The hum of the Rasengan seemed to wash out all the usual sounds of the forest. It was that mix of deep, tremulous drone, and grating, high-pitched whine that made it sound as dangerous as it was.
For all the good it did when it couldn't connect with a target.
If he was honest with himself, Naruto actually had no idea how long he could hold one; he'd never had much impetus to learn. While it was admittedly harder to form than it was to maintain; it still took consistent effort to keep spinning.
"Well, this is new," the mask man said, looking down at the arm emerging from his chest. He took an experimental backwards step only to have Naruto follow him precisely. He leapt to the side with almost flamboyant exaggeration and Naruto followed him to a tee. "If I run off the mountain, are you going to follow me? Your mother would tell you not to of course but… oh, wait." He leaned forward and Naruto didn't need to see under the mask to know he was goading him.
Upon the redhead's continued silence the man sighed, straightening back up. "Still, very weird. Occasionally people work out a few aspects of my ability while we fight. Having somebody already know? Well, that feels a bit cheaty, don't you think?" He leaned in conspiratorially, stage whispering, "who clued you in? Come on, I won't tell. Was it Old Man Teuchi over at the ramen stand?" He leaned back and threw his hands up in the air. "I knew I shouldn't have told him my deepest darkest secrets, but that ramen was too delicious!"
Naruto thought he actually heard a cicada chirp over the constant buzz of the Rasengan. The man slumped pathetically, only to suddenly leap back in an attempt to take the Hokage of-guard. Naruto followed him all the same.
"Come on! How boring of a fight is this? Us, just standing here, waiting for one of our techniques to time-out? Where's your sense of drama? Where's the panache? Why aren't you saying anything?" He flailed his arms childishly, phasing right through Naruto instead of landing any blows. "Seriously, you're not even setting me up for the awesome moment where I reveal I've had my ally sneaking up on you this whole time!"
Naruto pivot so fast that the Rasengan sliced a blue crescent through the air as he turned. He hadn't sensed the thing creeping up on him until the man had announced its presence, and was almost too late to stop it latching on to him. The increasingly dense ball of Chakra slammed into its head with all the force of a wrecking ball, splattering pieces of goopy white flesh in every direction. Where they landed, little saplings sprouted from the earth.
He had no idea what it was. Without a head, it just had the body of an androgynous human with small bud-like protrusions across its body. Its skin was porcelain white and looked like it had the texture of a shaved tree. The most disconcerting thing though was that until it had appeared behind him, it was basically a black spot on his senses; completely invisible.
"Ooh, that was fast," the man exclaimed with childish awe. "But, uh, what are you going to do about the other ones?"
Naruto glanced up to find a small army of the things emerging from the trees around them. For a moment he cursed his luck, before sighing and reaching into his kunai pouch.
Silence reigned as teacher and student stared across at one another.
"I thought you were dead, all three of you," Jiraiya said, uncertain of how to feel. To find out that the dangerous mercenary group he had been hunting for the past few years was headed by a former student… it was a good thing he was the master of his emotions.
"Yahiko is dead, I am Pein."
Some of the sadness must have slipped through the cracks in his mask as the Deva Path's features hardened. "What happened to Nagato, why do you have his eyes Yahiko?"
The orange-haired man remined impassive, but there was a slight tightening about his eyes. "I told you, Yahiko is dead." He raised his hand ponderously. "You will soon learn the feeling, sensei."
The wall of sheer force was as powerful as it was unannounced. Jiraiya's hair immediately hardened into a protective spiky shell that anchored him to the ground; but even so, he still dug a small trench on his way backwards. When the pressure finally relented he released his technique, but Pein was already there. He kicked the older man hard enough to crater the wall behind him and didn't relent, immediately charging in again.
When Jiraiya launched an enormous fireball at him he simply raised a hand and charged right though, the invisible shield diverting the attack around him. It was a smoke screen though, he emerged on the other side to find Jiraiya staring down at him from a rooftop, his features grim.
"Whatever happened to you three, whatever your motivations for all of… this. You made a mistake in attacking Konoha."
"We are only doing as you taught us, Jiraiya-sensei." A softer voice cut in. Thin sheets seemed to peel themselves off the surrounding buildings, fluttering into the air in a technique Jiraiya remembered all too well. They swirled artfully for a moment before coalescing to the form of a bored-looking blue-haired woman, with the addition of enormous papery wings stretching from her back.
"You've grown into a beautiful young woman Konan," Jiraiya offered with a sad smile. "Is Nagato going to join us too? This is turning into a veritable reunion." His normally joking tone was tempered by a wistful edge.
"Nagato is dead; there is only Pein," came the predictable response; only this time the Deva Path didn't press his attack, simply crossing his arms imperiously. It was Konan who moved forward, sheets of paper peeling away from her form and folding as if by invisible hands into innocuous-looking shuriken.
They certainly didn't act like paper though; when she sent a cloud of them at Jiraiya they dug into the stonework just as well as metal. He whipped his hair and batted most of them away, his vision blocked just long enough that the three enormous paper shuriken caught him a little off-guard. His look of shock only lasted until one buried itself in his chest, it quickly morphed into a smirk as he vanished in a puff of smoke, a bifurcated log clattering to the ground in his place.
"Find him," Pein ordered, earning a nod from his lieutenant before she took to the air for a better view.
Gai thundered around a corner with reckless abandon, the cloud of rapidly evaporating sweat around his body turning him into a green comet. His quarry was wily, making good use of the sharp turns in the street to neutralise Gai's speed. But then, Gai was very fast with three gates open. He bounded off a wall, almost running with his body parallel to the ground from his sheer momentum, and twisted his body into a bone-breaking spinning kick.
The tall man he had been told to chase ducked with almost prescient timing, letting the Green Beast sail overhead and turning on a dime to head back the way he came. By the time Gai touched the ground and could correct his trajectory, causing bits of the aforementioned ground to go flying off in the other direction, he had already vanished into the maze of streets.
Not one to be deterred easily, or at all, Gai took the opportunity to jump directly up, leaping into the sky like a hysterical rabbit. After that it was all too easy to spot his quarry and begin the chase anew. He caught up with the stocky man meeting up with another of the orange-haired invaders, this one with long hair styled like a Yamanaka. Both of them seemed to be carrying the remains of a third, the one his eternal rival had so unyouthfully dispatched.
How they had managed to bring his body all the way here in such a short amount of time didn't even pass through the man's mind. That, and the oddity that they seemed to be feeding it to some grotesque creature that quite literally sprouted from the ground, wreathed in sickly purple flames that physically hurt to look at. He powered through the wrongness of the scene and cheerfully announced his presence once again.
"Konoha Whirlwind!"
The Animal Path caught sight of him first, the Naraka Path whirling half a second later. That was enough time for Gai to skid into the space between them, sweeping low with his legs to knock out the Animal Path's base before fluidly continuing the motion to lash out with an anatomically improbable kick to the Naraka Path's chin. The technique was completed when he came full circle and caught the still airborne Animal Path with a brutal punch to the midsection. For a moment, the Akatsuki member seemed to fold around his arm before flying back into a nearby building.
The energetic Taijutsu master was about to turn around and finish the Naraka Path, as he had been directed, when one he hadn't seen before, a portly one with slicked back hair, was suddenly between them. This one caught his blow easily, redirecting it and nearly causing Gai to unbalance. Instead of leaving himself open to a counterattack, the spandexed man rolled with the motion, catching himself with one hand and using the new leverage to spin into an inverted helicopter kick.
The bigger man leaned back, shifting to press his attack, only to be forced at the last minute to turn, putting his hands forward to absorb a crackling dog made of lightning that had charged him from behind.
"If you hadn't noticed, I was fighting this one Gai," he drawled, giving a pointed look at the Akatsuki member in question.
"Of course, my hip companion. But, just this once, I feel it may be better to defeat these villains together!"
Kakashi considered the scene as the Naraka Path was hauled to his feet by the newly revitalised Asura Path – Kakashi was already sick of seeing that one die.
"Okay fine, but don't tell anyone." He dropped his weight slightly, eyes narrowing at the orange-haired invaders. "I have a mystique to maintain."
Enormous wooden stakes burst from the street, twisting unnaturally in an attempt to ensnare and impale the enormous Rhino summons rampaging through the village. While Tenzo was dealing with that, his attention was also on the concerted effort to redirect an even larger centipede – something he didn't even know he never wanted to see – towards a trap being lain by an ANBU squad. He cursed the utility of his Kekkei Genkai for what felt like the hundredth time, and threw in a small curse at Orochimaru, Hashirama Senju, and a few others for good measure.
He wasn't used to this kind of endurance with his ability; he was no First Hokage, and the constant expectations that he should be were starting to wear on him. He was already ragged just from the effort of dealing with all of these summons, and they hadn't even managed to kill one yet. His concentration was split in too many directions; and that was with the help of four wood clones backing up various squads. He was running on fumes at this point.
Another curse left his lips as, instead of backing off from the curved wooden wall he had created to divert the centipede, the thing simply dived into the ground, burrowing right into the earth. He ignored it, hoping another team would pick that up and turned back to the Rhino. With more mental focus on his stakes he managed to tangle up the beast's legs. There was a brief moment of regret as the thing's momentum took it right through one of his favourite restaurants. It was quickly replaced by cool pragmatism as he directed the stakes to impale the creature and send it back wherever it came from.
He was too focused just keeping it pinned to note the strange rumbling beneath his feet. He noticed too late to fully avoid the centipede bursting from the earth, crying out as one of its razor-sharp mandibles clipped his shoulder, sending him spinning to the side. The overlarge arthropod wasted no time in turning to finish the job, rearing up on its segmented body and clicking at him threateningly. He shifted to move out of the way, only to have his arm collapse under him, leaving him sprawled on the ground.
Sensing its opportunity, the summons immediately lunged.
"Ami, now!"
Both predator and prey turned in time to see Sasuke leaping off of the flat of Ami's blade like a springboard. It looked like he was holding daggers of pure fire, and put them to good use when he slammed into the side of the summon's head. It let out a horrendous squeal as white-hot flame sliced through its carapace like butter. Sasuke stabbed it in one of its bulbous eyes for good measure before diving backwards.
With an angered cry the centipede made to bifurcate the Uchiha while he was in the air, and likely would have if, at that moment, Ami didn't suddenly substitute with him. For a moment it seemed like the violette had simply traded her life for his, but – and Tenzo wasn't quite sure he believed what he saw – she proceeded to step off the air, neatly dodging the creature's mandibles like she was skirting around another swordsman.
Using leverage that simply didn't exist, the girl stepped forward as surely as if she was on solid ground, driving her wind-sheathed blade into the summon's neck, before allowing gravity to reclaim her. The sight of her blade shearing effortlessly through the creature's chitin as she fell, leaving an enormous gash down the length of its body, was one Tenzo wouldn't soon forget. Though, it was arguable that was the smell of its guts falling out.
"Where are you injured?" Sakura asked in the brusque tone of every paramedic Tenzo had ever known. Her attention shifted to his shoulder, hands glowing, before he could even answer. The Mokuton-user was initially confused as to why she wasn't with the other medics at the various emergency centres that had no doubt been set up at strategic points around the village.
"Sakura! On your right."
The casual, unconcerned way Sasuke called out was sharply contrasted by what Tenzo saw when he craned his neck to look over his medic. The Rhino summon was shaking its way out of its wooden bonds, snorting great gusts of air as it struggled to its feet. Tenzo shifted to deal with it only to be gently, but forcefully, pushed back down by Sakura. She gave him a stern look before standing to face the beast.
"Don't move, doctor's orders."
It was just getting to its feet, turning awkwardly to face the group, as Sakura squared herself between it and her patient. She flashed through a quick chain of hand seals, and it was only because of Tenzo's innate grasp of earth techniques that he knew she had surreptitiously hardened the ground beneath her, with two wedges of rock tilting her feet forward slightly.
The Rhino seemed enraged by her refusal to move, grunting a challenge before charging down the street at a dead sprint. Tenzo very nearly moved anyway, only to freeze in astonishment as Sakura met the charge head on, waiting until the last moment before suddenly slamming it with an earth-shattering overhead blow. She caught the beast right on the edge of its nose and suddenly all of the forward momentum was driven straight down.
The ground cratered. Notably, the earth in a two-foot radius of Sakura only shuddered, but outside of that it was as though some one had dropped a small meteor on the street. The Rhino itself was probably out cold before its face stopped digging into the street. Sakura had already turned her attention back to her patient. The swiftness with which she returned to treating his wound left him speechless for the entire thirty seconds it actually took her to finish up.
"Alright, you should be fine, but if you get another one like that you'll have to go to one of the rally points for more thorough healing," she said. "You'll also need a soldier pill, you're dangerously low on Chakra."
"Come on Sakura, we need to move on, Sasuke says he's got a way to take down that weird drill-beaked bird."
"Okay, one moment," the pinkette called over her shoulder before giving Tenzo one last once-over. Satisfied, she gave him a professional nod and a decidedly less professional smile. "Stay safe." With that she immediately took off after her teammates, the three of them quickly rounding a corner in a textbook ANBU formation that could have only come from their teacher.
It was around that point that Tenzo remembered to blink.
"Monsters…training monsters."
The Human Path observed the quiet little house. It was tucked away towards the outskirts of the village, in the quiet district between the markets and some of the larger clan compounds. It would have been innocuous enough to normal eyes, but through his Rinnegan it glowed brilliantly. The sheer number and variety of seals was impressive enough, but the way they threaded together around and throughout the property weaved a beautiful tapestry of light.
The Path regarded it all dispassionately, a thin black rod sliding out of his sleeve which he quickly impaled into the ground. Immediately he saw that grand tapestry waver as parts of the matrix were disrupted. He felt no satisfaction as, one-by-one, various seals overloaded or failed, the Chakra leaking out and dispersing into the air. He was about to step forward, only to pause as different, previously inactive seals suddenly flared to life, fuelled by the released Chakra of their counterparts. As one, the entire matrix suddenly flared back to full strength.
Without his eyes, he would have walked right into that trap.
"Interesting."
"You've been working on your Shikigami techniques I see," Jiraiya remarked, suddenly running alongside where Konan was gliding through the streets. If she was surprised by the sudden appearance she didn't show it.
"You always told us that complacency was death for shinobi," she replied, whipping her arm out and sending a barrage of razor-sharp sheets at her former mentor.
The Sannin dodged them with a grace that belied his age, keeping a jovial smile as they kept pace with one another. "I always did try to make my students take the important lessons to heart." His expression sobered a moment later. "What is all of this Konan? What happened to you three? The starving little orphans I remember could never be capable of all of this. You were never capable of this."
"Life happened Jiraiya-sensei. Life, and pain and war. We all make sacrifices for it, as you know better than anybody else. You should be proud of us; soon we will have created a world of peace." Her hand shot out again and this time a small army of paper cranes folded itself into existence, speeding after the Toad Sage like self-correcting kunai.
He pivoted mid-stride, suddenly running backwards as he held up a tiger seal. The stream of fire he breathed out was concentrated enough to turn white, melting the rooftiles nearby. The origami birds, even empowered by Konan's Chakra, stood no chance and were incinerated. "That isn't what I taught you."
"No Jiraiya-sensei; that was a lesson taught to us the hard way," Konan intoned softly, the first hint of emotion he had seen on her face. He hated that it was sadness.
"Then I know not to treat you lightly," Jiraiya said with a sigh.
"On the contrary Sensei, you still underestimate us."
When Jiraiya touched down on the next rooftop it seemed to come alive, hundreds of exploding tags suddenly rising up to latch onto any part of him they could until he looked like some strangely patterned mummy.
"Goodbye sensei," Konan whispered as the tags all ignited simultaneously. Her own wings immediately arched in front of her to shield her from the resulting blast. The building itself was flattened, but even with the air almost unbearably scorched Konan hazarded a look. Her eyes narrowed a hair when she spotted the faint whisps of white smoke from within the cloud of dust and ash.
They widened again when the implication hit her.
"Nagato…"
The novelty of the self-sustaining ward system had worn off very quickly. The Human path had taken to judiciously spearing the various seals with the disruptive rods. Whatever they were supposed to do, or were trying to do, the injection of his own Chakra appeared enough to destroy or weaken them that they became a negligible afterthought once he reached the door. Aside from the defunct seals on it, it was also locked in the more traditional sense. This was swiftly corrected by a thunderous kick that had the door – as well as a large chunk of the wall where the lock had been installed – fly off its hinges.
The lights within were all off and for a moment he wondered if the occupants had fled to the shelters in the mountain. The memories of the people he had killed indicated the woman was the proud type, unlikely to go running in the face of invasion. As if to prove him right, the next step he took tripped some kind of wire trap that had a flurry of senbon fill the air in front of him. He deflected most of them, but a few managed to nick his arms and legs.
Despite the slight sheen he could see coating the deadly little implements, he remained unconcerned. Poison could no longer affect these bodies. Blunt force trauma on the other hand…
He caught the first spiked ball easily, also coated in that same sticky liquid. It proved enough of a distraction that the second one caught him in the back of the head. It didn't damage him too much, but was irritating. Shelving his emotional response, the fact that the traps had triggered without him taking a step was telling. If they were seal-based his eyes would have warned him.
Somebody was operating them.
With his quarry now in sight he moved on into the house. They could trap every inch, it still wouldn't stop God.
The sight of a deserted market square in the middle of a busy village like Konoha might have been disconcerting to some. Pein ignored it, he had purposefully diverted the bulk of the shinobi away from his position, dealing with the summoned animals and evacuating the positions his Asura Path was strategically bombing. This left him a straight path to the Yamanaka grounds, where memories the Human Path had assimilated told him he would find the Nanabi Jinchuuriki.
Having already been thwarted twice in that regard, he didn't intent to fail a third time.
His eyes warned of a sudden influx of Chakra into the ground beneath him, but it happened too fast for him to disrupt. The ground was reduced to a swampy quagmire in less than a second, trapping his feet and securing him in place. Far from panicking, the orange-haired man simply turned his gaze to where Jiraiya had alighted on a nearby rooftop.
"This has gone far enough Yahiko."
"When will you learn sensei," the Rinnegan user intoned, loud enough that his voice echoed around the square. "Yahiko is dead." He extended his hands to either side, eyes pulsing with Chakra. "There is only Pein." The swampy earth recoiled from the invisible bubble or pure force her projected… only to snap back into place like elastic, closing over his feet again.
"Well now Pein is stuck in a swamp," Jiraiya mocked, slamming his hands on the ground. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
The Deva Path was briefly buffeted by displaced air as something big was forcefully brought into the world. When the smoke cleared it revealed an enormous toad, the size of a Bijuu. The pipe and haori it wore, like some ryo-novel Yakuza boss, might have been amusing under different circumstances. The enormous, scaled-up tanto at its side, most certainly was not.
"What are you doing summoning me in the middle of the village Jiriya, you pickle-brained eijit? You know how hard it is for me to move without wrecking stuff!" The toad grumbled, his voice booming across the village. Around them the various scenes of destruction and rampaging summons paused, taking in the odd sight.
"Not the time 'Bunta, just hit that guy already!" Jiraiya called out in exasperation as the moment passed and the invasion continued.
"Summoning me out the middle of my poker game, for one little guy?" Gamabunta grumbled, but complied all the same. He drew his tanto in a deceptively fluid movement, immediately bringing it overhead to slam the Deva Path into oblivion.
"Shinra Tensei."
The blade stopped abruptly, shuddering in the air as it fought back the titanic force Pein had so causally summoned. Gamabunta grunted, bringing his other hand to bear and pushing down even harder. Slowly, inch-by-muscle-straining-inch the sword descended. After five seconds though, when the blade was scant centimetres from the Deva Path's head, his eyes pulsed again and the blade suddenly lurched back into the air, ripped right out of Gamabunta's hands.
Pein wasted no time, black rods sliding out of his sleeves which he quickly planted in the swampy ground. With the technique destabilized he was able to pull his feet out of the muck. Now thoroughly irritated, he pointed a hand at the still reeling boss summons.
"Bansho Tennin."
Under normal circumstances, the recipient of the technique would have flown uncontrollably towards him. With the enormous weight disparity between them, the reverse happened, with Pein suddenly flying forward towards the enormous toad. He slammed into Gamabunta's stomach with the impact of a small meteor, toppling the giant before proceeding to walk calmly along his length. When he reached the middle of the dazed toad he wasted no time in pointing his hand down.
"Shinra Tensei."
Gamabunta cried out, a booming noise that rattled nearby windows. The ground splinted beneath him as the force was dissipated through his body, but he didn't dispel. Pein kept his hand where it was, levelling a pointed look over to where Jiraiya was watching, immobile.
"Your efforts are futile Jiraiya-sensei. Call all the help you like, you only condemn them to the same fate." He turned his attention back to the toad beneath him, flexing his hand slightly.
"Shinra Ten-"
"Hyaa!"
The sword slammed into his side without warning, the enormous blade acting more like a titanic bludgeon than a cutting instrument. The sheer force of it must have been enough to momentarily disrupt the connection as, the next thing he knew, he was lying in a pile of rubble, looking at the vaguely human-shaped holes he had made on his flight through three different buildings. At the other end was the slug sannin, holding up Gamabunta's sword like an ant holding up a tree branch.
Pein let out a deep exhale, picking himself up and brushing the dust from his robe. This was starting to irritate him.
Little unnatural shrubs now decorated the clearing, wherever these things bled, plant life sprung right up. Naruto breathed heavily in the middle of it all; killing armies was the Hiraishin's specialty, but there were a lot of these things, and they just kept coming.
"Well," the masked man announced; he had been rambling all through the melee, even introducing himself as Tobi at one point, although Naruto didn't believe that name for a second. "As entertaining as it is to see you flash around the place, this clearly isn't getting us anywhere." He snapped his fingers and the plant-people stopped coming, the last one dropping, headless, as Naruto finished driving a Rasengan through its skull.
"You mean it's not getting you anywhere," the Hokage shot back with a wicked grin. "I've just finished getting warmed up."
"Yes, yes," Tobi drawled, waving his hand airily. "Witty banter, sarcastic rejoinder, pithy retort etc, etc." A large Gunbai suddenly appeared in his hand in a puff of smoke, the chain attached to its handle snaking up his sleeve. "I think I've just about gotten to the point where I decide to um… what was it again?" His voice darkened in that abrupt manner of his. "Oh right, deal with you myself."
"Well," a new and all too familiar voice cut in from the edge of the clearing that clenched at Naruto's heart painfully. "I feel unwelcome now."
"Itachi, my boy!" Tobi exclaimed brightly, waving his gunbai enthusiastically at the Uchiha prodigy. "Just in time to join the climactic battle against your old teammate, I couldn't write the poetry better if I orchestrated all of this." The man paused, putting a finger to his chin. "Oh right, I did."
"If we could skip the charade, Madara," Itachi intoned blandly, turning to face the Hokage and bringing the redhead up short with the revelation.
"Urgh, that's no fun." Tobi, or Madara, huffed, before sighing theatrically. "But then, I never could say no to family."
Both Uchiha turned to face Naruto, who by this point had regained his breath and was glancing at them both warily, eyes never straying above Itachi's chest.
"Itachi."
"Naruto. Congratulations on the promotion."
"Thanks, I've got to admit the hat's growing on me."
"The haori is new."
"A present from Anko."
"Ah, and she's well?"
"Pregnant with our first child actually."
"I never thought her the motherly type."
"It was a bit of a surprise to everyone really."
"I can imagine."
Tobi coughed into his hand, bringing the attention back to him. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting?"
Itachi gave him a flat look. "Yes, as a matter of fact. But if you insist on dealing with this matter quickly…" his form suddenly broke apart into a murder of crows, their cawing echoing around the clearing far louder than would have been natural.
Naruto cursed, never noticing he had been placed under a Genjutsu. Itachi must have woven it while hidden in the treeline. His eyes darted about, trying to keep every single crow in his eyeline while simultaneously fluctuating his Chakra to break free. He kept his guard up even as the world shattered around him, the crows fading away and Itachi phasing back into existence. The Uchiha stood there, firm, eyes set in hard gaze with the Sharingan spinning languidly.
Tobi looked down at the sword protruding from his chest and blinked once.
"Huh."