Opening - Revolution Dualism by Nana Mizuki and TM Revolution
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"Truth-Seeking-Rasenshuriken!"
Not for the first time, Naruto distractedly wondered just how Zetsu was able to make sounds like human speech and his current snarl of alarm and frustration, despite lacking a mouth. In fact it seemed likely that Zetsu didn't even have organs like lungs or vocal cords, given that his body was able to flow like a liquid, splitting up and wrapping around multiple victims at once.
Regardless, the sound Zetsu was making seemed mostly human and entirely legible. There was a slushy undertone to the voice, impossible for a human to replicate, and his uncanny, inhuman Ootsuki Clan accent was very apparent, but he was still speaking.
No...!
He began to turn, momentarily locking one of his sickly yellow eyes with Naruto's cadmium-orange Rinnegan. Each combatant then turned their odd gazes on the other's jutsu, gauging which of the two would strike first. The Tsuchikage's borrowed hands had shaped a smooth, brilliant white cube of light, while Naruto had created a maelstrom of what looked like flames and black ash but was actually nothing of the sort.
Despite their differences, both of them were thinking the same thing.
How did everything go so wrong today?
The swirling ball of chakra at the heart of Naruto's Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken began to tear apart from the pull of its four malformed blades, and the Hokage gritted his teeth but pressed on. Likewise, Zetsu was faced with the simple fact that he wouldn't be able to turn and unleash his Dust Release jutsu in time, but he still tried anyway.
But then he had a better idea, one that would save his life and provide him with a chance to attack Naruto in a single move. The ceiling above, smooth stone bricks held together with a strong mortar of nearly the same hue, cracked loudly. Momentarily distracted from his attack on Zetsu, Naruto looked up and saw a massive, lightning-wreathed fist where it had destructively passed through the ceiling.
His grip only slightly loosened on the Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken, but it still loosened enough for him to lose control of the chaotic mess of a jutsu. It exploded, catching both himself and Zetsu in an outward pulse of black and orange chakra. They were relieved to note that the blades of the Rasenshuriken had lost their shape transformation and had failed to vaporize either fighter, instead merely flinging them across an already collapsing room, through various massive slabs of falling rubble while it was still airborne.
"Naruto-kun!" Hinata appeared behind Naruto and plucked him out of the air, and he grunted in surprise upon impact with her senjutsu-hardened body. Her Byakugan warned her that the next falling slab of the ceiling was set to crush them both, so she let Naruto fall from her arms in order to spin up a Revolving Heaven and hold back the rubble.
Damn, Zetsu hissed through Oonoki, since he had a clear view of Naruto and Hinata both surviving the collapse. The Mizukage caught him before he would've struck a stone wall with his momentum, but the Tsuchikage's weakened back still gave out. The black liquid growled and gurgled in pain and renewed fury, but he released Oonoki into the air since the old man could fly instead of standing.
You weren't supposed to be this much of a pain, the monster asserted angrily. I should've been able to just grab you along with these Kage, and sacrifice you for my mother in an instant!
"Yeah!?" Naruto stood and held up his reformed Truth-Seeking Blade in his usual stance, while Hinata raised her open palms in a Gentle Fist stance as well. "Well you're in our way too, ya know! We were in the middle of achieving world peace when you came in and wrecked everything!" His orange chakra flared up angrily around him, and his tail lashed back and forth behind him.
World peace!? At best, you had arranged a brief and worthless truce between five villages founded on and filled with nothing but hatred. Your notion of 'peace' is downright pathetic!
"It'll always be better than yours! Believe it!" Naruto flashed forward with his sword raised, aiming himself at the Tsuchikage. Oonoki, however, raised the cube of light he still held and extended it toward Naruto. The Hokage flickered past him, reappearing behind the possessed old man's back. His Dust Release cube shot forward as a long beam, but since Naruto was already gone Oonoki stopped it from going off.
While Naruto chased the Mizukage back with his kenjutsu, Oonoki turned toward their battle and prepared the cube once more. His wrists were thrown upward by sudden interference from Hinata, and with them his careful aim was again wasted. She spun and planted a kick into the Tsuchikage's chest, rocketing him back across the room.
With that done, she quickly shaped a Rasenyari and drew it back to fling it at him. He floated gradually to a stop and raised his hands together, this time in what looked like a Ram seal. From there however, tendrils extended from his liquid body over the Tsuchikage's wrists, entwining together in a rapid seal sequence no human could hope to replicate.
Summoning: Amenominaka!
For a split second, nothing happened. It was just long enough for Naruto and Hinata to silently question what Zetsu was trying to summon, why it hadn't arrived yet, and if perhaps the liquid monstrosity was merely bluffing.
Then Zetsu's call was answered, and the floor under all three of them was torn apart by hundreds of black stone spires. Since they stayed light on their feet and dodged the attacks, neither of the Konoha-nin were injured, but they were still unnerved by the mere appearance of the spears. They were made of a deep black but transparent crystalline material, tapering to fine and razor-sharp points.
The gaping hole where the ceiling had been was now covered by a thick, smoky black cloud that allowed absolutely no sunlight to pass into the room, leaving the fighters with only the artificial lighting in the room. Hinata dodged to her left to escape a crystal spike that would've stabbed horizontally through the back of her head, and it instead pierced the wall past Zetsu.
The black spikes kept emerging from all sides of the room by the dozens, forcing Naruto and Hinata to dodge them frantically. This went on for several seconds more, and when the spikes stopped coming, the same black crystal expanded out in a thin wavy sheet from the base of each spire. The summoned substance continued to spread out over the walls until they were entirely covered, and the room was completely sealed off by it and the black cloud above.
Then an oily black liquid began to trickle from the cloud, collected into mostly lifeless tendrils each about three inches thick. As they dripped down into the room, carefully avoided by Naruto and Hinata, they lazily curved toward spots where the crystal on the floor was notably thinner, collecting into pools there.
The Tsuchikage floated to a stop over one of those pools, lowering his feet to touch the surface lightly. Zetsu's eyes flashed and the liquid surged up around the old man, obscuring him entirely from view. Draining the pool dry, Zetsu raised up all of the liquid within it into a humanoid shape much taller than his original one, and slightly thinner.
Oonoki's hands emerged from Zetsu's chest where his sternum would be, just to the base of the wrist. His fingers curled around a softly glowing cylinder of Dust Release chakra, ready to fire at Naruto and Hinata.
It's been a long time since I've seen this place... I've missed it.
"What the hell did you do!?"
What you're seeing here is material summoned from one of my mother's personal dimensions. Specifically, this is the landscape from where she created me. I don't have the means to pull you into one of her worlds, but I can pull things out of them easily enough.
Hinata flinched and spun, deflecting a forceful punch aimed at the back of her neck by the Mizukage. Mei was now armored completely in a layer of Black Zetsu's body, resembling Tenten's Kekkai Kokuei with the addition of two dead yellow eyes staring back at Hinata's surprised pale ones. Mei brought up her left knee to slam it into Hinata's stomach, but the younger kunoichi stepped backward and caught the blow with her right palm.
Her hand tightened around Mei's knee and she spun, hauling the Mizukage into the air and giving a loud, fierce cry with her effort. She picked up speed until she was spinning as fast as she did within a Revolving Heaven, then let go of Mei's knee and watched her fly. She smashed into and through one of the vertical stone spires, and continued all but completely unhindered on her path.
Meanwhile Oonoki let fly his Dust Release beam from Zetsu's chest, aiming it squarely at Naruto's center of mass. The so-called Sage of Six Paths reshaped his sword into a circular barrier to catch the beam, surprising Zetsu. He... blocked it!? He was supposed to dodge; I planned for him to dodge-
"Rasenshuriken!"
Zetsu splattered. His arms and legs were ripped away from his torso in a shower of black goo, even as his intact eyes took in the sight of Naruto's black-orange shield withering away to reveal that he was already gone. He felt the ungodly hurricane slicing deeper into his back, carving out more of the shaped liquid and flinging it away as a fine useless spray.
But Zetsu could still deal with even this. He knew the Hokage wasn't aiming to kill Oonoki, which by necessity meant he was aiming not to kill him. He was slowing, pulling back his Rasenshuriken and preventing it from reaching the fractured old man. It shrank out of existence, leaving a wound like a crater ripped into Zetsu's back, and then Naruto's left hand swept forward guiding a simple Rasengan into that same spot.
Zetsu made his move, sliding his eyes down onto the front of his chest before Oonoki. He launched the Tsuchikage forward out of his destroyed body, aiming him down into the nearest pool of black liquid. Upon entry, the Tsuchikage fired up a geyser of the liquid. Zetsu's eyes floated to the surface and peered up at Naruto, finally seeing that he had deactivated his Six Paths Sage Mode to use his Rasenshuriken.
Ah... he can't use just one nature transformation with Hagoromo's cloak; he has to use all five at once. The liquid he had used to replace his body began to float upward, growing into a new body to contain and wield the Tsuchikage. I can use this... he leaves himself vulnerable whenever he uses his strongest attack. Very good.
Naruto drew back his now-empty left hand and kept a wary eye on Oonoki, gathering his chakra to reactivate his Six Paths Sage Mode. It would only take a moment for him to succeed, but the Mizukage still arrived on time to stop him. Her fist smashed into his back hard enough that he heard it crunch, and with a scream he flew facefirst into a black crystal spire.
His black and orange robe ignited over his real clothes and he gripped the spire with basic chakra control. His back crunched again as it was repaired, and then a third time as Mei planted her foot in it and shot the Hokage through the crystal formation. He skidded and tumbled along the floor of the battlefield, rising into a crouch once his injuries were mostly repaired.
He spotted Mei perched within the hole in the black spire, now wearing a thick suit of armor made from the same black stone. She breathed out a gust of milky white vapor to attack him, and he immediately moved backward with his Empty Wind to dodge it. He was caught by a solid wall made of Zetsu's reshaped liquid body, and promptly slammed down into the crystal floor. The mist closed in around him, burning every inch of his skin.
Naruto kept his eyes squeezed shut to at least protect them from the acid, but he could still see chakra silhouettes through his eyelids. He saw Zetsu's giant form floating high above the acid cloud, using Oonoki's levitation to stay up there while he charged another Dust Release attack, this time a triangular prism.
The Hokage moved to stand again, but the acid had taken a considerable toll on his body. Even aside from the searing pain, his skin and muscles were already starting to sizzle and dissolve to the point where even his chakra cloak's enhanced strength couldn't lift him from the ground.
The triangular beam of light shone down into the mist and lit up Naruto's body from the waist down, showing him in advance what it was about to eradicate. His eyes opened wide, but he still couldn't get out of the way.
Idiot.
Naruto screamed in fresh pain as he was rocketed upward by the sudden appearance of something large and fluffy. Now with the Hokage draped over his back, Kurama wrapped his single tail around Naruto's left ankle and whipped him out of the acid mist. He jumped skyward and molded together a ruby-red sphere of chakra in his right palm, grinning viciously as Oonoki's jutsu went off and hit absolutely nothing.
Zetsu was momentarily held in place while he wielded the disintegrating beam of chakra, just long enough for Kurama to reach him and slam his scarlet Rasengan into the liquid monster's face. He reeled upward just as the Dust Release beam cut off, and Kurama obliterated his head.
Zetsu fell while Kurama continued upward, sinking his claws into a crystal stalactite near the apex of his jump. Now perched near the black cloud at the top of the room, the Nine-Tails turned his attention on Mei. He charged up a Tailed Beast Ball and watched Mei lean forward, planning to attack him up-close before he could fire the destructive attack.
"Rasenyari!" Hinata interrupted, blasting the Mizukage in the face with her signature jutsu. Mei was sent flying back across the room, and Hinata turned her attention to Naruto while Kurama kept an eye on Oonoki. "Naruto-kun!"
The Hokage answered with a pained hiss, but he managed to climb off the ground and arm himself with another Truth-Seeking Blade. "Damn... watch out for that acid, Hina-chan."
Kurama swallowed his fully-prepared Tailed Beast Ball, then jumped from his high perch to land next to Naruto and Hinata. "His eyes are his weak spot," he announced coolly. The two humans turned their attention to the piece of Zetsu wielding Oonoki, whose eyes were now positioned on his chest between the Tsuchikage's hands in the absence of the head Kurama had destroyed. "Before I hit him with that Rasengan, I saw him move his eyes out of the way."
"Got it. Aim for the eyes." Naruto brandished his black-orange saber and glared into Zetsu's alien yellow eyes. He'll keep them close to the Kage's bodies now that we know about this. It'll be tricky to strike a killing blow on him and not take out either of them. The wound doesn't have to be deep... maybe if I used a Banshou Karu with a duller edge than usual, I could cut his eyes without reaching the Kage...
Naruto's enhanced hearing and Hinata's Byakugan alerted each of them to the arrival of the two possessed Kage at a taijutsu range. The Tsuchikage's afterimage vanished at the same time the genuine article appeared above Naruto, who parried the liquid monster's giant fist and jabbed upward in return.
Hinata, meanwhile, leaned to her left to dodge an armored flying kick aimed at the back of her head by the Mizukage. Mei harmlessly passed by Hinata with a whoosh, but then her left arm snapped out and grasped the top of the younger kunoichi's head. Hinata sharply drew in a breath and braced herself, and the crystal floor shattered upon impact with her face.
Zetsu brought Mei's stone-armored right fist down on Hinata's lower back, crunching the floor under her further and drawing a loud cry of pain from her. He drew back her arm and moved his aim to Hinata's head, but this time he was interrupted.
"Psst. You forgot this." Mei looked up with blank yellow eyes at Kurama's feral grin, noting the warm orange glow behind the fox's teeth a moment too late. The Nine-Tails opened its jaws and let loose a beam of blazing orange chakra, tearing Mei off of Hinata and firing her completely across the room. "Hah! Now that was satisfying!"
"Thanks, Kurama-san." Hinata raised herself into her preferred Gentle Fist stance, facing Mei but watching Naruto's battle behind her with her Byakugan. He was currently pushing Oonoki back with a flurry of kenjutsu slashes, but the wounds he inflicted were only superficial ones on the creature's liquid arms. Zetsu was blocking Naruto's attacks, keeping the Tsuchikage safe while the old man thoughtlessly prepared a Dust Release cone.
Kurama jumped away from Hinata, aiming to attack Oonoki as well. She watched him go, then returned her attention to the unharmed Mizukage and formed a Rasenyari to attack her. Rather than trying to escape the water jutsu, Mei unexpectedly lunged toward Hinata with speed comparable to a Pulse Step. Instead of throwing the blue spear, Hinata switched tactics and slammed it point-blank into Mei's chest at the same time the older kunoichi's hands clamped down on the younger's shoulders.
The Rasenyari exploded, and instead of throwing only Mei back it pushed Hinata away as well. Relying on the strength granted by her Sage Mode, she braced herself for the explosion and managed to stay on her feet, skidding back a considerable distance over the uneven, stony floor. To her surprise, Zetsu crouched forward on all fours to stay otherwise upright as well. The surface of Mei's crystal armor had been chipped and worn away by the Rasenyari, but Zetsu and the Mizukage were both unharmed beneath it.
Earth trumps water, Hinata noted dismally. I'll have to try something else...! Her eyes went wide and she glanced over her shoulder despite her doujutsu still being active. High in the air behind her, Kurama was attacking Oonoki at close range while Naruto tried once more to shape a Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken. By itself this wasn't so noteworthy, but the open-palm strikes Kurama was slamming into Zetsu were very familiar.
There's no mistaking it, she blinked in wonder. Kurama drew back his left palm from Zetsu's chest at the same time he shoved the right forward, slamming it down where the creature's solar plexus would be if it had one. There's no chakra behind it, but that's definitely a Gentle Fist move! She turned her attention to Naruto, noting that he was wearing a similar expression of bewilderment to her own, but with his Rasenshuriken completed he shrugged off his confusion and charged.
Dust Release! Zetsu snarled, sending the ethereal white cone he had prepared through Kurama's chest. It intially passed through the fox without harming him, but when activated it vaporized a circular hole out of his torso, leaking blood and bubbling orange chakra at once. Kurama broke apart into a spray of the same orange liquid, which then evaporated completely into the air. His consciousness returned to its place within Naruto's seal and he growled in annoyance.
Finish him, Naruto!
"Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken!"
Zetsu had already fired his Dust Release attack at Kurama, and he didn't have time to prepare another. He knew he wouldn't be fast enough to dodge; Naruto was too close and Zetsu's movement jutsu just wouldn't cut it.
He swept his arms forward, catching and pushing against the Rasenshuriken even as it tore through his palms and into his wrists. Naruto's eyes momentarily widened and narrowed, not only because of Zetsu's actions but also because of the jutsu itself. He could feel something wrong in the way the Rasenshuriken eroded Zetsu's arms down to their elbows, even as his upper arms thinned and stretched out and the alleged Ootsuki retreated backward.
It's not working, Kurama observed. This thing is even weaker than your usual Rasenshuriken, and you can barely hold it together. Naruto grimaced, feeling the malformed blades of his jutsu pulling outward even as they crept closer to Zetsu's shoulders. Just get out of there, there's no need for you to get blown up too, he went on in an annoyed tone.
Naruto hesitated, but only for a moment. He let go of the Truth-Seeking Ball and vanished from behind it, reappearing in a crouch on the floor far below Oonoki. Without its wielder to hold it together, the Rasenshuriken exploded and sent Zetsu flying, although Naruto was quick to note how less lethal the blast was than the blades had been. Zetsu was missing his arms from before the Rasenshuriken went off, but the rest of him was all but unharmed.
Now... give me control for a moment, the Nine-Tails prompted. Naruto blinked, then shrugged and closed his eyes. When Kurama opened them, the orange hue of the Rinnegan had darkened into scarlet. He blurred away to attack Zetsu, but surprised Naruto again by targeting the Mizukage. Along for the ride, Naruto silently expected Kurama's palm strikes to prove completely useless against Mei, but before the two reached each other Kurama produced a Truth-Seeking Rasengan in his right palm.
The Mizukage made an effort to stop Kurama with taijutsu, blocking his first few jabs with the Rasengan. Zetsu took a short, quick step back and lashed out with a right roundhouse kick, but Kurama caught the offending leg with Naruto's tail. Within the Eight Trigrams Seal, Naruto's eyes went wide with surprise at the same time Kurama slammed the Rasengan home into Mei's chest.
He pushed, guiding the Rasengan to fly forward and take the armored Mizukage with it through three crystal pillars and into a wall. "Hinata," he spoke up loudly. "Take the Tsuchikage, and Naruto will deal with this one."
"H-Hold on!" Hinata protested, even if only halfheartedly.
Kurama pulled back the Truth-Seeking Rasengan holding Mei against the crystal wall, then shot it forward again into her similarly armored face. Zetsu gave a sound somewhere between a pained grunt and an angry growl, giving Kurama some small measure of gratification. "What is it?"
"How... When did you learn the Gentle Fist?"
"You've been pummeling Naruto with it for over three years, and I watched." with his left hand he tapped the seal on the Hokage's belly, and with his right he guided the Rasengan from a distance. "I didn't exactly need a Sharingan to memorize the basic moves." Mei dodged his next stab forward with the Rasengan, and he called it back to his right hand. He met Zetsu's vicious glare with one of his own, still grinning. "Considering I've never had a single taijutsu lesson, don't you think I'm doing rather well?"
"Well... your form is still a bit too sloppy, and you can't use chakra to target an enemy's tenketsu without a Byakugan," she mused. "Maybe if you had a taijutsu sensei, you could build on what you've copied from me..."
Hinata fell silent, and Kurama glanced over his shoulder to see why. He did so just in time to see her dodge a Dust Release beam and counterattack with a rapidly formed Rasenyari. Oonoki narrowly managed to dodge the attack, but he seemed more annoyed than fazed. The Nine-Tails shrugged, turned back to face Mei, and placed Naruto back in control of his body.
In an instant, Naruto had reshaped his Rasengan into a Truth-Seeking Blade and used it to catch an open-palm strike from the possessed Mizukage. Zetsu's hand closed around the sword to hold it in place, and his eyes glowed yellow through the black crystal veil covering them. With his free hand, the so-called Ootsuki reached past Naruto's sword toward his heart, but in return the Hokage hastily produced a black-orange Rasengan in his off hand to fend him off.
"...I get it," Naruto murmured, pushing his Rasengan against Zetsu's armored hand while the black creature did likewise. "You came up with this armor to block Hinata's water jutsu, but you didn't bother trying it on me 'cause my jutsu use all five elements. They don't have an elemental weakness for you to exploit."
And your point is...? Zetsu might've sneered if he had a face. You've thrown off one basic piece of my strategy; that won't stop me from killing you.
"Heh." The crystal armor on Mei's palm cracked against the Rasengan, and Zetsu glanced down at it in surprise. "No, your mom's gonna stop you from killing me."
I've been at this for a thousand years, brat. You don't think I'd forget now that it's your chakra I need to finish this? You'll die when my mother returns in your place. Ergo, I will kill you. Zetsu shoved back Naruto's sword and Rasengan at once, lifting his own feet from the floor to fly back to a safer distance. He took a brief moment to inspect the damage to his black crystal gauntlet, then glared at Naruto once more.
And regardless, I'm not the only one who has to be careful with his strikes. You two risk killing these shinobi with every jutsu you throw. Naruto banished his Truth-Seeking Rasengan and lowered into his preferred kenjutsu stance. The only one of us here who isn't protected by that problem is her.
He nodded toward Hinata, prompting Naruto to turn in time to see her punched at full force by the liquid monstrosity containing Oonoki. She was thrown by the punch, tumbling across the crystal floor and skimming the surface of two of the black liquid pools as she went.
I have no reason at all not to attack her with killing intent, Zetsu went on. And unlike you, she doesn't have the speed required to reliably dodge a Boundary Dismantling.
Naruto gritted his teeth, but his attention was commanded by the sudden arrival of the Mizukage directly in front of him. He parried her rock-solid taijutsu attacks with his sword, retreating back a few short paces as he did. He caught her seventh punch and shoved her back, momentarily putting a bit of distance between himself and Zetsu.
His sword and chakra cloak vanished, and an instant later they were replaced by a brilliant white Rasenshuriken in his right hand. Before Zetsu could recover his balance from Naruto's counterattack, the shuriken met the armor over Mei's chest and gave a horrifying scream as it grated against the crystal.
Naruto flash-stepped away from his own jutsu, leaving it to explode and throw Zetsu back, mirroring what he'd just done to Hinata. He appeared in the air high above Zetsu's path, once more clad in his Six Paths Sage Mode, and flipped himself around in midair to face the creature.
"Banshou Karu!" his sword blurred through the air over and over again, producing and letting fly dozens of metal blades wreathed in blazing orange chakra, each aimed to strike Zetsu even as he flew back from the Rasenshuriken's explosion. When the Mizukage crashed into a crystal pillar and stopped, Naruto cut off the second phase of his attack and followed it up with a thrown Truth-Seeking Rasengan. He swept his hands outward and used shape transformation to rapidly expand the black Rasengan, producing an artificial explosion.
That's it! Eyes wide, Naruto arrived back on the ground with an Empty Wind and produced another Truth-Seeking Ball. Kurama... I know how to make the Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken work!
Well that's nice, the fox replied coolly, because it looks like you'll need it. Zetsu emerged from the aftermath of the Rasengan's explosion, livid and with his crystal armor badly worn and cracked, but he was otherwise unharmed.
While the Hokage and Mizukage had continued fighting, Hinata made use of the distance between herself and Oonoki as best she could despite the circumstances. After her momentum from Zetsu's punch ran out, she skidded halfway across a third black pool before she sank beneath the surface. She kept her eyelids closed and peered through them with the Byakugan, watching the Tsuchikage float closer to the pool.
Her heart skipped a beat when she thought of his ability to weaponize the black liquid as a part of his body, and she shivered to think how easily he could crush her or possess her with it in this position, but then she paused in her thoughts for a moment.
There must be a reason he hasn't done it already. The Tsuchikage continued his approach, and Hinata brought her hands together in a Snake seal. It's the same reason he didn't attack us with all of these pools from the start, and why he's coming closer to me now... he must need to touch the liquid to use it as a body!
Four Hinatas sprang up from within the black pool, poised in a square formation before Zetsu. The monstrosity stopped coming closer, glancing back and forth between Hinata's clones in a way that suggested confusion and hesitation. It took him a moment to decide what to do next, namely expanding a Dust Release cube to surround all of the clones at once.
All four of them scattered in different directions with an Empty Wind, just barely in time to escape the white flash that lit up the inside of the cube and eradicated everything within. One clone each appeared to Zetsu's left and right sides, and quickly lunged in to pelt him with Gentle Fist attacks. He snarled and curled inward, shielding his eyes and Oonoki's exposed hands on his torso. He flung his arms outward, catching and breaking apart both of them.
"Oodama Rasengan!" Hinata called, prompting Zetsu to spin and face her third clone's incoming attack. She was dashing toward him with a Rasengan the size of a watermelon in her right hand, which he managed to sidestep and smoothly counter with a crushing chop to her lower back as she passed him.
He momentarily questioned why he'd managed to dispatch the clones so much more easily than the real Hinata, even taking into account the water clones being inherently weaker. They could take far less damage before breaking than he expected, and the third one's attack with the Rasengan was pitifully clumsy. He turned to face where he'd last seen the fourth Hinata as he considered all of this, and he was almost in time to stop her.
The fourth clone had been sprinting toward him completely empty-handed, making almost no sound. By the time Zetsu began to react to her approach, she jumped up and forward toward his chest while beginning to spin in midair. A ball of misty white chakra flared up around her and slammed into Zetsu's chest, shoving him back and attacking the Tsuchikage's hands at the same time.
"Rasenkaiten!"
The modified Revolving Heaven was gone as suddenly as it arrived, leaving Hinata to cross the remaining distance between herself and Zetsu's exposed torso since her attack had pushed his arms wide apart. She extended her fingertips before her as she flew closer, aiming with her left hand for Oonoki's right palm, and with her right for Zetsu's left eye.
She hit both, pumping chakra into her targets just before her full body slammed into Zetsu. Growling in pain and fury, the oily creature reshaped his chest to extend thin tendrils of itself around the clone and crush her until she splashed apart.
Now with only one eye and no longer able to channel Oonoki's Dust Release through the old man's hands, Zetsu seethed. He turned his attention back to the Hinata that had attacked him with an Oodama Rasengan, correctly guessing that she was the genuine article since she hadn't been dispelled by his earlier attack. He whipped his right arm at her with as much force as he could, but she brought her senjutsu-enhanced strength to bear and blocked his swing with her own forearm.
The two swapped punches and palm strikes, and each did little damage to the other. Hinata's body was as hard as stone thanks to her Sage Mode, but Zetsu lacked any kind of chakra network for her Gentle Fist to target. His chakra merely flowed through his liquid body as an amorphous haze, and the only part of his body that resembled any kind of living organism at all was his remaining eye.
She set her sights on that little yellow circle which she assumed was the entirety of Zetsu's actual body, and spontaneously created a Rasenyari in her right hand to attack it. Zetsu twisted himself aside, not only to dodge the spear but also to grab her wrist as it passed by. Hinata's free left hand came up in a half-Ram seal, and she was engulfed in a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, she was still standing with her arm in Zetsu's grip, but her Rasenyari was gone.
With her jutsu finished, she lashed out with her left hand and slammed it into Zetsu's chest, narrowly missing his remaining eye and shoving him back half a step. He snarled and brought his own free hand forward, grasping her throat and bringing down all his strength to crush it.
Hinata croaked, frantically reaching up to her own collarbone with eyes wide. Zetsu squeezed harder even though her windpipe was already caved in, and he reshaped his body to pierce through hers with dozens of thin black needles extended from his torso and arm. Her Byakugan deactivated and her eyelids drifted down slightly. Her grip on Zetsu's wrist went limp, although they didn't fall to her sides since they were pinned to her chest by Zetsu's attack.
Zetsu withdrew his spikes and let her drop from his grip, crumpling lifelessly to the floor at his feet. He reached up to where his destroyed eye had previously rested on his chest, giving a soft, brief grunt that vaguely expressed his satisfaction, then turned his remaining eye's gaze on the Hokage. And now it's two on one.
The pool of black liquid where Hinata had initially been submerged exploded upward, and within the geyser Zetsu glimpsed a flash of blue. He recognized it as his opponent's last Rasenyari, and made a move to dodge but was stopped by a hand around his ankle. He glanced down in shock to see Hinata holding him in place, wearing a defiant expression despite her throat still being visibly crushed.
The real Hinata, having Substituted with a fourth clone hidden within the pool, threw her jutsu forward. The clone she had replaced herself with splashed apart at Zetsu's feet, revealing that its lungs had been filled with the black oil while it had waited in the pool. Zetsu understood from this that Hinata's clones didn't need to breathe as she did, which explained why it could fight to keep itself from being dispelled after Zetsu crushed its windpipe, instead of giving into its injuries instantly.
Across the room, Naruto kept his orange glare aimed at Zetsu within the aftermath of his latest attack's explosion. He was holding another Truth-Seeking Rasengan, but as of yet it hadn't expanded out into a misshapen mess of black-orange chakra in the vague shape of a shuriken.
You said you figured it out, Kurama prodded. So what are you doing differently this time, then?
Before, I was trying to make the same tiny blades in my normal Rasenshuriken out of this Six Paths chakra, Naruto answered. I was trying to do it all with shape transformation, though. I really thought I could make the blades as small and thin as my Rasenshuriken, and with this chakra it would be even stronger than the original. But it didn't work; I couldn't make the blades right and the whole thing kept falling apart.
But now I get it. I'm trying to make the Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken do the exact same thing the normal one does, and that's not gonna happen. Shape transformation isn't gonna work, so I'm using nature transformation instead.
From the equator of the spinning Rasengan, five pinpoints of light emerged. They all blurred together with their speed, but Kurama could guess what their individual colors were. They would be teal for wind, yellow for lightning, pale brown for earth, a deeper blue for water, and red for fire. All five of the elements within the Truth-Seeking Ball were creeping out from its surface, blending together into a disc shape from the Rasengan's rotation and Naruto's conscious addition of shape transformation to hold them in a form he was familiar with.
He vanished.
The first real Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken met the Mizukage's armor an instant later, biting deep into the otherworldly material. The cutting nature of the Wind Release and the piercing effect of the Lightning Release together chewed through Zetsu's armor like so much cardboard, and the Fire Release rendered the resulting fragments into something between ash and dust.
Naruto kept moving forward, carried by the pushing effect of the Water Release in his jutsu flinging Mei backward. It was the Earth Release's specialization in reshaping its subject that saved Mei's life, folding back the single multi-colored blade away from her once it had sliced Zetsu's eyes tens of thousands of times until nothing was left of them.
The Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken didn't explode; it shrank peacefully back into its basic sphere form once it had served its purpose. Naruto flash-stepped away from the Mizukage and reappeared at a safe distance, in time to see the final push of Hinata's Rasenyari as it exploded, firing Oonoki and Zetsu into a wall on the far side of the chamber.
Both Naruto and Hinata's eyes widened in surprise when Oonoki met the crystal wall, and cracks began spreading out from his point of impact over its entirety. With her Byakugan's extended field of vision, Hinata was the first to notice that the ponds of black oil on the floor were evaporating into a black haze, one by one, and that haze didn't take long to fade away completely.
The splinters of black crystal that fell away from the walls of the room vanished amid tiny puffs of smoke, long before they hit the floor. Oonoki and the dead black liquid covering him remained, and landed on the exposed concrete floor together.
Mei hastily sat up and coughed, spitting out a bit of the liquid that had been Zetsu's body along with a single chip of his black crystal armor, both of which evaporated shortly after hitting the floor. The liquid covering Oonoki was the last to vanish, and once it was gone there was no trace of Zetsu left.
"Disgusting," the Mizukage remarked, then gargled lava for a few moments to clean out her mouth of any remaining black oil. She spat it out as well, standing shakily while her lava sizzled and cooled on the floor. She saw stars and felt tremendously weak, but she managed to fight off the sensation and stay on her feet. "He was draining my chakra through the entire battle..." ...I should probably sit down somewhere...
Naruto flickered to Oonoki's side, crouching next to the unconscious old man. "Hina-chan, can you help me with him?"
"On it." she moved in as well, casting a quick glance over the Tsuchikage with her Byakugan. "He has several broken bones... six of them," she noted dismally. "And his back is bent out of shape, too. He's not in danger of dying, but he must be in incredible pain... he needs to see Sakura. This is way more than either of us can heal."
"Can you see where she is?"
"...She's...!"
Hinata blinked in surprise, an instant before the wall ten feet away from them was smashed inward by Sakura's fist. She cast a glare around the room, her expression souring further with each friendly face she noted. "Dammit," she groaned, giving up her search for someone to punch. "Alright guys, we're clear."
Sasuke strode into the room looking rather exhausted, shortly followed by the Raikage floating on a bed of black sand, wrapped in an assortment of red-stained bandages. After him came Gaara and Tenten, both of whom still had their swords drawn. Sakura noted the Tsuchikage's injuries almost immediately, and she turned to Gaara just as quickly. "Set him down here," she pointed to the floor next to Oonoki. "I'll deal with them both together."
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