A New Way of Ninja, (Naruto)

29: Beast Bombs

Momo had taken advantages of the brief respite from the Gedo's fighting them to write an update to Shine.

She described what they'd done and her belief that Obito was not deterred by it, as the others had told her basically what they'd said to him.

"Still I think you'd be proud of Bakugo and Camie's ability to stall that long," she wrote. "And Shoto did his best to help. But that trap will not hold him long.--"

She broke off suddenly, as shown by a sudden dash in the ink.

And the she picked up in a much more scrambled hand.

"--It just broke free! But it's not coming at us. It just took off. Shikamaru and Ino say it's going away from the coast to the main area of Lightning...at least, I assume so. Or it's heading for the land of Fire or Rice. Something that size won't take long to get that far at the speed it's movements... I think we're entering the next phase of the Statue. Is Madara still with you? If he is, you should run."

"He's not here," Temari said, when Dabi had read this aloud to them. "So where is he? Where is it going?"

"But since we sent him away... It's gotta be near here, right?" Wally suggested.

"I wouldn't think we'd miss something that size," Shine said.

She was right.

Within the next few minutes they saw the statue run pretty near them, but Obito must have known that Madara was not with them, so it ran past them and farther into the mainland.

"Hey, what was that?" Mei asked. She hadn't seen the statue yet.

"That was the Gedo Statue, the future body of the 10 Tails," Gaara said.

"Where is Lord Ay?" Onoki grimaced. "I thought he went after it."

Ay, in fact, had only gone part of the way there, before he saw it running past, and promptly ran into Naruto again. Both of them and Bee had chased after it.

"If that thing gets to Madara," Shine said, "I'm warning you, it will be completely unstoppable, for you anyway."

"Even with what you taught us?" Gaara said.

"That might stop it," Shine hedged. "But you'd need an opening to get so close, unless there's a miracle from Heaven, which has happened before on my missions."

"What is she talking about?" Mei asked.

"We're working on a way to stop it," Gaara said. "We'd better go after it. Lord Tsuchikage, are you able to fight?"

"Don't be so impertinent. I'm always ready to fight," Onoki said.

"Well, I'm recharged," Wally said, picking Shine up. "I guess we're going. What about the kids?"

"There won't be anything left to do on the coast. I'll tell them to join us," Shine said, taking out her pen.

* * *

"She says," Momo said a few seconds later, "she wants us to meet them further inland. That's where the rest of the battle is going to be, for better or worse."

"She's sure about that?" Shikamaru said.

"Yeah, totes," Camie said. 

"They can activate that Tsuki no Me from anywhere," Bakugo pointed out. "As soon as he finds Madara, why not? They've thinned your forces out so that there won't be enough of you to stop that beast once it evolves."

"What?" Shikamaru said shakily. "Are you sayin this entire last day was just killing time so that...but... So we never had a chance?"

"No, you have a chance," Momo said. "Don't give up yet. There's still Naruto..."