Chapter 53- Gamer of the Desert (Patreon)

XXXXX SAKURA HARUNO

The Leaf hadn’t felt like home in years, she thought to herself as she walked past the stadium that had held the chunin exams that had changed everything. Sometimes she wished that she’d done what she really wanted to do on that morning of the first exam and just stayed home, pretending to be ill. Naruto and Sasuke would have been furious with her, but she’d probably still have her team with her. Not the way things were now. Kakashi-sensei was dead, killed in Iwa’s attack. Naruto was gone. The Hokage said he’d been kidnapped by the Legendary sannin Jiraiya when he betrayed the village to join his former teammate. Orochimaru. The creep that had marked Sasuke and killed the Third hokage. Speaking of Sasuke, he was still a shinobi of Konoha, but he might as well have been as gone as Naruto was. Hokage-sama had recruited both he and Neji-san for special training. It meant that her team was essentially gone.

Without a team, she’d floated along for a few months until Kurenai-sensei had recruited her into her own team. After Akamaru had died in one of the multiple explosions the Kazekage had left behind to sabotage the village, Kiba had retired from life as a shinobi to run the hospital in his clan’s kennels, and the Genjutsu mistress had needed another number to complete her team. Sakura could not lie, being in the team with Hinata and Chino was much different from being in Team 7. In some ways it was better. Training was actually training and not just their sensei tossing them at mission after mission and then tossing them a bone whenever he got the mood. Kurenai-sensei actually went to the effort of making sure she knew what they each needed to get better and worked to make sure those things happened. Every training session was well planned ahead of time, and they didn’t stop until they accomplished the objectives for each session.

For Hinata and Shino, most of their training was in strategy, application, and teamwork since their clans handled most of their education, but Sakura didn’t have a clan. Neither did Kurenai-sensei so she could relate to her, at the very least. And she’d used that to mean that Sakura’s training got to be different from the others without anyone complaining. For the first time, it felt like Sakura was the special one in the team- like she was the priority. And she made sure to live up to that. Every genjutsu Kurenai-sensei taught her came easy and she made sure she went beyond just learning them to mastering them to Kurenai-sensei’s high standards.

Even now, Kurenai-sensei was already joking about not having anything left to teach her. She fiddled with the zipper on her chunin vest as she quashed the urge to feel pride in her ambitions. There was a reason she took this route everyday. Right to her left was a massive pyramid made out of sand. It was a monument to the Kazekage’s power, that he could place such a structure in the middle of their village and still not have it removed after over two years. The fact that there were people out there who could do things like this made her very aware of her place in the world.

She wasn’t even as strong as a Jounin yet, and Gaara of the Desert had been killing Jounins since he was about Eight years old. Her thoughts left her as the distinguishable sound of an explosion going off sounded across the village. She would recognise that sound anywhere. She looked around her for the damage, and noticed the smoke coming from the Hokage tower. The entire top two floors had been destroyed in one fell swoop.

There was a massive popping sound, even louder than the explosion as multiple giant snakes reared over Konoha’s walls. She almost fell to her knees. Scratch that, she did actually fall to her knees. Not again. Not again. She wanted to cry.

Suddenly there was someone by her side. “Stand up, Sakura. Let’s go. You remember the protocol, don’t you” She heard from beside her. Whose voice was that? She couldn’t recognise it. She really couldn’t. She focused on the words instead of trying to place the voice. They were right. Whoever they were, they were right. Protocol as Chunin was to respond to the most immediate threat. That was the attack at the gates. She stood up, forcing her hands on the ground to push herself up.

She could see him now. “I-Iruka-sensei?” She asked, shocked. He looked so different. Like he’d aged a decade in the last two years. The academy had been blown up. He was one of the few who had managed to survive, but his entire class had died from the attack. Of course he wasn’t in a good place.

“Let’s go, Sakura” he said to her with a painfully fake smile on his face. She nodded. She couldn’t break now. Her name is Sakura Haruno. Last of Team 7, under Jounin-sensei Hatake Kakashi. Chunin of the Village Hidden in Leaves. She would not fail.

She jumped with him unto a rooftop, and out of the corner of her eyes, she was something strange. Like a heat mirage. There was just a moving spot where the light wasn’t passing through properly. What could that be? She thought to herself.

“Come along, Sakura”

“Y-yes, Iruka-Sensei” She replied, figuring it was probably the tears in her eyes messing up her vision.

She jumped after him, and they made their way to the wall much faster than she’d ever had to move within the village. When they landed at the wall top and looked over at the other side, she felt her stomach fall to her feet. “Oh Gods” She heard Iruka say, and she very much supported the sentiment.

Stretching out beyond their walls was an army. Not even an army of Shinobi. Monsters. She noted a creature with Grey skin and a wooden bat slam into the Village’s gates with monstrous strength near the front of the line.

“Iruka-sensei, Sakura-chan, over here” She heard, and turned to see Choji’s large frame waving them over.

XXXXX GAARA OF THE DESERT

My blood was boiling. That was the best phrase I could find to describe the present situation as I stared at the four men in front of me. Danzo Shimura was ignored. He was a nonentity. All that mattered was that someway, somehow, the reanimated bodies of all four of my predecessors stood before me. In anger, I’d torn through the genjutsu that covered my eye from view, and I saw them with my vision tinted with blood. Danzo Shimura is a dead man. And also an impossible man because this should not have been possible. I had the crypts locked. There were round the clock guards. The Third Kazekage, maybe. His body had never been in our custody in the first place. But the rest. No. It shouldn’t have been possible. And the fact that it was, meant that something had gone very wrong in Suna.

“How?” I asked. He’d gloat and tell me how he did it. I knew he would. That was the one thing you could trust villains to do.

“How not. You think yourself so clever. So wise in all your tricks and precautions. But did you ever take a second to consider whether the one you trusted above all else was worthy of that trust? Gaara of the Desert. A monster in all but name. Did you really never wonder why a girl with no visible motivations for doing so would strike up such a fast friendship with you? Not once?” He asked. His tone was invariably smug.

“Mebuki” I said without even thinking. She was one of his. Of course she was.

“Oh. Is that the name she uses there? I know her as Operative-Desert 47.” It reeked of it. Self-satisfied smugness and arrogance.

“Find the caster of this jutsu and make them stop, along with your efforts to get the anbu and whatever else on your side. I’ve got this” I said to the three behind me.

“We don’t follow your orders” Jiraiya was quick to object, ever the idiot. The only working brain in their dysfunctional trio pulled on his arm and began to walk out of the Hokage building, Naruto by her side.

“Like I’d let you” Iron sand reached out to the retreating trio but made no progress as I slapped it aside with an even larger tendril of sand from my gourd.

“I am to be your opponent” I said, smiling at the four previous Kazekage for a second before turning to Danzo with a straight face.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gaara. Run” Rasa was the one to speak this time while I spun out of the way of a series of wind bullets from the First Kazekage.

“For those who do not know me. I am Gaara of the Desert, your successor. Fifth Kazekage of Sunagakure. I will be returning you to rest” I said to them.

“Lord Fifth, this is a bold attempt and I do agree with Lord Fourth here. You are undoubtedly powerful, but to defeat all four of us? Preposterous” Shaman said, and I just smiled at him. He had no idea the forces at play here.

My eyes spun with force for a second before I looked at Danzo. “Kamui” I mentally said, snapping his head off of his body and sending it to the Kamui dimension. One improvement I’d noticed between my jutsu and kakashi’s was that I didn’t need to spend so much time gathering chakra in my sharingan to make use of the jutsu. The Blessed Seal of Theotita did all that for me.

“Now that the interloper is gone, let us dance.” I said to the four of them, and we moved as one.

I took pleasure in crashing through the tower with my sand as all four of them chased me down the building. Fighting them in an enclosed space would have been too stupid to countenance. When I reached the bottom floor, I came to a sudden stop and noted that the First Kazekage was the closest to me, being the fastest of the lot. I sent a wave of sand at him that he crashed through. He made a pushing motion at me, and I blocked the invisible blast of wind with a compact sand shield.

The Sharingan revealed the tricks of his jutsu to me in moments and I nodded as I ran right at him before the others could interfere. He was more than happy to engage me in taijutsu, punching at my face, and hitting nothing but air but being forced to move out of the way of my own retaliatory swipe with my blade.

Dark Sister hissed through the air as she came close to cutting through his wind armour. His eyes flashed as I set her on fire and made to stab him through the head. A wall of iron sand blocked my attack before it could land and I smiled before amping my chakra output and rendering the magnetic material inert.

I was forced to cross my hands to block a kick that still sent me flying right out of the building. Rasa tried to encase my flying form with golden dust but I ripped through it with my own sand.

The second Kazekage ran right at me, and I made a simple choice. He was the biggest danger, so I took him out of the equation. “Kamui” I intoned. It was difficult to lock on to his moving form, but his slower speed made it easier than it would have been with the others. To seal off an edo tensei creation in the dimension, It wouldn’t be enough to take just half their body.

I ignored the fist that punched through my chest or iron weapons that stabbed me into the ground, not moving until the Second was completely sucked into the Kamui dimension. The other three rushed at me, but I screamed in exertion, and enjoyed watching them fly away from the shockwave caused by the red chakra around me. A full Bijou transformation. I felt Shukaku’s crushed mind interact with mine for a second before I more throughly pushed him into the backseat.

Unlike the last time the “Ichibi” graced Konoha, the sand came from within me and not the outside. Sand with black markings that resembled seals as I transformed into the One Tailed Demon Raccoon with a roar.

A giant wind bullet ripped through my newly formed arm. I stared it at for a second. It was comical. How I could tell that something was missing, but not feel it necessarily. My arm was gone. But it was still there. With a flex, the arm returned, forming itself anew. I tilted my head - It was so much bigger now - at the approaching group of three.

“I had suspicions when I saw the sand you wielded, but I refused to believe it. To think a beast like this has been allowed to reign as Kazekage. Lord Fourth, what were you thinking to appoint this abomination as your successor?” I decided very quickly that I did not like the First Kazekage. Sand moved according to my will even faster than before. It rushed at my opponents from all around them. I could see the First form a single handseal- bird. The encroaching sand was scattered to the winds. It was still within my control, however. And I lacerated their bodies with the thin strands of sand he’d so helpfully created for me. Not all of them. The First’s wind armour left him unscathed from the attack and he merely scowled in my direction before weaving another seal.

I reached out to the wind bullet rushing my way and commanded it to dissolve before it could hit me. Shukaku was the desert. Not just the sand beneath it but the winds that stirred the sand as well. The look on the First’s face brought no end to my amusement.

“That is my Son, Lord First. A jinchuriki who dominates the power of the Ichibi. To think that you have attained such power, Gaara. I was right in the end.” He said with what seemed to be a proud smile on my face. If I were more naive, I’d think the pride was directed my way. Based on my achievements or whatever. But I knew Rasa. His journals had given me an unmatched insight into his mind. I knew all he felt was pride at himself for making the choice to do what he did. Sacrifice his wife and unborn child’s future out of a misplaced sense of village loyalty.

Regardless of his words, though. He lifted his hands and commanded a massive amount of golden dust to raise itself from the ground. Massive, but not nearly as much as he had used to defeat Shukaku according to the Tanuki’s memories. It made sense, however. Where would Danzo and his tools manage to find and sneak out that much golden dust? This was probably all the dust Mebuki had been able to steal without rousing my suspicions. The thoughts still brought no small amount of rage to my mind. I was no longer seeing red like before, but there would be a reckoning, I knew. And beneath the anger, I knew, was fear. I’d left Mebuki with administrative control of the village. Chiyo was the one nominally in charge, but Mebuki basically had carte blanche. I’d given Danzo’s tool the keys to my village. Oh what a fool I’d been.

I felt the gold dust sink into my sandy body and begin to weigh me down. Even with the volume he had at his disposal, Rasa could still be problematic. Or at least he would have been problematic if all his techniques were not known to me. I weaved my chakra through and around his. I strangled his hold on the golden dust and destroyed it with my own magnet release. The sharingan was one hell of a tool. I shifted the golden dust around my form, adding veins of gold to my body to make for an even more intimidating appearance.

“You all left journals behind. Do you think there are any techniques known to you that are not useless before me” I said to them. It wasn’t an idly boast.

The First’s attempt to catch me with another wind jutsu was ignored as I tore the jutsu apart before it had even fully left me. There was a reason the Second had been the one who I’d sent into the Kamui dimension. He was the most dangerous of them all. And maybe he’d fuck with Obito a bit on my behalf.

I felt a huge mass of Iron sand sink into my side. “Do you not learn anything?” I asked with a sneer that must have been truly ferocious on my new face. The iron joined the gold. I had the magnet release just as the rest of them did. But mine was stronger. I had more chakra, and the benefit of a sharingan to aid in welding it. I commanded my sand arms to reach for them again, and this time only Kage 1 and 3 were able to dodge in time. Rasa was a hair’s breadth too slow and I caught him in my grip. He breathed in and spat out a highly compressed blade of water aimed at my head. What head? The attack hit nothing but air. I reformed my head with a nasty smile and took pleasure in tossing Rasa into my mouth.

I chewed him and swallowed, using Shukaku’s natural fuinjutsu script to inscribe a seal on my ‘stomach’. A simple seal, but more than enough to keep him out of trouble with no one able to interfere.

The other two tried a pincer attack. I ignored the First as I tore every jutsu he sent apart without even looking at him. The iron sand Third sent at me was matched with my own combination of extremely dense sand, golden dust, and iron sand. Needless to say, I won. I wrapped him up in a seal of his own and tossed him into my stomach.

And then it was time for the first. “Your greatest claim to fame is defeating the Shukaku. You are nothing compared to me” I said to him before I tore apart his wind armour by overpowering his chakra with a flex of will and then swallowed his awestruck body.

With all three of them sealed, I brought them out of my stomach with a quick vomit, and then formed more elaborate seals on them before the temporary ones could dissolve. This time, I decided to grace Konoha with another grand sand mausoleum but this time, I did it right over the ruins of the Hokage Tower. Tsunade would have to pay quite a hefty price to get me to move any of them.

I took a second to admire my form before I deactivated the transformation, feeling the sand flow right back into my seal as the gold dust and iron sand fell to the floor around me. The transition took only a few seconds, and I enjoyed being at a more normal size for a second before I felt my body freeze in place.

Interesting.

I could not move my body at all. It was like there was something hijacking the connection between my brain and my body. It was not physically restraining my body, just making it impossible for me to move. So this was the Nara’s shadow possession jutsu.

“Well done, Shikamaru.” I heard a voice that I’d hoped never to hear again. The man walked out from the shadows and came face to face with me. “Gaara of the Desert. Such a powerful jinchuriki. You will be an excellent addition to Konoha’s strength” He said, and took out a seal brush and ink to begin drawing seals on me. I would have scoffed if I had the control over my body to do that much.

Still, I could feel the jutsu. I could feel the use of Yin energy. I began to cycle my chakra flow and work on breaking the jutsu.

“He is fighting my hold, Danzo-sama” The boy said.

And then I felt the jutsu deactivate. I wasted no time. With a single swing, I separated Danzo’s head from his body.

I turned to look at the pineapple haired boy. There was a strange intelligence in his eyes. Dangerous. I hadn’t broken that jutsu. He’d released me. And not just that, he’d made certain Danzo was well in the process of working his craft before he distracted the man with the false warning, and then he released me in the perfect position to kill the man. Kagecide? I could appreciate the concept, at least.

XXXXXX

Ay ran for his brother’s life. He ran faster than he’d ever had before. He took his Lightning Armour to its second stage, and even past that to the stage Bee had helped him create. The Third Stage of the Lightning Armour. All to cover the distance between the disputed Islands and Kumogakure. His shinobi were nowhere to be seen. He;’d lost them with his speed a long time ago. He knew how this must have looked to them. To be abandoned by their Kage for another.

But Bee was not just his brother. Bee was the Cloud’s single greatest Military asset. Only three villages still had Jinchuriki, and of them, Bee was the most powerful and experienced. He was a huge part of Kumo’s poised dominance for the future, and Ay could not lose that. In the face of that kind of consideration, everyone, even Ay himself, was expendable. Bee had to remain safe. Had to remain to cement Kumo’s strength and position at the top.

And then the thought came that he should not be sop worried, and that Bee was stronger than even him so what use would he be in this coming fight. He scowled at the suggestion. It was wrong. There were Nine members of the Akatsuki, their intelligence had taught him. Each of them was S-ranked in strength. That was enough concentrated power to tear down a country. That was enough strength to bring even Bee to his knees if he had to fight them all at the same time. Threats like Clankiller Itachi, and the Tailless Tailed Beast could not be brushed aside as minor considerations. Even worse, there was still the unknown leader. The one who had brought all those monsters together and kept them on a leash.

That was the figure Ay truly feared. He would not allow his brother face a person like that alone. He heard a faint sound behind him. Like that of a canon going off, but he ignored it. He had only one focus now, and he was reaching it. The mountains that marked the Village Hidden in the Clouds came into view, but they did not bring him the peace and joy they normally did. He was heading straight to Unraikyo.

He arrived with a clap of thunder and thanked the heavens that lightning armour allowed his brain to operate as quickly as his body moved. He took stock of everything around him. The four shinobi surrounding his brother’s form, and erupted into motion. He jumped right at the one with the mask, but felt his fist hit nothing but air where there should have been a masked head. He passed through the man’s body. Genjutsu? No. His chakra network wasn’t the slightest bit disturbed and his chakra armour should have made genjutsu impossible in the first instance. It did not matter. There was no lack of targets before him.

He could see the traitor right there. “Dieeee” He screamed to quickly for any ears but theirs to comprehend as he noticed the boy in the lesser lightning armour that Darui’s insanity had allowed him learn. He thought himself Ay’s equal and dared to move to match him in battle.

Ay’s first punch shattered his guard instantly. What a fool. To challenge a stage 3 lightning Armour with this disgrace was an insult. He did not allow him retreat, choosing to grab him by the black and red cloak he wore and pull his body closer. In the same motion, Ay’s other arm was stretched out and he blurred into the collision. “Lariat” The traitor folded into the attack and fell to the floor. Wounded but not dead. Ay would fix that.

The others moved in pitiful slow motion. The needles one shot at him failed to so much as pierce his armour. In this state, he was more lightning than armour. And he proved it. He picked up the traitor my the throat and took great pleasure in funnelling pure lightning release chakra into the brat’s body. The screams were beautiful. When his skin had darkened to the point we could have passed for Cousins, Ay tossed him over his shoulder with a smirk. His arrival had given Bee a reprieve from the situation, which he could tell had been continously deteriorating. Another of them, the puppeteer was killed in an instant, crushed between two of Gyuki-san’s powerful tails.

The one in the mask turned to face him and Ay noticed the red eye floating in his skull. Sharingan. Uchiha Itachi? When did he start wearing a mask? Ay wondered. Suddenly, there was a rift in space and two men were in front of him. One of which he could recognise. “Father?” He asked out loud. But no. That was not him. His father was dead. Ay had seen the body himself. He’d authorised the payment to those greedy rock bastards to get the corpse back at the end of the day.

Besides, that body was not his father’s. There were marks running through it. Almost like it was made of cloth that did not fit quite right. In spite of all that however. When the body rushed at him, it was with the lightning armour. He answered the challenge and crashed into the imposter at the midpoint. Crashed with all the momentum moving his large body against the fake, and yet he was the one being tossed backwards. Bee’s tails rushed for the fake but failed to grab hold as his father’s impostor rushed at Ay.

Ay punched out, intending to end the fight quickly. The facsimile of his father’s armour did not budge. Almost as sturdy as the real thing, then. Another punch from this fake threw Ay into the steps of the temple, and he looked up to see a pose he never expected to see in his life again.

A flat palm staring at him before it began to fold. Only one outstretched finger remained. One-fingered hell stab. Who was this who thought they could replicate his father’s jutsu. Who dared?

He scowled and increased the output of his armour again. He went beyond the peak he’d hit before, empowered by his rage. He crossed the space between them faster than his enhanced brain could fully process. He stabbed into the imposter’s chest with a savage grin. He felt the body give before him, but only for a second. The next second, he felt nothing but a hand poking out from his back. He looked down to see the imposter’s hand going into his chest with half of its body missing. How?

That would be the last question he ever asked. His strength quickly left him. He took a step backwards and then another. When his body hit the ground, he did not feel it. The last thing he ever heard was his brother’s raged scream.

And so Ay, the Fourth Raikage of Kumogakure breathed his last. His brother soon followed suit.

A/N; That’s the Cloud Arc brought to an end. Was tempted to drag it out a bit but couldn’t contemplate a situation where Ay put up more of a fight with Kabuto going all Edo Tensei legend on Obito’s side.