Author's Notes: Well, not much to say here, another short chapter, just bringing everything together. There are only two more chapters after this, so I'll post the next one tomorrow and the whole thing will be finished Saturday night. Hope that whet's some readers' appetites.

Cleansing the Storm

"Gosain!" Neji calls over the wind to the ninja behind him on Wusashu's back. "How close are we?"

"About to cross the border." Gosain replies grimly. The lightning ninja grimaces in remembrance, but his wounds are healed, and he has only resolve on his return to the troubled land. "There is a clearing nearby we can land in."

"Then that is as far as we go." Wusashu remarks as he runs through the sky. "Already we have lingered too long in this world. We can take you no farther."

The clearing appears below them, and three dragons land there, the great creatures are tired, and suck in great lungfuls of breath.

"My thanks honored Wusashu." Neji says as he dismounts. "You have given us the chance we need to catch Xi."

The T'ien Lung looked at Neji carefully. "You are a strong youth, Draci Neji. But do not think the addition of your strength will overcome the Dark Storm. She is not that kind of enemy." Wusashu bored into Neji's eyes. "Your chance comes in making Draci Xi, chief among those who know us, remember you."

With those enigmatic words Wusashu and his fellow dragons vanished from the clearing, leaving only the four ninja there.

Neji turned to them. "What do you think?"

"We have to catch Xi quickly." Shiren replied. "Something is very strange here."
"Whatever guards were posted, Xi has certainly shredded them." Dar said. "But I don't think we will be unopposed."

Looking at the ground around them, Gosain turned and faced Neji. "Xi will have faced the Dark Storm's loyalists. She will have to find someone else to send against us, perhaps a clan that serves her."

Neji nodded. "When that happens we will deal with it. There is no time for anything else." He gave Shiren and Gosain a nod. "This is your country, lead the way."
The Country of Lightning is verdant and forested, similar in many ways to the Leaf country, but the forests here are more tepid, humid, and their trees grow taller, with mighty trunks that reach to the sky. Fogs are present everywhere, a sign of the constant storms that lash this region, and in many places there is evidence of fires set by lightning. It is a land of borders and edges, unique in its own distinct way. The Country of Lightning, a cooler version of the country of Water perhaps, but fraught with storms and fire, and not an island, but a land.

It is a strong place, but unstable, and Neji recognizes that this is a place that changes rapidly, and he understands why there are so many who bicker and fight amongst themselves in this country, because it has so much difference within. Who could unite this place? He wondered. The first Raikage must have, but that is has stayed so long is strange.

Neji does not grasp the driving forces of weather here, the separate lands with their many varied concerns that drive men apart, and the terrible storms that bring them together again, the paradox of Lightning Country. Regardless, true unity is a rarity in the lands of the ninja, and Lightning has never had one to match the third Hokage. Neji wonders who could take that up for this place, but he cannot find any answers.

They move swiftly through the trees, heading closer to the Hidden village of Cloud, seeking the center of this nation. There are no signs that anyone has passed ahead of them, but Neji knows his route and Xi's would be different. They were coming from the north, having crossed over the devastated Sound Country by air, while Xi would have traveled further south. Hopefully we can avoid opposition that way, but we must find Xi.

Gosain had told them that it would come to battle outside of Hidden Cloud, he understood that much of the politics, but he had no idea where the fight would take place. So, that leaves only hurrying and hoping. Neji decided. At times he wondered why he was doing this, why he was chasing after Xi like this. We have no mission to do so, and Xi is not my friend, though he is important. This fight is not mine, so I wonder.

Part of the answer was simple; Neji knew he was doing this for Shiren, because she would not wish to see Xi die, because his heart had darkened when he left. But there was more to it. Neji recalled the face Xi had made when he put on the mask, grew angry. Are we so unimportant that he throws us away for the sake of a mask and eight years ago? I want to see him take off that mask and accept us to fight beside him, as fellow dragon ninja. Neji could see that by leaving, in many ways he had proclaimed himself the only one worthy.

Shiren stopped suddenly. "The wind changed." She whispered. "They are before us.

"Correct, little weakling!" A lightning ninja emerged from under the cover of tree branches, wearing the regular uniform of lightning, not the midnight blue of the Dark Storm. He carried a long spear in his right hand.

"Clan Nemari." Gosain hissed. "So they're the ones who decided to play lapdog."

Ninja after ninja emerged from the cover of branches and hiding places then, many carried spears, but also other weapons, and their appearances varied. Neji kept a running count, and when the last ninja emerged he spoke. "Sixty, there are sixty of them." The odds were bad, but Neji opened his eyes to the Byakugan. Weak, all of them, these are not powerful ninja; the strongest of them is the equal of Yilosi Nemari who Gosain fought in Stone. "We could beat them." He told his companions. "We will have to scatter and take them in small groups."

"That will take time." Dar muttered. "Problematic." He put his hand to his sword hilt.

"Really?" The Nemari clan ninja raised an eyebrow. "You're awfully confident."

"If you're here then Xi beat through all the Dark Storm's real servants." Gosain retorted. "You idiots are just enough of fools to have been sent out of the line of trouble." Gosain looked over at Neji, pointing at him, Shiren, and Dar in turn. "If one dragon ninja could kill all her servants how will you traitors beat three?"

"Don't mock me you cursed bastard!" The ninja hurled his spear straight at Gosain, and lightning enveloped it as it traveled.

When the spear was a foot of Gosain Neji reached out his right hand and snatched it out of the air, he projected runnels of his own chakra and cut the lightning form apart smoothly, and then dropped the immobile spear to the ground. "I will give you one chance." Neji said calmly to the shocked lightning ninja. "All of you, leave now, or we will pass through you with full force."

"Don't mock us!" The lightning ninja shouted back. "Kill them!"

Damn! Neji thought. We don't have time for this, there are too many to bypass, we will lose any chance of catching Xi!

Shiren and Dar grimaced, knowing this as well, but they drew weapons and made ready to break to whichever side Neji chose.

"We have no time for you traitors!" Gosain howled, pulling his chains out from beneath his flak jacket. Those bands of steel links spun through the air before him.

"What are you going to do with those?" Another ninja mocked from the side.

Gosain's eyes narrowed and he looked out at the sixty ninja, seeing every one, marking their positions. "You are the ones who tried to kill the genin when the Dark Storm came, you betrayed Raikage and all the lightning ninja. I'm going to cleanse the traitors!" Gosain whirled his chains, making seals with both hands around the pole.

The chains broke apart, individual links flying forward in a storm before him. "The Raikage showed us when you must sacrifice!"

Links flew by every one of the ninja, and the two kunai that hung from the end of Gosain's chains land in front of the Nemari clan ninja.

He looked at them quizzically, and shrugged. He took a step forward.

Shiren's eyes went wide, and she saw Gosain turn his pole upright, holding it between his eyes with his right hand, like a katana. "Gosain n-" She began.

Gosain's left hand formed a seal, his first two fingers raised, the outer two closed, and his thumb wrapping forward. He brought the hand to the chains. "Soul Chain Binding!"

The sixty ninja, who had begun to move to attack, suddenly screamed as the chain links that littered the trees exploded in mass of dull gray chain, chains formed of spirit and energy, but that could bind a demon. Gosain doubled over in wracking pain, and blood flowed freely from his mouth, but sixty ninja lay stopped dead, held fast by chains of spirit.

"Dragon ninja..." Gosain muttered, his voice forced and pained. "If...you...could."

Neji nodded, and gathered his chakra, forming seals and bringing his hands to his mouth.

"Dragon breath!"

"Spark missile storm!"

"Rain of Crystal Shards!"

Fire burned, lightning shuriken shocked, and flashing arrowheads of crystal ravaged among the immobile ninja. The attacks were dispersed, widespread and untargeted, a great expenditure of chakra that even an academy student could have dodged, but sixty ninja stood trapped, unable to dodge, and they was no stopping the lethality of those attacks.

In moments where there had been sixty living lightning ninja there were sixty dead lightning ninja, the last to fall was the Nemari clan ninja, whose chains had been made not of links of steel, but connected kunai.

Gosain collapsed to the ground, and his pole slipped from his hand.

The three dragon ninja were at his side in an instant. "Gosain, why did you use that technique?" Shiren asked, her voice sad and troubled. "It is forbidden, who taught it to you?"

"Every soldier has a single last resort." Gosain answered.

"We could have defeated them without such means." Dar said. "That was unnecessary."

Gosain turned his head painfully, and looked over at Neji. Neji nodded. "My thanks, Gosain. You have saved our mission here."

"I knew I had to come." Gosain managed in a scratchy voice. "You can save Xi, but the traitors were my problem." He coughed up a gob of blood. "That technique, it costs you some of your life energy, and shortens your lifespan. Still, it was necessary."

"Will you be alright?" Neji asked simply.

"Ah." Gosain replied. "There are no more enemies here. I'll be okay in a few hours; I'll go find the resistance. Go on, quickly, you must catch Xi before he reaches Cloud Village, all three of you."

"We should leave someone to stay with you." Shiren said from the side. "But we cannot."

"Go on." Gosain muttered. "I can't do anything without my chains anyway."

"Meet with us in Hidden Cloud." Neji told him. He turned to Shiren and Dar. "Let's go."

The three dragon ninja left Kabure Gosain among the fallen and continued after Draci Xi.