"So who's this guy now?" Kawaki turned to Kiyomi. "Is he an Uchiha too?"
"Definitely…" Kiyomi nodded. "For a clan of big-shot, one-of-a-kind elites, there's always more of them than any given place needs…"
"I dunno, this guy seems kinda cool…" Kawaki shrugged.
"Uzumaki Naruto, you're a friend of Sasuke's aren't you?" Itachi asked Naruto while his upper body floated in mid-air with the lower part of his body still dissolving into a murder of crows, continuously flying into and out of formation.
"That's right, you know," Naruto answered.
"Rather quiet. I've heard that you were a hyperactive young man so I had assumed you'd be firing accusations and meaningless insults all over the place…" Itachi smirked with his lips whereas his eyes retained the degree of relative apathy in whatever it was he was witnessing in the Uchiha District of a Konoha a little bit different from the one he's come from. It was just that those tiny differences hit just the right chords to Itachi, those tiny differences were all that mattered to him.
"Why? As you've said, even someone like me doesn't expect anything more from a man who's slain his entire clan and then abandoned his little brother surrounded by the corpses of his dearest people. I expect nothing more from a man who'd slay a bunch of clones that were just following the orders of their demented father, you know." Naruto replied, staring at Itachi with a certain dislike of the way in which the Uchiha had handled the situation with Shin Uchiha. "I thought I made that clear to you the last time we've met."
"The last time? What happened that time?" Itachi wondered. The tone of his voice was so dull and monotone that it was impossible to tell when he was feeling genuinely baffled by something and when he was just playing confused, hoping to guide someone to an answer. "The last time I remember meeting you was in Tanzaku…"
"So then you're not the Itachi from my universe, you know." Naruto sighed. "Still, I don't think it will matter to Sasuke."
"You're seeking my little brother even when he isn't from your own universe and even when saving him will not help the Sasuke you know as the real one?" Itachi wondered. "Why?"
"Because if I save him, I'll have the answer to the question if I'm strong enough to do so. I've acquired a cool new power to save Konoha from Pain, the villagers accept and recognize me now, they call me a hero but that power doesn't mean anything if I can't use it to save Sasuke, you know." Naruto swiped his hand aside with a passionate dismissal of the praise and adoration he received back home. "In this cool tournament, I've met my mom and dad and got all sorts of cool new opportunities, I need to take a shot at saving Sasuke too, even if it won't save my Sasuke."
"I see…" Itachi closed his eyes. "Tell me then, when we've met in your universe, did we fight?"
"No. You said you came to me just to talk, kind of like you're doing right now, you know. Then you sneakily introduced a crow into my belly, you know!" Naruto raised his fist up to express his dissatisfaction with the happening he described. "In any case, I'm glad you've found me but I want to find the real you so tell me where I can meet you, you know!"
"Huh? He made you eat a crow? Why?" Meiko scratched her head.
"Maybe it was some sort of choking genjutsu, it would be an effective technique since the brain would be fooled by the illusion and paralyze Naruto's throat for real. Dispelling such a jutsu would be difficult as well as one would find it hard to concentrate with an actual crow flapping about in their throat and trying to escape…" Kiyomi stroked her chin.
"Was the crow at least rotten or something?" Kawaki wondered. "Otherwise you'd just be feeding the enemy…" he shrugged when Kiyomi and Meiko gave him an inquisitive look. The pair were initially intrigued if there was a point to which the young punk was getting to but upon hearing him out they realized they expected an intricate analysis of the ninja craft from a masterful shinobi like Itachi Uchiha from a civilian who's lived in some sort of a lab for the most of his life.
"I see, so I've transferred it before meeting Sasuke," Itachi muttered. "In that case, we can meet, if you want. At the very center of the Uchiha District, there is a shrine called the Naka Shrine, the Uchiha use it as a hallowed grounds and a meeting spot."
"Are we really humoring the idea that we'll stray off of our path to meet with a hunter that's supposed to eliminate us from the competition?" Kiyomi looked to Naruto. "As a team leader, I cannot condone this."
"You're… A Yamanaka, aren't you?" Itachi looked to Kiyomi with the same indifference he looked at just about anything else around him. His eyes appeared almost tired from the two distinct wrinkles reaching out to the bottom of his face from underneath his eyes.
"That's right, not just any Yamanaka too, I'm the heiress of the clan. In this universe, our clans used to be in some serious odds…" Kiyomi looked up straight at Itachi. She knew that staring right into the eyes of an Uchiha was dangerous but it was her way of defying that silent authority that the floating clone of the resident Uchiha illusionist wielded. A challenge, of sorts.
"Well, Yamanaka heiress, the Naka Shrine is our sacred grounds, so to speak. No Uchiha would ever bring bloodshed and trouble into that place." Itachi shook his head subtly.
"Except for you, right?" Naruto showed his sharpening teeth to Itachi as a tiny bit of the Nine-Tails' chakra began to leak out and affecting his physiology. "Just how many of your own clan folk did you slay in that place?"
"It was you who asked for a meeting, Naruto. Come or don't come, that is entirely up to you…" Itachi closed his eyes and his airborne clone dissolved into a flock of crows that all fluttered away and scattered all across the Uchiha District.
"I can't let you tread back, not when we have not yet found the white cube or even left the village!" Kiyomi pleaded with Naruto.
"It's not like you can stop him though…" Kawaki shrugged. "If you two start duking it out, any hunters in the vicinity will come running like flies to honey. I would like some honeybuns right now…" the punk yawned and scratched his messy upper layer of dark hair.
"No, I understand you, Kiyomi." Naruto nodded. "That's why we're meeting Itachi on our way back. Once we've secured the cube and returning back to the Administration building. That way it won't be such a detour, you know."
"Fine. That might just work." Kiyomi sighed and shrugged. "With a little bit of luck, Sasuke will have caught Itachi and killed him by then…"
Naruto turned for the direction of the southern village gate with a serious expression. He had decided to move on now with a fresh sense of urgency. With Itachi in his crosshairs, now nothing else mattered to Naruto but getting to that white cube. The trio of Team Hokage flickered away, posing a challenge for Kawaki to keep up the pace with the rest.
Despite possessing no chakra training whatsoever, Kawaki appeared to be able to at the very least not lose the rushing Team Hokage. Meiko slowed up the pace a little bit to serve as a fine midway point between the Team Hokage and Kawaki. She noticed that Kawaki had been falling a little bit behind but she could relate to the inferiority complex that prevented him from asking everybody to slow down.
"I'm impressed you can keep up with our Body Flicker at all. To most people, it's as swift as instantaneous transportation." Meiko looked back at Kawaki with a gentle smile. She had seen Mana smiling this way to people she barely knew, people who had sometimes even tried killing her so repeating that same warm smile came almost naturally. The feeling of longing in Meiko only made repeating it mandatory, as if her own body demanded to relive the warmth of that smile even if it was Meiko smiling to others and not her best friend smiling to all who could see her.
"Are you dumb? I thought I told you already, my body's been modified. I can keep up with you ninja freaks and much more!" Kawaki grumbled through some decent effort.
"Does what we do really seem all that freaky when you've got ninja tools implanted in you that make you so much like us? Firing off shockwaves, moving fast and hitting hard…" Meiko wondered.
"Having implants that make your bones harder to break or make you faster makes sense. I've just seen a guy float in mid-air because he was made entirely out crows. The shit you guys do is straight out witchcraft and I don't like it!" Kawaki explained his stance.
"I'll handle Minato, you just make sure to keep that creep occupied!" Kushina turned back to Minato who stared back at her with a bland stare. This was no zombification or mere cloning technique, it did not appear to corrupt Minato in any way whatsoever. It did not rot his flesh or impact his appearance, there was to be no deception about the fact that the man she was facing was still the man she knew and the man she loved.
Maybe that was why it was Kushina's responsibility to snap him out of it?
"Such a smartass…" Tobi muttered to himself. "As if I couldn't handle Minato myself… Keeping that troublesome bag of tricks occupied will be a different case of trouble entirely."
"You should have accepted Toneri's offer, Kushina…" Minato spoke, charging onward with his kunai in hand. Minato's image flickered while an intense air of gust alerted Kushina which direction her ally now made into opponent would come from. She had long since given up trying to track Minato with her eyes during sparring.
This was no sparring session either. Kushina restrained Minato's wrist and redirected the slash down to where it unleashed a blast of sparks when the kunai slashed through the cobblestone pavement. There was a weak coating of chakra to Minato's blade, else his simple kunai knife would have dulled or busted by colliding with the ground at such velocity and with such strength.
"When my dumbass friend gets himself mind controlled, it's up to the Red Hot Habanero…" Kushina drove her head forward, slamming her rock-hard forehead straight into Minato's and sending her ally tumbling back and off-balance. "To hit him until I can get to him!" she finished her thought while throwing a powerful cross that would have surely knocked Minato out. Though, perhaps, at this point, knocking him out would have been for the better…
Sharp pain! Everything went black before a silver streak slashed a line in the darkness through which Kushina could still see. Vision returned to her eyes with seething sensations of pain burning into her temples, her weight on her own knees felt wobbly so Kushina stumbled and fell back. Something splat against the cobblestone underneath, the rock-hard ground that pulled her like a bed after a rough day at work.
Kushina looked down and noticed solid drops of blood pooling up from a wide gash in her chest. One that she immediately pressed her hand against and grit her teeth as the visual revelation of the gruesome cut that Minato didn't attempt to restrain in any way whatsoever, like they've never met each other before that day at all, caused all of the apt pain to come knocking as well.
Out of sheer instinct, just because she knew that anyone seriously looking to kill her would then follow up a successful slash such as that one, Kushina pushed her body off the pavement and stumbled back only to avoid a slash that would have left her head hanging on a mere string of flesh had it connected as intended. Kushina then raised a knee to throw Minato's attempted barrage of rolling kicks up and make the essentially breakdancing opponent of hers to fall flat on his face.
Minato rolled like a wild animal and returned to his knees, still clutching his kunai with some of Kushina's blood still dripping from its tip and raised his indifferent eyes back to meet Kushina's own distraught gaze. "You could have been the mother of the new world and now the only thing you'll be giving birth to is your own grave. At the hands of the boy you love, no less…" Minato stated.
"Alright, now I know for sure that your mind's all messed up!" Kushina's face delved into a deep, shadowy place of her psyche she had not explored for a while. Her eyes formed horrid, whited out orbs that contrasted the shadows of the leaking desire to smash and pummel that reflected off of Kushina's shadowy face. One step at a time, Kushina began approaching the man of blinding speed.
This threw Minato off his balance, he was used to the enemy cowering, putting distance or objects in between him and them for that was the way in which their cowardly consciousness tried to protect themselves from a swifter demise than their senses could register in Minato's hand. Kushina was no mere redshirt of Iwagakure, she was no rogue bandit, she was Kushina Uzumaki, the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero and she fled from no man or woman.
Minato rushed onward but his speed just wasn't into it, it was his off-balance stumble back out of fear of Kushina lashing out at him that diminished the speed he could invest into his assault, Kushina leaned to the side and let the crescent slash of Minato's knife miss her entirely. The unmentioned powerhouse of Team Minato secured her wrist clutching around Minato's heel and smashed her beloved into the ground, looming over him with both of her sleeves rolled back and her fists ready to smash his face in like a mushed tomato.
"K-Kushina! W-Wait!" Minato yelled out in absolute panic while he writhed and wriggled underneath her feet. Something in his eyes was different, even if Toneri's control over Minato had slipped up for just a moment – it had slipped up regardless and this was now Minato she was talking to once again.
"M-Minato!" Kushina cried out in a terrified and loving voice while she straight out dragged her cowering beloved from underneath her and put him back on his feet, much to Minato's bewilderment and embarrassment. "I-I thought he'd taken control over you for good, ya know!" she cried out with a girly voice that in no way resembled the absolutely murderous monster that just loomed over Minato's head with her fists raised and loaded to smash.
"That look you can do… It's a look that scares the life out of people, just now, it seems, it has scared the life right back into me too!" Minato smiled just like he used to in childhood when he was goofing around. To see that smile now, of all times, when facing seemingly hopeless odds… Yeah… Minato was back!
An explosion that erected another sky-splitting pillar of green energy and decimated even more of the southern gate district made Minato and Kushina turn their attention back to the enemy who was engaged with the man that introduced himself as an enemy at first as well. Tobi had used his Kamui to transport himself further away from where the Puppet Curse Sphere could blow him up but then when Toneri used another, sometimes Tobi used his Kamui to transport the sphere away.
"You annoying gnat!" Toneri cursed when another sphere he had formed got transported away into another dimension by Tobi's Sharingan.
"What's the matter? It's a fifty-fifty guess, isn't it? Far better odds than playing whack-a-mole, aren't they?" Tobi taunted his opponent even though all he was doing was buying some time for Kushina to punch some sense back into Minato. Even if the masked man wouldn't like to admit it, it might have been hopeless with Team Minato backing him up but he for sure stood no chance whatsoever without them by his side.
"I will admit, your chakra levels are admirable for an earthly insect." Toneri grumped while forming another Puppet Curse Orb in his hand and then letting it float gently over his raised palm. His disgruntled face transitioned into a sense of light amusement as his Tenseigan eyes opened once more and took their focus on Tobi. "No matter how much you struggle though, the third ability of my Puppet Curse Sphere will accelerate the process of you taking the rightful place groveling before me."
"Wh-What's going on?" Tobi looked at Toneri, his vision blurry and doubling. The very fact of his own vision failing him was rich enough to baffle Tobi for the entire day, his eyes, his Sharingan that could see all was now showing blurry image? That simply could not have been!
"Kushina, that sphere, it's…" Minato pointed at the Puppet Curse Sphere floating in Toneri's hand.
"Yeah…" Kushina nodded, acknowledging Minato's concern without him having to speak it aloud.
"Fire Style: Flaming Meteors!" a grunt came from behind Kushina and Minato as a handful of solid, head-sized fireballs homed in on the infernal sphere of emerald light. A black-dressed puppet rushed in from behind Toneri and covered its master's hand, allowing the meteors to throw it back and leave gaping holes in its corpus while the resonating heat from the Fire Release ninjutsu burnt the puppet up.
"Not enough, huh?" Kotaro lowered his trembling hands while smoke still lingered around his mouth. The injured young man was up on his feet and the first instinct upon returning to the field of battle was to free the man that had deceived him by switching him into harm's way from the chakra draining technique juicing him dry.
"You…" Tobi looked down at Kotaro with a surprise that overpowered even the immediate urgency of tremendous chakra loss he was suffering with each passing moment due to the Puppet Curse Sphere absorbing his chakra from a distance. "You tried to help me, even though…"
"Shut up and get yourself free!" Kotaro turned to Tobi. "We will need your help if we're to move on!"