NaNoWriMo 2010

by Commander Zia

The worst thing I've ever written since I was 10. No real end, not much plot, read at your own danger. But hey, at least I wrote 40k, right? Posted for my two friends Chasing and Simone Robinson, who wanted the rest of this fic.

WARNING: Story has no ending. Plot holes galore, no editing at all done. Posted to show off my almost-winning NaNoWriMo (definitely winning my personal record though) and for the two who followed my NaNo when I was still posting it chapter-by-chapter. Basically: Don't read. But hey, if you have nothing to do this afternoon, be my guest. Just no flames when you reach the 'ending', 'kay?

For Chasing and Simone because you wanted to see how far I'd gotten before stopping. Around 30k I threw zombies in 'cause I got bored, and at 40k I just gave in and stopped. But hey, 40k is a shitload more than I've ever written before, right?

Right?

So this was started on 11.10.10 and 'ended' (left to die in a hole) on 11.28.10

NaNoWriMo, I thank you forever for forcing me to write this much, even if I didn't win.

FINAL WORDCOUNT: 40,806

---

The man's fingers stood out pasty cream against the scroll gripped in his fingers, almost as white as the bandages around his knuckles and peeking out from under his blood red sleeves.

"Aka, come here." The man spoke with authority, his voice clipped and edging on impatient. But the small, pale-haired girl was used to such treatment, indeed was known for such characteristics herself, and fell to one knee as she reached the man's shadow. "Take this."

Aka took the chaffy paper in her own pale fingers, twisting and turning it although she dare not crack open the seal. She might have asked a lesser man what it was, but she knew better than to question his judgment. Instead, she asked a different, but just as nagging question, one she knew he would appreciate. "War?"

His flat lips turned upwards into a chilling smile, and his red eyes crinkled slightly. "War. Do you look forward to it?"

If anyone else had dared to ask such an impudent question, Aka might have retaliated. But from him, it was almost a blessing. "I look forward to it more than I should, perhaps. Death will befall many of your followers, lord."

Aka grew giddy as the expected smirk grew upon the man's face. He knew she knew, he knew she just loved to hear his voice, he knew she was lost in him. But she didn't care. He was always right, and there was nothing wrong with following the truth. "Have I failed you so, Aka? How many times must I remind you," these next words she mouthed with him, "Death befalls only those who deserve it."

"Of course, my lord." Aka bowed, before standing up abruptly so that the charm on her necklace struck her skin with a small sting. The symbol shimmered slightly in the dimming afternoon sunlight.

"Now," He said, his voice edging towards excitement, because as much as he was above them he was one of them. "I need you to use this and return to the world, and bring me my followers. For the war to come I will need every man I can have."

"It cannot be difficult, no follower of yours will be able to deny such a…" Aka licked her lips a little, "Delicious offer."

He smirked again, and she found herself admiring his figure, as she always did when she was not dreaming of the next fight. His white hair was slicked back to show his bloody eyes, and his pale lips parted to reveal white, almost pointed teeth. His long red jacket fell open to reveal a bare chest and the hilts of blades so long they stuck out behind him, interrupting the falling of his loose black pants ever so slightly. His muscles were tight, his movements were quick and purposeful, his eyes showed with hatred and lust and desire.

Jashin-sama was a true warrior.

"That will not be the problem." Jashin assured his most dedicated and trusted servant. "There are simply not that many left. There is only one group left anymore, barely a dozen strong. I will need to call to my blood servants again, it's been a long time since that's been essential to our survival."

"Blood servants?" Aka could not help but ask, her hand twitching to the sai tucked under her cloth belt, she recognized the name.

"Have you already forgotten Aka?"

"It's been hundreds of years lord," Aka almost apologized, emphasis on almost, because Jashin-sama would never recognize a coward in his ranks. "I recognize the term, but I cannot place it."

"In the hopes the spirit would… move them I brought to life several clans powerful enough to fall villages. It's been years since they've renounced even the belief that I might exist. Claim me to be nothing but lore, claim no mortal can rise so high as to become god."

"You are no mortal." Aka said.

"I suppose not." Jashin said after a pause. "But neither are you. Nor is Hidan."

"Hidan still lives?" Aka asked. She remembered the albino, passionate but mislead, to put his trust in such an organization as he had. He had been a good warrior.

Jashin nodded. "He is no mortal. He will not die by a mortal's hands. He was recovered by the last of our followers and is being housed among their ranks to recupperate."

"They must be growing reckless now that the villages have descended to peacetime." Aka again felt a short burst of lust, she too missed the days of shredded flesh and bloody stink and the slowing of heartbeats. But it had been at least a decade since such excitement.

"Indeed." Jashin smiled. "This is why I think they'll listen to me. You, go to them, the seals in that scroll should suspend you in the real realm until you are called back or choose to return."

"My mission, then?" Aka asked. "It cannot only be to stir up chaos, that should take mere minutes."

"You are no mortal." Jashin repeated almost appraisingly. "A god needs his foil. I need you to go searching for my next child. Hidan's time is slowly running down, he is growing weak. I need men but more than that I need another son. Even I am running low on patience. We must end this, that demon is becoming a nuisance, and it seems he has begun to sense our presence."

"You said clan." Aka said. "What clan should I be searching within? Not to sound ungrateful, but can you not locate him for me? How am I to find him?"

"Can you feel me?" Jashin asked suddenly, holding out his hand for her to take. Even before she did she knew what he was speaking of, as always stepping within a dozen feet of him was like stepping into some living, breathing being, chakra pulsing like a heartbeat around her, warm and suffocating.

"Of course, Jashin-sama."

"Then you shall be able to feel him as well." Jashin nodded. "I cannot choose my son, only how I raise him. Contact me when you find him."

"Of course." Aka bowed deeply, before hesitantly cracking the scroll and unraveling it. Black ink erupted before her, and without a moment's hesitation she pulsed chakra through it and it lit up, golden yellow.

A moment longer, only long enough to feel blood-lust again stuck in her throat with the excitement, and everything dissolved around her.

Jashin watched as his servant disappeared. He'd never been one for thinking or talking, he let his swords do that for him, and so it was no surprise he still hadn't the faintest clue why the immortal girl, his first and only daughter, was still by his side. All these years, he was even a god damnit, and he still didn't understand her.

Drawing his sword, he let a maniacal grin erupt on his face. Energy coursed through his veins, and for the first time in years he felt a familiar excitement take hold. Blood. It had been to fucking long, too fucking long since he'd felt alive.

A twinge of pain jerked through him as he lifted his hand high, but he ignored it.

A silly idea, really, that a god could perish at all.

~OOOOOO~

"Akatsuki?" he asked, face suddenly draining of color. It was not often the boy's- but of course he was a man now really- smile ever faded, even if it was sometimes a little forced.

"But we destroyed them two years ago, when…" The cherry-haired woman's voice drifted off unintentionally, but the unspoken 'he actually left' hung awkward in the air around them. She cleared her throat. "I watched Naruto kill Madara, I felt him die. He cannot be back."

"That does not mean the Akatsuki cannot be back without him." Tsunade said gravely, from behind her large desk. They all stood in the office around her, the nine of them, hands behind their backs as they got their mission briefs. "It could be someone we didn't catch, like Itachi or Kisame. It could be an imposter. For all we know Orochimaru may be back under their flag. He's been quiet for much too long as it is, it's not impossible that he's been merely recruiting all these years."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably, as did Naruto and the masked man beside them. The others in the room only twitched a little, acutely aware of the anxious atmosphere.

'But that would mean Sasuke-' seemed to sit on the tips of their tongues. But it had been six years since he'd first left their tall gates, two since he'd left behind his dull headband in his memory, and most of them had made their peace. Even Sakura was dating again, even Naruto was laughing again, even Kakashi was reading porn again. Peace had been made. It was a terrible thought that plagued all of them, however, that war could come again. Konoha wouldn't be able to handle it. Not after Pein.

"Where have they been seen?" Neji asked, finally speaking up.

"The newly minted ANBU squad 11," Tsunade sent a flash almost-smile over towards Sakura, who stood proudly beside Kakashi, Yamato, Sai, and a surprisingly attentive Shikamaru, "Will be investigating a recent Akatsuki sighting a day or two out of Suna, in one of the small market villages."

"And us?" Neji pushed on. His team too stood about him, Lee and Tenten and Naruto and Gai, but significantly less impressive. No armor or katana or swirling tattoos for them, just spandex and a nauseating amount of orange. Even Tenten had given in over the years, the short orange scarf tied around her neck loosely. Neji had to work to keep from getting too frustrated. It should have been him. But one failed ANBU entrance exam and Hiashi was not prepared to let him try again anytime soon, until he'd 'improved' and 'contributed more to the family'.

"There have been reports of massacres just south of Konoha, slowly getting closer. Whole villages have been razed to the ground. It may be something to do with this rebirth of the Akatsuki." Tsunade sent all of them a Look. "Do not take this mission lightly."

"We would not dare!" Lee exclaimed, his eyes bursting to fire for a moment in his defense. He had grown older over the years, just as the rest of them had, and even now there was a certain maturity to the way he stiffened his thick shoulders. His voice was deeper.

"I'm sure." Tsunade responded in a deadpan. "You'll keep them in line, alright?"

Neji almost flushed with anger as the Godaime addressed Tenten with a smirk.

"Of course Hokage-sama." Tenten smiled back.

"Whatever." Naruto pouted, folding his arms across his navy sleeveless top. He had never much liked the olive of the chuunin vests, and anyways sans Chouji and inevitably Sasuke, he was the only one of them left still unqualified to even take on a genin team. Instead he sported a much more mature version of his childhood jumpsuit, zipped up to his bellybutton so that the sleeves hung around his waist and to his knees, revealing his undershirt and the thick matt of scars across his right shoulder.

It was undeniable that things had changed, if Lee and Naruto were so… adult. Neji's stomach sank as he realized the changes might not be as good as they had thought.

"Gai knows where you're headed, so he'll show you." Tsunade nodded in their direction, dismissing them silently.

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" Lee said loudly, bowing deeply. Behind him, for half a second, something in Gai's dark eyes smiled sadly. Tsunade knew, and Yamato and Sai knew, and Neji and Kakashi guessed, but they all pretended not to see it. It was inevitable, after all. The human body could only take so much abuse.

"Hai!" Tenten, Neji, Naruto, and Gai followed suit, before straightening and starting towards the large wooden door. It took only seven minutes of blurring buildings for them all to arrive at the gate, and as they did none of them, not even Naruto, were the least bit ruffled. Years of following around the two insane taijutsuists had done wonders for Tenten and Neji's stamina, and Naruto had made as much peace with Kyuubi as he could without actually contacting it face to face, able to draw upon its chakra almost as easily as his own.

"Are you ready?" Gai asked brightly.

"Yes!" Lee answered quickly, flashing a smile so wide the gaps where he was missing teeth showed. It was a wonder he could be so cheery, even now, even when Naruto had been knocked down a couple pegs. But he was Lee, and none of them would have it any other way.

"Yeah!" Naruto pumped his fist in the air. "Finally away from Sai and his stupid C-ranks! He's such a prick."

Tenten giggled a little. She personally hadn't much against the pale boy or Naruto, but it was impossible not to find the blonde's endless irritation amusing.

"Let us go then!"

~OOOOOO~

"What if it is Itachi?" Sakura asked quietly as she slipped her armguards on over her short black gloves. Kakashi didn't answer for a long time, still fiddling with the string of his white and black canine mask.

"If it is Itachi… we will fight him."

"We?"

Kakashi nodded slowly. "We are now equals."

"Even if Naruto is not."

Kakashi coughed loudly to cover up the laugh, and Sakura had no doubt he was grinning.

"Let's leave before Wolf coughs up a lung." Shikamaru, Elk now, said in his bored voice.

Sakura smiled, even if none of them could see it behind her mask.

"Akatsuki, hm?" Sai followed them as they scaled the roof and leapt to the next one, chakra in the balls of their feet like springs.

"I didn't think I'd meet any of them again." Yamato said in a carefree voice from behind his beaver (they would never let him live it down, that they agreed on) mask.

"Sounds interesting."

~OOOOOO~

Elk sighed deeply. A whole lot could be said about the boredom that was waiting back in Konoha for something to happen, but there was something worse about the methodic thudding of feet on dirt, the hypnotic breaths creeping the way up his throat, something that put his mind to restless sleep. There weren't even any clouds to watch, as it was a grey November. He just couldn't win, could he?

For a split second Elk considered reaching into his pocket and touch the sleek metal of the trench knifes, his fingers ached with longing, but he forced it down.

"Is something the matter? No one's spoken for at least an hour." Sai spoke up from behind him, in his usual, mindlessly cool voice, the one that drove Elk mad. Of course, to even think of him as 'Sai' rather than platypus was dangerous, but it was the ANBU office's fault for handing him such an eccentric codename, Elk had no doubt Sai had found a way to insult them at least twice before they'd even opened the drawer of old, discarded masks.

"Everything is fine Sai." Both Wolf and Moth said in unison, Moth's voice almost apologetic while Wolf's was just his usual false cheery.

"You sure?" Beaver asked almost-anxiously.

"Yes, I'm sure-" Moth began, but Wolf cut her off.

"Sakura has been having some trouble rectifying her previous idea of ANBU now that she is among their ranks." He said patiently, and it was obvious, at least to Elk, that he was trying as hard as he could to keep the girl in her comfort level, referring to them as though not ANBU themselves, going so far as to call her Sakura rather than Moth, though such a thing was, technically, forbidden.

"Sorry." Moth peeped quietly, Elk could practically see the blush behind her wide-eyed, thickly-streaked mask.

"That's fine." Beaver said quickly. It's hard for everyone at first. That's why Tsunade assigned you to a squad with us, to ease you into the system."

Moth nodded, and her short, messy pink hair whipped around in the air created by their rapid pace.

Elk sighed again, turning away. She'd have a lot to get used to, more than she probably knew. It wasn't just that the ANBU were portrayed as merciless to the public- they were merciless. It was just the public that had trouble understanding the fact. It hadn't taken Elk more than a couple of months to learn. It wouldn't take Moth that long either. She was stronger than she often let on.

Crack.

Time slowed down suddenly with the snap of the branch, so that even as Elk whipped around, drawing the trench knifes from his pockets, his eyes caught the long, spidery shadows of trees, splayed across the pale, flattened grass, and every heartbeat passed a mile apart.

The branches moved with him, slow as if through honey.

For a moment he was seeing his childhood, stick sword-fights and cardboard puzzle-pieces, and he could hear the voices talking to him. 'Shikamaru…' They would always say. Over the years he'd blocked the memories of what they'd said but he could still remember the voices thin and frail and frightening, calling his name over and over, hours into the night so he couldn't fall asleep. 'Shikamaru.'

And then-

CLANK.

Elk's arms shivered with the impact as the knives hit a long sword two inches from his nose.

The man was tall, but not just tall, wide. He towered over Elk, and although he couldn't turn to see it he was sure he cast a shadow as long as the trees did.

"Boss said I'd find you here." The man grunted, showing that he too was having slight trouble battling for dominance.

Breathe, Elk, just breathe.

With a large final shove Elk got the man off of him, and in the split second of peace he took in what was happening around him. There were nearly two dozen men, almost all as broad as the man attacking him, descending from the trees.

How had they been found?

A good five were surrounding a defensive looking Wolf, and four covered both Beaver and Sai, so that they were isolated on opposite sides of the path, at least twenty feet away.

And across from Elk, Moth was holding off a thin and lean but extremely agile man, so quick that his hand-held fans, when swung, brought a breeze along with them so strong Moth was teetering on her feet. So quick it made his cloak fly out like a cape.

His black, red-cloud cloak.

"Akatsuki-" Elk breathed, before the man was upon him again.

He had hair the shade of blue-berries, and his eyes were only a shade lighter, narrowed in unknown emotion and concentration. His Akatsuki cloak was unzipped half-way, hanging almost off his shoulders to reveal a mesh top and a web of bandages beneath.

"The description matches." The man talked, almost to himself, as if taking stock of his surroundings even as he lunged forward with a sword as wide across as his monstrous palm. Elk remembered last second and charged the knifes in his grip, and there was an electric-shock noise as again the metal collided. "Nara Shikamaru. Black hair, brown eyes, ANBU mask of some kind of deer-"

Elk continued to block, to lunge, to try from backing away too closely to the forest and blocking himself in, but his mind began to whir. Who? How? No important Konoha nin had recently gone renegade, whenever that happened all codes and masks were scrambled. Spy, then? But after Kabuto Konoha had become more protective, more secretive, screened all operatives at least bi-monthly.

"Who's you're leader?" Elk forced between clenched teeth, as he found himself being backed towards the trees anyways. For a moment he considered dropping the blades and using ninjutsu but every time he got close the sword swung closer, and he had to block. His feet went almost cold. It had been a while since he'd felt so… out classed.

The man let out a loud giant's laugh.

"The man with the red eyes." Was all he said, before Elk's feet disappeared from under him, pain exploded in his skull, and the world turned soggy black.

~OOOOOO~

Tenten picked at her nails aimlessly as she walked much slower than she really should be going, to keep with the group moving much slower than they should be going as well.

"Hey Tenten, check this out!" Beside her Naruto grinned like a maniac as he balanced a couple of scrolls on top of his head as he walked, the eighteen inch tower swaying dangerously. Lee smiled brightly, clapping encouragingly as he walked backwards beside him.

"This is a mission." Neji finally joined the 'coversation' from where he stood a yard or so behind them, in his scolding voice.

"Oh come on sourpuss." Naruto whined. "Have fun a little."

"The Akatsuki may be coming back, I see no need to 'have a little fun'." Neji countered.

Naruto's pout turned momentarily into a full-blown, worried scowl, before he shook his head and smiled again. That was always his philosophy, always had been. Just forget about everything.

"Gai-sensei, do you think this is cool?" Naruto asked without turning to the man walking a couple feet ahead of them. He turned back, and smiled slyly.

"Naruto, you have such youthful talent." He said, but as it had been for years, it sounded almost sarcastic. Not in a mean way, but in a 'this word is pretty fun to say' kind of way. As always Tenten had to search her brain for memories of a time when Gai-sensei hadn't been this way. But of course, as Lee had quieted over the years so had their sensei, almost to silence of Neji's degree, and no one questioned when the man stopped wearing the green jumpsuit and turned to just a green top, his pants the standard issue charcoal grey.

But it wasn't really a mystery. It was war. It was war, and over the years it had become clear even Maito Gai, the most open person she'd ever met, carried feelings too.

"Thank you," Naruto grinned widely, bowing awkwardly while walking, while keeping the scrolls balanced on his head.

"What scrolls are those anyways?" Tenten asked as a thought occurred to her. She checked her belt and felt that, indeed, one of her weapons scrolls was missing.

"One is yours," Lee said brightly, "and one belongs to Neji."

"My- you what?" Neji lunged, and as Naruto leapt back out of the way the scrolls on his head fell to the ground. The wet. Muddy. Ground. "What the hell?"

Neji snatched his scroll from the ground, rubbing the mud off on Naruto's shirt before he could protest. "Hey man! Get off-"

"You ruin my scroll, I ruin your shirt." Neji mumbled, untying the string around his scroll and rolling it open to check for damages.

"I didn't ruin your scroll, you can still read it perfectly!"

"I didn't actually ruin your shirt, you can still wear it."

"What's on that anyways?" Tenten asked, peering over the man's shoulder to read the black characters. However, before she could read a single one he closed it with a snap.

"Byakugan techniques." Neji said. "Don't go snooping."

"I wasn't snooping." Tenten couldn't help but retaliate, even if it was officially her job to be the peacemaker. Although she wasn't actually very upset. Mostly it was just fun to mess with the Hyuuga.

"Why couldn't Tsunade have put me on another team." Neji growled, stuffing his damp scroll back into his pack. Tenten quickly picked up her own scroll, from the dirt rather than mud, and rubbed the dry soil off against her pants, before dusting them clean enough as well.

"You know you love us." Tenten injected in a carefree voice. Neji's snarl, but expected lack of denial, was all the response she needed to smile.

"So what's going on in these villages anyways?" Neji finally asked, after an awkward ten minutes of silence. Gai stopped in order to allow them all to come level with him.

"Small villages, usually farming towns, are getting raided." Gai began. "There have been mixed reports, but most people say the group consists of fifteen or so men. Still, if it was not for the Akatsuki sightings they probably would have sent a chuunin team or a single jounin, they sound like amateurs, only making victories through fear. We were hired by a group of escapees from a previous victim village."

Tenten nodded. Over the years they'd seen many missions, the concept didn't sound unfamiliar.

"Should we leave one alive?" Neji asked, and for half a second everyone went a little cold. But then they were better. They were ninja.

"We should." Gai nodded, grimacing. "We need to make sure they know nothing."

"Is that it?" Naruto suddenly asked, pointing into the distance where smoke floated above the trees like rain clouds.

Even Lee's eyes flashed.

Neji chuckled darkly. "I would assume so."

They started off at a sprint, down the muddy path and past the smudgy green blurs of trees on either side.

Tenten reached into her pack and brought out a couple kunai, palming them defensively.

You could never be too careful.

~OOOOOO~

"Boss-man, we got it here."

The tall, blonde man turned to face the lanky man behind him slowly, taking in the rough bag in his hands.

"Got what?"

"The gold." The man continued, pulling open the lip to show a pile of coins and chains. "This'll be enough to feed us for years. Let's ditch these guys and go on our own, just the thirteen of us."

"Are you sure that's a good idea Hayato?"

Hayato tilted his head slightly. "'Course it's a good idea. Red-eye's been sending us on a bunch of useless missions, just to get us all out of his hair. We've lost half our number already, and what's he given us? It's not like he'll ever find us, he won't even know we left for a couple weeks."

"You're right." The blonde man said finally, nodding. "He hasn't given you anything yet."

"Exactly!" Hayato insisted, pointing to the gold again. "We deserve a break, yeah?"

The blonde man, after a moment, nodded, though in thought rather than agreement. "But me? Oh, he's given me something."

"What do you-"

Before Hayato could finish speaking the short blade was in his gut, pulling up and up until it was almost at the base of his neck.

"He's given me plenty." He smiled, withdrawing the kunai and letting the corpse drop to the ground. Taking hold of the blood-stained, rough bag in his hands, he hummed cheerily to himself.

"Anything up boss?" The voice came from far away, a shout, and quickly he kicked the corpse over, so that it lay face-down in the wreckage of the building beside them, alongside those of the actual owners of the store.

"Nope, nothing wrong." He called back. "In fact, we're in luck."

When silence came, he turned back to the voice again. "Hey, you still there?"

Suddenly a blade was pressed blunt-side against his throat, and he gasped painfully in surprise.

"Oh, I'm here."

~OOOOOO~

Sakura blinked slowly as she woke up, unable to keep herself from yawning widely.

Or would have, if not for the thick and warm liquid in her mouth, choking her.

Suddenly awake, Sakura felt the ropes around her ankles, binding them together, and at her wrists behind her back, chafing them as they ached against the wall behind her. She leaned forward and quickly spit out the blood, and what felt like a tooth, gasping for breath.

She tried to remember everything she'd ever been told about capture, but her mind was a blank slate.

She could remember the stick-bug man racing towards her, swirling around her like some demon dancer, and she could remember Shikamaru falling to the ground amidst the thick plants at the edge of the trees. She could remember shouting for him, taking her eyes off the blue bladed fans for a moment-

The back of her head stung, and although she had no way of seeing it she had no doubt that was where they had hit.

Forcing calm on herself, taking deep shaky breaths and clenching her aching fists, Sakura brought her head back up.

The room was dark, not completely, but a very dull grey, a small light coming from cracks in the roof and a small amount from under the door across from her. Her bare feet scratched unsanded wood, as did her back, and with a sudden flush of upset Sakura realized she wasn't wearing a thing.

A choking breath beside her and Sakura turned suddenly.

"Yamato?" Sakura asked in a hushed whisper as she caught vague sight of the man, a blob of color in the darkness. But it seemed his arms and legs too were tied, much more restricted than hers, and across his chest ran the complex characters of a chakra seal. She didn't have to look down to feel the pull at her own reserves, almost painful, sharp and prickling like hot water on cold skin.

"You awake- Moth?" The voice from her other side was almost labored, and she turned and squinted to see Shikamaru leaning his head back, so that he was staring at the ceiling rather than at her.

"Yes." Sakura said, and only the pain in her skull gave her the time to remember he wouldn't be able to see her nod anyways. Then the medic in her came to life. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I-" He caught his breath. "Just a cracked rib or two- I think. I'll live. I always- do."

Sakura did nod this time, slowly and anxiously. Squinting she made out two more men in the corner to her left, by the door, Kakashi and Sai. One lay on their side, the other against the wall, though she couldn't make out which was which.

"Did he say anything to you?" Shikamaru asked, and it took Sakura's tired brain a moment to figure out he was talking about her assailant.

"No. Did yours say anything?"

"He said he was looking for me. He knew my name."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably, making her rope-burnt wrists sting. She wanted to ask him what they'd do to them, what would happen, he seemed so old and wise even if he was in fact a bit younger than she was. But she knew. It was coming back to her now, the pre-jounin lectures, the talks every adult gave her once they caught wind of her invitation to join ANBU. Something in her wanted to cry. Something wanted to scream. Something in her just wanted to go home. It had been a long time since she'd felt like such a child. Two years, actually.

"That's bad, right?" She finally asked, feeling like a five year old, like Shikamaru would only humor her, amused by how much she devolved under stress. But she'd never been captured before, it felt like a dream-

"Yeah." He said gruffly, sounding as if he was letting out a held breath at the same time. "That's bad."

They sat there in silence for a long time, although Sakura had no idea quite how long. Five minutes? Ten? Thirty? An hour? What felt like hours later she was almost asleep, but the soft sound of approaching footsteps made her perk up.

"Shi- Elk, did you hear that?"

Shikamaru didn't answer, and as the door began to open Sakura suddenly felt very small and alone.

"Looks like they weren't lying, the bastards. Can't believe it. Must've caught 'em by surprise."

"Oh, they did." A second voice came from behind the tall man, the man Sakura was blinking at, stunned unintentionally. Because the man shouldn't be alive, there'd been rumors, but either way he shouldn't have been here. The second man finally appeared, brown hair dancing around his ears messily. His clear gold-green eyes struck her, and she shivered.

"Anyone awake?" The man she knew repeated, and Sakura would have shut her eyes but she couldn't. Because the fish-man shouldn't be here.

"The strawberry girl is. Saki?"

"Sakura." Kisame said, smiling. "The girl's name is Sakura."

The brunette shrugged. "ANBU name is Moth. I'll let you confirm they are who you're looking for but you don't have that long, we need to get the money out of here and back home by sunup."

"Yeah, yeah." Kisame said, but his pinprick black eyes were staring at Sakura intently, malicious but surprisingly fascinated. Sakura flinched. "I'll get it to you in an hour or so, just keep guards posted, I gotta make sure these are the right ones, Madman won't be wanting any… trouble."

"Yeah, alright." The man suddenly paled, spoke quickly before disappearing into the scenery. It was in that instant, oddly, that Sakura not only noticed that they were in some sort of stand-alone shed, the man had disappeared into the trees, but realized, as the breeze brushed her bare calf, that she was wearing absolutely nothing in the face of an Akatsuki member.

Automatically Sakura pulled back further into the wall, leaning down and bringing her knees up, crossing her ankles, in an attempt to cover herself.

Kisame noticed, obviously, and his dusty blue lips spread in a pointy-tooth smile.

Sakura twitched.

"This should be fun."

~OOOOOO~

The blonde man flinched under his touch, his shoulders tensing and his head turning slightly in his direction.

"Ninja?" He asked simply.

Neji nodded, even if the man couldn't see him. "Yes."

The blonde man didn't turn any closer, Neji hadn't glimpsed his face arriving on the scene and still hadn't a clue what it looked like, but is sounded like the man was smiling.

There was a short shout in the background as Tenten and Naruto leapt into battle with the two scouts they'd found posted by the edge of the small destroyed town. They'd only worked a couple of team mission in the past, but every time the two were paired together, and they made a wonderful team, Tenten's calm precession backing up Naruto's wild, had-on swings. Whenever a blow came towards his back Tenten would nick the attacker with kunai, and whenever someone snuck around beside the weapons mistress Naruto was shouting warnings.

Neji sort of missed fighting with Tenten, even if he'd never tell her that, but he was fine going solo as well. He had been going in alone, for years, so it wasn't anything new, at any rate.

"You gonna kill me?" He asked, and beneath the suave confidence Neji caught an air of fear and nervous apprehension.

Neji didn't answer, but pressed the kunai harder against the skin of the man's throat, letting the pale skin split ever so slightly so that the red liquid bubbled over and trailed down his neck delicately. The man's breath caught quietly in his throat, though Neji wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been so close to his back he could feel the heat from his body.

"Well," The blonde man laughed quickly, high-pitched and shaky, but not quite afraid anymore. Almost determined. Resigned. "You can never beat him. You may kill me, and all my men, and all of his men, but you'll never beat him."

"Him?" Neji asked, pressing a bit harder so that the man gasped audibly.

"Can't say-AH!" The man shouted as the tip dug deeper, as the blood began to soak his shirt collar deep maroon.

"I admire your bravery." Neji said grudgingly, and it was true. It wasn't often such an amateur as to stay around the scene of the crime hours after committing it had so little sense of mortality, or so much. "However, I will do whatever I can to find out who your leader is."

"You're going to have to try very hard."

Before Neji could react there was a tug, he stumbled forwards as the blonde man pulled. Blood sprayed on the dirt, dark red against the dusty road, and the man grunted quietly.

Neji was just about to take off after the man, already sprinting down the street and towards the trees, when a shout came from behind him.

"Neji!"

Lee's voice was strangled and hoarse, followed by a whoop of victory.

"Lee!" Neji shouted anxiously, and after only a moment's hesitation, he turned and started towards his teammate's voice.

Even from a hundred meters away Neji could see him on the ground, chest heaving for breath, a pool of blood spreading beneath him.

"Bastard." Neji snarled, slamming his hands together and activating his byakugan. First he glanced down to the taijutsuist, his heart beat flittered, rushed, and his minimal chakra flow was even more stuffed up than it always was, but his vitals seemed to be in no immediate danger. Flickering his glance up to his assailant, Neji saw, to his surprise, a civilian.

"Ninja scum," The man laughed as Neji approached, but from this close he could catch the way the man held himself, hunched over, hear the choke in his words. "Fucking scum."

"You're dead." Neji said. Not as a threat, but it was the truth. He could catch, through the rips in the man's shirt, large angry purple and red bruises already forming from the internal bleeding.

"So is he." The man smiled, and his teeth showed blood. "I'd go help him now, while you can. You can't save him, but you can help the pain… for a while."

Neji narrowed his eyes, letting his byakugan flicker off. Taking up his hands, he readjusted the kunai in his grip. Were all these men prepared to die? It would take resources to collect a group of such devoted men, and if there was possibly an army of them. Neji blinked. He didn't want to think about it.

"You going to kill me?" The man asked, almost exactly like the blonde man.

This time, Neji did answer.

"Yes."

Blood spilled onto Neji's fingers warmly, and as always he held down a shiver, he'd never get used to the thick feeling of the liquid on his skin.

The corpse collapsed onto him, heavy, and Neji had to push surprisingly hard to keep them from falling together to the ground. Lowering him softly, Neji finally turned to his teammate. "Lee?"

"I'm okay-" Lee said breathlessly as he forced himself to his knees, and slowly to his feet, stretching. "I'm okay. He just nicked me in the neck, it's just blood."

Neji nodded silently, walking forward and touching the gash lightly. Lee flinched slightly under his fingers, but only because it was Neji, and Neji understood weakness, and the desire to be strong enough. From his back pocket Neji took a small spool of gauze bandages, and at Lee's slight smile he began to wrap them around his throat.

"You should be more careful." Neji said disapprovingly, but quietly, gently. Over the years he and Lee had grown to be deeper than just friends, to tell the truth if you'd asked Neji five years ago he would have laughed at the idea of the boy having so much depth. Lee looked away, but his smile widened mischievously. A dozen questions cycled through his mind but he finally settled on the most pressing. "What did he catch you with?"

"Some kind of dart." Lee said, sounding almost embarrassed, pointing off behind him into the bushes. "It landed somewhere over there. But I don't think it's that bad, it just stings a bit."

"Maybe…" Neji narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the purple-ish skin a final time before covering it. "He made it sound like some sort of poison. It may have been a bluff, but I'll have Tenten look you over once we're done here. You should stop fighting, wait here, I'll go after that leader again."

"No, I'm fine!" Lee insisted, but as soon as he stepped forward his face paled a little, and he bit his lip.

"No, you're not." Neji sighed, pushing him to the ground. "Stay. Good boy."

Lee pouted.

Neji was about to turn and go, when a thought struck him, and he half-smiled. "So, how was it possible that a civilian managed to get a hit to you at all?"

Lee opened his mouth, and after a moment of gaping like a fish, glared, pushing himself to his feet towards the Hyuuga. "Neji, you-"

What happened next did so so fast Neji barely had time to catch the man before he fell to the ground, eyes wide, mouth still half-open, as if in a gasp of pain.

~OOOOOO~

Sasuke blinked his eyes open slowly, wincing at the blinding light.

"Good to see you're awake."

"Kabuto," Sasuke snarled, recognizing the sour-candy voice as belonging to the grey-haired man.

"Sasuke." Kabuto shot back, and as Sasuke's blotchy vision began to clear jhe could see the mindless smile on his face.

That's when Sasuke realized this wasn't his bed, and these weren't his lights, he didn't even have real lighting, preferring candlelight, less glaring.

Sasuke tugged at his right hand, testing the leather strap across his wrist.

These were the laboratory lights.

"What the fuck is this Kabuto?" Sasuke asked, letting his voice gain a dangerous edge. It had been years since he'd spoken without it, indeed, but now he let it go a little deeper. He could remember falling into his bed last night, lying awake sleepless even as the hours clocked by and his head pounded with exhaustion. Training with Orochimaru brought back memories, how could it not, and he hadn't been in the mood to give into dreams even if he'd been able to.

Kabuto continued to smile blindingly at him. "Master Orochimaru has made certain… arrangements, pertaining to your sharingan."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. It had literally been months since he'd heard a threat or even a mention of anything relating to his eyes, it had been a long time since Orochimaru had touched the subject of his body. Sasuke had promised to fight for Orochimaru if he'd give him training, and not use his body for his own.

What sort of offer could have outclassed his?

"What arrangements?" Sasuke asked, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from shouting, although he wasn't sure why.

"He gets the sharingan, and Orochimaru gets certain… perks."

A part of Sasuke could only think, at that instant, that it was damn annoying how indirect the 'scientist' always managed to be. "Who says I want to give up my sharingan?"

"Oh, what you want has nothing to do with this." Kabuto said, nodding, before wandering closer to Sasuke, to his left, so that he had to turn his head to keep him in his field of view. The man seemed so tall, the table he was strapped to couldn't have reached any higher than his hips.

"What about our deal?" Sasuke growled, although he knew damn well neither of the snaky bastards had a shred of honor. Not that he did either, he amended quickly to himself, as if such a thing was sin.

"Oh, words mean nothing to someone like Orochimaru." Kabuto said lightly, as if in careless passing, as he finally walked behind Sasuke so he could no longer see him, setting the Uchiha somehow even more on edge. "Not to someone, something like him either."

'Who?' Sasuke wanted to ask, but he knew he wouldn't get a straight answer, and so whatever response he got would just crack his cool just a little more. And he needed a calm mind now. He'd watched the 'medic' at work for hours and hours over the course of his stay in Oto, but it suddenly occurred to him that he had learned nothing, absolutely nothing, but the fact that he was a sadistic piece of work.

His chakra, no surprise, was so deeply suppressed he could barely feel its warmth in his veins, and he knew better than to doubt the strength of the straps. He'd been forced to help Kabuto make a set, back in the beginning, and had been one of the test-cases. His wrists and ankles had been black and purple for weeks afterwards.

"So, you're taking my sharingan?" Sasuke didn't have to work hard to keep his voice void, but only because of years of practice, it wasn't hard to identify the aching nausea in his chest as fear.

"Yes." Kabuto answered simply from much closer than he'd expected. Sasuke almost flinched.

"And who are these sharingan going to?" He finally asked, the silence he usually cherished stinging his ears.

Kabuto chuckled quietly. "A very important man. Someone you'll never meet."

"Have I ever met him?" Sasuke asked, dread gripping his insides.

Kabuto didn't answer at first, only laughed again.

"It doesn't really matter, you'll be gone before the day's over, as far as Orochimaru or he is concerned."

"Gone?" Sasuke had to ask. He'd seen the prisoners known to the world at large as 'gone'. At least, what was left of them.

Kabuto hummed in agreement. "You know what I'm talking about Sasuke. You may no longer have the sharingan but you will always be an Uchiha. If I can't get my hands on your older brother, than I can get my hands on you. Even Master Orochimaru cannot stand in my way, although he will never know, so that is of no consequence."

Sasuke clenched his fists to stop from bursting out in anger and white hot frustration. The man was just such an ass.

"So I guess I'll start with the left eye first, it' only legend, of course, but the left sharingan is said to hold something more special than the right. I'm interested in finding out if this is true or not."

Kabuto finally returned to Sasuke's field of view with his short, black scrubs on, his sleeves rolled up, and gloves on his long, thin fingers. At that moment something in Sasuke went cold with realization.

He was going to die, at nineteen.

He hadn't even killed Itachi yet.

Back inside his head, something whispered along with the chorus, I haven't even apologized to Naruto yet.

"As you already know, Sasuke, I've never been a fan of anesthetic." Kabuto began, and it felt oddly disorienting, hearing the speech from the table. He'd heard it a dozen times before, 'As my assistant Sasuke already knows, I've never been a fan,' but it chilled him to the bones.

From behind his perfectly round glasses Kabuto's black eyes blinked calculatingly at him.

The man picked up something from the table beside him with a clink, and as it came into view it shined, clinical white light reflecting off the silver blade.

"But don't worry. I have years of experience. There isn't a chance you won't survive the operation…"

There isn't a chance…

~OOOOOO~

Shikamaru awoke a second time to the gritty sound of shouts, peeling through clenched teeth.

For a split second before he opened his eyes he wondered at the fact that he even knew what that sounded like.

"I don't think I've told you, but you're so pretty when you're covered in blood." The tall blue man leaned into Sakura, who sat back and into the wall, her eyes half-closed, as if torn between defiance and chilling fear.

"Bastard." She finally forced out, glaring up at him with green eyes.

"Bitch." Kisame smiled toothily, hitting her so hard she gasped and almost fell over, her face only ten or so inches above the ground. Blood leaked down her face and into her mouth, and she gasped for breath.

Shikamaru took the few precious moments before he was discovered to sweep the room, it was stuffy, with grubby wooden walls and floor stained crusty brown. It could barely have been larger than a hundred feet square. They were all there, the five of them, maskless and, as he realized with a bit of alarm if not embarrassment, completely nude. Not just weaponless, but no clothes.

Shikamaru had to give the Akatsuki man credit. He was thorough, although he wouldn't have expected the man to be. Was it possible his old partner was still with him? It wasn't impossible, all information pointed to Sasuke still living in Oto, meaning there was a very small chance he'd managed to enact his vengeance yet.

Sakura sat beside him, only three or four feet away, breath hitched in her throat as she struggled not to show a sign of being in pain. But it was obvious. There was blood down her face and bruises already blotching her smooth skin, and in her eyes there was panic. To tell the truth, Shikamaru had never thought she'd make a great ANBU member. She was a wondrous field medic, yes, and they needed her within their ranks, but she didn't make a good ANBU.

To his left, against the far side of the wall Kakashi and Sai were leaning into each other, still out to the world. Drugged? Genjutsu, maybe? Again, if the Uchiha was with Kisame, he didn't doubt every little thing that could happen was planned out. In that way, they were very similar, he and Itachi. Maybe that was why, as Shikamaru observed his surroundings, his brain whirred to life and tried to piece together some excuse for a plan, even without him consciously choosing to. He'd always said Ino was a control freak, but these past couple of years he'd grown to be unsure. Across from the two of them, Yamato lay against the third wall, arms and legs bound and his chest facing out so that he could see an eight-or-so inch line of designs. Chakra seal. Looking closer he could catch it across Sakura's stomach, Sai's chest, and Kakashi's throat. The man's face was bare, now that he looked a little closer. He'd always known his face was merely a private thing to him, not deformed or scarred, but he almost double-took. He looked younger than he'd expected.

At that moment, the door opened with a creek.

"Ah, high time you show up!" Kisame said with a wide smile, turning to face his partner walking into the room slowly.

Itachi didn't change his nonchalant, blank expression. "Yoshi said you would be here."

"Yeah, yeah," Kisame said as Itachi gave him a disapproving look. "I heard what Madman said, 'no damaged goods', I'm just having a bit of fun. Pinky's a great playmate, though it's a pain to get her talking."

Sakura glared at Itachi as she gulped for breath, and the man stared back intently for a moment, before turning to face Shikamaru. "Nara." He said simply.

"Uchiha."

"Oh hey, when did he wake up?" Kisame said, as if he didn't really care, turning his small eyes in his direction. They were lusting, cheerful, dangerous.

"And it's not Madman," Itachi said carelessly as he continued to stare at Shikamaru with his black eyes, he had to keep from twitching. Maybe it was the sharingan, sleeping or not, but his eyes hurt to look at. "It's Madara."

Shikamaru's stomach dropped. He could remember, helping file the reports, of the sharingan-induced death tool and Naruto's hospital record.

"Well, sure, but I don't think the world needs to know." Kisame said, finally sitting back down on his heels in front of Sakura, and looking back into her mossy eyes, which had recovered their defiant sheen. "Anyways, he is mad. I mean, maybe it was death just goin' to his head, but he's a psychopath."

"And you're not?" Sakura asked, almost hesitantly, smiling slyly. Shikamaru felt a small shine of pride, maybe she wasn't hopeless. But it led him back, in the end, to what had been on his mind the entire time, chewing angrily at him. No chakra, no strength, Akatsuki. It looked like they hadn't a choice but to sit it out.

He chose to ignore the voice in his head, looks like it finally all caught up to you.

"Watch the lip, bitch." Kisame snarled, leaning in close enough so that their noses nearly touched. For a wild moment Shikamaru could see she and Ino, only nine and sitting n the back of the classroom where Iruka-sensei couldn't see them, nose-to-nose as they insulted each other in their high-pitched voices. "Madman has the sharingan, or have you forgotten? I can do whatever I want as long as I don't injure this." Kisame tapped his blue-haired head lightly.

"What does Madara want with us?" Shikamaru asked Itachi, although the only sign the man gave that he'd heard him was a small twitch of a frown.

"What does he always want?" Itachi asked so quietly Shikamaru had to read his lips to understand him.

Vengeance, Shikamaru thought automatically, unable to stop himself.

As Itachi walked closer, and his eyes turned blood red, and everything around Shikamaru suddenly blurred, the last thing he thought was this;

I wonder what Itachi is seeking vengeance for…

~OOOOOO~

"Neji! What happened to Lee?"

Neji turned to see Naruto running towards him, generally unscathed but for the rip in his jumpsuit leg, where the orange was caked with dirt and the skin was raw red. Behind him, almost faded into the distance, siliver glinted, Tenten's kunai sailing through the air as she brought down what was left of the men. Gai was still out of view, but Neji mentally placed him somewhere deeper in the town's ruins, having watched him run that direction when they'd first infiltrated the area.

"He got poisoned." Neji said, lowering the man gently and kneeling down next to him. His breathing was quick, and Neji could tell that despite his closed eyes he was awake. In pain? "Do you think you could get Tenten?" And in grudging explanation, then he offered: "I don't know anything about poisons."

"I can check for you." Naruto's face turned serious and he crouched down on Lee's other side, putting his fingers gently at the bandages and parting them carefully where the blood stain was darkest. The skin was purple, but not like a bruise, smooth and one with the skin. This purple was wet, oozy, like puss, and Neji almost winced. If he hadn't been sure it was poison before, there was no doubt now.

'I'd go help him now, while you can. You can't save him, but you can help the pain… for a while.'

That was what the civilian had said. 'While you can.'

Not for the first time, Neji felt his insides twist at the reminder of his teammate's mortality.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Neji asked, but even as he did he turned to the forest, back where the blonde man had escaped. There was still time, if he just went fast enough. But Lee…

Naruto nodded with an uncustomary amount of maturity. "Sakura's been schooling me, says I'll need it to survive on my own, now that she's ANBU and all. Last week was poisons. I honestly have no clue what this is specifically, but I can do the basic treatment. Tenten should be able to handle herself."

"Good." Neji said, relieved, before getting to his feet, never turning from the forest. "I'll go after the leader, he can't have gone too far."

From the side of his vision he saw Naruto nod, and then he was off, across the dusty, ashy ground.

Footprints tracked the soft ground, yet another mark that he was an amateur, but even as he wrote the man off as low-class he remembered the way he'd escaped so easily. He wasn't tired, and he couldn't remember being distracted. Was he just off of his game? He had had an odd dream the previous night, he'd heard from Ino such things could sometimes bode ill, but he couldn't remember quite what it was about, so that idea got thrown out the window with the rest.

Still, it infuriated him. The man should be dead, he should know who he was. Lee shouldn't have been hit with poison.

Coming to think of it, the men had been somehow outclassing them at every turn. Thoughts of a super army once again entered Neji's mind, but once again he shook them off.

Entering the thickening trees, Neji again found an obvious track of the man, broken branches and trampled grass.

Neji ran near top speed, and within five minutes he could hear noises, muffled shouts and whoops and general confusion. As he slowed to a silent walk the trees again began to thin, and as he approached, the scene he saw made him stop in his tracks.

There were eight or nine of them surrounding the wide circle, inked on the ground with what looked like black chalk or paint. Within the circle was a delicate design of triangles, one large a dozen smaller, lines criss-crossing the dirt. There were mostly adults, men and women, but there was a teenage girl with hair cascading down her back like a waterfall, and a young boy who couldn't have been any older than twelve, standing with the rest of them, kneeling by the circle with them.

But maybe, the most alarming part of the tableau was the fact that all of them had hair the color of shuriken. It glimmered in the light, not dull like Kabuto's hair had been, but brighter, even, than Kakashi's, as if it had a mind of its own. And on all of their cheeks, like war paint, black striped across their faces.

"STOP! MONSTERS!"

It was only at the shrill scream, coming not from one of them but from the circle, that Neji's eyes widened. The blonde man seemed tied down by some invisible force, spread-eagled in the center of the circle and struggling fruitlessly. Like some sort of living sacrifice.

"Shut the fuck up!" A chorus of raucous accusations and similar complaints exploded, every person foulmouthed and not afraid to show it.

"Monsters?" There was a laugh, a familiar laugh, and Neji gripped the tree beside him tightly, fingernails digging into the bark. Looking harder, he could see the man at the feet of the blonde man, smiling widely with a smile missing at least four teeth. Scars marred his face, and stitching covered his skin, but there was no doubt who the man was.

Neji had to force down the urge to charge in right then.

"Oh yes, we're monsters!" Hidan continued, his purple eyes wild, almost mockingly. Some of those before him, including the young girl, laughed. "We're the monsters!"

Yes, you are, Neji's mind screamed.

Twenty more seconds of protests, and Hidan called for silence, standing from his knees and walking to the very edge fo the circle, so that his toes brushed the dusty black. Neji would have gone, almost wanted to, but he was outnumbered, and even without his byakugan he could tell they were ninja. Hidan would not hang around with civilians, or even moderately skilled ninja.

His next thought, oddly enough, was only of how angry Shikamaru would be when he heard the man who'd murdered his sensei was still alive.

And so before Neji could stop it, the black circle began to spark to purple-black life, and the blonde man started to scream and writhe in pain, and everything went red.

"Hey Neji, Naruto sent me after you, said you-"

The loud, woman's voice cut off suddenly, and Neji flinched.

Neji turned to Tenten slowly, and he could see on her frozen face that she too knew what she'd just done.

"What was that?" The loud voice of one of the grey-haired men asked, and everyone turned to them, blood speckling their plain clothing a little, and Neji reached back to take a kunai from his pouch.

"I'm sorry." Tenten said quietly, drawing weapons herself.

"That's okay." Neji took a deep breath, activating his byakugan, before taking a battle stance. Already people were coming towards them, and he could see Hidan's smiled widen even further.

"We have company!"

"Is Gai coming soon?" Neji asked, not looking away from the group.

"Yes." Tenten said simply.

Neji smiled grimly.

"Good."

~OOOOOO~

Shikamaru opened his eyes to red, blank skies, and the sinking feeling in his gut that something bad was going to happen to him.

"Hello Nara."

Itachi voice seemed to surround him, as if it was one with the world that stretched on and on in all directions, blank as a canvas. But as Shikamaru turned to his right he saw the man, standing with his Akatsuki cloak wrapped around him tightly, staring back at him intently. For a moment, the way his eyes looked seemed different, almost off, until with a small pang Shikamaru realized his eyes looked darker.

Shikamaru blinked in surprise at the realization. The man was going blind. He was, obviously, not totally blind, he could stare Shikamaru perfectly in the eyes without wavering. But there had been something odd in the way he'd entered the room, and given Kisame a look so blank it was as if he wasn't actually seeing the man.

And as he thought of it, his skin had more color, and he held his back a few degree straighter.

Was the man ill? Dying of some terrible disease?

"It is impolite not to answer a superior." Itachi's cold voice suddenly cut through his thoughts like through warm butter, and Shikamaru felt something spark, and light like a fire inside of him, scorching his bones and muscles and skin. Unable to resist a cry, Shikamaru nearly fell over, only able to catch himself and regain balance because the blinding pain was over as soon as it began. Taking a few gasps for breath, Shikamaru blinked the blotches from his vision and stared up to the Uchiha, whose expression had changed only in that now it seemed a bit more purposeful.

"You're not my superior." Shikamaru said, before he could stop himself. Anyways, it wasn't as if being more polite would have actually lessened the beating sure to come. A part of Shikamaru almost wished the man wanted to draw some kind of information out of him. Maybe then he'd get a chance at escape, during the off hours.

It was then that it hit him, somehow for the first time, that he was trapped in Itachi's tsukuyomi. It took him a tangible second to brace himself for the next seventy-two hours.

"Really?" Itachi said coldly, where Kisame may have laughed.

"Yeah." Shikamaru said.

Itachi narrowed his sharingan eyes, and Shikamaru felt pain begin to blossom in his feet, and after only five or ten seconds he fell to his knees, hissing. But the pain was rising up, bubbling over like boiling water, and soon he was gritting his teeth as it worked its way up his legs. He had to continually look down to his legs, to make sure they weren't just gone.

"You don't want anything from me- do you?" Shikamaru asked, although his voice cracked slightly in the middle and he cursed. He'd been through worse, a dozen times over. Maybe it was the fact that the man was just standing there in front of him, so that as he looked up from the black ground he could see his knees.

Itachi didn't answer for a long while, not until the fire was burning In his chest and shoulders and his arms were shaking with the effort of keeping from just collapsing.

"Madara has a certain… interest in you."

Shikamaru laughed, although it was strangled, because now it stung a little to talk.

"And what would that be? What could he want that-" his voice cracked again, and he took a shaking breath- "he doesn't already know?"

"Oh, there is plenty a man like Madara does not know." Itachi said, and Shikamaru swore he almost heard bitterness in the man's voice.

"I'm sure." Shikamaru said, laughing weakly some more. Maybe he was tired, maybe it was because he was inside of his own mind, and thus unshielded and bare, but it felt so much harder to hold up his 'ANBU facade' than it normally was.

Now it was at his fingertips, up his cheeks, and Shikamaru found himself gasping for breath.

"Now is normally when I would ask for the piece of information I'd been looking for," Itachi said, "But as I want nothing from you, I suppose I'll just pose a question."

"Oh yeah?" Shikamaru asked, attempting again to look up at him, but only catching black and red cloak. "What's that then?"

"Do you know how long the tsukuyomi lasts?" Itachi asked.

"Yeah."

"I expected you would. You are the smartest man fire country has ever seen."

Shikamaru laughed again, he suddenly felt as if he was laughing much too often and it was a bit frightening. He didn't feel very smart right now.

"Does it hurt all over?"

Itachi obviously knew, but Shikamaru clenched his fists at the technique designed, obviously, just to make him even more uncomfortable. Instead of speaking Shikamaru answered in his head, yes, unable to admit defeat out loud.

Three more minutes and Shikamaru was almost in his mindless place, when a sharp strike to his chest sent him flying back, skin scraping, every bone aching as he slammed against the ground. Again, he felt very dumb. He'd not seen it coming, and it took his mind a moment to process what has just happened. Maybe he was just really, really tired.

"Ow." Shikamaru forced his voice as sarcastic and uncaring as it always was, but even he could hear the slight strain. Four minutes, and already he was pathetically weak. But he'd been through the training exercises, it wasn't the body but the mind that they should keep from breaking. 'It's not a sin to admit to yourself that you're in pain.' Ibiki had said, 'and frankly, if the enemy wants nothing, it's not a sin to admit it to them either. The mind in most precious, and should be protected to the exclusion of all else.'

"I'd give you a chance to fight back," Itachi started, and as Shikamaru pushed himself to his feet precariously, through the blinding pain, he saw the man almost floating towards him, the hem of his cloak not swaying as it would if his feet were actually moving beneath it. "But it would be a pointless waste of energy."

Shikamaru slid his foot back, forced himself into a defensive stance although he wasn't sure why he bothered, and prepared himself.

Truthfully, as long as the man's sword was, he never saw the next blow coming, and as the blade connoted with his shoulder he stumbled back, biting his lip so hard it split to keep from screaming.

He didn't have to look to know, he could feel the imbalance in how much strength he had to put into his right leg to uphold his balance.

Shikamaru looked back up at Itachi slowly, again beginning to breathe labored, stinging breaths.

Itachi didn't smile, he never did, but something in his eyes seemed to spark.

"Seventy one hours, fifty three minutes, eleven seconds."

~OOOOOO~

Kisame grinned slyly at her.

"Are you sure that's the smartest choice?"

"Go to hell." Sakura said, more assured this time, staring back into his black and white eyes without flinching. Her head and arms stung, and exhaustion pulled like a thousand pounds on her eyelids, but now it was the adrenaline keeping her awake.

"You've gotten pretty daring," Kisame said, voice low, still only eight or ten inches from Sakura's face. He caught her chin in his fingers, so tight her skin pinched painfully, to keep her from turning away. "And unlike some, I like that. What isn't a challenge isn't even worth it, that's what I say."

Sakura faltered for a moment.

Kisame narrowed his eyes, again showing anger instead of his normal cheery disposition. "That means, of course, that I'll go to whatever lengths it will take to win."

Kisame backed away suddenly, Sakura was a bit surprised. At least ten minutes they'd been talking now, if talking meant a bit of dialogue, more than a few curse-words, and half a dozen smacks so hard she saw stars. Itachi had been over with Shikamaru for a while now, she'd heard tsukuyomi only lasted a moment but they'd been frozen together for much longer than that, not that she could see them much now, they were far back against the wall, completely silent but for the occasional catch of breath.

With the small break in the converse Sakura began to notice the little things that, over the years, habit helped her previously ignore. Spending minutes pressed against the wall had left her tied hands rope-burned and aching, and cold pricked at her bare skin. Several small cuts, mostly those right under her eye and across the top of her breasts, began to sting.

"Wakey wakey!" Kisame grinned as the grey-haired man groaned, flinched to the touch of his sandal. Another hard kick and his eye flickered sleepily open, blurry grey for a moment. Drugged, Sakura realizaed immediately, heart sinking. To get him down with so few ninja no doubt it had been their only hope. He'd probably gone down fighting regardless, muscles crying and eyelids drooping like broken window-shades.

All she could hope was that it wasn't lethal, and she clenched her fists, the medic in her furious as only a doctor unable to help a patient could be.

"Sakura?" Kakashi asked slowly, disoriented, blinking in an attempt to see through the half-darkness. It seemed, as he rose to a defensive crouch and his eye narrowed, that he's become aware enough to know what was happening. "Kisame." He growled, vinegar in his voice.

"Hatake Kakashi." Kisame said. And then, and Sakura jumped as it happened, the shark-man kicked Kakashi so fast and hard in the side an audible, chilling crack echoed.

"Kakashi," Sakura bit her lip, cringed at the bright, angry red of his skin, the purple already tinting it. Kakashi held his face so straight she had to bite down harder to keep from saying anything else. Because he had on his bored face, and even without his mask on it looked so much like he just didn't care, even as Kisame glared down at him, as if tempted to kick him again.

"Nice knowing you weren't dead, you were sleeping so hard." Kisame said, his voice not grateful at all. "And good thing for you, Madman's playing guardian angel, won't let anything too bad happen to you, not yet, anyways."

For a split second Sakura reeled and the memories of ANBU courses flew through her mind, and she was seeing Morino Ibiki holding the powder dust in his palm. 'Of course,' his voice echoes, as rough as it always was, 'sometimes they'll come too fast, or when you aren't prepared, or take everything on you, and then you won't get this luxury.' His hand dumped the white toxin to the stone below. 'This is the situation we'll be preparing for today.'

"What does he need from us?" Sakura asked finally, giving into temptation, and the voice in her head, the voice she hadn't heard in years, ear whispering spitefully in her ear, 'See? You're no ANBU, never were, never will be, you're just bud girl.'

Be quiet, be quiet! Sakura insisted, replying by instinct to the invisible girl.

'No, you be quiet!' She shouted, in her voice like shrill bird song. 'You're a prisoner, Forehead! Done for! Get in through your thick skull, this isn't some training mission!'

"Hey Pinky, I'm talkin' to you!"

Sakura blinked. Pin-prick eyes stared back at her, narrowed to slits. "Don't think you can ignore me, Pinky, not without consequences."

Sakura braced herself for the blow, but it never came. Instead Kisame stood up, folding his arms and sighing insufferably. Now Sakura could see the room again, but nothing had changed, nothing but the fact that now Kakashi had a look in his tired eyes almost like anxiety. Almost like panic.

"You know what?" Kisame said finally, letting out a breath. "Let's play a game. Itachi's busy breaking genius boy for Madman, so we have some time. Every time you do something wrong, I hurt one of them." He pointed behind him with a feral grin.

"Wrong?" Sakura barely had time to finish the inquisitor word before there was another crack.

"Lesson one," Kisame said, waiting a good half minutes to remove his blood sandal from Kakashi's face. It made Sakura's stomach turn to watch the man, her sensei, Wolf, just sit there and take it, do nothing but scowl as his crooked nose dripped blood down his chin. "No talking unless I say you can."

'Bastard!' the shout echoes in her ears, and she tasted in on her tongue sweet as caramel, but she kept it down as the cut under her left eye started to sting again, and she looked over to Kakashi, and Sai, and Tenzou. As she turned to Shikamaru half-hidden behind Itachi and saw the way his fingers clutched weakly at the wooden paneling.

Maybe it was just through her thick forehead finally, but suddenly the fear and frustration and determination gripped her tightly and she had to do whatever she could.

Sakura nodded stiffly, and Kisame smiled again.

"You're a quick learner Pinky, if you were any better this wouldn't be half as fun-"

Kisame was going to continue when screams erupted from the corner of the room, and they all whipped around.

"STOP! Stop, please!"

Sobs cracked the man's voice as he fell back, shaky hands barely catching him.

Shikamaru blinked slowly, almost blankly, eyes of solid black. For a good thirty seconds he didn't make a move.

"Why should I?"

His voice was cold, sharp, cutting through the thick air like a blade.

"Please," Itachi sobbed, shaking his head, gasping for breath.

No one could move, no one but the two of them.

It was surreal.

"You never answered my question," Shikamaru said slowly, moving forward like an animal over Itachi, flexing his long fingers, which seemed to fling black shadows from their tips, like Sakura's did with chakra when she was healing. "Who. Was. That. Man?"

"I don't- I don't know," Itachi shook his head, but was unable to move as the Nara's hands felt around his collarbone, his throat, began to press down on the skin. "Please-"

He gasped for maybe thirty seconds, maybe a thousand, and then cold dark silence descended, and the shadow lord blinked his eyes slowly, and they gradually turned brown again.

~OOOOOO~

"Is Gai coming soon?"

Tenten smiled weakly at the tone of Neji's voice, constricted, as if trying not to sound scared. He'd always been like that, almost exactly, but for the fact that he used to be better at it.

Rather than make it complicated, Tenten said simply: "Yes."

"Good." Neji said carefully, before darting through the few layers of trees left and slamming into the tall grey-haired man closest to him.

Not giving the group time to cluster or plan, Tenten palmed her kunai once more before pulling it back and letting it fly. It was aimed at a teenage girl standing, staring at her, and while she half-expected her to dodge it with a sneer Tenten did not expect her to catch it in her palms, like a fly, only an inch or so from her nose.

"Good aim." She saw the girl say, although she had to read her pale lips, not able to make out the words out loud. Tenten narrowed her eyes, sending another three kunai the girl's way before dodging a senbon thrown from somewhere in the small crown of people still not attacking at all, just standing on with interest. Normally doing so around either of them would be suicide, let alone both, but those three or four who were fighting were frighteningly on par with them. Not to be boastful, but many groups were hard-pressed to find someone as good as the Hyuuga clan's up and coming, prodigious head, let alone a few.

And then another started on Neji, who still hadn't fell a single opponent.

And then another started throwing things back at Tenten, and she had to start actually putting care into dodging.

And then Tenten's eyes caught the purple-eyed man, and she went cold.

"Neji, I'm going to get help." Tenten said quickly.

"What?"

"We need help Neji, dammit! Can you hold them off for a minute?"

This time Neji heard her, and nodded, determined, even if he didn't turn her direction, too busy finally pressing the correct pressure point and sending one of the women, one with the same pale hair as everyone else but skin the color of chocolate, crumpling to the dirt.

And without hesitating a moment longer, Tenten turned and ran back the way she'd come, hair whipping at her ears.

Where was Gai? She'd passed him on the way to Neji, after checking in with Naruto and Lee and having the blonde point the way the Hyuuga had gone. He'd been following a single straggler, there was no way it should have taken this long, it had been at least five minutes, and this was Konoha's Green Beast, for god's sake, thirties or not.

It felt like hours, stretching by insufferably, but a minute or so later Tenten emerged by the edge of the village, scanning the scene for the rest of Team Gai. Her eyes immediately caught on the blue and green of Naruto hovering over Lee, and after a final look for the nonexistent Gai, she ran towards them.

"Tenten?" Naruto asked in surprise when he saw her, momentarily taking his hands from Lee's throat. Lee seemed still peacefully under, eyes closed and breathing smooth, although by the frustrated look on Naruto's face he wasn't doing as well as he seemed.

"What's wrong Naruto?" She had to ask.

"I don't know." Naruto said, and his voice was genuinely lost in a way that made her want hug him. "I've done everything Sakura told me to do, extract the poison, disinfectant, all that. But it doesn't seem to be helping."

"How can you tell?"

"See the skin? It's still all pussy."

It was a sign of how distressed he was, simply that Naruto, the pervert he was, could say that without bursting into laughter.

"I'm sure he'll be fine." Tenten said quickly, forcing herself to stick to the task at hand. "Have you seen Gai? Neji can only hold them off so long."

"Who?"

"Later Blondie. Have you?"

"Alright," Naruto said, putting his hands up in surrender, before doing his own quick scan of the scenery. "I figured he'd found you and followed you to Neji, he hasn't checked in-"

"Tenten."

Tenten turned to see Gai walking towards her, clutching his bloodied arm tightly in his grip, so that the red cloth bunched.

"You okay sensei?" Tenten asked, walking quickly over to him and forcing his fingers apart to catch the deep gash.

"'Course." Gai smiled, showing his perfect teeth, but this close to him she could catch the way his breaths caught in his throat.

"Were there more than we thought?" Tenten asked, wondering at what could have tired the man out. Like this.

Gai's grin quirked. "Not quite- just got a bit unlucky. Where's Neji?"

"We ran into some people, no time to explain. But they're got an Akatsuki member."

The color drained from Gai's face. "What?"

Tenten nodded, already starting towards the forest again. "The religious one. Seems he's as immortal as he always boasted."

"And Neji's alone with them?"

"I had to come find you!" Tenten accused, and they fell to resigned silence, the unspoken apology hanging in the air awkwardly.

"How many?" Gai asked finally, as they were so close they could hear shouts.

"Eight, including the Akatsuki member, not including the girl Neji downed when I was leaving."

"Skill level?"

Tenten bit her tongue for a second, a bad childhood habit she still had to break. "At least Konoha chuunin, several jounin."

Gai cursed, using language Tenten would have doubted he even knew five years ago, didn't even know herself.

"Goddammit Tenten!"

Neji's hoarse scream filled the trees as soon as everything came into Tenten's view, and consequently her into theirs.

Tenten narrowed her eyes, and threw three senbon towards the man pushing Neji up against the tree, smiling as the four around him cheered and laughed. Fallen on the ground already were the women Neji had slewn as she was leaving, and another, a thick man with hair so short it barely showed against his dull skin.

She added one the count of the fallen, however, as the senbon struck the man by Neji, and his knees buckled as soon as the needles pierced the back of his skull, digging in two inches before stopping.

Not too bad Tenten, she smiled, not too bad.

However, a moment later, shouts rang out, and battle again commenced.

~OOOOOO~

Kiba chewed at the eraser of his pencil in frustration, staring down at the small print with squinty eyes.

If it had been anyone but the Hokage herself, he would have chucked the damn paperwork back in her face.

Of course, it was sort of his fault, emphasis on sort of, he'd just been asking if he could get back on duty again, it was innocent enough, certainly meant with no ill intent. Well, maybe it was the third time he'd asked. Today. But he was a ninja, dammit! A whole month of bed rest was not what he needed! He needed fresh air, a good jog around the village, clearance to temporarily maim his buggy teammate!

And he certainly didn't need any shitty paperwork assignment. He didn't know what she was thinking- she much know she'd have to rewrite half of it, she had the records of the academy, unlike Naruto or Shikamaru he actually was a dead-last. 'Limited mental capabilities, slight physical prowess, blah blah blah'. All that jazz.

"Are you feeling alright Kiba?"

The shy voice called to him from the doorway, and he grinned widely at the angel of a girl shuffling onto the tiling, hands clasped behind her back. There had been a phase there for a year or so, right after the war, where she'd become some kind of thing, just like the rest of the Hyuuga. But Shino and he had managed to beat enough sense into her, and Naruto had taken her out for enough ramen, and she'd finally returned to her sweet old, shy-as-a-rabbit self, and Kiba wouldn't have her any other way.

"Fine, I guess." Kiba said with a scowl. "Though Tsunade dumped a crapload of paperwork on me when I said I wanted to start doing 'ninja things' again."

"But you're still healing!" Hinata insisted, walking over to Kiba and folding her arms in a rare moment of sternness. "And you will heal completely this time, not like last time. You nearly got us all killed."

"Awww, you know you love me." Kiba smiled and winked, and Hinata blushed deeply, immediately losing her imposing presence.

As hard as the Hyuuga tried, she'd never be one of them.

"So anyways," Kiba started, pushing himself up to a straighter sitting position, wincing as his leg banged the metal end of the bed, because as much as he told everyone he was doing fine he was actually doing very badly, compared to total health. "Do you need anything? I thought you were going out with Ino today."

"Actually," Tsunade's voice made Kiba look up to see her entering the room, Shino trailing behind her, complete in ANBU dress and black hooded cloak, like some kind of shadow. "I had a mission for you."

Kiba's eyes widened, and then his smile. He pumped his bandaged fist in the air. "Oh yeah! Hear that Akamaru?" Kiba frowned as he turned to see his horse of a dog still sound asleep on the floor. Kicking him softly, Akamaru snarled, shaking himself awake. "Hear that boy?"

Akamaru gave him a look, and Kiba sniffed. "You can get sleep later. Sleeping's all you've been doing this past week."

Tsunade cleared her throat, and Kiba turned sheepishly to face her. "Okay, what mission?"

"Sharingan." Was all she said at first, and all but Shino stiffened. No doubt Shino already knew, having played Hokage's body guard as the rest of his team recuperated. But as long as he was just an honorary ANBU and spent most of his time with them, Kiba and Hinata didn't mind a bit how he spent the rest of it.

"Uchiha?" Kiba growled.

"Possibly." Tsunade said. "Recently one of our undercover ninja purchased this on the black market." The old Hokage brought up her hand, and Kiba's stomach turned at the sight of it. The glass vile was maybe six inches tall, with a diameter of two or so inches, and inside the bubbling, watery liquid was an eye. A red and black eyeball.

"Shit! Even I didn't think the traitor would sink this low! Just how hurtin' are they for money?" Kiba asked, incredulous.

Tsunade held up a finger. "There is more." She then brought out a list, the size of a normal sheet of paper, filled to the edges with what looked like hand written dates and addresses. "There have been records of at least thirty other sharingan sales made, and these are just the ones our spies picked up."

"What?"

"I need you to go and check in Oto, see whether this is their doing, or someone else's. We've managed to pinpoint where Orochimaru and his village is currently staying, as of three weeks ago, and they don't move very often these days, so it's a safe bet."

"You need us to do this?" Hinata asked.

"You are the best trackers I have." Tsunade shrugged, starting towards the door. "Shino has all the specifics, you leave this afternoon, so I'd get out of that dashing green Kiba and into your uniform."

Kiba would have growled at her but he was too happy to finally be away from the rancid stench of anesthetic.

Wasting no time Kiba slipped from between the sheets, ignoring the jolt of pain as his feet hit the floor, and began to strip.

"Kiba!" Hinata squealed, blushing darker and turning to face the door.

Shino just scoffed quietly. "Inuzuka."

"Watch it bug boy." Kiba said fake-threateningly, slipping on the jounin-issue pants and mesh tee-shirt that was his usual outfit these days. Yanking on his furry coat Kiba slipped on his shoes, and wandered to the other side of the hospital bed to plop on top of the mound of white fluff.

Akamaru barked indignantly as he landed on him hard, but Kiba just made a face, grinning as the large dog tried to shake him off. "Come on you lazy mutt, we have a mission."

Akamaru barked.

"You are a mutt, I don't care what- no, I never said that!" Kiba cried.

"Stop talking to your mutt and come on." Shino sighed, although Kiba could hear the smile in his voice, leading the way from the room.

Last-second remembering Kiba snatched his weapons pouch from the side table, before leaning in close to Akamaru. "See? Shino thinks you're a mutt, and if you disagree with him he can give you fleas."

Hinata, apparently close enough to hear him, giggled.

For the umpteenth time in the last minute, Shino sighed.

"I should have become a real ANBU like Nara."

Kiba stuck out his tongue. "You wish they'd let you in."

Kiba imagined Shino's mouth twitching down into a scowl, and smiled.

~OOOOOO~

"Lee, you sure you're fine?" Naruto asked, acutely aware of his mother-henning but at the same time not really caring. The green-clad boy nodded, slow but determined, his hand clutching Naruto's shoulder tightly as he pushed himself into a sitting position against the tree.

"I'm fine Naruto. They need you, and I'm not going anywhere." Lee laughed, or tried to laugh, but ended up hunched over, coughing violently into his hands. Naruto took his hands carefully, and hesitated at the sight of the thick, red mucus. Lee looked up at him, and shot him a weak, pale smile. "I'll be fine."

Naruto took a deep breath, turned to the forest, back, and nodded. Standing up Naruto untied the jumpsuit sleeves from around his waist, pulled them on, and zipped it up the front. Touching the Kyuubi chakra lightly he felt it the same blazing fire it always was. Years had gone by, two years echoed in his mind, since he'd actually encountered the Kyuubi itself, the beast's personality seemed to have gone into hiding, but he'd left behind his gargantuan chakra well, free for Naruto to take from, when the situation proved dire enough. And although he didn't like to think about it, these days he was needing it quite a bit more than he used to.

'You're a jinchuuriki Naruto, you have one of the most powerful beings on earth, if not the most powerful, housed inside your human body.' Tsunade had said, shaking her head, as she turned away. 'Twenty years? Twenty-five? This is more than just taijutsu's wear and tear, this is total self-destruction, from the inside out…'

"I'll be back soon!" Naruto called to Lee as he ran, trying to ignore the look that had flashed across the man's face as he turned to go, sad and resigned and so not-Lee it was painful to think about.

Naruto clenched his fists, and for the millionth time in his life his sensei's words came into mind, but this time they were his own.

I won't let my comrades die.

The trees grew thick around his head, leaves hanging down around him, and he got at least five in the face by the time he reached what was obviously the battle scene. Screams sounded about him, and the first thing he noticed was the corpse lying in the middle of it all, slashed and drenched in blood, spilling around it and out of the black circle surrounding it. Then he noticed Tenten, clutching her right hand to her chest, holding an oddly curved sword in the delicate fingers of her left hand with which she blocked a woman of similar height and build, but with hair as grey as Kakashi's.

Narrowing his eyes Naruto ran forward, reaching his fingers deep into the Kyuubi's reserves and drawing out enough chakra to fry anyone else's systems, and probably enough to fry his, if he did it enough times, but when it came to his comrades, his beloved ones, none of that mattered.

With a burst of speed Naruto crossed the distance in a matter of half-seconds, brought back a hand swirled in red hot chakra, and slammed it through the woman's back, before she could react. Things went extremely slow after that, for a second, an hour, as her corpse slid off his hand with a slick slurping sound and hit the ground with a thud. Then Naruto turned his eyes up into Tenten's brown ones, and after a moment of shock on her part she shook her head, and smiled gratefully, if a little bitterly.

"Thanks Naruto, I owe you one for that bitch."

"No trouble at all-"

The swoosh of a blade behind him brought Naruto back to his heightened senses, and he ducked under the singing sword, brought his foot around only to hit air, his assailant apparently as skilled as he was.

Splat.

"There." Tenten said, slightly out of breath, but smiling as he turned to face her. The kunai in her hand dug into the man's skull almost up until the hilt, and Naruto nodded in amazed approval. "We're even now."

"Totally even."

"So…" Naruto turned from side to side. "Where are the rest of them?"

"Went that way while Bitch kept me busy," Tenten said, pointing deeper into the trees.

"Oh, yippee." Naruto made a face, already imagining the fun that would be fighting with all those branches in the way. Maybe he could just set the whole forest on fire instead. It would certainly get the job done.

"Don't complain." Tenten said, throwing him a 'why the hell not' kind of look, before taking odd. Naruto followed her after a moment of hesitation, remembering Lee back by the village. But he'd be fine, for now, at any rate. Maybe it was Tsunade's handing him his own death sentence six months ago, but suddenly everyone seemed so… mortal.

"How many are there?" Naruto asked as he effortlessly kept alongside Tenten.

"Hand some of that chakra over this way, huh?" Tenten said first, making another face. They amazed Naruto to no end, Tenten's wide variety of facial expressions. Sure, he and Lee and Kiba made faces all the time, but it was kind of a guy thing. At least, it used to be. "Only three at this point, I think. This big hulking guy, this kid, and the Akatsuki guy. Hidan, or whatever."

Naruto choked. "Hidan? But Shikamaru-"

"I know, I know." Tenten growled. "Looks like his groupies brought him back though."

"Dammit." Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Tenten, I'll go ahead, search for the guy."

"Naruto-" Tenten's voice drifted away as Naruto again pulled at the Kyuubi chakra, and rocketed through the forest. Reaching out he felt something dark, sinister, cold to the mental touch. Something evil.

As Naruto came closer, he felt something else pulsing, softer, quieter, a life force he knew after only a second. "Gai,"

As he finally came close enough to see the two he cursed, catching immediate sight of the symbol on the ground, the monstrous black-white of Hidan's skeleton skin.

Blood dripped and drowned the ground beneath the two men, but while Hidan seemed to be laughing, relishing the pain, Gai was supporting himself against a tree, gasping for breaths. Naruto could catch blood between his lips, and again he flashed to Lee, coughing wetly into his hands, without anyone to help him.

Before anyone could notice him, Naruto pumped chakra to his feet and flashed forward, brought out his arms and shoved the Jashinist from the ritual circle. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Gai's shoulder droop, but his eyes sparked as he caught Naruto's glance.

"Took you long enough." Gai said in a very un-Gai voice, perhaps his war voice, Naruto tended to forget these things, by choice, if he was being truthful with himself.

Naruto smiled widely, keeping his hands on Hidan's shoulders, shoving him face first into the dirt and letting so much chakra flare at his fingertips that his cloak and the skin underneath began to burn.

"Beggars can't be choosers."

Gai smiled a wide, very Gai-like smile.

~OOOOOO~

"What the-" Kisame backed a step away from the man still huddled in the corner, gasping for breath as he stared down at the man he'd just throttled with his bare hands.

Shikamaru flexed his fingers, stared at them.

Took each breath with the purpose to stay alive.

"Shikamaru?" Sakura asked hesitantly, and although it didn't happen she half-expected Kisame to hurt Kakashi again, or hurt Shikamaru, for the name passing by her lips.

Shikamaru didn't respond for thirty seconds, Sakura thought he hadn't heard her and opened her mouth to ask again. Finally, he spoke.

"How long has it been?"

"What?" Kakashi asked, although his voice said he already knew the answer.

"Since he came in. How long has it been since Itachi put me under his genjutsu."

"Ten, fifteen minutes." Sakura said, her heart sinking as Shikamaru's eyes blurred momentarily, as if in memory.

"Fifteen minutes." Shikamaru's voice trailed off, and he sat silently for a moment longer, before he broke into a smile and started to laugh. "Fifteen minutes!"

"That's it kid," Kisame snarled, finally stepping forward, finally snatching a sword from his back, although it was a simple one, almost identical to Konoha ANBU issue katana, the kind all ninja were trained to wield in the academy. "You're going down. All of you are-"

Before Kisame could finish his angry sentence, however, Shikamaru stood slowly, lifted his hand as if calling to something, closed his eyes and opened them black again.

"What the shit is this." Kisame growled, narrowing his eyes and lunging for Shikamaru.

The Nara didn't even make a move, but suddenly Kisame stood frozen, and inky black hands began to weave their way around his body, up his legs and arms and throat and brushing his cheek.

"Months, fish, not minutes. Months. With that bastard you called a partner." Shikamaru stalked forward two steps, three, finally came to where Kisame was standing and looked up into his eyes. "But it wasn't that hard turning it all back on him. It's just like when I was small and the shadows talked to me. It's all in the shadows. It always was."

It took Sakura a second to realize what was happening, Kisame's face was already so pale, and as the breath began to leave his lungs his expression didn't change but for the snarl growing on his lips.

"What- are you?" Kisame spat out between clenched teeth.

Shikamaru paused, as if pondering the question, before smiling. "The Shadow Lord, I suppose. You can call me shadow lord." And then Shikamaru laughed again, it was a chilling sound that reminded Sakura more of Kabuto or Orochimaru than the man she'd known since their academy days.

"None of this is permanent," Shikamaru whispered, clutching Kisame's face in his hand and staring straight back into his eyes. "Nothing lasts. Everyone and everything comes back again. But I will kill you, and I will kill you again, and again, until you can't come back."

This time, as the choking began, Sakura found her voice.

"Shikamaru, stop!"

The man paused, but it took him a while to turn to her. "Sakura. What is it?"

"Don't kill him!" Sakura insisted. She'd killed a dozen times before, she had nothing against the concept, if her knife was at the man's throat she'd push down, but it was him doing it. This not-Shikamaru. This Shadow Lord.

Shikamaru's solid black eyes narrowed a fraction. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Because…" Sakura searched for words. "Because this isn't you! Not the real you!"

Shikamaru let out another laugh, louder than any other before. "Not the real me?" Shikamaru turned on her suddenly, walked her direction instead. "You don't know anything about reality-"

And suddenly Shikamaru twitched, and his eyes slid shut over brown eyes, and he collapsed to the ground on top of her.

"Shikamaru!"

"Goddamned freak!" Kisame snarled, shaking his head and stretching momentarily before turning on the two of them. "I oughta- no." Kisame smiled, his pointy teeth glinting dangerously. "No, this is better. He may be bonkers but he's still from Konoha. And so are you, you little bitch,"

And with that Kisame rounded on Kakashi, leaning against the wall and taking ragged breaths, and drew his sword.

Sakura only had half a second to gasp and for the panic to blossom inside her chest before the blood sprayed everywhere, and a scream rang out. It took her numb brain a moment to realize the scream was her own.

"See that?" Kisame taunted, his voice breathless and a different kind of angry than usual, and as hard as Sakura tried to look away she did, and even as she closed her eyes it was still there, his head against the floor, neck ripped and spilling and the blood spilling so fast she could already feel it between her toes. "That is what happens when you mess with me. Got it?"

"No," Sakura's eyes widened as Kisame rounded on Sai, still drugged into sleep a foot away from Kakashi's mutilated corpse.

Blood spilled again, and again she felt the scream rising in her throat, peeling off her tongue, but this time she was less aware of it, this time all she felt was the anger, suddenly clutching at her innards with its sharp claws. She gasped for breath, maybe she was crying, she couldn't tell, but she rammed against the block on her chakra, threw her everything at it for a split second, and it all spilled in, stinging like water in a parched throat.

Kisame didn't seem to notice, he was killing Tenzou now, she noticed blankly. He was turning toward them now, he had this look in his eye, burning angry like white fire.

And Sakura didn't really notice as the ropes snapped at her strength, as she leapt at the fish-man like a wild animal, as he tripped and fell back and couldn't get up.

This time it was her, she was the one with her hands at his throat, and she pushed down so hard her fingers hurt, and his hands raked at her legs so deep they stung, and the anger boiled so high she might have cried, but she couldn't tell.

Her heart beat so loud in her ears she could barely hear the sound of her gasping breaths, of her blood dripping on the wet wood.

She'd killed him.

Sakura turned slowly to Shikamaru, who was still lying on the floor, slumped over where she'd left him.

"Shikamaru?" She asked shakily, her voice weak, as she tried to ignore the stench of blood so strong she felt like wretching.

The man stirred, but didn't wake at first.

Sakura noticed the chakra seal on his chest, red and angry and dripping puss and blood. He must have backfired it when forcing Itachi's tsukuyomi back on himself, however that had been done. Looking down Sakura saw her own seal had done the same, was itching angrily and dripping blood between her breasts.

"Shikamaru?"

"Sakura?" Shikamaru asked cautiously, and Sakura sighed in relief because it sounded like her Shikamaru. Not Shadow Lord. "What happened Sakura?"

"I killed Kisame." Sakura said finally.

"So we're gonna be okay now?" His words were slurred, and tears stung her eyes again.

"Yeah."

Silence descended for a minute, before she dared to break it again. "What happened, Shikamaru?"

The man waited a good long time to answer.

"At first, it was just pain," Shikamaru said, not opening his eyes, not letting go of Sakura, he'd grabbed her hands tightly in his own. "Hours, and hours, and hours. But that was okay. Then the shadows started appearing. Talking to me."

"Like when you were small?" Sakura echoed what Shadow Lord had said earlier.

Shikamaru nodded. "Like how the shadows used to talk to me. They told me things, although I can't remember most of them. And then I met a man."

"The man you asked Itachi about?"

"The man I asked Itachi about. The man with brown hair and black eyes."

Sakura hesitated. "Shikamaru, you don't mean-"

Shikamaru shook his head. "Not me. Maybe me. I don't know. I need to know. That's why I asked him. That's why I used his sharingan and put him through tsukuyomi so many times. But he didn't know."

"You tortured him?"

"Even for a murderer he has… a lot of regrets…"

"Shikamaru?"

Sakura waited a moment before shaking Shikamaru, calling his name again.

Shikamaru didn't answer.

"Shikamaru?"

Sakura put her fingers to the man's wrist, checked his pulse quickly.

There was nothing.

Sakura sat frozen for a moment, before taking Shikamaru, and sitting against the wall, and setting his head in her lap carefully.

Stroking his hair gently, Sakura touched his eyelids for half a heartbeat before turning away and closing her eyes.

She couldn't bring herself to open them.

~OOOOOO~

"Hey look Shino!" Kiba called down to the Aburame running gracefully from branch to branch perhaps twenty feet below. "Shiiiino!"

Finally Shino turned his hidden face up, and his dark glasses seemed to flash. "What do you want this time Kiba?"

Kiba pouted. "Come on Shino, don't be so mean about it. I bet Hinata wants to see this."

"Don't drag me into this." Hinata said after a moment's silence.

"Well fine, I'll just show Akamaru instead then."

Taking one of the hundreds of vines hanging like string from the trees around him, Kiba jumped, bringing up his knees, and sailed for ten feet or so. Leaping to a nearby branch Kiba landed in a crouch, peering down to see Shino, Hinata, and even Akamaru pointedly ignoring him. "Oh come on Shi, you should try it. It's fun!"

After a few more seconds of silence, Kiba huffed, settling for his own enjoyment instead. He took another leap, snatching one of the vines and smiled as it went taught with his weight. "Kiba," He shouted, "King of the jungle!"

"Watch out for that tree." Shino said blandly.

"What?"

SLAM!

The Aburame chuckled quietly, and Hinata smiled.

"Goddammit Shino!"

~OOOOOOO~

Kiba walked through the debris carefully, cringing at the sheer number of corpses littering the ground about them. "God," he mumbled under his breath, "This is a massacre. Do you think there was some kind of rebellion?"

"Doubt it." Shino said simply.

"Care to elaborate?" Kiba asked, a hint of bitterness in his voice, but mostly amusement. Over the years even he had changed so much, whether or not he'd ever admit it, but Shino never seemed to. He was a rock, he anchored Hinata and he, in a way.

"Too many." Shino explained. "With this many on either side, they would have won. And if it was a select few of powerful men, most would have given in to them."

"What do you think happened then, oh smart one?"

To Kiba's slight surprise, it was Hinata who answered his question.

"Extermination." Her voice went a little cold. "Extinction. Punishment."

Kiba shifted uncomfortably for a moment, unsettled by his female teammate's sudden change in mood.

"Well," Kiba cleared his throat. "I'm going in deeper, see if I can find anything." Pushing past the crooked black gates into Oto main he started down the bloody path.

"I-I'm coming too." Hinata said, her voice regular-Hinata again, as her footsteps padded closer up behind him.

"I'll scout the surrounding area." Shino said quickly, before Kiba heard the woosh of the bug-user disappearing. Turning to his right, he saw Akamaru missing.

"Akamaru? Dumb dog," Kiba made a face and turned, scanned around him. Hinata blushed as he faced her and Akamaru, who stoop up beside her. "What are you doing?"

Akamaru flicked his tail and made a growl-whine.

Kiba sighed. "Alright, sheesh. Sorry you have to deal with him Hinata."

Hinata giggled, blushing darker, before kneeling next to Akamaru and rubbing his nose. "That's alright. You know I love him."

"And he loves you." Kiba rolled his eyes. "Come on. This place is huge."

They wandered through the Oto ruins slowly, as time passed like cream.

"Damn," Kiba growled, covering his nose with his hands. The thick smell of death swirled around them, and he was flashing to the war. Flashing to the academy classroom, desks all sideways, papers all mushy maroon. "Only a couple more rooms, jesus, this place is big."

"And after these barracks, there are two more." Hinata said absently and slightly stuffy, as if she too was holding her nose.

"Yipee."

Kiba scowled even deeper as he rested his hand on the next door in line. It was a delicate doorknob, more so than the rest, but what bothered him was the smell coming from behind the door, like everywhere else, times a thousand, plus the smell of dung, and rotten fruit.

"Need me to open it for you?" Hinata asked, walking and pushing aside lightly, aware of her teammate's heightened sense of smell.

"Thanks." Kiba said grudgingly, covering his nose again and drawing deep breaths with his mouth.

Hinata pulled the door out, and peered inside, making a face.

"Anything?"

"Nothing. It looks like some kind of library, or records room, there are scrolls all over the place." Hinata made to enter the room, but Kiba caught her arm.

"Why are you going in then?"

"I'm just being thorough." She said, pushing him off her, and she probably would have blushed if her cheeks weren't still red from the last time she'd gone hot in the face. "If you can't stand the smell, go check across the hall. I can take care of myself."

Kiba paused, before nodding. "Alright. Just keep Akamaru with you, he'll protect you, won't you boy?"

Akamaru just sneezed, and glared at him.

"Hasn't he got an even better nose than you?"

Kiba shrugged. "He'll get over it."

And before Akamaru could finish his claw-filled pounce-attack Kiba was across at the other door, and already halfway through.

Shutting the door behind him, Kiba walked through the dark room until he reached what, in the shadows, seemed like a curtain, and drew it open.

Light immediately shined brightly, lighting up everything in the room, and Kiba had to pause for a minute to adjust to the light.

The room was bare, with only a single bed against the clammy walls, making it out as the room of a higher up captain, unlike the two or four-bunk rooms of the normal soldiers. In the center, under an unlit lamp, was a large wooden table, spread out with diagrams and seals and ancient texts.

Kiba walked to the table, although he didn't sit in the stiff-backed wooden chair, and scanned the papers. Most looked ancient, crinkled yellow with ripped edges, but the script was all perfectly preserved, the blank ink barely faded.

He'd never been very smart, let alone a genius, but it didn't take one to realize every single jutsu and seal marked on the sheets were extremely dangerous, and extremely powerful. One of the papers, in fact, noted nonchalantly that what it was about to disclose was strictly forbidden, and with good reason.

The largest seal on the table, however, the one that was drawn in pencil and looked rather sketchy, had no labels or directions.

Kiba only got to glimpse a couple characters, a few odd words like 'time' and 'shadow' and 'change', before there was a shrill scream, and his eyes widened.

"Hinata,"

Kiba opened the door quickly, ran across the hall, and through the door still swung open on its hinges. Again he was struck by the terrible smell, and his stomach heaved, and he tasted vomit on his tongue.

"So, dog-boy is here as well. You were lying."

Kiba's eyes widened, and he backed a step away from the man.

The man in the Akatsuki cloak looked one final time at the head hanging by her hair in his gloved fingers, touched her white cheek a final time, before dropping it to the ground beside him with a moist splatting sound.

"You sick bastard!" Kiba screamed, momentarily forgetting that he was Akatsuki, forgetting that this was Madara, forgetting that he hadn't a chance.

The last thing Kiba saw before everything flew away was the blooming of red and black in the man's eyes, dark and mercilessly cold.

~OOOOOO~

Tenten slipped through the branches quickly, nimbly, cursing under her breath.

"Naruto, ya' damn hero," Tenten scowled, although she felt no real ill intent. He was Naruto, for god's sake. What else was to be expected?

Unfortunately, now she was thoroughly lost. She'd always been with Lee on the chakra-sensing boat, and even these days she couldn't feel a ninja until they were within ten, maybe twenty feet of her. Just close enough to sense an oncoming jutsu or sneak attacker dumb enough not to mask their own chakra.

Tenten spent a good five more minutes picking through the bushes until she heard something that sounded like a far off shout, and grinned.

Finally.

Starting to sprint it didn't take Tenten very long to find the smoky cloud, trees blackened and sooty as if burnt. Squinting, she could make out, on the very edge of the smog, a body, crumpled over on the ground. Her heart leapt to her throat for half a second, until she spotted the grey of the man's hair, and she let out her breath.

"Neji?" Tenten called cautiously, sensing his chakra within the smog. However, as she took another step she had to back up again, as if stung. A second chakra source had materialized before her, almost suddenly, thick and black and sludgy, like the chakra of a dead man. "You okay?"

There was shuffling, a quiet smack, the sound of angry voices she couldn't quite hear.

Tenten narrowed her eyes, reached into her kunai pouch, and found a measly one left. But it would have to do.

Darting forward, Tenten felt out with her chakra, locked onto Neji's own signature, which was faint and flickering. Beside it, around it, masking it almost from view, Tenten felt the other chakra, the dead chakra, and shuddered. She'd heard whispers of the necromancers, the Jashinists, followers of the god of destruction, but she'd actually never met any until today, only heard stories of the albino Akatsuki zealot from the others.

"Little freak," Neji's voice growled, quietly, from twenty or so feet away.

"Don't worry, you'll be with Jashin soon enough," A young voice, sickly sweet, came cheerfully from beside him.

Tenten could see them now, and she stopped for a moment to take it in. She could tell now, why there was so much smoke, the branches of all the surrounding trees still glowed with the aftermath of fire jutsu. Wide designs dented the ground, drawn by a boot of the butt of sword, a large circle filled in with a single triangle. Neji lay on the ground, his limbs splayed around him, and his chest rose and fell quickly as he gasped for breath. It was probably the long slice in his thigh, his pants were ripped a good eight inches, and blood seeped between the skin lips and created cherry mud beneath him.

As the silver-haired boy, barely older than an academy graduate, stepped to the edge of the circle and brought his hands together in some unrecognizable hand sign, Tenten remembered the shredded corpse of the blonde man, and darted forward.

In that second, a million things happened at once.

The boy's hands clenched.

His lips spoke silently, something she couldn't understand.

Tenten's sandal hit the boy's side and he fell back, eyes widening.

The black, melty chakra began to erupt from the dents in the ground.

And screams of pain pierced the air.

"Neji!"

Tenten whipped her head around as soon as she'd tackled the boy to the ground, her stomach dropping as his shouts echoed through the crisp skeletons of trees.

Blood seeped into the dirt, making cherry mud beneath him.

"Oh Jashin," The boy beside her stood quickly, and she couldn't bring herself to stop him, still reeling with the shock, as bad of a kunoichi as that made her. The boy shook his head slightly, staring down, wide-eyed at Neji, still on his back, coughing loudly into the silence.

"Neji," Tenten whispered in relief, finally shooting back to her feet and grabbing the kid once again, twisting his arms behind his back so his back stiffened with pain.

"Bitch." He spat, glaring back at her.

Tenten didn't answer, but after a quick look back to Neji, still shuddering on the ground, she cursed to herself, throwing the boy down to the ground so hard he yelped before walking over to her teammate.

"You okay?" She asked, grabbing his face and turning it towards her.

Neji blinked his eyes slowly, as if dazed, but nodded. "Yeah," He said breathlessly. "I'm okay."

"What happened?"

"It's him." It was the boy, speaking in an odd tone as he raised himself weakly from the ground, rubbing aching and bruising joints. He stared down at Neji and Tenten with eyes much sharper than should belong to any child. Still, in the constant glare there was, in his dark, almost grey eyes, something like sheepish awe.

"What?"

"He survived the sacrificial ritual." The boy insisted.

It must have been her imagination, as she felt for Neji's familiar chakra signature, and found it a tad colder than usual.

"Ever think you just screwed it up?" Tenten snapped.

"Watch it, bitch," The kid snarled back, clenching his bandaged right fist, as though itching to punch her with it.

"Don't call her that." Neji said darkly as he forced himself to a sitting position.

After a moment of staring, as if torn, the boy shook his hand loose and turned away. "Sorry 'bout that. The name's Nori."

Neji narrowed his white eyes, but didn't make a move against him. "Neji. This is Tenten."

Nori nodded grudgingly.

"Help me up Tenten," Neji said, grabbing her shoulder tightly in his hands. She rose slowly, guiding him up until he stood, albeit heavily favoring his good side.

"Can you walk?" Tenten asked. "We should go and find Naruto and Gai."

Neji's eyes widened, and he nodded. "Gai wasn't looking so good when I last saw him. We should hurry."

"Can you walk?" Tenten repeated, and Neji faltered slightly.

"You can go ahead." Nori piped up. "I'll help Neji."

"Like hell I'll let you do that," Tenten spat, "You'll try and kill him again."

Neji took a breath. "I think it's a good idea Tenten."

"Are you out of your mind?" Tenten asked harshly, "You do know you just almost died, right?"

"Almost, Tenten." Neji said. "And Gai needs you. Now. I don't. Anyways, I've got a feeling, I don't think Nori will hurt me."

"I won't." Nori echoed, and Tenten sighed in defeat.

"You follow right behind me, no funny business."

Nori nodded, although he scowled. "No funny business."

Tenten nodded in return, handed Neji carefully off to Nori, and then bolted.

It had been a while.

But Gai would be fine. He was Gai. And if Naruto really was with him, Akatsuki or not, no one stood a chance.

Stretching her chakra fingers as far as they would stretch she finally found Gai's chakra signature, flickering and jumping and spiking, and she stiffened as she recognized the immense levels of the open gates, at least five or six. Was Hidan giving them that much trouble?

Unlike with Neji and Nori, the three in this clearing came immediately into focus, Naruto pushing himself shakily from the ground, Gai holding onto his stomach as he buckled half-over, Hidan with his arms raised above his head.

She stared for a moment longer, and Gai caught her gaze, and there was something in his eyes she'd never seen before.

"Now." Gai mouthed, and Tenten looked up to see that it was the perfect moment, the Jashinist hadn't noticed her and he was just standing there.

Bringing her last kunai back, Tenten let it fly, so fast through the air it sang.

The metal hit home perfectly in the back of Hidan's skull, and after a small jerk, as if in shock, his body crumpled to the ground.

And so did Gai's.

Tenten's eyes widened as she caught the circle on the ground, the way Hidan's skin was painted like a skeletons.

Naruto looked up to her, suddenly, and his eyes were painfully, electrical blue as they bore into hers.

Tenten brought her hands up to cover her mouth, and after a couple of steps forward she faltered, and had to blink back tears.

Oh god.

It was all she could think, over and over, screaming in her ears.

Oh god, I killed him.

~OOOOOO~

Naruto stared, wide-eyed, as Tenten dropped to her knees numbly.

And it took him a moment to move to her, a part of him wanting to turn, to run to Gai's body instead and check for a pulse he knew wasn't there.

"Tenten." Naruto breathed as he reached her, stepping over Hidan's corpse carefully. Like every time before, a part of him expected the man to rise again from beyond the veil, to leave again another of his comrades dead as he walked away unscathed.

"I never miss." Tenten said slowly, by the expression on her face it seemed the tears trapped behind the glass of her eyes physically hurt, and it was only then that Naruto remembered he'd never seen her cry before. "Never. One hundred of one hundred. Sometimes they dodge, but I never miss my target."

"Tenten," Naruto repeated hesitantly, because pain thumped in his own chest, not physical at all, and if she had been his student he hadn't any idea. If he ever lost Kakashi-sensei…

Naruto bit his lip. He used to worry about that day. He was older, more worn out, more hunted. It had always been inevitable, if a sour subject, that his sensei would die before him. But then Tsunade caught the shiver in his chakra, had taken him in and discovered the deterioration, and suddenly he didn't have to worry anymore.

"He told me to do it, Naruto." Tenten's voice shook in a way Naruto had never heard before, and although he couldn't bring himself to touch the girl, scared she'd jerk away, he felt the impulse to hug her to him. She looked back at him finally, her wide pupils into his. "Why would he do that?"

Naruto opened his mouth, looked away, and closed it.

He knew, but he couldn't say.

He could almost feel the thoughts that must have run through his mind, 'for them, I don't have as much time, anything would be worth it.'

How many times had he felt them himself?

And yet he couldn't help but wonder.

If the man had known Naruto was destined to die in a year or two or three anyways, would he have kept fighting?

Would he have been able to make the killing blow?

Would his heart still be beating?

"Maybe this isn't really happening." Tenten said after the silence. "Maybe I'm just crazy. Like what happened to Ino after that mission, maybe I'm just crazy."

"No, you're not- Tenten, no." Naruto said, suddenly finding his voice, shaking his head. He could still remember Ino's stick-thin body beneath the sheets, shaking like a leaf, it had taken a good two months to get through to her, but he forced it from his mind.

"But it's Gai." Tenten insisted. "He can't die. It's- he's-"

"Too youthful?" Naruto said weakly, unable to keep it in.

Tenten laughed, although it wasn't amused so much as desperate. "Yeah."

"Goddamned freak."

"Don't call me that."

"I can call you whatever I want, don't-AH!"

The loud voices sliced through the awkward quiet along with a thump.

"You little-"

Neji's voice broke off as he pushed himself from the ground, maybe ten feet away, and glimpsed Naruto and Tenten, on their knees in the dirty grass. His white eyes immediately narrowed. "What's wrong?"

And then Neji turned, and his eyes caught the corpses still crumpled face-first on the ground, and the color drained from his anger-flushed cheeks.

"Gai?" Neji asked weakly, maybe to himself, maybe to the dead man, because somehow it didn't feel like he was asking Tenten or Naruto, either for confirmation or for comfort.

"Hidan," the small grey-haired boy narrowed his eyes.

"Go."

Naruto turned to Tenten. "What?"

"You should go." She repeated in a dark voice, and Naruto gave only a final look to everyone, at Tenten still holding back tears, and Neji who looked like he was going to be sick, and Gai and Hidan lifeless on the ground, before standing.

His walk back through the forest was slow, the first time he'd pushed through the branches without adrenaline and Kyuubi chakra pumping in his blood. He could feel the beast's chakra eating away at him, more than usual, but not more than was normal after over-using his chakra so much within such a short time.

Naruto clenched his fist and bit his lip.

He hadn't been able to save him.

There had been so many chances, when Hidan paused a moment but he hesitated, waiting for a better opening. So many times he could have just run in and maybe, maybe he would have died then and that would be that.

His shoulders tightened and he had to clench his fists tighter to keep from screaming, or kicking a tree so hard his toes snapped.

He.

Had.

Failed.

He hadn't meant to, but Naruto found himself peering through the trees to see where Lee sat, a hundred or so feet before him, face turned to the sky as his chest rose and fall shakily. More red spattered his hands, and a small bit dripped down his chin.

Naruto felt a sudden spike of cold, as he realized Gai may not be the only one dying.

He'd listened, he really had, to Sakura's teachings, and he'd thought he'd been doing pretty well. How many times had he made a great substitute medic-nin? How many broken bones and chakra burns had he kept from scarring?

But what use was it, really?

Naruto just stared at Lee for a long time, at the christmas green and red of his long shirt.

When suddenly, Lee's arms went slack, and his chin fell into his chest.

Naruto's eyes widened, panic rose up into his throat, and he wasted no time in running out to the man, in checking for the pulse fluttering in his wrist.

"You awake Lee?"

Lee managed a small nod as Naruto took him and lay his head in his lap like he had earlier.

"Can you say something?"

Lee nodded again. "Did you win?"

Naruto hesitated only a split second, before smiling slyly. "Yeah."

"And everyone's okay?"

"Yeah."

Lee smiled, closing his black eyes against the sun. "That's good."

Naruto nodded, even if no one could see him.

"We need to get you back to Konoha Lee. Think you can make it?"

Naruto expected a reassured 'yes', or at least an immediate response, but it took a long time for Lee to finally answer.

"I don't know."

"It hurts?"

"It hurts."

"Where?" Naruto looked down to see the bite from which the poison spread was dark black, and purpled spiderwebbed up and down his throat like veins.

Lee took a deep, careful breath. "Everywhere."

Again Naruto had to keep himself from kicking or punching something.

It was hard to believe that two, maybe three hours ago, the world was still flowing along as it should, and he was playing with Neji's scroll, was laughing and kicking up mud.

It was hard to believe the world wasn't coming to an end.

"Naruto?" Lee asked suddenly, not opening his eyes but grabbing Naruto's hand tightly. "Are you gonna miss me?"

"Of course Lee," Naruto said, alarmed he'd even be thinking they wouldn't. And he couldn't tell him he wasn't going to die. Even Lee wouldn't believe that. "Don't think we won't."

"Okay," Lee nodded, before attempting to take a long breath. This time, when he coughed, it wasn't just speckles of red that covered his fingers. "Okay, I believe you Naruto."

"Love you Lee."

Lee gave Naruto a final smile, drawn and stained with blood.

"Love you too."

And five minutes later his heart stopped beating.

And ten minutes later Naruto stood up.

And a long long time later Naruto walked away, and couldn't bring himself to look back.

~OOOOOO~

Madara took the papers, shuffled them all into an even stack, and put them back down on top of the desk.

"Should I be preparing to come with you?"

The Uchiha didn't turn, but stood, sliding his chair back so that it scraped the ground.

"No preparations will be needed on your part, besides setting up the seal."

"So I am coming?"

Madara finally turned to the silver-haired traitor, who merely adjusted his glasses, maybe nervously, maybe not.

"I don't see why not."

"You don't?"

Madara narrowed his eyes at the man. "What I don't see is why you insist upon giving me ample evidence for not letting you have your way."

Kabuto paused, nodding as if in agreement. "I suppose that's true."

Madara shook his head. "I'll never understand you."

He wondered, for a moment, why he was taking the man with him. He'd just killed the leader which he blindly and loyally followed all his life, add to that the fact that where they were going the sannin would exist one again for him to follow. And once adding to that his long history of treachery, and there was no way Madara would ever get the man under control.

Nevertheless, and maybe it was just a feeling, Madara was sure this was a good idea.

Still, Madara had been sure of plenty things in his lifetime.

Winning the war.

Ruling Konoha.

Wife and kids being a good idea.

Madara shuddered.

Sometimes he still dreamed of her ugly mug in his face.

She really was the paramount reason the mere idea of naked women now disgusted him.

But that was painfully off topic.

"So shadows were the key all along…" It was rather ironic. How much of his life had he spent hiding in them? And yet he'd never thought.

"Yes." Kabuto said as he busied himself with sketching the seal on the library wall with white chalk. "Although that's not all of it. It is not the shadows themselves. It is the sheer power that runs live there. We have no way of seeing it, or sensing it, so not many realize that is where it all lies."

"And this should not injure the walls of the world?"

"I do not know." Kabuto said, as brutally honest as he always was.

Again Madara found himself flashing to his thankfully late wife, although she was more of the 'accusingly honest' type, although honest nonetheless. 'You think you're all that don't you?' she'd screech like a banshee down the halls. 'Madara, you megalomaniac!'

"But if it does?" Madara asked again.

"I don't know." Kabuto repeated. "It depends on plenty of factors. My share only contributes half of them, the other half is yours, and your sharingan's. I've never worked with such an advanced sharingan before."

"But you have worked with some before." Madara said, remembering clearly the laboratory as he'd found it when first coming, the table of 'farmed' sharingan. And on the way out, he'd even caught the Uchiha's corpse in the corner, for some reason not yet disposed of.

Maybe Kabuto was more of a creep than he gave him credit for.

"I like to think I've worked in every field to some extent." Kabuto commented bladly, followed by a few last chinking-scratches of chalk on stone. "There."

Madara walked over to admire the man's handywork.

"Very nice…"

The circle was nearly identical to the ones on the sheets Kabuto had worked from, but for a few alterations. Madara knew enough of fuinjutsu to know they were made only to accommodate the assistance of his sharingan, and the carrying of two, rather than one, person.

"And when would you like to go back to?" Kabuto asked, fingers resting by the final blank stretch of wall.

Madara smiled slyly.

"Not too early, no, he was protected back then. But not too late either, not once he's gained strength. Perhaps… twelve years ago."

Kabuto nodded, and chalked in a few symbols.

"I'm glad you were willing to assist me." Madara small-talked, "I was prepared for war upon Konoha but it is much better this way."

Kabuto nodded again. "Of course, Lord Madara."

Madara shivered. The way Kabuto had said the word 'Master' sent chills up his spine.

But maybe he was just being overly-paranoid.

Being an S-class missing-nin did that to a man.

"It's done." There was a clatter as Kabuto dropped the short stub of chalk to the ground, and stood back, letting Madara take the lead.

Madara placed his hands towards the outside of the seal, and activated his eternal mangekyou with a spike of chakra. The entire seal immediately came into better focus, like a light had been flicked on, and suddenly he knew it by heart.

Ah, what he'd do without his sharingan.

"You just channel chakra into it." Kabuto supplied from behind him.

Madara grinded his teeth. "Yes, I do know that. I have used seals before."

"Oh." Was all Kabuto supplied in answer or apology.

Madara scowled.

"I don't like you Yakushi."

"I'm sure."

Madara narrowed his eyes.

Damn creep.

Taking a deep breath, Madara poured ever ounce of chakra he could into the chalk lines, which ate it up like a starving creature, begging to glow a black so dark it wasn't black anymore but nothingness. He could feel his body crying out as he squeezed each drop from his veins, but he wasn't about to get stranded in the wrong time or, even worse, stranded in the in between, in the shadows, and be lost forever.

"Your turn, if you want to come." Madara grunted between shallow breaths, and he felt Kabuto's hand rest beside his, and he felt the man's ice cold energy begin to entwine with his own.

"I thank you for letting me come," Kabuto started in a flat, not-grateful-at-all voice, but Madara cut him off.

"Save it."

A few, maybe ten, more strenuous seconds slithered by, and the world imploded, and everything went to shadows.

~OOOOOO~

Neji stared down at him silently, just trying his hardest to ignore the sounds of Tenten's quick breaths catching in her throat as she sobbed, somewhere behind him, he didn't want to look.

He'd never heard Tenten cry before, ever, none of them had. He was too stubborn and Lee was too happy and Tenten was just too tough, too sensible. She knew better than that.

"Where do you think Naruto went?" Neji asked quietly, his voice surprisingly calm.

"I don't know." Tenten said finally, as if she had to debate whether to answer him at all.

"Where do you think Lee is, then?"

"I, don't, know." Tenten said slower, almost frustrated. "Probably where Naruto left him."

"Naruto probably took him to Konoha."

The words helped him keep his mind off things, but they just seemed to anger Tenten.

"Probably."

"Tenten, do you-"

"Will you be quiet?"

Neji bit his tongue, and turned, and didn't look back a final time at Gai or Hidan before leaving the battlefield. Tenten didn't object to his leaving, and neither did Nori sitting down beside her now, so he didn't stop.

"And Hinata's probably with her team back in Konoha, still recuperating." Neji said quietly, to the trees and muddy footprints and clouds, because he didn't want to stop talking. "'Course, the mutt'll be trying to get his way out of the hospital, just like Lee does. Just like Gai-" he forced himself to ignore the pictures coming up with the name- "does."

"Who's Hinata?"

Neji whipped around, hands out before him and byakugan flicking to life.

The small, pale girl held up her hands, feral smile twitching her thin, red lips.

"You're one of them," Neji growled as he nodded towards the white hair tied up behind her head in a tight knot, held in place with black pins that stood out like night on day.

She nodded, but kept her hands held above her head. "But I mean no harm."

"I don't believe you."

She smiled slyly.

"Don't then. Either way, you'll have to listen to me."

Neju narrowed his eyes. "Why should I have to listen to you?"

"Because I can do whatever I want with you."

And suddenly Neji felt himself hurled back, slamming into the tree behind him, feet tripping. He made to push himself up, but neither his arms nor legs would move a centimeter, as if held in place by some invisible grip.

The girl continued to smile, her red eyes open, dangerously cheery.

"And Hidan can do whatever he wants with her, as can Nori."

Neji tensed. "Hidan is-"

"Still alive." She nodded. "Barely, though. That's why we need you."

"What?"

And then Neji remembered Nori, the way he'd called him 'chosen one' and the 'new son'. "Is it that stupid thing again? Look, you people, you-" He didn't want to think about it, but it ate its way up his throat and crawled out- "you killed my sensei!"

"But we did not kill you." She said, as if expecting that to be enough. "And if you listen to me, you may have him back."

Neji pushed and pulled, but the bonds held strong, so he couldn't shrink back as she walked up to him and they came nose to nose. "What do you want?" He spat.

"For you to help Jashin-sama." She said.

Neji felt the insane urge to laugh. "He does not exist. He is that thing's excuse for violence."

"It is not mere violence." Her eyes narrowed threateningly. "It is fight. It is lust. It is love. It is something you will feel, when the time comes."

"What are you talking about?"

She reached her hand up and above his eyes, but when she brought it down she held a lock of messy hair that looked as if it may have, one day long ago, been brown, but had aged, almost grey. "This is not my hair."

"What?" As she dropped it in his face he felt it pull slightly on his head the way hair does, and even as he watched it faded, the last strands of brown disappearing.

"It's a sign." She said, pointing at him with fingernails that looked razor sharp.

"Of what?" Neji asked incredulously, even though he knew.

"Jashin-sama has chosen you to be his son, his incarnation on earth, as Hidan was before you."

"No."

"You can't say no, not to a god."

"I doubt he's a god." Neji spat.

"Your hair, then?" She asked.

"A trick."

She scoffed.

"How many times must Hidan come back fro you to accept the fact that this is not merely a human's doing?"

"There is nothing human about that bastard."

She took a long pause, before giving Neji an almost sideways stare. "You are extremely… calm, for one who has just lost their sensei."

Neji glared back, but he kept his mouth shut, wouldn't satisfy her with an answer.

However, her lips spread into a smile at his silence.

"This is the first step. Next comes accepting the fact that it's fine to enjoy their pain. It's only a matter of time, for someone like you, you cannot outrun your blood."

Neji twitched.

"But because you still feel compassion," She leaned in close again, so close he could feel the hotness of her breath on his cheeks. "I'll give you an offer. You assist me and my master, Jashin-sama, and I'll let you have them back. Your sensei, your friends, anyone."

"My father," Neji couldn't stop himself from breathing, the way her blood eyes stared into his was enchanting, surreal.

"Maybe not now," She said, "but soon. Once you help us."

Neji hesitated before asking.

But it couldn't hurt just to ask.

"With what?"

She smiled. "Glad to see you're loosening up. There is a man, long ago he was a mortal, but he's becoming too strong to contain."

"If your Jashin-sama," Neji made sure to snarl it like the insult it was, "is a god, why can't he do it himself."

The girl raised her eyebrows, folded her arms. "There is no god that exists in the sense you are thinking of. Nothing is omnipotent."

"And what would I have to help with if I was to accept?"

"He is seeking power, he always is," She said, "We need you to help us kill him once and for all."

"Who?"

"You should know him. Uchiha Madara."

Neji's brain froze for half a second, before sparking back to life.

"How would you bring them… how…"

"These."

She walked ten or so feet away in a seemingly random direction, before reaching out her fingers and feeling around, as if strumming an invisible instrument.

And as if she'd hit a perfect chord, a jolt of cold spiked in Neji, and by the tensing of her shoulders, she as well.

"Feel that?" She asked. Neji only nodded. "And see this?"

She drew her fingers apart now, like opening a veil, and between the folds of sky and air there festered a darkness so deep it felt like it could swallow them both.

Neji took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Come here," The girl said, and suddenly the bonds released, and Neji stumbled to stay upright.

Walking hesitantly over to her he felt something cold, repugnant, radiating out at them.

"This immortal, Madara, a few hours ago he ripped through time, through the shadows."

"Through time?" Neji asked, and suddenly it made sense, in a twisted sort of way.

"But the walls of the world are fragile," She continued as if he hadn't spoken, "and the force it takes to break one hole through created reverberations, this aftershock tears the world in all kinds of places. Of course, it takes an immense amount of chakra and chakra control to use them without getting lost in the void."

"Will Jashin help us?" Neji asked, but he didn't miss the way he said 'us', and it made him shudder. Maybe it was the shock, or maybe the fact that he'd be back in a moment, but the grudge for killing his sensei had all but melted away. "But… how can I trust you? How do I know you're not killing me?"

She smiled 'brightly', although on her it looked almost homicidal, sadistic. "If I'm lying, then you are of little importance to the world order, and why would I bother killing you?"

Neji hesitated.

"Who are you?"

"Aka is my name." She held out her hand, and he took it slowly. "But my job is to be Jashin-sama's messenger in his quest to collect followers, and find his son."

"Will I meet him? I can hardly gather followers without a leader I can trust."

Again, Neji had to forcibly remind himself this was Jashin, god of destruction and chaos he was talking about.

"Probably in the void, as you pass over." Aka shrugged. "He gives me orders and I go."

Neji felt the compulsion to reach into the hole, and his fingers got a couple of inches away before he managed to stop himself.

"Jashin-sama will help you." Aka instructed. "Just call to him with your spirit and he'll come."

"Call with my spirit?" Neji asked weakly.

Maybe he was just having a really, really weird dream.

"Hyuuga-sama!"

"Damn brat, slow down-"

Neji barely had time to whip around and see the two pale-haired ninja running towards him, and the brunette behind them with tear-stained cheeks, before Nori slammed into him, and then Hidan, and they tumbled together into the rip of nothing.

As the cold so strong it stung his bones wrapped around him, like some evil sleep, Neji tried to conjure up whatever spirituality he could find.

'Jashin- uh- sama? Hello?'

And then the cold reached his brain, and his thoughts and calls fuzzed to nothing.

~OOOOOO~

As soon as Neji reopened his eyes, he shot up, gasping for breath.

Silence.

Neji turned left, right, even up to the ceiling he'd spent so many dozens of nights just staring at, memorizing every little crack and design.

His room.

Back in Konoha, back in the compound.

His. Room.

It had been years since he'd slept back home with the family, he'd moved out as soon as he'd made jounin at fifteen, found himself an apartment.

But here he was, familiar shelves lining the walls, piled with scrolls and textbooks and a few photographs, one of his father, one of his parents on the day of his birth, cradling the bundle of blankets as they smiled at the camera. Well, his mother smiled. There was a look on his father's face he'd never understood as a child, but now he did. It was guilt. No doubt he was thinking, not that he'd brought a life into the world, only that he'd condemned another to his miserable fate.

Neji turned back to the ceiling he knew so well, laid back down.

So Aka had been telling the truth.

Not about meeting Jashin, apparently, but about the time rips. His body felt smaller, suffocating, like clothing many sizes too small, and as he stretched his delicate fingers before his face they were not his own, calloused and tough, but those of a babe.

But what was he to do?

There were so many things he could do, but at the same time, he couldn't think of anything.

There was no headband lying on the small table beside his bed, so he was still an academy student. Was it a school day? If it was no doubt he was already late, the sun was shining through cracks in the window shutters. Hiashi would not appreciate that.

'Jashin-sama?' Neji asked hesitantly in thought, trying to feel the words with his chakra, in case that sort of thing helped. It was almost too good to be true, like a dream. The catch, too, had seemed a bit small at first, 'help us,' but now it seemed so large.

How did you defeat an immortal anyway?

'Tonight.'

Neji jolted up at the voice, eyes flickering to the shut door. The voice was deep, sharp and rough around the edges.

'In sleep it is… easier. Wait.'

And then it was gone.

Neji blinked couple times dumbly. "Jashin?" He asked weakly, out loud, and as expected nothing answered. "I better not be going crazy."

Neji finally stood from bed, shocked by how close the floor was, how tall everything seemed around him, and walked to the bathroom.

When he looked into the mirror Neji blanched.

Staring back at him was, essentially, a ghost.

The child's skin was pale, and his lily white eyes stared from behind strands of hair, like threads of a veil.

Neji had to touch his hair to remind himself that it, indeed, was his, if the color of the Sandaime's.

This was going to be… hard to explain. To put it lightly.

"Neji, you are late for breakfast."

To Neji's surprise, at the voice, his heart leapt to his throat. It had been literally years since he'd heard that man's voice, and it was like angel song, even if it was as frustrated and resentful and disapproving as it always had been in his childhood.

"I'm coming." Neji said, tearing his eyes from the mirror and walking to his dresser. Pulling open the drawers Neji found a simplified version of what he'd worn as a genin, a loose tan shirt and brown shorts. He tugged them on, slipped into his blue sandals, and snatched a small roll was bandages, he could wrap his hands on the way to school. It wasn't as if they'd do much fighting anyways, based on his small library he couldn't be older than eight or nine, possibly younger, and nothing exciting happened in the academy back then.

Opening the door, Neji stepped into the hall and was, while unsurprised, almost crest-fallen. Hiashi had returned to the dining room.

Neji took the familiar path, and as he entered the room he was met with a sight he hadn't seen in nearly nine years, he'd stopped coming for family meals before even graduating the academy.

Hiashi sat at the head of the table, to his right Hinata, so small and sheepish she looked like she might disappear, and to his left Hanabi, in the lap of one of the women Neji vaguely remembered about the house until he was eleven or twelve, doing the housework and taking care of the children, in the absence of a real mother. Hanabi didn't look more than two or three, her white eyes blinking in that disconcerting, serene way, as if she was much more mature than any toddler had a right to be.

There were a collection of places empty, places where years ago the rest of Hiashi's family may have sat, and while Neji usually took the seat down the table from his uncle he could feel his presence pulling him in.

Sitting down next to Hinata, Neji nodded. "Father."

The word slipped from between his lips before he could stop it, and by the time he realized his mistake it was too late, and everyone had turned to him, eyes wide in surprise.

Forcing himself to calm Neji continued as if he hadn't noticed them all pause, he looked down at his plate. He took his fork and picked at the eggs carefully.

It was as a couple stray hairs fell into his face, and he had to pull them behind his ear, that it struck him that none of them seemed to notice a difference, as if he'd always looked like this.

'Jashin-sama,' Neji thought, stuck between a scowl and a smile. 'You have some explaining to do. Big time.'

Finally deciding he wasn't hungry enough to suffer through the awkward atmosphere a moment longer, Neji stood, and made for the door.

"I'll see you later, Hinata."

As soon as the last 'ah' of her name passed his lips he bit his tongue.

Damnit, this time travel thing was going to be harder than he'd first thought.

Pushing the front door open Neji took to the streets, and with a final glance towards the house, he took a deep breath and started towards the academy.

~OOOOOO~

Shikamaru yawned, stretching his arms slowly to the sky and cracking his wrists before finally blinking his eyes open and sitting up. The blankets bunched around him, and he pushed them to the side, slipping to his feet.

"Shika, you better be up! It's only your third week, you better not be late!"

Shikamaru winced at his mother's loud voice, accompanied by thwapping at the door.

"I'm up, I'm up." He grumbled, picking up a shirt and pair of shorts from the pile of clothing in front of his closet. He's put them away but A) It was hassle and took planning, as he was still a tad too short, and B) It would take effort. It wasn't as if they weren't mostly smooth or clean, anyways.

As Shikamaru made a final scan of his room, trying to remember if he had anything else to take with him, it occurred to him that he couldn't remember his dream of the night before either. He hardly ever had dreams, but the past couple weeks he'd had them almost nightly. How he knew when he couldn't remember them though, he wasn't sure.

Shikamaru had his hand on the doorknob, and had twisted it halfway, when the ground fell away-

-and those eyes stared at him, deep and red and bottomless and hypnotizing.

"Nara."

Skin split beneath invisible blades, blood spilled like hot water down his arms and legs and under his feet. The world blurred with the agony, he couldn't move as he felt it intensify, as everything went white hot splintering-

"Shikamaru!"

Shikamaru gasped for breath, legs shaky beneath him, palms sweaty on the doorknob.

"You alright in there?"

"Yeah." He forced between numb lips.

"I thought I heard a scream."

Shikamaru shook his head, before remembering she couldn't see him.

"I'm fine. Just jammed my finger."

His mother laughed from the other side of the door. "Hurry up, then. You have to be there in ten minutes and it'll take you at least seven to get there."

Shikamaru nodded.

It was a while, at least a minute, before Shikamaru was stable on his feet again, and the cold dripping down his spine lingered still.

His dream?

A vision?

Shikamaru walked out into the hall and down past the kitchen to the front door. "I'm just gonna go. Not hungry."

"Alright." His mother's voice called from deeper in the house, before he shut the front door, and a stiff kind of silence fell.

Shikamaru shivered. It had been a long time since something like this had happened, 'like this' meaning 'like the sort of thing that happens to crazy people'. It had been years since the shadows had stopped whispering to him, calling to him, offering things greater than life itself could give him. He'd always figured they'd been dreams, imaginings, but suddenly they seemed realer.

Finally deciding just to force it out and ignore it, Shikamaru started down the street, towards the academy building. Three weeks into school and it was decent, sort of, if boring. Everything moved too slow, he could sleep all day and still have done the work, if he'd actually wanted to. But being a ninja would be too troublesome anyways. He'd have to be away all the time, learn how to fight, train. Feel pain like that. Shikamaru didn't like the thought but it passed through his mind before he could stop it, and he shrugged. Sure. Another item on the list didn't change the fact that he would have to become a ninja, anyways.

Maybe he could just stay a genin forever. They hardly ever had to leave the village, and if you were a genin long enough, soon the Hokage just stopped giving you missions.

As his mother had predicted, six or seven minutes later the building came into view, as prominent as it always was against the leafy backdrop. He had arrived in the odd quiet point, after the early-risers and before the late students ran down the path, and so he was the only one around as he came to the door and pried it open. As he walked inside the hall, however, he spotted Ino down by the classroom door, primping her short platinum hair in the semi-reflective glass of the tiny window.

And suddenly, as she turned her head ever so slightly, lips pursed in thought, blue eyes half-lidded, his shadow seemed climb up from under him, and drag him under.

"How are we supposed to make it now?"

She rocked back and forth, ever so slightly, long blonde hair swishing to cover her face, uncover it, cover it again and, at some point, uncover eyes glistening wet.

His mouth wouldn't open, his tongue wouldn't work, and he could feel the weight bearing down on him, his hands heavy in his lap.

Perfect, regal, Ino the woman shook her head hopelessly, and it felt like a part of Shikamaru's soul, a small grain of absolute truth that he kept guarded deep down in his childhood, was melting away.

"I mean- he's really gone-"

"Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru blinked, turned his gaze up to see Ino much closer than she'd been before, barely ten feet away, giving him a quizzical look.

"Something wrong, lazy?" She asked again.

Shikamaru only managed a small nod of his head, the devastation still eating at him, although he had absolutely no idea why.

Maybe he'd always been crazy, and just didn't notice until now.

It made sense.

He'd always been…

Different?

"Whatever." Ino finally said with a humph, turning and walking back down the hall to the door, before opening it and disappearing from view.

Shikamaru had to look down this time before walking, had to flex his fingers and watch his shadow fingers flex, and then do it again, real slow, just to make sure it wasn't moving of its own accord.

'Shikamaru,'

Shikamaru ignored its call, just forced his feet to move forward.

He wasn't listening.

But it was slow going, as if the shadow man was pulling at him, trying to keep him back.

'Wait,' It said in its whisper breeze of a voice.

And for half a heartbeat Shikamaru waited, and that's when the door slammed open behind him.

Shikamaru turned to see the small, pink-haired girl, flushed in the face as if in excitement, fumbling with the bag she carried in her thin arms.

"Nara Shikamaru," She gasped as she almost ran into him, coming to a stop. "I apologize."

She bowed stiffly, out of character all of a sudden, like a ninja might to his captain before turning back to his casual conversation.

Shikamaru was about to say it was nothing, or at least make some sign of acknowledgment, girls got annoying when you ignored them, but something in the green moss of her eyes caught his, and the he could feel the shadow man smiling.

The woman crouched on the floor, tough-ended fingers on chalk that scratched the floorboards, creamy from drawings of the past wiped away.

She looked old, lines tracing her frowning face, eyes narrowed beneath a few stray bubble-gum hairs that fell from its knot behind her head.

She glanced at the book, then back, then perfected a final symbol, a single character, 'shadow'.

"It's been too long," She whispered, she brought her hands down to the circle below her and it came to life beneath her. Her lips parted in a bitter smile. "Too fucking long, Naruto."

"Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru looked up for what seemed like the millionth time to that curious expression, to the fading shadows at the edge of his vision.

But this time, as he met her eyes, she gave him a look, deep with shadows.

"How old are you?" Shikamaru asked, he couldn't help himself, but she seemed to understand, her eyes widening.

"Forty six." She whispered. "How old are you?"

Shikamaru paused briefly to decide, and then gave her the truth.

"I don't know."

~OOOOOO~

"Seventeen fucking years."

Shikamaru nodded slowly as the pink-haired girl swore, squeezing the sandwich in her hand so that the half-inch thick bread squished to paper.

"That's a long time." He observed simply.

"You bet it is." Sakura laughed, the same old bitter laugh she'd been laughing every time she was around him, certainly not the laugh of the seven year old she was in body. "But here I am. I made it."

"What are you going to do now?"

Sakura paused, before breaking into a wider smile, so that all her teeth showed. "You know what? I don't even know. Keep them from all dying. I was too busy to think about the specifics."

The girl went back to feeling right under her eye, as if massaging the ghost-pain of some old wound, and Shikamaru turned to the grass before them. The first half of class was as boring as it always was, more review on the ninja rules and regulations, which even Shikamaru of I-don't-know years knew were just for show.

To his entertainment, however, Sakura seemed to find them just as useless and boring, scoffing quietly every time Iruka-sensei emphasized yet again how important they all were. Shikamaru had only been to school with the girl three weeks before now, but he remembered her as studious, submissive, as the girl with no friends at the back of the classroom, just taking notes and reading her textbooks before scurrying home at the end of the day.

But if he was going crazy, then it wasn't such a hard thing to believe, that this girl could be a timetraveler.

"Why are shadows so important?" Sakura's voice cut through the silence, and Shikamaru turned to her slowly.

"Why would you ask me?"

"Your clan manipulates shadows, convinces them to do your bidding. I figured there might be some sort of family secret. I'd have asked one of you before, but as none of you are…"

Sakura quieted for a moment, but Shikamaru could easily guess.

"Wouldn't know." Shikamaru said. He almost told her about how they had always talked to him, but it seemed a little bit early, a little bit private.

"What did you mean, you don't know how old you are?" Sakura asked, after a while more of quiet. That was one of the things that seemed so profoundly old about her, she seemed to spend so much of her time thinking, reminiscing, remembering.

Or maybe the shadows told her things too.

"I… I remember some things." Shikamaru said, because the visions were sort of like memories, in a way. "A few things. I may have traveled back in time, I don't know."

Sakura shook her head. "I don't think you did, then. It was not gradual for me, I just came here, took over from the young Sakura living in this body. Maybe it's got to do with you being a Nara. Shadows play some sort of part in the fabric of time, though I'm still not totally sure what."

"After seventeen years?"

Sakura laughed again. "After seventeen years."

"Hey, Forehead!"

Sakura didn't show that she'd heard the mocking call, but Shikamaru caught the slight tense of her shoulders.

"Are you going to do something?" Shikamaru asked as he watched the cluster of three or four girls walk towards them, that self-righteous look on their face that was simply one of the many reasons girls were so troublesome.

"Can't risk injuring them." Sakura shook her head, and something in her voice had bite, angry and bitter. "It's been years, my fist's forgotten how soft flesh really is."

The strength she kept usually under tight grip rolled over Shikamaru in waves now, and he didn't question her decision. "What are you going to do, then?"

Sakura didn't answer his question, when she spoke. "You're more lively than I remember you."

Shikamaru shrugged. "You're more interesting than I remember you."

Sakura barely had time to smile before the girls came within a few feet and stopped.

"What do you want?" The pinkette asked tiredly, and it infuriated the girls by the looks of it, red flushing their cheeks. When they didn't come up with a comeback quick enough for the timetraveler's taste she scoffed. "Expected as much."

"Watch it, Forehead." The led girl finally piped up, swiping her brown her behind her ears so her round cheek showed uncovered.

"If you want to pick a fight, just come out with it." Sakura said, still not looking up from her sandwich.

The brunette seethed, narrowing her blue eyes angrily. "You asked for it." She pulled back her sleeves and clenched her fists. "That'll teach a civilian like you to mess with a ninja."

Indeed, on the left side of her shirt there was a swooping bird, a ninja clan symbol, although of which Shikamaru couldn't remember.

Still Sakura didn't move.

The brunette paused a final few seconds, before pulling back her fist, and making to punch Sakura in the face.

It all happened in a flash, and suddenly there was a cry of pain, and Sakura was crouching over the girl, on her knees against the bench they were sitting on, blood dripping from her nose, scrape marks from the wood across from cheek to cheek.

"You dirty little-" The brunette screeched as Sakura twisted her arm behind her back, pushed her harder forward into the wood, so that her ribs were sandwiched between the bench and her shoving hands. "I'll tell!"

"You asked for it." Sakura said, lips twitching in a smirk. "This is the real world, birdie. If you don't accept it now, you never will, not until it's too late."

"What are you talking about?" She cried, ocean eyes beginning to tear up.

"Sakura." Shikamaru warned quietly, he could hear in the distance the creak of the academy doors opening.

Sakura waited a second longer, leaned in a whispered something so quiet Shikamaru couldn't hear her, before letting the girl go, and backing up.

The brunette quickly stood, brushing her shirt and skirt off hurriedly. She swiped her hand across her lip once, blood clinging to the skin so that her fingers came away red, before stalking off.

Her cronies had long fled, but she walked slowly, looking back a final time at Sakura before continuing on her way, leaving before Iruka-sensei could see the way her nose stood a little off-kilter on her perfect face.

"What did you tell her?" Shikamaru had to ask as Sakura sat back down, wiping the blood off on her red dress.

He had the haunting feeling he'd seen her get that angry before, but worse, but real, but actually deadly, and it sent a shiver up his spine.

"I just gave her something to think about."

Sakura didn't elaborate, and Shikamaru didn't push her to.

"You think there are more of us?" Shikamaru asked slowly.

Sakura shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. You could tell I had, so maybe you should be the one telling me."

Shikamaru shrugged back, but didn't say anything.

Maybe he should have just stayed in bed today.

~OOOOOO~

As Neji walked into the classroom, the familiar smells and sounds assaulted him, and he had to pause a moment to regroup. 'It's not that hard Neji,' he told himself as he walked stiffly towards the desks, 'Just like when you were a kid, it's just school, it can't be that hard.'

But as Neji approached, and he caught sight of the boy in the corner of the room, hands nervously in his lap as the girl towered over him, hands on her perfect little hips, and simply couldn't help himself.

Lee was just so… cute.

When he was older Lee had grown, as odd as it was to admit, totally attractive, but for some reason Neji always remember him as looking goofy, before even making genin. And maybe he did look a little odd, with his thick brows and eyes like needy black marbles, but in the green shirt that was too big and with the puppy-dog pout of his lips, Neji had the odd compulsion to hug him.

Then Neji caught site of the girl's pink shirt and actually chuckled out loud.

He'd forgotten how much of a bitch Tenten had been, back in the beginning.

As he walked closer he could start to make the voices out.

"-out while you still can."

Tenten raised her eyebrows, a smirk stretching her lips. She looked so young, they all did, her bob-cut hair tickling her pink cheeks.

"Hey Tenten." Neji smiled as the brunette turned to him, confusion lingering on her face before she covered it with a smile. Ah yes, he remembered. That was why she'd been so cruel to Lee, before ostracization at age nine or ten drove her to reform. Perhaps even more than he or Lee had been, she had been afraid of weakness.

"What do you want?" Tenten asked.

"I wanted to sit here." Neji sat down beside Lee, so that they both had to lean forward to see each other, Lee sandwiched awkwardly between them. "That's all."

Tenten scoffed. "Why would want to sit with this loser?"

"He's cute." Was all Neji supplied as an answer. You know, maybe it would be better just to give up now, it was much less stressful, merely accepting the fact that he'd never be able to contain himself.

A scandalized look crossed Tenten's face. "Ew. No."

Neji shrugged, turning to the front of the room and watching as Daichi-sensei sorted through his desk, gathering his things for class.

"Neji?" Lee eeped, and Neji turned to him.

"Lee?"

His cheeks were dark pink, like when Sakura grabbed his hands in gratitude for this or that. "Why do you want to sit with me?"

Neji frowned. He'd always known Lee to be confident, shameless, even when he was small, if he had been a bit quieter. Well, when in doubt, do something no one would expect. "I just have a feeling about you. You're going to be a great ninja when you grow up."

Neji could feel his own cheeks heating up.

He'd never felt more like Gai's student in his life.

Gai.

He'd have to remember to go and find the man, maybe even this afternoon while avoiding the no doubt confused Hyuuga. The sooner Team Gai could regroup, the sooner they could start getting stronger, and Neji had the sinking suspicion he'd signed his soul off to the devil, and he was going to need all the help he could get.

"Really?" Lee asked, suddenly excited, breaking into a smile.

"Yes really." Neji nodded. He could catch a glimpse of Tenten pretending to gag behind Lee's head, and had to hold back a chuckle.

He'd never realized how long it had been since they'd just spent time together. No mission, no stress, no war. Months, easily. Maybe years.

And dammit, if it took wearing that hideous green, he wasn't going to let anything pull them apart this time. It wasn't as if it was that bad.

Lee cheerily turned back to the front of the classroom, where sensei was still puttering around his desk, leaning over and under it, probably looking for his chalk, which he always tended to 'lose' of review days, if lose meant 'stolen by children'. Probably Chinatsu, it usually was, Aburame were good at that kind of thing.

"What was all that about?" Tenten mouthed behind Lee's head, making a disgusted face.

Neji smirked, but didn't reply.

Instead he leaned behind Lee, resting his short fingers on Tenten's shoulder.

She sent him an aghast glare, or what amounted to a glare, on her eight-year girl old face.

Really, the only children Neji knew to actually be able to glare properly were Hyuuga and Uchiha, it was some kind of inborn family trait, apparently.

Tenten jerked away and Neji shrugged, settling back in his seat. And only then, for some reason, did the horrifying fact strike him.

He'd have to go through the academy again.

Being a Hyuuga, taught at home from the time he could walk and talk, the first time round had been boring enough, he'd made top of his class without even trying.

But now he was nineteen, sort of. Konoha jounin.

And if he didn't figure something out, he'd be taking on the longest, more grueling D-rank mission of his life.

Again Gai's name floating into mind.

Gai would train Lee, probably, even if had yet to develop such a strong sense of perseverance. He was taijutsuist, and Lee… did Lee even know he couldn't use chakra yet? Neji blanched. They hadn't started learning actual jutsu until their third or fourth year at the academy. In other words, probably not.

This was going to be more complicated than he'd first thought.

"Hyuuga Neji, are you listening?"

Neji looked up to see Daichi-sensei giving him the creepy, wide-eyed 'I'm seeing into your soul' type half-glare only sensei seemed to possess.

"Yes."

"What did I just say?"

Neji bit his lip.

Damn.

"That's what I thought." Daichi-sensei sighed. "Once more and you're staying after class to help me clean up."

As Daichi-sensei began the lesson of the day, Neji heard quiet snickering from his left.

"Oh shut up Tenten."

~OOOOOO~

"Where are you taking us?"

"Be quiet Tenten." Neji said tiredly as he leapt to the next building, charging his feet with chakra and landing with a small thud. Normally he was silent, and normally he didn't even need to think about doing such basic things, but now that he'd gone back to his eight-year-old body he'd lost all muscle memory training, something he was not looking forward to relearning.

Neji finally stopped, turning to see Tenten still running up to the edge of the last house, and Lee peering warily over the edge, hands clasped behind his back nervously.

Sometimes he forgot how much they all sucked in the academy days.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Lee asked quietly, still hesitating to jump the three foot distance between roof tops.

Tenten scoffed. "Of course it isn't. We haven't even learned how to punch yet." She took deep breaths every few words or so, her cheeks flushed with the effort of following the Hyuuga. "Finally convince my dad to pack me away to ninja school, and this is it? A history lesson? I should've listened to him."

"Come on, it's not that hard." Neji said, although he made a mental note to go slower. Even at eight he'd possessed stamina double that of most of his peers. Somehow he'd forgotten though, he'd always been the slow one of team Gai, as hard as it was for him to admit it.

"Where are we going?" Tenten repeated, eyes narrowing. "I don't know why I bothered following you. I bet you're just pulling my leg. I bet you're just gonna lug us in circles until we fall over."

"I wouldn't do that." Neji said.

Tenten threw her thin arms in the air. "Oh, thank you! That makes me feel better."

"We're going to go find a sensei."

Tenten gave Neji a look like he was stupid. "We already have one. Daichi-sensei."

Neji rolled his eyes. "A sensei who can actually teach us. You said it yourself, it's all been history. And Lee," Neji shot him a glance, and on cue Lee blushed, small-Lee was turning out to be a real Hinata II. "Will need some help with certain… problems."

"Problems?" Lee asked.

"I have the byakugan, remember?" Neji pointed to his eyes. "There's something weird about your chakra coils. The sooner we figure out what, the sooner we can try and do something about it."

"There's something wrong with me?" Lee asked, suddenly panicked.

"No- I mean- it's nothing to get scared about!" Neji insisted, having the odd and sudden urge to smash his head into something.

Suddenly the cuteness wasn't as prominent as it had been.

"But- I-"

"Yeah, freak. Stop being a wuss about it."

"You, stop being mean to Lee." Neji sent Tenten a glare. She opened her mouth for a moment, as if to protest, before she shut it again, only folding her arms over her chest irritably.

"Alright." Neji took a deep breath. "There's a famous ninja you may have heard of before, he left ANBU a couple of weeks ago so he shouldn't be too busy."

"ANBU?" Lee and Tenten asked simultaneously.

"It's a group of the most elite ninja. 'Special assassination and tactical squad'." Neji shook his head. "Anyways, he's known as the 'Green Beast of Konoha'."

"Green what?"

Damn civilian ignorance.

"Okay, that doesn't matter."

"Assassination?"

"I still don't get was ANBU is."

Neji had to utilize every ounce of self-control he had not to shout. No wonder he'd hated them for the first six years he'd known them, back then he'd barely known what 'self control' really was.

"His name is Maito Gai, and he's a very strong ninja, who I'm pretty sure will teach us if we just go about asking him the right way."

"Won't we get in trouble for this?" Tenten asked suspiciously. "We don't get a jounin-sensei until we graduate and we don't even get to choose."

"Of course not." Neji said, although a sort of frown drifted across his face. What if this really was against the rules? He'd never met the Sandaime Hokage face to face before, he'd died before he'd gotten the chance, but he'd heard plenty enough stories to make him shiver. Tsunade being the only Hokage he'd personally known was not helping either. But he'd heard of private apprentice-ships before, and although it usually happened to whole sections or groups, such as T&I or Seduction, it couldn't be that hard. Gai had trained Lee before he'd graduated last time around. "There's no rule against extra training."

"Alright…" Tenten nodded. "But how are you so sure we can get him to train us? Sounds like he's pretty famous. What would he want with us?"

Neji scowled. She was just too good at this pessimism thing. "Well, if asking doesn't work, we can try to impress him. And if that doesn't work, we'll think of something."

Tenten narrowed her cocoa eyes, but didn't protest this time.

"His apartment's that way." Neji pointed a block or two down, to one of the buildings mostly reserved for elite jounin and ANBU, close to the Hokage and jounin HQ.

"Stalker."

"I'm not a stalker!" Neji protested. He'd visited Gai's apartment at least half a dozen times over the years, they all had, so it was no wonder he knew where it was. Of course, that had been years in the future.

"How do you know where he lives then?"

Neji sighed.

"So let's go. Most jounin without missions train during the week, he should be back any minute now."

"Staaaaaalkeeeer."

"Watch it, I know how to kill a man more ways than you know how to whine."

"Can't kill a woman though, too scared."

"Tenten-"

"What are you kids doing in this neighborhood?"

Neji turned from where he was preparing to tell off Tenten to see a man standing before him, a dozen times taller than he should have been. Over the years Lee had actually grown to be the tallest of them, but Neji had easily made it to within an inch or two of Gai.

Gai looked down at Neji with eyes both familiar and unfamiliar, in a disorienting way. They were almost like he'd been these past (future?) couple of years, but less weary. Still, there was more tenseness than enthusiasm in his eyes, and it threw Neji off. He'd expected to find the same Gai he'd always known, the excited, green-wearing, 'youthful' Gai. Seeing a Gai wearing all black under his flak jacket was just… wrong.

Nevertheless, he wasn't going to give up. They could fix the 'green beast' problem later. And frankly, he doubted Tenten could go much longer without finding some creative and unexpected way of messing the chance up.

So Neji did the first thing that came to mind.

He just asked.

"Will you train us?"

~OOOOOO~

Gai blinked.

"What?"

"We want you to be our sensei." The ghost of a Hyuuga repeated, narrowing his determined, chalky eyes. Behind him the brunette and green boy still had yet to cross the roofs but were leaning far over, so as to be as involved in the discussion as they could.

"That's what the academy's for." Gai said, smiling awkwardly. He'd never been good with kids, and now was really not the time. He hadn't slept in days, he'd somehow got himself tricked into dinner with the others and there was no way he could get out of it, and Kakashi was still six days late from his latest S-rank, seven in four hours. Maybe if someone was with him, Eagle or Tiger, but his team had been all newbies, fresh on the force with only four A-ranks under their belt, let alone any S-ranks, Kakashi had been the captain.

All he could think, as hard as he tried not to, was that if Kakashi died, and he hadn't quit, he could have been there to save him.

"But they don't teach you anything useful." The Hyuuga said. "Literally. The whole first year we only learned about history, and the rules and regulations. Knowing the Hokage's, I can understand, but it's not even battle strategy. If we're cornered by enemy ninja I don't think knowing what year the twenty-fourth shinobi rule was amended and what exactly that rule is in the first place is going to help us."

Gai sighed. Obviously, he saw the point. He learned, all of them had learned it, the academy had actually stopped teaching non-battle related subjects a couple years after they'd graduated, due to the war, but they'd gone back to it after times had calmed down somewhat.

But who was he to intervene, really?

"Knowledge is always useful." Was what Gai finally said, wanting to smooth things over but still feeling his usual impulse to tell the truth. It was an annoying habit, developed from years of hounding Kakashi and trying to bring to life the same inclination in him. He'd suppressed it in his years of ANBU but it seemed that had only made it more eager to leap back up his throat.

Just the thought, the word 'ANBU' seemed to make the knot in his stomach grow tighter, and he held back a grimace.

"Gai-sensei," The Hyuuga folded his arms, but gave Gai was seemed to be the most pleading look he could muster.

"Yoshio-sensei!"

"Sorry kid." Gai finally said, mentally shaking his head, shrugging. Despite the beepers going off in his head, he turned and left before they could say something else.

'That was smooth' a voice said quietly.

"Oh be quiet." Gai mumbled under his breath, opening the door to the apartment building.

For a moment, however, he had to stop.

He'd found a bunch of academy kids, looking for him, literally within a couple hundred meters of his place.

But there was no way they could have known he'd be here. Most jounin lived here. In fact, they probably hadn't even been looking for him specifically.

'They knew your name.'

'Lots of people know my name.'

'You mean "Swan"? That's not your name. You don't belong with them, not like Wolf.'

Gai growled, and jerked the door handle out so violently he heard the wood and metal creak.

'Woops. Angry? No wonder they kicked you out.'

"Shut it."

Gai moved through the halls like a panther, hand twitching with the need to punch something. But the scars on his hand were still fresh, and he didn't need the hospital logging yet another report of 'self mutilation'. It wasn't like he meant to do it. He just…

'Gets angry? Stressed?' And after a moment, quietly. 'Guilty?'

This time Gai didn't bother denying anything.

'You could always smile.'

Gai opened his door and shut it behind him, wandering over to the table and dropping his weapons pouch and vest on it.

It had been years since he'd talked to himself like this.

'You just need someone to talk to. You're no 'loner', don't bother pretending you are, it's pathetic. And with Kakashi gone…'

Gai made a face.

'Oh come one, give me a smile, just one nice big one. Like in your chuunin days.'

Why? Gai wanted to ask, but he knew why. How many times had he given Kakashi the very same talk?

'Or not. What, did those kids bring up painful memories? Remembering your own academy days? You know, I think Kakashi hated you even more then somehow-'

"Shut up!"

Gai's breaths slowly calmed down again, and he was beginning to heel the blood as it dripped to the floor.

'Oh, hope you're not going to need stitches for that.'

"Gai?"

Along with her voice came the knocking at the door, soft wraps of knuckles against the wood.

"In a second!" Gai called back, cursing under his breath, and walking quickly to the bathroom. Dipping his bloody hand under the tap he ran it stinging cold, and it swirled pink down the drain. After ten seconds he dried his hand off and Re-wrapped it. It still bled slightly onto the cloth, but it was good enough.

Why he'd agreed to dinner, he didn't know.

'You were lonely.'

Looking up into the mirror instinctively, Gai scowled. It had been literally months since he'd made that mistake. His bangs hung in his face, just a bit too long, his eyes were lined with exhaustion.

'Just a quick smile?'

Gai rolled his eyes, but did anyways. It was an awkward smile, tired and obviously a bit fake, but it seemed to quiet 'the voice' at least a bit.

Walking back out, Gai grabbed his flak vest and zipped it up.

Finally opening the door, Gai did, impulsively, shoot the red-eyed a small smile.

"Gai." She smiled back, blindingly. "I only caught you coming back, I thought you weren't home."

"A bunch of kids asked me if I could teach them." Gai explained, although he wasn't sure why.

"What did you say?" Kurenai asked, suddenly interested.

"No." Gai said, as though it was obvious.

Surprisingly, Kurenai looked a little… disappointed?

"How old were they? She asked.

"Eight? Nine?"

"Oh…" She said slowly. "I think you should have said yes."

Gai's eyes snapped from where they had been drifting down the hall.

"Really?"

"Yeah." She insisted. "Don't you remember how eager we all were in the academy? I mean, you won't be getting any missions for a month or so anyways. I think… it could be good for you."

Gai paused.

Just the word 'sensei' made him twitch, but at the same time…

'Come on, it could be good for you. You don't have anything better to do.'

"Maybe." Gai said, as if he was still half-stuck in his thoughts.

"I'll leave you here to think it over, I'll just go see Anko and Asuma alone." Kurenai smiled.

"Sure." Gai said, turning back to his door.

It took a while, after she'd left and a couple minutes, but Gai smiled.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea

~OOOOOO~

"You WHAT?"

"Anko, quiet down." Kurenai said quickly, waving her hands at the overzealous nineteen year old.

"No," Anko shook her head, pointing at Kurenai as if to prove a yet to be spoken point. "You haven't known Gai very long, have you?"

Kurenai shook her head.

"Anko," Asuma said quietly, although a smile hinted his lips.

"No," Anko shook her head. "He might be going through his ANBU Identity Crisis right now but this is nothing compared to normal Gai. ANYTHING is better than normal Gai."

Asuma finally gave in, and grinned teasingly. "You're just upset that you and he-"

"We did not!" Anko was on the man before Kurenai could blink, and the two fell back to the ground, chair clattering on the wood.

Kurenai took a troubled sigh.

Gai couldn't have been that bad, right?

Right?

~OOOOOO~

"The what?"

"The lid, give it back-" Sakura reached across Shikamaru's path to where he held it away from her. "Of my lunch. The lid-"

"The what?"

"The lid, goddammit Nara-"

"What's that?"

Sakura snarled. "That's the last-"

"No, really." Shikamaru said quietly, pointing down the empty road and at a building four or five down. "What is that?"

Sakura squinted.

Nothing.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?"

Shikamaru paused for a moment, before it seemed to strike him.

"A puppet."

"But nothing's there!" Sakura stared harder, followed his finger with her eyes and down to the yellowing building with the boarded windows.

"Right by the door." Shikamaru said quickly. "Maybe six feet tall. Thin, but-"

"Made of shadows." Sakura's eyes widened as they caught a flicker of darkness against the canvas of blank space.

"Yeah." Shikamaru backed up a step, and Sakura had to remember that it wasn't Shikamaru the man, the jounin ANBU consultant to the Hokage, standing beside him, but an seven-year-old smart-ass who didn't even know how to throw a kunai.

Cursing under her breath Sakura crouched in a defensive position, and drew a kunai, before the thought struck her like a jackhammer, ice cold in her gut. "Figure they got a physical form?"

Shikamaru shrugged cautiously.

"I don't know."

"Well, what does it look like?" Sakura asked, growing angrier unintentionally, gripping her fingers so tight around the metal the skin of her knuckles faded to white.

"Like a shadow, just walking." Shikamaru said, keeping his voice even enough, although it shook slightly, in a way it never did when he was an adult. "With little strings hanging around it in midair, tugging, like a puppet."

"Well, where is it then?"

Shikamaru's breath caught in his throat all of a sudden, and Sakura turned. "You okay?"

"It's right there." Shikamaru pointed in front of them, so that the invisible line hit the ground maybe thirty feet away from them.

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "But I thought they were-"

"And now there." Shikamaru moved his finger slightly downwards, so that it pointed twenty feet away.

"It's walking towards us?" Sakura asked.

"No." Shikamaru backed a step away, fear actually leaking into his voice. "It's appearing."

"Appearing?" Sakura turned to Shikamaru, who was fading paler by the second.

"Sakura, come on." He said low, but she ignored it.

"What do you mean Shikamaru, 'appearing'-"

"Run Sakura!"

Sakura barely had time to see the flashes of darkness before her, ten spindly spider-legs reaching towards her, before she felt the force hit her in the throat.

Sakura choked, instinctively bringing up her free hand to grab at her invisible assailant.

Damn.

Damn damn damn!

She brought up the kunai to where she felt out some kind of arm with her fingers, but as she jammed down it slipped right through.

She let the metal clatter to the ground and was about to charge her fist with chakra when she remembered how old she was now, and even if she did possess the same amount of muscle memory chakra control her body wouldn't be able to take the stress.

So again she grabbed at her shadow attacked, tried to pull him off her throat, kicked at where she assumed his body to be.

It was getting harder to breath now, and black blurred the very edge of her vision.

"Sakura!" Shikamaru shouted from somewhere, she saw him rush into her field of view, try and shove the puppet off her. A moment of tension, and a ripping fire at her neck, and she felt the pressure fall away.

"Why can't I- see them if they're- shadows?" Sakura asked quickly between gasping breaths as her fingers dabbed carefully at the shreds of skin hanging lose from her throat, at the pulsing dripping bloody gashes.

"I don't know." Shikamaru said, narrowing his eyes, stepping back and dragging her with him. He shook his head. "They aren't really shadows. They are shadows but they aren't- not the normal kind, anyways."

Then he looked up to her, and his lips fell apart slightly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," She said quickly, although it hurt a little to speak, and it was uncomfortable, the way the blood soaked her dress collar and sleeve. It had been years since she'd fought, as embarrassing as it was to admit, and longer since she'd sustained any serious injury. And as an seven year old, she hardly had as much blood as a fully grown woman. "Yes. I'm fine. Where is it?"

"What are you planning on?" Shikamaru asked first, pulling her with him as again he seemingly avoided an advance by the puppet.

"Something." Was all the answer Sakura gave.

Screw it.

She searched for whatever puny amount of chakra she had lying naturally in her body and was, expectedly, disappointed. Barely enough for one hit.

But if she did it right, that was all she'd need.

(If she did it right, she'd only get one chance.)

Taking it she shoved the chakra forward, bent it to her will, to her right fist, to the hand not dabbing at her throat with her headband in an attempt to stem the bleeding.

Her skin tingles, her muscles ached, it burned simply to hold all that chakra there, her body wasn't used to it, but she forced herself to stay calm.

"Shikamaru." She asked, "Where is it. Point me to it, I'll do the rest."

He waited, and she was about to ask him again when he whirled her around, and shouted "In front of you!"

Sakura punched forward, but as she did she felt herself falling, felt herself hit the dirt, felt something hard and stinging slam against the back of her skull, pushing her face so that it scraped on the ground.

"Dammit-" She heard Shikamaru curse, and she tensed, expecting to hear him fall to the ground as well.

But the sound never came.

"Shikamaru?" Sakura asked cautiously, pushing herself up slowly as the world spun around her dizzily.

Getting to her feet she turned to see Shikamaru twenty or so feet away, finally slowing down, turning and putting his hands up before him as a shield-

And just standing there.

After a couple of seconds he lowered his hands slowly, reached out forward, and Sakura could catch a shimmer of darkness backing away.

"It can't touch me." She heard Shikamaru realize. "It can't hurt me!"

Sakura smiled weakly. She should have known. After all these years, she could still hear his words, echoing in her head with screams of pain and those terrible pin-prick eyes.

"The Shadow Lord, I suppose. You can call me The Shadow Lord."

She backed carefully away, leaving the shadows to Shikamaru.

Later, when she wasn't so dizzy, and the smell of blood wasn't still clogging her nose, and she wasn't tripping every third or fourth step on thin air. Later, she'd come back and check on him.

Now, she needed her medic kit, and help.

Naruto…

"Sakura!"

Sakura turned back to Shikamaru. "What?"

"Watch out!"

Sakura was ready this time, brought up her hands in her defense as the shadow flickered toward her.

What she wasn't ready for, was the sudden cold plunging deep inside her, like a thousand ice cubes shoved through her chest, that made her brain stop long enough that she couldn't catch herself as she fell forward.

The black man caught her in his arms, the deep tangible nothing that she could see, and cradled her there for a moment.

And then she felt another surge of cold, and somewhere in the distance the Shadow Lord shouted again, and the darkness enveloped her.

~OOOOOO~

Gai walked down the streets under the fading sunlight slowly, hands deep in his pockets, face upturned to the sky.

Maybe he should take them on as students. They looked sweet enough.

And really, why not?

There was nothing wrong with wanting to be prepared. In fact, just the day before he'd been thinking about it, how the academy should just be canceled, if all they taught you was all those rules no one followed anyways.

It could even be fun.

Sort of.

'That's the spirit.'

Gai was about to turn back, he'd reached the tall tree with the burned bark from some past accident, ninjutsu or otherwise, that he liked to use as a landmark, when he heard the clatter of trashcans toppling over.

His lips spread in a small smile.

"You guys again?"

Gai wheeled around, and although he couldn't see amazingly in the grey half darkness he could catch the flicker of something behind the silver pile of cans, like a hand.

"About earlier..." he began awkwardly.

'It doesn't have to be hard,' The voice said soothingly.

Another smash.

"You kids alright?" Gai asked cautiously, stepping forward slowly, closing in gradually.

The hand was gone now, as was any sign of life, but for the occasional shift of the trash, piled on the ground from where it had been spilled from the fallen cans.

On guard, all of a sudden, Gai clenched his fists, carefully prepared himself for battle, even if he tried not to look it.

"Hello?"

And suddenly, before he could react, he felt something slam into his right shoulder with crippling force. Hissing with pain through clenched teeth Gai whirled, brought up his arms and prepared to go in for a blow, when he saw nothing but the short tree line, and the edge of training ground 26 in the distance to his left, 27 to his far right.

Crouching down Gai scanned.

But it wasn't too much to worry about that he couldn't find his attacked anywhere.

They were ninja.

What did worry him, was that he was attacking him inside the city limits. Regardless if it was getting to be night, not only were they in Konoha but in the shinobi district, where literally hundreds of deadly ninja who barely slept as it was, could be woken by the slightest noise of a struggle.

What worried him, was how confident he was, because that could mean good, he could be stupid, or it could mean bad:

He was extremely confident with good reason.

Gai's mind began to shift towards the second opinion as another blow came, seemingly from nowhere.

This time Gai managed to catch it with his wrist before it could hit his face, it felt only like the skin of a fist, and whirled around to shoot a kick where the man must have been standing to send a hit towards him from that direction.

But his sandaled foot only sailed through the thick, summery night air.

Gai twitched, unable to stop himself.

The woosh of another oncoming blow, and again Gai whirled to block it.

But this time the wind seemed almost to pass through his blocking arms, before the pain exploded in his other shoulder, and he had to jump back, let his arm down, give himself half a second to calm himself.

ANBU, Gai.

Swan.

Just like any other ANBU mission.

You've fought in worse climates.

You fought blind last year.

But before he could see anything coming something slammed into his legs, hard like cement, and he fell to the ground, catching himself at the last second with his hands, which scraped on the pavement.

His palms stung, he could feel gravel working its way into the scrapes.

Gai quickly got to his feet, and again found himself asking him the questions.

Who?

Why?

And, as he felt the small wind and tried to evade, only to run into another slam, this time in the skull so hard he saw stars:

Where?

There was a flicker before him, in the darkness, and not until it moved closer did Gai realize it wasn't only the light and the pain playing tricks on him.

It disappeared for a moment, but if he concentrated he could see it again, and there were more, he connected the dots like a skeleton, and the thing moved left, then right, as if it had all the time in the world to decide which way to strike from.

And then it was gone.

Gai was about to lunge forward, to strike at the last place he'd seen it, but he felt another hard kick at his legs, this time so hard he could hear the blood chilling crack of the bone snapping like a twig beneath the immense force.

Somehow Gai didn't fall over- ANBU Gai, you've had worse before- but he had to stop, had to catch his breath, had to lean heavily on his left foot to keep from falling over.

Somehow only now did the adrenaline clear enough for him to realize how much trouble he probably was in.

And then a scream sounded far off, but not too far off, maybe four streets down, and Gai turned toward sit for half a second, and there was another crack and again he fell to the ground, though this time his hands couldn't catch him in time.

Gai turned up, and there was the black again, flashing before him, blocking in some places his view of the sky, now a dark navy blue above the village.

For a moment Gai had the absurd thought that it had killed him, as the black blur filled his vision.

But then it moved on, tacked the flash, held its arms down as if at its throat, as if pushing down with his thumbs to squeeze every last breath from its invisible lungs.

By the time the thing had stopped pressing down black was beginning to blur his vision, though just around the edges, and so it took him a moment to notice the dark form moving over to him slowly, reaching out to touch his face delicately with ebony claw fingertips.

"Gai?"

Its voice was raspy, arid with a thousand years of drought, angry with a thousand stabs of pains, weary with a thousand sleepless nights.

And for the wildest moment, Gai thought he saw a face he knew so well he would have recognized it anywhere.

"Kaka… shi…?"

And then the darkness really did fall, and his thoughts dissolved, and his awareness dropped away.

~OOOOOO~

"Hey Neji, are you sure we're almost back to the academy? It's getting dark, and my house is a good twenty minutes from there."

"Well, you could try and find your way home from here."

"I don't know my way back!"

"Then don't complain."

Neji walked down the next street even faster than he did the last, frown creasing his face.

He got the scary feeling up his spine something terrible was going to happen.

Was already happening.

"Lee, you okay?"

"Y-yes." Lee said quietly, his voice shaking slightly, like a crinkly orange leaf.

Neji peered around the corner before turning and walking down the next street, shivering as cold spiked around him, for maybe half a second, before returning to a calm evening cool.

"How close are we?" Tenten asked.

"Shh." Neji brought his finger to his lips as he strained his ears.

"What-"

"Shh, I heard something."

Neji listened, harder this time, and indeed he heard it again.

The sharp clap, as quiet as it was, of sandals on pavement.

"Someone there?" Neji called, crouching down and bringing his arms up offensively. He activated his byakugan, and swept the street.

It took him a moment to catch sight of it, that thing, and once he did his eyes widened, and he backed up slightly.

"What is it?" Lee whispered. "Is someone there?"

Neji brought up a hand and pointed down the street, to the solid mass of chakra making its careful, slow way towards them.

"I heard something." Tenten whispered, quiet voice rising an octave with anxiety. "Neji, I think I heard footsteps-"

"Tenten, be quiet." Neji insisted.

Maybe, if they were lucky, that thing hadn't seen them.

Minutes passed like molasses, so thick and tangible it made it hard to breath.

The thing walked slowly, one step after another, 'head' turning side to side, as if searching for something. It's arm swung as he moved, but only it's right, it's left seemed nonexistent, that entire side of his body a smooth line.

"We should run." Tenten whispered, backing away a step. However, as Neji turned to her he saw too lat her foot catching, her eyes widening with surprise.

"Tenten-"

Lee reached to save her, but he hardly the strong man he once was (would come to be?) and the two toppled into the cans with a smash loud enough to wake the whole street.

Neji turned back just in time to catch the chakra thing turning its head, and in a sudden blink, appear ten feet closer. Neji's eyes widened, and he clenched his fists.

He couldn't fight this thing.

"Okay, now we run." He said quickly, helping his two teammates to their feet.

Tenten nodded, and they set off at a sprint down the street.

Only as they reached the next corner did Neji dare turn to see how close the thing had gotten.

It stood.

Right.

There.

Neji stumbled backwards, his heart nearly stopping in his chest.

The creature seemed to smile, although he had no face beneath the black chakra mask, his one hand shooting out to catch Neji's hair as it flew out around him, before he could get away.

"Neji, what is it?" Tenten called, looking back at him.

"Just keep running!" Neji managed to shout, before the thing pulled. He managed to finally find his balance, but as he charged the tips of his fingers and went in for a point of extra chakra output, just where the left should would have been, his hand just slipped through the air.

"What-"

Neji felt the blow to his stomach, sharp and sudden, and he gasped, doubling over and bringing his left arm to hug it.

The thing drew back its arm, shaking his hand loosely, as if preparing for another punch.

Oh no you don't-

Neji went in again, and again he passed right through it.

"Neji, what are you fighting?"

Neji cursed.

"I said run! What are you still doing here!" Neji shouted as he managed to dodge the next attack, although just barely, the thing still pulling his hair so tightly towards him he could barely move two feet away.

"We can't just leave you!" It was Lee this time, his voice closer than it should be, maybe only five or ten feet away.

"Dammit-"

Not bothering to attack fruitlessly again and waste what little stamina he had in his eight year old body, Neji instead reached up and, trying to charge the very edge of his hands with a thin line of chakra, he drove down.

Neji fell back, taking grateful steps away, as a thousand strands of his ghost white hair fell to the ground. He could feel it settling unevenly on the back of his neck, could see the thing grasping inches of it in his thick fingers, rubbing it between them as if in deep thought, as if it was capable of such a thing.

"Neji, are you okay?"Neji looked up to see Tenten at his shoulder, worry in her chocolate eyes.

He nodded, before whirling, and pulling her with him.

"Now. Run." He looked her right in the face, and she nodded, eyes flickering back to where the thing was still standing, although she couldn't see him, before following him. "Lee?"

Neji had to turn as Lee didn't answer.

Lee was just standing there, staring forward, right into that thing, as if unable to move if he'd wanted to.

"Lee-"

Neji quickly darted forward, grabbed the boys shoulder, pulled at it to turn him around.

"What is- is that?" Lee asked, fear in his voice as real and prominent as on his pale face. He raised a shaky finger, pointed right at the thing's face.

Neji dropped his byakugan, and he felt his breath hitch as he could still see the thing. But now he could catch, on its black canvas of a face, the wide smile, eyes denting it.

"Lee, we need to run, we can't fight it."

"Neji I'm- I'm sorry I- I can't"

Lee's voice shook, his hand was cold and clammy as Neji snatched it with his own.

"Al-ive…"

At the croaking ghost of a voice, they all froze.

The thing appeared before them, smiling so wide it looked as if his face just might split, and before Neji could react Lee was pulled from his grip, the man taking the boy in his arms and snapping his neck like a twig, before he could stop him.

All breath left Neji's lungs in that instant, a blow as strong as a thousand.

"Lee!"

The thing gently lay Lee on the ground, before coming forward towards him. Neji couldn't back away fast enough (a part of his didn't want to) and the thing had his hands at Neji's throat, pressing down so hard pain began to burn. Neji brought up his hands, tried to pull the thing off, but his fingers just went through the darkness, as if he wasn't really there.

"Neji!"

Tenten's voice came from somewhere, and this time Neji didn't have the strength to call to her, not as the world began to grow thick around him, and his knees shook and buckled, and his vision began to blur.

"Don't-" Neji gasped, staring up and into the man's nothing eyes a final time.

And then there was a crack, loud like a bone snapping, and everything went away.

~OOOOOO~

Sakura blinked away the darkness wearily, slowly, lethargic. Exhaustion enveloped her so thoroughly she felt as though she never wanted to wake up.

Of course, then the pain came sharp and white hot from her throat, stinging like shit, and in her chest, like an ice cube fire.

And then came the voices.

Well, one voice, but it echoed off walls over and over, so a chorus bounced inside her skull, so loudly she would have brought her hands up to cover her ears if she'd had the energy.

"Well, hello Sakura… dear blossom… it's been far too long."

Sakura groaned, forced herself to open her eyes against the light of a thousand fired burning, forced herself to sit up, even as her lungs burned.

As she finally sat up, there was the chinking of chains, and Sakura turned down to see the cuffs around her hands and ankles, heavy and thick.

She turned up, then, and her eyes widened.

Kabuto stood before her, his perfect face marred thick with big red burn marks and scars, one of his eyes sealed shut, covered loosely by the cloth bandages wrapped around his silver hair and across the bridge of his nose. His body too, was crippled, one arm across his chest in a sling, a cane lain against the handle of his thrown lazily.

"You want to know what happened."

It was not a question, really, but a statement.

Years ago, she may not have answered, but she was hardly a ninja anymore, it had been so long.

"Yes."

Her tongue was thick, her throat ached as she spoke.

It took him a while to answer, and so she had time to glance around.

It was hardly a palace, or even a very habitable place, the ceiling too high and the floor to damp and the whole place just to stone. No one else was near, just Sakura, chained against the wall to the right of the door, and Kabuto, against the left. The room was long back to front, perhaps a hundred feet, but side to side it was less, maybe twenty, so that she was close enough to see the man's face clearly as he adjusted the cracked glasses on the bridge of his crooked nose.

"I… won."

"You what?"

"I won." It was then that the man pointed to his hidden eyes, and his lips stretched in a smile. "Maybe you'll see my prize someday. Maybe you'll die first. Who knows."

Sakura narrowed her eyes.

"What were those things."

"My puppets?" Kabuto asked, before letting out a laugh. "I have gained the ability to do simply… wonderful things with this eye. I like to think of it as… recycling."

"You have one of Sasuke's sharingan?" Sakura's eyes widened. That would mean she was right, he had been a time traveler, but how would he take back something from the past (future?) with him?

Kabuto's laughter died down to a chuckle, and after a minute he quieted. "Oh no. It is much more… special than that."

Sakura narrowed her eyes.

"Madara?"

"And we have our winner."

Sakura took a deep breath, looked to the door again, and then back.

"Where is everyone?"

"What everyone?" Kabuto asked simply. "I have no followers from Sound, as the village does not yet exist, and my shadow warriors? They are all in Konoha."

"What do you need from me?"

Kabuto finally broke into another smile.

"Oh, how cute. You managed to travel back in time without the use of a sharingan. I wish to know how that is done."

"I'll never tell you."

Kabuto gazed evenly at Sakura for a good thirty seconds, before turning away and shrugging. "So you say now."

"What are you going to do to Konoha, then." Sakura asked, refusing to give up.

Kabuto sighed deeply, insufferably. "Ah, blossom, you ask too many questions. You should be careful."

"Is that a threat?"

Kabuto paused, as if thinking about it for a while. Until finally;

"Yes."

~OOOOOO~

"N-Naruto, should we be doing th-this?"

"Of course I'm sure Hinata." Naruto smiled one of his blinding smiles, causing the young Hyuuga's cheeks to flush even darker red. "We have to defend your honor!"

"I- I'm okay a- actually." Hinata whispered, but Naruto snatched her hands from behind her back and held them tightly, staring into her eyes with determination.

"If you give up all the time, you'll never get anywhere."

Hinata held her breath, and nodded. This wouldn't be for her, but for Naruto.

"So come on." Naruto started forward again down the silent streets, his hand on hers leading her along behind him.

The walls passed by them, sickly grey under the light of the half-moon and the stars. For a second a flash of colors passed by, but she calmed herself. Only paint. Only white and red paint.

Nothing to be afraid of.

"There." Naruto finally came to a stop and pointed to one of a line of five shut windows of a particularly lavish looking house.

"Are you sure that's his room?"

Naruto nodded. "Yup. I've come a couple times before. Second window from the left."

Hinata took a deep breath, and smiled a little. Even if Hiashi found out she was gone, and she got grounded forever, even if he took her out to the yard and yelled at her worse than ever before, it'd be worth it.

They crept forward quickly, slipping through the thin night like the shinobi they would one day become. Reaching the window Naruto put his fingers carefully at the bottom latch, and tried to push up. After a couple seconds, however, it became evident it wasn't going anywhere.

"Help?" He asked.

Hinata put her fingers next to his, her breath caught as they touched but she pushed past it, just pulled up with Naruto.

Thirty seconds or so, and there was a small click as it opened, and they smiled. Pushing the window open slowly, Naruto was about to climb in when there was a small slide, and something leapt from the shadowy bedroom.

Hinata tried to hold back her scream as Naruto was slammed backwards, the thin, shadowy form crouching over him.

"Itachi?" Naruto asked after a moment, incredulous, pushing himself to a sitting position as the boy removed his hands from the blonde's throat.

"Itachi?" Hinata asked.

"Sasuke's older brother."

Itachi narrowed his black eyes at Naruto dangerously, before sweeping them over to Hinata. "The Hyuuga heiress and… Uzumaki Naruto. What were you doing?"

"We were looking for Sasuke." Naruto said as if it explained everything, his own clear blue eyes narrowing, in his own version of a 'dangerous expression'.

Hinata felt her cheeks grow hot. He looked so cute when he did that.

Itachi blinked slowly, before taking a tired breath. "It is my duty as a Konoha shinobi to report your break in, and then deliver you home."

"Oh come on!" Naruto protested loudly, paying no mind to the fact that he could wake half the Uchiha clan if he wasn't careful. "That's not fair! It was his fault first for being mean to Hinata! We were just getting revenge!"

"Vengeance solves nothing." Was all Itachi said, before turning to his room, and reaching in through his window to pick something off the small table beneath it.

'Come on,' Naruto mouthed, and Hinata covered her mouth with her hands as the boy creeped over to the window second from the right and opened it, with much more ease than Itachi's.

Itachi was about to turn around again, tying his headband securely in place on his forehead, when there was the angry shout.

"Naruto?"

Itachi whipped around, black hair flying in his eyes for a moment.

Naruto, who was crouching on the windowsill with an evil grin on his face, was suddenly flung backwards, and a very angry Sasuke followed him out, arms crossed, looking like he wanted to kick something. Specifically, a certain kill-me-orange wearing blonde.

"Ow! Sasuke, what was that for?"

"What was that for? You broke into my bedroom and woke me up! What time is it?"

"At least ten." Itachi said, giving Naruto another disapproving look, although this time it also looked nearly exasperated. "At night. Now come, we have to deliver these two home."

Hinata paled. Even if it was worth it, she did not want Hiashi discovering she'd not only been out, but troublemaking, with 'that demon'. And making trouble for the Uchiha, no less.

Naruto too, seemed not to want to budge, but for a completely different reason.

"But he deserved it! He called Hinata a disgrace to her clan! He called her a failure!" Naruto said passionately. "Old man Hokage will understand!"

Itachi sighed, rubbing his forehead carefully.

"Sasuke," He said finally, "Go back to bed."

"No." He said, glaring at Naruto darkly. "I want to see this."

"Sasuke-"

Crack.

"Who's there?" Itachi asked in a voice suddenly chilling, even Sasuke stiffened, if only slightly. The Uchiha turned to Hinata after a moment. "Did anyone else come with you?"

"N- no." Hinata stuttered, unable to keep from shrinking back slightly at his iron gaze.

Itachi turned back the direction the noise had come, and started forward, Hinata caught his eyes turning the blood red she'd always heard about, but never actually seen before.

"Show yourself." Itachi instructed icily, drawing his hands up to rest in a hand sign, as if preparing to cast a jutsu.

Another crack, although this time it sounded more like a snap, more like something hitting against the ground with enough force to crack the pavement.

"Get back in your room Sasuke, take your classmates with you." Itachi said, although it was more like an order.

"Itachi, I can't-"

"Sasuke. What did otousan say to do when I tell you to do something?"

Sasuke seemed to visibly deflate, and if Hinata and Naruto hadn't been so anxious, they might have appreciated the rare sign of weakness. "I have to do it."

Itachi nodded. "That's right. Now go back in the house, and I'll deal with this troublemaker."

However before Sasuke could even make a move, protesting or complying, there was a loud woosh and Itachi stiffened.

"What is it?" Naruto asked loudly, squinting into the distance. "I don't see anything."

"There." Itachi said quickly, pointing in front of them five meters or so, at the corner of the next street.

Sasuke squinted. "I don't see anything nii-san."

"Maybe it's a cat." Naruto supplied.

"Knuckles?" Sasuke cooed quietly, waving his fingers in an odd sort of gesture.

"Her name is knuckles?" Naruto asked incredulously.

"Naruto," Itachi warned, although the boys completely ignored him.

"He belongs to Shisui-nii, he is not ours." Sasuke said with a sniff, although whether the disapproval was aimed at Naruto or at Shisui's pet naming skills Hinata couldn't tell.

"Mreeeooooow."

"Knuckles!" Naruto leapt on the small orange cat as it skittered into view on its claws, eyes wide.

"Naruto, you're hurting him, stop it!" Sasuke accused as Knuckles fought for freedom, prying Naruto's arms off him and sitting him in his lap gently. However, as soon as his fingers were off his messy coat Knuckles was off again, streaking down the street away from them.

"You handled that well." Naruto grinned.

"Shut it-"

Crack!

Sasuke whirled at the sound, eyes widening as he saw Itachi cradling his wrist to his chest, down in a defensive crouch, other hand before him.

"Nii-san, what happened-"

Itachi kicked, but his foot only soared through the air, he had to back a step to balance himself again.

"Itachi!" Naruto shouted, suddenly anxious, getting to his feet.

"Stay back." The boy growled as he dropped low for a second, as if dodging some invisible blow.

Hinata bit her lip, the thought suddenly coming to mind. Trying to remember how to work her chakra the right way, she squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again she gasped.

The black silhouette attacked Itachi mercilessly, one blow, then another, Hinata couldn't keep track, she was reminded suddenly of the times she'd seen her father train with other Hyuuga. They were fighting, but there was no contest.

"Itachi watch out!" She screamed as she saw the man come again, when Itachi's head was still bowed, when he couldn't see for himself the thing coming towards him.

"Hinata-"

At Sasuke's voice Hinata turned, but at his finger pointing she look up, and at the sword swinging down towards her, all she could do was scream.

~OOOOOO~

Shikamaru sat, back against the wall, not moving but for the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

It had been a while since the puppets had taken Sakura, maybe an hour, maybe two, maybe six, he'd lost track of time once the sun had fallen behind the trees, and the pink faded to blue faded to black. Now they moved around him, almost as thick as during the day, except they didn't talk or interact, but for the occasional side-long glance, before they'd turn back again, as if they'd caught some illusion out of the corner of their eye.

Part of Shikamaru kept reminding him, over and over like an alarm clock every five or ten minutes, that he ought to check on Chouji, that he ought to move, that at the very least he ought to go home. But every time he walked among them they flocked, they reached out to him but didn't touch, couldn't touch.

Maybe he was just a little bit…

Scared?

But even as he just sat there he could see that some of the shadow puppets where there for him, many of them had their blank shadow faces turned to him, as they passed. Shikamaru couldn't help but wonder if some of them had walked past multiple times, but he'd just never noticed, because sans the occasional deformation they all looked exactly the same.

Exhaustion pounded at his skull, but the cold nipped at his skin, and it took him at least another two hours to finally slip under and into restless sleep.

Shikamaru looked back and forth wearily.

How many times had he seen that blood-red sky?

That black-canvas grass stretching beneath their feet?

"Nara, you're stubborn."

Shikamaru didn't bother turning his head up at the Uchiha's voice, he just continued to trace his tired, aching finger over the ground, and although he could barely make out the shadows on the dark ground he could see them dancing, chasing his fingertip like a cat toy.

"Shikamaru." They seemed to say to him, although he knew they hadn't a voice, not in the human sense, and he knew they weren't making any noise. They were merely feeling into him, running through him like water up and down webwork streams. "He can't control you. This is not your mind, but his. Not your body, but his."

"I know." Shikamaru nodded, answered out loud because he couldn't feel into the shadows in return.

"Bide your time." They said.

"I know."

"We will lend you power, when the time comes, if you lend us yours when ours arrives."

Shikamaru could sense the man right behind him, could almost feel the stinging pain already.

Still, he didn't turn until he'd watched the shadows for a final second, saw them move of their own accord for a moment, as if attempting breaking free.

"I will."

~OOOOOO~

Gai moaned quietly as consciousness came to him, spiky and sour bile and an angry burning in his legs.

And then came his mind, and his eyes snapped open.

The sky was still dark, midnight ebony dark, but to one side of him was a darkness so true it was the color of nothing. For a moment Gai braced himself for the killing blow, but when it didn't come he turned his head that was, ignoring the small ache as he did.

The black thing, the nothing man, seemed to be kneeling beside him, and in his pitch hands he held a role of bandages. They looked slightly worn, not used but as if they'd been battered, thrown around, as if they'd fallen out of a pack and tumbled a good three or four feet in the dirt before being picked up and dusted off.

Gai was unable to do anything as, to his surprise, the man unrolled the spool a couple of inches, and pinched it down on the bare skin of his left leg. Pain shot up it, stinging like wild fire, but he managed to ignore it.

Pressure, hard and long and even, slid against the prickling skin, and as the bandages began to wrap around his leg he realized the nothing man was bracing the bones he'd broken in the fight against the thing from earlier (how many days ago?), against the wild black flicker of a creature.

And then it came back to him.

That honey surreal dream of a moment.

"Gai?"

"Kakashi?" Gai had to ask, although part of his voice caught in his throat, so his name was dry and dying as it rolled off his tongue.

The nothing man turned to him for a heartbeat, his invisible eyes boring into Gai, before he turned back again.

Gai's breath caught in his chest, and it wasn't the pain, still working its way into his mind as he became more and more awake.

"What happened? To you?" Gai asked slowly, his lips a little numb, maybe it was the cold, slipping under his skin like needle pricks, or the blood loss, if he had lost any, he couldn't remember.

It took the man a while to respond, he finished with Gai's left leg and started on his right before he spoke, so that Gai had to turn to see him.

"Died." He finally spoke, his voice still that dead-breeze of a whisper. "Sealed."

"I'm sorry." Gai said, he couldn't think of anything else to say, what else was there?

The nothing (not Kakashi, Kakashi was strong and stubborn and alive) nodded slowly, dipping closer for a moment to tighten the bandages.

"Thanks you." Gai said, quite a while later, maybe ten minutes, the nothing man worked slowly, as if fighting a strong current running against his every move. "For saving me."

"Always." Was all he gave as a reply, but the broken defeated heartache of it made Gai want to scream.

"Are there more of you?"

He nodded.

"Are they like you?"

This time he shook his head, and answered aloud. "Most… don't remember."

"But you do?"

He paused, as if thinking.

"Some things."

"Some?"

He turned his blank face towards Gai again, and this time he swore he could catch his eyes, two dark sink holes.

"I remember you."

It was Gai's turn to nod this time.

For a long time, neither of them said anything, and twenty minutes later the man had finished dressing his wounds, even the rips on his fist from earlier that evening.

He sat next to Gai for a good long time, staring at him, and then staring away.

What felt like hours later, but may only have been minutes, Kakashi lay down beside Gai, and the nothing of sleep enveloped him once more.

~OOOOOO~

Neji stared at the man.

"Jashin?"

The albino smiled grimly. "The one and only."

"So I'm unconcious?"

"It would seem so." Jashin said, although it was sarcastic more than anything. "Sort of."

Neji wracked his brain, but for some reason he couldn't remember why he was unconscious. "Why can't I remember anything?"

"You're sleeping. It's like how you hardly ever remember dreams."

Neji gave Jashin a skeptical look, but didn't comment on it out loud.

"So…" Neji said finally. "Why do you need me?"

Jashin narrowed his pinkish eyes. "You really don't remember anything, do you, dumbass?"

Neji twitched. "No. I don't. Dick."

Jashin shrugged. "Just double checking. No harm in that."

Neji scoffed.

"So, we have a problem. You remember that guy, you were going to help me destroy?"

"Yes."

"Well, he's sort of already won."

Neji gave Jashin an incredulous look.

"Already?"

"Basically. 'Course, that won't stop us from fighting. Hell no. Just making sure that was clear."

"What did he do?"

Jashin gave him a look.

"Do you remember the shadowy things?"

Neji had to hold back a sharp intake of breath as he did. "Yeah."

"Well, those. Shadows are chakra, you know? And he can control them. I already have barely more power than I did as a mortal." Jashin held up his hands, as if his pale, claw-like fingers were supposed to prove something.

"You just giving up then?" Neji asked.

Jashin shook his head. "As I said, just thought you should know. I'll shoot whatever I can your way power-wise, but I can't make any promises."

The man turned, and started walking away, and as if the whiteness at the edge of Neji's dream world was swallowing him up, he began to fade.

"Thanks!" Neji called sarcastically.

Jashin raised a hand, but didn't look back.

"Anytime!"

And with that, Hyuuga Neji woke up.

~OOOOOO~

Neji's head pounded with fatigue as he sat up, slowly, so as not to jostle his aching midsection. Maybe he'd broken a rib. It didn't feel that bad, but they never did, not until they jammed into something important and the bleeding started.

The first thing Neji noticed was how odd he felt, almost floating, like in a dream, but at the same time deep into the ground, heavy and thick and slow.

Blinking so as to clear the sleep from his vision Neji looked about him.

The room was smallish, rock walls supporting a low ceiling, so low he'd have been able to easily touch it had he still been nineteen, and couldn't have fit more than twenty people lying side to side. As it was there were only ten or eleven of them, eleven including Neji, all of whom were sleeping like the dead around him.

Dead…

Neji brought his fingers up quickly to the back of his neck, he could still feel the ghost pain of it snapping beneath the creature's fingers. But the skin was smooth, seamless. The only odd thing was the weight, resting almost on his collarbone, that seemed almost fused with the skin of his throat.

A collar. Maybe half an inch thick, and inch or so tall, cold and rough metal beneath his fingers. It pulled slightly at his skin, itchy and uncomfortable, but not quite painful. At the front he could feel a small steel loop that moved freely up and down, and around, like a dog collar.

Neji shivered.

Everyone in the room wore one, although as he scanned each person and couldn't find Lee or Tenten he stiffened.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The bloodcurdling shriek made Neji jump and whip around, it hadn't been more than a few feet to his left.

The brunette shot up, gasping for breath as tears leaked from her eyes.

Eyes the deepest, purest black Neji had ever seen.

But not like the Uchiha, black was not merely the colo of her eyes. Even the whites of her eyes were the color of night.

It made a shiver run up Neji's spine as he remembered the black creatures.

"It was just a nightmare." Neji felt the need to comfort the girl as she continued to shake, staring across the room with unseeing eyes. He reached out to her, touched her hand, and although at first she shrunk back she grabbed it after a few seconds, squeezing it with more strength than any girl her age, she had to be younger than Neji was, had any right to.

She nodded quickly, over and over, as if it would calm her down. "I know, I know, it was just- there were these monsters-" She turned to look at Neji, and as she looked him in the eyes she flinched back. "They killed me…" Her voice drifted off.

Something clicked in Neji's mind, and his heart sank.

"Are my eyes black?"

She nodded, almost fearfully.

Neji grimaced. "So are yours."

Her black eyes widened, and for the first time she seemed to become aware of their surroundings, of all the people around them, still dead to the world. Her fingers darted first to the back of her neck, just as Neji's had, and then to the collar around her throat.

"Where are we?"

"I don't know. I woke up just before you did. I think we were captured by those things."

"Did they kill you too?"

Neji waited a moment, before deciding on his answer. "Yeah."

"Are we gonna die again? But for real?"

"I don't know." Neji said, making sure to add an air of finality to his voice.

"Oh."

An hour passed in silence, and no one else woke up.

And then, with a sickly creek that sent a shiver up Neji's spine, the door at the other end of the room opened.

It was one of the chakra creatures, although as he had been at the very end, when he'd killed them, visible to the naked eye, just as inky as their eyes had become.

The haunting thought came to Neji in passing, at that moment, that maybe the shadows were the only things keeping them alive at this point.

"You two." The thing spoke, rasped really, bringing its hand up in a beckoning gesture. In its other hands it cradled a ring of keys, and they jostled as the fingers played with the thin ring, spun it so that the keys clinked and chimed. "Come."

Neji rose slowly, stretching his aching limbs, but waited to move towards the door until the brunette had also come to a stand. Taking her hand he led her forward. Again, as with his classmates and teammates, he found himself wondering at how young she was. Maybe he'd actually known her, maybe she'd been a chuunin in the office, or a civilian, working at the grocery near jounin HQ, the one he stopped by at least once every week or so to restock his fridge with essentials.

"What do they want?" She asked quietly as they picked their way through all the sleeping people. Somehow, only now, did it hit him that all but a few were children, younger than twelve or thirteen.

Apparently, she'd caught on to his maturity for his age. That, or she was just searching for comfort. Maybe both. "I don't know." He said quietly, although it appeared the creature caught it.

"No talking." It ordered sternly. The brunette made a squeaking noise of fear, and Neji's shoulders tightened.

The corridors they walked down were dank and musty, and although they passed plenty of doors there wasn't another sound but their bare feet slapping on the slick stone beneath them.

Finally, minutes later, they came to a wooden door, just a little more important looking than the rest of them, tall and wide. The black creature put his hand on it, knocked a couple of times.

"Come in." A voice from inside called, it sounded like it was smiling, and it sounded familiar, although Neji couldn't figure out how or why.

The thing pushed the door, and it swung open, and after leading Neji and the girl inside, it slammed shut.

Along with the echoing of the door closing, and the gasp of fear behind him, there was a hoarse call of surprise from his right.

"Neji?"

~OOOOOO~

"HINATA!"

Naruto's scream blasted in Sasuke's ears like a chorus of trumpets, and if he hadn't been so busy staring out at Hinata, small hands stretched above her, as if somehow such a thing could save her, he may have yelled at him like he always did.

Instead he tried to move forwards, maybe he could save her from the invisible monster if only

He

Was

Fast

Enough.

Metal slammed together, a loud clap ringing down the street, it was wonder the doors weren't slamming open, people weren't calling back angrily in protest and indignance.

Sasuke almost wanted to close his eyes but he didn't, couldn't.

Itachi stood before him, or more specifically before Hinata, they were still feet away from Sasuke, kunai raised a couple of inches above his chest as it pushed back on the sword still falling down, pushing down so hard he could catch the sweat on Itachi's brow, the strain in his wrists and arms.

Sasuke clenched his fists, fought the urge to dart forward and assist Itachi.

But it was Itachi.

In a sense, in every sense, the boy was invincible.

Immortal.

But it only took another moment for the kunai to clatter to the ground, Itachi leapt back, dragging the still frozen Hinata with him. The sword stayed suspended in space, turning down to the ground, as if the invisible man holding it was taking a rest, sizing the Uchiha and Hyuuga up with his invisible eyes.

Itachi leaned down, whispered something in Hinata's ear that Sasuke couldn't hear, and after a shaky moment she stood, turned, and with a final look back, fled.

Itachi looked again at the invisible assailant, before turning his eyes directly into Sasuke's.

"Leave." Itachi mouthed urgently, there was something in his eyes Sasuke had never seen before. Uncertainty? Fear? The jounin hid it well, behind black masks of indifference, of official shinobi crispness, but Sasuke had seen him in the bathroom before, hid behind the cabinets for tens of minutes on end, watching as the boy stared into the mirror, let fear and guilt and anger flood his face, before slowly drawing that same porcelain curtain.

"No!" Sasuke exclaimed out loud, his eyes darted back to Naruto for an odd second, and he saw the blonde in a half crouch, as if debating whether to bolt or to stay and help.

"Sasuke-" Itachi's reprimanding voice was cut short, swapped for a sudden grunt as he had to back away again, avoiding a quick slash by the sword. Still, the tip of the blade nicked his shirt, loose and black, and the neck ripped three or four inches down, a few flecks of blood coming off on the dull silver.

Sasuke clenched his fists.

"Sasuke?" Naruto asked hesitantly from behind him. A part of Sasuke wanted to bite at him for it, but he held back.

"Naruto?"

"Sasuke… come on."

It was the last thing he'd expected to hear from the blonde. Naruto put his hand on Sasuke's shoulder, gave him a look with his flecked blue eyes Sasuke swore all his life he would never forget.

"Itachi-"

"Is trapped."

All of a sudden the scuff-marks on his clothing, the bruises across his wrists and ankles the boy came to the classroom with every day seemed hauntingly sinister.

All of a sudden Sasuke had to wonder if it wasn't just his classmates who seemed to hate the boy.

"But my brother-" Sasuke was shocked to find himself pleading with Naruto, as if the boy could actually make a difference in what he did. As if Naruto was the adult, as if he was the one mature enough to make the decisions.

Naruto's eyes flickered to Itachi- again attempting to fight off the invisible man barehanded- and then to the other end of the street, and then it Sasuke's. He, in his own way, seemed to be pleading as well. "Sasuke."

And then Sasuke turned to Itachi, gripped his fists tight with rage as another cut was made in the thin fabric of his undershirt, as more red began to spill down his pale skin.

And then he cupped his hands by his mouth, and watched with almost glee as Naruto's eyes widened, and the boy backed up another step cautiously.

"Leave my brother alone!" Sasuke shouted, as loud as he could.

The consequences were immediate, as Itachi and, presumably, the invisible enemy turned, as the sword dropped and Itachi reached out to grab it- too slow- and raw panic filled his eyes like a flood, immediate and too much for him to take.

Sasuke found he couldn't run. He tried, tried to get his feet to move, felt Naruto tugging on his hand, but his legs were paralyzed with… fear?

And the sword was slashing at him, through the air, and Sasuke felt life slipping away as he stood, if only if only he could do something-

Thud.

That was the only noise echoing through the street as movement stopped, as Sasuke took another breath, and glanced up to see the monster above him.

It just stared back down at him, apparently as awed as Sasuke was, by his two hands at the thing's wrist, holding back the blade so that it just floated above him.

"Nii-san?" Sasuke asked weakly, the anxiety bleeding into his voice. "Is that…?"

"Yes." Itachi nodded slowly, but his eyes were glued to Sasuke's, wide with surprise.

Itachi rose, darted forward, picking the abandoned kunai from the ground, and before the black monster could reorient itself the kunai was through its chest, and it was dripping black tar ooze onto the pavement below, and the sword clattered to the ground.

"Itachi?" Sasuke asked as the boy put his arms around him, felt his rough hand on his cheek, wiping the water away.

"I'm here otouto." Itachi said softly, smiling. "And I'm proud of you."

"Proud?"

"Your sharingan. That's why you could see it."

"My…" Sasuke's mouth dropped open. "Sharingan?"

Itachi nodded.

Sasuke laughed. "Itachi! I got it at seven, just like you-"

"Not to break anything up, but I think we should try and be careful."

Naruto's voice cut through the moment, and Sasuke whipped around to see just what he was talking about.

There must have been five more of the things, down at the end of the street, four unarmed but one with a bloody-tipped staff in its shadowy grip.

And again, it was Naruto's young-voiced sarcasm to break the silence that fell.

"Looks like it's going to be a long night."

~OOOOOO~

Gai stretched his arms above his head slowly, turned his eyes from the stars above him to the darkness of his village, and then back to the dark man beside him.

Kakashi.

The night still felt like a dream, the man's touch on his skin only the touch of a ghost, his voice only the wind through the skeleton branches of trees.

It seems they had only slept an hour or two, as it was still deep night, but Gai felt better, some, he'd managed to muster the chakra to heal his legs enough so that he could walk, although they still ached under his weight.

"Come."

Gai turned to Kakashi after a moment to see the man already turning, starting away from the village and into the thicker trees.

"But we can't leave."

Kakashi stopped slowly, his shoulders tensed, and it was in a manner so familiar Gai's heart stung, if only for a moment.

"Why?"

"Why? Aren't there more like you there? Attacking everybody? We should save them!"

Kakashi shook his head, and for the first time since he'd saved Gai, the man felt the familiar anger start to boil within his chest. "Selfish bastard."

Gai turned away from Kakashi and towards the village, started walking in its direction.

He felt a hand catch his shoulder, but he shrugged it off, backed away from it.

"You'll die." His words were hoarse and wavering, Gai hadn't heard that tone in him for years, not since the Kyuubi attack, not since his last connections to the living had once again severed.

But at that moment something in his brain clicked, and Gai smiled sadly, turned a last time to face the inky black man.

"You're dead, Kakashi."

He carried within the statement a thousand meanings.

You're dead, how can you understand this desire to save?

You're dead, how can you beg me not to follow that same fate?

You're dead, Kakashi.

Nothing can change that.

Gai turned, and this time as he walked away no hand was there to stop him.

A part of him wished there was.

~OOOOOO~

For Chasing and Simone, I give you an ending, because I needed something to happen at the end.

~OOOOOO~

And suddenly fire rained from the sky.

It was the end of the world as they knew it.

Giant stones began to fly, blood sprayed all over as every single living human in the universe of Naruto keeled over and died of smoke inhalation and blunt-force trauma.

Except one.

This one character stood over the decimated world with a cool look on his pale face.

Sasuke slowly turned, and with a flourish he pulled off his half-shirt, and flashed a bright, arrogant smile.

"I'm too sexy for this fic."