“Ok Kotetsu’s copy, we’re here. Now let us do battle and see who is the strongest of all a-glglglgl.” Nouka’s art employ hovered in the air with Kotetsu’s limp body still in its claws as Copy-tetsu looked at him incredulously.

“I truly don’t enjoy that, in fact that angers me greatly.” Nouka held his hand out and dropped dozens of humanoid clay figures to the ground, Copy-tetsu’s eye went from its relaxed two tomoe to its partial mangekyō form.

Nouka put his and up and made a sign that made his figures grow to Copy-tetsu’s size. “Genjutsu doesn’t work on them so don’t try it.” The featureless creations focused on Copy-tetsu and all rushed to him.

“Ok.” He jumped over the first one when it went for a swing and ducked under the next which tried to grab him. In the midst of evading his attackers he was put into a headlock, and the figure started to swell.

“Hah! My art is perfect, no bad guys can get out of-“ Copy-tetsu stabbed the figure with a chidori blade giving him time to kick it off and into the ones behind it, triggering a chain explosion. “-It?”

Copy-tetsu looked at his electrified blade then up at Nouka. “So it seems that lightning nullifies their explosive qualities.” He shot a chidori spear through another and directed it through two more that were nearby, effectively taking out the last bit of Nouka’s forces.

“Damn, he just disrespected everything you care about.” Kotetsu said from behind Nouka, nearly scaring his soul from him.

“I thought you died *smack* Ow!” Nouka rubbed the back of his head. “Well I did, how are you alive anyway?”

Kotetsu pulled his hand free from his chest and revealed that he still had electricity coating it. “I just used kamui on my body, I put my chakra into my hand so he wouldn’t notice I was alive.”

“Pardon me.” They turned and saw that Copy-tetsu was behind them. “But I have to kill you both.” He rushed forward to slice Nouka but clashed with Kotetsu’s blade instead. The two struggled until Kotetsu drove him off of the bird.

“Stay out of my way, your art is more useless than an open window underwater.” He jumped from the clay construct and landed near a tree, and had to duck instantly to avoid losing his head to Copy-tetsu’s lariat. “Can’t even wait for me to look at you?” The tree fell with a crash revealing Copy-tetsu with a sincere smile.

“From what I know about you, you’d rather strike an enemy before-“ A flurry of kunai made him stop talking and deflect the oncoming projectiles.

Kotetsu charged him as soon as the last kunai was knocked away and managed to take his foe’s left hand clean off with his electrified blade. “They can finish a sentence. Sounds like me yeah.” Copy-tetsu held his cauterized wound and jumped into his kamui realm. “Oh right... Shit where’s he-“ A foot to the back drove Kotetsu into the ground.

“I might’ve lost my hand but I can manage to fight like this.” He returned to his dimension as Kotetsu stood up and scanned his surroundings.

“Kotetsu behind you!” Nouka said right as Copy-tetsu emerged with a kunai but Kotetsu went into his own kamui before he could be struck. He came out and punched Copy-tetsu in the stomach before returning.

“I didn’t prepare for this but with a calm mind and good strategy I can over-“ He was punched in the face, Kotetsu followed with a kick to the chest and threw a kunai at his clone’s stomach

“Stop being so nice, that’s why I’m doing this.” He grabbed Copy-tetsu’s head and brought his face up. “Now hold still...” He peeled his right eyelids back to the imitation’s horror...

*Squelch*

“AGH!” The imitation held the right side of its face after Kotetsu dropped him back to the ground. He moved his hand and revealed that blood was pouring from his closed eye, he made the tiger seal with his right hand. “Fire Style: Fireball jutsu.” He got ready to release the fireball but Kotetsu clamped his hand over Copy-tetsu’s mouth. He tried to remove the offending limb but he wasn’t fast or strong enough, his struggling slowed down until he went limp entirely.

“Sorry but I can’t let a cheap knockoff run around with my Sharingan.” He took his hand back and let a puff of smoke escape Copy-tetsu’s mouth. He looked at his hand and saw the blood slowly dripping from it. “I guess that’s done so what’s Zeko doing?”

Nouka came down without his mount and stared at Copy-tetsu. “Is he?” His voice wavered, he never thought he’d see any form of his friend dead.

“Shut up.”

==============================

“Wind style: air bullets!” A volley of air bullets shot at Jenki and Zeko who got away fast enough to see the craters left by the attacks. “What’s wrong?! Afraid to get hit?!”

Zeko handed Jenki a chakra rod and let him use it as a projectile for, “Eight trigrams air palm!” He fired the rod but it was caught by the sand on Copy-ko’s chest and was thrown near the pond. The sand had spread from just the arm to most of his upper body and even formed a tail, his face was partially overtaken and his right eye was a yellow four pointed star. “We’re not scared, we just don’t wanna die to a crazy copy.”

“I’m not a copy! You can call me Zukako now!” He took a deep breath and expanded his chest. “Sand Bullets!” He fired hundreds of sand pellets at Zeko who used flying Raijin to evade most of the volley but took multiple hits to his legs before he fully escaped.

Zeko reappeared where the chakra rod landed. “So you’re just ripping off Shukaku’s name?” He wove the signs for dragon flame bomb and shot the wave of flame towards Zukako.

Zukako jumped into the air and shifted sand to his other arm, fully encasing his torso. “Is that all you can do? What?!” Jenki appeared at Zukako’s side with his Byakugan fully active.

“Looks like that sand’s gonna come crashing down on you.” He unleashed a barrage of strikes to Zukako’s body. The hits chipped through the sand armor and the combination was finished with a double palm strike to the stomach, sending him crashing to the ground and fulfilling Jenki’s pun. “I like being the funniest guy in the group.”

Zeko rolled his eyes at the comment and started walking closer to Jenki but froze, unwillingly. “Jenki stay on guard! I can’t move my legs!” A laugh came from Zukako’s crater and built until it was a manic cackle.

“Did you forget I put sand in them?” He rose a hand and sent more sand towards Zeko. “I’ll crush you!”

Jenki rushed in and used his hand to chop off Zukako’s. “Not if I can do-“

“Wind style: Sandstorm Devastation!” Zukako opened his mouth and shot a powerful gust, littered with sand pellets, at Jenki, sending him straight into a rock. “I should get rid of you first. I’ll tear you apart from the inside out!” He raised his arm with his reforming hand and closed his newly formed claws. Jenki screamed in pain from the sand in his body moving around, cutting into his insides. “Your eyes can’t even beat the one I have! What?” He snapped around and blocked a roundhouse kick from Zeko. “You didn’t expect that to hurt me did you?”

Zeko had blood coming from his legs and his overshirt was gone, leaving only his black undershirt. “You have a pretty nice Rinnegan, too bad I’m going to ensure that you never use it again. By that I mean you won’t use your face anymore.” Zukako smirked, revealing a monstrous set of teeth. Zeko coughed and dropped to his knee allowing his doppelgänger to walk behind him.

“That kick was nothing, don’t tell me you think you could beat me in your current state?” He raised his claw and made it larger than before, then he opened a hole in his palm with a large chakra rod, he brought it down to finish Zeko...

*Crash*

Zukako’s right cheek was caved in and he had teeth blown right out of his mouth, and he was falling backwards from the force of the strike. “H-How the hell?!” Before he could hit the ground Zeko grabbed his shrinking wrist and examined his arm. “Where did he get that speed? A-And is he- MY CHAKRA?!”

“Seeing it now, your sand is impressive. But since you only know what you saw me do... Anything I didn’t use in this world levels the playing field.” The sand coating Zukako’s arm fell off and revealed that he was missing his actual hand. “And this is the Preta Path, absorbing chakra is pretty useful but since I had Samehada I didn’t use it too much.” Zukako looked at his arm and saw his wound but once he looked up he made that a lesser problem. “Mini-Tailed Beast bomb.” Zeko slammed a small purple orb into Zukako’s chest, sending the sand clad copy flying away. “Jenki!” Zeko rushed over and began to remove the sand from his friend’s body and started healing him.

(This could be bad...)

But while Zeko was helping his friend, Zukako was in a rut more than a hundred feet away. “N-No...” To day that he was angry would be the understatement of the week. “I’m gonna kill... Every last one of you... then I’ll end Discord for not making me stronger.” A whirlwind of sand overtook his form and more was pulled from seemingly nowhere, stacking higher and higher.

“My head... what happened?” Jenki questioned while coming to his senses. “And why does it feel like there’s something in my- What the? Uh Zeko, big problem!” Zeko turned and saw a giant sand monster, a near perfect resemblance to the first tailed beast he knew.

“So is that why he... Now I get it, Zeko and Shukaku.” Zeko realized the purpose of the name but the question of how Discord knew of the first tailed beast lingered in his head.

“Now I can crush you!” Zukako boomed, his voice being rougher. He gave himself a once over and saw his new form, smiling at the result of his anger. “How ya gonna beat me now?” He raised a hand and slammed it against his stomach. “Have some air bullets!” He fired three air bullets that made the others look puny.

“Move!” Zeko and Jenki managed to barely evade the first and second shots, but landed directly in a patch of Zukako’s sand and were caught by the ankles. “Shit!”

There was an explosion of sand and dirt and Zukako cheered. “After all of that I did it! I killed them!”

“No you didn’t you peasant!” Nouka’s voice rang out and made Zukako look at the spot where his foes were. A massive silver hand was in front of the two but the weird thing was that it... was just bones... no flesh. Zukako looked and saw Nouka on a clay lion with Copy-tetsu, conscious and injured.

“Hey, raccoon boy!” He looked back at the silver hand and saw that another one was coming his way. “Don’t forget about me!” The fist collided with his stomach and sent him crashing into his back, eyes spiraling comically.

Zeko’s eyes were wide once he saw his cousin centered in a large silver rib cage. “What is that?” He questioned in shock at the bones surrounding Kotetsu who smirked.

(That changed fast)

“This, my Sharingan-less friend, is the Susano’o.” The arms drew back towards the rib cage and another bone structure formed upwards and created a silver spine and a skull with glowing purple eyes. The Susano’o looked, blankly, at the sand beast in front of it.

Zeko turned his attention to Copy-tetsu and saw that his right eyelid was shut with dried blood under it. “Hold on...” He looked closer at Kotetsu and saw that he now had...two Sharingan?! “How did you? And why is he still alive? You’d never let there be another you!”

Nouka beamed at the statement and ran to Zeko’s side. “I used the talk no jutsu on them, turns out Kosanu just wants to live peacefully.” Zeko raised an eyebrow at the name and looked back at the clone who smiled plainly.

“Bigger problems!” Kotetsu brought their attention back to the irate Zukako.

“That hurt a lot! How’s about I blast through your little skeleton?” He braced his claws into the ground and took a deep breath.

“This doesn’t look good, Nouka get in here!” Sand wrapped around Nouka and Kosanu and pulled them into the Susano’o. “Let’s top it off!” Zeko clasped his hands and made pillars of sand rise around him, he moved them over Kotetsu’s creation and encased it, giving it sand skin over its durable bones.

“Wind style: Desert Scream!” Zukako exhaled a massive squall that carved straight through the prairie and uprooted trees in its path. After the attack the sand on the Susano’o was blown clear but the shinobi within were unharmed. “How are you still alive?!”

The silver skeleton raised its right hand and coated it in electricity, Kotetsu and Zeko moved to it and formed a shadow clone each. “I forgot what happens when you mix lightning and wind, but this’ll stop him from going full demon.” Kotetsu said as he and his clone made a four blades from the lightning.

“Magnet release, should stop everything he’s doing.” Zeko and his clone formed a large rasengan above the skeletal palm. Kotetsu merged the lightning with the sphere and formed a quad-bladed rasenshuriken with lightning mixed in. They dispelled the clones and looked at Zukako who scowled and extended a claw.

“Oh no you don’t.” Zeko crushed a pellet he had in his pouch and made a blue smokescreen appear. “I can’t see you now but I saw where you were, Universal pull.” Zeko came flying from the smoke to meet the expecting claw but a poor of smoke revealed that it wasn’t him... “Uh oh...”

“Chidorasen-ken!” Zeko and Kotetsu said as their combined attack made contact with Zukako’s stomach, creating a massive explosion.

Nouka clapped and laughed at the display of raw power put on by his friends. “Now that was some art!” A slow clap brought them from their phase of victory and revealed himself to be Discord wearing a foam finger on his tail.

“That was quite the display, didn’t expect something like that to be the finale.”

“Why are you here?” Zeko questioned as Kotetsu’s Susano’o made a full one-eighty.

“Just here to deliver the news. About an hour ago miss Twilight Sparkle gave up on trapping me in stone and Ponyville is the chaos capital of the world!” He finished by making a diorama of said town with pink rain clouds and malformed animals. “Maybe you’d be willing to join in on it?”

“Those clouds look delicious!” Nouka was hit across the head by Zeko instead of Kotetsu for once.

“Nah, I’ll just live in a forest away from it all. I’ve got nothing to prove by fighting you since I had my fill with him.” Zeko pointed to the mass of sand that was collapsing on itself. Discord was surprised at Zeko’s statement but didn’t seem to care much. “Wait an hour? How long was this fight?”

“Well if I can have my chaos then so be it.” She snapped his fingers and teleported away.

“You’re gonna tell pony girl to not quit aren’t you?” Kotetsu asked as Zeko jumped closer to Zukako, he didn’t get a response but knew the answer. After three bounds Zeko was at his doppelgänger. He saw the sand covering the ground and put some into his own gourd before focusing back on Zukako, seeing that his robe was gone and dry blood was on his arm.

“So you finally got beat, I wonder how-“ He caught the chakra rod aimed for his neck. “Of course you aren’t out of chakra, I’ll fix that.” He grabbed his wrist again and started to siphon Zukako’s remaining chakra storage which was surprisingly high. Zeko figures that his missing hand and broken legs were the only thing assuring that he couldn’t fight back further. “These don’t look like wounds you heal on your own you know.” Zeko released his wrist and let it fall back to his side

“So... finish me off...” Zukako panted between words and only got Zeko to put his fingers on his left eyelid.

*Squelch*

“You corrupted yourself, I don’t wanna make myself worse off by doing that.” Zukako didn’t hear the words since he was screaming in pain over losing his Rinnegan and his eyeball. Zeko walked to Kotetsu who had his arms crossed.

“You just saw that I let mine live and followed for no reason didn’t you?”

Zeko smiled sheepishly, “You know me so well.”

“We’re leaving, finish up whatever was going on here. And don’t forget, I’M STRONGER NOW! Ha ha ha!” The trio vanished into the kamui leaving Zeko with Kosanu and a wailing Zukako.

“Well I only want to live peacefully so I’ll be off now.” Kosanu turned and walked towards the thicket.

“Boy...” A voice spoke. “Come with me, I can heal you.” The Timberwolf from earlier sprung from the ground and looked at Kosanu.

“Alright, I could use the help.” He managed to pull himself onto the back of the wooden wolf and they departed into the thicket.

“Ok so that’s that and... Twilight!” Zeko sprinted off leaving Zukako alone, until a few figures approached his form.

“W-Who are you?” He asked as a tall one approached with a large casket.

“Friends...”

==============================

“Without Rainbow Dash we can’t use the Elements.” Twilight stated

A scraping sound from the ground made the girls, excluding Pinkie, look down. Zeko burst halfway from the soil and looked around. “You don’t look like you gave up on anything.”

“Darling what happened to your clothes? I rather liked your ensemble.” Rarity pointed out the tattered black shirt Zeko had on and his pants that were littered with holes.

“Not that important.” He said quickly

“What’s in that tube on your hip.” Twilight reached for the object in question but a slap to the hand stopped her.

“Important.” He said with a stern tone. “So what are we doing?”

“Found Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie pointed up to a cloud with the Rainbow haired Pegasus resting on it.

“We need to get her down here so I can use the memory spell on-“

“Universal Pull.” Rainbow Dash was torn from the clouds and pressed against the ground by the shinobi. “Whatever it is do it!” Twilight pressed her horn against Dash’s forehead and she regained her vibrant colors again.

“What happened? Did we stop Discord?” She was pulled into a group hug by the girls but a group of Bison ballerinas reminded them of their mission and they ended the group hug. “Geez Zeko, did Discord throw you in a volcano? Tag along so we can kick his butt together.” She threw a few punches to the air but Zeko shook his head.

“I have something important to do, I’ll see you girls after the celebration since I know you’ll win.” He walked away leaving six mares confused at the change in attitude but they ran off to complete their mission.

(Hours Later)

Zeko was sitting on a cliff’s edge watching the sun set when Hunter approached him. “Hey that Twilight wanted to know where you were, should I tell her that we’re starting our special training tomorrow or?”

The teenager didn’t turn around and chose to sigh in relief. “If the time scale is the same as my world here then tomorrow should be my birthday and I got the greatest gift from myself and mastering it will be from you.”

Hunter was confused but also smiled. “Well it’s good to know that your birthday is in the Fall but how’d you get a gift from yourself? And how am I going to help you master it?” Hunter looked at the sunset himself and saw the clouds perfectly overlap the sun and provide a unique shade of red.

“Well...” Zeko turned around and showed Hunter his face...

“W-W- Is that? Y-Your eyes?” He was flabbergasted to see that both of Zeko’s eyes were...

“The devil’s in the details on how but now I can protect things way better than before.”

=======

Author's Notes:

This all nearly brought a tear to my eye.
If you have any questions feel free to comment, and if you want to dislike it... I don’t care if you don’t like it don’t read it.
If you liked it then great I’ll keep up the work so you continue to like it

And yes I toughed through my illness for this