Worst Enemy, a naruto fanfic

Worst Enemy

Chad 'Graeystone' Harger

xxxxx

My beloved Hinata is dead, killed in front of my eyes in the most violent of ways. The image of her broken and shattered body as I hold her in my arms is the constant memory. Even in death she held no hatred or anger toward the one who did this to her. As her life faded she retained that expression of innocence that never went away. She held onto that expression so I would not lose control. I'm so sorry Hinata but the despair and anger I feel now is too much.

Now I seek the one who did this and while on this journey I discover so much I did not realize before and ultimately how wrong I had been. I had no right to judge Sasuke or try to hold him back when he went after his brother. I was a fool thinking I understood how he felt. I was an idiot trying to relate with Nagato and Konan. No matter how they justified their actions I was the bigger hypocrite. I never lost like they did. Even though my father died in front me I was a baby and was spared the scarring memory. Nagato and Sasuke were old enough to have the memories of their loved ones being killed etched in their minds forever. It was not until Hinata's murder that I understood why Sasuke became obsessed with revenge against his brother and why Nagato felt the means did justify the end if it brought peace to a broken world.

I also understood what it is like to lose the one person I love more than anyone else. Like a blind and deaf idiot I had stood there lecturing Tsunade on the death of her brother and boyfriend. I might as well have said, "They're dead, get over it already." Once again I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. Before Hinata and I got married Hiashi told me about how married couples are 'one flesh'. Tsunade and her boyfriend were practically at that point even though they never married. I didn't know what Hiashi meant until first night of the honeymoon and afterwards. When Hinata was brutally killed I felt as if my arms had been ripped out of their sockets, my heart crushed, and my mind too numb to feel anything besides loss and a building rage.

I make my way to a mountain where I know my hated enemy lives. He sends countless ninjas at me and I counter with Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. These irritants don't stand a change. I'm too pissed off to feel the drain of stamina. I am fueled my anger to such an extent the Fox aura is surrounding me most of the time. After killing the last of the ninjas I begin to walk the path that leads to the top of the mountain. The sun is blood red as it starts to set behind the mountain.

It seems to take forever to reach the top. I start to wonder if I'm caught in some genjutsu. Always did have problems with the damn technique. Hinata once said I was a moth to the flame of Genjutsu. Hinata helped me use my chakra better so genjutsu doesn't bother me like it used to. I do a dispelling technique and nothing changes around me. The path is that long.

I continue on my way wondering when I'll reach the top. I expect a sneak attack or trap at any moment. Nothing happens for a long time until I reach what I hope is the halfway mark. Two voices that I have not heard in a long time call out my name. I turn around and say, "Sasuke, Sakura."

Sasuke looks at me with one blue and one green eye. Sakura's expression is somewhere between relief and anger. She must still blame me for what happened to Sasuke. How was I supposed to know that the technique Itachi rammed down my throat would active as Sasuke and I fought for the last time? The crow Itachi crammed down my throat unexpectedly crawled back up as Sasuke used Amaterasu on me. Before the black flames could burn me to a crisp, the crow flew at Sasuke and split in two. Before either of us could react the two crows latched onto Sasuke's face and pecked his eyes out. Sasuke's screams were one of the worst sounds I had ever heard. Later I would learn Sasuke tried to put Itachi's eyes into his eye sockets but the crows were not about to let it happen. The moment Sasuke put the eyes in his hands the crows started clawing at his hands. Squeezing to hard in an attempt to protect the eyes Sasuke crushed his brother's eyes along with any chance of recreating pure Uchiha with Sharingan abilities.

After returning to New Kohona, Sakura was able to implant Sasuke with new eyes from people who had recently died. Sasuke tried to reactivate Sharingan and all that happened was that his eyes turned two different colors. Over time Sakura helped Sasuke heal his eyes and mind. Even our old friendship was rekindled and we became brothers once again and to no one's surprise the two of them got married. Sakura however blamed me for the loss of Sasuke's original eyes.

"You two are looking good," I say. "Now go home."

Sasuke smiles and says, "Our roles have been reversed. Now I'm chasing after you."

"Then you're the ignorant one," I say. "You were right all those years ago. Instead of holding you back I should have went with you."

Sakura looks at me with anger of a different kind. She is disappointed in me. "What about becoming Hokage?"

"Not anymore. The one thing Kages have in common is that they have someone they can share the experience with. Tsunade even got married," I say. "Tell Kohonamaru I won't be able to challenge him for the Hokage title."

"Don't go down this route," begs Sasuke. He points at his eyes. "I found out too late the price is too high."

"I don't intend to stay on this path for very long," I reply. They look at me with relief. They still don't understand. "Anko," I add to clarify.

Sasuke is confused and Sakura is shocked. Sasuke still doesn't know how Anko died. It's no surprise Sakura never told Sasuke. Hell, it was the first time I've seen Shino visibly shocked over something that happened. To this day I'm glad Hinata did not go on that mission.

"No hard feelings you two and have a peaceful life," I say. I've been through too much with them to just walk away without any regrets or anger.

I feel the fighting intent coming from them. Sasuke no longer has Sharingan and other Uchiha eye related skills. He still has all the other skills he gained through Sharingan copy ability and other training and is still a force to be reckoned with. Sakura is way beyond Tsunade's strength. During Kohana's rebuilding a building that had been built on a bad foundation started to collapse. Sakura ran inside and held up the five-story building while people escaped it. Witnesses said that Sakura tipped the building on its side after everyone was out.

Myself on the other hand still has the Kyubi's red chakra and Sage Mode. I won't use either against them. It's fine because I don't have to. I'm older and a little bit smarter and wiser. There is one thing that has never changed and that is I'm still the Number 1 Unpredictable Ninja. Hinata had challenged me for that title. Sometimes it's hard to tell when a member of her clan is serious or not. She attacked before I could react and she shut down my arms and legs and started to tickle me and one thing led to another and so much more. I push the memory aside before the overwhelming grief of her death comes back.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" I yell at the same time I throw a pair of Explosive Tags at the path and the mountainside. Sakura and Sasuke expect countless clones to come straight at them. Faking the technique was my way of keeping them out of harms way. The path explodes and the mountainside becomes too fragile to run across. The two of them yell my name so I know they are ok.

I run away from them while planting Explosive Tags destroying the path and mountainside behind me is destroyed. There is no way they can catch up to me now. Without any more hesitation I push on. I almost miss a hidden entrance. I walk past it when I hear a boulder grind behind me. I turn to see a Sound Ninja coming out of the hidden entrance. He is looking away from me. I pull out a fist full of Kunai and throw them at him and run as fast as I can behind the thrown weapons. He instinctively turns and ducks most of them. One hits him in the shoulder and I kick him in his stomach. I grab him by the shoulders and throw him off the path and down the mountain with all my strength.

I'm almost crushed to death as I squeeze past the boulder. My flack jacket and pants are torn but that's the least of my problems. I'm almost stabbed by a knife-wielding attacker. Without effort I take him out. I go Four Tail and use that form to track down my enemy. I snarl and slice through anyone who gets in my way. I stop at the entrance of a large gathering place and it's packed with ninjas. I smile and deactivate the red chakra. A quick head count reveals five hundred ninjas in this massive place.

I jump in the air and attack. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" I yell.

This time the clones do appear. They have the same expression of anger and rage as my own. Our collective battle screams and rage shake the walls of the gathering place. It's a bloody slaughter that has not been seen since Pein destroyed Old Kohona. The clones and I punch, kick, and use Rasengan against the allies of my most hated of enemies apart! After the slaughter my clones disappear and look around me. Bodies and blood are all over the place. At one time this kind of thing would have made me sick to my stomach but not any more!

Calming down enough to think I see where I can go next. There is an open door to the left side of the gathering place. I walk toward the door and feel the chakra of the bastard who brutally took the life of my wife. My expression twists into a snarl as an incredible amount of hatred grows within me. If the Fox was still inside of me I would give into it all the way just to kill the son of a bitch! I go through the door and enter a room that is so bright I can't anything.

As this room takes shape I remember how Anko died. Tsunade got intelligence that Orochimaru had come back from the dead by consuming Kabuto's body from within like a cancer. Tsunade, Shino, Sakura, and myself went after that snake. Anko begged Tsunade to go but she forbade it. Anko sighed and gave up her arguments and walked away as if nothing happened. I should have known something was off after my own brief experiences with her during the Chunin Exams. When we tracked down Orochimaru it would be the final fight between him and us and he knew it. The fight was long, brutal, and draining. We thought we had him when did the unexpected; he used Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and summoned five thousand clones of himself. The clones then turned themselves into five-foot long white snakes. Not even Shino's Destruction Bugs could handle that amount in order to give us a chance to escape.

For being a snake himself Orochimaru forgot the two rules of being around snakes. The first rule is that sooner or later they will bite. The second rule is that a snake's target never sees the fatal strike coming. While Orochimaru's snake army approached us one of the snakes behind Orochimaru stopped and slithered toward him. With no chance to react the snake jumped at Orochimaru's back and bit him. Orochimaru's expression went from victory to surprise. We stood there dumbfounded wondering what just happened. The answer was given when the snake let go and transformed into Anko.

"Y-You," said Orochimaru. He tried to move but couldn't.

"Don't bother," said Anko who had an unreadable expression on her face. "I injected you with a venom that blocks the voluntary parts of your body. You can still speak."

Orochimaru became angry and tried to speak. Anko struck him in his throat damaging his voice box enough so he could not yell out commands to his snake army. She grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up. "You stupid bastard!" she yelled.

"You of all people having emotions," rasped Orochimaru.

"You never understood how I felt," said Anko. "No matter how terrible you were or what crimes you committed my feelings . . .did you ever bother to think of why I left you?"

"Because you were trash," replied Orochimaru with a laugh.

"It's because you weren't honest with me," said Anko. "No, it's because I wasn't honest with you."

"Let him go," ordered Tsunade.

Anko turned her head toward us. With her free arm she summoned even more snakes. Unlike the other snakes that were frozen in place these snakes came toward us. They form a wedge between them and us. When she turned her attention back to Orochimaru, he asked in a sarcastic tone, "Did you fall in love with me?"

Akno sets Orochimaru down and puts her arms around him in a hug. "I still love you!" she yelled. "No matter how messed up you were I always loved you!"

Then Anko kisses Orochimaru. His eyes are full of hatred and rage at the confession and kiss. After a few moments I see something I thought I would never see. For a few moments the eyes of a snake monster became human again. Lines of chakra appear on their bodies then vanish and their bodies jerk once. Orochimaru looks at Tsunade with an apologetic expression and a tear runs down his face. Tsunade yells his name.

Then the bodies of Anko and Orochimaru explode! Not in a chakra explosion or one cause by explosive tags! It's just their bodies that blow apart from the inside out! We all had seen our share of people being killed; stabbed, blood loss, evisceration, decapitation, crushed, mentally killed by gengutsu! But this is the first time any of us have ever seen bodies literally explode! None of use could move as we watched the bodies parts fall to the ground into hundreds of pieces! Sakura and Tsunade were on their knees staring at the ground in horror! Shino seemed fine until he saw a part of Anko's skull that still had an eye in it staring at him! He doubled over and started making low-pitched sounds! And I stand there making weak breathing sounds! After the snakes start vanishing we slowly recover from our shock and make our way back home. To this day none of us are able to talk about it.

Now it's my turn to take a similar fatal last step and take my enemy with me. I wait for my eyes to adjust and I seem in thirty feet in front of me. I instantly go Two Tail as the enemy comes near. Two more tails appear as I feel familiar chakra around me. I finally see the face of my enemy and I know him so well!

"You," I snarl. "How many times do you have to be killed so it'll be a permanent?"

My smirks and says, "We both know that won't happen Naruto. To kill me is to kill yourself."

I laugh at the irony as all nine red chakra tails appear behind me. Of course if I destroy him I'll be doing myself in! After all I am the one who murdered my beloved Hinata! I am the monster who orchestrated all of this! I am the one who must die or else more people who I care about will perish! I draw in all the power I can and attack the murder that killed the one woman I loved above everyone else and this time it will be the last a loved one will be taken from me! I am centimeters away from my enemy's face and with a final yell I release all my power in one final explosive attack that will end us both!

. . . . .

. . . .

. . .

. .

. . .

. . . .

. . . . .

I wake up in bed on my side in a cold sweat. The bed sheets are disheveled. Such nightmares leave me frozen and unable to move for some time. I try to reject the images of my nightmare and it's hard to do. After a minute I turn on my back and look at the ceiling. My arm flops over to the other side of the bed. It's empty and another kind of fear shoots through me. In my confusion of waking up I think I did do something horrible to my wife. I turn my head in look in that direction. I see Hinata standing beside the bed. The way the light from the oil lamps are hitting her makes her look like a ghost. My eyes go wide with fear as I think the worst did happen.

Hinata smiles with reassurance and says, "Do not worry, I still have my feet."

It takes me a moment to know what she meant. Hinata sits down on her side of the bed. She looks at me but I can't mean her gaze. She seems to understand and turns her back to me. It's that Hyuuga insight Neji warned me about. He said arguing with Hinata is an exercise in futility. I didn't get it until I lost my fifth argument with her.

"It must have been a terrible nightmare," says Hinata with concern. "If you harmed me in your nightmare know that it cannot truly happen."

I've always known that but it doesn't make things easier. It's an old problem with me and it is something Hinata doesn't even know about. Long before I discovered the truth about myself I had dreams where I would destroy the village and everyone in it. I think subconsciously I was aware of the Fox and the destructive potential was reflected in my nightmares. I don't have the Fox in me anymore. I got rid of it along with the red chakra. The fact I had this sort of nightmare shows I'm not over my past as well as I think.

In the past I became so afraid that I would do immature practical jokes to help me forget the nightmares and when I got older I would push myself in training to the point of total exhaustion so that when I fell asleep I would not dream. One the surface people saw the young attention seeking punk and later the hard worker who pushed the bounds of training. The truth is that I'm a lifelong insomniac who is afraid of sleeping.

I hear Hinata whisper, "Byakugan." She wants to look at me without having to face me. I smile at her concern. "Tomorrow you will forget about this nightmare," she says with soft certainty.

She's being optimistic and I don't want to burst her bubble. "Tomorrow," I say hoping I mean it.

Hinata releases Byakugan and blows out the oil lamp on her nightstand and gets back into bed. I still can't look at her and I turn to my side with my back to her. I stare at the oil lamp on my nightstand. I stare at the flickering flame and keeping myself it nothing more than a bad dream.

Nothing more than a bad dream, I keep telling myself.

A bad dream.

. . .

. .

It was nothing more than a bad dream.

The End

Author's Notes –

1 - When Naruto was remembering certain things about people in his nightmare (Sasuke, Sakura, Anko, Oro.) they were 'real events' that happened in this ' future'.

2 – In Japan, it's believed that the ghosts of humans don't have feet. When Hinata said still has her feet she was telling Naruto that she's still alive.

3 – Please no Hinata hate like "Oh Naruto should have really killed her!" in the reviews. Look at this way – if this were a NaruSaku story, it would still be the same idea over all with a few minor differences.