The Best Laid Plans

Arun

Chapter : Heroes of Old and New

Alternate chapter title: De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace

Disclaimer: Welcome to the dawn of a new era, says Stuxnet.

Also, "tomorrow or the day after" is officially today.

Notes: Not proofread. A proofread version will be posted at a later date. It should contain minimum changes.

xxxx

With age comes insomnia and Sarutobi was no exception to this basic fact of life. The retired Hokage had retired for the day at midnight and awakened three hours later. Afterwards, per long habit, he spent the time till daybreak at his desk, clearing paperwork and composing letters. Thus, when Pain's summon attacked the walls of the capital, he was awake and alert, unlike most of the city garrison.

"Koi," the oldster summoned the commanding officer of his guards.

"Yes, Sarutobi-sama," Koi whispered, appearing in a shunshin before the ex-Hokage.

"The city seems to be under attack. Send someone to ensure that the Daimyo is escorted to a secure location by his guards." It'd not taken more than a glance out the window to ascertain the explosion was no accident or incident perpetrated by an inebriated, powerful shinobi.

Koi nodded. He'd anticipated that command and dispatched someone for the task before he answered the Professor's summons.

"It's done, Sarutobi-sama."

The Third Hokage was unsurprised that Koi should preempt him so. The Root operator was a very capable officer who had a knack of anticipating and carrying out his commander's orders well ahead of time.

"I trust the command team will respond to the situation as it develops, but they'll need good intel. What say you that we go to the front and ensure the staff get it," Sarutobi said, gazing out the window in the direction of the attack. Even as he looked, a fresh plume of smoke and dust rose into the air from an explosion.

Koi murmured into his short-range radio and ordered his team to advance towards the assault. He and the Third followed the rest of the squad through the window a few seconds back.

xxxxx

A huge explosion some two blocks away punctuated Sarutobi and his guards' arrival at the battlefront. Scoping the situation with his keen eyes, it did not take the Sandaime more than a moment to conclude that the defense was in shambles. The enemy had advanced too fast and caught the garrison flatfooted, and the forces marshaled against the invaders and their giant crab summon proved too weak to the task. The retired Hokage could see that there was already a large swath of destruction reaching a hundred yards or so into the city. Certainly, the cause of the defenders wasn't being helped any by the fact that the response so far had been disorganized and haphazard.

"Status?" Sarutobi asked the first shinobi they ran into. The man had a large gash on his face that dribbled blood and looked a little dazed.

"I was on the wall when that damn thing attacked, Sir. There's a man riding atop it. I may be the only member of my squad still alive."

"Did you get a good look at the attackers?" the retired Hokage asked sternly.

"There's just the one on the crab, Sir."

Sarutobi's eyebrows narrowed. That little factum did not make sense. Only a crazed maniac would attack any fortified position, much less the province's administrative and military command center, alone. Unless…

"Describe his person," he asked.

"He's got orange hair and numerous piercings on his face. And he was wearing a black cloak with red clouds."

"Akatsuki," Koi cursed in a whisper.

Sarutobi nodded. The description of the attacker's clothing certainly fit the uniform of the Akatsuki. It certainly fit the profile that a member of an organization that boasted a sannin as one of its members would have the daring and the audacity to attack Tea's capital alone.

"Have your people engage the summon, Koi. Also, inform the staff to make haste on the reinforcements and to be wary of another attack on some other axes. I'll be along shortly to deal with the summoner," he instructed the Root officer. He had his own short range radio, but preferred not to use it except under dire conditions. To the wounded shinobi, he said, "Retreat to the rear and get that wound treated."

As the ninja nodded gratefully and retreated towards the designated medical stations as per the emergency response plans, the Third summoned Enma, the gorilla king.

"Who're we fighting, Sarutobi?" Enma asked, looking around curiously and sniffing the air.

"Akatsuki."

"How many?" the gorilla asked, cracking his knuckles at the thought of a good battle.

"One, but he's attacking the capital alone."

"Must have a huge set of balls and no brains," Enma retorted with a guffaw. Even the sannin would have hesitated to take on a walled city guarded by battle-hardened shinobi.

"Or they actually thing they can do this," Sarutobi retorted, his mind going back to other wars of the past when men and women of such power had walked the earth. Come to think of it, Kakashi's darlings were well on the way to becoming such powerhouses themselves. "Come, Enma, let's enjoin the battle and find out the truth for ourselves."

Enma chuckled at his old friend's words and led the way. The twosome arrived just in time to see the crab summon step close to a building that had been rigged to explode by the advance party of Sarutobi's guard. The Root operatives detonated the house as their mark entered the trap and the resulting explosion tore into the crustacean, even as the building was reduced to a smoldering, burning ruin.

The crab staggered out of the smoke and debris with most of its shell on the left side of its body shattered and vanished in a cloud of smoke. Sarutobi, whose attention had been drawn to the weird markings on its eyes before it disappeared, noted that the Akatsuki member who'd summoned the critter escaped the explosion unscathed. And if the man was stymied by the death of his gigantic pet, the Professor could not spot it in his eyes. As proof of his power, the invader summoned an even larger Rhinoceros a scant moment later.

Sarutobi, who'd expected another crab, upped the threat estimate and knew that he had a hard fought battle in his hands. No one in recorded history had struck summoning contracts with two animal clans, after all, and who knew what other abilities the wielder of such a skill had. The Sandaime quietly filed away the observation that like the crab before it, the rhino sported the same weird eyes as did the summoner. There was something strangely familiar about those eyes and the retired Hokage could not shake the feeling he'd seen or read about them somewhere.

Spotting Sarutobi, the rhinoceros lowered its head and charged the building he was using as an observation post. Concurrently, the Root operatives on the Third's flanks dispersed to the flanks with the exception of Koi, who jumped to the ground to meet the charge headfirst and activated his seal of power. Transforming into a human/scorpion hybrid, he countercharged the rhino and swung the tail that had grown at the base of his spine into the summon's neck. The rhinoceros' rough hide was no match for Koi-scorpion's sting, which severed its carotid artery. Mortally wounded, the two-horned beast vanished, and both Koi and Animal Pain landed safely on their feet.

Hoping to catch the Akatsuki leader on the wrong foot, Root operators in the flanks hurled ninjutsu attacks and assorted projectiles at Animal Pain. In turn, their quarry responded by summoning two men who had the same eyes as he did. And even though, there was no way that anyone summoned unwittingly into the center of a hail of attacks in the middle of a battlefield could have had complete situational awareness and responded instantly, but that was exactly what the new arrivals did. The projectiles were somehow repelled back to their owners with a wave of a hand by one of them and the ninjutsu attacks absorbed and vanished into thin air by the other.

Observing the action from the roof with the eye of experience, Sarutobi noted that the newcomers sported the signature orange hair and weird eyes. Weird eyes that he finally recognized from both historical texts that were dismissed by most of the modern world as myths and legends, and Jiraiya's letters.

"Rinnegan," he whispered, aghast at the revelation.

The legendary Eyes of Samsara. The doujutsu that hadn't been seen in the world of ninja since the time of the Sage of the Six Paths and was thought to have been lost to the sands of time. The all-powerful eyes of the man who created the ninja world and performed such miraculous deeds as modern ninja only dreamed about. Suddenly, Sarutobi wasn't so sure the enemy was a reckless, overconfident fool who'd made a fatal mistake by attacking the city.

That line of thought naturally led to another. Kabuto had not an inkling of the Rinnegan user in Akatsuki ranks when he switched sides and neither did Itachi – or perhaps the boy knew and hadn't shared the information because of the risks involved. Either way, the implication was that the knowledge was one of the errant organization's closest held secrets. And yet, the organization had chosen to use such a key asset as a Rinnegan user – much less three such individuals – underscoring the importance they placed on the attack on the Tea capital. And there was only thing important in Tea's capital to warrant anything remotely that powerful…

Without hesitation, the Third invoked the signs to selectively wipe out all memory related to the One Tail using a forbidden technique and retreated to the next building as the enemy's eyes turned on him. No good could come of any organization that had welcomed Orochimaru into their ranks gaining access to a tailed beast and the information on Shukaku's whereabouts had to be protected at all costs, he knew. The technique took effect instantaneously and Sarutobi smiled, knowing there was no counter and that the Akatsuki's primary objective in this attack was already beyond their reach. That left the question of how to deal with the Rinnegan users.

"Commander's intent has changed," he barked into the short-range radio over the command channel as his subordinates engaged the enemy more closely. "All shinobi of chuunin rank and below will assist and expedite the evacuation of noncombatants from the city. Primary mission of remaining ninja is the extermination or capture of the enemy, who are three in number with probable reinforcements on the way. The primary mission takes precedence over civilian casualties and collateral damage."

Sarutobi knew that with those commands, he'd written off the city and doomed a lot of civilians to death. To be sure, he would spend many sleepless nights agonizing over all those he'd condemned to death today, but Akatsuki could not allowed the Rinnegan. Hell, he would not trust anyone but Konoha with the Rinnegan. Moreover, the Sandaime did not fancy facing wielders of the Samsara Eyes in the wide open even with all the forces in his command in Tea, which meant he had to use the city and damn the casualties.

"Are you sure about this, Sarutobi?" the Enma-pole arm Sarutobi bore in his hand asked.

The Third nodded.

"It's just another thing to lose sleep over in a life full of decisions that kept one awake at night, Enma," he answered, gravely. Then, with a chuckle, he added, "Better I should suffer for the rest of the days – which fighting three Rinnegan users, I may not have all that many of – than have the world suffer whatever lunacy the Akatsuki are cooking up."

"If you say so," the Gorilla king answered. "I find it hard to believe anyone can have the Rinnegan, much less three or more."

"They must have somehow gotten their hands on Jiraiya's pupil and much like Konoha, been doing experiments of their own, I fear," Sarutobi replied. Then, he added in all earnest, "Though my command be killed to the last man and this city be destroyed, Konoha needs this intel. So, promise me that if it looks like I'm going to die, you'll de-summon yourself."

Enma nodded solemnly.

"I will, Old Friend."

"Good. Let's find out if the Rinnegan is all that it's hyped up to be."

xxxxx

The Nagato observed through Deva Pain's eyes as the latter stared impassively at a charging jounin and repelled the woman towards one of Animal Pain's summons. The beast opened its maw to swallow the shinobi whole, but was thwarted by a flying Root operator in his hybrid crow/human form who pulled her away at the trough of a dive. As the crow pulled up from its dive, it was hit on the wings by one of Asura Pain's missiles. It corkscrewed into the ground and crashed, though the kunoichi it'd saved landed safely and rolled away.

A scant second later, as the beast's jaws snapped shut, an explosion neatly severed its head. Bereft of its head, Animal Pain's newest summon slammed into the dirt and debris, and disappeared, kicking up a cloud of dust. Using the reduced visibility to his advantage, Human Pain moved to engage three Root operators from their flanks, but was thwarted by Sarutobi's pole arm, which stretched and tripped the Rinnegan user's avatar. An opportunistic Root operator hidden among the ruins of a building capitalized on Human Pain's fall and closing ranks with his target, speared Human Pain through the heart and was in turn crushed to a pulp by Animal Pain's new summon, which landed on him. The beast's carapace was peppered by a dozen powerful explosions a fraction of a second later that blew most of its legs into smithereens. The blasts threw the summon into a nearby building, collapsing the structure, and the beast vanished with a muted honk.

Watching the chaos of battle from afar, simultaneous approval and disgust warred within Nagato. The ruthlessness with which the Fire shinobi had attacked his avatars with scant regard for property or the lives of bystanders was all the evidence he needed to know that he'd seriously underestimated the retired Third Hokage. The defense was so good that even with six pairs of eyes and hands, half a dozen bodies, the Rinnegan and chakra levels that a tailed beast would have been jealous of, it was all he could do to not be swamped under the continuous rain of attacks launched from every-which direction at once. Worst of all, Nagato knew he'd lost the initiative, which was in some ways, the worst news of all.

xxxxx

Koi finally caught Sarutobi's attention as the latter was taking a breather and signaled him to the side.

"Tell me, Koi," the venerable oldster asked of the Root officer as they crouched behind a pile of rubble just beyond the immediate battlefield. It was now nearly twenty minutes into the battle and one sector of the city was completely ruined with who knew how many thousands of civilian casualties. But the Konoha shinobi had put the enemy completely on the back foot and the Sandaime was even beginning to entertain the notion that he and a majority of his command would survive the battle and defeat the enemy whereas earlier he'd mostly been hoping they'd achieve the latter.

"We've engaged six of the enemy so far, Sarutobi-sama," Koi replied.

"Abilities?"

"None of them share any common techniques except for the doujutsu. The first one summons, the second one absorbs ninjutsu attacks, the third one is able to push things away or pull things towards him, the four one appears to be a modified puppet, the fifth is a taijutsu specialist and the sixth seems to have powers of resurrecting the others and kills with a touch."

"Resurrection?" Sarutobi asked, not quite believing the words. It was said in the historical texts that the Rinnegan had the power over life, death and creation, but even those few who knew the Sage of the Six Paths as fact and not fiction, considered the tale mere fable. The Third had believed them exaggerations himself and was not happy to be proven wrong. If such outré ability as resurrection was truth, what else could the Rinnegan do that wasn't written down or had been lost to time?

Koi nodded.

"We took out the one that summons as well as the puppet user earlier. They were resurrected by the one I mentioned using some weird demon that swallowed their broken bodies whole and spat them out alive and kicking."

The Hokage nodded.

"Our status?"

"We've suffered casualties and the evacuation is about half done. Don't have the exact count of the dead and wounded in hand."

"Fair enough," Sarutobi conceded. Turning his attention back to the conduct of the battle, he said, "It seems clear to me that we have to take out the one that resurrects the others. Point him out to me and I'll deal with him."

Koi smiled predatorily and led the Third back to the battle. If the enemy could not resurrect themselves, he knew that this battle was as good as won. There was simply too much cover within a city and too many obstacles restricting the effectiveness of heavy hitters such as the Rinnegan user. In such circumstances, numbers and sheer guts will tell and there was no fucking shinobi in the world with more guts than Konoha's best. He pointed out Naraka Pain, who had finally reached Human Pain and was in the act of resurrecting him.

xxxxx

Deva Pain spotted the withered form of the old Hokage leap out of a pile of debris and charge Naraka Pain from the rear. Outer Path Pain wasn't yet done with resurrecting Human Pain and so, Deva and Animal Pain both moved to defend Naraka Pain from the attack.

As Animal Pain moved to provide close support to Sarutobi's target, Deva Pain levitated nails and assorted fragments of metal from the battlefield and sent them shooting them the air towards the oldster at supersonic speeds. The shrapnel ripped into the Sandaime and the effect was akin to a cannon firing grapeshot at light infantry. The Third was literally torn from limb to limb and his head exploded like a melon. His beaten corpse fell to the ground and morphed into a neatly cut wooden log that had been switched with the old Hokage.

Realizing he'd been had, Deva Pain closed ranks with Naraka Pain even as Animal Pain summoned a truly monstrous scorpion. Simultaneously, Asura and Preta Pain formed an outer, defensive barrier against other wannabe attackers. The scorpion caught sight of the real Sarutobi and tried to grab him with its claws, but the Third used another kawarimi to change his position, but did not quit his charge. The log that the scorpion subsequently snagged was rigged with explosive tags and detonated with a muffled crack that blew the critter's appendage into many pieces. As the scorpion chittered in agony, the Sandaime shot an intense stream of fire that burned through two legs on its right and sent it crashing down.

The resurrected Human Pain charged in from the flanks and kicked Sarutobi aside, buying Animal Pain time to summon something else. As he did, several dozen propane tanks flew into the clearing launched by Root operators who'd been preparing it as a special surprise in the background. No ANBU ever wasted a lesson and they'd seen the power of an air-fuel explosion take out a jinchuuriki three years back in the chuunin finals arena. At an altitude of a dozen meters, just as Deva Pain was reacting to their launch by readying to repel them, the cylinders shattered in rapid succession. He pushed the cylinders away, which spread the fuel-air mixture further and brought it into contact with sparklers a fraction of a second earlier than it would have otherwise.

A thousand pounds of propane mixed with air detonated in four separate explosions one of varying yields. Two partially ruined buildings close to the blast exploded and three Root operators caught in the fringes had their lungs scorched, exploded and then ripped out of them even as their eyes imploded on them. Deva's shield protected him, as well as Preta and Asura avatars, but Animal, Naraka, Outer Path and Human were caught in the fury of the blast and smashed into broken ruin.

The counterstrike for the devastating blow wasn't long in the coming, however, and even as the rain of assorted debris decreased in intensity, Deva Pain blew everything in a hundred yard radius with his powers of repulsion. Konoha shinobi within the affected zone suffered better than forty percent casualties in the strike. Only a few powerful ninja kept their feet while the tidal wave of destruction crushed buildings to dust and dug a huge crater around them.

"Anybody got any more propane tanks? We could sure use them. Over," some nameless Konoha jounin wheezed over the radio. In reply, a stockpile that had been caught in the fringes of Pain's attack detonated, sending a searing ball of fire, body parts, dirt and rubble into the air.

"All surviving units in the vicinity of the intruders, continue to engage the enemy closely. Draw the enemy away from the cleared zone and into the buildings. Over," Sarutobi broadcast over the general frequency. To his command staff, he said, "We need medivac for casualties as well as at least two companies of reinforcements. Don't touch the central reserve. Use the ones on evacuation detail for the purpose. The civilians are on their own from here on till we neutralize the enemy. Over and out."

His orders communicated, Sarutobi turned to face Asura Pain who was charging him. He stabbed his pole-arm into the ground and using it as a pivot, lashed with a powerful kick into his assailant's face. Firing one of his mechanical arms at the pole, Asura Pain blocked the strike with the other. Enma was tougher than the mechanical contraption, but there was enough power behind the blow to dislodge him from the ground. The Third stumbled and dropped the gorilla king, and Asura Pain threw him towards Preta Pain. The latter grabbed the Third Hokage in an immobilization hold and started to rip his victim's chakra.

Seeing the Hokage's plight, six Root operators in teams of two attacked along three axes. Deva Pain delayed two and Asura Pain intercepted two more, but the last two broke through. One of those two stabbed his ninjato into the base of Preta Pain's neck and the other chopped off his victims legs at the knees. Needless to say, Preta Pain released his hold on Sarutobi. The Sandaime's rescuers immediately shunshined out of the way before Deva Pain could launch another attack.

"Are you all right, Sarutobi-sama?" one of the two asked.

Sarutobi nodded. He was pale from the chakra loss. If Preta Pain had managed to hold on for a few more seconds, he'd have slipped into a coma.

"Yes. Order the men to isolate the mechanical one and concentrate on the other. I'll rejoin the defense in a few seconds once I've caught my breath." the Third replied, swallowing a few chakra pills. At his age, he'd pay a heavy price for their use later, but such was the cost of doing business. To his command staff, he passed his orders over the radio, "And get someone to secure the bodies of the ones we'd killed so far and dispatch them to Konoha now. We need to start our own Rinnegan research soonest."

xxxxx

The Nagato choked a curse at being frustrated once again. The primary objective of the assault on the Tea capital to capture the Third with a secondary objective of causing massive damage to the city infrastructure. The idea was to gain intel on the One Tail's whereabouts and in the process, deal a heavy blow to Fire country's morale and war effort. However, the mission, which had started swimmingly, had floundered and there was now a real possibility of defeat.

The problems facing his avatars were the crowded nature of the construction in the city, which restricted their line of sight as well as effective range of their attacks, and the vast numerical superiority of the enemy shinobi whose leaders were as just as ruthless as him. And perhaps therein lay the key. He'd been focusing on capturing the Sandaime Hokage, but it was clear now that the approach was faulty. Destroy the city and then capture Sarutobi was the way to go.

xxxxx

""What the hell?" the jounin who'd been grappling with Asura Pain cried as his opponent suddenly went still and fell. He used a earth technique to bury his erstwhile opponent deep underground and turned to the other fight where his comrades were facing the maniac with the ranged attacks.

A massive fire dragon – he could feel the heat of the flames even though he was two hundred yards away – flew into the air towards a distant speck and…

An entire block of the city imploded in a circle hundred and fifty yards in radius, catching the jounin unaware and crushing him along with a company of shinobi. A few dozen of the oldest, weakest and/or sickest civilians who'd remained or had been left behind also died with the ninja.

xxxxx

Deva Pain flew sideways to evade the dragon for the nonce and targeted another sector of the city that he could see was flush with fleeing civilians. Flesh and earth and metal and wood shattered under the power of his strike and several thousand souls simply ceased to be.

Paying no heed to his victims, he willed a water dragon into being and sent it crashing into the Third's flame dragon. The two constructs collided and exploded in a massive steam bomb, but Deva Pain had flown out of the reach of the boiling cataclysm that shrouded their destruction. By then, his powers of repulsion and attraction were ready for use again.

Ergo, he casually turned his eyes to another portion of the city and sentenced a few thousands more to death.

xxxxx

Standing on the tallest standing building within half a mile, Sarutobi glared at the sky. At such long ranges, even his most powerful attacks lost their effectiveness. He was completely powerless, thus, as the Rinnegan user destroyed his city and killed his people a few blocks at a time. Although, there was that one technique…

"We'll rig the messenger birds with explosive tags and guide them to the enemy, Sarutobi-sama," one of the nearby shinobi suggested, espying the look on the Third's face.

"No, it'll be too late," the Sandaime replied, calmly. Since the enemy had changed the nature of the game and the objective of his tactics unattainable, there was nothing to be gained in allowing the destruction of the city. He began making hand signs to summon the Death God and continued in the same voice on the radio, "The bodies of the Rinnegan user must be sent to Konoha at all costs. Command devolves to whoever's the surviving senior most officer of the Ninja garrison. Save as many of my people as possible. Over and out."

The Death God's ghostly form ripped through the Third's chest and…

xxxxx

The Nagato felt the kami's touch on his avatar first and then on himself. For a brief second, he felt the mind of Sarutobi and knew that the other at last understood the truth. With contemptuous ease, he thwarted the Death God's grab at his own soul, but knew that the apparition couldn't be banished so long as Sarutobi was alive. Well, it wasn't as if the Third had to be alive to read his mind and considering the fact that the truth about the Six Paths of Pain had to be preserved at any cost until it could no longer matter in the world they were shaping…

xxxxx

"Enma, tell them we got everything wrong," Sarutobi shouted. In the brief moment Nagato's and his minds touched – an unchronicled side effect of the forbidden technique he was using or some complication caused by Nagato's strange use of reanimated human puppets – he knew the true nature of his enemy and what was about to happen to him. "None of them are real an…"

A ceramic plate sliced through the Third's neck as if it were butter and his head pinwheeled through the air, but instead of crashing to the ground, it shot high into the air. His principle dead, the Death God vanished and Roughly five seconds later, the area that Sarutobi had stood on became the epicenter of another of Pain's attacks.

xxxxx

The western watch tower was a smoking ruin. The crackling flames of the wooden support beams reached for the sky even as the dying screams of some poor soul caught in the blaze faded away.

As with the tower, the main gate of the city walls lay in ruins. The section of the wall around the gates was blown inward with pieces of dying and dead men, donkeys, camels strewn among the debris. Here was a man with a fist-sized hole where his face was caved in by a rock from the explosion. There was a woman moaning piteously as she tried in vain to pull out the piece of wheel that pinned her to the ground. And there was a donkey exhaling bright right foam in great gasps as it breathed its last from a collapsed ribcage.

Uzumaki Naruto stood a hundred yards away from the carnage with Sasuke and Sakura flanking him. All three were dirty and grimy with clothes splatted by the blood of their enemies. And some three hundred yards from their position were the rapidly cooling corpses of a battalion of Wind samurai reinforced by a few Sand shinobi who'd dared challenge their approach to the city.

"Citizens of this shitty hellhole of a city situated in the middle of the fucking desert," Naruto addressed the city, amplifying his voice with chakra so as to be heard by everyone within the walls, "who are ruled by 'he who blows men on his knees and fucks donkeys and camels in the dark of the night.' Hear me. I'm Uzumaki 'I fucked your mom and diddled you wife and sister' Naruto, Chuunin of Konohagakure in the glorious Land of Fire. And I would like nothing better than to emasculate your men, sell your women into abject slavery and take your children to Hi no Kuni to be raised as one of ours because your treacherous Daimyo has betrayed my people by allying himself with those mangy dogs from Lightning.

"Fortunately for you, my benevolent liege, the Daimyo of Hi no Kuni has decided that I should spare your worthless hides and only give into my baser desires if all other means fail. Therefore, I require your Daimyo to walk his hairy, smelly behind out of your city and meet my colleagues and I where we stand outside the city so that there may be peace between our people. The rest of you will hand over your Daimyo's family from whom we will select three hostages as surety against further treachery. We also expect hostages from all leading noble houses towards the latter. You have thirty minutes to act. Choose well because you really do not want me stepping into these walls for I swear by god, I'll burn this festering eyesore down and salt the ground."

xxxxx

Author's notes:

Please leave reviews. I hope I did Sarutobi justice here. The points I bore in mind when I wrote this chapter were: Pain's battle in Konoha in canon, Sarutobi's great age, his having led Konoha through several wars, Stalingrad…

I also hope that the battle for the city was good. I have skipped Team 7's initial assault on Suna capital for streamlining purposes. Anyways, Fire country has suffered a terrible loss in Tea and is on the brink of an audacious victory in Wind. Stay tuned for the next chapter!

Pain's avatars:

Animal = summons

Asura = puppet

Preta = absorption

Human = taijutsu, ripping out souls

Naraka = resurrection using outer path

Outer Path = ability to detect lies, healing

Deva = gravity