Chapter 65
ANKO MITARASHI
For years, that traitor's shadow had hung over Anko's shoulders. Years ago, she had been rather happy at being chosen by a sanin as his student. Though Orochimaru's reputation had never quite been like that of Lord Jiriaya or Lady Tsunade, the man was still a Sanin, and so to be chosen by her was an honor and an opportunity.
He had taught her much, and she would forever be thankful for that, and yet he was a traitor through and through. He had experimented on children, leaked secrets to enemies, and done, and now he had joined hands with an organization set on destroying the world.
Many within the village had thought her to be complacent in his treachery, and so the shadow of doubt had hung over her for years, and no matter what she was to do, she could never regain their trust except through one thing.
By killing her former sensei.
It was the only thing she could think of that could prove her loyalty to the village, but it was easier said than done. Orochimaru was a snivelling snake, and it was nearly impossible to track him down, beating him afterwards was another matter.
He was a Sanin. A cutthroat, traitor, bastard of a Sanin, but a Sanin nonetheless.
"Here," the Nara kid added, as the three of them stopped at once, and landed on the ground at once, and they had been running at breakneck speed for hours, and had left the Konoha border some hours, and were now in some place at the border of Rice Country and Amegakure.
"Are you sure about this?" the Hyuga girl questioned, and the dark-haired boy nodded.
"I am," and she had never seen a Nara with such an expression on her face as he turned towards her.
"Anything," and she reached for the cursed seal on her neck and shook her head.
"I am afraid not," and he nodded.
"He is somewhere around here, that much I know. So, is there any way for you to search the area for a trace of him," and she frowned.
"I might have a way, but how do you even know that his base is hidden here somewhere?" and for years they had been trying to locate him, and yet the T&I had never found any trace of him, yet somehow the Nara kid seemed so sure that her old teacher was hiding somewhere here.
The Hyuga girl seemed interested in an answer as well.
"Well, I used two things to narrow it down," he said raising his fingers.
First was Hikari's enhanced senses. Using his senjutsu, he was able to sense a small amount of chakra being transmitted from this direction to control the seal on the Fourth Hokage. It was a faint enough signature that even the Byakugan could not detect, but his senjutsu allows him to pick up such faint things," and that was interesting enough.
"Then I had the revived form of Lord Fourth give me all the information he could about the place they were summoned. Information like wind direction, humidity, temperature, geography, and anything that he could, and then I used that information along with the data at T&I to narrow it down to this place," and that was freakish, but he was a Nara.
Still, such an analysis should have taken months, and yet he had done all that in hours.
"You did all this in a few hours," and the boy shrugged.
"I had great motivation," and of course, he did.
"Now, can you help me search the area?" and she nodded as she bit into her thumb and cycled through a set of handseals.
"Ninpo: Summoning Jutsu!" and immediately, several dozen snakes appeared on the ground, and began to hiss as she hissed back and ordered them to spread out and search the area.
"Summons?" the Hyuga girl asked, and she nodded.
"Yeah, snakes can be very useful in tracking. They can sense minor vibrations, and if the bastard is hiding out here, then they will be able to track him down," and so they spread out as the Hyuga used her own Byakugan to scour the area.
"I will keep an eye on them using my Byakugan," she added, and that was good enough as they began to move around, and it was some half an hour that she felt a slight tingle on her neck.
"It's here," he gasped, and felt that two of her summons were destroyed when suddenly the Hyuga girl moved.
"Watch out," and she was pushed to the side, as the girl had lightning pulse through her palms.
"Ninpo: Lightning Storm," and suddenly a storm of lightning rushed out of her palm and destroyed a massive arrow aimed at her back.
BOOOM!
Now the dull ache of her mark transformed into a full-blown searing pain, as the Hyuga girl stood tall once more.
"We have company," she said, and four figures emerged out of the shadows.
"Huh! It seems like you failed Kidomaru," a young red-haired kunoichi added, and it took her a second to recognise them all.
"Shut up, you bitch," a four-armed guy jumped out and retorted angrily, and he was the one who had shot the arrow.
"It's the Sound Four," she realised, and these four were Orochimaru's new creations, lab rats that he had created after he had abandoned her.
"I can see the cave now," the Hyuga girl added, and she looked at the four of them.
"We will deal with them now," another added, and she took a deep breath.
"You two should go ahead," and they seemed a bit taken aback by that. She reached into her pocket, took out a senbon, and took her stance.
"I will take care of these guys myself," and the girl laughed.
"We know who you are, Mitarashi Anko," she taunted.
"You are our predecessor," and she watched as the Cursed seal spread over her body and began to change.
"You are old," the four-armed boy added.
"We are the upgrade," the fat one added, and Anko smirked.
"Upgrade, you say," and she cracked her neck, as she wet her lips.
"We will see about that..."
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JIRAIYA—The Toad Sage
"What the hell is that thing?" Jiraiya could not help but gasp as he saw the massive summons that rose out of the ground, and in all his life, he had never felt so small.
"Do you really think you stand a chance now?" Pain taunted, and Jiraiya could only gulp as he stepped forward.
"I don't think so, I know so," and with that, he began to rush forth, as he called out the rest of the Kage as well.
"Are you really going to let a giant summons discourage us?" he asked, as the giant statue swung down his fist at him, and Jiraiya simply used senjutsu to push back against the attack.
"AGHHH!"
The taod karate worked, and the giant statue was pushed back as he jumped up towards Pain, and cycled through a series of handseals.
"Senpo: Goemon!" and along with Ma and Pa, he sprouted a massive torrent of fire, oil, and wind, which combined to make a storm as they rushed towards Pain, but in the end, he raised his hand.
"Shinra Tensei," and the force of that attack tore apart his jutsu, as he wrapped his hair around him to protect himself from his own deflected jutsu.
"AGHHHH!" he heard a giant roar from behind, and turned around to see a giant fist heading his way.
"Shit!" and he could not dodge it in time, before Ohnoki's voice rang out.
"Jinton..." and a massive whitish beam tore through the air right behind him, as the statue's fist was disintegrated.
"Don't you dare think that you can leave us behind, Hokage," and the Raikage was above, Pain as he came down at him with his knee.
"GUILLOTINE DROP!"
"AGHHHH!" and the giant statue roared in agony as its hand was cut, as the Mizukage called him out.
"I need you to bind its legs, Hokage," and by now Jiraiya was falling to the ground as he cycled through as series of handseals.
"Doton: Doryuu Taiga!" and the ground underneath the massive summons feat was transformed into a swamp as it stumbled in the air, as the Mizukage jumped into the air.
"Yoton: Lava Fall!" and she spewed out a massive volume of lava onto the giant summons, as Pain sent the Fourth Raikage flying through the air as he parried his attack.
Jiraiya, using the opportunity used another Doton technique as he pushed his hand to the ground.
"Doton: Earth Spike!" and a massive spike rose out of the ground and attacked him from below, and Pain simply healed his arm as the Kazekage jumped up in the air behind the Mizukage and unfurled her fan.
"Fuuton: Grand Blizzard!" and caused a massive gust of wind which tore up the ground, and the cold gust cooled down the molten lava, and sealed up the giant summons, as Jiraiya felt the Tsuchikage touch him.
"Go get him Hokage," he ordered, and Jiraiya nodded as he felt himself lighten up.
"Doton: Light-Weight Rock Technique!" and Jiraiya felt himself become light as a feather as he jumped up, just as the Raikage attacked from above.
"LIGHTNING DROP!"
"ODAMA RASENGAN!"
"JINTON!" and we had him cornered again, but once more, all it took was a simple bark to push them all back.
"SHINRA TENSEI!"
"AGHHHHH!" and once more they were all flung back as Jiraiya's back hit the ground, as he coughed up blood.
"GUGH!" while the rest of them had the same problem.
"We have to do something about his technique," Pa added, as Jiraiya pushed himself back up, just like the rest of the Kage.
"Yeah, otherwise we won't be able to win this thing," and Pain must have known its weakness, which was why he was facing them in an open field, making it impossible to use a sneak attack.
Any attack they managed to land was simply healed up, making it rather impossible for them to progress.
"We have to finish him in one move," he whispered, and the rest of the Kage all nodded.
"Yes, and it has to be a technique other than ninjutsu," and these requirements were not so easy to fulfill.
"Was that everything?" Pain questioned, as he lowered himself to the ground.
CRACK.
CRACK!
And they heard the sound of cracking, as the lava keeping the giant summons in bay began to crack, before it broke down entirely, as the giant statue rose up once more.
"AGHHHH!" and it stepped forward and towered over them all once more.
"Damn it," the Kazekage cursed as she bit her lip.
"What the hell are we even supposed to do now?" and he had a way of dealing with that.
"I could help deal with that, but we need to devise a plan for dealing with Pain first," he added, but suddenly he felt Pain gather a massive amount of chakra, as he brought together his hands.
"I grow tired of your futility. It is time to end this," and Jiraiya felt the world shake as he raised his hands and whispered.
"Ninpo: CHIBAKU TEN..."
And yet before he could finish, suddenly he stopped, and the chakra that he had gathered all vanished at once, much to his surprise.
POOOF!
"What the hell just happened?" Jiraiya gasped as he saw Pain's whisper escape his lips.
"Impossible..." and then he fell to the ground like a lifeless husk, while they could only stand there and watch helplessly.
"Hokage," they turned towards him, hoping for an answer, and sadly, he had none to offer as he ran forward towards Pain's body, and felt the chakra in it diminishing as if the supply had been cut off, and that could only mean.
"Nagato! Nagato!" he called out, as those eyes shifted towards him for one last time.
"Goodbye, sensei," he whispered, and Jiraiya quickly reached for the chakra rod and used it to trace back Nagato's location.
"What is going on, Jiraiya-san?" the Mizukage stepped forward, as the rest of the Kage joined in.
"I don't know myself, but something has happened to the Nagato's original body," and someone had killed him.
"What? How?" and he did not know.
"Could it be an ally of ours?" questioned the Kazekage.
"Well, I guess we will just have to find out..."
.
.
.
In the cave, Nagato gasped for breath as he lay there in his little cocoon, bleeding out of his eyes as another figure walked past him, leaving behind a bloody trail.
"You have had these long enough," he uttered, as Nagato heaved.
"It is time these eyes came back to me," and Nagato frowned.
"Came back?" he wondered.
"Who are you?
"I am the one who gave you these eyes years ago," the strange voice answered.
"I am Madara Uchiha..."
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