"Idiot! Even I knew that just by taking a look at him!" Tsunade slugged her old teammate over the head.
"Why didn't you tell me before I made that whole observant speech about hair colour and stuff then?!" Jiraiya held the back of his throbbing head.
"You're an elite ninja, you should've noticed right away. Sure, the ones who are fighting them might not notice in the heat of the battle, but he's just standing there! Really, Jiraiya! I thought you were better than this!"
"I'm at least better than being a slug queen!" He shot back.
"I feel like I just walked into a drama," Pain sighed.
"So. You're Nagato," Jiraiya shook his head. "I thought you would've been the last person to turn bad."
"When I was young, that was the case. Konan and I have seen the true pain of this world, and we are set on making peace through pain."
"Yah, well good luck with that," Tsunade glanced behind her and saw a dot of black, red and blue flying towards them. Speak of the she-devil…
"How is the attack on the Uchiha's?" Pain inquired as his partner landed.
"Amejisuto-chan has bonded with a powerful summoned feline and easily wiped out one of your paths," the bluenette reported. "He got revived but Uchiha Sasuke died using the last of his chakra to kill the animal summons path. There were only three other casualties."
Tsunade and Jiraiya were relieved but saddened at the loss of even four shinobi. Pain scowled. "I take it your mission on retrieving the two Uchiha failed?"
"Yes," Konan looked down. "Even the remaining two paths had to flee. Shinobi from all over the village went to help, and they were greatly outnumbered, even with their skills."
"That leaves one other thing then," the pierced man narrowed his eyes. "If we capture the jinchuriki, they will go after us."
"No! Naruto is not going to be captured!" The hokage yelled, charging forward, gathering chakra in her hands. She narrowly missed her targets as they flew up over the Hokage mansion.
"Too bad. I can sense his chakra; I will get him in no time."
"Sasuke… He's dead?!" Naruto yelled at Pain. "I don't believe it!"
"He used the last of his chakra fighting us off," the older man replied. "He died with one of my other bodies. I say it's a fair trade."
The jinchuriki's eyes started flickering, his pupils turning from their round shape to fox-like slits, his eyes turning red soon after. His whiskers darkened, his teeth grew longer, his nails sharpened, and a thick, bubbly coat of orange surrounded him, forming three tails.
Pain smirked; this would be easy. He just needed to use his almighty push and-
His eyes grew wide as one of the tails burst through him, quicker than he anticipated. That wasn't enough to kill him, but it was enough to slow him down quite a bit as he got repaired. He sent in his other paths, retreating to the background with the one that could bring people back to life. He couldn't just be swallowed by the statue like if that body was dead. No, he had to use the chakra from the statue to use the healing powers.
Meanwhile, Naruto was doing great as he quickly was able to dodge every attack that the paths threw at him, even knocking two out of three away. After a while, the ones that he killed got eaten by the strange looking device as the original Pain battled him, sending out his chakra in a bubble that pushed everything around him outward, then sucked everything in.
The blonde got more furious as time flew by. 'They killed Sasuke! They deserve to have the same done to them,' he growled to himself. He was getting more and more irritated that Pain kept dodging his attacks. Neither of them were getting anywhere. 'I have to do this, no matter what. Even if I destroy him mercilessly. He deserves it though for killing Sasuke!'
Onlookers watched in horror as the three tail's cloak turned a deeper red, covering the beloved blond in what looked like blood.
Three tails turned to four.
Bones started forming on the outside of the cloak.
Four turned to six.
Pain knew he was in trouble. He surged his chakra through the ground around the attacking ninja, barely dodging his attacks with his almighty push defense, and made a large expanse of the earth underneath Naruto start rising and closing into a ball high in the air.
Six tails turned to eight.
The ball was almost closed and Pain could barely see the inside, though he could hear horrible screeching.
Eight tails turned to nine.
There was silence.
The Akatsuki member looked on with relief, trying to plan out how to capture the nine-tails without getting pulverized. Never before had he faced such a challenging opponent, and he was genuinely scared for his life, even from the true body he was in. If he was found, he would be killed.
A terrible roar echoed from inside the earth dome, and a large explosion revealed that the jinchuriki had managed to open a hole in the thick crust of his prison.
He landed on the ground in front of the paths of Pain, growling and snarling, before launching his tails at them.
They couldn't escape. They were obliterated.
"Itachi-san, Ame-chan! Come quick! He's waking up!"
Sasuke stirred in his hospital bed, slowly opening his eyes and trying to adjust to the light. He could see three heads over him, staring at him with excitement and concern.
"Stop crowding around him. There are other patients that deserve your sympathy, you know."
The Uchiha glanced over at his pink haired teammate, who was standing nearby in her nurse uniform with her hands on her hips and her hair up.
"But Sakura-chaaann," Naruto whined as the kunoichi tried to shoo him away first. Sasuke noticed that the blond was heavily bandaged, and wondered why he was even out of his own bed.
Memories flashed back to the Akatsuki invasion, and he sat up quickly, hissing in pain from his sore muscles that would normally be strengthened by his chakra. 'Oh right, I used it all,' he thought. "How am I alive?" He ended up asking out loud.
He looked to the other side of his bed where his brother and sister-in-law were standing. "We only managed to fight off the intruders that came in the Uchiha district," Amejisuto said, oddly cheerful.
"Naruto-kun fought the other enemies and destroyed them. It turned out that they were only bodies being controlled by a man. The piercings were the transmitters," Itachi explained.
"He kinda went all nine-tails," Sakura glared at the jinchuriki. "It was a miracle that he changed back to normal before he destroyed the village."
Naruto looked down at the floor, smiling like there was some big secret going through his head. "Yah, it wasn't easy though. I almost let him run loose, but I got some sense back and changed to normal."
"And then what?" Sasuke asked, wanting to hear more.
"He found the man behind all the paths of Pain and talked some sense into him," Jiraiya suddenly appeared. "He was one of my old students, so it was easier to bring him back to the good side. The woman that was with him, Konan, turned to our side again too." A dark look crossed the toad sage's features. "Sadly, he gave his life to bring back everyone that died in the battle."
"Hello, Jiraiya-san," Itachi greeted.
"Itachi-kun," the older man smiled. He looked at everyone. "Don't mind me, I only came to see how my favorite apprentice was doing. I figured he would be here," his eyes twinkled with amusement as Naruto inched closer to Sasuke.
Sakura looked around the room and sighed. "Most of you should go now. There is generally a two visitors at a time rule." She glanced at Naruto. "If you want, you can stay in the empty bed. Most of the other patients have healed, so you can afford to switch rooms."
"Thanks, Sakura-chan," Naruto beamed his infamous smile, crawling into the neighboring bed before the pinkette could get a chance to tell him to rest.
"We should be going now," Itachi took the hand of his wife, making eye contact with all the others in the room. "We have a clan district to help fix."
"Good luck," Sasuke called as they left.
Jiraiya followed the two soon after, waving goodbye and leaving team 7 in the hospital room to chat. Eventually, a nurse popped her head in and got Sakura running to her next patient. Sasuke and Naruto chatted until night.
"I'm relieved that Pain didn't use his almighty push on the whole village," Naruto grimaced. "That was one of the things I kept thinking he could do. It would be terrible."
"Yah," Sasuke agreed, before exhaustion finally took both of them to sleep.
"Well, this was a waste of preparations," one frog croaked at another meeting of Mount Myoboku. "The battle was over before we could even get there."
"It's for the best," Gamabunta chimed in. "Did you really want to be part of a battle that fierce? We all saw it."
"For once, the old toad was wrong," another toad murmured.
"No… I was not…" The elder toad rasped. "There will… Be… Another…"
"Another huge battle that will kill a lot of humans and probably us too?" A younger toad spoke up.
"There… Are… Wars… There will always be… Wars…"
"Yah, as long as the humans are running the world," the first toad croaked silently.
"Are there going to be any wars in the near future?" Gamabunta asked loudly enough for the wise but confused old toad to hear.
"That, I do not… Know..."