I don't own Naruto, but it means a lot to me.
Monster.
Hoshigaki Kisame was a monster.
He wasn't even winning, that was the messed up part. Sure, he swung his giant - could you even call a two-meter baton a fucking sword? - weapon but Tsunade was a blur of fists and fury. One punch. Two to the jaw. Body shot. Body shot. Body shot. The giant blade had failed to make contact even once since the fight began, but Tsunade, miss "I could punch a hole straight through a mountain", had rained down on Kisame's body like a hailstorm. Tsunade was faster. Tsunade was stronger. Tsunade was better and she was winning.
But none of that mattered, because Hoshigaki Kisame was a monster.
Every attack, every single strike packed with the energy that had leveled Naruto to the ground with a casual finger. But it didn't seem to matter. Kisame just…took it. He wasn't invincible - portions of his cloak were in tatters, exposing coils of hardened blue skin now coated in rapidly bruising welts. The punches were landing and his body was getting hit by a steaming freight train. It just didn't matter. Hoshigaki Kisame didn't care. Serrated teeth stretched from ear to ear. Beaded black eyes following every punch from start to finish even if his body couldn't move to catch them.
Tsunade was winning. The problem was Hoshigaki Kisame wasn't losing.
Monster.
Tsunade screamed, fist pounding into Kisame's collar bone and snapping past the swordsman's left guard. Something loud and breakable went crack, her fist hitting skin and Kisame hissed as he slid back in the dirt. The Sannin heaved, sweaty and covered in mud from the mixture of water and earth sloshing in the aftermath. Shizune stood behind her, heaving just the same as she took heavy steps to be between Naruto and the shark. Naruto hated how he just stood, rooted to the spot.
Kisame wrapped a hand near the bubbling bruise forming above his chest. With a yank, he tore the left sleeve from his jacket and let the fabric float into the mud below. Now freed for the movement, he swung his arm around and rolled out his shoulder even against the audible pop.
"I knew you were strong, but this…" He laughed, a dark and caustic noise that echoed in the walled arena. You don't disappoint, Senju Tsunade. I don't know if I'm a match for that strength."
Tsunade growled, ready with another punch and thinking about punching through his heart, this time.
"I'm happy you're pleased." she answered. "Now, hold still and this will be over before you know it."
Kisame barked, smiling and laughing like that was the funniest thing he'd heard all week.
"Why would I want this to be over? This is incredible!"
His voice was so positive, upbeat and absolutely not concerned with his shattered bones or beaten flesh. Naruto's instincts clawed, screamed inside his mind. Danger, danger, danger. Run the hell away while you still can. He felt like he was staring down a natural disaster - destruction and chaos brewing at a distance that was always moving forward. Like a storm where people could see the power, the destruction in its wake and sometimes they'd pray and ask themselves why? Why did this natural disaster come after me? Why was it wielding a blade taller than Naruto was long and taking body shots just for kicks?
"You have at least two broken ribs and your collar bone is shards in your neck." Tsunade's voice cut the silence like a knife, her words a diagnosis as much as a threat.
"You're finished."
Kisame arced, straightening his spine and twisting the massive blade above his broken clavicle without so much as a wince.
"Finished?" He challenged, rolling his neck and looking far too happy for Naruto's liking. "I think both of us have far more tricks than that."
Tsunade clenched, a white glow surging in her hands alongside a growl from her chest.
"You're a freak, I'll give you that." Tsunade grit, flicking mud from her fingers and preparing to move in for another flurry. "But I've shattered stronger mountains. You take any more damage you'll be a bloodied and bruised pile."
"Bloodied…" Kisame whispered, tongue flopping over his serrated teeth. Naruto's skin crawled. "You know, it's funny you mention that because I was just wondering about this little rumor I had heard."
Kisame leered, as though whispering a secret.
"It's about you, actually."
Something in Tsunade's spine paused, her back stretching and muscles coiling in her chest.
"You see, Tsunade, you seem plenty capable of leaving me a bruised pulp but…"
Kisame looked across his body, multiple welts roiling and bubbling beneath taught blue skin. The shark man looked…disappointed?
"I don't seem very bloodied."
Shizune made a noise, slight and quiet but like the breath left her lungs. Naruto blinked, not understanding the deep and protective step the black haired woman took towards him.
"Naruto." She whispered, voice shaking and a panic arced on the outside of her words. He could taste it, a growing terror slipping through the cracks and pushing forward like a wave. He couldn't understand why. What had happened? What about not being bloodied would possibly cause the meteoric shift in tone.
"Naruto." She said again, voice hard and gripped by something that wanted to flee. "We need to get ready to move."
The blond blinked. "Move?"
Shizune's arm grabbed his shoulder, and he could feel the tremor that rattled through to her skeleton. Something thick and heavy settled in his gut and his eyes locked on Tsunade. Her back was rigid as a board. The only thing moving was her pony tail, swaying in the coming breeze but her body was a statue.
Something was wrong.
"That's…odd, don't you think, Tsunade of the Sannin?" Kismet's voice echoed, his footsteps silent as he marched across the mud and debris from Tsunade's assault like one walks into a shopfront. "I mean, a guy fights a living Sannin, you'd expect him to be bruised, but also maybe just a little bit bloodied?"
Tsunade's mouth ran dry. Her eyes blinked, the muscles in her face closing and a blackness entering her vision against the pound in her chest. Kisame just kept moving forward.
"It's funny, because Samehada." His voice lingered, eyes tracing along the behemoth sword in his hands. "See, it loves leaving things bloodied."
Kisame's arm rose, massive blade crossing across his chest and bandages lined-up just against his teeth. He leaned forward, grabbing onto the end of the bandages with a serrated bite and yanked. The wrapping ripped, falling in sheaths from around the blade and tumbling to the ground in a pile of mud and dirt.
Samehada was like nothing Naruto had ever seen before. In size it reminded him of the gargantuan Kubikiri Hocho but in form, it was utterly unique. Where there should have been steel was a tangle of barbed scales. Like little blue nails, texture of sandpaper and points sharp as knives, all pointed downward in a way that made Naruto's teeth crawl as he imagined it being slashed against skin. This wasn't a blade designed to carve of slice. This was a blade designed to shave. To tear and tear at flesh and bone and anything else unfortunate enough to be caught in its arc; little by little until it was ground into a pulp.
A bloodied pulp.
Kisame let a low laugh rumble through his throat the serrated tips of the blade rubbed against his chest. He pulled his arm, a single spine of Samehada slicing into his torso and tearing a jagged line from shoulder to shoulder. With his free hand, Kisame smeared the blood down his chest and onto his hand, holding the crimson digits out for the sannin to see.
"Naruto." Shizune voice was panic. Desperate. "Naruto get ready to run."
"Run?" He wheezed. Why? Kisame may have unsealed his sword from its wrapping, but for the entire fight had been nothing but a landslide! Sure, Kisame could take a beating but he hadn't landed a single blow on her - not one! She'd been raining down punishment and dodging his every strike in the most incredible taijutsu Naruto had ever seen and now Shizune said run? It didn't make sense. It was crazy. It was…
Kisame blurred, appearing a meter from the Sannin with bloody palm outstretched. His fingers coated in crimson, extending straight up to Tsunade's gaze. He took another step forward, raising Samehada above his head all the while. He was in her space. Close enough to strike. Why wasn't she moving? Why wasn't she dodging like she had before?
"So, it's true." Kisame whispered, taking another step up and Samehada reeling back. His teeth stretched in a hungering grin. "A medic ninja who's paralyzed at the sight of blood. How delicious."
"Granny!" He screamed, because this was wrong. "You gotta move! Dodge it!"
But Tsunade didn't move. Her body stood, rooted and silent and frozen. Naruto's mind whirled, dancing to Shizune who seemed to know what was happening and that knowledge had filled her body with abject terror. The apprentice was moving, desperate and calling out and trying to surge forward to protect her teacher from oncoming death. But it wouldn't matter. Samehada was swinging and there wasn't a chance in hell she'd make it fast enough trudging through the mud.
The blade towered, looming at the top of its arc and hungering at its prey below.
She's going to die, Naruto's mind screamed. Somethings wrong and she won't defend herself and she's going to die and Shizune can't get there fast enough. Too slow to protect.
Too slow, too slow, too slow.
The great blade swung, and there was an explosion of yellow light.
Tsunade's brain wailed, slamming into her side as the world shifted back into focus. Her eyes raced, snapping to reality and surging for anything to anchor them back.
"Granny?" A voice asked. She turned to find Naruto, hunched and heaving and doing everything he could to stay standing on two feet. Her mind whirled, the rattle and hum of heat. Naruto kept heaving.
"I didn't…" he gasped, reeling at the way air kind of hurt to breathe as it re-entered his lungs. "Didn't know if I could bring someone."
Tsunade looked at her hands, watching the trembled shaking rattle her fingers and the splotches of sprayed blood now coating her hands.
"Nawaki…" she whispered, and Naruto's stomach sank. Whoever she was calling out to, they weren't here and Tsunade didn't seem to realize that.
"Granny?" He called. "Granny, whatever's happening right now we've gotta snap out of it!"
"There ain't no way."
Kisame's voice cracked in the pit, Naruto snapping his neck back as the Shark man kneeled into the crater his swing had created. A reverent softness, something that looked out of place and haunting, captured his being as Kisame hunched into the impact zone and pulled the shattered fragments of a single, tri-pronged kunai. He held it to his face, beaded eyes tracing the edges of cracked steel and smeared ink. His eyes shot to Naruto so quick and so fast the boy flinched.
"Is this…" he rolled the fragment in his fingers, pushing down on a pointed edge until it cut into his skin and drips of blood rolled off like rain. "Just confirming all kinds of rumors today, huh? The Kyuubi Jinnchuriki knows the Hirashin no Jutsu?"
Naruto shuffled, pushing vertigo back down his throat trying to square off his stance. He could feel Tsunade beneath his arms, heavy and heaving and eyes tracking the blood on Kisame's hand.
"It's the blood, Naruto!" Shizune called, staring at the duo from across the clearing and feeling like she was a planet away. "Lady Tsunade can't handle blood!"
Naruto's eyes widened, a mixture of shock and warped understanding giving way to a dark and sinking realization that settled in his chest. Afraid of… blood? The world famous medic was petrified of blood? Was that why she was frozen? Naruto could track the returning tremor in Tsunade's hand as her eyes locked onto the blood flowing from Kisame's fingers.
"This." Kisame drawled, paying little attention to Naruto's increasing revelations in favor of the building anticipation of getting to eat about something yellow and orange and fast. "Just got very, very interesting."
Kisame's neck tilted, a growing annoyance that he didn't seem to have Naruto's undivided attention.
"But… let's make this more personal, shall we?"
A tsunami. Waves and waves or water poured from the Shark's mouth like the birth of a sea. Shizune jumped, throwing kunai of her own and landing on the water's surface. Kisame batted each away with his hulking blade, a single free hand flashing through seals with frightening speed while the kunochi dodged churning water.
"Suirō no Jutsu." Kisame hissed through jagged teeth, and the water roiled at his command. Shizune gave a yelp, but the water she'd ran upon shifted faster than her feet could follow. There was a final splash, the crash of sound as the water that had flooded the arena bent and condensed. Then, it was silent. Naruto saw a trickle of bubbles, Shizune's eyes wide and screaming though the sound never left the watery prison.
"Shizune!" Naruto yelled. Tsunade couldn't watch, her eyes still glued to the dripping crimson on Kisame's palm. The Shark man rounded, Shizune's muted screams echoing in the smile on his lips.
"That's one down." He said, pointing a jagged thumb to the trapped medic. "And your Sannin trapped herself." The Shark man's fingers wrapped around Samehada like gripping a neck. Tighter. Squeezing.
"Just you and me, kid."
"Fuck you." Naruto spat, because he didn't have anything better to say and he could only feel three more Hiraishin kunai in his belt. Kisame leered, tutting and stepping away from the hole.
"Whole lotta bark, but do you have any bite?"
"Granny." Naruto's arm rattled, clasping Tsunade's shoulder and shaking her whole body. "Granny, I need you. Please wake up."
The sage shook, her body rolling with the boy's arms but the distance never left her eyes.
"Nawaki…" she whispered, body hunching and Naruto's stomach churned.
"Eyes up, kid!"
Naruto gasped, barely rolling left as the colossal Samehada swung past his right shoulder and slammed into the ground. The sword's teeth howled, snagging on Naruto's jacket and ripping his right sleeve to shreds in a mixture of blood and fabric. Naruto tried let out a hiss of pain, but Kisame's boot knocked the air from his stomach and sent him tumbling away.
"It's a shame, really. Used to happen all the time during the Blood Wars in Kiri."
Naruto skidded, brain rattling as he managed to dig his hands into the earth and mud enough to stop his roll. From his torn jacket, dozens of paper sheets littered the ground and mixed into the mud below. Kisame stood, towering and cold, over Tsunade while he spoke.
"Happened to even the strongest of the Seven. Once the trauma grabs you, you're lost. All the strength in the world and none of it to break you out of a cage in your own mind."
The Shark tilted his head, studying Tsunade and taking in her frozen tremble.
"Wonder what she's thinking about? You think it's something bloody? A comrade torn limb from limb? A lover blown to smithereens?"
Kisame lifted a foot, casually tipping the Sannin to the dirt as Tsunade stared into the distance. Her face smeared into the mud, eyes still open and shaking at ghosts.
Naruto screamed.
"Don't fucking touch her!"
He was sprinting, up in seconds chakra and adrenaline coursing through his body like wildfire and numbing the growing ache in his bones. Two kicks, three punches - Kisame blocked the kicks with Samehada's massive blade but took the three punches to his skin without bothering a guard. The blond shifted for a final punch, but Naruto's fist made a subconscious morph into an open palm. A red tinge crossed Naruto's hand, and growing nails ripped a gash across Kisame's chest.
Pain exploded, little stars and black spots sweeping into the Blond's vision as Kisame retaliated by using his rib cage for batting practice with Samehada. The boy skidded, impact from the strike rolling him almost into the stone boundary with scraps of paper and blood and mud marking his trail.
"Those are sharp claws, kid." Kisame acknowledged, running a finger through the oozing gash left on his upper torso. His punches weren't even visible as bruises, but four hairline lacerations traced the Shark from shoulder to sternum. Naruto tried to stand, but the best he could manage was a pained hunch as his ribs pulsed in his chest. He fumbled at his hip, pulling at his remaining Hiraishin kunai and readying a throw. The blades whistled as they soared, the final trio in a deadly arc around the Shark. Kisme laughed.
"Nowhere near enough!"
Samehada was ready. A mallet to squash a fly. Two of the kunai were obliterated, shards of metal embedding the earthen wall as Samehada crunched the pieces into dust. The final kunai survived the swing, but was struck like a bat against a ball, deflecting the course and sending the kunai soaring into the distance. Kisame watched final seal fly off, tracking its arc with his eyes and a sickening sneer on his lips.
"You try and jump to that last one and I'll hunt you down." He threatened, easing Samehada back over his shoulder and stepping towards the blond. "But bold move throwing away your last tricks."
Naruto slumped, every breath shooting a fresh pain into his chest as the Shark approached.
"Out of kunai and out of options." Kisame was stalking, his walk slow and metered and savoring every step because there was blood in the water and frenzy in the air. He took a lingering gaze to the gashing slices on his chest. A dark red ooze was pooling around the cuts and there was an audible sizzle of skin.
"Still, you deserve a little credit."
Kisame's lips stretched, his eyes wild and dark. "Not every fish lasts this long."
The Shark trudged through the dirt and towered over the heaving genin. It was a strain to even look up, any movement in Naruto's neck lighting a fire down his spine that shot his muscles to pieces. Kisame's face was out of sight, but he feel the predatory snarl on the man's lips as he loomed. Instead, Naruto let his eyes roll to Tsunade, the woman trying and failing to right herself as her arms and mind betrayed her.
"Granny…" he begged. For one brief and surging moment, Tsunade's amber eyes snapped to him. She saw him. She was in there. Fighting. Stuck and flailing but fighting. She just needed something to break the cage. Something from outside to be big and loud and set her free.
Naruto could feel a hot trickle down the corner of his mouth, but his face set into hardened stone.
"You don't…" he called to her, calling and reaching and pushing his body forward with everything he had. He had come to far. Faced too much. Lost too much. Gained too much. He would not lose here.
"You don't win our bet, yet. I won't…give up…"
The air left his lungs in a hollow heave, Kisame's boot pressed into his back and Naruto's body slammed into the mud.
"Won't give up, huh?" Kisame said, pushing down with his boot and Naruto could feel his vision start to go spotted. "Guess I'll have to carve those legs off, after all."
With an idle gaze, the Shark took note of the discarded paper littering the battlefield. It had been streaming out of the boys pockets with each hit, like a piñata that was popped and leaking but one good smack away from bursting open for good. His eyes narrowed, leaning down with his foot to Naruto's back and inspecting the writing near his face.
"Seals?" He questioned, following the inked designs and looking at the dozens that laid around the battlefield. "Well, looks like you aren't a one trick pony, after all. Throwing kunai is one thing, but you learned to make little Hiraishin seals so you could jump all around like a little, blond rabbit."
Holding one of the seals in his hand, Kisame made a clicking noise with his mouth. Water pooled, dripping through his fingers until the paper was drenched. Ink and paper bled, dissolving while Kisame let the scraps fall to the floor.
"Almost clever, little fish." He sneered, using Samehada as a bat and pointing to the dozens of seals surrounding the two. "But you could jump between these seals until the sun sets and not a single one of them will keep you safe from me."
"I didn't just…learn…"
Naruto whispered, hardly enough air in his lungs to breathe much less make words. Kisame lifted his boot enough to lean down and hear his prey's final words because they always made winning taste so, so much sweeter.
"What was that, little fish? I couldn't hear over your cracked ribs."
"I didn't just learn…to draw Hiraishin…"
There was a blinding flash, and Kisame's boot hit the mud and sunk. The Shark whirled, death crackling across his pitch-black eyes to find a heaving Naruto. His hand leaning against the Hiraishin seal he'd placed on Tsunade's shoulder when he'd first shaken her and blood oozing from his lips. He could only hold up a single arm, but it was enough to make a ram seal.
"Kai."
The paper tags at Kisame's feet sizzled, red chakra roiling at their edges as his eyes wide in a growing horror.
"You little-"
BOOM.
The explosion rocked Naruto off his feet and rattled the makeshift arena to its core. Chunks of the stone wall separating the battlefield exploded outward, the burning heat of over three dozen tags making steam from the moisture in the mud. Naruto's didn't have the muscle or energy to catch himself, flopping with aching bones as the ringing pulsed in his ears. He could barely see, mud and blood and black spots coating his vision as he struggled to even raise his head. Everything, every cell in his aching and broken body prayed that blast was enough to send that freak to hell where he belong. His vision blurred, but he focused in on the crater hoping to see nothing but ash.
Naruto swallowed.
Hoshigaki Kisame was a monster.
Standing. The Shark beneath Kiri stood in the center of the crater a hulking and heaving monster. Blackened skin arced across his body, crackling layers of charred flesh broken by rivers of blood. The red clouds of his cloak in tatters across his chest, remnants of military leggings being the only part of his body not blackened by the flames. His face charred, cracking and warped while portions of his blue hair continued to singe and burn in the aftermath. His eyes pitch black, streaks of red at the corners and screaming absolute murder.
"Kill." He whispered, because the monster was uncaged and only obliteration remained. It repeated it, over and over as it hauled Samehada over its crackling shoulder and moved. Blood poured with every step, but the movement didn't stop. Couldn't be stopped.
" . ."
Naruto's mind screamed 'run', but there wasn't a single muscle in his body left to obey. The creature charged, the massive Samehada pulsing and…moving? The shards of scales shimmered, shifting and swaying on the blade as though they could smell the blood in the air. Moving. And hungry.
"Naruto!"
The voice came from his left, tired and coughing up water but it made a warm feeling flow inside his chest. He hoped it wasn't organ failure.
"Sh…izune…" he rasped, turning his neck to see the black haired medic ninja rushing towards him. The explosion might not have stopped Kisame, but it did pack enough punch to end his concentration on the water prison.
That was good. He liked Shizune. He wanted her to breathe and live and survive.
But now she was running towards him.
That wasn't good. He liked Shizune. He wanted her to breathe and live and survive.
Naruto wanted to tell here she was running the wrong way. She should be leaving him, saving herself. No one should be moving towards that monster. He could hear it, thundering outside his vision and coming closer with every heartbeat and chanting murder under its breath. He did his best to give Shizune a bloodied smile, turning his head to face his fate and finding Kisame standing over him. Samehada hanging in the air and death in the Shark's eyes.
"Kill."
Samehada swung down, and Naruto heard a fleshy crunch.
What was weird, however, was that he didn't feel a fleshy crunch.
Blinking, the blond raised his eyes enough to stare back into the pit of the monster, but Kisame was frozen. Samehada was half-swung, locked in place and the Shark's beaded black eyes shimmered. Something was wrong. Why wasn't it swinging? Why wasn't it moving?
Oh.
The Shark coughed, red and black blood pouring down its lips as its gaze flowed to his chest. A hand, bloodied and muddy but clenched into a fist, stuck straight through the center of Kisame's sternum and left a clear hole through his chest.
Black eyes disappeared, fading into white. Samehada fell like a paper weight into the ground. The Shark's body was tossed like discarded trash, falling to the wayside as Tsunade rushed to where Naruto had collapsed. She was panting and heaving and staring with eyes wide and open but finally awake. She looked at her own fist, bringing the bloodied knuckles to her eyes and staring into the viscera wrapped around her hand.
Tsunade breathed, flicking the gore to the side and rushing down to be by the boy.
"Naruto." She breathed. "Naruto."
"Gran-…" he tried to respond, but breathing was like rubbing sandpaper down his throat and the words died in his mouth. Tsunade was on her knees in the mud, fingers and hands glowing an ephemeral green as they ripped open his jacket and pressed against his skin. Naruto hissed at the jerked movement, but the green miasma spread across his skin and the pain folded back in on itself. A strange calm sifted through his nerves while the burning subsided he could hear the rolling tears falling down Tsunade's cheeks.
"I won't leave you." He heard her say, raw and heated through mud coated hands. "You're going to be okay. I won't leave you. You're going to be okay."
A warmth, different and far more soothing than the healing in Tsunade's hands washed through his body. His breathing steadied to a slow cadence and his eyes blinked into an eased rest.
"I know." He whispered, and Tsunade wanted to scream and cry and laugh all at once. Her fingers moved, lacing through singed strands of blond hair and letting the same warmth lift her, just a little. Naruto shifted, a pained and slow movement but still movement. Tsunade's eyes trembled at the wince. He was so hurt. Punctures and probably concussed and barely conscious. She was pumping as much healing as she could but she knew he'd taken a direct hit to the chest. There was no telling the internal ruptures he was facing and the long term recovery that awaited.
Tsunade blinked, a flash of red mixing in her hand and a cut along the boys arm stitching itself closed in seconds.
Something was…guiding her chakra. An invisible force grabbing the healing in her fingers and expediting, priority one, the energies to exactly where they'd needed to be. Her chakra could feel it, tugging and biting and gnawing alongside her own as they worked to heal the boy's innards. A red heat than spun and swirled and whirlpool somewhere just above the boy's naval.
She would have been more surprised, but she was too busy thanking every ancestor she had the boy was going to live.
"Shizune." Tsunade's voice cracked like a whip, forcing her eyes away from the boy's stomach and back to her apprentice. Shizune snapped, straightening her spine heeding the call.
"Ma'am."
"Continue to stabilize Naruto." It had been years since Tsunade had spoken like that. Clear. Purposeful. Despite the chaos of the situation Shizune couldn't fight the thrill that surged into her arteries.
Her master was back. Her mentor was back. Her friend was back.
Tsunade was back.
"He has at least four ribs that are fractured, maybe another two with cracks. Brace his spine for travel. When I come back we move for Konoha so I can continue treatment."
Shizune's fingers wrapped into fists, whitening on her knuckles while she kneeled in the mud and began to bandage the boy's chest and legs. Like a reflex, her gauze followed the green glow of Tsunade's hands. Tsunade stood, removing her hands only when a similar cold, green glow oozed from Shizune's palm and pressed against his now bandaged wounds.
"What are your orders?" Shizune asked.
Tsunade brushed dirt and mud from her hands. Little rivers of red coiled in the muck, and there was a moment where she could feel her heart start to pulse. Naruto breathed out, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Tsunade snapped her eyes from the blood, staring back to her apprentice.
"I'm going to go find Jiraiya." She said. "We're going to him and then we get the hell out of here."
Shizune nodded. Naruto gave a pitiful moan.
"Plan, good." He whimpered, and Shizune shushed further outburst with a gentle press against the boys temple.
"Shhh." She commanded, gentle and soft but still very much a direct order. "Adults are talking. Severely wounded children are being silent."
Tsunade couldn't stop annoyed relief that worked at the corner of her lips. She didn't want to, but the reminder of Jiraiya on the other side of the wall brought her eyes back to the corpse lying nearby. The hole in Kisame's chest was there, gaping and bloody and finally keeping that monster where he belonged - face down in the dirt. Victory, however, was bitter on her tongue. The blue on Kisame's skin was fading, unnatural hue giving way to tanned and very much non-sharklike features.
"Blood clones." She cursed. Kisame wasn't here. He never had been. That was why he wasn't able to swing fast enough to hit her. Why he wasn't concerned about tanking body shots that would have left the real Kisame dangerously wounded. The nameless face staring into the mud was prey, not the predator. Some poor soul ripped into being little more than a puppet. But that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was that had been more than enough to get her on her knees and almost get another killed because of her failures.
Tsunade's teeth ground in her jaw, pushing the wave of self-loathing back into the furnace because she needed the energy. There would be time for reflection later. Right now, she needed to find Jiraiya. Fast.
Her fist crackled, surging towards the massive stone barrier and arm arcing into brutal contact with the wall. The earth groaned, the construct crashing to the ground in a pillar of rubble and dust. Her fists were white when she turned back to Naruto and Shizune.
"I'll be back." She promised. "I'll find Jiraiya and I'll be…"
From the growing plume of dust, a ragged cough.
"I —" the voice wheezed, a mop of white hair shuffling and the last Sage of Mount Myōboku emerging from the dust beyond the wall. He looked like absolute shit.
"I would love to be found, actually."
Shit, but alive.
He was alive.
Tsunade rocked, her own heart pounding and she rushed forward like a rocket. Jiraiya swayed, collapsing into his teammates open arms because his legs felt like noodles beneath his body. Luckily for him, Tsunade's hands were there to cradle his body to the ground.
"You're alive." She breathed like it was an accusation. Jiraiya gave a low rumble in his throat, too pained to laugh loudly but unable to stop his own sass.
"You would have been mad if I had died."
"Furious." She agreed, emotions pouring out faster than she could process. "After all that talk about changing, leaving me to the dirty work. I'd pull you from the Shinigami's stomach myself".
"I said I'm not leaving." Jiraiya confirmed, rolling in Tsunade's arms and trying to take in the sight beyond the crumbling wall. Eyes searching and scanning for a blob of yellow and orange. "Where's the kid?"
"Alive." Tsunade answered, and Jiraiya's whole body deflated in a curl of relief and exhaustion. "About five meters to your left and currently under orders to not move a damn muscle until we heal him."
"That's." Jiraiya said, because it was all that really mattered. "That's good."
Tsunade's eyes narrowed, sweeping up and down Jiraiya's form with a pointed concern. He wasn't as coated in mud or blood or water as the three of them, but significant portions of his gi had charred ends, the black remnants of fire etching along his clothing and parts of his skin. It made sense, after all, he had fought an Uchiha. To not emerge with at least a first degree burn would have been more the anomaly. But he hadn't fought any Uchiha - he had fought Itachi. Even if it was a blood clone, Jiraiya was past his prime and the prodigy of a generation was likely an even sharper blade than when Tsunade had last seen him. Jiraiya was clearly exhausted, burned skin and bruises and…
Tsunade's breath hitched, fingers running across the skin of Jiraiya's forearm only to find a patchwork of uneven bumps along the side. Her finger clawed, ripping down the sage's sleeve and exposing the calcified and discolored texture that flowed from his shoulder and consumed his left arm. Her eyes made it down to the arm to the end of Jiraiya's hand, the sage weakly clenching a fist and trying to hide the webbing between his fingers.
"Sage jutsu…" she whispered, and Jiraiya tried to pull his appendage back into the darkness of his shirt like a reflex.
"I had to make a call."
"Make a call?" Tsunade repeated. "Jiraiya, you know how dangerous that is. You know what kind of damage that does."
The kind I can't heal, is what she meant to say but even that notion made her blood sick and she wouldn't speak it to being. Senjutsu wasn't like normal jutsu, and the damage it caused wasn't like normal damage. Jiraiya had told her that when he'd learned it. He'd insisted it meant damage to their enemies, not to himself.
What he hadn't told her, hadn't known at the time, was that that also meant it couldn't be healed like normal damage. She'd been the one to figure that out when he'd been screaming in pain after fighting two full squads of Kiri assassins. Orochimaru had run them off but Jiraiya's whole body was bloodied and both of his legs began to shift from flesh into stone - the slow petrification of natural chakra in the human body.
"I know." He said, bringing his warm, not stone arm across his body and resting it along her hand. "I know. But there wasn't another way."
She glared deep, but there wasn't any malice in the stare. Just a whole lot of frustration and relief and an emotional cocktail that made her desperately wish they could just leave this hellhole and find a real cocktail.
"Do Ma and Pa know?" She asked, resolving to fix what she can and leave the rest. Jiraiya gave a slow but full nod.
"She's already back preparing the treatment. Shouldn't take more than a week."
"Good." Tsunade decreed, continuing to move her glowing hand to the multiple other 2nd degree burns lining the sage's back. It's not much, but the reassurance that the damage isn't permeant brought her frayed nerves a semblance of relief.
"Tsunade."
Her eyes snapped to his, the gravel in his voice grabbing her by the shoulders.
"I was trapped in the Tsukuyomi."
Tsunade's hand froze.
"What?"
"Itachi. When we were fighting he managed to slip by my guard and…" Jiraiya shook his head, struggling himself to believe the words from his own mouth.
"I was caught."
Tsunade shook her head. "I don't understand." She answered because it was true. "Is that what you did to your arm? Trying to escape?"
Jiraiya frowned, twisting his brow and hunching his shoulders as he grappled with a reality that wasn't clicking in his mind.
"No. I used the Senjutsu to help seal the Amaterasu flame."
Tsunade's eyes went wide with a new worry, scanning back to the petrified arm and connecting why Jiraiya had turned it to stone. The sage's eyes met Tsunade's, a confusion etched across his entire being.
"Then, Itachi trapped me in the Tsukuyomi."
The Tsukyomi. The legendary ultimate ability of the forbidden eyes of the Itachi Uchiha. A technique that trapped the victim inside their own mind, prisoner to horrors orchestrated by Itachi Uchiha, himself. You couldn't fight it, you couldn't escape it - you could only suffer while days of torture take place in the span of seconds.
"How are you even conscious right now?" She hissed, hand flashing to Jiraiya's temple and her eyes peering into the back of his cornea like she was trying to see inside his brain. This made zero sense. People didn't escape the Tsukuyomi. In all the world, Tsunade was the only person to have successfully rehabilitated the psychological impact left behind by that technique. Her patients had been, for lack of a better word, broken. Like windows smashed in, their minds a hundred thousand pieces and nothing but luck and time hoping to be able to piece together something at least something resembling the original frame.
For many, they never recovered.
And yet, here Jiraiya was. Saying something that made no sense and very clearly not dead or in a coma. She forced open his eyelids, making sure a second time he was actually awake.
"This shouldn't be possible, Jiraiya." She insisted. "It must have been another genjustu. That technique breaks down spirit at its core. It's not something you can resist."
Jiraiya laughed, but it wasn't funny. "I didn't resist at all."
"What?"
"There was nothing to resist. He caught me, and then he just…let me go. There wasn't torture. I wasn't trapped anywhere. It was just…space. Space and Itachi."
Her hand left his temple, rolling back until she was sitting on her heels and her brow a furrowed knot.
"Why?"
"He wanted to talk."
"To talk?"
It was ridiculous. The mastermind of the Uchiha genocide. The most wanted man in the history of the fire nation used his most powerful technique, one made to break the minds and souls of any unfortunate to be caught in it's gaze, just so they could…talk?
"About what?"
"He said that we should go back to Konoha."
Jiraiya's voice was burning. Ash on his tongue and iron in his throat. He met Tsunade's gaze and something in his eyes were burning like whole of Konoha had caught fire.
"He said we should go back to the Leaf because Danzō Shimura is about to kill Hiruzen and stage a Coup de'etat."
Man, this got re-written a lot but I like this version the most! I actually had a few significantly more dark endings lined up, but I was reflecting on a comment that noted the significantly darker tone in my stories over the years and I ended up wanting to see how I could change that vibe. I don't really set out to write dark stories. I set out to write stories with emotions that are big and interesting. I want to improve as a writer in making sure that doesn't mean I lean to much into "shock value" darkness. It was good feedback, so thanks to that reviewer!
Kismae is a top #5 Naruto character for me and I've written more than a few fanfics where he teaches Naruto how to use Samehada. He's so fun to write and develop, so I hope y'all like how he came out, here. A real force of nature is what I was going for.
Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave a comment if something catches your eye! I hope you all have a great end of year and I'm working to make the next chapter even more fun.
- Silly