Chapter 32 The Final Battle Part 4
The once pure blue sky was now nothing but thick black and gray smoke as ash fell from the sky covering everything, the ocean water in the bay a now a sick brownish gray from the combination of the ash and dirt from the comet strike. The ash was making the job of Sokka and Suki even harder then what it already was going to be. They had to move fast to rescue people who were trapped alive in whatever remained of their homes before they were buried alive by ash.
"Toph can you see if anyone is in there!" yelled Sokka as he climbed up to the top of a mound of wood and stone which used to be a house.
"I can't see anything, this ash is acting like sand would." yelled Toph "I can't see anything beyond say ten feet around me."
"Damn it." snapped Suki before yelling into the remains of the house "Is anyone down there!"
"Yes help us!" came a voice back as Sokka turned his gaze toward a group of fire nation soldiers who were standing by to help them.
"We have some people trapped down here!" yelled Sokka and to his amazement the fire nation solders followed his orders and began digging out the survivors.
While most of the living fire nation troops where either pulling out wounded civilians from the remains of the city or running for their lives from what they saw as monsters doing battle in the hole which was once the capital a small group was in the middle of a fight. Fighting alongside the Phoenix King Ozia against the Avatar. The number of soldiers going against the avatar had been steady going down as Aang knocked out one guard after another with a mix of Air, Earth and Water bending however no matter how many attacks Aang would send at Ozia none would take him down.
"You don't have the heart to kill do you Avatar." laughed Ozia as he cut one of Aang's water whips in half with a powerful stream of fire. Aang simply back up as he took an Earth bender strong defensive stance.
"All life is precious and I must protect it." explained Aang as he earth bend to large pillars of earth on either side of him preventing him from being hit by two fire blasts.
"Which is why your nation was weak, my ancestors did the world a favor by killing them all and removing that weakness from the world." laughed Ozia as Aang's eyes narrowed a bit as Aang sent the mounts of earth which he had been using to protect himself toward the final two standing fire nation soldiers. The solders had no time to move out of the way as they were knocked out by Aang's attack.
"So it is just the two of us." stated Ozia with a smile "I like it."
"I am going to give me one last chance let us join forces and save as many people we can from what remains of the Capital City." offered Aang as Ozia grinned "Think of your people, your friends and your children."
"Who cares about them?" snared Ozia "My daughter was here so she is dead now."
"You still have a son." stated Aang
"I have no son, I have no children. I never even wanted children but it was my duty and I was luckily that one of them turned out strong but she is dead now." Explained Ozia "Oh well I am still young enough to have another offspring and maybe have a son strong enough to carry on my line. I will tell you one of the greatest days of my life was when I scared my son for his weakness."
Aang's eyes widened as he realized how heartless the man in front of him really didn't care about any living person.
"Now…Avatar shall we end this." stated Ozia with a smile but it was the last time a smile would ever cross his face as suddenly a bot of lightening violently ripped through Ozia's chest almost hitting Aang. For a moment Ozia remained standing as a massive amount of blood began to pour out of fatal chest wound. Using the last of his strength Ozia turned around only to see his killer, she was covered with a massive amount of ash over her black armor and parts of her hair black hair was stained by the ash. Standing there was his own daughter Azula, he tried to speak only to have bright red blood flow like water from his mouth.
"Yes, I killed you father." stated Azula as she moved to stand over her father as the last moments of his life began to tick away. "Sasuke saved me from the comet blast but not Ty Lee and Mai."
Aang looked down a small pink band located on Azula's hip, it was covered with ash and dried blood.
"You killed your own father." stated Aang as he slowly moved to stand across from the princess as life faded from Ozia's eyes.
"Because it needed to be done and you are too weak to do it." stated Azula as she looked at the baron destroyed landscape around them. It was rare to see two bricks standing on top of each other most of the buildings had been vaporized. "It had to be done."
"Why?" inquired Aang
"That doesn't matter now, right now you either go die helping those little ninja friends of your or you try to save people your choice." Stated Azula as she threw a blue fire punch straight at her father's body. The heat of the flames instantly started burning away his body.
"I need to know. He was your father how could you just kill him like that?" inquired Aang
"Tell me something Avatar if my father was left alive after this battle is over what do you think will happen?" stated Azula as Aang gave the princess a blank stare "The war will go on and that can't happen."
"Ok…now I am really confused." stated Aang
"To prepare for this attack in which we were going to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground we pulled our forces back to multiple locations but most of them either went to Ba Sing Sa or right here." Explained Azula "Over a third of our fleet was at anchor in the harbor here. This nation has been crippled in a single blow. The moment the people in the lands we control hear about this they will rise up most importantly in Ba Sing Sa which my father would never surrender."
"The local people will rise up and would likely overrun our forces both within and outside the walls." stated Azula "When our forces at Ba Sing Sa are defeated there would be no major force standing in the way of a large scale invasion of the home land from the Earth Kingdom. The Fire Nation would fall if my father was left in command."
"So this is just a power grab." stated Aang as Azula grinned a bit as a little bit her black hair framed one of her golden eyes.
"In a way it is but not for me but for Zuzu." laughed Azula as Aang's eyes grew wide again "With the blow we have taken we can't carry on the war so the best play for the our nation is to make…peace."
"Peace you want peace?" asked Aang surprised by the change in the fire princess
"If the choices are peace or the occupation of our land, I'll take peace but no peace will happen if my father or I are Fire Lord. We are hated to much." explained Azula "But a Fire Lord who has the Avatar on his side, who fought against his family and taught the Avatar fire bending may have a chance to make peace with the other nations. Does that make sense to you now Avatar, I killed my father to save my nation."
"I guess." said a still slightly still confused Avatar as Azula turned her back on the Avatar and headed out toward the battlefield where her love was doing battle.
"What where are you going?" yelled Aang as Azula kept moving out into the field of battle without saying a word.
In middle of what remained of the Fire Nation Capital Madara Uchiha held his hand to his face as his mask lied broken in the ash covered ground. Standing before him was the young man who had cut his mask in half, Sasuke Uchiha.
"You will pay for that." Stated Madara as he stood up and looked at Sasuke. Sasuke took a step back as he looked into the face of his enemy, he had massive scars covering one side of his body and to make matters stranger one of his eyes was totally gone. "I see you realize who I am."
"You're not Madara, my father made me study the faces of the founders of our clan and that isn't you." stated Sasuke as the man grinned.
"No, I am the successor of Madara, Obito Uchiha." Stated Obito "But to you I am Madara."
"I remember your name, you where Kakashi's teammate who died." stated Sasuke as he shrugged a bit "Not that it matters you will die either way, no matter what you call yourself you are going to die."
"I don't think so." Stated Madara as he ran though hand signs. "Fire style…Giant fireball justu!"
Sasuke just stood there as a giant fireball came flying toward him then with one quick movement he ran though his own hand signs before blowing out a giant fireball of his own. The two fireballs hit each other as a battle for domination began.
Nearby Kyuubi and Naruto turned their totally attention to the only remaining path of Pain, the Deva path. Naruto his eyes silted where locked on the remaining path, however his ability to repel any attack was causing a monster headache for Naruto and the Kyuubi.
"Rasengan!" yelled Naruto as he tried to slam a glowing ball of chakra into the Pain's back only to be repelled by Pain. Pain tilted his head toward the battle between Sasuke and Madara only to spot an opening to launch an attack. He lifted his hand toward Sasuke who was in the middle of doing his fire justu.
"Pull." Ordered Pain however instead of Sasuke being pulled it was Pain who sent himself launching toward Sasuke just in time to avoid getting hit by one of the Kyuubi's tails. Sasuke's eyes widened as he saw Pain flying toward him, with no time to spare he broke his justu allowing him to move out of the way as Pain moved to stand beside Madara as Naruto moved to stand beside Sasuke.
"You couldn't handle taking care of one person, you had to interrupt my battle?" inquired Sasuke
"I had to fight six you only had to deal with one." stated Naruto
Meanwhile Sakura was doing battle with the only female member of the Akatsuki Konan near the deepest part of the creator which the comet strike had created in what was once the Capital of the Fire Nation. Konan was keeping her distance flying over Sakura's head all while sending razor sharp pieces of chakra laced paper at Sakura. Sakura could do almost nothing expect dodge the long range attacks, the medical ninja was highly skilled in close quarter combat where her enhanced strength would turn the tide of any battle was useless in range combat. The pink haired ninja jumped backwards to avoid another attack her hand digging into the ash covered ground as she flew backwards.
"The ground is hot." Thought as she lifted her gloved hand off the ground to avoid getting burned by the heat coming from underground. She looked up at the half destroyed mountain which once been home to the main palaces of the Fire Nation, instead of looking at the destroyed buildings hanging onto the edge of a cliff she looked at the lay out of the land. Her eyes widened as she realized where she stood and what power lurked below her feet.
"You have no idea what forces you are dealing with, Pain cannot be stopped by the likes of you." stated Konan
"Your right, I can't stop Pain only Naruto-kun can." Stated Sakura as she channeled Chakra into her fist "But I can stop you."
"You can't even hit me." Restated Konan
"I don't have to." Explained Sakura as she punched the ground, the force of her hit caused the ground to break as she prayed she was right about what waited just below her feet. The ground began to splitter as streams of hot gas shot out of the ground, Konan looked at the ground which had started to glow around the breaks in the ground. While Konan looked down confused at what was happening Sakura broke out in a dead sprint away from the battlefield. Konan raised her head as she prepared to fly after Sakura but she never had a chance to move as a gusher of lava shot out from the ground, the once dominate volcano which the Fire Nation had built their capital over had been awoke by the comet strike. There was no defense, Konan had just enough time to scream before the lava consumed her. Sakura looked up just in time to see what was left of the older woman fall into the small but growing pool of lava that Sakura had released.
Up near the edge of the Creator Pain's head snapped toward the sound of Konan's scream, as his eyes widened as he watched his friend and teammate fall into the pool of lava.
"This can't be." Stated Pain as his eyes locked on Naruto who was now standing beside Sasuke with the Kyuubi standing behind them. Within moments Sakura moved to stand beside Naruto as team seven stood before the storm.
"Looks like I was the first to defeat my enemy." reported a slightly cocky Sakura as Sasuke rolled his eyes.
"You will pay for that." Stated Pain as a mighty gust of wind caused everyone to shield their eyes as ash flew through the air. The moment they opened their eyes again a giant white bird filled their field of vision as it landed behind Madara and Pain. Standing on top of the bird was a figure unlike anything either of them had seen before. It wasn't the deep red hair or the fact that he had a Rinnegan that caught team seven and the Kyuubi off guard but the fact that he seemed to be attached to a sort of wooden walker from the waist down and had multiple metal rods coming out of his back.
"Behold the final path of Pain." Stated man "I am the real Pain and I will make you pay for taking away Konan from me, from here on I will not hold anything back you will feel pain everlasting."
With that Madara formed a hand sign as the Deva path of pain matched the hand sign as the two of them began channeling massive amounts of chakra.
"What are they doing?" inquired Sakura but her answer was quickly answered as giants blocks of Earth from all around them rose up. Pieces of destroyed buildings even a few body parts could be seen as they flew up into the sky gathering together into a single spot high above their heads. Within moments the rocks began to be compressed together into a single massive rock. The ball just kept growing and growing until whatever light was coming through the smoke was totally blocked out.
"Looks like they are going to try again hit us with a giant rock." laughed Sasuke as Sakura's eyes widened as she put together the real plan "It didn't work last time."
"They aren't trying to kill us with the rock. There is a volcano" stated Sakura as her head snapped toward Naruto "If I could cause a guesser of lava with my punch imagine what that thing could do."
"They are going to trigger a volcano." Answered a stunned Naruto as the Deva path grinned as he enemy figured out his plan as both Pain and Madara raised their hands toward the massive four mile wide rock they had formed. Either the rock killed their enemies or the volcano which was sure to be released upon impact did. With a simple flick of their wrists the attack was launched as the rock flew straight toward team seven.
"Shit." stated Naruto as he looked wide eyed up at the coming attack.
Well I hope you liked this chapter, there is only a few more chapters left and now team seven is facing the final assault of the Pain and Madara. Now I have also posted on my profile two brief clips from the stories I plan to start after I finish this one and my Lost Tribe story. So go to my profile to get a look of what is coming next from me and vote for the one you would like to see. Thanks Wilkins75.