Prologue: Part two

"This abomination of flesh well serves my murderous intent."

-Aatrox

Location: South of the Land of Lightning

Naruto limped onwards, the clones who had pulled him from his would-be death having dispelled the moment he appeared before them in a bloody heap.

The Nine-Tails chakra was already healing what it could, but the burns on his body were proving to be almost unaffected by the malicious power, and so Naruto was forced to bear with it for the time being.

"Yup. That feels like something meant for a jinchuriki." Naruto said in-between breaths as his burns throbbed in pain.

Standing himself up against a dead tree to regain his bearings, Naruto briefly considered trying to teleport to his hideout before squashing the idea just as quickly.

He had only just begun to understand the mechanics behind his father's jutsu before he had ceased any chakra use that wasn't going towards the time-seals development. Any studying of it afterward, had only been in scrolls left to him by Jiraiya whose own understanding of the technique had been limited.

Naruto knew his use of the Flying Thunder God jutsu was (if he was being extremely generous with himself) amateur at best, as he required time to properly align the entry and exit points in-between space and time, as well as making sure his poor chakra control didn't send him hurtling into an interdimensional black hole.

Before Sakura had given him some pointers, the few piss poor attempts he made at teleporting saw him crashing through trees and walls like a cannonball.

The memory of the pink-hair girl getting giddy over her coaching in chakra control leading to Naruto's first successful teleportation, brought a rueful smile to his bloody face as he slumped down the tree he was leaning on.

She had been even more excited than he had been, as Naruto considered the need for shadow clones and prep time to be counterproductive in the use of a teleportation technique. Though Sakura had been quick to pull him from his funk.

"Some progress is better than no progress, huh Sakura?" Naruto said in a hoarse whisper, imagining the beautiful pink-haired woman nodding in agreement with her own wisdom.

Reminiscing about her caused him to brush his fingertips across the tattered red band still clinging to his wrist, and Naruto felt a pang of anger towards himself for not sealing it away into a storage seal before engaging Sasuke.

'Sasuke. My god, he has the Rinnegan too.'

The time-rift seal had been a crackpot of an idea in response to the monster that called himself the Saviour of the shinobi world, and it was one that Naruto didn't just consider a longshot, but his only shot at stopping Madara.

But against Sasuke, Naruto had always felt confident in his ability to defeat the younger Uchiha in battle, should he go all-out with no restraint. But now? Any further engagement would be suicide.

"This has to work." Naruto croaked out as he traced his finger across the red fabric around his wrist one last time, before using the dried-out husk of a tree to pull himself up to his feet. Something the raw burns across his left arm wasn't making any easier. "It has to."

Stumbling forward, and nearly going face-first back onto the ground, Naruto took a deep breath, forcing himself to maintain his balance as he started the trek forward. The hideout wasn't too far, but with the worst of his wounds either healing slowly or not healing at all, every step felt like a hundred.

To maintain his focus, Naruto kept his eyes on the countless cocoons that hung from the massive branches of the God-Tree, spreading on for miles in every direction. If not to remind himself of the severity of his situation, then to at least count them as he passed by, as to refrain from thinking about how much pain he was in.

He kept that up for some time when something caught his eye. Off to the side, just below the valley of the twisted branches and roots of the God-Tree, amidst the rotten wood and decay that surrounded it.

Wobbling ever so slightly, was a feeble stick of a sapling just barely managing to protrude past the dry dirt that it was embedded in, and still defiantly trying to reach for the sky.

Its twig of a trunk was just a shade or two away from the rotting gray he had become accustomed to seeing in the old fauna, and the few sprouts that it had managed to cultivate were fading away with an unpleasant brown, as their edges slowly shriveled up.

Honestly, it was quite the depressing sight.

Still, Naruto couldn't help but move closer to the small thing, taking in the shape of its weathering trunk, and what little color he could make out from the dying sprouts.

Aside from knowing what was edible and what was poisonous, he was by no means a botanist. Even so, Naruto liked to think he had learned something when he had dabbled in the hobby of gardening for a while.

His first batch of plants had died rather quickly. A result from his own ignorance towards the do's and don'ts of plant care.

His second had lived through his graduation from the academy and his first few weeks as a genin. Though as training and preparing for war began to take all of Naruto's time, they soon suffered the same fate as the first.

Once the war really got started, and Naruto had to focus on preventing his capture at the hands of the Akatsuki; Gardening and any of his former, non-training hobbies, had to be put on the back burner.

It wouldn't be until two years later, while in physical therapy after nearly getting cut in two, that he took a swing at gardening again to pass the time. Though this time he opted to care for only one plant. Just some seeds giving to him by a nurse and a portly vase crafted for him by a stone ninja.

During this period, Grandma Tsunade had stressed the importance of his recovery to not be rushed to both he, and the other Kage. And with finding himself needing a way to pass the time with non-strenuous activity and needing something to take his mind off being in a non-active role after two years of what felt like endless battle, Naruto took little issue to give those little seeds all the care he could.

It had been quite the wonder, watching those seeds slowly sprout into a sapling and having his sudden attention to every little detail eventually be rewarded with a healthy flourishing piece of fauna. One he hadn't thought too much about once his recovery was completed and he got back to the frontlines.

His care of that plant hadn't led to him becoming a botanist with a sudden green thumb, but at the very least, he knew how to identify a Sakura tree when he saw one.

"Nature endures," Naruto said softly, recalling the words of the ancient toad sage as he gazed at the little sapling. "And so will we."

Pushing forward, Naruto felt an influx of nature energy being focused into a single spot. Good. That means Gamakichi and Gamatatsu were already done from their end. He had been worried that the chakra storing seals and tags he had created wouldn't properly compartmentalized the user's chakra.

The seals he placed on the toads were based on the one's Sakura and Tsunade had used for their Hundred-Healings jutsu, and he had been unsure if his second-hand attempt at creating something similar would work with nature energy.

It had been a relief when Gamakichi had confirmed that despite the agonizingly slow pace, he was still able to store nature energy into the seal and call upon it, though with significant effort, when he wished.

The toads had insisted on something a bit riskier as to speed up the process, but Naruto had refused, not having the faith in his fuinjutsu skills to properly craft a stronger seal that wouldn't inadvertently kill them with chakra exhaustion.

Despite his inability to craft something better and knowing that most of the seals success had been due to the toad's excellent chakra control, Naruto still gave himself a pat on the back anytime he noticed the increase in senjutsu within the seals.

Seeing the entrance to his hideout come into view caused Naruto to break into a limped sprint, one that caused all sorts of painful sensations that he did his best to ignore. Approaching the large boulder that barred off entry, he placed his hand on the tag in the middle, undoing the seal and causing the boulder to recede into the ground. Upon entry he quickly caught sight of his warning seals glowing like heated metal.

They could sense the malicious intent getting heavier in the air.

Naruto had no idea why the Nine-Tails chakra could sense it, and the demon never felt inclined to explain. But upon realizing this, Naruto had quickly stored away portions of his and the fox's chakra into sealing tags that he had then modified to react to any approaching malice by simply glowing and had even incorporate some nature energy to allow his toad summons easier reign with the formulas inscribed.

After the Infinite-Tsukuyomi had been activated; Naruto had again modified it to coordinate his chakra into a protective barrier for his two allies.

Given that every tag insight was lighting up like torches, it was clear he wasn't the only one who felt that surge of senjutsu.

Naruto rushed towards the wall, snatching two tags from it before quickly making his way deeper into the hideout.

Entering one of the caverns, he saw the two toads' unconscious before the Time-Rift seal, which he noticed was in its stand-by mode, the power sealing formula having done its job at giving the seal the strength it needed (at least he hoped) to rip into the fabric of time.

As he discovered a few weeks ago however, the natural energy was burning away within the seal, meaning they had to get started now.

Approaching Gamakichi first, Naruto placed one of the tags he grabbed from earlier onto the toad's back and then formed the Rat Hand sign. He felt the chakra he had stored into the seal react, and he channeled it into Gamakichi's body where it spread all throughout the orange toad.

The natural energy within was quickly assimilated and once Naruto felt that the Nine-Tails chakra was all that remained in the seal, he allowed a small piece to be funneled into the toad before cutting off the connection.

His efforts to control the Nine-Tails hadn't even gotten close to the level of a perfect jinchuriki (thinking about some of the things Killer-Bee had been capable of still left him in awe) but his training had borne some fruit.

Like being able to synchronize the malevolent chakra with the flow of another's chakra network.

In small doses, as Naruto was too apprehensive to channel any significant amount of the volatile chakra into anything living, whoever was receiving it got a bit of a pick-me-up. Nothing crazy like the regeneration Naruto received when he flooded his body with the power of the Nine-Tails, but enough to give someone the last push they needed.

Or in this case snap Gamakichi awake.

The orange toad blinked a few times before getting to his feet with a groan, rubbing the sides of his head.

"Man, that seal leaves you with one hell of a hangov-" Gamakichi eyes fell on Naruto's bloody, burned, and bruised form as the blond performed the same procedure to revive Gamatatsu. "Holy hell. Naruto, I figured you got into some trouble, but you look half dead man."

"Oh, I definitely feel it." Naruto said as he helped Gamatatsu to his feet. When the yellow toad showed no signs of collapsing forward, he turned to Gamakichi. "We have to hurry. The nature energy in the time seal won't last and I'm not the only one who noticed that power-surge." Naruto continued as he made his way towards the large Time-Seal, releasing the matrix key from the storage seal on his forearm.

Gamakichi helped his groggy brother along, before looking at the scroll in Naruto's hand with curiosity. "So that's it, huh?"

Naruto nodded as he unfurled the scroll and began to channel chakra into it, causing an Uzumaki symbol to appear, that broke itself down into droplets of ink that reformed into four smaller designs of kanji and swirling symbols. Placing his palm in the middle of the parchment, the four small inscriptions bled into his hand with a hiss of steam.

Naruto didn't make a noise as the matrix key etched itself onto his palm. Once it was finished, he discarded the scroll off to the side and placed his hand flat on the blank spot in the middle of the vast array of fuinjutsu writing.

"If you could've wrote it on yourself, then why bother with the scroll?" Gamatatsu asked.

"Well for one, having a piece of highly unstable fuinjutsu etched onto you could lead to some pretty terrible things. Plus, with as much noise that I made; I knew Sasuke was going to jump on the chance to kill me." The memory of when the Uchiha nearly cut him in two during the war briefly flashed through his mind. "Couldn't risk it."

Gamatatsu looked like he wanted to ask something else, but his brother stopped him. "Let him concentrate. Go for it Naruto."

Naruto nodded and faced the awaiting seal with a contemplative look. After a moment, he weaved a sequence of hand-signs and then paused.

"You guys might want to step back," Naruto warned.

After his two comrades were a good distance away, Naruto took a deep breath before slamming his marked palm into the blank center of the array of fuinjutsu, igniting an aura of blue fire around him as he channeled all his chakra to activate the seal.

Every symbol and formula that the Time-Rift seal was comprised of, responded by twisting and turning like gears and cogs, moving in rhythmic sync with one another as the space surrounding it began to shift ever so slightly.

Feeling most of his chakra already draining away and struggling to keep his legs beneath him, Naruto closed his eyes.

'I know, one way or another, you're ready to finish this. So, stop being greedy and help me activate this thing.'

Naruto heard the Nine-Tails growl within his subconscious as a red chakra cloak manifested itself around him, immediately relieving much of the burden on his dwindling stamina.

'This seal of yours is shoddy work, unstable, and sloppy. What shame your ancestors would feel.' The Nine-Tails felt the need to say as he pumped his chakra through his jinchiruki.

"Less talking more helping," Naruto growled out as he focused on getting the few static rifts in space to expand while keeping the seal from collapsing in on itself.

Red sparks crackled all around as the time-seal began to vibrate, while the swirling design of the matrix key spun wildly in the middle, causing the distortions of the space in front of him to become increasingly sporadic.

Gamakichi and Gamatatsu watched on in wonder as the lunacy of something like time-travel looked more plausible, with every tremor created by the time-seals intrusion into space.

"This is really about to happen, huh big brother?" Gamatatsu asked.

The orange toad kept his eyes forward. "Yeah"

"We'll...get to see dad and everyone else again."

Gamakichi looked hesitant at that but nodded, nonetheless.

"There's gonna be a ton of work to do before we can relax," Something wistful flashed across the orange toad's eyes. "But yeah, we get to see him again."

The red sparks spilling from the seal's area of effect turned into red lighting that began striking at the cave walls, and the occasional tremor soon became an on-going light earth quick as space and time were forcefully bent to the will of Naruto.

Looking on, Gamakichi briefly worried that their hideout would collapse on top of them, and quickly drew his sword to cut apart a few pieces of rubble that got too close.

At this rate, they might end up getting crushed before the seal was complete.

Slicing apart another barrage of falling debris, Gamakichi nearly lost his footing as a violent tremor shook from the collapsing parts of the mountain, followed by a thunderous boom that was quickly getting louder.

Noticing the ground beginning to break apart and the walls ahead starting to crack, Gamakichi lunged towards his brother.

"LOOK OUT!"

The two toads went to the ground as a massive tree branch smashed into the cavern, the force of it nearly sending the two crashing into Naruto and blasting rock everywhere. The sound of wood cracking could be heard, as the branch twisted and burst open, spilling dozens of zetsu clones onto the cave floor.

Holding his sword out in front of him, Gamakichi shouted to his brother. "Protect Naruto! I'll give them something else to focus on!"

Before Gamatatsu could respond, his brother had already launched himself headfirst at the advancing zetsu.

Gamakichi quickly made mincemeat out of the first few zetsu clones in a flurry of slashes before leaping into the air and weaving a single hand-sign as he shot a barrage of water bullets that reduced a group of zetsu into white mush.

Descending back to the ground, the orange toad swung his blade downwards and split a particularly large zetsu straight down the middle, kicking both halves into another group of clones, before parrying away a handful of wooden projectiles and then proceeding to leap straight into the gaggle of attacking zetsu, sword first. A stunt that saw a few cuts and scratches be inflicted onto Gamakichi, who in-turn, left his enemies in piles of severed limbs and crushed artificial flesh.

Gamatatsu was also fighting admirably. While not the offensive juggernaut his brother was, he was still putting down any zetsu who got pass Gamakichi with great efficiency. Wielding his blade like a current of water to redirect attacks, and then using the openings created to finish the job.

Both toads were decimating swaths of the zetsu army, but for every one clone killed, another ten seemed to emerge from the ground, or detach themselves off the large tree branch to join in the fray, and the brothers were starting to feel the strain on their already dwindling stamina.

Eventually, whilst amid evading and blocking scores of attacks, Gamakichi moved just a fraction of a second too slow and cried out in pain when a wooden spike pierced through his leg. Seizing the opportunity to finish the orange toad, the zetsu horde surged forward, piling on to Gamakichi and threating to smother him with just numbers alone had he not launched himself into the air, spinning like a vortex to allow his blade to shred any clone still clinging onto him to ribbons.

He landed in an ungraceful heap, inciting a shout of concern from his brother. "Gamakichi!"

"I'm ok." The older toad grumbled, as he beheaded a charging zetsu clone and spared a glance at his leg, "Just a flesh wound."

Gamatatsu rushed towards his brother, gracefully weaving through attacks, and cutting down clones swiftly. Upon reaching him, the yellow toad pulled out a wad of medical tape from his pouch but stopped when Gamakichi waved him off. "No time for that. We got more zetsu incoming." The orange toad then turned towards Naruto. "How much longer?"

Their blond friend was now on one knee, chakra still flaring all around him as the red lightning snapping in front of him only got more violent. He was sweating profusely and only opted to grit out a single word, as to not lose his hold on the seal. "S-soon."

Gamakichi only nodded before turning his attention towards a large, wooded root that burst from the cave floor and spewed out another three dozen or so, zetsu clones for them to deal with.

Gamakichi kept close to his brother this time around, as the two toads formed a perimeter around Naruto and kept their movements to a minimum.

Having made sure that he established himself as the main threat, Gamakichi felt relieved when he noticed a bulk of the advancing zetsu heading his way.

Again, another clash between the toads and clones, this time however fatigue couldn't be brushed off, as Gamakichi could feel himself slowing down more and more.

Gamatatsu was heaving in deep intakes of air as he dodged more attacks than he parried, swinging his sword only when he had to. "We can't-" pivoting to the right, the yellow toad decapitated a zetsu, and followed through with a kick that sent the headless body tumbling into a group of clones. "We can't keep this up brother," He gasped out.

Chancing a glance back, Gamakichi saw the crackling of chakra spinning wildly in front of Naruto, as well as the red lightning striking the center of the seal as the array of sealing formulas, began to slowly converge in the middle, as they rotated on the outskirts of the sporadic energy. Naruto himself was screaming from the strain, his entire body trembling as he maintained the ram sign, desperately trying to get the seal to fully activate.

"He just needs a little bit longer. Keep fighting Gamatatsu!" Gamakichi yelled as he slammed a zetsu headfirst into the ground, crushing it.

Eventually, the zetsu clones opted to bring the toads down with long-range attacks.

Barraging the two with wooded spikes and kunai, Gamakichi and Gamatatsu closed ranks and coordinated their blades to swiftly deflect all the projectiles.

Realizing the futility in their course of action, the zetsu began to swarm into each other, much to the befuddlement of the brothers.

"Are they...attacking each other?" asked a confused Gamatatsu.

Gamakichi said nothing, as the two took the moment of reprieve to catch their breath and watched as the swarm tore into itself with a frenzy. Upon noticing the clones and their ruined features beginning to melt into each other, like candles leaning against the same flame, the toads tighten the grip on their blades in anticipation.

The now waxy pile of mush twitched and contorted, shaping itself a pair of long, scrawny legs and sprouting a set of skeletal arms from its sides. The blob that made up its torso expanded with a notable crunch, causing its body to become horrendously disproportionate. This was followed up with a piece of artificial flesh that pulled from the tip of the white heap, molding itself into the shape of a head, its face being a grotesque mixture of facial features, all twisting and convulsing in a struggle to form properly.

When the creature finally settled, Gamakichi nearly gagged when it looked up to face the two toads.

"What the hell is tha-" Gamatatsu froze when the abomination let out a piercing screech as it charged forward on all fours, its limbs bending and twisting unnaturally and its head shaking like a rapid dog biting into a piece of meat.

With no time to think, Gamakichi leapt towards the beast with his sword raised over his head, stabbing into its wrist when it took a swing at him, and pressed his weight down onto the hilt of the blade with enough force to dislodge the appendage like a locked chest.

The creature howled in pain and manifested a massive tree trunk from its good arm that it swung like a war club at the toad. Gamakichi saw the attack coming and was just barely able to block it with the flat side of his sword. However, his frantically thrown-up guard wasn't enough to protect him fully, and he felt the bones in his forearm snap under the pressure and howled in pain as he was sent flying toward Gamatatsu, who try to catch him but ended up serving as a landing pad instead.

Regaining his bearings, Gamatatsu quickly checked on his brother who, although gripping his left forearm in pain, made a gesture towards the creature with his good hand.

More specifically the sizzling sealing tag that the orange toad had stuck onto the creature's midsection.

The tag detonated, drenching the abnormal zetsu in a thick viscous liquid that Gamatatsu quickly recognized as toad oil.

The zetsu also had a look of a realization flash across its face and roared in rage as it launched itself at the two toads, its deformed orifice of a mouth opening as wide as it could.

Gamatatsu had always been something of a slacker when it came to his training. He would half-heartedly go through the motions, tended to zone out during lectures, and would rather laze about Mount Myoboku during his free time instead of squeezing in much-needed extra training. It had only been when the war had taken a turn for the worst for the alliance that Gamabunta had stopped coddling his youngest son and forced him to buckle down.

And who would've thought that, with a fuming chief toad breathing down his neck, of course, Gamatatsu would make leaps and bounds in his training once he started to apply himself. So much so that his father had been talking about bringing him to the frontlines at some point so the young toad could get a feel for genuine battle.

Though Gamabunta never got the chance, and the only exposure to actual combat that Gamatatsu had received came in the later stages of the war; where the desperate struggle against overwhelming odds called for every able body the alliance could muster to hold back Madara and had seen the allies doing more fleeing than anything.

So Gamatatsu, despite being skilled in his own right, still left a lot to be desired in his instincts as a fighter.

He still looked towards others to guide him through the chaos of a battlefield, still had a split-second of hesitation whenever he drew his blade, still had to speed run through certain movements within his head because he was yet to develop the proper muscle memory.

And currently the most detrimental; has yet to develop the hand coordination and nerve needed to properly weave the required hand signs for a jutsu when an enemy was right on top of him.

As his padded fingers fumbled together and he opened his mouth to recite the correct order of the hand signs needed, nothing but silence came out as his eyes went wide when the monstrous zetsu descended upon him, its deformed features contorted in rage and bloodlust.

Gamatatsu's mind went blank as fear sapped him of his strength. As so, it was easy for Gamakichi to shove his brother behind him with his elbow and, having mastered the Flame Bullet jutsu to the point where the use of both hands was more of a suggestion than a requirement, formed a single, one handed sign.

"Fire Style: Flame Bullet!" Shouted Gamakichi, spitting a raging bloom of orange fire towards the monster.

When the first ember touched the thick oil that drenched the creature, the effects were immediate, as a surging inferno came to life upon the zetsu, halting the monster and sending it to the ground, withering as the hell blaze consumed it. Roaring in rage and agony, its deformed body convulsed and shifted as bits and pieces of it melted off in charred rubbery clumps, and then re-formed before being seared off all over again.

Trying to smother the flames that were slowly devouring it, the creature let out an ear-piercing screech as wooden spikes erected from all over its spasming body and then shot out from fleshy appendages, both fire and spikes adoring the tar-like additions that the zetsu swung all over the cave in a pain-induced frenzy. Keeping its violent display near the cavern walls, the burning zetsu smashed itself into anything solid and swung its grotesque, deadly limbs like a whirlwind, again worrying Gamakichi that the mountain would collapse on top of them when parts of the cave began to break apart.

When a few pieces of the ceiling nearly struck a heaving Naruto, Gamakichi knew he had to end this now. Picking up his sword and taking a deep breath, he leapt into the air and slice through any flaming appendage between him and his target. The zetsu only half notice him -its concern still being the agonizing flames that refused to be put out- and shot a razor-thin tendril of flesh from one of its arms, intending to slice clean through the approaching amphibian.

Pulling a kunai from his pouch, Gamakichi buried the small blade into the thin appendage -getting only a small cut on his cheek in return- and pinned the tendril into the ground. The zetsu growled something fierce as it continued to attack everything around it, and gradually slow down as the flames slowly claimed it.

Rolling out of the way when a series of spike-covered tendrils slammed down where he once stood, Gamakichi reversed the grip of his blade and then, hurled it like a spear with all the strength he could muster into his good arm, impaling the monstrous zetsu right through the neck and pinning it to the cavern wall.

Practically nailed down and still burning alive, the creature thrashed about and screeched as it started to pull itself free, the sizzling synthetic skin on its neck tearing as it sent tendrils in all directions. In its frenzy of rage, the zetsu was slow to notice the ash cloud slowly enveloping it, and when it did; it went still, as a disjointed web of memories from its many, many iterations hit it all at once, enlightening the creature of its fate.

Gamakichi clicked his teeth together and the thick cloud of black ash was ignited into a bright explosion that incinerated the monster and any large roots still left standing, putting a hold on any more zetsu from emerging.

Swaying back and forth but managing to stay standing tall nonetheless, Gamakichi panted as he saw the aftermath. "And that's that." He said in-between breaths before collapsing.

Gamatatsu was at his side in an instant. "Brother I'm-" the yellow toad shook his head before reaching down to help his sibling back to his feet. "...I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to do that alone." He mumbled weakly as he wrapped an arm around his brother's back to help him stand.

Gamakichi kept his eyes forward and scrunched up his nose when the smell of burnt zetsu flesh and charred wood hit him. Rubbing the side of his face, he looked at his brother. "It's all good." He winced at the raw skin on his cheek that suffered minor burns from his reckless use of the Ash fire jutsu. "A couple of scratches and a little chakra exhaustion never killed anyone," he quipped.

Noticing Gamatatsu's crestfallen expression at his poor joke, Gamakichi nudge the other toad. "Hey, I'm serious. I'm fine and you did great."

Gamatatsu shook his head. "I froze. I thought I was over that, but that thing was right on top of us, and I just froze."

"Ay, it happens," the orange toad cringed a bit once the pain from his broken arm and wounded leg really began to set in. "I've seen veterans piss themselves after seeing some of the crazy stuff those things do. No one expects you to be stone cold all the time."

"I know but, even a single second can-"

"Look at it like this, since you're so set on beating yourself up over it," Gamakichi interjected. "If it took you a second to get your head back in the fight, then make sure if it happens again, that it only takes you half a second. It's just another part of your training, if anything else."

Gamatasu stared at the ground where the charred remains of the zetsu laid, some of its ashes being blown away from Naruto's struggle with the time-seal, before his eyes fell on to Gamakichi's busted arm, a frown on his face as he took his brothers words in.

Gamakichi could see the younger toad had more that he wanted to say, and he wished he had the right words of consolation to give to his struggling brother. But a strong current of wind that practically slapped the two toads, put an end to his musings. His focus was on Naruto, who had managed to get the sporadic rifts of space in front of him to twist more violently, almost looking like a mini hurricane before him.

Naruto was growling something fierce from the strain, and when the red lighting that had cracked from the space in front of him shot out one last time before condensing itself fully into a rotating circle of energy, he roared as the swirling vortex expanded with a boom of thunder. All at once, the large fuinjutsu formulas that circled the seal like an animal waiting to strike, converged on Naruto in an instant.

The winds calmed momentarily, before they slowly started to pick back up. "Guys..." Naruto said in a raspy voice, "...behind me. Now."

The two toads began to make their way towards Naruto, or rather Gamatatsu moved as fast as he could whilst pushing past his own exhaustion and supporting Gamakichi, who's injured leg and broken arm refused to allow him to even hobble or crawl on his own.

As the two moved along, they could feel the wind speeds increasing and the air getting thinner. The fuinjutsu formulas that had seemingly disappeared into the vortex reappeared, now glowing a bright orange rather than inky black, and formed a circle around Naruto; one that flickered like a weak flame as it struggled to expand.

Naruto could see blackness at the edge of his vision and could feel his very life starting to drain away. "...Guys hurr-"

He was cut off when most of the cave behind him was blown away and knocked the two toads to the ground while shards of blasted rock were bloodily embedded into his backside. It was only through Naruto's insane pain tolerance that the Time-Rift seal wasn't cut off right then and there.

He was, however, sent to his knees as he spat out blood and chanced a glance behind him, seeing his two friends sporting many bloody spots where they too had been hit by the high-speed projectiles.

Gamakichi, with his ears ringing and blood being all he could see from one eye, tried to rise off the ground with his good arm, but what felt like dozens of burning, bludgeoning stones being pressed into his back sent him back down. He looked and saw that his brother, although bleeding from dozens of small wounds of his own, had come out of the assault far better than he did, as he was already back on his feet and was shouting and pointing at something that the orange toad couldn't make sense of just yet.

When he turned, he saw five massive roots had sprouted from the ground, smashing the cave to shit, and already spilling out a new zetsu horde.

He turned towards his brother, "Leave me, I'll hold 'em off."

Gamatatsu didn't even acknowledge the declaration and scrabbled to help his brother back up. When Gamakichi didn't show the same sense of urgency to get his feet, he settled on dragging the orange toad.

Gamakichi slapped his brothers hands away. "Didn't you hear me?! I said leave me!"

"That's not happening!" Gamatatsu shouted back as he gripped his brothers blue best and started to push his weight forward, in an attempt to use any momentum, he could gain to move faster.

"I'm dead weight! At the very least I can buy you and Naruto a few seconds to go!"

"Shut up!" Gamatatsu yelled as he threw his whole arsenal of paper bombs at the advancing swarm of zetsu, nearly knocking the two of them over from the blowback.

Hearing the two argue, Naruto closed his eyes and focused, scraping up and forcing whatever chakra he had left to be enough.

'Nine-Tails come on! Help me dammit!'

'This life sucking seal of yours has depleted my reserves. I've already scrounged up whatever I have left and gave it to you not even thirty seconds ago. If it's still not enough..."

'...Then we're dead.'

The demon was quiet for a moment.

'I'm being forced to rest...Hopefully I'll stay asleep through it all...'

And with that, the Nine-Tails went silent, and Naruto felt an anvil settle in his stomach when he felt the last bit of chakra he had starting to shrivel up; the time-seal still not fully activated.

The faces of all his friends, both gone and trapped, flashed through his mind.

Naruto felt another shockwave blast through the caverns and felt the cool stale air of the outside flood through the destroyed mountainside, just as much as the blackness and sheer malice that was his presence begin to flood through his senses.

Their hopes and dreams, their goals and ambitions, hobbies and passions.

He could hear his two toad friends screaming and briefly caught sight of the brothers wrestling with something.

He never had a family, so he always felt a particular warmth swell in his chest whenever one of his friends confided their struggles to him, both before and after the start of the war.

His senses blared and he could feel the overwhelming and suffocating power of the ancient Uchiha looming over him.

Sakura's smiles had started to seem brighter, despite the dark days they found themselves in. She would look at Naruto just a second more than she used to, and whenever she touched him, her hand lingered on his person longer than what could be considered appropriate between two people who were only friends.

Naruto could feel the time seal starting to fail, the chakra within it slowly fizzling out. Before he could be drained dry, he took only a sliver of chakra, an eerie calm settling within himself as he diverted it towards his heart. He needed only the barest amount for this last seal.

He had struggled to his feet, his friends all around him, all of them bloodied but alive. Naruto looked towards where the enemy had surged from, the wooded stalks destroyed, with only ash and wooden flakes left, and a tattered Akatsuki robe as the only reminder of the enemy commander. He looked towards the faces of the shinobi force behind him. Like his friends, everyone he saw was bloodied and battered, but alive, with fire in their eyes.

The calm in him slowly turned to a mixture of dread and shame. 'I tried guys. I'll be joining you hopefully.'

But before Naruto could do anything, he felt something shift within, something came alive, and he felt every hair on his body stand as goosebumps prickled across his skin. His heart started to beat so fast that he was sure it was about to explode, and his skin strained from the muscles within swelling like they just had one hell of a workout. And before he knew it, power expelled from every chakra coil he had, and he screamed. Naruto thought he knew what pain was, but as every bit of his chakra network and all the nerves running through his body burned, he realized he had been blissfully ignorant.

And yet, despite being seconds away from passing out from the agony, one thought persisted. 'Activate the seal. Now.'

So, whether this was the Nine-Tails last wind, or his very soul being used as some form of power courtesy of his desperation, Naruto didn't care and diverted it towards the seal without a second thought.

The dying embers of power from the time seal came alive with a vengeance, and the flickering glows of the fuinjutsu formulas that circled Naruto were alight like bright hot steel ready to be hammered into shape. The vortex ripped its way through space and time and the glowing fuinjutsu circle expanded like a balloon that surrounded him from all sides.

And as the last of his strength left him, Naruto saw something large and orange hurling towards him.

"NOO!" Gamakichi roared, landing in a heap just behind Naruto and began to frantically crawl, injuries be damned, back towards his brother who had chucked him like a sack of flower towards the seal before turning to face the white horde.

"You guys are going to be the ones to save the world. If all I got to give you is a few seconds for this to work, then this is an easy choice." The yellow toad declared before unfurling a scroll from his pouch.

Gamakichi crawled like a toad possessed, the skin on his broken arm being punctured from the displaced and broken bones being forced to move and his leg screaming for him to stop. And stop he did, but only because of the yellow chakra barrier that he had run into.

He turned his head. "Damn it! Naruto hurry! You have to undo the seal and…" His words trailed off when he saw Naruto lying face down, unmoving with blood pooling from his nose and closed eyelids, smoke emanating from his body.

As the Time-Rift seal flared in a chaotic display right in front of the two, Gamakichi turned back and felt his very soul go cold when he saw the purple eyes of Madara Uchiha looking down at them from where he hovered, his gaze no different from a hawk that just spotted its prey.

The ancient Uchiha, despite having them dead-to-rights, made no move. Instead, he just watched, as his white robe and hair flowed behind him and then smirked before speaking; his voice as smooth as silk and as cold as ice. "And so, it begins..."

Gamakichi, transfixed by the entity snapped out of his fear induce trance, his eyes going to the back of his brother.

Gamatatsu channeled the last bit of chakra he had into the two large scrolls in his hands and hesitated when he saw the sea of white descending towards him in a frenzy. Taking a deep breath, the yellow toad composed himself.

With a flint in his mouth ready to spark and all the toad oil within the two scrolls ready to be spewed, he looked back, seeing his brother pound desperately away at the yellow barrier and shouting all sort of pleas.

He timidly smiled before turning back; resolve in his heart, and steel in his eyes.

Gamakichi could feel himself being pulled back by an unseen force into the center of the seal and tried to hang on to whatever he could once he felt himself being lifted off the ground. It didn't matter though, as he was yanked away and felt Naruto's limp form crash into him within the violent winds of the sealing vortex.

The last thing he saw, as the blackness of the endless void that is time and space began to encompass everything around him, was his brother charge into the zetsu horde before being consumed by a brilliant bright flash.

'I believe in you guys'

Everything went dark after that.