AN: Really not happy with the way this one turned out near the end, but I literally worked on the latter half of it for months before deciding fuck it, I'm sick of re-writing it and it does what I wanted it to, if poorly, so good enough.
With Sasuke having ditched us for Sakura and Kakashi, and leaving us all by ourselves with Super Granny, I felt a few conflicting emotions.
The first was annoyance. Because fuck him. He isn't the one who's being left alone to fight the literal goddess of chakra. Well, maybe not a literal literal goddess. Despite how powerful Super Gramps is, he was still a mortal dude who died of old age. Wait, Super Granny is immortal though, does that just mean Gramps was just a demi-god? Is she actually–?
"No, she is not a literal goddess, not in the way the Shinigami is. She's more powerful than actual gods in most ways that matter, but gods tend to hold domain over an aspect of the world in a way that power is usually meaningless against. Like, the sky is blue, and the shinigami manages the dead. It just is."
I blinked.
"Oh, okay. Thanks"
Moving on.
The feeling that conflicted with my annoyance was happiness and relief at the fact that Sasuke was not in fact dead, and that we do still have a chance to beat Kaguya. Not all hope is lost as long as he and I are still around and capable of sealing her away. While he nearly killed me like four times in the same fight back in the day, tried to kill Sakura a while back, and he's been a total asshat basically every time he's shown his face anywhere since he betrayed the village, he was still my rival, my first true friend, and my brother in everything but blood.
If he had been killed off by Kaguya on one of her empty worlds without any way for me to stop it, even if I managed to somehow beat her afterwards, I'd have felt something missing forever. A void at my back, an emptiness in my life, for the rest of my time on the mortal plane. I would have failed to save my friend from his darkness.
The third and final conflicting emotion, was of course, annoyance. Because seriously.
No, seriously.
Fuck that guy.
"Keheheh!"
I grinned and shook my head. The fox would probably always hate the Uchiha.
As I turned my attention back to Kaguya, the grin slid off my face. Unlike Sasuke, I could afford to be a bit more casual and have these little moments of lightheartedness whenever there was a break in the battle. Kurama and I can sense her negative emotions and intentions after all, so we could tell even before the moment she intended to attack. Even with the Sharingan, he could only react as an attack began, and she was fast enough that that was dangerous.
Some seasoned shinobi or those like Sai might be able to at least somewhat get around my ability by dulling their emotions to focus on 'the mission' or something, but Kaguya wasn't anything even close to a shinobi in mentality.
I sighed. I had noticed it a bit more and more as the fight went on, but as much as that ability had helped me pick out moments where we could afford to take a breather, there was a hidden downside to it. Or more specifically, there was a downside to using it in this particular fight.
I began finding it harder and harder to keep myself in a fighting mindset after each break in the combat.
Constantly feeling her particular mixture of negative emotions, I had begun losing the passion involved in fighting the good fight against 'the bad guy'. I understood that in her own alien mindset, she wasn't trying to be malicious. She truly felt like she had to do what she was doing despite her own sadness and frustration.
With my spirits dampening, all I was being left with was the grim determination to end this however I could.
I could feel her roiling emotions beginning to taper down. It seemed she was getting a hold of herself, getting ready to start this thing back up.
"Hey."
She stilled. Not just physically, but her emotions stabilized faster than she was managing herself.
"This probably doesn't mean much to you, coming from someone so much weaker than you, but this will be our last confrontation." I told her. "After this, You will either be sealed away again, or I will be dead. There will be no more moments where I allow the fight to stop. Every moment you are within my senses, I will be on the attack."
She didn't say anything in response or show any sign of acknowledgement , having already said everything she wanted to say to us earlier.
I clenched my fists around my staves.
"I wish I was stronger, strong enough for you to take seriously as a threat. If I were, maybe then you would have been willing to at least hear me out as equals. Given me a chance to show you there are other options, a different path." My mind flashed back to our genin days, that bittersweet ending on the bridge. Haku dying at Kakashi's hand, and Zabuza recognizing the strength of their bond before throwing himself at Gato's men and saving Wave.
The current situation wasn't anything similar, but the feelings the memory brought up were. I didn't hate my enemy despite what she'd done and was planning to do. I just felt sad for her, the fact that she would once again be completely alone, sealed away from the world that she was trying to 'save'.
Kurama stayed quiet, respecting my perspective despite disagreeing with me.
"I may not be strong enough now, but I promise you; I will become the strongest. One day, I will be strong enough to stop this cycle of hatred and save everyone. Including you."
Her expression remained unchanged, physically and emotionally.
I readied myself. Kurama's chakra, intertwined with my own, blazed brighter around me in a golden glow.
"Prepare yourself."
The air behind me shattered and burned away as I launched myself at Kaguya.
Elemental Nations, Team 7
(A few moments earlier)
"Sakura. Kakashi."
While the pink-haired girl jumped off her seat on the fallen log in surprise, the silver haired man just turned his head normally, having felt Sasuke appear behind them just a moment before he spoke.
"Sasuke, you're back! You guys–" She cut herself off. The smile dropped off of her face for a frown when she noticed he was alone. "Where's Naruto? What's going on?!"
"Calm yourself, Sakura." Kakashi's smooth toned voice cut in as he rose to a stand, then placed his hand on her shoulder to sooth her rising panic. "Sasuke wouldn't be here as composed as he is if Naruto was no longer with us. He's fine." Kakashi kept his eyes on Sasuke the entire time, both of Obito's Sharingan activated. "That being said, Naruto is probably still battling Kaguya as we speak, so why don't we let Sasuke explain the situation quickly."
Sakura glanced at Kakashi for a moment before taking a breath to compose herself and nodding.
Sasuke's mismatched purple and red eyes faded to his regular coal-black as he stared at them and started talking.
"Kaguya is quickly increasing in skill and battle instinct as the fight continues. Even with Naruto and I getting better with our new abilities as well, it's gotten to the point where we can't realistically catch her with the two of us fighting her directly unless she makes a massive mistake at exactly the right time. Another issue is that I just don't have the chakra or stamina to continuously fight at my peak as long as either of them."
He involuntarily clenched his fist so minutely that neither of them noticed. "At the moment, Naruto and the Ninetails are keeping up well enough that she can't beat them, but are struggling enough that she doesn't see them as enough of a threat to try erasing her worlds again. This is where my plan for you two comes in."
He glanced at Sakura, black staring into emerald. "Sakura. I need you to transfer a third of my remaining chakra to each of you, and then use your portion as a buffer between ours when we start the plan. Kakashi." He turned to his old teacher. "I'm going to show you how to use my version of Obito's space-time breach into Kaguya's dimensions with my Sharingan, then I'll feed you info on where to look for Naruto's chakra. Once you lock on to him, open the breach just enough to let us observe the fight without Kaguya taking note. Even if she notices though, she should only sense your chakra and likely ignore it. I'll handle the rest."
To Sakura's perspective, the world shimmered briefly before Sasuke was suddenly standing right in front of Kakashi and her with his Sharingan and Rinnegan still active.
For Kakashi, it was expected. After all, he had noticed from the moment Sasuke arrived that they were placed in a genjutsu. It was why he activated his Sharingan for the encounter, just to make sure he'd be able to see through it in case Sasuke tried anything, like when he'd tried to kill Sakura. His caution was unneeded though, because Sasuke instead used his ocular technique to give them a sort of 'mission brief' in under a second of real world time.
Sakura nodded and reached out to place her hand on his stomach, now coated in fiery green medical chakra. Her eyes widened slightly and she quickly activated her Strength of a Hundred seal.
"Jeez Sasuke, even when you're at under half of your reserves, just a third of your chakra is too much for my body to handle all at once without my seal active." She shook her head in disbelief before turning to Kakashi. "Alright sensei, your turn." She gestured for him to come closer, and placed her other hand on his stomach when he did so.
As she was managing their chakra levels, Sasuke locked onto Kakashi's– or rather Obito's– eyes, and began imparting the experience and sensation of using the technique via a genjutsu. Once that was done, he spoke up.
"Are both of you ready? We can't afford to make a single mistake."
Kakashi nodded, eyes filled with a grim determination
"Not just yet, I'm still forming a barrier around you. It's not too dissimilar to what I do to create my seal, just a different application of the skill than I'm used to." Sakura said, frowning in concentration. "Almost finished. Aaaaaaand… done. We're all set."
She looked up at Sasuke. "After this is all over, you have a lot to answer for," she stared into his eyes for a moment. "... So you have to make it back, both of you."
He held her gaze for a couple seconds, not revealing anything with his expression, before turning to look at Kakashi and nodding.
"Let's begin."
Sand hung in the air above the world, creating a tan haze that obscured all around. Even through the haze, the glow of two colors shone brightly through the curtain of crystalline silica grains. One was a distinct singular source of golden light, constantly in motion and frequently changing directions, while the other was a near omnipresent blue, shining from countless sources all moving in one direction; straight towards and past the golden entity as it flitted around the sky, avoiding them.
There was a continuous, near deafening thunder of sound shaking the air and keeping the dust afloat with shockwaves, as each and every one of the blue lights lanced down and blasted the surface of the desert away, all of the nearby sand being relocated to Not There, and the sandstone beneath it worn away to reveal cratered, smooth, blackened stone.
"Get us above them, you need to get me a better sightline to get the perfect timing."
The illusory sound of Sasuke's voice inserted itself into Kakashi's brain, while he in turn fed his visual into Sasuke's.
He ignored his every human instinct screaming at him to run far away from the battle between titans, steeling his nerves to follow through with his part of the plan. He may not have been much of a teacher when it came to the power his three students now possessed, but it was still his duty as their first true shinobi role model to do his best to support them, even if it came at the cost of his life.
The miniscule wrinkle in the fabric of space disappeared without a trace.
It was almost like trying to dodge rain, I felt. There were a few key differences, of course, like the minor issues of these 'raindrops' being the size of a carriage, and them packing enough of a punch to destroy Sasuke's Susanoo in one hit.
You know, the little things.
Maybe saying it was like trying to dodge rain was wrong. I'm easily fast enough to do that pretty casually now, so it wouldn't be fair to Kaguya to say that this was easy for me. I still occasionally had to deflect the chakra fists with my orbs, or blast paths into the onslaught with a Bijuudama or two.
Despite the crazy pace of the current state of the battle, I watched almost casually as my latest shield shattered into fragments of chakra that would re-enter the natural world. I must have miss counted how many blasts it had deflected, or maybe Kurama had taken control of it at some point, because I had expected it to hold up to at least two more of Kaguya's attacks. That brought me down to two remaining Gudoudama.
Kaguya was still hovering in the air above us, just watching with her Byakugan. Not in the same spot she'd started this barrage from, every Bijuudama aimed at her had made sure of that, but still at the same height she'd risen to when she started. Her hands were held palm-forward in front of her, the unending blasts of chakra leaving her with a constant scream of rushing air.
Before the fragments had even finished dissipating, Kurama was already bringing our chakra together behind me to create a replacement, while at the same time gathering up and converting more of the constantly replenishing natural chakra from the world. At this point, I had felt Kurama do this so many times that I might even be able to copy him and double our production. Even with him near-constantly pulling double or even triple duty with our chakra management, orb-making, and occasional defense, we were still losing them at a rate just a little faster than he could make them.
Launching myself out of the way of another fist larger than my body, I zig-zagged through the artificial dust storm while keeping to the path of least resistance. Least resistance still being a ton of resistance. There were still plenty of attacks that I had to fully block or deflect with an orb, but not nearly enough to justify the sudden chakra expenditure of a bijuudama.
I felt the third Truth-Seeker finish forming just before I was forced to block another unavoidable attack, immediately shattering the oldest orb I possessed. Kurama was once again already starting a third.
"Oi, in a couple cycles we'll be down to one. We'll have to back off in a moment." I couldn't spare the energy to put any fire into my voice, having to put all of it towards surviving the onslaught. Also, the situation had become weirdly boring in a way. I'd never been in a fight as dangerous as this, and yet my heart rate and adrenaline production had begun to go down a bit from doing the same thing over and over again. Dodge, dodge, dodge, block, repeat. "Got any idea how to close distance? She's only managing to push us this hard with this strategy because of the distances involved."
The closer we got to her, the denser the array of attacks, the less room there was for me to go between them. If we backed off we could get some more breathing room to build back up some Gudoudama, but that would give her more room to work with bigger, more indiscriminate attacks that I won't be able to fully dodge or block, and she had a ready-made instant delivery method by using her portals, so the distance wouldn't actually matter to her offensive capability. It was a trade-off we were reluctant to make. Ironically, the slow whittling down of our resources in the faster paced danger zone was the option that was least likely to instantly kill us.
"I do, but we'll have to get some distance for a bit first. We don't have nearly enough Gudoudama."
Just after he finished speaking, one of the two remaining shattered while deflecting a blast that I wasn't quite fast enough to get around completely.
In a fraction of an instant it was replaced by Kurama finishing the creation of another, but that was enough time that the single remaining one had been forced to take double duty and deflect four other attacks, leaving it at about half its remaining life-span.
I continued dodging the giant blue energy fists, waiting for the right one. After a moment that felt like an eternity, I found myself staring down a fist directly blocking sightlines between Kaguya and I, inches from my skin. I flared our chakra as powerfully as possible in an instant.
'Time to go!'
I launched myself backwards, matching my pace and trajectory perfectly to the attack, sticking as close to it as possible while suppressing our chakra cloak as much as I could. It wouldn't exactly hide us from her Byakugan for long, but what it would do is make her lose track of us for a moment. The closest comparison would be like if you were watching someone walk towards and then behind a tree, your eyes would naturally continue tracking to the other side of the tree under the assumption that they would continue past it, but instead they just stop directly out of sight.
During the time that our little misdirection gave me, I took a tiny risk… and focused all of my senses inward to observe the process Kurama used to remake my orbs, rather than watching the battlefield. There was absolutely no way this could backfire, not a chance!
From what I could tell, the process was extremely similar to both the way I balance nature energy for Sage Mode, and the way I mix Wind into a Rasengan. Just… a lot more complicated. Instead of balancing the two parts of my chakra with a third energy, or converting my chakra into an element while also maintaining shape manipulation… I just need to do, like, six times that! Creating all five basic elements, plus pure Yin and pure Yang, while keeping them in balance, while mixing them together in a perfect blend, while shaping them!
Ahem. While it definitely made me internally gulp, the truth was I had somehow managed to gain such an immensely precise control of my chakra in the last few days, that I could probably make enough Rasengans to cover myself head to toe all at once from every tenketsu, without the use of a single clone. It was super crazy.
I could probably make one on my own before Kaguya noticed what was up. Maybe a second one before she reacted and took action.
I carefully took control of the portion of our reserves Kurama sent my way and began to work. My first attempt almost fell apart- transforming part of my chakra into Yin was hard!- but Kurama paused his progress on the one he was making to take the reins and nudge my chakra into the right motions, making sure I didn't have to start over again before going back to his.
Creating the Yin chakra properly gave a feeling that was difficult to describe. It felt like my entire body was being lightly tugged on in a direction that didn't exist, but with no actual force.
The moment I'd successfully finished mine, he'd already started on a third, and my senses extended back out to the battlefield just in time to feel Kaguya's chakra start gathering again.
My vision was still filled with the blue light inches from my face, and I could tell we were nearing the ground, so I decided it was probably time to get a direct line of sight to Kaguya, just in case she tried pulling something new out of her ass again. It was a shame I didn't have enough time to make a second orb, but now we were sitting at a nice count of five soon-to-be six thanks to the time my maneuver bought Kurama.
As I pushed my body away from the attack with my chakra, I couldn't help but grimace when I caught sight of Kaguya in between flashes of blue, far off in the distance. I knew Kurama had a plan to get close, but it would have been so much easier if we could have used my usual strategy of 'make a ton of clones to confuse my opponent'.
It really did suck that my clones couldn't actively control my Gudodama outside of my range, Kaguya would always know where the real me was in a general sense as long as I had the overpowered orbs.
It seemed- based on what I felt when making them- that they were connected to me on a deeper level than just being made by my chakra. My best guess is that it had something to do with my soul, since my clones were exact copies of me in every other regard and could use everything that I could, including equipment.
It had been over three years since I read the Forbidden Scroll and learned the technique, but I think I remember it saying something about 'imparting pieces of the spirit' or whatever to each clone. That was probably what made me remember the things my clones did when they dispelled. If that was true, then my clones probably didn't have enough of my soul to control the orbs on their own. If I was right about the soul-thing being the–
"Enough getting sidetracked Naruto, focus up." Kurama rumbled in my mindscape, interrupting the thought.
Right.
As far from the source and target zone for the attacks as I'd gotten, I only had to put in a casual effort to dodge a couple strays while she started to adjust to our change in positioning.
"So, what's this plan of yours to get close to her?" I spoke within my mindscape, just in case she could read my lips.
"First things first, make a clone and send him a good distance to your left."
I mentally shrugged and a copy of me appeared, already moving in that direction.
"Next, we need to charge up the biggest attack we possibly can, on your right."
I felt a massive grin form on my face.
"Alright, now we're talkin'! Let's do a Truth-Seeking Super-Ultra-Big Ball Bijuu Bomb Rasenshuriken!"
"..."
Kurama took a few moments to respond for some reason.
"... Sure kid, let's do that. Also, please never say that out loud. Ever. I would never live it down if my siblings caught wind of it. Or anyone for that matter."
"Huh?" I tilted my head in confusion. "Live what down? What the hell are you talking about, fuzzbutt?" Even as I questioned him, I held my right arm out to the side with my palm facing away, enormous amounts of chakra gathering around the Gudodama I placed there.
"Your naming sense sucks!" He roared in my head, a golden claw of chakra reaching out from our cloak to stabilize and add power to the orb while I added wind and even still more power. "You can't just keep tacking on more words to the name every time you make a change! Idiotic! It sounds idiotic! The great and mighty Kyuubi, feared across all the lands, using an attack that sounds like a particularly stupid child named it!? Absolutely not!" He ranted. "You didn't hear that mad Uchiha call his jutsu Super-Duper Big Hot Fire, it was Majestic Destroyer Flame!"
"…" The Truth-Seeking Super-Ultra-Big Ball Bijuu Bomb Rasenshuriken was now about the size of a large house with wind-blades starting to noticeably form.
"… You're pouting."
I turned my head to the side. "Am not."
Because I definitely wasn't pouting.
"You're not hiding your face from anyone, idiot, I can literally feel your face muscles pouting."
"I'm not–"
"Duck in three, two–"
It clicked in my head what the clone was for. I flung myself downward, letting our attack destabilize and burst in a directed explosion–
"–One."
–Right as Kaguya's hand speared through the space where my head had just been, a long spike of bone jutting out from her palm.
I'd noticed she liked to only partially go through them, staying on the other side with her lower body in order to pull back if her attack failed. The world lit up around us, searing my senses as all that chakra blasted us at point blank, knocking Kaguya out of her portal and preventing that option.
While it also pushed me, my sudden downwards movement took us out of the direct blast cone. That was great, because it meant we didn't take a tumble and get too disoriented, but it was also not great because it increased our distance to Kaguya at the moment when she was at her most vulnerable, and probably temporarily blinded by the flash of that much chakra thanks to her Byakugan.
My sight was mostly fine, if a bit blurry from the flash, but it would heal in moments. I turned and rocketed towards the only chakra in the area that wasn't ours at my max speed, using the ambient chakra to form a clone next to me moving at the same speed.
My clone grabbed and then threw me towards her with a chakra arm, almost doubling my speed while halting his own. My hand stretched out towards her rapidly approaching figure as my eyes finished recovering, her form sharpening into view right in front of my first clone as I got closer.
A lot happened in the next moment.
Sasuke's body and chakra were inserted into the world, replacing my clone at her back, and already lunging at her.
Kaguya grew an ash bone spike on her palm faster than any she'd made before and began turning towards Sasuke for a stab.
Mid turn, her other hand swung in my direction, an impossibly black tear in space, a void to my senses, ripping itself open across the sky in front of me, further away from her body and extending many times further than any other portal she's made in the entire fight; it practically blotted out the sky.
She had stopped playing around
There was no time to think complex thoughts. I understood intuitively at that moment the chain of events that would occur if I didn't reach Kaguya in time.
At the speed I was going, we would have made contact with her at the same time. I couldn't dodge the portal, I was going too fast. If I didn't reach her by the time Sasuke made contact, then he would grab Kaguya, just to either be cut down a moment after he made contact, or replace himself with my clone, and then our chance would be gone along with her final self-imposed restraint.
There was no time to think complex thoughts.
'We needed to make palm-seal contact with Kaguya at the same time.'
'Shadow Clones don't have the mark.'
'Shadow Clones can't control Gudodama.'
'Shadow Clones don't have enough of my soul.'
I didn't think, but these vague impressions flashed through my mind all at once. The image of that mummy shinobi who could split himself into two perfect bodies appeared immediately after.
There was no time to think. Only act.
I banked on finishing the fight, one way or the other.
Besides, I've been making perfect physical clones of myself for as long as I've been a shinobi, I'm sure everything will turn out fine!
As I approached the portal at a speed faster than I had ever moved in my life, from close enough to reach out and touch it, I forced every bit of chakra in my body, titanic amount that it was with both mine and Kurama's, out and passed the portal, creating a clone with three differences from the usual.
First of all, I was using all of our chakra on this clone, not just splitting it.
Kurama, bless his rage-and-chakra fueled everything, understood my intentions possibly before even I did, and transformed and molded the Yang needed to turn the clone body into an actual flesh and blood body, another me.
Secondly, instead of just doing what I've always done and making the clone with a small piece of my spirit as intended, I'd give the new me much more.
I took hold of my spirit– my Yin– and with an almost painful level of that previous tugging sensation, split my inner self into two even parts, sending one half with our chakra to help make my new body and feeling my sense shift to my new state.
… Maybe not entirely even halves. I couldn't really tell at the time, I was new at the whole "soul awareness" thing. The brief feeling of existing in two places with two minds let me better compare my selves, before the connection broke and we truly became two different Narutos.
I threw in a little bit of all-of-Kurama's-soul while I was at it, for good measure. I could tell from his lack of resistance that he didn't expect that. He might have fought me on it if he did, regardless of the time crunch.
Most of my body had already crossed through the portal at this point, my senses telling me nothing of the place Kaguya had baited me into.
As my momentum carried me the rest of the way into the void, my chakra network empty and hurting with exhaustion on a level I couldn't describe, I chuckled to myself.
Kurama was going to be so pissed at me, and other-me would have to be the one to deal with it.
There was a sudden warmth that shot through my system that I wasn't expecting before it disappeared, and with its just as sudden absence, I found myself in an intense and nearly all-consuming pain.
Then the portal crashed shut uncontrollably and left me in the darkness of the void, cutting off the lingering remnant of my connection to my second self. I could tell we'd succeeded.
Wouldn't stop Kurama from being upset at me, though.
It's not like I'd planned on going off to my death. If that were the case, I would have shoved as much of my soul into the new me as I could without immediately killing myself and screwing up the process. It's just, I wanted to be sure that if the portal was going to send us to death, at least one of us would escape fully intact, and if it wasn't a death sentence, then I would be more comfortable with my chances at survival the more of my soul I still had.
Just ask that bastard Orochimaru. Having a physical body could keep a soul alive through a whole lot of bullshit. Kurama was basically just a mass of solid chakra layered around a soul, he needed his soul intact much more than other-me would.
… Probably. I think.
I wasn't exactly an expert.
I felt my thoughts drift more and more into random topics as my body was slowly being torn apart by the nothingness around me.
Soon enough, I stopped even feeling pain at all, and close behind that, my consciousness left me.
The last thought I had alongside the sensation of falling, was how strange a thing it was to feel in an empty world without gravity.