Why are you asking me?"

"You did come up with the last one," Sasuke murmured, eyes fixed on Shukaku, "It worked too, sort of."

"Of course I don't have another plan!"

"Whaaat? But you always have a plan!" Naruto exclaimed, completely foiling his team's attempt to keep Shukaku out of the loop, "C'mon, tell us already!"

"Well, excuse me for assuming that blowing his arms, legs, and head off with high explosives would be fatal!" She growled, "What happened to Mr. Top-of-his-class-super-genius? I thought Uchiha knew everything!"

"Thank you for reminding me of that, by the way," Shukaku effortlessly recaptured the panicking genin's attention with a single purred sentence, "Yeah, before I was just gonna kill ya. But then you had to go and do that. Sure, I can take it, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. So now, Imma enjoy it. Starting with you, pinky."

We need to fall back. Ha pointed up, at where Hokori's dragon pulse and Danketsu's punches were hitting Shukaku, doing absolutely nothing worth mentioning. Unless someone's sitting on an ace in the hole, we're out of ways to hurt him.

"Hell no!" Naruto disagreed, "Hokage never run!"

"We're not running," Sasuke 'clarified', "We're falling back to find reinforcements. Hokage have done that."

"Oh, like I'm going to let you run. Let's see here," Faster than the genin could react, claws of sand lashed out from the ground, ensnaring Naruto and lifting him close to the biju's face. "You little ants blew my arms off. Tell me, human, how attached are you to yours?"

"Aaaugh- What the hell am I doing back here?!"

"You blacked out, human."

"What?! I would never! Not in the middle of a fight!"

"It seems getting your right arm ripped off by that damn tanuki was enough to overcome even your suicidal pain tolerance," The nine-tailed fox leered down at his jailer, and huffed in disgust, "I suppose not humiliating us both in front of Shukaku was too much to ask. Keh, I'll never hear the end of it now."

Naruto poked his right arm with his left. It was pretty clearly intact. "Uh, are you… sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! We're in your head, human. You look like you think you should, and right now you think you have two arms. You'll adjust once you've seen yourself in the mirror a few times."

"Uh, I've always healed from other wounds. Can you like supercharge that and grow my arm back?"

"…Possibly? I've never tried. But I'm not gonna."

"What? But I thought you hated Shukaku! Don't you want me to kick his ass?!"

"Of course I do! Why do you think I stopped interfering with your jutsu? For this fight only, mind you."

"But I still got the fish!"

"Oh, yes, the great Uzumaki Naruto never makes mistakes."

"So then why won't you try to grow my arm back?"

"You won't stop risking your life to protect your friends and village just because of a crippling wound. This way, you're more likely to die and set me free. I am keeping you from bleeding out though, and- Oooh, Shukaku just crushed your legs. Ow, shared senses aren't always my friend. Well, at least they're still attached, even if that makes them hurt more."

"Ser- Rrrgh! No time for this! Look, just give me some chakra," Naruto restrained himself with visible effort, "That way I can at least do something! I'll open your seal a little more. That'll get you closer to going free too, right?"

"Er… That's the thing," The fox's eyes darted from side to side, before he dropped his head to his paws with a gusty sigh, "I can't."

"What?! But you're the nine-tailed demon fox! King of demons! What happened to Mr. 'I'm eternal and all powerful'?!"

"If I was all powerful, I wouldn't be stuck in here, mortal. We loosened the seal very recently. We can't try again so soon. The seal literally won't turn. As much as I'd like to, I can't give you more of my chakra or get you back in fighting shape. That said, I'd really like to see Shukaku get his ass kicked, so know I'm actually rooting for you this time. Not that I expect it to help."

"Well, does he have a weakness or something? You've known him a long time, right?"

"Shukaku and I go way back, yeah. But I always beat him by just hitting him 'till he stayed down. Except the time he dropped Wind Country on me. That really sucked."

"Wait, all of Wind Country?"

"Sure felt like it. Took me months to dig out of all that sand."

"Damn! Well, thanks for nothing, fox," Naruto muttered, beginning to fade from his mindscape, "Probably won't be seeing you again, so fuck you and I hope you're stuck in my corpse for like thousands of years!"

"May you suffer the loving affection of all my demon fleas!" The kitsune retorted, rattling the bars of his cage with a tail swat, "Damn fourth Hokage, ruins all my fun. How'm I supposed to show up Shukaku like this?"

"Arrrr! Kami damn it this is cheap! Put me down dattebane!"

"I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY YOU'RE HERE," Arceus muttered, glaring down at Uzumaki Kushina as she struggled impotently in His telekinetic grip, "THE INTACT SOULS OF THE DEAD ARE NOT MEANT TO LINGER. PASS ON." Kushina vanished instantly, and the Creator turned his attention to the other ghost. "AND AS FOR YOU, MY DAUGHTER, I FEAR I HAVE DONE YOU A GRAVE DISSERVICE."

"Let me guess," Giratina snarked bitterly, "You went easy on me."

"RAYQUAZA, IN THIS CASE, PROVED WISER THAN I. WHEN GROUDON AND KYOGRE THREATENED THE BALANCE, HE CAST THEM INTO A DEEP AND DREAMLESS SLEEP. I ONCE BELIEVED YOUR PUNISHMENT THE LESSER. I WAS MISTAKEN," Arceus bowed slightly, as though under an unimaginably heavy weight, "IT WOULD HAVE BEEN KINDER TO ALLOW YOU TO SLUMBER, IGNORANT OF THE PASSING AGES. I WILL CORRECT MY ERRORS NOW."

"Back when you sentenced me, I would have fought that to the bitter end," The dragoness chuckled bleakly, "A thousand years after that, I would have leaped at the chance. If you had offered a century, even a decade ago I would have raised no protest."

"THAT IS NOT CURRENTLY THE CASE? IT MATTERS NOT. YOU WILL BE SEALED, DAUGHTER. IT IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD."

"You know, the humans have intrigued me like nothing else I experienced in my journeys through the real world," Giratina mused, sliding her eyes slowly shut, "It is so interesting what bits of history survived the fall of the Leagues, and the warring clans."

"I FAIL TO SEE THE RELEVANCE."

"In a few minutes, you will never hear my voice again," The goddess pointed out, "Humor me in this. The mortals do not remember the famous, acclaimed works of Edgar Allen Poe. 'The Murkrow', 'The Tell-Tale Shuppet', 'The Pit and the Haxorus', none of them survived. They do not even remember the man's name. But, in the irony of ironies, they know a single passage from a work that only dedicated academics ever read. Somehow, by some miracle, 'The Lay of the Renegade' withstood the test of time. Are you familiar with it?

"Whenever you look into the mirror,"

In the stadium dominated by blood and sand, Uzumaki Naruto's eyes slid open.

"And think of all that you behold,"

Hissing with pain, the crippled genin rolled himself over and with his remaining responsive limb dragged himself to Terra's prison.

"Remember the one who watches you,"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sakura, tears streaming down her face, as she lunged at Sasuke with a kunai, dancing on strings of sand that pierced her skin. Sasuke, his hands charred and useless, his teammate held grotesquely hostage, could only dodge as best as he was able.

"Behind the metal, beyond the glass,"

As Ha stared, trembling on his knees, at the crushed and useless remains of a locket, Naruto painted a set of kanji onto the nearest of Terra's restraints in his own blood. The sand fell lifeless to the ground.

"Surrounded by all she had and lost,"

As Naruto pulled himself towards the next band of sand, a brownish-white orb began to grow in Giratina's beak, humming with power.

"Your blessings, her reflections,"

"N- Naruto? What are you still doing here? You need to run!"

"Sorry, Terra," Naruto smiled grimly, "Even if I was the kinda guy to leave Hokori and Sakura and Sasuke, that's not an option. But if you can distract Shukaku long enough, they might get out. I… I just gotta last until then."

"Ephemeral nothings that you yet possess,"

Arceus leaned in to study Giratina's ball of stuff curiously. It wasn't an attack; there was almost no energy in it, and she didn't seem aware of what she was doing. What was it?

"So rejoice you deserter beneath the lash,"

"Naruto, listen to me," Terra's eyes darted to Ha, scraping the dirt for the fragments of his shattered dawn stone, and back to her summoner, "You won't free me in time. You aren't fast enough. We have but one hope left."

"So rejoice you thief before the iron,"

"I do not know if this will work. The odds are long, my knowledge scant. But we must believe it can, or it will fail."

"So rejoice you murderer under the axe,"

"You must focus on us. On our bonds, our shared experiences. I shall do the same. Show me, Uzumaki Naruto. What does 'Terra' mean to you?"

"The Exile's fate is not yours,"

Giratina's sphere stopped growing, and her eyes snapped open, shining pale tan with a ki Arceus had never expected to feel again.

"While you look into the mirror,"

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut and thought, like he never had before. Terra was… safe. Solid. Her first actions had been to save his life. She had accepted him without question, protected him selflessly, and given far more than he could ever have asked. Maybe, if he believed hard enough, she could pull off the impossible once more?

"Recall who looks back,"

Unseen to ninja or steelix, as both had closed their eyes, a spark of orange energy leaped from Naruto's shoulder to Terra's tiara. It struck a steely grey cat's-eye stone a few hands' breadths from the center of the jeweled crown.

"Behind the reflection."

The sphere flared with blinding light, echoed by the Griseous Orb, and with no other warning transformed into a blistering beam of raw energy. The beam hit the barrier projected by Arceus' Plates, and passed right through it. It also ignored the resistance of reflect, light screen, and His near-impervious skin, carving a bloody trench a foot in diameter across His left side.

Arceus stood stock still in shock, as His side healed with supernatural quickness and Giratina slumped in mid-air, utterly exhausted. "THAT SHOULD BE BEYOND YOU! I ENSURED IT! HOW DID YOU-"

"Haven't we al'dy established you don't know ev'thing?" Giratina mumbled as she started to sink, "Why 'm I so sleepy? Haven't slept since I died…"

"YOU HAVE SEALED YOUR FATE, DAUGHTER. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR OBLIVION!"

"Could use a nap 'bout now…"

"No."

"WHAT NOW?!"

"I can't let you do that before you answer my question."

"Bro, this is a really, really-"

"You talk too much, Palkia. Learn silence. Maybe you'll keep a girlfriend then. Tell me this, Dad," Dialga rasped, his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he got in his father's face, "What was big sis' type?"

"Uh, are you like making a Monty Arbok joke or something? Now?!" Palkia chuckled nervously, "She's ghost and dragon! Everybody knows that."

"What did I just tell you, brother?" The kami of time whispered, "Answer the question. Now, Father."

"HM, IT'S BEEN A WHILE. SHE WAS ALWAYS A DRAGON, BUT THE SECONDARY TYPING… FIRE, DARK, ELECTRIC, FIGHTING! THAT WAS IT. I MADE HER A FIGHTING TYPE, TO CONTROL THE BOUNDLESS ENERGY HER ANTIMATTER-SHAPING ABILITIES PRODUCED."

"Dad, you're an idiot."

"Don't say that to father, you dumbass!"

"Shut up, Palkia. I know why. Giratina sure knows why. Now I'm explaining it to the rest of you."

"AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW THAT PALKIA AND I DO NOT? ABOUT THIS, SPECIFICALLY."

"How long have you spent as a fighting type, dad? Your longest run."

"UH, A FEW WEEKS? BACK WHEN I HELPED MEW DESIGN THE SWORDS OF JUSTICE."

"No wonder. Fighting types are defined by their ability to face challenges, overcome them through training and determination, and so constantly improve themselves. They can't help it. They need to challenge themselves, and fight strong opponents. You brought a fighting type into a world where the only challenge was one she could never surmount: you. And you wonder why she went a little crazy and tried to kill you?"

"I'VE MET PLENTY OF FIGHTING TYPES WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN IN BATTLE."

"They challenge themselves in other ways, dad. Crusaders for social justice, academics seeking answers to big problems, they're still fighting in their own way. Sis was always a brawler, though, even now with her emotions almost gone and her personality warped by millennia of solitary confinement. You do know that humans have been known to go noibatshit crazy after five years of that, don't you?"

"…REALLY?"

"And as long as we're talking about you fucking up, this little conversation just shunted most of the lucario kingdom into nonexistence and paved the way for humans to inherit the earth. I've come to a new understanding of why Palkia kisses your ass so much. He's terrified you'll get inspired and screw him over in the name of efficiency in a vacuum. That's your problem, dad. You don't think about what your creations will do when they interact."

"I-"

"I mean, I'm fine, as long as I only speak when I'm managing time. Giratina was fine, until she figured out how her powers worked and needed a new challenge. Kyogre and Groudon were fine, until they met. Darkrai literally can't go near people without them dying in their sleep, and Yveltal can't even talk to awake people without killing them. The Tao dragon literally split into thirds when his best friends disagreed. Also, Celebi just told me right before we got here that Giratina's been sneaking out because she adopted an orphaned human, who was fighting a biju when we intercepted her rescue mission."

"FIGHTING A- HOW OLD IS THIS HUMAN?!"

"About twelve."

"THAT- I- W-WHAT HAVE I DONE? I…" Arceus gathered His power to part the veil between worlds, resolve rapidly firming, "I SHALL GO IN HER PLACE, THEN, AND LAY JUDGEMENT UPON THIS BIJU. THE REST CAN BE ADDRESSED LATER."

"You may wanna hold off on that, dad," Palkia cut in hesitantly, presenting a screen to his family, "Get a load of this!"

"WHAT COULD POSSIBLY ALLOW A TWELVE YEAR OLD, NO MATTER HOW SKILLED, TO STAND UP TO A BIJU?"

"Not much. But this might," The space kami speculated, "I have no idea where they got this stuff, but… Just look."

The gods of creation crammed themselves in front of the screen, Palkia warping in a worry seed to slip into Giratina's mouth.

"Wha did-"

"Shh. Just watch," The white dragon pointed Giratina back to the screen.

"Palkia, I don't have time for your inanities!"

"Jeeze, what is this? Dump on Palkia day? The kid's going to be fine."

"What could possibly persuade you of that?!"

"Naruto's key stone is resonating with Terra's steelixite."

A.N. Think back to chapter 6. There were a lotta Chekov's guns in that chapter. Naruto got the summoning scroll, and the shadow clones. But he also got a little pin, with a rainbow marble, that he kept because it looked cool. He thought it might be related to a technique in the scroll, and then totally forgot about it.

What key item do we know of that looks like a rainbow marble on a pin? An item that the last Hoenn champion might slip into his summoning scroll for his successor.

For those of you who are curious, this is Primal Giratina's signature move. Think of it as focus punch mixed with seismic toss, explosion, and several thousand X attacks.

Don't forget to vote in the poll! You wouldn't want your favorite characters to die horribly because I think nobody cares about them, do you?

Annihilation Stream

Special/Fighting

Giratina gathers a sphere of antimatter, and then exposes it to regular matter. The resulting energy blast always deals damage exactly equal to the user's special attack stat, and ignores all abilities. If Giratina is struck by a damage-dealing move during the turn she uses Annihilation Stream, she loses focus and the antimatter explodes, dealing damage equal to Giratina's special attack to every Pokémon in battle that is affected by fighting-type attacks. If the user is not a fighting type, they must rest afterward to recover ki.

Learned by: Primal Giratina (Lvl 45)