~,-,^^-

I kept my guard up as I scanned the environment around me, seeing nothing but sand dunes stretching out to the horizon. I was currently alone in the same desert dimension that Sasuke was originally left in, and there was no sign of anyone else here with me. On the one hand, that was a pretty bad sign; Super Granny could be getting up to anything if she wasn't currently fighting me, and as strong as Sasuke was, he doesn't have the same kind of stamina that she and I have. On the other hand, not being able to sense anyone meant I was for sure not just in Suna, which was too close to the others for my comfort. As useful as it had been to have Kakashi-sensei, Sakura-chan, and Obito fighting with us at first, I was glad that Sasuke was able to send them back to the Elemental Nations after Obito died. They were just too low on both chakra and stamina to keep up at this point, and any help they could give me and Sasuke just wouldn't be worth the danger to them now that he and I had acclimated to–

"MOVE!"

I was only barely able to dodge out of the way thanks to Kurama. That Kaguya chick popped out of another one of her portals from behind me and launched another bunch of her finger bones at me, and I only noticed because the furball can sense negative emotions. If any of them had gotten me, I'd probably be dead. Again.

Man, the past two days have been all sorts of fucked up, I haven't even had time to have a regular conversation with someone that wasn't about the war or fighting. Hell, I literally died and got brought back by pops and Sakura somehow, got crazy strong chakra from Super Gramps to fight that Madara teme, and then he went and got turned into a giant meatball that then turned into a chick! And apparently she's Super Gramps' mom?

And where the hell is Sasuke teme right now?! She dropped his ass in another dimension for like the fourth time, but after Obito brought him back the first time it happened, he'd basically figured out how to do it on his own using way less chakra, so he should be back by now! Ahhh damn it! Fine, I guess I'll just have to hold her off on my own until he gets here to seal her. At the very least, I'd managed early on to destroy that shadow thing that hid in her sleeve and gave her advice.

Also, she's pretty bad at actually fighting. She kept on just sort of… doing things, and then backing off when they didn't work, to try something else, or the same thing but from a different angle. Her hand to hand was… passable, but nothing special to be honest. If it weren't for her insane regeneration and chakra that dwarfs even mine, she would be way easier to deal with than even Madara. As it is, the issue is just finishing her off with the amount of bullshit she can pull off over and over, like when she teleported us into that iceberg right before we could seal her. Despite her ridiculously dangerous abilities and the stakes of this fight, I had way less time to think when fighting Madara.

Speaking of, looks like she's finally had enough of staring at me with that weird sad expression, because she was flying at me with those chakra fists she could make, similar to what me and Kurama do.

Trying to make distance wasn't really a good idea because she was a bit faster than me, so I rushed towards her as well to meet her in the middle. As we got closer, two of the four fists she made rushed ahead, coming at me from the sides while the other two were hovering like snakes over her shoulders to attack me if I got too close to her. Which was kind of dumb because she should instead press the attack and go all in, but I understand that she's not exactly used to battle.

Either way, in the split second between then and now, I had already formed two rounded shields slightly in front of me on either side out of my Truth-Seeker orbs, entirely negating the attacks. As the chakra fists splashed harmlessly over my shield-orbs and I closed the distance, she brought up her hands and extended chakra rods from her palms to engage in some good old close quarters combat. In response, I used a third orb to form a kunai in my left hand and formed a one handed seal to make a couple Kage Bunshin, one behind me and gripping my cloak, and the other behind her. The moment I did so, I formed a second kunai in that hand out of one of the shield-orbs and deflected six "palm" strikes one after the other from her chakra rods down towards the dunes far below, the leftover force blasting the sandy hills apart. We had closed the distance.

She thrust the rod in her right hand at my chest while swiping the other at my face, but I twisted to the side, getting around the thrust and jerked my head back to dodge the tip of the slash by an almost imperceivable short distance. She turned her thrust into a diagonal side swipe, trying to slash from my chest down to my hip, while she pulled her left rod back to set up another stab attempt. I managed to back off just enough that she missed by the width of a hair, but wasn't fast enough to dodge the followup thrust. So instead, I lunged forward.

I had already begun moving the other shield-orb, so when the chakra rod made contact with me, it hit a skin-tight layer of blackness instead of my chest and disintegrated into nothing, having finally broken down from the damage my truth-seeker kunai inflicted while deflecting.

I'd figured out a while ago how to sort of "inject" the things I strike with my orbs, forming sections of them into an ultra thin needle at the exact moment of contact to force the disintegration effect to occur from the inside-out. This allowed me to weaken her weapons enough to give me an advantage without her just instantly making new ones the moment they start disintegrating. Of course, this only worked because she pumped enough chakra into the damn things when making them that they practically glowed to my senses. She probably couldn't see the inside of them well enough with her Byakugan without focusing to tell how badly damaged they kept getting, but she also refused to make them weaker because then they were too easy for me and Sasuke to break if she did.

With her down a rod and the other starting to fall apart as well, I was well within her guard before she could choose her next action. Swiping up at her face with my left kunai, I gave her plenty of time to raise her arm to take the hit on that side in order to prevent her from immediately forming a new rod. Simultaneously, I threw my other kunai at her face slightly to the left as well, forcing her to hastily dodge to my right with blood flowing from her raised right wrist. Heh, even immortals instinctively protect their head. Of course, her chakra is strong enough in a weird way that even my Truth-Seeking knife isn't able to deal permanent damage, so at most her arm should be disabled for now. Normal opponents would have had their whole arms destroyed by just a scratch from this thing.

She immediately realized her mistake, as the thrown kunai returned to orb form and obliterated the hovering fist on that side, leaving her with one more chakra fist and one uninjured arm while I was still in close range, and my clone was still behind her, having waited patiently for this moment.

He caught the orb in his palm while flying at her back and I mentally shaped it into a staff so he could swing at her while staying out of her range. While he aimed for her other chakra fist, I began to swing at her undamaged arm with my remaining orb-kunai. The goal was to disable her current attack avenues to make her back off once again, buying time for Sasuke to get back. If I hit her hard and fast, leave her no time to plan her next move while dismantling her current attempt–!

The clone that was gripping my cloak suddenly yanked me back and down, practically throwing me towards the sand. I figured out why when both of my clones dispelled in the same moment, giving me the memories of their destruction, as well as the fact that my thrown truth seeking orb returned to me. From the perspective of the clone behind her, everything was fine up until the point he destroyed her second chakra fist, upon which he was immediately speared through by a tendril of sharpened hair. At the same time however, the clone behind me did exactly what I created him for, but surprisingly pulled triple duty on that front. While I had focused on disabling her uninjured arm, I wasn't able to track absolutely everything else she did.

I had expected her to pull something like Gaara's old reactive spiky sand shell if I pushed her too hard, but with her hair. What I didn't expect was for her to do that, while firing her finger bones at me from her previously-injured now-healed hand, on top of launching ANOTHER chakra fist from within the sleeve of her good arm.

The entire clash– from the moment she began her charge at me, to the moment my clone bodily threw me– took place in the span of a single second.

I narrowed my eyes up at her hair cocoon. A strange, almost-but-not-quite unsettling feeling settled into my gut.

"Kurama…"

"Yeah." The fox in my soul grunted, "She's improving greatly at using her abilities, mid fight, just like we have been." So it wasn't just me and Sasuke then… "It went unnoticed by us, right under our noses because she's so inexperienced. But with that inexperience as well as the sheer power difference, comes a certain advantage of hers that we overlooked…" he trailed off slightly and growled before continuing in an aggressive tone, "She can't even tell just how outskilled she is, still seeing her victory as just a matter of time, so she doesn't even bother applying the things she figured out until we force her to! She's treating it like she's dealing with children, still just throwing her abilities at us at random until we force her to try a little bit harder, so we can't even gauge just how much better she's gotten with normal clashes. The moment we actually catch her out, she'll respond immediately with something we haven't seen."

The worst thing is, he was right, and from a certain perspective, she was too. At the beginning of the battle, the most she would do is launch a couple projectiles at us– her bone rods and hair needles– and move around using her portals or by swapping dimensions. Dangerous for sure, but more annoying rather than something actually hard to deal with. The most dangerous thing about her was the immense lethality of the attacks and how hard it was to pin her down while making sure not to get even a scratch. Other than that, she was pretty predictable. As the battle went on she showed more abilities such as the chakra rods, using different forms of those bone attacks like rapid-firing her finger bones, her dimensions having more and more exotic effects, but all throughout, it was still just an escalation of the "scale" of abilities she was using. The closest she got to using genuinely creative strategy on the offensive was the use of projectiles in the insane gravity dimension. She never upped the amount of effort she put into the fight, just upped the ridiculousness of her singular attacks, like when she destroyed one of her dimensions with a massive Truth-Seeking Ball.

We were lucky Kakashi was able to use Obito's eyes to interfere with her, preventing her from destroying all of them while transporting us to the ice world. We almost had her there too. The destruction of her little helper early on made her rely a lot more on her Byakugan, so even though we got so close to sealing her a second time, she was still aware enough to dodge Sakura's punch and continue erasing the dimension. Point being, she just kept spamming her attacks, because each individual ability she's used has been insanely strong.

And it was working for her. So far, at least. Even when she got more used to using her abilities together in a combo, she didn't do it much because she was already beating us as is. She was simply that much more powerful. She even started using way more powerful chakra rods from her palm like Nagato's in place of her bones, so that her weapons could hold up in clashes against me and Sasuke after we kept breaking them. Which then forced me to use my orbs for that on top of guarding against her chakra attacks.

But now she's beginning to multitask.

I felt a bead of sweat drip down my neck from the heat of this dimension's sun, and definitely not the stress of fighting her. I'd fight anyone who claimed otherwise, Uzumaki Naruto is no coward!

Placing my hands on my hips, I put the most cocky grin I could manage on my face. "Heh, I guess she decided we were too much for her current level and decided to kick it up another notch," I said in my most obnoxious tone, trying to keep our spirits up, "At the rate we're going, Sasuke won't even make it back before we figure out a way to beat her, y'know!"

The furball sighed at my bullshit before chuckling and throwing in his own two ryo to the mix.

"Is that so? In that case, I better kick it up a notch too. Tasking a dumbass like you to use your brain is a fools ask, so I'll just beat her myself instead!"

"Hey, what are ya trying to say!? You're the dumbass here, dumbass!"

"Idiot."

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing for real, most of the stress of the situation falling away. I shook out my limbs and flexed my chakra alongside Kurama, us both gathering absurd amounts of nature energy and together cycling it all through our system a couple of times in an instant, immediately feeling rejuvenated both physically and mentally. Unlike in the past where I had to fight for every scrap of control over his power, it had become all but natural for our power to mix smoothly, making us feel so much closer than anyone would ever believe in just a few days' time. Just as I could understand him now, he could understand me too. We had truly become partners.

"I'm going to try something…"

I felt him take the reins and channel our chakra towards a spot behind me, changing its nature in a way that somehow felt both familiar and utterly foreign to my senses, keeping it contained in a shell about the size of a normal Rasengan. After a moment of it constantly shifting in nature, it went through a sudden change, almost 'snapping' into familiarity and joining its 'siblings' hovering behind me. It wasn't a shifting nature transformation, it was all nature transformations– the basic five plus Yin and Yang– just changing ratios to find a balance like when I gather natural energy.

"Oh, that's pretty neat. Since when could you do that?" I was now back up to four Truth-Seeking Orbs.

"Technically only just now. I've had the idea since we got our own that they were formed by some process involving senjutsu and the old man's chakra, I just haven't had a chance to try until now." His normally gruff voice abruptly got so smug that I imagined his dumb fox face with the type grin I'd seen Sakura have when she gets one over on Ino. "Considering all the practice I've put into keeping us in the fight, converting nature energy into chakra as fast as you waste it, it's only natural that I managed it first-try! Kehahaha!"

I could feel a sweat drop form on the back of my neck that had nothing to do with my earlier worries. Who knew the fox had such a prideful streak?

Oh wait, he's been like this since the beginning. Just a lot more… growly.

"Stay sharp brat, she's getting ready to make a move." Kurama suddenly warned, much more serious than he was a moment prior.

"Mm." I hummed with a nod in acknowledgment, forming an eight-ringed shakujou staff in my right hand and a normal rod half the length of the staff in my left, held in a reverse grip while the staff leaned against my shoulder.

Kurama unexpectedly barked out a laugh.

"You keep taking that stance and it'll become your signature pose! They might even make it into a figurine for merchants to sell to kids after this is all over."

I felt confusion for a moment before realizing he was talking about when I took the same stance earlier against Madara, and felt my cheeks start to twitch in irritation. As I opened my mouth to retort though, I cut myself off when I noticed movement over by Kaguya.

The hair cocoon opened up slowly, showing her undamaged robes and perfectly smooth skin inch by inch. Like, genuinely slowly even to a normal person, let alone people like us who could move as ridiculously fast as we can. Despite my bragging, I didn't make a move to attack the opening she was giving me. With her head and upper body revealed, I could see her wiping her eyes with her sleeve. Apparently she'd been crying again, probably something to do with me being a descendent of hers or whatever.

As much as a part of me would like to take advantage of the opening, and as much as I was criticizing her fighting inexperience earlier, the truth is that it's actually best for me to let her take her time to 'reset' here. Her win condition is simply beating us. It doesn't matter how long it takes her, how much damage she takes, how many clashes she 'loses', none of that matters. She can heal back to normal in a moment. We can't kill her. The moment she becomes experienced enough at fighting us to beat even one of us, she wins. In comparison, our win condition is my right hand and Sasuke's left hand making contact with her at the same time. That may sound simpler, but Sasuke isn't here right now, so the actual best move is to not actually move; to stall for time.

Every moment I'm not pushing her to develop her skills is a moment well spent.

Her hair finally retreated to its normal length of 'still entirely too long to be practical', and she had finished wiping her eyes, although she seemed to still be crying.

I shuddered a little bit. It was super creepy sensing her genuine sadness despite all the ridiculous ways she'd tried killing us, it reminded me a lot of that Raiga freak years ago who buried people alive and then cried about it. The fact that Kaguya's sadness came from her sense of motherhood made it easier for me to understand and sympathize with… but it still freaks me the hell out, and she's still trying to destroy the world. Even if it came from good intentions and the desire to get rid of all the messed up things in the world, she'd still be throwing out the good alongside it all.

I don't exactly want her dead or imprisoned for all eternity, and I definitely don't hate her, but I have to stop her. That's simply how it is. I'm not strong enough to get her to listen, so convincing her to stop isn't possible.

I stood on the air, muscles loose but ready, when I felt the world shift and a thread of Sasuke's chakra appear at my side. In the next instant he was standing to my left, slightly facing me but already locking eyes with Kaguya.

"Sasuke." I greeted with a nod.

"Naruto." He returned without even a twitch.

"Took ya long enough, teme. You get lost?"

Without so much as acknowledging my words and his eyes never leaving Kaguya's, he began to speak in the same deliberate and intense way that he had been for years. Other than the times he lost his cool and yelled of course. "I need you to get her in position for me. The same strategy as back then in the second stage of the exams, and against Zabuza." He was talking about when my clones transformed into our team in the forest, and when we tricked Zabuza with the Shuriken Transformation.

What the hell is transforming going to do when she has the Byakugan? Unless he's talking more in a general sense, like using misdirection, or swapping pla…ces…?

'!'

He apparently decided that Kaguya wouldn't attack if he took his eyes off of her for a moment (which I agreed with, she looked lost in her own thoughts as she watched us), because he took a moment to look directly at me and saw by my expression that I caught on to what he was saying. He continued.

"I'm going to go back to Sakura and Kakashi to have her provide him with some of my chakra, while I give him the technique I figured out to travel through time-spaces. Kaguya sent me to the realm that was furthest away from either of you, and it took me a while to lock on to both you and him, about the same amount of time. Which means that these two worlds were about the same distance from me and are currently the closest to each other. While I've made progress, I'm still not good enough to do both techniques at once, so he'll be the key I use. " He looked back towards Kaguya. "She'll notice his intrusion, but will be on the lookout for my chakra and ignore him as long as he doesn't interfere. Fight her like you were just now, go at her from multiple angles in a way that she'll find natural. When you two finally make your moves, she won't suspect it until it's too late. I'll be watching for that moment."

With that, he disappeared from the world with the same subtle instantaneous shift, leaving me and Kurama alone once more with Super Granny.

What a bastard.

"Agreed."

~,-,^^-