Hey, you know how in canon curse mark (version one!) Sasuke could outspeed sound attacks? That's 340 m/s. Kakashi could react to a lightning bolt when he was a fucking teenager. That's (minimum) over 100,000 m/s, more likely millions. With that in mind, a 5 second cooldown on Shinra Tensei is fucking forever, so I've tweaked it the same way I'm tweaking a few things in this universe. Just bear in mind when I'm describing certain feats in this fic that they're being done by people who can consider, decide on, and perform hundreds of actions every second, and that chunin exams Sasuke could probably kill, like, everyone in My Hero Academia. And all the original avengers. And, like, all the robots from Code Geass.
Maybe.
From a writing point of view, this is why you don't scale your speeds to fucking ridiculous levels, guys. The six paths characters could easily kill every citizen of Konoha with taijutsu before any one of them could blink.
Family Matters #4
The Rinnegan is the greatest dojutsu in the world.
That is a fact.
It's ocular prowess is a match for that of the Sharingan, but that is the least impressive of its abilities.
The Rinnegan seems to be unlocked in a Sharingan wielder who cultivates the chakra of the sage of six paths within their body. Why this was achieved when I absorbed Hashirama's chakra, and not between any other Uchiha and Senju, I do not know. Regardless, here are its abilities.
The Preta Path- Can absorb chakra, consuming ninjutsu or directly draining an opponent.
The Naraka Path- Can summon the king of hell. The king of hell can completely heal harmed or even crippled ninja, repair Paths, and can tell when people are lying, and kill them instantly if they are grappled.
The Animal Path- Can summon a menagerie of giant animal summons and see through their eyes. Can also summon other people or Paths.
The Human Path- Can rip a person's soul out at close range, killing them instantly and reading their mind.
The Asura Path: can sprout extra mechanical limbs, and fire missiles, lasers, etc.
The Deva Path: Flight, powerful omnidirectional projections of force, general telekinesis, and the ability to form 'Chibaku Tensei' planetoids to seal hostiles inside or just use as projectiles.
The Outer Path: use chains and rods to emit and absorb chakra. Operate up to six corpses as extra bodies in combat, which can (but do not have to) each be given one Path (though this will prevent the rinnegan user using that path directly.) Corpses used retain all abilities and bloodline limits from their life, but are directly under the rinnegan user's control, who can see through all their eyes simultaneously.
The outer path also allows the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path to be summoned, into which bijuu can be stored, and unlocks the technique 'Rinne Rebirth.' This is a jutsu that can resurrect (truly, from the dead) a staggering amount of individuals based on the user's chakra expenditure. It's only limits are that it can only restore people who's souls are in the pure lands, and it is a suicide jutsu that will always kill the user.
The drawbacks to Rinnegan overuse manifest as massive bodily weakness and even becoming crippled (especially in those who have transplanted the eye, rendering costs greater).
This is not due to any naturally corruptive process, like that of the Mangekyo Sharingan, but rather the immense chakra costs on every single technique's use...
-Uchiha stone tablet, author unknown
(Okay but it's totally Madara, right? -Itachi)
"Shit! He's got him!"
"More details, Hinata!"
Leaving Itachi and Fugaku laying in the woods might have seemed a bad idea, but the two-thirds of team 7 who had done it felt they were pretty damn justified given the fact that Konoha had just been-
You know what! We're just not going to think about that right now!
Now; the speed of Sasuke and Hinata meant that the journey of many kilometres could be made in under ten seconds, even as exhausted as they were.
However, that also meant that other things could happen in that time. For instance, Hinata's Byakugan had just shown her the most ridiculously epic battle she'd ever seen. And, even in that short a time, it was over.
"I think this is Pain!" She told Sasuke. "Six people with identical eyes and chakra, but different powers! Naruto fought him, using some power I can't even see!"
"And?"
"Only one is left! But Naruto's on the ground!"
The evidence was provided a moment later, when both of them leapt from the woods, cleared the sill of the pit, and dropped down, gaining a clear view of what was going on.
Naruto looked up at them, eyes widening. He had black rods sticking out of his arms, legs, and back; which the dojutsu of his would-be rescuers showed were doing something to his chakra.
"H-Hina-" His voice cracked, and then he started screaming at them. "No! Get out of here!"
The orange haired man turned-
There was a subsonic boom. Black fire and white crystal blossomed, but a sphere of force outbound from Pain caught both techniques, forcing both straight back where they came from. Sasuke and Hinata both dodged the flak, pushing to close the distance, both generating a chidori and coming at Pain from different angles, but he held out one hand and Hinata was frozen in place, lifted bodily off the floor and made to hover, and then Pain's other hand slapped away Sasuke's chidori with pitiful ease and struck his chest with a flat palm, throwing him backwards.
Hinata substituted with some rubble, teleporting out of the grip and appearing behind Pain, but he simply booted her backwards before her attack could land, turning to grip her in his telekinesis again and throw her in the opposite direction.
She landed in a heap with Sasuke.
"What in Kami's name has this guy been eating..." Sasuke groaned, standing up. The fact that Pain was fast enough to react to Hinata was bad enough, but even with the sharingan Sasuke hadn't been able to predict him, and that was even worse.
"Shinra Tensei has a cooldown!" Naruto shouted to them, desperately. "Five milliseconds! Actually, ignore that, just GO!"
"Run. Live." Pain simply told them. "Nobody else but the nine-tails host has to die today."
"Those who fail their missions are trash." Sasuke and Hinata chorused. "But those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash."
The former looked at the latter, and threw a quick genjutsu her way.
'I'm running on fumes, and so are you. We need to free Naruto. He might be the only one who has a chance against this guy.'
Hinata fired one back, 'any plans?'
'How fast's your white-body-thingy?'
'Very.'
'Go for our teammate. I'll buy you your time.'
Both turned back to Pain, who was simply stood there waiting patiently.
There was a flash, and Sasuke's Susanno burst into existence again as he charged straight for his adversary. The skeleton punched once, twice, impacts that made the stone around their target buckle, but Pain just caught the things on his forearms.
Annoying, but part of the plan.
Hinata's Vishnu wrapped around her body, and she threw up a giant cone of debris behind her from the sheer speed as she beelined diagonally towards Naruto. Not stopping, she pulled up the lionfists as her best option for smashing the black rods to pieces, intending to jump straight over Naruto and sever them all in one swing.
Pain tried to reach out his hand towards her, but Sasuke (hoping the somatic component was essential for his telekinesis) conjured up the magatama beads and wrapped them around Pain's arms, trapping them in front of him.
I'm gonna black out in the next two seconds from the drain, but maybe-
Hinata reached her target, jumping, bringing lionfists round.
"Bansho Ten'in." Pain intoned.
Hinata was yanked towards Pain, the universal pull snatching her when she was barely millimetres from Naruto, Sasuke cried out in alarm as he was pulled out from inside the Susanno, and the purple avatar vanished, as did the beads around Pain's arms.
He reached out, and grabbed both ninja by the skull, holding them aloft, and digging in with his fingers.
They screamed.
"No." On the floor, Naruto looked at him in horror. "No, please. Don't. Please, not them, I don't-please I don't have anyone else-"
"You would not leave even if I offered now, would you?" Pain asked his two captives.
"Fuck you." Hinata spat.
"Aw; I don't know man, maybe you should, ngh, try and see." Sasuke gasped out.
"Let them go." Naruto begged. "Please, you already have me, they're no threat to you, just-"
"Hm. Why is it that you care so much?" Said the Path, to the two people in his hands. "Without using your cute little words like 'teammate' to dodge the question. Even knowing it is hopeless, why must you die trying to save him?"
"BECAUSE I LOVE HIM!"
There was a brief pause.
Nobody breathed, in that interval. But Sasuke looked at Hinata, and Hinata looked at Sasuke, and both of them looked at Naruto. Both felt a certain...warmth, that they had both said the exact same thing at the exact same time.
And then Pain squeezed, and their skulls crushed inwards.
Everything went red.
Naruto knelt in the river that represented his chakra, and sobbed.
He was briefly aware of combat happening. That the chakra receivers Pain had put in his body had simply evaporated as he brought out more Kyuubi chakra than he ever had before.
The mind breaking effects of the overabundance of yang chakra didn't seem to be reaching him, curiously enough. Though his body was tearing what was left of the terrain to shreds, screaming, roaring, trying with every fibre of its being to stamp out the man who had taken everything from him...his mind simply knelt, and cried.
"You know, I pity you." The Kyuubi said, casually, from behind its bars. Naruto's attempts to make the mindscape more interesting had crumbled; it was a sewer again. "Honestly, I do."
Naruto didn't reply.
"I actually know those eyes." Continued the Fox. "The man who's using them against you isn't their original owner. Hmm...actually, he might be. The sage of six paths had the Rinnegan; he's the one who created us. I have a feeling Madara might have gotten a hold of them; he never had them when I saw him, but, well, Madara's Madara. That's the one who controlled me, by the way. The first time I attacked the village. Not sure about the second, really. Mask and Sharingan, about all I can give you to go on there."
Outside, the fight was going poorly. None of their attacks seemed to be doing anything.
"Want me to give you the next tail of power?" The Kyuubi offered.
Naruto, who had stopped crying at some point, nodded. "Sure. Go six. Or, seven. Eight. Fuck it, I don't care anymore..."
The fox shrugged, but obliged.
Their outside form shifted, cells growing, dying, and growing again, the red aura manifesting more solidly as bone and flesh. A claw caught Pain, and threw him almost a hundred metres deep into the earth.
"This is why I made sure to hate you." The Kyuubi mused. "Not just the whole 'captured forever' thing. Because loving anything is a waste of time. If you love anything in this world, there'll always be someone that comes along to take it from you. Hate's easier."
On the outside, Pain shouted something. The rocks around them shifted, floating upwards, taking the jinchurikki with them.
"Huh." The Kyuubi mused. "I know that move. Hagoromo made the moon with it."
"Oh, really?" Naruto asked, quietly.
"Yeah. Think he wanted to trap his mum in it, or something. I wasn't paying too much attention when he explained it."
"Yeah? I know that feeling. When the teacher's droning on, and it's just not that interesting?" Naruto laughed. There was nothing in the sound.
Their view of the outside seemed to cut off, their body wasn't seeing anything, hearing anything. They were within the planetoid.
The Kyuubi frowned. "Ugh. That's not good. I can't break out of this thing. Or, I could, at max power, but-"
"You want out?"
That stopped the Fox in its tracks. "Come again?"
"You want me to let you out?" Naruto repeated, standing up and walking over. "It sounds like he has some nasty plans for you if we can't get you out of this thing."
A great eye peered down at Naruto. "I...thought I'd have to convince you a little more."
The boy shrugged. "I reckon whatever you do, you'll kill him if you can. If I don't let you out, we're stuck in here. He wins, and all of this was for nothing."
"You are aware," the Kyuubi began, "that when you let me out I will kill you."
"Yeah." Naruto nodded. "That's probably for the best, really."
The Fox paused, and looked at him. For the first time, the beast's face seemed to register genuine concern. "I...I don't have to kill you to escape. I could probably get out of here with just eight tails-"
"Yeah I figured." Naruto replied, calmly. "Do it anyway. He's taken everything, whiskers. I...I don't have anything left."
"...For the record." Kyuubi said. "I wasn't actually going to destroy everything you loved, if you let me go. I just...I just wanted to be alone."
"You'll get to give it a try, then." Naruto tried for a smile. "Just a heads up though? Trust me when I say, being alone isn't all it's cracked up to be."
He reached up to the central bar in the Kyuubi's cage, and snatched the sticky note right off of it, closing his eyes in preparation for the inevitable.
...And nothing happened.
Naruto frowned, opened his eyes, and looked down at the sticky note.
'lock' was scribbled on the side he'd always seen. Turning it over to the flip side, he saw 'in case of emergency, rip me'.
"Four years, four years, the one thing in your head that isn't there from the nine tails and you don't even bother to check the other side of it..." Naruto muttered to himself, then tore the paper in two.
That got a reaction.
There was a flash of white light in the chamber, behind Naruto, who turned and put a hand over his eyes to try and make out the form that had just appeared.
The fox saw it first. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me. You're supposed to be dead!"
"Well." Namikaze Minato shrugged. "I suppose technically I am." He turned to smile at Naruto. "Hey, kid. Look at you, all grown up. Last I saw you, you were a baby."
"You're the fourth Hokage." Naruto gaped. "You're the one that put him into me!"
Minato chuckled. "That's true. I'm so, so sorry that that was necessary. You were just a baby, and Kushina told me right from the start that if I got you involved in all this crap before you were old enough she'd, and I quote, 'beat my ass four ways to Sunday and not give me any sex for a month'."
Naruto blinked. "Um. Come again?"
"Oh, right." Minato straightened. "Big reveal time. Ahem. Kakashi never told you what happened to your father."
"He told me enough." Naruto replied in a monotone, dutifully. "He told me you killed him."
"No, Naruto. I am your father."
"Yeah, I know."
"Joim me, and together-come again?"
"Yeah I sort of figured that part out about two years ago." Naruto shrugged. "Nice to get it confirmed before I die, though."
Minato looked thoroughly put out. "What? How? Who told you?"
"I spent four years training with Jiraiya." Naruto pointed out. "Between him, Kakashi, and granny Tsunade, they couldn't quite keep straight all the cool stuff my cool ninja dad did and all the cool stuff the fourth Hokage did. Plus your relationship with Uzumaki Kushina (you know, the only Uzumaki in the village, even if I hadn't been told she was my mum) wasn't as secret as you tried to keep it."
"Fuckin' Konoha rumour mill." Minato sighed, looking thoroughly dejected.
"Anyway, how are you here?" Naruto asked.
"Yeah, what Kit said." The nine-tails growled. "I stabbed your ass, I'm sure of it."
"Okay, well, I'm not actually 'here'." Minato explained. "Minato is in the belly of the reaper. Trick is, when you sell your soul to the god of death to do some sealing jutsu, you basically get to do whatever the hell you want. You're talking to a fragment of Minato's chakra that's capable of mimicking his consciousness for about five seconds, and we've only expended one of those so far."
"That sounds like total bullshit." Naruto pointed out.
"Yeah well you see," said the Kage, "I'm Namikaze Minato. Fuck you, I can do whatever I want."
"Fair enough."
"Anyway, why the hell are you trying to free the Kyuubi?" Minato glared at his son. "Let me guess; fighting someone? Actually, let me just take a look at your memories-Oh, Fuck. That's bad."
"Yeah." Naruto grimaced. "Sorry, I let your village get blown up."
"Yeah, fuck, alright." Minato blew out a breath between his lips, making a 'pthfphfth' sound. "Okay, that's bad, that is bad...Alright, I think I can get you out of here. You've still got some sage chakra left, and now that you know what this 'Pain' guy can do-"
"I don't want to."
That made Minato look up, sharply. "You what?"
"He killed my teammates." Naruto told him, brokenly. "Right in front of me. Jiraiya was my mentor for years, and he's dead too. And so's Iruka, and Ichiraku, and Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, Sakura, Haku, Kakashi, they're just...gone, now. Forever. If I get out there, and beat him, and then stand up in the wreckage of everything I've ever loved...what would I do?"
"Oh, you poor thing..." Minato took two steps forwards, and wrapped Naruto in a hug. "I'm so sorry. If I'd known about everything you were going to go through, I would have found a way to be here."
"But you weren't." Naruto extricated himself from the hug. "Look, I know you care and all, but..." He winced. "You're not my dad. You're the fourth Hokage. I don't know you."
Minato looked hurt, but nodded. "That's...fair. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you die here."
"You can't exactly stop me." Naruto pointed out.
"I can damn well try."
"How do I let out the tentacle fox, sir."
"I don't think you need him for that." Kyuubi pointed out. "I think if you just-"
"Okay, Fox, how about you just shut up? For a minute?" Minato glared at it.
"How about I tell Kit how little your dick is, huh? I saw everything Kushina saw, remember."
Minato groaned. "Kami, it was hard enough to deal with you when I was hearing your comments filtered through my wife...Look, Naruto. Would your teammates want you to do this?"
Naruto stopped. Glared. "That's a fucking low blow."
"Would they?" Minato persisted.
"How the fuck would I know? We've got pretty categorical proof the afterlife exists, maybe they just want to see me again."
"And now you're trying to lie to yourself. Something I understand you used to do a lot, before you met them."
"Oh, read my mind, that's fair-"
"Whatever I am to you, you're my son." Minato told him. "Naruto, you have been through hell and back, and you've never once given up before."
"Well what the hell are my motives supposed to be?" Naruto shouted at him, eyes red and puffy. "I can't prove the village wrong, they're dead! I can't succeed for my friends, they're dead! Dead!"
"Then honour them." Minato stressed. "Be the person that they would want you to be."
Naruto clenched his eyes shut. "Prick." He grimaced. "We don't all get to sacrifice ourselves to save our friends, you know. Some of us have to be the ones who live afterwards."
Minato didn't reply.
Almost a full second of real time passed.
Then Naruto hissed out a breath, and opened his eyes, turning to the cage bars. "Kyuubi." He said. "I'm gonna have to do a rain check on that freeing you thing."
"Oh, fuck you-"
"A temporary one. I'm going to kill this bastard, and then I'm going to report to Tsunade, and then I'm going to give my teammates a burial. After that, all bets are off."
The nine-tails huffed, and turned its head away. "I'll take it. You're bigger than your dad, by the way."
"Did not need to know that." Naruto looked back at his dad. "So? How do I get out of here?"
Minato grinned, and put his hands together. "Oh don't you worry. I'm the yellow flash, remember? If there's one thing I'm good at, it's getting out of-what happened to my knives."
"You what?"
Minato frowned. "The three-pronged kunai. There should be a bunch of those in a box somewhere."
"Oh, yeah, those." Naruto winced. "I, uh, tore all the seals off them to replace them with explosive tags. And then I blew them all up."
"Oh for..." Minato rolled his eyes. "Right, lets see if there are others...okay, there's one!" He looked across to Naruto. "Are you ready? All my chakra's gonna go when I do this. This is the last you'll see of me."
Naruto thought. Then managed to smile with some semblance of real emotion. "Yeah. I think I know everything I need to."
"You got it, squirt." Minato grinned. "I am so damn proud of you. Flying Thunder God!"
"Dammit you bastard, get up-"
"Ma'am, he's dead! I'm sorry Lady Hokage, but he's not getting up."
Tsunade took her hands away, and angrily wiped tears away from her eyes. "What's the point in being the best fucking medic in the five nations, huh? What's even the fucking point?" She stood up.
In front of her, the broken remains of Hatake Kakashi lay half submerged in dirt and debris. It was obvious, when she looked, that he'd been dead before the village-wiping attack had even struck, and then been tossed away from the explosion's centre.
She turned around, looking at the ninja with her. Less than fifty people had survived out of a population in the tens of thousands, less than twenty of those in fighting shape. There was no way it was enough. She looked up in desperation at the village's only hope; encased in a giant stone planetoid floating high above the remnants of the village. Come on Naruto. If you're alive in there...please don't give up yet.
Unnoticed by the group, one of Kakashi's many pockets had ripped in the chaos. Sticking out of that pocket, just catching the light, was the tip of a very peculiar kunai.
Tsunade was about to turn away and look for anyone else to help, when (without a poof of smoke, flash of light, or even a flicker to belay it's activation) a certain orange figure appeared next to Kakashi's body. He looked down at it, grimaced, and looked back up, to where Tsunade had just jumped halfway out of her skin. "Wha-, Naru-"
"Ma'am. Permission to leave the village." Asked the blond, eyes hard.
Tsunade narrowed her eyes. "For what purpose, Chunin?"
"To give the terrorist back his moon." Naruto told her.
"...Permission granted."
In a cave in the mountains, Nagato was coughing up blood.
On flat ground some distance away, the remaining path of Pain looked up at his handiwork. And frowned. "Am I tripping, or is that chibaku tensei getting bigger?"
The chibaku tensei didn't reply. It just built up speed.
The Deva path's eyed widened. "Shinra Tens-"
About five million kilograms of moon SLAMMED into Pain, shattering into uncountable pieces, and it was followed up by about fifty kilograms of screaming, angry Naruto.
The latter being much more terrifying.
The impact of the planetoid colliding with Pain's hastily thrown up defence dug him deeper into the earth, it's entire structure falling apart around him,
"HOW?" He shouted. "THE CHIBAKU TENSEI IS DESIGNED TO SEAL IN THE BIJUU! HOW DID YOU ESCAPE?"
A hand gripped his shoulder. And the sage, the jinchurikki, the hero, said:
"Because I'm Uzumaki Naruto. Fuck you, I can do whatever I want."
And a Rasengan colluded with the side of Pain's head.
"Move, Nagato!"
"Do I look like I'm in a state to move?"
"Then I'll carry you, just let me get you out of that damn-"
"It's alright, Konan." Nagato told her, quietly. "He's won. There's nowhere we can run faster than he can."
"He's right." Said a voice from the behind them.
Both looked up. Naruto was stood in the cave's entrance. He chucked one of the black rods to the floor, and it rolled to a stop in front of them. "Cute trick." He remarked. Then, "Aw fuck me, I'm starting to sound like some sort of edgy shonen protagonist."
"A kid." Konan looked at him in disgust. "This is Konoha's greatest weapon? He's, what, sixteen?"
"And how old were we when we first fought in a war?" Pain asked, rhetorically. "Konan. Please go."
She spun back to him. "No. I'm not ditching you to-"
"He will kill you, Konan." Pain was, to his credit, completely ignoring Naruto in favour of his lover. "Please. I cannot lose another teammate."
"Unlike shrivelled-ribs over here, I don't make a habit of murdering the loved ones of my targets." Naruto told her. "If you surrender, you'll live. If you run, it'll be a while before you're followed."
Konan glared at him. Sheets of white paper began to flake off her body. "I don't care if it's a one in a hundred chance. A one in a thousand. I'll risk it to save him. What do you think your teammates would have done?"
Naruto looked down. "I already know. So I suppose I should respect that." He looked back up, orange appearing around his eyes-
"Rinne Tensei." Nagato said, interrupting the rising tensions.
Konan turned around and stared at him in horror. "What? No-"
"I'm using it." Nagato told her. "Whatever happens. So that one in a thousand chance won't win you anything but ashes. Please don't throw your life away as a matter of principle. Rain needs you."
"...you son of a bitch." Konan said, quietly. She turned back, walked over to him, and placed a kiss on his cheek, before vanishing into a flurry of paper.
Naruto took the time to have a proper look at his opponent. Nagato was...pitiful, really. He looked stretched, beyond anorexic and into grossly unwell. Blood-red hair fell down to his shoulders in matted, unkept clumps. His skin was ash grey, and covered in sweat.
Naruto looked him up and down. "Oh, that's not fair. You've got a bigger dick than me."
"...What." Nagato replied.
"Sage mode. I can see everything." Naruto replied. "It's kinda bullshit, really, look at the rest of you. Is this why paper-chan stuck with you? Because, like, fair enough-"
"Oh, by Kami, you're just like Jiraiya." Nagato groaned. "Always," he coughed, "always making your jokes, even at times like this. What is it, a coping mechanism?"
"What, you never understood that?" Naruto tilted his head. "We just try and make people smile. It's our way of making the world a better place."
"Making the world a better place...you really think it's that simple?" Nagato asked.
"Gotta try something." Naruto shrugged. "What was your plan?"
"Kidnap all nine tailed beasts, use them to power the demonic statue of the outer path, use it as a superweapon to enforce peace on every corner of the world with threat of annihilation." Nagato replied, calmly.
Naruto blinked. "Huh. Yeah, that's a lot better thought out. People would lose all their freedom though."
"Would they take freedom even if it meant more pain?"
"Maybe. People tend to do that." Naruto paused. "I once heard this thing, I think the old man once taught it in a manipulation class. He said that if you promise someone 50 ryo for doing something, you'll get so many people to do it. But if you give them 5 ryo, unconditionally, and then ask them, you'll get way more. There were studies, and everything. I just thought, 'Huh. Ain't it weird that even though I'm learning how to kill people for a living, it turns out that it does pay to just be nice sometimes?'."
Nagato looked at him, closely. "Really? I never got that lesson. Never got any lesson, really. My world was always war. Maybe if it hadn't been, I might have grown up differently...but here we are." He coughed, again. "What will happen to my village?"
"Rain will have to negotiate with the Hokage-" Naruto began,
"I lead Hidden Rain. And I'm negotiating with you." Nagato told him, flatly.
"Well they'll probably be charged with a declaration of war, ordered to surrender and pay us back for the shit you've done. We might just invade them and move Konoha there, given our entire populace is gone. Depends what your waifu does when she gets back. We won't go slaughtering innocent civilians, if that's what you're asking."
"About as good a deal as I could have expected." Nagato winced, then did something with his wrists, and freed his hands from the restraints they were in. He put them together in front of himself, and Naruto conjured a Rasengan as warning, but something told him the other Uzumaki wasn't preparing an attack.
"An unconditional offer is of more worth than a conditional one, you said?" Nagato asked him. "Very well. Here is mine. Samsara of heavenly life technique: Rinne Tensei."
Naruto felt the technique. Felt it in his every nerve. Nagato's chakra, and more than that, his soul, was poured into the move, and Naruto's sage mode let him see as the freaking demon head appeared out of the ground again. It opened its mouth and...something came out. Something greater than Naruto had ever seen.
"It's been...what, five minutes...since I started the attack?" Nagato wheezed. His hair was going white. "That's lucky. The further into the past I reach, the harder the technique gets..."
"What-" Naruto gulped. "What did you just do?"
"I undid the attack. How would Jiraiya say it...'It's just a prank, bro.' Hah, hahah, haaah..." Nagato's arms slumped downwards, as did his head. "Make sure to...hold them close, understand? I...wish I had had longer...with my team."
"You undid-" Naruto's voice cut off with a gasp, as he sensed what was happening back in Konoha.
"Goodbye, cousin. If nothing else...you were the best fight...I've ever had. The Akatsuki's true mission, Naruto...it was to save the world. I hereby...entrust that mission...to you."
Nagato sucked in one last breath. "Oh, and...there's one...last, thing...I absolutely have to tell you..." he trailed off.
"...Nagato?" Naruto asked. There was no response. He reached forwards and put his hand to the man's neck. No pulse.
"...Motherfucker."
"MOVE THE RUBBLE!"
"We'll help sense the civilians, get them out!"
"C'mon, we have whole seconds until they run out of air, that's forever!"
"We still have a chance to do this all with zero deaths but only if we get everyone to healers Right Now!"
Naruto's shadow clones (exhausted as he was, he had only been able to make a hundred or so) were spearheading the rescue efforts of the suddenly alive and healthy Leaf citizens who suddenly found themselves in terrible positions such as hanging off ledges, laying at the bottom of a body of water, or trapped under twenty feet of rock and brick dust.
The actual Naruto wasn't paying any attention to any of that.
"Where are they, where the hell are they-" he growled to himself, shoving people aside. Shouldn't have exhausted all the sage chakra this side of hidden Sand, now I can't sense them...
Eventually, he had an idea, and cupped his mouth with his hands.
"The Nine-tails Jinchurikki is a monster!" He shouted as loud as he could.
"FIGHT ME!" Immediately responded two voices. There they are. He started sprinting in their direction.
Eventually, the crowds parted, and Naruto locked his eyes onto two people who had clearly been doing the same thing in the opposite direction.
Hinata and Sasuke saw him, and they both grinned.
The sheer relief Naruto felt in that moment almost drove him to his knees.
The trio crashed into each other, with a hug that would have crushed civilians to dust.
"YOU'RE ALIVE!"
"THANK FUCK!"
"YOU WERE DEAD!" Naruto buried his head in the clothing of one of them, he didn't even care. "You were, oh Kami, I was so, I thought I was alone again-"
"We're here." Hinata told him. "We're here, we're alive, and none of us are ever leaving again, understand?"
"Never." Sasuke agreed. "We're a motherfucking team, right?"
They were all crying, beat up and bruised, stood in the middle of a wasteland. Konoha had been flattened, thousands were homeless, attempts at repairs hadn't even begun yet and the consequences of the event would be unimaginable.
None of it mattered.
Team seven was back together again, and in that moment, no force in the world could have torn them apart.
Aww. We got edge, we got comedy, we got star wars references, and we got adorables. All the right ingredients, I reckon.
No, a certain statement did not (as many people have asked me for various reasons) mean this will end with a weird team 7 threesome situation.
Everything else...well, speaks for itself.
Aftermath is next week. Stay tuned.
