Opening - Love Deterrence by Nana Mizuki
X
Tailed Beast chakra feels... weird.
Through an active Kagura Shingan, Karin looked down at the palms of her hands thrumming with ruby-red light. Her whole body was numb and not so at the same time. She could feel a rush of warmth that made the crisp December morning seem more like the middle of July. There was also a tingling sensation mixed in as though the ground under her feet was vibrating strongly.
She looked around at her team. All of them had the same intrigued and baffled expressions, red eyes with slit pupils and a soft glow, and a shaggy, disheveled look to their hair and clothes despite hardly moving since Kurama passed on his chakra. It was amusing to watch Itachi in particular tug at his tied-back hair, uncomfortable now that it was trying to spike up wildly.
She also noted that both of the Uchiha brothers had their doujutsu active as she did. Glowing eyes wide, Sasuke held up his right hand and straightened his fingers. A Chidori burst out from his overfilled chakra coils, a rich bright red nest of lightning. Its signature screech was almost completely inaudible, the pitch increased to the very edge of what a human ear could register. "I've never felt so powerful..."
You're all idiots. We only have so much time here, so quit gawking and go kill Kabuto!
"Sounds great," Sakura commented and smacked her right fist into her left palm. A look of confusion momentarily crossed her face, then was replaced with pain. "Ow!" Sasuke glanced at her and raised his brow but she flicked her limp left hand in his direction. "Don't even say it. Just open a wormhole or something."
Itachi turned with speed to match a movement jutsu, briefly no more than a solid black blur. He let fly a handful of shuriken at a target behind Taka's back, more than enough to call their attention to the newcomer. A rush of invisible force tossed the blades back with minimal effort; the explosive tags attached to them triggered and released a loose burst of fire and smoke that hit nothing.
Mariko lowered her hand, but not before the two Sharingan-users saw the mark on her palm. "A Cursed Seal," Itachi observed. "You do realize it leaves you absolutely vulnerable to the one who placed it, don't you? A Branch Hyuuga of all people."
She tucked the marked hand behind her back and touched it to the hilt of a kunai sheathed there. "I hate all of you," she replied with a cold smile, "but right now I'm so happy to see you."
"Give us a minute," said Sasuke. He produced a kunai and twirled it by the ring; the Cursed Seal on his neck matching hers lit up flaming orange. "We'll fix that."
Sakura, the Nine-Tails called. How reliably can you counter the Gentle Fist?
She thought for a moment. ...As long as she doesn't get a chance to use the Sixty-Four Palms, I can handle her.
Then go see what she can do at close range. You're the most likely to get through any surprises in one piece. Kimimaro and Suigetsu, be ready to back her up. Sasuke, have your portals ready to grab them when I give a signal so Itachi can blast her with a long-range ninjutsu. Go!
The White Strength Seal unfurled across Sakura's face and she shot ahead with speed enough to surprise herself. Her fist split the air with a dim white Mach cone as she launched it forward, and yet Mariko still managed to put a Revolving Heaven between herself and Sakura's knuckles with time to spare. She slammed her punch home and the glowing dome flew back with its impact, but at the same time her knuckles slid along the curved surface and she shot past an unharmed Mariko.
Several strands of ninja wire emerged from the Revolving Heaven and spun with the same speed; they lashed deep into her back and she tumbled violently to the ground. It took her several seconds to heal the three clean cuts through her spinal cord, but as she lay helpless in the dirt she cursed proficiently at the pain.
She deflected it instead of outright blocking it, how very Hyuuga of her, Kurama observed. Suigetsu, Kimimaro, you're up.
"There's no need," said Sasuke with his Eternal Mangekyou spinning slowly. "Yomotsu Hirasaka." A void of perfect black opened under her Revolving Heaven while she continued to spin; she fell deep within and emerged in freefall high over Taka's heads. Two wings with smooth steel feathers burst from Sasuke's back and curled forward; they lit up with stygian red lightning and a scream at a dogwhistle's pitch.
He held the kunai lightly between his primed wings, its tip aimed at Mariko where her defense had fallen apart in the air. "Chidori Railgun."
A sonic boom and a ripple of flame washed over Sasuke as he let go of the kunai; he stumbled back and covered his eyes with his free hand but he was entirely unharmed. In the sky above, Mariko looked down at her chest with an only mildly surprised expression. A clean circular hole had been punched through it, vaporizing her spine and most of her vital organs.
That works too, Kurama growled. Insubordinate little shit.
Mariko's body began to fall, limp and pale and splashed with blood. But as she did, her body crunched and a length of bone grew back across the hole in her chest. Her heart and lungs regenerated and resumed function; they were wrapped in a freshly grown ribcage as well. Two great sheets of flowing silver fur exploded from her back; wings with a batlike bone structure at odds with Sasuke's.
Her skin turned grey-white as though painted with ash; her hair grew twice over in length and matched the same color. Her descent stopped suddenly; she spread her wings wide but held them perfectly still. She breathed, her lungs visibly moving in her chest without a layer of flesh over the organs and bone. She activated her Byakugan anew; the veins in her temples broke the skin and sent trickles of thin blood down her cheeks.
She smiled, showing canine teeth elongated just slightly, and held out an inviting hand for the one member of Taka with wings of his own. "Come." She gestured lightly at the open wound in her chest. "It's your turn."
Sasuke drew his wings up, ready to launch. Hold it! Kurama snapped. What can you do at taijutsu range that trumps a railgun slug fired at three kilometers per second?
How do you know how fast I...?
I'm reading your mind, you buffoon. I know you don't have a plan, so hold your position and think for a minute!
Her smile fell and she turned her palm toward the earth below. "I really thought you'd come up here... maybe I can convince you. Vacuum Palm."
A burst of invisible pressure slammed Kimimaro into the ground. He had a moment to gasp in surprise and pain as he lay crumpled in the dirt, and then a second attack pushed the air from his lungs. Karin took action as best she could, wordlessly calling up an army of shadow clones to form up over Kimimaro as a human shield. The third Vacuum Palm struck them instead of him; the knight managed to fully activate his Cursed Seal and raise his shield to ward off the fourth.
Mariko switched her aim to target Karin next; she stood further back than the other members of Taka and was struck at an angle. The Vacuum Palm blasted her backward instead of into the ground. "I can do this all day," said she. "I have the chakra I need now."
Sasuke's left eye whirled and let fall a thin stream of blood. Visible inside her ribcage, Mariko's beating heart caught alight with hissing black flame. She snarled and recoiled back from the hit; after a moment of hesitation she reached into her chest and pulled out the afflicted organ. She was careful to spare her fingers the touch of Sasuke's flames.
She threw the heart aside before it was completely swallowed up by fire. A new one grew in her chest to replace it, and she raised her fur-draped wings high overhead. She watched the black ember fall to earth with interest but no real concern, then filled her wings with chakra and brought them mightily down.
Reminded of Pain's Shinra Tensei, Sasuke flowed chakra to his eyes and opened them wide. An enormous Yomotsu Hirasaka portal split the sky wide enough to admit Mariko's enhanced Vacuum Palm, which then struck her head-on as it emerged from another identical wall of black.
He drew forth the Sword of Totsuka and crouched for a takeoff. I can keep her attention on me. She'll see everyone else's attacks, but that doesn't mean she'll be able to dodge them! He slashed upward with the liquid blade as he approached Mariko; she pushed back on the length of the sword with a Vacuum Palm. The gesture was almost casual.
"Yomotsu Hirasaka!" he countered her counter, summoning an empty black square to meet his sword as it was pushed backward. The Sword of Totsuka emerged at a reflected angle from the same spot; the two ends of the wormhole overlapped perfectly to create a mirror instead of a door. The sudden change in Sasuke's attack pattern was enough to throw Mariko off; his attack cut deep into her side and severed her left arm at the elbow.
Fresh bright blood spilled from the stump and quivered in a rough imitation of her forearm's shape. Bones cracked and clicked as they grew back and settled into place; the blood stilled and coiled into fresh red veins. With her left hand only partially regenerated, she slammed its palm against the incoming edge of the Sword of Totsuka. This time her bones held back its bite, but the veins were torn again to spill yet more blood.
The sword burst apart into thousands of droplets as clear as glass; Sasuke pounded his wings ahead to retreat before reassembling the weapon at a safe distance. He hesitated to lunge in again; Mariko risked glancing away from him toward her hand and chest. The flesh over her bones and veins still hadn't grown back; it troubled her to wonder if it ever would.
The bones of her fingers clacked as she adjusted them into the cupped-palm pose of the Gentle Fist. "It doesn't matter how much of me you cut off. I'll kill you."
Sasuke cracked a taunting smirk and poised himself behind the Sword of Totsuka, his own intact hand comfortable on its hilt. "Try."
She shot forward and aimed three rapid jabs of her palm at Sasuke's heart. He brought up the Sword of Totsuka and deflected each in turn, slicing her hands with the motions. Blood splashed through the sky, across his clothes as well as hers. A drop of it brushed her ashen cheek; she bared her teeth at its touch and pulled back her right wing.
She slapped forward with the sail of fur and bone, narrowly missing Sasuke in his dodge to the left past it. Then she spun and whipped him with the back of her other wing, sending him to soar away through the sky. Now very aware of his disadvantage, Sasuke beat his wings frantically to brake and recover while Mariko simply floated after him, her own wings free for use as weapons.
He slashed aside with his sword and lit it inside and out with blood-colored lightning, then charged back into the fray and hacked wildly at Mariko. She flinched away from each stroke but only slightly; her bones grew back unbreakably even as the Sword of Totsuka split them. Her white camouflage was slashed to pieces, stained through with blood and scorched in chaotic thin lines by Sasuke's lightning.
But then her skeletal left hand locked around the sword a second time. She knew he would shatter it into single drops of ancient wine, freeing himself to retreat as he had before. This time he would likely move back with Yomotsu Hirasaka instead of normal flight; his confidence was wavering now that he could see no way to truly wound her.
She struck first, smoothly followed through the motion of snatching his sword with her second hand. She slammed her palm directly into his sternum, sent a violent wave of Gentle Fist chakra through his body and emptied it of something else just as vital. The feathers of his wings rusted away and left the bones bare; they curled back into his shoulders and his skin lost its charcoal tone.
"Mine."
A thin silver chain tipped with a miniature kunai blade tore straight upward through Mariko's right boot and foot; the blade shapeshifted as it emerged into a bulky ball that kept her anchored to the chain. Karin worked in tandem with a pair of shadow clones to heave down on the chain and haul Mariko out of the sky.
A black portal swallowed Sasuke up just as he began to fall. The other end opened just above a healed Sakura; she caught him and lowered him to the ground. After sparing a moment to watch Mariko slam into the dirt, she raised an open palm over the youngest Uchiha's chest and slapped it into the same point the Gentle Fist had touched. Sasuke gasped; the chakra blocking his lungs was eradicated instantly.
Mariko's body cracked as she rose from the blood-splattered earth. With her Byakugan still active, she could see Kimimaro sprinting toward her back as Karin and a team of clones charged into her head-on. She considered a Revolving Heaven, but decided instead to beat her wings down against the earth. A modified Vacuum Palm flowed from under her in all directions, shattering Karin's clones and throwing her backward.
Kimimaro planted the bottom edge of his shield in the cold earth and braced himself behind it; the wind washed past him and he didn't budge. Through her Byakugan she saw him flow chakra into his limbs in a familiar pattern.
He vanished with a Pulse Step and struck her at full speed with his shield to her back. Her scream as she was launched along his trajectory was from instinct rather than pain or fear, though she did feel those as well. She spread her wings wide and tried to control her flight, but just as her momentum began to slow Suigetsu appeared ahead of her.
The black-shelled creature grinned eagerly at her, arms crossed over his chest. He held one half of Kiba in each hand, the blades crackling with thin arcs of blue-white lightning. She flew directly into his path and he scissored the swords over each other into her neck, the gesture almost carefree despite how quickly it was done.
He vanished again just as the twin splashes of blood sprayed from the sides of her throat. Her head lolled back as she fell forward, her spine went limp when the muscle supporting it was cut.
End it, Sakura! The Nine-Tails' voice thundered in her head, and she listened. With the strength of her legs roughly translated into speed, she blurred over to where Mariko lay struggling to move. She came to a stop at the downed Hyuuga's side and lightly hopped with one foot over her back to stand directly over her, then put all of her strength into a single straight punch aimed at the small of Mariko's back.
An enormous dirt-brown mushroom cloud blasted out of the ground under Mariko, carrying chips of rock along with the wind. The surrounding members of Taka shielded their faces from the storm, and as they did Sakura jumped up and back away from Mariko. It was only a span of seconds before the air began to clear, revealing Sakura stained a murky red with blood and dust.
"Hey!" She called out into the red-splashed crater, brushing away a bit of grime from her jacket. "You dead yet!?"
There came a wet cracking sound from the bottom of the pit, shortly followed by a weak intake of breath. "Fuck you," she wheezed. Rather than bothering with an attempt to stand, she lay stretched out in the dirt and moved only her right arm. Sakura peered over the edge of the crater to see her next move; the Hyuuga's torso was near-completely stripped to the bone.
From the tattered and soaked scraps of her right sleeve, she produced a glass syringe full of preserved red liquid. Sakura's eyes narrowed at the sight of it; the thing made her deeply uneasy in a way she couldn't quite explain. Is that... blood?
I think it's my blood, Juugo replied, his voice carried between their minds by Kurama's chakra. Orochimaru took samples for the Cursed Seals... Kabuto probably modified them.
What you're feeling is a negative emotion, Kurama growled. The stuff in that vial is still alive, and it wants you all dead.
Sasuke took a step toward the crater but he was simply too far away. "Mariko, I really think you don't want to do that!"
"I don't exactly have another option, you bastard!" She screamed back. "Look at me! I'm already dead!" She raised the vial gently before her eyes; the glow of its chakra was hypnotizing. "I have been for a while now. So I might as well act the part... right?"
Juugo lunged for the crater from where he'd been standing by Itachi. His arm turned to stone that twisted into the shape of an axe. Everyone, stop her! There's only one thing that blood could be for, a third Cursed Seal stage! He dove into the crater and aimed to cleave through her head as he landed, but he was too late. The needle met her white skin and flushed it with renewed color; an omnidirectional Vacuum Palm rose up from the depths of the crater and shoved Juugo back in his flight.
Mariko hesitated to move, as did Taka surrounding her. Her clothes were still soaked red and hanging off her in scraps, but underneath them she was whole and human. The silver pigments of her Cursed Seal transformation were gone. Gently, gingerly, she pushed herself up into a kneeling position and looked down.
She was alive. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes after the state she'd been in moments before, enough to make her seriously hope to survive the day. She opened her mouth, drew in a breath and almost offered a surrender before something gave her pause. It didn't feel right to be crying like this, it seemed wrong that she would be moved this way.
She brushed a tear from her cheek and pulled away the hand with dreamlike slowness. It was then that she realized her Byakugan was off, she was seeing only by line of sight. There was a moment even before she saw her hand that she knew what was on it, a smear of red across her fingertips. Her relief was gone in an instant.
"No..." she murmured the word softly, drew out the syllable in a quiet hopeless moan. She began to cry again, more tears of blood but this time with real despair in them.
Her neck snapped, the spinal cord stretched upward and elongated, the vertebrae floated apart inside her flesh. Her back did the same, tripling the length of her torso. Her belly caved inward while her ribs cracked and swelled out. Her Cursed Seal wings tore anew from her back, along with a pelt of the same silver fur covering her entire body.
The bones of her arms cracked apart and healed significantly longer, to stand on all fours instead of upright. Her nails fell from her fingers and the bones under them broke the skin, sharpening into ivory talons to replace them. Her teeth grew long and sharp; her mouth opened wide to bare them.
Pale eyes dripping blood, Mariko looked down at her mangled hands supporting her weight. She sobbed just once, and midway through her breath the sound turned to a hateful scream. A thick aura of glowing blue mist flowed up her wrists, past her shoulders and over her back. Retreat! Kurama called, but as the aura flared thrice brighter he realized there was no time.
The water chakra burst away from Mariko in every direction, presenting a solid wall of blue to the gathered Taka. Sasuke was the only one fast enough to react; he gathered his chakra for a series of Yomotsu Hirasaka portals but he was too slow to open one for each member of Taka. The chakra wave struck them all and threw them.
Sasuke noted a certain similarity to Pain's Shinra Tensei. Mariko's attack hurt far more on impact, but he knew the real damage would be dealt when his back touched the ground and the water jutsu continued to push him along it. He tried again with his doujutsu, this time successfully opening portals ahead of the Konoha-nin in their flight.
Taka flew through them and crashed hard into the dirt within Mariko's expanding blue dome. The wind was driven from Sasuke's lungs, but he raised Susanoo around his gathered teammates even as he gasped for air. "I-Itachi!"
"Hn!" the older Uchiha kipped up into a crouch and poured chakra through his own swirling eyes. "Isou Susanoo!" A torrent of orange light poured upward over Sasuke's violet avatar, melting it into a smooth round core at the heart of a far taller Susanoo. Itachi raised the Yata Mirror between them and Mariko; she stared at it with eyes both blank and hateful.
Another scream tore from her throat, passed lips stretched thin over teeth like knives and a jaw slightly extended into a beastly muzzle. She rose to her hind legs and raised her fists high over her head, then brought them down into the earth with a wail. It was less an attack and more a tantrum, but it sent increasingly violent waves of blue mist crashing against Itachi's shield in time with her blows.
"What the hell are we even fighting!?" Sakura called over the noise. "What do we do!?"
Itachi was forced to step back under the pressure against his shield, but the defense held. "It's definitely water chakra," he noted by the state of the Yata Mirror, tinged bronze and giving off a light shower of sand with each attack it caught. Through the Sharingan he tracked Mariko's movements, no easy task through the bright glow of her attacks and his own defense. "She's getting stronger, but her body is breaking down!"
Lower to the ground, Sasuke looked with his own doujutsu and nodded. Her fur and skin were stretched tight over her thinning muscles, her Byakugan eyes were stained completely red with the same blood that still trickled down her emaciated cheeks. Her wings draped uselessly to earth at her sides. Even as she watched, she threw another water chakra blast twice as strong as the previous one, and as the blue light left her so did more of the weight on her bones.
Susanoo swayed heavily backward with that impact; Itachi gritted his teeth behind his defense. "Anchor your shield in the ground!" Kimimaro called up. "Stab in with the edge!"
He nodded and struck the ground with the Yata Mirror, biting deep into it. The next explosion scattered off the curve of the shield, but the one after it struck harder again. Kurama, do we have a plan here?
The Nine-Tails' eyes narrowed. They all felt it even though he stood at the other end of the country. Don't waste your chakra, she's already dying. She's using up her body as raw material for these attacks; look at her chakra silhouette. The Uchiha brothers and Karin did as instructed; there was clearly no light left anywhere in her body but for the bones. Pretty soon she won't have enough flesh left to even move.
She reared up again and froze standing at her full height. The cascade of water chakra blasts stopped; Taka had a free line of sight to her shuddering limbs. Blue lightning tore out of her bones and broke the skin, her second affinity activating along with the first. What little skin and flesh still clung to her was scorched to a crisp, her bones touched the air and her Byakugan burst in her head.
The rivulets of blood that fell from her eye sockets were fried black as they fell down her cheeks. Her wings broke completely away at her shoulders; the cartilage in the joints burned away and left nothing to hold them in place. There were a few scraps of long blackened fur still clinging to her bones; they swayed softly in the breeze. Sakura couldn't help but stare at the emptiness in Mariko's ribcage; her organs were gone as well.
There, said Kurama, not at all bothered by the sight. My point is made.
She fell forward, and as she did the water and lightning chakra hugging her bones flared brighter. "Sasuke?" Itachi began with a note of fear in his voice. The arm of Susanoo holding the Yata Mirror shifted just slightly; Kurama wordlessly conveyed the message that it wouldn't be enough of a defense.
"Yomotsu Hirasaka!" The wormhole opened under Taka's feet inside Susanoo; they fell into the tunnel and left behind the two combined Susanoo. A flash of pale electric blue tore past the open square entrance; the Konoha-nin had already fallen past its reach but Susanoo was erased on contact with it.
The smoothly cut shaft through space gently turned from a sheer drop into a high slope; Sasuke turned the passage gradually further to slow their momentum and kept the other end of the portal at a safe distance until they were ready to emerge. The landing was uncomfortable but safe; Taka landed on their feet in a cloud of harsh black smoke and ozone.
Mariko lay still where she had fallen; her exposed skeleton crackled with water and lightning chakra but she didn't move. "She's... still alive," Karin breathed. "Her chakra is all still there, stored in her bones."
Sasuke peered into the empty sockets where her Byakugan had been. Even without eyes, he still felt as though she was watching him. "...It doesn't matter," he replied. "She can't move, and her chakra isn't building up for another attack." He glanced to Itachi, frowning. "Niisan, you know what we have to do."
"Hn." he aimed his Eternal Mangekyou at Mariko's skull; the younger brother went for the middle of her spine instead. "Amaterasu."
Hissing black flames rose from Mariko's motionless body and spread rapidly across her bones. They crackled and gave off a stream of heavy black smoke; the color matched what already hung in the air but the scent was far worse. Itachi wiped the blood from his eyes, but Sasuke left it on his cheeks rather than look away.
Through his armor, Kimimaro felt Juugo nudge his arm. "That... came from me," he murmured. There was a haunted look in his eyes, quite at odds with their demonic red hue. "She was only able to take that form by borrowing it from me, Kimimaro. Is that what I'm really like?"
"No," said the knight. He clapped a hand over Juugo's shoulder, notably reaching up to do so. "Not even close. You're-"
"I got this one," said Suigetsu, taking a stride toward them both. "If you start monologuing at him we'll be here long enough for Kabuto to get away. Listen up, big guy!" He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Mariko, his grin full of iron teeth. "That's your kekkei genkai. You're you! So fuck that 'I'm a monster' angsty bullshit! Your superpower makes you ugly as hell, and that's all!"
Juugo blinked. "...It also makes me go insane and try to kill all of my friends every now and then," he pointed out, his expression one of patient disagreement. "That seems like a big deal to me."
"Oh yeah?" Suigetsu's grin broadened. "Well when's the last time that happened?"
Kimimaro nodded. "Actually, I was going to bring that up," he admitted.
"But you would've taken twenty minutes to say it," said Suigetsu, "and you would've made it sound lame. So can we go now?"
"Hn." Sasuke turned his attention away from Mariko, satisfied that she wouldn't attack again now that most of her skeleton had been burned to ash. "There's one thing I need to do first," he admitted and bit his thumb. Thanks to Kurama's chakra, the tiny wound healed before he even started making hand seals. "Summoning Jutsu!"
A harmless explosion of standard white chakra smoke dispelled the black haze Mariko had left in her wake, and it rapidly faded to leave the air around Taka perfectly clear. Aoda had arrived looming protectively over them; he glanced around in all directions before his guard wavered. His eyes locked on Kabuto's lone tree, the only landmark in a vast lifeless valley.
"Jeez, this place is a mess," Jakuzure noted, coiled up at Sasuke's feet. "What'd we miss?"
"The Nine-Tails destroyed everything Kabuto had set up to stop us," he replied, "Except Mariko. She took my senjutsu chakra, but she's dead now."
"I see." She flicked her tongue momentarily. "Short and to the point, I like that." She turned her gaze on Kabuto's fortress as Aoda had, and a cruel gleam lit up in her eyes. "So this is really it... do we have a plan or are we winging it? Fine by me either way."
"Aoda will surround Kabuto's hideout and stop any backup from getting inside. Kabuto won't run this time, so we don't have the Hidden Mole Jutsu to worry about. As for you, I need my senjutsu chakra back and I'm nowhere near ready to gather it without you."
Jakuzure cocked her head slightly aside, sizing him up. "You know you're asking a lot, right? I'm not gonna give Sage Mode to just anyone."
"You've excommunicated your two other summoners since the incident with Manda, so I'm all you have. Do you want Kabuto dead or not?"
"Believe me, I do." After a moment of further thought, she nodded and slithered toward him. "Alright, let's go then wait what the hell do you think you're doing!?" Sasuke bent down and snatched the little snake from the ground; he set her down over his shoulders instead of letting her climb there herself. "You ham-fisted ape! Try that again and I'll kill you myself!"
"Hn?" he blinked, the very picture of innocence. "Oh, I guess that might've been a little demeaning. Sorry."
The snake's eyes flashed wickedly. "Don't play games with me, Gaki."
"We don't really have time for games," he pointed out, face and voice perfectly even.
Jakuzure hissed. "Typical moron Konoha-nin, always thinking the summoner is the one in charge... fine," she grumbled and fell still. "Hike, brat. I want Kabuto dead within the hour!"
"Aoda." He waved a hand toward Kabuto's last stronghold. "Pin him down." The huge snake gave a simple nod that somehow conveyed a polite tone, then slithered ahead and wound his body upward around the tree. He came to a stop with it completely buried under his coils, his head resting comfortably at the peak of a scaly blue mountain.
"This is it, Taka." a square wormhole cut through the air just ahead of the group; a bit of blood trickled from Sasuke's eyes to pay for it.
He glanced at his team with the Sharingan active. Sakura's White Strength Seal was opened across her face, down her neck and under her shirt. Kimimaro had his own Cursed Seal fully activated, and at his side Karin held her fingers crossed in a clone seal. Suigetsu was still fused with Samehada and wielding Kiba; Itachi stood within a protective shell made from Susanoo's ribcage.
At the back of the group, Juugo looked around and hesitated for a moment. The only one watching, Sasuke saw the conflict on his face. Kurama, are Kimimaro and Suigetsu right?
You must be in a bad way if you're asking me what you should do with that power, said the Nine-Tails. Me of all people. I'd be the first to tell you I'm a monster. I own it, I enjoy it. You sure you wanna hear my advice?
The tall boy gulped, then nodded. Yes.
They're full of shit. Your powers have a very serious drawback that could get you or any of your friends killed. That said, the Fox grinned, you have that drawback under nearly perfect control. We're at war, Juugo, and at this point using your power to its fullest extent will only help Taka's chances of survival. Go crazy with it. He paused and his grin widened. Figuratively speaking.
...Um... Thanks. Juugo stood up slightly straighter and did nothing more; at the moment it was the only transformation he needed.
"On me," said Sasuke, and stepped into the void ahead. Taka followed in a tight group behind him; he emerged into Kabuto's lair first with his Eternal Mangekyou whirling. It was a neat circular chamber with walls of wood and bark and a floor of pale sand, all lit and kept warm by a roaring bonfire in the middle of the tree. Kabuto and Orochimaru stood side by side with their backs to the flame, wrapped in hooded cloaks bearing Akatsuki's sigil.
Kabuto sighed; a great deal of tension left his shoulders and he smiled lightly. "Finally. I really thought I was going to die there... but the Nine-Tails is gone and you're exactly where I want you. I could almost cry."
Sasuke took a single step forward and poised the Sword of Totsuka low at his side. "Mariko said something similar. You don't seem even a little bit upset about her."
The Otokage scoffed. "I knew she would eventually self-destruct from the moment we met. She looked up to Kouga and she didn't take it well when he died. In fact," he grinned, "I couldn't help but notice some similarities between her reactions and the Uchiha curse. Destroying Konoha for revenge is something quite a few of your relatives have thought of."
"But you know, here's the funny part." He drew forth the Kusanagi and held it in a stance matching Sasuke's. "She really had no idea how far gone she was. Kept saying she was only helping me to protect her own life, that Kouga would've wanted her to prioritize herself over his memory. And yet here we all are."
Sasuke closed his eyes for just a moment; he kept watching Kabuto's chakra silhouette through his eyelids as he did. A soft golden pigment faded in over and around his eyes; as he opened them again he felt unreal strength flood his limbs. "Yeah. Here we are."
The two shinobi vanished with all the speed of a movement jutsu and crashed together at their midway point, showing their pace was matched. The Swords of Totsuka and Kusanagi met between them and locked. Sasuke flooded the liquid blade with a crimson Chidori that flowed into the Kusanagi and through it, shocking Kabuto. Without pause he let fall a tear of blood from his eye, and the Otokage's chest burst into black flame.
Kabuto opened his mouth wide and shed his skin, bursting out from his own throat with the Byakugan active. He drew up his palm and lunged down with it toward Sasuke's left shoulder; his hand was swallowed up just before impact by a panel of absolute black. It emerged just in front of a waiting Sakura, who grabbed his wrist with both hands and bent it until his bones snapped. She pulled with a vicious grunt and his hand tore off with a shower of blood.
He yelped and drew back what was left of his arm. Sasuke swept up with the lightning-covered Totsuka for a slash across Kabuto's chest, but his target leapt back with senjutsu-enhanced speed and retreated to his minion's side. "Orochimaru!"
"Gen'yuumaru!" Kimimaro roared back just as his sensei began to move. Orochimaru froze, a surprised look on his face. "I know you're still alive in there, and you need to listen to me!"
"Kill Kimimaro," said the Otokage, and Orochimaru had no choice but to obey. The knight raised his shield to catch the Water Dragon Bullet he cast with a mere waving hand instead of seals, but the Earth Dragon that followed shoved him hard into the wall of the lair. Tendrils of wood and bark locked around his armor and grasped around for its seams, intent on stabbing in and killing him. He countered with blades of bone that grew out of the armor and sliced him free.
He dodged the next Earth Dragon smoothly and went on. "Do you want your body back, Gen'yuumaru? Do you wanna live!?" Sakura and Suigetsu charged in and attacked Kabuto with a flurry of punches and slices that forced him to dodge frantically backward; at the same time Karin called a dozen shadow clones to swarm Orochimaru. "You can force him out! Do that and we can get you out of here alive!"
His eyes widened and he clapped his hands together with a Tiger seal, calling up five Fire Dragon Bullets with total ease. "Do you know what'll happen to me if I lose this body!?" He hissed. "Stop it, Kimimaro! You'll kill me!"
The knight smirked under his helmet, fully aware of the lie. Orochimaru had confirmed that Taka's message was being heard, and with the same breath he gave Gen'yuumaru extra incentive to fight for control of his body. "You heard him, Gen'yuumaru! Fight!"
Three of the Fire Dragons spiralled out from Orochimaru, low to the ground to burn through Karin's clones. The other two arced apart through the air and converged on Kimimaro, who blasted forward with a Pulse Step behind his raised shield. A pair of pale snakes burst from Orochimaru's sleeve and met the shield with the backs of their necks, stopping his momentum cold.
"This jutsu can be broken," he called from behind the shield. "It's been done before; there was a Hyuuga girl who countered it last year." Orochimaru held up his left hand; stark white lightning flashed between the joints of the prosthetic and he slapped it down on the center of Kimimaro's shield.
Thin black arcs of charcoal flashed across its face in an instant, then crumbled to ash. The pieces of bone between them fell apart and Kimimaro brought up his sword with both hands, aiming a long slash across Orochimaru's chest. The snakes reaching from his dominant hand caught the sword and wrapped around it smoothly.
Much to his sensei's surprise, Kimimaro completely let go of the hilt and punched him in the face. "You were there when it was cast! Sachi Hyuuga, that's her name! She did it, and so can you!"
"Shut up!" Kabuto roared. He spun seamlessly into a Revolving Heaven that turned aside Sakura's fist and Suigetsu's swords, then stopped with the same ease even as they were thrown by his jutsu. "Kill Gen'yuumaru!"
Orochimaru jumped back from Kimimaro, swinging a new longsword horizontally as he formed it from the bone of his right gauntlet. "If I do that, his body will fail! I'll only have a few minutes!"
"And when those minutes are up," the Otokage growled, "I'll kill you." Sasuke sprinted out of a black portal behind him; he whirled and parried Totsuka with Kusanagi. "Or I could do it now! Your choice!"
Having skidded to a stop not far from the wall, Sakura took a running start toward it and planted her feet on the bark with tree-walking chakra. She crouched low against it, turned and aimed, and launched herself at Kabuto with supersonic speed and force to match. He vanished and left empty space in her crosshairs; Sasuke filled it instead with a Yomotsu Hirasaka portal that caught her and smoothly redirected her.
She emerged from it aiming straight down at Kabuto, but with the Byakugan he saw her coming and raised a Wood Release dome over his head. Her punch tore through it like paper and met the top of the Revolving Heaven hidden inside; at once it spun her aside and pulled her down to shatter a winding path through the wooden shell. Then it tossed her aside; she landed on her feet some distance away with a scowl.
At the other end of the room, Orochimaru sighed bitterly and carelessly parried away the movements of Kimimaro's sword. "You know, I really don't have a choice here," he admitted. "I want to live."
"If you're gonna do anything," he called out to Gen'yuumaru, "now's your last chance!"
Standing well behind Kimimaro, Itachi cast a simple mirage genjutsu that gave off a flash of red light around himself. Orochimaru glanced instinctively at what he thought was an unknown ninjutsu, and as a result he accidentally met the older Uchiha's eyes. He fell into Tsukuyomi and froze, only for a moment in the waking world but long enough that Kimimaro managed to plant his sword in his sensei's chest.
Orochimaru swayed with the impact; he snapped back into awareness as the bone weapon began to expand in his chest. Kimimaro grew it outward into a full Clematis Flower, tearing his body open from inside. Orochimaru cast aside his wounded body and emerged unharmed from its mouth, his lower half bound in the form of a coal-black snake's tail that matched his robes.
Entirely lucid even after seventy-two hours in Tsukuyomi, the Snake Sannin snapped his fingers and produced a jagged serpentine shape wrought of white lightning, twice as large as a standard Dragon Bullet that hissed as it shot for Kimimaro. He moved to dodge the attack, but something else stopped it before he could follow through the motion.
It was a hand, a huge hand bearing a black-brown shell and long thin fingers with one joint too many. It curled around the lightning, dug in with its fingertips sharpened like talons, and made a fist. The serpent burst apart into loose arcs of harmless light; it was only a momentary setback for Orochimaru but he was still surprised.
Juugo shrank his hand back to normal proportions and returned it to his side. Up to the shoulder it retained its earthen color and hard carapace, but the rest of him was untouched by senjutsu. His eyes gleamed red with the Nine-Tails' chakra; there was only a bit of fear in them. He stepped ahead into the battle and his other hand took on the same form.
"That's a new trick," said Orochimaru lightly. His snake body transformed back into a fully human one standing well away from Kimimaro and Juugo both. The tallest member of Taka came to a stop standing by Kimimaro's side; the knight grew a new bone shield and raised it before himself. "Nothing special, but it's different from your usual attack patterns, Juugo."
"Is Gen'yuumaru dead?" Kabuto demanded.
"Yes," said Orochimaru simply. He glanced at Kimimaro and shrugged.
There goes that plan, Kurama noted with a frown.
"Good," said Kabuto, warily watching each member of Taka with the Byakugan. There was a momentary pause that cut through all the violence; no one moved to attack. The Otokage broke the silence with a clap of his hands, and the floor of sand under all of their feet vanished into a hidden storage seal.
They fell, but as shinobi they all landed smoothly on their feet at the bottom of a far larger chamber. Carved out of the earth under the hollow tree was a round cavern huge enough to comfortably house a Tailed Beast, its floors smoothed over with what looked to be grey slate. The bonfire that had rested in the middle of the sand crashed into the stone floor instead; the high pile of wood shattered apart on impact and gave off a great burst of smoke and sparks.
"Now we have some room to breathe," said Kabuto. "If Taka dies before your body starts shutting down, I'll give you a Zetsu clone as a replacement." He cast a cold glance at Orochimaru. "Otherwise, you die."
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