However, it seemed like fate wasn't keen on being kind.
Yamato, still underground, along with the rest of his team and Shizune suddenly felt a tremor thunder the ground and resonate through his bones. It rattled his brain as he tried hard to focus on what was happening up above.
'Is it the eight tails?'
The chakra left over in the forest gave Yamato a clear picture but only for a moment. Because everything after that was a blur of speed that Yamato hadn't thought possible himself.
Above the ground, standing on a random branch after spitting out a broken tooth, Kisame quickly formed hand seals before expelling an explosive amount of chakra out of the tenketsu in his body.
"Water Style : Super Exploding Water Shock Wave!"
A normal explosive water shock wave would've covered the area of a pond, a larger pond if it were a jonin but a pond nonetheless.
However, Kisame was far from a Jonin.
Almost instantly the water swelled to the size of a lake and rose like a gigantic sphere above the ground, covering it entirely.
How did that affect Yamato and the rest of team seven who were underground though? Well too bad for them, Kisame was a master Water bender. The explosive amount of water that rose up into the sky and formed a solid water dome didn't stop there.
Kisame's chakra churned the waters that touched the forest floor and spun it like a drill before absolutely demolishing the entire underground.
The forest was long gone. The trees had had their roots pulverised, the soil had been turned into dust and all that lived in this system was drowned to oblivion.
Yamato and team seven only survived because Yamato had used his clones to create a solid wooden dome around each person he was with. Keeping them safe for the moment, but only physically, since each of them could feel the terrible weight pressing down on the wooden domes and the churning of water just outside the wooden barrier.
Tachibana looked at the Yamato clone that was with him and sighed softly.
'So much for pretending to be Sasuke and tricking Itachi into thinking there was someone else here that was way stronger than him, to distract him…'
As soon as Tachibana had seen Sasuke running towards Itachi, he'd found the most convenient spot out of everyone's sight to swap with Sasuke while knocking him out and hiding him. Tachibana knew well that Sasuke wasn't capable of beating Itachi in any way shape or form right now.
The single elitist Jonin level battle where they'd seen Yamato duke it out against the ruler of the Land of Snow had been enough for Tachibana to know that Sasuke wasn't even strong enough to scratch Itachi's itch.
But he also knew that he could get closer to Itachi this way.
And so he tried.
Firstly because he needed to delay Itachi so that Killer B would transform and Yamato could take them all and leave at the right moment, leaving their enemies to fight each other.
And secondly because he could escape out at any moment using paper substitution, a method he'd kept a secret from everyone else until now, and a method that he wanted to use to create a different personality to digest his faceless potion further.
He'd gotten close to Itachi and actually truly tried to beat the shit out of him, or even scratch him but it had been of no use. The sharingan had seen through his every move, his every trick, without even paying attention to him. The best he could do was use an air bullet to slam Kisame's scary face.
Tachibana had negated Itachi's Tsukuyomi, but seriously Itachi had a billion other ways to get rid of Tachibana before he even took his next breath.
And so, as soon as he'd hit Kisame Tachibana decided he had obtained his objective since Killer B transformed by then.
Tachibana then substituted using a paper figurine into tree roots and pushed his chakra into them to send Yamato his position, a signal for Yamato to snap out of his wild imagination and rush to take them away, to escape.
Tachibana already knew Yamato knew their position as long as they were touching the trees, he could see Yamato's chakra pulsing in them using his spirit vision. So he knew that they could all escape if Yamato had the time.
However he hadn't accounted for the fact that Kisame was truly serious in taking back his target this time, unlike the first time he'd visited Konoha along with Itachi in the anime.
"What now…" Tachibana asked the Yamato clone that was beside him which was doing its best to supply chakra to the groaning wooden sphere that was keeping Tachibana safe and not crushed by the tons of water pressure that was being thrust onto them.
"...." The clone's skin bulged in all the wrong places as the water started to get heavier and heavier because of the chaotic movement outside, making it struggle to even open its mouth to speak.
So Tachibana used spirit vision once again.
And what he saw only left him even more worried about their current predicament.
Nearly a quarter of a mile in all directions around them was flooded with water, up, down, left and right.
The water wasn't still, however, it was spinning violently, like the inside of a blender or a storm at whose centre was Kisame who looked strangely fish-like.
'Did he merge with Samehada already?'
Four more wooden domes like theirs were flinging all around smoothie of organic matter being blended into one giant pulp contained within which were an unconscious Sasuke, a worried and rather angry Naruto, frightened Sakura and a murderously raging Shizune, and finally Yamato himself who was calm in spite of the horrors around them.
There was chakra mixed into the water so Kisame would know the second anyone touched it.
However, that wasn't what bothered Tachibana the most.
Tachibana's gaze shifted downwards, underneath the entire sharknado. And what he saw made him shudder. A malevolent entity stared right back at him.
'....eight tails…'
'Wasn't Killer B supposed to be the 'good' one among all the Jinchuriki? A perfect one?'
Tachibana felt himself tremble at the sheer rage he could see and feel within the Eight Tails. If the rage of a normal person was crimson, then what he was seeing right now could only be described as a malevolent crimson mixed with a deep gray that resulted in an almost pitch black colour.
'...did Killer B not go on that tortoise island till now?'
'...'
'Why am I stuck in a boss level fight when I haven't even finished the tutorial…' Tachibana lamented.
Tachibana closed his eyes and tried to calm himself, but found the ability to do so lacking.
Deaths of Kakashi, Maruboshi and Tsunade flooded the darkness.
Screams of the bandits he'd killed on his first mission by betraying them after assuming their friendship rang out like screams of madness in his ears.
'Is this it?'
'Are we all going to die?'
'Again?'
'Who will sacrifice themselves this time if we were to live?'
'Yamato-sensei?'
'Shizune?'
'Sakura? Sasuke? Naruto?'
'...Then what will I even be left with?'
'Am I the problem here?'
'A world this vast, that would've been running peacefully if I wasn't here…aren't I the only problem then?'
Tachibana's fist closed tight, causing his nails to dig deep, breaking the skin and bringing him back from lamenting with a sharp pain that shook his mind.
'NO!'
'No more deaths!'
'No one will die again!'
'Not while I'm here!'
Tachibana's eyes opened with focus. Sharper than ever with a resolve in them that he couldn't see himself, but could feel coursing through his veins, through his blood, through his very being.
His gaze sharpened on the world outside the wooden dome as the beginnings of a plan formed in his mind.
And within seconds Tachibana had a solution to their immediate predicament.
"Sensei…" Tachibana said, turning to Yamato's clone that was barely able to pay attention to him, "...can you go all out?"
The clone's face twitched in spite of the heavy burden that it was currently showing, to the point that the dome almost lost its structure for a second.
"What do you think I'm doing if I'm not going all out!?" Yamato asked through gritted teeth.
Tachibana chuckled a little before speaking calmly, his voice steady and smooth, giving someone listening to him a sense of reassurance, as if they were speaking not to a young thirteen year old child but a grown battle hardened veteran, "I mean to say…don't hold back. I can't very well attempt to dictate your fight against Kiasme really, but if you can take him down in combination with the Eight Tails while making sure that at the end the Eight Tails is no longer an issue, I can get us all out of here…alive."
And just as Yamato's clone felt like Tachibana was asking for the worst, to sacrifice himself for the younger generation, Tachibana spoke up again, his reassuring voice applying itself on his heart like a soothing balm, "Even you. I won't leave anyone behind this time…So as long as you can hold on for a little while longer, I can handle the rest."
The clone's grip loosened on the dome for a fraction of a second, causing it to groan with an insufferable amount of pressure, sharp jets of water shot out from all the sides and began to fill the wooden spherical shield with water at a rapid rate, turning their only surviving wall into a prison that was rapidly morphing into a tomb.
But the clone had already made its mind within that moment.
The clone put aside the absurd promise that Tachibana had made for a second and looked at the situation objectively.
If he went all out alongside a rampaging Eight Tails would it really be that hard to take down two rouge shinobi?
He still had a one backup plan in place from his fight with the Kumo Shinobi that he still hadn't made use of and could serve as an explosive release that could bring down all his opponents.
He could still feel all the wood infused with his chakra in the torrent of madness outside. And as long as he could feel it, he could do two things with it.
One he could grow it and use it to bind anyone or anything that came in contact with it.
And two he could explode it into a sharp shrapnel that would most definitely injure any shinobi near it.
So while he didn't know if Tachibana could save them all and take him back alive to Konoha, he did know that right now, in this very moment, the only way for any of them to even survive the madness that was the pair of Kisame and Itachi was to go all out. There was absolutely no other method for team seven to even have a chance of survival other than that.
They couldn't escape without leaving someone behind to cover their rear, and the only one who could do that right now was him.
The best he could do was rely on Shizune afterwards, hoping she could at least take everyone and run away while he delayed their enemies.
So Yamato turned towards Tachibana and spoke through gritted teeth as the dome was being filled with water.
"Do whatever you have to do. But for now make sure to hold your breath!"
Tachibana's body relaxed slightly, almost unconsciously since he had expected Yamato to reject his crazy plan, but since it looked like someone in this world had some trust in him he nodded, took a deep breath and then gave the signal to Yamato's clone to carry on.
And carry on Yamato did.
Within a fraction of a second, the clone sent a message to the main body using the chakra in the wood spinning all around.
And when the main body analysed and concluded with the observations of the clone, it sent an order to all the other clones.
And in the next moment, they were all ready.
The eight tails wasn't inactive during this time either.
With a loud roar that nearly made the Genin of team seven faint out of consciousness because of the sheer maliciousness being thrust upon their senses, the Eight tails went on a rampage.
Ink sprayed out to turn the already murky waters into a thick black ooze that none could see through.
And in the next instant, its tentacles shot forth like bullets, tearing through the water like sharp spears that all poured in a singular direction, towards the centre, towards Kisame.
The tentacles themselves were so massive that the entire torrent which was spinning counter clockwise a second earlier was thrashed as they were unleashed. The debris in the water collided futilely with the tentacles, much like pebbles against the churning waves of an ocean. The water itself was forced to halt, its currents bent as it was all thrust forward, along with the large nightmarish masses of flesh that were moving rapidly towards their target.
Yet in the centre of it all, Kisame remained remarkably clear headed.
He could feel everything through the chakra spread throughout the miniature hurricane, each stream, each molecule of water bouncing off each other, jumping from one stream to the next as the chaotic motion of the things inside it thrust it all towards him.
His fingers formed a series of few simple hand seals as he opened his eyes with a sharp glare and a wide toothy cheshire grin on his face roaring for a good fight.
The chaotic water current instantly changed.
Its control refined, bundling everything around it into perfect streams as the water turned into thick transparent ropes of laminar flow, each one slipping around their target, the gigantic octopus on the floor and its tentacles with calculated precision before they tightened.
And just like that within moments the massive raging abhorrent mass of flesh was struggling to move within the web Kisame created.
The water was still an inky black so the eight tails itself was spared from the humiliation of being trapped in its own element; however this ink screen wasn't just for the simple attack of unfurling its limbs a little.
The Eight Tails opened its mouth and roared, causing the chakra in the very web around its head to break down and rush towards a point slightly in front of its mouth, coalescing into a dark ball that was beginning to radiate a heavy aura that made everyone who could feel it shudder.
Kisame felt the threat too, fortunately he wasn't alone.
He had aggravated the Eight Tails to this degree by trapping it on purpose. Obviously he didn't have the chakra to sustain such a large scale jutsu without the Samehada providing him with a suitable source, and so he aimed to muddy the waters by forcibly dragging Yamato into the mix so that the battle could turn into a dog fight where he could freely absorb as much chakra as he wanted to heal himself and stay in top shape while his opponents suffered.
And so, instead of directly attacking the Eight tails' mouth or stopping the Tailed Beast Bomb from forming in any way he doubled down on further irritating the Tailed Beast itself, leaving the most troublesome part to Yamato who could seemingly seal the Tailed beast.
The web of water binding the Eight Tails thickened, doubling in radius near instantly as Kisame shot forwards, hoping to come in contact with the Eight tails to absorb its chakra using samehada.
Practically, Yamato should've dealt with the Tailed Beast Bomb or even worked on sealing the Tailed Beast directly.
After all Yamato had no way to know that the Akatsuki would've been arriving during their battle with the Kumo shinobi. So he couldn't have possibly set up a trap beforehand to deal with them.
Except he did. Because of Tachibana Rei.
And so Yamato activated his backup trap that had been set up in the previous fight. With a single kai hand seal to focus his chakra, the wooden debris contained within the now stagnant thick water ropes all around them exploded with activity.
Every single wooden debris grew like a new tree in itself.
All of a sudden the entire monumental lake in the air was now suddenly a hanging garden. Trees sprouted out of nothing, each one almost thick and tall enough to supply timber for several hunting cabins.
Kisame grew surprised, only momentarily, but surprised nonetheless that Yamato still had a card up his sleeve that he hadn't used in his fight against the Kumo shinobi from before.
However he wasn't very nervous, he was above the level of even an Elite Jonin and so every plan of his in a fight had backup plans for their own backup plans and his current plan was rather simple.
A few more handseals flew out of his hands before Yamato could act on the new trees he had created and the web of water that had trapped the Eight Tails trembled for but a second before almost groaning as they forcibly twisted the Eight Tails' thick neck by grabbing the single horn on its head, turning the Tailed Beast Bomb that was pointed straight at him only moments earlier directly towards Yamato instead and in the direction of Team Seven.
Yamato frowned when he sensed this through his newly sprouted trees.
Worse yet he realised almost immediately that it was either him or team seven that lived this explosion. He couldn't save both. His mind quickly calculated the odds and spat out an answer. He could either play it safe and sacrifice Team Seven and let the village suffer devastating consequences in the later battle that was to come because of letting the Daimyo's son die and their Jinchuriki killed, or he could go all out like Tachibana said and sacrifice himself, taking down at least Kisame along with the Kumo Tailed Beast and Jinchuriki.
The decision didn't take time to come after that. It solidified in a heartbeat allowing Yamato to form handseals to act on his intentions without regrets. Like a shinobi that truly embodied the will of fire with his resolve, a protector of the young, of the weak who were currently dependent on him, of the village whose futures would be decided by his actions right now, a future that could only be ascertained by him burning up, by his sacrifice that would be eternally carved into the shinobi memorial stone to inspire the generations to come, to fill them up with the same fire that protects them today for the generation tomorrow.
In that instant, if an onlooker were to observe the situation they'd see Kisame rushing towards the Tailed Beast to absorb its chakra inside the water, the tailed beast's nearly completed tailed beast bomb aimed right at Yamato and Team Seven, and an absurdly large spear forming out of the trees that had grown out of nowhere, pointed right at the moving Kisame.
This observer was Itachi who was standing outside the water sphere that covered everything over half a mile in front of him to the centre of the torrential lake. His sharingan was the only reason he was still able to observe such a far away battle and its intricacies so he quickly figured out that Kisame was taking on an unneeded risk.
Was it really necessary for him to risk getting hit by Yamato's suicidal attack? After all, he was still here in peak form. He hadn't participated until now because he was wary of the strange being that had resisted his Tsukuyomi earlier, but now that he'd made sure, as best as he could, that the person no longer lingered in the area he could step in with full force.
Their objective was to catch the two tailed beasts in the area currently and make sure they were delivered to their leader.
So Kisame's risk was unnecessary, this wasn't their personal fight that they could enjoy, they had a mission and as such, personal emotions and needs were unnecessary now.
So Itachi rushed ahead, even as he noticed that Yamato had furthered his plan by sacrificing himself instead of team seven, where instead of rushing away from the trajectory of the tailed beast bomb himself he used the precious time to form extra handseals to send the few wooden spheres floating about in the water prison outwards, so that Team Seven could escape.
However he frowned at the last second when out of all the wooden spheres that shot outwards, away from the battlefield, one single one shot directly towards its heart, towards the Eight Tails.
Inside the wooden sphere Tachibana had his fingers crossed as he felt his hands chill. His heart was racing as his muscles twitched.
Everything around him felt hyper sensitive at this moment as his mind was assaulted by the large amount of information that was bombarded into it since he was paying so much attention to everything outside.
"Only one shot…" Tachibana whispered, "...can't miss this chance to blow up."
Tachibana shook his head as a bead of sweat dripped from his head, onto his nose and then onto the water pooling at his feet already.
Yamato's clone observed him and looked at just how calm Tachibana looked regardless of the crazy decision he had asked the clone to make at the last second.
But if Tachibana was so sure about his decision, and was sure that he could take back everyone alive, who was he to question his student's resolve, especially when no one questioned his?
At this moment if there was a chance to better their situation by even just one per cent, he would take it and take it he did. He was speeding along with Tachibana right towards the heart of the fight.
Of course Kisame noticed Yamato's actions, but he wasn't interested in it all.
The tailed beast bomb could get rid of Yamato for him, and with the tailed beast chakra fed to him by Samehada he could without doubt get rid of all the other people around without a sweat.
So he dove in faster, his head aligned with the currents sharper, rushing as the water pushed him full speed ahead, right towards his target the Eight Tails.
And given his home field advantage of the water all around them, Kisame was indeed the first to reach the destination.
He reached the Eight Tails and for a moment was lost in the thrill of the beauty of the moment.
He had a tailed beast under his control. A feat that was relegated in history only to the Greatest like Madara and Hashirama, tales of legends that sounded so fabelistic to him in his childhood as a mere Mist Genin but now so clearly in his view, in his grasp.
His grin crept wider but as an elite among the elite he did not slip and acted near instantly.
He began to siphon chakra out of the Eight Tails bound by the web of water it was trapped in.
The Wooden Dome arrived shortly after, before it exploded sending wooden shrapnel Kisame's way, causing him to have to defend himself using the water all around them. But since it was a short attack that couldn't do much he even had the leisure to attack them back with several water sharks that rushed to chomp the heads of both Yamato's clone and Tachibana Rei.
However neither the clone nor Tachibana feared the moment.
The clone quickly protected Tachibana while he got to work.
Tachibana pulled out an explosive tag and stuck it to the Eight Tails' gigantic body, looking at it only for a moment before he looked up at Yamato's real body who was handling the gigantic wooden spear that was descending like the weight of the heavens itself.
The sun glimmered through the inky water barely highlighting their silhouettes making it all look like a very strange balance of demonic and angelic at once.
But Tachibana didn't have the leisure to revel in the grandeur of it all, instead he shouted, his voice barely travelling far in the water but the clone heard it and performed a hand seal.
But whatever he did there seemed to be no time anymore.
The Tailed Beast Bomb had been released!
The Eight Tails tailed beast bomb launched with force and speed that made Tachibana gulp in fear. He couldn't move that fast even if he used all his chakra and used the shuishin jutsu. It was absurd to see something so large travelling so fast.
But that wasn't the absurd part.
No even more absurd was the fact that even in the face of such a terrifying weapon launched his way, Yamato launched the heavenly wooden spear without a single fluctuation in his emotions.
The spear rushed downwards while the tailed beast bomb rushed upwards, each locked onto its target and moving at speeds that would make anyone feel like a bullet being shot at point blank.
Neither side could dodge, they simply didn't have the time. The Eight Tails was still bound by Kisame, and Yamato had spent the last few moments choosing to launch his spear instead of dodging, while Kisame was hidden behind the body of the Eight Tails, hoping to use it as a shield against the spear and make sure that he absorbed all its chakra to grow the most powerful he had ever been before taking them all down at once.
The situation clearly favoured Kisame the most.
After all, without its chakra even a large tailed beast was nothing but a fleshy pet in the hands of the strongest at their peaks.
However all this didn't consider a single factor.
Tachibana.
The battle tilted with an explosion.
Not from the explosion tag beside the Tailed Beast that Tachibana had planted, but from an explosive tag that Yamato's original body had pulled out from his pouch.
A tool nearly useless in battles of his level where even the simplest of punches were usually way more devastating, but one he was forced to carry nonetheless since a student in his team could use them rather creatively.
And using it creatively Tachibana did.
As soon as the flames from the explosion erupted in the waters and flashed like a bright bulb, Tachibana's figure vanished from his current position and reappeared stepping out of it like a moth.
In a fraction of a second Tachibana was by Yamato's side.
Tachibana couldn't move faster than a tailed beast bomb using shuishin, but he could simply change the race by changing the distance he had to travel.
And so Tachibana had arrived by Yamato's side before the Tailed Beast bomb. That was the first part of the plan done.
But the job wasn't done yet, only the easy part was, the hard part was still left.
Tachibana looked at the ball rushing towards him through his spirit vision.
All he saw was a condensed mass of malevolent energy rushing towards him.
It felt like he was staring at death.
His already cold body chilled further, whether from the water around him that was unbearably cold or simple fright he didn't know but his focus remained firm.
He had one shot at this and he couldn't miss it.
He had been through the usual grind of the Shinobi world until today. Seen people die after killing them himself, seen loved ones die, seen how his presence in it had changed nearly everything for the worse.
This was the moment he changed it all.
With a sharp glare that only showed his amplified resolve, an outpouring of all the pain he had suffered until today, everything he had kept contained inside even after all that he had lost.
A guttural scream roared out of Tachibana's throat that would've rivalled a Tailed Beast's roar had it only been louder as he lost himself in the moment.
Yamato was about to stretch out and still use his wood release to throw Tachibana away at the last second, or at least protect the boy using his own body since he had no more chakra remaining at all, but the action left him stunned.
Tachibana's hands extended forwards as he anticipated the tailed beast bomb rushing towards him and Yamato.
The tailed beast bomb came closer, and closer, and closer even still as Tachibana's eyes turned red because of his sheer focus since the ball was too fast for his reaction.
The bomb touched his hands, making firm contact with it, but Tachibana couldn't do anything even then. Instead his fingers dug into the tailed beast bomb. Grabbing it like he was grabbing dirty laundry, casually, but his face betrayed the hellish pain.
And in the very next the battle field flipped for three things happened at once.
An explosion rang out from behind the Eight Tails.
Tachibana appeared above Kisame who was relishing his victory early after absorbing part of the eight tails chakra.
A bright flash of explosion rang out beside Yamato's original body again and Tachibana vanished from his spot once again.
The world was silent for a moment as if acknowledging Tachibana's moves before it exploded.
…
The wooden domes crashed in nearly the same area as they all exploded after the first few bounces because of their weakened structures, spitting out all their inhabitants.
Sasuke, Sakura, Shizune and Naruto all flew out of the domes, tumbling around for a few times on the ground as Sakura redirected herself mid bounce to cushion the unconscious Sasuke while Shizune helped Naruto who was adjusting to the sudden light.
They tumbled a few more times before all stopping after they hit a thick tree trunk.
Naruto's eyes snapped open and fell in shock before he was about to shout out loud about Sasuke being unconscious but he couldn't since the world was overpowered by a large loud-
BBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone's heads snapped towards the explosion in the distance.
A large mushroom cloud shot up into the sky, making everyone feel miniscule in comparison.
Sasuke too woke up, confused for a second before the explosion took his full attention.
"...wha- what happened?" Sasuke asked softly, his eyes darting straight to Sakura before he suddenly realised- "Where's…Tachibana?"
Naruto's eyes widened too at this moment as did everyone else's.
They had all been so caught up in the moment that they had completely forgotten about Tachibana, only Shizune who was constantly thinking about their next move since she had heard the basic plan from Yamato's clone before he sent them away made a guess.
'He couldn't make it…?'
Her eyes watered slightly.
She had already lost Tsunade today.
Now she had also lost someone who she was supposed to protect, someone younger than her who had sacrificed himself to let her live…an intense feeling of grief erupted from within as she questioned her own incompetence.
'...all that mentoring under the greatest kunoichi in the world…and this is the result?'
'What have I even been doing all this ti-'
But Shizune wasn't given time to wallow in her grief.
Instead, the world had seemingly deemed it necessary to kick her while she was down.
A soft voice emerged from a branch of the tree they were sitting under.
"Pathetique."
Everyone looked up and there was Itachi, standing above them like a grim reaper waiting to harvest their lives and ferry them to the other side.
Sasuke's three tomoe sharingan couldn't bear the burden of the emotional turmoil of the situation.
Tachibana was dead.
Yamato was dead.
Tsunade was dead.
He was so weak that he hadn't even participated in the battle from earlier and had been knocked out before even trying.
He was a burden.
Just like he had been all those times ago when he let everyone else in his life die.
Truly a pathetic worm.
'Is it so hard to keep someone alive in this life?'
Itachi naturally saw this but spoke as if he didn't care.
"Truly worms beyond any hope of redemption…requiring a genin to sacrifice himself to make way for you to run away like cowards, pathetic creatures that can't even fend for themselves, parasites who only know how to leech…truly disgusting creatures that only deserve to be hated by everyone for how pathetic they are."
Even Naruto in this moment found himself lost, his eyes out of focus as Itachi's harsh words pierced right into his heart.
But Sasuke wasn't as simple and blinded by rage as he had been in the show anymore, no, he had tasted what camaraderie looked like, what the sweetness of a group of people he could call his friends felt like. A group that he always felt hopeful to come back to, to return to almost like a home.
His second home.
And so right now, given that he, Naruto and Sakura were the only ones who could save themselves he stepped up. Shizune had done her part against the Kumo shinobi, now it was their turn to pay their seniors back.
The burning rage and hatred in Sasuke's mind transformed.
'Be it death! I will drag everyone back from hell!'
Sasuke's eyes finally transformed.
Unnaturally, his eyes both had different Mangekyo patterns, revealing their disjointed sources, yet each giving off a sense of incomparable power in their own right.
Sasuke's chakra exploded in quantity as his yin nature chakra grew by several fold because of his sharingan. It still wasn't as large as Naruto by any margin since he was limited by the lack of physical energy of his child sized body but it was enough, for now…
"I don't care if we are pathetic worms in your eyes!!" Sasuke shouted out of character while glaring right into Itachi's slightly surprised eyes. "Today we will fight against you with all we have got."
The words suddenly reminded Naruto that he couldn't give up. It didn't matter what happened, he had taken a vow to never be a coward. And so it didn't matter if they were all going to die today, they would die fighting.
A bright fire lit up in Naruto's eyes as he shouted!
"YYOOOOSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The fire was contagious and Sakura and Shizune too broke out of their shock, each pulling out a pair of kunai or senbon, ready to fight and take their opponent down.
However they didn't get to put forth their bravado regardless of their burning fire since a voice spoke out from behind them all.
"Stop right there." Tachibana said calmly.
He stood mostly unharmed apart from his hands looking slightly burnt.
He avoided looking directly at Itachi's eyes and walked forward with his eyes closed since he couldn't expose his paper figurines.
Even still, Tachibana walked right up to Sasuke and the rest of the group. His head tilted up to look at Itachi as he spoke rather casually.
"You sure you want to kill us?"
Itachi didn't respond.
"Kisame is dead. I killed him myself. Confirmed the kill by driving a kunai into his head. Killer B is dead, he has what looks like a mountain sized spear stuck in his chest. Darui is dead, his body was shredded in the battle at some point."
Itachi still didn't respond.
And rightly so since Tachibana hadn't really given him a reason to avoid killing them out right in this moment especially since he spotted Yamato in the distance walking slowly towards them since he was so spent on chakra.
But Tachibana didn't stop there.
When he had made a plan earlier he already knew that Itachi could still just as easily swoop in to come kill them after the fight. And so he had already planned ahead.
Well to call it a plan would be an exaggeration, since it was more of a calculated guess.
It all hinged on the fact that when he as Sasuke had attacked Itachi earlier Itachi hadn't directly killed Sasuke. Which meant that he still treated him like his little brother, like in the show.
And while Tachibana didn't know how much of it still held true, he knew what to do in this situation so that they could all leave here safely.
"Are you sure you still want to do this?" Tachibana asked as he pulled out an explosion tag and plastered it right onto Sasuke's head.
It left everyone bewildered, baffled and bamboozled, even Itachi for a moment before he had to correct his expression.
Obviously no one else noticed it apart from Sasuke himself, and also Tachibana who could directly see Itachi's emotions at this moment.
And since Tachibana had taken the resolve to grab fate and direct it by his own hands, he didn't hesitate to strike while the iron was hot, while Itachi's spirit body was tinged a deep gray of worry.
Tachibana formed the simple kai seal and ignited the explosive tag.
"Still want to attack us now?"
Itachi's brows twitched slightly, but wildly.
…