A/N: This used to be the first chapter of my other story, Failed Reset. Due to it not quite being the quality that I want to have in the first chapter of a story, this one was scrapped and replaced with a different set of events (A gigantic fight scene, plus some other stuff! Everyone loves other stuff, right?)

That said, though, the events in this chapter still remain canon to the story. For that reason, I didn't want to delete it completely. As I said, there's a reason that it's no longer the first chapter of the main story, but if you're interested in the story's background then you might want to give it a look-over.

Failed Reset: The Fall

xXx

A single error was all it took to turn the tide of the Fourth Shinobi World War

xXx

"You think your stupid drawings make you an artist? True art explodes! Would you like another example?"

In a patch of forest in the Land of Hot Water, the two Surprise Attack Divisions were engaging in the first battle of the war. Between Sasori's puppetry and Deidara's explosive clay, the Allied Shinobi forces were on the defensive. Deidara had pumped Shin's stomach full of clay, and it was only the sacrifice of Kankuro's underground puppet trap that saved the division from annihilation.

Sai glared up at the two resurrected Akatsuki members flying above him on a clay bird. "Try it."

With lightning speed, Sai inked out two oni-like warriors. Creating an ink bird, Sai shot up behind the two Akatsuki members and saturated the drawings with his chakra. The two creatures flew out of the scroll and slammed into Sasori and Deidara, sending them plummeting downwards.

Kankuro sprang into action. "Black Secret Technique: Triple Iron Maiden!"

Two large wooden puppets sprang into being underneath the two falling Akatsuki members. With a hollow thunk, the two landed harshly in the open barrel-like stomachs of the waiting puppets, the opening quickly closing after them.

Deidara snorted. "Goddamn it! If I'd known this was coming, I would've self-destructed! I didn't want to go around showing off my master work all the time, but sometimes there's no other choice, un!"

As the Akatsuki members were enveloped by the puppets, the Allied Shinobi sprang into action. Kankuro's Crow puppet separated into various pieces and merged with the puppet containing Sasori, impaling the puppet master. Omoi whipped out his sword and ran towards the other puppet.

Maybe it was the stress of the situation, or maybe he was just wrapped up in his own thoughts. Whatever the cause, the lightning attack meant for Deidara never reached its target. As Omio charged towards the Akatsuki member, his foot slipped on a small protruding rock, unearthed by Deidara's explosive attacks.

Causing the sword to slip out of his hand.

Giving Deidara the time to detonate his C0.

The last thing Sai would ever see before the inferno enveloped him was the smiling face of his brother.

xXx

Powerful as they were, the two Akatsuki members were not enough to shift the course of initial battle in any major way, nor was the loss of Sai, Kankuro, Omoi and the rest of the Surprise Attack Division. Come nightfall, however...

xXx

"You're our spy!"

Amidst the ruins of the medical tent, Sakura squatted over the Zetsu clone that had disguised itself as Neji, her hands wrapped firmly around its neck. In the camp outside, medical staff ran towards her tent, drawn by the commotion.

Sakura tightened her grip. "How were you able to mimic Neji's chakra?"

The Zetsu clone grinned up at her maliciously. "My transformation technique is the best in the world... And I might not be the only one who managed to sneak in here."

Behind Sakura, a group of medical staff rushed into the tent. "What's going on here?"

As Sakura turned her head to reply, a dull white glow began emanating from the Zetsu clone's chest.

A sickly laugh came from the Zetsu clone's broken mouth. "Heh. Boom time."

Throughout the Allied Shinobi Divisions, the Zetsu clones who had absorbed Deidara's C3 constructs denoted as one, violent explosions of fire blossoming across the landscape. Caught off guard, the First and Third divisions were decimated almost to the man, with the other divisions sustaining heavy losses. Among the dead were Darui, Chouza, Hiashi Hyuuga, Hinata Hyuuga, Tenten, Sakura Haruno, Kiba Inuzuka and Might Guy, along with thousands of others. Nearly a third of the reanimated shinobi who had been captured were able to escape due to the blast, their bindings obliterated in the explosions.

xXx

With a huge percentage of their remaining forces killed, and the Third Division's commander Kakashi in a coma after overusing Kamui, the Allied Forces were severely crippled. Physically and psychologically weakened by the explosions that decimated their ranks, many of the Allied shinobi ended the next day as a bloodied corpse. Too many.

xXx

On a muddy and god-forsaken rock on the north-western coast of the Land of Lightning, the second incarnation of the Ino-Shika-Chou team faced their resurrected mentor, Asuma Sarutobi.

Shikamaru ran forward towards the hesitating Chouji, "Chouji, that's enough! We are not brats that need to be protected anymore! Now we are the ones who protect! Do you want Asuma to kill his own child? That's not kindness!"

In another world, in another time, Shikamaru's words might have galvanized Chouji into action. But this Chouji had lost his father. This Chouji had seen friends killed before his eyes. This Chouji had given up hope.

Chouji knelt in the mud, tears streaming from his eyes. Screaming in frustration, Asuma dashed forward, trying in vain to halt the descent of his blades towards Chouji's neck.

Shikamaru dashed in, trying to intercept Asuma's blade. Behind him, Ino cast her mind transfer jutsu over Chouji, galvanizing his body into action and pulling his head out of the path of Asuma's blades with inches to spare.

Utterly absorbed in trying to rescue Chouji from his mentor, none of the Allied shinobi noticed the recently-liberated Zabuza leap silently onto the plateau. Utterly devoid of intellect or free will, the swordsman dashed towards Ino's unprotected body.

At the last second, Asuma noticed the man's presence, "Shikamaru! Ino!"

Shikamaru and the Ino-controlled Chouji turned their heads, just in time to see Ino's undefended form bifurcated by Zabuza's Kubikiribōchō.

Chouji let out a scream and fell into the mud, the shock of feeling Ino's violent death rendering him unconscious. Shikamaru froze in place, unable to fully grasp what had just happened. Controlled by Kabuto's jutsu, Asuma was forced to take advantage of this, his trench knives impaling Chouji and Shikamaru through their throats. The two were killed instantly.

Asuma screamed.

xXx

On the border between the Land of Frost and the Land of Lightning, standing over the corpses of dozens of Zetsu clones, a bloodied and chakra-less Neji Hyuuga found himself pinned on all sides by walls of bone and ice. A dinosaur-like shinobi with two red dots above his eyes flew towards him as a masked shinobi peppered him with senbon at a distance.

xXx

Lying broken against a tree as his companions died around him, Shino tried desperately to metabolize the poison the red-haired Akatsuki member had infected him with, his insects buzzing frantically.

xXx

Battling along Mifune in the Land of Hot Water, Chojuro's head was separated from his shoulders with a single stroke of Hanzo's kusarigama. Mifune laster little longer, leg shattered by a blast from Kakuzu's earth mask.

xXx

Across the perimeter, the ground became slick with the blood of Allied Shinobi. As the Akatsuki forces began freeing the captured, the Allied forces resorted to sacrificing their own lives in order to permanently banish some of the resurrected using the Dead Demon Consuming Seal. The Allied Kages would eventually take to the battlefield, but it was too little too late.

xXx

"Come on! I may be an old woman, but even I appreciate the irony!"

Sasori turned his head away from Chiyo, looking across the battlefield to where Gaara and Onoki were battling Mu, Hanzo, Deidara, The Fourth Kazekage and the Second Mizukage.

Undeterred, Chiyo snorted. "We're puppet masters. Yet, we're..."

Sasori sighed. "Yes, we're puppet masters being controlled by someone else. I get it. What is your point, Grandma Chiyo?"

Chiyo laughed. "Well, we really are nothing more than puppets now. You have your eternal body, but both of us are no better than marionettes."

Despite himself, Sasori found himself pondering her words. True, he was effectively immortal now, but it felt... hollow. When Deidara had blown up his puppets, along with that Kankuro puppeteer, there had been a flash of something resembling... sadness. He hadn't felt emotions of any stripe beyond annoyance in a very long time.

Chiyo interrupted Sasori's thoughts. "I know you better than you know yourself, grandson. And let me tell you, an existence like this was never something you desired. Remember the first time you died? You could have avoided that final attack, and we both know it."

Sasori bristled. "I did not commit suicide!"

Chiyo merely raised an eyebrow. Sasori prepared to release a vicious diatribe at the old bat, then stopped himself. Her words had a disturbing ring of truth to them. Sasori had always despised self-delusion, and this policy applied to himself as well as others. Thinking back to the events of the extraction of Shukaku, Sasori began systematically analyzing his near-photographic memory.

Much to his surprise, the old woman was right. He could have avoided that attack. He should have avoided that attack. And yet, he hadn't. He was half-tempted to chalk it up to an act of carelessness on his behalf, but in the end the truth won. He, the immortal puppeteer, had knowingly allowed himself to be killed. And he didn't understand why.

Chiyo grunted. "Looks like the battle is almost over."

Temporarily abandoning his train of thought, Sasori looked out across the sandy plain. As with so many of the battles over the previous days, the Allied Shinobi had been devastated. A severely wounded Onoki was leading the shinobi in a full retreat, while Gaara frantically was trying to hold off Hanzo, Deidara and Mu simultaneously. As the two puppeteers watched, the Second Tsuchikage launched a dust release jutsu, dissolving one of the young Kazekage's hands. Gaara let out a scream and clutched his bloody stump.

Sasori found himself moving towards the battle. "Finally. I was sick of all this waiting."

He would think more on this later.

xXx

With the war going in his favour, Tobi was able to keep a much closer eye on both Kabuto and Sasuke.

xXx

Standing over Anko's corpse, Sasuke by his side, Tobi eyed the incapacitated Kabuto.

Kabuto snarled. "I thought we had a deal, Tobi. Sasuke was to be mine!"

Tobi smiled maliciously behind his mask. "That was before you tried to claim the jinchūriki for yourself. Besides, I believe Sasuke might have something so say about that. Sasuke?"

Sasuke stepped forward. "Tsukuyomi."

Kabuto slumped in his restraints, panting, as days' worth of physical and mental torture took place in seconds.

Tobi turned to Sasuke. "Again. Break his mind, however long it takes."

Sasuke nodded. "Tsukuyomi."

xXx

By the time that Naruto and Killer Bee entered the fray, the war was all but lost. Commander Gaara had been killed protecting his troops' retreat, Onoki had died from to his injuries and the Allied forces were in full retreat. Nevertheless, the two jinchūriki bravely faced down Tobi and his bijuu. It was a battle that shook the heavens, but in the end the arrival of resurrected reinforcements brought Akatsuki's victory.

Four days passed since that final stand. Tobi's White Zetsu army, along with the majority of the resurrected had chased the fleeing Alliance Shinobi back through the Land of Lightning. Of the 80,000 shinobi and samurai who made up the Alliance, less than 8,000 remained. Tsunade had taken over command, and had attempted a counterattack to rescue the two bijuu containers, along with a team of the Alliance's most powerful remaining shinobi.

xXx

"Lariat!"

Wasted and broken, Tsunade wearily looked up from her position lying on the ground to see the Raikage viciously drive his elbow into Nagato's neck, sending his head flying. This victory was short lived, however, as the Rinnegan user simply regenerated. Turning her eyes to the heavens, she could do nothing but watch as Madara's colossal meteorite continued its inexorable descent.

xXx

This last attempt ended in abject failure.

Akatsuki had won.