Oh wow, you guys are all awesome. Thank you for your reviews.
Twentieth chapter! Woohoo! I honestly didn't expect to get this far. Thanks for sticking with this story everyone that favourited, followed and reviewed. You're all the best.
I can honestly say that the fight between Naruto and Pein is going to be different from the one in canon, the fact that they aren't fighting in Konoha but in Pein's home turf, Ameagakure, should be the first sign.
Shout out to Ezeakel for your idea with this chapter, it was greatly appreciated.
I'm pretty hesitant to put this chapter up but…yeah…here goes…
Let me not keep you guys waiting,
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 20
It was the heavy rain that fell on Naruto that woke him up from his daze.
He shook his head and first flexed his fingers, then wiggled his toes, then finally moved his neck to look at where he was. The first thing he caught was that there was a gaping hole in the roof and that was where he noticed Ame's rain was falling through, the next thing he realised was that he had crashed dinner.
The family dining table was broken in two with him in the centre. Thank goodness for the blue iron bubble that had caught him in time or he would have severely injured his spine. The family of seven, probably five civilians and two genin, if the fact that they had their kunai out in their shaky hands was any indication, were huddled in one corner of the room.
The blonde seal master huffed and sat up slowly, knowing that the only injury he was sporting was a sore chest where the strange attack had hit him.
Naruto took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his wet hair; he smiled slowly at them and motioned for them to calm down, but they of course didn't. He fully understood their situation; he was a foreign ninja that had dropped from the sky, through their roof, and their dining table, interrupting dinner.
He rubbed his eyes and removed his glasses from a seal on his neck, fixing them in place and activating it; the rain stopped blurring his vision and he could see their chakra networks. He blinked twice and the chakra capacity turned to heat vision, then back to normal.
Satisfied they weren't a threat, Naruto waved at them. "Hello."
The sheer tone he used when he said this, relaxing and light-hearted, made the two genin slightly lower their weapons, but they hastily raised them back up. "State your business…Wave shinobi," one of the genin commanded, probably a male, after getting a good look at his forehead protector.
"That won't interest you." He waved that way and strapped on his forearm and shin protectors. "More importantly, you all need to calm down."
"Calm down? You ruined dinner!" a girl yelled, the other genin.
Naruto raised a finger to retort but his sensory seals flared, he looked up quickly and cursed under his breath. "Get down!"
"Why should we listen to you!?"
The blonde leader then threw both of his palms over his head, lying on his back, and a hazy blue bubble covered him, the bubble expanded and covered the whole house just as a four-armed, two-faced person dropped down from out of the sky. The strange-looking shinobi began dealing heavy blows to the iron bubble.
"Run! Now!"
He clapped his hands and the bubble threw the attacker away, he flipped to his feet and a hazy bubble curved to life under his feet; when they hesitated to obey he groaned in frustration and leaped through the hole in the ceiling as a shadow clone burst to life under him and ran at the family. The clone made its clones and hefted the genin and their family on their shoulders, disregarding the struggle they were making. The Naruto clones leapt out of the house just as it collapsed around their ears. The genin caught sight of the original blonde bouncing over the orange-haired, four-armed attacker and lashing at him with his silver ropes that crackled with energy.
The four-armed Asura path frowned heavily and shot missiles at the bouncing blonde from his chest. Naruto ran lengthwise away from the explosions but had to front-flip over a three-headed dog. He furrowed his eyebrows in thought. 'I'm sure I've seen those eyes somewhere.'
"They're my Father's eyes, kid," Kurama grunted, standing on his hind legs and watching his holder dodge and flip over various attacks from two paths of Pein, though they didn't know that was their name.
'Father?' Naruto mumbled and leapt over a stretched arm from the Asura path. He landed on the limb and ran to the shocked path, surprised that the coating of chakra on his feet was protecting him from being electrocuted. When he got to the path's head, he slapped his palms together and a ground-shattering repulsive force blasted him and the path apart. A half snake, half tiger chomped down on his air-borne body but he exploded into chakra smoke, leaving a log for the creature to swallow; the real Naruto was crouching inside the destroyed residential house's rubble. He formed two more clones and they fearlessly ran at the orange-haired duo.
"I didn't just appear, you know. I was born or rather created."
'We'll talk about that later. What do you know about those eyes?'
"My Father, the Sage of Six Paths, had those eyes. They are called the rinnegan. I didn't stay with him for too long but I got what they could mostly do. A major ability is controlling gravity, like that first guy; the Deva path. Another is that he could augment his body with mechanical parts, the second guy; the Asura path. Another is that he could summon immortal animals, any kind of animals, and sometimes even people like the third guy; the Animal Path. Another can absorb chakra and make barriers, the Preta path. There's an ability the two tails once told me that he could read minds by touching people and taking their souls from his opponent's bodies, the Human path. The last I know of is that he can resurrect anyone, the Outer path. My brothers and sisters rumoured that he has another major ability, I think they called it the Naraka path; I'm not sure what it does but they say he can restore anyone to full health or even back to life."
'Ok, now I need to narrow them all down.' Naruto was forced to roll away from a stretched metal fist that smashed into his cover. His blue bubble shielded him from the debris and the seal master retaliated by absorbing the rain into his right hand, the chakra beam seal and a tentacle made out of water were formed. He channelled his lightning affinity, changing the water tentacle into an electrified water whip.
He lashed his arm at the four-armed man and it was caught easily. He opened his right palm and a paper seal sped through the water and attached to the man's hand; wrought iron chains erupted from the seal and effectively held the man down.
Naruto ran full tilt to his opponent but before he could cut off his head he was summarily thrown back from an invisible gravity attack. The blonde used his whip to catch the edge of a building and slow down his descent. Four more red-haired opponents dropped down; Naruto could distinguish the one that could control gravity, the one that had augmented body parts, the one that could summon animals and now the fourth one grabbed his chains and sucked out the chakra that had created it, freeing his orange-haired comrade.
'The last one should be the Preta path.'
Ideas and plans flitted through Naruto's head as he stared down the four paths.
His electrical water whip at the ready, he held up a half-ram hand seal with his left hand. "Multiple Shadow Clones."
Dozens of clones burst into life beside him and ran to the four, and as expected a gravitational attack repulsed them away but the rinnegan paths were forced to leap away when a stubborn clone exploded from the ground and threw a windmill shuriken at the Animal path. The clone flipped through a few hand seals afterwards.
"Shadow Shuriken technique." The single windmill shuriken turned into ten and whirred through the rain at them. The three-headed dog intercepted the attack and the half snake, half tiger too burst from the ground and bit down on the clone, roaring to the sky when it turned into chakra smoke.
The boy felt a terrible force yank him forward and he was caught by the neck by the Deva path. "Do not resist. Defeat is inevitable."
"Defeat? I don't know the meaning of that word." Naruto gritted out and winced when the hand around his neck tightened. How was the Deva path even able to bypass his blue bubble?
"You are against a god, child. Nothing, not even your seals, will save you," the Preta path muttered from the Deva path side. He stalked forward to Naruto.
"I'm not so sure about that." Naruto snapped his fingers and his hazy blue iron shield repulsed the paths away yet again, not as strong as when he would slap his hands but strong enough. This time though the Deva paths whole arm tore off, so it remained tight around Naruto's neck. The blonde boy pulled the arm off with his water whip and that was when he noticed two more orange-haired people dropping down from the leader's tower. A demonic head erupted from the ground after one of the newcomers muttered a jutsu and a long tongue wrapped around the one-armed Deva path and pulled him into its mouth.
'That must be the Naraka path.'
"Yeah. Seems like something the rinnegan can do." The grisly sight of the kind of hellish head restoring the Deva path was very disturbing. Meanwhile, the Asura and the Human path ran at him, while the Animal path summoned more and more strange animals to attack.
It was like watching a tsunami smash into a small rock; the animals and the orange-haired shinobi washed over Naruto.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Daku closed his eyes and focused, trying to sense a tingle in his stomach seal so he could locate Naruto.
"Anything?" Mole asked nervously, her mole mask perched up on her head so the occupants of Naruto's office; Frog, Mole, Zabuza, Haku, Rat and Daku could see how wide her soft brown eyes were. She was nervously clenching and unclenching her fists behind her back, away from their eyes, and she was at the same time trying to calm her heart down.
"Nothing. It's like Master Naruto's chakra control destruction seals are jamming our connection."
"Do you think Master would just leave on his own?" Haku asked, also having his Wave Hunter ninja mask set on his head. The ice release user frowned in thought as he asked this.
"Master Naruto never leaves without informing me," Frog stated, and it was a fact; embarrassing enough Frog knew where Naruto was at any time, even if he was in the bathroom.
"What about the reverse summoning seal he has on us?" Mole asked, making sure to control the quiver in her voice so no one would notice.
"It works for us if the connection is strong. Something is jamming my connection. So that leaves it if he summons us." Everyone there had a reverse summoning seal for each other that was connected through Naruto, the hub point, so he was what most would refer to as the connection line between his inner circle.
It worked by thinking of the person they wanted to summon, holding out their hands at the desired location, the person being summoned would be alerted, and Naruto would instinctively connect the two via the reverse summoning seal between his shoulder blades, and thus the person being summoned would be fired or dropped out, depending on the summoners goal. The seal wasn't as complex as anyone would think. It was inspired by the summoning seal Orochimaru had on his arm but the kanji were shifted and keyed to the members of the inner circle.
"Doesn't he want our help? I'm sure he's in trouble; he's a freaking danger magnet." Zabuza grunted from his seat across the room, he folded his fingers over his chest, and the head cleaver sword was leaned against the wall beside him.
"From what I know about Master Naruto, he only asks for help if he is against someone out of his fuinjutsu capabilities," like with Kisame Hoshigaki all those months ago, everyone filled in what Daku said.
Naruto was a very independent person; he preferred using his strength first until he was forced to ask for help. He wouldn't exactly be called proud, but he could be called highly independent, even when it came to asking Daku or Kyuubi for strength. With all his seals and jutsu knowledge, it was understandable why he was self-sufficient in many circumstances; Naruto hand seals to keep his feet solidly in the ground without much chakra, seals to help him jump higher than any chakra-augmented limb could, a seal that would strengthen his arms so when he moved in for a punch it hurt a lot worse than it should, and many more seals and secrets he wasn't in any rush to reveal. The blonde Wave leader was very capable on his own.
"What do we do now, Daku?" Haku asked, standing by the door with his arms crossed.
"Since we don't know how long he will be away we need to make sure no one knows he's gone. I'll Henge into him to keep up appearances." He then transformed into their blonde master easily. "Then we have to be ready for anything." They all nodded and flitted out of the room. The dark shadow sat down on Naruto's desk and waved his right hand, and four DARK shinobi flickered before him on their knees. "This is a triple S rank secret, Baboon, Raven, Eagle, Leopard. If this gets out the punishment is death." The four black ops members gulped and nodded, making sure to keep their heads down. 'Naruto' then sifted through the mission requests on his desk and handed them an S rank mission. "Do you accept?"
Raven read through the mission quickly and nodded his head curtly. "Yes, Lord Naruto."
"Dismissed." And they flickered out of the office.
Naruto had handpicked the best of the best from his DARK shinobi force, the ones that were renowned for a particular field and merged them into a team, with Mole as their captain while at the same time serving as the deputy DARK commander. Naruto had personally put them through the same trust test as Rat, Mole and Frog; telling them 'critical village information', leaving around huge sums of money, 'forgetting to close' important documents, and some other things. They had passed, making them the first notable Hoshi clan members to lose their restraint seals, the next being the Hoshi clan head and the Hoshi genin; it would take a few more months of being under observation before the rest could be freed from their unknown scrutiny.
'Naruto' walked to the big window in his office and looked outside at the developing country that was spread out around the leader's tower; he put his hands behind his back and stared at everything and nothing at all.
The mission he had given the DARK team was that they should go and observe Hidden Sound, Orochimaru's hidden village, for an indefinite amount of time until they were called back. This was to scout the borders for any holes or leaks and find out as much as they could about the relatively new hidden village without being detected. This mission was classified as S rank because of the high probability that Orochimaru would detect them; the Sannin was also a seal master but not one of Naruto's calibre.
Daku Naruto swivelled around to return to Naruto's desk, he had work to do.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Naruto was beginning to wonder if it was his Uzumaki heritage that was always bringing him trouble.
First, it had been Sound Ninja trying to kidnap him during the Sand/Sound invasion, then Shukaku the one-tailed racoon, then Kisame and Itachi, then Orochimaru, then Deidara and Sasori and now 'Lord Pain' the rinnegan holder.
The challenges weren't exactly unwanted but they just kept on getting stronger and stronger. This lone thought made him wonder; who was stronger than a 'god'?
Naruto grunted as an iron-muscled arm rammed his gut, and he was pushed in the way of a rampaging red bull. He mustered up some energy from his Uzumaki energy well and gripped the creature's horns, righting himself on its back and slitting its throat with his electric water whip. He was sure he had killed the Animal and the Asura path more than five times but that pesky Naraka path kept on reviving them.
The thing that finally got Naruto to snap was when he was harshly jerked backwards towards the Deva path with another Universal pull.
The blonde seal master grated his teeth and flipped backwards in the air toward the path faster than the orange-haired man could anticipate; Naruto's sandaled foot met the path's face and Naruto jammed his fist through the man's stomach with his whip. He leapt off as the Asura path ran to him but stopped when Naruto's body began to bubble. The boy grunted and his shoulders hunched over, panting under the effort of what he had done and how fast he had done it.
That was when red demonic chakra began bubbling onto his skin, his drenched blonde hair rose into the air like a flame and his cool sky-blue eyes dilated into a crimson red fox sclera.
The water whip in his right hand fell apart and he clenched both of his hands, glaring at the six paths one after the other, before the Asura path took the initiative to run at him. Naruto hopped away numerous times from the ground shattering blows and the missiles launched, and when he caught an opening, he dragged his left foot back on the ground as he hopped away again; the path was summarily ensnared in a seal trap. Blue light glowed around the iron-augmented path as he struggled with all his might to tear out, Naruto breathlessly sped towards him and two tails exploded into sight behind him, wrapping around the man tightly so he wasn't able to move his arms and allowing Naruto to leap onto his shoulders and slam his fist down on the centre of the orange man's head, destroying him again. This time Naruto held his left hand over the dead path and he was easily sealed into a storage seal on his pinkie finger.
The boy snarled bloody murder and his canines stretched halfway down his chin. The ground around him cracked under the monumental effort of holding him up as he crouched down like a tiger into the third stance for the Armadillo fighting style; both of his feet were shoulder-width apart and his arms were at ready positions in front of him.
Two more tails formed behind him and he shot forward, rolling on the ground like a bowling ball that was gradually gathering speed and debris, attaching to his back and his head.
The paths scattered and Naruto followed after the Naraka path relentlessly; a tail lashed out to intercept a red bull and another jammed straight through its mouth and burned it with the demon chakra. He expelled more and more chakra out of his body to burn through more animals that ran to protect the path and tore a clean hole through a lizard-like animal. He was halted in his tracks by a strong attractive force behind him; he jammed three tails into the ground to slow down but the Preta path landed on the red spinning ball of death and began sucking out the Kyuubi chakra.
Naruto growled from inside the ball and slapped his palms together; the path was thrown off and the attractive force that was pulling him to the Deva path was cut off. Naruto bounced in his Armadillo ball after the Preta path just as the man formed a barrier to block him Naruto opened a section of the massive ball, forming a horrendously jagged mouth that had a toothy grin, and swallowed the path, barrier ball and all.
The ball got bigger and signs of a fight were going on.
Inside, Naruto remained in his curled-up position as tendrils of demon chakra lashed at the barrier from behind him. He frowned when he saw that they weren't making dents in the Naraka path's chakra defence, so he went to his speciality; seals.
He opened his arms and touched the walls of the ball from inside and paper flitted out of his sleeves and entered the walls; the tendrils shook and began spitting out paper seal after paper seal. Wrought iron chains wrapped around the chakra barrier the Preta path was holding up with a lot of effort, sucking out whatever chakra he had. The path groaned under the effort of holding off hundreds of iron chains that were as thick as his hand and he finally caved under the pressure. He tried to suck out the demon chakra around him but Naruto took his chance and had the tendrils slice off his arms.
The path was summarily sealed into his pinkie finger.
The ball of demonic chakra was now as tall as a two-story residential when it stopped growing and the signs of struggle stopped.
The Deva path kept calm but his rinnegan eyes glared at the ball. He put his palm near the surface and muttered, "Almighty push."
The Animal Path summoned a gorilla-horse animal that wielded a war hammer to smash its weapon down in the ball.
All hell broke loose.
The ball cracked under the strain and that was when tentacles of demon chakra flew out of the ball in all directions, screaming and whistling as it lashed out indiscriminately at everything; it latched onto the strange creature and lopped off its head cleanly.
The tentacles acted sentient; they carried the red ball around like a twisted octopus with six predominant tentacles that also served as tails. Inside the ball, Naruto's body was on fire with Kyuubi chakra. He opened his right hand slowly and moved it forward; a gaping hole formed in front of him so all could see him and he blasted a long beam of lightning and fire combination toward the Deva path. The attack created a thick groove through the ground after the path as it fled before a turtle landed behind it to protect it, but the lightning-fire combination was reputed for tearing through chakra-absorbing trees, it didn't take too long to break through the shell and continue going after the path. The Deva path whirled around on his feet and formed a barrier, holding off the thick beam of fiery lightning until a seventh tail erupted from the ground and threw him back into the leader's tower.
The Kyuubi jinchuriki took a deep breath to make sure that he was still in control.
His dark, red sclera eyes looked around carefully for the remaining four paths and their leader. His seven Kyuubi tails waved in the air hypnotically and he grunted when a war hammer hit his protective demon chakra shell. His senses informed him that it was another gorilla-horse summons. He spun around and blasted a stream of lightning fire at the creature, dispelling it.
He reached as far as his sensory seals could and a small smirk crawled to his face when he detected the remaining paths. He forcefully reduced the size of his demonic Armadillo shell until it was as tall as an average man. He slowly rolled around, occasionally killing summons that leapt out of nowhere until he was again pulled backwards, and he grunted in frustration and spun around in a tight circle to the Deva path. The path erected a shield around him and effectively held off the spinning attack, from the barrier he began sucking out demon chakra.
"You cannot win, boy."
"Just watch me," Naruto muttered from deep inside and moved his arms so they were in front of his chest, having to push his knees away a bit to do so, and began flipping through a medium-length set of hand seals as he felt demon chakra being pulled out of him. "Water and Earth release: Combination Jutsu: Demon Sludge Dragon."
Behind him, the muddy ground opened up and a horned dragon roared out, leaping over Naruto and diving down to the path. The attack was easily drained of chakra but this had cost a small distraction, another dragon flew out of the crack in the ground to intercept a three-headed dog with the Animal path on its head. The Dragon rammed its head against the dog and drove it back, destabilising the path and allowing Naruto to roll sideways after the path. The dog's head bit down on the neck and the dragon exploded into muck, blinding the animal long enough for Naruto to 'swallow' the path.
Naruto tackled the path as it flowed through a set of hand seals but he was pushed out of his shell by a red bull the path had summoned. The shell broke apart around him as he smashed into the side of a building. His red eyes widened as he sensed life in the building. Dozens of clones burst into life around him and landed on the floor, running into the crumbling building while the real Naruto ran head-first back into the fight.
He ran to the side away from a green-purple python as thick as his whole body lashed at him and jumped high into the air with his palm levelled down at the Animal path.
Seven Tails Kyuubi Chakra: Chakra Beam."
A red beam warped out of his palm and converged into a single, sharp point that zipped down to its target. The path dove aside but the beam weaved through the ground like a tail after the path, straight into the iron grasp of a shadow clone. The clone grinned at the path with his elongated canines glinting intimidatingly and exploded into chakra smoke, wrought iron jinchuriki restraint seals encased the Animal path and forcefully syphoned whatever chakra it had. The path writhed limply on the ground for help but the paths were too distracted avoiding worm-like chakra beam attack that was weaving through the ground.
The Deva path leapt in front of the Human path and held onto the full brunt of the drilling attack, something not even Orochimaru would dare do. The path's eyes glowed ominously.
"Universal pull." Naruto was dragged to the man and a solid punch met his chest as the Deva said his next jutsu, "Almighty push." He was again thrown away, but not before a little surprise was left in the Deva path fist.
The man's eyes widened and he tried to frantically shake off the explosive tags that were multiplying and spreading all over his arm and up to his face.
Naruto wheezed for air from the wall he was embedded in but a triumphant grin was plastered on his face. His chest trembled painfully and he closed his hands into fists, activating the first part of the duplicating seals covering the Deva path, encasing the path in multiple layers of barriers. Roughly five hundred barriers surrounded the path in a matter of seconds, covering him in dense blue, cylindrical chakra many times too thick to simply be blasted apart in one go.
And the path tried to.
"ALMIGHTY PUSH!"
The cylinders shuddered and splintered, but only a hundred were damaged, rapidly replaced by two hundred duplicating seals, and increasing. The size of the cylindrical barrier began to increase, growing in width to be about the same size as a residential house, and four times as tall as an average man.
Naruto couldn't imagine how breathlessly tight it was inside the Deva path.
"ALMIGHTY…PUSH!" the path bellowed again, his voice muffled behind the hundreds of cylindrical barriers, this time only breaking fifty barriers, which were replaced.
Naruto chuckled, coughing painfully into his hand and seeing the blood on his hand. He shook his head and brought his mind back into the fight, whispering, "Boom."
The explosion rocked the very foundations of Hidden Rain.
The civilians his clones had saved from the crumbling building watched in awe as the column of concentrated fire and smoke rose in the air. The rapid chain of explosions blasted within the cylinder barriers, exploding with a magnitude that charred the earth around the cylinders and evaporated the water in a five-mile radius, but didn't spread the fire.
Watching the hundreds upon hundreds of exploding tags go off inside the cylinder was akin to deathly fireworks. Each explosion broke the barrier, which no longer duplicated, increasing the scale and the brightness of each following explosion.
Naruto tiredly got out of the crater in the wall and fell to the ground, landing on his feet. He ran into the smoke, trusting his seal-augmented glasses to make him see, and drove a knee into the Naraka path's chin before it could summon the king of hell to revive the dead Deva path. An orb of chakra wind formed in his right palm and he drove it through the stunned path, not expecting it to switch with the Human path. He quickly sealed up the mortally injured path. He looked down at where he had blown up the Deva path and frowned when he noticed his wrought iron seals on a pile of ash and body parts.
"Sneaky," he muttered and crossed his seven tails over him as he was blasted with another gravitational attack. He grabbed onto the ground and sealed the destroyed Animal path.
The fighters were carving a path of destruction through Ame and it seemed Pain didn't care if there were any casualties. Naruto's red sclera eyes widened when he saw his chakra beam version attack being thrown back at him. He used his tails as a shield again but he was being pushed back very slowly, he flared his tree root seals to hold him in place. His tails curved under the attack and deflected it back at the thrower, who easily took the attack into his system.
Deva went through a few sets of hand seals. "Summoning jutsu: Konan."
And Naruto leapt away from the swarm of paper shuriken that was thrown at him from the summoned person, the purple-haired woman. She ran at the younger jounin and both engaged in a fast-paced taijutsu match, the woman making sure she didn't directly touch the demon chakra that was permeating from Naruto's skin. Thick paper coated her fists and she punched at him, Naruto leaned away and sent a high kick to her shoulder but the woman erected a wall of paper between the attacker and her. On contact the paper exploded, covering her and Naruto. The boy held up his forearm to her snap kick attack and flowed under a right hook, running his hands on the ground and trapping her in place. He savagely punched the back of her head four times, each blow breaking the ground after contact, not even able to move or slump over because the seal had frozen her in time. She was summarily knocked out after the last blow, still standing on her feet but her eyes were closed and her breathing was even.
"I'm tired of this," Naruto muttered.
"So am I," Deva responded. "I shall end this. Now." He raised both of his arms to the sky and the supply of chakra going into the Naraka path stopped, collecting inside the Deva path. The Naraka path fell forward on his face, deactivated and dead to the world, as the Deva path uttered his jutsu in a loud shout, "Planetary Devastation."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"What the hell are you doing?! You're destroying your own home!" Naruto yelled as he leapt from flying rock to flying rock that met high in the sky into a growing satellite. The boy could already feel the beginnings of its pull so he threw a wired kunai down and it jammed into the ground. He pulled with everything he had in his body but the ground broke apart.
"They are merely witnessing the power of a god," Yahiko responded as more and more rocks flew into the air. He ignored the horrified looks of the civilians and shinobi of Ame who were too being lifted into the air.
Naruto cursed under his breath and hundreds of shadow clones burst into life away from him and bounced from rock to rock, catching the citizens and switching with rocks till they landed on the ground. A clone grabbed the unconscious Konan by the back of her cloak and dragged her back, away from two colliding rocks. The clone hurriedly tied the woman up with ninja wire and threw the kunai-end to where the general populace of Ame stood, the weapon impacted the ground and the purple-haired woman flapped limply from the gravitational pull like a flag but without a metal pole to hold her up.
"All because he wants me to feel pain," Naruto mumbled.
"Mhm," Kurama muttered, not fazed by the chaos happening around him.
Naruto allowed himself to be pulled in by the satellite and when he touched down, he dug his seven tails into the rock face like a mole. He too entered the satellite and summoned as much demon chakra to his hands as possible, slapping them together when his palms began to burn. "Push!"
His seven tails burst out from inside the satellite and his now hazy red bubble hummed with energy. A devastating explosion rocked through the air and forced the clones on the ground to form Earth Release: World's Greatest Earth Defence to cover up any Ame citizen who wasn't able to. The seal attack-defence alone wouldn't have done anything but the fact that his seven tails had perforated holes out of the satellite to destabilise the pulling force was why the attack blew up into smaller rocks that fell back to the earth. As the worst of the heavy rocks stopped falling the clones dropped the earth jutsu and all bore witness to Naruto spreading his tails as far as possible, an eighth one joined in, to stop his quick descent to the ground.
It was like looking at a horrifying and alluring creature sent by the heavens that bore the power that could overcome their 'god', Pain.
Their mouths fell open at the glorious sight above them; the fire surrounding Naruto, the tails catching as much air as possible to slow him down, his glaringly blood-red eyes staring down his hate at the path that had destroyed more than half of his village, and the growing black orb in his right hand. As his tails stretched out even more but at the same time curved like a work of art, the signature Ame rain stopped pouring, making it look like the very village they were standing on was waiting with bated breath for what the blonde boy was about to do.
"Oh no," the shadow clones said as one hastily erected rock walls from the ground, making a solid mile-long wall that covered the crowd, and put their hands against the surfaces. A reinforcement seal spiralled out from their hands for the sole purpose of containing the shockwave that was to come.
Naruto raised the ball of inky black demonic chakra over his head and growled, "I'll show you pain." The ball grew till it was roughly the same size as the leader tower in Hidden Rain, and the Deva path stubbornly stayed in place, deficient in chakra, to absorb the tailed beast ball. The single attack crashed down on its lone target and shockwave after shockwave washed over everyone. "Super Spinning Tailed Beast Ball!"
Naruto's yell echoed over the chaos the beast ball was causing. The leader's tower behind Deva was hit by a backlash and it was first stripped down of all the stone, then the wood and finally the support beams were blown away. The building crumbled but the focus of the attack was the Deva path, the ball was pushed down and spun in a circle that ground against the path's arms. The tired path was using all he could to suck out the deadly chakra and make it its own. The chakra was just too much for him and he was slammed into the ground, his chest and head were soon ground into dust, leaving only his arms and his legs. Naruto could see some chakra in the rain visibly crack like glass, that was when it dawned on him; he had been inside a self-barrier, probably on the Naraka path, the most valuable path. That must be the reason why Daku or Mole weren't with him throughout the fight.
As the ball rolled to a stop and slowly dissolved, the remainder was sucked back into Naruto's right hand and back into his chakra store. His tails jammed into the ground just outside the massive crater and gently lowered him to the ground before the headless path. His face was stoic as he slowly looked up from the pit he had created at the destroyed tower.
His tails acted like prehensile limbs by hefting him out of the crater and carrying him to the crumbled building. He was again gently dropped and he allowed his senses to lead him through the rubble, casually using his tails to pick up huge chunks of earth purely on instinct. Naruto stopped and used two of his tails to push off a slab of wall and he knelt on one knee beside the broken body of the crippled rinnegan holder.
The man had his eyes closed as he took in deep breaths, the jinchuriki sat down beside the man with his legs crossed, his guard still very well up but his glasses detected that Pain was painfully low on chakra. The rinnegan holder was an unhealthy red-haired man with various piercings on his chest and back. The chakra rods in his back had broken off.
"Did anyone die?" Pain asked with his eyes still closed.
In response a clone within the citizen hoard was dispelled, shocking most but not making them raise weapons; the blonde clones had saved them from total annihilation, and the crumbling seal-enforced rock walls were proof of that. The real Naruto shook his head. "No casualties. The place needs some rebuilding though."
Pain sighed deeply. "You fought well, Naruto."
"You too."
"Do I at least get a chance to tell my story before you kill me, Naruto?" Because his limited senses knew that Naruto already had a seal ready to chop off his head at a moment's notice.
"You have a story?" Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"Everyone has a story," here Nagato finally opened his rinnegan eye and weakly spared a half smile.
Naruto shrugged and removed a seal from inside his sleeve. He placed it on Pain's bare chest, simple silver ropes held the older man down but Naruto tapped the seal a few times so the seal would only restrain the man fully, preventing him from moving, but the chakra drain wasn't present though the chakra levels remained low. "I have to be careful, you know."
Pein chuckled breathily and shook his head, "I understand. I would do the same in your position."
"You said something about a story."
"Of course, you see I have always wanted peace. Hidden Rain had never seen peace until I arrived to defeat Hanzo the Salamander, but before that, I was a child who had parents and more than enough friends. I was happy, even though the crippling war was wearing everything down, but the first sign that it was all falling apart was when my pet dog died…"
Off at the very edge of Rain, Obito stood in his seething rage.
Everything he had built had crumbled right before his very eyes and it was that blonde rat that caused everything. Just thinking about Naruto made his blood boil. The fact that he was still cautious from outright attacking Naruto was because the boy was still at full strength even after all the chakra that had been thrown around; his sharingan eye could see the massive well of spare storage inside the Kyuubi containment seal.
Another thing that dissuaded him from just taking the blonde child with a well-timed Kamui was the fact that he was still not sure if Naruto had his chakra control destruction seal.
He could still feel his chakra control fluctuate slightly as the seal faded. He still had a good grasp on his control but who knows how many more Naruto had. Another factor was the sharingan destroying seal Naruto still had in development. He had read Zetsu's report on what the seal had done to Danzo and he had personally seen what it could do against Itachi, used by Mole.
Obito was sucked into a Kamui, a plan already in motion in his head. It was time to begin his public campaign with sharingan in both of his eyes or…
He could always take the rinnegan.
Authors note
The thing that was jamming the connection to reverse summon Naruto was the chakra rain pouring around Hidden Rain and the self-barrier seal on the Naraka path.
Hope the long fight didn't make the story sour. Hope the fight scene was believable most of all. In here Naruto had full control of the eight tails of chakra that came out, and he was making instinctive use of controlling each one. Sort of like a spur-of-the-moment thing.
With those words, I bid you all adieu. Don't forget to drop a review, please.
See you when I see you.
Foy.