Kurotsuchi looked down grimly at Orochimaru's manufactured progeny. The boy barely clung to life, a savage three-pronged wound nearly goring him through the heart. One of the nameless clones— Zero-Three, by the thing's own admission— regaled them with tales of elemental manipulation that bordered upon divinity. Even the bratty self-proclaimed "Thunder God" would struggle to create a feat so terrifying as creating a tsunami that reached the heavens.

The new Raikage and Kazekage listened with rapt attention and equally grim faces. Being placed under their command chafed at Kurotsuchi. She was used to being the leader, issuing the orders, the one to make the decisions. And, one day, she swore, she would be again. Trusting Bolt Uzumaki to be any less of an idealist than his father was a foolish move on her part. But she hadn't seen nor expected the yawning depths of the darkness within the boy. His willingness and ability to manipulate and betray were something that the Kages rarely encountered. And because Kurotuschi had fallen for his ploy, been his pawn, now she was here, taking orders from brats three decades her junior.

"And you're sure he's on his way here?" Yurui asked tersely.

Zero-Three nodded. "My brothers, those few who survived, bought Mitsuki and I the time to get here with their lives," he answered.

"Let him come," Shinki stated harshly. "This far from the sea, his power will be drastically reduced. Without his element, and with forewarning, we have the advantage."

Stupid kids. There was no such thing as an "advantage" against enemies like these. This was why the Union hadn't beaten Bolt. Why they never would be able to. Some people weren't human at all, Kurotsuchi had learned. They were natural disasters made flesh, wearing guises of skin. They made you think you understood them, made you think you had the advantage, and then when their deception was made known, they cast you down with overwhelming power.

"What do you think, Lady Kurotsuchi?" Shinki asked her.

Kurotsuchi scoffed. It didn't matter what she thought. They had the power of choice, not her. And Kurotsuchi knew what she would do either way. The same thing she had always done, would always do: prove her might and the might of Stone.

Shinki looked disappointed in her for a moment before returning his attention to Zero-Three. "We'll set up a defensive formation here," he said. "As soon as Mitsuki is stable, get him transferred back to the main army. Sage forbid, if things go south here..."

Zero-Three nodded slowly with a look of minor, if grim, confusion, as if he couldn't understand why the Kazekage would care if they lived or died. Just another tally in the column against the sanctity of life that Orochimaru had violated and continued to violate.

Kurotsuchi left the command headquarters and found Sekki waiting nervously outside. He snapped to attention when he saw her with a sharp "ma'am!"

Kurotsuchi scowled. She demanded respect, yes, but the boy had always had a near reverential awe for the Tsuchikage. First with her grandfather, now her. He had mourned Ōnoki's passing with her and she had seen something firm and unyielding in him. That, ultimately, was what made her take him as her student. Now, with such a battle looming on the horizon... Kurotsuchi thought fondly back to the lesson her grandfather had taught her. A stone was a stone. It mattered not which.

Kurotsuchi reached into one of the bags at her hips and withdrew a scroll. She tossed it at Sekki's face and the boy barely caught it. He looked down at the scroll in confusion as he saw the seal placed on it: the seal of her family, the Kamizuru, the ancestral clan of the Tsuchikage. Inside it contained the formal robes of the Tsuchikage. Sekki didn't know that, but he knew it was important, and he looked back up at her with wide eyes.

"Get out of here, kid," Kurotsuchi ordered gruffly. "Take the two freaks back to HQ. That's an order."

"B-But—" Sekki stuttered as she began to push him to speed him on his way. "What about—"

Kurotsuchi made a rock shoot up from the ground and strike the boy in the forehead. "Enough chatter, get moving," she growled over his pained yelp.

Sekki got the message and grumbled under his breath as he made his way over to where Mitsuki and the other freak were. A small convoy was readying themselves to accompany them back to the main army. Sekki and his team were hastily grabbing their things to join them.

Kurotsuchi wrinkled her nose and blinked away misty half-formed tears. She wasn't supposed to get attached. She supposed Sekki would know why she sent him away when they reached HQ and he had time to see what exactly was inside the scroll. He would make a good Tsuchikage, she thought, if he lived to see the end of this war to end all wars. Kurotsuchi laughed lightly under her breath. Funny, wasn't it, how many of those there were?

If there was one thing Kurotsuchi had learned, it was that the stone did not bend. But it did break. It didn't break easily, or quickly, but it could break all the same. And it was time to see if she broke. And if she didn't? Well, Sekki would keep the scroll safe for her in the meantime.

And if she did? That was fine too.

It was half an hour later when the scouts returned. It was a single scout, really, bloodied and missing an arm, the stump frozen over with crystal-clear ice. His eyes were manic with pain but he relayed the message all the same: Ryujin was coming.

Kurotsuchi, Shinki, and Yurui stood at the fore of their combined armies, nestled in a valley between two great mountains. To the far north, away from the ocean, she knew Bolt Uzumaki was encamped, treating with Uzume, and to their west, the main army, stalled from advancing due to Hachiman. Hopefully Sekki would make it to one of them if the worst came to pass.

Ryujin wasn't what Kurotsuchi was expecting. He looked stern, almost paternal, but cold. Kurotsuchi shivered, from the base of her skull to the tips of her toes. She'd seen men hold themselves like Ryujin did. Men who were powerful beyond all mortal imagining— and they knew it.

This was going to be a good fight.

Ryujin stopped, his glacial gaze travelling over the three Kages one by one, measuring them each in turn and finding them wanting before moving on to the next.

He made the first move. With a casual wave of his hand, a wave of water manifested out of thin air, frothy and bubbling as it surged towards them. Shinki raised both hands and a wave of sand rose from the ground to meet the wall of water. The two collided with an audible clap. The two attacks cancelled each other out, for the most part, forming a pasty mud that wasn't quite sand nor water and thus useless to either attack.

As soon as the wall of mud fell, Kurotsuchi attacked. She cupped her hands, forming a hungry, gleaming cube of Dust chakra. She collapsed one wall of the cube and it expanded forward in the blink of an eye towards the unsuspecting Tsukian.

Her attack atomized the so-called Dragon King in an instant. Shinki and Yurui cried out victoriously but Kurotsuchi knew the fight wasn't over. Not even fucking close, she thought. She spotted the disembodied feet of Ryujin and saw that instead of being made of flesh and blood, they were made of water.

"Clone!" Kurotsuchi snapped sharply.

Shinki tried to raise a defensive wall of sand, but a sheet of ice rolled across the valley— the entire valley— in an instant. Kurotsuchi gasped as she was frozen from the shins down. Her heart thundered in her chest and she knew she had but seconds to live if she didn't get out of that ice before Ryujin realized he had her trapped. Kurotsuchi grit her teeth and expelled raw Dust-style chakra from the tenketsu in her legs, atomizing the ice, and leapt skyward.

Shinki and Yurui had made it out as well. Good instincts for kids, Kurotsuchi thought. Shinki had made a cloud of iron sand that had tore through the ice and let him fly, albeit slowly, and Yurui and cut through the ice with Samehada with frightening ease and had leapt to Shinki's cloud.

A wave rolled through the sheet of ice almost too fast for the naked eye to follow. Kurotsuchi closed her eyes. She heard the sharp crinkle-snap of ice breaking followed by the deafening screams of thousands of dying men. Looking down, Kurotsuchi saw dozens of icy spears crucifying their men. Most died instantly. Some, however, were only maimed, left to die slowly and painfully.

A message.

Kurotsuchi growled angrily and twisted in the air until she could see Ryujin. The man continued his forward march in an almost leisurely manner, idly breaking ninja who had frozen solid with a backhanded slap.

She formed a pyramid of Dust this time. Less area of effect, faster and longer reach, harder to hit.

Again she atomized the Tsukian. He hadn't even looked at her, hadn't even tried to dodge or defend himself. Kurotsuchi frowned. She couldn't remember seeing him reappear last time either. Nor when he had made another clone. As she fell, Kurotsuchi used Dust to atomize a wide swathe of ice to safely land in. Shinki and Yurui joined her.

Ryujin appeared somewhere behind them, still marching through their army, chasing his quarry, and Yurui made a growl of almost bestial anger before brandishing his sword and charging forward. Almost in the same motion, Shinki threw his hands forward and created a hovering walkway of iron sand for the Raikage to run on.

Kurotsuchi had to admit, the kids worked well together. They would make a good team, good allies, if they got through this alive.

Kurotsuchi supported the charge by shooting cylindrical bursts of Dust at Ryujin. They always struck true but each was but a clone, replaced almost instantly from seemingly nowhere with another. Yurui shouted in victory as he leapt at Ryujin and brought Samehada down. The clown burst into a spray of mist that was quickly absorbed by the scaled sword. The thing seemed to quiver in pleasure, growing noticeably larger before Kurotsuchi's eyes, and Yurui leapt back towards them.

"Samehada and I have a trace on him!" the Raikage shouted triumphantly.

Yurui proved as much when he ran a clone through before it could fully form right before them. Kurotsuchi flinched back and cast a wary gaze around them, watching their surroundings. Another clone popped up behind them and she atomized it before it could so much as take a single step forward. Shinki sheared away another clone with a wave of iron sand.

They were holding up fine. The problem was they weren't winning.

Eventually, the clones stopped coming.

Kurotsuchi wished they didn't.

Next came their fellow ninja.

They walked forward with stilted, jerky steps, expressions of pure agony and terror on their faces as they marched, even when their bodies were broken and frozen. Some, Kurotsuchi noticed with horror, were already dead.

"By the Sage..." Shinki gasped.

"Fuck," Yurui swore.

Kurotsuchi realized what was happening a moment later. "He's controlling them through their blood!" she shouted, raising her hands to atomize the nearest person to her.

She hesitated. Both because these were her men, fellow humans, but also because... if Ryujin could do this to them, why didn't he do it to her and the other Kages too?

Shinki looked conflicted, arms at his sides, but Yurui was resolved, like the Raikage of old. He slashed forward with a quiet "forgive me" that Kurotsuchi barely caught.

The killing lasted hours. Thousands died. Kurotsuchi was numb by the time the three of them were forced to strike down the last of their ninja. Shinki had dried tears staining his cheeks. Yurui looked sick.

But Kurotsuchi was pissed too.

"Fight us, you coward!" she screamed, her words echoing across the ice and through the valley.

Kurotsuchi wondered when all the world had gone silent. Almost as if it was as horrified as the three of them were.

As if to answer her call, Ryujin appeared. His expression hadn't even changed. The same stern, almost bored face stared back at them coldly. Beside her, Yurui struggled to keep hold of Samehada as the sword trembled and quivered. "Easy, buddy," the young Raikage whispered. "This one is real," he said to them.

Shinki snapped his hands forward violently and a whip of iron sand lashed forward. It struck Ryujin clean across the chest, cutting him in two from rib to rib. Kurotsuchi expected the clone to pop, but it didn't. Still, Ryujin stood. Stoic, bored, as if they were ants that didn't know their place.

"What...?" Shinki muttered, holding up some sand.

It was red with blood.

"Regeneration," Kurotsuchi swore colorfully under her breath. Hyper-advanced too, by her estimation. He had healed instantly, almost before the damage had even been done. It was regeneration beyond anything they had known on Earth. Not even Orochimaru or the Tailed Beasts were that good.

Luckily, it didn't matter. Once Kurotsuchi atomized him, there'd be no coming back; nothing left to come back from.

Ryujin raised an arm and said one single word.

"Disappointing."

Kurotsuchi felt like she was being crushed. A wave of force rolled over her body and her vision became gray and increasingly dark. She couldn't breathe and the weight on her chest drove the remaining air from her lungs. Her feet felt like they were encased in stone. Even to her untrained senses, she felt foreign chakra slithering through her pathways, flooding her system, driving her own chakra up and out. Kurotsuchi grunted in pain as she fell to her knees. Her vision narrowed to pinpricks as tendrils of shadow crept in from her peripheral.

But she didn't surrender. She didn't stop fighting. She didn't give in. Stone was unbending, unyielding, stubborn, and eternal. "Like the mountain, I am," Kurotsuchi chanted through grit teeth as she rose from her knees. Her eyes met Ryujin's and she could see a faint glimmer of curiosity. "Immovable and effortless."

All of her chakra that had been displaced by Ryujin's attempt to crush the water from her very cells had gathered in the air around them. Kurotsuchi reached out and seized control, snapping a cube of Dust into existence all around the Tsukian.

Then it was over.

The crushing weight dissipated instantly and Kurotsuchi took a large gasping breath. She blinked rapidly as the darkness encroaching her vision retreated. Shinki was unconscious, but Yurui was slowly recovering, grasping his sword with shaky hands. "Not bad, kid," Kurotsuchi gasped. "Not bad."

Yurui shook his head. "It's- it's not over," he wheezed, pointing with a trembling finger.

No, that was impossible.

Another Ryujin approached them from a distance at a leisurely pace. And, behind him, another, with two more flanking him.

"But... I got him?" Kurotsuchi swore.

Yurui's whole body was wracked with tremors now, his eyes wide. "N-No," he said. "You don't understand. They're real. They're all real. They weren't clones. They never were."

The dispassionate apathy had returned to the eyes of Ryujin as he beheld them. Kurotsuchi growled angrily. No one mocked her and got away with it. Not like this. She held her hands aloft, forming a crescent of Dust between her palms, and unleashed it without any of her normal restraints. A blinding flash of light cascaded forward and didn't stand, expanding and growing exponentially the further it went from her. Kurotuschi gasped as she felt her chakra drop sharply and slammed her eyelids shut as she looked away from the burning light.

When she opened her eyes, a path wide enough to accommodate a Tailed Beast stretched between her and the horizon, all the way back to the sea from whence the monster came. Kurotsuchi took in great gasps of air from the exertion. Was that...?

A sharp clang made her turn. Yurui had risen to his knees and stared at the horizon with his mouth agape and his eyes wide with horror, his hands slack at his sides and his sword resting on the ground.

When Kurotsuchi looked back at the horizon, she saw what had shattered the young Raikage's will to fight.

Words did not— could not— do it justice. A sinuous body, like a snake's, rose above the horizon, so large that even the tallest of mountains would have been dwarfed by the width of its body. Great shimmering blue-green scales reflected the light of the sun, casting swathes of the valley in blindingly iridescent light. Algae and lichen hung from its body, but the distance and scale assured Kurotsuchi that the plants must have been miles, perhaps dozens, in length. As the serpent crested above the ocean, it rose higher still, dwarfing the valley and casting it in shadow, until it broke through the clouds. Some, even, clung to its body and began to rain. It coiled around the mountains of the surrounding valley, scouring them clean of vegetation, and above it all, loomed a draconic visage.

Kurotsuchi couldn't move as the ground beneath her feet began to tremble as if struck by an earthquake. She looked up into the baleful blue eyes that glowed with an inner light, wreathed in frothy sea-white hair and crowned with horns.

It was over.

"Yurui," Kurotsuchi spoke, deathly calm. "Take the kid and go."

The young Raikage snapped out of his terror long enough to look over at her. "W-What?" he asked dumbly.

"If you're not gone in sixty seconds, there won't even be a single particle from your bones left," she warned him. "Go. Get."

Yurui shook his head even as Kurotsuchi began gathering her chakra. "N-No, I can still fight! I can..."

"You can't," Kurotsuchi told him firmly. "What you can do is take knowledge of this back to base. That's the best you can do. Now, go."

Yurui took one final look up at the Dragon King of the Sea, then glanced at her, before grabbing Shinki and sprinting in the other direction.

Kurotsuchi smiled. "Now that the brats are gone, we can really let loose, you and I!" she screamed to the heavens, even as her chakra reached a crescendo.

Ryujin's great draconic body slithered forward and made the ground tremble. His maw parted, revealing a cavernous underworld of teeth, each longer than even the largest of cities. Somewhere, far back in the dragon's throat, began to glow blue-white.

Kurotsuchi grinned madly as she felt herself burn through all of her chakra and then more than she had to give in this life. She looked down at her hands and found her skin wrinkling and shrivelling until it was nothing paper-thin skin and bones. She barely had the strength to raise her hand to her forehead and brush away snow-white hair.

Kurotsuchi laughed, eyes closed and lips parted in glee. "It was all reduced to rubble," she sang, a fond, haunting hymn from her grandfather. "And then again, to..."

Dust.

Yurui felt heat blossom against his back and gasped. He turned and bore witness to a second dawn cresting the horizon, a gleaming star of pure white. His corneas burned briefly and then he was plunged into darkness. The air became uncomfortably warm and felt like pins and needles on his skin.

Samehada answered his call and Yurui sighed in relief as he merged with his sword. Blind to the world, he sprinted forward with only a vague shared awareness of where water formed blades of grass and trees to guide his feet. Where he lacked, Samehada shored up.

The ground beneath Yurui's feet trembled and did not stop, not until he reached the main army's encampment hours later.

A healer mended his eyes, returning his blurry sight to him. Yurui didn't even care when she said his vision would return with time. He looked to the east and found it free of dragons.

That was enough for him, for now.

Bolt sighed and ran a hand through his hair, massaging his scalp with tendrils of lightning. His sister had finally calmed down after going near insensinate due to a "disturbance" in nature. Something, somewhere, was going catastrophically wrong, and Bolt was determined to find out what it was.

Truthfully, he was thankful that the disturbance had happened when it had. Himawari had caught him with his hand in the cookie jar after he used reijutsu on her in an attempt to calm her down and make her feel better. Bolt wasn't certain if it was his own relatively unskillful handling of his technique or if his sister had somehow been able to sense what he had been doing.

Bolt didn't think anyone save for another reijutsu user— like the monks, like Sentoki— could sense him. Everyone else had been unable to sense him. They lacked the metaphorical "eye" with which to see the gilded spiritual energy that suffused his being when he channeled a reijutsu technique.

It was another thing he needed to look into. Another thing in an ever growing list of things that was required of him during this war. Bolt sighed.

More immediately, he had other goals to accomplish. Now that the Akatsuki had bound the last Tailed Beasts, barring the Nine-Tails, whom Bolt was content to wait until his father's death to acquire, there was no longer any reason for him to keep any significant forces on Earth. The Tsukians were proving to be a more worthy foe than he had anticipated. Therefore, he had recalled Tsuchigumo and Katasuke, and Hidan and his Jashinists, to aid him in the war.

In short order, Bolt hoped that Tsuchigumo could begin replacing dead Tsukians with living puppets to act as spies and assassins. That would make taking cities much easier. Katasuke was needed to study the Tsukian biology and their strange but powerful manner of controlling chakra and forming jutsu. There were weaknesses in the human form, flaws to exploit, and Bolt knew that the Tsukians must be the same. They bled, they could die. They were not gods, as much as they liked to masquerade as them.

But Bolt had something very special in mind for Hidan and the Jashinists. Hidan was a mad dog, and so long as Bolt held his leash, he was useful. But as Hidan had recovered from his ordeal, his sanity had slowly but surely returned. Never to his original, intact psyche, Bolt doubted Hidan even could heal to that extent, but enough that his zeal was beginning to wane. No, not wane, but return to its former and proper target. Bolt honestly did not know what he would or even could do to retain Hidan and the Jashinist's loyalty should they ever discern that he was not, in fact, their Lord Jashin, nor even a Jashinist.

He needed to rid himself of them before that happened. As fate would have it, Sarada had recently requested his help to reinforce the lines of armies that were having trouble in their battles.

Ironically, Shikamaru Nara's army was one of them. Shikadai's father had been a thorn in his ass since the day he had fled his home in a bout of childish anger. He opposed Bolt, the Akatsuki, and the United Shinobi Empire at every turn. Their ideologies were antithetical to one another. There was no common ground to find, no compromise that would allow the both of them to get what they wanted. Shikamaru would not rest until Bolt was dead or imprisoned and his dream nothing but ash.

Nagato had written of such men. Dangerous men that could not be allowed to survive if Pain's dream of a world at peace was to become reality. Bolt had taken that message to heart, systematically eliminating his enemies or turning them to his side.

And Shikamaru Nara was one enemy that would never willingly side with Bolt.

That left him with but one fate.

Bolt ordered one of his Stormguard to summon Hidan. Then he sat, legs crossed beneath him, hands resting in his lap, and closed his eyes. Meditation came easier and easier to him, growing with ease by the day, and Bolt felt like he was light on his feet, like the world could hardly hold him down. Like if he jumped just a little too hard he could fly into the sky and never come back down. It was exhilarating. It was probably more than a little dangerous.

But as he sank deep into meditation and cast off his earthly bonds, he felt his fear fade away, and he took a step forward, an astral body of pale golden light. Bolt walked. He had a deer to find, after all. It shouldn't be hard, he reckoned. There were only two left and then he would have the full set.

And he knew just the bait that would draw the deer into his waiting maw.

Shikamaru grimaced as he tasted the raw flavor of tobacco on his tongue. The cigarette he had been smoking was clenched between his teeth so hard it had been crushed. He breathed mechanically, in and out, a steady rhythm, because he knew if he didn't do it consciously he would hardly breathe at all until he lost his temper in a fit of gasping rage.

The war was in their favor, yes, but the battles— his battle, in particular— were not. Sarada, young as she was, was actually a good leader. Whether that was because of who her parents were or because of who she herself decided to be, Shikamaru didn't know, but she was a good Kage. Shikamaru didn't see eye-to-eye with her on some things, but she was a good leader. But, sometimes, like now, Sarada fumbled under the weight of leadership.

That was why Shikamaru was grappling with his anger, his rage, and his sorrow as their reinforcements slowly trickled in. Sarada had needed warm bodies to replace the ones Shikamaru had lost and she had tapped the one resource Shikamaru always, always warned her against going to: Bolt Uzumaki.

Shikamaru gazed down, through smoke and shadow, at the Jashinists setting up camp just outside his men's own encampment. And, somewhere down there, was a nightmare made flesh from his childhood, the murderer of his sensei, the man he had considered family in all but blood and had taught him the true meaning of what it means to be a shinobi, who taught him the meaning of noble service to a cause greater and better than mortal men could ever be. Who revealed to him the existence of a King.

In the distance, Shikamaru could hear Hidan rant and rave. His time in the ground had not done his sanity any favors.

Shikamaru knew, in a detached, coldly logical sort of way, that Bolt had sent Hidan, recently summoned from Earth, just to spite him. Just to twist the knife, to salt the wound. Vengeance for all the little slights against him, for continuing to resist his reign. For being the last bastion of logic and morality in a world that grew madder by the day.

Bolt might not sit on the throne, but he was the shadow behind it, the whisper in Sarada's ear. Every word a slow, insidious poison, his very presence an anchor chained to her ankles that would drag her down into the abyssal depths that he himself willingly sank into. Eventually, Bolt would corrupt and warp Sarada until she was his twisted mirror image. And then their world would be right back to where they began, wouldn't it?

Shikamaru spat the remains of his cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his boot. He could not let Bolt become the uncontested ruler of the world. His vision of a future ruled by the strong, where might made right, shielded by the nebulous bulwark of "the greater good," went against the very essence of Shikamaru's being.

He had to stop it or it would haunt him for the rest of his days. He would stop it, even if it cost him his life.

Shikamaru couldn't sleep that night. He knew he should have, he would need his strength come morning when the fighting began anew. But he couldn't. So he sat in his tree, back against the rough bark, breathing in the slightly different scent of the Tsukian air, and he began to plan.

When the sun crested the mountains, painting the sparse forest and plains of the battlefield in pinks and oranges and reds and golds, Shikamaru was ready.

"Shika?" he heard Ino call out softly as she navigated the brush below. "Are you out here?"

Shikamaru sighed. "Yeah," he answered, voice hoarse from disuse. "Up here."

Ino looked around for a few moments but quickly found him and smiled up at him. It was a sad, tired smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. Shikamaru treasured Ino's smiles because she rarely had cause to be truly and genuinely happy growing up. So he smiled back.

Reality was a cruel mistress. "It's almost time," Ino reminded him, and she seemed to wilt like her beloved flowers as she reminded herself.

Shikamaru dropped to the ground with barely a sound. He took a breath. "I need your help, Ino," he said.

Ino quirked her head, looking at him with exasperated fondness. "Why?" she asked in that lilting tone of hers where she knows he or Chōji did something or were planning on doing something they shouldn't.

Shikamaru smiled wryly. As usual, Ino was right.

"I have a plan," he answered simply.

Ino sighed and rolled her eyes. "You always do," she said.

That was as close to a "yes" as he was going to get out of her. "Come on," Shikamaru called as he made his way back towards his army's encampment. "Let's find Chōji. I'll tell you about it on the way."

== page break ==

The thing about war, Shikamaru decided, was that no one told you how loud it was. The sound of metal striking metal, flesh striking flesh, the tremor of thousands of feet striking the ground, the screams of the dying and the keening of the living.

Shikamaru could barely hear his own thoughts as noon dawned and the fighting reached a fever pitch. With the quasi immortal Jashinists reinforcing their lines, and Shikamaru's new and improved strategy, they were pushing the Ōtsutsuki back.

But Shikamaru and his team had a different goal, one beyond the scale and scope of a single battle. He had kept one eye on Hidan since the monster set foot before him. So when Hidan broke away from his zealots and ventured off into the forest in pursuit of a Tsukian regiment fleeing from his gleeful and systematic torture, Ino-Shika-Chō followed.

Shikamaru swallowed down bile as they discovered the first corpses, horribly maimed and mutilated, expressions frozen in agony and terror in death. This was not the first time he had seen Hidan's handiwork.

But it would be the last.

They found Hidan standing in the middle of a clearing, arms akimbo as he bathed in the light that pierced through the trees, the dead strewn all around him. As the three of them stepped forward, Hidan turned. His smile was sickening, wide and with too many teeth, eyes glazed in rapturous pleasure.

Their eyes met, and Hidan smiled just a little wider. Shikamaru's heart beat against his ribcage angrily and his blood felt like molten metal in his veins.

"Lord Jashin said you'd be here," Hidan said with a kind of awe and fervor, as if amazed he had received the gospel of his god.

Shikamaru had no words for this monster. Wouldn't let his own mind be poisoned by Hidan and his ravings, not like how he had been the first time. Sasuke might have fashioned himself and the Uchiha as avengers, but Shikamaru found he had a streak of vengeance in himself a mile wide. He would put down Hidan, once and for all, and then he would go after Hidan's master. And the world would be a better place for their passing.

Shadows leapt from beneath Shikamaru's feet and slithered forward. Chōji began to grow, not big enough to be seen from beyond the forest, but big enough to restrain Hidan for what Shikamaru had in mind. Ino hemmed him in, preventing him from fleeing back towards the battlefield.

Hidan cackled madly, the thought of running not even crossing his deranged mind, and met them head on with a swing of his scythe. Chōji didn't even try to dodge, he stopped and flexed, muscles bulging, skin darkening as it became laden with chakra. Hidan's swing bounced off Chōji's skin with an audible clang that threw him off balance.

Shikamaru's shadows struck. Hidan dodged as if dancing, bending in ways the human body ought not to be able to, laughing all the while. Ino threw a kunai that sunk deep into Hidan's lower back but he didn't even flinch, as if he couldn't even feel it.

Hidan whirled, wildly slashing at Chōji and lunging at Ino when the chance presented itself, all while working his way closer and closer to Shikamaru. But Shikamaru would never retreat from this monster, not again, never again. Wouldn't give him a single foot, a single inch, not an ounce of fear.

Chōji punted Hidan away before he got too close, his face a hard mask of cold, righteous anger. Ino and Chōji hated Hidan just as much as Shikamaru did. This was as much their vengeance as it was his.

Shikamaru sighed in relief as he finished weaving his shadows and the ultimate technique of the Nara clan.

Hidan didn't even know he was beat.

Shikamaru shook his head as Ino and Chōji retreated. "You haven't learned a thing," he said sadly, angrily. "You haven't changed at all. We have. That's the difference."

Hidan looked genuinely confused at why his opponents weren't fighting him anymore. He leaned back, roaring with laughter, wheezing and struggling to breathe. His skin darkened and blackened, like a sickly, wet ink.

"Lord Jashin has made me the perfect killer," Hidan cried to the skies, arms wide as if to embrace his god. His head snapped down sharply, his gaze meeting Shikamaru's, eyes wild with bloodlust. "His power is beyond our mortal comprehension, you small-minded heretical shit stains!"

Hidan quickly withdrew an ornamental knife and brought it to his throat.

Shikamaru didn't let him.

Darkness flowed through his veins, through the shadows he weaved, through the abyss between here and there and both and neither. The trap he had set was sprung and the floor of the entire forest became as black as night, deep and dark and lovely, whose depths were broken only by the faintest dying sparks of light eons away.

Hidan froze, unable to so much as move his eyes, couldn't even breathe unless Shikamaru told him to, but he held off the final blow. "Ino, can you...?" he asked, knowing it would pain her to be in that monster's mind, but unwilling to kill Hidan while in his linked form.

Ino nodded reluctantly and Chōji held her body the moment her mind left it. After a few moments, he allowed Hidan— or, rather Ino— to breathe and speak. A wordless sound of disgust and pain came from the man's lips almost immediately. "Oh, God," Ino said, almost sounding sick.

A moment later, Hidan's body bent to the side and spewed vomit onto his boots.

"Ino?" Shikamaru asked, worried.

"Y-Yeah," Ino said shakily. "I'm good. Just... give me a minute. Fuck, I've never seen a mind this twisted. He's not even human on the inside."

Shikamaru could have told her that from the beginning, but he remained silent as Ino worked. He couldn't imagine the kinds of horrors she was seeing in Hidan's mind, but the Yamanaka were trained to deal with unwanted thoughts and memories. If anyone could handle it, it was Ino.

"Okay," Ino said, after a few minutes had passed. "Okay. Shit. Fuck. Bolt has... by the Sage, he and Katasuke have been operating on this fucker, changing him, slowly improving him with each iteration. He's stronger, faster, more durable, feels no pain except self-inflicted. Oh, I'm gonna be sick."

"Fight through it, Ino," Shikamaru encouraged her. "What else? What did they change about his powers?"

Ino took a long, deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth. "They were looking for a way to bypass the... limitations of his immortality," she said with a puzzled frown. "Hidan couldn't die, couldn't age, but he couldn't grow either, always frozen as he was. I think... I think..."

Shikamaru waited a few moments with bated breath.

"I think Bolt was... looking for immortality," Ino whispered, Hidan's face growing stark and pale.

Fuck. That was bad. That was seriously bad. Shikamaru swallowed. "Did he figure it out?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Ino shook Hidan's head. "No," she answered, and Shikamaru released a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. "They couldn't figure out how to replicate the effect, nor how to mitigate its drawbacks, so they abandoned it. But they did improve his techniques! They figured out how to reverse the vector. Hidan doesn't need other people's blood, he can give them his own to achieve the same effect! He's been dispersing it in the air the entire time we've been fighting."

Ino, the real Ino, gasped and blinked awake.

"Can you remove it?" Shikamaru asked, feeling both sickened and violated that any part of Hidan was inside him.

Ino nodded eagerly. "I'm no Sakura, but I can do this, easy," she growled proudly, hands already glowing green.

Shikamaru nodded slowly and tried to control his breathing as Ino ran her hands over his body, cleansing him. Ino had this little puzzled look on her face as she worked, eyebrows scrunched together and nose wrinkled. Eventually, she moved to Chōji, and Shikamaru released a sigh of relief.

"I've never seen a mind so... broken," Ino said, eventually, as she worked. "He was a little crazy, in the beginning, but he was sick. It wasn't his fault. Then... then after he became... like that, it was worse. Much worse. He didn't even want it. But the cult, they made him do it. Made him go through the ritual. I couldn't even follow the memory. It was just... darkness and pain and shapes that made my head hurt. Something saw him, found him, reached out and filled him. But he never wanted it. Not until after. After... he took pleasure in it."

"Then... he was immortal?" Chōji asked.

Ino nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, he was," she said. "Then... the Akatsuki found him, and Pain—" Ino shuddered violently. "—he was the only one who could really kill him. So he worked for them even while he served Jashin. Then... then us."

Shikamaru clenched his fists and all three of them were quiet for a moment as they remembered Asuma.

Ino finished removing the last remnants of Hidan's blood from Chōji and turned to face the both of them. "I..." she hesitated. "I don't think we should have left him there. We should have just found a way to kill him."

For a moment, Shikamaru wasn't sure he was hearing her correctly. "What the fuck do you mean, Ino?" he demanded angrily when she didn't correct herself.

"It was..." Ino took a deep breath. "It was cruel, Shika. It broke him. He didn't even last a month. When Bolt found him, there weren't even shards of fragments left of his original psyche. There was nothing but grains of sand. You could hardly even call it a mind."

"He killed Asuma, Ino," Shikamaru pointed out darkly.

Ino seemed to shrink in on herself. "He did," she agreed softly. "And I will always hate him for that and he deserved to be punished for it. He was too dangerous to be left alive, but he didn't deserve what we did to him. We should have killed him. We should have had mercy. We should have had the strength to show him the mercy he was too weak to give others. We weren't better than him, Shika. We stooped to his level. Asuma would have never wanted that for us. He would have wanted us to be better."

Shikamaru breathed in sharply through gritted teeth. He was at war within himself. Because Shikamaru was a vengeful man and a logical man. And he wanted vengeance, but he also knew, deep, deep down, in the shadow of his heart, that Ino was right. He had spent many sleepless nights wondering what Asuma would think of him. Of the man he had become. Of the life he lived. Of what he had done to Hidan in Asuma's name.

"Fuck," Shikamaru exhaled, the anger that had warmed him leaving him cold, tired, and empty. How could he, in good conscience, consign Hidan to the Shadows after hearing Ino?

"I don't understand," Chōji said after a few beats of silence. "If Hidan was so broken by his time in the ground, how is he... like he is now?"

Shikamaru paused for a moment. Now, without anger and vengeance clouding his thoughts, honing them like a sharpened blade, he realized that Hidan was suspiciously well put together for a man that had been in the ground for almost thirty years.

Ino violently shuddered and her eyes fluttered shut. "Bolt and Katasuke... I don't have words for it," she answered eventually. "Bolt spent a lot of time with Hidan. Just sitting with him, watching him. But he was doing something. Hidan just didn't know, didn't see. I think Bolt was gathering the sand, the granular particulate of Hidan's mind, and reforging it anew, like glass. Every day they spent together, Hidan got a little better, a little more lucid, a little more... sane. Hidan thought Bolt was Jashin Himself because of it. That's why he was so loyal. He didn't fix him, could never fix him— like building a castle atop sand— but... I've never heard or seen of a mind technique like that before."

Shikamaru went absolutely still and cold. Because he knew something Ino and Chōji didn't. Bolt wasn't versed in any technique of the mind, not like Ino thought, but he was versed in the technique of the spirit.

Shikamaru smiled. Because Hidan, here, was living proof that Bolt Uzumaki could control minds with his ninshū. When he brought Hidan before the others, showed them the proof, showed them the titanic threat that Bolt was... they couldn't ignore him anymore. Shikamaru released his portal to the Shadows but kept Hidan safely and securely bound.

"Wait, what?" Chōji said. "You said Hidan thought Bolt was a god?"

Ino nodded. "Yeah, Hidan called him 'Lord Jashin' exclusively. Worshipped him literally," she explained with a small shudder.

Chōji looked even more confused. "But... then why did he say Lord Jashin knew we'd be here?" he asked.

Shikamaru and Ino froze. He felt his heart flutter-stop in his chest. Chōji, after a moment, realized what he had just implied.

Crack.

Shikamaru snapped his head towards the sound and saw inky black markings burning beneath Hidan's skin. As it spread, the skin became brittle and gray, cracking and breaking like stone.

Hidan gurgled and struggled for a few moments. "W-Why...?" he croaked before stilling as he turned to stone and the three of them were left gazing at a lifelike statue.

"We have to go, now!" Shikamaru barked, releasing the statue from its shadowy bindings, and turned to head back to the battlefield.

Bolt stood opposite them, leaning against a tree, wearing a small but pleased smile.

It was a trap. Right from the beginning, it was a trap, probably planned since before they even arrived on Tsuki. Bolt was merely waiting, biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity, waiting to be given the excuse. The need for reinforcements, sending Hidan and the Jashinists, knowing Shikamaru wouldn't be able to let it go unchallenged...

Shikamaru's mind went into overdrive immediately. Unlike Hidan, Bolt wasn't an enemy they could beat in a fight, even three-on-one. Shit, they probably couldn't have even beat him before he unveiled Thunder God Mode to the world. If Ino-Shika-Chō were going to get out of this alive, it would be with words, not fists. And Shikamaru was good with words.

"You don't want to do this, Bolt," Shikamaru led with.

"Oh?" Bolt's smile grew wider, his teeth appearing stark white in the shade of the forest. "Don't I?"

"You think I didn't plan for this?" Shikamaru countered. "I made sure there was a dead man's switch. If we don't come back, everyone will know that something happened to us, and they'll know it was you."

It had the benefit of being true, even. It wasn't even a bluff.

"A bit short-sighted, isn't it? What if you hunted down Hidan to kill him— without my intervention— and failed? Your deaths would be on you, not me," Bolt argued.

Alright, Shikamaru could do this. Witty repartee for their lives against a madman with delusions of grandeur, daddy issues, and a control freak. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," he remarked.

Bolt laughed audibly. "I suppose so," he agreed somewhat bitterly. "But I'm afraid no one will think to blame me for your deaths. After all, Hidan and my men are dead, same as yours. It was simply a... tragedy, truly. The wholesale slaughter of an entire army. Their loyal, brave commander, staying and fighting until the bitter end. A captain going down with his ship."

Shikamaru swallowed. Fuck, what should he do? How could he convince Bolt not to kill them? That there would be consequences to their deaths. That they were more valuable living than dead.

"That's the story you've decided on, huh? A bit too good of an end for one of your enemies, I'd say. And you're forgetting the dead man's switch," he pointed out.

Bolt chuckled wryly. "I would savor your death if I could, Shikamaru. You've caused me a lot of trouble. Fought me at every turn. Opposed progress with truly admirably dogged persistence. But I'm not interested in pleasure, I'm interested in winning. And that means you have to die, even if you get to be remembered as a hero," he explained.

Behind him, Ino whimpered. Shikamaru's breaths were coming quick and shallow now. "You'll never get away with it, Bolt," he stated with absolute certainty. "Even if you destroy my dead man's switch, someone will look into this. Sarada, definitely. She'll probably overlook your involvement since the two of you are practically in bed with one another. Your father? Almost certainly. You think his empathic senses won't pick up on your evil? Doubt it. Sentoki might be naive and believe you're capable of redemption, but he'll protect his Order above all else. There's no outcome where this goes your way, kid."

There were a few tense moments of silence, seconds where Shikamaru's heart struggled its way up his throat.

Bolt closed his eyes and hummed in thought. "You wouldn't trust the kind of information for a dead man's switch to just anyone," he began. "You wouldn't leave it laying around for someone to find, either. No, you would have left it with a person. Someone you could trust, but someone I would never think to go after. Not Shikadai, not your wife. Someone strong enough to not be killed in the war? No, too many points of risk. You'd want to be absolutely certain. You're thorough like that, I respect it."

Shikamaru hastily went through every mental exercise Ino had ever droned on about. Bolt was using ninshū to suss out the answer and he couldn't let that happen.

Bolt paused, then smiled. "Not someone you care for, either. You wouldn't want to risk their life. That narrows it down. Someone you trust, someone that thinks like you, someone that opposes me, someone that would believe the worst of me if tragedy were to befall you..."

He stopped speaking and opened his eyes. They were blue wreathed in gold, glowing as if candlelight flickered behind them.

"How very cruel of you, Shikamaru. My own sensei? How could you?" Bolt laughed.

Shikamaru's guts twisted with dread.

Bolt inhaled, smiled, the gold in his eyes overtaking the blue. He straightened and took a single step towards the three of them. "Tsk, tsk. But you made an error, didn't you? He doesn't know-know. Because you didn't think he'd be capable of keeping it to himself. Konohamaru would spill the beans, you were right. He'd go to my father instantly. You sent the message on a delay. If you died, it would go through. But if you succeeded, you'd recall it. And... a deer? Yes, a deer. The scroll bound to its horns. How very... Nara of you. Quaint."

It was over.

The forest was silent. Even the sound of the fighting was muffled, either the battle done or too distant to reach them. A tangible feeling of dread cloaked them in its cold weight and Shikamaru couldn't breathe. How could this have happened? He'd been outwitted by Bolt, willingly walked into a trap, brought his brother and sister in all but blood down with him. This couldn't be real, couldn't be happening.

Lightning danced through Bolt's hair.

Chōji roared and Ino screamed.

Chōji didn't even make it to double his size before he went limp and boneless, an arm wreathed in crackling lightning thrust through his chest. Bolt kicked the corpse away from him and violently flicked his arm to rid it of gore. Ino launched her mind at him, slumped, but came screaming back to consciousness instantly, flailing and screeching in terror as she clawed at her skin, pleading and begging. Shikamaru heard her rave about darkness and light, life and death, and infinity and eternity, before Bolt held his hand aloft and a spear of lightning shot from his finger through her skull.

In the space between one heartbeat and the next, they were dead. Before Shikamaru could even so much as say a word, before he could think, before he could save them. Shikamaru couldn't feel his legs but he refused to fall to his knees, to bow before Bolt. He wouldn't give him the sick pleasure.

Bolt savored his friends' deaths like another man might savor a vintage wine. He approached slowly, walking with measured steps, his smile growing more sinister with each one. Shikamaru met his cold, golden eyes and reached for his jacket pocket. He removed a single cigarette and Asuma's lighter, dented and tinged with rust and patina, and lit up.

Shikamaru closed his eyes and took a long drag. The burn of smoke in his throat and lungs banished the fear he had felt choking him. Shikamaru exhaled slowly and opened his eyes. Bolt stood before him, patient and waiting, like the reaper.

Shikamaru watched the smoke cloud around Bolt's face, causing the boy to grimace in distaste. Shikamaru smiled, pleased. If he was going to die, he was going to die fighting. Just like Asuma.

"Fuck you," Shikamaru snarled and called to the Shadows.

There weren't words in any tongue to describe the feeling of his breath leaking from his rent chest cavity, Shikamaru thought, as his hands came up to futilely grasp at Bolt's arm as it pierced through his chest. All at once, his chakra left him in a rush, leaving Shikamaru feeling cold and hollow. He didn't even have the strength to twitch as lightning coursed through him, cooking him from the inside out.

Shikamaru couldn't tell how long he was impaled and electrocuted. Eventually, though, he found himself on the ground. He could see Chōji's broad back, but not his face. Probably for the best, he finds himself thinking, because he can see Ino's. Her expression is one of dread and panic, one of her eyes missing and replaced by a still smouldering, gaping wound. Shikamaru can see the green of grass through her skull.

I'm sorry, Shikamaru thinks, knowing his friends can't hear him. His vision was growing dark, little tendrils of gray-black invading his sight, but as he stared up at his killer, Shikamaru couldn't help but smile a little wider at the look of chagrin on Bolt's face.

Gotcha, you little shit, he thinks.

Soon he'll be with Chōji and Ino again, with his clan again.

The Shadows embraced him, and Shikamaru embraced them in return as his vision went dark for the last time.

Bolt crackled through the sky, anger simmering in his chest, just skimming the treetops as he searched for the Nara deer that Shikamaru had used as his messenger. At his side, his raijū companion flanked him, the two forming a pack of hunters.

Even in death, Shikamaru had found a way to sour what should have been a euphoric victory. The Nara always had to have the last laugh, always spite him in some small, insignificant way that would inevitably taint his grand and masterful plans.

He'd had to doctor the bodies a little bit, make it look like the Tsukians work, not his, and move them away from the petrified form of Hidan. Even the blind, deaf, and dumb would have suspected foulplay if they found Ino-Shika-Chō dead at Hidan's feet.

Even beyond that, Bolt felt some small twinge of guilt over Shikamaru's death that he just couldn't quite smother. Shikadai, his friend— or who used to be his friend— had his father taken from him by Bolt's own hand. His brother-in-law, as much as the term tasted bitter in his mouth. Bolt didn't want to kill Shikamaru, didn't want to rob Shikadai of his father, but...

Shikamaru stood in the way of a better world. Stood in the way of his Answer. If he turned away from his path over one life, what did all the lives he had already taken mean? Did they die for nothing? Bolt had a duty to his victims to finish what he started. He knew what awaited him in Naraka and he could only hope and pray that it gave the dead some small measure of solace that their deaths contributed to a world without war, pain, and loss. That their deaths weren't senseless. That their lives being cut short meant something.

That his own life wasn't senseless, that he meant something, that he changed the world for the better. Even if the world hated him like he hated himself, if Bolt could just leave the world a better place before he died...

Bolt shook his head to clear his thoughts. He couldn't afford to be seen by scouts on either side of the war, and the Twins were currently slaughtering the remnants of Shikamaru's army. He didn't want to distract them from fulfilling the narrative he had written for the late Ino-Shika-Chō.

Between the two of them and Bolt's reijutsu, it didn't take them long. Bolt descended on the deer, but the raijū got there before him, the deer's neck between its jaws as blood pulsed from between its teeth. With one, sharp snap, the deer died. Raijū did not eat, did not require sustenance in the way normal flesh and blood creatures did. They hunted for the sport of it. Bolt laughed lightly under his breath at the almost proud strut of the raijū as it retreated and flopped down in the shade of a tree.

Bolt recovered the missive, read it, confirmed it would have all but destroyed his plans and his empire, and then incinerated it with lightning. Sighing in relief, he closed his eyes and basked in the knowledge that one of the largest obstacles to an eternal empire of peace had been removed.

He had to creep back into his own encampment, diffusing himself into the air until he could feel his body straining at the seams. Like he would shatter in a stiff breeze. But no one sensed his presence nor suspected the clone he had left behind to create an alibi when he was inevitably questioned about Shikamaru's death.

Bolt had barely taken physical form again when a messenger bust into his tent, panting for breath. "M-My lord!" he exclaimed, face pale from fright and ruddy from exertion. "T-There has been a rout! The One Shadow requests your presence immediately!"

Bolt struggled to hide a smile. "I'll be there shortly," he dismissed the man.

He would drag his people to victory and peace kicking and screaming if he had to.

Nothing would stop him.

Nothing could.

Himawari was surprised to receive a personal summons from Sarada in her official capacity as the One Shadow. She was still disturbed by the unnatural aberration of nature that had quaked through her sixth sense as a Sage— well, an Avatar now, she supposed, as her connection with nature grew beyond that of a mere Sage. Himawari had never felt anything like it before, ever, and she was worried about what it could mean for the war effort.

So Sarada's summons were a welcome distraction to her circling thoughts as she meditated on what could have happened. Sarada had left earlier that day to return to the main army following the acquisition of Uzume Ōtsutsuki, so it was a bit of a trek for Himawari, but she enjoyed the time alone with nothing but herself and the splendor of nature around her.

It was obvious, hours later when she arrived at the main army's encampment, that something was wrong. A veritable cloud of darkness weighed heavily on the shoulders of everyone she passed. Himawari frowned to herself and picked up her pace.

When she neared Sarada's pavilion, she saw a familiar face.

"Shika!" Himawari called out happily, leaping into her beloved's arms. Shikadai grunted and struggled to stay on his feet and catch her at the same time and she smiled. "What are you doing here? I thought you were staying with the army while I was away?"

Shikadai exhaled softly and shook his head fondly. "I received a personal summons from our illustrious One Shadow and was told to retreat and set up a defensive perimeter," he explained.

Himawari frowned slightly in thought, wondering why both she and Shikadai had been requested to come to Sarada in-person versus projecting themselves astrally as they had done previously for meetings.

"Me too!" Himawari exclaimed. "Come on, let's see what she wants then."

As the two of them ducked inside, Himawari had a bad feeling. The moment she saw Sarada's face, pale and drawn, her stomach sunk into her boots.

Shikadai, likewise, knew something was wrong. "What happened?" he asked hoarsely.

Sarada looked nervous, hidden by a thin veil of professionalism, holding her hands behind her back to avoid fidgeting like Himawari knew she would do on occasion. "Hima, you're here too, good," she said instead and that was how Himawari knew something serious had happened. "You should sit down," she bade both of them.

Himawari numbly took a seat next to Shikadai, her hands holding one of his.

"I thought you deserved to hear this in person, Shikadai," Sarada began, practically exhaling all the words at once. "... Your father is dead, he was killed in action. I'm so sorry."

Himawari felt all the breath in her lungs leave her. Shikadai had stiffened next to her, staring unblinkingly at Sarada. "H-How?" Shikadai croaked hoarsly.

Sarada leaned forward, resting a hand on his knee. "Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi, the Twins, engaged his army early this morning after both armies received reinforcements. From initial investigations, they were... overwhelmed. It was a rout. The entire army, almost to the last man, were killed. Your father stayed and... he died fighting, Shikadai. He didn't give up. Not even at the end," she explained softly.

Shikadai was quiet for a long, long moment. Himawari could feel his hand trembling. "Fuck," he eventually said, sounding so very small.

Sarada nodded and then withdrew her hand. "I've called a meeting of the war council," she said eventually. "If you don't feel like you can attend, I'll understand—"

"—No!" Shikadai barked, startling Himawari. Shikadai cleared his throat softly. "I'm sorry. No, I'll be there. I can do that."

"... Are you sure?" Sarada asked sympathetically.

Shikadai nodded firmly.

"Okay," Sarada agreed.

Himawari spent the next dozen minutes sitting quietly with Shikadai, rubbing his hand as Sarada went about preparing to call her war council.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked softly.

Shikadai shook his head and Himawari could see unshed tears in his eyelashes. "No," he said a little harshly before exhaling. "No. Not right now. But... later. Maybe."

Himawari nodded and gave him a small smile. She would be there for him when he needed her.

Soon, operatives from Imperial Intelligence had joined them, setting up around the room, their hands contorted in various signs. The first of the wispy, iridescent specters began to fill the pavilion, forming a loose circle around a table with Sarada at its head. A number of other important advisors began to filter in, among them Himawari's father and Uncle Sasuke, but also, surprisingly, Orochimaru, whom Himawari knew none present shared any love for.

"Today," Sarada began, her voice strong and ringing despite the grim news she had shared with them mere minutes before. "Humanity has suffered the greatest losses since the beginning of this war, losses not heard of since before even the Third War... losses that we might never have seen before in our entire history."

Himawari swallowed nervously.

"To our east," Sarada continued. "Ryujin decimated the clone army and nearly killed General Mitsuki. Survivors fled and regrouped with the armies of Generals Shinki of the Sand and Yurui of the Cloud. There, Ryujin slaughtered them to their last. The only survivors were Shinki and Yurui, who escaped as former Tsuchikage, Kurotsuchi, gave her life to stop Ryujin's advance. We estimate losses to be in the number of 150,000."

"By the Sage..." Himawari heard someone murmur.

"Generals Shinki and Yurui reported that Ryujin was capable of high-speed, nigh instantaneous regeneration, the likes of which surpassed even that of the most fantastical claims of Hashirama Senju. He was also capable of shapeshifting on a scale that dwarfed mountains, assuming the form of a titanic dragon or sea serpent."

Sarada turned to face the spectral avatar of Hibiki. "If you would, please," she commanded.

Himawari felt like she was going cross-eyed as the memory of Yurui played out before her. She watched as a truly monolithic serpentine creature rose above the waves, towering above mountains, so large that it caused the ground to quake beneath her feet. Its hide was dotted by forests of kelp, swathes of mussels miles wide, and barnacles that ranged in size between larger than her house and larger than a city block. Ryujin could have swallowed the whole of the Hidden Leaf without difficulty.

Himawari gaped. She couldn't imagine any organism so large. Even the Tailed Beasts didn't get that big. Kurama would be able to fit through the slit of such a creature's eye.

"To our west—"

"You mean there's more?" a man from Imperial Intelligence squawked. Himawari thought he might've been someone from ANBU that Sarada had recruited, but she— obviously— hadn't seen his face before.

Sarada nodded slowly, wordlessly reprimanding the man for interrupting her. "To our west, Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi, the Twins, launched an offensive against our western field army led by General Shikamaru Nara. They were overwhelmed, even with reinforcements courtesy of General Uzumaki, and were routed. General Nara lost his life in the battle," she continued.

Himawari felt Shikadai flinch at her side and heard her father suck in a sharp breath. Even Uncle Sasuke looked pensive and upset in his own way.

Sarada took a moment's break to let the information sink in.

"Ryujin retreated following Kurotsuchi's attack. She used Dust Release on a scale that atomized an entire valley. We don't know if he was hurt, or had merely accomplished his objective, but scouts report that he has returned to the sea. For now, we will avoid the eastern coastline, but a task force of our most elite fighters will be assembled to deal with him in the future when he re-emerges. In the meantime, our efforts will shift to the western front. We will dispatch another army to—"

Shikadai abruptly shot to his feet. "—I volunteer, ma'am," he declared, drawing the eye of every person in the room.

There was dead silence.

"... Very well, General Nara," Sarada acquiesced after a few moments. "General Nara and his army will be deployed to push the Twins back. We will not allow the deaths of an entire army and one of our finest commanders to go unpunished."

Himawari saw Sarada glance her way, then her eyes found the specter of her brother. "General Uzumaki, you're being deployed to the northeast. There is a last stronghold of resistance in the region that resists our and Uzume Ōtsutsuki's control. I want them brought to heel," she ordered. "After that, you'll be deployed to the western front personally. We will not allow the atrocity the Twins committed to go unanswered."

Bolt bowed, his one arm folded at the waist. "As you wish, One Shadow," he declared, meeting Himawari's eyes as he straightened before quickly looking away.

There were some murmurings throughout the pavilion. Whispers about both of the Uzumaki siblings together on the same battlefield. The Thunder God and the Avatar.

Himawari smiled. She was sure it wasn't a pretty one. She quite liked the sound of that. Let the Twins rue the day they drew the ire of the Uzumaki family. Together, Bolt and her would destroy them.

Himawari looked to her side to see the fire in Shikadai's eyes, the same grim determination and thirst for justice that she felt. She smiled and Shikadai returned it, his hand finding hers as their fingers laced together.

After that, Sarada continued to give orders, but Himawari couldn't focus. She was too consumed by preparing for the coming fight. She had ideas, techniques she hadn't finished experimenting with, techniques that would truly make her an Avatar, techniques that would send the Twins screaming in terror lest they be slain where they stood.

It was only as the war council was winding down and people filing out that a name, her brother's, brought her attention back. "Bolt," Uncle Sasuke spoke during one of the lulls. "How soon could you get here?"

Bolt seemed genuinely surprised that their Uncle Sasuke had spoken to him. "Ten minutes, if that. Faster if I push it. Why?" he answered.

There was something dark and angry that promised vengeance and retribution unlike any seen on this earth in Sasuke's mismatched eyes. "Do so. We need to talk," he said instead.

Bolt nodded stiffly and his specter disappeared with an audible clap of thunder that was deafened by the limitations of the audio transmission. Still, there was an unpleasant static sound that reverberated inside her skull. Himawari frowned. Bolt did that on purpose, she was sure.

The war council officially concluded a few minutes later. Shikadai pulled away from her and briskly walked outside, heading towards the nearby forest instead of the encampment.

Himawari dutifully followed him.

She found Shikadai, back to a tree, gazing up at the clouds in the sky and tears falling freely down his cheeks as the grief finally burst free.

Himawari sat down next to him and leaned into his side, offering whatever small comfort she could. "We'll get them, Shika," she whispered reassuringly. "We'll get them. I swear it."

Shikadai nodded against the side of her head, one arm reaching around her shoulders and pulling her closer.

They stayed like that, just watching the clouds, for a long time.

Himawari frowned as the clouds visibly darkened before her eyes. Then the sky was split by the flash of lightning and the crack of thunder as tendrils of blindingly blue-white lightning forked from cloud to cloud before falling to the ground, quick as a guillotine.

Bolt had arrived but Himawari was content to stay at Shikadai's side.

An hour later, their asses cold, aching, and damp from sitting in the grass so long, the two of them made their way back to camp. Just as they set foot inside the perimeter, a flap of a nearby tent was tossed open. Out of it came Sasuke, Orochimaru, and Bolt.

Uncle Sasuke had a calm, cold expression on his face and darkness in his eyes the likes of which Himawari hadn't seen before. Orochimaru wore his signature too-wide, too-many-fucking-teeth grin, his forked tongue tasting at the air. And Bolt looked strangely grim but determined, filled with an iron will, lightning crackling through his hair.

At the edge of the encampment, Sasuke summoned his Susano'o, a great spectral being of a beautiful royal purple color, taking Orochimaru and her brother within the construct's body, and then beat its wings as it shot into the sky like a bolt of lightning.

"... Someone is going to die," Shikadai murmured softly.

Himawari nodded slowly in agreement.

She couldn't think of a worse fate than facing three of the most infamous shinobi ever to draw breath.

Sarada frowned, deep in thought, as she sat in the darkness of her pavilion. Something behind her eyes itched and burned. Idly rubbing at them, she yawned. She was sure she had covered every element of the theater of war, but the nagging feeling that she had missed something wouldn't leave her alone. She had spent hours upon hours using her Mangekyō and reading reports and interviewing her scouts and being counseled by her advisors and Omoikane, but... her gut told her something was amiss.

Sarada looked down at the map of the war effort and frowned, seeing her people losing their lives by the hundreds for every inch of ground they gained. And still they had many, many miles to go before they reached the capital and faced Amaterasu.

Sarada found her eyes drawn to where Shikamaru had died.

The feeling she had been wrestling with intensified as her eyes burned.

With a sigh, Sarada decided to follow her instinct. At the very least, she had done something. She stood and summoned one of her aides, her most trusted, a friend and comrade from her days in the ANBU that she knew would not betray her and was loyal to her and her alone.

"Secrecy is of the utmost importance for this assignment," Sarada began. "I need you to begin an investigation for me into General Nara's death..."

After her aide had left, Sarada released a long sigh. She rubbed at her face and then leaned forward to write more missives. She had told Shikadai of his father's death, but Inojin and Chōchō also needed to be informed of their parents' deaths. Sarada wanted to do that in person, they deserved as much, and she was their friend, but unlike Shikadai, it was unlikely that she would be able to visit them or find an occasion to summon them to her when their duties allowed. Instead, she would have to settle for sending them her condolences with Shikadai and Himawari when they returned to the western front.

Sarada hated war.

A/N:

Hmm, yes, it is just about time for my quarterly update. Hello, readers. I have missed you. If it's not too much trouble and you enjoyed this chapter, leave a review and tell me what you liked about it and/or the story!