The Wanderers

Chapter 81 – Our Ideological Differences

A/N: I'd like to thank everyone that has read my story and left a review for me. I never thought I'd get anywhere close to 700 reviews and I've really learnt a lot from them.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, the enemy's motivations would make sense.

***Previously-On***

The battle for the chakra-nullifying field continues. Darui led a contingent of Kumogakure hunters in an attempt to destroy their designated node. However, they faced a very unusual Black Robe leader by the name of Shen. He seemed to have multiple personalities and also seemed to be impervious to harm, while being able to absorb and send back their chakra-based attacks. Darui's own Laser Circus took down a large number of his own shinobi, before the Kumogakure leader died in a vain attempt to take out the Quiraji leader. With the slaughter of their comrades, the Kumogakure shinobi retreated back to their home village, having failed their mission.

The final node that came under attack was found by the surviving Sound Four and their contingent of Otogakure shinobi. Despite having zero teamwork outside of battle, the Sound Four worked in tandem to take the battle directly to the Quiraji, taking out a large number of soldiers with the only real casualties coming from the White Assassin that led the enemy soldiers. Eventually it became clear they had to remove her from the equation and they made a trap with Tayuya as the bait to crush the Quiraji leader between two Rashoumon gates. The Otogakure kunoichi had both of her ears cut off by the White Assassin in the process, but Jirobou was able to destroy the node, thus bringing down the chakra-nullifying field.

With the field down, the strike team moved in on the ruins of Konoha cautiously, but with haste. As they approached a strange projectile was fired into the sky before splitting off into thousands of different directions, however they couldn't do anything except dismiss it as a signal flare for the final battle to happen. Neji knew his people at the Fire Temple would likely come under attack, but he pressed on with the survivors of Konoha and representatives of every surviving shinobi village, the Mizukage and Kazekage at his side.

As they came into the battlefield, the doors of the single building opened and the Four emerged to greet them.

***End Summary***

The woods were silent. There were no sounds of birds or animals, no sound of running water from the nearby river that led into the Land of Rivers to the west. The air seemed to press in from every side.

That was the first time they came.

In setting up their defences at the Fire Temple, the Otokage had ensured that there was no blind side that the enemy could exploit and hundreds of traps that would make any enemy force hesitate before attacking their makeshift home en masse.

The Quiraji came anyway. Ranks upon ranks of Quiraji soldiers flooded the open fields that surrounded the Fire Temple, pressing the defenders with siege weapons and specialist warriors. They had the numbers and the strength to overrun the defensive positions, yet the shinobi defenders held.

However, many hours after the first attacks had come there was a change in the battle.

The Quiraji force had retreated for the time, while the defenders caught their breath, removed their dead and resupplied themselves to fight again once they returned. The defence was a compilation of shinobi from the four villages that had come together in the Land of Fire, from the primary Otogakure force that defended their civilians, to the ANBU that had accompanied the Kazekage and had been tasked to remain behind by Kankuro. It also included a fair number of Kirigakure shinobi that were deemed unnecessary by the Swordsmen when they'd left to destroy the Quiraji node, and also a small contingent of Kumogakure shinobi that were too injured to accompany Darui on his mission.

There was also a single Konoha survivor in the defence and she was ready to tear her hair out with stress.

Ino breathed out heavily and called for the next patient as the stream of injured shinobi continued to pour in. The medical shinobi of Otogakure were more combat-orientated rather than actual medicine shinobi, so she'd been given the monumental task of delegating each patient according to their needs and the doctors that could look after them. Many of the shinobi that came in to see her suffered from loss of chakra or exhaustion, to which she used a marker to put a circle on them and send them to the younger shinobi that could administer food and water and proper rest before they went back onto the defensive line.

But then there were the shinobi that had come into contact with the Quiraji specialists and had either suffered grievous injuries or severe poisoning from the enemy's weapons. Those she had the duty of marking a cross on them and giving them to the shinobi that would keep them comfortable.

It was a horrible job, but it stopped them from being overwhelmed, and allowed her to concentrate her efforts on the people she could actually save. She wasn't sure when the last time she'd slept was, or when she would get the chance, but by the sounds of battle outside the designated medical building, she didn't believe that they would get any rest anytime soon.

While many of the leaders of Otogakure had left the Fire Temple to either strike at the machine node or scout through the area to ensure that they didn't get blind-sided by Quiraji forces, leading the defence of the area fell to Dosu. He hadn't been sure whether the Otokage's decision to leave him in charge of the defence had been the right decision, but the moment the Quiraji had attacked the Fire Temple he had rallied the multi-village force and used their weaponry to repel the attackers both ruthlessly and efficiently. His confidence in his leadership abilities grew, even though he was still a relatively soft-spoken shinobi that only ever needed to say things once for them to get done.

That was until they saw the objects flying through the sky, late in the day. There were hundreds of them that screamed through the sky at a break-neck pace, flying far over the Fire Temple area with a burning trail behind them. As there had been a lull in the fighting, the shinobi took a moment to look at the objects with morbid fascination, though they all knew that it couldn't mean anything good.

However, the Quiraji soldiers that had temporarily pulled back from the fighting reacted to the projectiles very differently. They cheered and roared at the sight of them before retreating back into the forests around the Fire Temple, seemingly satisfied that they had fought enough for one day.

At the head of the exhausted line of shinobi defenders, Dosu watched the retreat with his good eye suspiciously, wary of the false hope that it may instil. He asked one of the Kumogakure hunter shinobi to get a reading on the situation, to which the kunoichi replied that the Quiraji appeared to have retreated from all points and were not showing any sign of coming back for the next little while.

It all seemed too convenient to him. The enemy had the numbers and the strength to overwhelm them, and should have already done so. It wasn't just the strength of their defence that had held them back, it felt like there was some underlying plot that had yet to reveal itself.

He didn't want to, but Dosu knew he'd probably need to have a conversation with the head of their scientific division. She had a penchant for pulling miracle technologies out of her rear-end and he could really use something like that at this stage.

He just hated her attitude. It was tiring even at the best of times.

Back in the medical building, Ino got the word that the fighting had stopped temporarily, and the flow of injured had stopped. She breathed out a sigh of relief, thankful that she'd only needed to mark a few crosses from the last push and could take a breather before going to treat some of the injured that still stood a chance of recovery.

An orderly came up to her and offered her a water bottle and a headache pill, without her having to ask. Ino proclaimed to him that she loved him for all eternity and sent him off to look after the other doctors while she took a seat on a nearby bench. She took a long draught from her water bottle and glanced up at the ceiling with her eyes wide, trying her best to stay away.

Maybe coming to the Fire Temple hadn't been the best idea in the world. She'd never been more tired in her life and she felt like she was sending more shinobi to their deaths than saving them.

"Mummy?"

Ino's head perked up at the young female voice in her head, forcing herself more awake and sitting up properly, "What is it, honey? Are you okay?" She didn't have the telepathic ability that her adoptive daughter had, but she knew that Airi could hear her thoughts as clearly as if she did.

"Mummy there are voices in the walls." Her daughter's voice didn't sound distressed or concerned, rather it sounded like curiosity than anything else.

"That's okay honey; you're probably just hearing the other Otogakure civilians in the other underground areas. Shouldn't you be asleep by now?"

She could almost hear her daughter shaking her head stubbornly; though not for the reason she would have initially thought. "It's not like that, Mummy; I know where the other people are. These voices sound…empty. And they keep moving around in the walls."

Ino was ready to dismiss her daughter's senses as just her imagination, but something about the tone of voice that she was using told the exhausted doctor that something wasn't right. The timing of her sensing an odd change in the underground areas and the withdrawal of the Quiraji forces felt too suspicious to her.

One of the Otogakure shinobi defenders ran past her, looking like he was looking for someone in particular. Despite her exhaustion, Ino wrenched herself up and followed after him, asking him whether they'd had any word from the underground civilians. He could only say that they hadn't heard anything for hours now, and how that was odd, but he was too busy to help her further.

Ino knew she was probably grasping at straws, but she couldn't help feel like something had gone terribly wrong and her daughter had picked up on it just as it was happening.

Then the thought occurred to her.

The Otogakure civilian population lived beneath the Fire Temple in an underground area that had been carved out specifically for them. All of the shinobi defenders that had been designated to guard them had been brought up to the top to defend against the Quiraji attackers, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

If she was the enemy general, she would use the lull in combat to infiltrate into the shinobi civilian ranks and slaughter their main reason for defending the area. It would destroy their moral and they would collapse in on themselves, thus not presenting much of a threat to the Quiraji invaders.

It was a theory that sounded far too likely for her liking. She'd left her daughter in the care of a group of Otogakure mothers in the underground complex. She was right in the line of fire.

Gritting her teeth, Ino made a decision and sped out of the medical building as fast as she could. If they'd been infiltrated, she needed to keep her daughter safe. It sounded selfish, but at that moment she didn't care about anything else.

Ino wasn't an idiot though; she knew that she was both exhausted and out-of-practice in combat situations. She knew she would need back-up, otherwise even if she found Quiraji infiltrators she wouldn't be able to take them all down. With the level of authority she had been given by Neji and the other Kages, as the highest level doctor in the Fire Temple, it wasn't difficult for her to convince a small group of random shinobi to accompany her down into the underground complex, under the orders that they were to help her discover whether the civilians were still safe or not.

With her squad at her heel, Ino ran through the underground tunnels as fast as her legs could carry her. She hadn't heard from her daughter for a while, but she knew that she hadn't been attacked by the Quiraji infiltrators just yet. It was just a feeling she had; a mother's intuition.

Turning a stone corner, she skidded to a halt and pulled back, putting up her arm to stop her squad of shinobi from going out into the corridor. She moved her head slightly out to get a better glimpse before pulling back and reaching into the pack at her belt.

The shinobi with her knew better than to ask why she had stopped, though her signal for silence told them that they should follow her lead. She pulled out a pair of green vials from her pack and showed them to her shinobi before making an obvious motion of holding her breath. The other shinobi nodded and did the same while Ino moved to the corner's edge and hurled the vials down the corridor.

They waited until they heard the glass of the vials shatter and the choking sounds of their enemies, but only when Ino gave them the signal did they move into the corridor. Lying on the floor was a group of groaning Quiraji soldiers, struggling and grasping at their throats as the green cloud that had enveloped them quickly dissipated. Without waiting for an order, the mixture of shinobi shot forward and killed the gasping Quiraji soldiers without mercy, still holding their breaths before moving further down the corridor. Only when Ino gave the all-clear signal did they take another breath, while Ino got her bearings.

"Airi, honey, if you can hear me, I need to know where the bad people are." She didn't have the abilities that her daughter did, but she was hoping that she was listening in and would be able to hear her. The civilians underground were spread out and she wasn't too sure which section she was in. It was clear that the Quiraji had infiltrated into the Fire Temple and that their intention was the slaughter of their civilians, but if her squad could collapse whatever tunnel they'd come in by then they could stop the slaughter before it got too much for them to handle.

She only received silence.

After a few moments Ino swore loudly and turned to the Otogakure shinobi in her accompanying squad, "Where is the closest exit for the civilians? The one for if the Temple gets overrun."

The Otogakure kunoichi's eyes narrowed at the implication of an outsider correctly guessing their evacuation protocol, but she swallowed her distrust and indicated to the right-most corridor. "There is a single path that leads far away towards the edge of the forest, hidden by a rock formation on the outside. That is the only way into the underground network; we collapsed every other tunnel."

"Then that's where they're coming from," concluded one of the Kirigakure medical shinobi that had come with Ino.

"Not necessarily," warned Ino, "but it's as good a place as any to start. Keep tight together and expect the enemy at every turn."

The shinobi voiced their compliance and followed the blonde doctor as they moved quickly through the corridors of the underground complex. The battle above raged between the invading Quiraji soldiers and the shinobi defenders, but they couldn't think about their comrades fighting and dying above them. They had been given orders to protect the Otogakure civilians at all costs by their leaders and saw them as representing their own people. If they lost their families, then winning the war would have little meaning.

oOoOoOo

When they'd arrived at the civilian living area that led directly into the escape tunnel, the shinobi had steeled themselves for a gruesome scene.

However, when they ran into the open area and saw that all the civilians appeared to be untouched and confused at their sudden appearance, they each breathed out a sigh of relief. Ino asked a young man in dirty clothing whether there had been any Quiraji soldiers in the area, to which he could only shrug and turn back to his friends.

"They mustn't have come through this way," said the Sunagakure ANBU in the squad. "We should check the other areas quickly."

"That doesn't make sense," thought Ino while looking around the open area. It was clear that the clustered civilians had been living there for some time, but there were too many things about it that didn't make sense. "They had a clear way into the civilian areas from that tunnel and that group of soldiers didn't look like they'd fought anyone on their way in. They hadn't been expecting us."

With her mind unsure about the situation, Ino placed her hands into her family's handseal and concentrated her senses on expanding out over the entire area. Her Yamanaka techniques had been woefully under-practised with her work as a medical shinobi and her more aggressive ninjutsu, but Ino still knew how to examine people with the abilities her father had taught her before his death.

"Is something wrong?" asked the Kirigakure shinobi at her side, recognising that the Yamanaka kunoichi wasn't satisfied with what they'd found.

The other shinobi hesitated at his question and stepped back from the civilians, who seemed to have all stopped what they were doing and noticed the shinobi's presence fully. It took her a moment, but the Otogakure kunoichi in the squad noticed something particularly odd and found her hand drifting towards the kunai in her pouch.

"Where are the children?"

Ino's eyes snapped open and she cancelled her sensory technique when she realised the information she had gathered couldn't be disputed. Her green eyes scanned the room in horror as she saw many of the civilians approaching them with more caution than would have been warranted. She shifted her handseal and shouted a warning to the shinobi that had accompanied her.

"They're not ours…"

At that, the civilians within the underground complex hurled themselves at the shinobi squad, pulling knifes and blades out of concealed locations, looking to overwhelm them before they could defend themselves.

If Ino's senses hadn't picked up on the distinct lack of chakra within the area, they would have succeeded. She jumped back from a sweeping sword strike from the young man that she'd talked to earlier, still running through handseals and accumulating chakra. Her companion shinobi quickly moved to defend themselves, recognising the civilians for what they really were and retaliating quickly.

The Otogakure kunoichi in their ranks was the only one of them not to take a backwards step and instead hurled herself into the enemies with a roar of grief-stricken fury. In her hands were a pair of curved kunai laced with a poison that had been designed by their scientists to attack Quiraji systems directly with the lightest touch. They were both corrosive and only required her to touch the Quiraji soldiers' skin with them to enact the effect.

She slammed them into the enemy's chests as far as she could, feeling the sprays of blood and gore on her face before turning her furious visage onto her next victim. She'd hadn't said it, but the rest of the squad knew why she had gone on such a rampage.

Her family had been in this area.

Ino slammed her hands on the ground and activated her technique: "Suiton: Mizubousou!" (Water Element: Rampaging Water). Upon activation, a pair of water tendrils emerged from the ground and swept into the ranks of disguised civilians, knocking many of them off their feet and giving the shinobi ground a moment of breathing space. She already had her hands ready to complete another water technique, but the Sunagakure ANBU in her squad moved in front of her with his sword in hand and shook his head.

"Conserve your chakra, Yamanaka. We can handle this rabble."

The Kirigakure shinobi in their group scoffed at the notion and stepped to his side, "I wouldn't go so far as to call them rabble. More like cattle to the slaughter."

"Arrogance is a fine trait, when applied properly," lectured the Sunagakure ANBU, though there was a hint of amusement beneath his mask.

"Mummy?"

Ino shot up to her feet at the sound in her head and tried to concentrate on its source. Her sensory abilities weren't very accurate underneath so much rock and stone, but that didn't mean she couldn't communicate back. She tried her best to ask where she was in her thoughts.

"Mummy, the bad people are coming! I can hear them in the walls. They move in the shadows! It's so scary!"

The Yamanaka kunoichi bit at her lip in frustration; she still didn't have a location on her daughter or what kind of force was moving towards her. "The other civilians might still be alive," she said to the two shinobi in front of her. "This is just a distraction force."

"I think we're sufficiently distracted," said the Sunagakure ANBU, leaping forward to slash at one of the disguised civilians before jumping back from the retaliation strike and steadying himself. He indicated to their Otogakure companion, who was fighting in the middle of the enemy force like it was her last stand, stabbing and kicking with such force that even overwhelming numbers didn't faze her.

The Kirigakure shinobi cracked his neck loudly as he activated a water technique and blasted away a group of five disguised civilians with a ball of water. "You should go, Yamanaka. We can handle this lot."

If she'd had the time, Ino would have argued that her place was at their side, but with time against them and the Quiraji force moving towards the other civilians she didn't have that luxury. She took a single moment to look at the battle before turning on her heel and speeding down the opening at their backs as fast as she could. It was a different entrance than the one they'd come through, so she hoped it led to one of the other civilian areas that must've been connected to the one she had just left.

While their blonde companion fled to help the other civilians, the oddly matched pair of shinobi glanced at each other for a fleeting moment before turning their attentions to the mob in front of them. The numbers were absurdly against their favour, but that had never troubled them in the past.

"Care to place a wager?" asked the Kirigakure shinobi while running through handseals quickly.

"We're encouraged not to make bets in Sunagakure," said the ANBU in a stern tone, flicking his sword at a pair of charging civilians and sending them flying away with a slash of wind chakra that cut them to shreds. "But I think both of us would lose to her," he added, indicating to their female companion in the thick of the enemy.

"You aren't wrong there," observed the Kirigakure medical shinobi with a frown. "Should we go to her side?"

"Something tells me she can't tell friend from foe anymore."

His companion from the Land of Water again couldn't find fault in what he was saying. He turned his attention back to the disguised civilians that were brandishing long swords and clapped his hands together powerfully. "Let's get this done then."

oOoOoOo

"Airi, you will have to give me directions," thought Ino, hoping that her daughter could hear her. She'd run through two separate civilian living areas and found them completely desolate of life. There hadn't been any signs of battle, or anything else for that matter. If the Quiraji were doing what she thought they were, they had likely come through the same area just before.

She was so distracted by the thought of her daughter being caught up in an attack that she almost stumbled into a Quiraji ambush that had been set up in one of the corridors between living areas. As she crossed one of the stone thresholds she triggered a trip wire that made a loud buzzing sound throughout the corridor. She barely had time to run through handseals before a large group of armed Quiraji soldiers flooded into the corridor from nearby and roared out a challenge at her before charging.

Before she'd taken in Airi, Ino would have claimed that she was a better combatant than she was a medical shinobi. She hadn't been a particularly ruthless fighter, but she knew how to get the job done.

That was just a memory now that her daughter was in danger.

Ino didn't waste a second in cancelling her ninjutsu technique and reached into her medical pack at her belt. She drew a single red vial and hurled it at her charging foes like she would a shuriken. From the speed of their charge and the small size of the vial, the front pair of Quiraji soldiers weren't able to stop it crashing against the front of their armour and unleashing the chemicals within. It was a specialty medicine that had been designed to dissolve metallic materials within a patient's body within seconds from a single drop, though it required a medical shinobi's control to maintain as, like any good medicine, it was derived from a natural poison.

Ino didn't exercise any control over the virulent medicine. It ate through the metal of their armour in an instant before burning its way through the metallic elements of their bodies before leaping to the nearest metal object it could devour: the other Quiraji soldiers. The struggle only lasted moments before all of the ambushing soldiers were screaming as they were devoured by the chemical. It was an ugly death, but Ino didn't have the time to consider mercy.

Not that she would have.

Placing a hand on the ground a safe distance away, she sent a thin cover of water over the flailing Quiraji soldiers on the ground, just enough for her to gather chakra on her feet and run along the side of the wall with a decent run-up to leap over the bodies. She could have commanded the chemical not to attack the metal on her instead, but that required a level of concentration and chakra that she didn't have to spare right now.

Turning a quick corner, she could see an opening. It was faint, but she could hear the sound of people talking. And children screaming.

Ino didn't hesitate. She didn't even slow down, speeding into the civilian living area and taking in everything she could in an instant. The stink of death was already in the air and she could see a large number of civilians had already been killed and stripped of their clothing. To her disgust, she could groups of Quiraji soldiers piling up the bodies into groups and covering them in some type of material would that likely masked the smell.

They were committed to their actions, and they would have to pay for their brutality.

"Mummy! You came!" Airi's voice sounded both surprised and hopeful; it didn't take Ino long to sense her presence at the back of the remaining Otogakure survivors with the other children they were trying to save. The Quiraji didn't look like they were in a huge rush to slaughter them all, though there were five White Assassins that were summarily executing them one at a time without prejudice.

Having made a loud entrance from tripping over the sentry wire, the Quiraji had turned to see her arrival, though most of them dismissed her presence and went back to their work. A group of twenty armoured Quiraji soldiers led by one of the White Assassins approached her slowly, clearing not seeing her as significant enough of a threat.

In her current condition, they weren't wrong either. She had more than enough chakra, but the presence of the Quiraji specialists spelt her death, as she had no means of defeating White Assassins on her own. Even her medicines that she could use as projectiles would be easily avoided by their teleportation abilities.

Feeling desperate, Ino quickly popped a pair of soldier pills into her mouth and crunched down on them with the edge of her thumb before swiping it on the middle of her palm and running through handseals and backing away from the approaching Quiraji force.

If she couldn't handle them, she knew some people that might.

Pumping every tiny bit of chakra from her body into the technique, Ino dropped to the ground and slammed both her hands onto the stone. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Normally she was able to regulate the amount of chakra that her summoning technique required, but as the cloud of smoke appeared in front of her, Ino almost fell unconscious instantly at the strength that was sapped from her with the activation of the technique. She'd been hoping to summon one of the more powerful creatures under her contract, but the creature that appeared was nothing like she had been expecting.

A bipedal tiger in shimmering silver armour stepped out of the smoke in a long stride, intercepting the Quiraji soldiers who were just as surprised as her at his appearance. Faster than the Quiraji soldiers could react to, it brought up a single bladed gauntlet and swatted three of them into the nearby wall like they were flies. The White Assassin disappeared into thin air and reappeared in the tiger's blind spot, its blades posed to drive them into the gap between its armour and the fur of the back of its neck.

But the tiger wasn't about to fall for such a trick. If he turned around to face his attacker he would have taken the blow across his neck. Instead, the tiger pulled up its arm and slammed its elbow backwards, shattering the face of the White Assassin with the elbow-blade of its plated armour. It didn't even bother to check whether or not the Quiraji specialist was dead or not, turning its attention to its summoner.

"Good evening, mistress," he said with a smirk on his scarred tiger face.

Ino blinked quickly as the smoke cleared and it became clear that he'd killed the Quiraji attackers with little effort. "I…wasn't expecting it to be you."

The tiger with eight stripes on his shoulder pads barked out a laugh and turned around to look at the other Quiraji soldiers that had turned their attention towards his presence. "Special request sent down the ranks. I was the first one available." He slashed his bladed gauntlets together to cause a bright spark in front of him. "I will cut a line through them so you can reach your daughter."

Ino struggled to her feet and looked at the White Assassins that were executing the civilians faster now that her tiger summon had appeared. "We have to stop them; those are people's families over there."

The tiger summon called Hachi considered the problem for a moment before nodding his acknowledgement and stepped forward. "Won't be a problem. Get ready to move." He gave her a moment to catch her breath and draw a weapon while the Quiraji soldiers charged towards them with their weapons raised.

Once he confirmed that she was ready to move, Hachi put his hands out to his side and placed his front foot in front of him. The moment the first elements of the Quiraji soldiers came into range, he turned and spun like a top. With his bladed gauntlets at the edges, the Quiraji soldiers were torn apart by his whirlwind attack. This didn't last long though, as the Quiraji soldiers wised up and stepped out of his range, waiting for him to slow down for their chance to counter-attack.

But Hachi wasn't going to let that happen. His centuries of experience had taught him many different ways of attacking and that included many old shinobi techniques. While he spun like a top, he opened two of the chakra gates within his body and felt the overwhelming flood of chakra move through his body. In a flash he leapt up into the air and hurled himself at the White Assassins at the other side of the open room. He moved so quickly that there was an after-image of him still spinning on the ground, keeping the Quiraji fighters distracted long enough for him to get to them and commence his attack.

Two of them were caught at the ends of his blades as he crashed down into their ranks, before pulling out his gauntlets and leaping at the remaining White Assassins. They tried to teleport away, but Hachi had seen this movement before and knew that it was just an accelerated movement through the air faster than the eye can catch. Using his improved speed, Hachi cut a path through the air and slashed through their bodies like they were paper. The battle only lasted a moment before the bipedal tiger stood up from the corpses of his foes and stared at the remaining Quiraji soldiers with a bloody grin on his face.

Ino didn't even have to recover her strength and participate in the battle. The Quiraji soldiers recognised that they were way out of their league and tried to run down the path nearby her that led into the area they thought was still controlled by their forces, but Hachi cut them down without prejudice and within moments they were alone with the Otogakure civilians.

Many of them had been killed, but that didn't stop the surviving civilians from breathing out a collective sigh of relief and rushing towards the Yamanaka kunoichi and her summoned creature with words of thanks and praise.

Ino tried to be humble and push through the crowd to get where her daughter was, but the mob wasn't being very conducive to her needs. The large tiger that had done all the damage was also surrounded, but he wasn't so physically constrained. With the battle temporarily over, he gave his summoner an awkward wave before disappearing back to his own realm in a cloud of grey smoke. He never did like being the centre of attention.

"Please let me through!" yelled Ino after a few moments. "I appreciate that you are grateful, but I'm going to start stabbing people if you don't let me SEE MY DAUGHTER!"

At that, the Otogakure civilians stepped back awkwardly, while Ino glanced around quickly for the little being that had been the centre of her life for the past few years. It wasn't long before she was tackled at her knees by a tiny little girl that looked up at her with pure innocence in her eyes. Ino held her breath for a moment as she realised her daughter was safe in her hands before dropping down to her knees and hugging her adoptive daughter as tightly as she could.

"Why are you crying, Mummy?" asked Airi through her mother's blonde hair.

Ino laughed and picked up her daughter from the ground, holding her in her arms like she weighed nothing. "I…I don't even know. I'm just glad you are okay." Her mind seemed to keep trying to consider the battle above the underground complex, but she wasn't able to concentrate properly. Her relief was overpowering everything else.

"I'm not going to leave you again."

oOoOoOo

Dosu stepped out of the science building feeling like he'd just had a prostate examination and hadn't even been given the grace of dinner beforehand.

Karin had been unresponsive and dismissive of his requests initially, reminding him constantly that he had no authority to dictate where she and her team applied their specialities. He'd had every intention of beating her into submission, but once he mentioned the objects that had flown over the Fire Temple towards the outlying regions outside of the Land of Fire, Karin had gotten suspiciously quiet. She was silent for a long time before she turned to her scientists and began barking orders at them with such a fury he thought that someone must have lit a fire under her behind. He asked once again for any assistance she could give the defenders, but her response had been the same as before, with a single caveat that had been haunting to hear.

"That's what they used the energy for. They weren't able to stop them. We can't save them anymore." "We're on our own."

Having not been able to secure any additional help, the Otogakure leader stepped back into the defensive line and asked for a status report from the nearest shinobi. A Kirigakure shinobi that had yet to leave the battlements told him that the Quiraji had been absent from the battlefield for over an hour now, but they had gotten reports of some fighting in the underground tunnels. Without waiting for orders, they'd sent several groups of high-level shinobi down into the underground complex to investigate.

Dosu absorbed the knowledge and nodded his agreement that they had taken the best course of action without his explicit instructions being necessary. He thanked the foreign shinobi for his report and knelt down at the edge of one of the battlements and closed his eyes. It was difficult to concentrate with all the extra noise around him; the mixtures of shinobi sharpening kunai and shurikens, the impatient tapping of defenders waiting for an enemy to reappear, the moans of pain from the injured patients waiting for treatment in the medical building.

But Dosu was a master of patience and he was able to finally zone everything out close to him and fuel his chakra into his ears to extend his hearing range far beyond into the forests surrounding the Fire Temple. There were no animal sounds that he could hear beyond the worms in the earth and the insects in the trees, and the nearby river sounded like it had lost a lot of mass over the past few days as it was not flowing with the same ferocity it once had.

But there was only one group of sounds he was listening for, and Dosu had finally found them. Even at such a distance between locations, he was able to clearly hear the discussions being held in the Quiraji encampments within the forest. The Quiraji soldiers didn't appear to speak much, though brainwashed civilians rarely had much to say except to reiterate Quiraji rhetoric and spout their hatred for shinobi, but it was in the specialist Quiraji troops that he was able to gather information from.

After a few minutes he cancelled the technique and opened his eyes. Without realising it, beads of sweat had broken out between his bandages and the weight of what he had heard felt like a noose around his neck.

"What did you hear?" asked a nearby Otogakure scout, recognising that his leader had been eavesdropping on the enemy camp.

Dosu wasn't a man easily scared or bothered. He'd witnessed the horrors of Orochimaru, he'd suffered under the curse of Kabuto, he'd even had the majority of his face burnt by an abusive father that he'd later been forced to kill.

But that was nothing compared to what he'd just heard. He couldn't just take it at face value, but it made a sick kind of sense. From a military perspective it was genius, but Dosu was thoroughly disgusted by the very idea of it, assuming he wasn't being fed false information. It could only be one thing.

An ultimate solution. One that guaranteed the extinction of their race.

"Sir?" asked the Otogakure shinobi again, unsettled by the fact that the usually taciturn shinobi was slow to respond to his request.

Dosu tried to re-centre himself and concentrate on the moment, taking slow breaths and even using his sound amplifier to play soothing music into his ears.

None of it worked. He knew he'd just have to power through it and deal with things as they came.
Clenching his fists together within his gauntlets, Dosu gave the order for the defenders to once again gather at the battlements and ready themselves for battle.

The Quiraji were coming back. They had a job to finish.

They each encountered them separately before, both in combat and as the objects of fear and hatred.

But now that the Quiraji Four were assembled in front of them, it became clear to the invading shinobi that the enemy was out for the final fight. None of them seemed to notice the shinobi power arrayed against them, rather they were more interested in walking out of the small building and taking up positions between the building and the assembled shinobi.

Shouri had discarded her hunter's garb that she'd worn during her campaign to cleanse the last elements of shinobi from the Land of Fire and now wore similar attire to her male predecessor. She came decked out in flashy white armour that looked like it had never seen the chaos of battle, polished to an almost blinding shine. Her armour was adorned with hunter's trophies and golden trinkets, but it was the spiked golden crown atop her head that stood out the most. She looked completely out of sorts with her get-up compared to the other Quiraji leaders, but the adorned bow at her back and the piercing look in her golden eyes showed that she was just as deadly as ever, even without any of her beasts at her side.

Sensou had discarded the business suit that he'd worn in so many of his encounters and now wore the same bloody red armour that his predecessor had worn, refitted to his more masculine build. It still bore many of the dents and scratches that Rock Lee had caused, though Sensou can fixed the spikes and it looked every bit as terrifying as it had when the female Sensou had worn it. His bright red eyes spoke of his amusement surrounding the current situation, while his hands hovered just above a pair of sword hilts sitting at his sides. As usual his hands were bare and every shinobi there knew what his real strengths lay.

Kyoukou appeared to be exhausted by the whole ordeal, shuffling his feet through his heavy black robes. He looked more and more skeletal with every appearance, yet his elderly face looked the liveliest out of the Four. As with every encounter the shinobi had had with him, the other Quiraji leaders maintained their distance and even the rocks beneath his feet seemed to want nothing to do with his presence. Unlike his younger brethren, he wore no weapons on his person, but his enemies knew that he needed no such weaponry. His entire existence was a threat.

Shikyo remained a mystery as she took her place on the right-most part of the soon-to-be battlefield. Her presence was a cause of both concern and confusion, as many of the shinobi arrayed against them had had mixed experiences with her. However, the survivors of both Konoha and Amegakure knew exactly how dangerous she was and didn't take her seemingly innocuous appearance for granted. She wore a light pale robe and had the appearance of a young woman, but they knew what she really was. A reaper.

The shinobi strike force spread out at the appearance of the Four, not sure whether the Quiraji leaders were going to straight out attack them out of spite, or wait for them to dedicate to their own destruction. They had discussed and shared the various abilities of the Quiraji leaders that they suspected they would face, anticipating that the Quiraji would bring the best of their military force to bear.

However, they had not discussed any specific battle plans or strategies. Some of the greatest shinobi strength had been gathered in a single place to face their foes head on. Many of them had fought together before and knew each others' strengths and weaknesses, but many of them also bore grudges against the individual Quiraji leaders that wouldn't be satisfied unless they were to take them into their own hands and make them pay.

"So they're all here, huh?" observed Sasuke with his brother and partner at his side.

"Not all of them," corrected Itachi quietly. His glowing eyes had dimmed considerably since arriving at the devastated corpse of Konoha, but he still could sense the surroundings as well as his sighted comrades. "He still hasn't shown himself yet."

Naruto's hand drifted to the sword at his belt while eyeing their opponents carefully, "He'll come out eventually. He's just waiting for the right moment."

"We should take advantage of his absence while we can," said Gaara, moving his hand towards his head to remove his Kage hat in preparation for battle. "They're underestimating us."

"On the contrary, young man," came a deep voice from behind the Quiraji Four. A large silhouette walked slowly out of the small building, coming into view with the departing sunlight. Accompanying him was a low scratching sound that was revealed to be a stone chair that he dragged behind him in a single hand. "We do not entertain the possibility of your victory."

The silhouette revealed a large man taller than any of the shinobi assembled against him by a full head, wearing only a simple pair of leather breeches and a rope around his waist. His chest was bare and covered in tattoos that clearly defined the muscles and scars that he bore proudly. His head was fully shaved, giving him a monk-like appearance, matching his outfit. But despite his casual manner, his eyes were completely alien. They were completely void of life and colour as a pure white. But unlike the pair of Hyuuga shinobi that stood beside their allies against him, his eyes spoke only of the malice and hatred that he bore for their kind, even though he maintained a professional demeanour.

He was Benkei. The enemy that had set everything in motion. He had led the Quiraji in the invasion of the shinobi country, brought about the destruction of nearly every shinobi village and had brainwashed a large portion of the civilian population against their guardians.

He was why they had risked everything to come into Quiraji territory and attack them on their own terrain on the ashes of Konoha. The shinobi were convinced that if they removed the head from the beast, the rest would fall into place.

Benkei didn't seem to be concerned about their presence at all. As he dragged his stone chair in front of him and sat down on it, he seemed content to simply wait.

"He certainly has the look of a butcher," observed Yugito dryly, her occupant echoing her sentiment within her.

"Looks can be deceiving," said Kakashi a short distance away. He blinked several times to make sure that they'd been placed in properly before breathing out slowly and opening the eyes that weren't his for the first time. It had been a gift similar to that of his old friend, though the chakra output and visual prowess was on a completely different scale. He could see everything as an entity of chakra, from the shinobi around him to the stones on the ground and the trees that surrounded the battlefield. Everything except for the Quiraji leaders that stood in front of him. He instead saw them as an absence of chakra; Benkei in particular looked more like an endless void than anything else.

The other shinobi in the strike force already knew his intention to wield the Rinnegan, though only he and Konan knew that it would likely be his death. He hadn't told his old students, but he was prepared to use the technique that had killed their friend and brought his companion back to life.

"You seem awfully confident for someone on the back foot," said Neji with a confident step. "Even now your armies collapse against our defences and you won't survive the day."

Benkei didn't need to give the Otokage the look of disdain that he was warranted; rather he motioned to his subordinates gathered in front of him. "Be wary, young shinobi. While we have already beaten you, don't think that we have left anything to chance. Your blood will run through these stones soon enough."

"Enough of this talking," said Rock Lee, flexing his hands impatiently. "Let's just get this over with."

Naruto stepped forward to his side despite knowing that they shouldn't be hasty, "I've got your back."

Before anyone could say otherwise, the pair of ex-Konoha shinobi shot forward, intending to strike at the Quiraji leader while he looked unprepared to defend himself.

The two of them moved to run between the gaps between the Four Quiraji leaders, but both Sensou and Kyoukou put their hands up to ward them away.

"Getting ahead of yourselves, aren't we now?" said Kyoukou with no hint of amusement in his voice.

Sensou's other hand drifted to one of the swords at his belt at his side, "Don't think you can just skip to Father. If you turn your backs on us, we will cut you down without even breaking a sweat."

Naruto considered his threat for a moment before nodding to Lee and moving back to his wife's side. The appearance of Benkei had thrown them off, but they knew that they'd have to deal with the Four before they could even touch the Quiraji lord. While three of the Four had been rather vocal and obvious about their intentions to fight against them, Shikyo hadn't moved or made a sound since emerging from the building.

Even as Kakashi and Konan moved towards her with the intention of fighting her, she didn't even acknowledge their existence. Having heard the details about her abilities, he would have expected her to at least notice what was happening around her.

But then again, he also remembered that she'd saved his life years ago, she'd revived Yagura and the Three-Tails and he'd heard Lee talking about how she'd saved him as well. The Kyuubi had told him that she was the real danger in this battle and the mother of all shinobi, but Naruto couldn't wrap his head around the current situation.

Was she an ally or was she an enemy? He had no indication either way.

"Tell them to back off!"

The Kyuubi's voice in his head was frighteningly loud, but Naruto was already on the move to intercept the pair of Jounin from attacking Shikyo. "Wait! Kakashi-sensei! Hold on!"

The Konoha Jounin hesitated as he heard his old student's voice behind him, though it didn't last long as he saw Konan collected a large storm of paper around her with the intention of striking her hated enemy with as much force as she could. In that moment, he knew that Konan wouldn't survive the encounter.

He didn't have the range to pull her back with his arms, but the desire to pull her back resonated in the pair of eyes he'd just put in. Without really activating the technique, his Rinnegan used the Banshou Ten'in technique and used attractive gravity force to pull Konan back into him. He had the presence of mind to catch her with his hands while the papers flying around her followed behind, though Konan was already shooting him a black look.

"Why are we holding back?" he asked Naruto quickly, though he didn't really want to fight Shikyo at all. The last encounter hadn't ended in their favour and he couldn't stand to see her die in the same way as she did before.

Naruto asked the same question to his occupant and the Kyuubi responded by bringing itself to the front of his consciousness and taking over his mouth.

"That woman is both friend and foe to us. She is currently struggling between her inherent nature to protect the shinobi and the control that Benkei has placed on her. If you attack her, one side will win and we will all perish."

Naruto shook his head to cancel out the Kyuubi's control, unaware that the Tailed Beast was able to do that. "He's right. We can't afford to be hasty right now. Let's take out the other guys and then worry about her."

Kakashi smiled proudly at his old student, reminding himself that this had once been the young man that had dived headfirst into the One Tails without caring about himself or having a plan. Konan didn't struggle in his arms, recognising that while her hatred for the Quiraji leader was at its peak, she could recognise that he was speaking sense.

The other shinobi repositioned themselves near the other three Quiraji leaders, but before they could formulate a plan of attack, they could all hear a slow clapping coming from Benkei sitting behind them. He didn't have the expression of amusement, but it was clear by his mocking clapping that the shinobi's flailing about was amusing to him. "That's not a bad story, boy. Clearly you've brought some of the Sage's pets to the battle. We crushed them then and we'll crush them now."

Within both Yugito and Killer Bee, their Tailed Beasts rumbled fiercely, begging their containers to let them at their hated foe, while Shukaku within Gaara simply laughed it off. Even though he didn't have a visual on the Kyuubi within himself, Naruto could almost feel the Nine-Tails shrinking backwards within his subconscious. Despite what the powerful beast said, it was terrified of the Quiraji leader.

That was a very concerning thought.

"You seem to know much about my dear Shikyo," continued Benkei with a casual wave towards the pale robed woman. "But do you know who she really is? The answer might surprise you."

Naruto glanced at the other shinobi in the group for a moment, before catching the slightest nod from the Otokage. He stepped forward and opened up his arms as if to invite a response, "We know you're using the body of the mother of shinobi to do your bidding. For someone who hates shinobi so much, you have an odd choice for a subordinate."

"Ah, that's where you are wrong, boy," said Benkei dramatically. "On the contrary, she belonged to us long before she ever belonged to the shinobi."

"What the hell are you talking about?" demanded Kiba impatiently, not understanding anything about what was going on. Naruto had kept Kaguya's identity to himself until just then, but every shinobi there knew who she was. "She's been dead for centuries."

"She never died, she just disappeared," came Gaara's voice out of nowhere. He placed a hand to his forehead and listened to his occupant for a moment before turning to the other shinobi. "Her seal broke only a few years after she was sealed, but the Sage of the Six Paths never found her again."

"So the Sage's pets remember that time, do they?" Benkei threaded his fingers together and leaned forward on his stone chair, "We returned to reclaim what was ours before the empire completely fell. Her punishment wasn't going to be alleviated by the embrace of death."

"Okay, now I'm just as confused as Kiba," said Rock Lee while scratching his head. "Why aren't we attacking them? They're right there."

"Don't be hasty," warned the Mizukage. "The Three-Tails tells me that there is something going on here we don't understand yet. Information is a shinobi's lifeblood."

"It's not as if he's going to spill his master plan," said Nagisa on top of her white wolf companion.

"On the contrary, I have no master plan whatsoever," said Benkei in response. "You've already lost; you just don't know it yet. Shikyo's existence is merely another nail in your coffin."

"What aren't you telling us?" demanded Kakashi at the side of the shinobi group. He'd been concentrating his Rinnegan gaze on the Quiraji leader for some time, but still couldn't get a read on him.

"Oh gods, he's going to start monologuing," complained Naruto with his face in his hand. "Why does every bad guy have to monologue…"

His wife placed an understanding hand on his shoulder, "It isn't for us, dear. Just let him talk."

"You shinobi believe that Kaguya's life started when she consumed the devilish fruit that spawned chakra and the birth of her two shinobi children that ended up being betrayed by her," started Benkei, well aware that he was only extending the time between his speech and the commencement of fighting. "However, you always seem to forget the fact that she had children before she became corrupted."

"You've got to be joking…" sighed Naruto, but Benkei ignored him and continued.

"We were the ones with power, the ones with strength that was uncorrupted by some mystical fruit that our mother decided she needed to consume. After her younger sons sealed her and turned their attention to us, we fought back and built our empire in spite of their strength. While we hated Kaguya, she was a power in our world and now she works for us, killing those that she had both loved and hated at the same time."

He pushed his hand towards the silent Shikyo and made a claw with his fingers as if crushing the air around her, "She may struggle for now, but it doesn't matter. Your deaths have been assured and it will be at the hands of your betters."

There was a long silence that came across the battlefield after Benkei finished talking. He'd reclined back on his stone chair and seemed more interested in letting his children fight his battles for him rather than participating himself and they were more than happy to do so.

His shinobi opponents were surprised at the fact that the disembodied form of Kaguya, the mother of shinobi, was not only standing in front of them, but also had a connection to the Quiraji that had so thoroughly slaughtered them before.

It didn't change their mission though. They still had to take him and his people down, though that now included the powerful mother of shinobi that was apparently immune to death.

With the knowledge of Shikyo's presence and the danger she posed, the gathered shinobi looked at the other three Quiraji leaders intently. They appeared ready to fight, as they'd spread themselves out evenly across the front of the battlefield, seemingly unconcerned with leaving their leader open to attack.

The shinobi strike force didn't say a word to each other as they moved to fight the respective foes. Several of them moved towards the elderly Quiraji leader, two of whom were determined to enact vengeance for actions he had done. Both Sasuke and Itachi knew that he'd taken their mother from them, while Fiore was determined to stay by her partner's side and fight against the Black Robe leader as she had before. Her wood was itching for a rematch and she knew that her abilities would be pivotal to defeating Kyoukou. However, they weren't the only ones that would fight against him, as the Kazekage stepped in line and unplugged one of the gourds at his side. He had no particular gripe against the Black Robe leader, but he sensed that his abilities would be best suited against their foe.

With Shikyo out of the equation for the moment, Kakashi and Konan moved their attention to the beast-master foe standing against them. They were joined by Kiba and Nagisa and their respective canine companions, recognising that to defeat a hunter they would require true beasts to appear. They'd intended to fight against her from the start, having been chased and hunted by the Quiraji leader many times in the past.

The married couple in the shinobi strike force spoke several hushed words to each other before the blonde shinobi kissed his wife on the forehead and moved towards his old Jounin teacher to stand against Shouri. He'd been hunted by her during his foray into the Land of Fire and had been at the receiving end of her bow several times, but he had a good reason for fighting at Kakashi's side rather than his wife's.

He was well aware what her enemy's abilities were. There was not a scenario where he could bring himself to do that. She felt the same way and knew that she should stand against a different foe.

Hinata watched her husband for only a moment before turning and standing at her older cousin's side.

The Otokage was always going to fight against Sensou. Not only did he demand revenge for the destruction of his village at the Red Warrior leader's hands, but he knew that Sensou was the most dangerous out of the three of them if things went his way. Neji wasn't about to take risks with the battle that was going to determine their fate. With his cousin at his side, he felt confident they would find a way through his defences.

But they weren't the only shinobi in the group that were determined to face the Quiraji leader. Rock Lee had killed the previous incarnation of Sensou and wasn't about to let up the opportunity to collect the set slip from his fingers.

The Mizukage also stood against Sensou, as the blood of her murdered shinobi at the hands of their comrades under his control called for vengeance. Not only that, but she could hear the voice of the Three-Tails in her head, calling for her to attack its ancient foe. She wasn't sure of the details, but the turtle seemed confident in her ability to fight against the Quiraji leader.

Not ones to be left out of the battle, the Kumogakure Tailed Beast containers joined their fellow container as the behest of their occupants. In the knowledge of his abilities, they both knew that if they changed to their Tailed Beast forms they'd probably be immune to his control, but failing that they were some of the fastest shinobi in the group and wouldn't get caught by him.

Benkei made a discouraging snort at their taking up positions against three of his children. He would have preferred that Shikyo wasn't fighting against his control at that moment, but he knew the capabilities of his subordinates. They would not fail him at this stage.

But even if they did, it didn't matter in the end. He had witnessed the strength of the shinobi.

He was yet to see a true threat.

Author's Note:

I know the final battle didn't quite start yet, but I wanted to show what was happening at the Fire Temple and give some explanation about who they're fighting before they actually started. The next few chapters will be the individual battles with each of the Quiraji leaders, as you'll find out.

I know the stuff with Kaguya feels a bit weird, and that's mostly intentional. We've got a fair bit of fight to go, I'm not going to reveal everything at once.

Now that we're getting closer to the end of the story, I was thinking of doing a chapter after the final Bonus Chapter at the end as a compilation of writing tips and tricks and advice that I've learned over writing this story. Would that be something you'd be interested in reading? Please let me know.

Please review and tell me what you think. I try to take each review into account, and believe me I read them all. Tell me what can be improved, what you liked, what you didn't, everything. I'm a writer so I'm always open to criticism.