Welcome back to another chapter of 'Immortalized!' The War between the alliance of Kusa/Taki/Oto is kicking off in earnest against Konoha, so things should be picking up a bit. Also, I'm going to be starting on the process of going through my older chapters and editing them, nothing you'll need to reread for, mainly just grammar and spacing. Enjoy!
Chapter 13
Minimum Bloodshed
Moments. It had taken mere seconds for it all to be over. Looking over the field that was now decorated in a sea of bodies, all bearing the waterfall-esque headband of Takigakure, a single figure could be seen walking towards the Konoha line, the leaf nin having entrenched themselves on one side of the clearing for cover and concealment alike. They had been prepared, supplied and supplemented, ready and awake, not eager to fight the coming battle, but more than ready to do their duty to the village, and then he had shown up, one last second reinforcement. One singular man.
He had moved through the ranks of the Konoha Nin almost as if he was a ghost, his sandal clad feet squishing into the ground that had become thoroughly soaked by the rain that hadn't ceased since they had begun the push across the border into Takigakure itself. The man had arrived with his head bowed, almost as if he seemed regretful of what he were about to do, his hands clenched in the pockets of his black shinobi pants, a kunai pouch adorning shit right thigh. He had raised his head when he reached the front of the line, allowing his long blonde hair to fall behind him, his bangs framing his face, the normally spiky hair pulled back into a small ponytail at the base of his neck, all of it matted down from the rain.
None of the Konoha shinobi had said anything to the Jounin as he passed them by, maybe mistaking him for a regular nin, maybe noticing of his exploits from before, recognizing the young man as he walked. He had nodded once to himself, before he thrust his left foot forward, stepping out of the defensive line and began walking across the open and pristine field, heading towards the line of enemy ninja. It had taken mere seconds for the battle to begin, reaching its end in a bloodbath only a few minutes. The moment one of the Taki Nin had realized that the man walking towards him wasn't some elaborate form of Genjutsu, or a hail of parley, he had turned to raise the alarm, and that's when the entire battle, if you could call it that, began.
Multiple copies of the blonde man had leapt from the trees, burst from the ground, simply appeared on all sides from around the camp, some running inside and exploding, some jumping high above the camp itself. All had one thing in common, the three-pronged kunai that they either rained down from above or shot out upon their 'death', and that is when all hell broke loose for exactly seven seconds. There was an uncountable number of cobalt flashes flickered across the enemies line, and all was silent for a brief moment as the young man appeared at the front of the camp, in the same place he had been before the assault had started, returning a sword to the sheath on his back, over a trench coat that was oddly reminiscent of one Mitarashi Anko, had the color been more of a cream, instead of the rustic brown he wore.
The silence that permeated the battlefield under the sound of the pouring rain remained intact for a brief second after the man reappeared, walking back towards his fellow Nin, his identity vow very much confirmed to them as he moved, his cerulean eyes piercing the darkness in the early morning light. Then, the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting the ground reached him, each and every impact reminding him of a life he had just ended, a flame he had extinguished. Each head that hit the ground had him holding back a flinch, as he was forced to think of the father that would now never return home. The mother who would never hold her child again. The mere Genin he had just slain, their parents never going to see them become Chunin, their lives over before they had even had the chance to begin.
It didn't matter that it was quick. It made no difference that he had made it as clean and painless as possible as he slit throats and cut hearts, the men and women he had killed were still dead, making it a hollow statement as best. His operational orders were clear- no prisoners, no survivors, and he grimaced as he made a few Kage Bunshin that immediately began to gather his spent kunai. The blonde Jounin pushed down the bile that threatened to rise in his throat as he placed an expressionless mask back upon his face, a façade worthy of the masked Hokage himself. He did his best to drown out the cheer that came from his comrades, all of them happy that no Konoha blood had been spilt.
Naruto closed his eyes briefly amid the sea of praise he was coming to hate. This hadn't been a battle in a war. This had been the slaughter of over one-hundred and fifty men and women, and he was the culprit.
"…So long story short, I had to fight the whole battle, without pants!" Kiba finished, smiling happily as he patted Naruto on the back, the blonde had begun choking on his ramen while laughing at his friends' story, the broth catching in his throat. The two had been spending more time together than they had in a couple of years, the duo splitting apart after Naruto's induction into ANBU, and the many years he had spent there while the Inuzuka heir had remained true to his clan, becoming a Chunin after a couple years as a Genin, his partner Akamaru gaining the same ranking as he did.
The two had even run a couple of tracking/capture missions together a couple times, which was how this outing was brought about. Both of the young men's respective girlfriends were out of the village on assignments of their own, and seeing as how the two had just come back from a mission of their own, they decided to celebrate with a meal, the two stopping off at Ichiraku's. Naruto grinned as he finally managed to clear his throat, the image of Kiba fighting on the front line in nothing but his jacket was certainly one for the memory books, and watched quietly as his longtime friend regaled the waitress with tales from the front.
The blonde Jounin was happy for his friend, he truly was. The war seemed to be weighing a lot less heavily on the feral looking ninja than it did for him, but then again, Naruto had been in a lot more battles than he had, and had taken a lot more life as well. The former captain had even been volunteering for any mission he could, especially the ones where contact was imminent, doing his damndest to destroy the enemy before they could even come close to his countrymen. He'd heard people talking, he was gaining quite the reputation for himself with his continued exploits, considering the war had only been going for a few months.
"And Naruto here, he's taken out multiple of enemy strongholds by himself! Some of them had a shit load of Ninja in them too, from what I hear." The man in question was yanked from his thoughts by a very enthusiastic Kiba, who had grabbed his shoulder and shaken the man slightly, waving his other arm and baring his teeth in his feral grin in the attempt to impress the people he had been talking to. Akamaru barked in the background as Naruto merely shrugged slightly, giving a small grin and muttering about how it was no big deal. "But it is! You see ladies, people go runnin' when they see me hit the field, but Naruto… when the famed "Furasshu no Isan (Legacy of the Flash)" walks out on the battlefield, the enemy is already dead! This man here…" Kiba paused, grinning towards his friend before looking back to the girls he had been showing off to. "This man is a fuckin' living legend."
"Yeah… It's pretty great I guess…" Naruto agreed with his friend half-heartedly, it took everything he had not to stare down at his hands, knowing what he would find there. Before Kiba could notice his change though, the blonde Jounin replaced his downtrodden look with a wide grin, before he looked over to his empty bowl, beckoning their waitress over and asking her for another couple of bowls.
Anything to take his mind off of it.
The bridge was pretty quiet tonight, thought Sukamoi Gin as he leaded against one of the nearby structures. Her group from Kusa had taken it without conflict, there had been no Konoha Nin there to bar them passage. His platoon commander had actually wanted to keep them moving, but had been late in the evening and a few of the other leaders in the group had convinced him to allow the men to rest for the night. She'd hadn't been on watch long, maybe an hour or two, but honestly this wasn't too bad.
She didn't get it though. Gin didn't understand why Kusa felt the need to get involved into another war with Konoha, when they were still recovering from the absolute thrashing they had gotten at the hands of the same village years before. While physical rebuilding had been easy, it was the economics of the village that had suffered, with them losing a lot of their land to Konoha, and with it many of their contractors, meaning the village had lost a significant source of its income.
Gin wasn't usually one to comment of the political inner workings and shifts taking place throughout the nations, but then again usually they didn't apply to her home, with it being a minor village. But now… Well, she still wouldn't talk on it. Insubordinate actions weren't looked down with a good eye, and were grounds for discharge from service, or even execution if her actions seemed traitorous. And then there were the reports from the front that had the twenty-something Chunin more than concerned. The reports of the young, blonde shinobi from Konoha who was doing the same thing that his supposed father had done nearly two decades ago.
Maybe it was just false propaganda from the Leaf, meant to break their morale and weaken their fighting spirit, but she doubted it. If that were the case, why would they have changed the color of the Yondaime's signature attack, just because someone else was using it? It didn't make sense, but for whatever reason, she really hope that the word she was getting from what little survivors and spies they had left was wrong, hopefully just false intelligence. She sniggered to himself as she leant against the wall. Blue flashes? How lame wa-
Gin never finished his thought, and she would never get to start any more as a sword enclosed in the piercing nature of wind chakra pierced her throat, cutting from left to right and stopping just short of the other side, before retracting. The woman stumbled backwards, before being caught by the very man who had skewered her, lowering Gin gently onto the ground below, her fading eyes clouding over in death as she quietly choked on his own blood. After cradling the girl in his lap as she died, Naruto stood, flicking the blood from Kaze no Karitoriki. The Uzumaki stood, muttering a quick apology to the man lying on the ground, his eyes still staring open into the air in abject horror and confusion, not knowing that he was dead even as his life seeped from his throat and onto the cold unforgiving ground below him. His words of regret did nothing for the man though, as words are useless to the dead.
Naruto gazed grimly around him, looking around at the small town he had just finished liberating, before his eyes were drawn back to the body of the man, his dark red essence seeping around the Konoha Ninja's sandals. He always did his best to make the lives he took quick and painless, though it mattered little. Konoha waged war differently from some of the other villages, and it was especially brutal when they were the ones trespassed upon to begin with. Because of the unwarranted take on Chinbaku, and the discovery of the brutal torture and exhibition killings of Team Ebisu being still fresh in the mind of many, there would be no mercy until late in the war.
The blonde Jounin sighed, sheathing his katana before turning to walk back to where the men and women under his command were, clenching and unclenching his fists as he walked. He idly thought back to when he had traveled with Jiraiya as a child, and though he faintly remembered passing through Kusagakure, he didn't remember it being as it was now, a dark and dreary place often devoid of emotion. Maybe it was just the way that things were because of the war and constant fighting that never seemed to stop or slow down, he didn't know, and honestly, he didn't care about the landscape anymore. His only job was to do the same thing any good leader would do, keep his men from dying.
The yellow haired blonde sighed to himself softly, before forcing all of these thoughts to the back of his mind. He knew many of the shinobi and kunoichi under his command would be having thoughts similar to his own, and he needed to keep their morale high, convincing them that their sacrifice was worth the effort. Naruto put on a calm façade as he walked back, squaring his shoulders and doing his best to shoulder the weight that is the burden of leadership.
The sound of laugher filled the room as Tayuya was dropped unceremoniously onto the large bed, the broad frame of her blonde lover crawling over her as he smirked. The sheets that usually adorned the bed had been cast off haphazardly, now lying somewhere on the floor, forgotten and discarded. The impromptu wrestling match had begun almost immediately when Naruto had walked through the door of his house, taking the longer route home from the Hokage Tower after he had finished giving his latest report instead of simply flashing into his home.
He had barely been two steps inside the door before he noticed his redheaded girlfriend standing in the kitchen off to his left, dressed in a simple red tank top and green shorts, she had a small cup of ramen in one hand, the noodles sticking out of her mouth as she ate, looking at her boyfriend wide eyed. The woman slowly slurped the noodles into her mouth as Naruto shrugged off his coat, before turning back to the woman he had admitted to everyone but himself that he loved, placing a look of mock anger on his face and staring her in the eye, speaking the first words that the two had been able to say face to face to each other in weeks.
"Tayuya, are you eating my ramen?" Before she could answer Naruto was walking towards her mock-menacingly, never taking his eyes off of her, and speaking once again. "Because you made it very, very clear that you didn't like it much, and that if I bought it, you said you wouldn't eat it." The blonde finished, a dark scowl written across his face as he looked down upon her, merely inches away. Tayuya had the decency to look somewhat sheepish as she turned her head to look up at her blonde lover, the noodles she had been eating now dragged across her chin as she slurped them up, before she placed the ramen cup on the counter next to her. Tayuya drew herself up to her full height, which was still a good few inches shorter than the blonde, as she looked him defiantly in the eye.
"Well, you see Shithead, the thing is that-" The Redhead hadn't gotten to finish her sentence as she ducked under his arm, running away through the house, before eventually being cornered by the blonde in the bedroom, and thrown onto the bed, her lover climbing up to hover over her, pinning her down with her arms above her head. Naruto couldn't help but smile, looking down at the beautiful woman that lie beneath him, her chocolate orbs staring back into his own, a few strands of hair falling down the front of her face that she gently blew away, before blinker and looking back up at him, biting her lower lip as she completely ceased her 'struggling'.
"I missed you." Those three simple words spoken by the blonde over her did it for Tayuya, as she forced herself up, pulling Naruto into a deep kiss, attempting to force every bit of emotion she had felt over the last couple weeks into him through it. Every time she had woken up in the middle of the night, searching for that comfortable and familiar warmth, and not finding it. Every time she had gotten angry over something trivial, and had wanted to vent her frustrations on someone who would care, but he wasn't there. The blonde was the woman's entire world, and she wanted him to know it, if only through a kiss.
The Jounin happily kissed her back doing the same thing, and pouring all of his emotion into it, as he released one of her hand and brought it down to cup her face. The two finally parted, breathing lightly and taking in a good amount of air, before Naruto opened his eyes, and for a second it wasn't Tayuya who lay beneath him, but the kunoichi whose throat he had cut, her blood seeping into the bed. Unable to hold in the surprised hitch in his breath, the blonde's eyes suddenly dilated, before he shook his head briefly, clearing his mind before returning to look at his love, who was looking at him in concern. "Shithead, you alright?"
"Yeah… Yeah it's nothing." The blonde reassured his girlfriend, his eyes returning to their usual electric blue as he leaned down to kiss her, but stopping as he found both of her hands on the side of his face, a smirk on her lips. Tayuya cleared her head briefly, maybe she had imagined the whole thing, it was late after all, before she quickly slipped her leg under Naruto's, and then rotated her hips, changing their positions so that she was now on top of him.
"Now…" The redhead began, allowing a sly smile to spread across her lips as she began lowering herself down the blonde's body, kissing along his jawline and biting his ear softly, one of her hands on his chest, their legs intertwined as she whispered. "I remember something about a promise?"
"You're heading out again?" Tayuya had phrased it as a question, but the tone it was said in made it very clear that it was anything but. The sound of her voice, still half asleep in the early morning light, had frozen the blonde in his tracks as he was tying the scarf he had taken from Konohamaru's broken body around his waist as a sash. He slowly finished what he had been doing, before grabbing his coat and threw it around his shoulders as he spoke.
He turned back, watching her as she lifted herself from the bed, the covers she had been under falling to around her waist as she leaned up on one elbow, rubbing the sleep from her eyes wearily. The woman had been fast asleep until around four, when the warm body she had been holding onto abruptly slipped away, throwing the young woman into the throws of the cold morning, before he had covered her with the blankets. "Yeah Red… This one shouldn't take more than a few days at most. I'll be back before you know it."
"That's not the fucking point, Shithead. It isn't fucking fair that you are going around acting like the fucking rally point." The blood-haired beauty sat up fully now, stretching briefly, the loose shirt she had been wearing falling loosely around her left shoulder. "I've been to the front too, Asshole. I hear the fuckers talking. Everyone's always talking about how you're on this front or that front, always leading a goddamn mission! They talk about how you're in every fucking camp, on every post! It sounds like you're fighting the fucking war yourself."
The woman slowed her rant, looking at her blonde lover as he stood across the room from her, slowly crossing his arms as he gazed at her. He didn't like it any more than she did, and he definitely didn't like being apart from her, but if there was something he could do to prevent someone he knew from getting hurt, he would. "I have the power to end fights before they begin, Tayuya. It sucks but every fight I stop saves someone from the village. If I sit idly by and do nothing, then I'm no better than the people who attacked us in the first place." Naruto finished softly.
"Fuck you, Shithead! I'm not asking for you to do nothing, just for you to take a step back and let others go in your fuckin' place! You can't be everywhere at once, Shithead. You keep this shit up and you might slip up, and make a fuckin' mistake that gets you fucking killed!" Tayuya had thrown a pillow during her tirade, looking at the blonde with near tears in her brown eyes, all but pleading with the man she loved, even though she hadn't managed to say the words yet. "Maybe you could just come home more, or maybe don't volunteer for every mission that comes out for Kami's Sake! There are others out there who can fucking fight, Shithead."
The blonde simply stared at her, before he sighed softly, turning to head out the door. He had to leave, he was going to be late and didn't have the time to fight over something like this. "What kind of person would it make me, if I sat back and let someone die, when I could have prevented the whole thing by just being there?" He asked the redhead aloud, before flashing out of the room in his signature spark of cerulean.
Tayuya just sighed angrily, before laying back on the bed she shared with the blonde Jounin, slapping the bed in anger and frustration. She'd never admit it, to anyone, but the blonde was her lifeline. She had a few friends in the village, but they were nothing compared to him. And the tough redhead was scared. She was terrified that one day he'd leave for a mission, and then never come back. She knew he'd never admit it, but the blonde was working himself ragged. In all the time that Tayuya had known him, she'd never once seen him tired before this war started. Yet, now when he was home with her, the redhead had noticed the sometimes faraway look he tried to hide, or the looks he'd sometimes give her.
"Fuck!" The Redhead shouted as she lay alone in the bed. Of all the people in the world, she just had to fall in love with the one with a 'Hero Complex'.
The blonde haired Jounin walked into the command center of the Forward Operating Base in Oto, he had just come from the line in Taki, but a request had come in for him, apparently there was some high class shinobi who was tearing through their forces the closer they got to what the higher echelons in Konoha could only assume was going to end up being Otogakure's final stand, unless they surrendered before then, though with Orochimaru being the current leader that possibility was as likely as a snowman surviving in hell. The problem was apparently a big one, and since he was acting as the Hokage's personal quick response force, he had finished up his task in Kusa and beat trail towards Oto.
He might get lucky, he mused as he crossed the room. This guy might turn out to be a pushover and maybe he could even hook up with Tayuya while he was here, Naruto knew she was currently running a mission somewhere in Oto out of this FOB so he if he did a little searching, he was sure he'd be able to find her and apologize for the fight they had before he was sent off to the front. These thoughts were pushed to the back of his mind as he took his place around the war table as the meeting began, the various advisors beginning their talks of strategy in earnest.
They had only been an hour or two into the council, when the flap of the tent was shoved open and a haggard looking shinobi stepped in, his arm hanging loosely at his side, blood running down his face from under his Hitai-Ite. Naruto was at the man's side in a flash, instantly beaten and battered form of Shino, his high collar and sunglasses with his matching trench coat a dead giveaway. The beetle user was able to look up at his longtime friend, before uttering one word he knew the blonde would understand, it was quite logical of course, once one understood the relationship between the two. "Tayuya." He had barely gotten the word out before the blood loss overcame him, the last thing he noticed being a bright blue flash of light.
Tayuya was on her knees, the bodies of two other Konoha Nin on the ground behind her. She'd done her best, thrown Genjutsu after Genjutsu at him, used every trick in the book she had, but deep down, she'd known it wouldn't be enough, her opponent was simply in a class of his own when compared to her. Fuck, she should've just retreated when they had the chance. As it was, she had barely pulled off getting one of her teammates, Aburame Shino, out of there in time to go for help. She was lucky that they were only a few miles away from the FOB, or he might not have made it that far, judging by the injuries he had sustained.
The other two members of the team hadn't been so lucky. One of them, a Hyuuga by the name of Ichimaru Hozuki had attempted to engage the man in a blur of his family style of Taijutsu, only to get thrown into a tree, small pieces of bone emerging from his chest before he fell to the ground. The other member had younger kid who went by Seriki Kisuke. He'd fallen when the monster they were fighting had gotten inside his defense as he prepared some jutsu, falling to the ground, now relieved of his head.
Tayuya, knowing she would lose to the man, had ordered Shino back to the command center to call for aid, knowing it would be too late, but still oddly satisfied that she'd been able to at least prolong his life, if not save it completely. After that, it hadn't taken long. The white haired devil she was facing had slowly picked her apart, almost as if he was playing with her, until he had managed to shatter her flute, the forced of the blow he delivered sending her flying not into, but through a tree. The redhead had done her best, barely managing to rise to her feet before she fell again, the man stopping before her, mere feet away.
"Look how far you've fallen, Tayuya… I don't remember you being quite so despicable. Weak yes, a pushover, yes, but not this detestable." The man looked down on her, the bone sword in his hand being slowly raised, to point at her as he cocked his head to the side, speaking down upon her like she was a child who had gotten caught stealing a cookie who now had to be punished. "You are trash." He spoke simply.
"Fuck you. I hope your disease-ridden corpse has enough lube built up inside so when the Snake Fuck decides to take your ass one last time before you-"Tayuya didn't get to finish her sentence as Kimimaro leaned in next to her, smirking as he spoke in her ear, barely above a whisper as he raised his blade above his head, preparing to bring it down.
"That's where you're wrong, trash. Kabuto finally managed to cure me of my illness. I'm going to be around for a while, but you? Not so much." The man finished as he brought his sword down, preparing to cleave the traitorous redhead in two, but finding that his sword had only struck dirt, directly in the adjacent absence of two separate, yet distinct flashes of blue. The last member of the Kaguya turned slowly, finding a kneeling blonde man holding his one-time ally in his arms, looking on her with concerned eyes as he created a Kage Bunshin, handing the barely conscious woman off to it as he talked.
"Shithead? What are you doing here, I thought you were in Kusa…" The woman trailed off as her wounds and exhaustion were beginning to catch up to her, though the redhead was doing an admirable job of holding on, even as she latched onto the blondes neck, pulling him down for a quick, chaste kiss. The blonde gave her his quick, trademark grin before he nodded to his clone.
"Don't worry, I'll make this quick. Now…" The original turned his back on his redheaded girlfriend as the clone carrying her made a beeline back towards the Forward Operating Base, every bit as intent on getting the brown eyed beauty in his arms the best medical attention he could find, even if he had to carry her all the way to Konoha to get to Tsunade, such was the man's devotion.
"So, you're the guy I've been hearing so much about." The blonde Jounin began, looking around him, and taking stock of his surroundings, noticing the fallen farms of the two Konoha Shinobi as he stalked towards the white haired man. He'd have to be careful, and he mentally chided himself on being so impulsive for flashing all the way directly to the Hiraishin tag he had placed on Tayuya when he didn't even know for sure if she was in trouble or not. Such a long jump had dented his chakra a bit, and while he still had quite a bit of it, he'd still have to watch himself.
The man he was watching seemed off, to say the least. And the sword he was holding, it looked almost as if it was made of bone. Naruto lightly shuddered as the white haired man across from him popped his neck, before he spoke solemnly, his voice being carried on the wind as he stalked towards the only standing Konoha nin in the area. "Save your breath. This will be over shortly." That was all the warning Naruto got as he was forced to dodge back, jumping under and over, sliding around and near the man's sword strikes.
Growling, the blonde haired Jounin was able to just barely slip inside the man's guard, delivering a quick several punches to the man, before he kicked him in the solar plexus, jumping backwards as he did so, landing a few yards away, one of his Hiraishin kunai falling into his hands. This was bad, a lot worse than he thought, initially. From just the brief exchange he had with the strange man, he had found out a few things. Namely, the swords that were now in each of the man's hands were in fact, made of bone, and apparently the man could manipulate his own bones at will, as when Naruto had punched and kicked his chest, he had only barely dodge the bone spikes that he could only assume was the man's former ribcage shot out of his chest.
Naruto took all this in in a matter of seconds. This was going to be an interesting fight, as well. He already knew the man, and had a decent grasp on his abilities from one of his many talks with Tayuya, and this Kimimaro guy wasn't someone that was going to be put down easily, meaning he was pulling out all the stops from the get go. The tactical mind of the blonde Jounin was already whirring, and the former captain quickly created several shadow clones, two of them jumping into the air while he moved in with the other three.
The two in the air launched a hail of the distinctive tri-pronged kunai, littering the area with the tags and blades themselves, before popping out of existence, the trio of 'Naruto's already closing on their enemy, the original already charging a Rasengan in his hand. Kimimaro was no slouch, and while he had no Genjutsu in his repertoire and his Ninjutsu was really just a play-off of his Kekkie Genkai, his Taijutsu was phenomenal, and even had his Taijutsu been subpar, he would still have been a force to be reckoned with. That isn't to say that he was an infallible fighter, just that he was very proficient at what he did, and if you coupled that with his ability to harden the bone under his skin to inhuman levels, he was also very hard to put down.
The blonde ninja would learn this next fact soon enough though, for as Kimimaro quickly made work of his clones, engaging them in a swift and quickly ended battle, Naruto began to flash around him, before he finally got inside the man's guard, appearing on his left side and forcing the Rasengan into the man's shoulder and smirking as he felt it begin digging into him. The grin very quickly left his face though, as he found his arm was no longer moving forward, and in a split second of combat genius, Naruto overloaded the jutsu, blowing it up on the man and sending them both flying back before the Kaguya's bones could catch him.
The two stared each other down before Naruto began flashing around the battlefield again, his sword appearing in his hands as he unsheathed it from his back, flashing across the man again and again, each time a next slice appearing on him. Though the last Kaguya was strong, incredibly slow, the Blonde Jounin's speed was something else entirely, however Naruto's attacks seemed to be doing nothing to him, even though he was channeling the volatile nature that is wind chakra into his blade. As the Kaguya continued to take the blows, he waited, before Naruto appeared in front of him, breathing softly from the exertion of so many flashes after pushing himself to make such a long one to even show up.
"Very Well." That was one of the only two indications that the blonde got that something was different, the other being the black lines that began to crisscross the pale man's body as he sprinted forward towards the former captain, bones now jutting out from several different points on his body, making him akin to a human porcupine as he attacked, spinning in various cycles in a near unpredictable manner. Had it not been for his father's Hiraishin, Naruto would have been decimated, as it was he was barely able to get out of way in time.
Flashing to a kunai and then launching himself into the air, Naruto sprung his trap, knowing that if the man managed to go to the second level of his cursed seal, his chances dropped dramatically, especially since he knew next to nothing about it. As it was, the level one increase had already showed a massive increase in power as well as speed, with Naruto being only just able to dodge the crazed bone fanatic so far, only taking minor cuts and wounds. As he was in the air, three clones of himself appeared out of the ground, each one flashing through the seals for a jutsu of their own, molding the chakra before calling out their techniques together in unison.
"Doton: Doryū Taiga! (Earth Release: Earth flow River!)" "Fūton: Daitoppa! (Wind Release: Great Wind Breakthrough!)" "Katon: Fūton: Enpū no Rappa! (Fire Release: Blazing River!)" The ground around the wayward Kaguya became liquidified and became that of a river of mud, catching the bone utilizer off guard and sinking him into the ground up to his waist, immobilizing him. Then the mud itself caught fire from the inferno one of the clones had spat, which the violent wind fire forth and made the now alight mud into a torrential wave that captured the pale man, the burning mud falling upon him, noxious gas rising as it cooled into tar and solidified over him.
The fire itself began to cool almost instantly as the chakra that had been fueling the techniques vanished, all three clones having popped out of existence after casting their jutsu. Naruto landed on one of the few nearby trees, breathing heavily at the loss of chakra, having given each clone a considerable amount. But then the unthinkable happened, the stone statue that had become Kimimaro began to shudder, before his arm cracked and the man's pale skin shown through. He was breaking out through pure strength alone! Naruto, now slightly wide eyed began another flurry of hand seals, determined to put the man down before he could break free.
Naruto jumped towards the ground his right hand extended, striking the ground as lightning poured out from his fingertips. "Raiton: Jibashi! (Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!) The lightning tore through the ground, breaking through the earth like putty and tearing through the last Kaguya's legs, snapping bones and ripping tendons that were instantly replaced by the devoted man's Kekkie Genkai. Naruto wasted no time, flashing through more seals faster than the eye could follow, before thrusting his forward, joining them together at the thumbs.
"Fūton: Fuujin Seiken! (Wind Release: Divine Fist of the Wind God!) The air left Naruto's hands, compressing and speeding through the air, slamming into Kimimaro directly from the front, sending the man flying back just as he had broken from the tar trap the blonde Jounin had laid, but there was something different about him. The man now had dark brown skin as opposed to his usual white, and he had also grown a tail. The former ANBU Captain of the Seventh Division grimaced, this man simply wouldn't stay down. Dispersing his chakra evenly between five clones, they began flashing through techniques that would hopefully slow the bone juggernaut down long enough for Naruto to form his technique. It'd take a shitload of chakra to pull off and even then it wasn't completely guaranteed to work, as he hadn't mastered the second aspect of it yet, but it killed Danzo, and that gave him hope.
His clones finished their hand seals, each one calling out a technique in the hopes to maybe even simply burn the bastard to dead. "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu! (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!)" "Katon: Gōka Mekkyaku! (Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!) "Katon: Hiendan! (Fire Release: Soaring Flame Bullets!)" "Futon: Diatoppa! (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!)" "Futon: Renkūdan! (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!)" The five clones called out simultaneously, dispersing as they did so, their owner standing behind him with his arm extended above his head, the a large Rasengan forming above it as he watched the torrential flames cascade on his enemy, engulfing him completely.
Naruto held the by now fully charged Kinjutsu above his head watching the flames intently as he did so. He wasn't going to cancel it just yet, he had to be sure, sure that the man wasn't going to get up again, or ever. He had thrown so much at the Kaguya, the blonde had to give him credit for his sheer durability, he supposed. And then it happened. He heard it, distinct laughter. That was all the que he needed. Naruto didn't wait for the man to rear his head, he could see the shadow forming in the flames still licking the area. There wasn't any way in hell the blonde was going to give the man any time to recuperate, so he leaned forward and threw the technique, watching with mild satisfaction as the flames were thrown aside by the jutsu propelling forward, seeing his enemy very clearly right before he was engulfed into the technique. "Futon: Rasenshuriken!"
Silence. Silence covered the now destroyed woods as the last Uzumaki shakily, but warily walked towards the fallen and defeated form of the last Kaguya, who lie on the ground before him, covered in blood, his curse mark having receded, leaving the man in his base form. Naruto knelt next to the man, and looked down at him as the pale man laughed back up at him, confusing the blonde until he noticed it. The man's arm… it was rebuilding itself! How the hell was he supposed to kill something that kept getting back up? Quirking an eyebrow, Naruto came up with a plan like he always did. If this didn't work, then he was well and truly fucked, because there was no way he was going to be able to subdue this man-this thing- in the current state he was in if Kimimaro fully recovered.
Naruto reached out and grabbed the man's head, before he began making a Rasengan inside of the fallen man's skull, underneath the thick bone armor that covered his skin, the jutsu spiraling around the last Kaguya's brain itself. Blood began to leak from the nose of the pale faced disciple of Orochimaru, before his eyes rolled into the back of his head, right as they turned black, pupil and all. The man began screaming in the most bloodcurdling way possible as his body thrashed in the final throes of death. This wasn't merely the death of a man, but the extinction of everything that was and ever would be the Kaguya clan. As the man's head exploded in his grasp, Naruto fell backwards, leaning over to the side and promptly throwing up from the spectacle. He had one final thought before he fell into the blissfulness of sleep, exhausted from the fight, the rapid and long 'flash-jumps' he had made, and the sheer amount of jutsu he had thrown at the now defeated and dead man.
Thank Kami that final Rasengan worked.
It had taken six hours for the rescue team to find the remains from the battlefield, the two fighting Nin having moved quite a bit of distance away from the original battleground that Tayuya and her team had fought the Last Kaguya at. Once they had located it though, it was a short and easy matter of pinpointing the only still living person in the area, an after a very quick and thorough destruction of the now awake blonde, (who had luckily only suffered minor damage to his body, the most strain from the battle coming from the sheer amount of chakra he had expended), they had picked up the Jounin, carrying him back to the Forward Operating Base that he had left from, and immediately admitting him to the medical tent.
This of course meant that the blonde's girlfriend knew about his return almost immediately, as she herself was in the tent recovering from her own battle the day prior. The clone with her had only just barely dropped her at the gates before it was forcefully dispelled from the stress that Naruto had ben exerting, unable to keep the technique going for so long over such a large distance. It had served its purpose though, so she supposed it didn't really matter.
The redhead had more or less recovered by the time her blonde counterpart arrived, still completely passed out from exhaustion, but she had managed to convince one of the Med-Nin staffing the tent to place him into a an adjoin rack next to her, so she could at least keep an eye on the blonde, wanting to be there when he woke up. During this time, Tayuya took the time to evaluate her feelings for the blonde, coming to terms with it and finally admitting it to herself. She was in love with him. Head over heels, irrevocably, irretrievably, incomprehensibly in love with him.
From the small things he did to cheer her up, to removing her cursed seal and freeing her from Orochimaru, to nearly dying to defend her, as he had done the previous day. There was no coming back from this, and the redhead, with a mad blush written across her face, resolved to finally tell him, after months of living together, sleeping together, and caring for each other, Tayuya was finally ready to giver herself over completely to the blonde, even if she had already done so in every way but saying the actual words, yet.
Lifting herself up from her seat by his side, the redhead placed her head over the blondes sleeping and bandaged body, planting a small, soft kiss on his forehead, her hair cascading around her shoulders onto his chest and around his head. Tayuya couldn't help but think that he looked to peaceful and kind like this, briefly wondering what life might have been like had she been born in Konoha, of if he had been a part of Oto. Shaking the thoughts from her head, Tayuya leaned down a little bit farther, placing her mouth next to his ear and whispered softly, so quiet if the wind had been blowing even she wouldn't have heard the words though she was the one speaking them.
"I Love You"
Author's Note:
Damn, what a chapter. Kimimaro is a fuckin' beast, I'm a little irritated that in canon he was taken down through his weak ass disease. Seriously, the guy survived being thrown 200 meters underground! It was interesting to write a fight scene for him, using nothing but bones and all, but I tried to illustrate it as basically Naruto was too fast for him to get a move off, and after he found out that Kimimaro was a badass at close range, he did his damndest to keep him pinned down with Ninjutsu. Anyways…
That's all I got. Out.
