Chapter Sixteen: The Battle of Iwa.
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
― Voltaire
While one Naruto Uzumaki was working his revenge upon Iwa, on the other side of the continent in a crystalline chamber eight beings had begun their meeting on the rather disruptive actions of the ex-Jinchuriki. The Chamber was in contrast of what one would expect from the most secretive organization in the whole world,- was well lit and rather shiny from the runes encased in the crystal itself, the organization's failed attempts to move up to three dimensional seals which were still much more effective than any other seals on the continent. Now the lack of obscurity could be explained in any ways such as the fact that everyone knew the others identity and were more than capable of going undetected or the fact that the room they were in now was totally impenetrable to even the gaze of gods but the most likely explanation was that no one was actually inside. Indeed their meeting methods were in fact the more advanced cousin of the method the Akatsuki used being in fact a Yin chakra powered, Astral Projection allowing themselves to appear as symbols that identified them and they identified themselves with, being incomprehensible to anyone but the eight of them.
"Well, that's quite the mess the Uzumaki has stirred" the Leader chuckled, his form resembling three orbs placed within one another with the symbol of eternity in the exact center of the design, albeit it seemed to be moving much like a serpent would still following the same pattern that made up the infinity symbol, all this in what is perceived as Blue-Magenta violet.
"We should have made sure that that infernal Alliance had destroyed them all" grunted the oldest member currently alive, his form that of a golden Ox, equipped with eight wings, each of them having the color of one of the primary elements and Yin, Yang, and Yin-Yang chakra.
"That would defeat the purpose of our organization" spoke the brains (scientist) behind the operation, his form that of a Octahedron encased in an orb and containing within a symbol from the long forgotten world, the Spiral of Change, in a burning Imperial Blue, a demonstration of the potency of his Yin chakra.
"Still the boy grows stronger everyday and is now recollecting his clan and may even have found the Three dimensional seal" another member spoke, his form that of a crowned monkey, the body of the being a muddied Auburn brown, his powerful Yang energy leaking even in his Astral form,- while the crown a burning Mahogany colored construct.
"I'm sure he did and that's why we need to accelerate the plan" the Leader spoke.
"If we do so, it might mean our exposure" one of the members spoke, his from that of a teal colored, pyramid with a serpent perched on top of it.
"It doesn't matter, we have already achieved most of our goals, we have got ten times more S-ranks now than we ever did before" the Leader spoke passionately "we are the strongest generation of Section Leaders, there have been six SS-ranks created outside our control in the last seventy years, our purpose in this form is nearing its end"
"So you are saying that even if we were to be discovered we could always shed this 'skin' much like that foolish Saanin" the Golden Ox member spoke "so that we can go on with our improvements plans but under a different name… I always found Judgment to be a bit pretentious "
"Well our experiments with Mana manipulation are going along rather well even if only about five percent of our subjects have shown any natural aptitude and the rest will never advance beyond the basics" the Spiral of Change member agreed.
"So you are just going to let our entire network to be destroyed by the Uzumaki?" one of the member until then quiet asked, his form, that of a mountain cracked in half by a humanoid wielding a scalpel,- flaring in a deeper shade of crimson with his distress and anger.
"Well, it has already been lost in Iwa, except from the two already in the front lines, the Uzumaki will let none of them live" The Leader answered "thought I assume that we can fake the deaths of the others, especially with the turmoil that we will cause"
"I assume that the Big Five will not survive it?" the Golden Ox asked "perhaps Kumo or Kiri"
"Kiri would be the obvious choice, weak and producing less and less talents" the Spiral said "Kumo is the one better suited to bring war to the new village of the Uzumaki and drag the whole continent with them"
"Konoha will not accept that" the Serpent perched on top of the pyramid interfered "and they still have the power to do just that especially now that the Samurai rebellions are mostly over and the number of Academies and possible shinobi has increased by a factor of five"
"I have high hopes for Konoha but we have two obstacles in our way" the Leader said "order your contacts to have Danzo killed and then offer our contact within the Council our help in taking care of Tsunade afterwards"
"Such a shame for the Senju specimen" the Spiral sighed "but you forget Danzo was the Third's rival for a reason and short of sending one of us, I see no other way and even then it won't be very quiet"
"You misunderstood me" the Leader chuckled "Cracker, you will enter Konoha immediately and influence the Hokage to execute Danzo and make sure that she succeeds in doing so despite his Sharingan eyes and then help our contact takeover"
"Immediately my lord" the member of the cracked mountain replied and his astral image shimmered away.
"Good with this. We end our month's meeting" the Leader declared "oh and Spiral be a dear and try to get your hands on the Uzumaki's blood, I have it on good authority that Suna's crippling was done through structured mana rather than chakra"
Meanwhile in Iwa
Their supposedly invincible barriers and defenses had fallen and for the first time in its history Iwa found itself fighting to preserve itself. Don't get it wrong, at times enemy forces had made it as far as the outer walls but the powerful barrier, massive defense structures and the very defensive nature of their main Chakra nature had ensured that no enemy army ad ever stepped on Iwa proper and yet at that very moment all their defenses had fallen to the might of a supposedly forgotten technique and thousands of clones had invaded the village. This of course explained the towering rage of the Tsuchikage was feeling at that moment as he dispatched the orders to evacuate the civilians and all gennin that were in the village to preserve a bit of their culture should the village fall. The thing that actually made him lose control of his anger, to the Tsuchikage was that unlike other villages they had never built shelters thinking themselves invincible and that not even him who had survived Madara Uchiha had never though them necessary and now they were forced to evacuate the village much like the Uzumaki were forced to leave the village in boats to survive the onslaught, right before most of them were sunk by the Kiri navy.
Already the causalities were mounting to far larger numbers than anyone could predict, especially for an army made out of clones although more than half the clones had been dispelled in the first ten minutes of the fight although the rest had adapted to their techniques and were being harder to bring down. The real trouble stood in the twelve clones in the red swirl cloaks as they seemed way too independent to be normal clones, not to mention they stood head and shoulders from your typical clone, especially in the demolition department. Mere moments later, just as a batch of special orders were issued, the Kage's tower shook as the bottom half of it was pulverized by a boulder –sized Rasengan and everyone still alive was forced to abandon the falling wreckage.
The dust clouds were quickly dissipated as a thirteenth blonde in a black cloak with red swirls came forward, his face adorned by an ear splitting grin as he moved forward with the gait of someone not concerned about the dozens of A-rankers surrounding the Tsuchikage or about the fact that the Tsuchikage was the oldest living Kage for a reason. The why was made clear when two of the most trusted guards of the Tsuchikage sent a fire-earth dragon combo at him only for it to hit a barrier that became visible for a moment, shinning a bright crimson,- disintegrating the technique before returning to its normally invisible state. At that exact moment, Naruto's left eye shifted to it's, frankly terrifying, - blood red Rinnengan form and with that the chakra he had been holding back burst forward and everyone in the cliff where the towers was once situated, felt as if they had been thrown in front of a pissed of Dragon of legends as immeasurable heat and anger slammed into them.
"What do you want Uzumaki?" Oonoki asked, unleashing his own chakra to afford his underlings a measure of protection from Naruto's KI "what do you hope to gain by attacking an entire village"
"Didn't you hear me the first time?" Naruto asked cocking his head to the side "I want what you took from me, I want revenge"
"You would do this for a beast?" the Tsuchikage asked, stupefied.
"No, not for a beast" Naruto snarled "I would do this for family"
"What…" the Tsuchikage began but was interrupted as the world went white.
Kakuzu of the Seventh Heart was regarded as the most powerful shinobi of his time for having killed Hashirama thought that was somewhat untrue as while it was true he had struck the last blow he had in fact only profited from the fight of Madara and Hashirama and the wounds he had already received. His return to his village had been glorious and for almost a decade he had done everything in his power to make it into one of the Big Five and when the opportunity arose he took it and while Konoha mourned the death of its Second Hokage, he had stricken against it, helped by the oppressed Uchiha and at the end of the day Konoha had burned, its Third Hokage dead before he could amount to anything, despite him losing two hearts because of him. Where once Konoha stood Taki built its greatest Academy and monument to their power.
In the following decades he had reduced the Big Five to the Big Four as Iwa fell to his alliance with Kumo and he earned his Sixth heart as he ripped it from the chest of Oonoki. In the years to come after that victory he earned his Seventh heart, having pushed his technique to height unseen,- from the chest of the Third Raikage when he foolishly attacked, hoping that by killing him, his village could finally take the spot as the strongest among the Big Four. Ironically his death came, a few months later when his most trusted guard and pupil, Minato Namikaze killed him when he was short one heart after one assassin got to close to being lucky for his own comfort. His death however was not fast or swift like his pupil liked to grant other people, on the contrary he was thrown into the Abyss between dimension to be ripped apart from beings that didn't exist and yet there they did. His escape came when a group of being that even now he couldn't quite comprehend tore through the non-things surrounding them and offered him a chance at living again if only to fight as a gladiator in their twisted games and he had no choice but to accept as the non-beings didn't even leave his soul to go to the afterlife but continued to gnaw on it, unable to damage it but unwilling to leave it go and trapped him there torturing him with pain beyond measure.
Which brought him to serving a boy with enough power to fight him in his prime and a full set of seven hearts and with a grudge towards Iwa, well at least he wasn't alone and each every one of his companions was more than a match for him even in life. There wasn't enough time to reminiscence in the middle of the battlefield as a group of Iwa shinobi assaulted him, granted they were all very skilled and coordinated and his resurrection left him unable to use his most power Seven Hearts technique but still they though him a clone, a more powerful clone than normal but still a clone, - which would cost them dearly. A tentacle emerged thanks to his technique and a stupefied shinobi who had gotten too close to him lost his head as the tentacle went through his neck as hot knife through butter. Then things went white for a moment as some jerk used a suicide technique on him while he was distracted with beheading one of his friends. As he regenerated his upper body he found himself pinned to the ground by three shinobi who had began scribbling seals as soon as they saw him regenerating.
Distracted by such a thing they missed a squadron of clones come behind them and assault them with chakra chains and one of them fell with his chest filled with the aforementioned chains. The other two, obviously veterans or at least in the loop about the most secretive technique on the continent,- dodged and immediately engaged the clones to stop them from freeing the immortal S-rank but they forgot that he had three squadrons assigned to him and the twenty clones that had stealthy approached had him out of the seal within five seconds. Annoyed at having been played, he started off with the element he was most familiar with as a titanic wave of water overtook the fighting clones and Iwa shinobi and slammed them to the ground painfully. Lightening arched over his body as he propelled his body to very, very high speeds and one of the two shinobi became a red mist once he impacted he man while a gigantic crater opened up where he had impacted with a deafening explosion.
The second shinobi attacked with a series of jutsu and he answered in kind, enjoying the panicked look of his prey realizing that alone he stood no chance to block, de-summon or escape him or the fact that he was running out of chakra quickly and was a master of only three releases while I had them all and a few extra ones. Three minutes later, in the ruins of the great buildings of Iwa, the shinobi he had been fighting was blown away by a powerful gust of wind, at the same time the Tsuchikage tower 's bottom half was atomized,- and using that distraction he used a technique that he enjoyed the irony of, especially how his prey eyes widened when he heard him utter "Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World". Satisfied, Kakuzu turned around to join the thick of the fight just as a man cloaked in shadows disappeared in them to report to his allies. In the thick of the fighting none of them noticed a flash of green light as a large amount of engraved runes appeared around the crater the Dust release created and from them small amounts of smoke rose.
On the other side of the village, Itachi the Blind God tore his way through entire squads of shinobi accompanied by nearly thirty shadow clones hidden from view and about two hundred of them in plain sight. His milky white eyes uncovered by the transformation and neither was the small ring of grey that announced that he was a resurrected ninja and yet he moved like his eyes worked properly which not even the technique could give but it didn't bother or weaken him in the slightest as he had lost his sight when he had killed Danzo in revenge for him taking Sasuke in his Root program and killing the third despite his promise. A gigantic earth dragon rose against him and his charges but was swiftly cut down from a stream of lightening from his index finger. As the pieces were falling a wave of chakra encompassed them and they changed direction and almost half of his visible charges exploded into plumes of smoke despite their wooden armors.
His highly developed chakra senses quickly located his enemy, a young looking shinobi whose one left eye was missing or at least his chakra network in that area was so screwed up that even if they eye could work, it would be more of an obstacle that any real help in fast paced shinobi combat. A fireball the size of a house crashed on the Iwa nin location but he was long gone and it was only the miniscule vibration as he touched the concrete behind him that warned of the impending attack and he dodged right as a leg crashed on his previous position, tearing through the concrete and kicking up a large cloud of dust. A discrete application of Wind chakra and the dust cloud grew larger and irremovable giving him an edge as he was used to fighting without the aid of visual input while his opponent while missing one eye would have to do without. His movement toward him was however stopped by a spike of concrete rising at a miniscule flicker of his enemy's chakra. He dodged it mostly on instinct as he did the following blast of water which passed overhead as he ducked though he couldn't dodge the over head kick that sent him many floors below to meet the actual ground as his body created a crater upon impact.
A thick column of thunder crashed upon his form or it would have if he hadn't created a massive column of wind which tore through the floors and blew up most of the terrace. His enemy however was once more gone and was standing right behind him and was about to tear his chest to shreds with a lightening enhanced kunai. A massive torrent of visible chakra exploded from Itachi's body as a titanic figure formed out his whitish-blue chakra, forming the image of a blindfolded Buddha, the mighty Acala, the Immovable Protector,- the building being destroyed as he rose. Blue flames quickly surrounded the mighty humanoid construct as his white eyes gained a slight red tinge in them as his version of the Susano'o rose without the aid of the Cursed Eyes. His opponent was forced to retreat as a flaming sword crashed upon his location but didn't escape unscathed as the blue flames exploded outwards in a crescent arc towards him and while he dodged the worst his left side was burned badly.
As a counter to his technique, his opponent created a massive Earthen Dragon, even taller than is construct and rode on top of it. The dragon launched a massive wave of pressurized water that split off in the middle and easily sliced the flaming constructs arms and continued to destroy a few unlucky clones and buildings. Now since his transformation had yet to fail, his enemy made the mistake of thinking he was an extremely durable clone and would eventually run out of chakra especially maintaining such a large construct and that combined with the slight faltering of attention from the massive explosion of the Tsuchikage tower, spelled his doom as within a fraction of a second the dragon exploded as the flaming construct faded away and violet flames melted the dragon way. To his credit his opponent survived but since in various places his flesh had melted away, he wouldn't live for much longer. In a suicidal move he grabbed him and used a suicidal move to kill him and raze everything for hundreds of meters judging by his remaining chakra though that failed as both figures were enclosed in a black bubble which enlarged slightly for a few moments before it burst and from it and old man with milky white eyes emerged steaming as his body regenerated to show a battle armor with the kanji for Sixth Hokage. Once more a flash of white light went unnoticed by the blind man as thousands of small runes appeared on the sides of titanic gash caused by his flaming Buddha.
Haku of the Demon Mirror, stepped out of one of his silvery mirrors as once more everyone of the five hundred shinobi inside his encirclement had died,- adjusting the replica of his own Samehada he had wielded for over forty-years before he had died and joined those damned gladiator games. Although the blade was far inferior in chakra absorbing abilities, he really didn't need them but since his style had evolve to use such a blunt instrument during his life , he kept requested it, of course such a thing had nothing to do with nostalgia and everyone who said so did it at his/her own peril. He was almost blindsided by a kick infused with a particularly familiar chakra but that he couldn't pinpoint in time but still felt that dodging was the better option. It proved a wise choice as while it wouldn't have really hurt him I might have revealed the nature of his existence to one informed enough and to say the truth, watching an entire building blow up was rather from a kick was quite spectacular and he wouldn't have been able to enjoy it while regenerating from being blown to bits.
The woman who had attacked him, he recognized her as one of his many lovers from back when he was alive and one he had been rather fond of until she tried to kill him and of course failed. Seeing her slightly younger than when he had first meet her certainly excited him as he would have the chance to fight her before she had been almost crippled permanently from Deidara and thus had been reduced to a mere A-rank. A metal fist jumped toward him and he dodged and her fist impacted the gigantic rock outcropping behind him causing a quarter of it to split from the rest as it broke in hundreds of smaller fragments. The sky was covered into a rain of ice spears that rained upon her but she quickly covered herself into an impenetrable earthen dome. The Samehada clone crackled with energy as it impacted the dome and it fell away but stopped as it meet an open metal hand which grounded the electricity by having a foot partially into the ground.
As the ground broke away from the large amounts of chakra infused electricity a metal fist stroke the blade but instead of breaking it merely dented it as a part of her chakra was siphoned away thus reducing her strength to manageable levels. Grinning like a loon at finding a worthy opponent, her strength not quite at the same level as Tsunade's and yet covered by her near invulnerability,- he put his blade away and begun the hand-seals for his most feared jutsu. The woman was not idle as she sped toward him her body entirely metallic but was thwarted by a layer of ice popping up unexpectedly which caused her punch to divert slightly and miss his chest and hit his right hand partially, pulverizing it and stopping his technique prematurely . Haku jumped away as his and reformed and dodged and a dropkick id-air by creating a piece of ice and using I to push himself away as the kick him the three quarters of the rock outcrop, shattering it completely. Involved in the fight no one noticed the red flash of light as thousands of cracked runes became visible in the falling pieces.
Unfortunately for his opponent, this time he had completed the hand seals and that world saw for the first time his greatest technique "Ice Release: Broken Ice Barrier" and a massive amount of ice formed as within a certain perimeter the temperature dropped to absolute zero and even the chakra infused metal that covered the woman was frozen solid. While the temperature drop didn't kill her, the chakra infused punch certainly did as se exploded into hundreds of small flash-frozen pieces. With a bloodthirsty grin he let his two mirrors dissipate and then cancelled the invisible Ice chakra sphere.
The explosion of the Tsuchikage tower and the battle that soon followed, visible even from the outer walls of Iwa,- had spurn the defenders of Iwa to fight with even greater fervor even if they had soon understood that it was in fact a losing battle. Twenty minutes into the battle and Hiruzen of the Unquenchable Flame had already cut a swath up to the center of the village itself, none of the enemies in his way being a match for the Uzumaki scion. Another building fell as one of his Earthen Dragon Shells hit it with the power of a thousand normal-grade explosive notes. Scoffing internally at the foolishness of the Iwa Nin he dodged a chakra enhanced kunai, which upon contact vaporized the entire block of buildings or what was left of them anyway. A Chakram almost took his head away as he dodged the Explosive release kunai but once more his century and a half of experience and vast array of skills saved him from such a useless injury by manipulating a gust of wind to replicate the Uzumaki Flying corps ability, minus the seals.
Both his attackers, he judged from their movements and chakra levels,- were S-rankers if only in the average of such ranks power and skill. Unfortunately for them they had picked a fight with the strongest of Naruto's Twelve Destroyers, in fact it had been nothing more than the sheer overwhelming power Naruto possessed that had led to his defeat in the first place. Both of them made the mistake of engaging an Uzumaki Juggernaut in his physical prime,- in a fight of Taijutsu and were easily held at bay, aided by the fact that the explosive release of the man had been easily rendered useless by expert minor injections of Wind chakra in his opponents fist. The woman with the chakrams had proven a tad bit more skilled in close range but fell short of his century of experience. An earthen dragon rose to crush him, courtesy of the chakram wielding lady but they quickly realized that one didn't engage an Uzumaki in a jutsu battle, as the dragon exploded outwards as his "Fire Release: Great Bahamut Rebirth" rose in its full glory, its gigantic body made out of sheer, red, fire-natured chakra that melted everything around its body as it rose to stand as tall as the former Tsuchikage tower.
The explosion as the Fire Bahamut struck threw both of his enemies apart from one another as it tore apart multiple city blocks and created a forty meters deep crater in that space. He blurred towards his Advanced Chakra Nature enemy, not for his skill but for the fact that they were a tricky opponent once they caught up to the pace of the fight,- and inserted a kunai into his heart. Unfortunately for him, his enemy had already replaced himself with an explosive clone, unfortunately for his opponent his explosive release manifested mostly in heat form and thus using the "Fire Release: Blazing Circulation " he came out unscathed and spinning through the air wreathed in blue flames, he then struck the ground like a meteorite, destroying the buildings around him and wounding his enemy through the shrapnel. He moved in for the kill but was stopped by the Chakram welding kunoichi though by rushing to her comrades defense, she had left a small gap in her stance and thus found herself with a lightening kunai stuck in her right lung.
A powerful kick from Hiruzen sent the recovering man back into the ground where a spike of earth finished him. Turning to the wounded female, Hiruzen's face as well as his outer mask,- softened as he approached her and spoke in a benign voice.
"You should have left as soon as you realized you were no match for me" he spoke, his voice transmitting his regret "your skill and care for your fellow shinobi shouldn't have had to die here"
"Go to hell" the woman spat.
"I have already been there" Hiruzen chuckled "it's not so bad really, think of it as a prison that you can be freed for good behavior"
"You're crazy" she exclaimed using her chakram to cut his head off only to revel it was a shadow clone.
"Perhaps but you will not live to find out" he spoke as his kunai pierce the base of her skull, killing her instantly
During his battle, nobody had quite seen the blue flash of light as Hiruzen's jutsu had destroyed a table filled with runes, hidden about thirty meters into the ground and those few who had noticed had dismissed it as nothing more than a flash of lightening or the blue flames that had been so prominent that day. Nobody however missed the massive earthquake that shook the entire Earth Country, as Iwa fell apart and from the depths of earth a figure flew out.
Naruto had been giving his fight with the Tsuchikage and his guards the finishing touches, his plasma cannon doing all the talking, as plasma shells were fired from it faster than sound. He had initially thought about fighting them himself but after killing five of them in about ten seconds, he had just drawn his own prototype of handheld plasma cannon and proceeded to destroy the entire defensive contingent that had protected the Tsuchikage and not even Dust Release had served for anything more than a nice but ultimately futile defense. It was then a wave of lava tried to crush him but failed as a single Plasma shell blew it away and he was soon facing the third person who had been there when his friend and family had been ripped from him, the niece of the Tsuchikage himself. However before he could start pummeling her the world shook and the very natural energy screamed as something broke and the land was washed with an immense power that few mortals could feel and yet he did feel it and recognized him even without the notification.
[Iwa's Final Boss has been prematurely released, all bow to Earth Elemental Lady, Sairazul, the Unyielding Queen]
"Take everyone you can and leave now" Naruto turned toward the Tsuchikage and his niece.
"You think an earthquake is enough" the young woman exclaimed in anger.
"Oonoki you must have felt it" Naruto pleaded "leave now before your very souls are forfeit"
"I felt it" Oonoki nodded "and that's why we shall leave but your sins shall not be forgotten"
"Nor will yours old man" Naruto replied with a bloodthirsty grin "if I survive this, I will find you and end your life with my own hands"
"Who do you…" the girl began but was silenced by Oonoki with a chop to her neck.
Throwing the girl into his shoulder he flew away moments before a figure crashed right across him but he was not alone as he was joined by his twelve destroyers