Mei has finally come back, having brought about five hundred survivors from Kirigakure. We have formed a semblance of a plan. We're going to use edo tensei enmasse. Some shinobi volunteered to become edo tensei, the others we taught the edo tensei and then had them bring back their comrades. All in all we will hopefully have over one thousand edo tensei. While this should help us stall for some time it's still not enough to defeat the incoming army of S-Rank shinobi.
Having an immortal body with infinite chakra still won't solve the skill disparity between a chunin and someone like Hiruzen. Our real trump cards are Danzo and Nagato. Danzo can turn the enemy edo tensei to our side, while Nagato can eat their souls. The sealing tags that Minato devised will be helpful, but that applies only for me, Sakura, Hinata, Mei, Tsunade, Madara, Kakashi and Naruto. Anyone else is just going to get themselves turned into meatpaste if they tried getting close enough to slap a seal on Zetsu's edo tensei.
.-two days later, midday
The village alarm siren interrupts me from painting bomb-seals. I leave the unfinished sealing tag on the desk and rush towards the Hokage tower. Inside Tsunade's office I find Hinata, Tsunade, Minato and Hiashi. Minato continues talking, ignoring me having come through the window. "-ive kilometers from the village. The enemy will begin arriving between one and six hours from now. Once detected, all of the edo tensei began moving at full speed, rushing towards us as fast as they could."
Tsunade nods. "That's good. Dealing with them separately is going to be much easier than dealing with them all at once."
I take a deep breath. "We should use kotoamatsukami to bring the first waves to our side. Did you recognize any of the edo tensei, especially the ones that will be arriving first?"
Minato nods. "Hiruzen and Onoki will be the first to arrive. A will arrive shortly after them and then most of the remaining edo tensei will slowly trickle in."
Tsunade bites her lip. "Minato, go and delay the enemy coming after Hiruzen and Onoki. We'll send them to meet up with you afterwards. Did you notice Tobirama among the enemy shinobi?"
Minato shakes his head. "Tobirama was absent. Either Zetsu failed to get a hold of his body or it was already stolen by someone else beforehand."
After he finishes talking Minato proceeds to teleport out of the meeting room. I look at Tsunade. "Which direction are the edo tensei coming from?"
Tsunade points at the map hanging on the wall. "From where Suna used to be. Do you have an idea or something?"
I nod. "We can have our edo tensei make a mass wave of shadow clones and send them in that direction. That should help us slow them down somewhat, we might even get lucky and seal one or two of them."
Tsunade shakes her head. "We're already doing that, you're not even the fifth person to think of doing that, you brat."
—
All of us sans Madara are standing on the village wall. Ever since interrogating Kakuzu that fucker has been completely absent. Right now we're waiting for Hiruzen and Onoki to arrive. Hinata suddenly unseals her bow. "They are inbound in two minutes from two hundred and fifty seven degrees west."
I activate my mangekyou and begin looking in the direction that Hinata mentioned. I manage to see Onoki flying above the treeline, with Hiruzen occasionally poking out of the treetops. If either of them wanted they could've made a much more stealthy approach, so they're probably actively resisting Zetsu. That's both good and bad. It's good, since it means that most of the army will paradoxically be on our side. It's bad because that means that there's a lot of edo tensei incoming.
Black Zetsu might be a master schemer, but it's pretty clear that he's not necessarily a master tactician. Sending every single one of the edo tensei all at once would've been much more effective compared to sending them in waves like this.
Before the two of them can get in range I activate the first two gates and the heavenly tattoo, as do both Hinata and Sakura. Once Onoki gets himself in range he begins blasting towards us with his elemental change. His eyes are rapidly blinking. 'Pink hair dodge left'.
Sakura dodges to the left, avoiding the laser beam sent towards her. Naruto dashes at Hiruzen with his Kyubi Chakra Mode and sage mode active. Danzo jumps towards Onoki. Onoki begins weaving another set of handseals but gets hit mid-jutsu by kotoamatsukami. Instead of stopping he turns around, continues weaving handseals and blasts Hiruzen's legs off.
Hiruzen is being hidden by the treetops, so I can't see what exactly he is doing right now. Onoki begins weaving handsigns once again, only slowing down momentarily to dodge a fire dragon and a wind dragon. Once he finishes weaving hand signs he deletes a square kilometer of forest. There is no other way to describe it, a flash of light and the forest is literally just not there anymore. Thankfully this allows us to see what Hiruzen is doing, which is slowly materializing again.
Onoki begins weaving handsigns again, deleting the quarter materialized Hiruzen again. I dash towards Onoki. Once I get close to him he begins shouting. "Whilst I can keep him suppressed like this indefinitely you should deal with him permanently as soon as you can. The yellow flash might be capable of dealing with the rest of the incoming forces but he will not be capable of facing Hashirama."
I frown. That's another thing that should have immediately jumped out to me. Where exactly is Hashirama? We failed to summon him, so he is still under Black Zetsu's control presumably. Is this wave just a distraction?
Before I can formulate a reply I see something concerning come over from the horizon. Sand. Lot's of sand. A mountain of sand is slowly coming over the horizon, the size of it becoming more and more unbelievable. The question of Hashirama's whereabouts are quickly answered once the sand has fully come over the horizon.
A Zetsu possessed hashirama is riding the wave of sand, both of his eyes are blazing rinnegan.
-Madara POV.
I take a deep breath and activate my mangekyou. My left eye allows me to set up a 'checkpoint', my right eye allows me to go back to that checkpoint at any time. I set my checkpoint and rise from the tree stump that I am sitting on.
At this moment I am ten kilometers away from the desert of the land of wind. Zetsu could never control multiple edo tensei, so he must be working with someone else. The best place for both of them to hide would be in the desert. Shukaku being under their control has thus far prevented me from carelessly searching the desert, as he would allow them to instantly detect me. It is the only area that I have left unchecked up until now.
I rush towards the desert. I will have to utilize brute force against them. The first loop takes three hours, in which I follow the northern border of the desert, finding nothing. The second loop I change my trajectory slightly south. The third loop I do so again. On the thirteenth loop I find their general area. The sand begins rising. I am sitting on a tree stump once again.
I rush towards the location that Shukaku is in. Before stepping in the vicinity of the area that I was previously detected in I jump as high into the air as I can. The bad footing provided by the sand prevents me from jumping absurdly high, but still allows me to jump at the limit of what I require.
The increase in my visual horizon from the jump allows me to see the precise location of Black Zetsu and Hashirama. Half of Hashirama's body is painted black, one of his eyes is the rinnegan and the other is Obito's mangekyou. I loop back.
I beeline for Zetsu once again, this time I time my jump such that I land right next to him. Two seconds before my leap I draw my blade and set my checkpoint, making sure that I don't lock myself into a bad outcome. A bad outcome would mean dying without having achieved anything. Hashirama and I are equals, I had surpassed him briefly once his flesh was successfully transplanted.
I land right next to Zetsu, surprising him. If this was truly Hashirama then I would stand no chance at even damaging him. Despite being overly optimistic my friend was not lacking in cunning. He would abuse the powers of both the kamui and the rinnegan, rendering victory impossible.
My first strike being parried shows Zetsu's lack of combat experience. He should have simply phashed through it and crushed me with sand. I jump over the tendril of sand that he sent to impale me and slash at his eyes. The blade makes contact with his face but Zetsu uses kamui before the strike can land. I loop once I feel the effects of shinra tensei on my body.
He is only vulnerable for the first few exchanges. Afterwards he will wise up and begin fighting properly. One or two exchanges are not enough to kill Hashirama. Even if I landed a fully powered slash at his head it would not kill him instantly and he would then simply heal before I could make another. Using Izanami would simply target Hashirama, not Zetsu. Slashing his eyes would lead to them healing. I land right next to Zetsu, he turns towards me.
I grab Obito's eye from his sockets and crush it in my hand before he can react. I give Zetsu a bloodthirsty smile as I set my checkpoint. This piece of excrement has even denied me the joy of properly dueling my best friend before my death.