Disclaimer: There is no humor in death.
I don't own Naruto or World of Warcraft.
Here's the next installment of The Legend of Uzumaki Naruto!
Sasuke said nothing.
"You can't," Naruto snapped, half-mocking and half-pained. "You can't can you? You're not the same Sasuke at all. That Sasuke could beat me. You can't, even if you're finally trying to kill me."
Something was changing in Sasuke's demeanor. The coldness seemed to dissipate, if only slightly, like ice thinning on a frozen pond. Naruto could see past it, almost, and his anger and mocking faded away, just as quickly as Sasuke attacked.
Naruto's sword took the blow, but it was much stronger than before, and done with far more ferocity. Sasuke was attacking, but not with the cold passiveness of before. Further evidence for this were the ghouls and Scourge behind him—before they had remained in the fog, perhaps guiding it, or perhaps just waiting for their master to finish his battle. Now they weren't, and were descending from the green mist in scores, heading straight for Naruto.
Sasuke's Sharingan turned slowly, and seemed to flash with something that was not light reflecting off ice, but something deeper. Naruto continued to block, redirecting Sasuke's quick and precise attacks away from his torso, even as they nicked and cut his arms and shoulders. He had backed up to the wharf now, and there was just a stretch of wooden planks between him and the rolling sea. It began to rain.
"You're not Sasuke," Naruto said, dancing away from another of Sasuke's attacks, and riposting as quickly as a wasp stinging. His sword bit briefly into Sasuke's shoulder, but it didn't do anything except allow Sasuke to get another cut on Naruto, straight across his chest. A burst of anger flared Naruto's next attack—he slammed his whole weight into Sasuke, knocking him back, and then punched him with the hilt of his sword, again and again, until Sasuke pulled away and made a few seals.
'Kyouton: Numbing Ice'
Sasuke's hand flew out, and a pulse of cold air washed over Naruto, freezing his limbs in place, as if the joints had become encrusted with ice. Unable to move, or even speak, he struggled as Sasuke moved swiftly forwards, not relishing the attack as he would have before, but with merely ice-cold precision. The swarm of undead stopped, and waited once more, as Sasuke's apparent anger dissipated.
A vision flashed before Naruto's eyes.
For a second it was not Sasuke attacking him, but the man with the cold, controlled demeanor, whom Sasuke had been set on destroying from the very moment Naruto had met him.
Itachi.
Still holding his weapon, somehow, Naruto managed to move. His sword flung forwards, catching Sasuke's mid-strike. Heat burst into being inside Naruto, filling him with uncomfortable warmth, even in the bitterly cold rain. He was suddenly so mobile that it took him a moment to register it, which allowed Sasuke to back away.
Naruto stared at him, not attacking, eyes wide.
"You're him," he said aloud.
Sasuke didn't answer. He didn't even seem to be listening. His gaze had shut off again, the glinting light beneath the frozen pools gone.
"You're Itachi," Naruto said.
That seemed to do something. The light returned, and Sasuke's face registered a mute surprise, before snapping back to the emotionless sheet it had been before.
"I'm not Itachi," said Sasuke, calmly.
"Yes, you are!" Naruto snarled, building steam, rage coursing through him. "You are, you stupid bastard! You're Itachi! You're acting exactly like him, not caring what you're doing, just doing it because you were told to or because you fucking can! I can't believe it, Sasuke what the hell are you—"
Sasuke attacked. Naruto blocked, and shoved the undead boy away, dashing straight up to him and head-butting him in the nose. The blow threw Sasuke off-kilter, and shattered his nose with a brittle crack, though no blood flowed. It allowed Naruto to summon clones, which grabbed Sasuke by both his arms and kicked him in the stomach, before hurtling him back, off the pier, and into the now turbulent sea. Naruto followed, leaping onto the unstable waves, his chakra calming the water around him, allowing him to stand steadily upon it.
Sasuke was out a second later, upon the sea as well. The water was freezing against his skin, becoming a thin later of ice, which Sasuke easily shook off.
"I am not Itachi," he said again, even though Naruto could barely hear him.
"Prove it," Naruto said.
Sasuke's demeanor had changed again; it was hotter, fiercer than before. His mask was crumbling, melting like that of an ice-sculpture. His face twitched and he attacked again, with silent rage flooding every movement he took. Naruto could see it, feel it, and it gave him such a surge of hope that he nearly perished with Sasuke's next strike. He just barely ducked in time, and scampered away, glancing back at the pier, now flooded with ghouls, moaning and snarling in the wind, waiting for Naruto to return to them.
"You're not Sasuke!" Naruto taunted again, roaring louder than the Scourge behind him.
"Shut up," Sasuke said. "Shut up!"
"THEN YOU FUCKING LISTEN!" Naruto shouted himself hoarse. "STOP BEING A FUCKING RIP-OFF OF YOUR GODDAMN BROTHER, YOU FUCKING MORON! YOU'RE KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE!"
Naruto wasn't sure what it was; perhaps it was simply the final straw of comparing him to his brother; perhaps it was the mentioning of the word 'innocent', or perhaps it was even the way Naruto shouted it, so full of anguish, anger, and fear, and peppered with the fiercest swear words Naruto knew. Whatever it was, it worked.
Sasuke's cold eyes broke. His face, still ice, had fractured into a hundred pieces, like a lake dispersing at the beginning of spring. Where there was once emotion sealed beneath a dozen layers of cold apathy, there were now so many that Naruto couldn't identify them all at once. The effect, however, was frightening to behold. Sasuke looked like he was about to have a heart attack, as if he was experiencing his last moments on earth.
But from his view, it was radically different.
There was so much blood.
That was all he could see. The sea, once a dark, bottomless blue, almost black, was now as crimson as if the earth itself was bleeding, so dark and rich and thick that looking at it move was as sickening as realizing he was stepping in it, surrounded by it, drowning in it. Memories—now laden with emotion, no longer so distant, flooded back. Stepping into his room, stepping into a pool of his mother's blood. Seeing the streets painted by it; his relatives face down in lakes of it; his brother, with his malevolent eyes, drenched in it.
Like he was.
It was all over him. It rained atop him from the crimson skies, thick, black drops of blood half-coagulated, splattering across his face as thick as cream. It drenched his clothes, and beneath. He saw it along his bare, pale arms and coating his shaking hands, painting each fingernail like a ghastly nail polish and collected beneath them in dark bunches that were almost dry. He could feel it running down his scalp, down his face, over his eyes. He could smell it so strongly that his dead body forcibly recalled one of its human actions, and he gagged. He could taste it on his lips and in his mouth. He could even hear it, dripping past his ear, resonating along the ear canal deeply muffled and distant, because even his ears were plugged with it.
He choked, and nearly lost his grip on the sea below him. It was only for fear of drowning in the violent sanguine sea that kept him up, backing constantly away. He hardly noticed Naruto until now, but when he did, he felt a plethora of things—relief, gladness, hatred, fear, pity, disgust, and more, and he didn't look for long, because somebody was grabbing him, hauling him back, shouting at him.
"Sasuke-kun!"
Karin pulled Sasuke up and back onto the pier. The ghouls parted for them, as she pulled him back and hugged him.
"Sasuke-kun," she said, "we must leave. You can't—!"
Sasuke didn't answer her. The blood was gone. It was fading, like a fog, until the only thing he could see that was red in the darkness before him was Naruto's chakra, emanating from his stomach and slowly pulsing outwards. It was like fire, but more controlled. He had seen it before.
He met Naruto's eyes again. Naruto was grim-faced, but his eyes showed a far greater range of emotions, all of which Sasuke understood but could not think to name at that time. Naruto didn't look away once, and the grim-faced look softened somewhat, becoming something more like despair.
Sasuke nodded. "We'll go."
Karin seemed relieved. She glanced at Naruto, who didn't move.
"Fall back!" she cried. Supporting Sasuke, she led the ghouls back.
Growling, Naruto started to follow. He wouldn't let them get away. Not when Sasuke was so close, not when he could fulfill his promise to Sakura-chan right now, and get his moronic brother back at the same time! Even the Plague-fog, which had fully engulfed the town now, but was not creeping past the edge of the pier, wouldn't get in his way. He wiped some of the blood off one of his many wounds, which were only beginning to heal, and performed a few quick hand seals.
'Kuchiyose no jutsu'
Two creatures burst into existence, erupting from the smokescreen and onto the dock. They were brutally large dogs with rotten, leprous flesh and covered in a dark fur that appeared green with rot. Around them a thin sheen of greenish smoke hovered, a visible odor of their decay, and black saliva dripped from their mouths, as they waited for Naruto's orders. Unlike the others, these would not respond verbally, and could hardly disobey. They were Plaguehounds, though they were far different from the garden-variety hound seduced by the undead Plague.
This became clear as they moved forwards at Naruto's call, hovering just out of reach of the retreating horde of ghouls. The greenish fog of Plague engulfing the city began to clear around them. They heaved in deep breaths, devouring the Plague fog as they moved like whirlpools devouring water. Naruto followed them quickly, leaping onto the pier, moving with them as he directed them towards Sasuke and Karin, whom he could just see within the ghoulish mass. He grit his teeth.
"Sasuke!" he roared.
He suddenly stopped. A voice raged at once in his mind, and a new set of emotions came with it—desperation, anger, killing intent—all unconnected with his own.
'Naruto!'
"Tsuwabuki?"
'Get back here! We've been attacked! It's Akatsuki! The ones who killed Magni! Kira and everyone need you guys back here now!'
Horror flashed through Naruto's being, and for a moment he forgot about Sasuke. But when he remembered, he swore so fiercely in his mind that he could feel Tsuwabuki recoil from his anger. He didn't comment on them—she would know, anyways—and stared in the direction of Sasuke and his retreating army, now barely visible in the gloom and rain ahead of him, a real fog now setting in. But even though he was so far away, Sasuke was visible, clearly, amidst the rest, and Naruto could only stare at him awhile, as he retreated, and soon vanished.
Sasuke stared back.
Damn him, Naruto thought, fury boiling him alive. He turned and flashed towards the beach, moving with all the speed his injured body could manage. The pain in his legs, chest and arms and all the stinging cuts Sasuke had given him didn't slow him down, nor did the sight that greeted him at the beach, the bloodstained sand and the dozens of bodies strewn across it in stinky, festering piles of blood and organs and bones. The Scourge here were retreating as well, and Naruto quickly found Sakura and Kakashi. Kakashi was gathering the surviving villagers together, and Sakura stood alone, shaking, though Naruto wouldn't remember that until after everything was over.
"We gotta go back, now!" Naruto shouted, as he skidded to a halt between them.
Kakashi turned. "What is it?"
"Kira-chan! She's being attacked by Akatsuki! We have to go now!"
Sakura broke away from her shocked state, and walked forwards while her body stopped trembling. "W-what?"
Kakashi cast one look at the villagers. "I'll stay. You two go. We have no other choice nor do we have any chance for argument."
Naruto didn't disagree, and Sakura was too shocked to. Naruto grabbed her by the arm, and fished the hearthstone from his pocket. He then stared straight into her eyes, his voice commanding, confident and everything that Sakura needed to hear in that moment.
"We'll get that bastard back, Sakura-chan. I promise." His eyes, impossibly blue, were so clear.
Sakura's fear and despair fled like shadows from light. She gave him a brief, grateful smile, though she silently cursed him for being so embarrassingly perceptive only when he wanted to be. The doubt was gone, because she could hear none of it in his voice. He would still keep his promise.
Sasuke wasn't gone yet.
They vanished a moment later, in a swirling blue light and a puff of smoke.
Nefarian and Ragnaros battled like gods.
Each attack they made was visible throughout the entire battlefield, now clear of dust and dirt, and heard even farther. They echoed like explosions and created bright flashes of blinding, fiery light like bombs going off, enough for a war all their own.
Ragnaros struck with its monstrous hammer, Sulfuras, and each swing, like a sunspot arcing on the sun's surface, created a wind that tore up the earth around it, scattering his enemies and allies alike across the battlefield and roasting the flesh, if they had it, from their bones and scattering them into the raging winds. No matter how fast they moved, Shikamaru and his group could not escape some effect from the battle—whether the raging tremors each blow brought, the scorching winds, the ear-splitting sounds and blinding lights, each made it harder and harder to progress through the still raging battle to find their friends and leave. They needed Ino—that was their only chance. They had no other alternative other than relying on her abilities to get them out, and without her, they would be doomed for sure.
Shikamaru clutched tightly to Thauraan's ratty, torn shirt and pulled ungracefully along, with Asuma to his side and Undrig and Tenten behind him. Undrig continually shouted words that were often lost in the raging tumult, but what Shikamaru got from them was to stay as far away from the Fire Lord as possible, and to not look at him directly. Shikamaru had already discovered that the creature's body was so bright that looking at it made his eyes dry and his vision swim. The power, too, was beyond anything he had ever felt. His senses were swamped with the monstrous chakra that the Fire Lord and his enemy gave out, and even though Shikamaru forced down every impulse he had, he could not keep himself from trembling in terror. It took all he had not to freeze on the spot, overwhelmed by power.
We shouldn't be here, Shikamaru continually thought. We shouldn't be forced into this situation, in this place, this isn't meant for us, it can't be. We're not gods, so why the hell are we here?
Find Ino, another part of him said. Don't think of anything else. Just find her and get out. She'll be fine, and then you'll be fine. Just go. Go. GO!
The clear battlefield did nothing to help the situation. There was simply too much going on, too many battles, roars of victory, cries of death and continual crashing of bodies to earth, so that it was just as difficult to find any trace of their allies among the raging fire elementals and shimmering black dragons as before. Shikamaru did not have time to grow frustrated, weaving and dodging his way through the battling monsters. But if they didn't find them fast, then something, anything, could happen and in this situation it would be anything but good.
It arrived a minute later. Shikamaru saw it and skidded to a halt, throwing himself back so that he slammed into Tenten and Undrig with a grunt from both, and nearly fell over. Before they could react, they saw it too.
In front of them was a dragonspawn bigger than the rest, as large as one of the black drakes and looking even deadlier, covered in plated, black armor and covered in spines, and devouring the remainders of a large fire elemental as if the flames were a tasty snack. It greedily licked the fire from its mouth, and belched a plume of it into the air, and then it saw Shikamaru and it grinned.
"More humans?" it said. "How lucky."
They scrambled back as the beast moved forwards. Shikamaru grit his teeth, shoved Thauraan back, and made a seal. He was lucky the hole had essentially cast the entire battlefield in shadows. They leapt from the floor, slightly transparent black tendrils, and fastened themselves around the dragonspawn's waste and attempted to pierce its draconic scales, to no effect. The dragonspawn cocked its reptilian head and glared at the impediment. It laughed.
"You think this will stop Razorgore the Untamed?"
Shikamaru coughed, but didn't answer. He waited as Asuma moved in a circle around the beast to its side, holding both of his trench knives, each glowing with sky blue chakra extending a few feet from them. He moved unseen for a moment, but when he neared the dragonspawn, it abruptly turned, snapping its way out of Shikamaru's attack as if they were stubborn vines, and whipped its spiked tail at Asuma's head. This was a mistake—his trench knives sliced through the scales and spines like butter, severing the end of the dragonspawn's tail. Razorgore bellowed and roared, and beat its huge wings, taking to the air. Once there, it raised its claws.
And to Shikamaru's utter astonishment, it made a seal.
'Conflagration'
It dropped, engulfed in fire, to the ground, which exploded in a jarring blast of heat and sound that threw Shikamaru backwards, knocking him into Thauraan, huddled behind him. Asuma just barely managed to dodge instant incineration, but the fiery shockwave scorched his arms and face, and his cry was engulfed in the noise of the fighting.
Razorgore, now in the center of a crater of melted rock and debris, began to laugh; it was an unnerving sound, coming from something so like a wild beast.
Asuma, stumbling in pain, circled the beast again, towards Shikamaru, who was recovering from the attack with Tenten and Undrig's help. He barely registered the others, his vision swimming and his ears pounding, but they stood beside him, one with a face of grim, resigned determination, a face ready to meet death, and another trying to imitate it but failing to block the fear that showed through. Thauraan was there too, by Shikamaru's side, looking lost and desperate and clutching the shinobi like a child would his mother or father.
Even in that situation, Shikamaru had to smile, even a little. He squeezed the dwarfling's shoulder.
"Get back," he said, calmly, as he stood. "Behind us."
Thauraan quickly obeyed.
Tenten opted for a large shuriken, drawing it from one of her many scrolls, and Undrig hefted his hammer with a grunt. The heat and exhaustion were getting to him as well. Shikamaru ran through a dozen plans in his mind and scrapped each on of them as Razorgore moved in for another attack. He decided, for once in his short life, to try something spontaneous.
It worked for Naruto, after all.
He slammed his hands together, and roared for everyone to move back. They scattered, as Razorgore bore down on Shikamaru, leering and roaring like a man but so huge and terrifying that no man could match it. It slammed its claws together, hoping to pop Shikamaru's head with a wet, gushing sound, but heard nothing but the cracking of rock, audible even in the roar of battle to its sensitive ears. There was also another sound, which Razorgore noticed the source of just as it opened its hands, revealing crushed bits of rock and an explosive note, attached to the center of its palm. Powerful as it was, but not nearly so smart, it did not register the attack until it had already gone off.
The note burst with an abrupt flash, engulfing the dragonspawn's arm in flames and making it snarl in pain and fury. Shikamaru called to regroup, and though he wanted to flee, there was no option to. They had to kill this thing or it would kill one of them. He called to Asuma.
"Behind it!"
Asuma was already moving. He directed Tenten, who shook at his words but obeyed, and Undrig, who had already gotten the gist of the plan and was almost in position. Shikamaru made a few hand seals, and then nodded.
'Kage Kubi Shibari No Jutsu'
Arms of shadow crept up the dragonspawn's legs, some holding them fast, other traveling up, invisible, along the beast's black body towards its neck and head. In that same moment, Tenten moved forwards, launching her shuriken into the dragonspawn's side, and then followed it with a dozen more. Undrig flew beneath Razorgore, ramming his hammer with increasing force in the creature's underbelly, his battle cries getting ever more ferocious as he did. Asuma was the quickest, leaping a top Razorgore's back and swinging his trench knives at the dragonspawn's wings.
But even as all of this happened, Razorgore was moving, slashing, clawing and snarling, throwing itself back and forth, tearing through Shikamaru's shadows and using its tail to knock Asuma off before the knives could sever its wings, and kicking Undrig from out beneath him, and shrugging off Tenten's kunai and shuriken embedded in his side, and moving forwards towards Shikamaru with eyes like maelstroms of flame. As if holes had been punctured in the veil of hell itself, they shined with a deep, horrible fire that brought no illumination, yet still cast a terribly black shadow that seemed old as time. It was deep, deep as the core of the earth, and Shikamaru was unable to find his way out of it, just as he couldn't find his way out of this goddamned hole in the middle of the earth. The eyes were like a beast's but deeper, like a man's, but so full of unnatural hate that it seemed no living creature could match it. Shikamaru stood stock still, even as Razorgore moved towards him, roaring as he came. Its deep eyes held Shikamaru fast and he could do nothing but stare, lost in the absolute fear and deaf to the cries of his friends, focusing solely on those hateful, flaming, demonic eyes.
Then all of that vanished.
The creature, just feet away from crushing Shikamaru, stopped, and stood still. Shikamaru still fixated on its eyes. They were different, familiar, even.
"Ino?"
"Shikamaru?"
Shikamaru turned. Coming towards them, now in the area cleared by Razorgore's presence, he saw Gai, with the others behind him. Chouji cradled Ino's body in his arms, while Lee was supporting Neji, whose eyes were closed and he appeared to be in immense pain.
Shikamaru turned back to Razorgore. "You did it."
"I did it!" Ino cried—a disturbing effect, with the dragonspawn's crackling, bottomless voice.
"Couldn't have chosen something bigger?" Chouji said, as they neared. He grinned with relief at Shikamaru, who smiled back before turning and seeking out Thauraan. The dwarfling was right behind him, shivering in fear.
"As big as you, you mean," said Ino, attempting to smirk, Shikamaru guessed, but the effect was morel like a snarl on the draconic face.
"Neji!" Tenten said, rushing to the boy. "What's wrong?"
Neji ignored her, but Lee said, "He had his Byakugan activated when Ragnaros appeared. He can't see much, and he's in a lot of pain. Ino-san couldn't do much for him now."
"Which means we've lost one of our big advantages," Shikamaru said, calmly.
Neji merely nodded, his face too pained to show the slight sliver of anger at Shikamaru's words.
"Will he be okay?" Tenten gasped, clutching at the boy.
"Too early to tell," said Ino, from beside. "I'd say so, but we have to get him out of here quickly and to some proper care before we can decide anything."
Tenten swallowed, and looked at Neji, but the boy was silent and didn't return the comforting squeeze she gave him, nor did he even glance in her direction.
"Enough talk," Asuma growled, as they gathered. "Let's move. Everyone on Ino."
Though small in comparison to the other dragons, Razorgore was yet large enough to hold them, once Asuma had removed the spikes with his knives. Ino felt no pain from them—they were like fingernails, she said.
"How long do you have in there, Ino?" Shikamaru asked.
"I don't know. Long enough to get out of here. It can't fight back as easily as I thought it could."
They were truly more like humans, then, than Shikamaru had given them credit. What he had seen in Razorgore's eyes had shown him something deep within the creature that could not have been born on this earth. He had no idea how he knew that, but he was certain of it, more certain than he'd been of anything else. But whatever that was, it had weakened the beast's own mind enough for Ino to push through it. As strong as they were in body, their minds were even worse than those of a human. But it still made him uneasy; there was something wrong with them, and whatever it was, it lay in their thoughts and souls, not their bodies.
"Get out as fast as possible," he said. "I don't want you in there too long."
"Why?"
"Just believe me. Let's go!"
Ino spread her wings, and tested them with a few beats, before nodding to herself. She then beat the wings in a single great sweep, and leapt into the air, flapping them harder and harder with each second. She rose quickly into the air above the raging tumult, which showed no signs of letting up and seemed to be getting worse with each moment.
Moments into their flight, Ragnaros' voice bellowed through the air, louder than the war.
'THE…FIRE…IS…MINE!'
The walls around the battlefield began to move, almost like liquid. Great sprays of hot gas and pressurized streams of molten rock suddenly exploded through, creating a deadly rain over the fighters closest to the walls, causing neither harm, until the pooling molten rock rose up, taking the vague shapes of men. They blazed and leapt through the battle like sparks, there one moment and gone the next, appearing beside the rubble of the golems, and then bursting into puddles again. The rocks, saturated in their bodies, began to shift and amalgamate, reforming into the crude forms they had once had before Nefarian's brood had slain them. All across the field the golems rose anew, ready to battle the still numberless swarm of black dragons and their kin that swept across the area like locusts.
The shinobi rose high above the battle, above even the dragons themselves, which faced no flying beasts themselves, and so stayed low. Above them the ruined sky of the Steppes loomed, but it seemed so much more welcome than before. The air became breathable and the wind was so refreshing that Shikamaru couldn't resist a whoop of joy, which the others joined in as they rose.
We're going to do it, Shikamaru thought, half-mad with desperation and euphoria. We're almost there!
"Ino!" Gai suddenly shouted, above the roaring wind. "Behind you!"
Ino swerved, and a black shape swept by, clipping her side with a silvery claw. She screamed, barely managing to hold her grip on her host. She caught a glimpse of it just before it swept by again, aiming at her side, roaring in fury.
"TRAITOR! TRAITOR!"
The dragon could have been the twin of the one Gai had slain earlier. It was just as big and its scales where the same streamlined mixture of fiery orange and dread black, and its voice roared as loudly, but with far more fury, than the last. It aimed straight for Ino's side, its claws brandished before it, roaring as Ino tried to turn.
She managed. The beast slammed into her front, and she grappled with it for a moment, her claws entangled in its, before pushing it off and flying upwards, while the dragon dove down. It immediately twirled and shot up, however, while Ino struggled to see it, and orient herself to take the next attack. But Shikamaru realized that the longer they stayed here, the more likely it would be that Ino would soon be rejected by the dragonspawn's body, and he knew that they couldn't linger long enough to fight.
"Just dodge!" he shouted at Ino.
"When?" Ino cried desperately, flapping her wings and floating backwards, unable to look down far enough to see the oncoming dragon.
Shikamaru craned his neck. The dragon was suddenly there.
"NOW!"
Ino swerved to the side, but the dragon connected anyways. A deadly claw raked up Ino's side, cutting through scales and flesh and making Ino scream in the dragonspawn's voice, and nearly fall. But Shikamaru was shouting at her to stay up, stay awake, and be ready. It was coming again. The dragon had already swooped around towards Ino's back, and but on a burst of speed, roaring madly.
"Don't turn, Ino! Just stay still!"
"What?"
"STAY STILL!"
Ino continued to beat her wings, hovering in place, desperate and afraid of the oncoming danger that her enhanced ears could hear behind her, beating violently and getting louder and louder and—
She roared. Shikamaru hissed to Undrig, "Now!"
A shimmering golden dome appeared around Ino's host, like a cloud made of sunbeams, dousing everyone within with a deep sense of warmth and safety. The dragon struck it not a moment later, hitting the dome with enough force to shatter a wall of stone, but the light didn't give way. The creature hit it with a sickening crack, twisted, and spiraled down into the chaos beneath. It crashed onto a group of dragonspawn and flamewakers, crushing them in a hideous crunch of bones and scales and the wet splash of spilt blood. The dragon wailed, and attempted to stand, but its wings had been mangled by the fall. Its hideous roars joined the sounds of battle, and was soon lost among them, as Ino took everyone higher into the sky.
"Good job!" Shikamaru said, nearly laughing in joy.
"Well done, Ino-chan!" Gai bellowed, thrusting a fist into the air. "Excellent!"
Desperation and exhaustion mixed with a growing sense of joy, as Ino rose. They were about to do it—about to get out of this place and leave it for good, and everyone was alive; nothing could stop them now! The others, shaking with fear and hope, fixed their eyes skywards, holding fast to the beautiful sight of the heavens, even if they were filled with soot and clouds of dust from the opening of the battlegrounds and the evil blackness that had always pervaded them since Ragnaros' rebirth three hundred years prior. It didn't matter. The wind, though hot and dry, was still filled with a life that the underground had not had, a natural life, rather than the unnatural life that had invaded the world with Ragnaros and his golems and elementals, whose presence had seeped into every nook and crevasse of the Fire Lord's underground world. They could breath great gusts of the hot air, and though it still burned their lungs and made them cough, they didn't care.
They passed the rim of the hole, and suddenly everything below them seemed a dream. They were above it, away from it, they never had to deal with it—
"INO!"
Ino swerved. A great black shape rose above them before her, and she nearly crashed into it, but she stopped and flew back, the force of the stop and sudden reversal making everyone atop her crash together in a painful assortment of limbs and sudden confusion. Only Gai, who had shouted the warning, had seen it coming and could see it now, far clearer than the others.
The dragon before them was without a doubt the leader of them all. It was far larger than the others, far more impressive—blacker than the depths of space, its 'plumage' an even brighter orange like flames solidified; wings as long as the dragonspawn they rode; claws plated in a steely metal and spines growing as long as half a man from its back and along its arms; and eyes like the glowing core of the earth, as bright as Ragnaros yet so terribly black and unnatural that what Shikamaru had seen in Razorgore paled in comparison to the horrifying unnaturalness that was present in Nefarian's eyes.
'Taking One Of My Generals, Girl?' the word girl was jarring to Ino, and she felt a sudden helplessness invade her, making her shrink back within the bowels of the dragonspawn's mind like a frightened child.
'To Think,'Nefarian said, or thought, for his mouth never moved the entire time he spoke, 'That One Of My Selected Generals Is So Weak…' Then the ponderous tone was gone, and hot anger was there; it was beyond frightful, beyond any terror that they had ever felt. Even Neji felt it, blind as he was: an inky, ancient fury that swallowed and suffocated like tar but burnt as hot as magma. Ino nearly lost her grip again, and desperately flew down, away from Nefarian, who hovered in the same position.
'Stop, Humans. You Have Taken Three Of My Generals. I Won't Let It COST ME MY WAR! STOP!'
The shout rang out and Ino suddenly couldn't move. She tried to beat her wings, but couldn't, and so she fell back, plummeting towards the ground, her passengers gripping as best they could to her with chakra but it was so difficult that Neji and Chouji nearly fell off, distracted by their injuries and trying to hold on to Ino's limp body.
Ino fell down, and turning his head, Shikamaru could see something horrible beneath him.
Ragnaros was moving. The Fire Lord was almost below them now, its movement leaving a trail of destruction in its wake; the rock became magma as it passed over it, and everything that neared it burst into flame and became nothing more than ash by the time it had swept by them. It held its hammer aloft, and was gazing skywards, straight at them, its eyes filled with the pure consuming wrath of a wildfire.
'COME…TO…ME.'
Shikamaru was shouting at Ino to pull up, to free herself, and was at the same time releasing pulses of chakra to help her, but it was doing nothing and she kept trying to say so, but she couldn't because even her mouth was frozen shut.
Nefarian flew after them. He was so frighteningly quick that in only two flaps, he was beside the plummeting shinobi, his smoldering eyes the only thing visible apart from a black blur.
'Now, Di—'
Before he could finish, Gai struck him the chest.
The Azure Beast of Konoha's movement went unseen by everyone. He had released his grip on Ino, and conjured a shadow clone in the same instant, dropping onto it, and then rocketing off its back, out from under Ino in an unbelievable feat of speed, and straight at Nefarian. He struck the beast in the chin, and normally, that wouldn't have done much, but Gai had not stopped there.
'Hachimon: Keimon'
An explosion of chakra blasted Ino away from Nefarian and at the same moment returned her ability to move. She righted herself and spread her wings to catch the air, stopping in a moment and then flying up and back, but by then it had already ended.
'Asa Kujaku'
Plumes of flame seemed to erupt from Gai's glowing, fiery body, but they were in fact his fists moving with such speed and ferocity that they appeared everywhere at once and had become covered in a glowing, white-hot flame. They slammed into Nefarian's body, which had halted its flight and was thrown onto its back, and continued to strike him even as he fell. Gai's face never left his target, save once. He looked up, just before he passed out of sight, to stare up at them.
But they couldn't see his face, before it was gone.
"GAI-SENSEI!" Lee was screaming. "GAI-SENSEI! NO! GAI-SENSEI!"
"GO BACK!" screamed Tenten, pounding on Ino's borrowed body, tearful and horrified and unable to keep her eyes off Nefarian, now a speck below them. "Go back, please, please!"
"What's happening?" Neji said, but his voice was almost lost amidst the shouting. "What is…?"
"Ino, go back!" Chouji bellowed, staring desperately down.
"Gai-sensei!" Shikamaru roared. "Ino…!"
"I KNOW!" Ino shouted, "But I—"
"You can't!" snarled Asuma. "Ino! You can't go back!"
Lee looked back at Asuma, two people behind him, and looked as if he wanted to strangle the man. "WHAT?"
"You go back and we're all dead!" Asuma growled. "We can't go back now! Ino's about at her limit!"
"WE HAVE TO!" Lee shouted. "WE HAVE TO GO BACK FOR GAI-SENSEI!" He wasn't losing Gai-sensei, he couldn't lose him, please not him!
"THINK ABOUT IT!" Asuma gripped Shikamaru's cloaked shoulder. "Shikamaru!"
Shikamaru, gripping Thauraan so tightly that it should've been painful, though neither he nor the boy noticed, looked desperately around as if he didn't know where Asuma was calling from, and when he focused, he gave the man a look of utter confusion.
"W-what, h-how do w-we…?"
"Make a decision!" Asuma bellowed from behind.
"B-but…" He looked at Undrig, perhaps for guidance, perhaps simply because the dwarf was there in front of him, but the dwarf offered none, because it wasn't his place to.
"SHIKAMARU!" Lee cried. "WE HAVE TO GO BACK!"
Asuma tightened his grip. "NOW!" he snarled.
"W-we…" Shikamaru knew it. He knew it with everything he had but he didn't want to acknowledge it. It was not the first time his heart and his mind had disagreed but he knew that in this case there was only one thing he could do and he hated himself for it, for even thinking it, but knew that it had to be done and so even as he spoke it, he felt tears slip from his eyes, and he barely managed it, barely managed to even utter the words.
"Up," he said. "Ino, get us out of here."
"NO!" Lee roared, attempting to turn and push past Undrig to get at Shikamaru, his eyes mad with despair and fury. "TAKE THAT BACK!" He fought, but the dwarf held him fast.
But Shikamaru didn't answer, even to defend himself. He closed his eyes, a feeling of loss and nausea sweeping over him like a raging flood as they rose up into the air. He vomited what little he had out, shaking like a distraught child. Lee was still screaming, but the anger was bleeding from him, and soon he was only in tears; Tenten was weeping and clutching Neji, who was silent as death; Asuma was silent too, though Shikamaru couldn't see what his face looked like; Chouji was shaking, whether from rage or despair it was hard to tell, and he clutched Ino's body a little bit tighter to himself; Undrig sat in solid neutrality, but kept his face turned from Shikamaru; Thauraan shook in Shikamaru's lap, holding his shrunken arms to himself.
The dwarfling was sobbing.
As they rose, once again far above the battle, and now away from it, Shikamaru felt nothing. His words had carved it out, and his sick had dropped what was left back into the earth, so he said nothing, and felt nothing.
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It was so hot.
It was all Gai could think about for a moment, pulling himself to his feet with all the grace of a drunken sailor after a bad fight; his arms were so badly torn up by his attack that they hung uselessly at his side, though they didn't even hurt. Human flesh wasn't meant to stand against dragon scales. The Keimon had also taken its toll on the rest of his body, which sagged as if weighed down by rock. But he had enough strength to stand, and he knew there was yet more he could exhaust, before it was all over.
It grew hotter, and louder. A sound—a tornado made of roaring flames—grew closer and closer as the heat rose, and it grew brighter as well, as if he was standing next to the rising sun as it peeked over the mountaintops in the morning. He did not look towards it, instead keeping his tired, wounded eyes on the crater before him, where Nefarian lay, struggling to get up. The black dragon was beginning to right himself, and he was gagging and snarling, and shaking his head, dislodging a small snowfall of scales from his neck and upper chest, though it was hardly enough to cause damage. Orange and black eyes fixed themselves on Gai, and had he been any other man, he would have pissed himself.
Instead, he found himself quite jovial, because he knew he had done it. There was no way he'd be able to survive this, to preserve what little youth he had left, but he didn't care because it was all done. He had done what he had set out to do, taught what he'd needed to teach, and seen all that he had wanted to see, in some respects. Of course, he knew there were many other things he wouldn't see. He would not see Kakashi finally one-up him in their longstanding rivalry; nor would he see Asuma and Kurenai's child born into the world; nor joke with Naruto-kun or offer him advice (for he knew the boy would need it); nor would he eat beef hotpot or ramen; nor would he and Lee train in the dense forests of Konoha, alone or with Neji and Tenten, or share more his past with them, or impart his wisdom to them and listen to Lee vocally memorize every scrap of it, while Neji and Tenten just rolled their eyes with slight smiles on their faces, or join Lee for laps around the village on just their hands, blindfolded, like that one time after they had both failed to complete their daily routine of two thousand push-ups and crunches and pull-ups and log-punches, kicks and headbutts, and finally ending with a two hour sparring session that both had not even moved for, much less fought, though they had both laughed so much afterwards before they had begun the punishment training for failing; nor would he watch them all grow up and make families and get students of their own and—
The tears that streamed from his eyes began to evaporate even as they fell. He hadn't thought about it, until now, and his joy was gone with that realization. He would never see it, and for once he cursed fate with everything he had, because out of everything in the world, he would have wanted to see his students grow up. The pain, the loss, was unbearable, surreal; everything was both happening, because he could feel the heat and the pain, but not happening, because he had never even thought of what he would do in this situation when it finally came.
It was so hot. His skin was boiling, hissing, and he could smell his own flesh burning in his nose, and a deep heat was rising within him as Ragnaros neared, his hammer Sulfuras held up in preparation for a strike that would not just kill Gai, but would pound his very existence from the world.
He kept his eyes forwards. Nefarian was up, and had let loose a roar so powerful, and so profoundly terrifying, that even though Gai's mind was steeled for death, his body quailed and shook from the ancient curse issued from the dragon's mouth, one that Gai couldn't even pronounce, much less feel offended by.
A heat was rising within Gai. He started to grin, despite his tears. Sure, he wouldn't see anything anymore. But it didn't matter now, because it wasn't his choice. He'd had his chance, and now it was their turn, and he'd done all that he could. But they'd make it; he knew that. They'd succeed because that was the natural order; that was how things worked.
But also because he'd taught them. They'd succeed because they were his students, his friends, his family, and he was so goddamn proud of them. The despair was gone, the confusion filled with this unbelievable feeling of such pride and happiness, knowing that they would live on, and the world would change with them. It was such a wonderful feeling that he could no longer hold it in, because he never was good at that, never had been. Maito Gai loved to express his feelings to the world, and his students knew this best.
So he did it for them.
"HA! IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE?" He bellowed, laughing and crying, as if they were right there, glaring at him in annoyance like Neji and Tenten, or joining with him like Lee. He'd never see them again.
"PREPARE, DRAGON, FIRE LORD, FOR YOU MUST FACE SOMETHING THAT TRIUMPHS ALL! LET ME SHOW YOU THE GREATEST POWER IN THE WORLD!"
With great effort, he managed to raise his arms up above his head. He gazed into the burnt sky, and almost thought he could see them up there. Lee would be crying perhaps, but it would pass and he would grow even stronger because of it, so would Tenten, though Neji had always been strong, or at had least appeared to. The others would cry too, maybe. He wished he didn't have to leave. But he did.
It was his time.
Then he looked down to the earth, and saw only death, whom he smiled at, because there was no chance of avoiding him now.
Nefarian waited, curious.
Ragnaros did not, and its hammer dropped like an apocalyptic meteor.
'Hachimon: Shimon'
"THE POWER OF YOUTH!"
You may hate me for this.
I know you will question it, but this might be the one thing I cannot truly explain to you guys; it wasn't done lightly, just know that. Gai is one of my favorite characters, and always will be.
So, though he survives in canon, let's have a brief moment of silence for Maito Gai.
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Thanks.
Flame away.
General Grievous
Next chapter: Stormwind: Kakuzu, Hidan, Kira, Kylia, Benedictus, Shino, Hinata, Kurenai, Kiba, Sakura, Naruto. Badlands
Scroll of Seals:
Asa Kujaku (Morning Peacock): Can only be used with Keimon. Extremely effective against single targets, riddles them with an almost impossible to block series of punches until they are thrown back, covered in fire.
Hachimon: Shimon (Eight Gates: Gate of Death): The final of the Eight Celestial Gates, located in the heart, and generates enough chakra that the user is almost a god in terms of power, though it assures death in its use, hence its name. The body simply cannot use the amount of power that is generated, and is destroyed.
Kage Kubi Shibari no Jutsu (Shadow Neck Bind Technique): The name says it all. Shadows bind the opponent's neck and either incapacitates or destroys them.
Conflagration: Utter flaming destruction, all around. Consumes enormous amounts ofchakra, making it difficult to use for humans and other humanoid beings.