Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter, coming in right on time. Next three chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXX- MINATO NAMIKAZE
He flashed to a marker a second before Sensei tore through the ground where he had just been standing, and without lifting his head, Sensei was already on his way to him. Minato flashed away and checked just to be sure Sensei's byakugan was not active. It was not—those eyes were shut and there were no bulging veins to speak of. Sensei was just tracking him by feel alone. Minato tried to sense Sensei's chakra, but he could not feel it at all. He had a bad feeling about this.
One that was proven right as Sensei began to twist for him as he pinged from marker to marker. Until he got careless for a second, and flashed to one, only to see Sensei was already on his way to him. He moved to another, and Sensei was still coming. He was moving even before Minato flashed away.
It was a game of tag that somehow was even closer than the one they had played with the flying raijin.
Sensei wasn't teleporting. He was just using his own speed. He wasn't even shifting his mass, as Minato could see the ground form the right indentations as he trod upon it. And that meant Sensei was holding back. There was another level of speed he could hit that didn't even involve using his own flying raijin still. He was almost toying with Minato. Minato flicked out kunai from his holster, one between each finger and the next. He flung them across the training ground, giving himself even more options. That move had cost him. Even flashing away mid-draw, and then immediately after the throw, had not been enough for him to avoid the punch that had snapped two of his ribs. He'd seen Sensei visibly pull back before impact. That was probably the only reason he was still breathing. What was going on here? Sensei wasn't using Sage Mode as far as he could see—none of the signs were visible. He wasn't calling upon the Kyubi's chakra either. His mass remained unchanged as well. Yet he was playing with Minato.
Minato flashed through several of his markers and only stopped when he was as far from Sensei as he could be. Sensei hadn't chased since the punch had connected. Instead, he was tilting his head while his face pointed towards Minato. His eyes remained closed. No veins were bulging either.
"Go get the others. I don't think I can hold back enough to not kill you if it's just the two of us," he said, and Minato tried not to show his shock. What had happened to Sensei? But despite his confusion, Minato was a good soldier, and he followed orders.
First was Kushina. She was with her grandmother when he appeared next to her, the two of them bent over another seal matrix.
"Yes?" Mito asked, looking up at him from her chair, only to do a double take as she saw it was him and not who she expected.
"Good day, Mito-sama. Hokage-sama has sent me to fetch Kushina," he said. He tried not to show it, but the Uzumaki woman intimidated him, just a bit. But who wouldn't be? She'd been married to one Hokage, close friends with another, and then raised a third almost single-handedly from what he had been able to glean from Sensei's early life. She blinked and then nodded.
"Go on, Kushina-chan," she said, pushing Kushina up from where they both sat. Kushina furrowed her brows into a frown, but she still took his hand in hers.
Mikoto was in the Uchiha compound. She was standing in front of a group of Uchiha children and in front of the river that ran through part of the Uchiha compound. From the looks of it, she was training them in something. She turned the second Minato and Kushina arrived, though.
"Sensei?" she asked with a frown. He nodded. She sighed, and turned back to the group of children. The older ones looked to be about 9 or 10, and the youngest of the lot seemed like he wasn't even 5. Minato tried not to frown at the way they were all standing at attention even without her full focus on them—good little soldiers like they'd come out of the womb that way. But they hadn't. This kind of discipline had been beaten into them...literally in some cases. He was well aware of what some of the clans got up to. That Sensei did nothing about it was a mistake in his eyes. Hashirama's dream was not this.
"Kin," she called, and one of the children raced forward. An older one, almost ten or just a bit older than that mark. The resemblance to Uzume-san was uncanny. She had the same raven's nest of hair that spiked and fell past her shoulder and the same facial structure. Thinking about it now, Minato did notice that most of the girls in the group wore their hair in the same style that Uzume did. She must have been something of a hero to them.
"Tell your father that I have been called by the Hokage, and that I am unlikely to return in time to continue your lesson today. Someone else must be assigned," Mikoto said, and the girl nodded with all the seriousness of an adult receiving deployment orders for war.
"Yes, Mikoto-senpai," she said, and then she was off, bounding away.
"Let's go," Mikoto said, turning to them.
"I didn't know you taught," he said.
"Recent thing. Their usual group of Sensei were out of commission because of the new enhancement serum, so I stepped in to help. It's nice. Helps get my mind off... things," she said.
"What's weighing on—" he began, only to be interrupted.
"Isn't Sensei waiting for us?" she asked. Fair enough. She was right on that point.
"True," he said, offering a hand. He squeezed her hand, not tightly, but just enough to tell her that he did not fail to notice just what she was pulling his attention away from. Minato would get his answers. He just had to wait for them.
They appeared back in the training ground and Sensei was standing there right where he had been, not having moved a single step since Minato left. His feet hadn't moved, but his upper body had. He'd discarded his shirt for some reason and now stood just clad in a pair of silk trousers. His upper body bared to the elements was different from what most would have expected for a shinobi. It was well toned, of course. Not a bit of fat to be seen, but then it was also unscarred and unblemished pale skin other than the seal on his belly and the one on his chest above his heart. One contained the Nine Tails, and the other was his version of the Strength of a Hundred seal. It was only now that Minato realised Sensei had probably come here to him in his pyjamas.
"Is he okay?" Kushina asked, giving her cousin a look.
"Is he ever?" Mikoto responded.
"He seems less okay than usual," the redhead said.
"Sensei, we're here," he called.
"Even if I couldn't sense you all throughout that journey of yours, I definitely would have been able to hear you, I assure you," he said, and then his eyes snapped open. Kushina gasped, Mikoto took a step back, and Minato understood now.
Those pupilless lavender orbs were yellow, and there was a black horizontal bar in the middle.
"What happened?" he asked. Was this some sort of new doujutsu unlocked by using that Otsutsuki's blood?
"It's not a doujutsu. Not really, at least. It's pure aesthetic, I assure you. A side effect of what I'll be calling Six Paths Sage Mode," he said.
"Six Paths Sage Mode?" Kushina repeated, giving Minato a side glance. He shook his head. He had no idea about any of this either.
"It's just like Sage Mode, except that everything is just...more potent. That's the best way I can describe it. The natural energy that comes into my body is the same, but the way it interacts with my chakra is different. I'm stronger now than I've ever been. Even with Kurama's chakra. I can do jutsu that I couldn't even imagine before," he said, and then, as if to demonstrate, he flicked his wrist and a red ball of chakra formed in front of his hand. He pointed it at them, making Minato tense before he twisted his arm to the side, firing a beam that just...removed the forest. That was the only way he could describe it.
The beam was wide once it stopped being a ball, and it just hit the forest and the forest stopped being there.
"I call that Cero. I've tried it before, but getting pure chakra to that kind of potency used to be impossible for me, but now it's almost easy. Almost," he said, and Minato found himself short of words. It was not a level of destruction that Sensei had not used to be capable of, but this was different because there was now a casualness with which he wielded it.
"Awesome. So when can we get ours?" Kushina said, fist hitting her palm with a meaty slap.
"Ishiguri only gave enough for one serum, remember? And besides, it's only our strange genetic overlap that allows it to be possible for me to get that kind of effect. But don't worry. When the Otsutsuki come, I'll take an arm or something off one of their Princes for you guys," he said.
"Awwww, Sensei, you really do give the best gifts," Mikoto said sarcastically. He just shrugged.
"So who wants to help me test out what this new form can do?" he asked, and halfway through the sentence, he was forced to backflip from his previous position as glowing chains shot from the ground, attempting to wrap around him and bring the spar to an end easily. At the end of each of the chains was a kunai, and they shot out, one after the other, tracing Sensei's path. He dodged one, moving into the path of another, and then his hand darkened before he slapped the kunai out of the air with his bare hand.
Minato was there a second later with a rasengan budding in his grip. Both he and Sensei were mid-air, and he was the one properly oriented for this. He brought the rasengan to bear, aiming to grind it into Sensei's stomach. Sensei was all smiles as he grabbed Minato's wrist, stopping him short, and then punching him twice in the head. Each one made Minato's brain slosh about in his skull even though Sensei was almost definitely holding back. And then Sensei tossed him into the distance. He hit the ground, skating across it, and just lay there for a second, hearing the sounds of battle.
A few seconds later, he felt another presence hit the ground next to him, and then seconds after that, a third.
"Is that the best you can do? Surely not? Surely the students of the great, noble, and handsome Fourth Hokage could do better?" he heard Sensei's voice wash over them, and opened his eyes to find him standing in front of them. Both Kushina and Mikoto were by his sides, both of them also hurt.
"Okay, let's do this now. I give you three full permission to go all out. Show me what you mean to show the Otsutsuki," he said, giving them a come-hither gesture.
Minato groaned, but forced himself to his feet. He pulled at his own Strength of a Hundred seal, feeling for the nature energy stored within. He wasn't a prodigy with Sage Mode the way Sensei was. The Toads said no one was a prodigy with Sage Mode the way Sensei was. Being able to access watered-down and enhanced versions of Sage Mode by modifying the ratio of natural energy to his own chakra should have been impossible. Fukasaku-san said he'd die if he even tried, and that Sensei would turn into a stone statue any day now. Sensei hadn't calcified, but Minato knew enough to take the warning to heart.
His Sage Mode formed, and he felt his exhaustion and dizziness be washed away. He still had a broken rib, and almost definitely a concussion, but Sage Mode would allow him to fight through it. To his right, he could feel Kushina pull Gyuki's chakra into her body, amplifying every inch of her and containing it at the same time. No wasted chakra. No red aura. Just pure physical might. Mikoto, to his left, had finished weaving seals, and from the ground rose four coffins. Minato tried not to show his shock at the bodies that stepped out.
Ohnoki of the Particle Style, Michizane Sugawara the former Mizukage, Tetsuo of the Iron Sands, and Ay, the Third Raikage. Each one of them a former Kage, and all of them under Mikoto's control. It answered one of Minato's questions at least. The strange puppetry Minato had been curious about was indeed what he had feared. Raising and controlling the dead. Sensei did not look surprised, and Minato had no doubts that a jutsu of this sort had to have come from him. He had given Minato the flying raijin and the modified Strength of a Hundred seal for nature chakra, and he'd given Kushina this new way of interacting with her tailed beast chakra. It only made sense that he would give something to Mikoto as well. For that thing to be a jutsu that raised the dead and turned them into puppets? Well, that was just like him.
"What the fuck, Mikoto?" Kushina asked, looking at the men who remained still.
"Ask Sensei," she said, pointing straight at him. He shrugged.
"My granduncle's jutsu. He was famed for using it during the first war. I just had Mikoto make a few tweaks here and there to make it her own. Now, can we get this party started?" he asked, making a come-hither gesture.
Kushina gave Mikoto a look that said she would be getting an explanation at the first chance they got, and they shot forward. Mikoto's reanimated soldiers were the front line. Their team did not need to speak to communicate their strategy. Mikoto was the one with the new jutsu here, so they both let Mikoto take the lead, and then they would fill in the gaps she created. Fighting Sensei was like fighting a tsunami. If you waited for it to crash down on you, then you had no hope.
Their best bet was to disrupt his rhythm, force him into playing their game, and then see what happened. The Tsuchikage was forming a shape with his fingers, but the Raikage was the first to strike. His fingers outstretched in the famous hell stab that had destroyed armies. The same hell stab that had pierced the walls of Iwa. Sensei waited for him, and when the hand was in range, he just caught it. Casually. Like he was catching one of Minato's punches. The ground around them shattered, and a shockwave threatened to send Minato off his feet, showing just how much power there had been in that one attack.
The Tsuchikage's prism had finished forming, and then, in less than a blink, it tore through the space Sensei had once stood at. Sensei had jumped backwards at the last moment, and the Raikage had been the one to lose half his body from the particle style. The Mizukage seemed to have been waiting for Sensei's retreat. He was there, weaving seals, and then spat out a torrent of water straight at Sensei. Sensei looked at the approaching tsunami, and impossibly, without even forming a seal, the water parted around him. Water release from the Mizukage, and he'd just said no, it wasn't touching him.
Black stuff that Minato recognised as iron sand formed the final bit of Mikoto's trap, lifting from the ground to wrap around Sensei and hold him tight. Before that trap could close, Sensei was already sprinting forward. A pillar of dust release hit the space between him and the Mizukage, but that hadn't been his target. The Kazekage had stayed back, more of a long-range fighter, and he was the one Sensei went to first.
His iron sand formed a wall between him and Sensei. Sensei didn't do either of the things he'd taught them to do when facing a magnet release user—superheat the metal to rob them of control, or run lightning release through it. Instead, he just punched. One punch, and where there was a wall of perfect iron sand one second, there was only a hole more than big enough for Sensei to use the next.
He was about to do the same to the Kazekage when the Raikage body flickered with that lightning armour of his between them. Sensei didn't even seem surprised. His smile was wide as ever as he punched the Raikage into next week. His straight punch changed at almost the last moment into an uppercut that hit the Raikage and sent the reanimated body flying into the air. Farther away than Minato could sense. But Minato had his opening now. Iron sand marked with his flying raijin slithered next to Sensei's foot just as he was turning his attention to the Kazekage, and there Minato was with his rasengan about to smash into the side of Sensei's head. Sensei would either jump backwards or to the left to avoid this attack.
The Tsuchikage was charging up another dust release attack behind him, and Kushina was waiting for him to move to the left. What would his choice be?
The answer, in the end, was neither. He met Minato's rasengan with a bare hand, and when they made contact, Minato's rasengan unravelled, sending his arm flying back from the recoil. Sensei slammed a foot into Minato's chest, sending him flying but thankfully breaking nothing.
He proved that he'd held back a lot with that hit as his next punch hit the Kazekage, and a second later, his entire upper body was just...gone.
A/N: Showing off a bit, are we? I know some people are going to have an issue with Edo Tensei being used by the "good guys", but in truth, Edo Tensei was never something that was considered all that reprehensible. Tobirama invented it, and used it often enough that two enemy Kage (Gengetsu and Mu) knew about it and thought he was the one that brought them back during the fourth war. Edo Tensei just became a thing because of Kabuto and Orochimaru. On its own, there's nothing all too condemnable about getting the enemy to do your fighting for you in a shinobi village. I do think there is some aversion to using it on allies, though (Tobirama never brought Hashirama back, for example, even if you argued that it was probably best for the village for Hiruzen to learn the jutsu and just have the two prior Kage waiting in the wings for if anything threatened the village itself). Just imagine attacking Konoha and then having to face a squad of Edo Tensei Hokage. GGs. Next chapter comes on here by Wednesday night. Next three chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga (same username as here and link in bio), you can support me there and read them early.