Deidara begins weaving handsigns again. I look at Hinata and she nods, immediately unsealing her bow and arrows. Before she can fire at Deidara an absurdly fast rasenshuriken hits the owl he is on, exploding both it and the descending clay bomb prematurely. Deidara was too far away for me to clear the smoke with wind release. Thankfully he is in range of Hinata's Byakugan, allowing her to shoot at him with her bow.
Hinata releases an arrow. "I will continuously destroy his hands and prevent him from using any jutsu on his way down. He will land fifty meters away from us at 87 degrees in twenty two seconds."
I quickly nod and begin to rush there, Tsunade, Mei and Sakura follow behind me. On the way I activate the heavenly seal and open the first two gates. When I get to the location that Hinata specified I begin to concentrate on the sky above, searching for Deidara. It takes him twenty seconds to become visible, and only one second to violently smash into the ground.
His edo tensei form is severely cracked, but not destroyed. I dash towards him and plant myself on his chest, restraining his hands. Sakura and Tsunade arrive soon and grab his hands, allowing me to restrain his feet.
Naruto lands right next to me, his eyes clearly showing his active sage mode. He sighs in relief when he sees Deidara restrained "Thank god that you managed to catch him, do you have any way to seal him away?"
I keep my eyes on Deidara, making sure he doesn't try anything. "Yeah, but I want to see if we can get anything out of him first."
Deidara raises his head and begins to stare back at me after hearing that. He rapidly blinks, I quickly realize that he is giving me a message in morse code. 'Go fuck yourself retard'. Classy
I turn my head towards Sakura. "Get Danzo here, this guy might know more than Kakuzu. Naruto, prepare to replace Sakura."
Naruto nods and rushes to hold Danzo's arm. Sakura rises and immediately begins weaving hand seals as soon as Naruto gets a good grip. Naruto looks around, frowning at the devastation. "Why do you think blondie's not talking? Kakashi told me this guy just kept talking nonstop."
Sakura finishes the hand seals for the edo tensei, bringing Danzo back. "He's probably been forbidden from talking. You can customize how much control you can exert on edo tensei, the more edo tensei that you want to use the less control you can actually have over them."
Thankfully Deidara's silence ends as soon as Kotoamatsukami is used on him. He immediately begins shouting. "YOU FUCKS! I- all of the villages are being attacked. I was not informed of much of zetsu's plans but I deduced that he was waiting for all of you to be together at one spot so that he could destroy the villages. He did not do so when you were meeting, so he probably couldn't initiate his plan yet."
I turn to look at Sakure, she shrugs. "I couldn't stand his shouting, at least this way we can actually understand him."
I nod. "Good call.". I turn back towards Deidara. "Anything else?"
Deidara nods. "I'm going to explode in ten seconds, dispelling me will ju-."
Fuck. I grab him as fast as I can, create a black flame barrier with amaterasu and kagutsuchi underneath me and then use said platform to jump, moving it upwards simultaneously and launching myself into the sky. While in the air I create another black flame barrier and throw Deidara away, using the barrier to push him further. Eight seconds later a giant chakra cross is formed, thankfully far away enough that it didn't affect either me or the village.
I form a black flame barrier underneath myself, using it to slowly go down. It takes me about five minutes before I land. By that time everyone except Mei is now grouped together, waiting for me. Sakura immediately sighs in relief when she sees me. "Deidara is still under kotoamatsukami, I've ordered him to come back."
I sigh. "We're going back to our village to check if everyone is dead or not. We're going to bring any survivors we have back here."
Tsunade nods. "Mei and Darui asked to do the same, their villages have no hope of survival otherwise. We have more than enough bunkers to keep everyone safe."
Naruto crosses his arms. "Won't that just make it easier for them to kill everyone?"
I nod. "It will. It will also allow us to have a chance at actually stopping Zetsu. I'm not going to linger, don't want to waste any time. We'll be back soon. If anything happens, announce us asap."
Before dashing away I create five shadow clones.
-two hours later
We rushed to Sakuragakure as fast as we could, using the heavenly seal and the first two gates to do so. I stare at the razed ground that stands where Sakuragakure was. The bad news is the village got completely obliterated. The good news is that anyone who was turned into edo tensei, meaning Kurotsuchi and the ten shinobi, have not been sealed.
Sakura puts her hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, I kept DNA from anyone that we actually cared about. Once everything is settled we can just bring them back, so don't worry too much. They will only die for real if Zetsu succeeds."
I nod. "Yeah, you're right. Let's take everyone and rush back to Konoha…"
-five hours later.
Thankfully Konoha is still standing by the time that we get back. Sakura, Hinata and I all make a beeline for the Hokage tower as soon as we arrive, the edo tensei spread around the village. I don't bother going through the tower this time, entering the office through the window.
Inside of the office I find Tsunade along with multiple edo tensei. The only one that I recognize is Minato. Tsunade immediately informs me as to why that is the moment that I enter her office. "Anyone else strong enough to contribute failed to be brought back."
I click my tongue. "Fuck".
Tsunade laughs. "Pretty much, we're fucked."
Minato shakes his head. "Not quite. The more edo tensei that this Zetsu uses, the less control that he will have over them. Many of them will actively work against him if allowed to do so, meaning he has to both be selective in regards to whom he brings back as well as how many are brought back. The maximum amount that can be properly controlled at the same time is dependent on his skill with the jutsu, but the theoretical cap is thirty, any more than that and control must be sacrificed."
Sakura puts a sealing tag on the table. "This is what I made to try and counteract the edo tensei. Do you have anything better?"
Minato picks it up and gives it a look. "It's not bad, there's a much more efficient way to do something like this however."
He takes a piece of paper and a pen, draws a seal on the paper and hands it to Sakura. "That will work much better. I've been told that you have a method to control subdued edo tensei. This seal will function both as a chakra suppressor tailored for them and as a sealing tag. You can seal the edo tensei into it and bring it out of the seal whenever you want afterwards, with their chakra completely sealed throughout."
Did this fucker just make that on the spot? "What happens if the seal is broken? Does the edo tensei get released?"
Minato shakes his head. "In theory it does, in practice the process of forcibly breaking the seal will also mangle connection between the edo tensei and the impure realm enough for the jutsu to break."
I look at Sakure, she is staring at the drawing of the seal like a caveman incomprehensibly staring at a telephone. I sigh. "Sakura, please focus on the madman trying to kill everyone. I'll negotiate with Tsunade for sealing lessons later."
It takes her about five seconds to process what I just told her before she smiles and creates thirty shadow clones. "I ju- We need to start mass producing these as fast as possible".
One of the clones takes the paper and then they all rush out of the office through the window. It's honestly pretty funny how they have to go through one by one. Tsunade grabs her nose and takes a deep breath. "Just open more windows for fucks sake!"
I take a deep breath. "We should probably prepare as many defenses as we can before Zetsu makes his next move."
Tsunade nods. "We've already started working on that. Do you have any ideas?"
I take a seal-bomb from my pocket and hand it to Minato. "I do, think you can take a look at this? I can make about one at this magnitude per day."