Daze
Chapter 34: Wicked Tongue
A/N: Sorry for the long break, I wanted to let the story rest a bit before entering the final leg, we're close now, I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.
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"Nagato"
The long red haired man turned his rippled gaze to where Konan was standing in the doorway looking in at him.
"What is it Konan?"
The woman clutched her sleeve pulling a paper bird out it flapped its wings falling into a piece of transpondence.
"It seems, that boy Naruto-kun… has been on the move."
Nagato nodded simply.
"I see…"
Konan looked at him with concern.
"Does this upset you Nagato?"
Sighing Nagato raised a hand to his face.
"It changes nothing Konan, what we must do hasn't changed, we still owe it to Yahiko to make our dream come true."
She nodded softly in agreement, though it was clear the idea wasn't pleasant to her.
'Yahiko, would you really want this, to kill the boy who is so much like you and Nagato were?'
Nagato seemed to read the words from her expression and shook his head.
"Konan… we're close now, we can't let petty sentimentality stop us, Project Bijuu taihō will proceed as originally planned."
Konan brushed a strand of blue hair from her face.
"Yes, Nagato... where do we start?"
"It's time to wake Tendo and the others, we have to take the initiative."
Three grey cloaked figures land with a silent cutting of air and the upheaval of some soft top dirt.
"Karin, you know what to do."
The girl nods with a hum closing her eyes and letting her chakra reach out like a pair of large astral hands prodding the area.
"Hm.. nothing Naruto-san."
"Are you sure?"
The blonde man looks around, upturning a large pile of firewood with his foot and digging in an old pit trap with his kunai.
She nods, removing a strand of crimson hair from her brow.
"I swept the entire area, animals aside, we are the only chakra signatures for miles."
Naruto sighs.
"Right,"
He pulls out the wireless transceiver in his sleeve.
"North-east sector appears to be empty."
Looking up at the abandoned loggers cabin, he grows a black steel rod from his arm and stabs the lock, breaking the metal with ease, and near soundlessly.
"-Let's set some traps just in case."
Suigetsu yawns, taking a sip from a bottle of water, and wiping some grey sweat from his brow.
"Damn it, why'd we have to do this during the middle of a heatwave anyway."
Kisame turns to him, his gills rippling as he grunts with annoyance.
"Suigetsu-chan if you were as good at kenjutsu as you are at bitching, you wouldn't be here now."
Jugo quietly stands off to the side with his eyes closed, a small blue bird flies back perching on his arm.
"Hmm, the animals haven't found anything odd in the forest, there are clear signs of tracks, but they are days old, and all lead out of the area."
The blue-gilled shark man nods, holding his trusty blade over his shoulder.
"Right then, let's move on, only twenty some odd miles to go."
"Aw maan."
Suigetsu sighs but follows him.
Naruto trails his hand back from the spool of silken wire, cutting it carefully with a mouth-held kunai.
"Alright that should be enough, Karin rescan the area."
"Hai."
The girl closes her vermillion eyes and checks the area once more.
"Nothing."
Naruto turns to the other members of their squad.
"Tobiko, Sai take one of Sai's ink-birds, I want you to perform an aerial sweep of the area, heading towards Deidara and Sasori's sector."
The silver haired girl looks at him curiously.
"Where will you be Naruto-nii?"
Naruto has a wary gaze in his amethyst eyes.
"Karin and I are heading to the nearby village, it's odd we haven't been able to feel any chakra signatures yet."
Tobiko nods, paling slightly with sweat running down one of her cheeks as she gets the implication.
"You don't think they'd…"
Naruto sighs looking down.
"I don't know what Zetsu is capable of, but Madara would do anything to achieve his goals."
Sai nods with some subtle distress on his face as well.
"Don't worry Naruto-san, Tobiko and I will do our best."
The blonde smiles at him, his subtle whiskers accentuating his cheekbones.
"Thanks Sai-san, be careful you two."
The two bow and Naruto returns it respectfully.
He watches them as they depart on a large ink clone of a red-tailed sparrow.
The Shogo leader turns to his crimson-haired companion.
"Karin stick close, there's something odd happening here."
He examines the distant rice fields where he can faintly see the brown smudges of buildings in the distance.
'I can feel in my gut, I'm not going to like what I found there.'
Sakura cuts open the charred chest of the large masculine body, her white tubed respiratory mask and grey goggles protecting her along with a mint green polyisoprene suit.
She speaks in her soft voice modulated by the mask.
"Shizune-sempai, what are we expecting to find with this one?"
Deftly, she slides her scalpel along the man's charred chest, a faint hint of green chakra on her hands as she slides the two halves of his opened chest, dilating them to see inside the cavity.
Shizune looks at her also in full bio gear.
"This man was under the control of Danzo, he was one of the spies employed by Orochimaru when he saw to assassinate the Third Hokage,"
A pair of metal forceps are placed on the man's rib cage, a precision hammer breaking a clean line for them to be pried open.
"-the fact he lies here on this table now, following his handler Danzo's death, means someone didn't want his secrets to escape."
Shizune pulls out a telescopic device with a blue light attached, peering through the pinhole, she examines the man's lungs.
"They went to great lengths to make his body unexaminable, phosphorus was used to burn his remains, and they hid a canister of nerve gas in his jaw."
The raven-haired woman flinches with surprise as she notices something.
"What is is Sempai?"
She passes the viewing device to Sakura.
"It looks like, code… but it's cut into his marrow."
"Hmm… we should get this to the cypher corp, maybe one of them can crack it."
Shizune nods.
"Right, Sakura, I'll finish the autopsy, I need you to deliver our findings to the Cyphers, and then let Tsunade-sama know."
The fuschia haired girl nods.
"Hai sempai, I'll handle it, be careful there might be more preventative measures in the specimen."
The ravenette nods to her younger sibling-student.
"I'll be careful."
Sakura heads into the detoxifier.
She deposits her protective gear in a disposal bin, and has the toxins washed off of her.
Taking a scroll out she writes down the code they found.
'R2.S3.T1.I4.N5.T7.A6'
Placing the scroll in her red haori she leaves to quickly deliver it.
The land of rice paddies - Border of fire
Naruto cautiously steps forward drawing one of his blades from a seal on his arm, this one a black bokken.
Karin looks around confused, holding her glasses and sensing the area.
"It's like a ghost town, where did all the villagers go?"
The blonde silently places a hand over her mouth, crouching down he pulls her under his arm to hide her behind a wooden wall.
She looks up surprised then realizes why when she senses a chakra presence emerging from the ground.
Naruto watches cautiously, his amethyst eyes rippling with chakra as he examines the strange mix of chakra from the mono-bodied figure.
"Well here we are.~" "Quiet Shirozetsu you fool, we're not here to goof off, Madara-sama gave us a task."
"Aww, have some fun Kurozetsu you always need to spoil the sport." "I am Madara-sama's will, I will accomplish my mission, anything more is a pointless waste of my time."
"Tsk tsk, very well, let's deposit the spores, I trust that one did what he was supposed to."
The green-haired plant man groans oddly as he begins to separate from the darker half with a glue-like substance, the substance hardens into spikes on his missing half.
"I watched him from the shadows nearby, no-one alive can detect my presence when I'm hiding, the snake did as he was tasked, the bodies should be stashed nearby."
The darker plant man begins to melt into a goo-like substance like melted tarmac, reforming as an amorphous figure.
Naruto watches quietly, not blinking, keeping his breathing to a silent thread of air.
'They haven't noticed me yet, I can't give away my position until I know what their goal is.'
The black half of Zetsu's arms grow into tentacle-like spikes and he begins to slap the ground, quickly excavating dirt.
The dirt turns to mud seeming to magnetically link, liquify and be flung away by his touch.
Soon a deep hole roughly 30 ft, by 15 ft, is visible, inside it is a sight that makes Naruto's blood run cold.
Hundreds of bodies, women, men, children, all white with the frost of death, clearly having been there for days.
"See he did as he was asked, he'd be a fool to risk crossing Madara-sama, when their alliance is all he needs to achieve his own goals."
Naruto bites back a groan of frustration, trying to contain his emotions, so as not to give away their position.
Karin is half lidded, and losing consciousness as her breathing has been limited by his hand.
'Sorry Karin, but if I remove my hand now, your breathing will be too loud, just hold on a bit more.'
"*sigh* so many, and I'm the one who has to deposit all of the spores."
"Stop your yammering and get to work," The black Zetsu slaps the ground near the white clone threateningly.
"Madara-sama chose you as his eyes on the ground because of your high chakra compared to the other Shiro clones, but you aren't irreplaceable."
"Yeesh no need to be so cold, I am at your behest Kurozetsu, still, I would think Guruguru would be more efficient at this."
"Madara-sama wishes to keep Tobizetsu on his own person, you know this much fool, stop yapping and prefuse your spores"
The white plant man begins outstretching his hand and spikes.
Naruto's eyes widen as he can't see the microscopic spores, but they appear as visible clouds of oddly shifting chakra to his Rinnegan.
He sees them transferring from the pale plant's body to the corpses of the villagers, and they all begin to shift horrifically, their deathly pale skin turning pure white.
Within a few seconds they all begin to rise to life, their hair turning green.
They groan in a zombie like manner.
"You know Kurozetsu, I've never used my parasitic spores on a corpse before, I'm not sure I can make more Shiro's without chakra to shape."
"We have no need for more Shiro's currently, but these plants will serve a purpose." The black clone grins a cheshire grin, his inky green eyes a vacuous void.
"Karasu, kukuku, did you gather enough intel?"
Naruto pales, hopping out and drawing his sword.
"You knew I was there."
"You are a thousand years too young to sneak up on me gaki, Shiro, you know what to do."
The black ink man smirks, waving with a tendril as he melts into the shadows of the ground and disappears.
"Ah, Naruto right, don't worry, I won't kill you, see your eyes are far too valuable a prize.~"
The white Zetsu begins to vibrate and shake with motion as he violently morphs, growing in size.
Three more heads sprout from his chest as he morphs into a plantlike Zetsu golem, with a bladed hand.
He speaks with reverberation the result of multiplied faces all speaking at once.
"Well, what do you think, pretty cool right.~"
"It's disgusting."
Naruto channels water chakra into his blade, a whip like tendril wrapping it.
He can hear Karin breathing heavily and collecting herself.
"Karin run away, relay the situation to the others we need to re-"
*BOOOM*
A big green explosion is visible in the distance, from the forest where Kisame's squad and Sasori's squad were meant to be meeting.
"W-what!"
Naruto looks in confusion.
"Tsk tsk tsk Naruto-kun, you didn't really think you could sneak up on the Akatsuki's best spies Zetsu without us preparing a fun trap did you.~"
"What did you do."
"Oh nothing special,"
The plant man giggles.
"- just a little jutsu involving activating tree sap with nature chakra for explosive results, usually it's not anything special, but when you have days to activate an entire forest well.~"
*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*
Multiple green explosions begin to go off one after the other within a few seconds of each other.
"Kukuku it's Kuro and Shiro's special, the Wicked Tongue three layer surprise.~"
Naruto grits his teeth worried about his friends but focuses on the resurrected villagers rising from the pit with dead eyes, their sclera turning a milky green like plant sap.
"I won't forgive you for this Zetsu, you are going to pay."
"Oooh scary, well Naruto-kun, I'm right here, come on show me what those big strong rinnegan eyes can really do.~"
Naruto growls and his eyes ripple with power.
"Shinra Tensei!"
He points his hand at the plant man turned golem, and he is tossed away landing in the pit of zombies and crushing the ones who hadn't yet climbed out.
Without wasting any time he turns to where Karin is.
"Ban'shou tenin."
He pulls her forward grabbing her shoulder over his to hold her on his back.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"
He slams his hand on the ground and there is a loud whooshing of air as the sunlight is blocked by a massive shadow above them.
He channels chakra into his legs hopping back, quite a distance.
Karin's eyes widen as she can see the giant toad Gamabunta landing where they had just been and crushing the entire village beneath his large body.
"Waah!~"
Zetsu groans in pain loudly but is cut off as he is crushed beneath thousands of pounds of pressure along with his risen followers.
Naruto raises a single handed seal.
"Thank you Gamabunta-san, I will explain soon."
The massive toad sighs, blowing smoke out.
"Yeah yeah brat."
He vanishes in a wall of smoke.
Naruto holds Karin on his back.
"You okay?"
He turns back to her with a look of concern and a small smile.
She blushes and looks away.
"Y-yeah."
Naruto sets her down on the roof hopping down to examine the bodies in the crater to ensure they are truly dead.
The villagers are all motionless, as Shirozetsu has returned to normal size, appearing motionless.
"His spores must have been tied to his chakra, when he died it deactivated, releasing the villagers."
Naruto sighs, averting his eyes from a small girl near his feet.
"Karin, we need to go check on the others, come on."
"R-right."
Konoha
Shizune cleans off her hands, sighing as she takes note of what she found in the autopsy.
She's interrupted by a door swinging open as Sakura runs in looking extremely enlivened.
"Sempai, the cyper corp cracked the code!"
"W-what, already?!"
Sakura nods excitedly.
"It was left in an easily deciphered code used by double agents of Sandaime sama, he must have wanted to leak this intel to the good guys if he was silenced!"
Shizune looks up at her curiously.
"What did it say?"
Sakura pulls out a scroll and hands it to her.
"Here it turned out to be a lot of intel."
Shizune unfurls the scroll and her eyes widen.
"T-this is.."
Sakura nods, looking at her seriously.
"It's almost too good to be true."
"Did you tell Tsunade-sama?"
The fuschia haired youth nods.
"Yes, she's convening a council, we will be among those present, I believe Kakashi-sensei, and Anko-sensei will be there too, we're just waiting on one more person."
"Who?"
"Naruto!"
Karin shouts out as the blonde growls diving headfirst into the flaming forest.
"I can't leave them."
He raises a hand to the burning wall of leaves in front of him
"Preta path!"
The green fire is rapidly sucked into his hand.
"Naruto wait!"
A deep masculine voice is heard before he is tackled out of the air by Jugo.
"W-what.."
"Stop absorbing that chakra!"
The man seems more emotional than he's ever audibly been.
Naruto looks down and sees what he's referring to, his hand has begun turning pale, strange leaf-like marks forming on his hand.
"W-what the hell."
Jugo reaches forward his hand turning grey and leech-like protrusions entering Naruto's arm, they begin to drink the chakra like venom out of him.
He winces as the chakra seems to be particularly rough to him.
"What is this stuff, Jugo?"
The orange-haired man looks up with one eye closed.
"Nature chakra, but something is off about it, it's like it's been synthetically modified to be poisonous."
He pukes as he has more tendrils growing from his leg, and deposits the chakra back into the grass, which turns grey and dies.
"Naruto-sama, this was a trap, they knew you would try to put out the fire using your Rinnegan, we need to go."
"Where are Kisame and Suigetsu?!"
Jugo looks up at him shrugging and looking worried but resolute.
"They sent me to rendezvous with Sasori's squad in person, our mics stopped working in the forest, I got separated from them when the explosions began."
Naruto grits his teeth and shakes his head.
"I refuse to abandon Kisame, or any of my comrades."
He closes his eyes and opens them an orange spectral figure forming around him.
It draws a sword and cuts through the first layer of trees, raising a shield and begins to march into the woods.
"Kisame! Sasori! Where are you guys?!"
Jugo and Karin follow him carefully, avoiding the flaming underbrush.
Back in the small village, the dead zetsu begins to melt, revealing a zombified man.
From beneath the piles of corpses a white puddle begins to rise up.
"Tsk tsk Naruto, thinking I was so weak will come back to bite you.~"
The plant man melts into the ground, racing in the direction of the forest.
'Kuro, can you hear me, Naruto fell for the bait, he doesn't suspect a thing.'
Telekinetically a gravelly voice responds to him.
'Well done Shirozetsu, remember what you have to do, work with that serpent Kabuto, weaken Naruto, and escape with the prize, Pain and Konan are on their way.'
'Oh myy, I wish I could be there to record that sight.~'
'Our job is not to capture that one, we will prepare for the Kage conference, and the next stage of Project Tsuki no me.'
"Right then, I'm sooo excited, oh boy this war will be something else, I can hardly wait.~"
'Hehehe for once, I concur, even that fool Obito can't anticipate what comes next.'
'Oh Kurozetsu, I sure hope some of us will be left to greet mother when she returns.~'
'The revival of Kaguya is absolute, even if none of you Shirozetsu survive the war, Tobizetsu and I will ensure everything proceeds as planned.'
"Right then I'll give it my all, I'll be sure to show Naruto a good time.~"
The white plant grins with fang like teeth, his green hair rippling in the wind as he glides through the liquid earth.
He approaches the center of the forest, and the next great battle.
X END X