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A GIGANTIC SHOUT-OUT to ArianaPotter21 (my bad. Thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate the review), EtheriousLogia (and thank you for reading), OmniHein (I'm glad you think that. Thanks for reviewing), Dre17 (I'm not sure about a rewrite, but I'm glad you're here for this one :)), LordofTerror (thank you for being amazing, my guy), AidenJacksonSmithDSBB (couldn't agree more XD), Taro of the scarlet plains (thank you so much. I'll try my best!), and death390 (I'm glad too. Thanks for reviewing :D), TheFoxSummoner Clan-Head, and buji (thank you!). You're all spectacular people.
I can't say this enough; you all have made my experience on this site amazing. I'm grateful for everything.
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 10
In the pursuit of knowledge and wealth, Naruto freely gave up his humanity.
He did it to himself, and he didn't regret it.
Naruto leapt out of the inferno, cloaked in fiery red Kyuubi chakra.
His large vulpine eyes burned with elation, the three whisker marks glowed, and his wide grin darkened with sinister intent from the blackness of the boy's hood, more so as Konan swerved out of the way in a gust of papery wings, avoiding a pair of massive chakra arms from snatching her out of the sky.
He dropped back into the burning forest, and a stream of cackling followed his disappearance, before that too stopped abruptly.
Silence.
The only sounds within a fifteen-mile radius were the groaning crackle of trees as they burned, the mewl of forest animals fleeing the flames or dying to the fire, and the slight sizzle of wet soil hardening from the heat.
Konan flew higher, avoiding the lash of fire and heat nipping at her heels, her expressionless face cracking and she frowned ever so invisibly, looking below her and searching for the deranged child.
She skirted away when the boy bound from the forest fire, but this time the boy whipped around and clasped his hands behind his head as he fell back into the forest, beaming as he called out, "Got you."
Konan's eyes flared wide and she slapped her neck, killing the spider perched under her left ear, but it was too late; the creature had sunk its fangs into a vein and Konan's body locked up, slamming upright and ramrod. She tumbled out of the sky as her chakra fled her, scattering in the wind like her paper wings.
She couldn't scream, her jaw screwed tightly shut, hard enough for her to feel the creak of her teeth grinding against themselves despite the roaring howl of the wind as she plummeted from the heavens and the bellowing forest fire she crashed into, breaking her back into a burning tree and smacking stiffly onto the hard forest floor.
Her eyes bulged from their sockets, whirring wildly as her irises shrank to pinpricks.
The forest was red and the heat clogged her throat, already hardly able to breathe from the venom.
The flames licked her skin and burnt her body, charring her Akatsuki robes and her shinobi clothes. Her sweat evaporated from her body and her skin darkened as she burned, coated with ash from the tree she had snapped her back against as she fell, lying in the wreckage of burned wood and ash.
" Hng," she grunted through gnashed teeth, her stoic face shattering, panting hoarsely and swallowing, growing panic rising from her gut as her body refused to obey her.
Contrasting her paralysis, Konan was finely attuned to every sensation happening around her; the fire lapping her face and body, the hiss and sizzle as her clothes burned, and the slightly heated wind that rumbled through the forest from the south.
She heaved, flicking her eyes down to her right at a distinct crunch, the sound of feet marching on hardened soil and ash.
Naruto entered her line of sight, tugging back his hood and smiling with deceptive niceness. The Kyuubi cloak shrouding his body resembled the flame of a candle, steadily flickering red and protecting him from the heat of the forest. His red, vulpine eyes were ablaze as he bore down on her, standing close to her head.
"Honest question," he began, the mask of kindness on his face lifted and the corners of his lips tingled, closing his eyes and smiling shallowly, "have you ever been a hostage?"
He bounced his fist against her face, and the woman slumped unconscious.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Two hours later
A camcorder reached the hands of the Leader of Ame, Pein, delivered by a spindly, tall spider, bearing the recognizable markings of the Spider clan on its bulbous abdomen.
It regurgitated a single finger—a middle finger with black nail polish—, not minding the slobber that leaked from its fanged mouth.
The spider met the rinnegan holder's dark stare, standing upright on its eight legs and surveying everyone in the throne room with its eight black eyes—marking the one-armed, orange-masked man, another man with shaggy black hair who had his arms crossed, a black and white creature with a Venus flytrap around its head, and a faceless Ame ninja that had directed him to the village leader's throne room. Before he looked back to Nagato when the man hadn't so much as looked down at the video recording device.
Rather, Nagato's purple eyes thrummed with growing rage, glaring at the middle finger that had rolled to the foot of his throne.
" Watch," the spider hissed, its guttural tone echoing in the stunned silence of the throne room. " Master wants you to see something."
The black and white creature approached the middle finger at the foot of the throne, bending down to pick it up, studying it with a critical look.
"Zetsu," the Ame leader spoke deeply, his fingers curled around the camcorder and vibrating with killer intent. "Is that…?"
The one named Zetsu hesitated, flicking a look to the one-armed man, then turning to Nagato, hiding the severed finger at his back.
It nodded, and Nagato inhaled and exhaled rapidly.
The spider didn't move. It didn't blink, and its words didn't so much as tremble as he hissed, " Watch. The. Video."
"Do as the creature said, Nagato," the man with shaggy, long hair said, the sinister depths of his voice driving chills through the spider, a fear that it refused to show.
Grinding his teeth and glowering murderously at the defiant spider, Nagato powered on the camcorder and watched the video.
A brief static covered the screen of the video recording device before it cleared up to show a dark, featureless room. A single orange lightbulb swung back and forth from the ceiling, previously jostled by some unseen presence. The camera swayed a little, tipping to the left before it was corrected, held somewhat steady as it faced the lightbulb. Then the person holding the camera lowered it down and a genially smiling blonde peered out of the video at the redhead.
Naruto.
His hands were on both sides of the camcorder, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth and his brow creased, before he said, "Hold it like this."
"Like this?" the person holding the camera echoed. A female. "Your last hostage video was slanted though. You said you wanted to capture the mood." The video recorder lifted and fell a bit as if the person holding the camera didn't see the need to stabilize her hands as she shrugged. "Not your best work."
"Not my best work," the boy admitted with a sigh, letting go of the camera as the camerawoman stood back a step. He pointed at the camera. "Is it recording?"
"Yup."
"Really?" his brow jumped up, before he waved his hands flippantly. "It's fine, it's fine. I'll edit this part out."
The camera zoomed out a little, showing that the boy was in a white lab coat with his usual hoodie underneath, dark pants and black shoes, wearing a pair of blue plastic gloves on his hands.
Naruto's face then scrunched up and he tapped his lips, asking the camerawoman, "What's that guy's name again? The guy with the purple eyes." He scratched the top of his head. "It starts with an "N". It's on the tip of my tongue…"
"…Nagato?"
Naruto snapped his fingers at her, smiling affirmatively. "Nagato."
"Should…we…start over? As endearing as your randomness can be, I think you should have practised first."
The boy scoffed, rolling his eyes and tucking his hands into his pockets, saying matter-of-factly, "You love it." The girl behind the camera scoffed loudly and Naruto's smile broadened, rolling his eyes again and proceeded, "Back to business. Nagato," he pointed at the camera and smirked, a careless expression that looked too harmlessly mischievous on his face, "I've got your friend."
He moved to the right, waving for the camera to follow him. And it did, turning around steadily as Naruto shuffled across the screen. The camera settled on a person wearing a black shirt and tights, no shoes, laid out on her back on an operating table, her ankles, knees, wrist, elbows, neck and temple. Her mouth was stuffed with a white handkerchief
The person holding the camera took her time walking around the table, looking down on the pitiful condition of the Angel of Ame; the thumb and middle fingers of her left hand were jaggedly torn off, the fingernails of her right hand were popped upright, freely bleeding on the table and dropping on the unseen floor. There was a line of stitches that crossed her lower abdomen, newly administered, as the wound still stained the thread red. There was a wet patch under and around her crotch, sweat stains dirtied the pits and neck of her shirt, and splotches of blood could be seen on the table.
Konan trembled every so often, shuddering and gulping with her mouth open.
"Konan here," he swept to the head of the operating table and clasped his hands on Konan's shoulders, making the woman recoil and whimper, her pleas muffled by the handkerchief, "has been extremely cooperative." He grinned suddenly, exposing his rows of serrated teeth in a malevolent expression of glee. "Haven't you, Konan?"
The woman on the operating table tried to nod her head, quaking fearfully and weeping a few tears from her largely widened eyes, directing a look to the camera before flicking a weeping glance up, looking at the boy standing by her head.
"Something not many people know is that there is no such thing as complete pain tolerance," Naruto lectured, squeezing the woman's shoulders and making the woman jerk. "A person could be able to endure being stabbed, getting an arm torn out, or have their eyes pulled out of their sockets without so much as losing to the pain and releasing their secrets. But," he held up a finger, "There will always be something they cannot endure."
He motioned to Konan's hands, her missing digits and the raised fingernails, gesturing also to her torn open and stitched shut gut.
"Konan was tough. Her pain tolerance is through the roof. Otherworldly." He centred the video recording of himself, chuckling genially, "Now, I'm going to respect Konan's privacy and not reveal the nature of pain she can't endure." He dramatically placed a hand on his chest and fluttered his vulpine eyes. "I might be a monster, but I have morals."
The girl behind the camera released a short laugh, quickly stoppering her amusement when Naruto shushed her, smiling.
"I know your weakness, Nagato." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "And it's not her."
The boy gingerly pulled off his plastic gloves, balling them up and carelessly tossing them over his right shoulder.
The rain clouds over Ame thickened and the rain pelted down harder, thundering and crackling with lightning.
Everyone besides the messenger spider looked out of the window at the heavy downpour, noticing that the rain sparkled, like miniature gems pouring from the sky and splashing on whoever, or whatever it fell on, splattering exactly like water.
The video recording continued, with Naruto easing his lab coat off, neatly folding it as he said, "There's more than one way to destroy a village. You don't have to have massive muscles, and you don't have to use apocalyptic techniques." He blinked his red eyes at the camera, staring out of the video recording device and looking straight into Nagato's soul. "I'm a force of nature, Nagato."
The storm outside picked up and sheets of rain wore down on the building, forcing the people on the ground to scatter in search of shelter, holding on for dear life to anything bolted to the floor.
"I only need a good enough reason."
He flexed his right arm and grinned cheekily, eyes closed and crinkled at the corners, patting his bicep with his left hand.
"And the will to do it."
A storey building fell, succumbing to the battering of the elements in a disastrous roar of wind and the screams of the occupants. The hard rain fractured the paved sidewalks and the asphalt roads, eroding them.
"You'd be surprised what a few mixtures thrown into Hidden Rain's atmosphere can do."
A flash flood swept through the village, carrying shrieking citizens. Hidden Rain ninjas rushed, surfing the water and picking civilians that had been carried off by the rapids. Some of the civilians couldn't be rescued, dashed against the sides of buildings or forced under the water by the strength of the current. The village's developed drainage and sewage systems were overloaded, flooding the entirety of the village with rampaging rainwater and human waste.
The walls of some residential homes came down catastrophically by a combination of the gale and the flood, mercilessly slamming into the occupants.
The panicked calls of parents calling for their children sounded under the howl of rain and wind.
"Here's what I want you to do," Naruto said, fixing Nagato with an unwavering look. The camera was positioned in such a way that only Naruto's face could be seen, and the dark backdrop of the room melted away. The boy's face was unnervingly stoic, staring hollowly out of the camcorder. "Call your forces back to Hidden Rain, abandon the war, and never look back."
The rush of water slammed into the Amekage tower, breaking through the ranks of ninjas withstanding the force at the doors and flooding the reception area. Water gradually filled the stairwell, climbing from the ground floor to the first floor.
"As for Madara—whichever Madara, I don't care—kindly bundle him up and leave him outside of the village. I'll catch Zetsu sooner or later."
The one-armed Madara activated his sharingan and vanished into a vortex, spiralling into his right eye and disappearing completely. The other Madara remained unfazed, although his teeth gnashed with a hard curse.
"Do that and I won't wash Hidden Rain off the face of the earth." The boy shrugged. "Maybe you'll even get Konan back. Who knows?"
The great doors of the throne room exploded inwards and water surged into the hall.
Nagato sharply lifted his eyes to Madara—the Madara that hadn't fled—and his rinnegan hummed with power. The ground echoed with explosions, coming from below the ground level and rapidly powering upwards, punching hole after hole from underground and shaking the building, forcing water to flood the subterraneous tunnels of the tower.
Just as soon as the redhead forced gravity to keep the Uchiha fixed to the spot, Madara flickered away in a blur of speed, barely avoiding two pairs of arms that broke out of the ground to capture him. He blazed in a wide arc around the growing hole in the throne room, leaving a path of afterimages in his wake as a red laser doggedly chased him, screaming through the rock wall of the great hall and screaming to sever the undead Uchiha's legs, trying to stop him from fleeing.
The hole from which the path erupted enlarged and water poured into it.
No one on the floors below was safe from this crumbling expansion, either caught in the flood or falling victim to tumbling into the abyss below as the building broke apart. Their wails as they plummeted into the hole weakened the lower they fell.
The messenger spider leapt to the wall and attached himself there, spectating the events unfurling before his very eyes.
Madara raced across the wall, dodging a red-tipped missile and bound off the wall to Nagato. His dark eyes spiralled, turning red and evolving.
The statue looming behind the leader of Hidden Rain groaned as Madara landed behind the Amekage.
Nagato's head toppled off his shoulders, falling to the ground and tumbling down the six steps to the bottom, splashing into the water at the foot of the throne.
Madara lowered his gunbai—the large, unbreakable, gourd-shaped fan—, and grunted with a displeased frown as the head rolled down the Amekage's front, tumbling down the stairs and dropped into the water. It bobbed on the water, its mouth agape with horror and shock.
Madara didn't glance away as the storm outside stopped all too suddenly, falling to a calm still as rays of sunlight penetrated the thick clouds, bathing the broken village in light.
Nagato's headless body slumped to the side, propped up by the chakra rods impaled into his back and connected to the broken demonic statue. There were thirty seconds of uninterrupted silence, where a constant stream of flood water rushed down the several holes the path had punched through to reach the throne room.
Standing with a stunned slouch at the bottom of the stairs, Zetsu gawked at what had just occurred in one minute.
Tobi was gone.
Nagato was dead.
Konan was captured.
Hidden Rain was finished.
"Let's see how quickly you all turn on each other." The camcorder was still in Nagato's hands, clasped in his fingers, and Naruto laughed hysterically. "People are so predictable."
And with that parting message, the video flicked off. It dropped out of Nagato's formerly rigid death grip and noisily fell down the stair, splashing into the water.
The demonic statue creaked, its five open eyes glaring down at the unimpressed Uchiha, swirling with the presence of the sealed tailed beasts—the one tail, three tails, four tails, five tails, and six tails. The ethereal blue arm evaporated into nothing.
The spider messenger dispelled to warn his master of the battle ahead.
A final encounter between the greatest shinobi in history and the craftiest ninja to ever live was on the horizon, a battle that would reshape the physical world and history itself.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
He found the boy waiting outside of Ame.
The sky was clear and the sun was shining. Naruto stood on the waterlogged ground, balancing naturally so that the mud didn't seep into his sandals, with his hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie, the hood thrown up over his head and obscuring his face from view.
Besides his red, fox-like eyes and his large, saw-toothed grin.
Peeking out from the wrists of the boy's hoodie were three short nozzles, polished clean and primed with Naruto's specialized medical needles.
Madara stopped a long distance from him, standing relaxedly with his feet apart and his arms crossed. His gunbai was strapped to his back and his eyes rippled purple with concentric circles.
The tension between them silenced any noise in their surroundings.
"Lovely day, isn't it, Madara?"
The Uchiha narrowed his eyes.
"I'm glad you're the one that showed up, not that other one with the orange mask," Naruto went on, squinting a look up at the merrily shining sun. "You can just tell he isn't cut out to face an enemy with no common decency."
Madara glowered, lingering a gaze around to the waterlogged hidden village.
"Obito informed me of your drug enterprise," Madara finally spoke up, directing a hard look across the gap to the evil-eyed child. "Would war not be more profitable?"
"You need to think about the long term," Naruto smirked. "War isn't long term. The conditions the village leaders agreed to, now that's long-term. Now I can live my life and do my research in peace." He took his hands out of his pockets and raised them in a dramatic shrug. "I'm past making a profit; I've made enough profit to last me five lifetimes." The boy motioned to Madara, asking, "What's your reason?"
"…The revival of my clan. Their restoration to their rightful place."
The boy hurriedly pursed his lips, suppressing his laugh.
"But that will have to wait until I handle you, boy."
Naruto's brow twitched. "Is that right?"
Madara didn't reply and his rinnegan glowed.
Quickly, Naruto raised his forearm guards to his face and chin, and a complete Susanno warped out from Madara's eyes and cut the distance between himself and the boy in an instant, grabbing the boy and squeezing its fist, crushing the child into a bloody paste.
Madara wasn't deceived though.
His Susanno's fist exploded open with red fire and an unearthly beast burst out with a vengeful bellow, growing to be the same giant size as Madara's Susanno as the Uchiha reared back.
The creature that had exploded out from Naruto's former position was a giant red fox, billowing with red fire and landing with a heavy crash. There were a series of thick black lines materializing across its body, prominent of which was the three concentric circles at the back of its head and its gut. Its nine tails swayed hypnotically at its back and the boy hovered inside its head chuckled warily, one eye open and reforming his legs from a mass of writhing spiders.
Naruto's features and clothes mirrored the great beast, having the same concentric circles on his body and a series of lines running down his shoulders and his pants to his footwear. The shadow obscuring his face didn't lift, highlighting his dangerous red eyes, his pronounced red whiskers and his broad grin.
A pair of horns rose from the top of his hood, curving backwards.
The nine tails snarled, exhaling smoke from its maw as it lowered into a crouch. Its claws shattered the earth as he gripped the ground. A second pair of arms and hands materialized, curling to the creature's back and meshing its fingers into a ram seal at its lower back, gathering chakra inside its gut and compacting the chakra into a ball.
Madara's dark blue Susanno sprouted a pair of feathery cerulean wings, standing over the Kyuubi with a pair of burning blue katana in its right hand, while the ends of his wings curled into hands, gripping the sheaths of his swords. A second face manifested at the back of the Susanno's head, a horrific creation with a pair of owlish eyes that revolved with Madara's eternal Mangekyo sharingan, an elongated nose and lips that were twisted into a grotesque frown.
The eyes at the front of the Susanno spiralled purple, mirroring Madara's rinnegan.
"Come, boy."
Naruto laughed and lunged forward, stampeding at dazing speed to his opponent.
Madara stepped forward once and swung his swords down, but the Kyuubi skirted away and roared, gripping the earth to stop himself short and hanging its mouth wide open. There was a sharp twinkle inside the beast's mouth and Madara moved his swords to guard his face, slicing a tailed beast ball in half, deflecting them to both sides of him and devastating the ground below.
The man spun away from a second and third beast ball, and broke a kick into the snout of the nine tails, blasting it off the ground.
Airborne, Madara threw his swords at the beast and the blades sliced into the creature's head and stomach, and the monster dispelled.
The Uchiha grunted and whipped around, catching the nine tails by the throat before it could land on his back. He only caught the frantic hand seals Naruto was weaving together at the last second, unable to throw the creature away when it coiled all of its nine tails around his opponent.
"Web Bomb: Level Ten!"
A white sphere appeared between the creature's hands and it clapped, breaking it.
The explosion of thick, quickly hardening webs tangled both chakra manifestations. Tiny brown spiders with beeping abdomens travelled across the web explosion, adding more layers to the trap and encasing both the Kyuubi and the Susanno.
Naruto was the first to dispel his chakra manifestation, still coated in Kyuubi chakra and running at blistering speeds across the web tangle. He held his right arm forward and clenched his fist, shooting a round of medical needles tipped with poison. The needles splintered against the Susanno.
Madara, fighting against the trap to move his Susanno's arms, snapped his head up to where the needles had impacted and gnashed his teeth when he saw that small section crack; the structural integrity of the Susanno was compromised, likely from a chemical mixture in the boy's arsenal that directly attacked chakra.
Naruto leapt through the crack and slammed the sole of his foot into Madara's face.
A shockwave of Kyuubi chakra rippled across the landscape, starting from Madara's face and racing down the Susanno, incinerating the web bomb and blasting outwards.
The earth splintered and Hidden Rain, not too far from them, cried as more buildings came down, burning with toxic flames.
Madara exploded out of his Susanno and smashed into the ground, rolling on his back twice before he flipped with the momentum, dodging a hail of needles and pushing off the earth on his last backflip, and tugging his gunbai off his back. He swung the fan-like sword upwards and a roaring surge of sharp wind scattered another hail of senbon, casting away a flood of spider summons that had risen from the ground in an ambush.
Lifted off the ground, the spiders dispelled back to their summoning realm.
Naruto's laugh echoed and Madara snapped, his rinnegan pulsing madly.
"Enough games, boy!"
"Why?" Naruto's question sounded from everywhere and nowhere, projecting his voice. "This is fun!"
The muddy ground had hardened from the Kyuubi fire and a series of craters had pulverized the earth. A large, humanoid bonfire burned menacingly where his Susanno had formerly stood, crackling with an unnaturally red fire.
"Fine. You want to play games?" Madara growled and closed his eyes. The area around his eyes darkened and the Hashirama visage on his chest, under his armour, howled in a voiceless tone as the Uchiha gathered nature chakra, seamlessly entering sage mode. The man opened his eyes and his rinnegan flicked up, watching the boy fall from the sky, cracking a manic grin at the beaming child. "Let's play."
Naruto crash-landed, falling on an afterimage.
The boy got back to his feet and ambled out of the crater, sweeping his maniacal eyes for any sign of his opponent.
His Kyuubi cloak rippled in the non-existent wind and his eyes widened, snapping to his right but smacked into the ground by a right hook. The boy sprang back to his feet, lowering his stance and guarding his face, and a kick slammed into his gut, a punch rocked the other side of his face and a clubbing blow smashed his head into the ground.
"You are a remarkable child," Madara said, seeing the boy haggardly rise off the ground onto a knee and rubbing the back of his head with a hard wince. A line of blood dripped down his chin from the scalp wound, and the boy cursed, his elated expression never wavering as he searched for the man. "But your intelligence is your doom."
The boy didn't answer, shakily getting to his feet—
Madara flickered to his front and dug an uppercut into Naruto's chin.
All too suddenly, Naruto soared above the clouds, jarred and amazed.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Naruto collided with the side of a mountain on the other side of the continent.
Snappily, the boy whipped back to his feet and looked around him, alarmed at the snow that sizzled against his Kyuubi cloak. He glanced down, stretching his senses as far they could reach and gnashed his teeth, hissing a curse when he looked down.
He had landed on a steep mountain among a range of mountains, capped with thick snow and dangerously cold winds. Naruto could breathe easily at any altitude, but what caught him by surprise was that he was in Lightning country.
The boy moved precariously through the snow, unaffected by the cold because of his cloak of toxic red fire, which made him stick out like a single candle stubbornly flickering at the centre of a snowstorm.
Naruto's head rang and he looked up, feeling a sweet chill roll down his spine.
The sun was coming down from the sky.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Annihilation," Madara pronounced from the sky, exhaling the planet-sized wall of fire and gas to the boy.
The boy slapped his hands and pushed his palms outwards, and his Kyuubi chakra extended from his core and created an enlarged pair of nine tails hands. The hands rapidly increased in size and extended further and further, catching the sun in their palms and pushing while fixing his feet to the ground with chakra.
Naruto bared his teeth and roared, feeling the sun fight against his hands, slowly winning as his feet were forced to shuffle back.
Something sparked in the boy's head and another pair of fiery hands materialized from his cloak—from his ribcage—and clasped together into the dragon seal. Another pair of burning red arms erupted from the boy's shoulders, settling at the back of his head and tangling together into the tiger hand seal.
Effectively multitasking, the hands at the back of his head began to gather nature chakra and the hands at his front channelled his natural chakra.
"Summoning Jutsu: Sagi."
A cloud of smoke covered him before the cold wind of the mountaintop cleared it away.
Naruto was now standing on a spider—a horse-sized, sagely white spider with beady red eyes and a contemplative expression. She hissed, speaking to her creator and master in an unexpectedly delicate slither of words.
"Already on it, master."
She wedged her eight legs into the snowy mountain, standing strong despite the sun barrelling to them from the heavens, and began to meditate.
It took her a few seconds.
Two of the four dots over Naruto's eyebrows—his extra eyes—grew in size and became beady red vulpine eyes, horrifically similar to Naruto's original eyes. The dots at the bridge of his nose stretched downwards into long, black lines, resembling rivulets of tears flowing down from Naruto's eyes, curving around his grinning mouth and reaching his chin.
The curved horns sprouting from the boy's temple stayed red, but with a hissing white tip at their end.
Supporting her master by collecting nature chakra and easing him into Sage mode, the flames covering the boy changed from red to white, and his pants and shoes rippled black. A spider emblem drew itself on the back of his hoodie, its four lower legs reaching his heels and its four upper arms draping over his shoulders.
He called this form his Spider mode.
This mixture of Naruto's chakra, Kyuubi chakra and nature chakra spiralled up the enlarged hand, changing it white till it reached the sun pushing against his palms, snapping his hands together and crushing the ball of fire.
The spider sage skipped aside, her master perched on her back and dispelling his large arms, and Madara came down, cleaving off a large portion of the mountain with his gunbai, triggering a landslide.
The large spider bound from falling rock to falling rock, skittering up and shooting webs from its abdomen to avoid getting crushed by oversized chunks of rock. Naruto kept low, zeroing his eyes on the bonfire of chakra barrelling down the face of the breaking mountain to meet the boy.
Naruto jumped off his summons and cocked his right fist back, baring a vicious snarl and releasing his fist against the flat side of Madara's gunbai as the Uchiha used it to guard his face.
A blinding light covered the planet and the earth momentarily stopped spinning.
The tides rose to impossible heights.
The tectonic plates of the earth shifted restlessly.
A wall of wind flatted the Lightning country mountain range.
Across the continent, KDC warehouse fuinjutsu defences worked hard to keep the buildings standing upright. The shockwaves spreading down from Lightning country battered villages and countries indiscriminately.
Sagi—blinded by the flash even though she had closed her eyes and looked away—powered against the massive battering shockwaves and weaved a net, catching her master before he could smack to the bottom of the decimated mountain range.
The boy clambered out of the net, sparing an appreciative nod to the spider elder and pointedly ignoring the mangled state of his right arm.
Madara coolly strolled down the wreckage of rock.
Naruto growled with a smile, seeing that the only damage the ninja had sustained was his heavily dented gunbai and that the upper half of his armour was seared off his body, revealing his bare chest to the ragged boy.
The man looked at his unbreakable gunbai, bent inwards from a decisive blow, and tossed it away, slowly turning to the boy.
"To think this is your best," Madara said with a stoic grunt, the disappointment nearly ebbing off him in waves. "Pitiful."
Naruto's grin widened painfully.
He reached with his left hand and grabbed his right elbow. Sagi saw what he wanted to do, and she screamed, "Master!"
Naruto tore off his right arm with a pained grit of his sharp teeth, pulling it clean out from his shoulder and carelessly discarding it.
The white cloak covering him flickered normally, uninterrupted.
"I'll grow a new one later," Naruto reassured her with a wincing beam, manipulating his chakra to grow for him a new appendage, made entirely out of the white flames. The balanced blend of the three types of chakra whirling inside the boy's reserves—his own, Kyuubi chakra, and nature chakra—worked to heal the boy's wound, while Naruto flexed the fingers of his right arm, rolling the shoulder and checking for full mobility. The eyes on his temple flicked to Sagi and his original eyes stayed on Madara.
"Obito was right," Madara said, unclipping the heavy armour at his waist and letting it fall, leaving him in a plain pair of black pants and black shinobi sandals. "You most certainly have lost your mind."
"Thanks," Naruto replied, chirping chipperly and stabbing a needle into his right shoulder, sighing pleasantly as his antibiotics went to work. "Never let them know your next move, I always say." He pointed a finger to his mutilated arm and Sagi obediently pounced on it, swallowing it whole, senbon launcher and all. Next, he pointed at Madara, beckoning the man to come. "Well?"
" Hm."
Naruto was torn off the ground and pulled to Madara, laughing wildly as the man slammed his fist into the boy's throat, only for Naruto to disperse into a mad tangle of white spiders, clambering over and onto Madara. The man, alarmed by the spiders swarming him and sinking their teeth into his body, spread his arms open and a Susanno billowed out from his pores, sending the spiders off him.
The Susanno flicked off and the man cursed, winding around with a kick and smacking his foot into Naruto's forearm guard, shielding his left ear and delivering a jab to the man's chest, which was dodged with a sidestep. The man pushed the boy away and Naruto surged back, getting a knee driven into his gut and leaning deeply into Madara's blow, manifesting a spider appendage from his back and driving it into Madara's shoulder.
Madara snapped his teeth, frustrated by the tricks, and tore the limb out of his shoulder, driving a straight kick into Naruto's chin.
The boy backflipped three times, pulling the poisoned spider appendage back into his body all the while. He hurriedly fell to a knee and dodged a clothesline, barely missing losing his head.
Flexible and in a daze of speed, the boy contorted backwards from his knee, Naruto planted his hands onto the ground and whacked a kick to the man's jaw.
The man grunted from the blow and caught the leg, only for Naruto to scatter into a flurry of venomous spiders, injecting Madara as many times as they could before they were shredded off the Uchiha by a Susanno.
"You can't keep this up, Madara," Naruto told the man, rising out of the ground under Madara, inside the Susanno, and winding a right hook into Madara's jaw. The blow slammed the man against his Susanno, bouncing him back to Naruto, who planted a straight kick into Madara's nose, sending him through the Susanno. The blue manifestation shattered noisily and the man rolled on his back, only for Naruto to drive a knee into Madara's nose, breaking it in a shower of blood. "You're getting weak. I can tell."
The man chuckled lowly, breaking his expressionless mask. Gathering himself to his knees and running a hand under his nose, he saw blood. "Trickery…"
"Funny. I've never known you to be an honourable man."
The man bolted to his feet, with a twister of speed, and slammed a palm into Naruto's chest. The boy dug his feet into the ground and reached forward with his elbow, smacking the man's face with it and reeling back with a back fist to Madara's temple, finishing the blinding sequence with a headbutt that flattened the man into the ground.
"You're a very hard man to tag, Madara Uchiha," Naruto conceded with a sly smile. "I've been trying throughout this fight to get a good hit, and at the end of the day, it was your cockiness that killed you."
The man hacked, weakly turning onto his side and expelling blood from his mouth. He heaved, sitting up, but Naruto laid him back down with a punt to the head. The toxin took full effect and the Uchiha couldn't move at all, rendered too weak to lift a finger. That, and the jarring concussion from the foot to the head.
"Never let them know your next move."
"I agree."
Naruto looked over his shoulder at the speaker, a simmering smirk rising on his lips at Madara's watery, bleeding laughter.
At his back, Zetsu had Aoki-chan by the scruff of her collar, twisting the girl's left arm behind her back and forcing her to stay on her toes. Her discomfort was evident on her twisted face. Zetsu was using the girl as a buffer between itself and the scientist.
Naruto's head flopped forward with a heavy sigh, muttering audibly, "Damn it, I told you to hide."
"I…" stammered, sporting a shallow black eye and without her sword. "I-I was worried."
The boy grit his teeth and Zetsu glanced around Aoki-chan, a dangerously wild look in its eyes. "You think you're the only one that doesn't mind using hostages?"
The boy pulled his hoodie off his head, maintaining his spider mode, showing that his blonde hair was a white flame and his pallid complexion was paler, emphasizing the redness of his four eyes, the whisker marks on his cheeks, and the deep black lines running down from the bridge of his nose to his chin. His burning red horns curved from his temple and the boy's venomous teeth gnashed with indecision.
"The one time you don't listen to me is when you get caught."
Madara's unhinged laughter filtered into his ears and the boy closed his eyes. Laying on his back, the man narrowed a chuckling glare at the boy. "The antidote, boy. Now."
Naruto's shoulders slouched and he palmed his face with his left hand, slowly rubbing his face and pinching the bridge of his nose.
Naruto exhaled, saying as he casually shrugged, "It was nice while it lasted."
The samurai stammered, eyes wide with horror. "Wait. Naruto, no—"
Zetsu's shared that expression, but the boy already levelled his left senbon launcher at the samurai, clenching his fist and releasing a spray of four finger-length needles.
The needles whistled through the air and peppered the girl, exiting her back and impaling the plant creature at her back.
The samurai wheezed and toppled back onto Zetsu.
Naruto strolled to her sightline and raised an eyebrow at her, seeing the glazed terror and betrayal marring her face.
He rolled his eyes and held a hand down at her. "Get up, you big faker."
The girl's face immediately cleared from her anguished expression, switching to one of annoyance, gnashing her teeth as she took her boss's hand, helping her back to her feet. "It still hurts…"
"I didn't get any of your vitals. You're fine," he said easily, dusting down her back for grass and dust. The fiery white chakra cloak didn't affect the girl. When he was satisfied, and at the girl's complaints, he took hold of both sides of her face and levelled her with a searching look, asking her a lingering question. "Did it…?"
"No." she shook her head, lifting her hands and setting them on the back of his hands, smiling a little, pained but pleased. "He just caught me by surprise."
The boy furrowed his brow at the hilarity. " You. Aoki-chan. Killer of Kisame and my best girl got caught off-guard?"
"Shut up." The girl rolled her eyes and shoved him away, much to his open amusement, laughing.
"If you kept one of my spiders on you, I won't have needed to shoot you."
The girl lifted her chin stubbornly. "I stand by my decision."
Naruto shook his head, exasperated and used to her samurai pride at this point. Her rigid stance on tradition and Naruto's lack of morals were a common clashing point for them, as agreeable as they were most of the time. He beckoned her to stand still, pulling a syringe from his left sleeve and flicking off the cap on the needle. He went to her and she eased up one of her sleeves for him to push the needle inside, squeezing the antibiotic and painkiller into her system from her arm.
She breathed out, calmer and the twisted pain on her face lightened.
"That should hold you till I get a better look at those wounds," Naruto said, sealing the syringe into a storage seal on his left elbow.
Some of the concoction had leaked into Aoki-chan as it passed through her, but it was a blend specially made to combat Zetsu clones. The very same ones he gave the Shinobi Alliance to combat the formerly rampant assault of white Zetsu clones. The only effect it had on humans was a mild rash where it had touched, and true to Naruto's guess, the girl began to lightly scratch her stomach. She glared at him and he smothered his large grin, turning away from her and peering down at Zetsu.
The plant creature was fading, four needles sunk fully into his torso and right arm, leaking their poisonous contents into the creature's body.
Some creaking sounds snapped from inside the creature as its nature chakra hardened, groaning and unable to speak.
Naruto shrugged dramatically. "She was bait." He bore a chilling grin down at Zetsu, watching as its body began to gradually turn grey. It was a pain worse than death and a future worse than torture, as being made into a statue didn't automatically guarantee death. People turned to statues didn't die, and the same was for Zetsu. The boy genially patted Aoki-chan's shoulder, walking back to Madara. "Do whatever you want."
Behind his back, he heard a distinct crack as the samurai stepped on Zetsu's head, smashing it to pieces.
"And as for you," Naruto said, the happiest grin on his face and his eyes curved up as he stood over the Uchiha. The man only had the strength to bare his teeth and the boy eased himself down on his knees beside the man. "You're not allowed to die yet."
A week later, Naruto walked into the Alliance Headquarters and threw Madara's head into the meeting hall. It rolled on the table, the other Kage watching it as it stopped before the Hokage. It was eyeless and nightmarishly devoid of a lower jaw. The hair was low and the skull looked like it had been broken open at the scalp, neatly glued back together afterwards.
Naruto hid it well—standing at the doorway in a dark green coat that was unzipped at the front to show his black shirt and pants, and ninja sandals—having his right arm wrapped in a plaster cast underneath his coat, held to his body by a sling and leaving the sleeve empty. His blonde hair was cut a bit shorter and there was a slight wince in his larger-than-life grin.
His eyes though conveyed a mix of enjoyment and malice.
The boy smilingly looked around at the gathering, accepting the nods of respect from the Kazekage, the Mizukage, and the new Tsuchikage, before his red eyes stopped at the festering Hokage, glowering at Madara's severed head, its hollow eye sockets staring at her.
He spoke his next words to her.
"Don't bother me again."
He gave her a winning smile, and a two-fingered salute, and left the meeting hall.
Authors note
And that's it.
I want to thank everyone for making this writing journey fun. For all of your nice messages, encouraging reviews and critically objective thoughts. It was fun writing an unhinged Naruto and I'm glad you all stuck with me to the very end. I truly appreciate it.
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!
Just like I said in chapter 9, there will be an epilogue. I purposely made the ending of this chapter so abrupt because I intend to start the epilogue from a large time skip. The epilogue would essentially be an update of the notable characters, where they are and what they've been up to, and all of that. I won't label this story as complete until I upload the epilogue ;)
It should be ready on Wednesday.
So, what do you think?
How was this chapter?
How was the story?
Stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I'll see you when I see you.
Foy.