Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
CHAPTER 42
Konan had barely been able to dodge the massive combination jutsu of the two Leaf shinobi when they charged her and Tendō like a starving lion set on its kill. Her paper wings had flowed with chakra to push her beyond its reach. As soon as she saw the jinchuriki moving toward Tendō, Konan immediately raised her hand, papers peeling off her body and sailing through the air, intent on encasing and capturing the Kyūbi container. But before even so much as a paper cut could be inflicted upon his body, every sheet was blasted from its trajectory by a shower of water bullets.
Her amber eyes easily found the source of the Suiton jutsu, and Konan stretched her wings to soar over the dark haired kunoichi that glared at her with a calm challenge lighting her oddly colorless eyes. Origami Shuriken orbited Konan's body as she aimed for the kill, but the water user was already running like the wind toward the forests on the edge of the village.
The chase was on, and the Lioness now became the hunted as Konan's wings sliced through the gray sky. Entire trees were slashed and felled as they were struck by the sharp chakra enhanced paper weapons which sought to sever the kunoichi's limbs as she fled.
Konan narrowed her eyes as she closed in on her target, sensing the enormous amount of power that surrounded the woman, a level unbelievably close to her own and Nagato's. Without so much as a glance over her shoulder the leaping shinobi was dodging every projectile Konan hurled at her with flexible grace, seeming to barely alight upon the branches as she vaulted through the leafy matrix. She is strong. An enemy like that needs to be eliminated before she can threaten our plans, Konan quickly decided. With renewed determination she pursued the kunoichi further and further out of the urban sprawl and into the wilds of the forest beyond.
The clouds erupted out of nowhere with a sudden deluge of water, pelting Konan with needles of icy rain as she chased the kunoichi over the tree tops and into a deep valley that was carved out of the midst of the forest. Her Akatsuki cloak started shredding under the punishing storm, but Konan refused to blink as she easily landed upon the valley floor. Bringing her massive white wings up over her head she called out to her opponent in a scolding tone.
"I am not some stupid genin, unaware of the weaknesses of my own bloodline," the purple haired kunoichi admonished, making Hinata's chakra pulse angrily with the insulting chastisement. She had purposefully lured the purple haired kunoichi to the valley where she and Naruto had fought Tsunade-sama. Here Hinata would be surrounded by the seemingly mundane nature that could become the diabolical tools of her will.
Her all seeing eyes assessed the way the water beaded off of the paper wings instead of saturating them and rendering the jutsu useless. I should have anticipated that she would waterproof the paper, Hinata thought. This kunoichi is the student of a Sannin, just like me. I cannot underestimate her, but I will not allow her to intimidate me either.
Konan's body burst into a cloud of swirling square sheets, reforming into numerous clones that surrounded Hinata on all sides and hovered above until they nearly blocked the torrential rain from overhead. Hinata's head whipped around, her temples throbbing with the veins that fed her dōjutsu.
"So you are a Hyuga," one of the clones said flatly. In unison, the encompassing army of paper bunshin extended one hand, forming a long paper spear and aiming it unerringly at their trapped victim. "I have heard you all possess a blind spot. Let us see where it lies."
The unleashing hail of spears collided with Hinata's kaiten, as she pushed chakra out of every tenketsu in her body and rotated with enough power to carve out a wide crater in the grassy valley. Konan watched calmly from nearby, self assured in the knowledge that it would be impossible for the Hyuga to avoid all of the innumerable projectiles. When the pelting rain jutsu ceased to fall, she knew that she was victorious.
Stretching out her wings in preparation to return to Tendō's side, Konan took to the air, until something wrapped around her foot and ripped her from the sky. Her body slammed into the earth and she barely had enough time to disperse herself into paper before the tree branch that was twisting up her leg crushed her bones. Coalescing once more Konan glared in surprise and annoyance at Hinata, who stood casually in her personal crater, testing the weight of a paper spear in her hand.
"You missed," Hinata said serenely, even as she crushed the spear in her hands, making paper flutter like snow to the ground. "You may be aware of your own weaknesses, but you will never know mine."
Furiously lunging to her feet Konan made to charge at the Hyuga, but suddenly the roots of a hundred trees were surging up out of the ground, greedily snatching at her body with clawed fingers. Dirt clods plummeted into her hair as she barely danced away from the numerous limbs of chakra enhanced wood that tried to imprison her wings and bind her body. But no matter how nimbly she dodged and sliced, the reaching trees never ceased their savage attacks.
Desperate to escape the unending onslaught, Konan began to disintegrate away once more, but the arms of the roots were squeezing her so tightly she could barely peel away a single sheet of paper. Rough bark bit into every inch of her skin, scratching her even through the thick black cloak. Her field of vision narrowed and her ears rang with the snapping sounds of splintering wood enclosing her head. In a flash the Hyuga was standing before her, face to face, her oddly ethereal eyes glowing with a power that froze Konan in her writhing efforts to get free. That's no Byakugan, she realized in stunned alarm. There's no mistaking that pattern, this power, she possesses the Tenseigan!
In the blink of an eye Konan's entire world shifted as she adjusted every plan and tactic of her and Nagato's carefully laid plans. The only thing that could ever match his Rinnegan was an equally Blessed Dōjutsu. Without the Rinnegan, Nagato could never contain the nine bijū, never become the perfect vessel, never attain the godlike power needed to level the earth and make all men equal once and for all by eliminating shinobi, eliminating all chakra, eliminating everything that stood in the way of true peace.
Konan had been baptized in pain, seen the truth born of its torture, and believed in the purity of its product. She had endured. Year after year, steadfastly standing by her teammate's side, a dedicated acolyte to his vision. There was nothing for her beyond the doctrine of his dream, nothing she could ever conceive as being an acceptable alternative.
Nothing she wouldn't do to help him succeed.
Shards of wood pierced Hinata's skin when Konan suddenly combusted, the handful of paper sheets she had managed to peel away igniting like exploding tags. Rapidly tumbling backwards, Hinata raised a wall of earth to protect herself from most of the abrupt blast. Ripping splinters from her body Hinata watched Konan with her Tenseigan, bracing herself for whatever apocalyptic jutsu the kunoichi was forming.
Konan was rapidly weaving signs as streams of paper poured out of her smoking body, multiplying exponentially as they instantly filled the air. Symbols danced and blurred before Hinata's eyes as she tried to focus on the countless objects and decipher the seal on the swirling papers. The swarm of sheets swelled beyond any comprehensible number, and awe filled Hinata even as she frantically kneaded chakra to counter the unknown attack.
The kunoichi must possess more chakra than a kage, for within the space of a few heartbeats, the gray autumn sky was completely replaced by a firmament of paper that rippled with chakra. As the pages solidified overhead into a barrier that stretched from one end of the valley to the other, the sealing array became clear, and Hinata's heart seized at the sight of the explosive symbols. Under the scrutiny of her Tenseigan, she could see that every single sheet was stitched together by a continuous thread of chakra, set to ignite like a string of TNT with enough power to detonate for an impossible duration of time.
"Not even Tobi can outlast my Kami no Shisha no Jutsu," Konan panted, nearing exhaustion as she slipped through a small hole in the paper roof to hover high above her deadly trap. As she rose she glimpsed black lines winding across the skin of the Hyuga below, and rushed to close up her opening and ignite the jutsu. Normally she would have prepared a trap like this well ahead of time, so as to not drain herself to such a lethally low level in the midst of battle. But this would be worth it. This was necessary. This is what Nagato would want. Without hesitating a second longer, Konan formed the final hand sign, and the world shattered.
Konan lifted her face, the fire of the blast burning her skin and destabilizing her weak hold on her chakra wings. She struggled to escape the wave of heat, flapping madly to rise above the peaks of the valley's edge and return to Nagato. But no matter how much she fought to ascend, the walls of the valley continued to loom overhead. Her lungs burned as she started to gasp, panic began to squeeze her chest as the explosions continued to engulf the valley, and the valley engulfed her.
The edges of her shredded cloak began to scorch, her arms reaching up for a lifeline that didn't exist, as the sky rose further and further away, and the valley walls closed in. The booming of the inferno below blended with the rumbling of the earth's crust as the walls of the valley surged up into the sky to devour the firestorm and the two kunoichi, sealing the entirety of the hellish catastrophe into a towering new mountain.
The silence that followed was the stillness of all nature holding its breath, as it processed the superhuman forces that had just transformed a colorful autumn forest into a barren summit that protruded heavenward like an earthen cairn, marking the dual graves of the godlike kunoichi.
Smoke gently seeped from the steep slopes of the fresh landscape, wafting straight into the windless atmosphere with the solemn reverence of incense. Pebbles began to trickle down the new mountainside. Then boulders shifted along its peak. Once more the ground trembled in anticipation. Soot and ash poured out of the rapidly fracturing mountaintop. With a final thrust of divine chakra, a hand punched through the crust, releasing a shower of molten rocks and a single filthy kunoichi in a spewing volcanic eruption.
Hinata sat down heavily on the nearest ledge of her mountain, sucking in deep breaths of fresh air as the skin on her body regenerated cell by cell, and a gentle breeze blew the singed hair around her naked body like an exhalation of relief from above. Shaking, but safe, she slumped backwards, sprawling shamelessly upon the ground in her exhaustion as the Byakugō no In on her forehead pulsed with precious existence.
Lying beneath the cloudy sky, Hinata turned her face up to Kami's heavens in wordless gratitude for the life that she still possessed, and reflective mournfulness for the life she had been forced to take. Her soul reached up even as her eyes closed, allowing herself a brief moment of reviving communion before she charged back into battle.
A gentle mist of cleansing rain fell like a benediction from above, and Hinata smiled as she drank in Kami's blessing.
Jiraiya scowled harder, his hands digging into Tsunade's shoulders as he sensed the arrival of two very familiar and very unwelcome chakra signatures.
"Tsunade, they're here."
She only grunted in reply, too absorbed in the perfect focus of directing the legions of Katsuyu's bodies to all the wounded still scattered across the village. She had sent Sai out to transport as many back to the hospital as he could, but she hadn't seen him since he headed for the Uchiha District.
Or at least what used to be the Uchiha District. Now it and a huge swath of Konoha were just a crater filling with water from Kami knows where.
Cracking open a squinted eye, Tsunade gasped as a huge purple chakra warrior soared over the Hokage Tower, heading straight for the hospital. Embedded in the center of the winged entity was none other than Uchiha Sasuke, and his grim look of determination set her soul at ease in a way that she did not expect. He's come home. They're all together now. I can truly trust the village to their protection, no matter what happens to me. The Scions have returned.
As she had been gazing after the prodigal member of Team Seven, Tsunade had missed the alarm that filled Jiraiya when his Sage Mode registered the appearance of his former pupils who had nearly killed him in Amegakure, as they summoned and spread the zombie-like puppets throughout Konoha. But I took at least one of The Paths out for sure, he thought frantically as he mentally sifted through the chakra signatures to try and identify the new replacement. The one that absorbed chakra, I know I got him. So who is the new one—
"Kami…no," Jiraiya's knees nearly buckled when he finally recognized the rapidly approaching Preta Path. The Chakra was warped as hell but unmistakable, more potent than any of the other seemingly hypnotized minions of Nagato. "Not him," Jiraiya whispered, "anyone but him…"
"Well, well, well. What is thisssss," Orochimaru's sneering face grinned maliciously with the trademark marionette smile that crinkled his gray Rinnegan eyes. He landed with a quaking stomp upon the Tower, his long black hair streaked with orange and piercings curving up the pinnae of each ear, with one large stud impaling his long tongue. Stooping down he scooped up one of Katsuyu's bodies, inhaling salaciously as he sucked the slug dry of every drop of chakra. Tsunade's growl and cracking knuckles didn't even phase the reanimated Snake Sannin as he sighed in satisfaction and tossed the withered mollusk away.
"If it isn't my precious teammates. What a welcome," Orochimaru chuckled, and looked around dramatically as if searching for a long lost friend. "And where is Sensei? He was never one to miss a chance to say hello to his favorite student."
"He's dead. Just like you should be," Tsunade hissed, the diamond on her forehead glowing purple as chakra continued to fuel the healing and summoning jutsu. Jiraiya cringed inwardly at her harsh words, but he understood her tough display, she had to bluff Orochimaru into thinking she was much stronger than her rapidly dwindling chakra supplies. But instead of being intimidated, Orochimaru laughed callously.
"A pity. I never got to show him that I finally achieved immortality. I had always thought science and jutsu were the answers to my eternal quest. Nothing like a little divinity to christen it all," his raspy voice hummed in a low giggle at his own play on words. "I am the most perfect resurrection that the Akatsuki has ever produced, but my yearning for more knows no bounds. How poetic that it is Konoha where I will once again begin my journey for the everlasting. Perhaps both of your chakras will finally be enough to satisfy my insatiable hunger for true perfection."
"Be my guest," Jiraiya yelled, stepping in front of Tsunade with the hope that he could keep her out of the fight and focused on her goal for as long as possible. He lunged at Orochimaru, and the two former teammates tangled in lightning fast battle of blows and jutsu enhanced with a bloodthirsty viciousness that never tainted their childhood spars. Orochimaru's teeth flashed as his neck shot through the air like a striking snake. White hair encased Jiraiya as he blocked the poisonous fangs and groping appendages. Tsunade saw what Jiraiya was doing and ground her teeth in frustration. But she reluctantly followed his implicit plan and hung back, knowing that she was needed for another purpose and trusting him to fulfill his as well.
With each contact, no matter how fleeting, the Toad Sage felt his chakra being sucked away. As the murderous fight waged on, the red streaks on his face faded back to their normal vertical lines, and the power behind each punch weakened. Orochimaru cackled maniacally at the delicious power he reaped with each attack, savoring the feeling of absorbing the potent sage chakra with a feverish glee that outshone even the greedy passion of his previous life. This may not have been the exact immortality that he had obsessively dreamed of, but the instinct to take, take, take, was perfectly familiar. He craved power like an addict craved his drug, and with every hit of chakra from Jiraiya's body, Orochimaru was salivating with pleasure.
Unable to hold back any longer, Orochimaru ceased his game of toying with his prey. Unleashing his elongating limbs to encase Jiraiya like a constrictor strangling his prey.
Tsunade's furious screams, Jiraiya's gurgling breaths, and Orochimaru's ecstatic moans converged atop the Hokage Tower. Just as the undead Sannin loosed his grip on Jiraiya's limp body, his prehensile arms heavy with sated relief, his mouth froze in the middle of its glorious sigh. Horror registered in his dull eyes as he looked down and saw that his hands were not weighted with fulfillment, but turning to stone. The solidification was rapidly spreading up his body, taking over his function, his power, his ability to think.
"What is this?!" Orochimaru shrieked madly, trying in vain to raise his hands and form signs. Jiraiya rolled tiredly onto his back and managed a weak smirk.
"Natural Energy…a specialty of the Toads…and the one thing I could always do better than you."
Before his lips could form a reply, the solidification crept up Orochimaru's neck and stole the words from his mouth. The grotesque statue of their seething comrade turned greatest enemy never saw a full minute of existence. Tsunade's chakra enhanced fist collided with his frozen face, shattering it into a dust so fine it dispelled with the gust of her swing, casting the cursed man's remains to the four corners of the earth. Forever forgotten and unmarked by any being in heaven or hell.
"Are you still with me?" Tsunade panted, falling to her knees and struggling to pull Jiraiya upright. Her chakra was nearly gone now, her hair was streaked with white, her skin beginning to wrinkle, and her hands trembled weakly as she grabbed him. Judging by the grayish hue of his face, Jiraiya was close to his end as well. But true to his character, despite the looming shadow of death that licked at their heels, Jiraiya beamed up at her with his brightest smile. Uncaring of her fading youth, uncaring of their dire predicament, only seeing her as he always had. The fierce Princess who had captured his heart.
"'Til the end, Hime."
Sasuke watched, red and black eyes swirling as he gazed out over the village he had abandoned years ago in a fit of tainted rage.
He watched as Naruto flew clean out of the village like a bat out of hell, his Bijū Mode on full blast and roaring like a lunatic. Typical.
He watched Hinata head toward a valley he didn't remember being there before, a kunoichi with patchy white wings chasing her like a hawk. He smirked. Hinata will be fine.
He watched Kakashi-sensei pierce the Animal Summoner with a chidori clean through the chest. All this time and he still uses the same old move? Can't teach that Dog new tricks.
He watched with pious approval as a resurrected Orochimaru was obliterated by Jiraiya and Tsunade, and hoped the Snake bastard would have the decency to stay fucking dead this time.
He watched a Jonin using a wood style jutsu do battle with an Akatsuki whose body seemed to be more machine than man, jamming tree limbs between every joint and gear until the robot shattered into a pile of nuts and bolts.
He watched two Konoha shinobi nearly have their souls ripped out of their bodies before a third jumped in to save them, beheading the Akatsuki who held them captive.
He watched. And he saw that many of the Akatsuki were able to deflect attacks that they never should have seen coming, before they finally were defeated. There must be another ninja, another enemy that was spying upon the shinobi as they fought to defeat each cloaked figure. Someone who was communicating with and coordinating them. Sasuke kept watching, processing, searching. Then he saw something that made him tighten his hold on his sword.
The Animal Summoner was back. The Robo-Shinobi was back. The Soul Sucker was back. Now that he thought about it, even the Akatsuki that Naruto had fought seemed to have come back to life at least once. Something is reviving the Akatsuki, which means that any minute now Orochimaru could—
"You gonna stand there all day? I mean you're pretty to look at and all but if you don't do something soon I might have to stab you." Karin's sharp words were accompanied by a sharper poke from one of her spike tipped chains, making Sasuke roll his eyes and pin her with a black look. She didn't even bat an eye at his blessed glare, cooly adjusting her glasses as she also looked out over the chaos of The Leaf from the rooftop of the hospital where they had dropped off Itachi into Sakura's waiting arms.
"No place like home," she mumbled, scrutinizing the myriad of battles as her chains restlessly clinked together. Her casual demeanor didn't fool Sasuke in the least. Her red eyes were scanning for any threat that came near the building which housed the wounded and also those who were risking their lives to save them. His mouth twitched with approval as his gaze swept back to the battle, waiting for Karin's always competent assessment as she opened her senses and picked apart the enemy.
"They have the same chakra," Karin furrowed her brow in concentration. "All of the ones with orange hair, their chakra is identical. And it feels," her head jerked sideways slightly in distaste, "spoiled. Like something that once was good but has rotted, and now is an imperfect shell of what it used to be."
"Hn," Sasuke hummed thoughtfully, his mind spinning into high gear as he noted the identical soulless Rinnegan eyes that each possessed. The same eyes, the same polluted chakras, the synchronized tactical maneuvers. They are linked to a single person, and he must be able to see through them.
As his quick intellect connected the dots, Sasuke saw a hideous head with the same possessed Rinnegan eyes emerge from the earth and devour the destroyed body of one of the Akatsuki. It clamped down upon the broken shinobi as if to eat it, but when its mouth yawned open, the shinobi returned to the earth renewed and restored.
I see, so that's your trick.
Sasuke gripped his sword with decision, zeroing in on the sinking head and tensing his legs to leap. Electricity streamed down his body as he tore across the remaining rooftops, nothing more than a brief flash to the naked eye.
The Naraka Path's garishly colored head paused in its descent, seeming to register Sasuke's oncoming attack and alerting the Human Path that it had just healed to move and intercept the blazing Uchiha. The scream of a thousand birds pierced the air as Sasuke's chidori obliterated the Akatsuki before it could even raise a hand. Without slowing, his sword was out and stabbing through the center of the King of Hell's rolling Rinnegan eye, making the flaming entity shatter with a sonic wave of chakra that disintegrated the buildings around them.
Sasuke threateningly stared straight into the Naraka Path's cursed dōjutsu as it crumbled around his sword, making sure that whoever was watching, saw the Eye of Judgment that killed him.
Satisfied that the linchpin of the Orange-haired Freak Brigade was forever out of commission, Sasuke turned to address the next idiot that was trying to destroy Konoha.
In a paper tree hidden deep in the forest, where he was still reeling from the destruction of his Deva Path, Nagato gasped.
The Eternal Mangekyo?!
Minato flashed around Konoha, his face hidden behind his Frog ANBU mask, but his talents on full display as he attacked the sea of white zetsu that were pouring through the streets. Yet the entire time he was waiting, sensing, searching.
He wanted a piece of that masked man. He wanted his own revenge.
Seeing Kushina's chains in the process of strangling a rod-riddled Crab Summons, he headed her way, the instinct to stay close to her pulling him to her side. Together they battled the many beasts alongside the best shinobi Konoha had to offer, but still he stayed on high alert. It was only a matter of time.
His instincts proving more accurate than he wanted, Minato spun away from a spray of bubbles from the Crab when he noticed the atmosphere behind Kushina begin to morph and twist. A bodiless, gloved hand reached out of a tear in space to try and grasp one of her long strands of hair as she focused on her monstrous opponent.
It was like reliving nightmare, but this time he was determined to rewrite the ending. Seizing the opportunity of the brief instant of tangibility, Minato grabbed the gloved hand and yanked the masked man out of his teleportation portal. With a disturbingly strong sense of déjà vu, the Yondaime flipped over the enemy's stumbling body, drilling him with a Rasengan and burning a hole into the back of his black cloak. Just like he had over eighteen years ago.
But eighteen years ago he didn't have Kurama adding his own vindictive chakra to the swirling jutsu. Now, amidst the masked man's agonizing screams of pain, Minato unflinchingly drove the Rasengan clean through the Akatsuki's torso and the hiraishin seal he had stamped there on the night of his death.
The cloaked figure collapsed heavily upon the ground, and Minato straightened, flipping up his mask to see the fruition of his justice. Kushina whirled around, her strangling chains finally dispelling the Akatsuki summons she had been fighting, momentarily enveloping them all in a dense cloud.
As the fog lifted Minato and Kushina waited to see the demise of the enemy that had taken everything away from them. His orange mask was cracked and falling to pieces as he writhed on the dirt, clutching at his wound and choking on every breath. They tensed when he staggered to his feet, gasping out hoarse words, begging the heavens to have mercy on his pathetic soul.
"Why!?" He bellowed, barely gaining his footing but still hunched over and hugging his chest. The shredded edges of his red cloud covered cloak slipped off his stooped shoulders as they shook with his wracking sobs. "WHY, oh Kami WHY?"
Scraggly dark hair hid his weeping face, and Minato maintained his defensive stance, drawing a kunai as the man slowly lifted his chin. The Yondaime couldn't help but rock up onto his toes in anticipation as the identity of his own murderer was revealed.
The half-scarred face and gleaming Sharingan pierced him with a sickening sense of recognition. Heartsick dismay replaced Minato's righteous resignation as the Uchiha's features twisted in pain, and the alarmingly familiar voice screamed his name the same way the boy had every time he needed saving.
"Sensei!" he cried pathetically, ragged breaths tearing at his throat as he tried to glare, but could only grimace in betrayal as he raged like a child. "How could you do this?!"
Kushina's gasps reached Minato's ear the same instant the kunai slipped out of his fingers. "O-Obito…" he whispered in shocked horror.
"Look what you've done to me!" The man sobbed loudly, peeling his hands away from his chest with the sickening sucking sound of wet flesh. Minato instinctively began to recoil, his arm bracing Kushina as she whimpered into her fist.
"YOU HAVE RUINED…my favorite cloak."
With the suddenness of an extinguished flame, the grotesquely passionate performance of immense agony and juvenile wailing vanished, and a look of completely jaded annoyance fell like a curtain over the adult features of Obito's once youthful face. He brusquely shook out his filthy hands, flinging unbloodied hunks of his own pale muscle tissue at them. Kushina retched at the sight of the raw edges of jagged white flesh that hung over the gaping whole in the man's bare chest, so large Minato could clearly see the bricks of the opposite building though the wound.
This isn't happening. This can't be possible. He was dead, he…he...Minato's mind was reeling, moving faster than his stiff body as he awkwardly shuffled back a step. The Rinnegan user in the Akatsuki, he must have resurrected him. But something is wrong, his chakra feels…warped…
The man had angrily shrugged off the remnants of his torn cloak and tossed it away, and now rolled his eyes at the look on Minato's face. "Don't be so judgy, Sensei," his voice now deepened and dripping with mockery. "Not all of us were resurrected as prettily as you two. I may be missing a few pieces, but I have gained plenty more gifts to replace my lost body parts. Souls are rather burdensome, in the grand scheme of things."
Minato finally found his voice. "You…you were the one who destroyed everything." It was a statement, but the disbelief in his own words was evident. "You tried to kill us all, tried to demolish Konoha, tried to steal The Kyūbi—"
"No need to rub it in that I failed," he growled as he cracked his neck viciously, ignoring the appalled way Kushina was staring at his very seriously wounded and very not dead self. Stretching dramatically as though prepping for a spar, he finally leveled a menacing glare upon Minato. A wicked grin twisted his mouth as the childish sing-song tone returned to his voice. "I promise I'll do better this time, Sensei."
Regaining most of his composure as quickly as a battle hardened Hokage could, Minato swallowed thickly and bent to retrieve his dropped tri-pronged kunai, sinking into a defensive posture and once more allowing the flames of his Bijū Mode to flicker up his body. Kurama was roaring for this man's blood within his mind, but even as Minato heard Kushina take steadying breaths and prepare as well, he couldn't stop himself from asking the obvious.
"Obito…why?"
The man—monster—blinked at him, then started to chuckle softly. His shoulders shook as his sniggering built up from amused guffaws to screaming laughter. Abruptly his arm snapped out into a warping distortion of the atmosphere and ripped a massive gunbai out of the nothingness. Dramatically wiping away non-existent tears from his single eye, he nonchalantly twirled the sacred weapon as though it were nothing more than a cheap chopstick.
"My name is Tobi. Obito died back in that fucking cave. Left behind by his cute little teammates to rot in the darkness. And oh, did I rot thoroughly." A creepily pleased grin split his face once more as Tobi tilted his head sideways in morbid amusement. "As for why," he lifted his foot to take a lazy step forward, but in a flash of speed that the former sensei had never seen from the clumsy and kindhearted genin he remembered, Tobi was suddenly hissing his next words right into Minato's face.
"Why the hell not?"
Minato shook as the garish expression on Obit—Tobi's face swam before his eyes. His whole body shuddered in reaction to the cold, paranormal sensation of the Madman of the Akatsuki walking straight through him like a ghost.
The clanging of Kushina's massive chains behind him finally jarred the frozen Yondaime into whipping around. The chakra of an ancient Uzumaki sealing fūinjutsu crackled along her lengths of glowing links as they shot through the air in an attempt to encase Tobi in the same way she had subdued the Kyūbi for years.
The gunbai twisted through the air with a whirring hum as Tobi deflected every single chain with a vicious grace that Minato had only hoped his little Obito would one day achieve. Despite the impressive display of skill and strength, the sensei's heart was not filled with pride, but dread, as the sky above the Akatsuki began to swirl once more.
"It's about time you let me out! That dimension of yours is fucking creepy, hn!" Down through the tear in space a massive clay bird swooped into the sky over Konoha. The blond Akatsuki riding it snarled in annoyance at his partner before he sailed upwards into an ascending flight high over the village.
Minato was charging a Rasengan into his hand, liberally pouring demonic chakra into the jutsu as he prepared to toss his tri-pronged kunai as a decoy. Tobi's red Sharingan flared with exasperation as he slammed the wide bottom of the gunbai onto the ground. The brick and mortar buildings around them creaked from the chakra enhanced stomp.
"You still must think I'm that stupid ass little punk who drooled over his teammate and thought he could be Hokage someday," Tobi drawled, planting an elbow on the handle of his weapon and looking completely unperturbed by the lethal ball of chakra dancing in Minato's hand. "News flash Blondie: I don't fall for the same trick twice."
"Nor do I," Minato murmured, and flicked the kunai straight at Tobi's head.
Minato disappeared, flashing into existence behind Tobi's back at the point of his thrown hiraishin seal, and once more tried to punch his Rasengan into the man's spine with furious power. But his arm simply flowed through Tobi's slouched body with the ease of walking through a dense fog. The echoes of his derisive laughter faded as Tobi leapt upwards into the open dimensional portal where Deidara had just emerged.
"Perhaps whoever resurrected you forgot your common sense, Yondaime-sama." Tobi taunted loudly as he disappeared.
Landing neatly on his feet, Minato glared up into the sky where the man had vanished. With all the macabre humor and gloating laughter, Tobi had completely missed the moment when Minato had grabbed his thrown hiraishin kunai and tossed it up into the opening of the dimension just as Deidara flew away.
No Tobi, it is you who is missing pieces of themself. Many, many pieces, Minato thought sadly.
Kushina's hand landed urgently on Minato's arm, interrupting his tactical mindset and pulling his gaze toward the newest threat now hovering overhead.
"Forget about him Minato! That guy on the bird is Deidara, the shinobi with the clay bombs." Her gray eyes were wide with near panic as she pointed after his shrinking form in the gray sky. "He's heading for the hospital!"
Grabbing Kushina and opening his senses to search for the hiraishin marker he had planted on the Hospital back when he was the sitting Hokage, Minato prepared to flash them both to the important building. But in the blink of time that it took him to locate the seal, a massive purple Susano'o erupted from the top of the building, freezing the couple in their tracks.
With the ease of swatting a fly from the sky, Sasuke clapped his enormous chakra hands over the minuscule flying Akatsuki, then calmly wiped them clean.
"Daaammmmnnnn…" Kushina whispered in awe.
From the bunkers hidden in the steep hillside of the Hokage Mountain, the surviving civilians and shinobi looked out through the narrow slits cut into the rocky walls down at the battle zone that was once their bustling village. Genin and Chunin continued to evacuate the wounded, carrying a train of stretchers up to the safety of the earthen barricade from the threatened hospital below. Doton users were frantically repairing cracks and bolstering crumbling steps as fast they could, racing to outpace the damaging effects of every earth shaking jutsu from the village below.
Screams of terror had echoed through the caves when the hallowed grounds of the deserted Uchiha District had instantly been reduced to a negative space that now churned with muddy water and shattered remnants of the once proud arrondissement.
The never before seen purple Susano'o had them praying to Kami for mercy from the unknown entity that flew overhead.
Confusion fed into their panic as the masses watched black cloaked shinobi and white zetsu bring an unimaginable range of jutsu into the very heart of their village, destroying the engrained sense of safety that they had always taken for granted.
"It's hopeless, we're all going to die," a woman next to Iruka wailed loudly, making him grimace and glare down at her from where he had posted up next to a cut out window. He opened his mouth to tell her to shut up, his own nerves were fried with worry for his students, both past and present, who were putting their lives on the line down there. But he was cut off when the earth shook again with the appearance of a hoard of the Akatsuki's pierced animals summons.
The teacher fisted his hands as another wave of pessimistic cries rippled through the bunker. The faithlessness of the public was appalling to him, and spreading like a disease to those who were desperately trying to hold onto hope for a miracle despite the disasters they were seeing. He scanned over the group of children huddled behind his protective back, the youngest of his pupils were teetering close the edge of hysteria.
"Any second now the Kyūbi is going to appear and finish us all off," a nearby man moaned, making the youngsters shake in fear. Glaring death at the man's face, Iruka nearly stumbled as a trembling child aggressively hugged his leg, looking up at him with dread filling her eyes. "Iruka-sensei," she whispered in a choked voice, "are we going to die?"
Something had to be done. Someone had to stand up against this tide of despair and doubt that was poisoning the populace huddled within the claustrophobic space. Iruka forced himself to smile gently despite the anger boiling in his chest, patting the girl's head and garnering his wits.
"Don't lose faith," he said firmly to her, making sure to raise his voice so that it carried to the rest of the children and adults nearby. "Konoha is home to the greatest shinobi of our era. The Will of Fire burns bright even in the darkest hour."
His loud voice caught the attention of those who were smashed close to his class, who then elbowed their neighbors and pointed at Iruka as he climbed up the wall to be seen by everyone as he continued to lecture his captive audience. "The Will of Fire is a light sustained by our faith in one another, our hope for the future, not in the brick and mortar of our buildings. No matter how many enemies rise against us, Konohagakure will not give up!"
The twinkling of many tearful little eyes latched upon Iruka's smiling face as he beamed down at them, infusing his reassurance into every word as he projected his voice further into the bunker despite the roar of war far below. The chamber echoed with his bellowing voice, demanding the attention of every last person.
"Faith is what built this place. Hashirama-sama founded this village based on the faith that united we are stronger. Tobirama-sama fortified our bonds by pouring his faith in the founding of a community within Konoha that would enrich the future generations. The Sandaime carried The Leaf through the darkest wars of our history with the faith that peace could still exist. The Yondaime sacrificed his son, his wife, his very life, to protect the people of Konoha, with the faith that even the Nine Tailed Demon could not defeat the Will of Fire, that his hatred could not defeat Naruto. It is because of her faith in our worth and in our value as citizens of Konohagakure that Tsunade-sama returned to take up the title of Hokage, and even now fearlessly stands between us and the enemy!"
Throughout his escalating speech, Iruka paced along the walls of the bunker, drilling the people with his warm brown eyes as they one by one turned their gazes away from the mayhem and focused on the passionate teacher who proclaimed a hope that every citizen yearned to believe in. Iruka faced the huddled townspeople, raising his voice and propelling his message to all corners of the cave, until every eye was focused upon his scarred face, and every ear was hanging on his words.
"The faith of the Hokage is the rock of our conviction, the cornerstone of our refuge, the harbor of our haven. Because of their faith, we have something worth defending, we have a future full of hope. We cannot let it slip away! We owe it to the shinobi down there, fighting with every ounce of their strength, to never give up on them!"
Iruka's fierce gaze swept over the hushed crowd that gaped up at him, hardening with the intent of vehemently delivering the crux of his message so that not a single doubt was left in the mind of any man, woman, or child. "I believe in the shinobi of Konoha. I believe in the Will of Fire. And I believe in Namikaze Naruto. He has conquered the hatred of the Kyūbi, and will honor the faith we place in him until his dying breath."
A blast of chakra that even the civilians could recognize as otherworldly in power rushed through the village, rumbling the pebbles on the stone bunker floor. Easily visible through the small gaps cut out of the rock wall, a ferocious ephemeral lion with a singing Rasengan clutched in its jaws lit up the cloudy day like a summer sun.
"That's Namikaze Naruto's jutsu!" Someone shouted, and the crowd murmured in surprised joy, the spark of hope that Iruka had kindled growing into a steady flame of assurance at the visual validation that the jinchuriki was still sane, still standing, and still fighting for them.
One of the genin was pointing excitedly out of the bunker, clamoring for position amongst the older onlookers. "Hinata-sama is there too! I'd know her chakra anywhere, she's amazing!"
The entirety of the huddled civilians bore witness to the awesome combination jutsu that streaked across Konoha. The Will of Fire fanned from an optimistic flame into an inferno of conviction, as the masses cheered on with the a zealous faith that could burn away even the most unmoving hatred.
OMAKE: Back in the Root's Underground just as the battle is getting underway…
Kushina and Kakashi froze where they were pillaging the scrolls of Danzō's Underground, sensing a massive jutsu in the village overhead. Their eyes locked over the piles of dusty scrolls. It was time to join the fight.
As they emerged into the hazy light of the cloudy autumn day, they are greeted by insane creatures of nightmarish construction as they manifested across the already aching village. Kushina and Kakashi craned their necks upwards as they sized up their monolithic opponents. Kakashi was gauging the amount of chakra he had left in his eye, when the psychotic screech of a lustful battle berserker came screaming over the rooftops overhead.
"LEE! FINALLY A MONSTROSITY WORTHY OF OUR YOUTHFUL IRE! LET US ATTACK WITH ALL THE VIGOR OF OUR STRENGTH AND PASSION!"
"HAI GAI SENSEI!"
Kakashi watched in horror, but not shock—no there really was nothing at all surprising about this moment—as his involuntarily declared lifelong rival leapt into the air and began bellowing out the names of gates as he was engulfed in a red chakra that was as deadly as it looked. A split second later Lee lit up like the green beast he claimed to be and the two began to pummel the demonic multi-headed canine with bone crushing blows. Before Kakashi's sweat drop could even reach his chin, another high pitched voice wailed through the air.
"DAMN IT YOU STUPID STEROID FREAKS! WILL YOU TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY?! THAT DOG HAS FOUR FREAKIN' HEADS!"
The ear splitting pitch of TenTen's voice had Kushina squinting in pain and digging a finger in her ear. "Shit, that team's decibel range alone is enough to bring down a Summons," she grumbled before shaking her head in an attempt to release the rattling cries from inside her brain. "And I'm an Uzumaki, so that's saying a lot."
"Tell me about it," agreed a tired voice.
Kushina and Kakashi whirled around to see Neji standing behind them, filthy, but not winded in the least. His face wore a look of long-suffering as he watched the extremely impressive sight of his teammates brutally obliterating the mythological nightmare clean out of existence with a mind boggling combo attack of rare ninja weapons and bare fists. His cool expression illustrating how clearly unsurprised he was at their ferocity. Kushina blinked at him owlishly, suddenly aware of her naked face as he tore is Byakugan away from the melee to scrutinize her.
"Do I…know you?" Neji asked suspiciously, his speculative frown deepening as she grinned sheepishly and giggled nervously while scratching the back of her neck in a way that was extremely reminiscent of his future brother-in-law.
"Uhhh…" before Kushina could come up with a believable explanation Kakashi suddenly grabbed Neji by the shoulders.
"Oh my Kami!" He gasped dramatically. "I think that evil Panda Summons just mistook TenTen as her baby and carried her away!"
"WHAT?!" Neji's entire body glowed blue as he burst out of their company and chased after the massive, rabid Panda covered in chakra rods.
The remaining two ANBU sighed in relief, but the moment of repose was short lived as more summons continued to materialize across Konoha.
"Well, I was getting tired of hiding anyways," Kushina grinned. Before he could ask what she meant, Kakashi was flinching away as her bijū chakra flared to life. He stared in wonder as strands of her red hair swirled over her face, hardening into a claw-like face mask reminiscent of Isobu's spikes. Her hand snapped outward and instantly a staff of coral blossomed from her palm, and with a jaunty twirl she turned to Kakashi.
"Dibs on the Crab thingy," she laughed as she leapt away.
Trying to wrap his mind around the sudden transformation was fruitless, because before Kakashi could blink Minato was blurring past him in full Nine Tailed Yellow Glory and shouting, "I call the Ox!" His Rasengan was already swirling in his hand as he too, bounced away.
"Show offs," Kakashi sulked. His status as one of the top scariest shinobi of Konoha was seriously at risk with those wild jinchuriki on the loose. Not to mention the new guy—oh great. Speak of the devil…
"I'll take that unholy spawn of a snake and a lizard," Utakata smirked as he floated by in a chakra enhanced bubble, an oxymoronic combination of deadly chakra and inane iridescent sparkles.
Now Kakashi was just pissed. Muttering obscenities about pretty boys in pretty bubbles he threw caution to the wind and activated his Sharingan, scanning the various megalithic battles spread throughout the village.
"Dammit, them too," he whined as he saw the two Ino-Shika-Cho teams each challenging a Centipede and a Rhino. His bottom lip jutted out in a childish pout until his gifted dōjutsu suddenly noticed something crouching between the rubble of what used to be the Police Headquarters. A diabolical smile stretched across his masked face as he noticed the very pierced Summoner herself. The Animal Path that was the source of all the chaos.
"Gotcha." The Genius Copy Ninja's still got it. You don't always have to be flashy to get the job done, he congratulated himself smugly. But as he jumped down, preparing to land nimbly upon the quaking earth that skittered under the thumping stomps of the possessed titans, a shadow suddenly overtook his weightless body. His eyes widened and his graceful free-fall turned into a scrambling flail of chakra as he blasted himself out of the path of Gamakichi before the toad touched down with all the gentleness of a piano chucked out a ten story building.
Tumbling across the debris and barely avoiding as many pokey things as he could, Kakashi finally stuck his ruined landing and glared up at the ginormous amphibian who ruined his epic entry
"Seriously 'Kichi?" Kakashi bellowed up in frustration. "You have the worst timing!"
"Can't talk, Kakashi," the toad answered without even looking down, his bulbous eyes trained on the drill-beaked flying horror that was screeching overhead and dropping eggs like bombs. Locking in on his target his tongue shot out and slammed the feathered...thing, clean out of the sky.
Kakashi plugged his ears to drown out the unholy sounds of the flying Summons before it dispelled and Gamakichi bounced away with a joyous war cry that echoed off the Hokage Monument, in search of another fight.
"Fuck it," Kakashi sighed tiredly, patting his pocket to make sure his Icha Icha had survived the plunge. Satisfied that his precious treasure was still securely in his possession, he straightened his shoulders and once again set his red gaze on his opponent.
"My turn."
