Chapter 49
DANZO SHIMURA
Danzo felt as if the whole weight of the world was crushing him. He tried to move his finger, yet to no avail. He cursed himself for wasting Shisui's eye. He glanced at his new arm and now found only a single open Sharingan.
This was not good.
Pain descended towards them. His purple irises focused on Danzo's right arm.
"I believed that I had killed you. Yet you appear unscathed. I must say it is quite an intriguing technique if I say so myself."
And Danzo spat at his opponent.
"You cannot kill me. I have conquered death."
The man lightly chuckled.
"We will have to see about that, won't we? But first, let me deal with our traitor." And then the man's focus turned towards Orochimaru.
"You truly are a slippery one. Nonetheless," Danzo saw as Pain placed his hand over the struggling Orochimaru's face.
"THIS IS THE END!"
SPLOSH.
Danzo closed his eyes reflexively as he was covered in blood and guts, as Orochimaru's body was blown to bits and pieces. Danzo felt his heartbeat quicken as he realized that time was running out. He had less than a minute of Izanagi left. Two, if he used Shisui's eye as well.
About two minutes to defeat… No, No, No.
Two minutes to run away. Yes, to run away. Danzo realized that he could not defeat Pain in his current state. He lacked both the prowess and personnel required to take on such a foe at the moment.
So, he had to retreat. Retreat to fight another day. He felt shivers run down his spine as Pain's focus shifted onto him once more. And Danzo still felt a slight nag as he looked at the somewhat familiar face.
'Where had he seen that face? Where?' he thought.
"Hmm, so you can escape death. Though, I believe there is a simple solution for that." Pain said as he stared Danzo straight in the eye.
Danzo tried to move but in vain. He molded the chakra running in his coils as he inhaled a mouthful of air.
"Wind Style: Vaccum Scythes!" and he spewed blasts of razor-sharp wind chakra-laced condensed scythes. But before they could reach Pain, another one of his partners appeared in front of the attack and blocked his attack. Though, it was as if he had absorbed his ninjutsu.
Danzo's eyes widened as he spotted this. How? He spotted several of those small iron spikes appear around Pain as he spoke up.
"I will just have to make you wish for death yourself!" Danzo saw them rush towards him.
"AHHHH!" and he couldn't help but scream as they buried themselves in his skin. It was the worst pain in his life.
He felt someone hold his head, and he saw a spike millimeters away from his eye. And at that moment, as the spike was just about to enter his eye, Danzo recalled where he had seen that face.
"Yahiko!" he muttered, and the spike stopped. And Danzo smiled as he realized that he had been right.
"So, it really is you! I thought you had killed yourself for that girlfriend of yours, but it seems that you survived. How had I not made the connection previously? Akatsuki, your merry little group that went on preaching about peace."
And Danzo felt the pressure lessen slightly.
"Hoho! What happened to your ideals, your dreams? I told Hanzo to kill each and every one of you like the pests you were! But it seems that he had grown soft at the end. But no matter!"
And Danzo pushed his head slightly to the side as he pushed it up, straight into the metal spike.
"I WILL FINISH HIS WORK FOR HIM!"
And once more, Danzo felt the lights vanish as he died once more.
0000
SHINSO KEN
I watched wide-eyed as Danzo impaled his head on a metal spike. Pain just stood there, stunned perhaps, as Danzo gave out the name. Behind me, Lady Tsunade was frowning as she quietly muttered to herself.
"Yahiko. Where have I heard that name before?"
Since we were at a distance, we could only hear bits and pieces, and making sense of it without some prior knowledge was not easy.
"I heard him mention Hanzo, so perhaps someone from Amegakure." I gave her a hint, and Tsunade-sama nodded, still lost in thought before her expression changed as if she had just had a eureka moment.
Though she did not speak out, I knew that she had picked up the end of the string and would be able to unravel the secret from there.
"Look!" Kakashi spoke up, and I looked up, and my eyes widened as I saw Pain raise his hand once more.
"ALMIGHTY PULL!!" he almost growled.
THRUMP. THRASH.
And numerous trees were felled as an object was propelled straight toward Pain. An object which was none other than the escaping form of Elder Danzo.
As soon as Danzo reached the extended hand of Pain, the man pushed his head straight into the ground with a huge force.
BOOOOOM.
Danzo lay flat as Pain stared at him.
"You think that you can escape death. How about you escape from this!" Danzo's body began to float up, and Pain closed his eyes for a moment.
"Planetary Devastation!"
And the whole ground rippled from its effects as huge pieces of the ground began to lift up and rush toward Danzo. Crushing him as they surrounded him.
"AHHHH!" Danzo's screams would be stifled by them as well as more and more rocks would rise up and join around, forming a sizeable mass.
I felt the ground rattle as our footing was impacted as well.
"Get back!" Tsunade-sama shouted as she picked up Sasuke and jumped back, followed by Kakashi and me.
"Such power! What even is he!" Kakashi commented as he looked with awe towards the huge condensed mass of Earth that blocked half the Sun.
"Don't lose focus. In the end, he is just a man." Lady Tsunade commented from the back.
"And all men bleed," I finished. However, a small thought ran through my mind at that.
'Do Gods?'
0000
OBITO UCHIHA
Obito shook his head as he saw the unnecessary use of excessive force. Pain could have easily dismantled Danzo without using this technique, but Nagato had let the emotions get the better of him.
Though, no matter he had gotten the job done. Even Obito had been surprised to see the use of Izanagi. It was a mystery to him how Danzo had gotten knowledge about such a kinjutsu, more so how he had gotten such a boot-strap version of it to work.
Perhaps it was due to that new arm of his. Still.
Izanagi. The technique that bridges reality and illusion. Obito had thought that he would never see the technique, but it seemed that he was wrong.
The same way he had been wrong about Itachi.
Another traitor. And this time, one whom he had recruited himself. What a shame! But he would deal with him after this. There were only four little pests to eradicate now. He saw Pain's eyes turn towards the last remaining group.
Tsunade Senju, Hatake Kakashi and Shinso Ken. All three of them were quite powerful individually and perhaps represented an even greater threat together. They might have been able to show a good fight if they were fresh. But in their current situation, despite their slight recuperation in all this commotion, they did not stand a chance against Nagato.
He saw Pain raise his hand as he tried to attack, but before his attack, Obito saw three Bolts of the lightning rush toward Pain.
Preta Path rushed forward, intending to absorb the ninjutsu, and Obito saw the lightning bolts lose their spark.
SPLISH.SPLISH.SPLISH.
But suddenly, Preta path grunted as his arm became limp and began to bleed. Obito's eyes widened as he saw a small object fall from the wound on Path's hand.
A metal dice, Obito scoffed. By now, Kakashi had finished weaving his own handseals, and seeing him made him want to rush to the battlefield and tear him limb from limb. Yet he held himself back, for he was on a mission. Obito held himself back in the memory of his dear Rin.
"Katon: FIRE DRAGON JUTSU!" and the man spewed huge roaring and flaming dragons towards Pain.
Without Preta Path to absorb the ninjutsu, Pain had to stop it himself.
"ALMIGHTY PUSH!" and the trajectory of the attack was changed, and they were directed towards the sky.
'Pain was hiding his strength. Good.'
Tsunade had now vanished and had crushed one of the Paths to a pulp. Obito watched as Animal Path tried to make hand seals for summoning, but suddenly Shinso tapped his sword and made a hand seal.
TING.
"AGH!" the animal path screamed. A huge gnash appeared on his face. It was as if he had been slashed by a sword.
'HOW?' Obito thought as his eyes narrowed on the brown-haired kid. And Obito realized that he had made a slight mistake in judging the kid's potential. The kid wasn't a threat to watch out for in the future.
No, he was a threat to watch out for in the present. And he gnashed his teeth at that.
Konoha and its damned prodigies. Kakashi was harassing Pain as he spewed swathes of fire as Tsunade combated the other three Paths.
'Should he intervene?' and just as the thought crossed his mind, he heard Pain growl once more.
"HEAVENLY JUDGMENT!"
And he saw Kakashi fall to the ground due to the extreme gravitational force. Tsunade was on her knees as well, much like Shinso, who was supporting himself with his sword.
"I have had enough of you, Konoha shinobi!" Pain spoke with slight irritation as he descended towards Tsunade.
"Let's start with you," and Pain raised his hand and just as it was inches away from Tsunade's head.
SHING. SHING. SHRING.
Obito's eyes widened as he saw three swords rushing toward Pain. The brown-haired kid hadn't thrown them, yet they were rushing towards Pain with lightning bolts arching over them, much like his first attack.
How? The increased gravity should have brought them down.
Pain raised his hand towards the incoming swords and shouted out an attack to avoid getting skewered.
"ALMIGHTY PUSH!" and the swords were pushed to the side, but Obito's eyes widened as he saw Tsunade gather up chakra in her fist.
The slight interruption had given her an opportunity to attack Pain, and she was inches away from Pain.
"CHAAA!" he heard her shout as chakra swarmed toward her fist.
BOOOOOM.
0000
In the village hidden in the rain, the Sun rarely, if ever, came out. And much like the other days, it was running today as well. But on this day, a very rare spectacle could be observed in one of its buildings.
A very tall tower in the center of the town had been lit aflame. A rare occurrence for the heavy rainfall would have extinguished any normal flames, but these were not regular flames, for they did not burn red or orange, or blue in any case.
No, these flames burned Black. Pitch Black as they enveloped the whole building. Though, the villages would say that a winged angled would descend on the building from the sky, wrapping it its wings to smother the black flames.
Crouching down, it would find a single ring placed on the building with a special kanji inscribed with pitch-black ink over a red background.
0000
Boom, I had to rewrite the whole chapter and scrap about five chapters because they weren't right. I hope that you like this for this was not easy to write. But really, really fun.
As always, you can read ahead and support me on Patre0n. Your support helps me out a lot, so if possible, have a look and toss a coin to your writer.
www.Patre0n.com/Drkest
Thanks for reading this fic!