A sinister chakra crawled along the walls. The water on the floor began to froth, curdling into an animate form.
Sakura found herself shuffling back at the jaws of a beast, as it bursted through the hallway with a howl. Hot steam whipped by, fluttering her hair in all directions.
From behind the gate, the kyūbi laughed at her paralyzed form.
"Why don't you come closer?" The mouth stretched in mirth, teeth interlocked. "I'm hungry."
Sakura forced her breathing to steady, ignoring the palpitations of her heart and undying instinct to run away, to crawl away. The kyūbi's chakra was overwhelming hers, she realized. It was pushing her out. Her fingernails scraped against the floor. That was not happening. Not until she got what she needed.
"Can I offer a different meal?" Her voice was tight but firm. She gathered the strength to stand up, then stared into the slit eyes of the demon. If this creature was sentient, then maybe it would be open to negotiation.
The kyūbi gave a bemused hum, if it could be interpreted as such. Sakura cannot distinguish anything past a simmering redness, and not the most benign of eyes.
The smile returned, as sharp as ever. "If you think you can manipulate me into doing your bidding like you did this human boy, you are mistaken. I have no interest in your battles, Haruno Sakura. Accept your fate and die."
The response caught Sakura speechless, though her shock soon dissolved to anger. "Don't speak like we aren't all in the same mess," she hissed. "If I die, Naruto dies, and you die."
It was a pale threat. The kyūbi was immortal, existent since the beginning of shinobi time. If the host died, he would be reborn, no different than the case with the ichibi.
Sakura could not argue against that, except he would be captured again - and the human world will capture him again, if history had anything to say about it. But instead of putting him inside a boy next time, maybe they would stick him inside some glorified chamber pot. Maybe he would prefer to rot inside that for a millennia or two.
Her feet remained planted amidst the creep of chakra, contorted and dark. She had surprisingly less fear of sentient things; yōkai or yūrei, bijū or beast, none of those things could ever hold a candle to the impersonal entity that was death.
She sneered. Besides, she forgot the mention one last thing: this fight was not even hers. She had no beef with any of their current opponents.
But if her history lessons served her correctly, she was under the impression the kyūbi might. Senju Hashirama, Uchiha Madara, and Uzumaki Mito... did those names ring a bell?
Slitted eyes snapped open, though Sasuke knew it was not Naruto behind those eyes. The barbarity had been tamed, as lucid as it was civil. The original rampage of chakra had thinned itself into a film coating, down the body and feathering out into the tail of a cloak.
There was no carelessness in the hand seals, every last flick of the finger done with precision. This was Sakura in control, as she seized hold of a clone. In her hand, the clone henged into a sword.
Only, the sword was different from the standard katana Naruto would mimic. It was not metal. The lack of solidity did not escape Sasuke's notice, how the blade rippled between each additional henge, undulating across different shades of black. It continued to calibrate itself, morphing again and again in search of the optimal shape and volume.
Sakura glanced back.
Sasuke nodded in understanding, retreating with her old body as she sprang forth in Naruto's. The ground cracked from under her foot, her speed increasing until she propelled forth in a flicker of light.
The regeneration completed, every last strip of skin pulled in place. Hashirama caught her blade with a clap of his hands, a forced halt. But unlike her blade, Sakura was unstopped. Her momentum had transferred upwards into a flip, a roll above then behind, the blade swiveled an one-eighty in between his palms, transmuted from sword to axe that sliced clean from head to chest.
Sakura yanked her weapon free, letting the body drop.
One down.
From a distance, Sasuke watched the remaining enemies reposition themselves. Behind even his eyes, their movements were phantom images, disappearing and reappearing into the very fabric of space. But speed was not a simply matter of how fast you can move. It was also about how fast your attack can move. The time for your chakra to mold, the time for your weapon to travel. And in terms of attack...
Sakura weaved across the field, untouched by the rain of fire and senbon, before finally breaking with a pivot. She rose, while her opponents fell.
In terms of attack, Sakura was faster.
The spear in her hands shrunk to one-fourth of its length, back to its original size then liquefying. The amorphous substance floated above her palm, before shooting toward the befallen enemies. It melted over them, coating with a liquid as black as crude oil.
Theory continued to run inside her mind. Chaos realigned into order. Parallel lines organized into a three-dimensional lattice. The substance stiffened.
Sasuke could tell victory was theirs. Whatever strange material that Sakura was using, it was strong. Harder than steel. Tighter than elastane. Their opponents were immobilized.
That did not mean Sakura was done. The bodies suspended in the air, brought before her. One by one, she examined their twisted expressions and frozen screams, traced every wrinkle, counted every teeth.
"What do you want to do with them."
Her tone was strangely tranquil. Sasuke realized she was not speaking to him.
"I see."
With a twirl of her finger, her enemies stopped being humanoid in shape, twisted into a corkscrew. In a series of horrific noises, the substance bent and folded, stretched and squeezed, the contents inside forced into the same shapes. The crunches, the snaps and slops. Finally, her hand closed. Sakura did not blink as her opponents crushed.
Sakura had learned from the preliminaries. Attack and defense. Speed. Weaponry. Weakness. Support. Coordination. She had learned how to win battles.
Ino had not been the winner of hers.
Her fist squeezed tighter. Her enemies shrunk smaller, steam hissing in the air. Blood dripped down her hand, her nails dug into her palm, her knuckles white. She squeezed tighter.
The chilling laugh of kyūbi echoed, as together they savored the show. Did they understand now. The feeling of suffocation. Of imprisonment. Of their souls squeezed out of their bodies, the life squeezed out of their souls. Again, and again, and again...
"Sakura-chan!"
Her pupils flickered from red to blue to red, her vision blurring. At the same time, a hand seized her shoulder.
"That's enough." Sasuke's expression was as hard as his voice, his grip unrelenting. He hid many things, but his concern was not one of them.
Sakura snapped out of her daze.
Her chakra connection faltered, resulting in the fall of three translucent spheres. They shattered upon impact with the ground, broken into shards of raw and gleaming diamonds.
Her weapon of choice had reached its final stage, the last allotrope of the boring, banal, common, cheap, ordinary and extraordinary element that was carbon.
.
"They grow up fast."
By her side, Orochimaru watched the scene before them. Anko only had a faint awareness of his presence and even fainter awareness of her senses, the fluctuation and noises back in the physical world.
Instead, she could only watch herself. How happy she was upon receiving her gift, a happiness not grounded in violence or mischief, but pure delight. Her mentor then kissed her forehead and promised her an even greater one, if she proved herself worthy. She was more than eager to accept his challenge, though not necessarily for the reward. She would have done anything for him.
Because she loved him. She loved, loved, loved him, with a fervor, with a fear, with hot-blooded dedication and cold-blooded calculation, bombs strapped to her chest and a knife intimate to her lips. She loved him almost as much as the moonlit view from the rooftops, the jumps and collisions, slashes and splits, barrages and downpour, the crackles of applause and closing red curtain as she walked away.
She loved him almost as much as he loved her, his pupil, his precious, his prodigy. She, who proved herself to be strongest. The brightest. The best.
"Anko, I have one last task. Will you do me the favor?"
His palm cupped her cheek in a caress, as he closed the distance between them for a whisper.
"Bring me Uchiha Itachi."
She had been so happy. She had been so loved. She had been-
A knife dug into ground, as she knelt alone in the downpour. The tattoos down her limbs had retreated back into the seal at her neck. Dropping from her power high left her even emptier than before.
Anko watched her younger self limp towards her old chūnin flak jacket, The jacket lied in the mud, half-burnt from the battle. She picked it up and fastened on what she could, before trudging her way back to the village.
"My Anko did not succeed."
She said nothing. His eyes looked no different, nor his words, nor his smile, nor his touch. Nothing about her mentor looked any different. She understood nothing was the same though. Not him. Not her. Not their relationship. The skins looked identical, but the insides had changed.
"No, I did not..." Anko echoed alongside her younger self. Together, they watched their one and only cherished person walk out the door. There was no pause, no glance back. Just the faint echoes of his footsteps, the length of his shadow stretching into infinity.
He left, and she stood alone.
.
Karin winced at the stream of light, something she did not expect to see again. While she coughed, Tenten worked to pry free the collapsed architecture.
"Hang in there." Tenten lifted a plank, before turning to Lee. "Over here!"
Together, they worked to clear enough of wreckage. To their surprise, there were more survivors below, two senior citizens and a toddler inside a protective void, safe amidst the cave-in.
The ground shook, rattling the structures and sprinkling dust everywhere, but they managed to pull the family to safety.
"You okay?" Tenten asked.
Before Karin could respond, another rumble brought everyone to their knees, the sand in the air thick enough to choke on. No. She wasn't. She should have kept running. She had almost been out. But it all happened too fast. She had seen the leaning building, the collapsing skybridge, the panicked pedestrians heading right below it and- She reacted.
After the shaking stopped, Lee guided the family towards an approaching carriage, where a dozen wounded lied. The carriage was self-moving on four stumpy legs and a thick tortoise shell above to act as shield.
Karin dropped her shoulders. Unlike her, these Konoha nin did not fail to evacuate. They chose to stay.
Somewhere northeast was the snap of a chain.
"The restraints are failing," Lee said, eyes on the distant twister. The wrath of the ichibi only grazed past their current location, but still too close for comfort. The noise was unbearable, the air coarse, their visibility coming and going in waves. They squinted through a world blurred in sepia, and even when the worst of each surge passed, the village that greeted them back was unrecognizable.
Lee decided. "I'll go help Gai-sensei stall the beast."
"No." By his side, Tenten strapped on the last of her gear. "My binding techniques will buy everyone more time. I'll go."
"But-"
"Lee, these people are going to need your speed and strength to make it. You're staying with them." Before he could object, Tenten added with a grin, "That's an order."
Tenten rarely pulled the rank card, but that did not mean it was not in her ability. And Konoha martial laws were currently in full play. To Karin, she tossed a scroll. "Karin, is it? Food and supplies all in there. Trust you can perform a summon, help Lee keep everyone alive?"
When Karin gave a hesitant nod, Tenten returned with a curt nod of her own, then departed with a backflip. They watched her disappear into the haze of sand.
Quiet, Karin stared at the scroll in hand, then at the carriage of passengers, and finally at the far distance, beyond the haze, beyond the ruins. The scroll disappeared inside her pocket. The glare of her glasses concealed her eyes.
These Konoha nin... they were too arrogant.
.
Shikamaru sat on the ground, baffled at the towering monstrosity before him, the sight of three large snakes made into a seating cushion by an even larger toad. Standing atop its snout is the summoner, in a pose as idiosyncratic as it was iconic.
A Konoha shinobi opened his mouth. "J-Jiraiya-sama?"
Jiraiya surveyed the damage before him, before his attention fell on the lashes of sand in the distant village. Coming back was the right choice after all. He just hoped he had made it in time.
Recovered Oto nin flashed in the air for a three-sixty assault. Jiraiya readied his hand seals. The power of the ichibi was not something to take lightly. If only the old man could hold on a little longer, Jiraiya thought. A little longer, just until these civilians were safe.
.
"We can't seal this!" Homura wheezed. He sank to one knee, the other trembling from exertion.
Koharu stared at the abomination before them, a conglomeration of veins and tissues and mighty enough to be its own geological structure. The last person capable of a sealing of that caliber died long ago. Best they could hope for now was a stall. Give the villagers enough time to escape.
Her eyes landed on the sky.
"Get into contact with Hiruzen. I'll find the ANBU squads," she told Homura.
"You have a strategy."
"Sand has an elemental weakness. Water won't defeat it, but it can weigh the beast down enough to slow its movements." Victory was out of the question. As was survival. The most they could do now was buy enough time.
"You want everyone to switch to suiton?" Homura asked.
"No."
Koharu continued to stare at the heavens, as if the gods above were delivering her a message.
"Katon," she whispered. "Set the village to fire. What is not already burning, make it so."
.
A figure sat at an undamaged section of the wall, unfazed by the disturbances all around. Slowly, a grin spread when Konoha lit up. District by district, street by street, the village glowed brighter and brighter.
The Fire country was infamous for its scorched earth policy, but there was some irony to seeing it befall upon its own military. This had to be Koharu's work: the cold calculation, old cynicism, all on top of her propensity for multipurpose solutions.
The finale was coming. Instabilities in the atmosphere had been obvious for a while now. North, south, east, west… all these tiny battles had thrown nature out of its balance, the violent twists and turns in wind, the blasts of tunneling heat. Soon, nature will take no more and retaliate.
Looked it like was a right choice to bring the sugegasa afterall.
.
Colors twinkled, so beautiful amidst a wasteland of grey. As Sakura stared at the diamonds, she could not help but think… easy. Easy. This fight had been so easy, it was a wonder her team had struggled in the beginning. It was a wonder they had to struggle, ever.
She looked down at her hands, the surge of chakra down to her fingertips. Only now did the concept of near infinite chakra register in her mind. The amount of power. The amount of potential. To have the universe within her grasp.
Her hands lowered, pressing together to form the release seal of the shintenshin.
Too bad it was all wasted on Naruto.
Returning to her body drained the last of her energy and will. Sakura wondered if this was how the gods felt when they fell from divinity. How the kyūbi felt. To be a slave to biology. To its pain. To its fear. Its blindness. Its mortality.
Dizzy, Sakura propped herself up. Her palm opened, and she stared blankly at the red. Blood. Her blood. Right, she was bleeding. Bleeding everywhere. What a mess, she was.
Time rushed by without her consent. She did not know when Sasuke was or was not by her side. She did not know when Naruto regained consciousness and control. They were talking to her, but their words were on backlog. Nothing registered except the weak beats of her heart.
"She can't hear us," Sasuke said, noting the dilation of her pupils. There was no focus. Their mental connection had severed, his mind empty of her presence.
He kept his hand pressed against her thigh, ignoring the warmness leaking through the cracks of his fingers, soaking into the fabric of her tights, onto her sandals. Even with his limited medical knowledge, he could tell one of her major arteries had been hit.
"We need to get help," he told Naruto. "Now."
Naruto failed to hide his panic. "Anko-sensei. I'll get Anko-sensei!"
"Go."
They exchanged a nod, and Naruto readied to dash off when a monotone voice froze them both in place.
"You children obviously still do not understand the mechanism of the edo tensei."
Another strip of flesh glued onto the jaw of Uchiha Madara, as he rolled a shard of diamond in between his fingers.
Both Naruto and Sasuke tensed. They watched in horror as he and two other masses slowly gained corporal form, pieces folded together like a cremation in reverse.
Senju Hashirama stole the diamond from Madara's grip. "Huh, that's me." He held the gem up, peeking into it with one eye. "Who knew I could get so small."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Something was off. This was the first time any of these reanimations spoke. Their intonations were flat, expressions stiff, and gestures uncanny. But beyond that, they radiated a different type of aura than before. It was still weighty, but also somehow unspeakably more... human.
A kama materialized before Madara's hand, killing intent spiking.
Or not.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Hashirama asked.
"Finishing the job."
"You can't kill them." Hashirama almost sounded offended. "Look at their headbands. They're Konoha. Hello, my Konoha children."
Madara sent what could only be described as a nasty look.
As their conversation dragged on, Naruto made eye contact with Sasuke, jerking his thumb and mouthing, "Weirdos."
Sasuke would agree, if not for the severity of their situation, and how their fates hinged on the outcome of an argument between two shinobi gods. What he did not expect was the abrupt halt in yelling.
Chains spiked through the stomachs of both founders. Before another word would be uttered, their souls were pulled from their earthly bodies, then spiraling out of existence. The act was quick and clean, with the performer of the technique stepping forth.
Naruto did not recognize her. The kunoichi they were fighting before was physically aged, a shriveled skeletal thing. The one before them now was deceivingly young and… well, hot. Her face was chiseled by aristocracy, smooth where it was smooth, sharp where it was sharp. The amount of care to her presentation would have been unobtainable for a common woman, down to the shaped eyebrows and elegant rolls of vibrant red hair. Only the style of her garbs connected her to the grandma, the same ceremonial kimono and antiquated ornaments.
It appeared she recognized Naruto. Or rather, she recognized the beast inside him. And the beast knew her.
A flash of rage burst from inside Naruto, one that escaped through his throat in a growl and hiss.
"Yield," she commanded.
A single flick of her finger, and the chakra of the kyūbi pulled back with enough force to send Naruto toppling.
"A jinchūriki with no control over its bijū. A freed bijū." Her focus returned from the outside to her present situation. "And the obvious consequence of a brother-in-law stealing secrets from my clan. Again."
She stepped closer, the barrier around them reacting to her presence.
"The shinigami is a gatekeeper. One who joins the beginning with the end. A deity of holy worship." The way she regarded her hand suggested sadness, until the moment she sharply looked up. "The shinigami is not a power to be appropriated." She punctuated with a stab of chakra to the heavens. The barrier shattered.
Though her presence was quietest of the founders, calmer and closer to reason, Naruto decided she was by far the most terrifying. And not just because she destroyed the other two with those crazy chains.
It had to do with the fact that she, in a strange way, reminded him of... Iruka? No, not Iruka. Kakashi? Still not it.
All of the people he knew were missing various degrees of something. Something that this woman had in whole, something created such belly-dropping fear yet blessed relief inside him.
And that was when he understood.
In a world fought by children, forged by children, run by children, ruled by children… she was the only adult.
.
Orochimaru smiled as the Anko drifted further into the darkness of her subconscious. Snakes weaved across her body, keeping her immobilized, asleep. He readied to let her sink within the genjutsu when colors blended once again, forming the fragment of one last memory.
A single voice in the void. "You don't want me."
Orochimaru froze when a boy appeared. His eyes were bright, inquiring, brimming with potential and such rich, rich color.
"I never wanted you."
"You don't want him."
"He never wanted me."
Itachi stood still as Anko freed him of his restraints. He had not expect her to be the type to take victory with such languor, or to play for mere sport.
"You will not have me again." It was more of a comment than a warning. Because he was intrigued. He was intrigued by her as he was by the rest of the world, though it was impossible to decipher what it was he wanted to know.
"Neither will he," was all she said.
He seemed to know something new now. But what he thought of that knowledge, what he wished to do with that knowledge, was as ambiguous as what he thought of her, what he wished to do with her.
All Anko knew, it would not be violence. Not at this time, not at this place. Instead, he took his side of their encounter and left in grace, just before the first droplet of rain could touch the ground.
Meanwhile, Anko knelt, letting the weather wash her clean. Clean of her rage, her spite, her bitterness. Of her despair.
She could not make him love her. She could not love a man who did not. She tried, she tried so hard, but she could not succeed, she could not...
"... succeed."
Anko stood, hands pocketed, watching her former mentor awaken from her genjutsu. Did he understand now.
Orochimaru lifted his head, eyes staring into hers. "You had him," he said evenly.
She registered his seeping anger, his wonder, his joy, his pride, the last of which dominated, because despite everything, he was still hers, and she was still his. She was his, the little girl he handpicked from the orphanage, the unwanted little girl who shined with such talent and potential that no one but him could see. She was the little girl he trained, and the little girl he raised.
The last of the barrier fell.
It was unfortunate, as with the conclusion of any performance. But Orochimaru could say he left this one with deep satisfaction.
Anko watched him disappear alongside four Oto nin. The dagger in her hands swiveled, then returned to its sheath, just as her team found her.
"Good job!" she said with a cheery grin. "Knew you guys could do it."
Naruto dropped an eyebrow. If he did not know any better, their sensei looked remarkably rosy and rejuvenated. Death matches had a tendency do that to her, but the effect this time was on a whole new level.
Propped against his shoulder, Sakura was beginning to come around. Whatever healing voodoo that kunoichi did, it worked.
While they all made it out alive, the fight was not over. With the barrier gone, the hysteria of the outside became only more prominent. Chains of mass wildfire rose throughout the village, only to be quelled by sheets of pouring rain.
Another anchor flew free of Tenten's trap. The ichibi forced another step, snapping more of its cordages along the way. It was stopped in its track by a blast of the Daytime Tiger. Its face imploded, sand erupting through the back of its head. Tenten watched in worry for her sensei. The fifth, sixth, now the seventh gate. No matter how she looked at it, the end was near.
Before the ichibi could recover from its deformity, an enlarged monkey king Enma tackled it back down. Hiruzen sank the earth, trapping the ichibi within a bed of mud.
Breathing heavily, Hiruzen forced himself to stand, going so far as to harden earth around his legs. As Hokage, he must stand.
Drained, Homura and Koharu stayed on the sidelines, counting down to the inevitable. The rain would soon stop. Their defensive lines would crumble one by one. But the power of a bijū was inexhaustive. It was immortal, and it would never be stopped. Only sealed.
"Can't you do it?" Sakura asked the ancient kunoichi.
Uzumaki Mito stood at the precipice, eyes flickering across the ruins below, the struggles and screams.
"No, I cannot," she said.
When Sakura crushed their bodies, she crushed the talismen controlling them. It returned their autonomy and their wisdom, but their physical forms remained a death's shadow of life. The sealing technique needed live blood, a breathing descent of the Uzumaki lineage.
Naruto froze.
"M-my name is Naruto." In the billion times he recited this line, this had to be the weakest, almost fragile. "Uzumaki Naruto," he said, slowly raising his hand.
Then, "I am an Uzumaki. I am Uzumaki Naruto," he repeated, gaining power. "I am an Uzumaki, Uzumaki Naruto."
His voice cracked. "I am… I'm part of your clan, right obaa-san? My blood is your blood?" His family was her family?
Sakura watched Naruto crumble in a way she had never seen before. His smile had never been more wide, his eyes never been more hopeful, and both never more pleading and damaged. She bit her lips, wishing he could take this rise without ever taking the fall.
Mito examined the boy. She could not deny him his heritage, and the kyūbi inside him was evidence of the strength of his blood. Her fingers grazed past the scars on his cheeks. However…
"Your blood is only half," she said. "You alone are not sufficient."
"Then we can't perform the sealing," Sasuke clarified.
"We can," she said, unfazed. "With a second half."
At those words, Naruto's expression faltered. Sakura stepped in. "I'm sorry, but there has to be some other way. If chakra is the problem, maybe we can pull the kyūbi again and-"
"That suggestion serves exactly one being in this party, and that being is not human."
Sakura stopped, eyes wide, as Mito continued coldly, "Make your presence scarce."
At the command, the whispers inside Sakura's mind quieted. She held her head tightly, eyes snapped shut. She was not a Yamanaka. Her modified version of their shintenshin had been crude at best. And now, it was apparent she did not return to her body alone.
"The kyūbi is corrupted," Mito said. "A jinchūriki is a vessel to protect its power from the world, not a weapon to unleash onto it."
"Okay, but how do we protect everyone from that power," Naruto asked, jerking a thumb toward the ichibi. "I don't know what it was like during your time but… but if the technique needs Uzumaki… well, I'm the only Uzumaki in the village." It was something he tried to say with his usual pride, but his voice betrayed him.
"No," Mito said simply.
Anko raised an eyebrow. "No?"
Mito returned her gaze to the village. "There are two."
.
Karin, you are so stupid. You had everything, so why didn't you run. Why didn't you take everything and fucking run.
She should have sacrificed that other guy. He seemed stupid enough for it, and eager too. Instead, they were three hundred meters cleared of the gate. Meanwhile, here she was, still inside this damned village, staring at the eclipsing form of the beast. It advanced another step, now a mere intersection away.
Time. Time had made her its target now, the clock of death ticking. The question was whether she could stall long enough for the group to get away. That guy was fast. He could carry them some good distance with only a few seconds.
In a flicker, she stood atop a leaning water tower. Her glasses tucked securely at the neck of her shirt. If she did this right, they might still stand a chance.
Tenten took the brunt of another hit from the ichibi's claws, sent halfway across the village along with the rest of her trap. She would have been impaled by a jagged support beam below had her reflexes kicked in. Her body flipped positions, hands at the tip of the beam, her legs arched forward. With a push, she rolled down the length of the architecture, before finally unraveling in a break.
A sudden whiteness drew her attention, beaming with the intensity of a lighthouse. A hikaridama had burst in front of the ichibi's eye, the brightness freezing it place, tail stiff.
Sound came next. It was unlike any type of detonation Tenten had ever heard. It was higher-pitched than those of an explosion tag, and at a volume that became indistinguishable from silence. For the briefest of seconds, rain droplets suspended mid-air, the sonic shockwave piercing through air, through water, through cement and steel and the very earth itself.
Inside the carriage, everyone covered their ears as instructed, some children with strips of fabric wrapped around their heads. It was not enough to protect them from all the vibrations, but enough to ease the hurt. When they looked up, the ichibi was no longer there. Its form had melted, a pile of wet sand in its place.
"Onee-chan did it," one child whispered, huddled against the arms of his grandfather. From under, Lee smiled.
Jiraiya turned around to a strange sight. A boy was dashing towards them, a tortoise carriage on his back.
"Hold on," he told Gamabunta with a pat. "Looks like we have one more set of passengers."
When they arrived, Ningame transformed back into his original form. The tortoise summon nodded at the toad boss. "All yours."
Gamabunta regarded the cluster of fearful civilians. Then, grunting, he lowered his head, mouth opened. They stood, uncertain by the gesture, until a figure emerged from inside. Chōji waved at them to come forth. "Come on, hurry!"
When Karin lowered the handkerchief from her eyes, Gamabunta had already leapt away, through the forest, down the valleys, carrying his passengers to the landscapes far away. She unplugged the noise cancellers from her ears, ignoring the blood on them. She wiped her nose.
A hand touched her shoulder.
"They made it?"
Karin remained seated on the collapsed roof. "Yeah, they made it."
Together, they watched the ichibi slowly reform, some resemblance of a tail and paw taking shape.
"We're fucked, though." There was a degree of resignation in her voice.
Tenten dropped by her side. "Too bad we'll never know who'd have won the tournament."
Karin propped a fist against her cheek. "Too bad I hadn't ordered another bowl of katsudon."
"I'll miss pork roast."
"Me too."
They gave an unison sigh. Then, laughing, they leaned into one another, unfazed by the thundering and howls.
"Please gods, give me manjū!" Tenten shouted into the rain.
"I want anpan!"
"Tsuon'youpin!"
"Okonomiyaki!"
"Sesame ball!"
"Dango!"
"Ramen...?"
Both their eyes snapped open. The intruder of their conversation gave a guilty smile. Instead of sand, of death, Team 7 stood before them. They cleared the path of a new figure.
Or should Tenten say, an old figure. She stared in awe when Uzumaki Mito made her grace, stopping in front of her newly made companion. Confused, Karin tried not to pull away when the mysterious woman touched her cheek.
"We are now sufficient."