CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Tick Tock!
XXX
103 Days Since Sasuke
As Gaara approached the Yugakure battlefield, he could hear it. The sounds. The constant drumroll of explosions. One after the other, before one got to finish, another would go off, then another, then another, then another. He was still about a kilometre away from the frontlines but the thunderous rumbling vibrated him to the core.
"What's that sound?" the jinchuuriki wondered as day broke. He was standing in the Allied Shinobi Camp behind frontlines with Temari and the leading Suna general.
"It's fireworks, Lord Gaara" the general explained. "If you're heading to the front lines, you'll see it the moment you break through that tree line."
"Fireworks? What kind of shinobi uses fireworks?"
"It's a diversionary tactic. They've launched fireworks at our lines every minute of every hour of every day. It keeps our troops awake, so they're not in tip-top shape when the White Zetsu army pours out through the gates."
"I hope I do not sound too insensitive when I say this, general, but can't you just go to sleep," Gaara suggested, "Surely someone will wake you up when they see the gates open."
"The problem is that sometimes it's not fireworks. Occasionally, they'll drop paper bombs on us, and it's better to be awake for the fireworks than being caught napping when the paper bombs drop."
Gaara looked out at the walls of Yugakure in the distance. He could see the peaks of the mountain range as he looked over the tall trees ahead. The echo of explosions grew louder as he turned to the source. An explosion went off, crackling followed. A few of the shinobi, who were eating around campfires in the camp, turned to sound, clutching their gear.
"At ease," the general yelled.
"How many shinobi have we lost to these paper bombs?" Gaara wondered.
"250 killed so far, 430 injured… so, we've not had the best of times, especially since it takes a month for reinforcements to get here."
"How many shinobi are currently on the frontline?" Temari wondered.
"At the moment, not many. Maybe a thousand, just in case a White Zetsu attack occurs."
"What about the Akatsuki members?" Gaara asked one of Konoha's scouts.
"They both beat you here. I sensed them sneaking into the village last night. My biggest fear was that they'd make one final attack in the dead of night, but it seems they took a night to sleep."
Gaara grabbed his gourd, "That was their final mistake then. I don't need sleep and you don't have to worry about Yugakure anymore. Leave it in my hands. Let's go, Temari."
"Follow me to the frontlines," the general couldn't hide the faint smile on his face. A campaign that'd been going on for over three months was finally about to end. He gave them a short bow before entering the forest, Temari followed behind him. As Gaara was about to enter, someone grabbed his hand.
He looked back. It was a Kiri shinobi. A chuunin, the same age as the redhead if not a year or two younger, with blood-soaked bandages wrapped around the right side of his body. Gaara tried to flash the younger man a warm smile, but they stood there in perfect silence for a few moments.
"Oi, Gaara, are you coming?" Temari poked her head out. Gaara didn't respond.
The jinchuuriki's eyes just widened as the Kiri shinobi got down on his knees and bowed to him. Gaara looked around. "Thank you so much," the shinobi said, tears in his eye.
"Hey, calm down, there's no need for all this," Gaara assured him.
Soon, one bowing shinobi became three, then five, then ten, then twenty. Anyone who could stand, rushed over to the jinchuuriki, and thanked him for finally coming to relieve them of their suffering. Gaara didn't know how to accept praise, so he turned to Temari with confusion written on his face.
Temari just leaned against a tree with her arms folded.
The Suna general returned to the camp and paused before finally barking out orders, "Okay, that's enough from you lot. You'll aggravate your injuries! Lord Gaara, this way, sir."
Gaara rushed to his older sister's side as the crowd wished him farewell.
"What was that?" Gaara asked.
Temari chuckled as they walked down a slope into a series of trenches, "That's called love, Gaara."
XXX
Trenches had been dug into the earth surrounding Yugakure, so people could move without worrying about the kunai firing coming down from the top of the mountain range. The only problem was that all three shinobi had to crouch the whole kilometre as they moved from the safety of their camp to no man's land.
As they approached the frontlines, the echoes of fireworks turned to thunderous explosions that made their hearts skip a beat. It felt like if they lifted their heads above the five-foot-high trench walls their eardrums would burst. Beneath their feet, solid earth turned to disgusting mud that tried to swallow them whole them. Each step was more draining as the last. The general had to stop and turn every few hundred metres as the impact of fireworks and explosions caused sections of the trench to collapse in on themselves. Gaara could see hands sticking out of the mounds of mud and wood. Those who weren't lucky enough to be born with Earth chakra had to try and dig their way out. Their fingernails were chipped and dirty as they stuck out of the mound. Rats gnawed on their flesh. It was a long and tiring process, but after thirty minutes of crouching, they finally made it to the First Trench. The final trench row between the Allied Shinobi Force and Yugakure.
500 metres separated Temari and Gaara from the walls of Yugakure. It looked so far, yet so near. Both the longest and shortest 500 metres of their lives, lined with mud, barbed wire, visible explosive tags, and dead bodies, both White Zetsu and shinobi, hundreds of them.
"What's the plan?" Gaara asked.
Temari relieved the general of his duties before joining her younger brother against the wall. "Simple. You prop up a shield, I send all the chumps on the wall flying with my fan, we storm the village, we win."
Gaara smirked, "I see no flaws in that plan."
"When on earth did you learn sarcasm?"
"I picked it up."
"Well, we should have an easy run until we encounter the Akatsuki members. So, I say let's take out as many of the idiots on the wall as possible before we have to deal with them."
"The Kazekage of the Hidden Sand everyone," Gaara laughed before getting ready to go over.
Temari messed up her younger brother's hair before getting ready too, "On my call. One. Two. Three!"
They leapt over.
Kunai launchers turned to them. The kunai came flying down. All of them were slapped out of the air by sand.
Temari bit her thumb and ran the bloody finger along her fan, "Summoning Jutsu: Blade Dance!" she swung her massive fan. A puff of smoke summoned a giant white weasel into existence. Kamatari rode his sickle into combat as the winds carried him up. A massive hurricane guided him up and over the mountain range. He cut everything he could. The kunai launchers. The armour of the Iron Samurai. The skin of those who were caught without armour. The rock they stood on. A section of the mountain even came tumbling down, and with it came tumbling down the shinobi on the walls. The boulders fell and crushed all the White Zetsu waiting behind the gate for the next attack.
For the first time in three months, kunai launchers and explosive tag showers on the walls of Yugakure were a thing of the past.
Temari stepped on one of the Gaara's sand clouds.
They both flew up to the top of the mountain range to avoid the traps below.
As they rose over the wall, they were met by a giant white dragon.
"So, that's Deidara," Gaara noted, landing on the top of the wall.
"Mhm," Temari confirmed. The blonde shinobi waved at them from the streets of Yugakure. "It looks like he's already waiting for us."
"And Kimimaro?" Gaara wondered.
"Right behind us," Temari leapt away.
"Camellia Dance!"
Kimimaro stabbed at Gaara, but the sand came to his aid. Gaara leapt away too. "How did he get there?"
"Beats me, but you can take him. I'll go after Deidara," Temari slid down the mountain range before hopping from building to building.
One of the balls that made up the white dragon's tail was sucked into the dragon's body. Temari continued to run in. The dragon launched it as a ball. Temari dodged. It exploded behind her. Another ball. Another dodge. Another explosion.
A third ball.
"First Star!"
Temari blew it away.
It exploded in mid-air.
Temari threw five kunai into the air, still using one star, she swung her fan to launch the kunai at Deidara. The shinobi hid behind the dragon. He jumped onto the dragon's back and looked down at her.
"Temari of the Hidden Sand, un? You know, I've never had the honour of killing a Kage."
Temari planted her fan into the earth, "And you never will."
Deidara grinned, "How much you wanna bet, un?" he asked before throwing a handful of balls at her. In mid-air, the balls grew little legs and crawled towards Temari. "Katsu!"
Temari hopped onto one of the nearby building's roofs. "Wind Style: Art of the Gust Blade!" she swung her fan twice. Deidara vaulted over one. The other sliced one of the dragon's legs off. Deidara slipped off his own dragon. His back hit the cobblestone floor. Temari was overhead.
Temari swung once. One Star.
The dragon stuck its neck out to block the slice. At the cost of its own neck.
It dispelled.
Deidara got back to his feet.
Temari landed on another building.
Kimimaro landed next to Deidara.
Gaara floated down and landed next to Temari.
"How much time you got left, un?" Deidara asked his partner.
"Unfortunately, not much."
"Then, we'll just have to end this quickly before I'm left alone."
"Kill them both," Temari demanded.
Kimimaro was caught in the Sand Coffin.
Deidara managed to see it coming, "You're getting too slow, you idiot!"
"Sand Burial!" Gaara crushed the Kaguya.
"Did you get him?" Temari asked.
"Not yet," Gaara noted before allowing Kimimaro a bit of leverage. He pulled himself out of his sandy tomb and fell to his knees. "Is that?"
"Yeah… the Shikotsumyaku. The Kaguya clan secret technique."
"How the fuck did you do that, un?" Deidara yelled.
"Since I knew I couldn't avoid it, I hardened the bones under my skin," Kimimaro explained. The skin along the left side of his jaw had been destroyed, leaving the bone exposed. Hints and slivers of bone could be seen through other sections of the Kaguya's skin as he rose to his feet.
"Where did Orochimaru find someone like you?" Gaara asked.
"Lord Orochimaru found me through the sheer grace of his excellence. As the sole survivor of my clan, he saw the potential in me as a child and nurtured me to be the humble servant you see before you today."
Gaara sighed, "Brainwashed by that snake, just like Sasuke. You said you're the last of your clan. It's sad to think that such a promising kekkei genkai will go existent today. Maybe we could get a mednin to collect the cells from your dead body when I'm done with you."
"I'll die today, but not until you're both in the ground," Kimimaro charged.
"You deal with him," Temari leapt away.
Kimimaro came down with a vertical slice. Gaara caught it with sand. Kimimaro vaulted over the sand and stabbed from above, hitting sand with every thrust. "Digital Shrapnel!" Gaara hopped away to get some distance. Kimimaro shadowed him.
The jinchuuriki dodged bone bullet after bone bullet as Kimimaro hovered over him.
Gaara slipped on one of the roofs. Kimimaro stood over him. "This is what you get for disrespecting the Snake Sa…" Kimimaro's speech was cut off by sand wrapping around his ankle. Gaara threw him through another building.
Gaara sat up, "A sprained ankle? What an embarrassing injury to catch in the midst of battle," he said, trying to put some weight on it.
XXX
"Katsu!"
Temari leapt away from an explosion as a clay humanoid, attached to one of Deidara's hands, chased after her. She'd tried to slap the other humanoid away with her fan but that almost cost her her most valuable weapon.
"Second Star!" she opened the fan slightly to reveal the second circle.
She swung.
The humanoid was blown off its feet. It crashed into a building but didn't explode.
Temari was forced to move again as a second humanoid tried to fight her.
The Kazekage had the advantage over long distances, and since Deidara knew he wouldn't be able to safely close the gap, he chose to close the gap with explosive humanoids. Temari put some distance between herself and the humanoids, jumped onto a building and pulled out a scroll.
A demon wind shuriken burst into existence. She launched at Deidara, knowing both his hands were occupied. Deidara's hand sucked the humanoid back to Deidara's side. The clay creature stopped the giant shuriken with its body.
Deidara looked down at the inscription on the shuriken's blades. "Wind?" Wind chakra blades extended from the shuriken to slice Deidara's left arm off. "You bitch!"
Temari grinned, "I've been called every b-word in the book, honey, you can keep going!"
"Katsu!" the first humanoid had managed to sneak into the building that Temari was standing on. She was blown sky-high. She landed on the cobblestone streets with a nasty thud.
"Temari!" Gaara yelled.
.
.
.
"I'm okay," the Kazekage finally responded. A sand cloud rushed to her aid and picked her up. "Shit, I let my guard down," she admitted.
"Still got all your fingers and toes?" Gaara asked.
"Okay, don't baby me, I'm older than you. But I'm alright…" she snapped, rising to her feet. Deidara joined them in the skies with his white bird. "Looks like you're all right too," Temari chuckled.
"You seem to underestimate me, I can do a whole lot with only one arm, un," Deidara yelled before rising high above both the village and the Sand Siblings. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a little white baby statue. "He's gonna die anyway," Deidara reasoned as he threw the baby over his shoulder.
It expanded.
"What on earth is that?" Gaara asked, looking up at the massive white statue, its arms now outstretched.
It began to fall. If not stopped, that technique could've wiped out the entire village.
"Gaara! Do something!" Temari yelled.
"I'm… I'm on it…" Gaara lifted his arms to the skies. He needed every once of chakra in his system for this one.
Sand erupted from everywhere. From his gourd. From the ground. From the bed of the steaming river. From the buildings. From the walls surrounding Yugakure. His gourd broke apart and rushed to catch the baby. He ground the surrounding earth into sand and minerals and lifted everything he could into the sky.
The baby and the sand made contact.
"Katsu!"
The explosion shook the village. The northern and southern mountains surrounding the village shattered, large boulders rolled down what cliffs remained. Deidara was lucky enough to escape the blast radius. Tons and tons of sand absorbed most of it on Gaara's sand, but some of the heat and energy managed to get through the dome.
Both Temari and Gaara were thrown to the ground.
Kimimaro smelled blood. Regardless of the fact that if it weren't for Gaara, he too would be dead.
"The final blow, now I get to reap revenge on behalf of…"
"Oh, fuck off," Gaara's ankle was swollen, he had a headache, and he was chakra deprived. Too tired to deal with Kimimaro's shit. He grabbed Kimimaro's ankle with sand before dragging the Kaguya down into the ground. "Sand Burial!" even if the Sand Burial didn't kill him, no amount of bone hardening could've saved Kimimaro from his tomb, several metres below ground.
Gaara collapsed.
"Are you okay?" Temari wondered.
"I'll live," Gaara laughed.
"You two are still alive, un?" Deidara yelled.
"Have you got anything else in your locker?" Temari asked.
"To knock that blonde guy out of the sky? I think I've got one more move in me," he said trying to get up. He collapsed again.
Temari stood up. She limped to Gaara's side to help him up. The jinchuuriki didn't even have enough chakra left to keep his gourd intact.
Gaara reached into a pile of sand next to him to pull out his ultimate attack. The Extreme Tempered Ultimate Attack: Shukaku Spear. "The problem is that… we can't miss with this attack. So, we have to make sure he won't move."
Temari let go of Gaara to grab her fan. "I'll have to go to the Third Star to have the best chance of hitting him from this range… or maybe summon Kamatari again."
Deidara's bird burst.
He fell to earth.
"Nice shot," Temari yelled.
"I… I didn't throw it yet."
Deidara landed in a pile of sand. He'd fallen from hundreds of metres up. His body was broken.
"Now, we can stand and watch him die, cause the man, Killer B, got him straight in the bull's eye. Wee!" The Sand Siblings looked over their shoulder. How had they failed to notice the massive jinchuuriki standing behind them? Were they really that tired?
"B? When did you get here?"
"The Raikage A told me bout the Akatsuki's movements, I figured I'd join on the frontlines for my own amusement, bakayaro, konoyaro."
"Well, then… it's good to be fighting on the same side for once then," Gaara chuckled. He froze. Gaara looked around, "There's no way."
"What?"
"CORPSE BONE CHAIN!"
Rows of bony spikes jutted out of the sandy earth.
"BRACKEN DANCE!"
How had he even survived?
How had they survived? Temari looked down. She was sitting on a cloud of sand. Gaara had turned his spear to clouds and lifted all three of them over the forest of bones.
"Don't you dare interrupt me when I preach about Lord Orochimaru again!" Gaara landed them just outside the forest. Kimimaro broke through the bones as a completely different animal. His skin had darkened. He'd sprouted a tail and had thick bony spines protruding from his back. "Lord Orochimaru made me what I am today. If it weren't for him, I would be dead already, but because of him, I can die in his honour. Who will you die for?"
"You're a monster."
"Says the one with an actual monster inside him," Kimimaro chuckled before bending over, "Clematis Dance…" he reached over his shoulder and dug his fingers into his skin to pull out his spine, "Vine!"
"What the fuck?" Temari asked.
Kimimaro charged.
Gaara pushed Temari out of the way. Kimimaro barrelled into him. The sand hadn't come to his rescue. Kimimaro rushed him through a building before he was caught by B. The jinchuuriki grabbed Kimimaro by the back of the neck and sent him flying over a fence.
"I hope you're still standing One-Tails."
"Yeah."
"Sweet!" Kimimaro's spine broke through the fence to wrap around B. "Huh?"
"Clematis Dance: Flower!" Kimimaro broke through the fence. The bones in his right arm had expanded and wrapped around the appendage to form a drill. B wrapped a tentacle around Kimimaro.
"Chill out or get inked, yo, konoyaro!" B spat ink in Kimimaro's face. The monster slipped out of the tentacle, missed B, and crashed into another building. Before B could even turn around, Kimimaro was already behind him.
He was blown away by Temari's Third Star.
"Bracken Dance!"
A row of bones rushed towards Temari. She backflipped away from them until they stopped. Kimimaro emerged from the last spike to tower over her with the Clematis Dance: Flower.
Killer B stabbed seven holes into the Kaguya before electrocuting him.
Kimimaro clutched his heart with his left hand while pulling back with his right. The electricity amplified as B mixed water chakra and lightning chakra. Veins welled up along Kimimaro's chest. He thrust. The Flower slammed into Yugakure's cobblestone pathways.
B's electricity had given Temari just enough time to move her battered body out of the way.
Kimimaro was dead.
Temari fell onto her ass. She was breathing heavily.
B picked Gaara up and threw him over his shoulder. He did the same to Temari. "Oh snap, I almost forgot my eighth sword, bakayaro," he said when he realised that he only had seven on hand. He'd covered the eighth one in lightning chakra before throwing it at Deidara's bird to knock it out of the sky.
He had to walk across the village, which had become a sandy wasteland at this point, to find Deidara. The blonde shinobi was barely alive. The blade had torn through the bird's wing and drilled into his heart.
B pulled the blade out of Deidara.
"Oi, you're the Eight-Tails, un?"
"You betcha."
"Tell me, Eight-Tails, do you know what the best form of art is?"
"Of course. The best form of art is a finely worded rap, where the flow and words blend and overlap, and the power of the music and story is fire, and arms of the people who listen lift higher, bakayaro, konoyaro."
Deidara coughed up some blood, "Fuck no. The ultimate form of art is quick. It's fleeting. Blink and you miss it," Deidara threw off his cloak. B's blade had opened the mouth over Deidara's heart. Veins began to appear along the skinny shinobi's body. "Art is an explosion, and the ultimate explosion is one that goes off and takes out its maker, its haters, and everything in A TEN-KILOMETRE RADIUS!"
"B!"
"YO!" Killer B threw Gaara and Temari away before picking Deidara up.
He jumped up the sides of the mountain range and made a break for it.
"Hahaha! It's too late! Even if you escape Yugakure, there's no time left, un! Unless you're sacrificing yourself Eight-Tails! Is that what you're doing, un? You're willing to die for a village with no civilians in it? Huh? Make up your mind, Eight-Tails! Time's ticking. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock."
"Shut up!" Killer B yelled, jumping through the forest, covered in lightning chakra to get as far away from the village as possible.
"Time's up! Katsu!"
"GYUKI!"
A flash of light.
The bright technique rose into the air before quickly compressing into a dome. A second explosion rang out. It knocked the western wall of the Hidden Hot Water Village off, sending huge chunks of rock flying into the deserted village. The shockwave knocked both Gaara and Temari off their feet and blew tons of sand out of the village and into the trenches.
Killer B had countered Deidara's explosion with his own explosion.
As the mushroom cloud loomed over the crater left in the earth, Gyuki rose from the ashes and stood over the battlefield victorious.
So, a jinchuuriki could survive an explosion, even one as powerful as C0, if they timed their own completed transformation to perfection. Gaara needed to remember this.