Author's note: I love worldbuilding. And Hashimoto's worldbuilding - especially on summons - was always strangely lackluster. I was under the impression that it was rare, and people would, like, pull out their summons like an ace in the hole. And then it never seemed to go anywhere... Frankly, Temari should've unleashed her weasel on the world. Or the Ten Tails. (Weasels are nasty, rabid little fighters...)

When all was said and done, the cutting edge of Izuna's wakizashi was chipped from striking bone too many times as his right eye throbbed and bled, Umeboshi's muzzle and paws were coated red, Natsumi's arms and legs twitched and spasmed as she bitched about nerve damage, and Tobirama looked like he really regretted the variety of life choices that led him to being the sensor attached to their group.

After dismembering the berserker, one limb at a time, eviscerating him, tearing out stomach organs and at least two lung lobes, Umeboshi finally succeeded in dragging the screeching, changing berserker out of the ritual circle. When Izuna drew the blade across the throat, ripping at flesh because his blade was too damaged for a smooth slice, the berserker gurgled too much to continue chanting. Natsumi's neck remained intact.

Izuna stared into the berserker's eyes – stared past them at the other, at the god who had watched and suffered with the berserker, sharing pain and frustration – and then set the body on fire with the Amaterasu. As the black flames wrapped around the remains, he let the Sharingan fade away. The shape of his surroundings blurred and the colors muted, shadows deeper than they should be. He impatiently swiped the trail of blood from his face with the back of his hand. His breathing was harsh and the one ear he could still hear out of rushed with the sound of pounding blood. He stumbled around the craters that littered the prairie from Natsumi's exploded ivory beads, carefully skirted the five burning geysers of black, and then plopped down beside Tobirama, who sat on the ground and braced Natsumi's upper body against his torso. Her heavy breasts draped over Tobirama's forearm.

Natsumi's twitching leg kicked Izuna in the ribs. "Where's my axe?"

"Ask your damn dog to fetch it."

Natsumi sounded puzzled. "You mean Tobirama? I wouldn't exactly call him a dog."

"He meant Umeboshi," Tobirama snapped.

She responded with a disdainful sniff. "That's just insulting to my ninken partner."

Despite not being directed to, Umeboshi still dragged the axe over to Natsumi. "Oh, you are a good boy!" Natsumi's arm twitched and nearly smacked Tobirama in the head as she tried to scratch Umeboshi behind the ears. "I bled for this damn thing, it's mine." She somehow managed not to slice her foot off as she greedily dragged the axe onto her lap. "So," she began, "now we know how the berserkers fight. We know that they can't be taken down with blunt force. I'm pretty sure that this special black fire of yours isn't something that other Uchiha can do, otherwise your clan would've been bragging about it for the last two generations."

Izuna shrugged listlessly. He couldn't say that Natsumi was wrong. As far as he was aware, not even Madara was able to summon the black flames of Amaterasu, and Madara had been able to explore the gifts of his Mangekyo for the last two years. Izuna had barely awakened his two days ago. And already I'm half-blind, he thought, feeling rather put out with himself.

"Even without the black flames," Tobirama began, "we can still dismantle the berserkers. While they do appear to have some sort of functioning immortality – assuming that each berserker responsible for each attack has the same gift from their god – a head separated from the torso with both buried deep beneath rocks and earth, and limbs scattered throughout the continent renders them useless. The key is to strike them fast and hard without giving them the opportunity to establish a link through blood."

Natsumi hummed in thought. "We Inuzuka women aren't likely to provide much help when it comes to dismantling – we don't have the sharp weapons. Well, the others don't. I do," she declared proudly, no doubt in reference to the axe that was too large and too unfamiliar for her to effectively wield in a battle against someone like the berserker, but she evidently wouldn't let little details like that influence her poor self-awareness. "But we can scatter the body parts throughout Fire, Wind, and Mist, and no one will ever be able to locate and put them back together."

Tobirama's voice was hesitant. "Of the men we brought together, only my brother and I would be able to take on a berserker. The others lack the skill or strength."

"Of the Uchiha men who accompanied, only my brother could," Izuna said, deciding it was best to be truthful. He dropped his face into the palms of his hands, and desperately wished that he could sleep. "I'm not in any shape right now to take on anything that isn't more dangerous than a rabid squirrel. I need to sleep at least a week."

"All right. We could all use some sleep," Natsumi replied. Then she poked Tobirama in the side. ""Let's go have victory sex in the bushes before the rest of our group gets here."

"…excuse me?!"

"Victory sex." She waved one hand, but it flailed and slapped Tobirama in the nose. "Look, my body has been pumping out so many endorphins what with getting hacked to pieces that I'm higher than a kite. The rest of the group will be here in about six hours. That gives us time for four rounds, maybe five or six or more, depending on your stamina and recovery time, and we can even squeeze in a cat nap in the end."

"What makes you think I want to have sex with you?"

Izuna looked up from his hands. Natsumi was giving Tobirama a deadpan look, while Tobirama looked uncomfortable and unusually young. Very deliberately, moving slowly so she could control the jerking movement of her arms, Natsumi reached up and rested an index finger on the tip of her nose. "If I can identify people from over a hundred kilometers away, what makes you think I can't smell if someone isn't interested in me? Besides, the only other one here is Izuna, since I figure that you really aren't interested in Umeboshi, but who knows – they say that sex between rivals is always exciting. I wouldn't mind watching, if you two do, you know, wanna try getting it on."

Tobirama immediately glared at Izuna.

"Don't look at me," Izuna said to Tobirama. "I'm too exhausted to have any victory sex with you." Then, remembering what Hashirama had told Tobirama before they parted this morning, he added, "You volunteered for this, and someone has to take something for the team. She's already been dismembered and eviscerated, and I've used up eighty percent of my chakra. The least you can do is sacrifice your virginity, seeing as how all you did do was watch."

"I held random body parts in the correct places so she could reattach them. We," Tobirama indicated Izuna and himself, "are not a team. You're not even my rival. And I'm not a virgin!" Then he squeaked and yanked Natsumi's wandering hand out of his trousers. "Stop that!"

"Higher than a kite," Natsumi replied, licking and nibbling Tobirama's neck.

"I thought that no was supposed to mean no," Tobirama squirmed and tried to push Natsumi away as gently as possible, while not grabbing anywhere near her bare breasts, hips, or thighs. It left him worthlessly poking her arms.

Natsumi drew back and glared. "If you can tell me no with a straight face that you absolutely have no interest in having sex with me, I shall never pursue you again in my life. You shall be totally written off."

Tobirama froze. "Never?"

"Absolutely never. I'll go after your brother, and I'll talk my sister into seducing Touka."

"That's… I'm pretty sure that's extortion. And Touka doesn't swing that way – she prefers her lovers to be masculine."

"Shinzou is more masculine than most men. And you'll know that you could've had a wild night in the bushes with me, but you threw that all away because you're embarrassed to have an Uchiha in hearing who'll critique your techniques." Natsumi leveled a furious glare at Izuna, as if he were to blame for Tobirama's reluctance.

Izuna sighed. "I promise not to critique anyone's techniques, tonight." Then, softly, he added, "I would much rather be alone, right now. I'd like to thank the gods for their gift, that I was allowed to slay the murderer of my wife."

"…fine. Just for tonight, and only because you got dismembered and eviscerated. Cleaning you up in the creek counts as foreplay, right?"

"Yay! Creek and foreplay, sure. Let's give Izuna some space, or he might even give you some tips." She licked and nibbled at Tobirama's neck and collarbone.

"Humping away works for men," Izuna declared, enjoying Tobirama's embarrassment almost as much as he would enjoy killing the ratfink, "but women need a little more hands-on attention if you want to give them pleasure. And that was a tip, not an actual critique!"

The glare Izuna received was murderous, but Tobirama seemed willing to retreat back into the bushes then, dragging a very willing, very giggly Natsumi along. She left the axe on the ground beside Izuna and Umeboshi, along with stern orders that it was still hers by right of conquest, don't touch it.

Umeboshi huffed a sigh, and then shifted to press his body tightly against Izuna's body. Izuna felt numb and cold, so the thick fur was an unexpected blessing. And as Umeboshi dropped his heavy head in Izuna's lap and licked at his palm, as Izuna pressed his face against the fur, it was also nice to have something to wipe away the onslaught of tears.

oOoOoOo

"We don't have time for you to lollygag," Shinzou declared, glaring at the Senju and the Uchiha men who struggled to scale the steep mountain side with their heavy armor. "Look, I can move faster than you, and I'm the one who's breastfeeding."

Madara glared at her. Shinzou was also wearing her poncho, which hid her multitasking from his view. "And if someone had waited until morning to scale the fucking cliffs instead of insisting that we push through the dark, we would be moving a lot more quickly."

"I thought you Uchiha could see in the dark with your pinwheel eyes," she shot back impatiently. "Ditch the armor. It isn't doing any good except holding you back."

"She's not wrong," said Hashirama, untangling some thorny bushes from his hair. "We can always come back for our armor."

"You ditch your armor," Madara snapped. He would be damned if he allowed a single hotheaded woman set his men up for catastrophic wounds or even death if they engaged any of the South Sea raiders without proper protection.

"Let's just wait until we hear what Tobi, Natsumi, and your brother have to say." Hashirama carefully stepped away from the bushes, grabbing at cracks and crevices so he wouldn't fall off the cliff again. Judicious use of vines growing out of the cliff had saved him from an uncomfortable landing. "If the armor will do us some good, we'll keep it, and try to figure out how to pick up the pace. If it doesn't do us any good, we'll leave it behind, and come back for it after we rescue our children." He accidentally stepped on Madara's foot, and apologized when Madara hissed at him. "How much further do we have to go?"

"Twenty kilometers," Shinzou replied with a huff. "We should be there by morning."

oOoOoOo

When Tobirama and Natsumi returned to Izuna, he had already made a fire out of the dried branches that Umeboshi, with a polite request, had fetched him. He rested beside the fire with his head supported against Umeboshi's haunches, enjoying the warmth at his back as he watched the stars emerge. At least, he was trying to watch them emerge. His vision was worse than he realized when he could barely make out the blot of the half-moon overhead.

"That was fast," Izuna told Natsumi as Tobirama dropped her beside Umeboshi. Izuna craned his neck to look at Tobirama. "Did you get some fun out of it?" He remembered his own fumbling attempts with Honami when they had first married, and how embarrassingly quick two minutes can be. The last time he had been with his wife, the night before he left with Madara to discuss potential treaties, he had been as thorough as he could be in their lovemaking, branding her body with memories just in case he never came back. He had never expected to face the daunting realization of outliving his noncombatant wife.

"He's a very quick learner," Natsumi replied regally. "And while I would've enjoyed a few extra rounds, I'm actually more tired than I realized." She yawned. "That berserker took way more out of me than I expected. Fights that long are few and far between, for me."

"And you wanted ramen," Tobirama said as he rifled through Natsumi's pack.

"And I wanted ramen. Orgasms just don't replace actual sustenance."

Tobirama prepared Natsumi a tin of curry ramen, and Izuna was pretty sure that it had been a deliberate decision on the ratfink's part, despite his denial otherwise when Natsumi complained about the flavor choice.

oOoOoOo

It was midmorning by the time Madara and his companions reached Izuna and party. Madara had expected a battle site – the craters, blackened prairie grasses, and pools of rust-colored blood didn't surprise him in the least. The five burning rings of otherwordly black flames did surprise. And so did the sight of his brother, looking half-dead with old streaks of blood trailing down his face from eyes to jaw.

"I thought Natsumi was the one who was supposed to fight," Madara growled as he crouched next to Izuna. Izuna was seated on the ground, next to Natsumi. Both of them supported their backs against Umeboshi; Natsumi's limbs jerked and twitched, and when her foot nearly clobbered Madara in the jaw, he was petty sure that it was not as accidental as Natsumi claimed.

"Well," Izuna began, "you know how battle plans never survive the first brush with the enemy?"

"It was glorious," Natsumi said, holding onto a gigantic battle axe with a ferocious possessiveness that Madara could appreciate. Also, he approved of gigantic weapons, just on principle. "But I needed a wee bit of help."

"A lot of help," Izuna supplied.

"A smidgeon of help. I did most of the work. You only involved yourself the last twenty minutes, and I still had to survive what you did to the berserker."

"We're doomed," Tobirama declared from where he was seated in the grasses, outside of Natsumi's reach. Tobirama appeared rumpled, sweaty, and tired.

"I don't see why you're complaining," Shinzou told Tobirama. "From the smell of it, the only thing you did was fuck my sister. At least you did a half-way decent job on it," she added as Natsumi gave her two thumb's up.

"That," Hashirama said sternly to Shinzou, "was very rude. Tobi's only role was to act as the sensor for the group. That he rolled in the bushes with your sister is just a bonus for the victors."

Tobirama covered his face in his hands. "Really?" he muttered. "That is what people are focusing on?" Izuna carefully reached over and patted him on the shoulder.

"He took one for the team," Izuna said to Madara, smirking. "T'was a noble thing that this Senju did; I would not allow anyone to belittle the sacrifices he made."

"What did you name your little girl?" Natsumi asked as Hashirama held Tobirama back from throttling Izuna. "Sorry about not saving anything to make a baby rattle. Uchiha got a little fire-happy."

Shinzou carefully cradled the infant, which hung from a sling that was draped around her neck. "Koppun." After a pause, she added, "In honor of Hashirama's sacrifice. He let me hold his hand."

"I think," said Madara, as he took Izuna's face in his hands and peered into eyes that didn't (or couldn't) focus on Madara's face, "we've had enough lollygagging. What happened?"

Tobirama provided a detailed and thorough account of the fight against the berserker. As the one who had watched and witnessed the battle and Natsumi and Izuna's involvement, he provided the greatest amount of details. Natsumi and Izuna provided a minimal amount of information – Natsumi on how the berserker was able to withstand her strength, and Izuna on how he had managed to defeat the berserker.

"We are doomed," Shinzou declared at the end of the report as she worked on burping the infant with a heavy hand to the baby's back. "Unless you can pull some mystic magical fire out of your ass?" she pointedly asked Madara.

He gritted his teeth. The sooner he never had to deal with the abrasiveness of the Inuzuka clan head, the better. "That is not a particular talent of my Sharingan." He shouldn't have to spill clan secrets to outsiders. That he was forced to do so was reason enough to slaughter every single South Sea raider who set foot on the continent.

"Well, that's some inconvenient bullshit," Shinzou said. Then she looked at Hashirama. "Do you have any bright ideas? Because if cleaving a head in two with an axe doesn't do it, my clan and I are limited on what assistance we can provide in taking down the berserkers. We just don't have the skills with weapons, much less the weapons themselves, to dismember immortal assholes."

Hashirama was silent as he mulled over the report. He considered all the Uchiha and Senju present, then he studied the Inuzuka women while rubbing his chin. "How many have reached the beaches?"

Natsumi took a deep breath. "Well, the Uchiha and Senju groups finally reached the beach. They're gathered with the Sarutobi and Inuzuka groups. There's the three berserkers there – well, two berserker. The other one doesn't smell right, the one that hit the Sarutobi group. There are two berserkers with the Akimichi group, though, and they're about thirty kilometers away from meeting up with the others."

"So we still have two groups with two or three fighters of unparallel skill and an unfortunate gift of immortality," Hashirama said. "I think if we can hit the beaches before the Akimichi group reaches them, we can take out the three fighters present, and secure the children. We should have enough time to regroup and hit the Akimichi berserkers before they have too much of an idea of what happened at the beaches." As a soft autumn breeze rustled through his hair, as it made the golden grasses of the prairie ripple like waves across the sea, he added, "It wouldn't hurt to bring in some near-by allies."

"The Uzumaki clan?" Shinzou guessed. Madara did his best to disguise a shudder at the mention.

"They've got fuuinjutsu," Hashirama replied, almost defensively. "The rarest and best of the Uzumaki fuuinjutsu masters can bend time and space, and if that doesn't sound like a viable way to defeat immortality, then we're all, quite frankly, screwed."

"I supposed it's a good thing that their scent indicates that they're already on the move," Shinzou replied. "The Sarutobi clan probably reached out to them, because they're sending their five strongest fighters and fuuinjutsu experts towards the beaches. They're a good thirty kilometers away though."

Hashirama sighed wistfully. "Your nose is amazing."

Natsumi waved her hand, and nearly side-swiped Madara. "Ooooh! I've got ramen tins to trade in!"

"How far away from the beaches are we?" Madara asked. He eased out of Natsumi's reach even though it meant backing away from his brother.

"Sixty-five kilometers, give or take a kilometer."

"And the Akimichi is how far away from the beaches?"

Shinzou shrugged. "Thirty-five."

Hashirama groaned and covered his face. "We'll never make it to the beaches first, in time."

"Don't be so fatalistic," Shinzou replied. "We still have some tricks up our sleeves. Metaphorically speaking. We aren't actually wearing any sleeves. But your armor has to come off. My sister's fight is a good demonstration on how the armor isn't going to protect your lives, not if blood from a cut on the cheek is enough to get you killed. Speed is vital in these battles, and you're just weighed down by a walking tin death trap."

Madara and Hashirama didn't even argue, even though their armor was built from material much sturdier than tin. As they started removing their armor, their men followed suit. They carefully stored the armor under the bushes and the cottonwoods, protecting them from potential weathering. As they did so, Shinzou pulled Bashira over to Natsumi, and the trio engaged in a fierce battle of whispering. When everyone had finally gathered together, Shinzou raised her voice to a near-shout to address everyone at once.

"There are no more mountains between us and the sea, from here. My clanswoman has agreed to bring in some transportation. It has the added benefit that we'll have get a chance to breathe and conserve our stamina in the traveling. However, you all will be polite, and there is no kicking allowed, understand?" Shinzou leveled a stare at every single man until she received a verbal assent. Then she nodded at Bashira. "It's all on you."

Bashira pushed through the crowding and towards the prairie. She deliberately gave the five circles of black flames a wide berth. She jabbed a nail of her right hand into the palm of her left hand, tearing open a laceration. Then she plucked several long chestnut colored hairs from her head – the same number as everyone present, Madara noticed, twenty-eight hairs – and coated them with blood from the laceration. After carefully placing the hairs on the ground, her back turned towards them, Bashira made several seals – summoning, Madara realized with a breathless wonder, how on earth did these barbaric women manage to obtain something so precious as a summoning contract? – and pumped more than three-quarters of her chakra into the summoning.

Horses – elegant, white and silver and gold and bronze, twice as large as any horse Madara had ever seen, although only the warlord tribes of Wind and the samurai from Iron used horses – appeared.

"Hi," said Bashira, nearly toppling over in exhaustion. "My companions and I are in dire need of a lift to the beach, sixty-some kilometers south of here. We're going to fetch the children that were stolen from us."

One horse – not the largest, but its coffee-brown mane was longer and silkier than the others with shells and feathers woven into it and its fur shone with the glimmer of bronze – stepped forward. It lowered its great head to nuzzle Bashira's hair. "We have heard of what happened," the horse said. It had a deep voice, like a man. "News of the foreigners invading our lands, hurting our people, all the name of its dark, unwelcomed god, has reached our ears. We shall lend you our assistance, even to those whom we share no contract with."

Bashira grabbed a handful of the silky mane and pulled herself to her feet. Her expression was young and beautiful as she threw a smile over her shoulder at the others. "They're giving us a lift! Remember – don't kick! They aren't your ordinary, common horses."

"How do we stay on them?" Hashirama asked as he approached.

"Stick your butt on them firmly like you're sticking your feet to a tree. If you don't have the chakra control, hang on tight."

Madara had never ridden a horse before. This was just another part of this entire adventure that he could've lived his entire life never experiencing. As the men figured out the most politest way to mount without kicking each other, or the horses – the horses were quite vocal in expressing their displeasure with any undue rough handling – he sidled up to Natsumi. She had a glazed, almost drunken look in her eyes, so she was probably going to be more forthcoming with information than Shinzou.

"So," he began, crouching close to her, but still not in reach of her twitching limbs, "you flattened the berserker with a whale."

"It was a beauty," Natsumi declared. "The opportunity to summon a whale is few and far between, seeing as how Inuzuka women aren't exactly sea-faring lassies."

While the Inuzuka clan did a lot of roaming, their preferred territory – even if their territory was technically considered property of another clan, like the Nara – mainly covered the thick forests and plains on the other side of the Tora Mountains. "I'm assuming that Bashira's chosen guardians are horses. I wondered why some of you have animals painted on your chests… assuming that Boshi has an animal."

Natsumi grinned. "Boshi says that she's exploring a new art form – 'abstract', she calls it – but really, she's just not that good at drawing boars." Natsumi's attempt at making air quotations with her fingers nearly jabbed out Tobirama's eyes.

…really? Madara squinted at Boshi's chest. The dust bunnies/moths/butterflies didn't even faintly resemble a potential pig-like shape. "I see," he said.

"You don't have to pretend that she knows what she's drawing. We make fun of her all the time for it."

"It would seem like a boar would be a more appropriate guardian for you, than for Boshi."

"One would think so, but I have always been larger than life." Natsumi preened at that, as if having a personality the size of a whale was anything to be bragged about. Given the exasperated look that Izuna sent her, his brother shared in Madara's sentiment. "But we don't pick the guardians. They pick us."

Ah, so they didn't have a number of summon contracts just laying around.

"Then why," Tobirama began, "did your whale ask you about geese, lions, hedgehogs, and damn squirrels?"

"I," Natsumi declared, "am the Queen of Summons!" She managed to raise both hands, eight fingers extended in total, without poking anyone in the eye. "I have eight summons! I want more!"

"How do you get the summon contracts?" Izuna asked.

"I bully my clanswomen into letting me sign theirs, once they pass muster with their guardian."

"How do you get a guardian?" Izuna asked, when Madara and Tobirama stared at Natsumi in wonder (Tobrirama) and shocked stupor (Madara).

"The secret," Natsumi began, "is you gotta have a lot of chakra, and then you summon. Just like that. As long as you haven't already signed a contract, if you have enough chakra to invest in the summon, whatever is the most fitting to your personality will pull you into their plane of existence." She paused for a moment, her expression distant. "Well, usually whatever is most fitting will pull you onto their plane of existence. But you only got one shot at it. If you don't invest enough chakra, it slams shut on you, and all future contracts, even a physical contract, will reject you. And you're probably wondering why I would freely offer this information," she added cheerfully as Shinzou approached them. "See, it's not an actual secret. Some of our clanswomen never attempt it; others did, and were unsuccessful. The thing is, there's always a lot of things eagerly reaching out to grab you, things from the darkness that aren't meant to see light – when you summon without a contract, you don't always grab onto an actual summon. One of our aunts actually summoned the Two-Tailed Demon, and let me tell you, that was a big mess to clean up. We never did find all of Aunt Tsume's limbs. Or her head. Man, I would give my left kidney to have a contract with the Two-Tails."

"Duly noted," said Tobirama with the tired air of someone who was intimately familiar with handling Natsumi's left kidney.

Madara cleared his throat. "I was given to understand that a person can only hold one summoning contract."

"Oh, a contract isn't valid if you sign it the same as another." Natsumi waved her hand, as if she cleared common misconceptions of summon contacts everywhere she went. She ignored Shinzou's approach. "You have to sign it different each time. If you sign one the same as another, the second signature is always invalid, and you don't get a second shot as signing."

Shinzou stood beside Natsumi and waited until Natsumi had finished speaking. "You can't ride by yourself, you'll fall off with the way you keep twitching."

Natsumi immediately attached herself to Tobirama like a twitching leech. He sighed as she half-smothered him beneath her tangled waves of red hair and unreasonably-sized bosom. "I'll keep her on the back of a horse," he said, slightly muffled. It took some finagling to put the axe in a makeshift sling that Natsumi tied to her back, as she refused to part with it.

Since the two had to ride together, that left one horse unmounted – a dainty-looking mare with fur the color of molten gold, and her mane and tail as white as a spark. After a quick conference, Bashira sent the horse off to the Uzumaki clan with Hashirama's message. The mare was golden blur across the plains, making a direct path south-west of them.

"Are we ready?" Bashira asked, taking the lead with her mount. Everyone was too focused on staying upright to answer, so with a nod from Shinzou, they headed for the beaches.