Chapter 46 - Chronicles of Deaths Foretold
"Aim for the neck." I suggested as we continue to traverse the thick forest of Fire Country. We were lucky, very lucky to have caught some of their trails - the scent of blood to be exact. Kakashi's ninken were very effective when they had a whole cell of blood to study from.
"I'm serious, take the head." When Kakashi was staring at me with a stink eye, I explained again "You are not going to be able to catch him whole. In fact, have you ever tried getting a whole human in there?" By the bland look he was giving me, the answer would be no.
"You don't know Kamui. How do you know that it can't catch him?" Kakashi argued as we fled through the branches in high speed. We had been arguing for the past five minutes on the 'correct' usage of his precious Kamui while Tenzō decided to stay out of this danger zone.
Using the Sharingan, Danzō's party was in just our line of sight and therefore, in the range of our Mangekyou. The trees had gotten more sparse than an hour ago, signifying that we were very close to the Fire Country border. I had no idea where he was heading, since he had already deflected from the path to Lightning country and headed towards a region full of minor countries. However, I did know that if we couldn't take care of him soon, we would never have the chance again.
"From the two times I've seen you use it, it's quite clear that the larger the area of effect, the slower the speed of Kamui, let alone the fact that it's not that fast in the first place," I laid out the facts in front of him. Despite Kakashi's show of displeasure, I wasn't just dissing his Mangekyou ability. Every Mangekyou that I had studied was quite balanced in terms of its function. Kakashi's kamui had the longest range out of all of them, so it was only fair that the speed was a drawback.
"If I aim for the neck, he will die," He reminded me again and I had to resist the urge to blurt out "so what?". The three of us here had the same target, but different objectives. Tenzō was most likely here for closure; Kakashi was here for justice and his loyalty to the village; I, to put it plainly without any grandiose facade, was here for retribution.
"You said that you can only use Kamui once per day, so if you don't nail him on the first try, he will get away," I shot back. By 'nail' him, I meant 'kill' him, or rip his head off of his neck and suck it into oblivion, if I could convince Kakashi to go through with it.
He didn't deny my words, but he just turned his face away in an attempt to ignore me. Seeing his stubborn attitude, I just sighed. "Fine, try to catch him whole and see if it works. But if he even has the slightest sign of getting away―"
"I will readjust the aim for the head." He finished the sentence for me, albeit the fact that he sounded very detached. Perhaps it was wrong of me to push him to do the things I want. Kill people for oneself, that's called desire; kill people for your village, that's called duty; kill people for others … we are simply not there yet.
"I was going to say that you should readjust the aim for his right arm," I said calmly as we flipped through another few branches. When both Tenzō and Kakashi looked at me with confusion, I added, "First of all, do you really think he's going to give you a chance to try again on his head? Also, Hyūga Hiashi once warned Hokage-sama about 'things' in his right arm. It's messing up his chakra circuit, but it's overflowing his chakra at the same time. I don't want any surprises. So take his arm, it's less predictable and it lessens the amount of seal he can make." I eyed the shadowy figure far ahead that was surrounded tightly by ten shinobi. We really needed to act now, seeing that the landscape was becoming more scattered which was never a good sign for ambush.
"However, before we can start, I just need to make sure. I know these Root agents are Konoha shinobi, but you know that they are the ones who massacred the whole prison, right?" I asked my two companions. The real question was understood by the lot of us, can I kill them all? Kakashi's ninken practically followed the blood scent of the victims in the prison. These ten shinobi were the maximum number of people that Danzō could bring without alerting Konoha. Also, I suspected that he was planting the rest of Root in Konoha, hidden in sight, waiting for his return.
"I do," Kakashi answered. I'll take that as a yes to the kill order. "It's Danzō that can tell Konoha everything Root has done." He paused and turned to face me. "It's him that will clear your name." Ah, true. The best way to rip open Danzō's illusion was to present him on the run, still alive.
"They found us." At the same time as Tenzō's warning, several kunai flew in our direction. Swiftly, we all dodged the projectiles fluidly as the kunai struck the tree branches, leaving a chorus of explosions behind us.
Without needing a cue, Kakashi's left eye turned into the Mangekyou. About two hundred metres away from us, deep between the trees and bushes, a whirlpool appeared exactly in the centre of Danzō's body at the same time.
I was so hopeful, maybe Danzō was tired from the early blood loss. This was why I never put too much on hope in battles. As soon as the Kamui was in effect, Danzō grabbed a nearly shinobi and pushed him in the front, or did that shinobi willingly jumped in? Fortunately, Kakashi did what he had promised and refocused his Kamui onto his right arm. Danzō seemed extremely shocked as his hand and half of his lower arm was cleaved off.
There was barely any blood out of his broken arm. Instead, I saw a metal cast of some sort falling out of his ripped sleeves.
There wasn't any time to daydream. Tenzō's wood release shot out of his arms and went straight for the group in front of us. Most of them missed in trying to grab hold of the target, but they still effectively created roadblocks for the Root agents to scatter.
I knew that before I could do anything to Danzō, I had to get rid of the minions first. As I flipped over a branch and dodged a dozen more shuriken, I pulled out my twin swords and forced the concentrated lightning chakra down the blade until it overran the tips, dying to get out.
Six streams of Chidori bursted out from the blade, each aiming for a Root agent. The lightning lit up the forest as they pierced their targets without fail and the sound of chirping bird continued to resonate even when the lightning had disappeared.
Right now, we were only a few body flickers away from the enemy - at least, for me, that was. For Tenzō, the whole forest was his battlefield for ambush. While I was still flickering through the branches, several wooden columns arose from around the tree, behind the tree, and from the tree, trapping the remaining four Root agents in their tight grips. I was worried that Tenzō might not be willing to kill them, but when I saw the thin wooden splinters that quickly wrapped around their necks, I stopped worrying. It seems that even Tenzō is willing to move on.
Without hesitation, I flickered towards Danzō - the lone figure who looked as stoic as ever in the midst of fallen shinobi. However, before I could reach him, he suddenly started to make seals with one hand in a blurred motion. Oh, no, I thought the moment I recognised the jutsu he was making. Immediately, I sheathed the tantō and started to make my own hand seals. I finished just in time to to fire a stream of high speed wind torrent at the ground which propelled me upwards, before a giant wind blade fanned out horizontally from Danzō's position.
The wind blade cut through the forest, leveling the thick greeneries into a clearing with jagged tree trunks. As for me, I was able to jump over the wind blade at the last moment. I landed in front of Danzō with a swift roll and immediately, I brought my ninjatō up to block the descending kunai.
For a second, our eyes met; my Sharingan were full of killing intent while his was like a dark abyss with a trace of disgust. With no warning, a surge of wind chakra extended from his kunai. At the same time, a burst of silver yin-chakra covered my sword. A second later, I sliced through his makeshift wind blade and tilted the kunai aside. As his kunai flew out of his hand in an arc, I thrusted the ninjatō forward until it pierced his neck.
Trust me, nobody was more surprised than me when a gush of blood flowed out of his neck. I thought he would at least try to dodge it, yet he just watched me dealing the killing blow as calmly as ever.
The battlefield was suddenly motionless for a second - some were actually lifeless, but others just stood there with shock.
I stared at Danzō's eye in surprise, but what was more shocking was the fact that a second later, he disappeared.
Genjutsu? Shadow clone? No, those were not it, my Sharingan would have seen through any genjutsu and a shadow clone wouldn't have stayed solid after losing one arm. As I stood still in contemplation, both Kakashi and Tenzō landed next to me, looking very confused as well.
"Imbeciles, they can't even keep a teenage girl with chakra restraints under control." I snapped my body around just in time to see the dark figure standing on a tree trunk. I wasn't really stunned by the fact that he was still alive and talking, but rather, it was his right arm - the arm that was supposed to be in Kakashi's extraterrestrial dimension or something.
There were Sharingan embedded in his arm - red eyes with three tomoe, rolling violent on his skin. If I wasn't releasing a mass amount of killing intent just to keep myself cold and calm, I would have surely been puking my gut out.
"How many Sharingan did you steal from my clan? And you dare to stick them in your skin like expendable tools." I couldn't control myself from yelling out. Truth, that was the thing I had wanted ever since the massacre. Yet, over the past week, I kept on finding the truth more horrid every time someone uttered it.
"You massacred a hundred people - including loyal shinobi of Konohagakure - just to frame me. For what? You think killing my clan wasn't enough?" Danzō showed no emotion whatsoever as he looked down at me from the tree trunk. My eyes were stuck on the arm of Sharingan, and no matter what I did, I couldn't look away. It was by pure luck that I saw the eye embedded in his palm closing slowly, until it was covered by a layer of skin. Instead of answering me, Danzō turned his face towards Tenzō and the contempt just increased tenfold.
"Kinoe, still a traitor, I see." To his credit, my companion didn't show any emotional distress. Then, Danzō turned his attention towards Kakashi, "Hatake Kakashi, what a surprise … no, I supposed that it was only expected for a fool who couldn't decide between friends and mission." I didn't understand his words, and I didn't particularly care either. Kakashi's past was his own business - a world that should only be open by the courtesy of invitation.
Finally, he returned his gaze on me and I could just see that disgust in his eye multiplying by the hundreds. "You, Uchiha Maiko, you are a cancer. Hiruzen is a fool to tell you the truth. Just like your clan, you are never content with what you have. Just look at the chaos they had planned to bring; just look at the chaos you've wanted to create with the glorious justification of revenge. The only way to stop a cancerous growth is to burn it in the bud, which was proven by the Uchiha massacre."
And that was the limit to my patience. Quickly, I brought my hands up to my mouth. With a deep breath, a giant fireball was fired at the man who was standing on the tree trunk. The tree trunk was swallowed whole by the fire, but Danzō escaped by the hair with a last minute body flicker.
He appeared around fifty minutes away to my left as he made a series of seals upon landing. Immediately, a dozen compressed wind bullets whizzed through the air, destroying any unlucky tree trunks that had the pleasure of standing in its way.
Intuitively, the three of us spread out into different positions. Too many targets clustered in one area was never a good strategy when facing high speed projectiles. Tenzō stood his ground and laid out intricate wooden barriers in front of him in many layers - some of which were destroyed, but none of the air bullets reached him. Kakashi went underground through an Earth Release and I charged forward, already had the pathway of the air bullets mapped out using Sharingan.
I weaved through the vacuum shots, stepping on debris or using body flickers as necessary. These air bullets had very high penetration powers and they imploded upon any physical contact, collapsing any structure from within. However, nobody said anything about touching chakra. When facing the last two that blocked my path to Danzō, I swept one of them aside very slightly using the yin-chakra enhancement, just enough that it collided with the other vacuum bullet. Both of them imploded and made a large crater on the forest floor, sending dust everywhere. Just then, I arrived at Danzō's right.
The yin-chakra sword clashed with the wind-chakra blade, so therefore, there wasn't any metallic sound. I twirled the ninjatō around in an attempt to free them while ducking to avoid the sharp wind blade. When Danzō attempted to pull out another kunai, Kakashi appeared from underneath, grabbed his ankle and slashed his achilles tendon.
Catching that moment of faltering, I grabbed his sword arm and sent a jolt of lightning down his body. His kunai fell from his grasp and I pulled him towards me before plunging the blade right in his heart.
Is this time real? Is he finally dead? The answer was no. Once again, he had disappeared while still being skewered by my blade.
"I had once thought that you will be a great Root agent." there it was again, that disgusting voice. I raised my head and saw him standing on the edge of the battle field, far, far away from the three of us. "You have every quality I need. Ruthlessness, cold-heartedness, darkness. I thought that way, I can control the cancer."
I wasn't quite listening to his speech, per se. Instead, I was focused on that arm of Sharingan. There were a few things that I had noticed over the two times I had killed him. One, all of his damage was instantly resolved, saved for his right arm. Right now, a second Sharingan on the back of his hand, had just closed as well. Two, he would always open with a speech while standing in a safe zone. if he had instant regeneration ability at a different location, then why wasn't he appearing at our blind spot, ambushing us when our defence was the weakest?
As for the first observation, I had the perfect answer: Izanagi. Maybe I should be grateful to Danzō for making his first framing attempt at Naka Shrine, where I had the access to all sort of fun Sharingan techniques.
"He's using the Uchiha Kinjutsu, Izanagi." I yelled out to my fighting buddies while Danzō glared at me with annoyance. "It allows him to alter reality and illusion. Basically, it allows him to reset his physical states and negate all damage, including death while still having substantial attacks on us. However, it has a time limit and the Sharingan will go blind after one usage."
At this point, Tenzō appeared beside me as well to get a better sense of the crucial information. Both of them eyed the arm full of Sharingan with trepidation and I couldn't blame them.
"Now that you've figured it out, what can you do?" Even though there was no emotional colour in his voice, his feeling of smugness was very apparent to me. Honestly, I really didn't know of any smart way of dispelling this annoying kinjutsu. However, I did have some experience in fighting enemy that wouldn't die.
"How about we just keep on killing you until you've wasted all my clansmen's Sharingan," I answered mockingly, "I've already tried killing Orochimaru five or six times in a row, and let's be honest, you are way easier to kill than him."
He narrowed his eyes at me and I knew that he wanted nothing more than ripping out my red eyes. However, he didn't move, or rather, he couldn't attack first. He needed to activate Izanagi at the precise moment when we started to attack, in order to maximise the jutsu coverage. He had to conserve his Izanagi activation time, that was why every time he reappeared, he tried to stall for time in order to regain chakra. With the three of us, he had very little chance of winning through normal means other than stalling for our chakra exhaustion.
"We are going to attack him with the intent to kill for the next little while, and the attacks had to be continuous." I whispered to my teammates while keeping an eye on Danzō's nonexistent movement. "Tenzō, trap him, attack him with Wood Release, but be careful of your chakra level, only use it when necessary. Kakashi, you really need to conserve chakra if you want to last long enough. So lay low with the A-rank jutsu for a while, would you? Watch for opportunities and strike." Despite the clearly messed-up chain of command, they were both willing to listen to me, seeing that I was the only one who had a clue as to what we were dealing with.
"I will be the front who will pressure him into keeping Izanagi open and the one who will draw all the attack. Don't think about the weird jutsu, just focus on killing him. Now you both know what it feels like to fight Orochimaru." I couldn't help but add the last sentence. Sarcasm, I needed sarcasm so bad in these desperate situations. Once again, the three of us dispersed again. Meanwhile, I just need to figure out a few more details about his Izanagi in order to get the whole picture.
Truly, he deserved to die more than one time for using my clan's kekkei genkai like disposable shields.
One, two … I started to count the seconds in my head as I flickered behind him. I was going to go for the taijutsu again since chakra was considered a precious thing now, however, my first strike was met with great resistance when he had somehow produced two spinning shuriken with extensions of metre-wide wind fans. The circular fan pushed my ninjatō back with sparks bouncing from the friction before it eventually forced the sword to fly out of my hand. I had to bend backwards as the wind shuriken sliced over my face.
I jumped away from him immediately as I drew the bloody tantō. Well, if you want to play with ninjutsu, sure. As Danzō swung his shuriken around to shave off a mass attack of wooden columns, I took the opportunity to blow out a dozen Phoenix Sage Fire. Most of them hit the wooden columns instead of Danzō, but one of them got caught up in his wind chakra and the fire instantly spread all over the circular blade. Danzō quickly abandoned the shuriken and flung it in my direction. Still, his right sleeves caught on fire and that forced him to rip the fabric out.
Now, I could finally get a good look at the Sharingan. Five, Uchihas. In order to that ten protruding eyes, he had desecrated five of my Clansmen's bodies. What was more horrifying than that was the fact that there was a face sticking out of his shoulder.
Ten eyes with a freaking face. I was definitely seeing a resemblance between Danzō and Orochimaru.
I charged towards him again, after all, the continuous attacks couldn't stop no matter what. When I arrived in front of him, he had already started to form wind releases. However, before he had the chance, I was already in front of him.
He blocked my first strike with his arm, completely careless of the fact that I almost hacked his left arm in half. Catching the moment when my sword was stuck in his flesh, he aimed a powerful punch at my chest - the kind of punch that I would rather not be on the receiving end of.
Lightly, my free hand glossed over the incoming fist and pressed down on his wrist. The texture was so weird, not to mention the disgusting chill it sent down my skin. Using his arm, I propped myself up the air just before the fist could connect with the body while finally wrenching my sword out of his half-sliced arm. With a side flip, I sailed over him, catching his face on my way down. Using the momentum, I flung him off of his feet and bashed the back of his head into the ground.
Fifty, fifty-one … The counting continued as I prepared to finish him off with another slash. But before I could bring my sword down, I heard a shrieking sound in the air. Out of nowhere, the wind shuriken that Danzō had thrown to get rid of my sword earlier came back, aiming right for my neck.
Naturally, I raised the tantō for a temporary block, but it seemed that it was unnecessary before Kakashi appeared out of nowhere and raised about three mud walls in front of me just to stop the wind shuriken from piercing through.
When the debris clouded my vision, I felt something stirred under me. I was really, really stupid to miss a beat and let that powerful punch connect with my ribs. The hit knocked me off of Danzō and sent me crashing on the ground. I heard the light cracking sound coming from my chest, but luckily, I didn't feel any sharp pain signalling a pierced organ.
Fifty-nine, sixty. I raised my head just in time to catch another Sharingan closing on his retracting arm as he flickered away to avoid a doom by Kakashi's sword. Sixty seconds, huh? A total of ten Sharingan, three destroyed and he didn't have the time to activate a fourth. We just need to last another seven minutes or kill him seven more times to make him mortal again, or …
"Tenzō, now!" I yelled out, hoping that my breathless voice actually reached somewhere. If we could manage to kill him before he had the chance to activate another Izanagi, that would definitely be a better alternative than killing him eight times.
I could only thank my teammate's fast response when Danzō was caught by several wooden restraints the moment he was out of a body flicker. The wooden columns stretched his hands as far away from each other as possible, making sure that he was unable to use jutsu.
Kakashi and I raced to the sinful man, weapons raised, ready for the kill. But we never got the chance. With one touch, Danzō created a column of seal arrays that ran down the bindings. The seals set off a series of small blasts, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was the blinding light that came with the blast, so piercing that I had to close my eyes to cut off the sensory cues.
He's aiming for the Sharingan, and between the two of us, Kakashi is the most experienced one, but he is also the one who was drained the most by the Kamui earlier. There was a ninety percent chance that Danzō would go for Kakashi first, and that ninety just turned into one hundred when I heard the clashing of metals a few dozens metres away from me.
The white light was still shining bright as ever, so instead of trying to force my eyes open and get a splitting headache, I just closed my eyes. The sound of metal clashing was still raging vividly in a different scene. Kakashi's sword was clashing with … two kunai, twenty three metres to the right. Then, there was this shrieking sound of wind slicing through the air. The sound became louder and louder, but then, it started to diminish like it was flying in a wide arc.
Without thinking, Susanoo rose around me as I willed a silver arm to extend. Following the sound, the muscular arm arrive exactly where Kakashi and Danzō was fighting. According to the forceful sensation I had felt through the Susanoo, I had managed to stop the wind Shuriken right in its path.
The sound of chirping birds echoed through the forest. I told him to lay off the chakra for a while, oh well, it's not like we have any other choice. A moment later, the light veil faded. The wind kunai was still spinning uncontrollably in the giant palm, but Kakashi had already driven a Chidori in Danzō's chest. I minced my lips in disappointment when I saw another eye closing before he disappeared again.
Four times, seven more to go.
"Believe it or not, I was going to let you pass after that fake meeting with the Hokage. Yet, like a greedy cancer, you just wouldn't let go. Cancer disrupts an organism's system, and you are just like an infection that―" he didn't get to finish his time-buying speech this time. As soon as I was sure of his position - on a branch that was rather far away and removed from the battlefield - I generated the other arm of my Susanoo and reached for him at lightning speed.
Six minutes was too long for Kakashi, or rather, for all of us if we were just going to use A-rank jutsu so stubbornly, therefore, our only other option was to kill him with fast and precise strikes to shorten the respawn interval.
Danzō spat out a mouthful of blood when the silver hand smacked into him. A moment later, he became a mush of blood as I squeezed the fist tighter.
I organized everything that I had known about Izanagi at this point in my head as his body disappeared again. One, it required a command by hand seals to activate, thus creating a lag time between when he regenerated and when he could start attacking safely. Two, he could appear anywhere he wanted in his range of vision, therefore, he would only choose places that were advantages to him. Three, right now, he was trying to waste our chakra, hence the irksome speeches to prompt us to attack so that his precious Izanagi wouldn't be wasted. To be fair, he's doing a great job in tiring us out, I thought bitterly as I sucked in the dull pain on my chest. The Susanoo was draining my chakra like a starving lion devouring its hard-earned meal, and the unpredictability of Danzō's location was forcing me to keep it active.
When the field was silent for the next ten seconds, I realised that he was messing with me. While he was somewhere recovering the chakra, my chakra was draining at an alarming rate. With no choice, I dissolved the Susanoo angrily.
"Are you good with the chakra level?" Kakashi asked me as I wiped the sweat off of my forehead.
"I'm handling it. The question is how the hell does Danzō have the chakra to support ten sharingan," I said bitterly. Danzō was still nowhere in sight, no sound, no track, not even a tint of killing intent. He was different than before, he was not just purely wasting our chakra; he was planning a killing strike.
"The face on his arm, it's the Shodaime Hokage's face. Also, when my wood release touched his right arm, it felt a sense of familiarity and …" Tenzō scrunched his eyebrow, trying to think of the correct word, "... inferiority. It was like his arm was trying to suck in mine. If my DNA contained the impure and processed gene of the Shodaime, then his was more raw and uncontrollable."
"You are joking, right?" I stared at Tenzō with disbelief. Sure, the Shodaime Hokage was known for his wood release and unmatched vitality, but blending the Senju cell with the Uchiha Sharingan, this was something that could only happen in Orochimaru's lab.
Wait, no wonder Danzō was heading into the middle of nowhere. He was looking for Orochimaru, who just had the tendency to spread his base all over the minor countries.
"What is the crime for associating with known missing-nin and conducting illegal experimentation with the Shodaime Hokage's cells?" I asked Kakashi who was beside me. If Konoha didn't care about the Uchiha, then what about the Senju?
"Do you really have to ask me that? You know that as well as I do." Ah, yes, I do. It was death; death for an unjustifiable crime. Under the condition that we could present his disgusting arm for the world to see.
I was about to discuss my new findings about Izanagi with my teammates, but then, the air in the battlefield changed. I caught the sign of a new source of chakra, but it wasn't Danzō's.
"I am disappointed in you, Mai. After all I did to preserve peace, you decided to destroy it." I was stunned for a second, unable to look away at the figure walking towards us. By the way Kakashi and Tenzō froze beside me, I would say that they were seeing the same vision.
It was Itachi. But at the same time, it wasn't.
From the moment I felt his chakra, I knew that he was a genjutsu. There was something missing in his chakra, something missing in his well-crafted stone hard expression. For the longest time, I couldn't quite figure out what that was. That was, until recently.
Itachi had always had that air of regret and melancholy ever since Shisui's death. A week ago, I finally understood that it was about more than his best friend's death.
Despite the realistic imitation, this Itachi had never gone through the heartbreak of giving up his own family.
"Just because you stole my cousin's eye, it doesn't mean that your sucky genjutsu level is bearable." I yelled out as the genjutsu shattered. Itachi's image sizzled and was blown into the dust. In the meantime, I located the mastermind's position.
He was sneaking up on us from the behind, with my ninjatō in hand.
I slammed a hand to the ground as an earth wall rose in front of me just as the blade pierced the thick mud, missing my head by an inch. Without delay, I jumped over the earth wall and aimed for Danzō's head. He pulled out the ninjatō and blocked my attack promptly.
It seems like you have a knack for stealing other people's things, I thought ragefully as sparks flew between the two swords. I blocked a strike near by neck, before twirling the tantō easily, therefore flicking his blade away. Immediately, I ducked down and stabbed towards his torso. The tip of the blade was stopped at the last moment by the flat of a shuriken. Not wasting a beat, I locked onto his sword arm and twisted with full force. His arm didn't give the same cracking sound like normal bones, but nevertheless, it got twisted into an impossible position and the ninjatō fell from his grasp into the ground.
I lowered my body to catch the falling sword. Using that distraction, Danzō flickered away and kept his distance from me. His eyes locked on me cautiously, and I returned the gaze fearlessly. Kakashi and Tenzō had long disappeared from behind the earth wall, all they needed was an opportunity to strike. However, Danzō was quick to set of a series of hand seals and released a tornado of wind surrounding where he was standing.
The powerful current pushed me back a few step and brushed up rocks and fallen splinters. It wasn't long before I realised that there were bundles of kunai and shuriken added in the mix. As I flicked the projectiles away with the swords busily, his obnoxious speech started again.
"Itachi and I have a lot in common. The biggest difference between you and him - also your biggest failure, was the fact that both him and I are willing to give up our existence. He was willing to live like a criminal, and I am ready to live as a dead man, all for the sake of protecting Konoha in the dark. But you are unwilling to give up yours, like a selfish child who can't comprehend the fact that her name, existence, and desires are nothing compared to that of Konoha. I gave you a chance to run, you should have taken it."
I want to keep my existence, what's wrong with that? I had lived a life with no existence at all, and it was unbearable. So never again will I give up my existence, and you don't have the right to take it away from me.
Silver yin-chakra manifested from the tantō just as I threw the blade right towards his face. The short-lived yin chakra cut through the wind barrier in front of him. It was so closed to slicing through his brain, only to be stopped by a kunai. However, that moment of distraction was all I needed to lock him with my eyes and let the chakra pulse through all the mess.
"Hi … Hiruzen." Danzō suddenly turned around in shock. His eyes was glued to the blank space in front of him, unable to move away. In the meantime, his protective wind torrent faltered and slowed down. It was at that exact moment when Kakashi and Tenzō showed up.
A stroke of lightning sword cut through the wind and the electricity disintegrated the barrier of air current. Then, one of Tenzō's arm turned into a wooden column as it wrapped around Danzō's body, also, pulling the wood user towards the man who had just broken out of the genjutsu.
Danzō was quick to flash out another kunai enhanced with wind chakra and therefore, allowing him to break out of wooden binding. Before he could swing that large, sharp kunai-sword hybrid, Kakashi slashed the tendon in his wrist with lightning speed just as Tenzō drove a blade into his heart.
I saw Danzō moving his lips, uttering a single 'traitor' as he suddenly grabbed Tenzō's outstretched hand, causing the man to take a step back in surprise with a pained expression. Only a moment later, the sixth eye on his arm closed.
I wanted to test something, so the instant that Danzō's body turned transparent again, I stabbed the ninjatō into the ground. I send the Chidori down the ground and in a moment's time, it spread over the clearing like a spider web.
My hands shook slightly because of the large amount of chakra I was exerting into the ground. The jagged lightning ran all the way into the edge of the clearing while my teammates smartly jumped onto the nearby trunks that had survived the previous attacks.
I drew a large breath due to the drain that almost made my head spin. However, the sparkling lightning not too far away from me spiked up from the ground, with Danzō caught in the surging web.
As I thought, the transition between the reality and genjutsu world is a blank period, so during that one second lag of Izanagi's respawn time, Danzō had no perception of what's happening in the real world. If he had, he would have just chosen to reappear on the tree trunk or something, rather than the ground.
Danzō watched the lightning run up his leg with distaste written all over his face, but before the surge of lightnings could rush to him, a summoning seal saved him from being charred to crisp.
A breath was caught in my throat when I saw the summoning creature. Is that an elephant? Or is that a rhino? With one step, the giant creature smashed my electric web apart. Danzō stared down at me from the creature's back. At that moment, I felt so small compared to the mountain in front of me.
It was an instinct, a shinobi's instinct of survival that caused me to generate the Susanoo at the moment's notice, despite the splitting headache. The two arms grabbed Kakashi and Tenzō and threw them into Susanoo's upper body promptly. On the outside, wind blowed even harsher than before. The monster opened its giant mouth and proceeded to suck the rocks, the tree branches … Everything is like a freaking black hole. I was so thankful to Kakashi who had grabbed my fallen tantō prior to Danzō's revival, consequently saving my sword from being eaten by god knows what.
"Stay behind me, Susanoo can keep us safe …" I fell on my knees, with hands clinging to the sword that was stuck in the ground to push myself up, "... for the time being." I could feel droplets of blood starting to gather at the corners of my eyes.
I vaguely heard Kakashi asking something as I tried to clean the blood away from my eyes. But somehow, I just made it worse because my finger was splattered with blood as well.
Before I could answer, however, something slammed into my susanoo, causing one of its hands that was clutching onto the ground to lose the balance. Like a train without any break, the silver giant slid forward a few metres. It wasn't until I had regained control that the advancement had stopped.
"Somebody please do something about that monstrosity!" I yelled out as several large wind blades crashed into the Susanoo. I could see cracks forming on the thick silver chakra, so as a last resort, I swatted the muscular arm at the giant creature. The elephant-rhino hybrid fumbled and almost fell to the side, but its weight helped it to regain the balance. The suction never stopped, it just changed direction.
Immediately, a great fireball flew past me. As soon as it left Susanoo, it started to get sucked into the fray. However, the size grew bigger the more it was exposed to the wind release. Using the wind to accentuate the effect of fire release, that's smart. In that case …
The fire spread over the creature from its mouth like an explosion. At the same time, the wind current that was slamming against my Susanoo suddenly turned sharp and fierce. With some difficulty, I raised my eyes until I could see Danzō who was standing on his summon, casually forming the seals for continuous attacks.
A ball of black flame appeared on his face all of a sudden. It swayed in the jumble of wind currents that was bounced in all directions, growing bigger and smaller without any control. It took me five seconds to cover his whole body in flames while the burning monster finally disappeared from my sight. Soon after that, Danzō's body was gone too, leaving me panting in exhaustion with no Susanoo to protect myself or my comrades.
It's too ineffective, I thought resentfully as blood from my eyes splattered onto the ground. Danzō's attacks were more and more severe, like he was ready for the killing blow after wasting our chakra in the first half. In fact, he was probably spinning a cold-blooded web while we were still too busy killing him.
The seventh time Danzō had reappeared, he did so without any opening speeches or warning.
Instead, what greeted us was a series of vacuum bullets that started to carve craters on the already half destroyed clearing. The first one scraped past my cheek and exploded behind us, sending dust and stones into the air. Simultaneously, Kakashi and Tenzō started to form the hand seal for Water Release: Great Waterfall.
The water rose high in front of us in a giant wall, before it fell down like a rapid cataract. The vacuum bullet's trajectory was instantly deflected. As the water filled the clearing, the water bullets exploded upon touching the water. The water release seemed like an odd choice when faced with wind bullets which had high penetration, but the fluid water absorbed a lot of the impact and instead of having rumbles flying everywhere, only water was splashed, wetting all of us harmlessly.
"Recover your chakra, we'll take the next one." Kakashi ordered in a reassuring tone, before he and Tenzō charged forward. I watched the three of them fight in blurry motions, splashing water all over the air. In less than thirty seconds, one could already tell that Danzō couldn't keep up with the two of them.
Kakashi swiped his hand into the ankle deep water and brought up a torrent of water that smashed Danzō backwards into a tree trunk. Several wooden spikes suddenly pierced his stomach and limbs, pinning him in place.
"I gave you the Wood Release, remember that, you abomination!" Danzō spatted out the curse with a mouthful of blood. I knew firsthand how Danzō could trap a person with a few words, therefore, my heart wretched for Tenzō, hoping that he wouldn't be affected by the Danzō's manipulative words.
Tenzō's body froze for a second, before Kakashi placed a hand on his shoulder. The Wood release user took a deep breath, then he walked towards the tree trunk and the bloodied man until he was only a metre away.
"Elder Shimura, you gave me the Wood Release to protect Konoha," Tenzō said calmly as he stared into the old man's eye, "and that's exactly what I am doing now." He sent one last wooden spike forward until it impaled Danzō right in the chest.
Eight deaths, three more.
I glanced around the muddy field with my hand tightened around the ninjatō. Where are you? What are you planning this time? However, this time, I didn't need to look for any further.
"You think that a few years of freedom will give you the gut to rebel against me," It was a surprise to all of us when Danzō appeared behind Tenzō. Before, Danzō had always tried to reappear far away from us to give himself the time to make the hand seals to activate a new round of Izanagi. Yet, he still daringly closed in on one of the best Anbu agents, hastily making the three hand seals needed for the kinjutsu, all the while as Tenzō brought the glistening blade down on his neck.
Before the sword could slice the neck open, Tenzō's movement was suddenly halted as black lines ran from his hand all the way up to his face. Of all the time, curse mark? No, Ryuu's curse mark didn't have the black lines, it's a different seal. But how did he … Suddenly, I remembered that time when Danzō touched Tenzō's hand right after his fifth death. He must have placed the seal on Tenzō back then.
I didn't have much time to contemplate because Danzō had already lengthened a kunai with wind chakra and thrusted the blade forward. Straightaway, I locked my left eye on the scene in front of me and activated Kannon Bosatsu just before the sharp wind chakra could pierce my comrade's body.
Like I had said earlier, all Mangekyou abilities had its strength and limitations. Kannon Bosatsu could be activated instantly and its power was absolute for a certain period of time. However, it didn't have any attacking power by itself. Like the Goddess of Mercy that it was named after, Kannon Bosatsu was, at its essence, a jutsu to save lives.
I kept my eyes focused on Danzō, hoping that my time prison could hold against his mass amount of chakra that was a mash-up of many. Senju, Uchiha … any one of its ingredient would be giving me a hard time, let along both. Tenzō was still fighting against the seal that immobilised his body, but he didn't have much time left before my jutsu ran out.
It was then that a rush of wind whizzed past my head. Only when the unknown object had rushed into the time prison did I realise that it was my tantō enhanced with a white, airy glow. The short blade sliced off Danzō's outstretched arm before it flew off unaffected and got stuck in a tree more than a hundred metres away. It wasn't long before I figured out that Kakashi must have enhanced the blade with wind-nature chakra for it to have this much penetration power and speed. Okay, I know that I started this whole throwing the tantō when I'm out of projectile weapons, but really Kakashi, that far?
Kannon Bosatsu broke a second later, releasing an one-armed Danzō who tumbled to the ground because of the unbalanced stanze. After that, it was long before Kakashi flickered to the fallen man and stabbed him in the neck with vehemence.
Another Sharingan closed off on Danzō's arm as his broken body disappeared once more. Two more, there were two more eyes that had stayed open.
"Why do you seek my death? Is it because I had ordered Itachi to kill your treasonous clan?" Why do you even ask if you already knew? I found that I still couldn't understand Danzō's behaviour even after all this time. It seemed that he was adopting his old method of using speeches to draw time and irk us into attacking first and wasting chakra. However, that wouldn't be favourable to him right now, not when he should be attacking us in surprise with his last Izanagi.
"Treasonous? I'll admit, my clan's action was too aggressive and unreasonable, but it was the council that had thrown the accusation around about the Kyuubi attack. If not for that, the Uchiha Clan wouldn't have been driven into desperation by the village!" If he wanted to stall for time, then so be it. I needed the time to recover chakra anyway.
"Do you really think that a mere ludicrous accusation could get council, the Clan Heads, and the Hokage to agree to move the Uchihas into an isolated area under surveillance?" Danzō said with a coarse laughter, and it just caused me to frown even more.
"The accusation wasn't randomly proposed, you ignorant child. When the Kyuubi no Yōkai was first released in the village, it has eyes as red as blood carved with three tomoe. If there's no Uchiha controlling the fox, then how did the Kyuubi have the projection of Sharingan in its eyes? You should be thankful that we decided to keep it quiet, otherwise, the Uchiha Clan would face more than just some slight discriminations." Now, I was truly lost again. It wasn't possible, I refused to believe that my clan was responsible for the Kyuubi attack that had devastated the village.
"Hatake Kakashi, do you still want to help her, after knowing that her clan had controlled the Kyuubi whose attack killed your sensei - the Yondaime Hokage?" While I was still wrapping my head around his words, he had already turned his attention towards Kakashi. Tenzō's seal had started to fade, but in the meantime, he was still immobilised. Therefore, Kakashi had to stay with him to ensure that Danzō would try for another surprise attack again.
"Don't sprout the rumours, you scumbag. My clan would never do that, during the attack, all the Uchihas were protecting the civilians, the children, the village, because the Sandaime Hokage ordered them to. Compared to you, who was willing to massacre a whole prison of people just for the sake of framing me," I couldn't help but yell out. Ah, perhaps my mind was way too screwed up by distrust and betrayal over the past few days that I was so desperate to defend the last bits of trust I had been left with.
"They are criminals, my child. During the Second Shinobi War, hundreds died to protect the village; during the Third Shinobi War, thousands. The few honourable sacrifices in the prison were unfortunate, but they are needed in order to get rid of the disaster that is you. In fact, I am willing to join that group of sacrifices if that means I can help Konoha eliminate this catastrophe." Without any warnings, his right arm turned into a tree. A tree.
The man raised his arm towards me, and the giant tree rushed into me as it grew at a tremendous speed. Immediately, I raised my only sword and charged the Chidori down the blade. With the Sharingan, I could see the structure and growth pattern of this artificial tree very well, so I picked a weak spot down the tree spine and pushed the Chidori Blade through the wood.
The familiar sound chirped as the tree was split in the middle. Wooden splinters flew around me, scratching my skins, leaving small red marks on my body. It felt like forever when I was surrounded by a shade of dark brown, and when I could finally see the weak light from the breaking dawn, I felt a presence looming over me, full of malicious intent. Following my instinct, I raised the sizzling sword above my head as a loud 'cling' rang over my ears.
"Lies. You had many chances to use Izanagi to attack me in surprise, yet you chose to forego those opportunities just to activate another Izanagi. You are just trying to save your own asses, so shut the crap about noble intentions!" Angrily, I twirled the sword and flicked Danzō's weapon aside. He stumbled back a step because of the force, but I jabbed the sword towards his exposed chest with no intention of letting go.
His other hand arrived just in time to use a kunai to block the tip of my sword. Quickly, I swiped the sword downward to his surprise and added a long slash on his thigh. As he grunted in pain, I raised the sword one more time and slashed towards his neck.
I never got the chance to slice his neck open for who knows how many time it was. When my blade was only an inch away from his skin, something burned my body and suddenly, I couldn't move.
A seal. Another damned seal. But when did he … He had touched my ninjatō on the tilt before. He must have placed a seal then and there.
In a blur, Danzō took my sword from my hand while I could only watch helplessly. The seal was like a snake, strangling my limbs, torso and throat. Calmly, he placed the blade on my neck and said, "And now, nobody is willing to save you."
Chakra. I needed chakra. All seal had a limit in how much it could contain, and this one was no different. The sharp blade was already making a red line on my neck, but I refused to give up and kept on pushing my scarce chakra into the seals
It was like a goddamn miracle when Danzō's chest was pierced by icy blue lightning. "Just stop talking." With that, Kakashi retracted his hand from Danzō's chest and my ninjatō fell from his grasp and stuck in the ground. He looked tired, very tired, with both blood and sweat plastered on his face. With all those A-rank jutsu and that Kamui, it was amazing that he was still standing. Actually, it was amazing that all of us were still standing.
When Danzō's body started to disappear, my silver yin chakra burst through the seal. However, it only flickered long enough for me to be able to move again before it disappeared. Right now, I needed to conserve my chakra like it was the only thing I had for another rainy day - like the seal. Even then, I fumbled a bit because of the large drain. Now, the blood was really covering my eyes now; with every blink, the red that had covered my vision became more and more opaque.
Tenzō, my mind immediately went to my teammate who was still trapped by the seal and at the other end of the field. Kakashi was forced to come to my aid because apparently we do fall for the same trick twice, and that left him exposed. I raised my head and of course, Danzō appeared right next to him, holding a sword taken from a fallen Root agent.
Kakashi threw a kunai in his direction just in time to knock Danzō's sword arm away before he could slash across Tenzō's neck. Still, the blade made a cut on his shoulder, narrowing missing the arteries.
Without any chance of rest, Kakashi started to flicker towards our teammate. However, because he is halfway there, a large burst of chakra pulsed from Tenzō's body and the seal lines disintegrated. Yang chakra, I realized when I felt the impact of the chakra burst with a taste so different from mine earlier.
Columns of wood erupted from the floor, grabbing onto Danzō's body. One column of wood slapped him towards the edge of the battlefield, smashing him hard against one of the trees that still stood.
Tenzō's eyes hardened at his former superior. Then, he formed a hand seal, and another wood column drove itself into Danzō's chest without any mercy. Kakashi arrived a moment later just as the dead body disappears again due to another Izanagi.
A moment later, Kakashi turned towards me, confirming that it wasn't a genjutsu and that Danzō was dead yet again.
"One more. Just one more," I chanted. All of his Sharingans should be used up, Now, he was mortal again. My hand went for the fallen sword immediately, but I stopped myself promptly. Who knew what kind of seal he had put on it the last time he had touched it?
Now that I was officially out of weapons, I glanced around the vast field - destroyed and bantered - with all the alertness in the world. His eleventh Sharingan had just closed a moment ago, which meant that this would be his most important attempt.
When he appeared in the corner of my vision with nothing in hand, I knew that this was going to be a trap. However, once I made sure that this wasn't a genjutsu or a shadow clone, I would still charge towards him without any hesitation. When had I ever evaded Danzō's plan before? Whatever comes will come, and the quicker I foiled his plan, the quicker I could end this battle that had gone on for way too long.
Yes, I had expected for there to be some kind of trap when I raised my hand and aimed for his heart, seeing that he was just standing there as calm as a martyr.
Danzō eyed me for a moment, with a determination that said that he would take me down with him if he had to.
I didn't believe that, not a single bit. But if he thought I would back down, then he was dead wrong.
He struck his feet into the ground the moment I charged forward with concentrated lighting gathered around my right hand. I had always used my swords as a medium for Chidori ever since I had learned how. However, that didn't mean that I couldn't do it the original way if the need ever arose.
I felt a wave of chakra washing over me, but that was all it did. It wasn't aimed at me. Instead, the wave of chakra blasted up behind me, forming a wind barrier trapping me and Danzō inside.
"Wait, Maiko!" Kakashi yelled, but the volatile wind prevented him and Tenzō from coming in to help. I turned my head slightly so that our eyes met, but I made no intention of stopping my attack.
That moment, he knew that I had to do it. It mattered not that it was a trap, this was something I had to do. This was the only way.
My eyes turned redder and redder as I dashed towards him with lightning in my hand, until finally, they swirled into the Sharingan. I could see the large mass of chakra gathering below us, leaving Danzō's body and feeding into the pool below ground.
My chidori crashed into Danzō's chest with no resistance. I was vaguely aware of the fact that his chest was burning, and I was the one doing it. My eyes widened when he grabbed my hand, locking me near him with a strength that I did not expect a dying man to have.
"This … is my last … last contribution to Konoha …" Danzō gasped for the words, as strips of black seals ran down his body and slipped underground. Some seals tried to run up my arm as well, but I remembered to release a layer of chakra - not just any chakra, yin chakra - around my arm before he could touch me. Danzō's face twisted when he realized that he couldn't seal my chakra. Yin and Yang chakra were special media and it seemed that neither him nor us could figure out how to deal with them.
I saw rage, resentment, and regret flashing through his face. "No filthy Uchiha should have ever lived in the village!" That was the last thing I heard before the floor imploded.
The world was quiet as I regained my senses. I felt something shift above me as I tried to move my body. I stood up a little straighter, and the rumbles shifted a little more. Eventually, I felt light seeping through from the above as I expanded my Susanoo ever so carefully.
By the time I saw the outside floor, my Susanoo disintegrated like dust. I was in a crater with nothing left but rumbles.
Noises at the edge of the crater drew my attention. Kakashi and Tenzo rose from the ground covered in dust and wooden splinters. But when I tried to move, I felt an excruciating pain from my leg.
Ah, it's broken. I realized as I tried to remove the rocks holding my broken leg in place. Susanoo and the bottom, it seemed that when I expanded Susanoo, the bottom was indeed the last part to be covered.
"That's the last one, isn't it?" I asked Kakashi weakly. Our eyes met, transmitting a confirmation of some sort - although not necessarily answering the question I had just asked. I was so tired of this, that I didn't even wait for an answer before turning towards the ninjatō that was stuck in the ground.
It was Danzō who held it right before I struck the lightning in his chest. Since he was pushed away by my expanding Susanoo, he was now part of the dust left from the implosion earlier. However, the ninjatō was left within my Susanoo, kept free from harm.
I reached out for the teal coloured hilt, only to hover over the blade, remembering that Danzō might have tampered with it. So, I can't even pick up my own weapon to defend myself because it might be my undoing.
"Maiko!" I was startled by the sudden scream, although completely aware of what it was for. I raised my head just in time to match eyes with Danzō - unharmed and completely recovered. I saw a devious smile full of contempt, before I felt the cold metal - my own sword - pierced my body. However, at the exact same time, Kakashi's sword also struck a hole in Danzō's body.
Blood soaked my shirt slowly as I just stood there, probably too calm for the situation at hand. But Danzō's face, that was a look I would pay to see. The triumphant smile waned as realisation dawned on his face. He lowered his face slowly, seeing the metallic tip that just got twisted in his chest. Then, he returned his gaze back to my face.
"You planned for this. You know that I still have another Izanagi and that I would appear at this exact spot. You drew me into this with an act so he can deliver the final blow." There were so many emotions on his face: disbelief, then anger, then unwillingness … and finally, a maddening laughter that contorted his face.
"It seems that I was wrong about you; you do have the gut to give up your existence. My life for yours, my heartbeat for yours, it's worth it." Despite his best attempt to sound like a noble martyr, I could hear the fear and anger in his voice.
"Really? Take another look; a long and careful look," I mocked in a cold voice, finally unable to hold my act anymore. Danzō looked down at the place where he had impaled me in confusion. After a second, he looked stunned and horrified.
The sword which he thought that he had stuck in my heart, was actually only lightly embedded in my left shoulder. It had missed my chest cavity by so much that it only really made some blood gush out down my torso.
"How did you … Genjutsu, you used a genjutsu on me." Ah, he sounded truly scared, like he had just witnessed a monster.
Slowly, I grabbed the blade - my blade that still had a trace of silver chakra - that had gone into my shoulder and pulled it out slowly. Really, compared to the pain I had to endure, this was nothing. With a light shake, his hand let go of the hilt.
My eyes widened for a bit when I saw that Shodaime's face started to move around wildly. Without any delay, Kakashi swiped the kunai down and cleaved off his right arm promptly. I caught the fallen arm with disgust, but once I was sure that our Shodaime's DNA had calmed down, I threw the limp arm at Tenzō.
"Take care of the evidence, thanks. Nice acting back there, it really startled me as well," I said with a genuine smile as my comrade caught the evidence that would justify our actions. In the meanwhile, Tenzō looked so relieved that he had almost missed the arm. Oops, maybe I didn't communicate well enough?
"How? I fooled him, I fooled all of you." Danzō choked out the words as he fell to his knees in front of me, like a sheep waiting for laughter, asking for penance.
True, I didn't see him making any hand seals for Izanagi the last time and I counted twelve deaths using up all eleven of his eyes.
"It was Kotoamatsukami, wasn't it? You used a genjutsu to fake one of your deaths and used Kotoamatsukami to convince us to overlook the details and believe you had truly died." It was when he had tried to ambush Tenzō for the second time and Tenzō managed to break his seals with Yang chakra. He had to use Kotoamatsukami to persuade us, because there was no way he could fool our sharingan with his crappy genjutsu - well, mostly Kakashi's, I was so depleted of chakra during that moment that I couldn't keep my sharingan activated.
Kakashi even confirmed to me that Danzō was dead. Danzō was right, he fooled him right there, and both Tenzō and I would believe Kakashi.
For a while, I truly believed that he had used up a Sharingan then.
But as soon as I figured out that the Kotoamatsukami on Yamanaka Inoichi might be placed a few days in advance, part of me was always on alert of when he would use his dose of Mangekyou today.
The moment I saw how he planned for his final death, I suddenly knew.
"I was wondering about that too. But you see, your acting is simply horrible. I don't believe for a second that you would sacrifice your own life in exchange for mine." He didn't need to know my thought process. All he needed to know was that I despised him until his very last moment.
As the fight dragged on, he started to realize that he couldn't kill all of us. Instead, his only chance of getting away would be to injure one of us. He knew as well as we do that if one of us was gravely injured, we would help our teammate before pursuing him.
So he planned for his final exit, giving us the appearance that he was fully dead while injuring me in the process. The implosion didn't work because of my Yin chakra and Susanoo, so I handed him another chance. Knowing that if I wasn't injured, our sharingan would catch him as he tried to slip away, so he took it, believing that he could injure me to the point of death and my teammates would have no choice but to save me instead of going after him.
Calmly, I reached out and peeled off the bandage that was covering Danzō's right eye. The shocked eye was pupiless and as white as oblivion.
"You are not the only person to have a transplanted Sharingan, but Kakashi deserves his. You don't. You wanted the Sharingan, because you think of it as a disposable tool. But no one gets to enjoy its benefits without the cost." As I dropped the last word, I dug my fingers into his eye socket and gouged out the white eyeball. He screamed in pain as blood filled his empty socket.
"From the moment that I saw you refusing the fabricated - but beneficial - explanation for your Clan's massacre, I knew that you would destroy the foundation of Konoha. You bring doubts into peace, rebellions even. Look at him! Look at them!" His eyes darted across the field until it landed on Tenzō, then he tried to turn his face to point at Kakashi. "You've corrupted them. Both of them. It's shameful that a power as great as Sharingan is being used by you damn Uchihas. I am only trying to use it for what it's really for. For Konoha!" He splatted out another mouthful of blood, full of bitterness. Kakashi had long retracted his sword from Danzō's chest. Without any more support, he fell to the ground, spasming slightly to catch the life that was slipping away.
"That's your biggest mistake then." I placed the ninjatō back into its sheath all the while avoiding touching it's hilt. "Sharingan is powerful, but that's not where our powers came from. It's the people that control them, and you are a failure."
Under his watchful eyes, I placed my hand on his neck. With a swift and elegant twist, his neck went limp with bitterness still lingered in his eye.
It's over … right? I was about to drop down in exhaustion, that was, until I saw the glowing black shapes that was hovering over his body. I had no idea what it was, but from Kakashi's horrified expression, he definitely knew what it was. Definitely something very, very bad.
"It's a reverse sealing! Get out, get out of here now!" Immediately, he grabbed me and dragged me forward in a body flicker. Kakashi's body flicker had always been very fast, but with me as a dead weight, it was slowing him down drastically, not to mention his already drained chakra. After three body flickers, his speed slowed down dramatically. I used that pause between the body flickers to look back, seeing the black sphere was already ready to explode. I suddenly had a gut feeling telling me that we would never get out in time. Not me, not Tenzō, not Kakashi.
In that instant, I made a decision that I would never regret. I shook off Kakashi's weak grasp on my arm, which shocked him greatly. But without any hesitation, I sacrificed that last petal in my left pupil and forced the last Kannon Bosatsu to open, enveloping the black sphere that threatened to devour us all.
"Are you crazy! I told you to run!" Kakashi yelled harshly near my ear. Perhaps, I am. But I know that I want to save your lives, both of your lives. It's something that I am so sure about; even more sure than the fact that I want to kill Danzō.
"Run, both of you, I can only hold it off for so long," I pleaded. I wanted to look him in the eye, but I couldn't because I had to keep my focus on the impending doom in front of us. "Please, go before the jutsu disappears. Don't worry about me, I have Susanoo, the ultimate defence, remember?" I tried to smile, I really did. But I was sure that whatever was shown on my face was far less than reassuring. Ultimate defence my ass, I'm going to find whomever wrote that line and … I don't even care anymore, he or she is probably dead anyway.
A long silence ensued around me, which I hope was because they have decided to listen to me instead of hesitating. "Tenzō, I can smell Hokage-sama close by. Go find him and tell him to rush here. He's the only person who can resolve a seal of this caliber."
"What about you, Senpai―"
"I said, go. I'll stay here." Wait, what? No! You're destroying my effort. "If you want to save us, hurry up and bring the arm to Hokage-sama." Without looking, I could feel the tension in the air rising with all kinds of emotional shit involved. A second later, I heard Tenzō's footsteps that had disappeared into the direction where we came.
"You go too! You are useless here!" I had all kinds of names that I wanted to call him, but the moment I stopped speaking, my time prison started to swirl.
At first, I had thought it was because that my Mangekyou was breaking apart. However, after a closer look, I realised that my time prison as a whole - including the black sphere - was being warped and sucked into a point in the middle.
"How did you … I thought you can only use it once per day," I asked incredulously.
"Well, I thought so too. But as I've figured out recently, I tend to be forced to make exceptions whenever you are involved." Potentials, they were always unlocked when one was forced by a great pressure. Maybe I should be honoured.
I continued to observe the battle between the two black holes. Kakashi's Kamui had successfully shrunk the black sphere down about a third, but after that, no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn't budge. As for my Kannon Bosatsu that was keeping the sealing in check, well, I knew that it had three more seconds before my left eye would go temporarily blind. So instead of wasting chakra for that useless three seconds, I might as well do something else.
"Ah, you're going to hate me for this. But please, try to remember me in a better light." Before my eye could go blind, I shut off the time prison abruptly. At the same time, I squeezed all the leftover chakra - the ones I knew that I had, and the ones I really couldn't care where they came from - and used them to bring up a partial Susanoo.
As the black sphere was finally released, the bony arm hit Kakashi and pushed him away. I seriously hoped that I controlled the power so that he was not a bloodied mush when he woke up.
After that, I just stood there calmly and waited. For once, I was content to let fate decide.
I honestly thought that I had died, because for that one second, the pain was so excruciating that it paralysed my body. However, when I opened my eyes experimentally, beyond the red veil that had stained all colours, I could still see the destroyed forest along with a troop of lights heading towards me. It was then that I realised, I was still of this world.
Against the aching pain, I turned my head back slightly and saw the cleanly cleaved off crater - well, almost, since the side that was closest to me was jagged like someone took a knife to the beautifully crafted curve. With curiosity, I looked up and saw the silver humanoid cover still burning bright. For some reason, I thought it was bigger. It seemed that after the bones, the muscles, it added another layer on top. My Susanoo finally had some clothes.
"Hey look, it evolved," I whispered in a dumbstruck voice. It was a good thing, I supposed, except for the fact that the back of my Susanoo was missing. Ah, that explains the pain. A moment later, the Susanoo disintegrated, and I finally fell down like a ragged doll.
"Easy, easy." Someone caught me, so instead falling face first and probably going unconscious again, my head hit a shoulder. Oh dear, maybe I didn't smack him hard enough, if he still had time to come back here.
"Can you walk?" He asked.
"No … I can't even stand up straight," I answered bitterly as my broken leg limped on the ground. I grabbed onto his vest and tried to pull myself up and I heard a small "Ouch."
"I'm sorry, did I break anything?" I asked apologetically since I honestly couldn't remember exactly where I had hit him with the giant arm.
"A few ribs, nothing important." I almost chuckled at his casual attitude, but then I choked on some blood. As I coughed violently, Kakashi patted me on the back until the coughing faded.
"It's over, right? I finished the battle, I'm done, he's done …" My left hand was clutching tight on Shisui's blinded eye, but I couldn't figure out what to do with it. Vaguely, I felt him nodding.
"Yet, I don't have anyone to celebrate with … They are all gone, Kakashi, all dead. My revenge came too late, too insignificant. I wish … I wish that I could do more, I wish I could do better than the mess I'm in right now." I knew that regret and complaints wouldn't get me anywhere, but it was not going away. I started crying quietly, because I knew that my parents, Shisui, and all those dead Uchihas could never come back no matter what I did. However, there was a small seed of hope in my heart. Itachi, he was still alive.
Kakashi stayed silent as my tears - or maybe it was blood, I couldn't tell - soaked the fabric on his shoulder. After a while, the sobbing stopped. It wasn't as if crying would help, not for my situation, not for my emotional pain. However, along with the tears, let out all the anxiety and stress I had been holding for the past week. My nerves were strung up so tight before, but right now, it was as if someone had untied the braid and let it all down.
"Hokage-sama is here. I can smell his scent, Yugao and Tenzō are with him. Do you know what that means?" Maybe, sort of, perhaps … "They are here to help you, not kill you." I raised my head with some difficulty and looked past his shoulder.
True to his words, I could see the light that was deep in the forest, becoming brighter and closer as we spoke. In the corner of my right eye, I thought I saw a small spiral that distorted the forest landscape. But when I blinked again to clear the fuzzy eyesight, there was nothing at all.
"I don't know … I'm afraid, actually, very afraid to go back," I admitted. Danzō was dead, but he left me a mountain of debt to clean up and I wasn't sure how.
"Well, too bad that you literally can't walk away, and therefore, have no choice but to face your fear." Ah, he still pisses me off, no matter what situation we're in.
A/N: so yeah, Danzo is dead. Yay.