-following day
Choji volunteered to host everyone again, this time he is, somewhat surprisingly, serving something other than meat, cake. I take a look around, to see what everyone's doing.
Hidesho is ragebaiting Kiba, and judging by the latter's increasingly loud voice is doing so successfully. Sakura and Ino are catching up. Shino is feeding his bugs minced chicken. Tenten and Wakemi are next to Shino, playing rock paper scissors mixed with ocular genjutsu. The only reasons I know they're using ocular genjutsu is that they're both looking into each other's eyes and that Shino is apparently the scorekeeper. Choji is off preparing the cake, no one is with him since it's apparently supposed to be a surprise. Shikamaru is doing his usual narcoleptic routine. Hinata and I are playing Go while talking to Naruto, who took one look at the board after I invited him to play before shaking his head in denial.
I place a piece. "How've things been Naruto? Hope your pansy ass has been keeping up with his training."
He enthusiastically nods, giving me a grin afterwards. "I've been training ever since the war with Kumo had started, I could take your scrawny ass anytime and anywhere!"
I snort. "I'm up to test that anytime you want, but you're the one dealing with Tsunade afterwards."
His smile stills. "I guess we can put that on hold for some time then."
Hinata shakes her head whilst placing a piece. "Boys. If you are not causing diplomatic incidents you must be completely unsatisfied."
I place a piece. "Not my fault that this idiot can't understand that the three of us have more chakra than him."
Naruto points his finger at me. "What?! No way your flowery ass you do! I've got more chakra than everyone in the village combined!"
I flick his finger away. Ragebaiting him is pretty fun. "Do you not understand the definition of infinity? We have an infinite amount of chakra. As in we can never run out."
Before Naruto can form a retort, Choji enters the backyard with a three meter tall cake with yellow icing. Whilst everyone is stunned by the gigantic cake I successfully take initiative to be the first in line. It's once Choji places the piece of cake on my plate that I realise that we've been fooled.
It's a steak cake. The yellow icing is actually butter. The madlad made a three meter tall cake out of fucking steak. I take two more plates, one for Hinata and one for Sakura, before leaving towards the table that those two moved to.
Sakura gives me some interesting news once I sit down. She gives me a mischievous smile. "Ino likes Naruto. Do the two of you want to help me to get them together?".
Both Hinata and I smile and nod. Plan Narino is in action.
-next day
Plan Narino did not succeed. Naruto's a true japanese protagonist, denser than a rock. After telling that to Sakura, she and Hinata had both given me the most deadpan look I remember getting from them.
Right now we're preparing to leave for Sakuragakure. Thankfully the journey will take much less on account of us being untiring immortal zombie chakra constructs.
During preparations I decide that there's something I need to tell them. We need to revive ourselves. We are indeed ridiculously strong as edo tensei, but we can't grow any stronger. Madara would still toy with us as if we were chewtoys regardless of us being edo tensei. Can't tell them now however, I'll wait until we arrive in Sakuragakure before telling them, since we don't know who might be listening here.
—
As soon as we arrive in the palace I give both Sakura and Hinata the news. "We're not strong enough for the likes of Madara, not by far. We still need sage mode to even have a chance at that fucker, with nothing planned that can guarantee victory. We need to revive ourselves and get back to training"
Sakura crosses her arms, frowning. "You're right. With the infinite tsukuyomi plan busted he is the most likely person to be behind the murder suicides. This is probably his plan B, gather enough chakra to gain powers equivalent to those granted by the ten tails."
Hinata nods. "I agree with everything said until now, but we should wait until Anko arrives before reviving ourselves. If we study her cursed seal we may be able to devise a way to either become sages or to use nature chakra. We should also aim to capture as many of the tailed beasts, both to hinder black Zetsu and to empower ourselves."
I shrug. "Regarding Anko, I'm gonna ask her for the snake summoning contract in exchange for getting her rid of her lovebite, that's one way we can try to get sage mode. Wait a second, I just remembered. Weren't we supposed to get those prisoners from Iwa like, two days ago?"
Hinata shrugs. "They were supposed to have delivered them by now. Let's give them a few more days. They did come through with their sealing scroll."
I scoff. "Of course they did, that thing only had jutsu for their specific bloodline limits. It's not like we can even reverse engineer them or something, the contents of that scroll are literally useless for us. No wonder Kurotsuchi agreed to give it to us so easily."
Sakura shakes her head. "I agree with Hinata. Lets just give them a couple more days before enquiring. Iwa has even more bloodlines than Konoba, most of them are variations of elemental releases. It's probably political pushback from the clans being forced to give up their members to serve as test subjects."
I sigh. "Fine, we'll wait two more days. I'll just give them a personal visit if they're late."
-next day
We have a surprise visitor today. Today's one of the rare days in which I actually spend any amount of time in the official office, having passed administration duties to a particularly pedant jonin.
While checking on some of the paperwork on the more sensitive details of our village Anko is brought into the office by Hirogi, who begins walking towards me. I give Anko a deadpan stare. "You were spying on us weren't you?".
Anko smiles and shrugs. "Pretty much. I was staying in a town nearby, since your girlfriend's pretty white eyes would instantly give me away."
Hirogi hands me a letter once she gets next to me, I take it. "I'll take you to Sakura so she can take a look at your cursed seal. If we manage to get rid of it I want the three of us to sign the snake contract. Deal?"
I give the letter a glance, it's apparently from Iwa, before opening and beginning to read it. Anko nods enthusiastically. "Kid, if you got rid of it for me I'd literally do anything for you. I'll probably put in a request to transfer here, regardless of the fact that I'd make myself a security risk. You sure that's all you want?"
I freeze once I finish reading the letter. Kurotsuchi was killed in a rebellion. I glance at Anko. "We'll have this conversation later. Hirogi, take Anko to Sakura. I've got some diplomacy to undertake."
—
I'm in Iwagakure, standing on the roof of the Tsuchikage tower. Their security is much laxer than it was the last time I was here. The village beneath me clearly shows the aftermath of either internal conflict or invasion. Thankfully I've already completed most of the requirements of my plan.
The first thing I did on arrival was grave rob Kurotsuchi's corpse, that girl was probably one of the most politically gifted people that I know, having forced all of the great villages to follow her plan, with some of them going through with it even against their will. Her only issue was inexperience, which would just go away with time.
After securing her corpse I had some shadow clones mingle through the village, picking up any rumors they could. From what they managed to gather it seems that the clans revolted against Kurotsuchi, unwilling to send their members to serve as slaves/test-subjects for an enemy village.
The last step in the plan was securing a sacrifice for Kurotsuchi's edo tensei. Kidnapping a shinobi that looked somewhat like her fulfilling this step pretty easily.
I revive Kurotsuchi, choosing to keep her at minimum control, like Kabuto had during canon. She panics before looking everywhere perplexed, her gaze settling on me at the end. look up at the sky. I activate my susanoo. Amaterasu fills the sky with black flames. Kagustuchi keeps the sword of damocles floating above Iwagakure.
All of the people, civilians and shinobi alike, that are in the village turn and stare at the giant black fireball floating above the very center of Iwagakure.
I make a hundred shadow clones before smiling at Kurotsuchi. "They'll help you defeat all of the rebels. Your village belongs to me now, as do you."
Kurotsuchi gives me a conflicted look, before she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and begins looking a whole lot more resolute. "Very well. I assume we will discuss the minutiae later?"
I smile. "Yep. You've got infinite chakra now, so feel free to go nuts. No go getem."
Her and the shadow clones then rush into the village below, ready to enact death and destruction on the rebels. The only S-Rank that they have is their jinchuriki, and the moment that guy starts fighting I'll just drop the black fireball on him.
It does not take long for the memories of the three shadow clones that fought him to reach me. As soon as they do I make another hundred shadow clones, sending them to hunt more of the rebels, before rushing towards the location of Han, their jinchuriki. The giant fireball I bring with me.
I find him covered in a three tailed chakra cloak, fighting evenly against ten shadow clones. He hasn't seen me yet, so I just drop the fireball on him. By the time he notices it it's too late. It engulfs him along with the entire city block, reducing everything it touches to nothingness. I take care to keep him alive, using kagutsuchi to stop the flames when he falls unconscious. By the time I decide to extinguish them the only things left in a radius of a hundred meters are my towering susanoo and the unconscious Han.
I pick him up and inject him with some anesthetics, that should keep him unconscious until we get to Sakuragakure.
Some of Iwa's shinobi try to attack me. Amaterasu removes their limbs, turning them into nuggets. Much more convenient for transportation.
It takes half a day for Kurotsuchi to pull out all of the weeds from her garden, but once the traitors are dead I have her follow me to Sakuragakure. Sakura, Hinata and I are gonna decide what to do with them together.