Opening - Rolling Star by Yui

X

"Taking that job was the best mistake I ever made."

Naruto opened his mouth to make a reply to his kenjutsu sensei, but he was interrupted in a way no one expected at all. From one of the corners of the room, namely the one with a ladder resting in it, there came a quick few knocks on the roof.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Naruto Uzumaki! Naruto, are you down there!?"

"Akatsuki," Sasuke growled and moved to climb out of his sitting position, but he was stopped by Naruto's arm whipping into his chest with frightening speed and strength. "Hn?"

"I know that voice," Naruto explained with wide eyes.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata questioned, as the Hokage stood and flash-stepped across the room. "Who... is she? I've never heard that woman's voice before..."

Naruto drew his saber, and unlocked the trapdoor in the ceiling with his left hand. "If this is a trap, I'm gonna destroy whoever's up there," he announced solemnly, then opened the door.

The next instant, a young-looking woman in a red robe leapt down through the opening, not bothering to use the ladder. She wrapped her arms around Naruto, laughing and spinning him around in a bear-hug. "Naruto! I knew it, I just knew you were really here!"

Sakura lightly nudged Hinata's elbow with her own. "Hey, you don't think he's... you know...?"

"No," Hinata shook her head. "Whoever she is, she and Naruto-kun aren't involved like that. He'd never do that, but... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little jealous right now," she admitted sheepishly. "Just a little."

"But then... who is she?"

This question was swiftly answered by Naruto's laughing voice naming her, "Kaachan!"

"...Whoa."

"She must be a lot older than she looks," Tenten remarked.

Kushina stopped spinning her son around, still laughing, giving the others a moment to notice that her robe and hair were the exact same shade of red, and the cuff of the left sleeve had been torn off and fashioned into a blindfold that covered her eyes. Over what was visible of her face, there were a few faintly visible cracks that marked her as an Edo Tensei.

"Kaachan... how... how are you here!?"

Kushina smirked. "In Akatsuki, there's this one particularly creepy guy called Kabuto Yakushi, and he had the bright idea of summoning me with Edo Tensei... but he hasn't updated my programming, even though he's gotten much better at using the jutsu since then. I have a few preset commands I can't ignore... 'don't attack any member or members of Akatsuki.' There's no loophole there, but 'attack Naruto Uzumaki on sight?'" she pointed to her blindfold with a proud grin. "That one was so easy to get around."

"So how did you get here blindfolded!?" he asked incredulously.

"I didn't! I'm not stupid like that, believe it!" Kushina lightly, playfully cuffed her son's shoulder. "I found my way here by tracking the fragment of my soul in your Eight Trigrams Seal, but I still had to see where I was going. So I only put the blindfold on before I knocked at the door, ya know?" She turned to the crowd of shinobi she knew were watching, even though she couldn't see them. "So which of you lovely young ladies is Hinata Hyuuga?"

"U-Um..." Hinata spoke up timidly for the first time in ages, almost wishing she had a hoodie to hide in again. "T-That's me..."

"Oh, she sounds so cute!" Kushina squeed. "I wish I could see her... but I have an 'attack on sight' order for her too..."

"Wait." Naruto grinned as he spoke up. "'Attack on sight?' Not 'kill on sight?' Doesn't that mean you could use some lame D-rank jutsu to attack us? And then you could stop, because 'attack us on sight' doesn't necessarily mean 'keep attacking as long as you can see us,' ya know?"

Kushina thought on that for a moment, then grinned. "Naruto, I'm so proud of you." She then whipped off the blindfold and glomped him twice as hard as before. "Forbidden Taijutsu: Spine-Crushing Iron Maiden!"

"Hey, what the hell!? I said a lame D-rank jutsu! I don't want my spine crushed!"

"It's just a cool name, stupid!" Kushina laughed and turned to Hinata, firing a chakra chain to wrap around her and pull her into the hug as well. "She is cute!" Kushina laughed loudly, this time spinning both Naruto and Hinata around. "So Hinata-chan, has Naruto popped the question yet?"

"We've been m-married for a year," Hinata answered quickly, "And c-could you please put us down!?"

Kushina set down Naruto and Hinata, looking up at the ceiling with a miserable expression. "Married already... damn it, I've missed so much..."

"Well uh," Naruto glanced around and fought off his dizziness, "You're here now, so you don't have to freak out about it, ya know?"

"Yeah, I guess you're..." Kushina looked down at Naruto again, then froze at the sight behind him. "...right."

"Hello again, Kushina," Kurama grinned up at her.

"Yo, Furball," she returned the greeting.

"Sorry about wrecking your village again."

"And killing me."

"That was in self-defense."

"And Minato."

"Even more so." Kurama's wicked grin faded. "I really am sorry, but all I can say is that I'm not your real enemy. You know that by now."

Kushina sighed. "Fine. But I get dibs on killing Madara."

"No you don't," Naruto interrupted. "You go to the back of the line. Sorry, but you're not getting any special treatment just because you're my kaachan. Kurama had dibs first, by about a hundred years."

"...Fuck."

"Yeah, I know," the Hokage answered sympathetically.

"No, I mean fuck!" Kushina repeated, louder. "Akatsuki can see where I am!" Naruto's eyes were the first to go wide, but the others quickly gave the same reaction. "Seal me, now!"

Naruto's hand flashed upward and he laid a hand on his mother's forehead, removing it to reveal the Sealing Tag he'd placed there. He guided her down gently to the floor. "Kaachan, can you still hear me?"

"...Mhm," she murmured, seemingly unable to move even her mouth.

"Can you tell us what Akatsuki is doing now?"

"...Mm-mm."

"Damn it," Naruto swore. "Hinata?"

"Byakugan." Activating her eyes, she glared down at the floor while perceiving everything around her. "I can see ninja in Akatsuki uniforms approaching from all sides. They're trying to keep us from escaping."

"How many?"

"...Five. And an Edo Tensei wearing a red hooded cloak... it's the Fourth Kazekage!"

"I know his jutsu," Gaara announced. "Tenten, you and I should deal with him."

Naruto nodded. "If there's only five of them, we can take most of them two-on-one, but they aren't here for us. They want the Three-Tails! Gaara and Tenten, take Yagura to the lake and fight off the Fourth there. Then take Isobu, keep going and get-"

He was cut off by an explosion of chakra from Kushina, throwing him away from her. She stood, clad in a one-tailed Version One cloak, as the Sealing Tag fluttered down from her forehead. Her eyes were blank and soulless.

Kurama leapt to his feet and threw himself into Naruto's chest, disappearing into the Eight Trigrams Seal. "Hinata, with me!"

"Right!" she leapt to his side and drew her staff. "Keep her off me while I enter Sage Mode. The rest of you, stay out of the way and be ready to fight the Akatsuki; I'm going to identify them with the Byakugan!"

Kushina sent a dense volley of chakra chains forward, and Naruto raised his right arm across his chest with an open hand. "Banshou Karu!" A smaller but thicker than usual crescent of metal flew from his wrist as he chopped through the air. It split the tide of chains apart, and Naruto aimed his left hand at the opening between the two halves. "Shinra Tensei!" his second jutsu pushed away the two halves of the chain attack into the walls to Kushina's left and right harmlessly, while also pushing the Banshou Karu blade into her with more force. She exploded into ash, and Naruto took the oppurtunity to draw his sword again.

"I've got them," Hinata announced. "Sasori!"

"We can take him," Karin volunteered, "Kimimaro and I. Which way?"

"South," Hinata answered. "Deidara!"

"That's us, Sakura," Sasuke replied.

"Cha!"

"He's northeast! There's a Hyuuga, one who went missing during the Coup. A young woman with black hair, due west!"

"I've fought her," Suigetsu spoke up. "She's fast, and a taijutsu specialist."

"Go, and take Juugo with you," Kimimaro ordered firmly. When Suigetsu looked at the calm older boy, he shuddered. "Take my word; you'll be safe with him."

"Who else?" Naruto asked as his mother finished regenerating with the help of her cloak, which then advanced to two tails.

"Kisame Hoshigaki. He's with Kakuzu; it looks like he's recovered from my attacks somehow. They're east of here!"

"We'll take them when we're done here. Hina-chan, you can fight Kakuzu, but I want to fight Kisame alone as a favor to Zabuza-sensei."

"And I'm coming to see that," Zabuza nodded.

"Right, you have your orders!" Naruto finished, forming a Rasengan in his left hand before throwing it up into the roof. The earth and stone above was ground into a fine dust that exploded up out of the hideout. "Go!"

"Yes, Hokage-sama!"

They leapt away, leaving Naruto and Hinata to face Kushina in what was left of the hideout. "Sorry, you two," she murmured sadly. "If I hadn't tried to visit you, they wouldn't have found you through me."

"Don't worry about it, kaachan." Naruto grinned. "They would've looked through all of the lakes in this area big enough for Isobu. And we're gonna kick their asses anyway, believe it!"

"Heh... I really hoped you wouldn't inherit my verbal tics."

"Apparently the Uzumaki Clan has had 'em for a really long ti-!" Naruto yelped and barely managed to use his sword to block his mother's clawed hand on its path to his throat. He retreated backward, blocking more of her swipes at his vitals, then jumped again when Hinata blindsided and punched his mother away with senjutsu-enhanced strength.

"Sorry about that, Uzumaki-san."

"Ah, don't worry. I can't feel it anyway!" Kushina picked herself up and cracked her neck. "Don't hold anything back, you two."

"Anything?" Naruto grinned excitedly. "Okay, well I guess this would be a good chance for me to show off for you, kaachan!" Black smoke exploded up from around his feet to hide his form momentarily, and when he emerged he was clad in the bone armor of his Version Three cloak. "What do you think?"

"I think it's awesome, but you should hurry up and use it!" Kushina replied as she attacked again, this time by spitting out dozens of small glowing orange chakra spheres. Naruto deflected each chakra bullet easily, then flash-stepped to appear behind his mother with his sword raised. "Crap-"

His sword cut her in two from her left shoulder to right hip, and her chakra cloak turned blood-red before exploding and flinging Naruto away.

He skidded along the floor of the hideout with a cry of surprise, then pain as he slammed into the wall. Hinata glanced in his direction to be sure he was safe, before engaging a four-tailed Kushina in a Version Two cloak. The vulpine creature exchanged blows with her readily and ferociously. She's stronger and faster like this... it's almost like I'm fighting Naruto-kun without his sword...

Kushina got a lucky hit in and dug a claw into her belly, prompting her to spring back and examine the damage. The barrier over the point where she had been struck was bubbling and glistening red. "Incredible..." her demonic chakra can actually burn my armor... she deactivated it, then blinked in surprise as she heard a quiet sizzling sound coming from under the armor plate on her right shoulder. It damaged the seal!? Maybe I shouldn't be using this armor against her...

She deflected several more swipes of Kushina's claws with her staff, then frowned as she saw it turning black and smoking where Kushina touched it. Damn it, at this rate I won't have any ninja tools left by the time I go to fight Kakuzu again... and I shudder to think how that old creep will react if Uzumaki-san manages to burn holes in my outfit.

Naruto appeared between Hinata and Kushina then, and blocked her next swipe with the edge of his blade. "Damn, she's actually burning the edge off of my sword!" Kushina retreated to ninjutsu range, snarling. "What about you, Hina-chan?"

"Her chakra is damaging my armor, and burning my staff," she replied unhappily. "Is there anything we can do to counter this?"

"I don't think so. But I don't think this is how all Version Two cloaks work; mine didn't do it. Maybe this is a Tailed Beast Skill she developed before I was born?"

It is, Kurama answered. Rather than trying to counterract the caustic properties of my red chakra, she intentionally made it as damaging as she could. Once she started taking control over a portion of my reserves... it isn't purple chakra like yours; it's more like she split off a chunk of my chakra and hid it from me... she could make it even hotter. It burns her enemies as if she's made of fire.

What can we do?

You mean, to keep her from burning Hinata's clothes off? Under his bone mask, Naruto blushed deep red. Because that's really the only extra danger here. Both of you are protected by your own unique chakra. Naruto, you're wearing a chakra cloak, and Hinata's body is too durable to be seriously burned thanks to her senjutsu. If it were anyone else, her chakra would be a serious threat... you two got lucky. The worst you have to worry about is damage to your weapons and Hinata's outfit. You still have to worry about Kushina herself, but her cloak shouldn't be a problem.

Naruto watched with wide orange eyes as his mother began spitting out balls of clear blue and dark red chakra. And what about that?

...I take it back. If that much acidic chakra hits you, you'll feel it.

Great. Naruto held out his sword at his side, forming a wind-natured Rasengan on it. Kushina continued to charge her attack, and as she began assembling it Naruto finished his own jutsu. "Sorry about this, kaachan. Wind Release: Rasenshuriken!"

Kushina, however, sped up the formation of the Tailed Beast Ball and fired it before Naruto's attack could get past hers. The two mighty ninjutsu collided near the center of the room, where they both exploded.

X

Karin felt the earth shake, and she glanced over her shoulder to see a pale blue and red flickering light shining faintly through the forest from far away. "Holy shit, they're really going at it back there. Naruto's mom must be really strong."

"She's an Uzumaki," Kimimaro replied. "It seems to run in the family." At first, Karin assumed he meant Naruto, but after a moment she recalled her own ancestry and blushed faintly at his compliment.

She could feel his chakra boiling up, most likely preparing to unleash a specific Shikotsumyaku jutsu at a moment's notice. "...We're getting close," she observed. "I can feel an S-rank chakra up ahead. So what do we know about this guy Sasori, anyway?"

Kimimaro remained silent for a moment, then turned to her with an amused smirk. "You volunteered us to fight him, and you don't know what he can do?" Karin shrugged. "Alright... he's a puppet master, probably the greatest one alive today. He prefers to coat all of his weapons in extremely potent poisons which he personally creates, meaning that he's the only one who knows the antidotes. And at some point during our fight..." Kimimaro briefly closed his eyes and scowled, "...he'll be using the bodies of the Sound Four as puppets."

Karin flinched. "Damn... I'm sorry, Kimimaro."

"Don't be. I know it's a cruel thing to say, but I never really knew them so it won't bother me to fight them." he sighed after a moment. "On the other hand, I recognize that they were powerful shinobi, and even though their Cursed Seals should be useless now that they're dead, they were still powerful."

"...Okay, so what's our plan, then?"

"I'll catch any attacks Sasori aims at you, since I have my armor and shield. You're faster, so you have a better chance of getting to him and killing him, but because a single hit from his weapons can kill you, I'll need to cover you. I'll also need to make him think I'm the greater threat, so I'll attack him as well to distract him from what the hell-"

Kimimaro cried out in surprise as Karin tackled him, and together they tumbled down through the canopy of the rainforest. After a few moments of disorientation, he managed to gather his chakra and form a long, skeletal arm extending from his own right shoulder to catch a tree limb. Karin did the same with a chakra chain.

"Ninja wire," she explained simply.

"N-ninja wire!?" Kimimaro repeated, wide-eyed. If we'd kept going right into it, at that speed... "Thanks, Karin." the bone arm detached from his shoulder, allowing him to drop down to the nearest limb and land on his feet next to Karin. "So, he's above us right now?"

Karin nodded. "I can see him with my Kagura Shingan."

In an instant, his full suit of bone armor grew out and wrapped around his entire body, and his Cursed Seal was fully activated. He was wearing a suit of streamlined, close-fitting but thick platemail over his whole body, with an ancient-looking close helmet and a matching set of leg armor to protect what had previously been weak spots in his defense. The four diagonal spikes of bone from his Cursed Seal were also present, extending from his back as usual, but his tail was gone.

His chosen weapon was no longer a lance but a long, thin two-handed sword. Without sacrificing its piercing efficiency, his weapon could now cut the enemy as well. In place of his old kite shield, he now wielded one with a broad, though very clear, cruciform shape. The inward curves between all four limbs of the cross-shield would allow him to peek around his defense. It smaller and lighter than his kite shield, but much more substantial than the small heater shield he'd been experimenting with.

"Once I start fighting him, look for a path to attack him from behind, but please, Karin." He turned to her and added slowly, "Don't let him hit you."

She nodded. "He's not gonna kill me, believe it."

Kimimaro remained silent for a moment, then turned his gaze back upward and leapt toward Sasori. Karin watched attently, hearing several dozen senbon rattle harmlessly off Kimimaro's shield. After a moment, Sasori himself came into view, a half-masked, hunched-over older man with a very odd hairstyle.

Wait a second... Karin focused her lesser-known doujutsu on Sasori, examining his chakra silhouette more closely. That's not really him! It's... a puppet!? She opened her mouth to call and warn Kimimaro, but realized that this would throw away her element of surprise. She was the secret weapon in this fight, a trump card that could only be played once.

With that in mind, she set to work analyzing more of his fighting style. Those chakra strings of his could be easily severed... but Sasori must know that. If they're that easy to break in a fight, he can probably replace them in the blink of an eye, otherwise he'd have been killed years ago... Damn. Come on, Kimimaro, you can do this.

Kimimaro raised his shield to deflect another hail of senbon, then flashed forward with a Pulse Step in hopes of stabbing through Sasori's puppet. Karin's eyes went wide as she saw the puppet dodge. What!? Shouldn't he have let that thrust hit his puppet, so he could hit Kimimaro point-blank!? What's going on...? She pushed up her glasses as she watched.

Meanwhile, Kimimaro caught a volley of senbon with his shield and raised his sword to deflect the massive bladed tail that suddenly emerged from Sasori's robe. Is that his puppet? He asked himself, while moving his shield to catch the next thrust of the huge tail.

"You have a very solid defense," Sasori observed calmly. "I don't think I can cut through it properly." Kimimaro tensed up, and planted his feet firmly on the surface of the tree limb where he stood. "Tell me, is that armor made of bone? If so, you must be Kimimaro Kaguya under that helmet... I should've added you to my collection three years ago."

"That's unfortunate for you," Kimimaro replied, "because now you'll never get past this shield."

"I don't have to." Sasori extended his right arm forward, firing a purple grenade from a mechanism hidden within his sleeve. Kimimaro saw it approach, and correctly guessed at what it did. Rather than blocking the poisonous smoke bomb with his shield, he leaned out of the way and let it pass rather than exploding on his shield. "I have plenty of weapons like-!"

Kimimaro flashed forward and appeared before Sasori in an instant, slamming his shield into the missing-nin's face. Sasori grunted as the blow struck, and Kimimaro hauled his shield out of the way to sweep his sword down on Sasori's hunched back. The sword sliced through his Akatsuki robe, but bounced off of his body with a loud banging sound, as if he'd struck metal.

The knight leapt back to another tree limb, suspiciously glaring at the cut in Sasori's robes. Is he wearing armor under that robe? Maybe if I...!

His eyes widened as he saw Karin appear behind Sasori with her cutlasses crossed across her chest. Without turning, Sasori aimed his tail and shot it into her abdomen at the same time her swords sliced through his neck.

"KARIN!"

The young Uzumaki then looked up to wink at Kimimaro before exploding into white smoke. Grinning smugly, another copy of her took up a kenjutsu stance next to him. "Shadow clone. Duh."

"Hm..." Sasori's voice sounded different now, as different as it could possibly be. "I hadn't expected one of my favorite puppets to be damaged so easily..." he pulled off his robe to reveal the scratched metal shield making up his entire torso, and the clearly mechanical joints of his wrists and elbows. The shield slid back to allow a smaller, more humanoid form to emerge. "I guess there's nothing to be done about it now."

Apparently, Sasori was actually a crimson-haired boy that looked a bit younger than Kimimaro and Karin, with a thin frame and cold, almost lifeless brown eyes. "No, I guess not," Karin agreed. "So is that your real body?"

"You could say that. However, I prefer to think of all my puppets as being 'real bodies.'"

"Heh. Okay then." Karin grinned and snapped her fingers.

On cue, several hundred chakra chains shot upward from the forest below, which was filled with shadow clones. The chains, serrated along their lengths this time, surrounded Sasori and closed in on him from all sides. Kimimaro's vision of Sasori was completely obscured by the chains then. "Okay Kimimaro, get ready. I don't think I can just shred him apart with these things, and I think there's some creepy secret to his real body as well. He still doesn't look right to my Kagura Shingan."

"So it was a puppet inside a puppet?"

"Not quite that simple either. I don't see any chakra threads, which means he isn't controlling it from somewhere else." her eyes widened slightly. "Wait... that can't mean..."

"Clever girl," Sasori replied as the chains were thrown away from him in all directions. Karin let them crumble and wither away, sizing up the real Sasori as she drew her swords. "Very clever... I can't even remember the last time someone simply deduced the truth about my body." he produced a scroll from a pouch behind his back, unfurling it to show four storage seals to the newly minted Konoha-nin. "Since you've already figured it out, I'll help you put it into words... I'm a puppet myself."

"Oh, shit," Kimimaro muttered at the sight of the scroll. "Karin, stay close."

"This isn't the real me, ya know. Just another clone," she murmured back. "Don't worry."

White smoke exploded from the scroll Sasori held, and Kimimaro gritted his teeth under his helmet. Raising his sword and shield, he charged with a roar while Sasori was briefly blinded. Karin's clone followed suit and shortly caught up to him, charging headlong into the smoke just before it began to fade.

When it cleared, neither Sasori nor any of his puppets were in sight. Karin moved into place behind Kimimaro's back, raising her swords defensively. For several seconds, they simply stood there and awaited an attack silently, but then Karin growled, "Come on. Don't tell me you just freakin' ran away from us! Are we gonna fight or n-"

A pink-haired young teen armed with a white flute leapt upward from the lower tree limbs, slashing at Karin with it. Karin easily deflected the blow with her left sword while counterattacking with the right. Her weapon struck the puppet's hardened body loudly, and drew a few small sparks.

Karin swept her left sword forward as well, chaining together an increasingly rapid storm of blows that slammed into what was once Tayuya. As the pink-haired puppet was pushed back, Karin advanced and kept attacking mercilessly. She began to see her blades slicing into Tayuya's hollow body, and pressed on hopefully.

She finished her assault with a thirty-first and thirty-second hit simultaneously, stabbing into Tayuya's chest with both cutlasses at once. Tayuya let the flute drop from her fingers, then locked her cold hands around Karin's wrists. Karin flinched, realizing that she was trapped and Kimimaro was no longer behind her. Tayuya's chest split open to reveal a blade glistening with a transparent green, almost clear liquid, that extended forward from where her spine would be with the intent to stab through Karin.

Without warning, a flash of white scythed downward through Tayuya's wrists and the poisoned blade, cleanly severing both. With the flat of his longsword, Kimimaro shoved Tayuya away from Karin, and followed this up by whipping the edge of his cruciform shield into her chest, cracking much of her torso. To finish his attack, he raised the sword high over his head and whipped it downward, cleaving the puppet in two from its left shoulder to right hip.

"H-Holy shit, Kimimaro. I'm just a clone, remember?"

"But Sasori doesn't know that," Kimimaro replied, and she could her the grin in his voice through his helmet. "And now he has one less... puppet..." slowly, the knight looked up and trailed off. "Karin, where's the real you?"

Karin followed his gaze and shuddered at the sight of thousands of spiders, each with a foot-long body. Some were dangling from silk threads, others were perched on thin branches, and all looked prepared to jump down into the lower section of the canopy. "Oh shit. I was created before the original found a hiding spot..."

"Dispel and warn her!"

Karin quickly nodded, then vanished with a puff of smoke.

The spiders jumped and fell from their various perches, raining down through the forest.

Karin dispelled her clones, and jumped from where she had been perched on a lower tree limb, out in the open to blend in with her clones. A chakra chain shot from each of her palms and stabbed into two of the most distant trees she could see. She then shortened the chains to rapidly pull herself through the air, hoping to get out from underneath the falling spiders before they reached her.

Kimimaro spotted her, and realized what she was doing just before he realized that she wasn't going to make it. The spiders were already ignoring him, since his armor protected him from them completely. He spun, desperately trying to find a way out of this situation before Karin ended up dead, and he only came up with one possible idea.

He threw aside his sword and shield to jump headfirst after her. Since he was heavier than the spiders and had a more streamlined form, he fell faster, but he still heard Karin scream as both he and they drew closer and closer to her. Once he got within fifteen feet, he vaporized his armor as well, reaching for her with now bare hands.

He caught her, and set his bloodline to work faster than he ever had before, forming a spherical cocoon of bone around them. He held Karin close to his chest, since he was held in place at the center of the cocoon by smooth bones that extended from various parts of his body. He thickened these bones, and the outer sphere itself, as much as he possibly could before they hit the ground.

When they did, the impact knocked the wind from both of them. The sphere itself rolled until Kimimaro caught his breath enough to grow it out further into the shape of a giant skull. He wheezed, as did Karin in his arms, for a while longer. "...Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she breathed heavily. "I didn't get bitten... You?"

"No, I don't... think so... Hold on," he panted, then let the spines of bone connecting him to the inside of the skull crumble away. Both of them promptly fell to the bottom of the cavern, and Kimimaro released his grip on her back. "Do you know... if those things... were poisonous?"

"I thought you knew!" she gasped back. They both remained silent for a moment, then laughed despite their shortness of breath. "You... didn't know!? But... ahahaha... you... freaked out when you... saw them!"

"Of course I freaked out!" Kimimaro shot back, still gasping and laughing. "They were thousands of giant spiders!"

Karin simply kept laughing, which only made it harder for her to catch her breath. Eventually, however, she and Kimimaro both managed to. "Well, even if they weren't poisonous, they were still weaponized somehow, so thanks. I'm pretty sure you just saved my life."

"I guess that makes us even," Kimimaro smiled, and although he couldn't see Karin's confused expression in the total darkness, he touched her right wrist where he had bitten her so long ago. "Remember?"

"O-Oh, right." Finally realizing that she was still stretched out on top of Kimimaro, and that Sasori was lurking somewhere outside the skull, Karin's face quickly grew hot. "Yeah, we still have a puppet freak to kill, ya know..."

"...R-Right!" Kimimaro blushed as well as he finally realized his own position, just as Karin climbed to her feet above him. "Um... sorry."

"The hell are you apologizing for? You weren't holding me there; I had you pinned." She laughed quietly, then looked around pointlessly in the darkness as Kimimaro stood. "Seriously though, we still need to deal with Sasori." her eyes flashed blue in the darkness, and she glanced around at the glowing chakra silhouettes outside the giant skull. "The six-armed guy from the Sound Four is on top of this thing, and he's, well..." she pushed up her glasses slightly and chuckled, "...armed." Kimimaro suppressed the urge to giggle. "Some kind of sword-ish things, but they're glowing with chakra."

"Do you see anyone else?" Kimimaro asked. "Or more importantly, are the spiders still out there?"

"No, and no." Karin grinned. "Looks like they didn't survive hitting the ground, or maybe their summoner sent them back to... some place I hope I never have to visit. I can see the two other guys from the Sound Four, and I can see the chakra threads leading back to Sasori, up in the canopy."

"Okay." Kimimaro formed his armor once more, then his shield and greatsword. "I'm going to dissolve the top of this skull, and we'll attack Kidoumaru together from opposite sides of the chamber. He won't be able to defend himself or get away."

"...We're inside a skull!?"

The ceiling of the chamber rapidly crumbled, allowing the light to reach Kimimaro and Karin's eyes. Kidoumaru fell into the chamber and clacked loudly as he landed on his feet, almost immediately disregarding Kimimaro to attack Karin. She fought back his six blades with her two, while Kimimaro hesitated. If I attack right now with this sword, I'll probably hit Karin as well. With the strength of my full Cursed Seal, I'd probably cut her in half. I can't... I have to wait until there's a bit more distance between them... this was a really stupid plan.

Karin deflected Kidoumaru's swords successfully, but her back was already pressed flat against the wall. Being merely a puppet under Sasori's control, Kidoumaru could attack her tirelessly, while she would eventually lose her strength and falter. The one hit she had scored so far had only sliced Kidoumaru's shirt and scratched his chest harmlessly.

Harder... I need to hit him harder! She fought off each of the puppet's attacks, but before she could prepare a counterrattack she had to block another sword, or several at once. And I need to go faster... she bared her teeth in a desperate snarl, and pushed back two of Kidoumaru's blades as they locked with hers. She counterattacked with a powerful swipe of her own right cutlass, leaning out of the way of Kidoumaru's next slash.

Faster! She slashed into the puppet's chest three more times, then blocked three of his blades and dodged a fourth. The fifth grazed her left arm, but she struck the sixth from the air hard enough to slice it in half. Kidoumaru let it drop and grew a new one from that wrist. Not fast enough! She screamed out a furious battlecry and attacked even more fiercely, chaining hit after hit into Kidoumaru's chest. FASTER!

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

She sliced through two of Kidoumaru's arms at once and kept attacking. Now with only four blades, the puppet stood no chance of keeping up with her, and still she kept cutting into it, screaming her throat hoarse and reducing the fearsome weapon into a pile of scraps that had once been human flesh, but now resembled nothing more than broken pottery.

She panted, out of breath for the second time, and lowered her swords. She noticed Kimimaro's slack-jawed, wide-eyed expression, and asked, "What?"

"I... didn't even think it was possible to move that fast without a jutsu," he admitted. "I couldn't even see your swords; they were like mist in front of you."

"...Sweet," she breathed. "I wonder if I can do that again...!" her eyes went wide with shock as she watched a huge orange-haired boy punch Kimimaro off his feet and away into the forest. "Kimimaro!" Jiroubou then turned his attention to her, and she used both of her swords to fend off a punch from the towering puppet. Her eyes went wide as she realized the outside of her left forearm bore a thin, stinging cut. Damn it! Have I been poisoned!?

Meanwhile, Kimimaro hastily crawled to his feet and raised his shield to block a flying kick from the puppet that had once been Sakon. Ukon dashed past his shield, extending a poisoned steel blade from his right palm and stabbing toward the visor of his helmet with it. Kimimaro smoothly parried the blade, then slashed at Ukon in return, but the puppet dodged backward and aimed his weapon at the knight from a distance.

Shit-

Kimimaro moved his shield to block the blade that shot from Ukon's wrist, successfully stopping it but leaving himself open to Sakon's next attack. The second puppet aimed both hands at Kimimaro, firing a volley of small white spheres at him that exploded mightily on contact with his armor, throwing him again. Ukon then activated this same weapon within his own wrists.

Karin fought back against Jiroubou, but she was tiring and the puppet was much stronger than she was, so much so that she had to use both of her swords to block one of his punches. It was only a matter of time before she faltered, and her opponent slammed his fist into her sternum to throw her through the air violently. Her back slammed into the trunk of a tree, and she slumped beneath it.

She coughed blood, and weakly glared up at Jiroubou as he approached to finish her. I'm not ready to die... she felt around for the hilts of her cutlasses, and found them to her relief. There's so much I still haven't done with my life. She stumbled to her feet and raised her right-hand sword loosely. Way too much for me to miss out on. She raised her left wrist to her lips and opened her mouth slightly. So I won't die yet!

She bit down on her wrist, drawing fresh blood and also flooding her body with renewed strength. The scratch and bite wound on her wrist healed simultaneously, as did the fractured bones in her torso. Her grip tightened on the identical cutlass hilts, and her stance became firmer and stronger.

She dashed forward with such speed that Sasori was barely able to follow her movements, despite her lack of a movement jutsu. Jiroubou swung his right fist into the air toward the approaching crimson-haired blur, but she tuck-and-rolled under his punch and sprang to her feet behind his extended arm. With all her might, she brought her right-hand cutlass down on his elbow with another roar. The puppet's forearm clacked loudly a few times in rapid succession as it was cut free of the main body, and then she turned both of her blades on Jiroubou himself.

Elsewhere, Kimimaro was on his feet again and flash-stepping after Sakon and Ukon, who danced away from his sword and shield blows to fire more explosives at him. By this point he knew just how to plant his feet behind the shield to catch the explosions without being thrown down, but his shield was scorched black on the front.

Sakon and Ukon maintained their distance from him with their own Pulse Step Jutsu, each firing explosives at him while he chased the other. Eventually, however, the two of them faltered, and Kimimaro managed to stab through the center of Ukon's chest with his greatsword. For a moment, he forgot he was wielding it in place of a lance, but he then swept the blade out through Ukon's left flank before switching directions to smoothly cut off the puppet's head. He finished by vertically slicing it in half as well.

Sakon promptly planted his feet firmly, and aimed both wrists at Kimimaro to fire more explosives. The knight spun to block the attack with his shield, but this time Sakon didn't stop shooting at him at all. He maintained the stream of explosive spheres through the air, not letting up, and Kimimaro swore under his breath as the fireballs continued to batter and burn into the surface of his shield.

He decided on a course of action, and hopped a few inches into the air to allow the next few explosions to fling him backward through the air. He sailed backward about fifteen feet, then repeated the action to fly backward again. These things are nothing compared to a half-decent Banshou Karu from Naruto, and I've gotten a lot stronger since then. I can handle this easily. Eventually, he was pushed back far enough that the explosives lost their momentum and hit the ground instead of him. That was when he struck back.

"Orchid Dance."

He stabbed forward with his greatsword into the open air, and the tip of the weapon grew out into a more natural-looking branch of bone. A huge, skeletal hand with bladed fingertips grew out of the proportionately huge arm of bone, reaching toward Sakon with evil intent. Since the Pulse Step could only be used to move forward, Sakon merely retreated backward normally.

By the time Sasori thought to turn the puppet around, something he would normally never do since he was controlling and seeing it in third-person, it was too late. The bony hand snatched Sakon up into the air and made a fist, brutally crushing him into fragments of what looked like terracotta but definitely wasn't.

Karin arrived just in time to see this, and she whistled in appreciation as the arm crumbled, leaving Kimimaro with just his normal weapons. "Damn. That was badass."

Kimimaro flash-stepped to her side. "Thanks, but don't let down your guard. Sasori's still alive, and he surely still has puppets to throw at us."

"Of course I do," Sasori announced, revealing that he was perched on a tree limb directly above them. He pulled out a smaller scroll and unsealed another puppet, this one with long, shaggy black hair and a black robe. "The Sound Four were one of my favorite collections, but this one is a superior piece by itself than all five of them together. Allow me to introduce my favorite puppet of all... the Third Kazekage."

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