"All those Konoha forehead protectors you're wearing…" The creepy, hooded, tentacle-covered monster of a shinobi slowly started to approach, prompting Kakashi and Mangetsu to both step forward. Naruto wanted to do the same, but he forced himself to follow Kakashi's orders. "They're really starting to remind me of the very first leaf shinobi I ever faced off against," Kakuzu continued, the tentacles writhing all over his body. "The Shodai Hokage."
"What?" Kakashi demanded.
Sakura gasped. Naruto noticed her eyes flicker to him. "The Shodai?" she breathed.
"That's impossible!" Naruto shouted. "I mean, you aren't exactly young looking, but there's no way you're that old! What're you, immortal or something?!"
"Not immortal." How the hell the freak spoke through the tentacle-thread-things in his mouth, Naruto had no idea. "There's no such thing in this world. I've just prolonged my life by stealing and stocking up on others' hearts before mine can stop from old age." His weird, green and orange eyes met Naruto's, sending shivers down his back, and then shifted over to Sasuke. "Suiton and Katon. Your hearts will make suitable replacements for the ones I've lost so far."
Naruto clenched his fists. "Go ahead and try to steal my heart, you creep, I'll just grow a new one if you do!" He raised his hands in the Tiger seal. Clones counted as attacking from a distance, right? "Water Clone Jutsu!"
Out of the water still covering the ground from the volley of shuriken he used to free Mangetsu from the tendrils, a dozen water clones formed around Kakuzu. Faster than even the real Naruto would've been able to react if it were him, Kakuzu's tendrils whipped out and liquified each of the clones, but Naruto's jutsu proved worth it when Kakashi and Mangetsu shot forward to attack Kakuzu at once. Not one to be left out, Naruto formed the seals for the Water Shuriken jutsu and formed the liquified clones back into shuriken, firing them at Kakuzu.
Kakashi, Mangetsu, and the shuriken all hit Kakuzu at once. Kakashi sliced through the tendrils Kakuzu tried to attack him with using just a chakra-enhanced kunai, moving even more fluidly than Sasuke with his Sharingan, almost like he was responding to attacks before they could even happen. Mangetsu's oddly-shaped, massive twin swords tore the tendrils apart so fast that Naruto could only make out a blur of chakra, a wild grin on his face.
In comparison, Naruto's water shuriken were only able to slice through the thinnest tendrils, failing to do anything against the larger threat before falling back into water.
"Wow…"
They'd been watching the fight for an opening for a short while before Naruto and Sasuke used their shuriken, but it was entirely different to see it so close. These weren't just shinobi: these were the best of the best. Kakashi and Mangetsu were both noticeably weakened, Kakashi by his quickly fading chakra reserves and Mangetsu by electricity, and they were still fighting on a level Naruto had never seen before. And Kakuzu… to hold them both off, was that the power of someone on the level of the Kage? Or were the Kage even more powerful?
"Stop gawking and do your part." Sasuke threw electrified shuriken cleanly between Kakashi and Mangetsu's feet, slicing apart small tendrils Naruto hadn't even seen until they were cut. "We can't do any real damage without getting in their way and messing everything up, so just assist them."
Naruto frowned, glancing over at Sakura and Sasuke. Sakura seemed to be in a similar position as him, unsure how to actually help in a fight so far above their level, but Sasuke had his Sharingan active, racing back and forth as he took everything in. He could probably visually track the fight, even if he couldn't physically follow it, which wasn't an option Naruto's kekkei genkai gave him…
If he couldn't follow the fight visibly, he would just have to follow it with his sixth sense. He didn't think it would be a good idea to lean down and touch the ground when Kakuzu could attack the three of them at any time, so he stretched his senses out through his feet, connecting the sensation of Mokuton in his body to the plant life covering the mountain. It was more than just trees: the grass, the flowers, and even the weeds were alive to his chakra, and the dirt was filled with decomposed plants and unsprouted seeds.
It wasn't the first time he'd extended his chakra senses through his feet, but it felt like something clicked in a way it never had before, like his ability to sense chakra blended with Mokuton completely.
As his chakra spread through the ground, understanding of the fight before him flashed through his mind. Kakuzu was a writhing mass of angry, dark chakra, an earthen affinity at his core and an unnatural, grafted lightning affinity buried protectively in his body. The tendrils, which he now realized were more like thousands of small, thick threads, lashed out at affinities of lightning and water, but were continuously sliced apart by chakra-enhanced kunai and swords storing a huge amount of chakra inside.
Kakashi's chakra was running dangerously low, at least in Naruto's admittedly skewed opinion. Still, he ran a current of chakra through the kunai in his hand, using it to slice apart any thread that came too close to him, or occasionally channeling lightning into it and attacking Kakuzu. His Sharingan caused him an unusually large drain, unless Sasuke was just really lucky or something, but he didn't seem to waste any more chakra in his attacks, carefully conserving it in a way Naruto doubted he ever could.
Mangetsu's chakra was… unusual. Even somehow suppressed by lightning like it seemed to be, the watery sense he gave off was so strong he could almost be mistaken for pure Suiton chakra. He mainly fought with his two massive swords, channeling the chakra stored in them to create detailed constructs, but occasionally he would fire off pure Suiton bullets powerful enough to pierce through the threads without a hand sign.
Was that a jutsu Naruto could learn? That would be so awe-
Shaking his head, he filed that question away for later and continued observing the fight. He noticed a few more threads snaking towards Mangetsu and Kakashi's feet, but Sasuke caught them with shuriken before Naruto could try anything. More erupted from the ground underneath them seconds later. Naruto clasped his hands into the Snake seal hard enough to clap, molding the ground to cut off the threads before Sasuke could beat him to it.
"Took you long enough."
Naruto stuck his tongue out at Sasuke without taking his senses off of the fight.
Ahead, Mangetsu closed the distance Kakuzu was keeping in a blink, twin swords tearing through countless threads with a burst of speed Naruto couldn't track. When he was close, his two swords snapped together, the chakra stored in each combining to forge a massive hammer. It slammed into Kakuzu from above, who seemed to barely react in time to raise both his arms and block the attack with a shield formed from threads.
Even blocked, the hammer carried enough force to force Kakuzu down to his knees, the ground beneath his feet cracking.
Without letting up, Mangetsu split his swords back into two, chakra halved evenly between them. The stored chakra sharpened both blades, enough that they cut cleanly through both of Kakuzu's raised arms when he sliced down.
"Nice-!" Naruto started to shout.
Mangetsu continued the attack like he hadn't just literally disarmed his opponent, jumping backwards with one finger raised on each sword hilt and pointed at Kakuzu. Naruto saw why when the threads in Kakuzu's arms immediately reattached to his body. Raiton chakra started to build inside of him, but then two bullets of pure Suiton chakra slammed into his chest, interrupting his jutsu and nearly knocking him back.
Next, half a dozen bullets of air shot out of Kakashi's mouth, somehow ignoring his mask. They were near-invisible and too fast for Naruto to track, but he felt when they collided with Kakuzu, punching into his chest in the same spot Mangetsu's bullets hit and causing a CRACK like stone shattering to sound across the mountainside.
Kakuzu grunted in pain and fell backwards, caught by the threads on his back. For a second, the battlefield went still as threads all over quit attacking, but Naruto could still sense Kakuzu wasn't anywhere near done. A second later, Doton chakra gathered and strengthened in his chest where he'd been struck, chakra pulsing through the threads as they slid back to the main mass. Threads carried him backwards and set him down on his feet, lengthened arms hanging loosely at his sides.
"Your resistance is pointless." A horned mask with a large, yellow nose appeared next to his head, emitting a sense of lightning, though not as powerfully as Kakashi did. "Even if you've destroyed three of my hearts, you can't kill me. It's only a matter of time until I take the hearts of those brats behind you and-"
"You sure are yapping for a guy who says resistance is pointless!" Naruto shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth for dramatic effect. "Maybe you did fight the Shodai once, but either he isn't as powerful as I've heard or you must've thrown a rock or something and ran, 'cause-" He suddenly jumped backwards, just before threads shot out of the ground where he'd been standing. "Woah, guess I struck a nerve!"
Chakra-enhanced kunai and lightning-covered shuriken cut through the threads, preventing them from following him into the air, and Sakura hissed, "Don't provoke him!"
Naruto sensed Raiton chakra start to gather behind the horned mask as he landed back on the ground. In perfect unison, Kakashi and Mangetsu used five seals in an order Naruto recognized, but they didn't call it out when they used Suiton: Water Formation Wall.
At once, they both created a large amount of chakra in their stomach and spat it out, though the amount Mangetsu created far exceeded what Kakashi did. The horned mask's mouth started to open, a bright light coming from it, and a laser beam of lightning shot out just as the water formed into a wall in front of Kakashi and Mangetsu.
The beam hit, electrifying the entire wall of water and dispersing into it with a huge flash that blinded Naruto's senses for a second. Kakashi and Mangetsu used the same hand seals Naruto had used before and formed the electrified water into shuriken, firing them at Kakuzu. While he was trying to deflect those, Mangetsu closed in again, his swords combined into a massive chakra greatsword.
Kakuzu's Raiton mask started to prepare another beam of lightning, one that didn't feel as powerful as the previous one, when a second kunai appeared in Kakashi's hand. It was less powerful than the current of lightning in his kunai, but he channeled wind into it, sharpened into an invisible blade. He flicked it at the Raiton mask, forcing Kakuzu to abandon the jutsu and cover the mask in threads, but then he started looking around the battlefield for something.
Without the lightning beam to keep him back, Mangetsu got in close enough that he shortened the chakra blade around his sword down to the original length, stabbing it vertically into Kakuzu's chest.
The sword pierced, half of its massive blade sinking into and through his body.
It should've been a heart-destroying attack, but Naruto could immediately tell that something was off, even before an unsettling grin appeared on Kakuzu's face. Then, his body and threads started to break apart, crumbling into stone.
Naruto swore, only now realizing why the Raiton jutsu's buildup had felt weaker, and started searching his surroundings for-
"Sasuke, watch out!" Naruto shouted.
Sasuke's eyes widened, but the warning was too late. The original Kakuzu appeared behind him faster than any of the genin could hope to react, threads snapping out to constrict his movements in an instant. Naruto charged on instinct, shoving Sakura away from Kakuzu with one hand and grabbing a kunai to cut Sasuke free with the other, only for a scream to tear itself from his lungs as Kakuzu batted him away like a fly with an arm darkened by Doton chakra.
White-hot pain set his nerves on fire as he was sent flying, the crack of his own ribs the only sound audible over the wind in his ears and the sound of his own scream.
His back crashed into and through a tree, splintering it and sending even more white-hot pain searing through his body. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before, a hundred times worse than even the most painful injuries he'd gotten in spars against Sasuke. Through the haze of pain, he didn't even feel it when his body slammed into a second tree, hard enough to snap the trunk in two.
He did feel it when he finally hit the ground. His head bounced at the impact, spots of white flooding his vision, and even more white-hot pain flashed across his back.
It was all he could do to groan in pain.
For a few seconds, he just laid there, gasping uselessly for air. Somehow, he managed to turn his head, violently coughing up something that felt like blood. His eyes were open, but his vision was just a blur of light and colors, so he couldn't really be sure. It seemed to help him catch a little breath, at least, even if that breath was more like a wheeze for air.
Then, a warm, natural feeling slowly started to envelop him, almost like the sun. At first, it was imperceptible next to the blinding pain in his chest and back, but it steadily spread throughout his body. As it grew, the pain of his injuries quieted, his wheezing breaths becoming slightly more stable. Everything else hurt, so he clung to the feeling of warmth, trying unsuccessfully to urge it on and make it work faster.
Even clinging to the warmth the way he was, it wasn't long before pain loosened his grip on consciousness, the world fading black.
"Sasuke, watch out!"
Sasuke's eyes snapped to Naruto, taking in the sight of alarmed eyes focused on a spot behind him in an instant, but it was already too late by the time he did. Before he could even move a muscle in response, threads snapped forward, wrapping around his limbs and constricting his body faster than he could physically react to. It locked his body into place, lifting his feet off the ground, without even a millimeter of slack he could see to exploit.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Naruto darted forward, grabbing a kunai with one hand while he pushed Sakura away from Kakuzu with the other. All Sasuke could do was watch in slow motion as Kakuzu's fist, darkened somehow by Doton and packed full of a dangerous amount of chakra, slammed into Naruto's chest hard enough Sasuke swore he could hear the CRACK of his ribs.
Naruto went flying, a scream of pain unlike anything Sasuke had ever heard from him torn from his mouth along with a splatter of blood. In a blink, he crashed into a tree with enough force to blow straight through it, into a second tree that cracked in half to break his flight.
Then, like a broken ragdoll, gravity reasserted itself over his body and he fell to the ground, head bouncing against the dirt.
"Naruto!"
It was only the visible groan of pain, and the blood coughed up after, that assured Sasuke Naruto was still alive, but that didn't stop adrenaline from flooding him. He'd never seen Naruto so injured before. Throughout all their countless spars, all the countless jutsu Sasuke landed against him, Naruto always bounced back in seconds from anything that didn't restrain him. For him to just lay, hacking and coughing on the ground at the foot of the tree…
Before he could pay any more attention to Naruto, his attention was forcefully drawn back to the fight. Still suspended in the air by Kakuzu, he was suddenly jerked to the side when Kakashi suddenly blurred across the distance between him and Kakuzu, nearly too fast for Sasuke's Sharingan to track. His hand was shrouded in pure Raiton chakra, a noise like the chirping of countless birds filling the clearing in the fraction of a second it took for him to move.
Kakuzu tried to jump away, but even he was obviously caught off guard by Kakashi's sudden speed. The threads constricted painfully around Sasuke's limbs for a second, sending a spike of panic shooting through him, only to suddenly go slack.
Sasuke fell, twisting to land on his back against the ground in case he needed to defend himself against Kakuzu, but the S-rank was already over a dozen meters back. Kakashi stood between him and Sasuke again, another kunai raised defensively, breaths increasingly ragged.
His chakra was low. Whatever that Raiton jutsu had been, it used up nearly everything Kakashi had left. Sasuke doubted he could use another jutsu without passing out.
"Sakura, Sasuke, go check on Naruto," Kakashi ordered quietly as Mangetsu landed beside him again. "Let us finish this."
Adrenaline still pumping through his body, Sasuke wildly looked between the S-rank, jounin, and his two teammates.
Without missing a beat, Kakashi and Mangetsu returned to attacking Kakuzu the moment Kakashi stopped speaking, but the steadiness of his voice did nothing to assure Sasuke he could follow through on his words. It was obvious: Kakashi was on his last legs. Mangetsu was in better shape, at least in terms of his chakra reserves, but he'd already seemingly lost the fight before Kakashi arrived, and Sasuke couldn't see an outcome where they came out on top.
Not when Kakuzu was still in far better shape than either of them, at least. He was supposedly down three hearts, but he had far more chakra left in his remaining two hearts than the jounin did, and the threads allowed him to endlessly stitch his body back together as long as he had chakra and hearts. And since he recalled the remaining monster into his body, he was being much more protective of his hearts.
To Sasuke's left, Sakura ran for Naruto, routinely looking back at the fighting ninja. There hadn't been much she could do in the fight so far, but fortunately that seemed to make Kakuzu overlook her, and she soon came to a stop next to Naruto's prone form.
Naruto…
He'd lost consciousness. Wheezes and coughs occasionally still wracked his body, but there was chakra intensified somehow around his injuries, visibly repairing them at least to Sasuke's eye. Somehow, he'd never considered or noticed that Naruto's healing ability used chakra in that way before. Was it just that he'd never been injured badly enough for the chakra to stand out?
Even knowing Naruto would be fine, seeing he would be fine, an irrational part of Sasuke's brain was reminded of that night. For a second that felt like it stretched for an hour, his vision blurred, and there were two bodies at the foot of the tree, one on top of the other. He blinked furiously, trying to rid himself of both the image and the itch that had sprung up behind his eyes, to erase the sight of Itachi-
When his vision finally and suddenly cleared, his view of the battlefield came back sharper than it'd been ever before.
Sakura was knelt by Naruto, two fingers pressed against his pulse, obviously worried but able to tell that his life wasn't in danger. The rest of her attention was focused on the battlefield, her other hand clutching a kunai defensively, even though it'd become more than obvious there was nothing any of the three genin could really do if attacked.
In the fight against Kakuzu, Mangetsu had taken up nearly the entire offensive effort. Kakashi acted as support, most often preventing the horned mask from unleashing the lightning beam at Mangetsu. He was still using his implanted Sharingan, but it was clear to Sasuke that he only had minutes before he'd have to either cover it or lose consciousness.
Even if Kakashi said to leave the fight to him and Mangetsu, someone needed to do something or none of them would make it out alive.
Rubbing one of his eyes, Sasuke finally stood back up, mind racing. What was the best option? The fight had become slightly easier to follow since his vision sharpened, but he still didn't have a body that could react to it. He watched for the threads, unnecessarily now that Kakashi had taken over the same role, and watched Kakuzu, yet nothing came to mind.
Sasuke squeezed his hands into fists at his side. "Kakashi, is there anything I can do to help you finish this fight?"
"Go join Naruto and Sakura." Kakashi didn't even look back at him, flicking three kunai with effortless precision to sever threads headed for him. While the precision had been effortless, the chakra needed to cut through the threads was just enough to threaten his reserves with every throw. "Genin never should've been involved in this fight."
"It's too late for that now," Sasuke insisted. "I can see how low you are on chakra. You and Mangetsu are losing, I can tell. You need help."
"In that case, you should grab Naruto and Sakura and run back to Konoha." For a brief moment, he turned his head and gave Sasuke a two-eyed smile. "Maybe I can't win, but I won't let anyone on my team die."
For a second, a small part of Sasuke considered it.
He knew Naruto would say no without an ounce of doubt, or even thought, behind the answer. The part of Sasuke that had become Naruto's friend agreed, the part of him that had grown to respect and even somewhat like their team's sensei. Aside from Naruto, Kakashi and Sakura were the first two people he'd spent any significant amount of time with since that night, and he was surprised by how much the thought of losing that hurt.
But he still considered running. Surviving in such an unsightly manner as this. The image of a three-tomoe Sharingan burned in his mind, spinning into a pattern unlike any other Sharingan he knew. By all means, flee. Cling to your wretched life. If he died, he would never grow strong enough, never avenge his clan, never find out why-
"No." Sasuke didn't want to cling to life in an unsightly manner. Not again. Never again. "You're the one who told us those who abandon their friends are worse than scum, Kakashi." He still wanted to learn all he could from Kakashi, including about his mysterious past and the origin of his Sharingan. "What can I do to help, Sensei?"
Kakashi didn't reply. In front of them, Mangetsu displayed why he was one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist and how he'd irritated Kakuzu for so long. His swords shredded through the threads like a pair of scissors, replaced by bullets of densely packed water and knife-like crystals any time Kakuzu tried to maintain distance. He wasn't doing any real damage, but neither was he taking it, though his wariness of the Raiton mask was obvious.
Suddenly, Kakashi held his hands up behind his back in the Monkey seal. "I can't activate it again, but memorize the seals and how I mold my chakra." His voice was quiet, so much so that Sasuke strained to hear it and had to channel chakra to his ears to understand. "This is the jutsu I used to destroy two of his hearts, and to free you from the threads. Chidori."
Monkey, Dragon, Rat, Bird, Ox, Snake, Dog, Tiger, and Monkey. His hand only remained in each seal for a second, but that was more than enough time for Sasuke's Sharingan to memorize the sequence, and the way his chakra moved with each gesture.
"Chidori's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, speed." Done showing the sequence, Kakashi pulled two kunai out, but he didn't move to rejoin the fight. "Without Sharingan, the tunnel vision makes it impossible to use safely. If you think you can perform it, run to the trees like you're going to join Naruto and Sakura and wait for an opening to destroy one of his hearts. Brace your hand by holding your arm if you do, but only if you're sure."
Briefly, Sasuke's eyes widened at the plan, but he quickly composed himself and nodded.
At the same moment Kakashi dashed forward to start assisting Mangetsu more actively again, Sasuke dashed for the trees, mimicking the hand sequence and molding his chakra without activating the new jutsu. His eyes fell on Sakura and Naruto as he ran past them, a confused look on Sakura's face when he ran past without stopping. Using the foliage for cover, he looped around to the other side of the fighting jounin, keeping an eye on the chakray threw around.
After so much time around Naruto, it was easy for Sasuke to find a spot at the top of a tree where he could watch Kakuzu without being noticed. As soon as he did, he started running through the nine hand seals over and over, until the sequence felt just as natural to his hands as the one for the Fireball Jutsu.
He'd seen the jutsu when Kakashi freed him from the threads. It was pure Raiton chakra materialized around the hand, similar to how Sasuke learned to shock Naruto with his chakra but infinitely more intense. Kakashi used it to free him by using it to cut threads, but the nature of Raiton was piercing, not just cutting. He could imagine how effective it would be as an assassination technique.
On the battlefield, Mangetsu got grazed by a beam of lightning, and the electricity along his entire body intensified. Oddly, the lightning didn't even seem to injure him where it grazed, but his movements slowed, enough that Kakuzu managed to slam him into the ground with a punch as powerful as the one he hit Naruto with.
When Mangetsu hit the ground, his entire body warped, before snapping back together like an elastic band. Sasuke could see the lightning somehow interfere with chakra throughout his entire body, almost like it held him together, though he still had no idea what was up with Mangetsu's body in the first place. Mangetsu's swords both went flying, the chakra flickering out as they left his hands.
Despite how painful that looked, a sharky grin appeared on Mangetsu's face. His arms surged with chakra and he grabbed hold of Kakuzu's arm before he could pull it up, attaching his back to the ground with more chakra.
Kakuzu flooded his body with more Doton and started to just rip Mangetsu off the ground, but then Kakashi dashed in holding one of Mangetsu's swords, sharpened into a chakra construct. For a brief moment, so short Sasuke might've even imagined it, his Sharingan met Sasuke's through the leaves, and Sasuke understood.
Monkey. Dragon. Rat. Bird. Ox. Snake. Dog. Tiger. Monkey. His hands flashed through the hand seals as fast as he dared, molding his chakra off the flawless memory of Kakashi's partial demonstration. At the last seal, he grabbed his left arm to brace it as Kakashi instructed, flaring Chidori to life on his hand.
The chakra drain was immediate.
The sound of countless birds reached his ears instantly, Raiton chakra around his hand so intense he could feel his skin start to peel. It filled his entire body with a feeling of boundless energy, well past the point of discomfort, and he had to grit his teeth and enhance his other arm with chakra just to hold it stable. As raw as Chidori felt, he had to concentrate to keep his Katon chakra from mixing in, unwilling to risk his arm with the combination.
Wielding Mangetsu's sword, Kakashi cleaved through all of the threads sprouting from Kakuzu's back, leaving it open – literally.
Sasuke shot down from the tree he stood atop faster than he'd ever moved before. He couldn't help the Raiton chakra that seeped into his steps and fried the tree beneath his feet, but he was moving fast enough that he touched the ground before gravity could take hold. His steps tore a path through the ground as he charged forward, eyes locked on the pulsing heart he could just make out through the short, remaining threads in Kakuzu's back.
When he was a meter away from Kakuzu, Kakuzu started to react, head turning towards Sasuke in slow motion. By then, it was too late, and Sasuke's left hand plunged through the heart of Raiton chakra.
But he couldn't pull it free.
Chidori faded from his hand, still lodged inside the threads that made up Kakuzu's back. They regrew from the severed ends, chakra flowing through them, and for the second time, Sasuke was trapped.
"A fourth heart…" The quiet rage dripping from Kakuzu's tone shot ice down Sasuke's back, his head slowly turning to look back at Sasuke. "You should've escaped when you had the chance, Uchiha. Now, you'll replace what I just lost."
There was nothing Sasuke could do as threads started to creep up his arm, spreading towards his heart. Mangetsu was still pressed against the ground, eyes wide in alarm, now trying unsuccessfully to free himself from Kakuzu's hold. Kakashi still held one of the swords, but there was no way for him to cut through the threads while Sasuke's arm was in Kakuzu's chest, not without-
For a second, a powerful, familiar chakra fell over the clearing, and everyone's heads snapped to Naruto as he finished an unfamiliar sequence of seals ending in Snake.
"Mokuton: Wood Dragon Jutsu!"
"Ughh, I really have no idea how he came up with this stuff so young," he muttered, an unfamiliar voice coming from his mouth. "Still don't understand what determines what hand seal…"
Shaking his head, he refocused, holding his hands in the Snake seal. While he didn't understand what determined a particular hand seal's use, it'd been easy enough to figure out that Mokuton responded most readily to the Snake seal. For the most basic manipulation of wood, it was all he really needed alongside his large chakra reserves, but he couldn't brute force jutsu that required finesse. As useful as his development of Mokuton had been for his mission, he knew his brother would never be impressed just by a few trees.
Next, he formed his hands into the Ram seal.
On his first attempt with the new jutsu, he'd tried to simply copy the sequence for the version he'd seen his brother use once, just with Mokuton channeled into it instead, but that only ended with him at the town healer's on the receiving end of a rant by one of the very people he taught medical ninjutsu. Since then, he'd grown a bit more cautious about his jutsu experiments, heading out to the desolate mountains away from the town, his friends monitoring from a safe distance.
The next seal he'd figured out for the new was Hare, followed by Dog. As far as he could tell, there wasn't a specific rhyme or reason to the different sequences of hand seals, but he could still somehow feel his chakra molding into the form he wanted. His brother was such a genius, to invent the original version on his own.
Mokuton, by nature, involved creation. The two elements that made it up, Doton and Suiton, were substantial in a way the other elements weren't. When life was added to the combination, Mokuton was born: substantial, alive, and infinitely malleable. He planned to talk to his father about it when he returned home, but even with the breakthrough with the well, it would be some time before his mission was completed.
The final seal for the jutsu was Snake. His hands clasped into the increasingly familiar seal, pouring his powerful chakra into the jutsu, and he said, "Mokuton: Wood Dragon Jutsu."
Whether the intonation actually helped, he wasn't sure, but the tug on his chakra was immediate. Though there wasn't much that could put a dent in his chakra reserves, especially since he'd begun to take training more seriously, the dragon he'd seen his brother use had been massive, and he wanted to create a jutsu at least as powerful. It wasn't in his nature to fight, but he knew he would need strength to support his brother and dreams.
For a couple seconds after the pull of chakra, nothing happened. He started to suspect the jutsu was a dud, and started to worry about wherever he'd just channeled a dangerous amount of chakra, when the ground under his feet rumbled.
A second later, he fell onto the ground as it shifted beneath him. His back met wood-
Naruto shot up suddenly, grabbing at the ground for a handhold on the wood to steady himself. Only, his hands grasped onto grass and dirt, bringing a confused frown to his face.
"Naruto!" Sakura jolted, suddenly looking over at him in concern and surprise. "You're… okay?"
"Ye-" Naruto started, only to suddenly double over and cough up a wad of blood. Continuing like nothing happened, he wiped his mouth, grinned, and gave Sakura a thumbs up. "Yeah! Hundred percent!"
Sakura eyed him skeptically. "Uh… Yeah, okay."
Honestly, his chest and back both hurt like crazy, but he had a feeling it was less painful than it should've been. The last thing he remembered was being punched by Kakuzu, hard enough to fly through one tree and slam into a second one. And before that…
His head jolted to the fight. "Sasuke!"
"Kakashi-sensei freed him," Sakura said. "I saw him run past a little-"
As she was speaking, Naruto stretched out his senses, just in time to notice Sasuke at the top of a tree near the fighting jounin. Then, he moved like never before, nearly a third of his total chakra channeled into a Raiton jutsu exactly like the one Kakashi had used earlier. Did he really somehow copy it already? Should Naruto even be surprised?
A grin broke out on Naruto's face when Kakuzu's lightning heart snuffed out. That prompted Sakura to follow his gaze over to the fight, understandably surprised.
Of course, that was when Sasuke got himself trapped by threads again.
Instantly, Naruto knew it was even worse this time. More threads immediately worked their way towards Sasuke's heart, clearly intent on following through on the multiple threats Kakuzu had made. Mangetsu was stuck under Kakuzu's fist, and Kakashi was so low on chakra that Naruto was shocked he was even still standing.
Sasuke's life was in danger, and no one was in a position to do anything.
Spikes of pain shot through Naruto's body as he moved to his feet by instinct, breaking into a run as soon as he was vertical. He didn't know what his plan was, but as he ran towards the battlefield, an unfamiliar jutsu seemed to flash in his mind. Like most Mokuton jutsu, the Snake seal came first, and his chakra flared as he followed it with Ram, Hare, and Dog, before finishing on Snake.
"Mokuton: Wood Dragon Jutsu!"
At once, Kakashi, Sasuke, Mangetsu, and Kakuzu's heads all turned to him, the words clearly ringing out across the battlefield. Chakra tugged at his gut, far more than he'd ever used at once before, and the ground rumbled beneath his feet so intensely he nearly stumbled.
Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised by the massive wooden dragon that shot out of the ground in front of him, judging by the name of the jutsu, but considering he'd never even heard of the jutsu before, he figured he was due to be a little surprised. It had a long, serpentine body as thick as the trunk of a massive tree, with two branchlike arms near the head. In moments, it rose dozens of meters into the air until its hindlegs appeared from the ground, before abruptly charging toward the fighting ninja.
"Oh, what the actual-"
Mangetsu's voice was cut off when the wooden dragon reached the ninja. With its branchlike arms, Naruto willed it to grab Kakuzu, and Sasuke with him, and pull them into the air. Sasuke's arm seemed to be somehow trapped in Kakuzu's body, so Naruto tried to raise the wood dragon's arm to its mouth to bite off Kakuzu's head. He didn't know where the ancient-tendril-fossil-freak's final heart was, and he'd never killed anyone before, but that seemed like the best way to end the fight without maiming Sasuke.
Before he could finish, Kakuzu struck at the arms holding him. At first, all it did was stop the dragon from biting him for a second, but a second strike was enough that Naruto could sense its arms start to break.
It seemed to distract Kakuzu enough for Sasuke to escape, at least. With his left arm stuck, he pulled himself up to press his feet against Kakuzu, using him as leverage to yank his arm out. As soon as he was free, he let loose a quick fire jutsu to propel himself and land on the head of the wood dragon, sticking to it with chakra.
"Woohoo!" Naruto cheered. "Suc-!"
A powerful Doton jutsu Naruto didn't notice in time was enough to break the arms of the dragon completely, releasing Kakuzu. As simple as it was to regrow the arms of the dragon, Kakuzu still used the dragon's body as footing to leap away before he could, his jump powerful enough to crack the wood where his feet touched. Rather than towards any of the ninja, his jump led him to the trees, where he quickly disappeared into the mountainside.
"He's trying to get away!" Naruto yelled, hands still in the Snake seal as he ran towards Kakashi and Mangetsu. "We can't let him-" He stumbled, legs suddenly going weak, and had to break his hands out of the Snake seal to catch his fall. "Ugh, shit."
All of the sudden, his body felt completely drained of energy. It was a sensation he recognized, but not one he'd felt since the first few months of training with Sasuke, mainly when he experimented with Mokuton. Maybe because it involved creating living things, Mokuton jutsu could be really chakra intensive, even for Naruto. Since he was pretty sure his chakra reserves got even larger over time, it hadn't happened to him in a while, but he recognized the feeling of chakra exhaustion.
"Hey, idiot!" Sasuke's voice snapped from above. "At least deal with your jutsu before you collapse!"
Naruto looked up to see Sasuke running down the side of the falling wooden dragon. He was obviously fine, and had already landed on the ground by the time Naruto got his hands back into the Snake seal, but Naruto still forced his chakra to reconnect to the jutsu and sent the wooden dragon receding into the ground.
"Ugh, it kinda pisses me off that we're just letting him get away," Mangetsu admitted, hands resting on the hilt of his sword and looking off in the direction Kakuzu retreated. "But, if we're being objective here, both sides had five hearts to begin with and he's down to one, so I think we're the victors, technically."
"None of us are in any condition to follow," Kakashi said bluntly, his voice breathy and breathing ragged. Naruto didn't need to sense his chakra to tell he was much more chakra exhausted than Naruto. Like Mangetsu, he had his hands resting on the hilt of the sword he was holding, but his seemed to be supporting him completely.
"What d'ya mean, Sensei?" Sitting on the ground, Naruto grinned up at Kakashi. "Just give me a few minutes and I'll be in top form, promise! My back already feels good as new!" Sorta.
Kakashi rolled his eyes, reaching up to pull down his forehead protector. "I'm sure you will, Naruto." He looked past Naruto, to where Naruto could sense Sakura approaching, and eye smiled. "I'm glad at least one of you listen-"
Suddenly, he toppled over, landing face-first against the ground.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura exclaimed, rushing forward and kneeling down in front of Kakashi. "Did you get hurt?!"
Kakashi didn't respond. "He has chakra exhaustion," Sasuke explained, walking over and sitting down between where Naruto sat and Kakashi laid. "Naruto does too, but not nearly as bad." His Sharingan were still active, and Naruto had to do a double take when he realized there were two tomoe in each eye. "As far as I can tell, he used a jutsu that uses a lot of his chakra at least three times, and his implanted Sharingan uses a lot more chakra than mine does because he isn't an Uchiha."
Naruto blinked. "Implanted Sharingan? I just thought he was, like, half Uchiha or something."
"Being half Uchiha doesn't mean you only get one Sharingan," Sasuke said drily. "The only way he could have that Sharingan is if he received it from someone else." The tomoe in his eyes spun, the blood red of his eyes fading back to black, and his gaze flicked back to Kakashi unreadably. "Chakra exhaustion is the price he pays for using a Sharingan that isn't his."
"Did he… steal it?" Sakura whispered, glancing over at Mangetsu like she wasn't sure whether to say anything with him around.
"He said he would explain when the fight was over."
"You'll have to ask him when he wakes up." Mangetsu walked over to Kakashi and picked his sword up off the ground, reattaching it to the other sword and easily putting both on his back. Naruto couldn't help but notice the electricity infusing his body had gotten a little worse since he was knocked out. "I'll stick around with you all 'till he does, in case anyone else shows up."
Sasuke looked up at Mangetsu distrustingly. "You saw our kekkei genkai."
Mangetsu grinned, showing off his sharklike teeth. "Clear as day!" he confirmed. "And with your sensei knocked out, that means you'll have to trust my sense of honor and hope I'm not the type to turn on the trio of defenseless genin who just helped save my life!"
That logic didn't seem to impress Sasuke or Sakura very much, but Naruto laughed at what felt like an obvious joke. "Defenseless? Didn't you see that awesome dragon!"
"That was a pretty awesome dragon," Mangetsu agreed. "If you want, I can show you a Suiton version of that jutsu as thanks for the saves some time, but I'd like a chance to finally head to that nearby town now that I'm not being hunted down." He linked his fingers and stretched out his arms. "Got ambushed on the way back from a mission two weeks ago and he's been bothering me since. Haven't slept for more than half an hour at a time in over a week."
Naruto beamed. "Yeah!" He tried to push himself up to his feet, but his arm gave out under him, so he went back to sitting. "Uh... In a few minutes?"
Mangetsu laughed, settling into a cross-legged spot on the ground a short ways away from the Konoha ninja. "Alright, we can take a break here first." He reached for something on his belt, but his hand came up empty. "Ah, any chance one of you has a water bottle?"
A/N:
Kakuzu got jumped by a giant wood dragon for the second time in his life and decided "Yeah, nope." He was already down four hearts, so he wasn't about to wait around and fight a massive wooden dragon from a kid who'd seemingly recovered fully in minutes.
Naruto's dream: It's not entirely the focus of the story, but reincarnations are still an aspect of Naruto I really like. It kinda sucks that in canon, none of that is really explored until the very end, so I do want to play with the reincarnation stuff a little. If it isn't your thing, sorry, but at no point where they just full-on become their past lives or fully regain memories. Naruto doesn't even remember the dream he had here, I just really love the specific kind of reincarnation where past life memories are like random things you shouldn't know but do or deja vu.
As for Kurama... I have his first appearance in mind, and I think it's fair to say a Mokuton jinchūriki would make any escape attempt require a more delicate plan
Sasuke managing to copy Chidori so fast comes more down to his years of training with Naruto in this than anything. Chidori is essentially just Raiton nature transformation to the extreme, so with the fact that Sasuke already knows nature transformation, he has the first step down (Kakashi mentioned to Naruto that nature transformation took Sasuke like a few hours in canon iirc, during the Rasenshuriken arc). On top of that, he saw Kakashi use it to free him, then got to memorize the seals, and lastly the situation's stress works in his favor because Naruto and Sasuke are the types to excel under pressure. Even with all that, he wasn't very efficient and immediately got his arm stuck, so it was very much a first-Chidori (and he probably would've blown his arm into pieces if he tried adding fire lol).
Naruto's wood dragon is kinda similar. He only pulled it off because of the fresh dream-lesson, and even with it he gave himself chakra exhaustion (the chakra spent on healing didn't help things). Both sorta got their first super moves, that could do damage to people above their level, but it's gonna take some very specific situations they can't achieve on their own.
If this makes the mission feel a little short, don't worry lol. It'll be a bit before they return to Konoha.