A/N Many thanks to SlytherinQueen020 for reminding me to post this chapter… I compoletely forgot.
Anyways, Canon!Sasuke is an idiot and an asshole isn't he?
XLIV: ROOT Part I
Konoha, Present Day:
Jiraiya sprinted across the rooftops, followed closely by Shizune and Tsunade, who managed to keep up with Jiraiya, despite being several years out of practice.
"Do you still remember your way around the hospital Hime?" Jiraiya asked.
"Of course I do! Jiraiya, I designed the damn place."
"Good. Sensei's in room E457 and Naruto's in room A630. If they get past us, head to sensei's room. I'll protect Naruto."
"Those rooms are on opposite sides of the hospital. Why keep them so far apart?"
"To force the enemy to split up. If they're too close to each other it makes it easier for assassins to get them both."
"I see them." Shizune pointed at two groups of twenty shinobi wearing Iwagakure flak jackets and white porcelain masks under long black cloaks. "I can't believe they'd be so brazen about what they're doing…"
"They want to be seen," Jiraiya replied. "It'll make people hate Iwa more than ever if they kill the Hokage. Plus, it'll be that much easier for Danzo to declare war on them when he assumes the position of the Godaime Hokage."
The two ROOT teams split up, each heading towards opposite ends of the hospital. "They're splitting up," Tsunade pointed out, "Shizune and I will take care of the group heading towards Sensei's room. Can you take the other team by yourself?"
"The day I can't take twenty of that bandaged asshole's punks down by myself is the day I'm dead," Jiraiya growled. "Let's go."
Tsunade watched as Jiraiya leapt away and crashed into the middle of the group heading for Naruto, a Rasengan in each hand.
"Ready Tsunade-hime?" Shizune asked, a blood thirsty grin marring her normally serene face as she readied her senbon launcher.
"Yeah, after what Jiraiya told us… a little ROOT stomping sounds just like what we need." Tsunade cracked her knuckles, her own malevolent smirk a mirror for her disciple's.
Three ROOT members collapsed screaming after poisoned needles pierced their unprotected necks or eyes through the slits in their masks. Within seconds all three were dead.
It took them a moment to find Shizune, as senbon launchers had notoriously poor penetration at far distances. "There she is!" one of the ROOT-ANBU shouted. Shizune was across the street and five stories up, well out of normal Senbon range.
"How'd she hit us from all the way over there?"
Shizune raised her arm in the air and took careful aim. She pulled the cord on her launcher and sent a barrage of poisoned needles into the sky. "Oh crap, scatter!" a blank masked ROOT-nin swore before trying to dive out of the way. Half a dozen senbon caught him in his back, killing him almost instantly.
Three more ROOT shinobi were struck down before they could even make it across the street. "If you surrender now," one of the blank masked ninja said in an even monotone voice, "I will ensure that your death is quick and painless."
Shizune readied her senbon again. "And if I refuse?" she taunted.
The ninja's ANBU Cloak made an agitated buzz as he raised his arms, "Then we will be forced to subdue you and take you to our base for interrogation and... maybe…some fun as well." The leader took a step forward, drawing level with the building's exit to the roof.
"TOUCH HER AND DIE!" Tsunade leapt from her hiding place in the stairwell and swung her hand in a wild arc at the Root squad leader.
Her Taijutsu form had never been her strong point-after all her attacks were nigh unblockable and even a glancing blow from her chakra enhanced punched was likely to be fatal. But, after fifteen years of inactivity she was terribly out of practice. Instead of caving his head in, she clipped his shoulder and sent him flying into three of his subordinates.
"Tsunade of the Sannin." The leader buzzed in agitation, while slowly rising from the heap of tangled bodies. "Jiraiya was not supposed to return with you for another twenty five days, minimum."
"You must be Aburame Torune." Tsunade cracked her knuckles, a sadistic smirk twisting her face. "I'm looking forward to beating you lot black and… ow!" Tsunade yelped when she felt something bite her arm, "What the hell was that?" Large black splotches began to form on her skin.
"My kikaichu are incredibly venomous, Tsunade of the Sannin. You have less than three minutes before the poison kills you."
"Che," Tsunade tsked before quickly flipping through three hand seals. "That's all you got?" Her arm pulsed green and the dark splotches began to recede, "Please, poison is almost useless against a med-nin of my caliber."
A ROOT-ANBU leapt at Tsunade from behind, two Kunai raised over his head for an instant killing blow. Tsunade spun around while he was still in the air and back handed him in the chest. His ribs caved in with a sickening crunch and he was sent flying across the street and through the building on the other side.
Meanwhile, seven of the disguised ROOT-ANBU circled warily around Shizune, tantos and kunai held at the ready. Shizune was crouched in a knife fighter's stance with a poisoned Senbon in each hand.
"Careful," a ROOT –nin intoned, "The poison is almost instantly fatal. Disarm her, or force her to stab herself with them."
"What kind of poison user uses poisons they aren't immune to?" Shizune giggled and licked one of her Senbon in demonstration. She smirked and threw it at the ROOT-nin who had spoken, a new senbon appearing in her hands before the poisoned spike of metal had made it even half way to its target.
The enemy shinobi tried to leap out of the way, but Shizune's aim was deadly, the senbon impacting directly into his subclavian artery. Within seconds the man's body began to spasm as the poison killed him slowly rather than instantly. "Oops, I accidently lowered the dosage by licking the senbon…" Shizune shrugged. "Oh well, one down six more to go…"
Jiraiya's leap landed him on the back of a ROOT-nin in the middle of the second group. Without wasting a second, Jiraiya slammed a Rasengan into the two closest ninja. The spinning balls of chakra crushed their chests, killing them instantly. The follow-up explosion when the Rasengan detonated sent the closest flying away, as well as killing another two and dazing the rest.
One of the ROOT-nin drew the odd tipless tanto he had strapped to his back, shaked off his dizziness, and charged the Sannin. Jiraiya caught the Root-nin's wrist with his left hand and with a seemingly careless squeeze, he crushed the ninja's wrist, forcing him to drop his tanto. Jiraiya caught the blade and stabbed its owner in the throat; the flat, blunted end of the blade crushing the ROOT-nin's throat. Sensing movement behind him, Jiraiya spun around and hacked off the arm of another ROOT-nin who was trying to decapitate him from behind. He landed heavily on another one of the ROOT-nin, his steel shod geta all but severing the head of his downed opponent.
'Seven ANBU in five seconds,' Jiraiya thought smugly and scooped up a second discarded tanto off of the ground. 'Not bad for a warm up."
Jiraiya charged the closest group of ROOT-nin, a tanto in each hand. He was almost on top of them when he felt something grab his ankles and nearly tripped. Jiraiya looked down-a pair of skeletal hands had burst through the roof and caught him by his ankles.
'Genjutsu.' Jiriaya sighed before reversing the flow of his chakra to break the illusion. Chakra naturally flowed in a counter-clockwise loop from the chakra coils towards the extremities of the body and back again. Changing the direction of the flow was difficult and only really useful in breaking low to mid-level genjutsu. The skeletal hands flickered for a second before reforming. Jiriaya let his chakra return to normal. This time the hands didn't even flicker.
'Crap. They're good.'
Tsunade was down to three opponents. She had easily dispatched two more ROOT-ANBU and Aburame Torune had disappeared, although his kikaichu still clouded the air around her. After their primary means of attack had proved useless, the Aburame had resorted to the bugs' ability to drain chakra. Tsunade had countered them by filling the air around her with lightning chakra. While it was nowhere near as impressive as the Raikage's Raiton no Yori (Lightning Release Armor) and required copious amounts of concentration and control to prevent it from going haywire and draining all of her chakra and frying everything in a twenty foot radius, it zapped the bugs before they could get close enough to drain her.
The three remaining ROOT-ANBU had excellent teamwork and together they put up more of a fight than the rest of their squad had put together. As the fight went on, Tsunade found her taijutsu forms improving as her body began to remember the moves she hadn't used in fifteen years.
Two of the remaining ROOT-ANBU circled around her, trying to surround her in a pincher movement.
"Not happening." Tsunade charged the shinobi trying to circle towards her left side. She ducked under his partner's attack and caught her opponent with an uppercut to the solar plexus that left him on the floor writhing in agony and wheezing.
She dodged another attack by her sole visible opponent. She countered his attack with a full powered punch aimed directly at his chest.
At the last possible second, he dived out of the way, revealing his last teammate who had been using his ally's body as a screen to launch a surprise attack from behind.
Her punch caught him square in the face.
His head exploded like an overripe melon.
Tsunade's breath caught in her throat, her vision contorting at the sight of the red, red blood. She trembled as the spraying flecks covered her, the vile substance clinging to her. There was blood everywhere.
Shizune was in excruciating pain. Her fight had started off well enough. She dispatched five ROOT-ANBU and was nearly done with her last opponent when Aburame Torune arrived. Unlike her master, Shizune wasn't able to completely flush the venomous kikaichu from her system.
"That was a most impressive display of strength," Torune said in his even monotone, watching Shizune finish the last ROOT-ANBU with a double senbon strike to the eyes. "However, you're going to have to come with me." He disappeared in a swirl of bugs and reappeared directly behind her. Shizune reacted too slowly, and Torune knocked her out with a chop to the back of the neck.
Naruto's Mindscape Present Day:
…ar…
Naruto drifted through the black of unconsciousness. He remembered the chunin exams… falling feathers? … a genjutsu…
…to…
Gaara going berserk… an invasion! … snatches of combat…
…Nar…to…
A blinding silver light, then… was he flying? And then power, more power than Naruto thought could exist, filling him like a raging inferno. Then came pain and with it darkness..
'NARUTO!' Was someone calling his name?
There was the sound of chains rattling, echoing through a large empty room. Was he in prison?
'NARUTO! Please wake up!' More shouting? Couldn't they see he was asleep?
"Kit. Rise." Now the stupid fox was trying to wake him…
Naruto woke slowly, his entire left side felt like it was on fire. Above him was Kurama's blood red fur. 'So, I'm in the seal right now…what happened?'
Blinking wearily, Naruto looked around. The bars that made up the seal were badly damaged-barely half of them remained unbroken, and those were bulging outwards under the strain of holding Kurama…who was more than twice his usual size. 'What happened?'
On the other side of the bars, the sewer-like entrance was flooded and a great gash split the ceiling in half. A strange, otherworldly red light flowed through the gap and illuminated everything with an evil red glow.
But what really caught Naruto's eye was the blond man chained to the other side of the seal. Metal spikes dug deep into the man's flesh, drawing his whirling green chakra into the seal to reinforce it, preventing it from shattering under the strain of Kurama's increased size.
His rippled silver-purple eyes met a hauntingly familiar bright blue as the man caned his neck to see into the seal.
"Dad?"