GIVE IT UP FOR THE AKATSUKI'S FAVOURITE FIGHTING SNAKE MAN #2


The torches in the Uzumaki vaults lit themselves automatically as Hinata and Orochimaru entered.

It wasn't that unusual for something dramatic to happen upon entering a clan's home, (The Hyuuga had had a person assigned to ring a large bell whenever someone came in) but the fact that it was happening automatically made it a lot eerier. Orochimaru seemed unaffected, walking in brazenly and completely ignoring shelves full of scrolls, weapons, and strange contraptions Hinata couldn't immediately recognise.

"Do you know what this all is?" She asked, gesturing vaguely.

"Not at all!" He smiled, opening every cupboard and side-room like a child in a toy shop. "And as much as I would love to bag up everything in here for later study, I'd rather not push my luck. Angering this place's rightful owner seems like a rather poor idea."

Hinata nodded thoughtfully. "Good point. After all, didn't Naruto beat you up when he was exponentially weaker than he currently is?"

"Since I am a mature adult, I will not dignify that with a response. Aha!" One of the doors he opened revealed a room that was almost completely empty, save for a long line of masks hooked on the walls. Thirteen on the left, thirteen on the right, and one hung ominously alone on the wall furthest from the door, as though the other masks had tried to edge away from it when they thought their owners weren't looking. It was white, horned, and grinning almost as nastily as Orochimaru grinned on a regular basis.

"I don't suppose you're after the third one on the left?" Hinata asked him.

He chuckled and walked into the centre of the room, pulling various scrolls out of his pocket. "Observe, Hinata, for this is a complex recipe. Ingredients: One armless snake man, one Death God mask, and five human souls."

Hinata narrowed her eyes. "Considering your new 'good guy' stance, where are you planning to get-"

Orochimaru tapped a scroll, and it poofed open. Five white Zetsu, bound and wriggling, fell to the ground.

"...Ah. I suppose I shouldn't ask where you got those. Wait, those count?"

"Indeed (and to answer what you didn't ask, I captured them on my way to fight Nagato). These things are clearly not thinking, not sentient, I checked and they're barely even capable of distinguishing friend from foe. But as far as some very specific techniques count, they are human. And isn't it odd how Kabuto was able to find so many people to act as human sacrifices for his reanimations? Either he kidnapped an entire village without being noticed, or he's using these."

"Good for-" Hinata paused. "Ah. These allies are people you're bringing back from the dead. But who? You said they would be Kage level, and I don't think you have the second Tsuchikage's bone dust in your pocket."

"I had DNA samples from dozens of different ninja, painstakingly grave-robbed over years of study." Orochimaru muttered, bitterly. "But then I had to fake my own death, and abandon all my hidden bases. I can only imagine Kabuto got a hold of them, it would certainly explain the breadth of his current army. But there are four very specific exceptions that he didn't bring to bear against us, can you think of who?"

Hinata did think, trying to remember who she'd seen on the battlefield. Kage, Akatsuki, Seven Swordsmen, a few other notable ninja like Madara, uh...wait, Kage. Something's missing from that sublist, I can feel it. C'mon, Hinata, think. We had all the Tsuchikage, Raikage, Mizu- Oh.

"He couldn't resurrect the Hokage." She realised. "Of course he couldn't. The first three were all sealed fighting you four years ago (thanks, by the way), and the Fourth was sealed when he put away the Kyuubi."

"Well done." Orochimaru nodded. "A little more specifically, they were sealed in the belly of the Reaper, and the Edo Tensei can't get in there. I would know, I tried to summon Minato against my former master and it just didn't work."

"And that thing is called the Reaper Release Mask. Are you about to do what I think you're about to do?" Hinata couldn't help but feel a little excited.

"Always so quick on the uptake, I do like that about you." After arranging the Zetsu in a specific way, (and more worryingly, drawing the sword of Kusanagi and fixing it at his waist) he walked up to the Reaper Mask. "This won't kill me if I try to remove it, will it?"

I have no idea but I'm not talking to the runes again. "No. So what's the plan?"

"Three steps, Hinata. Step one: Put on the mask."

He gently lifted it off it's hook, meriting no supernatural response. Then he turned back to the room, breathed in, and put it on.

That got a reaction.

Hinata gulped as the temperature of the room decreased by about ten degrees. Orochimaru's clothing (which she was fairly certain was just a curtain) began to billow in a sourceless wind, and though her Byakugan showed her nothing, a dim outline appeared around him. A figure with purple skin and white hair, that was grinning significantly nastier than Orochimaru grinned on a regular basis.

"Step two." Orochimaru continued, strange things happening to his voice. "Commit sudoku."

"Don't you mean Sep-oh, right, that was a joke. Haha." Hinata replied, weakly.

"Yes, it was." He said, which was relieving. And then he pulled the sword from his waist and slit open his own stomach.


Meanwhile, in a cave somewhere, violence was happening to Sasuke Uchiha.

So. Kabuto. I thought I had him pinned as a C-tier villain, but no, turns out now he's Bloodlines McGee.

Why the fuck did I piss this guy off?

"I'LL KILL YOU, SASUKE!" Kabuto screamed, as he tried to kill Sasuke.

"FAIR! I'VE BEEN A BIT OF A DICK!" Sasuke replied.

"AND THEN ILL KILL THE HYUUGA BITCH TOO!"

"ALSO FAIR! I GET THAT URGE TOO SOMETIMES!"

"STOP AGREEING WITH ME!"

"OH, RIGHT! MY BAD, YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!"

"NGAAAAAGH!"

"Heheheh..." Unfortunately, needling Kabuto was much easier than actually hitting the guy.

First of all, his eyes were sewn shut, and no non-ocular genjutsu Sasuke had was enough to get through to him. So no cheesing this one. Fuck.

And worse...

"Ultimate burning dragon jutsu!"

"Earth wall!"

Sasuke's Sharingan showed him in great detail as (ewwww) the head and torso of a ninja (he barely placed the portly figure as Jirobo of the Sound Four) appeared out of Kabuto's stomach, and made the hand signs along with him. A giant stone wall appeared to block the attack, and in fact absorbed it, something Sasuke remembered the fat one could do in life.

And he can transform into water. Hinata mentioned someone she worked with who could do that...

Sasuke substituted his way around the wall, but turned to see Kabuto had vanished. "Is that your gimmick?" He shouted, scanning the room with his Sharingan. He quickly placed Kabuto's chakra signature to the north...and the south, and the southeast, and in slithery snake-shapes all over the cave. Clever. "Copying the abilities of your dead teammates?"

"Copying? Teammates?" Kabuto let out a hissing laugh, his voice echoing from an indeterminate source. "They were never allies of mine. I consumed their powers, and improved on them. Orochimaru's plotting never went far enough. Why sacrifice my body to claim that of another? With enough DNA, I can claim the powers of anyone, and add them to my own! I already have over half a dozen unique Kekkei Genkai, and when I am done here, I shall have yours!"

"Wow." Sasuke paused to consider the consequences of that. "I...Kabuto, your powers are bullshit. I don't even have to qualify that statement. For once, they're even more bullshit than mine."

"Thank you."

"You're like an edgy fanfiction OC."

"...What?"

"This is my character, his name is Kabuto and he can, like, absorb everyone's superpowers without any downsides! And, and, and he has sage mode (just like Naruto!) and he's even smarter than Orochimaru and he can summon a bazillion zombies-"

"SHUT UP!"

Now, admittedly, taunting Kabuto didn't make the next attack any easier to defend against.

A flash of movement from Sasuke's left, and he brought up his Susanno immediately to block the attack. Which was, in hindsight, exactly what Kabuto had expected him to do. A giant web fell about the Susanno, wrapping it up and worryingly not combusting on the purple flames. Sasuke spun and fired a bolt from the Susanno's crossbow, which crashed right into where Kabuto had been a split second earlier. The snake-man (a title now more appropriate than ever) darted around the cave, slinging more and more webs down onto Sasuke from the body of another Sound Four member, one Sasuke remembered fighting on a rooftop once. The threads covered the Susanno, and (very worryingly) began to collapse it's structure, eating through its armour plating.

Chakra suppressing web. Son of a bitch.

Sasuke jumped out through a quickly closing gap, deliberately to the opposite side as Kabuto was, but was still assaulted the moment he left by-

Bones.

Oh, hello, PTSD flashbacks. He ate Kimimaro.

The spikes erupted from the ground and Sasuke twisted, catching himself in an upside down splits between two of them and turning his head to blast Amaterasu at Kabuto, only for it to catch atop an armour of the webbing he was wearing, which quickly shattered and cracked but not quick enough to stop Kabuto lunging in and-

Crap- "Chidori!"

It wasn't a pretty sight, the way the lightning blade split it's way up Kabuto's forearm. The remnants of said arm, bone elongating and sharpening as a remnant of one of Kimimaro's techniques, grazed Sasuke's shoulder and slammed him down into the floor, and it was only the threat of more Amaterasu that forced Kabuto to jump away instead of landing right on him. The arm that Sasuke had split to the shoulder quickly reformed itself, healing all the damage it had taken within seconds.

"Uzumaki bits?" Sasuke guessed, standing back up and glaring.

"And Senju." Kabuto grinned. "I've not got Wood release quite yet, but I'm close."

Sasuke reactivated his Susanno and flipped Kabuto off. Kabuto didn't respond. Sasuke shrugged, and went "Alright, you're officially too much of a pain for me to let free. I'm kicking your ass now."

He stretched out his Susanno's arm, while his real body began making hand seals, and fired another purple arrow.

Kabuto charged, slithering as much as running forwards and dodging underneath the bolt. And then Sasuke finished his seals, and popped into existence in the air above him.

Kabuto visibly jumped, spinning and reacting as fast as he could as Sasuke flung down a web of ninja wire, leaving one strand trailing back to his hand to conduct lightning chakra through (thanks, Hinata, for telling me about that trick) as back across the cave, the Susanno vanished once again, leaving nothing but a glowing purple projectile in it's place.

Big downside to the substitution jutsu; long, easily recognisable string of hand seals. Big upside to the substitution jutsu; everything involved retains all momentum.

Sasuke remembered what it was like to fight blind, and one of the most agonising weaknesses of it? You can't see what hand seals your opponent is making.

And as he had tested with the (strangely ignored) raised middle finger; Kabuto's sage senses didn't extend so accurately from without the Susanno to within.

"Omae wa, mou shinderu." Sasuke said, teleporting behind Kabuto and wrapping him up, as the Susanno arrow he had substituted with reappeared in his original position and continued to blitz forwards towards it's target.

Regenerate from this.

Kabuto did not regenerate from that. There was the lilting sound of flute music, and all Sasuke's surroundings disappeared.


Hinata took a hesitant step backwards from the sight, putting one hand to her mouth to stop the gag reflex as her former master disembowelled himself.

A lightshow was taking place in front of her; the spectral form of the Reaper was now much more visible and more than moderately terrifying, and Orochimaru was howling with laughter, and from his, it's, their slit stomach emerged a swarm of small, white, balls of chakra, flying around her and away and vanishing to Kami-knows-where.

Two of those spheres instead swirled briefly around the room, before settling into Orochimaru's arms and spreading a warm glow across the two limbs.

"YES!" He crowed. "Finally! Now, I can, ah, where do you think you're going?" He reached out with his newly restored arms (the limbs had obviously been there before, but the dexterity and grace with which he wielded them was all new) and plucked four of the larger sprites out of the air as they attempted to leave.

After a few more seconds, the wind died down, and the mask dropped limply off Orochimaru's face. He grinned, "Now, I-" and promptly collapsed to his knees, "Right, got it, dying, hold on-"

Hinata...didn't really know what happened next, because after a particularly hideous first moment or so, she decided she didn't want to. She shut off her Byakugan and turned away, closing her eyes and trying to keep the bile down. "Okay, just, tell me when it's over!" She called out, shakily. I thought I'd gotten used to his particular brand of disgusting while I was studying under him. I thought I'd seen the depths of it. I was wrong.

Soon enough, the rending, tearing and squelching noises all came to a stop, followed by an "Okay, you can look now."

Hinata did. Orochimaru looked...great, actually. Better than she'd ever seen him. The lines, rashes, and tiredness Hinata could usually see about his body were all gone, and his chakra network was operating as smoothly as any she'd seen. And his smile was alive. She knew what was expected.

"Okay, go ahead Sailor Moon." She sighed. "Explain how clever you just were."

"Thank you, I think I will." He twirled on the spot. She didn't know when he'd managed a costume change, but now he was in loose white-purple robes instead of a hastily wrapped curtain. "Presenting, the Orochimaru update from 1.8 to 2.0! Arms? Attached. Body? White Zetsu. Eyebrows? On fleek. Hotel? Trivago. Oh, Hinata, I am loving this thing. Wood release, on the house, and ooh~, is that a natural connection to nature energy I detect? Maybe next time I visit Ryuchi cave I'll be able to get sage mode, wouldn't Jiraiya love that..."

Hinata reupdated her threat assessment, and concluded she could still take him. She pointed behind him to the four other Zetsu stood in a line in the room, black ash covering their bodies. "And those? I thought your version of the Edo Tensei was, well...a bit rubbish."

"Hey! Tobirama could only reanimate one when I stole the technique and improved on it!" He gave her an indignant look. "Of course, after my 'death', Kabuto stole the technique and improved on it in turn. But he did so in my abandoned hideouts." He broke out into a smile. "So I stole it right back. Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for! They're practically full powered, practically guilt free, coming to a village near you! Please put your hands together for..."

The four figures took on definite forms. Their eyes opened.

"The fuck?" Said the first four Hokage.


Sasuke looked around frantically, as his surroundings disappeared, world going red as white snakes appeared from nowhere to wrap around his arms and immobilise him.

Genjutsu? Against Me? What kind of-Oh. Auditory. Oh that's clever.

He strained against it, but though he could see the haze of chakra constituting the illusion, he couldn't do anything to break through it. I'm never saying this out loud, but I kinda wish I had the Byakugan instead at the moment.

Okay, think. I still have to deal with the net and the Susanno arrow, but that buys me milliseconds at most. I need out of here, fast. Need to disrupt it. How? What do I have that can cancel soundwaves?

Naruto had done it with wind, way back in the Chunin exams, but Sasuke didn't have wind. The principle must be the same, though, especially since he'd caught a glimpse of a woman's body appearing from Kabuto's stomach and knew this was being caused by an actual instrument. How did he disrupt sound though? If he just made enough noise, would the genjutsu go away?

You could allow me. Said a familiar voice.

How the hell are you in here? Sasuke snapped at Samehada. You're sealed in my bracer, how are you sharing my genjutsu?

Because I am the first among Hagoromo's ninja tools. Fuck-

Yeah I know the joke, that's great, what's your plan?

Merge with me. I will consume the genjutsu as it reaches you.

Do a shark mode and let you chow on my chakra? Yeah, no thanks.

I only looked sharky because that was Kisame's ~aesthetic~, I could go snake or crow if you wanted-

THAT WASN'T THE PART I TOOK ISSUE WITH!

But the discussion had given Sasuke an idea. Crows. He may not be able to feel or see his real body, but his motor controls should still be functioning normally. That whole 'learning to fight blind' thing really was paying dividends today, as another thing he'd learned was how to rely on his muscle memory, even in absence of proof of his actions working. And with the Sharingan's perfect recall, he knew exactly where he had been stood just before the genjutsu hit.

So, with all his senses telling him that he was paralysed by snakes in a flat landscape, Sasuke thought the actions of slitting one of his fingers with a kunai, pressing it to the floor, and shouting "Summoning Jutsu!"

There was a pause, where nothing happened.

And then his surroundings began to disintegrate, the perpetual flute music being cut through by a cacophony of screeching and squawking.

Thanks, Itachi, for signing me in to that one, even if I only usually use it to make my body flicker look cooler. Of course, an absence of a big Crow to summon just meant he had made a massive murder of tiny little ones.

His vision was replaced with a blur of black wings and the cave ceiling, as apparently he had just fallen on his ass, and quickly brought both his hands up to pierce both his own eardrums. The screeching and the music stopped, and he jumped up just in time to avoid Orochimaru's Fucking Face slithering towards him out of an approaching Kabuto's navel.

"THAT'S SO GROSS!" Sasuke shouted, not that he could hear his own words, and fired off another fireball that sent Kabuto hurtling back through the cave to crash into a particularly large stalagmite.

Sasuke took in a deep breath, and readied himself, as Kabuto did the same, charred skin rapidly healing itself and rage palpable.

"I know that it's always tempting fate to say this, but I'm in a rush so let's hurry it along: Do you have any more ridiculous powers you'd like to show me?" Sasuke shouted across.

Kabuto replied, and Sasuke was able to read his lips well enough to determine "Oh, one or two. You know, up until now I was trying to consume your body whole, but now I think I'll settle for scooping up the paste you're going to leave."

There was a rumbling that Sasuke could feel through his soles as the cave began to move around him.

"The Toads give Frog Kata, which provides a force-field and invisible, extended reach. Not bad." Kabuto continued, as the rumbling intensified. "The Slugs give Digestive Conversion, which converts Sage chakra directly into regular chakra, or even vice-versa. Also not bad. But I'm a big fan of what the Snakes give."

His grin stretched wider than any human mouth should go, as the stone pillars supporting the cave began to fracture and fall. "Inorganic Reincarnation allows me to directly pour chakra into and control inorganic matter. On the surface, that functionally just means nature transformations without hand seals. But down here?" He spread his arms wide. "Why do you think I chose to make my base in a cave, Sasuke-kun?"

"Oh...son of a bitch." Sasuke muttered to himself.

The roof, and the thousands of tonnes of stone and earth above it, started to fall.


...Which would have been terrifying, except that it was really the simplest problem he'd had to solve all battle. Fuck it, Chakra Dickflop time. Alright EMS, what's the most ridiculously over-the-top thing I can do with you?

He summoned his Susanno. He summoned the string of Magatama Beads. Eyes and chakra straining with the effort, he turned each individual bead into a Susanno-Amaterasu-Rasenkunai. And then he wound his arm up, and swung the whole string up at the roof.

The resulting explosion was almost as cool as the one Naruto had made less than a minute earlier.


"Uchiha." Was the first word to come out of Tobirama Senju's mouth, even before any of the other Kage spoke.

"Come again?" Replied Hinata, as Orochimaru moved to stand beside her.

"The Uchiha." He repeated. "Are they okay?"

"Uh, sure?" Hinata replied. "Other than Itachi, unless there are other deaths I don't know about, the clan's fine-"

"DAMMIT!"

"Oh, great, he's still like this..." Hashirama Senju, God of Shinobi, groaned and facepalmed in a very undignified manner.

"They're a menace, Hashirama!" Tobirama continued.

"Yeah, but you shouldn't be wishing they were dead!"

"It's not like Uchiha lives matter-"

"WHOA! That is, like, really racist!"

"They are literally responsible for all the problems you face that you didn't cause yourself!" Tobirama yelled at his older sibling, pointing. "Tell me I'm wrong!"

Hashirama paused, bit his lip, and didn't, and Tobirama pointed right back at Hinata. "Let me guess, they're causing problems for you too?"

"Well, two out of three of the biggest threats to world peace do have the Sharingan." Hinata admitted.

"Hah! Told you so!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen held up a hand. "As much as I hate to get these events on track (Hello Hinata by the way, a pleasure to see you again), what's actually going on?"

"Hello to you too, Hokage-sama. To all you Hokage-samas. We brought you back to help us fight." Hinata explained. "You know the forbidden Edo Tensei thing?"

"Yeah." Said all four at once.

"Someone used it to bring Madara back. And then they released the technique and he used it himself to keep himself here, and he's completely out of control and we can't kill him." She summarised.

There was a pause.

Then Hashirama and Tobirama both turned on each other and yelled "I told you so!" before devolving into bickering.

"What? You told me? You're the one who made the thing in the first place-"

"You're the one who showed it to Madara-"

"He was joint leader of the village! And I killed him!"

"Well you obviously didn't do a good enough job-"

"Good eno-Motherfucker he was dead with a capital D!"

There was a brief blur, and then Namikaze Minato held up a hand. "Hey what's up. I was just checking out the village perimeter, did I miss anything?"

"Nah you're good." Said Hinata, who had seen him leave.

"Wait, you were gone? When?" Said Orochimaru, who hadn't.

"Like, the last ten milliseconds. Oh hey Orochimaru, how's it going!" The Fourth Hokage gave a cheery wave. "Been a while, huh? Remember how you wanted to be Hokage but I was better than you in every single way so you left the village in a hissy fit?"

Orochimaru made an outraged face. "That was not-"

"Oh yes, that did happen." Hiruzen hummed. "And then there was that other time where you wanted to beat me in a fight but I was better than you in every single way, so I sealed your Hokage summons and you left the village in a hissy fit."

"That-" Orochimaru sighed. "Look. I was hit by a Kotoamatsukami from one of Danzo's minions. Hinata here killed him and it wore off, so I'm a good...well, I'm only morally ambiguous now. The kidnapping children wasn't me."

Hiruzen frowned. "That is...conveniently exactly what I've always wanted to hear."

"It's the truth." Hinata piped up. "I can tell when people are lying."

"Oh, good. In that case..." Hiruzen immediately ran forwards and threw himself at Orochimaru, and the Sannin was about to raise his arms to defend himself when the Hokage instead just wrapped him up in a hug. "I'm so happy for you! Oh, I always knew you would be good-"

"Sensei! Get off me!" Orochimaru hissed. "This is undignified!"

Hinata tilted her head, and asked "Can't you just...order him to get off?"

"No, you don't understand, none of them should be even moving!" Orochimaru told her, trying to extricate himself. "They should only be able to speak! I don't know how any of this is happening."

"I'm a fuuninjutsu prodigy and my wife's an Uzumaki. Wasn't that hard." Minato shrugged. "I broke the control on Hiruzen myself. And I'm pretty sure those two just sort of...flexed. And it was off."

His eyes flicked across to Hashirama and Tobirama, who were now wrestling on the floor. Hinata had seen the seals, of course, a complex little thing on the backs of each of their necks. She'd just barely caught Minato doing some very fancy work to his, and then to Hiruzen's, while Orochimaru wasn't looking (and then she'd decided not to tell Orochimaru because it was funny). She'd watched Tobirama make a big show of straining his chakra before eventually simply overloading his seal, disintegrating it.

Hashirama she hadn't even seen do anything. Like, he'd blinked after coming back to life and the thing was gone.

"Maybe, in hindsight, reviving a bunch of people significantly more powerful than me wasn't an incredibly intelligent idea." Orochimaru mused.

"Oh yeah, who are you by the way?" Minato asked Hinata. "You're the only one here I don't recognise. You'll be, uh, Hiashi's daughter, correct?"

"Yes. Hinata Hyuuga, sir." She inclined her head. "I'm, uh..." She blushed, "I suppose I'm...your son's girlfriend."

The face Minato made was a sight to behold, the sheer delight that appeared there as his eyes widened and his hands went to his cheeks. "Naruto got a girlfriend? Oh, oh Kami, Naruto. How is he? How's my son? Is he alive? Is he well?"

"Oh, he's doing great." Hinata replied, her voice cold. "That whole 'despised by the entire village' thing really did wonders for his psyche."

There was silence in the room. Even Hashirama and Tobirama paused what they were doing to turn and look.

Hinata leveled a glare, at Hiruzen and Minato both. "I would like," she told them, "to receive a very good explanation for what this village did to Naruto Uzumaki."


An observer from the sky above Kabuto's hideout would have seen the innocent looking grassland begin to crack, and shudder. They would have seen those cracks widen, spread, and deepen, and then fall into one another as the entire area began to buckle, and fall.

And then they would have seen an eruption of rocks and dirt as Sasuke's Susanno (now with legs) blasted upwards from beneath the earth's surface.

It promptly fell back down into the rising dust cloud that now blanketed the disaster site, obscured except for a vague purple glow that occasionally flashed a brighter red or blue, and that was all our hypothetical observer would have been able to see for the remainder of the fight.

Sasuke was not our hypothetical observer, though he was the one to have come up with the hypothetical in the first place as a followup to how he really wished he had Hinata's flying powers right about now.

"You Bastard!" Kabuto shouted, revealing his location to Sasuke (not that the Uchiha needed it, his Sharingan could see easily enough through the dense fog. Hell, he was literally lipreading.) "I'll kill you!"

"You've already said that!" Sasuke reminded him, charging in. His Susanno punched, and the ground in front of Kabuto rose up into a shield to block the attack. "Get more original battle dialogue!"

"I'll kill you!" Kabuto repeated, making a yanking motion, and the unstable ground beneath the Susanno's legs shifted, burying it knee-deep. "And then I'll consume you! And then I'll consume Hinata, and the Uzumaki boy, and your precious Kage, and then I'll demand tribute from every clan and bloodline in the world!" He jumped upwards as Sasuke was trying to free himself, and unleashed a hail of bone spikes that dug into the Susanno's exterior, forcing it deeper.

"I'll conquer this whole twisted fucking planet!" Kabuto screamed, "and then I'll claim and combine every scrap of genetic power in the world until I supplant the Sage of Six Paths!"

"Okay, that's a bit more original!" Sasuke's Susanno (legs now fully stuck in the gravel) reached inside itself and grabbed Sasuke, throwing him up, out, and free. "Why the hell do you want every Kekkei Genkai?" He shouted, creating a pair of Amaterasu-Rasenkunai in midair and throwing them both. "I mean, I understand revenge on Hinata, but how does DNA perfection come into it?"

The first attack hit the wall Kabuto threw up, burrowed into it, and blew it to smithereens. The second, Kabuto barely brought his tail up to block. He hissed in pain as the fiery projectile dug into his limb, and unflinchingly brought one arm down with a chakra scalpel to cut the tail off at the base, before hurling the whole thing back at Sasuke. "Because I refuse to be rendered irrelevant! I refuse to allow those born with the powers of gods to make jokes out of the rest of us!" He spat. "Because this is what's fair! Because when you throw an orphaned loner into a society that treats him like trash, you get what you fucking deserve!"

Sasuke kicked away the tail just before the Rasenkunai in it exploded, landing on the ground and being immediately assaulted by writhing tendrils of animated earth from around and beneath him. "I actually do get that!" He called over, tapping his bracer and pulling out Samehada. "You just don't wanna be a footnote, right? You're terrified you'll be reduced to a side character!"

Finally. Groused the sword, as Sasuke swung it at the attacking dirt. Ah, Sage chakra. Been a while since I'd gotten a chance to eat some. Samehada tore through the constructs with little difficulty; any life in the material vanishing as the scales wrustled and drained the energy out of it. The weapon was hungry, it practically swung itself towards the nearest sources of power.

"Precisely!" Crowed Kabuto. "I will be recognised. Everyone in the world will see me, will know my name! But you, Sasuke..." He put his hands together. "You will not know anything. Sage Art: White Rage!"

A red, spectral dragon tore free from his stomach and hurtled towards Sasuke. Sasuke, getting big 'ultimate technique' vibes, brought his most heavily armoured Susanno variant up, also raising Samehada defensively and preparing for a collision as he tried to use his Sharingan to see what the attack would do.

There was no collision. As he watched, the dragon exploded into white light so intense that it made him scream and close his eyes. For the second time in the battle, his sense of his surroundings was gone; not through illusion this time, but through sheer brute force. His eyes burned, his ears rang (thank fuck I already turned those off), and his body shook, and everything was generally super unpleasant.

His arms dropped limply to his sides as his knees buckled, his Susanno disintegrated, and he almost let go of Samehada.

Almost.

It's tip touched the ground, and it's voice echoed in his mind. Can you taste that? He is emitting his sage chakra outwards through the ground, that's how he was animating the stone. I can feel where it's flowing from. I know where he is.

Sasuke felt a tug, the sword in his hand almost begging him to move. Swing me, now, and I will strike him down.

I...I can't...move, can't...think-

Oh, get over yourself. You're a warrior, Indra. Grit your teeth, grow a pair, and swing.

For once, Sasuke didn't have anything to say back. He just roared, muscles burning, trying to force any sort of reaction out of them. It reminded him of trying to move his body under the covers while he was asleep; only instead of 'can't breathe properly' his issue was 'can't breathe at all, and also every cell in my body is on fire'.

But if he wanted to get back to his team, he needed to move his arm. So move it he did. Taking a staggering step, he screamed, dragged Samehada along the floor and swept it upwards.

There was a crunch.


Across the battlefield, Naruto was in the fucking zone.

This was it. Hinata was grabbing more allies to go fight Madara, Sasuke was going with Itachi to fight Kabuto.

And he was here fighting Tobi with literally every authority figure in his life.

Alexa, play Strong and Strike. It's grand finale time.

"Shadow clone jutsu!" Two clones dropped into seiza behind him, while two others flanked him as he charged his opponent.

Meters behind him followed Kakashi, Sharingan flashing, and Gai, already using the seventh gate. A few meters behind them, Jiraiya and Tsunade were sprinting up to the battle, having come to assist after dealing with Pain.

Tobi stood, and waited.

"Get ready to get pummeled!" Naruto shouted, concentrating chakra in his palm, planning on getting a little extra Beginnerus Rukku to help him finish this off. "Mini-Bijuu Bomb!"

The purple energy coalesced in his palm and-

"No u." Said Tobi. He swung his war fan.

The Bijuu Bomb hit the fan, exploded, and Naruto saw as Tobi reinforced it with something, and then the explosion was blasted backwards, throwing him away and popping the two clones and then "Deep forest emergence."

What? He has Wood-

The ground beneath them all tore open, branches twisting and growing and splitting them all apart and Naruto recovered by landing on one and Tobi was charging at him, but he knew how to deal with this, attack back, so he created another Mini Bijuu Bomb and shoved it forwards because even if it reflected again at least it would give Naruto some space-

Tobi didn't reflect it. His Sharingan flashed, and there was a White Susanno that just tanked the explosion outright wait What and then Tobi immediately fell right out of the armour, span upside down, landed on the branch above Naruto and put his hand on Naruto's face.

And then Naruto moved to manifest the Kurama avatar and there was a flash of purple-


Naruto awoke in his mindscape, and the Kyuubi was screaming.

"NO!" Kurama howled, his giant form disintegrating. A massive black rod had appeared through the roof of the mindscape, and the Fox's chakra was being yanked up towards it.

"Kurama!" Naruto shouted, getting up. "What's-"

"He's stabbed a Rinnegan Rod into your fucking face!" Kurama looked genuinely terrified, eyes wide and darting around. "He's using the Human and the Outer path to pull me straight out of you!"

Desperately, Naruto jumped up at the offending object, trying to attack it with a Rasenshuriken, but that got absorbed too, his chakra was practically inseperable from his Bijuu's, though that was rapidly changing as the dark red energy was pulled away from Naruto's blue.

"Stop him!" Kurama begged. "Naruto, please, stop him, I don't want to-"

Everything went dark.


...It took a few more seconds for Sasuke to regain control of his senses. The first he properly noticed was a pain in his right arm; he was pretty sure he'd torn something during that last attack. Soon after came his sense of direction, helpfully reminding him that he hadn't fallen over this time. Wonderful. And once his hearing and sight came back...Oh. Oh, that's nasty.

Kabuto coughed, blood dripping from his mouth. He was hovering about two feet above the floor, being helpfully held aloft by the giant purple sword impaling him through his stomach.

"N...No." Kabuto muttered. "Can't...can't die. Not...I'm not, not to you, I'm not, ngh, perfect yet..."

Sasuke sighed. "Goddamit...You know, I do get it. Less than an hour ago I watched Naruto singlehandedly conjure an army about as strong as the whole Shinobi Alliance. He's stupid powerful, dude. I'm pretty sure he's waging a war on the literal embodiment of nihilism. I wasn't kidding when I said he was the main character. Love him to death, but, it's kinda scary, you know?"

"H...how do you cope?" Kabuto whispered. "How do you stop yourself...trying to kill him?"

Sasuke laughed. "What, you think I'm going to turn into an edgy loner and run off to train outside Konoha, just because the Rasengan's stronger than the Chidori?" He shook his head. "Naruto's my friend. Maybe I sometimes want to kill him when he makes a mess out of my room or does something stupid, but not because I'm afraid he's stronger than me. If I trust anyone with the power to kill me, it's him."

Hey, Samehada, can you force this guy out of Sage mode?

I can drain the Senjutsu chakra before he uses it, yes. Hold on...

The unearthly pallor to Kabuto's skin disappeared, as did the eyeliner that seemed to universally constitute sage powers. "And besides." Sasuke said aloud, smiling. "Sometimes? It's alright to let someone else be in the spotlight. I mean, do I look bitter about it?"

Sage mode off, Kabuto couldn't tell. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and met Sasuke's. "No. You seem...at peace."

Sasuke nodded. Then smirked. "Ha ha, made you look."

He hit Kabuto with the strongest Sharingan genjutsu he could muster, making him slump, and then booted him off the end of the sword.

That was cruel. Samehada told him, sounding delighted about it.

"Eh. He'll heal. And he'll be out for days, at least, so I can come get him later. Better than killing him. Right then..." He spun about. "Where's the war at?"


Naruto floated in the darkness. The only sound was his rapid breathing, as he twisted around trying to see anything.

He was painfully aware of the fact that Jinchurikki could not survive without their Bijuu.

"K-Kurama?" He asked.

There was a light from above him, and a sound.

"*click* okay, okay. Let's hope this works. Hi, Naruto! This is Minato-chakra-fragment-the-second! Not as big as the other one, 'cos this is much simpler. If you are hearing this, this means that your Bijuu has been stolen from you. To which I respond:

Hah! Bitch, you thought!"

The flash vanished, and was replaced by a red glow that slowly rose up around Naruto, relighting the Mindscape once again. His feet touched the ground and he looked around, bewildered, as gradually forming into existence next to him was...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-oh, I'm not dead. What." Kurama paused, and looked around. "Kit, the fuck?"

Naruto shrugged, helplessly.

Kurama looked back down at himself, and then blinked. "Oh, that sly, sly, bastard. OH, that CHEEKY BASTARD!"

"What? What happened?"

"Minato!" Kurama grinned. "Remember when we were talking about where he put the Yin half of my chakra?"

"Yeah, what-" Naruto blinked, noticing Kurama's slightly darker colour. "Oh, no way."

"IT WAS HERE!" Kurama crowed. "The whole time! He just separated it from the rest of me and sealed it deeper inside you! And there you were with your whole 'maybe he put it in himself so when he escaped the Reaper's stomach he'd be able to give it to us' theory!"

"I thought that would be cool!"

"But it was here! And now that masked fucker's only got the Yang half!"

"Wait wait wait." Naruto raised a hand, starting to smile. "So you're telling me..."

Kurama nodded, and winked. "We're still in the fight."


Tobi ignored the screams of the non-essentials present, as he finished draining the last of the Kyuubi chakra. Less than I'd expected. Madara must have just been bigging him up.

"Important lesson, kiddo: You're not the only one who knows how to use Begginerus Rukku." Tobi tutted, casually throwing the corpse off to one side.

The corpse fell a good twenty metres to the floor.

It landed on it's feet.

Everyone present gaped as Naruto reached up, and yanked the chakra receiver out of his lower face, the damage to his mouth and nose quickly regenerating as the Kyuubi cloak flashed back into existence around him. He looked up at Tobi, and glared.

"Okay, what the fuck was that, Naruto?" Tobi demanded, genuine fury coming through in his voice. "No, what did you do, what the fuck Naruto? I don't even...How?"

"Because I'm Naruto Uzumaki." Naruto replied. "Fuck you, I can do whatever I want."

And then the two clones that had been sat at the back gathering sage chakra popped, and orange flashed into existence around Naruto's eyes, and he blitzed forwards and punched the black rod into Tobi's mask so hard it shattered into a dozen pieces.


Oh, sweet Jesus this is so fucking long.

Seven thousand words.

Why.

I could split this into two chapters and save me a week of work.

Am I going to? No, because I'm insane.

I hope you enjoyed my response to the 'half the nine-tails' debacle. This is the second ass-pull plot point I've turned into a red herring, I'm on a fucking roll. I'd call it 'subverting expectations', except that ever since Star Wars VIII dropped, using that word will get you shot.

And speaking of cans of worms I shouldn't have opened, yes, I reckon Tobi has a Susanno. I mean, he has the Mangekyo. I mean, you could argue that technically he hasn't unlocked the mangekyo ability of both his eyes, but he does have two Mangekyo (just not both his own, and now one's a rinnegan) and both his Kamuis were unlocked (just not both by him).

It isn't a game-changer, and it won't be. Naruto has attacks that can shatter just about anything that isn't a Perfect Susanno already. As I tried to explain with the 'Begginerus Rukku' line; Tobi was literally just pulling out all the powers he had that they weren't expecting so that he could overwhelm them and get the Kyuubi quickly, without a drawn out fight.

Of course, now that isn't going to happen. Poor him. Sorry Tobi, but Naruto won't get B'd.

Next chapter, next arc, and in fact this is the first arc that won't be getting a full Aftermaths chapter. There just isn't really any noticeable break before we move into 'oh fuck, murder trees, gods, aliens' arc. See you next week!