Take Two Round Two

by Third Fang

What do you get when you cross several interdimensional god like beings, raw boredom, a world of Naruto that went wrong, several years worth of off screen training, common sense, insanity, humor, sarcasm, the Log, explosions, plot, and overall chaos? Apparently a lot of headache medicine for Tsunade. May the Games Begin. Sequel to Yet Again With A Little Extra Help.

30. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty Nine: The monkeys went too far. And they know it.

I don't own Naruto, any of its characters, or any references in this story. If I did, horrible things would happen. Neither do I own any other anime that I reference. I do own all OC's and new Jutsu in the story as well as every ounce of pure awesome spawned by this.

o. o. o.

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

Sai looked at the village, trying to pinpoint the source of his discomfort, not even trying to hide the goosebumps running down his body.

"I thought that ROOT agents were conditioned to be emotionless." The ANBU medic healing the teen quipped while tending to his broken ribs. "… You are a freak though. You're healing far faster than you should be. Must be all those chemicals that they put in you."

He didn't react to the healing comment. He knew he healed fast, but he wasn't going to tell them that it was thanks to a special painting that he had made and stored in his body. It was his Ace, and more importantly, his absolute final result. Something that not even his friends nor Danzo knew about. Only one person knew of its existence…

"Not now. I doubt anyone can stay calm after seeing what Roshi-sama just pulled." One of the female guards snapped, clearly not taking things well either.

It was hard to argue with her. The number of people that had seen the Biju in their full glory were few and far in between. But what the Yonbi did… Sai doubted that even the veterans around him had been able to watch that with a straight face. Something about the Biju had changed during that final confrontation. He didn't know what exactly, but it was almost as though the beast had used Roshi's Presence to awaken in some way.

To be honest though, he had a feeling that Naruto would have just taken it all in stride. His friend had always been peculiar like that.

If that had been it, Sai would have been relieved. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

"Well, it was a bit of a shaky start, but it looks like things are turning in our favor quickly." Another ANBU mused, watching the city. "There's little chance that the Monster of Kiri survived Roshi-sama's attack. Deidara and that traitor of the Sand have fled from the might of Onoki. The rest of Akatsuki is either dead, outside the Village, or surrounded by all sides, and that boy that saved you from Konoha is doing whatever it is he's doing outside the walls. Our forces can probably handle the rest of this debacle by ourselves."

From an outside perspective, that might have been the case. There was a good deal of fighting in the village with jutsu flying everywhere. Probably more inside vital buildings that contained sensitive information, items, and resources for the village thanks to the enemy soldiers that had snuck in before the attack to strike at key locations. But with Akatsuki out of the picture and not causing chaos and distracting everyone, the forces of the Village can focus on the bulk of the forces safely.

"No." Sai frowned. He wasn't a sensor, but he was absolutely certain of it. "Something's wrong."

It was the certainty in his tone that garnered him the attention of his guards.

"How so?" The medic probed. "I thought you told us everything you had on Akatsuki when you were captured."

"I did. This is different." He was certain of it now. Whatever it was that was causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand like senbon was right in front of him. Come to think of it, that direction was…

Before he knew it was about to happen, he was blessed with the sight of one of Onoki's Dust Release Techniques being formed. A cube the size of a building seemingly manifesting from out of nowhere and then shooting down at something in the village…

… Only to suddenly fly back the way it came an instant later.

Cut in half.

"What the hell?" Whichever ANBU had spoken first, his sentiments were clearly shared by the rest of his comrades.

"Someone pushed back a Dust Release technique?"

"Someone cut in in half?"

"Is that even possible?"

"Which one?"

"Yes."

"Presence." Sai's eyes widened in horror, realizing what he was feeling.

"What was that kid?"

His tired mind scrambled for a good enough explanation for how to describe it. "A hidden jutsu. Only a handful of people know what it really is. Fewer can use it. It's what Roshi and Kisame were using earlier. It lets the user, strengthen themselves and their jutsu. It's more complex than that, but it's the watered down explanation. Akatsuki somehow got their hands on it recently, but they shouldn't be able to use it to a high level yet. I can use it too, but not even close to the point of being able to do that to a Dust Release technique. Only an incredibly strong user could do something like that, but that shouldn't be possible. The only people that should be on that level in the entirety of the elemental nations are the Oogakari and maybe Naruto." Zabuza might have been part of that crowd as well, but Sai had not seen the man in action for a while so he couldn't be certain.

The Toad Sage of Myobokuzan-

The Erupting Volcano-

PAI█!

"Haaa?!" He lurched forward and barely held in the fluids and sustenance that he had taken in soon after being rescued.

"The fuck was that?!"

"You felt it too? Genjutsu?"

"It got all of us without noticing. I didn't sense any chakra. The effects were too sporadic and unstable at that. No. It wasn't genjutsu."

"Looks like the kid was hit harder than us. He might know something." The largest of the ANBU looked down on him. "Oi. Konoha brat. Care to explain?"

"I forgot. I forgot about him. How did that happen?" Sai shivered, recalling something vital from his time while captured.

Hidan.

Out of all the monsters that had tried beating him for information and taunted him about his upcoming death, Hidan was the one that terrified him the most despite the leader of Akatsuki having those twisted eyes.

Just being around that man made every fiber and instinct of Sai's go off, screaming in horror from the proximity of being near something so… wrong. Alien. Disturbed.

"Him?"

"Hidan. The priest. A part of Akatsuki." Sai stammered, unable to control his shaking. "Something's wrong about him. He's supposed to be the weakest member, but something's different now. He's not normal. Not human. His Presence, he didn't use it when I was captured, but I felt it regardless when he was near. He's twisted. Filled with something else. It's not right. Dangerous."

"The priest?"

"Namikaze said the same thing about him. Something about how the guy's too dangerous to fight and that it was best if he dealt with the freak." The medic noted.

"Naruto knew?" Sai blinked in disbelief before shaking his head. "Who am I kidding? Of course he'd know somehow. Look. Hidan is fighting Jiraiya-sama, Tsuchikage-sama, and Roshi-sama, but if Naruto says that the Priest is dangerous enough to warn everyone about him in particular, then knowing his luck, it's even worse than that."

"Speaking from experience I take it?" One ANBU quipped.

"I was with him when Han and your prisoners pulled that stunt three years ago. I was in rehab for half a year even with Tsunade-sama's expertise. It took another half to get back to where I was before the attack. I consider myself lucky." Sai stood his ground, getting up on his feet and shooting the people around him a dirty look. "Naruto's insane, but he tends to have a better grasp of situations and dangerous enemies before most people know they're in trouble to begin with. If he says that someone's on a different level, then I either treat them as such or run away as soon as possible. Orders and Danzo-sama be damned."

It was probably that last bit that drove his point home.

"Did we just hear a Root agent disavow Danzo?"

"… Shit."

"Get to Tsuchikage-sama! Get him away from the Priest as soon as possible!" The medic shouted. "The rest of you lure or force the enemy to Namikaze, his recovery be damned! Find out what he's capable of and relay it to as many of our forces as possible!"

"Let me help." Sai grimaced and made a seal. Within moments, he was viciously trying to suppress his gag reflexes as his spare ink and scroll set bulged up his throat and out of his mouth. It was generally considered a stupid move to regurgitate something large like this when one had a set of half healed ribs, but time was of the essence.

"What can you do kid? You're barely able to move in your state." The female ANBU from before questioned as she watched Sai unfurl the scroll and take out his brush. Thankfully, while his ribs and face had been roughed up a bit during his capture, his hands were still perfectly fine.

The pale boy's hand was a blur as he drew dozens of mice and birds with a single sweep of his arm, his chakra shaping the ink so fast it wouldn't be a total lie to say that his jutsu took hold before the liquid even touched the paper. Within moments, a small flurry of birds and mice ran into the village below. "I specialize in ninjutsu and recon. My taijutsu is nothing to sneeze at, but I'm perfectly capable of being useful from a distance."

His eyes splintered into thousands of perspectives. His body divided by just as many.

An artist is as its creations. An artist's creations is as its maker's mind. What is an artist then, other than a reflection of its own limitations?

"That's…"

"So you can use that Presence trick too." From the sound of things, the medic healing him didn't sound too happy about it.

"Yes, but not to the extreme degrees that I told you about. You all would easily be able to kill me if you decided to." Sai didn't bother to deny his abilities as he splintered his sight and consciousness among his creations. Most of them flew and ran to the village below, but some went straight to the shinobi with him, climbing on their clothes and hiding in the folds. "My jutsu can be used for transmitting messages between everyone. I can see what they see, so you'll be up to date on everything."

He didn't bother waiting for them to respond, instead focusing on his jutsu. He had been taken to a relatively safe part of town, so many of his creatures weren't in any danger for the most part.

Birds flew in all directions. Buildings were on fire. People were fighting to the death. Corpses and body parts were a frequent sight on the streets and rooftops that his countless eyes scanned. A good portion of Iwa had been vaporized by Roshi's fight with Kisame.

None of that made him blink in the slightest. Such devastation was expected when Akatsuki was involved, and he had more important things to worry about.

Like the titanic explosions that he was seeing from multiple angles.

The entire district was wrecked. Fire fueled by lava, oil, gas, and the standard burning building were abundant. It made getting into or out of the area impossibly difficult, which, in retrospect, was probably the point. Veterans like the three old men rarely did such things by accident. They were keeping others away on purpose.

He saw it easily from the sky.

Onoki and Roshi were fighting from the air, throwing fast jutsu that were difficult to dodge and trace rather than powerful ones. Jiraiya on the other hand was on the ground… also keeping his distance while manipulating his surroundings. Setting buildings on fire. Turning entire streets to marshes.

Hidan on the other hand, was perpetually laughing. Enjoying every moment of their fight dodging the attacks as if a child…

Something was wrong.

Onoki. Roshi. Jiraiya. All three men were incredibly powerful and skilled. The attacks they were throwing… were too simple. They were stalling. Keeping Hidan away, not even trying to kill him.

"Jiraiya-sama." The closest bird called, swooping down and landing on the Sage's free shoulder.

"Kid? The hell are you doing here?" He didn't falter or miss a beat as he fired off more shotgun like sprays of boiling oil from his mouth.

"Oho? The Artist. How surprising. I was wondering if I'd see you again, boy. How are you? Did you come to revel in today's festivities as well?" Hidan gleefully swooned as he escaped Jiraiya's attacks with minimal effort, although he had to jump away due to the ground beneath him becoming unstable.

It was the way he addressed Sai that sent shivers down his spine. It was as if the madman's words seemed to shoot straight to the ears of the original, addressing him by what he was rather than who he was… no.

Not as if. Despite looking and talking to his ink bird, Hidan was genuinely speaking to Sai's main body. Sai's eyes saw the man. Sai's ears heard him. Not his bird's. It made no rational sense in any way a person looked at it, yet was none the less true.

Presence. Not for the first time, Sai had to wonder, just what did this ability truly entail and encompass?

"I felt Hidan's Presence and yours in the same area. Why are you stalling?" He got to the point.

The elder grimaced, leaping back to avoid a swipe from Hidan's scythe as it was swung from its chord. Sai didn't miss the slight limp in the man's landing. "This freak. Naruto's warning about him was understated. No. I doubt even he could have predicted how messed up this guy is now. His jutsu's leagues above what we had reported. He's on a completely different level than the others. Anyone that takes him on without knowing what he's capable of is almost guaranteed to get killed."

"I feared as much. Out of all the Akatsuki that came near me when I was captured, that man felt the most dangerous. Warped." Sai admitted. "Don't worry. ANBU are coming to back you up. Use the time to get to Naruto."

Contrary to what Sai had expected, Jiraiya's reaction was one of absolute horror instead of cautious relief.

"What?! No! Kid! Call them back! You don't get it! Fighting this guy with numbers is the worst thing you can do! Only Presence users can handle being near him!"

Sai's normal pale complexion turned a new hue of white. "What?"

He completely missed Hidan's already malformed grin of unequivocal joy widen to the point of changing the shape of his head just as the soil around him turned into a clay like substance and wrapped itself around his legs to keep him in place.

"No! ANBU! Stop!" Onoki shouted, realizing that he was no longer alone in the haphazard ring of fire with Hidan, Roshi, and Jiraiya.

"Wait!" Sai tried to communicate his warning to the ANBU through the mice on them, but it was too late as half a dozen masked men and women seemed to teleport around Hidan from all angles and speared him through with their kunai and swords.

"Not good!" Fukasaku grimaced from Jiraiya's shoulder. The Sage Father of Toads sat and waited. He would not be moved by-

"Son of a…" The Toad Sage of Myobokuzan stood firm. Unfettered by-

"Damn it! 'Noki!" Roshi rushed over at the last moment and grabbed hold of his best friend. The Titanic Volcano stirred. The earth shifted. It could not be afflicted by-

Sai's body froze as he was assaulted. He was not within range of what had happened next, but simply because his constructs were there, the echoes, the mere concepts of what transpired were enough to turn his world on end.

"Hugh?! What?"

"How?"

The ANBU around Hidan fell. Some screamed. Some simply went limp. If one examined their bodies, they would notice that they all had between one or two stab wounds on them, yet reacted as though they had been punctured all over.

In order for life to understand one another, for peace to be a reality, a gift was needed. A gift as grand and miraculous as life itself.

Hidan stood where he was, unperturbed by the weapons and wounds that littered his body. His face the epitome of ecstasy and joy.

Even a shard of a miracle, was still considered a miracle in itself by those that could not know better.

Sai would have said something, but he was too busy screaming.

o. o. o.

Lightning struck the screen. Thunder rattled the audience.

Over and over again.

Many of the onlookers screamed. Some in fear. Some in astonishment. Others in pure excitement.

"UUUUUAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

The ebony and crimson monster that had once been Han of Iwagakure thrashed about wildly, moving at irregular speeds with an irregular body that moved in irregular ways. Pulsing with raw and corrupt power thick enough that seeped to permeate through the screen itself.

"Hiraishin!"

And yet its desperate and violent movements were about as effective in its task as a small child trying to capture a fly with small pudgy hands.

Absolutely useless.

In a flash of yellow, another thick streak of blood and chakra erupted from the monster's body.

Minato Namikaze was unstoppable.

Tearing through the mountainous landscape, Han in his Level Two Biju form was a natural disaster incarnate in an unnatural body. Every swing of his arms tore apart half a mountainside. Every roar shattered the stones around him. Every breath of air let loose a jet of steam that melted or seared whatever it touched.

All of it seemed to be geared towards murdering the Yellow Flash.

All of it seemed to be futile.

If he had gained the title of Yellow Flash while alive in a normal human body, then he might as well be considered the Yellow God while using Kurama's chakra. By the time one of Han's arms got half way through a strike or a stab at where the man was, he was already gone, assaulting another part of the monster's body.

Head. Chest. Neck. Arms. Stomach. Back. Legs. Tails. Spine. Eyes.

It didn't matter where or when. Virtually the entirety of Han's existence seemed to be nothing more than a moving target for the brutal onslaught regardless of how fast the pair were tearing across the landscape.

It was a war between two styles of blitzkrieg. A monster with seemingly unending reserves of power vs. an untouchable master with speeds that could not be matched.

Once one was marked, a rod was a rod.

And within the great storm, Lightning would strike.

A slash of chakra so deep and fast it appeared as though lightning had done it appeared on the monster's back, followed by a flash just as one of the creature's tails tore through where the culprit had just been moments before.

Over.

Another slash, this time nearly taking off the monster's right arm.

And over.

Left femur.

And over.

Third tail.

And over.

Face.

"UUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Minato appeared on top of a small boulder, far enough to be out of immediate striking range of Han, but close enough to resume attacking if desired.

The first thing that stuck out about his appearance to everyone watching him was the fact that he was enveloped in a crimson aura not unlike Han had been earlier. Behind him twitched two tails, as if betraying what he was thinking.

The Yondaime-Hokage was not just back, decked out in standard Konoha ANBU gear. He was wielding the Kyubi's power.

On his right hand, twirling around his index finger, his trademark tri pronged kunai spun casually, lightning chakra coating the blade in such a way that the outer two points acted as the width of a blade that was made entirely of raw unrelenting power. Sharp and cruel enough to cut through even the flesh of a biju.

However, even though he had seared and severed said flesh dozens of times, it still knit itself back together moments later, albeit leaving behind angry scars in the process.

"No matter how many times I see it, I can never get used to those Stage Two transformations." He sighed softly, taking note of the irregular way Han's body twitched and moved, gestures and twists that would have snapped the human body into splinters made every few seconds as if it was natural to the unnatural being.

Outside of the raw power they possessed, the true problem these things presented was their never-ending stamina and seemingly unbeatable bodies. They never tired. Any wounds they had healed quickly. Their bodies themselves morphed and twisted in any way the user pleased. Even though the host is human, it was better to treat them as if they had no genuine physical form at all.

The only known ways to take down a Stage 2 jinchuriki were to absolutely shut them down with raw power, somehow outlast them, take away their chakra, or seal them up.

Conveniently, he was the guy that was famous for sealing up the Kyubi. Shutting down a partially transformed Gobi was a cakewalk in comparison.

He vanished in a flash of light just as Han crashed upon where he was standing.

Truth be told, the only reason why he didn't seal Han just yet was simply because he didn't know what to do with the man afterwards.

He could just knock the man out, but with Akatsuki around, especially that annoying plant man Zetsu, it wasn't a stretch to assume Han would just be a sitting duck waiting to be captured and sacrificed again.

Forcing the Gobi down was an option too, but then he'd have to deal with Han. Somehow, he doubted that the man would be willing to listen to reason, even if he wasn't under the masked man's control.

"HAAAAA! NAMIKAZEEE!"

"Hm?" Minato blandly looked up to see Han charging at him once more with chakra claws primed to tear him apart in an instant.

It took less than that for the former Kage to teleport himself nearby with barely an ounce of effort.

Then again, he could always just kill Han.

In the grand scheme of things, that really was the safest thing to do. Disperse the Gobi into the world, stalling Akatsuki for another half a decade or so while the creature reformed itself. It would throw off everyone's pacing and catch the enemy flat footed.

Minato didn't like killing. Everyone knew that he was one of the biggest advocates of peace out there when he was alive, but it was a necessary evil. And he was damn good at it.

Problem was, once the dust settled here, there would be a lot of people that wouldn't be too pleased with the man's murder and the loss of the Gobi, dire circumstances or not. Politics had a way of mucking up already terrible situations like that.

He had to take a third option.

"Nami! KAZEEEE!" Instead of charging at him again, Han decided to go for a ranged approach, spewing out a large number of blue and black chakra balls in the air before gathering them all in his mouth just as quickly.

Minato didn't do anything but frown at the sight, not bothering to move in the slightest as the monster took its aim, hunched its head forward…

"Rasengan."

BOOM!

And lurched its head back with a sickening crack and explosion as Minato teleported right under the monster's head with a spinning chakra ball of his own in hand, ramming it under its chin. A tactic the Hokage pulled from his son's book.

The interrupted Biju-dama's release was redirected and ejected through Han's mouth, and some of his fanged teeth, harmlessly into the sky with unreal power, making the entire atmosphere in the grounds pulse irregularly upon the discharge.

Said pulse was moments later put to shame as the attack exploded in the sky above, the shockwave strong enough to upturn boulders on the grounds with ease.

Minato stood there unruffled as his opponent continued to fall backwards, stunned. "Do you mind keeping quiet for a moment? I'm trying to figure out what to do with you."

o. o. o.

"Holy hell he's good." Yuugao blinked in astonishment as she watched Han's body arc backwards, stunned at just how easily a single person wat handling a Stage Two Jinchuriki.

"No kidding. I can barely follow what he's doing at all." Darui nodded numbly.

"Nnngh." A growled in increasing fury and frustration. The arm rests on his chair had already been crushed in his hands since the fighting began. "Bee. I am only going to ask you once. Were you aware of this?"

The guilty party shifted uncomfortably, knowing he was in deep shit. "Sorry to let you out of the know, bro. This trump ticket was a stupid high level secret. That bein' said, even I had no clue that Namikaze and the Mrs. could jump from the kid's head."

"Leave it, boss." Darui sighed. "Sorry, but this entire mess has insanity written all over it from the get go. Odds are this isn't the last time we're going to be seeing something impossible."

The Raikage glared at his subordinates with mixed emotions before finally calming himself down with a deep sigh, returning his attention to the fight. "… Bee. You noticed too. Right?"

The younger sibling's nervousness died down at the question, and he too turned to the screen to see Han on his back, his already warped face now a twisted mess. "Mmm. He's different from back then."

"Different?" Yugito blinked in confusion.

"That man is no doubt Namikaze. He looks like he hasn't aged a day from when I encountered him during the third Shinobi War." A frowned, focusing on the former Kage's image. "His style hasn't changed either. The man strikes like a lightning bolt. Impossibly fast. Disgustingly unpredictable. And hits hard enough to defeat nearly anyone in a single blow. Any idiot Jonin can attack in a way that makes every strike lethal if it hits. What made that bastard different is that when he struck, it hits. There was never an if with that guy. But… he was also the type of man that had a soft heart. Empathetic. The sort that understood what his opponents were like as human beings with just a few clashes. The first time we fought, he had a better understanding of Bee's and my relationship than the vast majority of Kumo."

"He's more aggressive." Bee's glasses shined, reflecting light from who knows where. He didn't even bother to rap this time. "He's normally not the type to disregard his opponent's state of mind like this. He's also taking his time when he has the advantage. Ignoring openings to finish his opponent off. Something's making him hold back or hesitate from ending the fight."

"Could it be the Kyubi's chakra affecting him?" Darui pointed out. "He is channeling two tails worth of power."

"No. That guy's mind was iron clad. It would take more than two tails to tweak his judgement."

"I don't doubt it. Namikaze was always frustrating like that." Surprisingly A didn't object to Bee's verdict. "Still, whatever's messing with him is making him sloppy. The Gobi's getting up again."

o. o. o.

"Naruto was right. You are in terrible shape. I expected you to be up faster than that." Minato mused out loud as Han stumbled back to his feet like a drunkard.

He was left with two genuine options. Kill Han, or put him away in a state that no one could reach him and he couldn't do anything about it. Each had benefits and drawbacks.

He chose the harder of the two.

Flashing away to avoid being clawed through, Minato began to spin his trademark kunai on his finger even faster.

"I hope he's strong enough to survive this."

He flung it straight up in the air, never taking his eyes off of his opponent as it turned to his direction. He had at most three seconds to pull this off.

One second.

Han's legs were almost fully coiled. Eye contact had been made.

The Kage had finished making seals. "Multi Shadow Kunai technique."

The single weapon in the air had become a hundred, all pointing to the sky.

Both of the man's hands made half ram seals. One pointed above his heat to the flying tools. The other over his chest.

The former hand glowed with chakra, and shot off a bolt of lightning. The electricity instantly connected to one of his tools before splintering to all the others in a chain effect that lit up the sky above them.

Every kunai in the air now had a lightning chakra blade extending from the tip, making them resemble swords or spears than mere tricked out daggers.

Two seconds.

Han was already shooting straight towards his prey. The blonde menace was not moving. He was standing his ground, blue eyes meeting his with no fear or malice. It was disgusting. It was infuriating. The Monster was nothing more than an engine of pure fury and destruction with the sole purpose of destroying the source of all that was wrong in the world.

Lightning does not strike the same spot twice.

Glee was filling its twisted frame as the monster came right on top-

The markers that Minato had placed on his enemy earlier glowed.

Two point three four seconds.

"Hidden Art. Falling Thunder God."

It strikes as many times as The Storm deems fit.

At that moment lightning lanced down upon the beast.

Not once.

Not twice.

Not a dozen times.

Hundreds.

The deafening cracks of thunder ripped through the grounds endlessly as the overcharged lightning kunai that Minato had prepared had teleported and lanced down upon Han on every inch of black and crimson flesh from above. Each dagger discharging its biju powered load upon contact. Each dagger mimicking a blow from heaven itself. Each dagger ripping apart the Jinchuriki's flesh, chakra, and nerves in a single blow.

The cataclysm generated from Minato's attack was so great that even the pained roar of the beast itself couldn't be heard.

He stood but a couple of meters away from the chaos, completely unfettered by the sounds and lights he generated.

The normal Hiraishin was a genuine teleportation technique. Once mastered, it was instantaneous, near impossible to detect, and had nearly no limits.

It did not, however, generate momentum to magnify the force of teleporting objects.

The normal Hiraishin, did not utilize seals from outside the universe with effects that could vary upon the user's intent.

Naruto was not the only one that learned a few tricks over the past few years.

"Gah. Haaaaa? Haaa."

"How sad. A human being, no, any sentient being shouldn't be reduced to such a state." Minato muttered as he took in the broken sight of Han, pierced and slashed to near pieces on the ground. As potent as Biju chakra was, even that could not protect him from the countless lightning bolt like strikes that his blades had just inflicted on him. What little movement the monster could have made was further slain by the arcs of electricity that riddled its frame every few seconds. The only reason why he was still alive was no doubt due to the Biju's chakra around him, keeping his body together like a corrupted glue.

A simple tap and some chakra was all that was needed to completely shut down the monster, forcing chakra back into his body. A second seal kept him unconscious. A third put him in stasis, so he wouldn't die anytime soon.

The fourth would have teleported him to the other side of Iwagakure in a secure location so Akatsuki wouldn't be able to get to him for the rest of the event.

…▄▄██▄▄

"NGH?!" The Hokage grimaced and clutched his chest in pain as the illusion of something stabbing him from behind took hold.

o. o. o.

"MOTHER FUCKER NOT AGAIN!"

"Naruto!"

"Hinata! We have to stabilize his chakra!"

"CAN'T YOU ASSHOLES PUT UP A LOG DAMNED WARNING FOR THIS SHIT?! IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!"

While most people were fretting over Naruto's clone, Shikamaru, Sasuke, and Kakashi gave one another looks.

"I didn't expect it to affect Sensei too." Kakashi frowned.

"It must impact all bodies running on Naruto's chakra. Even if someone else is in control." Shikamaru surmised.

"A chakra based attack then?" Sasuke guessed.

"No. We would have detected something along those lines if that was the case." Kakashi shook his head. "The chakra might channel it, but the attack itself is based on something else. As much as I hate saying it, we still don't know enough yet."

"…" Shikamaru frowned as he tapped a finger on the railing in front of him, his face betraying the deep thinking he was doing.

"You have something?" Sasuke probed.

"… A guess. Give me a bit." Turning around, the Nara went to one of the few empty seats near the group, sat down on it, and assumed his thinking position.

His actions did not go unnoticed.

"Kurenai. Give him some privacy." Asuma glanced at his girlfriend, who reacted quickly. Everyone in their group knew better than to question it when Shikamaru assumed his position. With several seals made, a genjutsu was cast to make people to disregard the teen sitting oddly on the chair.

"We'll tell you if something relevant happens." Sasuke added, just as the Naara's shoulders began to droop in focused relaxation.

"Mmm." Was all that managed to come out of the young man's mouth as he began to shut out everything around him.

Whatever anyone was going to say next was quickly forgotten as many people in the audience screamed in surprise, forcing all eyes back to the screen.

o. o. o.

Minato grimaced as he reappeared by another marker just in time to avoid getting impaled by the dozens of tree roots and branches that shot up from the ground around Han, conforming into a twisted tree with sharp branches.

"Wood style?" He breathed out in pain, still clutching his heart… or rather, where his heart should be. His body was just a puppet channeling a soul and chakra. He didn't have organs, much less a heart, even if he did act and move like a living breathing person. He still felt pain if hit, but it was a fleeting sensation when he was like this.

The fact that he still felt like he had been stabbed in the heart though was the bigger problem and mystery. It simply shouldn't have been possible in the first place.

The feeling was going away quickly, however it had been more than jarring enough to open him up for a sneak attack.

It didn't hit him, but it did separate him from Han.

"Whoo! That was close!" From the writhing plant limbs, Zetsu walked out as if taking a stroll in the park. "For a moment there, I honestly thought that I'd have to fight you up front to get you away from this guy! Don't think I've ever seen someone take out a transformed jinchuriki so easily before without the Sharingan or Wood style. I would have been slaughtered! Good thing you're not in as good shape as you thought!"

No. This Zetsu was different. This one was all white and naked, not wearing an Akatsuki cloak at all.

Judging from the way he talked, it was safe to assume that he wasn't responsible for the pain he just went through.

It was also blatantly clear that he wasn't human.

In that case. This interloper could be ignored and or killed. Han took priority.

He channeled a bit of chakra and… "?"

"You just tried to teleport to Han to you with Hiraishin, didn't you?" Zetsu grinned. "Sorry, but I absorbed all the chakra you left in your seals. They're all useless now."

"So you want to kill him then? One of the seals I had on him was a stasis seal. Without it he'll die from his wounds. I linked my marks together. Get rid of one and you get rid of all." Minato bluffed. Stasis seals were sensitive things. They couldn't be chained together with anything except seals that were explicitly customized for that situation.

"Don't worry. My plants are pretty versatile. They'll keep Han alive as long as needed." Zetsu smirked.

They stared at one another, daring for the other party to move so they could react in kind.

"?! Hurk?"

Idiot.

Thump.

Minato walked towards the giant plant in front of him, ignoring the Zetsu behind him that he had just decapitated, casually spinning a kunai around one of his fingers.

The monster had overestimated itself. Just because the former Kage didn't have a marker set nearby didn't mean his ability to move faster than most shinobi could possibly dream was shut down.

It merely meant that he was comparable with the other speed demons of the Shinobi world, such as the Raikage.

His speed was another thing that had only increased while away. How could it not when the one dragging his son everywhere was a master of self timespace manipulation? It had not been uncommon for Minato to practice and test his abilities against the immortal whenever he had some free time outside.

It had gotten to the point that Naruto had offhandedly said on a few occasions that maybe it was for the best that he was dead. If anyone knew that the Yellow Flash was still alive and had achieved such ridiculous speeds without ninjutsu, a war really might just break out just to kill him all over again just to stop the other countries from pissing themselves with fear.

Of course, this didn't mean that the effects of whatever had "not" stabbed him in the heart had gone away. His chest still hurt and his head was still slightly clouded. However the pains were lessening by the second, and he was a war veteran that had already died once. Pushing aside such distracting and useless sensations was second nature by this point.

A few meters away from the tree though, Minato stopped. "You can come out now. I know you're there. All of you."

"Heheheheh."

All around him and the tree, dozens of Zetsu sprouted out of the ground like corrupted zombies

"Damn. Your speed really is insane. I didn't even know you moved until it was already over." The closest one chuckled, not at all worried for its safety. "I doubt even Itachi would have been able to keep up with you. No wonder everyone was terrified when you were alive."

Thirty seven enemies. More underground. All of them can potentially manipulate the tree surrounding Han or generate more plants. They were planning on wearing him out. The odds of getting to Han were low now despite being the stronger force.

… Still he might be able to get something out of this.

His body seemed to flicker for but a moment, as though he was undergoing some bad static effect on a television screen.

"… Eh?"

All the Zetsu that were above ground were shorn apart simultaneously in a silent cacophony of body parts and white blood.

"I said for all of you to come out." Minato said firmly.

"Holy hell. Fuck Itachi. You really are a monster." The Zetsu that appeared this time did so from a much greater distance than before. They didn't look so confident anymore.

It still wasn't all of them though. It would be stupid to think that they would. They had no intention of winning against him after all. Only to keep him away from Naruto.

If he focused on Han, he'd be able to get to the man eventually, but it would take too much work and time with the tree in his way. There was better things to do.

He lifted up his kunai again, ready to move.

"W-whoa! Wait! Time! Time! We came out, didn't we?!" One of the monsters stumbled back in a panic. Stalling or not, they had enough sense of self-preservation to not be torn to shreds.

Not all of them did, but Minato did pause. "Not all of you, but I do have some questions. You answer them, and I might let you live."

That seemed to make the clones relax slightly, though most were still uncertain. "Whew. Close one. Well? What do you want to know?"

The Kage's mind went back to a conversation that Naruto had with the Kyubi a few weeks ago. "You. All of you, were once human, weren't you?"

The monsters paused. "… That's an interesting question to ask right off the bat. Care to elaborate?"

"World Trees don't normally go for humans. No, they do not go for any sentient living beings in general save for the abnormal monstrosities that can be equivalent in power to planets themselves. They tap into the worlds they are planted on and kill everything by sapping the life force that sustains the systems that exist on it. Why go for such minor sources of nourishment when there is an entire planet to tap?" Minato began to put pieces together. "But, you still exist. Weeds that sap chakra in the shape of men. You're products of the World Tree… no. Not products. Byproducts. The husks of humans that had been drained and taken in by the tree itself, aren't you? Normal monsters made by world trees don't have a fraction of the self-awareness that you possess. That's one of the few things it can't imitate easily."

The tension in the air was palpable. Not a single Zetsu was smiling.

"You. You certainly know a lot of curious things." One said ominously. "Why do you think we're part of the world tree in the first place?"

"Plant men fighting to bring back a world ending plant. It doesn't take much to put two and two together." Minato reasoned. "But, that doesn't explain why you were made in the first place. It wasn't to wipe out humanity. Killing the planet itself would be simple if the tree is left alone… so you were made on purpose, for a purpose. Whoever it was wanted, needed, additional forces like you. But a normal world tree doesn't have enough consciousness or reason to do such an act…

"… Someone was controlling it. Someone made you thousands of years ago."

"You…" One of them took a step forward, not at all caring that they were horribly out matched.

Minato's eyes narrowed. "That someone is your true master. Not the tree. Not that Madara impostor."

More than that. The Black Zetsu personality attached to the white one was a special existence. One that couldn't be duplicated. Smarter. Whether or not it was the mastermind was not important. The fact of the matter was that the thing played a critical role in this mess that couldn't be ignored.

So, the bottom line was, in order to prevent Akatsuki from succeeding… To stop the end of the world… To ensure that this didn't happen far in the future…

… They absolutely needed to kill Black Zetsu.

o. o. o.

"Kaguya Otsutsuki."

"Hmm?" Kakashi turned to Sasuke confused. "Who's that?"

The teenager was pale, not believing what he was hearing. "The mother of the Sage of Six Paths. She's the Master."

"I'm… sorry. What?" Ino balked at the revelation clearly confused. "The Sage of Six Paths? That old story is real? And his mother is the mastermind? And… what?"

"I'm of the same state of mind." Asuma looked at Sasuke. "Just how in the world did you come up with that conclusion?"

Sasuke grimaced, knowing that he was about to reveal some secret family information. "My clan has an ancient slab hidden in the compound. Only people with the Sharingan can read it. The stronger the eyes, the more you can decipher. It says a lot of things. How to get the Mangekyo. Our connection with the Biju. But some of it talks about the Sage, Kaguya, and the World Tree. Until now, I just thought that last bit was worthless information. Just jargon reveling about how strong the fighters of that time were. Superstitious bullshit."

"How does that explain how she's the master?" Chouji crossed his arms in confusion. "Wasn't she the Sage's mother?"

"She's the one that controlled the World Tree and ruled the planet with overwhelming power." Sasuke turned to them with a grimace. "The World Tree became a monster controlled by her. When the Sage beat it, she was beaten too. And worst of all, the monster was called the Ten Tails."

"… Ten Tails." Kakashi echoed with a tone that was impossible to read.

"Yeah."

Everyone's heads turned to Naruto's clone, expecting him to say something.

"I… kinda knew about the Ten Tails bit." It hedged almost innocently, right before Hinata's grip on him tightened. "Ack! B-But that was it! Kurama didn't say jack about a Sage or his apparently psychotic bitch of a mother outside of how he was born! That's it! S-Stop! Stop! I agree! Ten tails is a stupid and unimaginative name for a final boss and the whole point of fighting Akatsuki was to stop it from showing up in the first place so there was no real point in talking about it in detail you can stop killing me now please thank you!"

Everyone ignored the fact that the clone's eyes grew progressively wider to the point of bulging out of its skull as Hinata's grip grew tighter, prompting it to speak faster to the point of slurring all of its words at the end.

"The Fox didn't tell you about the World Tree or that it was the Ten Tails?" Sasuke asked in skepticism. It was understandable, seeing as Naruto was normally on top of weird shit like this long before anyone else.

"Did it LOOK like he told me that he was part tree?" Naruto glared at his best friend irritably before pausing. "… Huh. Come to think of it, I guess that does explain why all the Biju are pretty weak to Wood Style if they're all sporting green chromosomes."

"Why not make it go one step further and claim that they're part Log as well." Kakashi rolled his eyes.

"Yeah right. Those guys are more ego than chakra. There's no way that they'd try and claim the glory of the… Log… no. No. NO. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" The fox's face actually became visibly pale through its fur as it screamed at the top of its mind.

"Uh oh. Naruto figured something out that's going to scar us for life again." Sakura knew that look. The only things that could bring it out were Hinata, the Oogakari, and when the jackass came to a horrifying realization that would skew everyone's perspective on reality for the rest of their lives.

"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!"

"Wow. It must be bad." Chouji shivered. "The last time he freaked out this badly was when he found out that Hinata's stress was directly linked to her libido."

"Her what now?" Kurenai glared at Chouji.

"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!"

"You know what I said."

"He's giving me a headache. Hinata. Can you do a thing to make him stop?" Ino groaned.

Wham!

Hinata did a thing. Now the clone had a goose egg on its head, was crying, and most importantly no longer screaming.

"Naruto. Even though I doubt any of us will ever be prepared for it, can you please tell us what has made you lose your grasp on reality this time?" Hinata asked kindly.

"Those mother fuckers! They played us the entire time! The Log was their master stroke!"

"Naruto. Why is your insanity treading dangerously close to blasphemy?" Kakashi asked nervously.

"The monster is a World Tree. The fungus man things that are trying to bring it back are likely at least a thousand years old. And we happen to worship a Log, which was a habit that the Senju gave everyone after they helped form Konoha. Senju, who are the only known users of Wood Release, which happens to be one of the few styles of jutsu that have a genuine advantage over Biju and are linked to said World Tree."

"That's… unnerving. But still a stretch Naruto. Aren't you overthinking…" Asuma started, only to be cut off.

"Book of the Elder Tree. 4:13:42."

"And the Log doth said, when the nine rivers with ever forking branches converge as one again, thine wishes shall breach the heavens to the moon and gaze upon all with SON OF A BITCH NARUTO! WHY CAN'T WE HAVE NICE THING'S WHEN YOU'RE AROUND?! LOG FUCKING CORRODED PESTILANCE RIDDEN-!"

"Naruto. We hate you. Even if you save the world, know that deep down, we will despise your existence for the rest of all creation." Sasuke glared murderously at the clone as Kakashi swore up a storm, completely ignoring the looks he was getting from those that heard and saw him.

"It took you that long? I've hated myself for years. I thought you were supposed to be a genius and ahead of the curve." The clone wept in Hinata's arms. "The Log is a lie. I have nothing to live for anymore."

"Naruto." Hinata looked down on him with an unreadable expression.

Her glowing hands were not part of an unreadable expression.

"Nothing at all." The clone's eyes grew suspiciously vacant.

"Shion-sama, do you know what is going on?" Choujuro whispered, clearly confused as to what the hell just happened.

"I, I think it's best to wait and figure it out later. Preferably after they all calm down." Shion shivered as Kakashi continued to rant and rage in a way oddly similar to Naruto had been just moments before.

o. o. o.

In Kirigakure, Zabuza suddenly developed an urge to laugh viciously at Kakashi's expense even though he did not know why.

He was most displeased because he was unable to fulfil this urge.

o. o. o.

"Huh. I was wondering if they'd ever figure it out." Shadow mused out loud, looking down at Kakashi's breakdown.

"Mmm. Mmm." Ghost nodded in agreement with his sister, only to be lifted out of his seat harshly by the women on either side of him.

"You knew that the Log was a lie?" Anko growled dangerously.

"The entire time?" Hana's tone was little different.

To his credit, the immortal's bored expression didn't change. The sweat dripping down his face like small rivers didn't help him though. "As a general rule, we assume that all major religions are either lies or elaborate and organized long term attempts to rule the world in one way or another. Regardless, at this stage in our relationship, I'm pretty sure I know you two enough to know that you're going to hurt me regardless of what I say. Dima? Little help?"

"Help? You? And I thought Crypt was the insane one." The old bald man snorted, taking a sip of beer from his bottle. "Have fun ladies. Give him an extra shank for me will you?"

"I'm feeling generous." Anko didn't turn her attention away from Ghost.

Instead, the three vanished in a cloud of smoke, a pop, and a faint whimper.

Sylvia rolled her eyes before looking at Shadow. "So. The Log?"

"Believe it or not, we weren't the ones responsible for that one this time." Shadow shrugged.

"Sure you weren't."

"It's true!"

o. o. o.

CRASH!

"NGH?!"

Tobi skidded back, barely able to maintain his balance from the most recent clash with his opponent.

At first, he had assumed it wouldn't take him long to beat the Uzumaki woman. He had killed her once. He could do it again no problem, right?

Turns out, it was significantly harder to fight a woman when she wasn't suffering from the immediate aftereffects of child birth.

"RAAAAAHHHH!"

BOOM!

More so when she was hyped up on two tails worth of quality grade A Biju chakra.

Who knew?

CRASH!

At this point? Probably, well, everyone.

Rattle rattle.

"Huh?!"

But that didn't seem to be the end of Tobi's headaches.

BOOM!

Turns out Kushina did her own bit of self-improvement while travelling with Naruto. While her skills in combat were not immediately as overwhelming as her son's and husband's, she made up for it in her own brand of versatility, creativity, and ferocity with her chains that she had developed.

Despite being a trained kunoichi, the woman was more monster than man at that moment. Radiating demonic power that she had grown up with all her life, her face was shadowed by her flailing hair to the point that the only things visible underneath were the floodlights that were her eyes and the outright horrifying and murderous grin of sharp white teeth that would make people wonder if she was related to Kisame.

In more than one way, she was an even more terrifying and ominous entity than Han even if the latter had turned to his stage two state earlier.

The fact that she had only flinched when she felt her heart pierced a few minutes earlier only further cemented the idea, not that anyone would have known.

Part of her terrifying jump in ability came in the form of the on and off training she did with a certain former revenge driven God of War that occasionally had contests with Shadow to see who could come up with the most brutal way to execute… well, anything they came across.

"I'm going to tear your fucking head off and stuff your guts into your eye hole, you emo crippled home wrecker!"

Part of it came in the form of the on and off training she did with a younger version of a certain King of Heroes that possessed a divine chain that could extend indefinitely.

With her hands on the ground, she roared. Instantly, chakra chains pierced the sky from the earth everywhere around her at impossible speeds in numbers that made them all but impossible to dodge within twenty meters of her.

Most of the threat she posed in this fight though, came from the fact that she had decided to live up to her Uzumaki name a bit more so she could fall into the "absolutely fucking broken" category like the rest of her family.

Running up the entirety of every link she made were two sides of plates, giving her tools a viciously heavier and more dangerous look to them.

It wasn't for aesthetics that she added them though, because those plates weren't blank.

"Tch!" Tobi grimaced as he barely managed to get away from the woman in time to not get hit. Barely, because he was indeed grazed on his left leg before getting out of range.

All the plates were lined with seals.

Even if she didn't have a natural affinity for the element, her seals could do the work for her. Even if she wasn't the most powerful or skilled among her family, her abilities all but ensured that she could accomplish the most in the shortest amount of time.

To put things simply, there was not an opponent in existence that Kushina wasn't strong against in some significant way.

Rather, the only guaranteed methods against her were to either catch her completely off guard with an ability or skill she wasn't familiar with and thus couldn't counter, cut her off from Naruto and make her waste all her chakra, or to overwhelm her completely in one way or another.

For this, she went with Time-Space restricting seals.

He didn't seem too pleased about it.

Hidden Art. Crimson Playground.

A 100 meter radius barrier of chains that prevented the user and whoever else was inside from escaping via any means be they conventional or not.

Kushina was both the cage, and the beast inside. And Tobi was stuck in it.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the man was genuinely trapped.

"What's wrong? Where's that confidence you had earlier? Don't tell me the only thing you're good at is killing women that have gaping wide cunts that can't walk straight?"

In case anyone didn't realize it by now, Kushina was holding a grudge.

The Uchiha looked around as quickly as he could with what little time he had.

Trying to break through the barrier via normal means wouldn't work. Not only were the woman's seals preventing his jutsu from working, but if he got too close to the edges, more chains would spawn and try to ensnare him.

Even now, he saw errant tendrils of chains twitch and move like living waves around him, as if they were snakes waiting to strike.

He leapt backwards to avoid another barrage of chains that came down on him like arrows. He had long since learned that he couldn't turn transparent or teleport away if the gouges in his limbs and side were any indication.

"Tch. Insane woman." Without so much as a twitch of his arms, dozens of kunai with explosive tags flew right at his opponent, impacting the oncoming deluge of chakra metal. The charges they possessed were vastly more potent than what even demolition experts normally had on hand, and the mere idea of using them as projectiles at such close range would have even veterans balk at the mere idea of surviving.

The rampaging and overwhelming explosions stalled the oncoming attack, blinding and deafening the audience in the process, and held it off just long enough for him to get some more distance from her.

Neither one of them were injured in the slightest.

Not everything related to his Sharingan were cut off. He could still bring out objects from his personal dimension, and his ability to read the woman's movements were unimpeded. The woman's seals were a one way barrier. Things could come inside its confines, but nothing left. All he needed was one good shot at the bitch to either put her down or at least make an opening in this damnable jutsu of hers.

"Is that all you can do now? Throwing half assed explosives from that extra-large fun pouch in your eye socket? Oh you must be such a disappointment with the ladies. A one trick pony that can't put out when push comes to shove. It might be enough for a girl or two, but that's about it. I bet if you did like a girl, she'd dump you the second she came across someone with actual talent." Kushina all but purred. Every step she took towards him was a mix of predatory instincts and sensual bliss, as if she enjoyed every passing moment of her advantage.

Tobi didn't respond. Instead he jumped just in time to avoid getting run through by three links that tried to impale him from below and four from either side.

"Is that why you wear a mask? To add a little spice to your sex life? To make the girls wonder more about who is under it rather than why you're so lackluster?" Kushina went on. "It certainly can't be because you're actually Madara. Any idiot Uchiha can wear a mask and claim that they're that idiot. The Mangekyou you have only means that you're sick enough to kill your best friend. Definitely not an appealing trait when looking for significant others."

"Tch." He threw a kunai with some wire at the ground and pulled himself out of the path of another slew of chains. The woman's attacks were almost as annoying as her banter.

"Or maybe it's simply because you're ugly? Or shame? If I was Madara, I'd want to hide my face after the ass kicking Hashirama gave me too. Hell, if anything, the statue of him at the valley of the end was nothing more of a pity prize just to keep the rest of the clan from killing themselves in shame after being loosing so badly. Why else would they make something so over the top for a traitor that couldn't handle being second place?"

Judging from that blast of killing intent, and the titanic steaks of obsidian that were larger than buildings that he fired at her from his pocket dimension, he didn't take to her comments very well.

Kushina made a half ram seal in retaliation. Dozens of chains shot up from the ground and wound around themselves to make a giant metal tendril that smacked away the oncoming attacks with almost careless ease. The sound of massive bodies of metal crashing into one another tore at everyone's ears.

Within that two second distraction, Tobi had crossed almost the entirety of the distance between the two, a giant fan now in hand and his lone eye wide open.

Kushina met it without a moment's hesitation, rushing him with a grin on her face.

Her body froze as the Gejutsu took hold. They were less than an instant away from one ano-

CRACK!

The Uchiha lurched in pain as the woman nearly snapped his neck into splinters with a haymaker that would do Tsunade proud.

Helpless in the air, the stunned man could do nothing as he was speared all over his body by chains until his flight was halted and he was stuck in midair.

And then he turned into a log.

"You are a frustrating woman." Tobi mocked, standing a short distance away on one of his deflected spikes, unharmed. To think that the woman had mastered the Kyubi's power enough that it would willingly disrupt the Genjutsu he cast on her. Another potential advantage he had completely useless now. "I honestly don't see what Namikaze finds appealing in you."

"You must have a useless eye in your head then. Pity you lost the other one. Probably poked it out eating lunch or something. You must have been the embarrassment of the clan. I almost feel bad beating up a pathetic cripple like you." Kushina didn't appear disappointed, turning to his direction.

"Wouldn't know. They're dead now last I checked."

Kushina didn't react the way Tobi expected her to. Instead of attacking him or more insults, she frowned, the malice in her body tempered into something more uncertain. "Who are you?"

"I thought I told your husband before I killed him. I'm Madara."

"And I'm the Raikage. Like I said, any idiot can wear a mask and pretend to be him." Kushina growled. "You do have the Sharingan, and you are an Uchiha. The Fox wouldn't mistake your chakra for another's, so you are not Madara."

"Why does it matter to you who I am? You're dead too. Or supposed to be. How you hid away for so long and managed to possess that puppet without my knowing is beyond me."

His lone Sharingan glowed faintly, peering through the image of flesh and blood that the woman portrayed and seeing the wooden doll in the shape of a human underneath.

"Same could be said for you. Problem is, that Time Space jutsu of yours works in a rather peculiar way. The spiraling wormhole acts surprisingly similar to another Mangekyou Sharingan Jutsu I've seen. One that also works with a single eye, a left eye."

o. o. o.

Kakashi's bitter sulking was murdered instantly. His body froze and his face turned pale.

"No… it couldn't be."

o. o. o.

"A single eye… Sharingan Kakashi. So he has the Mangekyo as well? Interesting." Tobi tilted his head to the side curiously. "If memory serves, he got it from his deceased teammate, no? You think I'm that poor fool?"

"No."

Kushina's single word answer was damning.

"But that eye of yours is another story."

Her follow up statement on the other hand, made the world mute.

Kushina hadn't been simply raging at her opponent. Every other insult, every other verbal abuse was tailored to jab at one of Obito's insecurities and weak points. Personal deficiencies. Embarrassing hobbies. Standing with the clan. Hell, she even hinted at the fact that he had a weird birthmark on his ass, something she had learned about after a particularly humiliating slew of events at a local bathing house.

Nothing. Not one twitch, spike in anger, or flux in chakra that would indicate that she hit something sensitive.

The only times he did react were when she insulted Madara himself.

This wasn't Obito. But… it was his eye.

"You really think that my Sharingan belonged to some worthless child?" Tobi snorted.

"That, or you're shit as an Uchiha. Losing an eye. Hiding behind a mask. Killing off your clan with Itachi. Your family wasn't exactly friendly at times, but you're a freak even by their standards."

Both fighters were ominously silent.

"Heh. Heheheh. A freak? A possessed puppet that even Sasori would envy is calling me, a freak? How absurd." The man chuckled, as if hearing a bad joke. "But then again, I can't really call myself a normal human being either, can I?"

"Most humans don't try to destroy the world, so no."

"And most humans don't come back from the dead either, so I suppose we're both freaks then." Judging from the way he was looking at her, Tobi was unnaturally amused by their conversation. "Obito Uchiha. That was the boy's name, if I remember correctly. A pathetic child that barely managed to awaken his Sharingan a few minutes before his supposed death. So much so that his non Uchiha friend could use just one of his eyes better than he could both. Embarrassing. To think that he of all people had the potential for such useful jutsu hidden away."

"What are you going with this?" Kushina asked with a half growl.

"Hmhm. I'm honestly surprised that no one ever questioned it before. The Hyuuga put in so much effort to prevent the Byakugan from falling into enemy hands, but even so I have it on good authority that Kirigakure has one in their ranks."

o. o. o.

"What?!" More than one Hyuuga in Konoha shouted in alarm.

o. o. o.

Ao swallowed heavily, not risking to look at anyone else in the room.

This was not going to end well for their relations with Konoha.

o. o. o.

"And yet, in comparison did anyone wonder why or how, in the history of the Shinobi Nations, not a single enemy village or outside party has ever gotten a single Sharingan?"

The man's words struck not only Kushina mute, but everyone listening as well.

"You? No, that's impossible. There's no way you could be everywhere at once. Not for that long."

"I had some help, and I'm far from the only person that has had the idea, what with Danzo and Orochimaru always running about. But, make no mistake, I have always kept, shall we say, a close eye, on my former clan." Tobi purred. "Whenever there was a body left behind or captured, I harvested the remains when no one was looking. Konoha should be grateful. I kept its oh so precious bloodline outside of enemy hands behind the scenes for quite some time now. And having a few spare eyes in storage has been quite helpful towards furthering my goals."

It made sense in hindsight. Kakashi was proof that transplanting the Sharingan was possible.

And yet… there was not one single case of a Sharingan being successfully captured by the enemy by any of the Hidden Villages.

Tobi continued. "Most were the standard eyes. One to three tomoe. Barely anyone had the Mangekyou soon after the villages were established and stabilized. Few wanted to pay the price for them, and most that did only went on a few missions before overuse made their vision bad enough to hide in the confines of the clan property for the rest of their pathetic lives. In order to successfully transplant an eye with its full abilities and potential, it needed to be done while it was activated and the user alive. An impossibility if the original owner is dead. But the boy, he was different when he was found."

For the first time, Kushina was caught flat footed, her face turning pale. "No."

"Yes." She was corrected. "He was still alive when I found him."

THE LONE WOLF ROARED VICIOUSLY. ITS MISMATCHED EYES HOWLED FOR BLOOD.

Tobi's attention turned to the television screen, no, it turned to Kakashi, who was now radiating more murderous intent than he had ever generated in his life.

Not that Kakashi was the only one that was pissed off by the revelation.

THE VICIOUS CRIMSON WHIRLPOOL STIRRED VIOLENTLY. ALL IN ITS GRASP WOULD BE PULLED IN AND UNDER, TORN APART, UNSEEN, AND UNHEARD IN ITS FINAL MOMENTS.

"You… truly are irredeemable." Kushina looked down at him like some disgusting vermin better off not existing at all.

"I see. So that's what I was feeling this entire time. We're being watched as we speak, and judging from the feeling, Sharingan Kakashi is part of the audience."

"Oh we have an audience all right. And they're going to speak legends of what I'm going to do to you for generations." Kushina took a step forward. It was a simple action, but one that seemed to make the world quake by doing so.

"But I was so enjoying our little story time." Tobi tried to play off just how pissed off his opponent was. "I was just about to go into detail on how I brought him to my home. It wasn't often that I had living Uchiha guests after all."

Another step.

"How I cared and kept him alive for years. Talked to him. Kept him updated on recent events. Telling him of his dear Rin's death. Developing and growing his eye so it would fit an adult's head. Casting illusion after illusion on him until his mind broke, finally awakened his Mangekyou."

Stones were rattling and shaking in her presence now.

"And then, how I culled him like a fat pig, harvesting the valuable parts and tossing away the useless bits like trash."

Kushina stopped.

"I don't know what disgusts me more. The fact that you can say such things as if it's something to be proud of. The fact that you did it. The fact that when we were trying to figure out the secret behind your eye, we actually did guess that this was a genuine possibility… or…"

Unlike before, there was no warning as chains spawned everywhere, piercing the area around them from every angle. Neither fighter was hit, but within seconds, their range of movement had dropped to near zero.

She looked up, tears in her eyes, a look of relief in them. "The fact that I'm genuinely happy that I don't have to fight and kill Obito. That he wasn't the one that hurt us this entire time."

"Stupid. That soft hearted sentimentality is what will get you killed once more!" Tobi half chuckled half snarled as he activated his eye again, leaping through one of the small openings he had managed to spot.

At that moment, all the chains that Kushina had made, every link that glowed red with the Kyubi's chakra, turned gold.

"Hidden Art. Enkidu."

It was like the mother of all springs had been triggered.

In one giant snapping motion that gave everyone watching whiplash, dojutsu or not, literally every single line of chains that had littered the battlegrounds cracked and flung themselves in Tobi's direction.

It didn't matter if the man had a doujutsu, or if he was one of the most skilled shinobi on the planet. He could not turn intangible, thus, he was helpless as he was assaulted by all sides at speeds that he could not follow.

His left leg was tripped up first as he avoided the first thirty seven waves and coils. It slowed him down enough for his right arm to get properly ensnared.

He tore it off instantly just before he would have been completely trapped.

"Too fast. Too many angles. I can't keep up. How? This can't be just the Kyubi's chakra." He hissed to himself, barely able to keep himself out of danger. His Sharingan and natural abilities were a great boon to his efforts, but they could only do so much. He didn't have the Byakugan. He couldn't see in all directions.

"It's simple."

"?!"

He didn't know how, but by some absurd twist of reality, Kushina was on top of him with a fist raised, a crimson aura deeper than that of the Kyubi's hovering around her. The silhouettes of the chains writhing from various parts of her body made her image more akin to a genuine monster's than that of a human.

"You pissed me off."

CRACK!

Despite blocking with his remaining arm, Tobi was absolutely helpless before the woman's enhanced strength, getting fired back like a cannonball to the earth and creating a fissure in the dirt until he reached the edge of the barrier.

"HAAAA!"

With a blast of chakra, the dust and debris cleared out instantly, exposing Tobi utilizing Biju chakra as well, though not in a stage two state like Han. Four tails to Kushina's two.

Despite most of the audience's surprise, his opponent didn't seem all that stunned. "I was wondering when you were going to pull that out. Thief. Only four tails though? I'm being underestimated."

He didn't seem to bother notice the crimson chains already shooting out from all angles to ensnare him.

Instead, the mangled flesh where his missing arm once connected to the rest of his body writhed uncontrollably…

… And with a mighty lurch, a new arm shot out from the wound, covered in irregular bodily fluids and crimson chakra. Its pale skin pink and raw, and fingers complete with extended nails, but fully functional none the less.

With one wild slash of the new arm, the chains assaulting him were either battered away or broke in some way or another.

To her credit, Kushina was only slightly surprised by the display of power and regeneration. Even Naruto couldn't recover a limb that quickly.

That skin isn't normal. It's too pale and the skin doesn't look right. Could he have experimented on himself? She wondered.

"Let's try this again." Tobi didn't let her get very far.

The screen shook and the speakers spammed static as the two monsters clashed against one another before anyone registered that either of them had moved.

They were nothing but crimson streaks to the eyes of anyone that wasn't a battle hardened veteran.

It didn't take long for those outside to tell the difference between the two. Kushina's chakra cloak was a shade of crimson that glittered like gold, and was fluid like velvet. Tobi's on the other hand, was dark and unstable, boiling like magma with a semi solidified surface.

"RAAAAAAH!"

Regardless of how their power looked though, it didn't change the fact that they were going at one another like wild animals. Tearing and clawing at one another faster than most could blink. The ground and stones around them were shredded to pieces as if they were made of paper, rent apart by a pair of insane wood chippers.

Tobi grimaced, darting to the side just before a loop of chains latched onto one of his arms. "Frustrating woman! She's more annoying dead than alive!"

Strong as he was, his body wasn't adapted to utilizing so much chakra at once. Every passing moment, the chakra ate away at his body. Not only that, but the corrosive nature of the beast's power was dulling his mind. His reflexes and eye worked as well as ever, but his judgement was starting to get clouded by violent emotions.

It didn't make sense. He had more tails than her. He had his Sharingan active too. Even if he was in the woman's territory and her chains were running interference, there should be no reason why she was keeping up with him… no, not keeping up, matching him, move for move.

He thrashed about with his tails before charging at her once more, claws drawn. His insane enemy did the same, as if mimicking his movements.

Idiot. What was she thinking? Skilled as she was, Kushina had not once tried to directly go against him power against power yet. He had twice as much chakra as she did. Twice as much power. There's no way a mere possessed puppet could hold up against this much force.

Time seemed to slow down as they closed in on one another. His Sharingan recording everything perfectly.

The monster pressed forward with savage glee. It would tear through the crimson waves, dying it in its colors…

The world slowed down to a crawl. He used his Presence, for extra assurance. The boost to his power would ensure that-

THE RIPTIDE SURGED. THE WORLD WILL HAVE NO SAY IN HOW OR WHEN ITS ENDLESS CHAINS OF WAVES MOVED.

Words could not ever describe what Tobi witnessed and experienced next.

"- Wha?!"

It was as if everything in the world was moving at one speed…

"RAAAAAAAH!"

And Kushina had decided to move in another one altogether. Almost as if she had segregated herself from reality itself to slash off his arm and tear his chest apart in the middle of his own attack.

o. o. o.

"The fuck?" Anko and Hana turned to Ghost in disbelief. All three back to their seats.

On a side note, no one bothered to comment on the slew of cuts, bumps, bruises, and burn marks he now possessed. Or the fact that he was perpetually crying in pain now.

"I told you before, didn't I? That's one of the more advanced uses of Presence that I was teaching you. Using Presence to force your actions into reality faster, or supersede your actions over another's, or literally earlier than what would have been." The immortal shrugged.

"We got that, what we didn't expect was for Kushina to look like she literally broke out of the confines of the world's flow of time and move like that!" Hana pointed in accusation at the screen.

"You make it sound like it's something she can do at any time." Ghost groaned. "It's harder than you think."

Dima snorted. "Coming from you? You abuse the living shit out of that trick all the damn time when you actually bother to get off your ass. There's a reason why people complain that you fight as if you're in a different reality that follows different rules."

"I meant for everyone else, you grumpy shriveled chemo patient. You know what I meant. 'Sides, everyone knows that Waltz is worse than I am. Broken old bastard is literally unstoppable when he gets going."

"Bite me, pretzel boy."

"You swore you'd never bring that up again!"

"I'm feeling extra salty today." Dima didn't look away from the screen. He was getting an uncomfortable itch in the back of his mind. Something messed up was gonna happen soon.

… He paused and looked back at where Shadow and Sylvia were watching the fight. They glanced down at him for a moment, as if to say "don't look at us, we don't know either", before returning to what they were doing before.

Correction, something messed up was going to happen soon that wasn't directly their fault.

o. o. o.

"Hah. Hah."

Tobi hunched over, his chest wrenched open and his left arm once more torn off his body. What blood he was leaking was evaporating almost instantly from the Kyubi's chakra he was still channeling, but he couldn't do much about anything at the moment.

Mostly because he had finally been ensnared by Kushina's chains.

The offender stood casually a short distance away. Confident, but not cocky.

"If you think I'm dumb enough to get close and let my guard down just before you regen your arm for a sneak attack, then I truly wonder how you managed to mess with the world without getting caught for as long as you have."

"Tch." He strained against his bindings, but to no avail. It didn't surprise him that much. The things were made from the beast's chakra enforcing them after all. "That trick you pulled, that had something to do with Presence, didn't it?"

"Maybe. Not like I'm going to explain it to you. I'm not an idiot that wastes time gloating over the beaten." She shrugged casually.

Hypocrite. She says one thing, but she's doing just the opposite. He couldn't help but fight back the urge to spit in her direction.

His eye glowed maliciously. He could see it. Her chakra was indeed dropping rather steadily. No doubt it must be from maintaining this jutsu the entire time. The body was just a puppet. It didn't generate chakra of its own. She was running on a limited reservoir of power, as massive as it was when augmented with the Kyubi's chakra.

All he had to do was stall and wait for her technique to weaken enough to break free of it. She couldn't hold it forever. If he was lucky, she might even drop the barrier first and-?!

"Hrk?! Aaaah!"

"You, really thought I was being hypocritical just now, weren't you?"

"NGH?!" Tobi writhed, his breathing suddenly labored as pain lanced through his entire body. "You?! This is?!"

Kushina took the opportunity to walk confidently towards him now. The cloak of chakra around her glowing brighter with each step. "Brings back memories of last time doesn't it? Only the roles are reversed now. It's quite ironic and cathartic, no?"

The masked man's lone Sharingan darted to the chains that ensnared him, fading out of sight into the air and into the ground, then leading back to his enemy's frame.

His eye traced the chakra that was being stolen, no, ripped from his very body, and funneling straight to hers.

A third tail formed behind the woman just as one of Tobi's vanished completely.

"You have something that doesn't belong to you."

For the first time in a long while, "Tobi" felt the faintest tremors of genuine fear rock through his body.

"HHHHAAAAAAAAA!"

The world shook and everyone's view of the fight went blank for a moment.

When it returned, Tobi was replaced by a crimson and ebony monster with eight tails and a fox's head.

However.

"RAAAAAGH! THIS?!"

Despite the massive increase in power and intensity, the monster still couldn't break free of the chains. Even if his face was now the blank and nearly featureless mask of a beast, there was no mistaking the look of enraged confusion on it.

"Idiot." Kushina looked down on her prey as if he was a pitiful child with special needs. His transformation didn't seem to surprise or unnerve her in the slightest. "Don't you know? I was specifically chosen to be the Kyubi's Jinchuriki when I was a child. My chakra is tailored specifically to contain and resist the chakra of the Biju. An incomplete transformation is worthless against me."

With a snap of her fingers, more golden chains spawned from the ground and wrapped around the thrashing beast. Despite its immense power, enough to make the world around it crack with every sound it made, it was absolutely helpless against the chains assaulting it.

"Kushina!"

With a disgusting lurch that shifted its body in a way that should not have been physically possible for the individual at its core, Tobi's arm once more regenerated itself spontaneously into a titanic ebony claw, unrestrained and unfettered.

For about two seconds.

"Idiot. You clearly have mistaken me for someone that doesn't know what a Jinchuriki can do." Kushina deadpanned, not at all worried about the claw that was stretched out at her, entangled in so many chain links that it might as well have been mummified. She could already feel her enemy's chakra draining even faster than before, adding to her reserves.

She now had four tails.

With his hand blocking her view of his face, Tobi grinned, allowing chakra to flow to his eye and twist the world around him-

"Too slow."

The rattling of chains echoed through everyone's ears before a wet and disturbing sound was made.

"_▄▄▄▄█████!"

"After everything you've done, do you really think I forgot about Obito's eye?"

Tobi writhed in absolute agony and rage against his bindings. If he had been a horrifying image before, he was a true abomination with the dozen some odd chains sticking out of his eye socket, intersecting where time and space was rotating erratically.

"Distorting time space is a rather dangerous thing." Kushina cooed, her voice soft and gentle as she walked to the stunned monster in man's flesh. "You have to be careful not to do anything that might alter or disrupt the stability of the technique when in use, otherwise horrible things might happen. I can't tell you how many times Minato nearly killed himself playing with Hiraishin when he first recreated it."

"I-Impossible. Your chains…" The monster twitched in alarm. Had the chains not been in the way, Kushina might have even been able to see fear in his eye.

"Are directly linking this world and wherever your little pocket dimension is together. And Obito's eye is the doorway. But only for as long as you keep it active." The gentle smile on her face was absolutely horrifying. "I wonder what will happen when you can't. Like I said, timespace jutsu is rather finicky at times."

She was so into the show that almost no one noticed the seals she was making.

o. o. o.

"Holy shit your mom's scary Naruto." Ino looked at the fox, ignoring the several new lumps on its head that certainly did not come from Hinata earlier.

"Scary enough to use as an excuse for my behavior since she spends most of her time in my head?" The clone asked hopefully.

"Nothing is a big enough excuse for your behavior." Sakura absently threw in her two cents.

"Fair enough. Just checking."

"Guys. Please."

The teens paused at the request. It didn't come from them, but someone that they trusted. Someone that they had never in their lives heard so weak or tired before.

Kakashi didn't look at them. He was too busy watching what was happening with both eyes visible. His hands gripping the railings in front of him so tightly that the metal was clearly bent. Even then they saw the limbs, no, the man's entire body shaking irregularly, as if unsure of what emotion he was supposed to be feeling.

"Not now."

No one said a word.

They were all twisted to hell and back, but even then they wouldn't do something so cruel to one of their own.

Instead, they just turned back to the screen and continued to watch.

o. o. o.

"…? You."

Shackled in chains to the point that he could barely move, complete with spikes piercing through every limb and joint. Evidence of Sharingan genjutsu in his eyes. If those were the extent of the restraints that "Tobi" had on his half of Kurama, she would not have been surprised.

What did alarm her was twofold. The first unexpected twist was that half of the Biju's body was encased within a titanic, yet mutated black tree. Dead limbs stretched in all directions, swaying to a breeze that didn't exist. Roots that dug into the invisible ground and the Fox's flesh, sapping its power slowly with every passing moment.

The other twist, was just how pathetic this half of Kurama was.

She would never admit it without a great deal of prodding and or alcohol, but she had gotten close enough to the Fox in her son to the point that she would, begrudgingly, call him a friend.

She liked to think that she knew her friends well. Their likes. Their dislikes. Aspirations. Fears. Joys. Secrets. Habits. Personal quirks…

But, even so, she had not once seen the Kyubi look so… defeated.

"We can throw up in disgust later." The fragment of Naruto's complete Kyubi that had been with her the entire time stepped up, four tails flowing behind it weightlessly as though they didn't have any mass at all. "Time is valuable."

She sobered up quickly. "Right."

As one, both Kushina and Kurama launched tails and chains at the imprisoned beast, making contact with it instantly.

"? This is…" The larger beast blinked, slowly becoming more aware of its situation as the two newcomers pulled on its chakra.

"Less talking! More helping!" Kushina yelled. It was one thing to steal the beast's chakra. It was another thing to try and hijack the creature itself.

"But you are dead… are you telling me to die?" The Yin half of the Kyubi muttered, moving slightly. "Then again, death is preferable to this."

"You're not going to die! Shut up and go with this already! There's no time to explain!" Naruto's Yang half snapped, pulling hard as well. Lifting up a paw, it held up two claws. "WAKE UP!"

A massive charge of chakra shot from the smaller Kyubi's tails into the larger one, sending a jolt through the beast's entire frame. Within moments, there was a clarity in its eyes that had been absent for almost a decade.

"?!"

The sounds of wood straining to keep the Biju in place was heard as its large frame leaned forward.

"This… you, we, remember?"

"I remember you being a salty and angry bastard, not a clueless dumbass! Naruto must have gotten the smarter furball!"

"You try spending decades being stuck reenacting Passion of the Christ for decades inside a hormonal and psychotic woman and keep your temper intact!"

"Bullshit! You've been out of my gut for just as long as you've been in it and you haven't changed a bit!"

"Because those next two decades were in the gut of an idiot turned nutjob that runs around with the GOD OF NONE! Half the time I feel as though I'm the most rational of you bastards when I'm supposed to be a sentient force of nature and reality! I'd ask you to try and think about how I feel about all this, but then I remember that I might as well ask Shukaku to see if he's up for a pleasant walk and some small talk over brunch!"

To the trapped fox's surprise, the more the pair pulling on him bickered, the stronger they seemed to get. No. This was odd. Throughout its entire life, it had rarely if ever engaged in such meaningless conversation with anyone, biju or human. Even then, he would never imagine saying such frivolous things so-wait a second. "Did you just say the God of None is here?"

""Not Now!"" The intruders snapped in perfectly symphony.

The beast's mouth shut with an audible racket, more out of genuine confusion than anything.

With every lurch given, he could feel his chakra being absorbed and the tree's grip on him weaken. Ridiculous. The pair weren't trying to just take his power, their goal was to bring him back to his other half. To make him whole again.

"It won't work." He grunted as he felt the pain of the roots embedded in his flesh strain his nerves. "The Uchiha has cultivated Hashirama's cells in his body. I'm not simply sealed in here. I'm fused to his very system. Simply pulling on my being isn't going to free me."

With a loud crunch, Kushina planted her feet into the invisible ground and fired off more chains into the fox, doubling her hold in him. "Then we'll just have to rip you out viciously then! Sync!"

"RIGHT!" The smaller fox's eyes glowed with the same malevolent power that his partner's did.

The Beast of Nine Tails…

The Crimson Whirlpool…

"How is wording what you're doing more violently going to GRAAAAAAAAHHH?!"

Theirs was the might of the world itself.

The trapped Kyubi roared in pain as its body lurched in a single go. Despite all its years in futility trying to escape the illusions on its mind and the tree roots in its body, never had it made as much progress as the two intruders had made in the span of a few seconds. Already he could move more of his body than he could in years. Its limbs were loose. Its power was flowing. Its mind was growing more lucid with every passing instant.

And it hurt like a nightmare.

The entire inner world shook to its foundations as wood snapped and splintered in a single go. It would not be far off to say that the disfigured structure that the Kyubi was embedded in was one of the plane's foundations.

And then, a voice that was neither intruder nor prisoner spoke up.

"You… What do you think you're doing?"

All eyes turned up to look at a knot in the wall above the Kyubi, to see "Tobi" looking down at them, mask still in place, but all in all, not in good shape. He looked like he was exhausted, leaning heavily on the wall, his lone Sharingan eye dilated and unsteady, but still filled with nothing but fury and loathing.

"Taking back what is mine, you oblivious fool." Kushina's fox grinned savagely.

"We're in your head. Fucking it up. Not that it wasn't a mess to begin with. Don't worry though, give it some time and it might even be as nice as my son's." The woman's expression matched her partner's. "On that note!"

The World shifted towards Balance.

Tobi's world cracked once more as the intruders yanked once more, shattering more of its foundations and making the trapped fox lurch forward.

"HAAAAAGH! Damn you woman! Even now I can't tell if you're on my side or not, even when you're helping me!" Shifting its shoulders, the prisoner loosened its bonds in any way it could. Just one or two more yanks should be enough to free one of its arms, but it was not going to enjoy the experience.

"Don't bother! It's not worth the effort!" The fox next to Kushina was larger now. When he had arrived, he had only had four tails, but he was now up to six, and was significantly larger than before. With every passing moment, not only was the fox being freed, but its power was merging with Kushina's. The fact that both beasts were vying for the same thing only accelerated the process.

"Quit complaining and help!"

Crunch!

Another yank. Another set of fissures that shattered like lightning.

It didn't stop there though. Enough leeway had been made for the larger fox to struggle in earnest now, speeding things up even more.

"I. Am NOT. Going to die by the hands of a woman I have already killed!" Tobi snarled, struggling to keep his focus, starting to make seals…

CRACK!

… Only for his head to jolt to the side.

o. o. o.

"That felt good." Kushina grinned on the outside, her right hand throbbing in bliss from the uppercut she had just landed on the distracted writhing beast trapped in her chains. Normally attacking the outside body wouldn't affect the spiritual consciousness, but normally people didn't have seals to get around that deficit. "In fact…"

A particularly large link of chakra slipped from said hand before beginning to spin menacingly in a way that flicked dust into the monster's face.

"Let's see how anatomically correct a Stage Two transformation IS!"

o. o. o.

"HURGH?!" Tobi collapsed, one hand between his legs.

"Apparently, very correct." Kushina's eyes regained life as she resumed pulling.

"I don't know what you did, but I have already jumped to being ashamed of you again." Her partner deadpanned.

"Tell me something I should care about." She grunted.

The sound of wood cracking in a way that wasn't a result of their efforts reached their ears.

"Mokuton is a pain if left unchecked." Kurama paled as the previously unmoving wall began to slowly warp and bend as though it was waking up.

"Noted." Kushina agreed. "Oi! Bigger Furball! Move it!"

"This is harder than it looks! The roots are embedded into my flesh and chakra! What's holding me here is on a higher level than the seal you had!" Despite its protests, the beast managed to finally free one of its titanic arms with some effort and viciously work at freeing the other. Each swipe of its arms was enough to cleave a mountain in two, yet it still took several for any real progress to be made.

But there was progress. With every passing moment, more of the beast was free, and more of its power transferred to the other Kurama. They didn't even need to fully dislodge the trapped monster. All they needed was to shift enough of his power and consciousness to loosen the grip that Tobi's seal had on him to slip through the gaps that Kushina had made.

Both arms were free now, as was the beast's upper body. All that was left was the lower body, and the tails. The hardest part was still to be done, but with all three parties working in tandem now, it was only a matter of time.

Tobi watched all of this happen in disbelief and fury. How? How could he have been pushed into a corner so easily? His Sharingan. The Kyubi's power. His very mind. All of it had been rendered useless against a woman he had killed easily over a decade ago.

His Sharingan could only cast illusions here. It was enough to enslave the Kyubi again, but not with so much happening now. He could accelerate the activity of Mokuton in his body, but that was a stopgap at best. His enemies were making too much progress.

His mind and body were exhausted from being perpetually on the back foot this entire battle, his chakra was being drained if not ripped from his body, and most of his techniques were useless, but if he did nothing, his death was assured.

No. He couldn't lose now. He had dedicated too much, sacrificed scores beyond what he deemed sane to give up on his, on their goal now.

He couldn't beat Kushina. Not like this. Not alone.

But right now, he could settle for escaping.

Quickly, but quietly, he began to make several seals, hoping that no one would notice…

"He's doing something!"

Of course they would.

"?! Those seals." The trapped fox on the other hand grimaced, no doubt recognizing what he was going to do, but was in no state to do anything about it. "Tch! Damn! I have no choice if that's the case! You two! Pull as hard as you can! Hurry!"

Knowing better than to ask questions, the pair did just that, tripling their efforts instantly and getting results as their comrade lurched forward easily…

… No. It wasn't him. It was his chakra. A good majority of it by the looks of things.

"What?" Kushina was caught flat footed, but was far too into her efforts to stop now. "Kurama!? What are you doing?!"

"Heh. She even knows my name. You've gotten soft, my other half." The smirking prisoner chuckled, becoming emaciated to the point of being a skeleton as its chakra left it. "You won't be able to free me this time, but I have little doubt that you'll be able to get here again. Try not to make me wait so long."

"What are you-?"

The world shifted as Tobi finished the last seal.

Kushina felt a bizarre sense of vertigo as she was thrown back into her body, dragging a literal Biju's worth of power with her in the process. Her body now was glowing a dark gold and crimson, ebony lines reminiscent of tiger stripes or scars from battle littered her new look. "Gah?! What the hell?"

"Kushina! Dodge!"

The world exploded as Tobi fell down upon her like a meteorite, no longer in Stage two, but still radiating power from what was left of the Fox inside of him.

There was no body underneath him when he landed though.

"No. Impossible. There is no way that she could be even more infuriating…"

He had to jump away before he got ensnared in chains once more.

"Oh, I don't know. I think my impression of you would be up there."

Standing a short distance away near the barrier's edge, Kushina crossed her arms with a frown.

Tobi skidded to a stop and glared at her, and the chains near her.

"I should have guessed as much as soon as I saw seals on your chains. You know that infuriating technique of the Nidaime's as well."

Hiraishin. How he loathed that technique. If it wasn't annoying enough as it was, he now had to deal with a woman that could teleport all over a battleground he could not escape.

"I am an Uzumaki that's married to a guy that's mastered it. It would be stupid not for me to learn the move at some point, wouldn't it?"

He felt his covered eye close, losing its light. Izanagi had gotten him out of Kushina's grasp, but not before the damn beast inside of him had given her the majority of its chakra.

So, he was stuck in a place he couldn't escape, against a woman that held a grudge against him, that was stronger, faster, and more powerful than he was. He was one Sharingan down. Most of his normal jutsu was useless.

His body lurched, causing him to hiss as his flesh burned.

Oh, right. And because the Biju in him had regained some control over itself, the power that hadn't been stolen from him was somewhat unstable and tearing his body apart.

Screw subtlety. He needed to do something big in order to get out of this mess. Now.

He lifted a chakra encased hand up into the air, seals lighting up his flesh as he focused power into them, blood spilt earlier triggering their functions in earnest.

Thankfully, despite all of his enemy's preparation, he still had one card left he could play.

"Summoning."

o. o. o.

"… Time travel."

"Yup."

"As accurate as the information you have is, you truly expect me to believe that?"

"You're an emaciated cripple that looks so pathetic that most people would put money on a five year old if put against you, but still can resurrect people from the dead, use a face of the Shinigami to tell when people are dying, and manipulate gravity. Despite all of that, time travel is where you draw the line? Really? Do you genuinely not believe me, or are you just pissed off that your bullshit eyes don't give you that instant win ability too?"

Standing in the enclosure made of paper were four individuals. Two on each side.

On one were the Leader of Akatsuki and his long time confident. Nagato and Konan.

On the other were a shadow clone of Naruto Uzumaki and…

"As implausible and irrational as it sounds, he is telling the truth. I will vouch for him."

Itachi Uchiha.

He would have looked at impassive and uninterested as usual despite the subject of their conversation, however the fact that half of his coat was burned off thanks to Jiraiya's technique ruined the image a bit. The right part of his body was exposed, littered with marred flesh that ranged from first to third degree burns. There was no doubt that he was in a good deal of pain.

However, upon closer inspection, it was clear that the most severe damage was minimized and relocated to the least vital locations. All his injuries were also slathered in an unidentified paste that no doubt lessened the severity of the damage and accelerated the healing process. Most likely a salve the Uchiha Clan used whenever they got a bit too eager with their jutsu.

Thank all that was reasonable that the Oogakari were generous enough to NOT record and display all this to the mass audience. Naruto really didn't want to have to deal with the fallout if that actually did come to pass.

Nagato looked at his potentially traitorous subordinate. His tone as monotonous as always, but there was no mistaking the anger in it. "How long have you been cooperating with this farce?"

"Since the debacle in the Land of Iron." He told the truth. Everything else he did beforehand had nothing to do with time travel as far as he knew. "I was brought in on the matter, but was not responsible for anything that went wrong for Akatsuki at any point. My cooperation was not required."

No one missed the vaguest hint of mixed emotions with that last word. "And you believe them?"

"I received memories of the previous timeline. Certain events have changed, as you know, but others have not. Missions that Kisame and I took over the past few years that only we knew about. The earthquake near Kumo last year. Political scandals. Meaningless places and facts I have visited and learned during missions. They all match up. If it was a genjutsu, my Sharingan would have seen it. Any inconsistencies I did come across were easily explained due to changes made earlier in the past due to the deviations made. There was not a single exception to this save one."

"The Oogakari." Nagato frowned. "They did not exist in this so called previous timeline."

"No." Itachi confirmed.

"Did you betray us in any other way since then, Itachi? Were you the one that told the Kyubi about our plans here?"

"No. Like I said earlier, I found out about this snafu by dumb luck. It had nothing to do with leaks or spies or anything like that." The clone waved his hand in denial.

"I have visited Konoha once without your knowledge, though it was for reasons unrelated to Akatsuki." Itachi closed his eyes.

He then opened them to reveal his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. His normal pinwheel designs were still present, however now the image was accompanied by several orbiting lines that made them appear as if they were constantly in motion.

The sight if Itachi's eyes caused Nagato and Konan to still momentarily.

"Not going to lie. I'm pretty sure he can kick almost anyone's ass now." The clone nodded in approval. "Not mine of course, but probably yours. Maybe."

"Maybe?" Itachi looked at the clone with an unreadable gaze.

"He leveled the entirety of Konoha with one of those Shinra Tensei things. He can beat pretty almost anyone with that. Except the original me going all out. Even then it's not something I'd look forward to going against. Taking city busting moves and above to the face hurts like fuck."

"That's incredibly overconfident of you." Konan frowned. "You may have defeated me, but you honestly believe you can stand up to the Rinnegan?"

"I must have hit you harder than I thought. Didn't I just go through telling everyone that I did that already?"

"Through luck and convenience, yes." The woman glared. "I doubt you would have fared as well had the Kyubi not assisted you and Nagato was at full power from the start."

Despite the jab, the clone took it in stride, actually nodding in agreement with her. "Can't really argue against that logic. Nagato probably would have won if those things didn't happen then. But, the "me" then and the "me" now are so different you can barely consider them the same individual if not species. Even if I didn't get the drop on all six paths for an easy win, I'm certain I would have come out on top regardless if it was just us. Problem is, I'm not stupid enough to try that with the rest of your club around, especially Hidan. And Kisame."

"You really expect us to believe that Hidan is being possessed by his god?" For a person that was normally impassive and unreadable, it was hard not to drown in the sarcasm and skepticism in her voice. Must have been the blood loss. She did heal herself during his explanation, but she did leak out for a while.

"You expect me to believe that the cripple next to you is a God?" Naruto matched her tone perfectly. Somehow, everyone could hear the capital "G" when he said the word.

"For someone that is trying to convince me over to your side, you are doing a rather poor job of it." Nagato frowned. "I'm having trouble believing that you managed to talk me into reviving Konoha's population and have faith in the future in this previous timeline you described."

Naruto's annoyed disposition faltered into one of uncertainty. Sighing deeply, he adopted a somewhat ashamed expression and looked to the side. "Yeah well, things can change sometimes. For the better and for the worse. I'm not the same person that I was back then. I'm way stronger than I was, but I'm not the same hopelessly optimistic idiot from back then either. Truth be told, I kinda agree with you on more things than I'd like to admit. People are stupid, selfish, irrational, and violent. Trying to talk reason to the masses is a hopeless and suicidal task. If you want to change human nature, you have to trick it into doing so, or force it. Simply believing in the good in humanity to carry through to the end is just… not reasonable. For anyone. I'm crazy, but I'm not a hypocrite. I'm not going to lie to you and argue for a cause I don't believe in."

Out of everything that Naruto had said and revealed to them over the past fifteen minutes, that surprised them the most.

"You agree with me?" Nagato was clearly unsure of what to make of the situation. "You are a peculiar person Uzumaki. You claim to travel through time, convince my subordinates to turn traitor, have defeated me before, have interrupted one of the largest operations Akatsuki has taken part of since its conception, and yet, you agree with my ideals."

"I agree with your issues with the Shinobi World and some of your logic. Not your way of dealing with them." The clone elaborated. "I'm not dumb enough to try and revive a World Tree to try and scare everyone into behaving."

"World Tree?" Konan frowned. "How do you know about that?"

"Dumb luck, my normally aimless rambling, and the fact that when a Shadow Clone pops the memories spread to all other clones, not just the original. That plant guy Zetsu flinched when I brought it up by sheer coincidence in one of my rants. Be honest. Do you guys even know what a World Tree is or what it does?"

Nagato frowned. "It-"

"Wrong." Naruto cut him off instantly. "Because if you did know, you wouldn't have even considered this retarded plan of yours in the first place."

"I thought you said that the plan was to revive the Ten Tails." Itachi questioned, his expression completely unreadable as if he was waiting to see or hear something.

"They're the same thing. Apparently." Naruto sighed. "I'll give you the shortest version since we don't have that much time. The breed of World Tree we have acts like a giant weed. It drains planets of their natural energy and stores them in the fruit it occasionally generates. They have no limit in how much energy they sap, or their reach. The things are guaranteed to wipe out all life on the planets they are on if not addressed. So unless your plan was to bring peace to the world by killing everyone on it, using the Tree is a bit counterproductive to your goals."

All members of Akatsuki frowned at the information.

"You said that the Tree kills planets. You speak as though you have been to other worlds." Nagato accused.

Naruto held his ground. "Time travel and dimension travel aren't too different and difficult to manage for those that are good enough."

"Are you claiming to be good enough?"

The shit eating grin on Naruto's face filled them all with mixed emotions. "No. I'm strong as hell from the perspective of everyone here, but that isn't saying much. The toad in the well, and all that bull. You guys have no idea what kind of monsters are out there. They genuinely scare the shit out of me."

The area was dead silent as they all took in the clone's words.

"So there is a possibility of them coming here." Nagato surmised.

"They already have. World Trees are unnatural things. Every now and then, a few of those scary guys I talked about try to make a business out of planting them on worlds and, reaping the benefits, so to speak." The clone elaborated. "They tend to work in groups too, for efficiency."

"Impossible. That would make them thousands of years old." Konan argued.

"What part of, they are scary as shit, did I not convey properly?" Naruto countered. "Besides, it's not like we don't have someone like that here already. Not counting the Biju themselves, the Great Toad Sage is rumored to have been around since the dawn of chakra. Wouldn't be surprised if he met the Sage of Six Paths in person. Senile nut certainly looks old enough to fit the criteria."

"Kaguya Ootsutsuki." Itachi frowned, putting the pieces together.

"Bless you."

"The Sage of Six Path's mother." He corrected the clone. "The Uchiha Clan had… documents that went back to that time. It was among our greatest secrets. She was rumored to control the tree in the legends. And she came down in a falling star."

"Sloppy entrance." Naruto muttered under his breath. "Wait, you knew about the World Tree and the Ten Tails in the first place? And you didn't tell us?"

"It didn't seem to be relevant at the time. The entire purpose of our activities was to stop it from manifesting in the first place." Itachi brushed aside the accusation as if it was inconsequential.

"This is getting ridiculous. Are you really expecting us to believe that the Sage of Six Paths is part interdimensional alien?" Konan broke her silence.

"You are trying to revive a World Tree. Your best friend has eyes that for some bullshit reason let him defy the laws of physics and life. I have a fox the size of a mountain in my stomach. I traveled through time. We live in a world where everyone can manipulate the elements and the world around us just by playing with our fingers or drawing letters, and we have talking animals that we can summon to us from half way across the planet with a drop of blood. Lady. Our. World. Does. Not. Make. Fucking. Sense. Deal with it."

"How eloquently put." Itachi glanced at the clone.

"Bite me. As if your plan to deal with Sasuke's trauma after you killed your family was any better thought out. I had my spine shattered and was punched through the chest because of you. Do you know how much that shit hurts?"

"No. I was never sloppy enough to experience either of those."

"Ohoho. Those be fighting words. Bitch you did not just back sass me."

Nagato didn't say anything as the clone and Itachi had a one sided conversation that reminded him of the conversations between Hidan and the other members of Akatsuki. His mind calculating and focused, but curious at the same time.

"How?"

The one word question caused all eyes to turn to him.

"Come again?" The clone blinked in confusion.

"How do you plan on achieving peace?" Nagato's gaze didn't waver. "You said that you have changed. That you don't have faith in humanity any more than I do. If my plan is as counterproductive as you say, and your original outlook on things are different than before, then how do you plan on going forward after dealing with Akatsuki. You are peculiar, but you are not foolish. If what you say is true, as absurd as it sounds, that we have done this before… then you would not have come here without the answer to that question."

"Nagato. You can't be serious." Konan couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You actually think-"

"Konan." He cut her off. "I want to hear what he says."

All eyes turned to Naruto, who didn't seem to react to the attention initially. Instead, he just smirked bitterly before sighing like an old man.

"Haaah. I was wondering if you'd ask that." He let out a dry laugh before looking into the man's eyes without any trepidation and held it.

For several long moments, the two Uzumaki simply stared at one another, as if judging the other's worth and conviction.

"… Like I said. I agree with you on many points Nagato. Pain, isn't the correct answer for this sort of problem, but it isn't far off from what is needed either. Pain is too much. Too heavy handed for what is needed. Too wasteful. Fear, on the other hand is easier and more efficient to manage."

"Fear?" Konan's eyes widened in surprise, as did Itachi's. Whatever they had expected from the shining light of Konoha, this wasn't it. "You intend to rule the world with fear?"

"Not rule. Never rule with fear as your primary tool. That will cause more problems than solve and doom the entire thing to failure before it even begins." Naruto shook his head. "No. If Peace between everyone is needed, then an unbiased tool is needed to keep order between said super powers and those that rule them. Or, at least it is needed to ensure that everyone knows that there are consequences to disrupting said status quo. Unavoidable consequences that will hit everyone equally, including themselves. Consequences that cannot be controlled or manipulated by the government or people that think they can game the system. A specially tailored fear that is both manageable and not from the public perspective, such that it will not drive those that know of it mad the second it settles in their psyche."

"Something that will all but force all nations to cooperate… or else." Nagato pondered Naruto's scenario. "You plan to introduce an external threat. An enemy that is beyond a single nation to deal with, but manageable should all five gather. One that all will recognize."

Naruto nodded. "The enemy of my enemy. Like you concluded, the people here only answer to and recognize power. The problem is that you focused only on what was inside the Elemental Nations. The Five Great Nations. The world is bigger than that. Reality is bigger than that. And unfortunately, my scenario might be a necessity sooner than we think."

"The ones responsible for the World Tree. You think they will come here." Nagato concluded.

"They won't be the only ones. With all the interdimensional chaos that's been going on lately, plus that idiot Hidan calling forth his God and becoming an Acolyte, it would be hard to assume that someone didn't notice." Naruto grimaced. "I've already heard that some guys slipped into our world shortly after I got back. Word is that one of them indirectly taught you guys Presence."

"I thought you said that you didn't receive any information on us." Nagato frowned, storing away Naruto's comment about Carmen's origins for later.

"Not on your attack on Iwa. Your screw up near Taki was another thing entirely. I tapped some emergency lines that very night. There was no way I was going to ignore what I felt that day. You don't fuck with situations dealing with genuine Gods, Nagato. World Trees absolutely pale in comparison to the shit that can be stirred up with those things."

"So that's your plan? You want to gather all the nations together so we can fight Gods that will come down from above?" Konan surmised.

The clone barked out a bitter laugh. "Gods? Ha! Konan, if genuine Gods actually bothered to take notice of this world and wanted to take over, they'd wipe us out in an instant. Literally. And by "us", I genuinely mean every living thing on the planet as a bare minimum. Real Gods are so disgustingly over powered that anyone that thinks they know the full scope of their abilities is an idiot that deserves to be put down for the sake of not dumbing down our species."

"Not Gods then." Itachi surmised.

"No. Thankfully. Most Gods rarely ever take notice of individual realities. What we are preparing against are simply the other cultures and species that are also capable of jumping between worlds to invade and take over them. Some are friendly, but just as many are akin to the bad guys of comic books and stories. Invading to expand, enslave, and steal natural resources and all that bullshit. Make no mistake, we are on the radar now. Contact is an eventuality, not a possibility. Years. Decades. Somewhere within that range."

"And since you apparently are so familiar with the idea of enemies from different worlds, you have resources to help with this issue." Nagato concluded with some irritation.

"Maybe. But I can't be of much help if I'm dead." The smile on the clone's face was sweet enough to give everyone there diabetes.

"Don't tempt us." Itachi chided.

"Sasuke claimed dibs years ago. Wait in line… oh speaking of long murder lines, that reminds me." He turned to Nagato. "If you join us, I'll pull some strings so that you guys can get first shot at Danzo. That fucker is long due for some permanent Karma. The line that will come for his execution will dwarf the one made for my eventual and totally deserved ass kicking."

That had everyone's attention.

"I thought that you were protecting him. You went out of your way to save his servant." This was too good of a deal to be true.

"Sai's an exception. He's been one of my boys for years. Problem is that Danzo uses a ton of screwed up jutsu on his shinobi, so he can't deny orders. That and I needed that cheap shot earlier to lessen your numbers. You know, the whole, channeling stupid levels of chakra through your receivers to block your signal bit." The clone brushed off the accusation. "After what happened today, Danzo's ass is in the fire and we are going to press down to keep him there. If you want part of it, ya have to act now. Limited time offer. First come first served."

"I don't recall you ever bringing up that offer when we spoke." Itachi frowned, the slightest hint of genuine annoyance and anger leaking into his voice.

"Didn't need to. Everyone already knows that the magic word to make you jump is "Sasuke", not "Danzo"."

Everyone pretended to ignore the fact that Itachi now had several shuriken in hand.

"Nagato." Konan looked tentatively to her best friend and partner. She honestly didn't know what to say at this point. The more they spoke, the more convincing and tempting the blonde's offer was becoming.

"Rule though genuine peace. Maintain it via a legitimate fear that cannot be reasonably controlled from the public standpoint, but secretly mitigated through hidden connections." Nagato muttered, never looking away from the clone. "It does sound feasible. But complicated to set up. It's naturally fragile as a result. In the long run, my plan of alternating peace and self-made destruction is no less secure, if that is still possible given what you said about the World Tree. Still, how committed are you to this? How far are you willing to go? How much will you allow yourself to be burdened with this?"

"Humph." Surprisingly enough, Nagato's question caused the clone to stop smiling. Instead, it donned an unreadable expression that was not amused. "You have a lot of nerve, asking me that. Dying. Time travel. Dimension travel. Insanity. Lying to friends and family alike, and still you question my commitment and proof. You're quite the greedy false God, aren't you?"

"You-"

"I'll be as greedy as I need to be if it's for peace." Nagato cut Konan off, his gaze never wavering.

"Careful. Some might mistake your greed for desperation." The clone didn't falter as a titanic wave of killing intent blew past him. He had experienced worse.

"But, if it's proof you want, then I don't see any reason to do anything. Am I right?"

Nagato glared at the clone.

"After all…"

o. o. o.

Naruto opened an eye as the newcomer approached. "I was wondering when you'd show up."

"That's…" Ma grimaced.

"… You were going to see it for yourself regardless."

"You are quite talkative." The Deva Path of Pain droned from a short distance away. If it noticed the four clones around Naruto clearly waiting for any suspicious movements, it didn't pay them any attention.

It didn't surprise Naruto in the slightest by the turn of events. He had expected it after all. The Deva Path was the only body of Pain's that he didn't obliterate into dust. He just decapitated it. If Nagato could use all of the Rinnegan's abilities like he suspected, then it shouldn't have been hard for the man to summon the body back to himself when no one was looking, bring up that weird ass King of Hell thing, and revive it.

… Come to think of it… why didn't Nagato do that the first time around when they fought?

… Eh. He'll just assume that the guy didn't have enough chakra to pull it off and leave it at that. There were more important things to worry about right now.

"So I've been told." The original shrugged. A few more minutes and he should be healed enough to fight at max power with little issue. "So. Are you here to fight, or parles?"

"I'm here to see your conviction."

Naruto licked his lips as if tasting Nagato's words, nodding shallowly as if accepting a conclusion that he knew was coming but still didn't like. "Yeah. Yeah, I should have seen this coming. Words can only go so far with guys like us."

Pain frowned, his eyes examining Naruto closely with his Rinnegan. "You have far less chakra then you did earlier. Your clones have more power than you."

"Well that's what happens when you take your time. You think you're the first that's gotten here?" The blonde lazily pointed in one direction, then another. Both were the locations of where his parents were fighting. Minato and Kushina were strong, but they only possessed a certain level of chakra inside of him. In order to physically manifest, let alone handle Kurama's power, he needed to loan them a heavy sum of his chakra.

He was regenerating power quickly, but he was still only at about a third of his max capacity right now.

It didn't help that he had also just stabilized his chakra after feeling as if he had been run through the heart. It had come from out of nowhere, and for a moment there had been some worry that his Level Two clones would have popped as a result, which would have been very bad for him for a whole slew of reasons.

This didn't seem to please his opponent. "Don't assume that I will give you time to recover."

Naruto grinned. "Never crossed my mind."

One of Naruto's clones moved between them.

The rest stayed in place.

"If this is your idea of a joke, I am not impressed." Anger tinged Pain's normally impassive voice.

"And how many battles have you fought in person recently Pot-san?" Naruto's grin remained static. "Give Kettle-chan a try. You might be surprised."

The pair didn't break eye contact. The game had already begun.

"Banshou Tenin."

"?!"

One of the clones near the original suddenly lurched towards Pain as if pulled by a rope, a black chakra rod already in the culprit's hand.

None of the other blondes made a move to save it as the body rushed past them.

Pain didn't break eye contact with the original.

That was his first mistake.

Just past the halfway point, the seemingly helpless clone vanished.

"What?" Pain blinked in surprise. He didn't feel his jutsu come undone. In fact-

A sudden tingling at the back was all the warning he would get, and he acted on it, jumping away just before he was slashed apart again from behind.

"Just in case you didn't know already, I've done this before." The original yawned, unsurprised by the turn of events just as his opponent landed a short distance away.

"So I've been told." Pain frowned, already piecing together what had just happened.

Banshou Tenin had worked just as it always did. The problem is that he had never encountered an opponent that could alter their trajectory in mid-air so quickly before. During its flight, the clone had not resisted his jutsu, merely adding to it by moving sideways to make its path spiral shaped with Pain in the center. It was a feat that should come easily to someone that can fly with wind chakra… and to someone that was expecting it in the first place.

So be it.

Nagato lifted a hand up, palm facing his opponent.

There were no smiles now.

"Shinra Tensei."

Before the shockwave even started, the clone that had been attacked earlier had already repositioned itself between the two main fighters, feet planted firmly in the ground and making seals at a maddening pace before clapping its hands together loudly.

"Sky Style."

Just as Pain's attack reached the clone, the latter thrusted its hands forward, hands wide open.

"Karman Line."

An unstoppable force met an unmovable object. Both were invisible to the naked eye.

The world rocked as the two bodies met, fissuring the earth right in front of the clone and causing dust and debris to fly in every direction save for both of the combatants'.

"Ngh." Pain frowned as his eyes took in the sight of a thin wall made of chakra expanding hundreds of meters in all directions in front of the clone. He put more power into his own attack, and as expected, his opponent's defense lit up with more chakra. "A barrier jutsu? A strong one too. He's more prepared than I thought. Still, there should be no technique that can handle the full might of Shinra Tensei for long."

Indeed. With every passing moment and additional push, the barrier that the clone had set up skidded back another short distance. It didn't matter how sturdy the wall was if it couldn't stay in place. Just a few more good spikes in power should cripple the foundation for the technique and send everything flying.

Pain watched as the clone's eyes widened in surprise as the force of his attack jumped, making him and the wall fall back a few meters. Literally everything in between the two fighters was either blasted away or completely leveled now.

Another push. The clone skidded back again, though not as much as before. The Akatsuki looked up to see what Naruto and the other clones were doing. It had long been established that the boy was never one to take your eyes off of, but…

There he was, with the other three clones. They had not moved from their original place in the slightest. They were simply watching from the sidelines as if it wasn't their problem in the first place.

A clone.

Uzumaki genuinely thought that a clone was enough to take Pain down. A clone was enough to usurp Pain, the medium he had spent years cultivating and sacrificing in order to save the world and bring peace.

It took a lot to get under his skin these days, but for the first time in a while, Nagato was genuinely angry.

He didn't simply push this time. He charged.

Naruto and the clones noticed in the dramatic spike in power, blinking in genuine surprise as the defending clone was pushed back almost all the way back to where they were.

Almost.

"Ngh?" Pain grimaced as he struggled to gain any further ground.

But he couldn't.

Something was wrong.

With every meter he gained, it grew harder and harder to obtain the next.

It made no sense. The barrier wall was still intact, however that didn't prevent it from moving. With his eyes, he could see it clearly. Unbroken. Extending in all directions. There were no cracks or fissures as far as he could tell. He could even see the increased concentration of chakra in the air behind…

… Oh.

Oh.

As soon as Naruto saw the look of shock and alarm on Pain's face, he smirked. "About time you figured it out."

The barrier set up by the clone was never meant to be a static structure. It was supposed to move. No, it worked better if it did move. That's because the jutsu that made it wasn't simply one that set up a barrier.

It set up a titanic air pressure chamber. One so large that even Pain with his Rinnegan didn't notice what it was until it was too late.

It was like pressing down a spring, only instead of a metal coil, condensed air was used. The further it was compressed, the more energy was stored within, and the harder it was to keep it that way. The second that force was released, so did the air pressure. More than likely, all in his direction.

He couldn't have anticipated this. No one would have. The size and scale of a jutsu like this needed to hold back Shinra Tensei would have to be unimaginable, as would the cost of chakra. Not something a single shinobi, even a talented one could manage this normally without help. But, if it was complimented by the boy's other technique, the Seventh Sense, which allowed him to manipulate and control the air around him at all times, the impossible became far more realistic.

Pain hunched over, bracing his body against the opposing force he was against. "Clever. I'll give you that much. But, you're going to have to do better than that if you want to usurp God…"

And that's when he felt something grab his leg.

Time went unnaturally still for the man. His ringed and dilating eyes couldn't move down slowly enough, nowhere near as fast as his dead heart came up his throat.

His gaze met that of a familiar blonde's. A normal shadow clone with an arm and a head sticking out of the ground. It was smiling at him innocently like a cat pretending to have not caught a canary, head tilting to the side.

It had been a wild guess of Naruto's. Shinra Tensei was a broken technique with a five second gap between uses, but that couldn't have been the only flaw in it. With versatility came limitations, and with those, flaws. He had spent quite a while thinking of how Pain had used the technique and its variants and how to beat them… only to smack himself in the head when he realized the answer to his question.

The variants were the weakness. Pain couldn't swap one use for another when in use.

For example, if Pain shot out a shockwave that only affected the world above him, then he left himself open below. Of course, the technique expanded in all directions at first, but for the versions that saw extended use, the power and focus on them tended to die off in the directions that saw the least amount of activity.

Especially down towards the ground. Wouldn't be good to constantly wreck one's footing, especially in places that needed to be kept intact.

All anyone had to do was wait for Pain's initial shockwave to impact the affected ground area to avoid getting crushed, then while he was busy holding off other attacks from the sides, someone travels underground during the sustained chaos, pops up at the right time and, well…

"Allahu Akbar no Jutsu!"

BOOM!

Yeah. That.

o. o. o.

"AHAHAHAHAHA! WAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"

"You're going to hell for this Ghost." Dima hid his eyes and shook his head, not bothering to watch as Pain was blasted away from the recoil of Naruto's technique being unleashed. "I know that all hells on all planes don't want anything to do with you, and I still stand by my statement."

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA! He said it! He actually said it! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

"So wrong." Sylvia matched Dima's expression, desperately trying to ignore Shadow laughing her ass off while rolling on her back, completely unable to keep herself standing because she was laughing that hard. "Seriously Ghost? Of all the twisted shit you got the kid in, you got him involved in that pointless mess?"

"Um. Context please?" Hana looked over to where Specs and Skyler were. She would have asked Ghost, but he was too busy giggling like a child.

"I. Um. Snrk. Eheheh." Skyler was stuck in an uncomfortable place between laughing and feeling ashamed of himself.

"Let's just say that explosives don't mix well with violent, destitute, uneducated, extremely religious zealots that can't tell the difference between their actual religion and brain washing propaganda." Specks sighed, less amused by what Naruto just did. "Referring to them in a joke is seen in bad taste, but well, some idiots enjoy crossing the line sometimes."

"Silence! I kill you!"

"You got the idiot part right." Anko leered at her giggling boyfriend.

"This is going to piss off so many readers." Sylvia groaned. "You think the author would know better by now."

"Readers? Author?" Hana echoed in confusion.

"Sylvia. Are you still going on about Crypt's scythe?" Dima groaned.

"Don't worry about it. It's nothing." The woman sighed. "Not like this is the first time he's seriously tweaked his fanbase."

"Heheheh. Oi. Syl. Enough. You know the rules." Shadow snickered as she barely managed to get back on her feet.

"Haaaai."

Hana glared at the immortals for a moment before turning back to the screen. As expected, the entire audience went absolutely wild when Naruto had turned things around on the leader of Akatsuki. The backlash from Naruto's technique had gouged out a trench in the training grounds so deep and wide that it was a genuine valley that reached all the way up to a nearby mountain, carving a good portion of it off.

She doubted that it would be so easy to kill the man that kept Akatsuki in line though. Not with power like that at his disposal.

And then there was that conversation that they had just before the fighting. It was almost as if they were continuing one that had just been left off just moments beforehand.

There were still a good number of things that were going unanswered, and she didn't like it. Judging from the looks on the faces of everyone else in Naruto's inner circle around the stadium, she wasn't the only one that felt that way.

o. o. o.

With a Shinra Tensei, Pain blasted away the small mountain of rubble he was buried underneath, leaving him free to stand again.

He was covered in as many deep lacerations and bruises as he was chakra receivers, his Akatsuki coat torn to shreds, but it did not impede his movement in the slightest.

More than anything, it was his pride that was damaged the most. He didn't know why, but he had a distinct feeling that the exploding clone was mocking him with the name of that last technique somehow.

"He really does know how to fight me." The timing. The approach. All of it was perfect. It was one thing to simply know how to fight a powerful enemy, but it was another to do so with experience. The way Naruto looked at him during their clash was one of familiarity. The boy knew how his jutsu behaved. He had seen it before to the point that seeing it did not give him pause. No need to examine and study how his jutsu worked or what its limitations were.

As much as Nagato hated to admit it, he was beginning to admit that maybe insane boy really was telling the truth.

"Looks like you've encountered the brat."

Pain turned to see Kakuzu, Sasori, and Deidara approaching him via two clay birds, all looking worse for the wear.

"There's our leader. Hm. He gets back up even after getting his head cut off." Deidara chuckled.

"Report."

"Kisame's been killed by the Yonbi. Itachi's blasted somewhere by Jiraiya. Konan's gone AWOL chasing one of the kid's clones. No one knows where the hell Tobi and Zetsu vanished to, and Hidan's somehow holding back Jiraiya, the Yonbi, and the Tsuchikage by himself with his messed up jutsu." Kakuzu summarized. "Overall, things aren't looking good."

"Hidan is holding those three back by himself? Successfully?" Wonderful. More potential evidence that Naruto's warning was valid.

"I don't know what to tell you. Only that he can use that Presence ability in odd ways. Even the Toad Sage was on edge about it." The eldest one there brushed off the curiosity. "Speaking of insane freaks, I see you have your hands full with the Kyubi."

Pain knew when he was being insulted, but he let it pass, for now at least. "He knows about our jutsu, and has ways to counter them. The boy talks like a child, but fights like a veteran, making and exploiting openings that only the most capable are reaching. As vexing as he is, his confidence is not without founding. He plays the fool well."

"Hoh? To garner an actual compliment from Pain. The Kyubi really must be something. We better be careful then." Sasori blinked, which was the equivalent to outright astonishment for a normal person.

The conversation would have gone further, however several spikes in chakra caught their attention. Chakra of a Demonic variant.

"The Kyubi?" Sasori guessed.

"Yes… and no." Kakuzu knew what the Kyubi felt like, having encountered Ginkaku and Kinkaku decades ago. "It does feel like the fox in certain directions, but it's not the only source of chakra. There's more than one Biju."

"This feeling." Pain muttered…

"You guys are half right!" Deidara shouted from his mount, having a better view in the distance. "I see the Gobi way over there! Looks like Han wanted some of the action too! But the other thing that's showed up makes no sense!"

"_▄▄▄████!"

Deidara shivered as the monstrous roar caused a shockwave that unbalanced him for a moment.

"What the hell is the Gedo Statue doing out here!?"

"The Gedo Statue?" More than one set of eyes blinked in genuine bafflement.

Indeed. They could see it in the distance. The hunched over form that barely resembled a human was thrashing about as golden lines of something assaulted it from all sided. Each step it made, each swipe of its arm caused the air and ground to tremble from where they were standing.

"Tobi summoned it." Zetsu popped up from the rubble a short distance away.

"We were watching the fights. It's getting absolutely nuts here!" The White half laughed nervously. "Tobi managed to grab the Gobi's container and lure it to weaken the Kyubi, but the kid somehow had the spirits of his folks in him, and they're possessing puppets to help him fight! The Yellow Flash and the Crimson Whirlpool! Both using the Kyubi's powers! Tobi was fighting the mother while the Gobi fought the Yondaime!"

"The Yellow flash? Here?" Kakuzu stilled. He may not have fought the man, but he did witness Tobirama in action, and knew better than to underestimate a user of Hiraishin. This was getting more and more ridiculous with each passing moment.

"I see." Pain frowned. "That's why the Kyubi's chakra levels were so low when I saw him. He divided it among his parents. Right now is our best opportunity to get him while he's at his weakest."

"That doesn't explain why or how Tobi managed to summon the Statue in the first place. I thought that Leader was the only one that could do that." Sasori looked at the sources of the fighting.

"Tobi has been supporting Akatsuki from the shadows for some time. Longer than most of you have been missing-nin." Black Zetsu answered, garnering an irritated look from Pain, knowing that there were going to be words between them later. "He is aware of some secrets of the Gedo Statue that you don't know about. Summoning it is one of them, but he wouldn't do such a thing unless as an absolute last resort. The Uzumaki woman must be something to be able to achieve such a feat."

"Yeah. Tobi's a slippery one all right. Can't imagine anyone managing to keep him down so easily." White chuckled nervously. "Might be that Presence power we just learned. Everyone that's been fighting us lately seems to know how to use it these days."

The skies above exhaled and relaxed, finally allowing its power to flow as it should.

"Speaking of Presence." Kakuzu turned to the source of the new sensation, as did the rest of the group.

Right before their eyes, the weather and sky above seemed to fold, twisting and coiling into something dangerous. Winds started to change direction slowly, following a pattern that couldn't be determined yet.

"Oi oi. I thought you said that the Kyubi kid was low on power." Deidara swallowed heavily.

Pain looked back to where Naruto was, and spotted three dots in the sky. On top of that, the chakra in the air was growing increasingly active, making it harder to see in general. "It's not him. No. It is him, but rather, it's those powerful clones of his combined with that Seventh Sense jutsu of his. It's like he's taking control of the entire atmosphere in the area with the chakra he put there earlier."

"Might as well fight the Mizukage in the middle of the ocean. Or the Kazekage in the Desert, again." Sasori grimaced. Already the few clouds above were rotating with Naruto at the epicenter. "This amount of power is disgusting. The power he had in the air around him is acting like spare reserves and an extra limb. We have to hurry. The longer we wait, the more he'll be able to set up. It doesn't matter if we have the statue or the Gobi on our side if we let this get out of hand."

They could see it now. Individual funnels were starting to manifest from the heavens down. The biggest ones were closest to their target and were already halfway to fully forming.

"You said you wanted to see my conviction." A voice whispered in Pain's ear, causing him to pause momentarily. "I didn't expect the statue to show up and rush things, but, I can make due with this much. I do hope I am meeting your qualifications. Don't bother trying to blast away the air here in an attempt to cancel out the jutsu. I literally cursed the sky here over the course of the past week, preparing for your arrival. Getting rid of my chakra won't stop this. Even if I die, the atmosphere here will remain this way for several days at least."

The wind began to pick up, growing heavier and heavier with each passing instant. It was almost as if atmosphere was matching Naruto's darkening tone.

"Allow me to point out the biggest mistake you made today. When you arrived and found out I was here, you were prepared to fight the Kyubi."

Three. Nine. Twenty. Dozens of funnels were now coming down from the heavens, spinning madly and tearing up the world around them. The deafening roar and calamity of the storm increased with each twister, and it was not going to stop anytime soon. What was once the gentle caresses of air pressure flickering by now became irregular knives that bit with every passing moment from all angles, thinner and smoother than any weapon humanity could ever produce.

"You should have prepared to fight ME."

At once all members of Akatsuki froze as they felt the one responsible for the storm watching them from the center of the chaos. Waiting.

What was once seen as a boy now sat a man, no, a Ruler. A Lord. A Sage. An individual with genuine authority, looking down on all that would oppose his legitimate rule.

A wilted world tree to his left.

A biju to his right.

Half of Akatsuki to his front.

"Heh." He couldn't help but smile bitterly. All that work and effort to gain and bring allies to help out and lighten the load, and he's still stuck in an unreasonable setup.

Oh well. At least he's prepared for it this time.

"Come, Men, Gods, and Monsters. What you call yourselves is irrelevant. You're all here for me, are you not? I'm right here."

A titanic invisible wave hit everyone within range of Naruto's declaration.

It took a moment for the victims to realize that what they had just been assaulted by was not wind or air, but genuine killing intent.

"I have long since forgotten to care why you desire my life. So come. Do not waste my time. You will bow all the same."

o. o. o.

"Heheheh. My my. He's quite confident wouldn't you say?"

"…"

"We should go too. It was an open ended invitation, and it would be a shame if we missed anything important."

"…"

"Oh. Don't worry. I know you wouldn't be able to survive that lovely show by yourself, but that's what I'm here for. I'll be sure to keep you alive."

"…Ngh."

"Shhh. Shh shh shh. Rest. Relax. You need to save your strength. You're injured and unwell. Who knows what could happen if you pushed yourself. Why. You might even die! And we can't have that, now can we? That would be terrible!"

Hidan gently caressed Sai's bloody face, ignoring the corpses around him, and the few glares that were burning into his skull from a short distance away. The smile on the madman's face was the manifested image of pure insanity and nightmares to those that dwelled in the realm of the sane.

"After all, I'm only allowed to kill three people of significance today. It wouldn't do to limit my options just yet."

o. o. o.

Jutsu Library:

Sky Style: Heaven's Fall.

Classification: SSS Forbidden technique.

Range: 10 Km radius minimum.

Prerequisites: Seventh Sense. Biju Level Chakra. 3 Days minimum preparation time.

Description: Heaven's Fall is considered to be more akin to the ultimate form of the Seventh Sense, rather than an individual jutsu, maximizing both the user's control and influence over the atmosphere around them for the duration of its use. So much so, that once engaged, the user in question should be considered more akin to a natural disaster, much like the Biju, than "a person that is controlling extreme weather patterns".

Any and all major disturbances in the weather can be made with minimal to no effort and cost due to the prior conditioning of the atmosphere earlier. Even twisters and the like will come at minimal cost simply because "the weather is working according to the user's will" rather than "the user is commanding the weather to work accordingly".

As a result, the weather will remain as the caster wishes not until the caster runs out of chakra, but until nature corrects itself and finally decides not to act on the caster's whims.

At a bare minimum, if the user dies in the middle of combat after a three day setup and had been causing extreme weather conditions, it will take a day for the worst of the effects to finally wear off, and a week for the area to return to normal. Loss of control over such a phenomenon can be considered catastrophic for not only the battleground, but for surrounding areas, and lead to permanent damage to the landscape.

The only way to stop or end such results early without the caster's consent is for an individual with equal or greater ability to control the weather to hijack the system already in place and force it to do so. Simply overpowering Heaven's Fall once engaged with raw power or another weather altering technique is impossible.

Despite having a simple initial explanation, the technique itself is anything but. In order to properly establish Heaven's Fall, the user must be abnormally familiar with not only the weather patterns of the area, but the patterns that they wish to invoke once complete. This requires an intimate and extensive knowledge of climatology and meteorology on various levels.

The chakra requirements for the technique are abnormally high, and the setup cannot be rushed due to the delicate nature of altering the weather and nature itself in such a significant way. The full process takes three full days of alteration and perpetual feeding of chakra into the surroundings. Constant attention and chakra is required in order to properly adjust and alter the local weather patterns, and Nature itself, in order to adequately establish control once fully enacted. Despite all this, the local weather patterns themselves will still remain as they always have been.

Once established, the user can widen the range of Heaven's Fall at a reduced cost compared to the initial setup, however doing so adds to the cost to trigger the technique when used, which is also astronomically high.

To put it simply, setting up the technique is akin to building a lawnmower from scratch, while setting off the technique is like pulling the chord to set everything in motion. The weather and nature itself provides the gas and the blades from then on out, and the user is the one that determines where it all goes.

By shinobi standards, it is an impossible technique with impossible costs, that yields impossible results.

In short, use of this technique, if it is even feasible, should be restricted to the most extreme circumstances. A person that is capable of using it cannot be classified as "human". The action of its use on foreign soil can be summed up as nothing less to the equivalent of a war crime.

Konoha Forbidden Scroll.

o. o. o.

A/N:

Thanks Kagaseo for Betaing.

Whew. Another one down. Next chapter is gonna be a beast.

I really picked at a bunch of plot holes in this chapter. I NEVER liked how Obito was Tobi in canon. It was just too obvious and poorly written. Too many deus ex machinas had to happen as a result, and it led to even more headaches with the whole, Rin Sanbi thing. My version of him is a bit hardcore, but I think it suits his character far better as an antagonist.

Plus, Tobi's phasing ability was too OP for my tastes. There just wasn't anything that could flat out counter it in any way. So, when in doubt, seals.

Another thing that annoyed me was how Sasuke and Itachi had both seen the Uchiha Tablet, but never bothered to do ANYTHING with the information on it other to get more power.

And don't get me started on the whole part written on it saying: Kaguya ate the fruit of the World Tree, had a baby with chakra, and the World Tree went after the baby for its power, which was now a man.

That was literally the tl;dr version of what was on the damn thing.

Seriously. Did they not question where Kaguya was after she popped out her kids? Or why it took so long for the World Tree to realize that the Sage of Six paths had power in the first place? Just, so many plot holes in it that nobody even bothered to question and think about.

And Madara Uchiha was supposed to be smart.

Seeing Underneath the Underneath my ass.

Kushina is an underappreciated character as far as I am concerned. Most writers either ignore her, turn her into a Minato Seal Master stand in, or make her stereotypical katana user.

Have you guys forgotten that she uses chains? And barriers? And while she can use seals, she should use them in a way that isn't identical to Minato? Be creative people. That's all I'm asking.

Minato vs. Han. Yeah. Not even close.

Naruto and Pain. This is a conversation that I've wanted to do for a while. Like with Tobi, I hate how the original event ended, and felt that it was a cop out. It was so optimistic and childish I felt like I was getting diabetes. TTRT Naruto is disillusioned with humanity and the ways of the world, and he knows it. He isn't the same person that he was before, but he is still dealing with the same issues as always. He physically can't be earnest with Nagato the same way he was before, so being able to convince him to stop everything like before is literally impossible.

However, that did not stop him from trying to think of a reasonable, and more importantly, realistic way to solve their problems.

As far as Naruto, and Nagato, and any major heavy hitter is concerned, humanity consists of little more than children. People that are selfish and don't think of the big picture.

So, what's the best way to keep idiot kids that don't listen in line? Fear. It can be anything a bully, or punishment, or Pain (albeit, something more severe than the occasional spanking).

Nagato decided to go with Pain to try and bring peace. Le Gasp.

Naruto went with the less violent option. Is it ideal? Hell no. But it has a far greater chance of happening without everyone killing one another in the process, and it can be controlled in a far more balanced way.

Basically, Nagato wanted Peace through fear via Pain through weapons of mass destruction. Naruto is aiming for Peace through Fear via potential imminent future human extinction or enslavement from foreign parties.

Either way, their problems are not ones that they can just hide behind their village walls and wait out. (Yes. Yes I did just say that.)

Naruto Vs. Pain. … I regret nothing. This is par the course for me. It's your fault for having expectations.

For those that are worried that the fighting is too one sided, don't worry. The next chapter will correct all of your worries and then some.

As for the Log. Yes. The second I saw that the world tree was a thing, THE LOG. WAS. PLANNED.

You heard me right folks. I just trolled an entire damn fandom.

… Or did I?

So. News. My laptop died. Motherboard fried. But thankfully, the hard drive was intact, so I managed to get all my stuff from it onto my desktop. Including my writing notes… yeah. Really dodged a bullet there.

On the bright side, that means my folks know what to get me for xmas. Which is good, because I'm terrible for finding gifts for. I'm not unappreciative or an asshole or anything like that. It's just… I'm a pretty content guy that doesn't really want for things most of the time. If there is something that catches my eye, I get it myself. My folks all complain about how hard it is to find me decent gifts during the holidays, and I can't blame them.

I wouldn't mind fanart every now and then though. Hint hint.

Finally off my rotation at Ford and onto a new one. One that won't have me working 6 days a week, so hopefully I'll be able to write faster. On a side note, I am now unused to 2 day weekends, and cry softly to myself in shame at night because of it.

Got a Switch. Playing Mario. Just helped a friend move.

Fate Grand Order… got Okita and Tamamo now, so, yay me. GudaGuda is impossibly draining.

That's… about it. I'll try and scrounge up something extra special for you guys for xmas. Don't know if I will be on time, but I will try guys.

SO REVIEW! WORSHIP THE LOG! OR NOT BECAUSE THE LOG IS A LIE THAT SAVES EVERYONE! AND REVIEW AGAIN!