29 Self-Sacrifice

The preparations are done.

The golem is finished.

So now, me and five Uzumaki are together going over how everything works, I can barely keep up with the seal talk, like listening to a language with which you are barely fluent, you catch a few words and understand the general direction of the conversation, but nothing more.

After ten minutes of technical talk that I mostly pay attention to, we are left alone, everyone else now preparing to run. belongings gathered, thank god for sealing scrolls, fully refreshed, having eaten and hydrated.

They have a long, hard run ahead of them.

Tsukino looks around at us all, smiling a sad smile,

"Well, now that we are alone, let us properly introduce ourselves to each other, I will go first, even though you all know doubt know of me, my name is Tsukino Uzumaki, please call me Tsuki, as my friends do. I am the Uzumaki patriarch, and I like drinking fine tea."

His words are met with a brief, but solemn silence, before another speaks up,

"M-my name, is Atsuyuki Uzumaki, please call me Atsu. I am just a normal jonin, I like painting."

And like that the dam breaks, one after another they introduce themselves,

"Harunoshin Uzumaki, call me Haru. I like sparring."

"I am Dainosuke Uzumaki, please call me Daino. I like spending time with my family."

"My name is Ugen Uzumaki, just call me Ugen. I like experimenting with my seals."

Until there is only me, mentally I sigh, I'm not usually one for sentiment, but fuck it, seeing as we are already alone, I reach up to once again remove my mask, showing my youthful face and bright pink hair,

"I am Butterfly, or Hanabira Haruno, for today, feel free to call me Hana. I like... I suppose, being alive, I just enjoy myself."

Tsuki smiles at the introductions and continues,

"Well now that we are all introduced, I wanted to thank you all, I had no right to ask of you what I have, and I can only thank you for accepting this call."

Despite whatever he was probably expecting as a response, instead his kin simply smiled and laughed. We all ignored the tears.

"Haha but of course! How could I refuse?"

"It's not your job alone to protect our people! Y'know?"

"What he said, I will always protect my family, Y'know?"

"Besides, now I can say I'm friends with the patriarch haha!"

Beholden with their boisterous and jubilant attitudes in the face of certain death, I can't help but feel compelled to join them, and add my own bit, smiling softly all the while.

"Not to mention, what we're about to do? Hold off an army of ten thousand? Well, you know what they say, Legends never die."

Tsuki looks at us for a moment, before joining his kin in their laughter. None of us mention it as his tears join his kins'.

"HAHA! Indeed!! Then let us die with a smile on our face, and laughter on our lips, as we live forever as Legends!"

With that, we get into our positions in the golem, and as I climb into the head, hearing the laughter of dead men, I can't help the soft smile on my lips.

𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘨𝘶𝘺𝘴.

To face death with a laugh, that is something that I will 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 respect.

𝘓𝘦𝘵'𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘺 𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯, 𝘦𝘩?

With that thought in mind, and the knowledge that our foe is already approaching, the others start up the golem, they are the ones running things, the seals, the genjutsu, they are the reason it functions.

Me? I'm the one giving that function 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, I'm the puppeteer and they are the strings while the golem is the puppet.

As the Golem comes to life, Genjutsu's taking place, simulating the body of the Kyuubi, including a bunch of seals designed to release a violent chakra, this was made by gathering all of the anger of those still alive, and having them suffuse their anger into their chakra, and put that into a seal that amplifies it.

Or at least, amplifies its ability to be sensed, if not it's actual potency, all to try and help sell the image of the Kyuubi released.

And there was plenty of anger to be had, hundreds of Uzumaki, a clan known not only for their large chakra reserves, but also for their being a very emotional bunch.

And their home has just been destroyed, their numbers cut down by over ninety-seven percent, almost completely annihilated, friends and family dead.

Yeah, there was no shortage of anger.

As the golem comes fully to life, and I feel the others release the malevolent chakra, (thankfully the inside is insulated else that would probably be distracting) I make the golem roar, another thing that can't be sustained.

Originally the others wanted to do what we did with the explosion seals, and give the golem one massive roar, but I argued against that, hope once broken can easily be repaired, hope twice broken leads to desperation, but hope thrice broken? That is much harder to recover.

And as the towering form I command stands tall over the army beneath me, like ants, I see a broken hope, at the sight and the roar denoting its entrance.

Then, I see men being corralled by their superiors, the fear of biju's has been greatly lessened since they were first sealed by Hashirama, but I can remind them of that fear.

I will remind them why the biju used to be seen as deific spirits. Worshipped and feared in equal measure.

And so, I manipulate the puppet to stare at the army, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘺𝘦𝘵, I still need to buy time after all, only once it seems like the commanders are about to give out orders, do I release the second and last, roar, this one much louder, and actually directed at them, since they can actually 𝘴𝘦𝘦 what is roaring.

And as they behold this beast of chakra and rage, as its gaping maw opens and releases a roar that shakes the very earth on which they stand, I see.

As hope breaks again.

That makes twice. And 30 seconds spared.

Now, as predicted, they are desperate, in a moment, the shock will wear off, and they will start throwing attacks, which the golem wasn't built to sustain. It was enough of a challenge to have it built in time, but even with hundreds of Uzumaki working together, there still wasn't enough time to add any defences, just three one use items really.

And I've already used two of them.

Looking down slightly, inside of the golem, where I rest at its forehead, I look down the hollow shell, seeing our only attack, and last move, a giant ball of explosive tags, under a blanket Genjutsu to make it look like pure, tainted chakra, located where the mouth is, alongside a slingshot like mechanism to launch it.

Truly this is a lot of explosive tags, and we're all excited to see how big of a boom it will make.

I focus back on the armies, and when desperation seems to reach its peak, I attack before anyone else does and risks breaking the illusion too soon.

Sending out the command, the golems open mouth starts to glow, and the people start to panic even more, as much as I would like to drag this out to but time, someone will be desperate enough to attack instead of fleeing, there are a lot of them after all, so I don't wait for that to happen, instead I launch our own Biju bomb right in the middle of the two armies.

While I could have targeted one and done a lot more damage, five thousand or ten thousand doesn't really make a difference, both are undefeatable to us, and so what I need is psychological damage, and if I targeted only one side, the other would be in good spirits when the Golem falls, so I target the middle, to have the most effect on the psyche of the entire army.

And psychological damage is surely dealt, as the combined might of every explosive tag we had travels over the city, right in between the two armies, making them panic and run, but not fast enough.

The bomb impacts the ground, and looses an explosion that I can only describe as 𝘯𝘶𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳.

First is silence.

Second, a blinding light!

Third a shockwave of debris.

Fourth was a deafening 𝘽𝘼𝙉𝙂!!!

Followed by a gust of wind that blew everyone onto their asses, almost even toppling the very golem that launched the attack.

After that, it circled back, once again, to silence.

That was even bigger than expected, and I can't help but think about a maybe unborn Akatsuki member.

'It seems, art truly can be an explosion'

Slowly, the combined army turn to stare at the monster before them, before a shout breaks the din silence, and they all start screaming and running and panicking.

I smile.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Watching them running around like panicked ants is mildly amusing, and I can hear the others laughing at them below me, with the occasional yell of 'You get what you fucking deserve!'.

Still, all great things must come to an end, and as some of them launch Jutsu at our golem out of desperation, they are surprised to see the attacks go clean through, disrupting the illusion and showing the chassis beneath.

The battlefield stills, and I hear Tsukino's quiet solemn voice, as our foe's launch Jutsu after Jutsu towards out golem. 'My, oh my, they seem rather upset, I wonder why?'

"Well boys, it was truly, an honour."

"That it was, Tsuki."

"Do you think we bought enough time."

"yeah, a minute and a half, that's enough for them to get away."

I hear the others sigh in relief at my reassurance, as we all then jump out the back of the crumbling golem, we have maybe twenty seconds before they are here.

"Well then Butterfly, I suppose it's best you leave now."

oh yeah, I put my mask back on, but more importantly, I spin to face Tsuki, but he's not looking at me.

"what?"

"what? you're the only one here any good at stealth, and while we fight for our family, you fight for strangers, if anyone deserves a chance to escape, it's you."

What. I thought we were just going to split up and hope for the best. Not this.

"So, get going now lad, we don't have all day, we'll stay back, buy you some time. 'Sides, you're too young to die."

I go to argue, but Tsuki turns around to level me with a hard stare, unwilling to compromise.

I see the look in his face, and looking around, they all share it.

Determination.

Gratitude.

And 𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦.

I see now.

They want revenge. To die killing as many of the men who destroyed their home as they can.

They won't change their mind. It would be an insult to their determination to refuse.

I ignore the quiet voice in my head, telling me that I just want to live, that I don't care if they die.

I know that, but I want to care, and that's enough.

Ignoring the wetness in my eyes, I turn and leave, not saying a word, not trusting my voice, activating all of my impressive stealth, I can only think my final goodbye to these men who, in such a short amount of time, have truly solidified themselves as people worthy of my deepest respect.

In but a moment I am gone, hearing more explosions not long after, but not looking back even once.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

What do you think? Emotion! Explosions! also if anyone gets the reference of this, the last, and the next chapter's titles, i will give you an internet cookie.

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