Hiruzen Sarutobi wondered how he'd gotten himself in this situation. He never thought he'd be getting his old ass handed to him by his student, his dead sensei, and the first hokage. Hiruzen dodged a wood strangulation jutsu from the first hokage while he jumped through the recently formed forestry, courtesy of the Hashirama.
The second hokage, his sensei, jumped from a branch and engaged him in taijutsu. Hiruzen used his summon, turned staff, to keep the man at bay but was sent flying when Orochimaru intervened with a well timed flying kick.
The elder sarutobi knew he couldn't win like this. He only had one real option, the reaper death seal. He'd have to take them all to the belly of the reaper with him. It was the only way to fix his greatest mistake.
Hiruzen was trapped between the first and second Hokage's attempting to corner him when the first hokage was attacked with wooden tentacles and the second hokage received a raikiri in the back.
Hiruzen used the opening to jump away and create distance where he was joined by Kakashi and an anbu in a white coat with a bird mask on. "What are you two doing here? Shouldn't you be on a mission, sparrow?" Hiruzen asked hurriedly.
"As anbu captain, I thought it best to reassign my mission to another team. Things have been, off, lately and it seems I was right. I took the liberty of bringing Kashashi, Hokage-sama." The white cloaked anbu responded.
Hiruzen gritted his teeth, he didn't want to bring anyone else into this. "Damnit, you weren't supposed to be here, either of you." The old kage sighed then continued while keeping a close eye on his opponents who seemed to be waiting for an amused Orochimaru's signal.
"As you can see we're up against a sannin and two former kages. They were reanimated with the edo tensei forbidden jutsu."
"So it is the first and the second hokage's, they're reanimated? I'm assuming killing them won't be easy" Kakashi asked, scanning the former kage with his sharingan. "The edo tensei revives them with immortal bodies. Fortunately they're not as strong as they were in life but make no mistake, they're going to be s or near s- rank opponents."
"How should we stop them, hokage-sama,'' Sparrow asked. "You can't, my little experiment. I know that's you yamato. Congratulations on reaching anbu captain. I'll enjoy dissecting you." Orochimaru interrupted.
He signaled for the first and second hokage to resume their attack and they jumped into action. Kakashi intercepted Tobirama and met the man in a bout of Taijutsu while Yamato sent wooden spikes to interfere with Hashirama while Hiruzen kept him at bay with his staff.
"Hokage-sama, this jutsu must have weaknesses. Is there a way to end it?" Sparrow, revealed as Yamato, questioned. Hiruzen used a lightning jutsu with a water jutsu from his Shadow clone to keep Hashirama and the creeping Orochimaru at a distance.l before responding.
"Not many, unless you know how to release the jutsu, which I don't. Even if we kill Orochimaru the jutsu won't be released and they'll complete their orders. Unless he releases the jutsu or we decipher the jutsu in Konoha's scroll of sealing, we can't stop them."
Kakashi found himself in a ninjutsu competition with Tobirama and quickly learned just how strong the second's water affinity was. Kakashi was blown away when his copy of suiton explosive water wave couldn't match Tobirama's.
Kakashi recovered and switched with a shadow clone that charged tobirama. "What if we seal them, or cut their connection with orochimaru?" Kakashi asked after making orochimaru dodge lightning enhanced kunai and jump away from Hiruzen.
Hiruzen thought it was all pointless, in the end he'd still have to use the reaper death seal. They were just wasting precious time. But then again, Kakashi had a good idea, Hiruzen thought. If they could cut their connection to Orochimaru it might work.
"Listen up, Orochimaru placed some seal into the back of their heads. From what I remember of the jutsu, it's what allows him to give them orders and restricts their actions. We'll have to seal them or remove that seal to halt his control over them. Then we kill Orochimaru.
Are you two prepared, that's our best chance." "Yes, hokage-sama." The two replied. Kakashi channeled a heavy amount of chakra into his left eye and blurred away to meet Tobirama. When he appeared his sharingan had transformed into the shape of a twirled shuriken. Yamato opted to fight with his Hokage as Orochimaru and Hashirama attacked again.
Haku's clone arrived at the hokage tower to find that the only high ranking official there was shikaku Nara. She was annoyed by his lackadaisical behavior but still felt that he took it seriously. After relaying all the information she had, the clone dispelled.
Shikaku was instructed not to bother the hokage under any circumstances and his intuition told him that there was a real reason why he shouldn't. As jonin commander, he decided it prudent to give a mission to a retrieval team to help Haku recover the young uchihas in absence of the council. Most experienced teams were out on missions so he'd have to go with shinobi who were readily available. .
He called Shino aburame, shikamaru nara, kiba inuzuka, choji akamichi, and neji hyuga to the hokage tower and gave them the mission to retrieve the young uchiha. Most jonin and experienced chunin were away completing missions that were put on hold due to the extreme security of the chunin exams. Shino was chosen to lead the team with shikamaru, second in command and the team departed through the north gate headed that direction.
At Hashirama's training ground, Naruto and Hinata were traveling back to the village. They'd left after the council decided Tsunade was strong enough for the position. Neither of them wanted to wait until Tsunade spoke with all the dignitaries and fire daimyo, so they left.
They were jumping through trees when a crow flew to Naruto. The crow whispered a message to Naruto before dispelling and Naruto gave Hinata a troubled expression. "What's wrong Naruto-kun," she asked.
"It's Haku, she was escorting shizuka to the compound and found the other uchihas missing. She went after them by herself. They left from the north gate towards rice country."
"We have to go after her, she might be outnumbered." "I know but you can't come." "What?" Hinata looked taken aback. "We don't know what's wrong with your byakugan and if you have an episode in battle it could be bad.
Look, Hina-hime, go check on shizuka and Hinabi. I'll bring her back." Naruto tried to be as reassuring as possible, but there was no way he could let her go. Hinata was conflicted, but knew he was telling the truth. "Fine, but you both better come back safe." Naruto nodded and disappeared via shunshin.
Since they were south of konoha, he'd have to go around the village to catch up. He hoped she could handle whatever she was getting into. Haku wasn't a pushover in the least but he had a bad feeling. He had to get to her.
At the private training grounds, Yamato and Hiruzen were back to back weathering attacks from Orochimaru and Hashirama. Even with his mokuton abilities being easier to perform and with more chakra at his disposal, Yamato couldn't keep up with a much weaker version of Hashirama. The best he could do was defend himself and attempt to lessen Hashirama's impact in the fight.
The elder Sarutobi was able to keep his former student at bay, and then some, although Hashirama still made it nearly impossible to land a decisive blow on the snake sannin. He was able to land a crucial blow on the first hokage, unfortunately Orochimaru created the time for him to reform before Yamato could seal him or try removing the seal within the first's head.
Hiruzen knew he couldn't allow this to continue for too long since he and Yamato would run out of chakra and energy before their opponents. If he couldn't find an opening soon, he'd have to use the reaper death seal, preferably before Orochimaru found an opening to kill him or Yamato.
Hashirama charged Yamato with a flurry of crushing blows, completely placing the anbu on the defensive. The first sent a feint left punch and followed with a true roundhouse kick that knocked Yamato off his feet once again.
Yamato deftly used a wooden stump to slide Hashirama's other leg back as he fell, throwing the wood user off balance. Hiruzen used this chance and turned around, sweeping the first off his feet with his adamantine staff.
Arms grew from the staff, mid-swing, grabbing the first hokage's leg and Hiruzen heaved him towards the incoming Orochimaru. He followed it up by weaving hand seals in a blur perfoming, katon blazing fountain, moesakaru funsui jutsu.
The jutsu erupts from his mouth in a fiery pool of flames that he sent out in a continuous stream that intensified until they burned white hot. Yamato appeared behind the hokage blurring through his own performing, mokuton stoking foliage, ha wa taku jutsu.
Yamato spit out thick clouds of dry leaves and branches that fed the fire like oil expanding its range. The combined jutsu raised the temperature of the whole area to harmful levels.
Moments later, when the jutsu died down, a mokuton interlocking wooden dome was lowered into the ground, then Hashirama and Orochimaru walked out unscathed yet the snake sannin was dripping with sweat.
"Kukuku, the two of you'll have to do better than that." Orochimaru chided. He knew time was on his side. There wouldn't be any reinforcements, they were all out of the village on missions of watching his ex teammates fight.
Anyone left would just be fodder. The first and second had infinite refiling chakra and he wouldn't have to use most of his with them around. He'd have his chance to kill them and soon, the snake sannin thought.
A short distance away, Kakashi felt the heat of the flames and was glad to be fighting a suiton user. Just then, Tobirama performed suiton, severing water wave, sending a high pressurized jet of water towards kakashi and sweeping the area. The lazy jonin narrowly avoided an untimely death at the cost of a few strands of hair and reconsidered fighting suiton users.
Kakashi had been fighting Tobirama for a while and he hadn't landed a decisive enough blow to get to the seal in the second's head. He'd wanted to test himself against a former kage, weakened or not. So far he found that there was room for improvement to say the least. The former kage was showing him more than a few things.
Kakashi had attempted to rendezvous with the hokage and Yamato but tobirama seemed to have been ordered to keep him out of their fight because the white haired shinobi was always positioned to block that direction.
Someone needed to change the tide of the battle before the situation got out of hand so he made a plan. Kakashi performed, raiton, oni no, demon, shuriken jutsu, charging a dangerous amount of chakra into a dozen Shuriken before throwing them towards Tobirama.
The lightning chakra around each shuriken expanded to the size of a demon wind shuriken and pulsed with electricity before speeding up to a blinding pace. Tobirama was forced to dodge using precisely timed jets of water from his mouth to maneuver his body out of the way.
Another Kakashi popped out of the ground from underneath Tobirama but was stomped into mud as if it'd been clone had still done it's job because the second couldn't avoid the other shuriken perfectly and his left arm was destroyed.
Kakashi charged past him intending to regroup with the hokage but had to jump to the side when a wave of water almost swept him away. He looked up to see Tobirama surfing the wave going through one handed seals.
Kakashi charged a rakiri and lunged at the second but was blasted by a intense jet of water at point blank range. Kakashi exploded in a giant burst of raiton chakra that electrocuted soaking the wet Tobirama.
Kakashi jumped from the ground after feeling his raiton clone explode and activated raikiri in both hands. Normally the speed of his body and specifically his hands would be too much to put up with, so he could only use one raikiri and quickly.
Fortunately for him, he could focus more attention to his sharingan with little to no drawback besides chakra. Because of this, he was able to activate a higher level of the sharingan.
He'd always had it since he killed his teammate Rin at the end of the last war yet never had the chakra or luxury to try it out. Now, with the mangekyo sharingan, he could use raikiri with both hands simultaneously yet still manage a high level of hand eye dexterity.
In fact, with the mangekyo it was as if he wasn't using a jutsu that boosted his speed beyond his body's limits. The tunnel vision was completely gone and his control was better tenfold. Kakashi appeared next to Tobirama before he could recover but the second hokage was still prepared.
He dodged Kakashi's right hand, deflecting the arm at the elbow and sent a kick to the living ninja's midsection. The kick never landed as Kakashi's left raikiri carved through the second hokage's leg.
Kakashi followed with a lightning quick kick to the second's face. The second flipped back on one left and started hand seals but was forced to block a jab from kakashi that carved through his hand.
Kakashi kicked out the kage's one good leg and ran a raikiri through his skull until he reached the seal tag wrapped around a kunai. He released his jutsu before grabbing the kunai, pulled it out, and jumped away from the second. He placed the kunai and tag in his pouch, then hid while watching the second from a distance.
Tobirama went motionless while his consciousness wrestled for control of the body. He knew he was reanimated under the Edo Tensei jutsu. He'd created it after all. In this weakened form he'd been defeated by a konoha shinobi with an uchiha's mangekyou. Konoha's had an interesting turn of events it seemed.
"You're a formidable shinobi, what's your name? I know you're there. I'm no threat to you anymore." Tobirama said. "Kakashi Hatake, elite jonin of the leaf." " I see so, so the leaf still produces strong Shinobi. Unfortunately, it looks as if a jutsu I created has been used against the village I once sworn to protect.
It's a good thing Saru took the time to master or learn of every jutsu in this village. Boy, look closely with that mangekyou of yours. Here's the hand seals to dispel the jutsu." Tobirama started showing the seals to dispel the edo tensei.
"You'll have to kill the user of the jutsu or remove the seal in the reanimated shinobi to be able to release them as you did here. Still, keep in mind you'll have to immobilize the shinobi if they aren't cooperative once being freed like I am."
Kakashi just watched closely, remembering everything with his sharingan. "I appreciate the compliment lord second. It's hard to imagine that you're nowhere near your original strength now. I doubt I could match you alive, at least for now." Kakashi said with an eye smile.
Tobirama smirked as his body began to fade to dust. "Finish this and protect konoha. Dismissed," were Tobirama's final words before he was gone. Kakashi released a single drop of sweat upon receiving a mission from a dead hokage. Kakashi wasted no time before making his way towards the hokage.
Near konoha, Haku was forced to put her tracking skill to the ultimate test in her attempt to follow the abductors as fast as possible. From what she could tell there were 5 of them and they were good. They made tracking hard whether it was the traps, the misdirection, or the extremely well hidden trail they barely left.
Her goal would be to stall them for as long as possible. She knew 5 on one was bad odds for her but she had an idea of what someone would want uchiha children for. All the ideas she came up with were terrible. Raise them and take their eyes once awakened, raise them to repopulate uchiha elsewhere, used as experiments, or trained to be weapons.
Either way she couldn't allow it. She was once a young kid with a bloodline and was too weak to do anything to protect herself or those around her. She wouldn't let a similar fate fall to others if she could help it, and she could.
While tracking, the ice user made sure to leave a clear trail with chakra and markings. She caught up to them quicker than she expected which meant they were opting on eliminating their pursuers rather than outrun them.
They probably know there wouldn't be any organized response so soon, haku thought. She released some crows to scout ahead and waited for their return and they confirmed her suspicions. She would be running into an ambush but fortunately she had the experience of being a missing nin which meant she knew how to maneuver groups of shinobi.
Haku sent a shadow clone to continue along the trail while she circled around the side, hiding her presence. Sasuke was waiting in a tree positioned for an ambush on whoever was following them. He looked around carefully with his three tomoe sharingan, courtesy of his recent training. He had black markings covering half of his body, his cursed seal.
His cursed seal had been activated for over two weeks because he needed to be at his strongest at all times. The others said he was crazy but it was only because they couldn't control it and the urges that came along, he thought.
He was uchiha and it was simply power under his disposal. The only thing that mattered. The dark haired shinobi was extremely disheveled. A stark contrast to his usual clean and sharp visage. His clothes were sloppy, he was dirty, and his hair was a mess.
Sasuke had recently been placed in charge of the new sound 5. With him as leader there was kidomaru, sakon, suigetsu, and jirobu. Jirobu had 2 unconscious kids slung under one arm. They were all spread out waiting for their pursuers when a lone shinobi jumped onto a tree nearby.
"Aren't you a ballsy little shinobi, I hope you're not alone," Suigetsu teased. "Give the kids back now and I'll let you live." Haku said plainly. She scanned the area and only saw two kids; they were missing one.
"You shouldn't have come after us, now we'll have to kill you," kidomaru, a tan shinobi with four arms said before spitting a glob of webs at haku. Haku dodged and charged at Jirobu. A tall, fat shinobi with an orange mohawk. Jirobu chuckled and dodged the ice blade haku created on her arm with the kids in tow.
Before she could land on the next branch, Haku was hit with a barrage of webs from kidomaru. Jirobu was surprised when Haku shattered into ice, he was sure he hadn't seen any kind of substitution. Then, sensing danger, he tried to jump away but his foot was caught. He looked down to see ice trapping his foot and spreading up his leg quickly.
He channeled chakra into his foot and yanked it out, shattering the ice just in time for a giant blade to slide into his view followed by his head falling off his body. He fell off the branch he was standing on dropping the kids.
Haku stopped her swing of the kubikiribocho and jumped for the kids. She tried to grab them but they were caught by globs of web that stuck them to a nearby tree before she could reach them. Haku saw a shinobi, with two heads back to back, trying to intercept her in the air. She slammed the large sword into a tree to stop her fall, swung around the sword and landed on the blade.
The two headed shinobi sakon screamed, "you killed our team's fatass, how dare you." and launched off the side of a tree towards haku. The ice user took the sword out of the tree and jumped down towards sakon, slicing downward with the kubikiribocho.
Sakon was about to be split in half when he split himself into two, dodging the attack. The two sakons jumped towards and off trees before launching themselves back at haku. They caught her at the same time in the midsection before she could lift the sword to swing but to their surprise, haku exploded in a shatter of ice shards leaving them with puncture wounds.
"Heyy, hey, hey, I want that sword." Suigetsu, a skinny white haired shinobi with sharp teeth, said as he joined the twins. He looked around for the shinobi but he lost her. Sakon couldn't find her either by the looks of it.
Suddenly A heavy mist started to set in the area. "Get the kids, I need them!" Sasuke screamed at Kidomaru with a crazed look in his eye. The mist started to thicken. "We need to take this seriously, Sakon, Ukon, she's no joke.
Just ask Jirobu." Suigetsu said. Sakon and Ukon nodded at each other before taking on the second form of the cursed seal. Their bodies became a dark shade of red,their faces grotesque, and a thick black armor around their body below the neck. Haku went for the kids but was too late.
Kidomaru had grabbed them and was waiting next to sasuke. She had to finish off the others before they left. Just in case she created ice clones to try and cut off an escape route while she dealt with them.
"Give me the kids or end up like your friend." Haku's voice echoed throughout the forest. "Give me that sword!" Suigetsu screamed. "And die," Sakon and Ukon added. Haku became visible for a moment and the twins dashed towards where they saw her. They collided with a glass mirror at the same time and bounced off the impossibly hard surface.
For a moment the mist receded and they looked up and around to see more and more mirrors form until they were in a forest of mirrors. Mirrors on the side of trees, in roots, leaves, branches and random mirrors that hovered and moved autonomously. So many mirrors that it was almost hard to see which direction was which. "So be it," Haku's voice echoed.
At the hokage's private training ground, Orochimaru was seething because his plan wasn't panning out, whatsoever. He along with the first two hokages should've been more than enough for hiruzen and his shinobi but he'd underestimated Kakashi and even his little experiment, Yamato.
While their interference was never planned, it should've been negligible. Somehow Kakashi was able to defeat the reanimated Tobirama, and even more surprisingly was Yamato being able to live at all.
Last time orochimaru checked, Yamato was a high level jonin, at best, let alone able to contend with near s-rank shinobi. It was times like this that he missed his number 1 spy, kabuto. Unable to change the past, he focused on the present, more specifically killing his sensei and lab rat before kakashi joined in.
The snake sannin ordered Hashirama to target and kill Yamato so he could handle his sensei alone. With a smile, orochimaru brandished the legendary sword Kusanagi. He tried taunting his former sensei but the old man seemed to have no words to spare his former student, so they fought.
No jutsu, no holding back, and to orochimaru's ire, no words. Orochimaru tried and tried again to kill his former sensei with his masterful kenjutsu skills. He had more speed than his sensei. He was stronger and he had more stamina than the old mad he was facing yet he couldn't kill him.
Every strike he sent was parried or dodged. No matter how much he pushed Hiruzen back, the old Kage stood his ground. The third hokage never took his eyes off of him. He was completely concentrated. Decades of experience and practice coming to his aide.
With a snarl, Orochimaru turned it up a notch performing more risky and acrobatic maneuvers and pressuring Hiruzen with his physical strength. It took much longer than he'd have liked, but Hiruzen finally made a mistake.
The third hokage extended his staff too far, probably due to exhaustion and his snake of a student took full advantage. He slashed at Hiruzen's throat but the old man was quick enough to lean back to avoid a fatal slice. He got away with a long scratch on his neck from the K
usanagi. Orochimaru spun with his swing and delivered a crushing roundhouse kick that sent the hokage careening into a tree. Wasting no time Orochimaru performed "hidden jutsu, wave of ten thousand snakes" releasing hundreds of snakes from his arms that quickly multiplied into thousands and then to tens of thousand that engulfed Hiruzen's relative area.
It was minutes before the mass of snakes dispelled and Orochimaru was angered to not find a mutilated corpse. He searched with his senses before looking into the trees above him. He was surrounded. Kakashi, Yamato, and Hiruzen who were all gazing down at him.
Him, The legendary sannin. They had the audacity to look down on him of all people. "It's over Orochimaru, your run ends here." The elder Sarutobi said. "How did you defeat the first so quickly?" Orochimaru asked, trying to figure out where his plans went wrong.
"Kakashi has excellent assassination jutsu that he seems to have improved greatly," Yamato replied plainly. His mask had been destroyed, blocking a crushing punch from Hashirama.
"It seems our new anbu commander here is proficient in sealing with his mokuton." Kakashi replied as if he was bored but he was still taking the last threat with the utmost caution. He'd been able to surprise Hashirama enough that his double raikiri attack wounded the man. Yamato was quick in restricting his movements just enough for Kakashi to land another blow that heavily slowed the first.
Yamato use the opening to further seal his movements with mokuton just long enough for Kakashi to remove the seal from the first's head and then dispel the edo tensei as the second had shown him.
"Kukuku well, I must say, I underestimated the little leaves konoha. I guess I'll be forced to wait for your death, sensei." Orochimaru said playfully. "I don't think you're getting it. You're going to die here, today, now." Hiruzen said coldly.
He was about to attack and finally end his students life when he became light headed and his knees went weak. The hokage fell from the tree he was standing on and was rapidly beginning to lose control of his body.
Orochimaru had been waiting for the poison created by his sword to take effect and dashed in to finish the job. He closed the distance in nearly an instant, thrusting his blade to end his former teacher.
Befuddled, he felt pain instead of the joy of killing his sensei. From the side of his eye he saw his left arm in the air and Kakashi, aiming a lightning-covered hand at his heart. With the flexibility of a snake, he swerved his body to avoid the blow before planting his foot and sending a front kick to Kakashi's chin.
Orochimaru was going to follow up his attack until wooden tentacles burst from the ground around him, nearly capturing him. He was able to escape with a well timed substitution but the tentacles broke one of his legs.
Sacrificing most of his remaining chakra, Orochimaru's mouth grew to an unfathomable size as he spit out another one of himself while his old body crumbled like snake skin. With this technique he could pass on some of the damage he'd taken to a snake and heal his wounds.
The jutsu only worked with recent injuries and it seemed he couldn't regenerate his arm. Orochimaru gritted his teeth knowing he'd have to make a quick escape. He looked towards the Kusanagi and then his sensei. As much as he wanted to retrieve his sword and kill the hokage, Yamato and Kakashi were at the ready.
In Orochimaru's state, Kakashi could possibly kill him with his newfound growth as a shinobi. The snake sannin bit his thumb before running through a few single handed seals and placing his hand on the ground.
3 giant snakes poofed into existence and immediately attacked the konoha nin. Kakashi wanted to give chase but the hokage was dying in his arms. Yamata blurred through hand seals and immediately began to combat the snakes.
In just a moment, Orochimaru was gone with little trace. He'd gotten away, Kakashi and Yamato lamented knowing that particular sannin was an expert in infiltration, assassination and escape. Yamato went on to restrain the snakes before dispelling them while Kakashi rushed the hokage to the hospital.
He had to send for Tsunade and alert Jiraiya. Kakashi deactivated his sharingan and hoped the worst of the day was over and done with. Konoha had enough tragedy coming in the near future.