Orochimarumakes our life pretty easy...he managed to summonsome strong folks, so we might get the chance tostrike! If I can touch him, my spores willdotherest!" - White Zetsu
"I agree...with your SporeTechnique, his chakra will get absorbed and hismovementswill be restricted, making it easy for anyone todefeat him...but with Sasuke and Jiraiya beinghere as well, it won't be easy to get you to get into physical contact with him...also don't forget that we need him alive to question him! So waituntil the end of the fight!" - Black Zetsu
The Anbu were coordinating another attack: This time Sai used Ink lions to draw attentionfrom Kakuzu, while the others supported him.
Slowly, they started to get closer to Kakuzuamidst their dodging, but this wasn't as easy as it sounds.
Some of the Anbu were almost hit a bunch of times, which would mean game over for them.
But the most problematic thing was that onlyone of them was proficient in lightning-based techniques since the other two who could use it as well had their hearts taken out.
Meaning everything laid on the shoulders of one Anbu!
"DAMN!! LET ME FIGHT TOO!!" - Naruto couldn't hold back anymore, but was of course stopped by Yamato, wrapping him with a wood piece.
"Don't be stupid. You are the enemy's target, if you rush in there and he manages to catch you, it would be a disaster. Furthermore, you will probably just get into the Anbu's way! Didn't Kakashi teach you to trust your comrades?" - Yamato (still disguised).
"You know Kakashi-sensei?" - Sakura who was there as well asked.
"Yes...but let's leave that for after thismission is over and focus on wha-"
"BUT SASUKE IS RIGHT OVER THERE!! IHAVE TO DEFEAT THAT AKATSUKI BASTARD AND GET TO SASUKE FAST!!" - Naruto
"As I said, you'll only get into the way,so stay right here where I can protect you." -Yamato
"...damn it..." - Naruto felt that he was weakagain.
Is this all his three years of training amounted to?
Sasuke was right here in front of him, but he is just a hindrance to his comrades so all he can do is wait?
His thoughts went deeper and deeper into the spiral of frustration, and soon the only thing he could hear was his own thoughts - untilheheard an old familiar voice: "Little boy...look how pathetic and weak you are...the only thing you can do is ask for my power...so go ahead and ask for it and you'll get powerful enough to erase everyone in your way!"
Naruto found himself in front of a largegate in what seemed another dimension.
He looked towards Kurama's face behind thegate.
"Alright then give it to me!" - Naruto saidseriously.
"HAHAHAHAHA!! That's right you arenothing without my power...but I have to tell you that this tiny amount might not be enough...if you want my whole power, remove that seal!" - Kurama
"!" - Naruto was hesitating.
He knew that this was a dangerousidea, but he also knew that every second countedand he couldn't waste this opportunity to getSasuke back.
"What are you hesitating for...don'tyou remember how you were completely outclassed by this Eiji? If you don't take my offer,you'll just get defeated pathetically again." - Kurama
Naruto recalled how he was humiliated by Eiji not long ago.
This really hurt his confidence in himself and since then he had many doubts about himself,but he hid it behind his usual self, like askingJiraiya for training, and being loud and trying to fake his usual confidence.
But deep down he knew he was lying to himself.
He walked towards the seal and raised his hand.
And then he suddenly stopped.
"What are you doing? You just have toremove i-"
"I won't." - Naruto looked up with a smile and clear gaze.
"What? Don't you see how weak youare?" - Kurama
"I know that I'm weak...but the truth is I was always weak...that's why I trained and worked hard to get where I am...it doesn't matter how weak I'm currently - I just have to overcome it and get stronger until I reach my goal andbecome Hokage. That's my ninja way!" - Naruto
"You fool...you will just lose pathetically...you willnever get out this, without my help...but since you declined, I won't even give you aportion of my power!"
"Hehehe...but you helped me enough already..." - Naruto touched his nose while grinning.
"Huh? What are you talking about?" - Kurama
"You reminded me of this Eiji bastard, and that's when I got an idea..."
Meanwhile, in the outside world, almost no time passed but Yamato saw how red chakrasuddenly started to form around Naruto's body.
He couldn't let Naruto run out of control because of Kurama's chakra, so he prepared to instantly take action.
But then the red chakra vanished just like that.
And Naruto looked at him calmly with a cleargaze: "Please let me fight! I know I can do it...please trust me!"
Yamato gulped.
Naruto was clear-headed and his gazeshowed overflowing confidence that he was sure he could do it - not like the overemotional andagitated Naruto just a minute ago.
"Sigh...why are you so sure?" - Yamato
"I want to try a technique I just thought of." -Naruto was about to use a new technique he didn't use ever in the original timeline - and it was one of Eiji's techniques he got inspiration from!
Anew technique? You want to use a techniqueyou neverused before and which has a high chance of failing versus such a strong foe? You think I would allow that?" - Yamato took his mask off to lock straightinto Naruto's eyes.
Taking the mask off duringanAnbu mission was unheard of, but he was responsible for Naruto - not only because Tsunade entrusted him with that, but because Kakashi was his senpai, so he needed to make sure that Naruto meant what he said. And he felt that hiding behind a mask, he wouldn't be able to get a clear answer from Naruto.
Naruto saw Yamato's face for the first time, and after the initial surprise that he took the mask off, he returned to a serious expression, and with clear eyes, he said: "I can do it. Please trust me. I'm a Konoha-shinobi too - not just a Jinchuriki which needs to be protectednonstop."
Yamato smiled.
At first, he didn't understand why Tsunade wanted Naruto to participate in this mission - until now he seemed more like baggage than a reliable teammate.
If he didn't need to protect Naruto, he could have helped the rest of the Anbu which would have been way better in his opinion.
But Naruto showed now his spirit and determination, befitting of a Konoha shinobi who inherited the Will of Fire.
This was also noticed by Sakura: 'Naruto...when did you grow up so much? Compared to you, I'm still relying on others like always...even if Sasuke is so close...'
"Alright, I'll permit it. I don't know what your plan is, so I'll support you with my Jutsus. However, if I see that you don't stand a chance, I'll pull you out of the fight immediately, understood?" - Yamato
Naruto nodded and got ready.
There was no better time to enter than now: the Anbu desperately managed to get closer to Kakuzu and when they finally got an opening for the Anbu who could use lighting release, the lighting infused Kunai he threw hit Kakuzu, and when he activated his hand signs,lightning went through Kakuzu's whole body and burned his innards - or at least that's what was supposed to happen.
When he was hit by the Kunai, Kakuzu just detached one of his Lighting masks (he had two since the first mask was destroyed by Jiraiya back then, but then he took thehearts of the Anbu with Lightning nature) and the body of the Lightning mask monster was electrified instead.
Since it had lighting affinity, it didn't do much damage to its heart, so it was ineffective.
While the Anbu were surprised by what happened, his threads stroke the Anbu and tore through his chest.
"Tsk, again lighting nature? I seemto get unlucky a bit here...whatever, it's not like I need all four elements o defeat you small fries." - Kakuzu looked around and thought it would be better to finish his fight quickly, so he detached all four mask monster from his body...and he started blasting.
His masks used all their offensivetechniques at the same time and soon the battlefieldwas full of huge firestorms and lighting spears flying around.
"Damn it...we lost our sole chance...what do we do? I don't think we stand a chance..." - Anbu A
"We can only hope that he either runs out of chakra first or that we manage to drag it out enough that Lord Jiraiya can reinforce us..." - Anbu B
After his barrage of attacks, when the smoke settled, Kakuzu either expected to see Anbu corpses or that they fled, but instead it was Naruto standing there with the handsigns of the Shadowclone Jutsu.
"So you finally decided to stop hiding yourself behind your comrades? Good, this makes it easier for me..." - Kakuzu wasn't that talkative compared to other villains, so hestopped it at that and recalled one of the Lighting monsters into his body and started to move his threads towards Naruto's body.
He needed to capture him alive,so he didn't bombard him as he did with theAnbu.
Naruto was that, but he didn'tdodgebecause the next moment a woodwall appeared and blocked the thread-arm.
In the meantime, four shadow clones appeared, and with them, he rushed towards Kakuzu.
This looked like a typical Naruto attack, but he was in fact already planning ahead so that his new technique would definitely land!
Kakuzu looked at the four Narutos and made sure to keep track of who's the real one to not kill him accidentally.
Two of them rushed from the opposite sides, while the real one and the last clone prepared a Rasengan.
Seeing that, Kakuzu was contemplating if he could just tank it with his Earth Release: Earth Spear technique, but he decided to just continue to use his long-range advantage instead of trying it.
Four of his "octopus arms" moved towards Naruto preparing his Rasengan, while the other four moved towards the approaching clones.
But then a wood wall appeared and blocked it.
However, Kakuzu didn't have the time to blurt his dissatisfaction out, since wood branches grow out of Yamato's arm and moved towards him.
To this, his answer was to detach the fire mask beast and to let it breathe a firestorm out into Yamato's direction.
Of course, he didn't forget about Naruto and his threads smashed the wood wall which appeared, but Naruto was missing already.
He knew he should quickly locate Naruto, but the two clones needed his attention for a brief moment, so he focused on that and when the four "arms" hit them, they vanished with a smoke.
Then he noticed how Naruto was behind him jumping at him with a Rasengan: 'This must be the real one.'
Kakuzu moved all his threads back, used half of them to defend himself and the other half to catch Naruto.
Poof!
The Rasengan using Naruto vanished with a smoke.
'Shit - it was just another clone...where is the real one?' - Kakuzu tried to find the real Naruto before Yamato was finished dealing with his fire mask beast's attack.
But he wasn't anywhere to be found.
At least until the fire attack of his mask stopped and he saw an entire army of Naruto taking cover under a giant wood umbrella which was burning because of the fire, but the fire was far from reaching the Naruto and they started simultaneously to rush out into the burned path left behind by the attack all while holding their hands together for some reason.
"More shadow-clones? After fooling me with that one clone, I expected something more..." - Kakuzu decided to just blow them away since the Naruto army was gathered in a line perfect for him to hit them all at once.
However before he could do that, the Narutos all stopped.
And then Narutos started to glow before all the light went into the farthest clone which was thrown towards Kakuzu by the other clones.
'I don't know what this is, but I can't get hit by that!' - Kakuzu's instincts screamed, so he used the Earth Release: Earth Spear technique plus all his threads to defend himself.
BOOM!!!
A giant blue explosion, somewhat resembling the Rasengan of course not refined as it and more just like a crude explosion, completely engulfed Kakuzu.
While defending himself and the real Naruto from the explosion, Yamato said: "That definitely was powerful...however it could have easily killed yourself if you messed it up...sigh if I knew what you were planning, I would have never agreed..."
What he was referring to was that Naruto accelerated Chakra through all his clones until it finally reached the last one which wouldn't be able to hold that power and would blow up.
If he didn't control his Chakra correctly during that and a clone close to him exploded instead, it would be disastrous.
However, since the Rasengan already was a technique that involved accelerating it wasn't something new to Naruto.
But to keep accelerating to such a degree that you couldn't control it anymore and then suddenly releasing it with a blast, Naruto never thought about it before - but that was what he copied from Eiji's signature Iai-technique.
Naruto looked at the explosion while smiling: "Hihihi, sorry...anyway I call it the Uzumaki Bomb!"
'What an awful name...' - Yamato rolled his eyes.
"!"
"Cough...cough...fucking shit...that destroyed 3 of my hearts..." - three mask beasts fell to the ground before disintegrating next to Kakuzu.
"It's not over...but you did well...let me take it from her-" - Yamato stopped midsentence.
"SHA!!" - Sakura managed was somehow above Kakuzu and only now did he notice here.
But it was too late and her fist smashed him into the ground.
WHAAT?!! WHY IS NOT WORKING?!! Oh...right you are already dead...DAMN YOUR OROCHIMARU!!! YOUR JUTSU IS BLASPHEMY!! DIVIN PUNISHMENT SHALL BEFALL YOU!!" - Hidan was standing in a circle drawn by his own blood while having a spearhanging in the chest area around his heart.
"..." - Fugaku looked at his opponent and then at his wife.
She didn't say anything, but he understood what her expression meant.
After Hidan saw that his ritual didn't work, he decided to just cut them to pieces with his scythe instead and rushed at them.
'Hmm...looks like Edo Tensei counters Hidan's main abilities, but I shouldn't drag this out and let Sasuke's parents attack Sasuke again...' - Orchimaru calmy analyzed even though just right in front of him Gamabunta and Hanzo's summon Ibuse were clashing againsteach other.
"Second Tsuchikage, go deal with the one who wields a scythe...he is immortal soo your abilities should come in handy."
Mu didn't say anything but he didn't have a choice other than to follow Orochimaru's orders.
"Ha! Lucky you! You get to fight an adult, while it looks like I'm left with fighting those two brats...talk about terrible luck..." - the Second Mizukage was touching his neck, butwhile he was doing that an air bullet from Eiji hit his head.
However, his body turned into liquid and the air bullet just shot through his head.
"Well, that's interesting brat...this is really similar to my Clan's Water Gun Technique...alright, looks like this will befun after all!" - he smiled and rushed towards Eiji who was standing on top of the bridge gate.
While this was going on, Hanzo jumped down from the bridge with Jiraiya followinghim.
The bridge was getting to crowded with Gamabunta, Ibuse, and all the various Shinobis, furthermore Hanzo speed was unsurpassed in water so he wanted to take advantage of that. Jiraiya followed him despite it being clearly disadvantageous to him, was because with how crowded the battlefield got, he couldn't go full out without worrying about hitting others.
This was still going on while Kakuzu was fighting the Konoha force, on the pathway to the bridge gate - not so close that the fight influenced this fight here, but close enough to see whatwas going on over there.
Hidan's fight was at the left side where pillars were, where he and Sasuke's parents would jump on and of from them, while Ukon's fight over time moved towards the complete other side of the bridge.
Sasuke was standing beneath the gate Eiji was standing on, seemingly waiting forsomething.
This troubled Kabuto, since it didn't make sense for one of the enemies side's strongest to not attack: "Lord Orochimaru...what do we do about Sasuke?"
All Orochimaru's summons had alreadyan opponent.
His plan was for Mu to finish Hidan quickly so that he and Sasuke's parents could dealwith Sasuke, while the Otonins who were the ones who transported the coffins and were currently defending Kabuto and Orochimaru would be used as fodder to stall Sasuke until Mudealt with Hidan.
"This is indeed weird...why wo - BLURGH!!... Kabuto...you..." - Orochimaru looked at his chest. There he could see Kabuto's hand,used as a Chakra Scalpel, piercing him completely through from behind!
"...I never fully trusted you, but to think...no!" - Orochimaru sensed that something wasn't right.
'Genjutsu? But neither me and he looked into Sasuke's eyes...what's happening? DAMN IT!!' - his body tried to regenerate, but he felt how he was suddenly enveloped in black flames.
"DAMN YOU!! YOU IDIOTS MOVE ALREADY AND ATTACK SASUKE!!" - he knew that this came from Sasuke, so he ordered the Otonins to keep Sasuke busy while he tried to find a way to get out of his current predicament.
"Hey brat, you shouldn't be looking somewhere else and focus on me instead!" - from the misty air surrounding Eiji, the Second Mizukage appeared behind Eiji, who was looking at Orochimaru and Kabuto, and pointed his Index Finger at Eiji's chest.
But before Eiji could react, a water bulletalready pierced his heart.
"Tsk...this is why I don't like fighting little brats...no matter how talented they are, they have no experience whatsoever." -theSecond Mizukage was visibly disappointed.
He was already turning away, when suddenly Eiji said like nothing happened: "Hey, who doyou think wins in a fight: a sword or a gun?"
Eiji's wound was already regenerating.
Ha? The hell are you talking about, brat?" - Gengetsu turned back and looked at Eiji's wound regenerating.
Eiji turned around with a smile: "The answer is...it doesn't matter with your dumb hairstyle, weirdo."
"!!" - an internal thunder struck Gengetsu and he was paralyzed.
No one ever in his entire life disrespected him like that - let alone insulting!
"What's wrong? Can't, you move because your hair moves too much around?" - Eiji thought about using the chance to attack his opponent while he was still paralyzed, but then when he glanced over to Orochimaru, he decided against it and summoned a shadow-clone.
The shadow-clone instantly left as soon as he appeared.
While this was going on, Gengetsu recovered his mental state - though you could see a vein on his head pulsating and a dangerous-looking smile on his face.
"...you sent your clone to help your mates? Not that I care, but I would advise you to use your chakra for yourself to fight because I'm about to show you to respect me, you little shit!" - Gengetsu summoned a chibi clone of himself.
Using his notorious Steaming Danger Tyranny clone so early in a fight, showed how pissed he was!
'It's that, huh?' - Eiji recognized it from his knowledge, and just as the clone fully appeared, Eiji moved his finger to his sheath and the clone was cut.
"Not bad kid...looks like you have the skills to excuse some of your arrogance, but my technique was feared because it couldn't be stopped." - Gengetsu had his arms crossed while the chibi clone already manifested again.
And when the clone manifested, Eiji just cut it again: "Don't care...I just have to keep cutting it can't do anything, right?"
Gengetsu raised an eyebrow, but he instantly noticed: 'This brat is stalling for time. My Steaming Danger Tyranny clone uses temperature, oil, and water for it to get bigger and to explode before starting the cycle again- meaning that once summoned, it doesn't use my chakra anymore. But for this brat, even though his technique is mostly Kenjutus based, he still uses wind-chakra to be able to reach such a distance, so in the long run, it will be disadvantageous to him to keep doing it...damn he pisses me off! He obviously isn't taking me seriously!' - Gengetsu was fighting to not completely lose his composure and you could hear his teeth gritting.
Black flames were burning strongly, but Orochimaru already left his "old body" like a shell and was fresh and uninjured behind his "old body" that was burning to crisps.
But he didn't have the time to celebrate or take a breath, since Kabuto already moved at him with a chakra scalpel.
Orochimaru's arms were still sealed, so his arsenal was limited, but luckily summoning Rashomon didn't require any hand signs, so Kabuto hit the large menacing-looking gate which suddenly appeared in front of him.
However Orochimaru didn't relax, since he was more worried about Sasuke than Kabuto, but when get glanced over, he saw how Sasuke was holding his head with one of his eyes bleeding, so Orochimaru anticipated he had some time before Sasuke could take action again.
This meant he had a good opportunity to get rid of Kabuto before he had to deal with him and Sasuke at the same time.
Didn't Orochimaru know that Kabuto was under the influence of a genjutsu?
Yes, but he didn't care - he felt not a shed of sadness of killing his loyal right-hand.
He desummoned Rashomon while perfectly timing the disappearance of it with the Kusanagi sword suddenly extending from his mouth which would pierce Kabuto instantly!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IT'S YOU AGAIN!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" - Orochimaru swa who thrawted his plan again.
It was Eiji's shadow clone that blocked the Kusanagi sword with his own sword while standing next to Kabuto.
'I probably shouldn't say anything and get out of here as fast as possible...I think Orochimaru's mental went full boom...' - Eiji took Kabuto and carried him on his shoulder, before starting to run.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!" - while he was shouting madly, Orochimaru was now in his gaint snake form while extending and retreating the Kusanagi sword in such a speed, which made it look like he was firing lasers from his mouth.
Eiji felt like he was in one of those agent movies from his past life.
But unlike in those movies, he wasn't rescuing a beautiful woman, and more importantly, he wasn't even an agent!
Sothis is whathe was meaning with "Make one ofOrochimaru's folk betray him"? It wasn't that bad of an idea if Kabuto and Sasuke managed to kill Orochimaru there, but unfortunately, it didn't work out...butwhy is he saving Kabuto? Since it failed, whydon'tEiji just let Kabuto and Orochimaru fight while he focuses on taking one opponent done so that we have the advantage?" - Jiraiya was glancing at the bridge while he was on top of Gambunta was jumping into the air to dodge Hanzo's attack coming from underwater.
Saving an opponent under a Genjutsu was unheard of.
First of all, there was always the chance that the opponent might be able to break out of it - and you wouldn't want to be next to him when this happens.
And secondly, this is still an opponent you had to deal with later anyway!
But what Jiraiya didn't know was that this wasn't just any Genjutsu Kabuto was under.
It was the Kotoamatsukami.
Back then when Eiji had the idea that Sasuke should learn Sage Mode too, Sasuke's body wasn't able to withstand the natural chakra the White Snake Sage injected into him, so he transformed into a snake and was eaten by her.
Thankfully Eiji taught Sasuke about Izanagi beforehand, so a completely intact Sasuke appeared again.
Using Izanagi came however with the price of the eye which used it to go blind - though they still had Shisui's eye as loot from the Danzo fight, so Sasuke decided to replace it with for his unusable eye.
Problem was that they couldn't ask fora medic-nin to do it, since they could only ask someone outside of the Five Shinobi villages for obvious reasons, but those outside weren't trustworthy enough for such an operation.
So Eiji had to do it.
...
It was a complete disaster.
Eiji wasn't a surgeon and he certainly didn't enjoy gore, so he messed up and completely butchered Sasuke's face.
He was sure that if Sasuke wasn't under narcosis that he would have killed him on the spot, but with Ukon's help who used his ability to "transfer" Eiji's regeneration-ability to Sasuke the operation somehow managed to be a success.
But why did Eiji place such importance on Kabuto?
Wouldn't he be glad if he died considering that he killed Hayate?
Eiji didn't forgive him and certainly didn't forget his grudge towards Kabuto, but it would be a waste to kill Kabuto when he is fully under Sasuke's control.
That was because of the Edo Tensei.
Sasuke could have used the Kotoamatsukami on Orochimaru to end the fight instantly, but he currently wasn't able to perform the Edo Tensei himself.
But the more important part was that it was Kabuto who would perfect the Edo Tensei - not Orochimaru.
And Eiji wanted to obtain the perfect Edo Tensei, not Orochimaru's weaker version.
With that, Eiji would start walking the path of a villain in this world, but he grew a bit paranoid with his experience of the unreliable fate and wanted to fully maintain control over the flow of things.
Plus, he promised Sasuke that he would help him to get Itachi out of Akatsuki and therefore he needed a good bargain chip.
Eiji might be shameless and piss people off, but he wasn't someone who broke promises without a really good reason - especially to important figures like Sasuke with who he wanted to maintain a good relationship.
Mu looked in front of him.
Hidan was reduced to nothing else than dust!
Orochimaru made the right call by lettingMu fight Hidan.
There was simply no worse match-up for Hidan.
Other than his ritual, Hidan was using mostly his scythe for battle and with his overall reliance on his immortality, when Mu used his Dust Release to form a cube which then suddenly expended at a tremendous speed, engulfing Hidan, it was over, just like that.
Hidan was by no means weak but compared to such a legendary character who not only climbed to the rank of Tsuchikage but even fought Madara and survived, Hidan lost just like that, uneventfully with nothing of him remaining.
Fugaku gulped: 'So this is the power of a Tsuchikage?'
Orochimaru's tactic worked out and his side gained a huge advantage!
Without a word, Gengetsu summoned a giant clam.
Now with not only the Steaming Danger Tyranny Clone but his personal summon as well, he was sure that he would quickly take care of this shameless brat.
But then he looked at Eiji's eyes and an unexplainable unease emerged in him.
However, he needed only a few seconds to figure it out: until now, Eiji didn't seem surprised encountering his unique techniques - rather it seemed as he already knew about his techniques.
His techniques certainly weren't the ordinary jutsus most Shinobis used, so even experienced Shinobis he fought in the past would at least for a moment fear on what his techniques could do.
Gengetsu tried to figure this peculiarity out, but he stopped since he knew that this wouldn't lead somewhere so he just concluded that Eiji was just an idiot.
Meanwhile, Eiji was contemplating: now that he got Kabuto, he has everything he had come for, so wasn't it the time now to order Sasuke and Ukon to run away?
For him, this decision made the most sense, since he really didn't have a reason to fight until the end.
But he was reluctant because he felt like if he couldn't leave Naruto, plus he was sure that Sasuke wouldn't just leave with his revived parents in front of him.
This indecisiveness of him, which cost seconds, was however something he could do against opponents like the current Naruto, but not someone like the Second Mizukage.
While he was still lost in thought, suddenly something exploded right behind him and he was blown into bits!
The ability of Gengetsu's summon was to create a mist that manifests realistic mirages, which means that he can completely conceal itself and Gengetsu.
Even though Eiji forgot some things about the Naruto world and its characters because of the sheer amount of time that passed from his former life, he still knew most of the unique techniques from non-mobs.
This was also the case for Gengetsu's arsenal which in Eiji's opinion really had style - especially the Water Gun Technique.
He even had his own version with the Wind Gun.
However if you asked him if he copied it from Gengetsu, he would answer that it's just a chakra gun which is based on guns in the first place.
Anyway, in this instance, instead of hiding himself and the clam with the mist, Gengetsu used it to make it seem as his chibi clone was still standing next to him, when in fact it approached Eiji from behind while getting bigger and bigger before exploding.
Eiji's superficial knowledge gave him a false sense of security which was a fatal error here.
Gengetsu looked at the flesh soup which was Eiji, but he didn't celebrate: "I wonder if you can regenerate from this too...if yes I would need to use Fuinjutsu (Sealing Jutsus), huh? Really was a long time ago since I had to use one..."
His expectations weren't betrayed and a small white snake split into countless other small snakes, and with that Eiji started to form.
What he didn't know was that Eiji was really lucky there: the regeneration ability wasn't without its limits. It needed body parts that can turn into snakes - if Eiji's sword didn't shield a part of his arm from the explosion he would be dead. Secondly, it needed chakra to turn parts of his body into snakes - if he runs out of chakra it's also game over. And lastly, it could only regenerate missing parts or injures similar to it, if he was burned or frozen, the snakes would be burned or frozen too. Luckily, the chibi clone's secret of being able to explode again and again was that after exploding, the water vapor rises into the atmosphere where it cools down which starts the process of the chibi clone getting bigger and bigger again - in short: it was a water-based explosion which didn't leave any flames behind.
While he was regenerating, Eiji recognized that he almost died.
Until now he got away with abusing his knowledge to fight stronger and more talented opponents than himself, but now it was different...
Now fully regenerated, he gulped and was full of sweat.
He was one step away from death and the only thing which saved him was dumb luck.
Eiji's mind was in complete turmoil.
Up until this point, even though he faced life-threatening scenarios before, nothing came as close to death as this.
And now it showed what his biggest flaw was: his inexperience.
When it comes to fighting, the psychological is as important as techniques, but until not his spirit was never tested as before.
That was because through abusing knowledge he could overcome his inexperience, but now it showed one of the things which differentiated a fake genius like him from a real genius.
A true genius wouldn't be faced with such a thing during a battle - even Naruto did it with sheer willpower instead.
So standing there in shock versus an opponent like Gengetsu was a sure way-ticket to death.
But luckily Eiji's body moved instinctively on its own.
Despite his confusion, the hours of training Sage Mode enabled him to unconsciously gather natural chakra.
And he entered Sage-Mode, and even more importantly right at the time where something exploded on his left side!
Gengetsu's tactic was to blow Eiji up again and while he regenerated he would seal him without any trouble - what was weird however was that the usually talkative Gengetsu had a weird expression while not saying a word.
This plan didn't work out, since with Sage Mode, Eiji sensed it beforehand and his body moved instinctively on its own and dodged it easily with his immense speed.
After dodging this explosion, he woke up from his stupor and started to take a deep breath to help him focus.
But then he noticed something important...he was completely naked and his sword was missing.
"Damn it...not again..." - Eiji knew he wouldn't find any clothes on a battlefield, so he decided to search for his sword which was blown away by the explosion after shielding a part of his arm with the help of Sage Mode.
Sasuke looked in front of him.
The henchmen Orochimaru sent to attack him were crushed into meat paste by his Susanoo.
He already used Amaterasu and since he planned on using Susanoo anyway, there was no reason to summon it slightly earlier to get rid of small fries.
Now that all they've come for was in their hands, Sasuke could finish his personal matters without Eiji being able to complain - and even if Eiji complained he wouldn't care currently.
What was the personal matter?
To kill Orochimaru of course for daring to use his parents as pawns to fight him!
Orochimaru was currently busy trying to chase and kill Eiji's shadow clone, so he didn't notice how Sasuke's Susanoo was completely formed now and aimed with its bow.
"Go to hell, you snake-bastard..." - with those words the Susanoo fired the arrow.
But unlike Orochimaru, Mu paid attention to the whole battlefield and while flying, used his Dust Release to turn the arrow midflight into dust.
"Mangekyo Sharingan...it's really a long time I had the privilege of fighting someone with that..." - Mu was standing midair.
Since Sasuke's parents were ordered to fight Hidan who was already dead, and Orochimaru being too preoccupied with giving them new orders, they were just watching and glad that for now, they wouldn't have to fight Sasuke.
This however wasn't the case for Mu.
Since he was already revived and didn't have to fight someone from his village or who he knew, he thought it was best to dispose of this random Uchiha which could become a danger to his own village in the future.
Sasuke just looked at him before one of his eyes started to pulsate and black flames started to appear at Mu's location
But Mu used his Fission Technique to split himself so that the Amaterasu used its focus and it started to burn in the air between two identical Mu's instead.
Now Sasuke recognized that this wasn't some small fry as well and that this fight might take a little longer.
"Let's go, Naruto!" - Sakura urged Naruto who was still sitting on the ground after using his new technique to go.
"Right!" - Naruto nodded and got up.
Meanwhile, Yamato sighed: normally he would order Sakura their medic-nin to treat the Anbu first, but he recognized that he wouldn't be able to stop her, so he didn't even try.
Anyway, the Konoha force is about to go to Sasuke now!
'What's with this guy? How can it be that he suddenly started to be able to notice my Steaming Danger Tyranny Clone? This is troublesome...if he can sense it, then he will be most likely be able to sense my and my summon too if I were to use the mist to hid us, so I wont even try. And what's with his ridiculous speed?' - Gengetsu
"Ah, found it." - Eiji stopped dodging around and picked up his sword.
"Alright, let's start for real now. You are kinda in my way, so I'll deal with you quickly." - Eiji got into an Iai-stance.
"HA?! Don't try to sound cool when you are nacked, brat!" - Gengetsu stared to aim with his finger while his chibi clone charged at Eiji.
Eiji drew his sword and Gengetsu was cut from a long distance, but he turned into water so the cut wasn't effective.
But instant of having the time to be surprised about it, Eiji sensed how the chibi clone appeared from behind and so he instantly needed to dodge.
Even with his Sage Mode completely countering Gengetsu's mist, Eiji still felt really troubled.
It was his toughest opponent he faced so far.
Not only was he under constant pressure and needed to move, but Gengetsu's Hydrification Technique gave him a taste of how his opponents feel when facing his regeneration ability.
How could he deal with it?
Eiji thought about using Byakko to completely blow the body in water form away, but with the constant pressure, he didn't have the time to prepare Byakko.
So he needed another way that was quicker to perform.
Unfortunately, the only thing which came into his mind was to use a Lightning-based Jutsu, but he didn't know anyway.
He looked towards Sasuke's direction and thought: 'Fuck...can we swap opponents?'
Orochimaru gritted his teeth.
Eiji's shadow clone managed to escape with Kabuto.
He didn't know why Eiji placed such an importance on Kabuto, but he couldn'tletEiji take his right hand just like that.
But Orochimaru knew that he should controlhis anger and focus on what he has to do.
As long as he manages to get Sasuke, everything else wouldn't matter!
He saw that Mu was fighting Sasuke on hisown already, so he ordered Sasuke's parents to attack Sasuke as well.
Sasuke saw that and his gaze got darker again.
"SASUKE!!" - Naruto came rushing with Sakura and Yamato.
After glancing in Naruto's direction, his gaze became even darker again.
He really wasn't in the mood to deal with Naruto right now, so he did the only sensible choice and fired a Susanoo arow at him.
"Wha-" - Naruto stood there and watchedthe giant arrow approaching.
"GET AWAY!!" - Yamato pushed Naruto and Sakura out of the way and raised a wood wall.
But this wasn't enough to stop the arrow, and it flew right through it.
Luckily it was enough to at least change the trajectory of the arrow a little, which saved them.
"HAHAHAHA!!! Splendid, Sasuke. I knewyou were like me..." - Orochimaru snickered when he saw that.
However, this pissed Sasuke even moreoff, but Mu was already attacking him.
'Too many annoyances are here...it will be troublesome to deal with all of them at the same time...' - while defending with hisSusanoo, he glanced towards Eiji.
He saw that Eiji was dealing with his own stuff, so he could only rely on himself.
Eiji's shadow-clone stopped after gettinginto safety and dropped Kabuto on the ground.
'Why is my main body not trying to escape? Is it because of Sasuke? Can't he just convince him?'
The shadow-clone continued to think while picking his nose, but he suddenly was stabbed by Kabuto's kunai from behind and vanished with a smoke.
"?" - Eiji's main body received the information and was shocked.
'It's impossible...how could Kabuto break free of the Kotoamatsukami? No...wait...don't tell me...are you fucking crazy Sasuke? NO!!! The plan was to revive him only when you can use the Kotoamastukami again...damn... it's because he doesn't know what kind of monster he is...THIS DAMN UCHIHA ARROGANCE!!!'
Eiji nearly shit his pants - if he was wearing them.
'Damn it, if this goes on, I'll run out of chakra...' - Jiraiya jumped out of the water to breathe, but since it was full of poison above the water, he needed to use the Rasengan just to blow the gas away so that he can breathe.
This of course was an inefficient way to use chakra, but since he wasn't immune to Hanzo's poison, he had no choice.
But with his ample experience, Jiraiya already had a plan on how he could turn the situation around.
For his plan to work, he needed to get to Gamabunta who was underwater, fighting with Hanzo's summon.
When he tried to dive underwater again after taking a deep breath, he was assaulted as expected by Hanzo with his Kusarigama.
Using Needle Jizo, Jiraiya turned his hair into hard spikes which defended him against the swung Kurasigama.
This also discouraged Hanzo from getting near to Jiraiya, but one of the advantages of the Kurasigama was that you could throw it for mid-range attacks, however, because he always needs to pull it back after throwing, the attack frequency wasn't high.
Because of that, through dodging and letting his spiky hair tank hits, Jiraiya managed to get to Gamabunta.
To not waste any air, instead of words, Jiraiya signaled Gamabunta to jump with him out of the water.
Hanzo's summon Ibuse couldn't stop them, since it was in the first place weaker than Gamabunta in direct fights since it specialized in poison attacks.
The only reason it wasn't defeated by Gamabunta until now was that Hanzo, with his torpedo-like underwater speed, was charging from one end of the water to attack Jiraiya and then to the other end back to attack Gamabunta.
Now that Gamabunta jumped out with Jiraiya on his head, Gamabunta breathed as strongly as possible to make push the poison cloud away from them, so that a small room appeared where Jiraiya could breathe.
"What's your plan?" - Gamabunta
"Huff...huff...Hanzo will try to engage us only underwater since he has a complete advantage over there...but we can bury him there..." - Jiraiya breathed ins as much as he could.
"I understand." - with those words, Gamabunta spat as much oil out as much as he could, and soon most of the water surface was covered in an oil layer.
And then Jiraiya followed it with his Dragon Fire Technique and a sea of flames completely covered the water.
This was however a double-edged sword, since now not only had they to be careful to not breathe the poison in, but the smoke was as well.
But Gambunta already after the first jump was clinging to the bottom of the bridge and started to move out of the poison smoke.
"This should force him to come out of the water..." - Gamabunta
Jiraiya also knew this, and since he had the time, he decided to check the other battlefields out.
"..."
"Jiraiya, why is that brat naked?"
While all the fighting was going on, Kabuto ran past all the fights to reach a certain spot.
This spot was where Eiji hid a summoning seal when he came to the bridge a day prior and placed his "back-up plan".
It was for nothing else than to summon the coffin with Madara in it.
But in truth, it was just to use it as a bluff.
He also told Sasuke about it, in case he wouldn't be able to summon the bluff so that Sasuke could do it in the worst case.
Eiji wouldn't dare to revive Madara without Sasuke controlling him, but Sasuke didn't know what kind of monster Madara was, so he didn't fear what he could unleash onto this world.
In his eyes, it was manpower they could add to their side just like Orochimaru did with his zombies.
So he thought that Eiji was overdramatic when he told him to NOT revive him under any circumstances until his Kotoamatsukami was ready again.
So in short, in his eyes Sasuke didn't betray Eiji - it was more of a tactical disagreement and Sasuke just thought this would make more sense doing it like that.
But what influenced his decision, even more, was the fact that Sasuke didn't know much about the Edo Tensei and that even though rare, there are ways for the revived to complete break out of the control of the caster.
And how should he know that?
Until now, no one managed to do it.
But Eiji knew that something like the Edo Tensei wouldn't be able to stop Madara...
Eijiwas troubled.
He wanted to stopSasuke from completely fucking thetimeline up, but Gengetsu kept attacking him.
Unlike how he did in theoriginaltimeline against Gaara where he advisedthe enemy on how to defeat him, the currentGengetsudidn't want to be defeated against that rude and shameless brat.
The only thing which wasn't bad was that it wasn't the perfect Edo Tensei, so the revived were weaker than when they were alive, plus they didn't regenerate.
But with Genegetsu's ability to turn himself into a liquid form and Eiji not having a way to counter that, it didn't really matter.
'GODDAMN IT!!! INSTEAD OF REVIVING MADARA, WHY NOT JUST ORDER KABUTO TO CONTROL THE REVIVED ONES??!! No...Kabutomight only have provided the chakra and did the hand signs for Orochimaru...still what if it's not the case? NO, WAIT!! MADARA IS MORE IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW!! I need to find a way to dealwith the Mizukage right now!'
Even with his immense speed buffed by Sage-Mode, it wasn't enough to just escape from Gengetsu: he masterfully used his chibi clone to move Eiji across the battlefield, like he was playing at a chess game.
His experience truly shined here.
For Eiji who never uses his head in battle, and uses raw power and only planningbeforehand instead, facing such a smart opponent was difficult.
While dodging, Eiji noticed that he soon runs out of natural chakra.
Because of that, even though he didn't finda way, he knew that he had to at least try something.
He slashed at Gengetsu who just turnedinto liquid, but Eiji used this small opportunity to summon Garaga.
"Looks like you ar-" "NO TIME TO TALK!!!ATTACK THAT WEIRD HAIR DUDE OVER THERE!!" - Eiji shouted that and summoned two shadow-clones.
"Hoo..not a bad summon you got there,brat." - Gengetsu dodged since even if he is liquid, if Garaga would eat him, he would end up in his stomach even in liquid form.
Eiji used it to get out of his vision with his clones so that the Zengetsu wouldn't know which was the right one.
With that, he would need to guess andorder his chibi clone to attack one of the Eiji's randomly.
Because of this, his clones managed to buy enough time for Eiji to retreat with his speed.
He thought about using the time to prepare Byakko, but he figured stopping Madara's revival was more important than winning his fight.
"Snap out of it, you two...Sasuke showed that he is currently hostile to us, so start behaving like shinobis!" - Yamato shouted at NarutoandSakura.
"But..." - Naruto didn't expect this.
Sakura bit her lips: "Naruto, he is right...didn't you say that if Sasuke doesn't want to come back himself, that you gonna drag him backto Konoha yourself? Let's focus on getting Sasuke back...as shinobis!"
"Huh? What is Kabuto doing?" - Yamato
'Hm? Why is Kabuto...wait isn't that a coffin? Don't tell me...but what is this bad feeling I have?' - Jiraiya who was still waiting for Hanzo to leave the water glanced over to where Sasuke and Kabuto were.
'...don't tell me...no...no...no...they couldn't be that crazy...even I didn't dare to think about reviving him and only intended to research his corpse...' - Orochimaru slowly realizedwhat was happening.
Then after like being struck with thunder, he started to shout frantically: "QUICKLY STOP THEM!!! ATTACK KABUTO!!!"
"?" - Mu didn't understand what this was all about, but he did as he ordered and used his infamous dust-release to attack.
Sasuke noticed it, and he already had asomewhat understanding of his opponent's attack, so he used Amaterasu to attack directly and Mu directly instead of trying to block it.
"Uhm...did I see it right? Isn't that Madara in that coffin?" - White Zetsu asked innocently.
But he didn't get a response since Black Zetsu was just staring with an open mouth at the battlefield.
If Eiji believed he had a bad day, hewould change his opinion instantly if he saw Black Zetsu right now.
Black Zetsu schemed for centuriesand was always in control of how things flowed and developed, but now Eiji came and fucked everything completely up - albeit involuntarily to be fair.