Hinata: Byakurenden

Uzumaki Naruto vs Senju Hashirama


"Naruto, you idiot! Get up!" He was jolted back into consciousness by Kurama shouting at him from within the seal, his voice loud enough that he might as well be screaming directly into his eardrums.

"Wait, what the hell?" Naruto glanced around, wondering how long he was out for. The last thing he remembered was the zombified First Hokage grabbing him by the face and then… that was it, actually.

"Get your shit together!" Kurama chided in response, giving Naruto the urge to pick his ear. He ignored the urge and focused on the mystery at hand. Had he been thrown? He must have been, cause he was nowhere near where the main battle was going down. No, he was outside the village and it was pretty easy to see the path he had taken to get here now that he understood what he was looking at.

The tall wall to the village was a pile of rubble, or at least the small section of it that Naruto had blown clear through was, bringing him to sit on a sand dune just outside the village. Not just the wall, but every single building between that and where he had been standing lay in ruins. It was no wonder he got his senses knocked from him, although it could have only been for a couple seconds.

He stumbled back to his feet, feeling a little uncertain on his legs as if he was out at sea. The sensation passed quickly enough and he shook his head, dislodging the sand clinging to his hair. Looking down at his fists, he clenched and unclenched them several times, confirming everything was in working order. Convinced it was, he nodded once more to himself.

"Alright, time to get back to it!" He grinned ferally, feeling the nature energy of the world around him and ready to join the fray.

"No need to go out of your way. 'It' is coming to you." Kurama responded once again, strangely talkative all of the sudden. A moment later and Naruto understood why, the Shodai Hokage, Hashirama, landing on the rubble of the ruined wall to block his path.

He and the Demon Fox had gotten rather close over the past couple years, not that Kurama would ever admit it. And while he didn't share much of his past with Naruto, he did talk about things pertaining to Asura at the old ghost's request. Which was why Naruto understood that this man before him was another reincarnation just like him, his predecessor in fact. He also knew that Hashirama was the one to create the Jinchuriki system with the help of his wife.

In other words, Kurama wasn't overly fond of the First, even if he was a reincarnation of Asura. Not that any of this really was of concern to Naruto himself. He didn't care much about all that. First Hokage, Asura Reincarnation, or creator of the Jinchuriki. No matter what he was in the past, right now he was an obstacle in Naruto's path. Something to be moved, nothing more than that.

"You're made of tough stuff!" Or so he thought, but he was taken slightly aback as the Shodai threw back his head and burst into loud, raucous laughter. Naruto could only stand there awkwardly, shifting his balance from side to side as he waited for the laughter to end. It would just be bad form to attack someone that was laughing so happily, after all. Finally, the Hokage's fit came to an end and he beamed down at Naruto from atop the rubble. "What's your name, young man? Can you tell me more about the village and how she's doing? I want to hear as much as I can in whatever little time I've got."

There was another awkward moment of silence that passed, as Naruto attempted to process the request. Then he asked- "Is this guy serious?" To no one in particular.

"As serious as he's capable of being." Kurama answered anyway. "In fact, he's about the standard for Asura and his reincarnations." The fox wondered if Naruto would get the hint that he was included among them, but didn't hold out much hope for it.

"Something the matter?" Hashirama asked, folding his arms and tilting his head like a confused child might, entirely oblivious to how out of his place his attitude was in what she be a battle for life and death.

"Well, I guess it doesn't hurt to talk a little." Naruto muttered under his breath, before then beaming at the Hokage. "The name is Uzumaki Naruto!" He proclaimed himself, hiking a thumb towards his face. "And I believe I said it already, but I'm the man that's gonna be the Sixth Hokage, y'know!"

"Oh, an Uzumaki? And wearing the markings of Konoha." Hashirama seemed pleased. "How is your clan? Have many of them come to live in the village now, I wonder?" He knew his wife had been somewhat lonely to be separated from her clan, and he always felt bad for that. It would make him happy to know more of her clansmen had come to stay with her after he had passed.

"Clan?" Naruto asked, tilting head and racking his brain. He didn't really know anything about his clan, nor was he really curious about it either. Meeting Tayuya, and knowing about his mother and father had been enough for him, really. While Hinata had been on her training trip, he and Kurama found traces of their souls also mixed within his seal, and with Asura's help had called those spirits forward.

It had only been for a short time, but he got to talk to them and learn just how much they loved him, as well as each other. During that talk, had they said anything about a clan… now that he thought about it, it felt like his mom had mentioned something briefly. That's right, he remembered now.

"Didn't they like get wiped out in a war or something?" Naruto asked, more than answered. It was something that happened long before he was born, so really it didn't feel like it had anything to do with him. The moment the words left his mouth, and he wished he had phrased it more delicately, however.

"Ah, I see… is that so?" Hashirama dropped to his knees, head slinking between them as he started playing with the broken pebbles that had once been part of the wall he stood on.

"I- I mean, it's not like I'm completely on my own or anything, y'know!" Naruto hastily stumbled out those words. "That's right, Tayuya is in the village too! And she's an Uzumaki just like me. Got red hair like my mom and everything. The two of us aren't exactly much of a clan, but she's like a sister to me, so that kinda counts, doesn't it?"

"Really?! That's great!" Like the earlier depression had been a lie, Hashirama was back on his feet, head thrown back and laughing deep from the belly again.

"Ehhh… what the hell?" Naruto's shoulders sagged and he gave an exhausted sigh. "This guy is like, seriously a pain in the ass, y'know." He grumbled under his breath.

"That goes for the both of you!" Kurama couldn't help but retort.

"You got something to say, huh?" Naruto's mood, just like the First's, shifted on a dime as his anger flared up and he started shouting down at his seal.

"I thought I sensed it, but the Kyuubi-no-Yoko is there with you, isn't it?" Hashirama had stopped laughing, and instead was staring down at Naruto with a complicated expression. He had already known that if they were up to the Fifth Hokage, than it was highly likely a considerable amount of time had passed and all the people he had once known were gone, but it was still a strange feeling for him.

"What if he is?" Naruto asked, holding a hand slightly defensively over his naval, where the seal was located. "Just so you know, Kurama ain't going to talk to you even if you ask. He doesn't exactly like you, if you get what I'm saying."

"No, I doubt he does like me very much." Hashirama smiled dejectedly. "I see, so the fox's name was Kurama, was it? I never knew that about him. No wonder I'm so hated by him." The depression in the Hokage's voice and face this time was much different from before, not as comically exaggerated, but much more profound.

"A-Anyways, you asked about the village, right?" Naruto decided to change topics. "It's doing just fine. So you really don't gotta worry about anything and just leave it all to me and everyone else… you doing alright?" About halfway through his last sentence and something about the First Hokage's body language changed. He had gone rigid, and it looked like he had lost all emotion entirely.

"Oi, Naruto." Kurama growled in warning. "Get ready, that Kabuto bastard reasserted control on the Jutsu. The First Hokage is about to come at you with everything he's got." Just like the fox said, but when Hashirama looked back up, his eyes no longer had that carefree air about them, and instead the air was full of killing intent.

It was only for a short time, but Naruto had actually somewhat enjoyed that talk. Even if his conversation partner had been a pain in the ass, he could see why everyone had liked him enough to follow him and make him into their First Hokage. He was an example of what Naruto himself hoped to be one day.

All the more reason why he couldn't lose here.

"Mokuton: Deep Forest Emergence!" The First Hokage slammed his palms together, his brown hair flailing wildly behind him as his chakra surged to levels in which Naruto had only rarely felt throughout his life.

The ground trembled, something making its way to the surface from deep below. Roots as thick as any tree located in the forest of death burst out from the sand, destroying another wide section of the wall, before they began encroaching forward, swallowing everything in their path. Of which Naruto was about to be.

He didn't so much as even bat an eyelid at the display of power, already familiar with the legends of the Shodai Hokage and what he was capable of. Besides, he could also make trees if he wanted to, simply by merging the chakra natures of earth and water. He didn't just stop there, however, also mixing his own birth-given nature of wind to the mix, creating not just an elemental Kekkei Genkai, but a Kekkei Tota. Channeling all these natures into his wood arm, he prepared his own Jutsu.

"Shuton: Tanesandan!" Naruto wound up like a baseball pitcher before the throw. Then he pitched his arm forward, releasing a shotgun blast of seeds filled with the elements of wind, water, and earth. The seeds scattered, covering a wide range in front of him. The roots continued to slither forward and as the two forces met, the seeds detonated.

The resulting explosions stopped the roots dead in their tracks and caused the whole village to shake, a mushroom cloud rising up from the point of impact. If the sky hadn't already been lit up by the fake sun, it surely would have from the light of the explosion alone.

Naruto's Jutsu only covered a small range of the encroaching roots, however, and the roots on the outskirts of his attack continued to stretch forward, snaking around behind him and meeting in the middle. As they slammed into each other, the roots began to reach skywards, wrapping around one another like twisting pillars until they were taller than any building, stabbing into the sky itself. At the pinnacle of these make-shift trees, flowers with petals of pink bloomed, exuding some kind of toxic pollen that hung high in the sky above.

The Land of Wind was a desert, full of nothing but sand. At least, it should have been. In the span of less than a minute, the Shodai Hokage had created a miniature forest, although not one that could naturally be found anywhere in the world. It was a misshapen mess, a giant hole in the middle where Naruto's seeds had halted any encroachment, forcing the roots to have formed a giant circle around a bald spot of sand. The base was exposed roots that just slipped on top of one another, only occasionally becoming entangled, where they then reached upwards in spiraling tree-like pillars.

"Huh, that's actually a pretty cool use of the wood style." Naruto couldn't help but admire the scenery created by the Shodai Hokage. He could use the Mokuton himself, but he never really used it in quite this way, so it was worth taking notes now, to be used in future fights.

"Focus up, he's not done yet!" Kurama chided, forcing Naruto's attention back to Hashirama, who had entered his own kind of sage mode. The chakra he was molding now was even greater than before. "This isn't the type of fight where you both slowly up the ante, the First Hokage is the type that goes all out right from the get go. You get what I'm saying, right?" No sooner did Kurama finish talking and the Hokage unleashed his next technique.

"Senpo Mokuton: True Several Thousand Hands!" He used the trees that had formed behind himself to form his next technique, the bark transforming into the image of a titanic Buddha, easily bigger than Kurama at his full, unleashed size. Behind the Buddha, true to its name, were thousands of arms that spread behind it like a flower.

"Yeah," Naruto couldn't help but laugh awkwardly, unsure if he was terrified or excited by what he saw in front of him. "I think I'm getting a pretty good idea what you're talking about. You ready to do this?"

"I've been waiting for my revenge match against this bastard since before you were born! Let's fucking go!" Kurama pushed his chakra through the seal, releasing the floodgates and beginning their transformation.

When Naruto had met his dad inside the seal, he had made some minor modifications to it upon seeing that the two had somehow become something akin to friends. The seal as it was didn't allow them to be a perfect Jinchuriki combo, but they had found ways to cheat their way around that and achieve a similar result.

Naruto took the influx of Kurama's chakra and forced it all into his wooden right arm. The arm expanded, swallowing him whole, growing larger and larger until it could compete with Hashirama's own summoned monstrosity. As it grew in size, it began to take shape too, looking exactly like a wooden sculpture of a tailless Kurama, handcrafted by an expert artisan. The eyes and mouth glowed red, filling with the fox's chakra, and the joints at the knees and claws cracked, being held together by the same blood-red energy. Finally, nine flowers on the rear-end of the living sculpture bloomed, and from the pistil, nine tails of the same chakra were regurgitated.

"Kurama: Stage Nine- Mokuton Mode!" He and Kurama called in unison. Against Hinata, they had only shown up to four tails, releasing just under half of their power. This time there was no need to hold back. After all, this wasn't a simple battle for sport, but that of life-or-death. He was going to put it all on the line.

"Amazing!" Hashirama praised them, his personality momentarily breaking through as he smiled at them. "I'll believe your earlier words about the village being in good hands." Despite his words, the wooden golem he rode atop had started inching forward, merely dragging itself across the ground, every single creak and crack akin to a forest being toppled by an earthquake.

"Yeah, you leave everything to me!" Naruto and Kurama leapt forward, far more nimble than the titanic Buddha. This was why they broke their own joints, replacing the wooden parts with Kurama's flexible chakra. The first time they had used this Jutsu, they had the same problems as the wooden statue that was now their opponent, and it led to Sasuke beating their ass in a spar.

They didn't have that problem now, able to leap at the massive wooden statue and strike it with a powerful fist. This exact same blow could topple mountains, generate tornados, and create tsunamis, but against the thick wood of the Buddha and it didn't even leave a single dent.

At the same time as they struck, a dozen of the thousand arms began to move, they bent and stretched, falling at Kurama sluggishly. It was all too easy to dodge the first couple arms, the hands slamming into the desert, kicking up tidal waves of sand and shaking the earth to its core. Each proceeding hand, however, pushed the pair further and further into a corner.

The clearing in the middle of Hashirama's created forest was actually quite wide- if you were two humans, that is. For the massive entities they had transformed into and there actually wasn't much space to move about, turning this battle into a claustrophobic cage match. They needed to create space for themselves by destroying those arms.

"Renzoku Bijudama!" Kurama filled his stomach with piping hot chakra, turning it into balls of molten beams that they then spit out in rapid-fire succession. The first couple beams hit the arms that had fallen, destroying them and causing their bark to tumble to the floor below. The remaining beams carried onwards to the base of the statue, bombarded it in a series of explosions that spread outwards, covering everything in fire and smoke.

"You think that did it?" Naruto asked.

"Idiot, don't trigger unnecessary flags!" Kurama shouted, but it was too late. Arms beyond count burst through the smoke, slamming into the wooden avatar of the tailed-beast and pinning them to the ground.

As several of the hands held them in place, the others continued to raise and lower, pummeling the pair into submission. The smoke cleared, revealing the Buddha with significant hunks missing, but those beginning to fill back in. Not just the statue, but Hashirama himself had half his torso blown away from a stray Bijudama, but that was also patching itself back together, the exposed parts of his flesh akin to a paper mache doll.

"He really is some kinda immortal zombie!" Naruto realized, manipulating one of Kurama's wooden arms to grab one of the Buddha's before it could fall. It didn't last for long, another arm knocking his own aside before both resumed beating them. "How the hell are we supposed to beat that?"

"We gotta seal his movements… you already understand how, right?" Kurama flicked his nail tails of malevolent chakra, turning them into razor sharp blades that cut away all the arms, granting them a moment's relief from the pounding.

"Yeah, I got ya." Naruto nodded to himself inside the avatar as they stumbled back to their feet. Only to stop halfway up, their movement suddenly restricted by some unseen force.

"Hashirama, you bastard…" Kurama growled, and it was only then Naruto saw it. The First Hokage had formed a seal and was now exerting his chakra on their own Mokuton Jutsu. Specifically, he was controlling the wooden sculpture they had used to form their Biju mode. It would be easy enough to shake off his influence, but if they had to fight the statue while also having their movements made sluggish, they would never win.

Before they could gain control of their body back, another dozen arms were already upon them, pinning them once more to the hard desert ground. Once again, the fists of the Buddha began pummeling them, each strike burying them further and further beneath the sand.

"Why the hell did we decide to fight Mokuton with Mokuton again?" Naruto asked, strangely casual despite the pounding they were receiving. It was true that they couldn't move in their current state, but the blows weren't hitting either of their physical bodies, meaning they were at least free from actual harm.

The two of them stood inside his seal, Naruto balancing atop the water located in a dimly lit chamber. The fox was still inside his cage, but the circular seal that had been the key was ripped wide open.

"You bring up good points once in a while, Naruto." Kurama agreed with him, smirking from within the cage. "Shall we go with that then?" He asked, and Naruto snickered back, having just been thinking the exact same thing.

"Let's do it!" He pumped his fist, the two of them returning their focus once more unto the outside world. The fists continued to fall on them, but met no more resistance from the pair operating the wooden avatar. Instead they focused their chakra, changing the earth element they had molded into wind, while maintaining the water chakra.

A moment later and a burst of icy vapor exploded from their body, covering the extended arms and freezing them solid near instantly. The frozen arms were brittle as twigs, snapping effortlessly as Kurama once again stumbled back to his feet. Only he was different now, his body no longer made of wood, but solid ice.

"Kurama: Stage Nine- Hyoton Mode!" The two called out, unveiling their newest form with a mighty roar, steam pouring out from their gaping maw, the piping hot chakra melting the joints of their jaw which was quickly being replaced with fresh ice.

In response, the wooden Buddha unleashed a barrage of over a hundred arms. They were so great in number that they enveloped the frozen Kurama completely, blotting out his form behind a mass of fists. The earth shook as they met their mark, surely obliterating the icy exterior and finishing the battle in a single stroke. Only to have the attack completely turned around on it.

"Hyoton: Shinrei!" A wave of pure cold energy washed over the entire battlefield, freezing the arms of the Buddha, the trees surrounding them, and even the giant statue itself near instantly. The arms shattered into pieces, revealing an unharmed Kurama. Unharmed, but equally incapable of movement, their claws frozen to the now icy terrain.

The battle had been reduced to a stand-still, neither side capable of moving anymore, at least temporarily. Even Hashirama hadn't been spared, his legs stuck to the top of the Buddha's head. As he attempted to move himself free, his frozen legs cracked and shattered, causing the upper half of his body to fall, landing in a thud on top of the frozen wood.

"Incredible." He couldn't help but laugh, turning to look at his feet which were still standing upright, cut off at the ankles. The legs attached to his body began regenerating, the scraps of paper mache flying to patch him up piece at a time. It would only be a matter of moments before he was completely regenerated and the battle would restart in earnest. Naruto only had that long to finish him. Not enough time, the frozen fox still on the other side of the small tundra.

Or so he thought, as he turned his attention towards it, he noticed something amiss. There was a crack, located directly in the middle of the fox's head. It was small, barely noticeable from here. However, at the source, it was surely large enough for a human to crawl out of. No sooner did Hashirama put this together, then did he hear it.

A whirring sound, generated from a huge mass of chakra being swirled together into a small focal point. And it was coming from directly above him. He craned his neck, and immediately understood what happened. The moment before Kurama unleashed that deep freeze, Naruto had disengaged from the fox avatar, leaping high in the air, the act hidden from sight by the hundred striking arms.

Now Naruto was coming back down, allowing gravity to do its thing, and he was on a direct collision course with the downed Hashirama, who couldn't move with his legs shattered and the paper mache having not had the chance to repair him yet. The source of the whirring noise was the swirling orb held in Naruto's hand, upheld above his head. It was a technique that Hashirama had never seen before, the chakra natures of earth and wind stored in it, giving it some kind of strange markers.

"Jiton: Rasengan!" Naruto roared, bringing the orb down on top of Hashirama's back. It shredded through his armor, exposing his skin that was quickly burned red in a spiral pattern, before the magnetic seal of the Rasengan took hold. The markers spread from the spiraling orb and twisted throughout Hashirama's body, binding him in place, and also halting the healing process of the Edo Tensei.

Naruto wasn't done just yet. "Shuton: Ice Clone Jutsu!" He formed three copies of himself by utilizing the frozen air around them. Those clones created their own magnetic Rasengans which they also used to seal the First Hokage's body further.

"…You can never be too careful, but didn't you have a more gentle way to do that?" Hashirama wheezed out, even speaking difficult now with four levels of magnetic seals binding his movements in place.

"Sorry, but you didn't exactly leave me much choice." The original walked around to the side of Hashirama and dropped down to his butt, about as close to eye-level as he was capable of being with the pinned Hokage. "By the way, I don't suppose you know how to do something more permanent about this Edo Tensei thing, do ya? I can't exactly just go running off and leaving you with clones… cause you're y'know, you."

He had been thorough by layering four levels of seals, but he had no doubt that if he let things be, the First Hokage would eventually find a way to break out and then they would just be back to square one. Not that he was sure the First Hokage could answer freely in the first place.

"I'm afraid not." Hashirama did answer, the seals acting as a buffer between himself and the caster, giving him back some freedom of the mind. "My brother would know how, but…" He didn't continue, knowing that he had gone after the Uchiha boy. To his surprise, Naruto sighed in relief.

"That's great to hear. If he knows something, then Sasuke will definitely get it out of him in no time at all. Until then, there's really nothing else for me to do but chill here and babysit ya. Make sure you don't go running amok anymore." That being said, he glanced awkwardly at the arms of the Buddha that hung menacingly above them. "By the way, this thing ain't gonna like start moving once it unfreezes, is it?" He asked.

"It shouldn't." Hashirama assured him. "So long as my chakra is bound by your Jutsu, I can't give it any commands. You have a lot of faith in that Uchiha boy. You're friends?" It wasn't exactly something he could say for certain, having only seen that small interaction between the two earlier, but somehow he was reminded of how Madara and he used to be.

"Sasuke? Yeah, something like that." Naruto admitted, albeit backtracking slightly so as not to sound like he was being too direct about it. "I guess if we got a little bit of time, I can answer any of those questions you had earlier."

"Really?" Hashirama beamed, his enthusiasm managing to push its way past the seal that bound him. He would admit, when he had first been summoned, and saw he was going to have to fight those from his own village, the idea had depressed him. Now, he was over the moon at seeing what the future generations were capable of.

He really could rest easy, knowing the village truly was in good hands. That was, assuming the others could find a way to return him to rest at all.


Chapter End


AN: Alright, really pumping these out, as this was also a chapter I was excited to get to.

Some might notice that I kinda glazed over Naruto having already had his reunion with his parents inside his seal. That's because I really like the way canon handled those meetings, and didn't have anything interesting I wanted to add to them, so you can kinda assume the talks went more or less the same, just happening with both of them together.

The only new attack that needs a translation this time is the Ice Style Shinrei(深冷)translated as a "deep cold" or "deep freeze."

Next up, is Hinata's battle against Kabuto. So please look forward to that one and I'll see you next time!