Hey guys! I'm back from summer break, I had lot's of fun, and I hope all you did too! Anyways, here's the next chapter of the story. Sorry it's been so long, I just didn't have time to update until now. It's a little shorter than the recent chapters, but I hope to make the next one far longer.
Hope you enjoy!
Every single mage of Fairy Tail stood with their mouths wide open in surprise after witnessing Natsu's red coloured Susano'o. The incredible defensive power of the skeleton's strangely shaped shield put them in complete awe. It was no ordinary feat to be able to completely negate a jupiter cannon.
Their previous thoughts of Kakashi being superior to Natsu were completely disproved in front of their eyes. It was clear that Natsu could easily fight Kakashi on equal ground, and maybe even beat him. If only they knew, eh?
The only ones who knew what Natsu could actually do were Erza, Gray, Aki, Happy, Mavis, and former team member Lucy, but even they were surprised to see what seemed like an exact replica of Kakashi's jutsu, albeit coloured red instead of blue.
"Try me."
The group shuddered when they heard Natsu speak. Somehow his voice became enhanced, carrying over the surrounding area like a gust of wind. His tone was strange. It seemed like he was being somewhat playful with the statement, and yet, they could hear small hints of edge and seriousness to it.
Natsu turned back around from his strong statement and faced Mavis. She gasped. His eye was far more different than she expected. She anticipated it being somewhat similar to the crimson one is his right eye, perhaps with a different pattern or inverted colours. But what she saw blew her mind away.
The eye was completely covered in a deep purple. Littered across the eye were black rings, each one getting smaller until it became a black pupil in the middle of the eye. The innermost circle of the eye was a slightly darker shade than the rest. A black ring thicker than the rest circled around the pupil, and through it were two perpendicular black lines. The two lines went all the way to the edges of his eyes on all sides, making it look like some sort of cross hair in the middle of his eye.
She could feel the raw power it gave off. It was unlike anything she had ever felt. Usually when she felt and incredible magical power she could tell it was strong, but it wouldn't actually affect her physically. But for some strange reason, this did.
Natsu smirked at Mavis' flabbergasted expression. "Well come on then, that cannon is just going to fire again unless we get rid of it."
Mavis shook her head to re-focus and nodded. "Right! Let's go!" She stated cheerfully, jumping up to her feet. But as she saw what was coming out of the castle, she stopped.
Natsu frowned. "What's wrong?" He asked. Facing Mavis instead of the castle, he was unable to see what Mavis was seeing.
Mavis pointed behind him. "Look!" She exclaimed.
Natsu turned around, only to be greeted by the sight of several hundred ghostly looking figures. They wore purple coloured cloaks with the red phantom lord insignia on the back. The cloaks covered their smoke like bodies, and even formed their arms. The only visible feature of the ghosts that were visible beyond the cloaks were glowing, red eyes.
And they were flying straight towards the guild hall. Natsu raised an eyebrow at the strange creatures. "And just what the hell are those things?" Natsu asked her.
Mavis grimaced. "Shade magic. Probably from Jose, considering how many there are. They're essentially puppets, and have no real bodies or forms. They don't have any methods of attacking people except for flying directly through them, which drains their life force on contact. And even if you kill one, it'll just re-form a few seconds later."
Natsu's response was drowned out by the sound of thousands of thundering footsteps approaching the guild hall. He around turned while sliding his headband back down to see the rest of the guild running towards him. They were all waving and cheering, exclaiming things like "Nice job Natsu!" or "Your magic is so cool!"
Natsu grinned and flashed them a thumbs up. They all grouped up around him, cheering and congratulating him. After a couple seconds of chaos, Mavis coughed loudly and began to speak. "Yes, yes, while Natsu did just save the guild, we still need to make sure he doesn't need to again! We need to take out that Jupiter Cannon!" She encouraged the rest of the guild.
Kakashi looked at Natsu and noticed a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He raised and eyebrow at him. "I assume you already have a plan then?" He asked.
Everyone went silent. The sound of many people blinking in surprise could be heard. Natsu just looked back at him and nodded slowly, the smirk never leaving his face. Everyone looked at him expectantly. He was just standing there.
A moment later, they grew impatient. "WELL?!" They all shouted at him.
Natsu recoiled from the loud noise and his face contorted in mock pain. "Ok, ok, I'll do it."
Stepping forwards from the rest of the group, He brought his hands in front of his chest in preparation for handseals. Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram. With the final hand sign in place he vocalized his jutsu. "RINNEGAN SUMMONING: ANIMAL! ASURA!"
Slamming his palm onto the ground at his feet, strange black runes and markings began to pour out in a spiderweb like fashion from around his palm. Out of a poof of smoke, two distinct humanoid figures appeared. They wore long, black cloaks covered in red clouds, with long socks and sandles on their feet. On their heads were pitch black masks. They were completely plain, except for two emerald rings around the eye holes of one mask, and ruby around the other.
The man on the right had spiky, light red hair. The other one had long, blonde hair. Most of it was tied back in a pony tail, but a sizable portion fell over his left eye. They were both around the same height.
Lucy gasped. "How did you summon spirits without keys?"
Natsu scrunched his face up and scratched his head. "Errr... It's kinda hard to explain, if you know what I mean. And they aren't spirits, either."
Lucy gained a sudden look of realization as it dawned on her. "Ohhhh. Right." Natsu grinned and gave her a thumbs up.
A random guild member piped up from the crowd. "Hey, uh, Natsu? Not saying you can't handle the situation or anything, but, uh, how are two extra guys gonna help us fight that entire army?"
Natsu gave off smirk as he watched the imposing army grow near. He counted rougly five hundred of Jose's shades. Their red eyes glowed at him ominously, and their wavy like movements gave the weaker-willed members of Fairy Tail a chill down their spines. The air around them grew still and silent, only the rustling of the wizards getting ready to fight able to be heard.
One of the figures Natsu summoned without a word slipped off the top half of his robe, letting it fold at his waist and hang down. The group gasped at what they saw. The man's body was completely and utterly mechanical. Every part of his torso was made by and attached by plastic joints. The only thing that seemed to be different was the strange cylinder where his heart should have been. Purple tendrils that resembled roots grew out of the thing en masse, and it had a red painted kanji on the front.
But he didn't stop there. Suddenly a red scroll poofed into existence in the man's hand out of a cloud of smoke. A small hatch on the right side of the man's chest opened, revealing an empty void of blackness. He held the scroll out to the side and let it unravel, allowed everyone in the crowd to see the contents.
The pure length of the scroll surprised them. It reached almost five meters, and the entire thing was covered end to end in complex looking black markings.
They jumped back in surprise when rapid fire smoke clouds starting popping out of the markings covering the scroll. But through the small plumes of smoke, distinct figures could be seen coming out of the scroll, flying up into the air above them.
Before they even knew it, a large shadow was cast over the group. What caused the shadow was the one hundred red-clad figures now floating above them. Each had a blue energy string attached from their backs to the mechanical man in front of them. But these were no ordinary people. They looked... odd. Lines and joints in spots that shouldn't be there.
Then Erza realized. "Th-they're puppets!" She exclaimed, half in awe and half creeped out by the clattering of the puppets. The others had the idea that the things weren't human, but now seeing what they were brought it to a whole new level of creepiness.
Mavis gaped at the man controlling all the puppets. To be able to control over a hundred puppets at the same time! What incredible power! She thought in shock.
Lucy watched in curiosity. Hmm... She wondered. It's kinda like my celestial spirit magic I suppose. I wonder what they can do?
Gray and Aki fist bumped. "That's our buddy Natsu for ya!" Aki exclaimed cheerfully. "Yup! Always pullin through when we need it most!" Gray added on.
Kakashi watched the puppets fidget and shake. "Hmm..." He muttered to himself. "Didn't think I'd ever be reassured by seeing those things."
Suddenly the red haired man controlling the multitude of puppets called out in a grandeous voice that sounded roughly Aki and Gray's age. "Secret Technique of the Red Sands: Performance of One Hundred Puppets!" He shouted. Raising his arms at the puppets.
They moved like a tsunami of bloodied water, their clattering pieces clacking back and forth creating an ominous noise that freaked out most who hear it. When the front lines reached front lines, they didn't slow down in the slightest. The strange weapons that the puppets were carrying cut through the opposing purple forces like a hot knife through butter. Their emotionless stare unnerved even Jose.
The shades couldn't even fight back, all for one reason; the puppets weren't alive. They were dead. They had no soul, nothing to leech off of, so when the shades flew through the red cloaked figures, they achieved absolutely nothing.
Mavis watched in wonder as the puppets made short work of Jose's shade magic. They wielded all sorts of different weapons; scythes, claws, axes, swords, and even more strange things like chains. But she couldn't say it wasn't effective, no, air being filled with smoke from the rapid dispelling and reforming of the shades were proof of that. It was like watching an army trained together for hundreds of years.
An army, all controlled by one. The red haired man standing at the forefront of the cliff. He didn't even look like he was doing anything, really. He just stood there with his top half bare and the hundred blue energy strings flowing out of his chest. But Natsu had summoned the guy, right? So was he controlling the puppets himself? Or was Natsu controlling him, and therefor controlling the puppets by proxy.
"Hey! What are they doing?!" Gray suddenly shouted, pointing in the air where the battle was taking place.
Mavis looked up. Gray was right, they were doing something, grouping, to be more exact. Almost all the shades had clumped together like a mass of mosquitoes. Suddenly, they all rushed the puppet master, flying towards him like a swarm of killer bees.
Over half of them were cut down mid flight by the army of puppets, but the surprise factor of their sudden rush gave them enough time to get past the majority of the puppets. Aki pointed at them and shouted at the puppet master. "HEY RED HAIRED DUDE! RUN! THEY'RE GOING FOR YOU!" She warned.
The 'red haired dude' turned to her and growled through his mask. "My name is Sasori, you little brat." He said in a low voice.
But before Aki could speak again, the shades reached their intended destination: Sasori. They bombarded him like a river of darkness, completely enveloping him. He was hit by over a hundred of them, enough to kill a man ten times over. She grit her teeth. "Damnit..." She muttered.
"AHAHHAHAAAHHAAAHA!" A manical laughter was heard, breaking the silence of shock at the puppet master, now known as Sasori, being killed so easily.
Looking to where the laughter was coming from, Mavis gasped. As the shades dissipated from the area, Sasori could be seen, standing there, laughing with an evil smirk plastered across his face. "But... how?" Mavis muttered. She looked to Natsu, to see if he was also surprised by this turn of events, but as she suspected, he remained calm as ever.
Aki stared, wide eyed. "What the..." She slowly trailed off. Everyone else, except Natsu and Kakashi of course, had very similar reactions.
As the laughter slowly came to an end, Sasori spoke in a low growl. "Your strange magic tricks won't work on me..." He said slowly, pausing for a moment. As he did, two sets of helicopter blades came out of two compartments on his back. The blades unfurled and began to rotate at speeds fast enough to lift him off the ground, leaving him hovering mid-air. "YOU CAN'T LEECH MY SOUL, I HAVE NO SOUL TO BURN!" He shouted with a predatory glare and evil grin, immediately shooting off in the air to join the rest of his puppets in combat.
Gray ran forwards. "Come on guys!" He shouted, waving at the members of Fairy Tail. "We can't just let Natsu and his buddies do all the work, let's show em what we're made of!" He shouted at them, inspiring them greatly.
Aki grinned and ran after him. "Hell yeah!" She cheered in agreement. Slowly but surely, the rest of Fairy Tail began to chase after the two dragon slayers, shouting words of encouragement and motivation to their fellow mages. Gray created a mighty bridge made of ice over the water, and the group followed, eager to join the fray, this time on Phantom Lord's front door.
Only Natsu, Mavis, Kakashi, and Erza remained. Lucy had bolted off to follow the main group attacking Phantom, and Happy had of course followed Aki. Mavis had finally recovered from her little panic attack, and was floating right next to Natsu, who was doing the exact same thing. The masked man with the robe and long blonde hair also stood with them with his arms crossed.
"Alright, it's up to us five to take out that cannon before it can fire again." Erza announced. "Anyone got any ideas?"
The masked man tilted his head up with pride. "Hn. With my art, that cannon'll be gone in seconds." He boasted.
Mavis and Erza raised an eyebrow at the man, while Natsu and Kakashi tried their best to suppress laughter. "Oh? And you are?" Mavis huffed.
The man gave a mock bow. "Deidara, the best artist this world has ever seen." He replied.
Mavis sweat dropped. "Now tell me how the hell artistic talent is going to destroy a jupiter cannon." She said, staring at him for an answer. But before he could respond, she began speaking again. "Actually, scratch that. Natsu, you know what your own summons can do right?" She asked, looking at him. He nodded. "So how is this artist guy going to help us with THAT thing?" She questioned him.
He shrugged and nodded to Deidara. "I think this one is better left for him to explain." He answered.
With that said, Deidara reached into his robe with his hands, opening two pouches on his sides and sticking his hands inside. Mavis groaned and facepalmed. "Oh boy, what's he doing now?"
A couple seconds later, Deidara reached his hands forwards, revealing what he had been doing. "EWWW!" Mavis squealed as she saw his palms. They were mouths. One on each palm, complete with a tongue and everything. But he ignored her cry and continued.
Out of the two mouths came two streams of clay, which began to clump into a ball on the ground on front of him. The ball continued to change it's shape and size, until eventually it was a massive clay dragon, easily twenty feet tall and fourty across.
The dragon promptly rose up, it's powerful wings beating air down and lifting it airborne. It began flying towards the barrel of the cannon. Deidara formed one hand into a half ram seal. "Why you ask? How you ask?" Deidara questioned. The dragon grew closer.
"Well I'll tell you why." He continued. The dragon flew inside the barrel of the cannon.
"BECAUSE ART IS AN EXPLOSION! KATSU!"
As a side note, I know that the six paths of pain thingy doesn't work like how I portrayed it, but I allowed the akatsuki members to keep their personalities since I thought it would be fun to write and kinda interesting to see how they would interact with Earthland.