A/N: Hello guys, welcome to the newest chapter of Kid of the Hunt. I hope you enjoy it, feel free to leave comments.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
Danzo and Naruto both respectively summoned their partners, the Kyuubi and Baku, standing on their heads. Kyuubi released his fearsome, signature cry, along with the elephant creature.
"Oh my god.. is that the Kyuubi?", Shizune asked shocked. Tsunade didn't have the power to say anything. She just looked carefully.
Pain did not seem impressed at all, looking just as impassive as before. Both of the (former) Konoha-nin eyed him carefully.
"Danzo, behind him!", Naruto ordered, the Kyuubi already collecting red and blue orbs in front of its open maw.
Tsunade, recognizing the technique, widened her eyes, and pulled Shizune out of the reach of the incoming explosion. The whole earth shook with incredible force with Baku circling Pain, who stood still.
The Kyuubi swallowed the compressed purple orb in front of him, and his eyes flared up.
"Bijuudama!", the young man and and demon yelled in unison, shooting an orange sphere of energy into the Akatsukis direction.
Without hurry, Pain started to levitate, dodging the sphere by flying above it. Since it missed it's target, it flew straight into Baku.
With all of its force, it reversed its suction technique to push the sphere into the air, right where Pain was.
"Shinra Tensei!"
An incredible, yet invisible force pushed back the technique. Since the energy was too condensed, the Rinnegan user couldn't cause the sphere to dissipate entirely, but to fly back into Baku.
An anguished scream came from both Baku and Danzo who stood in the explosion. Their disintegration made the two women open their eyes in shock. Naruto didn't react at all.
"Fuuton: Kaze no Kabe!", he yelled, putting up a wall of wind to prevent the huge rocks from the explosion to fly into him.
Pain immediately afterwards felt himself getting sucked into the ground. He looked down to see Danzo and Baku there again, seemingly unharmed.
"I can't just stand here and do nothing!", Tsunade said, preparing herself to fight.
"No, Tsunade-sama!", Shizune interjeced "he is too strong for you, and you know that. We have to trust Naruto and Danzo with him."
She gritted her teeth, but relented.
"Benshou Tennin!", Pain yelled.
With unspeakable power, he pulled Baku and threw him up into the air.
"Kuchiyose: Kai!", Danzo yelled to prevent his summon from landing badly, as it was obviously a very rigid creature.
"Go, Kurama!", Naruto yelled. His summon followed his orders and ran towards the descending Hokage. Jumping up, he caught him in his maw, turned around and used the momentum to throw Danzo directly into Pain.
His sword unsheathed and glowing with wind chakra, Danzo tried to decapitate the Akatsuki, with no success.
"Shinra Tensei!", Pain yelled, sending the ninja back into the ground.
Quickly, he drew a stick, which looked similar to the piercings he had on his face, but which was as big as a sword, turned around and clashed swords with Danzo.
"What's with Danzo, he's all over the place?", Shizune asked. Tsunade was just as confused.
"I suppose it's his arm. It's a first to see his arm without any cover. I always suspected that there was something fishy about him.", Tsunade replied.
Danzo yet again was pushed into the ground by an invisible force. Though still, he looked completely unharmed.
The Hokage looked to Naruto in a silent plea, and he understood.
"Kuchiyose: Kai!", Naruto yelled out, dispelling the Kyuubi and landing on the ground himself. Pain followed, and landed in between the two ninja.
Naruto pulled out a four knives with tags on them and held them in between the fingers of his right hand. Before he threw them, he looked into Tsunades eyes meaningfully, who seemed totally surprised.
In the next moment, Naruto threw all of them into Pain's direction at once, created a clone which disappeared in a yellow flash of light the first time. Naruto meanwhile charged a Rasenshuriken.
Pain received a kick into his abdomen by the clone, and when he aimed a strike for the neck of the clone, it disappeared once again and kicked him into the side, doing so two more times.
"Hiraishin: Jiku Shippu Senko Rennodan Zeroshiki!"
The clone held onto Pain from behind, and appeared in front of the real Naruto, whose Rasenshuriken was now fully charged. He drove it into Pains stomach, sending him flying into the ground.
"Tsunade-sama, wasn't that...", Shizune started.
"The Hiraishin. So it means Naruto probably knows his heritage.", Tsunade answered with a pitting feeling in her stomach.
When the explosion dissipated, Pain just stood there, seemingly unharmed and unimpressed.
"Ahhhhh! Izanagi!", Danzo yelled from the strange jutsu he used. It looked like there was a tree growing out, which wrapped itself around the still body of Pain and clenched around him in a bone crushing vice.
Danzo reappeared, his body normal again, besides Naruto who watched the technique with great interest.
"He doesn't seem hurt.", Naruto remarked when they saw the Rinnegan wielder, still standing with his impassive look.
"Shinra Tensei!", Pain yelled, sending a huge wave towards them.
Naruto, unable to react quick enough, was sent back alongside Danzo and flew away. Their bodies rolled around on the hard earth.
Both tried to minimze the distance by using their swords as a brake. When they were still, they ran towards Pain, Danzo with a singular and Naruto with his two swords, attacking together.
Pain effortlessly either dodged the strikes or parried them with his own blade. He had no problem being evasive.
In frustration, Naruto grew out his two additional arms and picked up his remaining swords. Yet again, they pressed onto Pain with no progress, until he had enough. The Akatsuki levitated into the air and pushed them into the ground, making a crater, with his signature technique.
"Fuuton: Kaze no Kabe!" Naruto yelled, setting up the wind shield to not get mercilessly pushed into the unforgiving earth. It worked, at least to protect them from suffocating from the pressure.
'Hahahaha, a weakling through and through.', the same mocking voice Naruto has heard too often now told him.
'Kit, you have to transform into the Sage Mode your master taught you, otherwise you won't be able to stand a chance.', the Kyuubi spoke.
'But how? I haven't even managed to use Wood Style the way I am supposed to, how do I do that?'
'Well, didn't your master talk about balance and inner peace? It probably isn't working due to the fact that you have this foreign soul in your body which is still polluting your own one.', the Kyuubi responded.
'Foreign soul...', Naruto thought, and widened his eyes.
"I have a plan, Danzo. Try to restrain him.", Naruto told the Hokage. They both jumped out of the crater, and Danzo circled the Akatsuki, while Naruto openly charged at him again.
When Naruto seemed to be a big enough distraction for him, Danzo yet again started Izanagi. 'Only one eye left.', he thought, solemnly.
But with the nevertheless strong swordsman, one Naruto Uzumaki, he was able to capture Pain in a tree similar to before, only now he was clinging onto him as hard as he could.
"Hurry, I can't control the genes for long!", Danzo yelled in a painful voice.
Naruto, standing in front of him, complied and clasped his two hands together. It was in this exact moment he felt something he never thought he'd feel.
It was fear.
Never before was him dying such a probable circumstance than it was now, and it terrified him greatly.
'No, there's no time. I have to try. He is too strong to be killed by Rasenshuriken.'
Naruto, still clasping his hands, felt another presence behind him. The presence felt bone-chilling, right to the core, and he didn't dare to turn around.
Shizune gasped loudly, and even Tsunade was frightened. She immediately regained her senses and yelled: "No Naruto, don't do it! Please don't do it! PLEASE!" Even Danzo had to admit the sight was terrifying.
Behind Naruto stood the Shinigami, the God of Death himself. He looked like a demon, like a being of pure evil, and Naruto knew that his gamble might backfire, with unchangeable consequences.
"Fuuinjutsu: Shiki Fuujin!", Naruto yelled out. One arm of the Shinigami shot out, went straight through the stomach of the young man, and gripped the body of Pain, no, rather the spirit of him, and started pulling it out.
Pain now for the first time visibly struggled against the pull from the Death God, but was unable to withdraw. So a purple form, looking like a body, was pulled from the Akatsuki, and the Shinigami struck out with a blade in hand to crush the spirit of Pain, and Naruto who he was holding onto.
When the jutsu was done and the Shinigami disappeared, Naruto immediately dropped to his knees and fell onto the ground, his world going black.
"No, Naruto!", Tsunade yelled out, running towards him, Shizune right behind her.
Danzo's Izanagi disappeared, and now even his last remaining Sharingan eye in his skull became blind. With his remaining eye he looked down to see the dead body of...who?
He was highly alerted. The corpse was some common ninja, the Akatsuki they fought was gone.
'Itachi...', Danzo thought, recognizing the technique immediately.
"No please, Naruto, please stand up.", the former Hokage sobbed, her hands glowing green with her chakra, while she pressed them into his chest. His dull, lifeless red eyes mirrored her crying face perfectly.
"Please, please come back. I just got you back, I can't lose you a second time. Please, come back to me, please.", Tsunade pleaded, to someone, anyone, to bring him back.
"Tragic that Naruto-kun had to die this way.", a voice spoke softly, which Danzo immediately recognized.
Looking sideways, he saw Itachi, Kisame, Hidan, Kakuzu, Black Zetsu, Pain, with 5 people who looked similar to him.
Danzo readied himself for another battle, while Tsunade and Shizune, both trying to heal their fallen old friend, didn't even listen to them.
"It is most surprising to see the both of you ready to overcome your hate for one another to cooperate against a common enemy.", Pain spoke in his quiet, calm voice.
"However, now we need the corpse of Naruto."
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!", Danzo yelled out again to stand on top of his summon Baku once more to try and overpower the advantageous enemies with the suction technique of the beast.
"Amaterasu!", Itachi spoke, his Mangekyou Sharingan flaring up red and leaking a bit of blood to summon black flames in front of him, which immediately got sucked in by the elephant.
Its eyes widened painfully and it started to stomp and yell while it was burned from the inside out by the eternal flames of the Uchiha. Danzo jumped off the creature, which now dropped heavily to its side and was consumed by the black flames.
The opponents laughed at Danzos slight distress.
"Just step aside, old man. This kid belongs to us.", Kisame mocked with his grin.
"HA!"
The Akatsuki turned to see a white mass of clay in between them which exploded and threw the Akatsuki away.
Deidara, alongside Kankuro, Karin and the other Jinchuuriki jumped off the clay bird and the sand platform of Gaara which transported them to stand alongside Danzo and shield Naruto, Tsunade and Shizune from the Akatsuki.
"Well, look which traitor found his way back again! I will enjoy killing you first and feasting on your blood!", Hidan yelled like a maniac.
"You even took our fashion. How unkind of you.", Kakuzu mocked.
"That was Naruto's idea. He told us about it, that it was a symbol. It is to show you that after we killed Sasori, it is you who became the prey! We will kill every last one of you!", Deidara yelled, the mouths in his hands already chewing.
"You think you've got what it takes to kill us? Hahahaha!", Kisame laughed.
'Ugh, where the hell am I?'
"Uzumaki Naruto.", a deep voice rang out.
His surroundings were completely white, there was just nothing. When he turned around, he saw the Shinigami he summoned before, now floating in front of him.
"You have summoned me to claim a soul, and you know what the payment is.", he spoke.
"Wait a minute!", Naruto interrupted
"What is it, mortal?"
"There is also Rhaast, the demon from the swords I've been using. He has just as much a soul as I do, so I wish you to claim him instead!"
"Indeed, I can see his soul inhabitating your body."
"You really think you can dispose of me, Naruto?", Rhaast called out, and he turned around to see him. The form of the demon looked similar to Naruto, although it was completely black, and had red, pupilless eyes.
"I'm a part of you now, Naruto!", he said, walking towards him in an attempt to land a punch, which was blocked and countered by the Jinchuuriki.
"I'm your hate, your thirst for vengeance, your jealousy, your anger, everything you used in the past to get your power from. I am you, Naruto, and you are me!", he laughed, now ringing with the ninja on the ground.
"No, you are not. You no longer have power over me, parasite. I have listened to your temptation before, but no more." Punch, and another laugh.
"You made me kill mercilessly." Punch.
"You drove me crazy with bloodlust." Another punch.
"But no longer!" A final punch was delivered.
"This is how I should use my power. Not to kill like a mindless drone, but to protect what is worth protecting.", Naruto finished.
He grabbed the demon by his collar, and presented his motionless body to the Death God.
"Here. Take your sacrifice. I have fulfilled my part.", Naruto told.
"A soul for a soul.", the Shinigami spoke, taking the demon to him. Naruto's world went black yet again.
"Please, please come back to me.", Tsunade stammered, again and again.
"Baa-chan...", Naruto spoke, his voice hoarse.
Tsunade opened her eyes and saw the red orbs from Naruto, looking into him weakly.
"Naruto!", she yelled, hugging his body close to her.
Naruto, now regaining his strength, wrapped his arms around the woman, his red patch of hair turning blond, and his red slits turning blue once again.
Naruto saw the Akatsuki standing ready, and he knew he had to act.
He pulled back, and spoke: "Baa-chan, let go. I have to fight."
She bore into his cerulean orbs. "Naruto, you just..."
"I know, but I have to." He closed his eyes, and concentrated like his master once advised him to do.
Around his eyes, green, tattoo-like marks were formed. Naruto felt incredible, like his surroundings were full of energy, and everything was ready for him to be used.
Tsunade saw and immediately recognized the tattoo pattern on his face. "You look just like..."
Naruto stood up, vitalized, and made a hand sign to summon his Desert Hunt clothes as well.
He went into the middle of his side, standing face to face with Pain.
"Uzumaki Naruto, you and your friends all have something I want."
Naruto saw the corpse in the place where he thought he put an end to Pain. The unknown man lying there motionlessly was enough to clear what happened before.
"Pain, I am here to put an end to you, to every one of you."
"I'd like to see you try, brat.", Kisame challenged.
"Hey, it's not nice to tease my friends!" Kankuro spoke, equipping his puppets.
Killer Bee looked at both groups eyeing each other, and like a child yelled: "Yeah, time to Rock'N'Roll!"