Comeback Kid (Naruto & Celestial Grimoire | OC-SI)

Thinking was hard.

Not in the way that, like, he was too drunk to function. No matter how much that notion appealed to him with the complete and utter mayhem taking place around him. Also, the idea of being too intoxicated to fight was patently absurd these days, since Tobio wasn’t sure if he had an upper limit on how drunk he could get while continuing to be capable of fighting. Actually, that could be a little fun to find out later…

“NOT THE TIME.” His Zanpakutō shouted out, keeping his mind from wandering off to unhelpful tangents.

Shit, yeah, she was right. The problem was that his prodigious brain was working on all cylinders, firing hot. It felt as if the world were a slow crawl all around him as he tried to filter through the immense amount of data he was receiving in that moment. Nearby, there was one unconscious Jinchūriki, still in the middle of their transformation. Gaara wasn’t getting any bigger or smaller, though, which was…worrisome, but it was what it was.

Three Suna-nin were incoming, and normally he wouldn’t hesitate to set them on to immediately engage them for more time. The problem was that killing Temari or Kankuro with Shadowfire put a bad taste in his mouth. Baki…well, he’d already killed a Konoha-nin by this point, so he could get whatever he had coming to him.

That was presuming he’d even get it off precisely, because he’d never tested it in battlefield conditions for rather obvious reasons. It wasn’t the type of thing that he could unveil more than once without risk of someone getting away or making the entirely wrong connotations with it. After all, the closest thing the Naruto universe had to the baleful flames was Amaterasu.

He already had enough problems on his plate. Being considered a secret Uchiha was the last thing he needed.

Add in the fact that above them all on the arena's roof, the Hokage was about to fight two zombie Kage and the Hidden Leaf’s second-biggest traitor.

Worse yet was that somewhere in the mess of all of the chaos around him, a bunch of exceptionally familiar chakra signatures of his friends and allies were running around in the thick of things. Being attacked by foreign ninjas, assailed by them, and possibly at risk of death or maiming. He felt everyone connected to him via the Brotherhood and how frantic their emotional states were.

Frankly, even with all of the options of what to do at his disposal, that was probably all he needed to make his final decision.

At the end of the day, Tobio was an okay Konohagakure shinobi. He believed that his village was the best out of the bunch, even despite all of its problems and internal turmoil. The thought of betrayal or sedition, outside of his earliest days in this new world, had literally never come out in his mind.

That was fine, if he wasn’t the perfect ninja. He’d like to imagine that he was an even better friend. If that was the legacy he’d leave on this world, being an okay ninja but an exemplary comrade, that’d be something the boy could live with. Rather than the overweening ambition he might have held for his new life when he’d first arrived here, other priorities had grown to take up his focus just as much.

How funny how things could change in such a small amount of time.

Welp, there was no point waffling on what he was going to do any further. Thinking was for losers; real macho men just acted and tried to rationalize away their decisions after the fact. It was why he hastily moved to use one arm and pick up the now bulkier Gaara, lifting him over his shoulder with ease.

The boy had a bit more weight to him in his semi-transformed state, compacted sand molded over his form in a way that was bizarre to see. Not enough heft to keep him from pushing chakra to his feet, though, as he exploded away with immense force, up into the air and away from the approaching Suna-nin.

“Gaara!” Temari’s voice cried out from behind him, with a surprising amount of care and concern there, as they tried to rush after him. It was a fruitless effort from his perspective, seeing as how stupidly fast Tobio could move now, even carrying another person.

At this point, the art of creating explosions for him was second nature. It was something he could do from practically any tenketsu, especially his feet, though the cost of replacing sandals truly was ruinous. Whether it was because of his Origin, or just the ungodly amounts of practice he’d had with the Human Bullet Technique, projecting himself upwards in an imitation of flight was easy by this point, if chakra-intensive for any real length of time.

Like a rocket, he flew off into the air, toward the last spot in the stands where he’d sensed all of his friends and allies located through Brotherhood. While he couldn’t do much for the rest of the Konoha twelve, he could try and figure out where his gaggle of goofballs were located in the havoc. It was a good thing he had the sensory abilities to boot, because things were…

Messy was the most generous way he could describe how things had evolved in such a way. A hectic haze of fighting as Konohagakure shinobi fought the invaders, many of them not even having fallen prey to the genjutsu that was meant to trigger the invasion. His actions had likely led to some other changes too.

Many of those he had mistaken for civilians were ninjas in disguise, unsurprisingly, stocking the stands in preparation for a perceived betrayal. When the conflict began in earnest, those disguises were immediately shed. It led to the numbers of fighters in the arena being far more even than they’d been originally. Not that this didn’t have some downsides of its own.

It meant that things were naturally just more chaotic, as jutsu was flung around and everyone moved to cover their own interests.

For example, samurai and those bushi or mercenary ninja sworn to guard the nobility were clustered around them in a tight bubble, resisting any probing strikes by the two hidden villages of attackers. Meanwhile, most others were working hard to try and handle the scant actual civilians in an evacuation. An orderly retreat when you had someone who had never tasted actual violence was…easier said than done.

Tobio was thankful he didn’t have to search for long to find his gaggle of idiots, propelled by explosions through the air and above the morass of chakra signatures. Five in particular stood out, slowly making their way through the confusion as he finally put eyes on them. And much to his relief, they were all holding their own in one way or another.

Hell, they were doing better than holding their own.

Over the course of some months Tobio would have liked to think that he had a pretty good handle on what his sensei was capable of. Sure, the man had trounced him into the dirt plenty of times during sparring sessions, but if push came to shove, shouldn’t he have enough trump cards to win against him? That was what the boy had believed up to this point, though that quiet confidence was no longer as unshakable as it had been.

Not with the way Tekuno was moving as Tobio flew toward the stands. With a summoned sword in each hand, he had the kind of precise economy of motion that made the inner swordsman inside of Tobio weep. He moved smoothly, his arms a whirling dervish that went for the hardest, most numerous targets that seemed to be aiming for his various charges.

One Otogakure ninja leapt through the fray, coming toward Tekuno with a raised blade of his own. It was almost perfectly positioned to come for his head, taking into account the man’s height and girth. His sensei had a brief period of time to react, and what did he choose to do? Drop a sword and use one hand that drifted into a flurry of seals, which almost would have proved useless under normal circumstances.

If all of his Genin didn't have their own kind of preternatural instinct and awareness of all of their companions in the haze of a fight. If Hibachi had not ducked out of the way of a kunai thrown from a distant opponent, hands blurring into motion, he would have been impaled. If he and Tekuno-sensei hadn’t swapped places with the kind of unspeakable level of coordination that should have taken years to train.

If, maybe, could have, should have, didn't come into play in that moment, though.

Between blinks, the sword that should have come for his sensei’s head swung wide, and in place of the man was Hibachi. It was the kind of confusing, shocking relocation that naturally would have proven disorienting for any enemy to get used to, just like how they’d designed it to be used for. Not that the Oto-nin would get the chance to adapt to the paradigm shift.

Hibachi was on him in the blink of an eye, throwing out an absolutely brutal kunai stab toward the man’s throat. Tobio was closing in on the group quickly enough to hear the messy gurgle that had to have occurred as Hibachi pierced the man’s trachea. However, the result was easy enough to see as the man dropped, grabbing his throat in naked panic.

To be sure, the lessons that his friend had learned over the last few months were vicious ones. Hibachi might never be the fastest shinobi or the one who had the special handling of techniques. What he did have, though, was a preternatural instinct for immediately springing on weak points and openings.

Having a teammate to train with who was able to survive normally lethal, or beyond the pale, strikes in a spar helped hone that impulse to a razor’s edge. Tobio’s attention did turn to the rest of his bonded brotherhood, however, and he found himself being darkly pleased with what he saw there as well.

Karin and Fū might not have had the same boon in terms of the Tag-In Jutsu in their hands, a fact he quietly hoped to rectify in the future. They did have many of the exact same advantages when it came to their coordination, however, when it came to how preternaturally they reacted in tandem with the others. As evidenced by the fact that they’d easily slid into a formation with Ami, as if the three girls had been training for months together.

He couldn’t glaze that choice to trust in Exalted bullshit enough, it seemed.

Wings had sprouted from the Takigakure Jinchūriki’s back as she took to the air, with the kind of blistering combination of speed and utility most shinobi could never have ever dreamed of. Fū’s hands went through four seals: boar, ram, dog, and rat, before culminating in her opening her mouth and allowing what looked like white, pearlescent webbing to be spat forth over a group of three suna-nin.

In an instant, they were trapped, though not likely for long given the way they were trying to cut out of the sticky webbing. But those seconds were more than enough for the other two girls with her to make their move

Genjutsu fundamentally worked better when the target had other things to distract them. A bright light, a noise at the wrong moment to distract them, or any number of small but meaningful things could bring ruin to a ninja at the wrong moment. Being tied up in thick, sticky webbing was definitely irksome, no matter how you wished to cut it.

Which meant that the first of the ninjas was a little too out of sorts to resist when Ami threw them into a genjutsu. He didn’t know what she had them seeing, but that terrified screaming led him to believe it might have been the Hell Viewing Technique. It made him unfortunately easy prey when the girl fell upon him with a tanto in hand, red eyes flashing with a manic light.

What the purple-haired girl might have lacked in pure martial skill, she made up for in viciousness. He didn’t think the man would survive the series of thrusts toward his belly, not without some kind of quick treatment that he was unlikely to get. However, this was war.

If people weren’t prepared for the risk of death, they'd have chosen the wrong profession to enter.

Karin didn’t have any fancy techniques or jutsu. What she did have was a restored Uzumaki vitality and a complete, unhinged willingness to punch as hard as she humanly could. Sometimes in a world of fancy jutsu and exacting techniques, all you needed to do was hit a guy really, really fucking hard.

The simplicity of it was kind of impressive, genuinely, as he saw her target buckle under the weight of her single-minded blow to the stomach. Something broke, though from this angle Tobio was unsure of what, and the man went flying from the unleashed strength of an amped-up Uzumaki. Seeing her like that, barely trained and yet physically so daunting…

It wasn’t difficult to figure out why multiple Hidden Villages had to team up to take out Uzu if their entire village was built like that. Before even getting into their long, storied history of fūinjutsu.

With all of his friends doing their best to defend themselves, how could he do anything else but make the most dynamic entry possible?

By that, he meant he crashed into the stands with a thundering crush of stone underneath his weight and impact, Gaara slung over his shoulder, and immediately had two approaching Oto-nin whirl around to face him. His hands were occupied, true, but he had long since stopped needing his hands to be deadly. This was just the first time anyone would see it.

For the first time, the boy reached into that well of deep, dark, malevolent flame and let it pour forth from inside of him. The best way he could describe it was that his eyes were a doorway and certainly not for his soul. Nothing but the roiling, horrific conflagration of a hell unlike anything these shinobi were prepared for lay beyond Tobio's gaze.

All he had to do was open the door, just a crack, just a smidgeon, and hell poured out. It was like trying to restrain a rushing river, where there wasn't any real intelligence in the Shadowfire. And then found himself lacking for words, as the consequences poured over them.

They destroyed. That was all it did, all it could ever do, the entire reason for its existence. Until now, he hadn't quite understood what that had realistically meant, because the conceit was just anathema to anything a mortal mind could shape. Not before he saw the results of loosing it upon creation.

There wasn’t any fancy jutsu or a line between the two points where he gazed. Instead, it happened between blinks: one moment the men were charging toward him, and the next, they were covered in flame. A corrupted, dark flame, the kind that devoured everything around it with a voracious desire to consume. The very sight of them covered by a black void in the world, where there should have been the smell of burning flesh and the air that would have enabled them to scream, everything was just a void.

See, human sight relied entirely on light bouncing off of objects and entering the cornea. Eyes were basically biological cameras, bending, focusing, and converting light waves into electrical signals that the brain could translate into the visual images that people saw. Yet what happened when no light could escape an endless, inevitable flame that consumed everything?

In an instant, two men were dropping to the ground, writhing, but not as men. They were shadows, black spots on the world only made evident by the silhouettes of men on fire, that his brain could no longer process save for the absence of light. It probably was a painful way to die and without even costing that much from his still steadily growing well of fire.

The thing was, frankly, Tobio was already moving on without a shred of pity in him. Anyone who wore a Sunagakure or Otogakure headband had come to kill, pillage, and ruin the Hidden Leaf. He had some sympathy for the named characters just from his own fringe connections to the manga and anime he used to consume, like Temari or Kankuro, but everyone else…

Hah. No.

They dropped to the ground in an instant, already dead, even if their bodies didn’t know it yet. Lazily, he glanced over at the assorted gaggle of his friends and allies, a sharp grin on his face. “Yo! Everyone still in one piece?”

“Tobio!” Three girlish voices cried out at once, in unison, as he came into view, as Ami, Karin, and Fū turned his way.

Dispatching the ninja in front of him, Tekuno-sensei wasn’t wearing a jovial, fun expression when he turned to his most troublesome student. Instead, he wore the face of a seasoned high ninja, his face hardened in ways that almost felt foreign to Tobio. Then again, he’d never really seen his sensei in the middle of a life-or-death scenario.

When all of the fun and games were stripped away, there really was something made of unyielding iron at the core of the man.

“Report!” Tekuno barked, and Tobio did his best to try to stand at attention, with a sword in one hand and the other working on securing his prisoner.

“I’ve defeated Suna’s heavy hitter, and he’s unconscious! But I dunno for how long, honestly.” The fact that Gaara was asleep, somewhat transformed but still in that interstitial period between 'boy' and 'kaiju', was still shocking to him. All he could attribute it to was the spiritual nature of his blade did something to the sleeping chakra beast inside of him.

"Fuck, I dunno either. I know as much you do." Somehow, hearing his sword spirit not know what she did either didn't inspire a great deal of confidence inside of him. “I just know I touched something vast when you slammed the pommel against his skull. That’s it.”

Tekuno gave the boy a long, wary stare before sighing deeply. “We need to move. He’s a high-value asset we need to secure. And potentially seal, given…his condition.”

“Considering his siblings are closing in on us, I agree,” Tobio nodded, passively aware of all of the fighting around him. It was…deeply distracting, to feel the Konoha Crush going on around him, to sense it all in the periphery of his awareness.

“You just always have to bring trouble in your wake, huh…?” Hibachi grumbled.

“Enough chit-chat,” Tekuno interrupted, wrangling the group into something more concrete and focused. “Team Eleven and assorted children, move out!” The older Jōnin ordered, eager for the group to get moving.

For now, it seemed as if their first real move was securing Gaara somewhere if they could. Not that he was supposed to know it, but killing the redhead would be bad considering what would be unleashed if he did so. In comparison, just throwing him deep behind Konoha’s lines where he couldn’t unleash Shukaku was the ideal outcome.

If they could manage to make it happen. That was the real challenge there.

All they had to do was ferry one unconscious, insane child through a warzone. How hard could it be?

---

There were a lot of things that their training regimens had never quite prepared them for. Stuff like the smell of blood and viscera, gore, burning bodies, the cries of the dying. It wasn't anything that was particularly offputting to Tobio, which…probably was something to be concerned about. The whole cacophony of scents was making a dormant part of him pleased as punch, and he was trying hard not to pay it any mind.

Another thing was the passive promise that his muscles ached in ways that he'd be punished for, come the morning. His unbreakable bones were fine, but the joints and muscles hadn't exactly come through dealing with Gaara untouched. Getting crushed in a vice like that was a singularly unpleasant experience, now that he'd had the misfortune of it happening to him. Nor had his skin, seeing as he'd effectively been sandblasted by a psychotic Jinchūriki.

Hell, not even his chakra reserves were untouched. Embers was doing some work boosting his strength across the board, but he hadn't exactly been judicious in his usage of the stuff so far. Even that little pocket of focus inside his mind had been diminished, and his capacity to concentrate himself into a rage was brought low.

Internally he was guessing that he had about two more instances of mustering the mental strength required to get into that unique, murderous state once more. That was before he even began to take into account the other sizable distraction of several notifications from the System, all but screaming to come into his vision.

A new perk would have been an immense and unconscionable distraction right now. Let alone if it was something that'd be good in the future, but not at that moment. He needed to solve this clusterfuck with the tools available to him at this moment.

Besides, his friends weren't as distracted by their own thoughts of capabilities or internal capacities as he was.

Not for the first time, he was struck by what he sensed with the Five Poisons roiling off of them in this moment. Their fear, indecision, anger—all of these negative emotions that normally would have proven horrifically demoralizing for most people. It was a combination of their discipline and the supernatural force of camaraderie that kept their little band together, more than anything else.

Moving through the arena and fleeing where they must did raise the question of where they were meant to be going. A lot of the upper-level decision-making that went beyond a Genin with regard to preparing for the invasion were conversations he wasn’t a part of. Though maybe he would be if he survived this next while.

"Where exactly are we heading?" Tobio asked, as they darted toward the outer perimeter of the arena.

Tekuno-sensei didn't answer immediately, throwing an explosive tag in their wake that detonated into a small burst of yellowish gas. It was enough to make whoever was on their tail begin to cough and hack, though it didn’t seem lethal, just an irritant. Smart, considering how the gas might drift elsewhere.

"We had a bit of forewarning, thanks to you, so a lot of shinobi were called back and secretly put on alert," his sensei answered, head on a swivel and twitching toward every little threat in their way.

The fact of the matter was, though, that their mission wasn't fighting the war. It was escorting a VIP prisoner to be properly managed by their forces. No matter how much Tobio wanted to be in the thick of things.

"You knew this was coming?!" Ami asked, looking positively scandalized and incensed as she whipped her head toward Tobio. Hibachi gave him a similar look, which was fair.

They both had families in the village, families who were civilians and objectively at risk with this invasion. Not even giving them a heads up was…dangerous.

"I had a suspicion!" He defended.

“Still, you should have said something to us!”

"Not with a gag order from me and the Hokage," Tekuno supported, navigating them to the edge of the arena wall. "If you're going to be mad at anyone, be mad at us. Still, we did manage to recall some key assets back in time. Jiraiya of the Sannin is our best bet for stabilizing our prisoner from...whatever's going on with him."

It took Tobio a second to realize that his sensei was dancing around the boy being a Jinchūriki, but it made sense why. The topic was a complex one at the best of times, and it'd be better to keep it hush-hush.

Over the wall they went and into the village proper. Karin was the one to ask a question that'd been on Tobio's mind, though. "Where exactly are we supposed to find Jiraiya, anyway…?"

"Probably wherever there's the biggest mess," Tekuno-sensei sighed. "Knowing our luck."

"C'mon it can't be that bad, guys," Fū piped up, trying to keep their spirits high. "What's the worst that could be out there?"

As if to punish the cheery girl for her audacity, as she flew alongside the running group, a susurrus rose in the distance. Somewhere between a hiss and a roar in terms of intensity, as three shapes came into view. Three massive, long, serpentine shapes, each one easily the size of…

Well, larger than any living land-based organism should manage to be. Their heads were the size of apartments, with sinewy, scaly bodies. Their undersides were pale beige, while the rest of their physiques were a sort of dark, dirty hue, patterned with strange tomoe all over their bodies. By every reasonable metric, they were horrific summons, the kind that could end battles by themselves.

Whatever torturous path life had taken on this planet, the reality of certain biological limitations that summons and their ilk should have had was nonexistent. Forget gigantism; what was the term for something even this big? Macroism?

…Even worse were the urges stirring in his blood, as he took note of the large serpents. He wanted to fight them. Really, really badly.

Tobio was itching for it, itching to throw himself as hard as he could, practically vibrating in place the longer they all stared at the gigantic creatures in silent awe. It made him want to dig deep into summoning the bears properly so he could eventually get his hands on engines of destruction that dangerous.

They were so big that just the act of moving was enough to destroy buildings. Focusing his vision, Tobio spotted attempts by people to try and throw explosive tags, which had minimal effect. They were just too big and too tough for conventional weapons or jutsu to have the proper effect on them. Summons were bullshit like that, as he spoke from unfortunate experience.

"You are deeply mentally ill."

But you're me too, so what does that say about you?

"SHUT UP!"

It seemed hopeless, right up until a gigantic frog landed on one of the three heads. He blinked, trying to ensure that his brain wasn’t mistaken, but not. A massive cloud of smoke poofed, and out of it came a gigantic frog.

No, wait. That was a toad. A massive, huge toad with pale green skin, like the color of old faded swamp muck. Its lips and head were the hues of dried river clay, as it wore two massive blades as big as entire neighborhood blocks on its back.

"We found Jiraiya," Tekuno-sensei noted, as they ran into the village proper by this point.

"We're going to have to head right toward the gigantic monster fight, aren't we?" Hibachi sighed, with the kind of bone-deep weariness that came from a Genin who wasn't getting paid enough for whatever job he was doing.

"…Yeah," Tobio nodded, as a grin began to spread across his features, not even seeing a point in denying it.

"For the record, I blame you. Even if it isn't your fault, it's still your fault."

The Mixed-Blood gasped, shooting his slacker friend an affronted glance. "Guh?! For what?!"

"MAKING ME TRY SO HARD, GODDAMNIT!"

Well. Yeah, maybe Tobio could shoulder a little bit of the blame for that.

"Shut your mouths, you idiots! We're still on a timer!" Ami shouted, shooting a look over at Gaara.

The transformation hadn't picked up sharply, but the sand was still forming incrementally around Gaara's body. It wasn't a comforting sight, since it meant they were still very much on a clock. He was holding a bomb, and nobody knew when it was going to go off.

"We're going to navigate through the village," Tekuno ordered, as the group fell into an easy, nigh-instinctive formation. "Everyone centered around Tobio, since he has the VIP. Ami, you're on genjutsu distraction duty. Hibachi, I want you harassing anyone that comes near us with ranged weapons. Karin, punch anyone who comes even remotely close to Tobio as hard as you can. Fū, stay flying above us and attack from those vectors."

“What about you, Tekuno-san?” Karin asked. The bespectacled girl definitely seemed a little out of her element here and now. Whatever panic should have been overtaking her, though, mostly seemed to be smoothed out by the presence of everyone they were bonded to.

It made the world of difference having the unspoken assurance on a bone-deep level that everyone around you was someone you could trust with your life. Despite the fact that no one might have been able to elucidate why or put words to the reasoning. Hopefully, nobody looked into their teamwork too closely.

Tobio was already going to have too many questions to answer by the time all of this was over.

“I’m killing anything that endangers any of you,” he answered the redhead, making the order of operations as clear as possible with a grim efficiency. "TEAM ELEVEN, MOVE OUT!"

For their part, Baki, Kankuro, and Temari were trying to catch up with them. Truly, they were doing their hardest to try and get to Suna's child superweapon, to the best of their abilities. The only problem with that was the fact that they were dealing with the first instance of a Sworn Brotherhood the Elemental Nations had ever seen.

One Prince of the Earth, a Dragon-Blooded Exalted, was able to treat with kings and fight small armies by themselves. A band of them could hunt even the Anathema to the ends of Creation and put them into the dirt. Team Eleven and their add-ons were not so strong as to mimic that feat. None of them were so lofty in their power, not yet, but they did manage to get the best of what that mystical connection could be used for.

They cut through the battlefield like a hot knife through butter. Team Eleven was normally a blunt hammer, thanks to Tobio's presence, yet here and now they acted more like some sharp scalpel.

Fū wasn't afraid to dart in and out with the kind of daring that ought to have seemed suicidal. If it weren't for the fact that she had a preternatural sense of where all of her allies were at all times. She didn't even question it, knowing precisely where to shoot out a Net-Shaped Prison jutsu, or Hiding in Scale Powder, to blind or bind potential assailants.

Karin, for her part, was as much of a guide as she was a guard for Tobio. The girl was probably the objectively least combat-capable of the bunch. He didn't think she knew a lot of jutsu, nor did he believe that she had many supportive techniques. But she always knew where people were coming from and could direct them with her sensory powers at times better than Tobio.

One of the downsides, even with his extremely powerful brain, was the fact that he had a lot of information coming into his mind at all times. Sight, scent, hearing, taste, and touch, and that was before getting into the mystical input pumped into his noggin. By comparison, she only had to deal with less information and could shout out warnings rapidly.

When they were about to run into a cluster of friends or enemies, knowing when to nudge civilians away from the battle and into shelter works.

Ami's chakra reserves had never grown to immense degrees, but they grew enough to support her merciless genjutsu campaign. Oto or Suna ninja alike, were subjected to whatever nasty tricks she had at her disposal, with wild abandon. Setting them up for the last three to take them out.

Like a yo-yo, Hibachi was whipping a shuriken on a string to and fro. It might have seemed silly, but after the two shinobi that he saw get caught in the neck and eye from it, Tobio gained a new respect for the jutsu. Hibachi relied more on tool-based jutsu than elemental releases, which was....fair, considering how tough applications of earth release could be in busy city streets.

Tekuno-sensei was the most restrained out of the bunch of them, and for good reason. Someone ostensibly had to lead their band of idiots through an active war zone and keep them on task. His touch on the battlefield was lighter, where he used his weapons sparingly. He'd only killed a handful of people, admittedly, or taken a few down, over the course of their journey.

Seeing as most of his attention was wrapped up in correcting the mistakes of his wards or ensuring they didn't get sideswiped at an oblique angle, that made sense.

For Tobio…

Well, one would think that carrying another person would make him less deadly. To a degree, it did, seeing as one of his arms was entirely wrapped up in carrying Gaara's weight, not that it wasn't easy for him. His other hand was on his sword, preventing him from making proper signs for jutsu. If that was enough to keep him from being horrifically dangerous, though, he'd have been disappointed in himself.

Most people who came at him saw him as, perhaps, something of an easy target. Young, occupied with someone already on his arm, and 'obviously' the weak link, seeing as he was surrounded by people trying to protect him. They soon learned their lesson otherwise.

Like a flash of light, he'd swing his blade with enough force to leave arcs of blue fire soaring through the air. Then, usually someone is delimbed, beheaded, or bisected very shortly after. It took five incredibly, unspeakably unfortunate ninjas to learn that lesson before they neared their destination, cutting through scenes of horror and heroism in equal measure.

How did he know they were getting close? Besides the gigantic monsters fighting in front of them, anyway. One of the snake heads seemed down for the count, but the other two were very much alive and well as they hissed and slammed against the giant toad, who fended them off with two gigantic weapons.

The first thing that stood out to Tobio was the pressure. It was a subtle thing, maybe even too subtle for anyone who wasn't literally a top-tier sensor like him or Karin to notice. Yet he felt the immense and impressive reserves of chakra inside of Jiraiya before he saw the tall man.

With long, messy white hair, the last of the truly loyal Sannin to Konoha was an old man. Well into his fifties, yet not truly elderly in the fashion that Hiruzen or others of their contemporaries were.

He was in the middle of directing shinobi as well, looking over at the group as they approached with no small amount of surprise. "Kanden-san? This your gaggle of brats?"

"I’m surprised you remember me, sir." Tobio's sensei blinked, genuinely surprised.

"From the third war. You're older now, but you've got the same face shape," the Sannin admitted before focusing over at all of the children present. "…But I'm more confused why you've got this many Genin with you. Or why there's a transforming Jinchūriki with you."

"That's…more complicated. We're trying to seal his demon back inside of him, but none of us have the know-how to make it work."

"Ah." A beat passed where the man nodded. "Bring him over, now, before it progresses any further."

It felt weird to have one of the most famous perverts in all of fiction being so serious in front of him. Then again, this was quite possibly the most serious, dangerous situation that they could have found themselves in.

Everything was going to be okay. At least, that was the general feeling until Jiraiya went searching for the fuin that was marked on Gaara's abdomen.

"…THIS is what they've been using? All of this time?" Even if the Sunagakure shinobi were currently their enemies, the horror was writ large in his voice as he looked at the seal in front of them.

"What's wrong with it?" Fū asked.

A scoff escaped Jiraiya as he pointed down at Gaara's stomach. "It's not meant for humans, that's the goddamn problem! There's no division between the mind of the demon inside and the human. Maybe their power is divided, but this just lets him get tortured forever by the demon. No wonder this kid's got such a crazy reputation."

"But you can fix it, right? To seal away the demon?" Tekuno-sensei hurriedly asked. "Because we're not exactly luxuriating in time before things come to a head."

"I would, if I had the time," he grimaced, looking over at the conflict between his gigantic toad, and the snakes. "But I need to go help Gamahiro. No one else can deal with those snakes. Even if I did start, they could come over and screw up this delicate sealing work in the middle of it."

The last loyal Sannin paused. "That'd be bad. I can't tell you how bad it'd be, just that calling it catastrophic would be an understatement." As if to punctuate his statement, the loud crashing sound of falling buildings in the background sounded out from the battle between the behemoths.

For the most part, the remaining two heads on the snake that were sensate were doing a good job dodging. A lot faster than someone would imagine a creature that vast and that large moving out of the way of bladed attacks, yet at this point Tobio chalked it up to more bullshit. If anything, it just made him crave the power to summon his own bears into the fray.

So their options were worse ways to die or fail. Outstanding. There was seemingly no one else capable of dealing with this threat, or so it seemed at first, before he realized something else with a shock.

…Tobio could do it. It was a realization that swept over him, though not one he should have been that hesitant about.

"I can do it."

"What?" Jiraiya looked over at him with wide eyes. "Kid, this isn't the time for jokes."

"I can get rid of the snakes. Or at least distract them for long enough." It was so, so stupid. Irrevocably stupid. Yet his blood was screaming at him to try as the fight between the titans continued elsewhere.

Shaking the ground, as anyone who got close was risking death. Unless they were someone who, by the dint of their existence, fundamentally could ride that line more than anyone else present. Who else had the skills, the powers, and the sheer idiocy to throw themselves into the confrontation?

No one was coming to save the day. Just like Takigakure, someone was going to have to step up.

"If he says he can do it, I believe him."

The words came from Tekuno, and even Jiraiya seemed shocked. "Are you listening to yourself?"

"I am, unfortunately, so I am painfully aware of how insane it sounds. But if you need the time, we can give it to you. And knowing my little maniac, he has something prepared that he's been holding back just for this moment."

Admittedly, it felt a little nice and invasive to know that his modus operandi had been seen through like that. No matter how true it actually was, seeing as how often Tobio tended to pull random shit out at the drop of a hat. "…I mean, that's true, but—"

"If you said you can do it, you can do it,” Tekuno stated, sagging as if admitting that much was aging him on the spot. “And much like a cockroach, you're too hardy to die from whatever goes wrong."

"He's crazy, but he's reliable to survive the most insane stuff imaginable," Ami piped in.

"Absolutely certifiable," Hibachi agreed without hesitation. "Still, for something insane like this, he's the guy."

Jiraiya looked between the bunch of them with no small amount of hesitation before something heavy escaped him. A sigh, or maybe just some resignation to their stubbornness. "Fine. I'll trust you lot to give me the time I need to properly fix his seal. So, what did you have in mind?"

“Awesome,” Tobio beamed. “Here’s the plan…”

The more he talked, the more the people around him seemed to grow more incredulous. To them, it sounded like an insane, impossible concept, and Tobio might have agreed if it weren't for one singular fact. All of this combat, danger, and mayhem was ramping up his abilities to heights across the board that he’d never had before, despite how much chakra he’d already lost.

The thing was, he didn’t need chakra for this plan to go off without a hitch. All he needed was to see his target and let the ocean that Shadowfire had grown flood out of him.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Author’s Notes

COMEBACK KID FOR A THOUSAND YEARS! WOO, LET’S FUCKING GO!!!!

Alright, with the silliness done, I’m here to say that I’m sorry for the long absence. Given that I am graduating college this week, I will hold that as the major excuse for my lack of writing. However, posts should be a lot more frequent, given that I’m also going to be updating things in the quest. We’re at the end of a long collegiate journey, if I’m being truthful, which is just the start of a new one.

I’m not going to be looking for work immediately, mostly because in the next few months I’ll be doing my best effort to try and set up a to try and make a living writing. My first real story will be All-Star Otsutsuki, with me slowly working up a nice backlog of chapters there. The first two chapters are in my snippet thread, but don’t be surprised to see changes in the final versions that will eventually go live.

If you guys would like to see any of my other snippets make that jump, let me know. Punch-Kick Merchant has some strong juice that I’m considering going for, admittedly, but I’m open to hearing other suggestions from what I’ve written there to put on with advance chapters and to make a full story.

I guess the most recent idea that might work as a full story is a OC-SI reincarnated as a weak noble devil in DxD, and being given control over Roanapur from Black Lagoon. On a nominal basis, as he actually has to wrangle it under his control with the help of the Chaos Gacha. Maybe a massive multicross with other 90s fiction, but I’d have to dredge my memory.

As always, if you want to be involved with the quest and want to try to catch it live, check here:

https://fiction.live/stories/Comeback-Kid-Naruto-Celestial-Grimoire-/GREYaPHxERqXbuQSQ/Chapter-Seven-Aftermath/7mZRcaWgQD5iy3D3m