Opening - Courage by Haruka Tomatsu
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Nagato counted the seconds as they passed, still staring up at the top of Konoha's walls with a total of twelve eyes. One minute wasn't much time; that was why he'd chosen to give them no more. If Pain showed more patience, it could possibly give Konoha the time to arrange its shinobi for an attack. More than that, it could give them time to resolve themselves to that course of action. With only sixty seconds between them and Pain, they were more likely to sweat and give in to his demands then challenge him.
And still, he began mobilizing his Paths after only thirty seconds.
Truth be told, Nagato was surprised that Naruto and Sasuke hadn't arrived at the walls of Konoha within moments. It could be excused by the fact that Pain had arrived so early in the morning, but only to an extent. He was more troubled by Naruto's absence than Sasuke's, since the Hokage had a movement jutsu that could carry him outside the village in an instant, and he was certainly the kind of man who would face Pain without hesitation.
Nagato was confused, and therefore concerned.
The Human Path was the first to move, Pain's weakest and most expendable Path. This wasn't to say that the Human Path didn't qualify as an intimidating opponent, only that it was the least intimidating face Pain wore. Its true strength lay in gathering information, and such was the task Nagato chose for it once again this morning.
It strode toward the Asura Path, which scooped up and hoisted the lighter body over its own massive shoulder, grinning eerily up at the sky past Konoha's walls. The Human Path looked as well, waiting serenely to be thrown with thoroughly lethal force over those walls.
At the same time the Asura Path shoved the Human into the sky, the Deva Path soared up as well. Flying entirely under its own power, Yahiko's body was able to land comfortably in the middle of a dirt road, shortly ahead of the still-falling Human Path. Beheld by three awestruck civilians and a Genin boy, Yahiko reached skyward toward his other body and murmured, "Shinra Tensei."
The Genin turned and ran.
The Human Path's deadly descent slowed greatly, and it landed on its feet with no more trouble than the Deva Path had. A few seconds after this, the Asura Path smashed into the ground between them with none of that grace, sending chunks of displaced earth flying from its feet on impact. The three scattered in random directions, leaving behind a small rough crater and three stupefied civilians.
It took Sasuke a total of fifty seconds to comply with Pain's demand, roughly ten of which Pain had spent beginning a direct search for his targets.
He was preceded by Kimimaro and Karin, who both arrived via the knight's Pulse Step. Sasuke arrived not long after by flying over and past the top of the wall where Taka had started to assemble. Suigetsu was next to arrive, appearing in a blur from nowhere with Samehada slung over his shoulder. Lastly came Sakura and Juugo, neither of whom could fly or use a movement jutsu.
All of them watched Sasuke land in a crouch before Pain with expressions of open shock.
"Hn... So you're Pain." his black and red eyes spun and drifted between the Animal, Preta and Naraka Paths slowly, almost lazily. "What do you want with me?"
"You aren't my primary target," the Animal Path spoke up. "I've only targeted you because it's convenient... killing two birds with one stone, so to speak." She glared past him at Konoha's walls, and the team of shinobi gathered there. "My foremost priority is to capture or kill Naruto Uzumaki, and his sixty seconds are up."
"Naruto isn't here," the Uchiha noted coolly. "Sorry to disappoint, but he left for Ame two days ago."
"...I see." Pain's eyes didn't widen, but Sasuke saw the slight tension in his faces as he spoke. "Very well. God has a duty to set a respectable example for His subjects to follow... so I will keep my word."
The Animal Path crouched low to the ground and slapped her palm to the cold earth, producing a web of fuinjutsu script. Sasuke's eyes went wide and he leapt back, but not quickly enough to avoid the punch that slammed into his collarbone through the smoke courtesy of the Preta Path. Nagato had intended to then drain Sasuke of chakra before moving on to the rest of Taka, but he stopped short when Sasuke's shadow clone ruptured into a puff of smoke from the initial punch.
The real Sasuke soared up into view from behind Taka and the wall, landing near the core of their group. He glared down at the fading cloud of smoke with his eyes fully active and trickling blood, and the three-headed monstrous hound next to Pain was set ablaze with black fire. He turned his gaze to the Preta Path next, but Pain caught and absorbed the flames with a flash of clear blue light.
"Destroy him," Sasuke ordered, and Taka moved to obey.
In a flash, Kimimaro and Suigetsu were upon the Animal Path with their swords held horizontally, ready to cleave inward from both sides like a pair of scissors. The lone female Pain darted back past the reach of their weapons and threw a pair of kunai, one at each of them. Kimimaro allowed one to ring harmlessly off his helm, while Suigetsu deftly brought up his massive shredding weapon up to catch the other.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Karin roared, spreading an army of herself over the top of Konoha's walls. As one, hundreds of her leapt from their perches and into battle against the canine monstrosity that had just now grown a fourth head and roared with it, even as the black flames continued to scorch away its fur and skin. She drew her swords and let loose a battlecry heard clear across the village, ready to hack the giant dog to bits. To better allow her to do this, Sasuke extinguished his Amaterasu since it wasn't accomplishing anything.
Juugo attacked the Preta Path viciously with an arm transformed into a broad stony axe, a blow that was just barely parried by Pain's thin iron rod. The weapon gave a loud cracking sound, and Preta Pain's Sharingan watched in slow motion as a chip of his weapon broke off and floated toward the ground.
Sasuke formed his Susanoo and drew back its bow, firing an arrow into the ground at the Naraka Path's feet. It jumped backward, but not far enough to clear the section of earth being ripped and churned apart by the impact of the arrow.
"Hold on to this," Sasuke prompted. Sakura turned to him with a confused look, but then the entire surface of her body began to tingle. She felt her senses extending, taking control of a form that dwarfed her own, and her mouth fell slightly open with her disbelief. "I'll be back for it in a second."
Sasuke leapt through the ribs of Sakura's Susanoo, descending as quickly as he dared toward the distant ground. She stood numbly in place for a moment, then turned her attention to where the Animal Path looked set to raise another monster to its side. She meant to prepare an attack then, but with two swords and a bow she wasn't quite sure how. These weren't weapons she was familiar with, they weren't ones she could use reliably to strike such a distant target.
The answer appeared simultaneously in her mind and Susanoo's hands. "Summoning Ju-" the Animal Path cut herself off to flee, dodging Sakura's four giant purple shuriken and the slabs of earth and stone they displaced. Juugo and Kimimaro similarly jumped away to safety, then resumed their pursuit of the Animal Path.
"Summoning Jutsu!" Sasuke went on, uninterrupted by any attack from the occupied Pains. Aoda arrived on the scene with a thunderous hiss, rearing up to better survey the battlefield and make note of each of his targets. He was promptly tackled into Konoha's wall by the now five-headed hound Pain had called, with several dozen Karin clones clinging to swords embedded in its flanks.
Aoda twisted to the side of the monster, biting deep into one of its scorched necks. The dog howled and thrashed vigorously enough that when its weight was reduced by four-fifths Aoda momentarily thought it had ripped itself apart trying to escape his clutches.
Sasuke landed once more within his Susanoo, watching with wide eyes as Aoda was pursued by a pack of five giant dogs with one head each. "...Sakura, can you hit those dogs with your poison bombs?"
"No problem." She quickly produced three black eggs to start with, throwing one after another at the Rinnegan-wielding summons. The dogs fell over and writhed aimlessly, each producing an abominable scream that no earthly creature should've been capable of making.
Nodding with satisfaction at that, Sakura pulled forth and threw another pair of eggs at the remaining dogs. These two tried to dodge, but her throws were too accurate and the eggs flew too quickly through the air. Her attacks struck home soundly, eliminating the remaining pair of monsters.
"So you can just pass your Susanoo off to someone else now?" she asked. "What'd happen if you gave it to Itachi and then he used his Susanoo?"
Sasuke blinked. "I hadn't thought of that, but now I really want to try it," he admitted. "As for how it works... Madara apparently reshaped his Susanoo around the Nine-Tails when he fought the First Hokage. I figured out how to do the same thing with Aoda, and then I modified it to work on other people and my clones."
"Speaking of clones," she began quietly, "Do you have any idea how that dog thing could split itself apart like that?"
"Amplification Summoning," Sasuke answered. "Itachi told me the jutsu was lost before Konoha was founded... apparently someone out there still knew it," he shrugged. "Every time that dog takes a hit serious enough to wound it, it'll split itself. The clones can stay joined together or break apart at will, and I have no idea how long they can keep replicating. Niisan says the only way to stop it is to dispel the summon by defeating the summoner."
"Or poison," she pointed out. "It's one of Sasori's compounds, modified from a liquid into a powder. Apparently this doesn't count as 'wounding' it."
"Hn," he murmured thoughtfully. "Maybe it has to be an attack capable of making the dog bleed, even if it's just internal bleeding as simple as a bruise. It's a good thing that worked, Sakura. My Amaterasu couldn't even stop it; it just kept growing more heads the longer it burned."
The dogs all simultaneously exploded into smoke, obscuring Sasuke's and Sakura's view of the battlefield. Aoda whipped his tail forward, clearing the air around himself. It was enough to reveal Juugo's ongoing battle against the Preta Path, both of whom had resorted to forming two of their chosen weapons at once. Juugo's control of his senjutsu chakra was beginning to slip; he was attacking Pain like a wild animal but for now seemed to be mostly in control of his actions.
He smashed diagonally downward with the axe in place of his right hand, taking a step ahead as he did. He repeated the move with his left hand, then again with his right. Pain paced backward and brushed aside each sweep of the axe with his two piercing bladed weapons, his Sharingan flicking back and forth between Juugo's attacks.
Pain switched tactics suddenly, taking a deep step back to let Juugo's left axe pass him by. The berserker stumbled forward, but he also raised his right axe yet again. Before he could bring it down, Pain stabbed both of his dark rods through his senjutsu-hardened body. His right upper arm and the left side of his chest were both skewered, and his axe was stopped long before it could cleave into Pain.
Juugo registered the presence of the cold metal through his arm and chest and the fact that his axe had been stopped, but ignored the pain in favor of attacking Pain. He planted his stance firmly in front of Pain, leaning forward slightly, and the brown carapace over his sternum grew forward. It formed a cannon with a short, wide barrel, within which glinted a white-blue light from Juugo's condensed chakra.
Since Pain was so cooperative as to stand in place and wait for Juugo to fire, he did so without wasting time. The force of his own chakra cannon pushed him back a few paces, his feet scraping shallow tracks into the dirt as he went. Once he came to a stop, he shifted his balance backward and jumped further away from Pain. His axes transformed back into hands which he used to rip the iron stakes from his body, and after that he reshaped only his right forearm into a chakra cannon similar to the one on his chest.
Black smoke surrounded the spot where Pain had taken a direct hit, and there were a few bright blue flares of chakra burning on the ground around the cloud, resembling fire closely enough to be called such. For a moment, Juugo simply peered into it in search of Pain, but common sense spurred him back into action. He took aim with his arm cannon and fired five more blasts of neon blue chakra, then began walking forward to inspect the result.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
His gaze was sharply redirected to the Animal Path, whom he could now see crouching low to the ground at a safe distance from Kimimaro and Suigetsu. Both of them flash-stepped ahead as he watched, closing in on the summoner in the exact same moment she was hidden by a fresh wave of white smoke. Whatever it was, the newly summoned abomination was large enough to send the two swordsmen flying with its arrival.
Juugo felt another black spike pierce his chest a moment before he registered Pain's movement from the corner of his eye. He turned and fired his chakra cannon without thinking, but a completely unharmed Preta Pain stepped past the ball of light and Juugo himself. He ripped the spike from his chest and swung it wildly at Pain, who ducked and lunged forward to clamp his right hand down on Juugo's throat.
"Your wounds heal quickly, and you don't seem to feel pain." Juugo's arms fell limply to his sides, and he found himself completely unable to look away from the sole Rinnegan eye facing him. His chakra cannon turned back into a hand, and his skin began to fade back into its natural color. "But you will still experience Pain."
The Preta Path froze and glanced down at his extended wrist, which was by now densely covered in swirling black marks not unlike a Cursed Seal. He stopped draining Juugo's chakra and withdrew his right hand, instead smashing his left fist into Juugo's nose. He crumpled, and Pain turned his attention to the remaining members of Taka.
Along with a horde of Karin's remaining shadow clones, Aoda shot forward into the Animal Path's chakra smoke and lit his fangs with lightning chakra, sinking them deep into the flank of an impossibly massive rhinoceros while taking care to avoid its horn.
Karin's white swords bounced harmlessly away from its tough hide, but Aoda managed to pierce through its armor. The monster thrashed as Aoda's lightning chakra fried it from the inside out, and as it began to fall Aoda registered the sensation of a human landing upright atop his back.
"Summoning Jutsu," Pain called again, quiet and deathly calm. More smoke exploded above and around Aoda, and he shrieked in shock and pain as yet another monstrosity appeared and pinned him to the ground. This time it was a huge, deformed bird with three frail legs and a gigantic beak made of what looked to be a golden metal.
The bird raked its claws into Aoda's back, and the snake twisted around and aimed his fangs at this new threat as well. The bird whipped its head around and smashed the left side of its beak into the left of Aoda's head, knocking his lunge off-course. It reared back and opened its beak, aiming to tear out Aoda's throat while he reeled from its counterattack.
The wound would undoubtedly have been fatal, but Aoda went up in a puff of smoke an instant before the damage could be done. The bird's jaws snapped shut on chakra smoke and otherwise empty air, and it gave a grating trill before turning to face the walls of Konoha.
It spread its three broad wings, evenly spaced around its body and adorned with tattered and matted grey feathers, and pounded them diagonally down toward the ground and in pursuit of each other. The bird spiralled as it flew, first upward and then directly toward Konoha after a ninety-degree turn.
Sasuke's left eye trickled a thin stream of blood, and the red pattern in it glowed vibrantly. "Amaterasu!"
The bird kept spinning as Sasuke aimed his black fire, allowing him to burn it from all sides. It didn't stop even as it burned, and it didn't open its beak to scream in pain. It continued on its course without so much as flinching, and Sasuke gritted his teeth.
"Hold on to something!" he shouted and formed a longbow of glowing purple in one of Susanoo's left hands. "Either me or Susanoo!" Sakura leapt forward and grasped one of Susanoo's ribs with both hands, planting her feet along a lower one as well. Sasuke spread his wings and jumped straight upward, firing his arrow at the same time.
The Preta Path launched itself into action, extending both of its open hands to catch Sasuke's arrow. It twisted apart into wisps of purple light on contact with Pain's defense, rendered harmless and absorbed. The drill-beaked thing shot past the Preta Path and into Konoha's shield.
As the Preta Path fell back to earth, Sasuke and Sakura ascended to a safe distance above the wall. Susanoo nocked and drew back another arrow, and Sakura released her right handhold to prepare another black egg. Far below, the bird's impact blasted a massive hole in Konoha's wall, easily large enough to allow it passage through. Sasuke shifted his aim accordingly, past the wall to where he expected the bird to emerge from the dust cloud currently filling the air and obscuring it.
Its momentum was all but gone after having smashed through the village wall, and since its entire body was still burning it failed to beat its wings to fly any further. The monster flopped to the ground just past the broken wall, shaking the earth and kicking up yet more dust.
Sasuke loosed his second shot, aiming at the huge and misshapen chakra silhouette he could see through the dust. The arrow wasn't intercepted this time, and since its target was motionless it struck true to the center of the bird's chest. The monster started to scream, but only for a moment before it was cut off by Pain dispelling it.
"Sasuke!" Sakura called and took aim with her black egg. "Shoot an arrow at the chakra-absorbing Pain!"
"Hn." Noting the egg in Sakura's raised hand, he correctly guessed that she had a plan. He formed and pulled back another arrow, letting it fly after only taking a brief moment to aim. Sakura threw her egg along the exact same path as the arrow's flight, keeping it out of the Preta Path's line of sight.
The Naraka Path saw Sakura throw the egg, even though the projectile itself was too small for its eyes to reliably track across such distance. The Preta Path, however, was unable to do anything to save itself by that point. It was already in position to catch and absorb Sasuke's attack, and once that was done it wouldn't have time to dodge the egg.
Recalling his dog summon's reaction to the same poison, Nagato decided to let the Preta Path collapse rather than stay in control to experience the same suffering. It was true that Pain didn't feel pain in the typical sense, but controlling a body being eaten into by such a poison, vicious enough to reduce his dog summon to screaming and flailing in absolute agony instantly after its application, would likely be unpleasant for him.
The Naraka Path shot toward its fallen counterpart, intent on using the King of Hell to eliminate the poison.
It was only to be expected that at least one of Taka's fighters would get in his way, and as such he prepared two chakra stakes in advance. When Karin appeared before him with her swords raised and aimed to come down on each of his shoulders, he smoothly brought up his own weapons and parried hers away to the sides. He snapped out with his right foot aiming for her center of mass while her swords were out of the way.
That was a mistake.
A moment later he looked down at the stump where his foot used to be. If it had been cut off slowly enough for him to see it happen with his Sharingan, or perhaps if his Paths could transmit the decidedly unpleasant sensation of being dismembered back to the real Nagato, he might've been more rattled by this.
Instead, Pain simply blinked and tried to step back.
That was another mistake.
With his right leg now significantly shorter than the left and lacking a foot for him to balance on, Pain fell over with absolutely none of the dignity one would expect from a God. A moment later the Preta Path jolted back to life, and lunged to its feet aiming a punch at Karin's exposed back.
This time Nagato was able to track her movements, watching carefully as she whirled and brought up the edge of her left sword. The pearly white edge bit between the Preta Path's middle two knuckles, sinking into his hand, but this hindered him far less than Sasori's wicked poison.
Those reflexes are impressive, but if my theory is correct... Nagato pulled, and felt his chakra supply rise at the same time Karin disintegrated into a faint white mist, swords and all. Yes. Just a shadow clone.
Six of Karin's few remaining clones leapt into formation where the first had fallen, with their backs to each other and their swords raised in all directions. As one, they noted the Preta Path slumping once more and the Naraka Path emerging unharmed from the mouth of what she could only guess was the King of Hell, at a distance well past the reach of her blades. A quick glance at the ground told her that Pain's foot had been regrown rather than reattached, since the one she'd severed was still bleeding sluggishly into the dirt.
Past Karin from the Naraka Path's point of view, a white blur appeared and vanished within the blink of an eye. With the Sharingan in his left eye, he was able to recognize Kimimaro in his armor but with his sword and shield discarded. When Kimimaro left, he took with him the unconscious Juugo and inactive Preta Path, reappearing at the base of Konoha's wall near where the drill-beaked bird had torn through it.
He dropped the Preta Path at his feet, and once more Nagato reluctantly stepped into a body being corroded by poison and with its hand split in two. He reached for Kimimaro's helm to channel his jutsu into the knight's head and sap his chakra, but a thin shortsword of bone grew out of Kimimaro's palm and slashed through the Preta Path's neck before Pain could steal his chakra.
Pain's remaining bodies, spread out as they were, frowned at the loss. It was only temporary as long as the Naraka Path was active, but it was still a nuisance. All ten of his remaining eyes in Konoha assessed their various situations, and Nagato carefully considered his next move while he still had a moment for it.
The Preta Path was down, leaving behind the Naraka and Animal Paths to face Sasuke's group.
The Deva, Asura and Human Paths were being inconvenienced by an assortment of S-rank ninja within Konoha, which was not only frustrating but also mildly embarassing. He had anticipated contact with the Hokage or Sasuke, possibly both, but now he knew he had divided his Paths for nothing at all. Now two of his three preferred weapons were fighting opponents he hadn't chosen, leaving only the Animal Path as his primary weapon against Sasuke.
Fortunately the Animal Path was at least faring well against Suigetsu, who was the only member of Taka still targeting her at this point. The boy was surprisingly fast with Kisame's sword, but it was clear that he hadn't quite grown used to its weight. He was tiring, slowing down, and that was enough for Pain.
The Animal Path didn't move to blast a forward kick into Suigetsu's chest; this one wasn't as fast as Karin but he was still fast, and the last time Pain had tried that move had cost him a limb. Instead he stepped back, allowing Samehada to crash down into the earth he'd been standing on. Suigetsu's next move would likely be to heave the greatsword up again while taking a single quick step forward, extending his reach just enough to rip Pain open with his uppercut. Pain, however, leapt back further and shifted his grip on the black rod he'd been using to parry Suigetsu's larger weapon.
He threw the rod as a javelin, aiming for Suigetsu's eye. The boy was still quick enough to lean aside and save his own life, but Pain threw another rod and took another jump back. Suigetsu's eyes widened just slightly, and Pain could see the comprehension on his face even before the Animal Path dropped into a crouch, hands blurring through seals at their top speed.
Suigetsu flickered ahead and raised Samehada high, in position to reduce the Animal Path to mulch with a single swing of his sword. He was almost in time.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
The next horror Pain called to his aid was a centipede armored in orange and black, rising from the ground and bucking forward to throw Suigetsu from its back. He tumbled along the slope leading toward its mandibles, while at the same time the Animal Path skidded on her back down to the other end of the centipede's body.
Suigetsu clumsily brought up his weapon and slammed it down onto the insect's metallic shell, hoping to catch his fall by embedding Samehada's teeth into the centipede's shell. He failed and the blow glanced off, leaving him to continue falling helplessly. The centipede curled up again at the base of its neck, producing a slight upward slope that would fling Suigetsu up into the air a few feet before its open mouth. The thing was going to eat him, swallow him whole.
He thought of letting go of Samehada to make a finger-gun or two, possibly to shoot through its eyes before it took him down. At this point he wouldn't even have time to dissolve himself into water; the centipede would still open its mouth and swallow that amorphous splash he would become. Turning himself into water would give him a chance of surviving his trip through the creature's insides, but not a particularly good chance.
He resigned himself to what would surely be an uncomfortable death, and moved to toss aside his sword. Samehada protested furiously and began extending its hilt to wrap around his wrist, but both it and Suigetsu himself stopped when he felt a fist clamp down on the back of his collar.
The real Karin yanked Suigetsu with her as she passed by the centipede's mouth, leaving it to catch only the open air with its lunge. She spun and threw the sword in her other hand, aiming for the creature's bulging Rinnegan eye. The weapon wasn't balanced properly to be thrown, wasn't meant for such use, but even hilt-first it tore through the jelly of the centipede's eye and reached the back of its socket.
Pain's Paths themselves were unable to feel pain, but they were corpses and his summoned pets were very much alive. The centipede reared and screeched frantically, its foremost legs actually trying to reach up toward its destroyed eye despite how completely pointless that would be even if it could reach, which it couldn't.
Karin let go of Suigetsu as she neared the ground, allowing her to tuck and roll seperately from him. They both hit the ground hard, but she at least managed to control her impact and get back to her feet quickly. Suigetsu's breath was taken away completely by his own landing, but Samehada moodily shoved him into action. He stood as well, wheezing and disoriented.
"Summoning Jutsu!" This time it was Sasuke calling, and it was Aoda who answered once more. The enormous snake now filled the hole Pain had blasted in Konoha's wall, with Sasuke's Susanoo now growing upright out of the nape of Aoda's neck.
"Taka, regroup with me!" he boomed on Sasuke's command, and the first to answer was Kimimaro. The knight lowered a still-unconscious Juugo to rest on the snake's back, noting that the drained berserker was already beginning to stir.
Suigetsu was next to move with his own Empty Wind, still a bit slower than Zabuza's but more than enough to carry him to safety. Karin followed him without a movement jutsu of her own, and her six clones still on the battlefield went up in synchronized puffs of smoke.
"What now?" Kimimaro asked quietly, his voice slightly muffled by his helm.
"Pain opened this hole in our wall so he could move his Paths and summons through," Sasuke noted. "He wants to move all of his forces back together to fight us, and presumably whoever is in the village fighting the other three Paths."
Sakura glanced over her shoulder, alarmed. "The other Paths are already...?" her eyes narrowed to better focus on a flicker of movement she could see in the sky across the village. On further inspection, she could see that there were actually two entities fighting in the distance, both airborne and throwing around flashes of light. One was much larger than the other, and she could just make out that the bulk of its body was a dull rough brown. "...Is that a dragon?"
X
"Hold up."
At Naruto's command, his four teammates skidded to a stop over the paved, rain-slick ground. "What's wrong?" Gaara asked, trying quite valiantly to keep the irritation from his voice. Rain was one of the few things the Kazekage hated unconditionally, and even though Haku had provided him with a roof of ice floating over his head, the weather was still unbelievably miserable here.
"It's the rain up ahead; there's chakra in it," Naruto answered. He glanced toward Hinata, who promptly activated her Byakugan and nodded.
"The jutsu covers all of Ame," she confirmed. "The chakra in the rainwater isn't enough to shape it into an attack, though. If I had to guess, I'd say this is meant to work like Konoha's detection barriers. It lets Nagato know whenever someone enters the village."
"Damn," Tenten grumbled. "I don't see how we can get around that. It's not like a barrier ninjutsu; those you can at least break through if you know how. But this... the only way to get into Ame unseen would be to stop the rain entirely, and even if we could do that we'd still be letting Pain know we're here."
"...True..." Haku stepped forward to the front of the group, sizing up the task ahead. "But if we were to stop the rain, he at least wouldn't know where we are in the village. It'd be better than nothing."
"You have an idea," Hinata observed.
"Only a theoretical one," he admitted, "since none of us here have a jutsu that can stop this rain. You and Naruto know a collaboration ninjutsu that can momentarily summon snow, but that's no good here. Even assuming your jutsu could override Nagato's, over the whole of Ame, it's likely that his chakra would still be in the snowflakes. It'd work the same as before... and of course, the snow wouldn't last long before it turned back to rain, and then he'd definitely sense us."
"But you have the Ice Release," Naruto pointed out. "You could probably make the snow trick work for sure, ya know?"
"But that would only eliminate the last problem I mentioned. Pain would likely still be able to sense us through the snow."
"...Damn."
"On a smaller scale, I've always covered a battlefield with a canopy of sand when I'm required to fight in the rain," Gaara noted. "But I've never tried to cover an entire ninja village with one..." after a few moments of thought, he shook his head. "It would take a lot of sand and the barrier wouldn't be very sturdy. Also, we'd be relying on the artificial light within Ame since my sand would block out any sunlight. We could still do it, but it's not ideal. Can we think of anything else?"
Haku blinked. "Wait... I could..." he glanced around at the thin, domed platforms of ice keeping his teammates dry, and then it was obvious. "I can do it. My ice should be at least a little stronger than a thin sheet of your sand, and it won't block out the sunlight. You won't have to use up any of your sand supply either."
"...It does seem like the best option we have," Naruto decided, then waited for an objection from one of his teammates. When none came, he nodded to Haku. "Alright, do it."
Haku reached out straight ahead, and a patch of white frost grew on the ground in front of him. "If I'm going to build the dome from here, it'd be best if we could enter Ame from some other point. Otherwise Pain will still know what direction we've infiltrated his village from, even if he can't sense our exact location."
"Understood. We all have movement jutsu here, so that won't be a problem," Gaara answered.
Ice began to grow out of the ground, a stack of thin clear sheets that chipped and crackled as they rose to cover Pain's village. The dozens of fragile layers in the ice melded together as the wall continued to rise; the surface of the dome became as perfectly clear and polished as glass. The still-falling rain was frozen on contact with the ice, helping it grow faster.
"My first thought," Haku noted softly, "is to suggest that the four of you get into position without me. But if Pain were to investigate the ice dome at any point along the ground, it would be here, and I'd surely die if I confronted him alone. I'll have to finish the dome before he gets here."
"I can help," Hinata spoke up and raised her hands as well. "I'll help collect the water so you can freeze it more quickly." the rainwater collecting on the ground and continuing to fall from above all gathered into serpentine tendrils which she guided to the upper edges of Haku's ice construct. Once there, Haku took control of its shape and added it to the dome.
"That's better," the ice-wielder admitted. "But this would go even faster if you could cast a large-scale water jutsu."
"Right," she nodded. "Not a Rasenyari though. It would generate plenty of water, but if I aimed it toward the top of the dome I might damage it with the explosion..." she slid back her left foot and leaned forward, relying on her fuinjutsu gloves to cast her jutsu without hand gestures. "Water Dragon Bullet Horde!"
Seven identical dragons breezed out from her mouth, a bit larger than normal and solid as opposed to her preferred Hollow Water Dragon. They flew to the upper reaches of Haku's unfinished ice dome and slithered along the edge of the construct. She let go of the water and her dragons splashed apart, but Haku quickly applied his own chakra and reshaped them.
It was just enough to build a paper-thin layer of ice to finish the dome, and Haku thickened it with falling rainwater fairly quickly since the base layer was there to catch it. "It's done." he lowered his hands and turned back to the rest of the team. "Get ready to move; Pain should already be on his way."
Gaara unsealed a small cloud of black sand to wrap around himself, and Tenten tugged off her scarlet cloak. She stuffed it into a seal on her right thigh, below the mechanism holding her scroll of other assorted seals. Only then did she activate the other seal on her outfit itself, releasing the fifty pounds of red-painted steel which remained securely latched to her upper back.
She staggered slightly under the sudden weight, but recovered when the metal plates began to unfold. The first pieces to click into place were over her chest and throat, since those were the most frequently targeted areas. Then the sleeves of scarlet metal extended over her arms and legs, and she shifted from one foot to the other to allow the soles of her feet to be covered as well.
Lastly, she reached down and tapped the metal over her right thigh, the same spot where her cloak was now sealed under the armor. Her gauntlet produced a noticeable ringing on contact with her leg armor, and a clear glass visor emerged from its seal into her hand. It stuck firmly to her forehead protector when she put it on, covering her full face to display a modified version of the orange heads-up display from Sasuhonou's prototype.
Her entire suit of scarlet armor glistened as if clear water were running over its surface, the latest version of her barrier ninjutsu. This one was stronger but also incapable of flexing, so it instead coated each rigid plate of metal individually. She shifted and stretched slightly to make sure everything was still working, then nodded in satisfaction. "Ready."
"Follow me," Naruto spoke up just before blurring away with an Empty Wind. His team followed shortly behind, taking a series of short jaunts rather than a single continuous move. This made it easier for the five to stay in formation following Naruto, and sacrificed little time in return. They had passed a quarter of the way around Ame within seconds.
Haku turned to the face of the dome without a word, and opened a doorway in the ice with a wave of his hand. "The rainwater in this ice doesn't have Pain's chakra in it; it's from the ground past the edge of his jutsu. He shouldn't be able to feel this opening."
"Good." Gaara gathered his black sand into a swirling shadow along his left arm, then strode into Ame. "We shouldn't waste any time."
He was followed immediately by the other four, who were almost as eager to get out of the rain as he was. Hinata pulled a trickle of rainwater out of her white and lavender coat, swiftly drying it. "We made it in... but now..." her Byakugan activated once more and turned downward, searching through the earth beneath their feet for signs of the Zetsu facility.
"I can't see anything underground yet," she admitted. "The Zetsu farm isn't directly beneath us, but I'll keep looking. We know it's here somewhere..."
Tenten looked up, following a movement in the distance at the very edge of her peripheral vision. Her visor readily marked the entity floating in the sky above Ame with an orange square reticle, and with a thought she zoomed in her view. "...Guys, we're in trouble." She pointed to the kunoichi in the distance, hovering with wings of what looked like paper. "That's Konan, Pain's right hand."
"Does it look like she's spotted us?" Naruto asked quickly.
"...No, she isn't looking in our direction," she shook her head. "But she's up to something...!"
Dozens of explosions, ones Tenten immediately recognized as the work of explosive fuinjutsu tags, peppered the ice dome over Ame. Haku's massive and fragile jutsu was ripped apart, and shards of ice fell along with chakra-laced rain over the Konoha team's shoulders.
"Well, shit."
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