Part 14: War Games (1)

"Naruto..."

Sakura Haruno felt her pulse accelerate further once she felt the cutting winds pervade her senses. The surrounding soldiers were similarly attempting to shield themselves from the tumultuous bluster, just as Temari and her fellow Sunagakure Tessenjutsu users scrambled to retaliate with their war fans' Futon summons, the ever tenacious blonde kunoichi's strident vocals hollering curt imperatives in mid-air. In the distant horizon, the dark and crimson skies filled with resplendent bursts, the pithy fiery swash appearing high above visible to the Shinobi Alliance, indicating the Bashosen's omnipotent presence.

There was no necessity to verify the puissance of the combatants they were fast approaching but the Shinobi Alliance Forces were once again given a tangible display. Resultant stray rocks could be seen hurtling towards the advancing Aburames, who were all riveted on ensuring their Insect Jamming Technique was doing its job while rushing speedily forward to an apparently tumultuous destination. Like a well-tuned instrument from the preceding days' overwrought skirmishes, long-range fireballs and lightning bolts from the army blasted these shrapnel pieces to smithereens; Sakura, cheering inwardly, embosomed the distant sight of a dynamic green-clad lad spinning riotously into the air, his frenetic flurry of Tenshokyaku Ascension kicks splitting his targeted sizable boulder into harmless debris.

The young star apprentice of the Fifth Hokage clenched her jaw as the Raikage's valued assistant C, with his light flares pumping efficaciously from his hands, clamoured for the medics to move to the forefront of the troops, knowing that the command must have been passed on to the sensors by the Headquarters. She felt her chakra energy surge within her taut and lithe body, as if it could predict on its own that its healing properties would be called upon very soon. A sideward cursory nod of exchange with Shizune reaffirmed the kunoichi's core that was emanating effusive chakra tendrils effortlessly, as she readied herself for the forthcoming battle that seemed in desperate urgency for the medical unit's expertise.

The tingle of trepidation that was thus creeping up her lower back was a reaction to the thought of her yellow-haired knucklehead teammate and white-haired stalwartly disarming mentor requiring medical assistance from the Alliance medics - were Naruto and the rest of the key combatants severely injured? There was no room for her harried instincts to be abated as follow-up orders now led to Konoha's canine clan acquiescing to Shikaku's will; all around her, the sprawling army rumbled into new formations, allowing the Inuzukas to converge with the medical nins. One by one, with the understanding that every second was vital to turning the tide, Shizune and her medical division leapt onto the specially bred and trained beasts that, once their new riders were secured on their furry backs, propelled themselves ahead of the rest.

"Naruto!"

His face contorting into one of his perpetual frowns as his wriggling nose picked up a familiar scent, Kiba Inuzuka felt his heart almost come to a standstill when it vanished within a split second. Having just detected yet almost immediately lost the scent of the zealous Jinchuuriki, the Inuzuka Chunin bit his tongue as he almost cried out his friend's name, unwilling to make Sakura even more anxious than she already was. While the pink-haired teen was now atop Akamaru together with him, a sideward glance determined that Shizune was with Tsume on Kuromaru, while other well-versed medical ninjas were also charging forward on the frontlines on the Inuzuka clan's canine steeds.

Seeing Akita Inuzuka mounted on one of his sister Hana's three dogs caused him to grimace slightly, as he was once again reminded of the field ninja's loss of her own canine companion. The dark-tressed kunoichi had shakily shared how her ninken, in a bid to save her, had leapt right in front of her to shield her from the marauding White Zetsus. It had to be devastating for the newly minted Chunin to have witnessed the bloody slaughter of her precious partner; she would have met a similar fate if not for a more senior member of their clan, Gaku Inuzuka, one who had fought alongside the late Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze.

A soft yelp from his white furry canine companion ascertained his earlier detection; Akamaru's acute tracking of Naruto's scent in an atmosphere brimming with various chakra energy signatures stemmed the tide within him before his convoluted thoughts took another vacillation. Kiba bent his upper body even lower as his faithful partner cum steed picked up speed, hoping that the enemy would not be able to pick up the plethora of energy signatures barreling towards them. If his and Akamaru's heightened senses could prickle with Naruto's familiar scent despite the Aburame clan's prowess working to extinguish the marauding Shinobi Alliance's presence, wouldn't the Uchiha's exalted ocular abilities already have descried them anyway?

"N... Naruto...!"

The behemoth Akimichi hovered unsteadily for a few moments, his beady eyes squinting at yet another brilliantly blinding flash of energy that caused all the airborne shinobi to vacillate precariously on their winged ink steeds. Two of Sai's ink birds plopped themselves out of existence due to the buffeting impact, but Chouji's swift retaliation and enlarged palms, together with Shikamaru's shadow tentacles, rescued the few shinobi in free fall. Working like clockwork mere seconds after the horizon ignited in front of them, the Nara Chunin instinctively used his shadow tendrils to swing his young body and anchor himself to his bosom buddy's mammoth back, his "Kagemane no Jutsu!" extended by the two flash bombs he threw.

It was as if the Yamanaka and Hyuuga clansmen knew that they would be well-assisted by their fellow Konohagakure kinsmen, for even before they felt Shikamaru's manipulated shadows encircling around their waists or Chouji's expanded hands hastily grabbing them in mid-air, they remained resolute during the brevity of their gravitational descent, stalwartly keeping their secret techniques active. Hiashi Hyuuga's majestic air Kaiten kept him and Santa Yamanaka afloat before the Team 10 duo reached them; even as they landed neatly on the Akimichi teen's palm, the latter still had his arms stretched out before him towards Naruto's direction and his fingers forming the Shintensen no Jutsu sign.

As he soared ahead with his new passengers, his heart gave an unrelenting lurch when his mind received Ino's telepathic transmission for the squad to take point. Knowing that his teammates had to be wearing their dour expressions of unquenchable focus, his mind did a quick calculation of just how many of his Konoha 11 peers were present to turn the tide of this seemingly never-ending furor, one that had amassed every key nation's battalions to tackle the maniacal madmen who hailed from his own home village. It was as if Fate had dealt Konohagakure a dismissively cruel hand, for weren't the youth of his generation, particularly the Konoha 11, made up of prodigious individuals with exalted techniques and abilities? What if, while being in the frontlines of troops rampaging towards the two sovereign Uchiha turncoats, some or all of them were lost?

"Naruto!"

Lifting herself up from the crouching position she had taken on the flawlessly immaculate winged steed, Tenten of Konohagakure released the Andromeda chains she had used to anchor herself and her two current partners to the surprisingly solid stature of Sai's ink bird. Her senses were prickling as the chains slithered languidly back into her scroll, as if the enemy could hear their soft clinks even though the trio were still high above ground. Sai's clamant utterance of his teammate's name came soon after she had swung into existence a fiery Katon ensorcellment with the Bashosen to counter the causative gale from the looming battlefield. Closing up behind were Ino and Hinata leading their clans, the ink birds all decelerating with the ex-Root member's intricate commands, preparing for the final descent.

Right next to her, Neji's breathing appeared stoically reposeful, a dissimilitude from just a few minutes before. It was as if her Hyuuga teammate had somehow regained some sense of resolve as he wrapped his right arm across her back and his fingers coiled firmly around her waist, the engorged veins around his white eyes pulsing rhythmically while his Byakugan zoomed in on their target. She knew that the unequivocal instructions given to them were methodically being replayed in his own mind just like how they were resounding sharply in her head, and once Sai gave them a curt cursory nod before he turned back to face the front at the head of their steed poised to swoop downwards in moments, Tenten flexed her fingers deftly one more time before she lifted the august Sage Tool above her head.

"NARUTO!"

Obito Uchiha felt as if he could actually detect the distinctively unique sclerae of his eyes gleaming as his vociferous bellow of the callow fledging's name boomed across the land, to prognosticate the young Uzumaki's expiration. With the Kyubbi's chakra dissipated, the rest of the band were drained and debilitated, with Kakashi Hatake now using the last vestiges of his strength to aid the supposedly impregnable Maito Gai in getting to his feet. Atop the cumbrously gargantuan Juubi together with the wretchedly malevolent Madara Uchiha, he bristled underneath the traditional Uchiha garb, the purple high-collared mantle emblazoned with the red and white Uchiha crest on its back.

The young teen responded to the belligerent roar of his name by raising his torso up from his one-knee crouch, and crossing the index and middle fingers of his right hand with those of his left, his argent blue eyes still coruscating with unyielding intensity, as if the termagant battles he had been plagued with the last few days had not lessened his fortitude in any way.

"I'll never become like you, Obito! I'll say it as many times as I need to! I'll become the Hokage!"

Beneath his sandaled feet, he felt the ponderous dark energies of the colossal monstrosity sluice through the tendrils that were attached to him and Madara, coursing their way to the Juubi's cavern mouth that was filled with gleaming fangs. Naruto's flagrantly defiant words did little to impinge Obito any further and he insouciantly promised the foolhardy youth that he would indeed make him 'Hokage' in his Infinite Tsukuyomi prison. He thought he would take no joy in eliminating his adversaries but he found himself inching forward as his voice blared across the land with a dismissively imperious:

"DISAPPEAR."

Just before the Tailed Beast Bomb was unleashed from the Ten Tails' orifice, Obito Uchiha's potent senses were suddenly set ablaze as a voluminous surge of chakra signatures presented themselves at such a expeditious manner that he had little time to react to the brilliant streak of fulguration that descended from the heavens. The blinding lightning strike landed mere metres from the trio, causing him to raise his left sleeve to shield his eyes, and that was when he felt the presence of another being in his mind. The next two seconds found him suddenly alter the direction of the Juubi's assault, his manipulator shifting its blast a substantial distance away from the two Jinchūriki and the pair of Konohagakure Jounins. As he wrested control back from his blonde kunoichi attacker, he saw dozens of shinobi hailing from above and landing near Naruto, the millions of Kikaichu beetles that had blocked their chakra signatures invading his sight as well. Flinching slightly, the Uchiha raised his head to find an ink manipulator gravitating his winged steed back, the lone female rider lowering the ninja tool that had summoned the Raiton diversionary tactic.

"The Bashosen. How pathetic."

Madara's gravelly voice displayed a hint of mockery mixed with disparagement, before the resurrected being turned to look at his partner, as if questioning their next step. Seething momentarily that the killing blow he had almost managed to render upon the ludicrously naive Uzumaki had been so innocuously thwarted, Obito kept his vision locked on the scene unfolding in front of him. Within moments, an encompassing mist formed all around, mostly likely from the Hidden Mist Jutsu, Kirikagure's displacement specialty that could veil the users from the Sharingan in its pearly-white realm. In addition, it was evident that the Aburame clan had reignited the hermetically occult abilities of the Kikaichu insects, as the chakra signatures of the Shinobi Alliance Forces, now all assembling in their battalions around the one who had been deemed to be their saviour, became mystically enshrouded once again.

"You want to hide from us?" Obito felt his rancour rising as he raised his arms, commanding the Juubi to send a crushing shockwave with a dynamic swing of its tail. "You think you can hide from me, Naruto?!"

"Futon! Kazekiri no Jutsu!"

The Wind Style jutsu was mustered from afar, with a group of Tessenjutsu users from Sunakagure standing on top of a plateaued boulder sending acuminate blades of wind energy to slice through the seismic aftershock. As the waves of the counterattack splashed ineffectually against the Juubi's brown titanic form, Obito spied the three young ninja clad in Konohagakure's dull green flak jackets finally dismount from their airborne steed that vanished with a splatter of black ink, most probably after the kunoichi had bolstered the Wind Cutter Technique with the Banana Leaf Fan she was apparently so capable of wielding. He watched as a reinvigorated Naruto strode past the trio who had just landed deftly in front of him, together with many others from his home village. As the cantankerous buffoon repeated the hand sign for his Kage Bushin no Jutsu and started espousing how they were now going to have to deal with the 'Ninja Alliance Jutsu', Obito Uchiha curled his lips up ever so slightly.

"This just got more interesting, Naruto Uzumaki."