Reaching For A Dream by Noodlehammer

Chapter 29

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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 realise 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.

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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 undearneath 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.