Opening - Revolution Dualism by Nana Mizuki and TM Revolution
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Tenten only had the briefest of moments to recall the last time she had seen this man's face, in a picture of his massive statue in the Valley of the End, and realize the gravity of her situation before Madara attacked again.
The blade of blue chakra wielded in his Susanoo's right hand flew at her, and on instinct she caught it on the length of her own glowing orange weapon. The force of the impact whipped her backward across the rooftop, nearly flinging her from the surface completely before she managed to use chakra control and her barrier-enhanced strength to cling to the roof, inches from its edge.
"Now die."
She looked up with wide eyes at Susanoo's left-hand blade, descending toward her head. With no other options, she resorted to leaning to her left in hopes of catching the second sword with Umiyou's hilt. The blue sword slammed down and bit into Umiyou's pommel, and the tremendous weight of the blow forced Tenten to her knees. Umiyou's blade stabbed into the rooftop behind her, but she was alive.
"Yasaka Magatama."
Something slammed into Tenten's stomach and threw her backward, smashing her through a taller building behind her. As she flew out the other side of that building, she managed to curl her head forward and see what was carrying her through the air; a brilliant blue chakra construct in the shape of a tomoe. It didn't take her long to realize that this was the source of the blue explosion that had drawn her here.
She let go of Soujihonou and grasped the tomoe with both hands, twisting herself to its side to let it fly past her while she skidded to a stop along a cobblestone road, sparks flying from her black barrier as she tumbled. The next moment she was throwing herself to her feet and drawing Umiyou.
He's too strong; if he keeps attacking then he'll wear me down eventually. She flash-stepped ahead to retrieve Soujihonou from where it had fallen, holding it in her left hand with Umiyou in her right. It's just like with the Seven-Tails. I have to stay on the offensive, no matter what!
Madara came into view over a rooftop ahead of Tenten, no longer floating within his Susanoo. "Hn. You're still alive down there," he observed.
Tenten raised Umiyou and pointed the tip of the blade up at him. "It was a good try, but I'm not gonna die today."
"Yes you are," Madara replied flatly, and brought up his hands in the Horse seal. "Fire Release: Great Fire Destruction."
"Devour everything within reach, Umiyou!"
Madara's scarlet eyes showed a brief gleam of interest, even as he breathed forth a monumental wave of fire toward Tenten. He saw a flash of the same orange light as his own flames a moment before she was consumed by his attack. He ended his jutsu, then peered into the flames that had caught on the roads and buildings before him. Without fuel, they wouldn't last long, but for now he was unable to see what was left of Tenten.
With his Sharingan, however, he easily saw the approach of a brighter, clearer orange light shaped into a blade, flying horizontally toward his left temple. "Hn?" He caught the blade with his right palm and made a fist around it, inspecting it. "This is that blade you used on me before... it's made entirely of shaped fire chakra..."
The flames around Tenten dimmed to the point where she was visible again, unharmed and with Soujihonou held out in her left hand. The blade of chakra she was aiming at Madara then dissolved into fading orange streams of light, freeing up her weapon again.
Madara's gaze suddenly flicked to his right, and he leapt backward to avoid a stream of glowing molten glass broad enough to consume him completely. "Hn?" He took a quick step to the left, dodging another flood of boiling liquid that then merged with the one passing in front of him. In a momentary explosion of smoke, his white gunbai appeared in his right hand, just before he looked up and saw Tenten falling toward him.
She swept Soujihonou in a broad arc, extending its blade to slash down at Madara even as she fell toward him. The Uchiha legend raised his gunbai and took cover under it, stopping Soujihonou's chakra blade short. The energy blade winked out, and Tenten continued to fall until one of her own streams of molten glass caught her and carried her away to a nearby rooftop.
Madara activated the first stage of his Susanoo, holding back the flood of lava while he addressed Tenten. "Creative," he acknowledged. "You can't fly; you had to jump above me instead. Then you used your own fire jutsu to get down... speaking of which..." he glanced around at the glowing liquid that had almost completely submerged him by now. "Hn... this isn't a normal jutsu, and it isn't like the Lava Release that Jinchuuriki used..."
Jinchuuriki? Tenten's eyes narrowed. When did he fight a Jinchuuriki with the Lava Release?This isn't good... She turned her attention back to Madara when the molten glass holding him was splashed apart in all directions, revealing his completely formed and armored Susanoo. I have to get through that thing, and I'm not sure if my swords can do the trick...
"This isn't as dull as I'd expected it to be," Madara mused. "Come on, little girl. Don't tell me you're out of moves already..." Susanoo raised its twin rippling blades menacingly, and Madara stepped toward her within it. "Go ahead, think of something. I'll give you a moment."
Tenten gritted her teeth under her barrier armor. Fine. If he wants to get cocky and hold back like this, I'm not gonna complain. Now think... he knows I can block his fire jutsu, but he doesn't know my Kekkai Kokuei is completely heatproof. If he lets off a fire jutsu, I can charge through it and surprise him... but that isn't much good if I can't get through his Susanoo. Even the basic form can hold off Umiyou, but I haven't tried Soujihonou or my bombs.
He also doesn't know I have a movement jutsu; he hasn't actually seen me use it. He knows I have enhanced strength enough to hold off his swords, and he knows Umiyou isn't a Lava Release jutsu, but he doesn't know what it actually is...
Alright, let's do this.
Tenten vanished in a black omnidirectional blur, and Madara raised his eyebrows in a mild display of surprise. He immediately responded by spinning his Susanoo around with its swords extended at arms' length, aiming to catch Tenten with them no matter where she approached from.
"Kekkai Kokuei: Seigen!" Again he was surprised when his swords were suddenly slammed into the ground by roughly dome-shaped black barriers that bit into the ground and wrapped around the blades. Madara looked up, and again Tenten was descending toward him in freefall, but this time Madara's left eye shifted as he glared up at her.
"Amaterasu."
Tenten's lower abdomen burst into black flame, but to Madara's surprise the burning section of her barrier detached and floated away from the rest of her, withering away in the open air and leaving Tenten unharmed. She closed up the hole in her barrier and returned Umiyou to her back, just as she landed on Susanoo's shoulders.
The black ANBU kunai mounted under her right wrist flicked out, and she tapped the flat of the blade lightly with her middle and ring fingers. This should do it! As she stabbed the blade down into Susanoo's right shoulder, a storage seal written where she had touched it began to gleam white. A ball of explosive tags as large as her own head then appeared in a small plume of chakra smoke, and dropped down toward Madara. To his spinning Mangekyou Sharingan, it appeared to slow down and glow with surging chakra as it approached him.
Tenten leapt skyward into a passing flow of molten glass that carried her away across the rooftops. The bomb exploded, filling the inside of Susanoo with brilliant white light. The translucent blue armor cracked apart slowly, and took several seconds to give in to the force of the blast.
When the chakra avatar did shatter, Tenten waited only a few moments for the explosion to die down before she charged in and began attacking Madara with Umiyou. She could only see his silhouette through the smoke left by the bomb, but that was enough. The Uchiha was visibly dazed, and he retreated several steps as he parried her falchion with his gunbai.
She kept attacking, not letting up for even a moment despite knowing that he could see every swing coming with his Sharingan. After letting her attacks and his counters settle into a predictable pattern, she suddenly pulled her left hand away from Umiyou's hilt, reaching instead for Soujihonou at her left hip.
She drew the blade in a reverse grip, mirroring Gaara's preferred style of kenjutsu for a brief moment. She swept the blade toward Madara's belly while surging chakra into it, pinning his gunbai over his head with Umiyou. Through the smoke, she was just barely able to make out the widening of his eyes.
As Soujihonou's orange blade extended toward Madara, Tenten felt his gunbai push Umiyou upward and backward before it sprang down to intercept Soujihonou.
"Uchihagaeshi!"
Tenten watched in disbelief as Soujihonou's glowing blade was folded perfectly backward at her, reflected by the gunbai as though it were a mirror. The blade sliced across her abdomen, and she screamed despite the protection of her Kekkai Kokuei. Madara still seemed unaware that she was immune to fire, so she chose to keep it that way.
A boiling stream of molten glass splashed into Madara's back, and Tenten grinned ferally under her barrier armor, springing back with both of her swords in hand. Got him! She slipped Soujihonou back into its sheath to wield Umiyou with both hands. What remained of the smoke from the bomb was fading away entirely, and she got a clear view of Madara's surprised face.
She froze upon seeing the Rinnegan in his left eye. As that eye began to glow purple, he intoned softly, "Preta Path."
Nothing happened. The lava dripping down along his armor, melting it and cooking him inside, remained lava instead of cooling or vanishing. This surprised Madara even further, and he stood frozen in place while Tenten caught him with another flying stream of glass, submerging him completely.
Rinnegan or not, that one got him. The Preta Path only works on ninjutsu, and that glass I just hit him with is completely real, not synthesized with chakra. It might've been heated with the Fire Release, but it's already been removed from the heat source and it's still hot.
The mound of lava covering Madara moved forward slowly, and Tenten's eyes went wide. For a few moments, she could only watch in disbelief as the lava dripped away from her opponent. Madara's armor was glowing with heat, and his clothes and gunbai were burning. His flesh was scorched black and his eyes were , however, he moved forward until he stepped completely free of the molten glass, which sizzled on the ground behind him.
He let go of the burning war fan and reached up to the collar of his armor, tugging roughly at the softened metal so that it fell away from his torso in two pieces, which crumpled as they hit the ground.
His entire body was obscured by ripples in the air like heat waves, and when they passed he was completely unharmed. His clothes were still scorched and had a variety of holes in them, and his right Sharingan eye had turned an opaque white, but beyond that he was completely healed.
"Hn... not bad."
Tenten gritted her teeth and charged in again, hoping to cleave Madara in two with Umiyou. He evaded each of her slashes easily, backpedaling away from her instead of blocking with his discarded gunbai. "Devour everything within reach, Umiyou!" she called again, releasing a fresh flood of molten glass to attack Madara along with her blade.
His eyes shifted from the Rinnegan back to the Sharingan, darting back and forth between Umiyou and the dozen streams of lava flying through the air to attack him. He danced out of the way of each attack, managing to even land two punches against Tenten as he did. She stumbled back from both of them; the force behind his blows wasn't human.
She snarled, and tore her left hand from Umiyou's hilt to make a tight fist. The lava streams stopped attacking Madara and meshed together into a dome around the two of them, a dome that rapidly shrank toward them both. Madara countered by forming his Susanoo around both of them, holding back the lava.
Without the assistance of her lava attacks, Tenten rapidly began losing ground against Madara. She blocked his punches and kicks with Umiyou's edge, but her blade still didn't draw his blood. It didn't take long before he managed to plant a kick on her sternum, firing her backward out of Susanoo's chest and the lava covering it. She tumbled along the road, dazed and winded.
Madara emerged from the hole in Susanoo's chest, and the chakra avatar then withered away and let the molten glass splash onto the ground behind him. Tenten pulled herself together and stood, still wheezing from the force of his kick. She raised Umiyou again, grateful she hadn't lost her grip on it. She opened her mouth to call for more liquid glass, and at the same time Madara held up his hands in the Snake seal.
"Devour everything within-"
"Wood Release-"
"-reach, Umiyou!"
"-Nativity of a World of Trees!"
A grove of colossal trees tore upward from the earth around Madara, blocking the lava behind him that Tenten had raised once again, and splashing completely through the much larger wave ahead of him as he attacked her.
The moment the first tree slammed into her, she lost track of what was happening. She was lifted off her feet and thrown around by the trees, seeing only blurs of green and brown, hearing nothing but the wind and her own body being struck over and over.
When it finally stopped, when the trees stilled and she fell back to earth, she was already coughing blood and unable to stand. Dully, she felt Madara grasp the back of her collar through her barrier. He pulled her up to his height and drew back his right fist. Tenten glared weakly at him, but then her eyes went wide as Kekkai Kokuei vanished around her. She noted that Madara's Rinnegan was active, meaning he'd used the Preta Path to absorb her barrier.
He threw his punch, releasing the back of Tenten's neck as he did. She was sent flying by the force of the blow, but nowhere near as far as his kick had carried her. She dimly noted that the Uchiha was holding back his full strength now.
"That was at least a half-decent dance," he noted, following her. "I've seen better, and I'm disappointed that you didn't last any longer than this... but still, it wasn't bad."
"K-Kekkai..." she spat a mouthful of blood, "...Kokuei..." the black barrier wrapped itself around her again, and this time she added, "Devour e-everything within reach, Umiyou." a flood of lava emerged from within her falchion, draping itself over her fireproof barrier.
"Hn. I thought you'd give up at this point..." Madara shrugged, continuing his approach. "My Preta Path won't get rid of your lava, but I can reach through it to touch and absorb your barrier." His Rinnegan shone as he neared her. "Then your own lava will kill you."
"And... you'll be missing a hand," Tenten croaked, pushing herself up to her hands and knees.
"That doesn't particularly worry me," Madara decided, and reached toward her. After a moment, however, he stopped and withdrew his hand. "Clever little girl." he cracked a faint smirk. If I get close enough to touch her, she can transfer that lava from her own body to mine, probably before I even absorb her barrier. She'd win.
Tenten chuckled wearily, pushing herself to her feet. "Damn..." she lifted Umiyou once more, holding it between herself and Madara. "So you saw through it..." she opened her mouth to say more, but was cut off when another grove of trees blasted up from beneath her feet, throwing her high into the air. She bit down on the tip of her tongue as she flew, drawing fresh blood, and she fought to keep it from happening again as the trees battered her.
It didn't take long before the coating of liquid glass over her armor was smashed away by the trees, and Madara let her fall back to earth, face first. By this point she was barely conscious, and unable to resist as Madara absorbed her barrier for a second time. He kicked her onto her back, letting her watch as he approached and raised his right foot over her head.
There was a deafening sound from the impact, and Tenten's vision went black.
So... that's it, huh? Her ears were ringing, her body was numb, and there was nothing but darkness all around her. I'm dead... and with such crappy timing too... she sighed. I'm not sure whether Gaara is gonna be heartbroken or pissed. I told him I wouldn't get hurt... hell, I told him I'd marry him... and now here I am. Damn it all...
After a few seconds, her body resumed singing a song of pain. Tenten frowned, puzzled, then lurched upward and coughed more blood. Oh come on. I'm dead, so why does everything still hurt? That's just not fair. She sat up with an agonized groan, and spat blood into the dirt she was sitting on. What's going on here?
She blinked in the darkness several times, wondering first if she had been blinded somehow by Madara's last attack. No, that's not it. If that were the case, he'd still be attacking me. She also noted the ringing in her ears, and snapped her fingers to see if she could hear it. To her surprise, the sound didn't reach her. What the hell?
She felt something touch her left cheek, and she flinched away from it in shock. "W-Wha!?" after a moment, however, she realized it had been a familiar hand. He... probably called out to me, but I couldn't hear him... "...Gaara?" Despite the pain, she was immensely relieved to feel him hug her. "I... can't hear you, or see you..."
He released her, and a moment later she felt his hand touching hers. The sensation was much warmer than it would normally be, although not hot enough to hurt. Along with his chakra, he opened up his mind to her with ninshuu.
"Oh thank Kami... Gaara, what's going on?" she waited a moment, and in her mind's eye saw a mountain of black sand flying across the city. It struck Madara and threw him backward, but passed harmlessly over Tenten. Even when it smashed down, flattening Madara and a sizable chunk of the city along with him, the space around Tenten was left untouched.
She gave a sad smile and drew her hand away from his as she stood. "Next time you say you've got a bad feeling like this, I'm trusting you on it." she wavered and nearly fell from the pain across every inch of her body, but then she called out, "Kekkai Kokuei." The barrier formed around her and allowed her to relax all of her muscles, holding herself up with the barrier armor instead.
Distantly, she heard Gaara give a brief chuckle before he took her hand again. His emotions reached through her barrier without any trouble, and a moment later he let go of her in order to draw Kuroshi in the pitch-darkness, calling his black sand back into storage.
Tenten blinked a few times, adjusting to the light as quickly as she could. To her shock, a fully armored Madara then appeared before Gaara and attacked with his gunbai, a blow which was narrowly blocked by Gaara with his wakizashi. "You're stronger than I expected," Madara remarked, and Tenten was able to hear it with some difficulty. "It must take a lot of chakra to move that much sand with that much speed."
Tenten glanced at Gaara, and even though she knew what she would see on his face, she still flinched.
"There's another one of you..." his eyes shone with cold hatred, and his face was split by a broad, psychotic grin. "...That's good. Normally I'd ask you to just hold still for a moment, but in this case..." he shoved Madara backward, surprising the Uchiha. "...I want you to survive long enough to feel fear. Bankai."
Madara's confused and surprised expression, brief though it was, brought a smile to Tenten's face. He sprang away from Kuroshi as it unleashed a massive wave of black sand in all directions, engulfing Gaara and Tenten in the process along with dozens of buildings.
Madara landed atop another rooftop at a safe distance, watching the black sand swirl and float upward like a hurricane with a mildly interested expression. "Bankai, hn? I'm not familiar with that one." A pair of huge, glowing yellow eyes opened and glared at him from within the black sandstorm, and that storm spread outward slowly as the pair of eyes rose higher, still staring hatefully down at Madara.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the sandstorm came to an end. It settled into the shape of a black tanuki the size of a mountain, with abstract golden streaks traced along its surface. Its golden eyes opened, with five pupils each, and locked on Madara. Its tail, massive even when compared to the rest of the creature, rose behind it and swished through the air, a deceptively peaceful-looking motion.
Tenten surfaced up to her waist from within the sand construct's head, and was surprised when Gaara didn't do so as well. "H-Hey, Shukaku, what's going on!?" she called. "Where's Gaara?"
The tanuki offered no answer; instead opting to charge toward Madara on all fours. The Uchiha remained motionless as the One-Tail approached, meeting it head-on with a blazing blue Susanoo. Even it, however, stood only half as tall as the black tanuki. Shukaku's right fist smashed downward into Susanoo's chest, cracking the chakra avatar badly, and he then stepped backward to avoid Madara's counterstroke with his left sword.
"Tenten," Gaara called in Shukaku's voice, "Feel free to attack him as well."
She recovered from that surprise rather quickly, and pointed Umiyou at Madara once more. "On it! Devour everything within reach, Umiyou!"
"Hn. Again with the lava." Madara's Susanoo shimmered and twisted out of shape as it grew to roughly twice as tall as before, now standing slightly taller than Gaara in his Tailed Beast Mode. "Well, I guess now that it's two on one, it's about time I showed you this." The amorphous blue light surrounding Madara settled back into a humanoid shape, this time clad in a flowing blue robe and cowl rather than armor.
Tenten swung her sword forward, and a sheet of twisting molten glass swept through the air toward Madara, momentarily blocking his view of Gaara. He was quick to raise his weapon, a jagged, curved sword that appeared to be made of azure flames, and cut through the curtain of lava just in time to see Shukaku swallow a comparatively small Tailed Beast Ball.
Madara raised his sword again, planning to knock the attack aside when it came near. A moment later, his remaining Sharingan eye flicked in the direction of his sword when it failed to move as he commanded. His red and white eye each went wide as he saw the thick column of molten glass tethering his sword to the ground far behind him.
Gaara let fly his attack, and Madara turned his attention back to it. His remaining red eye turned a glowing purple, and he stretched out his left hand toward the approaching pinpoint of scarlet light. "Shinra Tensei!" A wave of invisible force washed over the Tailed Beast Ball, but the power of the One-Tail couldn't be undone so easily. It slowed, but kept flying forward.
Madara frowned, and tugged again against the cord of lava holding back his sword, this time with much more force. The lava stretched at first, but then it gave way and Madara moved his sword to catch the Tailed Beast Ball. The approaching red chakra construct met his blue one, and destabilized into a red beam of energy that washed past his sword and slammed into Susanoo itself. For a few moments, it actually seemed like Madara would hold his ground and shrug off the Tailed Beast Ball.
But only for a few moments, and then his sword shattered in his hand and his chakra avatar's grip on the earth came loose. Even as Madara flew backward through the city, his Susanoo began to crack at the front from the force of the crimson chakra blast, and at the back from the multitude of assorted buildings it was reducing to splinters and shards of similarly assorted materials.
When at last the Tailed Beast Ball stopped brutalizing him, Madara lay in the wreckage of a particularly sturdy stone tower that had partially withstood the final, halfhearted push of the crimson beam. His chakra avatar could barely be called such at this point, with only broken stumps of its ribs remaining and not much else. Still, it had done its job of protecting him well enough that he could sit up and brush away some of the collected stone debris that had gathered on his shoulder.
At that exact moment, to add insult to injury, a whip of molten lava twined itself around the already-weakened remains of the tower and pulled forward, toppling what still stood onto the seated Uchiha.
When it came crashing down on Madara's head and shoulders, he felt it.
Within the borrowed form of the One-Tailed Tanuki, Gaara gave an uncharacteristic chuckle, doubly so since it was a resentful, cold laugh. "Nicely done, Tenten."
"You think that one got him?" she asked, not taking her eyes from the rubble and the dust cloud it had produced.
"Not yet. The one I fought was harder to destroy than that."
"The one you fought!?" she repeated incredulously. "That... that'd explain how he has his armor and fan again, after I destroyed them... and why he said he was willing to lose a hand to kill me... but that means I almost got killed by a fricken clone!"
Gaara had no reply to offer, and a moment later they both turned their attention back to where the remains of the stone tower could be heard shifting, as something emerged through them. "Let's end this quickly," Tenten decided. "Hit him with everything you've got, and I'll back you up." Gaara hesitated for a moment before nodding with Shukaku's head rather than his own. "...You actually want to drag this fight out, don't you?"
"Yes I do," he answered quickly. "I absolutely do. But I understand why you want to end it quickly. Whereas I just want to hurt him, you're more focused on our survival..." he hesitated again. "...and as much as I hate to admit it, I know how likely it is that the real Madara won't feel what we do to his clone." he sighed loudly, which looked a bit surreal to Tenten given his current form. "Alright, let's end it."
She resolved to later mention her observation that Gaara had just talked himself out of a psychotic rampage, out loud, while filling out her own role in the conversation without her having to actually say anything.
"Well, I'll meet you halfway," Tenten smirked wickedly, wrapping both of Shukaku's arms and fists in a fluid wreath of lava. "We'll end this fight with one more move, and make him feel fear before we do."
Madara's Susanoo rose up from beneath the rubble, already in its massive cloaked form, and held up two of its hands in a Snake seal. It pulled its hands apart to display a collection of Yasaka Magatama connected by a thin blue chakra thread, then threw them all at once.
Tenten waved her sword through the air, and an unbroken curtain of molten glass assembled before the approaching tomoe. She made it as thick as she could to hold back the tomoe, and murmured, "Get a Tailed Beast Ball ready, Gaara." he began shaping chakra into his most powerful attack, and Tenten pushed the wall of lava forward. When it neared Madara it wrapped around his Susanoo entirely, and trapped him and the tomoe in the same confined space.
Shukaku's right arm swept forward, guiding a flow of black sand into place over Tenten's molten glass and reinforcing it. Then Gaara raised his other arm as well, and made two fists. "Sand Coffin!"
The prison of sand and glass holding Madara in place with his own jutsu then crunched downward, and through both materials Tenten glimpsed a flash of blue. A split second later, all of the Yasaka Magatama were set off at once, producing a blue explosion that towered over the ones that had drawn Tenten and Gaara apart.
"Now, fire!" Tenten roared, sweeping Umiyou's tip to point at the heart of the explosion.
"Tailed Beast Ball!" Gaara answered, and let fly his most powerful jutsu where he'd last seen Madara. This time he'd condensed the black and orange sphere until it was no more than three feet across, but didn't swallow it before he fired it.
Tenten's eyes widened slightly as she faintly heard Madara's voice calling out the name of a jutsu, but at first she couldn't make out what he'd said. Replaying the blurred, quiet syllables in her mind, she realized what he'd done bare moments before it was too late.
"Uchihagaeshi..."
"GAARA, DODGE!"
Shukaku's gold-on-black eyes went wide, and Gaara threw himself to the right without questioning what exactly he was dodging. A fraction of a second later, his own Tailed Beast Ball passed through the space where Shukaku's head had been. If he hadn't dodged, his own attack would've killed both of them.
Gaara charged forward on all fours, headfirst into the wake of the explosion while the Tailed Beast Ball continued to sail across the city behind them. Madara's Susanoo blazed to life as Gaara approached, meeting the One-Tail's charge without flinching. Gaara raised his right fist to throw the first punch, but immediately Madara moved to block it.
Tenten, however, had other ideas. Once again Madara's arm was wrapped up with a thick stream of molten glass, resisting Madara's movements. This time, the Uchiha frowned before moving his left sword to cut through Shukaku's extended arm, slicing it off at the elbow as it neared him.
Shukaku's arm kept flying forward, striking Susanoo in the chest and cracking the translucent blue armor Madara was peering through. Meanwhile Gaara used his remaining arm to grab the sword Madara had extended. He grasped the blade tightly and twisted, snapping the blue chakra construct in two. His severed right arm reattached itself as Madara's Susanoo reeled from the punch.
"Tenten, blind him!"
"Already on it!" she called back, just as a flood of molten glass came pouring down onto Susanoo from above, rapidly flowing down over the front of its chest and obscuring Madara's view.
"Tch," he snarled, and slashed forward with his remaining sword. With surprising agility, Gaara swept his bulky form low to the ground, ducking under Madara's blind strike before lunging upward and forward to brutally tackle Susanoo.
The blue wraith fell under Shukaku's weight, and Gaara took advantage by throwing one punch after another, slamming his lava-armored fists always into the same spot at the center of Susanoo's torso. With each blow, the satisfying crack of the blue armor grew more distinct, but each punch also splashed away some of the glass blinding Madara.
By the time it was clear enough for Gaara and Madara to glare at each other through Susanoo's armor, said armor was already badly cracked and small pieces of it had broken away entirely allowing thin streams of glass to trickle inside.
Madara raised his hands inside his armor, pointing both palms up at Gaara. "Shinra Tensei!" Gaara bared his teeth deep inside his Tailed Beast Mode, and Shukaku's face bore the same snarl as his arms reached down and grasped Susanoo's shoulders, resisting the current of invisible force that was trying to throw him skyward.
Still however, he was lifted off his feet enough for Madara to reach up with Susanoo's arms and throw him aside. Gaara made certain not to let his head touch the ground as he tumbled to his feet, since Tenten was still held at the center of Shukaku's forehead.
Gaara raised his right fist and brought it down hard on Shukaku's gut, forcing out a tremendous blast of wind from his mouth. "Drilling Air Bullet!" Madara tensed and dodged with his Susanoo, but he was caught off-guard when the wind attack burst into flame with no warning, expanding far beyond its previous size and catching him in the blast.
Tenten deactivated Soujihonou's extended blade, having pierced and ignited Gaara's attack with it, and sheathed her sword as Gaara closed in on a briefly blinded Madara.
This time, Madara's eyes went wide as he saw and felt Shukaku's hands clamp down on both of Susanoo's arms at their elbows. He spun, searching for a counterattack while Shukaku pulled both of Susanoo's arms away from its torso to expose its last, badly weakened line of defense.
Gaara smashed his right knee into Susanoo's torso with all of his strength, shattering what remained of it completely. Madara reacted as quickly as he possibly could, throwing himself out through the back of his Susanoo even as it shattered and crumbled to dust. Swiping his hands through seals too quickly to be perceived even with an average Sharingan, he roared, "Fire Release: Dragon Flame Rend!"
He breathed out a massive fireball that grew outward into the likeness of a dragon's face, then shattered apart a moment later into crescent-shaped blades, narrow spears, and twisting whips, all made of condensed and shaped fire amid a more vague blast of loose flames. The attacks all sliced and pierced deep into Gaara's sand body, but it was too late for Madara.
Wreathed in her fireproof black barrier, Tenten flew through the open air between herself and Madara with Soujihonou in her left hand and her right wielding the kunai under her forearm. With a final, fierce battlecry, she slashed her sword across Madara's chest before swiping her hidden kunai forward, pouring fire chakra into it for a clean slice through Madara's neck.
Panting heavily, she hit the ground along with the two chunks of shaped wood that had been Madara's body. She slipped Soujihonou back into its sheath, retracted her kunai and drew Umiyou, casting a glare around the rubble-filled battlefield. "...Anyone else?" she huffed. "Anyone else want a piece!? Huh!?"
In a blur of black, Gaara appeared next to her within a sand cloud, Kuroshi in hand. His eyes shifted from gold on black to their usual green on white, and he sheathed his blade. "I think it's over," he sighed. "There could be another clone waiting for us to drop our guard, so we'll stay ready, but I still think that was the last of them."
Tenten slumped forward and gave a loud, shaky sigh, leaning on Umiyou's hilt with the tip of the blade piercing the ground. "D-Damn it all... I really thought I was gonna die, Gaara. He almost killed me with one clone."
"It was the same with me," Gaara admitted. "We have to warn the others about him. If this is what Madara's clones can do, even Naruto and Hinata together might not be able to beat him, and they're the best team we have."
"That's all the more reason for us to make sure the Kage Summit goes smoothly," Tenten answered. "We have to fight together if we're gonna stop Madara and Akatsuki." she took a step forward, and added, "Let's get out of here. I'm only still standing thanks to Kekkai Kokuei supporting my weight." Gaara nodded and fell into step beside her, still with his right hand on Kuroshi's hilt.
X
At the heart of the Land of Iron, there are three mountains clustered together amid a stretch of smaller peaks. These mountains have peaks that arc outward from each other and bear the likeness of three wolves' heads. Between the peaks, there is a snowy plateau occupied by Iron's nameless capital, the only full-fledged city within its borders.
Across the rest of the Land of Iron, a much more open, flat terrain, there are an assortment of prosperous towns and villages, but that's all. Stretching back into antiquity, Iron has never had any other city than the one between the Three Wolves.
Five hundred years ago, a visionary shogun united all of the standing armies across all of those towns and brought them into the mountains, setting them to work carving a network of tunnels up through the Three Wolves with all manner of jutsu the samurai had access to. Those rare few samurai who dabbled in Earth Release ninjutsu helped this work proceed faster, but they were few and far between.
The completion of the tunnel network alone took almost a year, but when it was done the samurai had access to possibly the most easily defended plot of land on the entire continent; a plot of land easily large enough to build a massive city rivalling any civilian or shinobi settlement.
Shinobi were either hired or pressganged into laying the final pieces of the city into place. The insides of the city's stone walls and foundation were covered in fuinjutsu to prevent Earth Release jutsu from reshaping them, or Lightning Release jutsu from piercing them, and also to prevent a ninja from simply scaling the walls with chakra control.
The tunnels were faced with fortresses where they emerged onto the plateau; their walls similarly guarded against ninjutsu. No ninja army would be able to break through with ninjutsu, and they would have no room or time to build siege weapons to break the walls without chakra, thus they would instead be forced back or outright massacred.
And finally, in the event that a particularly tenacious enemy devoted their time to digging a new tunnel to bypass the fortresses and charge for the city, they would be met by a massive standing army of ferocious samurai, wielding a specialized assortment of jutsu unlike anything one would expect from a shinobi. At the same time, the armies in their bypassed fortresses would each charge into battle against the shinobi from whatever angle was available, which would likely result in the shinobi army being surrounded out in the open and brutally crushed against the city's impenetrable walls.
With all of this done, the Land of Iron settled into five hundred years of neutrality and pacifism, despite maintaining an army of fully trained if somewhat untested samurai.
Of course, these innovations were conceived two hundred years before the Senju Clan became famous for its bloodline, and another two hundred years before all nine of the Tailed Beasts were under the control of the Kage at once for the first time in history. Thus, it was worth noting that a massive hole had been blown through the city's walls by Gaara's redirected Tailed Beast Ball, and also that a towering tree had spontaneously been grown by six Zetsu clones to carry them over the walls without actually climbing them.
Still, under the startlingly clear sky left in the wake of the previous night's blizzard, with the noon sun pouring down onto the city unhindered by any clouds whatsoever, Naruto felt it was a truly impressive sight.
He didn't get to admire the view for long, however, before his ears flicked back to better hear the sound of a lightning-wreathed fist rocketing toward the back of his head. He vanished in an omnidirectional blur, with a deep static hum shortly followed by a soft, muted screech of wind, then reappeared next to Hinata with Sasuke and Sakura standing behind him, all four of them taking up defensive stances.
The Raikage lowered his fist and turned to glare at Naruto, baring and grinding his teeth in fury. "You, little, bastard. Gimme one good reason why I shouldn't rip your head off for what you've done, you damned Uzumaki brat!"
"...Huh?"
"RAAAAAH!" The Raikage charged again, chasing Naruto back with a wild flurry of lightning-enhanced punches.
"Raikage-sama!"
"Bro!"
Yugito and Killer Bee arrived on the scene moments later, and while Yugito hesitantly pondered how to defuse the delicate situation, Bee took a more direct approach. A single, deep pink tentacle grew out of his lower back and whipped around A, stopping him short of breaking the Hokage's nose. Bee tossed his brother back several yards, releasing him mid-throw. A skidded back a short distance further, then turned a horrifying glare on Bee.
"N-Now hold on a second, bro!" Bee stammered, taking a small step back from A. "We've been tellin' ya all week that this just ain't Naruto's style! It wasn't him, yo!"
"What's going on here?" Naruto threw in. "What'd I do?"
"You..." A turned back to Naruto, seething. "You sent a squad of six ANBU to kill me and kidnap these two!" he gestured to the two Kumo Jinchuuriki. "But we chased 'em off, and n-"
"Hold on a second," Naruto reluctantly interrupted his fellow Kage, holding up his hands placatingly. "There's two things wrong with that; first-"
"Shut the hell up you smarmy brat!" Again the Raikage charged, and added, "Stay out of this, Bee! Or I'll hurt you so bad you'll wish for the Iron Claw!"
Naruto flash-stepped out of A's view, and reappeared behind him at a safe distance. His form was momentarily obscured by a surge of orange and black chakra, and when it cleared he was in his Six Paths Sage Mode. "Okay, three things."
"Fuck you!" A spun and resumed his attack, but now Naruto blocked his attacks with a sword of black chakra glowing orange at its core.
"First, I have no reason to kill you!" Naruto ducked under a right cross from A, then flickered out of place and once again emerged from his Empty Wind behind his foe, this time planting a kick into the small of the Raikage's back. "Second, I know it'd take a lot more than six ANBU to take out a Kage and two Jinchuuriki, ya know!"
"And third..." he vanished again, and this time began constantly flickering in and out of view around the Raikage. "...If I wanted you dead..." he let fly a Banshou Karu just as he stopped in front of A, prompting the Raikage to duck under it, then flash-stepped again to appear perched on A's back with the tip of his sword touching the back of A's neck. "...I'd do it myself."
His sword crumbled into dust which in turn evaporated into smoke, as did his black and orange chakra mantle. "We were attacked too, by Kiri ANBU. I don't believe for a second that they were the real deal."
"Well that's relieving," a new voice drawled, and all eyes turned to where the Mizukage was calmly approaching the scene. Behind her stood a blue-haired boy with a massive sword on his back, and an older man with an eyepatch. "I should probably still say it anyway, though; I didn't send any ANBU to attack you." she turned to the Raikage with a sly smirk, and added, "Oh, and it just so happens that I and my escorts were attacked by Kumo ANBU. Small world, hm?"
"I didn't..." the Raikage cut himself off, still gritting his teeth but not as viciously. "Alright, you can get off me now... Hokage-dono."
"Someone's setting us up," Sasuke announced as Naruto reappeared next to him. "Playing us against each other in hopes that at least one of us will declare war and make our situation even worse than it already is. And I think you all know who that is."
"To figure out a strange plot, look at the result and ask who benefits," Mei murmured. "None of us have anything to gain from declaring war like this, and in fact, there's only one organization in the world who'd want to sow discord between us right now. Akatsuki."
"Frankly, I can't see how they'd even expect a plan like this to work," Sasuke muttered.
"Oh, they didn't really expect for us to declare war on each other that easily," Mei answered, grinning, "but if they can get us to trust each other just a little less, then they've gained something from the scheme." she took a step toward the Konoha-nin, still smiling wickedly. "You're Sasuke Uchiha, aren't you? The Shinigami," she chuckled. "You look much cuter in person than you do in the Bingo Book."
"Lay off, bitch, he's mine!" Sakura interjected furiously, raising a fist and glaring at the Mizukage with green fire in her eyes. "CHA!"
"Hn," Sasuke chuckled. "Let's get going. The faster we get to the city, the faster we can clear this up with the Kazekage, the Tsuchikage, and probably the shogun too."
"He's got a point," Naruto added. "Akatsuki would want to trick all six of us, if possible. And," he pointed to the hole in the city's walls, "We need to know what happened over there as well."
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