Author's note: The seven-tailed demon (the Nanabi) is considered lucky. So, uh, in the South Seas culture, Loki adopted her as his daughter. This totally makes sense to me - one must have a lot of luck (and stealth, and creativity) to succeed with mischief. The kusarigama that Madara uses is a scythe-on-a-chain. Also, I live in a high-plains desert where it's both really, really hot in the summer, and it's really, really cold in the winter, so when it comes to the warlord tribes of Wind versus the clans of Cloud, I win. :D
Horses, Madara knew, could run fast – the samurai horses has a long-distance gait that allowed them to travel up to thirty-five kilometers in an hour. The warlord tribes of Wind bred their horses for long-distance races and battle, and considered the horses to be actual members of their family. Such horses could easily travel up to a hundred kilometers in a single day, in a desert that was considered one of the most brutal and uninhabitable terrains of the continent. (The warlords proclaimed it quite habitable, thankyouverymuch, but only the toughest could survive, so they felt that everyone else were weak and pampered, including the Shinobi clans of non-deserts. Some of the Shinobi clans of Cloud were quite loud in proclaiming that the warlord tribes of Wind didn't know the meaning of strength if they had no idea how to thrive in a climate that had snow thirty meters deep half the year, and frequently cold enough to freeze piss leaving a man's body before it even hit the ground.)
The summoned horses, like other contracts, were beings that enhanced their abilities with chakra, manipulating it as easily as any shinobi. They easily traveled fifty kilometers in an hour, while the Akimichi group had only managed to travel ten kilometers. When they were only fifteen kilometers away from the beaches, Shinzou called the group to a halt.
"Let's figure some things out," Shinzou said. "I've been thinking about that berserker my sister fought. I've got a plan to take out the berserkers with the Akimichi kids. I need four Uchiha and four Senju who are willing to follow my orders. Also, I need to borrow your axe," she told Natsumi.
Natsumi scrunched her face up like she wanted to angrily protest. "You don't have the skill with weapons."
"What skill do you need with an axe? It's sharp, it's heavy, just whack at bodies with it until the bodies come apart. I've got the strength for that." Shinzou rolled her eyes. "Look, I promise to give the damn thing back. I just need something sharp and hefty to hit the berserkers with, and I'm going to use my own summons to help me with dismemberment. I don't have fire to destroy the berserker, but my summons can take the body pieces far and wide, and bury them so deep that only an Inuzuka could track down the remains to put them back together."
"What do you need our men for?" Hashirama asked.
"We don't know the abilities of the other South Sea raiders, the ones that aren't berserkers." As she spoke, Shinzou dismounted and began fiddling with the pack and sling on her ninken's back. "It would be foolish to assume that those four aren't fighters of some sort. There are eight Akimichi children. The four fastest of the men accompanying me can snatch the eight children and run, and the other four can engage the four South Sea raiders."
"And you are going to be able to take on two berserkers all by yourself?" Madara demanded, feeling his eyebrows shoot up somewhere close to his hairline. She had just given birth yesterday. She was still leaking fluids that weren't all milk. (He refused to think that she was a greater warrior than he was, even if he hadn't given birth… he could totally take on two berserkers, singlehandedly, if it meant that he just needed to avoid letting them nick off with any of his blood.)
Shinzou pulled a napping Koppun from the sling that was tied to her torso, from beneath her poncho, and slid the baby into the sling that she had manipulated out of her ninken's pack. "Did I say I was taking the berserker on all by myself?" she asked irritably. "No. I said I'm going to use my own summons. Which you don't need to know anything about." She added the last with a dark look sent towards Natsumi. "You'll have to watch my baby while I'm absent. I expect you to stay out of the fighting. Do you promise?"
Natsumi growled and munched on Tobirama's hair. He twitched and visibly fought down the urge to shove her off the horse. "I promise," Natsumi grumbled.
"And do you promise to keep your promise better than he did?" Shinzou pointed at Izuna, who had enough vision left to bristle at her pointing. "Because I recall that he promised his brother that he wouldn't engage with the berserker, and that didn't stop him."
Natsumi munched a moment longer on Tobirama's hair, stopping only when he elbowed her harshly. She was protected by the excessive cushioning of her chest. "If I summon, that doesn't count, because I'm not physically engaging myself in battle."
Shinzou double-checked the security of her baby, and then remounted her summoned horse. "That's probably the best agreement I'll get out of you," she muttered. Then she turned towards Madara and Hashirama. "Sit on her if you have to. So, who's coming with me?"
Madara chose a mix of his men – two of the fastest, two of the strongest. And while he wasn't sure that Hashirama did the same, Hashirama was direct in telling Shinzou which two were the fastest. After a brief moment, Izuna pushed forward. "I'll go with you," he told Shinzou. Natsumi had a tendency to bristle whenever she was confronted. Shinzou hunkered down, like she was gathering herself to lunge at a person's throat. The contrast between the two sisters was almost remarkable to watch, if it weren't for the fact that Shinzou was focusing on Izuna.
"What good would you be?" Shinzou growled.
"I've got enough left in me to set a few things on fire, in case you get ganged up."
Shinzou hunkered down even more, like an ever-tightening spring. "Don't get in my way, Uchiha." After Shinzou received assurance from another Inuzuka woman that she would wetnurse the baby in Shinzou's absence, and Shinzou had obtained Natsumi's axe (it had to be pried out of Natsumi's grip – she claimed a muscle spasm locked her fist, but given her bristling petulance, Madara strongly suspected that Natsumi's locked fist was deliberate – it was like watching two toddlers squabble over a desired toy, and the stronger toddler won), Shinzou, Izuna, and their small group broke away from the larger group, heading northwest towards the Akimichi group. No ninken followed after them.
Hashirama nudged his mount closer to Madara's. "Since we're standing still at the moment, we need to quickly review what we're going to do when we hit the beaches."
Natsumi immediately raised a fist in the air. "We're going to squash them before they even realize we're there, rip out their throats, dismantle their bodies, piss on their insides, throw the pieces into the longboats, and set the whole thing on fire."
Madara and Hashirama stared at Natsumi. Tobirama pinched the bridge of his nose, as if this woman's blunt tongue was giving him a headache. Madara almost sympathized; Shinzou would've given him a constant headache if he wasn't used to having them from the Sharingan.
"That's all well and good," Hashirama began with far more patience than Madara ever had in a lifetime, "but their sensors will alert the raiders to our presence before we even arrive, which makes ripping out their throats and dismantling their bodies a little difficult. And frankly," he added, with just a touch of sarcasm, "I'm a little too dehydrated from all this traveling to successfully piss on anyone's insides."
"I'm okay with setting things on fire when all is said and done," Madara volunteered. He was Uchiha; being a pyromaniac was as quintessential as the Sharingan.
"It's the whole said and done that we're trying to work out here," Hashirama said. "I'll cover the children with my wood release, our men can take on the non-berserkers, but that still leaves two known berserkers and one unknown that still managed to take on the Sarutobi clan and walk away, seemingly unscathed." He glanced at his brother. "How far away are the Uzumaki?"
"They're ten kilometers from the beach," Tobirama replied. "They're making good distance, traveling the channels."
"Unless we hold back, we'll hit the beaches first." Hashirama turned south, as if he could see the layout of the beaches from fifteen kilometers away. The flat plains was starting to give way to rolling coastal dunes, formed by driving hurricane winds and rains and high flood waters. The ridges of the slip faces were shadowed, thick jagged dark lines that crisscrossed the landscape. Vegetation became sparser the closer they got to the ocean. In the distance, smudged by humidity, was the blue of the ocean waters. Further away than the ocean, steel-grey thunderclouds loomed. "I think it best that we hit the raiders first. The Uzumaki can use the chaos of our attack to circle the perimeter and throw themselves where they can do the most harm."
Having been on the receiving end of the Uzumaki clan's attack two years ago, when Hashirama and Mito first joined forces against the Uchiha, Madara could appreciate the level of harm that the Uzumaki could bring. His gunbai still had scorch marks from Mito's insane fuuinjutsu blast tags.
"It's clear to me," Madara began, "that we engage the berserkers one on one. I'll take the unknown who took on the Sarutobi clan. Who's going to engage the berserkers?"
"I will," said Tobirama. "Unlike that one," he gestured at Natsumi, "I'm well-rested and I know what to expect with a berserker."
"We'll need one more volunteer for the last berserker," Madara said, scanning his men and mentally calculating who was the best at dodging.
"I'll do it." Boshi urged her mount forward. "Aside from Natsumi-sama and Shinzou-sama, I've got the best aerial skills. I can dodge any attack."
"This is true," Natsumi said with a sage nod. "Boshi is a slippery little devil. Plus, her boars are man-eaters, so if push comes to shove, there won't be anything left to set on fire."
Hashirama studied Boshi for a long moment, his face carefully blank as he considered the smudges on Boshi's chest. (Or he was ogling Boshi's chest under cover of careful consideration of her smudges. Madara wasn't so sure, anymore. His men seem to have become marginally immune to the ongoing casual level of nudity displayed around them, and even Madara had grown used the absurd number of nipple rings.) "Very well," he said finally. "I'll trust the judgment of Natsumi-san."
"You shouldn't, really," Tobirama told Hashirama with a tired earnestness.
Hashirama threw his head back and laughed. It echoed across the countryside, and it made Madara's heart sing with delight. "Ah, dear brother, when we met with the Uchiha last week to discuss peace, it never occurred to me that we all would willingly set aside our differences to help clans that we've never before sought any treaties with. It's because of the Inuzuka's judgment that we're all working together. When we bring back the kidnapped children to their respective clans, we'll have shown the world the value of our strengths when we're united in camaraderie, proof that a village that welcomes all clans together is stronger than a single clan trying to survive against the world. The only reason the South Sea raiders were successful in the first place in striking at us and stealing our children is because we are so divided. No, I think that Inuzuka's judgment is quite sound, although," here he gave Tobirama a pointed look, "her taste may be somewhat questionable."
"Too right," Natsumi muttered, completely oblivious to the insult that it was. "I knew that the curry ramen was off. I don't know why I bought so many tins of it. Next time, I'm just sticking with the beef."
oOoOoOo
They didn't stop to strategize. The two known berserkers broke away from the beaches and made their way towards the oncoming group when they were only four kilometers away. Tobirama and Boshi jumped from their mounts and met with the berserkers headlong. Tobirama's blade was quicksilver in the light, and he effortlessly battered his opponent back with jets of water. Boshi, her hair as light and golden as maple syrup, was every bit as quick on her feet as she was in the air, sliding and spinning out of reach, chakra glistening blue at the tips of her nails.
Madara, Hashirama, and the others surged onward, no humans or horses falling back to aid Tobirama or Boshi, although two ninken skidded to a halt and immediately began circling around, darting in to snap at hamstrings when the berserkers, naked except for their short leather boots, were focused upon their human opponents. The berserker who fought Tobirama was armed with a heavy claymore and a reinforced leather shield, while Boshi carefully spun around the reach of her opponent's polearm.
The oncoming storm continued brewing overhead. The autumn skies, which had been azure-blue with nary a wisp of cloud this morning, was swiftly being blotted out by steel-gray thunderheads. Thunder rumbled as lightning streaked towards the ocean in the distance, and a cold wind blasted them. It carried the scents of seawater and rotting death,
As they charged the beaches, Madara saw Natsumi nick her wrist bloody with a tooth. She flashed through four of the five required seals, and held the fifth, charging it with chakra as she bent low over her horse, eyes narrowed with concentration. Madara yanked his mount's head – murmured an apology for using such force on the mane as the horse snorted in anger – and angled towards the unknown that he sensed further away. The beaches this far inland were too rocky, too full of thick boulders to be kind underfoot, separated by pools thick with anemone and jagged shells, and he saw the unknown perched on one of the tallest boulders. It was a woman, hair as long and as blond as her berserker brethren, and she wore a carefully shaped breastplate and girdle that was liberally splattered with blood. Her body was perfectly outlined, perfectly still as she considered them across the distance. Clustered at the foot of her boulder were large crates of wood. Crammed into the crates, too large to fit comfortably, were their kidnapped children.
The raiders – fourteen – leaped the rocks and bellowed wordlessly as they charged towards the summoned horses, armed with various sabers and axes. They didn't move with grace, and Madara detected the roughest, rudimentary use of chakra in their movements. His men, he knew, would have no difficulty in fighting off the raiders.
"Get her away from them!" Hashirama bellowed as he directed his mount to circle to the other side. Natsumi followed over. Beyond the boulders, bobbing with the rising swells of the tides as the winds pushed them, Madara saw the carved stempost of the raiders' longboat – it was curved into the snarling head of a dragon. Nastumi directed her mount towards the longboat, dodging the cluster of fighting bodies as the Uchiha and Senju men met the raiders face on with weapons raised.
Madara's eyes bled red as he leapt free of his mount, lighting upon the boulders. They were already slick from sea spray and waves gaining strength and size from the howling wind. He adjusted his footing accordingly as he steadied himself. The woman, the other, hadn't moved from her position. As he approached closer, she gracefully lifted her arms over her head, and took a deep breath, as if readying herself like a virginal sacrifice to a volcano god. She wasn't going to dodge his attack. He saw it in the willful laxity of her body, his Sharingan-bright gaze reading every minute movement. She wanted to bleed.
Instead of slamming into her, edge-first with his gunbai, he rammed his shoulder into her torso and stuck his feet tight to the boulder. The force sent her careening off the boulder, and he followed through, feet-first into the small of her back, sending her further away from the children. Vines immediately erupted from the pebbled beach, wrapping and twisting around the crates, snapping and prying apart the wedges. As the children were cradled and pulled towards Hashirama, protected against further attacks, Natsumi allowed herself to get drenched in the crashing waves so she could complete her summon.
Out of the corner of his eye, Madara saw Natsumi drop an orca whale on top of the longboat, smashing it to smithereens.
The woman realized what happened to their longboat in mid-air. She righted herself and landed on the pebbly side of the beach, crouching low as a wave crashed down on her. Her hair was sodden and tangled as she straightened upwards, and her eyes glowed red. Not like Madara's – oh shit. He saw the strike in his vision before it happened, but could do nothing to change his trajectory or momentum. A clawed hand of red, bubbling and demonic, materialized from the woman's side. He barely raised his gunbai in time to protect himself. He felt the metal vibrate as it absorbed the demonic chakra, felt his hair sizzle and burn as the clawed hand deformed and melted around the shield. He managed to backpedal just in time to avoid losing any hair.
As the woman straightened from her crouch, as fiery-red chakra tails unfurled behind her, Madara had a sinking feeling in his gut that he might've taken on more than he could single-handedly manage. "Well," he said, pausing to catch his breath and his whirling thoughts as he stood on a slick boulder, just beyond the crushing reach of the waves, "I wasn't aware that you tailed beasts ventured out to the South Seas."
As the (one, two, three, oh shit four, five, fucking six, seven) tails unfurled, the woman laughed. How did she manifest the Nanabi? Her voice was shrill and high-pitched – Madara felt his teeth ache as the sound of it. "Ah, svass," she sounded like she was four years old, with the pitch and the tone, nearly incomprehensible with her thick accent, "this beast goes to those who are the most blessed. She is a most excellent harbinger of luck. Jashin loves her deeply. Come, let us dance together, before I send you on your merry way to the halls of Valhöll."
Natsumi's voice could barely be heard over the crashing waves, pushed onward by a howling gale of wind. "I wanna fight her!"
Hashirama's voice echoed back, much closer and much louder, "Your sister said to heel!" There was a squawk of protest, as if Hashirama had forcibly made Natsumi do just that, with the use of his Mokuton.
Madara enjoyed a good dance, whether it was in battle or with a woman, but suspected – given the proximity of the children – that he wouldn't enjoy dancing with this woman, or her tailed demon – was she channeling the damn thing? – nor did he want to go near any halls of any Valwhatamacallit. He freed his kusarigama from where he had carefully stored it around his waist, and swung the razor-sharp sickle in an arc overhead – the chain's long range may give him the distance he needed to avoid contact with the bubbling red chakra.
The woman chased him, clawing with pawed hands and tails that shot forward like piercing lances. Madara skipped backwards, careful to stay out of the rising tides, maintaining balance upon the crashing waves as he deflected the chakra hands and tails with his gunbai, and struck her with the sickle blade of his kusarigama. The bare skin of his wrists sizzled wherever the demonic chakra licked his skin, forming blisters the size of oysters. He gritted his teeth against the pain as she laughed when the sickle blade ripped through her cheek, flaying it open to the bone. The flap of skin and muscle bubbled red with the demonic chakra, not bleeding and not healing.
Madara tried to lead her further away from the children, angling backwards, as Hashirama's Mokuton trees lifted the children above the waves. They were drenched, but not drowning. In between limbs and leaves, Madara briefly caught saw the flash of the Sharingan as his nephew, Obito, pushed his face forward to watch.
A tremendous blow from three of the seven tails drove Madara backwards through the air and into the swelling sea. He forced himself to the surface, water walking but more like water wading thanks the water's turbulence, shaking drenched hair from his eyes, in time to see the two clawed hands reform into a pair of wings. With a shriek of laughter and a sweep of the wings, the woman threw herself into the air – she left behind a trail of exploding sparkles that made his eyes sting, and then everything went blindly white.
This is bullshit! Madara thought. Hyperaware of his sudden vulnerability, Madara immediately dodged left, shielding his head and side with the gunbai as he prayed for a return of his vision. He felt an incredible swell of demonic power – it made the ends of his drenched hair stand on end – then a ripple of black through the air faster than the speed of thought – the resulting explosion when it detonated against the Mokuton surrounding the children threw Madara backwards. He heard the children scream in terror or pain, heard Hashirama yell, and felt his heart leap to his throat at the thought of Obito's face bubbling and melting off his body, of Madara trying to explain to Izuna how he hadn't been able to protect his son.
Madara's eyes burned from more than just the white sparkle-dust as he threw himself towards the children and his friend. He had only enough time to form Susanoo in its most rudimentary form before there was another ripple of black, and then his entire body vibrated in agony as the tailed beast ball struck Susanoo. His vision returned with bursts of color – red, gold, blue – so much blue – as Uzumaki Mito's voice rose above the howling wind and matched the South Sea woman's screams.
Golden chakra chains erupted from Mito's torso and slammed into the seven-tailed beetle flying fifty meters overhead. Her deep-green kimono was saturated from the crashing waves that drenched the boulder she was perched upon, the seals dangling from her crimson-red hair oddly dry. Gripping the chakra chains with both hands, Mito yanked them downward, driving the Nanabi antennas-first into the sea. The sweeping tidal wave nearly knocked Susanoo over as Madara blocked the water from swamping the children.
"Keep them covered!" Hashirama yelled at Madara as he bolted over Susanoo's head, skipping across the waves toward Mito. As Hashirama ran, great trees erupted from the sea, branches stabbing through and encircling the Nanabi. There was a deep guttural scream as deep brown wood and glowing golden chakra chains tore through the tailed beast. Without a blink of the Sharingan, Susanoo slammed its sword downward, slicing the Nanabi in half. With an inhuman shriek that made Madara's eardrums throb, the Nanabi imploded for a moment, collapsing into a tight ball of burning red, and then exploded into a wide, vertical column of red chakra that would've fried Hashirama and Mito if Hashirama hadn't grabbed Mito and shunshinned towards the beach with a rising wall of Mokuton deflecting everything that followed at their heels.
Madara felt something that was more than seawater sliding down his face, like thick tears. With the Nanabi dispelled, the howling wind and crashing waves almost seemed deafening quiet. Feeling every muscle scream in protest and every bone throb in agony, he carefully turned himself – and the bright blue skeletal Susanoo – about. The Mokuton parted as Susanoo's arms dipped down and gathered the children up and out of the sea water.
Hashirama whistled. "Defenses borne of love withstand the greatest attacks of hate. That is truly a great gift, Madara."
Feeling his breath rattle in his chest, Madara carried the children to the beaches, past the perimeter of the boulders – many shattered from the tailed beast ball – and out of the rising tide and storm. Hashirama and Mito followed. Further up, he saw the other Senju and Uchiha men, the Uzumaki men and women, the Inuzuka women and their ninken, and the remaining living raiders that were bruised, beaten, and thoroughly trussed up with chains tagged with fuuinjutsu seals. He wondered who suggested or allowed for South Sea raiders to be kept alive. As Susanoo stooped and gently deposited the children on the ground, the Senju men flinched, the Uchiha clansmen angled their bodies away from him, the Inuzuka women shuddered, and the four Uzumaki – three men, one woman – carefully avoided eye contact.
Fear. The skeletal giant that was Susanoo was as alien, as deadly as the Nanabi, and everyone saw that he was the source of it. Madara was too exhausted and in too much pain to feel anything other than annoyance – so what if his special talent looked frightful and a bit hideous? Not everyone could make their special gift look all leafy and green and cute.
Natsumi, her limbs trembling somewhat, stumbling up to Madara. Unlike the others, her eyes were bright with delighted excitement. She thumped one of the knees with a fist, whistling in greedy admiration. He barely managed not to grunt in pain, or flatten her with Susanoo's sword. "This is thing is awesome!" she declared. She threw her arms around Susanoo's leg and slid half-way down, as if her legs finally decided they were done with walking. "Is it a summon? I want it!" She clung to Susanoo like it was her axe.
"No." He willed Susanoo away as Hashirama raised a Mokuton wall to shield them from the storm's wind, tidal surge, and fast-approaching rain. Natsumi whined in disappointment, but he ignored that. Madara forced himself to look as casual as possible as he casually sat crosslegged on ground, and reluctantly accepted a dirty cotton handkerchief from Natsumi – he was not going to think of where she might've had this square cloth tucked away under her pelvic-sized leather girdle – and wiped the streaks of blood from his face. It was totally normal for one's orbital sockets to bleed.
There was a tug on his sleeve. He looked up to see a blurred Obito clinging to the wet material. Obito flinched backwards, eyes widening in fear, before he steadied himself and said, "Where's Father?"
Madara wondered if he was now officially scarier than the raiders who had kidnapped the children, scarier even than the berserker who had slaughtered Obito's mother. That was… He was fairly sure it was not flattering, and he may have to reconsider certain life choices if this was how his kin now viewed him. He carefully placed his hand on Obito's shoulder. He felt a tremor in the four year old's body, and decided that it was probably a combination of cold and exhaustion. "Your father is coming. He will be here, soon."
Natsumi collapsed on the ground next to Madara, and then clamped a glowing green hand around his wrist. He nearly stabbed her in the neck as pain shot up his arm. "Here, let me take care of these for you." Madara tried to pull his arm free. Natsumi's grip tightened. "I could let Hashirama heal you, but you can't stay like this. They'll get infected easily enough."
Madara looked at his friend, who smiled hopefully. Hashirama's hands had recently been near a bleeding vagina, and although Hashirama had done his best to thoroughly scrub them on the run, Madara had standards. And then he turned his gaze on the children. Those who were looking at him – even the Uchiha children – shrank away from him in fear. "You should check them over," he told Hashirama. His niece's face was swollen and purple, like she had been struck. It would break Izuna's heart to see the face of his daughter battered. "Make sure they're all right."
Hashirama immediately turned towards the children, schooling his face into a serene gentleness. "Of course! We want to return everyone to their families in the best health that they can be!"
Ever since he had awakened the Mangekyo, Madara was aware that many in his clan feared him. He was used to the fear, although Uchiha children – who had never seen him in battle – hadn't gazed with the same eyes as their adult counterparts. As Natsumi soothed away the agony in his body, hands roaming in what he supposed was meant to be impartial (he did glare at her when her hands caressed his chest, even though those muscles felt better for it), Madara figured that he would rather have his clan alive and living in fear of him, instead of just dead.