Act VI: Akatsuki

Training Montage 9: Rasen-Against-Time-Again


"So. Cheating time."

Naruto flexed his arms. The clone of Kakashi he'd gotten watched him from a few metres away.

"What's the general process for creating new jutsu? Cos, like, I've never done this before in my life."

"Well..." Kakashi mused. "General process is make a rasengan, try and put an elemental release into it, watch it fizzle out or explode, and try again."

"How long did you spend doing this?"

"About five years on and off without much success."

"Eesh." Naruto winced. "Well I've gotta do it faster than Sasuke, so."

He put his hands together. "Multi shadow clone jutsu!"

Kakashi paled, just a little, as over two hundred shadow clones appeared in the clearing. "I see at least your chakra has matured. Was that without the Kyuubi?"

"Uh-huh." Naruto's face fell a little. "I haven't called on him in a while. We had this talk about control, and being responsible...I wanna be good enough without him first."

"Fair enough." Kakashi watched, as the small army began conjuring rasengan. "But yes, that should definitely bring the time down..."


"So. Cheating time." Sasuke cracked his neck. The clone of Kakashi he'd gotten watched him from a few metres away.

"You do realise you're in serious trouble, right?" He said. "Naruto can summon about fifty shadow clones on his worst day. I'd bet my life savings you can't form a rasengan with more than ten. He can't not do this faster than you."

"Yeah but you see," Sasuke slowly summoned a rasengan in his hand, "I'm racing him. So I can't lose, or my honour will be irreparable damaged."

"Flawless logic." Kakashi deadpanned. "But do you have an actual plan?"

Sasuke grinned. "Sure. Sort of. Thing one; my chakra control is still way better than Naruto's. I can master the precision elements way quicker than he can."

"But not fifty times quicker."

"No. But thing two;" Sasuke pointed to his eyes, "the Sharingan is bullshit."

"You can't copy a technique you haven't completed yet." Kakashi pointed out.

"I don't need to." Sasuke raised a finger. "This thing lets me see chakra in slow motion, which is hella helpful," he raised another, "and every time I make any progress I can repeat it perfectly. So yeah, I think I'll be able to close the gap."


Orochimaru gave Kabuto a sharp look, and the young man reluctantly left the room. Hinata walked over and perched on his bed. "Does this mean your research has got results? Finally?"

"You wound me." Orochimaru chuckled. "Have I ever shown an absence of skill as a scientist?"

"You took a chip out of my eye." Hinata deadpanned.

"Karin healed it." Orochimaru protested.

"Yes, but I don't like using Karin to heal myself, it's barbaric." Hinata sighed. "Anyway, what are the results?"

Orochimaru smiled, and gestured to his bedside table.

"You know, normal people keep books in there? Maybe a pencil and paper?" Hinata could already see what he meant (three cheers for the Byakugan), she reached in and pulled out the scientific looking equipment, a tray of tweezers, microscopes, and one pot of green goop. Orochimaru began ordering them meticulously, sickly arms shaking but nonetheless precise and careful. "I had to get it down to a cellular level for this to work. The change doesn't occur until you're dealing with 'wholes', if there are missing connections with other necessary biological parts it doesn't work...here. Look."

Hinata put her eye to the microscope. She saw...a blob. "This is me?"

"One of your cells, yes. So far it's remained connected to your chakra network, from the supply you gave me earlier-"

"You drained me while I was sleeping."

"-semantics, dear. Now, look what happens when I disconnect that flow."

He flicked a light off. Hinata squinted. "It...died."

"Quite. Even if there was ever life without chakra, well, we can't go on without it now. But if you look into microscope number two..."

Hinata sighed, and complied. "It's another blob."

"Cell, darling, you're killing me. Now this time, when I disconnect it from your chakra, I'm going to substitute in mine."

Hinata watched. There was a shift in colour (though that may have just been the Byakugan showing her Orochimaru's different flavour) but otherwise, the cell didn't change. "It's still alive." She noted. "That's not revolutionary. Chakra can be transferred benignly, it's one of the most basic medical techniques."

"You know medical ninjutsu?" Orochimaru asked.

"Some basics. If you can imagine, I used to hate the idea of violence." Hinata replied, drolly. "You can pour in your own chakra to keep alive someone who's been exhausted or drained. It's true for anyone."

"It is." Orochimaru conceded. "But keep looking."

Hinata did. And frowned, as slowly..."It's going...white."

An opal shell seemed to slowly cover the cell.

"Pure white." Orochimaru emphasised, grinning. "A perfect white. They do this with anyone's chakra, and if I keep it alive through more creative means, it does the same. It becomes stronger, harder, lighter. A metamorphosis, or an evolution."

"You think this is it?" Hinata asked. "The Gokei?"

"The Sharingan and Byakugan are two sides of the same coin. The former more offensive, the latter more defensive. If the one is evolved through murder, it stands to reason that the other requires a brush with death."

"Hn." Hinata couldn't help but shudder slightly. "So I would have to survive without chakra-"

"For almost two minutes, if my calculations are right." Orochimaru nodded. "And your clan techniques provide the perfect way to do so."

Hinata looked at him. "The 128 palms is enough to cut off every chakra pathway in the body, if not every point. You want me to gentle fist myself?"

"I admit, it will be highly dangerous." Orochimaru grimaced. "I'd prefer to test it on other subjects first but, well, we don't have any other Hyuuga." he looked up at her, and Hinata found what just might have been genuine concern on his face. Or it was just the light. "It's your choice, Hinata. I don't like the idea of risking you."

Hinata sat back and thought. "Whatever the process is, it happened to Neji. And I'm almost certain that it happened on accident, though nothing is impossible when it comes to him. Which means this has to be a situation that he...endured..."

"Hinata?" Orochimaru tilted his head.

"We do it." She looked up, white eyes hard.

"You-"

"I think I know when this happened to Neji." Hinata explained, a certain memory running incessantly through her head. "This is it. We do it."

"Very well." Orochimaru sighed. "I'll prep a room. Make sure your body is ready."

And wasn't that a strange choice of words. "I will."


"SHIT-" BOOM.

Kakashi cracked an eye open and sighed irritably. This was not the first time he had heard those two noises in that particular order. Nor the fifth, nor the tenth. Resigned to abandoning his nap, he sat up and stretched, looking across at Sasuke. The boy was laid out flat on his back. There was dust and burn marks all over his clothes. "So, how's the new technique coming along?" Kakashi asked, brightly.

"Fuck this." Sasuke orated, loudly, flailing his hands, wildly.

"What a helpful and informative statement."

"Ugh." Sasuke sat up. "This...this is not going well. The fire style just does not want to gel with the spinning! Whenever I try to set it alight the flames just spin out wildly, I can't build up any real power in it!"

"This week's problem; fire spreads." Kakashi deadpanned. "Other issues; wind blows. Lightning jumps."

"Oh no, last week's problem was that fire spreads." Sasuke sighed. "I figured that instead of actual flames I could just superheat the chakra itself. Which worked, sorta. Of course then it got way harder to stop it spinning out of control, so I had to try and tighten the curve against the heat, but if I don't make it hot enough it just collapses inwards instead of outwards. Still working on finding that equilibrium. But none of it matters!" Sasuke held his hand out again.

Kakashi watched, intrigued, as the rasengan formed, then began to glow orange, then compressed in width so it was more cylindrical than spherical, like a kunai rapidly spinning about its centre.

"None of it matters," Sasuke continued, focusing, "because the heat doesn't do anything. At least not while it's contained in the spiral. I mean maybe the attack potency goes up a bit, but what's it gonna melt that the rasengan wasn't already ripping through? 'Oh well done, you've cauterised the wound, you've made the technique less lethal'. If I'm gonna impale someone with it I may as well use the chidori. And, of course, there's the fact that the moment I let go of it-" he threw the thing forwards.

Kakashi (in a show of how much he cared for his student) immediately hid behind Sasuke's back as the jutsu unravelled a moment out of his hand.

BOOM, it went, as a wave of hot air washed over both of them.

"-the heat just dissipates into the surroundings." Sasuke finished, wincing a little. "And it's a lot of heat, and it burns you if you get too close, but that doesn't help me much. 'Oh, wonderful, I've heated up the back of the man I just ran through and also burned my own hand.' I'm almost considering giving it up as a bad job."

"It's possible you could modify it to make some sort of fire punch jutsu?" Kakashi suggested. "Lower cost, less chakra control needed, useful for a lot of people in the village."

"I could..." Sasuke agreed. "But I don't want one of those. I want a jutsu scarier than the rasengan."

"Then you know what you have to do." Kakashi shrugged. "Be careful, slow, methodical, carefully figure out-"

"Come up with something stupid to make it work! You're right!" Sasuke slapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks! You've helped a lot."

"Why do I even bother..."


"My problem is," Naruto decided, "I can't control the shape, the chakra, and the nature transformation at the same time."

"Well, you know what you have to do." Kakashi shrugged. "Be-"

"Use more shadow clones!" Naruto exclaimed. "Great idea, sensei, you're the best!"

"Why do I even bother..."


"You're crazy!" Karin hissed. Hinata had cornered her in the corridor to explain the situation. "You-You do realise that Orochimaru-"

"Wants to steal my body? Yes. Of course." Hinata shrugged. She didn't seem too concerned.

"You're going to paralyse yourself and sit there at his mercy while your body gets a new power up and his old body is on the verge of death." Karin summarised. "Hinata. The stars are aligning for him to take your body. He probably thinks it's christmas. Only a madwoman would go into that room!"

"And I'm going in anyway." Hinata shrugged.

"You-"

"I'll take precautions."

"We could just run! I'll provide the chakra, just-" Karin paused. Hinata was giving her a look.

"You'd already thought of that." The redhead realised. "You're planning something."

"If you could," Hinata responded, not confirming or denying it, "I'd like it if you found yourself nearby at the time of the procedure. I may need some...support, during or afterwards."

"I'll be there." Karin promised. "Hinata...don't die, okay?"

"I won't." The Hyuuga smiled. "I can't kill Neji if I'm dead, can I?"

"Not to mention you promised your boyfriend." Karin teased.

Hinata, predictably, blushed heavily. "Right. And that."


Sasuke sat, musing, at a ramen stand in central Konoha. Outside, someone was handing out balloons to children. He watched, bemused, as they pumped more and more air into one of them, but then the pressure inside became too much, and it popped, startling all the children.

Sasuke's eyes widened. "YO I HAVE AN IDEA-"


The room was dark. Hinata knew this was not for any particular purpose, Orochimaru just really liked it when his rooms were dimly lit by weak, flickering candle flames or ominously glowing coals. She wasn't quite sure whether it was just an aesthetic choice or (more amusingly) something about his snake eyes didn't like bright lights.

But either way, it was dark, and she stood alone with her master in a locked room with a single bed against one wall.

It wasn't as weird as it looked.

"Shadow clone jutsu." She muttered, summoning a copy of herself.

"Are you certain about this?" Orochimaru asked. He was uncharacteristically concerned, his usual unflappable nature seemingly having abandoned him. Which was odd, because it was very unlike him to be actually worried about her.

"I'm certain." She nodded, stretching her arms to prevent any long lasting damage from the paralysis. "Let's get it over with."

"Right." Orochimaru sighed. He straightened, and refocused on her. "Go."

The shadow clone fell into stance.

A successful thirty-two palms would prevent most opponents from using any jutsu, and paralyse them for a short time.

A sixty-four palms would completely prevent all chakra usage, and paralyse the opponent for hours. It was the most common technique for adults to use in battle.

But this was different. It would require the complete halt of all chakra flow through the body. All 361 points would need to be rendered useless. Some could be hit in clusters, some would be eliminated when their neighbours went down, but this would still require the highest level technique most Hyuuga masters learned.

Eight Trigrams, One Hundred and Twenty Eight palms. A technique that would completely shut down all body functions, blind you, and kill you inside of two minutes. The books speculated as to what killed you first; the heart stopping, the stomach and liver breaking apart, or the brain running out of oxygen.

Hinata might be about to find out.

She exhaled, and nodded to her clone.

The hits thudded into her.

She had to deliberately quash her instincts to block, and was glad that quickly enough all pain was numbed entirely. Her body felt cold, and then she couldn't feel it at all. She lost all sense of up or down, but heard something that might have been her body being lowered onto the bed by her clone.

"She hasn't swallowed her tongue, which is good." Came her clone's muffled voice. "Chakra flow is completely down, administering support now." Chakra poured into her, and that she could feel. Her brain lost some of the sluggishness it had taken on.

"Body functions...stabilising." Reported her clone. "No unusual behaviour from her cells as of yet."

"Excellent." Came Orochimaru's voice. There was a shuffle (Orochimaru was shuffling) and then a sigh. "Alright then, let's get the horrible betrayal out of the way."

There was a whoosh, and then the chakra flow cut off, and then there was a sudden influx of chakra as her clone popped, and Hinata got the memories of Orochimaru darting out to bite the clone in the neck, and then there was a poof as the shadow clone she had disguised as a candle appeared and attacked, and then there was a brief scuffle, but the clone couldn't use the gates or the curse mark, and then there was another influx of chakra and another set of memories, and then there was silence.

No more chakra flowed into her body, and her brain began to throb.

I may have miscalculated slightly. She thought, dimly.

There was another sigh, and she heard Orochimaru come to lean on her bed. "So." He began. "Let's talk."


Karin crept through the corridors of the hideout. It was a very scary thing to do. She knew that she should probably be walking normally, that it would be less suspicious than creeping, but she couldn't help but creep, because she was betraying Orochimaru and that was a terrifying thing to do and the person she was doing it for was currently locked in a room with him-

"Going somewhere?"

She "Eep!"d and stood straight, looking forwards. Kabuto was leant against the wall, smiling that asshole smile of his.

"Kabuto." She acknowledged. "I was, um,"

"The only thing down this corridor is Orochimaru's chambers." He interrupted, standing up and placing himself in the centre of the hallway. "He has given orders not to be disturbed."

"I have been given different orders." Karin replied, boldly.

"Really?" Kabuto looked over his glasses at her, satire thick on his voice. "By Orochimaru?"

"No." She glared. "By Lady Hyuuga."

Kabuto, if anything, smiled wider. "Perfect. You know he told me she might try something like this. And I have permission to kill you if you she has."

"You can try." Karin replied, bravely, falling into a fighting stance.

And then she was punched in the stomach.

She blinked and Kabuto was there and she was thrown backwards onto the floor, gasping for air.

"Cute." Kabuto laughed. "You do realise I'm actually really strong, right? Stronger than your average jonin? Like I could probably kill Terumi Mei."

"Mei's...fodder though." Karin was able to cough.

"Fair enough." Kabuto grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the wall.

Karin gasped. I may have miscalculated slightly.

"He's going to kill her, you know that, right?" The medic grinned sadistically. "That bitch is going to get absorbed by him, and I get to kill you in the few minutes it takes him." He leaned in close to her face. "Really, it's like my birthday came early."

Karin managed a smile. "I thought Hinata put your birthday last month?"

He glared at her, and she darted forwards and bit his nose. Hard.

He howled, but she didn't let go, tearing a chunk out of it, and when he stumbled backwards she thrust her hands forwards and launched out the adamantine chakra chains. The golden links wrapped him up and slammed him against the opposing wall.

"Biting." She spat out the remnants of his nose. "People do it to me so often, you'd think it'd be more tasty." She took off down the corridor.

One turn, another, and then Orochimaru's room was in the wall to her left and she reached out for it-

There were two sounds, and Karin screamed.

She collapsed to the floor as the pair of kunai buried themselves perfectly into both her Achilles' tendons, and turned to see a livid Kabuto stalking towards her.

"You." He seethed, blood dripping from his face. "I am going to bite your throat out and use your corpse in my experiments!"

Sufficiently terrified, Karin scrambled backwards along the floor. She shot out some more chains but Kabuto casually swerved out of the way.

He got closer, and closer, and then he was only about a metre away-

Which was when the door to Orochimaru's door exploded outwards between them.

Both froze.

Stood in the doorway, one hand outstretched, was a small girl with blue hair.

Her eyes were white. Pure white. Swirls of opal twisted out from them, onto her forehead and out to her cheeks. She took in the scene in front of her and smiled.

"M-Master?" Kabuto tried.

"Afraid not." Replied Hinata Hyuuga. She walked out to stand between him and Karin.

"I..." he gulped. "What did you-"

"Isn't it obvious?" She shrugged. "I killed him."

Kabuto looked, shocked, into the room. Through the doorway, all he could see was a few dead snakes on the floor.

"But...but-" Karin watched Kabuto's tone shift. "The redhead." He tried. "She was about to-"

"You are trying to lie to me." Hinata stopped him, calmly. "I can see it. Don't try."

Kabuto wisely shut up.

"So...you..." Karin tried to think of what to say.

Hinata turned and smiled at her. "That's right. I've unlocked the Gokei." She looked back at Kabuto. "You. Fix what you just did to my friend, I'm going to get Juugo out of his cage. think it's about time I paid my cousin a visit."


And thus, the biggie is revealed to the audience. Yes, I deliberately didnt show how Hinata managed to win from that much of a handicap, it'll be revealed later. Other than that, though, this chapter was mostly buildup. It's next chapter where we get to see Hinata's new dojutsu put to work.

On an entirely seperate note, I am running out of backlog. Come on brain, all you have to do is concurrently write the three most climactic fights of the fic so far...