A/N: Alright, so the PLAN is for the invasion to be done in 2 chapters, including this one. Maybe three, depending on how long this one ends up being.
AMAZING RECEPTION the last few chapters, by the way :)
Also: I'd like to address some commonly asked questions/concerns:
Jiraiya won't be appearing in this fic in any way, if that wasn't obvious
This fic will not touch Shippuden
Naruto's healing factor is present, but not as extreme as in canon
Gaara will not be redeemed. He is an unsympathetic monster
Time for Chapter 51
Enjoy!
Satsuki had expected to feel far more emotion upon encountering Haku Yuki for a second time. She had never been as purely enraged by her mere existence as Naruto was, nor as softly forgiving and accepting as Shikamaru, but she found herself perplexed by how genuinely apathetic she felt seeing her again. The fact that the unlikely Anbu had saved their necks moments ago evened out her feelings to an extent, but even so, Satsuki of all people had the right to strong leanings regarding the huntress.
Currently, Haku was standing between Gaara and the pair of genin, with a frozen kunai drawn as a weapon. Naruto had already warned the girl that her chances were slim at best, but the Anbu did not appear to care what he thought in the slightest. Satsuki could not help but agree with her teammate's assessment. Haku had been far beyond their level during their scuffle, but time had passed, and things had changed. Though she was still unable to rise in order to better her viewing experience, Satsuki committed her entire focus to the battle about to unfold.
After another moment of tense silence, Haku and Gaara both vanished from sight. The reappeared directly in the center of the space between them, clashing forcefully. In a surprising twist, Haku did not budge even an inch upon experiencing the Jinchuuriki's physical might. Her frozen kunai was braced against Gaara's armored left arm, with the ice holding firm against the sand. When they disengaged from their deadlock, the Suna boy swung for her head with his arm of human flesh.
Haku ducked underneath his crude punch and kicked out his legs. As Gaara fell forward, the Anbu let the bottom of his chin drop right onto the point of her knee. With no extra time in between, Haku stabbed her blade down toward the redhead's throat. Gaara was able to catch her wrist before the point could touch him, but only barely. He then tossed the former huntress backwards. As she soared back, Haku pulled a set of icey senbon straight out of the falling rain and sent a volley Gaara's way. He deflected four of five, with the fifth sticking into the skin of his chest.
Both Satsuki and Naruto stared with wide-eyed shock as Haku touched down in front of them. She had decisively won the first exchange, and had taken no damage doing so. Gaara himself hardly looked shaken as he pulled the icy needle from his chest and snapped it in half, but the sequence had been heartening. Seconds later, Haku blitzed in once again. Satsuki strained her eyes to follow the action that ensued. She could just barely make out the motions of both combatants.
As fuzzy as many of the engagements were to her depleted vision, several things were becoming clear very quickly. First and most obviously, Haku Yuki was blindingly fast. Even her most basic maneuvers were nearly always accompanied by an afterimage, and half the time, when Gaara flinched or backed up, Satsuki took a full extra second to perceive what had hit him. The huntress held a speed advantage. It was not enormous, but it was enough to pay immediate dividends. Gaara was genuinely struggling to touch her.
"It's like a game of tag." Naruto said, his own eyes fixed on the perilous duel. Opting not to push herself to speak, Satsuki simply nodded. Each furious exchange was punctuated by a slight, barely-noticeable pause. A small reset for both before they rushed back in again. Haku was winning the majority of these explosive dust-ups, but after roughly ninety seconds of fighting, she was not unscathed when she touched down in front of the genin. There was a thin crack down the center of her mask, and a gash on one of her forearms.
As with every other occasion, the break in the fighting was brief, with both Gaara and Haku rushing in again mere seconds after they had landed. Satsuki strained her perception a touch further, and as a result, she was able to see what came next in detail. In what was likely his first truly clean connection, Gaara drove his earthen fist right between the eyes of the Anbu's mask, knocking her down flat on her back. The Jinchuuriki instantly attempted to capitalize, transmuting his left arm into a spike and stabbing it down toward his fallen foe.
In the split second between having been knocked down and Gaara's attempted skewering, Haku made a seal with her free hand. Just before the redhead could run her through, a pillar of ice shot up from the soaked dirt and entrapped his serrated arm. As quickly as the tide had turned in Gaara's favor, Haku ripped the momentum away from him again, shooting up to her feet and impaling him through the stomach with her frozen kunai. Naruto and Satsuki each perked up, a sudden burst of hope rushing through their systems.
Gaara hacked up a sizable helping of blood, sending it dripping down his chin as Haku's mask fully broke apart and fell from her face, the impact of the redhead's punch having fully cracked it in half. The Jinchuuriki opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced when the huntress twisted her kunai deeper into the wound. Satsuki swallowed nervously. Based upon the look on Gaara's face, one of discomfort rather than fear, things were far from over, but she could not suppress her awe any longer, and one look at Naruto revealed a similar expression of begrudging intrigue.
Haku then ripped her blade free from Gaara's body, and reared it back in preparation to slit his throat. As she swung it across, the redhead suddenly flared to life again, with the same ominous red glow he had displayed against Naruto reigniting. Shattering his frozen restraints, Gaara put his left arm in the path of Haku's kunai just in time to knock it off course. He then kicked the huntress in the chest, sending her sliding back across the slick dirt. Coming to a stop right where she had started upon her arrival, Haku dusted herself off and stood straight.
Satsuki struggled to stand again. The situation at hand was choked with a tension that was eating her alive. She failed to make herself vertical, only making it halfway before sinking back down to her knees. She could not overcome the mark's grip. Naruto was at her side immediately, laying a hand on her shoulder as they both watched Haku from behind.
"Don't push too hard. You've been through it today." he said in a hushed tone. Satsuki felt hot frustration bubbling up within her. Naruto had taken as much, if not far more damage from Gaara, and he was nearly ready to fight again. She had been reduced to a liability. The Uchiha held her tongue, pushing down the anger to keep her focus where it needed to be.
"Well, now. This is a surprise. You're a riot." Gaara called out to the huntress, his abdominal wound visibly beginning to mend. Haku, characteristically, said nothing in response. As perturbed as she obviously was beneath the surface, the Anbu was a portrait of professionalism. Cold, clinical, and deadly.
"Though, with a face like yours, there are better things you could be doing than being a manhunter." the redhead jeered, filling the silence. This time, Haku did indeed give him a reaction.
"Shut the hell up." she shot back in a blunt, monotone voice. Her form then flickered, proceeding her reappearance directly in front of the redhead. With that, they began their bout anew. The engagements had intensified. Satsuki could feel their collisions in her bones. Haku was significantly stronger than she had anticipated. The more she considered things from a logical perspective, however, the more sense it made. In hindsight, it was likely that Shikamaru's presence on the bridge had clouded the huntress' focus to some degree, and there was every chance that she had simply not been taking Satsuki and Naruto entirely seriously before it was too late.
Compounded with the months she had spent working, and likely training with the Anbu Black Ops, Haku's performance against Gaara was far from surprising. She had been far stronger than the genin to begin with, and that gap was still present. It was irritating in its own way that so little had changed despite their best efforts, but as of now, Haku's strength was nothing but a boon to them. Over the following two minutes, the genin watched in silence as the former huntress dueled Gaara evenly. After those minutes had elapsed, Naruto spoke.
"She can't beat him." he said grimly. Satsuki painfully turned her head up to look at his face. He looked incredibly stressed, with his eyes narrowed and jaw slightly tensed.
"What do you mean?" she managed to ask, her voice hoarse. Naruto's gaze did not waver from the battle raging before them.
"Gaara's healing faster than Haku can hurt him. She's faster, and strong enough to compete with him head to head, but she won't win this if it drags on. He's just tougher than she is, and he's finding ways in." he explained. The Uchiha managed a nod. Naruto's senses were sharper than hers at the moment, that much was clear. After another minute of observation, Naruto stood up, leaving Satsuki kneeling on the ground. He then curled his hands into fists and let out a short grunt. His pupils thinned to slits, his irises turned red, and his flaming orange aura of chakra returned to him. He was ready to fight again, it seemed.
Satsuki felt her stress intensify. It had been hard enough to watch a girl she hardly knew struggle against Gaara, but Naruto's prospects against the Suna boy had been laid bare. He could not defeat him. Unlike before, he would not be fighting alone, but the fact remained that he would be punching above his weight. Satsuki attempted to speak again, but her voice came out as nothing but a croak. Having heard her, the blonde glanced back.
"I can't sit back and watch. I have to help." he said firmly. The Uchiha girl lowered her eyes back to the ground. A moment later, she heard him push off and throw himself back into the fire. She was utterly helpless. Crippled and weak. She shared his conviction, but unlike him, all she could do was sit idly by. She had never felt more painfully civilian. Gaara's demonic power had been too much for her to handle in every possible way, and while Naruto had been beaten in the end, his own tailed beast had allowed him to compete beyond his natural limits.
Jinchuuriki had fascinated her as a concept on paper, and upon learning of Naruto's status, she had done her fair share of research, but actually seeing them in action had filled her with entirely different emotions than curiosity. She was appalled. Not by what they were, per se, but what they were capable of. Gaara of the Sand was almost certainly a prodigy in and of himself, but he was easily more powerful than most Jonin with the help of his demon. Naruto was a far more stark example. He was more talented than many gave him credit for, but he had been pushed to the brink by Neji Hyuga. The strength he had demonstrated in his losing effort against Gaara was easily double that ceiling, nearly triple.
As hard as she tried to suppress and kill the feeling, Satsuki found herself infuriated by it all. She had given absolutely everything she had been able to give to stop Gaara. Her efforts now felt completely worthless. Gaara had been holding back, and Naruto had outperformed her. Now, out of absolutely nowhere, Haku was showing a level of class Satsuki had yet to even touch. The marks on the Uchiha's body spread an inch further.
'Too weak. Every single time.'
Today had been intended as one of entertainment and leisure.
Being an actively serving member of the Anbu Black Ops largely meant that downtime was incredibly limited, especially when on an assignment, but simple security for what essentially amounted to a sporting event had sounded flatly relaxing. For a few hours, it had been. Haku had been posted atop the arena as surveillance, which allowed her a clear view of the matches, and little to do other than watch. She had genuinely enjoyed the spectacle. Of course, they had been instructed to be at the ready, but that was standard procedure.
The moment things had gone south, her platoon captain had been instantly prepared. Formations, positions, and individual tasks had been determined ahead of time. Such thorough base-covering suggested that the invasion had been far from a surprise to the village administration. Haku herself had not been given her own orders until several minutes after the invasion had begun, but the directive had been simple.
Neutralize the threat of Gaara of the Sand by any means necessary.
Within the former huntress' mind, the wording directly translated to elimination. It was the safest, surest method of ensuring that the redhead would not wreak any more havoc than he already had. That task was proving utterly daunting. Gaara was powerful, crafty, and completely relentless. He was crude and bruising, but he was physically overwhelming in the extreme. Despite her initial advantages, Haku currently found herself feeling a dull ache from deep in her bones. She had scarcely been hit cleanly, but she had been forced to block or deflect dozens of blows from the Suna boy. Even while playing a relatively clean defensive game, she was feeling the effects.
'I've cut him open a dozen different ways, and he just keeps coming. Nothing works twice, either.' Haku thought to herself, side-stepping a blitz from Gaara as she pondered. The redhead regained his footing quickly, turning to face her with a sadistic grin. There was madness in his eyes. It was barely restrained. He was unhinged behind his mask of snark.
"I like the way you dance, whoever you are. A woman after my own heart." Gaara joked, wiping blood from his cheek as a gash mended rapidly. Haku tightened her grip on the hilt of her kunai. Things were going nowhere, and quickly. She could outmaneuver him, and she was significantly more skilled across the board, but the gap in strength was becoming more and more apparent. Every time Gaara touched her, it moved her, but the inverse was not true. He felt like metal.
Gaara gave her no more time to think or plan, as he dug his back foot into the dirt and pushed off. Though Haku initially began to move to meet, she stopped when she caught a crimson blur out of the corner of her eye. Rushing in from the sidelines, Naruto came barreling into play and collided with the Suna boy head-on. The boys bounced off of one another in opposite directions, sending the blonde skidding back toward Haku.
"Took you long enough." the Anbu muttered as Naruto settled beside her. The genin raised an eyebrow and gave her a sideways look.
"I figured you preferred fighting alone." he said. Haku cracked her neck and remained ever vigilant of Gaara, who was observing them with predatory interest.
"You'd be right normally, but in this case, I'll accept the help." she replied. Naruto nodded and blinked steam out of his eyes. Rain was evaporating on contact with his body.
"You should know, he won't tire out. Both he and I are Jinchuuriki, if you know what that means." he revealed. Haku's eyes widened slightly. It certainly explained the blonde's explosive burst of power on the bridge. She had only ever encountered one other such container, half a decade prior during an excursion to the hidden mist with Zabuza. The experience had been horrifying.
"I'm familiar. It explains his recovery." she said curtly. A plan then began to form in her mind. Charging in face-first was unlikely to work, even with Naruto's added strength.
"I need ten seconds. Can you handle that?" she asked. The genin nodded again, widening his stance. A beat later, he rushed toward Gaara, who returned his aggression in kind. The Jinchuuriki butted heads forcefully, sending a tangible burst of wind in all directions. Wasting no time, Haku put her kunai in her mouth and made a hand seal with both hands. Dredging up all of the water in the ground she could muster, the huntress went to work.
In the outline of a square, four large pillars of ice rose up from the dirt around Gaara and Naruto. Once they were of a sufficient height, Haku separated her hands and leapt up into action. Landing on the side of the upper left pillar, the huntress launched herself down toward the warring Jinchuuriki. Naruto, appearing to feel her coming before Gaara, stepped back and left space. Slotting through the opening, Haku slashed Gaara across the forehead with the edge of her frozen kunai.
Before the redhead could touch her, Haku bounced off the ground and landed on the side of the opposite pillar. Exchanging a brief look with Naruto, the huntress locked herself in. The stage was set. What came next was a brilliant improvisational effort from both. Though Naruto was incapable of truly competing with Gaara in any kind of pitched fight, he was able to stalemate him in singular exchanges, and pin him in place. As the blonde fought the Suna boy head-on, Haku ricocheted from pillar to pillar, lacing the redhead with icy senbon from all directions. Her aim was precise, allowing her to avoid striking Naruto inadvertently.
On occasion, when the opening was clear and exploitable, she would blast down into the skirmish itself, stealing a quick cut of her blade before slipping away. The dual threat of being caught off-guard by Naruto's bruising strength, and Haku's constant barrage of needles rendered Gaara largely impotent for a time. The two-way tactic worked marvelously for nearly a minute. After sixty seconds had passed, however, Gaara appeared to have had enough. As Haku rebounded off of the bottom right pillar, the Jinchuuriki floored Naruto with a cracking punch to the jaw, and stomped a foot into the dirt.
Upon his foot's impact with the ground, a shockwave of raw chakra forcefully expanded from his body. The burst slowed Haku's charge just enough to render her easily visible to him, and as a result, when she reached him, Gaara seized her by the neck and violently threw her into the dense base of one of the pillars. The ice cracked as her back slammed into it. Naruto was back on his feet quickly, wrapping his arms around the redhead from behind and preventing him from pursuing the Anbu girl. In a display of immense physical strength, Naruto lifted him up, rotated him over his hip, and slammed him down into the ground.
The moment of control was short-lived, with Gaara powering back to his feet easily and shucking the genin off of him before swatting him away. He then turned back toward the huntress. Haku scampered up and leapt vertically, narrowly avoiding Gaara's earthen fist, which slammed into the pillar to her back. The mass of ice shattered from the bottom up, sending large chunks falling to the ground. Haku flipped backward mid-air, propelling herself away from the Jinchuuriki.
She landed thirty or so feet away from the redhead. She was joined seconds later by Naruto. The entire sequence, from start to finish, lasted less than two minutes. The battle was being contested at a torrid pace. The leaf ninja both stared intently at Gaara, who was standing in the remnants of the frozen monument Haku had created for their makeshift maneuver. The arrogant humor had left his features. He now looked solemn and serious. More pertinently, he appeared to be taking deep breaths.
Though Haku initially assumed this to mean that Naruto had exaggerated the extent of a Jinchuuriki's natural endurance, she quickly ruled it out, as another explanation existed. It was unlikely that Gaara was tiring from the fighting itself, but the inhuman healing factor that had kept him healthy had to draw on something to function. That source was almost certainly his own chakra. While he had not been severely injured in any one moment, Haku had inflicted hundreds of small wounds with her needles, each of which had been individually healed.
Alongside the far from insignificant punishment he had likely recovered from prior to the Anbu's arrival, it stood to reason that the redhead's stamina was beginning to hemorrhage. He was unnaturally durable, but even Gaara had a breaking point. They were wearing him down. For a time, all three combatants simply stood and caught their breath. The rain had yet to let up. The silent break came to an end when Gaara's body began to glow a deep red at its outlines.
That red gleam expanded outward, forming into an aura much like Naruto's, but darker in shade. Haku felt a chill run down her spine. He was finally releasing the truest extents of his power. One look at Naruto's face confirmed that he likely felt it too. The huntress pursed her lips as Gaara's full strength revealed itself. This was his limit. She could feel no more hidden reserves within him. His signature had increased by a small, but significant amount. He had been operating at eighty-some percent of his maximum.
"What is he…" Naruto started, trailing off into silence. Haku narrowed her eyes. Gaara's aura was shrinking inward, drawing toward an epicenter in the palm of his left hand. Slowly but surely, small beads of black and white chakra began appearing around his hand. The beads soon began to merge together in the Jinchuuriki's hand, forming a dark purple sphere. The blood in Haku's veins froze. The raw density and volume of the chakra being packed into the orb was horrifying.
"This wasn't my first choice, but I'll admit it, my back's against the wall." Gaara said calmly, extending his left arm out with his palm upturned to support the purple sphere. Naruto backed up a step, his eyes wide.
"I can't stop that." he said. Haku's mind flew into overdrive. Everything about Gaara's body language suggested that attacking him was an awful idea at present. She could not accurately predict the yield of the sphere, but it was bound to be massive. Gaara's arm then dipped slightly.
"Die." he said darkly, tossing the sphere in their direction. Haku burst into action, taking Naruto by the wrist and pulling him along as quickly as she possibly could toward Satsuki in a desperate bid for survival.
The compact orb then hit the dirt, exploding on impact.
Kakashi grit his teeth and stabbed a kunai into the roof to stop himself from sliding back into the red barrier. Of all the things he had expected to find himself doing that day, battling an undead puppet of Hashirama Senju had not been one of them. Guy was engaged in battle with a reanimation of Tobirama Senju, younger brother of Hashirama and Second Hokage to the former's First. Hiruzen, conversely, was struggling against Orochimaru. The three-pronged conflict was at something of a stalemate.
It was obvious that while the Snake Sanin had revived the first two leaders of Konoha in image and even in personality to a degree, he had not been able to call forth their full strength, as both Guy and Kakashi were able to fend them off effectively. Little ground was being gained, but equally as little lost. Hiruzen was overcoming Orochimaru incredibly slowly, which was good in a vacuum, but a single issue remained. For all the damage the Jonin had managed to inflict on the two reanimated Kage, they always regenerated.
Kakashi had removed one or both of Hashirama's arms three separate times, and each time, they simply reformed themselves. Guy, on the other hand, had flatly blown Tobirama in half twice, with the same recovery rendering his efforts for naught. Pulling his kunai from the wood, Kakashi ran toward Hashirama, who met him halfway with equal force. As they clashed and pushed back against one another, the late Hokage spoke.
"I've been meaning to ask this, but you don't appear to be an Uchiha. Where and how did you get that eye?" he asked. Kakashi knocked his hands sideways and kicked Hashirama in the chest, sending him back several feet.
"It was a gift." he answered. The undead Shinobi nodded and shifted his eyes over to the battle between his brother and guy. His autonomy appeared to extend as far as the base of his neck and no further.
"I understand." he said. The fight then resumed, with Kakashi taking the backfoot to go on the defensive. A solution was needed, and quickly. Guy's conditioning and stamina was famed for a reason, but the longer things dragged on, the more likely he was to fade and break the deadlock in favor of the reanimated Kage. Kakashi himself was already beginning to feel heavy-limbed. As his mind raced to find an answer to the question being posed, an inkling came to him.
It was a shaky solution, and would be incredibly difficult to execute, but it was likely the only surefire way to solve the puzzle before them. Maneuvering toward the center of the roof, the Copy Ninja soon found himself back-to-back with Guy, whose body was glowing with a green aura.
"Any luck?" the flamboyant Jonin asked. Kakashi shook his head and deflected a pair of shuriken thrown his way by Hashirama. He then closed his left eye.
"No, but I've got an idea. Two minutes from now, I need you to bunch them together for me. I can finish this all at once." he explained. Guy gave him a look over his shoulder.
"If you're suggesting what I think you are, then you only have one shot at this. Are you sure there's no other way?" he pressed. Kakashi shifted his feet in preparation for the oncoming First Hokage.
"If there is, I haven't thought of it yet. We're running a tight schedule. Can you or can't you box them in?" he shot back. Guy gave a thumbs-up and stepped forward. With confirmation of the simple plan, the Copy Ninja jumped straight up to avoid Hashirama's charge and launched a kunai down toward him. The blade was easily deflected. Kakashi landed back on the roof a moment later, prepared to hold the line until he was ready to put his plot into action. However, something happened that froze the entire village in shock.
Off in the distance, beyond the border, a massive explosion rocked the battlefield.
A/N: Alright, so this chapter was meant to come out earlier today, but COVID hit me hard two days ago, and I've felt like HELL.
And yes, to address what I know some of you may ask, I am taking a higher-end interpretation of Haku's strength based upon statements on the bridge. In this version of events, she's easily Jonin-tier.
I can't promise another chapter this weekend, but I will try. Either way, I hope this one was enjoyable.
I love you all
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