The academy spends a lot of time on how to get hit. Like far more time on it than they do on anything else. Chakra control, basic weapons, history, math, even taijutsu. All of them are less practiced, drilled, and trained, compared to the art of 'getting hit real hard'.
This is probably the only reason Naruto even survived the blow that blindsided him. That and Uzumaki blood he didn't even know he had. Sent flying by a kick, judging by the more significant bruising on his ribs and intense feeling of pain in his chest as they broke. He hit the arena wall with a thud, a sound that probably would have rung throughout the Great Leaf Village if it wasn't already thundering with the chorus of combat.
Metal shrieked out, civilians were surprisingly calm, at least for civilians in an active level 1 combat zone. Although, that may be because of the presence of Jiraiya in the stands. Stands that were buffeted with smoke before dozens of dog and horse-sized toad summons were suddenly spread throughout.
'They were obviously prepared for this', Naruto thought to himself. Taking note of their positioning and tactics. Some were focused on ganging up on surprised ninja from Suna, they must be the enemy then. The toads were prepared enough to noticeably be targeting Jounin and what appeared to be important Chunin. While more lone toads were preoccupied with protecting civilians alongside Konoha Chunin and Genin, leading them away from the violence and into designated shelters and safe zones.
Naruto could feel his ribs basically knitting themselves back together, bones shifting into proper place and tissue regrowing. His focus shifted from the Toads to the Sage himself as he made his way through the stands and towards the arena floor. He looked terrifying, like a man Naruto had never seen before in any of their training sessions. Not even their most intense, bone-crushing beat-down ones.
His body moved naturally in a familiar pattern Naruto had studied plenty before, but his hair was already out and harder than steel. His Needle Jizō was active in a way Naruto hadn't even remotely known was possible. Both shielding the living legend from outside attacks and projectiles as well as dashing out in lighting fast spikes. Bouquets of hair grew from the nearly knee-length hair shield surrounding him and spearing enemy ninja in vital and non-vital areas.
Naruto chose this moment to fully come back to his senses. His ribs still healing relatively quickly, the bones already set. His gaze shifted away from his recent sensei and his increasingly blood-soaked hair-weapon. Oddly colored sand swarmed the arena floor, sorta like Gaara's sand but brighter, the mild concussion he most likely had was messing with his senses a bit. It swirled like a hurricane, grabbing Konoha ninja and tossing them around like ragdolls, or simply spearing straight through them.
That's when Naruto remembered what had happened before he had the unlucky opportunity to be on the receiving end of that earth-shattering kick. Hayate had just signaled his victory over Gaara when an explosion went off in the Kage's booth. Followed by a poorly executed mass genjutsu, petals seemingly floating downwards along a breeze except only half-formed and see-through. Almost as if the execution was off, or perhaps only half the expected number of ninja performed the combination genjutsu?
Whatever it was, the poorly timed and executed genjutsu acted as an unofficial starting bell for the battle. Suna ninja startled by the failed technique were noticeably confused and off-balance in the opening moments. The technique that was meant to give them the extra edge in the first crucial moments of battle now serves to hinder them. Konoha ninja, originally shocked momentarily by the explosion, were now given a brief moment of steel-hardened clarity. The failed mass genjutsu an obvious almost even textbook strategy to give the defenders pause allowing the attacking force to slip in with the crucial deep first blow.
In no more than five seconds all of this had happened, and those five seconds would majorly tilt the odds in either side's favor. Suna should have had the initial edge, but their unexpected genjutsu failure not only caused them to pause but seemingly allowed Konoha to even the scales.
First to move was the Anbu, they seemed to flood from entryways and shadows, it was like watching cockroaches scurry away when you kick a bag in an alley. Probably only two platoons worth, but around a hundred Anbu in any one place was terrifying. You almost never actually see combat-ready Anbu inside the village at all, only flits of them over rooftops or funny-looking shadows laying in corners, so this many in one spot so quickly was both comforting and the stuff of nightmares.
They were followed only fractionally behind by the Jounin in the crowd. Which spoke volumes about Konoha's defense intelligence, Naruto noted. The Anbu were ready, that wasn't just a blind swarm of a surprised force retaliating, they got into positions, set up zones and perimeters, and then moved into action alongside the reacting Jounin.
It was when the Chuunin and Genin started to really react and get into gear that Naruto's memory got hazy. More like blurry, as he suddenly went from standing to partially embedded in the arena wall. The rest of the stands and his surroundings blurred by him on his very quick trip to his current location.
Currently, Naruto looked towards the smoking Kage's booth and the path of destruction leading away from it and onto the arena's rooftop. Dozens of bodies littered the path, some of them Suna ninja, but the vast majority were dressed like Anbu with all-white masks. Most likely not friendly, judging from the many others that were flitting around the arena harassing Konoha ninja.
Naruto felt rather than heard the oppressive wave of chakra that suddenly arose. It was coming from the rooftop that Hokage-Sama had taken as his chosen battleground. Where a purple barrier had sprouted up and the obvious signs of heavy combat taking place within it.
Naruto looked at it for a few moments longer and figured that any battle that the God of Shinobi deemed to enter was one that he could not currently help with.
—-
Under almost any other circumstances Hiruzen would currently be an enormous ball of nerves. His village was under siege, his own former friend was the orchestrator of the siege alongside Konoha's supposed ally Suna, and he was currently 'stuck' inside a barrier being sustained by the sound four and a second barrier being maintained by four of his own Anbu guard.
But things were far from bleak. And if they played their cards just right, things might even be looking quite bright.
For one, a not insignificant part of Danzo's invasion plan hinged on his supposedly wayward student Orochimaru and around 300 Otogakure shinobi. Both to help kill Hiruzen, and to spread Konoha's forces thin between the Arena, the inner village, and the village walls. But without Otogakure there was no outward threat at their gates, and Danzo suddenly lost an S-ranked player and added one to his opponents' roster. Not to mention the mass damage to the plan caused by Orochimaru warning Konoha early, Anbu already in pre-determined kill-boxes, key Jounin alert and ready surrounding the arena, and most importantly Jiraiya.
Second, was that with Jiraiya in the village, and in the arena. He was ready and waiting long before the genjutsu was set, and he had his own clones covertly moving throughout the stands both marking important enemy combatants, as well as preparing summoning seals in key locations for his toad summons to appear.
With Jiraiya's preparedness, he was able to severely handicap any enemy combatants within the arena before the fighting even began. And his subsequent rampage once it all started up certainly aided in thinning out a significant portion of the enemy Suna ninja.
But Jiraiya's real job was to either contain any uppity foreign Kage who weren't involved or to deal with Rasa in the likely event that he wasn't caught within the barrier jutsu. And seeing as how the current Kazekage was currently in the middle of the arena near his Jinchuuriki son after he all but curb stomped Naruto across the arena. Meant that Jiraiya certainly only had one real objective in mind.
—-
Kill the idiot that would dare invade his village and hurt his unknowing godson. Was the only thought or plan going through the Sannin's head anymore.
Possibly the strongest of the Three Legendary Ninja hailing from Konoha slowly made his way through the crowd and down towards the arena. His lack of speed was not a method of instilling fear in his opponents or the invaders. His presence alone did that. But a sort of stalling tactic as the two elderly toads sitting on his shoulders aided him in the gathering and balancing of natural chakra with his own large reserves.
"Ya know Jiraiya-boy ya wouldn't have 'ta have us with you when you do this if you just finished your training." The toad on his left shoulder said as a brace of shurikens could be both heard and felt bouncing off of his supposedly 'defensive' technique. A small controlled burst of chakra was all it took for a spike of his hair to silence the source.
"Yes ma, I'm sorry. As you can see I have been more than a little busy recently. What with a whole invasion-" A gentle slap struck the side of his head from the toad who hadn't yet spoken.
"Boyo we both know that you had plenty'a time ta finnish your trainin. It's been years since you spent more than a night in Myoboku."
Jiraiya simply let out a low sigh. "Yes pa, yes ma. I promise I'll finish my training as soon as we are through with the backlash from Suna's little stunt." A nod was the only response he got from both ancient summonses.
That was when he suddenly noticed he no longer needed to extend his senses around him to feel both enemy and friendly combatants in the area. He suddenly innately felt each of their presences and exact locations. Less like a traditional radar based on chakra exuded and controlled by the body, and more like an innate understanding of the world around you, almost like looking at a puzzle after you finished it. Once you understood, the puzzle just fit together and you knew the whole picture. In this instance, the picture being your exact surroundings for a significant distance.
Upon this otherworldly feeling coming over him, Jiraiya allowed his Needle Jizō to recede. At least six separate Suna ninja in the area noticed this and immediately took it as a sign of fatigue and let loose a volley of kunai and shuriken to impale the dangerous man.
Only for their weapon volley to bounce off of him like he was steel. With one discrete handsign in response, thin individual strands of hair shot out from Jiraiya's spikey mane and impaled each of the six ninja that had attacked him. And no sooner than the spikes had appeared, they disappeared along with the man himself.
Jiraiya reappeared on the arena floor. Subconsciously placing himself between his still-healing student and the rampaging Kage. Tendrils of golden sand emanated from the enemy's leader, similar to Gaara's own offensive technique, writhed and swung about. They were slowly spreading from his body and moving out into the stands as he gathered more and more chakra into the technique. Knocking Konoha ninja around the arena and impaling those too slow to dodge the smaller yet sharper tendrils that hid in the shadows of the larger ones.
Jiraiya rushed through handseals faster than most in attendance could see the movement, let alone the signs he was making. And suddenly a large swamp spread out from under his feet. Soon it grew to encompass more than half the arena floor, and the entirety of the area that the Kazekage claimed for himself.
A green blur was suddenly sent careening from the inner circle of the writhing tendrils and embedded itself in a wall. The dust settled and Might Gai was revealed, crouched where his feet met the wall, only the crater three times the size of his body showing that he had previously been moving faster than most Jounin dreamed of.
Suddenly Jiraiya turned into command mode and barked out an order to his technical junior. "Gai, I need you to remove the other friendlies from the arena floor and then stay at a distance with the tendrils. No use throwing more bodies into the buzzsaw now that I've fully prepared."
"Jiraiya-Sama they are moving very fast, and only get faster the closer you get to the center. Are you sure-" Gai's natural inclinations towards his fellow ninja's well-being was appreciated but certainly not necessary.
"I've been fighting S-rank ninja since you were in diapers. I appreciate the concern, but at the moment you will be better served making sure the bastard doesn't try to extend his range any further and put more allies in danger. Just do your best to keep his reach within the arena walls, don't want him poking at our backs in the stands."
The Sannin's look brokered no further disagreements, and the Green Beast was suddenly gone. A brief uplift of dust the only thing marking his quick departure to carry out Jiraiya's orders.
Soon the arena was just about empty, the only people left were Naruto still embedded in the wall, Gai and a few of his Jounin pals flitting about on the edge's of the Kazekage's current territory, and himself. The fighting in the stands both calming down and staying far away from the Kazekage's deadly golden tendrils.
—-
"Fuck!" The blonde exclaimed as he pried his left arm from the concrete he was currently embedded in. A piece of rebar he hadn't previously noticed was stuck two or three inches into the arm he had just cleanly pulled from the wall. His overflowing chakra and adrenaline both let him ignore the inconsequential pain as well as begin the accelerated healing process.
He extricated himself from the wall and fell to his knees. He figured he had broken more than his initial estimates, but not much. He should be up and ready pretty soon. He popped a soldier pill into his mouth, both filling out his reserves and bringing him to his feet. He glanced around before holding his hand out.
A split second passed before the Jishaku appeared in his left hand, and he had to focus a bit harder with his right hand. It seemed that the Kazekage's attack had sent the weapon rather far from him, which immediately caused Naruto to tense. Not again, never again.
He redoubled his efforts and hardened his chakra. With another flex, his Naginata finally appeared in his right hand. Good, he thought to himself. I'm going to need both of these for the fight ahead.
From what he could figure out the Fourth Kazekage's bloodline was the same as his son's, except he utilized gold dust instead of his son's golden sands. This might actually make Naruto's job easier. A chakra-based magnetic bloodline, that was a fortunate outcome for the Genin.
He would probably look back on these thoughts after his massive head trauma had cleared up and realize what an insane decision he had made, but that was a problem for a future and rational Naruto. This Naruto was pissed, invade his home, put his team and friends in danger, and then blindside him? He was all but literally seeing red, or maybe he had been hit in the head as well and literally was seeing red. Either way, that was a problem for the medic-nin to figure out later.
He watched the tendrils whipping throughout the lower arena. Seemingly striking out as someone inside that clusterfuck appeared to be throwing around high-level ninjutsu. A swamp was already surrounding the area, that was something the blonde recognized. Jiraiya must be in there trying to take the foreign Kage down.
With this Naruto allowed the Jishaku in his left hand to slip and he switched into a reverse grip, the blade going off to his left. He then choked up on his Naginata, a long weapon that is traditionally wielded with two hands. But Naruto never was one for tradition.
Satisfied that his two weapons that were not meant to be wielded together were as comfortable as they would ever get in his grip, he prepared his chakra and flexed it one more time. Forcing himself forward towards the deadly fray.
His Naginata leading the way, like a horseman's lance. He wielded it about in front of himself, using quick and carefully controlled strikes to cut through the tendrils. The disconnected half fell limply to the floor, while the other half would continue on before the Kazekage realized it had been cut and pulled it back in towards himself. The cut-off gold sand eventually found its way back towards its user as well, but at a more sedate pace. Perhaps a general magnetic attraction towards himself, but he can only currently manipulate the gold sand attached to his technique?
After two or three of these precise strikes, the man must have noticed. Because his efforts toward Naruto suddenly doubled and then tripled. Soon Naruto found he was unable to keep up, both the number and speed of the tendrils overwhelming him. He brought his left hand about, Jishaku still tight in his grip, he prepared to expel his chakra violently before he was suddenly lifted off his feet.
He found himself face to face with Jiraiya, his short-time sensei's face looking suspiciously more like a toad than he remembered, his pupils had changed to match and a few warts dotted his complexion. Naruto would have laughed if he wasn't in the middle of yet another S-ranked fight that was clearly way over his head.
"You little shit. You were supposed to stay put or flee, not jump right into the middle of a fight you started." The Sannin's voice broke out over the sounds of battle. Naruto still being carried under one of his arms.
"Well, what do you expect me to do? The asshat blindsided a genin, and just so happens to have a bloodline that I've created two pretty solid counters to." He quipped. Surprised by his own lightheartedness in such a dour situation.
At this, the Toad Sannin's face lit up. Naruto could see something dawning upon the elder ninja, before he was suddenly placed down just outside of the metallic tendrils' deadly territory. Jiraiya looked at him before he must have noticed Naruto's expression change as a wild tendril darted out and towards his midsection.
For his part, the Sage merely stepped over just to the side of the strike and struck his own hand out. It broke right through the tendril and caused it to go limp. A display that cemented Jiraiya's image as a badass into Naruto's mind, even if he would die before he ever told the pervert.
"Listen here ya idiot. Normally I wouldn't involve you in a fight like this, but you may just be able to cut it short. I'm gonna need you to do something really, really stupid." He said to the Genin.
"Could you explain what that stupid thing is at least?"
"Well, and you aren't going to like this. But I'm basically going to throw you into the middle of that," he said as he gestured towards the Kazekage's deadly defensive technique. "I've only gotten close enough to see him a few times, and I'll need to expend a significant amount of energy to get even closer to him. But with you, I may be able to end this quickly."
Naruto just nodded dumbly. Still stuck on the part where he was going to be thrown into an almost literal wood chipper.
"Can you make your blades magnetic field cover your body?" He asked seriously.
A small toad that Naruto just now noticed quickly interrupted "I know what yer plannin Jiraiya-boy and you better not." A stern look from the Sannin quieted the feminine voice down. This was obviously a dire situation if he was even considering something this insane. Good Konoha ninja were dying, and the longer he took to remove the enemy's head, the more damage would be done.
"I'm not sure, but even if I can it'll probably only last for a second or two at best." At this Jiraiya seemed to hesitate. Before he quickly quashed that feeling deep down and hardened his resolve.
"That will be plenty. I just need to get in close once and this fight will be over." Naruto was a little hesitant at the legend's words, but a foreign Kage was currently running amok within their village walls. And Naruto certainly was not thinking clearly. This was basically the exact time to try something insane and dangerous.
"Do it" the blonde said aloud. His Naginata simply disappeared back into its containing seal, and he held the Jishaku in a much more practical and comfortable grip.
He began to slowly build chakra, both evenly throughout himself, and within his blade. As he quickly maxed out on the amount he could just hold naturally within his body outside of his coils he nodded his ascent to Jiraiya.
As the living legend picked him up to do what is quite possibly the dumbest thing he had ever done, he began to flex his chakra and channel it down his arm toward his blade. He let out a single silent prayer to whoever might be listening, and suddenly he was flying through the air.
He flew like a spear, head first with his blade gripped near him seemingly ready to strike out at any wayward tendrils. As he neared them the Kazekage must have seen him because suddenly dozens of them converged on his location, like a wave of terrifying razor-sharp metal. Finally, he allowed his chakra to fill the blade. He could feel the power within it as it thrummed and time seemed to slow.
Metal from the tendrils flaked away as it neared him before a ringing was heard throughout the battlefield. Then suddenly it was like they hit an invisible wall when they came within a few feet of Naruto and then they were violently repelled.
The space was easily twice the size of what Naruto had hoped for, and in a brief second, he could see the surprised look of the Kazekage as he hurtled in towards him and broke through the final barrier.
Once again Naruto felt rather than saw the immense usage of Chakra near him. It was so overbearing he found it hard to breathe but it passed quickly. Literally, in less time than it takes to blink Jiraiya's golden red form overtook his own and collided with the wide-eyed Kazekage.
A blinding light flashed out from the two S-ranked combatants as Jiraiya's massive Rasengan collided with the mixed-metallic visage of the Kazekage. Instead of being sent flying, as Naruto so often was when struck by the technique's smaller version, he was slowly ground down into the floor of the arena.
The Kazekage's own defensive technique finally gave out as he violently crumpled to the floor. Suddenly the massive storm of golden tentacles calmed down and dropped, like a puppet with its strings cut. And the form of the father could be seen lying next to that of the son, the family resemblance noticeable to anyone around.
This all happened in a few short seconds, Naruto landed against the opposing wall of the arena, although this time in a controlled crouch. And he made his way back towards the center, where Jiraiya stood above the leader of the enemy ninja.
Silence slowly crept around the arena, as the few remaining Suna ninja within the arena noticed that their Kage had been stomped into the ground by Konoha's Toad Sage. Soon they began to surrender, and that marked the downturn of the fighting.
At this Naruto allowed himself to calm. He was standing next to Jiraiya above the Kazekage, who he now knew was named Rasa thanks to Jiraiya. The Sannin put an arm around Naruto's shoulder gently, as the fatigue began to pile on and his injuries made themselves known. The last dregs of adrenalin were leaking out of his system when Jiraiya finally spoke up again.
"Kid, that was the ballsiest thing I've ever seen anyone do and live."
Naruto probably would have allowed himself a smile at the compliment, if his body hadn't just given out from collective trauma and exhaustion.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Hiruzen put his worries about Naruto-Kun, Jiraiya-Kun, and the rest of his beloved village to the side. He had faith in them, and in his ninja, they would come out stronger. He only needs to focus on his current objective.
"I should have known to never trust a snake." Spat the elderly shinobi half covered in bandages. Smoke billowed around him, and no discernible injury in his gut where Orochimaru's Kusanagi had pierced him only moments previously during the initial moments of Danzo's sabotaged coup.
Hiruzen, garbed in his old warring-clan era battle armor, only needed to glance at his student to communicate the implications of Danzo's seemingly miraculous health. It seemed that Orochimaru's hard-gathered intelligence was proven true. Danzo had access to the sharingan. And it is entirely possible he had more than one, judging by his relatively calm demeanor.
"Old friend, I had no idea the depths you would sink to for power." The hurt and dismay in Hiruzen's voice sounded quite genuine. This was a man he had once considered a dear friend and rival, who he had apparently lost to the darkness inherent in the shinobi world.
"Power!?" Danzo questioned in anger. "I did this for the greater good, for the betterment of Konoha. The roots SUPPORT the TREE, whether or not the tree knows what needs to be done!" Danzo's resolve seemed to be as firm as his words. It is only too bad that resolve led him towards a pointless rebellion fueled by his own delusions of grandeur.
"The greater good? Danzo, executing an entire clan on baseless suspicion so that you can further entrench yourself in their power is not for the betterment of the village." Hiruzen's face hardened, "The political upheaval from this event alone is not for the betterment of this village! These are actions of a man desperate for his own power, his own gain." A quick glance at his student showed that her preparations were complete, and it was becoming increasingly obvious Danzo would not be stopped with mere words.
"Obviously you believed yourself above Tobirama's teachings, Sarutobi." He looked down at him, ready to continue their argument, but the third Hokage's hands blurred into motion at the same time as Orochimaru's barrier pulsed and turned a deeper shade of purple. Hardening it against the worst-case scenario, a Danzo with multiple Sharingan, possibly multiple evolved Sharingan.
Danzo incorrectly correlated the end of Hiruzen's odd sequence of hand seals with whatever happened to the barrier that surrounded them. So he was caught seemingly unaware when what appeared to be hundreds of the ceramic roofing tiles they were standing on speed towards him like kunai.
In one smooth motion, Danzo lept backward to gain distance from the deadly projectiles, while two root ninja, clad in black, emerged from his shadow to take the brunt of the surprise attack in his stead.
However, what should have been a small early victory felt tainted. Most likely because of the victorious smile on Danzo's face. In obviously practiced hand seals too quick to properly follow, Danzo activated his technique. The two bodies seemed to turn to ash and melt away into the roof, at the same time as an equal number of sturdy stone coffins rose from the same place on the rooftop.
Sarutobi noted the 'First' and 'Second' markings emblazoned on both coffins and gave his student a knowing look. "What?" She responded to his non-verbal disapproval. "I made certain he never got access to a working version of that technique on my end, and all of my agents assured me that he was years away from properly reverse engineering it."
Hiruzen simply shrugged at this, the technique was sure to be imperfect, as well as their power limited in order for Danzo to control them. This would make things more difficult, but the end results would not be any different.
"I must confess to having lied previously," the traitor practically cackled out. "I certainly knew not to trust a snake like you Orochimaru. And I made sure that you had no inkling of my more important projects." With that said the lids of both coffins slid off and landed with a resounding thud. Danzo slapped two sealed kunai into the heads of the emerging bodies of the first and second Hokage from the summoned coffins. Their previously stone-like faces turned to a more slack-jawed visage as Danzo inserted the seals.
"Your technique is obviously hackneyed, Danzo. Can you even control them?" What seemed like another verbal jab at his former friend was quickly picked up by his student as a cue for one of their many pre-set plans for this very fight. As quick as her namesake, Orochimaru dashed forward towards Danzo and his partially resurrected former Kage.
Danzo's response was to lazily gesture a hand towards Orochimaru, and the men considered to be the founding father of Konoha moved to intercept her. In a flash of motion, her Kusanagi flew through the air with a deadly whistle. Beating its master to the punch by embedding itself in the first Hokage's head, not even a beat later her hand appeared on the handle.
She immediately got to work removing the blade and dismantling the two not-so-living legends, hacking and slashing at limbs, removing hands, even blinding them. Anything and everything she could do at close range to damage them and get a grasp on their current state of being. This continued for a few moments as the zombified Kage's could only react to her opening salvo by taking the attacks head-on. To her, cutting them was like cutting through sand, the resistance noticeably different compared to a human body, something she knew quite well. And the regeneration of their wounds was slower than expected, not an unwelcome surprise, as it most likely pointed toward the technique being poorly executed.
The two legends soon regained their bearings as wood sprouted from the First's body, blocking sword strikes and reaching out toward her. While a wave of water bullets appeared from thin air around the Second, ready to spear through the kunoichi who was currently vivisecting their resurrected bodies.
Orochimaru was prepared for this, not believing for a moment that she would be able to dominate an entire fight with these two monsters masquerading as human men. Right when the first batch of water projectiles struck her body she dissolved into mud, a prepared mud clone having replaced herself at the last moment.
Before her two opponents could further search their surroundings, a dragon made of fire, buffeted by a wind technique, swept through the area. Obviously the handy work of the Third Hokage. Allowing Orochimaru to gather some much-needed breathing room, as well as allowing Hiruzen to bypass both of their guards and move past his former sensei and mentors in a mad B-line for Danzo.
"There is nowhere to run traitor. This barrier will not fall until you lay dead at my feet." Sarutobi wasted absolutely no time once he was past Danzo's disgraceful 'bodyguards'. With no hand signs to signal his attack, bullets of wind escaped his mouth while he closed the last few meters separating him from the soon-to-be corpse.
Too many to properly dodge in time, Danzo was forced to absorb the blows from a few of the wind bullets. The bandages covering part of his face came loose from the attack, revealing the Sharingan implanted in his eye socket.
"If either of us is a traitor to Konoha, it is not me Hiruzen. It is you who allowed weakness to fester. Allowing Kumo to extract their pound of flesh from us for THEIR transgressions." He leaped up and over a low strike from his opponent's spinning bo staff while beginning a set of hand seals, a barrage of kunai and shuriken leaving his sleeves in the same motion.
Never one to miss a beat, the reigning Hokage batted all of the projectiles aside like they were toys thrown by an academy student. Throwing his bo staff as if it was a giant fuuma shuriken at Danzo's center mass he also launched into his own hand seals, seemingly matching and then overtaking Danzo's own.
They both finished within a heartbeat of each other. Hiruzen with the telltale exhale of a wind technique, and Danzo by clapping his hands together violently. Blades of wind flew out from his palms, dotted with the small yet deadly explosions of his vaunted vacuum techniques. While Hiruzen's jutsu seemed to have no visible effect, that is until Danzo's own technique neared him and the explosions suddenly stopped.
"It seems that The Professor has not been slacking in his training." Danzo's response was terse, unlike his previously stern and aloof manner. It's not that he necessarily expected the Hokage to fall prey to his wind vacuum technique, but to have negated them so perfectly before he had even used it, was more than a little disconcerting.
"Your greatest mistake, among the myriad of others, was convincing yourself that I was weak, old friend." He quickly moved to dodge the black flames Danzo sent his way. "The black flames of Amaterasu said to burn for seven days and nights. Without the proper preparations, it would be a difficult technique to counter. But…" Hiruzen simply tossed out a small scroll, it unfurled as it flew through the air and landed in the flames. The flames themselves being absorbed into the seal on the scroll, licking away at the edges but not actually burning it.
He allowed a simple smile to grace his elderly features. "Danzo, there is nothing you can do that I have not prepared a counter for." The scroll flew back through the air and into his hand, the glint of ninja wire now visible. "The barrier will not allow you to leave, and Orochimaru is more than enough to hand your poorly resurrected monstrosities. Surrender and I may let you live." A lie and they both knew it. Danzo was as good as dead when Orochimaru returned to tell Hiruzen of his plans. If only he had gotten to him earlier a lot of damage could have been mitigated. Sadly, he had been too complacent, too trusting that his old rival still had Konoha's best interest at heart even if they both had different methods of securing those interests.
The two elder shinobi met again in a bout of taijutsu. Hands and the occasional kunai meeting in a flash, before a stone spike pierced the traitor from behind. The wound in his gut, reminiscent of the one Orochimaru had given him earlier, immediately began gushing blood. Before it suddenly wasn't. As if it had phased out of existence, blood no longer running down his body in deep rivulets like it had moments before.
"You can not win this fight Sarutobi, no matter your preparations. Your weakness allowed me to grow in strength for the betterment of Konoha." The partially bandaged man was beginning to sound maniacal, his gaze hardening as a grand fireball emerged from his mouth. Hiruzen, having not noticed the half-seals Danzo had been forming by his side, had no time to dodge.
Emerging from the fireball, his clothes singed and burnt, Hiruzen's expression had only grown more grave. It seemed like it was time to get serious about this.
The Third Hokage's chakra flared in an intense demonstration of power indicative of his years of training and experience. Even to the Jounin level Anbu outside of the barrier, it felt as if they were standing too close to a roaring fire. His presence was expanding, the fire growing alongside it as it expanded like it was out of control. Before it suddenly stopped, its absence felt like the bitter cold on a winter's night.
A few moments after the abrupt absence of their Hokage's presence, the purple barrier fell. The dust settled.
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Sorry this took so long. I've actually had all but the Hokage's fight written forever. But I knew I wanted both fights to take up one chapter since they both occur at the same time, and it just felt right. I think I've got some interesting ideas about where this story is going, or at least how it will get to its destination. Because I definitely do have a destination set, at least a framework of it. And if you haven't figured it out by now I like to ramble, no idea if those rambling are any good or not, but I suppose that is the purpose of this, isn't it?
Please, feel free to leave any comments or thoughts you may have. Anything is welcome. And I don't have an editor, so I hope I can catch all or most of my mistakes. I've got a weird career with weird hours, so I often jot down storylines, plot points, beats, and even sometimes entire sections (Like Sarutobi and Danzo's fight) in short increments on my phone during commercial breaks. So if things sometimes appear to be a little erratic, that is probably why. Although, I do like saving time (mine and yours) by really only telling the parts of a story that matter. I don't need to know what he does every day, filler doesn't tell a story, plot does.
Also, let me know how you feel about how I've been using technique names so far. I've mostly been trying to do it without names kind of often, depending on who is fighting, because I feel like people like Hiruzen wouldn't be wasting time with them most of the time in high level fights. In this world time matters in a fight, they are quick and brutal, flashy can be nice but useless in situations like that. But maybe people don't like that, or it isn't clear enough. I'd shrug if you could see me.