65

Chapter 64: Scorched Earth Policy

"You have to be kidding me." Tsunade said, standing up with her hands planted firmly on her desk. Her normal swiftly beating heart that she had whenever at work going over the needs of the village in these wartime conditions was now beating ten times as fast. The reason being that she had just been presented with some incredibly startling information in regards to the war effort. Close to the homefront actually, "An attack on the village? That's impossible! We've got scouts all over Hi no Kuni's countryside!"

They should have known full well, that if there was anything suspicious they'd have a messenger hawk back in their roost so quickly the enemy wouldn't know that they were compromised before they wound up paying the price.

But this came from the more… clandestine portion of the Konoha forces. The portion that Tsunade had plausible deniability about the activities of.

"I'm telling you what our operatives told me Hokage-sama." Sai said, bowing on one knee to Tsunade, "The prison. And there isn't a much more fortified location to make for enemy HQ within strike distance of Konoha. Just over a day's count by his time which gives us eighteen hours left given how long it took for him to get the news to me and for me to get it to you."

And then they'd be upon them, hordes of grey beings that seemed to be a hybrid of plant and man if the reports were to be believed. But Root ANBU weren't subject to delusional exaggerations, so if they were telling her that this was what they had to face, this was what they had to face.

Thank Kami for a home guard force.

The bulk of Konoha's strength was indeed out at war on multiple fronts, but that did not mean that they were simply standing defenseless back behind the gates of the village. Even so, it would be an uphill climb. More time would have been better for them to prepare.

"I wish there'd have been more warning." Tsunade groused, walking from behind her desk, heels of her sandals clicking on the floor, "But eighteen hours are better than three. Or none at all. Good work Sai."

"Yes Hokage-sama." Sai said, taking that as his cue to stand back up, "What are we going to do?"

The prisoners had been freed and allowed to run for it through the countryside, but only as a diversion. A diversion that Konoha would have taken the bait on once they learned of the escapes were it not for Root laying out the new scenario. They would have to take a risk and send out a squad or two of ANBU to feign a search and retrieve/destroy mission, but that could work out for them later behind enemy lines once the fighting began.

There were a few options available to them, but every action had a negative to it for every positive it would bring. They could move out a fighting force to meet them in open battle in the space of land between Konoha and the prison, but if they wound up beaten the retreat could turn into a rout and the village would subsequently fall.

They could try to directly attack the prison itself with their own element of surprise, but mobilizing what they had in-village into a strike force comprised mostly of genin and less upper-class ninjas, home on temporary leave, on such short notice was a recipe for disaster. Also, much like had already been touched upon, the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility might as well have been a fortress in of itself.

So that left the stalwart defense of the village. Only now, village defenses were souped up and better than any other time before in history when they had been threatened with invasion. Even with a depleted ninja population in the village, they had defenses, contingency plans, and then some, ready to deal with any number of intruders set to attack them.

For the possible destruction it would cause, defending the village itself was probably the best option for dealing with this. Buildings could be rebuilt. Civilians could and would be evacuated to safety regardless of whether the attack reached the walls or not. This was not the issue. The issue was of this whole mystery force. Where did they come from and how did they get so far into the country before being found?

Did it really matter at this point though?

"A man with a swirl-patterned mask covering his entire head walked into the prison as if he feared no reprisal." Sai reported with a furrowed brow, "I believe it's the same man that we bore witness to retrieving Sasuke Uchiha and Itachi Uchiha's bodies after the fight with Naruto-senpai due to how he appeared."

The Madara Uchiha person that Naruto's clone had warned her about back during his period of roving that followed his and Jiraiya's defeat in Amegakure.

"I don't like any of this." Tsunade said, "But I'll tell you what. How many of your Root are inside of the village?"

"Most of them. Over 2/3rds." He wasn't going to go into detail on just how many that happened to be in numbers because the entire point was for her to know things like this on a need-to-know basis, but it was a direct question nonetheless, "We send out squads for particular mission across the fronts."

Maki was already getting those of them there prepared for battle as it were. They were more prepared for what was going to happen than anyone else in the village at this point in time.

"Excellent." They wouldn't be able to call back whole divisions from as far away as they were fast enough in 18 hours to do anything other than arrive to see parts of the village still smoking in the aftermath, so Tsunade had to go with what they had, "We're going to need them for this. You're aware of the basic plans for village defense?"

"Yes ma'am." Of course they were. Someone very, very important to their de facto leader Naruto had been the one to completely revamp the whole system for the future, so if anything they'd been privy to the changes before any other entire organization in Konoha, "We know what to do."

XxX

(With Naruto – Hi no Kuni Countryside)

No need for sleep or rest of any sort. He'd gotten enough of that on the ship the rest of the way to the mainland. After the battle at sea with the remnants of Sasuke's old team, Naruto bid Kirabi farewell and left the poor Kumo crew to the fate of sailing back to Kaminari no Kuni with the rapping jinchuuriki.

Unfortunate bastards.

Either way, he had to get back to the village and get enough rest to prepare for his next mission. The frontlines probably awaited his return once more when he wound up being dispatched again, but on which battlefront?

In the northeast the stalemate had broken with the C.N.F. with Konoha and Kumo grinding that region up between the two of them steadily. In the northwest, the thick woods in Kusagakure-held territory made the battleground for Konoha to constantly drive back the enemy to the village itself. It was only a matter of time ever since Takigakure bowed out of the war 'inexplicably'.

The west was quiet, and with the blockade at sea dealt with, Kiri would probably be joining the fray within the next few weeks once word was sent that the ocean was now open for them to sail to the mainland once more.

Where would he be sent to next? He didn't know.

He just wanted to get back to the most peaceful place within his reach at the moment and return to Konoha. There was a lot that he had to report to Tsunade about, there was a lot he wanted to talk to others about. He wanted to inquire as to the well-being of his friends that were spread out all over the Elemental Nations at the moment.

His legs couldn't carry him home through the skies fast enough for his own tastes, even while utilizing Sage Mode and his Burst Limit jutsu for skywalking. He'd get home faster than a normal ninja that would have taken two days, but even splitting that time in half wasn't good enough.

It didn't matter. He'd be back behind those walls in a safe place before he knew it.

XxX

(Ta no Kuni – Hidden Otogakure Base)

A growl came from Kiba as they pursued Kabuto deeper into the tunnels of the Oto facility, "Where is that bastard running to?" He complained to his teammates as they continued on. Hinata's Byakugan and Kiba's and Akamaru's noses had them well informed that there were no traps there, so what was the deal?

"I think he's heading to the control room." Hinata chimed in, "He knows we've come for the people he's captured."

"Are they really that important that he didn't just leave?" Kiba asked another question, feeling his ire raise. Treating their comrades from Konoha like this was one thing, but he was only getting angrier and angrier after Kabuto had ran away like the slimeball that he was.

"Why retreat from one's own lair when he has the advantage of knowing his battlefield?" Shino answered in turn, possibly defending why Kabuto remained below ground instead of abandoning the base as many a high-ranking Otogakure ninja was known to do when they found their defenses breached.

But for someone that seemed so confident, Kabuto had no booby traps, or any underlings to try and trap or fight them. He'd even freely given them the chance to leave altogether.

"More guts than brains I see."

Team 8 stopped upon reaching an open chamber with very low lighting and a massive statue of a coiled serpent on one side of the room. Sitting right on top of its head was Kabuto who was no longer concealing his upper body with his cloak. His form was unsightly, covered in white scales, and the white snake that seemed to be a part of him was indeed that; extending from his navel as it coiled around his body somewhat. This much Hinata had already seen with Byakugan, but even so, it was still rather unnerving.

"I don't know what all of you think that you're going to do." Kabuto said casually, slowly standing up on the head of the snake statue, "Even with all three of you, even with flawless teamwork, you simply don't measure up. You have to know that."

"Know what?" Kiba bellowed at the eerie Kabuto Yakushi, "All you've done since we found you is dodge and then run like a coward!"

"I just didn't want to kill you in front of the audience of your peers in the prison block." Kabuto reasoned happily, "I wasn't aware that showing you the common courtesy of allowing you to save face amounted to cowardice."

Kiba was about to charge forth and try to attack when Shino prevented his teammate from doing so. Even though it was on the head of a statue, Kabuto had the high ground, and he wouldn't have gone up there if he wasn't entirely prepared to handle them from that position.

"As intelligent as ever." Kabuto said in regards to Shino preventing Kiba from launching an attack on him, "But not fighting isn't going to solve your problem. After all, aren't you here to rescue my captives? And how will you do that if you won't go any farther or confront me to release them?" Shino's response was to push his glasses up on his face before a second Shino descended from the dark ceiling on top of Kabuto, 'Hm, he created a clone to attack me with.'

Before the Shino from above could reach him, Kabuto sped across the entire room at breakneck speed from his perch directly at the trio of chunin that were caught flat-footed by the sudden approach. With one mighty lunge he seemed to pick his target in the slowest of the three in Shino, seemingly morphing into some snake/human hybrid with jaws wide open to snap into him.

Prior to reaching him however, Kabuto chose to take a straight nosedive into the ground where he seemed to merge with it, "Doton: Moguragakure no Jutsu (Earth Release: Hiding Like a Mole Jutsu)! Hehahahaha! Did you really think I'd fall for that? A triple feint sending a clone to attack while doing so in a manner to make me believe it was you? Not creative enough!"

Even with a substitution that was practically flawless.

"I don't know!" Kiba said merging with Akamaru in a gigantic two-headed wolf form, "Seems like it worked just fine to me! Garouga (Fang Wolf Fang)!" The combined Kiba and Akamaru savagely rotated loud enough for the sound of tearing wind to be heard. Barely touching the ground chunked up the floor ten feet down, thus turning his jutsu into the ultimate auger that tore the floor to shreds.

It was only a matter of time as every inch of the chamber's floor was pulverized by Kiba and Akamaru. He couldn't stay hidden down there because Kiba and Akamaru would be able to locate him by scent, even underground. Kabuto would be forced to reappear. Unfortunately for him, Hinata had been able to see him the entire time, and the second he surfaced he never had a chance.

'He's in range!' "Two palms!" She cried as her hands swiftly struck Kabuto to disable his movements, allowing her to freely follow up with more, "Four palms! Eight palms! Sixteen palms! Thirty-two palms! Hakke Rokujuuyon Shou (Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms)!"

Sixty-four rapid-fire blows landed all over Kabuto's body, and his face remained stuck in a twisted form of horror as he swayed and began to fall over.

"Just kidding!" He shouted as he suddenly stopped himself and the snake from his navel quickly lashed out to wrap around her throat, "That was a hell of a try though! Lure me underground, dictate me into a position of your choosing and then finish with taijutsu! Your generation of graduates really produced the best I've seen come out of Konoha in a long, long time!"

"What the fuck!?" Wolf-transformed Kiba shouted in his warped, voice, "She hit every strike! How did he get up from that, and so fast?"

"Ingratiating Orochimaru's remains wasn't the only thing that I did to myself." Kabuto said, coils of the snake tightening around Hinata's neck, "With the DNA of another shinobi that I know and did extensive experiments on, I was able to replicate his ability to liquefy portions of himself. Her internal attack did nothing." He boasted as she actually coughed up blood from being strangled so hard.

"Hinata!" Kiba cried out, breaking his dual transformation with Akamaru out of sheer horror, "Let her go!"

"I already gave you all the chance to leave." Kabuto replied casually, despite the fact that he was choking the life out of one of their teammates, "I don't need to keep you alive. I already have enough bodies to waste on sacrificing to experiment further with the Edo Tensei, and I don't need your DNA either. There would be no benefit in resurrecting the likes of you."

"That's what the prisoners are for." Shino said, making his presence known to possibly deter Kabuto from threatening to kill Hinata in case he were attacked, "Living sacrifices to activate a forbidden jutsu. Just what have you been doing here?"

"Doing what I need to in order to cement my name as the greatest. To perfect myself and to let the world know who I am."

"What are you talking about?"

"Of course you wouldn't understand." Kabuto said, adjusting his glasses on his face as he continued to speak to Kiba and Shino as if they were children, "Even if you didn't have your own identities, you have that of your clan. You've never had to question or try to understand who you are. I've had to search for and find myself, through constant self-improvement." It was why he attached himself so readily to someone like Orochimaru, "And I've discovered through all of this that I'm the only person in the world with the potential to equal the Rikudou Sennin. I'm one step short of becoming perfect!"

"Are you-…" Kiba started to say, looking at the increasingly more maniacal Kabuto questioningly, "Are you losing your mind? Equal to the Rikudou Sennin? Becoming Perfect? Start making sense or I'm gonna-!"

"You're going to what Kiba?" Kabuto asked mockingly, "Kick my ass? Don't fool yourself into thinking that the only reason that you're not attacking me is because I have Hinata." He made a show of moving his snake so that he was holding the slowly suffocating Hyuuga up in front of his body, "Even if I didn't have her, there wouldn't be anything you could do to beat me. Honestly, it's child's play dealing with all of you."

"Funny. I was about to say the same thing to you."

Before Kabuto knew it, his snake had been severed and he'd been punched so hard that he flew across the wide-open chamber into the massive statue of the snake, bringing it crumbling down to the ground.

Hinata sat up on her knees on the ground, clutching at her bruised red neck and coughing sweet, sweet air back into her lungs after a prolonged period without it. Feeling a shadow standing over her she looked up and bore witness to her temporary savior, "J-Jiraiya-sama?"

"Shame on you." Jiraiya said, still holding up the hand that he used to cut off Kabuto's snake and subsequently punch him in the face. With Fukasaku and Shima still sitting on his shoulders and his features still possessing some toad-like qualities, it was clear that he was still in Sage Mode, "Not only for threatening such a lovely young creature, but for making me have to show off this grotesque form of mine in front of her."

He was then thwacked on the head by the female toad sitting on his shoulder, "Stop insultin' Sage Mode Jiraiya-chan! You know better!"

"Holy crap." Kiba whispered under his breath as Akamaru whined at his side, "He has how much chakra boy? That's… insane. That's like Naruto-level chakra. Well, not really, but still, people aren't supposed to have that much and have it be that intense!" Intense enough to actually change the physical appearance of his body.

"Are you alright?" Jiraiya asked the others, no more signs of humor or good nature in his voice as he did, "Sorry I left you alone for so long. The last little situation was more of a problem than I thought it would have been."

"So you still have enough fight in you to overcome an Edo Tensei revived Sasuke?" Upon hearing Kabuto's voice again, Kiba and Shino moved near Jiraiya and helped Hinata back up as she continued to recover as fast as she could, "I guess I really underestimated you after all Jiraiya, but I didn't want to use the good Uchiha on you. I've got other plans for him."

"He doesn't sound injured at all." Shino pointed out, staring into the rubble that used to be the prominent snake statue in the room, "What will we do now?"

"I'm fighting him." Jiraiya said, holding his only arm and hand up in a half-ram hand-seal as if to prepare, "You three free the prisoners however you need to do it and leave. That's an order." At this point if they stayed they'd only be in the way, "It's not your time for a battle like this yet."

Kabuto moved himself out from what had been meant to be the burial ground of his body with nary a scratch on him, much to the surprise of everyone but Jiraiya. He couldn't afford to be stunned by the would-be resilience of his opponents. Kabuto had been rather impressive for an unassuming shinobi even before he'd turned himself into a freak show.

Now with the genes of Orochimaru and who knew what else in him, what else could he be capable of?

None of Team 8 wanted to leave Jiraiya alone. With the lack of an arm came an air of vulnerability, even if it was one of the most powerful men to ever hail from their village. Especially since Kabuto was waving goodbye, which wasn't making the choice to leave any easier if only because of that smug bastard's outlook on the entire situation.

Still, a stern look from Jiraiya marred with killing intent let them know that this was not up for debate.

"You think I'll just let them leave?" Kabuto asked laughingly.

"I know you will." Jiraiya replied almost casually, outright calling Kabuto's bluff, "Because if you take your eyes off of me for one second you know you won't be getting back up. You regenerated that snake thing, and that's cute. Let's see if you can regenerate your head after I rip it off."

And that was their cue to leave.

As Jiraiya expected, or coaxed Kabuto into doing with his words alone, the last remaining Otogakure power in the ninja world allowed them to leave, "You really do have a real soft spot for the 'next generation' don't you? So why would you want to go and try to shut down the brightest prospect for the future?"

"Who, you?" Jiraiya asked derisively, "No, you're not the brightest prospect. There's a difference between learning from the ones that came before you, and what you're doing. You're bastardizing the hard work of people like Orochimaru."

As much as he hated his old teammate for what he wound up doing, Jiraiya would openly admit that there wasn't anyone out of the three Sannin that worked harder at what he did while in Konoha than Orochimaru. And he doubted that he lost such a thing upon leaving the village. Kabuto had screwed up his own physiology with splicing the DNA of others into his own body to gain their abilities.

Why? For what purpose?"

"You don't get it?" Kabuto asked with a laugh, "It's trial and error! Everything I've done, all of it, has been leading up to what I'm about to do! All of it was necessary for me to take the final step, to achieve what Orochimaru-sama could never do! He wanted a perfect body, well with my mastery of the Edo Tensei I've not only discovered the way to obtain that!"

"What is this boy babblin' about?" Fukasaku questioned before realizing that something was wrong. He could feel something familiar in the room, and it was coming from Kabuto, "He didn't…"

Before Jiraiya's eyes, Kabuto gained dark pigmentation around his eyes and darkened sclera and four horns growing out of the back of his head, "You didn't think Sage Mode was exclusive to toads alone did you?"

Honestly, it was awfully hard to hide his surprise at seeing Kabuto Yakushi of all people having achieved such an ascended state. Had he not been a direct enemy, this would have been something that he would have had to outright praise and laud. Naruto getting Sage Mode in the way that he did was one thing.

Kabuto getting it for snakes was something else altogether.

"I figured Orochimaru would have been the one to discover the way to pull it off first." Jiraiya said, standing more warily in the presence of his foe now.

"Orochimaru-sama did know Sage Mode." Kabuto said, reveling in the feeling of the senjutsu chakra running through him, "He just couldn't use it because he didn't have access to a body strong enough to sustain the form. You're lucky to see this."

'He can gather senjutsu chakra and move all on his own?' Jiraiya thought to himself, wondering how such a thing was possible. Naruto could do it, but his workaround was a bit unique in that regard.

"So this is yer perfect body?" Shima crowed from Jiraiya's other shoulder, "Sage Mode ain't perfect. You live longer, but yer not immortal. Ya can still die of old age and injuries in battle."

"I never said anything about this being my end-all though, did I?"

That confident look on Kabuto's face… it was irritating. Like he had a secret that he was just bursting at the seams to spill forth, but knew better than to do such a thing to someone like Jiraiya. Confidence in his abilities or not, he knew that Jiraiya was enough to stop it if he knew about it.

Even so, Jiraiya still had to ask out of his own curiosity, "Then what is it?"

"It's not important." Kabuto said with a satisfied sigh, content with managing to throw off such a renowned shinobi so completely, "Maybe if you're lucky though, I'll reanimate you so you can bear witness to my greatest triumph firsthand. Then you'll understand."

He wanted to tell him so badly, Jiraiya could see it. Well either one of two things were about to happen. He would either kill Kabuto somehow, rendering whatever he had planned null and void, or the ensuing battle would excite him to the extent that interrogating him would be simple.

For the life of him though, Jiraiya really hoped that things didn't pan down to the latter. Because from the sheer confidence that Kabuto was exuding, he didn't want to know what Kabuto had planned or have to come face-to-face with it.

A chuckle came from Kabuto, "Let's see which is superior; snake-style Sage Mode or toad-style Sage Mode." His hands took on a blue glow from Chakra Scalpels and he charged forward at a speed beyond what Jiraiya had been accustomed to when dealing with him in the past.

Fukasaku was the fastest to react, having kept a wary eye on Kabuto constantly since the latter had activated Sage Mode, "Zessensan (Fighting Tongue Slash)!" From his mouth speedily shot his tongue which seemed to be unlimited in length, right at the white-scaled enemy, but Kabuto was well-enough aware to dodge this, much to Jiraiya's displeasure.

Without Shima's own jutsu to first restrain him it was difficult to hit a skilled opponent, and this one had the reflexes and awareness of Sage Mode to assist him even with that.

Several different lightning-quick attacks were made and all missed, 'You've got to be kidding me.' Jiraiya thought to himself as Kabuto got close enough to take several swipes at him with his Chakra Scalpels, 'Well it stands to reason that a snake would be quicker than a toad in Sage Mode.' It didn't mean he had to like it though.

When he realized that Jiraiya wasn't going to be hit with any of his strikes, Kabuto exited the close range and stuck out his now serpentine tongue almost mockingly, "Three heads aren't better than one I guess." He quipped haughtily.

"You think?" This young man was almost too smarmy to stomach, but Jiraiya had to stay level-headed. Kabuto had been a dangerous enough ninja when he was merely Orochimaru's second, and he had to give him that much respect at least, "We'll see. Senpou: Goemon (Sage Art: Goemon)!"

While from his mouth shot a massive jet of oil, on both of his shoulders, Shima and Fukasaku both inhaled before letting go a similar torrent of fire and wind respectively, creating a large wave of burning oil that steamed Kabuto's way. Even in the room they were in, it covered a width of wall-to-wall as it went his way.

The yellow serpent-like eyes of Kabuto gave an eerie glow in the face of the burning oil bath. Turning around almost bonelessly in the motion that he used to do so, Kabuto darted away from the attack that would have marked his painful death only to find himself about to be cornered. Kabuto ran up onto the walls of the chamber to escape being burned and circled the entire room only to find Jiraiya still taking careful aim at him as he rounded the bend.

His untamed white hair grew and seemed to become a living thing with a mere hand-seal and application of chakra, "Ranjishigami no Jutsu (Wild Lion's Mane Jutsu)!" At the end of his hair it seemed to grow a mouth that snapped out towards Kabuto before actually catching him off of the wall and grabbing him, whipping him all about and slamming him into any surface it could reach.

As this occurred, Kabuto's body seemed to turn to liquid and seep through whatever grip Jiraiya's hair follicles had on him, "Compliments of the Hozuki Clan and the DNA of a young man I've had the chance to do experiments on in the past."

"Heh." Jiraiya chuckled with no actual humor behind it, "Did you splice a little Uchiha into you too? I can definitely see the power hungry part and the stealing other people's techniques thing."

"Your jokes are falling flatter than your attempts to kill me." Kabuto replied from a safe distance away, "But it's to be expected after all. Aren't you a proponent of the mindset that the next generation is supposed to outdo the one that came before it? I'm not a believer in that?"

A smirk came to Jiraiya's face and the faces of his toad counterparts, "Ya hear that Jiraiya-chan?" Fukasaku said right by his summoner's ear but loud enough for Kabuto to hear easily, "He's already talkin' about how yer better than him."

"Indeed." Jiraiya said, stroking his lightly goateed chin with his webbed fingers, "Makes me wonder why he doesn't just give up if he already knows that though. I'll never understand these kids I guess."

Kabuto didn't rise to the bait at all. At least not in the way of showing anger. But he did in another way, "Absolutely. The generations that came before my own, in the old days, the bad days. The times when wars were just everyday things. Before your time even. Those were the greatest days. I want to match and surpass those legends. But I can't reach the Rikudou Sennin's body. So I had to go for the next best thing to make it my own."

"What are you babbling about now?"

A wide grin couldn't be hidden on Kabuto's face. It was the face of a man that thought he had figured out all of the angles. That he had everything right where he wanted it, all in checkmate.

"A perfect body, immortal and impossible to destroy, with the potential to learn anything and utilize any jutsu, past, present, or future." Kabuto said as if he were speaking to himself, "It was so simple, but it took a lot of research you see. I've gone through all of the necessary steps to ensure that it was possible, and I've found no reason to find that it wouldn't work. I'm going to combine the Edo Tensei with Orochimaru-sama's Fushi Tensei."

"You're going to take over a reanimated body?" Jiraiya visibly took a step back at the thought. Bringing the dead back to walk amongst the living was a perverse enough jutsu, as was taking over the body of another living person and permanently making it one's own.

Kabuto was going to do both at the exact same time. What kind of an abomination to nature was this destined to be?

"Whose?" Jiraiya was almost turned off from even venturing to ask the question, "Whose body are you taking? You want to be Orochimaru so bad, you're going to take his body?"

"That's thinking too small." Kabuto said, pacing around and tapping at his temple, "Only the absolute best body will do, nothing less than that is acceptable. Why go small? If that were the case I could have brought back any run-of-the mill shinobi and done this with them. But I won't. I want the best. The strongest that history is willing to take note of in any way. But since the Shodai Hokage is stuck firmly in the stomach of the Shinigami, I will take his contemporary, who is even stronger than he was in his prime due to my dutiful enhancements."

"…" Jiraiya was speechless. Even his often talky toad elders were stunned into silence, "Kid you've got to die." It was blunt, but he had no other way to put it. It was as simple as that, because he knew exactly what Kabuto was alluding to.

The only person that could be considered the contemporary of the Shodai Hokage would have been either his brother the Nidaime Hokage, or Senju Hashirama's ultimate lifelong rival. The most powerful Uchiha in the history of the clan.

He was going to use the body of Madara Uchiha, and he was going to steal it for himself.

Why wouldn't it work? The Fushi Tensei was meant to supplant another's soul with your own, and with the Edo Tensei you were able to garner control over a deceased person's body.

"You're not going to say that's impossible?" Kabuto asked condescendingly, "You're not going to say something about Madara Uchiha still being alive, thus making it impossible for me to reanimate him? I'm disappointed in your reaction. No panicking? With that power, I'll never be considered beneath anyone again! My legacy will be set before I even begin making my changes to this world!"

Oh he was panicking. He was panicking on the inside. He wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of showing that he was fretting about the whole thing in reality, because it was serious. A body with that much power that would never tire, never feel pain, would instantly regenerate from any injury. And with the soul and mind of someone as treacherous as Kabuto there would be no limit to what he would be capable of.

"I know Madara Uchiha isn't alive." Jiraiya said, trying to keep a strong face, "The masked man that used his name according to Naruto, there's not a chance that he would be the real Madara. We've already been over that in the village. But thanks for confirming it for us. We'll leave a footnote referencing you for the intel in the next bingo book. Posthumously."

"Stop me then!" Kabuto dared him openly, "You have one arm! You're a shell of your former self, and even at your best, as I am now I could still overcome you! Does that make you angry? Are you upset? Then prove me wrong!" His hands snapped together to form another hand-seal to prepare to continue the battle.

On the other hand, Jiraiya needed it to end. The amount of danger a man like Kabuto posed had been severely underestimated. He'd survived too many scenarios in which he shouldn't have. The fight outside of Tanzaku Town, Sasuke's overcoming of Orochimaru, the time he revealed himself to Naruto only to beg off with a Sharingan eye and information against Akatsuki.

It was about to come back to bite everyone.

Unlike with what happened against Nagato and his multiple bodies, he was not going to fail. He wasn't going to lose.

"I hate usin' this jutsu." Shima complained, before addressing Jiraiya, "Jiraiya-chan we're gonna need you to buy us a bit a' time so our voices can synch up." They knew that Kabuto was quicker than Jiraiya, and if it really came down to keeping him away at all costs while they were busy preparing their trump it could get ugly.

He said nothing, only focusing solely on Kabuto. This would only have one chance to work and he needed to make sure he kept his distance until it was complete.

Getting down on all fours his hair seemed to bristle up and sharpen before flying off at a constant, rapid-fire rate, "Senpou: Kebari Senbon (Sage Art: Hair Needle Senbon)!"

As dangerous an attack as it was, Kabuto was still able to dodge. For all of the speed of the hair needles coming his way, the distance between him and the originator of the jutsu was simply too great for it to risk hitting him with the kind of speed boost and reaction ability that Sage Mode presented him, "I understand it now! Why the discrepancy between our Sage Modes are the way that they are! You haven't mastered it, which is why you require your summons, to build the senjutsu chakra for you. I was able to overcome that problem, another mark in my favor of being better than you!"

'You gloat way too much kid.' Jiraiya thought to himself as he was focused on driving Kabuto as far back as he could to allow Shima and Fukasaku an opening to do their thing, 'With Orochimaru being the one that was in command of you I can't dominate a ninjutsu war with one arm, and with you being quicker than me with those damned Chakra Scalpels I can't count on taijutsu to do the job either. Which leaves me with my worst facet of the ninja arts to win with.'

It was a good thing that it wasn't his jutsu that was going to lead to the finish then, because if it was he'd have screwed it up.

Kabuto was driven to the far end of the vast chamber, smirking to himself. Did Jiraiya really think that putting a little distance between the two of them was going to help him come up with a method to defeat him? Kabuto hadn't even come close to exhausting his repertoire of jutsu to battle with.

Jiraiya was just an old man that had overstayed his welcome anyway. The only use to the world he had now was after Kabuto killed him he could bring him back as Edo Tensei and use him in battle.

From the back end where Jiraiya was, Kabuto could hear disjointed croaking and he let out an involuntary hiss at the sound of the natural prey of the snake crying out as such, 'What is he up to?' Flipping up onto a wall, Kabuto carefully moved in the dark of the chamber, trying to mask his presence by blending his life force in with the residual air in the room. They'd been throwing around so much senjutsu chakra that the area was clouded in it.

'Great.' Jiraiya thought to himself as Fukasaku and Shima kept randomly croaking to try and synch up their voices, 'The fact that it was dark in here didn't matter much until he figured out how to mask his presence while in Sage Mode from Sage Mode.'

Crawling to the domed ceiling overhead in the dark, Kabuto's tongue flicked randomly as he drew closer and closer to standing over top of Jiraiya, but that insufferable croaking! What was the point? Honestly he had no intention of finding out. Forming the ox seal while upside-down, Kabuto decided to turn the battlefield into his weapon, "Senpou: Muki Tensei (Sage Art: Inorganic Reincarnation)!"

The ground began to ripple and quiver as if it were breathing. The entire room did. Jiraiya felt the floor shift beneath him, giving way as if it were someone's body, but he wasn't trapped, so this wasn't like one of his own special moves that involved the use of spatially summoning a toad's stomach.

No, he actually brought the room to life.

The floor actually did begin grabbing for him, but he felt the change and managed to jump out of the way. The entire room began to sway and rumble, making waves of any previously stationary surface. Portions of the floor seemed to roll and fold over itself, trying to catch Jiraiya and sandwich him in to crush him.

He felt like a boat on the tumultuous seas, only if these waves took him under there would be no chance of resurfacing. He'd be crushed and kneaded like dough, mixed in with the floor.

Above, Kabuto felt victorious. Even if this jutsu didn't work, it would make Jiraiya an easy target for his next attack, 'The next generation is always supposed to surpass the ones that came before it.'

And then everything for him went dark.

The only thing he could hear was constant croaking, two voices in unison, echoing in his head. He found himself in a different plane of reality altogether, trapped in a cube of water that bound his every movement. Even his navel snake was frozen. Four gigantic toad samurai all stood guard outside of each corner of the illusionary box, "What is this?"

"The end." Jiraiya's disembodied voice said to him as the croaking continued, "Magen: Gama Rinshou (Demonic Illusion: Toad Confrontation Chant)."

A sharp pain slid itself into Kabuto's heart, and a second one through his neck to remove his head.

This wasn't supposed to happen. All of his planning. All of his experiments. He'd come so close to achieving the kind of thing that people dreamed of. Of reaching a level of power that no one in history would ever come close to duplicating.

In his own mind he had been just short of reaching what the Rikudou Sennin had been. He would have matched a man that today was thought of as myth. If only he'd had just a little more time.

XxX

(Hours Later – Konohagakure no Sato)

It was like a ghost town. There wasn't a soul wandering the normally bustling village streets that wasn't in the uniform of the wartime Konoha shinobi. There were more patrols and lookouts than were normally posted, even in wartime. Though late in the afternoon was an odd time for an invasion, every able-bodied ninja had been told that it was coming.

Plant people. What the hell was going on in the world when an army of plant people existed as an enemy for them to have?

Sitting unabashedly on a high tower in the village, Tobi looked down on his target town, just idly observing it all. Why was he to be concerned? It wasn't a real battle. He wasn't taking on the challenge of bringing Konoha down. It was all a means to an end.

And it was time to get that end started.

In a swirling vortex originating from the eyehole of his mask, he vanished inside of it without a trace.

Just as the first explosion could be heard in the village streets.

From the ground, White Zetsus started breaching the village only for many of them to be met upon their rise from the earth with fireballs from rooftop ninjas that saw them coming. Those that were able to move past the charred corpses of their unfortunate brethren engaged in battle on the ground with those willing to face them.

It was like that in many areas of the village. All over. White Zetsus would destroy any building that they were given free reign to take and would continue onward like a horde of barbarians.

They didn't seem to care about Konoha's defense strategies, but their numbers made it difficult to say that their approach wasn't justified. It wasn't that they were attacking without any strategy, it was that it came off as being so simple it came off as a matter of waves repeatedly crashing into the wall of a building. Eventually the waves would cease with the tide, but until then would the wall endure?

"Chouji, end of the block!" Shikamaru directed, shooting out tendrils of his shadow with Kage Nui no Jutsu to stab at any White Zetsu that he could reach, "You got 'em?"

"Bubun Baika no Jutsu (Partial Multi-Size Jutsu)!" Chouji's arm grew in size and length, allowing him to use it in order to literally sweep the street and smash fourteen White Zetsus away, "Alright, I'm glad we didn't get caught off-guard or anything, but where did these things come from?"

An oncoming rush of even more White Zetsus happened to be cut down by one of their own inexplicably, striking them fatally before they could realize that one of their kindred was the responsible party.

In another instant the Zetsu looked around in a haze, holding its head until a shadow tendril stabbed through its chest, bringing its life to an end.

"You really couldn't have waited until you saw my body move before killing the thing Shikamaru?" Ino complained as she got up from where her body had been laying for the duration of her Shintenshin no Jutsu, "What if I hadn't gotten out yet?"

"But you did. Stop being troublesome and keep fighting." He didn't need to be sidetracked with that kind of crap at a time like this, "I thought getting stationed away from the front lines would be less dangerous than actually being out there." A loud blast at the other end of the block got him and the rest of the Team 10 chunin to cringe and recoil at the shockwave that took out a building front and a good amount of enemies in the process, "Asuma, stop blowing things up!" He complained.

Their former jounin sensei walked away from the place of the explosion holding his trench knives in both hands as he looked around for more enemies that would possibly be coming their way, "There's no one in there." Asuma reasoned with a shrug, "Besides, you and a lot of the others in this sector corralled them together right there. What was I going to do, not blow them up? Hell no. I've got a child I'm fighting for here."

Realistically, they weren't supposed to be resorting to blowing anything up. There wasn't a reason to, not with the village plan for defense, and it was only a matter of time until the crux of it came into play. They just needed to await the signal.

"Who the hell are those guys?" Ino asked in reaction to getting sight of something that she hadn't been prepared to anticipate in their defense.

She witnessed a tightly packed squad of black-clad specially uniformed ninjas wearing porcelain masks over their faces and dark cloaks. Upon finding a place with a good gathering of enemies a few would break off to assist the embattled Konoha forces in combat with them, but most would continue on, steadily breaking off more and more until nothing remained of the original group.

What was so familiar about those guys? There was something there that none of them could really put their finger on other than Shikamaru, 'These guys remind me of Sai.'

He knew Sai. They all knew Sai. Sai had started hanging around with them right around the time Naruto got promoted to jounin months and months ago. The fact that they used those same tipless tanto blades only good for cutting, just like Sai's, really drove the point home.

Who the hell were these people? For now either way they were helping out and paying serious dividends.

"Do you require help?" One of the ANBU-looking ninjas addressed Asuma directly while the battle was still taking place. It was a girl with neck length frayed black hair and two braids descending down her back. She had foregone putting up the hood of her cloak, but her plain white mask still sat over her face, "We're stretched rather thin all over the village, but those of us that are here are at your command Sarutobi-san."

She sounded rather young, but completely prepared for the situation nevertheless.

Asuma nodded, confused by the sudden arrival of this small mystery platoon that was deferring to him, but he took command of the situation as best he could, "Keep the enemy in this general area. Circle around behind them to cut off their attempts to spread out and run away until the signal. You know what that's going to be don't you?"

"Of course." The oddly blank masked shinobi said, "Consider it done." With that she took off for the roofs again with the rest of her comrades slowly breaking off to follow her.

Asuma stared after them before shaking his head and getting back to the battle at hand, 'Root ANBU still exist huh? Wonder how dad would feel about that one?" They were certainly helping right then and there though.

The pounding sound of a drum being slowly stricken brought the battle to a near halt on the Konoha side of things. The sound echoed out to the farthest gate of the village for every man and woman in battle to hear as clear as a bell.

Without missing a beat the streets started to clear with the gradual retreat of the Konoha defenders, much to the confusion of the White Zetsus. What was happening now? The confused hordes of plant men didn't know what to make of it. They went inside of certain buildings and simply kept them away while the drum continued to pound.

XxX

Countless walls began to rise up at intersections and in front of important buildings, cutting off squads of Zetsus from their comrades and confusing the lot of them. What kind of defense strategy was this? It wasn't going to stop the White Zetsus from doing anything. They could travel through the ground via the Mayfly jutsu, so moving through the village to the required locations they were directed to destroy still wouldn't be a problem.

What was the play supposed to be here?

A squad of White Zetsus managed to get out of the confined city streets, making it out into an empty park. They stopped for a moment to take stock of their situation for a bit before continuing on, "What's the deal? Tobi never said anything about something like this happening?"

"He said they'd lure us into the village so they could surround us and crush us, but not like this." They were prepared for the basics of Konoha's anti-invasion tactics, but there wasn't any counterattack coming, at least nothing that they could see. No one had tried to attack since the retreat had occurred.

"What does it matter?" A rather rowdy White Zetsu clone said amongst his brethren, "Screw it, let's just keep going!" If Konoha didn't want to fight back that was their problem, "Our division is supposed to move to the Uchiha District and get a foothold there, so let's-!"

He was cut off by the faint sound of thudding on the ground that seemed to get louder with every thump. The ground even began to quiver after a short time, and the reason for it was something that they hadn't been briefed on and most certainly never saw coming.

Large forty foot high statues, masterfully sculpted in the form of bearded, long-haired men wearing Konoha hitae-ates and old-time armor. Dozens of them.

"…Are those statues walking?"

Yes. Those statues were walking. And punching, kicking, and smashing any enemy that tried to bring them down. And there was one coming their way.

XxX

(Roof of Konohagakure Ninja Academy)

The best view for Tsunade to get in the middle of the action was from the top of one of the highest buildings in the village. Surrounded by a squad of ANBU and her personal guard platoon, she was able to observe the tilt of the battle.

"They're far enough in." Tsunade said to herself as she stood by a massive, hanging drum, "Alright then. Step two; Karakuri Hakke no Jin (Mechanical Eight Trigrams Formation)!" She then began banging on a specialized drum that activated a village-wide jutsu, bringing up tactically relevant walls that cut off the village into segments.

By itself this would do nothing but turn the village streets into a confined battlefield that would lead to an extremely specialized kind of fight, close-quarters. It would be a bloodbath on both sides judging by what the White Zetsus were capable of, due to their ability to form leafy blades and spikes on their bodies.

Unless there was something else up Konoha's sleeve for just this sort of situation. Something like a company of gigantic, sentient statues capable of neutralizing chakra at the touch patrolling the new maze of the village streets like Minotaur guardians in a labyrinth.

Right. That helped.

And Tsunade could already point out places where they had managed to corner White Zetsus, "I love that girl." She said to herself before initiating step three; after surprising the enemy with powerhouse ground reinforcements, reinitiate full-scale battle, repeat until the enemy is destroyed.

Simple, but with the elder Nara out in the forests around Kusagakure trying to bring that campaign to a close simple had to be effective here.

Another few bangs of the drum brought the walls back down and brought Konoha's standing home guard back out into the fray once more. At another time when Tsunade found it appropriate or got visual confirmation from the control central point of the village's remote defenses they'd be coming back up in a different pattern.

XxX

(Mountain Overlooking Konoha – Naruto's House)

Ever since moving into the new home that she had procured for her master during his extended time away from the village after the trouble in Amegakure, Hamako had managed to find many ways to stay busy.

It had all begun even before that, when Naruto had been on a near yearlong campaign of missions meant to procure himself a promotion to jounin. She'd assisted in shoring up the village's defenses, utilizing specifications that she'd learned back in her Uzushiogakure days years in the past and a few of her own that she had come up with.

Tactics had changed due to her own experiences from the fall of Uzushio and from Konoha's experiences in the Suna-Oto Invasion into something entirely different altogether. The only thing that remained the same was evacuating the citizens and suckering the enemy into the heart of the village.

A sloped table in the form of a street map of Konoha stood right in front of the grand main window in the living room, the same window that could oversee every little bit of the village. On it there were dozens of figurines in the form of the statues that were currently in the village. They slowly slid across the board, indicating the real-time movement of the full-sized versions actually fighting the battle.

"Oh my, it actually works!" A rather pleased sounding Hamako said as she was busy at work setting her towering stone soldiers about the battleground of the village. The white-haired seal master's fingertips danced over the board as her amber eyes kept looking up from the board to the window and back down, "This is the first time I've ever gotten to try all of these things at once."

This was the unofficial control central for the defense effort. Sure it was a big responsibility, but there wasn't anyone else that could do it, and what else would she be doing otherwise? She'd just be hiding inside of the mountain with the other non-shinobi citizens.

And it wasn't as if she was unguarded. Due to the importance of her keeping things going, the house was guarded by a squad of ANBU similar to Tsunade's, just in case.

"Okay." Hamako said, making several hand-seals before pressing her index and middle fingertips on a particular point on the map, "Clear Sector 7 of the Konoha shinobi and activate the area trap, send in Komainu-kun number 12, 31, and 36 to keep the enemy in place for the duration of the trap." With that she dragged the fingers of her free hand from the base of three statues and stopped in the same area that her first hand pressed on.

Looking down at the village she could see the three correct statues stomping their way through the streets to the designated place as Konoha ninjas left the area via the rooftops. The trap had obviously sprung in the meantime.

This was working better than anyone had probably ever dreamed when this was all put into installation. There was very little lag time between the commands and the actual actions taking place mid-combat.

A series of slow claps from behind directed her attention away from the battle at hand. No one was supposed to be in the house. Even the guards dispatched there for her protection weren't supposed to enter or even allow themselves to be seen on the property in order to hide the fact that this was where the defenses were being run from,

"Sorry, I didn't take my shoes off before coming in. You don't mind though, do you?" The arrogance coming off of the man was purely infuriating, but there was nothing that she could do.

"You." Hamako said, slowly walking away from the table, keeping her eyes locked firmly on her present 'company', "Madara Uchiha I presume." The masked man that every person had been told about already as a wild card in the equation of the war.

Even if he wasn't the genuine article, he was still a ninja, and she wasn't. It was as simple as that. She was just a girl that knew how to use seals, this was a direct killer.

"Impressive." Tobi said, slowly walking through the front room of the rather sizeable home with his arms crossed over his chest, looking around, "Who would think to seek out the servant girl of a nigh extinct clan and village for something like this? What an important station."

So he wasn't there because he'd already figured that she was important to the battle effort?

"Then what do you want with this place?" Hamako asked, looking around for anything that she could use. She wasn't near the kitchen so she couldn't try to go for a knife or anything. She didn't have enough time to enact any sealing rituals with what she had on her, "What about the battle?"

"I don't care about the outcome of the battle one way or another. This wasn't done in order to destroy Konoha." Tobi said with a laugh, "The raid of the White Zetsus is only meant to allow me free reign to find this place." He turned his hand around to look at a little blood that had spackled his glove, "Those ANBU hiding around your master's property were amateurs. I guess the real ones are out in the field."

"Naruto-sama isn't here."

"I didn't say I was here for him did I? Not yet anyway. I've come for you dear."

Freezing in place, Hamako stared wide-eyed at the imposing figure that the masked man struck as he moved closer and closer to her, "What would you need with me?"

"The sword." Tobi said, taking another step toward her, getting her to continue backpedaling up the stairs and into the hallway, "The sword that he has in his possession. Tell me its purpose. The reason it was crafted and given to Uzushio. Why he has it. Why can it cut into the Kamui!?"

The Sen'nenki no Ken?

"It's his because it belongs to him. It's his birthright as a member of the Uzumaki Clan." Hamako told him, glaring while quivering the entire time, "If you want to take it you can't lay a finger on it. There are so many sealing arrays on it, some of which are defensive and won't let anyone touch them outside of the Uzumaki bloodline. It's beyond even me."

She had been leveling up her sealing knowledge just studying the damn thing whenever she was able to get it from Naruto and she still believed that she hadn't broken down everything that made the weapon what it was.

"I don't want to hear that from you." Tobi said, his Sharingan eye visibly glaring at her from the eyehole in his mask, "Fuuinjutsu is a lost art in a way. The masters of today couldn't hold a candle to the true masters of yesteryear. You're the last paragon of this breed so to speak, so I would advise you to tell me what I want, because I can just take it from you. Suffice it to say, you won't survive if I do."

What could you say to someone that wouldn't believe you when you told them the truth? But even if she did have the information he wanted, she wouldn't tell him a thing.

Hamako's mouth moved, revealing some of her top teeth until a bit of blood started running down from her mouth, "Biting out your tongue are you?" Tobi asked, "I'd wager that you don't have the determination to go through with it, but even if you did I don't need you to be able to speak in order to get the information out of you." She stopped and wiped at her mouth, sinking down to the hardwood floor on her knees, "Good girl."

"I wasn't trying to bite out my tongue." Hamako said, hair covering her face, "I was just biting my lip." She swiftly rolled through five hand-seals as easily as breathing before she pressed her hand down onto the floor, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!"

A puff of smoke shot up from the point of contact, much to Tobi's consternation, 'The girl has a summoning contract? She can't possibly believe that with her pitiful civilian reserves she has the ability to summon any kind of creature that can actually protect her from me.'

"Damn it Hamako-chan, I told you not to summon me home!" The sound of the rather scratchy young voice actually caused Tobi to panic. He had not been expecting this at all. How could she summon him? That was impossible, "You know you don't have enough chakra to use that jutsu."

"I'm sorry master, but I swear there's a good reason for it." Hamako said weakly. When the smoke cleared she was laying out on the floor in a heap, clearly suffering the effects of chakra exhaustion, "There's… a situation within the village that was being handled, but then this..."

A second didn't pass after his seeing her in such an exhausted state before he rushed over to her side and checked her vitality as best as he could given the circumstances. The sheer shock of putting herself into a state of chakra exhaustion like that should have ended her life. She wasn't strong enough to safely summon him. She knew that she wasn't already.

She smiled up at him before gesturing weakly with her eyes that they were not alone. Naruto knew this, but in his panic at her well-being he'd forgone attending to the enemy.

Naruto looked over from where he'd been summoned and quickly narrowed his eyes on the figure of Tobi, dressed for war and seemingly threatening his dear, devoted servant girl, "Oh, fake-Madara. I wanted to get some sleep and report back to Tsunade-baachan when I got back, but I can spare a few minutes to rip that mask off of your face and shove it up your ass."

"How did she summon you?" Tobi asked, backing away enough to get some ready distance from the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. At first he hadn't believed what had happened, "The only human I know that can summon another human is Nagato with Konan."

"She likes to fuck around with seals and things like that." Naruto said as he made a clone to pick up his kimono-clad concubine and carry her chakra exhausted form off to somewhere markedly safer than the main hallway of their home Preferably somewhere far away, "Months ago she wanted to see the toad summoning scroll so she could figure out how it worked, so I let her and she came up with a contract to summon me. I'm surprised she actually pulled it off and didn't kill herself." He actually sounded very proud of her.

Hamako wasn't a ninja and had absolutely no training or conditioning as a fighter in any way, shape, or form. Becoming a seal master didn't take much chakra, but utilizing ninjutsu on the level of a summoning did cost an exorbitant amount, especially when she was summoning someone with such a discrepancy of chakra compared to her own.

"I was planning on getting as much information on you as I could before finally moving to attack you." Tobi said, squaring off with Naruto in his hallway, "But I guess it's just as well that I have to do this now. You can't win anyway."

"You were the one that ran away last time." Naruto said, standing ready to do battle, "I don't know who you are, why you call yourself Madara Uchiha, or what your big problem is with the world that you made all of this happen, but I'm stopping it today."

"You're not ready to face me." Tobi boasted. This wasn't a bluff. He really believed that Naruto wasn't prepared. Sword or not, he still held too many advantages over him to be brought down by the young man, "Your servant summoned you to your death."

"Let's see." Naruto said, standing up straight with his arms wide open, "It's just you and me now. No stupid plant-man clones, Akatsuki's totally out of control, you're out of people strong enough to manipulate between us. Show me what you've got!"

He didn't know what he was getting himself into, and it made Tobi smile behind his mask, "Certainly. I'll let you make the first move. You'll need the handicap, and I'll teach you exactly why this is something that needs to be done."

Whatever floated his boat was just fine with Naruto. Without warning, Naruto reached for the sword on his back and lunged right at Tobi, his quickdraw slash being blocked by Tobi's war fan, "Why didn't you do your little ghost thing to dodge it?"

"You know why. Not that I need it." Tobi said, shoving his masked forehead against Naruto's hitae-ate before he phased through his body, "I can't touch it, but I can still pass through you." Naruto stumbled forward, but safety rolled and turned to face Tobi again, "You might have something that would enable you to challenge me, but your girl was telling the truth after all. She didn't discover everything about it, otherwise you would be using what was needed to win right now."

"I know enough." Naruto said, bringing his Sharingan into play as Tobi quickly made a move to attack him next, choosing to throw a projectile at Naruto that seemed to come from nowhere on his body, 'Wood?'

The attack narrowly missed, but Naruto's Sharingan eye bore witness to the projectile moving after it missed and stabbed into his wall. Before anything else happened, Naruto jumped straight up, using his body as a battering ram to smash straight through his ceiling and roof to get outside.

The reason for this was purely self-preservation. Tobi's wooden projectile expanded, instantly creating sharp branches that would have impaled him, as they effortlessly stabbed through the floor and the wall on the other side of the corridor.

From the roof, Naruto looked down through the hole in his house at the branches that would have run him clean through had he not moved, "That's Mokuton isn't it?" Naruto asked to himself, 'That's the Shodai Hokage's kekkei genkai isn't it? Why does he have it?'

"You're surprised." Tobi said, appearing on the rooftop as well in his swirling vortex of teleportation, "I guess Danzo never told you about the extent of his techniques otherwise it probably wouldn't have surprised you that I'm capable of it. Smart of him, because splicing Hashirama Senju's cells into his own body probably would have been frowned upon in your village."

"What the hell are you?"

"I'm no one. I don't matter." Tobi said before gesturing his hand out for Naruto to look down at his village currently engulfed in battle, "This doesn't matter." The smoke and fire in various places had Naruto enraptured. Tobi could have taken a shot at him, but he didn't want to. He wanted him to see it, to drink it all in and realize exactly what kind of situation he was in, "The only thing that matters is the Moon's Eye Plan. Only then will all of this end, not just for this generation, but for all others after it. It's the only way peace can occur."

Naruto snapped out of his trance at seeing his village being invaded and shook his head, "No. No, you want control."

"And Danzo didn't want to enact his own control in a different way? Danzo wanted world peace by way of Konoha dominating the ninja world and subjugating all of the other hidden villages to your village's whim."

"He was wrong too."

"You follow him. You look up to him."

"That doesn't mean I didn't think he was wrong!" Naruto exclaimed at Tobi angrily, "Your peace, his peace, Ero-kyofu's peace, there's a flaw in all of it! I'm not following any of them or you! I've got my own ways of thinking! I'm not just a tool the way you think all jinchuuriki are! I'm a ninja, I'm a man!"

"You're a weapon, and a means to an end." Tobi said coldly, "Your father stuck the Kyuubi inside of you as an absolute last resort, because otherwise I was going to take it from your mother. You think you have a choice? Or your thoughts and actions are your own? You haven't had a thought that was your own in your entire life."

"You're full of shit." Naruto chuckled with a grin at Tobi's expense, "You are absolutely out of your mind."

"Am I really?" Tobi asked before listing off reasons, "Your birth took place under the necessity of your survival revolving around the safety of Konoha. Your childhood was dictated to you by Danzo. Your Academy years, under the yoke of a seal meant to rid you of Danzo's influence. Your overreaching goal in life was slated for you, you didn't choose it. Even now you're so twisted inside, and you won't admit it. You don't know if you want to be a shadow or a hero."

Naruto's blue and red eyes glared intensely at Tobi at the mere inclination, "You don't know what you're talking about. I'll say it again."

"How many people count on you? The Hokage sends you off to break stalemates at two fronts all by yourself. Your little Root flunkies need you as a leader, a figure of inspiration to keep the machine moving while you rebuild. Even now, you're back here and you're supposed to solve this." Tobi once again drew Naruto's attention to the village, "Tell me Naruto, how much of that is done out of choice or out of a sense of duty?"

"I chose this duty."

"But that's the thing. You really didn't." Tobi commented idly, "You were going to be a ninja no matter what. There's no chance that a jinchuuriki would be tolerated that wasn't a shinobi. Most jinchuuriki are related to the Kage of their village in some way in order to ensure they have a sense of loyalty to it. You never had a chance and you never had a choice."

This guy thought he was going to flip Naruto's way of thinking on its head with his snide little speech about how he was always meant and intended to fight this kind of battle for the village, "Danzo-jiji gave me the choice. I was too little to understand everything that went into it at the time, but it was still my choice. Just like how I'm choosing to blow your head off right now. Fuuton: Fuujin Seiken (Wind Release: Divine Fist of the Wind God)!"

Naruto linked his fists together at the thumbs and shot them both out in a punch that sent a powerful shockwave of wind flying Tobi's way.

"So quick to attack when you don't want to face the truth." Tobi said as he allowed the attack to pass right through his intangible body again, "You might as well stop and listen until I choose to fight, because you don't have what it takes to hit me otherwise."

He had a bit of a point, as loathe as Naruto was to admit it. Yugito's laser jutsu had been the single fastest attack ninjutsu Naruto had ever seen, and it didn't do anything to him when they'd come across him in battle-engrossed northern forests. But he wasn't about to let Tobi dictate the pace of the battle. He couldn't afford that.

This was a man that had Sharingan, Mokuton, and who knew what else up his sleeve?

Between the adjustment to using his Sharingan eye, the Sage Mode training, the mastery of the wind and lightning element types, the training that went into fashioning the Rasenshuriken and the Rasenriseki, the growth of his skills that came with the Amaterasu sealed in his arm, and all of that, he hadn't utilized the Sen'nenki no Ken in the real manner it was meant to be used for in quite some time.

And he had just recently discovered that he could bend the sword to whatever reality he wished for it. He looked at the sword in his hand. The Sen'nenki no Ken. It was the key to his victory, but it was dangerous to utilize the way that it was intended to be used. Unless… yes, that was a possible solution.

But he hadn't trained with it in quite some time with all of the other things he'd been learning. If his plan to stabilize the use of the materialization properties of the sword didn't work he'd be utterly drained.

"Do not fuck around with this man Naruto." The Kyuubi warned Naruto amicably, "Madara he is not, but he was still powerful enough to bend me to his will and attack the village with me. This man is as dangerous as they come in your pathetic race."

Feeling the flow of senjutsu chakra through him, activated at the Kyuubi's behest, Naruto instinctually began balancing it and entered Sage Mode. Apparently this was as deadly serious and personal as any fight his internal partner was ever going to be by his side for.

"This is the man responsible for the death of your parents. This man is the entire reason that our fates were bound together. Do whatever you feel you must to win. Take his head, and don't show him a shred of mercy because I can assure you we'll receive none if we're defeated."

'We? You're lumping us in together again?' That was a surprise. It had been peeved at him for months now. The Kyuubi was supposed to be a vengeful creature, and even when they'd put their beef on the backburner to work together when it was needed, it was just to preserve their lives, 'But you've been pissed off at me since the fight with Sasuke and Itachi. Nothing I could say or do really brought us back together, even when we worked out Sage Mode together.'

"As much as I hate you and as infuriating as your transgression against me was during that battle, I can't find it in me to stay angry with you any longer. Not with this man staring us in the face. Kill him, let me see the light drain from his eyes, and we'll be entirely square."

As Naruto's eyes changed, and the orange pigment around them formed, he thought to himself that this was a proposal that he had no problems with at all, "I was gonna do that even if you hadn't asked me to."

XxX

In the skies above Konoha, Konan bore witness to the battle raging on in the main village of the enemy Grand Shinobi Alliance. Her time roaming out to scout Hi no Kuni for Nagato was about to come to an end within a matter of hours, and she had so much to tell him.

But the blue-haired angel to God so sorely wished that she would be allowed to stick around long enough to see what would come of the battle between the Kyuubi jinchuuriki and the catalyst behind the ten-member version of Akatsuki.

To say that the outcome would be intriguing would not do the situation justice.