Seals of Fate

by GBAboy313

Fate is a strange thing. Two who's fate was supposed to be death and insanity instead were given something new. Let's see how the world changes when Obito and Rin are around to help both their village and raise their sensei's son. Canon pairings, and some others. Rated M for safety later on.

16. Chapter 16

Seals of Fate

Well, back once again. Sorry about the incredibly long wait. The long…2 year long wait… Holy crap I've been gone long.

A lot of things went down in the interim. My grandmother's condition getting worse and dying being the start. And her dying the weekend of my birthday last year didn't help. My grandfather dying from natural causes and a cousin the same age as me dying from being executed in his own home just before Christmas of that same year didn't help anything.

I think this chapter I can say if I die from overdosing, it will be from references. I hate the fact that I even thought of that comment. Especially when there was a time about 8 years ago that I overwhelmed my body with my ADHD medication and felt like bugs and other things were crawling beneath my skin with the fear that I was about to overdose.

Though some of the delay was the result of Author Attention Deficit, and putting in time on projects that RaNK and I have been plotting, plus Pale Moon's Light.

Speaking of Pale Moon, the second part of it got massively delayed due to my work on the lemon just not feeling up to snuff after I got feedback for it. It's in the middle of being reworked and I'm hoping to have it done soon.

Some reviews have affected my plans for this fic, and the delay gave me time to reassess my plan for the Wave arc here. Specifically, the fact that I was going to do probably five chapters for an arc that I honestly don't like seeing repeated ad infinitum with maybe a few changes, even when I did implement major changes, in a fic where chapters regularly blow past ten thousand words.

The extensiveness of this chapter is a result of the previous point. I have compressed the story of those other chapters down to just this one. I apologize if the OCs kind of out shine the canon characters here but this is a result of compressing a much larger and more relaxed pace of storytelling down to a single chapter. Again, I deeply apologize for the overusage of OCs here but it was pretty much to drive the plot forward so we don't get bogged down here much longer.

Plus, to keep from such long chapters muddling the progress going forward, I will be enforcing a 10K word limit on chapters going forward, unless otherwise necessary.

With that out of the way: ON WITH THE SHOW!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Just don't.

Chapter 16

(No clever title this time. Sorry)

Day 3

Anko stretched as she left the Inn.

She tried to be easy on the brats seeing as their first time with actual combat was pretty recent.

Anko snickered childishly at the double meaning, even if she meant it with no such connotation.

They were sore and tired out from what she put them through. Though they took it extremely well the first day and barely complained so Anko guessed they deserved some extra rest yesterday and today. Today especially after her gift to them yesterday. Working them into the ground on new techniques and a lesson she learned from Orochimaru's failures: "the number of techniques you know is not the true gauge of how strong you are, but how well you know how to use each one in a variety of circumstances even if it is at a disadvantage."

Today was the last day of going easy. Tomorrow it was going to be they were getting up when she did even if she had to throw water or drag em out of bed with snakes.

Anko definitely was thankful that Hisashi had been willing to, scratch that, had already cooked breakfast. He prepared a completely absurd number of eggs, but food was food, though it was made better by the joke he snapped out after she said her thanks for the food.

Though before she could go too far, an oily smell hit her nose. "You Mitarashi Anko?" a somewhat nasally voice asked and drew Anko's attention to the ground towards a navy blue and orange toad.

"Yeah, that's me. What's it to ya?" Anko responded. Internally sighing that any decent restaurant in the area would most likely not let her in with a talking toad, and she needed Dango and needed it now!

"Letter for you. From Uchiha Obito." The toad croaked before opening up wide and its tongue exiting its mouth carrying the letter to Anko's reach.

Anko probably would have cringed from disgust, if she hadn't been desensitized to such sights by Orochimaru and her career as ninja. Instead, she was more interested in the implication: "Didn't know Obito was a Toad Summoner. He never really summons for combat."

The toad shrugged, or as much its body would allow: "Typically, he doesn't need us for fighting. Mostly uses us for passing messages to those he can't teleport to with Kamui or certain other cases. He summons us so rarely it's a running joke that both Obito and the rest of us forget he's a summoner."

Anko hummed: "Fair enough…Do I owe you?"

The toad shook its head: "Nah, Obito covered it. See ya round, Snake Lady." Before vanishing in smoke.

Anko began smiling in anticipation as she opened the letter and read the message. "Anko. You set me up with that Hyuga shit! That was the single most awkward conversation I ever had to deal with! You Evil Bitch! I'll get you for that! - (filled with a new respect for you, you evil bitch) Obito."

Anko walked off laughing and smiling, "Gwahahahaha! All according to Plan! Payback's a bitch, Bitch!"

The world itself shuddered in fear of the never-ending cycle of pranks that may have just been started.

Anko continued on and got her fix of Dango and went to find a nice quiet place to eat it.

"Well, if it isn't Mitarashi Anko…" a low voice sounded, muffled through a mask.

Anko would have jumped if she hadn't already figured out someone was nearby. Say what you would about Team Obito or Obito himself, training against them for a while gave you a pretty good sense for when someone was hiding in wait for an ambush or just hiding in general nearby.

"Oi. Zabuza. Mind telling me how the 'Demon of the Hidden Mist' ended up leading a genin squad?"

"Mind telling me how Konoha's resident Snake Mistress ended up leading a genin squad as well?" Zabuza said while running a whetstone along Kubikiribocho's edge

"I lost a bet, a dumb one at that and one that I was meant to lose either way, how about you?" Anko fired off.

"Hm. Asked to train an apprenticed swordsman and another prospective for the Seven Swordsmen. I was thinking about taking Haku on as an apprentice, the kid has skill with Silent Killing, something I want to develop on him, and if he decides to try with Kenjutsu then that's fine with me. The other two I got because I lost a bet."

"Oh, so we both lost bets, what are the odds? Really dumb bet?" Anko asked with passing interest while playing with a kunai, twirling it on her finger.

Zabuza scoffed: "Hardly, should have won, but luck had it out for me one day and screwed me over hard. How'd you get tricked into losing your bet?"

Anko scratched her cheek shyly: "I, uh, won the bet, but uh, that was how I got tricked into taking the team."

Zabuza stared, browless black eyes staring into pupilless amber eyes for a moment with complete bewilderment: "How?"

"Dango." The snake mistress replied without missing a beat, as if that explained everything with a slight bit of drool escaping her mouth as she went to her thoughts and her stomach grumbled.

Zabuza couldn't respond as his thoughts wandered to how he lost his bet. (Also, it was a moment where the infamous Demon of the Hidden Mist's survival instincts kicked in. Something told him that questioning the snake mistress's dango addiction would result in at least being chased by a horde of very poisonous and potentially pissed off snakes)

-x-

Flashback

"Come on, we need those kids to be men!" Ao shouted within earshot of Mei and everyone would have usually have flinched and expected Mei to go through her infamous episodes which were accompanied by sudden pressurized killing intent coming from her before she whispered something to the Hunter Nin which would freak him out before the pressure subsided.

The teacher raised his hands placatingly and Ao raised his own: "I know, it's a bit much, but it's about the need. Kiri needs to rebuild its strength and bolster it to make up for the Third Mizukage's idiocy. And to do that, we need manpower."

But everyone was also on edge because of the oddness of today.

Mei didn't react.

At all.

The entire day.

Even Ao was being unnerved by it and he never could figure out what he did that would always end up pissing her off so bad.

At this point, it was almost as if he had figured out the cause and effect and was TRYING to piss Mei off to get things back to normal.

Which was either an act of bravery or stupidity, as Mei could burn him to death with three different methods. And interrogations she led showed she had a particular love of using volcanic rock like coals for roasting a turkey and using steam to an effect similar to a pressure cooker.

Though no one noticed Zabuza off to the side and sweating furiously.

'Dammit, I've got only five minutes before I lose! What the hell is going on with Mei today?! Did Kushimaru pull something?!'

-x-

Back in the inn room…

Hisashi and Hideki were at the table playing a card game when Team 7 dragged themselves out of bed.

At least that was the assumption, considering the mismatched backs of the cards it may have been multiple card games.

"Hisashi, How the fuck did this happen? You are fucking religious about organizing and keeping your card decks separated. So, what the fuck is this shit?" Hideki growled.

"I don't fucking know! Someone must have found my decks and shuffled them together." Hisashi started but paused when Naruto started snickering, "BLONDE LITTLE SHIT!" Hisashi screamed out with a scowl on his face but his eyes lit up with a mirth that suggested he found it amusing as well.

Sasuke gave a dry look: "What the hell are you two idiots on about?"

If either accused idiot took offense, they didn't show it. They spoke in creepy unison: "We were going to play poker but someone decided that sorting through and removing all the other cards would be tiresome and that we should just keep the decks together and play with all rules of for the games for each deck with the standard card deck being a simple meld/match game. We're going until someone either runs out which is the game win condition or someone achieves a win condition for the other games fused in. There are a few good win conditions for some."

A brief flicker in Hisashi's eyes said that a win condition was lined up if he could just get what he needed to complete it.

Before anyone could go any further the familiar sounds of stomachs growling for food sounded and Hisashi pointed: "I made eggs. Good ones. Help yourselves. May not be traditional breakfast around here but its plenty of good grub."

The members of team 7 began digging in before anything else could be said, with eyes half focused on the game in front of them and minds far more interested in food after the brutality Anko had put them through yesterday.

They didn't mind as much as the description suggested, they knew Anko was only trying to ensure that they survived.

The genin half consciously said: "Itadakimasu…" before they began eating and Hisashi's eye lit up.

Then the asshole started speaking: "Y'know, I have always been curious about something. Desperation and hunger are the mothers of innovation after all. I want to know just how hungry the first person to eat an egg was when they looked at a chicken and decided: 'I'm going to eat the next thing that comes out of that bird's ass.'"

Naruto didn't even try to hide his amusement while Hinata giggled while trying to hide her mouth while Sasuke snorted and tried not to laugh beyond that. Tried but obviously failed.

The game players and the three breakfast eaters were seated at the same table so team 7 didn't have to move closer to see what was going on.

It was Hideki's turn though he seemed to have drawn a card but was at a loss at what to do, or what to do that wouldn't be seen through immediately by Hisashi.

"You've been staring at your hand for five minutes…Make a fucking move already, Mishka." Hisashi stated with a bored, almost glazed look in his eyes.

Hideki's eyes lit up with rage and he grumbled: "Don't call me that, only my parents and my sister can call me that. Here's my fucking move, asinine prick, my trump card."

The card cleared out a good chunk of what Hisashi had set up but he didn't seem to be that upset over it, but he did go into a lecture: "Ah Mikhail, you poor idiot. What did I teach you about trump cards? It's not your last resort like what you just did clearly was, but it is the move that can turn the tides at the right moment or take the probability of your victory and turn it into certainty if played correctly at the right moment. But to do that, one must keep their cards hidden till just the right moment."

Hisashi reached for the deck and closed his eyes for a moment and breathed deeply before dramatically drawing the top card of the deck and it alone.

Naruto was amused by the action: "Why did you do that all dramatically?"

Hisashi retorted quickly: "I was placing my faith in the heart of the cards. To place all hope of victory in one final draw. Plus, I like a little bit of theater." As he slowly pulled his right hand over to his left and revealed to himself what he drew. To the genin who could see it, it appeared to be the head of some golden colored creature covered in chains and manacles, but whatever it was caused Hisashi to let a slight smirk appear on his face. "This isn't going to help your belief that I cheat just by touching the deck. BUT…"

"It's game, isn't it?"

"Yup."

"*Sigh* All right, ya bastard, show it."

"With pleasure."

Hisashi laid the card on the table and Hideki went wide eyed with rage: "NO!"

"I'm afraid that this is no fever dream or nightmare, I assure you that what you see in front of you is indeed reality, is indeed the truth. The head piece of Exodia the Forbidden One. And now: what I have accumulated throughout the game…" Hisashi began pulling four other cards from his hands and placed them in a sequence to represent a body: 2 arm pieces to the side and 2 leg pieces below it.

Hideki stared and blankly blurted out: "Fuck me…"

Hisashi cut in before the defeated assassin could speak any further: "My friend, I love you, but not that way…You're like a brother to me…and I don't swing that way."

Hideki placed his hand down and face palmed (while fuming at Hisashi's childish jab at his slip of the tongue) but offered his hand in congratulations while Hisashi took it and placed down his own hand. The genin got a look at Hisashi's cards while he began the process of separating out the decks and reorganizing them and got to see what were a fuzzball with green arms and legs just barely poking out of the brown ball of fur, a man cloaked in black and purple with a green scepter, a woman wearing a rather revealing minidress style robe colored pink and light blue with a hat colored similarly and a small rod in her hands, and what appeared to be a large and very long red dragon with great wings and a head with two stacked mouths with the overall creature looking like it was meant to rule the skies themselves.

Hisashi looked at the two human like cards almost mournfully, as if he knew them or some people like them in some precious and far-gone life, before they were reinserted into the deck.

"Ya says that, but I heard you tried hitting on Mikhail once while drunk."

Kazehira's snark drew everyone's attention to the attempted kidnapper.

Hisashi let out a breath: "Gee…You don't ever shut up, do you, asshole? Don't answer, I want you to sing like a canary when I start questioning you. And for the record, 20 years ago, I use to chase anything while drunk if the individual interested me…wow that sounds like I just shoved my whole foot in my mouth and started digging. How does this hole look from up there?"

Naomi laughed while Hideki snorted: "Seems like a good hole, we could throw a few corpses in it if something happens."

Even Kazehira chuckled at that comment: "I see your talent for taking your slips of the tongue and using them for jokes hasn't died…believe it or not, I kinda missed it."

Hisashi shrugged: "Kinda-sorta believe it. Getting partnered up with a self-righteous prick like Loptr is bound to make you miss somethings."

Kazehira shrugged. "That sounds about right…I'll make a deal. Answer a question of mine and I'll answer the first question you ask, completely honestly and with no strings attached. Deal?"

Hisashi held out his hand, which became enshrouded in purple flames, before he reached out and grasped Kazehira's hand. "Deal. Shoot."

Kazehira lost all humor in his eyes: "What happened to Harumi?"

Hisashi looked down. "Well, after you went rogue and announced your defection with that bomb you planted, we managed to map out events that led to your defection. It was easy to find out about her involvement, she was on the watch list as a suspected GC member. We ran down the chain of sightings and stories and alibis and eventually managed to confirm that she had a hand in whatever happened to you. Enough to go after her and have a friendly chat…she fessed up, she was tough as expected of an expert in information extraction and resistant to persuasion, but a coordinated assault using both physical and mental probing methods broke through to her, though part of me suspects now that she didn't break and just got bored and decided she had nothing to lose. She even spilled about her handlers and several of them were persons of interest…her crimes demanded death and she had stolen one of my men from me. The Council unofficially ordered that she be disposed of quietly and gave the mandate that they didn't care what happened to her as long as it ended with her gone and her body in an unmarked grave…I made her agony last as I and the rest of squad 47 gutted her for taking away one of our own, though with how sick she was she probably didn't even feel it, just kept on till she could spill what she wanted and then crunch her pill. To my luck, where I found her had a portal opened due to some local shenanigans. Saved me the trouble of digging a shallow grave to dump her carcass in. By the way, she was lying through her teeth if she promised to live a long life with you, she was sick with at least three different diseases, she only lasted as long as she did because the two worst of which were too busy fighting each other to get around to putting her face down in a ditch as yet another body beside the road. We didn't have a doctor on us and we only managed to confirm the presence of three diseases in her because one of the squad members who came with me had a sense of smell adapted to sniffing out blood and any pathogens present in blood as well as someone who could confirm that she did have two mutative diseases inside her, never did identify which ones though, because we disposed of her in a hurry after we figured out where the portal went, didn't want to risk her illnesses managing to splice together and form a new pandemic or two that we wouldn't be able to fight."

Kazehira spoke lowly: "What killed her?"

Hisashi lowered his own voice: "Cyanide. She had a capsule of cyanide and a handful of other chemical components hidden in her teeth. She crunched it open. She died moments later. We think one of the elements mixed in with the cyanide was a bio-weapon designed to cause her illnesses to splice and/or mutate. Either way…she killed herself."

Kazehira looked distraught: "You're lying!"

Hisashi shook his head: "Sorry kid, but I'm not, remember the deal? I can't lie or the contract is broken,"

Kaezhira inspected a hand which had purple embers around it: "You've lied to yourself to convince yourself it's the truth. It's impossible… she said we would be together…I don't care what the contract declares. You're lying! You've lied to yourself to convince yourself it's the truth! YOU'RE DELUSIONAL!"

The room went still as Hisashi's almost mournful expression quickly shifted to a cold smile with rage simmering in his purple eyes.

Naomi shook her head in a disappointed manner.

Mikhail/Hideki cringed: "Kids, you're about to get a hands-on lesson for dealing with Hisashi Kageyami, The Blighted Shadow that Blots out evil and false gods alike. Rule 1: Do not ever, under any circumstances unless it's in the middle of a distressed breakdown, and that caveat doesn't apply when he's under contract to tell the truth, call him delusional. It doesn't end well."

Mikhail's words were proven true when Hisashi coldly whispered: "I am not...delusional." before he unleashed a brutal verbal beating on the prisoner.

Hisashi may not have laid a hand on Takami Kazehira, but the look in the man's eyes afterwards looked as though he had just endured years of tormented agony in the span of seconds.

The genin saw just how quickly the humor in the room died an ugly death.

The newly revealed information about their host caused many concerns.

Anko and Zabuza both pulled their respective teams aside and explained the necessary alliance principal to them.

The Argos operatives might be eccentric and callous, but at the moment their goals were aligned and they needed help if the worst happened. Let their actions during this time speak for them before the ninjas cast their own judgements that may cause friction at a vital point for cooperation if cast too early.

By the time the ninjas had returned to the room where Kazehira was being questioned, Hisashi had finished collecting on his side of the agreement.

Which meant that any further information had to be worked for.

The man was placed before an interrogation team was assembled from the three groups.

Strange affair drove it in how alien these guys were to the Elemental Nations, but enlightening at the same time.

Another half hour and the group had extracted information needed from Kazehira though what caught the group off guard with what convinced the bastard to start singing.

Though the Konoha group was more on guard after the revelation of who sent Kazehira and Loptr: Otsutsuki Toneri.

Hisashi's profiling based on Kazehira's information didn't paint a nice picture. Sociopathic to an absurd degree, Black and white worldview to the point of insanity, obsessive with Hinata to the point of self-entitlement, genocidal. And was promptly identified as the man behind the identity of Nanashi of the Akatsuki, which led to the revelation that all together, this was Toneri's, or as Kazehira had derisively referred to him as Netori, third attempt at kidnapping her.

The first was through Kazehira and Loptr a handful of months ago attempting to hire a reformed criminal with teleportation abilities to do the dirty work. It backfired because that criminal set up a leaving situation that would immediately have his parole flag him and have someone sent after him to find out what happened and ended up being Hideki with Hisashi showing up soon after.

The second was Toneri attempting to hire En Oyashiro through his Nanashi identity. Failed because Oyashiro had better sense than to try and kidnap the heiress of a prominent clan.

Though Kazehira did earn some respect from and gain some for the Konoha team with their mutual hatred of both Loptr and Netori.

Wasn't going to save him from his fate though.

Xxx

A few hours later.

The genin of team 7 found themselves face down in the mud and rain after just barely pulling through the gauntlet of Anko's latest creative torture.

A handful of larger snakes sent after them. All of them using ninjutsu.

The Genin were starting to wonder if Anko secretly hated them and wanted to kill them.

"Aw, Come on! It shouldn't be that bad, now get up and get back at it." Anko's voice called out and the genin knew that she would make it worse if they didn't comply.

Groans left Anko rolling your eyes

"C'mon Anko. You need to let them have a little rest or they'll burn out." A voice called out.

A moment and Hideki Koryo walked into clearing with Hisashi and Naomi not too far behind.

Hideki waved and smiled. "Hey kids, mind if I borrow your sensei for a while."

Anko's face went blank as she stared: "Why would I break from training my students to helping you?"

Hideki rubbed his face: "Well it would be nice and appreciated but you're ninja so we can pay. Twice the paid for mission price for the mission you're on and an additional 35 percent if you help us out. We're investigating an installation we found in a cave on Ember Beach. It's what we were doing before you guys highlighted Kazehira and Loptr. We're a man down at the moment and we have Yomi-Hime looking after Ty, our downed teammate. Normally Naomi would be looking after the man down, but in this case Ser/Yomi-Hime is better equipped for the job. Naomi will be staying behind to look after Wave and keep lookout. She can help with your kids and get them patched up and ensure they don't end up with pneumonia from this. You in?"

Anko sighed: "Fine."

Hideki smiled: "Pleasure doing business. Zabuza got hired as well."

"And you still hired me? Do you need backup that bad or is this a shot at me or Zabuza?"

"We need warm bodies."

Anko deadpanned: "Oh that makes feel all that much better."

Hisashi waved her off: "Don't worry. Naomi can help and so can I."

Hisashi's shadow had a tendril form and reach into a shadow and dragged across it to open up a black pit: "Get out here Flint."

A moment later and a massive black hand reached up and a body heaved itself out of the pit and into the air. Black and purple sheen on grey stone like texture and a mouth with the movements making sounds that sounded like stone grinding against stone.

A black, red and purple glowing eye mark formed on both Flint's forehead area and Hisashi's as well.

Hisashi touched Naomi on the part of her forehead situated between her eyes and the mark vanished from his skin and appeared on Naomi's forehead.

Team 7 recognized Flint's name from the other day but they were not expecting something like this.

Sasuke even vocalized it alongside Naruto: "What the hell is this thing?"

Hisashi shrugged: "Meet Flint, he doesn't talk unless he needs to. I gave Naomi the command link to control or issue orders or parameters to him mentally. Though be careful, he has a literal heart of stone and some really rough, almost rocky you could say, social skills." No one laughed at the puns. They just groaned.

Hisashi waved them off and muttered killjoys however before he could bow out, Naruto spoke up and protested: "OI! Why should we fight this thing? Hell, Anko-sensei never said if she approved."

Hisashi looked over to Anko and she shrugged: "Convince me. I think it would be good practice but I could probably fight em myself hard for an hour and get the same thing for em."

Hisashi rolled his eyes: "Charging me for all I'm worth, aren't you? I'll pay for the time you spend fighting Flint and then if you beat him at any point after he starts going all out, I can use one of my abilities to implant knowledge regarding some elemental attacks for all three of you. You may not be able to recreate the original attacks but I can guarantee that with time and practice you will be able to make something out of them. I copied three separate copy attack archives, so anything out of there and you'll be copying my copying of another copy. Your head hurting yet? Anyways, my elemental manipulation is slightly rusty from when I unlocked my Shadow Twisting, but I still have it somewhat. Lightning is my favorite and thus I'll be handing out that kind of attack the most. Deal?" Hisashi stated with a hopeful smile.

Naruto looked to the left and saw Sasuke with his usual confident smirk and Hinata smiling with a confident edge before he broke out into his confident grin: "Deal!"

Hisashi laughed: "Then it's settled! Pleasure doing business with you!" before settling down into smiling and bowing theatrically: "Well, now I best be off, if I don't have Flint then my next best single construct without environmental conditions at play is Death Starved and he is an asshole because he won't shut up and keep calling every single human that he sees a 'dirty shitfucker'. I'm not kidding in the slightest. Best get this done and out of the way so I don't have to deal with Death Starved longer than I have to if I need to."

Hideki grabbed both Anko and Hisashi and the air shifted before the three disappeared.

The air shifted again and in a similar yet different way to Hideki's Time Compression as Naomi turned to the kids with a kind yet sinister smile: "Alright, Kids! Let the fun begin. Flint, suppress your full power but you are allowed your full physical capability. Go and test them." The mark on both her and the construct's forehead glowed and the stone creature marched forward. Slowly yet methodically and dutifully, killing any doubt that this was a thinking and intelligent creature they were being put up against.

Lumbering forward, not very threateningly but the large arms and the almost claw like fingers made it clear that they would hurt if it hit them.

Naruto crossed his fingers and created a few shadow clones and the clones charged as Naruto hung back. The clones jumped and grabbed onto the back of 'Flint,' trying to cause a weight imbalance to tip him over.

But the creature was unbothered by the additional weight and continued its march forward. Even with the added weight of the clones clinging to its back.

Hinata spoke: "We need to find a weakness. If it's made out of stone like its movement sounds like, then it has to have some weak point that we can exploit."

Sasuke nodded: "Maybe but we should try our jutsu first to see if we can hurt it that way."

Hinata moved away from Naruto and Sasuke and nodded at them as she began signing to prep a jutsu.

"Think you're ready to use some of what we learned?" Sasuke asked.

"C'mon! It's a Wind Jutsu, I learn them fast! Think you're ready to use that move your brother taught ya?!" Naruto said confidently as he began signing as well.

Sasuke sighed and then began signing: "I think so. For our sakes right now, I hope you're right about your move…"

Hinata finished first: "Fire Release: Blue Fireball Jutsu!" who breathed deeply and held as her cheeks began to flush from the heat being produced inside her before she breathed out a large blue flame.

Followed by Naruto: "Wind Release: Gale Palm!" as he took a stance and wind began to gather and swirl around his hand before he thrusted forward and the wind was released and rushed at the target.

And lastly by Sasuke as he threw some shuriken before he formed the last sign: "Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Thorn!" and breathed fire and lit the shuriken on fire just as they entered Naruto's gale alongside Hinata's Fireball merging in as well.

Both fires were strengthened by the gale while the gale persisted and all three attacks collided with Flint at the same time who crossed its arms to protect itself.

When the view cleared, Flint was still standing but the three genin could see that his balance had been compromised somewhat with the construct having just barely regained it. The shuriken were embedded in Flint's arms and scorch marks covered the purple-tinged grey stone of Flint's body.

The stone like texture of its face seemed to shift slightly and they realized that Flint was incapable of full facial expressions but with the intensity of its stare and shifting of the stone, they could guess that what they had done had pissed it off.

The golem shifted its arms to help stabilize its balance from the attack and then began marching forward again, this time a focus to its gaze and a bit of hustle to its step.

Naruto reacted first: "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"

Naruto blew out a wind that saw Flint outright stop and once again shield his face with his arms and this time brace itself in a way to preserve its footing.

Though the gaze in its eyes sharpened even further as the genin began noticing the actual gashes formed in the stone of its arms and small and hollow scratches of its body.

They hurt it.

A deep and gravelly roar emanated as a slight glow washed over the injuries and they began to heal actively in front of team 7, with Sasuke's embedded shuriken popping out of the niches they had made with the stone mending.

The genin were dumbfounded (in the middle of a fight no less) and they paid for it when they were caught by surprise as its slow and steady march became more like a fast-approaching jog even though the overall movement still resembled its original gait but the speed had increased dramatically.

The three quickly moved out of the way as the enraged creature began rearing its arm back and were just barely cleared away from the punch that hit the ground.

The ground cratered slightly and cracks formed and spiderwebbed away from the point of impact.

The golem had overextended and had to correct to regain its footing. It costed Flint an opportunity to punish his opponents for first blood.

Sasuke's Sharingan and Hinata's Byakugan snapped on and, unsurprisingly, the opponent had no chakra. Though both were surprised by the opponent having something else that was being utilized in a way similar to using chakra to enhance physical capabilities. The golem was somewhat blurry to their sight as the energy merely flowed just beneath the surface, seemingly being suppressed from escaping the golem's body to protect against impacts and injury sources. Though for now it was only being used to heal its damage.

Though this power was something that made its movements still somewhat hard for them to read but significantly less so than Loptr or Kazehira.

Hinata's sight began viewing the various devices that were hidden inside of 'Flint,' one arm apparently had some form of saw blade attached to a chain stored in the left forearm while the right forearm had two poles that were on rails that connected to a track around the right wrist. But most immediately worryingly was the device concealed by the creature's mouth, the general shape of the device reminded Hinata of a forge bellows.

Then energy began feeding into the bellows and the creature opened its mouth in a roar, and Hinata just barely got out: "Scatter!"

The three broke up and ran in separate directions as a stream of flames jumped out of the stone golem's mouth. It couldn't sustain the attack for long and attempted to burn Naruto and Hinata before trying to get Sasuke before running out of steam and the fire blast fizzled out.

The genin half expected the golem to resume its march but to their surprise it stood still, almost exhaling as if it were trying to catch its breath.

Naruto quickly capitalized: "Gale Palm!" and the gale he created impacted Flint before he could brace himself in any meaningful way.

Flint didn't get knocked flying off his feet, but his body tipped backwards and fell over.

Any sense of celebration died a quick death once Flint got himself back up. The glare intensifying.

The genin began spacing away from each other to keep the golem from being able to roast all three of them at once (cause Flint had proven that his tongue was searing) only to hear something open up as it reared back its left arm and swung in an arc and the saw blade and chain swung out from the compartment that Hinata had seen previously.

The genin just barely avoided the blade as it swung over their heads before reaching the end of the chain length and then began pulling back into the compartment.

That left one attack, or device rather, that the genin still had no idea of what to expect from the hidden device of its right arm.

Naruto just snarled and crossed his fingers as he created a few more shadow clones and had them rush Flint again.

Flint seemed to prepare for the clones to attempt to grapple on and try to throw his weight off balance again and thus kept marching forward but was caught off guard when the clones instead attacked and each one punched the stone golem's body.

Chunks of purple-tinged grey stone were sent flying off from where the clones attacked but the clones were dispelled by their own attacks.

The memories hit Naruto and he twitched his right hand: "Damn, he might actually be made of stone! And maybe some metal too, just punching him felt like those clones were breaking their hands."

Hinata cut in: "If it felt like that, then there is a good possibility that the clones were dispelled by the force of punching that construct actually inflicting damage."

Sasuke sighed: "So actually hitting it physically is pretty much asking to get hurt right now. But it did more damage to that monster than all three of us combined beforehand as far as we can tell, though how much of it was from that thing expecting Naruto's clones to try and tip it over rather than attack and how much is what we can do even if it expects us to directly attack now is the question."

The three were about to reposition when Flint stopped moving and flaps on its right arms opened up and the two poles Hinata saw inside the wrist align along the rail on its wrist and the spheres at the end of the poles began glowing as the flaps closed and the poles began to move around the rail at an increasingly faster rate.

The hairs on the back of team 7's collective necks raised as the poles began to glow blood red and all three of them screamed as the glow became dangerously bright: "SCATTER!"

Not a moment too soon as the glow became even brighter and then a ray of blood red energy jumped from the golem's weapon and impacted the spot where they were standing a moment ago and exploded just as they cleared the fireball but were blown back by the shockwave.

Sasuke shouted "We clear on the new plan?"

Naruto and Hinata both nodded: "Scatter and survive."

Sasuke nodded and the three made a break for it and ran in separate directions after throwing one last wind boosted fireball salvo at the golem.

The creature shielded itself as quickly as it could but the momentary distraction allowed its targets to escape.

Once Flint was able to see again, he growled as his quarries had already made their escape.

Stone grinded against stone as he expressed his anger while the growling triggered part of the mechanism that made up his flamethrower and caused almost steam engine like whistling sounds as he approached where his targets had been before their last fireball attack.

Three sets of tracks darted off in three directions.

'More than I had back when I followed my creator. Shadow bastards didn't leave much to track.'

The Stone Golem missed his old companions. Lost to the one enemy few could beat and even fewer could beat permanently.

Death.

However, his current master had given him the means to prove Flint had a soul, and with it the reassurance that when his existence came to an end, he would see his friends once more.

That was something Flint couldn't repay fully, so he served until Hisashi's life had drawn to an end, promised he would be reborn stronger than before when he was released from his service.

The living golem's mind refocused on the task Naomi had given it.

These three children had used the distraction to disappear, each of the trails left in the mud of the rain terminated after a while. The golem broke his vocal silence in frustration: "Annoying brats."

Attempting to lead him before double back and ambush him with his back turned? Perhaps, or simply falling back and regrouping. Both were clever and correct strategies when fighting opponents beyond one's ability to face head on. And both were likely the plan.

Whichever one, Flint knew he had to begin pursuit.

He looked down one path and began his ever-dutiful march.

Either his quarry would come to him or he would find them, he wouldn't stop until he had completed his objective and no bargaining or reasoning with Flint would be able to stop that.

Xxx

Meanwhile…

Hidan sat in the chamber provided to him by the local congregation of Jashin-sama having just finished his prayer. One of thanks for the patience to endure through the lack of killing and sacrificing at the moment that this whole Akatsuki business entailed and this whole deal with the mist swordsman.

It was a real bitch, but it was worth it. He didn't want to have to grill every last bit of information out of that bomb tossing one eye and then tell it to the Leader if he didn't have to.

And luckily enough, Zetsu had just the perfect solution. A method to turn an unused room in the temple into a meeting place for Mystic Body Lantern.

Though the swordsman, whatever his fucking name was, had yet to awaken so Hidan only had an idea of who the Jinchuriki were.

'If only that dumb bastard Kakuzu hadn't run off to go get more money, Jashin-sama help me with that heathen, me and him could go bag those fuckers with a few good brothers and sisters here as some goddamn back up. What the fuck is taking that bastard so long to wake up from getting his shit stomped?'

"Patience, Brother Hidan. All things in due time as Jashin-sama wills it with his slaughter." Senko spoke in his smooth baritone.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm ready to start killing! It's so close to the festival of blood I can already here the sounds of screams and bloodshed from the fucking heathens as we rend them! I wish that asshole would wake up so we can find out who we need to keep alive so Pain doesn't come down on us like Jashin-sama incarnate…" Hidan started.

"With what you have said of this Pain, I can only assume he is nothing short of divinity to keep so many powerful and ambitious individuals in line." Senko said seriously.

"Heh, don't let him hear you say that. His ego is big enough as is." Hidan snorted contemptuously.

"hmm. Speaking of impatience for the festival, a few more brothers and sisters arrived to help us usher in the chaos. But I'm afraid that some of my reapers have become…scarce." Senko stated ominously.

Hidan paled: "Seriously!? Oh Shit! No! There's no telling where they went! And if they went to Wave, they might as well kill themselves and us as well."

"What could possi-"

"PAIN CAN RIP SOULS OUT OF BODIES WITH HIS BARE FUCKING HANDS!"

Senko stared before he found his words: "I see…that would be a problem." (Understatement of the fucking century buddy)

Hidan growled: "No Shi- we aren't alone."

Senko was briefly confused: "We have others here, but do you mean-"

"We have people here who don't belong in a temple to Jashin. Find them." The two priests of the cult began searching while unaware of the intruders having been in the same room the two had just left.

A group of four peered out of the darkness for a moment before retreating back and making their way to Jinpachi.

Xxx

Ember Beach cave

"Thank you for riding the Whale Express, please exit off the whale's back and avoid the not-water. We had a real whale of a time together and hope to see you again!" Hisashi joked as the group got off the back of his whale construct. "Guh" the other three groaned in response to the horribly forced pun.

Anko groaned as she and the rest of the group began scanning around for possible threats: "Why did you have to ride through that muck on a whale rather than just teleport or whatever you call that shit you did with your shadows?"

Hisashi shrugged: "Far enough into this place and some kind of barrier is in place to keep people from entering via non-three-dimensional movement, otherwise known as teleporting. I took us as far as I could. Now we have to do it the standard way."

Anko stared at him unbelievingly but the shadow twister didn't acknowledge as he began looking around, only for an animal like groan to sound and draw the group to the source with Hisashi and Hideki both on edge.

The source was a creature that looked like a fusion of human and bat with a corpse like look to its skin and a massive wound in its gut that Anko could tell was killing it more-or-less.

Hisashi smiled but it didn't quite reach his eyes: "Well, Mikhail, looks like you did get it. Busted a good cap in it. I'm surprised it's still alive. More so than the fact that this thing is here but we've seen weirder things in stranger places for them to be. Serves you right for hurting my squad mates, you son of a bitch. We almost made it to whatever was making that transmission then you had to show up and hurt Ty bad. I could forgive that as 'taking out the weakest link first' kind of thinking and believing she was well and truly weak compared to the rest of us, but you were interested in other things weren't you. Your entire attack pattern varied in regards to who you were throwing what attack at. You knew who we were…."

Hisashi kept going on while Anko looked around and found a piece of metal on the floor. It was some kind of pin or badge, but the image on it almost made her gasp not out of recognition but shock. It was a skull like face with what she assumed to be two horns protruding out of the skull that curved downward into almost insect like mandibles the way the badge depicted it. Something told her that this was a creature of evil being depicted.

Before her musings could go further, the sound of a blade swinging and flesh and bone being cut and death screams sounded as Anko turned to find a robe clad skeletal figure with a scythe and almost ethereal flesh covered in the blood of the creature, the skull of the figure almost appeared to be wearing a crown of some kind with the growths of bone protruding from the skull and two of its teeth were elongated into fangs.

"There, it's done shitfucker. Either unsummon me or let me FEED!" the skeletal reaper demanded.

Hisashi shook his head "Ain't happenin' Death Starved. You got yourself into this. I promised you I would make sure you starved for eternity and I intend to do so."

"Dirty Shitfuckers…all of you…your entire fucking kind…You had to keep ME from MY purpose…From MY feast on your deaths… its fucked up enough that only human hands can draw souls out of the bowels of hell… I didn't realize how truly fucked up the balance was till I found myself enslaved for trying to do as I was meant to." The creature growled.

Hisashi glared with pure rage even as his smile stayed the same cheerful grin Anko had become used to: "No, you were trying to create genocide so you could feed as you wanted, not as you were supposed to feed. I made sure you paid for it."

The creature almost tried to swing its scythe at its 'master' when a shadow opened up into a dark pit and tendrils appeared out of it and grabbed the reaper and dragged it into its abyss before disappearing.

Hisashi growled as he straightened his tie and jacket: "Thinks he's so unique and important when it's just another genocidal lunatic…"

The group moved to start continuing as Anko looked at the remains of the creature and saw a blood red fluid or something wash over the body parts and the parts began shrinking down and taking on more proper human shape. When the energy vanished, Anko stared at the dismembered remains of a pale man who appeared to be in his 40s dressed in black light leathers with that same pin she found on the floor attached to the collar of his shirt.

Anko would have cursed at the sight but it reminded her of Orochimaru's experiments with that boy he found who could change shapes and fight on par with her despite having no actual training as a ninja.

The thought of Orochimaru began stoking her rage.

The group continued until they reached a large door with a strange symbol on it.

One that made the Argos men catch their breaths.

Anko's curiosity got the best of her: "What does the symbol mean?"

Hisashi picked up as Hideki began investigating the door. "The symbol, the main part of it is called the Brand of the Defiled, it's the sigil of a cult called the Grimleal who worship a monstrosity called Grima."

Anko's eyes narrowed: "I heard about that thing, Grima."

Hisashi's eyes turned wide as did Hideki and both had a single mental line of dialogue: 'that's not right! No one around here should be aware of him.'

Hisashi regained his composure and continued: "they worship the abomination like some kind of god. The only way to describe him as a god would be an evil god. He was made by an absolute mad man experimenting with creating life via artificial means and reanimating life, by mixing his blood with the blood of a powerful race his people shared their continent with, some of whom were revered like gods. Grima was the result and he killed his creator and absorbed the knowledge of how to reanimate life and how to control the reanimated life."

Anko's face grew dark: "dumbass sounds like Orochimaru. Too much."

Hisashi nodded: "I've met a lot of people in my travels, some with incredible resemblance either intellectually, personality, or just physically even when a relation is not possible. I've met a lot of Orochimarus in my travels."

Her mouth became a thin line as she pressed her lips tightly together: "I could see Orochimaru trying to make life and I could see it definitely wanting to kill him if he made mistakes with how he treated it. Asshole doesn't do genuine affection. He'd end up dead the moment the kid wised up and got strong enough."

Hisashi nodded: "Agreed. The comparison between the two mad scientists doesn't end there. Grima's maker was regarded as a genius, a beacon of a great new age of learning and knowledge. His experiments in creating and reanimating life began as a result of losing someone precious. And at the height of their depravity before being discovered, they began experimenting on their own countrymen."

The uncomfortable similarities seemed to only further worsen Anko's declining mood. Her neck began throbbing like a needle had been tightly pressed into her curse mark as it began simultaneously feeling burning hot and freezing cold.

Anko could almost feel the mark try to activate and spread as she heard her former sensei's voice in her head.

Most people would be boiling with rage but Anko felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. No visible reaction on her face.

It felt like the curse mark had attempted to assert more influence of her and she could almost hear Orochimaru's chuckle.

The curse mark began to spread ever so slightly: "That's it Anko-chan. Give in."

The seal suddenly stopped spreading and Anko sternly spoke mentally: 'Get. Out. Of. My. Head.'

The Curse Mark fell before Anko's iron will and was forced back into its inactive state.

"Very well. You win this round. But remember, a part of me is in you, and one day it will take you over. One day soon."

Anko scowled: 'Fuck off, sensei.' But no response came.

Part of her hoped it was just her imagination, but it felt too vivid to be a mere figment. The analysis of the Snake Sage came to the forefront of Anko's mind and filled her with some amount of dread.

Anko snapped back to reality and saw no one had noticed her episode while Hisashi was engrossed in his story telling.

"The people of the continent had an epitaph for him and draconic god like monsters who terrorized them and dubbed him with it: Grima the Fell Dragon. The symbol is based on his face, how his eyes and the markings surrounding and linking them appeared when he was young. As he grew old and grew close to emerging and making his mark with a catastrophe that reshaped an entire continent nearly beyond any recognition, his face changed and became more human like but his exoskeleton grew around his face and took the appearance of his original face with some differences. The cult aligned with Grima in a pact that stated if they served as his agents to shift things for his return should he be defeated while carrying out selective breedings among the bloodline he gifted his blood to, no clue if it was some weird pact or a more conventional method via his human hosts, in order to create a being known as a Hierophant, a Jinchuriki like being who would be intimately tied to Grima's power and be used as a host vessel for Grima and his full power, and said individual was marked with the Brand of the Defiled on their right hand and once the Fell Dragon and the Hierophant merged, Grima would be unstoppable until the host was dealt with; impossible to seal away or destroy even if he had manifested physically separately from the Hierophant. The Grimleal succeeded in making the Hierophant over the course of generations and eventually reviving Grima but intervention saw their success turn to complete failure. The Hierophant turned and lost their memories and chose their companions over their intended purpose and used their innate connection to Grima's power to destroy him, an act that was suicidal for the Hierophant as their very being was tied to Grima but I decided to inject a bit of chaos and ended up incarnating Grima's power, while testing a new power I had gotten, into the Hierophant but completely destroying Grima's soul and identity in the process. Luckiest roll of the dice I ever got. And the reward the Grimleal were promised for aiding Grima was that when the time came for his genocide of mankind to begin anew, they would be given quick and painless deaths for their aid. Dumbasses."

Anko nodded: "So what's so important about the door?"

"See how it encompasses the entire door?" "Yup." "Look just above the door's framework."

Anko did and found a carving of a bird sitting atop the frame, almost like a watch dog or a sentinel. "What's so important about the bird?" "It's a Phoenix, Argos's very sigil. It means that whoever built this labyrinth and whatever is beyond those doors was an Argos. The signal we got was from a containment cell designed to study the specimen sealed inside of it. We didn't even know this facility existed until we received the signal. It means a handful of things and we need to get inside to find out. Hideki, how's it going?" Hisashi explained pulling out a badge that looked similar yet different to the carving.

Hideki sighed: "Can't find a lock or a release. This setup reeks of One Leg's work. Confusing as hell and makes me want to punch a wall. Grand Crossing it isn't gonna work as the stone's been treated to hold up for centuries, looks about like its seen quite a few years already. We might have to brute force it open and take a risk."

Zabuza spoke and reminded the group he was there: "Have you tried just pushing it?"

Hisashi gasped loudly: "Motherfucker! Oh god! Fucking hell, you gave me heart attack!"

Zabuza just stared: "How?"

Hisashi started gesturing comically and wildly: "I FORGOT YOU WERE EVEN HERE BECAUSE YOU WERE SO DAMN QUIET ASSHOLE!"

Hideki looked at the Demon of the Hidden Mist flatly as the Ninja turned towards him: "No this isn't unusual of him. He didn't forget you were there; he's screwing around."

The demon sweatdropped, "I figured. Now back to what I asked…"

Hideki kept his flat stare: "No. The bastard who built this place would not rely on something that mundane or simple to keep the doors shut on something he locked up until someone like me and Hisashi came to clean up the geriatric asshole's mess."

Zabuza got up to the stone like doors and began pushing. Eventually the doors began shifting open slightly.

Hideki's sputtering was so amusing to Anko.

Zabuza got the doors open a bit more but was firmly blocked by some kind of barricade on both doors. Though it was just big enough for something small to crawl through.

Or a snake to slither right on through.

Anko smirked as she walked up close and raised her arm with two snakes coming out of her jacket's sleeve and slithering through the opening Zabuza had made.

Anko could just barely make out the snakes curving behind the doors and investigating something before the group heard locks clicking and the resistance gave way.

Anko smiled and joked: "Guess this was just a problem we needed to slither on by, huh?"

Hisashi smiled and nodded while the others groaned at the joke: "Guess you'll get along with my kid Orochi if she ever drops by. Loves snakes. She keeps a real big one as a partner."

Anko's grin became genuine: "Sounds like a good kid."

Zabuza rolled his eyes but snarked to Hideki: "All that talk and you couldn't figure out that a door was to be pushed open, huh? I would ask if that's a problem of sneaking around to kill people but I do the same and figured that out."

Hideki sighed in defeat and followed the group. "Not my fucking fault that this was designed to fly in the face of everything I was trained in with lockpicking and defense bypassing."

Hisashi chuckled amicably: "To be fair, I might have figured it out after beating my head against it for about eight hours give or take. Or ran out of ideas and got drunk and then either brute forced past it or something…"

It was a stairway with a metal and futuristic door at the end with the Phoenix resting atop a tree decorated with various insignias. The metal had discolored and slightly dented in some places but no rust was on the surface. The sight elicited a whistle out of Hisashi: "This place is old. Guess One Leg wasn't too far off the mark as a guess. Seems the metal held up pretty well…must be using some rust resistant alloy for the construction. Something been back here before us…these doors are made very well, so the fact that it has dents in it means something strong tried beating it down. This is probably gonna suck, but oh well. This is a first gen logo, let's hope the card scanner still works…" As he pulled out a card and swiped it which elicited a beep from the panel next to the door.

It sounded like hinges which hadn't moved in years tried to move but ultimately couldn't.

Hisashi sighed: "Sounds about right for today. Scanner works and took the card but the mechanism is damaged. Gonna have to force our way in…Any ideas?"

Hideki scratched his head: "We could try breaking open the maintenance panel and using the emergency releases. If nothing else, it could make it so we can break the door down."

"Sounds good."

Anko felt around the wall to the door's side until she felt a place where the wall didn't fit together right.

A little inspection found that the tile hung on hooks.

A little work to figure out how the hooks were set up and the fake tile was off its mounting. Inside was a small enclosure and a black panel-tinged red.

Anko whistled: "Oi, this it?"

Hisashi looked: "Crap. Yeah, it is what we were looking for…but that panel is welded in there. We don't have time to take it slow."

Hisashi made a clenched fist and shadow tendrils reached into the enclosure and probed around the panel.

One found a hole to go through.

A minute later, the panel was ripped out of the enclosure.

It exposed a bit more of the enclosure.

Hisashi looked exasperated: "Great…most of us are too big to fit inside. Anko, you're up. Crawl inside and you'll find an opening with the mechanism inside. Light it up."

Anko smiled as she crawled inside of the enclosure and found exactly what was described.

That innate bit of pyromania that everyone had that surfaced when they could freely burn something practically glowed with glee in Anko.

She made a few quick signs and blew out flames at the mechanism.

Molten slag was all that was left after a minute.

Anko crawled out and saw Hisashi about to pull the door off with tendrils before Zabuza used his sword as a blunt object and knocked it down.

Hisashi looked at the Demon of the Hidden Mist with disbelief.

"What? I'm getting tired of your theatrics and antics. I heard you mumble she melted the mountings so I decided to finish the job. We got hired for a job and I'm looking forward to getting it done as quickly as possible so I can go back to plotting how I'm going to skin Jinpachi. Got a problem with that."

Hisashi opened and closed his mouth for a minute while Mikhail fell over laughing at his friend(?) getting caught so off guard.

Anko shrugged: "None from me. Can't wait to be back outside."

Hideki eventually stopped laughing and spoke just as Hisashi regained his composure: "We kinda hired you two to have some sane guys to keep us on track during this. Naomi's usually our sane woman when we aren't in a fight and I'm the sane one during a fight."

"We can see…" Anko and Zabuza both drawled out.

The group of four proceeded inside the facility after the door opened up.

Anko had flashbacks to Orochimaru's labs with the design of this place. Metal all over the place and sterile and creepy as hell.

Eventually the group came upon a giant tank that really gave Anko some flashbacks that had been frosted to the point of whatever was inside was imperceivable except for a general reptilian shape.

A hum issued out and slowly the fogged-up glass became transparent again.

All four stopped seeing what lied within.

Anko could only describe the creature, locked up within a block of ice that was glowing slightly, as a skeletally thin black dragon with bone armor that seemed to grow out of its body and a mask made of bone with some red markings but no visible eyes.

Anko and Zabuza both took an instinctive step back.

Hisashi and Hideki both gasped out eventually: "The Fear Reaver…"

Anko gave a quizzical tilt: "You know this thing?"

Hisashi made a so-so gesture: "More like fought this thing, though there is a chance that this isn't the same specimen. Only way to find out…"

Zabuza raised a nonexistent eyebrow as Hisashi began circling the ice block looking for something on the creature until his pensive face became blank and emotionless: "It is the same one. It has the scar I put on it."

Hisashi pointed at a spot on the mid-ventral region where a decent sized gash was. Zabuza whistled: "Looks like you almost caved its chest that way." Anko looked at it and smirked: "Damn, looks like what Naruto would do by headbutting something."

Anko was the only one who laughed at her joke.

Hideki started massaging his temples and spoke: "This doesn't make sense; we didn't encounter creatures like this until about almost 10 years ago. This facility has ALL of WCL's trademarks and he retired 14 years ago. And there should be other monsters like it crawling over the Elemental Nations trying to find and free it."

Hisashi's eyes widened: "Mikhail, you said you and Ryu tracked a Fenripper to the Elemental Nations following a set of anomalies, correct?" Hideki nodded confused. "Why is that important?"

Hisashi acknowledged the question with a question "We assumed that it was an accident or a case of someone trying to cause mayhem by introducing a non-native organism into an eco-system it didn't belong in, but what if instead it found its way here detecting this Fear Reaver?"

Hideki face palmed: "Possibly, these things are confusing at the best of times and trying to understand all of it raises questions. The Fenripper was acting so weird yet so normal that me and Ryu never questioned it…And you can get his alias right and remember it every time but not me?!"

Hisashi glared: "Not important. Pop the terminal and see if you can get information. I'm going to attempt to dispose of this thing."

Hideki nodded and ran to the terminal while Hisashi opened up a shadow but rather than pull a familiar construct out, tendrils emerged and tried to grab the setup(tank, block of ice and weird dragon thing all) and drag it in while Hisashi began chanting: "Embrace darkness and close your eyes…Don't fear the oblivion you shall be cast into and remade within. Don't fear de-" he stopped suddenly as the tendrils made contact with the glass and were repelled. "… what the crap?"

Everyone present blinked and Hisashi started screaming garbled words before stalking up to Hideki: "Are you in yet?"

The man nodded: "kinda, the desktop was left unlocked but the actual files are triple encrypted and locked up behind a password. But there is something else odd here."

Hisashi spoke: "What is it?"

Hideki clicked around and opened up a program: "There is an NES emulation program. But the directory only has one game with about 6 save states created."

Hisashi stared, "Really now? What game and where do the save states load up?"

"Metroid. One at a clean password input screen, one loads up at Kraid's Lair in Brinstar at the fake Kraid, one loads up outside of Mother Brain in Tourian, one loads up at Lower Norfair inside Ridley's room, one loads up at the Password screen with the JUSTIN BAILEY code inputted, and one loads up with the password select with the words 'HINT: TOO BIG' inputted."

Hisashi looked around: "Too big…"

Hisashi rocked around and scratched his head: "Too big…at fake Kraid, outside Mother Brain, inside Ridley's room, and the Justin Bailey Code inputted. It has to be a hint…"

Hisashi eyes lit up: "Engage Ridley Motherfucker!"

Zabuza rolled his eyes.

Anko snorted: "Geez, he's just trying to help, he didn't do anything to earn that…Hehehe!" she said while cackling.

Hideki blinked and Hisashi continued: "All the save states were hints. They were telling us that the password to access the encrypted files was one of the three Bosses in Metroid, however Samus was only in the room with Ridley. Ridley in later games highly resembles the Fear Reaver. But to load a password that loads you into Norfair equipped to fight Ridley is too obvious, hence the usage of the secret JUSTIN BAILEY code. Engage Ridley Motherfucker is the exact number of characters to fit the Metroid password screen but if used it causes the game to glitch out something horrible."

Anko and Zabuza drew a blank at the tech speak.

Hideki followed: "You want me to put in?"

"Yes, 'ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER' all caps and with a space in Motherfucker."

Hideki spoke up a moment later: "I'm in. We were right about who set this pace up, though he believed the creature was shadow based and thus had the outer layer of ice and field around it tuned to attack and repel anything shadow based. But that doesn't change the fact that it does have the scar so it was the one you fought and hurt. It's been here…never mind, that isn't important."

Anko took a step back as did Zabuza after hearing a small groan come from the ice cube: "I think it's waking up. Or more likely thawing out."

Zabuza growled: "Know what kind of temperatures keep this thing on ice?"

Hisashi scowled: "Too cold to be maintained by this set up indefinitely. That's probably part of why it's going down and sent the emergency signal. Years spent on max output must have worn down the equipment. It must have begun reaching temperatures that it can resume mental activeness. Or it began adapting to the temperatures. Or its negative emotion feeding has begun."

Anko scowled: "What?" "These creatures are drawn to and strengthened by negativity and negative emotions. But Fear Reavers and creatures of this monstrous species' upper echelon can outright feed on it." Hisashi spoke and then paled after Anko and Zabuza both shared a worried look and cursed: "OH SHIT!"

Anko sighed: "I guess you just remembered the Jashin cult and the situation with Wave?"

Hisashi nodded: "Yes. Mikhail, see if you can get the data in the terminal copied. I'm going to see if I can get a message out to the boys back home and get news out and get new orders."

Hisashi darted out while Hideki began working.

Anko stared at the creature and jumped when its eyes suddenly jerked opened and revealed that it had six eyes colored yellow and burned with malice and hate as it struggled to focus on any one occupant of the room and groaned again *skreeeeee*

Anko and Zabuza both almost cursed while Hideki tried his hardest to keep from cold sweating.

Hideki spoke with faux calmness: "It is feeding off of our anxiety. It can't feed on further out sources of negative emotion due to the barriers in place, but that won't last forever. Especially now that it's started regaining its strength."

An hour later Hisashi ran in: "New orders, stay in Wave until the Fear Reaver is dealt with. After that, remain in Elemental Nations unless absolutely necessary and await escort to take prisoner in with and return to the central with the escort. Don't stop it from getting free, just hold the fort till it breaks free and we can deal with it. Let's move!"

The group nodded and locked the enclosure back up as best they could and began making their way back to the cave entrance and Wave.

Though two slight problems reared their heads as the group left.

Hisashi stopped and stared at the Argos logo on the stone walls, staring with an inquisitive look on his face.

Hideki stopped and spoke: "Hey, we need to go. No telling what could go wrong soon."

"I KNOW! But something's off here, every depiction of the gen 1 logo has always looked to me like it was missing something from the design. And this one feels off, like it has the missing detail and gut knows it and I just need to know what!" Hisashi explained.

Hideki stared at the logo for a moment before nodding: "Yeah something IS wrong here…"

Anko rolled her eyes: "All of this over a simple picture…"

Zabuza laughed: "Tell me about it."

And then Hisashi screamed: "OH MY GOD! WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Everyone jumped while Hideki tried to be calm: "What is it?"

Hisashi pointed to a few parts of the design. Above the tree that the Phoenix roosted on was stars and one star in particular got Hisashi's attention while his finger pointed to the tree the Phoenix was on and the Hideki himself cursed when he noticed what Hisashi did.

A similar star crest on the tree itself, with a symbol on it that the Ninja couldn't parse.

"What the hell is the Otsutsuki star doing on the tree? They're our enemies." Hideki questioned.

"I don't know but when we get back to the Central, we're going hunting for answers." Hisashi responded.

Anko spoke up: "for those who don't know what you're talking about, what the hell is Otsutsuki?"

"Otsutsuki clan, the original clan that possessed the Byakugan. The Hyuga are a splinter of a splinter from them and the Uchiha, Senju, and Uzumaki are descendants of the original splinter as well." Hisashi droned out like a report.

Anko took a minute to process before chuckling: "So the Hyuga's entire pride…"

Hisashi finished "…is nothing but puffed up and undeserved hot air. The Byakugan produced by Hyuga lacks powers that an Otsutsuki can awaken in their eyes. The only thing unique about the Hyuga's Byakugan is the sheer chance of inheriting it being so high, and they've put that in jeopardy with genetic damage from just how many generations they've produced through inbreeding, that shit doesn't keep the blood pure it thins it terribly. Anymore generations produced with that misinformed selective breeding and they'll be lucky if the Byakugan they have still even exists in a hundred years from now in their descendants. And I intend to drive it in before we leave…" he trailed off with a slight darkening of the aura he extruded.

Anko unceremoniously led it into her next question: "Why the hell is that symbol being on the tree such a big deal?"

Hisashi nodded as he dug through his pockets for something: "The founder of Argos, an old bastard named Stecker, he never really talked about what led him to found the organization. But from what I remember about his tenure, he loved symbolism, and often used similes and metaphor centered around a theme. He often compared us to phoenixes, rising from the ashes of what was destroyed to lead the way to a better tomorrow. But freshly hatched chicks usually stay in the nest till they are ready to try to fly on their own, and this seems to suggest that the first 'phoenixes' nested under the protection of an Otsutsuki. One named 'Kamiya Otsutsuki.' Never heard of her referred to as Otsutsuki but some of my travels have discovered mentions a group called the Defiants, godlike beings who disagreed with their kin and went out in search of power and answers, seeking to at least ensure that their former kin could be stopped one day. One name I heard frequently when their birth names were mentioned was Kamiya. But some of those stories were ridiculously old, if she's still alive her age would be insanely high. She'd be decrepit, little more than a corpse, if she were aging normally."

Anko shrugged: "Sounds like a whole bunch a freaking out over nothing to me. Legends that who knows how much is true."

Zabuza scoffed: "Agreed. This sounds like superstitious nonsense to me."

Hisashi gasped and blinked: "WILL YOU STOP THAT?!"

Hisashi continued his display, clutching his heart, before he calmed down and tilted his head: "Maybe, and I don't blame you for thinking that way, but my instincts tell me there is more to this and they are part of what kept me alive for so long."

Zabuza thought about it for a moment and then nodded, "Can't say how many times my life got saved because my instincts pointed out something being wrong."

Hideki pulled out a paper and began sketching out the logo while Hisashi pulled out a small device and took a few quick pictures before he motioned the group onwards.

Then the next problem presented itself.

Hisashi stopped at the edge of the ground and the not-water and spoke after a moment: "Where'd I park my Whale?"

Everyone groaned as they found no signs of the black and purple sea mammal and Hisashi shouted: "Where the Hell did I park my Whale?!"

They found it…eventually.

Xxx

Back with the Team 7 genin

Naruto ran through the clearing, creating clones and having them repeat his path single file and then branch off and create new trails.

If the creature was following him, then it would have a hard time trying to figure out which trail was the real Naruto's.

As long as Hinata-chan and Sasuke were bought time and it wasn't trying to find them, he was happy.

Naruto could hear the train-like engine noises and steam hisses of the creature getting closer and closer.

'Damn, it isn't falling for my clones! It's following me. Shit…' Naruto sneered mentally as he began trying to come up with something to hold the golem that was rapidly approaching.

Naruto decided that continuing to run was ultimately a waste and stopped retreating.

The impact of its steps and the train-like hissing slowing but still growing louder as it finally caught up.

Naruto was surprised by the next moment as the golem spoke through gritted teeth: "Well fought little human, but this chase ends here."

'IT CAN TALK!?' Naruto thought in alarm, the creature had never spoken till now.

And then the golem began attacking. Like it had done for hours.

Fight them, force the genin to split up, catch up to one of them, and then fight them until either the other two arrived or until the genin it chased down ran.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Naruto did the best he could but Wind could only do so much to it, his Fire barely phased it compared to Sasuke or Hinata-chan's, and Water at best would just be a minor inconvenience.

Not a whole hell of a lot he could do and clones only really worked if he could sneak in their attacks.

No new attacks from the golem but it seemed to be learning and using more and more of its ability that Naomi-san had ordered it to hold off on. It wasn't acting tired after any of its big attacks like the flamethrower or the laser. After single uses anyways.

Naruto did the best he could after hours of this but eventually, he fucked up.

He was too close and in the range of Flint's punches and Flint's eyes gleamed as it drew back and punched quicker than Naruto had seen before. Naruto barely had even a moment to react, he jumped and jumped back as the punch made contact and in doing so his jump momentum worked with the punch and while Naruto was still thrown back it not as violently nor as painfully as it would have been.

Naruto still felt some of the punch but what really hurt was his landing.

"That felt like something getting messed up-dattebayo." Naruto barely groaned out as he got back up to see Flint grab a tree (ripped it out of the ground) and prepare to swing it at the blond genin who knew he couldn't move in time and was in too much pain to substitute.

"Worry not, little human, you won't die but you won't be waking up anytime soon…" Flint's cold and gravel-ly voice drawled out with just a tinge of satisfaction as he scanned over the makeshift weapon he held and prepared to swing.

Naruto smiled: "You missed something…"

Flint glared but said nothing and felt danger as Naruto made a sign through the pain and injuries and then Flint heard something like a fuse being lit and burning, COMING FROM FLINT'S FOREHEAD!

Flint tried to remove the danger but his mind knew that his defense was enough that lethal or crippling damage would not ensue from the presumed explosive planted on him, and attempting to cover it would only worsen the damage and create the worst-case scenario.

Flint's arm couldn't remove it, he had to take the explosion but he knew he could heal back but the pain would be infuriating. And he would be blind for a moment…

In short, for Flint: This was gonna really fucking suck.

And then the explosive went off. "AAAAAGGHHH!" and the stone creature screamed.

Blinded and in pain, Flint had to hold off on his attack until the stone healed and his eyes had been repaired and his rage began to soar.

And the moment he was fixed up, Flint's glare turned hateful as he reared back and swung.

He swung the impromptu club and hit Naruto and launched him.

Flint smiled looking at the blonde's fallen form until a puff of smoke had it become the blue haired girl and then she vanished in a puff of smoke.

It took the golem a few seconds to process what had just happened.

Then the train engine like hissing became roars as Flint roared with his actual voice and resumed his search.

Naruto grinned as Hinata began treating the injuries he had after he had been sat down with Sasuke keeping look out for the stone menace. "Thanks for the save, Hinata-chan." Naruto held back a groan as Hinata's Mystic Palm worked with his healing and eventually got him back into fighting shape. Hinata's smile was the same composed smile as ever: "Think nothing of it, Naruto-kun." The hours of torture had been beneficial in teaching Hinata how to use medical ninjutsu properly through trial by fire method. Though the signs of exhaustion were beginning to set in on all three of them. The fact that Naomi had forbidden removing the training weights hadn't helped.

Hinata jolted as recollection from Shadow clones hit her: "Flint has stopped holding back. He's no longer exhausting or showing signs of exhausting in anyway. I believe this 'fight' is about to conclude."

Hinata went back to work trying to get Naruto healed while Sasuke spoke: "Naruto could leave a Shadow Clone to create a distraction while the rest of us set a trap, make some mud deep enough that thing gets trapped and we can…"

Naruto grunted: "Don't bother. It's smarter than it looks. It was able to figure out which tracks were mine and which were shadow clones made to trick it. Either it got lucky or it's even smarter than we think."

Sasuke grunted in frustration and began rethinking how to decisively deal with the stone monster: "Anything we can use?"

Naruto spoke as Hinata began finishing the last of her patch job on him: "He gets angry, like gets really pissed off easily; we could use that."

Hinata nodded: "Naruto-kun's right. Flint gets angry and he appears to suffer severe tunnel vision when something angers him greatly. That could be used to make him lose track of his surroundings or make him fail to notice certain details. Like he did with my transformed clone replacing with Naruto-kun. Any other time we tried clone feints or transformed clones, he always saw through it but carelessness born of either victory being so close or his tunnel vision from his anger or both made him miss the subtle cue he had noticed and began looking for."

Sasuke thought and then added: "And whenever he gets close enough to punch at us, he always goes for it. He always takes one step forward like the momentum he's putting in to the punch is enough to actually force him to move forward, probably trying to ensure his targets can't simply move back a little bit to escape him. We piss him off, make him feel confident he can almost win, start luring him over to where we can make use of that punch of his against him, and then work from there we might just be able to win. Maybe even see if he is vulnerable to genjutsu. There is a cliff in this area, not a big and high one, but a decent sized one that is steep enough to be used for what we need."

The three started grinning and got to work.

Flint was desperately trying to find a trail to follow to where his targets had gone. Even with Eternal Engine active with Naomi having removed the restriction on it and the passive boost it provided towards his stamina, simply searching the area until he found a lead would be impractical after how long the exercise had been going.

The temptation to cut down or destroy every tree in sight was strong but Flint had been taught to appreciate Nature's beauty by his original comrades, many of whom would have disappointed or frustrated by such a violation of nature even if it would be practical in short or long term, so he resisted.

The raging engine noises had calmed so the golem no longer sounded like a massive train but the hissing of steam and flames could still be heard somewhat and made it clear his fury had merely cooled and become a steady and calmly burning flame rather than having been completely been put out. Though it might as well have been put out entirely compared to the loud and screaming inferno that the stone golem had been 20 minutes ago.

20 minutes since he lost the blonde headed boy and fell for a trick because he got careless. Plenty of time for these 'ninja' to heal their wounds and for them to come up with a better attack plan as well as find the perfect position and terrain for it.

"HEY WIDE LOAD!" an obnoxious voice screamed out…

"…what?" and Flint turned towards and dismissed before double taking and realizing his luck with a bit of suspicion.

Naruto didn't answer as he started running, slower and utilizing less maneuvers than usual for this group Flint had been thrown at.

Flint roared as he began attacking the blonde with everything he had.

Never even noticing the red and black tomoed eyes glinting when he made eye contact for a moment while chasing after the blonde.

…meanwhile…

Some people probably didn't realize that when they woke up this morning that a thing that would be occurring today was 'fighting off and killing members of a murderous cult.'

That was the lot of Team Zabuza.

Haku didn't like killing but he'd rather drop bodies of these bastards rather than let them get away and cause mayhem and make corpses out of those who couldn't fight back. Too much like the Blood Mist for his taste.

So, one body being covered in senbon with a few in certain kill spots was no surprise to either of his teammates.

The idea that the strong could do whatever they want because they were strong was deeply flawed to Haku, cause sooner or later someone who was stronger would come along. Plus, if they had a sense of morals and took to heart the atrocities of the now second strongest, it would end with that now dethroned strongest being avenged of his crimes. It was all fun and games till you were on the receiving end of that philosophy.

These cultists were similar. It was fun to kill in the name of Jashin but the moment death came for them, they were begging and screaming and cursing.

'Pathetic.' Haku silently sneered.

Suigetsu and Chojuro both tore through their opponents with little trouble, though Suigetsu was letting his sadism get ahead of himself and started putting holes in his opponent rather than finishing it.

Haku was half considering placing a senbon in a kill spot on that cultist to get the boy back on track.

Four had fled after realizing just how outmatched they were. Haku couldn't decide if he was pleased that Zabuza wasn't here to see this or not, mostly because if he had been here those Jashinists wouldn't have made it away.

Haku got tired of the charade and decided to end it after Suigetsu kept screwing around and put another hole on the cultist's body in a nonlethal area. At this point, the cultist was likely to die of blood loss, a painfully slow way to go.

A flick of the wrist and the needle found its target, and the murderer fell over dead.

Suigetsu grit his shark like teeth and shouted: "Haku! What the Hell man?! I was having some fun!"

Haku barely even glanced, scanning around trying to determine if more cultists were nearby, "We have other concerns, remember the four that ran seeing that the seven of them together were barely holding the line against us? We need to find them. And there is the possibility that more were nearby."

Suigetsu deflated comically, "Oh. Right."

Haku didn't even respond and Chojuro finally finished off his personal opponent, with the shy and timid swordsman's skill and proper training beating out the cultist's bloodlust.

Explosions rang out in the distance and Chojuro spoke: "The ones who ran might have gone that way."

Suigetsu's face became deadpan as he voiced his opinion. "No shit Chojuro. Hey Haku, isn't that where the crazy snake lady and shadow guy and that other asshole came from when they came to grab Zabuza?"

Haku resisted the urge to eye roll at Suigetsu once again not caring to give proper honorifics until he recognized the question: "I believe it is. And there have been some sounds coming from that location since then occasionally. Frequently is probably a better time descriptor."

Haku inspected the senbon he had thrown to check to see if the impacts had dulled them to the point of useless and was pleased that only a few had been damaged to uselessness.

He pocketed them and began running towards the explosions.

Suigetsu yelled: "So now you want to help them? Let the Konoha Nin deal with those guys, don't make us do all the work."

Haku just stared at Suigetsu for a moment before the Hozuki sighed: "Fine, yeah I still want more fighting. Let's see if we can catch up and get em before the others do."

And the Kiri genin were off.

-Back with team 7-

Naruto groaned as another group of clones had been sliced apart by Flint's saw blade.

Even if he couldn't actually feel the pain the clones felt, he still got their memories and those contained the pain the clones felt.

Sasuke's genjutsu seemed to be working on the stone construct. The creature hadn't recognized he was being led to a cliff.

Sasuke and Hinata were pelting it with fireballs and throwing weapons. The creature was annoyed but was focusing on Naruto.

'Now to piss it off even more.' Naruto thought as he signed and yelled: "Wind Release: Dust Cloud!" and breathed out a quick and mildly strong blast of air that kicked up dust and impaired sight while the genin retreated further back to their intended kill spot. (Like a group of velociraptors. Clever girls.)

Flint's roaring and steam hissing intensified and he began moving faster than he had previously but instead of attacking Naruto, he opened his mouth and began quickly preparing his flamethrower aimed at Hinata.

Considering just how intense the exercise had been, it was probably no surprise that Naruto's mind immediately thought that his best friend (and potential girlfriend, she did ask you out on a date and you accepted) was in danger and he began trying to protect her.

Substituting with her was out as she would resist the swap with her guard up like it was. She was too far away for a Wind Release in Naruto's arsenal to reach her in time without potentially cutting her up and Water Release wouldn't reach in time either. Fire Release was no go as burning Hinata was the exact thing Naruto was trying to avoid. This left the blonde desperate.

And desperation is the mother of invention (also stupidity, remember the egg joke at the beginning?).

Naruto remembered a bit of an academy lesson on how exactly fire worked by burning oxygen and in an environment with no oxygen in the air, flames would be suffocated and die out. And another lesson popped into mind about how tornadoes and cyclones actively sucked oxygen out from the center due to how the wind forming them worked, creating a vacuum in addition to the destructive winds that those weather hazards were (in)famous for.

Naruto knew the general idea behind Water Prison but hadn't gotten it down to where he could actually use it, but the general concept of using water pressure to keep the target contained popped into his head as well.

'What if I tried to make a prison out of Wind? It would at least buy time for us to get to better ground and stop this bastard from hurting Hinata-chan.'

Normally, spur of the moment ideas like this were not good to use in a fight but Naruto was saved by the fact that this was just an exercise and not an actual fight. That and the kid excelled when the cards were down.

Plus, when love was involved usually any form of logic or rational thought goes out the window.

His move decided, Naruto rushed at Flint with just the barest hints that the Kyubi's chakra was being drawn for this move.

Naruto molded the chakra by sheer force of will rather than hand signs, a feasible and completely safe move with a mastered technique but with a desperation move and one that was freshly improvised and had no refinement this was probably the worst move he could have done.

Naruto thrust his open palm out and his molded chakra began generating the wind prison and enveloped Flint, who didn't notice the decrease of oxygen, in a cage of violent winds that began sucking out the oxygen within.

Flint fired but was shocked to see the flames barely traveled a slight distance before fizzling out entirely. "What…" before noticing the barely visible strong winds surrounding him and turned to notice Naruto holding out his hand.

Flint forced his way through the wind but not without payback as the wind gouged nicks into his stone as he forced himself through, dispelling the technique.

Flint expected the nicks to heal but noticed that they weren't for some reason!

Flint's rage redirected onto the blonde but before he could attack the resting and vulnerable target, two fireballs hit him, one red and the other blue.

That momentary distraction let Naruto catch his breath and the group continued to lead Flint on.

Naruto led the golem towards the edge of the cliff and purposefully let himself slip into Flint's punching range for just long enough to let the golem notice and punch.

"FINALLY!" The golem screamed as he punched and stepped forward only for the illusion to dispel and Flint to realize he had been played as his balance was compromised and the Naruto that he punched dissolved into smoke.

He might have regained it in time but two more fireballs to his back further put him off balance and then the fight was finished with Naruto unleashing one final wind release: "Thanks for the fight, Flint! Now tumble on down! Wind Release: Gale Palm!" and the wall of wind contacted Flint and pushed him back to send the stone being down the cliff.

Naruto gasped out as he tried to wipe the blood away from the cuts on his right hand: "Did we get him?"

Hinata walked, though more like limped considering she got blown into a tree at one point by avoiding one of the red beams only to be caught in the shock wave and the adrenaline was wearing off, over to Naruto and held his hand and began healing it while smiling: "He isn't moving, or trying to get back to us, I believe he has thrown in the towel."

Sasuke grunted out as he collapsed: "Finally. Bout time. That took hours."

"Well, you are partially correct in your judgement of time's passage, within my time dilation zone." A kind and gentle voice called out.

The ninja turned to see Naomi's kind at the moment face as she quickly checked over Hinata's healing work before applying her own touches. She then continued: "You three have witnessed Mikhail/Hideki's ability to alter time's flow for himself and those he chooses with his cords, my temporal manipulation ability allows me to produce zones where time inside and time outside move differently to one another, with time's aging of you physically matching the shorter duration side of the zone. It feels like it was 8, and possibly plus some, hours but in reality, it's barely been almost 4 hours. I took it easy on you. I could have dilated a longer duration. Doubling the duration is child's play for someone who has the hang of it."

The genin were too numb from victory to notice or care.

Hinata voiced a question that many had been thinking: "Naomi-san, how are you able to heal people as well as you do without chakra?"

Naomi smiled as she finished on Naruto and moved to Sasuke: "I possess an ability called Bio Doc. I can use my knowledge of the body to manipulate the systems, to both heal and harm. I based it quite heavily on Tsunade-sama's medical prowess. She wouldn't recognize me. I've been out of sight or in disguise the few times we met and I witnessed her ability. Based my fighting style on her close combat style heavily as I do have strength of a similar overall magnitude. The major weakness at play is that I can't heal Autoimmune disease and Allergy reactions as both are immune reactions in and of themselves and certain weapons and poisons have been made for the sole purpose of delaying or inhibiting the healing process in anyway."

Naomi finished with Sasuke and moved to Hinata and Hinata felt the damaged muscles from her bad landing get mended, even witnessed it occur with her eyes.

Naomi smiled and stood up: "All done. The time zone had been removed and time has begun resyncing. You're free to go. I need to go check on Flint before he dismisses himself. Feel free to head back and celebrate your victory however you like. You did well. Flint was handicapped in small ways at the end by his own rampaging emotions but even then, I think you could have overcome him at his finest even if he was there for the entire fight."

The genin left with stiffness in their movements while Naomi went to Flint.

"You okay there Rocky?" Naomi asked with a grin on her face.

"As well as I can be. Shame you picked up Hisashi's nicknaming habit…"

Naomi rolled her eyes: "Your thoughts on them?"

"I doubted Hisashi claims regarding their potential. Now I am certain he was correct: each are strong in their own ways. He has an eye for potential. I should have trusted him."

Naomi shrugged: "I take his claims regarding someone's potential with a tad bit of salt, but generally he's correct about it. Just has a habit of looking too closely and not seeing that some of that potential requires different means to unlock. Be it a tool or entire life choices or experiences."

The genin continued their trek back to Wave with Naruto having to deal with a minor irritation in his head that was making it a bit difficult to concentrate.

"Naruto-kun?" the soft voice of Hinata drew Naruto's mind away from the irritation and to her.

"Yeah, whatcha need?"

"Why did you tear your hand up like that?" Hinata asked with a bit of moroseness.

Naruto knew the exact moment she was referring to and answered honestly: "I just started moving without thinking. I couldn't let him hurt you, not while I could actually stop him. That was all I could think about honestly. Anything else I couldn't even care about at that point." A slight red tinge on his cheeks came up as he realized he lets his emotions and budding feelings for Hinata pull him around.

Hinata stared at him with eyes carefully looking for any sign of dishonesty or anything being hidden from her, but the only things she found were affection and a protectiveness of her far more intense than anything he reserved for his friends and anything he had displayed for her previously.

Hinata's sad expression became a tired smile accentuated by reddened cheeks and she walk over to the side of Naruto facing away from Sasuke and kept really close to Naruto for a moment.

"Hey, Hinata-chan, what are y-" and that was all that came out before Naruto went silent after Hinata quickly turned her head towards him and kissed his cheek. Both teens' blushes grew to cover their whole faces and darkened considerably.

"Thank you." Hinata said almost giggling.

Naruto could only stare with widened eyes as he rubbed the spot on his cheek where Hinata had placed her kiss.

Naruto eventually responded: "N-no problem."

Hinata giggled at his attempts at trying to look cool before her face went serious: "Not to sound ungrateful but in the future, I'd rather you worry more about yourself than protecting me. I AM a ninja and a Jinchuriki, just like you. I can protect myself. I'd rather you not risk yourself like that, because who knows just what the price will be. Please promise me."

Naruto shook his head solemnly: "I wish I could but I just can't. No promises, but I'll try."

Hinata chuckled slightly under her breath: "I don't know what I was expecting. I guess that'll work."

Sasuke just rolled his eyes at the display and minded his own business until they were finally done before he said anything: "That prison technique you pulled…was it something you've been practicing?"

Naruto laughed awkwardly: "Not…really…kinda just pulled it out of my ass."

Sasuke stared at the blonde with complete deadpan on his face, while Hinata's eyes were completely unimpressed. (hard to understand why, considering you tore the shit out of your hand)

Sasuke rolled his eyes: "Do us a favor and when you get chewed out be sure to make sure it doesn't happen where we have to hear it."

Naruto crossed his arms and puffed out his cheeks: "Excuse me for trying to protect one of my friends." Hinata momentarily forgot her unimpressment and giggled before putting her hand on his back and patting it soothingly: "There, there. Everything will be alright." Naruto forgot the act he was putting on for a moment and smiled brightly at her.

Naruto's smile dropped as he recognized the cause of the irritant in his head. 'The fox's Negative emotion sensing!' and he immediately began focusing it out and detected four signatures headed straight for them.

"Look out! Four assholes in coming!" Naruto screamed and Hinata and Sasuke responded.

Only three came out of the tree line, the three had cuts and bruises all along their bodies and the look in their eyes craved an easy kill, but they were afraid.

Naruto quickly blew a gust along the ground and kicked up cover which the three charged into.

Had these cultists been ninja, they might have stood a chance.

But raw strength and bloodlust could only do so much, skill and talent and an actual dream to reach for did so much more.

Hinata was uneasy with having to kill again so soon, but with Naruto having talked her through the guilt in his own way and Anko's own speech on killing, Hinata was better for it. She would never be completely alright with killing without care, but she wouldn't hesitate to kill those who were in her way if there was no other choice.

And with that Hinata finished her opponent swiftly with a palm to the heart, ending the cultist in a moment.

Naruto used shadow clones to confuse and disorient the cultist he picked and slowly wore the bastard down until he decided to use the surprise to end it.

One moment of sneaking later and Naruto was near to the cultist without being in the melee and signing together a sequence.

The cultist knew he was fighting a group of blondes until suddenly a blast of wind hit him and blew the murderous zealot off his feet and into a tree where everything hurt for a moment before everything went chillingly dark.

Sasuke had a bit of an easier time, the cultist never even considered he was under an illusion, it was just a matter of getting the dumbass in the right position for a quick takedown.

A few quick handsigns for a jutsu Anko had taught him 'Lightning Release: Spark Slither,' a scaled down version of Snake Thunder.

The cultist never saw it coming, and fell over dead the moment it hit him.

All three genin were tired from the test and this just made things worse but then they realized something: 'Wait, there were supposed to be FOUR!'

And then a woman popped out of the trees with an unhinged smile and an axe in her hands before throwing it in the air into a spin before reaching to catch the thrown weapon.

"Hey guys what's happening- Oh this is a mess! OH SHIT LOOK OU-Hey is that a Devil Axe?" Hisashi's voice called out as the four adults returned to see the bloodshed and Hisashi asked after seeing the cultist's axe.

And then the axe came down and somehow missed the cultist woman's hand and seemed to veer into her head and split it open, killing the woman.

The group collectively stared in silence before Hisashi broke it: "It IS a Devil Axe and it looks like she failed that skill roll. Live by Random chance, Die by Random Chance" (Ahh, the Fire Emblem jokes.)

Mikail sniggered at the joke with an expression screaming that he hated it but laughed anyways.

Then Naomi and Flint showed up to see the carnage just as the Kiri team showed up as well.

Naruto shouted: "Nice of ya to show up…WOULD IT HAVE KILLED YOU TO SHOW UP EARLIER?!" (Conveniently late timing is a bastard, man)

Hisashi waved it off, "Ah Shaddup, I'm getting close to needing to sleep."

Hideki just groaned as Naomi rolled her eyes. But the dark circles around all three of the Argos' eyes made it clear that they were tired.

Suigetsu shrugged: "I told ya man, we didn't need to get involved. The assholes got themselves offed before we even got here so there was nothing to worry about. Naruto and them had it covered. They are dead right?" he asked as a few of the adults began checking the three who had actually attacked the Konoha team rather than get their heads split open by their own weapon.

Hideki nodded. "Yep dead. This one's got a snapped neck, didn't die from it but from blood loss and/or suffocation. Might have broken their neck just right to stop the nerve and muscle impulses that control the Diaphragm. Literal definition of I have no mouth and I must scream."

Naomi nodded as well: "Heart failure. The heart was forcibly shut down. Death was near instant."

And then Hisashi just chuckled: "Don't need to really say anything about this one. I know enough about Lightning and Electric based injuries to know that's an electrocution. Hard not to considering that Lightning is my preferred Element when forced to use Elemental Manipulation. Probably had the shit zapped out of a vital organ or three, or just got the brain fried out."

Anko raised an eyebrow: "I thought you used shadows?"

Hisashi waved her off: "I do, but I used a lot of things before I discovered I could use shadows, and still do when I need a good sucker punch against anyone who thinks that I only use shadows. Plus, I'm a copycat, which comes in handy for the little bet I gave your students when an ability I copied is used. Which, by the way, let's see how they did." Hisashi's shadow manifested a tendril and it tapped the glowing mark on Naomi's forehead and the mark disappeared and reappeared on Hisashi's own forehead before disappearing a moment later.

Hisashi nodded impressed after a few moments: "very nice indeed. You figured out how to get under his skin. Flint never had the best impulse control after I did my modifications to him. Bringing his soul to the surface has had its pros and cons. His brain is very much like a supercomputer, hell it might even be made from silicon, I know his performance varies somewhat between hotter and colder temperature, but add that to actual emotions and having them added after going so long without them and it makes things a bit tricky. I never really tested if Genjutsu could affect him but I guess it would make sense considering he does have a soul for it to latch on to. Though y'all really freaked him out when his injuries from that wind dome attack wouldn't heal. I think if you guys went another round with him, the same strategy wouldn't work, though a similar one might be applicable up to even successful even if he kept his cool."

Hisashi smiled as the eye mark faded from his forehead: "good job Flint, now take a rest." Before a tendril opened up a shadow and Flint sank into it without a struggle, and after the golem had vanished into the void and the void closed the tendril split into three and rushed at Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke. The three barely had time to react but the tendril contacted their foreheads and they went wide eyed before the tendril receded back into Hisashi's shadow.

Knowledge rushed through their heads while Hisashi smiled: "I'm called a bit of an arms dealer because I can hand out knowledge or even brand-new abilities like that, I gave you three knowledge of techniques regarding your primary elements from a weapon I copied called the MCCS, the Mega Copy Chip System though it copied weapons from specially made robots."

The Konoha Nin tuned him out and the genin, ideas flowing through their minds had them in awe, concepts for attacks that had been placed along with names for them: like Storm Tornado, Speed Burner, and Electric Spark; along with many more.

Hisashi smirked: "And before I forget…" a tendril quickly rushed out and tap Haku on the forehead and he had a similar reaction: "I believe good work deserves a reward. Nicely done. Too many would be complacent and leave work to others."

Haku looked confused: "I'm afraid I don't understand."

Hisashi shrugged jovially, "what can I say, I'm a softie. Though don't let anyone convince you that you aren't a good person, Haku Yuki. Not even you."

Haku stared before nodding.

Hisashi smiled: "Now let's turn in for the day, maybe I can dig out that corpse I got for Konoha, if I can figure out where I put it. Pocket space storage is a bitch. It-"

Hideki clutched his forehead and fell to the ground screaming in pain.

Hisashi looked at the man alarmed, eyes betraying that he had an idea of what was happening.

Naruto reacted: "Is he alright?"

Hideki responded: "Yeah, or I will be. Guh. The price of being able to see the future or most forms it can take. The first time I saw you three in Konoha almost cause my brain to mush out through my nose. This is nothing." Huffing and pale the entire time.

Hisashi dropped the joking demeanor and spoke: "What happened?" "We aren't the only ones who don't belong here. We went from at least another 5 days to maybe 36 hours at best."

Hisashi cursed: "Shit. First the Fear Reaver now this. Sleeping tonight may have been the best decision we made."

Anko's eyes drilled through Hideki: "that asshole Jinpachi in your sight?"

Hideki nodded: "Someone healed him. All possible futures now include him."

Anko grinned darkly: "Good. I got a score to settle." Though she scowled slightly as her curse mark tried to activate and felt like it was poked with a handful of needles

Zabuza broke his silence: "Get in line. Kiri has a score to settle as well."

The group made for the inn.

Uncertain of the next day but ready to take the coming storm.

Though Naruto was unnerved when Kurama spoke to him: "The things these people are implying about themselves at times are ludicrous…impossible to be true… they have to be delusional."

The air changed suddenly as Hisashi's smile became plastic and a touch too wide.

"Boy, let me tell you all something…if there's one thing that I HATE more than being called delusional…it's when people do it behind my back when I am right where I can hear them…I have minor telepathy, I can sense surface thoughts from those close by…so if you're going to say things like that…say it to my goddamn face, Kurama." Hisashi started out cheerfully before his purple eyes lost their glow as they stared blankly into Naruto's eyes, accented with a plastic grin and the hissing theatrical whisper conveying his rage.

Naruto froze in terror while a single word echoed in his head from his tenant. "…What?"

Xxx

Temple of Jashin

Hidan burst into the room containing Jinpachi with scythe at the ready.

The intruders to the temple were in that room gathered around the poisoned swordsman.

Hidan was ready to attack them when the lead called out: "We have no quarrel with you, Arbiter of Jashin. We seek to aid you against an opponent you will face soon."

Hidan scoffed: "Yeah right. Do I look like my parents just fucked and I fell out a few hours ago? I don't know what god you worship but it ain't Jashin-sama which means you aren't welcome here except as blood on the floor and corpses."

The lead laughed: "Then I guess we already belonged. You will need our aid."

Hidan grit his teeth: "the hell is so scary that I need the help from a couple of pale bitches like you?"

The lead spoke as one of them continued to work on Jinpachi: "The Blighted Shadow."

Hidan went wide eyed. "He's a legend. He can't exist. No one can really kill gods."

The lead shook her head: "He can. He does. He draws his power from a source that has transcended all mortal limitations, the Dark Shade: Kagemori, alongside every Shadow Twister out there. He is here."

Hidan wanted to scream in denial. A figure both revered and feared by Jashinists. A man who rose above the limits of men and slaughtered gods, ones who stood with and against Jashin.

This backwater Sunday-group wouldn't even be a proper challenge to such a man,

As much as Hidan hated it, he had to get help.

Hidan glared: "What's in it for you?"

The lead chuckled: "each of us have a score to settle with him. Our master has a complicated relationship with the Shadow. And he has offended him. He wants to remind Hisashi of who holds the cards in their arrangements, especially after the Blighted Shadow dealt…improperly…with some of his most loyal servants."

Hidan didn't trust them, he knew better than to trust zealots of other, less righteous gods; but if they were telling the truth then he had no choice.

The lead frowned for a moment: "Though my score personally is that Hisashi Kageyami is responsible for my current state and currently holds someone I care about prisoner. I want to show him that even a skeleton in the closet can come back to haunt him."

Hidan looked at her strangely: "You look fine to me."

The lead chuckled: "On the outside mostly." But then her face darkened as she undid the clasps of her jacket and exposed the bottom of her stomach.

Hidan knew enough about killing to recognize mortal injuries and the brutal scars covering the deathly pale skin, some of which even looked like rot had set in, he knew these injuries were mortal wounds on someone who didn't get help fast, but if someone was being tortured then they would be ideal for causing the maximum amount of pain without causing the victim to expire too quickly. "Looks like you got gutted like a fish. Immortal like me?"

The lead chuckled: "I'm afraid not. I'm not really human anymore. I really did die and now I'm between life and death. I was sick before my death and two of the many illnesses I carried had…unique after effects… attached to their infections. One revived me and changed me, the other rendered me immortal to biological death causes. The latter of which I used a slow acting version of its cure mixed in the concoction in my suicide pill, masked by the actual suicide method, so as to enable its beneficial effects to be inflicted before the worst of its symptoms began to manifest. A curse for now to ensure I may see my enemy brought down."

Hidan found himself torn.

This was a woman who had been blessed by Jashin. There was no way around it.

It was the only explanation that made sense to Hidan. And his blood boiled that she had the GALL to claim it was the work of something else.

'Once this is over, I'll be fixing that misconception.'

But there was an instinct within that screamed that whatever was at play wasn't Jashin but something equally sinister. Or holy depending on your point of view which was the one Hidan favored.

And that scream was all the louder when he focused on the pin attached to the woman's jacket.

A silverish colored ornament with the image of a reptilian-like skull with horns that curved around beneath the jaw the way it was depicted.

A similar pin was on her compatriots, though the rest were covered by full body cloaks.

Jinpachi began rousing from his sleep and the one healing him stood away from him satisfied with their work.

The intruders turned to Hidan with the lead smirking to reveal a fang-like incisor: "With that done, we'll be pulling back till the battle starts. Whoever engages the Shadow will have our aid."

Each one left in their own way with the lead clutching a purplish ball in her hand before vanishing from sight. A cold chill left the room with them.

Jinpachi grunted weakly as he tried to speak: "H-How long was I…"

Senko spoke up: "Only a few days."

Hidan spoke calmly and gave Jinpachi two bowls: "You'll need something. Eat and drink and then get up. We got business to do."

Jinpachi did as told and soon the three Jashinists went to a sequestered room of the temple where massive recent renovation was clearly apparent.

Hidan pressed his ring and moments later ghosts began to appear in the room.

Jinpachi smiled as the image of Kisame and Samehada appeared.

The gathering was topped by Pain and Konan appearing.

"Report." Pain commanded.

Jinpachi informed the Akatsuki of the Jinchuriki's presence.

Pain was left in thought: "Two Jinchuriki in one location with a member nearby? These two are of primary concern. If left to their own devices for too long they will grow too strong. We must make use of the opportunity."

Pain turned to Tobi: "Any chance you could grab them?"

Tobi dropped the childish persona: "No, myself and Kisame are currently in position to ambush another Jinchuriki."

Pain closed his eyes and thought: "that is tragic. Moyo, Kakuzu. Move to assist with this capture."

"Understood."

Pain nodded: "Our mission is clear. Do not fail. We are four years off from the schedule and no Jinchuriki have been captured and we have been forced to rely on Orochimaru's Nisebi project to make progress. Any more and there will start being consequences for further failures."

The ghosts slowly vanished but Hidan started sweating as Pain's Rinnegan drilled into him.

Almost as if wordlessly whispering 'Especially you.'

End Chapter

Once again, I apologize for the overabundance of OC usage but I couldn't figure out how to push the plot forward without using them this way.

The story involving Grima is exactly how it is from Fire Emblem Awakening up until the closing of it and the start of it is a sum up of Grima's origins as revealed by Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia's Post Game chapter. I included it initially just to give a sense of foreboding after including the Brand of the Defiled/The Mark of Grima with a short reference but then it evolved into a recounting because of just how much the relationship between Grima and the Hierophant (the Player's custom character in Fire Emblem Awakening, Robin) mirrored a Biju and their Jinchuriki. And then I realized how much Grima's creator Forneus resembled Orochimaru.

Also, apologies if my fire emblem ranting goes too far. I've been working on a crossover project that involves a lot of fire emblem characters and Grima as the central threat.

The Devil Axe is a weapon from Fire Emblem that functions with heightened crit rate and crit damage like a Killer Weapon but comes with a cost of a critical attack rolling to see if the attack lands on the opponent or goes to the wielder. At least that was how it functioned in Elibe Saga titles (Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade and Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, the latter of the two American audiences know as simply Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advance as it was the first entry of the series released outside of Japan thanks to the interest generated by Super Smash Brothers Melee and the localizers for it convincing Nintendo oversight to let them keep Marth and Roy in rather than dummy them out for the international releases), some entries have it function as a curse weapon which in Fire Emblem means it is a decent weapon but it comes with damage to the character using it every time they use it in combat or every turn that passes with the unit having the weapon equipped. The usage here was based on a joke involving the Devil Axe when the roll fails and the full crit's damage goes to the weapon's user.

The Wind technique Naruto pulled against Flint at the end, Wind Prison, is an original jutsu created by Naruto30, a compatriot of RaNK001. Just giving credit where credit is due. Flint wasn't healing after it because Naruto pulled chakra from Kurama during the attack. RaNK persuaded me to use it.

That actually brings me to Flint. Flint was a character from a tactical RPG flash game from 2008 or so. (RIP ADOBE FLASH) Can't remember the title because I could never keep it in my head. I'd recognize the cover if I saw it though. Flint in that game was a heavily modified Stone Golem who could be upgraded with parts from Mech Golems for a Buzzsaw attack and parts from a Tech Golem to use a laser attack, and could get pieces to get a flamethrower which worked like fire breath attacks. Flint's brief flashback is pretty much a reference to the game, though I should note that I never finished it because of a BS boating maze segment that was on a time limit; and last time I played it was on my old laptop 5 years ago now, before the death of Adobe Flash Player. Don't think Flint really spoke or exhibited much free will in the game.

Death Starved, I'll get into him more later. The Fear Reaver as well, but if you need a mental picture of what it looks like: imagine Ridley from the Metroid series if he got turned into a Creature of Grimm. Enjoy the nightmare!

Next chapter will be the final battle of the Wave arc.

Until Next Time:

Stay Safe and Stay Healthy!

SEE YA LATER!