Half of Team Guy and the leader of Team 7 stared at the latter's clone. It was created to take his place. Even then, they didn't know if the assassination jutsu would affect him. The Sharingan detected no change whatsoever, which only fit how strange the jutsu was. All they could do was observe.

Kiba eyed the approaching bitten clone, who was rubbing its chin in thought. "Why did he turn black? How can that be a factor in his jutsu?"

"If I had any clue," the Kakashis said in unison, "I'm not sure how knowing it would help."

"Can you die from what happens to your shadow clones?!" Tenten asked.

Kakashi's clone hummed. "Theoretically." It shared a look with the original.

"A shinobi could have several endure extremely traumatic wounds. Dispelling them all at once would force their body beyond its limits through the accumulated shock, killing them."

She titled her head, not quite hearing them. "What?!"

"It's complicated!" Kiba shouted.

"Any last words, sensei?" Dosu asked, correctly putting together what happened. "You're kind of a dick, but I respect you."

"Fair enough." Kakashi's lips formed a line. "Tell Sasuke and Sakura I'm proud of them; I'm even proud of you." They curved downward into a frown. "And if any of you see Naruto again, tell him I'm sorry." His mind drifted to a warm memory of Minato and Kushina making him feel Naruto kicking in her pregnant belly. "...His parents loved him very much."

Kiba frowned too. "Dick move on your part, but none of the bad things in his life make him any less of one."

Clone Kakashi sighed. "I had no delusions of dying in my sleep at old age." It shot him a look alongside the original. "I did not account for you though." Wincing, it shifted focus to the reddening right sleeve of its pants.

"So it doesn't affect us both," the real Kakashi said, glancing at its own normal sleeve.

"Can you copy it?" Kiba asked. "From what we've heard, this sounds like something beyond kekkei genkai."

He observed the clone's side doing the same. "I can't and maybe." While he couldn't see any change in its chakra, the wounds appearing on the clone reminded him of the Nara's shadow manipulation jutsu and the Yamanaka's mind transfer jutsu, which both employed specialized Yin Release. They passed it off as kekkei genkai so they'd be treated amicably rather than ruthlessly tortured if captured alive, like the Akimichi did their specialized Yang Release. Only those with the Leaf's Dojutsu could realize that though.

Groaning, its legs buckled at the sensation of its liver being pierced. "Next target is…"

"Yeah." Kakashi flinched at the veins in its eyes becoming pronounced. "That looks pai–" He dropped to his knees the second it poofed.

Dosu almost laughed in relief. "Oh good, you're still alive." The odd tempo of his heart threatened that judgment. "Might want to take it easy though."

He would've scolded him if he weren't in extreme discomfort. "K-Kiba, don't engage in melee if he comes back."

"You can't even stand right now!" Kiba scoffed. "And what is Tenten going to do against this guy?!"

"Hey!" She yelled, making him flinch and Akamaru whine.

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Get over here, Dosu." He wasn't winded like his teammates, could still perform his role as the team's comms, had an element very few ninja in existence were aware of, and it was unlikely their enemy would focus on them after what he just did.

He turned and started running down the wall. "I've gotta go: sensei's calling me to reinforce." His eye narrowed in his direction. "Aside from streaming wind chakra through his weapon and the shadow clones, he hasn't used much conventional jutsu, has he?"

"Only remotely detonating explosive tags through Fire Style."

"Just wind and fire then. He can't use earth and hasn't used water or lightning yet." He blinked as ran onward. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you his clones have been replenishing their chakra and don't seem to feel pain."

His face scrunched. "What?"

"You heard me. Think it's some kind of drug the original took?"

"If that's the case, it'd be revolutionary."

"What are you talking about?" Kiba asked, being left outside of the long-distance conversation.

Kakashi tried to stand and faltered. "'Hidan' might be on some drug that lets him replenish his chakra during combat." He caught himself with a groan. "Either that or he knows a superior version of the Shadow Clone Jutsu."

"Finding the original is the only way we're going to win this," Dosu said. "We need to hold off his clones until Sasuke's find him." His eye squinted. "You know, if you just called me over and sent clones out looking for him with Sasuke's things would be going better."

His point made him want his heart to fail. "I needed… No, wanted to relieve some anger and thought I'd be more than enough."

"Last time we saw you fight, Sakura of all people was puking over your knocked out face." Kiba would've laughed if they were in a position where their lives didn't count on his ability.

"Did you forget the one before it where I beat the guy who killed Kimimaro without any effort?"

"That's not how power works."

Dosu scoffed. "Then don't hold that one fight against me, dumbass."

"Fuck this guy; we should've killed him back during the attack on the village!" Akamaru's bark affirmed his words.

"You know he heard you, right?" Kakashi shot his somewhat embarrassed face a look. "Out of our entire group, he's probably the most difficult to face."

"Please, you're just making that up."

"He is laying it on a little thick," Dosu said. "But I probably am." He rolled his eye at a dog-like scoff. "It's hard for me not to be."

"Am I supposed to feel bad for you?"

He isolated his voice to just his sensei's ears. "Bit slow, isn't he?"

"Let's not." Kakashi sighed.

"Trying to talk behind my back," Kiba spat. "Some comrade you are."

Dosu open eye-smiled. "Coming from the guy who has no faith in his own teammate?" He knew her abilities were lacking for their situation, but he saw an opening.

Kakashi scowled. "You're both childish idiots. Now, would you focus on our mission before your pissing match gets someone killed?"

They kept silent after his scolding. Really, the countless bodies around them should've sapped their belligerence. Both were still teenagers though, and they, like many people, had no idea how to process the massacre they witnessed. It made little sense to anyone present save Kakashi, who had experience destabilizing small countries.

After stabbing his heart and ruining two articles of clothing, Hidan created another clone to witness the results of his handiwork. It got several blocks away through the burning city before a Sasuke clone saw them. The lucky Sasuke waited for it to gain more distance so it could follow its trail undetected. Relief replaced its anxiety when it saw the original through a wall. Confusion followed suit at the sight of the innocent baby's chakra in his tumor-like arms.

Sasuke's eyes widened at an influx of chakra and experience. "I know where the real one is!" He looked in his direction.

Dosu, then by Kakashi's side, perked up. "Good news: Sasuke found him."

"Let's kill the bastard!" Kiba yelled, making him twitch.

"Ask him if he saw any clones or anything different about him," Kakashi said. "We need to know more about his assassination jutsu."

"Did you see any clones or anything odd?" Dosu asked.

Sasuke focused on the field of corpses on his side. "I tracked him from ones a clone made and not really, unless you count the sleeve of his right pant leg having a hole in it."

"...What?"

"There was a hole in the right sleeve of his pants," he affirmed. "Some blood stained it, but he was walking just fine, why?"

Dosu turned to his waiting sensei. "You know how your clone got stabbed in the leg? So was that guy."

"Are you saying he hurt himself to hurt him?" Kiba asked, line of thinking matching the jonin's.

Kakashi's eyes narrowed. "Ask if there were any bloodstains on his chest."

"Was there one in his shirt?" Dosu relayed.

"I only saw the clone's side." Sasuke shared an understanding look with an antsy Sakura. "What's going on?"

"He didn't see."

Their sensei's expression was stalwart. Shinobi with ridiculous healing abilities existed, but he never heard of anything on the level he was thinking of. Healing Ninjutsu only accelerated the natural healing process or substituted cell types while still leaving fatigue, which was inevitable from going through weeks to months worth of recovery in moments. 'Red Reaper Hidan' healed a pierced heart before he could lose enough blood to die. While somewhat correct, the truth was even more unbelievable.

Boredom grew in Orochimaru's main hideout alongside the three denizen's agitation. Jugo took to mumbling about murder. Suigetsu and Karin watched him warily, rightfully expecting him to snap. In the time since, they began feeling off. They were confused before the only sensor type among them could finally make out the bug-like chakra in just the two of their chests.

"...How?!" She looked down at her body. "He hasn't even put his damn fingers together!"

Suigetsu shot her a look. "Are we under Genjutsu?"

Karin scoffed. "The bug guy's chakra is inside us: our network flows are normal." She looked to the unaffected sage. "There's none inside you though."

"My body and my chakra are beyond anything in this world." Jugo grinned. "When they come down here, I'll show them how."

"Body…" Suigetsu drifted off, pondering. "Bug-like chakra inside of us…" He, remembering where their leaders were from, blinked. "Oh shit."

Karin turned to him. "What is it?"

"Don't panic."

"If you mean slapping you upside the head by panic, no."

The sternness of his face unsettled her. "Orochimaru and Naruto are definitely the biggest priorities to the Leaf right now. One of their clans, the Aburemi or whatever, have these bugs nest inside them." He normally would've shared her disgusted look. "If you're just now noticing that kind of chakra in us, these things are so small we and this entire place are probably swarming in them."

She shivered. "Wh-Wh-What!"

"My hydrification will save me, Jugo's body definitely ate the ones that went into him, and you…"

"...I'm screwed?"

"Kabuto could see Naruto's cells with his Healing Ninjutsu, right?" He looked to the spot in the ground where he sunk into. "Is he still there?"

She vanished beneath the ground. It was one thing to be in life-threatening danger and another to be infested by parasites. Even if dying still scared her, little things living inside her evoked a primal fear she'd never taken into consideration. They needed to be out for the comfort of her mind as well as her own health.

He roused from his resting position when he heard her coming. "So you sense th–" His face scrunched at her shaking him by the shoulders.

"Get them out of me!"

Suigetsu shook his head. "Now he probably has them. Why did I say anything?"

"I can kill her if she wants to stop worrying about them, right?" Jugo, a happy smile on his black-marked face, asked.

"Ask Naruto."

He scowled. "Maybe I should try killing you again." The lack of response made him want to murder more, like everything else when he was around people.

Kabuto channeled his chakra through Karin's body after she all but forced him to calm her down. Healing Ninjutsu sensory was focused and limited to flesh the user was in direct contact with. It required extreme chakra control typical of all medical jutsu but not for someone to be born a sensor type. Knowing how deep wounds ran and making out poison in the bloodstream were integral to knowing how, even if, to heal someone. Microscopic insects the size of cells were around her internal organs, leaking poison into her bloodstream.

"Can you get them out?!"

"It's going to be the most excruciating pain in your entire life." He scoffed. "I knew the Aburame had secrets, but this is just ridiculous."

She grit her teeth. "Get on with it."

"If I do extract, you're going to get infested again: the fact you haven't been attacked directly means the entire hideout is crawling with them."

"We can't just do nothing!"

"The more you panic, the more the poison spreads." He hummed as her form stiffened. "They can easily excrete more, so they're aiming to incapacitate or weaken rather than kill." Furrowing his brow, he sighed. "Last thing we needed was complications."

"Huh?" She turned her head over her shoulder to look at him.

"Go back up." He took his hand back. "I'll stay down here to surprise them."

"You're not a sensor ninja."

"Doesn't mean I won't be able to hear fighting so close to the surface. Besides, if they had a sensor ninja of their own, they'd have come for me first. We'll have to take care of them, leave the hideout, kill any of the bugs that could be on us, and then extract them from our bodies."

She shivered. "It's so gross though!"

"There are already microorganisms on and inside most living things," Kabuto deadpanned.

"Eww!"

He twitched. "Get lost." Her childish, unprofessional demeanor grated on him for once thanks to their situation.

Even if it was a team of the Leaf's best, that didn't worry him anywhere close to how much the Akatsuki did. Only two ninja aside from the Hokage could stand a decent fight against or defeat a member in his mind. He doubted they'd be lucky enough for them to take each other out, and it was unlikely they'd combine forces against theirs. They were obviously there for Naruto, who was also a goal of the Akatsuki's. Itachi and Kisame revealed their existence and objectives to the Leaf after their brief visit, so it was possible they could combine forces to eliminate whoever they'd send before turning on each other.

After having Sasuke tell him the actual surroundings of the real Hidan and careful consideration, Kakashi had Dosu relay orders for the rest of his team to create a shadow clone each. He ordered Kiba to go with them, not needing or wanting him around. Akamaru, transformed, could take a blow meant to kill him, but it was a bad idea to tell him that. The clones of his students seemed like they'd be enough to trap the split original without need of their assistance. Dosu and Tenten would take care of any clones on their end while the original Sasuke and Sakura would hold theirs.

Dosu squinted at ever familiar movement sounds. "Three times in a row?" He scoffed. "Are we sure this guy was anbu?"

"He views me as a factor he must eliminate or thinks this side is significantly weaker without me in top shape." Kakashi clutched his off-beat heart. "Both are accurate conclusions."

"I know this is probably one of the biggest missions we'll ever be on, maybe even the last for one of us, but you've been overthinking everything about this."

Kakashi wanted to scoff. "This is exactly how our enemy thinks. In the anbu, a single mistake or oversight could cause an international incident, beyond getting you and your comrades killed. His motivations are fanatical, but his methodology is practical. The only reason he hasn't left is a sense of duty."

"What?" He looked to him. "Can't that line of thinking be exploited?"

"Not if you're thorough enough."

Dosu focused back in their enemy's direction. "Right in my range." Forming hand seals, he concentrated. "Got any explosives?" He asked their closest female ally.

Tenten nodded. "Yeah, what for?"

"Offing the clone and looking really cool during it." He stopped on the bird sign.

"What about the bodies?"

He separated his hands. "Already mush or burnt." Bringing them together, only one person heard them clap.

Clone Hidan saw the figures off in the distance one second and was face to face with the slack face of a dead woman the next. "What?" It blinked, unable to hear its own voice. "The hell?" Forcing itself on its knees, a surge of malaise made it vomit.

"Did you?" Tenten squinted at the distant sight.

Dosu, hearing his handiwork, nodded. "Yup. He's open."

"So Sakura puking over your face…" She took out her scroll of paper bomb tied kunai while drifting off, realizing he could do the same to her. "Never mind."

Her fear appeased him. "I can't believe Orochimaru saw me as a grunt when I can do that." Kimimaro could still kill him easily, but the same could be said of most other shinobi.

"You couldn't before I helped you develop it," Kakashi said.

"But he didn't even bother trying with me." He heard the explosive ninja tool being released. "I was just the head of his fodder." Metal whirling through air brought his eye to it soaring toward the clone. "What kind of genius does that?"

"Intelligence and wisdom are correlated but different."

Clone Hidan looked at red it swept from the side of its face. "My eardrums." It didn't hear the kunai whizzing inches from its back but it felt the explosion pushing him forward. "...Oh." Missing a chunk of its back and spine, it fell limp among the rest of the bodies. "Sh-Shit." Dispersing would've ended its misery but, beyond making it easier to track the original, wasted a potential opportunity.

Kakashi shook his head. "A bit overkill for a clone."

"Uh." Dosu blinked. "He didn't disappear."

"Then he's having it endure." He accurately assessed it was baiting them to check. "On second thought." Looking up, a smile spread across his face. "Give him a few more!"

"Ow."

Tenten obeyed. "Right!"

Clone Hidan still couldn't hear anything. The next explosion let it know they knew. It allowed itself to poof, not wanting the original to fall unconscious again and to relay more information. All their capabilities were still lost on Hidan, but his clones discovered more than enough. Staying would get him captured.

"D-D-Damn." Hidan wavered yet managed to stop himself from falling, saving Baby Daigo from being crushed. "Forgive me, Lord Jashin." He took a deep breath and sighed. "I've failed you." Closing his eyes, he held up a hand straight. "May the deaths of the other heretics sate you for now." He set the baby down one last time, tapped its nose, grabbed his scythe and walked towards the door. "When you grow up, you better have taken the lesson of this day to heart."

Kiba, Akamaru, and the Sakura clone followed the Sasuke into the city. Everything they witnessed in their brief journey fueled their fury. Someone needed to answer for the wanton destruction, and it had to be the perpetrator. Their mission became the last thing on their minds. He was walking down the stairs of the complex when they showed up.

Not surprised, he lifted a hand in greeting, careful to not look them in the eyes. "Yo! I'm calling it here." The confusion on what he could see on their faces made him raise an eyebrow. "I'm leaving. You're all a bit much, so I give up on killing Baby Daimyo." He was going to try again after they left, but his chances were better if they didn't know.

"...Do you really expect us to just let you leave after all you've done?" Clone Sakura asked, legitimately questioning.

"Yeah."

It twitched. "I'm going to...murder you."

"Good luck with that." He glanced at the other two looking at him in disbelief. "One of you get a handle on her."

"Fuck off!" Kiba yelled, Akamaru transforming into him.

He shrugged. "Let's get to it then." A jump launched him over the railing.

Clone Sasuke's focus never once drifted away from the hole in the center of his chest. It explained why Dosu asked the original if he saw anything different. That meant several things. One possibility jumped out the most: Kakashi fell victim to his assassination jutsu. Knowing that would've set them off balance, so neither Dosu nor Kiba would tell them.

A long blade of pure lightning pierced his chest, missing his spine by inches thanks to haste, in the air. He shifted, turning a potential bisection into a deep slash. Letting go of his scythe, he made the tiger and ox signs to blow them far back with the Great Breakthrough Jutsu. The scythe didn't touch the ground with some maneuvering of its cable sending it back into his hands. He turned and began running.

Having removed their weights before the entire fiasco, Kiba and Akamaru closed the distance between them and Hidan seconds after they recovered. One delivered a savage heel kick to the elbow of his arm holding the scythe and the other did the same to his knee. The arm-breaker kicked the scythe out of his grasp before joining his lookalike in beating the fallen man senseless. When the other two recovered, they rushed over and joined in. None knew when they'd stop.

Smoke clouded the sky above almost as much as the steam did. It could be seen from far away, and the terrorized despair in the survivors could be sensed. Even a weak sensor ninja could've felt it in passing due to the sheer amount of people. Bubbles began floating over the burning city. Their caster knew it would draw someone he'd been avoiding as of late to him, but he couldn't sit by.

Excitement drove Anko and Hinata to reunite with the other half of their team sooner. The Byakugan let the latter see their subterfuge. More importantly, it let her know neither their objective nor his assumed corrupter were present. She could hardly care about the four inhabitants. Her love was absent.

"...He's not here," Hinata hissed. "He's. Not. Here."

"Is anyone?" Anko asked, frowning.

She shook in anger and frustration. "He's not."

Her hand took hold of her throat, turning her shaking into shivering. "Who's inside?" She was in no mood to wait either.

She saw the only woman among them mimic her body language. "A-A-An orange-haired young man with a strange body covered in blacks marks and strange, powerful chakra; a white-haired young man carrying an odd large sword, a red-haired young woman covered in bite marks with immense strange chakra, and a black-haired young man in anbu uniform with erratic chakra and closed pores." Tears left her eyes. "I'm sorry, Anko-sensei." She whimpered, even as the woman took her in for an embrace.

"I forgive you," she said, tone soft and very much unlike her. She nuzzled the side of her hooded head. "We'll torture their location out of them, and you can spend as much time as you want with him."

The comfort and pleasantness Hinata felt in her presence came back in force. "R-Right, Anko-sensei." Nuzzling her back, she buried her trauma once more.

Karin stopped shivering and stared out at nothing. "...Someone more broken than Naruto exists."

"Say what?" Suigetsu asked, not quite hearing her.

She shook again at the memory of what one of the two newcomers' chakra was like. It was a blend of far too many intense stimuli. Nothing she experienced in her life compared. Stabilized from what she could tell, it was all too pleasant but some agony remained. Love, lust, and pain was her being with the woman embracing her matching, save cruelty instead of distress.

"In case you somehow don't know, we've got four enemies inside." Anko turned to the other two. "Naruto and Orochimaru aren't here, so they've gotta know where they are. The orange-haired brat is Jugo: he can absorb people, manipulate his body beyond anything you've ever seen, launch beams of pure chakra at you, and is super strong." She would've regretted getting rid of her Cursed Mark if it really did benefit her. "Got no clue who the hell the other three are, but they're probably Orochimaru's best. One's hiding beneath the ground, so I advise we kill him first."

"We need only inform them my toxic insects are in their bodies, and I am the only one with a cure," Torune said.

Hinata looked to him, though not needing to. "'Jugo,' is not infected."

"Not like there was a chance of us talking him down." Anko scoffed. "He'd throw a fit the second he recognized me."

"Were you close?" She blushed as a hand stroked the top of her hooded head.

"He's an old play-toy."

A swarm erupted from Torune's flesh and flew down, forming another him. "I'll send an insect clone." Unnecessary risks were out of the question.

Karin's skin crawled. "They're sending a clone made out of bugs at us!"

"The woman can see what we're doing but not discern what we're saying," Hinata informed.

"Like a sensor...ninja." Anko almost scoffed, remembering what she learned about those with red hair. 'She's an Uzumaki with the Mind's Eye of the Kagura: she doesn't need to mold her chakra to sense things,' she mouthed. 'If she lives, she could jeopardize your plan to keep The Nine-Tails in the Hyuga.'

Her veiny eyes narrowed. 'That won't be a problem.'

"Now she wants to obliterate someone," Karin said, grimacing at the fierce shift in her chakra.

"So there is a woman!" Jugo jumped up and down. "I call dibs!"

Suigetsu shook his head. "Think of Naruto." He rolled his eyes at him stomping a crack into the ground.

"...What does he mean by that?" Hinata twitched.

"And she's angry again." Karin squinted as the chakra shifted to a calm and controlled state, like Kabuto's did when he assumed an identity. "Now…" She tilted her head in confusion as the spy, putting together that his position was likely compromised, dug back up to the surface.

On the floor proper, he looked to the hall leading into the main chamber. "Whatever you do, don't say my name," he said in an unfamiliar voice.

"Why?" Suigetsu shot him a look. "Did you seriously g–" A hand nearly swiped through his head, stopping centimeters away.

"Shut. Up."

"The man in an anbu uniform doesn't want them speaking his name," Hinata said in monotone.

Anko hummed. "An agent from another village?" She shrugged. "We'll find out."

Torune's insect clone walked unobstructed from the entrance of the headquarters through the serpentine walls and into the central chamber where its unfazed enemies were. "There are venomous microscopic insects surrounding your vital organs. One command, and they'll secrete more than enough poison to kill you all."

"If you're here for Naruto Uzumaki, there's something you should know," Kabuto said, ignoring the looks he got from the others as he stepped forward.

"And that is?"

"Two S-class criminals from the Akatsuki just recently learned the location of this hideout." He pointed a thumb back at them. "We were originally supposed to wait here to ambush them before you came along."

"Wait, what?" Karin said.

Suigetsu kept himself from voicing his doubt. "That was the plan." He shot her and Jugo a glance, telling them to play along.

"I have no reason to believe you," Clone Torune deadpanned.

"True, but we're at your mercy, if you're not lying to us," Kabuto said. "If I'm right, you'll be facing two S-class criminals with whatever team you were able to muster from the Leaf. Before or after, you'll be too winded to survive with whoever is left." He smirked beneath his mask. "Better to have us and not need us than need us and not have us."

It studied them for several seconds. "I must relay this information." To their disgust and amazement, it reverted into a cloud of insects.

"'Akatsuki,'" Hinata quoted. "Two S-class criminals?"

Humming, Anko recalled the duo she last encountered fitting that classification. "What's going on?"

"The anbu agent said they were supposed to ambush two S-class criminals from an 'Akatsuki' instead of us."

"Indeed," Torune said, receiving his insects and chakra. "We are aware of this organization." He looked to them. "Capturing The Nine-Tails jinchuriki and other such jinchuriki appears to be their goal."

"Now you tell me." Anko scoffed.

"It was not relevant to the mission."

"That was an expression." She turned to the girl shaking by her side. "Hey."

Hinata almost growled. "They're lying."

"People with their lives in an enemy's hands often do so in hopes of saving themselves," Sai said.

"Only the anbu agent is calm; the others are too panicked." Trusting their chakra flow was futile from what she learned from Orochimaru's former student.

Anko inclined her head. "Then we get their location from them." She jumped down from the tree branch. "I'll keep out of sight."

The others joined her and entered the hideout, Torune taking the lead. Karin told her group of their movements with Hinata informing her own they knew. When they entered the central chamber, Anko stayed behind in the halls. Orochimaru's group sized them up as they stood unfazed. Neither was sure what was going to happen next.

"Where is Naruto?" Hinata's tone did not leave room for argument.

Kabuto took a deep breath and sighed. "Try not to hurt them."

Jugo sprang first, literally rocketing towards her with hardened flesh jets on his back. His morphing fist struck air though. A swarm of insects clouded his vision beyond going towards the others. Something massive punched him into the nearest wall. Vision cleared from being knocked out of the living fog, he saw two giants made of ink rushing toward him.

Listening to the most experienced among them, Karin wrapped the other Root agents in her chains after he finished doodling the behemoths and the girl's evasion. She wanted to let go because of the bugs, but that was a horrible idea. Then two lion heads of pure chakra from the girl's hands absorbed the chains surrounding her. It was so beautiful and horrifying she froze. Suigetsu, liquefied into a torrent of water to avoid the effects of poison, crashed over her lunging form before she could reach her.

Violence was inevitable, especially for shinobi. If it wasn't then, it would be after whatever either dealt with. Life was a complicated spiral of chaos. None would ever know who got what end of the stick. All they could do was fight.

AN: A lowkey buildup chapter. Hidan is good, especially with what I've given him, but he's nowhere near capable enough of pulling off his self-given mission with Guy and Kakashi both there, much less with their teams. Just not a lot in his arsenal to deal with that amount of variation.

Do you guys have any idea how small something in the nanoscopic scale is? Like a lot of things after Pain, I really had to stop for a second. Forget Izanami, Izanagi, and Hashirama cells. The Sharingan being capable of making something out on that level is pure bullshit. That's the size of a virus. We are crawling with bacteria we can't even feel, which is why Karin couldn't make them out until it was too late. Nano is even smaller. For the purposes of this story as to not make Torune and the Aburame Hashriama-level broken, the special rinkaichu are more on the micro scale with the hybrid bugs being bigger but still not enough to be noticed by sensor ninja.

As for Kabuto and Healing Ninjutsu's sensory, it makes sense, at least to me, given Sakura had to isolate the poison in Kankuro for extraction. Seems like an essential ability for them really. And how else was Tsunade able to realize Naruto's Rasenshuriken damaged him to that level? Did they put him under a microscope? They have microscopes even?

The Ina-Shika-Cho thing has been in place since Shikamaru made that one-off remark about being kept as a breeding stud. Also something that makes sense, at least to me. Hiden isn't explored as much as I'd like it to be. And why would you ever let anyone know something is a clan secret rather than a kekkei genkai? That's just begging to be tortured relentlessly. I know they're not going to be let go regardless but still. Suigetsu wasn't able to trick Orochimaru, who would reasonably know about clan secrets.

RIP, Akira Toriyama. I loved Dragon Ball as a kid. I grew out of it and it's hard for me not to roll my eyes when I think about the plot of the series in Z, but I still loved it. You will be missed. And if it weren't for you, we probably wouldn't have Naruto.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the form of a review or PM.