"I guess it goes without saying you won't just tell me where you hid the Rinnegan—ah, I mean Nagato."
Konan's eyes narrowed at the swirl masked figure before her that had asked this question.
"I had a feeling you would show up here, sooner or later."
He paused, gauging her with his singular eye.
"I have to ask — why would members as loyal to me as you two decide to betray me? Do you truly believe that Naruto Uzumaki is worthy of the faith you place in him?"
"He is like a light in the darkness. We can all carry our hopes in him." She answered firmly.
"You've decided to make a stand against me, and yet you still wear the robes of the Akatsuki?"
"Yahiko was the one who founded the Akatsuki. We created these robes as symbols of justice. And like it, the Rinnegan was something that Nagato awakened to, something sacred to our village. They was never yours."
The man calling himself Madara Uchiha chuckled.
"You're wrong on two counts. But since you're about to die, I'll enlighten you about the truth."
"?"
"I was the one that put the idea of the Akatsuki into Yahiko's mind, and I was the one who gave Nagato the Rinnegan. You could say I'm taking back what's rightfully mine." He dipped his head and chuckled. "But no matter. You're just an ignorant girl who has what I want. Once I've captured you, I'll have my way. You shouldn't overstep your boundaries any more than you have."
Her gaze fixed on him, she sighed.
"There's no point in talking. It's all a farce. You've never dictated our destiny — Nagato, Yahiko and I walked our path of our own free wills."
"Then you'll die just the same as them."
He began to walk forward, toward her, and Konan raised her hand, chakra laced paper splintering off of her body.
"No — you won't be the death of us, of our dream. I'll make sure of that."
"I welcome you to try — show me your fangs properly, if you plan on upholding their empty ideals."
Arriving at an industrial settlement, the rain that surrounded the area beat down on them, Gohan looking about as Elder Kai walked up to the entranceway, where a group of people armed with spears stood, aiming their weapons towards them when they grew too close.
"What's your business here?" One of them asked, warily looking to the three.
"Oh? You're being quite hostile." Elder Kai noted blithely, looking up at the spear aimed at his face. "Aren't we allowed to enter?"
"Visitors aren't allowed at the moment." Another guard said, all of them bearing grave expressions.
Elder Kai looked to the side for a long moment, the ground suddenly rumbling beneath them, before he shook his head.
"I guess it can't be helped then."
He turned around, strolling casually back to Gohan and Kibitokai, who both gave curious looks to him as he stopped in front of them.
"Come along now, this isn't the place for us."
Holding his hands out for them to take, the pair gave a strange look before complying, Elder Kai teleporting them away — deep inside the village hidden in the rain.
Appearing in the outskirts of the area, they found themselves standing on top of a building, overlooking the aftermath of an explosion.
"Where are we?" Gohan asked, looking around.
"There's something we have to do here." Elder Kai said, walking to the edge of the roof they stood on. "Do you two see those two down there?"
Gohan looked, seeing a masked man standing on the waters, behind a woman who sat on her knees in exhaustion.
"What happened?" Kibitokai asked.
"I'll explain it to you later on." Elder Kai promised. "But you two need to help that woman down there — go, now."
They wanted to offer a rebuttal, but they saw the man brandishing a weapon intent on stabbing the woman in the back, and both moved.
In that specific moment, several things that Konan hadn't expected to happen happened all at once, thrice over.
The first was having the relief of having blown her enemy into oblivion get swallowed up by a brief lapse of confusion and shock on realizing that, not only did the several hundred billion paper bombs she'd tried killing him with had somehow failed to do him in, he had gotten behind her in all the madness, with such killing intent that she could feel it before he'd even revealed himself fully to her.
The second involved someone appearing before her in a burst of light, firmly grasping her shoulder, whispering something frantically, before she too was engulfed in light for a split second, suddenly finding herself on the top of a building, looking down over Madara Uchiha.
Finally, a blurred figure that shot through the air, in that same instant she'd been teleported away, came to Madara's side and swung its calf harshly into his side, the force of the blow sending Madara flying through the air a brief moment before he flipped himself back and landed on his feet against the water.
All of these happening in quick succession of one another, Konan could only give a blanked out expression, saying what any person in her position would ask.
"What the—?"
"Who are you?" Madara asked, standing up while dipping his head, the effects of his usage of the Izanagi coming on already as he lost the use of one of his eyes. "I don't recall your face."
He stood straighter than before a moment later, body regenerating rapidly despite the injuries his body sustained, Gohan forming his fists into tight balls before his energy burst around him in hazy white aura, rippling violently around him before he sped himself forward at Madara at great speeds.
"I've only got one hand — I'll have to make do."
He braced himself, gauging Gohan's rapid approaching speed before his Sharingan flared with energy, Gohan firing a flurry of energy balls into the waters that exploded, sending up a thick haze of fog that blanketed the air as a smokescreen, but Madara's Sharingan alerting him to Gohan's approach, how he fired a ball of energy at him, Madara side stepping the projectile, when, in an instant, Gohan appeared behind him in the ball's path, him having anticipated the dodge, swinging his forearm into it and sending it hurtling towards Madara's back, only for it to phase through his body with the Kamui.
Despite this, Gohan's action hadn't stopped, him speeding around Madara at high speeds to send it back towards him again in the same manner as before, with Madara finding himself dodging by way of jumping over it, the speed with which Gohan moved making naught but blurs appear to the naked eye, afterimages that disappeared as swiftly and abruptly as they appeared, Gohan firing additional balls of energy at Madara that made the unseen space become like a cage, the energy balls whizzing through the air at such speeds they were like arrows of light zipping about Madara.
All throughout, Madara kept an active gauge of how much time remained before his Kamui would reach its limit, his Sharingan able to track Gohan's throughout the afterimages, how he concentrated a ball of energy in one palm as he kept throwing the total of five energy balls at him with every dodge.
He kept moving with this in mind, waiting and watching, before he saw Gohan about to fire the concentrated energy at him, Madara using his eye to absorb some of the energy balls headed towards him in that moment, Gohan giving a confused expression on finding himself swinging his forearm at thin air, only to find Madara gazing his way, a temporal shift happening that centered around his eye, before he shot his own ki blasts directly at Gohan, Gohan scowling before he thrust his palm directly at the barrage, firing a beam that made the energy balls explode on contact, Madara speeding forward amidst the explosion, weaving out of the way of the beam, before a harsh punch to the side connected with Gohan's side, the force of the attack cracking his ribs and blowing him through the air, body hurtling like a rocket, before Gohan gathered his bearings, noting he was going past the speed of terminal velocity, and ramming a palm into the waters under him to send himself flying up into the air, him recovering in mid-air to look down at Madara.
"An interesting ability, but it won't be enough to defeat me." Madara said up to him. "It will take more than that to defeat me — stay out of my way before I erase your useless life from existence."
Gohan scowled, then closed his eyes, concentrating on his Mystic state, how it affected his body, before he invoked King Kai's technique, "Kaioken!" and was consumed in a crimson hue of energy, him bursting down towards Madara, who regarded his actions, but raised his hand in challenge anyhow, Gohan's first punch getting batted away by Madara's hand, a fierce backlash sending a wave of force into the waters behind them, disrupting the water that Madara stood on, Gohan swinging his leg up to Madara's chin to kick it, yet as his foot phased through his head, Gohan swung his leg down down in an axe kick that Madara phased through as well.
'It's like fighting a ghost!' Gohan mentally thought, only for Madara to enact his Kamui, a spatial rift opening up that acted to suck him in, Gohan being engulfed in the pressure trying to pull him into the hole he had created, Gohan struggling to resist it as it pulled him deeper and deeper inside.
"Times 5!" He yelled, trying to fly back, but the pull was too strong even for this.
"You see it, don't you?" Elder Kai asked Kibitokai as they watched.
Kibitokai nodded as he utilized his divine sight to perceive the dimension that Madara had opened up, then yelled "Kai Kai!", him getting teleported to his destination.
As abruptly as the Kamui had been activated, it suddenly stopped, with Gohan launching out of the disrupted worm hole's grasp, him looking to find Madara disappearing.
"Come on kid, we have to get moving!" Elder Kai yelled down at Gohan from afar.
"What?!" Madara exclaimed in baffled confusion, having been blown forward by a ki blast to the back, finding Kibitokai behind him. "How are you here?"
"It's rare to see anyone with the power to have a pocket dimension on hand." Kibitokai noted, walking forward. "Especially a human such as yourself."
Madara narrowed his eye, and Kibitokai did the same.
"While Gohan is more powerful, I still have more divine ki inside of me. So I'll be your opponent."
They held one another's gazes briefly, Kibitokai entering a fighting stance, before he sped forward, Madara raising his singular palm and sending cubes of earthen metals down at his opponent, who shifted to fire balls of energy to blow them back, unable to properly blow them up because of the divine ki they had embedded inside of them, Madara shifting their path of movement in response to create a path out of the blocks, upon which Madara sped forward to meet Kibitokai's charge, drawing a kunai that he threw at him, Kibitokai raising a hand that halted it in its path before he telepathically hurled back at Madara, who ducked under it, Kibitokai concentrating telepathic energy into his palm that he thrust forward towards Madara, who, sensing his intent, stamped his foot and hurled himself into the air to dodge out of the attack's way, Kibitokai seeing the ninja doing a front flip that shifted into an axe kick down at his head — "Kai Kai!" — a teleportation to behind Madara having the kick ram into the ground and create a massive crack, the dimension quaking briefly before Madara whipped around.
Left with fewer options without his right arm at his disposal, he enacted Kamui as Kibitokai shot another wave of telepathic force towards him, Madara rapidly closing the portal by sucking himself out of the dimension, towards where he'd sent it, before reopening the portal and appearing before Kibitokai, closer than before, redirecting the force directly back at him and blowing him back.
As this happened, the Supreme Kai grit his teeth, then looked to the large cubes Madara once again used as projectiles as they hurtled up at him, him concentrating his power and roaring out before an expanse of telepathic energy erupted around him, freezing the projectiles in place, them gripped between Madara's control and Kibitokai's own, before a secondary wave sent them back at him, Madara scowling, but responding to the attack by concentrating chakra into his feet, haunching himself up at one of them, then beginning to parkour jump between the sides of each one at rapid speed towards Kibitokai, whose eyes widened, the Kai not seeing it coming when he sent another cube shooting into his back, Madara's attempt at drawing a kunai to stab him with begetting another teleportation out of him that made Madara smirk, him landing against the side of the cube, fingers laced with chakra as he stuck to the side of it and looked back to find Kibitokai floating near him, him having the cube rotate in a manner that enabled him to stand on it after pushing himself up to his feet.
Still using chakra to anchor himself to his foothold, Madara continued using his cubes to hurl them up about at Kibitokai, while moving his own foothold forward as well, the Supreme Kai proceeding to start going about firing beams at the approaching attacks, the power behind them shattering them, and yet Madara used the splintered remains to barrage them into his opponent anyhow, Kibitokai, scowling to himself, acting to fly to him, Madara watching as he neared striking distance, Kibitokai thrusting his fist toward Madara's torso, but him shifting out of the way, letting one chakra laced foot her loose and countering with a knee into the Supreme Kai's stomach, the wind getting knocked out of him, but him persisting, arms wrapping tightly around his knee and forcibly swinging his body around him with a grunt, tossing him away, Madara using the inertia to his advantage to spin around while making the cube he was still latched onto to swing at Kibitokai, the impact sending him flying back-first into the wall, Madara unrelenting as he began to shift the fractured pieces of earthen metal from before into a spear shaped projectile, upon which he sent it flying towards Kibitokai, him looking at the incoming projectile about to impale, before electricity sparked along his palms.
"Kai Kai!" He roared, energy bursting to life at his palms at the last second, him teleporting before Madara, the power brimming from his hands intense, but him thrusting his palms forward, invoking an ancient but forbidden technique to channel his own life force into the attack.
"Kamui!" Madara spoke in turn, just as Kibitokai released a massive, intense beam that was absorbed into the temporal hole that Madara had opened up, Kibitokai gritting his teeth, pumping more energy into it, before he snarled out, the intensity of the beam overflowing and overwhelming that of Madara's Kamui, Madara gritting his teeth, almost enacting Izanami a second time, but stopping himself, as he knew he couldn't afford to do it again under his circumstances, and getting shot through the air with the attack, back ramming into a wall, before he was engulfed in an explosion that was blinding, Kibitokai gasping as the light faded, his entire body shaking uncontrollably.
"... he's still breathing?" Kibitokai asked to himself in disbelief as Madara grunted in pain, clothes rags, but the ninja's body regenerating rapidly.
Madara, his mask breaking down, chuckled lowly to himself.
"That was a close one. I really could have died from that."
Kibitokai's mind screamed at him to finish him off, knowing what was liable to happen if he didn't, but his body was too damaged, externally and internally, and he grit his teeth, teleporting out of the dimension, reappearing where Elder Kai was, him still with Konan, Gohan having come back to them, them inside of an embalmment room where two men were laid to rest.
"I'm sorry." Kibitokai managed to say. "I couldn't finish it."
He began to collapse to the ground, Gohan catching him just before he'd blacked out.
Elder Kai, having watched it all, shook his head.
"There's no point in wasting your life trying to stop bad things from happening."
Watching this happening, Konan wore a confused expression, then looked at the pair of people remaining.
"You promise that you'll be able to protect Nagato and the Rinnegan?" She asked again.
Elder Kai looked to her, then down to the body of a red haired, purple eyed man.
"It will be safer with us than it would be here." He said.
Konan frowned, but, knowing she couldn't leave herself open to attack in trying to protect Nagato from another attack, she relented, and Elder Kai went about teleporting the lot of them back to the Planet of the Kais.
On arrival, Konan found herself looking about herself, seeing the idyllic world all around her, and pausing at the serene beauty of it.
"Is this... the Pure Land?" She half-mindedly asked aloud.
Gohan sat beside Kibitokai as he found himself able to breathe and move much more easily, holding a hand over his heart.
"Can you explain to me what you know, Elder Kai?" Gohan asked, looking to him.
"I've been keeping an eye on Universe 6 for some months now. I found myself quite captivated by the way things were there. But I could sense that there was a powerful being sealed there — someone far, far worse than Buu ever was. Concerned, I started doing some investigations of my own, and with the Namekian dragon balls, I asked for knowledge about the person inside of there, and how to keep them from being unsealed. It was through that that I learned about how the humans there gained the power of divine ki — or "chakra", as they called it. A clan of people scoured Universe 6 in search of viable planets to plant Trees of Might in, trees that drain the life force of an entire planet and concentrate it into a singular fruit. This clan, the Otsutsukis, named these trees God Trees, which would bear fruit brimming with divine energy when planted on the right type of planet. Among them, one person ate the God Tree fruit from Universe 6's Earth, and gained immeasurable power from it, a woman named Kaguya. In the end, however, she grew monstrous from her own power, and was sealed away by her two sons after she tried to transform all life on the planet into her minions."
"But what does that have to do with them? Was the person we just fought trying to unseal Kaguya?"
"To my knowledge, they weren't. He has his own ends to work towards. But it still involves gathering the pieces needed to unseal her, the Rinnegan and the fragments of her powers that her sons made before sealing her." Elder Kai looked to the body of Nagato. "As near as I can tell, these powers aren't the sort that should be in any person's hands."
Konan, having listened to all of this, found herself looking down in thought, processing the clusters of information that had been hurled to her over the span of the last hour or so of her life.
"Is there anything that I can do, to help with this?" She asked them, standing up.
Elder Kai stroked his chin in thought.
"You have a better grasp of the planet than we do. So it really depends on whether you're planning to fight them again or help us in another way." He looked to Gohan. "Do you want to involve yourself in this, even if you don't have much of a stake in fighting?"
Gohan frowned.
"It honestly depends on the situation. If people need help, then of course I'll give it. But even with that explanation, isn't the job done? Can anyone even use the Rinnegan if it's still here?"
"Madara, the man we all just fought, still has access to the tailed beasts' powers." Konan said, before looking to Elder Kai. "I take it the Beasts are the fragments of Kaguya's power that are needed to awaken her?"
"That's right."
"Madara started a war with all the nations of the world to try and gather the remaining two hosts of the last Tailed Beasts he hasn't captured yet. Even without the Rinnegan to enact his plans, he would still have immense power at his disposal if he managed to utilize it."
"Wait, what does Madara even WANT with all that power?" Gohan looked between the two in confusion.
Looking down, Konan explained it to him, the Eye of the Moon Plan, Project Tsuki no Me; how Madara planned to go about gathering the Tailed Beasts and the Rinnegan, then using that power to force all of mankind into an eternal dream, so as to erase all conflict from the world.
Gohan regarded this information with surprise, but it was enough for him.
"I'll do whatever I can then." He decided. "I just have to figure out how to go about fighting on that planet. I can't sense anyone's ki, or chakra, and I could tell, even the couple times when my attacks managed to land, they didn't do much of any damage. Is that just how it is for divine ki users?"
Elder Kai thought of how best to explain it.
"Divine ki is just a stronger version of normal ki. But that doesn't mean that one is automatically better than the other. If you get to a certain point, it really won't matter whether you have divine ki or normal ki."
"It's... almost like having two forms of currency, right?" Gohan asked, grasping his chin in thought. "One might have a higher form of worth by itself, but if you gather enough of the one with lower worth, then that can be just as valuable?"
"Sure kid." Elder Kai nodded. "Really, if we want to put it in those terms, you could say that in your Ultimate form, you're about as powerful as one of the people they call Kage down there. Your speed may be greater, but the power output puts you there. The only issue is, all types of divine ki act like buffers to other kinds of ki. It's like a shield that keeps people from getting hurt by lesser forms of ki. The only types that usually can stand up to it are other users of divine ki, at least on even footing. Of course, it's possible for someone to get to the level where that buffer doesn't make much difference in the power difference. Unfortunately, that puts you at a disadvantage."
Gohan gave a downcast look, before it became resolute, looking to his palm before clenching his fist with determination.
"I'll just use my other powers to make up for the difference then."
"That being said, your Ultimate state creates a small amount of divine ki, because of how I did the specific ritual." Elder Kai added. "My advice to you is to augment that slither you have and use it to make your power that much more effective against them."
"But... how do I do that?" Gohan asked with confusion.
Elder Kai looked to the sky, then bore a perverted grin.
"I can think of a certain person who can teach you." He giggled, Gohan giving a weirded out expression.
From her seat in the Hokage office, Tsunade Senju felt a strange chill run up her spine.
"Lady Tsunade?" Shizune looked to her with concern. "Are you alright?"
"... those reports confirmed there aren't any spies in the vicinity, watching me, correct?" She asked.
"Yes?" She gave her a strange look. "Why do you ask?"
"I can't shake the feeling that someone's watching me." Tsunade glared out the window behind her with a scowl.
A/N: It was a weird, jarring experience writing people from DBZ/DBS using Naruto terms and names.
It was also weird doing research for this chapter to trying to get as coherent a read on how much my outline conflicted with the canon to fix any mistakes.
As long as it turns out fine in the end though, and everyone reading is enjoying themselves to some degree, that's what's important.