The other two Nekomata were merely batted aside by Naruto’s wings, for all the good it did them. He dispatched them both with a series of blows that shook the mountain, ignoring the tiny bombs that leaped and flew to detonate against his armored hide as he fought.
I was starting to have a bad feeling about this fight, but as the first of Pein’s summons charged into battle I had to admit that Naruto was blowing off amazing amounts of chakra. I spotted a couple of Zetsu clones guarding one of the side doors of the palace and skidded to a stop between them, glad that I’d at least evaded capture.
“Sakura reporting in,” I told them as they eyed me suspiciously. “Password azure twelve. Be advised the enemy has copies of me and Hinata working with him, and I think they’ve been sent to capture me while Naruto acts as a decoy. His Hinata was inhabiting his mindscape at first, probably as an anti-genjutsu measure, but they’ve separated now.”
One of the clones nodded. “If they show up here we’ll take care of them. Go on in, the bosses are expecting you.”
I darted inside, glade to be away from the fight for now. The palace was huge, but between Zetsu and Konan it would currently be just about impossible to infiltrate. The kunoichi following me were good, but not good enough to fight their way through half of Akatsuki to get to me. As long as Naruto was busy out in the ruins their odds of reaching me were pretty slim.
I made my way quickly through the outer chambers and into the throne room. Sasuke and Nagato were observing the battle outside on a giant screen set up in the middle of their command post, surrounded by a small crowd of ninja. Kakuzu, Hidan, Sasori and Kisame lounged about waiting to be called into battle, while Hinata stood at attention behind Sasuke watching them. She looked up with a hint of relief as I came in.
“Sakura,” she said. “I’m glad you made it. That was more difficult than expected.”
“I’m fine,” I reassured her. “The initial ambush was touch and go, but after that they never got close to me. I’m ready to get to work.”
I noted a row of suspension tanks to one side holding a dozen sleeping infants with bijuu seals on their bellies. From the taste of their chakra I guessed they held copies of the three-tailed beast, though obviously they weren’t here to fight. A couple of Zetsu clones were carefully draining chakra from their prisoners using some kind of nature technique, and another channeled the chakra stream into Nagato under the watchful supervision of a copy of me.
It was getting a bit weird having all these extra copies of me running around. She must have been the girl I’d given my memories to before I ran through the time portal, but now she wore my adult form and her chakra was nearly strong as mine. Apparently she’d had a busy six months.
Wait, what had the version Naruto just summoned been doing in that time? If she’d spent the last six months waiting for Naruto and me to show up again she might be more dangerous than I’d thought.
“Zetsu relayed your message,” Sasuke said shortly. “Your copy is performing adequately, so I’m adjusting the plan. Naruto’s assistants have already engaged Zetsu’s clones at the east entrance, but we need to ensure that his version of Hinata doesn’t break off the attack to help him when Yakumo begins her genjutsu attack. I want you to go out there and deal with them. Kakuzu and Hidan will assist you.”
“Um, sir, I’m pretty sure Naruto is just acting as a diversion while the other two try to capture me…”
“Now, Sakura,” he said shortly.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, not wanting to make him angry. “Can I get a recharge on the way?”
He nodded, and turned back to the screen. Apparently the Kyuubi’s chakra had finally started to leak into Naruto’s aura, because he’d attracted the attention of one of those stone guardians. I saw him slam it into the ground and rake it with claws sheathed in something that looked like a modified elemental Rasengan, but it barely scratched the thing.
I had a sinking feeling that this was exactly what our enemies wanted, but I couldn’t very well refuse a direct order. So I switched to my adult form, henging my clothes to match as I grew, and stepped over to the Zetsu clone by Nagato so he could top off my chakra. As I did my copy brushed against me, and passed me a memory bubble.
Oh, neat. It was all her memories since I’d overwritten her, including some interesting techniques she’d invented for quickly growing her chakra back to what I considered normal. Oh, and she’d been working on getting closer to our Hinata as well. Just quiet moments here and there, nothing dramatic, but considering how reserved she was that was significant progress. Those were memories we wouldn’t want to lose, if we actually had a tomorrow.
I sent a mental hug and a flash of thanks back to her, along with an offer to merge if it looked like we were going to end up looping again. She returned agreement and relief, and then the moment of contact ended. We didn’t have any particular reason to be so paranoid about hiding the fact that we were communicating with each other, but in a room full of S-rank nuke-nin who might decide to betray us at any moment it seemed prudent.
The zombie twins met me just inside the gate, which was quite a scene by then. With a bunch of bijuu to provide chakra Zetsu could make armies of clones, and there were dozens of them defending the ruined courtyard outside the shattered doors. Opposing them was a formation of twelve Hinata clones with another Sakura in the middle.
Zetsu was a formidable fighter, but this version of Hinata was more than a match for him. Her clones tore through his with the same fearless passion I’d seen before, their formation a blur of constant motion that made hitting them with anything but mass-area ninjutsu nearly impossible. Her Sakura was channeling fire and air, throwing out fireballs and burning away Zetsu’s spore clouds before they could touch the group. Zetsu was good enough that he still got in a hit now and then, but Hinata seemed to have no trouble replacing the occasional lost clone.
“I’m going with fire and earth, so don’t worry about hitting me if you want to hose down the area to kill those clones,” I told Kakuzu. “As long as you don’t use armor-piercing attacks you won’t hurt me. I’ll throw out an interference field to slow down the Hinata copy’s movement, but I’m mostly going to concentrate on the other Sakura. Most of their Hinata’s attacks won’t even hurt you guys, so you should be able to handle her.”
“Hey, I’m immortal,” Hidan blathered confidently. “I can handle one little Hyuuga girl.”
Kakuzu chuckled. “Yeah, jyuuken’s useless against me. We’re ready.”
I shrouded myself in a thin layer of earth armor, just enough to interfere with jyuuken attacks, and opened five of the Eight Gates. Then I body flickered into the melee.
My chakra wasn’t strong enough to completely shut down Hinata’s speed, but I could slow her constant body flickers down enough to make a critical difference. I spun a web of flame around myself that actually caught two of her clones, and tumbled through the gap into range of my pink-haired target.
She was boosting as hard as I was, armored against the flames with my own fire resistance technique, and her fist actually grazed my leg before I could regain my feet. I did a handstand and let the momentum of the impact spin me into a fast leg sweep as I healed the injury. She jumped over the attack and came down with a kick to the face that I stopped with a crossed forearm block. The impact shattered the stone around my feet, and produced a shock wave that should have blown away every shadow clone in the courtyard. But Hinata’s clones saw it coming, and body flickered around it as it washed across the area.