章節 60: 053 – Konoha Crushed {PT. III}

KONOHA

The air—heavy with the scent of spice and baked sand—gave way to a breath of petrichor. A shiver ran down Temari's spine as a cold draft suddenly drained the warmth from her sunkissed skin. Teleportation is bullshit, the Suna-nin decided as she blinked away the mild disorientation that bubbled to life behind her temples.

Beneath her feet, the ground shook, tremors racing past her chic sandals into her calves. The howl of non-stop explosions reached her ears. She looked ahead at the Hokage Rock in the distance, freeing her fan from her waist sash as she fought off the battle jitters that threatened to slacken her grip. The invasion had just barely begun, and already, Konoha was a scene of devastation. Far as they were from the battle, She could make out the blot of smog that rose from the pulsing fiery orb of explosions that sat where the second Hokage's sculpture once hung.

Exhaling a calming breath, her gaze flickered to regard the Kunoichi who ferried her to the rendezvous point. Kage said nothing as she disappeared before reappearing with Baki and Gaara, her hands on both their shoulders.

"It's time," the Kunoichi said before disappearing again, presumably to ferry in more combatants. Aside from the three teams of ANBU operatives tasked with looting Konoha's secretive archives, they were the only other team from Sunagakure participating in this attack. Their allies could only ferry so many people in at once, meaning only the most potent of shinobi were chosen to participate in this pivotal duty.

The stakes were high and the risks even higher.

Failure was not an option.

Beside Temari, Baki grunted, muttering something inaudible under his breath, before turning to face her and Kankuro. "You two would join me to create a defensive screen while Gaara summons the Shukaku. Kill anyone who attempts to approach. Gaara you can begin."

Temari exchanged a nod with Kankuro beside, unfurling her large fan before shooting Gaara a worried glance. The redhead stood motionless as he stared in the direction of the Hokage monument. The explosions had stopped and the dust and smoke that screened the battlefield had slowly begun to clear.

A morbid giggle leaked from Gaara's maw.

"Gaara," Baki growled in anger upon realising his instruction had gone unheeded. "You. Can. Begin."

The boy giggled again.

Temari stepped away from him, a shiver running down her spine as the sand gourd on his back cracked and began to leak sand on the floor.

"Sasuke," he rasped as he took an unsteady step forward. Another deranged giggle tinkled from his chest. The gourd shattered and the leaking sand poured, pooling around his feet before slowly engulfing him. Temari shot a worried glance at Baki.

"The mission is a failure," the Jonin grunted as he turned to leave. "Come on, let's go. We are running damage control."

Temari raised a hand, wanting to argue in her brother's favour before finding herself distracted by the monstrosity in the distance. She froze, the unnatural silence that descended on reality deepening her terror. The chimeric thing shifted, gliding on all twelve of its feet with an uncanny grace that tickled the small, lizard part of her brain.

Another giggle echoed from beside her, snapping her from her horror-induced trance.

Her gaze shifted to her brother, he stumbled towards the creature, globs of saliva leaking down his chin as he reached towards the monster in the distance.

"I will kill you," he said.

"I will kill you…

"Uchiha Sasuke!"

***

Jiraiya forced his body to move, snatching a frozen Tsunade by the waist as the thing the Uchiha boy conjured suddenly moved. A shockwave battered his back, propelling him further from his previous position. The sannin's ears popped and his vision blurred as the film of chakra coating his eyes struggled to keep the worse of the debris out.

Tumbling mid-air he hit the ground with such force that he felt the joints in his knees creak. A plum of dust rose in front of him as his feet dug deep furrows in the dirt floor of the street below.

Jiraiya swore as he looked up to meet the Uchiha's passive stare. The boy floated within a pentagonal crystal set within the centre of the fox skull that adorned his susanoo's central head.

"Enma!"

The sannin looked away to see Hiruzen hanging from the sheared hillside with a clothed white-furred monkey by his side. The summon disappeared in a puff of white smoke leaving its place a black, gold-tipped staff. The Third Hokage twirled the staff in his hand before aiming it at the Susanoo.

The staff shot out as a blur, extending many times its original length to smash into the black and orange monstrosity. It missed, piercing an afterimage instead. The Uchiha retaliated, willing the nine, blade-like tails weaving behind him to shoot forward in a mimicry of the Hokage's prior attack. Hiruzen's staff snapped back as he twirled it, deflecting the thunderous assault before disappearing behind another cloud of dust as the Susanoo's tails gouged the hillside. Within that same moment, Lord First's battered figure burst out of the rubble like a speeding bullet to smash into the Susanoo; the Uchiha blocked with five of his tails before attempting to skewer the Hokage with the remaining four. A destructive game of whack-a-mole quickly ensued with the Hokage darting around between its limbs and the Uchiha trying to skewer him with his susanoo's tails.

Jiraiya smacked his bloodied palm against the side of the building behind him, willing the weaved jutsu in his core to manifest in a billowing plume of white smoke.

"Summoning Jutsu!"

"...Jiraiya," the summoned toad rumbled as he brought his shield down in front of them.

"Mr Gamaken," the sannin greeted before gesturing to the Susanoo still preoccupied in his attempt to put down the Hokage, "can you pin down ugly over there long enough for Lord Third to get a clean shot?"

"I will try what I can," the great toad rumbled. "I want to apologise in advance; I can be quite ungraceful."

"Tsunade!" Jiraiya called as he hopped onto the toad's head with his hands clasped together in a manner akin to supplication. "I will be using Honoured Sage Mode to summon the two great toad sages, but it's still going to take me a little while and until that time I can't release my hands so I won't be able to use my Jutsu effectively… Can I trust you to take care of yourself?"

"...I will be fine," Tsunade replied.

"Are you—"

"I will be fine!"

"...Alright. Mr Gamaken, let's go!"

"Understood!"

The great toad leapt into the air, raising its great metal shield to block the Uchiha's attempt to skewer him mid-air. Using his great mass to his advantage, the toad bulled forward in an attempt to back the Susanoo-clad Uchiha to the sundered cliff behind him.

Realising this the Uchiha made to evade but was cut off by a great wooden dragon that erupted from the earth towards him. Seizing the opportunity Hiruzen leapt out from behind a pile of rubble he had hidden himself to aim his staff at their foe. The nigh-indestructible pole extended, faster than the eye could blink, before smashing into the Susanoo's side and pushing it. The Susanoo struggled against its forceful relocation, great claws digging furrows into the earth as its great bulk flattened everything in its path before coming to rest a few hundred meters outside the village.

The thing pushed itself to its many feet, turning to face them. From within it, Jiraiya could feel the Uchiha's baleful glare tingling his skin. A glowing orb of chakra began to coalesce into existence between the skeletal fox jaws that adorned the Susanoo's central head.

Jiraiya paled as he watched the Rasengan manifest, lightning crackling on its surface.

Just as the attack was about to blast forth, another smashed into the Susanoo's side. A pillar of wind release knocked it another few miles where it crashed explosively into the landscape.

Stunned, Jiraiya turned around to see a sand-coloured tanuki with black markings standing in the centre of the village. Its jagged, concave mouth widened as a bellowing guffaw erupted from its gut.

"I WILL KILL YOU…

"UCHIHA SASUKE!"