The human body is an extraordinarily complex machine that frankly is capable of prodigious things when one takes the time to think about it.
All Naruto could think of was how fragile it was as the countless iterations of the boy revealed themselves and hacked at anyone without a Konoha headband moving too fast or too aggressively for their taste.
The clones had detected the sleep-inducing illusion immediately and the simultaneous pulse of chakra coming from a little less than three thousand shadow clones had broken the genjutsu not only for the clones but for the entire arena.
The spectators - at least those who weren't ninja or from ninja clans - were properly surprised and rooted in their seats though it might have had something to do with the suffocating killing intent that was blasting from Gaara's sphere of sand.
In the end, there were three kinds of people moving: the shinobi of Konoha, the few VIP's bodyguards competent enough not to freeze and the enemy. So the Narutos slashed, surprising the opponents entirely as the seemingly harmless civilians they were seated next to revealed themselves to be ninjas under a transformation.
Before anything could truly happen, it was over. Blood spurting from severed necks and arteries cut open, spinal cords slashed or brains split in disconnected fragments, bodies crumpled, dead.
At the same moment, a man wearing an ANBU mask jumped in the arena, followed closely by an old man just as three other ANBU fell on the Suna jounin in the arena, who had taken the split second of confusion to maim Hayate.
A few Narutos watched as the old man - who had a prosthetic arm - unrolled a large storage scroll around the sand sphere and unsealed its content.
A liquid over-saturated with something crystalline spilt on the sand shield. The closest Naruto felt his nose twitch in spite of the overpowering stench of blood and dust and the replica narrowed his blue eyes.
Sugar? His eyes widened. The sand was white because it wasn't merely sand!
Then, the ANBU ran through several hand signs before slamming them in the ground, causing massive trees to instantaneously sprout from the dry soil and form another dome on top of the sphere. The ANBU flickered away as the old man jumped on the wall, reaching the first seats and doing his own hand seals, erecting a wall of mud. Two ANBU retrieved the unconscious Neji and the other grabbed Hayate by the scruff of his neck, forcing him in a body flicker.
The Narutos and the ninjas forced every nearby civilian to go down as one blond clone saw Kakashi fire a spear of lightning through a gap left in the wooden prison from the furthest point away from it.
The arena shook as an explosion upturned the fighting ground, tearing the wooden dome apart and blasting through the earth wall built by the one-handed old man, launching dust, gravels and rocks high in the air. The shockwave knocked out several people who had been too close to point zero.
Those still conscious stared dumbly for a second at the crater in the arena ground as the smoke dissipated and the debris fell. In lieu of Gaara or his sphere, there was some sort of brownish goop, sand that seemed liquid and flowing, moved by a will of its own. Two large bubbles appeared on the surface for a time before they popped and the quicksand stopped moving.
The Kage loge exploding at this exact moment immediately drew everyone's attention, just in time to see six silhouettes flickering away to its roof. The emergency siren then blared its warning through the village.
It was the signal the clones were waiting for. Without caring for their protest, the replicas started to carry the civilians out of the arena with all the speed they could muster.
Hiruzen Sarutobi eyed the man who was both one of his proudest accomplishments and one of his worst mistakes. In front of him stood a tall shinobi, his skin chalk white and his hair long and black. The man returned the Kage his gaze with two yellow, slitted eyes akin to that of a snake.
"Orochimaru, what brings you here?" The old Kage asked genuinely, as if happy to see if wayward student.
The man smirked. "Oh, I'm simply here to kill you and do a bit of damage. Destroying this, killing that, causing a war. Nothing important really."
Hiruzen watched as Orochimaru's four bodyguards erected a barrier around the roof. Distractedly, the old Kage flung a shuriken at it and observed how the metal was disintegrated by the fuinjutsu. His eyes flickered to the roof they were standing on and noticed none of the tiles was burnt.
Sarutobi smirked.
"There's no escape for you here, sensei," said Orochimaru and Hiruzen had to carefully school his features. "It seems my plan A was foiled but I'll make sure you die today. Plus," Orochimaru smirked, "I obviously have a plan B. I hope you'll appreciate the poesy of it all, sensei."
Without further ado, the traitor dipped his fingers in a pouch - retrieving a substance that Sarutobi couldn't identify but could nonetheless recognize as an offering - and ran through hand signs at blinding speed. Hiruzen was not particularly interested in seeing what his old student had cooked for him and nicked his own thumb on a kunai before speeding through his own set of seals, matching Orochimaru's nimbleness.
Hiruzen almost choked as his adamantine staff appeared in his hand.
In front of Orochimaru stood three coffins of grey granite. Desperately, the old Kage thrust his weapon in a jab, causing the indestructible bo staff to extend at dizzying speed, spearing through the leftmost coffin and reducing it to rubles.
"Tut tut tut, sensei, it's not nice to interrupt other people's ninjutsu, you know," said Orochimaru as he watched a lifeless corpse fall from the ruins of the coffin. "You didn't want to see Hashi-chan again, sensei?"
Hiruzen didn't answer. He was torn between relief and horror at the sight in front of him. The rightmost coffin had failed to open for a reason Hiruzen could guess and was silently thankful for.
However, emerging from the second coffin like a puppet, was the second Hokage. His own teacher. Brought back from the pure lands by a most disgusting jutsu.
"Aw, Yondaime-chan won't show up, huh? Should have figured it would be the case. That's what happens when you deal with the Shinigami." Orochimaru continued, looking genuinely saddened. "I wanted to give him the opportunity to see his monster of a son, to show him how his beloved village took care of him, you know, bring him some good news!"
Hiruzen's visage hardened to steel. "Your soul is black, Orochimaru. The Shinigami wouldn't want it if you offered him. I do not know where you'll end up when we're done here but it will most likely be the deepest part of hell."
"Ha! But that is precisely what I want sensei. If Death itself is disgusted with me, then immortality will be mine! Now, let's get you reacquainted with Tobirama-chan." The traitor laughed before taking a tag and plunging it in the resurrected Nidaime's head.
Hiruzen watched as life - unnatural and twisted but life all the same - was breathed back in the corpse of his teacher. Whereas the dead Kage had looked like a statue made of ashes and cinder mere seconds ago, his skin now simply carried the pallor of death. The veins underneath stayed blue, proof that the man was still very much not alive. Suddenly, the cadaver shuddered and his head shot up, causing his spiky white hair to sway. Eyes opened, their sclera completely black and their pupils red.
"Is that you… Saru?" The abomination rasped out.
Hiruzen kept the tears of rage and fury from showing and opted to smile instead. "Yes, Tobirama-sama. It is indeed I, Hiruzen Sarutobi."
"I… See." Slowly, the zombie turned his head one-eighty degree in an unnatural twist to look behind him. "And it seems… This youngster... Revived me." Tobirama's head swivelled back to its rightful position.
"How touching," chuckled Orochimaru. "Now, what to do, what to do… How would you like to see you dear sensei wreck havoc on your beloved village, sensei?"
Hiruzen couldn't keep his eyes from widening in horror.
"Men!" The traitor called, getting the attention of his four bodyguards maintaining the barrier. "Open up!"
The wall of purple fire flickered out and Orochimaru gave the Hokage a cruel smirk. "Now, Tobirama-chan. Destroy this village and all who live within."
"No!" Hiruzen was already moving as he bellowed in fury and outrage. He knew of the Impure Resurrection Jutsu; unless the caster, in this case, Orochimaru, released it, the undead would carry out any order given to him by the caster, with unrelenting endurance and energy.
The Hokage swung his adamantine staff on the moving corpse, his body burning with chakra, causing Tobirama to explode in a shower of cinders. It wouldn't be enough. Soon, the corpse would reform. Hiruzen knew he had to separate the soul from the body. He simply wasn't sure how to even do that.
There was a technique available to him, of course, but that would be his last recourse.
Holding his staff under one of his arms, the Hokage crossed his finger, creating a shadow clone who immediately flickered away.
Orochimaru's mouth opened like the maw of an otherworldly snake and a sword shot from the traitor's mouth. Hiruzen swung his staff, knocking the jian off course and saving his clone. In the corner of his eyes, he could see the Nidaime was almost complete again already.
Cycling the chakra within his coils as he exchanged furious strikes with Orochimaru, Hiruzen felt the energy swell. With the instantaneity brought by a lifetime of experience, he directed half of it bottom-to-top along the direction of his coils, refining the chakra into Fuuton. The other half, he did the exact opposite and converted into Katon. Lightning fast, the old man jumped back to create some distance and ran through hand seals and inhaled.
A torrent of blue, almost invisible flames, escaped his mouth as Hiruzen breathed out through the tiger sign. With the speed of a kunai thrown at full force, the sea of fire fanned out, devouring everything in its path, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake.
A giant dragon of water suddenly coiled in front of the flames and exploded with incredible strength, causing an eruption of scalding steam.
Hiruzen was already speeding through a new set of hand signs, two shurikens in his mouth that he spat in his open waiting palm before flicking his wrist. Two throwing stars became two thousand and the Kage ran through seals again, ending on the horse sign. Biting on the two ninja wires tied to the two true shurikens caused lightning to course through it. Hiruzen suddenly separated his fingers and the deadly discharge lept from shuriken to shuriken, spotting the cloud of steam with pockets of plasma.
The Kage tilted his head minutely to avoid a stab directed at his brain and ducked under the horizontal slash that immediately followed.
Without warning, Hiruzen was robbed of his vision and cursed. Immediately jumping backwards in a zigzagging, random pattern, the old shinobi sped again through a few hand signs, going through the same double-moulding routine as earlier but opting for Suiton and Doton instead. After a second, Hiruzen spat a thick lump of mud around him, splattering his pants with some. With a simple flick of his hand, two replicas made of earth rose out of some of it while the rest formed a wall in front of the old shinobi. Once more, Hiruzen performed a few seals.
Light fractured around the aged Kage as if reality had been a mirror that had just been punched. Wrapped in a purely optical illusion - the most advanced form of the basic clone jutsu - Hiruzen kneeled and breathed deeply, focusing on the flow of his chakra. To his left and right, his earth-made clones were hopping back and forth, making noise and dodging lightning-fast strike of Orochimaru's sword.
With a localized pulse of chakra that left him ragged, Hiruzen broke out of the Bringer of Darkness, the best genjutsu of his sensei. His vision returned to him, the Sarutobi had barely the time to breath before he felt a massive wave of chakra. He rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding Orochimaru's sword going through his earth-wall, his illusion shattered. He could see a strange, shell-like corpse behind Orochimaru as if the traitor had changed body. His eyes flickered to the side and widened as he saw the Nidaime cross his fingers.
Sarutobi paled. He couldn't allow that to happen. Firming his hold on his bo staff, he flickered in front of the corpse and destroyed its hands.
The two perfect replicas of the deceased second Hokage told Hiruzen he had been too late.
"Isn't that grandiose!?" Orochimaru exclaimed before laughing as if he were witness to the most amusing joke of his life.
"I'm sorry… Saru."
In front of Hiruzen's horrified eyes, the two clones of the Nidaime sped through hand signs.
Two dragons made of water coiled around them before they shot at the bleachers on either side of the loge. The monstrous mass of water propelled at impossible speed, impacted the seats below with the force of a giant hammer before they exploded with the force of a hundred high-yield explosive tags, instantly levelling the area and killing some ninjas.
The Sarutobi suddenly narrowed his eyes, all the while dodging a vicious kick from the undead in front of him.
His shadow clone had done its work.
As the Kage kicked at the corpse of his sensei, the mud on his shins hardening and allowing him to simply spear through the undead, he simultaneously launched his weapon high. The staff suddenly branched out and transformed in a gigantic cage that fell on the ruins of the Kage loge.
Spinning, he kicked Orochimaru's jian away from him, the blade scraping against his improvised armour but not cutting through. Flipping through three hand signs, Hiruzen exhaled a cloud of wet ashes that whirled around and stuck to the Nidaime's body, forming a rigid shell around the zombie.
Suddenly, intense pain shot through his body, originating in his right lung. Sarutobi coughed blood. At the same time, the arena trembled.
Everyone looked in stupor and confusion as a violet, impassable barrier was erected around the roof of the Kage loge only for it to disappear about thirty seconds later. Then, all assembled saw the Sandaime unleash jutsu after jutsu, turning the loge into rubble and forcing the shinobi going to aid him to jump away from the devastating attack. Deciding they really had to evacuate, the ninjas helped the civilians out of the arena.
When two gargantuan water dragons not seen since the Nidaime shot forth from the lieu of the fight, killing and wounding a dozen people each in spite of hastily erected Doton walls, panic finally settled in and the civilians finally started to move by themselves.
The arena was almost empty from non-fighting personal when, from the seemingly still goo of quicksand where Gaara had last stood, a monstrous paw made of sand flew out and crashed against the arena wall and the bleachers above, reducing them to ruins and scattering body parts of ninja everywhere.
Then, the paw dragged across the bleacher, crushing and burying a few stragglers until it was stopped and scattered by three simultaneous hits; one of pure chakra-augmented strength, one a swirl of impervious chakra and the last a spear of lightning.
Trees sprouted from the rubbles and trapped the paw but then, the soil bulged and suddenly caved in before a mass of sand emerged from it slowly. A voice, shrill yet powerful, chuckled madly.
"She is coming!"
A single tail rose from the formless mountain of sand. A mouth, or rather a mockery of one, a gaping maw filled with jagged teeth, opened in its middle.
The monster roared as it swung its tail. And the world exploded.
Naruto stumbled as fast as he could through the streets of Konoha, relentlessly assaulted by the memories of his clones. He ignored as best as he could the sensations of him repeatedly plunging Fuuton coated kunai through the tender flesh of various enemy shinobi, killing again and again; almost two hundred times and the count kept rising. He ignored as best as he could the feelings of blood, hot blood, sticky blood, smelly blood. He ignored as best as he could the bodies of the people mangled by the beast. He ignored his worries regarding the Hokage. He ignored a monster had just killed a thousand versions of himself in a single sweep.
He ignored the splitting headache that threatened to make him hurl and the blood slowly dripping from his nose.
The blond had been patrolling the streets along with the bulk of the shinobi present in Konoha, helping more civilians to the shelters and, guided by his shinki, dealing with the few, scattered hostiles who had successfully invaded the streets. The blond's shinki had allowed Konoha to locate them easily. He had personally killed two enemy shinobi up-close.
Then, three giant snakes had been summoned somehow - Naruto wasn't sure he wanted to know how - in the village's outskirt but three times that number of teams entirely comprised of jounin had been dispatched to take care of it. The serpents had been quickly dispelled.
The threat inside deemed neutralized, the Konoha shinobi, Naruto included, started the emergency siren to signify everything was clear and hurried towards the stadium when half of it was ground to dust by a single swing of a towering tail.
Naruto lunged behind a house in an alleyway and anchored himself to the ground with chakra as he assumed a foetal position.
The blast of wind, hot and abrasive and cutting like the deadliest Fuuton, seemed to peel matter away, slicing it down to its most base component before tearing it apart and scatter it in the air.
The blond saw an unlucky ninja, a genin barely a year older than he was, reduced to a cloud of bloody dust. Naruto felt his stomach lurch. He swallowed harshly to keep himself from vomiting. Slowly, he edged against the wall until he reached the corner, ignoring the genin-turned-paste.
The large street was deserted. Glancing around, Naruto could see many ninjas had felt the attack coming and were huddled in sideway streets or stuck to the shielded front of several buildings. Quite literally, as the blond now realized his instincts had screamed at him to just hide, hide at all cost, to avoid the incoming death wind.
The boy peeked around the corner. Far, so far away it seemed, he could see a monster where the arena had stood. Suddenly, a jutsu was fired by someone, hitting the thing in its head. Fear, complete and absolute, warred for a moment in his heart against both duty and worry. The blond's blue eyes hardened.
Naruto lunged and ran, pumping chakra in his body to go faster, to cross as much distance as possible before another blind attack would force him to dodge. Carefully, he stayed almost glued to the side of the street, to be able to jump to relative safety at a moment notice.
He saw the tail rise again and automatically rolled in the nearest alleyway. The deadly wind howled madly in his ears barely a second after he was safe behind a house. Stray gusts of wind bit in his entire left side and Naruto bit his lips to keep himself from crying out. He felt warm blood seep into his clothes.
As the hellish tornado relented once more, the blond jumped out of his cover, just in time for the house to crumble into ruins. Looking ahead, he saw a very big turtle appear in a puff of smoke to tank a strike from the sand monster while a wolf of pure, white plasma tore through its side, almost cutting it in half.
Naruto accelerated before he rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a projectile he couldn't identify. Righting himself on his feet, the blond found his aggressor.
In the middle of the street, completely clad in bone-white armour, a shinobi was standing, twin swords in hand.
"I will not allow you to go further," said the man.
Carefully, Naruto eyed the street behind him. Several Konoha shinobi were already forming teams, ready to fight. The blond returned his attention to the bone-clad individual.
Suddenly, a hand fell on his shoulder. "Go to the arena," barked Anko. "Genma, Raido, Naruto, we're taking care of this guy."
The blond wiped the blood marring his nose and mouth and breathed deeply before he nodded. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Genma, a man with light brown hair jutting out of his bandana-style headband chewing on a senbon, retrieve a katana while Raido, a man with an impressive scar deforming his left cheek and spiky brown hair, had one already at the ready.
Focusing entirely on the fight, the blond twirled two kunai out of his pouch and set himself in a ready stance.
AN: Goku vs. Frieza, 2/3. Next, the final chapter of the invasion. All this fighting is exhausting. Leave a review?
AN2: Someone asked an interesting question regarding my worldbuilding so I thought I would mention it: I'll give some more info on how I view Konoha and how I imagine a ninja society works, just, not during all this fighting of course.