Hello hello
How's life?
I want to appreciate everyone that's been reading, reviewing, favouriting and following this story. I'm grateful for everything and I'm glad you enjoy reading :))
Note: For the sake of consistency, when I refer to Impure World Resurrection or the people brought back using this technique, I'll be using resurrection/resurrected and reincarnation/reincarnated interchangeably.
Another note is that all of the events that have happened so far, after the Five Kage Summit and Minato being poisoned, are happening within twenty-four hours of the Kage Summit.
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 24
Kakashi and Team Inuzuka burst onto the battlefield.
They stopped for a moment to assess the situation.
Gai had activated the Third Gate and Hizashi Hyuuga was meeting the relentless, reckless onslaught blow-for-blow. Gai's eyes blazed with fire and he bellowed as he blasted harder and faster attacks toward his masterful opponent.
Gaara, as the One-Tailed beast, was constantly crushing Kakuzu inside a sand coffin each time the man regenerated, though the flood of sand only spread wider and the beast grew larger as its agitation increased.
Two small dots collided and parted far into the sky.
Asuma was smoking a cigarette, spectating a rapid explosion of fire and smoke, which was the primary source of the heat and fire.
"You four, get Gaara to calm down," Tsume began ordering and the team's redhead sped away toward Gaara, untucking her flute from her sash. Her teammates ran after her, skirting outside of the sand ocean and getting as close to Gaara as they could.
Tayuya brought the flute to her lips and began playing, weaving together an elaborate sound-genjutsu targeted at the mindless jinchuriki.
"Kakashi," Tsume yelled as Gai roared into the Fourth Gate, pressuring Hizashi till the man eventually slipped a blow past that struck his chest, shattering his right collar and incinerating the right side of his torso. The Inuzuka pointed to Asuma, who hadn't yet noticed them and was now onto his second cigarette, casually watching the sequence of explosions undo the foundations of the planet. "Check on him. Find Kurenai."
"Hai," Kakashi answered with gritted teeth, sprinting to his friend in a blur and skidding to a stop beside him.
Asuma—one-eyed, bloodied, and his attire in tatters—jolted visibly when Kakashi flickered to his left side, letting his shoulders sag when he realized it was a comrade. He snorted smoke from his nose, turning back to the bonfire of bombs constantly thudding and further depressing the pit around it.
"Who'd have thought I'd be able to hold back Kushina-sensei." Asuma scoffed, wiping the corner of his mouth.
With his right eye closed, Asuma surveyed the scuffs and bruises on Kakashi's body, shaking his head at the incredulous look he got in return from the other one-eyed shinobi.
Asuma peered at Kakashi, smirking. "Today must be my lucky day." He tucked his hands into his pockets and lazily leaned back, admiring his work as the cocoon of exploding seal tags wrapped around Kushina Uzumaki maintained a steady blast of fire. "I need to buy a lottery ticket."
"I see you're doing fine," Kakashi said with a drawl, flicking his eye up and down Asuma's wounded and dishevelled form. "Can you run?" his response was a coughing laugh and Kakashi rolled his eye. "Get Kurenai and head back to the village."
"Right." Asuma nodded once, blowing out a tired, smoky breath from the corner of his lips. "Just…give me a minute. I've got a concussion."
Kakashi sighed. That would explain why Asuma was spacing out, also why his right pupil was dilating so much.
"Y'know what? Sit tight." Kakashi gave Asuma a pat on his shoulder, changing his mind about what Asuma should do. "We'll get you treatment soon."
Asuma jerkily bobbed his head, huffing and grunting as Kakashi supported him to a squat, plopping back on his behind afterwards.
The battle between Gai, Tsume and Hizashi had come to a sudden stop.
All Kakashi saw of Hizashi was a headless torso with no arms and a leg that stubbornly stayed standing. Regeneration was taking place but Hizashi wasn't oozing killer intent any longer, rather his mournful expression made it clear he was not under any compulsion.
He still didn't speak.
Gai was off to the side, cooling down and closing the gates he had opened. Kuromaru was with him, allowing the large man to pet his head as steam wafted off Gai's body. Aggression and rage racing through Gai's veins evaporated off his skin and the red glow of his skin gradually became duller, returning to normal.
Gaara was sound asleep in Sakon-Ukon's arms, sighing peacefully to Tayuya's flute song. Kakuzu was rigorously fighting out of a large ball of spider webs.
In the background, the explosions began dying down.
The breathless atmosphere began to calm.
"What about them?" Tsume wondered, looking up at the fight occurring in the sky. "We can't just leave them. Even if—"
"Yeah, I know," Kakashi agreed. He squinted at the rays of the sun, asking Tsume, "Do you know how to fly?"
"You know damn well I don't know how to fly," Tsume retorted with a half-hearted glare, making Kakashi scratch the back of his head sheepishly. "Don't play with me, Hatake."
"Alright, alright," Kakashi mumbled, scratching his chin in contemplation. "If only I had the Toad Summoning contract. This'll be a whole lot easier…"
Finally, the man sighed and tugged at the bandanna covering his lower face, revealing his sharingan eye.
"This'll be a pain—"
"Wait," Tsume interjected, holding her hand out to Kakashi. The pointer finger of her other hand pressed against her lips. "I'm smelling…snake…"
Gradually, the explosions ended and the roiling sand calmed down as Gaara slept.
Kakashi sniffed the air and his sharingan spun, nodding to Tsume that he was also perceiving a snake. Tsume whistled, calling for her team's attention, and she signed for them to take everyone and return to the village.
The tension rose and Kakashi's skin prickled with anticipation. He spotted the hairs at the back of Tsume's neck stick up and that her iris had shrunk to pinpricks as a growl quietly reverberated from her chest.
Kidomaru added several more layers of webs to Kakuzu's trap, frustrating the masked man even more before the spider summoner rushed to Asuma and took Kurenai out of the limping man's arms. Sakon-Ukon draped Gaara over their shoulders and Tayuya brought up the rear with Gai, who had a pained expression on his face that worsened when he caught sight of Asuma's scars.
Without any words, Gai caught Asuma and piggybacked him, and Asuma didn't raise any complaints.
The team leader, Kidomaru, hurried the rest of the team into a sprint as they left the area.
At the same time, coffins bolted from the earth behind the undead shinobi.
Kushina, whose skin was charred by the cocoon of bombs, panted raggedly with a pleased, larger-than-life grin on her face and was pulled into the coffin at her back, which slammed shut around her and was soon sucked into the ground. The same with Hizashi, who apologetically waved to Kakashi and Tsume, yet still unspeaking. A doubly pissed-off Kakuzu was dragged into the coffin, web bindings and all.
The aerial fighting continued.
The tension at the ground reached its peak and the two Konoha jounin shifted into fighting stances, blinking their eyes to stave off the urge to submit to the killer intent.
"Come out, Orochimaru," Tsume barked with a savage snap of her teeth. Kuromaru mirrored his handler's agitation, barking madly to their right. Wisely, Tsume and Kakashi stood back-to-back and watched their environment with careful eyes. The point of waiting behind while the others retreated instead of retreating with them was to allow the younger ones and the injured shinobi time to escape. Kakashi was resigned to finding their means of escape somehow. "We don't have all day."
"So impatient," Orochimaru chuckled. His bodiless voice echoed about that destroyed battlefield, driving a harsh chill into the guarded Konoha shinobi and the ninken.
To their surprise, Orochimaru walked in from their right, where Kuromaru had smelt him.
He hadn't changed at all since the last time they had seen him.
Well, except for the manic glint of determination in his eyes, where formerly there was a look of intelligence. It was the look of a creature hellbent on reaching its murderous goal, rather than that of a human painstakingly striving towards their ambition.
Last they heard, Orochimaru was crippled and rotting to death underneath the T&I department, losing his sanity in the darkness and filth as rats feasted on his body. The news of Orochimaru's capture had been on the airwaves since the conclusion of the Chunin Exams, and any ninja within the Hokage's circle that knew the details of the mad scientist's condition wasn't very sympathetic to Orochimaru.
Now that he was here, and looking healthy for that matter, the Konoha ninjas could only assume that the man had somehow been killed while in detention and was resurrected by the Mizukage's forces.
Though now it looked like Orochimaru had well and truly lost his mind. He was more animal than man, dressed in his normal, relatively clean clothes.
The man was good at pretending that he was sane, but Tsume and Kakashi saw the infrequent twitch of his eyes and the bloodthirsty killer intent that permeated from the man's pores.
Orochimaru licked his lips with his elongated tongue, saying, "The Namikaze girl was delicious." Kakashi's eyes widened in horror and his heart stopped, much to Orochimaru's delight, "I'm curious to know how well a Hatake and Inuzuka would pair with rice wine." Glancing down with a gleeful glower, the man regarded Kuromaru. "I'm not so savage as to eat a dog. I'll leave you to my snakes."
The Konoha ninjas split apart, barely dodging as Orochimaru's neck lengthened through that large distance and struck at Kakashi's shoulder.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The Land In-Between
"Hinata," Mikoto breathily said, allowing herself to be pulled along by her friend, "Where are we going?"
The other girl turned to her friend with a bright look, holding her hand and leading her forward on that cloudy plain. "I want to meet my great-grandfather."
Mikoto's brow creased at that, too weary to do anything but stumble along with Hinata's jittery pace. She looked down at herself, realizing that she was wearing a grey kimono that was tied at the waist by a black sash, treading barefooted on that cloudy ground. Hinata too.
Looking around, Mikoto saw that the world as far as the eye could see was made from soft clouds, yet the ground she and Hinata walked on crunched as if they were moving on gravel.
The starry night sky was spread out across the heavens, cool and dark, twinkling peacefully.
Somehow, Mikoto knew that she was dead, and this area was where souls resided before they were allowed entry into the Pure Land; the final resting place for the dead.
Hinata was here with her, so Mikoto's assumption wasn't wrong.
Something piqued her interest though.
"Why do you want me to meet your grandpa?" Mikoto questioned in a sluggish tone, growing weaker and more tired with each marching step. "Can't we just…talk? You and me?" she found a meagre bit of strength and pulled Hinata, faltering the other girl's steps. Hinata turned to Mikoto, and the Namikaze girl realized that her friend had been crying. Mikoto immediately neared her friend, cursing at the heaviness of her body and lifting her right hand, using the corner of her sleeve to dab at the tears rushing down Hinata's eyes. Unbeknownst to Mikoto, she was crying as well, blubbering, "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you."
Hinata touched Mikoto's face, framing her friend's face with her pale, gentle hands, and leaning forward for their temples to touch.
Mikoto's shoulders trembled and she wept.
The tears silently rolling down Hinata's cheeks dropped from her chin, and she promised Mikoto, "There's nothing to apologize for. I'm fine." She looked into Mikoto's eyes and the girl's purple eyes looked back at those delicate purple eyes, and an overflow of love and emotion between tapered the mourning both felt. "We're fine."
A moment later, Hinata inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Mikoto as well. They stayed like that for a long while, brows touching and fingers laced, until Hinata leaned away and gave her friend a watery smile.
"Mikoto," she tilted her head to the side and sniffed, "Someday, we can talk and travel together. Forever." She hesitated, almost biting her tongue to stop herself from continuing, but she pushed through, saying, "But not now. You still have decades left."
Mikoto didn't know what to say, so she screwed her eyes shut and she dove into Hinata's arms.
She didn't want to let go.
"I love you, Hinata."
The other girl giggled and smiled, pressing her face into Mikoto's shoulder. "I love you more."
A moment later, Mikoto willingly unravelled herself from her friend's arms and looked at the sagely old man sitting with his legs crossed on a rocky elevation that was no higher than Mikoto's chest.
His skin was as pale as the moon and his face bore deep wrinkles, having a pair of horn-like protrusions coming from his temple. His white hair was unruly, falling to his waist and cascading over one shoulder. His eyes were immeasurably old, possessing a pair of clear byakugan that creased with sadness.
Hinata stepped aside and bowed, though she didn't release Mikoto's hand.
"You look tired, my child," the man said in a smooth tone. "For one so young, you have been through far too much."
Again, Mikoto didn't know what to say. Her eyes sank and her shoulders sagged.
"I will not blame you if you wanted to remain here, or if you wish to proceed to the Pure Land." the man looked up at the stars in the sky, at the heavenly realm.
"I can't," Mikoto said quietly. Her resolve built up from her gut and her chest lifted as her purple eyes steeled over. "People need my help."
"Indeed, they do." He pointed at her, saying, "You have something very important that the living world desperately needs."
Mikoto touched her chest, asking, "Kyuubi?"
"No." The man chuckled lightly, shaking his head. "Balance." He then added, lighting a small light on his left hand and a cloud of foggy darkness on his right hand, bringing both together and forming a neatly balanced sphere of chakra. "Light different from your sister and darkness different from your brother. Yet a balance you uniquely possess."
Mikoto exhaled slowly and the hand on her chest steadily fell, pursing her lips. "I wish I could see what you see, Grandpa."
"You will soon," the old man's byakugan crinkled with a slight smile. "For now, you need to protect the dream of my elder brother. Keep the world from falling into dystopian calamity." The current events in the world of the living flooded Mikoto's head, bringing her up to speed with the things to come if Yagura Karatachi succeeded in destroying Konoha; mass genocide of bloodline holders and the elimination of free will. Then there was the threat of Kiri's allies when they refused to fall back. Wars will end but at the cost of freedom and individuality. "Kindly do this humble request for an old man."
"How?" Mikoto asked. "Even with the Kyuubi, I can't fight these people."
"You will not be alone," the old man assured her, reminding her that the might of Konoha and Konoha's allies were building back up for retaliation.
Even now, her brother was leading a platoon to Whirlpool country to stop Yagura from resurrecting the Third Hokage. Shikaku Nara was repairing the damaged communication systems with Konoha's ninjas outside of the village and allies that were also being bombarded, and Tsunade was rallying the available ninjas at home for the oncoming battle.
"And you won't be leaving here emptyhanded."
Hamura Otsutsuki clapped his hands together and the heaviness in Mikoto's bones vanished.
A giant astral being that shared the Otsutsuki's pale eyes and shaggy hair manifested behind the man, clapping its hands together in time with Hamura and hunching its shoulders, looming over Hamura and the girls.
The Yin-Yang symbols engraved on the being's hands washed over Mikoto, setting her entire being on fire with chakra as Hamura transferred his powerful chakra to her.
A seal inscribed itself on her temple.
Yin-Yang.
The old man declared in a loud voice, "Just as your brother has been your father's shadow, you will be his light when his sanity is lost."
The prediction made Mikoto clench her fist, suppressing the chill that ran up her spine.
An image tore into her mind, of her brother bellowing inhumanly and clawing at his sharingan eyes.
He was holding his lifeless sister in his arms.
Nine-Tails chakra shrouded her, mixing with the Otsutsuki chakra till she was entirely cloaked in the bright orange beast chakra. The grey kimono changed to her normal shinobi attire; an apron shirt that was now alight with fiery orange chakra, a black shirt underneath and black tights that ran into her orange shinobi sandals. A pair of fiery horns rose from her temple, not disturbing her straight orange hair, and her purple eyes shifted to orange and vulpine.
A black, high-collared cloak rippled onto her shoulders, with its black adorned with twelve comma-shaped markings that glowed orange. The cloak somehow didn't disturb the claymore sheathed at her back.
"Are you ready to return?" Hamura Otsutsuki asked.
Mikoto shook away the mental image of her brother falling into madness, squaring her shoulders and turning to Hinata.
The girl Hyuuga princess looked at her friend from head to toe, then back up again to meet Mikoto's vulpine eyes.
"Don't wait for me," Hinata said, nodding her head in encouragement for her friend to move on with her life. "But I'll wait for you."
Mikoto's face broke into a sorrowful smile and she kissed Hinata. The other girl didn't resist, leaning into the embrace.
The starry sky lit up with light and Mikoto's eyes snapped open, waking up inside Orochimaru's reptilian stomach.
Her eyes narrowed and she laced her fingers into a hand seal.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Orochimaru's crooked grin widened.
He lifted his right shin to block Kakashi's roundhouse kick to his side, jerking his elbow back and blocking Tsume's punch to the back of his head, winding around with a kick to her temple, which she dodged by leaning back. Orochimaru stopped his turn abruptly and used the palms of his hands to catch a sequence of punches to his chest Kakashi, gripping the final blow and dragging Kakashi inwards, biting down on the Copy Ninja's neck, only for the man to burst into a log of wood.
"Hm." Orochimaru hummed in a sing-song tone, leaping off the ground when Kakashi's arms made to drag him into the ground. His eyes briefly widened, as did his elated expression, and he turned mid-air, grunting as a Kuromaru Beast Clone in Tsume's likeness plunged his fangs into his right thigh to keep him from escaping, while the woman, now feral, spiralled into a solitary Fang Over fang and stabbed deeply into Orochimaru's chest, colliding with the ground in a catastrophic blast of shockwaves.
Orochimaru's back smacked into the earth and he coughed, only for the man to split apart into a flurry of manic snakes that attacked Tsume and Kuromaru with bites, littering their bodies before they could so much as blink. Kuromaru's clone jutsu dispelled as venom flooded his system and Tsume's wild visage lifted as she dropped to her face when the paralysis finally hit her and her partner.
"Fuck!" Tsume roared, unable to move. "Kakashi!"
Orochimaru's upper torso steadily cracked from the ground, a chilling chuckle ebbing from his chest. He didn't flinch when a smoke bomb went off under his chin, closing an eye as Kakashi swept into the smoky area and grabbed Tsume out from his reach, slinging her over his shoulder and carrying the unresponsive Kuromaru in his arms.
"To think I didn't need my Kusanagi sword," Orochimaru trilled, breathing onto the back of Kakashi's neck despite the Hatake running so fast as to be nothing but a blur.
This Orochimaru was at the prime of his life and he was relishing how much more powerful he was compared to two of Konoha's strongest shinobi.
The man grabbed Kakashi by the collar and violently yanked him to the left, slamming him into an earth wall an Orochimaru clone had suddenly created, consequently throwing Tsume and Kuromaru out of Kakashi's grip. The two limply rolled on the ground, until a third and fourth Orochimaru clone stopped their progression with a sound kick to their chests, punting them to the original clone, who erected another sturdy wall for them to plant onto.
Orochimaru released a breath and ran a hand through his black hair, admiring his work.
Tsume and Kuromaru were wavering in and out of consciousness, and Kakashi—
The man growled and closed his eyes. "I can't tell if you're more stubborn now or when you were younger."
Orochimaru grit his teeth and pushed his body to the right, hardly missing Kakashi's Chidori as it deathly chirped past him, missing his chest but scratching against his left shoulder. Another Kakashi flickered to his opponent and drove a punch to Orochimaru's face, which the older man diverted to his right and pivoted his hip, throwing Kakashi over his shoulder in a judo throw, slamming the man into the ground with a resounding thud.
Orochimaru exhaled again as he straightened back up, looking down at the ragged Hatake.
"You don't have nearly enough chakra to fight a war of attrition against me…" Orochimaru's fangs elongated, dripping acidic venom on Kakashi's face when the man crouched over the Hatake and dragged his long tongue over Kakashi's brow.
Kakashi, laid out below Orochimaru, furrowed his eyebrows when he suddenly saw Orochimaru falter. The looming man stood back and placed his hand on his stomach, groaning.
"This is strange…" Orochimaru stumbled away and covered his mouth, his cheeks puffing out and he retched.
Yugao dove in from out of thin air and two clones followed her, picking up her ANBU captain, Tsume and Kuromaru, and fleeing.
Just in time, a fully formed Nine Tails burst out from Orochimaru's stomach, leaping back and spreading all of its nine tails wide enough to encompass the sky, setting the air alight with fiery chakra. Its teeth were gnashed in a growl, slamming down heavily onto the ground on its hands and feet.
It was easily large enough to throw a devastating shadow over the entirety of the battlefield, with its nine tails forcing the aerial fight between Temari, Kankuro and Deidara to scatter.
Hovering inside the beast's head, Mikoto yelled with a beastly vengeance, her fingers threading together into a single seal and gathering chakra up from her reserves.
A giant ball of black chakra grew in the Kyuubi's maw as it reared its head back, sucking in light from the surrounding environment the larger it grew. The balance between Mikoto's chakra and Kyuubi's chakra kept the massive sphere of energy intact.
The Kyuubi inhaled the giant ball of corrupt chakra and gnashed its teeth alongside Mikoto, bursting the sphere within its jagged jaws, gripping the earth beneath its claws firmer—
On the ground between the beast's front paws, Orochimaru regenerated, gathering himself back upright and instantaneously drawing nature chakra into himself. He only had enough time to raise his arms to cover his face.
-Then, Mikoto swung her head down, with the Kyuubi mirroring her movement, opening its clenched teeth and firing a beam of beast chakra onto the snake summoner.
"Giant Tailed Beast Ball."
The beam of chakra bellowed deep into the earth with a deafening scream, carrying Orochimaru at its very tip and incinerating the reincarnated Sannin as he futilely yelled. Waves upon waves of heat rushed outwards from the continuous, blindingly bright beam of chakra being exhaled from the beast's mouth.
Kyuubi hunched over, pushing one last time as the screaming beam finished.
Inside the thousands of kilometres deep pit and drowning inside the molten lava at the bottom, the snake sage was scarcely anything more than vaporized ash and in the worst pain in his undead life, regenerating at a painstakingly slow pace but otherwise not conscious enough to be aware of anything other than the lava eating at his body.
Back at the surface of the pit, Mikoto leapt out from the Kyuubi manifestation and the great beast crumpled apart, sucked into Mikoto's back and returning to her chakra reserves. Her blazing chakra cloak was still active and intact. The girl landed on her hands and feet, scrambling into a stumbling run and waving at Yugao, Kakashi, Tsume and Kuromaru as she sped to the forest in the general direction of the Valley of End.
"Sorry. Can't talk. Get back safe!"
Somehow, Yugao had saved her charges from the heat and shockwave of the chakra beam, yet the woman was shocked. She sent the girl a limp wave, dumbfounded at what she and Kakashi had just born witness to.
A genin overpowering a Sannin.
Mikoto bound into the forest and immediately began running from tree to tree, pushing her body hard and as fast as she could. She didn't know when she finally burst out onto the lake between the two giant statues of Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju, heading straight for the wooden door that guarded the hidden entryway between the statues.
She backed away from the powerful wooden door and held out her left hand. Four shadow clones surrounded her left hand, charging a mixture of chakra—Mikoto's, Kyuubi's, and Hamura Otsutsuki's Yin-Yang chakra—onto her palm while the original Mikoto focused on keeping the blend of chakra balanced.
At a stage, the spiral of chakra grew to the size of a beach ball and grew, and Mikoto raised it above her head, still within reach of her clones as they kept up adding more chakra to the ball.
Abruptly, Mikoto tore forward and brought the ball forward in front of her.
"Rasengan!"
Five minutes after collecting bark from the tree inside the cave, the miniature god tree broke apart and the chakra it was made from scattered to the four corners of the earth, thinned out until it was non-existent and undetectable.
Rin Noharu was later found in her hospital room, lying on the bed with her eyes closed and a peaceful expression on her face.
Dead.
Obito and Rin reunited in the Land In-Between and finally passed on together into the Pure Land.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Southern Konoha
Naruto exchanged a nod with Shikaku and Tsunade, and the two senior shinobi returned to Konoha, while the Hokage, his sister and Itachi faced Whirlpool country and the three boats that lingered on the sea between Konoha and the Land of the Uzumaki clan.
The platoon of ninjas, three hundred ninjas strong, waited for the command out of sight inside the dense forest.
They couldn't just charge onto the water and somehow expect to all make it alive to Whirlpool country. That was suicide.
They had a plan though.
Rin whistled and Samehada erupted from the water, swallowing its handler, Naruto and Itachi. It thrashed back into the water, where it oriented itself with a shiver of its scales, racing underwater to the three Kiri boats bobbing on the water.
The attack on the Mizukage's Whirlpool foothold was now underway.
Authors note
In the next chapter and some chapters to come, we'll focus on Naruto and the platoon of ninjas that are going to invade Whirlpool country, as well as the awful, terrible, gruesome things that happen during that event ;D
This story isn't close to finished yet.
Thoughts on the story so far?
I'll see you when I see you.
Foy.
