Can Reunite That Which Has Been Broken
In twenty seconds, Sasuke saw himself die four times.
The battle that had erupted in the depths of the fortress defied belief. In an instant, he'd found himself stuck in a fight against both Nagato and the puppet master from Sand, with his brother and Fuu by his side. His mother crawled on the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind as she inched through the battlefield.
Sasuke had never had an opportunity to fight alongside Itachi; the feeling was unbelievable, gratitude and disbelief and exultation all mixed together into something entirely unique. It was like they had been born to it, a rhythm forming without conscious thought as they bombarded Nagato with ninjutsu and ninja tools, always attacking from his blind spot as Fuu flung herself into straight-line supersonic attacks, trying to capitalize on any distraction.
But no matter how incredible their sibling teamwork was, how strong and fast Fuu was, Nagato was faster, and Nagato was stronger.
Sasuke's head was already pounding, Nakisawame running near constantly as he stayed an inch ahead of death. Nameless ninjutsu, blasts of gravity, black rods filled with hungry chakra; Nagato was a maelstrom of destruction that even looking at proved dangerous. He turned back every attack, countered every strike, and twice nearly seized Itachi before Sasuke's older brother danced out of Nagato's deadly range.
They were losing, Sasuke knew. It wasn't even a realization, because it was as obvious as the sun rising. Him, Itachi, and Fuu all combined couldn't even slow Nagato down. They had maybe another twenty seconds in them before someone made a fatal mistake, and at that point Nagato would crash over the others as an irresistible tidal wave.
The puppet mistress was retreating, he realized, three of her masterwork puppets smashed to pieces, and from that came a brief lull in the battle. Sasuke found himself on the ceiling, staring down at Nagato as his brother and Fuu circled. Itachi was little more than a fleeting shadow.
Right, Black Zetsu. This wasn't even the battle he really needed to win. Could things really be that hopeless?
"Why would you do this?" Nagato said, and everyone in the room paused. "Fuu cannot change her fate; Itachi is already a criminal and a murderer. But you, Sasuke? You, and your mother, would really follow your sensei in his foolishness?" He looked genuinely frustrated. "Don't you understand the cost? You have doomed the Leaf. I have no choice but to obliterate it now."
"Wasn't that going to happen anyway?" Sasuke bit back, speaking from the heart, and Nagato's frustration transformed to shock. "Or did you really think people would stop fighting you once the Bijuu were gone? The village was already planning to take revenge on you for humiliating the Yondaime once the Cannon was destroyed; what point would there be in waiting around?"
Nagato blinked, seeming disturbed. "The choice of disarmament never even occurred to them?" he asked, and Sasuke laughed.
"Seems like you finally caught up to the Hokage's realization," he said. "But guess it was a waste. If we're just gonna die here anyway…"
Sasuke concentrated, digging down. It would be ruinous, but he needed the Susano'o. He'd seen Obito train with it, and was sure its power could help turn the tide here. If they kept Nagato busy for even a minute, that could be a critical minute for Obito to arrive to help, or for Sakura to take the Cannon. He was pretty sure that Itachi was about to make the same decision, the moment they would both burn away all their future for the sake of the battle.
But there was a scurry of movement in his peripheral vision, and Sasuke looked to the side, a moment of fatal distraction that Nagato mirrored.
The puppet mistress, Chiyo of the Hidden Sand, had crept into the crumbling seal while her puppets stayed behind and fought. To Sasuke's shock, she'd grabbed Gaara, dragging him up and away from the other Jinchuriki. The boy wasn't resisting at all, while the other Jinchuriki stood in obvious uncertainty, their fates and the fates of their villages up in the air. All but for Kushina, who was covered in crimson sealing cloth and writhing on the ground in agony, and a woman that must have been Yugito Nii, who was looking back and forth between Chiyo and Nagato with obvious hatred.
Mikoto was still crawling, slowly making her way to Kushina, but Nagato ignored her.
"Stop," he commanded, and Chiyo came to a sudden halt, carrying Gaara like a heavy package under one arm. She looked back, panting, resting against a large clay urn that looked like a grotesque weeping baby. "Just what do you think you're doing?"
"Taking Gaara away, for the moment," Chiyo responded in a tremulous voice. "All this violence can't be good for the poor boy."
"Don't play at senility, Honored Grandmother Chiyo," Nagato said curtly. He raised a hand in her direction, his chakra crackling. "Take another step, and I'll obliterate the Hidden Sand next. Drop him."
"Oh my goodness," Chiyo said, dropping Gaara like a sack of bricks. Sasuke wondered just what the mass murderer has suffered to make him so catatonic. "Really? You'd kill a whole village for the mistakes of a silly old woman?"
"It's the path of least cruelty," Nagato said, and Chiyo let out a soft whimper, one hand coming up to brush away a tear.
"Horrible…" she muttered. Sasuke stared, not sure what he was seeing; Fuu was similarly entranced, while Itachi just seemed bemused. Nagato himself seemed unmoved, but the Sharingan could detect his hesitation, and how his chakra grew duller. "You must understand, he's my… but… if I walk away, you'll forget my sins?"
"For today, yes," Nagato said, nodding curtly and dropping his hand. Chiyo sucked in a breath, wiping away another tear and seeming for all the world a miserable and helpless grandmother; even the Sharingan couldn't detect any deceit. The ancient woman shriveled up, looking like she'd collapse from grief.
"Then, what if I said…" she sniffled, "nah, you jumped up little shit?"
Nagato didn't have the murderous instinct he needed to oversee the world, because he didn't immediately raise his hand and kill Chiyo as she started speaking.
He only launched the gravity blast after she was already halfway through slamming all of her weight into the clay vessel she was resting against, cracking it with the assistance of some jutsu that split her arm open like an apple and let out a burst of coherent green light.
The blast plucked Chiyo from the midst of the Jichuriki and threw her out of Sasuke's sight.
The vessel hit the ground; the cracks racing it across it grew thicker; it shattered.
And then the Sanbi burst out.
###
The destruction of the Mountain Fortress requires a bit of distance to appreciate. To those inside, it was pure chaos, mostly incomprehensible and usually painful. If observed from outside, the destruction was still chaos, but structured enough to deceive an observer into believing there was a method to the madness. It was essentially a volcanic eruption.
The Sanbi, which was over one-hundred feet tall and significantly wider, burst into existence with a shockwave of chakra that sundered a quarter of the structure and tossed men and women aside like insects. The Jinchuriki were scattered, Mikoto clinging tightly to Kushina as the Kyuubi tried to rip its way out. The Fortress shifted, a chunk of its bottom half obliterated, and listed, tilting twenty degrees as stone groaned and exploded. On the roof, the Cannon teetered precariously, secured by its eight legs but wobbling nonetheless.
Throughout the Fortress, ongoing battles were interrupted, torn apart, thrown together. Hinata, who was in the midst of desperately convincing Might Gai and Rin to join her, fell through a sudden rift in the floor; Gai followed after her, while Rin found herself following her heart up, back towards the battle between Obito and the Rokukage. The Mizukage, Tsuchikage, and Raikage, along with their honor guard, Mifune, and several squads of samurai, were engaged in battles with Rain ninja loyal to Yahiko disguised as shinobi from the other villages, and each one of them experienced near disaster as the Fortress buckled and partially collapsed. Konan snatched Karin out of the way of plummeting pillars, who screamed in disgust as the Jiraiya she'd captured in her Adamantine Chains dissolved into a plague of man-eating frogs that began rampaging through the fortress, devouring the crushed and wounded and carrying them to distant safety.
The hall Naruto was running through collapsed, pinning him for a moment until he was able to bring his superhuman strength to bear. The chamber Sakura and the Kazekage were battling in exploded as the Sanbi surged up through it, flinging them out into the snow. They both landed flawlessly and continued their battle without missing a step, water versus gold. By fate or coincidence, Gaara landed near them, facedown in the snow but alive and well.
Obito, Minato, and Yahiko suddenly found themselves battling on the back of a Tailed Beast as the central meeting room was picked up and carried away by the Sanbi, which immediately began to try and flee the battle. Obito and Yahiko did not hesitate; their savage fight continued without interruption. But Minato took a breath, understanding that everything had changed. He vanished, Yahiko hurling ignored accusations of betrayal at his disappearance.
Nagato, Sasuke, Itachi, and Fuu all ended up going in the same direction, being the closest to the Sanbi's abrupt appearance. Their battle was forcibly relocated to the fields of snow between the tall walls that surrounded the fortress, and Nagato was suddenly split between difficult choices: handling the rogue Uchiha, the fleeing Sanbi, and the rebellious Fuu, or defending the precariously placed Cannon.
Apart or together, everyone present made new resolutions.
"Slay these deceivers!" Mei, Darui, and Onoki declared, spurring their honor guard forward.
"Gaara! Help me kill this girl!" Rasa demanded, not questioning his son's sudden presence.
"Fine," Nagato conceded, his chakra evaporating the snow around him as his anger became a fatal heat. "I'll do it myself then."
"Oh wow," Obito admitted, looking out over the Sanbi's bulk. "It's really out of my hands now."
"I've got to find mom," Naruto grunted, pulling a shard of stone out of his leg.
"I've got to find Sasuke," Hinata whispered, looking around at the chaos as only she could.
"I'm so gonna die," Sasuke muttered, blood pouring from both his eyes.
"I'm so gonna win!" Fuu decided, charging into a hopeless fight.
"There it is," Sakura said, staring up at the Cannon as the Flowing Hail Blade screamed in both her hands.
"I'm almost there."
"It's over, Yahiko," Obito said. This was the first time he'd dueled someone on top of a Tailed Beast, but it wasn't much more difficult than any other moving environment: like the deck of a ship, or the side of a falling tree. "If you're gonna retreat, now's the time."
"Who do you think you are?" Yahiko bit out. He was constantly on the move: with Minato gone, he had to stay one step ahead of the ranged Kamui, which could hurt him Sage Mode or not. Obito still wasn't fighting to kill, but a missing arm or leg wasn't out of the question. The rogue Amekage never stopped, keeping the spines of the Sanbi's back between him as Obito as they played a deadly game of hide and seek atop the rampaging Bijuu.
"You should know the answer to that by now," Obito said, shifting within the Susano'o as he felt something approaching.
The Sanbi let out a loud roar, golden chains looping around it and bringing its charging retreat to an end. It slid to a stop about a thousand feet from the fortress, slamming into the mountainside and triggering an avalanche that Obito leapt over. He was pretty sure Yahiko let it bury him, providing concealment as snow and stone covered the Sanbi's back.
Obito looked up and found Konan approaching from the sky, Karin cradled in her arms. The Adamantine Chains forked out from the younger girl, imprisoning the Bijuu utterly as Konan scanned the Beast for her fellow Amekage.
"I'm sticking to my promise," Obito shouted up at both of them, "but don't think you're not gonna get hurt if you get in my way."
"You've ruined everything!" Konan shouted back. "Can you look at this and still believe you're the hero, Obito Uchiha?!"
There was a burst of movement, and someone else arrived; Jiraiya stood up next to Obito, his hair bristling with countless needles, and patted his one-time student on the back.
"Obito," he said. "The Bijuu are out."
"I noticed," Obito said as the Sanbi bucked beneath them, and the chains squeezed tighter. "Kushina?"
"Not sure, but Nagato's set to wrangle them. If he manages that, your plan will have been for nothing," Jiraiya said, his eyes locking onto something only his sage senses could see. "I'll take care of Yahiko and Konan. You go deal with Nagato. That's been your job from the start, right?"
"You're sure?" Obito asked, positive that Yahiko was still lurking nearby. Jiraiya nodded.
"Get going," he said, and Obito began swirling out of existence.
"Sensei!" Konan shouting was the last thing he heard before he disappeared. "Why can't you understand?!"
"It's you who doesn't," Jiraiya said, his voice cold. "You've been betrayed once again."
Then Obito was gone, vanished from the real world if only for a moment, hurtling towards the real fight.
Fuu flung herself into the fight, and almost immediately was hit by a gravity wave that threw her across the mountain range and buried her fifteen feet deep in stone.
"Ow," she muttered, digging herself out of the mountain. "Ow ow ow ow."
She was in one piece, saved by Chomei's gifts, and so she took off, breaking the sound barrier again as she flew back towards the battle with Nagato. The Fortress had been devastated. Ninja battled each other all across the snowy plateau and the surrounding mountains; the Sanbi had created a path of destruction that had abruptly ended with being ensnared in golden chains; and there were a lot of voices in her head.
Fuu arrived back at the fight just in time to force Nagato to defend himself instead of instantly killing Itachi, who bathed the Amekage in black flames. The terrifying jutsu crackled and burned, but the flames were sucked away by an invisible source and consumed by Nagato's eyes instantly. Despite that, Fuu could tell that the fire had just been a distraction, something to make Nagato's blind spot bigger for only a second, and it was out of that blind spot that Sasuke came, hurling a Lightning Rasengan that burst with a deafening screech.
Nagato absorbed that jutsu as well, but once more, he was blinded and on the defensive for another second. In that second, Obito Uchiha arrived.
He popped into existence, a huge orange skeleton bursting out from him, and a fist lashed out, teleporting fifty feet to slam into Nagato's back.
Nagato flew forward with a grunt of pain, hit the ground, rolled, came to his feet, and looked around, terrifyingly calm. Fuu shivered as his eyes fell across her.
"What a terrible mistake you've all made," he said.
The three Uchiha flung themselves into the fight, but Nagato was lightning, even faster and more decisive than before. Fuu could tell, having experienced the same thing, that he'd thrown away all reservation, all hesitation. After blowing away that little old lady from Sand, he'd given up on kindness: Nagato, like her, just wanted to win.
They all crashed together in countless exchanges over the next several seconds, matching blow for blow and tearing the landscape to pieces with the speed and ferocity of their attacks. Fuu led with strength, Sasuke with desperation, Itachi with cleverness, Obito with power, and Nagato met and exceeded them on all four counts. He flung a distortion in space created by Obito's eyes into Itachi, who barely dodged death by friendly fire; he stomped and created an earthquake, pillars of magma exploding out of the ground and nearly incinerating Sasuke if not for Fuu swooping in and carrying him out of the way at the last millisecond as superheated snow exploded into deadly steam; he waved his hand and created a hurricane that plucked Fuu out of the air and slammed her deep into the ground again, her vision going black from acceleration. Lightning burst and crackled all around, filling the mountains with the sound of constant, overlapping thunder, and vast pillars of stone rose up into the sky and collapsed, nearly crushing Nagato's opponents several times and filling the air with dust and snow.
Eight seconds, and the turning point came when Itachi Uchiha landed his first and final blow. He burst through a curtain of black flame burrowing a hole in a hill that had not been there a moment before, ethereal ribs shielding him for a second from his own jutsu, and deftly slit Nagato's throat.
A fatal strike; or at least, it should have been. Instead, Nagato punched through the ghostly ribs and into Itachi's own, ripping off a hunk of the Uchiha's chest with his raw strength and pressing the torn, bleeding flesh to his slit throat as a half dozen mechanical arms grew from his shoulders and back. The skin melded together like putty, healing the wound entirely, and as Sasuke let out a shout of denial Nagato hurled Itachi away with a gravity-assisted toss, sending Sasuke's brother crashing through one of the tall walls that surrounded the fortress and out of the fight.
Obito was there before Nagato could follow Itachi and finish him off, driving Nagato back with a series of earth-shattering blows from his own ethereal guardian, warps in space bringing in attacks from impossible angles, but the moment still shook Fuu's confidence.
Nagato wasn't slowing down. He believed in himself just as hard as she did herself, and he was strong; strong beyond belief. Fuu realized she couldn't picture them winning this fight, even with Obito Uchiha joining it.
'Chomei,'she thought. 'What should we do? I won't run away, but I don't know how to win!'Deja vu made her stomach constrict.
'You Cannot By Yourself,'Chomei said, her voice cutting in over the clamor of others. 'We Are Almost Perfectly Synchronized: You Are Drawing Out As Much Of My Power As Possible. But Even A Bijuudama Would Not Be Sufficient."
"Then-?!" Fuu shouted out loud, startling Sasuke as she set him down and flew back into the fight, barely dodging one of Nagato's grasping, chakra-greedy hands: the mechanical limbs swarmed around him like a spider's as he dueled Obito, the two of them exchanging tens of blows a second as they tried to find an opening.
'Then Do Not Fight Alone!'Chomei demanded, and Fuu blinked, trying to figure out what her personal demon could be saying.
It came together in an instant; rather than letting the voices in her head overwhelm her, she started screaming back at them, determined to be heard. Since the sealing jail had shattered, the Tailed Beast Telepathy had been established; the Jinchuriki and their Beasts were now all connected, unable to keep one another's thoughts away.
Fuu began pouring everything into the link, finding her mind and body split. As she desperately battled Nagato, Chomei guiding her body through the motions of combat, Fuu came face to face with the other Jinchuuriki and Tailed Beasts, countless monstrous forms looming in the faint illumination of distant fires. Some were curled up, unresponsive; others paced, or stared, or gave her unimpressed looks. A tanuki made of sand, a hunting cat of blue flames, a cyclopean turtle, an enraged red-furred gorilla, an aquatic horse, a half-melted slug, an oxen-bodied octopus, and a tremendous, furious fox, each bearing more tails than the last all glared down at her, so much chakra and so much attention that Fuu thought she might explode.
"Help me!" she shouted, and the Jinchuriki and their Beasts shifted. "We can't do it alone!"
"I'm busy," the tanuki said with a snort, and Fuu's heart sank. "Piss off."
"I mustn't be captured again,"the turtle rumbled, and Fuu began to feel truly hopeless. "Four times in a month? Beyond humiliating."
The recrimination was overwhelming, hitting her right in the soul. Fuu turned, ready to give up.
"Cloud's already gone," Yugito Nii said.
Fuu paused, and could suddenly feel the fire in the other girl's heart as if it were her own. Yugito smiled wickedly, like they were the only people who knew a really rude joke. "You were right. What more is there to lose?"
I agree!The blue flames behind Yugito burst into an unquenchable inferno, spreading through the phantom space as the cat reared up. No more of this perseveration: to battle! We will avenge our previous defeat!
In reality, Fuu watched as the Nibi burst from the snowcaps of a nearby mountain where Yugito Nii had been flung, steam and boiling water filling the air as the Beast reared up with a roar that carried over the whole mountain range. It flung itself down into the fight, Yugito faintly visible like a golden heart in the center of its chest.
'So Rises Proud Matatabi,'Chomei noted. 'But You Will Need More.'
And Chomei was right. Even as Fuu, Obito, and Sasuke were joined by the Nibi, Nagato continued to fight back with ever increasing ferocity. As the Nibi, Matatabi, fell upon him with bared fangs, he seized the Beast by the jaw and flipped it, slamming it down into the pools of magma generated by his jutsu and wrenching a howl of pain from Matatabi and Yugito Nii both. The cat flailed as Obito and Sasuke tried to knock Nagato off it, ninja wire trailing between them as they attempted an attack that the Rinnegan couldn't absorb.
The wire cut through Nagato's arm, stopping on the bone and drawing a geyser of blood. But when Sasuke tried to follow after, to fully sever Nagato's arm, the earth shook and knocked him off balance. Just for a second.
It was time enough for Nagato to point a finger at him, and then flick up.
Obito let out a roar of anger as Sasuke was taken by the sky, knocked unconscious from the force of the attack. Fuu flew after him, fear pushing her faster than she'd ever gone before. He flew one, two miles straight up, up to where the air was thin, before she caught him by the ankle and wrestled against the seemingly sentient gravity that was determined to carry him right out of the atmosphere.
It felt like she would break in half, and Fuu started screaming again, outside and in.
"Rōshi!" she shouted, names coming unbidden to her lips. Chomei was whispering. "Son Goku! Help us!"
"It's as we discussed," Rōshisaid, crossing his arms.
"You're losing," Han added. "There's no point in offering our assistance."
"You have to!" Fuu said. Sasuke's ankle broke, and she gritted her teeth and kept pulling despite the damage it would do, determined not to let the reversed gravity win. "If we lose here, everything's done for! Nagato's seen that his plan isn't going to work; even if you walk to your death, he's not going to allow the Hidden Stone to keep existing! He can't allow for anythingelse to exist now! That's what's at the end of this road: just him, and just Rain, forever!"
The two Jinchuriki from Stone looked at one another from a distance; Fuu felt their consideration boiling between them, her past words echoing through the space. The gravity on Sasuke finally gave up, and Fuu began to fall back to the distant battle below, head faint from the strain of keeping hold of her friend.
"The Tsuchikage will be upset," Han mused.
"Only if we lose as well," Rōshi noted. "If we win, well…"
"It will be a return to status quo, most likely," Han said. "But at this point, that is to Stone's advantage as well."
Enough of this wretched cowardice!The Yonbi, Son Goku, pounded its chest with enough force to shake the imaginary space. Crush the pretender! Reclaim our honor! To have hesitated this long is already shameful!
"the girl is right."The Gobi agreed, its voice soft and deep. "move now, han, before you regret your inaction."
"Wise As Ever, Kokuō,"Chomei said, and then the call of two more Tailed Beasts joined the raucous chaos of the battle. From the east, Rōshi came, his eyes and hands alight with flame as he walked unmolested through the magma Nagato had summoned; from the south, Han came, clouds of boiling steam exploding out of him as he crashed down into the battle from atop the nearest wall.
It was about a thirty second fall to get back down to the remains of the Fortress, but Fuu sped it up with Chomei's wings, accelerating her descent as she clung tightly to Sasuke. She slowed as the battle came into view, heart stuttering from exhilaration and fear both.
Obito Uchiha battled alongside three Tailed Beasts against a living natural disaster. Nagato inhaled chakra and exhaled hurricanes, thunderstorms, earthquakes, tornadoes, and volcanoes: the mountains were being torn to pieces as the Amekage was drawn away from the remains of the fortress, fighting to preserve the Cannon and those still within as he ceaselessly battled all who dared approach. Rōshi and Han's arrival, along with Son Goku's and Kokuō's, had shifted the scales, but not far enough. Nagato was still more than holding his own, and seemed like a fountain of endless chakra. The scale of it all took Fuu's breath away.
From above, she spotted a familiar head of blond hair, and broke off from the battle for a moment. Picking his way through the ruins of the Fortress, Naruto looked up as she descended and came to a supernaturally fast stop.
"Naruto, no time! Sasuke's all messed up!" Fuu said, too overjoyed and relieved and grateful to say anything coherent. "Thanks so much for coming for me! I love you guys!"
"Fuu?!" he said, taking Sasuke from her offering arms and setting him down, looking over his injuries. "What's-!?"
"Like I said, no time!" she said, spinning to leave, but Naruto called out the question with enough urgency to make her pause.
"Where's my mom?!" he said, and Fuu looked back, vision overlaid with a half dozen sights; Yugito Nii struggling to pull her own soul back into her body as Han came in from behind and scalded Nagato for a critical second, Rōshi burying everything in molten rock before taking a punch to the gut that threw him through one of the fortress walls and made him black out, Son Goku entirely taking over his body and hurling him back into the battle with a laugh-
Kushina. A blond man with sharp features and Naruto's blue eyes, bending over her, unbelievable pain ripping through her stomach, feeling like she would explode, sealing formula's burning in the air as her best friend clung to her side and poured everything she could into making her not die, thick black blood pouring from her eyes. Gray sky above. It's going to be okay. I promise.
"Somewhere south, on the plateau!" Fuu said, pointing, and Naruto nodded and started running. "Be careful!"
She couldn't spare another second: she kicked off and was back at the battle in seconds, entering like a spear from heaven.
Nagato caught her foot, eyes cold and furious, and only didn't rip her soul out because Obito Uchiha was there at the last possible moment: Fuu felt herself phase out of reality for a second as the man touched her, and Nagato's hungry chakra took hold of nothing as the both of them flung themselves out of his reach.
"We're still losing?" The words came without thought, rippling through the connection. "Seriously?"
"He's A Different Breed Of Opponent, Gifted The Sage's Eyes. His Like Has Not Been Seen In Millennia,"Chomei said. "The Only Reason We Are Still Alive Is Because He Has Allies Nearby, And Is Too Distracted To Discriminate. Otherwise, He Already Would Have Crushed Us Into A New Moon."
"Uhhhhhh…" Fuu couldn't decide if she should laugh or cry. "Anyone else out there?"
"I'm here." Fuu felt Utakata's familiar presence wash over her, and Saiken washed onto the battlefield, spewing toxic fumes before Nagato ripped up a hill's worth of earth and hurled it directly into the Beast.
"we're both here!"Saiken trilled, and Fuu felt Utakata nod.
"We'll fight with you till the end, Fuu."
Doubt crept in; what had happened last time she and Utakata had fought together couldn't be ignored, especially with the Cannon right there. But just like last time, hopefully for the better, Utakata's surety banished it; the Jinchuriki from Mist felt entirely confident, even as he and his Beast were battered and beaten by Nagato's indomitable strength.
Five Tailed Beast and their Jinchuriki along with Obito Uchiha, and it felt like Nagato was at the edge of a stalemate. They were still being pushed back, hurt and on the edge of death moment by moment, but the moments were getting farther apart. They still needed more.
"Killer Bee!" A half mile away, the man didn't look up; he was still kneeling, staring at the ground and unwilling to rise. "Get up! We need you!"
"It's pointless, yo," the man eventually said. "You'll all lose in a mo'."
"Enough of this, Bee."The Hachibi pushed at the man from behind, nearly toppling him. "If you believe you need to atone, you can atone later. But now is not the time to drag others down into despair with you. Regardless of your guilt, you cannot afford to turn away from this fight."
"Bee!" Yugito Nii roared as Matatabi tried to dig itself out of a half-solid lava flow, slowly being encased and sealed by Nagato's chakra. "Get the fuck up, you goddamn lump!"
"Hey…" Killer Bee looked up, a ghost of a smile flitting across his face. "Pretty old Nii, you rhymed for me?"
"Not on purpose, you fucking idiot!" Yugito bellowed, Matatabi mirroring her. "And who are you calling old?! This guy killed your brother; buried our village! Are you really just going to let him get away with it?! Get over here!"
Slowly and painfully, Killer Bee pulled himself to his feet.
Crush him, Gyūki!Matatabi cried out.
"We'll see,"the Hachibi, Gyūki, said, and Fuu saw the Tailed Beast grow in the distance from under a pile of rubble, rearing up without fanfare and rushing towards the battle, tentacles carrying it across the ground with tremendous speed as it spun into a wall of whirling chakra powerful enough to level a town.
The Hachibi slammed head-on into Nagato with enough force to reduce any other man to a smear: instead of being reduced to paste, Nagato seized the tentacle that had struck him, gravity rooting him in place, and swung the Hachibi in a massive arc, smashing aside Han and Rōshi, bowling over Utakata and Saiken, and nearly flattening Fuu. She threw herself over the attack as the Hachibi was flung off into the distance, her and Obito converging on Nagato.
He was breathing hard. Nagato was breathing hard and sweating, his eyes shining out of his pale face. They were pushing him, but as she and Obito attacked, Fuu could tell that didn't mean they were winning; they'd just finally reached a stalemate. As Obito dove in from above with his shining sword, the White Fang, Nagato met it with a blade of pure energy that burst from his palm. The swords ground against each other for a moment before the White Fang broke through, drawing a long slash down Nagato's injured arm that completely disabled it.
But in return, Nagato finally landed a counterblow: he lashed out with a jet-propelled kick and caught Obito in the chest mid-attack, flinging the Uchiha far away with the sound of breaking ribs. No matter how many opponents he was up against, the Rinnegan seemed truly unstoppable.
"There Is One More,"Chomei said, and Fuu threw blow after blow, trying to force Nagato back before a spinning, multi-jointed arm nearly knocked her head from her shoulders.
"Kushina!" she called. "Please! Help us!"
###
In the midst of being torn to pieces, Kushina heard Fuu's plea.
All was chaos and pain; pretty much nothing made sense. The prison seal had collapsed; the Kyuubi had immediately begun trying to force his way out, taking advantage of the small breech in the sealing cloth she'd been swaddled in. They were still there, wrapped around her, but now they were like an improperly tied tourniquet. Her life was leaking out regardless. All her strength had gone into suppressing the bastard trying to kill her, and then the prison and the fortress had exploded, flinging her out into the burning cold snow.
Mikoto was here, somehow. She clung to Kushina's side, her face covered in blood and her breathing ragged as she poured her chakra out in a last-ditch attempt to assist; she steamed and burned, scalded by the Kyuubi's hatred. Two tails had emerged despite Kushina's best efforts.
Minato was here too. Kushina didn't know where he'd come from, why he'd decided to risk everything for her. But he'd appeared from nowhere like he always did and was hard at work trying to repair the seal even as the Kyuubi ripped the last of it to shreds.
It was a doomed effort. Kushina was sure of that, but Minato had never been the kind of person to give up, not when it was something he could do with his own two hands. So now her, her husband, her best friend, and the Kyuubi were locked in a life or death struggle in the snow, three against one as they battled for control of her body.
"Fuu," she muttered out, her husband and Mikoto ignoring her faint voice. "Is that you?"
"Kushina!" Fuu wasn't there, but it suddenly looked and felt like she was. The girl looked terrible, burned and bruised, hovering right behind Minato like an abused fairy. "We need your help!"
"No can do," she said, exhaustion and despair overwhelming her. Of course this had happened right after she'd made the decision to live; wasn't that how things always went for Jinchuriki? "The Kyuubi… Kurama's done. He's trying to escape. I don't think I've got a chance this time."
Pain exploded through the connection: Kushina's pain, and all the other Jinchuriki's pain as well. Those battling Nagato were being brutalized, but Kushina felt more than that. Somewhere, Gaara fell in utter agony, a pain of the heart beyond anything he'd ever imagined. The shock of it froze her, Fuu, and even the Kyuubi for a second.
In the midst of that white agony, Naruto arrived. He bounded into view, covered in fresh and dry blood, and bent over her, his medical jutsu bursting out. He and Minato locked eyes, and for a second Kushina expected an argument, or even a fight, but instead-
"What can I do?!" he asked.
Naruto proved that he was one-hundred percent grown up.
Kushina felt herself tear up.
"Her system's collapsing," Minato commanded, stern but not harsh, the perfect voice for the Hokage. "Support it however you can."
Naruto wordlessly went to work, and some of Kushina's agony abated as his luminescent orange chakra played over her. She weakly tried to reach out to give him a hug, but couldn't even muster the strength to lift her arms.
"He's trying to break out?" the hallucination of Fuu said, and though Kushina failed to nod she knew Fuu saw her do it nonetheless. "What the hell is wrong with him?"
"Hatred," Kushina rasped.
HATRED.
Kurama's voice echoed up from within her, filled with amusement. AT LEAST YOU UNDERSTAND THAT, KUSHINA. PERHAPS I'LL JOIN THIS FIGHT, BUT IT WON'T BE AS YOUR SLAVE.
"What do you mean?!" Fuu demanded, and Kushina found them all in a phantom space, watching as the Bijuu and their Jinchuriki battled Nagato with heroic failing strength. "Hatred? That doesn't mean anything!"
EVERYTHING HERE HAS GONE AS I PRESUMED: A CULMINATION OF NINJUTSU,Kurama said, sounding satisfied. ADDING MY STRENGTH WILL NOT CHANGE THE FINAL OUTCOME, THE PERVERSION OF OUR MISSION-
"Wow, that's fucking convenient!" Fuu shouted, marching right up to Kurama's apparition. It loomed over her, hundreds of feet tall, malice bleeding off it as she shouted up at it. "So you're just gonna sit back and watch the rest of us fail while you kill Kushina, huh?!"
JUST THAT. A FITTING PUNISHMENT TO MY JAILOR, WOULD YOU NOT SAY? A PITY SHE WON'T DIE ALONE.Kurama smiled, and Fuu blinked.
"You…" she said, her hands balling up into fists. "It's like Chomei said! You're just an asshole!"
WHAT A NOVEL INSULT.
"You big bitch!" Fuu exploded, and Kushina couldn't help but choke out a laugh. "I saw it!" she ranted, and the experiences played over in both their heads, Kushina's past and actions playing out like a slideshow across the phantom space.
"Kushina did everything she could for you! The second she learned you weren't a monster, she spoke with you! She learned about you! She learned your name, your history, about your family, she left her seal for you! She tried to convince the Hokage to trust you! But the second she slid back even a little, putting her family and her village over your life, you go right back to planning to kill her for it?!" Fuu seemed to grow, nearly matching the Kyuubi in height as she screamed at him, her whole body shaking with anger. "That's what people do, especially when someone won't compromise with them! They'll put the people they love first! There's nothing wrong with that! But if you could only ever love yourself, Kurama, then you should just die and get it over with! You don't believe in anything but being an asshole anymore, no matter how much you talk about Ninshu or Ninjutsu or the Sage or whatever! You think that just because you suffered, you can get away with whatever you want?! Well, you can't, you shithead!"
Kurama seemed astonished at the outburst, Fuu's raw emotions pouring over him. And it wasn't just hers, Kushina realized: the recrimination of the other Tailed Beasts resonated through the telepathy as well, crushing him down and making a mockery of his towering size.
"I'm gonna beat Nagato with or without you!" Fuu roared, the claim obviously a lie, but no one present caring. "And once I'm done with him, if you kill Kushina I'm gonna find you and kick the shit out of you too! You wanna complain about a hard life?! You don't even know, but you're gonna after a hundred years of having my foot shoved up your ass!"
BOLD WORDS!Kurama laughed back. BUT WE BOTH KNOW HOW EMPTY THEY ARE! YOU'RE NOTHING WITHOUT CHOMEI!
"You Could Not Be More Wrong, Kurama."The stern voice of the Nanabi echoed through the link. "But That Has Always Been Your Failing. You Could Only Ever See and Respect Power. The Virtues Of Humans Are Far More Numerous."
Fuu surged into the gap left by her Bijuu, her words striking like a hammer. "If all you care about is sitting around in your hatred like a kid too grumpy to get out of the bath, what use are you?" she asked. "If you want to do that instead of making a difference, how could you ever say you deserve to with a straight face?"
Kurama stilled; Fuu continued. "Kushina gave you a chance, despite how much pain you inflicted on her. Why can't you do the same? Even if you didn't mean it, you made her life so hard, just like she has for you. That's how it is for all of us, Tailed Beast or Jinchuriki. We're all victims of the same thing. We're all prisoners, tied together! The shinobi system; Ninjutsu; power; whatever you want to call it! Killing each other is pointless when the thing that is responsible for it all is right there! It's not invincible; it's not untouchable; it's fighting us right now!"
Fuu pointed, her chakra blowing away all falsehood. "If you keep this up, you really will just be a beast!"
Other voices echoed, battering down on the Kyuubi as Kushina breathlessly watched.
Kurama!
Kurama!
"kurama!"
"kurama!"
"Kurama."
"Kurama!"
They all came together into Fuu's.
"So help us!"
Kurama's eyes narrowed; he bared his teeth, ready to lash out. Kushina finally found her voice.
"Kurama," she said, her voice quiet but firm, and his monstrous eyes swiveled down towards her. "We can fight together, y'know."
He didn't respond, but he didn't rebuke her either, so she continued. "It won't be like last time. My body, your chakra; if you stop trying to break out, we can work together. Afterwards, we can discuss what will happen. I won't let Minato rebuild the seal, not as it was, and I won't try either. But for now, for just today, can't we just work together? If we don't…" She sighed. "We'll all die. So please, just trust me, just this once?"
The Fox's ear flicked, and he bent down, his eyes coming level with Kushina. She stared into them, feeling Kurama's disgust, hatred, and fear. But as they locked eyes, the corrosive feelings began to melt away. Fuu had broken through, and now he had no choice but to see the sincerity in her heart.
Kushina didn't want to die, but she couldn't bear to be a jailor either. It had been unfair of her to put Kurama in this position in the first place, but now that there was a chance to live, Kushina intended to take it with both hands. The Summit had disintegrated: the destruction of the Bijuu was no longer a foregone conclusion. What reason was there not to fight?
Won't it be kinda fun, Kushina thought, knowing that Kurama would hear her. Aren't you tired of being locked up? I know I am.
Don't you wanna go nuts?
For a long, long moment, Kushina thought that nothing would get through, that the struggle would resume, and that she'd die in her husband and son's arms.
But then, Kurama sneered.
I WON'T ALLOW A CHILD TO TALK TO ME SO,he declared, rearing back up to his full height. A rusty, bent gate appeared in Kushina's mind: the tattered remains of her seal. BUT I SUPPOSE DISCIPLINING HER WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE IF NAGATO MURDERS HER.
"You'll help?" Kushina asked, afraid to believe it.
DO NOT MISTAKE ME!the Fox snapped. THIS IS A TEMPORARY ALLIANCE IN THE FACE OF DESTRUCTION. THINK NOTHING MORE OF IT!He paced, his bulk shaking her whole body. OPEN THE SEAL! I WILL GRANT YOU MY POWER. WE WILL SEE IF YOU CAN BEAR IT, KUSHINA UZUMAKI!
Kushina opened her eyes, back in the real world. Only seconds had passed.
Trembling, she raised her arms, hands hooking into claws. Minato looked over at her, his brow furrowed in concern.
She smiled at him, and twisted.
Within her, the rusted and ruined gates crashed down, collapsing with a great crash that echoed through her chakra.
"Kushina-!" Minato said, but she shook her head before he could say more.
"I've got this," she said. Kurama stepped forward, and the final opportunity for betrayal passed.
Kurama kept his word.
Power, power unlike anything she'd ever felt in her life, flooded Kushina. It wasn't the same as the corrosive, battery acid chakra that she'd taken in back in Konoha; it was the sun, boundless fire that filled up every cell and left her jittering and on the verge of bursting open. Golden chakra, the same color as her chains, rushed across her body, filling her hair and cloaking her in a blinding glow.
Slowly, carefully, Kushina stood up. Naruto gaped up at her; Mikoto smiled. Minato…
Kushina had seen that expression on his face plenty of times, but she still couldn't help but feel bemused at it today, in this context. Her husband looked proud of her.
She looked down at herself, seeing what they were. She'd been transformed into a golden goddess, rippling bijuu chakra covering her and struck through with black and red highlights that followed the flow of her chakra system. Boundless strength and infinite possibility burned all around her, the power perfectly controlled. In Konoha, she'd feared crushing Naruto with a hug.
Now, she took him into her arms without hesitation.
"Thanks for coming for me," she whispered. "Even if it was a terribleidea."
He mutely nodded into her chest, his whole body shaking. Kushina pulled back, looking down at Mikoto. Her friend had passed out, the effort of holding Kurama back even by degrees having finally overwhelmed her.
"Help her," she asked her son, and Naruto, who had clearly been born to, did. Kushina turned away, moving towards the battle.
Minato fell in beside her, the two of them walking side by side after she'd completely given up on that ever happening again.
"I realized something," he said quietly. To the north, a hundred natural disasters raged at once as Nagato did battle with the Jinchuriki; mountains were razed and storms sundered in a battle that defied rationality. Kushina didn't feel a moment of hesitation; she prepared to throw herself into the heart of it.
"Yeah?" she asked. Kurama was quiet, watching everything with interest. She was filled with gratitude towards him for giving her this chance, even if it had taken a push from others.
"When the Summit started, and then Obito arrived, and I had to make a choice…" Minato paused, never one to be lost for words but clearly carefully choosing his next one. Kushina wasn't surprised that Obito was the one that had started the whole disaster: if Naruto was here, that meant the whole team was. That was how it went, the unwitting prophecy she'd made to her son after the Chunin Exam.
"I realized I made a mistake," her husband said, and she looked over at him, filled with infinite love. Minato locked eyes with her, burning with love and recrimination and determination.
"If it was you or the village. the Hokage should always choose the village," Minato said, with a rueful shake of his head. "If it was you or the world, the Hokage should always choose the world. But I think I'm not cut out to be Hokage anymore. Because I choose you."
Kushina laughed.
"You absolute dork," she giggled, and Minato chuckled in return. "C'mon. Let's finish this."
They started running. For the first time ever, Kushina was faster than her husband.
Unburdened by responsibility or regret they both raced towards the battle, determined to put an end to Nagato's ambitions and secure their future together.