"Chains, seal!" Glowing golden chains rattled into existence, their sharp ends piercing the broken body in front of them.

Blue flames engulfed the chained target with a crackle and lit up the shattered base that they had been fighting in.

When the flames vanished and the others moved to inspect the ashes left behind, Grimmjow watched Orochimaru's newly freed soul fragment screech as ribbons of energy bound it's movement.

"We did it!" A red haired teen said with triumph, wiping away the blood that caked his hands. "That was the last of that old relic, right?"

A black haired girl, much older that then redhead, looked at the ashes with spinning red eyes as her fingers tapped a small screen. "This was definitely the last of him," she said, when she looked at the small screen. "Confirmation just came in from HQ. The cursed sigil in Konoha has disappeared completely."

The redhead whooped in delight. "Take that snake bastard. Our ancestors can finally be at peace because we've sent every last piece of you to the after life."

"Stop moving around so much," the youngest member of the team, a pink haired teen, said with a tired sigh. "I just healed your injuries."

The redhead huffed and pushed the younger teen away. "Don't nag, Sasori. We've just accomplished our families' sacred duty. A duty that has been passed down for eight generations!"

"You've reopened your back wound," Sasori pointed out with a grimace.

The Uchiha of the group, and the eldest, pushed the redhead to sit. "Don't make Sasori do extra work by being such a careless idiot. Aunty will lecture us over dinner."

"Mom won't do that," the redhead groused as Sasori placed green glowing hands on his back. "We'll be celebrating for days because of this. Hey Grimmjow, what do you want to eat when we get back home? Mom will probably make us fish curry if we get back early enough."

Grimmjow kept his eyes fixed on the bound piece of Orochimaru's decaying soul that hovered in the air.

"Orochimaru is finally gone." The Uchiha said, "Does that mean you are leaving as well?"

"What?" the redhead yelled. "Don't be stupid Minako, Grimmjow isn't leaving..."

Minako covered his mouth with a gloved hand and looked right at Grimmjow with normal blue eyes. "Thank you for all your help, Grimmjow."

Grimmjow scoffed. "The fuck are you talking about?"

Minako gave him a small smile and jabbed the redhead in the side. "Say your goodbyes, Kurama."

"But," Kurama said, his blue eyes so similar to Minako's yet so much more prone to emotional dramatics. He pushed Sasori away and turned to Grimmjow. "Are you really leaving?"

"I've removed every last trace of that snake bastard from the living world," Grimmjow said with a careless shrug.

"Don't g..."

Minako covered Kurama's mouth again and said, "You know where to find us if you change your mind." She bowed and dragged the teary-eyed redhead away leaving Grimmjow with the last member of the team.

With green eyes and bright pink hair, both unique shades that he hadn't seen together on a living person in decades, the youngest group member stared at him.

"Get lost," Grimmjow said in annoyance.

"Are they here?"

"Who, you stupid brat?" Grimmjow huffed in annoyance.

Sasori's green eyes widened in amusement. "Whoever you're always talking to when you're alone."

Grimmjow blinked.

"I always wondered why you went out alone outside of missions." The boy grinned. "I followed you once." Before Grimmjow could reply, the teen laughed as he turned to follow the other two. "Let's meet again in the future, Grimmjow."

Sakura chuckled as she landed beside Grimmjow, not looking a day over eighteen. "He's just like me."

Grimmjow glanced at her. "Because he's flat-chested?"

Sakura snarled and smacked his arm as she readjusted her red outfit. "My boobs were beautiful when I got older. Just because I'm back to my teenage form after dying doesn't mean..."

Grimmjow tuned out her rant and turned to the chained soul fragment. "That's definitely the last piece of snake freak?"

Sasuke nodded.

Grimmjow sighed. "Anticlimactic as hell."

"Hell wasn't anticlimactic," Naruto piped up as he prodded the soul fragment. "Aizen was."

Grimmjow grimaced at the reminder.

"It's been centuries since we dealt with Aizen," Sakura said and flicked her long pink hair back. "Get over it."

"He was supposed to be a God!" Grimmjow snarled back. "That fight should have been epic. I got cheated then and now."

"If it wasn't for Aizen, we wouldn't have known how to come visit you like this." Sasuke said with a pointed look. "And Orochimaru gave you a fight than spanned centuries! Eight generations of our descendants have had to search and destroy his soul fragments after we died."

"Was this really a fight?" Grimmjow groused.

Sasuke stared at him blandly. "You regenerated an arm. Minako used those accursed blue flames that she should never have learnt and Sasori is the only reason that Kurama wasn't crippled."

"Poor Sasori," Sakura said, "Having to pick up the slack of those two cousins."

"Don't be a creepy granny."

"You're just cranky because your bloodline merged with Naruto's in Minako. You're both family now." Sakura grinned. "And how can I not be proud of my descendants? Especially someone who mastered the Sakura Style at such a young age. Did you see how perfectly he timed his explosions with his weapon swings?"

"It's too self-centred to name an entire fighting style after yourself."

"I invented it, what else was I supposed to name it?" Sakura retorted.

"And your bad naming skills got passed down as well. Sasori!" Sasuke said, apparently not quite finished with taunting Sakura. "Why would they name him after that puppet?"

"At least, it's not Kurama. Sasori works for him," Sakura said with a shrug. "He honours the Haruno name. Did you see him activated his Yin Seal and..."

Thankfully before she could bore them with more talk of her descendant, a flare of light made them all turn to Naruto. Naruto, who had been busy with his seal work near the soul fragment, grinned as he said, "Good news, I know where Orochimaru's soul has finally gone."

"What's the bad news?" Sasuke asked.

"Who said there was bad news?" Naruto waved his hand in the air dismissively. "No, I have even better news. We're going to have open a path to this new place."

Grimmjow perked up with interest. "New place?"

"Definitely not your old world," Naruto said with bright eyes. "And definitely not our usual afterlife."

Sakura leaned forward with interest. "A new place. I wonder how it compares to everything we've seen."

"There's only one way to find out," Sasuke said, his purple ringed eyes already glowing and ready to open a path to a new dimension. He turned to Grimmjow, "Unless you want to stay here?"

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "Who'd want to say here with that boring bunch?"

"You keep complaining, but no one asked you to stay with our descendants for eight generations," Sakura said blandly. "We removed your seals ages ago. You could have searched for Orochimaru all by yourself."

"Orochimaru was always trying to kidnap one of them!" Grimmjow retorted. "Why waste time searching when he made things easy for me?"

Sakura smirked, looking unconvinced.

Sasuke's eyes glowed and the air around them rippled in a haze of energy. "Get ready to move."

"If you miss them too much, we'll come back," Naruto said as a long rip appeared in front of them, the teasing in his voice hard to miss. "Hey, wait for us!"

Unconcerned by whatever lay ahead, Grimmjow jumped into the rip, knowing that the stupid brats wouldn't be far behind.


A/N: When I started writing this story, I had challenged myself to use a crazy idea and write a plausible story in 15 chapters/50,000 words. And I sort of managed it?

Another challenge was to finish this story in a month (as my 2011 FanNoWriMo) and that was a spectacular fail. But, better late than never, right?

Either way, I hope you enjoyed this story.

Polar