Opening - Love Deterrence by Nana Mizuki
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He hoped, and held out hope until the moment he saw Kumo. Through the white smoke of his arrival, the Fourth Raikage saw his village flattened beyond any chance of repair, and he knew he was vastly too late.
His eye was drawn to one structure standing alone by itself, an arrangement of black wooden arches like the ribcage of a world-eating beast, long dead and reduced to a harmless fossil. All it took was a moment already looking in that direction, and he quickly spotted the two bodies in the area.
He moved there in an instant with a soft flash of his Lightning Armor. He didn't still hope for the best, but he pretended to. Emptily he chanted the thought without words deep in his mind, it'll be okay, it'll be okay, because it felt marginally better than thinking about the horrible reality without any kind of shield.
Killer Bee lay on the ground before his brother, headless and still. The shield broke.
What was left of the Shinobi Alliance's vanguard arrived over the next few seconds, all standing within clouds of smoke on pavilions of grey stone. First came Naruto and Hinata, then Yagura, Gaara, Jiraiya and Tsunade, the Fifth Mizukage, the Third Tsuchikage. They found A on his knees in the ash, cradling Bee, screaming, sobbing.
For a moment they just stood there, unable to think of anything to do. The Fourth War was lost, the enemy was likely already resurrecting the Ten-Tails. There was no course of action that could undo that damage, and when the shinobi did move it was a slow, robotic process. Hinata activated her Byakugan; it was nothing more than reflex that told her she had to look for lives still to be saved, to look for enemies still in the area.
But then her eyes went wide. "W-We've got survivors! Yugito's still alive!" She turned to the Wood Release cage and all eyes went in that direction as well, all but the Fourth Raikage's. Yagura appeared under the arches and crouched over Yugito, facedown with grey ash swept up over her body by the wind. Hinata arrived a moment later. "She's not hurt," she breathed. "Her chakra network is still whole; she's not bleeding..."
"She must've opened her seal willingly," said Yagura. "Matatabi sacrificed herself for Yugito... but why them and not Gyuuki and Bee?"
"I'm not sure," said Hinata, "but we don't really have time to talk about it. Madara probably hasn't gone far from the village, so we need to get her to the Wall and then-"
Silently, a beam of red light appeared from somewhere far to the south. It rose higher than any mountain, high enough to reach into the blackness of space, giving the impression that it was somehow stretched thin. The Alliance stared at it, and as they did the sound caught up with the sight. It was like thunder, exactly the same sound but sustained where thunder would be brief.
Naruto wrapped himself in a burst of black and orange chakra; it settled together as the cloak of his Six Paths Sage Mode. "I'll set up a Seal Summoning," he declared.
"And I'll take Yugito to the Walls," said Yagura. He brought together his hands in a seal, but Hinata stopped him.
"Wait, there's someone else. It's a Genin east of us; she's injured. It's not life-threatening, but she needs a medic-nin and she needs to get far away from here."
He nodded. "I'll be quick."
He vanished, and Naruto turned south to do the same. He gathered his chakra, narrowed his eyes and crouched forward. He kicked off and ran at his top speed, his sight locked on the pillar of glowing red. Kurama. That's demonic chakra, isn't it?
Yeah. They've got six of us now, and with Gyuuki among them it doesn't look good. Brilliant threads of lime-green chakra appeared floating through the air around the red beam; they spiralled in and melted together with it and turned it a horrid, decaying brown color. That's the worldly chakra you guys use for senjutsu, so all that's left is...
A radiant mist of pale blue light bloomed up from the ground under the beam, loose and translucent instead of focused like the red and green chakra. But then it too was sucked in, woven in, and the dead brown light turned vicious orange. The outer layers cooled and blackened, resembling a Tailed Beast Ball, and then all at once the assembled chakra was sucked back down to earth.
Naruto arrived just in time to see the reborn Ten-Tails stir, stretched out prone on the shore of the Land of Lightning. Its tails twitched first at the touch of a gentle wave; the vestigial hands there made fists and then opened again. Its arms and legs sluggishly moved to support its weight, let it stand again for the first time in a thousand years.
Its eye opened, a single red eye as tall as Kurama by itself, glowing and full of slowly whirling tomoe. The eye narrowed as it spotted Naruto; the primordial Sharingan stopped spinning and focused clearly on him. Crouching with his hands together in a seal, Naruto looked up past the Ten-Tails at the man standing atop its head.
"You're Naruto Uzumaki," said Madara. "I've been waiting to meet you for three years now."
"You'll need to wait a little longer. Seal Summoning Jutsu!"
Madara blinked, watching with a frown as his opponent disappeared inside a burst of white smoke. He sighed, but a slight smirk crossed his face. Well, now that he's shown me that jutsu I could just follow him. He glanced down at the top of the Ten-Tails' head; the monster was still staring with hate in its eye where Naruto had stood.
I'm sure you'd like that. But you'll evolve that little bit faster if you don't have anything else to do with all your chakra. He didn't have long to wait before Naruto returned through the same jutsu; standing behind him were the remaining able fighters of the Alliance. "Well. Now that we're all here, let's dance."
A slit of perfect black was cut through the air next to the gathered shinobi; it opened and let forth a chillingly calm voice. "Hold on one moment, please." A man stepped out, thin and pale and dressed in a loose Akatsuki robe. His hair was long and black, his eyes white without pupils, his smile cold and venomous. "I have one question before we start."
"Orochimaru," he recalled, slightly perplexed. "You look different. What do you want?"
"Your eyes," Orochimaru answered. "Or rather, Izuna's eyes. Could you please try not to let them be destroyed in this battle? Not as a favor to me, of course, but for the sake of science."
Taka filed out through the portal as the Sannin spoke, and one by one their expressions turned dumbstruck. Juugo tiredly nudged Kimimaro, eyes wide. "Did he really just say that?"
He clapped his hands to the earth, hands of flesh and blood brimming with chakra. "Summoning Jutsu!" On instinct and sheer force of habit, Jiraiya and Tsunade darted ahead and mirrored his cast with their own. A bloom of smoke rose between the Alliance and the Ten-Tails, enough to block both parties' view. "We need to do this quickly," said Orochimaru atop Aoda. "We need to damage it while it's still just waking up."
Atop Gamabunta's massive head, Jiraiya glanced left through the smoke. "Ninjutsu is useless against it unless you're using senjutsu chakra."
"Then it's a good thing I mastered Sage Mode an hour ago," came the smug reply.
Behind them, Naruto glared at Orochimaru's chakra silhouette through the mist. "Hinata, Gaara, Yagura. You guys are with me; everyone else back up the Sannin. They're gonna need it."
Atop the grotesque head of the Ten-Tails, there was a flash of sky-blue light as Madara raised his Susanoo. It materialized a skeletal arm and twisted shortsword, and raised them both just barely in time to catch the Truth-Seeking Blade. The mirage Naruto left behind only vanished after he slammed into Madara's defense. "You are fast," Madara admitted. "But I can see you move."
"That's not the same as catching me!" With his sword locked against Madara's, Naruto swept upward and threw him back off the head of the Ten-Tails. He flew after Madara with his weapon unfurling into a Rasenshuriken; the monster behind him recoiled from the impact of a gigantic green fireball to its open eye.
He glanced back and was irked to see Orochimaru leading the charge against it, letting fly vast elemental jutsu in rapid succession without a single hand seal. He held both hands high over his head, holding aloft a seething sun of green fire and threw it forward, always aiming for the Ten-Tails' single eye. A glance at the jutsu told Naruto it was infused with a flammable acid, used to intensify the Fire Release while also corroding a target. The effect would likely go unnoticed, mistaken for the pain of an ordinary burn.
He looked ahead again, disregarding that battle to focus on Madara. His target had fully manifested his Susanoo, complete with a suit of ancient armor and a pair of vast wings. His backward momentum was arrested into a controlled flight; he drew back a katana with two of Susanoo's hands and swept it at Naruto.
He brought up his own saber to meet it, but the blow came down with force to level a mountain range. He shot straight down with it as though he'd put up no resistance at all, and blasted a crater deep into the ground on impact. A cloud of dull brown dust filled the air, and from within it Naruto fired a Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken at Madara. He knew even as he threw it that the enemy could see it coming; he expected him to dodge but was surprised when Madara took it head-on instead.
But then surprise crossed Madara's face as well, as the spinning disc vaporized its way up Susanoo's legs instead of vanishing on contact. Susanoo floated backward before it reached Madara himself, but it was clear that the Rasenshuriken could pierce that defense. Kurama's eyes widened deep within Naruto's mindscape. He can't absorb your chakra, Naruto! The Sage had the same problem with the Ten-Tails; your chakra won't obey anyone but you. This is the edge you need!
But it also means I can't use Preta on that thing...! Naruto froze with his eyes on the Ten-Tails, its mouth torn open impossibly wide to charge a Tailed Beast Ball of matching size. The orb twisted out of shape into a cone, its tip aimed at the Legendary Sannin. No! He took aim with an open palm, hoping to push the attack off-course with Shinra Tensei.
Before he could cast it, a wall of sheer black opened up in front of the cone and caught it. The other end of Sasuke's portal opened up well above the thin clouds in the sky, aiming the Tailed Beast Ball up into space. It exploded while still within the atmosphere, a second sun pouring off light and a hot gale, but its targets were still alive.
Sasuke fell to one knee, panting and covering his eyes with his hands. "That's really all I've got left," he breathed to Sakura. "It's gonna cast that attack again; we need to find another way to stop it!"
"I can see something up there," Itachi noted, his red eyes focused on the Ten-Tails' head. "Orochimaru, can you use those eyes yet? We need a closer look."
After a momentary pause and a look of effort, Orochimaru activated the Byakugan. "Ah... that's Obito Uchiha up there, connected to the Ten-Tails by a Wood Release jutsu. Seeing through a doujutsu is just as great as I'd imagined."
"He's controlling it," Tsunade realized. "It might go down easier without a shinobi guiding its attacks. Do you think we could break the connection?"
It opened its mouth, showing hundreds of keen-edged triangular teeth, and roared. The sound and wind of its breath struck the Sannin like a hurricane; Katsuyu and Aoda slid back over the earth while Gamabunta clutched it and just barely held on. The Ten-Tails brought up one arm and aimed it down to swat them all into oblivion; its hand dwarfed the boss summons as though they were ordinary animals, and they would surely be squished just as easily.
From behind the Sannin flew a huge bolt of blue light; it struck the Ten-Tails' palm and exploded with awesome force. The Ten-Tails' hand was pushed abruptly back; it gave an awful high screech in its fury. Orochimaru charged and fired another ninjutsu into its eye, this time a focused shot of golden fire chakra from his fingertip. It recoiled away from the attack and hissed in pain, shutting its enormous eye a moment too late.
"This thing isn't going down at all," said Jiraiya. "We can't just kill it, and none of us know a seal that can hold it. We'll take Obito out of the picture, then find a way to pull the Tailed Beasts out of it."
"Hinata just left," Orochimaru commented with his Byakugan still active. Jiraiya and Tsunade glanced back in time to see Gaara and Yagura also disappear in smoke, answering Naruto's call for backup. "I'll keep the Ten-Tails distracted for now, but we need a way to hold off its next attack."
Cords of ash-white wood burst from the Ten-Tails' face, and meshed together into a cage over its eye. It rose up and moved to step forward, but at the same time it turned around to look at something other than the Sannin.
Naruto shot into the monster's face behind a Truth-Seeking Rasenshuriken, holding it at arm's length with the blades spiralling in a cone around him. The Ten-Tails lurched violently along the path of his shove, then stopped for a moment. Even to Naruto, it appeared as though the abomination would hold its ground against the blow.
Then he tore through with a shower of blood, far too bright and far too red. The Legendary Sannin stared with wide eyes, as did their summons, Taka, and the two Kage at the back of the group. The Ten-Tails' eye was gone, as was a Bijuu-sized chunk of the head behind it. Naruto soared out the back of the tunnel, hovered for a moment and then returned to the conflict with Madara.
"That should do," said Orochimaru. The monster's arms and tails twitched aimlessly in the absence of its brain, and its mouth opened to roar again, more with anger than pain. "Let's kill Obito before this thing gets up."
A gust of wind blasted through the Alliance, scorching hot and strong enough to nearly knock down all three Sannin. They stood their ground thanks to their superhuman strength, and glanced toward the source. Scaled up to fit the hand of a translucent black Fox, Naruto's Truth-Seeking Blade clashed with the slim katana of Madara's perfected Susanoo. Flashes of abhorrent violet light shone from each touch of the swords, and sent forth new waves of fiery wind.
Naruto flicked his sword low at his side, then brought it up in an arc aimed to cleave Susanoo in two. Madara lowered his own weapon to catch and deflect the Truth-Seeking Blade. Their weapons bounced apart, and within the aura of smoky black chakra, Madara saw Naruto move. The Sharingan tracked him upward until he came to a stop directly above Susanoo's head, holding a black-orange sword vastly smaller than his opponent's.
He slashed downward and focused the Deva Path through the blow. Susanoo flew straight down and shattered the ground below, as Naruto had done moments prior. The glowing blue armor held against the impact, but as he landed he saw the Fourth Mizukage was already there. Yagura charged a Tailed Beast Ball and compressed it between his palms, then slammed it point-blank into Susanoo's chest.
The armor melted away under the wash of orange light, then the skin and flesh of Susanoo dissolved as well. The ribcage around Madara cracked visibly, and then Hinata punched through those remnants with her left hand. He crouched and sprang forward to meet her, pulling a vast pale gunbai from behind his back. She shoved forward with her right hand. In it was a Rasenyari with a core larger than her head, and tapering beams of radiant blue several times longer than her own body.
It met his gunbai and exploded, sending her and him flying opposite each other. Madara felt his ancient weapon crack and cave in, but at the same time he felt the force of her attack begin to die. He came to a stop on his feet, surprised but unharmed, clutching the handle of a destroyed piece of history. Without falter he grasped the shaft with both hands and twisted it. A latch sprang open and he drew forth an intact chokuto hidden within the larger weapon.
He took aim at Hinata, breathing heavily within a fading aura of white mist. He leaned forward and vanished from her sight, his chokuto clutched in both hands. Tendrils of black sand burst up from underground by the hundreds, lashing at him in an attempt to stop his attack. They all missed and he reached Hinata untouched.
She threw her hands forward into the slash of his blade, as intended. His weapon cut deep into her palms despite her Sage Mode, drawing two splashes of blood. He drew the sword sidelong out of her grasp; she cried out and the blade came away slick red.
Then he screamed as well, a clean line of the same fire traced deep through his back. "Rinbohengoku!" he called, and his one Rinnegan sent out a burst of unstoppable force in all directions. Naruto was sent flying behind him, as well as Hinata just ahead. He pushed the attack further out and caught Gaara and Yagura as well, giving him a moment to summon his full Susanoo.
He floated up along with its ribcage as it materialized, and he let the battered old sword fall from his hand. The gash in his back healed over with polished black wood instead of flesh, but he rolled his shoulders and it flowed with his skin seamlessly.
A mile away, he saw Naruto bare his teeth and let out his chakra avatar in a single sudden rush of black. Even with the Sharingan warning him what would happen next, he still barely managed to align his katana before the fox was upon him, throwing all of its strength behind a horizontal slash at Susanoo's belly. The glowing blue giant stumbled back two short steps before it brought Naruto to a halt.
"I was wrong about you," said Madara. "When I heard about you three years ago, I thought you might be as fun as Hashirama one day." he pushed back against Naruto's sword; thin veins of black wood wormed their way out from his body into Susanoo's limbs. "That's why I gave you all this time, but I was wrong."
He gave the blue sword a stout shove and Naruto went flying; his chakra avatar shattered and he soared clear over the heads of the Alliance and the Ten-Tails. "I knew Hashirama, I knew what to predict from him! But every move you make is a surprise; I don't think I've ever felt so alive!"
As Naruto was thrown over the prone Ten-Tails, the Sannin looked up and watched him go. "We're all gonna die," Jiraiya mumbled, sprinting up the monster's arm to where Obito stood at the base of its neck.
"Speak for yourself," said Orochimaru at his side. "I'm immortal."
Instead of adding to the conversation, Tsunade simply picked up speed and made the first move on Obito, a simple punch aimed for his face with superhuman strength and speed. Her blow passed through his head as lightly as air, and he turned unharmed as she shot past him. He flicked a kunai deep into her back, and she removed the blade before even stopping her momentum.
As the knife left her wound and her skin healed over, she momentarily noticed that the hilt was growing warmer in her hand. She tossed it away, but as she did the paper wrapped around the handle exploded. She was lifted off her feet by a wave of fire and shrapnel, thrown off the neck of the Ten-Tails before she could react.
Jiraiya followed up just behind her, with a thrown Rasengan six feet across. It too did nothing to Obito as it passed. It exploded behind him and failed to even rustle his clothes.
"I'm not seriously going to fight the Legendary Sannin on my own," said Obito. "But by all means waste your chakra on me. I'm completely intangible."
The body of the Ten-Tails shuddered under their feet; the carapace somewhere between skin and bone began to sink rapidly. A glance down showed the Sannin that the monster wasn't moving at all, but was growing thinner at an alarming rate. The hole blown through its head washed shut, filled up by a white mass flowing toward its center.
The red eye grew back shut, then opened wide with its tomoe wildly spinning. Black-tipped horns sprouted from the top and bottom of the Ten-Tails' malformed head; surely they had a purpose but the Sannin couldn't guess it.
"Incoming!" Jiraiya roared and instantaneously formed a standard Rasengan in his palm. He threw it straight up to call Orochimaru's attention, but with his newly granted sixth sense, he was already staring up at the hand of the Ten-Tails raised to swat them both.
"Get down!" screamed Tsunade, flying straight up with her hands reaching for the palm of the monster. Jiraiya and Orochimaru both dropped into a crouch instantly; she crashed into the Ten-Tails' hand and was immediately slammed back down into its neck.
She stood perfectly straight under the weight of its attack, holding it up at arm's length to spare Jiraiya and Orochimaru from certain death. The Ten-Tails' eye narrowed and it pushed down harder against her, but even then she held her ground with a primal scream of pain and desperation. The lines of fuinjutsu across her body flashed with green chakra; a thin line of blood fell from the corner of her lip and she appeared to cave slightly under the pressure. Only then, she sprang back to her full height and threw the Ten-Tails' hand back.
She slumped forward just slightly; her focus wavered with her exhaustion. Obito chose that moment to punch a kunai into her chest. As she swayed back, he vanished again into a whirlpool of black just as the Ten-Tails stirred. Its back snapped upward into an arch with no warning, throwing the Sannin into the sky.
Jiraiya and Tsunade spun completely out of control through the air, but Orochimaru managed to turn himself with a gust of wind chakra and face the ground with his arms spread wide. The Ten-Tails rose to its full height below them and reared back; it opened its mouth and breathed out hundreds of component chakra orbs for another Tailed Beast Ball.
He ran through the improbably vast collection of ninjutsu he had collected over his lifetime, but there was nothing he could use to stop such an attack even if he were standing on solid ground. To defend against the Ten-Tails while skydiving toward its strongest attack was beyond impossible. He briefly considered the possibility of his own death, but he had agents with Cursed Seals of Heaven hiding across the continent, vastly more cooperative than Anko Mitarashi. He would live; that was what mattered.
Then he caught sight of the Third Tsuchikage, standing for the first time with nothing between himself and the Ten-Tails' face. A wicked grin flashed across Orochimaru's face; Oonoki couldn't damage the monster without senjutsu chakra but he was still a clever old man. Good. The loss of the Byakugan and the Wood Release would've stung badly.
He flicked his open hands toward the Ten-Tails and let fly a cylinder of white light, stretched into a thin beam that touched the Tailed Beast Ball and Oonoki's palms. It widened to engulf the entire misshapen orb, flashed brighter white for a moment, then vanished in silence. The Ball was gone; the Ten-Tails looked slightly confused by that.
Under his breath, Orochimaru sighed in relief and made a Ram seal. A gust of wind caught and shoved him in Jiraiya's direction, he sent from his sleeve a black snake to wrap around his old teammate. After a moment he repeated the move and grabbed Tsunade as well, limp and bleeding from her chest. Now here comes the tricky part...
He swept his hands through several more seals as the ground grew rapidly closer. "Wind Release: Fog Summit!" He pointed one finger at the earth and shot a mote of white light from its tip; the jutsu was set off by contact with the ground. It released a rush of grey mist that struck the Sannin and slowed their fall, gradually enough that they were spared messy deaths.
The impact with the ground still stung; Jiraiya and Tsunade tumbled painfully free of the snakes while Orochimaru's breath left his lungs. He rose to his hands and knees, gasping and dazed. There was no time to waste refilling his lungs, so he shuffled over to Tsunade's side while still wheezing like death.
"She's..." Jiraiya gasped, voice hollow from the lack of breath, "She's dead, her heart..."
"Shut up," said Orochimaru, unable to go into detail. He rolled Tsunade onto her back and ripped the kunai from her chest; blood spilled anew from the open wound. He clapped his fingers together into a Ram seal and bluntly forced a rush of wind into his lungs; the action was risky and painful but also effective. "I know you've never specialized in medical ninjutsu, Jiraiya." He rubbed his throat, raw and cold. "But you should know that it's the brain that needs to be protected at all costs, not the heart."
The wound in Tsunade's chest began to close, slowly, weakly. Orochimaru grinned; there was no warmth in it. "The heart pumps blood, but not chakra. As long as you still have your head and your chakra, everything else is just a broken cog in a vast machine. It takes some doing, but you can fix it."
The stab sealed over entirely, but Tsunade still did not stir. Orochimaru held up two fingers and lit them with lightning chakra. "Remember that the next time you need to save someone's life," said he. "If your head's still in one piece, you're not dead." He jabbed his hand down over her heart; with a sharp harsh buzz the light vanished from his fingertips. Tsunade seized up with the shock and her eyes flew open; she gasped and sat up clutching her chest.
"You-!" she nearly scrambled away from Orochimaru on instinct alone, but then she stopped and thought. "You saved my life?"
"I did." Orochimaru rose to his full height, grinning smugly. "That means you owe me, doesn't it?" She glared up at him, not breaking eye contact. He didn't flinch, and his smirk remained in place. "One day I might need something from Konoha. I'll be sure to call that favor due."
"Thank you, Orochimaru." He and Tsunade both blinked as they turned toward Jiraiya. "But at this rate, there'll never be a one day."
The Ten-Tails loomed forward and opened its mouth again, whether to roar or release an attack, the Sannin couldn't tell. Orochimaru blinked in surprise and turned slightly. "He ran here?" he murmured. "Why would he...?"
"What?" Jiraiya turned toward him. "What do you see?"
A stream of blue light tore past the Sannin, between the Kage and the Three-Way Deadlock, made up of thousands of thinner filaments like lightning. The core of brighter blue at its head shot up the Ten-Tails' left arm, all the way to its crown of horns where the Raikage immediately punched Obito in the face.
Obito spun away through the air, soaring far past the Ten-Tails' head into the empty space over its shoulders. Spirals of blackened, twisted space curled in around him before he could strike the thorny bulb mounted on the monster's back; he vanished into another dimension and left A standing alone atop the Ten-Tails.
"You fuckers took my little brother!" he screamed at the space Obito had disappeared from, tears in his eyes. "I'll kill you all!"
In Obito's absence, the Ten-Tails' eye glassed over for a moment. Then it shined with renewed clarity and singleminded hatred, aiming its gaze down toward its enemies on the ground. It brought up its right hand swiftly, then smashed it down on Katsuyu and obliterated her with the impact. With a stain of bright milky white across its knuckles, the Ten-Tails lashed out and snatched Gamabunta next before he could move.
The boss of the Toad Clan yelped with true, shameless terror, and thrashed desperately against the hand of the Ten-Tails but got nowhere. The abomination dwarfed him as he dwarfed any mundane toad, and its grip was unbreakable. He looked back at Jiraiya watching helplessly from a distance, screaming something Gamabunta couldn't hear. The Ten-Tails opened its mouth wide and the last of Gamabunta's courage was swept away.
He vanished with a burst of smoke, leaving a shaken Jiraiya behind. The Ten-Tails closed its mouth and opened its hand; it hissed as it realized its prey had escaped. A cold breeze swept through the Alliance from the Ten-Tails' mouth, horribly cold and yet with a thick scent of smoke. It sized up its remaining enemies and lunged down toward the largest chakra silhouette left, namely Aoda. The snake was vastly quicker than Gamabunta and managed to dodge the Ten-Tails' hand, but was still sent flying by a rippling shockwave of wind and rock from the impact.
As this happened, and even as the Ten-Tails lurched ahead in pursuit of Aoda, the Raikage stood atop its head punching a dent into it. He poured all of his strength into each blow, and the carapace caved in under him but only slightly. The Ten-Tails seemed not to even notice his presence. Meanwhile, the Alliance retreated from its scrambling after Aoda.
"We need to get him down from there," said Jiraiya. "He's gonna get himself killed!"
"There's nothing we can do," Tsunade answered. "He's fine as long as it doesn't notice him, but at this rate that snake is gonna cancel his summon like Gamabunta did. When that happens, the Ten-Tails is gonna pick something else to kill."
Just behind the Tsuchikage, Mei hummed in thought. "I have an idea," said she, "But I'd need senjutsu chakra to make it work."
Jiraiya frowned. "I can't just hand you Sage Mode. If you don't know how to mix it with your own chakra, it'll turn you to stone. You'll die instantly."
"I know," she replied with a sly smile. "Fortunately we have someone else here who can handle senjutsu chakra, and has a reputation for reckless human experimentation."
"It's not reckless," said Orochimaru. "I know the chances of my patient's survival or death. You might call it unethical to proceed with a test anyway, but it's not reckless." then he grinned back, bared his fangs and licked his lips. "It's been a few years since I've had a willing volunteer."
The Ten-Tails locked its bony fingers around Aoda's tail; the snake vanished in smoke just as Gamabunta had. The monster roared with greater rage this time and sent a tremendous blast of wind through the Alliance; Mei stumbled back under the force of it. "Get over here; we're out of time!" she called. Orochimaru flitted over to her side and clapped a hand down on her back, forcing a burst of worldly chakra through her body.
"Use it quickly," he instructed, "Or you'll die."
She clapped her palms together and took aim at the Ten-Tails; she drew in a great breath and her chest visibly swelled outward with it. She adjusted herself slightly, held the breath and lined up her shot perfectly, then let it all out in a great rush of pale silver mist. She swayed on her feet as so much chakra left her so quickly, and ahead of the Alliance, her jutsu traced a perfect linear path ending without fail on the Ten-Tails' face.
It recoiled back in shock and pain; its eye clamped shut and it screamed as its carapace was burned vicously by senjutsu-infused acid. In opening its mouth for that scream, it accidently allowed her to scald its mouth as well. The monster learned from its mistake quickly and shut its jaws as with its eye, then fell still.
"There," Mei panted. "That should give it a reason not to use that Tailed Beast Ball on us, and even better, it can't see clearly now."
"And that's something else I can say about my experiments," said Orochimaru proudly. "They get results."
Far across the battlefield, Naruto and Madara clashed at the edge of the Haran Bay. Susanoo stood atop an ocean of icy water roiling with every blow he took, while Naruto's vulpine chakra avatar occupied the firm ground of the frozen beach.
Madara pinned Naruto's orange saber between his pair of blue kris, and Susanoo produced two more from its second set of arms. He stabbed forward with the new blades, and pierced the shadow of Kurama's belly but not Naruto himself. He vanished just before the blows could strike and reappeared well back from the beach, finally giving a bit of ground to Madara.
Susanoo stepped ahead from the waves to the sand, brandishing four matched undulating swords against Naruto. His target drew back the Truth-Seeking Blade, drew in a breath and gathered up his chakra. "Shin Banshou Karu!" He called, and as the sword moved ahead again it became a faint orange blur. Hundreds, then thousands of vast neon orange crescents flew toward Madara, who let fall two of his four swords. Clasping the other pair with two hands each, Madara drew himself up and began to bat the attacks from the air.
Behind them Naruto disappeared, but that was nothing new. What surprised Madara was that this motion seemed faster; even with the Sharingan he couldn't track the path Naruto traced through the air. It was as though he hadn't ran away, but completely vanished out of space.
He kept parrying the orange blades almost absentmindedly, glancing around with his Sharingan for any sign of Naruto's reappearance. He realized what was wrong, but only as he swatted aside the very last of Naruto's attacks.
That final crescent blurred on contact with Susanoo; Naruto cancelled his transformation and locked his left hand around the blue sword. He drew back the Truth-Seeking Blade, its tip already torn apart and reshaped into a Rasenshuriken. He punched the attack into Susanoo's chest and its armor was vaporized on contact.
The Rasenshuriken struck home, and Madara felt a hint of the same fear he'd experienced nearly a century ago facing the First Hokage. He recalled that moment before Hashirama's sword had skewered his heart from behind, recalled the sacrifice he'd made to escape death that day, and with a grin on his face he repeated the gesture.
"Izanagi!"
In that instant, Madara was a god. He reached into reality and plucked himself from the open air over the ocean, sealed his fatal wounds and set himself down atop the sand behind Naruto. He removed the streak of black wood cut through his back, replaced it with proper flesh, and then the jutsu ended. His right eye went milky white, and his remaining left Sharingan twisted and unfurled into the Rinnegan instead.
Naruto gently landed on the shore, turned to face Madara and levelled the Truth-Seeking Blade at his heart. Madara's smile only grew as he summoned a downsized Susanoo sword for his own hand, but then it was wiped completely from his face when he tried to take a step forward and failed.
The sand wrapped around his ankles crushed inward and tore his feet off. It would be pain enough to make even Madara reel, but it hadn't yet struck him and he was still clear-headed. He raised up a blue ribcage of chakra in anticipation of the next attack, a Rasenyari that slammed into the newly-formed spine and pulverized it with an explosion. Madara was thrown along with his jutsu by Hinata; the shell of bones around him was severely cracked but his own skeleton was intact.
The loss of his feet was also not fatal; the pain would be horrible but he could at least replace them with the Wood Release. He was more concerned with his flight directly toward Naruto's sword; he called up the power of the Deva Path and slowed himself to a halt well short of the Truth-Seeking Blade. He was just in time; the sharpened crook of a black staff curled around his throat as he stopped. Any further and he would have been decapitated.
Now floating via the Deva Path, Madara thought fast and snatched the hook around his neck to keep Yagura from pulling it through. He locked eyes with Naruto some distance ahead, and the Sharingan realized only too late that it was seeing an afterimage.
Naruto rammed his sword between the shattered bones of Susanoo and squarely through Madara's chest. His opponent caved forward with the blow, the air was blown from his lungs along with a spray of blood. "I know the horrible stuff hatred can make a person do," said Naruto. "I know how dangerous it is, and I know it's been holding the whole world back for centuries. But still... that's for Bee."
Madara's eyes flicked down momentarily, fast enough that the movement couldn't even be seen without a Sharingan. He saw the path the Truth-Seeking Blade cut through his chest, saw that his heart was intact but his lung was skewered just beside it. The wound wasn't instantly fatal by itself, but the sword was made of chakra that could change forms and vaporize his whole body at once. He thought of using Izanagi a second time, but that would require sacrificing the Rinnegan and his sight.
He saw no other way out, but he continued to look for a second longer. In that second, the earth shuddered horribly under Naruto and Yagura's feet. Still airborne, Madara didn't feel it but he had a direct line of sight to the ocean behind the Hokage. Still cold as ice, the water gave the appearance of boiling and rose up violently. It washed ahead and swallowed up the beach; Naruto and Yagura blurred out of sight and left the gigantic waves to swallow him up.
Frantically he cast a bubble of Wind Release and held it around himself; the water rushed ever higher and submerged him completely. With the Rinnegan he looked in the direction of the Ten-Tails; he saw its chakra seeming to boil matching the water around him. The sky, formerly clear, had turned black as night with a thunderstorm gigantic enough to cover the entire Land of Lightning.
And then there was lightning as well, thousands of bolts of searing white that struck the flooded land en masse. No natural storm could match such violence, and still more was to come. The storm above began to twist, to weave together dozens of thin powerful tornadoes that touched the ocean and churned up matching whirlpools.
As he watched, Madara pulled the sword from his chest. For all that it glowed like lava, the chakra was inert and didn't burn his hand as he removed it. The wound sealed shut with a shim of tough black wood, and with his life no longer in peril he watched the Ten-Tails from the bottom of the ocean. Fear was replaced by relief, and excitement as he saw the creature stabilize into a third form. "It's ready," he breathed. "Now I just need to get there...?"
His eyes widened. Obito stood atop the Ten-Tails' much more humanoid head, his chakra building up with a pattern Madara could instantly recognize even across such distance. That jutsu... he's betraying me this late in the game? He frowned in annoyance and began to float upward, taking with him the bubble of caged air. He must've removed his seal somehow... I don't need another complication like this.
The Ten-Tails vanished just as Madara broke the surface of the flooding ocean, which had already begun to recede. With a sigh, he trained his one eye on a distant speck of white and settled down to watch the show. "What a mess."
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