Nagato and Konan were inside the Akatsuki base. When Konan heard Nagato let out a low grunt, she could not help but ask what was wrong.
"It seems the Kyubi's Jinchuriki is stronger than he let people believe," Nagato said. "He just used Hiraishin no Jutsu."
He paused for a second.
"But that is not the real problem."
Konan frowned.
"Not only that... it looks like he understands the Rinnegan too well."
A bad feeling settled in her chest. More and more, it felt like this whole thing was slipping out of their hands.
"Nagato, let's go. I don't have a good feeling about any of this," Konan said, clearly worried.
"No," Nagato replied coldly. "I'll show him true pain. Kisame just arrived as well. With him here, I should have enough time."
"Besides... he can't defeat a god."
Back to the battle
One of the Paths brought its hands together.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
The moment the smoke explosion covered part of the battlefield, Kaia moved in front of Damon. Pain's summons came charging straight at them. A giant three-headed dog locked onto what looked like the small wolf.
Kaia.
But what happened next was the last thing anyone expected.
A freezing aura started wrapping around the she-wolf, and as she let out a savage growl, her body began to grow at an incredible speed. What had looked like the smallest figure there suddenly became even larger than the huge three-headed dog. Kaia opened her jaws and sank her fangs into one of the beast's necks, making it cry out in pain.
The entire area around the bite began freezing over at terrifying speed, covering the dog's neck and part of its head in ice. Then Kaia bit down harder, shattering the frozen section and tearing one of the heads clean off.
The giant dog immediately backed away, trying to create some distance from the wolf that now surpassed it in size. The air itself had turned cold because of Kaia, and after she let out another howl, the ground around her began freezing over as well.
That howl was so loud it could be heard from kilometers away, drawing the attention of many.
"What the hell is that?" Kisame asked, alarmed, because the sheer size of it reminded him a little of a Bijuu.
Even Damon was not doing much better. It was not fear, but he definitely had not expected this. Kaia had grown in size and seemed to control ice however she wanted, but there was no time to stand there staring. He focused again on Pain and Kisame.
Kisame did not waste time standing around. The moment he realized the situation was getting out of hand, he grinned and rested Samehada over his shoulder.
"Leader-sama," Kisame said, his shark-like grin widening. "This brat is full of surprises."
Without waiting for an answer, he slammed his hands together.
"Suiton: Bakusui Shōha!"
A massive wave of water burst through the streets of Amegakure like a flood released from a broken dam. Buildings shook, smaller structures were torn apart, and water rushed through the battlefield hard enough to drag debris, corpses, and shattered stone with it. The frozen ground beneath Kaia cracked under the pressure, sending chunks of ice and rock everywhere.
Damon clicked his tongue as he leaped onto a broken section of wall, barely avoiding the worst of the flood.
The swordsman moved through the water like it was his natural territory, Samehada twitching in his hands as if the blade itself was excited.
"Trying to gang up on me now?" Damon asked coldly.
Kisame only laughed.
"This is the first time I've seen someone push Leader-sama this hard. You should feel honored."
Then he vanished into the flood and reappeared fast, swinging Samehada straight at Damon's side. Damon twisted away just in time, but the blade still tore through his cloak and ripped away part of the chakra coating his body.
That got his attention.
Samehada.
Annoying.
Before Kisame could swing again, Damon threw a kunai at his face. Kisame knocked it aside with the flat of Samehada, only for Damon to vanish in a red flash and appear above him. Damon drove a kick down hard enough to smash Kisame through the surface of the water and crack the flooded street underneath.
The impact sent water erupting upward.
Kisame came back up grinning even wider than before, blood running from one side of his mouth.
"Good," he said. "Now this is starting to feel like a real fight."
But the second he said that, Kaia let out another howl.
The cold around her exploded outward. The flood Kisame had created started freezing in sections, turning streets into jagged fields of ice and trapping chunks of rubble inside. Entire walls cracked as frost spread across them, and one of the damaged towers in the distance split apart and collapsed into the water with a deafening crash.
Even Kisame's grin faltered for half a second.
Pain saw the opening and raised one hand.
"Shinra Tensei."
The blast of repulsive force tore through the frozen floodwater and the ruined streets at the same time, shattering ice, destroying what remained of several nearby buildings, and throwing water, stone, and steel into the air. Damon crossed his arms in front of himself as he was blasted backward through the remains of a rooftop, while Kisame dug Samehada into the ground to keep from being thrown too far.
By that point, the battlefield no longer looked like a part of Amegakure.
It looked like a disaster zone.
Good, Damon thought as he rose from the wreckage. If they wanted to turn the whole village into a battlefield, then he would make sure they regretted it.
Kisame rushed him again, this time dragging Samehada through the flood before slashing upward. Damon jumped back, but that was exactly what Kisame wanted.
"Suiton: Suikōdan no Jutsu!"
A giant shark-shaped blast of water shot toward Damon, tearing through one of the last standing buildings in its path. Damon disappeared in a red flash before it could hit him, reappearing behind one of the Paths.
Kisame's attack slammed into the structure behind them and blew it apart.
For a second, even Pain's shared vision was disrupted by the debris.
That was all Damon needed. Kaia, keep Kisame occupied for a minute, Damon told the wolf through their mental link.
I'll destroy both at once, Damon decided as he slipped into Sage Mode.
Damon charged forward with a kunai in hand and cut in front of the Preta Path. He knew that Path's specialty was absorbing ninjutsu, which meant taijutsu gave him the advantage... if not for the annoying fact that all the Pains shared vision.
A plan came to Damon's mind, and he created two clones without even using hand signs, hiding them underground. But plans never go perfectly. The Animal Path charged too, stretching out its hands toward Damon. The moment Damon saw that cursed pose again, he knew it was about to get annoying.
A black stake shot out from the Animal Path's hand at incredible speed, heading straight for Damon while he was still busy dealing with the Preta Path. The timing was perfect. The stake was aimed so Damon would not see it coming until too late... but Sage Mode gave him an absurd level of awareness, and without even looking, Damon already knew the attack was coming the second the Animal Path moved a single finger.
When the Preta Path tried to jump back and create distance, it suddenly realized it could not move. It looked down and saw two pairs of hands gripping its legs tightly from below the ground. Half a second later, a black stake pierced straight through its stomach. Blood burst from its mouth, the impact forcing its guard down long enough for Damon to slash its neck open with the kunai.
Villagers and criminals came out; some were running away, screaming, while others watched the fight from a safe distance and were left even more stunned.
The Deva Path stretched out one hand toward Damon, making him curse the moment he felt something pulling at him. At the same time, he saw Pain getting ready with a black stake in the other hand, while from the corner of his eye he noticed one of the other Paths moving toward the freshly killed Preta Path. Damon knew he could not stop all of it in time. Instead, he threw three kunai straight at Pain, forcing him to cancel the technique and dodge since the blades were aimed at vital points.
The Animal Path acted again right away and summoned a giant bird that shot toward Damon at high speed. He could not dodge it properly because he was already airborne.
This is starting to get annoying, Damon muttered to himself.
Then Damon began forming hand seals.
"Mokuton: Mokusei no Ryu!"
A massive Japanese-style wood dragon burst out of the ground and shot straight toward the summon. It wrapped around the creature like a serpent around its prey, crushing it hard enough to destroy it from the inside before it vanished. Then the dragon turned toward the Animal Path.
"You won't be summoning anything else," Damon said, sending the giant wood dragon charging at the Path.
The Animal Path moved the black receiver at its eye just in time to notice a familiar three-pronged kunai, but by then it was already too late. In a red flash, Damon appeared and slammed his fist into its stomach hard enough to send it flying straight into the dragon's jaws. The dragon snapped its mouth shut and sank back into the earth.
Those who knew a little bit of shinobi history were left staring with their mouths open, making it obvious just how shocked they were. The legendary Mokuton had returned, and they were seeing it with their own eyes... and on top of that, Hiraishin, the technique that made the Fourth Hokage famous, had returned too.
How ironic.
They had not even seen one percent of him yet.
Nagato was no better than the others. His mind was racing. Their arrogance had blinded them all. The reports had revealed almost nothing, and none of them had even come close to understanding the real threat Damon was to Akatsuki. At this point, his only option was retreat and face the consequences later from the rest of Akatsuki... even Madara.
But it was too late for that.
Only now did he realize that while he was planning to hunt... he was the prey.
Damon stopped again and focused on the now-revealed Naraka Path, which had already brought the Preta Path back. Damon formed a Rasengan and charged both of them at full speed. In the blink of an eye he was already in front of the Preta Path, who was caught off guard by that absurd speed and immediately looked for the Rasengan in Damon's hand... but it was not there.
Before it could react, a hand wrapped around its neck and held it in place. Because it had kept its guard ready to absorb the Rasengan it never saw, the real Damon appeared behind his shadow clone with the Rasengan in hand and rushed straight at the Naraka Path.
The Deva Path had been watching everything the entire time, and the moment it understood what Damon was doing, it raised one hand.
"Shinra Tensei!"
But as soon as those words left his mouth, another clone appeared right in the middle of the blast and slammed both hands into the ground.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
A huge, thick wall of earth rose from the ground, holding back the jutsu just long enough to keep it from interrupting Damon. Less than two seconds later, a loud crash echoed out, followed by a black blur shooting out from one side of the wall before slamming hard into the ground.
The Shinra Tensei had broken through the earth wall... but it was already too late.
The Naraka Path was out of the fight.
When the wall collapsed, the Preta Path could be seen absorbing the shadow clone that had held it still just long enough to stop it from interfering between Damon and the other Path. But before it could finish absorbing it, a kunai buried itself in its neck, killing it too.
That makes four... two left, Damon thought as he looked at the last two Paths still standing. But when his eyes landed on the Human Path, he could not help smirking.
One, actually.
The Human Path had spent the whole battle watching Damon, waiting for an opening or trying to help the others avoid attacks, but it never noticed someone had gotten behind it. By the time it heard the heavy growl from its back and tried to leap away, it was too late. The giant white she-wolf crushed it under her claws, pinning it down completely. Kaia had clearly been paying attention to every move Damon made.
That finally got Pain's full attention.
Then he heard Damon's voice far too close to him.
"Jiraiya-sensei never should've had to tell you not to leave your back open to an enemy," Damon mocked.
Before Pain could react, Damon snapped his neck in one clean motion. He did not want to damage that body too much. It was already strange enough for him to be fighting what used to be his own body.
Before Yahiko's body could even hit the ground, Damon quickly stopped it and laid it down as gently as he could, without saying anything. Right after that, he used his sage mode to to try and locate Nagato... and maybe Konan too, since they should not be too far away.
The instant he found the signal through Sage Mode, he grabbed the three-pronged kunai again and coated it with Lightning Chakra before hurling it toward Nagato's location.
Two seconds later, Damon vanished from the crater in a red flash. Leaving Kisame behind frozen solid, his body soon breaking apart into pieces.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Stones
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P@treon: Brotato