Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto
Chapter 37: Iron and blood
Mifune was convinced. The two Akatsuki looked at him with an astonished look, they hadn't expected the elderly general to agree so easily.
"What?" Mifune asked with an amused grin, "even if what you say isn't true, not taking preventative measures would be a grave mistake. Tetsu no Kuni has stood for centuries, apart from the shinobi world, because we take every possible threat seriously. We samurai do not grow overconfident in our long standing power the same way you shinobi do. That discipline is what sets the samurai apart."
Naruto and Itachi shrugged off the jab at their profession. He was right. Power did have a tendency to make shinobi complacent, at least some shinobi.
"According to your map they are moving sporadically, but they are working their way through less densely populated areas, moving on to the more heavily protected villages. That leads me to believe they are growing in power." Mifune surmised. General knowledge of the region that the Namikaze and the Uchiha were not privy to was his strategic leverage. "Perhaps they have the ability to drain chakra."
A light clicked in both of their heads. "When we were fighting them last time, when they hit us we felt our chakra being ripped away," Itachi said.
"You think they're enhancing their own reserves?" Naruto asked.
"It's a possibility," Mifune said hesitantly. "From what you've just told me it would be wise to go in under that assumption. That will also have to determine our battle strategy."
"Ninjutsu doesn't work on them either," Naruto said, "even coating a blade with chakra is useless. Their skin is chakra resistant."
"Good to know," Mifune stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Fortunately the samurai use very little ninjutsu, so enhancing our bodies with chakra should suffice."
"If they have the sharingan we should assume they are capable of using its ocular genjutsu to some extent," Itachi said. "Naruto and I will get to work on adding anti genjutsu seals to the samurai's protective eyewear."
"In the meantime, we need to evacuate the city, along with any untouched villages and make our way south to find refuge." Mifune got to his feet and paced behind his desk. It was a wonder to watch such a legendary strategists mind at work. "We can't afford to send large teams to evacuate the other villages, we will probably need all the manpower we can muster. We will also have to evacuate via the great plains, going through the mountains is treacherous enough, and it would create an optimal kill zone for these beasts to ambush us," Mifune thought out loud.
"We have to lure them away from the evacuation somehow," Naruto said. "If they devour chakra they probably have a thirst for it. I think that Orochimaru is somehow able to control them and sic them on weaker villages to slowly enhance their strength for their final assault on the could lead them straight into an ambush if we can produce enough chakra to tempt them into ignoring Orochimaru's orders."
"How much chakra do you think we'll need to pull that off?" Mifune asked.
"Just leave that to me, Mifune-sama," Naruto said with a smirk.
XXXXXXXXXX
(two days later)
Ranging parties had located and tracked the army of, what the samurai now called, the faceless on the southwest side of the capital, just south of 'the three wolves' mountain range. They reported upwards of 500. The largest of which, now called the alpha's, were the ones possessing the sharingan.
Naruto and Itachi has been hard at work over the past two days, preparing the eyewear so that the samurai would not fall victim to the sharingan genjutsu.
Naruto was particularly busy over the past two days, laying out the distraction, and preparing the kill zone. He drew out a seal that collected and stored an insane amount of natural chakra. Around it he created a series of filters that altered the natural energy to imitate that of his own chakra signature, he wasn't sure if the faceless would be tempted by senjutsu chakra the same way they would be with human chakra. The filters decrease the potency and amount of the chakra that would be exerted in the burst by nearly two thirds, so Naruto was forced to alter the initial seal 8 times throughout the process to ensure it would be powerful enough.
Naruto also laid several traps around the capital. He didn't know the specific chakra signatures of the faceless so a sensory trigger was out of the question, but the samurai forces were all well aware of their locations along with the purpose and desired effect of each trap.
The traps ranged from simple ninja wire traps to area modifying traps that would turn the ground into water or quicksand or anything of that sort. He doubted he would be able to lay any seals that would cause a killing blow without sealing an offensive ninjutsu into it, but slowing the faceless down would suffice. The blonde also laid thousands of motion triggered explosive tags around the capital, just for good measure. He had gone far too long since being the mastermind behind a massive chain of explosions.
The samurai were all set up around the kill zone. One major downside of the distraction was that they couldn't afford to allow a single faceless to actually reach the chakra seal once it was released, otherwise it would absorb the chakra into its own reserves and they would have a catastrophe on their hands.
Naruto and Itachi stood as the last line of defense against that possibility.
It was almost time. The plan was to start the evacuation, and once the faceless made their move they would release the seal and hopefully cause them to make a beeline directly for the chakra burst. Mifune had an entire regiment on standby on the southern edge of the city in case the monsters didn't bite for the trap, hopefully to buy enough time for reinforcements to arrive.
Something felt off to Naruto, the last time they encountered the beasts he couldn't sense them due to the sensory deprivation seal in the atrium. But now he couldn't sense them at all, regardless of the lack of seal. The blonde closed his eyes briefly, opening them to reveal golden irises and an orange pigment surrounding his orbs. He still couldn't sense them directly, but he was able to make out the disturbance in the natural energy surrounding the faceless. 'I guess that'll have to do for now,' Naruto thought, activating the collection seal and the balancing seal he has tattooed to his belly.
"You're going to have to teach me how to do that one of these days," Itachi muttered with a hint of jealousy.
"I'll try, but like I've told you before, I'm pretty sure it's just because of my mokuton that I don't need a summoning contract to utilize senjutsu," Naruto replied, inadvertently shutting down the intended breaking of the tension they both felt.
Itachi sighed and activated his three tomoe sharingan. "You ready?"
"Fuck yeah."
As if on cue, Mifune gave the order for the civilians to retreat, led by the greenhorns within the samurai ranks.
The faceless scattered. Some darting towards the retreating civilians, others making their way straight into the heart of the city, some moving north, while some simply stayed put.
"What the fuck..." Naruto mumbled, trying to make sense of the situation. "They were supposed to operate as a pack, not all run off and do their own thing!" Then it clicked. "Fuck me... scattering is part of their plan! They're not the same mindless creatures from a year ago Itachi!"
"Release the seal!" Itachi exclaimed, and Naruto complied.
Naruto felt the earth shattering explosion of the chakra burst and Itachi was forced to protect his eyes from the visible flash in the center of the city.
Naruto sensed each faceless halt in their tracks before a single one darted in an unpredictable fashion at speeds leaving barely a blur.
"Oh fuck me harder..." Naruto cursed as he sensed the lightning fast faceless set off each one of his traps one by one. The entire city shook once more as the explosive tags all went off almost in unison. "Well at least one is dead..." Naruto muttered. It had gotten trapped in one of the quicksand seals and was crushed by falling debris, but the remaining 500 plus faceless stood unharmed.
Seconds felt like hours until every single monster beelined towards the glowing chakra source at once. There was no single avenue of approach. They darted towards it in all different directions.
Naruto clapped his hands together and formed a dense wood dome 5 feet thick around the seal.
"You can't make it any thicker?" Itachi asked.
"If I tried it would lose density," Naruto said, cursing himself for not training his mokuton to a further degree. Lesson learned.
"We need more obstacles!" Itachi shouted, kicking the first pouncing beast across the face, or lack of.
"I can't!" Naruto shouted, driving Odenta straight through the open maw of a pouncing monster. "The Samurai fight best in the open, they'd be at a disadvantage if I summoned a forest!"
"They're at a disadvantage now, Naruto!" Itachi saw a cluster of faceless digging deep gouges into the wood dome from the corner of his eye. The attacking faceless were nothing more than a distraction while the bulk of the creatures went directly for the chakra nexus. "We have to make the samurai fall back while we deal with this."
"That's basically giving up!" Naruto shouted, making quick work of three faceless charging towards him.
The enemy monsters would get back up and shrug off anything short of decapitation. Even a normal killing blow had little effect on them past briefly stunning them. All their fallen comrades rose to all fours, surrounding the Konoha nuke nin, and circling them slowly.
"It won't be a victory if they stay and die," Itachi's mangekyou sharingan spun in his eye sockets. "They'll have a home in Kiri. We need to give them the time to escape." Itachi spun Onimaru between his fingers before grasping it delicately in a reverse grip. "We can beat them together, but not if we have to watch everyone else's back while we fight."
Naruto gritted his teeth but agreed. The ancestral home of the samurai was lost. Even if they did win, which he was confident they would, the city would be nothing more than a magnificent forest with a floor of black ash.
The blonde reinforced his vocal cords with chakra to project his voice, "Samurai! Fall back and protect your people. Your home is lost for now, but as long as your people survive the samurai people will live on! Leave the unnatural experiments of the shinobi for the shinobi to deal with! Head to Kiri and live, so that one day you can return and rebuild what you have lost!"
Many of the samurai looked as if they were going to refuse the order, Naruto had no real authority over them really, until Mifune's voice boomed over the ambient sounds of death and destruction. "You heard the boy! Retreat and protect our people! Leave the rest to them!"
At this the samurai, hesitantly but obediently, retreated to the southeast to defend the rear and the western flank of the retreating party.
Naruto and Itachi leapt down from the rooftops, landing on either side of the protective dome, severing the heads of 6 faceless in the process, and proceed to bide their time.
It took only 5 minutes until all signs of natural life has abandoned the city, leaving Naruto and Itachi alone and surrounded by nearly 500 enemies.
Naruto mouth contorted into a wide, almost feral, grin. "By my estimation the weakest one of these things is equivalent to a high level chunin," their observation of the faceless thus far has shown them that the creatures were now capable of higher level thinking, able to work on their own as well as coordinate seamlessly with each other. "Nothing says S-rank nuke nin like slaughtering 500 chunin to jounin level opponents."
Itachi held a grin mirroring Naruto's. "Now that it's just us, it's time to let loose."
In a single moment Naruto clapped his hands together and the faceless launched forward to begin their assault. Wordlessly trees erupted from the rubble, starting off as sharp spears, impaling no less than 50 faceless, before branching out, taking several dozen more out.
Thick vines blanketed the newly raised rainforest floor, tangling themselves around the ankles of the creatures careless enough to tread too close. The vines slithered up their bodies and attempted to strangle them. The vines coiled around their necks and began to tighten, intent on severing their heads. Other faceless dashed forward to claw their comrades free, only to be met by the sharpened blade of Onimaru to their throats.
Naruto silently marveled at Itachi's speed. His closest friend, even without the use of kage bushin, seemed to be in twenty places at once. Itachi's movements weren't even a blur. The only indication on his position was the after image he left when he briefly stopped to dismember a faceless head. Naruto could only track his movements through the use of his sensory jutsu.
The vines tightened until the heads of their trapped victims popped off with an audible squelch.
"One hundred down, four hundred to go," Naruto mumbled. Two seconds and 100 dead wasn't bad at all, but Naruto noticed how the alphas stood on the edge of the forest seemingly waiting and observing.
The next wave took to the canopy, moving at high speeds, untraceable without some sort of dojutsu or sensory jutsu.
Naruto summoned half a dozen wood clones, sending them out to counter attack the next wave.
Itachi landed at the original Naruto's side to protect the chakra seal. "How long until the chakra in that seal dissipates?" Itachi asked. They couldn't truly organize an all out assault on the faceless and leave the active chakra seal unguarded.
"My mokuton is trapping the leaking chakra inside," Naruto explained, "the seal will empty in 10 minutes, but the chakra will still be there."
"Every plan has a downside I guess," Itachi grumbled. "How far out are the refugees?"
"I can still sense them, but nothing we do will harm them." Naruto winced as he felt his clones be overwhelmed by every one of the non sharingan wielding faceless left. "My wood clones took out another hundred or so, but the rest of the foder are coming." He used fodder as the most accurate term for the ones without a sharingan, but they were still powerful in their own right.
Trees collapsed all around as the faceless army circled the pair of shinobi until the army shot out at the two at once. They would take fast, low hit rate attacks at the pair before leaping over them and dashing away to await their turn again. One after another, sometimes two or three at a time, would rush in to strike before turning away. The faceless were careful to protect their necks so Naruto and Itachi only took out one in every five.
They would leap over the shinobi in order to maintain forward momentum and not get in the way of the next attacker, or they would duck or dart left or right in order to draw attention away from an attack from above or from the flanks. The attacks were way too coordinated for them to have lost their hive mind entirely, but too well thought out for planning to not have gone into it. Were they somehow expecting to reach this kind of confrontation?
The faceless would also take quick, shallow shots at the dome as they passed by. Itachi would have attempted Amaterasu on one if he wasn't so weary of the affected creature darting directly at the dome and lighting the wood ablaze in black flames. Tsukuyomi was also out of the question due to them not having eyes.
Naruto followed one faceless retreating to his right, severing its hind legs, quickly spinning to punt away the attacker to his left. Two more followed, one attacking high while the other went low. Naruto reacted by swinging his sword from low to high, slicing through the heads of both creatures, deep down to the base of the skull. He tried to sever their heads in a killing blow to finish them off but was disrupted by an attack to his right which he shrugged off with a spinning elbow to the side of its head. That provided enough time for the injured creatures to retreat, but the blonde grimace as he felt some chakra ripped away from a claw to his ribs.
Three attacked at once as dark brown wooden tendrils shot out of the ground, snatching all three out of the air. The three were saved by another faceless who clawed through the mokuton like it was paper. Mokuton wood was reinforced with chakra, meaning that the chakra siphoning claws of the monsters were met with essentially nothing more than hardened wood. Luckily for the dome, that wood was extremely dense.
Itachi caught one by the throat and squeezed its head off with a chakra enhanced grip and punted the headless corpse at the following attacker. He backhanded another, cleaning his hands of the gore soaking it a moment ago then leapt in the air as a pair of claws jutted out of the ground. 'Doton?' "Naruto! Please tell me that dome goes all the way around!"
"Of course it does!" Naruto shouted back, before stopping suddenly. "Itachi! Get to the edge of the forest NOW!"
Itachi quickly complied, fighting off an onslaught of attackers as he made his retreat. Naruto followed close behind. The faceless changed their attack plan in a split second and were now trying to cage the shinobi in.
Itachi didn't question the order. He knew when his friend gave an order to him it was because there was no time for a discussion.
Because of the new, less conservative attack from their enemy Naruto and Itachi were able to dispatch the majority of the fodder during their retreat, leaving just the alphas who had yet to engage them.
The earth all around them rumbled and Naruto and Itachi felt the massive accumulation of chakra within the dome vanished as quickly as it was released.
"Fuck... this is bad..." Naruto said through gritted teeth.
"Did you know they were burrowing underneath?" Itachi asked, already knowing the answer.
"No, I suspected they might, but since I can't sense them directly I didn't know they were actually doing it. I can only sense the disturbance they make in the natural energy around them with sage mode, but I couldn't sense anything they were doing underground." Naruto said.
"The seal releases senjutsu chakra filtered to feel like human chakra... is it possible that they won't be able to control it?" Itachi asked.
"It's possible," Naruto said, a thoughtful expression on his face. "I doubt it though. One of them siphoned some of my chakra," he gestured to the blood soaked fabric clinging to his ribs, "and it didn't petrify. These things are adaptable. Adaptable enough to use a sharingan without the same negative side effects that Kakashi has. Nothing they do will surprise me."
The earthquake intensified creating deep fissures through the deeply forested ruins of the city. The out of place trees all around were torn up from their roots as a powerful gale exploded from where the seal once laid.
Leaves, wood splinters, snow, rubble, and the dismembered corpses of fallen faceless shot out in all directions. Itachi's mangekyou sharingan spun and encased him and Naruto within the ethereal red samurai of his susanoo, shielding them from the debris.
"What is that thing?" Naruto asked, looking at the demonic looking figure towering over the bare field. The figure was over 100 feet tall, even with it's lower half embedded in the ground. It had the same grey skin of the faceless, and the same slits on its otherwise featurless face that the monstrosities possesed. Its maw was slightly lower on the front of the head when compared to the faceless, but the forehead was dotted with 50 mangekyou sharingan, all moving independently of one another.
The monster clawed its way out of the crevice it was buried it, revealing a pair of backwards legs with tusk sized claws sticking out of the front as well as the heel. The monster stood on four legs, the front two resembling arms. It turned its head to face the red glow of Itachi's susanoo, all eyes fixated on him, and let out a shrill howl which pierced through the clear night.
XXXXXXXXXX
(With Mifune and the samurai refugees)
The night was oddly quiet, considering what was taking place behind them, that alone kept every member of their party on edge. It was only 20 minutes since he had ordered the retreat of the fighting samurai, and the citizens were making rather good time in their escape. They were about three miles out already and Mifune hoped to tack on another 10 before sunrise.
The earthquake nearly threw the civilians into a panic, but the samurai were able to keep them calm enough to curb their fear into a quickened pace. Then the sky started raining rubble. Fearful clamor erupted throughout their ranks, but once again they subdued any rash behavior.
Then there was the spine tingling cry that shattered the cold night air. For a full minute after there was complete, utter silence. That silence was broken by a loud crash, followed by a powerful shock wave. The refugees exploded into fits of panic as they all took off in a dead sprint, abandoning all supplies and trampling over the slower civilians, rushing south as fast as possible.
Mifune and his samurai tried to pacify the civilians, to no avail. Mass panic has taken over, and it was every man for themselves in the eyes of the refugees.
'What is going on over there?" Mifune wondered.
XXXXXXXXXX
(In Kirigakure)
Clone Naruto arrived with the family of six around sunset. He led the Tetsu no Kuni refugees to Zabuza and informed the Mizukage of the goings on in the land of Iron.
"So I can expect more refugees?" Zabuza asked, his face once again bandaged up to his nose, the way he liked before his capture.
"We can only hope so, Mizukage-sama," Clone Naruto said. He knew Zabuza wouldn't refuse. He needed workers, and an army of friendly samurai forces to bolster his military forces would be a welcome addition to his weakened village. Besides, there were plenty of homes to go around.
"Very well. I can't afford to send out guides, but I will inform my patrols to escort any northerners to the village if they come across any." He sat in his chair for a moment pondering something. 'so , Orochimaru has set his sights on Tetsu no Kuni this time... what is that snakes plan this time?'
XXXXXXXXXX
(with Naruto and Itachi)
"MOKUTON: MOKUJIN NO JUTSU! (Wood release: wood golem technique)" Naruto shouted. A 100 foot wooden golem sprouted from the ground, wearing a wooden dragon as a scarf.
Itachi focused his susanoo to shroud the great wood statue of legend, covering the golem in red ethereal armor. A red sword, along with a shield materialized in the towering statues hands.
The faceless king, as Naruto and Itachi wordlessly agreed to refer to it as, faced off against their combined power, apparently apprehensive to get a shot at it.
"I can definitely feel its chakra now," Naruto said, "and you're not going to like what it is..."
Itachi glanced over at Naruto questioningly as they stood side by side atop the golems head.
"Matatabi." Naruto explained in one word.
Itachi's eyes hardened in fury and the two of them charged the faceless king with their combined might.
The two monsters crashed against one another, releasing a massive shock wave that could be felt for miles.
The faceless king swiped at the golems midsection with a clawed hand, but the strike was deflected by a lowered shield. To the monsters apparent surprise, it was not able to rip the chakra away. This didn't go unnoticed by the former Konoha jounin.
The golem latched onto the faceless kings arm with its shield bearing hand, and brought the ethereal sword down to sever its arm. The massive beast let out a cry of pain as realization spread over Naruto and Itachi's faces. It couldn't siphon or deflect chakra in this form, probably due to its inability to control the massive amount of chakra it absorbed from the seal, coupled with the Nibi biju chakra.
The two Akatsuki grinned and brough the chakra sword back, severing the kings head.
"That was easy enough," Naruto grinned, until the beast once again stood before them, unscathed. "Fuck..."
"Izanagi..." Itachi grumbled. "And with 50 eyes..."
"What does that mean?" Naruto asked.
"Izanagi is a sharingan genjutsu technique that allows its user to alter events at the cost of their eye." Itachi explained. "Think of it as a redo button with a limited number of uses. This bastard has 50 lives..."
"That's broken as fuck," Naruto cursed. "So we have to kill this thing 50 times?"
"Yes. and to make it worse, it learns from each death. Now that it knows it's not chakra resistant, killing it will be even more difficult."
"What if we destroy the sharingan?" Naruto asked as the faceless king moved to pounce on the susanoo clad golem.
"We have to destroy each eye simultaneously, otherwise it will use a single eye to reset the rest." Itachi said.
The faceless king latched onto the golems sword arm with its star shaped maw, holding its arm out to block a shield bash. Naruto clapped his hands together and the wood dragon the golem wore as a scarf launched itself at the creatures neck, severing its head with a vicious chomp.
Once again the massive beast stood in the center of the clearing, 48 red eyes and two cloudy white ones.
"It's testing us for weaknesses," Naruto observed, receiving a nod from the Uchiha. The Namikaze prodigy let loose a barrage of shuriken and kunai which met their mark in 47 sharingan. The faceless king only protected one before the weaponry vanished, leaving 47 sharingan and 3 cloudy white eyes. "Now it's taunting us," Naruto grunted.
"It's overconfident," Itachi said, "it just sacrificed one of its lives, and I'm sure it will sacrifice others to inflict damage on us since we can't undo it the same way it can."
"And we'll use that to our advantage," Naruto said with a twisted smile.
"We just have to fight defensively and try to outlast it," Itachi said. "This jutsu we're using to match it uses a shit ton of chakra, we can't afford to waste any."
Naruto grunted in affirmation. Even though he was using senjutsu at the moment, reducing his own chakra cost, the more chakra he used the more imbalanced the ratio of nature energy and his own chakra became. Even he couldn't keep this up forever. "Nothing flashy, got it." Naruto relented.
...
The sun rose from behind the mountains, illuminating the cloudless sky. Snow was only visible in the distance, reducing the strain the sun would have had on their eyes. The fight was still going on. It was incredibly boring and uneventful up to this point. The faceless king would attack and they would counter, taking one of its lives. It has been this way for the past 6 hours. And the time was wearing on the two Akatsuki.
Blood soaked Itachi's face, originating from his eyes. His vision was hazy and his sharingan periodically flickered on and off. His body ached from exertion, but he was determined to see this through to the end.
Naruto fared slightly better. The constant use of senjutsu was eating away at him. The collection seal on his belly burned white hot from overuse, and he was ready to pass out from sheer exhaustion.
The golem appeared dry and cracked, the way driftwood appeared, no longer its rich dark brown but more of a salted looking khaki. The susanoo armor was nothing more than a faint outline of a skeleton, having abandoned the sword and shield all together.
There were still two eyes left in the faceless kings skull. The monster was significantly smaller than it had been, now standing at around 30 feet, due to the chakra it had to use to match the golem susanoo combination.
Naruto collapsed to his hands and knees as he was forced to release his sage mode. His eyes faded from gold to blue as he panted from atop the golems head.
Itachi's eyes rolled to the back of his head as he collapsed straight on his back from exhaustion.
Susanoo faded entirely and the golem crumbled away sending the pair falling to the ground 100 feet below. Naruto mustered up whatever energy he had left to catch Itachi and land safely below.
"I probably only have as much chakra left as an average genin..." Naruto grumbled. "Damn it sucks to feel so weak." As slow and boring as the battle has been using the golem was necessary to match the faceless kings raw power. It only sucked that he has to use so much chakra to sustain it.
Naruto stood tall, despite his weakened state, "okay... three more times... two eyes and the last life... then I can go to sleep for the next year." Naruto unsealed Odenta from his wrist, holding it out to his side a gust of wind blew across the barren battlefield. It was astounding that not 8 hours earlier this barren wasteland was a thriving city.
"I don't know how you got those sharingan, but I know where that Biju chakra came from. Orochimaru... You better hope I die here, cus I'm coming for you next."
Naruto dashed forward. His movements were slow and clumsy, and he was sure the sharingan eyes would be able to track and respond to him easily, but he had unpredictability on his side.
The monster raised his hand to squash the blonde like a bug, and at the last moment, as soon as he was out of sight, launched a kunai with an explosive tag at the open palm and kawarimied with a piece of rubble beneath the creatures belly. The explosion went off, taking the palm of the beast with it and Naruto leapt up to the creatures exposed belly and ran upside down to its neck.
The faceless king swatted at Naruto with its remaining hand, but lost its balance due to its weight distribution and crashed to the ground face first. Naruto leapt to the side, as not to get crushed beneath its massive frame, and went straight for the neck, cleaving clean through with a wind coated blade.
Once again he stood facing off against the one eyed monster. Naruto panted in exertion, coated in sweat despite the freezing temperatures.
The lone eye zeroed in on the blonde, apparently aware that it was on its last life, and charged at him. Naruto rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding being bulldozed over, but was kicked 30 yards away by the beasts hind legs.
Naruto clambered to his feet, moaning in pain. His healing ability was slowed significantly due to his lack of chakra. He looked over at the beast and noticed it was stalking up to Itachi's unconscious body. Naruto focused all his remaining chakra into his legs and dashed forward as quickly as possible. He was carelessly swatted away by the monster as it continued its approach on the Uchiha.
Naruto smirked as the same right hand exploded once more. The faceless king, seemingly enraged, darted towards Naruto, maw open wide to devour the blonde. Naruto watched it's approach, unable to move quickly enough to escape.
The rows of fangs dug into Naruto's flesh, pulling him into the esophagus of the giant monster who swallowed him in one piece. Naruto plunged Odenta through the lining of the esophagus and sliced all around him. Just short of the complete spin Odenta got caught on the spine. With no momentum to hack through it the blade stopped in place. Naruto activated the chakra storage seal within the blade, along with the wind seal and sliced through the spine like butter.
The blonde fell from the open throat of the beast, landing with a resounding thud on the hard ground below. Naruto's eyes fluttered open to see the beast prowling towards him for the killing blow.
The last thing the Namikaze prodigy saw before his world faded to a black dreamless sleep was the monster to be engulfed in a cloak of black flames.
XXX END CHAPTER 37 XXX
So there it is. I'll explain a lot of things in the next chapter, so be patient. Naruto and Itachi will go after Orochimaru soon and make their way back to konoha. They still have damn near 3 years until their return so expect them to get WAY stronger.
I'm going on vacation for the next 2 weeks so I probably won't update while I'm gone. Going home to see snow for the first time in 3 years, exciting stuff! So everyone enjoy your christmas, hanukkah, new years, and whatever else you celebrate. See y'all in 2018.