Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
AN: Chapter title: Kage vs. Kage
"You are stronger than I thought." Rasa still had not discarded the ceremonial robes he wore to attend the Chunin Exams. His stationary oriented fighting style didn't require such garments to be removed. His dark ringed eyes focused on the Hokage across from him, the hat and robes of his position long since tossed away in the initial stages of their battle. "I thought you would die rather quickly, Saurtobi. It's clear now that I was wrong."
Around him laid the dead ANBU that were his guard.
He had returned the favor and slaughtered those the Hokage trusted to guard him.
Only the two Kage remained in the swirling vortex of winds.
"Your Barrier Ninjutsu is impressive as I figured it would be Rasa." A lull in the fighting had been reached, his Gold Dust rolled around him like a wave and the Hokage prepared his Chakra for his next attack. Once the battle began again, it would be furious and swift. The Daimyo remained safely enclosed within Rasa's Gold Dust. He wanted witnesses to his conquest of Konohagakure. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you are such a capable Shinobi, you are the leader of a village of geniuses after all."
"For the man regarded as the Kami no Shinobi to speak such words to me, I am honored." The Kazekage gave a short bow, one filled with mocking more than anything else. "I once thought those old eyes of yours couldn't recognize talent anymore, some blind fool leading the blind of this village was a fitting thought until now I suppose. You clearly can see your superiors when they're right in front of you."
Gold Dust lanced through the ground beneath Sarutobi's feet, the Earth Release Clone he had left there showing its true appearance at its destruction. It erupted forward as bullets of mud, fireballs from elsewhere igniting them as they soared forward. Rasa didn't move as his Gold Dust surged forward, consumed the ignited balls of mud in a crushing wave. He didn't move as a tendril of Gold Dust rose around him, swiped through the air and unleashed razor sharp strands of Gold Dust as thin as a wire. He wasn't surprised when no blood sprouted from such a wide spread attack, he focused his eyes on the ceiling and saw Sarutobi merely crouching there.
A single shuriken flew from each hand down towards the young Kazekage.
Two became hundreds in the blink of an eye, each as lethally sharp as the other.
"If I was a boy I would be afraid." Rasa allowed Gold Dust to swirl around him, rapidly rise in the air, and then unleash itself as a multitude of shuriken. Each of the deadly tools was countered, each tossed aside by the imitations made from the Kazekage's versatile Gold Dust. "I'm disappointed in you already old man."
The Gold Dust continued through the air, spinning towards the Hokage as they began to draw together, combine, and form into massive shuriken made of Gold Dust. A simple stone wall rose in front of the upside down Shinobi and stopped them before they could reach him. He formed the necessary hand signs to spew out a torrent of water that made Rasa's dark ringed eyes narrow.
"Trying to slow down my Gold Dust? Worthless." The Kazekage would have laughed at such a tactic. To think he wouldn't practice extensively with his Gold Dust weighed down by water was truly childish. He even trained against the pull of other Magnet Release users on the versatile Gold Dust. There was nothing one could try against his Gold Dust he hadn't already thought of and planned against.
Fuse it with heat? He would tear it into deadly shard.
Disperse it with winds? It would be simple to pull it back or simply produce more.
Take control of it, however outlandish the very idea was? It had taken five of the most formidable Magnet Release users to pry it from his control.
Unleash the One Tailed? Whenever it lost control, the Kazekage was the one to defeat the mad beast.
Try everything one could think of at once? It was only a slightly greater challenge to manipulate his Gold Dust. It was still maneuverable enough to rip kunai from the air, jam the joints of a puppet, and silently wrap around an opponent's throat.
Nothing could triumph over him. No thing or one could match his power. No one would threaten Sunagakure with his brilliance leading the village.
The powers of the two Kage clashed. The might of the Third Hokage against the might of the Fourth Kazekage.
Hiruzen pulled away from the clash, the stone gauntlets covering both hands breaking down while he was still in the air. Gold Dust coiled around Rasa like a snake, waited to strike out and end the life of the Hokage.
"I hope you're ready to die old man." Rasa was nearly gleefulnas he clapped his hands together, drawing them apart as Gold Dust engulfed him in an outpouring wave. "I'll make sure your precious village follows in death so you won't be alone for long." He fired bullets made of Gold Dust everywhere in an omnidirectional attack he knew the Hokage could not avoid. He lanced through the air with deadly sharp blades of Gold Dust, covering anywhere the storm of bullets didn't already strike out against. To be sure the Hokage could not avoid his barrage of attacks entirely, the Gold Dust that already filled the air ripped back through it and towards Rasa, forming a densely compacted sphere around him.
Even if the Hokage had avoided his direct attack, there was no way he could avoid every ounce of Gold Dust returning to him. There was too much for any Shinobi, no matter the skills they possessed, to avoid. No one could survive the full wrath of the Kazekage, no one at all.
A spiraling torrent of water fired through the air nearly punched through his shoulders. A wall of Gold Dust blocked it even as a barrage of fireballs came from above him. He hardly had the chance to turn and look before Gold Dust engulfed him as a dome. He was able to weather the attack he wasn't even able to see then. It was a single invisible blade of air that cut a deep gash in the Gold Dust around him and would have killed him if he had tried to defend against only what he could see, his defense nearly failing to keep him safe from harm even when it completely enclosed him.
'I guess this makes sense.' Rasa wasn't angry as a revelation struck him. 'The Kami no Shinobi should be this incredible.' He threw his arms out to his sides, splayed his fingers, and created great sweeping sickles of Gold Dust to rotate around him. He spread his stance, stomped one foot, and Gold Dust erupted into spikes beneath the ground. He clenched his fists and more Gold Dust scattered through the air, hanging there as nothing but dust. 'I should have taken this serious from the start.'
A network of spikes moved beneath his feet, Gold Dust spread through the air and would act as a sensory net, and the large sweeping sickles would work to keep him from a direct attack. All in addition to the dome of Gold Dust quickly transitioning into a sphere around him.
'I need to attack and defend from all angles.' Rasa sat down in his nearly impenetrable defense, closing both eyes as Gold Dust formed a number of razor sharp rings around the levitating sphere, beginning to rotate and spin around him faster and faster until they were nothing but a blur. It was designed to add a new layer to his defense, to lacerate anything that approached him. 'He's not in his prime anymore. He can attack me with as many Jutsu as he wishes but he can't keep it up forever. As much as it pains me to admit, I will have to fight a battle of stamina.'
If there was one thing the Kazakage's fighting style afforded him, it was stamina. He was more than proficient enough in Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, Genjutsu, and even some Kenjutsu to directly combat the Hokage revered as the Kami no Shinobi but he was not a moron. He had brought Sunagakure back from the edge of an economic collapse, he was no fool. He knew many people outside his village considered him weak in those areas and made it a point to never show them unless he had no choice. He knew enough to teach his daughter her Tessenjutsu techniques, teach his son his puppetry techniques, and indirectly show the boy how to fight with the sand he could control because of the Ichibi.
He knew Fuinjutsu, enough to restrain the rampaging Ichibi in the desert.
He knew Bukijutsu, able to form and wield countless weapons made of his Gold Dust.
He was not the Kazekage because of his blood or because of his Kekkei Genkai.
He was the Kazekage because he was the strongest, the smartest, and one of most capable Shinobi in all of Sunagakure. He would accept nothing but excellence from himself at the minimum in a village where excellence was the standard he pushed all to meet. To merely exceed the standards set before him was not enough, it would never be enough.
He wished to utterly destroy them. And he had done such time and time again.
Gold Dust spiraled off of his sphere to either side as he brought his hands together. Two large spheres were swiftly taking shape in the air and moved ahead, leaving his sphere behind as it was lifted higher into the air by a mere thought.
He then reversed the polarity of one of the spheres and slammed them together.
"Sakin Kaiho!" It was his, in a way, tribute to the lost Third Kazekage of Sunagakure. It was a way to bring about the proper order to the world around them, Sunagakure's supremacy over all assured to any who would doubt their might, doubt the prestige every Shinobi of the village fought to bring to it, and doubt the power Sunagakure had worked tirelessly since its founding to cultivate. The harsh deserts of the Land of Wind had made them strong and the world would see such strength when the once mighty Konoha was destroyed. Once it was burning ash, a new balance of power would be created, a new world order with Suna at the top of the food chain.
'Impressive.' Hiruzen would have died to the technique if he was unaware of it. He would not have been able to understand that the attack was completely random soon enough to get as far away from the deadly branching Gold Dust swiftly enough. He had seen the technique before in the end. The Third Kazekage had laid waste to a battlefield with it once. He had been witness to it.
He knew to ignore trying to deflect or overcome the branches, to escape from the devastating attack to continue the battle. It would be pointless to try and close the distance between him and the technique's user when he knew the attack was too random even for the user to predict where even some of the deadly sharp branches would strike at, let alone the hundreds that spread further and further. He had enveloped himself in a protective sphere that would take an absurd amount of force to pierce, something he knew the technique would not muster without his direct input. Hiruzen knew such a thing so he focused on distance.
A trio of clones, formed from mud, darted forward simply to press the attack. One would spew out bullets of mud, another would light them on fire with precision fireballs, and the third added to the flames, shifted the flaming balls of mud into deadly sharp flaming shuriken via a Wind Release technique. The real Hiruzen continued his retreat, spitting out balls of mud that expanded into impromptu shields when he saw them necessary. He landed far enough away to begin his true attack at last.
A pair of Shadow Clones appeared on either side of him as the Gold Dust at last came to a stop, began to recede back into a single massive sphere above Hiruzen's head.
'You care too much for theatrics Rasa.' The Hokage would have shaken his head at such a bad habit but he had better things to do. 'I had thought you would know you're fighting only one old man, not an army you need to intimidate but it seems you don't. You're wasting your Chakra like that boy.'
Hiruzen summoned a blade to his hand, breathed out a stream of wind to turn the already deadly sharp blade into a tool of absolute death. He raised the weapon in front of him as his four clones crouched low before the two farthest from him leaped into the air.
One breathed out the fires of hell, fusing the retreating Gold Dust into a single melted mass, and the other clapped his hands together and unleashed bolt of lightning to the sphere above them. A tower of Gold Dust had sprouted the moment the clone had begun channeling Chakra to his hands and drew the lightning to it, grounding it before it could strike the sphere.
Hiruzen charged forward in that moment with his clones, each falling back behind him and blocking the sudden onslaught of Gold Dust with walls of stone. The Gold Dust ripped through them obviously as Hiruzen continued his charge forward. The clones vanished in twins burst of smoke when spikes of Gold Dust at last claimed them and the aged Hokage leaped into the air. A spike of Gold Dust aiming to skewer him from the side was easily avoided, turned into a platform to jump off of again. A trio of large spheres came hurtling towards him next and he deftly cut them in half with his Wind Chakra infused blade. He jumped off of one of the halves and continued on his path towards the sphere holding Rasa.
A trio of clawed hands erupted from the surface of it, trying to capture him in a basic pincer movement. Sarutobi would have laughed in any other situation. His Fire Release clone erupted into an inferno, he burst free of the ground, snatched the now flaming blade from the air, and continued on his way. His two remaining clones appeared on either side beneath him and flashed through the needed hand seals.
"Suiton: Bakusui Shoha!" Both spewed a torrent of water out onto the ground, unleashing a pair of titanic waves that turned into an omnidirectional wave that surged across the ground, engulfed all as a crushing tidal wave. The Fourth Kazekage's Gold Dust was completely soaked in the water before it settled above it. Both Water Release Clones than broke down into their base element.
The technique Hiruzen stored in them then activated, a pair of water dragons spiraling into the air and roaring as they surged past the elderly Sarutobi on either side.
They crashed into the sphere of Gold Dust above him, ignored the spiraling rings around it as the small lake they had created let them recover from any damage, and quickly formed themselves into a sphere of water that drew the soaked Gold Dust forward and towards Sarutobi's deadly sharp and flaming blade. A surge of Chakra caused the inferno to rapidly lengthen, the blade to become even sharper with the Chakra wreathing it now, and the Hokage lifted it above his head.
He was covered from all sides, the bodies of the water dragon remained on either side of the attacking Hokage, the water below impeded the movement of the Fourth's Gold Dust, and even more water surrounded his sphere of Gold Dust.
All that remained was the titanic sphere above but it was too high in the air. Rasa must had intended to drop it like a meteor but had telegraphed the attack too much. Such a technique was useless against a single foe who knew it was coming.
'If you weren't so foolish I would almost regret this Rasa.' Hiruzen's eyes were cold as he brought the blade of Fire and Wind Chakra down and through the sphere of Gold Dust. 'So much promise, so much of your life left to live, and you waste it on a thing like war? You foolish youth always believe war is something to look for, something to embrace when it is far from it. War is a terrible thing and yet you've unleashed it upon us all. Such terrible short sightedness plagues this generation it seems.'
Hiruzen landed on top of the water slashing up with the blade and sending an inferno upwards to strike at the Kazekage's once defensive sphere. He sealed the blade away a moment later and looked up as the large sphere of Gold Dust began to break apart, fall away and off to the sides.
The vortex that engulfed him and the Kazekage, along with the corpses of their bodyguards, faded away as well.
The aged Hokage only sighed as he could see the chaos that took hold of the village now. ANBU immediately surrounded him, a number of squads no doubt moving to secure his exit from the arena. He would be heading to where the fighting was the worse and hopefully help turn the tide.
"Inoichi." He wasn't happy to see the head of the Yamanaka Clan before him, not when he was only before him because death and chaos reigned in the village thanks to the invasion they were all currently under siege from. He only offered him a silent nod as he crossed off finding the man from the mental checklist he had created during the battle with the Kazekage. "Gather the needed members of your clan. Contact me with whatever strategy you develop and create a telepathic link between you and the commanders out on the field. ANBU will report names to you while I head to the battlefield."
"Hai Hokage-sama." Inoichi vanished with his task assigned.
"Shikaku, develop the optimal strategy to maintain a defensive perimeter. Once the civilians of the village are safely behind the doors of the shelter inform the commanders of the counterattack we will launch. Aim to push the invaders outside the village at best, shatter their unity and direction at worst." Hiruzen received wordless nod as the Nara vanished just like the Yamanaka had beforehand.
The aged Hokage took only a moment for himself in that moment, briefly closed his eyes, let out a single exhale, before his mind was focused once more.
"You all know your missions." He had informed the ANBU of his fears and now they headed out to complete the missions he had assigned them. More than one team would be assigned to find and secure the numerous Clan Heirs and Heiresses spread across the village. Once he had them secure, the Clans would devote themselves to the defense of the village and not themselves anymore.
A trio of squads remained with him, would serve as his escorts to the battlefield and his bodyguards once he reached the frontlines.
"Let's move." They silently formed around him, moved when he moved.
The Gold Dust clone the Kazekage had left in the sphere broke down entirely.
The Fourth Kazekage opened his eyes where he had moved himself high above on a platform of Gold Dust. His twin use of the Third Eye technique was over, the Genjutsu that concealed him from sight was shattered, and he rose from the knee he had taken.
The mass fall of his Gold Dust was abruptly halted. It swirled in the air like the sandstorms that could rip through the desert at a moment's notice.
"Playtime is over Sarutobi!" Gold Dust surged into the stadium, spiralled down into the arena, spread like ripples through the sand that still rolled like the vicious and unfamiliar waves of the sea. "I've heard of your Jinchuriki's recent power. It must be impressive to know you have the Kyubi on such a leash."
A roar ripped through the village, tore through souls that remembered a similar thing from over a decade ago. Shaking began, madness nearly took hold of some as the night they had barely escaped returned. Death, pain, anger, and grief all returned to those who had battled that night.
"No..." Hiruzen turned to the stadium, saw the growing pile of sand mixed with shining veins of Gold Dust.
"But, I must admit, I've always been curious about one thing: Which of our monsters are stronger? Which of us can claim to have the true demon!" Rasa formed the needed hand signs, heard the pained roar of the beast as his Gold Dust lashed out, spread through the beast's constructed form as if they were veins.
In a way they were. They were the pathways for the Kazekage to direct his will after all.
"The Konoha'a fearsome Kyubi or Sunagakure's mad Ichibi!"
The One Tail lifted its massive maw and roared as it towered above the village, the Kazekage grinning where he stayed high above. His hands curled into fists, made the beast thrash as it was forced to move.
"IT'S TIME TO FIND OUT!"
AN: First, thanks to all those who reviewed.
Second...
THIS CHAPTER COULD BE SO MUCH BETTER! It annoys me that its so short. Its hardly even a satisfying conclusion but this is where writer's block happens. I literally couldn't move past certain points and hated it. If I kept working on it any longer, I probably would have deleted the entire thing. The fight between Hiruzen and Rasa could be so much better, so much more exciting, but I didn't have any ideas for it in the end. The Third Hokage vs the Fourth Kazekage should be epic but it feels like its too short and a myriad of other things.
IT COULD BE SO MUCH BETTER!
Moving past my disappointment with this chapter (and, in retrospect, several others in this update), Orange Legion will hopefully get more common and larger updates now. I had to do most of the chapters in this update on my phone due to computer issues. Hated doing it. Literally considered stopping the story at some point because writing on my phone did not match up at all to how I like writing Orange Legion. Apologies for random typos and errors that no doubt plague this update. And further apologies for the no doubt dip in quality of these chapters compared to the others. They're all probably missing something but I couldn't discover prior to finishing this batch and fix. Also figured the arc needs to move ahead more. Its honestly gotten pretty...tiresome and I want to progress the story more.
Good news! The Konoha Crush arc will likely conclude within...ten chapters max. I may shoot for one really long chapter. Depends on what I want to touch on. But I'll definitely be able to move ahead at last to something beyond the invasion. Its incredible that I could spend so much time on building up to the invasion but when I actually get to it I want to do nothing more than to get it over with.
Question time: What is a better way to conclude the invasion
A) Use the viewpoints of different characters (absentees like Tenten, Kiba, Shino, Danzo, etc.) to wrap it up.
B) Focus on the Legion and only give what amounts to a summary of everyone else
C)...Timeskip to after the invasion (Probably won't do this...but can never be sure)
Just curious if there's a preference to how this should all conclude. I'm working on the conclusion now but it's in the very early beginning so can be modified.
Peace.