Standard disclaimers apply. I'm just borrowing these characters for a little while.
Author's note: Kishimoto-sensei's plan is to fit the entire 4th Shinobi War Arc into a matter of days in the Naruto timeline, but I'm taking the liberty of extending it since war is never so quick and clean-cut. Events from the manga will be added, removed or shifted around. Please pardon my impudence.
In retrospect, Gaara knew that he should have anticipated this outcome. In the prior weeks, he and the Hokage had come to the conclusion that Akatsuki had not made a move on them for close to a month because they were not ready to confront the combined might of the entire shinobi world and the last two Jinchuuriki, especially with the White Zetsu army all but wiped out. Now, with Naruto at least several days' travel away, the fighting force of the alliance had been effectively halved as well.
So it was with only the mildest of surprise that he took in the news that Uchiha Madara was spotted several kilometres to the east of their combined encampment, floating serenely in the air for one and all to recognise his presence. That he did not immediately launch into an assault against the Allied Shinobi Forces spoke of his absolute confidence in himself, and that perhaps he was biding his time for the entire army to arrive; all the better to wipe everyone out in one fell swoop.
Sakura was present in their tent when Baki came, and she had embarrassingly dropped a bundle of scrolls upon hearing the news. Neither man took notice of her distress as she bent down to gather the items, and Baki was quickly dismissed with a set of instructions.
"Alert the War Council immediately. Tell them that Madara is waiting to confront us," Gaara ordered, "Send out messengers to the Division officers at once, and ready our battalions as well. I want Shikamaru-san at the eastern gate now."
By the time Sakura managed to place her scrolls back onto her bed, she noted with relief that the subtle trembling in her hands was barely noticeable, as long as…
Yeah, Gaara taking both her hands into his just gave her distress away. He stroked his thumbs over the back of her hands, making her flesh tremble even more from his steady warmth.
"Sakura, look at me," he spoke softly, almost as if he was afraid of spooking her, "Get ready. You will be returning to the Third Division to serve as combat medic at once. We have planned for such a scenario; The Kage will be here soon, and we will be shielding the army from Madara's attacks as much as possible. Stay with the others, and focus on healing them. Do not engage with Madara. Do you hear me?"
Sakura forced herself to meet his gaze, and she was startled by the hint of anguish she saw; it was mostly concealed by the ruthless intensity he had schooled his features into as a Regimental Commander about to potentially send his men and himself to their deaths.
"Sakura? Do you understand?" There was desperation lacing his voice as he shifted his hands to clasp her cheeks.
"Yes," she whispered, so softly that she knew she had to nod as well to be understood, "Gaara, I…"
Whatever she wanted to say was swallowed up by a ferocious, hungry kiss as he surged forward. He pulled her close and held her tight, lips and tongue tasting her as if it would be the last time he ever touched her again and needed to memorise everything about her in that single kiss.
It took Sakura several heartbeats to respond in kind, but when her brain finally caught up with his actions, she gave as good as she got. One of her hands was fisted into the back of his flak jacket while she lost her fingers in his unruly crimson locks, her own lips insistent and demanding against his as they pressed and moved against each other.
The sudden chill she felt when Gaara bodily pushed her back and held her at an arm's length to gaze at her terrified her.
"Go get ready."
Sakura managed a nod, and snapped back into medic mode almost immediately; she tore open her pouch to do a quick check of her supplies, and Gaara took that time to strap on his gourd before marching out of their tent.
"Sakura?" said Katsuyu, "I've alerted Tsunade already, and she is headed this way with the other Kage. We should summon a larger portion of me in preparation for the casualties."
The pink-haired kunoichi nodded, not trusting herself to speak. With one last glance at the contents of her pouch, she clipped it to her back and saddled Katsuyu on top of it. The sand-cat was by her side at once, keeping pace with her as she strode out of the tent.
Pandemonium.
That was the only word she could describe the world that she had walked into.
The entire camp was alive with shinobi running back and forth, weapons clanging and scrolls being holstered as the army snapped to attention at the enemy they were about to face. Most of the shinobi were grim-faced, some paled, and even a few were staggered over vomiting up their nerves. Sakura could not find it in her heart to blame them for their hysteria: a direct encounter with Madara was always factored into, but no one looked forward to that day; Certainly, no one expected Madara to come directly to their doorstep either. Maybe there was wishful thinking on the part of the Allied Shinobi Forces - that Naruto and Killer Bee would have defeated Akatsuki and stolen back the Bijuu by now, thereby preventing Madara from carrying out his cruel plan.
Half our world's problem could have been solved if the Uchiha clan was not so power-hungry, she thought bitterly to herself, even as the face of a certain avenger came to her mind's eye.
Walking purposefully towards the gates to catch up with the officers, Sakura bit into her thumb and drew enough blood to bring to her palm. A moment later, a much larger version of Katsuyu materialised in front of her. Without turning back, the slug summon forged ahead of Sakura, clearing a path for her as they took a hurried pace towards their destination.
The eastern gate was packed full of shinobi trying to bodily shove their way through, but that soon proved to be a non-issue when Katsuyu ploughed into the wooden frame, quite obliterating the gates as she slithered forward completely unperturbed. Mentally, Sakura reminded herself to apologise to the shinobi who would be tasked with re-erecting the gates after the battle.
Then she grimly realised that if everyone in the Allied Shinobi Forces were to die, there would be no need for a camp to defend; no need for sensor shinobi to be guarding gates to an abandoned graveyard.
"The Uchiha."
"Madara is here."
"His aura… it's unbelievable."
The apprehensive whispers of her fellow shinobi surrounded Sakura as she stood with the medic-nin in her originally-assigned Third Division. Kakashi and Gai were currently absent, their positions most likely being at the side of Naruto and Killer Bee. Replacing him as the Commander of the Division was a Kumo-nin that she knew only by his appearance but not his name. Nodding to a few familiar faces before she cast her gaze towards the rocky bluff that Gaara was now standing at. He was the first of the five Kage to arrive, and thus, was the one that Madara was gazing upon with mild interest right now.
Uchiha Madara… now that she saw him, she was surprised that he had abandoned the strange, swirled mask he used to wear, and was instead garbed in his red battle armour as he was often depicted wearing in clan illustrations. His long, black mane of spiky hair reminded her of Jiraiya's, except the Uchiha's was much thicker and trailed behind him like a cape made of shadows.
But most unnerving were the lazily spinning tomoe's in his blood-red eyes.
"Uchiha Madara," Gaara's glare narrowed in contempt, "Why is he here, Hokage, when Naruto reported that he was tracking Madara alongside the Jinchuuriki's?"
With a start, Sakura realised that the other Kage had arrived, and were flanking Gaara on the outlook.
"Your guess is as good as mine," said Tsunade with a shake of her head, "I doubt he'd be foolish enough to divide his powers with a clone to fight us, so we will soon learn what him being here means."
Tsunade's proximity made Sakura exhale a sigh of relief she did not know she had held in - her teacher was the best medic-nin in the shinobi world. Tsunade would no doubt be holding the position of team medic-nin in their fight against Madara; The Kage's could not be in better hands.
"Madara," A shouted out to the red-clad man floating some distance before them, "Are you here to die like the dog you are?!"
Madara did not reply to the taunt, instead casting an imperious gaze towards the Kage lined up before him. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, and the Kage's held similarly relaxed but readied stances.
"Nobody look into his eyes!" Ohnoki called out to the army behind them, "He has his Sharingan!"
A low wave of panicked murmur began rising up among the shinobi army.
"So this…" Madara's deceptively quiet voice uttered, "This is what the brave new shinobi world Hashirama envisioned turned out to be."
He easily dodged the rush of sand that came from his left, landing with cat-like grace in front of the Kage's.
That had been a calculated move on Gaara's part - he did not like how the Uchiha was eyeing the battalions behind them, as if wondering how to most efficiently eliminate as many shinobi as possible in the shortest amount of time. As the chosen supreme protectors of their villages, the Kage's had deliberately placed themselves at the frontline for one singular reason: to defend their people to their death.
Madara's gaze swept from one Kage to the next in a slow study, and his face lit up in amusement as he watched them each avoid meeting his gaze; it was not out of fear, but to avoid being caught in a genjutsu should he decide to cast one.
"Ah, fence-sitter Ohnoki. You've grown old."
"And you have grown delusional, Madara, thinking you can eradicate us all," the Tsuchikage spat back.
The Uchiha clan founder threw back his head and laughed, then smoothed his features into passiveness as he replied, "Such a pity that this is how you will meet your end, instead of being surrounded by your great-grandchildren."
With that, he lifted one hand up into the air, palm facing skywards.
"Enough with this!" Snarled the Raikage.
It was naturally the Raikage that made the first move, his large build deceptively hiding the inhuman speed he possessed. The punch he threw knocked Madara backwards, but still the Uchiha kept his arm raised as he regarded the Kage's before him with cool detachment. His plan needed a few minutes to work, and what better way to buy time than to strike at the massive army before him?
The barrages of fireballs that left Madara's body flew right over the heads of the Kage's and soared towards the Divisions stationed behind them, and the shinobi army leapt into action at once. Signals were given from Mei and Tsunade to the Division captains in the form of hand gestures to begin a counter-attack.
Sakura soon lost track of the fighting that was happening with the Kage's; Madara throwing waves after waves of his flames scattered their forces even as some of it was countered with water-based or earth-based jutsu, and she had to keep her wits about her while dodging the fireballs and helping stragglers out of the line of fire at the same time. The sand-cat dove it once or twice, shielding stray blasts as Sakura hefted another fallen shinobi onto her shoulder to carry them to safety.
Katsuyu kept pace with the kunoichi, occasionally shedding a small portion of herself to latch onto the injured shinobi they passed by that was not in immediate danger otherwise. A few shinobi panicked at the sensation of a giant slug attaching onto them, but Katsuyu's healing slime came laced with a relaxant that rendered them unable to complain. The sight would have been comical but for the circumstances surrounding them.
She was concentrating so hard on locating and assessing the condition of fallen shinobi, that the sudden darkening of the landscape around them caught her by surprise. Had she been caught in a genjutsu? But she did not look at Madara's eyes even once, knowing the great power that a Sharingan user wielded.
"Look out!"
A medic-nin that she was standing with pointed towards the skies, and she lifted her gaze in the same direction.
The sight that awaited her made her wish that she was under a genjutsu instead.
A gigantic meteorite was falling towards them, its size so immense that she could not make out the edges of it. Its trajectory was directed right at the army, but given its breadth, there was clearly no need for any guidance from Madara at all - no one would be able to escape its crushing blow.
Everyone was going to die.
The Kage who have been trying to keep Madara at bay were completely blindsided by the appearance of the meteorite as well. At the sight of it, Gaara stopped his chain of sand-based attacks, jade-green eyes blown wide with shock as he took in the absolute scale of the meteorite as it blotted out the sunlight.
He snapped his gaze backwards to the army, eyes scanning wildly despite knowing that he would not be able to locate the individuals he most cared about in the chaos.
Temari. Kankurou. Baki.
Sakura.
"It's still too early to give up!" called out Ohnoki as he shot towards the bottom of the meteorite.
The Tsuchikage with his ability to lessen the mass of rocks and earth was the perfect candidate to slow the descent of the meteorite, and Gaara caught onto his plan at once.
"Everybody out, NOW!" Gaara bellowed his command out.
Then he focused his chakra, and proceeded to lift the most massive amount of sand he had ever attempted; arms fully extended and palms upwards, the sheer volume of chakra pulsing through his veins causing a visible aura to emit from him. The sand dunes around them undulated and shifted, and in the next moment, a tidal wave of sand drew sharply away from underfoot and soared towards the skies.
Several shinobi around Sakura stumbled at the sudden loss of the ground beneath them, and Sakura just managed to catch herself as the sand-cat transformed itself into a sand wall for her to brace against. She tried to look in the Kage's direction to see where Gaara was, but the wind had whipped her hair into her eyes, and she cursed softly at how far away she was from him.
Inhuman powers - that was what the Kage's all possessed when the time called for it to be exhibited. Ohnoki was impossibly frail and small, yet he managed to slow the descent of the meteorite with his earth-lightening jutsu; the Kazekage's undisputed command of the sands also helped keep the meteorite from falling any further, interwoven sand columns keeping it suspended.
"Impressive," Madara commented as he stood bathed in the bluish glow of his conjured Susanoo, "How about two meteorites instead?"
With those words spoken, a second meteorite materialised in the sky directly above the first one so suddenly, that no one was ready for it. Certainly not Ohnoki, as he was unceremoniously shoved towards the dusty earth as his grip slipped. And neither was Gaara, whose sand columns crumbled away as if soaked by water.
Sakura had just enough time to call out to a certain red haired shinobi before darkness engulfed her.
Outclassed.
They were completely, devastatingly outclassed by Uchiha Madara.
In the moment that Madara conjured up a meteorite the size of Konohagakure from the skies, Gaara had been seized by a single, panicked thought.
We are not fighting a war against rogue shinobi, but a war against a god.
That thought solidified in his mind when Madara proceeded to pull out a similar-sized meteorite right on top of the first.
He watched Ohnoki - the notoriously indecisive Tsuchikage - throw himself towards the careening boulder, all regard for himself tossed aside. He must have realised that a meteorite of such enormity would spell an immediate end to their entire army, and made the bold decision to put himself in harm's way. By using his earth-lightening jutsu on it, Ohnoki had bought more time for their men to disperse out of the area of impact.
It would not do to let the eldest of them shoulder all that burden, so Gaara had summoned every ounce of chakra from his body and fed it into the sea of sand surrounding them, tugging and weaving it to make a support system under the falling meteorite; it gave their army more precious seconds to flee.
It was not enough, not with two meteorites coming at them.
He watched as the combined mass of the two meteorites impelled the Tsuchikage earthwards, his sand-based supports crumbling away with no time to reinforce them. His responsibility as the Regimental Commander was to ensure the survival of their forces, but if the Kage's were to be wiped out…
Gaara's sand soared and wrapped around the Kage's, cocooning them in the hardest shells he could conjure up for them in the limited amount of time he had. Blindly, he threw out a massive arc of sand towards the retreating army, hoping that it would hold against the weight of the meteorites and offer some protection to those too slow to escape their range.
Then everything was coated in a murky shadow, and the earth shook beneath their feet as both meteorites struck.
He continued forcing his chakra into the sand shields he had created, feeling the pelting of falling rocks against their grainy surface. The impact echoed and registered as ripples in the back of his mind, threatening to shred his focus. But he knew he had to concentrate.
Concentrate on protecting everyone he was responsible for. Everyone that he cared for.
When the air surrounding them finally quieted and stilled, Gaara forced his eyes to open, surprised that he had squeezed them shut in the first place. A quick glance told him that his own sand shield had been partially obliterated, and there was a familiar pair of teal eyes looking at him in concern.
"Are you ok, Gaara?" Temari asked as she slipped under the arch of the sand shield.
Gaara nodded in response, his eyes quickly zeroing in on the shields he had erected over the other Kage's. Thankfully, it appeared that his defence had held sufficiently against the meteorites; Tsunade was already ducking out of her sand dome and rushing to the aid of the unconscious Tsuchikage.
"I'm fine," he replied to his sister, then he glared almost coldly at her, "You should have fled with the others."
Temari did not look pleased to hear the reprimand in his voice, and planted her fan firmly in the ground before saying, "I'm done running from you, Gaara. We fight together, and we die together. That's what siblings do."
It would have gladdened his heart to have heard those words from his sister at any other time, but not today; Not when he was faced with the real possibility of losing her.
Gaara shook his head, "No. Go back down there. Protect our men."
The blonde kunoichi shook her head defiantly, a smirk playing on her lips, "I think your girlfriend can take care of them on her own."
He blinked at the curiosity of her statement, and a quick glance in Tsunade's direction served as a reminder that, of course, both student and teacher were not only talented medic-nin, they were also bound to a slug summon that assisted them in their healing arts. Sakura had mentioned once how her healing chakra could be fed into Katsuyu and transmitted across great distances if necessary, though the further the distance, the less efficient it was. He had noticed the massive form of Katsuyu that Sakura had summoned before the battle commenced, no doubt in preparation for this exact scenario.
"Katsuyu-san?" asked Gaara.
Temari nodded.
"Good," he stood up, and gave his sister a new order, "Go protect her, then."
Temari scoffed, but recognised the look that Gaara was giving her - it was an order from the Fifth Kazekage and Regimental Commander of the Allied Shinobi Forces, not her youngest brother. Reluctantly, she gave him a curt nod and vanished down the side of the bluff.
With his sister out of direct harm's way, he released a breath that he did not know he had held, then darted over to Tsunade and Ohnoki's side.
Sakura was not certain if she had survived the meteorites. In fact, the darkness that she was currently blanketed in almost convinced her that she was well on her way to hell - because no shinobi was ever innocent of bloodshed, she had long made peace with the fact that she had a one-way ticket to the underworld when her time came.
A few eye blinks later, she realised that sunlight was seeping into her vision, and she looked up.
A small sand dome was hastily thrown over her, and several moments later, it shifted and morphed back into the shape of a small feline.
"Mr. Fluffy-kins!" She reached out and cradled the sand-cat to her chest, filled with a strong sense of affection for its unwavering desire to protect her from harm.
The cat crowded up against her flak jacket and purred happily.
"Sakura, are you alright?"
Looking to her side, she saw Katsuyu dividing her body up into multiple smaller versions of herself, each consciousness seeking out the injured shinobi on the field to heal. She gave a nod to the slug, and watched as sunlight slowly crept up around them.
The massive arc of sand that Gaara had sent over them was rescinding back towards the Kage's, and the sight that the returning light cast on the ground caused Sakura to freeze in horror.
Gaara's sand shield was immense, but expecting it to protect any army of over 30,000 was asking for the impossible. His shield only managed to blanket over so many shinobi before the twin meteorites struck; the shinobis who did manage to make more time on foot formed a strangely artful curve of blood and flesh splattered around the outermost reaches of the shield, crushed under boulders of varying sizes.
There was no telling how many had died in that instant, but that was not her focus as a medic-nin; she had to prioritise saving those still injured but still alive.
"Katsuyu-sama, let's get the survivors out of here. Please help me heal as many survivors as you can!" She was off like a bolt of lightning towards the first groaning shinobi nearest to her, the sand-cat close on her heels.
"Of course, Sakura," Katsuyu continued dividing herself up, her once-massive frame shrinking at a rapid pace.
Sakura had only managed to haul a Kumo-nin to her feet when Temari landed next to her, stirring up the loose sand around them as she descended on her massive battle fan.
"Sakura! Tell me what to do!"
She blinked at the oddity of the words that came out of Temari - because wasn't Temari supposed to be in another Division - but quickly composed herself to reply, "We need to get the injured off the field right away. The medic corps is spread out, and they need to be protected to maximise the number of lives we can save!"
Temari took in the grisly sight before her and swore under her breath. Madara had effectively wiped out a third of their remaining numbers using a single jutsu, and the best thing they could do was apparently to get out of his way and let the Kage's fight him on their own to minimise their personnel losses.
What an absolute farce their Allied Shinobi Forces turned out to be against one mad, god-like Uchiha.
"Are the Kage's ok?" Sakura called back as she stopped to run a chakra assessment over a wheezing shinobi.
"They are all alive up there, though the Tsuchikage doesn't look so good," Temari admitted.
The very next instant, Temari regretted her words. By declaring their safety, she was basically asking for the contrary to happen, and the Fates answered in the form of an eruption of massive trees and branches from the earth in their direction. The ground underneath their feet ruptured further, and she had to force herself to stay concentrated on helping the wounded to not turn around and return to her brother's side.
Sakura looked on the verge of doing so, herself.
"Wood Release, and Rinnegan," Mei's voice came out in an awed whisper, "What kind of a monster is he?"
A scowling Tsunade and stern-faced A stood flanking Ohnoki, who only just regained enough strength to sit up, and she bit out, "There is only one living Wood Release user in the shinobi world right now, and my grandfather was the only one to have developed it naturally. Uchiha Madara was never documented to possess this ability."
Did they have Kabuto to thank for this aberration of nature? Was Yamato the source of Madara's new ability, or was there something more sinister afoot?
"The Rinnegan is possibly a natural development, though," said Gaara as he stood next to Mei, "The Uchiha clan possess great ocular abilities, but this means that we cannot use ninjutsu against him. He'll just see right through it, or even absorb it if he wants."
Every shinobi knew about the Three Great Dojutsu of their world, but the Rinnegan was such an abnormality and incredibly rare occurrence that few living shinobi have witnessed it in real life. Even fewer were prepared for it, and the only reason why Gaara recognised it so quickly was due to his concern for Naruto's quest to regain his former teammate; it was always a possibility that Sasuke would develop these eyes in his attempts to become stronger, and they had to learn whatever they could to counter its weaknesses.
It was very unfortunate news for them to learn that the Rinnegan itself came with no known flaws.
"You are all quick studies," praised Madara as he perched above them on a particularly large, coiled branch, and he extended a hand towards them, "That is the least I expect of the Kage's. But I think you should all just give up now. Save yourselves, and your shinobi, and give yourselves up to me. I promise the future I grant you will be a painless, even a pleasant one."
A threw his arm out in an angry sweep, then shouted, "An endless dream, where you achieve nothing, feel nothing, and become nothing? That is the future you see for the shinobi world? We will sooner cut our own throats!"
Madara shook his head. "The entire world will sleep, and your flesh will be the nourishment for a world with no anguish and pain. No more wars, no more fighting. Just as Hashirama wanted. Isn't that right, Senju Tsunade?"
"HA!" Tsunade barked out a particularly vicious laugh, "You are trying to twist what my grandfather wanted for the world to make yourself out to be a great saviour! I think I speak for all shinobi's when I say we are going to pass on your very generous offer."
Madara's reply was to wave a series of hand signs, making the ground beneath them crack and shudder, finally causing a number of monstrous lotus-like flowers to emerge from the earth in quick succession. Recognising those blooms as carrying paralysing pollen dust, Tsunade shot a glance towards Gaara.
He understood immediately, and all five Kage were lifted onto sand platforms before the flowers could reach them.
It makes no sense… all of these are grandfather's jutsu.
Sensing something amiss, Tsunade drew in a purposeful breath of air.
"Hokage?" asked Mei.
Tsunade's eyes snapped open in surprise when the yellow dust reached her nose; There was absolutely nothing remarkable about the pollen at all, when Hashirama's version of those blooms would have shot plumes of paralysing dust into the air, which meant…
It was a trap.
Madara's Susanoo burst out from behind them, swung, and knocked all Kage to the ground in one strike in the time they were focused on escaping the reach of those flowers. The Kage were quick to recover from the surprise of the blow, all of them turning in mid-air to right themselves before landing on their feet.
"Don't write me off yet, you damned…" Ohnoki growled out as he neared the ground, throwing both hands out in time to cast a particle-disintegrating jutsu in Madara's general direction.
The blow rang true, connecting with the section of Susanoo that Madara was housed in. It forced him to drop his avatar form to land softly in front of the Kage. He had landed in a curled up posture, and slowly unfurled his form to stand at his full height, turning to face the Kage's as he did so.
"I'm sorry that you have to see this, Senju Tsunade."
There were many ways Tsunade expected the fight today to turn out, but not a single one of them involved seeing her grandfather's visage embedded into Madara's left pectoral muscle.
"Is that how you did it, Madara?" asked Tsunade, fists clenched in rage, "You stole my grandfather's healing abilities for yourself, because you are too afraid to die?!"
Madara cocked his head, and said, "Unlike you, I house a great legacy in this body of mine. You, a direct descendent of the great Senju Hashirama, possess neither Wood Release nor the ability to heal without the necessity of hand signs."
He swept a deliberate, condescending gaze over the Kage's.
"Each new generation is weaker than the next. So allow me to honour your grandfather for you, Hokage, and surrender yourselves to a world without war or suffering."
Sakura felt it then: the subtle, crackling energy in the air. The one unique energy signature that Tsunade had activated only once in her presence, but she would never be able to forget the sensation akin to lightning racing through the air, salting it with a sharp tang of metal and ice combined. It was very similar to her Creation Rebirth technique, but this was an advanced version of it that she saw fit to teach Sakura as well.
Tsunade had activated her Strength of a Hundred Seal. Combined with her Creation Rebirth technique, it would allow her to be in a state of constant healing, making her all but invincible for as long as her chakra store held out.
That could only mean one thing - that Madara was no longer holding back, and every attack he launched was going to be lethal.
Did he even hold back to begin with? Sakura wondered, as she surveyed the bodies littering the landscape with anguish.
"Sakura-san! Pull back!"
She looked up to see a familiar green-clad shinobi running towards her.
"Lee-san!" She called out, her eyes quickly scanning him over for injuries. Fortunately, it seemed like Lee was no worse for the wear except for a few bruises.
What Sakura did not expect was for Lee to physically manhandle her into a fireman's hold, and she went mute with shock. Lee at least had the good sense to look apologetic about what he was doing before he took off in a mad sprint away from the direction of the Kage's.
"We need to move now - every shinobi needs to get out of range!" He explained, muttering another apology as he jolted her with each stride he took.
Out of range? Of what?
When she looked towards where she last saw Madara, what greeted her was the sight of a perfectly formed Susanoo. The massive dark blue avatar had donned a suit of armour, holding a Kris-like blade in each of its dual pair of arms.
And it was facing the Allied Shinobi Forces as it started lifting one of the swords skywards.
Despair.
It was such a foreign feeling to the Fifth Kazekage of Sunagakure.
As a child, and pre-teen, the strongest emotion that lingered in him was that of loneliness; Of being regarded as a berserker for his village to tear through their enemies. As long as he served as their Ultimate Weapon, and continued to serve well, his minders had no regard for his mental well-being. Emotions and attachments were weaknesses to be discarded, and thus, the lonesomeness that followed him everywhere.
As the newly-instated Kazekage, the emotion that guided him the most was that of determination. He was the leader of a shinobi nation, and held the lives of countless others like him whose main purpose in life was to serve. His people looked to him for guidance, and he was determined to show that he had the qualifications for the role that he took on. There was no room for faltering, no room for hesitation; only room for leadership and the drive to make the lives of his people better.
Today he felt complete despair.
Gaara had known at the back of his mind that bringing their army along to fight against Madara was going to cost them dearly. The shinobi army's attacks on the mad Uchiha barely amounted to a scratch on his armour, and the Kage's had their attention diverted to the protection of their men instead of focusing solely on Madara. They had planned to overwhelm him with a barrage of different jutsu's from the different clans, but faced with his Rinnegan and his god-like powers, said plans were soundly crushed.
The Kage's agreed to let themselves be lured away by Madara to give the army time to retreat to safety. They had hoped that the distance from their army would also allow them to deal more powerful attacks that had a wider range of damage that they could not risk using near their men.
Madara creating twenty-five wood clones of himself, and cloaking them in Susanoo as they divided themselves up to fight the Kage's was something they never anticipated.
Their Operational Intelligence was caught very sorely lacking. With Yamato back in the hands of the Allied Shinobi Forces, it never crossed their minds that anyone else in the living world could use Wood Release. It made for the most formidable of healing jutsu, and combined with the sheer durability of wood clones, the Kage's were woefully outclassed.
The Kage's were weakening, having been pressed from all directions by the multiple clones. Gaara's right arm dangled uselessly by his side, his shoulder having been ripped from its socket.
Mei was almost cut in half by a clone Susanoo's sword, had Gaara not shoved her out of the way with a wave of sand. With his back at that moment turned to his own adversaries, they soundly broke through his sand shield and nearly smashed through his Sand Armour. The impact had thrown him against an outcrop of rocks that his sand did not arrive in time to buffer him from, and the pain of his arm separating from its natural position on his body knocked the wind out from his lungs.
All their chakra reserves were close to being drained as the fight wore on. Tsunade had been impaled multiple times by Madara, who seemed to have taken a particularly vicious interest in eliminating her.
The Kage's finally combined their jutsu's in a series of attacks to bring down Madara's clones, and for a brief second, they thought they had the upper hand as the clones were vanquished one by one.
Only to be faced with a massive Perfect Susanoo that had its attention turned to their retreating army.
The first swing of its massive sword swung right at their encampment, the aftershocks tearing an extensive trench right through it and splitting the earth wide open.
The same could be said to have befallen the shinobi who were in the direct path of the blow.
"NO!"
Gaara did not realise that it was he who had cried out in distress at the sight before him. The other Kage's looked equally stricken at the sight of thousands of lives being extinguished in the blink of an eye.
"Now," said Madara as his Perfect Susanoo turned back towards the five Kage's, "I kindly ask for you all to die."