I just realized that, with this chapter, I've now hit over 650,000 words archived.

Since I've only started writing since last June, almost 1 year ago, across an entire year of writing that averages to nearly 1780 words every single day. But I also take breaks, so I could round that up to 2000 words written every single day.

That's...nuts to think about honestly. That many words written on average every single day. It blows my mind to think I can honestly write so much, and it really means the world to me to hear all your thoughts on what you liked about my work...

So, from the bottom of my cold, nutella-fueled heart...thank you all, so much!

Chapter 45

Landing feet-first on a wall, Akari glued herself there, forming hand-seals as her eyes tracked Obito.

He was good, she'd give him that, but the only reason he was still alive was...well, twofold actually. Firstly, she couldn't kill him until he told her where Naruto was. If he were to die, Akari would lose her chance at finding him. Maybe she could get information from the weird black-and-white guy who fell through the floor, but since tracking him down would be hard, it was unlikely.

But the more obvious reason he was still living despite Akari's increasingly-furious and lethal attacks was because of his intangibility. Any attack she attempted to hit him with simply phased through, leaving her vulnerable to a counter-attack. Minato had yelled a warning about his ability when she first charged him, that was the only reason she didn't have a Kunai in her throat.

She finished her short string of seals, taking a deep breath. "Katon: Ryuka no Jutsu!" Sure, she didn't have to say it, but it certainly helped her focus, breathing out an apocalyptic amount of flames then coalescing them into the shape of a fire dragon, sending it roaring towards Obito, forcing him into his intangibility.

She didn't know too much about how his ability worked, all she knew was what Minato could tell her. He couldn't selectively set himself to be intangible, he either was, or wasn't. This meant that to attack them, he had to make himself vulnerable. He could also disappear and reappear in entirely different locations, which the Yondaime theorized was some kind of Space-time Ninjutsu, since he was totally invisible to her Sharingan.

The Ryuka no Jutsu was therefore great for forcing him to stay intangible, stopping him from teleporting using his Jutsu, which was another facet. If he was intangible, he couldn't then go invisible and reappear elsewhere, he was stuck moving at normal speed. She kept the flames around him for at least twenty seconds before they petered out, and he looked none the worse for wear, nonchalantly brushing off his shoulder and looking at her.

She couldn't see his face, but she knew the bastard was smirking at her. Minato flashed to his side and swung a Kunai, his arm passing through Obito harmlessly. Obito countered by crouching, which removed Minato's arm from his chest, becoming tangible and performing a leg-sweep, then slamming forwards with his palm into Minato's chest as he fell, managing to strike him faster than a snake before he could Hiraishin away from the blow.

What happened next confused Akari. Minato almost seemed to turn inside-out, then vanished, in a similar function to how Obito made himself disappear. After a few seconds passed and he didn't return, Akari silently checked her menu. He...wasn't dead. She could still vaguely feel him, just as she could feel all her Spectres, but she didn't know where the hell he was or why he wasn't using the Hiraishin marker she was carrying to just come back.

It could have been one of Obito's abilities for whatever the hell he was doing, but for it to override the Hiraishin's ability meant he must have gone to another dimension. Minato was able to use the Hiraishin to transport himself all the way across the Elemental Nations to wherever they now were, yet he couldn't return? Shaking her head, Akari settled into a stance, each of her hands now grasping one of her bowie knives as she drew them from her inventory with a flourish to cover up the retrieval.

Her opponent cocked his head at her. "Even when I remove your strongest ally, you still think you can fight me?" Akari shrugged. She was a higher level, and yet, because she couldn't hit the bastard, that disparity between levels didn't seem to matter. "Keh heh heh, you know, you really are slippery." Akari rolled her eyes, zipping forwards to try and catch Obito while he was talking, though her knife went through his throat with no resistance.

She then took several steps back faster than he could extend his arm. At least him removing Minato tipped her off to yet another ability of his. He could send people to apparently a second dimension, but he seemed to require contact with them. "Well, with how fast I am, if I weren't hard to catch I'd be dead by now. You mind telling me where you sent Minato then, O-bi-to?" She drew his name out, smirking at his reaction as his hands clenched in anger.

"I will learn how you know for certain that you've found my name. I'm sure Zetsu will enjoy pulling the answers out of you." Narrowing her eyes, Akari watched him vanish, only to near-instantly come back only a few steps from where he was. He muttered something quietly, though she still heard it. "Damn you Sensei..." Akari's eyes widened, a real grin coming onto her lips.

"Your phasing ability is still connected to your other dimension." His head jolted towards her as she spoke. "You can't disappear or Minato would be free to attack you in the other dimension, and if you come back here, I can attack you, which probably also means you can't make yourself intangible...wow buddy, you fucked up." Taking advantage of his brief surprise, Akari pulled on all of her speed, bolting forwards and for the first time in their fight, her knife found purchase in his flesh, slamming straight through his hand, then into his shoulder as his arm was forcibly buckled backwards.

His other hand came sweeping to try and hit her, though she merely abandoned her knife and backstepped away from him. "You bitch!" His curse was certainly unexpected, but the new injury was worth sacrificing one of her knives, as he ripped it out of himself then made it disappear. "Oh, you'll certainly feel pain for that one." His voice was low, filled with malice. He probably hadn't been injured in battle for a long time with his ability.

Akari knew better than to assume he was vulnerable now. From the fact he only touched Minato once but sent him somewhere where he couldn't return, she knew that to let him get contact on her would decide the fight, whereas she had to find a way to incapacitate him without killing him...no, sod it, she had to kill him. If she didn't, he would escape into his alternate dimension, and she'd lose her chance to eliminate him. She'd deal with finding Naruto somehow, but she had to put Obito down like the mad dog he was.

Swapping her knife to her right hand, Akari formed a few hand seals, spawning a handful of Shadow Clones, each holding a knife in their hand. His mask swept from one side to the other, looking across her clones, then focusing back on her. All of a sudden, she felt Kurama's chakra surge forwards for a brief moment, then return to the seal. Obito had taken a step forwards, but then came to a stop again, growling under his breath. "Damn Bijuu!"

"Thanks boo." She had only just begun to notice the Genjutsu even with her Sharingan, but Kurama could always tell when there was something affecting her Chakra network. She nodded once, allowing all but two of her clones to start charging around Obito. One leapt with her knife pointed forwards, then rolled to the side to avoid his palm, spinning so the knife swiped across his forearm and drew blood.

As he took a step back, a second clone ran from his side, attempting to swipe at his neck, though he became briefly intangible to avoid the blow, spinning into a high back-kick which struck the clone, dispersing her. He then pivoted into an axe-kick, smashing the arm of the second clone and dispersing her. "Hn." Akari made a noise in her throat, waiting for Obito to focus on her again, keeping her other clones back.

With very deliberate arms, Akari raised her arms into another seal, then she was surrounded by another ten clones. "Tell me where Naruto is, and I'll make this fair, no Shadow Clones, no help from Kurama, just me. You know that if I charged you with all these Shadow Clones, you wouldn't be able to survive. You can't use your ability, Minato has probably laced your entire alternate dimension with Kage Bunshin'd Hiraishin tags. So, what's it going to be? Tell me where he is, or die in agony from a hundred stab wounds while I go hunt Naruto down myself."

Akari was expecting several responses. A rage-filled denial that he'd never give up to a bitch like her, maybe a quiet acceptance of her terms. She certainly didn't expect him to start softly laughing. "You want to know where your little brat is?" Her eyes narrowed, the leather around her knife handle cracking ominously, though he took no notice. "You'd give up such a huge advantage for him...but then again, I suppose we Uchiha do anything for those we love..."

She was about to spit that she knew he wasn't Madara, but remembered that while he wasn't the man, he was still an Uchiha. He began to take his mask off, odd for him to give up an advantage of keeping her from knowing where he was looking, but perhaps he didn't want to be hindered in his vision. "Your little brat is currently in the custody of a good friend of mine, you saw him leave in fact. Zetsu, come out."

The same man emerged from the floor beside Obito, laughing to himself maniacally. "Wow Obito, you got hurt bad, are you okay? You're pathetic." She blinked, surprised by the sudden change in attitude and tone from 'Zetsu'. "You want me to give you a hand there? You look like you need the help." Obito grit his teeth, the wounds on his hand, arm and shoulder each leaking crimson blood.

Now that she looked at Obito, he certainly wasn't anything like his picture any more. The right side of his face was absolutely fucked up. In fact...he looked kinda like he had wrinkles, though she knew he wasn't that much older than Kakashi. Akari also noticed that his left eye was permanently shut, which made sense since from what she could remember, Kakashi had his left eye right now.

Wait a minute...his eye, the right eye, wasn't in a tomoe pattern, it was in a new pattern, a Mangekyo style shaped as a Shuriken with scythe blades on one side of each blade, lazily spinning as though in flight. It was slightly risky to look directly into a Sharingan, but with Kurama backing her up against any Genjutsu attacks, she wasn't as worried. "So that's your Mangekyo ability huh?"

Obito didn't seem surprised that she pieced it together, merely nodding. "Kamui. Your own abilities are, by comparison, nothing to turn a nose up to. The ability to freely manipulate terrain is worrying, especially your ability to override any Doton Jutsu used in your sphere of influence, but your real ability...I'll admit, the fact you kept one of your abilities secret for years impressed me."

Akari let his compliment fly by her without acknowledgement. "Zetsu, bring the brat here." She grit her teeth, even as her mind spun. Why would they bring Naruto here, unless they were intending to use him as a bargaining chip. She was fast, obscenely so, but if a Kunai was to his throat, considering how fast Obito could move, she wouldn't be able to stop them from stabbing him.

She dispersed a few of her clones, growling quietly to herself though still audible to Obito, then made a few more, but surreptitiously made one with far more Chakra than the others. She didn't yet have the Chakra control to give it a thicker shell, not one like her own hand, but she hoped it could take a single glancing blow without dispersing. All in all, to them, it looked as though her clones had been made in haste with only enough Chakra for a few minutes, their dispersal prompting her to replace them, covering up her creation neatly.

"So, little Uchiha, here's the deal. We give you the brat, and you give us the Bijuu. Or, you can refuse the deal, my friend here can kill the brat, and we rip the Bijuu from your corpse." Though it was unknown to her, Obito was really cursing the fact that Nagato wasn't around right now to simply use the Gedo Mazo in the room to drag the Nine-tailed fox out of Akari.

She shifted in place, folding her arms after placing her knife in her inventory. "Doesn't sound fair to me, so...how about a compromise? I get rid of my Shadow Clones, aside from a few in case of, y'know, foul play, then we fight, see who wins. If I win, I get Naruto back. You win, you get Kurama. You've done your research on me, you know if I wanted, I could level this entire place, do you really want to push me by threatening my cubs life?" She emphasized her threat by brushing a hand nonchalantly against the seal holster on her leg, his eye tracking the motion then tracing her body before finally returning back up to her face. "And no, your little buddy can't help. One on one fight."

She met his eye with her own vision, only looking away briefly when Zetsu reappeared from the ground, Naruto's unconscious body being brought with him. She knew she'd never get to him in time, but it still took a lot of willpower not to try and bolt over there immediately then grab him, before using the Hiraishin to get them both away to Konoha.

Looking him over, he looked none the worse for wear, almost as though he was just sleeping. At least they put some value into their fucking hostage. "Try anything funny, and Zetsu makes your little brat into a pincushion." The black side of the creature curled its lips up, several black spikes protruding from its hand. Akari rolled her eyes at the threat.

"Well duh. I'm the one who asked for this little wager anyway, so going back on it would be pretty stupid. Though, if you two are harbouring thoughts of not honouring this little agreement..." Akari drew a scroll from her leg holster and handed it off to one of her clones. "Let's just say that she's my insurance. You might be fast, but I can guarantee my Kyokai-sen Fuinjutsu is faster."

Obito stared at the clone as it stepped back, then down at her. "You've got a deal." Grinning, Akari flicked two handfuls of Senbon into her fingers, lowering herself down, ready to toss in a moments notice. Then, Obito flashed into motion, using the Shunshin no Jutsu in conjunction with his Sharingan to press towards her, his fingers questing for a mere brush of contact with her so he could perform his Jutsu.

Akari countered this by merely stepping to one side, throwing her Senbon at his arm as he turned to try and sweep his palm across into her face. Four of the Senbon sunk into his arm, all on the underside of his forearm. The rest continued their path, clattering against a wall as Akari ducked his arm, turning as she moved to cover the retrieval of more Senbon, then underhand-tossing them at his torso.

This time he was ready for the attack, avoiding it with a leap. As he came down, he tried to form hand seals, but then froze up, suddenly wrenching the Senbon out of his arms. "Poison?" Grinning, Akari twirled a Senbon across her fingers, letting him see the clear fluid on the metal rod. Four of her special mix had been inflicted, meaning that if he had an average amount of vitality and endurance for a level 103, he had about five minutes before he was dead.

"Yep. You should have kept a closer eye on me. Sure, I've never used it publicly, but you coulda watched the stuff I was buying. Hmm, then again, I buy lots of crazy shit." Akari watched his face contort into pain for a moment, the nastier poisons gaining prominence. "Want to call the match there? This stuff'll kill you in maybe...four minutes, thirty seconds from now. Maybe if you let me send Naruto back to Konoha with a clone I'll extract it for ya." It was total bullshit and both of them knew it. If Obito let her get close enough to extract her poison, she was far more likely to plunge a knife into his sole remaining eye.

No, instead he got up from the knee he'd fallen to when the pain wracked his body, surprising Akari with his fortitude. That...didn't bode well. If he could stand despite the poison running through his veins, he must have had an obscene level of VIT and END, reducing some of the effects of her poison. Then again, if he was presumed dead from a major accident, but he survived, he must have had a hell of a lot of willpower.

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you." Akari mumbled, filling her hand with more Senbon. Obito looked back towards Zetsu, gritting his teeth when he turned back around as the white side gave him a jaunty wave. Akari had to stop herself from snorting at the by-play. She clicked the Senbon in her hand together a few time, her eyes keeping a wary eye on Obito. The onus was on him to do something, otherwise her poison would kill him.

After a brief moment, he began forming hand seals. Her Sharingan watched the sequence, and she quickly figured out which he was using. "Predictable." Though she wasn't comfortable at all doing what she was about to, Akari began forming hand seals at an even faster rate than Obito, surprising him with her haste. Hey, she'd had nearly ten years experience grinding her Hand Seals proficiency, she was damned fast at it now.

As he finished his own chain of seals and inhaled, she did the same, the pair of them yelling their Jutsu's one after the other. "Katon: Goka Mekkyaku!" Obito yelled, spewing out a maelstrom of flames, filling the entire room in front of himself with flames. Akari countered with her own, far more unorthodox Jutsu.

"Suiton: Suiro no Jutsu!" She spat out a torrent of water which, by comparison for Obito's colossal flame, was pitiful, immediately enshrouding herself with the water. Except, while her ball of water was small compared to his colossal flame, there was one major difference. Akari could keep spitting out water far longer than Obito could maintain his flames. All she had to do was keep her water prison around herself, and she'd survive this without a scratch, and with a comparatively bargain-bin Chakra cost.

She could feel the moment that Obito's flames crashed over her prison, trying desperately to evaporate her protection away and burn her flesh, but she simply kept her output of Chakra, forcing more and more water into existence. After thirty seconds, Obito's flames died as fast as they came, vanishing entirely and revealing the horrendous burn damage caused to their area. Akari released her own Jutsu after a few more moments, immediately taking some deep breaths.

She could hold her breath quite well, but if he'd been able to fuel that Jutsu for longer than two minutes, she'd be toast, since she knew no water-breathing techniques, relying on her own oxygen capacity to sustain herself, perhaps a fatal oversight. As she refocused on Obito, she could see that even with his constitution, her poison was wreaking its havoc on his body.

His arms swept into another pose, beginning to form more hand seals, when he stopped and frowned, looking behind Akari, then around himself. Akari waited a moment as he turned around to eye her with suspicion, his eye widening as he realized what had slipped his notice. Akari had made several Shadow Clones, dispersing all but three as their faith started. There was the one holding a scroll, then two guarding that one.

But by the time he used the Goka Mekkyaku, they'd vanished. As he turned to yell a warning at Zetsu, they struck, several dozen Senbon stabbing deeply through Zetsu's body, one of her clones immediately snatching away Naruto's body from him. The clone holding Naruto then shut her eyes for a brief moment, vanishing with a crimson flash. Obito turned with a growl, his eye swirling madly as he realized Akari's game, only to widen in disbelief when a blade pierced his forehead, killing him instantly.

A second later, the Kusanagi retracted. Cricking her back, Akari zipped over to Obito's body, bringing her blade down across his neck to sever his head. His brain had already been stabbed through, but she wasn't taking a single fucking chance with that bastard. At the same time, she mentally dismissed Minato to restart the timer so she could bring him back to tell him what happened. Considering he hadn't appeared, he was likely stranded after Obito's death.

Hearing one of her clones yelp in surprise then feeling her disappear, her gaze snapped up just in time to watch Zetsu's form disappear into the ground. "Shit." She dipped her chin, quickly pulling a body-storage scroll from her inventory and sealing Obito's corpse and his severed head away. Apparently just in time, as a white hand emerged just as his head vanished, snatching around empty air.

The hand receded before Akari could do anything. She did hop up onto the shoulders of her last remaining clone, just in case Zetsu had the same ability Obito had which required skin contact, but her theory didn't support that, nor did the freakshow emerge anywhere again. Releasing a sigh she'd been holding onto since Obito was decapitated, Akari then chuckled to herself. "Huh, so first Orochimaru was decapitated, now Obito. What next, I decapitate a tellytubby?" She shivered at the mental image, which was followed by her being chased by the other three in a mad rage, wielding spiked baseball bats. "Maybe not." She dismissed her final clone, planted a Hiraishin tag of her own making into a nook in the roof of the building just so she could come back later if needed, then planted her hands into her pockets as she focused on her Hiraishin tag at home.

It was time to see Naruto again.

Well that was fun!

I hope you enjoyed, please leave a review if you did! And tell me if you didn't enjoy parts as well, I ADORE criticism, it tells me what I did wrong, so I can get better at writing!

Name: Akari Uchiha

Level: 118

Age: 17?

Experience: 101,097/118,000

To Next Level: 105,166

Title: Sannin-slayer - Defeating one of the three legendary sannin is no easy feat, but you managed it. Future opportunities unlocked.

Secondary Title: Jonin - +25% Experience gained working with Genin

Health Points: 28,625 - (100 Base + (Vit x End)) x 5

Regeneration Rate - 5625/m - 93.75/s - Vit x End - Halted when afflicted with bleed status.

Chakra Points: 41,000 - (100 Base + (Int x Wis)) x 5

Regeneration Rate - 8100/m - 135/s - Int x Wis - Halted when continuous chakra drain Jutsu in use.

Strength - 70

Vitality - 75

Endurance - 75

Intelligence - 90

Agility - 296

Wisdom - 90

Luck - 75

15 Skill Points Available