Chapter 91: Some things never change
Mei and Temari had led the regular troops fighting against the undead and army of White Zetsu. Most of the latter was captured and freed. Those ones agreed to help in majority when they were filled in with Madara’s plan of controlling the world through a massive Genjutsu. The only one not accepted were the Iwa Shinobi. Both kages had reservations about Iwa joining when their village and people had been utterly destroyed.
That fortunate help allowed the troops some respite and more than that, allowed a counter attack against the White Zetsu. With no way to replenish their numbers and their opponent being immortal, bit by bit the Alliance was able to overcome losing odds.
Temari, supported by Jiraiya and Nagato, took charge of the troops to finish the remnants of the enemy, while Mei took an elite force of shinobis with her. She had been warned by Zabuza, Haku and Itachi of what was happening up North and advised to only take the strongest shinobi with her or those who wanted to die or be destroyed a lot.
The sight of Tsunade and Hiruzen sitting around a table drinking tea with who she supposed were the Shodaime and Niidaime Hokage, completely blanked her mind for a bit.
“Terumi-san.” Hiruzen greeted her with an enthusiasm that no one on the battlefield should have.
“Sarutobi-san. I’m surprised to see you here.” She walked slowly towards the man.
Hiruzan gave her a smile “Karin-chan fetched me from Konoha to assist in fighting my senseis.” He then proceeded to introduce Hashirama, Tobirama and Mito to the woman before inviting her to sit down.
For a moment, she really thought she was in Genjutsu and flared her chakra to try to dispel it but to no avail.
“I’m afraid you’re not in a genjutsu my dear.” Mito said with a chuckle.
“Then… Why… What is happening?” The auburn haired Mizukage inquired in utter confusion.
Hiruzen replied with a single word. “Riku.”
Exhaling through her mouth, Mei sighed deeply. The simple name of her fellow Kage told her everything she needed to know. Almost. For the bit of time she had been acquainted with the young man, she knew he was one of the smartest people she had ever met and the most resourceful. Clearly he had some kind of plan that didn’t need the previous Hokage.
Still standing, she wanted more details about what was going on.
“Well… the priority is to take that giant tree down. Its only weaknesses are taijutsu and senjutsu.”
The former was her weakest skill and she didn’t know the latter but by name. Some undead, however, were very proficient in taijutsu. Most notably the third and fourth Raikage who immediately set forward to help with the destruction of the tree.
“My, is it you, Tobirama?”
The Niidaime Hokage turned his head to see his contemporary, Hozuki Gengetsu, Nidaime Mizukage.
“Gengetsu.” Tobirama replied with a curt nod.
“It’s been a long time. The world was never really the same without you around. I had to contend myself with Mu. Mu! Can you beli- Wait, you.” Gengetsu looked at Hiruzen. “You’re… Sarutobi? Gosh you’re old. A rarity in our profession.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment.” Hiruzen raised his head in pride for surviving so long, being the last Kage of his generation to still be alive.
Gengetsu, sat down next to Tobirama, now that Tsunade had vacated the space, and put an arm around Tobirama who didn’t move a muscle.
“You should. This guy trained you well. Kami, I remember how-”
Mei immediately interjected. “Gengetsu-san, now is not the time to be reminiscing about the past.”
Her predecessor waved her away. “It’s Madara Uchiha down there, young one. You’re a strong and powerful Kunoichi but you’re no match. If anything, the only one here who’s a match is…” He looked across the table at Hashirama who had turned himself to look at the battle while carrying his tea cup in hand and taking a sip. “And if he’s sitting this one out then he can’t do anything either. So sit down and enjoy the tea pro-. Ugh.”
Mito, much like her husband, was enjoying her tea with her eyes closed while radiating a killing intent that cowed most people present.
“I was already dead when Kiri attacked Uzushiogakure, Uzumaki-san.” Gengetsu reminded her but it was Hashirama who calmed her down.
“Mito-chan, why don’t you look at Tsuna-chan? She seemed quite happy,” he didn’t even bother looking away from the fight to speak to her but the message came through.
The former Lady Senju gazed at her granddaughter who looked like a young maiden in love in the personal space of a rather handsome Konoha shinobi with long grey hair. A bit too feminine to her taste though. Seeing this, her Killing intent subsided. Ignoring everything and everyone else, she focused her attention on the reunited couple.
“I’m sorry.” Tsunade said, looking down at her feet. She couldn’t bear to look her fiance in the eyes out of guilt.
Dan Kato was as kind as he looked like. He grabbed her hand in his and raised her chin with the other. “What for, Tsunade-chan?”
“I… I let you down.”
“Tsunade-chan, you did your very best to save my life but there was nothing you could do. I’ve never considered my death your fault nor did I ever blame you.”
“That’s… It’s not about this. It’s about-”
A shout of shock from Gengetsu interrupted her. “IWA IS GONE?!” Followed by a rumbunctious laughter. “Take that, Mu! What happened?! Who did it?!”
“Probably Riku. Now shut the fuck up!”
Tsunade’s short temper got the better of her and she shushined right behind Gengetsu to blow his head off with a punch to the back of the head.
“Tsunade.” Mito reprimanded her.
“What?” the Godaime Hokage looked at her grandmother without an ounce of remorse.
Her uncle spoke before Mito could. “Good job.”
“TOBIRAMA!” This time Mito’s voice had some volume in it.
“Ugh. How can she be your niece?” Gengetsu said as his head was reforming.
“Uzumaki temper.” Hashirama replied without thinking.
Mito’s voice sounded very sweet but behind her was the manifestation of an Oni. “Would you mind repeating that Hashirama-kun?” Her adamantine chains were out and threatening the Shodai. Everyone around got scared for their lives despite being undead at the killing intent she was displaying. Far higher than her previous bout of it.
This time, Hashirama turned around and gave a big smile to his wife. “You’re beautiful when you’re angry, Mito-chan.” Then he turned back to continue watching the youngest generation deal with Madara.
Had Mito been alive, she would have blushed. Only her husband knew how to disarm her when she was about to explode. The chains retreated inside her body and the oni disappeared.
Done with everything, Tsunade went back to Dan and they moved away to have a proper conversation.
“What I meant was… Losing you broke me. I took Shizune and left the village.” She confessed.
“Oh, Tsunade.” Dan didn’t sound disappointed to her surprise. If anything he was worried.
“She grew up to be a beautiful woman and a great medic-nin. I made sure she was raised well.” She sighed. “If anything she was the adult while I… Well, I was drowning my grief and sorrow in alcohol and gambling.” One again she was looking at the ground.
“Everyone has their own way to deal with loss, Tsunade. There is no need to be ashamed for whatever way you spent the years. What matters is if you took back your life in your own hand. And I know you well enough to know you did.”
“Not without my son’s help.” She admitted.
Dan sounded surprised but also happy for her. There was also a bit of hope in his tone. “You have a son?”
Tsunade smiled brightly. “Yes, Riku.” Her smile faltered a little. “It’s not yours but…”
“Tsunade, I was dead.” Dan reassured her. “You were free to fall in love again. I’m not that possessive of you.” He chuckled.
“No! I mean… I didn’t give birth to him!”
“Oh! You adopted. That’s…”
“Yes and no?”
She had completely lost him and she saw it from the expression on his face. After sighing, Tsunade shared how Riku came to be.
Down on the battle field, Naruto, Sasuke and Riku were more than just keeping up with Madara. They were giving their all but it was difficult. The shadows were as strong and possessed almost all the same abilities as their creator.
In other words, the trio didn’t fight one Ghost of the Uchiha but five.
Thankfully, those shadows had a time limit for their existence and the jutsu to make them had a cooldown. They weren’t invincible either. Unlike Madara, they couldn’t regenerate.
The timing had to be perfectly right.
Naruto, Sasuke and Riku didn’t even concert with each other. They just knew which role each had. Riku was supposed to keep Madara occupied with the hiraishin, chipping away at the man’s nerves and possibly land a solid hit to incapacitate him. Naruto was supposed to take the attention of the shadows and deal with them if possible while Sasuke used Amenotejikara to launch surprise attacks. His role was to finish them.
It went on for ten minutes more like this until suddenly, Riku teleported right onto the top of two shadows he felt the position of, a rasenshuriken created with senjutsu chakra and the size of a small marble at the tip of his finger. Sasuke acted at the same time and made swaps. The two free shadows ended up with the others and they took head on the rasenshuriken from above. Right after the swap was done, Naruto found himself right in front of Madara and used his chakra to create a gigantic hand capturing him.
The Uchiha’s reaction was immediate, bursting the chakra hand into nothingness and striking Naruto’s forehead with his own, coated in lightning chakra. Once again Naruto was swapped but this time instead of being replaced by a pebble, he was replaced by Sasuke who took the blow right into his chest.
Being undead he didn’t feel an ounce of pain and was able to focus on grabbing Madara’s arm and keeping it in place, restraining the man. Riku didn’t miss the opening and flashed behind his enemy in a crouching position. His hands in a tiger seal and many seals between his fingers.
In a swift motion, Riku called out the worst jutsu he ever came to know and gave Sasuke a very bad case of PTSD.
“ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH!”
Much like during the first round of the chunin exam all those years ago, Riku’s fingers encountered intimately the anus of an Uchiha. His fingers coated with as much medical and sage chakra as he could, they buried themselves deep. It was a direct hit and Riku was able to not only use his Iryoken effectively but wrecked the entirety of Madara internal organs and not just his colon where he left and activated the tags.
Sasuke swapped away with a pebble and Madara, now free, launched high up in the sky where his entire torso grew to grotesque proportions and exploded in blood and gore.
From the plateau behind them, they all heard a deep, satisfied, vindictive and a bit maniacal laugh. Senju Tobirama, known to be always stoic and without emotion, had burst out laughing to the shock of even his own family and student. He was called out by Hashirama for such an unsightly display but the Niidaime Hokage didn’t care. He had just witnessed something he never knew he needed in his life and he wouldn’t stop enjoying it, no matter what.
“Dude… What is it with you and Uchiha’s assholes?” Naruto looked at his brother with a pale face, ready to vomit his breakfast.
“I’m trying to remove the stick of arrogance they have up their asses.” Riku shrugged and let Sasuke’s murderous glare roll off his shoulders.
Naruto didn’t believe it for a second. “Riiiight.” Tilting his head back to have a look at the sky, he searched for Madara with his eyes. Raising his arm he pointed with his forefinger. “He’s coming down!”
Riku tried with his eyes but saw nothing. Using his enhanced senses, thanks to the Six Paths senjutsu, he was able to see with his chakra the state Madara was in. A head, a neck, a shoulder and a part of a torso that went no lower than the top of the sternum. He felt the chakra of his seals embed into the flesh which was generating at a very, very slow pace.
Sasuke used Amenotejikara once more and Madara suddenly laid on the ground, unmoving.
“What kind of seals did you use on him?” The Uchiha asked.
Riku replied with an amused smile. “Slow Motion ones.”
“Dude!” Naruto was completely aghast.
“That’s the first idea that came to my mind! I needed to neutralize his regeneration as much as possible so his chakra would naturally focus on it instead of breaking any other seal.”
Riku flared his chakra in another particular rhythm. Two red flashes shone brightly and let place to Karin and Kushina.
“All yours ladies.”
Karin ran to Riku and gave him a heartfelt kiss. “Best. Husband. Ever.”
“Kami!” Kushina whispered while looking at Madara. “What did you do to him, boys?!”
The trio answered in unison. “You don’t want to know.”
Naruto insisted. “Trust me, mom. You really don’t.” He shook his head to insist even more.
Blinking, Kushina let it go and pulled out her fuinjutsu kit from her book of seals. Karin did the same and they began to draw a big seal each. It was so massive they created a dozen shadow clones to help. Being in the way of the seal mistresses, the trio of boys gave them space and let them work.
Naruto had volunteered to be the temporary jinchuriki of the tailed beasts but unfortunately he wasn’t suitable anymore. More than being open, his seal was completely broken down and couldn’t hold the bijus properly anymore. Furthermore without the Kyubi with him to smooth things over with them, they would have just escaped into the world.
Karin on the other hand had her seal open but intact and with the Kyubi. She had promised him that they would be working on giving them a place far from humanity where they would be able to live in peace but that in the meantime they needed to be sealed. She argued that they all could let a bit of their chakra out of her to take a very smaller form to keep enjoying the world in the meantime. Her intention wasn’t to imprison them but to give them some kind of shelter where they would be able to rest without being persecuted for their immense power. In the end, the Kyubi agreed, detecting no falsehood from her nor from Riku who had been invited in her mindscape for the occasion of the negotiations.
“You know, how about we go to Ichiraku to celebrate the end of the war?” Naruto suggested.
“Of course you’d want to eat ramen.” Sasuke said flatly.
“I haven’t had any in two years! TWO. YEARS!” Naruto quickly defended and justified his proposition. “And that’s not any ramen! That’s Ichiraku’s! Best in the world!”
Sasuke stood his ground. “We’re not going to eat ramen to celebrate our victory. That’s cheap.”
Naruto gasped in shock and outrage and Riku quickly intervened before his brother could start a whole academy lecture about his favorite food.
“How about a picnic? Naruto, you can order some takeout at Ichiraku, no?”
“Well yeah but-”
Ensured of their victory, none paid attention to Madara. After all he was defeated and time for him was so slowed down he was probably still feeling the One Thousand Years of Death and would for a good while.
That was why none noticed a black shadow slithering on the ground and attaching itself to the Ghost of Uchiha. The slow mow seal which latched onto what was left on the flesh was broken down. The body began to heal on the spot. More than that, chakra darker than Madara’s erupted from the ground.
Riku teleported to Karin and Kushina and got them away as they were the closest to the man. He came back between Sasuke and Naruto, witnessing the body inflating much like one would when hit by the Iryoken.
“Shit.” He muttered.
“That amount of chakra…”
Naruto finished Sasuke’s sentence. “It’s simply insane, where does it come from?!”
Since the chakra came from underground, Riku had only one explanation. “The White Zetsu. With Jiraiya and Mito-baa-chan, we destroyed the means for new ones to be created but we never checked if there were any left underground. We implicitly thought that Obito had sent them all to fight.”
The shadow turned out to be Black Zetsu and Riku cursed himself for forgetting about him. Hagoromo had warned him to be careful and Riku had dropped the ball severely on that one. Not only him but also Sasuke and Naruto.
They all moved at the same time. Riku switched back to his Sage of the Six Paths mode and flashed above Black Zetsu, leg ready for a drop axe kick infused with Iryoken. Sasuke and Naruto rushed forward, the latter entering back his own sage mode.
Unfortunately for them they were all caught and restrained by white tendrils made out of Madara’s long white hair.
“Not good!” The former kyubi’s jinchuriki shouted.
“He’s absorbing our chakra!”
With their chakra fluctuating so much and being drained at an alarming rate, neither Sasuke nor Riku were able to use their space-time jutsu to get away. There was nothing they could do but be sucked dry.
As a result the blob of flesh that Madara had become expanded even more to the point of rupture and explosion. When it finally reached it, however, the body didn’t burst. It shrunk. So much that it turned back to a humanoid form. Right before their very eyes, the worst had come to pass.
Otsutsuki Kaguya was freed from her prison.
