A/N:After publishing the previous chapter, I received a deluge of messages from artists seeking paid commissions for LUtD artwork. I do not, at this time, have any interest in commissioning artwork. Please do not contact me with offers, as I will not respond.
Many thanks to apooooop, Halberdier, HoratioVonBecker, Meneldur, and Paneki for beta reading help.
-o-
11:41:03:337. Front yard of the Hidden Leaf Ninja Academy. Nimbostratus clouds obscure the sun and precipitation begins immediately.
11:43:12:547. A dome of sand, 3 m in diameter and 10 cm in height at its centre, interposes itself between Gaara of the Desert and the falling rain. He is facing away from the front gate at a ~160-degree angle, with his gaze on the corpses scattered on the ground in front of the main building entrance. 12 juveniles, 5 adults, and miscellaneous parts. Identities irrelevant.
11:43:42:225. Uchiha Sasuke leaps over the wall at a point 74 degrees to Gaara's right. His left hand is wrapped in visible blue-white chakra. He moves directly towards Gaara at 15.5 m/s.
11:43:44:180. Gaara creates a spread of 73 sand projectiles beneath the cover of the dome, then launches them at Sasuke in a single dense curtain.
11:43:44:180. Sasuke swerves to the side at a 32-degree angle. His expected trajectory does not intersect with the projectiles.
11:43:45:663. A sharp movement of Gaara's gourd pulls him towards Sasuke's new trajectory. As he is pulled, he raises his right arm laterally to a ~83-degree angle.
11:43:45:663. Sasuke begins to turn further away from Gaara. Their trajectories continue to intersect.
11:43:47:001. Sasuke's neck impacts Gaara's forearm, wrapped in rigid sand. There is an 80 dB cracking noise.
11:43:47:001. 8 masked clones converge on Gaara from the 160-degree area outside his field of vision. Their bodies are precisely interwoven in 3 dimensions to prevent interference within the narrow space.
11:43:47:203. As the clones' kunai enter the space sheltered by Gaara's dome, he creates 8 pinpoint shields in mid-air at the points of contact, fully terminating the kunai's motion.
11:43:47:203. The 9th clone, which had previously leapt out of a window of the Academy main structure, comes within range of the dome. The explosive tag attached to its chest detonates.
11:43:47:307. The dome shatters into ~9,300,000,000 grains of sand, which collapse around Gaara, not harming him but displacing his defences.
11:43:47:457. All 8 clones strike, targeting different vital organs.
11:43:47:517. Gaara reforms his defences out of the falling sand.
11:43:50:093. Sasuke's body reaches the ground.
11:43:51:334. Gaara's body reaches the ground.
"Naruto! Naruto, can you hear me?"
Wait, no. Naruto wasn't at the Academy. He was… he was in the Third Residential District. In the middle of an evacuation. On the ground. And Sasuke was holding a kunai to his neck.
"Wh-What happened?" Naruto forced the words out past the splitting headache. "And can you put that thing away?"
The kunai disappeared. Sasuke reached down to help him up.
"You really don't remember?" he asked.
Everything began to come back to Naruto. The shock. The nausea. The sense of violation.
Oh, cold hell.
"Where is it?" Naruto yelled. "Where did the Fox clone go?"
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "I destroyed it, you imbecile. What the hell were you thinking, bringing that thing out?"
"I didn't know that could happen!" Naruto exclaimed. "The Perverted One checked out my body and told me it was all good!"
Sasuke and Sakura gave him identical stares.
"Uh, that came out wrong. I meant Jiraiya-sensei, the guy Kakashi-sensei sent me to train with. He's supposed to be a sealing expert."
"Jiraiya?" Sakura asked. "Isn't that the name of the creep who writes those awful novels of Kakashi-sensei's? And he's the one you're counting on to protect us from the village-eating monster inside you?"
"Being a world-class pervert doesn't mean you have to be bad at your job," Naruto said defensively. "Anyway, what happened? The last thing I remember is my clone turning up with a mask."
"I'd been flicking my Sharingan on and off to make sure there weren't any invisible people or exotic chakra effects about to sneak up on us," Sasuke said. "Then I looked at you and I saw that you were close to chakra exhaustion even though you were acting fine, and that got me worr- I mean, suspicious. I was still looking at you, trying to figure out what was wrong with you, when your chakra suddenly…"
He broke off, his gaze distant, almost haunted.
"No, I don't know how to describe it. It was the wrongestthing I've seen in my life, like somebody getting stabbed and having spiders pour out of the wound instead of blood. So I was on my guard, and the second my Sharingan precognition showed me the mask, I didn't hesitate."
"Huh," Naruto said. "Thanks. I owe you one."
He was even going to generously ignore the comment about chakra exhaustion, and not prank the heck out of Sasuke in revenge later.
"The secondthis invasion is over," Sakura said, "I'm marching you straight to the Hokage to get examined by an actual professional. For now, are you ready to get back to work, or do you need time to sort yourself out?"
That was weird. Sakura almost sounded like she was worried about him. Maybe getting hit by the Demon Fox's psychic whatever had scrambled his hearing too.
"I'm just asking in case you pushing yourself strains your seal and gets us more monsters to deal with!" Sakura quickly added.
"I'm fine," Naruto said uncertainly. "But we've got bigger problems. I think the Fox made that clone so I'd get its memory when it was destroyed–and it's a memory of the future."
[center]-o-/center]
"That's the calibre of evidence on which you sentence your former comrades to destruction?" Hiruzen demanded incredulously. "Moth-eaten texts claiming to be the Sage's journals? The ramblings of lunatics and vague intimations from the elder proteans of the Beast Path? Grimoires of dubious authorship, so cryptic they could mean anything?"
Orochimaru sighed. "The outcome I expected. Some destinations are unreachable to those who have not made the proper journey."
Everything made sense now. It was not unknown for a shinobi, especially a shinobi who had lost everything, to invent a vision of divine destiny to fill the void, a conspiracy theory according to which they alone were the world's salvation against some imagined apocalyptic threat. Hiruzen had believed Orochimaru too intelligent to fall for such a trap, but it seemed his former apprentice had been far more traumatised by his exile than Hiruzen had imagined. Even under the circumstances, he felt a touch of guilt.
"For a second, I was almost foolish enough to hope," Orochimaru admitted. "The Kazekage was more receptive, though granted, Sand possesses far greater stores of ancient lore than a Leaf robbed by Madara as he departed. Nor am I naive enough to discount the role of motivated reasoning, considering how military success could alleviate Sand's present troubles."
For one who so frequently seemed to think at right angles to the rest of the population, Orochimaru had always possessed a certain knack for recognising and exploiting others' ambitions.
"Regardless, I have accomplished a necessary minimum delay, as a corollary to Infinite Hidden Snake Hands!"
"Shadow Shuriken Technique!"
The two ninjutsu were invoked simultaneously. Orochimaru's physical tells might not have been sufficient on their own, but a basic understanding of breathing rhythm and speech patterns made it clear where in the sentence Orochimaru would begin his technique in order to maximise the delay before Hiruzen recognised the switch. Hiruzen waiting to cast until the same moment robbed Orochimaru of the opportunity to abort and change to an effective counter.
(Like the snakes, the shadow shuriken were only a threat if ignored, but if even one struck the far end of the barrier, it would provide Hiruzen with valuable data about its resilience and other physical properties.)
Orochimaru, Hiruzen was aware, was the worst possible opponent in this kind of scenario. Of the Kage-tier combatants familiar with Hiruzen's capabilities and combat style, Jiraiya preferred to triumph through wit and flexibility, while Tsunade elevated brute force into its own art form. It was Orochimaru who overcame his obstacles by being prepared for every possibility. It was Orochimaru who implanted subdermal armour into his subordinates in anticipation of orthodox assassination techniques and trained his Earth user in obscure ninjutsu for demolishing buildings while one was still inside them. It was Orochimaru who had had months, perhaps even years, to collect and invent the perfect weapons for this confrontation.
Hiruzen could only play to his own strengths in response. Hiruzen was a different kind of planner, his mental flowchart of stratagems factoring in every known piece of information about Orochimaru's personality, preferences, aversions, blind spots, and favoured tactics. Each suggested an array of openings to seek and counters to prepare, and in combination, they created a comprehensive strategy that left no room for hesitation.
Six moves. That was Hiruzen's time limit. After six moves, Orochimaru's expectations of a swift and certain victory earned by his preparations would fade, and the wounded pride that demanded that he defeat his former master with his own hands would soon become outweighed by his messianic delusion, which required him to hold nothing back in the name of his sacred cause (especially as loyal followers still awaited his leadership outside). In that case, Orochimaru would certainly summon his minions, and Hiruzen emphatically did not wish to learn what other ninjutsu and enhancements he had granted them in preparation for this day.
Hiruzen's most elaborate openers only extended as far as four moves, the line past which even the best-laid plans disintegrated, but he had prepared accordingly. A true shinobi, after all, never missed an opportunity to cheat.
"Fire Element: Daemonic Firewall Technique!"
The line of flames cut across the roof between the two shinobi, separating it into two parts. Hiruzen was aware that he was being baited into using a wide-area technique to ensure not even one snake reached him, likely in order to force him to destroy his own swarm of shuriken. Even true steel would be in danger from a Fire technique cast by the Third Hokage, never mind Shadow constructs, and conducting Orochimaru's own defence for him would result in a crippling loss of initiative. However, he'd already accounted for this. He'd cast the firewall at half-strength, leaving the flames just low enough for half the shuriken to pass over them, but too high for the snakes. Of course, that left Orochimaru able to duck, but evasion and recovery would take an entire half-move in which Hiruzen could press the attack. In a battle of two ninjutsu masters, any time taken to evade was a sacrificed opportunity for an offensive counter, and even casting while in motion carried a heavy price (by the standards of Kage combat) in terms of speed and accuracy lost.
"Improved Wind Element: The Fan that Feeds the Fire!"
An intense, continuous gale blew the firewall towards Hiruzen like a tsunami of flame while swelling it back to full size. It also repelled his shuriken, because a move that generated only one advantage was tantamount to suicide against a Kage.
(Additionally, it blew Orochimaru's own snakes into the fire, but the man had never been above discarding pieces that had outlived their usefulness.)
Hiruzen was well aware that Orochimaru did not share his former teammates' fondness for battlefield control, whether creative like Jiraiya's or destructive like Tsunade's. As such, he naturally detested having it used against him, and the firewall just so happened to bea perfect weapon to turn against its creator in confined environs, assuming you had a suitable counter up your sleeve (and not just snakes). The Uchiha secret technique had been unexpected, but two could play at the plagiarism game.
"Water Element: Hōzuki's Mantle!"
Hiruzen could almost sense Orochimaru's puzzlement as he deployed a Mist clan's exclusive anti-taijutsutechnique. The thick dome of water continuously cascaded down from a point above the crown of Hiruzen's head, impeding physical attacks from most angles while leaving a gap directly in front, through which he could take on one enemy at a time.
As effective a counter as the water dome might have been against a Fire technique, that gap should have made it useless. Even if Hiruzen wasted tme by spinning around, it would not protect him from convection (even at half power, the Third Hokage's Daemonic Firewall burned like the flames of Naraka itself, and that was before it was enhanced by Orochimaru's Wind ninjutsu).
But a man as prepared as Orochimaru could not be outmanoeuvred purely with sensible solutions.
Hiruzen dropped to one knee before the flames, crippling his evasive ability against an opponent currently invisible behind them.
The dome followed him as he bent over and inclined his head, the top of the gap reaching the rooftop and providing total cover. And of course, his new position was perfect for a game-changing technique that briefly left its user vulnerable, all while Orochimaru couldn't see it or even hear it over the roar of the firewall now next to Hiruzen.
Hiruzen bit his thumb and slammed his hand against the rooftop.
"Summoning Technique: Enma!"
Fourth move. From now on, twice the moves until the battle's end. A shinobi always came to the battlefield with a way to cheat.
(And Orochimaru would be unable to imitate him because his Kage-tier summon, Manda, wouldn't fit within the barrier.)
Enma, appearing by Hiruzen's side as the flames finished washing over Hōzuki's Mantle, gave him a questioning look. Hiruzen made the hand sign for "Yellow Mongoose Reaps the Harvest", one of innumerable plays they had rehearsed over the past month.
Hiruzen rose, already forming the hand seals for the fifth move, half of a combination with Enma that would break Orochimaru's stance and leave him open for the sixth-move finisher. However, he was ready to switch the final seals to segue into an emergency counter. Hiruzen hadn't given Orochimaru an opening, but he had given him the third move to spend on preparation. Orochimaru had then chosen to take the fourth as preparation as well, instead of the anticipated attack (which Enma would have blocked as part of his unexpected appearance, thus effectively giving Hiruzen a move's worth of defence for free and allowing him to seize the initiative).
Two consecutive free moves was far too much to allow an opponent of Orochimaru's calibre. Hiruzen braced himself.
"Wind Element: Elegy from Afar!"
"Improved Wind Element: Wail of the Banshee!"
(It was audacious of Orochimaru to spend a move on the Shadow Clone Technique when, as elite Leaf shinobi, they both knew all of the secret ways it could be exploited against the user. To prove the point, Orochimaru's own technique of choice destroyed the clone before Hiruzen could take advantage of it, though not before the two ninjutsu interwove.)
Sonic techniques were notoriously difficult to defend against. Hiruzen's best counter wasn't swifter than the speed of sound. If you were unable to anticipate and prevent or shield yourself against the technique, you were left with the inferior option of mitigation, and Orochimaru's two techniques used different principles of attack. Still, with Hiruzen's reflexes, he could choose one and attenuate it to a level that did not impair his performance.
But Hiruzen couldn't spend his fifth move on damage mitigation, not when four unknown elements with synergistic powers could be introduced on Orochimaru's side as early as the seventh.
Hiruzen continued the seals.
The screech stabbed into his ears like blades, penetrating into the very depths of his brain. The deeper pulses felt as if they would shake his very bones apart. The pain was beyond words, on par with the depths of torture genjutsu. The damage to his inner ear would have lethal consequences for his balance if Orochimaru could force him to attempt evasion (which, of course, would be the natural follow-up).
But Hiruzen was the living avatar of the Will of Fire. Even if every nerve in his body burned, that body existed for the sake of the village. It had no other purpose than to serve until it finally broke.
Hiruzen held himself upright and continued the seals.
"Fire Element: Delayed Blast Firestorm!"
Alone, this ninjutsu had once scoured a valley of life. Combined with the Beast Path's arts of form manipulation, in a sealed environment already filled with ambient Fire and Wind chakra (a prerequisite for the Yellow Mongoose series), it would create a bounded hellscape that could not be rejected or escaped, but at most endured. Hiruzen himself had chosen Hōzuki's Mantle in order to preserve his life if Enma was even fractionally too slow to stabilise the boundary.
But Enma did not belong to the Will of Fire. The Monkey King, enchanted by the myths of the Human Path, was the only one who'd learned to transform himself into an inanimate object, and that was his instinctive reaction when assaulted by agony nothing with ears or a skeleton could withstand.
The invincible iron staff clattered against the rooftop. Enma didn't complete his half of the combination.
Deafened, Hiruzen didn't hear Orochimaru's sixth technique call, but he recognised the Homing Water Bullets as they choked the seeds of devastation before Enma's Wind art could make them bloom. He grabbed the staff just in time to intercept those meant for him using its powers of extension (since evading homing missiles with his inner ear damaged was out of the question).
Even now, deaf, unbalanced, and wracked with pain, Hiruzen did not falter. It would take half a move for Enma to shift back to his preferred shape, leaving too little time to complete a combination ninjutsu before Orochimaru's seventh. Hiruzen would allow Orochimaru the initiative for the seventh move and trust in his skill to find a counter that worked from his position of weakness while Enma attacked independently.
Orochimaru, lover of debilitation-finisher sequences, would definitely use an attack that sacrificed evasion difficulty for lethality against a destabilised foe. Of the options suited to the task, It would likely be Earth or Water, or one of Orochimaru's snake techniques. Earth to overcome Hiruzen with Hiruzen's own speciality, Water to triumph with the element against which Hiruzen was strongest, or snake techniques to flaunt an art Orochimaru had created entirely on his own (and whose power he'd unsuccessfully attempted to demonstrate at the beginning of the battle). Three paths by which Orochimaru could prove that he had surpassed his master at ninjutsu, and if this move decided the battle as Orochimaru intended, it would be his final chance to do so.
Once Hiruzen countered Orochimaru's seventh move and ideally placed him off-balance with Enma's aid, the eighth would be an all-or-nothing combination move that they would not allow to fail, even if Hiruzen was forced to draw from his well of forbidden techniques. Orochimaru's seventh would likely summon his minions as a secondary function, but Hiruzen and Enma also had plays for if reinforcements came for the wrong side. As long as Orochimaru himself was no longer a threat, the two of them together would surely be enough to eliminate a mere four chūnin, no matter how their master had prepared them.
Hiruzen and Orochimaru put their hands together simultaneously. The staff fell to the rooftop, Enma's transformation back already beginning.
Posture. Eye movement. Breathing. Hiruzen focused his attention on his target, seeking every unconscious tell learned over many years of training and fighting side by side. Hiruzen's seventh move might only be buying time, but he still needed to identify Orochimaru's next stratagem now, before a syllable was spoken, in order to ensure there would be an eighth.
Then Orochimaru did nothing, and the battlefield tore itself apart.
[center]-o-/center]
"And then Gaara's body hit the ground with all those kunai still in it, and the next thing I knew, I was back here and you were calling out to me," Naruto finished as they reached the third checkpoint.
A gloomy silence settled over the street as the three of them processed. Even the oblivious civilians stopped bickering under the pressure of the atmosphere.
"How did it know?" Sasuke asked. "Chidori is Kakashi-sensei's own creation, and I'm the first person he's taught it to. There's no way the Fox should know about it."
"What is it, anyway?" Naruto asked.
"It's the ultimate melee ninjutsu that only an Uchiha is strong enough to use," Sasuke said smugly. "Human reaction times aren't fast enough to keep track of what's going on around you at that speed, so unless you have Sharingan precognition to give you advance warning, you'll run face-first into an enemy counter and die.
"Though I guess even that has limits," he added, smirk fading. "Once this is over, I'll have to redouble my training."
The ultimate melee ninjutsu? Fine, now Naruto would haveto learn the Rasengan.
"Maybe my mum found out about it from my dad, since he was Kakashi-sensei's master, and the Fox found out from her?" Naruto reluctantly suggested. "But that means it can definitely hear what its host hears. So that's the worst news ever, the whole invasion thing notwithstanding."
He'd always suspected. Now he knew. It was always with him, every second of the day. Even now, it was probably listening, and there was nothing Naruto could do about it. How was he supposed to live with that knowledge?
Naruto did the only thing he could and shifted his attention to more immediate, tangible terrors.
"What about Gaara's powers?" Naruto asked. "Did it get those right? Sasuke, you fought with him."
Sasuke shuddered. "He's impossibly powerful. He's got what must be a trillion sand particles infused with Earth chakra suspended in the air, all the time, and I can't imagine the control he must have to constantly be moving them around so people don't breathe them in or get them in their eyes. He can pull them together anywhere to turn them into floating tools, and I guess he probably could make people choke on them if he wanted to."
Naruto tried to imagine it. How could anyone possibly keep track of all that? Naruto had to work to remember the locations of all his shadow clones when he needed to concentrate on fighting in person at the same time, and he'd never used more than a few dozen at a time in a serious fight.
"I get it now," he said. "If he can tell where they are in relation to people, that means he can use them to sense where people are. He'd be able to detect anybody anywhere within his sand's range."
"The rain must interfere with that," Sakura concluded. "It throws him off by giving him false positives, or knocking the grains around, or maybe weighing down any clusters he makes so they don't move the way they're supposed to. That's why Sasuke and the clones could surprise him."
"And it's why the Fox wants us to attack when it starts raining," Naruto said.
But that led to an impossible dilemma. If Team Seven attacked Gaara now, he'd sense them coming and use his full power against them–a power sufficient to take on multiple chūnin at the same time and scare Sasuke even with his new Uchiha superpowers and nearly-ultimate melee ninjutsu. But if they waited for the rain…
The Academy was one of the best shelters in the village, with an entire team of instructors guarding not only the children who represented Leaf's future but also any civilians lucky enough (or, under normal circumstances, unlucky enough) to live in the same district. Naruto recognised some of the students, who would only have tried to run or fight back if the inside was no longer safe.He recognised all of the teachers who'd laid down their lives to defend the shelter. He recognised Iruka-sensei.
If Team Seven followed the Fox's memory-plan, they'd be leaving the entire Academy to die.
"We can't," Sakura said, pale, almost pleading, as if she'd followed the same train of thought. "We can't wait until Gaara attacks the Academy. There are hundreds of people in there."
"Haruno Sakura, genin. Died heroically in defence of the village."
They both turned to stare at Sasuke.
"This isn't a test, Sakura," he said, fists tight at his side. "If you throw yourself against an unstoppable force just because it's the right thing to do, the unstoppable force kills you and keeps going."
"Sometimes the winning move is not to fight," Naruto agreed, remembering Gamabunta. "Imagine it, though… Gaara massacres the Academy. We kill him. And then we spend the rest of our lives wondering if we could've saved them if we'd only been smart enough, if we'd only been strong enough… if we'd only been brave enough."
"So what do you suggest?" Sasuke demanded. "If you've got a plan that isn't suicide, I'm willing to hear you out. But if you're just trying to make yourself feel better, then forget it. You can deal with survivor's guilt better than you can deal with being dead."
Could they do it? Could Naruto come up with a plan for the three of them to beat a full-power Gaara? Or was Naruto on the verge of doing it again, and letting his pride blind him to the reality that sometimes intelligence wasn't enough?
"We'd need to find him in time," Naruto said slowly. "We'd need to stop him from sensing us at long range. We'd need to block his sand attacks long enough to strike. We'd need a way to penetrate his defences."
"I can do that last one," Sasuke said. "I asked Kakashi-sensei for a technique that could break through any Earth-based armour, and Chidori is what I got. But it won't do me any good if I can't get close, or if he puts up multiple barriers. Chidori dissipates after one hit, or if I wait too long, and I can't afford to use it over and over."
It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Sasuke was so ready to volunteer his new trump card's weaknesses. Also, if Chidori had a unique synergy with the Sharingan andwas a great counter to Gaara's powers, Naruto could see why the Fox might assume Kakashi-sensei would teach it to Sasuke for the Finals.
"We could find Gaara using the Sharingan," Sakura suggested. "We already know he's somewhere between the arena and the Academy, and if he has so much chakra suspended in the air, then you should be able to spot it from the rooftops, right, Sasuke?"
Sasuke nodded.
"So that leaves the hard part," Naruto said. "We need to figure out how to beat his sand sense, which we don't know the range of yet, and get Sasuke within melee range of him without getting killed by those sand tools he can make anywhere–and without letting him use whatever tricks he still has left up his sleeve, like the ones he used to kill Sasuke in the memory."
Sasuke grimaced.
"Hey, what if we makeit rain?" Naruto asked after a few seconds' thought. "None of us know any Water ninjutsu, unless you reallydiversified during your Month from Hell"–the other two both shook their heads–"but we could break one of those water towers you get on roofs all over the place and have the water pour down on him."
"I'm not sure why, but I've always wanted to smash a water tower," Sasuke said. "But it's no good. There's no way an obvious Sand ninja can make it all the way from the arena to the Academy without getting ambushed by defenders a few times, so even if he didn't start out scanning the rooftops, he'll definitely be doing it by the time we find him."
"Speaking of ambushes," Naruto said, "what if I use a bunch of shadow clones to–"
"No!" Sakura cut in urgently. "No more shadow clones. Not one. Don't you dare."
"Huh?"
"The clones in the Fox's memory were wearing masks, weren't they?" she asked patiently, as if explaining something to a toddler (or somebody as dumb as Naruto had pretended to be for so long). "That's as good as saying the Fox wants you to borrow its power and make more like the one Sasuke destroyed. For all we know, it's waiting for you to use the Shadow Clone Technique again so it can make Fox clones to take out Gaara–because apparently it really wants to take out Gaara for some reason–and last time, you could only turn them off because you had mind control to snap out of. If it turns out you can't do it manually and they stick around, it'll be worse for the village than any invasion."
Oh, cold hell. The Perverted One's words from when they first met, which had stuck in Naruto's mind like a splinter, were coming back to haunt him. Naruto cloned himself as the solution to every problem. It was like he'd never learned from his fight with Haku. Sure, he had one awesome new ninjutsu now, but like Sasuke, he couldn't afford to spam it, and like Sasuke, he couldn't count on it to do all the heavy lifting against somebody as versatile as Gaara.
He had eight clones left that weren't evil, and some of those would need to stay behind to continue the evacuation, and he'd probably need to pop some of the rest to get the chakra back if he wanted to use his awesome new technique more than a couple of times.
"I… can't see it," Naruto confessed. "I've got all the genius of Uzumaki Naruto, a squad of shadow clones, and one awesome ninjutsu, which I'll catch you up on in a second, Sasuke's got fireballs and Chidori, and Sakura's got…"
He gave her an awkward look.
"Don't say it."
"It's not enough," Naruto said. "Iruka-sensei probably isn't a powerhouse, with how much time he spends teaching instead of out in the field, but I know the instructors train together for times like these–it's when they're out of office at the same time, so it's easy to sneak in and plant traps. As a team, they've got to be pretty formidable. If Gaara can take them all on at once and win…"
…then Naruto couldn't afford to try to fight him with genius alone. It grated, having to model a kid Naruto's own age as a jōnin-level threat–but then again, Naruto was the one who'd held his own against Zabuza, sort of, mere months out of the Academy. Maybe a foreign village was allowed onegenin even Uzumaki Naruto had to take seriously.
Hold on.
The realisation hit Naruto like a bolt of lightning. There was no way. That couldn't really work, could it? If it did, then Naruto was the ultimate idiot for not having realised it was possible. If it did, he was going to have to swallow so much pride, the Demon Fox would have to move aside to make room.
But Gaara had nearly murdered Hinata. Gaara was plotting to murder Iruka-sensei. If, now that Naruto had asked himself a hard question, he refused to find out the answer, he'd be betraying them… and he'd be betraying the path, which he'd never asked for but which he could no longer leave.
He took a slow, deep breath.
"I get it now," he said. "I know Gaara's weakness. We all know Gaara's weakness. Between us, we have the information we need, and we're going to use it to take him down without fail."
[center]-o-/center]
As Hiruzen was thrown upwards by the force of the explosion, time slowed as if in a final mercy. Belatedly, with a bird's eye view of the battlefield, he recognised the sequence of events that had brought him here.
At some point, whether during the battle or while the barracks was unoccupied before the Finals, or perhaps even earlier, someone had planted explosives beneath the roof of the building. Orochimaru then lured Hiruzen here by taking the arena hostage. After the initial exchange, he created a free move by turning the firewall into a screen that concealed both combatants from each other, counting on Hiruzen to also exploit the opportunity instead of counterattacking, then used that move to somehow indicate their respective positions to his ally within. Then, after he created the shadow clone, the fifth move was not truly an attack at all: it was merely a way to reliably keep Hiruzen in place (it did not matter how he responded, only that any response made more sense than attempting to physically evade a sonic technique), and simultaneously to send the ally a detonation signal too loud to miss. After that, the sixth move was mostly cleanup, and a way to force Enma to remain in staff form an extra second while the ally inside prepared to trigger the explosives.
Everything Orochimaru did had been in service to a single genin-level stratagem.
Now, even though he could see it with crystal clarity, Hiruzen was unable to prevent the final step, Orochimaru's zeroth move made before combat ever began: as Hiruzen reached the end of his violent ascent, the roof of the barrier broke his spine.
Hiruzen fell. Through the blinding pain and the far more terrifying numbness, the resolve of the avatar of the Will of Fire remained. Enma was gone, caught by the explosion in the middle of transforming. There was no one else.
What was Hiruzen's eighth move?
But of course, he had answered that question many years ago. Minato had died in Hiruzen's place, and ageing Hiruzen was living out the years that should have been that young prodigy's. Hiruzen knew all along that his proper fate had only been delayed, and, being the man he was, he came to it prepared.
"Forbidden Technique: Dig Two Graves!"
Hiruzen crashed down onto the roof, unable to soften his landing, but at this point it did not matter what other damage he sustained. The urgency of the moment was gone.
Orochimaru's body language, relaxing into resignation, showed that he understood the same.
"You know… the technique?" Hiruzen forced out, watching Orochimaru walk over step by unhurried step.
"I know of it," Orochimaru said softly. "Acquiring the Hokage's scroll of forbidden techniques has been on my agenda for some time. I am aware that, once cast, it is no longer possible for me to escape the blast radius."
Hiruzen could feel the technique's warmth, so pleasant, even comforting. He could see his body pulse with golden light, slowly growing faster and brighter. His lost hearing was restored. His senses were sharpened. His sense of pain was suppressed. None of it out of kindness, but only the twisted generosity of helping him utilise his death more effectively.
"I can detonate it at will… or if I am harmed or die… or if you go too far," Hiruzen confirmed. "Enough range… to be certain."
There were many reasons Hiruzen had delayed the battle until the arena was fully evacuated.
Orochimaru gave a signal with his right hand. After a second's hesitation, his minions fled. Hiruzen had intended to detonate the technique as soon as the barrier was gone, eliminating all five foes at once, but it faded only slowly.
It was just him and Orochimaru now.
"Such a crude move…" Hiruzen said heavily. "No pride at all… I was so sure…"
Orochimaru nodded.
"The Orochimaru freshly exiled from Leaf would certainly have eschewed a stratagem even a trained monkey could execute. No offence intended. Then he joined Akatsuki, and was offered a seat at the right hand of pride taken to its logical conclusion. He found he felt only revulsion. He left, and later, when he finally learned the truth, he realised that men who would contend with gods must excise from themselves all human weakness. His weaknesses had always been curiosity and pride, and curiosity he needed still."
Again, Hiruzen had made the exact same fatal error: to believe he already understood, and so to avert his sight from the painful truths before him until it was too late. His former apprentice was not some foolish child, who had transgressed and fled from his rightful punishment, only to return to transgress again (and be in need of punishment again). He was not a puzzle nearly solved, with only one or two crucial pieces missing before Hiruzen's comprehension was complete and nothing remained but to pass judgement. He was an adult man like Hiruzen, equal in complexity and ability to mature, and he had returned driven by genuine conviction, no matter how dishonourable or misguided. The moment Hiruzen chose to distance himself from the reality of that man, to interact with Orochimaru only from the safe height of memory, he had already lost the battle.
"On the note of pride, this is the worst possible outcome," Orochimaru muttered to himself, gazing out at Leaf as Hiruzen remained silent, "the one scenario in which that buffoon Shimura's plot succeeds."
It was as if Orochimaru had suddenly mentioned that space aliens were involved in the invasion. Why would that name come up now?
"Danzō's… plot?"
"I approached him some time ago," Orochimaru explained. "In exchange for passage through Leaf's defensive barrier for the invading army, and various other reasonable concessions, I offered to assassinate you and then withdraw after securing specific objectives and inflicting a mutually-acceptable amount of damage. He would claim credit for successfully saving Leaf from destruction in your place, and thence rebuild the village in his image as the next Hokage. Naturally, the egomaniacal fool accepted."
With every word a struggle, Hiruzen chose not to comment on the irony.
"My offer was sincere," Orochimaru continued. "I do not require Leaf destroyed, only dethroned. The one relevant piece of information I withheld was that I intended to eliminate him as well before departing. The notion of Shimura as Hokage is unacceptable.
"He, as expected, assumed deception, and presented the plans I shared with him to Leaf as his own discovery. I believe he hoped that a forewarned Leaf battling my treacherous full-scale invasion would prove victorious, but only at a cost sufficient to require reconstruction under his command. He must have deluded himself that my triumph over you would leave me sufficiently weakened that even the likes of him could be a threat to me–or perhaps it is to you that he expected to deal the deathblow after my demise. Regardless, since my goals included the invasion's ultimate defeat, irrespective of Sand's intentions, this 'fair' conflict was entirely acceptable to me."
Danzō, betray Leaf? The notion should have been unthinkable. Mere months ago, it would have been. But then Hiruzen witnessed Danzō's willingness to sacrifice loyal Leaf shinobi in the name of his warped ideology and lust for power. And then, he'd foolishly allowed matters to continue as they were, instead of taking decisive action to deal with his former friend once and for all, and the present scenario was the result. Perhaps Danzō was correct and Hiruzen's conflict-averse, overly-passive leadership truly had been a threat to Leaf.
Now, after Orochimaru's revelation, Hiruzen should have been riven with sorrow. Hiruzen should have been consumed with fury. But instead… he felt only a profound weariness, mixed with disappointment.
"There were only two possible scenarios for this invasion," Orochimaru said. "Ideally, I would defeat you, then proceed to retrieve the scroll and fulfil my other objectives before eliminating Danzō, halting the boy's rampage, and withdrawing together with the forces under my personal authority. Thus betrayed, Sand would also be compelled to retreat in haste. Alternatively, you would defeat me, eliminate the boy yourself, and successfully marshal Leaf's defenders–leaving the village weakened still, but, as my consolation prize, in capable hands when the darkness came. Thisatrocity was never planned. Between the explosion and the final blow, you should have perished without fail."
Hiruzen chuckled. "Hōzuki's Mantle... blunted heat… mitigated impact… Should be S-rank."
Orochimaru sat down next to Hiruzen among the charred ruins of the roof. "That was the core of Jiraiya's Way of the Ninja, was it not? 'No matter how badass you are, all it takes is a single trick you don't expect'. The key to his power, concealed among endless bizarre ninjutsu and comedy seals. It is galling to observe that ultimately, his immature philosophy surpasses mine."
There was a time of silence. The technique slowly drained Hiruzen's chakra, converting it into ever greater annihilation waiting to be unleashed. Was there anything left worth asking, now that Hiruzen understood how little he had understood?
"Do you… miss them?"
"I… I believe so," Orochimaru replied at length. "I suppose that is a luxury I can permit myself, during this unusual period when fickle fortune has left me biologically functional and yet no longer relevant.
"How did it come to this, Sarutobi-sensei? Every development on my path as I presented it to you was logical. My choices were necessary. My conclusions were inevitable. The totality of my experience could not have led me anywhere but here. Nevertheless, somehow I find myself asking the question. You were my guardian, almost my father. The others could have been my siblings; differences in appearance and Tsunade's bloodline aside, were I to have claimed so during our childhood, I doubt many would have disbelieved me. Yet somehow here we are, I having slain you and you in the process of slaying me. For all my clarity of vision, I find that there is a part of me that simply does not comprehend how this came to pass."
It was amazing how much began to make sense when there was no longer anything to be gained from denial.
"You did not grow up… into the man I wanted," Hiruzen said. "And in rejecting who you'd become… I lost my chance… to help you find a better path.
"I was never there… for my children… or my grandchildren… when it mattered."
"I doubt the responsibility was yours alone," Orochimaru noted. "After the war, we all retreated into ourselves in different ways. Had I recognised at the time that maintaining our relationship was an activity with inherent value, perhaps our differences could have been resolved through communication before they reached a point of no return. I cannot, from where I presently stand, imagine how it could have been possible, but then, I am the heir of the Orochimaru who failed to even attempt the task."
A note of melancholy entered Orochimaru's even, academic voice. "I possess no right to contemplate such a counterfactual world. My path was necessary. Had I made different choices, I would not have reached the truth of this world and chosen to defy it, an absolute priority before which all else must be trivial. And yet, having personally reached a dead end, may I not permit myself to wonder? Does there exist a world where the four of us chose differently, and became the true family we orphans must all have secretly dreamed of? Or were our latent flaws always doomed to be catalysed by the war into a parting beyond reconciliation?"
How many times had Hiruzen asked himself that question?
He had no answer. Not as a parent. Not as a teacher. Not as a friend. He had not been any of those things to Orochimaru for a very long time.
Or perhaps here, at the end, such roles no longer held any meaning.
Straining with the last of the chakra that had not yet been absorbed by the ninjutsu, Hiruzen lifted his arms.
Orochimaru leaned down. Slowly, hesitantly, as if uncertain how such an act was to be performed, he embraced him.
"May we be reborn in a counterfactual world," Hiruzen prayed to the Will of Fire.
"If rebirth is permitted us," Orochimaru whispered.
Then the two of them were no more.