Obito-Sensei Chapter 96

Can Erase The Past

Naruto didn't really have a plan, and he was starting to think that was a bad thing.

Stop the Tsuchikage from going after Itachi and Mikoto as they got closer and closer to freeing his mom: yes, excellent idea. How would he do it, exactly? That, he was still working on. When Sakura had made the determination, it had made perfect sense, but now, with her no longer at his side, Naruto started to feel a teeny, tiny bit of doubt.

He couldn't afford to. His mom needed him, and there wasn't anyone he wouldn't fight for her. Even a Kage. Racing through the fortress, he slammed through a samurai squad and hardly even noticed they were there. Three men and a woman went down in as many blows, two Shadow Clones popping into existence on either side of him and vanishing the instant they struck. The samurai were left buried in the stonework, and Naruto ran on, fearing that he'd already missed the Tsuchikage and his escort.

He was finally strong enough, Naruto thought. The nightmare he'd experienced during the invasion would never be repeated; he had the strength, literally, to take on anyone who got in his way. There wouldn't be another Kimimaro. He was pretty sure that being a shinobi was about protecting the ones you loved by killing the people threatening them, and he was at the point where he could kill just about anyone.

Naruto skidded into the next room, bleeding speed as he scanned for an entrance heading deeper. He didn't get the samurai decoration style; plain, studded with torches and the occasional tapestry hung above doorways, but barely more than that. It made all the rooms look the same, and this wide hallway with several intersections wasn't any different. He didn't see any stairs, but with his senses stretched to absurdity, he could hear echoes, sounds carried up through the stone under his feet.

The floor here was thinner than before; there was a chamber below, maybe a passage to the tenth level.

Naruto didn't hesitate: he just stomped. The hall shattered, cracks racing out across the stonework with tremendous speed. He fell, along with a hail of stone that crashed down into the chamber below.

His explosive instincts, his body thrumming with adrenaline, flew past the breaking point before he even looked down. Every cell in Naruto's body screamed at him that he was in danger that he'd never experienced before.

Never. Not even the Cannon's attack on Rain; not even Kimimaro; not even Nagato's stupidly crazy display of power in the Land of Lightning. The danger that was directed at him now was beyond even those.

Naruto looked down from amidst the rain of rocks and found someone looking up at him, hands already coming together into a sign he didn't recognize. It was a little old man with a bulbous nose and a sharply trimmed beard and mustache, dressed in formal green and red robes. He looked small and frail, to the point that Naruto nearly did a double-take, doubting what his body was telling him.

'He's so shriveled up it's a wonder he hasn't been put out to pasture.'

Old words, Kagami's words, came to him in an instant, and Naruto found himself creating a Shadow Clone without conscious thought.

The Tsuchikage, who the old man definitely was, lazily raised one hand, not moving near as fast as he could. Naruto's clone kicked out, shoving him aside and flinging him down through the torrent of rubble.

If Naruto had blinked, he would have missed it. A ghostly shape burst into existence between the Tsuchikage and his clone, a cylinder about thirty feet long and two feet wide. It appeared at the end of the Tsuchikage's hand, and transfixed the clone's chest.

Where it touched, everything ceased to exist. Not just the clone's chest, but all the rubble in between vanished as well. It was reduced to nothing instantly.

The Tsuchikage's eyes shifted, and Naruto realized immediately that if the man wanted to, he could sweep the annihilating shape down and catch Naruto's real body as well. But he didn't; instead, the Tsuchikage raised an eyebrow, and the jutsu vanished, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.

Naruto's clone popped, all its vital organs gone. When its experience returned, there was no phantom had died before it could possibly feel any.

Naruto landed, the room shaking as rocks smashed down around him, and found himself faced with four ninja as everyone turned to regard him. The Tsuchikage was the only one that had instantly reacted to his entry; the rest had been surprised by his dynamic entry.

The Tsuchikage, Naruto suddenly felt like he knew very well. The little old man had tremendous strength inside of him, and a jutsu that defied belief. Naruto didn't know of anything that could apparently vaporize whatever it hit, and he didn't want to find out if that was actually what happened to things inside the spectral geometry the man had summoned.

And, he noticed, the Kage was floating. He drifted a couple feet off the ground, flying without apparent effort. Goosebumps raced across Naruto's body. There was something about the Tsuchikage, Onoki, more unsettling than someone like Nagato. Nagato was obviously inhuman in his power; it bled off him, uncontainable. But Onoki was undeniably a man, an ancient one filled with secrets that gave him unfathomable abilities. His eyes were hard as the stone his village was named after, but there was an earnest curiosity in them as well.

Naruto didn't know the other man, but he wore the symbol of the Hidden Grass. He was tall and dark-skinned, with thick earthy robes that looked homespun and a shaved head; prayer beads hung around his neck, wrists, and waist, where his hitai-ate was secured on a rope belt. He watched Naruto without apparent emotion, hands concealed in his robes.

The other two shinobi were women. One had a family resemblance to the Tsuchikage: the same dark eyes, the same strong chin; her hair was short and just as dark as her eyes. She wore a brown flak jacket and had one long, flowing red sleeve, and had to be only a little older than Naruto himself. The symbol of Stone shone proudly on her forehead protector.

The last one was Yui Tono. She looked identical to the last time Naruto had met her, wearing the same dark red jacket, her long purple hair held up in a long ponytail, and her hitai-ate wrapped around her left bicep. She gaped, clearly just as surprised as him, and Naruto sighed, straightening up from his hasty landing.

"Ah shit," he muttered under his breath.

"So," Onoki said. He had a strong voice that belied his size, and there was obvious amusement in it. "The Hokage cannot control his student or his child. To be expected, I suppose."

"Yeah, it's a real mess," Naruto said, gauging his options. After the display of power the Tsuchikage had just made, it suddenly seemed like trying to talk things out wasn't a bad idea. "Do you think you can turn around, Lord Tsuchikage? I mean, you don't want your Jinchuriki to die either, right?"

"Suddenly respectful," Onoki said with a snort. "Fascinating."

"It's a little late for that, Namikaze," the black-haired woman said, stepping forward with a grin. "We have no problem with the Summit continuing, especially now that your idiot of a teacher's made a move." She laughed, and Naruto resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "No matter how things go now, either the Hokage or Obito Uchiha will be dead by the end of the day."

"Makes sense," Naruto had to admit with a nod, though he was quite sure that wasn't how things were going to go. "Then-?"

"Again?" Yui interrupted with an incredulous look. "You went rogue again?"

"Look, it's complicated, okay?" Naruto insisted, and the other woman laughed again.

"Yui, he's the one who beat up your kids, right?" she asked, and Yui nodded, a furious expression twisting her face. "Isn't this too good to be true?"

"Far," Yui spat, stomping forward. "Lord Onoki, let me deal with him. We have unfinished business." The Tsuchikage grunted an affirmative, already drifting away: he'd turned his back on Naruto without a second look.

"We never had any business," Naruto said, sliding a foot back as he readied himself for a fight. "Like I said last time, your problem's with my dad, not me. He's upstairs right now, isn't he? How about you go make an issue of it with him?" Yui stopped, face pale with rage, and Naruto grimaced. "Or were you too scared to? You still gotta pick on his kid instead of facing him?"

"Wow!" As Yui sputtered, too enraged to form words, the other woman from Stone laughed; the ninja from Grass let out a low chuckle as well. "He's got teeth! You sure you have this? It could be trouble if he fights half as well as he talks."

"Stay out of this, Kurotsuchi!" Yui snapped, launching herself forward. Naruto fell back, drawing her away from the rest of the group. Before, Yui had moved faster than he could follow; now, though she was definitely quick, she never left his sight. Two knives covered in spiraling script emerged, and Naruto danced away as the woman his father had cursed chased him, dodging one slice and jumping over another.

While Yui was engaged with him, Kurotsuchi and Onoki had already turned away, descending deeper into the fortress while the ninja from Grass looked unsure on where to go. The Tsuchikage was the dangerous one; even if it was stupid, Naruto had to keep him occupied.

"Do you wanna give me another one of your knives?!" he asked, ducking a stab and catching a rising knee; Yui was obviously shocked at how easily Naruto stopped the attack. He punched back to knock her away, but she slid out of the way of the blow effortlessly: she was still an elite Jonin, after all. "The last one really came in handy!"

"Insolent little bastard," she seethed, running through handsigns as Naruto tumbled past her and flung a shuriken at the Tsuchikage's back. There wasn't a hope in hell of it landing: Kurotsuchi caught it out of the air with a frown and hurled it back, the star shrieking as Naruto dove out of the way. Now he'd attracted the attention of two of them, but the Tsuchikage still hadn't bothered to turn around. "Don't think you're the only one who's learned new tricks!"

She flung out both her hands in a claw grip, nearly making contact with Naruto's shoulder as he spun away.

"Hoshi Kudaki!"

There was a clap, the air between her palms collapsing, and Naruto felt part of his jacket and some of the skin on his shoulder rip away from the pressure of the near miss. It was the same kind of sealing jutsu as on Yui's knives, but unleashed between her hands instead of remotely on her knives. As he continued to retreat, a touch was all it took to heal the wound, but the situation was getting worse: Kurotsuchi was coming in with a murderous look, and Onoki was almost out of sight.

Naruto was wondering just how desperate he'd have to get when mist started to swirl into the room.

Everyone slowed down, confused by the sudden intrusion. The mist was thick and freezing, pouring over everything like liquid until the room was completely full. Before Naruto's eyes, everyone vanished, swallowed up by darkness; sound began to echo and distort, making it impossible to navigate.

A genjutsu? Naruto disrupted his chakra, but the opaque mist didn't disappear. He could hear thuds, pounding footsteps, the shuffle of steel being pulled from sheathes. Warnings echoed through the room, muddled by the mist.

"More intruders!" Kurotsuchi's voice came through, suddenly loud and clear, and someone slammed into Naruto from behind, nearly driving a blade into his side before Naruto kicked him off with a panicked shout. The chamber descended into total chaos; the number of ninja had more than doubled, and suddenly everywhere there were sounds of struggle, battle cries, explosions distantly visible through the thick mist as though they were deep below the sea.

Two came for Naruto, shapeless and faceless, and he stopped thinking and started fighting. A Water Dragon skimmed his side, spinning him to the ground before he rolled back to his feet; there was a crack, and a Water Bullet would have gone through his eye if he didn't jerk his head out of the way, leaving a long trail of blood along his cheek. Naruto struck back, kicking a piece of rubble into a shadow and sending it flying. He summoned up a Rasengan and focused, pouring chakra into it. The jutsu grew into a storm, blowing away some of the surrounding mist and revealing his remaining opponent.

It was a tall man with long, straight dark hair dressed in the garb of the Hidden Mist, even wearing a hitai-ate. Naruto hesitated, not sure what was happening as the man sank back into the mist and vanished from sight. Had the Mizukage brought her own ninja to the Summit to crash it as well? Were they after the Tsuchikage then? In the chaos, he couldn't tell if the man's disintegrating jutsu was being used or not. Had Onoki been the first one to be targeted? He took a step forward, but someone else flung themselves out of the mist; Yui Tono bore the Mist ninja that had retreated down to the ground, smashing him to the floor.

The Mist ninja struggled, and to Naruto's astonishment used a grotesque jutsu: with four hasty hand signs, he fired a supersonic jet of solid blood from his eye that nearly pierced Yui's brain. The Stone Jonin barely dodged, the technique cutting her temple but missing anything vital, and drove a sealing knife into the prone ninja's chest with a snarl, making a modified Rat sign at the same time.

There was a whump and the man's chest vanished, blood exploding into the cavity left in the center of his body as his ownerless arms and head thumped to the floor. Yui pulled herself up, staring at Naruto with hateful eyes.

"More friends of yours?" she said with a chuckle, and Naruto shook his head: the Rasengan in his head was still whining, driving back the mist.

"I wouldn't have let you kill him if he was," he said, and Yui somehow looked even more sour.

"Let," she grunted, stalking forward. "You don't have a choice in any of this, Namikaze. You're going to die here, and I'm going to drag your body before your father when this is done."

Naruto felt a thrill of anger, the same anger he knew was pushing Sakura to make them all do the impossible, and he twisted his fingers, dismissing the Rasengan with a burst of wind. As Yui paused, the mist beginning to creep back in, he spread both arms, glaring at her.

"You know what?" he said, astonished at the cruelty in his voice. "Try it."

As the mist crept in, they both inched towards one another, taking quarter steps as they waited for the other to make the first move. Naruto had grown a lot since their last meeting, enough that he was only barely shorter, and he stared right into Yui's eyes as they approached. They were so clear and black that he could see himself in them.

The woman despised him for no good reason; she'd brutalized Kabuto, broken his hand and ribs and nearly shattered his damn skull. If it hadn't been for Nonō, she really would have killed him last time around.

But that was the last time; this was now. Right now, Naruto wanted to hurt Yui Tono. If she was going to hate him anyway, he might as well give her a good reason to.

They inched closer yet, drawing within range, but neither of them struck out. His bare hand and hers wielding a knife quested out, slipping past one another; neither of them were breathing, waiting for the moment.

Yui attacked. She lunged forward, knife aimed for Naruto's throat. He counterattacked; not by attacking low, as would have been expected, but by lashing up with his own hand, catching the knife and her fingers in the same grip. The knife cut his fingers to the bone and poked into his throat, halted at the very last centimeter.

With a snarl and a surge of superhuman strength, Naruto squeezed. Skin burst; bones broke; steel crumpled. The knife and Yui's hand were crushed together into a mass of metal and bloody flesh. She didn't even scream; her eyes just went wide.

"What?!" Yui attacked again, a flurry of kicks as she struggled to pull away, and Naruto met her blow for blow, their shins clashing three, four, five times. With each exchange, Yui was driven back a step, her whole body rattling. "That's not-!"

"It's almost been a year," he said, his fingers falling slack as the tendons in them failed. Yui fell back and Naruto pursued, throwing out a flurry of bone-breaking punches and kicks. The Jonin was forced to weave through them, constantly giving ground in the face of deadly attacks.

"It's only been a year!" she raged, her hatred just growing stronger and heavier. It seemed like all the world but them had vanished as they battled through the mist, Yui cutting Naruto with glancing blows as he nearly crushed her with each attack. "How could you grow this much in a year?!"

"Because I knew you wouldn't leave me alone!" Naruto shouted, the frustration and fear exploding out of him. "Because I knew people wouldn't leave my mom alone! I'm never going to sit back and let anyone kill her!" He caught Yui in the side, throwing her back ten feet with a kidney punch; she landed on her feet vomiting blood. But even then, she was smearing the blood from her mouth across her intact hand and knives, forming more seals.

"Can't you just leave?" he demanded, stomping towards her. His heart beat out of his chest; he could already see her on the ground, still and dead, gone from his bad dreams forever. "How could this be worth it?!"

"If it makes your father feel even a second of regret-!" Yui spat blood, launching herself at him. Naruto did the same, ready to slam head-on into her. A Rasengan burst into existence in his lacerated hand, tinged red with his own blood. "Then it will be worth it!"

They were flung into a mutual terminal collision, Yui leading with her blade and Naruto with his Rasengan. In a fraction of a second, they would slam into each other; Naruto's jutsu would tear Yui's body apart from the inside, and her knife would pierce his gut. It would be a mutual kill if he weren't a medic. If it weren't for the seal he'd made to honor his fallen friend inscribed on his gut.

It was the purest expression of the shinobi system that Naruto would ever experience.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. Time seemed to slow, then stop. He found himself watching everything, like his life was flashing before his eyes even though he'd survive the collision. His body didn't know what his brain did; as far as it was concerned, these were his final moments.

Looking into Yui's eyes, clear, black, and empty of everything but hatred, Naruto could see his own reflection. In his own eyes, he saw the exact same thing.

Nothing but hatred.

Naruto felt everything inside himself grind to a halt.

What was he doing?

What was he doing?

There were two considerations that raged through Naruto in that moment like a wildfire consuming dead brush. There was a practical consideration, and a deeper, less explicable one.

The practical consideration was that when this was done, Yui Tono would be dead, but Naruto's seal would be spent. He would still be trapped in a room with a ton of dangerous ninja, and with one of his subordinates dead, the Tsuchikage would one-hundred percent turn back and attack him. Naruto would die, without a doubt; he'd die, and never see Sakura or Sasuke or Obito or his mother or father or anyone else again, because he'd gotten stupid and chosen spite over smarts and died for it. All he would have accomplished was killing a single strong shinobi.

Was that all he was worth?

The deeper consideration was carried in a thousand things that mashed themselves together in Naruto's brain into a morass of sensations that sent a shiver from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.

'Naruto Namikaze, your father did this to me.'

'I wanna combine everything.'

'Do you hate me, Naruto?'

'I wonder why they changed.'

'No one can decide what the world puts into them.'

It all came together into the same inescapable conclusion.

Right now, we're the same, right?

There was only one thing to do, one way to win, and it wasn't the path he'd picked.

Naruto breathed out, and released everything he had into the Rasengan. It bucked and stuttered, suffused with golden light, and steam rose from every wound on his body. But they didn't close; all of his energy was being channeled into his father's jutsu.

He and Yui slammed into each other, and collapsed.

Yui's knife pierced into Naruto's side; not a fatal blow, because he'd twisted as well so that his Rasengan had only brushed her instead of slamming into her directly. Yui went down nevertheless, screaming and writhing as her body contorted in horrific ways, and Naruto rolled away, breathing raggedly and leaving a trail of blood on the rubble strewn ground.

Moments later, there was a clap, a boom, and the mist cleared. A cylinder of glittering light swept the top half of the room and wiped everything clean, revealing the chamber once more. Bodies were scattered everywhere, most in pieces; blood soaked the walls and floor. There were six dead in total, all Mist ninja; Onoki, Kurotsuchi, and the Grass ninja were still standing, mostly untouched.

Before Naruto could roll back to his feet, Kurotsuchi was across the room in a flash; she crashed into him and pinned him down before he could resist in his weakened state, straddling him and binding his left arm and right leg to the ground with a viscous liquid that poured from her mouth. Naruto tried to struggle up, but it was pointless. The mixture was harder than steel and bound to him instantly, just like the rubber jutsu he'd seen in the Land of Frost. Kurotsuchi frowned down at him thunderously, looking over as Yui writhed and screamed in pain.

"Grandfather!" she called back, and Naruto raised his head, seeing Onoki between her legs. "I can kill him, right?"

The Grass ninja was approaching, but Kurotsuchi gave the man no mind; Naruto wondered if it was just another person who wanted him dead. The Tsuchikage hummed as he drifted from body to body, examining his handiwork. "Yui will be disappointed," he said, floating to her side. She suddenly went still, lying on her back, and Naruto breathed out in relief; his plan had worked. "But she does not have a monopoly on revenge. Kurotsuchi-"

Onoki paused. For two reasons, Naruto was pretty sure. The first was that he finally got a better look at Yui, who was still lying on her back as if she was afraid to move.

The second was that the Grass ninja went slack as a stringless puppet as Jiraiya stood up out of the monk-ish man's shadow and put a knife to Kurotsuchi's neck, looming over both her and Naruto with a calm but firm expression.

"Lord Tsuchikage," the Sannin said conversationally as Naruto and Kurotsuchi both gave him bug-eyed looks. "I'm going to insist that you let this particular rogue go."

"Hmm." Onoki looked back and forth between his granddaughter, Naruto, and Jiraiya. He frowned and crossed his arms, face unreadable.

"Kurotsuchi. Release the boy and stand up. Slowly."

Kurotsuchi did just that. The binding around Naruto's limbs melted away, and the girl cautiously pulled herself to her feet, Jiraiya keeping his knife to her throat the whole time. Naruto scrambled back with a hiss of pain, leaving a trail of blood as he went, but even with Jiraiya there (and where the fuck had he come from, exactly?) he didn't dare pull himself up.

"You can stand, Namikaze," Onoki said dismissively, and Naruto hauled himself to his feet, sealing the hole in his side with a touch of medical jutsu. Kurotsuchi gave him a loathful look, and Naruto turned his hands out at her in an obvious 'What?' expression. It wasn't like he was going to keep bleeding if he didn't have to.

"And Yui," Onoki said, looking down at his subordinate. "You do the same. We are going to have a short conversation."

Gingerly, Yui Tono dragged herself to her feet. Her hand was whole; the ribs Naruto had broken were healed.

Clearly in disbelief and without instruction, Yui slowly reached down and took the hem of her jacket. She pulled it up like someone tearing away a barely-healed scab, moving fearfully and expecting pain, ripping, blood, revealing her stomach and side

The right side of Yui Tono's torso, once covered with a thick knot of grey boils, whorling scars, and bloody fissures, was clear and unblemished. For the first time since before Naruto had been born, she moved without agony.

Everyone stared, struck speechless.

Onoki was the one to break the silence, his quiet voice echoing through the chamber.

"Why did you do this?" he asked. Kurotsuchi was looking back and forth between Naruto and Yui, confusion so plain that Naruto would have laughed if not for how deadly serious the situation was. "It was an exceedingly foolish thing."

"It's not what a shinobi would do, you mean," Naruto said, and Onoki cocked an eyebrow.

"Not at all, no. Were you hoping for my mercy?" he said. Naruto shook his head.

"It wasn't that. I'm just done trying to be a shinobi."

"The middle of a battle is an exceedingly poor time to change professions," Onoki dryly noted.

"That's not what I mean," Naruto said, letting a bit of frustration into his voice. "I came here to save people, not kill anyone. Even if Yui was a total asshole to me, she didn't deserve what my dad did to her. So I fixed her. I figured that was the least I could do."

Yui gaped, her mouth opening and closing but nothing emerging. The Tsuchikage was similarly struck silent, but only for a moment. "Then you did expect gratitude for this."

"Definitely not," Naruto said, crossing his arms to mirror the ancient man. "Ninjas don't thank their enemies, right? I just did what I thought was right."

Jiraiya had an expression that Naruto couldn't read: he hoped the Sage didn't think he was making a stupid mistake. A strange tension settled across the room. The Tsuchikage seemed deep in thought, while Kurotsuchi was stuck shaking her head, a giggle leaking out of her despite the knife to her neck. Yui was just staring at Naruto, shocked mute.

"You came here to save your mother, of course," Onoki eventually said, and Naruto nodded. The Tsuchikage turned to Jiraiya, raising one hand dismissively.

"We'll respect your wishes, Sannin. Release my granddaughter."

With infinite care, Jiraiya nodded and pulled his knife away. Kurotsuchi did not move; there was a mutual understanding that staying by Naruto and Jiraiya's side for a while longer was part and parcel with any negotiation.

"Sitting by the sidelines has been to Stone's benefit so far," Onoki mused, stroking his beard as he watched Naruto, his beady eyes alive with mirth. "Perhaps a little more won't hurt."

"You'll stop defending the Summit?" Naruto asked, sure that it was too good to be true.

"No, but we will leave you at least to your business, Namikaze," Onoki said. "The situation is not going to grow less complicated. These shinobi…" He gestured around to the various crumpled and half-disintegrated bodies. "They weren't shinobi of the Hidden Mist, is the problem."

"What?" Naruto asked. He noticed Jiraiya slowly nodding in agreement at his side. "What do you mean? How could you know?"

"Not suicidal enough," Onoki said bluntly, and Naruto couldn't help but laugh. "If the Mist were sincerely targeting me, they would have brought a tool of mutual destruction. These fools made a sincere attempt with the hope of fighting future battles." He gestured for Kurotsuchi to approach, and she did so with a look back at Jiraiya, who responded with a shrug and a shooing motion. "Someone is playing games at this farce of a Summit."

The Tsuchikage smirked. "I wonder where the ninja imitating my own Stone shinobi are. Yui, Kurotsuchi, come. We'll track them down."

Onoki turned to go, but both his Honor Guard lingered for a moment, staring at Naruto. He found himself fidgeting at the attention, hoping Jiraiya would say something, but the Sannin stayed silent. Eventually, he couldn't help it.

"Yeah?"

"Just…" Kurotsuchi shook her head with a grin. "You're the gutsiest idiot I've ever seen." She threw him a salute. "You might end up getting everyone killed, but you know what, good fucking luck, Naruto Namikaze. You're crazy enough that I'm gonna be bummed when you die."

"Thanks?" Naruto said, and Kurotsuchi laughed and walked off after her grandfather. Yui remained. For the first time Naruto had seen, her eyes were clear; she looked him over with something other than hatred, even if he couldn't quite tell what it was.

"Namikaze…" she muttered, clutching at her scarless side. "If you think this means I owe you something…"

"How about making us even." Naruto pointed at her, and Yui stiffened. "If you wanna blame me for what my dad did, fine, whatever. But that means you've gotta blame me for what I did too."

Yui blinked. "You're as bad as your father," she eventually decided, and Naruto stuck out his tongue at her; the childish expression was the only thing he could imagine was appropriate.

He saw it: for just a second, she had to hold back a laugh. It made him dream that maybe she might say something more. "Till next time." "Good luck." Hell, maybe even a "Thank you."

But Yui turned and left without another word, sprinting off into the darkness of the fortress unburdened by pain or his father's curse, and the second she was gone Naruto sagged, relief making him weak in the knees as the realization he was still alive and in one piece crashed over him all at once. The future where he'd killed Yui, Jiraiya had killed Kurotsuchi, and the both of them had desperately battled the enraged Tsuchikage melted away.

"Naruto." Jiraiya clapped his hand down on Naruto's shoulder. "That's quite the miracle you just pulled." As Naruto turned, he held up his other hand. "But there's no time. What's going on, exactly?"

There was no time indeed, not even to come up with a decent lie if he'd been inclined to.

"We're here to save mom, and the other Jinchuriki, and take the Cannon for ourselves," he said, speaking as quickly and clearly as he could. "It's me, Sasuke, Sakura, Obito, Hinata, Mikoto, and Itachi." He plowed forward before Jiraiya could voice surprise at Itachi. "Itachi and Mikoto are down below, going after the prison; Sasuke and Sakura are stalling the Kazekage; Hinata went to stop Rin and Gai. And Obito-"

"Is unleashing hell upstairs," Jiraiya said, his brow furrowed with thought. "I've got issues with this plan, but that can come later. These other intruders…" He gestured to the scattered bodies. "Onoki's right. They're not Mist: they're Rain."

"Rain?" Naruto frowned, confused. "But-?"

"Yahiko's here," Jiraiya said bluntly. "He came to sow discord, and now it's obvious how: he brought loyal shinobi dressed as ninja from the other villages. A false flag attack to force Nagato to unleash the Cannon."

A thrill of anger ran the length of Naruto's body. "Then-?!"

"Keep your focus," Jiraiya demanded. "Get the Jinchuriki out, so Mikoto and Itachi can get after the Cannon; keeping it from firing again is everything. I'll go up immediately, try to stall Nagato. And…" A flash of pain. "I'll deal with Yahiko."

"Simple as that?" Naruto asked, and Jiraiya nodded.

"Simple as that," he confirmed.

"Thanks," Naruto said, unable to verbalize the relief filling him.

"Go," Jiraiya said, and Naruto did. They both split towards their destiny, one above and one below, as the fortress seemed to shake with the battles raging throughout it.

###

Whenever someone asked her, Mikoto Uchiha would always say that her greatest strength was her single-mindedness.

To be a ninja, you needed to possess extraordinary focus. You needed to be physically superior, to dedicate hours every day to maintaining that; you needed to be intellectually superior, to never slack, always be learning, and never assume you had reached your peak. But even the greatest of shinobi could be distracted, could let the flaws of their heart or mind slow or stop them.

Not Mikoto. When she had a goal, everything else stopped existing. Though she had never told anyone else, not even Fugaku, the only other person she'd ever met who she'd seen the same focus in was Minato Namikaze. Years ago, that had made planning the coup all the more frantic; seeing that same trait that she'd so elevated in herself in someone else had blinded her. It had made Kushina's humanity, her clan's health and reputation, and all caution disappear. They had to push to the top while they had the opportunity, or else Minato would lead them irrevocably in another direction. It had been as simple as that.

That had been a mistake; Mikoto had realized that. But today, she couldn't think about whether she was making that same mistake or not, because her focus had never wavered. As she raced through the samurai fortress, her chakra suppressed to the tiniest of sparks within her by the Benzaiten, her mind was an endless hall of mirrors, the same face reflected in every one of them.

Save Kushina. Save Kushina. Save Kushina. Don't let her go, especially not so soon after you finally got a chance to apologize for your arrogance. Do whatever you must; sacrifice anything and everything.

Mikoto was grateful for the clarity. It let her avoid thinking about the fact that she was right behind her older son, the prodigy that had murdered her husband and slaughtered the bolder half of her clan. With the Benzaiten affecting her, Mikoto had no chakra to call upon; she ran at an ordinary speed, her feet unable to devour ground with chakra-boosted leaps. Her arms shook from the exertion of fending off superhuman samurai; her blade was not blessed with flame, and even parrying a handful of blows had left her bones rattling. She was reduced to her training, her instincts, and her eyes, as even the Benzaiten did not take away the predictive sight of the Sharingan.

Without Itachi there, it would have been a hopeless battle. But with her son clearing the way, Mikoto had a chance. Itachi was a living shadow that left fallen samurai in its wake, a silent storm that blew through the fortress and entranced anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its path. Mikoto constantly lost sight of him, constantly lost sight of his shadow, but she had no room for either of them, nor her other son, nor Obito, nor the rest of their reckless party. She ran, she fought through samurai that burst through side passages just behind Itachi, and she made her way deeper and deeper into the fortress.

Save Kushina.

Deeper yet, accruing more small wounds and exhaustion: perhaps concealing herself had been foolhardy, but no ninja had fallen on her yet, only wandering samurai patrols. That was doubtlessly thanks to the Benzaiten. The passages grew smaller, labyrinthian, until suddenly Mikoto burst into a large chamber. Unconscious samurai were scattered around, but the center of the room was dominated by a large maze of rice paper doors.

This was the prison. Mikoto understood it in an instant. Itachi was nowhere to be seen, doubtlessly concealing himself nearby: all her focus was drawn to the seal in front of her. It was divine, or as close to it as she'd ever seen. Fragility and dauntless strength combined in the same place, impossibly coexisting. A spiral that drew everything down into the earth, sapping everything within of will and vitality, the fundamentals of chakra.

Kushina had to be inside. Her goal was within reach.

Mikoto breathed out, releasing chakra from one eye and focusing it to the other. All her exertions and thoughts burst out at once, body shaking from the strain. The chakra she had suppressed for the last few minutes came together into a roiling mass so thick and strong that her head actually grew heavy, pulling her down as she glared towards the prison, eye spinning so fast the blades of the Mangekyo seemed to merge into a continuous smear.

"Benzaiten," she harshly breathed out.

The Summit had already been consumed by chaos. In that moment, Mikoto shattered any hope of containing it.

The rice paper wilted, crumbling away like sand. The seal was self-sustaining, feeding on natural energy and the chakra of its prisoners, but like flame denied fuel, it suddenly guttered and collapsed, the malignant energy of Mikoto's eye playing over it and crumpling it, reducing it to mere paper. There was a wham of displaced air, a shockwave that shook the whole room and knocked Mikoto to her knees. The whole fortress shuddered.

The seal self-destructed, crumbling away.

In the same breath, Mikoto's left eye burst like an over-ripe grape, sagging in its socket.

The pain could not be described. Mikoto collapsed with an agonized grunt, barely catching herself on one hand before she slammed face-first into the floor. Thick black blood coated her burned face, dripping down to the ground with wet plops. Her whole body shook with enough force to make her teeth chatter; Mikoto tried to haul herself to her feet and failed. She fell again, completely overwhelmed by the backlash of Nagato Uzumaki's unbelievable chakra, and lay in a pool of her own blood. She didn't even have the strength to turn her head to keep from drowning.

Gentle hands took hold of her shoulders and rolled her onto her back. Mikoto found herself looking up at Itachi, half the world dark, as he stared down at her with an unreadable expression.

"Itachi," she muttered. "The Jinchuriki…"

"I'll get them," he said calmly, stepping around her prone body. She couldn't turn to watch him go; her eyes fluttered closed, overwhelmed by the pain.

There was a soft pop.

Despite her dismal state, Mikoto suddenly found new, desperate strength filling her; strength driven by fear. Something horrible had just arrived. She flopped onto her side, looking towards her son and the seal.

Nagato had just appeared at what had been the entrance to the rice-paper maze: Obito had failed to contain him. Mikoto tried to get an arm under herself, but it was hopeless. Her rush of adrenaline had only given enough for her to squirm like a fish on shore.

The Amekage was furious; his face contorted in anger, and his chakra was screaming, a semi-solid aura of white and red energy that filled the air around him with the smell of ozone and a high-pitched keening.

"Well," Itachi said, impossibly unperturbed. "This seems familiar."

"I will not give you a chance to retreat," Nagato declared, striding forward. "Make your peace."

"Isn't that what we're all doing here?" Itachi said with a gentle smile, moving to meet Nagato. Mikoto tried to say something, not even sure what it would be, but the words died in her throat, only a choked gasp emerging. Things were more dangerous than Nagato could know; Black Zetsu was here, and the shadow would definitely try to take the advantage. What would happen if-?

Something flew out of the crumbling seal, tearing through the paper walls and breaking the sound barrier. Nagato spun and duck, flinging out multiple lightning-coated water dragons; whatever had broke out of the sundered prison crashed right through them, and Nagato barely flung himself out of the way.

A figure resolved itself: a young woman with diaphanous wings, bright blue hair, and burning orange eyes. She hovered over the ground as her wings beat at a tremendous rate, stirring up the room's dust and flattening the remains of the prison. Mikoto expected Kushina to emerge as well, but no one did; shadowy shapes were visible within, but none stirred to action.

This had to be Fuu, the Nanabi Jinchuriki. She settled into the third point of an invisible triangle that had formed between her, Nagato, and Itachi, dominating the whole room.

As Nagato prepared to move, yet more people burst in: a flood of puppets, clacking and flinging projectiles and wielding weapons and shields shimmering with energy, and Sasuke, ducking and dodging amidst countless attacks as he pursued the puppet's master, a withered old woman that moved with preternatural speed. Even crippled as she was by pain, Mikoto recognized Chiyo the Puppet Mistress, and was immediately blinded by a ridiculous thought.

Sasori, and now Chiyo; her son was to prove himself the supreme bane of puppet masters everywhere.

It was enough to bring a trembling grin to Mikoto's face as Chiyo and Sasuke slid to a stop, their dance pausing for a moment as they took in the room. All present surveyed one another, determining alliances and threats: the fulcrum tipped towards Nagato, who crossed his arms with a severe look.

"All of you, stand down. Fuu," Nagato said, his teeth bared. "Don't make me break your back again."

"Sorry, Lord Nagato," Fuu said with a determined grin, seeming to take the threat in stride. "But I've decided to live. I know that's super inconvenient for everyone, but I hope you'll forgive me." She looked over at Sasuke, her joy obvious. "How could I not, if someone came here to save me?"

Sasuke made the decision with a grunt; Itachi, silently, did as well. Crippled on the floor and cursing her weakness, Mikoto couldn't do much but watch as both her sons squared off with the most powerful man in the world.

"Very well," Nagato said, his chakra exploding.

"Your execution won't be peaceful. Prepare yourself."