"I remember every speck of blood across my face."
Three months prior, Katabami Gold Mine
Han had to admit that he'd timed his assassination poorly. When he snuck into the village to dispose of Raiga quietly, -where he was planning to show the villagers Raiga's severed head the following morning- he had no idea the former swordsman had lost his marbles years prior.
As the moon was in the pinnacle of the sky, in full funeral garb were the men of the village. They hefted a coffin up a winding passage of escalating rock face until they arrived at the entrance to a mine shaft. Other dark figures were waiting. One of the figures slid his hood off, and Han instantly recognized him as Kurosuki Raiga. And he was crying his eyes out.
Han's henged form eased up the path. He stayed flat against the quarry wall in case his presence was unwelcome. But Raiga's crying was drowning out something: an odd, bass-y sound that was reverberating-
The coffin shook lightly. Muffled screams. Raiga's tears. Raiga's voice launched into a eulogy about the former miner who 'always had a smile on his face' and was a great friend. The rest of the men gathered could only look at the ground while the coffin next to them was beaten desperately by the entrapped man.
Han, from his distant vantage, then saw Raiga command the men to dig, and they did; Clouds gathered above the village for a night rain, distant lightning illuminating the ghastly scene. Han's armorless, brown haired, brown eyed henged form thought better of trying his luck tonight. Raiga was keyed up and the shimmer of the Kiba Blades on his belt told Han that Raiga stayed ready for battle. He turned back down the path and zeroed in on the woodline across the village. He'd have to cross through a common area of houses with a well out front. If he could make it there, no one would know he existed.
The fog in and around the village built dramatically by the time Han reached the bottom of the path. He spared a glance at the living funeral procession, but the moon only helped his eyes so much. He could not count the figures present, but there was movement in the shapes. The men seemed to still be digging.
He walked between the shanty houses and made a beeline for the woods. Once there, he could shed his henge and maneuver back up to the Curry Shop where Naruto was sleeping. He hadn't wanted to involve the boy for several reasons, one of which being that he was as loud as an exploding tag in an interrogation room. Best to finish his mission quickly and quietly, to give the Tsuchikage some semblance of good news before he explained his situation more earnestly.
Han passed the well, but his instincts had him stop on a dime. The hairs on his neck raised and the muscles in his back quivered; Something was wrong. He was being watched, or tracked, or otherwise hunted. Kokuō, deep inside him, rumbled. His settings shifted ever so slightly. Raiga shimmered into existence, leaning against a tree in the very same woodline Han was gunning for.
Genjutsu?
"Ranmaru tells me you have more chakra than most shinobi. He also tells me you want to hurt me! Who are you to interrupt a funeral?!" Raiga questioned. He pushed off the tree with a glare. His eyes were wild and his body was taut.
'Who is Ranmaru? A sensor? Has he known I've been here the entire time?' Han discreetly checked his surroundings by turning slowly to face Raiga. He noticed no one in the woods.
The fog became a little thicker; Even Raiga was only a silhouette now.
"I have come to rid this village of a tyrant," Han said. He dropped the henge and saw Raiga set his feet in a defensive stance. The way Raiga's cloak laid on his wet back made Han think the Kiri missing nin was hiding a bag of some sort.
And then he was gone.
'This fog is chakra induced,' Han noted. It kept getting thicker and thicker. A clear difference between natural fog and chakra fog is that chakra fog makes movement sound distorted or muffled in some way, as if the particles go through more to reach one's ears. And this was proven correct by a hail of shuriken slicing through the mist, trying to bury themselves in Han's waist. He sidestepped the first few and ducked underneath the second wave.
From another angle came a laugh and a hissing lightning ball. Han rolled from the ball and watched as lightning bowed from it and kissed everything around with small offshoots of power. The scorch marks on the bark of nearby trees told Han to give it plenty of leeway. He kept scanning the mist, but Raiga was completely hidden.
'I would have rathered this not get noisy, but I can't hit him if I can't see him!' Han clasped his open palms together and began to gather his chakra. The furnace on his back began to bubble like a giant cauldron.
"Surprise!" Raiga yelled as he jumped from Han's left side. Han saw lightning arc through the blades as they swung down on his form.
"Release!" Han let the steam he'd been building release from his furnace in a 360 degree wave, evaporating the mist and throwing Raiga clear through one of the houses. A shriek followed, and two civilians ran out, fleeing into the woods. Raiga must have hit a support beam, because a moment later the house caved in on itself. The noise was deafening. So much for a silent kill.
'I hope he is dead. My presence has been obvious enough tonight.' Han worried about word of a ninja battle at the mines spreading; Too many questions would be asked. The Akatsuki would follow that lead, as would any other village with an interest in the mine.
Han stepped through the ruins of the house to find Raiga's body and confirm the kill. The clouds above had coalesced and proceeded to give a light rain to the earth. He began to toss boards and beams from the wreckage, hopeful to be back before the storm got worse.
And then the house exploded in a blast of chakra-fueled lightning. Raiga rose from the rubble with the scream of a banshee. He lifted the Kiba Blades above his head and sent a lightning ball double the size of the first at Han, who couldn't move in time to completely avoid it. The lightning ball's loose threads reached out and zapped Han. His entire body went stiff as the lightning chakra coursed through his armor and nerves. His furnace made things worse, but the pain passed relatively quickly. His mobility did not return as quick, however.
Raiga closed the distance between them and sliced Han in the chest from shoulder to hip. Usually, Han's armor would have blocked any strike, but the Kiba were the sharpest blades ever made. They cut through his chest plate like paper and gave him a long, sizzling gash that forced him back.
Reeling from the blow, Han's senses went on overdrive and as he regained his footing, his hands flew through seals.
"Suiton: Water Wall!" Han pooled the rain water and allowed it to stack into a towering structure. This jutsu would block the following lightning ball he was sure Raiga would fire. But fear entered Han's heart when he looked up and saw Raiga standing atop his water wall. And the lightning that seemed so far in the distance earlier flashed behind the former swordsman.
This was why the locals called him Raiden, then. He had brought the storm to battle.
Han immediately smashed a steam-powered fist into his own jutsu, destabilizing it and knocking Raiga from his perch. For a moment, the water of the jutsu blended with the rain steadily beating down. Han saw Raiga twist in midair and right himself on the side of the mountain Han traveled up a moment ago. From his elevated height, Raiga let the lightning in the clouds reach down and touch his Kiba Blades. It was like they were lightning rods, able to handle the natural power of the lightning without a problem.
"I'd bury you, but I wouldn't have anything nice to say!" Raiga shouted through the storm. He began to fire bolts of lightning from his Kiba Blades one after the other. He laughed maniacally.
Raiga's aim was atrocious, but the lightning bolts that came thundering down were so powerful that they were blowing holes in the earth.
Han dodged accordingly, but he noticed Raiga hadn't broken so much as a sweat since his onslaught began. 'His control over the natural lightning in the storm is going to make it impossible for me to close this gap between us! I could wait him out until the storm passes, but he's going to catch me, eventually!' Han was fast, but he knew his limits. His taijutsu speed was almost unmatched, but this was literal lightning.
He flipped over a close call and kept a sharp eye on the bolts zinging off Raiga's blades.
Then something he didn't see hit him in the chest. He heard Kokuō rumble again, encasing him with a tail of chakra to heal, but his chest was on fire. And as the cloak encased him, he realized he'd been duped again, if only for a moment. Raiga was actually six feet to the left of where he thought!
'Raiga must be having help; No one should even be able to cast a genjutsu on a Jinchūriki, but this is the second time I've been trapped!'
With his enhanced speed, despite his injuries, Han shot to the right of Raiga's position and zigged and zagged nearer to him, avoiding the lightning attacks as they passed right above his head.
Raiga read his strategy and sent a lightning ball his way. But this lightning ball, full of natural lightning, spread much further in width. Every lightning arc connected to the drops of rain in a large berth around the ball itself, making an electric field Han watched spread over him.
His chakra cloak blocked the pain, but his nerves still locked up for a moment. And he watched Raiga load both blades with lightning and point them directly at him.
He ducked just in time, but the bolts shot straight and true; straight to where Han had come from, straight to the house with Naruto and Karashi and Sanshō inside. An explosion rocked the distant woods. Oh no.
Han compartmentalized this worrying thought and quickly swung his chakra tail around. He batted Raiga from his perch atop the mountain, sending him sprawling into the woods below. Raiga took a tree down with him as he crashed and the ground squelched below the massive weight of the upturned tree.
'He is much tougher than that,' Han surmised. 'I saw his arms; they're full of lightning scarring. Best to not take any chances.' He began to flip through the forty-four seals of a Water Dragon Bullet.
Again, Raiga exploded the environment around him in a burst of electricity. His cloak had slipped off, revealing a solid figure underneath that heaved with rage. Despite still being four inches shorter than Han, Raiga was a hulk. His forearm muscles bulged everytime he tightened his grip on the Kiba Blades and let the electricity taste his skin. But the funny back bulge underneath his cloak was nowhere to be seen, like it had never existed.
Raiga spied Han next to the well, but it was like he could care less about the Iwa Jinchūriki. His eyes rolled about the landscape and he staggered around the hole he put in the forestry. "Ranmaru! Where are you?!"
Han let the Water Dragon fly. It rose from the well in its serpentine grace and the head coalesced into a monstrous face with fangs of chakra-imbued water. It swelled larger and larger as the rain struck it, breaking apart the stone well's base as it became thicker and thicker. Raiga paid it no mind, even when it roared for his attention.
"Ranmaru?!" The ex-swordsman screamed into the storm above him. A faint voice called back, further into the woods. Han thought it sounded like a child, a young boy, but that couldn't be possible. He hoped it wasn't possible.
It was too late to stop his attack.
The Water Dragon soared through the air and engulfed Raiga as the man ran deeper into the woods. The water pounded Raiga's body into the earth in a brutal fashion. Han was sure he heard a bone break. Raiga's limp form laid at the edge of the destroyed forest.
Han felt guilt deep in his soul for striking the seemingly mentally ill Shinobi, but years of war adrenaline was still coursing. He kept his eyes on Raiga, but dropped his one-tailed cloak. Kokuō sighed deep in his chest, glad to be resting again.
"Raiga?" A small voice strained through the dark night. Han tensed and braced for Raiga's partner to attack, but it never came. Instead, a frail boy crawled to him. He dragged himself through the mud of the earth and the debris and the chaos to be next to Raiga's unconscious or dead body. The boy couldn't have been older than seven.
Seven was a dangerous age in the world of ninja.
"Get away from him!" Han yelled.
But another voice interrupted the fray. "Han! Hey! The house is on fire! It got hit by lightning or something and I can't find Karashi or the old lady!"
Han spun around and there Naruto stood gulping air. His hair was singed and his new clothes were burnt at the ends. His hands were black, as if he stuck them in the coals of a fire.
Even in the rain, in the middle of the night, he could see Naruto's panicked face. The boy was not ready for this world. Not as he was. This violence Han had inflicted, the collateral damage that was involved… It was too much for the young Jinchūriki.
"Naruto, get away from here and hide! We must leave this place as soon as I'm done with Raiga!"
"Raiga?!" Naruto exclaimed, even more alert now. "But what about Karashi and his grandma?"
Han felt the chakra from Raiga spike. "Just go!" He told the Uzumaki. Naruto hesitated for a moment, but then scrambled away.
Han turned back around to see the boy next to Raiga slump into the forest floor. He and Raiga were encased in blue auras, but Raiga's grew while the boy's faded until it was extinguished. Slowly, Raiga regained his senses. And he screamed at the sight of the body next to him. Of course, the first person he saw was Han.
"You monster!" Raiga yelled. "You killed Ranmaru! The only person worthy of life!" His tears flowed heavy in the night rain. Thunder boomed above their heads dangerously. Raiga raised his Kiba Blades in blind fury.
A vein of lightning came down right in front of Han so close that it singed his eyebrows.
What seemed like a thousand more followed it. Everywhere Han turned, another bolt of lightning tried to take his legs from him. The earth they struck disintegrated into the night.
Han was moving off animal instinct. If he thought about his next move, he would get zapped to death, he was sure of it. He flipped and back stepped and rolled and dove from the impossibly fast lightning Raiga wielded.
"I'm going to grill you alive!" The rogue ninja shouted above the crashing lightning. "Watch this! Raiton: Lightning Dragon Tornado!" Raiga began to spin wildly. It formed a massive funnel of lightning that twisted and bent, almost like liquid, until Han could see the ruby red stare of a giant dragon above him, twice the size of his Water Dragon Bullet.
Natural lightning is one of the most devastating things on earth; Even as Han coated himself with three tails worth of Kokuō's chakra, he knew it wasn't going to be enough. The maw of the beast chomped into him and lightning fangs sunk into his back and left arm. But instead of breaking, the technique held, and lifted Han into the air and slammed him into the side of the mountain.
The jutsu dissipated and the rock face gave way atop Han's paralyzed form. He struggled to prop himself up with one arm, but one long leap later, Raiga stood over him menacingly. He waved a Kiba blade in Han's face.
"You're not worth the coffin I'll put you in," Raiga huffed. He finally showed signs of exertion. He breathed deeper than before; His distinct bandages had been burned away, and his body was covered in electrical burns. "To kill Ranmaru, that was your greatest mistake. You're going to die on this mountain!"
Raiga raised Kiba again and the lightning entered him. It reminded Han of the Lightning Armor of the Raikages. He wondered if they could even stop the maniac in front of him now.
'Kokuō, we need to go to Version 2!' Han determined. Something deep in his gut rumbled. It would take too long-
"Hey, you jerk! Get away from him!"
Raiga turned. Han couldn't follow his gaze because of the lightning in his veins; he couldn't even crane his neck. But he knew it was Naruto trying to play the hero.
"What does a runt like you think he's doing talking to me?" Raiga emphasized his point by flaring the lightning around his body. "Can't you see I'm busy burying someone?! Have you no shame for the dead?!"
"The only dead people are the ones you struck with lightning, Karashi and Sanshō," Naruto fired back. "They didn't deserve to die! They didn't even know who you were!"
"Well I don't know who they are, either, and I don't know you! So why don't you just die!" Raiga fired a string of lightning in Naruto's direction. Han felt his transformation coming, but he hesitated; If he fully transformed, this entire area (and the people here) would be a dust cloud, a footnote in the history of the world. Was that worth stopping one evil man?
Han didn't have to answer that question. Raiga's face twisted from rage into fear in an instant. A chakra tail, darker and heavier than any Han could ever make, whipped across the front of Han's vision and deflected a lightning bolt before whipping back around and ensnaring Raiga's leg. The appendage burned and Raiga screamed as he was thrown into the sky. A shrill roar shook the rubble Han lay in. Could this be the power of the Kyuubi?
"You hurt people that were nice to us!" Han heard the distorted voice of young Naruto say.
Then Naruto flashed in front of Han, and Han saw Naruto's body grow; the boy was covered in a deep red cloak with three massive tails of chakra behind him. They reminded Han of flames that burned low and then exploded upward. The ground cratered under Naruto when he crouched and crossed his arms in a X. Han saw the tips of his long fingers grow sharp: claws.
He'd never seen such physical transformations before. In his own cloaked forms, his body remained the same until he harnessed all of Kokuō's chakra and transformed completely. But Naruto was gaining physical advantages- his legs had elongated slightly, to the point where his pants stopped above his ankles. His shirt had ripped at the back and a bony spine made an appearance.
It was gruesome- a science experiment gone wrong. Just what had Konoha done to their weapon?
Han began to dig himself from the rock face he was embedded in, and his arm came free as Raiga landed like a cat, perfectly, across the quarry. He was resting his weight on his non chakra burned leg, but was even angrier now than before.
"Ranmaru is dead and you won't let me bury his killer," Raiga said. "You're worse than I am!" He drew lightning down to his Kiba Blades and swung them in arcs at Naruto and Han. The lightning waves were long and sharp; they sliced through treetops on their way to Naruto, who blocked them for Han, but Han could tell Naruto was reaching a limit. The boy was sliding back with each wave he tanked. Raiga kept swinging and guiding the lightning in different patterns.
Han yanked his leg free from the mountain. "Naruto! How long can you hold your cloak?"
Naruto turned his head, still having to brace against the lightning onslaught. "I didn't even know it came on! I've never done this before! I'm just so angry!" Naruto gritted out.
"Naruto," Han directed, "his mobility is limited since you've hurt his leg! If I draw his attention, can you close the distance and take him out?"
"I can try!"
Han nodded to the boy. "Alright, go!"
Naruto took one last wave of lightning and then shot off into the woods below. Raiga tried to track him with the Kiba Blades, but Naruto moved too quickly for Raiga's aim to follow.
Han, meanwhile, ran through seals. "Suiton: Giant Vortex Jutsu!" A spinning void of water rose by the Jinchūriki and fired at Raiga. It tracked along the edge of the rock face and ran around the mountain, carving a path through the rock as it made its way to its target.
Raiga sensed the danger and shot a lightning ball at the mass of water. The ball hit it head on, but was swallowed completely and the water kept coming. Raiga lept from one foot as the water vortex sailed beneath and missed him. At the height of his leap, a chakra cloaked Naruto emerged from the woodline and all but teleported into the air with the swordsman.
"Rasengan!" An enraged Naruto yelled. In his outstretched hand was supposed to be a ball of chakra.
Instead, there was nothing. Naruto shoved his empty hand forward. His nails dug into Raiga's chest, but that was all.
Naruto's shock didn't last long before Raiga brought a Kiba blade down and, with no difficulty, severed the boy's outstretched arm. His good foot found Naruto's chest and he kicked off the Jinchūriki and vaulted away, back to the earth.
Naruto's arm plopped harmlessly on the ground. Naruto crashed a small ways away from it, near an open mine shaft littered with unused supplies, wooden support beams, and kegs of blasting powder.
His wound cauterized instantly; the Kyuubi chakra did its best to heal the stub of his arm by closing it. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt. Han heard his blood curdling scream echo through the midnight air. It was almost a howl.
Raiga sent a ball of lightning Han's way to show he hadn't forgotten about the giant. A hasty water wall rose from the rain around him and blocked it effortlessly. As the cackling wall fell into the earth, Han saw his fatal flaw: he'd taken his eyes off Raiga and Naruto.
He watched the bolts fly from Raiga's Kiba Blades. Even the lightning was in slow motion, zipping and racing at a snail's pace toward the writhing teenager. Raiga, true to form, kept his terrible aim consistent. He didn't hit Naruto with the bolts; he hit the blasting powder next to him.
It brought the whole mountain down.
The earth came crashing in cataclysmic waves of brimstone and destruction. The blasting powder had leveled off the top of an entire peak that now lay smoldering, even in the thunderstorm's worst throes.
Bits of rock and sizzling wood splinters fell all around. And in the midst of this, Raiga looked pleased, like he was born for the violence he'd wrought. He twirled the Kiba Blades in his hands and chuckled at the power at his fingertips.
Han, meanwhile, was beside himself. Did Raiga know what he'd just done? He'd just killed a Jinchūriki- the most valuable thing to a Hidden Village aside from its acting Kage. This could start another Shinobi World War. Konoha was now without a beast, Suna had no Kage- the Northern Villages could sweep down and finally turn the tables without nearly as much resistance. They could take the fertile lands of Hi no Kuni and sustain their growth into rich powerhouses.
But it'd be another war. It'd be a long, violent, bloody war. And the mere thought of another full scale conflict sent heat into Han's face. His skin bubbled and boiled and broiled. He'd be asked, commanded, to fight again. To kill the enemy. To abandon his silent existence as a weapon of the past. And that was just something he would not do. Two wars were two too many.
Through his haze of anger, another thing unsettled him. Raiga had also just freed the most dangerous of the nine beasts from its cage. Even Kokuō, deep within him and detached from the violence outside, was deeply disturbed. They'd seen the Hachibi before; If the Kyuubi was stronger than it, then the world should be concerned. It could reform anywhere.
"So," Raiga turned to Han and drew him from his thoughts, "a child for a child. A life," he paused, spying Ranmaru's body in the forest gully below, "for a life. We're done here. I already buried yours. Now I need to bury mine." And he lept down to the body below and cradled it in his steaming arms.
"Raiga!" Han yelled. He took a step forward off the mountainside, but a bolt of lightning came down right in front of him.
"I said we were done!" The lightning wielder screamed. "I need you to attend his burial! Ranmaru deserves a crowd!"
A dreadful feeling encapsulated Han's soul.
"Raiga-!" His words died in his throat.
Behind Raiga, the mass of rocky destruction tremored, then shook. A boulder twice the size of Han suddenly rocketed across the landscape. It crashed into the earth a considerable distance away. More followed it, like they were being pitched from the heap.
The debris vibrated until a section caved in, and out rolled Naruto.
Even over the rain, they could hear the sickly heaves of his caved-in chest cavity. It was like someone was sucking in air through a wet rag; Blood spilled from the boy like he was pouring wine into the Earth. His whole arm was broken from shoulder to knuckle- the elbow joint was completely inverted, and Han thought he saw white protrude from his hand. His other arm was still merely a nub. And an ankle had been shattered, maybe the shin with it. Naruto gritted his teeth and Han saw the boy's shin bone seemingly pull itself back into correct position with a light crackle. Well, 'light' enough for Han to hear it through the beating rain. His chakra cloak wasn't on, but Han felt more power radiating from Naruto now than he had before. Much more power.
"But I buried you," Raiga told the boy. "You're dead! Go back to sleep!" He called another lightning bolt down, and it struck true. It hit Naruto in the head and electrocuted him where he laid. His body convulsed until Raiga had no fun watching the corpse cook.
There was no scream, because Naruto couldn't scream. But a moment after the lightning passed, an eternal moment of fear and baited breath, there was an ear splitting roar.
At first, neither Raiga nor Han knew where it came from.
And then they saw Naruto, covered with a beautiful, fiery cloak of four flaming tails behind him, rise. His body yanked jaggedly from the ground like a marionette puppet. It happened so quickly: Han witnessed Naruto's arm regrow in milliseconds. His other arm whipped into the correct shape with a pop, as if someone had just reset the entire thing. His chest cracked open and was sewn back together by whatever force was controlling him. The blood on his body evaporated from the heat waving off his cloak. All these horrid things and the sounds they made, but Naruto's eyes never opened. Was he still unconscious?
"I don't like your tone," a malevolent voice echoed across the battlefield. It came from Naruto, but it most certainly was not his. Han saw the already damaged forest around them wilt rapidly; Naruto's cloak kept growing larger and larger, much larger than it should have compared to Han's cloaks. The more it spread, the more the Earth around it shriveled and died. It was like his own chakra, his own life force, was poison to life.
The cloak that raged around Naruto coalesced into a disfigured beast with a thousand teeth and massive, maroon eyes. Slits appeared and honed in on Raiga.
Raiga set Ranmaru down and even he, on top of the world only a moment ago, bent a knee to the overwhelming weight of the creature in front of him. A mix of awe and disgust twisted his face into a snarl. "You're a real demon, aren't you? Like the one in Zabuza, that bastard! No wonder I couldn't bury you. You don't deserve to be buried, you need to be destroyed!"
"You tried that. You failed because you're weak! You show compassion to the child dead in your arms. Where did it get him? You humans and your love! When will you learn that strength is built on hatred, that the only thing that matters is hate?!" The voice boomed, crystal clear in the storm. Han swore it reverberated across the entire country.
He didn't know what to do; Should he stop Naruto? Could he stop Naruto?
Yet again, the world turned before Han was ready. They cloak above Naruto's reformed body shifted- the maw of the beastly image opened, and a black mass began to form; a Bijūdama!
Raiga must have had no idea what was coming. He stood tall and let lightning cover his mortal body once last time. He whispered something Han didn't hear to the body at his feet, and began to walk toward the literal demon across from him. And when the beast roared at him…
He roared back.
And let lightning fly.
The chakra cloak's maw chomped close and the lightning struck it harmlessly. Steam emanated from the edges of the fiery mouth. It fired a beam of chakra, a precise line of destruction that Raiga managed to duck under by simply diving off his good leg. Behind him, the beam carved through the mountainside and blew a perfect tunnel through the country.
Raiga gave everything he had. He poured his chakra into the Kiba Blades and lightning filled him so fully that he seemed to levitate as he fired bolt after bolt. He was so focused on his attack that he failed to notice the chakra claw that wrapped around the chakra beam like a thin vine. It seized Raiga and he gasped as it burned and crushed his midsection. Blood flew from his mouth as the claw yanked him back to Naruto's unconscious, wobbling body.
"Watch!" The voice spoke and Naruto's eyes forced open. Crimson slits stared into Raiga's bloody face, and neither of the two expected mercy.
The chakra claw released its hold, but Naruto's arm yanked forward and took hold of the older Shinobi's ankle and pulled.
The ensuing blood spray was from Raiga's leg detaching at the hip. His body had yet to hit the ground before Naruto used his own appendage as a club and bludgeoned Raiga.
Han felt himself move as though he were watching himself from above. The brutality he was witnessing did not make sense, it couldn't be Naruto carrying out this act. Not the boy he'd met by chance, by fate, by accident. He slid to a stop mere feet away from the edge of Naruto's wildly burning cloak.
Naruto's physical body gasped for air. The man formerly known as Raiga was no more; Only a bloody caricature of a human body remained.
Naruto's possessed form dropped its weapon and turned to the armored giant. Between deep breaths and steaming exhales, he spoke.
"You've gotten soft, Kokuō. Comfortable. A time will come where we need to reassert ourselves on the food chain. Be ready."
"For what? Are you the Kyuubi no Kitsune? What happened to Naruto?" Han demanded he answer.
"I sense the hatred in your heart, human husk. That is good! When I destroy this useless body's soul, we'll see whose hatred is greater: my thousands of years of war, or your sad speck of an existence!"
Han's body was telling him danger. And he listened, and stepped back, eyes glued on the wicked smile spread across the boy's face. "What're you talking about?"
Something like a laugh echoed around him. It shook the dead leaves from the still-standing trees, it rattled the piles of stones, it scared the life out of him.
And then the chakra cloak receded into Naruto in a vacuum-like fashion, pulling in the loose dirt in the air and the rain and the wind of the storm above and suspending everything for a moment. And when the cloak was completely gone and Naruto's eyes shifted from the slitted crimson to beautiful blues, the boy's body stopped functioning. He sank to the earth like he was weighted.
Naruto breathed softly. "Gaara… Suna… brother."
'What the fuck?' Han's mind raced a million different ways. This complicated… everything. They had to leave now. Kami forbid anyone still alive saw them. Word would get around about what happened here and they needed to be extremely far away when that happened. But Suna? The desert?
In reality, it was genius. All fingers would point to the obvious destination: the ports to the south, never the harsh desert to the east. But Iwa and Suna's history was not one of fond remembrance. Still, he had a Konoha Shinobi with him, and they were now either allies with Konoha, or needed some form of revenge or leverage. It was worth the risk.
Hell, it beat the Akatsuki, and that was good enough for Han.
He spent the next hour in the darkness, the rain, the filth of their creation. He worked his Doton to cover the most egregious signs of jutsu usage. Raiga's body was sealed away and the Kiba Blades with it. He even sank and buried the destroyed houses, along with the remains of the well. It was as if they were never there at all. The dead? The destroyed mountain? A simple natural disaster. A terrible lightning storm. A series of unfortunate events. Nothing more.
As he grabbed Naruto and hefted the boy over his shoulder and prepared to flee yet again, a group of eyes peered at him from beyond the remains of the quarry. The people of the village, he realized, were huddled in one spot, a small house, far away from the carnage the Shinobi inflicted on each other. He recognized Karashi and Sanshō among them. He hoped they weren't injured.
A water clone formed next to Han and made its way to them. Once it reached them, all it did was put a finger to its lips and held it there for a moment before turning back into water at their feet.
The real Han turned tail and stomped his way across the watery plains and random mountains of Kawa no Kuni. He was going to go until he hit sand, and then would soldier on until Sunagakure wanted itself to be found.
How hard could it be to find a metropolis in an empty desert?