"The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr he is a monster." - Emile M. Cioran

"He's still in town?" Aoba commented, perplexed at the sight of his crows circling the center of the village.

"Looting?" Sasuke suggested cautiously, still trying to not pay too much attention to the details of the massacre. Like how that old man's face was turned the entirely wrong way. "Note to self, trying to ignore something that way doesn't work."

"They've been dead for over an hour, and let me say from wartime experience, it doesn't take that long to loot this many bodies." Aoba returned in a dry tone that said firmly and calmly 'and no you are not getting a war story about it.' "We approach with caution. Hopefully the perpetrator is already dead, dying, or walking wounded. If not, we engage with the intent to capture and disable, we want to know who this sick fuck is." He ordered, already moving to the roof of the next house.

Sasuke glanced at Shikako before before following suit, wrapping an explosive note around the handle of a kunai as they made their way to the center of the village, making sure to pay attention to their surroundings so that they would not be ambushed.

In the the center of the village lay a dark haired man in the center of an upside down equilateral triangle inside a circle. And he was so caught up in his muttering and occasional barks of laughter that he either didn't notice, or didn't care that Aoba, Shikako, and Sasuke had taken up a position on the roofs of the buildings that immediately surrounded him.

"Let go of the spear and surrender immediately." Aoba commanded, twirling a kunai attached by the ring to a length of ninja wire in tight circles by his shoulder.

The man sighed, his expression of pure bliss marred for a moment by one of unrivaled irritation. "Lord Jashin, please forgive this sinner as I halt my prayers to your almighty throne of slaughter and devastation that I might glorify you as I pause to correct this collection of godless heathens." He pleaded before slowly sitting up and turning his attention to the shinobi surrounding him. "How fucking dare you interrupt the worship of my glorious Lord!" He hissed in rage as he climbed to his feet.

"I'm warning you." Aoba stated. "Drop the -"

"Shut the fuck up, you atheist!" He screamed, shaking in rage. "I'll just have to worship him another way!"

Sasuke was already moving to intercept, hurling the kunai as he did, his Sharingan spinning and predicting the exact moment the fanatic whipped his arm out to launch a set of spikes at Aoba. The custom explosive note went off exactly as Shikako had drawn it. Twice as intense, with the standard radius, it destroyed both spikes and kunai, peppering the religious psychopath with bits of hot metal but leaving no significant wounds.

"Be careful!" Shikako warned as she activated her sword and used it to spit a wide capture pattern of electricity at their opponent. "Some of these bodies don't have obvious wounds. The weapons might be poisoned."

"You're gonna wish it was poison, bitch!" the man shrieked, leaping after her.

Shikako smirked as she immediately dropped to her knees to duck the spear and snag him in the shadow possession, but was foiled by a sealless replacement and was forced to quickly backpedal when she found that he had replaced himself with a barrel on the other side of the building to get behind her. She dodged the spearhead by an inch, the smirk immediately dropping from her lips as she stepped back off the roof only for her foot to find nothing but air. .

"I've got you now you heathen!" he laughed before quite literally eating crow as Aoba directed his murder into his face.

Shikako took the opportunity to leap to safety."There's no point in Shadow capture if he can get out that easily." Sasuke stated, noting the particularly panicked expression on her face.

"We go to disabling then." Aoba confirmed, "I don't care if he never walks again." He lit the building on fire with a quickly applied Katon jutsu.

The Jashinist leapt out of the fire screaming obscenities and lashing out with his spear. Sasuke moved to intercept, dodging the point and lashing out with his sword to take his hand off at the wrist. Levering the spear, his opponent caught the blade on the shaft and struck out and Sasuke's heart with a short kama he pulled out of his belt, only to be foiled by a crow lashing out for his eyes.

"Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Flower Nails!" Sasuke cried, disengaging himself from his enemy. At point blank range, the Jashinist was supremely lucky that he was able to substitute himself before any more of the projectiles hit him, the Katon chakra imbued shuriken cauterizing the wound as they chewed through his left ulna. leaving his arm useless.

Unfortunately for Sasuke, his enemy substituted himself with a wheelbarrow just behind and to the side of him, and if not for his excellent peripheral vision and the preternatural reflexes of the Sharingan, he would've been down a kidney, lung, and his heart. As it was, he was brutally smashed off balance by the Jashinist, so out of his mind with fury that he ignored his broken arm in his attempt to bludgeon Sasuke's jaw out of place with it.

Immediately leaping back into action, Shikako lashed out with the Raijin no Ken at distance to give the murderer the tasering of his life. Sasuke took the opportunity to scramble out of the way and rejoin his team, "Keep it up! That looks like it's working!"

"Of course, right when I say that, it doesn't work." Sasuke noted as the figure crumbled into dust. "Earth Clone."

"Summoning: Great Servant of Slaughter!" A voice cried out to their left, and they were forced to dodge as a skinless ape with the scattered features of a crocodile and the size of one of the one story buildings that made up the town roared and nearly killed all three of them with a snap of its enormous jaws. "Fear the wrath of my Lord's servant!"

"And now it only gets worse, way to keep your mouth shut, dumbass." Sasuke scolded himself as he fought down panic. "I hope you've got some bigger crows than that, Aoba!"

"Shut up and spit fire, Uchiha! Fire Release: Dragon Fire Bomb!" Aoba yelled, spitting small globs of fire at the monster that exploded like gasoline once they made contact, pissing the thing off more.

Sasuke obliged with another round of Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Flower Nails, which, striking the monster in the bare, uncovered muscle of the chest, truly seemed to enrage it. Grabbing Shikako around the waist, as she was being preoccupied by a scroll she was scribbling furiously all over with a cut thumb, he leapt out of the way and brought them both to safety as it lunged and ripped another building to sheds. "I'm never setting foot in a temple again!"

Just as they landed, Shikako threw the scroll under the monster, using a chakra string to make sure that it unrolled with the scribbled on side facing the Thing's belly. "Sealing Style: The Third Unforgivable!"

All violence stopped and the world seemed to freeze in shock as the Jashinist stood there, staring at them in the first moment of silence they had experienced of him. The monster suddenly, inexplicably gone in a puff of smoke and naught left but a scroll in the middle of a village to announce it's passing.

"Oh…Lord...Shodaime. When did she come up with THAT? Wait, if that's the third, what are the first two?" Sasuke thought in half relief, half horror. Then that wonderful moment of silence was broken as the Jashinist screamed in fury and charged again.

"Shinobi Art: Stone Needles Jutsu!" Aoba announced, launching the kunai attached to his ninja wire directly at the enemy's chest, chakra flooding down the wire. The kunai struck the shoulder, the chakra paralyzing the victim, who had used up enough of his chakra that he couldn't fight his way out with a Substitution.

"You fuckers! I'll fucking kill you, you godless -!" The Jashinist slumped over on the ground as Shikako slapped a knock-out tag onto his forehead and activated it.

"If I don't get A-rank pay for that, I am going to be so pissed." Aoba commented, dismissing his crows.


AN: Well, I kept my promise. It's out and I quote "as soon as possible." Oh and by the way, there is more than one shoutout in this chapter and you all know the first one. I'll give you the other next chapter, but internet cookies for whoever finds it. Brian Jacques (may your soul rest in heaven) you know I don't own what I don't own. That is the only hint I'll give ya'll.

A note on the Jutsu used. All the ones used by Aoba are taken from his Biography in the Naruto wikia

Katon: Phoenix Fire Flower Nails is not what Sasuke usually uses. It's the next step up, instead of the shuriken just being in the fire, he is actually putting the Katon chakra into the shuriken. That's a jutsu I took from www. leafninja .com, apparently Itachi uses it, and I thought it would be reasonable for Sasuke to as well.

I hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to review!