All standard disclaimers apply.
Chapter 12
Bloodshed and Mayhem Galore
"Kurama has finished off the advance army," Hiei said, one hand touching his covered jagan.
"Eh?" Naruto looked surprised, "That quickly?"
"Not surprising," Yuusuke grunted, "He's in a forest full of weapons that answer just to him, after all,"
"He's heading back,"
"Yo!" Kurama seemed to appear on a branch in front of them, "That was easy,"
"What's you do?" Naruto asked. Kurama shrugged.
"They're Otonin, right? Attracted to sound? I played them a song then let my plants have fun," he laid a fond hand on the tree trunk beside him and smiled. The trees leaved rustled in the still air.
"That sounds so evil," Naruto blinked at his sensei. Kurama shrugged again.
"What's the situation like, Hiei?" Yuusuke asked.
"They haven't found the corpses yet and it doesn't look like they will anytime soon. There are roughly six hundred more, including Kabuto and Orochimaru,"
"Kabuto? Who's he?"
"Orochimaru's number one. According to reports he's trained in the medical field using ki as the operating tools and has adapted that knowledge to the battlefield," Kurama explained.
"He's the kind of guy that can stab you in the heart and leave your skin unbroken while you bleed out internally," Naruto scowled, remembering the times he fought the Konoha traitor.
"Sounds like a keeper," Yuusuke smiled sarcastically.
"Isn't he just?" Hiei agreed with an equal amount of sarcasm.
"How far away is everyone else?" Kurama interrupted.
"We have an hour if we wait here, less if we go to meet them," Hiei answered promptly.
"Anyone here feel like waiting?" Yuusuke asked, looking around. Getting no answer he grinned and cracked his knuckles, "Guess we're meeting up with them, then. Lead the way, Hiei,"
And the little band of fighters blurred out of human vision.
When they paused in their race they were just out of sight of the invading army. Every one of them had tamped down their auras until they were undetectable in order to maintain the element of surprise.
"So who wants what?" Yuusuke asked seriously.
"These are Otonin. They use sound as weapons. It would be best is Hiei and I disposed of them before they can execute any of their attacks," Kurama suggested.
"Sound?" he absently touched one of his ears, "That's dangerous for us youkai,"
"Indeed,"
"Go ahead,"
"What about me?" Naruto protested.
"You wait for Orochimaru. That's your fight," Kurama said seriously, taking out his Rose Whip. He and Hiei vanished.
"Eh, if Kurama's right then this Kabuto guy and this snake dude should at least be a halfway decent fight," Yuusuke smirked, watching his friends at work. Hiei was nothing more than a flashing black blur that darted between the enemy shinobi leaving decapitation in his wake. Kurama wielded his Whip and the surrounding plants with the deadly grace of a Yoko, like a living blender.
"Holy…" Naruto whispered to himself, watching. Yuusuke looked at the blond.
"Surprised?" he asked.
"I had no idea that they were so…good,"
"Yeah, well, they are some of the best of the Makai,"
"I trained under Kurama but I still had no idea,"
"Kurama's just one of those guys. You'd never know to look at him that he hardly conforms to the standards of humanity even though he is human," Yuusuke said, "I guess you can blame Yoko for that,"
"Yoko…the kitsune that was inside Kurama?" Naruto asked, unable to peel his eyes from the massacre.
"That's him. Although I have to admit that he's mellowed quite a bit now that he's mated my cousin,"
Naruto tore his eyes from the carnage, "Your cousin? Kagome-san is your cousin? But… Kurama said she was human,"
Yuusuke laughed, "Kagome-chan is completely human. Most of the time. She was formally adopted by a Taiyoukai so she's got a youkai form too, but it's at odds with her miko nature so she doesn't use it often. I got my youkai blood from my father,"
"So you're a hanyou?"
"And a darned powerful one too. Had to be in order to take over my father's lands," the toushin boasted.
They had to move to another tree when the one they were perched in was toppled by an enemy attack. Of course, since they had moved, this caught the attention of the Otonin and Yuusuke and Naruto were dragged headlong into the fray. Yuusuke disposed of the shinobi immediately around them with a blinding area blast of raw energy.
"Ha! Take that, pathetic excuses for ninjas!" he crowed.
"Shinobi!" Naruto, who had ducked to avoid the intense blast, corrected him.
"What's the difference?" Yuusuke shot back.
Naruto was stumped, so he did not answer. He did, however, slam his fist through a Otonin's chest leaving a gigantic hole in his wake.
"Hey! You're not too bad," Yuusuke complimented. Naruto grinned a feral grin, showing off sharp canines.
"I'm a shinobi, of course I'm good!" he boasted taking out another three Otonin. Yuusuke laughed, incinerating a ten-foot wide path in front of him, clearing it of aggressors.
:Kit, let me try something: Chitose begged. Naruto stepped back and let the kitsune take over. Everyone on the battle field noticed the change immediately, those who didn't were probably already dead. Chitose grinned, her red eyes flashing. She prepped one fist, glowing with red youki, and brought it down to slam into the ground.
Nothing happened.
Then there was a ripple, a shockwave, and then an explosion of rock. The earth jerked, flew apart, stone flying everywhere. Cries of terror and the sounds of undoubtedly painful collisions reigned. Chitose smiled grimly. She could sense that Kurama, Hiei and Yuusuke were safe from her attack, unlike the Otonin.
"Holy crap! What was that?" Yuusuke demanded, shielding himself with his arms and aura.
"I was growing weary of waiting for my turn to fight that unholy spawn of a low class snake. These peons will not stand in my way," Chitose said, like that explained everything.
"Well," Yuusuke said as the rocks stopped flying, "Just warn a guy next time, 'kay?"
"As you wish, Toushin-sama," Chitose shot back, red eyes laughing.
"What was that, you stupid fox?" Hiei snarled, appearing before the sealed kitsune.
"That was me expediting this little war, hybrid," she said shortly, "I have waited long enough,"
"It certainly was flashy enough," Kurama commented, "I think you got their attention," he pointed to a giant snake with a couple people riding on its head.
"Orochimaru," Chitose growled, claws and fangs lengthening and a bloodthirsty aura whirling around her.
"That is a big snake," Kurama whistled. Hiei shot him a look.
"Fox, if you have nothing to contribute,"
"Hey, I was just commenting,"
"Well," Yuusuke added almost sheepishly, "You have to admit that that is one big snake,"
Hiei just rolled his eyes.
"Well, if it isn't the Kyuubi-brat," drawled one of the men on top of the snake's head.
"Not the brat," Chitose corrected stalking forwards, "It's the real deal you have to deal with today, scum,"
"So?" Orochimaru and Kabuto jumped to the ground on either side of the giant snake, neither one looking particularly worried that they were about to face off with a youkai.
"These are the guys?" Yuusuke asked his friends. They nodded. The toushin squinted his eyes, trying to get a better look at the enemy. "They don't look all that dangerous,"
Kurama stifled a laugh.
The giant snake hissed at them.
Kurama could not stifle his laughter this time. The riotous cacophony drew the attention of everyone still alive. The former avatar calmed, sighed and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.
"Sorry! Sorry! Please continue!" he apologized, "You were just about to start fighting. Or launch into a corny and overdone, melodramatic you-can't-defeat-me-because-I-am-the-source-of-all-evil type speech, right?"
"Oi," Yuusuke groaned, "I think not having Yoko nattering away at him all the time's made him go just a little loopy,"
"I think you might be right," Hiei agreed, eyes wide and staring at his long time friend. "As much as I hate to agree with you…"
Chitose rolled her eyes and turned back to Orochimaru and Kabuto. The Konoha traitors stared at her impassively.
"You brought some friends this time? Will we have to kill them too?" Orochimaru purred. Chitose smirked evilly.
"You have no idea who they are,"
"Oi! Fox!" Yuusuke stepped up, "Which one do I get?"
"Kabuto is the one with white hair," Chitose said, "Orochimaru is the one who looks so much like his snake-friend there,"
Yuusuke cocked his head to one side, "Hey…he does look like a snake, doesn't he? Guess that's what he gets for trying to make an immortality pact. Looks like it didn't turn out right,"
"Immortality pact? With a snake? That's got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard of," Hiei added scornfully.
"Enough! You shall all die here and now!" Orochimaru declared. The giant snake shot forward, its head reared back dangerously. It actually was allowed to get within twenty feet of the toushin and jinchuuriki before it was turned into flaming snake bits by an innocent looking Hiei. Hiei sheathed his sword and wandered back to stand next to Kurama again.
"I got twenty," Kurama said.
"Thirty-three," Yuusuke tossed in.
Hiei smirked, "Thirty nine," he corrected them. They both cursed.
"Well," Yuusuke shrugged it off, "At least my eyes are getting quicker,"
Orochimaru screamed in abject fury. Chitose's attention focused on the snake summoner, ignoring Kabuto who was phasing in and out of normal vision as he advanced towards them.
Yuusuke's punch just grazed the white-haired shinobi's cheek. Kabuto countered with a kunai aimed for the throat. Yuusuke sidestepped and dropped the medicnin with a faster-than-the-youkai-eye-can-see kick.
The crater he made upon impact was quite impressive.
Yuusuke hopped from foot to foot, staring down at his fallen opponent. "Come on!" he complained after a few seconds, "I had been hearing so many things about the fighters here, tell me this isn't all you got!"
There was a poof of smoke and a log replaced the body in the crater. Yuusuke smirked.
"That's better,"
Meanwhile, back with Orochimaru and his hissy fit…
"You killed my kits for some ritual to gain immortality!" Chitose screamed, lunging at the Sannin.
"Those were your kits?" Orochimaru sounded vaguely amused. He dodged the outright attack with ease. "They weren't very powerful,"
The whites of Chitose's red eyes bled scarlet as she forced more youki through her host's human body. Orochimaru dodged again as she lunged again. His arms may be useless but his legs were not. He lashed out with a vicious kick to her head. She caught his foot and twisted, sending the Sannin spinning. He landed in a crouch, his limp arms brushing the ground.
"You're so slow today, demon," he taunted, "How do you expect to avenge your kits if you can't even catch me?"
Yuusuke punched him in the head, sending him sprawling. Chitose pounced before the evil Sannin could roll away. Her hands formed a seal unfamiliar to her victim.
"Elements of earth, elements of sky; elements of wet, elements of dry; elements that be hot and that be cold, the master of Two calls," she hissed, licking her fangs dangerously, "Come to me,"
The earth trembled slightly, the winds picked up. Small drops of rain began to fall and blossoms of flame danced around the sealed kitsune, at odds with the precipitation. Yuusuke looked away from a barely conscious Kabuto, whose bloodied face was never going to look the same again. Kurama and Hiei also observed from their places on the sidelines.
"You think that you can defeat me?" Orochimaru sounded so confident. Chitose stared down at him. Cracks filled with flame started appearing in the ground around her as the rain and the wind died down, leaving the master who held no sway over them.
"I don't think, snake, I know. I have claimed Blood Vengeance and it shall be mine!"
The levels of youki rose swiftly, dangerously, around the sealed kitsune. The earth shattered and fire rose in white-hot swirls of rage. Blood trickled down the arms of Naruto's body from sudden, unexplainable wounds as the kitsune forced more youki through his pathways. She vaguely heard someone shouting at her to stop. But the human beneath her was just getting that look of terror in his eyes that she had been dreaming about for decades.
"A Swift Death to Evil," she growled, snatching up a kunai with one hand and knocking the Sannin out with the other. She sliced open her palm and used the blood that flowed to write symbols in a spiraling pattern out from Orochimaru's chest. She ignored the youkai from the other worlds. She paid no heed to the earth that still trembled in response to her rampant youki. She focused her attention on writing the seals properly. When the blood stopped flowing from her palm she calmly cut it again and continued. By the time she was finished marking Orochimaru's body he was almost covered in Naruto's blood and the seals that extended even to the broken ground. She placed her palm over his heart.
"Way of the Youkai: Spell Destruction! Unseal!" she pushed her youki into the seals she had written and screamed as she felt the pain it caused Naruto's body, but the jutsu he had used to bind his soul to the living world was unraveling. Soon. Soon he would be just like any other mortal: killable.
The whirlwind of youki died down and Chitose slumped a little. The immortality jutsu destroyed but now she hardly had the energy to raise the kunai to land the killing blow.
She cursed foully.
'We don't have the strength, do we?' Naruto asked wearily.
:Let me borrow just a little of your strength, Kit. That will be all that I need to finish him.: She begged. Naruto nodded inside his own head and opened his chakra to his tenant.
The kunai in their hand lifted and fell deep into the Sannin's throat, severing every tie he needed to live. She refused to move until his lifeforce drained and his chakra signature faded from existence.
"Well," Yuusuke commented, "He's dead now, just passed on to the Reikai,"
Chitose looked up, Naruto's face streaked with blood, "Reikai? Good," and both her and Naruto slipped into unconsciousness, slumping to the side, off of Orochimaru's corpse.
Yuusuke snapped Kabuto's neck, watching just long enough to make sure that the medicnin's soul passed on as well before dropping him and dashing over to the blond. The toushin dragged the jinchuuriki away from the Sannin, turning him on his back as he did so. Naruto's breathing was shallow and his reserves depleted, but he was alive and in no immediate danger of dieing.
Hiei strode over to the two corpses and cleanly severed their heads to bring back as proof they were dead. Kurama shouldered his student with a little help from Yuusuke. The toushin looked at his friends.
"Well, we got a beat up blond and two heads. Let's get back to that Village,"
AN: Kurama was a little loopy there for a while. I chalk it up to the fact that I really shouldn't be writing at three in the morning. But I thought it was funny so I left it in. the element spell Chitose did is based on some info I dug up for an English research project I had to do on the traditional elements. The spell only deals with the four western elements, ignoring and excluding the Chinese wood and the Japanese (as well as hindu) void. Sorry about that. And as for the Swift Death to Evil…pure Rurouni Kenshin plagiarism there. Gotta adore Saitou and the Shinsengumi! Aku Soku Zan, anyone?