Insert disclaimer here

Blah Blah Blah basic text (i.e. description, speech, etc)

Blah Blah Blah Thought or some transaction within someone's mind

Blah Blah Blah Kyuubi talking Jutsu will also be bold

BLAH BLAH BLAH yelling or emphasis of some sort

Naruto of the Nine Tails

Rated M for language, violence, adult content, and graphic imagery

Chp 27: Enemy at the Gates

Konoha Coliseum…

"Ku ku ku," Orochimaru chuckled, watching as the stadium descended into chaos beyond the barrier. "Do you see Sarutobi-sensei? This is my power, the ability to create such a potent force from nothing in the few years that I've been gone. If you had chosen me instead of that brat… but no matter. You didn't and now this is my revenge, my gift to you, the destruction of Konoha!" he gloated, turning to face his sense once more.

But what he found surprised Orochimaru. Sarutobi-sensei did not seem at all phased or pained as Orochimaru had expected. Instead his old teacher appeared… tired.

"You have accomplished nothing, Baka Deishi," the Sandaime murmured, looking as if he were being crushed under an immense weight as he calmly surveyed the battlefield with the eye of a warrior who had seen all of this before… and lamented that he would live to see it again.

The next second an enormous pressure descended upon the arena, shocking Orochimaru as he realized it was not coming from his former teacher.

Genjutsu never did seem to stick to Naruto…

Meanwhile…

The only thing Hinata knew was an overwhelming sense of peace. She felt as if, in this moment, everything was right in the world and that she could finally relax… that she could sleep right here and nothing would bother her.

Then there was a deafening roar, shaking the ground as a thin wave of malicious chakra swept over the battlefield, cruelly returning her to reality and crushing that wonderful sense of peace. She was… on the ground? Yes, she was lying on the ground.

'Why am I sleeping in the dirt?' she wondered lethargically.

"We're under attack!" someone yelled.

'Attack?' she wondered as she tried to remember where she was. 'I was… I was fighting. Naruto and I were fighting,' she remembered, vague images of Gaara and the arena floating through her foggy mind.

Screaming… All around her, people were screaming, running scared as flashes of steel and short range ninjutsu filled the air.

People were dying…

They were under attack…

'Naruto…' she thought, her faded pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Quickly pushing herself to her hands and knees, she shook herself, ridding her mind of the daze as her Byakuugan flared to life taking the entire scene in at every gory depth as she zeroed in on her partner's presence.

Naruto… she couldn't see him. She could feel him all around her but even to her supernatural sight he had become a shining blur of motion and chakra racing around the arena… and everywhere he appeared death followed. A sound ninja that had been about to finish off a gennin was suddenly crushed into the concrete of the coliseum. The next instant a pair of sand ninja across the stadium trying to crowd a Konoha chunnin screamed in agony as their bodies were torn by claws moving too fast for their eyes to see. To anyone without enhanced vision Naruto seemed to be everywhere laying waste to the enemy as the majority of the Konoha ninja present concentrated on evacuating as many non-combatants as possible.

'We are at war,' Hinata thought with a detached calm as she tracked a group of three ninja, chunnin by the look of them. One of them had spotted her a second ago, now he had pointed her out to the other two and they were closing in quickly.

Mechanically, Hinata dropped into a hunter's crouch bringing her glowing palms up in front of her in the classic jyuuken ready stance, the world slowed to a crawl around her as she analyzed her opponents.

Twenty meters…

She would wait until they were close, too close to stop themselves.

Fifteen meters…

Once they were close, she would cross the distance, upsetting the angle of their attacks and hopefully throwing off their coordination as they tried to adjust.

Ten meters…

The one on the left was three paces behind the others and had his hand in his pouch. He was likely a support ninja of some kind. Medic? Long range? Irrelevant. Based on his build he was likely not a melee specialist which would give her the advantage.

Nine meters…

The man in the middle was holding a kunai in each hand. Tall, nimble built, long arms. Melee specialist, prefers weapons.

Eight meters…

The man on the right was performing handseals. Ninjutsu? Genjutsu? Doesn't matter what it is. She would need to eliminate him before he finishes it.

Seven meters…

Knife thrust to the diaphragm, use jyuuken to compromise the aorta, heel palm to the chin. Incapable of retaliation, death would be nearly instantaneous.

Six meters…

She could cross behind the melee specialist, there was a point on the back that would cause momentary numbness in the arms and one at his waist that she could use to disrupt the sciatic nerve.

Five meters…

The support would just be bringing his left hand out of his pouch, he'd be wide open. Open palm to the ribcage below the armpit, strike the vein to burst the heart. Reverse momentum, finish the melee specialist.

Four meters…

Hinata took a settling breath, adrenaline singing in her veins as she dug the ball of her foot into the arena floor, every muscle in her body tensed as she leaned forward, ready to bolt forward and destroy her enemies… only to pause as her would-be opponents were violently swept into the air by the sudden arrival of her overprotective partner, their bodies twisted and broken from the force of Naruto's tails.

Hinata blinked owlishly. "Well, that was anti-climactic," she muttered dully, taking a moment to track the three men through the air with her advanced vision before rushing off to join Naruto in the defense of her home.

Sasuke's Apartment…

Moments ago, a curious device of questionable origin on Sasuke's desk had clicked to life, its screen flashing letters as a catchy tune filled the apartment.

"…You got mud on yo' face! You big disgrace! Kickin' your can all over the place! Singin'…We will we will rock you…We will we will rock you!"

We Will Rock You, Queen

Meanwhile in the stands…

"YOOOUTH!" Gai roared, successfully freaking the hell out of the surrounding invaders as he axe kicked a rather unfortunate Suna shinobi, crushing him into gelatinous goo and creating a (in Gai's humble and not at all skewed opinion) disappointing two-meter-wide crater in the concrete. "That makes thirty-seven! Top that Kakashi!" he crowed, punching the air in victory.

"…Forty, forty-one, forty-two," Kakashi counted absently as he stalked past, cutting down invaders with ruthless efficiency as he went.

For a moment, Gai stared dully after his eternal rival… then he spontaneously combusted with in the dreaded Flames of Youthful Indignation™. "DAMN YOU KAKASHI!" he screamed, tugging furiously at his meticulously cut hair.

"Hm?" Kakashi grunted curiously, absently hurling a kunai into the distance as he turned around. "Oh, hey Gai, didn't see you there," he said before turning to face a group of Oto shinobi that had just come out of a nearby stairwell. "Forty-four, forty-five, forty… Oh look, Hinata's up," he realized as she and Naruto appeared in the stands, dancing around each other in an endless waltz of destruction.

"So beautiful," Gai sniffed, wiping away manly tears of joy as he absently backhanded an Oto ninja through a row of bleachers.

"Is this just a game to you?" Kurenai asked, horrified. They were under attack! Their home was being invaded! They were at war and…. And her peers were joking around like nothing was wrong! Worse even… They were acting like this was fun.

"Yes and no," Asuma replied as he slashed at a Suna kunoichi that had gotten too close. "It's more like gallows humor. Don't take it too seriously and it doesn't bother you as much. If we don't laugh we're gonna cry, ya know? Besides, it's not like—Naruto you kill thieving little bastard!" he squawked as a chunk of rubble the size of a large dog flew past his ear and crushed the aforementioned Suna kunoichi right as Asuma went for the kill.

"Yes and no, my ass," Kurenai mumbled sarcastically as she finished off another opponent.

"And what a fine ass it is," Asuma chuckled. Was he going to be spending a couple weeks in the doghouse for that comment? Probably. Was it worth it?

The flaming blush on Kurenai's cheeks said yes.

Elsewhere…

'Who invades a hidden village during a high security event?' Sasuke wondered as he idly parried yet another poorly aimed (in his "humble" opinion) kunai and stabbed its owner. "Hell, who invades a hidden village?" he asked himself as he hurled his kunai with pinpoint precision (once again in his "humble" opinion) into the eye of a distracted Suna ninja.

Infiltrate a hidden village? Sure. Happens all the time, but one does not simply invade a hidden village! It wasn't done!

Why?

Because, as anyone with any knowledge of ninja history could tell you, there was a damn good reason why all of the Great Wars had been largely confined to sparsely populated and poorly protected border countries, never mind spreading into a major hidden village … it certainly wasn't as if the villages were actually hidden or particularly hard to get to (they did have clients to think of after all). And that "damn good reason" was that—unlike the feudal castles favored by samurai—ninja fortifications weren't so much meant to keep attackers out as provide an overwhelming advantage to the defender once some idiot was stupid enough to get caught inside it. It was why most villages had a set of favored techniques suited to their terrain.

In most cases this was something simple like an Iwa ninja creating an earth wall saturated with their chakra to make it easier to move through or a Konoha ninja camping in the trees. This was because ninja warfare was incredibly fluid and required mobility above all else; the big nasty jutsu that could roast you like a holiday turkey doesn't matter if you aren't there to get hit by it. Unfortunately, that kind of mobility didn't leave much time to build anything big and permanent. So the modus operandi was to make something that the defender could construct quickly, with minimal effort, and afford to lose.

Seeing as the denizens of Konoha and similar villages had spent the last hundred years fortifying the single locations they had lived in for generations, this was obviously not the case with the hidden villages.

"This just isn't fair," Sasuke sighed as he sped down a side street near the arena.

Case and point, Sasuke was now running away from a particularly persistent group of Oto ninja. In any other city, Sasuke would likely be in some serious trouble but Konoha was his home and, more importantly, the home of the Uchiha clan and a disproportionate number of fire users.

Dodging into a particular alley—recognizable by the tiny uchiwa fan carved into the corner of one of the buildings—Sasuke ran through a familiar set of handseals, running just fast enough to stay ahead of his pursuers. Then, once he had reached the opposite end of the alley, he quickly spun around and kicked his closest pursuer back into his companions, never releasing the tiger seal he had finished on.

"Katon: Endan!" Sasuke barked, spitting a reasonable sized fireball back into the alley… which was promptly engulfed in a hellish inferno that did absolutely no damage to the surrounding buildings while reducing the unfortunate invaders to smoldering husks.

They didn't even have time to scream.

This alley and a number of others like it scattered all over the village were commonly referred to as "Madara's Corridor" by those in the know. In the simplest terms, they were a handy combination of stonework and fuinjutsu put together by Uchiha Madara and his then ally Uzumaki Mito. In short, it was a fire proof bottle neck with seals to keep the air saturated with just enough wind chakra to turn a small fire jutsu into something very, very, lethal. Just one of the nasty surprises scattered all over the village. Also handy for clearing out litter and stray vermin, a fact that everyone tended to… "forget," to tell the gennin.

"Didn't everyone learn that this was a horrible idea after Uzu?" Sasuke wondered as he circled back toward the stadium. 'Come to think of it, wasn't Orochimaru a Konoha ninja?' Even if his allies had forgotten about the catastrophic losses Kiri had taken at the beginning of the second war to knock Uzushiogakure out of play, one would think the man would at least brief his men on some of the dangers lurking in Konoha. "At the very least he should have-"

"Shan-na-ro!"

"What the hell?" Sasuke wondered, turning to face the echoing war cry of his teammate only to freeze at the sight. "Well… you don't see that every day."

Moments Earlier…

It had been such a nice day Sakura lamented as she dodged a pair of shuriken. The sun was shining, it was just the right temperature to be out and about, there had been plenty of eye candy, she'd gotten to traumatize one of her friends… then these inconsiderate assholes just had to go and so rude as to invade her home, ruining her perfectly good mood!

"Come here!" the irate kunoichi roared as she brought her whip around to snag the Oto ninja that had been… unfortunate enough to nearly ruin her haircut with clumsily thrown shuriken and jerked him toward her and into a vicious roundhouse kick that sent the poor shinobi sailing over the outer wall of the arena with a satisfyingly wet sounding crunch.

"Was it really necessary to roundhouse him in the groin?"

'Strictly speaking? No. But if you break the first few, word gets around,' Sakura explained as she brought her overcharged riding crop around to slap some poor unfortunate soul into another unfortunate soul… and maybe another two or three, Sakura wasn't paying too close attention.

"But isn't that what dad is supposed to try and do to our theoretical boyfriend? You know, our poor defenseless suitor with the fancy ninja magic and a P.H.D. in Killing People?"

'The core principle is transitory,' Sakura argued.

"Well yeah, but—Oh shit! Look ou-"

But the warning came too late as Sakura started molding chakra for a quick kawarimi only to feel the cold touch of steel against her neck.

"Too late," Inner Sakura sighed.

"D-drop your weapons and put your hands behind your head!"

"Did he just…?" Inner Sakura wondered as she pondered the fallacies of demanding a surrender in the middle of a melee.

'Yup,' Sakura replied, not moving but silently agreeing with… herself. Honestly, when you have the drop on somebody in the middle of this kind of madness you really should just end it and move on. Not that she was going to complain about it any time soon.

"I said drop your weapons and put your hands behind your head!" he barked again a little more confidently.

"There is no way we can pass on a setup like that," Inner Sakura said, grinning evilly as the fires of vindictive mischief danced in her eyes.

"You really don't want me to do that," Sakura deadpanned, hands in the air as she turned an equally droll stare on the ninja that had ordered her to surrender… like that was ever going to happen. 'I really shouldn't. Look at the poor boy, he's quivering!' she argued as she stared up at the larger but clearly terrified Oto ninja.

The confused young man just stared at her for a moment, surprised. "I-I said hands behind your head, brat!"

"Can we? Can we? Pretty please~"

"No, seriously. You really don't want me to do that," Sakura tried, one last time. It just wouldn't be sportsmanlike to take advantage of her opponent like this. He had gotten the drop on her after all and hadn't killed her immediately. So he deserved a fighting chance… right?

"I've got a sword to your neck! You'll do as I tell you!" the poor dumb Oto ninja barked. What the hell was wrong with this tree hugger? You don't argue when your enemy has a blade to you! It just wasn't done.

"Oh come on! A second ago you hit a mother fucker with another mother fucker after you going all Chuck Norris on some guy's family jewels! This one is practically begging for it!" her inner self protested.

Sakura sighed defeatedly as she dropped her whip and riding crop thinking that she really shouldn't be using them anyway, she had only started using them a month ago after all. "…Well, with an offer like that, how can I refuse?" Sakura replied, a positively sinister grin spreading across her lips as she let her hands drift behind her head… to grasp a conveniently placed and suspiciously disembodied handle. 'Ready?'

"Ready? Bitch please! For this, I am always ready! Kunoichi Hijutsu Oogi…"

"Hammer Space! Shan-na-ro!" Sakura roared as she brought a stupidly large mallet down on the unfortunate shinobi, squishing him into squishy ninja paste.

"Booyah! Surprise mother fuckers! Bet'cha didn't see that coming, did ya?! Aaaahahahaha!" Inner Sakura cackled as her physical self proceeded to dispatch her attackers with hilarious ease and liberal application of blunt force trauma.

Meanwhile, off in the distance anyone allied with Konoha that had been considering coming to Sakura's aide suddenly decided that the pink haired gennin of questionable mental stability and disturbing physical prowess wielding half a ton of surprisingly effective comic relief had the situation well in hand and redirected their efforts to less traumatizing endeavors like war and killing people with their bare hands.

'By the way…'

"Hm? What? Make it quick, I have more demented cackling to get to."

'What the hell is a P.H.D.?' Sakura wondered.

"Uuuuh…"

Back with Sasuke…

"That's kind of hot," Sasuke muttered, before he could stop himself as he distractedly parried a punch that would have cracked his jaw from some shmuck that had been trying to sneak up on him.

"Dude… you have some serious issu-gurk!" his opponent started, only to come up short as Sasuke looped a length of ninja wire around the man's throat and gave a vicious tug, decapitating him in a single motion.

"Dude… you have no idea," Sasuke replied mockingly imitating the man's voice as he snapped the wire to throw off the blood.

CRASH!

"What the-" Sasuke yelped, spinning around to face what sounded like Naruto throwing the mother of all temper tantrums. 'Oh… it's just a giant snake as thick as a building with three heads,' he realized with a small amount of relief.

Sasuke absently noted as, off in the distance, Naruto tore a man in half that it really spoke to the skewed world view of the more recent generations of Konoha ninja that one of Orochimaru's largest summons was considered the lesser of two evils when compared to the irritable nature of a twelve-year-old.

Admittedly, said twelve-year-old occasionally had breathtaking anger management issues but he was getting better, honest!

Meanwhile, back with the plot…

"Oi! Sakura!" Sasuke called, kicking Oto ninja in the throat before hopping up to the coliseum canopy for a better line of sight.

"What the hell do you want, dick head?" Sakura demanded as she swatted a pair of Suna shinobi into a nearby wall…that was going to stain. "I'm kinda busy!"

"You mind watching my body after I pass out? Or at least hiding me somewhere I won't get found or trampled?"

"What? Trampled? Body? The fuck is this shit? Is he gonna take a nap or something?! Because we are in the middle of a fucking war here!" Inner Sakura raged.

"Um… Sure? I guess-"

"Good," he replied, closing his eyes and concentrating as the air seemed to shimmer and ripple around him like churning water.

Sakura blinked owlishly as she realized why Sasuke wanted her to catch him. She didn't need to be a sensor when she could literally feel the chakra in the air like a heavy mist, it was so thick. Whatever the hell he was about to do, he was going to be unconscious… for days.

Sasuke, meanwhile, had turned sideways and raised his arms as if drawing a bow, sighting past his fingers at the giant snake, waiting. Then he saw it, for a split second the three heads would be perfectly aligned. In that moment his Mangekyo flashed pure red, Sussano coming to life, bow in hand as he drew his hand back and released a bolt of condensed energy the size of a tree at speeds no normal eye could fully track.

And across the village all the three heads of the most powerful runespoor of the Ryuchi Caves vanished in a spray of gore.

If Sakura's jaw hadn't been attached to her face she would have lost it. "Holy…" she murmured.

"Shit…" Inner Sakura finished.

Thud

Sakura blinked suddenly realizing that she had forgotten to catch Sasuke.

"You don't think he'll be mad, do you?" Inner Sakura asked nervously.

'I'll just tell him that I had to drop him to fight off… someone,' Sakura replied, pulling her unconscious teammate into a fireman's carry as she hefted her mallet.

"He's never going to buy that…"

'Sure he will,' Sakura argued optimistically.

"And when he doesn't?"

'…Oops?' she replied lamely as she jogged off to find a safe place to stash Sasuke.

Meanwhile…

"Whoa…" Hinata murmured, more than a little impressed by her teammate's display of power but her revelry was cut short as Naruto gave a vicious snarl. "Naruto?" Hinata asked nervously. "Naruto, what is it?" She couldn't remember the last time he'd seemed this angry.

"Shukaku…" he growled, his voice low and guttural, radiating from his chest as glared into the distance.

"Naruto? What are you-" she started only to freeze as she felt the enormous buildup of chakra outside the village walls and made the mistake of turning to look, sacrificing her perception of her surroundings to focus her sight into the distance. What she saw… was terrifying.

Boom!

"AAAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm free!" a demonic voice cackled gleefully, echoing ominously over the hidden village as something burst through the treetops outside the walls.

It stood taller than any building in Konoha, its body a mass of malevolent, sickly yellow chakra to her enhanced sight. Hinata gulped, terrified as she recognized the creature from her great uncle Hiroshi's description from the Second Great War. The Ichibi stood unopposed in the forests of Konoaha and it was building what was likely the most destructive attack that Hinata had ever seen, thousands upon thousands of tiny orbs of yin and yang chakra floating in the air above the forests of Konoha slowly converging on a single point in front of its snout.

The other ninja felt it before they saw it, even those without any sort of sensing ability couldn't miss such an enormous buildup of vile chakra so close to the village walls. Most of the ninja in the area had no idea what was going on, they had never dealt with a jinchuuriki. The older ninja though, the ones that lived through the third war and the Kyuubi attack recognized the signs of one of the most destructive abilities in a Tailed Beast's arsenal.

"Gods deliver us," one of the nearby veteran whispered as he turned to stare, horrified, as he realized what was about to happen.

The Imari…

Panicking, Hinata allowed her vision to return to normal just in time to see Naruto crouched low, his body coiled like a crossbow as wisps of chakra wafted off his body, before he launched himself off the roof with such tremendous force that he shattered the tiles like they had been struck by a meteor.

"NOOO!" Hinata screamed, reaching out as if she was trying to pull him back but he was gone, just a glowing mass of chakra streaking into the distance.

She only had enough time to deactivate her Byakuugan to avoid being blinded when the world turned white.

KrackaBOOM!

With a sound like a lightning bolt snapping next to her ear, Hinata was struck by a concussive shockwave that nearly knocked her off her feet. And off in the distance, no more than a few kilometers from the village wall, a great cloud of dust rose into the air at the epicenter of the blast. Konoha was safe…

At a horrible cost.

"No…" Hinata sobbed, staring disbelieving into the cloud of destruction that had taken the place of the Ichibi's attack and her closest friend. "No! Naruto, please no. You can't be… please come back," she begged, stretching her supernatural vision as she desperately searched for any sign of her partner.

Sasuke's Apartment…

Click

"Be careful making wishes in the dark. Can't be sure when they've hit their mark-"

Back in Sasuke's apartment, the odd little music player switched songs of its own accord.

My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light 'Em Up), Fall Out Boy

From somewhere deep in the smoke, a wash of light appeared in the gloom… and the ground shook as something moved inside the dust…

Something else was in that cloud and it most assuredly not the Ichibi.

The whole world seemed to stand still, ninja all across the village—friend and foe alike—paused to watch the moment that would almost assuredly decide the outcome of the invasion.

Then, when the dust finally settled and everyone was able to see again, where there should have been nothing but scorched earth and a smoking crater there now stood the Kyuubi no Yoko, towing over the forests of Konoha wreathed in white fire, a furious snarl playing across its muzzle as its tails lashed angrily behind it.

For a moment, the world was silent but for the faint rustle of the wind in the trees.

"I warned you…" The voice that rumbled over the battlefield was barely intelligible. It was deep, oddly distorted—alien, like many voices speaking in chorus—and crackling with unrestrained power… it could have easily been mistaken for a forest fire.

"Oh?" the giant tanuki replied, tapping its chin as if in thought. "You did? That's it I suppose. Alright, well in that case I'll just-Go fuck yourself!" The next instant Shukaku thrust one of its twisted paws forward, summoning an enormous wave of sand.

Almost negligently, the Kyuubi roared, releasing a concussive blast of sound and chakra that scattered the sand like smoke in a storm and atomized the Ichibi's outstretched paw as it began to prowl forward.

Shrieking in pain and unrestrained rage, Shukaku raised his still intact paw and drummed his belly. "Renkudan!" he barked firing off a giant ball of compressed air at the fiery form of his eldest brother.

"Fool," the Kyuubi sneered, rushing into the attack. But for a brief and violent firestorm that erupted when its fiery visage collided with the super-sized wind jutsu, the titanic air bullet might as well have been a stiff wind for all it slowed the Kyuubi's charge.

"Aah! You fucker!" Shukaku cried as the Kyuubi's claws rent his remaining arm from his body. It didn't really hurt as such but it was the principle of the thing! Amputation was not cool no matter how powerful your healing abilities or if it wasn't even your real arm! And it was just so irritating to reform a limb! Especially when he had to deal with someone turning part of him to glass. What a pain!

The Kyuubi gave no reply as it swung around, gouging trenches through Shukaku's body.

"Ah! Cut that shit out damnit!" Shukaku demanded as he stomped a paw into the ground, conjuring a tsunami of sand and debris that quickly burried the enormous fire fox. "Ha! Got yo-gurk!"

The Ichi's cry of victory was cut short as the Kyuubi burst from the sand in a wash of light and fire, reforming near instantaneously with its claws already wrapped around the sand demon's throat as it drove into the forest with the force of a meteor. Pinning the smaller biju to the ground the Kyuubi snarled, pausing only a moment to stare into the terrified eyes of Shukaku and his now awake container.

Shukaku glared. "Up yours Kura-" he choked out only to be cut off as the Kyuubi opened its maw impossibly wide and belched a stream of fire that reduced the sand and soil to glittering slag.

Then the great beast turned its gaze back to the village, its eyes fixing on a point within the coliseum, and leaped. Mid-air it seemed to dissolve, its now insubstantial form spiraling into a constantly compressing mass of energy as it approached the glowing barrier separating the Hokage from his allies.

"Oh hell," Orochimaru muttered grouchily. Shape shifting fire demon? Not part of the plan when he chose a fire based barrier. 'It's just unsporting!' he complained to himself as he and his minions beat a hasty retreat.

Meanwhile…

Above the Hokage monument a hunched figure in a black cloak stood alone, its gnarled hands clutching a sturdy walking stick as they surveyed the battlefield.

A moment later the air twisted and deformed before it spat out another figure, also cloaked but taller, his head unbowed by time. "So, how goes Orochimaru's war?" the newcomer asked.

The hunched figure snorted. "Laughably short," he replied, his voice strained and rasping. "As if that arrogant brat and his upstart village had any hope of opposing Konoha successfully."

"Is that pride I hear?" the second taunted.

"Well, they did rout two villages supported by summons and a Jinchuuriki in less than an hour. I feel like I'm watching my children spit fire for the first time all over again," the old man chuckled.

"And how's your little experiment doing?" the taller figure asked as he placed a hand on his elder's shoulder.

The hunched figure glanced toward the ruined coliseum where a newly reformed Naruto and Saru-chan were chasing after Orochimaru while a pack of ANBU picked off the traitor's bodyguards. "Performing beyond my wildest imaginations…"

And then they were gone.

Omake: The Anko Ending

"…That, was fucking awesome!" Anko cheered, dancing on the smoldering ashes that used to be Orochimaru.

Naruto grinned, staring at her expectantly. "Bacon?"

"Eh?!" Anko cried.

"Bacon," Naruto reiterated, squinting suspiciously at her.

"Oi! Hang on a sec!" she protested, backing away slowly. "We just got through a war! You can't just-"

"Bacon," Naruto demanded, prowling after her.

"Shit," Anko muttered. Then she took off like a coward.

"Bacon~"

Omake: Chuck Norris

'Oh, and one more thing,' Sakura directed at her inner personality.

"Hm? What? I have more violent fantasies to entertain," Inner Sakura replied.

'Who is Chuck Norris?'

"A violent fantasy that I find very entertaining," Inner Sakura quipped with a very unsettling chuckle.

'…What?'

"Exactly," Inner Sakura snickered.

'That doesn't make any sense!'

"Says the girl arguing with the voice in her head."

'You can't keep using that to win an argument!' Sakura protested.

"When it's no longer a valid argument, I'll stop using it," Inner Sakura rebutted.

A/N

Holy hell in a handbasket, has it really been that long since I've updated?! Yeesh, time flies when you have to be responsible. So yes, I'm not dead and I haven't forgotten about this story. I've just been stupidly busy and recently got several times more busy… fulltime student and fulltime parent will do that to you. Yes, your read that right. I'm a daddy! Scary stuff right there.

Unfortunately, this most likely means more of the same unless I join one of those tip sites or something and turn this into a job. Then again, if I'm going to do that, I might as well just kick it up a notch with my original stories.

In any case, you may have noticed that this is not nearly as… serious, as most invasion chapters. I tried that. It took a year and sucked eggs. Then I thought about it and it didn't make any sense whatsoever because there are so many OP freaks on the Konoha side of things so… yeah, and then this happened which was much more fun and much more in the spirit of the cracktastic theme that spawned NotNT in the first place.

So, worth the wait?

Rant

What's this? Could it be...

Oi vey.

…An update?!

It would certainly appear that way, wouldn't it?

Why so serious?

So sorry. Evidently, I'm highly allergic to obtuse conversation and break out in sarcasm.

Making good use of that aborted Literature Degree, I see.

The five thousand plus words leading up to this rant didn't clue you in?

Ha ha, very funny.

I would say that I aim to please but the truth is that I aim for the center of mass.

Delta… what are you doing with that crossbow?

Aiming for the center of mass.