Chapter 46: The Will of Fire Burns.
Arc: Konoha Crush
Disclaimer:
I do NOT own Naruto. Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto, please support the original work.
Watching Jiraiya's nose turn bigger and gain warts, his eyes becoming toad-like, white teeth turning sharp like a handsaw, the red markings on his face slowly spreading out, a goatee growing on his chin as he hunched, assuming a toad-like posture, Itachi narrowed his eyes, the three tomoe in each of his red pupils spinning wildly as they reflected the reddening sun on the horizon.
'Such potent chakra, it reminds me of Pain,' Itachi thought, an orange-haired figure of a man bearing purple eyes with rippling patterns flashing in his mind in a moment of distraction. 'Not good, I can't let Kisame die here.'
"Kisame, it's Sage Mode," Itachi said, slowly closing his eyes as the red-dyed world around him, Danzo, and the ROOT ninjas shatter into little pieces like shards of glass bouncing off a window struck by a baseball bat.
"The mission is a failure—" FLAP-FLAP-FLAP—CAW! CAW! CAW! "We'll retreat."
"CAPTURE HIM!"
Even as the S-rank Uchiha criminal turned into a murder of crows and flew to separate directions, Danzo gritted his teeth, his face green with shame as if he had planted his head on the ground, thinking that he would gain eternal life when all he got was worms and ant bites.
"Tsk-tsk, silly old man. Wait for me, Itachi-san—" BANG!
Kisame grinned, waving the Samehada to deflect Tsunade before running to follow Itachi's crows. "Water Style: Wall of Sharks Jutsu—" SHAAA… SHRKK! SHRKK!
Seeing as two more ROOT ninjas die in the hands of Itachi and Kisame, Danzo's rage bubbled like magma anxious to turn into lava, bringing forth disaster unto the land above the depths of earth.
"Damned rogues," Danzo cursed, spitting out all his anger in one go as he cleared his mind. One of the perks of being the ROOT commander is that he can instantly reign over his emotions and change them as he needs to.
"Naruto Uzumaki," just as Danzo was counting the dead bodies of ROOT ninjas on the floor, an arrogant voice full of superiority and grace likened to that of a king echoed in their ears, "We failed to seize the Nine Tails today, but Akatsuki will capture you the next time our paths cross," the voice ended abruptly as if it was just a hallucination.
Tsunade and Jiraiya flickered next to each other as they watch Kisame flee with a murder of crows above his head, running toward the setting sun as if wanting to catch it before it sank below the ground. "Akatsuki, huh?" Jiraiya muttered.
"What is it?" Tsunade asked, looking at her teammate with a hint of doubt.
"Nothing, I just thought it was ironic," Jiraiya laughed. "Akatsuki, meaning dawn, yet they are fleeing as dusk settles in. Will they return tomorrow at dawn?"
"Stupid," Tsunade bonked his teammate's head with a silly grin on her face.
Seeing the two make light of the situation, Danzo narrowed his eyes as he finished counting his losses. '100 plus ROOT ninjas dead or severely traumatized in one battle,' Danzo pondered as he recalled the nasty Genjutsu he didn't even know he was caught in.
'That bastard, he was targeting my ROOT ninjas!'
After coming to a realization, Danzo was left confused. 'But why didn't he target me instead?' He thought as he looked over to Hiruzen and his students.
'Damn it, they won't agree to keep chasing those two… For now, I have to get out of here and regroup with ROOT,' Danzo planned, cautiously watching every move that Hiruzen and the two Sannin made. He wasn't brain-dead yet, unlike the dozens of ROOT laying on the ground.
He knew that the trio were planning something terrible long ago.
'But the Nine Tails must be handed back,' Danzo's gaze hardened as his eyes darted over to Naruto, who was also watching his every breath while he made a few secret hand signs.
It was an order to capture Naruto Uzumaki.
Inside Naruto's mind, he and Kurama were talking with grim tones. 'There are people wanting to capture the Tailed Beasts,' Naruto thought.
'That's been the theme of the Ninja World. As long as you want quick power, you turn to the Tailed Beast in search of some,' Kurama shrugged it off.
'But it's Itachi we're talking about. I'm pretty sure he can put you under a Genjutsu,' Naruto voiced his concerns.
'Thanks for your worry, but that's impossible. Unless he has the Mangekyou Sharingan, he can't control me,' Kurama scoffed, much to Naruto's confusion. Both were oblivious that Naruto's worries were perfectly sound.
'Mangekyou Sharingan? What's that?'
'Long story short, it's the upgraded version of the Sharingan. Madara Uchiha had them and thus was able to control me in his fight with Hashirama. He also used it to make me rampage around the village,' Kurama sighed. He didn't know why tailed beasts were so weak against the hypnotic eyes of the Sharingan, but he guessed it was because of the Tailed Beast's origins or something close.
As the two were talking, Naruto felt a spike in malicious chakra and looked over to Danzo, who looked at him a beat later. When he saw the latter making a few discrete hand signs and he narrowed his eyes. 'That old bastard is planning something.'
'Do you want to fight here?' Kurama asked. It's been a while since he saw Naruto fighting for his life, and fighting against four… three, if you don't count Jiraiya, Kage Level ninjas will certainly do the trick. He also wanted to fight using Naruto's recently modified Shadow Clone.
'No. As much as I hate the old coot, I can't kill him right now. Not with the Hokage and the Sannins around,' Naruto thought. 'Right now, all I want is to escape from here,' he said to Kurama as his brain started spinning, trying to find a suitable escape route.
Even though Tsunade and Hiruzen expressed the desire to form an alliance with him, he wouldn't dare trust them so easily as he had done with his Godfather. As Danzo had said, he was carrying the Nine Tails inside of him, and greed is what keeps mankind running.
"ADVANCE!"
Just as he was busy thinking, Naruto was startled awake and prepared himself for the worse when he heard the shout.
FOOOSH! FOOOSH! CLANG—TANG!
Seeing Danzo's ROOT being bombarded by countless ANBU ninjas like ants having an ant war, Naruto tilted his head in confusion.
"I knew it," Danzo scowled, watching as his ROOT shinobi struggled to defend against the numerous ANBU. "Hold them back," Danzo ordered, "Wind Style: Vacuum Waves," he muttered.
ZIII—ZIII—ZIII—SPLATTER!
As razor-sharp transparent blades sliced through the ANBU ninjas like a swordsman cutting down ordinary civilians, blood rained down, instantly turning the orange roof tiles into scarlet as blood and flesh slid down, giving fertilizer to the dry ground of the Chunin Exams Arena.
"Lightning Style: Lightning Bullets," Danzo tilted his head and narrowed his eyes when the left side of his face turned numb. Looking at the perpetrator, he scoffed when he saw Hiruzen's sorrowful expression. "You're acting like you've made a resolve to kill your beloved student," Danzo commented but did nothing to change Hiruzen's expression.
"SHAAA!" When he heard a piercing woman's yell from behind him, Danzo turned to see a fist inching closer to his face. 'It's too late,' Danzo thought, hurriedly pouring chakra into his right arm.
POP—BANG!
With a pop, Danzo's head was burst open and turned into a puddle of flesh by Tsunade's fists like a watermelon being struck by a hammer, exploding like a bomb. "That… was it?" Tsunade asked, dazed at how easily Danzo fell.
"Fire Style: Fire Ball Jutsu."
"Fire Style: Torrent of Flames Jutsu."
"Earth Style: Earth Binding Jutsu."
When the roof tiles below her changed into earth snakes that tried to bind her in place as pillars of flames flew toward her body, Tsunade scoffed and jumped away, breaking from the bind without breaking a sweat as the flaming projectiles hit thin air.
"Damn, capture those mindless dogs!" Tsunade bellowed, punching the air and blocking a few Fire Bullets that were hurling toward her face. Just as she was about to charge at the ROOT ninjas, she saw from the corner of her eyes Danzo reappearing like a ghost.
"He's still alive? How?" Tsunade's eyes widened when Jiraiya flickered next to her. "Tsunade, be careful," he said as he wrapped his hair around her body. "Ninjutsu: Needle Guardian," TANG—TANG—BASH!
Tsunade narrowed her eyes, feeling Wind Blade penetrate the Needle Guardian of Jiraiya and hit her waist, putting an inch-deep cut on her porcelain skin. "How did I not sense the jutsu?" She asked her teammate, baffled at how Ninjutsu could be undetected by her senses. She was part Uzumaki and a Senju for god sake!
"Wind Release is the most elusive elemental Ninjutsu and Danzo is a master of Wind Release, this much is nothing. Tsunade, heighten your senses to the maximum," Jiraiya advised as he retracted his hair, revealing a similar wound on his waist, though his was deeper than Tsunade's.
When he saw Danzo weaving a set of familiar hand seals to summon something, he roughly told the two toad elders on his shoulders to spew out oil. "Collaboration Ninjutsu, Fire Style: Toad Flame Bullet!"
As the stream of inferno gushed toward Danzo, Tsunade kept a solemn face and turned to look at Naruto, who had a defensive stance. "Naruto, this is the S-rank mission I was talking about. Kill Danzo Shimura, do you accept?" She asked, not minding any courtesy.
In an instant, Naruto was enlightened about the Hokage and the Sannin's plan and readily nodded his head. "I'll give you support," Naruto said and gathered chakra throughout his body. When Jiraiya's flames subsided, it revealed the relatively unharmed Danzo, though he was panting like a dog who ran a mile in a single second.
He used Wind Release to defend against an enhanced Fire Release Ninjutsu, his chakra system was more overworked than a bee. All of a sudden, Danzo felt his body tense up as he hurriedly looked back but it was too late, Hiruzen was already beside him with his Adamantine Staff.
"This ends here, Danzo!" Hiruzen yelled out and used his staff to strike Danzo's body, bending it in half like a tree snapping in half in the face of a giant boulder.
"ARGH—!" Spewing out blood while wide-eyed, Danzo looked at Hiruzen with disdain, taking his final breath without even closing his hateful eyes. Just as Hiruzen was about to near Danzo, the latter faded away and another Danzo charged toward Naruto while unwrapping the bandages around his right eye.
"When—" Naruto was cut off when he gazed into Danzo's right eye. "Kotoamatsukami," Danzo whispered and watched in satisfaction as Naruto's shoulder slumped for a moment, his eyes turning lifeless as all energy left his body. Then he jolted awake.
"Danzo-sama," Naruto called out while kneeling in front of Danzo.
"NARUTO!" Jiraiya yelled out when he saw his godson look piously at Danzo, of all people and sent a crazed glare toward Danzo. "What did you do to him?!"
"Jiraiya, calm down," Fukasaku slapped Jiraiya's face and pointed at the back of the battlefield, "I can still sense Naruto boy's chakra away from here. Keep a cool head and use your sensing ability, Jiraiya."
Hearing Fukasaku's advice, Jiraiya mellowed down and looked behind "Naruto" and saw another Naruto who was sporting a frown. The latter raised his hand and formed a hand seal.
POOF!
Danzo's eyes twitched when he saw Naruto vanish in a puff of smoke and looked to where he sensed the real body of Naruto was.
"ARGH!" Just as Naruto was sorting out the information from his clone, he suddenly felt malicious chakra invade his brain and fought control over his mind. 'Naruto! Hang in there, I'll expel this chakra... no, this feels like the Mangekyou Sharingan! How does a non-Uchiha have a Mangekyou Sharingan?!'
"Sage Art: Big Ball Rasengan!" Hearing the whirling sound behind him, Danzo hurriedly looked back only to see a giant spinning orb of chakra right in front of his face and stretched out his hands. "Wood Release: Wood Dome!" Danzo muttered as a thin layer of shield temporarily blocked Jiraiya's Rasengan.
"Wood Release?!" Tsunade gawked when she saw Danzo's sharingan eye gaze at her, "Wind Style: Vacuum Wave," Danzo muttered and Tsunade saw distortion in the air. Just as she was about to jump away, she found that she couldn't move and looked far behind her.
"Gah—" As she coughed up blood, Tsunade glared at the ROOT ninjas who were kneeling on the ground, below them were runic symbols, the signature of Fuinjutsu. "Strength of a Hundred Seal, activate!"
BANG!
As her chakra spiked, Tsunade punched the ground and jumped toward the ROOT shinobi who tried too late to defend.
SPLAT—SPLATTER—CHIII…
With one punch each, Tsunade killed over a dozen ROOT ninjas in less than a second as she looked back to where Danzo was. Danzo's dead corpse was already lying beneath Jiraiya's feet, but she didn't deactivate her seal.
"Be on guard," Hiruzen yelled out. "He is using some type of forbidden jutsu that keeps him immortal. I don't know what it is, but our best bet is sealing away his soul. Jiraiya, can you do it?" Hiruzen asked to which Jiraiya shook his head.
"I specialize in spying," Jiraiya simply said. His Sealing Chakra was meant to be undetectable to most and is very hard to sense. Another Fuinjutsu Master was Orochimaru, whose focus was Parasitism. His chakra can latch onto others and is very hard to remove, even Jiraiya is helpless against it.
"What about you?" Hiruzen looked at Naruto hopefully, but the latter only shook his head.
"What a joke," Naruto scoffed, stabilizing his wobbly body. Kurama had done a great job in getting rid of the residual chakra of Kotoamatsukami, albeit it took out nearly all of Kurama's chakra, making the overworked fox dormant for a while. "Sealing souls away is only possible for Masters, I'm not even a Professor yet," Naruto said and Hiruzen sighed.
"I guess it's my turn to sacrifice some things," Hiruzen smiled sadly, "Hold Danzo for a while, I'll prepare a jutsu that can take out his soul for all eternity," Hiruzen muttered as his gaze turned cold. This was one of the reasons he agreed to Jiraiya's plan of preserving his chakra during the invasion of the Sand and Sound, expecting to fight against the Kazekage.
'I didn't expect to meet Orochimaru, and I didn't expect even more to be to deal with Danzo this early,' Hiruzen thought as he steeled his resolve.
When Danzo reappeared again, he was met by Naruto's dozen of Shadow Clones, each one of them bearing Special Jonin chakra as they all began writing seals on scrolls. Simultaneously, they each yelled out a Seal Formula.
"Seal Formation: Demonic Judgment, 12th Layer!"
Demonic Judgment was an upgraded version of the Four Repeating Nightmare seal fused with Whisper of the Dream Goddess and Gates to the Dream World. In short, it was an amalgamation of Naruto's Genjutsu mastery. Demonic Judgment will repeat depending on the layers the caster makes, but more layers mean weaker Genjutsu but longer duration.
As his role was to distract Danzo for as long as possible, Demonic Judgment was perfect.
POOF—POOF!
While Danzo bulldozed his way through the genjutsu, one Shadow Clone dispersed as a layer was destroyed. When the tenth layer was destroyed, only a second has passed.
"Fire Style: Toad Flame Bullet!" Jiraiya yelled out as the two toad sages on his shoulder spat out oil, while he spat out another torrent of flames.
POOF—POOF!
After finally getting rid of the Genjutsu, Danzo looked around only to feel as if the sun had fallen from the sky. "ARGHH!"
As he melted away, Jiraiya and Tsunade looked around to spot where Danzo would pop out next. "Adamantine Sealing Chains, Restrict," Naruto shouted when Danzo suddenly appeared behind him, bound by chains and gritting his teeth, trying to resist his chakra being drained away.
"Nice one, brat!" Tsunade grinned and punched Danzo in the chest, blowing his whole torso away as blood dripped to the ground but to her shock, Danzo grinned. "Explosive Scrolls, activate," Danzo said and in a flash of red, the whole Chunin Exams Arena was uprooted.
BOOOOOM!
RUMBLE….
"Ninjutsu: Hiding in a Toad, release," Jiraiya muttered as a hand came out of a toad's mouth. After he left the small toad's stomach, he looked around to see endless rubble everywhere.
CRACK—BANG!
Looking to his right, Jiraiya saw Naruto coming out of his Earth Guardian armor, and Tsunade was kneeling on the ground while panting. "Damn, that took half of the Seal's chakra just to survive," Tsunade muttered. If she hadn't used half of her Strength of a Hundred Seal's chakra, she would've instantly evaporated. Furthermore, she had to shield Naruto.
"Thank you, Tsunade," Naruto said as he glanced toward Danzo's body disappearing, and Danzo's new body coming out from behind the smoke. "No worries, just keep up the support," Tsunade waved him off.
"You killed me five times already, but it's useless. I can revive as much as I want," Danzo bluffed and looked at Hiruzen who was hiding behind a thick Earth Dome. 'I don't know what you're planning, but I won't let you be,' Danzo thought as he weaved a series of hand seals. "Wind Style: Vacuum Blades!"
SWOOSH—SWOOSH—
Like saw blades flying through the air, five Vacuum Blades sliced through the air as they headed for Hiruzen's Earth Dome.
BANG!
The Vacuum Blades cut through the Earth Dome like butter, but Danzo was disappointed to see white smoke coming out of the rubble. "A shadow clone," Danzo muttered as he jumped away from an incoming Big Ball Rasengan from Jiraiya.
WHIIIRL—
Jiraiya stomped on the ground and charged toward him while he was high in the air. Danzo scoffed and formed a set of hand seals when suddenly, red chains tied his hands together while rushing his wrists. "Ugh," Danzo winced in pain.
"Sage Art: BIG BALL RASENGAN!"
Jiraiya yelled out as Danzo wailed in pain. Dying while being burned or dying while being shredded apart, he couldn't decide which was worse. 'At least Tsunade instantly kills me,' Danzo thought a final time before he died for the sixth time.
"You're all wasting chakra," Danzo commented as he reappeared again. Though he said that, he was starting to get worried. From the very beginning, he knew he had little chance of escape so he tried to bluff his way through. Hiruzen and the rest believed his bluff, but from what he overheard, Hiruzen had a way to seal away his soul.
'Not that I can avoid death either way. I only have four lives left,' Danzo muttered when all of a sudden, an ANBU flickered right in front of him. "Hmph," Danzo scoffed and pressed his palm on the ANBU's chest as the ANBU flew backward with a trail of flesh and blood.
"Danzo, you're wasting your time," Danzo froze when he heard a whisper behind his ear, feeling as if he suddenly fell from the skies. 'WHEN?!' He thought as he looked back, his head nearly snapping when he felt Hiruzen clutch his head. "Reaper Death Seal," Hiruzen mumbled.
Seeing as Danzo's soul slowly left his mortal body, Hiruzen smiled as he looked up at the darkening sky.
'Sensei, I'm sorry, but I won't be meeting you in the afterlife…' He thought when he remembered his successor.
'Minato, perhaps we'll meet again. By then, I hope you can forgive me. I've done what I could to protect Naruto from invisible threats, and in the end, he was able to grow into a splendid ninja, albeit he left Konoha,' Hiruzen felt a teardrop fall from his eye.
'I believe that even if he does not carry the will of fire, he carries the will of the world. I believe that he will one day lead the world toward peace, just like you hoped, Minato.'
As he closed his eyes one final time, Hiruzen chuckled.
'Konoha, this is goodbye. The Will of Fire shall burn brighter than the sun inside the next generation,' Hiruzen thought as a leaf with a hole in the middle floated above his body. As he passed away, Jiraiya walked next to him and bowed, making the leaf land on his head.
If you'd like to support me, you can check out my Pátreón page. There are 17 advanced chapters there, and I plan on accumulating to 30 advanced chapters. That's a month of content!
link: pátreón.cóm/endbanner (replace the accent letters)