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Thread Plague by Waki Paki
 Anime » Naruto Rated: M, English, Adventure, Fū, Shibuki, OC, Words: 245k+, Favs: 2k+, Follows: 3k+, Published: Mar 23, 2020 Updated: 5h ago1,354Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Amegakure was one of, if not the, most industrialized cities of the modern age. Great steel buildings towered overhead, rife with beams and piping that decorated every exterior. Skyways connected buildings together, allowing citizens to easily get from one place to another. Power cables and antennae dotted each rooftop while signs hung off the sides. And through it all, the metal stoically weathered the rain that poured from the skies without rust nor notable wear. Perhaps some kind of water-resistant coating or chakra enhancement. The air reeked with the smells of forges, furnaces, ozone, and rain.
Once, the sight of such a sprawling metropolis would have had me grinning from ear to ear, especially in such a technologically-imbalanced universe such as this. The clear signs of progress of mankind, the promise of further development and inventions, civilization made manifest in the geometric shapes of architecture, proclaiming victory in taming the wild with industry. Now, I eyed it with distaste. Not so much as a park or tree to be found within the city. It was still a marvel, but what use was it all without that connection to nature? It was all so cold and sterile with dull grey colors, soulless and lifeless. A denouncement of the wonders of natural life, climbing to the heavens as if seeking to escape the world below. In a place so empty and dreary, it was little wonder they had turned to worshipping a maniac like Nagato.
My tendrils were making good on their attempt to mar that image, though. Nearly all of the biomass I'd accumulated from across the continent was concentrated here. My threads crawled over every building, dragging the non-combatants out of their buildings of metal and into the earth, supplying them with oxygen to keep them alive and out of the way. What ninjas were far from the front lines attempted to stop my invasion, but they were pierced and infected in quick measure, becoming but more heart clones. They ran to their former comrades, threads dangling off their forms, and infected them as well, or died in the attempt. Chaos and panic ensued, making them forget targeting my evacuation works.
As my gaze turned to the rapidly approaching Pein, his 5 other paths, Konan, Kisame, and Obito (I could just barely spot Zetsu lingering in the tower, which made since considering he wasn't a fighter on this level), I lamented that I didn't have the Rinnegan. With both Sasuke and Naruto's DNA, as well as Hashirama Senju's, I supposedly had everything I needed. However, mixing them provided no result. In the time since Naruto's apartment, I theorized that what was missing was a mystical component. Vague memories reminded me that the bloody Sage himself had to come down and bless Sasuke in order to unlock his Rinnegan. Perhaps that was the missing piece? A spiritual emulsifier to enable the combination?
No matter. Once this was done, I'd have Nagato's eyes and could consume them. No doddering old ghost would keep me from evolving.
Legion and my heart clones had nearly reached the city when they encountered the first line of defence. Which, in this case, was a minefield. Several of the faster legion bodies sprinted ahead and were exploded by hidden traps. Obito's work, no doubt. Without missing a beat, I directed some of the Core's tendrils to the underground around the city. Single threads reached out and began destroying or detonating the devices. A ripple of bombs blasted across the landscape between the village and my creations, which didn't slow them down as they made it to the city limits.
That was where the defenders met them. They held numerical superiority, as I'd only been willing to take as many scum humans as I could find and not start grabbing random passersby for their hearts. Still, a rough 40 or so heart clones wasn't bad, especially considering how many of the ninjas would swiftly become infected. Then there was Legion, which was a curveball none of them could have prepared for. It's one thing to train to kill people, but taking on hundreds of intelligent animals with chakra and body modifications was quite another, and many would swiftly fall under the unexpected methods of attack. Supporting all of them were the walking trees, which trundled far more slowly towards the battle, spitting out all manner of projectiles like machine guns.
My eyes roamed over my Elite Guard which had remained back with Fu and I. Something of an experiment, though successful thus far, many of the guard were more than mere heart clones. I'd created thread bodies for Orochimaru, Kimimaro, Kabuto, Hiruko, Deidara, Kakuzu, and Sasori; all in their likeness. I'd stuffed all of them with as many hearts as I could. Finally, I implanted their minds into the new bodies. Given how they'd essentially become programmed to obey me, I felt that it was the smart move. Their chakra control would be worse, but they gained far more in raw power with their new bodies and chakra capacity (with the obvious exception of Kakuzu). Along with the bloodlines I'd given them, they also had limited shared knowledge of one another's capabilities and skills, meaning they were also more versatile.
However, they weren't the end of it. While I didn't have the minds for these, I did make a few more heart clones whose purposes were more… psychological. The first and second Hokage, as well as the third Kazekage, all equipped with their iconic bloodlines I'd copied. Their mere presence and abilities would serve to shock and unnerve the approaching foes, even if they had none of their actual fighting or personality beyond what I could remember of them. Luckily, having five hearts to brute force some flashy displays would help sell their abilities. After all, it wasn't like any of these fighters actually met the men.
The real dagger, though, were the two in the back. One was Rin Nohara, though aged to an adult body for practical reasons. The other was Yahiko, exactly how he looked when he died. Again, I lacked their actual minds, but what I did have was all the knowledge of the major events of their lives through my own metaknowledge. Given that Nagato, Konan, and Obito were the most susceptible to such attacks, they'd been the only ones I made such counters for. There was nobody I could remember to be an equivalent for Kisame, but it didn't matter. Him, I could at least kill with respect.
That was the thing that made me different from Naruto when it came to dealing with these people; Naruto talked to them, argued with them, then beat the crap out of them for a while until they had an epiphany about what they'd become and revealed that they were just misunderstood. He'd fight tooth and nail to convince them they were wrong and how they needed to change, and eventually succeed. Still, it came off as condescending to be treating them as idiots who'd merely made some mistakes and lost their way in life and trying to "correct" them. One could compare it to calling someone "insane" because they had a difference in opinion or method of reasoning; a complete dismissal of the other person's intelligence and refusal to respect them.
Me? I'd respect your choices by killing you so you could die as the person you made yourself. That's why none of them would survive the day.
"How interesting to meet someone who was as close to godhood as I once was," came the voice of Hiruko. Despite now possessing far more than 5 bloodlines now, he was no closer to divinity than he'd ever been. Since his assimilation, he'd realized that just having some bloodlines merged with a strange jutsu doesn't mean you suddenly rule the world.
"I've never killed a God before," Orochimaru mused to his two subordinates, who stood by his sides patiently. Kabuto and Kimimaro both looked freakish, akin to their transformations. Though he lacked his snake summons, he could simply spit out snake-sized thread clones and his body was more flexible than ever by its nature. Additionally, he was wielding the Kusanagi again. Fu had grown skilled with it, but the former Sannin had more experience and would be needing it. "When he's beaten, perhaps his body can provide interesting data."
"When you're finished, I'll turn them into my puppets," Sasori stated. Once he'd been made from scratch, he used the Mokuton I implanted in his body and Chimera jutsu to craft a dozen or so puppets that floated about his form.
Deidara grinned from atop his clay bird. "Never liked Leader-sama anyway, un!" Needing few changes to make him more effective, the bombardier remained more or less the same.
"Always knew that 'Tobi' was full of shit," Kakuzu muttered to himself. As part of the collective, he'd understood his failings in matters of the Jiongu, and now held respect for me.
My other clones remained silent. Lacking a separate mind to my own, they followed my preference of silence before a fight. Fu and I merely spawned a dozen or so shadow clones, who retreated into the forest behind us. All my dojutsu were activated with my core. Everything in this entire landscape was mine to witness.
"Now," I said quietly.
The elites all boomed forward across the open plains and through the rain, save for Deidara who flew. We didn't want them coming to attack us personally quite yet, or at all if possible. I stood in place, connected to my core, carefully monitoring the entire situation and absorbing natural chakra. Fu put a hand on my shoulder. We shared a nod, a brief kiss, and then she took flight with her wings with her armor molding into place, including a helmet.
A grinning Kisame met his attackers first, an unbandaged Samehada held high. Orochimaru met the living blade with his Kusanagi while Kabuto slid underneath his legs, his half-snake body lending him the mobility to snap out at Kisame's legs. The blue man disengaged, but nearly barreled into Kimimaro, who had dashed around the back. His bone drill lanced forward to impale him, but was batted aside. Using the momentum, he spun and extended his bony protrusions to slice at him. A cut landed, but it didn't slow the man down. At least, not yet.
The two Hokages intercepted Obito, who was already showing some signs of anger. Hashirama wasted no time in generating some tree limbs to surge out towards the imposter Uchiha. "Young Uchiha, you abandoned your home and your family. You abandoned your comrades," he said solemnly (and in a tone of voice very different from the true and excitable Hashirama).
Phasing through the branches, Obito encountered a couple shadow clones of Tobirama. With a swing, the metal Gunbai Obito wielded swung out to bat them away. However, they managed to duck and quickly shoot several water bullets. "You think Madara is helping you to meet your goals? You're nothing but a pawn, child. He'll stab you in the back the moment he gets what he wants."
"You speak too much for dead men," Obito countered, quickly bringing the metal fan back to stop the bullets, launching them back to their senders. Simultaneously, he delivered a large fireball jutsu towards Hashirama. It exploded against the trees, smoldering the branches. So focused he was, he didn't realize he was about to fall victim to one of the two great tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want.
"Obito," he heard in an all too familiar voice behind him.
The other is getting it.
Rin stood there, kunai held reverse-grip, hands slightly shaking. "I… you have to stop. Please. Don't make me fight you."
He hesitated, which nearly cost him his throat if he hadn't let the kunai to his neck phase through his body. "You're not Rin. Kai!" But there was no genjutsu to dispel. She shook her head with a sorrowful expression and ran at him, prepared to stab.
Hiruko, using his bandages, swept a wide arc at the six Paths. They collectively flew over the attack, only to get bombarded by several exploding birds. One of the slower paths, the Human path, was ill-suited for combat and took a direct hit that knocked it out of the sky. On the ground, it was immediately torn apart by Kakuzu before the man started blasting wind bullets and lightning judiciously. The paths split up and were immediately set upon by individual attackers. I knew that they were deadliest when working together, so having each of them occupied would greatly split Nagato's attention and lower their effectiveness.
The Preta path encountered Hiruko. Defense was its strong suit, due to its ability to absorb ninjutsu, and so Hiruko avoided them. Instead, the pale ninja called upon his Dark Release to start draining the chakra of the Path, creating a visible blue wave of chakra pulling from it. Given that it wasn't a ninjutsu, the soulless body instead was attempting to re-siphon the chakra it was being drained of at a slower rate than the refined Dark release's capability. Since the chakra was channeled into it by Nagato, this meant it was also draining chakra from all the other Paths as long as Hiruko kept up the pressure. Not giving the body a chance to respond to this assault, Hiruko also slashed out with his bandages.
Black letters appeared on the ground as the Animal path summoned forth a parade of animals. Rhinos, chameleons, winged foxes, bulls with extra horns, all manner of unusual creatures. It was nothing that I hadn't seen or experimented with, though, and Kakuzu was equally unimpressed. His fire, wind, and lightning hearts split off from his body to sling overwhelming ninjutsu at the oversized ones while Kakuzu coated himself in earth armor, meeting the charging creatures head-on. Smashing them aside with his strength, he tore through their number without pause.
Killing the healer always took precedence, which was why both Deidara and Sasori were pursuing the fleeing Naraka path. It, like the Human Path, was not much of a fighter and Nagato clearly saw how quickly the other one went down. Its abilities were suited for unsuspecting enemies and supporting allies. Chakra visibly (to our senses, anyway) poured into this path, hastening its looping flight path with the two former partners hot on its heels. The explosive birds and poisoned senbon being shot at it forced it to actively dodge the dozen puppets and birds.
Being able to shift one's body to a variety of metallic weapons that boost your defensive and offensive capabilities was certainly terrifying… unless you controlled magnetism. Despite their unusual nature, the third Kazekage could still manipulate the rapidly created weapons on the Asura Path. The fight was over in a matter of moments as the body was torn apart and crushed simultaneously, no chance for Nagato to react in time to shift back to normal human before it was reduced to a bloody mess. The Kazekage joined the former partners in their pursuit of the Naraka path.
It was like looking in a mirror for the Deva Path, Pein. While the battle raged around them, "Yahiko" stared into the pierced face of his deceased body and shook his head. "You've changed, Nagato."
"You're nothing but an imitation," Pein refuted. "Cheap tricks such as this won't work on God."
A chuckle came in response. "It's weird to hear that coming from my mouth. I was never so cold, so cruel. Neither were you." He turned his head over to where Fu and Konan had just begun fighting. "You protected Konan, though. I'm glad. She… well, both of you were the reason I gave my life. But to see what you've become…"
He remained outwardly unperturbed, but it was clear the comments got to him. "I am a God, that is what I've become. Whatever method you've invented to bring these people back from the dead is irrelevant compared to my power."
This caused an actual laugh to bubble up from the orange-haired man. "No, Nagato, I know you're not." He smiled sadly. "You're just an ordinary guy seeking peace the only way you know how."
Such a blunt and accurate statement took Pein by surprise, his eyes widening. Nagato only had those thoughts in private. "Is this the 'peace' you fought so hard for?" Yahiko gestured behind the Deva Path to the besieged Amegakure. "Killing infants and anyone who disagreed with you? Sacrificing every ninja in your home over a personal battle? At least these two went out of their way to protect the civilians. The Nagato I knew would never have encouraged the sort of things you do," he said, disappointed.
Pein's response was to hurl a chakra receiver at his duplicate, which was deflected by a sword Yahiko had slung over his shoulder. It was followed by a slamming force to the side, knocking him a few meters away. He recovered, readied his sword, and leapt forward.
Konan floated in the air with her massive paper wings, stray sheets of paper floating all about her, becoming soaked by the downpour. Fu hovered with her rapidly beating insect wings about fifty feet from her.
"It didn't have to come to this," the purple-haired woman said softly. "But please, be assured that your death will help us bring peace to the world."
"Where was the 'peace' for my home, huh?" Fu shot back. "For my friends, just simple villagers? Why did they have to die? Hell; why do all those ninjas down there have to die? We would've left them alone if Nagato hadn't told them to attack us. Everything that happened here is on you two."
"Peace can't be achieved without sacrifice."
"Like letting a bunch of psychopaths go around killing people who did nothing wrong? I guess it's easier when it's other people having to sacrifice for you. Face it, Konan; you've got no idea what you're doing besides backing a grief-stricken madman with delusions of grandeur about being a destined savior." She prepared some handseals. "If Jiraiya could see you both now, he'd be disgusted."
"Jiraiya is naive to think his method of peace could ever be achieved." With that, Konan shot hundreds of paper projectiles at Fu. She was ready, and countered with a blast of wind that proved highly effective against them, blasting them away and forcing Konan to retreat while continuing to shoot and start redirecting paper to attack from odd angles.
"Getting to kill you will be like a dream come true," Kisame taunted Orochimaru while he struck. Samehada's flexible nature proved useful as it managed to catch glancing blows on each of the attackers. Gaining a little distance, the shark-man took advantage of the abundance of water all around and belted out a giant wave filled with sharks. Orochimaru and Kabuto dove underground while Kimimaro opted to launch himself through it, his bones shredding the sharks that tried to snap at him.
Kisame had anticipated the subterranean dive and intercepted the former snake sannin, which he also anticipated. The blue man and his blade barely managed to avoid the rapidly extending Kusanagi spearing the ground where they had been. With their flexible biologies and earth jutsu, the former Oto-nin proved more than capable of avoiding Kisame's attacks. After a bite to the leg, the Akatsuki member decided that he had miscalculated and rose to the surface, followed by the others.
Obito had jumped back from his former friend, phasing through an attempt to impale him with a tree limb. He spun and spotted Hashirama rooted in place, creating more trees in the immediate vicinity to control. The Uchiha bolted right for him and grabbed him, using his Kamui to transport him to the pocket dimension. As he did, the man's skin turned to bark and he realized it had only been a wood clone. Tobirama detonated a dozen explosive tags at his feet, blasting him up and into the line of fire for several water bullets, which he managed to phase through again.
"Obito, you can't do this!" the girl's voice cried out. "All these deaths, all this hate, it can't go on!"
"You will be silent!" he shouted back. His gunbai shot at the second Hokage and knocked him back. Then, he quickly vanished and reappeared on the ground, using the fan to enhance a fireball he swept at the downed man. It was stopped by a wall of earth that sprung up in front of it, blasting it into rubble. He ducked under a few kunai clumsily thrown by the girl.
Hashirama 's fuma shuriken multiplied in the air, cutting through several limbs as they honed in on the mask-wearing man. "Rin Nohara died a hero. Everything you've done spits on her sacrifice."
"She died because of human greed and cruelty." The shuriken didn't affect the man, but the words did. "She died because of the endless war between ninjas, Hashirama. There's no point defending a world like that."
"We defend the people in it," Tobirama countered as he appeared on a destroyed trunk. "All of us here died protecting the village for the people in it. Hashirama gave his entire life to it and died peacefully, it's true. Rin and I simply met our ends faster. Even you did, Obito Uchiha." A water dragon manifested and swept towards him. Obito passed through it and made to grab the Hokage, but ended up having to phase again when the man stabbed a kunai through his torso.
While strong, the Preta Path wasn't quite strong enough to throw off the bandages that bound him. Hiruko continued to drain it while tightening his hold more and more. Out of his mouth, the pale man produced a bone spike and shot it at the restrained path. Unable to defend itself, it embedded straight through its chest. A few more followed, and it went limp. Hiruko took it upon himself to quickly run over and consume the body with Jiongu, then went to do the same to the other fallen Paths.
A game of cat and mouse could only go on for so long, and without assistance to divert attention it was only a matter of time before the Naraka Path took a hit that destabilized its flight. With puppets in front and below, the Path went up instead. A storm cloud jutsu enveloped the area all around it, electrifying it to the point of crispiness. Just to be sure, Deidara made sure to drop a C2 on the body when it fell and left the remains for Hiruko.
With more chakra to channel into it, the Animal Path was spawning near-boss-sized summons to the rapidly deteriorating landscape. Kakuzu was strong, but dealing with any of them individually would slow him down. Fortunately, he was now operating off of my understanding of Jiongu. His heart monsters charged the beasts and simply enveloped them with threads, piercing in all kinds of places until they dispelled. The Path recovered quickly, realizing that size wouldn't help, and instead opted to start making lots and lots of abnormal creatures with sharp appendages before hiding away in a chameleon.
Pein was forced to create chakra receivers to use as melee weapons in response to Yahiko's swings, finding that the man was about as fast as he was. "Shinra tensei," he invoked, knocking the orange-haired heart clone back again.
He rolled with the blow and rose, deflecting another black rod thrown at him. "You were the chosen one, Nagato!" he shouted, though not angrily. "You were supposed to stop the cruel oppressors, not become one!" He shot a pillar of water out of his mouth at the Deva Path, which was blasted apart. "Bring peace and understanding to the world, not inflict suffering and pain!"
"I am Pain!" Pein yelled back. A particularly empowered gravity blast crushed his foe into the ground, leaving a crater in the earth a dozen meters wide that started slowly filling with rain. The Path looked down at the bloodied and slowly rising Yahiko.
"You were my brother, Nagato," he said, dropping his shattered sword and raising his fists. "I loved you."
Rage filled the expression of the meat puppet. His arm reached out and smacked Yahiko into the air, then down again. And again.
Avoiding the flying explosive tags and paper shuriken became paramount, so Fu shifted her directed air gust into a dome of wind that offered her a moment to think. With an application of Swift Release, she flew past the flurry of projectiles and sliced at Konan with a rapidly created bone sword. It cleaved straight through, revealing that it had been a paper clone. She cursed herself and quickly scanned the area with the myriad of Dojutsu I implanted in her, kept under henge. Konan was above, creating several paper spears to strike from above like divine smiting.
It was a simple matter for her to replace with one of her clones down below, even if the extra distance was costly in chakra. While her clone got peppered with the spikes, she quickly spawned several dozen more shadow clones and flew back up to overwhelm the real Konan. The paper kunoichi saw this and responded in kind, quickly making as many paper clones that moved to take them on one-by-one. Unsurprisingly, when they engaged in combat, Fu's clones were stronger and thus led to the paper ones becoming kamikaze units. The sky lit up with explosions while the two kunoichi figured out their next move.
"Alright," Kisame declared, "time to stop fucking around." He had apparently noticed the venom coursing through his body from the relatively minor injuries he took and opted to kill his opponents quickly. "Water Release: Water Prison Shark Dance!"
A massive dome of water grew and grew around Kisame while the man drew Samehada into himself, causing the two of them to fuse and become an anthropomorphic shark. He grinned as his wounds healed and the venom purged. "How do you like that, you-"
"As blunt and predictable as ever," Orochimaru commented, having no trouble speaking despite him and the other two Oto-nin being completely submerged. Their bodies had no need for oxygen, and a little Jiongu application transformed parts of them enough to maneuver easily in the water. "Never change, Kisame. Not that you'll have the chance to."
All three of them began spewing out copious amounts of acidic mud and dust, rapidly polluting the water with deadly particles. Kisame was forced to use his control of the water to start pushing it away and behind him so he could pursue his prey while they swam back and continued poisoning the bubble.
The masked ninja decided he needed some distance from the Konoha ninjas and vanished to a spot several dozen feet away. Priming several high-explosive tag kunai, he hurled them into the jumble of tree limbs that he just fled from. To his surprise, they all went completely off the mark when they got close, instead exploding far off to the sides. Another water dragon came from clutter. This time, he braced himself and swatted it away with the gunbai, forcing it to crash into the ground some ways away.
Roots grew with unnatural speed and tried to impale the Uchiha while Hashirama ran up to attack in person. Obito acrobatically leapt through the oncoming attacks and attempted to blast the former Hokage in the face with a fireball at point blank range when the man's fist turned into wooden spikes as well, once again forcing a phase. They quickly fell into a rhythm of taijutsu strikes, but the masked man had spent far too much time working ninjutsu and relying on his Kamui, and thus found himself needing to phase more and more attacks. Any attempt at pulling the man into his pocket dimension was thwarted by a wood clone replacing him in time.
"You bear all the marks of Madara's manipulations," the Senju said during a brief lull in the exchange. "Anger, resentment, bitterness; all twisted from love, kindness, and loyalty."
"Who are you to judge me?" Obito demanded. "You never lost as I lost, never suffered as I suffered."
"I lost more friends and comrades on the battlefield than I could ever count," he replied. "Young, old, people I cared deeply for and people I barely knew. I felt the pain for each and every one of their losses. That's why I created Konoha, to save others."
"Just as I do now! My path is the only way to creating peace for the world!" He re-engaged the Hokage anew.
Hiding inside a chameleon was a clever strategy that worked on many people, but not heart clones bearing Dojutsu capable of perceiving damn near anything. While the Animal Path witnessed Kakuzu and his heart monsters decimate the army of summons, it failed to notice Deidara preparing a few C2s far above. After a few moments, they swan dived straight down like ballistic missiles and detonated the body and the chameleon together. The remaining summons poofed and vanished in a massive dust cloud.
With a final smash, Yahiko's body lay motionless and covered in blood on the ground, which was cracked from all the other impacts it had left. Pein panted, not with exhaustion but with waning anger. Looking down at the beaten corpse of the man, realizing he'd killed his friend for the second time… He bellowed out to the skies, full of sound and fury.
Konan heard the yell and desperately wanted to rush to his side, but couldn't. Directing a plethora of explosive tags, she caused them to land all across Fu's waiting body. Before she could detonate, they all turned to crystal and fell limply off her body. Under the helmet, the tanned kunoichi had a grim smile. While Konan made more paper clones, Fu created four more shadow clones that all flew next to her. Brimming with Chomei's chakra, they ran through a string of handseals.
All five became encased in transparent-blue crystalline prisms that hovered in the air, allowing them to stand on the floor of them. The String of Glory constructs charged rapidly. When the paper clones flew towards them, trying to obscure their vision and bring them down, Fu's clones unleashed their might. Each prism shot a solid laser that vaporized the clones that made contact with the beam. The real Fu focused on where she saw Konan trying to fly down to Pein.
In her haste to rush to her friend's side, Konan had counted on her clones completely stopping whatever attack Fu had planned. That cost her one of her wings and both of her legs above the knees when the superheated laser sliced across her form. In agony and surprise, she couldn't create another paper wing as she plummeted to the ground.
Despite his best attempts to filter out the acidic substances, some did find their way onto the skin of the shark hybrid. Kisame growled in pain and made the decision to plow through the acid and get his jaws on one of them. With the chakra he could absorb off devouring them, Samehada would be able to heal him back up from whatever damage he took. With a grimace and baring of teeth, he closed his eyes and swam straight through the center of the source of the jutsu. Vindication and satisfaction filled him when his jaws clamped on the arm of Orochimaru.
That jubilation was short-lived, as the arm immediately exploded out with threads. Kisame couldn't exactly spit out the arm as it burrowed into his throat and mouth, and no amount of healing could keep up with the speed at which the threads infected the man's flesh. The water dome fell apart as his concentration broke. He couldn't even separate from Samehada to attempt to save either of them. He fell to the partially flooded ground, unable to scream as his lungs and vocal chords were converted. Kisame's last thoughts before the threads invaded his brain were that of resignation and a faint hope for the afterlife.
Managing a solid blow to Hashirama with his fan, Obito was pleased that the man's body collided with Tobirama's and took them both to the ground. He prepared another fire jutsu when tree limbs grabbed his feet and Rin shunshin'd in front of him. "Why are you doing this?" she asked pleadingly. "You killed sensei! You killed your family! You tried to destroy Konoha! Why?!"
"I did it for you!" he bellowed. "You- the only way we can be together again, all of us, and be happy, is in the Moon's Eye plan!"
"I never asked for any of this!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "Obito, I never wanted any of this! I died to protect them, to save them, and you killed them!"
She closed her eyes and sprinted at him, kunai held in front. Obito tried to phase out, but realized he'd hit his limit with all of the phasing he'd done throughout the battle. His fan, he realized too late, was being held by Hashirama several meters away and he couldn't pull the chain back in time to use it to block.
So, reflexively, he drew a kunai from his robes and stabbed his assailant.
Rin's eyes went wide as she dropped her weapon. She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by coughing up blood. Her hands grasped for his, but he wrenched himself free of the limbs that bound him and jumped back, almost in shock at what he'd just done.
Filled with rage and grief, my gathered elites thought they would be able to jump the Deva Path while he had an existential crisis. Sadly, it was not to be. Sasori's puppets were knocked away by a Shinra Tensei and he took off at high speeds to avoid the exploding birds' follow up. He eyed my troops with anger and rose into the air. Handseals were blurred through by both sides, and the skies seemed a lot less empty all of a sudden.
Every kind of elemental dragon spawned into existence. A massive stormcloud twisted the weather so sharply that a minor tornado manifested near Pein. Bone spikes grew from the ground and began launching pikes the size of men at him. Rain droplets turned to ice in the air around him, becoming sharpened senbon. A C3 bomb began forming from Deidara's hands. It was as if the heavens themselves had split open, revealing the wrath of the divines. And all of them came streaking straight towards the Path.
With all of the other bodies destroyed, the final puppet body was quick as the devil and rapidly fled from the attacks, occasionally blasting some away with his jutsu. My troops spread out and began trying to encircle him, only for him to take to the skies whenever he got too close to being surrounded. Some of the attacks he absorbed, even as Hiruko resumed draining copious amounts of chakra and blasted energy cannons with it.
With a bit of room to spare, Pein finally completed the jutsu he prepared. "Chibaku Tensei!"
The devastated earth around us began to crack and lift. A few of the heart clones, despite their best efforts, were too close to Pein and were caught in the gravitational pull. He kept flying and held his concentration, ripping tons and tons of earth and stone into a massive floating orb that hung in the air, trying to crush those unfortunate enough to have been caught in it. My remaining elites had to resort to ranged attacks to keep from getting too close and being sucked in as well. Nearly tapped of chakra, each of them, it was beginning to look like either they'd have to risk themselves to get in close enough for an infection or I'd need to step in personally.
Then suddenly, Pein froze. Then, he wretched blood, keeled over, and fell out of the sky. One of his eyes had disappeared. The massive ball of earth began to fall apart, dropping down with deafening slams.
"No!" Konan screamed, pulling herself out of the crater she'd impacted upon falling to earth. She conjured two paper wings and sped away towards the tower. With my eyes, I gazed into the distance and swore.
My forces and Core had infected the entire shinobi population of Amegakure, or at least consumed what remained of them if they'd died messily. With the city effectively taken, my threads had started to climb up the tower quickly to strike Nagato as he sat and focused on the fight with Pein. It would have been perfect to take him down so handily.
Evidently, Zetsu had other plans. No doubt seeing the end approaching, he decided to be pragmatic and was in the process of ripping out Nagato's eyes while Obito teleported in to watch.
"You have failed, boy," Zetsu informed Nagato as he reached for the second eye. "And failure can't be allowed to stop us."
With a scream of pain, a squelch, and a spray of blood, the second Rinnegan was torn out from the pale red-haired man.
"Master, we must escape."
Without a word, Obito grabbed them both and teleported away as my threads tried to grab them, unsuccessfully. Konan, ignoring my tendrils that covered nearly the entire structure, flew in and grabbed Nagato as he bled on her coat. I didn't have to be a physician to see he was going to die within moments; the Rinnegan's power had been the only thing keeping him alive, and without them the strain they had inflicted on his body was taking its due. Tears streamed down her face and she clutched him tightly.
"Konan…" he whispered, barely able to force air through his body.
"Nagato," she said, crying onto his face. "I'm here."
"I'm… I'm sor-"
You couldn't speak with threads through your lungs, the man discovered as he was impaled. Konan didn't even move as the threads tore into her body as well. Both rapidly turned into threads, losing themselves in the jumbled mass of my mass.
This, however, was only my peripheral attention. The moment Zetsu and Obito vanished, the rest of my Core was tunneling at nearly super-sonic speeds through the earth, splaying out in all directions while I fed Natural Chakra into the reaching strings to boost their perception. My elites tunneled down, connecting to the core and feeding every bit of chakra and mass they had to hasten my spread. All of my senses and dojutsu were cranked up to the max.
My fiancée flew over to me. "What happened? What's going on?"
"Zetsu ripped out Nagato's eyes and disappeared with Obito. I'm trying to find them now," I explained quickly. "We can't let them get away."
All my cards had been laid bare. Obito knew he couldn't win against me now, and so if he got time to regroup and think, he'd stay hidden forever or until he slipped up. All manner of horrific things he could cook up in that time, not to mention what Zetsu might do in response to this. I didn't want to spend the next century hunting him down to put an end to this.
Fu closed her eyes, then put her hand on my shoulder. Demonic chakra flooded into me, nearly destabilizing the natural chakra balance I possessed, but I wrestled it into line and used it to further speed and enhance my awareness while using some of it to convert surrounding plants to more Jiongu.
For ten painstaking minutes, we sat there and bled ourselves dry of every bit of chakra we had left to fuel my hunt. Across the lands of Fire, Water, Grass, Wind, Claw, Waterfall, and Earth lay my threads, all reaching out as far as they could to find the vanished duo.
That's when I felt them. A recognizable pair of chakra signatures, somewhere within a rock formation in Earth country.
"I've found them. Grab on and don't let go," I instructed Fu. She did so without a word, and suddenly we were merged with the ground and speeding along towards the center of the land of Earth. While we moved, I read the lips of the two as they talked.
"Damn them. DAMN THEM! I'll kill every fucking one of them!" Obito raged, throwing his Gunbai against a wall of the cave they sat in. With a start, I recognized it was the one Madara had hidden himself away in and where Obito had awakened after his near-death.
"My lord, there is no time to waste. We must revive Madara-sama," the plant-man stated insistently, reaching out for the Uchiha.
"Don't you FUCKING touch me!" the man smacked away its hand, then pointed his finger at Zetsu. "You swore these two would be easily handled, and now where are we? Hiding like vermin! I nearly perished against… how is this even possible?"
"It is possible that they know the Edo Tensei, and used the jutsu to bring back these men," he speculated. "But we haven't any time to waste. The situation has gotten out of control. We must summon Madara-sama."
Obito's lone eye narrowed. "I know there's something more. You haven't told me everything. What did they call you? Master manipulator?"
"My lord, you are not-"
Blue chakra cords lanced out from the ground into Obito's back, connecting directly to his heart. He tried to Kamui out, but found himself unable to. The cords that bound him wouldn't allow him to escape. At the same time, a rainbow prism of energy surrounded Zetsu and closed in from all sides. The plant monster tried to tunnel away, but was repelled by the barrier.
Fu and I rose from the ground, her holding her hands in formation to maintain the barrier while the blue cords that connected Obito's heart fed into one of mine.
"Do you like these? A little gift from the Fuma clan's best shinobi," I said conversationally. Before either could say a word, my hand darted out and ripped out Obito's remaining eye. No Izanagi saving grace for this one.
I walked over to Zetsu. "And you. Your Illuminati conspiracy shit is over."
The entity had just enough time to be baffled as Fu fractionally opened the barrier to allow my threads to pour in. Zetsu struggled and fought, but was consumed as surely as to be expected, and the two Rinnegan he held along with him.
My connected heart flowed out of my chest and I held it in front of me. "If only you could see your death, Obito. Alas that you don't have that luxury." Threads emerged from my hand and poised to strike my heart. "When you get to the pure world, give my regards to the real Madara. You're both whiny bastards because you lost the woman you loved, you'll get along great."
Stabbed from every angle, the heart was destroyed near instantly. Obito's heart did the same, and he could only gasp breathlessly as his body failed and shut down within seconds. Then, I ate his body.
And like that, Fu and I were the only two left.
A deep, deep sigh left my mouth. Almost all of my chakra was used up. My chakra system burned from the demonic infusion. The Nature Chakra faded and left me feeling weak. I was down a heart. All in all, I was probably the most vulnerable I'd been in years.
But nothing happened. There were no more enemies. No more threats.
Fu took my hand. "Is it over? Did we win?"
With a tired smile, I nodded. "We won, Fu."
She wanted to grin, but was worn out and still riding on the nerves of the battle. So I settled for a quick peck on the lips.
"And yeah, it's over. Well…" I reconsidered, turning to eye the Demonic Statue, the Gedo Mazo.
"Nearly, anyways."
Heyo, folks.
To clarify, since some of you had ideas about Edo Tensei stuff; All of the people Ito made were Heart Clones, which are Jiongu thread clones with hearts inside them. Anyone of his "elite guards" whose mind he had consumed had their minds stuffed into that body as well. People like Kimimaro, the Kages, Rin, and Yahiko were NOT Edo Tenseis or anything either, just Heart Clones of Ito with some acting skills to fuck with their heads.
There's only one chapter left for this story. Yes, it's finally coming to an end. This one felt a bit on the short side, I will admit, but it was a lot to do at once and doesn't really fit in with more stuff on top of it. There's no point in bloating it out to try and hit the usual word count; it fits as is. Some of you may have had trouble following the fight since it was like the Sasori/Deidara one but jacked to 11, but this felt like the best way to write it all.
Writing the last half of this was done while tipsy on a Moscow Mule (which is a delicious drink that I highly recommend) and the whole thing was powered through over a few very long nights. Much appreciation to my beta reader, Abaddon Kikoskia. I don't expect the next chapter to take too long, unless I wanted to just ratchet up the antici…
…
…
...pation!
If you've enjoyed this fanfiction as it comes to a close, and you're feeling extra generous, please feel free to support me on Pat*reon. You can find the link in my profile Bio here on the site, or by looking me up on Pat*reon under this same username.
Hope you enjoyed, please favorite and leave a review since those numbers are what I use to measure my value as a writer. Take care.
-Waki
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