Chapter 45

XXXXX- KITSUCHI THE EARTH-SHAKER

If someone had warned him that this is what would have happened if he involved Roshi and Han in this fight, then he'd probably have let the Kazekage brat do as he willed and left it that. Because as bad as it could have been, it would never have got this bad if the brat was left alone to his own devices.

The brat fought like a regular ninja. A regular ninja, strong enough that even Kitsuchi knew he had no chance against him. But at the end of the day, a human was a human. What had been unleashed on the village hidden in the stone was no human. There was nothing human about it. The Yonbi had done what four Great Ninja villages across three wars had failed to do. It had brought the Great Stone low. Before him, he could see another building sink into the lava as the fight between Han and the Four tails continued to rage in what had become the ruins of his father's legacy.

His right hand had been crushed to a pulp, so he was well and truly out of the action, but he knew that even if he'd been whole, fresh, and rested, this fight would have been leagues beyond his pay grade. He knew he wasn't ready to be Tsuchikage. He knew he didn't have the strength to compare with the S-rank monsters who wore the hat, and now it was obvious to not just him, but his entire village.

The Yondaime Hokage had died, sealing away a rampaging Nine tails. The Yondaime Tsuchikage stood at the top of a building, watching his village sink into lava as a rampaging Four Tails proved that he'd be no match for it. The comparison was obvious, and it irritated him to no end. Kitsuchi had lived with the shadow of Minato Kamikaze hanging over his head like a sword poised for an execution. And even after succeeding his father, that shadow would never leave him. Because he could already tell that regardless of what happened, History would remember him as the Tsuchikage that lost Iwa to their own weapon.

And what made it worst was that whatever Gaara of the Desert had come here to accomplish was probably still happening without any delay.

Kitsuchi ground his teeth watching them fight, and then the devil began to whisper in his ear. He could see it there, the sand platform that carried the unconscious body of his enemy. He ached to jump upwards and take revenge for his father's village with his own two hands. He wouldn't be able to save Iwa, but at least he could give them the head of their enemy. Rather, he would have been able to if the bastard hadn't crippled him. Some ninjas could learn to work with only one limb, but that was after years of training and experience.

"Head" He said, acknowledging the man who dropped from the air and landed next to him.

"The attack from the Kazekage was a distraction. Several ninja have come in contact with shinobi of the hidden sand hidden around the village. None were captured, but we have a good enough idea of their targets" He said, making my scowl deepen. Something had been foul about this attack from the beginning. I'd assumed it was the arrogance of youth who believed in his own invincibility, but now I could see that he was acting like the Raikage of old. It was a strange way to play the game. Putting the King out in the open and using him to cause chaos and draw enemy attention, while the rest of the pieces moved on the board undetected and unnoticed, free to do as they placed and achieve the goals.

"What are the probable targets?"

"The Ninja Academy, The Morgue, The Hospital, and the explosion corps headquarters were all broken into during their raids. We know that at least two users of the explosion release have been captured and that the Ninja Archives were looted to the end. An operative was able to observe the Kazekage's siblings and their sensei in combat with Jonin Kurotsuchi, and the Kage Vault was also empty." He said, making Kitsuchi clench his one remaining fist.

This attack had been specially designed to cripple their means of waging war. And even his daughter had got caught up in the madness. He knew she'd be fine. She was already stronger than he was when his wealth of experience wasn't taken into account, and all their reports suggested that the Kazekage's siblings were lesser versions of their younger brother, failing to be anything more than average chunin at the last estimation.

_ Switch to First-Person POV_

"Send a team to Kurotsuchi for backup. Ebizo of the thousand fists is not one to be underestimated. After that, assemble a team of the best jounin. Scramble them across all the priority targets in the village. Hunt down the Suna operatives. We might not be able to do much about that clusterfuck at the centre of our village, but we can still make sure the Suna brat doesn't achieve all that he hopes to. We are the stone. We have the will of stone. We will break before we bend, and some brat from the Sands and a mindless monkey will never manage to break us. They've enjoyed the initiative, but that ends now. Our counterattack begins now". I said, tossing a kunai into the ground as a symbol, and all the ninja who had been around me, from genin to chunin, to Jounin and anbu stood a bit taller at those words of mine. I might have been the lesser son of a greater sire, but Father was gone. I was all the Stone had now, and I would not see her break. Not while I had breath in me.

"You should take it easy, Tsuchikage-sama" The medic that had been tending to my hand whispered as she bandaged it up.

"I haven't the time, Saiko" I said, using her name with an easy smile on my face.

"I will take it easy when I'm dead" I told her before walking forwards abruptly and jumping off the rooftop, heading for the next one.

Her shouts for me to slow down were left behind. Shoulder and Knee followed me as I jumped through the village, heading for what many would consider the priority target One. The Academy. I'd take over the evacuation efforts on that end, while keeping an eye out for any sand bastards. While I wanted to be at the front lines, keeping my people safe and hunting down every invader, I knew Saiko was right. I couldn't rob thew village of a Kage in its present condition. That had definitely been one of the reasons why the original attack had been so close to the Kage tower. He'd aimed to draw me out to kill me. Staying alive would have to be the vengeance I exacted on the Suna brat for his actions. Just the knowledge that who the one who the Kazekage had intended to kill above others still remained alive would be enough for me. It would have to be.

Apart from the academy, the other priority targets would be left to the others. Han was doing a good job of isolating the fight with the Yonbi and preventing the beast from causing any more widespread chaos. My earlier thoughts had proven to be a bit dramatic. If the fight ended now, a good portion of Iwa would survive. The repairs would be expensive, and the knowledge that the Kage vault had been looted brought me no small amount of fury, but Kurotsuchi would handle that. I had to have enough confidence in my daughter for her to do that little, at least. Especially with a full team of ANBU agents at her back.

XXXXXX- SASORI OF THE RED SANDS

He paid careful attention to his surroundings as he and his new partner made their way through the mountainous region that housed the Village hidden in the Clouds. He spied a look at the boy once again, and just had to wonder how he'd found himself in this situation in the first place. He could remember most of it, of course. It was easy enough to track the decisions that had led to this. Choosing to fight that woman, Konan, instead of attempting to escape all those years ago. And then there was deciding to join her little organisation for what they promised. Those were some of the earliest decisions that had placed him on his path.

For the most part, he had few regrets. What Akatsuki had promised, Akatsuki had delivered. They'd even given him a fun enough partner to banter with until the idiot had gone and got himself killed in a fight against the Kazekage. Gaara of the Desert was clearly more dangerous than his predecessors, he knew. But still, it had been a disappointment to lose Deidara. While the man made too much noise for his own good, Sasori had begun to appreciate not being left to his own thoughts all the time. And their debates about art had been amusing, at the very least. Even if it was obvious that Satori's view had been the superior one. The puppet master was the one left standing now, wasn't he? He was the one who had the capacity to affect the world, while Deidara's last explosion had been forgotten in the storm of things that surrounded the Konoha attack.

Victory felt hollow to Sasori. In certain ways, at least. One was his new partner. Noel of the Storm Release, S-rank missing-nin of Kumogakure. One of the few truly dangerous shinobi to escape Cloud's famous STORM. The hunter-nins that ensured that anyone who dared betray the village found themselves a quick death and an unmarked grave. If Sasori didn't have a thorough hatred for organised ninja villages, then he might have even managed to be impressed by their effectiveness.

"How much farther?" He asked, giving in and being the one to break the thick silence that had blanketed them from the moment they'd left the Village Hidden in the Rain to begin this mission.

"Not much" his partner said with a grunt, and Sasori resisted the urge to lash out. To poke a senbon into his partner's leg. Maybe when he got to feel Sasori's newest invention, he'd find his voice. His taciturn partner was not the only downside to being a member of the Akatsuki, however. This mission was another. He'd been summoned by the enigmatic leader, and basically told to abandon his preparations and training for fighting against the Kazekage. He was, instead, to be sent after the Two-tails. Nii Yugito. If he were being completely honest, he could understand why that mission was being allocated to others. Like he'd said, Gaara of the Desert was a dangerous fellow. Dangerous enough that Sasori had been wary of when they'd finally clash fists.

Even with his partner at his side, he'd have given them barely winning odds against the Kazekage. Noel of the Storm Release had already lost to the boy once before, and that had been a while ago. A while in which they'd both grown stronger, but given that the Kazekage had been named Kage and then gone on to slay not just Deidara, an established S-rank ninja, but also the Sandaime Tsuchikage, a bastion of the old world. A man who epitomised what it meant to be a shinobi, while Noel had gone on to become a Jounin of exceptional competence, but still one who'd lost in combat to the Yondaime Raikage. If he had to pick a winner, he'd give it to the established Kage killer. It was clear that he himself would be the difference maker. But he also had no idea if any of the ideas he'd had for countering the Kazekage's skillset would be enough to grant them the win. That was another benefit of being in the Akatsuki, he guessed. Apart from his own information network, membership of the organisation granted him access to so much raw data that he had already theorised that whoever wrote the Bingo Book had at least some connection to the organisation.

If it weren't for that information network, he'd have felt even more unsure about the fight he was about to step into. Nii Yugito was a powerful jinchuriki. Only an idiot would think otherwise. She'd not participated in the last war, but that had been because of her age. Apart from that mark against her, she had a perfect record. The Bingo Book recognised her as an S-rank threat in the same vein it recognised both himself and his partner. The difference between them was the fact that Kumo's outer facing Jinchuriki had never failed a mission. Not once in thousands of missions. Assassinations, searches and rescues, protection details, and all sorts. Not once had she ever been forced to fill one of those dreadful mission failure reports.

That fact alone made him wary. It meant two things, unfailingly. One, she was smart. Smart enough that she'd never been outsmarted by either enemy ninja or even the environment itself. Two, she was powerful. She'd never been overpowered on a mission before, and that was telling. Especially considering that she most often went on protection missions with some of the most sought after people on the planet. Kumo was not shy about lending out her services, and the Raikage charged a premium for it. It was why they'd been able to track her here. Somehow, the Leader had been able to ensure that she'd be sent on a mission to escort a merchant lord to his castle on the other end of the region. She'd be as far away from Kumo's famed Village-guard as possible. That meant that they'd have the opportunity to get to take her out without any risk of her counterpart stepping in.

Sasori had no doubts that if Killer Bee showed up, that was going to be the end of it. He was many things. A liar would never be one of them. Especially when it came to himself. He would not lie to himself that he had anything resembling a chance against the Eight tailed Jinchuriki. The famed perfect, jinchuriki, the guardian of Kumo. Considering each tailed beast was as powerful as all the ones that came before it combined, facing off against a fully realised Hachibi was extremely low on his list of priorities. He had no desire to find out how his attempts at immortality would survive against a tailed beast bomb.

"We're here" His partner said, and Sasori nodded. Like it was not obvious. He could see the giant castle built right into the mountain just as clear as the Kumo-native could.

"I'll take her on first. Do not interfere unless I fall" He spoke again. Oh, the great mute one could speak in more than just two-word sentences, could he? Sasori said none of the words that ached to fall from his lips in favour of merely continuing to move forwards. If Noel Yatsuki wanted to get himself killed in battle, then there was nothing Sasori of the Red Sands could do to stop him, he decided.

Xxxxx

"Nii Yugito" His partner spoke as the woman entered the main hall of the Castle, where they'd chosen to wait for her.

"Noel Yatsuki" The blond woman said in recognition, chest heaving with invisible fury.

"The Raikage will honour me when I return with your head" She said, making his idiot partner laugh, even as blue chakra began to surround her. The fact that the chakra was visible to his naked eyes told Sasori all that he needed to know, and he wasted no time in stepping backwards to give his partner the space he needed to get himself killed.

"Submit, woman. You stand no chance against…" Noel was unable to complete the sentence as he was forced to move his head out of the way of a set of claws that threatened to rip out his throat. Sasori had barely been able to track the woman's movements.

"Shut up and die" She said, another swipe of her hands almost tearing his fellow Akatsuki member in two. In the idiot's defence, he was doing a good enough job of staying ahead of the woman's attempts to kill him.

Noel Yatsuki leaned out of the way of another swipe before he counter-attacked. His punch was waved aside, but he took the opportunity to step into her guard, and then they began to _dance_. Because that was all Sasori could describe it as. Every so often, he regretted never spending more time polishing his taijutsu. This was one of those times. Two taijutsu adepts, fighting it out in what looked like a carefully choreographed dance to any outsiders. They'd trained in the same academy, and in the same fighting style, and it showed. It showed in the way each of them could predict the other's moves before they made them. The Jinchuriki had the advantage in speed, but his partner was clearly the better taijutsu practitioner. It showed in the way, while slower by a small margin, none of his opponent's attacks had come close to landing while his opponent struggled to keep his methodical counterattack at bay.

The woman, in one single movement, lashed out with a powerful axe kick that his partner had to cross his hands above his head to block. That proved to be just what she'd wanted because she wasted no time in using said hands as a springboard to fly backwards while weaving hand seals. In much the same way as Sasori had been able to tell that she was inferior when it came to taijutsu, she'd been able to see the same. Now, she was switching gears. Noel would have to hope that he had what it took to keep her at bay when it came to ninjutsu. If the Bingo Book's score of '5' was any indication, then it would be a tall ask.