_________ POV Narration _________ 

Tosho and Akira both sighed as they looked over the vast expanse of forest and snow in front of them.

"They sure chose a good season for this stupid attack... I hate the cold." Akira, the Third Blade, shivered slightly as he sat atop the closed gates of the Dark Brotherhood compound. 

Standing by his side, Tosho couldn't help but shake his head.

"The weather wasn't that bad a few weeks ago, but I guess winter does have its way of surprising people at times." The First Blade spoke out while observing the forests in front of him with an indifferent gaze.

"I mean, you think seasons would be more predictable, but I guess lately everything has been unpredictable.

It's jarring to see snow fallen on green leaves, but a sight I've grown accustomed to..."

Tosho's posture didn't change at all as he addressed the Second Blade who sat by his side. He seemed to be both relaxed and wary at the same time.

Both of them were wary to some degree, it seemed that they were expecting something. Something big, which could happen at any moment. 

"We do have the advantage of knowing their next moves..." Akira said as he slowly stood up, noticing the trees in the distance shaking slightly.

"Yet they have the numerical advantage, and the power advantage..." Tosho seemed to also notice the movements, the Samehada on his back wriggled in happiness. 

"Hmmm... I don't know about that last part. Our leader is pretty strong." Akira cracked his neck and took out the Decapitation Carving Knife from a seal on his wrist. 

"Well... They also have that..." Tosho cracked his neck as he looked at a gigantic figure appearing in the distance, toppling all of the trees around it.

Both of the Blades swayed slightly as they looked at it.

A red-furred and green-skinned gigantic gorilla with 4 tails. It roared loudly, shaking the forest around it as fires started to spread everywhere around it, the temperature in the air rising just from its presence.

"The 4-Tailed Beast... I guess Iwagakure is going all in..." Tosho slowly grasped at the wriggling handle of the Samehada, behind him countless shadows blurred, spreading out in every direction from the compound. 

"As if that wasn't enough..." Akria then looked to the side, slightly behind the 4-Tailed Beast, another one rose from the foliage.

A gigantic white horse with a dolphin's head. It has two pointed long horns to the sides of its head and three shorter horns in front.

Its most telling features were the 5 tails wriggling behind it, lashing out and snapping parts of the forest around it.

"Both of them are here..." Akria muttered while shaking his head slightly. He narrowed his eyes as they seemed to glint with anticipation.

"Do you think we will be able to take them on?" The Second Blade continued speaking while already stretching.

It was more of a rhetorical question. It didn't really matter what his chances of taking on the Tailed Beasts were. That was also true for Tosho.

Their job was to stall them, not to outright defeat them. 

"The armies of the allied villages are likely hiding behind the Tailed Beasts for now..." The First Blade spoke as both he and Akira stared down the Tailed Beasts fearlessly.

Both the 4 and 5 Tailed Beasts seemed to move in unison, all of their tails pointed to the sky as energy gathered at the tips of their tails, forming a gigantic ball of Chakra in front of their mouths. 

The Gigantic Gorilla had a ball of glowing red chakra, it seemed to be smouldering the atmosphere around it. 

Meanwhile, the horse seemed to have created a ball of compressed steam, which was also radiating enough heat to rival that of the Apeish four-tailed beast. 

"They really do want to just wipe us out it seems..." Tosho shook his head as he raised his hand.

"Tailed Beast Lava Bomb!" "Tailed Beast Steam Bomb!" Two monstrous voices thundered through the entire mountain range as their heads snapped in the direction of the two Blades. 

The two gigantic orbs of power immediately compressed and started barreling forward, rolling and burning every tree that stood in between them and the Dark Brotherhood compound.

At that moment, Tosho waved his hand and tilted his head.

Then, both he and Akira cut their thumbs with the nail of their index finger and tapped the ground at their feet at the same time.

"Summoning: Triple Rashōmon!" "Summoning: Triple Rashōmon!" 

At that moment, six demonic gates rose from the ground to meet the attacks of the tailed beasts, as both of the Blades braced for impact. 

An A-rank defensive jutsu that they had managed to scavenge off of a dead body which was found decapitated at the bottom of the sea.

The Jutsu was high in chakra consumption, but also extremely powerful. 

The Tailed Beast Bombs collided with the first gate and passed through it without any issue, seemingly melting it on impact as both Akira and Tosho started sweating. 

The same was true for the second, and third, they were melted almost instantly on impact.

Only on the fourth one was their resistance, but all it took was a few seconds of the chakra orbs pressing into the demonic gate to melt through it.

And on the fifth one, they stopped completely.

But that was nowhere near the end of it.

In an instant, both the Lava and Steam orbs started expanding rapidly.

In an instant, they engulfed everything that the Tailed Beasts could see from a distance, it was a raging storm of Lava and Steam, sure to melt through anything and anyone that was still within the Dark Brotherhood.

"Keh... Mission successful..." The Jinchuriki of the 4-Tailed Beast, Rōshi, muttered as he slowly prepared to transform back into his regular form. 

But another voice stopped him.

"No way..." It was his companion and fellow Jinchuriki of the Rock Village, Han. 

The usually silent man was also in his tailed beast form, his gigantic horse body was constantly emitting a layer of steam which threatened to melt the skin off the bones of everything that came close.

Despite that, his voice sounded strangely perturbed. 

"Huh? What's happened?" Roshi muttered as he turned his gigantic gaze to what should've been the ruined remains of the Dark Brotherhood compound.

As the steam and smoke died down, the two of them could clearly see a thin red barrier had appeared between the 5th and 6th Rashomon. 

The Red Light seemed to be in the form of a square which completely engulfed the entirety of the Dark Brotherhood. 

"Shit, a Sealing Barrier?!?" Roshi shouted as he turned to his companion, only for his eyes to widen. 

Before they had even realized it, they were also engulfed in very similar formations, although at a much smaller scale.

Roshi banged on the walls of the prison he found himself in with overwhelming force, but all of his efforts yielded nothing.

  "The Four Red Yang Formation..." Back on the intact gate of the Dark Brotherhood compound, Tosho couldn't help but sigh in appreciation.

The Four Read Yang Formation was the gift of the Uzumaki clan, and it was certainly a powerful technique.

Despite tanking two-tailed beasts simultaneously, the barrier didn't even budge or shake. 

The only problem was that it did require 4 people with Kage-level chakra pools to raise and maintain it, making it quite literally the most taxing Barrier Formation ever. 

Now such a restriction meant nothing to the Uzumaki, as all of them were insane in chakra levels. But things were trickier for the Dark Brotherhood.

In no way did they have 12 Kage Level people on their side. But with a rather smart and innovative use of the Chakra Draining Seal, they at least had 12 pillars that could uphold the formations.

The ones around the Tailed Beasts weren't as strong nor as large. They were also somewhat misshapen, but that was because the pillars holding them up were made up of several Kunai buried into the ground.

The proper seals were placed on said kunai, and they were powered by the chakra of the students who had created them. 

They did require a lot less chakra thankfully, but the one around the compound was a complete Barrier Seal cast in a wide area.

It also needed a longer time to cast, which was why Tosho and Akira needed to buy a few precious seconds for it.

"Haah... I can feel my chakra getting drained. Here's hoping we can at least maintain this for an hour..."

Akira mumbled a bit before sitting down in a meditative position, cracking his neck and focusing on recovering his Chakra as it was being drained. 

"Even so, all of the collective Chakra of the Dark Brotherhood has gone into this... Let's just hope that Saburo's intel is correct." Tosho shook his head before also sitting down and doing the same as Akira.

The Second Blade tapped a seal on his wrist and took out a few food pills, before moving his mask slightly to the side, placing them in his mouth and chewing. 

"At least I won't be getting hungry anytime soon." The immortal smiled and eyed the struggling Tailed Beasts in the distance as the 6th Still intact Rashomon Gate disappeared. 

"If you do go hungry, please bite the faces of our enemies and not mine. Thank you." 

"Yeah yeah, stop yapping so much about it, it only happened once and it was just some random bandit!" Akira seemed to take offence to Tosho's words, but the First Blade only shrugged.

"If you followed your diet plan properly, that wouldn't have happened." 

"If you like talking shit so much, why don't I shove a funnel deep into your stomach so you can shit through it, huh?!?" 

The two continued their banter while the army of shinobi banged at the formations they had created, trying to free the tailed beasts. 

They were... Unsuccessful, to say the least. 

Things were going to plan for the Dark Brotherhood, at least for now.

Ken was also already halfway there, he was almost past the Land of Grass, right at the border with the Land of Waterfall. 

He sighed as he smelt the opposition ahead, he climbed up a large hill, and on the other side was a gigantic lake.

Ken could feel countless Shinobi within that lake lying in wait. He could also feel a few rather specific chakra signatures, significant ones actually.

"A few Kage and a Tailed Beast... That's it?" Ken shook his head as he spoke out loud to nobody.

But he was sure the little spies that had been following him around heard his words.

It was almost as if he had triggered an earthquake. In an instant, countless figures rose from within the Lake.

"How the hell did he spot us?!" "As expected of the world's strongest Bounty Hunter, huh? Even if he's a kid..." 

Many shinobi voiced out their frustrations as they stepped onto the calm lake and stared at Ken with narrowed eyes.

  "This is where you die, you abominable brat!" Lord Yuu was in the middle of the lake too, speaking from behind the army of shinobi as he hoped to finally see the death of the one that had caused the Grass Village so much shame. 

"Oh, some old nobodies among you all too. So strange. Still, none of you have the right to step in the same arena as me." Ken shook his head before turning his masked face to the sky.

"What was the point of bringing so much cannon fodder over, Onoki?" In the sky, the legless figure of a small old man lowered from above the clouds and huffed.

"Tsk, don't get too complacent... Today is the day you die, Red Dot! You and the Dark Brotherhood you worked so hard to create!" Onoki huffed in rage as a few figures appeared by his side.

One was a tall man with spiky hair, he seemed to be floating on black dust... Or was it sand? Ken didn't really know. 

The other figure seemed to be a monk of sorts, Ken could clearly feel a Tailed Beast within him.

The three of them didn't seem to want to attack right away.

'Using the cannon fodder to tire me out, huh? How useless...' 

"I guess the show is starting, huh?" Ken sighed and tapped the seal on his wrist, taking out a large and bulky sword.

The Hiramekarei, or the twin sword. A large blade with legendary chakra conductivity that had two hilts.

The Blade glowed an eerie blue as Ken decided to use its most important abilities... Shapeshifting. 

In an instant, the blade started to shrink, and before everyone's eyes, the previously bulky double-edged sword turned into an exceedingly long one-edged blade.

A long Ōdachi, something that was certainly more in line with Ken's style.

The shinobi looking at it couldn't help but gulp, it looked like it could cut through scores of men with just one swing. 

"Let's see how well the lot of you can dance!" 

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Hope you liked the chapter!

Managed to write it at the office, have some issues with my home internet connection, trying to get it fixed

Story Shoutout(if you have any suggestions for a story feel free to dm me or leave a comment , haven't had time to read much lately) : The Final Desperation

Discord, again: https://discord.gg/xQTK8caFEQ

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