Opening - Courage by Haruka Tomatsu
X
Sasuke registered the fact that he was sailing through the air to his right before the pain in his left upper arm, and with the Sharingan showing him the world in slow motion the time between the two thoughts was more noticeable. It was only once he flew headfirst through Susanoo's armor that he began to realize what had happened.
With her good arm still held out to her side after shoving Sasuke, Sakura braced herself for the searing pain of Nagato's acid tearing through Susanoo and her leather jacket. She moved quickly then, unzipping and whipping aside the jacket along with most of the acid still soaking it. Some of it had burned through to her shirt and skin, so she brought her left hand to deal with what remained while leaping back for some extra distance between herself and Pain.
Sasuke managed to turn in his flight, to face in the direction he was flying and roll with the impact when he landed. He stumbled to his feet and turned toward both Sakura and Pain, drawing the Sword of Totsuka as he did.
"Keep him off me!" she called. He wasted no time in extending his liquid sword to reach Pain, which forced him to face Sasuke in return rather than going after Sakura while she healed her burns. Sasuke spared a quick glance in her direction, fast enough that he wouldn't have been able to register the image without his Sharingan slowing everything down.
Since her shirt was sleeveless, her arms had no protection from the acid that ate through her jacket and so they were burned worse than her chest. They didn't look like much since the acid had only touched her a few seconds ago, but they were extensive and likely horribly painful.
However, the shirt was also leather as thick as the jacket itself. Sakura had managed to neutralize all of the acid rather quickly; the shirt was scorched badly by the acid but still whole, and under it she was unharmed.
Sasuke made note of all of this with just a glance, and lastly he saw a withering scowl on her face. Her choice of clothing had managed to keep her wounds as minor as they were; the leather was sturdier than any cloth outfit she could've chosen and it had likely put up as much resistance as a flak jacket as well. But on the other hand, she had been very fond of that jacket and it certainly hadn't been cheap. There were of course more pressing matters, but she scowled anyway.
He turned back in time to see his first slash with the Sword of Totsuka deflected by Pain's arm; it gave off a plume of sparks and traced a gash into Yahiko's forearm deep enough to reach bone if there had been any still there. He also saw a momentary frown cross Pain's face, but it was erased quickly and he produced a rod of cold black metal from his wrist, reforming his right hand as he did.
He used this to hold back Sasuke's next attack, and the youngest Uchiha gave a frown of his own when he saw the rod unharmed from it. The same cut from the same blade had gouged deep into Pain's solid steel arm, but left not even a scratch on the darker metal rod. He switched tactics with his third attack, aiming a stab instead of a cut.
Pain stepped aside and brought up his piercing weapon to parry the Sword of Totsuka in a single motion, and then decided it was time to counterattack. His left arm came up and morphed into a different cannon whose shape by now was familiar to Sasuke, producing a quick volley of three acid-filled glass spheres.
At least Sasuke knew how to deal with this particular move by now. His left hand flicked behind his back and into his pouch filled with kunai and shuriken he seldom used anymore. He drew three small kunai between his fingers and whipped them one at a time into the oncoming acid orbs, shattering each and scattering their deadly contents before they reached him.
Just outside of Pain's line of sight, Kimimaro appeared next to a prone and bleeding Karin in a white blur. Sasuke made every effort to keep his eyes from widening and darting in his direction, but he couldn't be sure if Pain had noticed or not. At least he kept his mismatched eyes trained on Sasuke instead of turning to attack Kimimaro.
"K-Karin," he murmured shakily. "I know asking if you're okay is a bit of a stupid question..."
"A bit," she said and chuckled, weak though the sound was. "I tried to heal myself with a second bite," she held up her right wrist to display the bleeding bite on it. "Didn't work, and it drained most of my chakra anyway."
Kimimaro turned his attention to where her legs had been shot through. "I think it did work; you haven't bled out."
"Not yet."
"...I'm gonna cover you up in a bone shield; it should be enough to keep Pain from trying to kill you again."
"Thanks, Kimimaro. I wish I could still help, but..." she coughed into the dirt. "...Just don't die."
"It'll be okay," he replied. "Just hang on; we'll get through this." Karin's vision went dark as she was fully covered by a streamlined white dome. There were holes to let in fresh air at the sides, but they weren't enough to let in sunlight and illuminate the inside of her makeshift shelter.
With that done, he turned from her to face Pain instead. His Cursed Seal advanced once more from its first to its second stage; four spires of bone sprouted from his back and a suit of white armor wrapped around him from there. He armed himself with his usual cross-shaped shield and longsword, then vanished with a Pulse Step to engage Pain.
He appeared on the Deva Path's left, his sword already raised to swing at Pain and cleave him in half. The Sharingan turned on him with a scathing red glare and Pain stepped directly backward while raising his chakra rod to catch the slash. Kimimaro extended the arc of his attack well past where he'd meant it to strike Nagato, turning as he did to keep track of his opponent.
Five targets remaining, one incapacitated. This isn't going as quickly as I'd like. Let's fix that. Nagato brought up his left arm as a chakra cannon aimed at Kimimaro's face. Since the blast was likely to reach him through the visor of his helm, Kimimaro retaliated by whipping the edge of his shield toward Pain's own head. As expected, the Deva Path's left hand transformed back to normal and caught the shield.
Pain threw a third arm from his right shoulder, above the first. He aimed another chakra cannon while holding both of Kimimaro's weapons out of the way, and opened fire. Kimimaro sealed the visor on his helm with freshly grown bone; it was enough to keep his head from being obliterated. When the beam of blue light winked out, he was still standing before Pain with a blackened and smoking helm since Nagato had kept a firm grasp on the knight's weapons.
"Hm," said Pain with a thoughtful tone, and punched Kimimaro's helmet hard enough to crack it. Probably should've tried that first.
Kimimaro's weapons crumbled into white dust in Pain's hands, and his scorched helmet shattered in much the same way. He produced a new longsword and took a quick step back, then forward again with his blade held high with both hands. He brought it down and Pain dodged backward, aiming three chakra cannons at him in return.
The knight turned and flicked to Pain's right with a Pulse Step, then paused and turned to look behind Pain in order to aim and launch a second movement jutsu that placed him in the Deva Path's blind spot. Once there he slashed down on Pain's back; his blade drew a smooth line through the Akatsuki robe and produced a metallic shriek on attempting to rip through the Asura Path metal.
With the strength of his Cursed Seal of Earth behind the swing, Kimimaro managed to cut through the armor disguised as Pain's skin. It wasn't enough to cripple him, but it was enough to reassure Kimimaro that his opponent wasn't quite invincible.
Nagato turned and swung one of his right fists at Kimimaro, who brought up his shield to catch the blow. His shield gave a clear crunching sound and Nagato's fist sank a few millimetres into the bone; splinters of the outermost layer of the shield fell away from the point of impact. He frowned; the same force had split the same shield in two at the start of their encounter.
A fourth arm of steel unfolded out from his left shoulder, and he smashed it into the same spot on Kimimaro's shield. More splinters of solid white bounced away from the shield and Kimimaro himself took a step back from the force of Nagato's punch. A third and fourth blow came down on the shield, and a diagonal crack split it through from where Pain struck it to the corner between the upper and right arms of its cruciform shape.
Nagato wedged the fingers of his left hand into the fissure, then sharply tugged back and ripped off the upper-right half of Kimimaro's shield. He made a short hop backward and inspected the broken-off slab of bone in his hands. Hm. It's all cortical bone, very solid. Makes sense; he wouldn't want or need marrow and spongy bone inside his weapons and armor.
He threw the broken bone at Kimimaro's head, and in response the knight instinctively brought up his shield to catch it. He realized his mistake an instant too late; the upper prong of bone that would've protected his head was ripped off. He noted the irony just as the slab of bone smashed into his burned helmet and sent him tumbling backward.
Pain reached him long before he could get up; his first move was to kick the longsword out of Kimimaro's hand. He knew how easily the weapon could be replaced, so he wasted no time in attacking Kimimaro directly. He planted a foot on the center of the knight's chest, bent down and began beating him to death through his armor with all four of his limbs.
Chips and splinters of bone scattered away from the main hull of Kimimaro's armor with every rapid blow that Nagato brought down on it, but the armor got thicker rather than splitting. The Deva Path paused when faced with this complication, but only for a moment to think.
brute force doesn't work
he's protecting his vitals
look for a weak point somewhere else
The Sharingan flitted up and down and to the sides, and it found what it was looking for. Pain lifted his foot from the center of Kimimaro's breastplate, took a short step back and brought down all the weight of his solid steel body on the knight's left knee. The joint in the armor there crunched apart, and Kimimaro started screaming.
Pain went to the right leg next, stomped down again. Kimimaro was already screaming as loud as he could; there was no higher volume for him to reach for with both legs mutilated instead of just one. If he had solidified the armor over that leg into a single piece as he'd done with his chest armor, he might've been able to hold off that second attack. Unfortunately he'd been too focused on the pain and screaming.
Nagato stomped on Kimimaro's right elbow, and that was when the boy inside the armor passed out. The Deva Path crouched down and drew back his fist then, aiming at the blackened helmet protecting Kimimaro's head. It was solid bone now without any joints to attack, he couldn't move his neck and there wasn't even a visor at this point.
Still, if Nagato punched it enough times while its wearer was unconscious and unable to repair it, he'd be able to crack it open. If he didn't destroy Kimimaro's head in the process, he could just reach through a hole in the helm and use the Human Path to pull out his soul.
WAIT look for other threats
Being so accustomed to fighting with six pairs of eyes to watch the battlefield in all directions, Nagato was at a disadvantage with just one body left. He made the mistake of disregarding his blind spots; he focused completely on Kimimaro and expected to clearly see coming any attacks from the other members of Taka.
The Sword of Totsuka pierced through his left hip, not a higher and more vital point on his torso since he was curled forward over Kimimaro. The liquid blade presented its keenest possible edge and sliced out through the side of Yahiko's metal body.
With his mistake pointed out so concisely, Nagato resolved not to make it again. He grabbed Kimimaro by his armored throat and hauled him into the air, held him limp between himself and Sasuke to prevent any further attacks. He decided to waste a bit of effort trying to crush Kimimaro's throat, and when he failed to do so he quickly switched back to punching the helmet over and over. It cracked inward, several pieces of bone bent away from his punch but would take more effort to completely detach, so he drew back his fist to keep working.
A quick glance around with his Sharingan accounted for all but one of Kimimaro's teammates, so Nagato fell still and silent for a moment. His Akatsuki robe continued to rustle after he had stopped, but over that sound he heard heavy footsteps approaching over crunching dirt. Juugo was powerful but by no means subtle; he had never learned to silence his footsteps with chakra.
Pain dodged aside, let go of Kimimaro whose feet hit the ground first and held him upright for a fraction of a second. It was long enough for Juugo's momentum to carry his tremendous punch into the front of Kimimaro's head rather than the back of Yahiko's. The sage didn't stop to stare at his friend's flying body with horror in his eyes, he turned to face Pain once more and began attacking him like an animal.
Nagato retreated several paces while extending a chakra receiver from one of his right wrists. He held it out at arm's length with the tip aimed at Juugo's next oncoming punch. On contact with Juugo's knuckles the weapon held for an instant before it flexed and shattered into thin black splinters. Pain turned his hand and caught Juugo's fist in his palm; he skidded back several more steps as Juugo continued to charge even past that point.
strong fast durable healing not very smart
Nagato leapt back just past the range of Juugo's next wild swing, still thinking.
piercing blade doesn't work
slashing probably wouldn't either
blunt force might work
but he regenerates
use that
shrapnel acid fire
Juugo chased Nagato back with complete madness in his eyes, a fusion of cold hate and bloodthirsty delight as he whipped one punch after another toward the Deva Path. The thought of transforming his limbs into axes or cannons seemingly hadn't occured to him this time, or perhaps he thought it was worth the extra effort to crush Pain to bits with his fists.
In his current state, Juugo had strength and speed and ferocity to spare. The senjutsu chakra pumping through his body had given him enough brute force to shatter Nagato's chakra rods into tiny bits. A single direct hit to the Deva Path's chest would be all he'd need to end the fight; he would tear through the Asura Path steel like so much plasticine.
Unfortunately, the drawback that came with this increase in power was just as crippling. The entirety of his thought process at the moment was a thundering loop of crushsmashkilldestroycrush and nothing else. Juugo wasn't thinking; his punches weren't taijutsu; he couldn't land a hit. When Pain brought up one of his right arms as a broad-barreled cannon as he had before, Juugo didn't dodge even though he should've known what was coming.
acid
A thin glass orb filled with clear liquid flew out of the end of Pain's weapon, smashed on impact with Juugo's face, and scalded him exactly as it had the first time.
blunt force
Nagato grabbed Juugo by the throat, picked him up and swung him aside between himself and Sasuke. Now that he had stopped retreating away from Juugo and was instead standing in place, he had to shield himself from Sasuke's assorted ranged jutsu. While he held Juugo up with one hand, two more Asura Path arms shot forth and held the sage's wrists in case he decided to stop flailing in mindless agony and throw a punch. Only then did Nagato form his remaining two arms to beat Juugo to a pulp.
shrapnel fire
Nagato hesitated then and weighed his options; this next attack would require him to put distance between himself and the human shield Juugo provided. He let go of Juugo's throat and jumped forty feet in the air. With the strength granted by his mechanized limbs, doing so was no trouble.
He took aim with four of the arms currently transformed into weapons and let off a barrage of missiles. He brought up one of his other two hands and aimed it at the approaching black fireball shot through with thin forks of blue light. He caught it, pulled it in and rendered all of the chakra making up Sasuke's deadly attack harmless.
Glancing up from the plume of smoke and debris obscuring Juugo's broken body, Nagato saw the expressions of horror on the faces of his two current opponents. Sasuke formed and raised a bow of purple chakra with Susanoo's hands and Sakura went on healing her burns; she was almost done by now. They carried on, but not without flinching at what Pain had done.
more blunt force
He landed within the smoke cloud, vanishing from view for a moment. Then something charred and mangled came flying out of the smoke, sailed past Susanoo and into the distance far behind. Even with the Sharingan slowing everything down, it took Sasuke a moment to recognize the thing as Juugo.
Sasuke took aim with his bow and opened fire; he let fly an arrow of black flames first. The cloud of dust thrown up by Pain's missiles was faded enough that he could see his target by now. Pain held out one of his right hands and caught the arrow with the Preta Path; the flames appeared to scatter and wink out on contact with an invisible wall inches in front of Pain's hand.
By the time the first arrow had fully passed through Nagato's chakra absorption and vanished, Sasuke had already let loose a second, this time made of Susanoo's solid purple chakra. Even as the second arrow left his bow, Sasuke formed a third exactly like it. After that came a screeching blue arrow and two more of hissing black flame.
Each of the arrows met Pain's defense and vanished as they passed; the Preta Path ate through them all from one end to the other. "Hn," Sasuke scowled and shifted his aim, drawing back another arrow of crackling Chidori lightning. He let it fly and saw Pain's eyes widen as it passed by his Preta shield, instead slipping down through the earth to his right.
The arrow exploded underground, sending arcs of blue light wildly in all directions. It sliced and scorched random paths through the ground under Pain, but none of the lightning reached him through the bubble of space filled by his Preta Path. Sasuke observed this in slow motion; he now knew that Pain's jutsu shielded him in all directions.
Susanoo lowered its bow, and within it Sasuke's Eternal Mangekyou gleamed and spun. Across the battlefield, Pain still stood with his hand held out for any sudden additional attacks. From such a distance and with the glow of Susanoo between them, Nagato didn't spot the flow of extra chakra to Sasuke's right eye at all. He instead saw only the trickle of blood down Sasuke's cheek, and then felt his chest burst into black flame.
it never touched the preta shield
He frowned and began to absorb the Amaterasu using Kabuto's jutsu, but even as the flames dimmed they also began to take a rigid shape.
"Blaze Releaze: Flame Control!"
crap
The flames grew inward, pierced Yahiko's chest as a thin blade of inky black. The tip of the sharpened ember emerged through Pain's back and caught his robe alight there as well, and then Sasuke shaped several smaller spikes of black outward through the middle of Pain's chest.
he's going for the receiver panel crap crap
The flames winked out over and inside Yahiko's metal torso. Nagato breathed a quiet sigh of relief in both bodies; a few moments longer and Sasuke would've caught the receiver panel alight, removing his access to all five of his current Paths.
Nagato made note of the state of his six limbs; he was equipped with two cannons and a metal hand on each side. He brought up the hands into a Snake seal and swiftly raised a wall of earth between himself and Sasuke. It wouldn't be enough to stop one of Susanoo's arrows, but it would block his line of sight to prevent another attack with Amaterasu. He brought up his Preta Path shield then and began to think inside it.
He felt Samehada rip through the chakra-absorbing shield with no trouble at all since it was a physical attack, and he was even more suprised to feel the living weapon actuallty trying to devour the Preta Path bubble itself, to pull in the tiny scraps of Nagato's chakra that held up the shield.
silent killing
The force of the impact sent Pain forward, smashed him headfirst into the stone wall he'd built a moment earlier. Suigetsu held Samehada steady, kept the thing's jaws pressed against Pain's back so it could bite and rip off chunks of metal skin and savage the clockwork beneath. He let go of the hilt with his left hand to aim a finger gun and shoot Pain in the back three times, further damaging his last Path.
One of Pain's arms twisted backward with a mechanical whir and click, far beyond what a human body should've been capable of. His open palm aimed at Suigetsu's head, but the boy stood his ground since it hadn't yet transformed into a cannon. He pressed Samehada deeper into the metal wreckage that was now Pain's back, intent on finishing the battle before Nagato could carry out his next move.
Too quickly for Suigetsu to see or react, a chakra receiver stake shot from Pain's wrist and speared through his head with a small splash of water. His head melted entirely, shortly followed by the rest of his body from his neck down to his feet. Samehada snapped out at Pain again, even as it fell in the absence of Suigetsu's grip. Nagato spun and kicked the thing aside, raking open the metal shell of his leg in the process. The thing hissed as it tumbled away through the dirt.
He jumped straight up into the air and aimed just one of his four arm cannons at the puddle that was Suigetsu, shifted its form slightly to accomodate a different kind of ammunition, and fired a stream of white-silver dust at the puddle that was Suigetsu. Steam and sparks poured upward from the water and tongues of scarlet flame lit up its surface, but the reaction wasn't quite spectacular enough to be called an explosion.
But the sodium powder had done its job; Suigetsu's water had evaporated and reacted with the metal to produce sodium hydroxide, a gas and solid respectively. The boy's body was gone, and with him went another threat for Pain to watch.
four down two left
crap i'm exposed
As if on cue, the shredded metal that was Pain's back burst into dark flame, and with less material to work through those flames skewered Nagato's chakra receiver even before he could react. A moment later he quenched and absorbed the hellfire, but the damage was done. He fell back to the ground and crouched behind his earth wall for cover, stripped of his five usable Paths.
dodge
A gigantic arrow of lightless hellfire tore through Nagato's stone wall a split second after he jumped and rolled out from behind it. The wall shattered and the flames split outward into hundreds of thin black spikes in all directions. Nagato rolled to his feet and jumped forward with all the strength in his legs; his use of the Asura Path was gone but the mechanisms it had already built weren't going anywhere.
He almost made it past the reach of Sasuke's attack, but a few of the void-colored blades pierced his back and tattered robe. He hit the ground and dealt with the black embers over his back, but with Kabuto's jutsu instead of his Preta Path since that too was gone.
He spat out a small Water Bullet in Sasuke's direction, and at the same time reached up with his left hand and pulled the chakra receiver panel off Yahiko's chest. He tossed it aside and brought together both his hands to raise another Earth Wall in the absence of any better options.
Without the Asura Path, the cannons at the ends of his four extra arms were useless. Their mechanisms were intact, but he needed the Path itself to synthesize ammunition for it. There was no cavity within Yahiko's chest to store missiles and gallons of acid; each shot had to be created just before it was fired. The thought hadn't occured to him to carry a storage seal full of premade missiles; reloading that way would be slower and until now no one had ever taken away a Path's abilities without destroying it.
There was only one course of action he could reasonably take now, stripped off all his abilities except his enhanced strength and supply of chakra receivers. He hid behind the wall he had raised, knowing it would only take Sasuke a few moments to draw back and let fly another Susanoo arrow. A small flat circle of black metal popped out of his right palm, with a spike of the same composition protuding from the center. He brought up the panel and pressed it into his chest, stabbing himself with the spike in the process.
Sasuke's arrow of shrieking lightning tore through the stone wall like paper, but it notably failed to explode and leave a smoking crater where the wall had been. "Hn." He shaped and nocked another black arrow, frowning. "He absorbed it."
"With Kabuto's jutsu?" Sakura watched Pain carefully, now that the wall hiding him was destroyed once more.
"No." The Eternal Mangekyou spun slowly and gleamed. "He hasn't let off a Wind Release jutsu; we both would've seen that."
"So his powers are back."
"Hn."
Pain turned to face Sasuke and Sakura, one hand already raised to maintain a Preta Path shield. Three of his four arm cannons transformed back into hands, and he raised the fourth to take aim at Susanoo. The weapon twisted, its barrel became thinner and longer and Pain fired an apple-sized white orb from it. The missile struck home on the front of Susanoo's chest and exploded, not into destructive fire and shrapnel but a massive cloud of white smoke laced with Pain's chakra.
"Damn!" Sasuke loosed his arrow at where Pain had been standing before the smoke bomb went off, then dissolved the bow into purple mist and replaced it with another sword. "Get ready; he's coming!"
"I'll take the bastard's head off; see if he can grow six of those too!"
Sasuke tried valiantly not to reply to that, and turned to face the sound of Pain's fist smashing into Susanoo's back. His and Nagato's eyes met, and a look of open incredulity crossed the Deva Path's face when he saw that Sasuke was slightly blushing.
what
forget it just kill them
All six of Pain's arms took turns unloading a rapid volley of punches on Susanoo's armor, combined with the Preta Path to absorb and wear down the armor on each impact. Chips of purple light broke away and dissolved into mist that the Preta Path pulled in and added to Nagato's reserves. It only took a few moments for the armor to crack open and let one of Pain's fists sail through.
A black-painted egg smashed into Yahiko's face with enough force to push his head back just slightly. He frowned and dispelled the genjutsu Sakura cast with it, but then she simply threw a second egg with different contents. It took Nagato a moment to realize what he'd been hit with; the powder was meant to burn his eyes and blind him.
It might've worked if he wasn't made almost entirely of metal and didn't feel pain. While five of his arms kept smashing, draining and cracking Susanoo's armor, the sixth switched into a small gun and fired a stream of water at his own face. With the spicy powder washed from his eyes, Pain then armored them with glass lenses ejected from the metal plates making up his skin.
Pain's next blow shattered open a hole in the armor large enough for him to easily reach in or aim punches through, and he chose to shove two of his hands into the cavity and attempt to pry it open further by pulling at the edges.
"Oh, screw this," Sakura growled and stepped out through an intact segment of the armor. She turned and punched Pain in the face; the force of the blow dented and tore the armor on his cheek. "Cha!"
"Hn..." Sasuke let the chakra avatar dissipate entirely, drawing the Sword of Totsuka as he did. He whirled and stabbed Pain in the chest with it; his next move was instinctively to try to seal him away but that option was gone forever. Instead he withdrew the blade and went for a downward slash next, an attack that Pain dodged by stepping backward.
Nagato flicked his six wrists outward and extended a black piercing rod from each; he caught them with his waiting hands and whipped two at Sasuke. Knowing he couldn't block both with the Sword of Totsuka, he jumped back past the end of their reach as Pain had done a moment before.
Sakura aimed a punch at the Deva Path while he drew back his weapons after the failed attack; he spun to meet her and brought up all three of his left-hand weapons crossed at a single point to block her attack. On impact they were all reduced to splinters, barely more than dust, and Pain's eyes went wide. He dodged, leaned to the side of her fist and let it glide past the front of his chest.
She sprang back to let Sasuke's next attack pass since he had already taken aim. The Sword of Totsuka shot forth to skewer Pain's throat so that Sasuke could split his head next with an upward sweep, but he never got that far since Pain parried the liquid sword aside.
Sasuke lit his left hand with a bundle of Chidori lightning and stabbed forward with it, but again Nagato had no trouble knocking the attack aside. The reaction time granted by his Sharingan fell only slightly short of Sasuke's, and he had six arms to Sasuke's two.
Sakura went on the offensive with this in mind; Pain could catch and parry Sasuke's attacks but not hers. She unloaded a volley of light, rapid punches, taking a step forward with each attack. Nagato fled past the edges of her reach, which allowed her to position herself soundly in front of Sasuke.
Without warning, she cut her attack short and held her left arm straight out at her side. "Sasuke, jump!"
For a few moments he froze, not understanding what she meant. Then his eyes went wide and he lunged into motion, sprinted forward and jumped up to perch on Sakura's extended arm. With her chakra-enhanced strength, it was no trouble for her to heave her arm up and fling Sasuke through the air over Pain's head past the reach of his chakra rods. Sasuke flipped through the air and landed in a low crouch several yards behind Pain, already drawing back his sword for an attack.
"Gotcha!" Sakura pounced forward and resumed her attack, chasing him back once more. He tried to move to her left instead, but she spun up a reverse roundhouse kick at his head that forced him to dodge back and to the right again.
Sasuke's sword whistled through the air toward Pain's back, and he spun to face the new threat instinctively. He couldn't dodge back now that he was pressed from both sides by the Konoha-nin so he caught the liquid sword on his own black metal one. Sasuke lit Nagato's chest on fire with a glare and pushed on his weapon just a bit; the effort was meant to press Pain into Sakura's next punch but Sasuke had realized he couldn't budge the Deva Path without his Cursed Seal.
The Chidori flared to life once more around his left hand and he stabbed at Pain with it; the attack was parried by another chakra receiver rod but Sasuke wasn't concerned by that. He had Pain held firmly in place for Sakura's incoming punch, and by now it was too late for Nagato to try dodging. He was forced to try to catch the punch instead, but his steel palm imploded into his wrist on impact with Sakura's knuckles.
Her punch kept going and unfolded his arm like a banana peel, past the wrist, past the elbow, all the way up to his shoulder. Only after this was over did Nagato manage to slip away to the side, leaving open air between Sasuke and Sakura. She called off her next punch well short of turning the last Uchiha into chunky salsa.
Nagato retreated a great deal further and activated his Asura Path; far too much damage had been done to Yahiko's steel body and it was time to repair it. Chunks of shredded and twisted metal fell away from the Deva Path, most notably from his back and the arm Sakura had just annihilated, and at the same time fresh sleek steel grew out to replace it all. The outer shell of Pain's armor took on a false skin tone once more, and the newly replaced arm produced and brandished a darkly shimmering chakra receiver rod.
Sakura's eyes narrowed and she raised her fists in a simple but effective taijutsu stance. "I'm getting real sick of your bullshit, Nagato."
But then something changed, Pain's eyes widened enough for Sasuke and Sakura to both see it. To Sasuke's spinning eyes, the glow of chakra within Pain flared slightly, briefly brighter. One of Nagato's right hands let its chakra rod fall to earth, and he aimed his open palm at the two remaining members of Taka.
"The feeling is mutual. Shinra Tensei."
Sasuke and Sakura were lifted off their feet and thrown back. At first it was painless; the impact of Nagato's attack had been less a punch and more a push. They were disoriented; the deafening screech of the wind over their ears and the sight of the world spinning around them were to blame for that, but they didn't feel pain until they hit the ground and their flight backward didn't slow at all for it.
Eventually they did tumble to a stop, at which point Nagato began walking toward them with his hand steadily aimed to channel the Deva Path once more. Bleeding from his mouth and dozens of other places, Sasuke weakly pushed against the ground and glared up at Pain. A bit more blood trickled away, this time from his Mangekyou and Nagato's ankle was set on fire.
It didn't even slow Pain down; he absorbed it with the Preta Path and kept approaching. From the corner of his eye Sasuke could see Sakura beginning to get up as well; she seemed to be in better shape than him. With a few more seconds she might have managed to fully stand, but that wouldn't have done any good and she didn't have that much time regardless.
Pain swept his hand up and lifted both of them high into the air. He held them there for a moment, and in that instant of silence and weightlessness they realized what would come next. The ribcage form of Susanoo weakly lit up around Sasuke, for all the good it would do, and then Pain brought his hand down.
Susanoo shattered on impact with the ground, but it did manage to soften the blow just a bit. Sasuke blacked out for a few seconds; when he opened his eyes again Nagato was only a few paces away. He still held five chakra rods, darkly gleaming in the sunlight, and the way he held them suggested he had a use for them.
Sakura's chakra surged up, an aura of wild green light shaped not unlike flame around her broken body. Some dim thought like admiration crossed Sasuke's mind; she was unable to even stand but she was roaring her throat hoarse and building up her chakra for some massive final effort that wouldn't really do any good if she couldn't get up and aim the attack, whatever it was.
Nagato cut short his approach toward Sasuke and turned on her instead, stood over her and raised two of his five chakra rods high.
"No... you bastard, don't...!"
Pain stabbed her; the blades slid through her torso and the ground beneath until they were halfway buried. It took a second or two after that for the green chakra around her to die down, but then he turned back to Sasuke and carried on as planned.
The most disturbing part of it all was that Sasuke couldn't feel the hatred that had defined most of his life, not even now with all of his friends dead or dying. Itachi had spoken true when he claimed that neither of them could fall back under the Curse of Hatred, not even under the most horrifying circumstances. This left Sasuke to feel only desperation and fear.
He panicked, searched frantically for a way out up until the moment Nagato was standing over him poised to finish him off. He was bleeding out into the dirt with ever so many crucial bones snapped, out of senjutsu chakra and running low on his more mundane reserves as well. He couldn't move, could only aim at Nagato's ankles since the enemy was upon him now, right before his face with swords raised.
He came up with only one viable solution. He despaired a bit more when the thought occured to him, but then he considered it more and truly decided to use his last plan.
I won't lose Sakura; I won't lose Taka.
There was hope now; he simply had to prime the jutsu before Pain took one last step closer and killed him.
I won't won't lose my family again!
The price would be terrible, but he had made his decision. His Eternal Mangekyou turned slowly, he blinked a bit of blood out of his eyelashes and steeled himself.
I'll tear a hole in reality itself if that's what it takes! Sorry about this, niisan...
"I-Izana...!"
A rectangular black void, darker than even Amaterasu, opened under Sasuke and he fell deep within. Pain's chakra receivers came down and their tips dipped just slightly into the pit. He pulled them back sharply and began thinking with all due haste, but this was unlike anything he had ever seen and he didn't know how to assess the threat.
Behind him Sasuke emerged from an upright portal of the same composition, suspended in open air. He moved closer to Pain's back with the gravity of his fall translated into forward momentum, and he realized this would be the last chance he'd ever have.
He reached for the power of his Cursed Seal and found that it had recharged a bit over the course of the battle, enough for no more than an instant in its second stage. For lack of a better option, he tapped into it and darkened his skin charcoal-black for a split second. With that burst of extra strength and with his wounds only infinitesmally less fatal, he aligned his right arm with the middle of Pain's back.
The Chidori flared to life, screamed, pierced its target.
He knew once it was done that it had been the wrong move, all wrong. He fell limp, dangled from where his arm had lanced through the still-upright Pain. A wound like this wouldn't be enough to finish the battle, not even close, and his element of surprise was gone. Pain reached up and grabbed Sasuke's wrist, began to push it back out of the stab wound so he could turn and kill the last Uchiha. The Chidori went out.
Sasuke began focusing chakra to his Sharingan again, for a second try at casting Izanagi.
He felt two sets of fingers wedge themselves into Pain's stab wound, around Sasuke's wrist. He assumed they were Nagato's extra hands working to free him from Sasuke's impalement a bit faster, but that didn't seem quite right.
"Shinra...!"
Sakura pulled, and her effort split Pain in two. She let one half of him fall to the dirt with Sasuke, three arms, a leg and half a torso. The other half she held upright since Yahiko's head was still whole and attached. She removed that as well, wrapped her right hand around his throat and pulled straight up while her left hand held the rest of him in place. There was an unpleasant screech of metal on metal, but then the head neatly popped off and the neck spilled out a few steel bits.
She dropped the two pieces of the Deva Path and slumped forward, panting heavily. A fuinjutsu of vivid purple swirls was written across her face, unfolding from a mark on her forehead. Her shirt was covered in blood, but since the leather was already red it blended in.
"Sasuke!" she fell into a crouch at his side and began healing him.
"I can wait," he croaked weakly, which earned up a disapproving scowl. "No, I mean it... Get Juugo and Kimimaro first... I'm not gonna die before you get back."
She hesitated. "...You're sure?"
"They both took a worse beating than me," he managed to say without pausing for a shallow breath; he was breathing carefully to not agitate the unknown number of broken ribs he'd suffered. "Go."
Finally she nodded and went to tend to Kimimaro first, since Juugo had been thrown a great deal further. Sasuke lifted his right arm slowly, gingerly, and he gently turned Pain's detached head to face him. "You... can still hear me. I know you can."
Pain remained silent, likely because he had no lungs to produce sound and therefore moving his mouth was pointless.
"You're stupid. Really damn stupid. Now I'm gonna be honest... I don't really think I'll be able to say this after I get up. I can see chakra silhouettes around Konoha... but they're all faint and I don't know how many shinobi were fighting you. For all I know... you killed hundreds and there are only four survivors... but right now, before I find out which of my friends you've killed... I really mean it."
"There's no way you can call this a good thing. You stupid bastard... a cycle of hatred isn't the answer to anything. I think when Jiraiya told me that... he really wanted you to hear it. He didn't know you were like this, back then... but he was right. The cycle of hatred is a question... a puzzle... and this isn't the answer."
He might've said more, but the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain was coming back, he had just torn a hole in reality and he was still bleeding. Sasuke passed out.
Please Review!