The Wanderers
Chapter 83 – Trial of Famine
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, there would be a technique like the consumption from Baccano!
***Previously-On***
The final battle has begun.
Having split up from the rest of the strike force, Kiba, Akamaru, Nagisa, Kakashi, Konan and Naruto faced off against the Quiraji leader, Shouri. At first, Shouri took a long shot that glanced off of Konan despite her paper-form, but the shinobi quickly recovered and moved against her. That was when Shouri summoned up an army of beasts at her command and took off into the air. Konan shot off after her in the air, while the other shinobi fought the beasts on the ground. While being swarmed by animals on the ground, Nagisa was killed by a number of arrows in her chest before being overwhelmed by the beasts. After a daring plan by Naruto, Shouri is knocked off her eagle and sent into the ground, where a combination of all four of them eventually took her down. She died without Benkei even noticing she had been in trouble. Despite their victory, Konan collapsed due to the wound in her side and eventually died because of the poison. She made Kakashi promise not to bring her back before dying in his arms.
***End Summary***
Seeing his younger siblings engage their shinobi foes in combat was enough to make Kyoukou sigh in exhaustion and regard the four shinobi that had come to face him. He was disappointed that only four of them had moved against him, since they must have known that he was the most dangerous out of the three of them that were fighting right now.
He pulled up a heavy robed arm and stared at his skeletal hand with morbid fascination. The process seemed to be getting quicker and quicker, though since he'd arrived on the continent his primary diet had changed significantly.
Tastier to be sure. But less nutritious.
"You've fought him before?" asked Gaara as he pulled his Kage hat from his head and placed it on his back. "I only know select things about Black Robes."
"I'm going to be the one to kill him," said Sasuke shortly. Short currents of lightning sparked around him as his anger continued to rise. "Nobody else is to deny me that."
"Are you going to tell him to calm down?" asked Fiore to his older brother, though she agreed with her partner that the Quiraji leader needed to be put down.
To her surprise, Itachi shook his head, causing his fiery eyes to leave a small trail of smoke in their wake. "Kyoukou killed our mother. He dies."
Fiore gave him a questioning look before glancing back at her partner. She'd seen Sasuke in many different moods from melancholic to amused, or at least as much as he could. This was the first time she'd really seen him murderous.
In a strange way, he'd never looked more appealing to her.
Fiore kept that comment to herself and pulled her wood up to a long staff and stood by his side to stare at their enemy. She'd fought him before, in the depths of the Land of Fire when they'd rescued Sasuke's older brother from enemy hands and destroyed one of the biggest facilities. Kyoukou had fled the battle upon seeing a demonstration of her abilities, but Fiore wasn't about to assume that he was wary of her. She knew that he'd not even demonstrated a tenth of his abilities, unlike the other two Quiraji leaders were pretty well documented.
But the real danger from Kyoukou was his ability to drain the life out of people in an instant. It had been that that had killed Mikoto in front of her son and was likely the reason that he always kept his distance. Fiore suspected he was weak in close quarters, but she wasn't about to test that out of the gate. They had to approach him cautiously, so as to not get blasted away by some unknown technique.
Though she doubted Sasuke would be able to hold back. He wasn't brash like Naruto had shown himself to be, but he also had a history of making rash decisions in the heat of the moment.
She wasn't about to babysit Sasuke though. He could take care of himself. Fiore was there to ensure that their mission was a success and the Quiraji were defeated.
And for her own sake as well. She was just as wrapped up in the shinobi affairs as they were now.
Seeing that they weren't going to attack him brazenly, Kyoukou took a moment to breathe in a long breath of stale air through his withered lungs before pulling both his hands forward. Seeing that the Kazekage had lined up against him, he had something special in mind.
His enemies' eyes widened as a pair of Sunagakure shinobi appeared in his hands, their heads nestled in his skeletal hands. Gaara recognised his subordinates instantly, seeing that they were in a precarious position. His hands hovered at two of his gourds, ready to fire off a cluster of sand projectiles in an instant.
Kyoukou's dark eyes locked with the One-Tails container's and Gaara immediately knew that there wasn't anything he could do to save his people. "Now you get to experience hell."
With that, he began to drain the life from the pair of Sunagakure shinobi through his hands. Their skin withered and began to rot, while the energy passed to Kyoukou. As liveliness departed from them, life began to bloom within the Quiraji leader. His skeletal limbs filled out and began to colour once again, while his facial features took the form of a young man barely out of his twenties.
Within seconds, Kyoukou had completed the process and dropped the lifeless corpses of the Sunagakure shinobi to the ground.
Gaara wasn't the type of person to get angry at enemies, even when they did things that rightly deserved it. He'd seen terrible things happen to both himself and the people he cared about, but those paled in comparison to what he felt right now.
The Kazekage forgot his position. He forgot the work he'd done in suppressing his murderous origins.
An explosion of sand emerged from the large gourd that sat beneath his Kage hat and shot through the air towards the man that had so violated his people. It was formed with some of the hardest minerals he'd collected from Sunagakure and had enough force to crush through a stone wall without ever slowing down.
The now-youthful Kyoukou stepped forward and slashed his hands in the air at the sand missiles that were speeding towards him. He then continued to walk forward without a care in the world.
The sand fell apart onto the ground long before it came into his chakra-nullifying field, as if it had been smashed apart by blasts of pure air. He looked over to the enemies standing against him and made similar motions with his hands towards them.
Both Sasuke and Fiore leapt to the sides instinctively, not wanted to take the same attack that their ally's sand had, while Itachi dispersed himself into a murder of crows and took to the air.
Gaara took to the air as well on a platform of sand, but instead of moving to avoid the wind strikes that came his way, he pushed straight towards the Quiraji leader. The spiritual energy wind blades struck him in the chest and the face and bit through the layers of sand that covered his body. They took large chunks out of it, but Gaara ignored it and continued to push through.
Seeing that the Kazekage wasn't going to be stopped by just that, Kyoukou pulled back his hands towards his chest. At his command, a column of fire exploded out from him, the sheer force of it hurled Gaara back a significant distance, stopping his momentum.
"You have to calm yourself, Gaara!" came Itachi's voice from his collection of crows in the air. "He's just baiting you!"
The Kazekage recovered quickly on his sand platform and hovered in the air while staring at the column of fire. His dark eyes shifted to his occupant's for a moment before changing back as Shukaku refused his request. Without his knowing, a whirlwind of sand had erupted around him and was already threatening to cover the battlefield.
REMEMBER THE LESSONS YOU LEARNT.
The One-Tails' voice was deafening within his head, but it was the only way that Gaara was able to hear him. In that moment, Gaara remembered the words that his old friend had told him after defeating him at the end of the Chuunin Exams in Suna. Initially he had thought that the blonde shinobi was just making it up as he went along, but over the years Gaara had recognised the wisdom in what he had said to him.
"I understand the pain you're going through. The hatred. The anger. But I have people that I care about and that is I keep fighting. If I fight for the people I care about, all that pain and anger washes away. If you find people like that, it makes you powerful."
He'd said those words just before beating Gaara nearly to death and saving both his friends and the Kazekage's entire village from his wrath.
Remembering Naruto's words was enough to bring Gaara out of his emotional state, though his occupant kept up the sand whirlwind on general principle. He recognised how dangerous his initial approach had been and how lucky he was to still be alive, considering the amount of damage glancing hits from his wind strikes had done to him.
They still had to close the distance between their group and the Quiraji leader. If the opening salvo had proven anything, it was that Kyoukou ruled the long distance battle by far, as the only person in their group that had long distance attacks that could really harm him was Sasuke, who by nature was a more close-combat orientated fighter.
Gaara didn't like the situation, he didn't like that their enemy had so brazenly killed his people with such disregard for their status and he didn't like that he was so readily agreeing with his occupant on so many different subjects. Shukaku rarely made sense, but he couldn't find fault in the tactics he was feeding him.
It would require some experimentation, but Gaara suspected he would be able to make his attacks work against the Quiraji leader, given enough time to work it out. He still had a whirlwind of sand at his disposal and that would be the beginning of their attack.
He gave no warning to his three allies as he thinned out the sand in the whirlwind and sent it directly at the Quiraji leader. It became a dust storm rapidly, covering their section of the battlefield while he floated down towards the ground to consult with his allies.
"Is this really necessary?" asked Fiore as she covered her face with the top of her shirt.
"No, this is good," observed Itachi, his face unwavering in the dust storm. "He won't be able to take away all the chakra from this technique and we'll be able to get in close to him." He turned to his younger brother, "Sasuke, could you take him out if you got close enough?"
"With pleasure," said the young Uchiha with a quick nod, drawing his sword and running a hand along its edge. "He's weak in close-combat, so it shouldn't be a problem."
"Don't think you're going in without me," said his partner quickly. Her wood floated around her waiting for her command, while she stepped back to his side. "I know how he fights better than anyone."
Itachi expected his younger brother to give her a piece of his mind at that, but to his hidden surprise Sasuke simply acknowledged her statement with a pat on the shoulder and they both turned to where they assumed Kyoukou was standing. It was a testament to the state of their relationship, as Itachi understood it. Sasuke saw her not as his woman, but as his equal.
It was touching to see. He only hoped they both survived the battle so they could enjoy the calmer stages of their lives. In a way, he saw the revitalisation of the Uchiha clan in their connection.
Though he still wasn't sold on the idea that the clan should be resurrected. A history of blood, violence and hatred wasn't something he wanted to see repeated. He hoped that Sasuke had the chance to prove him wrong, but Itachi was a pragmatist and also tried to consider the alternatives.
But first, they had to defeat their foe. That required them to close the distance.
"I will cover you from the skies," said Gaara as he lifted off on his sand platform and entered the higher areas of the dust storm. He had no need to shield himself from the sand, as he had several layers of it covering him already and could sense everything happening within the sand due to Shukaku's influence. He controlled the battlefield and would be able to direct it without ever opening his eyes.
Kyoukou looked around in the middle of the dust storm flying around him with a mixture of fascination and disappointment. It was an impress display of ingenuity to manufacture a cloud of sand that was both irritating to stand in and difficult to move around in, yet it failed in doing anything to him beside obscuring his vision slightly. The chakra that bonded the sand to its swirling movements failed as soon as it came into his chakra-nullifying field, yet the momentum of the wind pushing it kept it going until it passed through the field and reformed back into the storm.
Kyoukou's field did little to stop the storm from flowing around him, and that was an irritation all on its own. Heavy robes with bare skin were not a good combination when facing a storm of sand.
And he wasn't the most patient Quiraji leader at the moment. Once his hunger was up, he was the worst out of all of them when it came to getting the job done carefully.
He wasn't able to see where his target were, but that mattered little to him. He knelt down to the stony ground and placed his hands on the ground. He was a Black Robe after all and this was the exact range that he specialised at. If they were going to try to close the distance to him, they were going to suffer for that arrogance.
Gaara concentrated on controlling the dust storm with his sand abilities, flying high in the air so that he wasn't in danger of being struck by their enemy while he kept it going. He planned to open up as much of the storm as necessary for his three allies to get close to their enemy, while continuing to obscure Kyoukou's view. It required a huge mental effort when all he wanted to do was attack the Quiraji leader with all his strength.
Sasuke, Fiore and Itachi knew that through the dust storm they couldn't approach Kyoukou's static position together, as that would leave them vulnerable to large attacks when they were clumped together.
Itachi's eyes were able to locate Kyoukou's hidden position and he communicated this to his two allies quickly before moving to the left side of the dust storm in his crow form and prepared his own plan of attack. His chakra attacks were mostly meaningless against their enemy, but he had enough mundane weapons and speed that he felt that if he could get close he could do some damage.
Like Gaara, Fiore also took to the air on her wooden platform, though she hated the fact that it felt like the swirling sand storm was getting in her clothes in ways that would be an absolute nightmare to deal with. Out of all of them, she knew she probably had the best shot at taking out Kyoukou and was already figuring out how she would attack him. Her wood offered her a wealth of possibilities.
Sasuke didn't have a plan of attack. He was going to get close to their enemy and bury his sword in his chest.
They started their attack with bursts of energy towards where they knew their enemy was. The moment they started running was when the spiritual energy attacks started to come flying at them.
While flying through the torrent of sand, Fiore's instincts were screaming at her that she was in danger, even though she didn't have the sensory abilities that her partner and his older brother did. She only had experience on her side.
That was the one thing that saved her as a massive chunk of earth came screaming across the air and nearly removed her from on top of her wooden platform. Initially she pulled back under the fear that he had already located her flying position, but through the dust storm she could see similar projectiles flying through the air around her. It was only after seeing half a dozen of those that she realised that he didn't truly know where she was at all.
He was simply hurling chunks of spiritual-energy-based rocks up in the air, hoping that one of them would hit either her or the Kazekage controlling the storm.
That meant so long as she kept her eyes focused and made sweeping motions on top of her wooden platform, she doubted that such attacks would be able to hit her. But she wasn't going to take any risks and kept an arm up to try and keep the sand out of her eyes while flying through the air. She doubted that Kyoukou would move too much in this dust storm, but judging by the sheer number of projectiles he was hurling into the air she figuring that was taking up all his concentration.
Though the air did feel like it was getting hotter. That made the sand she was flying through even more uncomfortable, but the reason for that became clear as her view started to become obscured by a massive red image that came screaming towards her.
Fiore's eyes widened at what she saw and immediately angled her wood platform to take her as high as possible, but the fire storm that had been aimed at her was far too large for her to escape. The Cascading Flow warrior saw this and at that last moment covered herself in a cocoon of wood as she plummeted to the ground through the fire storm. The wood caught fire instantly and began to burn through to her inside, but she struck the ground long before it could burn through.
She cried out in pain and clutched at one of her shoulders as she felt it pull out of its socket, but it was the pain in her legs that was really concerning. She could feel her wood burning around her and her heart broke at the fact that she'd been forced to sacrifice it to save her own life.
Outside of her wooden cocoon, Fiore had happened to land near where Itachi was defending himself from the hails of fire balls that Kyoukou had been sending out through the dust storm. He'd been making slow progress towards the Quiraji leader, but every time he dodged or defended himself he lost chakra, so he knew they were still at a disadvantage. He also knew that the only reason they'd been able to make progress at all was because of the Kazekage's cover, so he was grateful that Gaara was still able to maintain it.
When the wooden cocoon crashed down nearby, he initially thought it was one of the chunks of earth that had been flying through the air, but once he extended his senses around it he saw that Sasuke's partner was inside the flaming wreckage and was hurt. He instantly ran through a short number of handseals before drenching the fallen cocoon in water, dousing the fire quickly. Itachi watched as Fiore pulled herself out of the wreckage and thanked him for his assistance before screaming out as she shoved her shoulder back into its socket.
"Do you need healing?" asked Itachi, as he had copied a number of medical techniques when he'd had his Sharingan.
However, she simply shook her head and took a long breath before tapping her legs to make sure she could still walk. Without missing a step, she recovered her wood from its ashen form back to her original wood platform. She knew what her mistake had been and would not repeat it again as she took to the air once again.
Itachi watched her leave through his fake eyes and didn't hide how impressed he was. She was a tough woman, far more than many of the men that he'd worked with over the years. Sasuke definitely had his hands full with her.
But he couldn't afford to distract himself with thoughts of his brother's partner and her tenacity. Itachi had only started to grasp a pattern in Kyoukou's attacks and had calculated an attack vector before the Quiraji leader had hurled a massive fire storm into the air then changed his attacks completely.
If his assumption about the Black Robe's personality was correct, Itachi already knew what attacks would be coming next. Sensing the danger, Itachi dispersed into his cloud of crows once again just as the hair on the back of his neck began to rise. He took to the air just in time to avoid the tendrils of lightning that shot along the ground. They seemed to be completely random, but also contained within the dust storm as Itachi's crows ignored the dust in their eyes and spread out to try and get a glimpse of the Quiraji leader. He spent more and more in his crow form these days, those it was only because it offered him sight similar to that which he had lost when he'd been blinded by his own techniques. It was different from the complex chakra sight he usually had, but it was also more reliable as he could actually get a view of the Quiraji leader, rather than just seeing the absence of him.
While both his partner and his brother had taken to the sky, Sasuke had chosen a simpler approach to charge towards the Quiraji leader along the ground. He'd been able to defend himself from the fire balls and chunks of earth easily enough with his sword, but when he'd heard the crackling sounds of lightning coming towards him, Sasuke decided that now was an appropriate time to test out his defensive abilities.
The mental concentration the combination of techniques required was immense, but through his Sharingan and his manipulation of spiritual energy separate from his eyes, Sasuke was able to master his defensive techniques as the tendrils of lightning crashed along the ground towards him.
Around him emerged a purple skeleton that completely surrounded him with its large bones before forming into a large shield in front of him. It was strong enough to repel any chakra attack that would have come against him, but Sasuke knew that his enemy was stronger than that. In response, he covered his defensive technique with lightning spiritual energy, an effort that immediately brought about a stabbing pain in his head, but not so much that he had to cancel the technique.
Kyoukou's lightning tendrils crashed against his defence and dispersed around him, giving Sasuke a wide enough berth to push forward through the dust storm towards his target. He broke out in a quick run, knowing that he would only be able to maintain the combination for a short period of time before it drained his energy completely and his charge would become meaningless.
Within the dust storm, Kyoukou changed up his method of attack once again, but he hadn't heard any cries of grief or pain that would have resulted from his attacks. The dust storm was obscuring everything.
Venting his frustration at the lack of obvious results from his attacks, Kyoukou decided to turn his attention to the dust storm that had only been raging for a few minutes but had essentially blinded him for that duration and gotten sand all through his robes. He stretched out his arms for a moment before beginning to make swirling motions in the opposite direction to the dust storm. For anyone else it would have required a monumental expenditure of energy to disperse it, but he was the mightiest of the Black Robes. It required little more than an afterthought.
Once he entered his own wind spiritual energy into the dust storm around him, the sheer amount of power that he had expended negated the Kazekage's control and spun all the sand off into the air. The battlefield was almost instantly cleared as he took a quick account of his enemies.
The first thing he did was send a secondary blast of wind into the flying Kage with enough energy to rip him apart if it struck. However, Gaara's sand platform was quick enough to dive out of the way; he only lost a few strands of his red hair as he dodged closer towards the ground.
Back on the ground, Kyoukou saw the pair of Uchiha shinobi charging towards his position, seemingly unscathed by his hails of projectiles earlier. Turning his body towards them, he began to produce massive balls of fire that put their attacks to shame, firing them off rapidly in their attack vectors.
Both Sasuke and Itachi were agile enough to dodge the spiritual energy attacks, but the angles of the attacks did slow them down substantially. It seemed like Kyoukou was actually fearful of them getting in close, but the moment Sasuke took the risk that he could make it through he almost lost an ear to a flying wind blade that had been hidden in the shadow of one of the fire strikes.
"We have to approach him cautiously," warned Itachi as he put his hands together to bring up a defensive wall of water to stop one of the fire balls from getting through to him. "We might be able to punch through together."
Sasuke frowned at his brother's ability to use water techniques to defend himself and resolves to repel the next fire ball with one of his own, but his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan that he'd activated earlier caught a figure moving against their enemy's blind spot. He saw her plan immediately and changed his plan of defence, launching himself as high into the air as he could jump before firing off a trio of fire balls down towards the Quiraji leader.
Kyoukou was forced to defend himself with the fire balls he was firing back, easily overwhelming the chakra of the younger shinobi's attacks.
But the distraction was a success as his Cascading Flow partner had already dropped to the ground and was manipulating her wood to attack him.
Fiore covered her hands with her wood in the forms of spiked gauntlets and shot forward to enter close quarter combat with the Quiraji leader. The lead-up to getting into range had been some of the most difficult dodging she'd ever had to do in her life, but now that she was here she was confident that she'd be able to land several crushing blows on Kyoukou and bring him down a notch before the others came into range to assist her.
It had worked during their short fight at the bottom of the laboratory; there was no reason to suggest that it wouldn't now.
The Cascading Flow warrior didn't realise how wrong she was until she threw her first punch.
She was correct in her assumption that Kyoukou was not a close combat fighter. He saw no value in it and his abilities were not conducive to fighting an opponent directly in front of him.
But Kyoukou had learnt from their previous encounter. He recognised that the warrior was not a shinobi that was weakened in his presence, nor felt any fear at the threat of having her life consumed by him. That made her dangerous and he'd adjusted his fighting tactics the moment he had let her come close to him.
Just as the wooden gauntlet threatened to strike him the shoulder, Kyoukou flicked a bolt of spiritual-energy-powered lightning directly at the centre of her wood. Normally wood was too strong an insulator to conduct electricity, but the amount of power the Quiraji leader had fuelled into the strike caused the resins and water within the wood to explode on Fiore's hands.
The Cascading Flow warrior screamed out in pain and dropped to her knees, while splinters of wood showered the air around her. The shock of the strike had burnt her hands so badly that she wanted to cut them off, but she wasn't going to be afforded the luxury.
Taking advantage of her vulnerability, Kyoukou shifted around and reached out to drain the life from her. Civilians like her didn't have the same taste as shinobi did, but he wasn't able to resist the meal that had presented itself on a platter. He wasn't going to savour her; he was going to devour her. It would only take seconds.
However, he pulled back his hands at the last moment as a lance of fire came screaming across the battlefield and shot through the area between him and his prey. If it had been made of chakra he would have just ignored it and eaten the young woman's life-force. But Kyoukou's senses told him that it was made from spiritual energy and actually posed a threat to him.
Sasuke roared out a challenge as he fired another lance of fire at the Quiraji leader, watching it be dispersed by a small shield of water as he approached the two of them. It gave him enough of an opening to reach out and grab Fiore by the collar of her shirt, throwing her backwards as far as he could while he started to slash at Kyoukou with his sword.
Unlike the Cascading Flow warrior, Sasuke had both speed and ferocity on his side and was pushing the Quiraji leader back while his older brother picked Fiore back up on her feet. His sword strikes were diverted and parried by wind barriers that Kyoukou had erected around himself, but from the slow degeneration on the Quiraji leader's face he could tell that his enemy was struggling.
"Are you okay?" asked Itachi as Fiore tried to shake herself out of it. The dark haired girl looked around the battlefield for a moment, trying to get her bearings. "Sasuke is holding him back, for now."
"I'm…I'm okay," said Fiore as she flexed her burnt hands tenderly. They were a much darker colour than the rest of her arms now, but the pain had already started to subside. She'd always had a high tolerance to injury, likely due to her heritage, but Fiore was more concerned about the wooden splinters that had embedded themselves in her arms. Her control over the element still existed and she was able to pull them out one-at-a-time, but only at great pain to herself.
Seeing that she was taking care of herself for the moment, Itachi surged forward to join his brother in battle, while the Kazekage flew high in the air and aimed spears of sand to throw down at the Quiraji leader during a lull in the battle.
Itachi had neither the ability to use spiritual or physical energy nor the inclination to learn, so he recognised that his attacking options against the Quiraji leader were few and far between. With his demonic chakra-based eyes he was able to see the energy in everything on the battlefield in a wild spectrum of colours that his normal eyes would never have been able to perceive, but he was blind to the Quiraji's presence. It was only by his absence that Itachi was able to know where he was and what he was doing, though his other senses had also been heightened to greater levels.
The elder Uchiha's hands sped through handseals and dropped a pair of seals on the rocky ground as he charged towards his brother fighting against the Quiraji leader. At his activation, a pair of water torrents came surging past him and obeyed his directions. With precise control he sent them just above his brother, who sensed Itachi's plan and jumped back from his furious assault long enough for his brother's water to crash down on top of the Quiraji leader.
Kyoukou hadn't taken any damage despite the intensity of the water blasts, as the chakra controlling them failed when it entered his chakra-nullifying field, but it succeeding in drenching the Quiraji leader substantially.
The Black Robe leader looked down at his outfit and sighed, wiping the water from his hair before shaking his arms to try and dry them. "Seriously? That's just sad. What does that accomplish?"
From a short distance away, Itachi responded with a silent look through his green glowing eyes, staring at his enemy intently. He hoped that his plan worked, though he had already worked on a contingency with his hands hidden in his cloak.
"It's just a set-up," came Sasuke's voice to the side of the Quiraji leader. Kyoukou turned around to see the younger Uchiha's sword flying towards him at breakneck speed, having been thrown from short range.
Kyoukou had many forms of defence, from his complete mastery of spiritual energy techniques to his consumption skills that could remove the energy from almost anything that had life within in.
He simply side-stepped the flying sword and reached out to grab the hilt in an impressive display of physical ability. Still dripping wet from Itachi's water torrent, he brought up the sword and examined the material with the eye of an expert. The hilt had been changed and the markings had been forged over, but it the blade was definitely made from Quiraji metalwork.
A stolen relic fighting against its old masters. The irony was almost enough to make the Black Robe leader laugh.
His senses pulled him to the side as several concentrated spikes of sand came crashing down from the floating shinobi leader above him, driving themselves deep into the stony ground despite their chakra being nullified by his field. The red haired boy had learnt quickly how to combat against his field and was already taking advantage of his absent-mindedness.
Kyoukou directed his free hand towards the flying sand platform almost dismissively, creating a large boulder from the ground beneath him and hurling it straight into the Kazekage. Gaara's sand shield automatically came around his platform to defend him, but was only barely able to diffuse the power before it crashed through his platform and struck him directly.
His sand curved around to pick him up and take him out of range, while he attempted to repair his sand armour and gauge how much chakra he had wasted. The fact that the Quiraji leader had avoided his sand strikes rather than ignoring them meant he was on the right path, but it was dangerous to come within range.
Reminding himself that he was fighting more than one person at the same time, Kyoukou turned his attention back to the young Uchiha that had so graciously gifted him the sword and frowned as he saw him standing still with his hands balled together and sweating heavily. It was only when he reached out with his senses that he realised his error in ignoring him for that short period of time to retaliate against the Kazekage.
Sasuke collected all the spiritual energy he thought he could control and pushed out his hands towards the Quiraji leader like he was trying to catch a ball. "Seishou no Jutsu: Raikou Taihou!" (Spirit Technique: Lightning Cannon)
A regular chakra lightning strike would have been easily enough to deflect or dodge, as the energy output wouldn't have been enough to warrant a serious reaction.
Kyoukou never even got the chance to react as the bolt of lightning exploded out from the Uchiha shinobi's hands and connected with the sword he held in his hand. The electricity conducted through his withering body instantly through the water that hung from his heavy robe, frying him within his own skin.
Both Sasuke and Itachi moved forward to take advantage of the strike, but neither were as fast as the speeding bullet that was their Cascading Flow ally. Fiore had never been able to control more than one piece of her wood at the same time, as it required too much mental strength in order to give adequate commands to the energy within the wood. Whenever her wood had been split, she would meld them back together into a single piece that she had complete control over.
But the brazen destruction of her wood earlier had broken something in her mind and in that moment she charged with a cluster of wood shards hovering above her head. While Kyoukou recovered from her partner's unexpected attack, she took advantage of his vulnerability and got into very-close range and threw her hands forward towards him.
The wooden shards extended into long spears and pierced right through the Quiraji leader's defences like they weren't even there to strike straight into his chest. A dozen holes appeared in Kyoukou's body as the wood pierced through to the other side of him and flew back to Fiore to form into a single large wooden gauntlet that she smashed into the struggling Quiraji leader's face.
It was a devastating combination that laid Kyoukou on his back, with holes through his body and a crushed face. If he was any other opponent he would have been killed at the first attack, but Fiore wasn't about to believe that it had been enough to take him out.
She noticed out of the corner of her eye Sasuke running up to her with the intention of recovering his sword and finishing the job, while his brother kept his distance and maintained his demon-like gaze on the body of the Black Robe leader. Gaara was still recovering from the attack that had struck him, but it looked like the battle was about to be over.
Fiore pulled back her gauntlet to slam it down into Kyoukou's body on the ground, while Sasuke had lightning crackling around him as he picked up his sword that had been discarded when his partner had knocked their enemy off his feet. It was a combination attack that would secure victory for their side and seriously hurt the Quiraji war effort.
Neither of them was particularly surprised when Kyoukou climbed back to his feet and blasted a column of air straight into the Cascading Flow warrior. Fiore got her wood around to her front in time to block the strike, but the force of it still sent her flying.
Sasuke ignored his partner's plight and swept his sword up to remove Kyoukou's hands in a single strike, recognising that their enemy's abilities were linked to his hands. He had the speed to complete his attack long before Kyoukou would be able to direct his hands towards him, he didn't even have the time to create spiritual energy to enhance his attack.
His sword struck down, but instead of slicing through flesh it bounced off of an invisible barrier that he'd encountered earlier. Sasuke snarled and shifted his grip to change the trajectory of his sword strike, but he knew he had over-extended his hand. The Quiraji leader seemed to have aged decades in the moments between Fiore's attack and his presence now, but his wounds had disappeared in place of his youth.
A knowing frown came over Kyoukou's face as his hands flexed two fingers towards the young Uchiha. At his command, two small lances of fire shot down from behind Sasuke and shot into the backs of his calves, forcing the Konoha shinobi to his knees in a cry of pain. Kyoukou took a moment to kick away his sword and sent follow-up blasts of spiritual energy-based fire at his other three opponents before regarding the injured shinobi before him.
Sasuke looked up from his kneeling position and saw that Kyoukou had closed the distance between them in an instant, standing over him with his hand pressing against Sasuke's face. As he was in range of the Quiraji leader's chakra-nullifying field, Sasuke's Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan cancelled out and turned back to his regular black.
In that moment, he saw the depth of the emptiness in his enemy's eyes. Where the converted shinobi the Quiraji once used had eyes full of rage, Kyoukou didn't have any emotion in his eyes whatsoever. Not even hunger.
"Like mother like child," said the Quiraji leader with a triumphant smirk. His face had continued to wither as the battle had continued as the lack of sustenance took its toll on him, but Kyoukou no longer had that issue.
A short distance away, Fiore struggled to pick herself up from her feet while her wood sat further away from her. She glanced up to see Sasuke at the mercy of their enemy and cried out his name. Putting out her hand, she summoned her wood towards her and leapt up to sprint towards him, but she knew that she would be far too late. It would only take a moment and her partner would be lost to her.
Gaara was still trying to fly back to the main battle area on his platform of sand, but even with a whirlwind of sand at his back there was no way he'd be able to save the young Uchiha in time.
Sasuke tried to get up and fight off his enemy, but with Kyoukou's hand on his forehead his muscles refused his commands. Even his vaunted confidence wasn't responding to his demands.
"I'm going to enjoy this," said Kyoukou as he started to drain his young prey.
It was the strangest pain Sasuke had ever experienced. It didn't hurt like a cut or a burn. Instead it felt like his heart was being wrenched out of his chest and his very essence being stolen from within him. Kyoukou began to regain his youth once again from the young man, noticing that the Uchiha shinobi had an oddly large reservoir of energy for him to consume. He certainly made a fine meal.
Sasuke knew he was dying, but strangely he didn't want to fight it anymore. He just wanted to let it happen. For it to be over.
The end never came for him.
Out of nowhere, the Quiraji leader's prey was blasted backwards by a torrent of water from the side, sending him flying off to the side. As Kyoukou looked up to see what had robbed him of his meal, Sasuke's older brother buried a kunai in the side of his neck. Itachi was a student of human biology and knew that he'd pierced an artery in the Quiraji leader's neck, a sure-hit kill.
Despite the blade in his neck, Kyoukou let out a long sigh and brought up on of his hands to hold the Uchiha shinobi's hand that was clutching the kunai. "Boy, you clearly do not understand the inevitability of life."
He brought up his other hand and placed it on the side of Itachi's face, as if he were caressing his cheek. Being in such close proximity to the Black Robe leader had drained his green eyes of their chakra and they sat as dull black orbs in place of where his eyes used to be, robbing Itachi of the ability to see his enemy.
"Brother!" Sasuke recovered from his rescue and tried to run over to save his last living family member, but the draining effect from Kyoukou had robbed him of his strength and over a decade of his life. He cried out uncharacteristically as he saw his brother suffering the same fate as their mother had, but he was powerless to do anything about it.
Life departed the elder Uchiha rapidly, but Itachi barely managed to turn his head towards the screaming shinobi. He had no eyes to get one final look at his precious younger brother, but he had just enough time to give him one final message. There were so many things he wanted to tell Sasuke, but he only had the strength for the one thing he knew he had to say.
"Forgive me…Sasuke."
The younger Uchiha watched in horror as the life completely drained from his brother and passed to their enemy, leaving Itachi a withered skeletal husk. His body dropped to the ground with a dull thud, bouncing for a moment before shattering into dust, leaving only his robes and a collection of dusty bones.
The laughter of Kyoukou was drowned out by the cry of anguish from Itachi's younger brother, who was regaining his strength with every moment to try and get to his brother, even though he knew he was already gone. The Quiraji leader revelled in his despair, though the energy he had taken from the older shinobi was barely more than the amount he had taken from the younger shinobi.
There was something strange about that, but Kyoukou wasn't one to complain about a lacklustre meal when he'd only had an appetiser.
He turned his attention to the now-older Uchiha shinobi, wanting to complete the set. He frowned and stepped to side as Sasuke hurled two bolts of spiritual energy lightning at him. They were too slow to hit him directly, but he was more surprised at the speed of the shinobi's recovery. He could clearly see the hatred on the dark-haired man's face, matching the new lines that he'd brought about on his expression while he continued to charge towards him covered in spiritual energy.
It would be almost too easy to just step forward and consume him next. That was the key flaw within their foes; their attachment to each other was laughable.
He stepped forward with his arms open, taunting the Uchiha survivor to strike at him in close range. Despite being a highly intelligent fighter, Sasuke's grief blinded him to the realities of battle and his eyes flickered back to their bright red Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan state. Around him a purple skeletal figure began to emerge, covered in a thick flame that seemed to mirror his movements as he moved in to take a strike at Kyoukou.
Just as he was about to fall for the Quiraji leader's obvious trap, Sasuke was swept off his feet by a tendril of sand that plucked him out of his purple warrior form and flung him back into the position where his partner was waiting to catch him. Fiore received Sasuke in her arms with a grunt of exertion and put him back on his feet. Sasuke was in no state to be denied his revenge and turned his red eyes to his partner with a look of ultimate fury and hatred.
That was when Fiore slammed a fist into the side of his face, laying him into the ground. While she dealt with him, Gaara used a large quantity of sand from his gourd to form sharp projectiles to hurl down at the Quiraji leader. He'd finally gotten the ratio of sand-to-chakra right and landed several hits as Kyoukou scrambled to get his spiritual energy defences back up. He'd intentionally lowered them to bait Sasuke and that was now being used against him.
"You do not freak out in the middle of a fight!" yelled Fiore down to her fallen partner. "You do not charge off without backup!"
Sasuke gritted his teeth and slowly picked himself up from the ground before spitting a globule of blood onto the ground. She'd hit him so hard that he felt like she'd really tried to take his head off, but when he looked into her purple eyes his anger and hatred seemed to just drift away.
She wasn't looking at him with anger. She wasn't looking at him with love either.
Fiore was telling him that he still had a battle to fight. She knew him well enough to know that words would not reach his ears, but silence could speak volumes. The time for grieving was not now.
Sasuke didn't like it, but she was right. He leaned on his knee for support before standing up and wiping his mouth free of blood. "Thanks…Fiore." He pulled back a fist and slammed it straight into her face, repeating exactly what she had done to him. He didn't give her fallen form a second look as he began gathering his strength and walking back towards the embattled Quiraji leader.
His Cascading Flow partner grinned as she clutched at her jaw and leapt back up to her feet. They'd fought each other many times in the past, but that was the first time she believed he wasn't holding back anymore. He was out for the final fight and that dulled the pain in her cheek quickly. She didn't even feel the need to give him grief for striking her. If anything, she appreciated his honesty.
For now, they had a battle to win.
Gaara dodged out of the way of a flying fireball and gathered a small amount of concentrated sand in a spinning chakram before sending it down towards the Quiraji leader. It had enough stone materials in it that he knew it would maintain its shape through the chakra-nullifying field, and Kyoukou knew that too as he hurled up a wall of fire to repel the attack.
However, that meant that his vision was obscured for the few moments until his fire wall came down. In those moments, both Sasuke and Fiore shot around the sides for a repeat of their combination attack from earlier. Taking repeated attacks from the Kazekage had drained much of Kyoukou's energy and his reaction to their attack was much slower than it had been earlier.
Both Fiore's wooden gauntlet and Sasuke's sword covered in spiritual energy lightning slammed into either side of the Quiraji leader, drawing large amounts of blood and crushing a large number of bones in the process. The pair of warriors didn't wait around to see if their attacks had been truly effective, with Fiore jumping away a short distance while Sasuke leapt back much further and gauged how much energy he had for another lightning strike straight into their foe.
Kyoukou groaned as he struggled to stay on his feet, his body aging rapidly as his wounds healed once again. It was becoming clear that he was running out of energy to repeat the trick, but his three opponents also knew that there was no way to tell if he had the ability to bring in more sacrifices to consume.
They had to take him out while he was vulnerable. Otherwise this battle would go on until they ran out of energy and he consumed them.
Seeing an opening, Fiore shot around the back of their Quiraji opponent and hurled her wood gauntlet at his back. At her command, the wood split open like a flower around Kyoukou's back to clasp on tighter than glue. The Quiraji leader tried to throw it off, but Fiore forced it to drive him to the ground and created two large wooden hands that moved towards his face. As both of her allies were still a short distance away, Fiore say an opportunity to finish the battle in that moment.
The wooden hands clasped at either side of the Quiraji leader's mouth and wrenched it open while he tried to get to his knees. Kyoukou was already using physical energy to fight against it, but for the moment he was at their mercy.
At his distance away, Gaara recognised the opportunity that Fiore had created for them and pulled out one of his pre-prepared gourds, collecting a line of speciality minerals and sending them at the Quiraji leader in a long line.
"Uchiha! Light the sand up!"
Sasuke glanced up to see what the Kazekage was shouting about, noticing a line of red and gold sand moving past him towards their enemy. He considered using Amaterasu to light the line of sand, but he reconsidering and sped through a set of hand seals before jumping towards it and clicking his fingers.
The line of sand ignited in a line of bright orange flames and covered the distance between them and their opponent in an instant. The fiery projectiles slammed into the open mouth of Kyoukou before he could react. Fiore was quick to withdraw her wood from the Quiraji foe before he could break it apart, but she'd already done what was needed.
The Black Robe leader flailed around and hurled around large balls of spiritual energy-based fire all around him, while clutching at his throat with his withered hands. The shinobi could see the orange colour through the pale skin of his neck, clearing burning through his throat rapidly.
The momentum of the line of shooting sand had broken through his chakra-nullifying field and the fire that Sasuke had lit the minerals with had only been ignited with chakra, it wasn't based on the energy type.
Kyoukou knew that it wasn't enough to kill him, but it burnt like nothing he had experienced before and he wasn't able to concentrate on defending himself until he dealt with his internal damage. If one of them was in range he'd try to consume them, but he couldn't sense any of them in range.
Gaara put away his specialty gourd and created as much sand as he could muster around him as he sensed the final stage of the battle finishing. He powered himself forward with the assistance of some additional chakra from Shukaku, while looking to see his companions doing similar things.
Fiore had reconstituted her wooden staff into a sharp trident, while Sasuke had drawn his sword once again and had run a hand along its edge to cover it in a spiritual lightning current. They closed the distance to the Quiraji leader in an instant, dodging away from the wind slashes that Kyoukou was instinctively trying to throw around him while he attempted to put out the fire within his own body.
Fiore buried her wooden trident in Kyoukou's back through his heavy black robes at the same time as Sasuke ducked under his sweeping arms and slashed his throat so strongly that he almost decapitated the Quiraji leader.
However, that wasn't enough to kill the Black Robe leader as he used the instant they attacked him to begin consuming their energy in a sphere around him. Both Sasuke and Fiore were forced to leap backwards to avoid it with their weapons in hand, but they both lost several months of their lives in that instant.
Kyoukou was already beginning to heal, using his hands to hold his neck in place. "You cannot…stop the…inevitable."
He noticed the charging Kazekage with a mild amount of concern in his eyes, until he noticed that Gaara didn't have any sand travelling with him. The Quiraji leader concentrated on healing himself, trusting in his chakra-nullifying field to protect him for the few moments necessary.
The One-Tails container halted just out of the field and pushed his hands towards Kyoukou before dropping them down towards the ground.
Kyoukou had only a moment to glance up towards the sky before he let go of his neck and sighed in exhaustion. "Well, now that's just annoying…"
In that moment, a mountain of sand crashed down on top of him, as the tightly packed sand buried him. The chakra that bound it together came apart, but Gaara had gathered enough heavy materials during his charge that the sheer weight of it was enough to crush every bone in Kyoukou's body and bury him.
Not one to believe his opponent beaten just at that, Sasuke lit the mountain of sand with black flames from his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan and watched it burn. His partner moved around the burning pile and stood by his side, panting softly as her wooden trident hung from her hand.
"I think he's dead, Sasuke."
The Uchiha heir frowned and held his sword so tightly that his knuckles had begun to turn white, "I'm not going to move until I'm sure that he's burnt to ashes."
Fiore went to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, until she realised that that wasn't what he needed at that moment. He had to watch the man that killed his brother and mother die. Only then would he have some measure of peace.
"We might not have that luxury," observed Gaara dryly as he motioned to the other battles around them. The bodies of animals on one side of the battlefield was troubling to see, though it was clear that battle was already over, but the other battle was still raging on.
While Sasuke continued to stare at the black flames burning through the sand pile, Fiore looked over at what the Kazekage had indicated to.
The demise of Kyoukou had drawn the attention of the main Quiraji leader, who had drawn his gaze away from the immobile Shikyo and was now staring directly at them with his cold black eyes. She wasn't the type to get intimidated easily, but the way he seemed to just stare through her was just unsettling.
"He's not wrong," she said slowly. "This isn't over by a long shot." She stepped into her partner's line-of-sight, but saw that she didn't have to say anything further.
Sasuke had processed the death of his older brother and was wearing his battle face once again. He turned on his heel and faced down the Quiraji leader with a fearless look in his regular black eyes.
"We'll have to wait for the others before we attack. This isn't the kind of battle we can win on our own," warned Gaara as he stepped in line with the others of his group. He had confirmation that their foe was dead by the fact that he once again able to manipulate the sand that he'd used to crush the Quiraji leader.
He hadn't even needed to use his other minerals that he'd brought to the battle. Those he reserved for the one man whose death would see the end of the war.
Benkei was the real reason for their struggles. They definitely weren't finished yet.
Author's Note:
Yes, I killed Itachi. I hated that I had to do it, but damnit he had to go out in a way befitting his character. Considering what he's been through in the story, I wanted to give him the send-off I felt he deserved. Itachi was interesting to write in this story, since I changed his background a little bit and his interactions with the characters. But yes, I hope you guys don't hate me too much for that. If he wasn't sacrificing himself for Sasuke, how else would he go out?
Now, just in case there is a concern over the interaction between Sasuke and Fiore, I would like to remind you guys that their relationship is one of equals. Fiore is not a tsundere-type; she struck him because it was the one-sure way to bring him back to reality. He struck her back, not out of anger or abuse, but rather as a sign of understanding. I hope this comes across, as I certainly don't support abuse.
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.