Pre-Chapter AN: Here we go. New chapter. This one rounds up this arc in its entirety. There's a nice twist or two for those who heaven't been paying attention. After reading this, you can either wait till next week for the next chapter or read the next two on pa-treon right now and keep reading as I write. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.

Have fun with this. Also, in case you haven't checked out my other story (One Thousand Hands), please do so. It's set in the Naruto Universe as well and is an SI into an OC Grandson of Hashirama with a Hyuga mother. I guarantee you'll love it.

XXXXXXX- TSUNADE

Mitotic Regeneration was the only thing that had saved her life, she knew. Her legs had been broken in more places than she could count in one go. Her stomach had been torn open by a flying piece of debris, and her entire right arm had been crushed underneath a falling building. But that was not the pain that tore at her. One second the Kazekage and his friend in the Akatsuki robe had taken their fight to the skies, and the next there was nothing that remained of her precious village. She would not cry. She did not have the tears left in her, but to see her Grandfather's dream brought low like this broke her heart in the way a thousand Dans could never. It was at this moment that she realised that she had the same disease. The disease she hadn't hesitated to identify in Sarutobi-sensei, and Jiraiya, and Dan, and even Orochimaru in one form or another. The love for Konoha that went beyond everything else. Except in her case, it had taken her losing it for her to come to terms with it. The village was gone. A crater was all that remained. The Hokage monument still stood, but that was a cold comfort at the end of the day.

Her teammates. She decided they were the ones she'd look for first and foremost. They would have a plan. Some way to join the flight that still raged above them. Because gods help her, she was going to make sure both of those men answered for the damage done to hr Grandfather's village. With much of the village gone, she had an easy enough time feeling out Jiraiya's chakra signature. He was slumped against a boulder. His arm was bent at an odd angle and there was a piece of rebar going straight through his midsection. Naruto was by his side, looking relatively unscathed by what they had just endured, and frantically worrying over his sensei. She decided to hurry to them before Naruto got a bright idea into his mind like trying out medical ninjutsu.

She body flickered in their direction. It took her two usages of the technique before she appeared by their side. "Ba-Chan!" Naruto sounded more excited than ever to see her. She ruffled the boy's hair and leaned down to work on her teammate. The only body she knew better than Jiraiya's was her own. She had an easy enough time putting him back in one piece. Most of the damage had been superficial in truth. Even the metal that pierced through his midsection had done a good enough job of missing anything vital. The only issue that was really apparent was the concussion. Naruto hovered over her, watching her every action with interest and worry. She'd already assured him his sensei would be alright. Such an untrusting boy.

"What of the Akatsuki member you were fighting? The woman?"

"Oh her? After the red-headed guy flew up fighting Desert guy over there, she just left. Turned into paper and flew off" He explained.

She nodded, not even bothering to question the unique ninjutsu. She'd seen it all during the war, and it seemed that this generation was dead set on proving that thought to be wrong. New techniques were now a dime a dozen.

"Did you see anything of Orochimaru?"

"Ero-Sennin said we should go look for him, and we were heading there when the village blew up"

She nodded, finished up with healing the concussion, and began waiting for him to regain consciousness.

She blinked as Jiraiya stormed to his feet upon regaining consciousness. That was certainly more vim and vigour than she'd seen from her teammate in a while. She'd thought the perpetually impatient Jiraiya had been killed by the weight of old age and the decades that had passed since they'd known each other.

"Let's find Orochimaru" He had said after thanking her profusely for the healing. As if he'd needed to. The three of them moved through the wreckage of her Grandfather's dream. She knew she was talking it hard, but between the deep breaths Jiraiya took as they passed every dead body-which thankfully didn't happen too often- and the silent tears streaming down Naruto's face, it was clear that those with her were taking it even harder.

Orochimaru should have been towards the West end of the village, but it was to the East Jiraiya led them with a frown on his face. She knew that he was allowing his cursed seal to lead them to its brother, which Orochimaru bore, and that could not have been without toll. Cursed seals carried that name for a reason, and she swallowed the urge to slap him upside his head again for the decision to make one.

Finally, they found her teammate. If Jiraiya had been in a bad state, then Orochimaru was worse. It was like the explosion had caught him while he'd been ejecting his body using that strange substitution of his and left him stuck in that stage. Half his body was fully out of the old shell while the other half was stuck within. The only issue was that the old shell was crushed underneath a building.

"That's disgusting" Naruto let out and she chuckled.

"Yeah, people have been saying that about Orochimaru for a while," Jiraiya joined in. This time, her chuckles were drowned out by full-blown laughter. All three of them were laughing. It took a while for them to stop, and she quickly got to work. The operation to recover his legs should have taken a while, but she was still brimming with chakra from her cursed seal release, and she was done in a few minutes. Orochimaru gained consciousness halfway through her procedure and only began to move once she gave him the all clear.

"Thank you, Tsunade. But I assure you I had it covered".

"We could see that" She said, causing the original trio burst into laughter at the memory of how they'd found him and Orochimaru to stare at them perplexed.

"Either way, we have one Rinnegan welder to tear a new one"

"Indeed. Such a fascinating doujutsu. I've fallen victim to the repulsive attack before, but to think it could cause such havoc. Fascinating".

"Keep it in your pants, Orochimaru. We're destroying those eyes when we finish," Jiraiya said with a severe look on his face.

The kind of look that made even Orochimaru reluctant to argue.

"Go look for Shizune, Naruto. The rest of us will see to our _ally_ and his friend" The stress she placed on the word ally made it clear she had only one thing in mind for Gaara of the Desert.

"I want to come along, Ba-chan. Konoha was my village too".

"Is"

"What?"

"Is your village. My Grandfather's dream was more than a series of buildings. It is the people. The will of fire. That is why I am sending you to Shizune. If everything went well, she would have evacuated most of the village to the safe zone. If that's the case, I want you there keeping them safe. I am entrusting you with my Grandfather's dream the same way I entrusted you with his necklace, Naruto. Can you do that for me, Naruto?"

"Yes, Granny Tsunade. I'll keep everyone safe. Dattebayo!" He screamed before jumping off towards the Hokage mountain.

"Good thing he's still so gullible, ey?" She ignored Orochimaru's words and the guilt she felt for lying to Naruto.

"Game faces on, everyone. This fight we'll be stepping into is undoubtedly S-class", She said. Personally, she was beginning to find that the S-classification was beginning to become insufficient to describe the monsters that were showing up in this generation. Gaara of the Desert was the single deadliest man she'd ever seen, and that seemed to be a position that the Akatsuki leader seemed keen to take from him.

Jiraiya weaved a series of seals, and she noted that Ma and Pa appeared with a much larger puff of smoke than would be expected for summons of their side. They wasted no time climbing onto his shoulders, and he clapped his hands together for a second. Orochimaru watched the entire thing with a visible thirst in his eyes. Between one second and the next, Jiraiya changed. Where he'd once been a strong river to her senses, he became an ocean. So much chakra that she struggled to comprehend how he was balancing it all without bursting at the seams.

"Kukuku"

"Keep it in your pants, Orochimaru" She said, echoing Jiraiya's words, but the levity was gone.

"Let's go" She relented, and pushed down on the ground with all her strength before jumping towards where she could sense the fight going on. She landed and noted that Jiraiya had appeared a fraction of a second earlier than her. Interesting. Orochimaru appeared a second later and looked to be irritated.

She looked at the fight and noted that the Kazekage's tongue seemed to have been dragged out of his mouth by some invisible object. He had his blade in the Akatsuki leader's chest, but it was clear that he was the one who had lost.

Looking between her teammates, it was clear they were all in agreement. They would allow this play out.

At least, that was their plan until a mighty green blur appeared right behind the Akatsuki leader.

"Dynamic Entry" The blur screamed out as it spun through the air before slamming a single powerful kick into the Akatsuki leader's head.

The arrival of Might Gai changed everything. The Kazekage fell to the floor gasping for air, but seemed to be well into his recovery already, pushing himself up to his feet. Akatsuki's leader was similarly on his way to his feet after taking a kick that would have killed most men in one swoop.

"I am Konoha's Green Beast, Might Gai. You must answer for your actions, foul villain" He said, facing the Akatsuki leader off. The man, on getting to his feet, almost seemed to scoff at Gai's appearance and instantly dismissed him. A fair assessment, but one that was going to get him in all sorts of trouble.

XXXXXX- GAARA OF THE DESERT

Getting my life randomly saved by Gai definitely wasn't something I had in my bingo card for the year. I pushed myself to my feet, not really hearing the word that the man had just said, too busy trying to come to terms with the fact that I'd almost died. Nagato had almost killed me right there and then. Just one touch, and it was almost over. That thing had a grip on what I suspected to be my soul because I couldn't make a single move while it had me. Almost the same way orochimaru had been when hiruzen got a grip on his with the Shinigami in the anime.

It also made sense considering the weird relationship this universe had with souls and mouths. Hadn't those sage of six paths tools been able to seal away souls with words or something like that? That definitely involved the mouth as well. How unlikely was it that the mouth acted as the portal to the soul? If that was the case, then when that creature had me by the tongue, that really was death I was seeing.

Gai jumped right at Nagato, moving so quickly, it was clear that he was taking this seriously. He came shooting backwards just as quickly as nagato was able to use his almighty push in time. I took advantage of his distraction to flood his position with sand that I used to attempt to crush him. Another almighty push sent my sand flying, but Gai was right in its wake. He was in range of Nagato now. The man manifested a third hand to block Gai's kick, and had to add a fourth to block the kick that followed the first one almost immediately. The man was like a storm. A storm that was sent flying backwards again.

"Keimon: Sixth Gate: Gate of View: Open" He pronounced, and his body was suddenly surrounded with an aura of green chakra. When he moved this time, only my sharingan could track him. Nagato dodged out of the way of the first attack almost by instinct, but the next punch sent him flying. The body dissolved into water. A clone subsitition. The real body appeared off to the left, standing on the ruins of what had once been a massive apartment building. He pointed both hands at Might Guy and sent a series of missiles flying at the man.

I flooded my sand with chakra and lifted it up to block the missiles. Gai swept around the entire mess with amazing speed and kicked the Akatsuki leader right in the chest. Once again, the body dissolved into water. When he appeared again, he was close to where the Sannin were standing, and the three of them wasted no time in attacking him.

Jiraiya was right in front of him instantly and weather two punches from arms that grew out of the man's midsection, and countered with one of his own. Nagato did not take the attack well, sent flying on to his back. He rolled with the punch and used that momentum to dodge Orochimaru's follow up grasping snake. He pointed his left hand at the three of them and sent them flying backwards. That left him wide open for Gai's attack.

He bent underneath the kick and slammed his hand into the ground. A puff of smoke, and the next thing I saw was Might Guy caught in the pincers of a giant crustacean. The creature drove the man down into the ground and opened its mouth, sending several water release techniques right at him.

He smashed through the pincers that held him, as well as the water release severing wave, and landed a powerful kick against the crustacean's carapace, breaking it open. The creature dispelled itself instantly. Nagato was busy facing off with the Sannin again. He jumped backwards from Orochimaru's snakes, forming a black rod that he stabbed into Tsunade as she came at him from behind. The body puffed in smoke, and she appeared from his other side, lashing out with a powerful punch at the back of his head that he barely caught by manifesting an arm from his shoulder.

He pointed his left hand, now a chakra canon, right at Jiraiya's position, and forced Orochimaru to retreat to guard him with a summoned Rashomon gate. He kept his grip on Tsunade and tried to return the favour by stabbing her in the stomach with his black rod. She kicked out, snapping the rod in two, and brought her leg back down in a downwards kick that slammed Nagato's head into the ground.

He formed a one-handed seal as he fell, and the earth parted around him like water as he used the subterranean voyage technique. I funnelled my own chakra into the ground, planning to crush him, but he sensed it and shot out of the floor.

He stared all around himself. He probably saw how this was completely unsustainable for him. I'd been more than a match for him on my own, and with the Sannin and Gai on my side, this wasn't even a fight anymore. Just a jumping. He turned to me with thinned lips and formed a single seal before spreading his fingers and raising his cupped left hand to the sky. "Planetary devastation" He intoned, creating a black superdense mass that flew upwards, attracting everyone in the vicinity.

He turned to the floating dense ball and began to gather his chakra for one massive jutsu. "Attack that ball. That's the only way to disable the jutsu" He said to the others before he spread both his hands in front of him. It was time to show off another one of his unique techniques. The first step, rotation. It was built on the same blocks as a different technique. The one that was part of Minato Namikaze's fame. Next came power. This jutsu was greedy. Far greedier than the Rasenshuriken that he used almost casually here. This jutsu was enough to take out all the Senjutsu chakra he had in his body in one go. After flooding the technique with power, he moved for containment. This jutsu was not going to be a sphere, but the tip of a drill. The idea was for it to be similar in shape to the conical tailed beast bombs that the ten tails had favoured.

And then he went for the coup de grâce. He flooded the jutsu with both wind and fire release at the perfect 7:3 ratio that created scorch release. He hadn't spent his time with the sealing corps just teaching them. He'd made sure to be on the lookout for a very specific woman who had been able to give him enough guidance to perfect the elemental release that made her sensei famous. With all that, he held the jutsu in front of him with nothing but his chakra.

"Sage Art: Dragon Meteor" He proclaimed, and fired the technique right at the hyper dense ball. He noted that the others had just about ignored his instructions and were doing their best to fight against Nagato, even while the planetary devastation wreaked havoc around them and drew them into its grasp. Thankfully, his technique had been enough. More than enough in fact. It slammed into the first layer of stone that had built around the black hole and burrowed inwards before reaching the core of the technique and then exploding.

The explosion was beautiful. It felt like the sky itself was on fire. Fire of so many colours. Green, blue, red, orange, shades swam above them in a dance. He smiled at the sight. He'd never seen the jutsu do that in particular, but he'd also never unleashed it with that much chakra before. Speaking of chakra, he felt his body collapse to its knees, feeling a strange lethargy from the lack of senjutsu chakra.

Shukaku did his job shortly after and had him standing again, but it was an interesting weakness of his seal, he noted. Once he ran out of Senjutsu, he was pretty tapped out. He returned to looking at the fight between Nagato and the Four Konoha Shinobi, and now that the planetary devastation had been destroyed, they were having a much easier time of cornering the man and forcing him to do drastic things to cope with their numbers.

He never got the chance of using his more esoteric abilities as whenever he stayed still for even longer than a second, one of them would be upon him. And then whenever he tried to isolate one to deal with them, the others would intervene. I did not envy Nagato's position. I also recognised that I could find myself in his place sooner rather than later. Especially when they finally finished with him.

Orochimaru's snakes shot from his sleeves at supersonic speeds and wrapped around Nagato's arms. Two other hands formed from the forearms of his existing arms and cut the snakes dead before they could bite. In that time, both Jiraiya and Tsunade had closed the distance from opposite ends, both punching at his head from either side. Their fists stopped in midair. They struggled against the gravitational block, but were quickly sent flying by the almighty push. A move that left him vulnerable to Might Gai. The man appeared like a shadow from the ether, and kicked Nagato in the chin, sending him flying. I resisted the urge to pronounce, 'sweet chin music'.

While he was in the air, Gai punched against the air multiple times. Nagato raised his hands almost by instinct, trying to absorb the ninjutsu he thought was coming his way. Unfortunately for him, Might Gai was not a ninjutsu kind of guy. The fireballs made of pure friction slammed into Nagato and sent him flying back into the ground. I body flickered right next to him as I noticed his wounds were possibly fatal. He lifted a hand to attack me, but I crushed it in my grip.

With that hand still in my grip, I punched him in the face. Once. Twice. The others surrounded the both of us. I would not allow them to interfere. This time, I felt the chain before it got anywhere close to me, and dark sister moved to clash against the indestructible kekkei genkai of my mother's clan. The chain flew back at her. Before she could do anything else, I absently blew a breath in her direction. I amplified it with wind release to turn it into a massive wind bullet that would have atomised her.

Against all odds, Nagato managed to lift his other hand. It wasn't aimed at me, so I allowed him use the almighty push to dispel the attack aimed at Karin. "So that's your weakness, huh? The one thing you care about. Fool," I pronounced before pulling him towards me and smashing a headbutt into his head. And then I let go of his hand before grabbing his head in both hands. I strained and heaved with all my strength. He screamed under my ministrations, but sooner than I'd expected, I began to feel give. With a sickening squelch, Nagato's neck broke. And with another, louder one, I separated his head from his body.

A head that went into my inventory immediately. The rinnegan was mine. As for the body, I pointed two fingers at it and immolated it in seconds. It all happened two quickly for those who surrounded me to interfere.

I turned to them with a smile on my face.

"Are we doing this or not?" I asked.

I tried to project an aura of confidence as I regarded the four people in front of me like they were stains that I could wipe off my boots. It was giving them a bit of pause, two that was perfect for my purposes. I thought over my options, trying to come up with a means of escape. This was not a fight I could win. Jiraiya in sage mode was already one hell of an opponent on his own. Then there was Tsunade with her Byakuya seal released, and Orochimaru always had his own unique brand of bullshit at the ready, and I would be disappointed if he didn't already have something at the ready to counter my sand. But the Sannin weren't the greatest threat. The greatest threat was the man who stood apart from them all and regarded me with open rage in his eyes-Might Gai.

If he declared the situation dire enough, he could open the Eight Gate. Sure, that was a death sentence for him, but there was no chance in hell that I'd survive that. I didn't have ten tails empowered healing on my side. Even worse, I could feel the state of my reserves. Nagato had not been an easy opponent, and I'd fought Four Kage before him.

It seemed that my luck had run out because Gai closed the distance in seconds after doing a bit of thinking. I leaned out of the way of the kick by the skin of my teeth and slammed him with a rush of sand from my inventory. I piled even more sand on top of him, amplifying the density to the nth degree, before I was forced to dodge out of the way of a stream of oil. Oil that ignited to encircle me in a wall of flames. How interesting.

There was an explosion and Gai rose out the chaos with a visibly thicker aura around him. Another gate opened, it seemed. The seventh. One away from the eight. And I wasn't even certain of surviving this one.

Both Jiraiya and Orochimaru were weaving seals. Tsunade was doing the same. Gai was jumping at me. It was like it all happened in slow motion. I gathered all the sand I had around me. Added more and more sand from my inventory, imbuing everything with as much chakra as I could and drawing seals on the sand while I did so. This was going to be one hell of an attack. I told myself. And when I'd completed my shield and braced for impact, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Was it some form of trick? Get me to drop my guard and then take me out then? I formed an eye outside my sand barrier, and noticed that the world was tinged with red. It was a familiar barrier. Someone had enclosed me in another barrier to protect me from the attacks. Who? Karin? Unlikely.

I allowed the sand part to open a hole for me to poke my head out of. I looked around me, and noticed that the Sannin, and even Gai, looked as surprised as I did. Panning over to the corners of the barrier, I found red haired shinobi at each corner. Red haired shinobi I didn't recognise. Red haired shinobi who bore the distinct scarring of Edo Tensei.

"I apologise for interrupting your passionate battle, but I couldn't let you kill the Kazekage here and thrust the world into even more chaos. His siblings would accept no peace unless he lived" A voice spoke out. A voice I didn't recognise, but someone else did.

"Kabuto?" Orochimaru asked, looking around, trying to find where the voice had come from.

When he showed himself finally, he came out of a rift in space. A very familiar vortex like movement. He stood on top of a clay bird, with two men on either side of him. Obito and Deidara, I recognised quickly. Kabuto looked….well, he looked like Kabuto. White hair, tall wiry frame, glasses, and cocky smirk. His skin remained a pale shade, but not white. Not snake like (or Dragon-like as he would boast himself as in the anime). He was human for all that meant. But the people by his side? Deidara and Obito? They were reanimated. They bore the classic markings on their bodies that marked them as reanimated shinobi. Edo tensei. The gift that never stopped giving. If I ever got the chance to meet Tobirama on the other side, I'd tear him a new one for inventing the jutsu in the first place. There were just some lines that should never have been crossed. Or if they had to be, then they'd best die with you and leave it at that.

"Oh yes, Orochimaru. Pardon the absence of honorific, but I have come to quite enjoy my recent emancipation" He said, looking at his master. I guess former master would be more fitting for the present situation. The situation began to make some sense to me. For some reason, Kabuto had joined the Akatsuki and was using the edo tensei to further their aims. The only part I could not understand was how Obito was still alive. I didn't consider him much of a threat in light of the countermeasures I'd designed specifically for him, but that did not mean that he wasn't one hell of a shinobi. Who else out there could have killed him. Maybe the Sannin? But I'd had two-thirds of them with me for a while, and they'd have mentioned killing a man posing as Madara.

Gai definitely hadn't done it. I couldn't see a world where he succeeded in that without opening the Eight Gate, and in that case, I didn't see any reason why Obito would not just have kamui'd away and allowed his clock to run itself out. No. Only two people could have killed him. I didn't do it. That meant Nagato had. I could see it happening. There wasn't any chance that Nagato had ever trusted Obito much, and he probably took the chance to kill him once he was healed.

Lost in my thoughts, I did not hear the words that Orochimaru returned to his former student in their entirety, but I did get the vibe. It was more of a 'what do you mean, how dare you, what are you doing here' kind of thing.

"What do you want?" I asked, cutting off the Snake Sannin. My situation remained just as perilous as it had been before. But there was a distant glimmer of hope. The hope that came with opportunity. Kabuto had a ton of shinobi here with him. Each of them was functionally immortal. Even if he was committed to taking me on the Akatsuki's behalf, he'd have to fight the Sannin and Gai as well. That meant that there would be a lot of chaos. Chaos could be useful. There was room in chaos.

"The same thing every two-bit idiot in this cursed world wants, of course. Peace. Well, not just peace, more than that. But you'll have to come to the Summit to find that out for yourself." He said.

"What are you talking about?" Jiraiya cut in.

"I am Kabuto Yakushi, leader of the Akatsuki. Well, technically I'm the only living member, but that isn't really much of a problem for me, as you can see," He punctuated his last sentence by gesturing around himself to the multitude of edo tensei shinobi that surrounded us.

"And I am here to invite both the Hokage and Kazekage to the Seven Party Summit I have called at the Land of Iron." He said.

"Seven party summit?"

"Well, there are five great shinobi villages. More like 1 and a half at this point, but that's beside the point" the pointed look he gave to our surroundings emphasised that he didn't consider Konoha as one of the great nations anymore. A fact that made Tsunade visibly flush.

"I have the tailed beasts. All but two. The summit will take place in two months at the Land of Iron. All Kage must attend, and abide by my terms, or I will turn the power of seven tailed beasts against their village. No village will stand against that might. Especially not as diminished as you all are. Yes, all. Kazekage, that includes you" My heartbeat went still. My breath froze with it. Kabuto continued, heedless of the feeling his words had woken in me. Heedless of the clone that formed itself outside the barrier and began to fly eastward. Homebound.

"What terms do you speak of?" Orochimaru hissed. His rage was audible.

"Beyond attending the summit, I require that every village agrees to honour and protect a ceasefire. You are not to attack each other in the time until the summit. You are also not to get any foolish ideas of attacking me at the land of Rain. Trust me, I am well fortified." The last word seemed to be some sort of cue for the Edo Obito at his back. Out of his eyes came a horde of shinobi. Previous Kage, legends, powerful shinobi one and all. But the one that got my attention was the man at their forefront in his customary red armour. Madara Uchiha. He had his eyes closed, but when he finally opened them, I felt my stomach drop to see the ringed purple of the Rinnegan.

"Assuming that I am understood, you may leave now, kazekage. Your people need you".

All thoughts of Madara flowed from my mind almost instantly, as visions of Suna in ruins flashed in my head. My sand rose to my will as I discarded sage mode for a more efficient mode of travel. My body broke into a flood of sand grains, and I took a hold of the winds with my chakra and forced them to carry me home at extreme speeds.

A/N; Chappy done. As I said earlier, next chapter comes up next week or skip the wait and read the next two along with daily uploads on pa-treon. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.