Ball Games
Almost Two Decades Ago
A twelve year old Obito Uchiha awoke, and immediately noticed he was in much less pain than he had any right to be.
To be more specific, the half of his body that really ought to have been...well, not there, was apparently completely fine. Or no, not fine. It wasn't hurting, but it was wrong in a way he didn't know how to describe.
What the hell...
That was when the memories crashed in of the other day.
The kidnapping. The Mist ninja. The rocks, his eye, Kakashi, Rin.
"Oh, good, you're awake." A sickly sweet voice reached his attention, and he jerked upright, taking in his surroundings. His newly monoscopic vision would take some getting used to, but the basics weren't hard to figure out. 1) Dark cave. 2) Scary black-and-white dude lounging on a rock in the corner.
"Where am I?" Obito croaked out, realising he hadn't drank anything in days.
"A cave, sort of in the middle of the continent somewhere." It gestured vaguely. "Sort of...south-west-ish of Konoha. Your maps change so often, I cannot for the life of me remember where the borders are at the moment."
"And who are you?" Obito asked. The man (if it even was a man, and Obito was starting to doubt) wasn't wearing any sort of clan or village insignia.
"You may call me Zetsu." It smiled at him. "I'm the one that saved your life back there."
"Well, thanks, I suppose." Obito got to his feet, finally looking down at himself. Oh, that is weird. He poked his new arm with one finger. It was...kinda squishy. "What about my teammates?"
"Less well off." Zetsu sighed. "You saw what happened. Kakashi murdered Rin. The three tails tore out of her in its death throes, destroying everything nearby, though Kakashi was able to escape the chaos thanks to some timely intervention by his Sensei. Well, I suppose you could hardly call it 'timely'; he might have come a few minutes earlier, no?" It was smirking again. "Or perhaps things would have played out the same regardless. That Minato does seem like one to do whatever he deems necessary, don't you think? I imagine, if necessary, he might have killed Rin himself."
Obito's fists tightened. "Why did you save me?" He whispered.
"I require your assistance." Zetsu told him. "And I thought that someone of your unique temperament and abilities might be able to help me. I sensed a kindred spirit in you, Obito Uchiha. Having seen the things you have, having witnessed this ghastly war plaguing the land...I think you might understand."
"How wonderfully cryptic of you. You managed to use all those words and describe absolutely nothing." Obito had no idea what to say; so he opted for what he thought Kakashi would have said. Though that lead to thoughts about Kakashi, then to thoughts about Rin-
Not now, Obito, dammit! Focus for once in your life!
Zetsu just chuckled, however. "I'll be more straightforward. There is a young man, only a few years older than you, in fact, who I have given a small present to." The grin soured. "He intends to squander it. Our relationship has broken down somewhat, and I require an able bodied individual to act in my stead."
"...Meaning?" Obito was still very confused.
"I stuck a Rinnegan in a kid called Nagato Uzumaki and now he wants to kill me." Zetsu simplified even further. "He's planning on taking over the world and capturing all the bijuu, but he's not doing it properly. I need you to go and assist him, guide him, and if necessary? Murder his ass and steal the eyes from his body to do it yourself. And there, 'it' means 'mantle the amalgamation of the nine tailed beasts and become a god'."
...Huh.
"Huh." Said Obito. He backed up a step. "Listen...I'm super grateful and all, but I really have to report back to my village and-" He turned and started walking.
"Stop." Said Zetsu, quietly.
Obito stopped.
His lone eye widened, when he realised that he had no intention of stopping, yet was rooted to the floor anyway.
"That seal they put in you?" Zetsu continued, idly picking his teeth. "Still there. Don't worry, it doesn't just give anyone the power to own your body. And I haven't put any additional commands in it yet."
Oh, bullshit.
"I don't want this to be contentious, Obito." Zetsu sighed. "I do genuinely believe that you understand what I'm aiming for, here. What I want is world peace! I'm trying to create a world where nobody has to die, where no tragedy like what happened yesterday ever has to happen again! Isn't that what you want?"
Obito, by that point, had completely tuned him out. The young boy was thinking faster than he had ever thought in his life.
First of all, there were metaphors about gilded cages. This Zetsu character owned him, however nicely it wanted to put it. And seriously, did it genuinely think that it's pleas would get it anywhere? This wasn't about whether or not he was joining it, this was about him finding the optimum route to escape.
The seal should be on my heart, right?
Experimentally, he attempted to draw a kunai and stab himself. His body didn't respond.
So that's one restriction already. Who knows how many more like this are already on me. Who knows how deep the control can go?
Zetsu was right about one thing; Obito did know how the world worked. Asking nicely wasn't going to get him released. Running wasn't going to get him out.
His only lifeline was in a little piece of wisdom Minato-Sensei had shared with him one day: That the more restrictions you put on a ninja performing a mission, the less effective they could be.
Zetsu seemed to want him long-term. Zetsu wanted an agent. A right hand. And agents need freedom to be creative. Which meant that if Obito wanted freedom...
"You can stop anyone else ending up like Rin?" He asked, not having to fake the tremor in his voice.
"If you do this, my good friend." Zetsu smirked. "Nobody will ever have to suffer again. I said those same words to an ancestor of yours, a long time ago."
Obito grimaced.
Accepted the fact that he might not be able to be himself for a very long time.
Then controlled his expression, and turned around. "I'm listening. What do you mean 'become a god'?"
Present Day
This 'becoming a god' thing was fucking bullshit.
Juubito wasn't even dead; he had taken a giant fuckoff laser ball to the chest and even though the entire bottom half of his body was gone, it was already growing back.
"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, stretching out chakra chains from his arms. "Get him!"
"Right!" Sasuke released his Susanno and dropped forwards, as the chains wrapped around Juubito and covered him almost completely in golden light, leaving only his stomach bare.
Hey Samehada! You said you cut up the Ten-Tails once, right?
Damn right. Wanna see me do it again?
Sasuke stretched out, and punched one fist through Juubito's body. There was the signature rustling noise, and suddenly his hand wasn't just touching the Jinchurikki's gross insides.
He could feel the chakra, not just see it. Feel the massive, pulsating ball of energy centred in Obito's gut. It was powerful and unbalanced and deadly, and...oh, that was interesting. He could feel the pieces. Kurama he isolated first, he'd spent long enough with Naruto to recognise it. Then Shukaku, who he'd seen inside Gaara on plenty of occasions, and Gyuki, from his brief time with Killer B. With those parts separated, it was easier to see the seams where all the other beasts were sewn together. They had been independent for centuries now; they didn't want to be combined again.
All it would take to separate them was one solid tug.
So Sasuke dug his nails in and tugged.
The resulting snap caused an explosion that was almost enough to throw him off Obito entirely, and his arm whipped backwards as a torrent of energy came pouring out of the man's stomach. Red, blue, yellow, green, gold, colours all rapidly splitting off pure monochrome and resolving into shapes in the nearby landscape.
It looked like a supersized Pokemon team being released from their balls, to be honest.
"Kurama!" Naruto shouted, releasing his control over the chains and jumping to intercept the largest of the energy streams. It took him in the stomach, but rather than hurting him, it suffused him a great golden glow as his present cloak intensified in luminosity.
Sasuke was left essentially riding Obito, which was when he remembered that they no longer had the ability to fly.
"Oh for fuck's-" was all he was able to say, before they both crashed into the wreckage of the battlefield.
Around them, the Bijuu were flexing their new physical forms and roaring in defiance, while also yelling a wide variety of taunts, exultations, and expletives.
The only one missing from the group was the Nine-Tails, the reason for which became obvious when Naruto dropped down next to Sasuke, grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, Kami, this feels so much better." He sighed, holding up his arms in front of his face and staring at them. "I never even realised how wrong it was to only have half of him! Now everything's...balanced. Finally."
"Glad to hear it." Sasuke groaned, in pain. "We don't all get fun victory powerups. Some of us just...hurt."
"Oh, quit being a bitch." Naruto rolled his eyes and shoved his best friend in the shoulder (simultaneously refilling his chakra and stimulating his healing).
Then they both stopped, and looked down.
What was left of Obito Uchiha (which was far more of him than they had expected there to be) coughed, and looked up at them with one Rinnegan and one Mangekyo Sharingan. "What in the..." he looked down at himself. Looked back up. "Oh, motherfucker..."
Two sets of footsteps echoed down the long corridors within the moon's surface.
Toneri had increased his pace to a flat out run, and was now puffing ("We aren't all trained superhuman martial artists, okay? Without the magic eyes I'm really rather ordinary!"), and Hinata had long since scooped up Hanabi in a bridal carry to stop her slowing them down.
Hanabi would have been enjoying the ride, but she could read the mood. Everyone was tense, and focused, and just a little bit terrified.
"Where exactly are we going?" Hinata called forwards.
"To the heart of the moon!" Toneri shouted back. "We, haah, are just about here." They came upon a very large, ornate looking stone door. Toneri walked up and touched one palm to it, causing a green glow to spread across its surface.
"And this is meant to help me fight a god...how?" Hinata asked, setting Hanabi down as the door began to creak open.
"Well." Panting, Toneri had the gall to look smug. "You told me we needed a Tenseigan, didn't you?"
The hallway was flooded by light from beyond the door, and Hinata's jaw dropped.
Floating in the chamber ahead of them was a gigantic aquamarine orb. It was crystalline yet smooth, glowing green, blue, orange and golden all at once, and Hinata could feel her chakra flare up simply from being near it.
"Oh." Was all she could think to say. "So that's why my Byakugan doesn't work properly here."
She glanced downwards, and saw that her sister had tears in her eyes. "Hanabi? Are you okay?"
"Yeah!" Hanabi sniffled, wiping her eyes. "I just...I'm really thankful I got my sight back for this."
And then Hinata was trying very hard not to cry as well.
"We aren't sure if it's actually one of Hamura's Tenseigan, or if it's simply something he used them to create." Toneri offered a welcome distraction. "This is what's been powering the moon for generations. Sadly it's power isn't infinite; as I've told you before, generation after generation have sacrificed their own eyes to the Tenseigan to keep it running." He touched his own blindfold. "That orb contains the dojutsu of every Otsutsuki to ever live on the moon, generating power. I thought that, since combining my chakra with your eyes would grant me the Tenseigan, we could use this to do something similar for you." He smiled wryly. "Crude logic, I know, but we live in a world where you can just pop out eyeballs and pass them around, and they work just fine. Giving me the Tenseigan and having you control me sounds a lot more complicated than just giving them to you."
Hinata walked up and touched the orb's surface, feeling the flickers of energy that only hinted at a greater power deeper within. "You think that'll work?"
"The alternative is you drain my chakra until I die, or blind Hanabi." Toneri shrugged. "Again, I have no idea. But it's worth a shot."
Hinata looked back, gesturing vaguely to their surroundings. "And what happens to all this if it's gone?"
Toneri's face fell. "The Tenseigan is the only thing keeping the moon habitable." He confessed. "The puppets will stop working immediately. After a month or so the artificial gravity will fail, then the atmosphere will vent into space, and the temperature will drop to about twenty five degrees above absolute zero."
"That Fahrenheit?" Hinata asked.
"No, Kelvin, I'm not a heathen." Toneri wrinkled his nose up, then sighed. "The ecosystem and structures will all collapse. The moon will become a barren husk again."
"Right." Hinata was stone faced. "I understand if you don't-"
"No, it's fine." He shook his head resolutely. "My people's legacy is one of misunderstanding and murder. I think it is high time I left that behind and started anew. Don't worry, me and Hanabi will be perfectly safe here for more than long enough for the war to conclude. Whatever that may mean."
Hinata paused, then nodded and turned back to the orb.
"Alright, great granddad." She muttered, reaching out again. "Let's see what you've got for me."
Her hand lit up with Lionfist purple flames. Then she touched it to the surface and declared "Hiragekoma."
And then she set on fire.
The rest of the Konoha ninja all gathered around Obito, who (despite interference from Naruto) was dying by the moment. Loss of a Bijuu was a death sentence for any Jinchurikki, nevermind that of the Ten-Tails.
"Well now what?" Kakashi growled. "We're back where we started!"
"Better." Naruto pointed out. "I got the full Kyuubi now?"
"Worse." Obito corrected, coughing. He weakly pointed into the middle distance. There, the sounds of titanic conflict had stopped. Most worryingly, it was a giant blue Susanno that was the last to flicker out. "He's not busy anymore."
"I know the Reaper Death Seal." Tobirama offered. "If we weaken Madara, I might be able to put him away."
"Weaken him how?" Hiruzen asked. "He can't tire, run out of chakra, or take permanent damage."
"If we can destroy him, I can tie him up with the chakra chains?" Naruto suggested. "That'll stop him regenerating, at least for a while."
"But he can counter it with the Rinnegan abilities if we can't get to his head." Minato reminded him. "And he has those wood clones, so as long as they're around they can break him out."
"Well it's not like we can ask him politely to turn off all his powers!" Tsunade exclaimed.
"No." Said Obito, quietly. "But we can make him lose them."
Everyone looked down at him.
"Come again?" Asked Sasuke.
"I'm no longer the Ten-Tails, but I still have the Rinnegan." The dying Uchiha rasped. "I can't use the Rinne Tensei to bring back all your allies. But I can manage one person. I can bring back Madara."
Naruto looked at him like he'd grown an extra head. "Bring him back? Why would we wanna do that?"
But more than one of them had realised what Obito meant.
"His Rinnegan aren't real." Jiraiya remembered.
"Most of his powers are enhancements from Kabuto." Sasuke nodded. "If we bring him fully to life, we take those away."
"If I bring him back, he'll be blind." Obito explained. "No Rinnegan, no absorbing the Bijuu. No Mangekyo Sharingan, no Susanno. No Wood style. He'll be mortal, with finite chakra, and no way to regenerate. You'll be able to kill him with as little as a kunai if you can get close enough."
"He'll still be one of the deadliest ninja in history, but it'll be the best chance we're ever going to get." Tobirama agreed.
"And we'll have to protect Obito." Kakashi spoke up. "Madara will be after his eye the moment he realises what's happened. Obito, where's the second?"
Obito grinned. "Safe. I got alone, buried it, and then genjutsu'd myself to forget it's location. Get the Hyuuga girl to find it if you have to, but it's out of his reach."
"Then we have a plan." Naruto took charge, looking up to the eight titans surrounding them that had (so far) been very kindly sitting still. "BIJUU! Reanimated Kage! Sasuke! You're with me! We're gonna go take out this bastard!" He looked back down. "Gai, Tsunade, Jiraiya, help the rest of the alliance with the Buddha, since they're apparently still not done." A roar and an explosion from that direction punctuated his point. "When Madara's chakra reserves are limited, as much as I hate to say it, throwing an army of minions at him might actually work. Kakashi," he turned to his Sensei, not looking happy about what he was going to say. "If it looks like Madara's about to get through? Warp Obito into the Kamui dimension and take a kunai to your own eye. We need to keep it away from him."
Kakashi's face was cold. "Too risky to wait. I'll do it the moment the technique goes through. I've been borrowing this eye for long enough."
Obito chuckled. "So the last thing I see as I die is his ugly mug? Fair." He put his hands together. "You have ten seconds before he's mortal on my mark. Get moving. Ten."
Everyone scattered, and Kakashi took up position behind Obito and facing Madara, as Obito started to count down.
It was a really, really good plan.
Here's how it went wrong.
Hashirama Senju knelt in the rubble. Surrounding him was an wasteland of dying wooden structures, pulverised stone, and fire.
His body was punctured in a dozen or more places by Rinnegan rods, disrupting his chakra and preventing him from moving.
Walking up to his rival, Madara Uchiha threw a couple more into him for good measure.
"I-" Hashirama coughed, "I'd make 'penetrate me' jokes, but I've already established you've lost those priveliges."
"Oh, don't ruin the mood." Madara sighed. "That was the only proper fight I've had all war, I enjoyed it. Possibly the last proper fight I'll ever have."
"Oh, you think that was a proper fight?" Hashirama grinned. "I've only used...ten percent of my power...HAAAAAAH!-"
He strained against his restraints for a second or so, then went limp again.
"Wow." Madara said, flatly. "That was pathetic."
"It was a bit, can I try again?"
"You know I'm trying to give you a dramatic death here and you're just, ruining it. Completely."
"A dramatic death?" Hashirama snorted. "I already got one of those. Remember when I kicked your ass and then beat up the Nine-Tails?"
"I do." Madara spread his arms. "Yet things are different now, aren't they?"
"Eh, I dunno." Hashirama looked around. "You ever get that feeling of deja-vu?"
Madara shrugged. "Well I'd hoped you'd learned from last time, but no. I beat you in pretty much the same way, except I had the Rinnegan instead of the Kyuubi."
"I'm starting to think you just really like having me on my knees. But really, we already knew that." Hashirama grinned. "Hey. Hey Madara."
Madara scowled. "...What?"
"...That's pretty gay, bro."
"We've had sex!"
"I had my socks on! That means it wasn't g-"
Madara flung another Rinnegan rod, burying it in his forehead, snarling "Stop acting like a CHILD!"
"Your MUM's acting like a child!" Hashirama laughed.
Madara glowered at him, stalking up and grabbing the rod, wrenching it backwards and forcing Hashirama's head up. "Why, for once in your pathetic existence, can't you just take this seriously?"
"Because that is what you want!" Hashirama's grin was feral, his eyes flashing. "And I am not going to give it to you." His eyes rolled up, taking in the black rod sticking out of him. "Oh hey, look! Now we're both dickheads!"
Madara reached back with a fist-
Then spun, and grabbed the katana being swung at the back of his head.
That Hashirama grimaced and continued to push the blade, but Madara just grinned, even as it bit deep into his hand. "Really? Did you think that I would fall for the same trick twice?"
The Hashirama he was clashing with grinned right back. "No." It said. Then it released the blade entirely, grabbing Madara's arms. Behind them, there was an explosion of force, and Rinnegan rods flew away in all directions. The Hashirama on the ground, chakra pathways disrupted by the rods, had reactivated sage mode. He charged forwards, reaching for Madara's exposed back-
"Shinra Tensei." Madara uttered.
Both Hashirama were hurled away from him. The katana did too, stabbing into the skull of the one grappling with him and revealing it to be a Wood clone.
Madara turned and reached backwards and called out "Bansho Tenin!" And Pincushion Hashirama (the real Hashirama) was yanked right back, his throat slamming into Madara's outstretched hand.
"Pathetic." Madara smirked, Rinnegan flashing. With a stretch of his will, he began using the Preta path to drain Hashirama's sage chakra away. "And oh so much like you. You cannot achieve your dreams with a witty one liner and 'the Will of Fire'. You simply need to have more power. And soon, I will have all of it."
"The cup...you are trying to fill...has no bottom." Hashirama warned him, body going limp. "Please...stop, before it's...too late..."
"Resorting to begging now?" Madara sighed. "How far beneath you."
"Not...really." The orange markings indicating sage mode vanished from around Hashirama's eyes, and he grinned. "I was quoting Kung Fu Panda 2. Love that movie. Just wish all the fans weren't fucking furries or the fanfiction would be amazing..."
Madara closed his eyes.
Then he used the Human path to rip out Hashirama's soul.
The Edo Tensei body collapsed to the floor, and quickly disintegrated. Madara considered the soul in his hand for a moment, then let it fly off to the pure lands. He'd learned everything he needed from it anyway.
"Yeah, well, you're dead." He muttered to the corpse. "So...hah."
He turned away, looking back to the main battlefield, and was met with the sight of an army charging towards him. The Bijuu were sort of difficult to miss.
"Oh, good, you all dealt with Obito." He said, mostly to himself, but knowing that the two boys in the lead (Oh, it's the Uzumaki and the Uchiha. How on Earth are they working together so well?) "I was rather worried I'd have to do it myself."
"Hit him, boys!" Naruto shouted, and all the tailed beasts began charging up attacks. So did he, Madara noted, a golden avatar flashing into existence around him and purple energy charging in it's mouth.
"BROTHERHOOD BIJUU-BOMB BARRAGE!" The kid shouted, as nine powerful blasts rocketed forwards.
"Well he's certainly inherited the Konoha style..." Madara rolled his eyes, and powered up his Susanno.
That was when his body flashed white.
There was, admittedly, a brief moment of panic, as his eyes disintegrated in their sockets, his defensive shield broke into pieces, and he was left with the nothing but the roaring sound of giant death balls flying towards him.
He took the first real breath of fresh air he had in centuries.
Then he grinned.
This is where the fun begins. Zetsu?
Fifty metres to your left.
Understood.
"QUINTUPLE RASHIMON!" He slammed his palms onto the floor and five massive locked gates rose up from the ground in front of him. The approaching attack obliterated the first four, but the last held.
Rubble rained down around Madara, and a certain rock with a seal on it was impossible to differentiate from the others by sound alone.
Tobirama Senju was similarly silent, when he appeared there and stabbed his katana towards Madara's back.
Madara spun, catching the blade and shattering it with a palm strike, before kicking out at Tobirama, who vanished again with a shocked look.
Madara flung the remnants of the blade at the location he reappeared, spun again to catch the knife thrown by a blond Edo in Hokage vestements. Said Hokage appeared at the knife's location but Madara was ready, punching towards his head.
He dodged (oh, he's faster than Tobirama, that must be causing tension-), head tilting just to the side of Madara's fist.
The attack landed anyway, and blew off the side of his head.
"Dad!" Shouted Naruto, charging in from behind alongside Sasuke.
Madara turned to face them, and heard them gasp as they saw the orange markings on his face.
"Sage mode?" Naruto exclaimed, at the same time Sasuke shouted "Bullshit!"
Five metres forwards.
"Plan seven-A." Madara answered, walking towards them. "Absorb Hashirama's sage mode, combine it with my other powers, and use it to kill Obito once he was done with you all. Plan seven-B; if you win, kill you all. Plan seven-C; if you win and Obito is smart enough to try and bring me back, use sage mode to survive until I get his Rinnegan."
"You planned for this?" Sasuke gaped.
"No, my original plan was much simpler." Madara admitted, stopping. "This is what I call 'pre-emptive improvisation'."
"Well Obito's Rinnegan is already gone!" Naruto shouted, petulantly. "So all we have to do is wear out your reserves!"
"First, no it isn't." Madara replied. "And second, how do you know that's the one I was talking about?"
Right underneath you. Black Zetsu whispered into his ear, invisible in his shadow. Now excuse me briefly...
Zetsu vanished, and Madara punched the floor.
They were stood on stone, but the roots of Hashirama's Wood Release structures ran deep. Directly beneath Madara, the rock quickly gave way to plant matter.
Plant matter, which White Zetsu were capable of moving through.
White Zetsu, some of which Black Zetsu had appropriated for personal tasks at the start of the war.
Black Zetsu, who had always made sure to leave certain telltale signs of his presence when he was piggybacking on Obito's shadow. This was so that when it was necessary, he could stop those signs and follow with Obito thinking he wasn't there.
Obito, who had hidden one of the Rinnegan.
A white hand stretched up out of the wood, a purple orb covered in concentric circles clutched in its palm.
"NO!" Naruto shouted, hurling a Rasenshuriken, and Madara batted it away with one hand, using Hashirama's Frog Kata to deflect an indirect collision, reaching down with his other hand to snatch up the eye.
He booted away a reappearing Tobirama, blocked a flurry of attacks from Sasuke with the Rinnegan hand, used the other to spew a massive wave of fire to counter a matched attack from Hiruzen, reached up to his eye sockets-
Stopped, annoyed as he had to catch a punch from Naruto that would have taken off his head, flung the boy away, jumped over a string of Magatama beads that swung where his torso had been, axe-kicked a reappearing Minato down into those beads, causing a chain reaction of explosions that forced everyone else to give him space, flashed through a set of hand seals with his off hand, reached up again with the Rinnegan-
Was stopped again by golden chains wrapping around the arm, so he severed those, but was wrapped by a dozen others as a set of shadow clones joined the effort, flexed free, winced as black fire exploded against his back, only failing to kill him because of the senjutsu cloak, then he countered a taijutsu attack from Hiruzen and Tobirama with just one leg while blasting a lightning spear that Sasuke was barely able to catch and ground without it vapourising him, reached up again with the Rinnegan-
But this time was stopped by bloody ninja wire of all things, chakra enhanced, so he channeled lightning chakra through that and Sasuke screamed and let go, then deflected another Rasenshuriken, but by that point Hiruzen had caught his attacking leg and Tobirama had swept at his balancing one with a katana, forcing him to release the floor to avoid losing it, at which point more Adamantine chains grabbed him and forced him to the ground, and he slammed his palm down and declared "Swamp of the Underworld!" Which caused the earth beneath them to ripple and shift. All the other fighters found themselves being sucked downwards into the swamp, Minato and Tobirama having to use Flying Raijin to get away which left them too far to interfere.
Except for Naruto. That genuinely impressive young man was using his own competence with Senjutsu to stay on his feet on the swamp's surface.
"Now!" Naruto shouted to the eight other tailed beasts on the outskirts of the battle, who all charged Bijuu bombs again, as golden chains lashed out and pinned Madara down in his own muck, hands forced out to either side.
Madara was completely helpless. But he was capable of calmly saying: "Look up."
Naruto did.
And then he swore. "METEORITE!"
The eight Bijuu all looked up, and (probably at the urging of Kurama), fired their attacks in unison at the giant falling planetoid Madara had summoned right after temporarily destroying Minato.
They intercepted it less than a second before it would have landed, the combined energy of the co-operating beasts more than enough to make it blast into millions of pieces (in what was probably now the second most impressive explosion of the war so far).
But the attack that they had aimed at the meteorite hadn't been aimed at Madara. And while they were distracted, he had freed himself from the chakra chains.
Sasuke (rapidly sinking) called out a warning, and Naruto flung one last Rasenshuriken, but it was too little too late.
"Shinra Tensei."
Naruto's attack fell apart in midair, coming into contact with an invisible counterforce and vanishing. Madara stood behind it, smiling, with one eye closed and the other a dark purple.
"One to go." He said, absently. Then slammed one palm to the floor. "Summoning Jutsu: Gedo Mazo."
Obito sagged to his knees, coughing up blood. His hair, already bleached white from his time as the Juubi host, was starting to fall out in clumps. He shook in place there for a full second, two, before turning around and wheezing "Kakashi! Do it now!"
"I...I can't!" Kakashi protested.
"What...gagh!" Obito spasmed, at what he was pretty sure was his stomach lining disintegrating. "What do you mean you c-"
He turned, and gasped.
Kakashi's body was splayed out, knees bent, arms stretching to the side at inhuman looking angles. His neck was thrown back, face staring up at the moon, and his muscles were shaking in strain.
He had no shadow. At least, not on the floor below him. Instead it stretched up, wrapping around his body.
"Zetsu." Obito breathed.
"Oh, my dear Obito, when are you going to get the message?" Black Zetsu's face covered half of Kakashi's, and was drawn into it's ever-present grin. "I'm always the one in control."
Oh, I love writing these kinds of fights. The vibe I was going for was the 'avengers vs Thanos pt 1' type of thing, where it's overwhelming numbers against an opponent with overwhelming power, but if we can just keep him distracted and pressured enough to pull off this one thing-
Well. Lemme know if I managed it.
I'm also trying to write the Madara Zetsu duo as a genuinely intelligent enemy group. I.E, you're not being idiots; you're really taking the best possible route with the information you have, and it still isn't enough.
And it's only going to get harder for them now...
