"Sakura this one's still alive," Shikamaru called. Sakura dashed over to Sasori and opened his cloak then gasped in surprise.

"He's not a person he's a ninja puppet," Sakura said. "I think this red part is the only thing that's still alive and it has a hole right through it. I can't help him."

"All so meaningless," Sasori said. "All that effort to become more powerful and then I get beat by some weakling with simple hand weapons."

"Do you know where to find Orochimaru?" Sakura asked.

"My old partner," Sasori said. "I had hoped to take that traitor down. It's such a shame I was meeting a spy in twelve days at the Tenchi Bridge in the grass village. Whatever you do there will be pointless, I had over a hundred puppets, and he beat me so fast I couldn't even call out more than two. If a weakling could beat me like that with their weapons how could anyone hope to beat someone that's strong and has them?"

"Why do you think he was weak?" Shikamaru asked.

"I hit him in the chest with a blow that would have been shallow on a shinobi and just given him a dose of my poison," Sasori said. "He was saved by armor but it was still enough to break a few ribs." Sasori coughed, sputtered and then died.

"Sakura," Shikamaru said, "Let's get everyone over to the sand village, it's closer then the leaf village."

Field Marshall Axurhotep was in the medical wing of the imperial citadel in river country. He had just gotten his broken ribs tended to and was being fussed over by several nurses and debriefed by his top generals as well as the two shinobi warlords he had recruited.

"Sir I must remind you that as a high ranking officer you are not permitted to go on field operations like this," General Tyran said. "Your status as leader makes you to indispensible for that."

"General Tyran please I'm not the Emperor," Axurhotep answered. "If I die you can easily take over. If we're truly lucky a shinobi will kill me and the Emperor will bring his personal guard here and finish off this world much faster then we could hope to do so alone."

"Be careful what you wish for," a dark and ominous voice said. "It just might come true." The assembled people in the room looked to the door and saw a man who looked about twenty. He was wearing a Grand Empire uniform but rather than the brown of the dawn guard his was jet black and the crest on his right arm had a clenched fist inside the winged serpent instead of a sun.

"Who are you?" Harada leader of the snow ninjas asked.

"He's Major Terrick of the Grand Imperial Axurian Guard," Axurhotep answered. "A former member of the Emperor's Claw and the best swordsmen the empire has ever known."

"What does Axurian mean?" Kenuichio leader of the Artisan ninjas said.

"The Emperor's name is Axur," Terrek explained. "I'm part of the elite forces of his personal guard."

"Can we interpret form your presence here that the Emperor is going back to our previous battle doctrine of having all branches engage in conquest together instead of this one branch per conquest debacle," General Sheld asked.

"No I just saved up a few years of leave and I thought where better to spend it then visiting my old teammate who got a 14 rank promotion in a warzone?" Terrek answered. "And I heard about a night club called the Spook I was going to check out at seven o'clock."

"I'd like to know what ever you can tell me about it," Axurhotep said.

Terrek swung around with an unnatural quickness to his seven o'clock as the generals all drew their side arms Terrek held out his right hand. "Come down off the wall." Terrek said. Zetsu fell from his hiding place on the corner of the infirmary.

"What are you doing you idiot," Black Zetsu said as he struggled to get back up despite white Zetsu having become dead weight.

"Must do as the master says," White Zetsu answered.

"You are completely in my power." Terrek said.

"I am completely in your power," White Zetsu said.

"Shut up," Black Zetsu said he tried to separate from White Zetsu only to be shot in the head before he could fully separate.

"Now tell me and all these nice Generals everything about who you are and who you work for," Terrek said.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

Exposition:

I feel this needs to be explained but I'm not sure if I will be able to work it into the story without slowing it down with excess dialogue. The emperor's claw was an elite squad taken from the six Imperial military branches. Terrek was the commander, Axurhotep was the squad sniper. The friend who got a fourteen rank promotion is Axurhotep hence why a sixteen year old is commanding the huge invasion. How that happened will be explained later.