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Chapter Text

Two weeks had passed since Naruto and Xanna had their encounter with Team Samui and all of that time was spent back at the valley.

They knew that the only thing left to do was take out Madara, but they weren't going off half cocked and risking everything so close to the end.

Keeping this in mind, one would think that they would be devising clever ways of defeating the man, but it was not so. They already knew how they were going to end it, they only needed some time to get fully used to their new situation.

It wouldn't do to be unprepared in battle after all.

Naruto had spent almost the entire time sitting in a meditative lotus position, his focus being entirely inwards.

Neither Xanna nor the Gedō Mazō were anywhere to be seen, which was to be expected given that they were inside him.

In point of fact, both were now one and the same. Naruto and Xanna had decided that they couldn't afford to be leaving anything to chance, so they had drained everything out of the Gedō Mazō, to the point that the Juubi's ancient spirit had dispersed into nothing. With Naruto greedily sucking up its immortal life force with all eight gates open and being completely drained of the infinitely self regenerating chakra of the Bijuu, it couldn't sustain its existence anymore.

It was pretty funny to think that what was basically a god(or what was left of one), had died like a chump. Then again, a lot of people had died like chumps when going against Naruto.

As soon as that was done, Xanna had taken up residence in the now truly empty husk. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to do anything much with it. No shapeshifting or taking human form or anything of the sort. The most she had been able to do was walk(more like lumber) around a bit, which was more than what the Juubi had managed, but hardly impressive. Clearly, the Gedō Mazō would only be restored once it had the combined chakra of all nine Bijuu.

After that, Naruto had completely removed the Reaper Death Seal from his body and created a new one.

His old seal was great for sealing chakra and with some modification, natural energy, but it was no good for anything physical.

It didn't take him long to make it really. Though complex, it was well within his ability and it even involved some space-time meddling to make it functional. How else was such a huge thing supposed to fit inside him after all?

That question had also made them realize that the Rinnegan must grant some kind of instinctual understanding of Fuinjutsu...to a certain point. Now that he thought of it, that chakra absorbing trick of the Preta Path was almost definitely a Fuinjutsu as well, along with some other things he'd seen the Rinnegan do.

That kind of pissed him off actually. After all the work he'd put into learning Fuinjutsu, having some dumbass Uchiha be capable of using it just because he had a pair of fancy swirly twirly eyes was really annoying. Though Naruto was willing to bet his left nut that Madara had no clue about the finer points of the seals that he was capable of using courtesy of the Rinnegan, which was incredibly stupid in his opinion. Using powers that you didn't understand properly was often a recipe for disaster.

Case in point: Obito.

He could use an insanely powerful space-time technique because of his eye and it got him killed in the end because he had no idea that it was possible to counter it.

Naruto stood on top of Hashirama's head in the valley of the end, gazing around contemplatively. He was dressed in his usual get up of open black leather coat with no shirt underneath it. His hair was gathered in a low ponytail that hung down to his thighs, though he fully expected it to get loose in the coming battle. The necklace that Tsunade had gifted to him sparkled occasionally in the sun as it hung from a cord around his neck. He had the same style of comfortable black leather pants on as he usually did. The only real difference in his appearance was the fact that he was barefoot.

His mastery of Mokuton and Senjutsu was now such that it simply felt more comfortable if he had direct skin contact with the earth. It wasn't as if he had to worry about stepping on sharp rocks considering how tough his skin was these days and the way that shoes dulled his senses was discomforting. As long as he was in direct contact with the ground, he could feel every living thing in a truly massive area, provided that they too were touching the ground. His life force sensing worked without it, but in that case it only in the immediate area.

The vast emptiness that he could feel in the deserts of Wind Country was rather unpleasant and Naruto resolved to fix that after this battle. He'd taken a lot from the world while he'd been weak and needed to keep Xanna alive, so restoring life to that barren place would be a good way to give something back. It felt nice, to be able to do something that wasn't massively selfish once again.

But that was for later, right now, there was a battle that needed to be fought.

He couldn't help feeling nostalgic even though the memories he had of fighting Madara here decades ago weren't his. This place was oddly appropriate as the site of their final battle.

He was quite sure that Madara would also appreciate the irony of getting his ass kicked in the same spot twice. At first he would probably think that it was appropriate to have his victory where he had previously suffered defeat, but that would change once he started losing.

Well, might as well get things started.

Naruto took a deep breath, felt the powerful chakra in his body rising to the surface, overpowering the suppression seals on his coat and allowing it to be felt far and wide.

"MAAAAAAAAADARAAAAAAAAA!"

"MAAAAAAAAADARAAAAAAAAA!"

The head of the man in question snapped up as he felt the enormous chakra presence suddenly slam into his senses. It was so huge that it was actually somewhat difficult to pinpoint an exact location, but he managed it after a few seconds of focusing.

The Valley of the End.

Madara smirked. How appropriate.

Though it made him wonder what the point of calling him out like that had been. From what he could tell, Uzumaki had just wasted enough chakra for several S-rank techniques just to make himself heard. He wasn't anywhere close to the Valley of the End after all, which meant that the shout had probably been heard by most of the Elemental Nations.

Oh well, it would certainly fit with Uzumaki's usual way of doing things. If he wanted an audience for his defeat, then Madara certainly wasn't going to stop him. At least it would bring a lot of people to the same spot so that they would be easier to put into the Infinite Tsukuyomi...well it wouldn't really matter, but if everyone was there he could gloat a bit first.

Despite the months of frustration, he couldn't help a slight anticipatory grin from forming on his face. The battle was bound to prove interesting.

Oh dear, you appear to have cracked poor Hashirama's head. Xanna commented with amusement.

They just don't make statues like they used to. Naruto replied, shaking his head in mock sorrow as he jumped away from the crumbling statue. All it takes to break them is some chakra enhanced screaming.

He is coming. The demoness said, feeling the rapid approach of their enemy as he came within range of their combined sensing. It is as we suspected, he has made himself the Hachibi Jinchuuriki. No doubt he has begun to fear what we would be able to do should Gyuuki have remained in the open.

With good reason. Naruto replied with a smirk. Though I am surprised that the idea managed to penetrate his arrogance.

He must have gotten so bored while we kept him waiting that he actually started thinking again. Xanna reasoned.

At least we won't have to search for your errant sibling. Considering the gamble we are taking right now, it would have been quite inconvenient if the idiot had the foresight to hide it instead of use it for a power boost.

Xanna made sniffing sounds, as if she were on the verge of tears. It sounded horribly fake. Would you not have loved me anymore if I looked like a giant dried up statue forever?

Of course I would still have loved you my dear. Why, if that happened, I would take you on dates all the time, I'm sure we could have found a tea house that serves portions appropriate for something the size of a small mountain.

That would certainly have been an...amusing experience.

Oh, what's this? Naruto asked ironically as he wiggled his toes in the grass, feeling the approach of many human lives through the earth. It seems that the audience is also coming, though they will almost certainly miss the opening act.

Good, everything is falling into place.

Two long haired men stood in the Valley of the End, facing against each other with the wind dramatically ruffling their hair. One was wearing red armor of an old design, with a gunbai and kama crossed on his back, while the other was cloaked in black with the hilt of a great nodachi peeking over his right shoulder. Both were standing in identical positions with their arms crossed and disdainful blank looks on their faces, staring into each other's eyes, standard Sharingan into slitted gold-orange.

Madara was standing that way because that's how he always stood.

Naruto was standing that way because he was being an ass...and because he felt that this innately infuriating stance was definitely something that he would be stealing from Madara. He mentally called it the 'Troll Pose no Jutsu'.

Just as Madara was about to lose his patience with the silent staring contest and say something, Naruto uncrossed his arms and pointed the clawed index finger of his right hand at Madara with a grin spreading over his face. He couldn't help it, he was going to enjoy beating the crap out of this guy.

"Lets dance."

The Uchiha's eyes widened slightly in surprise at having his catchphrase stolen, but a tiny smirk soon followed.

"Yes, lets." There was no need to be overly wordy right at the start.

The two powerhouses ran at each other without drawing their respective weapons, both obviously more interested in a Taijutsu battle first.

At first, Madara had a slight advantage due to his Sharingan, but that rapidly evaporated as the holes in Naruto's defense closed up and the battle degenerated into high speed blocking and evading. Madara quickly noted how very similar Naruto's fighting style was to Hashirama's.

As he blocked another powerful punch with his forearm and returned with a kick that was blocked by Naruto's shin, Madara realized that there was a single distinct reason why Naruto was a superior Taijutsu combatant in comparison to Hashirama.

Hashirama's blows hadn't felt like the hammer of god.

If it wasn't for the Asura Path enhanced toughness and strength granted to his body(something that he could use even without the Rinnegan being active), Madara was sure that his bones would already be cracking. The fact that Naruto seemed perfectly capable of shrugging off his return blows despite the massive strength behind them meant that Taijutsu wasn't going to be deciding anything here. His Sharingan had already seen that any damage inflicted on Naruto was healed far too swiftly for it to matter.

Apparently coming to a similar conclusion, Naruto decided to spice things up a bit and spat a stream of slimy looking liquid towards Madara's face. The Uchiha easily saw it coming and leaned away so that it flew past him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the ground sizzle and melt where it landed.

That was the Rokubi's acid slime. Madara realized, having seen the Bijuu chakra infusing it. He actually succeeded in pulling the chakra out of the Gedō Mazō. Without the Rinnegan he couldn't have split it again, which must mean that he has the combined chakra and abilities of eight Bijuu inside him, I'll need to watch out for that.

At the same time as he was reflecting on this, Madara was also leaping backwards and making rapid hand seals.

"Katon: Gōka Mekkyaku(Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation)!"

Naruto looked at the approaching wall of fire and almost scoffed. Sure, it was a fancy fire technique, but it didn't do any good against a powerful enough water user.

"Suiton: Suijinheki(Water Release: Water Formation Wall)!"

A vast torrent of water spewed from Naruto's mouth and crashed against the wall of fire, extinguishing it and creating a lot of steam.

Feeling a flash of aggression from the side, accompanied by Madara's powerful life force, Naruto drew the Kusanagi and slammed it against the approaching kama, using his superior strength to push the sharp tip away from him, glaring the Uchiha right in the eye as he did so, noticing that they were already transformed into an Eternal Mangenkyo.

While Naruto was busy pushing away the kama with his sword, Madara swung the gunbai with his other hand towards the blond's neck with the intent of breaking it.

Naruto's arm rose up and blocked it, making Madara's eyes widen when he noticed the coral that had grown on the arm to form a shield with which the blond had blocked the edge of the gunbai.

The Sanbi's coral and water element. Madara realized, now understanding how his opponent had been able to use the water technique without any kind of hand seals. His mastery of the Bijuu chakra is impressive, doubly so as he has no Doujutsu to aid him.

Madara himself had easily subdued and mastered the power of the Hachibi, but he could admit that it would have been far more difficult without the Rinnegan and its power over all chakra, including that of the Bijuu.

After another brief exchange of blows from their weapons which resulted in a stalemate, Naruto's cheeks bulged and he started spitting out highly compressed balls of air, forcing Madara to dodge around to avoid them. The air balls blasted holes into the surrounding rocks, trees and tore trenches in the earth.

That must be the Ichibi's wind element. Deciding that he had enough dodging, Madara swung his gunbai at the next group of air balls and reflected them back at his opponent with even greater force.

His eyes widening slightly in surprise, Naruto freely let Xanna have momentary control as she responded to the situation by blasting a stream of extremely hot blue fire at the approaching wind, overpowering it and once again sending it back to the Uchiha.

Madara responded by raising a thick wall of wood to block the flames, the chakra enhanced wood easily up to the task.

The battle lulled as they stared at each other across the fire now burning merrily in between them.

"I guess that's it for the warm up then." Naruto said while cracking his neck, not even slightly winded by the recent exertions.

"You are proving to be a quite interesting Uzumaki, I haven't had this much fun since I danced with Hashirama." Madara replied, just as fresh as his opponent.

"Hang on a second." Naruto said, raising one hand and apparently focusing on something else, his bare feet digging slightly into the ground, sensing something through the earth.

Madara narrowed his eyes slightly in interest and suspicion. He didn't doubt for a second that the blond was ready to defend himself at a moments notice, but he wondered what had caught his attention. Is he sensing the approaching shinobi? Zetsu made no mention of any significant sensing ability, certainly nothing good enough to sense them at this distance.

Meanwhile, Naruto had located the thing that had caught his attention, two things even. Both of them radiated a strong life force, a life force that felt almost identical to Hashirama's, though weaker.

"Oh, you've been a bad boy Madara, bringing friends to a private party." Naruto tutted, making Madara's eyes widen slightly as he realized that the blond must have sensed White Zetsu and Spiral Zetsu, whom he had brought with him as a 'just in case' measure.

How could he have sensed them? The only reason that I can sense them is because I created them, to anyone else they should have been indistinguishable from the environment while they are hiding. Madara wondered to himself.

Naruto had by now taken hold of the two life forces trying to hide in the earth in an invisible grip and ripped the life out of them. Had they been human, he would have required direct physical contact, but whatever those two things were, they were more like humanoid plants than humans and therefore easy prey as long as they were in contact with the earth anywhere around him.

Madara's eyebrows creased in confusion as he suddenly felt his two minions die without any apparent cause. He wasn't particularly upset by their deaths, but he very much wanted to know how Uzumaki had killed them.

"How did you kill them? And how did you even know they were there?"

Naruto gave Madara an infuriatingly self satisfied grin and replied with a similarly self satisfied tone of voice.

"Fuck you, that's how."

Madara glared back and considered how to continue the battle. Obviously things would need to be escalated if the stalemate was to be broken, but he still wanted to gauge Uzumaki's skill level a bit more before going all the way.

This meant using the powers of the Mangenkyo Sharingan. Tsukuyomi would be useless due to the Bijuu inside him. From what he could see, the Kyuubi(or what used to be the Kyuubi anyway) was cooperating with the blond and would be able to break the illusion easily.

That meant Amaterasu and Susanno.

"Amaterasu(Heavenly Illumination)!"

"Fūka Hōin(Fire Sealing Method)!"

Madara watched in surprise as the black flames he had summoned were rapidly sucked into a seal that Naruto had forced into existence in the air with nothing but his dense chakra as a medium. When all of the black fire was gone, Naruto released the technique, allowing the seal to disperse, taking the Amaterasu with it.

"So sorry, but that annoying campfire of yours won't be very useful against me." Naruto mocked, securing the Kusanagi on his back again.

Madara showed no outward reaction to the ease with which his most powerful fire technique had been countered. Obviously, Uzumaki could have done the same to block his earlier fire technique, but had chosen not to for whatever reason.

The Uchiha was suddenly engulfed in the large form of his incomplete Susanoo, towering over Naruto even though it was only formed from the waist up.

"You know," Naruto began talking in a contemplative tone of voice, not the slightest bit concerned about this new development, he had plenty of ways to bust that thing open after all. "I still think it's complete bullshit how you can summon this giant skeletal turkey with your eyes. It doesn't make any kind of sense."

Madara didn't really care if Uzumaki thought that his ability to summon Susanoo was 'bullshit', so he just manifested four arms on it, each one wielding a glowing blue kris type blade and prepared to slaughter the blond. He didn't really think it would be that easy considering how evenly matched they'd been so far, but it would be a good way to see what Uzumaki was capable of.

Naruto rapidly dodged away from the attacks of the giant four armed specter and created a powerful, dense Rasengan in his right hand. Instead of trying to charge the chakra construct with it, he made sure to empower it with Senjutsu and hurled it at Madara's Susanoo.

Susanoo's ribs cracked, but unfortunately did not break from the force of the thrown Rasengan.

Shit, not enough power behind it. Naruto cursed as he kept away from the glowing swords of Madara's chakra construct.

I did tell you that it would be too weak to destroy Susanoo. Xanna chimed in.

Yeah yeah. Naruto said back, lamenting that they couldn't use one of their far more powerful combination moves yet...that might actually get lucky and kill Madara after all, which was something they didn't want happening quite yet.

It would ruin the plan and it wasn't worth the risk, no matter how minor it was. The fight would escalate by itself soon enough anyway, so there was no need to take pointless chances.

Besides, it wasn't as if these glowy swords were any real danger to him. He and Xanna had made quite sure to only give Madara the illusion of a chance to win, in reality they'd pretty much removed the possibility of him winning before ever coming here.

They couldn't be a hundred percent certain of that, given that they didn't know about all of the Rinnegan's powers, but they were pretty confident about it.

Seeing as the Rasengan hadn't worked, Naruto decided to try something a little different.

He manifested a multitude of chains which swiftly bound and restrained the arms of Madara's Susanoo. While this was happening, a grinning Naruto charged towards the chakra construct with the Kusanagi drawn, its blade glowing a bright blue-green due to being reinforced with Senjutsu. That little trick had taken some figuring out, as natural energy wasn't very keen on interacting with lifeless objects, but it could be done as long as it was melded with chakra.

It was well worth it though, as Naruto observed the amputated Susanoo with a wide grin. It made the blade so sharp you could almost cut yourself just by thinking of touching it.

"Now that's what I call 'a disarming maneuver." Naruto snickered, much amused by the sight.

"Do you honestly think that you've accomplished something with this?" Madara asked disdainfully and regrew Susanoo's arms.

"Not really, but it was pretty funny." Naruto said, still snickering before getting serious again. "Either way, how about you try this on for size?"

The Kusanagi's blade suddenly extended towards Madara, who moved to block it with Susanoo's chakra blades, but much to his surprise, the rapidly extending blade bent around them as if it was made of paper instead of metal.

Ah, the wonders of Senjutsu.

Unwilling to test the durability of Susanoo's ribs against the Senjutsu enhanced sword which had already proven sharp enough to cut its arms, Madara fled. As he had half expected, the blade continued to chase him, until he used his gunbai to smack it aside, which also served to disrupt the Senjutsu chakra in the blade and caused it to retract back into its normal nodachi form.

Madara was once again thankful for his gunbai. His favored weapon was a one of a kind masterpiece. Far more durable than its frail appearance would suggest, it could also reflect any chakra used against it, which had proven itself incredibly useful many times already.

Naruto raised an eyebrow as the Susanoo once again flared to life around Madara, wondering what the Uchiha was up to this time. Honestly, once you had a good enough way of destroying that thing, it wasn't as awesome as it looked.

Instead of forming sword again though, Madara called forth a group of large, spinning tomoe that flickered with the same blue aura as his Susanoo.

Naruto recognized the Yasaka Magatama technique from Hashirama's memories and knew that it could be a rather troublesome thing. Those things could chase him around and they were damned hard to block.

Fortunately he had just the thing.

"Mokuton: Mokujōheki (Wood Release: Wood Locking Wall)!"

Thick roots formed a dome around him, filled to the brim with chakra to make them stronger and more resistant. When the Yasaka Magatama smashed into it, it easily held against the assault.

The Mokuton was interesting like that. You'd think that rock would be harder than wood, but the special chakra powered wood was in fact far more durable. It would take an attack that was far more powerful than the Yasaka Magatama to break through it.

Madara released the technique once he saw that it was useless and stared impassively at his opponent, not showing his surprise at the blond's use of Mokuton.

"How did you come to possess the Mokuton Uzumaki?"

"Well, mommy and daddy got adventurous one romantic night and decided to have sex on the largest tree they could find. In a bizarre sequence of events, some tree sap got mixed with dad's sperm when he got mom pregnant. Now, this particularly tree still had Hashirama's chakra in it, so I eventually manifested the Mokuton." Naruto explained with a dead serious look on his face.

Madara said nothing, but he knew that he had just been told 'fuck you, that's how' once again.

Deciding that they'd played around long enough, Madara activated the Rinnegan and formed a two sided Susanoo, each of which held a different hand seal, while he held the third.

"Tengai Shinsei (Heavenly Obstacle Quaking Star)!"

Naruto quirked an eyebrow at the giant meteor that was coming at him. I guess Madara is just about ready to get serious.

It was about time. Xanna said impatiently.

Well then, lets see how he deals with my counterattack. Naruto replied to his wife with a smirk and drew the Kusanagi again.

Throwing himself at the meteor, Naruto focused a great amount of Senjutsu chakra enhanced wind into his sword, the extremely chakra reactive metal absorbing it quite easily. When he was nearly there, he swung the Kusanagi at the meteor with a powerful arc, sending a thick and easily visible wind blade right through it.

"Ittoryu: Senpō: Wakusei Bunkatsu (One Sword Style: Sage Art: Planet Splitter)!"

The meteor split cleanly along the middle and Naruto flew in between the two halves, sheathing the Kusanagi on the way. Knowing that he was going to need more strength for what he was planning to do next, He activated the strength enhancing seal and opened the first five gates as well.

The half which was on the same side as Madara, he kicked and sent flying towards the general direction of the Uchiha, while he sank his claws into the other one and grabbed it tightly.

Madara had taken to the air as soon as he'd summoned the meteor, so as not to get hit by his own attack and he'd been quite surprised to see his opponent cutting it in half. He did nothing but raise an eyebrow as one half of the meteor was sent flying at him but came up short because Naruto hadn't kicked it hard enough.

He couldn't quite keep the shock off his face however, when he saw the blond grabbing onto the second half and throwing it at him. It was obviously straining him, as he could see veins bulging all over Naruto's body from the effort, but it was still a sight to see.

What incredible physical power. That is a strength far greater than what he showed earlier. Madara thought to himself. He knew that such a feat was beyond him. That half of a meteor had more than enough power behind it to pulverize his Susanoo and flatten him along with it and it was far too large and travelling too fast to avoid.

Fortunately, he had other means of defending himself.

"Shinra Tensei(Heavenly Subjugation of the Omnipresent God)!"

The powerful opposing gravitational force hit the rock and negated its momentum while simultaneously crushing it into harmless smaller rocks.

The two combatants now gazed at each other and Madara raised an eyebrow when he saw that his opponent was hovering in the air just like him. That would at least explain how he had even managed to throw the giant rock while in mid air.

"So you've learned to fly as well Uzumaki?"

"What a...stupid question..., of course I did. It's far too useful a technique...not to learn." Naruto said in between pants, still feeling strained from the effort of what he'd done, though his energy was returning rapidly. He'd closed the gates already and deactivated the strength seal...there was honestly no need for either just yet.

He must have somehow learned it through the Nanabi's chakra, that Bijuu is capable of flight. Madara reasoned to himself. The Nanabi flew through the use of wings, but it was not too far farfetched to believe that Naruto had found a way to fly without forming chakra wings. Either way, that meant that the battle could be fought anywhere, be it on land, water or in the air.

Naruto wasn't really interested in aerial combat though and descended back to the ground. The Valley of the End was starting to look pretty beaten up at this point, what with meteors being thrown around and all.

The spikes of shock and fear he'd just felt coming from several directions could only mean that the approaching shinobi had seen the meteor.

They would arrive soon.

Madara also landed on the ground and once more crossed his arms, simply staring at Naruto impassively.

"Well, are you gonna do something or not?" Naruto asked with a grin. For all that this was the most important battle of his life, he was actually having fun.

"You've been a rather impressive opponent so far Uzumaki, but this is where it ends for you." Madara stated and focused his Rinnegan on the blond.

"Rinbo: Hengoku (Wheel Grave: Border Jail)!"

Naruto and Xanna had only a moment to be confused by the odd technique before a massive force suddenly slammed into Naruto's face and broke his nose, sending him flying until he crashed through the ground and into the nearby lake.

"The fuck was that?!" He asked as soon as he got himself out of the water, his nose already healed.

His answer was another powerful impact from the side that once again sent him flying.

That felt kind of like a fist hitting me in the jaw. Naruto thought just before he felt himself being kicked in the back.

There is something hidden from our sight here. Not chakra though. Xanna said, straining her senses to figure out what this could be.

It has no life either and I can't feel any kind of presence at all that belongs to the natural world.

Naruto took another few of the powerful hits while they tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

"It is useless Uzumaki, you did well so far but you have no defense against this technique." Madara declared confidently, having not even moved from his previous position the entire time.

"we'll see about th-GNH."

Naruto extracted himself from the hole in the side of a small cliff and shook his head. It was a dangerous technique to be sure, but Madara didn't seem to understand that it was also useless. No matter how many hits he took, he'd just heal and with Xanna supplying an infinite amount of chakra, there was no danger of running out of juice.

I think I know what's going on. Xanna said while Naruto stayed in a wary, guarded stance. I can sense a shadow of Madara's malice every time you take a hit. He is somehow projecting duplicates of his shadow into the place between the Pure and Impure worlds. They can see us, but we can't see them.

Fuck, I was really hoping to avoid using that particular technique. Naruto said back with a scowl, knowing that he had only one thing in his arsenal to counter something like that and it was definitely not the kind of thing that he was thrilled about using.

"Well congratulations you twat, now you've forced me to go this far." Naruto said with an irritated scowl, making Madara crease his eyebrows in confusion.

Could he have figured it out? Madara wondered. The possibility was remote, but he wasn't willing to discount it.

Naruto meanwhile stabbed his claws into his palms hard enough that he started bleeding on the ground rapidly. What really caught Madara's attention though, was the fact that the blood was almost black instead of the usual red.

"Gedō: Makyō (Outer Path: The Haunt of Wicked Men)."

Madara's eyes went wide with shock when a darkness that only he could see began spreading outwards from the pool dark blood on the ground. Soon shapes began taking form, though they writhed and shifted as if unable to decide what they wanted to look like. It was easy for him to feel the utter malice and hunger radiating from them.

Without warning, they suddenly launched themselves at his shadows and clung to them. Madara instantly knew that he could not allow any of his shadows to be dragged back towards the blood pool at Naruto's feet. His shadows may be individually stronger than the spirits that the blond had summoned, but they were great in number, so he wasted no time in calling his shadows back.

When they felt that Madara's shadows were gone, Naruto and Xanna worked together to drag the things they'd summoned back where they belonged, though they resisted viciously.

"So you've sealed the Gedō Mazō inside yourself and through it called forth a host of damned souls to counter my technique?" Madara asked rhetorically with an arched eyebrow. "How wonderfully mad of you, I did not expect this in the least, so dangerously risky it is."

"Yeah well, that technique was really annoying and they don't call it the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path for nothing." Naruto replied with a grin, hiding just how disgusted it made him feel to use that technique. It felt like he'd dunked his soul into raw sewage.

He and Xanna had discovered the ability to access the Outer Path during the two weeks they'd spent in meditation in order to get used to the fact that she now had a physical body and having it sealed into Naruto. While they couldn't reach into the pure world to resurrect anyone(not without the Rinnegan at least), they could reach into what was basically hell.

Madara had by now returned to a more ready position instead of the 'Troll Pose no Jutsu' and had taken to staring at Naruto as if he could figure something out by doing that.

Simultaneously, both of them clapped their hands together and unleashed the same technique.

"Mokuton Hijutsu: Jukai Kōtan(Wood Release Secret Technique: Nativity of a World of Trees)!"

Despite the fact that there was a war going on between the major and minor powers of the Elemental Nations, there were some things that took priority.

Seeing two men engaged in a vicious battle while gigantic tree roots scythed through the air like the tentacles of some massive parasite was one of these things. The fact that both were infamous enough to be easily recognizable and that neither was supposed to have the legendary Mokuton(yet both apparently did) certainly helped.

By the time the remaining four Kage and their elite troops plus Jiraiya all got to the same spot, The battle had escalated to the point where random explosions from Ninjutsu were a fairly common sight.

By mutual unspoken agreement, the war was put on hold due to...extenuating circumstances. Another mutual unspoken agreement was to leave the bulk of their forces well out of the way, both to avoid having them become collateral damage and to prevent any fighting between them.

"What the hell is going on?!" A bellowed over the thundering sound of cracking wood when Naruto punched one of the larger roots into oblivion.

Jiraiya very quickly summarized the situation, along with the underlying reasons for the conflict between Madara and Naruto.

"Why weren't we told of this? Both of them are threats to the entire world! A Kage summit should have been called." Onoki demanded.

"Tsunade kept it quiet at Naruto's request. He convinced her that fighting Madara openly would only result in a lot of pointless death. She agreed with him that with the power of the Rinnegan, there was no point in confronting him with force, so she trusted that Naruto would find a way to defeat him." Jiraiya explained.

"No doubt just a front so that Uzumaki could act unhindered." Onoki spat cynically.

"Jiraiya-sama, do you have any suggestions for what we should do now?" Mei asked diplomatically.

Jiraiya only had a brief perverted thought pass through his head, despite the fact that usually he would have been drooling at the sight of such a sexy woman. All the crap that had happened ever since Naruto's defection had a negative impact on his mood and he could barely muster the enthusiasm to perv on a woman these days.

His answer was forestalled by a very loud sizzling sound that was the result of Naruto spitting a torrent of highly corrosive acid all over the trees that Madara had summoned, causing them to melt rapidly.

"For now, I think it would be best if we didn't get in between them. They're probably aware of us already and I don't think we'd live long if we tried to join that battle." Jiraiya said grimly.

Madara grimaced as the Kusanagi slammed down onto his shoulder plate, opening a rent in the armor, though thankfully not cutting deep enough to injure him. The armor was just as much a masterpiece as his gunbai, able to channel chakra to make it tougher and even having a limited self repair ability, but it couldn't stand up to the force that Naruto was putting behind his blows.

He quickly disengaged and blew his opponent away with the gunbai, seeing that the blond was scowling in irritation at the fact that his hit had been blocked. If not for the armor, that hit would have taken his arm off and disadvantaged him severely until he could use the Rinnegan and the Hachibi's chakra to grow a new one.

He had already lost his kama and now only had the gunbai to defend himself with, but that was fine. The kama wasn't up to scratch for this battle...but he would definitely be taking that sword once Uzumaki was defeated.

It was incredibly inconvenient that the black chakra rods which he could create through the Outer Path were of no use in this battle...Naruto could create them as well, making them no more useful than sharp metal poles. If he could have used them to disrupt the blond's chakra, then the battle would have been long since over, but it just wasn't that easy. Anyone that could summon the chakra rods was also able to prevent their chakra from being disrupted.

"That armor of yours is really pissing me off." Naruto said with a scowl that turned into a grin as he curled one hand into a claw shape and pointed it towards Madara.

"Jiton: Jiki Sekai (Magnet Release: Magnetic World)!"

Immediately, Madara felt the armor plates attached to his clothes being pulled away from him. Being unable to come up with any counter, he simply removed as much of it as he could by himself. Though the top half of his undershirt was torn off along with the armor, but at least he had managed to save his pants.

It would have been rather embarrassing to fight in his underwear.

"There, now that's better. This way I can cut open your fish white belly." Naruto, grinning at the prospect.

Madara glared at Naruto from where he was standing, the many tree roots that each of them had been controlling going still. This battle was being far more difficult than he had anticipated. Naruto was matching him move for move and didn't seem to have any trouble doing it. What he lacked in precision he made up for with brute force and durability. No injury that he sustained would stay on him for more than a few seconds before it healed.

Granted, Madara was also healing by siphoning off the Hachibi's chakra, which put them at a stalemate. If he was perfectly honest with himself, Madara was having the time of his life with this battle, but they'd been fighting for nearly two hours already and the only thing either one of them had to show for it was the destruction of the environment.

"You've certainly proved that you know how to dance Naruto, but how will you deal with more than one opponent?" The Uchiha spoke, this time using Naruto's name as his respect for the blond had risen massively during this battle. He'd at first thought the blond a coward for hiding from him for so long, but that impression had been overridden during the course of their battle.

Naruto raised an eyebrow in an incredulous expression as twenty wood clones rose from the ground around him and each of them activated Susanoo. He was basically surrounded by clones using that bullshit technique.

"Seriously? I gotta say that I'm disappointed in you. This tactic of throwing clones at me is pretty juvenile."

Lets show this fool exactly how outclassed he is. Xanna purred eagerly.

Naruto didn't reply and instead reached out with his arms and hooked his claws into the air. He'd really wanted to use this one ever since he'd learned how to do it, but had lacked the excuse until now.

Madara narrowed his eyes when he saw his opponent's chakra permeate everything around him and somehow pull on the world in such a way that he could almost see it twisting. The skies darkened, the earth shook and the wind started howling.

"Tenpenchii(Natural Disaster Befalling Heaven and Earth)!"

Everything seemed to come to a sudden climax as natural lightning began striking everything, massive tornadoes formed and began to ripping apart all they touched and earthquakes ruptured the earth.

Naruto stopped basically ripping the world a new asshole just before a massive explosion would have happened, but it was all good. Madara's wood clones had been annihilated , while the original had taken to the air and used a shield of gravity to protect himself.

"That was something that only the Ten Tails should have been capable of. How can you possibly use that technique?" Madara questioned, his bland tone hiding his shock. He'd read about the Tenpenchii on the stone tablet which had put him on this course in the first place and it had clearly stated that the Juubi was the only one capable of doing that. Even the Sage of Six Paths hadn't been able to do that.

"I'm glad you asked Madara." Naruto grinned at him. "Fuck you, that's how."

The technique was actually remarkably simple in execution, merely impossible in practice...for most people. All you needed was an incredibly powerful life force, massive chakra reserves, a connection to nature and the skill to use it, or in other words...you needed to be a sage with a godlike life force. After that, all that you needed was to use that life force to pull on the world until it rebelled against you with a series of natural disasters. He'd done a miniature version of it against Nagato completely by accident, which was what had led to discovering the ability to do the real thing once he'd schmoozed the life out of the Gedō Mazō.

Even now that he'd stopped, the skies remained dark with the occasional lightning bolt. It had also started raining and a stiff wind had picked up.

Naruto and Xanna both thought that it added a really appropriate atmosphere to the battle.

Madara's eyebrow twitched briefly in irritation before he brought it back under control. The blond was being incredibly annoying and it was starting to get to him.

Meanwhile, the observing Kage had just about picked their jaws off the ground after seeing the Tenpenchii.

"I see that Tsunade left out quite a lot in Uzumaki's bingo book entry." Onoki said scathingly.

"No, when it was released that bingo book entry was pretty accurate." Jiraiya said dazedly, still stunned at what he'd seen his godson do. "I have no idea how he became this powerful in such a short time.

"I do." Gaara's gravely voice broke in, making everyone look at him. "He's demonstrated the powers of several Bijuu already, including the Rokubi, Ichibi and Nibi. He must have all of them sealed inside himself."

"Impossible." Jiraiya refuted. "You can't have more than one Bijuu in the same container. It's been tried before and it always caused the death of the Jinchuuriki."

"But the Kyuubi is different isn't she?" Gaara said as a reminder.

"You're right...the Kyuubi if fully sentient and by far the strongest of the Bijuu and we've seen that Naruto is capable of sealing and unsealing her inside him at will. He may have found a way to have her absorb the chakra of the other Bijuu." The toad Sannin said in realization.

"Are you telling me that he's the one that killed my brother?!" A demanded with a shout, looking ready to charge in and attack.

"No Raikage-sama." C said grimly, seeing that he needed to speak up now. "I'm sensing the Hachibi's chakra inside Madara, not Uzumaki."

A wasn't any less pissed, he'd merely shifted targets.

"Wait Raikage-dono, attacking now would be unwise. Let them exhaust each other, we can attack when one of them falls, though it will be a shame to kill two such strong and handsome men." Mei said reasonably, causing everyone to sweatdrop at the last part of her sentence.

A looked even more pissed, but settled down for the moment.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just use my Dust Release to vaporize them both?" Onoki snarked.

"Because it wouldn't work." Jiraiya said flatly. "You've seen Madara absorbing a lot of the Ninjutsu that had no physical components such as fire and wind so he'd just absorb your Dust Release. As for Naruto...well, he knows the Hiraishin, so he could just teleport out. If we tried to attack them now, it wouldn't do anything except draw their attention to us."

Jiraiya was still faintly hoping that Naruto would somehow be able to come out of this alive and well, maybe even as a hero but he honestly couldn't do anything other than wait.

Naruto and Madara were once more engaged in a furious Taijutsu battle, though this time it was in mid air.

"Why do you struggle so hard to stay awake in this hellish world? Do you even know how the power of chakra came into the possession of humans?" Madara demanded while using all four of his regular limbs, along with two extra arms courtesy of the Asura Path to fight against Naruto.

"Sure I do, Otsutsuki Kaguya got the munchies for some divine fruit while she was pregnant and her son Hagoromo decided to spread it around after sealing away the Juubi. Personally I think he was kind of a dumbass for thinking that humans would use that power for anything other than war." Naruto responded, retaliating against Madara's six limbed assault as best he could, but he was taking a lot of hits. Not that it really mattered since he was healing almost as fast as he was being damaged.

Madara was almost certain that Naruto's strange rendition of events was just a joke and he knew the true story, probably due to the Kyuubi telling it to him.

"If you know that, then why do you keep fighting? The shinobi world is a shameful joke of what should have been. Chakra should have been a gift that would allow people to understand each other but instead, it was weaponized. It would be better if everyone slept peacefully in the Infinite Dream."

"Yeah well, too bad for you that I don't really care about that. In the end, I'm a self centered bastard that only cares about staying with my wife forever and I need chakra for that."

"But you would have her forever if you just stopped fighting and helped me finish the Moon's Eye Plan!"

"That would be like settling for porn when I could have the real deal, who the fuck would do that!?"

Madara growled in irritation at the sheer stubbornness of the blond and finally managed to break through his guard enough to slam his palm on Naruto's chest and used the Human Path to make a grab for his soul. All the accumulated damage that Naruto had sustained had built up enough that he was just that bit too slow to stop Madara.

As soon as Madara tried to grab onto Naruto's soul however, he felt something else alongside it. A powerful and ancient spirit was coiled around the blond's soul and it prevented him from pulling it out of his body. The Human Path had no power over demons.

"His soul is mine!" A female voice snarled furiously and Madara had only a moment to register that Naruto suddenly had the same burning red eyes that he remembered the Kyuubi having before his nose was smashed with a headbutt.

"That was a pretty slick move you tried Madara, pulling out my soul. It might have actually worked if the circumstances were different." Naruto said, feeling quite amused at the way his wife had broken Madara's nose, even if it did heal rapidly.

"Are you insane? Allowing a demon direct access to your soul like that?" Madara asked incredulously, unable to mask his shock.

"She's my wife and I trust her." Naruto said simply, his face developing a grin when he felt Xanna's happiness at the proclamation. Aw yes, someone was getting lucky after this fight and his name was Uzumaki Naruto.

Focus husband, if you take any hits because weren't paying attention you won't be 'getting lucky' for a month.

Madara was slightly confused at the sudden intensely focused stare from Naruto, but shrugged it off.

Seeing as nothing seemed to be working aside from brute force, Madara unleashed one of his favorite techniques.

Naruto whistled as the towering blue form of Madara's final Susanoo appeared, it's massive size almost reaching the dark skies above. He'd been wondering when Madara was going to use that one.

"This Susanoo is destruction incarnate. If you cannot be beaten through skill, then you will be beaten through brute force." Madara intoned ominously.

"Yeah, how about no." Naruto scoffed and prepared his counter-technique. Hashirama's memories certainly were proving useful in this fight. Except for a few surprises, such as that Limbo technique, Madara was being rather predictable.

Alright, lets do this. Just like we practiced, but on a much bigger scale.

I am ready.

Naruto jumped away to give himself more room as well as dodge the swipe of Susanoo's massive sword. As soon as he had some room and time, he started spewing a vast torrent of lava from his mouth, which Xanna had molded using the chakra formerly belonging to the Yonbi, and then stabbing his chains into it.

"Yōton: Onmyōton: Senpō: Yōgan Genso (Lava Release: Yin-Yang Release: Sage Art: Lava Elemental)!"

Lava to give it substance, Yin-Yang Release to give it form and will and an strong infusion of his own life force to allow him to manipulate it like a puppet despite the fact that lava would otherwise just collapse into a puddle.

The mass of lava started taking humanoid shape, until it was nearly as huge as Madara's Susanoo and formed a sword of lava.

If it wasn't for Xanna taking care of half of this technique, he'd never be able to pull it off. Then again, a lot of what he'd been doing in this fight was actually a collaboration effort, though both he and Xanna were guessing that Madara probably hadn't figured out that he was basically fighting against two people.

"Have fun with that guy Madara, I'll be over here, watching the spectacle and scratching my balls." Well not really, since he actually needed to keep his chains stabbed into his creation and move it with his will while Xanna heated the chains to prevent the damn thing from cooling down and hardening. He just said it to piss the Uchiha off...the battle was coming to a head and he knew it, but he couldn't let it end yet. Madara still hadn't made the fatal blunder that would end the battle.

Madara grit his teeth in frustration at the insane and impossible techniques that the blond was pulling off to counter him at every turn. They'd never fought before and yet Naruto seemed to know almost exactly what he needed to counter him. That wasn't even mentioning the fact that some of the techniques he'd used so far shouldn't be possible, such as this lava elemental. Even with the Rinnegan, Madara didn't think he'd be able to pull something like that off.

Having no choice but to fight the lava monstrosity, Madara moved his Susanoo to engage it.

"This is insane." Kankuro muttered to himself in shock, forgetting that he was technically supposed to remain quiet while he was acting as the Kazekage's bodyguard.

Not that anyone was in any state to call him on it, as they stared with hanging jaws at the battle between Madara's Susanoo and Naruto's Lava Elemental. The two chakra creations were slamming their swords at each other hard enough to send blazing hot winds in every direction, causing miniature tornadoes as it encountered the colder wind generated by Naruto's earlier Tenpenchii.

The ground was already looking like a scorched hellscape as the lava elemental's massive feet set everything it touched ablaze.

Eventually, Madara's Susanoo won the battle, though it was only because of superior speed. The Susanoo, being a phantasmal warrior, had no mass and was therefore a good deal faster, which proved the crucial factor that allowed Madara to cut the lava elemental in half vertically.

Not that it helped him overmuch, since Naruto hurled a large, lava infused Rasengan into the back of his creation, causing it to explode all over Madara's Susanoo.

Madara held back a hiss of pain as his blistered skin healed. The remains of the lava elemental had been thrown over his Susanoo and even though it hadn't physically touched him, it's heat had been enough to make his skin burn and singe what remained of his clothing.

"What's wrong Madara? Is this all that the mighty Second Six Paths can muster?" Naruto's mocking voice came from above him, looking down on his enemy with dark amusement.

The blond was standing on a rock in the middle of a steaming pit of cooling lava, which he had apparently used a water technique on. He was now just as topless as Madara, his coat having taken too much damage to keep itself together and his right pant leg was also ripped while the left was sporting enough holes to indicate that it would soon fall apart. His Kusanagi was nowhere to be found, as Madara had managed to blast it away with the Deva Path earlier in the fight, which just about made things even, since Naruto had ripped the gunbai out of his hands with brute force and hurled it away just before that.

In spite of the sad state of his clothing, Naruto looked perfectly fine except for several streaks of dried blood and a lot of dirt smudges. His hair had long since come unbound and was whipping wildly in the strong winds generated by the conflicting temperatures that their battle had caused.

The Valley of the End had long since been blasted into oblivion and fires now flickered everywhere, creating an ominous atmosphere because of the dark storm clouds that blocked out the sky.

How can he have this much power? Madara asked himself in frustration.

Despite having the Rinnegan, Naruto was still clearly able to muster more raw power and even worse, aside from a rare few instances, he'd avoided using any techniques that could be easily absorbed. Had it not been for the Hachibi's chakra to supplement his own, he would be critically low by now, despite his naturally massive reserves.

His Doujutsu was honestly the only thing keeping him in the fight, without it, exhaustion would have long since left him unable to measure up. Fortunately for him, he did have a Doujutsu and the chakra he was constantly draining from the Hachibi worked well in restoring him, leaving only some physical exhaustion that he could ignore.

Still, it didn't help him actually win, it only kept him in the fight. The real problem, Madara knew, was Naruto's Senjutsu. It made his techniques so incredibly powerful, the same as it had done for Hashirama. That, along with the fact that he was the Jinchuuriki for the combined power of eight Bijuu, was just making him too much to handle even with the Rinnegan and the Hachibi. He didn't even know how the hell the blond was staying in Sage Mode all the time, since it was supposed to require stillness in order to gather natural energy from what he could recall.

What he needed was to achieve Sage Mode as well. He technically knew how to do it, having observed Hashirama entering it more than once, but he had never done it before, as he hadn't wanted to risk accidentally killing himself, nor had he ever before so desperately needed the power boost.

Knowing that he needed it now, he jumped away from his opponent and prepared to attempt achieving Sage Mode. He went still in exactly the same way as he had used his Sharingan to copy Hashirama doing and sensed for the natural energy around him. To his dismay, he found it to be unnaturally thin. Seeking deeper, he drew on the faint power he could sense and felt relieved when he was able to draw on it.

In his inexperience with Senjutsu, it took him much longer than he would have wished and he nearly turned himself into a tree when he drew too much, but was fortunately able to save himself by flooding his coils with chakra absorbed from the Hachibi to counteract it.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, but didn't try to follow as Madara jumped away and took a position of focus with his hands clapped together. His face showed shock though, when he felt Madara pulling the life out of the ground.

It was slow and weak, not even close to the kind of pull that Naruto himself could exert, but it was worrying nonetheless that Madara had apparently figured out how to do it. Naruto was relieved to note that at least the Uchiha didn't seem aware of what he'd done, showing that it was likely an accident that had resulted from the fact that Naruto had already drained all of the ambient natural energy from this place months ago. He'd actually learned to sort of reverse the process by which he'd first absorbed natural energy and converted it into life force. Nowadays, if he wanted to stay in Sage Mode, he simply converted his life force into natural energy and bypassed the need to draw it from nature. He'd gotten so good at it that he could do it even while in motion as long as he wasn't using his chakra for anything at the time.

If all went well, then Madara would never even realize what he'd just done. The world seriously didn't need an Uchiha with the ability to suck the life out of everything.

Naruto waited patiently for his Uchiha opponent to enter Sage Mode, knowing that the man's self control was likely going to snap in sheer frustration if he was pushed much further, which was exactly what the point had been of dragging this fight out.

After all, it wasn't as if Madara would have been able to keep up with him if he opened the eight gates, nor would it have been fatal to him, as he could easily draw on the life force of the Gedō Mazō inside him, which was now Xanna's physical body, to keep it from being particularly damaging.

Madara had no idea why Naruto had given him so much time to enter Sage Mode, but he would make him regret it. He now sported the exact same sage markings as Hashirama and his Rinnegan had turned into twin pools of rippled, molten gold.

"Lets see how you deal with Hashirama's ultimate technique Naruto!" Madara called out loudly to his opponent.

"Oh, you mean this one?" Naruto called back and readied himself to use the same technique that he figured Madara was going for.

"Senpō: Mokuton: Shin Sūsenju(Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands)!"

Two identical wood constructs rose, towering far higher than even the previous Susanoo and lava elemental had.

Madara was infuriated to note that Naruto's was about twenty percent bigger than his.

"ARE WE HAVING FUN YET MADARA?" Naruto yelled from the top of the titanic wood construct he had created.

"I'VE BEEN HAVING FUN SINCE WE STARTED NARUTO!" Madara yelled back from his own, slightly less titanic wood construct.

The four differing shinobi armies had long since decided to retreat to a safer distance, but they could still clearly see the incomprehensibly huge wood statues as they rushed at each other.

The Kage and their entourages, which Gaara was at this point using his sand to levitate, were close enough to hear the two monstrously powerful shinobi roaring their battlecries from atop their respective statues as they charged at each other.

None of them could really think of anything to say at this point, far too stunned at how far the battle had escalated, so they just watched in numb silence.

The two wood statues smashed into each other with an echoing crash as the countless hands collided against each other but in the end only succeeded in a feat of mutual destruction. At the same time, techniques of all elements spewed forth from the smaller heads surrounding the main head of the statue. Though Naruto wasn't able to use any lightning release techniques, as none of the Bijuu Xanna had absorbed had that particular affinity, nor had he ever trained it. It was only a small matter though.

All in all, it didn't take more than twenty seconds or so before both statues were in ruin and everything was obscured by a thick curtain of sawdust and regular dust kicked up by the collision.

A couple of minutes later, once the dust had settled somewhat, they could only see Naruto hovering in the air and looking around as if searching for something. All in all it appeared as if Madara had finally been defeated.

A was just about to suggest that they confront Naruto when Madara appeared right in front of the blond in a burst of speed, his hands linked together into a strange mechanical cannon. Naruto had only a moment to look surprised before a bright beam of chakra was fired from the cannon right in his face and blasted his head off.

Everyone was stunned at the sudden turnaround and fully prepared to charge at the Uchiha when C spoke up. "Wait! I can still sense Uzumaki's chakra!"

Madara breathed heavily as he stared at the headless body of his enemy, unable to believe that he'd actually won. He'd hidden on the ground and suppressed his chakra, waiting for the opportunity to strike, just as Hashirama had done to him during their battle so long ago.

Except that he used the Asura Path chakra cannon to the face rather than a sword to the back.

His sense of victory was shattered when Naruto's headless body didn't fall to the ground, but instead rapidly regenerated a new head and even grew new hair.

"BAHAHAHAHA! The look on your face! Did you actually think you won?!" Naruto asked, laughing hysterically at the stupidly stunned look that Madara was sporting.

"HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!" Madara screamed, his imperturbable calm snapping due to all the frustration he'd built up over the course of this battle.

"My wife took over the Gedō Mazō and that statue is immortal. With Xanna having a tight grip on my soul, keeping it anchored to herself and with her being sealed in me, I'm immortal too. As long as my body isn't damaged to the point where she can't regenerate it fast enough to prevent herself from being expelled from the seal, I will never die." Naruto explained with an amused grin at Madara's thunderous expression.

He decided to twist the knife just a bit further. "Unless you suddenly managed to blast me to pieces, I'm just going to keep beating you down until I get bored and I know that you don't have anything that could do me that much damage, so you're just going to have to accept the fact that you're too weak to win."

Madara growled furiously at how he'd been played. There was absolutely zero chance of victory for as long as the Bijuu was keeping the blond's soul bound to her. He might as well have been throwing fire Ninjutsu at a forest fire for all the effect all this fighting had done. Naruto was still as fresh as ever thanks to the fact that he was being willingly supplied with infinite chakra and restorative life energy. It was actually very similar to what he'd used to keep himself alive when he'd been an old man, but on completely different scale.

Naruto was wrong however, he did have something that could damage the blond's body enough to expel the Gedō Mazō and kill him. Apparently the blond had never learned that he'd sealed the Hachibi into himself and if he could hit him with a Bijuudama, then he would definitely die.

Naruto had still been chuckling and completely dismissing Madara as a threat when the Uchiha suddenly slammed him towards the ground with a powerful kick and then instantly transformed into the Hachibi, charging up a Bijuudama almost before the transformation was complete.

He relished the look of fear on the blond's face as he fired the Tailed Beast Bomb at him, taking it as confirmation that his thoughts were correct. He watched with glee as the destructive black ball approached the ground, knowing that Naruto wasn't fast enough to get away from it.

In his frustration, he momentarily forgot about the fact that Naruto had never explained anything during the course of the battle and yet he had freely volunteered the secret of his immortality.

"You FOOL!" Naruto's powerfully chakra enhanced voice suddenly roared triumphantly from the side, with thick, Outer Path chains piercing through the chakra formed body of the Hachibi right after.

Madara could feel the Bijuu's chakra being pulled away from him and he tried to prevent it, but it was no use, the pull exerted by Naruto and Xanna was much more powerful and the Hachibi was quickly ripped out of him and into Naruto's seal, where it was devoured by Xanna.

As Madara fell to the ground with his chakra network reeling from the forced extraction, he dazedly tried to figure out what had happened. It only took him a few moments to remember that Naruto knew how to teleport with the Hiraishin, but hadn't used it even once during the entire battle.

He remembered being a bit confused about that at first, but as the battle dragged on without even a single use, he'd cautiously assumed that Naruto didn't have enough skill with the technique to use it in combat, which was what Zetsu had said as well. Clearly though, Naruto had mastered the technique sufficiently to use it in combat...he'd just been keeping it as an ace in the hole for the exact trap that had just cost him the Hachibi and with it the battle, which had gone on for so long that Madara had more or less forgotten about the Hiraishin.

He must have been planting markers over the battlefield the whole time, just waiting for me screw up and summon enough of the Hachibi's chakra for him to latch on to, which meant that he knew I'd sealed it into myself. Madara thought to himself.

He recalled what the blond had said to him when they'd last seen each other, when he'd killed the man's loved ones.

You should have stayed dead Madara. The next time you see me, I will be a god and death won't be enough to save you from me anymore.

It would seem that those words had come true.

Naruto stood some distance away, now robed in a high collared, white haori decorated with magatama markings, which he knew was actually made completely of chakra. In his left hand he held a black shakujo, formed of the malleable chakra of the Juubi and over his right shoulder the hilt of his sword was once again visible, apparently having retrieved it while Madara hadn't been looking. His hair was now a shining white and there were horns growing from the top of his forehead. Over his shoulders hovered the Truth-Seeking Balls, all of which were the markings of a perfectly controlled Jinchuuriki of the Shinju.

The only thing missing was a pair of Rinnegan eyes, without which the power of the Juubi should have torn apart any seal it was placed in, no matter how powerful. Though Madara figured it wasn't likely to happen if he understood properly that she who was once the Kyuubi had replaced the original Juubi and that Naruto had somehow gotten her to marry him.

Madara slowly picked himself up from the ground, the Rinnegan having already mostly repaired his chakra network, and prepared to face the end. He knew that Rinnegan or not, there was no hope of victory now, though it would appear that there had never been any in the first place. Still, he would not die like a coward, no matter how hopeless it was.

Ninjutsu and Genjutsu would be utterly useless and the only Taijutsu based technique that Madara could think of that might be of use would be the Eight Gates...which he'd never learned as he'd considered it useless due to the damage suffered by anyone using it. The only thing that might work would be Senjutsu...though considering the fact that Naruto was far more experienced in its use, it was unlikely.

Still, it was better than doing nothing and he was still in Sage Mode.

With that in mind, Madara called forth a swarm of Senjutsu charged roots with the Mokuton and sent them to attack Naruto.

Naruto reacted only by raising his empty right hand and forming a Rasengan. He easily added wind to it and created several seals on it.

"Fuuton Hijutsu: Senpō: Rasen Tatsumaki(Wind Release Secret Technique: Sage Art: Spiraling Tornado)."

Naruto didn't personally consider the basic Rasengan to be a very useful technique, seeing as he could punch hard enough to kill most people in one blow. It was however, an excellent base for forming extremely powerful elemental techniques.

When he'd first attempted to add wind to the Rasengan, he'd gotten the Rasenshuriken out of it. A powerful technique to be sure, but Naruto hadn't liked its one-shot nature. To this end he had enhanced it with certain seals until he'd gotten the Rasen Tatsumaki.

The tornado was completely self contained and allowed not even a single wind gust or blade to escape, causing it to look like a pure white twister of wind so thick you couldn't even see through it. The Rasengan hidden inside it kept powering the whole thing and a space-time seal imprinted on it allowed him to both remote control it and continue supplying it with chakra to prevent dispersal without having to actually be anywhere close to it.

Madara watched with a blank face as the tornado that Naruto had summoned went through his summoned tree roots as if they weren't even there. Not even the sawdust escaped from the tornado, instead becoming captured inside and even then only visible as tiny particles that just barely colored the otherwise white wind.

The technique was even more impressive because Naruto could apparently freely control it, which he did to great effect as it completely eradicated his attack and then took up a position some distance away.

Madara was a bit confused by that, as he had expected Naruto to send the tornado at him and he'd been prepared to absorb it with the Preta Path. His confusion reached new heights when he launched a blast of blue fire at it.

Just before it collided with the tornado, Madara recalled why it was a bad idea to use fire techniques in an area with a lot of sawdust in the air.

Dust explosion.

Thanks to the seals that were part of the technique, the dust explosion was a bit more self contained than it would have been otherwise, but it was still incredibly powerful.

Madara groaned in pain as his body informed him that it was quite badly burned, but not dead yet. Opening his eyes, he saw that Naruto was already standing over him and reaching to place one of his clawed hands on his chest.

"Why didn't you just kill me?" The Uchiha asked, doing his best to hide just how much pain he was in. If that explosion had happened any closer to him, he would already be dead. He had some healing ability even without the Hachibi, but not even close to enough to make him combat worthy within any reasonable time span.

"We still need the divinity held in your eyes, the divinity stolen from the original Shinju by Otsutsuki Kaguya when she ate its fruit despite being specifically told it was forbidden. The divinity used by Otsutsuki Hagoromo to defeat the Juubi and spread the power of chakra to those who had no right to that power. You thought yourself to be the successor to the Sage of Six Paths and now you will die in returning the birthright he stole."

Upon saying that, Naruto placed his hand on Madara's chest and began drawing out the man's life force, while Xanna pulled away his chakra.

When they were done a few seconds later, Madara was a shriveled looking old man whose eyes looked as if they'd evaporated out of his skull. He was still alive though.

How do you feel? Naruto asked his wife while she finished absorbing the Rinnegan's power.

Like a goddess. Hurry up and finish him so that I can get out of here. She demanded impatiently.

Naruto smiled at her words and gathered chakra into his right hand again, forming what he needed easily with Xanna's help.

A clear chakra crystal took form, exactly the same type as the one currently hanging around his neck, except for the fact that it didn't have any Mokuton chakra in it to give it a greenish tinge.

"You know Madara, after you killed my girls I thought long and hard about what kind of terrible vengeance I could exact on you for that. I realized after a time that there was no need to get overly creative. I will imprison your soul inside this crystal, where you will suffer absolute sensory deprivation until the day I see fit to release you. You will see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing and touch nothing, but you will be perfectly aware of every mind-numbingly empty second of it. You stole the time that my girls still wanted to spend in this world, so in return I will steal your rest in the afterlife."

"I just wanted to...save the world...from its suffering." Madara managed to croak out in between his gasps for breath.

Naruto sighed and shook his head. "I can't believe someone as idiotic as you managed to cause so much trouble. But I suppose that without you, my wife would have remained a demon instead of ascending to divinity, so thanks for that."

Having no more to say, Xanna helped pull the defeated man's soul into the chakra crystal, turning it black. Once it was done, Naruto fitted it with a cord and hung it around his neck. It wouldn't do to lose it, since he did after all plan to release Madara one day...once he stopped being so pissed at the man.

Now get me out of here.

Please wait just a moment longer, there's only one more thing I'd like to do first. Naruto said pleadingly.

Impatient, but perfectly willing go along with it after everything that he'd done for her, Xanna assented. She was easily capable of breaking out of his body by force, but that would kill him.

Naruto sent a feeling of gratitude towards her and focused the vast chakra at his command into the earth, causing the devastated valley to quickly become green and lush with life again.

He could sense the Kage coming down to confront him, as well as the other shinobi gawking over the edges of the valley, but he ignored them. There was still more to do.

Extending his awareness towards the west, where the deserts of Wind Country were, he moved to do something about that. It was impossible to connect to the lifeless sand, but he could start working from the edges.

Had anyone been there to see it, they would have seen the outer edges of the vast desert become earth and then sprout grass, along with the occasional tree. The line of fertility moved inwards at ever greater pace once Naruto got the hang of it, until everything except a small patch of desert was transformed into a place that was more suitable for life.

"Naruto?" Jiraiya asked uncertainly, not knowing what to expect of his strangely transformed godson.

"Suuup?" Naruto drawled and directed a lazy look towards his godfather once he was done playing god in the distant desert.

"Are you...ok?" Jiraiya once more asked uncertainly.

"Hang on a second, I've got to get my wife out of this seal." Was the response before Naruto turned his attention back to the seal on his gut, though he quickly turned back to his godfather to say one more thing. "Don't panic."

Jiraiya was confused and tried to verbalize it. "Why would I..."

At this point Naruto had opened the seal and Xanna extracted herself as quickly as was safe, until the towering form of the Ten Tails loomed over the entire valley, its single, massive, rippled crimson eye that contained 3 tomoe on each ring spinning hypnotically.

Nobody really noticed, but Naruto lost his horns and his hair turned blond again, though he kept the white haori.

"...panic." Jiraiya finished with a very unmanly squeak and tried to backpedal so fast that he fell on his ass.

The other Kage were in a similar predicament as they stared at the gigantic form of the One Eyed God uncomprehendingly, ignoring the distant parts of their mind that were gibbering incoherently.

Nobody said a word. In fact, large portions of the observing shinobi forgot to breathe because they were hoping so hard that it wouldn't notice them.

The only person there who wasn't scared shitless(aside from Xanna at least) decided that the situation deserved a deadpan comment.

"That is one...BIG...chicken."

The newly Juubified Xanna moved in such a manner that everyone instinctively classified as 'affronted' and made a noise in her throat that sounded horribly loud.

Someone screamed something to the effect that it was going to fire a Bijuudama and passed out.

Xanna fired something alright, but it wasn't a Bijuudama. It was a gigantic wad of spit that landed directly on Naruto and completely drenched him.

"Ewww, fucking gross." Naruto shouted, wringing out his hair. "Seriously?! I make you a goddess and the first thing you do is hawk a giant loogie at me?!"

The Ten Tails shrunk slowly until Xanna was back in human form, though there were some differences. For one thing, her hair was now the same shining white that seemed to be the default for the Juubi and she had some fairly large horns growing from her head, which were rather reminiscent of Kaguya. She was also seven feet tall. Other than that, she was pretty much the same, with dusky skin and slitted crimson eyes.

"You should feel honored, not everyone gets spat on by a deity you know." She said haughtily.

"Yeah, I'm just thrilled and why are you suddenly seven feet tall anyway?" He grumbled and made a clone to blast him with water so that Xanna's 'divine spit' was washed off.

"I'm a goddess now, I need to be able to properly look down on everyone, which of course means that I need to be tall enough to do so." More haughtiness. "I'm not sure about the horns and the white hair though."

"Hey, those horns are sexy and the white hair contrasts beautifully with your skin and eyes." Naruto asserted. He could already imagine how hot it would be to grab those horns while getting a blowjob.

Xanna hummed consideringly at that, but any further banter on the subject was interrupted by the hesitant and polite voice of Mei Terumi.

"Ah, excuse me, but could someone explain what the situation is right now." She was still somewhat subdued after what they'd all just witnessed, but it would be best if everything was cleared up as soon as possible. She was also hoping that the ongoing war could be ended here and now, since all four Kage were present. Kirigakure was sick of war.

Two pairs of slitted eyes focused on her, both owned by individuals far more powerful than her, but she refused to cower, which gained her an approving nod.

"I suppose an explanation would indeed be in order, but listen well and do not interrupt me. I have little tolerance for idiotic questions."

Her voice carried easily to every corner of the valley, allowing every single shinobi that was present to hear it.

"In an age long past, the Old Gods were puzzled by the endless wars that the humans of this world engaged in, so they decided to conduct an experiment. They transported a large group of them to this continent, where the original Shinju once stood alone. They did this, because the humans of this world had long since lost all faith in deities and the Old Gods thought that perhaps being in the presence of the God Tree would allow them to realize that there were things greater than them out there, that their wars were meaningless."

"For a time, it worked and the Old Gods moved on, satisfied with what they'd done. However, eventually the humans got used to the presence of the God Tree as humans are wont to do and began warring anew, while simply treating the Shinju as an unimportant landmark."

"In time, Otsutsuki Kaguya-hime came to be and she was desperate to end the constant bloodshed. With this goal in mind, she approached the Shinju, intending to eat the Chakra Fruit which had grown from it, in spite of it being forbidden. A stone tablet had once stood there, warning away those who would seek to eat the fruit but Kaguya ignored it, feeling that she knew better. By eating the fruit she gained immense power, power enough to bring the humans of the time to heel with ease. Unknown to her at the time, she had been pregnant when she ate the fruit and the power that she had gained was further concentrated inside her son, Hagoromo."

"Eventually she gave birth and prepared to raise her son after she completely subdued the world. Years later, the Shinju finally became aware of the theft of its power and took the monstrous form of the Ten Tails, which you saw me assume earlier, in order to reclaim the power stolen from it."

Everyone blanched at the thought of having that gigantic monstrosity hunting them, unable to imagine the slightest chance of survival against such a thing.

"Hagoromo eventually defeated the Juubi by sealing it inside himself, after which he became known as the Sage of Six Paths. His mother was dead by then and he decided to spread the power of chakra to the people of the Elemental Nations, thinking that through it, he could link the spirits of all mankind together so that they would not need to fight wars."

"Hagoromo was an idealistic fool. Mere years after he died, people had begun to use chakra as a weapon of war, until eventually the various shinobi clans came into existence. Before this happened he split the Juubi into the nine Bijuu, of which I was once the Kyuubi. The shinobi continued to war for thousands of years and eventually refined their Fuinjutsu enough to be capable of sealing a Bijuu inside a human to create Jinchuuriki and predictably use them as weapons of war."

Everyone present heard the scorn in her voice and the Kage shifted uncomfortably, knowing that the last sentence was aimed mostly at them, being that they were the leaders of the various Hidden villages who had possessed jinchuuriki.

"The formation of the Hidden Villages did not really change this. This way of things was only broken when Uchiha Madara, having gained the power of the Rinnegan, sought to remake the Ten Tails and use its power to cast the world into an eternal illusion, believing that it was the only way to bring peace."

Muttering broke out among the masses of shinobi who hadn't been aware of that yet, but they quieted down once Xanna resumed speaking.

"As you saw, my former Jinchuuriki Uzumaki Naruto took exception to that plan and defeated Madara, making me the new Ten Tails, as well as restoring most of the power that had been stolen by Kaguya. In the meanwhile, you idiot humans were busy killing each other for whichever foolish reason and would have been robbed of your free will without ever realizing it if not for him." No need to confuse the sheep by telling them that Naruto was also her husband, they were barely keeping up as it was.

More uncomfortable shifting. They remembered quite well what kind of villainous reputation Uzumaki had gotten, but in the end it turned out that they owed their freedom to him.

"We are leaving this place and you are free to continue killing each other if you so desire. But before I go, I will be taking away your ability to use chakra."

Everyone developed stunned looks at the blunt declaration, unable to imagine a life without chakra, but Xanna continued speaking before anyone could say something.

"Know that I am only informing you of this as a courtesy due to the fact that Naruto is part of your species, I will accept no objections."

"We aren't going to just let you take our chakra!" Stubborn old Onoki snarked, seconded by A.

"SILENCE! This is not a debate!" The new goddess snarled, causing a bolt of lightning to rip through the sky and making them back off warily. "Attempt to contest me again and I will take your lives as well."

"May I ask a question Xanna-sama?" Gaara asked politely. He knew that combat would be useless. Nothing they had could possibly match the horned goddess, not to mention that Naruto would certainly also be against them as well.

"You may." Xanna said with a nod of her head, finding the young Kazekage to be refreshingly polite, all the more so considering the fact that Shukaku had been doing his level best to drive the young man insane a mere few years ago.

"Is there any way that we could convince you to allow us to keep our chakra?"

"Firstly, it is not your chakra, it is my chakra" She said sternly before continuing." and you have no argument to give which would convince me to allow you to keep it."

"My apologies, we have all simply become used to calling it our chakra." Gaara apologized. "Your words imply that there may have been the possibility of an argument that would convince you to allow us the continued use of your chakra?" He finished questioningly.

"Perhaps, had you used it for something other than senseless war, but that opportunity has long since been wasted. It has been millennia since humans have gained the power of chakra and all that has been done is to find ever more destructive ways of using it. Had mankind wished it, they could have used it to turn this continent into an unrivaled paradise, but it is clearly not in your nature to be satisfied without conflict."

Gaara was silenced by that. He had no argument against her logic, having experienced many cruelties in his short life for the exact reasons that she had stated.

"What about Medical Ninjutsu? It uses chakra to heal, if you take chakra away from us that will also be gone." Jiraiya said, remembering Tsunade and her desire to spread the knowledge of Medical Ninjutsu.

"And how many injuries has Medical Ninjutsu healed that were not caused by chakra in the first place?" She retorted scathingly, finding the argument rather stupid.

"Not many." Jiraiya answered weakly. He was tempted to mention Senjutsu, but on second thought realized that it had been used mainly for war as far as he knew, so he doubted that argument would fly.

"Will our people survive?" Gaara now asked simply, seeing that the sins of their ancestors weighed too heavily to sway her. He did not want to lose the ability to use chakra any more than anyone else did, but he would not throw away the lives of his people in order to rail at her defiantly.

Xanna inclined her head in confirmation.

"Kazekage-dono, you can't just be giving up like this!?" A demanded, having recovered some of his confidence after his earlier near death experience.

"I am Kazekage and as the Kazekage it is my duty to protect my people, not sacrifice their lives for the sake of my pride. If I must give up the use of chakra to protect them, then I will do so." Gaara stated firmly, gaining him an admiring glance from Mei. He may be young, but he clearly had the strongest conviction among those gathered here. Even she had balked at the idea of losing her chakra and had considered fighting...at least before she recalled the earlier battle between Naruto and Madara.

"I agree with Kazekage-dono, that is the duty of a Kage. Also, It would be foolish to commit to a battle that we cannot win Raikage-dono, unless you believe yourself capable of doing battle on the level that we saw earlier, or perhaps even greater?" Mei said, supporting Gaara's decision. She hadn't come out of a civil war only to get her people killed trying to battle a goddess.

A grimaced and grumbled, but couldn't claim that he would be capable of anything near that level. That final wind technique alone would have been enough to slaughter armies, and that was just Uzumaki.

With an unhappy sigh he jerked his head down in an angry nod and went silent.

Onoki was still looking mutinous but his granddaughter spoke up before he could say anything.

"Aw, come on gramps, don't be so stubborn. It won't do Iwa any good if we all get killed here."

"Be quiet Kurotsuchi! I'm the Tsuchikage and I get to make the decisions!"

Everyone stared at the short old man expectantly.

"I can't fly without chakra, do you have any idea what that's going to do to my poor back and hips?"

Xanna narrowed her eyes at the old man, starting to lose patience with his stalling.

Onoki felt the pressure that was pushing down on him start to become suffocating and he knew that he needed to make a decision right now.

"Oh fine!" he snarked and began to look rather sulky.

The various rank and file shinobi that had been observing from a greater distance heard everything and were reluctantly forced to agree. They were dismayed to hear that they would be losing their chakra, but there was nothing quite like watching two men throwing around techniques powerful enough to kill them all ten times over and then seeing the gigantic monstrosity that was the Juubi to put things in perspective. What were they going to do? Throw kunai at it?

Xanna nodded and spread her awareness through the earth in order to pull away their chakra gently enough that she did not kill them. It would knock them out though.

"Wait! Just one more question!" Jiraiya piped up, having just thought of something.

"Jiraiya, I swear if this is going to be one of your stupid perverted comments, I'm going to kill you myself." Naruto snapped at his godfather.

"No no, nothing of the sort." Jiraiya fended off. "I was just wondering what would happen to the summon clans."

"Oh, them." Xanna said blandly, having completely forgotten about those guys. "They will also lose their chakra but remain as they are. Future generations however, will be no more than regular animals, as they should have been. The summon clans are an aberration that came into existence through means unknown to me, but the chakra they use also belongs to me and will thus return to me."

Jiraiya nodded, not really surprised by that and not feeling particularly sympathetic either. The whole baby killing deal still left a sour taste in his mouth.

"By the way Gaara, I left a gift for you in Wind Country." Naruto said to the young Kazekage.

"A gift?" Gaara asked curiously.

Naruto was very much tempted to be mysterious about it, but then he wouldn't see the look on his face. "I used the Mokuton to turn the desert into fertile grasslands and forests."

Gaara gave an honest smile at that. "Thank you Naruto, that will make life in Wind Country much easier."

Naruto leaned towards the redhead and whispered into his ear. "You impressed the sexy Mizukage earlier, if you play your cards right you could totally tap that."

Gaara gave the blond a very deadpan look, not at all concerned with sex right now.

"Perhaps we should consider making an alliance after this." Mei murmured. "Adjusting to life without chakra will be difficult and it makes no sense to continue waging war against each other."

There was a general mutter of approval before Xanna cut in.

"I commend your effort even if it is likely to fall apart within a minimum of three generations, now if your are all quite done with your chattering...?"

Everyone sweatdropped at her pessimism over their ability to create a stable peace but nodded that they were ready.

"You will fall unconscious just before it is complete and you will stay unconscious for a few hours. When you awaken your ability to use chakra will be gone and you may experience symptoms such as lethargy, weakness and depression if you were heavily reliant on it." Xanna stated, once more causing sweatdrops.

They might also be suffering from headaches because of the slight mind controlling Genjutsu she'd used on them to make them more agreeable to the idea.

"Well, I guess that's that." Naruto said, gazing at the armies of unconscious people that were now chakra-less.

"Indeed."

"Did you get all the ones that weren't here too, civilians and all?" He asked curiously.

"Naruto, I am a goddess," She said patronizingly. "of course I did. I even took all the chakra out of the various weapons and other chakra imbued objects in the Elemental Nations."

Naruto looked up at her(something which he still hadn't gotten used to) in exasperation. "Don't you think you're taking this 'I-am-better-than-you' attitude just a bit too far?"

"You only ascend to divinity once husband, and I am going to milk it for all it's worth." She retorted. "And don't think that I don't know what you were thinking about doing with my horns."

Naruto grinned and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"I can bring them back you know. I have the power now."

He sobered instantly, knowing perfectly well what she was talking about. He really was tempted to ask her to do it, but...

"I...don't think that would be wise. They've been dead for months now and I get the feeling that resurrecting those who've already passed on is a bad idea."

"You are quite correct, it is a bad idea. They would not remember the afterlife, but you would not be doing them any favors by bringing them back, that I can guarantee." Xanna said with a knowing air.

"You mean you can look in on them?" Naruto asked in shock.

"Naruto, I am a goddess." She said slowly, as if speaking to a particularly dim child "I can do just about anything."

Naruto rolled his eyes at the superior tone but took comfort in having confirmation that his girls were happy where they were. He was sure that he would eventually find other cute little sisters to cuddle and he could rest easy if he knew that they would be happy even in death.

Karin was still out there, but she was scared of him now, which was a bit depressing but he was sure that Jiraiya and Gaara would take care of her for him.

"So...you said we were leaving this place? Where are we going?" He asked, changing the subject.

"You will see, but before that, I have two more things to do in this land."

"Huh? Which two things?" He asked curiously.

Instead of answering, she moved to kiss him, which he was more than eager to do. After a few seconds of a passionate kiss where he had the novel experience of needing to bend his head upwards, he felt his chakra leaving him.

You still have some of my chakra beloved, I will be taking that from you. Her voice echoed in his mind just before he lost consciousness.

Xanna made her way through Kusagakure, once more looking like a six foot redhead without horns.

Having a physical body made it somewhat less malleable than a pure chakra one, but as previously noted, she was a goddess now which was all the explanation that needed.

It was amusing for her to think that the horns and white hair were like her tails had once been though. The resemblance to Kaguya aside, she did rather like the horns and white hair and it wasn't just because Naruto had complimented them. She supposed that she could also have Rinnegan eyes if she wanted them, but she knew that she could also just open the third eye on her forehead to access those powers, not to mention that it came with a Sharingan to boot.

Spotting the cave that she was looking for, she made her way inside without hesitation and easily navigated the shortish maze until she reached a larger area where she sensed her quarry.

"Kyuubi, what brings you here?" Jashin asked warily as he stepped out of the shadows. That she would approach him so confidently after what happened at their last meeting was setting off alarm bells. Something was different about her

"Oh, I just felt like visiting my only big brother." She said airily, walking around the cave and making a show of inspecting the walls.

"Big brother?" He asked in confusion, his solid red eyes blinking. He might technically be her big brother, as they had both been born of the Juubi and he had been first, but she'd only ever seen him as something that was beneath her. This was some really odd behavior from her.

"Yes, I need you for something."

"What would that be?" he asked and circled around her warily.

Before he could blink she was right in front of him, but now her hair was white and she was sporting horns.

"To eat you." She stated with a wide grin and impaled her hand through his chest and started draining the life and chakra out of him. "I've already eaten all of my other siblings you see, but I still felt hungry."

Jashin didn't get a chance to reply as he felt all the excess life force that he had spent so long gathering being taken from him.

Xanna shook out her hand after the demon collapsed into dust. "You had a decent plan Jashin. Get enough life force and then use it to absorb some Bijuu until you could get your hands on the Gedō Mazō and use that to become the new Juubi, it's just too bad that you were so damn slow about it. Besides, It would hardly be fair to leave you here with a bunch of humans who aren't able to use chakra."

She cocked her head when she felt something from a corner of the cave. Making her way over to it and grabbing it, she discovered that it was another chakra crystal, very much like the two that Naruto had around his neck.

"Honestly, aren't these things supposed to be rare?" She asked herself rhetorically, amused at how many of them she was seeing lately.

"So you've made yourself a soul anchor have you Jashin? Now you'd just have to wait for a gullible enough human to come in here and you could regain physical form by possessing them. How clever of you."

She crushed it in her hands. "Or maybe not."

Naruto woke up, feeling rather dazed and unnaturally heavy. It didn't take him more than a few seconds to recall what happened just before he'd passed out.

Xanna had taken away his chakra.

"Finally awake are you?" The voice of the very woman he'd just been thinking of drifted towards him.

Sitting up, he noticed that he'd been sleeping on a bed that looked as if it had grown out of the ground and it was so soft because of the moss under him.

Turning towards her, he saw the she saw lounging on a throne that was also grown from the ground and lined with soft moss in all her white haired, horned glory.

"What's going on and where are we?" he asked calmly.

"We are on an abandoned island several hundred miles off the coast of the Elemental Nations."

"Okay...but what's going on? Why did you take away my ability to use chakra?" He didn't call it his chakra, having remembered the way she admonished Gaara.

"Can't you guess Naruto? I've been using you all this time. I needed a powerful human champion that would allow me to reach my apotheosis and you were perfect, so blindly loyal. All you needed was the occasional pat on the head or spreading of legs." She said with amusement.

Naruto looked stunned and had some trouble breathing, his mind reeling over what he'd just heard.

That couldn't possibly be true could it? They had so many good times together, like the dates where they would mess with people and their wedding and the honeymoon and that late night talk when she'd cried at the thought of losing him.

That couldn't all be fake could it?

Taking a deep breath to calm down he went over everything once again, ignoring her amused gaze.

Once he considered it from a somewhat calmer perspective, he reached the only possible conclusion.

"Liar." He accused.

"Oh? You sure figured that out fast. How come?" She asked with a smirk.

"Well for one thing, too much random stuff happened that you couldn't have possibly planned and for another, I know that your feelings were real." He said with certainty.

She sighed. "So true, I was lying."

"Why?" He asked dryly.

"To get my revenge on you." She retorted smartly.

"For what?" He asked incredulously.

"You called me a chicken."

"You hawked a giant loogie at me for that already!"

"I was very insulted."

Naruto groaned and let it go. "Alright fine, did you just take away my chakra to play a cruel prank or was there some point to it and why isn't your voice all chakra enhanced like usual? And did you get shorter again?"

"Now that I have a physical body it is much easier to speak normally, not to mention that it makes for good practice when we eventually find ourselves among people again."

Naruto nodded at that. It made sense.

"And yes, I lowered my height to 6'4'', seven feet was a bit much."

Naruto gave her a 'No! Really?' look.

"As for your other question...It wasn't your chakra, it was my chakra."

Naruto was just about to say something to the effect of 'you know what I mean' when she spoke again.

"But if you eat this, it will be your chakra." She said and produced a strange, bulbous looking pod that didn't look very appetizing if Naruto was honest with himself.

"What's that?" he asked suspiciously.

Xanna sighed at how dense he was being and put the strange thing into his hands. "It's the Chakra Fruit you idiot, what else could it be?"

"And you're just giving it to me?" he asked, mildly shocked.

"No, I want you to polish it real nice and then give it back, of course I'm giving it to you!" She raised her voice slightly at the end, exasperated at his dense behavior. "Why are you being so stupid right now?"

"I don't know, maybe I'm brain damaged and I can't think properly without chakra." He said dryly, scoring an eyeroll from the former demoness.

"Anyway, will there be any side effects from eating this thing?" He said and poked it somewhat dubiously. It wobbled.

"I'm not sure actually." Xanna said with an amused tone of voice. "Since I'm giving it to you willingly and your body is already used to having chakra, you'll probably be the closest thing to a true god that a human can be. Additionally, you may or may not grow horns like me."

Naruto looked intrigued. Those horns were awesome.

"And your hair might turn white."

Well that wasn't such a big deal. He did like his blond hair, but white was cool too.

"And you might turn into a she-male."

Naruto almost dropped the fruit.

"The fuck woman?! Don't make jokes like that!"

Xanna waved off his irritation with a smirk and continued. "The one thing that I'm sure will happen is that it will bind all of your chakra to your soul, even the physical half and then bind your soul to me. That way, you can never truly die as long as I exist."

"Sweet." Naruto whispered, but then had a thought. "Wait, does this mean that all that research into the Edo Tensei was for nothing?"

"Yes."

"And all the people I killed for it?"

"Completely pointless."

"Well at least they were bad people." Naruto said mostly to himself after a momentary pause to contemplate the senseless waste of life.

"One more thing before I eat this."

"Yes?" She said a bit impatiently. Why couldn't the damn blond idiot just eat it already so they could get to the sex?!

"What will we do afterwards?"

"We're going to spend a nice long time finishing off our honeymoon on this very island and then we're going dimension hopping. Before you ask, no we are not going to the other continent on this world. The humans there developed weapons so powerful that they wiped themselves out with them, so there is literally nothing to see there."

"You can dimension hop?" He asked in amazement, setting aside the rest of her statement.

"Naruto, I am a goddess." She said scathingly.

"You know, I really think I'll be able to appreciate that attitude of yours more when it's aimed at someone else." Naruto mused.

"Just eat your fruit so I can fuck the stupid out of you. You obviously turn into a moron if you don't have sex regularly." She commanded.

Naruto did the only thing he could.

He ate the fruit.