Naruto felt as his sealed clone used the last of his chakra to battle along side the five kage against Madara and his two subordinates, Tobi and Sabui. The sealed clone died and lay upon the soil as any regular dead body. But just as Naruto was able to transfer chakra to the clone over the long distance, he was also able to reabsorb his clone remotely as well.

"The five kage are now battling Madara. We're supposed to meet Killer Bee along the coast." Naruto said to Hinata as he shift directions. "Bee was headed towards the main battlefield, but it looks like he got held up by something."

It did not take long for them to come upon exactly who or what had held up Killer Bee. Another masked man stood on top of another enormous statue. This statue had a skeletal look to it, with a large blind fold over its eyes and a buton in-between its clenched teeth. It held up two hands towards the sky, shackled by metal chains and it squat hunched over on the ground as through praying to some invisible god.

"I thought the five kage were fighting Madara on the main battlefield?" Hinata whispered, frowning at the man who wore a white spiral mask that covered his entire head even his hair.

"They are." Naruto whispered back, continuing his approach.

"Well who is that then?"

The masked man was not alone. He was surrounded by six other shinobi. Killer Bee was not alone either. He was also surrounded by multiple shinobi. Naruto recognized the shinobi surrounding Bee right away. They all wore the trademark black robes with red clouds, after all.

"Isn't it ironic!? A fight this darn iconic between the dead hunted jinchuuriki and their dead hunters, the Akatsuki. Though sides have switched and true causes now ditched, we'll make this down and dirty. Guaranteed, it won't be puuur-tteee!" Killer Bee rapped up to the man in the mask.

Naruto landed next to Killer Bee and set Hinata down. Then he yelled up at the man in the mask. "Now WHO the hell are you?"

The six dead jinchuuriki stared down at him with six sets of purple spiraled eyes that matched the set of purple spiraled eyes, piercingly set beyond the eye holes of the white mask. "You have the rinnegan... in both eyes... like Pain! How is that even possible?"

"I'd say he's either an Uchiha... or a Uzumaki... if he can control that type of visual power." Dead Nagato spoke up, but it was not his voice. The voice sounded more sinister and snake like. "Or maybe he's a she? No... too tall and not built right. Definitely a man."

Both Bee and Naruto looked at Nagato. Naruto narrowed his eyes at the reanimation. "You aren't Nagato. Your voice is different. Who are you?"

"It's Orochimaru. These are my reanimations. And I've come to assist in this fight."

"We don't need your help or the help of your dead Akatsuki." Naruto refused bluntly.

"Oh... I think you do. Besides, I plan to help anyway."

'Why are we rejecting help?' Gyuki asked Killer Bee. 'We need all the help we can get here.'

'Speak for yourself!' Kurama snapped at Gyuki. 'All six of them together are no match for me alone. Besides I don't sense this masked man like the other hateful Uchihas, Madara and Sasuke. There is something conflicted inside of him. It's like he doesn't have a true reason to fight us.'

Nagato hissed to the man in the mask in Orochimaru's voice. "I came to fight Madara... Do you claim to be Madara?"

"I am now." The man replied, not mincing words. He turned to Bee and Naruto. "I've come here to relieve you of your despair. You've both been burdened with a tailed beast... let me take your burdens away."

Naruto growled. He recognized the voice, but he couldn't quite place it. "And who said my tailed beast was a burden! Who said I had any despair!"

He thrust a finger in the direction of the stranger. "That's not for YOU to decide. You can't even give your own name or show your own face! You know what? You're really pissin' me off! I'm going to tear that mask right off your face once and for all!"

"Oh YEH YAH! But me first!" Killer Bee unsheathed his swords.

"Try it... You will be broken." The six dead jinchuuriki began to grow the tails of their tailed beasts, asserting the power of bijuu within them.

"This will be like fighting me, Pain, before I died." Nagato now spoke with his own voice. "There are chakra rods somewhere on their bodies which he will use to control them and their powers. Their tailed beasts must have been sealed back inside their corpses just for this purpose."

"They'll be able to see through all six sets of eyes, which means they have the advantage of seeing all angles." Naruto explained to Killer Bee. He looked over at Hinata, before motioning to Kisame. "Hey you, Shark Faced Akatsuki! If you want to help, take Hinata up as high as possible and guard her there."

Naruto turned back to Bee. "I can tap into Hinata's byakugan. If she's high up enough, I should be able to use her sight almost like they do. And hopefully spot the receivers quickly."

"We'll have to extract and destroy the receivers to defeat them." He continued.


"I'm bored." Suigetsu tapped the side of his head and flipped a card. Now that they were back from their raid of the leaf village libraries, having just barely escaped a deranged group of women armed with pots and pans who called themselves the allied mom force, he was ready for some more excitement. "Running errands for this new decrepit Orochimaru is for the birds, man."

"Well maybe we should go out and look for Sasuke and Karin now." Jugo suggested, also not too excited about the idea of staying too long with Orochimaru in this dark and dank hide out, which sat in the middle of nowhere. "We know Karin is still alive... I'm sure Sasuke must be too, huh?"

"Likely. But supposedly, he and Karin had some sort of falling out. He tried to kill her. Then she sold him out to his enemies... You know, the usual lover's spat."

Suigetsu threw another card. "Nah. I'm not getting caught in the middle of that. I was thinking about something a little more fun."

"Like what?" Jugo frowned.

"What we do best. Let's meddle a bit... and along the way look for some nice blades to collect." Suigetsu smirked to himself. "Making a little bit of trouble sounds just right up my alley."

"Wait. So we're not going to look for Sasuke then?" Jugo asked confused.


Kurama's bijuu ball exploded into the beach cliffs, shattering the ground underneath the remaining five tailed beasts and knocking them all off of their feet. The nine tails leapt the miles between them and landed at the center of the other bijuu. Five long glowing arms extended from him, grasping each of the beasts around the necks and pinning them to the ground.

As their chakra touched, Naruto felt himself pulled to another plane. There he stood next to Kurama and in front of the five tailed beasts and their jinchuuriki. "Wha? Where am I?"

He looked around at the shadowed space. It looked and felt familiar. It reminded him of the chamber, where he always met with Kurama. "Is this your place Kurama? Looks nicer than usual. Did Hinata finally convince you to renovate, too, or what?"

"Or What! My chamber is perfectly fine! Hinata did no such thing!" Kurama yelled down at his jinchuuriki. "How dare you compare that substandard hovel, you call a home, to my place!"

"Sorry to interrupt, but this plane is beyond our individual planes." The two tails jinchuuriki explained apologetically attempting to break up the argument. "It's a place where we, tailed beast, can all meet while we're linked together. And its beyond any place that the masked man can reach."

"After you attempted to release Son Goku the four tails, he asked us to give you something. Whatever you said to him... he believes in you. Kurama appears to believe in you too. So we decided to give you something very important to us."

Each tailed beast and jinchuuriki introduced themselves by their full names. Then Naruto smiled and shoved a thumb in his chest. "And I'm Naruto Uzumaki! And this is my partner and friend, Kurama."

"Son Goku told us you acknowledge us, tailed beasts, as equals... but I wasn't sure I believed it until now." Matatabi the two tails purred.

Kurama smiled his wiley smile down at the others, and said, arrogantly. "Of course Naruto is special! He is the old man! Do you think anyone less could be MY partner?"

"Oh Kurama. You never change." Isubo the three tails sighed up at the nine tailed fox.

All five tailed beasts held out their fists. "Now let us grant you our names properly."

Naruto touched fists with the others... A vision of an old man with wild pure white hair, purple spiraled eyes, a red spiral mark at the center of his forehead, and wrinkled white skin flashed into his mind for just a second. And then some drums began to play...

After all of the names poured into his head, Naruto scratched his temple. "No way am I going to remember all of that."

He deactivated his beast form, not able to hold it any longer, as Might Guy suddenly appeared next to him.

"Wow! What's going on here?" Might Guy looked over at Killer Bee. "I finally found you octopus jinchuuriki. And now I'm ready to fight..."

Guy caught sight of dead Kisame standing up above them with Hinata. "Hey! I recognize that guy there."

"Where do I know him from?" He wrinkled his brow, thinking hard.

"You just fought me not more than two days ago! You still don't remember me?!" Kisame yelled back down at Guy.

"You must have been a mighty foe!" Then Guy turned back to Naruto with concern on his face and whispered. "That guy I fought two days ago killed himself. What would he be doing standing there next to Hinata?"

"Orochimaru reanimated him. And some of the other Akatsuki. Supposedly they are here to help us." Naruto pointed to the man in the mask. "That guy over there is our enemy now."

"Well.. lucky for him, he doesn't have a face for me to forget." Might Guy shrugged, cracking his knuckles.

"Wait. What is he doing?" Hinata inspected to the man in the mask who still stood on top of the Gedo Statue watching quietly. He kneeled and placed his hand down on the top of the head. She could see the chakra in his hand connecting to the statue. "Do you see this, Naruto?!"

Naruto was distracted by the appearance of the red headed woman who looked like his mother. She came from the cliffs and ran across the beach, but she was not headed towards them. She was headed towards the statue. She passed between the tailed beasts as they lay strewn over the sand. And did not stop until placed her hand on the bottom of the statue.

Hinata again witnessed as Masuku's chakra seemed to connect with the statue too. Madara appeared at the top of the statue standing next to the masked man. The spiral faced white Guruguru and Sabui appeared with him. Each moved down onto a shoulder and stooped to place their hand on the statue.

"What are you doing here?" Naruto demanded. "You are supposed to be fighting Lady Tsunade and the other kage on the main battlefield. What happened to them?"

"That fight ended... unfortunately, badly for them." Madara crossed his arms over his chest. "But this one is just about to begin."

His three subordinates began to phase into the statue and at the same time the statue began to move. Lifting its head, it let go of the baton between its teeth and roared. The blind fold over its eyes ripped revealing nine eyes, eight of which were already open. It stretched its arms and and broke the shackles that linked its wrists together. Wooden spikes extended from its back, long bony spikes from its elbow, and an enormous set of chains appeared from within its chest. The chains wrapped around the necks of the five tailed beast on the ground, pulling them back into the statue. Another chain shot through Gyuki and Killer Bee binding to their chakra as it wrapped around the tailed beasts tentacles and pulled him in.

"Octopops!" Naruto activated beast mode and reached a large chakra arm out to hold onto Gyuki. He dodged the chain meant for him as more clones appeared, attempting to us their bodies to hold the eight tails and cut through the chain. Bony spikes flew from the statue, skewering some of the clones. The rest were caught by wooden limbs extending from the statues legs and arms.

"It's the masked one at the top!" Hinata yelled down. "He is controlling the statue!"

A spike flew in her direction, but it was blocked by Kisame, who threw his entire body in front of it. Naruto moved chakra over top of Hinata as she caught Kisame as he fell back, weakened for the moment by the spike through his abdomen.

Nagato moved in front of Naruto and used his push and pull to send the spikes aimed at Naruto in an array of directions. While Might Guy used the flying bony spikes to ascend up towards the top of the statue. "Don't you worry! I'll take out that masked one!"

Madara scoffed and looked at Guy, sending him flying back and crashing down into the sand. Next Nagato attempted to ascend towards them. Madara transported from his position at the top of the statue's head down to Nagato, so he was right behind him. Nagato attempted a push, but Madara used the Kamui as the force passed through him before flipping another kunai into his hand which he used to slice into Nagato's neck. Once then twice. The reanimation dropped to the ground as Madara transported again, back to the head.

Now Kakashi appeared from the cliffs, where Masuku had just come from, with Sasuke in tow. Madara scowled to see the youngest Uchiha was still alive. He yelled at the masked man. "Hurry this up!"

The chain meant for Naruto and Kurama extended again, but again he dodged. This time Kakazu moved into the way, wrapping his strings around the chain to break it.

"I always have to do everything myself, I see." Madara tossed off his robe and transported down off of the statue closer to Naruto. As he approached, a second face became visible on his chest over the right half of his body where Obito's face was scarred and most of his body was another color, reconstructed after he was found decades before. "I chose this body for a very special reason. A secret that was kept from me for far too long and will now be used to crush the dreams of those who thought that they had defeated me."

He made hand seals, summoning a large wooden dragon, which crashed through the ground in the direction of Naruto.

In response, Naruto took his full beast form, meeting the onslaught of Madara's jutsu. The dragon wrapped around the tailed beast and began to absorb its chakra. Naruto's chakra mixed with Kurama's chakra vitalized the wood style, causing it to grow out of control, expanding into a forest of trees that crushed Kurama further.

"Damn it!" Kakashi left Sasuke with Guy and ran across the battle field at Madara.

"What are you doing Kakashi!? Don't be so hasty!" Might Guy yelled after him as he watched the Copy Ninja fling himself at Madara, wielding his chidori. Madara rolled his eyes and pulled Kakashi into the kamui without a thought.


Kakashi stood up and brushed himself off. He grumbled. "Well that was easy."

Looking around the strange dull purple world, he called out. "Obito! Where are you?"

As though a mist cleared in front of him, Obito appeared from behind a cloud and became visible to Kakashi. He was seated crosslegged on a higher platform near the mirrored lake. "Kakashi. So you finally made it here."

He stood up too and crossed to greet his friend. "Obito... tell me how you got here."

Obito quickly told the story about being found by Zetsu and Tobi and being healed under Madara's flowering tree. He explained all the way up to the part where he met Rin and Kakashi in the woods surrounded by the mist shinobi. Then he got choked up and could not go any further.

"I've been waiting to die since that day." Kakashi replied, looking down at his hands. The truth was that he had stopped living too after Rin died followed by Minato's death, no more than a year later. It was only after he took on his own version of their team seven that he had anything to drive him forward day after day. But he was still just a ghost of who he was when he knew Obito.

Obito leaned back against the elevated platform above Kakashi and smiled slightly. "I look forward to seeing her again too. But I am already a dead man, while you still belong with the living, Kakashi. Even if Madara were to vacate my body, I would die just like a jinchuuriki who loses their tailed beast. So now I count on you to complete the dream and become hokage."

Kakashi gave a half acknowledgement to that last statement, not wanting to reveal that he had already just barely escaped the position once.

"I still don't understand why you ended up here?" Kakashi shook his head. "I mean why did Madara chose you? No offense but you weren't exactly the most talented Uchiha alive back then."

Obito rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself. "I see you haven't changed that much."

Kakashi saluted Obito, returning the smile.

"I didn't know why for a long time." Obito stated. "But most of Madara's thoughts and memories are transferred to me while I'm awake, and lately, the reason has become pretty clear."

"Was it because you had no parents?" Kakashi prompted.

"No." Obito spoke thoughtfully. Then he asked a question. "Did you see how Hashirama's wood style was vitalized uncontrollably by the nine tails chakra inside Naruto?"

"Yea. Sure."

"Well apparently Orochimaru figured out early on that Eiko Hyuga's bloodline had an opposite effect on the wood style. When Hashirama's cells are fused with Eiko's cells, the power is made completely null and void. But if both are combined with others cells, the power is less potent and easier to control. The second characteristic applies to all of Hamura's descendants but it seems to be stronger in Eiko and in Hinata... and in all those who are able to be sealed directly to the nine tails. Eiko's closer relations also seem to have a stronger affect on the wood style, which is why Orochimaru chose to kidnap Sabui, who would have been Eiko's great great nephew. And that would be the reason why Madara chose me as his body host."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "That doesn't make sense."

"Before Madara left Konoha for good, Eiko finally gave into his long pursuit for her hand in marriage. They spent a night together... And eventually a child came from that night. Not long after he and the nine tails were defeated by Hashirama, Madara tried to come back for Eiko. He planned to give up all of his hatred and vengeance for her. But when he found out she had sealed herself to Mito and Kurama, he became enraged. Then later, he discovered she was pregnant with his child, and he vowed to steal the child from her. So Eiko hid her son with the help of Hashirama and Mito. She pretended that he died in child birth and then hid him among the Uchiha clan.

Izu Uchiha grew up known to the world as the son of a man named Akihito Uchiha, who was Madara's first cousin. Akihito had twins around the same time as Eiko gave birth to Izu. One of the babies died, and so Izu took his place as the twin brother of Akihito's daughter, Kaiya Uchiha.

Izu developed both a byakugan and a sharingan, but he kept his byakugan hidden. He was a very secretive man. Not much is known about him other than he spent most of his life as a medical ninja. He married an Uchiha woman and had his own son. His twin sister also had a son, but she was killed soon after giving birth, so he raised both sons as his own. The younger son was Futoshi Uchiha, who was Fugaku Uchiha's father, and the older son was Toshito Uchiha, who was my mother's father. Toshito died when my mother was just a young girl, so I never knew him."

"And you're saying..."

"I'm saying that one of Izu's sons was Eiko and Madara's grandchild. The other son was a relative but did not have Hyuga blood."

"So how did Madara figure out that you were the descendant of his blood grandchild?"

"He didn't." Obito stated. "He chose to save me that day that you and Rin thought I died because he knew I was at least the closest blood relation through Akihito. So he supposed he would be able to activate the mangekyo sharingan in me.

When he began to reconstruct my body with Hashirama's cells, he noticed that I was not reacting to the wood style the way that I should. Instead of being overcome by the power, I was able to suppress it easily even though I was just a child and only had a fraction of his power. Almost half of my body was reconstructed with replicated cells from Lord First, and without the help of injecting Hyuga DNA. Eventually, he put two and two together, and he realized my true identity. He traced things back and figured out who Izu was and that my grandfather was Izu's blood related son. After that he decided to take my body as his host."

"So that's why he can use Hashirama's wood style now too." Kakashi sighed. "Between that and being able to dodge any attack. And those are only the powers he has acquired from your body. We still have no idea of everything Madara himself if capable of. He has to have some weakness... at least one."

Kakashi looked at Obito for a second. "You know that kid out there, Naruto?"

"Yeah." Obito nodded. "Hinata told me about him. She talks about him a lot... actually."

"Yea, I'm sure." Kakashi replied sarcastically. "He's my student. He actually reminds me a lot of you. The first day I met him, I actually thought that Lord Third was trying to play some sort of sick joke on me."

"After you gave me your sharingan, I vowed to you that I would be an extension of your will after death. I failed to save Rin, but I've found ways to be just that in other forms. Everything I have left to my students, I have learned from you. Your strong will even in the face of the worse odds. Your vow to never let a comrade down, even if it means breaking the rules. You showed just how strong you are when you took back your body from Madara to free Hinata."

Kakashi placed his hand on Obito's shoulder. "This is YOUR body."

Obito placed his hand on Kakashi's shoulder. "And you are my friend and my teammate. I will never let you down, Kakashi. There may be one weakness... though it is small."


Both Naruto and Kurama felt the wood style dragon's hold falter for a moment. 'I don't know what that was. But Naruto... this is our chance!'

Kurama ripped into the wooden creature with his teeth and then pounded it with his fists into the ground before leaping away and towards Killer Bee and Gyuki. He leaned his head back shaping the dense chakra for his next bijuu ball, before releasing it into the enormous chain that restrained the eight tails. The chain released the tailed beast as Kurama knocked Gyuki away.

The nine tails scooped up Might Guy, Sasuke and Hinata following the eight tails away from the statue.

"Hunh! Running away already eh?" Madara taunted. He looked up at the masked man. "Forget this. We have enough of both the eight and nine tails chakra to complete the ten tails. Make the preparations. We'll use the ten tails to get the two trouble makers later."

He lept back up on top of the statue. This process needed to move faster. The previous occupant of his current body was getting more and more unruly each time he sucked one of those annoying leaf shinobi into the Samui. Obito's connection to the kamui was definitely a huge weakness to this jutsu, and there was nothing Madara could do about it other than to keep Obito's spirit as weak as possible. Eventually he was going to have reenter the dimension to put Obito back down. But he had to handle things here first.

The man in the mask stood up and made some hand seals, summoning and distributing several enormous black chakra receivers around the Gedo statue. He made more hand seals erecting the six red yang formation barrier.


Shikaku wiped the sweat from his forehead. All five kage were down. At this point, their leaders' deaths still had not been confirmed but the odds were not looking good. However, it had been confirmed that Madara and his two subordinates disappeared not long after, only to reappear on the beach where a second masked man was battling Killer Bee and Naruto.

So far there had been several enormous explosions as well as sightings of an enormous glowing nine tailed beast. Shikaku inferred from this that Naruto had completely taken control of his tailed beast. He also seemed to be able to distribute the tailed beast chakra between his clones... even transferring it over distances to a sealed clone. He wondered if this ability might also apply to transferring the chakra to others.

The last bit of bad news to arrive was that the ten tails had emerged from a barrier resurrected by the second masked man. Both the nine and the eight tailed beasts together were no match for the awesome power that the ten tailed beast displayed.

When the intel from Kakashi finally arrived, Shikaku was ecstatic to hear that Naruto had transferred some of the nine tails chakra to him when they fought Masuku. If Naruto could enhance everyone's chakra and their skills, they may have a chance. This could be done even quicker by using clones and taping into the Hyuga's byakugan and fractured sight. So far, it appeared that the beast was just barely being controlled by both Madara and the masked man. "If we work together, we might be able to separate the tailed beast from its controllers. We need to move all of the companies to Naruto's and Killer Bee's position."

"Inoichi please connect to the minds of all those in the companies headed towards the beach." Shikaku moved and knelt in front of his friend who was attached to the mind amplifier. "This is important. We need to not only let them know the plan. With our leaders down, we need to make sure to stoke morale."

"I can try." Inoichi did not sound confident. "I've never been much of a spokesman and connecting to so many minds will be difficult."

Shikaku placed his hand on Inoichi's shoulder. "I know you can do it."


The ten tails was flinging bijuu balls for several hundred miles, destroying any unfortunate villages, which happened to be in its path. And every effort to put the tailed beast down, just seemed to make it stronger and more agitated.

Madara crossed his arms, and smugly watched as the last tailed beast bomb hit its mark, destroying the allied forces headquarters. "Finally got them. Now we have smashed the brains of the allied forces. Aww... to use their own simple basic strategy against them pleases me."

He looked over at his masked partner expecting some shared celebration, but was disappointed to find no reaction at all. "You don't talk much do you?"

The masked man looked away and out towards the residual cloud created from the massive explosion. "There's nothing to say. I'm doing what it takes to fight your war and achieve the infinite tsukuyomi. I don't need to comment on it."

"How about your thoughts on strategy?" Madara scowled at his subordinate.

"My thoughts are apparently your thoughts now." The masked man replied.

"Is that so? You've always very been difficult to read. So much so, that your own village never even realized how you loyally fought for them. It's even worse with that mask on."


"Spread out in your sealed pairs and get as high as possible." Hiashi commanded his clan. He stood over his daughter protecting her from the incoming wood spikes from the ten tails. "One to protect and the other to watch."

Once his forces were in place, Hiashi gave Hinata the signal to activate her fractured sight. He sent another signal down to Naruto, who activated beast mode and then taped into Hinata's vision. Naruto created five clones and then sped through the allied forces distributing nine tails chakra to everyone as quickly as possible.

The battlefield lit up with Kurama's brilliant chakra as it moved from shinobi to shinobi like wild fire.

"Is that brat giving them his nine tails chakra?!" Madara was becoming irritated now. He yelled at his masked subordinate. "Stop them!"

As the ten tails enormous tails came down at the allied forces, Choji and the Akimichi clan ninja expanded themselves even larger and stronger aided by the nine tails chakra and grabbed the tails, restraining the beast. Choji yelled down at his teammates. "Ino! Shikamaru!"

Both Ino and Shikamaru could feel the wills of their fathers surge within them, just as strong as they felt the nine tails chakra. Their last words meant everything. "Never forget. Our story does not end here, today. We will live on through you forever."

As the bone spikes appeared from the ten tails to pierce through the Akimichi who restrained it, Ino found her way into the mind of the masked man.

Shikamaru and the Nara shinobi sent their shadow possession to immobilize the tailed beast. Shikamaru looked over at Ino. "You can stop now Ino."

Ino woke up in Kiba's arms. She shook her head. "There is something really strange about that masked ninja."

Madara sighed. "Clever. But not clever enough."


Sasuke had been in and out of consciousness ever since he was mortally wounded by Madara. He felt himself being carried by Kakashi north towards the battle. By the time they reached the beach, the wound in his chest was nearly healed by the massive amount of Hashirama's cell that Madara had been injecting into him. Not long after, he felt Naruto nearby for awhile. Soon after, a team of medical ninja had him, but that ended abruptly by the appearance of three familiar faces.

He finally became fully conscious after Karin allowed him to feed off of her chakra. Though at first she pretended to object, he could taste her wanting to be connected to him again. Opening his eyes, he mumbled, "How are you three here?"

"You never gave us enough credit for our resourcefulness, boss." Suigetsu replied sarcastically. "Yet here we are... saving your ass again. But hell, Orochimaru is the exact same way. We saved his butt too, by the way."

Sasuke scoffed. "Why would you save me or Orochimaru? Still stupid I see."

"Maybe so." Suigetsu shrugged. "But stupid is a lot more fun."

"I only did this because Suigetsu and Jugo freed me from prison. I did it for them!" Karin announced abruptly. She pulled her arm away from Sasuke and then moved off to sit angrily with her arms crossed over her chest.

She was annoyed to find herself back in the leaf village and behind bars again, after she helped those stupid leaf ninja locate Orochimaru on turtle island. Granted he was clone, but still she felt she had been very cooperative considering. She should have known Orochimaru was not actually going to help release her like he promised. Luckily, Jugo and Suigetsu got bored and showed up. Though she was certain their boss was going to try to take credit for her jail break anyway.

"Where is Orochimaru?" Sasuke asked ignoring Karin's pouting.

"Holed up in one of Madara's hideouts." Suigetsu replied. "He had us steal some old masks from the leaf village. That's where we came across Karin. After we delivered the masks to Orochimaru, we got bored, so we went back and freed Karin. Then we came looking for you."

"What's he want with the mask?"

"Who?"

"Orochimaru."

Suigetsu shrugged. "Something about freeing souls trapped in some dead demon seal."

"He'll need to get into the bunker under the remaining Uchiha temple to perform that jutsu. It's sealed so only those with Uchiha blood can access it... to keep out those nosy Hyugas." Sasuke stood up and brushed off his pants. He almost collapsed again as Jugo grabbed him. He still felt terrible despite Karin's chakra. Despite gaining back some strength, he might even feel worse. He started to cough. Bloody shards of wood came up into his palm. His insides were starting to feel as if they were being ripped in two.

"That doesn't look good." Suigetsu commented, twisting his face up in disgust.

"Take me to Orochimaru." Sasuke replied. "He'll help me in exchange for entrance into that temple."