Hallo.
Without further ado... I'm tired. Sorry, got nothing this week.
Chapter 51: From Bad...
"Get down, Naruto!"
Naruto followed the Jonin's advice, ducking just as a massive centipede flew over his head, slamming into the wall just off to his left and ceasing to move. Based on the massive crack he'd just heard, he could only assume the beast had killed itself on impact.
He took a chance and looked back behind him. He saw a few remaining members of his group, namely Zaku and Kin, holding up the rear, and he looked even further back, to where one of the three from earlier still held up its pursuit. It was the long-haired one, who they'd discovered was apparently a summoner, for he never stopped bringing out more and more outlandish creatures.
Luckily, the man couldn't bring out anything too large, for the top of the chamber was only around fifteen feet off the ground. Even the centipede, which Naruto hazarded to guess was one of the smaller things in the man's arsenal, couldn't really maneuver. It launched itself in one direction and just sort of hoped it'd hit something.
Which was a bit sad when he thought about it further.
The creature, which Naruto had at first thought dead, disappeared, turning to white smoke as it was de-summoned. He finally allowed himself to take a breath, cursing his own dumb wish from earlier.
When I said 'anything but snakes', I sort of also meant that I didn't feel like dealing with anything both creepier and crawlier!
They watched as the man chasing them, seemingly reconsidering his actions without his massive centipede, pulled back away. He withdrew without so much as a word, and Naruto realized a second later that none of the odd-looking men had said so much as a word to any of them.
A small shiver went down his spine at that, but he couldn't afford to stop. They still had a pair of Genin to retrieve.
On that particular front, however, it seemed they finally had some luck.
"Akamaru's got something!"
Naruto turned towards Kiba, who stood near the front of the group, helping to guide Zabuza on their route through the tunnels, and watched as the dog atop the boy's head barked incessantly, apparently communicating something important to his master below. Kiba nodded a few times, before looking to the rest of them, and relaying the information.
"Sasuke's smell isn't too far! It's faint, but at the very least, he's been nearby here within a few hours!" The beast-master grinned wildly. "We're getting close!"
Naruto couldn't help but smile himself.
Just you wait, Sasuke, Sakura! He mentally swore once more. I'm coming, I promise!
As they kept moving through the compound, now hot on the trail of Sasuke, or, at least, on where he'd been fairly recently, Naruto couldn't help but think back to their time in the Leaf Village.
He'd grown so complacent in his happiness.
It was an odd statement, and one, he assumed, most people wouldn't have had to make. But Naruto had been alone for the first nine years of his life. Sure, he'd had the Third Hokage, but even he had been a passing presence, coming to and fro at his leisure. Naruto hadn't seen him very often. it wasn't until he'd met Sasuke that his life had suddenly gotten so terribly bright.
He could sort of see what Sasuke meant, when he said that having friendships, having bonds, could interfere with one's dreams. Theoretically, he should've been training every day, day in and day out, in order to become Hokage. And yet, he never wanted to do any of that. He wanted to talk, and laugh, and goof around with the friends he'd made. He'd started to realize recently that, perhaps, becoming the Hokage had only been a secondary goal. He'd always known making everyone in the village acknowledge him was a part of his goal, but it may've been his true goal after all.
He'd been unable to achieve exactly that, so far, but nowadays... he wasn't sure if it was necessary.
He'd already found his happiness, his acknowledgement. He'd found a best friend and a brother in Sasuke, and good friends in Sakura, Ino, and everyone else they'd met along the way. The sorrow he felt when he flicked on the lights in his house, and found it empty... It wasn't quite so horrible, anymore. It was now only a brief tenure into darkness, one that was always pushed away when he got to see them all the next day.
But Orochimaru... he was threatening that. He was trying to steal away the happiness that Naruto had earned for himself...
And that wasn't something Naruto was going to allow.
I won't return to those times when I had no one... Naruto promised himself, charging forward and overtaking Anko and Dosu, jogging lightly just behind Zabuza, and Kiba. I'll bring the both of you back, and we'll all...
We'll all spend our days together! We won't be alone!
They descended further into the compound, despite knowing that such a thing may be a death sentence. They had no real earth specialist, so going further into a base that was in the process of collapsing could easily get them all killed. One bigger breakdown, a few tunnels clogged, and that was it. They were stuck down there.
He pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He may've had quite shitty luck when it came to moment-to-moment happenings, but he had a fairly decent overall luck. Getting paired up with Sasuke and Sakura, getting Kakashi as their leader, having the Nine-tails bail him and Sasuke out of Haku's attacks, and have everyone there live to tell about it...
Ok, so, recently, my luck's been pretty terrible. Naruto admitted with a slight incline of his head. I mean, my friends were kidnapped, and tortured and stuff, But I'm sure things will turn around here sometime soo-
The tunnel directly behind them gave into the weight hanging above it, sending giant rocks down just where they'd been before, and cutting off one of the precious few ways back to the surface.
Naruto gulped.
Or maybe not.
"That's less than optimal." Zabuza admitted, a rare show of worry from the normally unflappable man. Apparently, he didn't like the prospect of being buried alive anymore than he did. "Well, then…"
They looked ahead, where several different paths seemed to head down in opposite directions, presumably taking them to different parts of the compound. Zabuza observed them for a moment before, with a small sigh, he made a declaration.
"Alright, we split up."
Naruto's eyes widened as he turned towards the man, and saw similar expressions on the rest of the groups faces.
"Oh, calm down, I'm not saying individually." The assassin outlined. "We split into three groups. I take Haku. Naruto and those three go together, and then Mitarashi and the Inuzuka team up. It's the best option we've got for finding those idiots and still surviving afterwards."
Naruto didn't like it; in fact, he rather hated the idea. That didn't make it less valid, however. Splitting up was, in a vacuum, a rather good plan.
…And yet he spoke up anyways.
"What if we run into more guards?" Naruto questioned the man's idea, causing everyone to turn towards him in varying states of surprise. "As a singular group, they're not gonna' be able to handle us, but if we're all apart… they're way more scary."
He stepped up towards Zabuza, not undermining the man's idea, but proposing his own solution.
"We shouldn't split into three groups… if you're so convinced we need to split up, then each group should have a Jonin." He met the assassin's eyes, seeing the way Zabuza regarded him, though unable to quite identify just what it was that the other man was feeling. "If we encountered an Akatsuki member, then we wouldn't stand a chance if it were just me and those guys!"
Zabuza's eyes widened, before the man took a step back, breathing deeply as he looked back down at Naruto, smiling from underneath the bandages adorning his face.
"Man, why do I have to get outshone by some damned kid?"
"Eh?"
"You're right. I was being hasty." He smirked. "It's been an awful long while… actually, this is the first time I've ever had Genin with me on a mission. I guess I forgot you're all small fry."
Naruto tried not to take offense to that. He was fairly sure the man hadn't even meant that to be mean, either. He was just being honest.
Blunt, but honest.
"Alright, we follow Naruto's plan." Zabuza spoke, turning back towards Anko and Inuzuka. "Haku and I have worked together enough to know our moves front to back, so we'll go it alone. The rest of you, form up as one unit."
Naruto let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, feeling a weight off his shoulders. Not only had Zabuza not yelled at him, but he'd listened to his plan, recognizing the flaws in his own, and adapting it.
I guess that's a Jonin for you.
They regrouped, and Zabuza pointed towards the right-most path for them to run down. They themselves would take the left-most path.
He also took out his sword and marked his pathway with it, before instructing Anko to slice a small part out of their own path with her kunai.
"In case we end up back here," The man explained. "We'll want to know we've been here before. You should keep that up as you head further in as well, I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd be able to remember my way around these halls if we're taking every single turn. Plus, if we end up in an area that the other group's already gone down, we'll know by the mark." The rest of them nodded as the man turned back around. "Mark the way back a no-go as well, just so we don't get mixed up."
Haku carved an 'x' into the wall that faced back towards the collapsed tunnel, before they all approached their entrances, a certain dread hanging over every one of them.
"Alright people," Zabuza called out to them. "Still not one for speeches, so… I'll keep it simple…"
Naruto braced himself.
"Don't any of you dare get killed."
/-/
Sasuke found himself growing a bit fearful as they snuck through the bowels of Orochimaru's base.
It wasn't for an obvious reason, either. There were no guards blocking their path or trying to attack them. There was no one pursuing them as they stalked the empty pathways, nor did they run into any signs of anyone, other than the occasional corpse of a sound ninja, who must've run into Kisame and Itachi on the two's way down.
No, what was truly getting to Sasuke was the silence.
Primarily because it wasn't exactly silence. There was a certain grating to the world that was beginning to drive him insane. A small, almost unnoticeable rumbling, as if not just the base surrounding them, but the very core of the earth beneath them was shaking. The sounds of combat, likewise, seemed to lurk on the very edge of his hearing, registering only as an almost ethereal whisper, a creeping dread threatening to bleed into his psyche.
He forced himself to focus on the figure just in front of him. Sakura was leading their little escape plan, primarily because if they ran into a blocked off passageway, then it was she who'd be blowing it up with her new curse marks power.
A power he was still overwhelmingly cautious of.
They didn't have the choice of whether or not to use it, however. Without it, they'd have already been trapped back in that lap, caught kicking and screaming against earthen walls as the ceiling collapsed in on them.
He shuddered noticeably at the prospect of being buried alive. Sasuke didn't exactly consider himself claustrophobic, but he wasn't a fan of things taking up his personal space, either, so the idea of being surrounded on all sides, being unable to move his arms or legs as his life was slowly choked out of him…
Maybe I should think about this later. Sasuke wisely cut himself off. Follow-up thought, I should think about this never.
It wasn't that long before they came across a collapsed tunnel, and Sakura was up. He cleared the way for the girl as her ghoulish transformation engulfed her, and she shouted as her fist connected with the rock before her, sending it flying down the corridor, but freeing some space for them to move.
As they passed by, the ceiling collapsed once more, re-sealing the exit back behind them. Sasuke didn't terribly mind, since they could just clear the way again, but he also didn't know how much they could afford to mess with the structural integrity of the surrounding area before they caused a bigger collapse, one they couldn't clear with Sakura's strength.
They walked for a while, just trying to be as careful as possible about their chosen route, until they came upon a mysterious phenomenon.
A light at the end of their tunnel.
"Sakura!"
"I see it!"
They ran forward, now revitalized by the prospect of escaping Orochimaru's lair, but what they found at the end of their short journey was a bit different than what Sasuke had been expecting.
It wasn't an exit. It was a hole.
Hole was an understatement, however. It wasn't as if there was a small opening that led up to the sky above them, allowing some light to peek through. It was a chasm the size of the Hokage building.
The massive rift looked to have been literally ripped out of the ground, and, from the way no flora or fauna hung to the dirt sticking out of the ground, Sasuke assumed it had been rather recent as well. He strained his eyes slightly, activating his Sharingan and looking towards the other side of the gap, and noticed tunnels just like the one they were in.
His eyes widened as he realized just what this was. This hadn't been an attack, nor, truly, had it been meant to destroy the base surrounding them.
Someone, presumably, a member of the Akatsuki, had literally ripped hundreds of tons of earth out of the ground, and they'd done it just to give their troops a surprise entrance.
He turned back to look down their own passage, and grimaced slightly as he recognized a bloodstain on the floor below him. Unfortunately, it seemed that whoever had been in this general area when the ground had been ripped apart hadn't been able to get out of the way in time.
But it also gave him a pretty good hypothesis for how Itachi and Kisame had gotten in.
"Those two utilized the hole and entered through here." Sasuke spoke to Sakura beside him, who was gazing up at the sky, almost as if she were birdwatching. "That'd be why there weren't that many bodies in the way, either. It wasn't like they had time to mount a defense, those two got to start their mission halfway through the base already."
Sakura nodded, but her focus was still oddly on the skies above them. He followed her gaze, looking up himself, and found what looked to be an odd white bird floating high in the skies above them.
"Huh." Sakura spoke. "You see that too, right?"
"Yeah, I see it." Sasuke remarked casually. "Maybe it's a good omen. I don't know about you, but I don't think I would've been all that eager to see a crow."
Sakura nodded with a small breath of laughter, before turning to the walls beside them and placing her hands on them.
"We can climb out from here." The girl spoke as she gripped onto the wall with her chakra, beginning to scale it already. "The real problem now… is how do we contact Naruto and everyone else?"
He thought for a moment on that as well, but couldn't quite help but focus on the bird hanging above them. Perhaps he was overly paranoid, but he couldn't quite shake the feeling something was terribly off about it.
"Hey, Sakura?"
"Yeah?"
"How big is the largest naturally occurring bird in the world?"
"Er… I don't really know off the top of my head. I'm guessing you mean excluding summons?"
"Yeah. How big is your average bird?"
"I don't know, a couple of meters from tip to tip… maybe twelve feet at the maximum?"
That's funny… Sasuke mused to himself.
The one above us is almost twice that if my math's correct.
What had started as a neat little thing was now growing more and more insidious in the corner of Sasuke's brain. He reached out without even meaning to and grabbed onto Sakura's arm. The girl looked a bit annoyedly at him, presumably from almost breaking her climb.
"S-sasuke? What are you-"
The bird above them circled on contiuously, almost ominously now. He focused hard with his Sharingan, watching for anything remotely odd about the avian form, until at last, he spotted something.
A man, riding atop the beast.
Said man noticed them at the exact same moment.
Sasuke didn't waste another second. He grabbed onto Sakura's arm and pulled her off the wall, supporting her entire weight in his arms as he dashed back into their tunnel from earlier. He turned his head around, despite Sakura's confused prattling, to see an object hurtling towards the two of them at high speeds.
He heard a distant yell, as if someone, very far away, had enthusiastically shouted something at the top of their lungs.
…And then the hallway behind them exploded.
It was a rather extreme explosion too, at least compared to some of the others Sasuke had seen. It radiated a potent heat as he jumped the two of them away from it, one that nearly singed the hairs right off his skull. They landed in a heap some way's away, panting with adrenaline and exhaustion as yet another thing screwed them over today.
"What…" Sakura breathed heavily, forcing herself out of his hold as she looked back at the now collapsed exit. "What the hell was that!?"
"That bird from earlier," Sasuke commented, sounding just as winded, but perhaps a bit more collected than Sakura. "There was a guy riding on top of it, and he spotted us on the outside. I wasn't willing to risk the chance that he was an enemy, so I pulled us back in."
They both gazed at the collapsed tunnel, and even now, debris still clattered along the floors, tiny pebbles dancing and causing rippling echoes in the small space.
"Probably for the best." Sakura muttered matter-of-factly.
"Yeah." Sasuke wiped away at his forehead, clearing it of some of the sweat, dirt, and grime that covered it. "Still, you heard him shout, right? With powers like that… long range explosives and an ability to keep himself cordoned off from everyone else by flying above the battlefield… That guy might be an Akatsuki."
Sakura swallowed, and Sasuke felt like he could understand where the girl was coming from.
He'd been hoping that Kisame and Itachi were the only two members of the Akatsuki present, which would've certainly made their exit easier. Now, though…
It was looking a hell of a lot more likely that there were at least four members here, seeing as how the Akatsuki worked almost exclusively in two man groups, which also meant there could easily be more than that.
"What's the plan?" Sakura deferred to him, turning back towards the cave-in from earlier, which they'd knocked out of the way to get here. "Just demolish that and get back to searching?"
"Not sure if we have any other options." Sasuke answered honestly.
Sakura did just that, clearing the way once more and allowing them to pass by underneath. Unfortunately, the tunnel gave a rumble quite like the earthquake from earlier (which Sasuke was now beginning to believe hadn't been an earthquake at all), and completely collapsed. It wasn't clearable anymore, either, for it wasn't a few boulders that blocked their path, but a veritable mountain of dirt.
"Well…" Sasuke sighed out, having been thinking, a bit foolishly, that certainly nothing else could go wrong today.
"No going back that way."
/-/
Kabuto was doing his very best to stay calm. He didn't particularly care about anyone in the base, aside from perhaps Orochimaru himself, but he knew there was a high likelihood the man didn't quite value his life in any way.
So, he was sort of resigned to getting out of the base on his own.
He made for the twenty-third hidden exit, trying to come out a few miles from the town by taking one of the more obscure underground tunnels. The passage ran a good half-mile underneath the base, and was, theoretically, the safest of all of Orochimaru's escape routes.
It was, of course, collapsed when he arrived.
He let out a titanic sigh, before resigning himself to taking the twenty-fourth and final tunnel out of the base. Unfortunately, said tunnel was on the exact other side of the compound, over a mile and a half west.
He tried not to think about that as he dashed through the now empty corridors, looking down at the numerous bodies of his 'comrades' as he pushed himself foward. Luckily, running that far wasn't exactly a big deal, and he could flicker for small distances. The problem was that the tunnels were rather narrow, and had been created on purpose to be confusing and hard to navigate.
Now that he was forced to navigate them quickly and fearful of his life, he couldn't quite help wanting to strangle the architect to death.
He crossed into a more wide open space, which he immediately recognized as one of a multitude of cafeterias, and ran into two figures who he could say with fair certainty were the last people he'd wanted to see.
"Oh, look!" Kisame Hoshigaki exclaimed, turning towards his partner with a wide, toothy grin. "A survivor! I'd been getting kind of bored."
"I'm sure you have." Itachi Uchiha murmured quietly, not even bothering to slow his pace as the two of them kept walking towards him. "You don't seem to find enjoyment in anything else."
"Hey, you enjoy torturing your brother for fun, I like killing dudes." Kisame spoke, raising his sword and preparing to bring it down on Kabuto. "I don't judge you, you don't judge me, fair?"
Kabuto blocked the incoming blow, but the force of the strike sent him sliding back along the floor, impacting softly against the wall just beside the door. He took a deep breath and steadied his heartrate. He was going to need it in check.
Kisame looked impressed.
"Oh, shit." The man seemed oddly pleased. "We might actually have a fighter."
He looked at Itachi's legs, avoiding the man's Sharingan at all costs. Still, from what he could see, the Uchiha was staring right at him, but for what reason, Kabuto didn't know.
"Wait." The man said a moment later. "Silver hair, glasses… He might be the one Sasori was looking for."
Sasori!? Kabuto reacted slightly, his left foot taking a more defensive stance almost against his will. What the hell, that's a blast from the past in the worst kind of way!
"Oh, really?" Kisame sounded disappointed. "Does that mean I can't kill him?"
"Well, we still need to bring him back to Sasori," The Uchiha beside him spoke out in a bored manner. "And from his stance, he doesn't seem like he'll be going willingly."
"Ohoh! Then I get to beat him into submission?"
Kabuto took a single step back, weighing his options with a seed of fear firmly planted in his heart.
"Sure." Itachi leaned against the back wall, content to leave the two of them to their devises.
"Go ahead."
/-/
Naruto charged along in front of their group, eager to be the first person to spot Sasuke or Sakura, in the event that they ran into either of them.
They did, indeed, run into someone, but it wasn't exactly who they'd hoped for.
"Oh, c'mon!" Naruto screamed as another set of missiles exploded behind him, slapping at the cloak around his body to keep it from being engulfed by the flames that nipped at it's tips. "Can we just go a few minutes without running into this bastard!?"
Anko appeared to be feeling quite similarly, for she wore an enraged expression as she ducked into the man's guard. She struck with her kunai, cutting into the man's stomach and slashing across, a move which would've normally separated the explosive-ridden Akatsuki from his intestines.
No such thing happened. The only occurrence was a flap of cloak falling away, exposing a metal piece beneath it that looked to be some sort of control panel. Naruto realized in an instant that the thing before them was neither man nor beast, but machine.
Or, at the very least, it was part machine. He wasn't sure it could've used chakra if it weren't at least somewhat human.
He didn't really have time to question the nature's of life, however, for in the next moment, the robot focused it's sights on him, pulling back his wrist and revealing a cannon inside of it.
Naruto could only groan as the thing fired.
He saw spots for a solid thirty seconds, a horrid, unreal sort of pain coming out of the left-most side of his body. He looked down, perhaps unwisely, to see an entire section of his torso was now missing. Well, it wasn't missing, he knew where it was.
Splattered on the wall behind him.
He felt an animalistic rage take over him, and instantly he knew the Nine-Tails was offering him some of it's chakra. He also knew, however, that such an action was far from benevolent.
His flesh repaired itself slowly, but strangely, instead of having the feeling of rage fully encompass him, it instead subsided, fading back into the corners of his mind. His seal, as well, seemed unaffected.
It was such an odd sensation that Naruto subconsciously found himself inside the Nine-Tails' domain, looking at the beast from inside his cage, and shooting the monster a suspicious glare.
"What did you just do!?"
"Oh?" The Nine-Tails' booming voice stretched across the watery expanse, echoing off of the walls around them, despite the creature's actual mouth remaining still. "I would've thought you'd thank me, given that I saved your life."
"You and I both know we're not exactly on the same side here!" He shouted in retort, eyeing the beast angrily. "If you're not trying to take over my body, then what the hell are you healing me for!?"
The Nine-Tails scoffed, unfurling it's arms and tails and letting the latter sway behind him, giving off an intimidating aura as he got as close to the cage as he could.
"I don't recall answering to you, of all people."
"Yeah, well I won't leave until you answer me!"
"Oh, and let little Sasuke and Sakura die? How heartless of you."
"Ergh…"
He couldn't deny the foxes words. He wasn't really capable of sitting here any longer than another few moments, but luckily for him, it seemed the fox would explain his reasoning after all.
"Actually, perhaps it would be better to inform you now, given the situation you've roped the both of us into."
He felt like growling back at the beast before him, but he managed to hold his tongue.
"If you must know, I'm not trying to take you over because, even if I succeeded, I imagine I would only be captured a few moments later." The beast supplied. "There's a certain man in the Akatsuki whom I know. The masked one called 'Tobi'."
Now that was news to Naruto. He sat up a bit straighter, as the possibilities of the foxes statements ran through his head.
"How did you know him?"
"He was the man who placed me under a Genjutsu, back when I attacked the Leaf Village."
A chill shot down his spine, and his eyes widened as he stood straight up, a inquisitive anger burning away in his mind.
"Why didn't you tell me that when Sakura first ran into him!? We could've told Granny and the others about-"
"I didn't tell you because I felt that if I didn't, my chances of running into him again would be far lower than if I did inform you." The fox grunted, sneering over at him. "And I imagine my plan would've worked, as well, if you didn't have the absolute worst luck in all the damned world!"
"Well don't blame me!" Naruto shouted, feeling a bit of anger rising in his chest. "It's not my fault bad things constantly assault me!"
"Oh, it's not your fault! Of course, it's not, you definitely didn't-" The fox cut himself off, groaning horrendously as he let his tails fall back into the water behind him. "You know what, never mind. No sense arguing with an idiot."
"HEY!"
"Listen here, you damned fool!"
Naruto went quiet almost instantaneously. The fox might've been caught in a cage, but that didn't mean he felt like earning the ire of a hundred-foot-long demon.
"I would advise you to avoid all of the members of this 'Akatsuki'. The rest might not be as powerful as he, but any group that would play home to one such as 'Tobi' is a group to be avoided at all costs. Not to mention they're after the Tailed Beasts. You'd do well to stay out of their way at all costs."
Naruto nodded, but both of them knew he couldn't quite do that.
If they went after Sasuke or Sakura…
He'd be getting in their way. Directly in their way, in fact, to punch each and every one of them in the schnoz!
"Ugh, you really are an idiot."
"What!? I didn't say anything!"
"If you think your emotions aren't written on your face for all to see, then I've got an unfortunate newsflash for you."
He grumbled something under his breath, before turning away from the Nine-Tails, his face a bit hot.
"Whatever, If you try and get in there way and end up dying , then I'm not holding back. I'll sap your body away from you, and I'll kill those friends of yours for good measure." The Nine-Tails threatened out of pure spite. "Now go, back to the world of the living with you."
He was practically flung out of his seal, landing back in his body and instinctively rolling away from where he lay still. He looked up and around, and saw that his allies were still fighting. They didn't seem to be grieving over his corpse, so he assumed they knew he'd be fine.
How they'd known, he wasn't exactly sure, but the Nine-Tails supplied that information only a second later.
I told them you'd be fine using your voice. Said you needed a second to catch your breath, and to hold me back. The beast guffawed inside Naruto's mind. As if you'd stand a chance of holding me back!
He glared at nothing in particular, realizing he couldn't exactly shoot the beast inside him a look when it was… well… inside him. He tuned the great monster out, instead focusing back on the ring eyed Akatsuki before them.
The cyborg continued to find more and more ways to pull missiles out of his ass, though Naruto really, really hoped that wouldn't become a literal statement.
Explosives fired out of it's body, forcing the sound trio back, and making room for Anko to move in and try and attack. She too was forced to retreat, as were Kiba and Akamaru, the latter of which was launched several feet, and caught by the former, who cradled the canine in his arms. A small yip or two from the puppy, however, told Naruto that he wasn't in any real danger.
Still, Naruto wasn't exactly sure what they could do versus the cloaked intruder before them. His assaults were of practically any range, long-range from his explosives, and shorter range for his buzzsaw, which stuck out from underneath his Akatsuki outfit, and hovered around, threatening to gut anyone who got too close.
Funnily enough, it was probably Naruto himself who was best suited to taking on the member before them. He was able to shrug off most blows, and if the Nine-Tails wasn't planning on taking over his body while they were in here…
That meant he could afford to be a bit less risk-averse as well.
He decided to act on his idea, blitzing straight at the Akatsuki before them. The cyborg was quick to react, bringing up his arm-cannon once more and pointing it, this time, at Naruto's head.
Now there's a good question. Naruto asked himself. Can I survive being shot in the face?
Judging based on how the Nine-Tails stayed quiet, he wasn't quite sure he wanted to test that idea. Thusly, he ducked under the shot, and winced slightly as the flaming ball carved a hole in the wall behind him like a hot knife going through butter. Still, he imagined an arm cannon like that couldn't be fired continuously, and so he forced his way into the machine's guard, bringing out a paper bomb from his bag, and strapping it right onto the metal plate on the cyborg's chest.
In the interim moments, before the paper bomb exploded, he jumped backwards, and covered his head as he curled up on the floor. The rest of him could heal, he knew that, at least, but he wasn't taking any chances.
There was a near deafening blast, and a few pieces of metal flew past him and impacted against the walls around them. He smirked slightly, before turning back around to survey the damage caused by his little stunt, and found…
The cyborg was still standing.
It was damaged, rather heavily at that, but it was standing. There was a large indentation where the metal plate covering it's stomach had been. Now, it's innards were on full display, and Naruto was able to confirm that it was, in fact, half man and half machine, for blood spilled out of the cavity, even if it was mostly metal.
If it was possible for the perpetual smile on the Akatsuki members face to grow any more disturbing, then seeing it look exactly the same, even with what should've been a fatal wound, just about managed it.
He scooted backwards, trying to stand, but found his arms shaking slightly with fear as the cyborg before him brought his buzzsaw out from his coat, fixing it on Naruto's stomach. The creature before him was unfeeling as it prepared to gore him, and that scared him most of all.
Someone… someone please…
The Buzzsaw descended.
Help me!
Just as the serrated blade was about to make contact with Naruto's skin, a figure launched itself at the back of the cyborg's head, kicking it from behind and slamming it into the wall to Naruto's left. It turned in mid-air, and brought it's hands to it's mouth, forming a complex series of seals that it then used to activate a powerful Jutsu.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
The flaming core hit the Akatsuki head on, forcing it into the wall to Naruto's left and keeping it there for over three seconds. When the fires dissipated, and the cyborg was revealed to still be kicking, the newly arrived figure turned back to his left, and shouted something down the dark corridor.
"SAKURA! NOW!"
A purple-skinned girl came flying into the space, her fist curled behind her back, ready to be unleashed at a moments notice. She fired it, unleashing it's pent up force directly onto the face of the Akatsuki cyborg before them.
The creature was utterly annihilated, viscera and robotic pieces sent flying every which way. It's limp form fell to the floor a moment later, collapsing onto the ground below them and lying completely still. Sparks still flew from it, but they were dissipating rapidly.
The two new figures panted for a moment, seemingly just a bit out of breath, before they both turned towards him, smiles on their faces.
"Hey, Naruto." Sakura, or, at least, Naruto assumed the oddly colored girl was Sakura, spoke. "Good to see you."
"Yeah." Sasuke followed up a moment later, wiping away at some of the spittle hanging to his lips.
"Sorry we're late."
/-/
Nagato flinched slightly as a current of electricity shot up his body, arcing out from his eye and shocking the rest of his form. He breathed out, even as Konan, who had rejoined him from their initial assault, touched the side of his arm, silently asking if he was alright.
"I'm fine, Konan." He reassured her, before looking up at the fake tree bark around them. "One of my forms… was destroyed."
"Who was it?" She asked calmly, and seeing that he didn't exactly look worried, she wasn't concerned. "An agent of Orochimaru?"
"No." Nagato spoke, gaining the last dregs of information out of the Asura Path before he cut the signal to it, and reached out to Yahiko's body instead. "Something quite unexpected, actually."
He used the Deva path's influence, calling out to the other members of the Akatsuki. They answered him one by one, though a few were absent.
Itachi, Sasori, Deidara, and Tobi answered his summons.
"Yo, big man!" Their resident blonde called out to him, smiling at the Deva path, which still stood in the center of the sound village, standing guard alongside Deidara himself in case Orochimaru tried to escape out of the hole his planetary devastation had created. "What's up?"
Firstly, he addressed the missing members.
"What of Kisame and Tobi?" He asked Itachi and Zetsu, respectively.
"Kisame is currently battling Sasori's agent, he's going to beat him into unconsciousness, at which point, I imagine we'll bring him to you, Sasori."
"Excellent." The puppet-master called, sounding most pleased. "I always knew planting an agent into Orochimaru's midst would come in handy. Now we'll learn quite a bit about his research, but also about any escape routes he might try and use to get out of here."
"Tobi went on ahead on his own, sir." White Zetsu told him simply, sounding awfully tired. "I must say, dealing with that one is far more trouble than it's worth."
"Heh," Black Zetsu laughed from alongside the other agent's face. "He's annoyingly rambunctious, but I can't deny his more recent results."
Yahiko nodded, before addressing them all.
"I have a notice to give to you all."
They didn't exactly stand at attention, but they were listening, that much Nagato knew for certain.
"One of my forms was destroyed but a few moments ago. The people who did it were a collection of Leaf ninjas, including some former agents of Orochimaru," He paused to look directly at Itachi. "And one Sasuke Uchiha."
He watched as the boy's older brother attempted to hide his reaction. Even what he did let through was so subtle that Pain nearly missed it, but it was there, unmistakably. The smallest of wobbles of the upper eyebrow, the tiniest twinge of regret at the edges of his eyes…
The Uchiha could claim all he wanted that he did not care for his younger brother's wellbeing, but the truth was evident if one looked hard enough.
Regardless, that wasn't what he'd come to inform them of, not entirely.
"Among that group, however, was another boy, one we have a more immediate interest in."
He was brought back to the last transmission the Asura Path had sent him. Just a few words, but they would prove integral in their mission.
"Hey, Naruto. Good to see you."
"Yeah. Sorry we're late."
"Among them was Naruto Uzumaki," Pain spoke.
"The Jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox."
End Chapter 51
Real talk, does anyone even read these?
LCS Ended last week, which means no league content to consume for like 6 weeks. Normally MSI would be coming up, but... RIP. Still, Doublelift to TSM is pretty insane... but we don't get to see the team play til' the beginning of June. Ugh.
Anyways, my minor life complaints aside, things continue to happen.
I know that's not the most informative quote, but I'm still quite tired.
See you all next week!