“There are about six thousand of them, and he’s still turning out more,” Hinata said conversationally. “So, how are you going to shut down this little trick?”
“Umm….” I thought furiously. Zetsu’s clones were solid enough to take some damage, and they were about as strong as he was. Less chakra, but enough to fight well and use a little ninjutsu. I’d seen them fight my Hinata earlier, and it looked like they were good enough to make it take some effort to kill them. A small group I could handle easily, but thousands?
“So much for my break,” Naruto grumbled.
“No, I’ve got this,” Hinata said confidently. “Sakura, I need a real body with armor like that suit you’re wearing and some kind of air purification trick. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” I replied. I didn’t have any of her blood to use as a template, but it was easy enough to create some in my mindscape and pull it out into the physical world. Then I grew it into a body and armored it the same way I had myself a few minutes before. After that the air-purification seal was a simple improvisation.
But I really didn’t see where she was going with this.
“Are you sure this is going to be enough, sweetie?” I asked worriedly. “I know you’re better than he is, but there are thousands of him right now.”
“Seventeen thousand and growing,” she corrected. “Don’t worry, my love. You’re not the only one who’s learned new tricks. You just relax, and let me protect you for once.”
Then she turned to the approaching horde, and tapped her chakra storage seal as her hands flew through a familiar series of motions.
“Mass Shadow Clone!”
A thousand copies of Hinata appeared, in a line stretching across half a mile of broken rubble. They dropped into her typical ready stance in perfect unison, and a spray of swirling water sprung up around each of them. I gasped.
“Hinata! What about the psychic shock when they dispel?”
“Naruto showed me how he handles it,” the original reassured me. “Now, watch this.”
The whole battlefield vanished under a dense haze of mist, but my true sight penetrated it as easily as anything else. The army of Hinata clones split up into hundreds of four-woman teams, and blurred towards the approaching horde.
It was a massacre.
Zetsu was good, but Hinata was a kage-level taijutsu specialist with a style built on evasion and speed. Each of her clones was every bit as deadly as the original, and the environment she’d created only increased her advantage. In melee Zetsu’s clones were manhandled like genin, engaged without warning and struck down with a few lighting blows to vital points. They laid down barrages of spore clouds, demonstrating in the process that they were immune to their own attacks, but it did them no good. Hinata’s clones flickered from point to point, dodging the majority of the attacks and emerging unscathed from the occasional grazing hit thanks to the protection I’d made for her. Thousands of opponents fell in the first minutes of the battle, at the cost of only a handful of Hinata’s clones.
As I watched them fight I realized that Hinata had just demonstrated the ability to destroy an entire hidden village single-handed. I’d seen the armies of Sound, Suna and Konoha fight more times than I could count, and this force would sweep them all from the field with ease.
Of course, the same was true of Naruto’s dragon sage trick. Was I actually back to being the weak member of the team?
No, I was being silly. If I wanted to destroy a hidden village I’d do it with genjutsu and poisons and my transformation disguise, and they’d never have a clue what was happening. But it gave me a warm feeling, to know that my Hinata actually strong enough to beat me at her own specialty now.
Hinata frowned. “He’s making more clones as fast as I can kill them,” she complained, her voice beginning to sound strained. “I think he’s draining power from those sealed bijuu they have in there. Well, fine. Let’s see how they like this!”
She called another hundred shadow clones, and the entire group began a long series of hand signs in unison. I saw water nature, summoning, a massive elemental manipulation field spreading across the whole group.
“Water Dragon Stampede!”
A wall of water rose out of the ground and roared towards the battle, and I realized it was made up of hundreds of overlapping Grand Water Dragon attacks. They crashed through the mist and into the blinded army within, crushing Zetsu clones in the hundreds. Hinata’s shadow clones all saw it coming, of course, and darted around and among the roaring dragon heads with ease. A few of Zetsu’s clones evaded the attack by blind luck, only to be picked off by the kunoichi teams that danced across the waves.
A normal attack would have traveled a couple hundred yards and petered out, but the clones that had generated the wave were still feeding water into it. The tsunami roared deep into the ranks of the Zetsu army, to crash against the doors of the palace itself. The majority of the enemy army was destroyed in moments.
“Now!” The real Hinata said, and darted forward. Naruto and me followed.
We crossed the last half-mile to the palace doors quickly, leaving behind hundreds of battling clones. A company of Hinata’s clones gathered around us, pouncing on any Zetsu clone unfortunate enough to get in our way and dispatching them before they could try to interfere. Another mass of them flickered past us as we entered the vast halls of the palace of the gods, engaging a thick crowd of Zetsu clones that was gathered within.
It was too good a target to resist. As Hinata filled the hall with mist I cast a jutsu of my own, creating a cloud of herbicidal poisons that filled the same space. Zetsu’s clones dropped like flies, and our column pressed on into the palace.
We burst out into the throne room to find a swarm of Hinata clones descending on the bijuu containers, who had apparently been protected from my bomb somehow. What I presumed was the real Zetsu called up one final group of clones, and began to sink into the floor as she engaged them.
But as Orochimaru had learned, it was hard to get away from Hinata once she got within body flicker range. A team of her clones appeared around him and launched a flurry of attacks, some of which seemed to hit before he could fully dematerialize. Then I body flickered over and jammed his phasing technique.
Two seconds later he was thoroughly dead, and a moment after that the room was clear.
The real Hinata sank to her knees with a gasp, and the clone army began to dispel by squads. “That was harder than I expected,” she admitted. “But I’ve got enough chakra for one more big fight. Most of the remaining Akatsuki members are on the roof, but I don’t see Sasuke or Nagato’s real body. I’m not sure what they’re waiting for…”
That question was answered as a rip in space opened in the middle of the room, and Sasuke stepped out. His Hinata followed, guarding his back as usual.
“Hello, Naruto,” he said confidently. “Ready to end this?”
“Sasuke.” Naruto growled, his fists clenching and unclenching. His eyes turned red, and wisps of the Kyuubi’s poisonous chakra curled around him.
“What the hell is wrong with you, you bastard?” He spat.
“I do what is necessary,” Sasuke replied coldly. “Now, are you going to stop me? Or will you run away, and leave the real Hinata in my hands? Don’t forget, my loops can run as long as I wish. I could make her torture herself for years before you could try again.”
“Monster!” Naruto roared, and stepped forward as a red aura blossomed around him. “This ends here, Sasuke! I’m going to beat you until your grandparents feel it, and then Sakura is going to figure out how to make you stay dead.”