So I will not fold. I will endure despite the humongous drain on my chakra. I will endure because I have had enough of not caring. I will endure because I refuse to be this apathetic monster that I've slowly turned into.
...
"NO MORE!" I roar over the buffeting winds of my jutsu. "No longer will I do nothing when someone is in need! No longer will I stand aside when someone needs my help! No longer will I be like Orochimaru! No longer will I be a monster!"
The sheer size of wind slamming down from the Heavens is staggering, the wall of kunai stretches thirty meters wide. My jutsu stretches forty.
"So send your kunai at me!" I roar at the train as a whole. "Send your shinobi at me! Send everything you have, spare nothing in your all out assault against me! You will not be the one to defeat me! I will not allow myself to be defeated by this! I will not yield! I will not stop fighting until my final breath is taken! I will go on until the end!"
"Interesting." Doto assess me, the one thing stopping him from slaughtering all of the people at my back. "I accept your challenge. Do not stop firing."
The train and I wage our war of endless metal against limitless wind for five grueling minutes.
Then I am awarded with the sounds of the machine clinking. They're run out of kunai, they launched them all at me and I stopped every single one of them.
"Ha!" I collapse down to my knees and heave out huge labored breaths. "Told you I'd win."
"Consider me impressed." Doto claps at my display of my strength. "The sheer amount of chakra at your command is staggering, to keep that large of a jutsu going for five minutes is commendable. But now you've exhausted yourself. You can barely move. You're wide open."
Doto rears back his own arm and throws a singular kunai at me. It's heading straight for my heart. I'm too exhausted to move, I threw everything I had into that jutsu and I was already down a heart to begin with. Looks like I'm going to be down two for a bit.
CLANG
"Kakashi-sensei?" I look up at his back. He's standing protectively before me and blocked the kunai that I couldn't dodge.
"You will not harm my favorite student." Even though Kakashi's back is to me I can feel the pride radiating off of him. "Well done Alvarcus. Rest for now, we'll take it from here."
A lone kunai flies through the air, but this one didn't come from the train. It came from behind me. It flies straight and true to embed itself into the very last train car and the slip of paper that's been tied to it ignites.
With a loud ground shaking explosion the car is destroyed. Someone blew it up. Using every ounce of willpower I have at the moment I turn my head to look at where the kunai came from.
"Shikamaru?" He's the one who threw it.
"You and I are not okay yet." He growls at me. "This one act of kindness does not clear you of what you've done. You've got some serious explaining to do before you earn my forgiveness."
"We're at a disadvantage." Doto decides. "We shall withdraw for now. Move the train." As if it's by his will alone, the train starts to move forwards.
BOOM
An explosion from high up on a cliffside knocks free tonnes of snow. All of it gathers momentum from the free fall and slams into the side of the train.
"Ino?" She set off that tag.
"You owe me an apology!" She shouts at me. "And my clothes!"
But Ino's tonnes of snow isn't enough to stop the train, after all it was built with these very conditions in mind. It powers through, chugging along the tracks to a bridge. The small avalanche only slowed it down.
BOOM
Another explosion goes off, this one is on a key support strut to the bridge that the train has only halfway crossed. As the bridge crumbles down the deep ravine it drags the train with it, but someone on the train was expecting something like this to happen. The half that has already made it across decouples from the rear train cars. Those rear train cars fall down to their doom.
"Anko?" Are they all here? Did they all come to help me?
"You… I don't actually have anything." I'm surprisingly not surprised. "Damn. I could have sworn I had something for this. Just don't pull any shit like that again and we'll be cool."
"Alvarcus!" An orange blur tackles me to the ground in a bear hug. "You're back!"
"OOF!" The air in my lungs forcibly leaves. "Naruto you're so lucky I can't move that well right now. I would have dodged that. Let's not make this a thing, I'm not really a touchy feely kind of a person."
"Shut up and let me hug my friend." He orders and I let him continue to squeeze the life out of me. "Who was it?"
"I'm sorry?" I ask him as he finally releases me and pulls me to my feet. "Who was what?"
"The person who pulled you from your darkness?" He eagerly asks me. "Who was it? Oh please say it was me!"
"Sorry Naruto, it wasn't you." I chuckle at his antics.
"Aw damn! That means it was Ino!" Naruto wilts dejectedly. "It's always her dammit!"
"It wasn't her either." I turn my eyes to a new figure that joins us. It's taller than everyone else here and is wearing a white cloak. Its face is covered by an equally white mask. "It was the Jiongu."
The water minion stops its walk towards me and tilts its head in question.
"That was you right?" I plead with the minion. "Please say that was you. I'm not actually schizophrenic right? Oh fuck fuck fuck say that was you!"
A pleasant shiver courses through my body.
~I suppose that using Tsunade and Orochimaru's voices to whisper into your mind was a bit extreme. But someone had to do something and like you've said before, I am the only one who truly understands you. No one else could fully comprehend what you needed to hear. So it fell to me to show you that you've slowly become the thing you hate and bring you out of your funk.~
My water minion discards the cloak and merges with me once more.
"Thank every deity in existence." My shoulders slump in relief. "I thought it was you after a while. Only you can talk in my head like that. That's a huge relief. Seriously I thought I really was insane for a moment there. Who the hell hears voices in their head like that?"
Everyone is looking at me in confusion. They have no idea what I'm talking about or they're just worried that the person saying their not insane is talking with himself. Because that is the epitome of sanity.
"Can we just go inside now?" I groan as I dejectedly hang my head. "And yes I know how bad that just looked."
...
A/N:
If we hit 500 Power Stones by the end of this week, I'll drop an extra chapter as a thank-you!
Thanks for the support! ;)
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