64

Chapter 63: Rose-Colored Glasses

Jiraiya was fighting with Sasuke. A reanimated Sasuke. What the hell was this world coming to? What happened to the days when wars between ninjas were fought between living beings? The thought of the undead being foot soldiers for someone's army, and that army being in the hands of Otogakure apparently. The thought was terrifying.

Team 8 had been given the opening to advance on with their mission to find the source of the Oto raids and the purpose behind them, and they weren't going to waste the chance to keep going that Jiraiya had given them.

It had taken a while, but eventually they managed to reach the entrance to the hideout they had been looking for. They knew it as such because Kiba and Akamaru could smell the original scent that they had been tracking along with a particularly powerful scent of snakes. A dead giveaway for any Inuzuka tracker that a place had something to do with Orochimaru or had been Orochimaru-affiliated at some point in time.

"We've got to get in there." Kiba said, standing at the entrance with Hinata, Shino, and Akamaru, "Jiraiya's back there fighting a zombie Sasuke. That's wrong on five different levels, so we've got to figure out what's down there and get back before something really fucked up happens and Konoha's down a legend."

"Jiraiya-sama can take care of himself." Shino assured his teammate as he pushed his glasses up on his face, "If there is anyone that is equipped to deal with the supernatural it is him. Hinata, do you have the layout of the base mapped out?"

"Yes." Hinata said, her Byakugan letting her see through most of what was inside of the cave that served as a base, "It's not booby-trapped… and there are no sentries inside." What? That was odd, "It seems like a temporary location. The only chakra signatures I can see are apparently prisoners."

Kiba didn't need to hear anymore, deciding to lead the way and head on inside. There were people inside that needed help. These were Konoha ninjas that had been captured by Otogakure raiding parties, and while he'd hoped that some of them would be inside so he could show them just what he thought of taking prisoners behind the front lines, he was willing to settle for taking out the place that they brought the prisoners to.

That would make his day, and put a cherry on top of the sundae that was the Konoha northeast campaign. He'd worked his ass off, so maybe he'd get a field promotion from his actions?

As cool as that would be, there was nothing more important at that moment than stopping the threat that existed away from the front lines for Konoha's forces. The seemingly endless tunnels eventually opened up into a large room with bars on the walls, cells behind them filled with trapped masses of humanity.

Everyone being held prisoner was shackled, usually in trios, and seemed to have been heavily injured in their captures due to the lack of treatment that many had seemed to have gotten. Some parts of the trios chained together were dead. Chain gangs sometimes had one or two of the three members chained together no longer amongst the living.

No one there seemed to have been interrogated though (see: tortured), but every last one of them seemed completely terrified of being in their current position for some reason.

Kiba reached for the bars but got a nasty shock for his trouble, "Ow! Damn it." He complained as he shook his jolted hand out, "How do we get these guys out? It's not a seal doing this. I think it's a generator."

"We need to find it, even if it will take some time." Shino said, analyzing the prisons. Even though he was very level-headed on the surface, his hive of insects were buzzing internally along with his temper at seeing living beings subjected intentionally to such conditions. He sorely wished for the dark soul that had masterminded this to pay dearly for it.

For one of them there was something else wrong with the situation. While there were plenty of people there, numbering past the fifties, there had been more reported as taken. Many more. Kiba hadn't smelled enough blood while they had been going through it for all of those people to have been executed, and capturing all of those people just to kill them seemed like a complete waste.

Hinata couldn't see any other place in the entire base that held prisoners. What they were seeing before them was it. So what the hell had happened to the others? Apparently being dead wasn't important enough for the cells to be cleared of people, so what was going on?

"Ah, more ninjas from Konoha. So you've just decided to come be a part of my experiments instead of me having to send out underlings to capture you? How thoughtful. I don't know if my jutsu will work on a dog however."

The voice was so smooth. So confident, so smarmy and sure of himself, mocking content of the words aside. And he was the origin of the snake smell from the perspective of Kiba and Akamaru. Just upon hearing his voice, many of the prisoners backed away as close to the wall as they could to keep away, even though they were behind bars.

It was a pale white man underneath a dark red cloak that concealed his entire body from view. His head was covered in a hood with snake's eyes on it, but underneath his skin seemed to have a scaly sort of consistency to it.

"What are you?" Hinata asked, taking a step back after she got a good look at him with her 'all-seeing eyes'. Underneath the robe there were two snakes wrapped around his waist that were apparently a part of his body, and there were so many different sources of DNA spliced into his physical makeup that it was hard to tell what was an actual part of him, "What kind of person would do that to their body, and why?"

"Aww… I'm so upset that someone as beautiful as yourself doesn't remember me Hyuuga-san, even though we only met a handful of times years ago." The grotesque young man said feigning despair, "Although I guess that was the point. I never really wanted to leave an impression until I was on my way out of that village of yours."

Shino stared closely at the man until he got a great glimpse underneath the hood of the cloak and saw a very particular set of glasses on his face. While glasses by themselves weren't very particular, something about this man made them stand out as if they were a trademark. As a matter of fact in the bingo book that was something to look out for when searching for this person in particular, "Kabuto Yakushi."

Kiba turned to Shino and then back to Kabuto out of surprise when he started chuckling, "The guy that spied on our village for Otogakure before the invasion during the chunin exam? What the hell? He's the boss?"

With a grandiose bow, Kabuto postulated in front of the trio and ninken, "The word 'boss' is such an underwhelming word for what I'd call myself. Welcome to my working laboratory." Standing up straight his smirk seemed to be splitting his face it was so wide, "I see you've found my supply of trusty test subjects. If you want to hop into the cells along with the others that would be fine, but it's a little more complicated than it looks. You probably knew that by now though."

Shino just pointed one accusing finger at Kabuto, glaring at him from behind his sunglasses, "You're the man controlling Sasuke Uchiha through the Edo Tensei aren't you?" Kabuto's laughing was the only answer he needed, "What are you doing? Is Otagakure an affiliate of the C.N.F.?"

"No, no. Nothing of the sort." Kabuto assured him laughingly with a wave of the hand, "The leader of the C.N.F. is not someone that I would see eye-to-eye with. And all of his talk of being God gets so tiresome. Honestly, the only reason he has as many villages with him to fight as he does is because they all know the legends of the Rinnegan and when he smote Sunagakure it scared them all into line."

Tobi was much more interesting as far as Kabuto was concerned. And while they weren't allies either, he wanted to see just what that man would do, what depths he would delve to in order to get what he wanted out of the clusterfuck that the war had made out of his original plans.

He was not going to interfere though. He found it much more entertaining to watch things like this transpire from afar.

But first he had to kill these intruders, and then watch Sasuke finish off Jiraiya.

"If you kill me, the Edo Tensei jutsu will never be released." Kabuto told them as a diversion to disarm them before honing in on the weak link of the team from his viewpoint. From underneath his cloak the long white snake that was connected to his body shot out at Hinata with his fangs bared to bite down on her with incredible speed.

It dawned upon him that Team 8 probably had a very high level of teamwork between them, but he didn't think they'd retaliate without missing a beat the way that they did.

"Mushi Kame no Jutsu (Insect Jar Jutsu)!" A swarming dome of bugs covered Hinata and blocked Kabuto's snake from harming her, something Kabuto wasn't going to risk touching lest he wind up getting insects on him that would drain his chakra. Before Kabuto could even get it back close to him, both Akamaru and Kiba were on both sides of him poised to attack.

Claws and fangs were poised to shred Kabuto to shreds before he managed to pull off one hell of a Kawarimi, involving him literally shedding his skin to avoid being cut to ribbons by Kiba and Akamaru.

Disgusting? Yes. Effective? Absolutely.

Kabuto cackled as he slipped away scot-free and quickly vacated the room, leaving the prisoner's chamber behind and the three hostile Konoha ninjas within, "You have two choices! You can either leave and die with Jiraiya at the hand of Sasuke Uchiha, or you can venture farther inside and die by my hand directly! Either way is just fine with me! Both ways just test my new power in different ways!"

XxX

(Jiraiya vs. Sasuke)

Not too far away, Jiraiya was thinking on just how simple it would or would not be to seal away Sasuke Uchiha. He was completely indestructible as he would instantly regenerate any injury that occurred. For goodness sake, Jiraiya had made him the center of the most catastrophic forest fire that he'd ever been a part of and he came walking right out.

And he was still locked in mortal combat against an immortal foe.

"You're Naruto's sensei aren't you?" Sasuke asked, his body involuntarily moving as he lashed out with strike after strike to injure Jiraiya, missing each time, though he was getting closer and closer to landing with his taijutsu, "Yeah, you are. I remember you. Though you had two arms back then."

Jiraiya blocked a kick with his forearm only to duck when Sasuke flipped upside-down and aimed a second kick with his second leg at his head, "Guilty as charged. And what can I say?" Jiraiya said as he stepped forward with a kick using his wooden sandals, "You don't need two arms to kick a little ass."

The kick missed and Sasuke quickdrew his sword, almost spilling Jiraiya's guts had it not been for the man's hardened battle instincts. As he jumped back to gain some distance, he was startled by Sasuke following him closely.

Sasuke stayed on him, constantly trying to stab at and cut him, somehow able to keep track of Jiraiya's movements well enough to keep in step with him. Jiraiya was able to stay just outside of the reach of the tip of Sasuke's sword. Despite the fact that he knew what he was doing with that thing, Sasuke's chokuto did not have the reach of a katana.

But what did Orochimaru do to him before he wound up killing the old snake off? This was ridiculous that he was this advanced, that he could match his every step. His timing was killer. Every time Jiraiya's foot touched the ground Sasuke's touched along with it less than three feet away.

He couldn't advance any closer, but that wasn't due to any sort of fear of reprisal from Jiraiya. He had already learned that there was no jutsu Jiraiya could use on him that would kill him, so he could be as tactically reckless as he wanted to be in order to land a blow that would debilitate the legend.

They had to have moved a complete two miles through the woods, consisting entirely of the movements Jiraiya dodging Sasuke's sword attacks entirely. Eventually the two of them moved outside of the forest and into a terrace of rice paddies that had been recently abandoned due to the war just in case.

It was here that Jiraiya managed to gain the distance that he so desired. Despite what he had said earlier, a one-armed man in an ass-kicking contest was at a disadvantage, and it wasn't like his opponent was unarmed or bad at taijutsu in the least.

"So I'm assuming that you're a bit sore at me for being the guy that trained the guy that killed you." Jiraiya commented, eyes directed on Sasuke's torso and legs instead of his eyes, "Well let me just say that I didn't train him for that. That being said… you ran away from the village and joined Orochimaru."

"I did that for one reason." Sasuke replied, "I did it to get enough strength to kill Itachi, and Naruto's interference took that away from me. So while this isn't really the kind of circumstance I'd like, it still gives me the chance to take something important away from Naruto the way he took my own purpose away from me right in front of my eyes by killing Itachi."

"He killed you, and you're more pissed off about him killing Itachi? That doesn't make any sense."

"He killed me, but that doesn't matter since I'm here now aren't I?"

Yeah, as a zombie soldier slave. But semantics probably didn't matter as long as you got what you wanted out of the situation. And killing Jiraiya to piss off or break Naruto's spirit was probably pretty high up there in the list of things that an undead Sasuke could want with his current station.

And that smirk on his face really didn't sit well with Jiraiya.

"You know being dead gives me a lot of advantages, even over someone such as yourself."

"Oh? Do go on. I'm listening. Honest."

"Any injury I suffer heals immediately. I'm basically immortal. I can see why Kabuto wants to try what he's planning with the Edo Tensei jutsu. It's really not a bad idea at all. I wonder why Orochimaru never tried it. It would have solved his immortality problem."

Wait what? Kabuto Yakushi was the one summoned Sasuke's soul back? Orochimaru's spy master of an assistant? Okay, that actually made sense. He had been Orochimaru's right-hand man, and he was a medic so reanimating dead bodies would probably have been something he was interested in.

But Sasuke didn't let him dwell on that as he continued to speak, "I can survive and reform from absolutely anything that happens to me. I don't feel any pain. I don't run out of chakra. So I can do anything I want to without having to worry about the consequences."

Jiraiya didn't like the sound of that. He liked the sight of his own blood on Sasuke's sword even less once he held it up. Looking at his elbow, Jiraiya saw that it had been nicked in the extended swordplay that he had been dodging. The resulting hand-seals from Sasuke got Jiraiya to curse aloud. He knew them well as if it were like walking or breathing, thus he quickly bit his thumb and made the move to match it.

'He's actually going to summon him? Why in the world-?' Jiraiya thought before slamming his palm on the ground just as Sasuke did, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!"

Massive plumes of smoke erupted, covering nearly a mile of landscape before they vanished, giving way to the gargantuan creatures that they signified the appearance of.

Even standing atop the head of his closest summon in Gamabunta, Jiraiya couldn't help but sweat at the fact that Sasuke had summoned his purple-colored serpentine equal; Manda. Summoning Manda was dangerous even for someone at a kage's level.

"What the hell?" Manda's voice boomed imposingly, "I explicitly remember telling every fool under contract to NEVER summon me again no matter what! Not unless they were willing to offer up their own lives as payment for my service!"

From his own place on Manda's head, Sasuke slid down to stand right in the middle of his face to shoot him a challenging look, "I would… but I'm already dead you see. If you feel like fighting with the Shinigami for my soul after I'm released feel free to do that. I just need you to kill him."

Manda would have devoured the insolent boy had he not already known that he only would have tasted ash and dirt all the way down, "Edo Tensei. That accursed jutsu." By then he had looked at Sasuke for long enough that ample eye contact was made to sway his opinion on fighting a battle, "Assure me that this time I'll have the opportunity to finish off that wart-covered giant toadstool."

"I can't stop until I kill Jiraiya anyway." Sasuke said, and apparently that was all Manda needed to lunge quickly at Gamabunta and Jiraiya. That and a little genjutsu-based influence never hurt either.

Gamabunta quickly drew his tanto and stabbed it into the ground as Manda came swiftly, fangs looking to take a chunk out of him. Manda quickly slithered around it and went for his bite, But Gamabunta pushed his entire body off of the ground via the solid hold his tanto had in the ground and attempted to drop down in a crushing body press on Manda.

He missed and the ground shook frightfully at Gamabunta slamming his tons of bulk on top of it. With a grunt Gamabunta watched Manda move away in preparation for another attack and addressed Jiraiya on his head, "Edo Tensei? You're fighting someone you can't kill?"

"I can still beat him." Jiraiya assured Gamabunta as both of them watched closely for another incoming rush, "I just have to do two things first." Neither of them would be easy, and first of all they needed to deal with Manda, "Manda isn't immortal though, so let's go ahead and kill him first."

"I love how you made that sound like it would be easy."

"It will be." Jiraiya said with a determined look on his face, "I need to get back to those kids. I can't let them deal with a monster like Kabuto alone. Naruto's told me about what he did with Orochimaru's remains. If he's bold enough to pull off what he's doing now he's got to have something up his sleeve."

He couldn't help but think about what Sasuke had alluded to.

Kabuto had come up with something involving Edo Tensei that was impressive enough for him to acknowledge it. Was Team 8 walking into a nest of reincarnated, invulnerable ninjas, or was it something worse?

No. Unkillable or not he had what it took to end this. All he had to do was get Gamabunta to finish Manda first. He'd never get to Sasuke to end this if he couldn't. There wasn't any time to save the tough stuff for dire straits. He had to make this as fast as possible.

Which meant that they'd be getting some more help.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!"

In the form of two elderly toads of opposite gender on each shoulder.

"So ya finally got around ta summonin' us again eh Jiraiya-chan?"

"Took ya long enough! You youngins just don't fight wars like ya used ta."

As was said before, he didn't have the time to screw around. Whether it was necessary or not was irrelevant. The toads were on his shoulders, his features began to change to a somewhat amphibious form, his fingers and toes became webbed, and warts formed on his face.

"Hate this form…" Jiraiya complained to himself, "…Hate it so much." Ugh, not important. There was a battle going on, "Ma, Pa, Bunta's taking on Manda. We're going for the kid on his head. He's an Edo Tensei revival."

Fukasaku glared out across at Manda and the small speck on his face, "Orochimaru's dead. Who's fool enough ta use that accursed jutsu?"

"Orochimaru's right hand man, but that's another story after we finish this. It's still important though." They couldn't kill him, so they had to get creative with how they stopped him, "We've got to subdue him. I've got a plan, but I need him immobilized first. We can do that, right?"

"Who do ya think yer talking to?" Shima said with a smirk, "Ya think we're so old we need ta be told ta get serious? Ya don't ever summon us unless the gloves are off."

"Well the gloves are definitely off now." Jiraiya said in return before addressing Gamabunta, "Get me close enough for long enough to get that kid. I don't care how you do it."

All Gamabunta did was chuckle darkly. He knew enough about the old snake across from him to know what he needed to do in order to get and stay close. It wasn't really advisable, but it was a request from a trusted friend who was dead serious about what was happening.

Manda stormed forth, slithering across the ground in an unreadable manner before using his incredible speed for a serpent his size to circle Gamabunta repeatedly. Gamabunta slammed his tanto down to cut through a portion of the snake's body, but that was what Manda wanted as he appeared at Gamabunta's rear, fangs poised to take a chunk out of him, "Jiraiya-!"

"I know!" Jiraiya had been watching Gamabunta's back as the easiest way to get Manda to stay close for long enough to reach the summoner on his head was to sucker him into lethally attacking, though this was dangerous because Manda was fully capable of killing anything in one move, "Suck on the combined awesome of my two pupils, taken to the next level by Jiraiya! Senpou: Cho-Odama Rasengan (Sage Art: Ultra-Great Ball Rasengan)!"

A normal Rasengan three times the size of his entire body hit Manda right in the face once Jiraiya leapt at him with the jutsu in hand. A violently pained hiss erupted from Manda's mouth as the snake was felled. That snake had some seriously tough skin. If that compressed chakra exploded it could have hollowed out a mountain.

As Manda's head fell like a towering tree, Sasuke turned back and proceeded to run down the back-end of his body fell while it fell in segments to hit flat on the ground. The titanic summon's body coiled back up and burrowed underground to escape Gamabunta before his toad adversary could finally make good on his threat to skin him and make a wallet out of him.

However he wasn't as safe as he figured he was in his tactical retreat. Now Manda had a determined Jiraiya on his body underground as well as Sasuke who probably couldn't have cared anymore about Manda's safety even though he was his summon.

All of the chunked-up earth flying in Jiraiya's face while Manda continued to dig around underneath the battlefield didn't deter him a bit as he continued to run down the length of Manda's body in search of Sasuke. Quickly locating him, Jiraiya didn't waste a second in launching another attack. Sasuke tried to lash out at him with his sword, but Jiraiya instead kicked him in the face and neck with his wooden sandal hard enough to obliterate his face and everything above his shoulders.

As he expected though, the mishmash of dust and ash reformed flawlessly in the appearance of Sasuke's face. The kick hadn't been to try and injure Sasuke though. It was all meant to get him away from Manda so that he could initiate the next phase of his plan.

And this was the picture-perfect location for it.

Seriously. Jiraiya couldn't have manufactured a better setting for what he needed to get done.

Landing on his feet, Sasuke stared impassively at Jiraiya as if it didn't matter that the theater of the battle had changed from the fresh outdoors to the interior of a hastily made tunnel created by a giant snake, "I guess I've solved the mystery people have been the answer to for years. A one-armed, handicapped Jiraiya is stronger than a bedridden, sickly Orochimaru. Congratulations."

"Well thank you." Some dead brat's sarcasm wasn't going to get to Jiraiya. He'd lived through the times where half of the trash-talk that ninjas these days used was invented. He was in control whether Sasuke knew it or not, invulnerable to fatal injury or not.

He'd heard about Sasuke's techniques from Naruto when he talked about the three-way battle he'd fought against the Uchiha brothers and he knew full well that he'd managed to cut off Sasuke's coup de grace that had blown up an entire fortress in a flash. He would not be forming the clouds for Kirin underground.

Sasuke would not let Jiraiya even begin to make more hand-seals however. Not before he did anyway, "Katon: Gouryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Jutsu)!" Sasuke fired a massive dragon's head of fire from his mouth right at Jiraiya who had no room to dodge inside of the tunnel.

'Never fight an Uchiha without countermeasures for fire.' Jiraiya thought to himself as he opened a prepared scroll and hurled it forward at the fire while he made one-handed hand-seals, "Fuuka Houin (Fire Sealing Method)!"

Now that was something that irritated Sasuke, seeing his jutsu get absorbed into a scroll. It reminded him of how Naruto managed to overpower his brother's jutsu. A jutsu that he himself didn't know if he could have overcome, even with all of his preparation. But he'd never get to prove it. Naruto had taken that from him by sticking his nose in their business and killing them both.

"I'm going to kill you, just to make him feel it. Just to make Naruto feel a bit of my hatred!" Sasuke shouted, raising his voice for the first time since he'd been brought back to life, "What business did he have killing Itachi?"

"Naruto didn't kill Itachi." Jiraiya said as the flames finished being sucked into his scroll, "He only killed you. Itachi survived that battle and died later in a battle in the desert. That was where they found his partner so they assumed he had somehow died there too. They found his blood." That whole mess with Danzo disappearing was something else. It was the Bermuda Triangle of battles, because no one that walked in wound up walking out.

Sasuke's eyes widened at that bit of news. When you were dead you weren't exactly up-to-date on current events. They didn't put out newspapers or bingo books in oblivion. But that bit of information hit Sasuke like the coldest chill.

In his mind, Itachi still walked the planet as the real final Uchiha, strange masked man notwithstanding. And if he had a real internal constitution he probably would have been physically ill at the thought.

Jiraiya did not hesitate to make his move. The hand-seals couldn't have flown fast enough before he slammed his palm on the ground, "Kuchiyose: Gamaguchi Shibari (Summoning: Toad Mouth Binding)!"

The tunnel transformed into a fleshy esophagus-like area. The flesh began to grow over Sasuke's feet and ankles to try and hold him in place. He managed to rip the limb free, but it held him in place long enough for a move to be made.

On Jiraiya's shoulder, Shima formed the ram seal and her tongue began to grow larger, expanding from her mouth with a carnivorous face on it complete with sharp teeth. It flew forward and ensnared Sasuke around his body, pinning his arms to his sides.

Jiraiya himself closed the distance between himself and Sasuke before smashing him into the wall and holding him there as the wall engulfed him and pulled him in. To Sasuke it reminded him of what happened when Orochimaru tried to take over his body. Only there was no countering this one with his Sharingan.

As soon as he was engulfed to a satisfactory extent, Fukasaku pulled out a sealing tag in Jiraiya's stead since the man himself had been using his only hand to hold Sasuke in place and slapped it on Sasuke's chest before it was fully covered up by the fleshy wall.

"I can't kill you." Jiraiya said as the only thing left even slightly uncovered was Sasuke's face, "So until I find an actual way to release you you're going to sit pretty in another dimension in this toad's stomach."

The only way he was getting away was if someone could get that tag off of him, and the only way to do that was to get inside of the nearly indestructible stomach of the toad that Jiraiya had summoned. On top of that, only toad summoners had control of the wall, and there were only two of them, thus only Naruto or Jiraiya could get him out.

All Sasuke did was stare dead at Jiraiya as the rest of his face was covered up by the wall, "Hm." His mouth was covered up as well, and that was that. Jiraiya couldn't have dismissed the Toad Mouth Binding and started running out of that tunnel fast enough.

Dealing with Sasuke was one thing for someone like him. Team 8 dealing with Kabuto Yakushi on their own, souped up on Orochimaru cells and who knows what else, with the power of the undead at his command was something else entirely. And they were playing on his field.

XxX

(At Sea – Off the Coast of Hi no Kuni)

The ship manned by the Kumo shinobi transporting Naruto back to his home country so that he could return to Konoha didn't have a single person that could keep themselves from staring in awe and nigh horror at the sight of Suigetsu, the size of a damned biju and getting bigger, albeit slowly.

It became abundantly clear and equally forgivable just why Kirigakure hadn't been able to get any ships to the mainland to assist with the war effort with this man patrolling the waters. Poor bastards probably never had a chance.

"We're so dead!" Chakra attacks weren't going to work on him. That much had already been proven. Not only had Naruto already tried it himself, a few intrepid allies from the ship had tried their best shot and had failed.

"If we stay around here our ship's a target for collateral damage!" Another ninja said, "Even if that guy never tries to target us on purpose at all! How much space can his jutsu cover if he's that big? What do we do? And what about Kirabi?"

Their attention turned to the other side of the ship and found him contesting with Juugo, "…I really don't think we have to worry about him."

And that indeed seemed to be the case. As intimidating as a murderous Juugo seemed to be and as intense as his chakra was, it was still a matter of just who he was fighting and trying to kill. Someone that no one else really needed to worry about.

Honestly, for a crazy person he couldn't have picked a worse target to zero in on.

A blast from the water signified another attempt of Juugo to turn Kirabi into paste that had failed.

"Shouldn't you be more worried about the water kid that's still getting better B?" The Hachibi chided as its jinchuuriki moved backwards across the water muttering to himself.

"Oh just chill, we've got time to kill." Kirabi said as he wished he could have out his notepad to write some lyrics. That wasn't really a good idea in the water where waves were constantly moving around, "…Crazy-ass guy… no fan of my rhymes." He muttered to himself before shaking his head, "No, that ain't any good."

"Die!" Juugo shrieked as he attacked with his full body's skin turned dark grey with multiple extensions from his special technique.

Figuring that this was enough of that since he was getting absolutely no worthwhile musical inspiration out of the fight, Kirabi tapped into his biju's chakra cloak, engulfing himself in dark red energy with four tails of chakra forming that caught Juugo's limbs and held him prostrate for an attack.

"All that power and no real skill?" Kirabi said as his tails pulled Juugo in while he rushed forward, horns of chakra forming on his right arm, "Against Hachibi-sama that'll get you killed! Rariatto (Lariat)!" A fully transformed Juugo took a nasty full-armed hit to the neck and chest that blew away part of his back on impact.

The power of the Lariat sent his body flying and skipping across the water until it slammed into the hull of the ship just underneath the water like a torpedo.

"Whoo!" The veteran jinchuuriki cheered for his own battle efforts. Blood was already beginning to show in the water where Juugo had hit the vessel. If the Lariat itself didn't completely wreck his body, being stuck in the side of a metal transport certainly wouldn't help, "Lord and master of ALL I survey!"

Now maybe he could sit back and watch what kind of ninja Naruto really was. It was his first time seeing his Konoha counterpart in a real battle. And while he probably should have jumped in to do something about the opponent that he was facing, in all honesty he found it way more interesting to see what Naruto would do about it.

That didn't make him a bad friend did it? Of course not. He was just making sure that his comrade was capable of living up to the lofty expectations he had established for himself.

Yes. The fact that he was going to get to see a pretty good fight to boot was just a consolation to his good intentions.

In a show of grand speed, Kirabi quickly boarded the Kumo ship once more and sat down facing the gargantuan Suigetsu and the diminutive Naruto currently locked in combat. He was not pleased though, "Hey! That's the wrong way! Go back!"

The ship was trying to get its distance from the battle… for obvious reasons. The strongest Kumo ninja amongst them was not having any of that though.

"We can't stay too close to that or he'll sink our ship just like all of the others that came from Kiri." One of the sailors said as to their reasoning for moving away from the fight.

"I don't care!" Kirabi stated firmly, smacking his palm on the deck repeatedly, "Circle around the edge and we'll be fine! We've gotta watch out for Mister Nine!"

"Why don't you just help him then?"

Turning around where he was sitting to look over at the exasperated Kumo nin that had asked him that question and realized that a bunch of others on the ship wanted an answer too, and were quite serious about it, "…'Cuz I want the best seat for the show."

"Fuck it." The captain ninja of the ship said, palming his face as he headed back for the helm, "Turn the ship around. If we die out here at least A will kill B for letting it happen."

XxX

While he was cursing the fact that he was fighting in such a predicament, Naruto supposed it had been a while since he'd been presented with a puzzle of a battle, and he was well overdue for one. He knew his luck wouldn't hold out forever. He hadn't been in a situation this dire in quite a while.

There was at least one mystery solved though. The mystery of why Kirigakure hadn't mobilized and gotten a landing force to reach the mainland of the Elemental Nations yet. A lot of good water-based ninjutsu would do when you were fighting someone that could merge with it.

'So I can't hurt him by hitting him or cutting him, and I can't shock him to death or hit him with any ninjutsu because he can absorb my chakra.' Naruto thought to himself and the Kyuubi as he darted out of the way of Suigetsu's Hiramekarei sword. Sage Mode and Sharingan was a killer combination for evasiveness, 'I can't seal him, and genjutsu? Ha! Any ideas?'

"Other than what I already said about FINDING OUT WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING YOU IDIOT! I have no input to give you at the moment."

'Don't bitch at me you nine-tailed jackass, because after this I will never swat flies with the same intensity ever again! What good are you doing right now?'

"I'm the reason you're in Sage Mode and can still move around at the same time."

'…Other than that and backseat driving, what good are you doing right now?'

"You know." Suigetsu said in a booming voice fitting of his size that disrupted Naruto and Kyuubi's conversation, "I actually don't hate you at all. That's Karin's thing. And Juugo's too since he felt that Sasuke was the only person that could keep him from losing control. But me, I was interested in all of this because you beat Sasuke and Itachi, at the same time you badass you."

"It was really more of a draw between me and Itachi." Naruto said as Hiramekarei almost instantly transformed its shape into something else other than a giant sword, "And oh my Kami, what the hell is that!?"

"A giant flyswatter. Huh… are you getting a sense of irony here too, or is that just me?"

There wasn't any time to yell at his chakra creature as he had to maneuver himself through one of the holes of the Hiramekarei flyswatter. Once again, he had to love that evasiveness. Naruto reached into his on-hand supplies and slapped a special tag on the Hiramekarei blade before making a ram hand-seal to bind the chakra to the blade until someone took it off.

So he could affect the chakra of Suigetsu's weaponry, but not Suigetsu directly. Good to know. Not that it mattered now that Hiramekarei was far too small for him to hold. It was like a normal person trying to wield a toothpick as a sword, and it fell from his hands into the water.

Naruto then proceeded to make like an angry bee and fly directly at Suigetsu's head. More specifically his right eye.

If he couldn't get him from the outside, why not try the inside? Everything was weak on the inside.

Much to Suigetsu's annoyance and displeasure, Naruto punched right into his head through the eye and stopped at the middle of his head. He wanted to go all the way through to burst his head like a watermelon, but his momentum stopped there. That water was dense, 'Okay. He's pure water on the inside. I was hoping for something a bit more… vulnerable, but whatever. Maybe I can shock him or blow his head apart from the inside?'

"Not particularly. You couldn't blow your nose in here from what I can feel."

An attempt to build chakra for a jutsu, any jutsu, failed. Extending his hand for a Rasengan failed equally as hard. Chakra couldn't touch him at all or it'd be drained? He was stealing the chakra right out of his body.

"Heheheheheh…" Suigetsu grinned toothily at feeling Naruto's chakra revitalize his system, "This chakra is really unstable. If I didn't have something that could neutralize and filter transformed chakra you might have hurt me with your pure stuff going right into me."

Damn it! He could steal senjutsu chakra? Bullshit! What jutsu could do that?

And the consistency of that water was thick. It was like trying to swim through oil. So now it was just a matter of how long he could hold his breath for. Okay, the plan had failed. It was time to get some distance and try to come up with something new.

Eventually reaching the back of Suigetsu's head, Naruto found that he couldn't free himself. He couldn't generate the same force inside of Suigetsu to punch out the way he had punched in, "Oh you're just flailing away in there aren't you?" Suigetsu taunted as the water that comprised his jutsu and his body sucked Naruto's reserves of chakra dry, "I wonder how long the Kyuubi can even keep this up for. Samehada was always the best weapon someone could use for fighting a jinchuuriki. There's no chakra it can't absorb."

Even cutting and stabbing at the edge of the watery prison with his sword did nothing. Naruto had to do something quick or he was going to run out of air. Losing his chakra wasn't an issue. Kyuubi was giving him a direct loan of senjutsu chakra so he could stay in Sage Mode for as long as he needed to, but couldn't hold his breath forever.

He had to stay calm. Each second was enough time for two ideas to flitter through his head and enough time to get a better look at everything around him.

Wait. What was that down around the core of the body? Didn't Suigetsu say something about Samehada? It was hard to hear since his ears were clogged with and he was surrounded by water. His hearing had been distorted.

But yes, he was sure that Suigetsu had said just that.

Looking down at the center right where the middle of the body would be, Naruto could see two somethings down there. As if he had any better plans at the moment. With that, he fought to swim his way down through Suigetsu's body.

With a great effort he eventually got close enough to confirm that Samehada was indeed sitting right in the middle of Suigetsu's body with its spines extended and wiggling about like nerves for the body. So that was what he'd meant earlier about using two swords at the same time despite the fact that only Hiramekarei was visible, and that was how he could absorb chakra just by being touched by it. Sneaky bastard.

As he swam closer to the sword, he saw a small blob of a creature that vaguely looked like Suigetsu's normal-sized head only more blob-like.

"Well what do you know? You were sort of right. Everyone is weaker inside-out." Kyuubi commented in amusement at the sight of Suigetsu on the inside.

Naruto couldn't help but stare as Suigetsu glared at him. So this was basically control central? And since he hadn't been attacked yet there was apparently nothing Suigetsu could do inside of his own body to stop him short of keeping him from leaving. At least without disrupting High Seas Swell, which would free Naruto anyway.

Throwing a punch at Suigetsu, he swam out of the way and Naruto directly swam down to the sword before grabbing onto it. He almost wound up drowning when he opened his mouth, surprised and in pain when the handle formed spikes that stabbed into his hands, 'To hell with that! I'd rather bleed a bit than drown in this place!'

With Sage Mode enhanced strength, Naruto ripped Samehada free from its own nerve extensions in Suigetsu's High Seas Swell body and it all fell apart back into the ocean like a waterfall.

None of the men onboard the Kumo ship had ever seen that much water fall from the air at once, and all started yelling fearfully when it caused a massive wave that headed their way.

"Oh hell no!" Kirabi shouted as he jumped off of the ship right at the wave and began linking up with his biju in the purest way possible, "Jinchuuriki-sama's got this!" The form of Kirabi changed into a massive four-horned bull with arms and a torso as well as eight gargantuan tentacles that serves as tails.

Amazingly enough, he had transformed into the Hachibi itself and had done so to block the entire wave with his body to protect the ship until the surge subsided.

The men on the ship cheered at their village's protector coming through, and never one to pass up a moment to soak in the adulation of his comrades, Kirabi bellowed in the beast's voice and held up one arm with the pinky and index fingers extended to the sky to mimic a pair of horns, "Ye~~~~ah!"

In the sky above the water, a thoroughly Naruto still held onto Samehada and stared at it angrily as it was still stabbing spikes into his hands, "You can stop that any time. You're not going to get deep enough to make me let go as long as I'm fortified in Sage Mode, and you can't suck enough chakra to make me drop it. If you keep stealing my chakra I will seal you into the blackest pit I can think of, so don't test me scaly!"

Apparently the monstrous weapon realized that resistance was futile and retracted its spikes. That was a good sentient sword. Kisame probably did something like that to scare it into obedience, and he didn't have any idea what Suigetsu had done to get control over it. He probably earned it by killing so many people over the seas and taking their chakra.

Speaking of whom, looking down, Naruto saw Suigetsu reforming his regular-sized body and staring up at him hatefully, "This isn't over yet." The second time. This would mark the second time that Naruto had directly or indirectly had contributed to him losing one of his swords. To be quite honest he was starting to take it personally, "I've still got all of my own chakra! Just because you stole Samehada and won't let it go doesn't mean I'm done. I'll take it back after I kill you!"

"Oh." Naruto said, pointing one hand at Samehada, "You want this?"

"You know I do."

"Yeah, I do." Without saying anything else about it, Naruto turned and hurled it as hard as he could, as fast as a missile, right at Kirabi who smothered it in his tentacles once it got within reaching distance of the rangy extensions, "Whoops. I must still have water in my ears… and my lungs, because I could have sworn you just said to hand it over to the gigantic bull-octopus thing."

"That's it, everybody dies!" Suigetsu shouted, snarling up at Naruto, "You're not safe up there!" He started rolling through hand-seals before stopping on and holding the bird seal, "Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu (Water Release: Great Waterfall Jutsu)! It's time to send you crying home to your mommy!"

"My mom's dead."

"I know!"

The ocean began to churn all around Suigetsu except for a safe and stable portion that he was standing on. With a resounding crash of water, the sea began to fly up at Naruto with the force of a reverse-direction waterfall, "I'm still in my element!"

Naruto snarled down at his enemy as the jutsu had been forming and created two clones, holding out his hand with a Rasengan in it while the two others started manipulating it to their liking, forcing yellow and blue electricity to flicker off of it dangerously until it shrank to the size of a stone that Naruto was able to clutch tightly in his fist as more electricity crackled around it.

He could feel the muscles in his hand quivering and shaking intensely. If he hadn't been in Sage Mode that would have been around the time where he'd lost the feeling in the entire limb, just before losing use of it completely. Yes, he had to thank Jiraiya and the elder toads, "Yeah… about that. I almost drowned and got swatted like a fly today. I wasn't really a fan of that. And for the last month, at least, you've been keeping ships from landing that could help us end this stupid war."

"SO WHAT!?"

"One of my elements is better than your element, even if you have it everywhere around you! So it's a good thing you're made of water, because I hear you get really thirsty in hell! Raiton: Rasenriseki (Lightning Release: Spiraling Marble)!" With that, Naruto let fly with the little pebble of compressed lightning chakra that violently let off uncontrollable snaps of electricity all over the air.

It still didn't look that threatening to Suigetsu who had sent his jutsu up to overpower it, "That's not how my clan jutsu works ass!" His shout died in his throat as he watched the little lightning ball dissolve every last drop of water that came into contact with it and the neverending frantic volts it kept letting off.

It looked as if a large spherical path was being cut through his very wave without stopping it a bit. Cutting wasn't even the right word. It was as if the water simply vibrated into inexistence once it got close enough to be touched by the electricity. But there was no way. It didn't even look that strong. It was just a little pebble of chakra.

So why could Suigetsu feel a stinging inside of him, even on the inside of his mouth?

"B, get out of the water!"

Kirabi didn't need to be told twice as he could feel a sting in the air without being anywhere near whatever jutsu Naruto was using. Biju or not, the Hachibi form had already lost a horn to a human's jutsu in the past. If he was told to get out he wasn't going to push his luck for no reason. He transformed back to normal and landed on the deck of the Kumo ship, still holding onto Samehada as he did so.

Suigetsu found he had less feeling in his body over the course of the three seconds that it took Naruto to shoot the jutsu and for it to reach him. From a slight discomfort, to feeling like his muscles were gelatin, all spongy and impossible to move with the sensation of pinpricks running across every nerve-ending he had.

He wasn't going to dodge this. And turning to water would only make it all worse. He opened his mouth to yell, but nothing came out before it hit him, and it didn't stop there.

From above, Naruto had the view of the Rasenriseki's effects. It continued on down deep into the ocean as if it were digging a hole through the water before it instantly cascaded down over it and covered the tracks of his jutsu. It would keep going until it hit something solid and traveled a small bit farther. So that meant the ocean floor.

"Mister Ni~~~ne!"

Looking down and over at the ship, Naruto could see the dark-skinned, white-clad Kirabi waving at him spiritedly and moved on down over to him as he landed on the deck and was greeted with a fist bump that he actually was fully willing to return with a smile after deactivating Sage Mode.

He then proceeded to punch his fellow jinchuuriki in the head, knocking him face-first to the deck, "You fucker! You watched that whole thing and transformed and I had to come up with the most convoluted way to beat someone I've ever used!"

"Gah!" Kirabi got back up rubbing his head but other than that barely showing the effects of the 'tap' that Naruto had given him, "Mister Nine don't be mad! You showed that watery bitch who's bad!"

"I got a ton of chakra drained and almost drowned and in his head." Naruto recalled, "That's not really the coolest way to win a fight!" He then noticed the bleeding body on the deck stuck with eight swords, "What is that?"

"The crazy guy." Kirabi explained, poking at a lifeless Juugo's body with the foot of his sandal, "I thought I killed him over the side, but he was trying to bide his time. Tryin' to get a shot when my guard was down, but a real ninja's senses are always abound!"

"Why are you still holding Samehada?"

"The little dude likes me!"

"…Okay, yeah. Let's go with that."

It was as if Naruto could still feel eyes on him and he turned to where the pirate ship from before had been where the battle had more or less begun as it was sailing away in an opposite direction. He already knew that the Karin girl was staring at them, and more specifically him if she was a sensor of a high enough level to find him on the open seas.

One of the Kumo nin put a hand on Naruto's shoulder, "Hey, don't worry about them. That Suigetsu guy was their muscle. Without him they can't hold any kind of blockade. Let the Mizukage get a pound of flesh back off of them." He said with a grin, ecstatic at a naval victory like this. Kumo wasn't used to battles on the ocean, and it felt good to win one, "Man, Kiri's going to owe us huge for this one, yeah?"

Sure they technically lost two of their swords in Hiramekarei and Kubikiribouchou, but hey they weren't gone forever… they were just lost at sea. Maybe. And then Samehada seemed to like Kirabi, but that wasn't their fault. For all intents and purposes they just saved Kirigakure from being blockaded in. They were fucking heroes and when they got home the Raikage was going to give them all medals and hopefully vacations and a kiss from Mabui.

Naruto nodded noncommittally as he couldn't hear the man's thoughts while he had been thinking them. Focusing instead on his own, "They're not going to get that girl though."

"Why not? She's not strong at all. She's just a sensor."

Yes, a sensor that could feel anyone moving on her location half a day in advance if she really reached out for it. Karin didn't really need to be strong if she could avoid any potential battle to begin with.

But that wasn't the only reason. She didn't have to be strong to know how to live for another day.

"Because my clan has a really bad habit of surviving things like this."

If she hated him after killing Sasuke, what was it like now when he destroyed her entire team mean to kill him, with her teammate at his strongest possible point? Either way, when the war was over if she wanted to try her hand once again he'd be waiting.

It never ended after all.

"Can you guys just take me to Hi no Kuni already?" Naruto asked, turning away from that direction and moving off to start getting a report together in advance for his return to Konoha. They weren't far from the coast, "I really just want to go home right now." As fast as he could get there.

XxX

(Miles Away From Konohagakure no Sato – Konoha Strict Correctional Facility)

It was the most amazing thing that any of the prisoners had ever seen. It was also right up there with the most alarming and confusing.

One man walked right into the prison, past all of the guards, past everyone. They simply let him in, right through the front, and left him alone as he went through the facility. The Konoha ninjas posted there to protect the place just let him pass until he could unlock all of the cells from the control room.

All of this was done by one strange man in an odd mask with a spiral pattern and one eyehole. He asked for nothing in return nor gave any conditions to his releasing of them. He merely let them all go, and there was no one trying to stop them.

"That went well." Tobi said to himself as he stood around with the prison guards around him in the control room, "That went very well. It took six hours to replace the guards and take over this place. This should divert enough attention to empty out the rest of the village. It seems that while it's not perfect, the White Zetsus' substitute transformation was good enough to bring this place down."

Everyone released would be making their way as far from Konoha as they could, and that would cause a serious stir across the countryside that would not slip notice of the village meant to be responsible for them.

These weren't just criminals, missing-nin and the like. Due to wartime state, prisoners of war were transported there to be held as well. A complete jailbreak would definitely get Konoha to make some kind of venture to run damage control.

And from there he would move his White Zetsus into the village. There was a home guard kept back to protect the village, consisting of a good number of upper-level shinobi and many, many genin that were all ready to defend the village, but this wasn't meant to be a true battle either way.

All Tobi wanted was one thing from this endeavor.

Well, two things actually. But both of those lay behind the big gates of Konohagakure no Sato, and he was not there yet. He still had to be careful.

"So close." Tobi said as he could feel the presence of the original Zetsu move behind him, "When is the soonest that we can move the army into position? I didn't risk keeping them near the village in case this went south."

"You want a third of them for this right?" The white half of Zetsu asked, "Enough to give them a scare?"

"Right." Tobi replied, "This is only meant for me to get something, and 1500 is enough to subdue the village's forces long enough for me to do that."

White Zetsu nodded in understanding. This was still the same determined man he had known for all those years, "Okay. I can have them all the way here from the Mountains' Graveyard in just over a day, another three hours if you want them mobilized to move on your command."

"That's fine." Tobi looked at the transformed White Zetsus disguised as the prison guard ninjas and figured that he couldn't try to use them to infiltrate the village to soften it up a bit internally, "Time is of the essence, but we can't rush this either. It needs to be done right or we could incur too many losses."

The people they replaced had been posted out there for an extended mission and weren't scheduled to switch out with another guard set for a few weeks. They needed to remain there for the time being to maintain the façade that everything was fine until it became certain that the game was up.

That was the way things were done if things hadn't changed since the last time he had anything to do with Konoha. It would be a big red flag if things started happening once people that shouldn't have returned yet arrived back in the village, and he was not going to allow his element of surprise to be blown because he had tried to get too cute.

He was danger-close to the heart of the enemy. And he needed to get what he came for by any means necessary. Things were slipping away. After years of tireless work, of moving things in every direction that had been mapped out for him, it was beginning to crumble. The achievement of the Eye of the Moon Plan seemed to be out of his reach, as if he had stalled out.

He felt like a man that had built a skyscraper intending to touch the stars, but no matter how high he went they were always at the same distance, and any sense that they were getting closer was just the thinning of the air getting to his head as he continued to build and climb.

Curse the Uzumaki Clan. He could see why Madara had lain things out in the past in order to see Uzushiogakure destroyed. A clan full of wild cards with a personal code that you could not manipulate at large, a will that you could not bend or break without ending their lives in the process.

"Nagato and Naruto." The masked conspirator said to himself and to Zetsu, "Who would have figured that a pawn and a target would have ruined everything just by being pitted against one another." Nagato should have just been able to capture him during the failed infiltration and that should have been all. Naruto would have been captured and set aside until the Kyuubi could be extracted.

Somehow he survived the crushing defeat at the hands of Nagato's Six Paths of Pein. Nagato, fueled by that victory over Naruto and Jiraiya, the destruction of a portion of Amegakure, and his own ego swelling at the constantly proven commodity of the Rinnegan and his growing power over it, started a cumbersome world war that made things even more difficult than before.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered to Tobi, as long as he managed to get his plan together in the end. A few detours and a few things destroyed that hadn't originally been slated for punishment could be forgiven. Anything that was broken could be fixed under the influence of the Infinite Tsukoyomi. He'd come too far now.

He would bring that reality to the world no matter whose toes he had to step on in the process.

Or necks.

XxX

Outside of the prison a figure in a porcelain mask and a black cloak had a view of every prisoner that had been within Konoha's correctional facility making a run for it with no one stopping them.

The man with the mask seemed familiar. Everyone in his organization had been briefed by Sai and Maki about the appearance of the the man in the swirl-patterned mask, 'Madara Uchiha'.

Such an enemy was a close blade to the jugular of Konoha, "I need to warn Sai-sama about what could be happening." He said to himself as he quickly began moving back toward Konoha.