_{(DISCLAIMER: Note that this story will be incorporating some fanon abilities and characterization details for some of the characters. Generally the goal was to keep things in line with the three series while taking some creative liberties when appropriate, for the sake of an entertaining narrative. So please do not expect everything to be strictly 100% canon-compliant. Of course, it was still important to us that we stay in line with the characters as they are established. Basically, just have fun with it!)}

Chapter 1

“With Sticks and Stones”

_{(Chapter art by Strunton)}

Wind blowing.

That was the only sound that could be heard in the skies over the empty desert beneath them. Had the two of them been flying over the forest, perhaps they would have heard the sound of leaves rustling and birds chirping. Had the ocean to the south been passing beneath them, perhaps the sound of crashing waves, or occasionally some giant sea creature breaking through the surface of the water. But, Deidara thought with bitter resentment, he and his partner were stuck patrolling the most barren and empty of the territories within this arena they had been trapped within.

Perhaps if Tobi had come along with him, there would be conversation to distract him, for better or worse, but sitting behind him on the massive clay bird Deidara had created, Sasori was as stoic and silent as the wood his puppets were made out of. And so, the only sound Deidara heard was the wind.

He let out a loud, pointed yawn, and turned to look at his associate. The eyes of his Hiruko shell scanning the desert with cold fixation, Sasori made no response.

“Awfully boring out here in the boonies, hmmmm?” Deidara asked, breaking the silence. “Far too lacking in stimulation, for artists such as us. Our senses will turn dull, if they have us doing this every day.”

Sasori still did not look at him, but replied in a gravelly tone.

“Your griping doesn’t make the time pass quicker, fool. We must be patient, and follow Pain’s orders, if we are to share in the prize at the end.”

Deidara grunted in acknowledgement, at the reminder of their “situation.”

Three days prior, without warning or ceremony, he and every other member of the Akatsuki had woken up in an enormous arena. The last thing he remembered, prior to this, was the searing agony of perishing in the light of his own masterpiece. From the brief conversations he had had with Sasori and several of his other associates, they all seemed to remember dying in a similar manner, before waking up here with little memory of how they had arrived.

No sooner than Deidara had gotten a chance to collect his bearings, a deafening, enthusiastic voice had echoed throughout the arena, declaring the beginning of an all-out war. According to the voice, the Akatsuki had been placed in the arena with two other organizations, with the intent that the three of them would wage battle to the death until two of the teams had been completely eliminated. At the end, the survivors of the winning team would be allowed to exit the arena, along with each of them being granted their heart’s deepest desire.

At first, it had been overwhelming. Being revived from death was disorienting enough, and Deidara could hardly think of much he wanted in the first place, other than to kill that person and, he supposed, to be left alone to make his art in peace. Still, escape on its own seemed a worthy prize, and many of his fellow Akatsuki seemed to view the grand prize with much greater hunger than he. And so, the Akatsuki set their sights on winning the war, and he and Sasori were stuck on patrol duty.

It was tedious work, really. Three days had passed without so much as a peep from the other territories, and if anyone had died on either of the other teams, the Akatsuki were thoroughly unaware of it. The arena into which they had been deposited so unceremoniously was utterly gigantic, hundreds of kilometers in diameter, with individual regions large enough to contain entire Great Nations. It had been divided threefold, with the Akatsuki commanding the northwest territory, the “Espada” (was that what the voice had called them? He wasn’t sure) controlling the northeast, and the “Warlords” ruling the south.

The Akatsuki’s territory alone was enormous enough to be divided into six major “regions,” with different members stationed in each area. Deidara and Sasori soared over top of the inner ring closest to the center point of the arena, which had been modeled after the Land of Wind. Dunes of sand and outcroppings of sandstone extended as far as the eye could see, with only sparse bits of shrubbery adding color to the landscape, and the Sun beating down on their heads with scorching heat.

Further to the northwest was a second ring modeled after the Land of Snow, which somehow maintained the exact opposite climate. Forests of densely packed evergreen trees stretched for miles across the tops of enormous, icy mountains, and the region was mired in unending blizzards. Beyond that was the third ring, a jungle area that, from what “that person” had remarked, strongly resembled the Land of Fire’s famous Forest of Death.

Finally, there was the outer ring, furthest from the center, which was itself divided into three distinct regions. Furthest to the north, a mountainous terrain with geography and architecture resembling that found in the Cloud Village. Furthest south, an area similarly mountainous but also covered in lakes and perpetually ensconced in a depressing layer of fog, modeled after the Mist Village. And between the two, at the heart of the Akatsuki’s territory, a sprawling, hodge-podge city where the rain never ceased, just like the Rain Village that Pain called home.

A fitting stronghold, Deidara supposed, though he felt a small stab of annoyance that so many villages had been represented in their territory, yet his own home remained entirely absent. Not that Iwa had ever meant much to him, of course. Last time he had been there, he had dropped bombs on it. But on principle, he found it irritating to be ignored by their host.

The other two territories, as reported by his comrades who had been sent to scout them out, seemed to be divided up somewhat similarly. To the east, which “that person” had been assigned to, the Espada’s territory began with what seemed like an ordinary town, only to immediately give way to a lava-covered wasteland in which no one could survive for long. Beyond that was an enormous city, and beyond that a cold, barren desert, at the center of which was a fortress so large it supposedly defied description.

To the south, the Shitchy-people’s territory was the most unusual of the three, consisting mostly of open ocean, with enormous islands of strange geography turning up intermittently. Kisame had been dispatched to scout out the area, and had returned with strange tales of gigantic sea creatures and islands made of cake. Deidara couldn’t help but think it sounded awfully more interesting than the empty desert, though he could not for the life of him remember how the islands were arranged. He’d have to ask Kisame for another look at the map he had drawn up, when they returned from their patrol.

_{(Note that this arena layout is for your benefit as the reader, and not exactly identical to the map that Kisame drew)}

Which brought them to their current predicament. Stuck patrolling their own, empty territories in an attempt to repel any scouts or would-be invaders. A waste of time, really, Deidara could not help but think. Kisame and “that person” had managed to scout out the other two territories while remaining undetected, and the arena was gigantic. It was impossible to believe that the other two groups had not managed to sneak in unseen and acquire their own intel, no matter how diligently the Akatsuki patrolled. Pain’s caution was suffocating; surely he must realize they would never get anywhere at this rate?

Just as he was about to loudly voice this complaint to Sasori, however, his partner let out a cry of warning, and a split second later the world flipped upside down.

For a moment, Deidara could not understand what had happened. One moment, they had been flying along, their patrol boring as ever, and the next he found himself free falling through open air. A moment later, as his gaze landed on the falling remains of his clay bird, he understood. The poor thing had been riddled with holes, so quickly that Deidara had been unable to react.

No, a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like “that person” chastised. They weren’t so fast that you couldn’t have reacted. Sasori could, after all. You just weren’t paying attention.

Deidara swore loudly and plunged his hand into the pouch on his belt, quickly twisting the clay into the right shape, forming his hands into a seal, and then-

Poof! A new clay bird sprang into existence beneath him, catching him and slowing his fall. He barely had time to force his gaze downward before-woosh! A projectile blasted past his face, such a near miss that it hurled the conical hat from his head.

Deidara barely had time to think, ‘a wind jutsu?’ before dozens more followed the first shot. As the bird careened in midair to evade the danmaku, Deidara realized with little comfort that his earlier assessment had been wrong. These blasts were fast, so fast that even as dozens of them blasted past him, his eyes couldn’t quite perceive what they looked like. Even the Fifth Kazekage’s sand, which he’d had great difficulty eluding, paled in comparison. Down below, Deidara could barely make out the attacker against the sand, too far beneath him for him to discern their appearance.

So far away, and yet the attacks were still too fast to react to.

He had to get away.

Put distance between himself and the attacker.

Increase the time he had to respond.

Landing was out of the question; it would only make him an easier target.

Each thought was punctuated by another blast rending the air centimeters from him, some grazing the bird beneath his feet and threatening to send him flying off.

Just as he was about to flee to a higher altitude, however, the assault ceased. Far below, another pinprick had joined that of his attacker, and Deidara realized with a start that he was not alone. All thoughts of Sasori had left his mind after the first bird had been destroyed, and any shame he might have felt about that lapse was overshadowed by his relief that the attacker was distracted.

With renewed vigor, he steered the bird downward in a sharp descent. As fast as the enemy’s attacks were, a combined assault from two Akatsuki members would surely be enough to take them down, or at least force a retreat. Of that much, Deidara felt confident.

A second later, his feet once again left their perch atop his clay.

Deidara wasn’t sure if his scream was of shock, fear, or anger. It might have been all three. Luckily, this time he was only dozens of feet off the ground, and so was able to right himself and land (albeit hard) on his feet. Still, he could not help but feel infuriated and embarrassed that the possibility of a second attacker had not occurred to him. The Akatsuki moved in pairs, after all; it was hardly unreasonable for their adversaries to attack in pairs as well, especially if they had seen them patrolling the skies in packs of two. Still, as his gaze raised to meet that of his assailant, he could not help but stew at their enemies’ tactics.

The first thing that registered in his mind was that the man was big. Not gigantic, but big, surely over 8 feet tall, with broad shoulders to match. Neatly dressed in a button-up shirt and long, dark brown pants, his slicked-back hair was as dark as the fur coat that sat atop his shoulders, and hung down around his thick neck. A long scar spanned across the front of his face, as if his head had been cut in half at the nose and then stitched back together, and heavy-lidded eyes gazed down at Deidara with an air of condescension. Perhaps most strikingly, an enormous golden hook sat in place of his left hand, gleaming and far too sharp-looking for comfort. Deidara got the feeling the man was no stranger to skewering people with it.

In spite of himself, Deidara grinned. It seemed he would have to trust that Sasori could handle himself, against the opponent with the air bullets.

“Well, I’d say this beats patrol duty. What’s your name, big guy?”

Crocodile grunted, but otherwise did not respond.

“A man of few words, hmmmm?” Deidara asked, not earnestly caring. “That’s good! Art is better appreciated by an audience than a speaker, wouldn’t you say?”

“…Art?” Crocodile finally responded. “Feh. So you’re a show-off and an idiot. I’ve deserted dozens of fools like you. Let’s have at it, already. I’ve had enough of this sneaking around.”

Deidara’s grin widened.

“Fine by me.”

Instantly and without hesitation, Crocodile slammed the palm of his hand down into the ground at his feet.

“Ground Death!”

Instinctively, Deidara expected an attack to come from below. He leapt upward, clasping his hands together, and with a poof of smoke, an enormous clay dragon materialized beneath him in midair. Below him, the ground seemed to sizzle, sand grains dissolving as a shockwave rippled out from Crocodile’s location, and Deidara got the distinct impression that had he responded any slower, the fight may already have been over.

Crocodile did not waste any time lamenting the missed attack, and drew his arm back, a small cyclone of sand materializing in his palm.

“Sables: Pesado!”

He hurled the cyclone forward, and it materialized into an enormous typhoon of sand, pulling Deidara’s dragon toward it with immense force.

‘Damn!’ Deidara thought, forming a hand sign. The dragon strained against the tornado’s pull, wavering in midair but managing to prevent itself from being pulled in. It opened its mouth, and a large clay creature burst forward, blasting toward Crocodile like a homing missile. He leaned to the right, the left side of his body dissolving into sand as the creature pierced through it. Deidara extended two fingers to form another hand seal, his smirk matching Crocodile’s.

“Heh,” Crocodile sneered. “You’re wasting your-”

BOOM! The creature detonated and Crocodile’s body was blasted into sand. Deidara laughed heartily.

“Art… is an explosion!”

The sand froze in midair, and swirled back together, reforming into Crocodile, who looked decidedly less amused than he had a moment prior.

“Damn brat,” he growled, as Deidara blinked in surprise, and the dragon vomited another missile. “Don’t get too excited, you still can’t hurt me. Crescent Cutlass!”

He blitzed forward, his arm turning into a scythe of sand that cleaved through the second missile. In an instant, the clay dried and hardened, crumbling into dust as the moisture drained from it.

Deidara’s eyes widened. Crocodile leapt upward, propelling himself forward with sand as he swung his arm at lightning speed, cleaving right through Deidara’s chest! In an instant, the ninja’s body crumbled into dust as well, dissolving in the wind.

“Tch,” Crocodile scoffed. “More clay.”

From the side of the clay dragon, the real Deidara was ejected, falling through the air. As Crocodile turned to attack him, the shinobi once again extended two fingers.

Crocodile’s body bulged. His eyes widened. Within his body, intermingled with his sand, were tiny clay creatures!

‘When did he-?!’ A flash ran through Crocodile’s mind, as he recalled when he had reformed earlier. ‘That…!’

BOOM! The clay detonated. The right half of Crocodile’s sand body blasted away. He was hurled off the dragon, falling to the ground and landing hard. A dozen meters away, Deidara landed on his feet, watching wearily.

Slowly, Crocodile pulled himself up to one knee. The half of his body that had exploded appeared crystalized, the heat of the explosion having seared it into glass. Crocodile groaned, and swung his left arm around, smashing the glass off of his body. As he gouged it off, his sand began to properly expand and reform his right half.

‘Bastard,’ he thought, veins twitching in his forehead as his gaze lifted to fix itself on Deidara. ‘He improvised that tactic out of nowhere within a split second of learning that I could turn into sand. Even worse, his bombs are hot enough to melt my sand. If he glasses enough of my body, I’ll be in trouble.’

Across from him, Deidara’s thoughts weren’t much happier.

‘Dehydration…’ he thought grimly. ‘That’s what he did to the ground earlier. If I let his attacks touch me, I’d be dead meat, and it seems like he might be able to transfer it through surfaces. Even worse, he can dry out my clay and neutralize it upon contact. I’ll need C3… maybe even C4 to guarantee a kill.’

At that moment, Crocodile and Deidara both had the same thought.

‘What a pain!’

—

Elsewhere…

Crunch!

The Hiruko Shell splintered into pieces. A shadow burst from its remains, and leapt to the top of a nearby outcropping. Atop the cliff, staring down at his opponent, a pink-haired teenage boy stood, smiling almost serenely.

“You’re pretty strong,” Sasori said, “but foolish if you think this will be easy. I’m not as readily surprised as Deidara.”

Below him, straightening up, an enormous man, over twenty feet tall with long, curly hair and a bear-like frame turned his gaze up toward Sasori, pure white eyes impassive. He raised his long arms, displaying the paw pads on each of his palms. When he spoke, his voice was just as calm as the puppetmaster’s own.

“Sasori of the Red Sand. I certainly hope that is not the extent of your strength. Killing a weakling is no fun at all, but… orders are orders.”

Sasori’s smile did not waver. From his sleeve he produced a scroll, and with a POOF! of smoke, the Third Kazekage materialized next to him, and Sasori took a combative stance.

“A giant puppet, just following orders… let’s make it a bit more literal, shall we?”

With a flex of Sasori’s fingers, the Third Kazekage’s wooden arm unfurled, and dozens more false arms, long and malleable, burst from it, reaching Kuma’s location in an instant. Just as fast, however, Kuma appeared to teleport several feet into the air, and then brought his palm down toward the wooden arms. With a bang!, the arms were blasted downward, cratering into the ground and splintering from the force with which Kuma repelled them.

Immediately, a tube emerged from the fractured arms, an enormous cloud of purple smoke billowing forth from it, engulfing Kuma, but the gas was blown away as he thrust his arms out, a shockwave seeming to ripple from his body and disperse the smog outward. A second later, he raised his hands as a barrage of kunai were hurled forth from numerous more tubes; as they struck his palms, their direction changed, and they found themselves embedded in the distant ground.

“If this is the best your people are capable of,” Kuma droned, “this will be a war easily won.”

Unphased, Sasori simply smiled. Eerily emotionless, he replied, “I see. So you can repel things with your palms, both directly and from a distance.”

Kuma’s eyes narrowed as Sasori paused and tilted his head, thinking for just a moment before continuing.

“…No, only directly. Though it may seem like a ranged push, you’re actually repelling the air. That’s how you shot down Deidara’s bird.”

“That’s correct,” Kuma replied evenly. “I’m afraid you’ll find your understanding unhelpful.”

Sasori’s smile didn’t falter.

“We’ll see.”

The Third Kazekage’s mouth opened, and a cloud of a black dust-like substance emerged, growing enormous and filling the air above Sasori, hardening into enormous geometric shapes and hanging in midair. Around the Kazekage’s back, two enormous wings of iron sand unfurled, and the puppet lifted into the air.

Kuma raised his palm only just in time as the Kazekage closed the distance between them in a split second, a blade extending from its wrist, only to be deflected to the side by Kuma’s palm. A moment later, the Kazekage twisted its body around and scored a gash across Kuma’s shoulder, the bear man’s second parry just an instant too slow. The cut was too shallow, however, and tore only Kuma’s clothing.

Sasori’s smile widened into a slightly deranged grin. An enormous cube of iron sand descended upon Kuma, who moved backward so quickly to dodge he appeared to teleport, as the cube slammed into the ground where he stood.

With a thrust of his arm, a paw-shaped burst of air blasted forward from Kuma’s hand, and slammed into the cube with immense force. The cube exploded into sand, which without a moment’s delay, twisted into long, thin spikes like a giant net, raining down around Kuma and forming an enormous cage of iron sand needles that descended upon him from above. Fast as a blur, though, the cyborg weaved between the spikes with dexterity greater than his size made seem possible. However, he found himself quickly cut off; as he skidded to a halt, Kuma’s eyes narrowed, surveying the crisscrossing web of iron sand surrounding him and limiting his movement options, many threads of sand only centimeters away from him.

“Careful,” Sasori taunted softly, staring down at Kuma from above. “That Needle Sphere is laced with poison. Move, and it’ll kill you with the slightest cut. Of course, if you stay still, my Third Kazekage will crush you where you stand. Quite a conundrum, no?”

Despite his situation, Kuma appeared unconcerned.

“Petty parlor tricks.”

Planting his feet, the warlord splayed his arms outward, an enormous, paw-shaped bubble of air expanding outward from his body. An instant later, it shrunk, compressed between his hands into a tiny bubble. Sasori’s eyes widened, before-

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

Kuma released the bubble, and it exploded outward, an enormous shockwave blasting the Needle Sphere apart. The Third Kazekage’s body cracked slightly as the shockwave hurled it away, and it landed in a heap some distance away. Sasori himself was bodily hurled from his perch atop the rock outcropping. A moment later, however, a spiked cable burst from his robe and stabbed into the ground, anchoring the puppetmaster down.

Amidst the raining debris, Kuma stood, his surroundings blasted into smithereens. From above, Sasori descended slowly, the cable connecting him to the ground slowly curling up, before its owner’s feet gently touched down upon the cable, somehow held aloft atop it.

Sasori’s smile had disappeared, and with a sneer he threw off his robe, tattered and partially shredded by the Ursus Shock. Glowering at Kuma from newly-level ground, Sasori’s puppet body stood exposed, large metal blades extending and unfurling from his back.

“What a pain,” Sasori sighed. “Forced to use myself so quickly. Your corpse had better be worth it, puppet, lest you waste my time.”

Kuma was silent for a moment, surveying Sasori emotionlessly. Finally, he replied, his voice soft.

“He who would willingly throw away his humanity,” he said, “should not speak about waste.”

In an instant, the two both moved. Sasori raised both arms, the scroll atop his back flashing with chakra. Kuma thrust both arms forward as well. Air palms met a stream of fire midair, and explosions engulfed the area.

—

Far away, atop a distant cliffside, a hulking figure stood, one foot perched atop a rock and an arm resting on his knee. From a distance, Sasori and Kuma’s clash was visible to the onlooker, and just over the crest of the horizon, larger explosions from Deidara’s ongoing battle with Crocodile.

With a wide grin and a booming guffaw, the… man?… crossed his arms, his posture full of eagerness.

“Well, well, well!” He rumbled, his voice deep and gruff. “Bloodshed at last! About time these ants stopped sneaking around.”

From behind him, a softer and more measured voice spoke up.

“Stay out of it. Such meager power is hardly worth our attention.”

A low growl rumbled from the large man’s throat as he turned to look at his companion with impatience.

“They’d be better entertainment than standing here.”

“They’re garbage,” the shorter man replied indifferently, not meeting his fellow’s gaze. “But their duel will likely attract attention. More powerful players that are actually worth killing. So leave them alone.”

“And how long’ll that take?”

The shorter man opened his mouth to respond, before pausing, tilting his head, and then slowly rising to his feet.

“Just over the ridge to the south. A powerful force is coming closer, as you’d know if you ever bothered to hone your Pesquisa.”

The larger man’s irritation gave way to a bloodthirsty grin, as he turned to the south.

“Well that’s more like it,” he sneered. “Guess you were right on the money, Ulquiorra. I’ll handle ‘em.”

Ulquiorra closed his eyes, seeming almost bored.

“Try not to take too long.”

Yammy bared his teeth.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

—

Far to the west…

The air was dreary as the pitter-patter of rainfall echoed between the large, mismatched buildings of the Hidden Rain Village. The streets were empty, deserted and largely silent, but within the tallest building at the center of the village, a council was being held.

Around a table, staticky shadows sat, projected into place via ninjutsu. Of the eleven chairs around the table, six were empty, the other five full. At the head of the table, cloaked in darkness, the Akatsuki’s leader sat in stoic silence as his subordinates debated.

“…complete waste of time!” A nasally-sounding shadow toward the other end of the table cried. “While you’ve got us prancing around doing recon, we could have slaughtered half the competition by now!”

Across from him, the shadow’s partner, Kakuzu, spoke in a deeper growl.

“You oughtn’t be so keen to take risks, fool, given how easy it is to pull you apart.”

“Oh, stick a fork in it!”

“I can’t say I disagree with Hidan,” a spiky-haired shadow from further up the table, Kisame, spoke with a raspy voice (causing Hidan to let out an indignant ‘See?!’). “We’re approaching this with unusual caution, compared to our typical assignments.”

“Caution may be apt, given the circumstances,” the shadow next to him spoke, Itachi’s voice ringing out deep and level. “Whatever force brought us here could revive the dead and tamper with our memories. It’s far from inconceivable that they could have procured opponents beyond our capabilities.”

“Beyond your abilities, maybe,” Hidan sneered, causing Itachi’s eyes to narrow dangerously. “No one could kill me. The blessings of Lord Jashin are absolute.”

Kisame scoffed.

“Oh please, as if you-”

“Enough.”

Around the table, all the shadows fell silent, their gazes turning toward their leader at the head of the table. Purple, ringed eyes gleamed, fixing the rest of the present Akatsuki with a piercing gaze, causing most of them to fidget slightly; only Itachi, to Pain’s right, remained motionless.

“…In our quest for world domination,” Pain said, his deep voice piercing, commanding, “we have always exercised caution. Each and every one of you were hand-picked based on your proven merit, and those who are meritless…”

His gaze flickered toward Hidan, who tensed, but did not speak.

“…are unwelcome among our ranks. In our quest to capture the Tailed Beasts, many of you were successful, yet each and every one of you were in the end defeated before our goal was accomplished. Failure is intolerable, and for that reason, we have elected to act with prudence this time.”

Pain’s eyes narrowed.

“If anyone who would question that mandate would like to do so, then by all means, challenge me. If you believe that your wisdom or power exceeds mine, you are free to make your attempt. Try to overcome Pain.”

His gaze moved across each Akatsuki member, all of whom one by one averted their gaze, until falling and lingering on Itachi, who gazed back without fear, but did not speak up.

“…Good. Now, it seems Zetsu has a report for us.”

The instant Pain finished speaking, the wall of the room warped and morphed, as what appeared to be a giant venus fly trap emerged from it, and the Akatsuki’s spy, Zetsu, made himself known.

“What is it?” Pain asked.

“Trouble in the east, milord,” White Zetsu spoke smoothly, before his voice took on the raspy growl of Black Zetsu. “Deidara and Sasori have fallen under enemy attack.”

“Already?” Kisame inquired, seeming interested. “Two attacks in one day, after three of nothing?”

“Seems like things are finally heating up!” Hidan spoke up, clearly enthused.

“…Indeed,” Pain said, thoughtfully. “Have you any update on the earlier situation in the north, Zetsu?”

“No,” Black Zetsu growled. “Konan has yet to report back, though I’d know if she was dead.”

Pain folded his hands, deep in thought.

“Hidan and I can back up the pair in the east,” Kakuzu offered from the other end of the table. “Best not to risk the lives of two members, and perhaps it would sate some of Hidan’s… cravings.”

Slowly, Pain nodded.

“I agree. However, step in only if Deidara or Sasori are in danger of dying. Providing the enemy with insight into your jutsu unnecessarily would be unwise.”

“As you wish,” Kakuzu replied, bowing his head. “I trust my partner will keep his idiotic impulses under control as well?” He shot a glare at Hidan, who sneered at him.

“I will go north,” Pain continued, and the others turned to look at him in surprise, for Pain taking action directly was certainly unusual. “To provide Konan similar support if needed. Itachi and Kisame shall observe from a distance the battle in the east, and keep watch for enemy reinforcements. It is again imperative, however, that we avoid providing the enemy with more information than needed.”

The Akatsuki around the table made noises of assent. As Pain rose from his seat, the rest did the same.

“With that decided,” the Akatsuki’s leader said. “I declare this meeting adjourned.”

The shadows around the table discorporated, leaving only Pain at the head of the table, and Zetsu to his left. Without turning, Pain spoke.

“Inform Madara,” he said, “that the enemy have made their move, and of the battles occurring in the east and north. I am certain he’ll want to hear of it.”

Zetsu grinned, baring his teeth, and spoke as he melted into the floor.

“As you wish…”

—

‘God…’

‘Fucking…’

‘DAMN IT!!’

These were not the first swear words that had run through Deidara’s mind today, and it wasn’t looking like they were going to be the last. Every explosive he had thrown at Crocodile, every new tactic he came up with to catch the bastard off guard had ended in his attack being neutralized, or in the sand logia simply regenerating. Whenever he found himself on the ground, a dehydration wave forced him into the sky. In the air, a tornado or ranged slash brought him to the ground. No time to breathe, no time to think, and so far, zero successful injuries inflicted.

Soaring upward, Deidara’s clay bird twisted and weaved between blasts of razor sharp sand, as its rider frantically plunged his hand into his satchel.

‘Who does this freak think he is, hmmm?’ Deidara thought, hands closing around the thing he had been looking for. As the clay bird spread its wings wide and turned in midair, coming to a halt far above the cloud layer, Deidara’s visible anger gave way to a mischievous grin.

“Look out below…”

On the ground, kilometers below, Crocodile leered upward, but seemed considerably less flustered than Deidara. The longer the fight went on, the easier it was to discern the bomber’s patterns and read his attacks, and all of them seemed like they could be negated via dehydration. Not as unfavorable a matchup as it had initially seemed, so long as he knew to be wary of the explosives.

Crocodile squinted, the light of the sun beating down on the desert. From far above, a small pinprick appeared in the sky, growing larger by the second – a bomb, hurtling down from above. With a scoff, Crocodile drew his arm back, preparing to dehydrate it, and then all of a sudden, as if alerted by some sort of otherworldly sixth sense, Crocodile’s eyes snapped open wide. With a cry of alarm, he brought his hand down to the ground, and the sand in front of him crumpled downward, as if crushed into the earth by immense pressure, forming a huge pit.

“Desert Girasole!” Crocodile cried, just in time for the falling bomb to hit the ground. For a split second it was visible, a small, human-like clay doll, and then an instant later it disappeared, sinking into the sand.

A moment passed, and then another, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of Crocodile’s face. And then-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The sand in front of him was rent apart with the force of a hydrogen bomb, sand exploding skyward in an enormous eruption. Crocodile leapt away, propelling himself backward through the air with his sand to escape the radius of the blast. The shockwave tore at his body, ripping away chunks of sand and blowing them into the wind like… like sand, in front of very heavy wind!

…What? Poetry had never been Deidara’s art form. Shut up.

As Crocodile skidded to a halt, he barely had time to catch his breath before-BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Landmines detonated beneath his feet! He cried out, his legs blasted away as he once again took evasive maneuvers, on the back foot for the first time in the fight. As the landmines continued to detonate, Deidara’s gloating cackle filled the air hundreds of meters skyward.

“BAHAHAHA!” Deidara guffawed gleefully. “That should teach you not to make light of my art, hmmmmm?”

It had really been child’s play, he thought. The sand user had been so distracted pressuring him in the air, he hadn’t noticed Deidara ejecting small amounts of clay from the side of his dragon, nor them burrowing into the earth and growing into full-sized clay clones. From there, planting the land mines had been a simple matter – and blasting the smug bastard into those land mines had been even easier.

Still, he had expected C3 to be more effective. Begrudgingly, he had to admit that this enemy was troublesome and powerful. But it would all be over soon – though he expected his foe to survive the land mines ultimately, he had another trump card up his sleeve which would undoubtedly be fatal.

Below him, the sound of the land mines began to taper off, constant explosions diminishing to that of intermittent blasts, before finally to the ringing sound of silence and falling debris. As Deidara’s dragon descended, he surveyed his foe. Crocodile knelt on the ground, panting heavily, sand limbs blasted away and holes having riddled his body. Numerous parts of him had been seared into glass, and sweat poured down his face, which was contorted into a furious scowl, veins pulsing in his forehead.

“Enjoy the fireworks?” Deidara called down with confidence flowing from his voice, grinning widely. “A wonderful show worthy of praise, hmmmm?”

Crocodile growled, his body slowly reforming from sand, while the glass portions were crushed into powder by his rapidly regrowing body.

“Pathetic,” he snarled. “If that’s the best you’ve got, I don’t have anything to worry about.”

Still, as he dragged himself up, his breathing remained labored. It was clear to both parties that he was more shaken by the attack than his words let on.

“Oh, worry not, it isn’t,” Deidara shot back with a smirk. “If you could barely stop my C3, you won’t stand a chance against what comes next.”

“Don’t get so full of yourself,” Crocodile growled, defiant. “I turned that nuke of yours into desert doo-doo. It’s trash compared to the bombs I’ve set off in my time.”

Deidara only grinned in response.

“Then I’ll make sure the grand finale doesn’t disappoint!” Pulling clay from his pouch, he began to raise it to his mouth. “Because true art… is an-!”

Before he could finish his sentence or bring the clay to his lips, something big, hard, and strangely human-shaped slammed into him. For a moment, a split second upon impact, sheer confusion overtook him, a tooth knocked from his mouth by the hit, and a moment later he found his body painfully impacting the ground, hurled from his dragon by… whatever had hit him.

He bounced once, twice, and then skidded across the sand to a halt, and for what could have been five seconds or five minutes, found himself too disoriented to figure out which direction was up. Then, he was pulled to his feet forcibly, by a familiar tug – Sasori’s chakra strings.

Deidara belted out something which could have been either “what the hell?!” or “wuhda heg?!”, as his vision slowly came into focus, and he registered Sasori standing a short distance away from him, the chakra threads that had hoisted Deidara to his feet connected to the ends of his fingers. By his side, the Third Kazekage hovered, looking slightly worse for wear but not severely damaged.

Vaguely, Deidara realized that Sasori had been the object that hit him… no, crash-landed into him? Had something launched Sasori toward him?

Suddenly, however, he found himself jerked out of his thoughts as a shadow loomed over him. An enormous man towered overhead, preparing to bring an equally gigantic hand down on his head.

“Move, idiot!” Sasori snarled, and Deidara found himself hurled off his feet by the tug of Sasori’s puppet strings, just barely managing to pull him away before Kuma’s hand came down, blasting the air where he stood down into the ground with enough force to crater it. Were it not for Sasori’s quick thinking, Deidara realized in horror, he would have been squashed like an insect.

Quickly, Deidara formed a hand seal, and his clay dragon, hovering above, swooped down and scooped him up into the air again. As he regained his bearings, his mind managed to finally catch up to roughly what had happened. The bear-man must have used whatever force he had used to strike the ground to send Sasori flying, knocking Deidara out of the sky. In all likelihood, he was allied with the sand user, and had somehow recognized from a distance that his comrade was in trouble, using Sasori as a projectile to knock Deidara off his perch and turn the two fights into one.

Deidara gnashed his teeth at the thought that he could have won if Sasori hadn’t come crashing in, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. On the ground below, his teammate was now fighting two against one, Crocodile coming at him from one side and Kuma from the other, and he was in desperate need of support. He needed to act fast; if Sasori died, Deidara certainly wouldn’t be able to handle both foes at once any better than Sasori could. 

Forming a hand seal, Deidara launched a missile from his dragon, which hurtled toward Kuma. Guided by a sixth sense, however, the bear-man leapt backward, the missile impacting the sand where he had stood and detonating.

‘Keep up the pressure,’ Deidara thought. ‘Sand users are Sasori’s specialty. If he can kill scar-face while I keep the big guy busy, it’s our win.’

More missiles blasted from the dragon’s maw, and Kuma continued to evade with rapid precision unusual for his size. Occasionally, with a swing of his hand, he tagged an incoming missile and they seemed to vanish into thin air – launched away too fast to be seen, Deidara realized. Regardless, although Kuma had yet to take damage, he was slowly being pushed away from Sasori and Crocodile.

Crocodile grunted, veins bulging as he launched blasts of sand at Sasori, and he swung his arms in large arcs to try and carve through his foe with Crescent Cutlasses, but each time he hit nothing but air, as the Sasori puppet moved in unnatural ways and contorted to dodge his strikes. In between Crocodile’s own attacks, the puppet at Sasori’s side launched slashes of a black mist-like sand which carved into Crocodile, though inflicted no damage as they passed harmlessly through his sand. Crocodile lunged, hand outstretched in an attempt to seize the puppet by the face, but he seized nothing but air as the coil in the puppet’s stomach dragged him out of harm’s way, evading death by an inch.

‘Almost…!’ Crocodile gritted his teeth as Sasori reoriented himself, a blank, lifeless smile on the puppet’s face. Even in spite of the near miss, as he continued to attack without missing a beat, Crocodile couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t gaining any ground. In fact, he realized, the puppetmaster seemed to be getting faster as he went – he was far faster than the bomber, annoyingly.

…No, that wasn’t it.

Crocodile’s own attacks were getting sluggish. He couldn’t be tiring out that quickly, could he…? Even with all the hits he had taken, none of them had actually harmed him, but as he missed another hit, he felt slow, sluggish… and heavy?

Sasori chuckled, his movements leisurely, yet his voice almost robotic.

“Slowing down, sandman?” He taunted. “It’s easier with gold than iron, but Lord Kazekage Emeritus was famed for this technique. It was the method by which he halted Ichibi’s rampages.”

Though Crocodile didn’t know what Sasori was talking about, he suddenly understood what was happening. The iron sand, which had seemed to pass harmlessly through him, was mixing in with his own sand with every slash, making him heavier and thus slowing him down. No wonder all of his attacks had missed!

“Deidara!” Sasori bellowed, pulling Crocodile from his thoughts abruptly. “Now!”

From above, to Crocodile’s horror, missiles rained down, and Sasori leapt clear. Crocodile tried to follow suit, but he could feel the iron sand grains within his body tugging at him, holding him in place. With Crocodile unable to move, he was a sitting duck – the missiles would melt him alive!

As quickly as the danger had come, however, it was gone. Kuma, fast as ever thanks to his repulsion, leapt in front of Crocodile and swung a massive arm at the missiles, and as though he were deleting them from reality, they vanished into thin air.

Relief flooded through Crocodile’s body. Quickly, he allowed himself to dissolve completely into sand, twisting every little grain away from the grasp of Sasori’s iron sand, and slowly coalescing back into humanoid form meters away. As he tugged himself free little by little, he surveyed Kuma, who stood in front of him, facing the opposite way. In the distance, explosions rocked the horizon as the missiles met the earth, banished kilometers away.

“Thanks for the save,” Crocodile grunted, slightly begrudgingly. “Don’t expect me to save your ass if I don’t feel like it, though.”

“I acted not for the sake of your survival, Crocodile,” Kuma replied, his voice soft as ever, “but to ensure our victory in the long run.”

Before them, Sasori stood, the Third Kazekage hovering over his shoulder. His gaze flickered back and forth between Kuma and Crocodile. Above them, Deidara’s dragon circled overhead, ready to attack as needed.

“Tch,” Crocodile scoffed, straightening up as his body fully finished reforming. “Let’s get that taken care of, then!”

In a flash, he hurled his hooked left arm forward, and it detached from his body. Propelled by his sand, a nanosecond later the hook skewered through the clay dragon, and dragged it downward, pulling it to earth. Deidara, caught off guard by the sudden attack and unable to take evasive action, cried out from his perch on top of it.

At Crocodile’s side, Kuma’s mouth opened, and from its depths a gleam began to shine, rays of light emitting from his mouth as he charged a powerful laser beam, aiming it directly for the falling dragon – and Deidara on top of it. 

“No!” Sasori cried, raising his arms, and the Third Kazekage flew forward, iron sand tearing forth from its mouth. As Kuma fired his laser, a beam reminiscent of the Marine Admiral Kizaru ripped through the air at light-speed, crossing the distance toward Deidara instantaneously, intent on blasting the bomber off the face of the earth. With equal spontaneity however, Sasori’s iron sand zigzagged through the air, forming a massive spider-web in front of Deidara, and Kuma’s laser beam struck the iron head-on.

In an instant, the beam split, reflected off the metallic strands of iron sand. Bouncing between strands, numerous shafts of the beam’s light struck the ground and exploded with the force of a bomb, superheating the sand so quickly it was instantly reduced to glass and vapor.

Sasori, who had complete and careful control over the formation of his iron sand, remained unaffected, none of the reflected beams coming anywhere close to him. Deidara, behind the spider-web, had managed to catch himself and dislodge Crocodile’s hook in the confusion; Crocodile, meanwhile, had taken evasive action, quickly managing to leap away from the deflected beams.

Kuma, however, was not so lucky. One of his own beams had been bounced back at him and struck him across the shoulder, shearing it open! But where a normal person might have bled, visible through the gash in Kuma’s shoulder were only lightly-crackling metallic components, evidence of his transformation into one of the Marines’ Pacifistas.

Kuma grunted, staggering slightly from the wound as his mouth snapped closed, the laser beam cutting off, the brunt of its power diffused. 

Across from him, after a moment of blank surprise, an insane grin spread across Sasori’s normally emotionless face. 

“A machine?” He asked, for some reason gleefully. “Perfect! You’ll be a wonderful plaything!”

The spider-web dissolved, and an instant later reformed into a slew of tendrils which hurtled toward Kuma. Still reeling, Kuma raised his hands to deflect, but one of the spikes passed between his fingers and skewered into the gash on his shoulder! Kuma cried out, toppling backward and clutching the wounded shoulder, as the iron sand forced its way into the gash and began to burrow into the mechanical components within.

An instant later, Crocodile was at his side.

“Desert Spada!” he bellowed, and a sand blade ripped forth through the ground toward Sasori, splitting through the tendrils of iron sand and carving into the puppetmaster’s chest, leaving a long, thin gash.

Sasori simply laughed emotionlessly, no pain visible on his face at all, and swung his arm forward, chakra threads extending from each of his fingers and snaking forth like whips, attempting to seize Kuma, whom Crocodile now stood in front of. Swinging his hooked arm to the side, however, Crocodile carved through the airborne threads with a wave of sand.

“Get outta here, Kuma!” he bellowed, angrily. “Find backup!”

Kuma, behind him, staggered to his feet, still clutching his wounded shoulder. Lights flickered behind his eyes as he computed. He glanced to the south, where very far in the distance the shore was visible, and then to the far west, where Suna’s desert environment abruptly gave way to an icy forest. Finally, he turned back to Crocodile, who continued to deflect attacks from both Sasori and Deidara with huge waves and slashes of sand.

Finally, he spoke, his voice slow and pained as he spoke through gritted teeth.

“You will die if I leave.”

“Not if I’ve got anything to say about it,” Crocodile growled. “These punks are nothing. Get the hell out of here already!”

Kuma was silent for a moment, and then nodded curtly. Turning to the west, he blasted skyward, before again propelling himself forth, toward the forest with the speed of a missile.

Crocodile blinked, momentarily confused.

‘Why’s he-?’

BOOM!

In his moment of distraction, a C1 spider managed to get through his defenses and blow apart the ground meters away from him, and part of his sand body was again blasted away, causing him to grunt in surprise. Deidara chuckled.

“Don’t forget who you’re fighting, big boy!”

Spiders rained down and Crocodile took flight, propelling himself out of their blast radius and frantically weaving between them with his sand, chunks being taken out of him with every hit.

Deidara, smiling smugly, turned to look down at Sasori, who stood motionless on the ground, his gaze following the distant, rapidly shrinking pinprick that was Kuma, soaring away through the air toward the forest.

“You wanna go after him, Sasori my man?” Deidara called down. “I can handle things here, once you’re out of C4’s range.”

Sasori nodded.

“Don’t get killed, dimwit.”

In a flash, he disappeared from sight, leaping across sand dunes with the high speed body flicker technique. Crocodile, still dodging Deidara’s missiles, cried out angrily and fired off his hook, intent on seizing the departing puppet master and dragging him back. Acting quickly, however, Deidara pulled from his pouch a second C3 doll, holding it up to catch Crocodile’s attention.

“Eyes on me, Lung Cancer!”

Crocodile’s eyes widened, and he swung the launched hook around telekinetically, slashing it through the doll in Deidara’s hand. The moisture drained from it in an instant, leaving the bomb neutralized, but in the couple of seconds he took to negate the attack, Sasori had disappeared into the distance-

At that moment, a deafening voice rang out through the arena.

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE WARLORDS OF THE SEA HAS DIED! TEN REMAIN!”

The voice, in the loud and boisterous tone of a showman, echoed across the dunes, the ocean, and every corner of all three territories. It was the same voice that had introduced the war when the participants had first awoken in the arena.

For a moment after the announcement, there was a ringing silence. Deidara and Crocodile both stood frozen, caught off guard by the abrupt revelation. A moment later, Deidara laughed.

“Looks like your friend didn’t make it far.”

Crocodile gritted his teeth. Had Kuma really died?!

…No, that wasn’t it. Stretching his awareness out as far as he could, Crocodile could just barely sense Kuma’s presence, disappearing into the snow-covered trees to the far west. Sasori, he could tell, was still in hot pursuit. But in that case, he wondered with mounting anger…

‘What idiot went and got themself killed all of a sudden?!’

—

To the east…

In the northernmost ring of the Warlords’ territory, in the middle of the open ocean was an enormous island covered in sand. Unlike the barren desert of Suna however, numerous cities could be found intermittently across its landscape, and an incredibly long and wide river snaked up the center of the island. Though devoid of any citizens, this island was a perfect replica of the country of Alabasta, which Crocodile had once ruled with an iron fist. And it was in the capital city of Alubarna where a short but fierce battle had just come to a gruesome end.

Buildings throughout the city had been turned to rubble, and across its diameter, a massive trench had been carved into the ground, as though an incredibly powerful blade had cleaved the entire place in half down the middle. Most strikingly, however, where the Royal Palace had once stood at the city’s center, there only remained a massive, smoking crater, with white-hot vapor steaming off the ground, the once-grand landmark obliterated entirely. At the center of the crater, two silhouettes could be seen through the smoke – the victor, standing triumphant, and the loser, laying lifeless at his feet.

The man’s breaths came ragged and heavy. Blood gushed from wounds all over his body, his left arm hung at his side, dislocated, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. But still, as he gazed down at the corpse of his fallen foe, Yammy Llargo bared his teeth and let out a bellowing laugh of triumph.

“Now that’s more like it!” Yammy guffawed. “Stand proud, ese! You were strong!”

He neither knew nor cared about the name of the man he had slain, only that the fight had been fierce and well-fought. The right half of the man’s face was unrecognizable, blasted and burned away by the force of a point-blank Bala. Though bulky and formerly full of great strength, he had been perforated through the chest by an immensely powerful Gran Rey Cero, the attack that had ultimately claimed his life. His blade, a pale imitation of a greater weapon that would never have broken so easily, had been shattered above the hilt, though it remained clutched in his grip. And when he had perished at last, he had crumpled to the ground, unable to remain standing in death the way his self-proclaimed father had.

As the sun set on the arena’s third day, Edward Weevil had become the first casualty of the war to come.

Behind Yammy, Ulquiorra slid down the edge of the crater, hands in his pockets and indifference in his eyes.

“I hope you didn’t waste all your energy on that fight,” he remarked casually, as though he were conversationally discussing the weather and not a battle to the death. “With that announcement, his allies may be upon us soon.”

His mouth contorted into a deep frown, clearly displeased with the publicization of Yammy’s victory.

“Feh,” Yammy scoffed. “Bring ‘em on, I can do this all day.”

With a grunt, he grabbed his shoulder and popped it back into place. Ulquiorra looked to the side, pondering.

“The announcer declared the team but not the individual,” he observed. “That’s something we’ll need to keep in mind. We can kill people without the enemy knowing immediately who died or where. Conversely, if any of us die, we’ll immediately know who and where thanks to their Reiatsu. Of course, this assumes the enemy lacks similar sensory abilities.”

Yammy shrugged, rolling his newly-relocated shoulder.

“Whatever. I don’t care about the who and where, as long as I can run wild and bash skulls.”

“Of course you don’t,” Ulquiorra sighed. “Well, in any case, it’s something to keep in mind. If you notice any indication of Pesquisa-like abilities on the part of the enemy, or lack thereof, inform me. It may prove useful.”

He closed his eyes, allowing his senses to spread across the breadth of the arena. Two battles raging in the Akatsuki territory, one in the desert and one much farther north, in the mountains. One enemy chasing another through the frost territory. Elsewhere, numerous entities spread across the arena, though most of them unfamiliar to him. Far to the south, the Warlords’ stronghold was crackling, spiritual energy and negative emotions overflowing.

Ulquiorra opened his eyes.

“Zommari’s battle in the north has yet to conclude. And the enemy to the south is discontent, but not mobilizing yet. We ought to rendezvous with Szayelaporro, as planned. Bring that garbage with you.” He gestured at Weevil’s corpse, absently.

He turned his gaze southward, across the open ocean, knowing that many kilometers to the south, the Warlords were stirring.

—

“WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!”

The shriek echoed through the G1 Marine Headquarters at the center of Marineford, and it had originated from the man who many would call the STRONGEST, SMARTEST, and MOST HANDSOME pirate alive, one of the most accomplished men to ever sail the seas. Others, of course, know him simply as Buggy the Clown.

“Stop overreacting.”

The response came from the man sitting next to him, along the massive table around which the Warlords who had taken up residence in Marineford deliberated. He sat comfortably in his chair, hands folded in front of him, eyes piercing out from underneath the wide brim of his plumed hat. This man was Dracule Mihawk, reputed as the strongest swordsman in the world, and his calm demeanor was in stark contrast to his “comrade,” who was currently flitting around in a state of panic, arms and legs coming loose from his body as he fretted, tugging at his own hair and clothing.

“Don’t ‘stop overreacting’ me!” Buggy shrieked, shifting into an impression of Mihawk’s serious and deep voice mid-sentence before shifting back. Any fear he would normally have had for the swordsman was thoroughly overruled by his distress. “What do you mean that fat bastard’s dead?! They say he’s as strong as Whitebeard in his prime, don’t they?!”

Mihawk glowered at Buggy.

“It means that he was killed. It was a difficult battle, but he died in Alubarna, at the hands of one of our friends from the northeast. Now get a hold of yourself. Such behavior is unbefitting.”

Buggy clamped his mouth shut and swallowed heavily, eyes bulging as he seemingly only now registered that it was Mihawk he was speaking to.

“B-But…”

“Buggy is not wrong to worry,” a gravelly voice came from further up the table, as the bulky Fishman, Jinbe, leaned forward, clasping his hands under his chin. “I had no particular love for Edward Weevil, and feel it was foolish of him to charge north without a plan at the first sign of conflict. Even still, his strength cannot be denied. It’s worrisome that our adversaries have managed to eliminate such a powerful force so quickly.”

His expression darkened.

“I’ll admit as well that I’m growing concerned for Crocodile, and particularly Kuma. He’s running into the belly of the beast.”

To the left of him, reclining in his chair with his feet on the table, Trafalgar Law scoffed. Reproachful eyes shone out from under the brim of his hat, and his arms, folded in front of him, held his sheathed sword in the crook of his elbow.

“Weevil was an idiot,” he scoffed dismissively. “Even still, it’s a shame he died and not Doflamingo. Or Teach, for that matter.”

“How are you all so calm?!” Buggy shrieked, glancing around frantically. His gaze flickered between the three of them, and then to the last person at the opposite end of the table, the Pirate Empress Boa Hancock, who sat with her eyes closed and her chin resting on her hand. “Hancock isn’t even reacting!” 

He scrambled over to her, pointing accusingly in her face with levitating hands.

“Oi! You realize we could all die, right? Are you even taking this seriously?!”

Boa’s thoughts, however, had nothing to do with Edward Weevil. In fact, she had not heard Buggy’s question at all.

‘Oh, what a bother to be wrapped up in all this, when I could be married to Luffy right now…’ she thought, sighing inwardly. ‘How wonderful it will be, after I’ve gotten my wish and we can leave all this dreary nonsense behind us~…’

Outwardly, her face betrayed no expression, an emotionless mask.

“See?!” Buggy gestured to her. “She’s like a heartless robot!”

“Quiet,” Mihawk said with a sigh, standing up. “There’s no point in panicking, it’s not as though a rabbit like you can change the outcome of a fight between wolves regardless.”

“R-Rabbit?” Buggy squawked, his jaw dropping as a mental image of being eaten alive flashed in his head. “H-Hey now, I can be helpful!” He jabbed a thumb at himself. “I could be the difference between victory and defeat!”

“Doubtful,” Mihawk replied drily, “but come along then.”

Buggy blinked, his expression suddenly blank.

“…Huh?”

“You say you can make a difference, then come with me. I have no interest in the situation with Weevil, but Crocodile is having trouble, and it would be bothersome for Cross Guild to be down a leader. One that actually does something, I mean.”

Buggy’s head tilted to the side, his frantic demeanor suddenly replaced by a look of forlorn depression.

“…I didn’t mean I wanted to go fight…”

Mihawk seized Buggy by the hair and he yelped, as the swordsman shoved him toward the door.

“Go. Crocodile is fighting as we speak, and Kuma is growing weaker by the second. Time is of the essence.”

Mihawk marched out of the room, and Buggy cast a pleading glance backward, silently begging one of the others to speak up for him and attracting no attention. With a whimper, he sniffled slightly and turned to follow Mihawk, snot dripping from his nose.

“I miss Impel Down…”

—

To the northeast…

The last rays of the setting sun cast a pale glow on the innermost ring of the Espada’s territory, a hodgepodge of Japanese homes that made up a sprawling city. Though unidentifiable to the layman, those who lived in Karakura Town would have recognized the suburban buildings and architecture, as it was a perfect replica of their city – not the first one that had ever been made, but that’s a different story. Now, however, there were no citizens in sight; the false Karakura Town was a ghost town.

A comparison that would soon become more apt, as the space in the middle of the town’s square split down the middle, unfurling into a polygonal hole in space, through which the murky blackness of the Garganta could be seen. Out from the rift in reality, Ulquiorra emerged, Yammy following close behind, the corpse of Edward Weevil hefted atop his shoulder.

As the Descorrer closed, Ulquiorra’s gaze flicked back and forth, surveying the area. He could sense no one’s presence nearby.

“Szayelaporro is late,” he said softly after several moments of eerie silence, and Yammy grunted, dropping Weevil’s enormous body to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

“On the contrary,” a voice rang out, almost smooth but just slightly nasally. The air in front of the two shimmered, parting like a curtain to reveal a man with pink hair and rectangular-frame glasses, a smug smirk adorning his face. “I arrive exactly when intended.”

If Ulquiorra was startled by the sudden appearance, he didn’t show it, merely nodding curtly and gesturing toward Weevil’s corpse with one hand, the other in his pocket.

“One corpse from the south, as requested,” he remarked, and then tilted his head. “Zommari seems to be having trouble procuring one from the west.”

Szayel raised both arms, spreading them wide in an exaggerated shrug.

“One is quite enough to be getting along with, for now,” he said airily. “Zommari will come through, or perhaps he won’t.”

Folding his arms behind his back, he strolled forward and surveyed Weevil’s corpse, peering over his glasses with great interest, his Pesquisa examining the body with the perceptive acuity of a seasoned mad scientist.

“Goodness, Yammy, you couldn’t have left my specimen more intact than this?” he tutted after a few moments, though didn’t seem particularly upset. “The poor fellow’s internal organs have been seared by your Reiatsu, and the spiritual residue clinging to his body is deeply degraded. It seems his soul could barely withstand the fight.”

Yammy grunted. “That’s good, isn’t it? Means the enemy’s spiritual powers are worse than ours.”

Szayel blinked, glancing at Yammy in surprise, as though he couldn’t believe the larger man had made such a compelling point.

“An unusually apt observation. However, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet. Until I’ve done a closer examination, we can’t be certain of the nature of this man’s physiology, and I would certainly be hesitant to assume his comrades share his traits before we know anything about them. Still, this is promising.”

He turned and reached down, preparing to drag Weevil’s corpse off for experimentation…

…and then Weevil’s hand shot out, seizing Szayel by the wrist!

Szayel cried out, trying to pull his arm away, but it was locked in Weevil’s vice grip. Yammy yelled and raised his hand in alarm, prepared to blast Weevil to kingdom come with a Cero, but tripped over a street curb as he stumbled backward. The Cero flew wide and obliterated several city blocks.

Ulquiorra was faster and more composed on his feet. In an instant, he closed the distance between himself, Szayel and Weevil, his hand lashing out like a blade and carving off his fellow Arrancar’s arm at the elbow, allowing Szayel to fall backward, screaming in agony, his severed forearm remaining clenched in Weevil’s grip.

Ulquiorra seized the hilt of his sword, prepared to draw it, but stopped. He stared tensely at Weevil, who himself stared blankly back at him with glassy eyes. Dead eyes.

Ulquiorra’s eyes widened slightly, though his face remained calm.

“He’s still dead.”

Szayel let out a whimpering moan from where he lay on the ground behind Ulquiorra, clutching his profusely bleeding stump with tears of pain flowing down his cheeks. Yammy scrambled to his feet and positioned himself behind Ulquiorra, glaring at the now-motionless Weevil in alarm.

A low moan began to come from the large man’s throat. Slowly, it got louder and louder before escalating to a roaring growl, which echoed throughout the courtyard. All around him, the ground fractured, and arms began to burst up from below, the pavement crumbling as numerous rotting corpses ripped through the street.

Ulquiorra backed up cautiously, hand still on his sword hilt as his gaze flicked between the zombies lumbering closer. Zombie Weevil groaned louder and more aggressively than the rest as he threw Szayel’s arm to the side.

Under the stars and the light of the rising moon, a sound began to echo through the town, higher pitched than the zombie’s low growls.

“KIIIIIII…SHIIIIIII…SHIIIIIII…SHIIIIIII…SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII…”

The shadows cast along the ground began to warp and twist, and then sprouted upward, the mass of darkness reshaping and congealing into numerous horrifying shapes before, at last, they took form and solidified into a person… if you could call him such. He towered over the three Espada, his height rivaling the enormous Edward Weevil, stitches running up his chin, his gray skin and pointed teeth making him look more like a vampire than anything.

“KISHISHISHISHI!” the creature cackled. “I spy with my little eye, a few wayward ghosties out past their bedtime!”

As he spoke, more and more zombies continued to break their way up through the ground, amassing behind him like a small army. In the cold of the night, a layer of mist had begun to form around Karakura Town, hanging in the air like an eerie veil.

“Who are you?” Ulquiorra asked, his voice completely calm. “Name yourself.”

Despite the numbers advantage their foe possessed, he could not sense any spiritual power coming from their adversary or his zombies – if they had any, they would not have managed to catch the Espada unawares as they had. Three Espada at once against a foe without spiritual power… he could hardly imagine that they had anything to fear.

“Gecko Moria!” the creature replied, spreading his arms wide as if allowing them to better take his appearance in. “Lord of Shadows, Captain of Thriller Bark, and Warlord of the Sea. Corpses are my specialty, and I don’t like four-eyed wannabes trying to step on my toes!”

He leered at Szayel, still clutching his bleeding arm stump and sobbing on the ground. Ulquiorra frowned and closed his eyes; Szayel was the one who specialized in studying his foes, but seeing as he didn’t seem in any condition to make observations, it was up to him. Through his Pesquisa, Ulquiorra examined the zombies. Though they had no spiritual power to speak of, now that he was concentrating on them, he could tell there was something else roiling within them, something similar, something… darker.

It wasn’t quite a soul… but it was close.

“Yammy,” Ulquiorra murmured just loud enough for his fellow to hear, opening his eyes. “Prepare a Gonzui on my mark.” Yammy didn’t respond, but Ulquiorra could tell from how he tensed that he’d heard.

He couldn’t be sure it would work. It was clear that Moria had imbued the corpses with some kind of strange power, a power not unlike that of a Hollow, but not quite identical either. If it was close enough to a soul, however, it was possible Yammy could take them all down with Gonzui in one go. Of course, if it came to it, he was certain they could win a battle as well, but… revealing their abilities would be problematic. Gonzui was a potential trump card on Yammy’s part, and Ulquiorra certainly didn’t want to show off either of their Resurrección states. Those were cards better played close to the chest, and considering the strength that Weevil had already shown… this could get out of hand quickly.

“No!” a voice gasped from behind Ulquiorra, pulling him from his thoughts. Szayel struggled to push himself up to his feet, gasping for breath through gritted teeth. Ulquiorra regarded him out of the corner of his eye.

“Not Gonzui…” Szayel groaned between shuddering breaths, squeezing his eyes closed. “Zombies… like Hollows… good for him… to take advantage of…”

With his remaining hand, Szayel pulled a strange device from his pocket – one of the communication devices he had created for the Espada – and pressed one of its buttons.

‘Him’.

…Ahhhh, of course. Szayel was sharp as ever.

Behind them, space parted as a Descorrer opened up in midair. From the murky shadows of the Garganta stepped one of their fellows. His face covered by a smooth white helmet, surrounded by a tall, frilly collar, his hands clasped behind his back, Aaroniero Arruruerie had arrived.

Moria laughed.

“My, my!” he crowed, his pointed teeth bared into a wide, smug grin. “Another lamb to the slaughter?”

For Moria’s part, he felt strangely relaxed. Though even just recently he might have said otherwise, the idea of fighting four enemies at once didn’t bother him at all. He felt a level of confidence, of strength that he hadn’t felt in years, not since… Well, not since the battle with Kaido that had taken everything from him.

“You called, Szayel?” Aaroniero asked, ignoring Moria’s question, his voice a strange mixture of low and high pitched tones, and further distorted by his mask. He paused for a moment, and then with a hint of a sneer, continued. “You don’t look so well.”

“We seem… to have found a foe for you.” Szayel seemed to have finally gotten a hold of himself, for the most part, but still looked terrible. His tears had stopped, but his eyes were still red and swollen, and pain was still clear in his voice, his hand clenched around his stump to staunch his bleeding.

Aaroniero was silent for a moment, taking in the situation, the sight of the zombies standing beyond his fellow Espada, the enormous Moria and zombified Weevil facing them down.

“…Ah, I see,” he replied. “You wish for me to consume them with Glotonería.” He turned to Ulquiorra and Yammy. “Surely you two could make short work of this.”

“Almost certainly,” Ulquiorra replied. “But Szayelaporro has determined that this is a strategic opportunity. Best not to reveal our abilities, in any case, if a weakling like you can handle the job instead.”

He could feel Aaroniero’s anger spike at that statement, though he knew the weakest Espada would never dare talk back to him. From behind him, however, Moria squawked indignantly.

“Weakling?” His confident grin wavered. “W-Who do you take me for?! You think you can get away sticking me with some underling?!”

“Who?” Ulquiorra asked calmly, as Szayel and Yammy disappeared through Aaroniero’s Descorrer. “That’s easy. You’re trash.”

With that, as blood vessels bulged in Moria’s eyes from rage, Ulquiorra stepped through the Descorrer and it closed, leaving Aaroniero alone with Moria and his zombie army.

Silence hung in the air, as Aaroniero faced the zombies with apprehension. Moria didn’t speak for a moment, then two, then three. Finally, he threw his head back and laughed at the top of his lungs, a hint of madness mixing in with his seething fury.

“Fools!” he screeched, fixing his insane glee-filled gaze on the remaining Espada. “I’ll teach them to take me so lightly! I’ll stuff your body with shadows until you go mad! Leave you a quivering mess from the sound of all the voices in your head, and then exterminate those cretins next!”

Aaroniero laughed too, chuckling softly as he drew his Zanpakuto and spun it in a circle between his fingers, causing it to morph into a large shimmering glaive. He raised it, pointing it outward toward Moria and his army, which had begun to stir in restlessness.

“You’re wasting your time,” he sneered. “New voices in my head… that’s what I’m looking for.”

—

Far to the west, snow crunching under his feet with every step, his breath releasing puffs of mist that faded into the air, Bartholomew Kuma continued to run. He had not seen or heard Sasori in a long time; the dense trees around him, he hoped, combined with the newly-added cover of night, had allowed him to shake off his pursuer. Even still, he didn’t dare to stop running. It was entirely possible the puppetmaster was still following him.

A wave of agony shot through his body as his shoulder spasmed, and he stumbled, losing his footing for a moment before regaining it and continuing to run. Though Crocodile had cut through Sasori’s iron sand before more of it could force its way into the gash on his shoulder, Kuma could still feel the sand grains burrowing further and further into the mechanisms that had been exposed, each tiny particle of iron piercing deeper and deeper into him by the second, eating away at the joint and wearing down the surrounding metal.

If he couldn’t find help soon, it was impossible to say how much damage the iron sand could do to him. He could only hope, pray, that he had given Sasori the shake, that if he got far enough away from his assailant, the sand might lose its autonomy. If not… Well, there was a reason he had run into the forest.

Far behind Kuma, Sasori flitted between the branches of the trees, dashing with the expertly honed silence of an S-Ranked Sunagakure shinobi. Of course, he had not lost Kuma at all. He had deliberately allowed his foe to put distance between the two of them, to make himself more difficult to detect, but as long as his sand grains were twisting into Kuma’s shoulder like a knife, it would be impossible for the bear man to escape Sasori’s detection.

The reason for Sasori’s caution was simple: Kuma’s actions didn’t make any sense. Why had the Warlord, who could so easily take to the sky, deliberately fled further into the Akatsuki’s territory? Why not go south, across the sea where he could have returned to his own base? Running through the forest instead of staying airborne – that Sasori understood. The cover of the trees made pursuit more difficult.

…But not impossible. Sasori, being a ninja, had no trouble keeping track of his foe. Which meant, somehow, in some way, this was likely a trap. In running deeper toward the heart of Akatsuki territory, Kuma had some sort of plan to lure Sasori into a disadvantaged position, though the puppeteer could not see how. The alternative possibility, of course, was that flying south might have caused Sasori to give up on following him, and left Kuma’s ally, Crocodile, to fight Sasori and Deidara together, an outcome that would have almost certainly gotten him killed.

Was that it? Had Kuma deliberately put himself in greater danger to ensure his ally had a better chance of winning? It was possible, Sasori mused, though as long as the possibility remained that Kuma had some kind of plan, he could only proceed with caution.

He was stirred from his thoughts by a jolt to his senses. A couple kilometers ahead of him, Kuma had collapsed. Whether he had simply tripped, or if he had succumbed to the agony in his shoulder, Sasori could not say. But the large man had fallen to his hands and knees, and didn’t appear to be getting up. Sasori smiled unnaturally, and darted between the trees, slowly closing the gap toward Kuma’s position. If this was a trap, he thought, he had no intention of falling into it.

Far ahead, Kuma gasped for breath, sweat pouring down his face as his shoulder sparked, the iron sand twisting ever-further into his mechanisms. He had ended up in the middle of a clearing; his Haki told him that he had finally found what he was looking for.

“Come out…!” Kuma called, his soft and stoic voice pained. “I am being followed! I know… you’re there…!”

For a few long moments, the only sound was the wind and the rustling of the tree leaves around him. Then, a soft, deep chuckle began to echo around the clearing, before growing louder, into a full blown laugh, cold and cruel.

“Come to beg for my help?” A deep voice rang out. “Is this really the best that Vegapunk’s little toy has to offer?”

Kuma groaned, his shoulder sparking more. He tilted his head forward toward the ground, sinking into a bow. “My internal mechanisms are being corroded. I will die without your help.”

The laughter grew louder, and a few moments later, it was right on top of Kuma. The wicked man on whom his life now depended stood over him, the Warlord who had disappeared into Akatsuki territory days before and hadn’t been seen since – who had been hiding in the forest, and whose help Kuma had resigned himself to seeking. Kuma didn’t need to look up from his bow to know who he was, to see the short-trimmed blond hair, the pink feathered coat, and the gaudy red sunglasses that hid his eyes.

“You must be desperate,” Donquixote Doflamingo said, licking his lips hungrily, “to be coming to me for help.”

Kuma didn’t respond.

“Well well well,” a new voice joined the conversation. “This was your plan?”

Far above where Kuma and Doflamingo were, Sasori gazed down at them, perched atop a tree branch. Doflamingo smiled back at him, mouth pulled wide into an insane grin.

“Unable to win on your own, so you seek help from an ally hiding in our territory,” Sasori continued. “What cowardice. If this is the kind of weakness we can expect from you people, you’ll all die before you ever even make it to Pain.”

“What can you offer me, Kuma?” Doflamingo asked, ignoring Sasori and glancing down at the prone cyborg in front of him. “What do I have to gain from saving you, besides the satisfaction of winning where you couldn’t?”

Kuma was silent for a moment, and then responded, his voice empty.

“I can… repel the Devil Fruit abilities of others from their body… I can hand you the Ope Ope no Mi.”

Doflamingo stiffened. It was clear he hadn’t expected such a promise. Then he laughed, more incredulously than before.

“You would do that? You, noble Kuma, would help me become immortal? Why?”

Kuma squeezed his eyes closed.

“My wish… for the first time, it might be possible to… to see my daughter grow up, and to be there for her all the while. For the first time, I might be able to have both…!”

Tears welled in his blank white eyes, and he bowed his head further.

“I would go to the ends of the earth for that.”

Doflamingo looked down silently. Sasori, watching from above, scoffed.

“Isn’t that sweet?” Sasori remarked dryly, rolling his eyes. “The robot has feelings. This world is too cruel for fools like you! Children growing up without their parents… those are a dime a dozen.”

As he spoke, his gaze was distant, his voice taking on an almost bitter tone at the end. His wooden smile had vanished, replaced by a resentful scowl.

Doflamingo was silent for another moment, and then began to chuckle, and finally laugh at the top of his lungs, throwing his head back and splaying his arms.

“What a pathetic display!” he sneered. “A father fighting for his daughter! A son bitter about his parents! What soft-hearted weaklings are the two of you?!”

He raised his foot, and slammed it down into the back of Kuma’s bowed head, pushing him further down into the snow, so that his nose was touching the ground. Then, he pointed up at Sasori.

“Listen here,” he said. “Those who define themselves with sentimentality will only ever suffer in this world. A father only exists as a role model, to show you how you should be… or shouldn’t be! A mother only exists to carry and then nurse you, and from there is worthless! A daughter who can’t survive on her own doesn’t need to exist! A brother who doesn’t love you is no brother at all!”

As he spoke, he ground his heel into the back of Kuma’s head, sadistic glee and malice clear in every word he spoke.

“I’ll kill the puppet,” he declared, glancing back down toward Kuma. “And once I do, you’ll help me claim Law’s fruit. After that, you can die for all I care. I, unlike you, understand what it means to be strong in this world! It means to fight for myself, and not in service to the feelings of others!”

Sasori smiled, though his expression looked as though he had just tasted something rotten.

“You misjudge me,” he growled, softly. “I feel no such sentiment. I don’t feel anything.”

Doflamingo grinned up at him, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and raising his hand, with strings extending from each finger.

“I’ll make sure you feel something in the end!”

With a swing of his arm, the strings attached to each of Doffy’s fingers sliced through the air with razor-sharp strength. Though these strings were thin and their true deadliness was not visually obvious, they had once cut through the mighty Admiral Fujitora’s meteor. The tree Sasori stood on was flayed into shreds in an instant, the puppetmaster himself barely leaping from his perch in time to avoid being carved apart.

Flipping through the air as he fell, Sasori used a chakra thread to tug a scroll from his back, and with his other hand pried open a panel on his chest. As he landed on the ground in a crouching position, the scroll unfurled in the air above him, shadows bursting out from it and becoming connected to chakra threads emitting from the hole in his chest. In the air above him, a hundred puppets now floated, each connected to Sasori’s body by a strand of chakra – his Performance of a Hundred Puppets.

Sasori straightened up from his crouching position, another scroll on his back flashing with chakra as he raised both hands, small metal tubes protruding from his palms. His emotionless eyes met Doflamingo’s shades.

“I’ll put an end to this quickly,” he said, with no feeling in his tone. “This technique destroyed an entire country.”

Doflamingo merely grinned maniacally.

“Been there, done that.”

Jets of pressurized water blasted from both of Sasori’s hands, and a hundred puppets swooped forward, descending on Doflamingo. Doffy thrust his own palm forward and hurled forth a flaming thread from his palm, which met the water streams midair and exploded into a burst of steam, melting the snow in a 20 foot radius. With a swing of his arm, Doflamingo carved through five puppets at once with five different colored strings.

In an instant, more were on him, but as blades slashed forth from the puppet’s arms, they froze midair inches from their target, quivering slightly as they strained against invisible restraints.

Pirouetting in place, Doflamingo swung a Haki-coated foot around, carving through the nearest puppets with a string attached to his heel. As he swung around, he brought his arm backward and flexed his fingers.

“No you don’t!”

Ten meters behind him, Kuma went sprawling, his attempt to flee in the chaos thwarted by Doflamingo’s strings, which dragged him back along the ground, toward Doffy’s position.

“You’re my ticket to immortality,” Doflamingo sneered, glancing back toward Kuma as he thrust his hand forward, forming a spider-web shaped barrier to repel the puppet army away from himself. “Don’t even think about running.”

Clang!

The sound of metal rang out as a blade struck down toward Doffy from above, his arm raised just in time to parry the slash with rock-solid Armament Haki. Sasori had used the cable in his stomach to launch over the spider web, descending from above to strike with the blades extended from his back.

“Eyes on me!” Sasori smiled manically.

He pointed his hands down at Doffy’s head as he fell, and another scroll on his back flashed with chakra. An instant later, fire erupted from the pipes on his palms, engulfing Doflamingo and vaporizing the ground behind him with the heat. Kuma dived out of the way as the torrent of flames ripped past him, engulfing the forest for kilometers and scorching every tree in its path to ashes.

Doflamingo screamed as the flames engulfed him, his body seared black in an instant, and he toppled backward, crumpling to the ground in a charred heap.

Sasori landed on his feet, chuckling darkly. He turned his gaze toward Kuma.

“Now, where were we-”

Shing! His head separated from his shoulders!

Sasori’s body swayed in place like a marionette whose strings had been cut, and toppled backward, landing sprawled. From above, a thoroughly unharmed Doflamingo came down, slamming his foot into the center of the puppet’s torso and cracking it, before lowering himself to a seated position atop the puppetmaster’s body. Behind him, the fake Doflamingo smoked, losing its cohesion and crumbling into a charred mass of string.

“Checkmate,” Doffy sneered, raising his hand. Strings extended from his fingers and caught Sasori’s puppets midair, each one freezing in place as they each became connected to one of Doffy’s strings. 

The underworld broker grinned, flexing his fingers casually as though testing out how they felt.

“I think I’ll take these,” he decided after a moment.

Nearby, Kuma cried out. His shoulder sparked dangerously. Doflamingo’s smile dimmed, as he turned to regard his “comrade”, whose condition had not improved.

“No announcement,” he observed. “He’s not dead.”

Pinned to the ground underneath Doffy, Sasori’s body trembled and tugged, as if trying to free itself. His head, laying on the ground nearby, slid for a moment and then shot through the air toward the prone torso, in an attempt to rejoin with the rest of its body. Doffy raised his hand and seized the head by the hair midair, leaving it to wobble slightly, straining against his iron grip.

“You’re pretty sturdy,” Doffy observed with a wicked smile. “Maybe I’ll keep you too. Assuming-”

Whatever he was assuming, he didn’t get a chance to say it. As with Sasori before him, his head found itself suddenly separated from his body!

Sasori’s head flew from Doffy’s now-slackened grip, and Kuma gasped, caught off-guard. The blade that had carved through Doffy’s neck was a blur in midair, but it was large and blood red. It spun through the air, the cable attached to it retracting as it flew back toward the opposite end of the clearing and was seized once again by its thrower, who leapt into the clearing with enthusiasm. Hidan – Pain’s reinforcements – had finally arrived.

“Surprise, bitch!” Hidan cackled. He raised his scythe skyward, eyes bloodshot with maniacal glee. “That’s one point for Hidan! It’s not like you, Sasori, to need saving from little ol’ me!”

Across the clearing, Sasori’s body struggled to pull itself from underneath Doflamingo’s. Kuma scrambled to his feet and turned to run in the opposite direction, thrusting his palms downward and blasting into the air, vanishing into the distance in an instant. Hidan continued to gloat, unconcerned.

“Suck it, Kakuzu! Who’s the idiot now?”

Finally, Sasori’s body managed to pull itself free, disassembling into its component parts and reassembling midair, its head reattaching to the body.

“‘Oh, Hidan, it’s better not to underestimate our enemies’ – well who’s underestimating who-?!”

“Move, moron!”

“Huh?”

Hidan jumped at the unusually urgent tone of Sasori’s voice. After a moment of confusion, his eyes widened, as if he had only just registered the lack of a death announcement, and that his scythe was conspicuously free of blood.

Another moment later, blood exploded from Hidan’s body as strings carved into him, the ground beneath his feet splitting as well from the force of the slash. He gagged, coughing blood as he crumpled to the ground, the real Doflamingo standing over him, having appeared faster than he could react.

Wham!

Doffy’s foot struck the prone Hidan in the stomach and hurled him across the clearing, through a thick tree. There he lay, in a heap, groaning miserably.

“Weak fool,” Doflamingo scoffed dismissively, before slashing his hand through the air. In an instant, though, Sasori was on him, and his strings went wide and carved up the ground to Hidan’s left. The man struggled to sit up, groping frantically for his scythe.

“Don’t get in my way!” Sasori bellowed, and swung his blades around to clash with Doffy’s strings, which again flew across the clearing and tore up the ground around Hidan. Hidan yelped and scrambled up, turning to run as Doffy’s strikes shredded the soil behind him.

As Hidan fled the scene as fast as he could, a loud crunch rang out behind him – though whether it was bone or wood breaking, he could not tell – and was followed by deafening silence, Sasori’s voice and Doflamingo’s laughter both cut off abruptly. Although no announcement sounded, and he did not dare to look back to confirm his suspicions, Hidan got the sense that the battle behind him had come to a gruesome end, one way or another.

—

…Huff…!

…Huff…!

…Huff…!

Sweat poured down Crocodile’s brow as he flung Desert la Spadas from his arm, sand from his feet propelling him skyward, and he circled Deidara’s clay dragon in midair, which barely managed to twist itself between the huge sand blades, firing missiles in return. Crocodile’s arm expanded into a huge mass of sand, and the missiles embedded themselves through it. In the split second before they would have exploded, Crocodile spun around in midair, dragging his enlarged arm around in an arc, and then hurled the missiles back around to sender.

With a simple hand seal from Deidara, however, the missiles detonated in midair, exploding into a massive plume of fire and smoke before getting close enough to do any damage.

Deidara’s eyes widened.

‘Damn…!’

From his right, through the cloud of smoke obscuring his vision, Crocodile emerged in a flash, arm now a scythe of sand. As Deidara raised an arm to block, the Crescent Cutlass cleaved right through, ripping all the moisture from his arm in an instant!

Deidara staggered as Crocodile spun in place, ready to follow up with another attack. Acting quickly, Deidara formed a hand seal with his remaining hand, and a mass of clay erupted from the dragon in between them, halting Croc in his tracks. A moment later, the clay twisted into a large C3 doll.

Crocodile’s eyes widened and he leapt backward, but Deidara kicked the doll into him. With a grin, Deidara formed a hand seal, his other arm hanging at his side, a dehydrated husk.

“He who is unwilling to suffer to see his art completed… is no artist at all!”

“Idiot!” Crocodile cried, but it was too late.

BOOOOOOOM!

The doll, not far enough for Deidara to be out of its radius, detonated, as did the dragon beneath their feet. The shockwave engulfed both Crocodile and Deidara midair, the surrounding clouds in their vicinity pushed away by the force of the explosion.

From the resulting smoke cloud, chunks of the clay dragon rained down. From each side, the two combatants were launched out. Deidara hit the desert below hard, bouncing across the sand that had gone cold in the nighttime. The arm that Crocodile had dehydrated had been ripped off by the blast, and his Akatsuki robes had been burned away almost entirely, revealing the armless clothing beneath it. Deidara managed to roll up into a crouching position. His face had been burned by the explosion, one of his eyes seared shut.

On the opposite end, Crocodile slammed into the ground hard enough to crater it. As he dragged himself up, he swayed in place, fatigue and injury apparent – though his Logia intangibility had ensured that he was neither burned nor bloodied, his expensive looking clothes had been smeared and torn from the extended battle, and he had lost the ever present cigar in his mouth.

Deidara regarded him with a mild smirk, though his eye betrayed his own fatigue.

‘He’s a tough bastard, but I’m wearing him down,’ he thought. ‘At this rate, C4 will end things for sure. Sasori should be out of range by now, considering his speed. Just a couple more minutes to be safe, and then-’

An instant later, he was ripped from his thoughts as he dove to the side, a Desert Spada ripping through the ground where he had stood.

‘Huh?! Still so fast-!’

All of a sudden, Crocodile was on top of him. Despite his exhaustion, the sand user had crossed the distance between the two of them in a split second, and his hand extended, inches from Deidara’s face-!

Wham!

A blur came in from the side, and a sandaled foot connected with Crocodile’s side, knocking him off course! Hurled away from Deidara, the Warlord landed on his feet and skidded, veins in his forehead bulging from his forehead, his chagrin at the interruption visible on his face. He had been so close – a microsecond had meant the difference between survival and death for Deidara.

Next to Deidara, foot extended, a newcomer had appeared – a man in Akatsuki robes, whose face was mostly hidden behind a mask that covered his mouth and nose, blank green eyes peering out from under his Takigakure headband.

“Don’t be getting careless, Deidara,” Kakuzu’s gravelly voice rumbled.

Deidara, behind him, ground his teeth as an angry tick appeared on his forehead.

“Fuck off!” He shrieked, seething. “I didn’t ask for help!” Inwardly, he howled and cursed, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to use C4 with his ally present – his fight had just been extended considerably by Kakuzu’s arrival. Kakuzu, for his part, didn’t seem perturbed by Deidara’s rage.

“Pain ordered Hidan and I to provide reinforcements only if you or Sasori required help,” he growled. “That moron Hidan caught wind of Sasori fighting in the forest, and ran off to get in his way. I, on the other hand, continued to your location – and a good thing I did, because you’d have gotten yourself killed just now if I hadn’t.”

Crocodile, across from them, sneered, pulling out a new cigar and lighting it, taking a puff.

“Listen to your ally and be grateful,” he taunted, gazing down his nose at Deidara, with an air of superiority in spite of his own visible exhaustion. “You won’t beat me on your own.”

Deidara’s remaining fist clenched at his side, his eye going bloodshot as he glowered at Crocodile with clenched teeth. To his left, Kakuzu raised his hand, and long gray threads twisted out from his fingers and attached themselves to the stump of Deidara’s severed arm. Deidara blinked, his anger momentarily forgotten as the threads twisted into thick fibers that resembled muscles, before fully forming into a makeshift arm, the ends of the thread disconnecting from Kakuzu’s fingers and twisting into place.

Deidara paused for a moment in surprise, and then curled the new arm, flexing his fingers and elbow as he tested out the new appendage. Crocodile, across from them, grimaced in displeasure as Deidara seized a twig from the ground and crushed it into powder in his grip.

“You oughtn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, fool,” Kakuzu spoke up, getting the bomber’s attention.

“Yeah, yeah,” Deidara scoffed, seemingly mollified. “Thanks, I guess. But I still don’t need your help, gramps. Go bail out Hidan or something.”

As Kakuzu was about to reply, the ground trembled violently, and the three of them staggered, thrown off balance. A moment later, a deafening rumble sounded from the east, and they glanced toward the sound. Far away, distant enough to be Espada territory, intense storm clouds had formed and were swirling around. Massive lightning strikes ripped through the air like knives, carving into the ground beyond the horizon. A moment later, the ground rumbled again and another deafening boom echoed across the desert. Kakuzu’s eyes narrowed.

“I suppose I ought to go see what that is,” he grumbled, turning back to Deidara. “Finish things here already.”

Deidara’s remaining good eye twitched.

“I was about to!” he complained. “You know I can’t go all out with you idiots around, hmmmm?”

Kakuzu sneered, glancing back toward Crocodile, who had taken on a bored expression, clearly not keen on interrupting as he used the momentary lull as an excuse to catch his own breath. Kakuzu turned his gaze back to Deidara.

“I will have to answer to Pain if you die,” his eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me regret it.”

In a flash, he disappeared, dashing to the east at speeds fast enough to appear a blur. Deidara spat irritably.

“Would hate to inconvenience you with my death,” he grumbled, turning back toward Crocodile, who cracked his neck in preparation to resume their fight. “Why the hell is Pain too good to come himself, hmmmm?”

—

Far to the northwest…

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Paper and metal clashed in a shower of sparks. The light of the moon shone down on the mountaintops of the Cloud Village territory, where a battle between two figures raged on at blinding speed, having been ongoing for hours.

Silhouetted in the moonlight, a man spun his blade in wide arcs like a blur, cutting through the thousands of paper shuriken raining down from above with astounding speed. In the air above him, the woman responsible for the assault twisted her body apart into paper, which folded itself into more and more projectiles. As she hurled them downward, Konan surveyed her opponent calmly.

‘Still so fast, even after all this time… but he’s getting slower.’

In the hours that their battle had raged, her foe’s speed had proven his most dangerous asset. Though she had managed to progressively force a retreat, she had yet to inflict any significant damage, with her largest and strongest attacks proving conversely too slow to touch her foe.

On the other hand, he had yet to harm Konan either. Her ability to keep to the sky had proven less useful than she had initially expected, with her opponent being able to leap off of thin air as though stepping on invisible footholds. Even so, she had managed to keep herself at a distance well enough.

Whatever the case, she could not stop attacking. If she did that, then there was a chance the fight could be forced back south, into the Rain Village… and that was an intolerable outcome. After all…

—

Earlier in the day…

The halls of the Akatsuki’s hideout were empty and desolate. Long, winding corridors through which the slightest sound echoed for miles. Any intruder attempting to sneak in would find themselves hopelessly lost in the expansive labyrinth, which had been the last battleground the legendary Sage Jiraiya had ever seen. Still, for a member of the Akatsuki, there was something comforting in the familiar solitude of their central base of operations, the ability to be alone with one’s thoughts if one so desired. Such was the case Konan, who found herself wandering through them now.

Konan alone among the Akatsuki had no assigned patrol. Deidara and Sasori had been assigned to the inner ring resembling Suna, Itachi and Kisame to the Land of Snow, Kakuzu and Hidan to the Forest of Death, Zetsu to the Cloud in the north, and “Tobi” to the Mist in the south. She and Pain, meanwhile, were allocated to the Rain Village, their core stronghold. However, as evidenced by the faint pitter-patter of heavy rain echoing from outside, Pain had that task covered. His jutsu was in full effect throughout the territory of the Rain Village – if any intruder dared to disrupt the path of the rainfall, the Akatsuki leader would immediately know of it.

And so Konan was left with no particular duty, but she didn’t mind that. Pain’s true body – Nagato – was severely emaciated, and required an attendant to look after him, in case he required medical attention. No one but Konan knew the true nature of Nagato’s existence; the two of them had been friends for so long that he trusted her alone with his secret.

As she considered this, her thoughts were pulled back to an earlier, happier time, when the Akatsuki had only recently been formed, and she had stood alongside Nagato and their old friend, Yahiko. The thought made her heart ache. It was the first time in a long time that she had allowed herself to feel sorrow about that loss. Yahiko was dead and gone, she had always reasoned, so there was no point in dwelling on him. The only way forward was to support Nagato, the one friend she had left, and devote herself to his ideals. But now…

“Along with the right to leave the arena, the surviving members of the winning team will get one wish apiece, their heart’s deepest desire. Anything you want in the world will be yours!”

The sound of the announcer’s voice echoed in her mind. For the first time in years, a small spark of hope had been lit in her heart. Hope that Nagato’s body could be restored. Hope that a kinder world could truly be realized. Hope that Yahiko…

Konan emerged through a door into a larger chamber. At the center of the room, a long stone table sat, surrounded by chairs. The Deva Path of Pain sat in the largest one at the head of the table, his eyes closed; he was the only one present. As she entered, Pain’s eyes opened.

“Konan,” he greeted her with his deep voice. “To what do I owe your company?”

Konan did not let her face betray her emotions. She had not yet vocalized her thoughts to Nagato, about her wish. In truth, she wasn’t certain how he would react. And in any case, there were more pressing matters to attend to.

“How are you feeling?”

Pain’s face sank into a frown, displeasure visible.

“As I’ve told you, I am fine,” he replied in a steely tone. “It is merely a mild illness, it will pass soon.”

“Given your condition-”

“I have fallen ill countless times,” Pain cut her off, sharply. “It has always passed.” His tone made it clear there would be no further argument.

Shortly after they had awoken in the arena, several days prior, Nagato had come down with some sort of sickness, no doubt thanks to the unfamiliar environment of the arena. Although Pain could command the Akatsuki just fine regardless of his condition, if Nagato attempted to fight while sick… Well, it was unlikely his body would handle it well. In that sense, the Akatsuki were without one of their greatest weapons, and had been forced onto the defensive almost immediately. It was for this reason that Pain had chosen to stick to patrols for the time being rather than forward attacks; if a large-scale war broke out before Nagato recovered, it would spell great danger for him. 

Nagato had confided his condition and his worries to Konan when he had first fallen sick, but in the days since had become thoroughly exasperated by her concern for his well being.

She decided to switch tactics.

“Very well. Have you managed to remember anything?”

Pain’s frown deepened, though not in annoyance. A second curious part of Nagato’s condition was that unlike the rest of the Akatsuki, who remembered up to the point of their deaths in great detail, Pain could not recall anything past his victory over Jiraiya – nor could Konan, for that matter. The two of them, for whatever reason, had their memories cut off beyond a certain point.

“No,” Pain replied, grimly. “I’m afraid I have made no progress on that front.”

Konan studied his face.

“Have you been trying?”

Pain was silent.

“Nagato.” Konan insisted, but Pain turned sharply to gaze out the nearby window, eyes unfocused as though he were seeing something far away.

“We have an intruder. Entering the territory from the north.”

Konan froze.

“…Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” he replied, and moved to get out of his seat.

“No!” Konan placed her hand on his shoulder, and pushed him back down into the seat. Pain turned his gaze sharply toward her. If she were anyone else, she would undoubtedly suffer severe consequences for such an action, but at the moment such things were not at the forefront of her mind.

“If you try to fight, your condition could worsen. You need to rest, save your strength for when it is needed.”

Pain scowled, looking dissatisfied but not in disagreement.

“There is no one here to defend except you and I,” he replied, testily. “Do you intend to drive off the intruder yourself?”

“I can,” Konan replied, nodding. “If you will allow me.”

Pain sat silently, mulling over the offer.

“Fine,” he said finally. “However, if I have not heard back from you soon, I will send my paths north to aid in the battle. If the intruder is beyond your abilities, you will not engage recklessly. In this situation, every Akatsuki life matters. Understood?”

“Understood,” Konan confirmed, inwardly disregarding the order. She would not allow Nagato to risk himself, regardless of the enemy’s strength.

“Then go,” Pain said with a sigh, sinking back into his chair and closing his eyes. “I will convene a meeting with the rest of the Akatsuki in a few hours. Be back before then.”

Konan nodded, as paper wings unfurled from her back, and she leapt through the window without another word, taking to the sky with several powerful wing flaps, and zooming off northward.

In his seat, Pain folded his fingers together, looking tense. His frown deepened.

“Be careful.”

—

Konan didn’t have to search very hard to find the intruder. As she approached the northern edge of Akatsuki territory, she spotted him standing atop the tallest building, hands folded behind his back. He was a tall black man in white robes, with a bald head covered only by a series of short spikes that formed a vertical line across the center.

‘He’s been in our territory for some time,’ Konan thought to herself as she spread her wings, coming to a halt in midair above the man. ‘And yet he hasn’t moved from this spot, as if he’s waiting for us. Is he aware of Pain’s jutsu?’

“State your name and business, intruder,” she called down to him calmly. He tilted his head upward, bright yellow eyes surveying her calmly.

“So, you can see me…” he murmured, tilting his head. Konan raised an eyebrow. An odd observation, she thought. A moment later, he spoke louder. “I am Zommari Rureaux, the Septima Espada.”

After a moment’s silence, Konan replied. “And your business?”

“I’ll be taking your corpse back to our base for study,” Zommari replied, leisurely drawing his sword from his sheath. If Konan was concerned by the declaration, it didn’t show on your face.

“Bold of you to intrude upon our territory and make such a threat.”

“Your territory is empty except for you and the fellow back in your hideout. I find my chances favorable enough.”

Konan’s eyes narrowed. If there had been any doubt that the enemy possessed sensory abilities, that confirmed it. Which no doubt explained why Zommari had recognized the rain for what it was. And even more certainly, his willingness to reveal such information meant he had absolutely no concern about her living long enough to bring it back to base.

“If the intruder is beyond your abilities, you will not engage recklessly.” Pain’s words echoed in her ears. Zommari was certainly confident that he would win their fight. But there was only so much he could possibly know about her. If Pain were in better condition…

…No, there was no point in thinking about that. Wishful thinking wouldn’t change the situation, she would just have to win the fight on her own. And the first step was to get Zommari out of the Rain Village – out of Pain’s rain storm.

Konan raised her arm, and paper swirled upward around her hand, forming into a long, razor-sharp sword that she seized and then angled down at her foe, who raised his own sword into a defensive position. His eyes were focused and unblinking – the gaze of a seasoned warrior.

With a flap of her wings, Konan lunged forward, and brought the paper sword down toward Zommari’s blade, intent on pushing him out of the village…

CLANG!

Back in the present, Konan found herself pulled from her thoughts, as she formed a sword made of paper just in time to parry a sword slash from Zommari. Taking advantage of her momentary distraction, he had launched off the ground at blinding speed, springing through the air so fast that he appeared to separate into ten of himself. In an instant, the ten Zommaris circled Konan, stabbing their blades inward and skewering right through her!

No blood gushed from her wounds, however, as Konan’s body unfolded into numerous sheets of paper, unfurling past Zommari’s swords and reforming into ten paper duplicates of Konan, behind each of Zommari’s afterimages! In a blur, the paper clones circled the afterimages, each hurling out paper projectiles at high speed, which each Zommari in turn cut out of the air.

One of the paper clones hurtled upward and raised her arms, paper twisting into a chakram above her head. Determination swelled up within her – this fight had continued for far too long, likely well beyond the deadline Pain had provided. The likelihood of Pain coming to intervene… she needed to end things now.

As a barrage of lasers – Ceros – from Zommari ripped through the paper clones below, she hurled the Paper Chakram down at them, and it carved through each one, the afterimages discorporating as it cut them in half before bearing down on the final Zommari, who raised his Zanpakuto to block. With a shower of sparks, the chakram grinded against the blade, before slipping past and carving into Zommari’s chest with a spray of blood.

With a grunt of pain, Zommari was knocked out of the sky, plummeting to a platform below where he landed on his feet, skidding across the ground. Konan descended from above, paper wings flapping, as Zommari brought his hand up to the thin gash across his chest, pulling it away to see a smear of blood across his palm. Slowly, he turned his gaze upward toward Konan.

“Your tricks are numerous, human. But in a contest of power, your attacks leave only shallow wounds. Though your dexterity and judgment are exceptional, in a battle of speed, my Gemelos Sonído exceeds your flight. And your energy is waning, while I have yet to exert my full power. In a battle of endurance, I will win.” He didn’t smile, but his tone took on a calm arrogance. “I have been testing you. I’ve learned much from this battle, indeed.”

Konan stared calmly back.

“A pitiful excuse for hours without success.”

A vein bulged in Zommari’s forehead. His expression remained calm, but it was clear there was a seething anger boiling beneath.

“Don’t be so full of yourself, human…”

He raised his blood-covered hand, and a ball of blue light appeared before it, reminiscent of the Ceros he had fired many times throughout their battle. But as his blood mixed with the spiritual energy in front of his palm, the energy twisted and expanded into a larger vortex. Konan’s eyes widened; the sheer pressure exuding from the swirling matrix of energy was enormous. With a flap of her wings, she hurtled backward, putting distance between herself and her opponent-!

Zommari’s mouth moved. He spoke quietly, but the words seemed to echo through the mountains.

“Gran Rey Cero.”

The energy ripped from his palm with the force of a nuclear blast, twisting and ripping through space itself. Zommari swung his arm in a wide arc, the explosion of energy raking through the air horizontally. It struck one of the surrounding mountains, then another, then another, and all three had their tops cleaved right off, reduced to molten slag in an instant!

In midair, the top half of Konan’s body tumbled, her lower half – fortunately still made of paper – having been burned away by the beam. Eyes wide, she caught herself with her wings, which had also been seared to a much smaller size, clipped by the blast, though successful in getting her out of harm’s way. She took deep, shuddering breaths as her paper began to reform the parts of her body that had burned away. She was undoubtedly rattled – had Zommari’s attack landed directly, she would have certainly died.

On the platform below, Zommari’s lips curled backwards into a sneer.

“How pitiful would you say that was?” he asked, before raising his sword to chest level and placing it in a horizontal position, allowing it to hang in the air in front of him. With a clap of his hands, his head snapped to the side, at a ninety degree angle as though he had just broken his own neck.

“I hadn’t intended to show this to you,” he said. “But the fight will be over quickly, so it hardly matters.”

Konan unfurled her wings wide, her paper twisting into new weapons, a feeling of dread creeping up her body. Zommari smiled, cruelly and creepily, before chanting out his next two words.

“Quell… Brujería.”

—

To the east…

“…kishishishishi…”

Crack! A bolt of lightning split the air in half with the intensity of a gunshot.

“…KiSHiSHiSHiSHi…!”

Fwoosh! A gust of wind ripped through a row of houses, sending bodies hurling into the air by the dozen.

“…KISHISHISHISHISHISHI!!!!”

Gecko Moria’s insane cackles echoed through the night air, as he brought an enormous clawed hand downward with blinding speed, shadowy energy rippling from his hooked fingers and tearing through an entire city block. A hundred meters away from him, Aaroniero brought down his glaive, electrical energy coursing through the blade and carving through the razor sharp shadows that assailed him.

“Have at him, boys!” Moria cawed, gleefully, power coursing through him as his Soldier Zombies surged past him, charging Aaroniero with unexpected swiftness. “We’ve got him outnumbered! Dinner’s on the captain tonight!”

“Oh, please!” Aaroniero sneered, raising his glaive above his head and spinning it so quickly it became a blur. The storm clouds that he had conjured overhead twisted downward into a tornado, its point concentrated in the center of the glaive. With a single arm movement, Aaroniero swung the tornado around and sucked the approaching zombies into its twisting maelstrom, before flinging them away, spinning hundreds of meters into the air.

As Aaroniero finished spinning the glaive, its shape shimmered and morphed, before taking form once more. No longer a pole weapon, it had transformed into a large metal gauntlet in his grip. Without a single pause in his movements, the Gillian slammed the gauntlet down into the ground. The earth that Moria had already rent apart was pulverized, as a shockwave rippled outward from Aaroniero’s position, many of the zombies that remained blown away by the massive upheaval.

Aaroniero raised his head, his expression still hidden behind his helmet.

“We are Aaroniero Arruruerie, a Menos,” he said, the deeper of his two vocal tones creeping in and seeming to overtake the higher one. “A conglomeration of Hollows over 30,000 strong, each with their own unique abilities. I far outnumber your paltry forces all on my own.”

Moria guffawed, having managed to remain standing, no fear visible on his face.

“I know full well the kind of power that one man can hold! I lost my crew to such a man, once upon a time. But my new crew is an army that you’ll never see the end of!”

His razor-toothed grin stretched even wider than it already had been.

“And you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Raising an enormous arm, he brought his palm down and slammed it into the ground. From the spot his hand touched, shadow energy rippled outward, swirling across the ground. Aaroniero raised his gauntlet to defend, but in an instant the shade had spread past his location harmlessly, expanding across the pavement beneath him crumbled houses in their surroundings. Further and further out it spanned, until Moria’s power had engulfed the entirety of the Fake Karakura Town.

Slowly, before Aaroniero’s very eyes, the buildings began to change shape, the more traditional architecture becoming more gothic, brick walls turning to stone. The pavement he stood on turned to soil, and grass sprouted up from it, before an instant later shriveling up, becoming brown and withered. Large, gnarled trees burst up from the ground, with branches covered with knots and leaves as red as blood. The fog that had already surrounded the area deepened, the air taking on a suffocating density, and the wind taking on a tone that sounded almost like breathing – as though the atmosphere itself was a horrible creature of the night.

Moria’s eyes, which had been closed in concentration, opened wide, the light of the moon reflecting ominously off of the gleaming orbs, his teeth bared in preemptive triumph. 

Aaroniero spun the gauntlet in his hand, and it morphed into a large cutlass. An instant later, he cried out as the shadows around him burst from the ground, morphing into pointed umbral spears which skewered up through his torso from all sides. Without being given even a moment to respond, he found himself swarmed by bats – Brick Bats – which began to gnaw away at him with pointed teeth as he screamed in pain.

Moria cackled, drawing his enormous shears, and lunged forward, dashing past the Espada and carving through him! As the top half of Aaroniero’s body slid apart from the bottom, both still held up by the umbral spears piercing him, he seemed to dissolve into a cloud of smoke, which swirled through the air away from the shadows and the bats, toward a nearby tree where it resolidified into Aaroniero atop its branches. Moria grinned.

“Tricky tricky,” he cawed. “But not trickier than me!”

The branches of the tree sprung to life, and Aaroniero leapt into the air, roots snapping at his heels as a face seemed to emerge on the surface of the tree’s trunk. The tree let out a gargling roar, and a moment later was joined by a chorus of similar snarls from the surrounding trees, which had all grown their own faces, and whose branches grew after the skyward Espada as well.

Aaroniero’s back rippled, and flesh burst out from between his shoulder blades, unfurling into a massive pair of bat wings, which flapped and carried him skyward, tree branches growing afterward at breakneck speed, all barely missing him. One of them glanced across his helmet and split it in half. Aaroniero’s tank of liquid gleamed, his horrid skull faces both gnashing their teeth.

“Back!” he cried. “Get back, you freakish things!” He swung his cutlass and carved through branch after branch, before finally reaching a height that seemed out of their reach, his breath coming heavily. Moria laughed.

“This is my Awakening!” the Warlord called up, reveling in his own power. “The trees, the buildings, the very ground I stand on, all of it is now an extension of my very essence! Welcome to hell, bastard! This is Shadow’s Helheim!”

From the many buildings that had formerly made up Karakura Town, figures leapt skyward, wide wings flapping as they swarmed into the air – stone gargoyles, which converged on Aaroniero’s position. Spinning his cutlass in an arc, it morphed into a huge scythe, which he used to carve through his flying adversaries like an angel of death.

Twisting around and between the gargoyles, Aaroniero laughed, and one of his skulls peeled through his tank, twisting around the glass into a fleshy mass, which took shape into a face, a young woman with long, dark hair tied into a knot on the back of her head – the face of Miyako Shiba, who had been killed by the Hollow Metastacia years prior, a Hollow that Aaroniero had since consumed.

“The Land of the Dead?” ‘she’ cried, her beautiful face contorting into a hideous grin. “Don’t make me laugh! The souls of the damned, the gods of death, they’re all food to me!”

Aaroniero swung her scythe in a wide arc and carved through the gargoyles all around, which dissolved into shadows as they split in half. A moment later, however, the discorporated shadows sucked inward and congealed into each other, forming an enormous dragon composed of dark energy. It roared, and green flames ripped from its mouth, only for Aaroniero to spin through the air head over heel, her scythe turning into a deadly buzzsaw which carved through the stream of flames and split open the shadow dragon’s chest.

In a flash, Aaroniero descended to ground level, the earth passing beneath her like a blur. Spikes, roots, and zombie hands ripped up from the ground trying to seize her out of the air, but she spun to the side, dodging each one and racing toward Moria at blinding speed. Wild Zombies leapt past Moria and raced to intercept the approaching Espada, but the hand that wasn’t holding her scythe morphed into a mouth surrounded by tentacles, the maw of Glotonería. In a blur, the arm chomped off the head of an incoming zombie, and then another, and another. Moments later, Moria’s horde had been thinned, devoured by the Espada, and Aaroniero sped up, swinging her scythe in an arc toward Moria…!

CLANGGGGG!

Moria raised his shears, and the scythe slammed against them with immense concussive force, a shockwave ripping outward as sparks flew from the grinding metal.

Electricity rippled from the impact point. Aaroniero gritted her teeth as her Hollow Reiryoku mixed with Moria’s rippling Haki and the two melded together, waves emanating from the point where the blades collided. Moria’s shears shimmered with black energy – Armament Haki that had once been strong enough to clash with an Emperor.

The skin on Aaroniero’s face peeled away from the force of the impact, the water in his re-exposed tank bubbling violently from his own exertion. Moria’s smile stretched wide, gums showing as the blood vessels in his forehead bulged. Both sides pushed against each other, neither willing to give up ground.

Slowly, however, Moria began to push harder. He took a step forward. And then another. As Aaroniero began to inch backward, his hands, which were gripped tightly around the hilt of his scythe, trembled more and more furiously.

‘Damn it…!’ He thought. ‘Where the hell did all this spiritual energy come from?! A minute ago I couldn’t sense a thing!’

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had this in me…” Moria jeered, triumphant glee in his eyes, “…but the strength of one’s will… of one’s Haki… blossoms on the battlefield!”

SHLANG!

With a mighty heave on Moria’s part, the scythe in Aaroniero’s grip split in half! Sparks showered down, before Moria swung both shears upward, carving off the Hollow’s bat wings in a spray of blood.

Aaroniero cried out in agony as he fell, landing on his feet and skidding backward from the force of the slash. As he did, however, his right hand lashed out and caught the spurt of blood that had burst from his wing stump, allowing it to soak his white glove dark crimson. Without missing a beat, he thrust his hand forward, and a glowing blue sphere of energy materialized in his palm, absorbing the blood from his glove, which dissolved as the sphere grew in size.

“Burn in hell, freak!” Aaroniero howled, and the Gran Rey Cero exploded from his palm, space before him distorting as the immensely powerful beam ripped through the air toward Moria.

In a flash, a large mass blitzed in front of Moria and raised a long pole with a fragment of a blade attached to the end. The Edward Weevil zombie, which Aaroniero had lost track of in the chaos of the battle, swung the remains of its naginata. The Gran Rey Cero struck the pole, struggling violently against it for a moment, before blasting the deceased Warlord away, overtop of Moria’s head, hurling him past the horizon and into the water to the far south. As he and the Gran Rey Cero struck the water, an enormous explosion erupted, engulfing the horizon and violently turning millions of gallons of seawater into steam.

—

On the outskirts of the blast, as enormous tidal waves rippled outward from Weevil’s impact point, a small vessel that had been drifting through the water rocked violently, and a bloodcurdling shriek rang out. Atop the ship, flailing frantically as he held on for dear life, Buggy the Clown gaped at the enormous hole bored into the ocean with bulging eyes.

“W-what the hell was that?!” he wailed.

Beside him, considerably less rattled by the blast, Mihawk sat at the center of the small boat, his hands folded and eyes closed. Unperturbed, he cracked one eye open and regarded the violently rocking ocean out of the corner of his eye. A moment later, he allowed his eyelid to slide closed again.

“Small dogs barking loudly. Nothing to concern ourselves with.”

—

Back at the battlefield, Moria, unperturbed by the loss of the Weevil zombie and unharmed thanks to its interference, laughed heartily and fastened his shears together, forming an enormous pair of scissors. From the ground around him, shadows wriggled up, dozens of them, all wearing a demonic grin and bearing Moria’s own silhouette.

“Sic him!” Moria screeched, and the Doppelmen dove at Aaroniero, who began to spin the scythe fragment he still had clutched in his hand. As the Zanpakuto changed shape, however, a Doppelman landed on top of him, and a dozen more followed, dogpiling the Hollow under their enormous bulk and pinning him in place.

Moria saw his chance, and seized it.

“Tsuno Tokage!” he cried, and drove his scissors into the ground. From beneath the pile of Doppelmen, a massive shadow spear erupted, skewering upward from the ground and through the many bodies above. On the top of the spike, Aaroniero hung, slumped over and skewered through the stomach. In his hand, he clutched a long, blue trident.

For a few long moments, silence hung in the air, and Aaroniero hung from the spear, motionless. Then…

“KISHISHISHISHI!!!”

Moria laughed heartily, throwing his head back. “Pathetic! Is that really the best you had to offer, trash?!”

Aaroniero groaned, both of the skulls in his tank frothing from the mouth.

“I… I…”

“What’s that?” Moria howled with delight. “Speak up, I can’t hear you!”

“I’m…………..” Aaroniero moaned out, slowly raising the trident in his hands. “…I’m… done… WITH THIS MOCKERY!!!!”

With a cry of fury and a surge of newfound strength, Aaroniero drove the twisted butt of the trident down into the spear that pierced his stomach. Reiatsu coursed through the weapon, splintering the umbral spear into pieces.

Moria froze mid-laugh, gaping up at his prey with visible shock.

“…”

As Aaroniero fell through the air, freed from his impalement and bleeding heavily from his stomach, he twirled the trident in his hand, and both of his heads opened their mouths and let out an unholy shriek of rage, frustration, agony, and determination all at once.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

As he screeched, the horrid sound of 33,650 angry Hollows mixing into one, flesh unfolded across his face, twisting into another human-like mask, the face of Soul Society lieutenant Kaien Shiba, to whom the trident in his hand had once belonged. His trident spun with unnatural speed, and from its shaft water materialized, first a small stream, and then an enormous tidal wave exploded outward, swirling around Aaroniero and slowing his descent.

“Rage through the sea and heavens…” Aaroniero bellowed, the water beneath him swirling faster and faster. “NEJIBANA!”

He hit the ground, slamming the butt of the trident down, and the water exploded outward. A tidal wave gushed outward across the battlefield, flooding over Moria’s Doppelmen, who shrieked in agony and dissolved. Aaroniero and Moria’s eyes widened simultaneously.

‘Damn!’ Moria thought, his smile long gone. ‘Saline!’

Moria raised his arms, and the ground under his feet tore up from the earth, shadows lifting it into the air just in time, as Aaroniero’s seawater flowed under it. As the water moved, the ground hissed and sizzled, black steam rippling upward through the water, Moria’s shadows evaporating away. Grass and trees dissolved under the tidal wave, buildings warped into different shapes, and the ground morphed back into concrete – the unaltered pavement of Karakura Town, buried underneath the dark energy that comprised Moria’s Helheim.  Moria’s zombies, swept up by the water, weren’t faring much better; they let out wailing gurgles as the water engulfed them and the light in their eyes vanished, shadows exiting their bodies through their mouths.

Aaroniero watched all this unfold with wide eyes, and then his look of shock morphed into a delighted grin. He chuckled, before breaking into full-blown laughter. He raised his trident and spun it, more and more water materializing around its shaft as he leapt up toward Moria, who remained suspended in midair, his dismay visible through clenched teeth and bloodshot eyes. 

“Drown in despair!” Aaroniero screeched, madness in both his voices, and in his laughter as he swung Kaien’s water-coated trident toward his larger foe, who raised his scissors to parry.

It was a feint. Aaroniero pulled back his trident, which a moment earlier had been poised for an overhand swing, and twisted it back and around for an underhand. The trident spun upward and struck the hilt of Moria’s scissors with a burst of water, knocking them from his hands and causing them to spin into the air. Moria staggered on his perch, thrown off balance, and Aaroniero took his chance; without any loss of momentum, he drove the trident forward and stabbed its three points into Moria’s shoulder with a spurt of blood.

The Warlord screamed, and Aaroniero hurled the trident with all his might, blasting Moria off his perch and into the churning torrent below. He impacted with tremendous force, a massive amount of water erupting up from the spot where he hit.

Raising his left hand, Aaroniero began to emit blue energy from the mouth of Glotonería, and then red, green, and many other colors to form a shimmering ball of energy – a Cero composed of the spiritual energy of each and every Hollow that lived within his soul.

“Perish,” he sneered, “in the light of thirty-three thousand, six-hundred and fifty Ceros. Cero Arcoíris!”

A rainbow of energy exploded from his hand, and struck the surface of the water where Moria had hit just moments before. In an enormous explosion of energy, the water was rent apart, vaporized, and the ground beneath it gave way as well, an enormous explosion engulfing the area in blinding light.

…

…

…

The sound of raining rubble filled the area, steam billowing up from the enormous crater that Aaroniero had blasted into the ground, heating the air to a scalding temperature. Slowly, the Hollow descended, touching down lightly a short distance from the crater, panting from exertion. Moments passed in silence, as no announcement sounded to signify the Warlord had died.

Then, a low groan came from the crater. A moment later, an enormous clawed hand reached up over the edge, followed by the head of Gecko Moria, as he dragged himself up over the lip of the hole in the ground.

The massive man looked terrible; horrible burns covered his bloodied face, and large patches of his hair were missing, incinerated by the blast. The stitches on his chin had come loose, and Kaien’s trident remained embedded in his shoulder, blood gushing around it. His clothes had been ruined, his cape, tie, and collar had been burned away, while the rest hung in tatters from his steaming body. When he bared his teeth, half of them were missing. But his facial expression was not one of defeat. Gecko Moria was furious.

He seized the trident in his shoulder and ripped it out, before snapping it in his grip like a toothpick.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” he snarled, malice in his voice, his entire body trembling with rage. Without waiting for Aaroniero to respond, he continued, his voice rising to a scream. “BECAUSE IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I WILL NOT DIE AT THE HANDS OF TRASH LIKE YOU!!! I’M GECKO MORIA, AND I WILL BECOME THE PIRATE KING!!!!!”

Energy crackled from his body as he raised both of his arms to the sky.

“RISE!” he howled, his voice cracking. “RISE, STRONGEST MINIONS OF MINE, AND CRUSH THIS INSECT LIKE THE PATHETIC LITTLE GNAT HE IS!!!”

The ground shook. Aaroniero took a step back, concern visible on Kaien’s face. Then the earth beneath his feet cracked, and he leapt backward, making distance between himself and Moria.

Just in time, too, because a split second later, an enormous mass ripped up through the ground where he had been standing. From the ground between Moria and Aaroniero, a gigantic red hand emerged, and then a second. The two immense arms gripped the ground, and pulled upward, dragging their owner out of the ground. A head followed, then a body, and then two huge, long legs. Aaroniero’s gaze shifted upward, as an enormous shadow fell over top of him.

Standing hundreds of feet tall, towering over Aaroniero and Moria alike, stood the strongest zombie, which had once been the famous continent puller. In the light of the moon, which had begun to descend in the sky, Oars let out an unearthly roar.

Around him, more zombies emerged from the earth. One with pink hair, a red coat, and two swords – the legendary Captain John of the Rocks Pirates. One wearing a kimono and blue scarf, his hair tied in a knot at the back of his head – Ryuma, the most feared samurai in the history of Wano Country. One with long black hair, three swords, and a toothbrush mustache – Jigoro, a master swordsman who was known to have killed seven thousand pirates. And many more – one with four arms, a centaur, knights with shining armor – Moria’s General Zombies had emerged.

Aaroniero gritted his teeth and raised his arm. Glotonería aside, he had lost the strongest Zanpakuto in his arsenal. The Espada were meant to avoid releasing if they could help it, but depending on the strength of these zombies, he might have no choice. His eyes flickered nervously toward the setting moon, and then back toward Oars. This was going to get-

Crack.

Aaroniero blinked, startled out of his thoughts by a noise at his feet. He tilted his gaze downward, and then-WHAM!

A fist erupted from the earth and slammed into his chin with incredible force. He let out a loud grunt of shock and pain as he was lifted off his feet, and a moment later came crashing down, landing on the ground in a heap.

“Huh?!” Moria yelped, himself startled by the sudden attack on his foe. That hadn’t been him, had it?

As Aaroniero lay sprawled on the ground, Kaien’s flesh began to melt away from his face. The blow hadn’t been beyond his capabilities, but caught off guard by it, he had sustained non-insignificant damage. A crack had spread from the base of his head tank to the top, and red liquid trickled slowly but surely from it. He let out a gasp of dismay upon seeing it, both his skulls’ eyes bulging in fury and terror. He struggled to sit up.

“Who dares-?!”

A gravelly chuckle echoed through the air. The fist that had struck him from below hung in midair, a disembodied hand and forearm held up from below by a long, dark coil – threads which connected the base of the forearm to a hole in the ground beneath it. It seemed the fist had burrowed through the ground and then burst up, striking Aaroniero from below when he had least expected it.

With a crack, the thread pulled taut, and the arm was pulled back down through the hole in the ground, disappearing from sight. A voice from the west sounded out, deep and growling like the soft laughter that had preceded it.

“Perhaps you ought to be more wary of your surroundings. With the racket you fools were making, it was only a matter of time before you caught someone’s attention.”

Standing atop a nearby building, his hand retracting and refastening itself to his arm as he spoke, Kakuzu gazed down at the battlefield with cold eyes, the faint gleam of bloodlust barely discernible in their empty depths.

Moria sneered.

“An interloper? Please. Crush him, Oars!”

With a roar, Oars swung his massive fist around at deceptively blinding speed, bashing through three buildings to Kakuzu’s left, ready to swipe him across the city. Without flinching, Kakuzu raised his arm to block, and the massive arm slammed to a halt against it, a shockwave ripping outward. The skin on Kakuzu’s arm had taken on a dark shade, reinforced by his Earth Spear technique. Even so he grunted, his arm straining against the force of Oars’ punch, his feet only remaining in place thanks to a burst of chakra rooting them down.

He raised his other arm, and his fist once again burst forth like a rocket, crossing the distance between himself and Oars in an instant, slamming into the giant’s nose and knocking him off balance. Oars swayed for a moment, and then toppled backward, landing hard on his butt with an impact that shook the entirety of the Fake Karakura Town. Moria squawked in indignation, stomping his own massive foot in frustration.

“Get up, Oars! What the hell did I make you for?!”

As Kakuzu’s arm retracted, he leapt from his perch and hit the ground running, dashing toward Aaroniero at breakneck speed. The Espada gritted both sets of his teeth as he dragged himself up, the crack in his tank widening further. As Kakuzu approached, he raised his arms to defend, but a moment later, the shinobi disappeared from sight!

Having dashed behind Aaroniero, Kakuzu drew his hardened fist back, prepared to slam it forward into the back of the Espada’s tank. Before he could get the chance, however, an enormous shadowy fist slammed into him, hurling him away and slamming him through several buildings.

Moria, a distance away, ground his remaining teeth together in seething fury, fist still raised from the attack.

“Wait your turn, patchwork! That bastard’s mine to kill!”

As he spoke, however, Aaroniero took his opportunity. Beneath his feet, a Descorrer opened up, and he sank into the Garganta, the doorway closing behind him. Much as it bruised his ego, he was smart enough to know when he was beaten – with his tank cracked, it was retreat or die.

Moria gaped at the spot on the ground that his prey had disappeared into. A moment later, his shock turned to anger, and he let out a furious howl, flailing his arms and stomping both his feet in rage.

“Now look what you’ve done!! He was mine, and now he’s escaped!!!”

Kakuzu grumbled, pulling himself to his feet and glowering at Moria.

“He wouldn’t have escaped, had you not interrupted me from finishing him off.”

“Wh-?! You were the one who interrupted!!!”

“It’s no matter,” Kakuzu unzipped his Akatsuki robe, pulling it off and revealing his stitched up body underneath, though his head covering and mask remained in place. He stared down Moria and his forces with a calm gaze, the General Zombies amassing around the Warlord and Oars pulling himself up, coming to stand behind his master with a low moan. “I care not whom I kill and when, provided the prize is mine in the end. Your head will do nicely, for now.”

“Oh?” Moria asked, his rage giving way to cockiness once more. “Well then…”

He splayed his arms outward. Darkness surged out of him, and his zombies charged.

“GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT!!!!”

—

To the west…

Deidara panted heavily, gripping his non-prosthetic arm, which hung limply at his side, with the hand that Kakuzu had replaced. From his perch atop his clay bird, which had taken to the sky once more, he gazed down at Crocodile, whose own fatigue was equally apparent to Deidara’s. From the hook at his side, far thinner than it had been previously, a viscous purple liquid dripped, hitting the sand beneath his feet with a soft sizzling sound.

In the time since Kakuzu had left, the two of them had continued their back and forth, neither able to gain an advantage, until Crocodile had removed the golden casing from his hook, and managed to knick the side of Deidara’s arm with it. Bad news, as it seemed to be coated in some kind of powerful poison.

Deidara gritted his teeth, pulling the headband from his forehead with his good hand and wrapping it as tightly as he could around his arm, to restrict blood flow as best he could. He would need to have Sasori prepare him a proper antidote, once he got back to base.

‘UGH, this is taking forever… if only I hadn’t been interrupted by Sasori before… if only Kakuzu hadn’t shown up when he did…!’

He forced his expression into a pained smile.

‘But it’s been a little while… he should be out of range by now…’

Slowly, he reached into his pouch and pulled out a lump of clay, raising it up to mouth level.

‘If Emo Frankenstein does get caught up in the blast, it’ll be his own fault for being slow. I’ll end things, right here…!’

He opened his mouth, ready to chomp down on his clay. And then he froze, his gaze landing on something down on the ground, a figure dashing across the dunes, approaching his opponent from behind.

‘…You’ve gotta be FUCKING kidding me…’

On the ground, Crocodile fidgeted, holding his hook a short distance off to the side, to avoid dripping any of its poison on his clothes. Though he kept his gaze on the circling bird above, he felt little urgency in terms of pressuring his foe with attacks. The bomber, he had noticed, had gradually been attacking less and less, focusing more on evasion and smaller bombs than he had previously. It seemed that he was making an effort to preserve his reserve of clay, which meant that there was a limit to how much he had access to. 

Fatigue aside, Crocodile had yet to sustain any physical injury from the battle, and the heat of Deidara’s explosives had thus far failed to melt his entire body, even from close range. Furthermore, he had managed to tag his opponent with his poisoned hook, placing him on a time limit. Ergo, as long as he was able to preserve his stamina, outlast the enemy’s clay reserves, and prolong the fight long enough for the poison to take effect, victory was guaranteed. Provided, of course, that no reinforcements-

“SURPRISE, BITCH!”

Shing!

Just as he thought it, a blade carved Crocodile’s body clean in half! The sand comprising his body split, bisected across the waist, and his eyes widened in surprise.

Behind him, Hidan had leapt into the air and swung his scythe around, intent on cleaving Deidara’s foe in half. Triumph shone in his eyes as he pulled his scythe back to his hand, ready to lick the blood from it and instigate his ritual as he descended through the air.

A moment later, his expression froze, as he registered only sand grains on the blades of his scythe, not a single drop of blood in sight.

“H-Huh?!”

“YOU IDIOT!” Deidara screamed down from above, and Hidan’s eyes widened as Crocodile turned below him, his eyes meeting Hidan’s in midair, a menacing expression on his face.

Hidan shrieked as he fell helplessly toward his would-be prey, but a moment later his cry was cut off as Crocodile swung his arm up and seized him by the face, his large hand clenched overtop of Hidan’s open mouth.

“Die.” he growled.

In an instant, all the moisture was sucked from Hidan’s body, his limbs shriveling up, his skin becoming cracked and ashy. Crocodile dropped him, and he fell to the ground like a deflated balloon, wheezing as his mouth sputtered open and closed, desperate for water. Crocodile sneered down at him.

“The hell is this weakling?”

Deidara descended, still looking furious.

“I DIDN’T ASK FOR YOUR HELP, HIDAN!!”

Hidan struggled to pull himself up, staring forlornly up at his associate.

“I was… just… trying to…….”

“GO THE FUCK AWAY!!!!!!!”

Hidan shrieked and dragged himself up, his emaciated legs tripping over each other as he staggered toward the distant ocean, visible on the southern horizon. Crocodile watched him go, nose wrinkling in disgust.

“Tch. You people are a bunch of freaks and idiots.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Deidara grumbled, clearly still annoyed. Crocodile glanced up at him, unamused.

“Did you think I wasn’t including you, dumbass?”

“…” Deidara’s eye twitched.

—

Back in the northwest…

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Between the mountains of the Cloud territory, sonic booms ripped through the air, as the territory was engulfed by a battle between two opponents flying at speeds too great to perceive.

Konan spun through the air, wings tucked into her sides as she twisted out of the way of oncoming Ceros. Sheets of paper swirled around her body in a vortex, and every few seconds…

Fwoosh. One of the papers flitted in front of her back and glowed a bright magenta color, a black flower-shaped mark spreading across its surface. The paper crumpled midair, energy crackling through it before it dissolved, burned to ashes. A moment later, another paper followed suit, and then another, each of them caught by a mark and crushed into nothing.

Konan spun in midair, angling her back toward the ground, and in an instant papers detached from her wings and morphed into a bow and arrow in her hands, with which she took aim at the opponent in hot pursuit.

Zommari’s body had changed significantly, an enormous pink, bulbous structure now encompassing his lower half. From the bottom of the bulb, spiritual energy produced explosive bursts, propelling him through the air like a rocket-propelled jet. But that was not the most disturbing part of his transformation, far from it.

Large, disquieting eyes had opened all over his body – fifty-eight in total, Konan had counted – and each one could place a marking on whatever target was in the focal point of its vision, allowing Zommari to control that target telekinetically. Thankfully, her paper body had prevented the first marking placed on her body from killing her, and ever since she had managed to get a handle on the timing of the ability, using her paper slips to “catch” the markings and defend herself. Her projectiles far outnumbered his eyes, so she was more than capable of keeping up. Even still, however, it was a troublesome ability. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if he tagged her head.

Within a moment of taking aim, she let her arrow fly. It blazed through the air, fast as a blur, but Zommari seized it midair, halting it from hitting him. A moment later, the arrow combusted, the paper tags placed along its shaft detonating in Zommari’s grip, and he cried out in alarm and pain, the eye on his hand burned.

Konan didn’t smile, but her lips pressed together in a line of grim satisfaction.

‘Fifty-seven to go.’

“You worm!” Zommari bellowed, and from his charred palm a red energy ripped forth through the air. Almost instantly, it punched a hole right through Konan’s left wing. Her eyes widened. That had been much faster than the Ceros he had fired previously.

As she tumbled through the air, her wing reforming as quickly as she could manage, Zommari thrust his hands out, and Bala after Bala blasted forth, their speed far too great for his opponent to react to. Konan swerved wildly, desperately weaving between the near-instantaneous bursts of energy.

With a mighty swing of her wings, Konan launched herself upward, the gust of air splitting the clouds underneath. In moments, she reached Zommari’s location and slammed into him, causing him to halt in midair with a grunt, knocked backward slightly by the impact. Konan drew her fist back, and paper swirled around her hand, forming a massive fist. With a determined cry, she hurled a punch forward and slammed it full force into Zommari’s chest, eliciting a gasp of pain and giving him two giant black eyes in the center of his pectorals.

‘Fifty-five!’

As Zommari was launched backward by the punch, the papers that had encased Konan’s hand remained stuck to his chest. As she formed hand seals at blinding speed, they multiplied and swirled around Zommari like a whirlwind, slashing large paper cuts into the eyes all across his body as he howled in agony.

‘Fifty-one…! Forty-two…! Thirty-five…!’

Once again, Konan flapped her wings and shot upward like a bullet, ascending above Zommari, her wings unfurling to gigantic size in front of the setting moon, which appeared enormous against the horizon. Zommari let out a roar of fury as the papers whirling around him stuck to his skin, and he swung his hands around, Ceros incinerating slips of paper – only for each one to be replaced by a dozen more.

Above him, Konan clasped her hands together and concentrated, as though praying. Her wings continued to unfurl, spreading wide enough to encompass a mountain as sweat beads formed on her forehead. Below, Zommari’s eyes darted around frantically, and he attempted to propel himself upward, but the paper clung to him and dragged him downward, wrapping around his body and cocooning him in parchment. He let out a scream of rage before the paper covered his face and silenced him.

At last, Konan opened her eyes, and with Herculean effort curled her wings inward, wrapping around Zommari’s cocoon as though giving him a massive paper bear hug. More and more paper congealed around him, until an immense spherical prison had formed, almost akin to one of Pain’s jutsu, though on a smaller scale. Konan’s wings detached from the giant paper sphere, and as she sprung away, putting distance between herself and her target, she raised her hand, an origami swan sitting in her palm.

“It’s time to unleash the power of God!!” she declared forcefully, and released the swan.

Slowly, almost calmly, it sailed through the air toward the sphere. Then, it touched the surface, and millions of paper bombs covering the sphere ignited all at once, and the air was rent apart by an enormous explosion.

Mountains in the vicinity evaporated, and the clouds surrounding the area blasted outward. The air heated by thousands of degrees in an instant, oxygen molecules nearby shredded into subatomic particles. The conflagration Konan had just unleashed would have been powerful enough to annihilate even Pain’s Chibaku Tensei – certainly, there was no way Zommari could have survived.

From the enormous cloud of smoke, a charred shape fell – an enormous glob of burnt flesh that had composed Zommari’s lower half. It hurtled down through the air and slammed into the sizzling ground where a mountain had once stood nearby, causing spiderweb cracks to spread out across the seared earth. The glob’s surface bubbled, still boiling from the heat of the explosion.

Slowly, Konan descended, her wings flapping as she touched down nearby. Her hair had become unkempt and her breathing was ragged. The attack had cost the majority of her chakra. Fortunately, it seemed the fight was-

Squelch!

Konan’s eyes widened as a hand ripped through the top of the flesh glob. She watched in dismay as slowly, disheveled himself, Zommari ripped his way up out of his pink cocoon, which he had apparently used to shield himself from the blast. Veins bulged in the Espada’s head and his teeth ground together, but sadistic satisfaction was clear on his face.

“I certainly hope… that wasn’t the best you had to offer…” he ground out. “But from your expression, I’d guess that it is.”

Konan swallowed, shakily raising an arm and allowing paper to slowly unfurl from her wrist. Her vision blurred. This was bad.

Zommari sneered.

“You were arrogant, human, to think you could take on an Espada by yourself. Time to die for your hubris!”

He raised a hand and the eye in his palm glowed magenta. Konan gasped; in her shock at Zommari’s survival, she had momentarily forgotten about his deadly ability. She raised her arms on instinct to shield her face, knowing as she did so that it wouldn’t help-!

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

A moment later, her vision was obscured – a man had dived in front of her, placing himself between her and the attack. Zommari’s mark, shot out from his hand like an invisible projectile, struck the air in front of the man and dissolved into nothing, twisting inward as though met by an invisible barrier and absorbed.

“It seems I arrived just in time.”

The man was tall and stocky, with a thick nose and face studs on his face, nose and chin. Ringed purple eyes shone out from under his Amegakure forehead protector and orange hair. The Preta Path of Pain had arrived to absorb the attack.

Under normal circumstances, Konan would have been relieved by Pain’s presence, but all she felt now was panic and dread. She had failed to settle the fight on her own, and now Nagato was putting himself at risk to save her.

“Pain!” she cried. “You can’t be here, you’re-”

“Silence.” Pain’s deep voice cut her off, his eyes fixed on Zommari, who appeared incensed by the intrusion. “You are a shinobi, Konan. Behave like it.”

She swallowed, and took a deep breath before schooling her facial features into a more calm mask. He was right, of course; for a moment she had forgotten herself, and nearly revealed Nagato’s condition to the enemy. After a moment of mild embarrassment, she spoke with regained composure, softly enough that only Pain could hear.

“Apologies, my lord, it will not happen again. The enemy possesses the ability to control that which he gazes upon with markings, though it seems from the fact that you could absorb one that they take the form of some kind of projectile. He can also fly, project large blasts of energy both rapid-fire and explosive, and boost his speed in short bursts. He used a sword earlier, but forewent it upon transforming into the state he’s in now.”

Pain nodded, curtly.

“And his resilience is great enough to withstand the maximum output of your paper bombs?”

“The resilience of his lower body. It seems his upper half may be less durable, given his need to sheathe himself within that pink mass.”

“I see.”

Across from them, Zommari scoffed.

“Stop your prattling. It shan’t save you,” he growled, the eye in his forehead twitching slightly. “You have come to die.”

Pain gazed back fearlessly and emotionlessly.

“I have come to kill.”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Zommari cried out as explosions ripped into his upper back! From the smoke behind him, another Path of Pain leapt out and brought down a giant chainsaw tail, which tore through the Espada’s flesh – the Asura Path had joined the fray.

POOF!

With an enormous burst of smoke, a roar echoed across the surrounding mountains – those which had not been destroyed at least. A giant dog with many heads towered over Zommari, and brought its paw down, smacking him hundreds of meters away. The Espada tumbled across the ground and then skidded to a halt, rage rippling across his face. He pressed both his hands together and roared in fury.

“FOUR OF YOU WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE, HUMAN! WE HOLLOWS ARE THE ONES WHO WILL RULE THE WORLD!!!”

The Animal and Asura Paths stood alongside the Preta Path, who raised his hands, prepared to absorb anything Zommari threw out. Behind Pain, Konan took to the sky, her paper morphing into shuriken around her. The Preta Path spoke calmly and readily, still unafraid.

“Fool. The only thing that can propel the fate of this world… is pain. I will make sure you know it well.”

The three Pains leapt into the air, and descended upon Zommari, who raised his hands to greet them…

—

Far to the east…

Deep within the fortress of Las Noches, space parted, and a window to the Garganta opened up. From its depths strode Szayelaporro, flexing the new hand he had just finished constructing for himself. It had taken him most of the night, but as he strode down the hallway toward the Espada’s council chambers, he felt good as new. A short time ago, he had sensed Aaroniero’s return to Las Noches, and was eager to begin studying the corpse that the other Espada would have brought back with him.

Unfortunately, however, when he arrived in the council room, he was greeted by an entirely different sight than what he had been expecting.

“-COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! This idiot has made a mockery of the Espada!”

Gesticulating wildly, sleeves too long for his arms and his expression contorted in rage and contempt, the former Sexta, Luppi, ranted and raved, spittle flying from his mouth and the stitches running up his face appearing as though they were about to come apart. The object of his rage and recipient of his hand gestures sat prone against the table, a long crack up the side of his head tank. Within, Aaroniero’s skulls seethed silently, but he didn’t dare speak up against the shorter but stronger Arrancar.

“I’ll go out there,” Luppi snarled, pacing back and forth in a fury. “I’ll go out there and rip that bastard to pieces and show that we shouldn’t be taken lightly-”

“No. You are to remain here.”

The calm response came from the woman he was speaking to, who stood with her arms folded in front of her chest, and her long blue cloak hanging down around her ankles, a symbol of her status as de facto ruler of Hueco Mundo. In the time since they had found themselves in the arena, Harribel had assumed leadership of the reunited Espada, something that many of the members who had perished too early to witness her rise to power had taken issue with.

It had quickly become apparent, however, that Harribel’s strength was now incomparable to what it once had been, as was the case with several of the other members, Luppi included. Starrk, Ulquiorra, and several of the lesser Espada had acquiesced to Harribel’s leadership quickly. Others like Yammy and Baraggan, however, had taken time to (begrudgingly) come around, and even now only followed orders out of respect for her new strength. With the exception of Nelliel, those who could rival Harribel, such as Luppi and the ever-temperamental Grimmjow, deferred to her judgment on many matters, but did not acknowledge her as their superior. A fact that was reflected in Luppi’s reaction to her order, as his face contorted into an arrogant sneer.

“I told you not to give me orders, Harribel,” he said with a simper. “Unless you want me to poke a bunch of holes in you. Don’t get the idea that you’re stronger than me.”

Harribel’s eyes narrowed.

“Hey now,” a new, high-pitched voice chimed in, as Nelliel moved between the two of them, holding her hands up in an attempt to defuse the tension, a nervous bead of sweat forming on her forehead. “M-Maybe we can all calm down, and…”

“Stronger, perhaps, or perhaps not,” Harribel cut in, and Nel swallowed, while Luppi bristled. “Calmer, wiser, undeniably. Your strength will be needed when the fighting truly breaks out. It would be in our best interest to keep the strongest of our cards close to the chest, so to speak.”

Sitting at the table, hands behind his head as he reclined, Grimmjow scoffed softly, and Harribel and Nel both shot him a glare which he didn’t bother returning. Luppi spat furiously, and pointed a finger at the still-silent Aaroniero.

“This moron,” he snapped, “lost his fight, lost the corpse, and then ran away. He’s made us all look weak!”

Aaroniero slammed his fist down on the table and stood up, ready to argue, but Harribel spoke sharply, cutting him off.

“All the better, then! If the enemy thinks us weak, they are in for a rude awakening when they face someone other than the weakest of our number! In a war, intelligence and caution is vital, far more so than petty pride!”

A low growl came from the other end of the table, where Baraggan sat, chin leaning on his hand. He glowered reproachfully at Harribel, and spoke in a low, gravelly tone.

“Tch. ‘Petty pride’? If this is what passes for a king nowadays, Hueco Mundo really has gone to the dogs.”

To his right, Starrk let out a loud yawn.

“I don’t know, I always thought that stuff was such a bore.” His eyes were closed, and he was clearly beginning to doze off, until the green-haired girl standing behind him gave him a soft whack to the side of the head and he yelped, sitting up straight, blinking owlishly. He rubbed his head, as though he had been hit much harder than he had, and pouted. “What was that for?”

“Am I interrupting?” Szayel cut in, and eyes turned to him for the first time. Luppi brightened, seemingly confident that Szayel would be on his side.

“Octava, perfect timing!” he exclaimed with faux enthusiasm. “The weakling lost your corpse, and our fearless leader has decided that I’m not allowed to go retrieve it. Think you could talk some sense into her?”

If Szayel was uncomfortable being placed in the middle of the dispute, he didn’t show it. He shrugged, raising the palms of his hands upward and closing his eyes with a calm smile.

“If that is what her majesty decrees, I see no reason to argue,” he said, and Luppi’s face fell. “After all, Lord Aizen is not here to direct our movements, and his shoes are impossible to fill. Our dear Tres Espada has elected to step into his role, an immeasurable burden.” He opened his eyes and met Harribel’s gaze, a mischievous gleam just barely visible in his expression. “Thus, any blame for mistaken actions will fall onto her shoulders. A deeply noble sacrifice, fitting of she who once bore the third rank.”

Harribel’s eyes narrowed, and a cruel smile spread across Luppi’s face as he too understood what Szayel was getting at. They would follow Harribel’s orders – until, and only until, those orders stopped getting results. The teamwork she had cultivated thus far was a charade, a board perched atop the tip of a needle, ready to collapse at any moment. And if it fell, then she was the one who would have to answer for it.

Between the three of them, Nel’s gaze flickered nervously from Harribel to Szayel to Luppi. She fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable. But before any of them could break the silence, a new voice chimed in.

“Not ‘her majesty’.” Grimmjow spoke up, cracking one eye open and glaring at Szayelaporro with scorn. “And not ‘a king’.” He turned his gaze toward Baraggan, who glared back at him. “Don’t get it wrong again. The only king who’ll rule Hueco Mundo is me.”

Baraggan scowled. “Don’t get cocky, brat. You may be powerful, but I am the only king here.”

Grimmjow grinned back at him, sharp teeth flashing.

“Oh yeah? Wanna fight for that throne, old man? Or are ya worried you might throw out your back?”

“Enough,” Harribel cut in, and Grimmjow twitched, a flash of annoyance flickering across his face. She took a moment to inhale deeply, and then exhaled. “Grimmjow is correct, of course. I am not your king, I am simply your leader. And as the one who has taken on that burden,” she glanced at Szayel, who smiled back innocently, and then turned her gaze to Luppi, “I am asking that you trust my judgment.”

Luppi looked momentarily displeased, and then schooled his features.

“Fine,” he said. “For now. But don’t expect me to sit around forever.” A maniacal smile twisted across his face. “I’m itching to tear off a few limbs.”

Almost imperceptibly, the tension in Harribel’s shoulders relaxed. ‘Heavy is indeed the head that wears the crown,’ she thought with a soft breath of relief. Across from her, Szayel spoke up again, addressing Aaroniero, who had sunk back into his seat quietly.

“There are replacement tanks in my laboratory. I can install one for you shortly.”

Aaroniero nodded curtly and stood, striding out the door to the room without a word, hunched over slightly, frustration and shame still visible in his demeanor. Szayel turned his attention to Harribel.

“Zommari, Ulquiorra, Yammy, and Nnoitra are absent,” he observed. She nodded.

“Zommari has yet to return from his mission, and I sent Ulquiorra and Yammy back out for reconnaissance. We still have received no word from Nnoitra.”

Szayel shrugged, unsurprised.

“As expected. I can’t imagine a man like him would have taken kindly to working under you.”

So quickly a less trained eye would have missed it, Harribel glanced at Nelliel, who pursed her lips, clearly displeased at the mention of the Quinto Espada, whom she had a long-standing animosity with. Nnoitra had vanished on the first day and hadn’t been seen since. Harribel frowned, her gaze turning back toward Szayel.

“No, I suppose not.”

“In any case,” Szayel continued. “Aaroniero’s failure is troublesome. Without a corpse to study, my ability to develop countermeasures to our enemies’ powers will be… limited.”

Harribel raised a hand to her chin, thinking.

“Indeed. We will have to hope that Zommari pulls through. And if not…” she tapped a finger against her jaw, pondering, “…according to Aaroniero’s report, his enemy was engaged with a different foe when he made his escape. Once you’ve patched him up, accompany him back to the battlefield, and bring your Fracción with you. It’s possible that the situation may still be salvaged.”

Szayel raised an eyebrow.

“Fracción?” he asked innocently. “Why, what makes you think I have anything like that? Aside from Miss Lilynette, none of our Fracción accompanied us into the arena, no?” He glanced over toward the girl in question and winked, and she stuck her tongue out at him in response.

Harribel appeared unamused.

“Your twisted experiments don’t concern me, Szayelaporro,” she replied evenly. “But don’t think for a second that you’re doing anything I don’t know about.”

Szayel let out a fake gasp, placing a hand over his heart.

“Why, I’d never try to keep anything from you,” he replied, feigning hurt. “I simply thought it beneath your notice, mi señora. In any case, the Fracción are not ready yet. That will be a tool for the future.”

“Right,” Harribel replied, clearly unconvinced. “Well, regardless, best not to keep Aaroniero waiting. He’ll suffocate if you let his liquid drain out.”

“A terrible loss, I’m sure,” Szayel replied airily, turning to leave. “Well, with any luck, those two he left fighting will finish each other off, and we’ll be able to swoop in and seize the bodies for ourselves.”

Harribel nodded as he left the room, and murmured softly in response, more to herself than anything.

“With any luck.”

—

To the west…

Dashing through the streets of Karakura Town, Kakuzu zipped forward at speeds too fast for the human eye. Behind him, moving at breakneck speed, Moria’s shadows washed across the ground, rippling through the area and warping everything back into a twisted hellscape. Along with it, a tidal wave of zombies engulfed the streets, their roars melding together into a cacophony of horror.

As Kakuzu sprinted, he leapt into the air and spun his body around, his right arm detaching and swinging through the air like a ball on a chain, fist as hard as steel. As it swung around, it slammed into the zombies at the front of the pack, knocking them over like bowling pins, before the Akatsuki member reeled it back in by its thread.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!”

As he fell through the air, however, an ear-splitting roar rang out. Far too fast for a creature of his size, Oars seemed to materialize behind Kakuzu, and swung a massive, mighty fist forward with enough force to split a continent. Turning in midair, Kakuzu raised his arms to block the strike, but Oars’ haymaker sent him flying with a massive shockwave regardless, crashing through building after building.

As he flew backward, Moria leapt into the fray behind him, cackling at the top of his lungs, and swung shadow-wreathed claws, carving into Kakuzu’s back, leaving thin cuts across his masks but not breaking any of them. With wide eyes and a loud cry of pain, the man covered in stitches was hurled in a new direction, slamming through more buildings and tumbling head over heels.

If being treated like a human tennis ball was enough to seriously inconvenience Kakuzu, it didn’t show. Flipping over in midair, he managed to right himself and land on his feet, skidding across the ground and coming to a halt with a gurgling groan. The skin on his hardened arms steamed, still entirely undamaged by the punch from Oars. Through the air, Moria’s laughter echoed.

“KISHISHISHISHI!” the Warlord howled, leaping onto the top of the nearby clock tower, clinging to the side with one hand like some kind of vampire King Kong, and smiling down at Kakuzu with regained vigor. “Very nice, very nice, stranger! Resilient little insects are always fun! But this is a war of attrition you won’t win!”

Kakuzu glowered up at him, letting out a grumbling growl.

“I’ve had enough of clowns like you who talk too-”

!!!

He cut himself off with something between a gasp and a grunt, as from his right, a blade swung toward his head at blinding speed. In slow motion, it appeared to get closer as his eyes turned toward it, and then a moment later it carved through the spot where his head had been a moment prior, Kakuzu having managed to duck just in time. Skidding to a halt and turning in place to face his missed target, the zombie samurai Ryuma raised his katana, wordlessly adopting a threatening stance.

Kakuzu drew a fist back, threads extending from his arm and whipping around, but before he could launch a counterattack toward Ryuma, three sword slashes bit into his back and he cried out, before a kick from the zombie Jigoro hurled him off his feet, toward Ryuma. Ryuma’s sword glowed with power and swung out, slashing across Kakuzu’s chest. 

Sword strikes assailed the Akatsuki from both sides, overwhelming him even as he tried to fight back, battering him side to side. Kakuzu groaned, his eyes rattling in his head and his vision blurring with every hit. Every time he moved to counterattack Ryuma to his right, a strike from Jigoro came from the left, and vice versa, knocking him back and forth like a rag doll, battering his flesh and rattling his bones with every hit. 

With a roar, Oars crashed through the building behind them, drawing his fist back. Ryuma and Jigoro leapt clear, and Kakuzu, still reeling, looked up deliriously as Oars brought his fist down directly on his head. The ground fractured and shook for miles around, buildings in the vicinity crumbling from the mighty strike.

Oars exhaled, smoke blowing out of his nostrils. A moment later however, his arm began to shake as his fist was pushed back. Beneath the immense appendage, at the bottom of a crater left by its impact, Kakuzu pushed back against Oars’ knuckles with both hands, managing to force back the strike.

Moria giggled.

“My my! Your raw durability is impressive, stranger. Maybe even greater than mine!”

With an immense roar of effort, Kakuzu shoved Oars’ fist backward with such force that the giant toppled off his feet, falling backward and flattening five city blocks.

“Your mockery grows old!” Kakuzu snarled, and let out a roar of agony as the stitches on his back burst, and from his body, the four masks ripped away, black threads emerging along with them like tendons. Within moments, the masks and their threads had taken shape into four large humanoid creatures, masses of thread with each of Kakuzu’s masks as a face.

“Oho!” Moria exclaimed, as Kakuzu’s back stitched itself back up. “So you do have some surprises in store!”

Kakuzu sneered at him.

“You, on the contrary, are entirely predictable, and a fool who doesn’t realize when he’s outmatched. You are going to die today, boy.”

“Oh??” Moria asked, mockingly. “Who are you calling ‘boy’? I’ve sailed the seas for decades! I fought Kaido the Emperor, in his prime! The strongest beast to ever walk the earth!”

Kakuzu let out a low chuckle.

“Decades… an emperor… how quaint. I’ve walked this world for nearly a century. I did battle with the God of Shinobi himself, the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju. Your beast means nothing to me.”

Moria chuckled, leaping down from the clock tower and landing with enough force to crack the ground. Ryuma and Jigoro stood in front of him, and Oars pulled himself up behind him, the four of them facing down Kakuzu and his familiars. Kakuzu formed hand seals, and the creature to his left began to charge a ball of lightning in front of its mask.

Moria thrust his hand forward and his zombies surged forth, at the same time that Kakuzu released his Lightning Release: False Darkness jutsu.

“We’ll see!”

—

Further to the west…

GASP!

Sputtering heavily and wheezing for breath, Hidan pulled his head out of the water, bloodshot eyes rolling up into his head as he let out a groan and rolled over, collapsing onto the sand. Several meters away, his scythe lay abandoned, cast aside when Hidan had finally reached the shore, where the northern desert of Suna gave way to the southern ocean.

The taste of salt still stung his mouth horribly, but all Hidan could feel at that moment was relief, the water he had gulped down hungrily returning strength to his formerly emaciated muscles. The Nara brat notwithstanding, it had been a long time since he had genuinely feared for his life, but Crocodile’s grip had relit a long-forgotten fear in his heart that only now slowly ebbed. Hunger and thirst were among the few things that could kill him, after all, along with perhaps complete annihilation.

Slowly, his senses returning to him, Hidan pulled himself up to a sitting position, wiping the seawater and saliva off his chin with a groan. He glanced north, briefly contemplating a trek back to Deidara and Crocodile’s location, and then dismissed it with a deep shudder. An enemy who could kill him with a touch, whom he couldn’t cut… no, Deidara could keep the sandman all to himself, Hidan decided.

In the distance to the far east, the clouds that had engulfed Karakura Town – summoned by Aaroniero, though Hidan did not know it – had abated, but in their place enormous bursts of lightning and fire had begun to transform the landscape. Even from kilometers away, Hidan recognized the jutsu as Kakuzu’s; he had been subjected to their wrath plenty of times himself, after all. His partner had gone ahead of him in the forest, when Hidan had dashed off to help Sasori, and it seemed he was stirring things up in Espada territory.

‘Fine with me,’ Hidan thought, seizing his scythe and using it to drag himself up to his feet, stumbling slightly as feeling slowly returned to his legs. ‘I’ve had enough of those Warlords for one day.’

Just as he was about to dash off to Kakuzu’s rescue, however, movement along the far bank caught the corner of his eye. Hundreds of meters eastward, far short of where Kakuzu’s battle waged, a small vessel had come ashore, only large enough for a person or two, with what appeared to be a single, small black sail. Atop the ship, movement was visible, with what appeared to be two passengers scuffling as they moved to disembark.

Hidan hesitated. He had rushed into two fights with the Warlords already, and wasn’t keen on getting humbled again. Still, he thought, his trepidation giving way to excitement, the odds that his ritual would fail three times in a row… such a thing had never even come close to happening before. And if he managed to take out two enemies for the price of one, it would make up for his performance against Doflamingo and Crocodile – more importantly, it would prove him right about Pain’s suffocating caution.

With an insane grin, Hidan licked his lips and raised his scythe, ready to charge in.

“Third time’s the charm!”

—

Buggy let out a shriek as he was hurled bodily from the small boat, landing in the sand in a heap and quickly scrambling to his feet, fretting and whimpering.

“H-H-Hey now, that wasn’t necessary!” he yelped, several octaves higher than he meant it. “I m-mean, Mr. Hawk-Eyes Sir, surely I would only get in your way-!”

“Quiet,” Hawk-Eyes commanded, and Buggy abruptly fell silent, wringing his hands. Mihawk strode down the ramp, cloak billowing behind him and arms crossed in front of him. As he set foot on the beach, he was silent for a moment, eyes closed in contemplation. Then, they snapped open, and an immense wave of aura rippled out from his body, across the beach and the mainland ahead, Conqueror’s Haki crackling through the air as if to announce his arrival.

North of them, Crocodile and Deidara paused their battle, Deidara in the sky and Crocodile on the ground.

“What the hell is THAT?” Deidara cried, momentarily distracted as he glanced wildly to the south. Beneath him, Crocodile clenched his teeth down on his cigar so hard he bit clean through it.

‘Hawk-Eyes!’ He cursed inwardly. ‘Why’s he showing himself already?!’

From the northwest of Mihawk, Moria and Kakuzu also paused, glancing in the direction from which Mihawk’s Haki was emanating. Kakuzu let out a groan and clutched his head, as his creatures spasmed. Across from him, Moria too groaned under the pressure, and the army of zombies behind him toppled over, Oars collapsing to the ground with a massive rumble that shook the earth, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

‘W-What?! What the hell is that bastard doing?! He’s going to ruin everything!’ Moria wailed inwardly, barely managing to remain standing under the sheer weight of Mihawk’s aura.

To the northwest, Pain and Zommari’s battle raged on, neither side flinching under the sudden wave of power flowing over them.

‘What incredible power…’ Pain thought grimly.

‘I-Impossible…!’ Zommari thought, sweat pouring down his face as he sniped the Asura Path’s missiles out of the air with Amor. ‘Such strength… it’s almost like…!’

In his mind’s eye, a figure flashed, clad in white, his powerful, imperious gaze penetrating all he looked down upon…

Zommari let out a roar of fury, his eyes going wild, and Pain leapt away as Zommari’s energy pulverized the ground where he had stood.

“INCONCEIVABLE!” Zommari bellowed to the sky at the top of his lungs, energy rippling out of him, though barely even a drop in the ocean compared to Mihawk’s. “NO MERE HUMAN COULD BE THAT STRONG!”

From the eye on the center of his forehead, an enormous Cero began to charge, and he released an immense blast of energy toward the Asura Path, only for the Preta Path to leap in front…

Floating above, Konan hung in the air, eyes wide as she gazed southward, the battle momentarily forgotten. That kind of power… she had never felt anything like it, not even from Pain…!

—

Deep within the Land of Snow in Akatsuki territory, two figures waited, motionless. The shorter of the two sat perched atop a frost-covered granite boulder, arm resting on his knee, while the taller man stood on the ground below. As the snow around them began to sizzle and evaporate as Mihawk’s aura washed over it, both men turned to the east. The taller one bared his pointed teeth as the enormous sword on his back twitched violently. He let out a wicked chuckle.

“What incredible energy,” he growled, licking his lips. “Samehada is getting hungry, just from the smell of it.” The man atop the boulder remained silent for a moment, blood-red eyes narrowed. Then, he spoke.

“It appears that’s our cue.” he said, his voice deep and calm. “Deidara will not be able to handle a man of such power.”

His companion chuckled.

“To be honest, I’m not sure if I can handle him. Perhaps if I absorbed enough of his energy, and then fused with Samehada… but I’m sure he’ll be no match for you.”

The man leapt down from the boulder and landed next to his partner. “We’ll see.”

His partner studied his face, which appeared apprehensive.

“Oh? Are you saying you would lose?” Kisame asked, grinning. It was unusual to see his prodigious partner nervous about anything.

Itachi didn’t even glance at him as they set off, allowing the question to hang in the air with no answer.

—

Back on the beach, Mihawk’s energy slowly began to wind down, and his cloak settled back into place, having been billowing violently under the intense force emitting from its wearer. To his left, Buggy swayed in place, dazed and whimpering.

“Can’t ya warn a guy first~……..” the clown warbled out, deliriously, threatening to topple over. Mihawk raised a hand and flicked him on the red nose, eliciting a yelp of pain as Buggy snapped out of his stupor, reaching up and rubbing it.

“Oi, watch the nose!” he cried, and then added a wimpy “…please, sir…” as Mihawk glanced back at him. A moment later, Mihawk’s gaze landed on something over Buggy’s shoulder.

“It appears we have company.”

Buggy blinked and turned to the west. About ten meters away, stark-white and trembling violently in place, Hidan stood, his enormous scythe raised as though he had been charging in and prepared to swing it, before being frozen in place unwittingly by Mihawk’s Haki. Foam gurgled from his mouth, and his eyes slid in and out of focus. 

“W-w-w-w-w-what wa-a-as tha-a-at-t-t-t-t?” he gargled through the foam, trembling violently. A suspiciously wet-looking stain began to spread across the front of his robes.

Buggy stared blankly for a moment and then sprang into action, swinging his arms animatedly as a boisterous grin spread across his face.

“HA! Tried to get the jump on the great genius jester, Buggy the Clown, didja?!”

He strolled toward the frozen Hidan, who still remained stationary, his scythe arm slowly lowering as he rocked in place. Buggy rubbed a finger under his nose as he continued to posture.

“Your terror is understandable, I am incredibly famous, after all. But this guy right here-” he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Mihawk. “-he’s the real deal! Hawk-Eyes Mihawk, the strongest swordsman the world has ever known, in the flesh!”

Hidan did not hear a single word Buggy said, his disoriented mind racing as he stared at Mihawk with a slack jaw and unfocused eyes.

‘That guy… What kind of monster is he?! I’ve stared down Tailed Beasts with less power than he seems to have! There’s… there’s no way I can beat someone like that…! Is this… Jashin in the flesh… or something even stronger?!’

“Well?!” Buggy shrieked, getting up in Hidan’s face, spittle flying from his mouth. “What are you gonna say to that, mullet man? What are ya gonna do?!”

Finally, Hidan seemed to snap out of his stupor. Wrenching his own jaw closed, his gaze locked onto Buggy as though only now registering his existence, eyes bloodshot and full of madness.

“You think you can mock Jashin, clown?!” he screamed, drawing his scythe back. “KNOW YOUR PLACE!”

With all the might he could muster, he swung the scythe around and carved through the jester’s neck, severing his head cleanly from his shoulders, hurling it into the air with the force of his swing, which split the sand to his left, carving a trench into the ground through sheer wind pressure.

Mihawk looked on calmly as Hidan cackled.

“Finally! Someone who’s fucking normal in your group, who dies when I kill-”

Buggy’s head, which had been falling through the air as he spoke, landed back atop his neck with a plop. Hidan froze mid sentence as he and Buggy stared at each other.

“…when…I…when I…k…k…kill…”

Slowly, as Hidan trailed off, the clown reached up, and straightened his head with a slight twist, as it had been slightly out of alignment. Toothily, he flashed a cheeky grin.

Hidan’s eyes bugged out of his face, and his jaw seemed to unhinge with how wide it opened. Snot began to pour from his nostrils as he stared in abject horror at the face of his natural enemy. Over Buggy’s shoulder, Mihawk let out a huff of dry amusement, closing his eyes and turning away, arms crossed.

“W-w-w-wha……” Hidan stammered, staggering backward away from Buggy. Then, with a wail, he turned north and ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

“WHAT KIND OF MONSTERS DID THEY PUT US AGAINST?!” he screamed, tears streaming furiously from his eyes as he disappeared into the distance. “KAKUZU SAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEE……..!”

—

Back to the northwest, atop his bird, Deidara ground his teeth together, a vein bulging in his forehead as he found himself thoroughly fed up with the prolonged stalemate. Beneath him, Crocodile carved through a volley of missiles, dehydrating them and nullifying Deidara’s offense for what must have been the hundredth time. Deidara’s arm, which still hung at his side, throbbed violently, having turned a sickly shade of green from Crocodile’s poison. Over the horizon, the earliest rays of the morning sun had begun to peek through – they had fought through the whole night.

‘Fuck this…’ Deidara stewed inwardly. ‘I could have won this fight hours ago if those idiots hadn’t kept showing up and interrupting me… I’ve had enough. If Hidan isn’t out of range by now, he can die for all I care! Let’s settle this!’

With his prosthetic arm, he seized a lump of clay and brought it up to his mouth as Crocodile turned to look up at him, grimacing. Deidara grinned and called down to him.

“You don’t know how lucky you’ve been, freak. But now… THIS… IS… OVER-!”

Crocodile cried out in alarm, his eyes widening as he leapt backward into the air. For a split second, Deidara thought the man was reacting to the forthcoming explosion, but then…

FWOOOOOOM!

A blast of fire ripped across the ground, heating the air below to a thousand degrees and consuming the spot where Crocodile had stood moments prior. Deidara stood frozen, his teeth touching the clay in his hand but not yet clenched down. Slowly, his gaze turned to the west, where the enormous plume of fire had come from, rage mounting in his heart for reasons other than being once again interrupted.

At the top of the nearby ridge, two figures stood. The shorter of them had two fingers raised, just in front of his mouth – the fireball jutsu had come from him. The man that Deidara hated more than anyone else in the world. His humiliator, Itachi Uchiha.

The bomber began to breathe heavily, trembling as tiny blood vessels ruptured in his unburned eye, sheer unadulterated RAGE emanating from him.

“Are you… fucking… KIDDING MEEEEEE?!” he roared at the top of his lungs, his hand clenching down on the lump of clay and crushing it into paste.

Itachi leapt from where he stood, sliding down the side of the dune, Kisame following suit right behind him. As he landed on the ground, he kept his gaze on Crocodile, who himself seemed apprehensive about the new intrusion. Deidara didn’t seem to be his concern at all, and that only filled the man in question with even more apoplectic rage, his bird swooping down into speaking range.

“WHO ASKED FOR ALL YOU IDIOTS TO COME HELP ME?!” Deidara screamed. “NO ONE! NO ONE ASKED! I WAS ABOUT TO WIN, YOU… YOU…!”

“If you could have won,” Itachi replied calmly, not even glancing at the other shinobi, “you would have won by now.”

Deidara froze, his fiery rage turning ice cold but no less intense. Below him, Itachi continued.

“Pain instructed us to interfere if and only if you were incapable of procuring results. You are, so we did. That’s all.”

Behind him, Samehada resting atop his shoulder, Kisame snickered softly. He did so very much enjoy watching Itachi put fools in their place.

Deidara’s eye twitched. ‘That goddamn, arrogant little… that good-for-nothing… that… that…’

“I was going to… I haven’t gotten a chance to…”

‘And he’s still. Not. LOOKING at me!!!’

“AS IF YOU COULD DO ANY FUCKING BETTER, AGAINST A GUY MADE OF SAND!” 

Itachi’s eyes narrowed, still fixed on Crocodile.

“Sand, eh? In that case, let’s make this easier. Kisame?”

The shark man grinned, and hurled his sword into the air. As it spun up into the sky, hand seals formed so fast they were a blur. And an instant later, the battlefield was engulfed in water.

—

To the southeast, Mihawk’s eyes widened sharply in alarm. In the far distance, visible on the horizon, an enormous, swirling mass of water congealed into a gigantic bubble, so large it nearly reached the clouds.

Next to him, Buggy yelped, his hand shading his eyes from the rising sun as he gazed into the distance.

“Ack! Is that w-w-water?!”

“Crocodile is in danger!” Mihawk said sharply, his hand reaching for Yoru’s hilt. “Hurry!”

Buggy gulped deeply.

“B-b-but… I’m a Devil Fruit user, I can’t just-!”

He found himself cut off sharply as Mihawk seized him by the collar and dashed forward, dragging the incredibly reluctant clown behind him as he raced for the horizon.

—

To the northeast, Kakuzu and Moria’s battle had continued to rage on, Karakura Town having come to more closely resemble a field of craters than a town. Moria, blood trickling down his forehead, panted heavily. His zombies wiped out by Mihawk’s Haki wave, he had been forced to carry on the fight alone, and appeared thoroughly unhappy about it.

Across from him, Kakuzu’s appearance had drastically transformed. In the aftermath of the Haki wave, though his mask creatures had not been wiped out as Moria’s army had, they had become erratic, their capabilities dulled by the intense attack. In response, he had retracted their threads into his body, and his limbs had become unstitched, extending outward in segments while from his back and mouth, an enormous tangle of black threads extended like tendrils. The masks, now reattached to his body, had maintained their ability to launch elemental attacks – this was the transformation known as his Earth Grudge Fear state.

As Kakuzu launched blasts of fire and lightning, Moria carved through them with shadows, but found himself distracted, as the massive bubble of water forming to the west caught his gaze.

‘Water? And a hell of a lot of it… the only one powerful enough to conjure that much is Jinbe! But that aura was definitely Hawk-Eyes’… what the hell is happening?!’

A moment later, however, he found himself pulled from his thoughts as Kakuzu’s threads extended and twisted around his limbs, binding them in place. Moria cried out, caught off guard by the attack. Across from him, Kakuzu’s eyes narrowed; he too had noticed the water bubble.

‘There’s no mistaking it, that’s Kisame’s jutsu. But Pain ordered Itachi and Kisame not to intervene unless necessary. Did Deidara lose? There was no announcement declaring his death… what on earth must be going on, for those two to step in?’

Across from them, Moria let out a bellow of effort and emitted Haki from his body, disintegrating the threads binding him. Raising his hands to the heavens, he cried out.

“Enough of this! Return to me, shadows of my Helheim! Become my strength!”

As he spoke, dark energy rippled from the bodies of all the zombies strewed across the ground, and from the ground itself, and the trees, and the buildings – the lingering energy that he had infused into the battleground during his fight with Aaroniero. All of it, every last ounce, was pulled inward, absorbed into the Warlord’s body. As he took in more and more power, his body swelled and began to grow. A shadow came to loom over Kakuzu, as towering over him, far larger than even Oars had been, a newly empowered Gecko Moria leered down.

“A thousand shadows, mine for the taking!” he cawed. “This is my ultimate technique: Shadow’s Asgard! And you-”

SHING!

Interrupted, Moria let out a cry of pain as metal carved into his back. Below Kakuzu’s eyes widened. Atop the massive Warlord, the blades of his scythe finally tasting blood, Hidan stood. His eyes were red from crying, but a grin of triumph adorned his face.

“Finally!” he cried, bringing the scythe up to his mouth and running his tongue across its blade, licking the blood with a disturbing hunger. His skin shifted color, going from its normal shade to a mix of pale white and jet black. He had finally found an opponent that his ritual would work against.

“Now, it’s time to finish-”

“MOVE, HIDAN!” Kakuzu bellowed, but it was too late. Sooner than Hidan could react, Moria’s enormous hand reached up and seized the Akatsuki member off his back. Hidan’s feet left the ritual circle that he had etched into the back of Moria’s jacket in blood. He cried out in alarm, and a moment later, Moria brought him over his head and slammed him down into the ground, the might of Shadow’s Asgard rupturing the already-cratered earth for miles.

At the bottom of a newly-formed indentation in the ground, Hidan lay half-conscious, gurgling up blood, his chest caved in. Kakuzu charged forward with a snarl, but with a backhand, Moria sent him flying 100 yards into a building, which collapsed on top of him. Seizing his shears, which had grown to massive size with him, Moria raised one of them into the air, pointing down toward where Hidan lay, immobile. He bared his teeth.

“Not that this hasn’t been fun, but it’s time to die!”

Hidan struggled, attempting to sit up, blood still gushing from his mouth.

“I-idiot,” he gargled. “Jashin’s power… makes me immortal… I can come back… from anything…!”

Moria’s smile widened, an eerie insanity spreading across his face as he glanced toward the morning sun, which had fully begun to shine over the horizon.

“Anything, huh? Let’s test that!”

He drove the point of his scissors down – not into Hidan’s chest, but directly to the side of him, piercing through the shadow cast by the sun from his body. The shadow was severed, and absorbed up the blade into Moria’s body.

For a split instant, confusion registered on Hidan’s face – had Moria missed? A moment later, however, the horrible truth became apparent. As the light of the sun shone on Hidan’s face, a hissing sound rang out as smoke began to emit from his body.

The man had no time to scream. No time to fear. No time to make peace or make war with what was coming – Hidan’s body simply dissolved, discorporating into vapor, the loss of his shadow proving fatal in the sunlight. As the yellow smoke rose into the air, however, a sound emitted from it almost like a wail, the scream of a departed soul whose faith in god had not spared him in the end.

A moment later, a voice rang out.

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE AKATSUKI HAS DIED! TEN REMAIN!”

Silence hung in the air as the seconds stretched on, Moria reveling in his unexpected achievement. Moments later however, as the rubble covering Kakuzu was blasted apart, the remaining Akatsuki member let out a loud bellow of fury.

“Idiot!” he roared, seething. “Moron! Complete embarrassment of a partner!”

“Awww!” Moria jeered, twirling his sheathes. “Does the itty bitty zombie miss his itty bitty boyfriend?”

Kakuzu let out a low snarl, struggling to regain his composure.

“Hidan was a fool,” he growled. “I enjoyed his company, if only because I could break him and he could put himself back together. I suppose I’ll have to make due with breaking you instead.”

Moria jeered down at him as Kakuzu formed hand seals, and multiple elemental attacks began to charge from his masks, aimed up at the Warlord who still towered over him. With enormous force, the attack exploded forth, and the blast engulfed the surrounding area.

—

It was almost impossible to recognize that the area that Deidara and Crocodile had fought was once a desert. The immense typhoon of water that Kisame had spat up from his mouth had, in mere moments, flooded the area to the horizon, washing over sand dunes and flattening them, their dry grains turned to mud in an instant.

In the following moments, the water had retracted back in and flowed upward, congealing into an enormous bubble of water, somehow maintaining its surface tension as though it were a drop of water atop a sheet of plastic. Its size was dizzying, so large that a mountain would have paled in comparison. In the sky above it, Deidara’s bird had managed to rocket skyward quickly enough to escape being caught in the deluge, its rider safe atop its back.

Deidara’s gaze had been wrenched from the bubble, however, and his mind was distracted from his fury at Itachi by the voice of the announcer, which had echoed out so loudly that the sound of the still-swirling water did not drown it out. Deidara’s thoughts raced, his own situation momentarily forgotten.

‘An Akatsuki is dead? Who? Itachi and Kisame are surely fine, and that idiot Hidan is immortal… Pain and his little assistant should be safe and sound in the Rain Village, and I haven’t seen Tobi or the snake since day 1. Other than them… either Sasori’s gotten himself killed again, or Kakuzu’s met his end in the east.’

Unbeknownst to him, his assessment was completely off, but it was enough to put his mind at ease. He didn’t give a damn about Kakuzu, and if Sasori was dead… Well, there were worse things that could happen. Or perhaps that moron Tobi had tripped and broken his neck… no, Deidara was hardly naive enough to hope for such a pleasing outcome. Tobi was like a cockroach, not the type to die, much as it pained him to admit.

As his heart rate settled, Deidara turned his gaze back to the churning bubble beneath them. Disdain for Itachi began to well up in his gut all over again. How dare that prick intervene…?!

At the bottom of the bubble, through the murky water, orange light shimmered, though only faintly, not enough for Deidara to see it from above. A large, hulking figure stood atop the sand, tangerine-colored chakra gleaming, shaped into the form of an armored torso. Protected by this outer shell, kept entirely dry from the water by his impenetrable Susanoo, Itachi Uchiha stood. The sand beneath his feet, too, remained moisture-free.

Through the side of the Susanoo, Kisame strolled in, passing through its membrane as though it were a curtain, teeth bared in a wide grin. He chuckled.

“Deidara won’t be happy with you, you know. This is awfully provocative, to steal his victory like this.”

Itachi didn’t glance at him. His Sharingan were fixed on something outside the Susanoo, the murky shadow of Crocodile, sinking through the water from above. Caught off guard and unable to react, he had been swept up by the gale of water, hurled upward by the current and battered by immense force.

As he sank, bubbles gurgled from his mouth, his eyes wide and horrified. Not only was he a Devil Fruit user, unable to swim or use his powers while submerged, as a sand Logia, water was his greatest weakness, congealing and clumping up his sand, making it impossible for him to pass through attacks. Desperately, he struggled to move, to fight back, to do something… but as he sank, he found it was in vain. He was helpless under the crushing water pressure.

From within his Susanoo, Itachi regarded the man’s slowly sinking form, no pity in his gaze. From the gourd at its side, the Susanoo conjured what appeared to be some kind of orange liquid, which solidified into a long, ghostly sword in its grip – the legendary Totsuka Blade. Slowly, the Susanoo drew its arm back, aiming the point of the blade at the helpless Crocodile, prepared to stab-!

BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHH!!!!!

In that moment, the enormous bubble of water was cleaved in half! 

From the ground to the sky, the water ripped in two, the clouds above splitting from the sheer force as well. Thousands of gallons of water were ripped into the air, and the two split halves burst, their surface tension broken in an instant, causing them to cascade outward, flooding into the distance and soaking into the sand.

Kisame cried out in surprise; Itachi’s eyes widened slightly, the only sign that he was startled by the sudden change. Above him, far in the sky, Deidara yelped too, his bird having managed to careen out of the way of the enormous slash that had bisected the bubble. Below him, freed from being submerged, the drenched Crocodile tumbled through the air, disoriented but no longer helpless.

From the distance, a high-pitched scream came, and increased in volume as a figure hurtled through the air, slamming into the falling Crocodile and knocking him into the air.

Snapped out of his stupor by the impact, Crocodile’s gaze snapped downward to the thing that had impacted him – the top half of Buggy the Clown, hurled into him with intense force, tears of terror streaming from his eyes as he gripped onto Crocodile, holding him aloft and flying to the air as fast as he could.

“Wh-?! Buggy?! What the hell’re you-”

Buggy stammered out something gibberish, his words indecipherable through his tears and snot. Crocodile’s gaze turned toward where Buggy was thrown from, and grimaced at the sight of Dracule Mihawk, brandishing his black blade, which shimmered with Haki.

Across from Mihawk, Itachi allowed his Susanoo to dissipate, regarding the swordsman with cold, calculating eyes. To his left, Kisame stared hungrily at Mihawk, any trepidation at the display of power erased by the shiver of Samehada at his side. Mihawk stared at the two of them indifferently, emotionless eyes free of any fear, or anger, or determination.

“I’m afraid,” Mihawk said, power in his tone despite his soft volume, “that I’ll have to ask you to leave my associate alone.”

Itachi hummed. His arm, which had previously been resting atop the partially undone zipper of his Akatsuki robe, shifted, slipping through the robe’s sleeve in subtle preparation.

“Your eyes,” he replied, after a moment, as his own red orbs met Mihawk’s gaze. “Those aren’t the eyes of a predator; they’re the eyes of a man gazing upon ants. And yet, I see no ambition behind that glare, no drive. Why do you draw that blade? To what end have you cultivated that immense power of yours?”

Mihawk frowned, mildly surprised at Itachi’s inquiry. A conversation with the enemy, it seemed, had not been his expectation. Still, he tilted his head, considering the question for a moment.

“I am the strongest,” he finally replied, his tone blase. “But I am not enough of a fool to believe that great strength alone can change anything worth changing. There is no grand prize in this world that I desire, save for a quiet life… and, I suppose, for a certain man to surpass me, someday.”

Itachi regarded him silently for several long moments, then spoke quietly.

“It appears we have much in common.”

To his side, Kisame glanced at him in surprise, mild interest and confusion in his gaze. Itachi once again did not look back at him.

“…From your left, Kisame.”

It happened so fast that one could be forgiven for mistaking what happened. From above, blasting himself back down with sand propelled from his feet, Crocodile swung an enormous fist made of sand down toward Itachi. Kisame, however, with inhuman reactions, had managed to swing the cloth-wrapped Samehada around, blocking Crocodile’s punch with the broad side of the blade!

Sand exploded outward, and Crocodile gritted his teeth as he pushed hard against Samehada, his fist glimmering with Armament Haki.

“Get outta here, Hawk-Eyes!” he shouted, veins bulging. “There’s no need-”

“Flee, Crocodile!” Mihawk cried sharply, drawing his sword back, prepared to swing.

Crocodile’s eyes widened as across from him Kisame grinned, baring his teeth. The Haki swirling around his hand seemed to drain outward, slowly seeping into Samehada like liquid into a sponge.

SHING!

Spikes exploded from the blade, shredding through its bandage wrappings and piercing through Crocodile’s fist. Still soaked in water from earlier, blood spurted from Crocodile’s hand where Samehada’s spikes pierced, and with a hefty swing on Kisame’s part, he was slammed down into the soaked ground, the spiked sword tearing into his chest with a flash of blood.

So fast his movements appeared blurred, Mihawk swung his blade. A slash carved through the air, crossing the distance toward Kisame in an instant, but with equal suddenness, an enormous, gleaming mass of orange chakra materialized in front of the shark-man – Itachi’s Yata Mirror, which absorbed the slash without so much as a knick.

As Mihawk drew back the blade to swing again, Haki crackling from him, the gigantic Totsuka Blade materialized once more from the rib cage that had formed around Itachi. As it swung around, Mihawk raised Yoru and the spiritual sword slammed into it, sparks flying as it halted inches from Yoru’s edge, chakra and Conqueror’s Haki mixing in a swirl of color.

Mihawk swung his sword up, and the Totsuka Blade was repelled, but in an instant Itachi changed tack, the blade retracting and angling downward, toward the soaked and bloodied Crocodile’s chest.

“Stay your hand, swordsman,” Itachi spoke calmly, as though their clash had not rattled him at all, “or take your swing, if you think you’re fast enough.”

Mihawk watched him through narrowed eyes, his grip on his raised sword completely steady. To Itachi’s left, Samehada still twitching, its lips smacking in delight from Crocodile’s Haki, Kisame watched with a wide grin and a gleam in his eye.

‘So fast, both of them… I could hardly even keep track. Which one is faster…?’

Itachi stared at Mihawk, and Mihawk stared back at Itachi. The only sound to break the tense silence was Crocodile’s panting as he lay helpless, the Totsuka Blade inches from his chest. Then…

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE WARLORDS OF THE SEA HAS DIED! NINE REMAIN!”

The announcement split the air, the standoff interrupted without either side moving. For a moment, a single nanosecond of confusion, it was unclear what had happened. Then, Mihawk’s eyes widened and he swung his sword with a cry of rage. The slash ripped through the air and slammed right through the Yata Mirror, through Itachi, whose form shattered like glass, the Genjutsu dispelled.

Crocodile was nowhere to be seen. Meters away from where he had stood moments prior, Itachi allowed the Totsuka Blade’s gourd to discorporate, his quarry sealed away, left to an eternal hallucinogenic stupor within its depths.

Haki exploded from Mihawk, even more powerful than his flex from earlier. To Itachi’s side, Kisame cried out and raised Samehada to try and suck up any wayward energy, but found himself pushed back by the onslaught of power. Itachi, for his part, did not appear rattled, though his hair and cloak billowed under the intense pressure.

“Your illusions appear quite fragile,” Mihawk growled out, drawing his sword back. Itachi’s eyes gleamed.

“And yet, even the most brittle glass can still cut deep.”

“ENOUGH!”

As the third voice cut through the air, Itachi and Mihawk both leapt backward, just in time, as an enormous figure crashed down between where they had stood. Large, bulbous and swaying in the wind, a massive Deidara had descended on the battlefield.

Above them, atop his bird, the real Deidara stood, seething, saliva dripping from his chin. He had finally managed to eat his detonation clay, and vomited out the giant Deidara as a result.

“Uchiha trash!” he screamed down at Itachi, who appeared for the first time slightly disconcerted – this attack from Deidara was something he had never seen before. “That bastard was my opponent to kill!”

‘A bomb…?’ Itachi thought, his Sharingan flashing as they darted across the kaiju-sized mass of clay that his ally had deployed.

“I’ll kill all three of you freaks with this!” Deidara cried, clasping his hands together in front of his face, forming a snake hand seal. “I created it just for you, Itachi – my grand masterpiece!!!”

The giant Deidara began to swell. On the opposite side of it, Mihawk’s eyes widened, his vision flashing with a glimpse of what might come to pass. In an instant, he turned to dash in the opposite direction, intent on putting as much distance between himself and the bomb as possible. Coming from the direction he was headed, toward the battlefield, a heavily panting Buggy stopped short at the sight of Mihawk dashing toward him.

“H-hey! C-Crocodile got out of my grip, Hawk-Ey-!”

“Move, fool!”

Mihawk seized the clown by the collar and dragged him away, leading Buggy to let out a cry of surprise and dismay. Behind them, the still-swelling Deidara reached its breaking point… and popped like a balloon.

For a moment, it seemed as though nothing happened. The fragments of the giant Deidara dissolved in the wind, and no explosion burst forth. Kisame looked up in confusion, wondering if the bomb had misfired. Mihawk’s pace did not slow down. Deidara stared down with glee, eyes fixed on the motionless Itachi below.

The bomb he had just deployed, C4, was a biological weapon that released quadrillions of microscopic clay spores, so small they were invisible to the human eye. Although it had initially appeared to misfire, the air had become filled with nano-sized explosives, which were designed to enter the body through the nose and mouth, spreading throughout every cell of the body before detonating without impunity, tearing a person asunder from the inside out on a cellular level.

Deidara had designed the attack with the purpose of killing Itachi. The smug, arrogant insect who had always humiliated and looked down on him… the first time around, however, Deidara had never gotten the opportunity to use his masterpiece for its intended purpose. He had been forced to use it instead against Itachi’s troublesome brother, who had managed to discern the jutsu’s function with his Sharingan and nullify its effects with Lightning Release, which had a disabling effect on Deidara’s own Earth Release techniques.

Itachi, however, lacked any such lightning style jutsu, being only a master of fire, wind, and water. Furthermore, even with a more advanced Sharingan than Sasuke’s, without a means to eliminate the jutsu’s effects, his ability to deduce the bomb’s function would be wasted. It was a shame that Kisame would die with him – Deidara had avoided using C4 with Sasori, Kakuzu, or Hidan nearby for fear of killing them with its wide range of effect. He himself would not die to his own jutsu, but he had no desire to sabotage the Akatsuki as a whole by killing off members unnecessarily. Only Itachi warranted crossing that line, but with him in the picture… Well, Kisame dying alongside him would be an acceptable trade-off.

‘What will you do, Itachi?’ Deidara thought with gleeful satisfaction, gazing down at his sworn enemy. ‘Will you flee? Cower? Scream in terror as every cell in your body erupts? Let me watch you despair! Let me see that “talent” of yours amount to nothing in the face of my art!!’

For a split second after the bomb went off, Itachi stood stark still, gazing up impassively at the ruptured clay giant, his Sharingan glimmering red. In his eyes, Deidara knew, the enormous cloud of microscopic clay was visible, but he could do nothing to stop it. Nothing, except watch his death descend upon him.

Then…

“Amaterasu!”

In an instant, the air erupted. Black fire ripped through the atmosphere, superheating everything within Itachi’s vision to the temperature of the sun. Deidara cried out as his bird hurtled upward, just barely managing to get clear of the fire before it – and its passenger – was vaporized completely. Still, the air around the bomber sizzled, and his lungs filled with a searing heat.

Itachi’s right eye quivered, blood trickling from its corners as his sclera became intensely bloodshot. At the center of the eye, his pupil and iris had been replaced by the pattern of his Mangekyō Sharingan. Every bit of the enormous cloud, each and every one of the microscopic creatures that Deidara had released, found themselves burned to atoms in the path of his vision, all of Deidara’s hard work and brilliant innovation nullified just as quickly as the attack had begun.

This was the sheer difference between Deidara’s artistry and Itachi’s talent.

This was the power of Amaterasu, the black flame that consumed all things.

Above Itachi, the Yata Mirror shimmered, his skeletal rib cage holding it skyward to shield both himself and Kisame from the Amaterasu’s heat. Far away, still dashing southward toward the ocean and dragging Buggy behind him, Mihawk glanced backward. He grimaced as the soaking wet ground around his feet sizzled, steam beginning to ooze up from the sand as the air temperature spiked.

‘Hmph. To eliminate such a nasty attack so easily… that boy is not to be taken lightly. Kilometers away and yet I can still feel the heat from here. Even so…’

His eyes shifted back southward, as Buggy babbled out confused questions about where they were going and why Mihawk was so panicked. The swordsman paid him no heed, for he had far bigger things to worry about; he’d caught a glimpse of far worse things to come.

A glimpse into the future.

‘That attack was only the beginning. If I don’t return to base quickly… Marineford will be annihilated…!’

Atop his bird, Deidara had both arms raised in front of himself, as if to shield from the heat. Through his remaining good eye, he squinted down at Itachi, any rage he might have felt momentarily replaced by shock.

‘That… that…!’

Slowly, through the ripples of heat, the Yata Mirror dissipated. Beneath it, his gaze as cold as his flames were hot, Itachi stared up at Deidara, reproach clear in his gaze. Slowly, Deidara felt his anger boiling back up as he lowered his arms and glared down at Itachi.

‘That…!’

—

“Huff… huff… huff…!”

Far to the east, another battle appeared to be nearing its end. Heaving in ragged breaths, the gigantic, bloodied Gecko Moria dragged himself across the ground. Behind him, gashes and scuffs across his body and only two of his masks still intact, Kakuzu stood victorious, his threads twisting and rippling with fervor.

“N…no!” Moria wheezed out. Shadows began to ooze from the corners of his mouth, and he pressed his hand against his lips, trying to hold them in. “I can’t… not like this…!”

Kakuzu let out a low, humorless chuckle, glowering down at the battered and defeated Warlord through narrowed eyes.

“I’ll admit,” he growled, “you were a formidable adversary. Were you not already injured, and had that energy wave not stifled your powers, it’s difficult to say who might have won. Even so, your misfortune is of no concern to me. Now…”

With a cry, he leapt high into the air, raising one leg and bringing it down as he descended. With immense force, his foot slammed down into Moria’s back,  driving his body – and more importantly, his stomach – down into the ground beneath, which cracked.

Moria’s eyes bulged. His stomach pressed against the ground, pushed inward… and from his mouth, a thousand shadows ripped forth!

Twisting upward, the strands of dark energy tore from the Warlord’s lips like an enormous swarm of bugs, before dispersing outward and disappearing into the overcast sky. Moria’s body appeared to deflate, as though the shadows had puffed him up like a balloon, and all the air had been released instantaneously. Within a few moments, he had reverted to his normal (though still impressive) size.

With a groan, Moria slumped down, his cheek hitting the ground as all energy seemed to leave his body, his eyes sliding in and out of focus. Some distance away, Kakuzu landed on his feet, having sprung off of Moria’s body as it deflated. His limbs retracted inward, stitching back together as his two remaining masks repositioned themselves, returning to his standard appearance.

With a sneer, the Akatsuki walked over to the Warlord’s prone form, and kicked him over with his foot, rolling Moria from his stomach over onto his back. Moria groaned, blood and a few residual shadows leaking from his mouth as his eyes rolled back into his head. Above them, rain began to fall, tiny droplets mixing with Moria’s blood and causing it to smear across his face. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“No final words?” Kakuzu growled at the much larger man, looking up at his face in spite of the fact that he was the one standing. “No posturing to do, at the end?”

Moria moaned softly in response. Kakuzu scoffed.

“Fine. Die then.”

He raised an arm and pulled it back, prepared to launch a hardened fist into his fallen foe’s skull.

“Pathetic fool.”

All of a sudden, an ozone smell permeated the air. The hairs on Kakuzu’s arm stood up. His eyes widened slightly.

Crack!

In an instant, just long enough for Kakuzu to leap away, the air split in half, a bolt of lightning ripping down from the clouds above and slamming into Moria’s chest. With a sharp gasp, the giant man’s eyes shot open, and he lurched up, electricity coursing through every inch of his body. Agonizing pain and heat seared through every cell, his limbs and muscles spasming… but with that pain came another feeling. He felt… awake.

Kakuzu could scarcely believe his eyes. The odds were astronomical, a one in a million stroke of luck, but at the last second, the heavens above had revived his foe. It appeared fate had other plans for the man before him.

With a newly-energized cry, Moria swung his arm, and blades made of shadow ripped from his talons and slammed into Kakuzu’s hardened arms, which he raised in front of himself to parry the slash.

The Warlord cackled as Kakuzu landed on his feet, skidding backwards, his arms undamaged by the hit.

“I’m alive! I’m ALIVE!”

Raising his fist, he slammed it down into the ground. Shadows rippled from his hand, forming a dark, circular pool of energy underneath his feet.

“And I’m out of here! Shadow’s Helheim: Dark Bifrost!!”

As though the ground beneath him had turned to water, or into some kind of dark window, Moria dropped into the shadow, his body passing through it easily and vanishing. Behind him, the shadow shrunk to a pinprick, and then vanished. Gecko Moria had gotten away.

Kakuzu growled in annoyance, lowering his arms and allowing the hardening to recede. All that effort, and his quarry had gotten away at the last second. Had Moria’s Shadow’s Helheim allowed him to call down lightning in those final moments? It seemed unlikely – most if not all of the shadows had been expelled from Moria’s body; it was hard to believe that he had still possessed a great enough control of his surroundings to manipulate the weather while barely conscious. Still, it seemed easier to believe that than to say that the perfectly-timed lightning strike had been sheer coincidence.

In any case, it didn’t matter. Moria had escaped. Kakuzu’s efforts had been wasted, and the man would be back for more once he had recovered. Still, Kakuzu reasoned, it could be worse. All things considered, Kakuzu was one of the weakest of the Akatsuki and had relatively limited jutsu. If he had been able to defeat Moria, even a weakened Moria, he found it unlikely that the man would be anything resembling a challenge for someone like Pain. So in the end, this wasn’t such a great failure that it was worth dwelling on.

Little did Kakuzu or even Moria know, he was entirely wrong. The escape of Gecko Moria would irreversibly change the course of the war going forward, and nearly everyone in the arena would have been better off, had the creature met his end then and there.

But with no way of knowing that, Kakuzu remained unbothered by his failure to finish the job.

As he turned to leave however, a dry, raspy chuckle echoed through the area. Kakuzu tensed, his eyes darting back and forth with guarded alarm. From the shadows, a soft voice hissed out, rough like sandpaper and reminiscent of some kind of serpent or insect.

“What a disappointment,” the voice jeered. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Kakuzu’s eyes narrowed.

“Show yourself.”

With a cruel chuckle, a man stepped out from behind a gnarled tree nearby, one of the few that had not been ripped from the ground by the fights that had transformed the area. A single, narrowed eye leered out from under shoulder-length black hair. His other eye was covered by a white patch that matched the rest of his clothing, and a wide, unnatural grin stretched across his face. Behind his back, he held a massive scythe-like weapon, not dissimilar from Hidan’s in size, with two crescent blades intersecting at its center.

Kakuzu stood on guard, ready for any movement on the stranger’s part. Although he was lanky and more creepy-looking than outwardly intimidating, an aura of power seemed to emit from the man, far greater than Moria’s, or the tank-headed Espada from earlier.

Slowly, the man licked his lips, the number five visible on his long, pointed tongue. Though Kakuzu did not know it, this man was Nnoitra Gilga, the former Quinto Espada.

“Harden your arms.”

Kakuzu blinked.

“Hm?”

“Those arms of yours. The ones you kept using to block attacks from that giant. Harden them. Or I’ll cut your head off.”

With that, Nnoitra disappeared from sight. Kakuzu’s eyes widened. He raised his arms, which hardened to their max – the jutsu that Oars had been unable to break through, and that had once blocked a Tailed Beast Bomb from the Two-Tails herself, Matatabi.

A moment later, blood exploded from his forearms. Kakuzu let out a scream of agony as they split off, falling to the ground, their hardened skin split asunder by Nnoitra’s slash as though made of fragile glass. Fast as a blur, Nnoitra leapt into the air and spun his scythe by the chain like a helicopter blade. Kakuzu’s two masks warped from his back over his shoulders, taking aim at the airborne Espada as though they were turrets, with fire and lightning discharging from their centers.

Nnoitra angled the spinning scythe in front of himself, the flames and electricity struck the whirling blade and dissipated from its force. He laughed loudly.

“Weak! You’re brittle compared to my Hierro!”

With a heave, he hurled the blade down through the elemental onslaught, and the two pointed blades on its front pierced through the two masks atop Kakuzu’s shoulders, severing both of them cleanly in half before the crescent’s center point slammed into the Akatsuki’s throat, choke-slamming him backward into the ground, the blades piercing into the earth and pinning him down by the neck.

Kakuzu gagged, letting out sputtering choked sounds from his now-constricted throat. His legs flailed violently, and threads began to snake out from his severed arm stumps, seeking to rejoin with his separated forearms. Before they could, however, Nnoitra descended from above, and his curled shoe drove down into Kakuzu’s stomach with immense force.

Blood and threads spurted from Kakuzu’s mouth as he let out a gurgling groan, his arm threads spasming before dropping to the ground with a thump, his eyes rolling up into his head.

Nnoitra stood up with a chuckle.

“Pathetic.”

Raising his foot, he slammed it down into the base of his crescent scythe, driving it downward, the blade carving through the unconscious Kakuzu’s neck down into the ground. With an explosion of blood, the man’s head separated from his body.

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE AKATSUKI HAS DIED! NINE REMAIN!”

Nnoitra chuckled, heaving his bloodied blade up over his shoulder.

“Child’s play for the Espada’s best.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t get so full of myself if I were you, Quinto.”

Nnoitra’s smirk melted off his face and was replaced immediately by arrogant contempt, as the air nearby shimmered and parted, revealing Szayelaporro and, trailing behind him, Aaroniero, whose head tank had been newly replaced.

“Tch,” Nnoitra scoffed, glancing to the side dismissively. “You’re one to talk about being full of yourself. Then again, you are content being Harribel’s little lap dog these days. The hell are you doing here, playing fetch?”

Szayel didn’t respond for a moment, his gaze turned down toward Kakuzu’s decapitated corpse with interest.

“I had intended to step in to take him down once he had finished off that creature,” he said. “My Teatro de Titere would have been an effective counter to his abilities. But I noticed your presence and was curious what you’d do. You’ve been concealing your movements from us, quite effectively at that.”

Nnoitra rolled his eyes.

“As long as that bitch is working with you, I have no interest in fighting alongside the Espada. How can you stand kowtowing to a couple of women?”

Szayel, who had not taken Nnoitra’s bait previously, surveyed him wearily over the top of his glasses. He had never particularly shared the former Quinto’s distinct brand of chauvinism, but there was no reason to express that to Nnoitra. At the same time, it would be unwise to criticize the Espada’s leadership openly with Aaroniero present. He could not trust that the sniveling little Noventa wouldn’t take any opportunity available to improve his status, by running to Harribel. Slowly, choosing his words carefully, Szayel shrugged.

“Harribel and Nelliel have cultivated remarkable strength in our… time away. Almost as great as that brute Grimmjow’s. Still, I would consider myself subservient to nobody.”

Nnoitra’s face twitched, and if anything he only appeared to grow more agitated. Sensing that the conversation was going nowhere, Szayel changed tactics.

“What motivated you to kill him?” He nudged Kakuzu’s corpse with his foot. Nnoitra sneered.

“He had the power to harden his skin, so I wanted to see how it compared to my Hierro. Turns out it was a waste of time for someone on my level. He was nothing compared to Kenpachi Zaraki.”

Szayel hummed, biting back any remark he might have made about Nnoitra’s level of strength. All things considered, the man was probably one of the weaker Espada, and most certainly could never have truly pushed a man like Zaraki to his limits, but there was no point in calling such a thing out.

“And what of that incredible aura from earlier? Surely you felt it. I would have expected you to dash over right away to challenge one so mighty.”

Nnoitra grinned.

“Oh, I intend to. But not yet. Not until I’ve honed my strength a bit more.”

Szayel raised an eyebrow.

“Oh? The mighty Nnoitra Gilga, uncertain if he can win a fight? Say it isn’t so.”

Nnoitra scoffed.

“Please. You felt that energy earlier. It wasn’t unlike that of Zaraki. If I charged in now, I’d be cut down before I could do anything. Hardly the death I want.”

“Ah, yes. I had forgotten about your… ideations.”

Nnoitra slipped a hooked shoe under Kakuzu’s body, and kicked it up into the air toward Szayel, who caught it by the clothing with one hand, as it slumped like a sack of potatoes.

“Take it,” Nnoitra said. “You need a body to study, right? That idiot Septima isn’t getting anywhere in the northwest. Maybe you can get something out of it.”

“My, my,” Szayel responded with a wry smile as Nnoitra turned away and opened a Descorrer, the space in front of him parting. “It seems you might be something of a team player after all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nnoitra sneered, not turning back. “I killed him because I felt like it, and have no need for him now. Besides, I owe you a favor for your help with that bitch, back then, so now we’re even. That’s all.”

Without giving Szayel time to respond, he stepped through the Descorrer, which closed behind him, leaving the two remaining Espada alone.

Behind Szayel, Aaroniero’s multiple skulls leered at the back of his ‘superior’s head.

“We’re just letting him go? Shouldn’t we have dragged him back to base?”

Szayel turned and smiled faintly.

“War is like a symphony,” he replied, and Aaroniero blinked at the strange response. “Discordant parts coming together to create a beautiful harmony. If every instrument in the orchestra sounded the same, the whole would be no greater than its component pieces, don’t you agree?”

Aaroniero was silent for a moment, pondering.

“Those instruments need to be played in accord though, or dissonance occurs. Not that I particularly like any of you or have much interest in long-term collaboration, but I know better than anyone the importance of consonance between component parts. If Nnoitra runs off and gets himself killed-”

“Then it will be no different than if we force him and Nelliel to settle their differences.”

Szayel shifted his attention to the corpse in his hand.

“Besides, we have what we came for, and…”

His eyes narrowed, glancing toward the tree that Nnoitra had stepped out from behind, earlier.

“We have far more pressing matters to attend to.”

For a moment, nothing happened. And then, a soft, malevolent chuckle rang out through the area, accompanied by some sort of strange hissing noise.

“How very percccccceptive of you, to notice my presence.”

The surface of the tree warped, before protruding forth, as if some strange creature was emerging from it. The almost liquid-like figure morphed and congealed, taking shape and color, until a man had fully emerged from the tree, as though he had been melded into its side and now emerged.

Black hair, almost greasy in appearance, hung down around the man’s pale face, complimenting the eerie appearance of his gleaming yellow eyes and pronounced cheek bones. Garbed in a white and blue kimono, his most distinct piece of attire was a thick purple rope belt, which was tied in a large knot behind his back. When he smiled, razor-sharp canines were visible at the front of his mouth, like fangs.

“Not many would be capable of detecting me,” Orochimaru hissed, his voice raspy. “You must be a clever fellow.”

Szayel smiled and pushed his glasses up with his free hand.

“Simply intuitive. I thought it odd that a single tree managed to survive the conflict here unscathed.”

“I see,” Orochimaru said softly, still smiling in a way that was almost serene, had his hungry eyes not ruined the image. “Do you intend to fight me?”

“I wish to know who you are, and the reason for your presence.”

Outwardly, Szayel maintained a casual disposition, but inwardly he felt a slight sense of unease. He had noticed the… man? The individual a long time ago, when Moria and Kakuzu’s battle had still been ongoing, and Szayel himself and Aaroniero had been observing from behind their light-bending camouflage. He had assumed the stranger was someone like him, the type who liked to observe and study his foes more than fight… but now that he had called him out into the open, Szayel’s intuition had shifted. A sense of danger now hung in the air, as though he and Aaroniero were prey, staring down the world’s deadliest predator. 

Orochimaru continued to smile, giving no sign of whether he perceived Szayel’s discomfort or not. His apparent lack of concern with the situation, incidentally, only served to heighten the unnerving feeling.

“I’m but a simple fellow with curiosity, who wishes to understand all the world has to offer… and live forever, of course.”

Szayel forced a chuckle. The man had a sense of danger around him, he thought, a sense of madness and endless ambition. It almost reminded him of…

…No. This was not the time to think about that man.

“I would love to compare notes on that front. Unfortunately, however, I must be bringing this back to base.”

He gestured with his free hand to the corpse he was holding. Orochimaru chuckled too.

“Why certainly, I would prefer not to hold you up. However…”

His eyes gleamed.

“Wouldn’t it be fair if I were to take a corpse back with me as well?”

The atmosphere seemed to shift, to become more tense. Aaroniero, who had remained silent thus far, made a noise of alarm and stared at Orochimaru with visible unease. Szayel’s smile didn’t waver.

“Oh? What did you have in mind?”

“That ally of yours,” Orochimaru responded, gesturing at Aaroniero. “Let me have him.”

Aaroniero laughed, his skulls’ eyes narrowing sharply.

“As if! We’ve killed two of you fools already, and two of the other side as well! None of the Espada have fallen yet, so don’t think we’re about to start!”

“I seem to recall that it was that Gecko Moria fellow who killed poor Hidan,” Orochimaru replied, conversationally, as though he weren’t discussing his dead comrades. “Though I will give your fellow full credit for Kakuzu. Not that killing him is particularly impressive, of course.”

“If you’re so confident,” Szayel cut in. “I see no reason to dissuade you from walking to your death.”

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, and let out a raspy chuckle.

“Oh? Such confidence…”

“Aaroniero,” Szayel continued. “Deal with this miscreant. You should be able to, no? This cloudy weather is blocking the light of the sun, so your powers should be in full effect.”

Aaroniero scowled at the comment, but if Szayel noticed his ally’s discomfort at having his weakness exposed to the enemy, he didn’t show it as he continued talking.

“Redeem the defeat you suffered against Gecko Moria. We will rendezvous in Las Noches later.”

Finally, Aaroniero let out an annoyed growl.

“Don’t give me orders, scum.”

A Descorrer materialized in the air behind Szayel, and he backed into it, Kakuzu’s corpse in hand. As he melted into the murky Garganta within, his parting words came softly.

“I look forward to seeing whether you can back up your conviction, serpent. Hehehe…”

The folds of the Descorrer closed behind him, leaving Orochimaru and Aaroniero alone. After a moment, the Espada drew his Zanpakuto from his side and twirled it, and the sword morphed, transforming into a short break-action shotgun.

“No hard feelings, snake,” he sneered. “But I’ll be blowing your head off.”

Orochimaru grinned widely, raising his hands and forming a hand seal in front of him.

“My, my. I hope for your sake it won’t grow back.”

—

…

…

…

To the west, a thoroughly one-sided fight was coming to an end. Skidding across the sand, formerly wet and then scorched dry by Amaterasu’s heat, Deidara sank to one knee, panting heavily, his avian perch long destroyed. The single eye that wasn’t burned out stung horribly, the fluid within seared by the intense heat, his vision barely holding on. 

‘Damn it… DAMN IT!’

His face was deathly pale, the arm that had been poisoned by Crocodile’s hook hanging limply at his side, having turned a deep shade of green. Though he had tied it off to stop the poison from spreading, Deidara was quickly nearing the end of the extra time he had bought for himself. Dark purple veins had begun to creep up his shoulder and neck, nearing his face. His sight blurred, Itachi’s dark figure across from him sliding in and out of focus.

“Give it up, Deidara,” Itachi’s deep voice cut sharply through the fog in his head. “You’re in no condition to keep resisting. Come quietly, grovel for amnesty, and perhaps Pain will forgive your treachery.”

Deidara gritted his teeth, knowing that such a thing would never happen. Itachi was fearsome indeed, but Pain… Pain scared him. Even if he would have been okay with begging forgiveness (ha!), the Akatsuki’s ruthless leader would never give it.

Still… he recognized that Itachi’s words were true. He could barely see. He could barely move. He was going to die… die at the hand of Itachi Uchiha, the man he hated most.

It was over.

…No.

No!

He would not die in humiliation. He had one weapon left. One way to get his revenge, to get the last laugh, to carve his mark into this arena, just as he once had done to the very earth itself.

Forcing himself upright, Deidara let out a bellowing laugh. Forced from his gut, it contained all his contempt for Itachi, his pain, his rage, his determination to win. If this was to be his last stand, he would go down in glory, not indignity.

“You arrogant, fearless little FOOL!” he bellowed, ripping off the clothing covering his upper half. On the left side of his chest, right over top of his heart, was a stretch of stitches surrounded by black markings that resembled those that might have been used for a seal. “This is exactly why I can’t stand you, always looking down on me and my art!”

With the mouth on his hand, he ripped the stitches out of his chest, and what appeared to be a wound opened wide, massive teeth and tongue protruding out – a gigantic mouth on his chest!

Itachi’s eyes widened, his Sharingan flashing, alarm registering on his face for the first time as he stared at the strange stitches. From his pouch, Deidara pulled a massive lump of clay, and held it up to the mouth on his chest, which began to devour it.

“Kisame!” Itachi cried, turning toward his partner, who had been observing from some distance away. “To me! The Yata Mirror-!”

Deidara laughed loudly.

“I’ll detonate myself! Blow everything within ten kilometers to hell! You think your little mirror will save you?!”

Veins began to spread across his chest.

“THE BLAST WILL TURN YOU BOTH INTO VAPOR! THIS IS MY ULTIMATE ART!”

The ground around his feet cracked as chakra emanated forcefully from his body. Itachi raised both arms, the wind billowing from Deidara buffeting him.

‘The Yata Mirror… won’t be big enough to shield from the entire blast…!’

Deidara laughed at the top of his lungs, raising his eyes to the heavens, ready to ignite…

…and then, at his feet, a figure emerged from the ground. The soil didn’t fracture, nor did he emerge from it as Orochimaru had emerged from his tree – the man rose up from the earth like a spirit passing through matter. It happened so quickly Deidara would have had no time to react, even if he had been looking downward. The man rose up in a split second, and his hand closed around Deidara’s throat. And then, an instant later, they were both gone.

—

Elsewhere, in a different space…

Deidara fell to the ground. His eyes widened as he glanced around wildly; he had found himself in a strange place, surrounded by darkness, the ground rocky and segmented into cube-shaped platforms. No sun hung in the sky; his surroundings stretched out widely and sank into shadow well before any horizon could take shape in the distance.

Deidara’s breaths came quickly and sharply. Was this some kind of genjutsu? Some new trick of Itachi’s that had left him here? That didn’t seem possible; his mortal enemy had appeared shaken for once by the activation of C0. There was no chance he could have pulled some unknown counter out of his ass to save himself… however, Deidara quickly realized he had much bigger problems.

The black veins that had come to stretch across his body were not receding; in fact, they had reached his face and were continuing to spread even further. C0 could be slowed after activation – and Deidara’s alarm at his sudden relocation had certainly slowed it – but it could not be stopped. He was still going to explode.

“W-What the hell is this, Itachi?!” he managed to cry out, panic beginning to seep through his body. “Your genjutsu can’t fool me…!”

“It’s not genjutsu, friend-o!” A squeaky voice called out, and Deidara’s blood turned to ice. He would know that voice anywhere, for it belonged to quite possibly the only person in the world he could say that he hated nearly as much as Itachi.

Slowly, he turned his head. Perched on one of the blocks behind him, hands cupping his masked face, Tobi sat, kicking his feet like a child.

“Why hellooooooooo senpaaaaaaaiiiiii~!” the bomber’s old partner cried jovially. “Long time no seeeeee!”

“T-Tobi?!” Deidara cried, fear outweighing his disdain for the jokester as the veins on his face crept upward. “What the hell are you doing here? Where are we?”

“I thought you were a ‘genius’, senpai,” Tobi drawled in his annoying tone. “Can’t ya figure it out~?”

Deidara stared at him blankly. Was Tobi… that moron… MOCKING him?

“Y-you… you little…!”

“To answer your question, senpai~…” Tobi said, slightly more seriously…

“This is Kamui. The greatest power at my disposal.”

Deidara stared blankly.

W…what?

What… was that? Had he only imagined the deep, menacing voice that had come from Tobi just now? A moment later, his question was answered as Tobi spoke again in a deep, silky voice, without a hint of his usual silly tone.

“How amusing… that look on your face. You truly never questioned my real nature for even a moment, did you? Then again, an arrogant fool like you is exactly the type to accept without question the inferiority of others.”

“W…wha…?” The veins creeping up Deidara’s face reached the edges of his eyes and began to bleed in toward his irises, as he stared blankly, uncomprehendingly at Tobi.

“This is another dimension, created by the power of my Mangekyō Sharingan.”

‘…!’

“The power of I, Madara Uchiha.”

‘!!!’

“The power that will lead the Akatsuki to victory in this war… that will lead the shinobi world into a new era… that will ensure that you die screaming, traitor.”

“Wha…” Deidara managed to stammer out, before finally managing to find his voice. “What the hell are you talking about? Mangekyō Sharingan? Madara Uchiha?! I don’t… Since when-?!”

“Since always. You simply never bothered to question your pitiful assumptions.”

As Deidara tried to form words with his gaping mouth, the veins in his eyes reached the center of his pupils and converged. His body bulged and he gasped, agony racing up his spine, the chakra within him reaching a boiling point.

“Goodbye, Deidara,” Tobi said, giving him a small handwave as a vortex appeared around the hole in his mask. “You were every bit as insufferable and foolish as you believed me to be. Enjoy your final moments, and despair in the light of the masterpiece that nobody will ever see.”

With that, his body twisted inward, sucked into the vortex around his eye and vanished. Deidara couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. He only had time to let out a scream as his body was ripped apart, and the Kamui Dimension was engulfed in light.

—

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE AKATSUKI HAS DIED! EIGHT REMAIN!”

Itachi, still tense, slowly relaxed. His Susanoo dematerialized. Slowly, Kisame approached him from behind, a cautious expression on his face as he let out a strained chuckle.

“I’ve rarely seen you panic like that, Itachi,” he remarked. “It seems Deidara was more dangerous than you anticipated.”

Itachi didn’t respond. From a swirling black vortex, Tobi rematerialized into reality in front of them, his expression hidden behind his orange mask.

“…Tobi,” Itachi greeted shakily, taking care not to glance in Kisame’s direction. “Your assistance is appreciated. Are you here on Pain’s orders?”

Kisame snickered. Tobi chuckled.

“You need not play dumb for Kisame’s sake, Itachi,” he replied, his voice deep. “I have long-since made him aware of my identity.”

Itachi’s eyes widened slightly. It was rare for him to be surprised more than once in such quick succession, but the idea that Kisame knew who Tobi was…

“Lord Mizukage Emeritus…” Kisame acknowledged Tobi, bowing his head in respect to his superior. “…Madara-sama.”

Itachi maintained a calm outward disposition, shoving down anything that could have given anything of his thoughts away.

“I see. Then we need not mince words. Three of our number have now fallen, compared to two of our friends from the south, and none from the east. We are altogether falling behind.”

“It matters not,” Tobi replied, stepping past Itachi and Kisame, toward the west as though preparing to set off. “The three who have died are no true loss. Besides…”

He turned his head back, Sharingan gleaming from the hole in his mask as he gazed eastward.

“Things will even out soon enough.”

As if on cue…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

An enormous explosion erupted on the far horizon, as though a nuclear bomb had been set off, the landscape in the far distance transformed by the blast. As an immense shockwave ripped through the area where the three Akatsuki stood, buffeting them with wind, a voice rang out.

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE ESPADA HAS DIED! ELEVEN REMAIN!”

Itachi stared wide-eyed at the horizon, his Sharingan able to perceive from a distance what had emerged. Enormous, shadowy shapes twisted around in the midst of the fire that engulfed the land. An enormous creature rose up, and from the distance, an unearthly roar echoed across the sand dunes.

“Impossible,” Kisame uttered, equally stunned himself. “Is that…?”

—

A short time earlier…

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Aaroniero dashed backward at speeds too fast for the human eye, the shotgun in his hand releasing blasts of reiatsu, blowing holes into the ground with every shot. In hot pursuit, matching the speed of his Sonído without even trying, Orochimaru’s body stretched like a serpent, weaving between the shots with deft skill and inhuman flexibility. A wide, inhuman grin stretched across the snake’s face. From his mouth, the hilt of a sword emerged, and Orochimaru pulled it out all the way – the legendary Sword of Kusanagi.

With a creepy laugh, Orochimaru brought the sword down toward the tank on Aaroniero’s head, but the Espada raised his shotgun to parry, and the blade skidded against it in a shower of sparks. Unslowed, Orochimaru drew the sword back, its point aimed forward toward Aaroniero’s chest. In an instant, it expanded and pierced through the Espada’s shoulder, punching right through his Hierro like a needle through cloth. Aaroniero let out a cry of pain as he was hurled backward, propelled through a row of half destroyed buildings in a shower of rubble.

‘I-impossible…! What the hell is that kind of piercing power?!’

Orochimaru chuckled, his body catching up with his torso as he strolled leisurely toward the fallen Espada, the Kusanagi Blade shortening as he moved forward with its hilt in hand.

“Transmitting chakra through a blade to increase its piercing strength…” he spoke lightly, not a hint of exertion in his voice. “An old student of mine perfected this skill to an extent I once thought impossible. And well… I’ve never been one to accept when something doesn’t belong to me.”

“Who the hell cares?!” Aaroniero roared. He raised his shotgun, channeling Reiryoku through it, and kaleidoscopic energy swirled together, forming a ball of energy at the end of its barrel… only for wood to sprout from the ground and wrap around his arm and weapon, the energy snuffed out like a candle.

“Ah ah ah!” Orochimaru tutted, having formed the hand signs for his jutsu at incredible speed. “No need for that.”

Aaroniero growled, struggling violently against the Wood Release restraints, while his other arm – the arm that housed Glotonería – began to feel numb. The blade that had pierced his shoulder, he could tell, was coated in a powerful poison. Within minutes, he would not be able to move at all.

Just then, a voice echoed through the air.

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE AKATSUKI HAS DIED! EIGHT REMAIN!”

Though neither combatant knew it, this was the announcement that had signified Deidara’s death within the Kamui Dimension.

“Oh my…” Orochimaru hummed, looking amused. “So long spent without death, and now it seems people are dropping like flies. When it rains, it pours, I suppose~.”

In a flash, he formed nine hand seals in front of himself in quick succession: sheep, boar, snake, rat, dog, rabbit, snake, horse, bird, before finally pressing his palms together in front of his face. Behind his hands, he grinned creepily.

“Let’s even the score, shall we?”

Chakra rippled from his body, and behind him, an enormous shadowy figure appeared to emerge. Purple skin hugged its bones tightly, and a long mane of white hair hung around its face, complimenting the color of its billowing robes. Within its teeth, it gripped a long, one-sided knife with bandages wrapped around its hilt.

“What… is that…?” Aaroniero ground out, his vision beginning to blur from the poison.

“One of the most famous techniques of the Uzumaki Clan,” Orochimaru replied. “The Reaper Death Seal. You’re a spirit, are you not? What better way to eliminate a pest like you than with a Shinigami?”

Aaroniero’s eyes widened.

‘…Shini…gami…?!’

All of a sudden, he found himself snapping into focus. His vision cleared, and the pain in his shoulder seemed to dim with his elation. He let out a cackling laugh, equal parts incredulous and triumphant, as he forced himself to his feet, right arm ripping through the Wood Release restraint, and then wrenching the Kusanagi Blade from his left shoulder.

That fool! That absolute fool! What a fortunate turn of events, to be granted such a saving grace on the verge of death! With a cry, Aaroniero lunged toward the Reaper, and Glotonería ripped forth from his glove and slammed into the shinigami, its tentacles wrapping around the wretched creature.

It didn’t even have time to fight back. In moments, Aaroniero devoured the Reaper, its flesh scarfed down by Glotonería, and any dangling chunks of spiritual ectoplasm gone with follow-up bites.

Within moments, he felt it. The exhilarating rush that came with consuming a powerful Hollow. Moria’s zombies had been a light snack, but now… now he had experienced a true feast. Power began to course through his body, as flashes of the many beings that the Reaper had consumed flooded into him. A man with blonde hair, famed for his speed and teleportation… an elderly man with too much knowledge and power to speak of… a white-haired man who had pioneered numerous abilities… a man whose ability to manipulate wood saw him hailed as a god…

“Ohhhh yes!” Aaroniero cackled, reveling in the new power he felt at his fingertips. “You’ve given me everything I could have asked for, you… you…”

He trailed off, as for the first time since the Reaper’s emergence, his gaze turned toward Orochimaru, and he saw the look on the man’s face. There was no surprise, no horror, nor even intrigue or confusion.

No…

The serpent-like man looked smug, and almost gleeful.

From his expression… It almost looked like he had intended for Aaroniero to do that. At that moment, with a laugh, he spoke.

“Oh dear me…” his voice was laced with mockery and sarcasm. “I hope you don’t get any indigestion…”

And in that moment… the energy that had seeped into Aaroniero’s gut shifted. What had just moments before felt like exorbitant power suddenly felt as though it was fizzling up inside of him, coming to a boiling point. Aaroniero gagged as the pain in his stomach began to build, the tank of liquid surrounding his skulls beginning to bubble violently as an orangish red energy began to seep from his body.

“W… what the hell is…?!”

Deep within his psyche, consumed along with the Reaper, but buried so deep that it had taken Aaroniero until now to perceive it, a beast had begun to stir.

And then… awoken from its slumber… it opened its eyes. And all hell broke loose.

—

Far to the south, Mihawk’s boat reached the shore of Marineford and he leapt out, cape billowing behind him as he sprinted at full speed toward the Marine headquarters at the island’s center. Behind him, Buggy jogged after, wheezing heavily and clutching a stitch at his side as he tried to keep up.

“Hold… hah… up… hah…”

Mihawk paid him no mind as he dashed toward the center of the island, reaching a staircase and taking the steps two at a time. In his mind’s eye, his future vision from earlier flashed, an enormous spherical blast impacting the island… and reducing it to rubble.

‘I must warn the others to take defensive positions,’ he thought, grimly. ‘I can sense it… that beast has emerged.’

—

In the northwest, the Preta Path’s eyes narrowed. Across from him, surrounded on all sides by Konan’s paper clones, Zommari wheezed heavily, blood seeping from the eyes across his body, which had been gouged out. But the Espada was far from the Akatsuki leader’s primary concern.

‘That hate-filled aura… I can feel it from here. There’s no mistaking it.’

In the center of the arena, the creature’s roar split the air, its enormous tails swinging with enough force to flatten mountains. Red, hate-filled eyes gazed to the sky, fury coursing through its body at being imprisoned for so long. And now… now, freed from its slumber, it remembered his purpose, to rampage and destroy.

‘The Nine-Tails.’

—

To the northeast, atop the spires of Las Noches, Harribel stood gazing outward, arms folded across her chest as she grimly stared past the dunes of Hueco Mundo, buildings of the Soul Society and fire pits of Hell to the heart of the arena, where the enormous fox had emerged.

‘What a hideous aura… its energy appears to have no end.’

Behind her, space parted and Ulquiorra stepped out with his hands in his pockets, Yammy following right behind him. Without turning to acknowledge them, Harribel spoke.

“Have you anything to report from your reconnaissance?”

Ulquiorra shrugged halfheartedly.

“Aaroniero is dead and Zommari is losing. Szayelaporro has the corpse he wanted.”

Harribel’s eyes narrowed, but she acknowledged his report with a curt nod.

“Are you prepared to battle?”

Yammy let out a barking laugh.

“When the hell aren’t I?” Next to him, Ulquiorra inclined his head silently as well.

Harribel bowed her head, gazing out at the creature in the distance through the strands of blonde hair that hung down in front of her eyes.

“You have my permission to release. Try to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

Ulquiorra hummed and stepped forward, as Yammy laughed and stepped backward into the Descorrer, which closed behind him. As the Cuatro Espada approached the edge of the roof, he drew his sword.

“Enclose… Murciélago.”

Black and green energy exploded from him as he leapt off the roof, appearing to rain down on the vicinity like dark sleet. Enormous black wings unfurled from his back, and Ulquiorra took flight, soaring toward the battlefield at blinding speed.

To Harribel’s right, a new figure approached – Nel, who strode forth to stand at the Espada leader’s side. Worry was visible across her face.

“Ulquiorra and Yammy… are you sure that they’ll be able to handle this?”

Harribel was silent for a moment.

“It would be unwise of me to go around distrusting the abilities of my comrades, as leader. Nor is it your place to do so, Nelliel.”

Nel flinched ever so slightly at the light reprimand, but didn’t back down.

“It’s not that I don’t trust their abilities… it’s just that… Ulquiorra has been acting differently since we awoke. Nothing like how I remember.”

“…”

Harribel hesitated for just a few moments. Long enough for Nel to see she had struck a chord with her fellow Tres. After a moment, however, Harribel regained her composure.

“I have… noticed that as well. Even so, now is not the time to be concerned about it. We must be prepared for what might happen if they fail, and to defend Las Noches if the beast’s rampage cannot be stopped.”

Nel nodded, though concern was still visible on her face.

“I’ll retrieve Grimmjow. And Luppi too, if I can manage to convince him.”

Harribel nodded, and in a flash Nel vanished, her Sonído fast as ever. Left alone with her thoughts, Harribel stared out at the horizon. Her fingers tightened around her arms. The war was hardly going terribly so far, but the power she felt from this new beast…

In her mind, two words had begun to echo over and over, like some kind of prayer.

‘Win, Ulquiorra.’

—

Back at Marineford, in the Warlords’ meeting room, Jinbe stood in alarm, staring up at the ceiling, which trembled from the distant power being released.

“What on earth…?”

Boa stared into the distance, finally shaken out of her daydreams, a grim expression on her face.

“That immense power to the north… to think it could cause the ground to tremble even from this distance.”

Still seated with his legs on the table, Law’s eyes narrowed. Though he could sense the creature stirring far away, the shivers in the ground reminded him a bit too much of a certain man for his own comfort. A man who had been absent since their first day in the arena.

The three of them were pulled from their thoughts as the doors to the room were hurled open. Mihawk stood in the door.

“Take defensive positions!” he ordered, sharply.

Boa scoffed, angling her head backward to look down the bridge of her nose at him. She raised a hand and pointed at the swordsman.

“Insolent man, thinking you can give me orders! I could have you executed for that.”

Law cut in.

“Oi, Hancock is right. You might be strong, but you aren’t in charge here, Hawk-Eyes.”

Mihawk let out a low growl of frustration, eyes flashing dangerously.

“Fools! This is no time for your egotism. If we don’t take action, Marineford will soon sink into the sea!”

Alarm flashed on Law and Boa’s faces, their defiance faltering. Though neither of them were the type to enjoy being bossed around, they were also both Devil Fruit users, and so knew the dangers the ocean posed.

Jinbe stepped forward and spoke with a calm voice.

“Hancock, you ought to take position near the front and be prepared to petrify any oncoming attacks. Trafalgar, is your Room large enough to span the breadth of the entire island?”

Law was silent for a moment, and then pulled himself to his feet, sword in hand.

“Of course.”

Jinbe nodded, then turned to Mihawk.

“Hawk-Eyes…”

“I will take a defensive position at the top of headquarters. My strength will be needed there.”

If Jinbe found this choice of position odd, he did not question it, instead nodding curtly.

“I will join Hancock at the front. My Fish-Man Jujutsu will be helpful for calming any oceanic disturbances that might damage the island. Additionally, in the event that the island does sink, I will need to be prepared to rescue the three of you from drowning.”

Mihawk nodded, and then dashed off, cape billowing behind him. The remaining three Warlords glanced at each other, and then hurried off, whirling past a very winded Buggy the Clown as he entered the room. Spinning in place, Buggy yelped as the others shoved past him.

“WO-O-O-OAHH!” he yelped, eyes spinning with dizziness. As he reoriented himself, he saw that the others had already made it some distance down the hallway. 

“OI!” he shrieked after them, looking thoroughly miffed. “Where the hell are you all going?!”

—

Back at the Akatsuki’s hideout, space twisted, and from the vortex appeared the materializing forms of Itachi and Kisame, with the masked Tobi following only moments later. Strolling forward, Tobi brushed past Itachi and Kisame, moving out onto a balcony overlooking the Rain Village. Behind him, Itachi stood, a guarded expression on his face.

“The Nine-Tails…” he said, softly. “Was this your plan?”

Tobi was silent for a moment before replying.

“Zetsu reported earlier that one of the Espada possessed the ability to consume other beings for power. I thought that such an ability posed a unique opportunity, and so collaborated with Orochimaru to facilitate the devourment of his Reaper, and subsequently the escape of the Nine-Tails.”

Itachi’s eyes narrowed.

“And what would have happened had this Espada fellow managed to contain the Nine-Tails’ power? You seem to have taken an exorbitant risk without equal benefit.”

Tobi chuckled.

“Had that happened and Orochimaru died, that would have been of no concern to me. The Nine-Tails poses no true threat to one who possesses the Sharingan. However…”

He gazed out at the horizon, his eye seeing far beyond the limits of any ordinary man’s vision, at the rampaging fox, which had begun to charge up an enormous ball of energy from its mouth. The Nine-Tails turned toward Tobi, and it was as though the two locked gaze over hundreds of kilometers.

Lightning cracked from above the Rain Village, and all of a sudden Tobi’s hands were a blur, forming seals at a rate that even Itachi was impressed by. From the ground below, an enormous amount of wood broke through the stone, rising and growing upward until it amassed into an enormous human-like figure, with an oni-like face and a wooden dragon wrapped around its torso. Though those present did not recognize it, this technique had once been used by the legendary Hashirama Senju in battle against the Nine-Tails.

BOOOM!

From the distance, the Nine-Tails let its Tailed Beast Bomb fly, and it hurtled across Akatsuki territory within mere seconds. Raising its hand, the giant wooden statue caught the blast between its thick fingers, and then hurled it back with all its might!

Ripping through the air, the Tailed Beast Bomb careened back toward the Nine-Tails, who leapt out of the way. The sphere’s path continued interrupted, until it slammed into Espada territory, an enormous eruption of energy blasting a massive crater into the earth. What little was left of Karakura Town had been thoroughly obliterated.

Tobi chuckled darkly, straightening up.

“We can think of this like an endurance match,” he said, almost amicably, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Far away, on the other sides of the arena, Harribel and Mihawk stood atop their own fortresses, similarly prepared to defend from attack. “Let’s see whose defenses break first.”

—

The Nine-Tails let out a roar of rage, and began to charge another Tailed Beast Bomb from its mouth. That bastard Madara… it would blow him to kingdom come! However, just as the fox prepared to release its blast, it sensed a flash of powerful energy approaching from behind.

Whirling around, the Nine-Tails took aim toward Las Noches, only for an enormous spear of green light to pierce through the center of the Tailed Beast Bomb in its maw. The ball of energy, its surface tension broken, exploded into an enormous blast of chakra right inside of the fox’s mouth, the shockwave followed by a howl of pain and fury.

The source of the energy spear, of course, so small he might have been comparable to the Nine-Tails’ eye up close, was Ulquiorra Cifer, the Cuatro Espada, whose enormous black wings lifted him high above the ground. While his Luz de la Luna may not have been powerful enough to overcome the Tailed Beast Bomb entirely, causing the energy to disperse and rebound had been child’s play.

Kurama roared, smoke pouring from his mouth, his tongue badly burnt by the blast. His nine tails whirled around like a hurricane, tearing up the surrounding area in an attempt to knock Ulquiorra out of the air. With incredible speed, however, the Espada deftly twisted through the sky, dodging every tail swing. From his hand, another spear of green light materialized, and countless others formed in midair around him, pointed toward the Nine-Tails.

“Luz de la Luna: Aniquilar!”

The spears of light rained forth, peppering Kurama’s chest with massive explosions, but with a roar and a swing of his arm, the fox swept the hailstorm aside. With one of his tails, he finally managed to strike Ulquiorra, hurling him away at high speed. From his burned mouth, the Nine-Tails once again began to charge an enormous Tailed Beast Bomb.

In the sky above him, however, a Descorrer opened up, and from it Yammy dropped like a bomb, having swelled to great size and plummeting toward the battlefield with a hearty, bellowing laugh. Veins bulged in his forehead as he cried out to the heavens.

“ENRAGE… IRA!!!”

With an explosion of red reiatsu, Yammy’s body swelled to massive size, the “1” on his chest dissolving to leave only the “0”. As he came down on top of Kurama, who turned his head upward in alarm, Yammy brought his hands down in a double fist bash that slammed into the side of the fox’s head, knocking it to the side and redirecting his aim.

BOOOOOM!

The Tailed Beast Bomb tore forth and split into multiple enormous fragments of itself – Continuous Tailed Beast Bombs. Careening toward the south, many of them impacted the ocean throughout the Warlords’ territory, producing massive explosions across the horizon that displaced enormous amounts of water. The rest of them sailed through the sky, approaching Marineford in the far south.

Standing at the port at the front of the island, Jinbe cried out in alarm, turning to his companion who stood nearby.

“Hancock! Halt their approach!”

Boa huffed, an enormous pink heart materializing in front of her as she drew back multiple heart arrows at once.

“Don’t think you can order me around just because you’re a member of Luffy’s crew! I am only loyal to one man!”

With that, she released the arrows, and they shot forth into the sky, meeting the Tailed Beast Barrage head-on. Though the arrows were certainly not powerful enough to overcome the bombs all at once, they had a much different effect, as the enormous masses of energy found themselves instantly hardened into solid stone, their power output nullified all at once upon contact with Boa’s power.

Unfortunately, this was only a partial solution. While petrifying the bombs had the benefit of preventing them from detonating upon impact, they were now gigantic chunks of stone approaching at high speed. If allowed to impact, they would still cause extreme damage to Marineford.

Fortunately, however, Boa was only the first line of defense. As the giant stone spheres hurtled down toward the island, the air seemed to shift, as though some kind of charged energy field permeated the area. In an instant, every last bomb split apart into tiny pebbles, perfectly sliced and diced into equal cube-shaped portions of no significant mass. Robbed of their momentum, they rained down harmlessly across the island. In position in front of Marine headquarters, Trafalgar D. Water Law sat cross legged, his chin leaning on one hand. He let out an amused yawn, as though unimpressed with his own role in stopping the bombs.

Back at the port, Jinbe took no time to celebrate his comrades’ achievement. Dashing toward the shore, he plunged his hands into the water and concentrated. In the far distance, the bombs that had impacted the ocean had kicked up enormous tidal waves, which were approaching the island rapidly. If he did nothing to stop them…

Letting out a growl of intense concentration, Jinbe pulled his hands upward and then snapped them down, like a jockey snapping their horse’s reins. The water in front of him followed suit, rising upward with his hands and then jerking down, a wave rippling forth from his position and growing bigger and bigger, until it grew into a tidal wave just as large as the ripples of water that Kurama displaced. Meeting the incoming tidal waves, Jinbe’s wave crashed into them from the opposite direction, and their momentum was canceled out, water rippling backwards in both directions, robbed of much of their force.

Jinbe stood up, wiping the sweat from his brow with a sigh of relief. Atop the highest point of the Navy’s headquarters, Mihawk stood, surveying the situation with grim anticipation. The first volley had been successfully stopped, but next…

Yammy had managed to get his arms around Kurama’s neck, putting him in a headlock while he howled in rage, clawing at the gigantic Cero Espada and scoring gashes across his arms with long, jagged nails. However, even as blood gushed from Yammy’s wounds and he let out a bellow of pain, his muscles swelled even further while his reiatsu climbed higher and higher, boosted by the enormous man’s ever-growing rage.

From Kurama’s mouth, a Tailed Beast Bomb began to charge once more, this one much different from those that came before it. As Yammy clenched down ever-harder on the fox’s neck, the bomb only grew larger and larger, its energy spiking to immense levels. From above, the recovered Ulquiorra hurled down Luz de la Lunas at it, but as they peppered its surface, the increased power of the attack prevented it from being destabilized as it had before.

With a howl, the Nine-Tails blasted the bomb from its mouth, and it soared across the ocean, ripping through the surface of the water at breakneck speed as it approached Marineford.

At the dock, Jinbe’s eyes bugged out as the bomb approached.

“H-Hancock-!”

“I can’t petrify it!” she cried. “It’s too big!”

Jinbe turned back toward the Navy’s headquarters.

“TRAFALGAR! TELEPORT IT!”

Law leapt to his feet, sweat pouring down his brow as he looked concerned for the first time, veins bulging in his forehead as he strained the range of his power.

“My Room isn’t big enough! Even if I teleport it to the side, we’ll still get caught in the blast radius!!”

Far above them all, atop the highest point of Marineford, Dracule Mihawk took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and drew his sword. Even with certain doom hurtling in from beyond the horizon, the world around him felt strangely muted. There was no corner of the arena that he could not sense, no heartbeat or falling leaf that he could not feel. Though drowned out by the howling wind, he spoke.

“The nine mountains and eight seas constitute one world.”

The bomb hurtled past the port, passing over Jinbe and Boa, who slowly turned to watch its movement with horror.

“A thousand of them form a small chiliocosm.”

As the bomb blasted past Law, and Buggy who had appeared behind him, Mihawk drew his sword back behind himself, taking a stance.

“And when I gather and cube that chiliocosm…”

Mihawk’s feet left the ground as he leapt up toward the bomb, his figure turning monochromatic in its intense light.

“…there’s nothing I can’t cut!”

Mihawk swung Yoru, and Haki exploded forth from the blade, striking the Tailed Beast Bomb dead center – though the two did not make contact. The bomb halted midair, Mihawk’s blade crackling against it from some distance away, the empty space between the two filled with immense power. The two strained against one another until, with a mighty effort…

Mihawk’s sword strike cleaved all the way through, and the giant-sized Tailed Beast Ball was hurled away, like a baseball deflected off the flat of his blade.

From below, the other Warlords gaped, jaws hanging open and eyes bugging out, as the enormous sphere of energy was launched back across the water – returning right back to sender. Kurama let out a roar of surprise, and Yammy too looked up with a start, but grappling with one another the two were unable to leap away. The Tailed Beast Bomb slammed into both of them and exploded violently, engulfing the entire inner ring of the arena in a massive blast.

Atop Las Noches, Harribel’s eyes widened in alarm. Behind her, Nel and Luppi emerged onto the top of the canopy, with Grimmjow trailing slowly behind them, hands in his pockets, a bored expression on his face.

“Well now,” Luppi sneered. “Looks like things aren’t going well over there.”

“As if Yammy is worth anything,” Grimmjow scoffed, rolling his eyes. A moment later, he yelped as something swatted the side of his head, and turned to glare at Nel, who glowered back at him. “You wanna die, greenie? Cuz we can fight right now.”

“I thought you wanted to be king,” Nel shot back, and Grimmjow scowled.

“Yeah, so what? You got something to say?”

“No good king sees any of his subjects as worthless.”

Grimmjow opened his mouth, and then closed it again, anger on his face as her words registered with him, and he tried to think of a response. Finally, he scoffed and turned his head away, glowering at nothing.

“Feh. Whatever.”

Ignoring their bickering, Harribel kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, worry rolling in her stomach. She had half a mind to send the entire Espada to Yammy and Ulquiorra’s aid… but that would be unwise when there were still numerous abilities on both opposing teams that they lacked any knowledge of. She just needed to have trust in those two… which, in fairness, was not a difficult task. Yammy was troublesome and unreliable, but Ulquiorra rarely failed when it counted. Still…

In the center of the smoking crater at the middle of the arena, the two gigantic adversaries had been burned severely by the Tailed Beast Bomb’s impact, though one far more than the other. Yammy swayed on his feet and groaned, eyes sliding in and out of focus as he slipped into and out of unconsciousness.

With a roar, the scorched Kurama swung his tails into Yammy, knocking the giant off balance. From his mouth, another Tailed Beast Bomb charged up, and he blasted it point-blank into the Cero Espada’s chest. Blood spurted from Yammy’s mouth as he was driven backward, ripping through the ground as the bomb propelled him away. With a roar, however, he planted his feet, and slammed his fist down into the Tailed Beast Bomb, and it exploded, mulching the arm that had struck it to pieces in the process with an enormous shower of blood.

With a bellow of rage, Yammy swelled further, somehow even stronger now, while grievously injured, than he had been previously. He lunged forward, re-crossing the gap between himself and Kurama in moments and tackled the fox to the ground, bringing his remaining fist down into its face. The Nine-Tails, however, opened its mouth wide and sunk its fangs down into Yammy’s wrist, causing him to let out another roar.

“Ulquiorra!!!” he roared, blank eyes seeing nothing as he continued to wrestle against the fox. Above him, the man in question hurled down Luz de la Lunas, peppering Kurama’s hide with explosions and causing the fox to let out a yowl of pain.

“Keep it pinned, Yammy!” Ulquiorra commanded. “If we let it get off too many more of those attacks, it could destroy the entire arena!”

Yammy could only roar in response, as Kurama’s claws tore into his already mutilated chest. Above him, Ulquiorra closed his eyes in concentration. His attacks as they were now could hardly make a dent in the creature… but… he had greater strength hidden within. It would be unfortunate, revealing such a trump card to the enemy, but… desperate times, as they say.

From his body, dark energy exploded. It engulfed himself and the surroundings, its weight like gravity that pressed down on Yammy and Kurama alike, and its darkness blotting out the sky above. The Akatsuki to the west and Warlords to the south looked on, as the darkness expanded to fill the entire arena. Underneath Yammy’s immense bulk, Kurama’s eyes widened in shock.

‘What… is this feeling…?’ The fox thought. ‘This isn’t hatred, like mine… it’s…’

—

…

…

…

Deep inside the fox’s mind, a wide pool of water spanned. Laying at its center, his head resting on his front paws, Kurama sprawled, eyes closed as though asleep. However, a low growl revealed his discomfort. Standing before him, atop the surface of the quiet water, an untransformed Ulquiorra stood with his hands in his pockets.

The Espada glanced around, surveying his surroundings with eerie calm.

“Is this your subconscious, beast?” he asked.

“Calmer than you would have expected, eh?” Kurama growled, his voice deep and rumbling. He cracked one eye open.

“I enjoy calm,” Ulquiorra replied, his tone blasé. “It’s much less dishonest than the alternative.”

“Dishonest?” Kurama rumbled. Ulquiorra closed his eyes.

“Why is it that you rampage, creature? Is it because it stirs something within you? Or for some other reason?”

Kurama chuckled, humorlessly.

“I have lived a long life, and spent most of it in a cage. Humans give empty excuses to justify it… but I’ve never liked being chained down. The hatred that others have for me gives rise to hatred in turn… and so that is why I destroy. To strike back at those who would hold me down.”

“And what then? When you have burned everything to the ground, reduced the world to nothing, will that soothe your pain? Will it mean anything to you, in the end? Or is that too an empty excuse, to distract you from the fact that nothing will make things better?”

Kurama was silent for a moment, then let out a low growl.

“You have some nerve, to speak as though you know me, spirit. What would you have me do? Cease my rampage? Forgive and forget the centuries of injustices inflicted upon me by humans?”

“…”

“Feh. I thought not. Even if I tried, humanity will never leave me alone.”

“…Perhaps not. But… perhaps not all humans are the same.”

“Oh?”

“I once felt as though nothing could fill my heart. And perhaps that still holds true. But…”

Ulquiorra closed his eyes.

“…some humans have a strange way of… reaching out their hands to even those who don’t seek it. Those who don’t deserve it. I can’t say that I understand why that is, even now, but… perhaps you might meet a human like that too, some day.”

Kurama looked down his snout at the pale Arrancar, who stood pensively, gazing to the side as though seeing something, or someone, who was not standing there at all. Then, slowly, a rumbling sound welled up in Kurama’s throat, and the Nine-Tails let out a booming, mocking laugh.

“Ridiculous! You think some human would extend their hand to me? I am the Nine-Tailed Fox! Such a thing would be utterly laughable. I’ll say it again – don’t act like you know me!”

Raising one of his paws, he brought his hand down on the water, and whatever mental connection had formed between him and Ulquiorra shattered like glass in that moment.

—

Kurama let out a tremendous roar, and with a heave he hurled Yammy off of him, and sent the giant staggering away with a swing of his tails. Planting all four of his feet on the ground, the Nine-Tails raised its head skyward and roared up at Ulquiorra, whose body had transformed.

The dark energy that had engulfed the arena simmered around the Cuatro Espada, whose bat wings had morphed into a more formless shape, as though they were now made of ink. His white clothing had been replaced by black on his arms and lower body, with his fingers and toes having sharpened into talons. His now bare chest was a pale white, with markings that made it look as though some kind of black substance was pouring from the hole in the center of his chest, where his heart should have been. The horns that extended from his head had gotten longer, and his helmet had disappeared entirely, replaced by long, messy dark hair.

Emotionless eyes gazed out, black markings descending down his cheeks. Moving his clawed hands outward, Ulquiorra produced between them a shaft of green energy, which took the shape of a glimmering lance.

“Let’s put an end to this.”

Kurama roared and began to charge a Tailed Beast Bomb. As he released it, Ulquiorra hurled his lance downward.

“Lanza del Relampago!”

The lance collided with the Tailed Beast Bomb in midair, and the two detonated with enough force to shake the entire arena, a column of green energy on one side and an explosion of white on the other.

Through the resulting smoke cloud, a dozen more Tailed Beast Bombs blasted forth, but Ulquiorra blazed forward through the air, twisting between all of them with incredible speed. Reaching ground level, he pulled upward, and soared forth, slamming into Kurama’s chest with his palm outstretched, propelling the fox backwards across the ground.

With a howl, Kurama planted his feet, and fired a laser downward, which Ulquiorra dove out of the way from, its power carving a massive trench along the earth. Yammy leapt back into the battle and clotheslined Kurama from the side with his only good arm, but the fox slashed with his claws and took out both of the Cero’s eyes.

With a howl, Yammy clutched his face and staggered backward, as Ulquiorra flew upward and drove a second Lanza into Kurama’s right eye. The Nine-Tails howled in agony, and then the Lanza detonated, blasting him off balance and sending him rolling across the ground, his eye entirely gouged out.

Ulquiorra hurtled skyward, a dozen Lanzas manifesting in the air around himself, similar to how his Luz de la Lunas had earlier. Extending two fingers, a Cero made entirely of dark energy concentrated in the middle, and all the Lanzas converged around it, multiplying into one massive Lanza coated in dark energy. Ulquiorra gritted his teeth; every cell in his body felt as though they were boiling from the amount of Reiatsu emanating from him now. If this wasn’t enough…

“Lanza Oscuras!”

With a heave, he hurled the dark lance downward, the space itself warping and splitting in the attack’s path, darkness bleeding into the sun’s light as the massive energy leaking from the attack blotted out the sky in its umbral splendor.

As it flashed down into the felled Kurama’s chest, space twisted at the impact point as though collapsing into a singularity, before exploding outward in an enormous cacophony of green and black energy. The entire arena shook violently as Kurama howled in pain, his entire body battered intensely by the blast. The particulate chakra composing his body struggled to hold together under the devastating cacophony, threatening to violently shred apart. As he let out an enormous roar of rage, the attack’s light fully engulfed his body.

The arena violently shuddered. Every corner of it, even its furthest strongholds – the Akatsuki hideout, Las Noches, and Marineford – found their foundations splintered ever so slightly from the force of it. But as the attack slowly began to wind down, it somehow managed to remain intact, as though held together by some kind of divine power.

Hovering above the attack’s epicenter, Ulquiorra panted heavily, barely managing to keep himself aloft. He could only hope the fox was-

An enormous ROAR rang forth from the dust cloud below. Bursting forth from the smoke, jaws open, a horrifically burned Kurama lunged for Ulquiorra, prepared to snap him up in his jaws-!

From the side however, Yammy once again lunged in to save the day. He slammed his good fist into Kurama’s side, his barely-functional Pesquisa allowing him to find his mark. Kurama was knocked to the side – and from the palm of Yammy’s hand, a purple cube-like device went with him.

From the device, purple energy blasted out, forming large stands of energy which enveloped Kurama… and then space folded around him, and with a final echoing roar of rage, the Nine-Tails disappeared. Sealed away in a spatial prison by Caja Negacion.

Silence rang out as slowly, the exhausted Ulquiorra descended from the sky and touched down. Above him, the horribly battle-damaged Yammy swayed in place. His eyes and one of his arms gone, his chest horribly burned and gouged into by Tailed Beast Bomb and claws alike, both his legs and his remaining arm covered in claw and teeth marks, it was only Yammy’s sheer rage and drive to win that had allowed him to keep standing this long.

On the ground below, Ulquiorra let out shuddering gasps, his Segunda Etapa form discorporating as he reverted to base form. But his concern was not with his own well-being.

“Ya…mmy…”

With a low groan, Yammy toppled backward, and his back hit the ground with an almighty impact that shook their destroyed surroundings. He did not shrink… and he did not move again.

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE ESPADA HAS DIED! TEN REMAIN!”

Ulquiorra groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. Slowly, he swayed in place and fell backwards himself… into a Descorrer that opened behind him, where soft arms caught him. Though he was too exhausted to force his eyes open, he faintly recognized Nelliel’s Reiatsu before slipping into unconsciousness.

—

Back at the Akatsuki hideout, Tobi chuckled as the enormous wooden creature that he had created froze in place like a statue, its purpose fulfilled with Kurama sealed away. Behind him, Itachi and Kisame observed the distant fight with great interest.

“What incredible power our adversaries possess, to overcome even a fraction of the Nine-Tails,” Kisame remarked with a chuckle. “That swordsman from the south in particular… must truly be something else.”

“Indeed,” Tobi replied, glancing at Itachi though not addressing him. “It appears our foes are not to be taken lightly. Still… how very strange…”

Kisame raised an eyebrow. “Strange?”

“There was a shift in the Nine-Tails’ chakra,” Itachi spoke up, gazing out at the horizon in contemplation. “Its chakra is pure hatred… but by the end of the fight, it had lessened in intensity. As though its will to fight had been diminished. Though for what reason, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“It matters not,” Tobi said, reentering the hideout from the balcony. “The enemy are certainly powerful and must be taken seriously, but they have suffered a substantial loss. And…” He tilted his head, amusement entering his voice, a hint of his old Tobi persona. “That won’t be stopping just yet.”

As if on cue…

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE ESPADA HAS DIED! NINE REMAIN!”

—

To the north, among the mountains of the Cloud Village, Zommari Rureaux had at last taken his final breath, having spent well over a day now fighting with everything he had for the Espada’s cause. Every last eye on his body had been carved out, and blood gurgled from his mouth as Konan pulled a longsword made of paper from where it had been embedded in his chest, exhaustion visible in every corner of her body.

Behind her, the three Paths of Pain that had joined the fight sat perched on a rock outcropping, Pain’s involvement in the fight having diminished as Zommari had gotten weaker over time, to avoid overexerting Nagato’s abilities while he was in his weakened state.

Slowly, Konan turned back to look at him, her blood-soaked sword unfurling into papers which then folded into origami butterflies and fluttered around her. 

“Finally,” she breathed out, swaying slightly in place. “What an unreasonably difficult opponent…”

“…No,” Pain replied, his voice grim. “This fellow is one of the weaker ones. We shall need to overcome far greater challenges if we are to win.”

Konan grimaced. She had kept track of the death announcements that had occurred, and knew that several Akatsuki had died already.

“Who is it that we’ve lost?”

“Hidan, Kakuzu, and Deidara have died in battle. Moreover… communication from Sasori ceased quite some time ago, and he has not returned to base. I suspect we can consider him lost as well.”

Konan’s eyes widened.

“But… there were only three announcements…”

“Yes,” Pain replied grimly. “I know not what fate our little puppet-master has met. But even assuming he has not died, we have lost three of our number, compared to five of our foes, who number twenty-three in total. Proportionally speaking, we have fallen behind today.”

Konan closed her eyes in silent prayer, and then opened them.

“I have faith in our victory. Itachi and Madara are both nearly without peer, and you of course are invincible. We have little reason to worry.”

Pain did not disagree with her words, but his expression remained grim.

“We shall see. For as long as this body of mine functions… I will spare no effort to ensure that our foes shall know pain.”

—

Deep below the ground, in some kind of dark laboratory illuminated only by several flickering candles, a shadowy figure moved about quietly. Across the many tables and desks, artifacts and knicknacks of all kinds were strewn about, as well as countless papers covered with scribbles, the notes of he who owned the laboratory.

The man… or, well, most people thought of him as a man. The creature that owned the laboratory deposited a severed arm onto one of the tables: an arm that had once belonged to Kakuzu. Surrounding it were numerous other little trinkets taken from various other Akatsuki members – a shark tooth from Kisame, a long black spear covered in Hidan’s dried blood, several locks of Deidara’s blond hair.

Orochimaru let out a dry chuckle, and murmured aloud to himself.

“My, our little gambit there worked out quite well, it seems… intriguing that the Nine-Tails’ chakra has disappeared, though. I wonder how they managed to get rid of it…”

As he spoke, he passed by a table on which a shriveled, mummified hand sat, a dark blue Akatsuki ring displayed on its pinky finger. At the head of the room, he took a spot in a purple seat, lacing his fingers together under his chin.

“Ahhh~, how long it’s been since I was able to move freely. I certainly hope my fangs haven’t dulled.”

He allowed a cruel smile to spread across his face.

“No, if anything they’ve grown sharper. The Akatsuki seem so weak now… but the truth is that I’ve gotten much stronger. This may be my chance… to finally achieve that old ambition of mine… hehehehehe…”

The shadows around him seemed to grow colder as the candlelight cast strange shadows around the room. Behaving himself for a spell had been alright… but Orochimaru had to admit, he had missed the feeling of sinking his fangs into those who least expected it.

—

Back at Las Noches, the thoroughly exhausted Ulquiorra lay atop a medical cot. Nearby, Szayelaporro hummed lightly as he monitored his fellow Espada’s vital signs, Harribel and Nel watching him from nearby. After a few moments, he turned toward them.

“He’s in stable condition. There appears to be some residual spiritual energy from that creature clinging to him, and it seems that it has some sort of corrosive attribute to it. However, his natural Reiatsu has served as an antibody for long enough that it hasn’t inflicted any long-lasting damage. Furthermore, any injuries incurred in the battle have already been repaired by his High-Speed Regeneration, and his vital organs are largely undamaged outside of some mild trauma. Nothing that several days of bedrest won’t fix. Though, he may need some assistance to fully stave off the poisonous energy.”

Harribel breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Szayelaporro. Yammy was a great enough loss on his own, Ulquiorra on top of that…”

Szayel smiled humorlessly.

“No kind words for Aaroniero or Zommari, eh? Well, I suppose I didn’t like them either.”

Nel huffed at him, looking annoyed.

“That’s not what Harribel is saying, obviously!”

“No, Nelliel, it’s fine,” Harribel cut in, calmly. “You do not need to speak for me.”

Nel frowned, as Harribel turned her attention toward Szayel.

“You are correct, of course, I misspoke. My focus was on the battle with that beast, but I should have paid proper heed to all three of our losses today. No Espada’s death should go unmourned.”

Szayel sneered.

“Oh please,” he replied. “You don’t need to pretend to care about those weaklings. It makes you look pathetic, leader.”

He moved to walk past her, and Harribel’s hand shot out and caught him by the arm. He stopped, and his eyes shifted toward her. She did not glance in his direction.

“You will not speak to me like that, Szayelaporro. I am not the sort of Arrancar who will kill you just for being insolent. But that does not mean I will tolerate disrespect.”

From her body, an intense spiritual pressure began to emit, and beads of sweat formed on Szayel’s brow, as he groaned slightly under the intense power.

“Y… yes, I understand,” he ground out, and Harribel’s Reiatsu receded, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief, and regain his composure after a moment. She released his arm. Szayel stood still for a moment, and then pushed up his glasses, exiting the room past Baraggan, who stood in the door with his arms crossed.

“Segunda,” Harribel acknowledged Baraggan. “Did you need to speak to me?”

Baraggan was silent for a moment, and then growled out a short “No.” He glowered at her, arrogant disdain etched across his face. “I merely wanted to observe our new leadership,” speaking the word as though it was poison on his tongue, “in action.”

Harribel was silent for a moment, and then replied.

“Fetch Starrk and meet me in the council chambers. I have a task for the two of you.”

Baraggan scowled at the order, and then turned away, pausing for a moment before leaving.

“Don’t think for a moment that I acknowledge you as my superior, Tres. I will take that throne back soon enough.”

With that, he left. Nel swallowed, biting her lip and looking anxiously at Harribel.

“How long do you think we’ll be able to keep this together?”

Harribel was silent momentarily, gazing at the sleeping Ulquiorra, whose face looked almost peaceful compared to his usual, miserable self. Then, she responded quietly.

“Not long.”

—

In Marineford’s meeting hall, the five Warlords that had taken up base at Navy headquarters sat in relative silence. At the head of the table, Mihawk gazed down at his hands, deep in thought. On the other side of the table, fidgeting slightly, their most bombastic team member finally spoke up after the long silence.

“What are we all looking so glum for?” Buggy inquired, leaning over the table. “We’re ahead, aren’t we? Only two losses versus three for the other two? Winning!”

Law scowled at him, clearly annoyed.

“You’re a real idiot, you know? Two people died. Are we supposed to look happy?”

“Oh please,” Buggy squawked, rolling his eyes. “You can’t seriously say you cared about that Weevil idiot, and Crocodile…”

He trailed off, nervously glancing at Mihawk, clearly uncertain of how to proceed.

“W-well… Crocodile is a loss. But it could be worse, eh?”

Jinbe leaned back in his chair, a downtrodden expression on his face.

“I won’t pretend that I was overly fond of Crocodile,” he said, somberly. “He was a criminal and a terrorist. However… he saved my life from Akainu at the Summit War. Whatever he might have done before and after that, I owed him an unshakeable debt that I will now never be able to repay.”

“Perhaps not never.” Mihawk finally spoke up from the head of the table, leaning forward. Jinbe raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Our friends to the northwest who were responsible for his death – the Akatsuki. Of the two members who contributed to Crocodile’s death, one of them was some kind of Fish-Man, like you.”

Jinbe’s expression darkened, as Mihawk continued.

“He possessed the ability to attack with water, and produced a large amount of it at once, which negated Crocodile’s ability to transform into sand. Not only that, he demonstrated the ability to absorb Haki into his blade.”

Jinbe heaved a heavy sigh, grimacing.

“I see. An opponent like that… would be a fearsome challenge for any of us. Especially those of us with Devil Fruit abilities, who would be powerless against his water.”

Mihawk nodded.

“Indeed. With that in mind, either you or I should be the one to face him. His ability to absorb Haki is still troublesome, but…”

“But not to the extent that either of us would be helpless.” Jinbe finished his sentence. “I concur. Not to mention, the two of us owe more to Crocodile than anyone else here. For personal reasons as well as pragmatic, it should be one of us.”

“Indeed,” Mihawk continued. “However, the truly troublesome person is the second fellow who was there. A dark-haired man with blood-red eyes.”

Down the table, Law raised an eyebrow.

“More troublesome than drowning?”

Mihawk nodded grimly.

“The man possessed powerful illusory abilities that he placed me under upon making eye contact. Even I was none the wiser about being affected, until Crocodile had already been slain. And once I did realize, it required a nearly full-power deluge of Haki to break through it.”

“Full power?” Boa asked, leaning back in her chair, chin leaning on her knuckles. “From you?”

“That’s right,” Mihawk replied, expression serious. “I suspect that out of all of us, only Teach or I possess powerful enough Haki to break through those illusions.”

“Teach?” Law asked sharply. “You don’t intend to team up with Blackbeard, do you?”

“No,” Mihawk replied, firmly. “I would sooner lose this war than allow Blackbeard to win it.”

“Perhaps we could kill two birds with one stone?” Boa suggested, rubbing Salome’s head with her free hand, as he coiled around her. “Pit Teach up against this red-eyed man, and allow the two of them to take each other out?”

“Maybe,” Mihawk replied, tapping his thumbs together. “However, tracking Teach down would be a tall order. He’s managed to keep himself hidden from even my Observation Haki.”

“Doflamingo too,” Law muttered, his expression souring.

“Outside of myself or Teach,” Mihawk continued slowly, looking thoughtful. “Hancock would most likely be our best answer to the red-eyed man’s abilities.”

Boa raised an eyebrow.

“Oh? While I’m flattered, Hawk-Eyes, I cannot say that my Haki is anywhere near yours.”

“No,” Mihawk agreed. “But as I said, the man’s power requires eye contact. In other words, he must look at a target to place them under an illusion.”

“So Hancock would be a bad matchup for him!” Jinbe exclaimed, looking surprised as he finished the thought. “Since her powers can petrify anyone who looks at her.”

Boa looked amused.

“I see. It is indeed true that no man can bear to look at me without being frozen in their tracks…” She threw her head back and let out a haughty laugh. “I’ll make him grovel before my feet!”

Next to her, Law sweatdropped.

“We’re in a war, here, not… whatever you’re thinking of.”

Turning his attention back to Mihawk, his voice took on a more serious tone.

“Not that this strategizing isn’t important… But do we have any plan for what to do about Teach and Doflamingo? For that matter, Kuma and Moria’s continued absence concerns me too. I hardly expected all of us to work together, but less than half of us are still here.”

Mihawk frowned, looking thoughtful. Then, when he finally responded, he spoke slowly, as though weighing his words.

“Personally, I’m far more concerned at the moment with our opponents. We can deal with those two when we get closer to the end, assuming they don’t get themselves killed all on their own. For now, it would be very unwise for us to tear each other apart instead of focusing our energy on the other teams.”

Law frowned, but reluctantly nodded.

“That’s fair. It’s just… the idea that there are people out there who are planning something as we speak doesn’t sit right with me.”

Across the arena, numerous individuals stood alone in the light of the now-setting sun, devious schemes brewing within their minds.

Tobi, standing atop the Akatsuki hideout, lightning flashing behind him as his Sharingan gazed out through the hole in his mask…

Nnoitra sitting atop a tree branch, sharpening his crescent blade, gleefully contemplating who he would challenge next…

Szayelaporro in his laboratory, goggles covering his eyes as he tore into Kakuzu’s corpse, laughing maniacally…

Orochimaru in his underground cave, pouring over ancient texts…

“And the idea of them winning that wish at the end… well, that’s even worse.”

—

In the dead of night, a campfire crackled in the woods, bathing a small clearing in light. Around it sat four individuals, so different one would have never expected to see all of them in one place together. And two of them roared loudly in raucous laughter as a fifth figure danced before the flames, silhouetted against their light.

The man closest to the figure cackled loudly, his deep voice echoing through the night, eyes hidden behind red sunglasses which gleamed in the firelight. From each of Doflamingo’s fingers, a string extended, connecting to the dancing figure of Sasori, who hung limply from Doflamingo’s threads, like… well, like a puppet dangling from its strings. Only his eyes, which were bloodshot and full of rage, indicated that the Akatsuki member still had any life left in him.

Across from Doflamingo, Bartholomew Kuma sat silently, his eyes gazing down at the ground morosely. His shoulder, where Sasori’s sand had stabbed into him, had been sewed up by Doflamingo’s threads, so perfectly that one could only barely see that there had been a wound to begin with, if they looked closely. In his hand, he clutched a bible close to his chest. His face, full of resignation, made it clear that he had no desire to be sitting here with the men surrounding him.

The enormous man to Kuma’s immediate side had been bound and gagged tightly by strings, which he struggled violently against. His face was caked with blood and grime, still uncleaned from his fights earlier in the day. Trembling with rage and fatigue, Gecko Moria found himself unable to break the restraints he had been placed within.

Finally, at the head of the campfire sat a wide and filthy man, cackling even louder than Doflamingo, a flagon of beer in hand that he guzzled down, foam dripping down the sides of his chin. Out of all the arena’s residents, he alone had remained hidden for the entire day. It was simply his nature – to lie in wait and plan for the right moment, and then seize his opportunity when it finally presented itself. He was a liar, a coward, a scoundrel, and one of the most powerful men to ever sail the seas: Marshall D. Teach. Blackbeard.

“A beneficial day indeed for this alliance of ours, fellas!” Blackbeard warbled out, his raspy voice as loud as his laugh. “Nine down, twenty-two to go!”

“Sixteen.”

“Eh?” Blackbeard asked, glancing toward Kuma, who had spoken quietly.

“Sixteen to go,” Kuma replied, slightly louder. “There is no reason to kill any of our teammates if it is not necessary.”

Blackbeard and Doffy exchanged glances, and both laughed even louder.

“You had better not be under the impression that I’m leaving Law alive,” Doffy sneered, reclining on the log that he was sitting on. “Mark my words, he’ll die screaming.”

“And none of the others will accept us winning either,” Blackbeard added. He raised his flagon up. “So let’s kill ‘em before they kill us!” Doflamingo raised his own flagon, and they both drank from them heartily. Kuma gazed down at the ground.

Draining his flagon entirely, Blackbeard threw it to the side and stood up, wiping the beer off his chin.

“Now then, zehahaha…”

He strode over to Moria, and ripped away the mass of string that had been gagging his mouth.

“Let’s see if our friend has changed his mind!”

“FUCK you!” Moria shrieked as soon as the gag was removed, and Blackbeard laughed even louder, swinging his hand around and smacking the large man across the face with his ring-covered fingers, sending him sprawling to the ground, newly-added bruises forming on the side of his face.

“Now, now, Moria,” Blackbeard gurgled, kneeling down by Moria’s side. “Is that a way to treat someone who spared your life? I could have killed you after we captured you, you know. You were in terrible shape, it would have been easy. But I was merciful… I wanted to offer you a place on my team. You’re talented, Moria. You could be so much more than the Warlord who used to be a big shot. And it’s not too late to say yes, you can still change your mind. What do you say? Be my nakama?”

He spat out the last word like it was something deeply profane, laughing mockingly at the idea. Moria, still bound by Doffy’s string, lay on the ground and seethed intensely.

“Hell no! As if I’d join you, Teach! Don’t you remember what you did to Absalom?! MY nakama?!”

Blackbeard looked thoughtful for a moment, and then finally shrugged.

“Eh, not really.”

“What?!”

Blackbeard laughed, and stood up.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”

He flashed a grin, which looked eerie in the light of the campfire, with all his missing teeth.

“I can just take your fruit either way.”

Moria’s rage faltered.

“W…what?”

Blackbeard raised his left hand, which glowed a bright white as a bubble of energy formed around it.

“Say hello to your friend for me.”

“…W-wait! No-!”

Crunch!

Blackbeard brought his fist down, the bubble slamming into the side of Moria’s skull. In an instant, the full power of Whitebeard’s Gura Gura no Mi slammed into the soft cartilage like a sledgehammer, and Moria’s head caved inward with a sickening sound and a shower of blood. The ground around him cracked, the force of the attack having been entirely concentrated on Moria himself.

“ATTENTION ALL PARTICIPANTS! ONE OF THE WARLORDS OF THE SEA HAS DIED! EIGHT REMAIN!”

Blackbeard chuckled, straightening up and shaking the blood off his hand. Doflamingo looked on with a sadistic grin, while Kuma averted his eyes and squeezed them closed.

‘Forgive me, Bonney… for aligning myself with these people…’

“Now…” Blackbeard said, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll be taking his fruit. Watch carefully, this’ll be a real exclusive show!”

From the shadows at the edge of the clearing, a pair of gleaming eyes witnessed Blackbeard’s actions.

‘Stealing powers… this is bad. I need to bring this back to-’

“Well well well, what do we have here?”

‘Huh?!’

All of a sudden, an unearthly force seemed to grip the observer and rip them from their hiding place. Moments later, they found themself clenched in Blackbeard’s grip, his right hand coated in darkness.

Trapped between the Emperor’s fingers was a mass of black sludge, which writhed furiously in an attempt to escape, eyes and a mouth on its surface contorting furiously as it attempted to worm its way out of his vice grip. This was Black Zetsu, intel man of the Akatsuki, and unfortunately for him, his ability to hide and spy from the shadows was useless against Observation Haki.

Eyes gleaming, Blackbeard gazed down at the creature, a toothy grin on his face. At that moment, Black Zetsu paused in its attempt to escape. In the back of its mind, the beginnings of a plan began to take shape. Though none in the Akatsuki knew it, the creature had grander ambitions than being their spy.

…Perhaps this man could be the one to see its ambitions realized.

“Well hello there little fella,” Blackbeard greeted him. “What’s your name?”

…

…

…

…

…

END OF CHAPTER 1

(1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10)