Konoha looked like something from a post-apocalyptic movie. Aiko grimly pressed her lips together and tried not to breathe in more smoke than she had to, waving her hand in front of her face to try to get some visibility. It didn't help much.
'I could have picked a better location, apparently,' she noted, trying to figure out the layout of whatever fights were still going on. At least it didn't seem like Konoha had rolled over to die while she'd been gone. That was a little heartening. Orienting was difficult, but she was relatively certain that the massive multi-Kage level shinobi fight she noticed was only slightly north of where she had left Jiraiya and Tsunade. She used subtle clues, like the enormous toad looming through the distant fog and the occasional spout of fire, in order to come to that conclusion.
It didn't require a degree in astrophysics to figure out that removing Pein from the equation hadn't ended the conflict. Tsunade and Jiraiya were still fighting at least one Akatsuki, probably with assistance from Choza, Inoichi, and…
Aiko's heart skipped a beat.
Right. Well, Choza and Shikaku were probably still fine. She firmly steered her mind away from the obvious caveat. She couldn't deal with that now.
Akatsuki was more time-sensitive. That problem could still be affected. Aiko couldn't raise the dead or do more than give platitudes. She could try to take out an Akatsuki, though.
She set off at a careful run for the nearest fight, keeping a wary eye out for an ambush. The caution was wasted. Pein and his cronies had cut through her comrades with what seemed to be vicious efficiency. What activity she could pick out seemed to be desperate and last-ditch, when it wasn't injured survivors scrabbling for cover.
There only seemed to be one more major fight going on. Whether that meant that the Hokage was fighting four shinobi or that some Akatsuki had been killed was up for debate. She passed the still forms of more than one large animal. That might have been cause for celebration, if they hadn't been surrounded by dead Konoha nin. Some of whom she recognized. Not many, though. Aiko pressed on.
'It's almost amazing that a city could be leveled like this in a day,' she thought, biting back tears. She wasn't that attached to Konoha in specific, really. But she'd lived here as long as she could remember. Somehow, it hurt to see that the village would never be the same, even before she figured in the additional grief from losing so many people. Good people, dumb people, young people, loyal people… Just people, really.
Pein really was a monster. She hated him for doing this. How could he? There wasn't even any point to what he'd done. She was almost too tired for her earlier panic, though. That change in attitude might have had something to do with the fact that her head was still bleeding and that white spots veered slowly across her vision whenever she took a deep breath, however.
She had been right at the start. It was unrealistic to think that she could fight Akatsuki. She wasn't an S-class nin. She was a joke with good genes and a few fancy tricks passed down from her betters. At this point, it felt like she was running to one last kamikaze attack.
What else was there to do? Aiko probably couldn't stop them if they wanted to press forward and slaughter the trapped civilians, genin, and other valuable assets trapped inside the safehouses. But if she didn't even try…
Aiko swallowed, hard, and tried not to think of Fukiko lying cold and still. Or Ino, who still didn't know that… Well. Still didn't know the bad news. She didn't deserve to die like that, without even a chance to fight back. No one did.
'Did I just talk myself into suicide by Akatsuki?' Aiko wondered sardonically, slowing down to creep carefully towards the flickering signatures and occasional jutsu of the fight she'd been picking her way towards.
She only saw the combatants once she cleared a ridge formed of bent rebar and drywall. The Akatsuki she found was shorter than both of his opponents, hefty and with his red hair slicked back into a ponytail. The unathletic body type was deceptive, however. He seemed to be doing quite well, keeping either shinobi from hitting him, blocking and dodging with smooth perfection.
Konoha's teams were notorious for doubling up on their opponents and out-maneuvering them instead of getting hobbled by their superior numbers. That training was probably why Yukimasa and Anko weren't dead. Aiko wouldn't claim to know either person's full abilities, but she knew enough to be able to tell that they were both weary and suffering minor injuries.
A more level-headed, detached, and maybe even more intelligent shinobi might have taken advantage of the distraction that they presented to lure the Akatsuki into a trap or attack from the shadows. Aiko saw the earth gape under Anko's feet, and darted forward without thought except of helping.
The rescue was unnecessary, and she barreled into sight without any benefit to mitigate the loss of tactical surprise. Neither of her comrades seemed to care, although they didn't have time to stop and talk. Aiko threw herself into the rote motions of Konoha basic taijutsu with a vengeance, adopting the patterns she had been drilled in for years. Attacks were complementary to the hand combat, not surprises for the team to work around. Anko was in the first position, Yukimasa the second, so Aiko added the third to their set. That addition provided more opportunities to obscure where attacks would be coming from and disorient their opponent.
The relief when she joined her comrades was palpable—with two Konoha nin, they were holding their own against a superior opponent. With three, there should be openings and opportunities to get hits in. Of course, that meant that their opponent would be more desperate to get rid of one of them to restore the previous odds.
What advantage Konoha gained with their polished ability to double and triple-team opponents they lost in predictability. A team that relied on the series of openings and turn-taking that was engendered in the academy couldn't compare to the polish of a team with chemistry and complementary skills. It was no small feat that none of them got caught in anyone else's path, but the Akatsuki seemed to have some level of familiarity with Konoha's styles. They whirled around him, but hardly had a chance to connect. Anko got the first blow- a strike against his arm—and their opponent seemed unaffected.
Something had to give.
~~~
'Annoying.' Nagato growled, torn. He was almost to the interlopers in his country. But the damned Sannin were about to kill the Animal path. If he didn't have it summon him back before it fell, then he would be completely removed from Konoha. He had to focus on Konoha. Bitterly and begrudgingly, he stopped running and focused on the Rinnegan connection between himself and that borne by the Animal path.
He stopped seeing the sodden marshland in front of him and started seeing the Human path darting forward, working desperately to keep both Sannin away from the Animal path while he stood still and rushed through a summoning.
The Human path didn't quite succeed, but Pein's favored path stood on a dusty bit of metal in Konoha an instant before Jiraiya's toad oil bullet ruined the Animal body and flung it like a broken doll to lay still on the ground. The Human path's desperate ploy proved to be its last, having gotten far too close to the slug sannin. It too fell, though it was not as damaged. If it were to be healed, it could rejoin the fight.
Pein thinned his lips and sought out the Naraka path. It had backtracked to protect his real body, providing assistance to the Ame genjutsu specialists who had been meant to keep it safe. Apparently, some red-eyed woman had led an attack suspiciously close to the vulnerable body. She was dead now, of course, but she must have communicated to someone else because the Konoha nin kept trickling in that direction whenever they managed to dig themselves out of rubble or put down one of the Animal path's summons. With the animal path out of commission, all the animal summonings failed, leaving Konoha nin confused but free to join other fights and lick their wounds.
The Naraka path was too busy to be called to revive the animal and human paths. They would have to remain out of this fight.
How had events gone so badly? He would still win, of course, though at a terrible cost to himself and possibly to Ame and his neglected organization. All of his bodies but his own broken transport could be remade, but he hated to lose them. They were the result of years of work. He kept his unease off his face, and turned to see the Sannin with his favored path for the first time in a very long time.
The Hokage seemed grimly determined at the sight of another opponent. It was the toad sannin whose hand limply fell open, letting the blade he wielded slip to the ground with a clatter.
"Yahiko-kun?" Jiraiya asked, sounding strangely vulnerable. He took a step forward. "I thought you were dead." The old man looked almost sickeningly hopeful, not noticing the alarm on his companion's face or that he was leaving himself open to attack.
Nagato –and he was Nagato now, not Pein- snarled. "He is, thanks to Konoha!" Knowing that he was wearing his friend's skin fueled his anger, and he moved forward, intent on gutting the old man who had once been his teacher, the old man who had claimed to be their protector and then had fed out information on Ame that had led to a disastrous ambush by Hanzo.
It was the slug sannin who saved Jiraiya, colliding into Pein like a battering ram and knocking him back. Fine. Some things should be said.
"It was through Konoha's intervention that Ame's peaceful revolution failed. Do not look at me as if you do not know my pain!"
He knew that Konan would have rolled her eyes if she had been here. She seemed to think he was overly dramatic when he was upset.
Jiraiya seemed to age a hundred years, slumping slightly. His eyes were still hard, though, and his head high as Nagato stood to drink in the man who had betrayed him and his Akatsuki.
"If you aren't Yahiko, who are you?" Jiraiya had always been clever, Nagato knew. He was a spymaster, and a master of the art of deception. Still, he had no idea how the older man knew to ask the next question, unless it was just hope and blind faith. "Nagato?" Jiraiya slowly held out a hand, visibly pleading with him. "It's you, isn't it? I had hoped, when I found that Konan lived. How did Yahiko die? What is this? Why are you doing this, Nagato-kun?"
~~~
"I'm feeling confused," Yamato ventured after several minutes had passed and Karin's furious searching hadn't revealed anything. They had been ready for a desperate last stand that had just never happened. That wasn't a situation one could see coming. It certainly didn't happen often.
Kakashi quietly sympathized with Yamato's bewilderment, but gritted his jaw to force down frustration.
'This doesn't make any sense. First he was coming here, and now he's just gone? I need to know what's happening. I need information. We can't hold Ame forever without orders or reinforcements.'
But Tsunade and Jiraiya were out of contact. That meant he couldn't trust that any other messenger would be able to get to Konoha. His ninken hadn't contacted him, and hadn't responded to his calls. Something somewhere was very wrong, and he was completely without information. Bleakly, he wondered if it was partially his fault. Had his inability to control his team somehow led to whatever was going on?
Kakashi purposefully turned his face away from Naruto, Sasuke, and Karin, who looked sick with guilt and confusion.
If he pushed himself and didn't sleep or rest more than absolutely necessary to stave off exhaustion, he could make it back to Konoha in less than three days. Yamato and Genma could keep that pace with him. Gai and his little replica were far too injured to accompany them, so their team should stay in Ame. As for the rest of his team… he didn't really want to look at them right now.
"Baki, I'm handing over field command to you," he decided, turning to the oldest and most experienced of their allies present. There was no particular reason that Konoha had to be in charge. "Once the Kiri and Kumo teams get a representative here, my team and I are going to try to find out what's going on. I think it has to do with Konoha."
It had to, or Aiko wouldn't have brought the Akatsuki back out to Ame in the first place. What a mess.
~~~
'For such a stocky man, this one is fast,' Aiko thought grimly. All three of the Jounin here were fast, even for their rank. Of course, Akatsuki didn't have 'jounin' level shinobi in their numbers. They had monsters.
Yukimasa made a sweeping lunge, a deviation from their set that called both women's attention. He wanted an opening to use ninjutsu. Aiko felt a flutter of optimism- her captain had an idea. Anko and Aiko moved for the Akatsuki's rear at the same time, Aiko going low as Anko went high with a kunai in her fingers. He whirled around to protect from the greater threat, just as he was supposed to.
Aiko couldn't see Yukimasa flick through handsigns through the Akatsuki, but she knew he was. The two women split apart, Aiko going left and Anko right. They barely evaded the heat of the fire jutsu that Yukimasa had flung.
Soot blinded her for a moment, and Aiko moved blindly to lower her chances of being hit, despite hoping that Yukimasa had gotten a crippling blow. The caution was a good idea. When she opened her eyes, she was privately astounded to see that their opponent was undamaged. His right sleeve was completely burnt away, but the skin underneath was perfectly healthy.
'That means that he used that arm to deflect or block somehow,' she tried to puzzle it out. 'He's immune to fire?'
That couldn't be right, could it? Was it even possible to be immune to an element?
Yukimasa must have had much the same thought. He jerked his head towards her, indicating that the next try was hers. He must be hoping that her water type chakra would prove a good match-up. The change in their strategy was now obvious, so it should have been more difficult to find a second opening for an unobstructed attack. Luckily, Aiko's jutsu were smaller area than Yukimasa's, so she didn't have to make sure her comrades were back. She just had to avoid hitting them.
Aiko bought a full second to ready Sen Tsurara by darting backwards. Ox, dog, jin, monkey, and she waited for the right moment, watching the Akatsuki wait expectantly for the jutsu. She darted inwards. Anko side-stepped out of the way and moved to tangle the Akatsuki's leg with her shin, but Yukimasa used his body to block the Akatsuki's view of her until the last moment, reaching up to secure a hand and tug it out to the side, away from the man's body. Not coincidentally, that meant Aiko only had to watch for one limb blocking her while she went in for the torso. The Akatsuki tore his limb out of Yukimasa's grasp but the moment of forced movement cost him just enough that he couldn't get it back inwards in time to push her back.
Right arm outstretched, Aiko lit her hand up with the now-familiar spikes even as she coated her fingers with a protective glove of water-natured chakra. 'Funny,' she thought, in the last moment before she reached out to force her hand through his chest. 'If I didn't know better, I'd say he was fast enough to get that hand back in.' She blocked his right with her left forearm, deflecting it upward, and moved to pierce his heart. The cloth over his chest burst outward and shredded on contact, exposing pale, smooth skin.
And her technique sputtered, dying as soon as the chakra connected with her opponent, leaving her landing an awkward punch instead of piercing flesh. Aiko's eyes widened as her face jerked up. She thought she saw victory flicker in the Akatsuki's pale ringed eyes, just a hint of amusement curling his lips upward. She had just enough time to note that she had only seen eyes like that on one other person and wonder at their significance. The chakra around her wrist still hadn't fled and she was still pressing forwards and there wasn't time to jerk backwards-
With speed she couldn't entirely see, the hand that Yukimasa had pulled away darted inwards and twisted as it closed, viciously snapping her wrist and something smaller in her hand. The bones slid and gave in an instant.
She shrieked and hiraishin'd backwards, inadvertently dodging the hand that had been coming down for her head to land the killing blow. Tearing her hand away had done further damage, but probably saved her life. Pain was racing up her forearm like licks of fire. It was with a numb sense of disconnection that she observed that her hand was mangled, limp, and twisted in a way that obviously ruled out any chances of making a fist, much less handsigns or holding a weapon.
Anko bellowed something that Aiko couldn't understand through the buzzing in her ears, whipping around and stabbing something deeply into the Akatsuki's side, under the arm that was still raised.
He stepped back and kicked her away, already reacting to Aiko's other teammate.
Yukimasa was too close to the hand he had crippled Aiko with. That meant that the sword Yukimasa pulled off his back and over his head was caught in a casual display of monstrous strength and unreal pain tolerance.
Pain tolerance that Aiko couldn't match. She sobbed, forcing down actual tears and hysteria. God, it hurt more than anything she'd ever felt. She'd had broken bones before, but clean breaks, and not so many at once.
~~~
"Isn't it obvious?" Nagato asked quietly, almost incredulous that the man would pretend not to know what he had done, that he would look at Nagato with naked hope and pain on his face. "Konoha is part of a broken system. The shinobi world is one of petty tyrants selling violence for evil men, leaving only despair and pain in its wake. I will change that. I am burdened with a vision beyond compare."
Tsunade all but snarled. "You're wrong!" Her chest heaved with anger. Her hands still dripped with the oddly cold blood from the Human path, who had put himself in her way in one last attempt to delay the death of the Animal path. "Petty tyrants? We protect our own, the people we care about! You as much as admitted that you came here because of your desires, your choices. You're the selfish one."
Nagato eyed her, not letting wariness into his body language but not falling prey to arrogance either. He could kill either of these opponents in single combat handily. Both of them at once would require that he plan.
If he were a coward or had more resources available, he might have called on another path. But the Preta path was busy with two kunoichi and a shinobi, the Naraka path could not be spared, and the Animal, Human, and Asura paths were dead. Konoha was not as weak as he had supposed.
He was on his own. But he did not fear, not for himself. Nagato was torn between the desire to hurry so that he could find out what had happened to Konan and his knowledge that rushing in head-first might end badly. Reluctantly, he chose caution.
"Selfish," Nagato repeated slowly, mockingly. "I am selfish. I do not fight for no one, woman. My concern is all of humanity. I am not bound by your conventions of favoritism. I want everyone to have peace, and I will bring it to this world in the only way possible." He blinked levelly at the woman, registering her dumbstuck expression. "This world only understands fear and violence. Very well." He spread his hands and intoned, "So they shall fear me, and I will ensure that no one ever bands together against the weak."
"You're talking about destroying the shinobi system and villages?" Jiraiya asked lowly, shaking his head slightly. "That's crazy. Nagato, what have you become? You can't force peace through fear. It would never be true. You would only be a tyrant to the people. Their hatred would band them all together against you, even if it meant all of their deaths. No one will live in submission."
"Idealistic," Nagato rebuffed sharply, adjusting his stance to be ready to move if either of his new opponents lunged. He forced down a pang of doubt. Jiraiya was wrong. He had to be. "At their core, people are weak and frightened. That is why they arm themselves and turn to violence."
It was positively infuriating to see disappointment in his old mentor's eyes. How dare he condescend like that?
"Nagato-kun, you don't believe that," Jiraiya said quietly. "Yahiko never believed that. Konan never believed that. I wouldn't have taught you if I didn't know you were all good people, despite the odds against you." Tsunade looked almost mutinous at his gentle tone, but didn't try to stop the white-haired man from trying to reason with the intruder in her village. It was highly illogical, Nagato thought.
But Jiraiya pressed forward, painfully sincere. "I always believed in you, Nagato-kun. I told you once that I thought you might be the child of prophecy, the man who would bring peace to the world." He shook his head, and lowered his voice. "But not like this." Sorrowfully, he looked out over the ruins that had once been a vibrant metropolis. "The boy I knew had suffered as a result of someone else's war in his homeland. He wouldn't want to do that to other children, or to take away people's free will by force. You fought for your dreams with tooth and nail, but you were never a bully, kid."
If Jiraiya took one more step in, he might actually attempt to hug Nagato. The Ame nin took a cautionary step backwards, thoroughly disoriented.
This wasn't right. This wasn't how this altercation was supposed to go. Nothing was going right. He had forgotten how persuasive the older man could be, but that meant nothing. It had to.
"It's your fault," Nagato managed steadily, catching the older man's eye. He managed to work up a bit of anger when Jiraiya had the gall to look confused. "It was Konoha that sold us out all those years ago. Hanzo had backup from Konoha."
He licked his lips, strangely hurt and weary at the prospect of telling this story he had never told. "I had to choose between Konan and Yahiko, and it was Konoha's fault. There was no sense in that. Had you not sold us out for information, he would still be here today. Do not act as though you can lecture me."
Even as he said it, Nagato hated that he sounded like a child defending himself against this man. How did Jiraiya make him feel so small? Was it Jiraiya who had somehow ruined his plans once more- Jiraiya who had arranged for Konoha to invade and subjugate Ame, chasing out Akatsuki? It seemed logical that the spymaster would have been involved in the many subversions of his plans to collect jinchuuriki. He needed them to make the weapon that would allow him to force the people of the Elemental countries into submission.
The Sannin exchanged a confused look. It was Tsunade who spoke. "Konoha didn't send anyone to Ame," she said cautiously. "Sandaime-sama would never have interfered with your failed coup. He didn't care who ruled Amegakure. Konoha had our own problems."
"I was there," Nagato said slowly, outraged that she would deny this.
"Any Konoha nin present weren't ordered there by Sandaime-sama," Tsunade said bluntly. "You were tricked."
"Not by Sandaime," Jiraiya said lowly, looking as though an unpleasant thought had occurred. "Danzo, however, might have interfered if he saw opportunity for profit." He looked a little green.
Nagato didn't see what difference it made. He shook his head, tired of conversation that raised prickles of doubt. "Enough!" He narrowed his eyes. "I will not be dissuaded." No matter that he had been wrong, or that his old teacher was glad to see him, or that he feared for Konan, or that it seemed increasingly possible that his attack on Konoha would be a failure.
More than a sliver of doubt pulled at his heart. When it was all summed up that way… Perhaps it was time to reconsider his actions. Jiraiya was wrong: his motivations were pure and his plan the only one that could work. The Konoha nin were wrong about people, and he would prove it to them. Konoha had only rallied because they had no other choice and they thought there was no option for surrender. If they could bow to his might, they would have. Nagato would prove it, and that would prove that he had been correct in his thinking.
He took just a moment to connect with the Preta path, and nudge the manifestation of his power to move more aggressively. Dimly, he recognized one of the fighters with a bubble of amusement. It was of no consequence, however. Once it had killed those in its way, he would send it to the poorly hidden shelters in the west.
And then they would see who knew human nature.
~~~
'I need to get back in there,' Aiko realized distantly, feeling strain under her eyes and that she was breathing harshly.
It took a moment to re-evaluate her strategy to take her injury into account. She wasn't useless, but it would be much more difficult for her to get her own hits in now. That meant she was now support for her comrades, helping them get openings. She should keep her right side away from the Akatsuki as much as possible so that her left was always available for blocking.
She tried to pretend to herself that she couldn't see that her hand was swelling and turning purple. It was just a distraction. Pain was just a distraction. It didn't mean anything, and neither did the fact that she couldn't feel her fingers, or that they looked like fat blue sausages.
"What happened?" Yukimasa grunted, abandoning the professionalism of silence. Aiko understood instantly. It wasn't working as an intimidation tactic and they needed to figure out what had gone wrong with their attacks. It wasn't an immunity to fire chakra or even fire itself, so-
"I think he absorbs chakra!" Aiko called out, hoping the tightness in her voice didn't make her sound too weak. 'Like Kisame's sword. That's how he did it.'
That meant that genjutsu and ninjutsu were out of the running as optimal strategies. He'd endured both direct and area effect attacks. It would have been nice to figure that out another way.
But the man was monstrously strong, more like Gai than anyone she'd ever faced in combat before. In unspoken agreement, all three Jounin reached for a blade, if they hadn't one out already. Hopefully his flesh wasn't so tough that they couldn't pierce it. At this point, she wouldn't be surprised. This Akatsuki seemed optimally suited as a defensive fighter—their numbers weren't the advantage she had hoped for.
She was best with a short sword, and preferred to fight with her right hand, but Aiko awkwardly reached across her thigh to pull out a kunai with her left hand. Her broken wrist hurt terribly, but she tried to ignore it. The limb dangled a little limply when she darted forward—the elbow was curled so that her forearm was across her stomach, but she couldn't seem to do more than twitch her ring and pinky fingers.
"Foolish."
Aiko jerked involuntarily, looking around for Pein before she realized that the voice had come from her current opponent. That was positively uncanny.
"I have seen your technique through these eyes, girl. You only touched Pein because I felt you were of little consequence, a fly before me."
Was he seriously saying that the creepy eyes meant he could see what Pein had? Was he connected to Pein? If that was true, she was going to have a seriously hard time touching him. He knew she only needed a tap to move him or hurt him.
An ugly theory made itself known.
Well. Shit.
'Puppets,' Aiko realized bitterly. 'My favorite thing. These aren't new Akatsuki. These are puppets of Pein's somehow. I bet the others all have eyes like that too, just like the hair is Pein's color. What a vain son of a bitch.'
So Pein was still in Konoha. They were all Pein.
The moment that her hand had been broken, her reaction had been to bury the pain, not begrudge the man who gave the injury. He was her opponent in a fight to the death. There was no point in personal dislike. Hypocritically, that opinion changed in an instant, now that she knew it was that man again.
"You again!" Aiko snarled, near-frantic with the desire to end him or at least make him hurt. She lunged, trying again and again to slash at him, but failing. Pein just moved backwards and to the side, like he was a Jounin teaching an excitable genin. She had fallen out of tandem with her peers without realizing it, and nearly collided with Anko in her haste. The older woman managed to dodge and rally around, trying to intercept Pein, but he ducked under and around, placing her body between himself and Aiko.
Like a child hiding behind an adult at the playground, she thought furiously. He was mocking her. Calling her infantile, showing that she was too slow.
"Fall in!" Anko barked, drawing Aiko back to the real world. She jerked guiltily, realizing that she had been behaving unprofessionally. She didn't get to put her grudge before teamwork. It was seamless to slip back into line, letting Yukimasa lead their pattern. She recognized the move he called for instantly.
They were supposed to separate, and come at their target from three points around him, and whirl counterclockwise, moving downward in a spiral that Aiko had always thought strangely resembled a whirlpool. Yukimasa came in at Pein's right side, Anko behind him directly at Pein's back, and Aiko behind her at Pein's left side. She wryly noted that the maneuver had been flipped so that all three of them would be using their left hands, a concession to her crippled right.
All three of them corkscrewed, Yukimasa taking the lowest position to cut at the front of Pein's shins, aiming to slice the tendons keeping his feet firmly attached to his legs. Anko was sliding her blade through the back of Pein's right knee and around the side. Aiko had the most protected position and the toughest target, slicing at Pein's lower back in an attempt to cut through his spine.
Her blade connected, scoring deeply, in no small part because Pein shifted his weight back slightly so that he could kick Yukimasa back. With a yelp and a crunch of bone, Aiko's captain went flying, hitting the uneven terrain and rolling twice before he managed to flip to his feet. Pein had already turned to Anko, whose blow had missed due to Pein's kick.
Aiko saw it happen but still couldn't do a damn thing. Anko's low positioning put her head only slightly above Pein's hands. She had been vulnerable. The movement they had executed counted on the probability that the three-pronged attack would stun or startle their opponent long enough for them to move outward and upward so that blows couldn't come from above.
They had failed. In one smooth motion, Pein put a hand on either side of Anko's head and twisted. It popped all the way around with sickening ease. The older woman's knees buckled and her momentum carried her forward even as Pein continued to turn to face Aiko, who had both been highest and farthest from his vision. She was in an athletic stance. She could move away. Yukimasa had given her the least risky position.
It still wasn't enough for her to dodge completely. The foot she hadn't seen him raise connected with her right shoulder, shattering her upper humerus and sending the shards to collapse into her acromion. She saw white and only belatedly realized that the force of the blow had toppled her over, sending her rolling. She recovered to push herself further away with her good hand, and nearly screamed when the momentum carried her weight onto her now ruined shoulder. Breathing was all but impossible through the taste of bile and blood in her mouth. Some reserve or reflex carried her to her feet through the pain. She had dropped her kunai at some point and not noticed.
Her eyes met with Yukimasa's through the distance. Pein was in between them, looking thoroughly unconcerned. Distracted, even. He was still turned more towards Aiko than her teammate. Her surviving teammate. Anko was staring up deaddeadead and Pein was better than she was and he was going to kill Yukimasa, he was going to kill everyone and everything that he touched. She couldn't let that happen.
In the moment, the next thought seemed like a perfect idea. Pein was going to kill her. She couldn't survive him. When she died, her body was going to explode from Danzo's seal. She would be taking Pein with her. Unless Pein managed to escape the blast radius—he had to be close. And she had to die suddenly—he might realize what was happening and have time to back away. Or he might just choose to casually fling her away, or let her die slowly. She had to make it count, had to set this up right.
He was turning. Turning away from her, moving to the larger threat. Her captain still hadn't quite regained his balance, on his feet now but not ready to intercept an attack.
Aiko didn't think, she moved. Her good hand jerked up to the side of her face, planting a very familiar seal on her temple just above her cheekbone. An instant kill, and then Danzo's seal would fail in the same instant.
If she'd had more time, she might have had last words. Something poignant, or something heroic, like telling Pein that he couldn't win. But all she was really thinking was a combination of 'save captain' and 'fuck this guy', and none of that was suited for the record.
"Hey, assbutt!"
'I need to work on my insults' crossed her mind ever so slightly before, 'No, I don't' flickered in denial.
It didn't matter. Pein's puppet turned, sensing that she was lunging at him. She had just enough time to savor the slight confusion when he realized that she didn't even have a weapon out and twist her mouth into a parody of a smile before she let her momentum carry her a breath away from his body. He was about to block her, probably by kicking her down.
She snapped one last seal, and wasn't even able to appreciate just how fucking beautiful it was to see blood spray out over the short man's confused face. She certainly wasn't there to enjoy the secondary, much larger boom that rocked the ground, shredding both bodies and scorching a ring into the ground.
Yukimasa was, though. The first thing he did once he had registered the heaviness in the air that proceeded the explosion –after he reflexively scrambled backwards, out of range—was throw up. It might have been the way the force rocked him with nausea, but it was more likely the tiny scorched toe with a painted blue nail that collided with his chest and rolled when it dropped to hit the ground.
"God," he gasped, licking bile off the back of his teeth and shaking. "God."