Space and time bends around me as I pick my destination; the largest concentration of enemy forces. Space wrinkles, and I appear in the midst of a battle, surrounded on all sides by Zetsu and zombies, already reacting to my sudden appearance.

Time wrinkles, and all of a sudden, everything slows to a crawl. The air seems thick, the world duller, harder to move through. Haste is not a magic I use on myself particularly often, being rather annoying to construct and more annoying to constantly reapply, but against this many agile foes, it's not a question.

I watch, in slow motion, as muscles tense and nerves fire. They're turning, weapons drawing and preparing to skewer me. I move first. One of them is mid-blink, eye slowly closing.

I spend a moment examining them. The Zetsu are normal Somebodies, Hearts and Souls bound together and inhabiting a body. Easy to do, easy to undo. The zombies are slightly different in that they, in a manner vaguely reminiscent to Hidan, are Hearts and Souls loosely bound to their bodies by Chakra, connected to... their summoner? Yes. Putting the zombies down for good is as simple as severing the bindings, but if I can get the summoner... I follow that connection, hoping, for a moment, that it would be an easy kill and I could just sever the connection on his end and get them all at once.

It's Madara.

A foolish hope.

The Proof of Courage leaves an impossibly smooth cut as it passes through them, thinner than it itself is. They're dead before they even know I'm moving. The Zetsu experience the sensation of having their Heart and Soul simply ejected from their Bodies, the Shinigami reaching into this frozen moment to pluck them into his care. The Edo Tensei Zombies simply have their connections to their summoner, and bindings to their Body severed, and they crack and crumble as the jutsu breaks.

In a moment, everything with three meters of me is dead.

I don't waste time running. I just teleport into the vicinity of the next.

Naruto's clone blinked as, for a brief moment, an armoured figure appearing in the midst of the enemies. He recognized it immediately, but he didn't have the opportunity to do anything before Drich vanished, and a black blur briefly darted between the entire group of enemies.

A second later, seemingly simultaneously, they all fell apart, zombies dissolving into dust and Zetsu simply falling into two pieces, upper and lower bodies severed so cleanly it took a moment for the blood start flowing.

A cold chill went through the air, despite the blazing sun above. It felt like death itself was hanging over the battlefield.

Naruto's clone, making a decision, made the ever-familiar handsign to summon another clone, and immediately dispelled it.

"Drich is back and on the battlefield." Naruto's clone reported. Shikaku's head snapped in his direction. "Drich also wiped out the entire E6 battlegroup. No communication."

Shikaku frowned, considering it.

"E8 battlegroup annihilated. Also Drich." Naruto reported, a second later.

It clicked, and Shikaku smiled. "Drich won."

"E3 hit."

And now he realized what was happening. Drich was targeting the largest clusters of enemy groups, applying the Namikaze Maxim in full effect; the idea that, against a sufficiently fast and skilled Ninja, increasing the number of enemy combatants did not meaningfully increase the odds of victory, only the number of enemy casualties. Drich, of course, wasn't a Ninja, but maxim still applied.

"E17 and E16 hit."

"Alright." Shikaku straightened. "Naruto, relay these orders: any group that has their designated enemies wiped out will reinforce any other groups or move to the designated watch positions, whichever is closer. You can dispel any clone that isn't attached to a medical group, or is in a key sensor position, or is in a group that is currently under active conflict with our enemies."

Naruto saluted, a clone briefly popping into existence and equally quickly popping out. "E1 hit." He reported, almost as an afterthought.

Teleportation sure was a useful ability.

Why are there so many fucking Zetsu?! I didn't think that this many had been released!

I sliced, again and again and again. Another and another and another dead for it.

Well, not dead. The Bodies were hardy vessels, capable of surviving being cut in half. Their sudden inactivity was due the fact that I was just pushing the Hearts and Souls out, leaving them empty. No Will to animate, no Heart to guide...

Even so...

As fast as I'm cutting them down, it seems like there's more and more of them taking the others' place. There isn't, the absolute number of enemies was going down, but even so, there were enough of them to outnumber the forces arrayed against them. I need to get rid of more of them, faster.

Thankfully, I have options. I take a pause in between wiping out groups and let the Haste fade. "If I send all of you out, could you restrain yourselves to killing only the Zetsu and zombies?" I ask. Shukaku perks up, intrigued at the prospect of violence, but it's Isobu who speaks first.

"I'm... not that great at precision." Isobu admits. "Most of my abilities are wide range, so I won't be able to pick out individuals in a group. So long as the entire group is enemies, then I can fight, but if not..."

"Don't forget Tobi." Yinkura interjects. "If we go out, we'll be targets for Sharingan control."

"I can stop him from doing that." I'd removed that control before, and while constant attempts to apply it would be a different beast, I was a different beast to what I was all those years ago.

"How will we tell what is an enemy and what is an ally?" Son Gokū asks, and that is a much more valid question.

"Hmm." I considered it. Something that would have to be done on sight, easy and quick ways to distinguish... Kyuubi could do it by himself... but the others...

I can do that.

Hell, I can kill two birds with one stone.