The Sounds of Battle Part 4 – Kabuto’s Ace
Reaver seemed to be getting more powerful now, and was fighting more strategically. May had already moved into her second curse sealed stage, her skin completely darkened, her hair longer and more wildly spread out, but that was all about her appearance that had changed. Nothing as drastic as Argo, but her abilities were certainly greater. She was disappearing and reappearing every few seconds. It was getting quite annoying, though Reaver was doing much the same thing.
They were both fighting in mid-air now, far above the point where the canyon’s walls ended. Reaver swiped across with one claw, only to attack helplessly at the air as countless petals appeared where May had once been, and in reply to her kick from behind, he disappeared in a black fog, reappearing right behind her as well with a quick stab. May managed to turn around in mid-air and reach out with her left arm to grab Reaver’s clawed hand, stopping it immediately, with a quick movement of her arm, she flipped Reaver over, sending him flying down towards the ground, only to find that he managed to flip around as he descended diagonally, landing on the ground outside and above the canyon.
May quickly teleported towards his location, and the second that she did, he was ready with a solid knee kick, a blow that she took full-on to the stomach, followed by a stab with his clawed hand, another successful attack. She stood therefore a long while, the claws impaled in her chest, and then smiled.
With a “poof” sound accompanied by white smoke, the clone dissipated. Reaver looked around curiously, and when he saw her, she was standing on the other side of the canyon, a giant gap in between her. But now she looked very different. Under her, there were four large black petals that extended outwards in all directions, one forward, one to the left, to the right, and behind her, giving her the appearance of some sort of flower.
“I’m sorry, my dear Reaver,” she said simply, “But we must finish this soon, Kabuto plans to finish this war within the next few minutes. Before then, I assure you, you will die.”
Reaver smiled wickedly, “Oh really? My interest is piqued on just how he plans to do that. I guess we will have to start winding this up. The sooner I kill you, the sooner I get to find out huh? But in other news… tell me... do you really know what I can do? What I am?”
May slowly raised both of her arms upwards and spread out, as if preparing to do some sort of technique, “You’d better show me soon, or you won’t last much longer.”
When both arms were all the way up to the sky, petals began raining down. Everywhere, small, black petals came down from the sky, filling the air with even more darkness than there already was. The petals remained dry despite the rain, and suddenly. Suddenly, every petal that was falling in the sky stopped moving.
Everything halting.
And then, with deadly speed, they all rushed towards Reaver, converging on him, and making one more seal with a single hand, May plainly said, “This is the end.”
Simultaneously, every last petal exploded, all of them right on top of Reaver, coating him, and then violently exploding. He wasn’t blown to bits, but bits of him were blown off. The explosion blew him off of the ground and sent him diving down back onto the canyon’s ground. Parts of his head and face were completely blown off; one arm was gone as was half of one leg. It also looked as though a dinosaur, or some such creature, bit a side of him and completely ripped part of the left side of his body off, a large part of him completely blown off. It was a gruesome sight, blood falling as he came to the ground, and then slamming down onto the ground hard.
May was falling in right after him, a kunai in her hand and the second that he hit the ground, she did to, kneeling over him and impaling a kunai into his heart, as if to make sure that he was dead.
His face was almost nonexistent, completely messed up by the blast, one eye closed and the other open, staring blankly, and a depraved smile on his face. There was always a smile on his face.
Reaver was dead.
May began standing up, still staring down at him, and suddenly, she heard, “Just kidding!”
She turned around rapidly, but Reaver was nowhere to be found. There was a dark mist swirling around her as she turned in slow circles, trying to find him. Ryuu and the leader of Akatsuki smiled, May seemed to be in complete horror, and Kabuto was genuinely interested. There was no sound to be heard but a maniacal laugh, first a low, cackling sound, and then the loud laughter of a madman.
The mist converged behind her, and surely enough, Reaver appeared at a distance, walking toward her while speaking, still laughing before he spoke and between words, “Now this is why I love the sport of killing, if only you could see the look on your face,” May quickly threw a kunai towards him, but he dispersed into the dark mist again and then reappeared at another side of her, still walking, “So far, it’s the look that every person that I’ve ever killed has had. Utter fear. Just when they thought that they had the upper hand, just when they thought that they won…” she threw another kunai and he did the same thing, still walking towards her, slowly, menacingly, “They realize that I was toying with them the entire time, they realize that everything that they did was simply a game to me, nothing more than a good time,” she threw one more, and he dispersed yet again, but this time, appearing right behind her, his clawed hand already deep into her back the second that he appeared, “It’s the face of helplessness that I truly enjoy. The fear in their eyes as they fall limply to the ground, bleeding from their mouths and vomiting out of their own terror as they beg for mercy, but knowing all the while that they will find none,” Reaver let out another maniacal laugh.
May fell to the floor, still just barely alive, coughing up blood. She wouldn’t turn to look into Reaver’s eyes; she refused to even try to fight at this point. If she couldn’t kill him then she could at least prevent him from getting the satisfaction of seeing the horrified look on her normally calm face.
Reaver stood above her, still laughing, and then spoke, “I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t die, hm? Well, here’s the thing, I just don’t die. Simple as that. I am malevolence personified. A demon in the form of a human. I have a nickname, you know? The ‘Spirit Reaper.’ Any that I kill, their soul becomes a part of my arsenal. At any point, I can release these souls, the souls of great warriors to fight on my behalf for example, or I can have them die for me. Whichever I see fit. It just happens to be that I enjoy killing so very much, and so the amount of spirits that I have are infinite. The second before I die, a spirit of mine takes my place. In truth, I’ve been killed millions of times. But haven’t died once. Oh, and by the way, most of the abilities that my collections have, I can use as well as long as they remain within me, and my strength is equal to that of all of the spirits put together, of course, most spirits in my collection are quite weak, but there are a few that grant me quite the boost. So it looks like I’ll be able to throw around a few black petals then. I haven’t even had to resort to my own jutsu for years, not a single worthy opponent yet. Just a few fun facts for ya. Not that you’ll need it where you’re going…”
Reaver stabbed into her back again, and this time seemed to pull something out, an essence of some sort. The essence slowly vanished, moving within Reaver’s arm and then his body as he demonstrated his soul stealing ability.
And so not only was May dead, but she was now part of Reaver.
As if dying wasn’t appalling enough.
~
They stood there for many minutes, staring at the brutal Reaver and the lifeless body of May. The leader of Akatsuki was standing, his wide smile hidden under his hood, taking some pride in Reaver’s recent actions, and then he called out to Kabuto, “Well… have you seen enough to give up and rejoin the Akatsuki? Or do you truly need to fight me and see what exactly I have that makes me powerful enough for both of these two to fear me?”
Kabuto stared at them all, each of the three formidable ninja, and then smiled, and then he laughed quietly, “Bravo… it seems as though Akatsuki’s members are even more powerful than when Madara joined them together. Quite the group of misfits you have here… It seems as though fighting you would be futile… even if I did win, I’d have to deal with these two, both of who I’m sure have many other tricks up their sleeves…”
“Is that a resignation?” Ryuu asked tauntingly.
“Not quite, no…” Kabuto said, still sitting calmly in his chair, “You see, I counted on both of them dying in the first place. Neither of them was strong enough to survive this war. I’m not quite a fool enough to believe that members of the notorious Akatsuki would be defeated by either of them. But that changes nothing. However, I never planned on fighting you. After all…”
He got no further in his sentence before a thin sword pierced him in the chest, thrown with amazing precision by none other than Ryuu. Kabuto looked down at the blade lunged in his skin, and then laughed, “Had you let me finished you would see how very pointless that was.”
Kabuto began to transform then, morphing into something different. His skin was completely darkened, and he seemed to be incomplete almost, as though he were only one half of a whole being. His eye was yellow. He had only one eye, one arm, and one ear, as if an entire half of his face were missing. His body seemed to be morphed around the sword wound.
“See…” he said, his voice now far deeper than it had been before, “I’m not exactly Kabuto…”
It took the Akatsuki leader half a second to recognize this person. Though, he had never exactly been a person. His eyes bulging out of his head he gasped, “Zetsu…”
~
His slight, mocking grin was smug, annoyingly so. Unlike his counterpart, he was more of an intellectual being. Obviously, he never intended to fight, simply to stall, and at this point, he saw no harm in giving a partial explanation, though he had every intention of toying with them for a while beforehand.
The dark half of Zetsu, looking at the three figures standing before him, began to talk in his low voice, “Surprised?”
Ryuu looked at him, eyes narrowed, and immediately decided to cut to the chase, “What are you doing here? And what ditch did that slimy snake escape in?”
Zetsu laughed slightly at that, “You’ll have to be more specific…” and when Ryuu gave no answer, obviously not willing to be used for amusement in such a way, he continued with a sigh, “I’m sure that Kabuto’s told you that he was looking for something, well, it just so happens that I’m looking for it too. Or perhaps looking to open that something would be a better way to put it.”
“Quit it with the wordplay,” Reaver said, getting a bit annoyed himself, to the surprise of everyone nearby.
“I assure you that there is no such wordplay on my part here. What it is we’re attempting to open requires not for us to find it, but rather to activate it. And it’s such small battles like this that will suffice. Kabuto waited for so long until there was enough energy radiating from all of the fighting as of late before deciding to launch the full-scale war to finish it off. I’m sure you’ve heard of the legendary Abyss?”
The leader of Akatsuki noticeably tensed at that name, clenching his teeth, “What do you know about that?”
Zetsu smiled again, “So you do know, eh? Well, for you two halfwits, deep within the ocean just north of here, there is said to be a large Abyss; from afar it seems like a constant red hurricane raging, but never moving. The Abyss is said to hold the souls and bodies of the damned; the most vile beings ever known, from monstrously powerful, and malicious, humans to… demons I suppose you would call them. The Abyss opens but once in a millennium, or it is said that way because of the fact that so many battles happening both consecutively and simultaneously is very rare, until a few years back when the original former Akatsuki, lead by Madara, began making its move, and then again recently when it was reformed. It only opens when the energies of various battles held by the most powerful of shinobis rage on all corners of the Earth, just as is happening now. Kabuto’s intention was to wait, quietly, while he constructed the ultimate fighting group. You see, with every one of those beasts that your allies are out there killing, the Abyss is only that much closer to opening, and releasing all within.”
“And you think that, somehow, you will be able to control all of these demons?” Ryuu asked mockingly.
“There is one in specific who will come out before all of the rest. He is known as the Jailor of the Damned. He watches over all of the others. It is said that he will be the first to come, and all others will be released in a month after, all under his control and rule… or the control of the one who defeats him. Or the group who defeats him in our case.”
The Akatsuki leader seemed in deep thought, looking ahead, and though none could see his face, they could all guess that it was an astonished expression, “You mean… Sep—”
He got no further before Zetsu began talking again, “I’ve told you enough already without giving names, but you see, with your battle against Argo,” he indicated Ryuu, “And yours against May,” he indicated Reaver, “Neither me nor Kabuto expected them to win; we fully expected them to die. But at this point, the only death that will truly hinder the plan is his own. So I hope you’re confident in the abilities of your allies, because by now, he’s probably already found a few of them. You all won’t get there in time before him, so I suggest you say your prayers. And with that… see ya.”
And just like that, he vanished. Sinking back into the stone chair and using his Mayfly technique to go to god knows where.
~
The creature was huge, whatever it was, and was still growing as it came out of the ground. It looked like the type of giant that one might see in a story book, his skin was a dull gray and looked fleshy, and he was covered in green moss at several areas. He had a humanoid face, but no true head, rather his body seemed to simply slope upwards and downwards at his shoulders in a sort of hunch back with a face on it. He… or it seemed to have no eyes, only dark eye sockets. The rest of its body simply seemed like a normal humanoid form. But most of all, it was huge. He was well over the walls of the canyon, and as he rose, Riku and Sora could barely even see his face.
His giant arm first jutted out of the ground, and then grabbed onto the edge of the canyon walls so that he could pull himself up. His sides were scraping against the canyon when he was fully out, turning his head from side to side and looking around for his targets. Before he saw either of them, Riku and Sora both managed to make eye contact with each other through a small area somewhere in between where the titan’s legs were and where the canyon’s walls were, and then nodded to each other.
Their battle would have to wait for another day.
Simultaneously, they both immediately jumped up, Riku jumping from side to side from one side of the canyon to another, while Sora chose a more direct approach, jumping as powerfully as he could to land on top of the valley’s steep walls, coming right in front of the monster, who looked at him with a gruesome smile that was completely absent of teeth.
The beast balled up one fist and then slammed it down onto Sora, who made a single seal that allowed him to spew a small fireball upwards, making the giant howl in panic at the pain. Riku, meanwhile, his wings now on his back once again, was now flying around the giant, looking for some blind spot, and when he found a place that he was sure the giant couldn’t see him, he cupped his hands over his mouth as if he were about to spit out a dart, and then shot out several shards made of ice that lodged themselves into the back of its massive head, or whatever the hunch would be called. Each one stabbed into him, and he reached over his back, trying to pluck each one out.
The battle went on like that for quite some time. Sora distracted the beast, occasionally getting a decent hit in while he did, and Riku flew around and attacked from behind. Riku was now right above him, Soul Eater comfortably in his hand as he threw it downwards.
But suddenly, something appeared on the creatures head, and the sword was effortlessly deflected, sent spinning through the air. Riku couldn’t see too well from his distance, but whoever the figure on top of his target was, it looked straight up to him, and opened his mouth as a sword released from it. Riku quickly danced around the blade, first using the wings to push him back to dodge the first upward slash, and then cleverly mixing dodges and parries, Soul Eater now back in his hand, as the sword came at him from various directions.
Meanwhile, for Sora, too, couldn’t make out the figure from his distance, the man extended one arm as snakes jumped out of his sleeve, rushing toward Sora. He quickly rolled out of the way of one, smacked another aside with the blunt of Meteora, and then jumped over the last one, turning around quickly after and slamming his weapon down onto that one as well.
Simultaneously, the snakes poofed away and the sword stopped, moving, simply dropped out of the sky back toward the giant, and the man immediately caught them. Dodging the sword had brought Riku in a position near Sora, and so he simply landed then.
Suddenly, they could hear a voice behind them, “I had hardly hoped to waste my most precious beast on children, but no matter, a kill is a kill I suppose,” said the voice, a somewhat calm tone but with venom dripping off of the words. Riku recognized it instantly, though Sora, who had never seen this man before, took a while to figure it out.
They both turned around to see the beholder of the voice—Kabuto Yakushi. Riku looked back to the giant, who seemed pretty beaten up, but not quite out of the battle, “For your most ‘precious beast,’ he isn’t all that tough.”
“Heh, I think you’ll find that he can take a few more hits then you’ve already done, and return them tenfold. But even blathering, Titan,” obviously he was indicating the creature, “shall we?”
~
Tenzu was getting gradually more and more annoyed now. None of his attacks were working and the rest of the group was sure taking their sweet time getting here. He didn’t want to resort to his Mangekyou Sharingan until absolutely necessary, and so he kept attacking in barrages for now.
The creature was completely out of the ground now, and was rapidly moving towards Tenzu like a giant snake. It then lunged out towards Tenzu, lifting itself slightly off the ground as it did. The Uchiha immediately ducked downward, going down on his stomach as the beast went over him. He managed to turn over on his back, and then stabbed his sword upwards, focusing chakra into it as he did in an effort to increase its cutting power. It only made sparks and a loud screeching sound that pierced Tenzu’s ears, though, as the metal scraped against the steel-like body of the creature.
From his position, Tenzu rolled on his side from under the creature, which still hadn’t completed its lunge, and came up at its side. He watched it go past, using his Sharingan to its limits to follow the beasts movements. He was trying to aim to stab in between one of the creatures joints as it passed, where there which would likely be more fleshy. He was finally confident that his aim would be true, and stabbed into the creatures side, hitting right between two of the giant crustaceans joints.
He could feel the sword go in cleanly, and smirked when the creature made a screeching, hissing noise. Yanking his sword out a moment after he put it in so that he didn’t get dragged along with the beasts movements, Tenzu looked at it.
“Alright... now I know just how to—” he got no further though because when the creature got up, it was immediately killed.
What seemed like a light blue mist went through one side of its head and out the other. Whatever stabbed into him then went into the ground shortly afterward, but disappeared barely a second after that. Tenzu only saw it for a moment while it was completely still, but he surely recognized the spear that stabbed into the ground perhaps a foot away from him—Odyssey. There was a giant hole in the beasts head, and shortly thereafter, he collapsed.
Tenzu knew exactly what had happened, though he was still surprised when a lean, calm figure, about the same size as he was, appeared next to him, staring at the fallen beast. His head was coated in unkempt brown hair and he wore very light armor, along with casually holding his spear in his right hand, slinging it over his back.
“You just refuse to die, eh? This is, what, the third time?” Tenzu asked sarcastically, though with quite a bit of truth behind his words.
Shinru, Riku’s mentor and a former co-leader of Akatsuki, shrugged and said simply “I don’t plan on being killed by a sixteen year old anytime soon,” and then, when Odyssey was securely in the sheathe on his back, he continued saying, “But anyway, whoever’s back there,” Shinru pointed toward the direction that Tenzu had just come from, “I’m sure they’re in some trouble as well. I decided to come here first but I saw quite a ruckus from both directions, so, shall we?”
“Can’t they handle it themselves?” Tenzu moaned.
“Now, now… where’s that Akatsuki team spirit?” Shinru said with a slight, mocking grin, and then, just before they left, Shinru felt the urge to add, “Oh, and this would be the fourth time, actually.”
~
As Shinru said, Kakashi and his group were in some pretty big trouble, though much bigger trouble than Tenzu’s, and they didn’t even know it yet.
He was moving quickly through the underground network of life, going throughout the area with lightning speed, and moving straight for the group, aiming to come up right in the midst of them. A small diversion force had been sent ahead of him to scatter the group around a big, all just so that he could make a rather grand entrance. He was coming upon them… closer… closer…
“Heheheheheh!” he laughed crazily as he came up out of the ground, right in the center of the group of Konoha and Akatsuki ninja alike. The entire group, startled, turned to his direction and jumped backwards in fright. His skin as white as bleach and his incomplete appearance, as well as the fact that he only came half way out of the ground, scared each of the ninja so much that Zetsu couldn’t help but let out another similar laugh.
Kakashi kept his composure better than most others, and as he spun around and jumped back, threw a single kunai toward Zetsu’s heart. The kunai lodged deeply in his skin, but it did nothing as he took the kunai out and stared at it.
“Now that wasn’t very nice,” he taunted, twirling the kunai around in circles with one finger, and then letting it go abruptly as it stabbed deeply into the chest of one lesser ninja in their group, “I mean, if you plan on killing someone, have the courtesy of doing it right.”
Kakashi looked at him sternly, “So you’re with Kabuto too, then? Looks he managed to gather every freak around the world for this. And I suppose that to get to him we have to go through you?”
“Well, yeah… me and a few others, that is. Compliments of Kabuto himself, in fact,” he said, “But before that, how about we get rid of all of these nobodies?”
Zetsu made a single hand seal, and with that, giant vines came up from the ground, wrapping around all ninja that Zetsu referred to as “nobodies.” Practically all of the infantrymen that Kakashi did not know directly. Each of the vines wrapped around various Konoha ninja, and then compressed tightly, squeezing the life out of them to the point where they seemed to completely pop like a balloon; no trace of their existence remaining.
After that, there were only ten ninja remaining: Kakashi, Naruto, Yamato, Neji, Shikamaru Sakura, Lee, Gai, Deirous, and Raiden. There had been more scheduled to join them in the war, but they had decided to trim the numbers down a bit before leaving Konoha
Perhaps that wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
Yamato looked at him closely, “There’re still enough of us to finish you, though.”
“Oh, but didn’t you hear? You won’t just have to finish me,” with that, he snapped his fingers once, and on cue, two coffins began to rise up behind Zetsu, on either side, all of the area behind him now completely cleared by the ninja that he had just killed, and with all of his enemies at a distance in front of him.
The coffins rose up slowly, menacingly, gradually. They each halted when they were completely out of the ground, stopping fully and everything around them seemed to come to a halt as well.
And then, with a forebodingly creaking sound, the two opened slowly
They were devastated by the three faces they saw. The first was Jiraiya, the legendary toad sage, coming out of the coffin, seeming to already be in his Sage Mode despite having neither Shima nor Fukusaku with him. All faces turned to Naruto, who gave off no expression whatsoever, no specific indication as to how he felt about seeing his teacher being manipulated by such a vile group.
But the distraught look on his face was clearly visible when the second coffin beside it opened.
The Yellow Flash, the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze walked calmly out of the second coffin. Kakashi, who had known the man even better, seemed even more devastated. The usual, warm smile on his face was now serious. But Kakashi also had enough knowledge about this jutsu to know that Minato still had his wits about him, that he was serious not because of him being a zombie, but because of what Zetsu was going to make he and Jiraiya do.
And Kakashi was sure that Minato and Jiraiya were hoping with every fiber of their being that they would manage to beat them both to a pulp.
Zetsu laughed again, this time less crazily though, “Like what I did there?”
