His fist came up, and the foot that slammed into it must have been made out of a cast iron block with the force behind the strike. Kankuro cursed as he staggered back, servo motors whining and dust picking up from the weight of his feet.
The man was wearing green, if that alone wasn't enough to tip him off, the ridiculously hard kick would have done it by itself.
Maito Gai, The Green Beast of Konoha, foremost Taijutsu expert of the world.
Gai's fist smashed against his right shoulder in a downward stroke that rattled the wooden frame before his foot struck at the small opening between the panels of armor striking with pin point acuracy, the sheer force behind his kick was enough to send him staggering back into a wall.
Gai didn't let up, his fists pummeled against the wood and iron frame of the suits body structure, driving him deeper and deeper into the wall until finally the suit responded to his comands, massive fists coming up and blocking the rain of blows with massive forearms.
Gai tried to push down, his damn near superhuman strength giving the suit a run for its money before servo motors and mechanics prevailed over human flesh. The pupeteer pushed him off before rearing back the suits leg and kicking him squarely in the chest.
Gai tumbled back, flipping to recover from the blow as Kankuro spun with the bladed arm, swinging with all his considerable strength towards the down man.
Gai punched down on the blade, already standing by the time Kankuro completed his spin, sending the weapon down to the ground. He attacked with his fist again only for Kankuro's other arm to rise and meet the blow with the flat of the armor's wrist.
He spun again, this time aiming for Gai's waist with his spin. The green beast scooched back a half step, and Kankuro saw he would use the opening to launch another kick that would strike at his armor's face guard.
He lurched the suit forward, delivering a savage uppercut as his unexpected move made Gai's blow strike his chest instead, the armor absorbing the blow whereas Gai got the full force of his.
He swiveled up his right fist and moved to punch down with a haymaker blow to the reeling Maito Gai, but with damn near practiced ease Gai recovered, slapping away his clumsy strike before punching. His fists struck again and again damn near a dozen times until Kankuro backed away a step from the man.
Compartments snapped open in his chest, and senbon burst from the chambers in bursts, a hundred right infront. A blast of black rain that should have killed the jounin in an instant.
Gai's reflexes were inhuman, ducking down and rolling backwards, the man lifted a slab of wood mere instants before a dozen toxic needles were embedded in the wood.
The slab flew back towards him, propelled by a kick and Kankuro's fists smashed the thing into a million splinters as Gai reached his feet.
The pupeteer rushed forward, hacking and striking with lumbering, powerful blows that Gai simply danced around before delivering his own strikes that splintered wood and dented steel with every blow.
Finally, Kankuro stumbled back and Gai's fists became a wild frenzy hammering against the suit in a rain of blows, focused on cracking the shell to reveal the soft inside.
Then blood splattered the cobblestone floor. Gai's eyes went wide as his leg completely gave out beneath him, a splinter of shrapnel of the slab Kankuro had shattered sticking out from the back of his knee.
Then it was Kankuro's turn, capitalizing on his surprise attack, made possible by his chakra swings, the Suna ninja struck at Konoha's green beast.
Gai raised his arms to block, but it was like trying to stop a tree with two crossed twigs. Kankuro's fist hit him with crushing force, and Gai's wounded leg was damn near wrenched out of its socket at the hip with the awkward angle.
He would have screamed in pain if he had the air to do so.
Kankuro raised his fists again for the killing blow when lightning smashed into his side, leaving charred wood in its wake before the attack dissipated. He stumbled a step, away from Gai before kunai, Shuriken and jutsu were raining down on him from everywhere.
He raised his arms, seeing one Anbu lunge to him in a high leap with wind dancing about his sword.
He pivoted his body, one shoulder dipping low, under the blade's swing while the other turned in an upercut that connected solidly with his attackers diaphram. Kankuro pivoted, barely hearing a scream before he smashed his fist, and the man beneath it, into the ground, blood exploded from the impact, shooting to the mans side, framing his body before the pupet master turned, his eyes finding a hundred more in the courtyard to take the place of the one he just killed.
His cleaver blade was cutting through another man before he realised it, shuriken, kunai and poisoned Senbon shooting out of hidden compartments and into targets through comands he barely recalled giving.
"I'll kill every last one of you!" He boomed through the armor's voice box.
He was a juggernaut in the storm a sea of enemies washing over him as what remained of the Suna soldiers broke and fled behind him.
He fought on, either unaware or uncaring to his increasing lack of ally's in the courtyard.
Behind him, Gai dragged himself to a sitting position, cursing and shaking with the effort as every battered muscle protested the movement. One blow. All it had taken was one solid blow. His leg throbbed from his hip to his ankle, his sliced up knee gushed out blood, his arms felt like jelly, his left wrist had been sprained and he was sure he had at least one bruised rib.
One damn hit.
After a second he felt a hand at his back, helping him sit up.
"Are you alright?" He heard her ask, and felt himself smile, it had been too long.
He turned his head, smiling a smile that seemed more like a grimace. "Kurenai-chan!" He exclaimed.
She moved to help him stand, ready to swing his arm over her shoulder. "Come on, we've got to get you to a medic."
"No!" The green beast said before gesturing forward. "Go, help them!"
"I've tried." She shot back. "Genjutsu works however by making my chakra infiltrate his chakra coils and thus, his nervous system so that he can see and feel whatever I want. That suit is stopping me! It probably has some Fuuinjutsu in the armor panels itself to prevent Genjutsu interference."
Gai frowned "Help me up." He finally said after a lengthy pause. "I'll get you your opening."
They each froze for a moment. Wide eyed and shocked.
Half a second.
That's all it had taken. They'd blinked and missed it.
Hanabi felt sweat trailing down the side of her face and fear take hold of her for the first time since the fight began.
They'd missed it.
One second he was standing on the half destroyed remains of a houses' front porch, the next, the blond puppeteer was dead on the ground, her throat carved wide open. Torn by the shaving scales of Samaheda.
She did see what was coming now though.
An explosion of black, tendrils of dark shooting out from the shadows of a shattered home. She heard the Nara boy's shout of rage. It was a raw thing, primal, it tore at his throat and clawed at their ears.
"INOOOO!"
Kisame turned, his eyes wide with glee as a writhing mass of dark energy hurdled towards him, like some immaterial demon from hell seeking out his soul.
A water dragon swirled to existence at his side, rushing to meet the approaching attack head on.
The swirling, mass of liquid was speared in an instant, lances of black, writhing shadow cutting through it in seconds, stealing away its form and composition before continuing to rush at Kisame.
The wounded swordsman only smiled wider, brandishing Samaheda with one hand infront of him.
It was like a massive wave, rising up and up as it moved further into the shore before crashing down. Swallowing Kisame whole.
Then Samaheda was swung, and the dark shadows were swallowed into it with the sound of water dousing a flame. The chakra that empowered them being swallowed and consumed by the strange sword.
Shikamaru seemed to melt out of the black, weapons in hand, the look of rage on his face was a palpable thing as he charged the Kiri ninja.
His moves were reckless, and the Inuzuka was no better as he joined his comrade. Both were angry, but the Nara was damn near gnashing his teeth, his eyes were bloodshot and feral.
"Move!" Yoshihiro suddenly barked at her and Shino. "Take the chance for whatever it might be worth!"
She joined the attack a second later and realized that she had to be just as careful avoiding Shikamaru's whipping tendrils of shadow that lashed at the air around Kisame in attempts to hit him, as she was in avoiding Kisame himself.
Still, this was unreal.
Five ninja, each an elite, one a Kage bearing down on him.
And Kisame was laughing.
Shikamaru's shadows scored glancing blows that seemed to boil and fester like the beginnings of an angry burn. They looked painful, but the Nuke ninja damn near ignored them for the most part.
And the Nara was slowing down.
Whatever rage had fueled this assault could not overcome the limits of his own chakra reserves. The black shadows that had exploded around him were dwindling, and Kisame was delivering more and more retaliatory swings with Samaheda amidst the dodging and the blocking he was doing.
She reeled back almost too late, the wind of the swing smacking her across the face as he swung again, trying to attack.
Just one arm...and that swing was still so fast!
The chakra was literally sucked from her body, she could see it leeched from her and from the others around her. That sword was a twisted thing that would kill them faster than Kisame ever could. No wonder the Nara was tiring.
The sword is practically feasting on him.
She took a step to the side, allowing Yoshihiro the full opening he needed as he swung his Hammer with a great, sweeping motion. Roaring as the massive head struck Samaheda with a crack Kisame was sent skidding several feet down the road.
Hanabi saw the Inuzuka leap forward, coiling his prosthetic arm around Kisame's last functional one and pulling with all his might.
Hanabi saw her opening and took it.
She rushed forward, ducking beneath Yoshihiro's hammer, weaving between the wrathful Nara's whipping shadows, through Shino's swarms of Kikaichu.
She ducked beneath Samaheda where it was held across his chest, skirting herself around the Inuzuka until she was right infront of the Kiri nin. Then she launched her hand upwards.
Her hand struck true, dead center of Kisame's chest.
She saw her chakra blossom through his chest in a white pulse, saw his lungs hemorrhage, blood vessels burst, his wind pipe shrivel like a burning paper.
His eyes went wide and blood fountained out of his lips.
She watched him die right before her vein framed eyes.
Then he smiled again.
Hanabi never saw anything like it. Everything she was seeing said it was impossible.
With a shriek of tearing metal and a crack of splintering wood the Inuzuka's prosthetic was torn off at the upper arm and Kisame's fist, still gripping Samaheda's hilt was rushing at her.
She did everything but outright fall to the ground. The pommel of the massive sword grazed her shoulder blade and pain blossomed through her entire side. She grit her teeth and rushed away from him. Her shoulder was throbbing with every movement as she skitted back away from him.
It was no momentary burst of strength. It was not one last ditch attempt to take a life.
Despite what her eyes clearly told her to be impossible. This...Beast...was still standing.
With a vicious spin kick Kisame caught the Inuzuka in the back, sending him sprawling to the floor.
Then he faced the Nara head on.
The sword sucked at the shadows that sought his flesh.
His legs did the rest.
His legs struck at Shikamaru like a well coordinated machine, hiting at weak points with ruthless efficiency. He actually used his massive sword like a pseudo pole-vault.
A blow to the inner knee, another to the hip, another to the thigh, the left stomach, under the armpit, to the temple.
So fast
The Nara was down in an eye-blink.
And there he stood. Smiling through labored breaths.
Her eyes narrowed, watching the chakra within his body slowly churning to life, picking up speed like an engine.
She braces herself and then she see's all of his Chakra being swallowed by Samaheda.
The sword begins to glow, ethereal blue fire snakes up its scaled, broad body.
Kisame laughs.
She shouts.
"Get down!"
She throws herself to the floor, and see's Yoshihiro slam his hands on the ground, a wall of chakra reinforced earth coming up between them, Shino vanishes in a swarm of insects.
Then the world roars and all goes white!
The punch left him dazed, he slammed into the wall, reeling before he brought his axes up to block the downward strike of his father's massive greatsword.
No...Not his father, his father was dead, just like Ginchiko, this thing was just wearing their faces!
His arms shook with the strain, his strength pushed to the limit as he fought with this conjuration.
He tried to kick at its feet, only for it to raise up one knee to block the kick and then continue the movement to strike at Toushiro's unprotected stomach, with his own kick driving the wind from his lungs in an instant and then following up with a savage uppercut that knocked the young man flat on his ass.
Water swirled around Guan, converging and concentrating into a massive dragon head just above him. The water creature roared, angry and snarling before it arced into the air, coming down with a crash just before Toushiro rolled to the side.
The youth got to his feet, panting with the rush of adrenaline. Guan's apparition was on him in an instant, delivering a savage kick that smashed into the bridge of Toushiro's nose, breaking it with a spurt of red blood as the Kiri ninja was sent down the road in a heap of limbs.
His trip ended with him landing on his back, staring up at a too gray sky before he saw the Greatsword descending on him again.
He moved, rolling and twisting his body to avoid the repeated attempts at ending his life. He lashed out with one of his axes when the opportunity presented itself. His father's specter pulled away, dodging with ease but giving Toushiro enough time to get to his feet, his twin axes burning with fire.
He swung the weapons, bursts of red flame surging forward in a rapid volley of attacks as the creature's sword came to its defense, blocking every attack with its broad face.
Toushiro rushed the specter, his axes flashing as he struck again and again hoping to gain some ground.
But the sword was there every time, blocking every blow with far too casual ease. Strike after strike was halted in its tracks, a worthless waste of energy as the creature just stood there, stoically indifferent to his efforts.
Then, with a parry, one of his axes flew out of his hands, with a counter riposte, the sword had cut into his shoulder, leaving it useless as he screamed from the pain, pulling away.
Toushiro pulled back...one ax held up in a feeble defense as he kept backing away, watching the specter coming closer and closer, ready to end this fight.
Somewhere, lost in the cacophony of battle, to the thousands of screaming, dying souls, Yue Ying lay on Suna's streets.
Her cheek was pressed against the warm sands, forehead marred with sweat as her eyes drooped a little bit more.
So many had died...so many more kept dying as long as she was awake, as long as her world continued to twist their minds and lure them to their deaths, keeping them unaware of certain dangers and making them see others where none existed.
She was so tired...
The boy...he would never win. He was fighting ghosts of his own memory. They were as strong as he wished them to be. As he believed them to be. His father, to him...was invincible.
Such foolishness really.
Cruel of her to take advantage of such. But that was the way of the ninja. To take advantage of people's vulnerabilities, of their naivete
Even if she did envy it a little.
She was so tired...
Her world flickered in the minds of those held enthralled.
Is this enough husband?
Her eyes closed, she just had to rest.
Can I?
Just for a moment...she was...just so tired.
His father came closer, his sword held in a firm grip.
Toushiro kept backing away, hoping to find some way to win...some way to overcome.
But it was too late, with a burst of speed his father closed the distance, his sword smacking the last axe out of his son's hand with laughable ease before the sword came around again to cleave his head off.
Toushiro gasped, seeing his death rapidly approaching before it all vanished in an instant.
He was back in the village, the ghostly specters and silent streets dissapearing to be replaced by the sounds of war, and bodies...bodies lay strewn everywhere.
He looked at them, noticing their headbands, their sigils.
Kiri...all from Kiri.
He glanced around taking to one of the rooftops to get a better view.
He saw too few people moving, too many dead. Ripped into by kunai, fires still smoking from explosive notes, viscious lacerations by shrapnel. Few looked like they'd been killed in a fight...but more looked like they had simply marched into the teeth of traps.
Manda, like some great sea serpent burst out of the earth in the distance, arcing through the air with a hiss. Its purple scales gleaming in the bright Suna sun before it descended in a nose dive, hissing as it crashed at the base of Kazekage monument.
He tensed his legs, ready to keep moving, to join the fight wherever it might have moved.
But he found her...at the very corner of his eye. He wasn't sure how he recognized her so easily, or from so far away but the instant his eyes swept over that area, he knew that was her.
He made his way over, eyes fixed on where she was laying.
She didn't move, and he wasn't sure if she was dead. She was laying on her side, dark hair spread out in a curtain behind her, her white clothes unblemished by blood.
As he stepped close passing by the bodies of his fellow Kiri ninja he could swear there was a small smile on her face.
He should have seen satisfaction in that expression.
He saw peace instead.
Sakura was getting tired. He knew she was getting tired...he would have been getting tired.
Not many people could damn near carry him as far as she had.
The seething mass of people that ran through the hallways, most, civilians in a wild panick weren't helping. They kept bumping into her, making her stumble, throwing her off.
Finally, one brushed passed her too hard, and with an angry shout she stumbled to the side. His body struck the wall first. He rolled a bit on the wall until both their backs were against the, now bloodied surface.
She let him slide down its surface, coming around to kneel infront of him.
Her hands were glowing with green chakra, and the throbbing pain in his side was beginning to settle as a dull ache.
He grimaced, watching the people running this way and that way, at her face scrunched up in concentration.
"Where are we?"
"Fallback point Seven." She answered tersely.
Chouji stiffened. "Seven...already?" She nodded, her face grim as she focussed. But she was a pupeteer, not a medic, and the way this was taxing on both her mind and her chakra coils was telling.
A pair of booted feet stopped mid run beside them, and Chouji trailed his eyes up towards the blood soaked figure of Baki.
"Akimichi! Haruno!" He barked out, more shocked than anything else. "Glad to see you're both still alive!"
There was a rumble, the ground beneath them actually shook and the panicked screams of civilians echoed through the halls
Baki turned his eyes back down to them, noting the wound in Chouji's side that was quickly healing under Sakura's ministrations.
"The second you're fit again Akimichi get back to the front, we need to cover the civilians!"
Fallback point seven, the last fallback point. It was a shelter housed directly beneath the mountain.
One massive door, a foot thick of solid, chakra resistant steel at the heart of the facility housed a storage closet.
Which was currently being used to house enough explosive tags to blow the entire mountain to pieces.
Then the other door, the real one, was nothing more than an illusion. A wall that housed the entrance to the caves. Complex, and very powerful, it would be days, if not longer before any Konoha ninja discovered the entrance and even then it would take them weeks to dispel the illusion by brute force means.
The longer they held them off...the more people would escape safely. The moment any Suna ninja activated the seals in this place the doors would be wrapped in a genjutsu, no civilian would be able to find it, and only Suna's top jounin and Anbu knew how to break it without merely brute force dispelling techniques.
Baki walked away after that, leaving them in the hallway as he pushed through the throng of people making their way through.
LOOK OUT!
It was the only warning any of them had before the entire world collapsed around them!
"Not one more step. NOT ONE MORE!" Kankuro shouted. His kunai's were done with, his Senbon as well, a handful of Shuriken remained to him by what he could recall; and a hundred more still came at him.
The servo motors of his suit whined, the heat from the sun and the crush of humanity all around him was suffocating within the confines of the armor, his mouth was dry, his skin was strangely cold, his vision blurred with the smoke and he gagged on the stink of blood and still he fought on.
"Not one more step!"
A plume of searing fire emerged from a nozzle under his left wrist, adding the stink of burning flesh onto the chaos of battle and the screams of men as their skin was melted away like hot wax.
Then, his arm was lurched away, liquid flames streaming up like water from a hose, splattering everywhere and falling over them for half a moment like rain before he shut it off.
He pulled, feeling resistance that was more surprising than dismaying before he himself actually felt a blow against the ribbing of his suit, the blow coming so unexpected he felt some air leave his body before he forced the suits arm forward with greater strength, tipping and throwing his opponent in front of him.
The sight of those green clothes made him grit his teeth in annoyance.
He pointed the nozzle again, activating it with a stream of hellfire pouring from beneath his wrist.
Gai swerved out of the way, And Kankuro's clumsy, armored feet could not turn him nearly fast enough to keep up as he poured fire all around him.
Gai's fists again found their mark, pounding away at steel ribbed, chakra reinforced wood.
Striking the exact same spot as before, the ribbing under his left arm.
Kankuro cursed as his body began to feel once again, every hit. The armor was caving with every blow.
He struck out and Gai once again expertly ducked before hitting again, this time with a full kick.
The crack of wood felt like a thunderclap to Kankuro's ears and his heart pounded against his chest like a drumbeat as he felt panic send a lance of fear through his body
He needed to get this bastard off of him!
Seals glowed along his suit, and Gai backed away in all haste before volts of bright lightning shot out from the armor like a coruscating, expanding bubble, the foolish and the unwary were caught in its web, feeling a thousand needles piercing their flesh as their muscles spasmodically twitched and seized their hearts beating too fast in their chests before their bodies gave out or their organs were burned within their flesh.
Gai looked towards Kurenai. "Now!"
The red eyed brunette nodded, forming her handseals before she stretched her mind forward towards the breach.
She saw it like a black spot in the false flesh, a place where she could move through, her chakra wandered through the opening and immediately sought out the consciousness within.
She knew something went wrong the moment she passed through.
The electricity vanished from the suit, and within it Kankuro could feel himself breathing heavy, sweat running slick down his face.
He felt something tugging at his mind, a foreign presence. Genjutsu. He knew.
This suit was his body now. The wood his skin, the steel his bones, the servo motors his joints, the sensors his nerves. He was only one piece of the greater whole.
He turned to face the source.
She was good. But she was not a pupeteer. And as such, she could not emulate the sensations he experienced every second within this suit in her illusion. She realized her error too late.
Kankuro raised the nozzle again and moved to activate flame that would strip the flesh off her bones.
Kurenai went to move, but it would already be too late, some of it would hit her at this range.
Then, a green fist was striking at the wooden wrist, punching the massive limb aside before Gai found himself in a crushing hug.
The arms of Suna's puppet master were clenching him tightly against the upper body of the thing.
Gai gasped, and that was all the air he had left in his lungs. His arms pushed at the ones holding him before he instead pounded against the armor's helmeted face.
He heard Kurenai cry out his name behind him, and heard the booming voice of his enemy shake through his chest.
"Die! Die damn you!"
His bloody knuckles pounded against the visor, and dark cracks formed deeper gouges with every hit.
He tried to focus, tried to summon the will to open at least one, or two of the gates. But the pain was blinding, with every hit the puppet master coiled his arms around tighter, and with every second his lungs burned with lack of air, his throat itched with dryness and his mind grew hazy and grey.
His movements slowed, and then Gai felt the most excruciating pain of his life. His world narrowed and dimmed, the edges of his eyes growing red with the pain as he tried to suck in just one breath of air.
Then, the limbs went slack, and the last thing Gai felt before darkness claimed him was the feeling of his head hitting the blood drenched sand of Sunagakure.
Kankuro staggered away, the muscles of his false body moving to his will as they reached for a wound that wasn't there.
It took him longer to move his real arms to the blade that stuck out of his ribs.
The light of the Suna sun filtered through the opening it had gone through. The opening Konoha's green beast had made.
It's funny...I don't even feel it...
He looked through the armor's visor, to Gai, where the Illusionist was, even now, trying to drag her friend back as she kept a wary eye on him.
Looks like...neither of us leaves this place.
Then something smashed into his side, a heavy blast of hellish fire that exploded between the suits shoulder and head. The arms raised in defense as more jutsu pounded against the armors' weakened frame.
Their blows rained heavy now, one after the other, pounding and pounding and pounding and pounding.
He fell, impossibly heavy knees squelching into blood mulched sand.
The armor cracks, and light streams into his eyes. More and more as the gap widens after each blow. Brighter and brighter.
He looked through the visor with darkening eyes, searching, seeking.
Not one...Not one Suna ninja.
Was there no one left? Was he the last?
Where did they all go?
The right arm of his suit was blown apart at the elbow, falling limply onto what remained of his body, leaving only the left to act as a feeble shield against the fusillade.
His searching eyes fell then, onto the woman. She shouted for a medic, cradling the unconscious Gai as she shouted over the din of battle.
His left hand abandoned its place infront of him, reaching out towards her.
He opened his mouth to speak but it was only a dry rasp that left his lips.
He wanted to speak...why couldn't he speak?
'My brother...please...take...me-not here-'
Gaara.'
But all he saw on her face was grim satisfaction before all consuming flame.
He pushed the rubble off of them, coughing on dust clogged air as he pushed himself up from the ground, freeing both of them from the remains of the ceiling that had fallen over their heads.
He looked around, sunlight filtered in from the outside the cracked walls, and though the entire building looked as though it was ready to collapse, the worst of the damage was to their right, at the main entrance.
Most of the building itself from what he could see was...gone, and a massive sinkhole was left in its wake.
He could only see the vague edges of it...but it was enough to tell him with certainty that there was not gonna be a defense to hold out much longer...if at all.
He looked down to Sakura, sporting a fresh layer of blood trailing down from her head somewhere. Wincing in pain, he reached down and helped her up. "Come on, we've got to move, the civilian escape tunnel needs to be sealed before-"
Like a raging wind of screaming faces and steel edges the Konoha ninja pounced on them, roaring in anger and hatred, they poured into the crumbling hallways like a black tide. Civilians and injured ninja were cut down like wheat before a scythe, what few defenders remained rushed with a frenzy to meet them as more civilians fled in a blind panic.
Chouji shot to his feet, his features angry as he shouted and charged into the breach, bellowing out a war cry that thundered up from his chest as his powerful fist, struck the first ninja that got within reach with bone crushing force.
With an unrolled scroll and two cat like puppets Sakura joined the attack herself.
It was a bloodbath from there on out.
The Suna ninja fought as a collective. With the frenzied desperation of an animal in its last burst of energy while the leaf forces poured more and more exhausted men into this slaughterhouse.
The fighting was desperate, frenzied, wild, insane, mad, primal. Barbaric. A hundred more descriptions could be placed on it.
Chouji brought his arm up to block a surprisingly hard kick. His reflexes kicked in, bringing his arms up with preternatural speed to block the sudden rain of incoming blows.
His opponent was wearing white, a long braid of black hair hanging from the nape of his neck.
A hail of senbon forced the Konoha ninja to pull back, giving Chouji some breathing room as Sakura's puppets closed in to help.
The Taijutsu user took a stance, trying to keep Chouji, Sakura and her puppets infront of him, backing away as much as he could.
"Lee!"
Sakura moved, pushing herself against a wall as kunai and shuriken. She and Chouji peered into the bright light that filtered in from the massive hole, just in time to see a young woman flip down from the crumbling ceiling. Dressed in chinese clothes she was just as distinctive as the Taijutsu user with her hair wrapped up in two tight buns. Only a few loose strands to show a full day's worth of fighting.
With a puff of smoke two longswords were in her hands, taking a stance she stared Sakura down.
Lee needed no further encouragement, and with a burst of speed he rushed the Akimichi while Tenten attacked Sakura and her puppets head on.
Her ears are ringing, she cant see...everything is so white too much...too much.
She moves to stand but feels a weight at her back. She turns...she has to turn to look...
"Aburame-san?"
He lay across her, unmoving, the glasses gone from his face. She pushed herself to a sitting position, her hands pushing him away as gently as she could.
"Abura-" She stopped, feeling the sticky blood coating her fingers as she brushed her hands across his back.
She leans over him to see.
His back was almost completely burnt. Burnt, blackened muscle and seared flesh.
He was dead.
Shielding her...
She doesn't say thanks. Maybe she should...
She stands up, stumbles as one leg nearly gives out beneath her and finally sweeps her eyes across the city.
Every house, every building destroyed all around her. Even the wall to the south has crumbled, completely missing now. She can see more homes collapsing into the pit
Her eyes glance to the floor, passing over Shino, she finds Yoshihiro. He's face down, his armor shattered at the shoulders, cracked across the breastplate, falling apart at the waist and legs.
He's not moving either.
"You're alive?"
She whips back around, and sees him standing there, surprised but pleasantly so it seems. His smile gets a little wider with every passing second.
He chuckles. "You did get down pretty damn quick...Probably what saved you." He looks to Shino's corpse. Smiles a little more. "Heh...maybe he helped too."
She pushes chakra to her eyes, and feels the pain of an aching muscle, throb through her eyes and face.
She must have winced because he speaks "Ahh. Not fun seeing so much chakra with those eyes of yours eh?" He swings Samaheda through the air lazy and aloof. "Samaheda eats chakra. But it can also give it back out. The amount of Chakra it had in it would have probably killed me six times over if I'd tried to fuel that attack myself."
She raises a hand to her face, and is shocked to feel blood trailing down from her pale orbs.
There's a crash behind Kisame and the fish man turns, watching as the Inuzuka pulls himself out of the rubble of some blown down building.
Hanabi knew she must have looked good by comparison. His prosthetic had already been broken, but one leg was visibly shaking with his weight, a horrid cut bled profusely from his forehead and a bruise marred whatever the blood didn't obscure. His clothes were torn and the rips only revealed more bruises while his real arm was covered in a blackened burn from elbow to fingertips.
"Good..things were gonna get slow with just her to keep me company." She heard Kisame say.
The last conscious Suna ninja snarled...growling through his bloody teeth. He aimed to take a step forward before he collapsed, his strength failing him even as he snarled. "You killed Ino-"
"Any other obvious points you wanna make?" He chuckled...swiveling his head around to look at the Suna nin.
She pounced.
She was fast, quiet, every instinct and training coming to the forefront of her mind as she visualized her attack.
Then he just turned around and smacked her.
His entire body pivoted, whipping up his limp, broken arm with a sickening crunch before she felt the back of that hand smack her across the face.
She reeled. Her entire momentum was thrown aside. With a single hand she caught herself, doing a cartwheel to avoid Kisame's massive downward swing with Samaheda.
The sword struck the road, digging itself in there and Hanabi rushed at him again, springing with her feet, hoping to capitalize on the time he would need to pull that sword back up.
But Kisame was no imbecile. He let the sword go, one foot coming up to place itself on the grip to prevent the thing from falling as he grabbed at her wrist with his now free hand, hoping to snap it.
But Kisame still had only one arm and to Hanabi's slight advantage, mass.
He twisted her arm, and instead of curling her body while attempting to keep her footing the young Hyuuga matriarch kicked off the floor, allowing her entire body weight to be supported solely by Kisame's powerful arm.
Now, nearly hanging upside down, she jabbed her foot beneath the Monster's armpit, a burst of chakra from the ball of her foot shooting through his body.
It should have caused excruciating pain. Kisame merely grunted.
She jabbed her free hand into his waist, to the side of his knee, one point along his inner thigh, and finally, into his wrist.
Any man would have collapsed. Kisame let her go, allowing her to fall, before kicking at her with all his strength.
She curled her body to avoid the blow, reinforced her flesh, and her bones against the impact.
The pain was still excruciating.
Her entire side was raw and throbbed with songs of agony.
She didn't even have the mind to roll with her fall. The top of her head actually scrapped across the floor before she tumbled and rolled, kicking up sand, and debris as she slid to a stop.
She may have actually blacked out. She wasn't really sure. All she was sure about was that when she found the strength to pick herself up almost every fiber of her body screamed out some kind of protest. Pins and needles, knives and nails, everything seemed to be against her as she slowly began to push herself onto her feet again.
She realized again that her Byakugan was deactivated. She opened her eyes and looked up towards the other end of the road.
He was still standing there, whipping his hand as though to get some feeling back into it before grabbing at the sword that was now leaning against him rather than held up by his foot.
"Heh." He laughed through sharp, bloody teeth. "Damn girl. You sure are made of tougher stuff than I gave you credit for."
Hanabi felt warmth trickle down her head, and this time, she wasn't really surprised to find the blood there when she wiped at it. Her sight swam and the edges of her eyes darkened.
"Byakugan..." She coughed out, the veins around her eyes bulging again.
His smile was positively gleeful now, like a child that just realized the gift he'd always wanted was now in front of him. "You wanna go again? Ohh this is rich!"
"You..." She coughed, hacking and wheezing. "You...can't move."
His smile faltered.
"You can't move...I struck enough points along your body to stop you from moving your legs it should kick in about now.
He smiled again, this time somewhat bitterly she had no doubt he could feel that it was true...she could see it was. "I fall down at the first swing...you take the opening and finish the job? You're good girl. Might be you'da been born thirty years ago you would have been somethin' real special."
She didn't answer, merely took her stance.
'I am the edge of the sword'
She rushed forward. Kisame's hand tightened around the grip of Samaheda.
The distance was closed in the span of an eye blink. Hanabi wasn't sure if she was moving faster than ever, or her mind was playing tricks on her.
But before the last few feet could be eliminated Kisame's smile returned full force, at his feet, directly between them, Hanabi saw a sudden, massive buildup of water beneath the surface. Only her Byakuugan warned her fast enough.
Even so...she wasn't going to have time to dodge.
She saw her death in the next instant as the water surged up like a geyser, her bones would snap under the force of the impact, her organs would hemorrhage under the pressure. She was going to die and every step brought her closer to it, too late to stop, too late to do anything!"
"Tsuuga!"
Kisame's head whipped back around, wide eyed, his sword swung out back behind him in the next instant.
It was a moment, a second, barely even there in hesitation, in lack of focus.
She took it!
With a single step, she vaulted to the side as the water erupted from the earth, her hand glowed bright white with her chakra as she saw the Inuzuka's attack meet Kisame's deflecting blade before being bashed aside by the powerful sword and Kisame's raw, freakish strength, even with his lack of leverage due to his feet remaining firmly planted in the ground.
He turned his head to face her, and this time, his surprise was clear, he was open.
Her hand struck.
For a moment all was still before the inhumanly strong ninja pitched forward, coughing up so much blood Hanabi was certain his heart must have completely ruptured, the blood spilled over her, falling onto her hair, her clothes.
The sword fell from his grip.
And her throat fell into it.
Her eyes went wide, wild and truly afraid now for the first time in a long time.
This wasn't possible!
He was dead!
Dead!
His heart was torn open!
He was dead!
She heard his laugh, a raspy, wheezing thing that would forever haunt her nightmares from this moment until the moment she died!
"Heh...heh...Its funny." He rasped, and blood specked across her face as she turned her eyes up to his clouded orbs. "Kinda fitting now that I think about it... to be killed by you."
She swallowed, feeling his hand wrapped around her throat all the more because of the movement. "What...what do you mean?"
He smiled, all bloodied gums and pinkish teeth. "You woulda been born thirty years ago...you woulda been something special girl." His hand pulled itself away from her throat, rising slowly. Somewhere in her mind she realized she could pull away now, get out of his reach, get safe...but she was held fast...by fear...by him...whatever it was she could no more move her feet than a man could survive without air...
His hand fell heavily on her head...patting it.
"You woulda been something just...like...me."
He laughed one more time.
Then he closed his eyes and fell to the ground.
They found themselves in the familiar position of stumbling through the narrow hallway. With him leaning on her again to keep walking.
Somewhere, distantly, they could hear the shouts of the battle still raging behind them.
"Come on." Sakura urged. "Its just a little farther Chouji."
He didn't answer, just sucked in whatever air he could in his heavy breaths.
His side was bleeding profusely now, torn open in the struggle, more damage than before.
That Lee guy hit hard!
"Turn left here." He said, guiding her where he remembered.
They turned, rounded corners and stumbled through passageways, a literal maze leading them round and round in circles until they finally found the dead end of a hallway.
Sakura placed her blood soaked hand at its surface, scrunching her forehead up in thought for a second. "Damnit...how did...".
Chouji looked down the hallway, where the sounds could still be heard. Only now...there was less sounds of fighting. He could only hear the sound of men being killed.
People would think screaming was screaming...but after a while one could tell the difference.
He stepped out of her hold. "Don't worry. Shikamaru taught me...keep an eye out."
She nodded, giving up her frustrated efforts as Chouji formed his hand seals, she turned around and drew a kunai, letting her eyes linger down the long hallway.
It took him almost a full minute. The illusion was one of the most complex Suna had at its disposal. As much Gen-jutsu as it was Nin-Jutsu.
When he was done, the illusion was dispelled, revealing the wide entrance to the tunnels.
"Sakura." He called, looking over his shoulder watching her turn and look at the opening with a nod.
Then he saw them.
The Taijutsu master, and the bun haired girl.
Chouji didn't think, didn't have to. He grabbed Sakura's wrist and, damn near threw her into the mouth of the cave.
She stumbled and fell, "Chouji!"
He smiled, his big face crinkling up with that familiar happiness of his. "Sorry Sakura-chan! I don't know how to reform the illusion from the other side." His eyes grew sad. "This was never an escape for both of us."
Her eyes went wide and she screamed when his hand came up in a seal.
She moved to get to him, only to find the wall between them.
Her hands smacked into its surface, touching it as though it was real. As though it was real wood beneath her fingers, real plaster. "Chouji!" She shouted as her fists curled, and began to pound against its surface, screaming in desperate anger.
Chouji smiled. 'Sorry I had to lie Sakura...'
He couldn't hear her. The illusion was too strong. Too many seals painted into the area around them. Everything in his mind told him this wall was real and there was nothing beyond it. But he knew she was screaming at him right now.
'You'll forgive me wont you?'
He turned around and saw Lee and that bun haired girl marching down to face him.
The girl threw a kunai, it wasn't aimed at him, it struck the wall at his back with a clink before the knife fell to the ground.
"Strong illusion." He heard her comment to Lee. "Doesn't let our mind simply percieve it as 'not there' but not even weapons can just slip through it.
"We can deal with it later yes?" Lee answered.
Chouji reached into his pocket, grasping at one of the few family pills he still had left. They'd never been able to make more after they fled Konoha. Too many things lost, and not nearly enough herbs in Suna.
Last one...lets make it count.
He popped the pill in his mouth.
"Suiton: Suiro no Jutsu!"
The technique enveloped him in an instant, a massive blue bubble of rippling water that made every part of his body feel as heavy as lead.
Chakra surged through him pushing at the invisible bonds, overpowering the technique.
Akina spun her spear in her hand, swiveling her grip with two spins to make it go from the middle to the neck, of the spear pressing the weapons tip against the swirling water prison. "Raiton: Jibashi!"
The voltage that ran through Naruto's body sent every nerve to screaming, he tightened his muscles, forcing himself through sheer will to not loose his focus and control of his limbs entirely, pushing more of his Chakra into the water around him.
Akina pulled her hand free of the prison, the lightning enclosing in an instant to keep the delicate bubble intact with the lack of her direct contact.
With a push of her Chakra, the massive projectile went soaring into the air as she formed more handseals. "Raishu Hachiri no jutsu!"
Three hounds of electricity shot out of her hand, rushing through the skies as the water ball rose higher and higher, three arcs of wildly crackling electricity connecting her to them as they separated and rushed at the Devil king from three sides.
They crashed with the sound of thunder, so violent and so loud, her ribs were shaking in her chest, she felt her ears ringing, the earth lurch beneath her feet as the skies lit up with a second sun, the black clouds of smoke fleeing from the scene of the blast.
She was so focused on the sky, she almost didn't pay attention to the ground at her feet until it was too late.
She swerved, fast enough to avoid her head being cut off her shoulders, not fast enough to avoid the cut that sliced open her skin from her left ear to the bridge of her nose.
She cursed, her free hand flying towards her face as she pressed her palm against the injury.
Whatever pain she was in was quickly forgotten as Naruto pressed his attack, rushing forward, she grabbed the spear by the counter weight, thrusting it forward to his face.
Naruto fell to his knees, sliding across the dirt as he leaned his body back, the spear tip passing harmlessly overhead as he swung his drawn sword at her feet.
Akina thrust the spear down, its point cleaving into the dirt as she used chakra to jump, the spear acting as a pole-vault. She landed behind her brother, pulling the weapon free as he got to his feet.
"Suiton-"
"Fuuton-"
The water swirled before her, a whirlpool churning in the air between them before the wind smashed into it with the force of an enraged Akimichi.
The water vanished, and she appeared, eyes rimmed with red, she didn't even move when the air pressure hit her, breaking over her body like the tide on the stone.
Her spear was once more, strapped to her back, hands were shaking, one gripping fire, the other electricity and Naruto remembered where he'd seen her use this before.
He threw his sword to the ground, tip digging into the hard packed sandstone as he placed his other hand over the Rasengan, Chakra swirling around it in a cyclone of howling, cutting wind chakra.
She rushed forward, the pulsing ball of white hot energy in her hand, burning her skin down to the bone, faster than the Kyuubi could heal it as Naruto gripped his sword again with his free hand and met her charge with his own.
The explosion knocked him off his feet, throwing him to the ground as though it'd been him, not the eastern gate, that Manda had slammed into.
He began to rise, slowly beginning to reach his feet as he watched his sister doing the same across from him.
His still blue eyes fixed themselves onto her glowing red ones through the haze of kicked up sand and dirt.
'You've grown sister.'
Then a teeth rattling crack! Naruto felt the ground lurch beneath him, the entire world tipping onto his side, he fell and rolled once, twice, three times, catching himself with chakra on the fourth as he noticed that the chunk of the Kazekage monument they'd been standing on was falling down to the village below.
He ran up, seeking to leap onto the still stable mountaintop.
In contrast he saw her running down, rushing to the collapsing edge.
It took him a minute to realize why; his eyes swiveled to the still unconscious Kazekage just as the red head tipped over the edge.
And Akina jumped right after him, red wisps of chakra spilling from her skin as she called more of the demonic energy to her.
Her knuckles throbbed, her hands hurting.
It wasn't real. It wasn't real! Her hand's weren't bleeding, there was no goddamn damage to her fists. This wall didn't exist! Her fists only hurt because she thought that they should!
She sobbed and screamed, pounding away with tears trailing down her eyes!
"Chouji!"
The aches of his muscles vanished, his waning chakra reserves were replenished. With a shout, he charged.
Lee met his charge head on, lashing out with a kick that met Chouji's chest dead center and was about as much of a deterrent as a spitball would have been.
The Akimichi grabbed him by the shoulders, roaring as he smashed the Taijutsu master into one wall, and then slamming him into the other.
He raised his arm at the last moment, the edges of the girls' swords scraping along the armor of his forearm with a screech of metal across metal before he swung at her.
She backpedaled quickly, and Chouji turned his eyes back onto the Taijutsu user in time for Lee's fist to catch him on the cheek.
A vicious backhand smashed Lee against the wall, winded, the Taijutsu master ducked beneath Chouji's follow up, the Akimichi's massive fist punching straight through the wall like it was wet cardboard.
Lee moved in the narrow hallway, positioning himself to deliver a strong kick that connected with Chouji's broad back solidly. He was about to follow it up with a front kick to the ribs when Chouji yanked his arm free, punching at the Taijutsu master with his broad, meaty fist, sending Lee sprawling onto the floor.
He moved to capitalize on the opening when, with the slide of steel cutting through flesh Tenten's sword burst out of his chest, its tip coated in blood.
Chouji stumbled, groaning before he fell onto his knees, watching through clouded eyes as Lee stood up, feeling a distant pain when the girl pulled her weapon free.
He smiled at the wall that was there, but not there.
'You'll forgive me won't you?'
And behind that wall, Sakura screamed and cried.
The wind whipped past her face as she shot down with the pull of gravity.
Gaara's Kazekage robe whipped at her hands and face before she pulled him against her, his limp body awkward in her grasp.
A shadow was cast overhead and she turned, looking over her shoulder as Naruto descended above her, his form shooting down like an arrow as he held his arms to his side, diving head first.
She turned in mid air, reaching for her spear. As she thrust it forward, lightning again crackling through the shaft and blade, a blade of pure light emerged, surrounding the hilt and lengthening the weapons offensive edge and tip nearly fifteen feet.
She swung, and Naruto's wind coated sword came to his defense, the force of the swing sending him veering off to the side.
Thus, leaving her completely open when a clone materialized just two feet above her, one arm holding the Kazekage, the other still gripping her outstretched weapon.
She screamed when the Rasengan hit her full on, drilling right at her sternum perfectly. Blood choked her off. Her essence bubbling up from her throat as her entire body convulsed and her insides were damn near ripped apart only to regenerate in a second and be torn apart again.
The clone dispelled as she shot down to the earth at triple the speed, the entire world blurring as her eyes darkened. The last thing she saw was the crumbling rocks of the mountain chasing after her.
When she woke, it was to the odd sight of sand, hanging over her like a canopy.
She groaned, more blood bubbling up from the back of her throat as she coughed and spat it out. Her hazed eyes found Gaara's equally pitiful looking form. The Yondaime Kazekage was visibly struggling to hold up the weight above them.
"Ga-" She was cut off as she hacked up more blood, rolling over and spitting it out. "You're awake."
"Barely." he answered, groaning as he momentarily seemed to buckle under the weight. "I can't hold this up for-"
The Kyuubi's bubbling, red chakra rose up to replace the sand, supporting the weight as Gaara finally allowed himself to collapse again
"He's winning." He said simply after a few breaths.
Akina nodded, clutching her chest in pain as she sat up. "Yea."
Then she pushed the rocks above them, finding the weight to be light all things considered, and with just one shove the light of day filtered down towards them from the surface.
She pulled herself up, reaching down and helping Gaara to stand, only to find the Godaime Hokage standing just twenty feet away, one sword still in its sheathe, the other at his side, his cloak whipped up in a fierce wind rushing in from the desert to the scorching fires in the village, fueling them further.
She pulled herself free completely, Gaara still struggling in the hole, exhausted and still recovering, he would be no help to her here, not for a while at least. So staying next to him would only put him in danger.
When she walked closer, the Kyuubi's Chakra covered her like a shroud, the pain of the Rasengan was still there, but it was fading, no longer crippling.
"You're still alive." He said, he didn't sound very surprised.
She noticed something then.
His eyes were still blue.
And he was panting.
"You're holding back." She said as the realization slapped her across the face.
"Am I?" He sounded amused, as though he were merely indulging a fool's suspicion. But, it may as well have been a confession to her ears.
"You haven't used the Kyuubi's Chakra once. You never hesitated before, your wounds aren't healing as quickly. You're getting tired. Why aren't you going all out?" A sliver of hope crept back into her heart as she asked. A faint glimmer of a thing that was barely worthy of being called something real.
He seemed to take a breath, as if getting ready to deliver some kind of answer, any kind of answer, when she suddenly saw his body tense, and felt the wisp of disturbed air brushing across her back.
"Move!"
His warning came too late, and the pain too soon; white hot, it burned up her spine with such ferocity she screamed, feeling her throat tearing all over again at the shrilled agony it was pouring out, before something smashed into her.
As the world blurred, the Kyuubi Chakra dissipating around her body, she barely heard her brother shouting her name before everything went dark.
Naruto stood on the street, eying the rubble that was now the house his sister had just been pushed into, wood and masonry collapsing on top of her.
"Because he can't-" The man said and Naruto redirected his attention's onto his sister's attacker.
The former leader, of Akatsuki.
Pein.
Fierce blue met unerring Rinnegan, the multi-rimmed eyes of a man who fashioned himself a God glaring at Konoha's Devil King.
"-can you?"
Hanabi stood before Kisame's unmoving corpse, her eyes remaining glued onto his smiling face, dazed...frightened.
She jumped when a hand fell onto her shoulder, making her turn to face them.