• Dark Dawn •

Ep 48 - Chosen

(Arc 8 - Set in Stone - pt 4)
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Naruto

The day after, Tobi pulled both Naruto and Sasuke aside, and although Naruto couldn’t see the expression underneath the mask, it was obvious how tense Tobi had been.

”What is it?” prompted Sasuke. “You look exhausted."

And Sasuke’s right. Tobi’s raggedy appearance was much more pronounced than what had become usual the past month.

A frown traced its way onto Naruto’s face, “Something happened, didn’t it?”

”I’ve already told Pein about this, but after everyone left yesterday, I decided to go back to that cave,” He started, but trailed off in contemplation. “Well, it might be better to just show you.”

It was with a reluctant yes from him that got Sasuke to tentatively follow after.

Kurama was also wary of the potential intrusion, but also let it slide for the sake of the situation. They trusted Tobi enough, so this was fine. They knew the older man had been through some shit before, so this was bound to be bad.

And boy were they right.

In the memory that Tobi brought them into, they saw a statue, a colossal structure entirely made up of wood. If Naruto didn’t know any better, he’d have said that it was something made from mokuton.

As the memory progressed, the gravity of the situation dawned on the pair. Kurama was also dragged along the ride as an unfortunate byproduct of being sealed within Naruto.

Tobi’s grim, deep voice drew Sasuke and Naruto’s attention to a mass of white and green, subtly shifting, almost as if it were alive.

”Look down there,” his voice echoed through the memory-cave.

Naruto wasn’t sure how he could describe the sight in front of him. He looked towards Sasuke’s direction to see how the other teen was reacting to this.

Blazing red eyes darted over the mass, and Naruto found that he wasn’t really surprised at this.

“So, what do you see?” Naruto asked, mood sour.

Tobi had also been staring down at the mass in silence as well and broke his gaze with the ground and stared up at the two. “Those are all Zetsu’s clones,” he said. “The sneaky bastard’s made a shit load of them behind our backs, all from the Hashirama cells in Madara’s body. Grew a whole tree out of it to suck out all the chakra he could from those cells.”

Sasuke’s red eyes faced back to the usual black, a grim look in his eyes.

”If my eyes are right, there’s got to be at least 100,000 of them down there.”

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A few weeks later…

Sasuke

Sasuke was floored.

It went against all rhyme and logic for all of these shinobi to show their faces in some unofficial meeting held by a teenager.

It had only been two weeks ago when Naruto sent out the first wave of letters to the other jinchuuriki, and a week ago when he’d managed to set a time and place to meet.

This just didn’t make any logical sense.

All nine of the jinchuuriki were scattered around in the spring clearing, Sasuke only lingered around the edges of their group, standing beside Naruto. The others were clearly wary of his presence, sneaking stealthy glances his way, but not with an openly intimidating way. No one was openly hostile, presumably to keep the peace between all of them.