A/N: This is my first try as an author so bear with me. English isn't my first language so don't hesitate to pm me with any fault you find, I am always eager to learn.
Before starting, a little mention to 'Zarosian Chaos', for correctly guessing what Gaara did in his last moments before losing consciousness. I don't think it was that hard to tell, not that I wanted to make it too obvious either.
Another question that was asked is whether Natsuki's unsealing will prevent Akatsuki's bijuu sealing plan from working. I've got opinions from several reviewers who already asked me about it so I guess I'll try to give you my take on this, even if the Nine Tails chakra is separated from the soul, extraction and absorption is still possible if they manage to capture both Naruto and Natsuki. Well they would need to know that Naruto freed her in the first place, something he won't reveal to just anyone.
Finally, I know some of you were expecting a nice Naruto x Natsuki moment but they couldn't exactly have it while Gaara and Suna were getting their ass kicked, wouldn't reflect nicely on our favorite Alliance's Leader now, would it ?
Anyway, welcome to the next chapter of Kaze No Kami.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any other manga for that matter.
Chapter 44 : Opposite Paths
Sunagakure – Main Entrance
Everyone just froze as the flashing light erupted in the middle of the battlefield, invaders and defenders alike. Only three of them actually knew what had just happened in front of them, as the object Gaara threw in the air fell back down and planted itself in the sand recovering the ground.
When they took a look at it, all everyone could see was a strange looking kunai with three blades instead of the regular ones that only got one. The more experienced shinobi now understood the situation, even though they still couldn't grasp every details.
"So you came after all, Namikaze Uzumaki Naruto. Konoha's Kaze no Kami, Eighth Swordsman of Kiri and recently nominated as the Leader of the Shinobi Alliance." Pein said from his position, turning his head back to look at the top of the place where the gates used to stand.
"Naruto ? Where is he ? I don't see him." Temari said while frantically looking around, hoping to find the Leaf jonin.
"Why would he be here ? Wasn't he supposed to be hiding and secretly training his jinchuriki powers ?" Kankuro discretely asked his sister who nodded back to him.
"It seems you already know a lot about me, Akatsuki members. However, I believe this is the first time we meet." Said a familiar voice that left no doubt for the Sabaku siblings as to who just spoke.
"Naruto ! Is that really you ?" Kankuro shouted from his position besides the fallen form of Gaara.
"In the flesh, it is good to see you again, make-up dude." Replied a smirking blonde jinchuriki as many more in the audience snickered at the jab.
"Thank god, with him around we have a solid chance to stay alive. He's the one who took down most of them up until now." Were Temari's thoughts as she looked at the famed Kaze no Kami.
"Temari, get you brother to a safer place and proceed with whatever Gaara asked you to do before he lost consciousness. Kankuro, you will have to deal with the blue haired female member while I take care of the others. Have your men fall back to a safe distance, no offense but they would get in the way." Naruto said, assuming his Leader role.
The siblings blinked, unable to immediately react to the orders from someone younger than them that wasn't Gaara. They quickly regained their composure and then nodded to each other as they went to follow Naruto's and Gaara's orders.
Naruto then started to analyze the Akatsuki members he had in front of him. There was the blue haired woman, nothing really special about her except her beautiful face and also the fact that she didn't seem to show any kind of emotion.
Naruto then set his gaze upon the rest of the invaders and was surprised when he noted that they all shared common features. With the exception of the first woman, every other members of their group had orange hair and those strange piercings on their faces. Suddenly his mind stopped processing whatever it was analyzing as he saw another similarity between all those members, their eyes. They all had a particular eye pattern that couldn't be mistaken, Rinnegan the legendary doujutsu from the Sage of the Six Paths.
Naruto just stood there as he remembered his discussion with Fukasaku the Elder Toad Sage. He thought about the story of Jiraya's final fight and how the Toad described the pervert's opponents, a mysterious group of shinobi wielding the same legendary doujutsu.
"You !" Yelled Naruto staring at the group of orange haired shinobi, as his blood started to boil.
"You're the ones who killed Jiraya-sensei, you will pay for this. I swear that none of you will leave this place alive ..." Growled the blond before taking off his jacket and throwing it aside. Many of the Suna kunoichi around had a blush on their faces as they saw Naruto's naked upper body, most of them would have called out to him if it wasn't for the extremely tensed situation at hand.
"No time or energy to waste, if those guys are the one who took down Ero-sennin then I'll have to go all out from the beginning." Naruto analyzed in his mind, before going through hand signs.
"Futon : Muga no Kyouchi !" Naruto said, activating the opening door of his bloodline as wind chakra started to flow throughout his entire body and his tattoo started to fade.
"Ninpo : Kage Bunshin no Jutsu !" Naruto did no hand seal as one of his clone appeared right next to him with half of his remaining chakra reserves, evenly distributed among the two of them.
"Futon : Hyakuren Jitoku no Kiwami !" Called the true Naruto, enabling the ultimate body enhancement form of his bloodline.
"Futon : Saiki Kanpatsu no Kiwami !" Announced the clone, activating the ultimate mind control ability from his bloodline.
"Futon : Ten'i Muho no Kiwami !" Naruto yelled, as his clone dispelled and the wind violently picked up to form a small tornado around his body, entirely shielding him from his opponent's eyes. As the wind finally died down, Naruto slowly emerged in his final ultimate form, the Pinnacle of perfect unity.
"Such power, truly a shame that we couldn't understand each other while studying under the same sensei ..." Pein said in his monotonous voice, enabling the expected surprised reaction from his blond target as Naruto didn't seem to know about their common connection through Jiraya.
Otogakure – Detention Area
It had been hours since Kabuto started his work on Itachi, miserably failing up until now as the Uchiha had yet to reveal any information to him that could prove to be useful for his master, the Nidaime Otokage and brother to the subject.
From a purely scientific analysis, the Konoha missing nin should have lost the will to resist a long time ago. The drug that had been injected right into his bloodstream should have made sure of that and yet he remained perfectly silent the entire time.
Sasuke had only visited once, when he came to authorize the beginning of the procedure after his mysterious meeting with the masked guest that, according to Sakura, also had a Sharingan. The new leader of the Sound village had then decided to put this "experiment" at the top of the list in terms of priority. Kabuto knew that failure was not an option in this case, and the medic was ordered to report in as soon as he was able to break Itachi's mental defenses.
"Any change in his response to your treatment yet ?" Asked Sasuke as he entered the room.
"None so far but with the dose of drug he's been injected with, it shouldn't be much longer now." Kabuto replied as he started to take notes while monitoring Itachi's brain activities.
"So his mind has already been considerably weakened even as we speak ?" Sasuke said, more like a statement than a real question.
"Yes, I believe that with your unique way of interrogating people, you should be able to force him to reveal to you whatever you are looking for." Kabuto said, obviously speaking about Sasuke's mastery over his Sharingan.
"Very well, let's see what he hides in that mind of his ..." Sasuke said as he made his way in front of his brother. The younger Uchiha took a seat in front of his elder brother and then channeled chakra through his eyes to reveal his fully mature Sharingan.
"Now Itachi, tell me about the night when the massacre took place ..." Sasuke asked, as Kabuto went to check on the machine that was recording Itachi's vitals.
Sunagakure – Main Entrance
During the showdown between Naruto and Pein, no one from the Suna forces or even Konan dared to move an inch. They were completely silent and listening to the conversation between the young Leader of the entire Shinobi Alliance and the apparent Leader of the Akatsuki organization.
"What did you just say ? I think I heard wrong when you mentioned Jiraya-sensei." Naruto asked, insisting on the "sensei" word.
"I was once a student of Jiraya too, that makes us fellow students. You should be able to understand my actions, everything is for the sake of peace ..." Pein replied.
"Don't you dare twisting the words you must have heard from sensei into that stupid ideology of yours, he never wished for something like this to happen." Naruto said in anger.
"We had the same teacher, he told us both about his dream but we somehow reached different conclusions on the way to achieve that dream. Anyway, it seems the reports I had on you are accurate, it is useless to try to discuss with you ..." Pein started to say as he wordlessly ordered his men to attack.
Naruto vs Asura Path
From the six shinobi, the one with a mechanical body was the first to engage Naruto in a fight. He had some kind of propulsion device that allowed him to move at great speed and could also detach parts of his body at will in order to attack. The blond easily evaded every attempts to reach him but found it equally hard to land a hit on his opponent. During the whole thing the other five just stood there, doing nothing except intently looking at them with their doujutsu activated.
"How the hell can he evade my hits, no one should be on par with me when I'm in this form. Does his eyes have prediction abilities like the Sharingan too ?" Naruto thought as his opponent once again blocked a hit that was aimed at him in a blind spot.
The wind then started to slowly pick up, projecting the sand that was covering the entire area in the air around them. As they resumed the fight, Naruto found it strangely easier to make his punch or kicks connect this time.
"That's strange, is he already tired or did something change, his reaction time is a bit slower that earlier. The only difference with the previous encounter is this light sandstorm ..." Analyzed the blond. His eyes suddenly widened as he finally understood some of his opponent's abilities.
Slightly increasing the output of wind chakra coming out of his body, he managed to amplify the effects of the local sandstorm in order to hide their position from the rest of the Akatsuki member's group and then took out his katana before charging at his enemy again.
The result was immediate, he completely dominated the fight this time and with a swift swing of his blade, he managed to cut off the head of his first opponent.
"I was right, they somehow had the ability to inform him of my movements with that doujutsu to cover for his blind spots. The probability for one person to possess the legendary Rinnegan is ridiculously low, so for the six of them to have it, is downright impossible. That means this is most likely some kind of puppetry jutsu and only one of them with those eyes is in control of the rest of them." Were the conclusions that Naruto just came to, after his first fight with Pein.
He was interrupted from his musings when two more Rinnegan wielders started to run at him.
Naruto vs Animal / Preta Path
The only female member of those strange Rinnegan puppets suddenly stopped at a safe distance from him and the other one that was following behind her stood just in front of her. She then went through hand signs Naruto immediately recognized as he started to perform the exact same sequence from his position.
"Ninpo : Kuchiyose no Jutsu !" They both yelled as they slammed their hands on the ground. From an external point of view, it would have seemed like Naruto had just used some kind of Sharingan ability to analyze, copy and then re-use a jutsu he just saw being performed in front of him. The truth is that he used that jutsu so many times in the past that being able to recognize those hand signs easily came to him. Not wanting to be overwhelmed by whatever his opponent was about to summon he simply took the initiative to call forth his own summon.
"Kankuro ! Clear the area on your men, this is about to get ugly." Naruto said to Kankuro as the puppet master and a good number of Suna shinobi had stayed close to them so far. Konan also took this opportunity to fall back behind the rest of their group that had yet to join the fight.
Pein still managed to surprise the blond as from the smoke generated by the Kuchiyose techniques came out not only one but three summons, a dog, a bull, and finally a rhinoceros. All were quite big, at least the size of Ryuoh or Gamabunta. The most interesting fact was that the summons also had the Rinnegan activated in their eyes.
Naruto had "only" summoned the Dragon King himself, Ryuoh. As he was still in a favorable position, he channeled more chakra to his palms and summoned more allies to even the odds and then next to Ryuoh appeared two more dragons. On his right was Hiryu, the Fire Dragon and Naruto's favorite summon. On the left stood another one that Naruto had never summoned before, it was a dragon covered in ice and the incredible differential in temperature between him and the surrounding air was so high that the creature's body was covered by steam.
"What did you do this time, Naruto ?" Ryuoh asked, almost annoyed at only being summoned in those extreme situations lately.
"It's been a while, Naruto-sama. You seem to have grown a lot stronger since the last time we met." Hiryu respectfully said.
"Greetings, Naruto-sama. I am Hyorinmaru, an Ice Dragon, it is an honor to finally meet you." Said the last one in an equally respectful tone.
"It's nice to see you all, I'm sorry this isn't a social call but I request your assistance. That one just summoned three boss size summons and I'd really appreciate a little bit of help out there." He said pointing towards the female Rinnegan member.
"Oh, it's been ages since the last time I saw those eyes … Very well Naruto, we'll help you. The most effective way to win this is to take out the summoner, that should send those things back to their realms. That will be your mission while we deal with the summons." Ryuoh said, getting an acceptance nod from Naruto.
The giant dog, bull and rhino summons immediately charged towards Naruto who had yet to move from his position. Seeing the incoming attack, the blond simply jumped on top of the Dragon King's head while Hiryu and Hyorinmaru slowly started to levitate from the ground to take position on each side of their King and summoner. When they were close enough, Naruto went through hand signs while the dragons started to inhale large quantities of air in their lungs.
"Futon : Ryu Kokuou no Nakigoe !" Yelled Naruto as Ryuoh expelled the air trapped in his lungs in a gigantic roar that, combined with Naruto's mastery over wind, turned into a giant Sound attack, targeting the advancing summoning creature's hearing systems.
The attack was extremely effective as the three charging summons from Pein lost their balance and tripped themselves to the ground.
Taking advantage of the situation, Hyorinmaru was the next in line to make a move. The Ice Dragon then blasted a huge torrent of frozen air in front of him towards the fallen forms of their enemy's pets, instantly trapping them in huge ice blocks right where they fell.
Hiryu then took position to finish the job as he released a powerful jet of red flames towards the immobilized creatures, literally vaporizing them out of existence.
The Animal Path used another summoning jutsu and this time a bird came out of the smoke.
"Naruto, what the hell are you waiting for ? Go stop that summoner or this will never end." Ryuoh yelled at him.
Without hand signs or calling the jutsu, Naruto then launched the Futon : Furyudan no Jutsu against the enemy summoner but before the technique could reach its target the Preta Path appeared in front of it and somehow absorbed it, only using the palm of his hands.
"What the … ? This one must have the ability to negate or absorb any ninjutsu. I have to get closer to them." Thought Naruto as he summoned a Hiraishin kunai and prepared his next move. He suddenly launched his kunai towards the two Rinnegan wielders, however the kunai was off target from a good meter to the left.
Pein wasn't stupid, he knew Naruto's true intentions and sent the Preta Path behind to cover for the Animal Path. Naruto indeed missed on purpose as he appeared in a white flash behind them, causing the Preta Path to smirk at correctly guessing his opponent's plan. He was about to raise his hands to deflect whatever Naruto planned to use against them when to his surprise, instead of using a jutsu Naruto caught the kunai he previously launched mid air and launched it again in the opposite direction.
The blond appeared right behind the Animal Path, so fast that even Pein with his doujutsu wasn't able to follow his movements. He then launched the Futon : Furyudan no Jutsu again, this time the wind dragon tore through the Animal Path at point blank, leaving no chance for an escape or external interference. Due to their close proximity, even the Preta Path was caught in the area of effect from the wind jutsu and lost both his right arm and leg.
"Three down, three to go ..." Said a smirking Naruto.
A/N : What do you think ?
First half of the Naruto / Pein fight, I know I didn't mention Natsuki at all in this chapter but well he didn't really have the time to chat with his allies and even then that's not something he'd be willing to share with just anyone, the Kyuubi being free is a serious issue :)
We also got a small update on Oto, Sasuke is about to discover the truth about Konoha and its dirty secrets. Some anger to be expected next time on that …
Introduced a "new" dragon summon, most of you should be able to tell where it comes from …
Anyway, as usual please read and review.
New Jutsu :
Futon : Ryu Kokuou no Nakigoe, translates as the Dragon King's Roar. A combination between Naruto's sound attack, the Futon : Shishi Kokuou no Nakigoe (as seen in chapter 15) and Ryuoh being the one who actually roars while Naruto is redirecting the air vibrations towards his targets. Basically a big ass stun grenade.