Chapter 255
Mito relaxed when she had finally heard Kakashi report that situation was over. She could now fully concentrate on the situation that was about to hit her. Her hands finally stopped trembling, she felt herself more in control. A long sigh escaped her mouth and for the first time in a while she felt tired, thirsty. Mito grabbed a water bottle closest to her and drank. She then went out, looking at how comaderes of the forces were making teams. She herself was put in a team where she didn't know anyone. As dutiful shinobies groups had gathered around together to fill on the information about their skills. This was rather important as it would help in the fights. She sat down with her own team, she didn't need to brief them about her abilities, they already knew, she was famous after all. Mito had started planning attacks and defense the moment they had spoken their attributes.
Mito didn't want to rush them, but she had to, Akatuski forces were moving faster and coming closer. So once again she stood in the centre of the field and spoke :“ Kumo battlefield is over, jinchurikis there are under control, however they are waiting for the next orders. Meanwhile Akatuski is closing in and we have to prepare for the battle. Let's continue our wining strike. „ actually Akatuski forces were so close that regular sensors could feel them closing in. The barrier no longer blocking them. Soon everyone was patiently waiting, either on the trees or hidden in the bushes, surrounding the whole area in circle shape. Mito was actually surprised that they waited for the attack this long, seeing as they had cut the trading routes to Ame for few days already and how that village must had increase in population as they placed every shinobi that allied with Akatuski there. So the push was not unexpected. Mito stood in the open, not afraid of anything, her chakra was well hidden through. The first thing she saw was few Ame shinobi jump slowly as they closed in, clearly expecting someone to be there, confused as if their information was wrong. Mito waited for her to be seen. When she was, she rushed towards them, the 6 man group chuckled for a second, but they were dead the next one, while Mito was charging in, taking their attention from their surroundings, kuna is and various weapons had made its way to the Ame shinobi. Well five of them. As one was actually white Zetsu who immediately lost itself transformation, but didn't die. Mito rushed after him unbothered, she knew that this would be a case. She finished him with no effort, before he could run away far, and take her far from her group.
Other groups had different plans. Either directly attacks from the beginning or seals that stopped the advances of the opponent. Luckily Mito had given those out earlier. They were slowly running out of the seals. But soon next shipment would come. As allies had agreed to not send everything at once, in case some kind of breach in security of the goods happened. After a half of hour, most of the attackers were Zetsus. They were obviously trying to gather information. As they were confused, mixed signals coming from short distance. As in places on the battlefield it was expected to immediately engage in some to be careful not to immediately engage and in some to be careful of their surroundings, and that constantly changed. Actually the groups would change places if they didn't feel like anyone was coming at them. That was why every group had a sensor, and sometimes groups would stay at the same space but just use different plan. Mito was frustrated as it seemed Akatuski was tiring out their forces, as the main group of them was just patiently waiting sending out the weak ones first and gathering information. Information on where each person was. Preparing targets, in a way countering the plan that Mito came with. Mito could feel Kakuza somewhere in the main group. It seemed like he was the one leader right now. Close to him would be Sasori. Mito saw in matter of facts a flying pupet far away, but she could not do much to it. As it would dodge easily long ranged attack.
Minato was seated tensly, as his wife, son and his family was in battle, yet he wasn't, he knew why this was like this, he didn't like it though. He had to make a plan with the forces in the North. As Kumo forces were taken down, and some were taken as war prisoners as sign of mercy. There were two possibilities. Either to go towards Kumo, and take the city or send the army towards Ame. He personally didn't want to send them to Kumo. He doubted Raikage didn't send all of his men down with himself. There was nothing to accomplishe there. And sending them to Ame would tire them out even more. Especially since one of the jinchuriki wasn't in a good condition at all. Neither option was good. Minato understood feelings, he understood Killer B, he wanted to spare the man, but didn't know how. Sending the man to Kumo wasn't a good idea. And sending him to Ame would fuel him with desire to revenge his brother. Would that lead him loosing control once again. Minato couldn't really figure it out. He thought that best plan for now was to let them all rest, mourn but still be careful. He hoped Mito would also agree on this. Even though she wasn't the one who was making decisions, all kages listen to her. She was the one who bonded them together and she was fighting for them all. He knew that she wanted the best for everyone, but would she be able to understand him at this moment. If he doesn't send Kakashi and others to help her would that feel like it wasn't a best scenario.
Kushina cursed as she watched those white creatures come at her. She hated them, she didn't want the close, her chains probed them the moment they neared 5 meters away from her, be it in the air on the grounds, underground. She had more than 50 white corpses surrounding her. She could see in far distance that trees had started to grow, which meant Naruto was going all out. That meant she could relax, Naruto was serious and that meant he was ready for this. It meant he wasn't going to be surprised, it me at he would survive. She could feel other jinchuriki do just as well. It was dark, as the attack did start in 2 pm. And it was the first hour of it.
Sasori was the first Akatuski member to go in battle, his puppets bringing chaos. As its weaponary was posioined with various type of poisons. The only way to defeat the puppets was to destroy them and cut the chakra strings connecting with Sasori. Sasori puppets were deadly, and it allowed white Zetsu to create even more mess. As Zetsus would steal chakra from the dead and then go into hiding only to reappear next to another group, ambushing them. But their efforts were not as successful as groups knew the rules such as no changing groups, no leaving groups behind. The puppets were most of the time out of the reach, so it was hard to defeat them. The leaders of the group decided to retreat a little. Expecting Sasori to reach his distance limit.
Mito cursed as she thought of the ways to defeat Sasori, Sasori who was in the middle of the camp, she couldn't sneak towards him, she would put herself in a danger because Kakuza was there too. And Akatuski was sending more people towards them, it would be disaster if they lost here. The best idea was to retreat. Mito huffed, and pulled a bunch of seals out of her skin, stacks upon stacks of paper was there. She signaled her group to retreat slowly as she threw seals here and there behind herself. The seals instantly dissappear and they were so assimetrical that it was not possible to predict where they were. Mito hoped this would stall them enough time, this was her last bunch of gravity seals. She had more destructive ones left.
Kakashi was standing there in feild filled with dead corpses, corpses of once allies and enemies, luckily the feild was not filled with his loved ones, but still he cried, his maks not able to hide his tears, but he was no different from other people there, he was actually the one who was taking it in the best. There were hollow screams, whispers of longing and silence from those dead corpses. People that lived would go from trying to continue their life to mourning. Killer Bee seemed like an empty shell, his hands didn't stop trembling, his clothes were dirty, he was just laying down, silent tears falling from his cheeks, Yugito next to him trying to comfort him, but her words didn't receive any kind of response. Kumo war prisoners were gathered around their leaders body and could move only to another body with help of Konoha shinobi. Killer Bee never tried to move, he didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't talk, didn't smile. He was like that from the moment he woke up. Obito had felt his jutsu stop working as he woken up. Obito wanted to check upon him, apologies, but the moment he saw Killer Bee he understood it was not time for this. Kakashi watched over security of the area with few of less injuried people. Medics were so busy with treating everyone's wounds. Shizune had appeared few hours later than other medics as she was sent by Tsunade later than the others. Shizune was there to summon some of lady Tsunades slugs that would help with healing of the injured shinobi.
Tsunade had been fighting the Ame shinobi, careful not to destroy the whole area, she could distantly smell snakes, Orochimaru had been somewhere close, his summons tearing apart the puppets and anything really that stood in his way. They were attacking from the north were Akatuski in fact sent lesser shinobi and puppets, possibly due to the fact that allied forces have not pushed much from the north, as actually sanins weren't there at the beginning. Tsunade doubted she would be at disadvantage if she really had destroyed the area, but it would attract more attention. She didn't know what Jiriaya was actually doing as he wasn't being loud about his attacks, which was weird for him, as this made him look mature. Unless he had died already. But Tsunade knew best that only few people would be able to kill him. She was leading a group of half combat and half of medics. So she needed to be sure no enemies were left behind.
Orochimaru didn't like Sasoris puppets, they seemed to be alive corpses. Which he sometime long ago assumed he would become if he had failed his research towards immortalty. Mito had helped him, guided him there, and made him feel truly alive. Maybe Orochimaru was seeing himself in those puppets, and that is why he destroyed them without any mercy. Not for his summons nor the puppets. His summons were happy to die for him. They were twisted in a same way he was. Loyal to one person that feeds them, no matter what. Orochimaru had for a moment consider himself as tool, a tool Mito choose to save. But Mito never treated him like that, she gave him eternal life. She fulfilled his desires, she made him a better person. And that was why Orochimaru was proud to have a part of Mitos genes in himself. He was proud of what he became thanks to Mito, he would show his respect towards her by going all in. His path filled by puppets, reminding him of his own past, he charged through it, feeling human, he was scared but didn't show it, he kept thinking about what would be if Mito never saved him. Orochimaru would often stare at his own reflection, wondering about the things like this, realizing that this made him a human.
Tsunade cursed seeing that Orochimaru is breaking through the puppets and the formation too fast, too fast to follow, breaking their own formation. She would need to go in harsher as well. Jiriaya seemed to caught on as well. Tsunade was bit surprised to find Orochimaru so much faster and destructive than them. She herself wasn't rusty, she had many students to teach, but still Orochimaru was league above them. She nodded to her group, leaving them to fend for themselves, there wasn't much enemies surrounding them anyways. As she rushed through few puppets that had turned away from her to attack Orochimaru. Her fist met their back and they were sent flying in a bunch of pieces.
Mito could feel that they were advancing from the north, she could feel Orochimarus chakra wilding, like he was enjoying himself, like he was proving something. But Mito couldn't really think about that for long, as she had her own battle to fight. It seemed like Sasori had reached it's range, and Mitos group ran at a group of Zetsus and 3 puppets. Mito hoped they would be able to break the puppets first, but every attack towards them was blocked by zetsus, either them just standing in the way, the damage wasn't enough to kill them either, or they would block the attacks with their own wood realse jutsus. Mito was frustrated as longer the puppets were alive the more damage they have been dealt, the puppets were tricky especially with their poisoned weapons just flying around. Mito didn't want to risk more, but she had to finish this quickly. So she put Isobu's chakra in her arm, concentrating on it, and just rushing in the chaos. The white zetsus couldn't dodge the attacks, the attacks that wasn't purely for them, but would get rid of them too. As Mitos hand would unexpectedly hit them, so fast so strong, from a angle it wasn't at a second ago. She would leave them dead on the ground forcing herself to move towards the puppets, she barely had time to dodge the barrage of the attacks. Before she reached them, she felt a tingling sensation in her hand, she knew what that meant but she ignored it at the moment. She reached her goal, the three puppets were loaming over her head, maybe her head was dizy a bit. She could hear the others from her group trying to stop zetsus from interferening.
She knew she wouldn't be able to fight them closer or with short type attacks. She needed to do some wide area coverage attack. She knew one, she had to use it. As wind gathered around her, faster than it would around regular shinobi. Thanks to her seals for the wind type chakra. She couldn't stand in a single spot for a long time, as a weaponry would come flying towards her. She was slowly buying time to build up her own jutsus. She could barely feel her hand now. But she pushed on. When the gust of wind was strong enough, she yelled to her teammates to get back, seconds before she made a tornado, that swallowed the puppets immediately, however they were destroyed in that instant, but they lost connection with Sasori. Mito rushed towards them just in case to completely destroy them. She let the tornado stay for few moments longer, checking on her left arm. Taking out the kunai. And immediately starting to treat the wound. Trying her best to get rid of posion. She pushed Isobu's chakra to do the same. Her wound ended up oozing with the posion moments later. She slowly let go of the jutsu. As she did the best she could at the moment, her hand felt a bit numb still but the feeling was fleeing away. It took Mito a moment to see what was going on around her. The battle was won, but it wasn't possible to push further. Not when so many were injured in some way. Regrouping and healing was best course of action. The question was if it would be allowed by the enemy. Mito joined the group and summoned a slug. She rarely used her summon but she needed them right now. Careful not to get in Sasori range. Slug multipled and attached to every person healing them slowly. Mito didn't want to leave them unprotected so this was the best option.
Mito didn't want to look back, as there were bodies there, she would rather look at the pieces of enemy in front of her. She knew this was disrespectful, but she knew that she didn't have time right now to mourn anyone. Her hands fisted, as she was determined to move forward. She didn't know what exactly Akatuski was planning, she knew that at the moment they were easy target for long range attacks, but those weren't coming. And there were only two main members of Akatuski at the battlefield right now. Mito hoped that after she would take down this two, the fight would continue. She hoped that Akatuski plan wasn't to tire them out completely before destroying them. She doubted they could hold out more than 2 weeks, lack of supplies and all of that.
Mito decided to fully go into the centre of Akatuski camp, she made a clone and then went in with her seal that hides her chakra presence, she went underground. So careful to pinpoint where Sasori was. Her movement were slow but untraceable. Her group had spoke that this was risky operation, but Mito convinced everyone that it must be done soon. Minato regretted letting her in control. She only spoke of the plan moments before putting the seal, which blocked the Yamanaka jutsu, as Inoichi could no longer find her.
This prompted Minato to make decisions, that army that was at Kumo borders should slowly head towards Ame. If Mito continued to do reckless things and they succeeded, the Akatuski would return the favor.
Naruto felt the breeze on his skin, he was not afraid, he just ran from one position to another, too fast for his enemies eyes to fully track him down, they were down before they could attack. Puppets were bit more tricky but their attacks did zero damage to him, the cloack still protecting him. He knew that they were slowly progressing, but it felt like they were still far away from their goal. His eyes flashed towards Mito, when he felt her presence vanish, he saw a clone standing there, which meant she was fine but there were no signs of her anywhere, which only could mean that she is underground, doing something in secret, Naruto hummed, maybe he should distract the enemy a bit.
Naruto looked at Sasuke's direction, and sent a chakra flare, which was replied by one. The two of them knew what to do. Naruto channeled his wind chakra in direction of Sasuke while Sasuke did the same with his fire chakra.