Ninja Chef Naruto
By ______
Chapter Eight: Escape Of The Ultimate Sashimi With Ramen
#Pre-Note#
Plot? I had a plot? Phef, someone hasn't been reading the author's notes.
#Totaling Up The Sides#
When the ninja in red and black, cloud covered cloaks took the field everyone in the kage box, for one reason or another, knew something very bad was about to happen. The ten of them had leapt down from various points out of the audience as a sleep genjutsu claimed the crowd of civilians around them. Ten of them, five kage with one personal bodyguard each. A theoretically even fight.
Being the most obliged to face them, this being their home territory and their murdered nondescript newly-minted chunin, luck being a large part of a shinobi career after all, the two Hokage dived to the arena floor, standing staunch and determined in the face of these enemies. Seeing his only potential escape in this situation, given the need of his ring, the Otokage soon followed to stand beside his old teacher, grudging and unhappy. After a confused moment the Kazekage's attention was suddenly focused on one specific red and black forms. With an angry growl, he too leapt down to stand astride with his peers.
The Ame-gashira frowned and downed the rest of his bottle before pulling the tube from his nose and donning a massive rebreather mask, his medi-nin nurse fretting unhappily. A muttering from her boss silenced her. "Ku-ha. So the boy is still alive. Seras, stay here. Ku-ha. Assist only those on our side when wounded. We don't need your blood-thirst creating another incident. Ku-ha." With that command Hanzo, the salamander sennin plummeted lazily to the floor below, eyes locked on the shinobi who had challenged him for Amegakure all those years ago.
But the nine from the kage box weren't the only ones to storm the field and stand against the red-on-black clad super ninja. From another section of the audience a large man with spiky white hair, dressed in green merchant clothes landed, along with the much more graceful arrival of a red-haired woman in a white kimono.
Opposite them, approaching from the competitor waiting area, came two jounin-sensei, the rest having moved to quell the Uzu, Oto and Suna-nin wreaking havoc in the surrounding area. One was short, blond and wore the symbol of rain along with a red coat. The other was orange-haired and wore a simpler outfit consisting of ninja-pants, a chunin vest and a face mask.
Shrugging at the tension, this last addition drew a storage scroll from a vest pocket and was soon sporting a giant knife and skillet on his back.
For an odd moment he regarded his patrons, one on both sides before settling on the Otokage's side. While slightly confused by the now two-eyed former cyclopes' presence, along with the fact that he had replaced his empty socket with an eye exactly like the other one, it didn't really effect him much.
Both groups prepared for combat, some of the cloaked ones even removing the flowing things to show what they wore underneath, how ever little or much that might be.
Suddenly one of the Akatsuki ninja, carrying a massive metal barrel shaped thing and wearing numerous belts that hid everything beneath them, turned towards another with a large bundle of bandages on his. "Kisame-sempai, Tobi has run out of ammo. Could you please help Tobi by-"
The larger shinobi promptly grabbed the metal barrel thing and smashed it before punching his ally in the face. Well, mask really, but there was probably a face under it. Somewhere.
#The Battle Begins#
Hmm... Let's see. What a selection, how could he possibly decide?
Well, the puppet, sewn together guy and the one with the scythe all looked to have something very wrong with them. Probably some sort of paths to immortality like Orochi-datesha, and just as revolting. The scythe one was totally stagnant, the puppet was made of wood, as puppets tended to be, and the last one was so muddled together the only possible use would be as mystery meat. No way of knowing what to make of him.
As for the others... The guy with the concentric circles of gray for eyes seemed special, but also had a sort of 'more than one body' feel that Naruto couldn't pin down. It wasn't the same as the sewn together guy, in that he had a clear feel and flavor to his specific body, but he wasn't going to chance it until he knew more. The two kunoichi he couldn't come up with anything specific for either, as one felt... papery and the other one he couldn't even look at without his mind drifting to naughty, non-recipe related things.
That left the clay-user, who was definitely meant to be spicy, the orange-masked guy, sweets, definitely sweets and the tall gray-ish blue fish-guy. That other one, Itachi, was at least temporarily off the menu thanks to ordering and supplying the ingredients for 'Sharingan pocky with ramen'. Odd that he never considered making doujutsu into pocky before, but when one sees genius at work one should accept and learn from it.
Of course, as per the guy's request, he hadn't actually made it yet, needing time to assemble the other perfect ingredients to make the best pocky with ramen ever. He was so grateful for the praise and challenge.
Hey, wait a second, that fish guy was hiding his chakra, but he still matched everyone else. He was hiding a lot of chakra... A lot... Wow...
And in that instant Naruto knew exactly what was on the menu today, the ultimate sashimi with ramen. Wiping drool form his bottom lip while staring sightlessly at the ultimate sashimi with ramen, Naruto drew his skillet and charged, absolutely blind to everything else going on around him.
#Kushina Vs. Kekko – The Things I Do To Keep Jiraiya Alive#
"So hey, how about some grappling?" Jiraiya asked, nose dripping blood as he approached his desired advisory, hands groping the air in front of him suggestively.
"Perverted old man. The easiest enemy to deal with. When will I get a real challenge?" Kekko countered, lazily spinning her flail while standing in a suggestive pose, parts of her bobbling with the motions of her arm. She suddenly leapt towards him, legs spread as she lashed straight downward to cleave his head in half.
The toad sennin could only gape and stare, and was likely to bleed to death on the spot whether she hit him or not. But at the last possible second, he was saved.
"Jiraiya!" Flying kick to the skull. Kushina landed on one side of Kekko as the perverted sage crashed and skidded to a halt opposite her. "You useless pervert! Go fight one of the others."
"But, but..." Jiraiya murmured pleadingly as Kekko absently took on a hurt and embarrassed pose, mumbling about being seen and chastity and never becoming a bride.
"Idiot, even if it's how you want to die you still promised Tatsumaki you'd find her brother." Kushina glared, ignoring the stacked, nude woman between them. "And you are going to find Naruto. I won't let you die before then."
Seeing how the redhead's eyes were glinting again Jiraiya grumbled but fled.
"Hmm. You're going to be a challenge alright. I'm guessing repressed widow who never found a man good enough for her after her husband died. I'm also going to guess that you didn't look very hard or into anything... Mmm, odd. Yes, a challenge, but we're going to have such fun aren't we nee-chan?" Kekko declared, prompting a growing dread in Kushina's stomach.
"You're a Katsuragi... aren't you?" Kushina asked as a courtesy, already knowing and fearing the answer.
"Outcast, but with kekkei genkai and all." A presenting gesture left no doubt as to what 'all' included and sent a few, noticeably large parts of 'all' jiggling fetchingly. "Kekko Katsuragi, or as the world now knows me; Kekko Kamen!"
Scowling in disgust and dread, Kushina drew a katana from out of nowhere. Provided nowhere is a storage seal hidden on the inner hem of her kimono. "Jiraiya had better appreciate this."
"Mmm, but you're the one who's going to have a good time." Kekko responded, twirling her flail again.
Kushina just looked ill.
#Kisame Vs. Naruto – Sa-shi-mi!#
Kisame had his target lock in. He'd faced down the Kaguya before and fighting their prodigy had long been a dream of his, until the man disappeared some years ago. Why, he'd even keep himself from using Samehada's special ability to drag the fight out, it wasn't like he needed to hurry.
He grinned happily, eager for a good fight between two kenjutsu masters, each testing the upper limits of their skills. If the legendary bone-master was a great enough foe, why he might even not chop off the man's legs, so they could fight again some time down the road. World domination tended to make the strongest in the land clash until there was only one side left, after all.
"Kimimaro!" The shark-man roared, swinging his blade in a grand, downward arch that few shinobi were capable of performing. Due to bulk and weight, mostly.
The pale man evaded smoothly, an annoyed look gracing his face as he sized up his enemy. "Kisame of the seven swordsman. I do not have time to deal with you now, Orochimaru-sama-"
"Heh heh heh." The Arlong-wannabe chuckled, changing his grip and sweeping the massive blade in a horizontal cleave, narrowly putting a nick in the rope obi the Kaguya was wearing. "And what makes you think you'll be-"
"Sashimi!" With that simple, bizarre battle cry the fishy one was suddenly on the defensive, a giant battle skillet, wreathed in chakra flames, trying to crack open his skull like an egg.
With a sideways bat of Samehada the cooking implement glancing off in a shower of sparks as the texture failed to damage the pan and the flames failed to turn the sword to slag. Kisame was moderately impressed that the skillet wielder, some orange-haired kid with a mask, chunin vest and loose black pants, rolled aside from the thrust that should have skewered him without coming within a foot of the shark-skinned blade. High jounin level then, at the least.
"Very well, deal with Kisame as you see fit, Naruto-san. I will assist Orochimaru-sama." Kimimaro stated blandly, rushing away towards his master again.
"Yeah, yeah. Sure, whatever." Naruto mumbled back, eyes locked on Kisame, waiting and watching for any moment of weakness or hesitation.
"Hey, you can't go!" Kisame shouted, offended.
His distraction was capitalized on by a surprise assault on his left arm, which was the weakest point in his defense. Kisame was a powerful and well-trained shinobi, so it was perfectly reasonable to believe that he would react in someway to any attack on his person. Expected even. His sword sprayed out sparks again as it ground against the bottom of his enemy's weapon, a desperate and under-prepared attempt to deflect the blow.
As the burning weapon slipped to one side and missed it's target, the chef wielding it flowed forward and to the side, whirling in place as contact was lost to bring the deadly frying pan to bare again, this time as a swat, without missing a beat. The shark sidestepped away, suffering only the slightest chakra burns from a near grazing.
Something was off with his enemy's movement. One moment the skillet-user was a notch behind in speed, the next he was just barely even. Hmph, one of those annoying 'let's build up so they can't guess our limit' types. He hated them, a real shinobi was meant to kill instantly, a real fighter was suppose to go all out from the start. Only the weak used tricks like that.
"Hmm..." Naruto drew Santoku with his left hand. "That's a strange sword. It's pretty tough, but it doesn't look like it cuts. No, no, that texture's all wrong for that, be hard as hell to get a clean chop in. Gouging maybe? And whys it cycling chakra to you and back again?"
Kisame frowned, taking a hand off the hilt to use a series of half-signs. "Like I'd tell you, runt!"
The shark-ish one opened his mouth, spitting out an unusually large shark composed of pure water.
To fully understand what follows, one must first know the nature of hand-signs. They aren't so much pre-set and required for jutsu, but rather a means of molding chakra into rough patterns easily and quickly to get desired effects with both less effort and concentration needed. Each village, when teaching academy students to access their chakra also teach them the hand-signs and attach purposes or emotions to them. Konoha-nin use the tiger sign for fire, because they are taught to subconsciously associate the hand-sign with a 'burning ferocity' and as a result 'flex' their chakra in a way that summons or supports fire when making that hand-sign.
Indeed, what made the Sharingan so remarkable was not so much the ability to copy the hand-signs an enemy makes, something a typical ninja should be able to do if they really tried, but instead to copy both the hand-signs and how it molds their chakra. Each village teaches at least slightly different variations of the core six hand-signs and more wildly divergent versions of any other ones, making simply imitating an opponent's jutsu more likely to twist your chakra into a suicidally draining variation by trying to bull through the differences in molding.
Zetsu, who many didn't even want near civilians, let alone children, did not know this. As he never received a teaching job, especially not a genin team, there was no need for him to know. From this, his training of Naruto resulted in a total inability to utilize conventional nin and genjutsu as there was no symbolic importance or emotional significance given to any combination of finger arrangements, meaning that when he made a hand-sign, the chakra didn't really mold.
However, hand-signs weren't a necessity if you had a strong enough affinity, familiarity, focus or a specific sealing array. Seals, unlike hand-signs, were consistent and constant everywhere, being something like cheat-codes Kami-sama put in so that any Yggdrasil agents could access their powers without disrupting the balance of the world with their mana. Human seals were basic, low level programs, capable of doing several minor or simple tasks if properly powered. Unknown to most, they were just shapes, whether ink on paper or a furrow dug into the earth, it was the shape and power that mattered, not the material it was made with.
Sheathing Santoku and lashing out with chakra strings, Naruto formed a seal in mid-air before him, invisible to the naked eye. It was a skill that took a lot of patience and control to learn and without much time for preparation only the most basic of basic ninja abilities could be performed in any reasonable amount of time. On the bright side, there was absolutely no chakra wasted as the seal took very exact measures and the applications weren't nearly as limited as hand-signs versions.
Poof, Naruto and the water-shark traded places, suddenly putting the chef in arms reach of his opponent with no real warning. A close swipe sent the front of the shark-man's cloak ablaze with skillet burns. The sharky fellow leapt backwards, swinging his sword in an attempt to gain some breathing room.
#Hanzo Vs. Pein – Ku-Ha.#
Now wearing his rebreather mask, Hanzo stepped slow and deliberately to stand before the orange-haired, gray-eyed shinobi clad in red and black robes. "Ku-ha. Ku-ha. So. We meet again." The rebreather made his normal, crotchety old-man voice transform into a deep and fundamentally threatening undertone. Not to mention that it allowed him to ditch the hideously unwieldy oxygen tank for a while. If only it didn't require so much chakra to function at combat capacity.
"You... this time I'll make sure you die." Was all the Rinnegan user said, summoning his six extra bodies in poofs of ninja smoke.
"Ku-ha. I have heard your version of events and now you will hear mine. Ku-ha. Ku-ha. Both of the 'parents' you lost were among my most loyal and powerful shinobi, put there specifically to protect something very valuable to me. Ku-ha. Something I started that war to defend. They attacked not because they thought the shinobi were attacking them, but to protect the location of my most gifted son from potential spies. Ku-ha. Ku-ha. The son I had put under their protection in secret, to shield him from the war to come." Hanzo declared clearly over the sporadic explosions and violence surrounding them.
Pein hesitated, backpedaling in confusion. "But the only child living there was..."
"Ku-ha. Correct. Ku-ha. Ku-ha. Nagato, I am your true father. Ku-ha." An ominous dark aura manifested around Hanzo's body as he stepped slowly closer to his long-lost son.
"You, you can't be! They told me you killed him. It was your fault!" Pein screamed back in defiance, his human path lashing out wildly and missing.
"Ku-ha. Ku-ha. Search your feeling. You know it to be true. Ku-ha. I am a direct descendant of the Rikudo Sennin, which in turn makes you the same. Ku-ha."
"No, no. I'll never accept you as my father! Never! Jiraiya was more of a father than you ever were!" The deva and petra paths added their own offensive, still narrowly missing the great salamander sage.
"Ku-ha. The perverted toad? No matter. Ku-ha. That is fine. There is no reason for me to hold back any longer then. Ku-ha. The only thing I truly want from you is what is rightfully mine anyways. Ku-ha. I am the god of ninja, the most powerful to stand in our world to date. Ku-ha. Why should I languish as an ordinary shinobi when by right of inheritance I should have the most powerful kekkei genkai in the world? Ku-ha?"
All seven versions of Pein paused and looked at Hanzo in disbelief.
"Ku-ha. What? Ku-ha."
"You, you aren't my father."
"Ku-ha. Of course I am. Ku-ha. Now be a good boy like your orange masked friend and give daddy your eyes. Ku-ha." With that Hanzo's eyes transformed, the right eye becoming four rings, one of yellow, one of pink, one of orange and one of green. The left warped into the stylized toma of a fully mastered Sharingan. "Ku-ha. While it allowed me to steal the chakra of a dying demon in my youth, it doesn't prevent that same chakra from constantly damaging and healing me. Ku-ha. With a complete Rinnegan, I'll finally be able get rid of all the blood in my lungs. I'll be more powerful than ever before, isn't that wonderful son? Ku-ha. Now let me show you what inspired the Rasengan." With that Hanzo closed one hand as though holding a sword, only to have a glowing, noisy blade of pure, yet perfectly shaped, dark red chakra form, extending roughly three and a half feet from his grip upon it.
Pein gaped, his ashura path grabbing him as they spread apart to avoid the Ame-gashira as he flew forward, the dark red chakra blade whirling dangerously around to chop everything it touched into molten halves.
#Jiraiya Vs. Itachi – But Not Really#
"So... Still haven't found Naruto?" Jiraiya asked, walking up towards his new opponent.
"The child is most elusive, it's likely the kyuubi is aware of us and has been assisting in his continued escape from notice." Itachi replied blandly, Sharingan watching as Kakuzu tried to kill the most expensive man present, the Sandaime Hokage. And not a single skill displayed a hijutsu either. Well, other than Enma, but now that he knew he contained the nibi there were already plans running through his head. If the Sharingan could make the kyuubi dance on the strings of a human, why couldn't it also externalize a contained, lesser biju and transform it into an indestructible staff of variable size? The answer was of course, because Itachi hadn't tried to yet.
The white-haired man sighed. "I told you, I checked the seal personally, there is no way for the Kyuubi to get free within half a century at least."
"Then whoever is responsible is a force of such uncompromising stealth that we may very well never find him. Leader-dono has become convinced the only method to conceal someone so thoroughly is available to major ninja villages and any of those would be totting their new weapon by now. The only explanations I can think of are that he has become something completely unrelated to the ninja world, and as such is totally invisible. Like an average farmer or something." Why a staff though? From the look of things staffs required far too much physical effort for his liking. Maybe one of those devices Tobi kept summoning, a... what was it? Gun?
"Heh, never gonna happen. He's got Kushina's and Minato's blood in him. One's guaranteed to keep him above 'average' no matter what he does, the other's so fiery he'd be running off on adventures without a backwards glance."
"Then he has either perished or been spirited out beyond the realm of the elemental nations. There is also the possibility that he is being held prisoner by a group unaware of his true nature. Orochimaru's experiments come to mind." Yes, a gun. He'd name it Rushina. Or maybe Ryoko. Ah, why not both? The demon did have two tails after all. And why did he have an urge to reread Icha Icha Grenadier?
"Doubt it's the first one, no way the gaki's dead. For the rest of it... I guess we'll have to start freeing up prisoners then. With the number of bases and labs out there... Heh, just Orochimaru's will take years to sift through... Come on, we've been sitting here too long, someone will get suspicious if we aren't fighting soon."
"Doubtful, they are all under one of my genjutsu, seeing only a sixty-eight second loop of the last time we fought. Excuse me, I must save Pein-san now."
Jiraiya sighed disquieted as his subordinate left. "Naruto... Where are you?"
Oh well, better go help his old sensei then. Stupid brat couldn't be in any more danger than he'd been since he went missing after all.
#Still Kisame Vs. Naruto#
Kisame grunted in annoyance, dousing himself in water to put out the blaze his cloak became upon direct contact with the demon chef's pan. He knew now that he had made a terrible mistake, thinking his opponent was simply speeding up little by little. Well, he was, but that wasn't all that was happening, as he moved faster and faster, it still looked and even sounded like he was moving at the same speed he'd started at. Hell, the bastard was even making his chakra feel like it was moving that slow and that took some skill.
Skill at genjutsu. Normally that wasn't a very big deal for him, most genjutsu of that type were placed on the target, screwing with just them. The problem, or in his case saving grace, of these was that it was the jutsu-caster's chakra control versus the target's chakra volume. Someone with too much chakra could simply flood their network, destroying the little hitches others put there. Someone with too little would just have the tweaks slide off with no real effect as the genjutsu wouldn't have the same support the user expected.
There were, however, genjutsu that targeted the user and radiated outward, making everyone see/feel/hear the same thing. Harder to disspell but generally confined to disguises and decoys as everyone includes friends, enemies, by-standers and self. Only this guy didn't react or move like he was under the same effects and if anyone knew the signs, it was the shark-ed swordsman.
So either the guy had been fighting under the effects so long he instinctively compensated, was actually blind, deaf and chakra insensitive or he had some sort of unbeatable genjutsu kekkei genkai, like true illusions or trickster spirit magic. Hmph, more expected from the guy possessed by a tanuki than the one that ran around eating people.
Kisame had no doubts there were stealth genjutsu on him too, given the way he seemed to pop out of nowhere whenever the shark-man gained a bit of distance. And without being able to break them in a surge, this had become a much more Itachi or Sasori-style enemy. Maybe he could trade with one of them. In fact Itachi was just standing around talking! He could have sworn he was fighting, right be for he tried to get the damn genjutsu his enemy put on him.
Diving to the side and failing to pin his opponent with a thrust, Kisame fled back towards Itachi. Oh, his partner was going to pay for taking a break while he was fighting for his life.
#Kazekage Vs. Sasori – It's All Your Fault Dammit!#
"Sasori!" In a burst of wind the kage of sand literally flew towards the hated puppet-master, one hand channeling wind chakra into a funnel, the other tearing an explosive tag down to confetti.
See his approach the large form in red and black robes huddled in on itself.
Blown onto target, the exploding confetti glued itself to the cloth of the cloak, being further assisted by a dozen intact exploding tags that the kage flung beneath him as he passed overhead, landing gracefully to be back lit by a roaring explosion. He then turned before the smoke cleared, hurling five, wind-guided, exploding tagged kunai. As they burst he followed with a tatsu no oshigoto, created with the battle fan he had hidden against his forearm. The sky clouded.
"Sasori. So we finally meet again, face to face. And now, for what you've done to my wife and son... no, for what you did to my village, you'll pay." The Kazekage murmured dangerously.
"What I did? You did all that on your own." A gruff voice shouted from the smoke as a form emerged, tinkering with one of its arms.
"Get out of Hiroku you coward, let your little playmates see what a pathetic little brat you really are." The kage roared, flipping his fan expertly to throw cutting blades of air.
The puppet armor endured, mostly undamaged. "You're boring me." It replied, launching dozens of poisoned senbon.
In a show of ungodly dexterity, the Kazekage soared into the air, diving and twisting to either dodge or deflect every needle. "You killed my wife!" He roared, lashing out with a crushing wind technique that the puppet scrambled to avoid.
"Me? How? It was your idea!" The left arm was damaged and popped off, almost instantly replaced via complex seal work. The new left arm spewed a stream of fire towards his air-borne enemy.
About that time a powerful, tightly controlled tornado touched down and lifted the puppet, puppeteer and all, into its screaming vortex.
Throwing aside the now flaming kage robes, the red-haired man glared with loathing to the storm before him. "I just wanted the old man dead so I could be kage! You told me how to make up for the power gap!"
The puppet flew from the cyclone, impaling the arena wall, yet remaining functional and intact itself. It was high-quality work after all. "So? Do think I knew anything about sealing demons at the time? You just wanted everything done too soon."
"Shut up and die!"
Concealed behind and beneath a wall of sand, the man's three offspring suddenly found an enemy they would stop at nothing to kill.
#Obito Vs. Hidan – You're Not Even Famous#
"You're lucky, Jashin-sama has taken note of you. And as his acolyte, I... Hey, what the fuck! Don't ignore me!" A cloaked shinobi carrying a massive scythe complained to the Godaime.
"You've gotta be kidding, the old man gets an immortal assassin, Ero-sennin gets Itachi and I get stuck with a ninja from a hot-springs resort? I finally make it to Hokage and people still underestimate me. Man, all the famous guys are already taken." Obito complained in apparent arrogance, actively looking for someone else to fight.
"Great Jashin-sama, please bless me with a magnificent sacrifice on this day." Hidan quickly fell to his knees, babbled out a prayer over his necklace and hurled his ornate weapon towards the exposed back of the man before him.
"Neh, you're a slow one too. It's not fair you know. I mean, every other Hokage got at least one super ninja assassin after them within the first two weeks." Obito reappeared and just as abruptly disappeared again as the weapon neared. "Sort of a tradition. You know, 'hey new kid, let's see how tough you are' or 'welcome to the job, here's a free sample.' Instead..." The raven-haired man vanished again and suddenly Hidan was face to face with him, less than a foot between them. "...I get you."
The immortal fanatic lashed in with the bladed cable attaching the scythe to him. Naturally the target wasn't there anymore.
"Jashin-fucking-dammit! Stand still you Jashin-damned fuck-wad!" Hidan didn't take it well.
"I suppose I have to kill you now. And then I imagine there'll be a ton of paperwork over this whole thing. Stupid childhood dreams."
Whirling as fast as he, Hidan flung his weapon with all his might, heedless of the grace he typically wielded it with. He was gratified that his opponent didn't disappear this time. Until that strange blue ball of chakra ground through the topmost blade and ricocheted both shards of the weapon safely away from the new Hokage.
"Pretty cool right? I even improved sensei's original move. Not just that either." A casual underhanded motion sent the ball sailing smoothly through the air, which Hidan avoided simply on principle. It moved uninterrupted for a few dozen yards before bursting into a larger, loose weave of chakra strands that dissipated harmlessly into the surrounding air.
And then another spiraling sphere, this one with a hand attached to it, emerged from his chest after having run through his body, the user's hand still clutching it. "Old ones wouldn't grind through flesh, anything with a chakra network just kind of bounced off it and went spinning for a few yards. Course, mine still do that when thrown. Good-bye."
Hidan seized the wrist, even as he shrieked out expletives through his pain. He managed to bring his bladed cable up before the arm vanished from under his fingers.
"Two immortal ninja? Damn, all we need is Tsunade and we'd set a record." The irritating voice chimed in from behind him. "Shouldn't you being healing over by now? I thought that came with the immortality."
"This is fucking bullshit! There no fucking way I have a Jashin-damned hole through my chest and you still get the fuck away without a Jashin-fucking-damned scratch!"
A tag, similar to an explosive tag, but with the Namikaze clan symbol on it, promptly flew out and pasted itself to his forehead. It was immediately followed by a fist traveling at physically impossible speeds.
"Fuck that hurt." Hidan stumbled, pealing the tag from his forehead and suddenly realizing that there were dozens of them glued across the ground and at random intervals as far away as he could notice them.
"Eh, eh. Go on, say it." Obito grinned, flipping his wrist to send four more tags flying towards his opponent.
Hidan scrambled to avoid and destroy them, but-
Leg kicked out from under him on the left, kunai suddenly appearing in his right jugular and impact. High speed foot to chest, instantaneous palm strike to kidneys and a thousand years of death, kunai style. Each blow, each movement was so closely packed together in the span of less than a second that their incredible momentum evened out, creating an unreal pressure on him as his front side tried to send him flying backwards and his back tried to shove him forwards. Instead he hung in the air for a scant moment after his enemy paused before collapsing in a heap.
"Heh, sensei always was one for theatrics. It's actually harder to make a seal that lets you move that fast and creates a flash than it is to simple make one that lets you move. I was so pissed when I figured it out." Obito commented wistfully. Hidan gurgled an obscenity in response as he slowly climbed back onto his feet. "You really are immortal, aren't you? That should have liquefied your organs, you know. Man, you're just busy work, come back when you're famous."
Hidan plucked the kunai from his throat. "Kakuzu! I need some fucking help over here!"
"What, you're actually quiting already? I haven't even used my doujutsu yet. Why did I get the defective super-ninja?"
"Seriously, you fucking blasphemous bastard. How hard is it to kill one fucking old, senile man?"
And then one cleanly sliced half of Pein's naraka path and the head of the petra path, both charred and immolated where they had been severed from the rest of their bodies, fell just close enough to draw his attention. He should have gone after the perverted toad, look at how much the guy bled for no perceivable reason. Jashin-fucking-dammit.
#And The Village?#
Sound and Sand had planned out their assault well. They knew where and when to strike, what targets were vital and which were of relative unimportance.
Contrasting them, another invasionary force, this one of the Akatsuki rebuilt and controlled Whirlpool, was roaming around, spreading as much chaos and violence as they could.
When meeting without a Konoha-nin present the two forces naturally clashed with each other, as even if you shared a common goal in the ninja-world it was better to kill anything unexpected on sight than trying to cooperate with it. That is, if you couldn't just slip by unnoticed.
Against these groups stood two great forces, the Konoha ANBU, which was, in fact, a single, complex trap and an elite contingency of Ame-nins.
The ANBU worked quite simply, roughly four-fifths of the group were actually from the Anbu clan, and as such had a sort of revolving door version of death hanging over their heads at all times. They would, in fact, drop like flies regardless of the presence of enemy ninja. Overall they were a minimal threat, doing only light to no damage before keeling over and getting replaced. They were a force of low-level attrition, undefeatable and immortal if taken as a whole, despite the individual components of their group being as frail as centuries old paper. Though they were virtually harmless, over time and with enough attempts those pathetic, minimally damaging attacks built up enough to slay even a kage.
But more than that, interspersed among these weaklings were the strongest of Konohagakure's ninja, so any enemy had to take every single ANBU they faced seriously, wasting energy and resources to accomplish something that would happen anyways by chance. Otherwise they'd be slaughtered as easily as they slaughtered the real Anbu by those ANBU who weren't Anbu.
The Ame-nins were the anti-thesis to that idea, each being prodigal elites of unparalleled skill, selected in secret by the council of Amegakure to shadow Hanzo and ensure his safety. As he was the lynch pin to Amegakure's rise among the other hidden villages, having seen and known what a decade and a half of war was going to bring should they stand firm and succeed.
Through fear the man had brought wealth to his village. Fear of his power, fear of his elite and fear of his connections.
Following his final victory in the last war, Amegakure had been elevated in the eyes of those hiring shinobi, enjoying an economic status to rival any of the big five and, thanks to the long years of peace that followed and the daimyo's hands off policy leaving Hanzo's paranoia unchecked, a military force to match. If not for Hanzo's hatred of extravagance and paperwork they could well have toppled Kirigakure from the rankings, starting yet another ninja war. Fortunately for the elemental nations as a whole, Hanzo refused to be declared a kage in any form, leaving Kiri, depleted as it was from civil war, with enough of it's pride intact to keep its affairs focused inward.
Having finalized an alliance with Konohagakure and been reassured by both Edward Elric and Seras Victoria attending Hanzo to keep him safe, they turned their weapons on those attacking their allied comrades.
#And Then Things Got Out Of Hand#
Kushina struggled weakly in the bonds encircling her as her tattered kimono was lazily stripped away by her opponent. The seductive Katsuragi clan, a clan from Kusagakure with a kekkei genkai that both made them attractive to others and weakened those who were sexual excited while strengthen themselves so long as they were the target of that lust. Why oh why did she get stuck fighting a Katsuragi kunoichi?
She'd managed to give the succubus a few nicks and superficial cuts, but had ultimately been maneuvered into first losing her weapon and then losing her mobility, the end result being her arms bound behind her using the flail and ninja wire. And now...
"Oh, you have such smooth skin." The voice of that arrogant bitch cooed in her ear as she pressed her bare front to Kushina's bare back, hands roaming over places they had no rights to. "Mmm. You're feeling it now aren't you? Yes, just a little more..." The gloved hand resting on her waist drifted gently and brazenly down along her abdomen, clearly intent on reaching the apex of her clamped legs. "And then... Nyoninboh."
"Arashi... Mph. Forgive me..." The widowed Konoha kunoichi whimpered, cursing kami-sama for his yuri-loving ways even as she reveled in the warmth kneading one of her breasts. And then, as gloved fingers ruffled over a patch of coarse, bright red hair...
"Get back here sashimi!"
The ground rupture and shattered beneath her feet, allowing her to dive forward and free herself while her enemy leapt backwards. Hands were freed, tattered kimono was shut tight and after a few deep breaths the effects of the Katsuragi kekkei genkai were thrown off. The exhaustion and energy loss remained though, effectively taking her down to a supporting role.
And just in time to watch two immensely powerful shinobi with weapons that had to be compensating for something and the deepest, vastest chakra she had ever felt clash wildly in reckless abandon. Looks like time to make sure Tatsumaki wasn't doing something stupid.
"That does it, Samehada!" The shark-lookalike yelled, swinging his oversized, bandaged blade in a wide arc. "Heh heh heh. Samehada has a special ability, it has the power to eat chakra and..."
The shark-man froze, staring at the mutation he had brought on.
Kisame had no way of knowing just who, and by now, more importantly, what he was facing. Fuinjutsu, as stated before, was a lot like programming a computer, but where human limitations were basically along the lines of a spread-sheet program, kami, including shinigami, had something more in keeping with AIs at their disposal. The eighth division specialized in it as a matter of fact and nothing short of a captain was going to show up to a self-sacrificing summoning, even if they didn't kill the one who summoned them.
So it came to pass that Shunsui wrote what could be considered the most advanced seal ever made in the mortal world on the stomach of an infant some fourteen years ago. There were four basic principles the seal was meant to focus on over everything else he had set into it. Most important was to keep the kyuubi under lock and key for as long as possible while weakening it by having the host leech off its youki. Obviously this meant that letting the host die was a very bad thing and combined with the chosen diet of said host, remaining completely human was not acceptable.
Fortunately, it was authorized to steal and copy useful traits from its prisoner in order to help. A lot of these made sense too, demoniacally fast healing, longevity, assorted kitsune based powers. However, it was Shunsui who painted it originally, the Yondaime's designs be dammed. Kitsune charm was not an expected ability to foster off, neither were elements of kitsune nature, to speed energy assimilation and youki purification. No, human minds could never comprehend just why or how deeply the seal went to fulfill its tasks as quickly as possible or even conceive of a seal being as perverted as Shunsui's collection of brush strokes was.
Luckily, the seal had agreed with just about everyone else in existence that demonic traits were bad. Since kitsune were supernatural creatures, however, it had only one option when dictating what type of youki Naruto produced naturally. Having only been exposed to the power of a demon's youki from its prisoner and a kami's youki from its creator, the choice was pretty obvious.
So it was that, deprived of human chakra the seal clenched down on the flow of demonic youki, leaving a bizarre amalgam of kitsune kami, shinigami and human. An amalgam running purely on the instincts its behavior as a fully conscious human mind left behind.
Wreaths of ghostly, white flame danced around wrists, ankles and neck, white, silky fur appearing beneath and around these places as true claws formed. Fangs, lacking demonic influence, actually shrank as ears grew pointed and whisker marks shrank down to disappear among new, blue facial markings. Four mostly transparent tails of similar white fire bloomed and lashed at the air behind him, as a playful, positive intent washed the area. With a confused keening, the creature tried to decipher where it was.
As odd as it was to consider, this was Naruto at his weakest the entire fight.
Fortunately, for Kisame in one way and Naruto in another, Samehada had the largest amount of chakra present as it had just stolen the massive reserve that rightfully belonged to Naruto and there wasn't any logical thought to prevent what followed.
Chink. Kitsune-Naruto started chewing on the big, silly looking sword.
And while the sword-user was focused on that a sticky-note attached itself on his shoulder, unnoticed. Only pure instinct honed from years of dueling his faster partner prompted him to dodge as Obito appeared without fanfare, a spinning blue sphere of death already clutched in one hand.
On one side, a moderately powerful, non-chakra emitting being was chewing on it, on the other, a perfectly crafted vortex of chakra meant to resist any exterior force. With a thunderous shriek of metal grinding against itself Samehada cracked under the pressures applied to it.
Kisame managed to break from the pair and glance briefly at the damage done. Without any hesitation he strapped the bandaged blade onto his back and started a chain of hand-signs.
The arena flooded.
"Kisame, you were suppose to wait for the signal." Itachi intoned dully, appearing beside his partner. What kind of guns though? He wasn't quite sure what 'gun' was even limited to, given all the variants Tobi seemed to come up with. Something simple, straight-forward and subtle would be nice.
"They hurt Samehada! To hell with the plan, I'm killing them now." Incredibly enough, despite looking very much like a shark on legs, Kisame was still human enough to shed tears. Which he did in volume, while flicking through yet more finger arrangements. The water frothed as dozens of shark-shaped constructs formed in it, flying and swimming towards random targets.
"This is unfortunate." Itachi took secret delight in watching the childish and impatient Sasori get his leg bitten off before wondering if Kisame had some sort of obsession. He couldn't remember the last time the man hadn't suggested chopping the legs off of someone they were sent against. Sadly, it appeared he was attacking without reason now and was therefore likely to injure the success of the mission before doing permanent damage to the puppet brat. But one day, one day he'd figure out how to use the Sharingan through the eyes of puppet armor and then! ...Man, he sure was sleepy.
Channeling this thought through the Sharingan he was contented to see his partner yawn and fall asleep. He could empathize though, after all Itachi had had poor Samehada almost all his life, the one friend and ally he could truly count on. They survived and endured so much together, his first love and one true friend, his precious Samehada...
His attention returned to the former field, now lake, of combat. Sarutobi hadn't missed a beat and neither had Hanzo. In fact about the only ones impeded by Kisame's flash flood were the ashura path, which sunk like a stone no matter what, and the Kazekage, who appeared to only know water-walking academically.
Suddenly a creature with four lashing tails of pale flame leapt towards him, clearly trying to make him think it was the kyuubi. Too bad for it he had seen the real kyuubi before and felt it's chakra, which was nothing like the positive, uplifting presence of this thing. It was also missing five tails, but that was an unimportant detail. Locking Sharingan to slitted emerald-green eye, he tossed forth a simple command of suppression. Clearly whatever form of imperfect jinchuriki this was, the seal was flawed, so locking away whatever was sealed in them should finish it.
And since the kyuubi was now fully suppressed without it, the seal slacked off its hold and freed up more energy for its host.
Naruto landed easily, back in his relatively natural form though feeling oddly off balance without his weapons. "Oh. So, he's with you huh? That makes sense, he was wearing the same outfit, wasn't he?"
Strangely enough the fact that the demon butcher was an imperfect jinchuriki of an unknown, four-tailed entity made perfect sense to Itachi with no further explanation needed. "Indeed. We are partners. The others are merely coworkers."
"Damn. Well, after the pocky delivery I suppose. Hmm... Looks like I've got some things to do." Naruto replied, looking around.
"Of course. Excuse us." Now that he remembered Samehada, the entire thing because so much more complicated. How could he use the Sharingan to infuse the nibi into the sword to turn it into a gun? Also, why had he let Kisame carry and use it all this time? And with that the weasel-named Uchiha vanished.
"Stupid Suna-nins, why are they in the water if they can't swim?" The chef sighed. As their ally, it was clearly his duty to save them too. Well he probably would have anyway, genin had to be protected until they ripened more after all.
Diving underwater, he swam straight towards the muddy, unforgiving mass of former sand at the bottom of one of the arena walls. If it wasn't for that one weird tanuki-feeling kid, he probably wouldn't have even noticed them.
Ick. It'd take a while before his hands felt clean again. The squish of silt-like earth was just so disgusting. That's why you paid gardeners and spice-merchants so much, because nobody would willingly work with dirt otherwise. Except Iwa-nins, but they were crazy anyway. Lurking in a bog with local slime smeared all over you, fine. Trying to get that last bit of sand out from under claw-like fingernails? Stupid things could slice through senbon, he'd be trying for hours. Never knew when you'd need 'em in a fight and definitely don't want to get dirt in your food after all.
With a final squelch that couldn't be heard since it was underwater, he pulled the last of the three Suna genin from the sandy mud, which sluggishly tried to encircle and cling to them. Wasting no time he bolted for the surface, leaping casually up to stand on top of the water, the two young shinobi negligently draped across his shoulders with the kunoichi held in his arms. Because that's how it was done, or so Kin had told him.
Ew, the redhead kid was getting muddy sand all over him, like his freaking skin was made of it or something. Compared to that the other brat's make up washing off and staining was absolutely fine in his opinion. The three coughed, each spitting out yet more mud and water that seemed to seek out his chunin vest with unnerving accuracy. He just had to wear his good vest to the finals didn't he?
His eyes locked with the bedraggled, soaking kunoichi in his arms and he smiled nervously, here came the beating...
Any second now...
Hmm, why was she just staring at him with those little pink spots on her cheeks?
She was the girl that swore to kill all perverts, right? And she had to have noticed how awkwardly close he was holding her to make room for her teammates by now. Especially since, purely to prop her upright and help her cough up the water, his hand was, possibly, kinda, slightly grasping her rear. A bit. Just to support her until she got her bearings. Except she had and his hand was blocking out his brain's commands, being perfectly happy where it was. Bad hand, bad! Crap, distraction, distraction, distraction.
"So, ah... You're safe now?" It was rare times like this that made him wish he knew how to comfort others. Regardless, the shell-shocked girl nodded and relaxed just the slightest amount seeing his hitai-ite. And that unfortunate, tiny slouch forced him to adjust his grip. He was gonna die.
While she was oblivious to the fact that the jinchuriki holding her was involuntarily unleashing a heavy dose of kitsune charm into the area surrounding him, laced in his chakra from the seal's recent reconfiguration, she was all to aware of its effects. How nice his arms felt around her, the warmth he exuded starkly contrasting the cold grip of murderous muddy water she just escaped from and the utterly adorable, terrified look on his face because of where he had to put a hand to support her notwithstanding.
Obviously, given that look and the lack of intense, or even subtle, fondling this shinobi had at least some measure of respect for a woman, or at least a kunoichi. As her father and/or brothers had scared off everyone who wasn't intimidated by her own strength, and most of her time was devoted to training anyway, she wasn't much for typical teenage-girl romance. And, since this was about as close as she'd gotten so far; rescued from the brink of death, put under the influence of super-natural allure and having her first positive, if reverently fearful, ecchi encounter to starkly contrast the semi-traumatic, highly negative defeat early in the month... Well, combined with the adrenaline from said brink of death and the left over feel-good aura of an unbound kitsune-kami, it was enough to win her over for the moment. She leaned in.
But like all the romantic moments in her life, her father ruined it.
"Children!" A voice cried as the Kazekage took note from where he was now battling the mysterious orange masked shinobi. The orange masked shinobi with a wash pan.
"Yay! Tobi got Baberu's Joyeusa! That's even better than Sabato's Durandal! Tobi is happy!" With a casual toss, like that of a frisbee, the normally water-filled object drifted in a lazy arch that should have been impossible, given its lack of aerodynamics and speed.
The Kazekage dived and leapt but the mockingly slow bathing implement only seemed to get closer and closer, despite the fact that it appeared to float only straight ahead. Finally it hit, just a tap really, sending the kage of Sunagakure skidding backwards across the water, flailing like a ragdoll.
"...Tobi thinks Kazekage-sama is dead. But, but... that means Tobi is a murderer! But Tobi is a good boy. Good boys don't kill people... That others know about. Yes, yes Tobi. That's it! Tobi is a genius. Yes, Tobi must kill the witnesses!" Unexpectedly the orange-masked cyclopes turned around began setting the still-sleeping audience aflame with a handy lava-spraying gun he drew from underneath one of the belts crossing his torso.
"F, father?" Gaara murmured, wide-eyed as the first of the sand-siblings to come to his senses. Provided you still consider Temari dazed just because her focus was enraptured by Naruto's facial features.
The face-down Kazekage replied by turning the water he was floating in red.
"Father!"
Suddenly Naruto was flying through the air, bereft of passengers and wondering absently where the giant sand raccoon came from. And then in giant poofs of ninja-smoke it was joined. Now there was a giant snake and a giant toad and a giant wolf and... Hmm, raccoon, snake, toad, wolf, spider, bird, salamander, tentacle monster, extra-large puppet and whatever-the-hell that masked guy just summoned. Looked like some kind of giant human-thing wearing a building with fur sticking out in places. Oh, boss summons. Neat, he'd never seen a giant boss summons before. His personal summons was, well, short. Shorter than him anyway. But it was orange and that counted for a lot.
Now where was his skillet and santoku?
#The Destruction Of Konohagakure#
"Hmm... Shakaku the sand spirit, Manda of the snake tribe, Moro the wolf goddess, Kukuruku the puppet lord..." The giant toad paused to puff on his pipe, spewing out a noxious cloud of tobacco smoke. "...And Keito the spider queen, Garuda the bird king, Aguni of the salamanders with two others I don't recognize personally. Though one smells like a shikima. Jiraiya, what the hell is this?"
"Silence toad. Orochimaru, for this opportunity, I will accept a mere fifty sacrifices. As for you, toad, Garuda is mine. Don't interfere." Manda hissed out venomously.
Jiraiya, catching sight of the woman who stood a top Manda's head, began to vomit.
"Still angry about the bird stealing your tongue? Tch. I'll have my own vengeance to worry about." Gamabunta replied, drawing his sword and facing the giant summoned spider. "Put a scar on my beautiful face, will you?"
Jiraiya suddenly came to his senses, noticing that they were standing on the ruins of a stadium in the middle of Konoha. Ruins, of course, because the giant summons had crushed everything beneath them. "Hey, uh, Bunta, we sort of need to keep them away from the rest of the village, okay?"
"Don't be stupid, human. Your village was doomed the moment we were called within it." The pure white, two-tailed wolf kami growled out, in a surprisingly soothing feminine voice.
"She's right. Fighting a biju is always messy and... Argh! Why does this have to happen on my first day as Hokage?" The last Namikaze shouted in frustration. "I give up everything to get the job and on the first official day-"
"Quiet you fool. The biju is awakening." The wolf goddess commanded, tensing for combat.
"Yee-haw! Free at last! Gwa-ha-ha-ha! And there (hic) 's already li'l human things for the (hic) killin'." The tanuki roared and slurred, swaying just a bit as it massive tails lolled around, smashing things behind it. "Oi! Who's (hic) that?" The thing pointed one sandy hand/paw at the little orange headed thing walking dutifully towards it's foot. "You seem famil... famel... (hic) like I know you, er sometin'."
Naruto ignored the sand raccoon, momentarily confused by the limbless, soaking wet girl laying beside his equipment. As he sort of missed the whole 'flood the arena, send out sharks' thing, he was kind of at a loss about how she go there. Especially since she was sleeping, having lacked the ability to form hand-signs and disspell the wide-area sleep genjutsu as it befell her. Which was fortunate, as had she stayed conscious and kept herself from being washed away, she would have been right underneath Kekko's shikima summons. And no... well, very few anyway... yeah, very few teenage girls wanted that.
Really now, sleeping out in a field of boss summons while soaking wet wasn't very smart. Being the nice, responsible person he was he picked her up and tucked her under his left arm after sheathing santoku, keeping his right hand skillet-armed.
"Don' 'nore me!" The inebriated biju shouted, cocking back a paw before stomping it down.
Except the paw turned almost completely into glass on contact with the super-chakra-heated skillet surface, shattering under its own weight.
Completely negligent of the shock he just caused, not to mention the various glass-related injuries rapidly healing over on his right side, the demon-chef carried the just waking up Tenten off to find someone to take her to safety.
As soon as he walked past, Manda darted forward eager for a surprise attack against the giant crane-like bird that had bitten out his tongue all those long years ago, causing Konoha untold millions of ryo in property damage just by slithering as high speeds.
And then the battle was joined.
#Still Clueless#
Ambling away from the giant fighting ninja animals, the great chef was startled by his load's suddenly thrashing.
"Hey, hey calm down. I almost dropped you." Naruto told her, not realize that that was exactly what she wanted at the moment.
Whipping her head around, she fired off a kunai, tongue following closely after.
Catching the kunai via letting it impale his shoulder, Naruto's hand darted out and closed around the oversized pink muscle. He grinned as Tenten's eyes finally caught up to her instincts. "See, nothing to worry about. Now, let's get you somewhere else, okay?" Unlike Temari, Tenten turned pink from cheek to cheek across her nose, gazing at his kitsune-allure inducing eyes. "Eh, is something wrong?" The hapless young woman shook her head.
After a brief moment she recognized her savior and newly acquired love-interest as the sound jounin-sensei, which meant she was in fact safe, right?
Of course, had she not fallen asleep she would have known this wasn't true. On the other hand, as Orochimaru didn't exactly trust Naruto to keep a secret and had therefore kept the attack strategy from him, she wasn't really in any danger from it.
Not that she could be identified as a kunoichi anymore. Lacking a hitai-ite, limbs and having a tiny chakra reserve made her easily confused with an ordinary civilian target. Actually, it left her safer than that really. Nobody wanted to be the one to kill a limbless civilian girl. On one hand it was too easy and had no challenge to it, on the other it gave you no bragging rights and would make the one that went through with it before every other target was dead look absolutely pathetic.
And then, for convenience, he happened across another blond kunoichi, a genin cornered at a bad moment with only the useless Anbu ANBU around to save her from the vicious, and ever so slightly insane, Uzu-nin.
Surprisingly, the first to react was Tenten, smoothly spitting out a kunai towards each enemy in a rapid fashion. As the Uzu-nin were mostly rabble, thugs and fanatics drawn in by Yahiko's rants, Madara's promises of power and Kekko's seductions/brainwashings, they didn't fair well. All the quality missing-nin had joined Orochimaru, between his clan creation act, unique health care via experimentation on captured ninja and the kekkei genkai breeding/creation program only those out to conquer specific areas remained among the pool of upper nuke-nins. This particular group of five was two part rabble, one part thug, one part fanatic and one part undecided between being thug and rabble.
The rabbles took it to the chin, a fatal shot thanks to Tenten's low position. The thug refused to acknowledge his danger sense telling him to turn around and instead took a shot to the spine. The undecided tried to do both and was struck directly behind his jaw, also fatally injured. The fanatic dodged, snatched the passing projectile from the air and was summarily smashed and set fire to by a large, concave piece of metal.
Between the relief of being rescued, the horror of what those shinobi were promising to do to her, the memory of what Sasuke had tried to do early, the surprise and gore of the attack on Konoha and of her rescue not to mention the rather important chakra exhaustion, Ino passed out. But not before catching sight of those approaching. She blushed in her sleep and fidgeted, having a good dream.
"Why do people keep doing that?" Naruto grumbled, replacing his skillet to pick up the new girl and then jump aside to avoid the tentacled horror as a wolf kami savaged and threw it with her jaws.
"Hmph, she probably ran out of chakra. Stupid fangirls don't train much." His other passenger commented jealously. Not that her own fighting style ever really used much chakra.
"Oh good, you can talk. Do you know anywhere I can put you? I sort of need to help Orochi-datesha now." A casual hop saw him land on the knee of one of the spider's legs, distracting her just enough for the toad to regain his footing.
Tenten pouted at the implied suggestion that she was useless. Then again, in a battle of this scale, she was. Besides, even if it was awkward, it felt kind of nice to be held. She wasn't a ninja anymore, this wasn't her problem... "Over there, do you see Hokage-sama? Just drop us off with him."
And so they leapt off again, sailing merrily through the air above water and wind bullets the size of small houses and just below the pouncing wolf goddess.
"Oi, jiji-san, can you take these two?" The landing was smooth, almost unnoticeable. This guy was... calling the Hokage an old man?
"Hey, show some respect, this is Hokage-sama you're talking to!" Tenten shouted, having an inborn respect for both authority and the man who trained Tsunade-sama.
The Sandaime glanced from watching the destruction of his village. He was old, dammit. His limits were growing ever shorter each year and while he had been holding some power in reserve during his fight with Kakuzu, against summon bosses there was little he could do but count on his student and his successor. Students, if the Otokage was who he thought she was. With a sad, wistful smile he faced the approaching shinobi. Perhaps there was yet a future to protect. "You may leave them here. I'll look after them."
"Thanks jiji-san." With great care the demon chef set both his passengers gently on the ground. "Neh? Where'd the tentacle thing go?"
"Returned to where it was summoned from. Summons tend to retreat back to their own realms when injured or outmatched."
"Neh? They do that?"
"Quite often, yes."
The thought of an endless supply of chakra-laced meat from killing a summoned boss vanished at the same time the giant laughing puppet impacted the Nidaime's face, propelled by the tan and purple sand-raccoon's paw. The face, coincidentally, had vanished as well when the fat, red, oni-looking puppet fell onto the buildings below. It laughed uproariously, babbling about puppets and get them Oz before apologizing to itself, saving it was wearing Oz so of course he couldn't do what he was told.
Was everyone powerful in this world insane? Not really being able to tell who was on whose side at this point, the orange haired jounin leapt up to stand on Shakaku, next to his container and the container's siblings.
Hiruzen chuckled slightly as he watched the boy. It had been ages since he felt like he could tell a biju what to do. Ah, the power of youth.
"He didn't even tell us his name." Tenten pouted, drawing his attention back to her.
She was a quality kunoichi, to have somehow read the village's archives of Orochimaru and devised a way to imitate him as a means of regaining some of her independence. He truly wished he had seen it before, or that he had made his own office able to overrule the medical core instead of the other way around. Another oversight that cost him, another child lost because of it. And a truly inventive one too, to have worked out such abilities from description and turned them into her own. Anko, he knew for a fact, had been nowhere near the girl since her injury.
Anko... There was yet another problem on his lap. Barely passable as human now, with her chakra control, and consequentially genjutsu, shot to hell because of it. As either a snake or a fox she'd be hated by this village, though at least the snake could conceal itself it from view at will. At least the seal was gone, she had been quite happy about that despite everything else. Maybe if he had the time they could figure out kitsune illusions and transformations... But with the paperwork everything was going to cause...
Hmm, it would be nice to have a student who wasn't insane, wouldn't it? And of course her training would require travel and new experiences not to mention so much of his attention that he couldn't possibly be here to get sucked into advising and assisting his replacement. Yes, that would be his out. He knew the village was in good hands with Obito, he'd just have to bounce back after all, and the old Hokage's methods needed to be shaken up some anyway, given all the things that had slipped through the cracks during his reign. Besides, an apprentice wasn't technically a ninja by the village's definition and there was little doubt one of their allies would want to take the girl in at some point, if she was as skilled as he assumed.
As for Anko, this village was no longer a safe place for her, was it? She'd be his assistant, taking care of all the loose ends and traveling difficulties to be expected. The Nidaime and the Yondaime had trapped him behind that desk for close to sixty years and he'd only ever left the village on missions before that. The time for his childhood dreams of travel and exploration were now. He maybe much less spry than he had been, but a kage was still well above everything else, regardless of age.
#Poor Blind Orphan Girl#
As it turned out, fighting giant animals was more difficult than he had thought. Unlike any of his human opponents these guy could take a hit and get back up, sometimes not even getting knocked down. After a few brief moments enraging the ichibi, he had somehow ended up here, fighting the colossus. Despite weighting several hundred tons and not moving much in the positional sense, the thing was rather quick for its size, at least compared to a normal human.
It was more the fact that nothing really hurt it that was a problem though. A blow that should have cleaved it in half made it bleed a few small gouts of black blood, and react as though stung, but did no lasting damage. And that was when he struck the fur, the building parts were freaking invincible.
It was kind of a given, then, that eventually the hand actually hit him, flinging him off into the ruins of part of the stadium seating.
Upon regaining his bearings, however, he noticed something that made him truly sympathetic, being an orphan himself. Just beside him, laying over the semi-conscious form of what was obviously their daughter, given the remarkable similarities, was a young man and a young woman, both with pure white eyes and stylish forehead tattoos. Given the pieces of rubble and shrapnel sticking out of them, not to mention the large quantity of blood, they were most certainly dead. Meaning the poor, little girl, who was obviously blind, given her pure-white eyes, had just lost her parents.
Sniffling, he decided to give her the same chance Zetsu-nii-chan had given him. As of this moment, she was his emergency food supply slash little sister.
"Come on. Let's get you out of here imouto." The chef told the unfortunate little thing, starting to pick her up and set her on his shoulder.
"O, onee-chan?" The little girl asked, disoriented. Course, since she was blind he couldn't blame her.
Seeing another body with similar hair, facing away from them, but clearly dead and perhaps a year older than the girl, not to mention as feminine as any Hyuga ever looked he came to an obvious conclusion.
"Neh, don't worry bout it imouto-chan. They're all dead so..." Naruto immediately felt like smacking himself as the blind orphan's eyes teared up, somehow finding and gazing at the bodies despite being clearly sightless. Why was it so hard to comfort girls?
"Haruka, Hazuki, Kintaro..." Hanabi took the loss of her personal escort and their daughter a bit hard, never having seen anyone die before and having had the same ones for as long as she could remember, even if she did start treating them like furniture under her father's influence. Sniffling, she turned towards her kidnapper, having no idea that even without the Byakugan her eyes were inherently sensitive to his kitsune-charm effect when on its normal setting, let alone when it was running rampant.
Her entire face turned crimson and her eyes rolled back in her head, but she managed not to pass out, just barely. She was made of sterner stuff than Hinata, after all.
"Neh? Imouto-chan? ...Why does this keep happening?" Naruto cradled the semi-conscious, but unable to respond girl in his arms, checking her temperature by pressing his forehead to hers. "Oh, a fever. You'll need some Kusa-nin ramen to get better than. Come on, let's get out of here imouto-chan."
#And The Leader Appears#
With every building reduced to component rubble the fighting really slowed down. What good were kaiju without stuff to smash, after all.
And as it start to wind down an orange haired individual, this one with blue eyes, an Uzu hitai-ite and a net-shirt beneath a cloak of red and black, arrived. He sighed and rubbed his temples, seeing the mess his subordinates had caused. "Oi, wrap it up. I got part of what we came for, we'll just leave the brat until we get the seals worked out, alright?" The man told what Akatsuki members were still present before hopping onto the Yondaime's head and shouting across the ruins.
"Oi! Konoha! This is the leader of Akatsuki! You made a big mistake when you threw out the nine-tails and if you don't fix it, find him and hand him over, we'll come back and raze your city a second time, got it? Don't worry about your hatred for him, we plan to kill him anyway. Fact is, we need all the biju, yeah? So you losing one has really pissed us off and you're gonna pay for it again and again unless you can find some other way to create world peace, besides a biju powered god-statue. And the best part is, there's no way for you strike back since you'd need an Uzu survivor to find our base. Ha ha ha ha! Take that Hanzo. We win this time!" The not-quite-sane Yahiko declared, disappearing as ninja tended to.
Somewhere below him Yugito frowned. 'The brat' clearly meant ichibi, which meant they were going in order. Kirabi would be protected when the time came, probably any jinchuriki that had a supportive village after sanbi or yonbi... That meant she needed to be like the kyuubi jinchuriki, she needed to disappear. Sketching out a quick, jumbled message, saying that while on her mission they were ambushed by a group of ninja in black and red cloaks and summoning a ninja-kitten to act as a runner, she tried to think of a way to fall beneath the radar. A way to disappear as the nibi jinchuriki and be acknowledged as something else entirely.
She had the training to form an individual reputation, and so long as she never displayed her higher biju-given powers she could blend into the population of random clans on the verge of extinction. Maybe go nuke-nin? No, the hitai-ite would give her away, she needed to join an entirely new village and...
Was that Naruto kidnapping a Hyuga heiress? Back when she was a little girl the Raikage-to-be was reported as being killed trying to do the same thing. And the way he powered through the ichibi so negligently... And that dreamy, seductive allure he was throwing out a cloud of, almost a good as his ramen, even if it had been-
No, bad Yugito, now wasn't the time for that. Although... A blatant powerhouse like him would cast a long shadow, a shadow his subordinates and associates could hide their abilities in while still being known as powerful ninja just because they were the demon chef's ally.
Besides, her village always told her she was a demon, right?
Even knowing it was wrong, knowing it was a horrible, horrible thing to do, if she was honest with herself... She liked it. That should be all right? She didn't need to justify this to herself. No, she needed to justify her following him to the man in question. Hmm, a powerful man who could cook, a few years younger than her, but why should that stop her from taking something she liked as her own? Uh-huh, she decided she was going to make him hers.
And when a cat decides to do something, heaven help the humans that get in its way.
#Author's Notes#
First thing, this is a super chapter, posted in its absurd length because I didn't feel like breaking it up and also because I won't be posted again for... I don't know, a month, maybe?
So, anyone get what Tobi's weapons here are referencing? Here a clue, one's from an old video game featuring an anthropomorphic kangaroo-rat, the other is from a anime featuring two angels protecting a future immortality-discovering pedophile from at least two other angels god sent to kill him for discovering said immortality in some twenty odd years from the present.
Yay, I finally found out what the ninja headbands are called! I had completely forgotten about that.
I knew (sort of) where this was going last chapter. The purpose of the rapid, nonsensical cuts was threefold. 1, get through the chunin exams as quickly as possible. 2, set up various characters. 3, as a direct manifestation of Tobi's insane Sharingan powers leaking out into reality around him as he wasn't focusing them onto something. And possibly 4, laziness brought out by the horrible, horrible strain of finals week. Or is that lack of sleep?
Admittedly though, I am glad to know that there are those among you who truly care about the quality of the story. It's reassuring, even if I more or less ignore it for this story. Maybe when I write something I mean to be serious.
As Hanzo is suppose to be a powerful, super-bad-ass, yet old man ninja, he has two modes. I will call them Whitebeard and Darth Vader. See if you can tell which is which. Without the breathing mask his immense chakra is running free, granted him immense physical and ninjutsu power but cutting down on how much he can exert himself. With the mask on... the Sharingan stolen from Madara/Tobi allows for the predicting part, the incomplete Rinnegan is for the red in his chakra light saber technique. Now, how to let him choke people from ten or twenty feet away... Something both of them should be capable of, though one seems to require a hand gesture.
Incidentally, that trauma is also, in this story, what prompted the creation of Tobi as a defensive mechanism. When you see Madara try to fight someone you'll understand.
One of the first Rasengan we see in action drills a perfect hole into a tree. Naruto's incomplete version drills a spiral shape into various things, including stone. Yet, somehow, when striking a human body, instead of reducing it to something that should be called pulp wherever it touches, it hurls them a great distance while spinning them. Not just once, but several times we see this effect in action. So I finally got pissed off enough about it to make Obito's do what it looks like the damn thing is suppose to do. And then I added in the ranged use I always though it was going to have while Naruto was first training with it. Ah, the dreams broken by that manga.
Assuming the Rinnegan functions similar to in 'Banished With A Bloodline' when not enhanced with signal amplifiers and similarly assuming that Zetsu was the one who found the high-quality bodies Pein used (you'll notice Zetsu isn't among those present here), you will note that he is somewhat... less intimidating than canon. In turn, his own body isn't some lame-crippled form tied up to a machine as compensation, giving him an extra over the canon-version. I mean, if the piercing and chair are necessary, it isn't really part of the kekkei genkai is it? It's part of the surgery, piercings and chair.
Also, Kushina uses the Yondaime's real name, Arashi Kazama, while everyone else uses his fake, in hiding name, Minato Namikaze. I do this for two reasons, one; I've never heard of anyone having an entire front clan to hide their real identities behind, which makes sense in some ways, and two; I like the name Arashi more than the name Minato.
And that's the start of the harem, you impatient bastards. For those who think it's too sudden it's mostly the kitsune-charm. Please take in the noted examples from Canon-Naruto, whose seal is not actively cultivating the trait to seduce women. Gotta love Shunsui's priorities. For further convincing, read below.
Canon-Naruto totally has kitsune charm/trickery powers. Look at what he did to all those people over the course of the series, twisting them into his own way of thought and seducing all those (filler) girls without even being aware of it. Hell, look at Tsunade! If that doesn't prove it, how about Pein? Reversing decades of work and obsession that quickly, and even convincing him/her that the only way to make it right was to sacrifice himself to bring back those he killed/herself for the sake of the village? There has to be some serious brainwashing going on there, especially with the way Konan/Shizune just accepts it. And now that you're aware that Naruto has this power, read/watch through the series again. You'll soon come to understand why such a power is seldom put into the hands of a naive child.
Gashira – Head or chief, boss basically. I mean, despite his power he isn't ever declared a kage, so...
Nyoninboh – La Blue Girl ninja technique, brought in to compliment the nature of the Katsuragi kekkei genkai. A very hentai technique that swells the user's (female only by the way) clitoris to a size and vague shape similar to that of a large phallus. You might also note that a shikima is basically a tentacle monster.
Hijutsu – Don't know an exact translation, but from what I've gathered, this is a family or clan-only type of jutsu that not everyone can learn/use. I think. Since it is stolen from somewhere (can't remember) it's someone else's fault if it's wrong.
Tatsu no Oshigoto – Great Task of the Dragon. Canon.
Imouto – Little sister/younger sister.
O – Apparently, when you want to be more affectionate to someone, you add an O to whatever you're calling them. Nee-chan becomes onee-chan and baa-chan become obaa-chan for instance.
Kaiju – Literally 'strange beast', but since sometime in the seventies it started meaning 'huge city smashing monster' via Godzilla.
Ninja – Plural of ninja. Because, exactly like fish, ninja is one, a million or anywhere between, above or below. Ninja that is, ninja does not denote fish, number notwithstanding.