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.

32. Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty One: Insanity is only apparent so long as it hasn't come full circle. I'm dizzy.

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.

It hurt.

That was the first coherent thought that crossed her mind for centuries.

It hurt.

That single meager thought was enough to crack the dam for others to slip through.

… Why does it hurt? How am I being hurt? How long has it hurt? How long have I been here?

There had been ghosts of coherency before. Flickers of awareness and agitation once or twice in eons, but never like this. In her undefinable prison, her very existence had been muted to the point that even she didn't recognize herself for the vast majority of time.

But she hurt now. Something had somehow managed to reach to her locked away sense of self, allowing her to define herself once more

Enough to think.

Enough to feel.

Enough to remember.

Her family, and her other family. Her home. Her desires. Her betrayal. Her goal… and her condition.

"?!"

Something latched onto her. Not her twisted prison of a body, but her mind, her soul, her existence.

It hurt.

But even in her addled state, she knew that the pain wasn't hers'.

It pulled.

Buried within her own body and soul, it should have been impossible to move her even the slightest bit. The seals and power that trapped her were strong, and the energies robbed from her should have been a prerequisite to dislodge her bindings. Enough to give her a hope of regaining control again.

It hurt.

But whatever infernal entity that miraculously had a hold of her defied common sense, dragging her mind none too kindly to the surface, regardless of her expectations or desires.

The further she traveled, the more it hurt. The more she remembered. The more her body seemed to collapse on itself.

It was excruciating. It was torturous. She felt like screaming with a mouth she still didn't have. Senses that had long since abandoned her were returning, causing her mind to white out in a vain attempt to make sense of it all…

And then it cleared.

Kaguya Otsutsuki opened her pearl white eyes for the first time in over a millennia and looked around.

A barren and mountainous land.

No. Not barren.

Scarred. Recently too. She had mistaken the crater she was in for lifeless grounds.

Something had marred the cradle that was her world.

She turned to the side to inspect the only other person that was somehow still there, standing just a few meters away from her. She could not help but blink in surprise.

He looked like a human. An unstable one at that, but…

"Why has one possessed by the divine aided me?"

She did not want to be left in the debt of the Gods. Few stories ever ended well with such founding.

The silver haired priest, despite clearly having seen better days given his ragged state, giggled madly, making no attempt to hide what he was nor the powers even Kaguya could make sense of. "Heheheh. Silly woman. Look more carefully. Don't tell me that you have been locked away in your husk for so long that you cannot come to the obvious answer?"

She frowned ever so slightly. His crude remark about her previous state was not one that she would tolerate.

However her situation took priority.

It only took her a moment after activating her Byakugan, the veins around her eyes bulging without the need for seals or effort, to realize what the possessed man meant.

Someone was looking at them from within the titanic crater they stood in. The one responsible for this damage in the first place. The one that held a surprisingly iron clad authority over the substantial amount of chakra that saturated the air and smothered everything with intent. Someone strong. Someone that commanded the heavens and winds around her as if he was more spirit than man.

And beyond the culprit was something more familiar to her. A giant fox with nine tails. A significant portion of the power stolen from her and shaped into a beast.

"This chakra. It is Asura's, but not…" The name came to her naturally despite the fact that she had never laid eyes on her grandchildren. A remnant of a memory she had held while her power was sealed within her own son.

He was strong. Not stronger than her at her prime, but not someone that would have been ignored either. There was an unnatural quality to his chakra that did not exist when she was last aware of the world, and yet it scratched the back of her mind like the name of a well-known song that she could not recall.

It was a power that she knew of from before. Before she planted the World Tree. Before her children.

Before she came to this world.

The possessed priest did not bring her out because he wanted to, but of convenience and necessity. Asura's current incarnation was strong. Stronger than the original by an insurmountable degree.

Strong enough to put even one connected to the divine on edge.

She looked at her savior with a hint of disdain. She did not assume for one moment that they shared the same interests or goals. She had been brought forth in an unorthodox manner as a distraction from Asura's wrath, and judging from the looks of things, it had worked.

Despite the heavens already kneading themselves endlessly up above, and the hostility that pervaded the very air itself, no attacks was launched.

In the distance, she saw a young blonde man with blue eyes calmly walking towards them at a leisurely pace.

There was an ominous understanding made.

There was no rush to fight. Not yet.

A fragment of the divine to her side. Asura's unusual growth. The feeling of being looked down upon from afar.

Yes. This was probably for the best.

She had questions of her own that required addressing.

o. o. o.

"She's awake."

Those two words echoed through the minds of all the Jinchuriki in the world.

Followed by the sensation of absolute horror.

o. o. o.

"Gaara?" Temari didn't know what was happening, but the moment that strange white haired woman with the Byakugan appeared, Gaara was paralyzed with pain.

"Shukaku. Calm down." The Kazekage had never seen his Biju act this way. The Tanuki had been scared shitless of the Oogakari, and until recently been in a perpetual state of insanity, but this fear was different.

It was personal, intimate.

"A Byakugan?" Chiyo frowned, looking at the newcomer with caution. "That woman, she came from that giant monster. No doubt it has some relationship with the biju, but, of all the bloodlines that I might have suspected might be related to this mess, the Byakugan of all things would never have crossed my mind. If the Raikage's watching this, he's going to have a fit. Who is she?"

Gaara grimaced, and opened his mouth…

o. o. o.

"Kaguya Otsutsuki."

"Otsutsuki?" Mei frowned in confusion, her attention jumping from the clearly in pain Zabuza to the screen. "I don't recognize that name."

"That bitch is the one responsible for this mess in the first place, if Isobu's constant screaming is anything to go by." The swordsman was having trouble standing up. He was still getting used to being a Jinchuriki, but never had the three tails been this aggressive inside of him before. He could feel the seal within him strain slightly against the monster's wrath despite it being Oogakari-made.

"She's responsible for the biju and the statue?" Haku blinked in confusion. "How? That doesn't make any sense."

"She's… oh you've got to be shitting me. That woman's…"

o. o. o.

"The Sage of Six Path's mother?" Kin blinked incredulously. "Ok. Seriously? What the fuck? Where the hell did this bullshit come from? No, more importantly, how does any of this make any sense in context! Did someone just throw a dart at a board littered with ancient random historical figures and decide to whip out whatever it landed on?!"

Half the people in the room turned accusingly to Crypt, as if daring him to confirm that that was indeed what had happened.

The immortal didn't reply. He was too busy snoring with his mouth wide open and a pool of drool soaking into the mat his head was resting on.

"From inside that monster…" Lee didn't blink or turn away from the screen for a second. Instead of Kaguya though, his attention had not once strayed from Hidan. "She was inside of it. Hidan used the statue as a shield from Naruto's attack, and then used his powers to reach in and somehow bring her to the surface."

"… Are you insinuating that all this time, Akatsuki was trying to bring her back?" Neji was desperately trying to put the pieces together while coming to terms with the fact that the newcomer was related to his family. "I thought that they were trying to bring out the Ten-Tails?"

"It, was likely both." Hiruzen frowned, his experience coming into play. "I always suspected that the goal of gathering the biju to resurrect a monster or make a super weapon was a bit of a shallow endeavor to invest the time, resources, and effort needed to organize Akatsuki. The Ten Tails and the super weapon were likely the cover story for those that could be satisfied with that much, so long as they were compensated appropriately. Still… the Sage of Six Paths…"

"This… could be an opportunity." Lee spoke up, catching everyone's attention.

"What do you mean?" Neji was curious. His partner was a bit oblivious at times, but over the past few years, Lee had developed a knack for spotting out key weaknesses and ideal times to attack enemies.

"They probably originally needed all nine Biju in order to bring her out." Lee elaborated. "But, I don't see the Gobi anymore. She must have absorbed it when she was pulled to the surface. And we know that Akatuski's got the Rokubi. She's been resurrected prematurely."

"She's not at full power." Hiruzen quickly came to the same conclusion Lee did, turning back to the screen.

Neji frowned. "But, if that's the case, then wouldn't the first thing she would aim to do now that she's back is…"

o. o. o.

"She's going to go after the Biju." The Raikage grimaced. "And there are two within spitting distance right now."

"And two more here." Darui spared a glance at Bee and Yugito, who were cradling their skulls and trying to calm down their tenants.

"And two already inside of her." Omoi shivered. "She's probably already the strongest person on the planet."

"Not really, but the monsters that do outclass her probably won't even lift a finger regardless." Yugito clutched her head and hoped that Matatabi would stop hissing and roaring soon.

"Not cool." Samui threw in her two cents, shivering at the unearthly feeling she got from Kaguya's cold stare.

Karui stared at the screen. "Yeah, but, if that's the case then WHY THE HELL IS THAT BLONDE IDIOT WALKING TO HER INSTEAD OF RUNNING AWAY?!"

o. o. o.

More than a few eyes were glaring at the clone in Hinata's arms accusingly.

"Care to explain?" Sasuke asked accusingly.

"What's to explain? It's obvious. She's the one that planted the World Tree in the first place." The clone, which had only just been revived from its coma after getting the feedback from the original's fight with Hidan, grumbled. "Never seen or heard of a case where one of those pricks actually absorbed the tree itself, but that's the one all right. At least this bit is original."

"If anyone can explain why this new possible enemy has the Byakugan, I would gladly appreciate it." Shino spoke up. "Hinata?"

"I-I don't know!" The Heiress stammered, unable to move from where she was standing. "I've never heard of anything like this or her before in all my lessons! Not once has the Biju or some giant tree ever been mentioned in my teachings!"

"I figured but…" Ino narrowed her eyes. "Hey guys, is it me, or does that lady kinda look like Naruto's mom crossed with Hinata if she decided to use makeup and went prematurely grey?"

"I… do see a resemblance." Kurenai mused, noting the similarities. If Kushina ever lost her perpetual baby face, had a color change, and became a Hyuuga, she would probably appear to be a close relative of the newcomer. "But I'm more worried about the fact that she has two Biju, a bloodline, and who knows how many other abilities at her disposal."

"If she's that dangerous, and likely to try and take the Biju, why are you going anywhere near her?" Kiba asked accusingly, pointing to the fact that the blonde on the screen was casually walking toward his opponents.

"Because he's the only one that can fight her right now and have a hope of winning. At least with Hidan nearby." Shikamaru answered for the clone. "The fact that no one's throwing jutsu around like its Armageddon just yet… odds are we're going to learn some interesting things in a little bit."

"You're actually going to talk to her?" Ino asked incredulously.

"Looks like it. One of the perks of being overpowered and self-aware. Other monsters acknowledge you enough to be worth their time to converse with. No. Rather, it is too dangerous to completely disregard what the other has to say at that point." The clone mused. "The fact that it looks like they're going along with it means…"

Sasuke turned back to the screen. "That at the very least, both sides have measured the competition and believe that one can take out the other. You're actually trying to end this now if possible. You idiot."

"Don't hate the player. Hate the shitty game."

"And your luck."

"That goes without saying. Why do you think I made sure to be this strong in the first place? I was getting ready for the post game from the start."

o. o. o.

"So what do you think?" Naruto asked the two clones behind him as he casually walked to his destination. "True secret final boss or do we have another couple of tiers above this to keep an eye out for?"

"Do you think we can take her as we are?"

"Judging from the absurd chakra I'm sensing, I think we're in the range of possibility."

"Not traumatizing enough. Even with the priest. We have at least another tier or two left. There's no way we're lucky enough to get to the end of all this without Sage Mode or directly tapping into Kurama's power."

"Yeah. I figured as much." The original sighed, waving them off. "I'll go on ahead. You set me up. Use whatever's available at all times."

Something he said or alluded to must have been important, because both clones blinked and smirked in unison, as if realizing something good was going to happen.

"Max bullshit?"

"All the bullshit."

"Roger roger." The pair saluted before jumping back and fading from view.

Naruto sighed, not once breaking stride. "So Kurama. Anything you feel like telling me?"

Nearly a kilometer away, the fox unwound itself from protecting Onoki, Jiraiya, and the progressively freaking out Roshi from the aftermath of Naruto's attack. The distance did not seem to affect his hearing in the slightest. "In a nutshell. She's essentially a cross between the Virgin Mary and Satan of this world. The Mother of Chakra."

"That plants World Trees, and is from another dimension. Fuck, what is this, someone's first fanfiction? All they're doing is just mashing half assed plot ideas together. Oh wait, don't forget about the Gods and Time travel, because that shit happened. Next thing you know, you're going to say that I'm the reincarnation of some random plot device savior of humanity, just for shits and giggles."

"…" Kurama was going to have to warn the spirit of the Sage of Six Paths to skip over that particular detail the next time he showed up in his host's psyche.

Naruto viciously repressed the urge to murder everyone and everything around him. He almost didn't make it. "I am just going to forget the last fifteen seconds ever happened, for all of our sake."

"… That would be for the best."

"Wait, wasn't the Jesus here the Sage of whatever? That guy that's your dad?"

"How observant of you."

"But, you came from the World Tree. But she just came from the World Tree…"

"If you go any further than that I swear-"

"Holy fuck the Biju are a product of intergenerational alien incest."

"I'm leaving now. Have fun dying."

"Shut up and get inside. That's far from the worst thing I've said. You, on the other hand, could have at least given me heads up about this."

"I was holding onto the faint hope that you were competent enough to prevent it from getting this far."

"You should have known better." A massive crimson tail of pure chakra emerged from Naruto's backside and whipped off towards the distance. He didn't break stride in the slightest.

"Clearly." One of the Kyubi's tails did the same in Naruto's direction.

Despite the absurd distance between the two, the two extensions of energy had no issue meeting and melding with one another seamlessly within seconds.

"What the, Naruto! What's going on?!" Jiraiya shouted, realizing that something bad happened. He didn't assume for one second that his student couldn't hear him from this distance.

"Roshi? Roshi, what's wrong?" Onoki's attention was more focused on his comrade, who was currently grabbing his head as if he was suffering from an intense migraine, or genjutsu.

"My luck kicked in. Big time. Final hidden boss came out early and Hidan's still alive." Naruto summarized the situation bluntly. "Gotta do this solo. Too dangerous for you guys to jump in now."

"That Priest's still alive after all that?!" Onoki snarled, looking around and estimating that at least a good ten or so training grounds and several mountains had been leveled in wake of Naruto's attack. Even an overcharged Biju-Dama would struggle to achieve the same level of destruction.

"You're going in this without backup?!" The Sage snarled. "Kid, I didn't bust my ass training just to sit it out at the last moment!"

"You trained to fight Nagato." Naruto shot back, his voice unusually angry. It caught everyone off guard. "You trained to fight the Akatsuki. The Biju. The Rinnegan. Shinobi. You did not train to fight this."

"What are you talking about boy? What do you think you're up against that we can't handle?" Onoki was losing his patience. "We are Kage and veterans alike. Don't underestimate us and our experience. Just because we are unfamiliar with what you are talking about does not mean we are liabilities."

"This isn't going to be like your petty shinobi squabbles. Tsuchikage." The Fox's body, which had towered above the three older men had been rapidly shrinking to a third of its original size. "The rules are different. The scale is different. It's an unprecedented turn of events. There is a better place for you to focus your attention on right now."

"And where's that?"

"Your village. While I do not care what happens to your kin, you likely do."

There was no mistaking what Kurama was insinuating. Whatever was going to happen next was likely going to spill over into Iwagakure.

"The one that has awoken, is responsible for us Biju in the first place." Kurama elaborated, his body fading away as it was absorbed into Naruto. "Jinchuriki and Biju alike are at a severe disadvantage against her. The brat is barely an exception. They will still be after me and my kind if nothing is done. Get Goku and his host as far away from here as possible. If you still think you can be of some help, watch from a distance and decide for yourself whether or not you are being an idiot."

"If you want something else to do, there's still four more Akatsuki here that you can waste your time with." Naruto reminded them evenly as the rest of the fox entered his body once more.

Sasori. Kakuzu. Zetsu. Tobi. An uneven and completely random pick of the organization.

… No. Not completely random. The four in particular did have one thing in common. They were by far the best at information gathering and interacting with the unknown undersides of the world. With the exception of Pain, these members in particular were the most qualified and able to restart the organization's operations if everything went to hell.

They needed to be dealt with.

Crack.

The beaten and abused stone under the teen's feet shattered as the last of the Kyubi's power returned to its current home.

"People of Iwagakure." The blonde projected his voice over the village effortlessly. "I will only say this once. Despite what just happened, the fighting is not over. Much to both of our displeasure. In fact, it is going to get worse. Something that is on neither of our sides has just woken up. Something very bad, and very powerful. I recommend you evacuate as soon as possible. To anyone that stays, I warned you."

Maybe it was the message. Maybe it was because it was in the aftermath of a giant explosion that sent enough debris over the village to block out the sun for the better part of a minute. Maybe it was the fact that Naruto actually sounded serious for once.

Regardless what the actual reason was, it didn't take long for a stampede of people to start bolting for any and every exit out of the village they could find.

Naruto didn't care if his actions led to the accidental deaths of a few dozen people by means of being run by their fellow villagers. There were more important things to worry about.

His hands were never still, reaching into his pockets and taking out several gas canisters that he immediately popped and tossed to the side. Thick clouds of chemicals ranging from all types and varieties laced with his chakra filled the air around him. Some immensely poisonous, others with special properties. All immediately dissipating into the air around him and above in "harmless" concentrations… until he decided otherwise.

"I can tell that she has the Rinnegan, but something's off." He muttered out loud, tossing his tenth canister. He didn't know why, but the chakra possessed by anyone that used those eyes always held a distinct and foreign feeling. Almost like someone mutated a Mangekyou Sharningan to an unnatural degree.

"She's the Sage of Six Path's mother. The first to have the Rinnegan in this world, despite what the legends would say otherwise." Kurama explained from inside. "It is likely that some of her abilities are limited due to her only having two of the Biju absorbed."

"Well at least I have that going." Tossing the last metal container over his shoulder, Naruto began to go over his options. He only got that far though, as a sudden impatient wave of power and intent washed over him.

"Better hurry. They might start without you at this rate."

"Yeah. Yeah." Placing his foot down on the ground, chakra sprung to life in and around him as though a trigger had been pulled. In an instant, he had vanished from his leisurely stroll…

… And reappeared in where he was to be expected. Perfectly positioned to be equidistant from Kaguya and Hidan. One could not find a better setting for a shinobi version of a Mexican Standoff.

Naruto looked at her curiously, completely ignoring Hidan, who seemed to only slightly mind the fact.

She was beautiful, but that wasn't completely unexpected. Pure white in hair, clothes, skin and eyes, and carrying an aura that was so abnormal that it would not be hard to imagine normal humans to assume that she was a genuine Goddess if they could stay conscious or sane while this close to her. The fact that she had horns instead of wings was ironic, but not surprising. Of particular note, her ivory hair was noticeably long, trailing behind her to the point that it would not be surprising if there was more natural mass in it than the rest of her body.

Her beauty did not make him miss the fact that she had a clear fissure down the center of her forehead that was for the moment completely shut. He assumed that that was where her Rinnegan was. Wouldn't be the first time that he encountered someone with a literal third eye.

He did not seem to care that she was scrutinizing him with her Byakugan during this time.

Surprisingly enough, Naruto moved first. Lazily lifting his right hand, he snapped his fingers.

In an instant, the air behind all three parties whirled rapidly, forming three large balls of highly condensed gas. The only reason why Hidan and Kaguya did not react immediately was due to the vastly inconsequential levels of chakra that were focused in the formations. It may have been enough to kill or scare a Genin, but for monsters like them, it was barely noticeable.

What was more interesting was when Naruto leaned back and sat in his air pocket like it was a giant bean bag chair, and then motioned for the others to do the same.

o. o. o.

"What, is he doing?" Kin blinked, unsure what she was seeing as Hidan and Kaguya surprisingly complied with Naruto's request without the slightest bit of hesitation. "No, what are they doing?"

"I believe that they are getting answers." Hiruzen was far less perplexed by the turn of events than Kin, Lee and Neji. "They recognize the strength and authority of the other, but not the situation at hand. There are enough questions about that even they realize that they cannot move as carelessly as they desire. The same thing could easily come about if two Kage of enemy villages inexplicably found themselves at the same location at the same time. If that's the case… there is a slim chance that Naruto could resolve this peacefully."

"… No. It won't. Not while that monster is there." Lee's attention had not deviated from Hidan's image.

o. o. o.

"You have something that belongs to me." Kaguya stated evenly, ignoring Naruto pouring himself a thumb of alcohol in an elaborate glass before "sliding" both the bottle and another glass to her across thin air.

She accepted it, pouring herself an appropriate amount with perfect posture and grace before repeating the motion to Hidan.

"Says the thief." The Priest chuckled, getting his own share of the pre battle spoils.

"As much as I despise agreeing with the Acolyte, he is correct." Naruto sipped first, allowing his throat to burn as the fluids went down his throat. "It is hypocritical to demand for something that you stole. Not that I am in a position to return it in the first place. Kurama does as he wishes. I'm just a convenient home for him."

"You treat a mass of power as an independent being? As your equal? How ridiculous." She elegantly sampled the drink she was offered, and found it surprisingly acceptable.

"Not as ridiculous as the farmer that got eaten by her own plant." The Priest snarked, taking his turn. "Oh. This is good stuff."

"Do not mistaken my condition for ineptitude. My state was the result of sealwork of my sons. I was fully in control over the God Tree until I was forced to sleep."

"World Tree. God Tree. Ygddrisil. Kalpavrisksha. Ashvattha. Austras Koks. Yax Imix Che. Whatever you want to call it, in the end it's just another over glorified weed that you got your ass stuck in." Hidan waved her off nonchalantly.

"Your sons…" Naruto swirled his drink, contemplating her words carefully. "Plural."

"Hagoromo Otsutsuki was the Sage of Six Paths, but he had a younger brother. Hamura." Kurama elaborated. "The latter of which is the progenitor of the Hyuga clan, if I recall correctly."

"They were born here?" Naruto pressed. "They were part human?"

"As opposed to whatever species Kaguya is, yes. I was told that their father was from this world."

"Boy. Tell me. How do you know the Divine Ways?" Kaguya decided to ignore Hidan's incessant mocking. "Those arts are not something that one can simply stumble upon."

"Divine Ways. You must have been sealed away longer than I thought. No one's used that name for a while." Naruto shook his head. "The common terminology for it these days is Presence. I'm actually surprised you know of it."

"Do not mistaken me for some ignorant peddler. This is not the first realm that I have visited."

"Could have fooled me." Hidan muttered before taking another drink.

Kaguya's brief spike in killing intent indicated that she was not going to budge on the subject.

Naruto wasn't intimidated in the slightest. Rolling his eyes, he pointed to one of the disturbances in time and space that Scabbard was using to record their every move. "Have a look. You should have noticed by now. The monsters and everyone else that are watching us."

Frowning for the roundabout explanation, Kaguya activated her eyes once more and looked at the disturbance the boy had pointed out earlier. Despite not having the Rinnegan available to her, she was still more than capable of peering into the beyond if she desired.

She saw many eyes and faces peering back at her. Most of them from a single location, but others were littered all over the place. The vast majority of them were inconsequential, however…

Her eyes widened in genuine surprise as she acknowledged the gazes of several individuals that were vastly different than the others. The psychological weight of the action alone was enough to hit her like a suckerpunch, and almost made her drop her drink.

"Yup. Wave for the crowd." Hidan smirked. "Even if all three of us were in top condition and teamed up, there's at least five, six, seven… eight…"

The priest's confidence dropped slightly as he counted higher than anticipated. "Eight monsters that each could wipe us out easily are watching right now. Well, isn't that an unexpected twist? Looks like we gained a couple of extra names while I wasn't looking."

"Quit complaining. Not like we can do anything about it." Naruto shrugged, not surprised by the figure. Six were the Oogakari plus Zuzushi. One was that Sylvia woman. The last… was some old man that felt like Light incarnate. It felt familiar, but he couldn't remember from where…

"Eight that have transcended the Divine?" Kaguya looked again, not willing to believe what she was hearing and seeing.

"Hmm. Oh? How interesting." Hidan's eyes narrowed as he peered through the camera. "If I'm not mistaken, one of them is none other than the Stained Glass herself. And right next to the Second Origin no less. How rare, to see the two in such proximity witho-erk?!"

Hidan's observation was cut short on the count that half his body had mutated and contorted into a twisted abomination of various animal species, while the other half was simultaneously mutilated, dunked in acid, stabbed with hypodermic needles filled with unknown fluids, set on fire, and covered in poisonous mushrooms.

o. o. o.

"Dumbass." Ghost, Waltz, and Dima muttered under their breaths, pretending to ignore the terrifyingly calm looks that Shadow and Sylvia had on their faces.

"Fucking God Classes." Skyler muttered under his breath, trying his hardest to pretend that he wasn't scared out of his mind from the brief moment of overwhelming authority he had just been exposed to.

"Wait. Did they just…?" Hana, more confused than anything, was shifting her attention back from the two women behind her to the screen.

"You took his nature into account?" Sylvia asked calmly.

"Custom mushrooms. He's dreaming of LSD Colors, Ponies and Care Bears that just want to hug him and sing of friendship." Shadow replied, just as evenly. "You?"

"Half his sweatglands generate meth. The other half, highly concentrated aphrodisiacs you'd find in two dollar tentacle rape worlds."

There was no pain. No agony. No mild discomfort for the man that channeled the Empathy of Pain incarnate. Only twisted, mind numbing, insanity inducing pleasure that made absolutely no sense.

"We probably just turned an unstable Acolyte into a mannulus and ursaphiliac." Shadow stated with mild interest.

"Probably." Sylvia nodded. "Fortunately, you are still banned from equestrian realms."

"Crypt's ahead of the game like that." Shadow agreed, leering at the screen. "Now then, shall we continue?"

o. o. o.

Naruto shivered, hearing what Shadow had said loud and clear despite being on another side of the planet. He hated Hidan, without question, but did the idiot have to bring up Shadow's and Sylvia's relationship out loud?

"What just happened to the Acolyte?" Kaguya was alarmed by the spontaneous new state of the third party.

"He opened his mouth and pissed off said monsters." Naruto shook his head. "Dumbass."

"Guk. Erjmeah. Waghghghghg."

Naruto had no doubts that the Acolyte's state was only temporary. That being said, Hidan was not going to be happy when he returned to normal.

Thankfully, he saved the Priest's drink from spilling. It was currently floating near the fool's mutilated body. He didn't like the prick, but he wasn't going to waste good alcohol like that.

"What do they want?" Kaguya barely held back a shiver. It had been only for a brief instant, but she had been able to sense two powers all but molest the third person of their group with absolute authority. Even at the height of her prime, she was unable to accomplish so much so quickly and seamlessly without warning.

The Otsutsuki clan had spent millennia travelling between worlds, robbing them of their power with the God Trees, and growing in the process, but that did not mean that they had spent that time without confronting the larger forces in the Multiverse. Worlds where technology and weapons surpassed their understanding. Worlds where there were warriors that surpassed their own.

Worlds where there were genuine Gods.

She had never encountered worlds like them though.

Why?

The answer was obvious.

Her clan avoided anyone and anything that was stronger than them like the plague.

Naruto regained his composure first, finishing up his glass and pouring himself another one. A pity his system would burn through the booze faster than he could absorb it. He needed a good buzz right now. "Don't worry. They aren't interested in you in the slightest, so just ignore them as best as you can. It's what I do, or at least, what I try to do."

Before Kaguya could ask what he meant like that, she was interrupted.

"Mother!" Zetsu burst from the ground, showing far more energy and enthusiasm than at any point in its existence. "How is this possible?! You're awake!"

"And without all the Biju. That's saved us a lot of work." The White half showed both glee and confusion. "Ah, and the Kyubi brat's here too. And Hida-what the hell happened to Hidan?!"

"Oh would you look at that? The Plant guy knew she was in the World Tree all along. Who would have guessed? It's not like I didn't totally call it out the second I knew that a World Tree was involved thirty minutes ago." Naruto muttered sarcastically, not surprised in the slightest by Zetsu's appearance and continued to drink his alcohol.

"Hey Kurama. That plant guy just called her Mother. Does that make it your Uncle? Brother? Second cousin?"

"I am genuinely contemplating whether or not it is worth eternal enslavement to kill you."

"I am curious about this turn of events as well." Sounding far calmer than he probably was, Tobi appeared from a wormhole a short distance away from Kaguya and Zetsu.

"Useless party crashers." Naruto wasn't surprised at all at Tobi's appearance, or the beaten up state the man was in from his prior fight with Kushina. "You're not on the invited list. Multiversal travelers and psychopaths only. No booze for you. Go away."

"Zetsu." Tobi all but ordered, his patience reaching its limits. "Explain."

"He's been most likely playing you the entire time. This entire setup screams classic comic book trusted second in command betrayal."

The killing intent that Tobi shot in Naruto's direction was not insignificant if the glowing Sharingan was any indication.

Naruto was not impressed. "Fine. Fine. I'll let plant man take the show. Careful. Your depth perception is showing."

"Humph. Arrogant child. You couldn't possibly fathom the depth and efforts we had to go through. The wells of untold power that Mother, Kaguya Otsusuki has."

"Kaguya, Otsutsuki?" Tobi clearly recognized the name if his surprise was any indication.

The blonde gave a dry look to the woman in question, as if asking her just how long she was going to let this go on for.

"Tobi. You were a good ally. Even an enjoyable friend at times. But, as unexpected as it is now that Mother is awake, you will have to come to the truth that you, like everyone else, were just a tool on the board."

Unfortunately, she appeared to be more interested in the powerhouses that were watching her from across the planet. Not that Zetsu actually noticed.

With a completely serious face, Naruto carelessly threw his glass over his shoulder like trash, grabbed the hovering bottle next to him, and started to chug from it directly. Screw anger. Being smashed was pretty much a requirement to sit through one of these "I was the criminal mastermind the whole time!" speeches in person when they were this poorly rehearsed. Zetsu's words were so overdone word for word that someone should be sued for plagiarism.

"Do not toy with me, Zetsu. Even if that woman is who you claim, she is far from the deity she was in the legends. I have no urge to bow or surrender to a power I know can be surpassed."

"Idiot. What you feel is Mother with only two Biju in her." The White half chuckled. Below and behind Naruto, dozens of copies of Zetsu formed. Roots began to writhe from the dry and cracked stone as though they were snake summons. A small army and an onslaught from behind, and enemies of absurd power in front. It was a setup that ensured death from all sides. "Even now she is stronger than anyone on the planet. The rest of the Biju are merely to ensure she is complete once again!"

The clones jumped up into the air, all with sadistic grins on their faces.

The roots stabbed and lashed out like vicious whips, their bodies stronger than steel.

Naruto snapped the fingers on his free hand as he continued to chug with the other.

o. o. o.

The world stilled. All around the teen were the silhouettes of countless men, branches, and blades.

Sasuke swallowed heavily as he realized what he was watching in action.

"War Scars."

o. o. o.

Time returned.

Shredded mulch fell to the ground all around Naruto.

"Mgh." The teen huffed, finally lowering the bottle and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, ignoring the surprised look that Zetsu was giving him. "Oi. Lady. If you don't do something to make your secret third child that you hide under the stairs shut up, I will end this temporary ceasefire."

"Y-You sound rather calm for someone that was laughing insanely just a while ago." White half tried to sound confident, but it was clearly on guard after Naruto had shredded apart its attack in a single go in an instant.

"Bitch, I've gone full circle so many times today I'm a damn carousel."

"Then one more spin shouldn't hurt."

Tobi was behind Naruto, his Sharingan glowing maliciously and a hand reached out touching the teen's back. A wormhole leading to another world started spinning around his doujutsu.

It didn't matter if Zetsu betrayed him or not, or if the woman really was Kaguya Otsutsuki. They still needed the Biju. Once the Kyubi was secured in his dimension, he would have the advantage once again.

"I won."

Crack.

"Nothing."

The glass that Naruto had tossed away like useless trash earlier smashed into the back of Tobi's skull. No damage was done, but the impact was enough to stun the surprised man and lurch forward in confusion.

Right into the bottle that the target was swinging behind him without looking.

BOOM!

The bottle that had been filled with concentrated wind chakra, straight from the Jichuriki's lungs.

The concussive force from the improvised bomb going off literally in front of Tobi's face sent the enraged Aktasuki flying across the crater at breakneck speeds. It wouldn't surprise anyone if the man actually reached the edge of the devastation before he finally stopped.

"What a waste. I still had a quarter bottle left." Naruto lamented, holding the jagged and sharp top of the bottle in his hand. The fact that he had almost been sucked into another dimension didn't seem to register to him at all.

He was only slightly less disappointed that Tobi actually fell for the glass trick in the first place. The bastard actually thought he had the drop on him.

Idiot fell for the same mistake that most rookie Timespace users made. They were always less attentive of their surroundings when they were on the attack and assumed that they won. Especially to the small things.

The odds of that killing the bastard were still unfortunately low though.

"Eeeh?" White half blinked, surprised. "Didn't expect that. He managed to land a good hit on Tobi. Without looking no less."

"It doesn't matter. Tobi's nothing compared to M-?!"

The Heavens shifted. Restless and annoyed. None dared look down upon it.

Zetsu shut up. Kaguya snapped out of her distracted state. Even Hidan's mindless writhing had stilled.

"Oi. Old bat. Don't tell me you're going senile already. I'm here to talk to you, not your failed abortion." The air around Naruto suddenly became malicious and heavy, as if the entire atmosphere around them was in the center of a storm despite there not being a single cloud in the sky, blown away as an aftereffect from his earlier cataclysmic jutsu…

No. The sky had been indeed clear earlier, but it was already rapidly being blocked out by endless thick folds of dark grey, moving at speeds that was in no way natural.

Kaguya, finally paying attention to what was around her, looked at Naruto as if he had a second head. "… How are you able to keep calm like this? What insurances do you have? Do I have?"

"Mother. Why are you-"

"Zetsu. Be quiet." She cut off the plant man instantly. Whether it was his confusion or his loyalty that kept him quiet was anyone's guess.

"My insurance?" Naruto echoed as if he was not impressed by her question. "Our insurance, is that they don't care what happens in the end. Only that they get to see it. I thought you would be experienced enough to know at least that much."

"I am experienced enough to know not to deal with them in the first place." Her tone grew as hard as his.

Naruto's eye flashed vindictively. "Big words, coming from the woman that screwed up her first harvest. Novice."

Kaguya's flinch was visible for anyone to see. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't." He clearly didn't believe her. "You absorbing the tree itself instead of just eating the fruit was weird in itself, but the biggest tell that you're just a scrub? You had kids here. You fell in love and had mixed breeds here. On your first job away from home. On a planet you were going to drain for every drop of energy it had. If you had done this for a while, there would be no way that you'd let yourself be tied down by having a new family. You're not an omnipotent ruler. You're a scrub on a power trip."

Kaguya didn't say anything, but the irritated stare said enough.

"I haven't asked you what I wanted to know, have I?" Naruto did not hold back. "Tell me. How much longer will it be until your home, your real family, comes here to finish the job? And you?"

This time, her Byakugan activating unconsciously did it. "What made you come to that conclusion?"

"Where there's one, there's more." His reasoning was solid, tearing her apart with every word. "You needed more power to fight them when they came. For you. For your sons. For your home. For the power. The fruit was enough to deal with the people here, but not your kin. Not those monsters that have stolen the energy from other worlds for millennia if not longer. You were desperate. You needed an edge, so you went an extra step. You took in the tree itself. Made it your own."

"Stop talking boy. You do not know what you speak of." Kaguya ordered darkly.

Naruto didn't. "But, at some point, something changed, didn't it? The power you had wasn't enough. Not for your preparation. Not for you. Not for the tree, which you had become one with. You poor idiot. The tree's insatiable hunger became yours. And the greatest feast nearby, were the two children that you had become a monster for in the first place."

Countless strands of ivory hair speared towards the young man, each a spear that could pierce the strongest walls.

Splayed and fanned out, the countless strands of death pierced the ground all around their target, but not one reached their mark. Their paths had twisted and contorted long before having a hope of making it.

"They attacked me. My boys betrayed me." The white woman lost her composure as her anger finally reached the surface, her killing intent potent enough to crack the land around her, hair writhing as if to imitate her emotions.

"… You? Or the thing you had become in the never ending hunger you've had since taking in the tree? Tell me, were you angry, or relieved that they made the first move? That you finally had an excuse to give into that feeling that was gnawing at your mind for so many years?"

Her mind froze at the accusation.

The hunger.

It had always been there. In the back of her mind, the perpetually growing hunger and need for power had clawed at her sanity. It had been easy to ignore at first. Then annoying. She had separated herself from the tree for a time physically after the boys were born, but by that point, its instincts were already synonymous with her own. Feeding it the power of the world, the life of the locals, stemmed the hunger. Not completely, never completely, but enough to maintain her sanity and ability to function.

At least, it had until Hagoromo and Hamura had grown up, found out what she had been doing, and turned against her. Disgusted and horrified by what she had done to protect them.

They had asked her why she had done what she did. Why she was turning other humans into Zetsu, taking their power and building an army. And yet the simple notion of explaining the situation never crossed her mind.

No. No no no. He didn't understand. They didn't understand. Her clan. The power. Her efforts. No one did. They couldn't. Not the residents of this helpless, pathetic backwater world. It was beyond their scope. Their understanding. That's why she undertook everything herself. They didn't know the horrors of the greater worlds…

Like the monsters watching her right now…

"Now answer me, Kaguya Otsutsuki. When should I expect the ones that really matter?"

This boy. This child. The latest face of her grandson held no faith in her, her powers, or her clan. He genuinely saw them all as nothing more than nuisances. As things that were beneath him.

Her ire was stoked. Her pride marred in a way that she had not recalled. How dare he make light of her efforts. Her sacrifices. Her will.

How dare he try and take away the one thing she had sacrificed everything for.

Her composure cooled, and her mind sharpened.

"I do not see how that information is any of your business. This world is mine to see and do as I see fit. If the monstrosities that are watching this are indeed here for that, then so be it. They will watch as I reclaim what is mine."

"Ha. Kakahahahauhch. Cough chough." The two turned their attention to Hidan, whose increasingly writhing body could easily fool someone into thinking he was having seizures from a heart attack. Given how twisted of a state his body was in, it wouldn't be far off to assume both.

"Looks like he won't need help after all." Naruto noted that the half of Hidan's body that was covered in odd fungi and other appliances was either tearing off its restraints or literally corrupting and rotting them off. The other half of his body… was still mutated beyond comprehension. It made him wonder just how the Acolyte was going to… oh. So that's how.

With a wild swipe of his free arm, Hidan literally tore off a part of his flesh in a bloody mess. An instant later, another section was eviscerated.

And another. And another.

Arm. Leg. Stomach. Chest. Skull. The Priest was turning himself into a macabre that even the most hardened of veterans would have trouble witnessing first hand. Blood. Organs. Bone. Tissue. Brain matter. Eyeball. Internal fluids. Everything sprayed out on the ground as the mad man viciously worked on himself.

The vast majority of the people watching either looked away, or were forced to as their stomachs rebelled against them.

Naruto and Kaguya merely blinked and watched with mild curiosity.

"Might as well wait for him." The blonde sighed, glancing at Kaguya. "He'll just get all pissy if we start things off without him and do something annoying."

"I thought he had angered those watching us." She gave him a questioning look.

"He did. And he was punished. Doesn't mean that they didn't hold back enough so that he'd be able to recover and join this useless mess we're in." He had been tempted to end Hidan right then and there, but with Crypt's curse still in effect and an imminent free for all deathmatch to be seen, Naruto doubted that he'd be able to pull it off without something interrupting or horrible happening to him.

"For entertainment." She said the word with obvious distaste.

"You sound like I'm also enjoying this." He gave her a dry glare. "This whole mess would have to be far more interesting and less stupid for me to derive any form of enjoyment."

"That's a bit hypocritical, coming from you of all people." White Zetsu couldn't keep quiet any longer. "You're infamous for being rather erratic. Naruto Uzumaki."

"There's a difference between being stupid for fun, and doing so because you actually think it's the smart thing to do in order to accomplish something. Weed." Naruto didn't bother to even glance at Zetsu. "This entire mess. It's just one jumbled up conglomerate of half assed plans and idiots that can't think for themselves. It's beyond stupid. It's embarrassing. I'm pissed that I wasted my life just to deal with this useless tripe."

"You cocky brat…"

"Haaagh!" Hidan snarled, jumping back to his feet, looking like a medical doll where half of the body's skin has been ripped off. The ordeal must have been painful and stressful, even for him if the heavy breathing was anything to go by. "Fucking Ponies! I swear those little bastards are the first ones that I'm going to sacrifice once I'm done here!"

Naruto deadpanned. "Let me guess. Colors everywhere? Power of friendship and love?"

"All of my HATE AND ANGER!"

"Power of friendship and love." If there was one power that was sure to drive someone fueled by a God of malicious Empathy mad with rage, it was that. A twisted sense of humor often came with a twisted and effective sense of torture.

"Wow. I know that Hidan's been messed up lately, but this is pushing it." White Zetsu laughed somewhat nervously.

The madman noticed the floating glass of alcohol next to him and downed it immediately before turning to his supplier.

"You! Booze! Now!" Spit and blood flying everywhere as he shouted through his half formed lips, making him look like something from a horror film. Naruto merely shook the broken top of the bottle in front of everyone.

"Sorry. Too late. The Shrub and the one eye wonder started talking and I needed to drown them out something fierce. Blame them."

"And you let them talk?!" Hidan was surprisingly bewildered, which somehow made his distorted image even more horrifying. Even he knew that talking wasn't a free action. The only reason why they haven't started fighting yet is because all three of them needed to know things from the others before they got carried away.

… No. More abnormal was that his original personality was so predominant. Body language. Vocabulary. Priorities. Up until now, the God that's possessed him more or less made the decisions and spoke for Hidan, but now…

Huh. Power of love and friendship indeed. Ghost was right. It's always the dumb and ridiculous powers that end up giving everyone the most whiplash in the end.

Naruto shrugged helplessly jabbing a thumb pointing behind him to the new crater he had made. "Couldn't help it. The shrub's apparently her kid. Couldn't shut him up without pissing her off. Tobi is somewhere that way now though. Along with the rest of the bottle."

Hidan blinked before looking at Zetsu, then Kaguya, then back to Zetsu. "I don't see the resemblance. He must be adopted."

Apparently, that actually managed to get under the black half's undefined skin. "Mother. Kill them."

o. o. o.

"This is getting ridiculous." One of the ANBU trying to arrest the Oogakari growled in annoyance. "All they are doing is talking and acting like children."

"Says you." Shadow muttered, her eyes never moving from the screen.

"What are you insinuating?"

"That you're a scrub."

"Um. I can't see it either." Hana sheepishly lifted her hand. "I can tell something's happening but…"

"Bottom line, if a normal person was dropped there, it would be a coin toss to see what misfortune would kill them first. Normally, death's the lucky outcome." Dima scratched his chin thoughtfully. "It doesn't look like it, but those three were trying to off one another before the first word was even uttered."

"What are you talking about?" Another ANBU, this one clearly more patient than the other, asked.

Sylvia rolled her eyes. "Scab. Use the filters already. The locals are getting cranky."

The image on the giant screen flickered for a moment…

o. o. o.

"Shut up you annoying weed before I turn you into a joint."

Hidan sneezed, the concoction of scentless and odorless toxins that perverted the air itched at his sinuses and lungs. Neurotoxins and poisons made his muscles spasm and his heart beat irregularly for only a few moments before his body restored itself, only to repeat the process.

It didn't help that the harmful gasses were viciously trying to incorporate themselves into his regenerating exposed blood and muscle tissue from the half of his body that he had torn asunder.

Naruto adjusted the path of the snot and mucus that Hidan had fired his way in a harmless direction midflight with a twitch of a finger, manipulating the air pressure around him. More important was maintaining his equilibrium while being assaulted on several metaphysical fronts by Kaguya's probing. "Ignore him. He's worth less than my clones. I still haven't heard my answer, Kaguya Otsutsuki. When should we expect the rest of your family to look for you?"

Kaguya was losing her patience. "I don't see how that matters, boy. You are clearly overestimating your capabilities if either of you assume to be their match. Or mine for that matter."

She may not have complete access to her Rinnegan, but she was more than capable of tearing holes in reality or dragging a few people with her to a new world at least once if pushed. The problem was that she was unable to get a firm grasp of her opponents' essences in order to pull them in. The pair absolutely refused to be moved by her power in any way, despite the fact that nearly every other being she had encountered in her life fell under her influence when she looked at them. It was incredibly vexing.

Almost as vexing as that irritating itching sensation that was a result of the Divine Puppet's power trying to influence her.

"Oi old lady, is your hearing gone too? I told you, we're all crippled here. Even I can tell that the brat Lord can hit hard if he wasn't held back. If you were at full strength, it would be one thing, but right now he has the greatest claim over this world out of all of us. Give it another few years and that judgement could very well be different." Hidan sneered, his malicious aura pulsing out of his body in all directions like an invisible corrupted miasma. One that twisted the living around him, yet was buffeted by the auras of his current foes.

"You're too kind."

"Shut it, Lord. It doesn't matter who has the greatest claim in the end. I'm still going to kill the both of you. This world is going to be another testament to my 'self'."

The three of them had not once moved from where they started. All the same distance from one another. All emitting and controlling power that countered and rebuffed the others'. Like three giant wells of energy placed unnaturally close to one another. Only the smallest of tendrils managed to poke and prod in another's territory enough to be noticed.

The only reason why Zetsu had yet to be affected or realize just how perilous a position he was in was simply because he was a part of Kaguya's power, and protected within the realm of her influence.

No. They had already completely forgotten about Zetsu.

"O-oi. This is…" The White Half muttered, starting to realize that something was amiss.

"Do not be ridiculous. This world is my cradle. Being sealed away has not changed that fact. The boy may be gifted, and possess some of my power, but that does not alter the irrefutable." Kaguya frowned. "If what you claim about those monsters from the outside is true, then only I have the potential to fully protect this world from my kin. With all my power restored."

Naruto deadpanned and looked at Hidan, who understood what the boy was implying instantly. Acolytes were as powerful as their God dictated. Theoretically, it wasn't improbable for one to be beefed up to take out an entire universe if needed, though that would require an investment on the God's part in turn.

Overwhelming power or not, Gods were across the board surprisingly stingy and economical when it came to managing their essence.

Hidan snorted. "Oi, brat. Mind getting her to stick her foot in her mouth?"

The teen lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Me?"

"I'm cut off from my power. Your potential is just sealed."

"And the real reason?"

Hidan's smile widened to an inhuman degree. "You're part of the Family. Can you blame me for being, curious? Fighting one of you without seeing a glimpse of your real worth… well that would just be disappointing, wouldn't it? You have a reputation to uphold you know."

Naruto didn't buy it for a second.

But… he had an idea what the Priest's real motive was.

"Haaah. Fuck it. Already on camera. Might as well make it a show. Ero-Ni. Gimme ten seconds."

o. o. o.

Ghost snorted in dry amusement. He could easily deny Naruto's request, and there was a real chance that the kid might use the time to waste his opponents in that time, but what the heck?

He deserved this much at least.

"Go ahead, Minion."

o. o. o.

Several rings of unknown origin materialized around the jinchuriki, before shifting like an unwinding puzzle.

"Dazzle your loving audience."

The young man sighed content, as if an invisible weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

And then, there was power.

o. o. o.

"Holy FUCK!" Ino jumped and looked into the distance, her entire body rigid. "I know I'm a high level sensor, but please tell me I'm not the only one that can feel that!"

She completely missed the fact that a good number of the shinobi in the stadium also jumped the instant she did.

It was different than before. When Naruto used Heaven's Fall, Ino and any other accomplished sensor could pick up the technique in the distance, but it was comparable to the dregs of dusk's light over the horizon. A faint glow in the distance that was noticeable, but still far away.

Now? It was like a titanic florescent and scathing light was shooting them all in the eyes from a second star if they looked at it directly. Even people that were somewhat trained in the detecting foreign chakras could pick it up instantly.

"No." Sasuke didn't turn away from the screen, even though his nerves were also now screaming at him in alarm. "You aren't."

Not in Konoha. Nor the rest of the elemental nations.

o. o. o.

Hidan, Kaguya and Zetsu didn't register the transformation immediately. Having been so close to Naruto at the time, it took a few instants for their senses to adjust properly, much like regaining one's bearings after jumping into a body of water.

If it was slightly laborious to breathe now, it was a genuine effort now. Each breath was smothering, and littered with countless tiny blades that pricked and scraped the throat and lungs.

Staying in place was a chore too. No wind seemed to blow, and yet it felt as if they were in the center of the greatest typhoon to ever exist.

Crack.

Crack. Crack.

The ground was breaking apart. Huge chunks of stone the size of buildings that had been blown away by the fighting so far was levitating into the sky, as if the clouds above held more pull than the earth below.

And in turn, dozens of twisters once more fell to the ground, comprised of layers upon layers of fang like folds of air and dust, iron black and orange drills that looked sharp enough to cut just by looking at them.

But all of that could not compare to the source of it all.

The one that orders Chaos. The one that guides the Heavens. The one whose domain is this world itself.

His clothes were covered by the chakra of the Kyubi. A black longcoat with flowing orange-gold trimming, a color that would be consistent with the rest of his image, and a flame design on the bottom reminiscent of his father's, or the Oogakari's, had the material not been noticeably thick, and the neck and shoulders been occupied with a thick dark golden fox pelt. The design at first glance made it look like a royal cape more than a coat. Outside of that, the only thing of note were the thick orange gold lines that traveled down the back of his arms and spine, as if trying to imitate what his body's shape was, and the two rings that went around his neck.

Oh, and the burning red gold spiral on his back, surrounded by nine equally intense tomoe.

Underneath the coat, his clothes had not changed much in design outside of the intensity of the colors. His black hoodie with the burning orange spiral remained the same, outside of the fact that it also looked like it was made of molten gold now. Likewise, his pants were much the same, replacing his cargos with the indecipherable black material with dark orange gold trimming and lines that went over his bones.

Naruto himself, didn't change that much at first glance. His skin was the same, though his hair was slightly more pronounced, and his ever present facial scars had both widened and extended so far back they met his ears.

His eyes though, had slightly changed shape, becoming narrower, colder, and the skin's pigmentation had turned blood red, indicating that he was in Sage Mode.

His eyes themselves had remained the same technically.

A sky blue that was endless as the heaven's themselves, radiating with as much power as the world above him.

That and the crossed pupils where they had only been vertical before.

All in all, his image, and the authority he commanded at that very moment, would not be that different than what one would expect from divine, inhuman, absolute royalty.

Two seconds.

"… Well?" Naruto spoke. His voice didn't change in the slightest, but there was weight in his words now. There was power. There was a domineering authority that demanded to be listened to and acknowledged. "Do I still not measure up? Kaguya Otsutsuki?"

Four. Five… Six.

Kaguya held back the urge to swallow heavily. In order to match the current Asura as he was, she'd need to regain all of the other Biju save the one that he had. And even then, she was not confident about her odds. The weight of the boy's power. The nature, the quality of it all was beyond simply that of the Kyubi's and that infernal nature chakra that Hagoromo used. This power the boy wielded was irresistibly refined, to the point that she had trouble believing that it had all originated from this planet in the first place.

Worse was that the boy's power, its quality, girth, and hold on everything around her, had been perpetually skyrocketing without end in sight.

But on top of it all, what got to her the most, was the way the world itself responded to the child.

At the height of her power, Kaguya saw herself as a God. When she moved, when she ordered, when she demanded something of the world around her, the world changed.

But this boy, it was because she had stolen so much from the world, because she had wielded so much of the planet's power, she knew.

Right now, if the boy were to do something, the world would not change to his will…

… It would answer to his will, work with him, and comply.

Asura's current incarnation did not simply wield power. He wielded authority.

Three seconds.

"And then some! Hahaha!" Hidan burst out laughing before Kaguya could regain her senses, clearly not put off like she was. "I take back what I said! Even if the bat regains her old power, there's no question that you have the greatest claim over this world, Lord!"

Five Seconds.

Naruto would have had the slightest inkling of feeling flattered, if Hidan had not lifted his scythe during his ranting and drove it into the ground viciously.

Clap.

Or he would have, if the young man had not seemingly teleported within the Priest's guard and stopped him mid-swing. The ground cracked under his feet from the impact.

"You were aiming for my connection to the world, weren't you, Empathy?" Naruto asked with mixed disappointment and amusement. His connection to the Sky. His connection to Nature. It wouldn't be far off to say that Naruto was representing the world itself right now.

And for Hidan, being an extension of Empathy itself, that made the blonde one giant planet wide target to curse.

Had Naruto not anticipated this outcome, he would have been finished before the fighting even began.

It should bear repeating. When it came to the multiverse, Gods were bullshit. Anyone that did not comprehend this basic rule and take it to heart were doomed to death, if they were lucky.

Six seconds.

"Yeah." Despite being interrupted and confronted by an opponent that clearly vastly outmatched him in nearly every way, Hidan's mad smile only grew.

Shink.

The Reaper will claim this new land for harvest from the Lord.

"I am."

One way or another.

The scythe's black shaft, which had apparently been coated in the man's own blood without anyone knowing better, spiked out and speared through Naruto's hand, tearing apart the appendage into strips of meat and bone.

At the same time, the pools of blood that Hidan had literally ripped from his own body moved almost instantly, forming a more elaborate version of the standard Jashinist seal beneath the pair, complete with three more pairs of circles and triangles that encompassed the sequence inside. If one looked closely, they could see undecipherable letterings and scriptures within each line of the ever moving inscription.

It was a simple mistake for most. Pools of blood were not uncommon on the battleground, and were easy to overlook, especially in the midst of a fight.

Naruto's free hand hammered into Hidan's open chest in an open palm strike, shattering a few ribs with the force of a bomb and causing a massive shockwave, but doing little else.

No.

It had appeared to be a normal open palm strike at first, but the sudden gouge of earth behind the madman that trailed for nearly a kilometer indicated that there had been more behind the strike than met the eye. In that regard, it was more abnormal that Hidan had not moved in the slightest, let alone been thrown halfway to Iwa by now.

Kaguya blinked as she noticed something else of peculiar note. The fissure in the earth had started close enough to cut into the seal that Hidan had just made, however the design had somehow persisted, not by travelling down into the new cut, but by somehow staying in place, hovering in midair now as if the blood that drew it was no longer solid, liquid, or gas, but an etch in the world itself.

Whether the strike had been intended to launch Hidan out of the seal, or perhaps destroy the seal was inconsequential. It didn't work.

"Your claim is mine. Lord of the Chaotic Heavens." The madman grinned with glee, his crimson seal glowing brighter by the millisecond.

Pop.

Naruto vanished in a puff of smoke.

Pools of blood, were considered among the most dangerous things imaginable within the rankings of the Family. They were never ignored. They were never disregarded. They were never overlooked.

They were, after all, Crypt's primary weapon of choice.

Seven seconds.

"Your claim is empty. Abandoned Reaper."

"… Eh?"

Naruto was where he had always been, lounging on a faint ball of concentrated gasses. He did not move to stop Hidan in the first place. He had merely made a clone, and cloaked himself within the folds of atmospheres that were at his beck and call. Hidan was incapable of catching the mistake. The difference of power between the two were too great for him to make the differentiation.

Of course Hidan was surprised. He knew, that Naruto knew, that any damage that he did to clones would be at the very least be felt by the user and at worst mirrored onto the original. The stronger the connection, the more that was transferred. The mere idea that the young man was actually willing to use clones against him regardless despite the fact had never crossed his mind.

His left hand was mangled, like the clone's had been, but it did not bother the teen. It was already rapidly fixing itself at an unrealistic rate. Complete with disgusting snapping and wet pops as his hand reconfigured itself.

Eight seconds.

Naruto's right hand, more importantly, his finger, was still pointing straight at Hidan.

More specifically, at the glowing spiral seal on the man's chest. A remnant of the clone's last action.

"?! A seal?!"

"Fly."

The finger pointed up.

"Oh fu-!"

Hidan flew up like he was strapped to a rocket…

Straight towards a pair of titanic tornados travelling across the sky in tandem in a way that made them appear like the world's largest meat grinder.

Nine seconds.

Hidan instantly recognized how dire his situation was, and without hesitation, sunk his fingers into his chest over the seal, and ripped out his shattered sternum in a bloody display of self-mutilation, alongside the skin and seal imposed over it.

The dislodged hunk of flesh and bone continued to fly into the sky. Hidan in turn, fell and landed roughly on one of the floating boulders that was displaced by Naruto's powers. The fact that half of the contents of his insides were visible for all to see did not seem to impede his movements in the slightest

Ten seconds.

The rings around Naruto reset, locking his power once more. His coat vanished, as did the vast weight he had imposed on everything around him and all that were watching him.

His mutilated hand looked like nothing had happened to it in the first place. His slightly annoyed expression was the same as it had always been. All in all, it appeared as if he had not changed in the slightest.

On the other hand, while the pressure he emitted was gone, the results of his power were still very much there. Primarily in the form of the dozens of tornados that littered the battleground and the floating boulders that had yet to return to the earth.

The teen shifted his right shoulder, testing the injury that he got from Pain earlier. Or rather, the now fully healed injury. "Ugh. Finally. Thought that I was going to have to deal with that hole in my chest all day. You have no idea how itchy that thing was."

He's stronger than he thought.

No.

He was probably stronger than he gave himself credit for regardless. The constant beatings he got during his travels did a number on his self-esteem. But here, at home, it felt like all the energies that he could manipulate inside and outside his body had finally reached a true equilibrium. As if his body had been subconsciously waiting to come home to make the final step.

Those ten seconds. Something had clicked in them. He didn't show it, not now, but… he could already tell that he was different than before.

"… Kurama."

"Mmm." The fox confirmed Naruto's suspicions, also aware that his power was assimilating into Naruto far smoother than before. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You'll have all the time in the world to get used to it later."

The orbs of gas that he and Kaguya had used and improvised chairs faded away, and the two of them were left to move by their own devices again.

"It looks like things are about to finally pick up." Naruto was casually floating a few inches above the ground, his fingers began to move as if they were flexing in an eccentric way, but anyone with eyes could see the streams of air and dust that were being weaved with each twitch. "Last chance. When should we expect the rest of your family to come and steal this world's power? If you think I'm the type that won't beat up aged overpowered women that use their abilities to look younger than they really are, I have to inform you that I have years of experience that says otherwise."

o. o. o.

"Years of experience he says? Oh, I'm going to enjoy hearing him explain that when he gets back."

Shizune slowly edged away from Tsunade, who had started to crack her knuckles malevolently.

o. o. o.

"You brat. I didn't think that it was possible for anyone to master the Kyubi's power without a bloodline, or for you to be a sage, but it doesn't matter." Black Zetsu seemed to turn into a living shadow, separating from the white half and melding into the robes of Kaguya. "Even the Biju's might pales in comparison to a God's."

Naruto smirked. "Heh. You? If you're a God, then I've mastered Presence."

Kaguya's eyes narrowed. Her hair began to writhe. Her horns grew, and spikes spawned from her back. "You…"

"Um. Am I missing something?" White Zetsu, now literally half a man, blinked in confusion.

Naruto's grin widened, his chakra growing heavier by the second. "Didn't you know? Presence. The Divine Ways. It was originally made to deal with Gods in the first place. Calling her one…"

Three Crimson Lines.

A Twisted Core.

Hidan's full swing with his scythe, carrying enough power to scar a mountain was met by a Rasengan the size of a house, fueled by Naruto's off hand without looking. The entire area shook violently by the clash as they fought for dominance.

"… Does nothing but paint a target on her forehead for me."

The two titanic forces pushed against one another viciously to the point that Hidan's glowing scythe blades were somehow not only digging into Naruto's Rasengan, but somehow extending like savage claws around the ball itself to get to the target.

And then the sphere doubled in size in an instant, disrupting the three blades immediately.

"Silly Priest. Everyone knows that size does matter."

Unconcerned with the attack at his back, Naruto lifted up his other hand and pointed it at Kaguya, instantly conjuring a second massive ball of chakra so quickly that the displacement of air alone would knock the wind out of most chunin.

"O-oi. What's he doing?" White Zetsu asked nervously. "That's a lot of chakra, but that jutsu's Rasengan. You need to hit the target directly with it in order to…"

That was as far as he got before torrents of chakra infused air were sucked into each contained monsoon, making every aspect of the jutsu sharper, crisper, cleaner…

In what felt like an eternity, but was really only a few seconds, the two oversized Rasengan had upgraded to equally large Rasenshuriken, with spinning blades splayed out for all to see, humming in perfect symphony with the other.

One pointed at Hidan. One at Kaguya.

"… Oh." Zetsu whimpered as the blades began to spin noticeably faster, and the pitched increased rapidly. He didn't even have time to look to Kaguya for help before everything went white.

o. o. o.

"Damn it Naruto!" Jiraiya shouted what felt like at this point one of the top mantras of Konohagakure.

They had them. They fucking had them. Sasori had been trapped in a blob of toad mucus from Ma and Pa, and Kakuzu was staring down the barrel of a patented Dust technique.

And then Naruto just had to explode his overpowered biju juice over everyone and everything in what felt like the entirety of the elemental nations.

Don't get him wrong. He was impressed. The amount of power that the kid displayed in just a few seconds was nothing short of absolutely disgusting and terrifying to the point that in any other situation, he'd be worried that Naruto's continued existence would be enough to start a war in the future.

The problem was that with so much smothering power hitting everyone at once, Sasori and Kakuzu had managed to turn things around in the distraction so that they had a fighting chance again.

Said chance got annoyingly better when from out of nowhere, that asshole in the orange mask who supposedly caused everything wrong in the world jumped in from out of nowhere and nearly took out Onoki. If Roshi hadn't interfered at the last second, one of Akatsuki's main goals for the day would have been met right then and there.

As it stood, both sides were staring one another down, and no one was at the top of their game physically save for Sasori, who couldn't get tired or permanently injured in the first place.

Oh, and there was the fact that Sasori had just whipped out his hundred some odd puppets, all topped to the brim with poison.

On the other hand, it only now just dawned on everyone that nearly the entirety of the top half of Tobi's mask was shattered, revealing a good part of his face and both his eyes.

He was clearly an Uchiha, with dark hair and handsome features. His visible eye was a Sharingan, of course, but the other one was pure white. Blind white, not Byakugan white.

In fact, on a closer inspection, he looked suspiciously familiar… "You… You're still alive?" Familiar enough for Kakuzu to identify him after only a brief glance.

"As alive as you. Kakuzu." "Tobi" didn't even bother to try to hide his personality anymore. "Now isn't the time to catch up on old times though."

"I have half a mind to ditch you right now. "Tobi."" The Heart Thief growled dangerously. "If I had known that I'd be working with you of all people…"

"I take it you know one another." Sasori didn't like where this was going. He knew that Kakuzu was old, but it was rare for anyone to put the miser on edge like this.

More importantly was the man's aversion to Tobi in general. Kakuzu was the type that was willing to work with anyone for the right price. Whether or not he killed them was up to the contract. The fact that he was flat out alarmed by the idea of siding with whoever Tobi really was set off all sorts of red flags.

"We can discuss the past and the future later." Tobi cut the conversation off then and there. "We have more important issues to address right now."

His lone Sharingan darted between his opponents. The three old geezers were winded and were sporting a slew of common injuries, but otherwise were in decent shape. The only outlier was Roshi, who looked like he was somewhere else half the time.

That was good. Roshi was his target after all. Something to hold above the so-called Mother of Chakra's head in case things went as bad as he feared.

Problem was that Jiraiya was sporting Sage Mode and Onoki had set himself up to set off a Dust Style technique at the drop of a hat. Either one was enough to waste one of his group, or Sasori's small army, if they weren't careful. That didn't even include the fact that Kakuzu was down to two hearts now, and Tobi himself wasn't exactly in ideal shape.

Damn Zetsu. He had gotten complacent. He should have known better than to trust Madara's word when those things first showed up. That idiot always got overconfident and dropped the ball at the worst times.

Running was an option. It was always an option. He could still use Kamui to get him and Kakuzu and Sasori out of dodge if he wanted. But… he couldn't run just yet. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up, even with the risk.

A deafening blast rocked the distance, and two beams of pure chakra split the battleground in opposite directions. It was soon followed by more twisters making landfall. It would be dangerous to stay in one spot for long.

Well, he said that, but it was harder than he made it out to be. He wasn't in an ideal condition himself. The fight with that dead bitch Kushina had done a number with his chakra system, and he was down an eye. Not only that, but with all this chakra in the air, it was hard to make out his opponents unless he made himself less sensitive to chakra, and if he did that he'd…

His body recognized it before his mind did. The feeling of immediate danger to his life.

"Jump!" He leapt back, as did Sasori and Kakuzu a moment later, just in time to avoid something that was cloaked swipe by them from the side and nearly take them all out at once. The only sign they had that they had actually avoided something dangerous was the unnatural flicker of air that passed by as they moved.

He had barely caught onto it himself. The attack had been invisible and silent. The only reason why he managed to catch it was due to the fact that the chakra it gave off was slightly off color from the surrounding…

Which meant…

"Damn. Thought I had you guys too." A familiar clone materialized, floating in midair a short distance behind his allies.

"Naruto?" Pa asked, surprised.

"Clone. Boss is still over there." It nodded its head to an area were even more twisters were focusing and explosions went off like fireworks.

"Your hand…" Ma gasped, noting that the clone's right hand was severed near the elbow, leaving only a stump.

"The priest is a pain." The clone grunted, waving its shortest limb. Unlike the original, it couldn't regenerate injuries unless it was made up of the Fox's power. The best it could do was cut off the damaged arm and seal off the wound. "If he nails a clone, at the very least, the feeling of the damage is sent to all the others. If it's a strong clone, even the damage is spread out. That ability is practically tailored for taking out shinobi."

Considering that clones were a shinobi's bread and butter, Naruto's statement wasn't far off the mark.

"You're saying that you won't last long then." Onoki frowned, but never taking his attention away from the enemy.

"Just used up most of my chakra to be honest. Not much point in staying around if I'm just going to be a liability." The honest clone shrugged. As if to prove his point, a deep scratch was suddenly made across its cheek. "… Ow."

Tobi growled, his Sharingan spinning rapidly, already able to figure out what was going on.

The clone was telling the truth. It was one of the special ones the original made with the heavy chakra. Only now it was dangerously low on said chakra.

Because of that, he was having trouble seeing it in the supersaturated chakra air all around him, even if it was visible to the naked eye.

"You use the chakra saturated air to hide yourself and your jutsu, matching your chakra levels and signature to the surroundings. Clever." Tobi accused. It was an absurd technique that only the brat would be able to use. No one else had the absurd reserves needed to fill the atmosphere with enough chakra to blind a doujutsu like that. Not in an outside setting at least. Even though they were so far away from the original, the air around them was overly saturated by the kid's power.

"Works wonders against sensors." The clone didn't bother to hide what it did.

Instead, it stuck up a finger and lazily pointed it to the sky.

As if on command, a floating slightly larger than normal Rasenshuriken seemed to materialize from thin air and hover closer to the finger as if spinning on top of it.

It didn't make a sound, and until it appeared, no one could sense it.

… They could sense and hear it now.

"Visual and auditory masking genjutsu too. Tch." Kakuzu growled, getting ready to move. Secretly though, he was thankful that he was dealing with a weakened clone and not the original. "That brat isn't just a power junkie after all."

"I won't last long." Naruto's voice whispered to the three old men. "I'll split them up. Ero-senin. You hold off the masked guy. You're the only one that can. Onoki, Roshi. You decide who gets who, but the old drunk seriously needs to get out of here soon. If he's caught, it won't end well."

"Like you're any better." Said old drunk grumbled under his breath, but didn't argue against it. Ever since Goku had his introspective epiphany, the old jinchuriki's chakra control has been all over the place.

"… Sorry." The Yonbi sounded genuinely apologetic for once, on top of his blatant exhaustion at least.

"Damn it Goku. Don't apologize now. You'll jinx the hell out of us."

"Naruto Uzumaki. I knew you'd be a pain to deal with, but I never expected how much." Tobi frowned. "You truly surpassed all my expectations."

As Tobi spoke, the strings sprouting from Sasori's back slowly grew more active, making the small army behind him twitch at the ready.

"You're too kind." The clone smirked. Without making any seals, the Rasenshuriken lifted up from his finger into the sky, soon fading from view and hearing. No one expected it to stay up there for long. "And you Tobi, are an asshole that…"

There was a brief pause as the teen got a better look at the upper half of Tobi's face. His amused and confident demeanor had faded into one of genuine cold annoyance.

"… Ok, I know that clans sometimes do inbreeding out of paranoia to maintain their jutsu and bloodlines, but I draw the line when the similarities are that high."

Upon closer inspection, it was pretty clear what he was getting at.

"Why do you look like Sasuke? And don't say that he's your clone as some part of some half assed fifty year plan that has too many steps to be remotely realistic."

It was only the top half of his face, but the resemblance was unnatural. The shape of his eyes, forehead, and face in general were a near copy and paste for Sasuke Uchiha.

o. o. o.

One look at Sasuke in question was all a person needed to know that he wanted very much the answer to that question too.

o. o. o.

Tobi glared at Naruto. "Of all the things you want to ask about, that is what has your attention?"

A puppet of Sasori's mouth opened, and a salvo of poisoned needles fired off at the distracted clone.

They didn't even make it halfway to the target before veering significantly off course and landing harmlessly in the distance.

The Puppeteer frowned slightly. He figured as much. It was the same as that time back on the cliffs. Light and medium weighted ranged techniques wouldn't do much at this distance. The wind jutsu that deflected and redirected ranged techniques wasn't directly powered by the user, but by the chakra already lingering in the air.

A free jutsu in a sense. It was a useful trick. Incredibly annoying to deal with, but useful.

"Why not? It's not like you're that important anymore. You're clearly no longer needed by the black and white and green dumpster baby." The clone didn't seem to notice or care that it was attacked at all.

It didn't take much to tell that Sasori and Kakuzu were very confused, worried, and annoyed by this new information.

"Zetsu." Kakuzu muttered. He always knew that something was off about the odd green man. He had seen tons of unnatural jutsu in his lifetime, but Zetsu was always… off.

It was just one thing after another today. The brat. His hearts. The biju. And Tobi. Over and over and over and over…

Andoverandoverandoverandoverandoverandover-

His anger was rising, and his breathing was slightly heavier than before…

Tobi's patience was reaching its limits. "You brat. If you think that this setback is going to stop me-"

The clone blinked, as if noticing something. "Never mind. Doesn't matter. Don't care. Stalled long enough. Neurotoxin's finally working. Kay thanks. Die."

And then the clone threw its good hand down as though issuing a command.

Two hundred meters up, the flying Rasenshuriken that had been masked by the chakra in the air materialized, expanded five times its width instantly, and curved down.

From below, it almost looked like a malicious star or moon.

The next thing anyone knew, a massive pillar of pure wind chakra fell down from the sky like a judgement from god and literally cored out a perfect thirty meter radius circle where the three Akatsuki and Sasori's puppets were.

Funny thing, the word "neurotoxin".

The second anyone hears it, or believes that it is flying about in the vicinity, they immediately freeze up.

Sasori, having a puppet body, wasn't alarmed at all by the word and didn't have any trouble getting out of the way. The majority of his dolls conversely, did not have the same fortune. Tobi's faith in his altered body and quick activation of Kamui meant that he didn't have to move at all. Kakuzu on the other hand…

"My body?" The Heart Thief did make an effort to jump away, but found out quickly that something wasn't right. The distance he moved wasn't even half of what he had anticipated before the white light came crashing down.

"Neurotoxin?!" Jiraiya, Ma, and Pa all yelled at the clone in disbelief. Their reaction was warranted. Naruto had never once mentioned it in his plans or indicated that he used the stuff in the first place.

No. Not just that. Using strong neurotoxins, and gassing in general were considered extremely risky strategies to use even by veterans. Lacing weapons with poison was fine, and poison gas clouds were not uncommon at all, but strategies involving airborne gasses in mass quantities had more than once taken out the users just as easily as the enemy.

"Gas canisters plus air manipulation equals cheap kills. Relax. None of you geezers are at risk, and the stuff has a short half-life." The clone rushed over to Onoki and Roshi, putting a hand on one and his stump on the other. "I'm giving you the last of my chakra as a final boost."

"The thought's nice, but I doubt that the dregs of a clone's power will really heloooooooly mother of IWA!"

"This is the DREGS?!" Roshi went rigid just like Onoki as a huge well of chakra flooded his system, making him feel almost completely topped off in terms of power once more.

"Heh. Sorry. I'm a special clone. My chakra's more potent than the norm. The boost probably won't last long." The clone smirked, already feeling its body fall apart. "Now kick their asses already. Old school."

Pop.

"Mouthy brat." Onoki hissed as he felt more chakra run through his body than when he was younger. Truth be told, it was a little too much. "How dare he tell me what to do?"

A wave of poisonous projectiles flew straight at the old men.

A giant stone golem burst from the ground to intercept it.

"Quit your complaining." Roshi grinned with a deep laugh on top of the construct along with Onoki. For some reason, Naruto's power was stabilizing his own chakra. Almost as if it was calming Goku's down for some reason. "We were going to kill these bastards regardless."

With a bit of focus and a hand on the creature's hard body, the golem mutated further. Every crevice and joint of the monstrosity was instantly superheated and made fluid, glowing a malicious red and giving it a near demonic appearance. If that was not enough, the thing's mobility and movements suddenly became smoother and more natural, making it faster in the process.

"I'm just a kid compared to you old farts, but that doesn't mean I don't know how things were done back in the good old days." Jiraiya smirked, making seals. His, Ma's, and Pa's cheeks puffed out.

Kakuzu was in the hole that Naruto made.

Tobi either teleported or also fell in the hole when the ground gave out below.

Sasori was in the back fighting ranged with the dozen some odd puppets he had left.

The hole it is.

And, just like how it was done in the old days… the world burned.

o. o. o.

Son Goku opened his eyes to see Naruto standing in front of him.

"You're a cheeky one, aren't you? Entering someone else's territory without permission."

"Heh. Sorry." A fragment of Naruto's consciousness smiled sheepishly. "I would have asked, but things are a bit rushed right now, you know?"

"Hmmmm." The Bijuu sighed deeply, his breath immolating nearly everything in front of him. His body melting all around him.

And yet Naruto stood there untouched.

"Why are you here?"

"Kurama thought it would be good if we talked."

"Kurama did?"

"… He did. Core."

The beast's temper rose quickly to the surface, and he moved to tower over the small human. Had it been anyone else, they would have already succumbed to the intense heat and pressure that emanated from the giant. No, their bodies would have already been obliterated and rendered nonexistent. "You dare speak my name?"

"I dare speak to you. As I did your brother." Naruto held his ground firmly, before holding up a fist.

The giant gorilla froze, as if he had been struck. As quickly as the pressure spiked, it dropped once more. "Ah. Ahaha. Ahhh. I forgot. That fox already figured this out… how embarrassing. He'd never let me hear the end of it if he knew I lost my temper that easily."

"I can give you some good stuff to keep him quiet if you want. Rolling with me means you're bound to get stuck in something humiliating sooner or later." Naruto grinned knowingly.

There was a brief moment of hesitation before Goku made a fist and moved it slowly to Naruto's. "You, really are a shameless fool. Well, only a fool would get stuck in this mess to begin with. We'll see soon enough."

Their fists connected.

o. o. o.

"Hey." Kiba spoke up as they watched Jiraiya torch the landscape. "Question."

"Shoot." Shikamaru replied.

"The clone that just helped the geezers was one of the super clones that Naruto left behind, right?"

"… You're asking where the other one is?"

"That, and I'm wondering what it could have done to use up all of its chakra so quickly."

There was an ominous pause.

"I think I speak for all of us when I say that your inquiry, is both a very good question, and something that I am terrified of finding out but will probably learn regardless in the next twenty seconds."

"Oh. Good. I thought it was just me."

o. o. o.

A slew of explosions hammered the crater floor.

One of the floating boulders was split in half.

A black and orange blur crashed momentarily with a pure white one.

A spinning disk flashed by, spraying blood everywhere.

Half a dozen twisters crashed into the ground. They were not vertical, but rather twisted amalgamations that functioned more like tentacles than anything, striking wherever the owner saw fit.

Naruto held down Hidan with one hand wrapped in a thick chakra blade, the weight of falling nearly a dozen meters gave him enough power in the strike to force the Priest to defend with both hands on his scythe. The blow itself carried enough weight to make another crater within the one they were already in.

With his other, the blonde was pointing an open hand at Kaguya, whose entire body was coated in a silver purple chakra and was about to attack him with giant claws, reminiscent of a biju in their stage one cloak form.

Or rather, she would be attacking if there had not been a Rasenshuriken floating in front of Naruto's outstretched hand, holding her off like the world's most dangerous shield and blasting Mach twenty winds. It wasn't enough to force her away, but it did keep her in place.

That also didn't factor the fact that there were literally a dozen more Rasenshuriken flying about all around them, dancing to their own tune, shredding anything that crossed their path.

And then all three vanished instantly just before another tornado came down on them.

A hundred meters away, all three of them reappeared once more, this time, it was Kaguya defending against the other two using her hair. The impact once more shattering the ground beneath them.

Again they vanished and appeared with a devastating bomb like collision. Naruto again on the receiving end.

It was a cycle that repeated itself dozens of times within but a few moments. By the time the explosive sound of their clashes reached the observer's ears, three more had already gone off. Not one party gaining an advantage. Not one losing ground.

Only the already devastated environment was getting obliterated.

Another twister hammered the earth, forcing Kaguya back. On the other side, Naruto and Hidan had limited themselves to a one on one duel of blades and spikes weaving around one another like raging storms.

Both took a step towards one another…

The Chaotic Storm…

The Reaper's Tools…

Time seemed to stand still as an image was imposed over the two fighters. Hidan's reaper motif spawned and endless number of bony fingers reaching out from all angles. In contrast, Naruto's wild storm like effigy lunged out with an endless number of claw like gusts of wind.

The extremities of both interwove with one another, pushing and stretching into the other's territory, making lines and paths that seemed to dig into the other's psyche as viciously and as cruelly as any physical blade.

Their embrace would not be denied.

As if time had snapped back into place, Hidan and Naruto moved, striking at speeds so fast that it was nearly impossible for anyone without a doujutsu or otherworldly experience to follow. Each cataclysmic blow seemed to mimic the paths and routes that their respective Presences had dictated earlier, only to be halted by the other side with just as much power and precision.

And then they split up just as Kaguya came down upon them with what looked like hundreds of massive chakra fists, pummeling the location of the fight flat.

Naruto grimaced, making more distance before rubbing his cheek, wiping away the blood that was leaking from the already healing cut that had been made.

Thump thump.

"Hng?!" He hissed in pain as suddenly half his face felt like it was simultaneously being burned and stabbed at the same time.

He channeled his chakra into the wound, but the pain wouldn't go away despite knowing that the damage was more or less gone. Which meant…

The world writhed in rage at the unwanted.

For the briefest of moments, Naruto flared his presence to its highest level, and the pain receded almost instantly.

"Imposition of conceptual pain. Fucking fantastic." Naruto gave Hidan a dirty glare. Wonderful. As if getting scratched by the guy wasn't dangerous enough, it now guaranteed almost crippling agony regardless of how superficial the damage was. He wouldn't be surprised if a scratch guaranteed a kill on any opponent that couldn't nullify the effect.

Hidan grinned victoriously, bringing his pike up to his mouth only to pause as he noticed the distinct lack of blood on his tool. A closer inspection revealed that the tip was coated in chakra that was not his.

"Tch. Clever." The enhanced pike's cutting power had been enhanced with wind chakra. Its cutting power was magnified. It could slice through most things in this world in its current state.

Nice, and clean. Without a drop of blood to stick to it.

Not unlike the sudden four holes that had just punched through his body without warning, forcing him to temporarily drop to a knee. "Ngh?! His raw skill surpasses this body's by this much?"

Presence by itself was, by its nature a magnifier to what already existed. Power. Ability. Skill was no different. As an Acolyte, Hidan's Presence was above the standard, but what it enhanced had not changed in the slightest. Only what the user knew of his abilities and the raw power he wielded had otherwise ultimately changed from the possession.

Hidan had a strong Presence, immortality, and a plethora of corrupt skills at his disposal.

But Naruto had been hand trained by the Family. The range of his abilities were in theory just as limited as Hidan's.

Despite his state and his surprise, Hidan still easily jumped away from Kaguya's hair as it shot forward to ensnare him. The follow up spikes of bone launched from her real hands were likewise deflected easily despite the raw power they held, evident from the deep trenches they made when they dug into the earth.

She was momentarily distracted when several blasts of wind came her way, but outside of the surprise itself and blowing her clothes a small bit, the attacks did little else.

Rather, the energy that made the attacks seemed to vanish upon contact with her. It was not something that was missed.

She did however, actively get out of the way of the two Rasenshuriken that sped by just moments later, as if instinctively knowing that she would not come out unmarred if they hit instead.

Her path was instantly blocked though as a giant wall of stone shot up, giving her pause as the humming disks grew louder with their approach.

So distracting were their sounds that she didn't hear the faint cracking of the stone behind her as a blade of wind chakra pierced through it aiming straight to her chest.

She didn't need to hear it though as her chakra flared and once more an invisible wave of power pulsed away from her in all directions, blasting away the rasenshuriken, the blade, the stone wall, and Naruto on the other side.

Naruto recovered almost instantly, righting himself in midair despite the heavy hit, and landed on his feet, skating across the ground at high speeds using his wind chakra. His hands never stopping, commanding the flying disks of death that flew around him, guiding the giant twisters that were perpetually falling down on his enemies.

Hidan was not slow in the slightest though, seemingly teleporting in front of his target with his blade at the ready, his earlier wounds already completely healed.

The madman didn't pause, but his eyes did widen in alarm as he realized that the blonde had his hands in a familiar position by his fist.

No. At a closer look, it was slightly different this time. Instead of a fist in a palm, the brat had his index finger pointing into the other hand.

The feeling he was getting was different too… wait, what's that light at the tip of his-?

"Invisible Arc."

Naruto drew his hand at speeds that surpassed the speed of sound, just like with the technique's brother, Invisible Black.

Instead of creating a blade of super high pressure wind though, a blinding arc of super-heated gas and chakra magnified intense ultra-violet and infra-red light assaulted the Priest on two fronts.

The two fingers weren't just for show. They were the half Tora seal, the most common seal for Fire Jutsu. A single consistent spark or ember was needed to help turn a normal blade into a high pressured gas light with a magnified discharge. A weaponized chakra enhanced torch in a sense.

"Gah!" Hidan swore as he was immediately blinded while defending himself from the unexpected attack that still seared some of his skin from simple proximity. "Cheap shugh?!"

He couldn't finish his sentence due to Naruto immediately following through his first slash with a stab from his other hand, thrusting and extending out a second blade of wind straight through his chest. The time between the two strikes had been so short and seamless that one would have to know that it was coming beforehand and prepare for it in order to have a hope of avoiding it in time. Under any other circumstance it would have been a killing blow.

For Hidan, it was just an annoyance.

By the time the madman had realized he had been stabbed though, Naruto had just put his free hand back on the forearm holding the man in place, the increase glow of chakra was a good indication that he was going to follow through with his follow through.

He would have too if Kaguya didn't bombard him with pillars of her own hair at the last moment, forcing him away and dislodging him from Hidan's chest.

Naruto's support hand still swiped down his main arm, discharging a large amount of chakra that traveled down the length of his blade that made it explode into high grade wind chakra shrapnel when it reached the tip. The explosion utterly shredded the chakra enhanced hair that could tear apart steel walls like it was normal hair.

And then they vanished once again.

"Heeeeeyaaa!" Hidan cheered viciously as he swung down his scythe at Kaguya, the weapon literally glowing with his intent.

Much to his disappointment and surprise though, the woman sprouted bones from her hands and blocked him easily, following through with an assault from her hair.

He disengaged quickly before grabbing one of the rocks that had been floating nearby, channeled his Presence, and threw it at her like a bullet.

A wave of power erupted from the woman, not only hammering into the stone, but the wind projectiles that Naruto had fired at her from behind as well. Both attacks held out for several seconds longer than they should have, but in the end both gave way to her power.

"Tch." Hidan spat as he landed a short distance away. He didn't miss that the small cut he had gotten on his stomach was flaking away, as if his body was rapidly turning to ash.

He immediately cut off the corrupted part of his flesh without a second thought. It would cripple a normal human, but he took it in stride, ignoring his regenerating body and taking note of the slight twitch of pain the woman had expressed before her normal impassive expression returned.

"Figures." His powers were not reaching this one either.

She doesn't know Presence, but she had enough foundation to naturally make up for it. Probably due to her genetic background being designed to handle exposure to the outer realms.

Fucking interdimensional gypsies.

She wasn't immune to his influence, but it was a far cry from what was needed to guarantee a win. Not unless he lucked out and got some of her blood.

Without warning he slashed to the side. Not to attack, but to deflect one of the dozen some odd Rasenshuriken that had been spinning around the battlefield and making things a living hell since the fighting started.

The wind cannot ease the pain of the masses.

By all means, his scythe should have been split in half easily on contact, but in the end Hidan's power surpassed the disc and sent it flying off into the sky.

Dodging over or under the things wasn't an option. They were constantly spraying invisible chakra needles from the spheres in their cores at super high velocities that did severe neurological damage. Even with his regeneration, Hidan had nearly been done in the first and only time he had made that mistake. Too much damage from these things and even he would be put out of the fight.

Just as his body finished the swing that knocked away the disk, he snapped to strike down on his other side where another Rasenshuriken nearly split him in half.

This process repeated three more times, each iteration causing his body to scream out in an exquisite agony that unfortunately he was not too particular in.

"Fucking vibrations. It's that damn pixie all over again…" He shook his hands to get the numb sensations out as fast as possible in time to see that Naruto was both still focused on Kaguya, and currently exposed.

Just like the countless other times before though, the blonde reacted as though he had eyes on the back of his head and countered perfectly with another Rasenshuriken in Hidan's blind spot.

Kaguya couldn't hold back a grimace as she tried to overpower her youngest opponent, skidding back from the latest clash. The boy was strong. Not as strong as Hagoromo or Hamura, but what he lacked there he made up for in creativity. The child was far more familiar with fighting than either of her sons, and possessed a viciousness that reminded her too much of her clan, yet it was all tempered with a cold experience that was always looking for the next way to cut off her next action.

Every move she had was countered seamlessly.

Case and point…

"Amenominaka!"

Her forehead cracked open, revealing her crimson Rinnegan to the world. For the briefest of moments, another reality was seen. A world of magma and raw heat.

However…

Permission to Leave was not Granted.

Reality turned on its head, folded inside out, and rebounded on itself in a single gesture, and in the next moment everything had snapped back to normal with everyone in Iwa territory.

Kaguya flinched as her third eye snapped shut, a small river of crying blood flowing down between her two normal eyes and face. Her mind felt like it had just risked being split apart, but she couldn't risk to stop now.

A blonde young man shadowed with malice and glowing eyes was upon her, radiating with power and violent intent.

"… Did you just try to send me into a volcano?"

o. o. o.

"""Volcano!""" Several voices in Konoha shouted for varying reasons.

o. o. o.

She barely had time to lift her arms in defense and increase the density of her chakra cloak before getting hammered by a spiraling ball of chakra. The massive explosion hit like a bomb and launched her into a boulder, crushing it, but doing little damage to her in the long run.

"He resisted mother's power?" Zetsu snarled, half infuriated and half confused. "How is that possible?"

"This area… is Asura's territory." Kaguya answered as she levitated from the rubble with rattled bones but barely a scratch. She still firmly believed that the world was still hers, but she had no misgivings about her current situation. "It's impossible to manipulate space here without him knowing and able to influence the process. Teleporting from here would take too much power. What a vexing child."

"Wait, if that was the case then when Tobi teleported…" Zetsu frowned, thinking back to when he and the masked man first appeared near the three monsters, about when Tobi teleported behind Naruto to try and take him away.

A titanic funnel of wind came down on Kaguya, only to be blasted away with another wave of power.

"Asura is clearly more competent and capable than whoever that miscreant is." Dozens of bones protruded from Kaguya's back, hooked around her body, and aimed at where Naruto and Hidan had been fighting.

Missiles of bone sprayed the vicinity. Tiny shards of her body individually tore through the space between them in a wide spray that made dodging completely pointless, and any halfhearted defense would be rendered into shreds within a second.

Hidan wasted no time retreating and spinning his scythe rapidly to make an impromptu shield. He had already learned that the bones were something that even he couldn't make light of.

Naruto on the other hand pointed out to the oncoming attack, making it twitch and twist in various ways as if he was directing something.

Had anyone been able to track the bone shards' paths, they would have noticed that mid-flight, the ones that were travelling in Naruto's direction shifted trajectories…

"You cunt!" Hidan swore as he was hit with twice the number of attacks that he had initially expected.

Naruto didn't respond, instead reaching out with an open hand and catching one of the Rasenshuriken that had been flying around by the bottom side and instantly pointing it at Hidan's exposed flank. No one missed the disk's high pitch humming increasing several octaves in the process.

"Oh fuck not again!"

"Wind Style: Harmony."

BOOM!

A beam of pure power hammered into Hidan, launching him at least a kilometer away and making a decently sized trench in the ground as well. The vortex created around the beam of power sucking in any dust and debris kicked up, making any chance of hiding in the aftermath of the attack not only pointless, but suicidal as well.

The display was so great, he didn't even seem to notice Kaguya nearly on top of him, hair splayed out to form spears from all directions, ready to spear him through.

Likewise, Kaguya didn't seem to bother registering six Rasenshuriken hovering around her, the cores of all of them pointed with one focus in mind.

The world seemed to freeze for just a moment as the entire scope of the situation was put on full display for everyone to see.

And then Naruto lifted the waning Rasenshruiken in his hand up above him, channeling enough power into it to revitalize it instantly and project a dome over himself just barely in time to block the overwhelming impact of the attack from above. It wasn't perfect though as the dome seemed to buckle under the pressure of the assault.

Likewise, the surrounding discs around Kaguya seemed to pulse and instantaneously form a greater dome around the woman around her, the cores of the discs standing out against the scathing film around them.

The entire time this happened, and before then, Naruto's free hand had been blaring through one handed seals, before finishing up in the classic half ram… and then snapping his fingers.

"… Barrier?" Kaguya managed to blink once before the glowing cores of the outside Rasenshuriken blazed alight and everything within the confines of the dome turned into a contained monsoon that blocked everything from sight. From an outside perspective, the dome itself looked eerily like the world's most violent looking Rasengan, with the chakra contained spinning viciously and violently. Contained, but each strand of power was designed and intended to rip and tear whatever came across it.

The storm was so intense that the second it came to be, it obliterated the stone and earth beneath it, causing the giant ball to sink into the ground as if its weight was too much for the world to handle.

Kaguya was not the world.

If Naruto's technique was a cataclysmic contained implosion, then Kaguya's display of power was clearly an eldritch explosion. Without warning, the barrier and the storm shattered, erupting like a flameless volcano with enough force that it knocked away all the nearby twisters and momentarily created a hole in the cloudy sky above. Fissures and imperfections in the leveled ground stretched all the way out to the ends of the crater everyone was fighting in, and sometimes beyond, and a second major hole dug down into the mountain range that made up the bulk of Iwa's territory.

Naruto, being at the center of the chaos, had for once been on the receiving end of it all, and had been sent flying, piercing through dozens of floating giant boulders in the process.

It was clear that he wasn't out of the fight though. As soon as he reached the apex of his launch, his body seemed to float aimlessly like a feather, righting itself slowly as if there was no rush.

He had been notably injured this time.

He had a gash on his forehead that was leaking blood down his face, and his right arm was heavily bruised to the point that it wouldn't be surprising if it was broken a few times.

"Ah. Fuck that hurt. Damn Shinra Tensei. That move's just broken." Naruto grimaced, checking his injuries absently and letting out a hiss of pain as he poked his arm. "Hey Kurama. Little help?"

"That's what you get for trying to tackle your problems head on." The fox materialized on his shoulder in his miniature state and wrapped the boy's arm with his tail. It wasn't as effective as when the boy channeled the power directly, but it was a decent stopgap. "That woman isn't Human like you are. She's made of stronger stuff, and she has access to the Rinnegan. You should expect her to do anything that Nagato can, only better."

"I did. Problem is she hasn't been doing much of that." Naruto pointed out factually his face turning serious.

Timespace manipulation. Bone manipulation. Chakra manipulation. Hair Manipulation.

All overpowered to the highest degree… but other than her time space techniques, it was all basic.

Very basic. Raw manipulation that altered only what was physically on hand.

One could say it was almost, conceptual.

No soul extraction. No mechanical body parts. No endless summoning. The only nonphysical moves she had used so far were just Shinra Tensei, some teleporting skills, and chakra absorption.

"She doesn't use Ninjutsu, because it wasn't created in her time." Naruto summarized, watching his opponent from a distance. "She's overpowered, even in her current state, but she's not as versatile or skilled in various arts as stronger jonin. It's just that most of the things she can do trumps what shinobi can do on a fundamental level. She doesn't need to be flexible. It's all pure Yin Yang manipulation."

"She's still in one piece after absorbing your chakra too. Looked pretty surprised about the backlash. Looked like it didn't agree with her." Kurama added, recalling her reaction when Naruto first blasted her with his Rasenshuriken.

"You called her the Mother of Chakra, right? She probably has some bullshit ability to absorb or negate normal jutsu." Naruto reasoned. It sounded like the sort of ability a final boss or the source of some worldly power would have. Sort of like a God of Fire being immune to their own element.

The only reason why she couldn't handle his stronger ninjutsu was because it was, due to Presence and raw metaphysical definition, his chakraeven after it was absorbed. Not Kaguya's, the concept of which had somehow passed down through the eons to virtually everyone else on the planet.

Telling her to absorb his chakra now was akin to asking a generic shinobi with some absorption powers to try and take in the Biju's power. There'd be some degree of success, but a far greater degree of harm done in the process. Almost like eating edible glass. It was edible, but it was still going to tear up your insides if precautions were not taken.

"I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case." Kurama agreed, narrowing his eyes to see the topic of conversation in the distance. "If so, then I'm at a greater disadvantage against her than we thought. I have power, but my Presence is not as strong as yours. I won't be able to resist her influence as well as you can. Even now I have to put an effort into preventing my chakra from harmonizing with hers. She's literally calling all of the Biju "Home" just by being awake."

"I'll keep that in mind." Naruto had half a mind to make a joke about it, but he could literally feel Kurama's fear from their connection. The pair ripped on one another constantly, but there was a respect for one another that prevented them from crossing certain lines. Lines that they knew were there for a reason.

As the dust cleared, he finally got a good view of Kaguya in question.

Naruto had taken damage from their last exchange, but so had she.

Her smooth ivory hair was uneven on one side, and slightly ruffled. Her silky white clothes were shorn in various locations. Her pristine alabaster skin showed marks, cuts, and scratches irregularly where it showed.

Minor damage all things considered, but was damage regardless. And it wasn't healing.

"Ohoho she's pissed." Naruto smiled bitterly, feeling her cold eyes hone in on him. He may have mocked her relentlessly, but Kaguya was still a strong opponent. Pissed strong opponents have a tendency to whip out dangerous moves that are a pain to deal with.

The fox glanced to where Hidan was. Standing from the rubble, the Priest didn't seem to be in much better condition than Kaguya. He didn't miss the death glare he was giving the teen. "I think they noticed the hidden trait of your Rasenshuriken."

Countless microscopic wind chakra needles refined to the highest possible quality within the endless spiraling pressure of a Rasengan. With every stab, more neurological damage was done. With every sweep, the necrosis spread.

With every needle, any physical and chakra based regeneration utilized in the body was impaired.

If his spinning disks of death and beams of power couldn't one shot his enemies, they could at least make their broken regeneration skills less useful in the long run.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd be over reliant on this secondary ability.

However, the fact in itself was a double edged sword.

Despite his opponent's insane regenerative and defensive abilities, they could still take long term damage from his Rasenshuriken.

But, on the other side of the coin… the only damage that could stick on them in the first place was from his Rasenshuriken. Anything else would just be negated or recovered in short time… anything that didn't completely obliterate them in one go at least.

The second his enemy realized that, things would go south fast. He had plenty on him now, but that could change.

Wait.

He swayed to the side slightly as Hidan's spinning scythe rushed past him, charged with enough Presence to prevent him from deflecting it.

More interestingly was the chord of unknown material linking it to its owner, despite the unnatural distance it covered.

Naruto didn't miss the fact that the weapon embedded itself into one of the floating stones behind him, and already predicting what would happen. Effortlessly, he moved just in time to see Hidan rush past him with a pike in his free hand slashing at where the blonde's neck would have been.

The madman rebounded the instant he landed on the stone, collecting his scythe and launched himself at Naruto with savage glee. He missed this time too, ignoring being torn up by the perpetual winds that surrounded the teen, landing on another floating boulder, and repeating the process.

"He's up to something." Kurama came to the same conclusion as Naruto. Mid-air fighting was obviously in the teen's favor. There was no point in attacking wildly like this unless something else was happening.

"Faster too." Naruto dodged another pass with a frown. Hidan's physical prowess had jumped suddenly. He knew this feeling too. "He's opened an inner gate."

He avoided another pass almost effortlessly from an outside perspective, but he was starting to need to focus a bit more on the madman's movements.

Another pass. This time was closer than the last. He almost felt worried for a moment.

"Scratch that. He's opened several gates."

Regardless, the boost in power was substantial, but in the air Naruto was supreme. This couldn't be all there was to it.

Case and point.

WHAM!

Naruto, having lost patience with dodging, instead manifested another giant Rasengan in the path of Hidan's next strike, stopping the madman cold with a sickening crunch.

"Hahahaha. I see. I see I see I see. So that's how it works." The priest cackled, even as his skin and muscles were shorn away from his body. "This power has weight. Self-contained yet moving. That's why it's so heavy. Like a wheel. Yes, like a wheel. It doesn't move unless the core lets it… brilliant! Hahaha!"

Hidan was blasted away, but Naruto was the one that immediately felt like he lost.

"Tch."

The bastard had figured out why Rasengan hit like a truck even in its base state. It wouldn't be wrong to assume that the prick had figured out a counter already.

Rasengan was essentially a giant three dimensional flywheel of power. The constant motion not only held it together, but generated a titanic amount of self-contained inertia that betrayed its size. The only reason why it could be moved at all after completed was because it answered to its owner's subconscious will.

Anything else that tried to stop it was obliterated. One way or another.

But that inertia was its weakness as well. Stop the flow, or disrupt the core, and the entire technique fell apart. Easier said than done, but it was possible.

Specifically, with a very powerful single point attack that was strong enough to pierce through the shell of the Rasengan and get through to the core to disrupt it.

There was a reason why Chidori could hold its own against Rasengan after all, and it wasn't because the move was simply "strong".

And judging from the pike in Hidan's offhand glowing with corrupted energy, he knew it too.

Another wave of power. Another Gate had opened. Hidan was nothing but a blur now, jumping from platform to platform so quickly that few could follow him. A crimson and ebony streak darted rapidly across the sky between the boulders so quickly that to the untrained eye it appeared as if Naruto had been surrounded by a corrupted net.

Naruto didn't bother to track his enemy or try to defend himself, instead lifting his hands up and flashing through seals.

The Reaper Approaches. The Scythe hooks down, and a skeletal hand reaches to embrace…

"Got you!" Taking the invitation, Hidan was on top of Naruto, both tools mere centimeters from reaming the teen apart.

And thus the bottom of the Heavens dropped beneath the realms, taking all with it.

"Sky Style. Cataract!"

Just before Hidan managed to draw blood, the world seemingly dropped beneath him. Everything around Naruto in a fifty meter radius was instantly forced downward by the pressure of an invisible waterfall, crushed instantly and viciously to the point of making another vertical cave in the dirt.

Before the dust even settled, a Rasenshuriken dove straight into the freshly made hole at top speed and blew up, causing the ground in the area to shatter viciously. A pillar of light as if signifying victory blew out from the opening, but it was merely an over glorified proclamation. The attack was not enough to put down Hidan. Only stop him for the moment.

If one listened real hard, they could just barely hear the sounds of someone swearing rampantly in the midst of the destruction.

"… If he summons another brain dead alien tree lady to block that, I'm gonna be pissed." The blonde muttered to himself.

"A bit close, wasn't it?" Kurama glanced at the shallow cut that traveled down Naruto's chest.

He would not have been surprised if the agony Naruto had endured from Hidan's powers before cancelling it out were enough to drive a normal human insane before it had been canceled out an instant later.

Insanity was funny enough, not a redundant phenomenon. One form did not cancel out another.

"Bite me. Normal moves wouldn't work. Had to improvise." The wound was already almost healed, but he couldn't pretend to ignore the clear signs of stress and exhaustion on his face and the sweat trailing down the side of his face. He was good, but he couldn't spare the focus to get rid of the curse in his wound until after he split the madman and the oversized rabbit in half.

On the bright side, the wound was shallow enough that it didn't draw any blood.

He didn't seem to notice a slew of bones shoot straight at him, or the Rasenshuriken that appeared, expanded, and shielded him from the attack.

"You're too strong." The fox noted. "They're going to do something desperate at this rate. Maybe even team up."

"Wouldn't that be a terrifying thought?" Naruto looked down at Kaguya skeptically. Off in the distance, the woman returned his glare with one of her own, however there was more mixed in it. A cold madness, yes, but something else as well.

"Quit joking around. At this rate they'll get one over on you."

"Don't rush it. You know the setup. It still needs time, and I'm multitasking enough as it is… ah."

He paused as he noticed that his nose was bleeding. The strain from the fight was getting to him.

"I told you to make clones. You can't manage all of this on your own." The Fox frowned.

The Rasenshuriken. The twisters. Micromanaging the atmospheres around him. And their final move. It was an impossibly taxing ordeal to manipulate and control all of these things on one's own. Even on a subconscious level.

He was good, but he wasn't Scabbard.

Ideally, Naruto would have made at least half a dozen or more clones to manage and support all of these things during the fight, and control the entire battlefield in such an absurd way that he honestly had been complimented by some other multiversal heavy hitters. Feats of mass destruction was nothing new, but being able to micromanage it actively was a rather uncommon ability for anyone that didn't have a bullshit ability or the disposition geared for simultaneous calculations and data partitioning.

Now though, he was doing more harm than good to himself with the excessive burden of trying to manage it by himself. But with Hidan around, one slipup or distracted clone would be the end of him.

"Can't risk it. They're too much of a liability, even at a distance." He wiped his face with a free arm. "… Shit. She noticed something's off."

"Nggh. You idiot." The fox popped out of existence before another cloud of smoke appeared next to the blonde, revealing a clone of him with red eyes and four tails coming out of his rear. "Shut up and fight. I'll do what needs to be done."

"She'll go after you." Naruto didn't miss Kaguya's attention focus on Kurama.

It didn't need much saying, but the Biju controlled clone was special in a load of ways. The first being that it was evenly comprised of both Naruto's and Kurama's power.

"She can try. But, you are incredibly annoying when you want to be."

"… Heh. You're too kind."

Kurama began to fly up into the clouds, instantly getting Kaguya's notice. Almost instantly, she began to shoot up to chase him, only…

In the Heavens, none may fly without leave.

Hit by a twisted wave of Presence, the woman faltered severely before somehow managing to regain some stability and landing on a low flying boulder.

The glare that she gave Naruto was not a comforting one.

"Yeah yeah. You're angry and powerful and scary. Just like the other thousand some odd women I've pissed off the last few years. Join the club." Naruto muttered more to himself than anything, ignoring the bead of sweat that was trailing down his face. He didn't want to show it, but he was pushing himself trying to handle so many things at once without his clones.

There was a brief pause. Naruto began to sweat more.

"And… just like most of the other thousand some odd women I've met, you can transform too. Lovely. Not sure why I'm surprised. Not like we've hit on pretty much every other overused stereotype today."

It was big and white. No surprise there.

Radiating massive amounts of chakra and murderous intent? Check. Twisted appearance. Check. Animal motif that fit the biju…

"A giant evil Rabbit." He snorted. If she thought her animal form would get him to drop his guard, she'd be disappointed. He learned his lesson from Crypt. "… Wait. Evil insane look. Long ears. Ah. Now I see the family resemblance."

"Shut up and do something already!"

"You make it sound like I'm not." Naruto had been assaulting the woman with rapid fire chakra attacks since she started transforming, but quickly realized that it was doing nothing. Her very body was absorbing any and all chakra that it touched. He could literally feel his chakra enriched air being sucked into the thing as easy as breathing. Approaching the thing carelessly would only get him killed.

Bigger and bigger it grew. Naruto would have laughed at the fact that the giant furball tail on its ass was bigger than the beast itself if it wasn't so twisted looking.

"Aaand I can check off eldritch abomination too. Too bad Hidan, you lost your spot…" She was bigger than Kurama now, almost fully formed.

Small and medium scale moves were useless. Pure chakra based moves would only have limited effects, even Rasenshuriken. Kurama needed time to get things above under his control, so the twisters were out. Bending the trajectory of something that massive and powerful was completely out of his current ability. Summoning Gamabunta in a fight like this would probably only get the toad boss killed instantly. Atlas required physical contact.

"Of all the times to be locked out of Sage Mode and Biju chakra. Why the hell did she have to be an absorption type too?"

He could handle giant monsters. He could handle most absorption types. He could not, however, comfortably manage things that fell into both categories.

Good news. He still had a few moves to try that might work. Bad news. He really didn't want to use them for one or more very good reasons.

Naruto made a fist and prepared himself, linking himself to the atmosphere around him. He had just gotten his arms back to normal, too…

Fortunately, or not, he didn't get the chance to break it. The monstrosity barely gave any warning before it jumped. And, due to it being a giant rabbit monster, it covered a lot of distance at a stupid speed.

"Oh shit!" Naruto barely managed to get out of the way of the monstrosity as it rushed past him, ignoring his very existence for a greater target up above. The damn thing wasn't even flying. It was just relying on its absurd physiology to get to the skies above.

"Oh shit!" He repeated himself as he realized what Kaguya was doing and momentarily panicked. His options were significantly smaller now. He was not going to be able to catch up at this rate, and Kurama was a sitting duck in that setting.

It would take something absolutely ridiculous to stop her now.

"Son of a mother fucking cunt snowball swapping destitute mail order bride's five dollar lawyer's ex-plumber's…" Naruto swore profusely as he blazed through as many seals as possible, not at all trying to catch up to the monster.

"Loooooooord!" Nor paying attention to the skinned, reamed, and pissed off Hidan charging straight at him like a cursed comet with his scythe screaming bloody murder.

"Damn." Kurama swore, just barely reaching the clouds and, not that he'd ever admit it, genuinely scared at the rapid approach of Kaguya. He needed time to get things set up, time he didn't have. He was about to chew out Naruto to do something, but paused at the last moment when he recognized the seal sequence his host was making. "… That's…"

Shit. They really were in a spot if the kid was resorting to that move.

On decayed screams, the Reaper arrived. Its due would be paid in the desperation of Life.

Hidan was right on top of Naruto, the image of the grim reaper itself imposed on him. His power and strength was going into the strike. He could not be blocked. He could not be redirected. His strike would land.

Naruto clapped his hands together.

The whimsical Lord looked down on his realm and smiled with a bad joke.

"Forgotten Art. Sans."

Hidan struck.

And thus, the realm changed to suit his whims.

Click.

The world went black.

Click.

A second later, the world returned.

Hidan's strike finished.

"▄▄▄████████████!"

Kaguya screamed, a crimson gouge spanned down the entirety of her chest. Despite the size difference between the two, his scythe had dug deep and long into her body, leaving a gouge in her that was lethal to almost anyone else and a wound that would no doubt persist for quite some time, and a wound that induced insanity inducing agony upon an insane monster.

"What?" Hidan blinked in surprise, looking around. He had not moved at all, but somehow Kaguya's massive body had been forced to be where Naruto was, and the powerful teen… was not where Kaguya had been just moments ago. "What the?"

The Chaotic Lord gazed upon his realm, and revoked his blessing.

"NGH?!" Hidan froze as the air around him stopped completely. "THIS AGAIN?!"

No, not just around him. The entire atmosphere under Naruto's domain had lost its freedom.

"Haaaa." The one responsible for the assault on reality was but a short distance away, veins popping out and body shaking from the strain of using such intensely difficult techniques in rapid succession. Kaguya's and Hidan's disposition made it so that they would only be kept in place for a few seconds at best, and keeping them in place at all was taking nearly every ounce of focus that he had. It would be impossible to make even a gust of wind in his current state without losing hold, and once he did let go, both Hidan and Kaguya would without a doubt resume their nearly unstoppable assault with a bloody vengeance.

However… even in this terrible position, he still had one card to play that would work.

Bracing his legs as if about to feel a recoil, and pressing his still clapped hands forward so that one lay flat on the other while pointing at his enemies, he focused as hard as he could on the task at hand. Whether he was ignoring the stream of blood that was pouring out of his nose or just didn't notice it was anyone's guess.

He had never used this move outside of Sage Mode or Biju Mode for good reason, but now wasn't the time for playing it safe.

The Heavenly Lord inspected his territory…

"Sky Art. Rift."

Naruto slid his top hand forward and his bottom hand back.

And severed it with his bare hands.

The world split between Heaven and Earth along the fault line.

First at his hands.

Then between the frozen atmospheres that had been disjointed from one another.

Then everything that had been unfortunately stuck between the two, shorn apart on a single line.

Hidan.

Kaguya.

And the tops of fourteen mountains that were nearby.

o. o. o.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

"Yes! Yes! That's how you fucking do it!" Shadow applauded Naruto's display of abusing the laws of physics to his advantage to a horrifying level. "At base fucking level no less! Ghost you are an annoying asshole but you train the best munchkins! I never get bored of these bastards!"

Due to most of the local populace being struck mute by the sheer absurdity of what they had just seen, most people heard her quite clearly.

"Not bad." Waltz admitted with a nod of approval. As far as moves that cut went, Naruto's stunt would definitely be put on the higher tier of lists. People could train all they want, the sheer force to be had from being trapped between two literal atmospheres of mass was not something to take lightly.

"That was Sans' trick." Dima chuckled, clearly amused, turning to Ghost. "I thought you said the kid sucks at timespace manipulation? Even so, not many people can use that move reliably."

"He does suck." Ghost drank his beer casually. "Kid reinvented the move. Not via timespace, but spatial displacement."

"Ah. I get it. He claims the area as his territory, then momentarily isolates it from reality for a second, moves whatever he wants where he wants, then lets it snap back into place. Clever." Dima nodded in understanding before taking note of Naruto's state. "Bit of a risky move though. Must put a massive burden on him just pull it off even once. Chained with his followup moves, I suspect that he's feeling rather raw right now…"

o. o. o.

Naruto panted heavily, wiping the blood off of his lips with his good arm while trying to ignore the shaking from the damage his other arm sustained.

He ignored the pain rather quickly at the sight of corrupted white and black energies trying to rejoin Hidan's and Kaguya's bodies back together as they fell.

"I enjoy playing the fool." He swiped his good hand, creating a massive gale that sent the body parts flying in opposite directions and greatly impeding their recovery. "But you should know better than to treat me as one by now."

His other hand twitched, and he grimaced. Good news. Nothing was broken. Bad news, everything from the shoulder down was dislocated. Elbow. Fingers. Wrist. Everything.

Grabbing every joint simultaneously with the air around him, the blonde grit his teeth before popping everything back into place one by one in quick succession with a series of wet pops.

"Ah. Fuck fuck fuck. Pinched a nerve. That's a nerve. Ow. Ow." He winced as his wrist was set incorrectly, quickly re-dislocating it, channeling chakra to realign his nerves, and then setting it back into place.

He was definitely going to be feeling that for the next week. Thankfully, he did have a regeneration factor, so the damage would more or less be gone within the next five minutes so long as he didn't do anything else to it in that time… which sadly didn't seem likely.

His skeleton back in place, he looked around skeptically while flexing his hand, noticing the damage he did to the landscape, before turning to the camera.

"… You think anyone'll notice?"

o. o. o.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK?! YOU DUMBASS?!"

o. o. o.

He pretended as if he didn't clearly hear their outburst, taking in a deep breath in the process…

"Aaaah! What the hell man?! Taking on an Acolyte and that crazy lady at the same time?! What the fuck am I thinking?!"

And completely broke down, screaming at himself frantically, catching everyone by surprise.

He had used up a ton of chakra just now. Right from the source too. Sans took a lot out of him, and keeping Hidan and Kaguya in one place cost nearly twice as much.

Still, chakra wasn't his problem right now. His reserves were still far from empty, and recovering drastically by the second. The problem was the mental strain he had been dealing with was starting to weigh him down. Regeneration and chakra had limited effects on that front.

"This is bullshit! There's no way I can keep up at this rate! Everyone keeps on going, oh Naruto, your reserves and stamina are soooo big and scary, and then two bullshit opponents that either can't fucking die or keep on absorbing my chakra by the truckload pop up at the same time! It's like nobody has any idea what the word context is supposed to entail anymore! Why the hell couldn't it have just been some giant monster that I only need to hit crazy hard like everything else?! I'm barely managing to hold those two in check with all the rushed preparations I did here!"

Kaguya had power and absorption. Hidan was an Acolyte that was manipulating the rules of empathy. If it was one on one he'd be able to hold out for a while, but two on one was too much.

If he hadn't set up Heaven's Fall earlier and prepared as much as he had, he'd probably have been killed by now.

Truth be told, this fight felt more akin to what he had experienced during his travels with Ghost than what should be from his home world.

So much so that Naruto genuinely believed that he was entitled to at least access Sage Mode or Kurama's chakra directly by now.

However, even from here, he could already tell what Ghost's reaction would be if he pointed it out.

"Yeah. Sucks to be you, doesn't it?"

"I swear, the second I get back home the first thing I'm going to do is drag that asshole out into the middle of town by his ponytail, stab him to the ground, give him a burning oil enema…"

While he was vocally fantasizing about the horrible and very illegal things he was going to do to Ghost, dozens of chubby and warped white arms the width of large trees shot out from two specific locations into the sky straight at him. Bending and weaving as if they were boneless, they closed in on their target from all sides.

"… With a two year overdue leasing notice!" Naruto slashed his arms out viciously, the tips of his fingers dragging down a trail of cruel wind chakra that tore apart all the arms that had the misfortune of being in his proximity.

At the very least, it looked like his Presence was enough to get around some of the bullshit that was sent his way.

"… You good?" Kurama asked from the clouds, his body no longer visible.

"All the Time!" The boy's response sounded particularly murderous. The twitching eye didn't help things.

"Well don't fuck up now. I'm getting ready."

Naruto calmed down with a groan. "Yeah. Yeah. I know. Just needed to… this fucking day man."

He looked down at where the body parts had fallen, and to his disgust he could already see the land start to warp and mutate under the influence of his opponents. People complained about what he could do, but at the very least he left the world intact when he wasn't fighting for his life…

"I would express my most severe apologies, however we both know that you are the sort that desire compensation that is more applicable to the task at hand."

The world seamlessly transitioned around Naruto from the air above Iwagakure to a blank dimension with no distinguishing characteristics.

The sky was white. The ground was white.

The only thing there were Naruto, and the old man with Rinnegan floating with crossed legs behind him.

"You know, it was a real pain in the ass trying to deal with those two knowing that some old guy had just barged into the back of my head." Naruto turned to look at Hagoromo Otsutsuki. The fact that the newcomer had a Rinnegan didn't surprise him in the slightest.

"I am aware, however there are limitations on my actions and the means of which to speak to you. Your recent display of synchronization with Kurama allowed an unexpected opportunity that was most fortunate."

"Yeah. I noticed that your entire family's been getting a whole string of good luck lately." The blonde's tone was incredibly dry.

"I remind you that the Senju, Uchiha, Uzumaki, and other clans are decedents of mine."

"Must require a certain amount of alien mojo in my veins then, cause I haven't seen any of those benefits today. What with the town, and the acolyte, oh, and your mom showing up."

"Your petty attempts to shift the blame unto me are immature and ineffective."

"Yeah well, your mom's a bitch and she wants my super juice inside of her." Naruto deadpanned. "How the hell didn't the idea of a family background check not cross your mind? You know, to make sure that anyone else like her didn't show up looking to bleed the place dry? It's obvious that she isn't human, and yet literally everyone else here is save for the summons."

"Where would we start? Kaguya was never one to share. Not power. Not this world. Not her history. Not even to her own children. Hamura and I were as vexed as you may assume on that very subject. We inquired about it during our battle with her, however by then she was so lost into her hunger that she was nearly incoherent of the world around her."

"Well she came from somewhere, and she was clearly afraid of something. And I highly doubt that she was the sort that came here with just the clothes on her back and made no attempt to bring some of the convenient amenities of home here while she waited to kill the planet."

Much to Naruto's displeasure, the old Sage's face did not budge in the slightest. He had half a mind to try and put the guy up against Scabbard in a card game just to see what would happen.

He shook his head. "Ngh. Never mind. There's no point in arguing about useless things now. What do you want? I don't have much time and my head's a mess as it is at the moment."

"Yes. Your capability to synchronize with the world even without use of Sage Mode is commendable, but still very much immature. Even I did not expect your potential to reach such heights without external provocation and influence."

"Meaning you're going to try and jumpstart said already running potential with said hypothetical external provocation and influence." Naruto jumped to the right conclusion instantly with a dry expression.

"Hmhm. You are vastly more insightful than your years and behavior suggest. I can see why so many hold you in such high regard despite the way you carry yourself." Hagoromo chuckled briefly as he floated to Naruto, though his expression never changed. "I am incapable of invoking the process, however I can provide the means for you to access it."

Naruto frowned and looked away momentarily. On the outside, Kaguya's half body was charging up a rather large and intimidating Bijudama. "You do know that time isn't on our side for this?"

"I would not suggest it if it was beyond reason." With a slow wave of his hand, a portion of the white around him peeled away to show Son Goku standing as if he had been there all along.

"Eh? What is… Father? Is that you?"

"Yeah. Ok. Just, bring more people into my head. No problem. Not like it's already crowded in here or anything. Totally not developing schizophrenia from all of this."

"It is fortunate that you deemed it necessary to speak to Son earlier. Regretfully, we cannot access Saiken and Kokuoh in their current states, however the others are still available."

The sage held out his hands. "My mother claims to be the Mother of Chakra, but it is my power and spirit that courses though this world. The world is my territory, so to speak. I believe that you can make use of this."

Naruto blinked once before letting out a bitter laugh and putting his hands on top of the Sage's. "Sure. Why not."

"Shadow Clone."

o. o. o.

Poof.

Everyone in the office jumped back in alarm.

"Yo Gaara. Fancy meeting you here." Naruto's clone grinned casually. "Mind if I talk to Shukaku for a sec?"

o. o. o.

Poof.

"Hey Zabuza. Hey Haku. Hey Mizukage. Hey guy that doesn't matter." The clone didn't bother to notice the fact that he was nearly decapitated and speared through by needles on reflex. "Love you guys too. Hey, can I have a word with Isobu? Kinda important."

o. o. o.

Poof. Poof.

"Bee mah Boi! Whazzup!?"

"Whazaaaaaaaa?!" The second clone made a terrible gangster pose alongside the first.

"What the hell is going on here?!"The Raikage yelled in equal parts anger and confusion.

"Whazaaaaaa?!"

"Bee! Don't encourage them!" Yugito smacked him upside the head on reflex.

"Stupid pending, Bee, Yugito, mind if we get some time with Matatabi and Gyuki?"

"And why should I let you do what you want in my office?!"

"Because time's shorter than your patience, AND the alien albino MILF cougar I'm fighting is WAY scarier than you, angry black giant lightning man!"

o. o. o.

Poof.

"Hey guys I… Is that a two hundred-centimeter curved plasma screen tv?"

"Yup." Kin confirmed pointing at Crypt (who was currently planted in the floor upside down with is waist sticking up in the air and no pants on) to shift the blame. "No gag reflex."

"Huh." The clone blinked several times before instantly changing the subject, and his attention to Fuu. "So yeah. Is Choumei free?"

o. o. o.

One by one, seven Biju and their hosts appeared in Naruto's mindscape, Gyuki and Matatabi's group being last.

"The Raikage's going to kill you for this. You know that, right?" Yugito deadpanned.

"Tell him to take a number and get in line. Just like everyone else."

"He's not going to wait for his turn."

"Tell him he's going to have to fight the people ahead of him to move up. Just like everyone else."

"Honestly, I'm more disappointed that I actually expected that response from you."

"Nice seeing you too, Yugito." Naruto crossed his arms with a smirk, pausing for a moment. "Uh. Hold on a sec."

He turned transparent and unresponsive for a good twenty seconds before turning back to normal. "Sorry. Just had to dodge a Bijudama. Thankfully the thing went off several kilometers after it missed."

The shockwave from the blast would have totaled nearly anyone else in his position, but Naruto had long since been able to mitigate simple distortions of air pressure so they did no damage to him.

"As heartwarming as this reunion is, make it quick. The Immortal and Kaguya have almost recovered." Kurama growled behind Naruto. "If we are going to use that move, we need to use it as soon as possible."

"Hmhm. Even now you have developed a means to conclude the situation despite your limited state. You truly are resourceful." The sage chuckled with a perfectly straight face. "It may be excessive, but consider this a fallback."

"All of us here at once… father, do you mean to insinuate that this boy is the one you spoke of so long ago?" Matatabi asked with mixed bewilderment and curiosity.

"… Care to clarify that?" Naruto's face suddenly became emotionless save for his eyes glowing with wrath.

"Hum. Cough *don't* cough." Kurama coughed none too subtly, making very obvious gestures behind Naruto that going over the topic of prophesies and "chosen ones" was a glaring red flag that was to be avoided at all costs.

The fact that he was even bothering to warn them in such a blatant way was reason enough to stop that topic of conversation right then and there.

"Matatabi was merely referring to when I was certain that humanity would accept the Biju." The Sage recovered the situation brilliantly. "While you are not what was envisioned, or conventional, I doubt anyone would argue your ability to accept others, regardless of what they may be or their histories."

"I hope you're not assuming that I'm some naive bleeding heart dumbass that will forgive anyone and everyone I meet, because I fully intend to stab that masked guy in the…"

"I said unconventional." Hagoromo interrupted.

"Oh. Ok then. Continue."

"It is quite simple. You have made bonds with everyone here. Biju and containers, and have served not only as an example of what they could have together, but what they could be in the future. Their potential. What I propose is that these bonds be strengthened."

Naruto frowned in thought. "So what you… hold on." He faded away again for another ten seconds before coming back. "Sorry. Had to dodge another Bijudama. Threw a couple of Rasenshuriken this time to keep her and the priest down. Right, so, I'm guessing bottom line is the Biju are gonna share their chakra with me?"

"Wait." Yugito interrupted. "Before anyone does anything, I have to ask this first. It's clear that you're the most powerful shinobi on the planet. The Kage. The Daimyo won't leave you be once this is over. You could take over the world if you wanted to. But I don't see you as the sort that would let your power go to waste either. You claim that our world is yours, as if it is your property, but what does that mean? What do you intend to do?"

"Seriously?! You're asking this now while I have giant exploding balls of energy being blasted at me and the world is possibly at risk by the second most terrifying rabbit I have laid eyes on?! There is a time and place for questions like this Lady!" Naruto looked at her incredulously.

"Second?" Fuu blinked in confusion.

"It took me over a week to clean up all the corpses! And that was with clones!"

"You know better than to ask by now." Choumei sighed, stretching his whip-like tail over Naruto. "I do not trust humans, but I have known you long enough to hold you to a higher standard. Use my power well Naruto Uzumaki."

"Knowing him and our luck, the answer is too much of a headache to bother with." Zabuza tapped the turtle's head. "Oi Isobu. Quit wasting time and juice the brat."

"Might as well. Kid'll probably use my power better than you ever could." A giant blue scaled tail arced over its owner and rested over Naruto.

"You make it sound like that's a bad thing."

"Shukaku…" Gaara nodded.

"Yeah yeah. I know." The Tanuki sighed, his own unique tail stretching forward. "Better not think that makes us even…"

"Roshi's busy, but I doubt he would care if I joined in." Son smiled faintly, joining the group.

"Aw yeah. So many biju putting their chakra inta one place is gonna kick ass! Gyuki, let's chip in ta add to the blast!"

"As poorly as Bee worded it, I agree. I'm curious what you can do with all of our chakra, Naruto. Put it to good use." The Hachibi smirked, a tentacle reaching to the blonde.

Without waiting for a prompt, Matatabi stretched one of her own flaming tails onto the collective.

"Matatabi?" Yugito blinked in surprise.

"I do not know the boy well, but I do know my siblings and my father. They would not go to this extent to aid him if the boy wasn't worth their time. Anyone that can possibly gain both Shukaku's and Kurama's trust is a rarity in itself that should not be disregarded."

"I'm interpreting that as a compliment! No take backs!"

"Ngh. Fine. Whatever. Just don't blame me if he goes mad with power and tries to order us all around like we answer to him." It wasn't that Yugito didn't like Naruto, it was simply that she didn't trust the idea of anyone with that much power. Not even the Raikage. The Oogakari were bad enough as it is.

"Too late. I'm already crazy." Naruto breathed out slowly as he felt the chakra of six Biju flow into him. "Kurama, I'm forwarding this to you. You know where it's gonna go, right?"

"Humph. You're very wasteful. Using it in one spot like that." Despite his words, the fox was grinning savagely, knowing something that the others clearly didn't.

"Can't help it. I can already tell that Ero-Ni's seal is preventing me from using all this power directly. Gotta be indirect about it." The host of the meeting shrugged with a wry smile. "There's no point in having power if you don't use it after-?!"

The casually speaking teen vanished from the group instantly with a serious look on his face.

"That didn't look good." Zabuza frowned.

"Something is amiss." Hagoromo's expression was the same as Naruto's.

o. o. o.

Naruto looked down at the earth.

Not at the top half of Kaguya, who was making another Bijudama in a feral rage.

Not at the bottom half of Kaguya, where the heads of the Gobi and Rokubi were materialized out of the rabbit's massive not fluffy tail making another bijudama.

Instead he was focused on the near invisible, tiny sight of Hidan's upper half, lying in a familiar seal drawn from his own blood.

"A ritual?" The bottom of his stomach dropped as he could feel the twisted glee in the man from where he was.

Whose blood was it?

Naruto's first thought was that Hidan was cursing Kaguya. He had landed a massive strike on her just before he split them in half. Even if she had turned into an abomination, he wouldn't be surprised if she still bled in that form.

But… strategically speaking, it didn't make much sense. Kaguya was strong, but in their current situation, Naruto was the greater threat. Actually, when it came to one on one fights, Hidan currently had pretty good odds against Kaguya just from the way their respective powers were set up.

Hidan grinned as he lifted not his scythe to his mouth, but one of his spikes. Not Kaguya then.

No. It didn't matter. Regardless of who Hidan killed, it probably wasn't good.

Instead of licking the tool though, the monster took it a step further and literally bit the end of it off with a twisted ecstasy. Within seconds his pigmented skin inverted colors to the pattern he had heard so much about from Shikamaru.

A connection had been made despite the slight change in the procedure, and Hidan was in a circle. Someone was going to die.

Wordlessly, he made a clone for the first time that fight on the ground. Close enough to be a threat but far enough that Hidan wouldn't be able to do anything about it in time. The clone flipped through three seals rapidly, slamming its hands on the ground. Instantly, a giant fissure in the earth was made, shooting forward at the seal to split it in half to disrupt the ritual.

And yet, instead of dividing the circle, the crack bent around it at the last moment, leaving it intact.

"Keheheh. That's what you get for playing it safe, Lord." Hidan chuckled, his pigmented skin stretching unnaturally to show is glee, lifting the pike in his hand that he had just bitten…

… Oh no.

Naruto paled, and reached for something on his person that was no longer there.

When? When did he manage to steal that without him knowing?

No no no no no no.

The item in Hidan's hand wasn't a pike.

The blonde shot down at Hidan. The two Bijudama that had just fired at him didn't matter. The idea he might be rushing into a trap didn't matter. The fact that Kurama was yelling at him to stop.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!

The clone that he made rushed forward to stall for time, using nearly all of its chakra to try and blast Hidan out of the circle at point blank range with a wind jutsu that tore up literally everything else around him.

It didn't work. The madman didn't budge, and subsequently ripped apart the clone with the scythe in his other hand.

Naruto likewise barely flinched as the agony of his clone's death filled his own body.

Ignore it. It was just pain. None of the damage was real.

"STOP!" The world had lost the blessing of madness. It would remain static.

"That won't work this time!" The Reaper roared defiantly to the heavens. Live. Fear. Pain. Panic. Bonds were not constrained by the physical. Its gift would be given.

Clones popped into existence right on top of Hidan just as he moved to thrust the tool into his chest, stopping his arms just before anything was pierced.

A mad grin stretched so wide that his cheeks actually split. "Too late."

His corrupted chakra shot from the tip of the toll and pierced his heart.

Blood burst from the wound, onto the rod that Naruto had kept on his person since the beginning of the fight, since Pain stabbed him through the chest.

o. o. o.

Nagato gasped in pain and surprise, coughing up blood and looking at the hole in his body.

o. o. o.

Omake:

A crimson scythe was chucked mercilessly into the Fourth Wall.

"Shut up and finish the damn chapter already you lazy asshole!"

o. o. o.

A/N:

Thanks Kagaseo for betaing.

Special Thanks and in memory of Stan Lee. I was never a real American Comics fan, but even so, there is not a person that is interested in the world of fiction and animation that hasn't been influenced by this brilliant storyteller in some way. Stan was more than just an author and artist of immense notoriety, he was something special among those that had reached success and fame.

He was a genuinely nice guy.

I don't know how many people realize just how important that is, but it's the truth. It's rare to be able to learn worthwhile life lessons from the author himself outside of the stories he writes just by watching the guy be himself among his fans. Just seeing him do his thing makes others want to be halfway decent people too. It's rare to see someone like that these days. We lost a real superhero guys.

Anyways.

It's ALIIIIIIIVE!

Pauses to look at the calendar and sees how long it's been since the last update.

… Please don't kill me.

I really have no excuse for being so late. This fight is way bigger than I thought it was going to be. I was originally planning on reaching a certain point in the fight in this chapter, but things stretched out so much that I realized that it would probably be nearly double in length before I reached that point and take forever, so I settled for this bit instead.

Seriously though, you guys have no idea just how many ways and directions I had to play with while writing this thing. I think I deleted 10k words going back and forth trying to figure out what worked and what didn't while trying to keep the pacing and flow of things right.

As for Kaguya and the three way fight itself, it's interesting isn't it? Having Naruto duke it out with her without the Fox's chakra or Sage mode. Not because he's uber powerful and doesn't need it, but because he's strong enough to be able to pull it off reasonably well. I'm not sure if there are any other fics out there that have Kaguya being matched in this way as well, but I'm kinda pleased I did it this way. It messes with the pacing, but it's still believable and turns things in a direction that forces literally everyone in the plot to react and think carefully. Good and bad.

There needs to be more stories where this happens. Where third parties or extra factors that were mentioned or foreshadowed earlier in the plot just… accidentally show up prematurely to everyone's surprise, even the third party, and screws up everyone's plans and perceptions of the world so thoroughly that everyone, even the bad guys pretty much agree that they have no idea what the hell is going on. I think that such an approach would give stories more depth in terms of character and world development and allow the author to flesh things out that they really wanted to cover before but couldn't.

And yes, there is a touch of Gilgamesh in Naruto's behavior when he's going all out and talking shop. Why wouldn't there be? Foolish mongrels.

Anyways, story and fighting wise, don't worry. I still have plenty of jutsu for Naruto to whip out later, and some that won't unfortunately show up in this fight.

For example, Naruto has made several Jutsu based off of some of the monsters from the Monster Hunter universe:

Earth Style: Diablos

Rank: A

Similar to an Earth Dragon Bullet, it molds stone and dirt into the form of a two horned wyvern that can burrow into the sand and has a fierce temper, charging its targets like a bull. It is a particularly difficult technique to control at times, so it is something that would without a doubt eventually find its way into a village's Forbidden Scroll. While it is strong and vicious on its own, it's true worth comes when its user channels wind chakra into it, enabling the construct to unleash a powerful and frankly nightmarish roar that bypasses standard ear based protection techniques, designed to temporarily cripple and deafen all enemies within a range of itself.

Wind/Sky Style: Kushala Daora (The Black Iron Winds)

Rank: B

A powerful passive wind barrier technique that enshrouds the user in vicious winds so violent that the streams of gas appear black to the naked eye, and protects them from most close and long ranged attacks, even while moving. The more chakra that's put into the technique, the wider ranged and more potent the effects are. The Rank itself is more indicative of its simplicity rather than its potency.

Oh, and for anyone that asks, Sky style is a fusion between Wind natured Chakra and Yang nature Chakra.

That being said though, it means that I'm already about 5k words into the next chapter, and hoping that I'll manage to get the next one out in time for xmas.

Good news is that I have enough vacation days left in work to take every Friday this month off, so more time for goofing off! … I mean writing! That's totally what I meant!

Oh! Side note. Speaking of xmas! I'm selling Tshirts now! Because I'd like to make money doing this somehow without directly saying that I'm making money off of writing fanfiction, and thus potentially opening myself up to copyright infringement! Inside jokes and awesomeness aplenty here folks!

If anyone wants to make fanart specifically made for the shirts, please PLEASE let me know. I'm unfortunately only going to accept high level fanart for future shirts so I don't "swamp the market" with these things, so to speak, but for those that are willing, please contact me and show me an example of your work. I am willing to pay commissions for it depending on the situation.

Go to the teespring website url, and paste on one of the following to see one of the shirts I have up!

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Ok. Shameless advertising done.

These past few weeks have been a bit busy for me. Helped a friend move. Went to a few gatherings. Thanksgiving. Then my mom got me sick cause she was sick, which I'm still feeling right now. Plus there's all that news in the auto industry with layoffs and the like, and I work for Ford so yeah. I'm not worried about my job though. I'm in a real niche department that's supposed to get bigger in the near future, so I have job security. Yay.

FGO is FGO. Probably the biggest timesink I have ever had in my life.

Still not gonna stop me from trying to pull Merlin. I am 330 Quartz and 55 Summoning tickets prepared!

Watching goblin slayer, because I like it and anyone who has a problem with that can bite me and my contagious weasel rabies and insanity.

What else… Eh. Not much. Just busy with work and everything like normal.

Keep an eye out for the next chapter later this month. It's gonna be epic. And Awesome. And horrifying. And I'm an asshole…

… So it's going to be just like every other chapter… I hate my standards sometimes.

SO REVIEW! WORSHIP THE LOG! KAGUYA SHOULD HAVE TELEPORTED NARUTO INTO THE ICE WORLD INSTEAD OF A VOLCANO! AND REVIEW AGAIN! I'M BACK BITCHES!