Kakashi was still more than a little shocked, when he last saw the body standing before him, it had been half crushed and was dying. Boyish face and goggles of his eyes, he had only just unlocked his Sharingan, the person controlling the body now- like him- had mastered the full strength of the Mangekyo Sharingan- or not. Kakashi realized something. Talking with Itachi he'd learned more about his Sharingan than in years of using it- he only had one eye- that meant he could only do half of the Mangekyo Sharingan most powerful techniques, which meant Tobi/Obito probably had the other half. Although, he hadn't seen Tobi use any of the mastered Mangekyo Sharingan techniques, so it was possible the person controlling them either didn't know them, or is unable to project them through his 'tool's' eyes.
In fact he hadn't seen any of the more 'typical' Uchiha moves except for a very basic Sharingan technique when he 'suggested' to Kakashi to use Chidori… Kakashi glanced to Shikamaru and attempted to get his attention. He made a short motion with two fingers, moving them back and forth one in front of the other. Shikamaru thought for a moment, then shook his head, then motioned to his eye corresponding to where Tobi's eye patch was. Kakashi frowned, then nodded.
Tobi snorted, "So you noticed, but I wonder if you've really gotten it figured out by now."
Shikamaru scowled. As he did, Tobi finally moved again, coming down from the trees, once more- Shikamaru was his main target. As Tobi was right in Shikamaru's face, Temari attempted to stab at his face from over Shikamaru's shoulder. At the last minute she corrected to rise over the expected contraction of space that would have her stabbing Shikamaru instead. With the Kunai still coming at him he changed his attack from a full frontal tackle like he'd been doing so far to a more simplistic maneuver as he raised up one of his arms so instead of hitting Shikamaru in the midsection, his other arm slammed into Shikamaru's forehead, more for effect than damage as it caused Shikamaru to tilt back rather than thrust into the ground, but it had the added effect of redirecting Shikamaru's body into Temari and forcing her to abandon her strike and catch Shikamaru. Tobi spun around and kicked at Shikamaru again, this time actually hurting him a little as well as knocking Temari on her ass.
"Shit!" Shikamaru scowled, "In the trees he just picks us off one at a time, on the ground he dive-bombs us- still picking us off in ones and twos…"
Already though both Naruto and Kakashi were moving.
Tobi turned to face them, moving at the closer Kakashi first, "Aren't you getting a little weak now from all that Sharingan use?"
"Aren't you?"
As Tobi closed the distance between them Kakashi forced as much Chakara into his legs as he could and leaped up. Naruto, already using several clones was attempting to surround him, while Kakashi was throwing a giant throwing star down at him.
Tobi took a deep breath and used a Grand Fireball, the first use of a more typical Uchiha maneuver- but a very typical use for it. Dozens of Naruto clones vanished in smoke, giving Tobi a place to dive-roll into to avoid the transformed clone that was coming down at him as it changed back in the last moment and threw another star- also a disguised clone that Tobi could see. Tobi scowled, smelling a trap but having little option but to fall prey to it, left or right he swam into an ocean of clones, straight back and it was into the real Naruto with a Ransengan waiting for Tobi to be close enough that he couldn't distort space fast enough far enough.
So he dived right, into an army of clones, as each clone expended it's allotted chakara with various attacks. A white light blasted in a sphere surrounding him, blowing back and ending each of the clones around him. When the smoke cleared Tobi was unharmed but panting anyway.
"I was hoping it wouldn't come to that."
"Kakashi, what just happened," Shikamaru asked.
"He used a Hyuuga clan technique," Naruto answered instead. "A full sphere blast from all of his Chakara points at once."
"Well come on," Tobi said, beckoning them with one hand, "You got me winded finally, aren't you gonna press your advantage?"
"Guys, he has another eye behind that eye patch, at first I thought it was the eye patch itself and it was a technique, but now my guess is it's a Hyuuga eye underneath, that's why he doesn't suffer any degradation to his depth perception from only having the one eye," Shikamaru explained.
"In that case it's a good thing your backup has arrived," a voice called out from the trees.
"Neiji-san!" Naruto yelled out.
On one side of the tree was Gai's complete team: Gai, Neiji, Rock Lee, and Tenten. Across from them, the remainder of Shikamaru's team who had already been in Sand: Chouji, Ino, and Asuma.
Tobi smirked, "I hope an hour and a half's enough," Tobi waved with one hand and chuckled as he made a mad dash, boosted by his spatial manipulation.
"Follow!" was all anyone bothered to say as the group as one moved after him.
As they were running, Shikamaru moved to Chouji's side, "Chouji, give Sakura your second-level Soldier pill."
Chouji looked shocked for a moment, "Are you sure?"
"She already took a normal one and it's about to wear off, she'll need the boost, and her body should be able to handle it."
"Okay- oh- and hey, sorry this had to happen on-"
"Yeah yeah," Shikamaru muttered, "everyone's sorry, see how sorry they are when Temari get's her hands on the people responsible…"
saSAsaSAsa
Sasori was surprised when Tobi seemed to appear beside him panting. "They did a little better than I expected, and they got reinforcements just as they were on the verge of turning the battle to their favor, I'd have been able to get you another five minute's tops with great risk of capture, so they'll probably catch up with us in about five minutes… Possibly less if they send Gai or Rock Lee ahead."
"How much did you weaken the main forces?"
"Kakashi should be all but spent because of his Sharingan, Naruto- maybe half at most, Sakura already had to resort to a soldier pill, Shikamaru has two half-healed wounds, I broke Temari's fan, and Kankoru was still badly injured when I left, they sent the rest of Asuma's team and Gai's team as back up."
"I've read the reports on Shikamaru and faced Neiji, either one is bad, both- we might be in trouble."
Tobi snorted, "Years of belittling the best, and here we are worried about the new generation."
"That's what tends to happen; the next generation surpasses the old…"
"That and they're observant little pests," he chuckled, "Can't use the same trick twice, thankfully neither of us is a one-trick pony."
"Indeed, you carry Gaara and his wife, I'll see about buying that last half hour to the base."
Tobi took one under each arm and continued on as Sasori opened the hatch of his main puppet and stepped out. He opened several scrolls and unleashed several of his more prominent puppets- and he stood waiting…
Sasori heard the group coming moments later, the large clearing that marked the edge of the forest left nowhere for Sasori to hide, and no way for the group to sneak around him. He stood on top of a puppet that almost looked more like a turtle, except for the human head poking out its front behind Sasori. To either side was a pair of puppets, each drastically different, and in front of him was the one puppet likely to give the most pause to the group.
Lee stopped at the edge of the tree line first; he looked down at the group of puppets. "Hello again Sasori," Neiji said from over Lee's shoulder.
"This won't be the same as last time, first of all I have more than just my primary puppet for defenses, and secondly, I only have to hold you at bay for another twenty-five minutes before I've accomplished my primary goal." He looked at the group as they all stopped at the edge of the tree line. "While your large numbers mitigate that advantage slightly, I still think I could hold you at least an hour if I had too…"
shSHshSHsh
Shiev sighed, the people in the village had told her Sand Village had suddenly massively increased security, and given the people there for the wedding they were talking about- that meant there had to have already been an attack and the security was to make up for their absence. That meant Akatsuki had made their move, and- success or failure- had drawn a retaliation- indicating a higher probability of success.
"Ice, I believe our plan of getting into Sand Village is moot at the moment, even if we did get past the heightened security which we probably could- the people we wish to talk to are probably gone at the moment." She turned to him, "I think our best bet is to wait in this village until rumors suggest the situation has changed…"
Ice nodded, "I'll get us rooms in the nearest tavern."
Shiev smiled approvingly, that was perhaps the most independent thought he'd had since they met, good progress- slow progress sadly, but given his starting point any progress was good…
A/N:
Yes yes- LONG LONG time between chapters… can't even begin to muster up a worthwhile apology… I've been working on other projects, mostly original ones, including a Book I've been writing and I'm almost done with…. If I can ever get any of my friends to read and review the damn thing so I can properly revise it… As it stands it's a middle to early high school level book of 130+ pages… I want it to be an adult level reader of around 250 pages… so much progress needs to be made… and it will remain my priority- I just happened to have a surge of thought enough to finish this chapter… lord knows when I'll get to the next one but let me assure you I haven't abandoned it….