Devil From The Heavens

Chapter 40: The Blessing Of Despair

She didn't stop for even a moment. Her chakra was running low and her wings were falling apart but she pushed on heedless of herself. The freezing cold of the Land of Iron and the storms that lied beyond it did nothing to deter her.

The possibilities ran through her head. This was a trap. A ploy to tire her out for an easy kill or capture. This was a lie to mess with her mind. Make her weaker mentally and less likely to disrupt his plans. This was to punish her for defying him.

On the 18th hour, she spotted the perpetual storm that gave her village its name. The rain was a curtain of shadow that hid everything within. Her wings were stained black in moments. She held up her hand and the small puddle that gathered in her palm was filthy.

She touched down moments after and her polluted wings fell with a wet thud. There was nothing. She had made this journey countless times. This was where Amegakure was supposed to be.

There was nothing.

She pushed forward. She had to be mistaken. If she kept moving, the village's skyline will show up. It had to. Her breaths became shallower and she was hit with a bout of lightheadedness. The Kage lost her footing and tripped over some debris.

Staring her in the face was a mangle piece of metal pitted with rust. She picked it out of the mud. Amegakure was a jungle of piping that adorned their buildings. Even the newest installations had rust from years of poor maintenance. How could they afford the time and energy to do it properly when their people barely had enough food to survive?

The fight left her. The agony of her people was pulled from the dead air and erupted from her throat in a haunting wail. The sound echoed unobstructed for miles. Konan collapsed with a hand grasping her chest over her heart as her throat seized and the cries choked to become body wracking sobs. She vomited.

They were almost pulled from an age of suffering. Amegakure would have been reborn from generations of blood soaked mud to stand above the villages. A testament to her people's spirit. A spit in the face of the system that had trampled them underfoot. She'd failed them all. How hopeless were they as they were obliterated by creatures beyond comprehension that dare wear the face of men?

Did they curse her for not protecting them? Or did they pray fruitlessly for their Angel?

She held the last remnant of Ame against her chest. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

There was no answer. No reassurance. The silence said all Ame had thought of her apologies. Konan pushed herself away from the puddle of sick and sat back. Fatigue had wormed its way throughout her body. The blood in her veins moved like sludge. The Angel was pale like her paper.

In her panic, she had ignored the injuries from her battle the previous day and it was catching up to her. With what little strength remained, she undid her Akatsuki robe. The mantle was no longer her right to bear. She tossed it away in a fit of shame.

A shape manifested in the heavy rains. Small and amorphous but it floated above. This was the trap that Madara had lain. Wheezy breaths were the only sounds left. The Hybrid's silhouette solidified as it grew closer. This would be her grave too.

Ame's Angel looked away, ready for the end. Maybe she'd see Yahiko and Nagato again.

"Konan?"

Few details could be made out in the black rain but she saw him. His face was twisted with evil and she could only see the horror that had replaced the man she knew in the Land of Iron. Was it him that did this? He touched down and picked up the robes. An emerald sheen surrounded them and the rain was stopped. In the light, the illusion was stripped away; he was worried.

"Stay away!" She cried out as her back hit the barrier. He looked away at the bitterness in her voice. There was hurt there. An defiant anger bloomed when he couldn't look her in the eye. He was a monster in the purest way; she was right there when his mask slipped. "Why are you here?!"

"I don't know." He responded honestly as he crouched in front of her. "I just...I didn't think it'd be good for you to be alone."

Unbidden, a storm of tears erupted from her. It was such a simple, earnest reason and she wanted to believe him. There was confusion from him as whatever hostility she had seemingly evaporated and Konan let herself fall against the emerald wall. That trust, that vulnerability, was allowed to just exist.

She curled up and a shell of paper wrapped around her. A coping mechanism she hadn't employed since she was a child. Hide yourself and the problems faded away for now. They both stayed like that for enough time for the waters to clear. The exhaustion took her and Konan fell asleep.

Her shell fell away soon after. Broly picked her up in his arms and made sure to keep a grip on whatever she was holding. She seemed to value it. The Angel Of Ame was cold. He held her closer. Konan eyes fluttered open at that. Her stare was unfocused. She tried to say something but the words were little more than a small, unintelligible mutter.

"Quiet." It was a gentle whisper. Out of place for someone like him. "You can complain about this when you're rested."

They took off. The silence was familiar. When the massacre was done and the fires had calmed, sound was feared. People stayed quiet because they didn't want the attention of whatever wiped their homes from existence. If there were survivors at all of course.

The destruction was even more total than the village in the desert. There was nothing that stood higher than his boot. Pools of glass shone among the blackened mud. He couldn't find anything that would indicate anyone had lived here at all.

He thought there was a chance this might have become a home for him in the future. Under Konan, it was the only place he felt potentially welcomed. The loss of that hope snuffed what fire seeing Madara lit within him. This was her home. It was under her protection. She saw this as her failure.

That's how it always turned out whenever he showed up. It didn't matter to any heroes, soldiers, or protectors that he was an overwhelming force that was impossible to fight. They blamed themselves when he crushed their worlds.

It sickened him to be on the other side of things. When it was someone he'd grown to care about who suffered.

This wasn't just revenge for him anymore. It was for her too.

Ape rose from his meditation once he felt they had returned. It was a much smaller presence than when they had left. Were they hurt? He pulled his robes up and over his torso; Karin was always annoyed whenever he moved around topless. Suigetsu encouraged it just for that reason. The Zetsu reached for Samehada but the sword recoiled from him. It was scared ever since the incident.

He scoffed and left it behind. Maybe Jugo could do something about it; Samehada calmed around him.

As he was about to round the corner, the relative silence took him by surprise. It was unheard of to not hear an argument between the redhead and the swordsmen whenever they were around. Did something go poorly?

Madara strode forward and cut him off. Ape looked down and away from the masked man who paid no attention to him.

"Go to Kabuto, boy." He demanded. "He'll know what to do about your injuries."

Sasuke pulled himself from the Zetsus' helping grasp and limped away. There was a lot of dried blood on him. Ape approached the injured shinobi and signed frantically at him asking what happened. The Uchiha sneered at him as he pointedly looked only at the Hyrbid's hands.

"I don't know and I don't care." The boy tried to move around the distraught Zetsu but he stopped in his tracks by Ape's hand. He brought the Uchiha back in front of him and made it a point to hold him between his hands. Sasuke paled at the sight of him. For a moment, the boy stared at him with a naked fear because he knew it'd be impossible for him to move now. That he was at the mercy of a Broly.

"Let me go now." He growled a moment later, the fear hidden.

Ape shook his head and his grip increased instead. There was a grunt of pain in response but the Uchiha remained silent otherwise. The Hybrid was feeling the walls close in. Where were his friends? Sasuke had to know; he was their leader!

"They fought Konan." The injured boy growled out after a tense minute. "I haven't seen them since but if she didn't kill them then your freak progenitor did!"

Ape's grip fell limp as the words sunk in. Sasuke shook him off and limped away with muttered curses. A harrowed gasp left him. But he just saw them just a few days ago?

"If you're going to have a tantrum, do it outside." The Uchiha yelled back as he left him behind.

They were just...gone like that. A wind picked up in the room and it suddenly felt claustrophobic where he was. He needed to leave.

Ape left through the entrance. Madara wouldn't like his leaving but he just couldn't stay. The sky darkened as he passed through to the outside world. Despite the howling winds that buffeted him, he felt nothing. Lightning struck nearby. He continued forward into the forest. Dark shapes raced around him. It was his fault. His failure at Konoha lead to this. If only he was stronger, he could have killed the Saiyan before he- before he-

Muscles seized and his head was pulled back by an unseen force. Golden light shone through the trees.

The shadows lengthened. The lightning multiplied. Broly's evil face was all he could see. Ape howled. It was a strangled, ugly wail from a throat that was never meant to hold words. The muted green of his hair combusted into a brilliant, shining gold.

Strength filled his veins and armored his bones. His skin turned taut as muscles expanded. Rage and sorrow turned to euphoria as ancient Saiyan instincts awakened to rush his mind. Wails of pain turned to howls of laughter.

His power, it was overflowing. Ape couldn't hope to hold all of it in.

With another roar, excess ki escaped out of his mouth in a rush of great and terrible power. Miles of forest were burned to nothing in an instant. Ape pulled it up and split the atmosphere in two. From horizon to horizon, the world only saw green.

'Where do we go?'

He thought about heading straight to Konoha but his last stay had left a bad taste in his mouth. Not that the rest of them would probably be any better. He didn't even know where the rest of the villages were.

He was overthinking it. Just get somewhere dry and warm for Konan to rest.

A boom like a volcanic explosion hit his head. It was beacon that screamed at him like a wild beast. It pulled his attention and he snapped his gaze to it. Far, far away, green and gold sliced the heavens in half. He felt this once before, when he first saw the Hybrids, but this was...it was incredible. Broly stopped as he tried to hold onto that feeling at the back of his skull.

A chill ran up his spine. Whatever that was, it was powerful. It pounded his chest even here. What did Madara do? This had to be him after all. That kind of power could only be one of those Hybrids. A new version maybe? Did he find a way to empower one of them?

Should he go there?

Konan struggled in his arms as if it burned her. The Saiyan put himself between the energy and her. No, that had to wait. He had to take her somewhere safe first.

Broly moved on but he flew far faster now. If he moved quickly enough...

The chance was lost as the blue of the sky reasserted itself and that, admittedly exciting, feeling went away. Reality set in for him a few seconds later. If that was a Hybrid, and he had no reason to believe otherwise, things might have gotten far more dangerous for him as he is last time an enemy got an immense power boost, he lost centuries of time.

He had to push for his seals to be removed as soon as possible.

Kabuto took vigorous notes as he absorbed what happened in front of him. He had been in the middle of a test when the facility had been nearly shaken apart by an earthquake. The subject expired as a result, which was a waste of an hour's work, but the reason why that had occurred made the opportunity cost negligible.

At first, after the light show outside made it clear it was not an earthquake, they thought Broly had found them and so Madara brought out every available Hybrid they had down on their attacker. It took the loss of dozens of them along with hundreds of Zetsu before they were able to figure out that it was Ape who had caused all the destruction right outside their base of operations.

'Blonde hair. Teal eyes? Hard to tell from this distance. A noticeable increase in muscle mass and definition.'

It wasn't quite to the level of Kisame when he joined with his sword but the transformation was substantial nonetheless. Ape was already above average in strength and unusually intelligent for one of these but the energy readings he got from this event far outstripped anything the Hybrids had outputted previously. It was at least a fifty fold increase in power compared to the previous highest.

Currently, Ape was sat with his legs stretched out in front of him like a child in the clearing below. He was ignorant to the world and innumerable bodies around him. Ignorant to Madara's fury.

"This waste had given away our position to everyone in a thousand miles with that stunt." Madara growled out. "We can't afford to move operations this late."

"True. Not unless we delay to the next full moon or even the one after that." Kabuto responded, half distracted with his notes. "I wouldn't execute him. His strength is far higher than anything we've seen previously."

'Golden aura instead of green. Hybrids are smart enough to not kill each other even during aggressive episodes. Loss of inhibitions or violent mania? Both? Neither? Must test. Is this related to the full moon incident?'

The power radiating from Ape was hostile to life. There was nothing left standing around him and the very air ate at his skin even from here. Any closer and they'd suffer delirious injury from merely being in the Hybrid's presence.

The masked man stayed silent.

Kabuto stopped for a moment and looked at Madara from the corner of his eyes. "I'm as confident in our defenses as anyone else but that's a serious risk we're taking if we don't move. Not to mention that we don't know that whatever this was was just a one time thing. There's no way to know if the others will experience similar episodes."

"Delays are intolerable this late; We're staying. Nothing will threaten us here for we have both numbers and strength." The Uchiha's tone brokered no argument. "And we'd need not worry. I believe I know why this occurred; none of our other Hybrids will experience this."

Madara vanished in a Kamui and Kabuto scowled. Sure, withhold information from the guy studying these things. He returned to his notes.

'Can this be applied to Project Super Human?'

Madara now stood behind him. Between Ape's legs was a crude portrait in the dirt of Ape with Sasuke's dead underlings. Crude was a kind way of putting it; it was little better than a toddler's handiwork. This was the confirmation he didn't need but wanted nonetheless.

In brief yet violent portion of the outburst that he bore witness too, he recognized the pain in Ape. That raging against the unfairness of a cruel and indifferent world. He'd gone through the same so long ago. The other Hybrids did not love anyone and that was why they would never achieve this. It was only through loving another and having them torn away so suddenly could anger like this be born.

"You've changed."

Ape flinched and turned to Madara. He was so meek, so withdrawn, and cowed under just his gaze despite all of his immense power. It disgusted him. The Hybrid should be standing tall and ready to tear the world apart because that's what you did with power. You punish the ones who wronged you.

The Hybrid noticed and wiped the tears and snot from his face before his hands moved quickly. 'Am I in trouble?'

His hair returned to its normal pale green and the otherworldly pressure dissipated. Madara held out a hand and lifted Ape as he grabbed it. The Hybrid further withered under the gaze of his dual dojutsu.

"Who hurt you?"

Ape moved with shaky hands.

'Konan...Broly...'

The Uchiha nodded. Ape could not go unpunished but, if he could use this pain, it might be worth the losses.

"I know exactly how you can hurt them in turn."

Author's Note

New year, new chapter! Hope everyone had a great time over the holidays.

500 reviews to bring in the new year! That's insane! Thank you to everyone for taking the time!

Now, admittedly, I lied last chapter that this would be about the Leaf. I started writing and things got away from me and then it became this! Pinky swear that the next one will be primarily Leaf focused.

Anyways, Ape is now a Super Saiyan! How will this change the balance of power? What is Project Super Human? What will Konan do without Amegakure?

Let me know what you think in a review below!

Ent out.

Review Responses!

Jutten: You're the 500th reviewer! Thanks! And, yeah, writing the Sasuke beat down was just as satisfying lmao.

BunkerfreakHD: If that moment ever comes, I'll definitely make it a point to have it be a massive event for everyone.

DTLA1992: There was no real way for me to justify making it longer given that Broly was fresh and Sasuke wasn't. No need to worry about rushing, things are progressing exactly like I want it to so far.

Dontus -not Donut- Powerus: Ah, now I get it! Madara is focused on things at home so everyone is 'safe' for now.

Abyss Emperor: I mean I can think of a few ways to kill Broly even without the Reaper Death Seal. Now, killing Broly fast enough is the real problem, honestly.

fightingchampion: It's important for relations between the villages. If there's no assurances than any peace they have is tentative at best. In such a situation, the stability will only exist as long as Broly is alive. Once he's gone from old age or whatever, there goes another shinobi war.

M: That's the rub, isn't it? Most don't even know he's an alien. they just think of him as absurdly strong with no proper explanation. Mei is the only one who maybe has an idea that Broly isn't just human but it's still a leap to jump to 'he's from outer space'. With that lack of info, they can't think of things in the long term like that.

Music is life: We'll see if that is the case soon...

IfImHereYourStorysProbablyGrea: That's one of the many possibilities for how this could all end. c.c