Opening - Love Deterrence by Nana Mizuki
X
It was high noon on December 1st, midday of the last day. The sun hung high in the sky, its rays present but weak through a veil of clouds and light snowfall. The storm would be short-lived; by nightfall the full moon would dominate a clear sky ripe for the casting of an Infinite Tsukuyomi.
In the forest under that snow, all was deceptively quiet. It appeared empty but was lined with hundreds of hidden Oto-nin, who appeared calm but were disturbed by their leader's recent orders, which appeared panicked because they were.
Mariko was currently the only source of activity in the cold, but her clothes were white and her footfalls quiet. The hush clung to her and bit worse than the frost; she felt at the center of attention in this moment and as an assassin it made her uncomfortable. But this peace would soon die, and even though it vexed her it was a step up from the Nine-Tails' inevitable arrival. There was nowhere she could look for a silver lining.
She stepped into the warmth of Kabuto's towering bonfire, noted Orochimaru curled up against the wall and began to speak. "There's nothing here. I went to the edge of the forest on all sides and looked as far as my Byakugan can see. We're not under attack yet."
Arms clasped behind his back, shoulders low, Kabuto stood facing the fire instead of her. His eyes opened, a pair of stolen Byakugan wrapped in the violet marks of active senjutsu chakra. "Have they finished the summoning seal?"
She nodded. "It's charged and ready to deploy."
"For all the good it'll do," Orochimaru commented. "Don't get me wrong; you've worked wonders with those Manda clones. I just don't think you can bring down the Nine-Tails with one."
"I designed him to kill Sasuke and his minions," Kabuto argued. "I never expected this. I'm making up a plan as I go."
"Well," the old snake's eyes lit up vicious yellow, "any plan that calls for you to agitate the Nine-Tails and double its destructive power is a plan that goes significantly over my head... but if you can't think of a follow-up, maybe that first move wasn't one of your best."
Kabuto drew forth a kunai and tossed it into the sand just in front of Orochimaru. "Pick it up." He blinked, looked down at the blade and hesitantly took it. "Now put the tip against your throat." He grimaced but did as instructed, not breaking eye contact with Kabuto. The threat was lethal, but it was beneath Orochimaru to flinch as long as it remained merely a threat.
"Kabuto-sama," Mariko spoke up, "This isn't a good idea. You know that."
He ignored her. "Push. Do it slowly."
"Hm." Orochimaru pressed against the edge until it was ready to break his skin, then hesitated. The Cursed Seal momentarily burned him and forced him onward. The knife drew blood, a thin trickle of it at first but it flowed more freely as he pushed the thickening blade deeper. The certainty that Kabuto was bluffing faded quickly as the pressure against his windpipe grew.
The seal lit up with worse pain than anything Orochimaru had ever felt. It was worse than having his soul mutilated, pieces of it torn off and stolen by his own sensei, worse than the weeks of endless burning pain that followed, worse than ten thousand self-inflicted surgeries without anesthetic. Orochimaru passed out and lay bleeding into the sand for a period of time he couldn't measure. It was long enough that he dreamed, and felt pain even then.
He woke just as abruptly with Kabuto standing over him, the kunai still wet with blood in his hand. "Sometimes," he admitted, "I wonder why I don't just kill you and call you back as an Edo Tensei. Maybe I'm sentimental."
"Or maybe," Orochimaru hissed, "You understand the risks. I'm a master of that jutsu, and I'm sure you know what I could do in an immortal body if I broke your control."
"That's not an issue unless you do break my control," the Otokage countered. Now he peered at the bloody knife with new interest, a gleam in his pale eyes that sent a shiver of real fear down Orochimaru's spine. "And I have all I need right here."
But then he turned away, tossing the kunai aside as he strode toward the fire singlemindedly. He touched a headset at his ear and spoke into it with cold authority. "Report. Tell me everything."
Ah. You must be able to sense when your puppets activate; I only just opened that coffin.
He made a half-Ram seal and took a look through the Third Raikage's eyes. His final Edo Tensei stood at the summit of a thin mountain not far from Kumo, and at his side stood a much smaller figure with wings and wrapped in black liquid. "Zetsu."
Yes?
"Die." He ran the possessed Oto-nin through with his right arm up to the shoulder.
Zetsu looked down at the wound with what might have been condescension. That was a waste. The wings of the Cursed Seal withered as their owner died. Not much of a waste, mind, but still.
Kabuto switched tactics and pulled his arm free of the corpse. "You flew here with my agent, didn't you?" it nodded lightly. "So you could've gotten in my way. Why didn't you? Who are you really working for?"
Obviously I won't tell you everything, said Zetsu. Just enough that you'll cooperate... There's more to the Infinite Tsukuyomi than you know. It was cast once before, just over a thousand years ago. I was born shortly before it was broken, and I'm meant to insure its next casting goes smoothly.
The shoe dropped and the Raikage's eyebrows rose. "So not only was Madara never in charge of you..."
...I'm in charge of him, Zetsu finished. He doesn't know, of course. But in the end he still works for me, and by extension so do you. Nothing changes. Do as you planned today and forget I even exist. He stepped back and melted away from the Oto-nin's corpse, letting it fall between himself and the Third.
Stop thinking about it. I haven't given you anything to use against me, even if you ran to Madara this very second. And I understand he's beyond your reach at the moment either way, so this is even less of an issue. Move on, Kabuto. You only stand to lose by antagonizing me.
The Raikage sighed with resignation, but then cracked a slight smile. "Well if you're really so set on working with me, I'll ask for a token of good will in return. Assuming you're as old as you say, there must be something you can tell me about the Nine-Tails. Does it have a weakness I don't know about?"
...In over your head at last, then. He could hear the mockery in Zetsu's tone but ignored it. Madara was able to subdue it with genjutsu. You already know that and it doesn't exactly play to your strengths, but there's something else. The First Hokage managed to use his bloodline to contain it as well. Granted, I don't know the details of the jutsu and I doubt you could replicate it.
He turned his back to Kabuto and took a single step not over the ground but up into the air using his Deva Path. I hope you succeed, but I expect you to die. Farewell, Otokage... are you satisfied with coming this far?
He soared away and Kabuto watched, scowling. "Not even remotely."
X
A siren, high and harsh and long, cut across the cool air and the noon sky over Kumo. There was no panic, no stampedes in the streets, not one drop of innocent blood had yet spilled. The village drilled for these scenarios relentlessly, endlessly, kept the protocols and escape routes fresh in the mind of every man, woman and child.
But never before had the system seen use outside of the routine. Kumo was under attack from a Kage-level threat. It felt unreal, fundamentally wrong. The citizens followed in orderly lines behind Kumo Genin, taking along hordes of villagers from the quarantined Land of Frost. They knew nothing but to follow, but the calm was thankfully contagious, and follow they did.
A bright blue ember lit up on a rooftop, one of many such lights marking a straight path from the Raikage's vacant office to the umistakable chakra signature of the Eight-Tailed Ox. She leapt and landed and leapt again, clearing several streets with every step. Her rush hinted that she knew more of the threat and its urgency.
Every leap brought Yugito closer to a set of speakers amplifying an impromptu speedrap, its lyrics explaining the newly modified evacuation routes. Kumo was used to that, but Frost would need a translator to understand. One had stepped forward, a young girl wearing a Kumo headband who dutifully repeated Killer Bee's lines at about half the speed.
It was appreciated but superfluous; Frost was now comfortable with obliviously following the Kumo citizens who already knew what they were doing.
Yugito landed in a crouch in front of the Genin, startling the poor girl out of her rhythm. She quickly rose up and snapped into a rigid pose of attention, along with an eager salute that saw her thump the microphone loudly into her temple. She winced but held the pose.
Yugito smiled. "At ease, kiddo. It's alright."
She quickly sized up the Genin; wavy orange hair, freckles and a slight embarassed blush, wide green eyes set in a round face that gave her a cheery look. Her clothes were utilitarian, a long-sleeved blouse, skirt and pants all cut from the same dark grey cloth with green stitching. She wore a flak jacket, unusual among Genin, and kept a kunai strapped to each of her legs. The daggers themselves were standard issue but the sheaths were unique, fitted to the blades and leaving the handles exposed at the same height as her palms.
"...Could you run those orders by me again? I missed most of it while I was running." It was a lie, but an innocent one meant to help the girl relax. "The wind in my ears, you know how it is."
She gulped and lightened her stance a bit. "W-We're directing the civilians and Genin to the open areas around the village. Fields, parks, that kinda thing. Then we'll use Konoha's summoning trick to move 'em in big groups to the third Alliance Wall. Akatsuki hasn't attacked it yet so it's the safest place we have."
"It makes sense," She murmured. "This way, Akatsuki would have to fight through the Alliance with brute force to even lay a finger on the civilians. On the other hand, the walls will probably be packed... and Bee and I will have to stay behind."
She glared over her shoulder at the chakra signature steadily approaching Kumo, now visible as a distant blue spark cresting over a mountain. "Genin, what's your name?"
"I'm Ryouko," said the girl, still standing at attention. "From Team Twenty."
Yugito perked up. "You're Toroi's daughter? I thought you'd look more like your old man... we haven't met, but I've heard a bit about you." The girl beamed, but at the same time looked flustered by the attention. "What metal does your bloodline work with?"
"Iron," she replied and patted the hilts of her knives. "But only solid objects."
"Hm." The older kunoichi nodded, thoughtfully watching her junior with a frown. "I'm not surprised." It's risky, but we can't go after the Third with sealing kunai alone. They'll have to pierce their target to even do anything. "But I've heard you can do a little more than that."
Ryouko looked confused for a moment, then her eyes went wide. "Oh. You want me to..."
"Help us bring down the Third Raikage, yes." She gulped, looked down and drew one of her kunai. The weapon left her hand and gently floated in a circle around her. "I understand that you're scared, but you should know it doesn't have to be you. There are other Kumo-nin still here who can use fuinjutsu. As long as we find someone who can do better than our sealing kunai..."
"No," she murmured, more a realization than an objection. "There's no time, and everyone else is already leaving the village." The Genin, armed only with a few kunai, glanced past her idol toward the approaching Kage, immortal, armed with unlimited chakra and a singleminded drive to destroy her village and murder its Jinchuuriki. "Even if you could find someone else, Raikage-sama would reach Kumo."
"That would be bad," Yugito admitted, "but it's as you say. We're already evacuating; he can damage the village itself but he won't kill our people."
"I don't want that to happen." the kunai returned to her hand; she held it lightly with the sunlight reflecting off the silvery seal on its blade. Her choice was obvious, though still difficult to say aloud. "I have everything I need right here; I'm combat ready."
Yugito smiled and patted the girl on the head. "Thank you, but you don't have to worry about that. You'll be staying out of the fight, at least until Bee and I give you an opening. We'll protect you until then."
"The Third's comin' in pretty damn fast," Bee commented. "If we wanna reach the walls before he does, we gotta haul ass."
He exploded. In the absence of a usual concealing white cloud, Ryouko briefly had a line of sight to a soft red blur that hovered where Bee had stood. With no visible transition, in one second there was open air around him and in the next Gyuuki had arrived.
The Ox was huge, well beyond the tallest tales Team Twenty had made up. It was huge enough that she wondered if the mountain supporting the entire village would collapse under its sudden weight. Its tentacles stretched out across the streets in every direction, pulsing from long and thin to compact and strong.
It looked at her, eyes round and empty wide and horribly... not at all threatening, now that she actually looked back. The Tailed Beast even seemed concerned. "Kid, you still good down there?"
"I'm okay," she called back and was surprised to find it was true. No matter how it looked, she stood in the shadow of the village's heroes, both of them now that Yugito had transformed as well. Trapped in the middle of an open street between two Tailed Beasts, about to meet the strongest of the Raikage in a battle to the death, Ryouko felt safe.
"Cool, cool. Now if we gonna do this, you need to stay someplace safe while we fight. Best we got is inside my mouth."
So much for that.
"It's alright," Yugito quickly reassured her. "It really is the safest place, especially since we don't need to move our mouths when we talk."
"Ain't even gross," Bee added. "You'd think, but nah."
The damage was done, but Ryouko at least managed to not run screaming from the outstretched hand of the Eight-Tails. It gently plucked her up and popped her into its mouth, and just like that she was eaten.
There was no light, no sound around her, only an overwhelming dry warmth. She wondered for a moment if she was already dead, arriving in the middle of a hot summer night in the Pure World. There was no sense to the thought, she knew Killer Bee wouldn't really eat a Genin in the middle of Kumo, but still she was terrified.
"I'll take the lead," said Yugito as she crouched low to the ground. "Watch my back and try not to bounce the poor kid around."
"You got it, Nii-chan."
The Two-Tailed Cat rolled her eyes and pounced forward into a sprint, shortly followed by the Ox slithering over the same distance with his tentacles for lack of a pair of legs. He trailed far behind her, but Yugito could still make out his voice rhyming something about tree-walking chakra. By then the perimeter of the village was upon them; an instant later it was in the distance at their backs.
The blue spark far ahead grew sharply brighter, then turned black yet lost none of its harsh light. Bee and Yugito sprang apart to either side of the bleached bolt of lightning; it shot between them and poured off a wave of heat and ozone that washed over them both, harmless but shockingly intense.
Matatabi's claws gouged deep into the summit of a needle-thin mountain as she braked, while at the same time Gyuuki's tails wrapped around the slopes of another and locked him in place. Together they whirled back on the Third with Tailed Beast Balls primed before their mouths, open in Yugito's case and closed in Bee's. "Tandem Tailed Beast Balls!"
Since they were still dangerously close to Kumo and its ongoing evacuation, both of them let fly their attacks as contained red lasers that converged on the Raikage's back, focusing their destructive power there instead of letting it loose in a massive explosion. Already moving forward with the momentum of his initial lunge, he was thrown vastly faster by the force of the combined beams.
"Direct hit!" Bee exclaimed, the grin audible in his voice. "We nailed it!"
"W-We got him?" Ryouko perked up in the dark. "What's going on out there? I can't see!"
"Nah," Bee answered, his enthusiasm dimmed. "He won't go down that easy. Third's the strongest Raikage Kumo's ever had, so hold on 'cause it's still gonna be massively bad."
"Something's wrong though," Yugito added. "He used his Black Lightning Rush way too soon, gave us time to dodge it."
"He always used that jutsu at close range," he noted with a nod. "Wasting it like this was just dim, so I'm guessin' someone else is controllin' him."
"We need to bring him down before Kabuto gets used to his abilities." The Two-Tails' flames roared brighter and she drew herself low to the cold earth. "Back me up." She sprinted ahead in pursuit of the Raikage, already rising from the shattered side of the next mountain over. He held up his right wrist and she slammed into it with all her weight flying behind one paw.
She swept her other set of claws forward as she landed, but that strike he caught with the palm of his off hand instead. She spat a fireball at him and watched it bounce off, and then with a growl the Third heaved upward with both hands.
Matatabi's eyes widened with mixed alarm and fury; she thrashed against his grip but he was already supporting her weight. He turned her aside, let go and watched as she tumbled down the sheer slope of the mountain. She roared as she fell, but so did the rock itself giving way to her weight. The narrow peak tilted under the Raikage's feet; he crouched and leapt to the next pillar ahead before the first toppled completely. The avalanche swept over Yugito and buried her in a wave of rock even as she fell.
The Eight-Tails stretched a single tentacle and touched its tip to the peak of a mountain far behind. It stood motionless as the Third bound closer with his fist drawn back and charged with scathing blue lightning, then at the last possible second exploded into white smoke and left the Raikage's punch to meet nothing but cold stone and a severed little piece of one tentacle.
Bee emerged from his Substitution with his remaining tails wrapped about himself in a formidable cocoon. Inside his mouth Ryouko swayed and nearly lost her footing. "W-What was all that!?" She yelped. "It sounds really bad out there!"
"Keep your cool, Ryouko. We got it under control." bound in darkness by his curled tails, Bee thought for a moment. "I can see where you're comin' from though. Wish I could give ya a window."
The Raikage took aim at the motionless Eight-Tails and once again swapped his blue lightning for an angry black and white aura. His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward slightly. "Not even gonna try to dodge, huh?" Kabuto frowned; the expression was mirrored by his puppet. "Well at this range it wouldn't do you much good. Spring whatever trap you have; I'll still win this one."
The space around him appeared to ripple and warp, but it was only an illusion produced by the heat waves cascading out of his lightning armor. Thunder snapped through the air with a fury as he shot forward, an indistinct black blur that was almost but not quite impossible to track.
At the same time, Bee made his own move. His tails unfurled and snapped out near the speed of sound, carrying along a mixture of wind chakra and sheer brute force that spread out from him in all directions. The blast utterly smashed down the surrounding mountains and presented an unforgiving wall for the Third to run headfirst into. Much to Kabuto's shock, the Black Lightning Rush was turned back and the Raikage touched down far short of the Ox.
But then the wind died down, Gyuuki's tails came to a stop spread wide, and the Raikage was still cloaked in black. Kabuto grinned.
Thunder cracked again and he resumed his charge, tracing a line of bleached lightning through the air into Gyuuki's chest and out his back. The Ox roared and swayed back with the impact; inside his mouth Ryouko screamed as well. She smelled blood in the back of the Eight-Tails' throat, felt him lurch further backward as though losing his balance completely.
Gyuuki's left hand snapped out and back, latched around the Third and held him in a grip of unbreakable steel. Holding onto his tongue for dear life with tree-walking chakra, Ryouko was entirely as surprised as Kabuto.
He's making all the same mistakes as the real Third Raikage when we first fought. Bee, I should take it from here.
The Ox smashed his fist downward into the summit; it shattered to bits with the impact and the entire mountain began to implode straight downward. Without pause he let go of the Raikage, drew that open hand back and instead punched with his right fist. The Third took the hit directly and was blasted deep down into the collapsing mountain.
Only when the rock supporting him stopped falling did Gyuuki fire a third punch, but as he did the Raikage burst free of the greatly reduced slope. With all of his power behind just one finger he stabbed into the side of a taller, intact peak and pierced a clean hole through to the other side. He spun and kicked the entire peak back the way he had come; it swayed and fell mostly intact toward a surprised Eight-Tails.
"You may want to brace yourself, Ryouko-chan." She only had a moment to notice the switch from Bee's careful rhyming vernacular to a more natural and direct phrasing before the mountain fell on them.
The Raikage was blinded by the cloud of debris from the avalanche, but he stood his ground and listened for any shifting of rock that would give away a Tailed Beast's next move. "Wishful thinking," said Kabuto bitterly. "I keep telling myself surely I could do some damage if I dropped a fucking mountain on them, but it's wishful thinking."
Shattered slabs of rock and earth produced a loud scraping sound as they moved, and a flicker of blue light cut through the earthtoned haze in the air. The Third turned to face the Two-Tails with a scowl. "I really don't have time for you two."
His lightning armor turned black for a third time and then he was gone. Matatabi, just pulling herself free of the rubble, howled in shock and pain as a hole was torn clear through the center of her chest. The blood of a Tailed Beast splashed across the nearby stone, a gleaming dark blue with brighter azure flames scattered through. Even as it touched earth, the blood began to burn and dry up.
Yugito hit the ground and hissed on impact, her hind legs still buried. She worked to pull herself free with her forepaws, though with much reduced enthusiasm now. "How is that not enough to kill you?" The Third held up a single finger and turned toward the cat's back. "I vaporized your damn heart. What, do Tailed Beasts not need those as much as humans? Maybe if I shoot for your head..."
The Ox roared and pulled free of its own mound of rubble, its silhouette visible now that the air had thinned somewhat. "Shoot for mine!" Gyuuki opened his mouth wide to produce a huge Tailed Beast Ball, accidentally revealing Ryouko in the process. Kabuto's eyes narrowed.
"You might not know this, but the Third Raikage and I have a score to settle." He reached up and grabbed the orb once it had compressed enough to fit in his palm. Blood dribbling from his mouth, Gyuuki brought the ball to the stump of a horn he'd lost long ago to this very opponent. It twisted into a new shape mirroring the other intact horn, gleaming hateful red-orange. "Last time we fought, it was a draw. Let's fix that."
Kabuto glanced at Yugito, slowly regenerating and dragging herself free of the mountain. The Cat was breathing heavily now, odd since its lungs had also been destroyed. "Oh, sure. Just give me a moment to kill her and take the Two-Tails as she dies."
Gyuuki leaned forward and brought his head low to the ground. "Not gonna happen!"
Kabuto sighed. If I try to finish her now, that means turning away from him. He'll hit me with that attack, and I'll leave with one Tailed Beast at most... "...Damn it, fine." He braced himself and activated the Black Lightning Rush again. "If you wanna go first so badly..."
Together they charged and brought their most powerful attacks into direct contact. In the past it would have been a one-sided clash; the Eight-Tails couldn't possibly spare himself from the Black Lightning once it made contact. But now he had rammed his new horn against the Raikage's hand, behind which trailed all of his weight and momentum.
Kabuto saw the flaw in the tactic immediately; the Eight-Tails had willingly put his head in the path of the Black Lightning Rush. If the modified Tailed Beast Ball failed to parry him, his attack would vaporize the Ox's skull, killing Bee and the Genin hiding in his mouth. Gyuuki would be stolen and sealed. Yugito and Matatabi would meet the same fate in a matter of seconds. It was a suicidal all-or-nothing move.
The Tailed Beast Ball detonated, but not at all in a usual manner. There was a flash of orange light and a gust of chakra-charged wind, and then the black lightning was gone from Kabuto's entire body. With it went his right hand and arm all the way up to the shoulder, vaporized without even a trace of scattered ash to regenerate it.
Kabuto looked stunned for a moment, but then he struck back. He was still standing at point-blank range in front of the Eight-Tails with one hand left, which he used to punch the Ox back into the nearest remaining mountain. "Let me guess." He opened and balled again his fist as he strode toward the now half-buried Eight-Tails, finally relaxing for a moment. "You designed that jutsu to bring down the Third Raikage while he was still alive, but he died in the war and you decided to stay with Killer Bee."
He came to a stop just ahead of Gyuuki's eyes; the Ox looked dazed and winded from the impact. "But we have something in common, you and I. You have a hole blown through your chest and I'm missing an arm, yet neither of us is even fazed."
He punched the Eight-Tails in the face and felt its jaw snap. Gyuuki never even saw his arm pull back; inside the Ox's mouth he heard a young girl's scream. "Oh, and then there's her. I'm guessing you brought her along to seal me once you wore me down." He punctuated each phrase with a bone-shattering punch to Gyuuki's face; he could feel the Tailed Beast's skull beginning to crack. "Little girl, can you hear me? Once I kill the Jinchuuriki, I'll have to seal their beasts right away. I won't have a moment to spare to kill you, so I'll let you run."
The Eight-Tails moaned under the crunching of bone; blood trickled between its cracked teeth and pooled on the ground under the Raikage's feet. Yugito struggled to free herself in her Tailed Beast form; cancelling it would give her room to move but the hole in her chest would kill her instantly. There was nothing she could do.
Somehow the Raikage's next punch missed; it crossed well past Gyuuki's face and sent a breeze by his cheek. He knew it was a short-lived miracle, his suffering would only pause long enough for him to look baffled by it.
But then the Third let his arms rest at his sides, and spoke. "He let go. Something else must have called his attention; you have to hurry!"
Gyuuki's mouth fell open and a Kumo Genin fell out, drenched from the knees down in splashes of blood. Eyes wide with desperate terror, she lunged forward with a kunai in both hands. Gyuuki had a moment to realize it was probably a trap before Ryouko raised her blades to aim for his chest. "Magnet Release: Inverse Flash!"
The Lightning Armor left the Raikage's skin and flew instead to Ryouko's kunai, coating them in an even layer of humming blue light. She stabbed them both into his heart; the stolen Lightning Release chakra was repurposed to let her pierce through his nigh-indestructible body.
"I love my sons," said the Third, and vanished.
She dropped her kunai and threw up into the rubble he'd been standing on. In doing so she found herself looking down at the blood soaking her legs, and she retched again with her arms locked over each other. "Ryouko," the Ox called behind her, his speech impeded by his broken jaw and teeth. "It's over; you're safe." She sat down and curled up in the blood-soaked dirt, trembling with adrenaline. "He didn't have time to set a directive for the Third to finish us... that means something big is happening."
X
Standing at the very peak of a huge snow-dusted redwood, Mariko stared into the distant swirls of falling snow where they grew thick and opaque near the horizon. The earth trembled and the tree swayed under her feet. With two huge red eyes glowing like suns, the storm stared back at her.
She could see the silhouette of the Nine-Tails in a slightly darker grey than the surrounding fog. It sprinted toward the forest on all fours with unbelievable speed; with every footfall the shaking of the earth grew slowly more intense. She noticed something odd about that; the fox was huge but not enough to justify violent tremors from its movement at such distance.
That could only imply the earthquake was intentional, and likely caused by something other than the monster's approach. She began to think, to second-guess what she saw. The quake, the glow in the Nine-Tails' eyes cutting through so much snow and fog, the impossible pace at which the walking calamity came closer.
A genjutsu!?
She activated her Byakugan and looked again. The terrain under the Nine-Tails' paws thrummed with orange chakra that ebbed and flowed like a rapid heartbeat, timed to match its steps. A gust of the same light swirled violently through the air around it, likely a simple Wind Release jutsu with a massive area of effect. Its eyes still glowed brighter than anything else Mariko could see, but now the Tailed Beast's entire chakra silhouette was visible to her. She flinched and shut off her Byakugan, and she hoped the brief glance wouldn't leave her blind for long.
She rubbed her eyes instinctively. What she saw was real, but worse still it was a result of the Nine-Tailed Fox's calculated intent. It wanted her to feel fear and it used its chakra tactically to make itself more intimidating. It could think.
During its attack on Konoha sixteen years ago, the Hyuuga Clan had deployed and fought the Nine-Tails as one unit. Their standing orders were to keep their doujutsu turned off no matter the circumstances, and unable to attack with the Gentle Fist, they relied solely on their Vacuum Palm to strike from afar. It stood to reason that they followed those orders to the last man, since Mariko had never heard a rumor of what a Tailed Beast looked like through the lens of a Byakugan.
They didn't have souls. They didn't need them; they were incapable of dying and therefore had no use for that crucial piece a human needed to visit the Pure World. But in place of a soul there was something else inside the Nine-Tails, something that tethered it unbreakably to the material world, something that made it feel more real than any other form of life.
Throughout history were accounts of more susceptible individuals encountering a Tailed Beast and losing their minds instantly. It had always been attributed to simple fear, but now Mariko knew better. It was in that moment that she realized she was going to die.
A syringe flew from her sleeve and landed in her light grip, blown from slightly yellowed glass and filled with ruby-red blood. For her own sake she kept the Byakugan deactivated, but if she looked into the liquid with it she would see abstract swirls of fuinjutsu, vastly beyond her skill level and glowing with senjutsu chakra a bright and wondrous green.
It was useless against the Nine-Tails, and using it would kill her regardless. It was still tempting with no regard for logic. The seal on her palm made her want it even on pain of death. She slipped the vial back up her sleeve; its pull was far from irresistible.
The Nine-Tails threw on its brakes instantly and rocketed up on its hind legs, teeth bared in challenge against the gigantic plume of smoke that rose in its path. The most recent clone of Manda emerged with Sage Mode already active; it hissed and aimed its fangs at Kurama's left eye.
The Fox snatched the snake from midair by its throat and growled. It loomed over Manda as Manda himself loomed over a human; Kabuto's summon never stood a chance. Kurama took a moment to look at the enemy, green scales and scarlet eyes with golden rings of senjutsu chakra, then he made his decision and opened his mouth.
The Nine-Tails swung Manda by his throat and whipped the length of the snake's body into his open mouth, then bit down and snapped him in two ragged halves. Blood and entrails showered to earth like a heavy rain, and Kurama added to it by grasping the snake's skull and crushing it in a fist. He dropped Manda's remains and resumed his sprint before they touched ground.
He stopped again at the very edge of the frozen forest and chilled Mariko's blood with a horrible grin covered in splashes of red. There was a pause as the Fox licked its fangs clean, then it drew in a mighty breath. "I'M HERE, KABUTO."
By this time the gathered Oto-nin had moved to counterattack; they took to the sky on wings powered with senjutsu chakra and surrounded the Nine-Tails. They pelted the monster from all sides with fireballs, flashes of lightning, boulders the size of houses. Its ears slid back and its eyes narrowed, but it was clearly unharmed and it made no move to strike back.
Instead it pounced forward and tore its claws through a vast swath of the forest ahead. The sounds of shattering lumber filled the air, sounds of ninja wire snapping and explosive tags triggering, sounds of screaming and dying Zetsu clones. It all echoed for a moment after the Fox's attack passed, and then there was silence.
Just one of its gargantuan tails rose above the others and coiled up like a whip. Mariko turned aside and vanished with a Pulse Step, but the flying Oto-nin around the monster had no such option. It lashed down with its tail and brought its tip to touch the surface of the destruction from its previous attack. The slipstream of the Fox's tail caught and carried along Oto's elite through the sky over the forest. Everything that passed under it was obliterated into shards.
Kurama paused and looked closely at his work. There was a path of ragged black earth and splinters of frozen wood that led deep into the heart of the forest, and there it stopped slightly short of where it should. He opened his mouth and fired a thin beam of brilliant yellow-orange chakra there; he swept it back and forth to burn through the foliage that still stood at the end of his wind attack. One tree and only one stood tall against the beam; it disappeared completely on contact with the bark.
The Fox frowned and waited a moment. It was rewarded quickly with a matching chakra beam aimed perfectly skyward from the canopy of Kabuto's hideout. It looked to be a modified Uchihagaeshi, a jutsu Kurama knew well. "FOUND YOU."
He opened his mouth wide again and this time began forming a Tailed Beast Ball. Yin and Yang chakra orbs bloomed forth from his fangs mixed with a perfect ratio, and they went on even as the larger sphere grew to match and then exceed Kurama's own size. The Fox craned his head back and raised the attack high above so it didn't touch the ground. When its diameter was exactly nine times Kurama's height, he shoved it forward.
Earth, wood, the bodies of Zetsu clones living and dead, the shattered pieces of spent traps intended for vastly smaller prey, all of it was vaporized on contact with the passing Tailed Beast Ball, reduced to thin black smoke that clung to its obsidian shell. In its wake lay a rough, charred valley through the forest, broad enough to admit all of the Tailed Beasts marching side by side.
The orb vanished just short of Kabuto's defenses. Kurama closed his jaws and frowned; he stood motionless but for the swaying of his tails as he waited for its reappearance. It shot from the canopy of the tree with velocity matching what Kurama had initially given it, and it rose with that momentum until it touched the low-hanging layer of clouds above.
Then it slowed, stopped, and detonated. From one horizon to the other the sky was filled with fiery light and fiery heat. The shockwave took a moment to touch earth, but when it did what was left of the forest was crushed flat against the ground all at once, all but one tree.
Kurama's frown deepened just slightly; the Fox growled and took a step forward but then suddenly stopped. Its seething red eyes focused on a much nearer target, a rectangular black portal with smooth and sharp edges that opened just above the ground in front of Kurama's slightly raised forepaw. Sasuke was the first to step through, red eyes of his own glowing with power ready to be wielded. He was shortly followed by the rest of Taka.
"...Hn. That was really something."
"Would you expect less from the strongest of the Bijuu?" the Nine-Tails' eyes narrowed. "Wait. You saw that?"
"We were watching from further back," Sasuke replied. "We stayed inside this portal while you set off that Tailed Beast Ball, otherwise you'd have killed us."
Kurama's ears slid back and he bared his teeth with absolute killing intent. "I still have a mind to! How DARE YOU TOUCH ME WITH GENJUTSU!?"
"Relax," said Sasuke. "It's just to buy us a moment to talk." He glanced over his shoulder despite knowing the smoking ruin of Kabuto's lair was no longer in sight, instead there was only a vast chessboard and empty blackness beyond. "You were putting on a hell of a show; I thought you wouldn't want me to interrupt."
Kurama's snarl relaxed as slightly as possible. "Why are you here, Uchiha?"
"How do you do that? With your voice, I mean. Naruto never mentioned it, and I'm curious."
"SONOROUS EMINENCE," said the Fox. "A Yin Release trick I put together centuries ago... I haven't been able to use it with just my Yang chakra, but now that problem is solved. Answer my question."
He shrugged. "Fair's fair; you answered mine. My team and I are here to bring down Kabuto. That's our mission, not yours." The Nine-Tails raised up a single forepaw and brought it down to crush Sasuke into paste. The attack was useless inside Tsukuyomi; Sasuke simply vanished on contact and reappeared atop Kurama's snout. "I'm gonna just pretend that didn't happen. I know genjutsu is a sore spot for you, so I'm gonna let you out. Just... work with me here, Kurama."
The Fox breathed in deeply, then out through his bared fangs. "...I have another idea. You work with me."
"Hn?"
"Step forward, all of you." Without shifting his paws, Kurama settled his body to the ground and peered at Taka from up close. "None of you are in any condition to carry out this mission, not after what Kabuto has thrown at you these last few days. Yet you insist on it, and so do I. There's only one answer to this whole problem that satisfies me as well as you."
Taka stepped forward together and Kurama lifted one paw just slightly. He curled it inward and unsheathed his gleaming black claws, holding them gently and steadily out to the gathered Konoha-nin. "Naruto has never been compatible with my chakra; we think it's because of his kekkei genkai. Aside from one unfortunate incident during Oto's invasion three years ago, I've never given him any of it. This'll be a first for me."
"You will take my chakra," he commanded, "and my voice along with it. I'll coordinate your attacks and guide you to victory. As of now, you're my team."
The shinobi looked at each other, all worn down by recent encounters with the First and Second Hokage, three unreasonably powerful Uzumaki, Izuna Uchiha and all Seven Swordsmen. With their doujutsu active, Sasuke and Karin were the ones who directly saw the chakra levels of their peers. They were the first to touch Kurama's offered claws, but the other members of Taka weren't far behind.
After a few seconds, seven pairs of scarlet eyes and slit pupils turned on Kabuto's lair. Behind the empowered Konoha-nin Kurama vanished in a burst of smoke.
March, Taka. It's about time we ended this for good.
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