Heya,
I'll tell you right now that this chapter and the next are a two-parter. I have an announcement you can find at the very end of the chapter, so stick around to the very end if you care to know.
Ok, no bullshit. Let's begin.
Tayuya gulped in the face of the building chaos. "This is all wrong…"
Jirobo going off on his own honestly wasn't that big of a deal, by itself. All it really meant was that she didn't have to follow him. At the end of the day, the fat tub of lard was just bait; if they were lucky, that kid and his chick could subdue him quickly.
How they did it would tell her everything she needed to know about them. If they spared him like she'd asked, that was as good a sign as any that the Leaf goons wouldn't pull their entrails out and play double-dutch with them.
That was what all of this was about, after all. She needed to know that they would spare them; that they would hear them out long enough for them to make their case.
… Honestly in hindsight, she supposed she should have just tried to work something out on the fly when it had become clear that the Konoha boy didn't plan to attack her…
Yeah, now that she was thinking about it, she had probably miscalculated a bit- er, probably a lot, actually.
Ultimately though, it shouldn't have made much of a difference. She didn't exactly care if a rich asshole's party got ruined, or if a bunch of dumb, ignorant civvies got the scare of their lives, so long as nobody died and she got that damn seal off her neck! Preferably before Orochimaru used it to make her grow a third titty.
Or kill her; yeah, she supposed he could do that too. Both were pretty likely, knowing him.
She was working on a time crunch, and she had probably miscalculated a bunch, but one thing she hadn't accounted for that she really should have, was that Orochimaru would throw his own oil to the fire.
Because now it wasn't just a bunch of spiders pretending to wreak havoc; it wasn't even her flute genjutsu causing frightening-but-harmless hallucinations among the masses.
Now, there were ninjas. Hundreds of freaking undead ninja running around and actually killing people!
"He's gonna pull my tongue out through my ass and use it to wipe his ass, ain't he?" Kidomaru's palm cracked painfully over the back of her head, and she didn't even have it in her to complain.
"This is all your fault!"
"Fuck you, this is only mostly my fault!" Okay maybe she had some complaints.
Hey, she could accept the blame where it was due, but she hadn't made the damn snake choose necromancy of all things!
Looking past Kidomaru, she caught the paralyzed form of Sakon, who barely seemed to hear his brother's urging for his attention. He watched, stunned silent as Orochimaru's reanimated corpses sprinted to and fro, running down hapless civilians with minimal regard for their surroundings. One such reanimated ninja charged recklessly through a budding fire, igniting his legs and torso and pinning a screaming boy beneath his burning frame. The reanimated ninja stiffened, and his body slumped as a thin blade sliced through his torso, the top half of himself flipping forward and rolling to the ground beside the young boy. Said boy lay there stunned, eyes trailing over to Tayuya, who held her flute to her lips.
"Well? Get the fuck outta here, dumbass!" The boy needed no further encouragement. He screamed as the reanimated ninja twitched, its body slowly pulling itself back together; in that next moment, the boy scrambled to his feet and ran off.
"We're going to die," Sakon whimpered, still-staring off into nothing by the time Tayuya had refocused onto him. "He's going to kill us. Lord Orochimaru is going to slaughter us!"
Stomping forward, Tayuya's palm cracked across his cheek. Just the shock he needed to turn his infuriated glare upon her. A thousand and one angry thoughts crowded the boy's features, and his abuse swelled in his chest, every bit of it readied for her.
Better to get ahead of the rant that was coming.
"Look, each and every one of you can knock the shit out of me if we get through this! But unless you guys wanna see Orochimaru's noodle arms spit roast our asses and work us like sock puppets, we gotta move!"
Instantly, Sakon delated. Ukon looked like he wanted to scream in her face in his brother's place, but he thankfully bit his tongue too. "Where?" He finally snarled.
Good, they were all on the same page then: At this point, whether he was in on the ruse or not didn't matter; Orochimaru would kill him all the same if he caught any of them. The twins' best bet was now just to play ball, and hope they came out on top together.
"Our best bet out of this is gonna be to be seen doing clean up without running afoul with the Snake or his dogs. Arms, have your spiders change targets; defend the civvies and see if you can corral them further to the heart of the town! You two, I need a barrier warding them off from the fucking turbo zombies! I'm going to find the Hyuga and the twink and see if I can't help them get Jirobo in line before he does something supremely stupid! Listen-" She gave each of them a look, desperation and fear bloating her heart in equal parts. She saw it mirrored in each of their eyes and hardened her own, hoping her show of authority would bolster them. "Don't activate the curse mark no matter what; If you do, he'll find you! When I'm done, I'll regroup with you and we'll- ugh, I don't know! We'll figure something out!"
They all shared a solemn nod.
"Now get the fuck outta here!"
They all split off from each other, leaving the red-haired girl racing through the town by its rooftops.
She needed to find the boy. She needed to make sure he didn't kill Jirobo; that he could be trusted.
God, Jirobo was going to wring her damned neck if she got him out of there alive, but it wasn't like she had much of a damned choice, right?
She winced, watching a pair of pallid ninja in leaf headbands run down a portly civilian man and stab him to death. The surrounding flames had grown even more intense, such that sweat clung to her back beneath her clothing; it pooled up at her brow as well, threatening to pour over and into her eyes.
Right?
"They might just take us into custody!"
But how was she supposed to know Orochimaru would go this far!? Had he done this because of them? Or had the slug and toad said something to set him off?
Had she caused this?
"Fucking hell, man."
A whirling of metal stole her focus, and Tayuya dove to the side, rolling to steer entirely clear of a brace of steel that embedded itself into the place where'd stood.
Fingers hunting for her obi, she had not even a second to track their trajectory before the corner of her eye caught a blur of movement. Whipping around with a hasty guard, she choked down a gasp as a booted foot slammed into her, pain stabbing into her chest through her forearms. She only just caught the diminutive form of the Hyuga girl, tiny fingers digging into the surface of the rooftop for support as she drove the back of her heel into Tayuya's arms. Then she was launched off her feet and sent rolling and skidding off the side.
"Gah!" She finally did cry out as her uncontrolled tumble led her to crash bodily into a radiating unit; her body bounced, slamming into brick and sliding down into an old, rusting dumpster that was unfortunately quite barren.
"What the fuck did I do!" She wheezed, her body arching in pain to reach for her drenched and aching spine. "W-wait, don't answer that." She winced as her attacker dropped down heavily beside her, a truly dark glower teeming in her pupilless eyes. Her clan's legendary orbs were fully active as she peered down to her, fingers gripping the edge of the container Tayuya had fallen in with such crushing strength that it warped under her touch.
"You... You look like you fit the description." Quick as a flash, Hinata reached down, a tight grip closing around the collar of Tayuya's yukata and dragging her up; she slung the girl around, slamming her against the brick wall so hard that her spine creaked. Tayuya coughed painfully as the impact drove any remaining air out of her hacking lungs. "You told him nobody would get hurt," Hinata hissed, her tongue slow and deliberate.
"F-for the love of god, pl-ease stop hitting me! We didn't do this shit!" She really didn't want to have to try killing this girl, but that dumpster kick felt supremely personal.
"Look me in the eyes," Hinata commanded her. Tayuya got the sense that if the girl didn't find something she liked, she was going to have to fight her way out of this. With a heavy gulp, she gave the girl her eyes.
"We just wanted to clear the town out; some mild property damage at most. We really ain't trying to be you guys' enemies." Tayuya gulped as her stare only grew even more intense. "The spiders are ours; they're spooky, but they're harmless; they haven't actually hurt a single person. The mega zombies are Orochimaru, and We. Are. Not. With. Him!
She gasped in relief when she was dropped. "Holy hell, you're strong as shit," She wheezed. Then she blinked in surprise as an open palm presented itself before her.
Holy shit, had it really been that easy all along?
Wait, was she stupid? Was this what being stupid felt like? A hint of red bled into Tayuya's cheeks.
"My name's Hinata… You're going to help me save as many people as we can; after that, we're going to help my boyfriend. If you say no-" She seemed to struggle with herself for a moment. "I'll p-punch you?"
Oh, she was adorable… And also freaking terrifying. "Tayuya," She greeted back, shortly. Tayuya hesitantly gripped the girl's hand, letting her haul her back to her feet; she had to fight the gasp of pain that surged forth as her spine popped, audibly. "And I ain't trying to lose my lunch money or get stuffed in any more metal boxes today so I'll play ball. My buddies are a guy with a ton of arms and a pair of twin metrosexuals. The fatass is supposed to be one of ours, but- ugh, but his brain's all fucked up; I think Orochimaru's gone and done something to him. I need to get to him before the dumbass gets himself killed."
"Naruto-kun won't kill him." Hinata seemed confident. She looked ready to respond further, but stopped as the sound of crunching glass became their new focus. Gathering just on the cusp of the alley they'd stopped in was a trio of foggy-eyed ninja. Their blackened sclera and hollow pupils seemed to stare through the two girls; several more of them seemed to be approaching as well, squeezing in to fill the entrance.
"They won't die," Tayuya warned the girl, who looked back at her in interest. "Not for real, at least. Our best bet is to immobilize and flee for now. Ignore them if we can and focus on grabbing the normies to take to the town square. Sakon and Ukon should have a barrier up over there soon that can maybe buy us some time."
"... Understood."
The two shared a nod, then readied themselves as the leading reanimated ninja began to slowly trudge forward, quickly breaking out into an all out sprint towards them.
Orochimaru and Kimimaro had chosen one of the tallest points of Tanzaku town to survey the carnage: the very top of Tanzaku town's famous castle. From up there, seated like a king, he was content to watch the tiny ants below as they scrambled away from his newest batch of playthings.
"Quite the sight, wouldn't you say, my dear?" Orochimaru turned an amused gaze back to regard his most loyal pet. Kimimaro watched the carnage below with a stoic gaze, though his master knew that the young man was disgusted by it all.
"Please forgive me my lord, for I do not mean to be impolite-" Kimimaro swallowed heavily, eyes cutting from the scene to his master. "But for as long as I have known you, I have never truly known you to be cruel."
Indeed. Orochimaru had never considered himself as such either. He was simply free. Free of doubt; free of foolish, limiting ideologies pushed by weak old fools too afraid to innovate. He did not need to hide his nature; he did what he wished; researched what interested him; he killed those who opposed or offended him. But none of what he did was ever truly out of plain malice or without reasoning.
He certainly didn't think so, at least.
To many though, he was simply a monster, and it was moments like this that truly affirmed their thoughts. But Orochimaru knew better
"Not to worry, my dear. I am not offended." Truthfully speaking, he had thought long and hard before making the call. He did not care for the people below, but to go through all of this, preparing so many corpses just to slaughter a town full of civilians- to do so without cause was beneath him.
Well, not that Kabuto was complaining. Last he'd seen, the young man was having a field day, dragging off corpses on the sly like his master wouldn't notice!
Ah well, he'd let the boy have his fun.
Oh, but where was he?
"There is a method to my madness, my dear." Leaning against his palm, Orochimaru turned his gaze back to it all. "All of this is not without purpose; every death here serves a greater goal. You see, it all comes down to the functions of this jutsu of mine."
He breathed deeply, then raised a finger, taking on an instructor's tone.
"The Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu, or Edo Tensei, was a jutsu developed by Lord Second, Tobirama Senju. He was a man known for his immaculate intellect and creativity, such that he developed a great number of highly vaunted techniques that Konoha would eventually deem forbidden and lock away."
"Locked away- you mean the scroll of sealing, my lord?"
"Exactly so, my dear." Orochimaru raised an eyebrow as one of his thralls pinned an elderly woman to the ground; it straddled her from behind and began to repeatedly smash her forehead into the dirt floor. Even from where they were, he could see her skull split and spill beneath them.
Definitely a rogue…Spanning his vision further, he found and filed away similar anomalies.
A withered kunoichi forgoing her weapons to slam an elderly man through his stall. Her fists rained down on him in a rage, completely uncharacteristic of what he had known from her, in life. The elderly man's raised arms lost their strength to defend after the third blow, and the small woman's strikes continued to hail, unabated until the man's movement had ceased entirely.
A pair of men, siblings, if his memory was sharp- they barreled through a crowd of people, their weapons enclosed in too-tight fists as they ignored all but one older man. His blood spilled, and the rest of the masses fled in a panic, completely unmolested by the reanimated corpses.
"But one problem that the great Lord Second had -a weakness, if you will-, is that he was quite impatient… Of all of the jutsu that he developed, there are very few that he actually completed."
Kimimaro shuddered at that. "You mean to imply then, my lord- you mean to say that a jutsu of this caliber is still incomplete?"
"That's right!" Orochimaru reached over to the young man, fingers digging gently into his scalp. "This jutsu of his, for as remarkable as it is, still has further yet to grow! Lord Second could only revive a small handful of people at a time, and the more that he summoned, the thinner his control was spread. Edo Tensei that fell out of his control became deviants, often following some perverse whim or another just barely within the scope of the caster's orders. That is the purpose of the carnage you see before you. By summoning so many Edo Tensei, my control has spread too thin, to the point that even I can barely control their actions at this point." Then he grinned. "Even for ninja as weak and unremarkable as the rabble that you see below- it gets to be quite taxing, trying to manage them all simultaneously. So instead, I have set them with loose orders: kill every non-Edo Tensei that they come across- well, barring a few exceptions, that is. What I will do from here is observe; collect data and see how they respond to my orders. What I am looking for now is these deviants- those who do more or less than what I expressly ordered; those, I will analyze. Through this, I will find out exactly how I can further perfect my jutsu… Does this satisfy your curiosity?"
Kimimaro bowed his head deeply. "It does, my lord. I am humbled that you took time to explain yourself to me, however undeserving of it as I may be.."
"Think nothing of it. I quite enjoy teaching… There is one more thing though."
"Orochimaru-sama?"
"I've been wanting to get the measure of the Uzumaki boy for some time." Since he managed to defeat the One Tails, as a matter of fact.
How had he done it? Had Orochimaru misjudged him when they first met in the Forest of Death? Was the boy a genius after all, with talent worthy of his affections?
He hummed, thoughtfully.
"Orochimaru sama? If you would only ask, I would bring him to you, myself."
Orochimaru chuckled fondly. "No need. My dear Jirobo will collect for me some much needed data. If the boy impresses me, perhaps I may reward him after all, in due time."
A series of collisions echoed in the air for a brief moment before a loud 'crack' saw Jirobo tumbling like a ragdoll through the air. His body bounced twice along the ground before he rolled and skidded to a reckless stop, friction burns adorning his palm and bicep along with fresh tears in the knees of his pants. He tried to scramble back to his feet, but the heel of his opponent's foot drove into his ribs, keeling him over. He had no time to do any more than guard his face before the other boy's arm cracked out like a whip, his knuckles snapping off on Jirobo's collarbone, which split like cheap plastic under the impact. Blinking tears out of his eyes, he tried to backstep, just to make even a little bit of space, but the boy closed the gap even quicker; the back of his fist smashed directly into Jirobo's nose, blinding him with another heap of tears and blood. Then Naruto's other hand flashed out, gripping him by the roots of his hair and hurling the heavier boy with a laugh like he weighed nothing at all.
Jirobo tried to scream as his body carved through the brick structure of a small apartment building, but he could not even manage that much before the other boy ricochet off the nearby structures and chased him into the heart of the building to plant his foot in his gut. Jirobo gagged as he careened away from him, slamming through too many objects for his pain-addled brain to even count. A wall, a bedframe; his body smashed into an interior wall and bounced off it, but he had no time to even touch the ground before a fist smashed directly into his unprotected face, driving him through that wall too, where he curled up in the rubble. A moment later, a foot once again drove into him, abusing his sternum and launching him through another layer of loosened brick. Through half-blind eyes, Jirobo spotted the boy's blurry silhouette still chasing him down, ricocheting off the surrounding debris to catch up to him. Another jab continued Jirobo's momentum just as it was starting to slow, then another bounced him off the ground like a children's ball! Naruto's laugh was shrill with morbid amusement as he seemingly juggled the Sound ninja's body off one surface after another, driving him further through the desolate remains of the building.
He was playing with him! Treating him like some children's toy!
Desperate, Jirobo tried again to slow his trajectory, anything for just a moment to breathe against the creature before him, but the other boy's foot curved into his space, slamming into Jirobo's chest and carrying him at an angle; his body slammed into another set of brick where his body bounced off in an explosive shower of debris, right into the strangling grip of Naruto Uzumaki, who let Jirobo's chaotic momentum influence his own. He spun in a wide arc with Jirobo's body in grasp, then reared forward and hurled Jirobo with a cackle. The latter's body tumbled through the air, adorning itself with fresh lacerations as his body crashed through a glass window and slammed into a wall on the other side of the building; he dropped down, weakly landing on his front and struggling to drag himself away from the approaching boy.
"It's been a while since I got to be on the good end of a mismatch." Naruto chuckled, stepping through the debris their fight had scattered to approach Jirobo's still-downed body. "Now, contrary to me beating on you like a domestic case, I'm feeling real patient right now. So I'll tell you once." His foot slammed down onto the neck of the now scrambling for leverage Jirobo, the pressure of his step suffocating. "Stay down."
Jirobo let out an incomprehensible wheeze, and Naruto let up just enough for him to speak. As the pressure lightened on him, he strained to catch the younger boy in his gaze, a sickly yellow tint to his eyes.
"Go. To. Hell!"
Naruto sighed. "That's that, then." His chains unfurled from his body, intent on skewering through his enemy and draining him next-to dry.
It was a messy choice. If he got him to Tsunade quick enough, she could probably fix him up good as new, but he wasn't wasting another second playing around with this clown.
That was the plan, at least. What he didn't expect was for his enemy's chakra to skyrocket. Jirobo's abruptly toughening flesh resisted the blade's point of his chains with little more than shallow punctures. His arm snapped up to close around his ankle, easily prying the Uzumaki boy's weight from above him even in spite of the mismatch in leverage.
"I've changed my mind," Jirobo growled. He pulled one of his knees under him, heedless of Naruto's own weight. A clenched fist slammed down into the back of his head, but this time, he barely even budged. His hair began to grow, the parts between his mohawk and the rest closing to become a shaggy mane of dark orange locks. Then his skin reddened, darkening until it was near-brown in coloration. Wart-like bumps, large and small, sprouted across his flesh. His muscles swelled to a point that was just short of painful; blood flow increased, the veins beneath his flesh bulging with every flex as he continued to drag himself to his feet.
A second spool of chains burst from his target's spine, merging with the first set to create a dense hail of arrow points that each threatened to carve into his flesh; Jirobo snatched them all out of the air though, pulling them taut. Finally, he stood, slinging Naruto with him until the boy was hanging upside down and glared into the boy's eyes; Jirobo's sclera began to darken, as if painted over in strokes of black. "Lord Orochimaru doesn't need you alive. You're more trouble than you're worth."
Naruto's grin was still set firmly in place. "Well would you look at that, you've evolved!"
"I'm going to rip you in half now."
"Yeah, no." The chains that Jirobo had captured in his grip rattled, then a multitude of thin, rose-gold spines burst through his flesh, causing the Sound ninja to snarl in pain as they bled and immobilized his hand. Taking advantage of his distraction, Naruto's other leg swung in, wrapping around his other arm and pulling it straight. With an incredible display of core strength, he hauled himself up, hugging the limb between his arms and one leg. Naruto twisted his fingers, wrenching his suddenly 'fluid' leg free before slamming a back kick into the bridge of Jirobo's nose with far greater force than before; at the exact moment of impact, his physical energy spiked, its explosive force channeling into the motion for devastating results. The now much larger boy staggered back, his nostrils running red, leaving Naruto room to catch himself as he dropped to the ground. Rolling in a wide arc from his palm and shoulder, Naruto whipped his body around, completely knocking Jirobo's leading leg wide open and causing him to fall into an awkward split. Then while he was destabilized, Naruto reoriented his footing before launching forward, jabbing tensed fingers into the Sound ninja's eye.
"Argh!" Jirobo staggered back clumsily, losing his balance and falling flat onto his back. He tried to shove himself back up, but Naruto was on top of him within the same second, pinning his leading arm underneath his knee and wrapping a dominant grip around his throat.
"I learned this one from your boss!" Free fingers twisting yet again, Naruto's grin stretched until it was inhuman; his jaw crackled and bulged before splitting, flesh rolling back and hardening to reveal a horrific maw of makeshift mandibles with thin, needle-like teeth that lined within. The monstrous transformation flexed, growing an additional size, then two more before spreading itself out fully before trying to clamp down on Jirobo's head with crushing force.
With little time to react, Jirobo threw his arm up with a scream, horror bleeding to agony as the boy's jaws did their work. They snapped shut like a bear trap, delivering their promised crushing and punctures in equal measures. He felt bones strain then ultimately crack under the force, and it was only the drastically increased resilience afforded by his curse mark's full activation that spared his limb from a complete removal.
"Bastard!" Jirobo's other fist crashed down on Naruto's head, battering him and trying to knock his makeshift weapon loose. Then the former slammed his target into the alley wall pinning him to it and finally forcing Naruto's transformed mandibles to release him and return the boy's mouth to its original state. His fist swung back, primed to crush his opponent against the wall, but Naruto's legs pulled up between them, and Jirobo's ribs ached as a heavy bludgeoning force bashed him away.
Jirobo's back hit the ruined wall, causing him to stumble briefly while clutching his mutilated arm, but Naruto was already on him again, twin palms bruising his ribs further and once again abusing his spine with the terrain. Next, those palms swung outward, then slammed together on either side of his head; agony raced through his skull and his ears bled slightly under the further abuse. Jirobo's vision began to swim and, lacking any other recourse in that moment, he charged forward with a blind scream. He flew right into a vicious knee that knocked his screaming jaw shut hard enough to crack a few of his teeth, then a haymaker laid him out on the ground, a bloodied canine rolling out of his parted mouth and clattering onto the ground.
With a groan, Jirobo tried to push himself up with his palms, only to get brained by clasped fists, which caused a new round of blood and spittle to spew free from his mouth as he once again met the ground with his face. He twitched, and that was seemingly all it took for another closed fist to slam into the back of his head.
He slammed into the dirt again, dirt and blood in his mouth, and his rage continued to build.
"So let me get this straight-" Naruto chuckled in his ear, dancing backward as Jirobo furiously swung around to try to punch him. "You're supposed to be one of Snake-man's elites, yeah? Orochimaru gives you some magic hickey that's supposed to make you way stronger, and the best you can do is get your shit rocked by a freaking Chūnin?" He laughed even louder as Jirobo charged after him with a bloodcurdling scream. Ducking past the larger boy, Naruto's fist bashed into Jirobo's temple, causing him to crash down to a bruising knee. He scrambled back to his feet yet again while hastening through hand seals.
"Good lord, you really are a sorry piece of shit!"
"Shut up!" Jirobo's fingers pierced the earth beneath them, and in an impressive show of strength, he sundered the ground beneath their feet, sending a sizable wave of heavy debris after his target. "Earth Style: Chaotic Table flip!"
"This is just embarrassing." Naruto chortled, clenching a fist in preparation. "Dance of Storms: Kraken Waltz." His fist blurred outward, the heightened yang-release chakra flow he had developed with Tsunade allowing him to effortlessly surpass his previous records; eleven near-simultaneous punches tore through the largest of the debris like it didn't exist, scattering it and allowing him to respond to an incoming Jirobo with a palm to his sternum that drove the air from his lungs, followed by a two-handed shove that completely reversed his momentum. Orochimaru's underling tried to regain his footing, but he staggered, overwhelmed by all of his injuries.
And Naruto smelled blood.
"Coming through!" He twisted his fingers, and a thick, curved blade sprouted from his fingertips, lengthening and sharpening to the finest of edges. Yang chakra reinforced the construct to the highest point, empowering it with resilience and cutting power that far surpassed any blade that he owned. Naruto sped past the flagging Jirobo, and the Sound ninja's flesh and bone melted apart like well-rendered fat as the makeshift blade passed through him. Naruto stumbled to a stop a short distance away, Jirobo's severed forearm clutched proudly on his person.
It was only a stuttered thought before the monstrous boy to register what had happened. Then, Jirobo's world was agony. "Argh! You little bastard!"
"Hahaha! Dumbass!" Naruto continued to cackle, even as his enemy dropped down to one knee. Blood flowed from the wound like an open faucet; Jirobo clamped a crushing grip onto his ruined elbow in a painful effort to staunch the bleeding, but already he was beginning to feel light-headed. "Hey, you had your chance to play nice…"
"Don't kill him… Please." The redheaded girl's plea splashed over his head, and Naruto sighed.
"... Tell you what, I know someone who can slap this baby right back on. Get that hickey under control and surrender, and you can have it back when you've learned to behave; I super promise."
"Curse you!" Jirobo whined, forcing himself to stand in spite of the blood loss. "I'm going to kill you, and Orochimaru-sama will reward me for your head!"
... Damn, not even for a super promise? This guy was one tough customer!
Well regardless, that was twice now that his mercy had been spurned. Naruto's eyes hardened, a shard of amethyst gleaming dispassionately at the downed boy's stump where his arm had been. His empathy for the guy was starting to run a bit dry. "Right then. No more games."
His chakra was still climbing high, now so much faster than before.
"If you don't close it out now, he might overtake you soon."
Yeah. Already his chakra had reached a point that merely subduing him with his chains would be costly. He still needed to keep his reserves up in case any more of Orochimaru's goons showed up.
Or worse, Orochimaru himself. No, he needed to finish up here; find Hinata and make sure that red-haired girl kept her word about evacuating the civilians. Then he'd link up with Jiraiya before the snake tried to catch him lacking.
A sigh. "Yeah, we're done here." A pair of joined fingers snapped upward, and Naruto's own chakra levels skyrocketed. Yang chakra suffused his body in far greater quantities, sharpening and refining itself like a blade on a whetstone; his muscles swelled in preparation, and Naruto tossed the severed arm over his head.
The gap between them was closed in the same instant that the detached limb rolled onto the ground, and it was everything Jirobo had to keep up with the boy who had once again taken the advantage. But with one arm down, even with the curse mark working to repair what it could of the desperate boy's wounds, it wasn't fast enough. Every swing of Jirobo's fist; every flail of his body merely found air in greater quantities as the smaller boy slipped away, that damnable grin ever-present on his face!
Jirobo's fist lashed out twice, first in a jab, followed by an angry swipe of half-curled fingers; both strikes were effortlessly evaded, the young Uzumaki tilting back just clear of the first strike before ducking the next. Jirobo tried to follow up with a backfist, intent on catching his foe as he righted himself, and that was where he made his mistake. His forearm slapped directly into the boy's open palm. Then, before he could even process the ramifications of the trapped limb, his lower jaw exploded with pain; his head snapped back with a loud 'click', the sheer force behind the impact causing him to stagger unsteadily on blind footing. It was far, far greater than anything the other boy had hit him with thus far; it drove Jirobo to a terrifying conclusion, even as he fought to refocus, a haze of stars filling his vision.
The other boy had been treating him gently, this entire time.
Terror was twin, ice-cold fists, closed around his lungs The heavy set boy attempted to stumble away; to make some space and recenter himself, but the grip on his forearm only tightened further, strangling his blood flow and yanking him back in like a sandbag. Naruto braced himself, rearing up with his entire body before slamming a chop onto Jirobo's neck. The Sound ninja gagged as the blow came, purpling, stripped flesh remaining in the wake of it. His vision blackened almost entirely as his blood flow sputtered under the abuse.
A choked scream was the other boy's reward, and Jirobo finally managed to wrench his arm free, intent on escaping from further follow ups. He made one step back before Naruto stepped far into his space, a knife-point strike bludgeoning against his trachea and causing Jirobo's breath to cease entirely for the moment. He collapsed again to a knee, and in that same moment, a shin snapped into his unguarded torso with paralyzing force. Flesh tenderized; ribs creaked and cracked like cheap plywood, and a strangled moan was the best Jirobo could do this time, in response.
Desperately, he tried to fight back, even as the limited blood and airflow had already begun to weaken him. He lunged at Naruto far too slowly, and his head snapped to the side before he could even make it halfway, knuckles piercing into the meat of his cheek; bone crumpled, and the inner flesh of his mouth shredded itself partly loose. The remnant energy tore Naruto's fist from his face, deep, purpling imprints swelling in its wake.
He only had just enough sense to catch his footing, though even that had become an overwhelming task in itself. Dazed and far from being able to strategize, the best Jirobo could manage in that moment was to simply flail, trying to use his sizable frame and strength to ward the boy off. Two wild swings came up empty, with a third slamming into the ground hard enough to dislodge stone.
Naruto's grin was lethal as he weaved to steer clear of those blows. As Jirobo's fist collided with the ground, he zeroed in on the upturned earth and that grin of his grew nearly two-fold. His arm snapped out like the curve of a whip, the tip of tightly-pressed fingers cracking against the loose debris and rocketing it into Jirobo's face
"Dance of Tides: Whip strike!"
The debris was more than effective; a stone chunk, slightly smaller than one of Jirobo's fists, bored toward his face like a bullet; it embedded deeply into his remaining forearm, drawing blood as the larger boy hastily interposed it to defend his eyes.
"Boom." The stone, cracked and fragmented on impact, began to crackle; Jirobo had just enough time to register the tiny explosive seals adorning the fractured stone bits, but he was left with no further time to react before they detonated in his face.
"Gah!" He stumbled in the smoke, his face singed but not overly injured by the diminutive explosives; they were more akin to mere firecrackers than actual ninja-grade explosives. "You trash! I'm going to-" He choked on the surrounding smoke, his eyes bleary and bloodshot by the cheap tactic. "Where are you!?" He wheezed, desperately.
His response was not a verbal one. He had only just enough awareness to witness the building vortex cutting through the surrounding smoke before it parted entirely, revealing the near-uncontrollably flipping and rotating form of a Naruto that was way too close.
"You're going to kill him."
"Wha-" Jirobo could say no more before Naruto's boot-clad foot crashed across his face. Blood spewed, the connective flesh of his jaw tearing thoroughly in tandem with shattering bones as his body was rocked so hard by the blow that his body went near-perpendicular to his footing.
"Thunderclap."
"Nice save." Nonetheless, Kushina winced at the damage done, knowing that if her son had pulled back any slower, the other boy's entire head would've been opened up on the dirt road.
Jirobo had no time to even fully register the damage before another foot implanted itself into his ribs yet again, this strike gripping the air right from his lungs and wringing it free. Jirobo collapsed entirely to his knees. Weakly, he tried to paw at the embedded foot in a vain attempt to remove it. Then the alternating leg came in again, crashing into the other side of his face with such force that he was briefly lifted back onto his feet. He stumbled two steps, then collapsed onto his face where he lay in a growing pool of his own blood.
His jaw was loose. Clumsy, bloodied fingers tried to pry at the agonized body part, and to his horror, his fingers slipped through the mutilated flesh, torn so thoroughly that he knew his jaw was only barely still attached. With the muscular faculties in his mouth disabled, his tongue lolled out, unsupported. Several tiny white fragments rolled along the floor in a growing pool of blood and bile.
His teeth. There were so many of them.
In the rippling pool, Jirobo saw the faintest bits of his own reflection. Another wave of sickness rose with rapidness at the state he'd been reduced to.
Was he dying? His fingers lost their grip; his wrist lost its support. He collapsed into his pooling blood and screamed, the sound coming out so strangled and pathetic that he almost didn't recognize himself.
"Ya know-" Naruto drawled boorishly as he rounded the young man's downed form. "I thought you'd be tougher than this so I went a bit harder than I probably should've… That's my bad." Fully rounding the boy, he squatted down right by his head, his feet crunching thoughtlessly through the boy's dislodged molars. "I knew I'd gotten a lot stronger, but it's almost like you're made of cardboard." He grinned, the vicious jaws in his mouth taking the front stage yet again. "I'm starting to think your boss sent you here to die."
Sent him to die?
Ah… That was right; Kidomaru was supposed to have been helping him, huh? Where was he, anyways? Had he and Tayuya gotten into trouble with the girl, because Jirobo had stomped off without them?
'They abandoned you.' The thought came to him, seemingly out of nowhere. It hadn't even occurred to him until then that such a thing could happen.
No, surely not. They were a team.
'They betrayed you; betrayed your master. They sent you here to die.'
But that wasn't right! He and Tayuya- they argued a lot, but she would never -
Right?
"Lucky for you, your teammate asked me to leave you alive." Naruto shrugged, then snapped his fingers. His chains burst from his body yet again, circling around the downed Jirobo, who had gone all but limp. "Your wounds are a bit more than I intended, but I'm sure you'll manage… I won't let you die, but you'd better thank her when you see her again."
Teammate- asked- She had talked to him? It had to have been her, right? She'd been acting shifty ever since they'd lost Orochimaru-sama's favor, and it had been her and Kidomaru who had been keeping watch over this guy…
'They're conspiring against you.'
Tayuya had-
A wave of fresh agony dug through his nerves, causing him to scream. His chakra was- it felt like his entire body was being cooked from within! He could feel the chakra of the curse mark burning its way out of his system, Lord Orochimaru's gift slowly closing off from his reach.
'You're nothing more than this boy's meal. Isn't that sad?'
It was…
'Doesn't that make you angry?'
It did!
'You're all alone now… No one to save you.'
Except for one.
'Who? Say it. Say it!'
Jirobo's fingers twitched. "Orochimaru-sama…" His words were slurred and his tone was small.
'WHO!?'
"OROCHIMARU-SAMA!" Jirobo howled, so loud that his throat stripped itself raw. He screamed, his chest heaving with such effort that his ribs crushed against his binds and his lungs burned. The seal that Naruto had begun to close around his throat shattered like glass before it could reach completion, and the molten-red influence of his master's gift covered him once again.
But it didn't stop there. It dug underneath like tiny snakes burrowing through tender flesh! They bored their way inside of him and coiled possessively around his heart, squeezing so tightly that his chest's heaves threatened to shake his bones apart!
His scream seemed to only intensify as the curse mark continued to eat away at him.
"OROCHIMARU-SAMA! OROCHIMARU-SAMA! PLEASE SAVE ME!" He begged. Tears and snot stained his face as he screamed for his master's aid, wishing with all of his heart, just this once, that the man would hear him.
That he would forgive him for disappointing him.
That he would have value to his master, once more.
Deep in the farthest corner of his thoughts, he heard it- so quietly that he had to strain to hear it.
'My dear boy, you only ever had to ask.'
Jirobo's veins bulged against his flesh with such fury that his skin reddened and steamed even more than before. His sweat pinkened, the stress on his body so intense that his veins ruptured themselves and ekes of blood squeezed their way out through his pores. His ruined jaw knitted itself messily back together, his loose tongue growing and paling a bone-white as his master's power staked its claim in full. It twisted, sprouting pale scales and eyes and a mouth of its own, hissing between his jaws like his master's namesake.
His flesh strained against his own bulk, pulling itself taut as his body swelled and grew; bones creaked, then broke and re-fused themselves to accommodate for the change; his arm lengthened, the bulk of his muscle seeming almost insignificant as they stretched until it seemed lanky and scraped loosely against the ground like that of a primate.
Jirobo screamed again as the warts on his face and body ruptured in a 'pop' of blood and pus; thick, barbed thorns sprouting from the mess. At his forehead was the worst of it; the two largest warts on his face ripped themselves apart, revealing cruel-looking horns which twisted and knotted in different directions.
Then his gut began to expand, swelling more and more until he was bloated so thoroughly that it hurt. The pain only grew, until it felt like his engorged belly would grow teeth and tear itself apart!
And then it did.
His belly split, spewing blood and bile onto the ground beneath him, and Jirobo sobbed. He could feel each and every individual tooth sprout from the severed lining of his guts, his spilling entrails knotting up in some crude facsimile of a tongue. The bile in his guts was thick and heavy; it sloshed about, spilling over the opening of his belly and staining his pants with his agony. He was so overtaken by the pain that his mind began to haze over, and as his master's amusement seemed to find its way closer and closer to the forefront of his thoughts, the only thing he could think of was just how empty he felt.
Tayuya had to admit that the Hyuga girl fought incredibly well. She was fast, gliding on the roof level and ricocheting off the surrounding terrain in that way that Leaf nin were want to do; however, she was far better at it than most Leaf ninja the older girl had ever seen. Whether the result of those creepy magic eyes of hers or just raw talent, she seemed to know exactly where her footing was landing and where she needed to go at all times, such that her profile was little more than a streak of movement as she tore through reanimated ninja.
Her palms and fingertips were deadly weapons, effortlessly putting down Orochimaru's thralls with and without her help, often with just a touch or two.
The girl slid into a withered Leaf ninja's space, fingers blurring out with terrifying speed to punch crippling indentations into his body. Then she twisted, steering just clear of an incoming kunai and palming the tool as it whipped past her; she used it to parry another pair of flying blades in a single motion, then ducked down into a perfect split to evade the sudden lunge of another animated corpse from behind. Hinata's fingers followed the back of the passing Edo Tensei, and a diminutive, shaky sphere stuttered in its path forward from her fingertips, impacting into the enemy's back before fizzling; the dead ninja's body was bludgeoned by the sphere, staggering down to the ground and Hinata frowned as she picked herself up, pacing forward quickly to sever the corpse's spine with a prod of her foot.
The barrier carrying it had broken down on impact, causing the jutsu to fizzle. She would need to account for that next time.
Sensing incoming danger, she was quick enough to dive away as a brace of shuriken hunted where she'd previously lay, and Tayuya was there to back her up as the girl was chased down by multiple encroaching attackers. A sharp screech of her flute was all it took to disorient the trio of ninja who had tried to overwhelm the other girl, and Hinata was quick to capitalize. She righted herself in the same moment, bouncing between each to plant her fingertips against the base of their necks and ground them for the time being.
"Good shit, Hyuga." Tayuya groaned and rolled her shoulders. The Konoha girl had been doing much of the heavy lifting for the pair at this point, leaving Tayuya the luxury of conserving most of her chakra with her less taxing genjutsu.
Even still, fighting through hordes of enemy ninja wasn't exactly the most relaxing way to spend an evening.
Was it too late to go back to catching goldfish?
Looking the other girl's way, Tayuya frowned in thought, noting that Hinata only looked vaguely winded.
"You really are tough as nails, ain't ya?" Tayuya began to trod after the girl, who continued her advance after only a few moments to breathe. "How the hell did you not make it through that Chūnin exam thingy?"
Hinata tilted her head just enough to regard the redhead. The blood-engorgement of the byakugan's activation made Tayuya twitch, but the girl hadn't seemed to be demonstrating any hostile feelings once they had gotten over their initial scrap. If anything, she'd even been rather pleasant.
"I-I've… I've gotten a lot stronger since the preliminaries," She decided, after a moment. The way she said it, it was almost like she was just now realizing it. "I wasn't very strong before then, but I've worked hard since then to overcome my weakness." Then she frowned. "If you know I wasn't at the exams- you were present during the invasion."
It wasn't a question.
Of course she'd seen the fights. It wasn't like they'd had anything else to do while waiting for Orochimaru's signal.
Tayuya debated trying to cover herself, but instinctively knew it would explode in her face. She needed the girl to trust her…
Fuck.
"I was part of Orochimaru's main guard; The Sound Four -that's the group I was a part of- we were present when Orochimaru tried to off your Hokage.
Hinata raised an eyebrow, but didn't look terribly surprised. "So he cast you out when you failed then; is that it?"
There was obvious judgment in the younger girl's observations, but for the life of her, Tayuya didn't quite have it in her to correct the Hyuga. She was just glad not to be on the receiving end of her terrifying tiny girl strength again.
"Yeah… That toad guy of yours kicked out asses and tore down our barrier, and Orochimaru did the thing he does to all of his toys he doesn't like anymore."
"He threw you away." Hinata frowned, something deeply sympathetic touching her gaze. "Is that why you warned Naruto-kun? To get back at Orochimaru?"
"It ain't like that." Tayuya scoffed. "I don't give a fuck about revenge or anything like that. I don't want or need any more enemies than I've already got." She shrugged lamely, looking anywhere but at the other girl who seemed to look right through her. "I just wanna live." Her frown deepened, memories of Orochimaru's displeasure crawling on her skin like a thousand insects. And before him too- She shuddered. "That's all I've ever wanted, I guess."
Hinata frowned right back. "Then… Why go through all of this instead of just asking for help? Naruto-kun and I would've helped you in a heartbeat if you just asked sincerely."
"Yeah sure you would've." Tayuya rolled her eyes, then glared hotly at Hinata. "Because ninja treat each other nicely all the time. I shoulda known I could just pop up out of the blue and we'd hi-five and sing kumbaya or some shit!" A foul sneer had begun to take over her features, a sudden urge to strike the younger girl twitching in her fingers. She restrained herself with a low growl. "Whatever fancy-shmancy village your entitled ass grew up in- In the real world, people don't just help each other for free, little girl!"
"But they should," Hinata retorted, firmly and without delay. Her tone was patient though, almost indulgent; her eyes pierced right through Tayuya, and the redhead knew just by that look that she'd misjudged her. Hinata tore her gaze away from Tayuya, eyes forward once again. "Doing what's right shouldn't be an outlier… I don't want to contribute to a world like that."
That stole the breath right out of Tayuya's lungs. She stammered for a moment, trying to make sense of what she'd heard. A moment after, her brain rebooted itself, and she groaned. "You really are one naive shit, ya know?"
Hinata stiffened, her gaze snapping back to Tayuya for a moment; something odd lingered in her gaze which gave the other girl pause.
"S-sorry." She really didn't need a fight breaking out with the damn Hyuga over some thoughtless quips.
"Not that…" Hinata bit her lip, searching the other girl's face with an uncomfortable intensity; she looked very much like she wanted to ask something. Ultimately though, she tore her gaze away again. "Let's see if we can find any more survivors and get back to your friends."
She turned her gaze ahead once again, intent on continuing onward, but then she stiffened.
Tayuya tilted her head in confusion. "What now-" Then her own sharp hearing caught on and she groaned. She knew those footsteps.
"So this is where you ran off to eh, Tayuya?" Kabuto's voice was as smug as ever; his grin matched his tone perfectly as the redhead whipped around to face Orochimaru's right hand. "I'd hoped I'd run into you. How fortunate!"
Tayuya opened her mouth to insult the young man, but Hinata's voice cut in.
"I remember you…" She stepped forward, sidling up to Tayuya. Hinata noted Tayuya's own on-edge demeanor, taking in the way the other girl's hair seemed to almost bristle with fury. "You were there in the first exam..."
He had also come in with Naruto during the preliminaries.
Kabuto grinned back at the young Hyuga. "And you're the little girl who got her heart popped like a grape." He leered her way, looking her up and down with eyes that made the younger girl's skin itch. "You're looking quite well for a dead girl."
"I got better…" Hinata spoke slowly, the veins in her eyes swelling further with increased blood flow. Her eyes trailed along the young man's shape, feeling out his chakra before finally settling on the Sound village forehead protector worn comfortably on his head. Then they cut to Tayuya's ashen face, and Hinata subtly stepped in front of the older girl, much to Tayuya's surprise. "We… Have somewhere to be, if you wouldn't mind."
There was no point in seeking a fight with him; the rescue effort had to come first. That was what she had promised…
Unfortunately, she was fairly sure that wasn't going to be an option.
"Well that's quite a shame." Kabuto's eyes glinted, a mix drink of glee and malice dancing between the two girls. "Because I think both of you have something I want."
"Careful," Tayuya whispered into Hinata's ear. "He may look like a sissy bitch, but he's Orochimaru's right hand for a reason."
Wonderful. This was starting to sound like a job for 'Bold Hinata'.
She certainly hoped Naruto was having an easier time of things.
So this was what young Naruto had become capable of…
And so quickly, at that!
Even with the curse mark advancing to its second stage, Jirobo seemed to be utterly outclassed. The blonde's speed utterly eclipsed that of Orochimaru's chosen, such that the marked Sound ninja was left completely hapless in the face of the other boy's onslaught.
Orochimaru grinned, leaning forward with interest as the Kyuubi jinchuriki took Jirobo's arm. His grin only grew as the boy moved to close out the fight, battering Jirobo with blows that completely tore through the added resilience of Orochimaru's gift; the Snake Sannin counted mere seconds before the weakest of the Sound Four lay broken at the other boy's feet.
"Marvelous, is it not?" Orochimaru shifted his gaze to Kimimaro, whose own interested eyes hadn't seemed to have left the two boys' fight since it had begun.
"I see why you would be interested in the boy, my lord…" Kimimaro swallowed, looking nervous to say anything more.
"Speak."
Heeding his master's command, Kimimaro swallowed his apprehension. "I agree that the boy moves well, but I am failing to see any measure of the ability that could have subdued the One Tails."
Orochimaru merely smiled. "I agree." Kimimaro's shoulders relaxed, the young man's breath growing easier at not having offended his master in some way.
That was the question, now wasn't it? How had young Naruto Uzumaki managed to subdue the One Tails? His abilities were certainly greater than what Orochimaru had witnessed from the boy back in the Forest of Death; truly, it was like night and day! But the boy that battled below him was still hardly a real threat for the beast that the Snake Sannin had unleashed upon Konoha, back during the invasion.
Yet, there was no mistake that the boy below had the potential to become that.
Orochimaru's long tongue slipped free, wiping drool away from his jaw.
Was Naruto Uzumaki worthy of his designs, or had his victory over the Ichibi merely been a fluke?
"Well I suppose it is my duty as a scientist to test this little hypothesis of mine, mm?"
"Orochimaru-sama?" Kimimaro's curiosity went ignored, his master's attention too fixed to the scene below.
Bone-white fingers rose, pressed firmly into a tiger seal. "Don't disappoint me now, my dear boy."
"Well that isn't good."
No, it really wasn't.
Naruto watched in horror as the boy's body contorted painfully against his bindings, completely resisting the chains searing into his flesh. Too quickly, his body burst free of Naruto's restraints, and the Uzumaki was forced to skip back several steps to avoid being brained by the mindless flailing of Jirobo's remaining, growing arm. The rest of his body grew too, until his torso grew too-long and his remaining arm had stretched until it dragged limply along the ground. His body sprouted thorns, then horns; then- Naruto gagged as the other boy's stomach, swollen and now visible through his ruined clothing, burst. Blood and bile sprayed out from the gash in his torso like the juices of some macabre fruit, crushed underfoot; Jirobo dropped to his knees in agony. His entrails spilled freely before coiling and knotting together, hanging over the lip of his gut and scraping loosely along the ground. From the severed edges of his bleeding belly, large, crushing, tooth-like growths sprouted free. Giant, cyst-like growths sprouted in the inner walls of his mutilated gut, swelling and leaking with orange, pus-like liquid.
It filled up in excess, bile building up within the now open maw on his torso and frothing just behind the lip of his makeshift jaws.
More terrifying though was his chakra. It grew, more and more and more until it eclipsed even Naruto's own reserves and still kept growing!
But it wasn't just that; it was like it was bottoming out just as quickly as it filled, like a hole poked into the bottom of a cup.
"His yin-chakra is draining; at the same time, his yang chakra is bloating up to unhealthy levels."
It was a true bastardization of Tsunade's technique, performed with no regard for the health and safety of the user.
"This whole thing feels like some cobbled up hodgepodge of inhumane experiments! How could anyone do such a thing!?"
Yeah, and to one of their followers, at that... Already, Naruto could feel the other boy's consciousness fading, hazed over in a perpetuated, silent scream of agony. It was like a huge part of the young man in front of him was being entirely hollowed to leave only a draining husk in its stead!
Looking up at his face, Naruto gulped, the corners of his smile tugging downward. Jirobo's pupils had shrunk to the point of being barely visible, such that his pitch-black sclera was nearly all that the other boy could see. His original mouth hung slightly open, a string of drool hanging loosely from parted lips. At the base of his throat, a large bulge wriggled about underneath his flesh. Its movements were aggressive; they jerked the large, bumbling corpse about on two left feet, the body of the Sound ninja staggering in tandem with the motions above. Through Jirobo's parted lips, Naruto could swear he saw a pair of sickly yellow eyes, gleaming with perverse glee. Then the lifeless body began to charge.
No, that wasn't right. The unseen creature dragged the boy's corpse after him, the mouth on its gut splitting open wide and gargling bile that splashed about with every rapid, clumsy step like the spill of an open jug.
Its sudden speed was overwhelming, near-instantly filling his vision with the incredible bulk of this groaning, flopping, flailing thing, and Naruto's only suitable response was to leap back, just in time to avoid the crushing chomp of its lower jaws as it thrust its body towards him. Discharge sprayed outward, threatening to splash across Naruto's face.
"Don't let that touch you!"
Yang chakra flared through Naruto's legs, stimulating muscle groups and nervous signals in his legs to a near-painful degree, and a sudden kick-off from Naruto's leading leg shot him to the side in a slight sputter of rubble. A thin pane of chakra captured his footing, allowing him to slide in a half-circle around the bumbling monstrosity, fully clear of its frothing liquid. A rattle of metal, and a spool of writhing chains burst from his back, slinging themselves toward the lip of a squat building and yanking him above it for even more distance.
The massive body of the hollowed out Sound ninja stumbled into the space he'd been in; it slammed into a wooden stall, its body bowling over with the impact where the bile it had accrued began to spill superfluously. Naruto gulped as the surrounding objects, the dirt floor included, began to break down within seconds.
'Thanks for the warning.'
"Mm… You feel it too, right?"
Yeah. Naruto nodded in response to Kushina's question, looking over the mess with wary eyes.
The chakra flowing through that creature's discharge reeked of familiarity. The liquid was dyed with reddish clumps, heavily laden and alive with caustic chakra; they twisted and contorted in the pool, lengthy and vaguely serpentine like a sea snake in water. As the creature's discharge continued to spill out, the offending traces wriggled about, combining at the place of his chakra-infused dash; they broke down the remnant traces of his chakra, consuming it in mere moments. As Naruto glared into the sloshing pool of viscous bile, he could only come to one uncomfortable conclusion.
"Scarlet rot." It was little more than a bastardization of the real thing, but he knew it well enough to spot its signs. He and Mito had spent days suffering from its touch. Weeks more, just studying its makeup. The fact alone that Orochimaru had even come close- Had he found some way to imbue people with artificial bloodline traits?
Judging by the horrific condition of that Sound ninja's body, the Snake didn't really seem to care what his little test run did to them in the long run. Already, the older boy's mangled body seemed to be held together only by the massive amount of chakra that the curse mark seemed to be generating in him.
At the clear expense of his mind and spirit… "He's gonna die if we don't do something."
The Sound ninja's body clumsily clamored to its feet, jerked about mindlessly by the creature bulging in its throat. His slackened facial muscles swelled, and the Sound ninja's body keeled over, his jaws pried apart as Orochimaru's influence finally revealed itself, proper. It was a large, white-scaled serpent; its gaze followed Naruto's form as it emerged from the boy's lips, wrapping around the slackened cheek of Jirobo to watch Naruto even as the corpse it piloted had yet to face him. Its forked tongue flicked outward, tasting the air with morbid glee, and as if incited, the body it commanded was jerked around with a sick 'crack'!
It screamed from its gut-mouth, the sound high pitched and watery, like the cry of a drowning child.
"Oh for fuck's sake, why do all of my bad guys get freaking boss phases!?" Naruto was forced to weave to the side as the creature charged him again with a wild scream. It bounded after him, crashing through the lip of the rooftop to reach him and causing the entire structure to quake under its still-growing mass; its body wobbled under its sheer weight as it crashed down in front of the blonde. Then, the jaws on its torso peeled back to belt forth a booming, wet screech that caused Naruto to stagger back, wide-eyed. Its arm swung out, intending to scoop Naruto into its clumsy grip, and it was only hard-won reflexes that allowed Naruto to dart out of the way, hand springing back and wasting no more time before rushing further back to make some more distance.
It chased after him with growing speed, forcing him to weave twice more to evade its following grabbing attempts. On the third lunge, he tried to dive past it, but it stopped nearly on a dime, pivoting on its bare heels and leaping after him gut first, its gnashing jaws trying to bite him in half. As it did so, strings of its orange bile spewed outward, threatening to splash on the younger boy.
"Don't let a single drop of that filth touch you!"
"Way ahead of ya!" Naruto tucked his legs in, manipulating multiple spools of chain as they burst from his body; they grabbed onto a number of surrounding structures, offering the leverage that the boy needed to rapidly sling himself further away from his pursuer.
"Come back!" It wheezed, pathetic- almost begging! "Empty!" Its charge persisted, tearing through rooftops which cracked and crumbled under its weight. "CoMe BaCk!" Its inflection began to distort, wobbly and watery. Its tortured wheeze seemed to flip flop between unbearably loud and pathetically quiet. "JuSt A bItE!?"
Naruto scrambled from rooftop to rooftop, his pursuer rapidly closing the distance even as he continued to increase his own speed in turn.
"What in the blue hell am I looking at!?"He roared to Kushina, who didn't seem much better off than he was.
"Why the purple hell do you think I know!?"
"Aren't you my mom? Do some mom shit! HELP ME!" He ducked under a lunge, forcing himself to shrink to a fraction of his size and weave through the gaps in the creature's fingers. He was halfway through reverting back when the creature dug one of its massive feet into the ground, halting its momentum before whipping around and slamming its fist into him with such force that his vision stuttered black for a moment. "Shit! S-soon, preferably!"
"Okay, okay, j-just buy some time! I'll see if I can figure out what's going on!"
Naruto's body crashed through a large, familiar wooden stall, battering his body with its rubble as he skipped along the ground and rolled to a stop in a daze. His stuttering vision lingered on the remains of the kind old man's rickety old service stand; the mutilated remains of his wonderful bunny dango lay mashed and pasted, remnant bits of the treat clinging with grime to the fabric of his once pristine sleeves.
"Ah, hello depression," he muttered in a daze.
His sight trailed further, spotting a smattering of bloodstains and following their trail. Not far off, the old man's body lay still, bruised and broken to a bloody pulp; his two swollen eyes were wide and glassy.
"Oh… Oh no." He did not even need to ask before his clone's resonance expanded, straining to take in the full scope of his surroundings.
Hundreds of twisted, hostile presences, spread out across a large area. A handful of large-bodied, powerful sources of chakra lingered in the area, closer to the center of the town. The tiny, fragile motes of chakra that he recognized as mere civilians- their hearts were alight with terror as enemy forces chased them down. The hostiles chased them down, and civilian lives faded or dropped off entirely like blips on a radar with every second that passed.
Hundreds of hostiles, people dying left and right-
Neighbors, screaming in terror as a massive hooved foot crashed through their home.
A child, whimpering quietly underneath rubble, slowly suffocating
The Four Tails, looming over her with empty gazes.
A wad of lead sunk into his stomach. "... I'm going to pull her tongue out through her ass and use it to wipe my ass!"
"Focus!"
Kushina's demand, combined with the near-painful vibrating of his transformed clones shook him out of his spiral. The persisting screech of the attacking monstrosity reminded him of his situation, and it was only just in time that Naruto was able to roll back onto his palms, vaulting himself up and away as the creature slammed down where he had laid, only moments prior. As he twisted upside-down in mid-air, trying to reorient himself, it hefted its massive gut toward him and screamed, its watery sobs causing his skin to crawl.
"So hungry. So HuNgRy!" Then, its long arm clasped itself over its swelling, bulbous gut and it groaned in pain. "It HuRtS! iT hUrTs!" Naruto heard gurgling, and he had no time to even register what was happening before one of his earrings snapped off from its fixture and warped back to its original shape. His revealed clone threw himself in front of Naruto, a thin makeshift arm made of chain bursting toward him to shove him back; meanwhile, a wall of metal twisted into place to form a hefty barrier that fought to ward off the torrent of foul, rot-tinged bile that rocketed toward them. Naruto stumbled onto his butt and scrambled back several paces, watching in horror as his clone's shield was broken down in mere moments before finally tearing through his protections to consume the clone himself.
"Hol-holy shit."
His eyes shakily followed the remains of his clone's chains, then trailed to the withering corpse of the clone, himself, just before its form finally gave in and unraveled itself in a pathetic puff of smoke. Then his gaze followed the motions of the creature itself. Its long arm hunted, scooping up the old man's corpse and stuffing it into its swollen gut, makeshift teeth gnashing together to crush him within. Its bile frothed over the lip of its gut, and its body only seemed to grow!
A tense moment of silence filled the air, Naruto's brain belatedly afflicted with the creeping remnant memories of the clone who had died on his behalf; still reeling too, at the sight before him.
He hadn't even known what was happening. He was too overwhelmed and- his clone's perception had obviously sensed something incoming, but- He gulped. His clone hadn't even had time to trigger a warning via resonance. If his clone hadn't thought to act on his own he'd be-
"Naruto!" His mother's sharp hiss recentered him. "Good. Keep it together, darling. I know you're frazzled, but the only way out of this is if you get your head on straight."
Right… Right. He'd worry about everything else after. That sound girl; the old man- His rage was a fight to restrain, but he would manage. A deep breath, and his grin slipped back in place.
Violent thoughts aside, he had to admit that he was getting a little excited!
"We need a plan. If any of that gunk touches you directly, it's game over; you can't fight properly without first finding a way to bypass it."
Right. In that case, he needed time to think, which meant the first order of business was to divert its focus. His fingers crossed together in an instant, and several puffs of smoke filled the space around him, briefly obscuring the creature's vision just as it had once again begun to charge. It barreled right through the spreading smoke, into the waiting embrace of a dozen clones.
"MoRe!?" It whimpered, staggering as each clone took on a ready stance. "HeLp Me? HELP ME!?" Its massive gut sloshed about, dribbling its corrosive liquid about with a drunken stumble. When not a single one of the clones responded, it grew increasingly agitated, the jaws of its belly gnashing together before screeching. "So EmPtY!? So HuNgRy!? HeLp Me!?"
God, was that Sound ninja even still alive in there? Or was Orochimaru just trying to screw with him!?
The creature's arm flailed out with terrifying speed, instantly claiming one clone's life before he could even think to move.
So explosive speed combined with increased range. However, its motor functions weren't fully up to snuff; there was a clear delay after the initial startup that he could exploit.
All of his clones adapted with the memory of their brethren's death, moving as a unit to steer clear of its impressive reach. All the while, the true Naruto hung back a bit, waiting for his moment and considering the information that was coming in to him.
The filth it was releasing didn't seem to just stop once it hit the floor. The traces of rot were still on the hunt, corroding the space around them as they hunted after his clones for their chakra with increasing speed.
"Recalibrate to keep track of that muck; we can't let it touch us," Naruto muttered for his remaining transformed clones to hear. His perception shifted to include the rot in their scans.
The snake's puppet stumbled about, an explosive swing nearly ripping a clone in two and causing Jirobo's body to trip down to a knee. Then its head twitched to regard him, and it sped towards him in a stampede of heavy footfalls.
Naruto steered clear of the beast's rush, leaning back to avoid another wild swipe of its arm. Its bare feet dug into the ground, tearing up debris and halting its approach. Then, it twisted on its heel, spewing its bile in a wide arc to corrode two more clones to death. The serpent in its mouth jerked it around, locking eyes with one of Naruto's clones, who went suspiciously still. It grabbed him with its too-long reach and violently stuffed the frozen clone towards its gut. It bit the clone nearly in half with a horrific crunch of flesh, bone, and metal as the latter tried to resist with his chains at the last moment; the brutalized clone unraveled in a puff of smoke, and Naruto winced at the memory of the experience as its body continued to grow.
That swing had been even faster, and with a far shorter startup than what they'd anticipated. It was learning. Moreover, the snake had some kind of paralyzing stare he needed to be wary of. He couldn't afford to lock eyes with the thing.
"WhErE!?" It wheezed, its hanging gut gnashing for the meal it had been denied. "So EmPtY!? WHERE!?"
Its wild, one-armed attacks picked up speed, snapping about in a fashion that was quickly becoming less like a mere bludgeon and more like the splitting crack of a whip. Every swing was more accurate than the last; Its mindless flailing became more targeted, tearing up terrain as it came and went to control the range around it. Its fingers grew more deft with every swing, and even as his clones tried to relay the necessary adaptations to Naruto's own methods, Jirobo's puppeteered body seemed to adapt to overcome those adaptations just as quickly. The large, waddling creature was jerked about by the serpent in its mouth, glaring at each and every clone in an effort to freeze them just before the body it puppeteered would slaughter them with increasing precision and aggression. Then its gaze finally cut past the remaining clones and landed on the real Naruto, forcing him to avert his gaze and duck away instinctively, receiving a face full of scattered debris as the creature's fist smashed the ground where he'd stood. Naruto skipped back just as his attacker pierced its fingers into the ground and heaved. The ground cracked, then tore up with such force that the entire space around Naruto was scattered, sky-high with a squawk of surprise.
His body was sent skyward as his very footing was torn out from under him, and as Naruto tumbled about alongside several more of his clones, each with little sense of direction, his swirling senses only barely caught sight of the fast approaching body, massive jaws split with intent to end his life.
"You need to keep moving!" Kushina ordered him, so loudly that his head ached. Naruto's chains unfurled from his body on reflex, several makeshift hands spreading out to grab onto the loose debris in large quantities and drag it all together. In that same moment, a moment of inspiration struck him, and his chakra wove through the makeshift structure, yang chakra reshaping and hardening the mass of stone into something more whole. Jirobo's gut-mouth closed around the mass of stone, spraying its foul discharge as it pulverized the makeshift barrier, which Naruto smartly caught with the length of his sleeve; in the same motion, he tore it away, whipping the contaminated, transformed fabric at the serpent's eyes. It wrapped around the snake's head, and it let out a shrill screech as the rot made short work of its sight, even as the cloth began to dissolve.
So it wasn't immune to the effects of its own rot… Good to know!
Even still, Jirobo's lower jaws were quickly corroding the wall of stone even in spite of Naruto's attempts at reinforcement. But the brief opportunity was exactly the moment Naruto needed to push off from the mass of ruined stone with his legs and shroud himself in a protective barrier, just in time for a massive hand that now dwarfed him entirely to blindly swat him down. His body slammed through upturned dirt, bounced through the porcelain frame of a water fountain, and wetly deposited itself through the side of a wooden pub, several dozen meters down. He skid across the ground, tearing up wooden floorboards as he went before finally rolling limp in a crater of dirt and wood-debris.
"Ouchies…"
Yeah, he really hoped things were going a bit better on Hinata's end.
That's right, we're ending on a bit of a cliffhanger. Bear with me; the next part of this chapter should be coming out in just a few days, but I was honestly getting a bit overwhelmed with trying to write and edit everything as one.
Honestly, I think I was trying to cram too much into one chapter, because I felt like I was kind've losing focus throughout the whole thing. Doing it like this helps me focus, which should hopefully lead to a better product in the long run.
All of this to say you guys won't have to wait long to see how the rest of this plays out…
ON OTHER NEWS!
After repeated questions and requests from some of you readers, I have made a ko-fi account! For those of you who wish to support me in some way, you can find details regarding that on my discord, linked in my bio.
I will not be linking it here, specifically because I do not intend to use this platform at any point to monetize myself. The story exists here for you all to enjoy and I do not expect your money, nor do I plan to gatekeep or incentivize you with FOMO into paying me to enjoy a story that was free, and should and will remain free.
My ko-fi account exists at this moment purely to satisfy the users who were interested in offering their support separate from the pace of the story. It's still a work in progress, so please don't make fun of me too much.
That said, I will be opening commissions there in the coming weeks. Note in advance that I will not be writing just anything, and my rules for my works will be clearly outlined there when I finally open up for them.
TLDR I made a thingy, if you're interested in the thingy, you know how to find the thingy.
Ok, bye!