THERE! NO MORE GAY NEJI! HAPPY NOW?
Rolland and/or Colors do/does not own Naruto or any associated items, companies, ideas, etc...
Before you read this, please note that when I say jinchuriki, I mean Naruto or Gaara. I will not now, or will I ever use it to refer to Hinata.
-Kakashi's Mansion
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura stood in the middle of Kakashi's mansion, awaiting his arrival. Sasuke had a lit joint in his mouth, as did Sakura. Naruto debated inside himself. He knew Sakura shouldn't be smoking weed. Sasuke, well, he was crazy before. He'd be positively psychotic when he was high. They'd hate him for it, but he'd hate himself more if he didn't.
He reached his hands out and pulled the lit joints out of their mouths. Naruto was half right, Sasuke was pissed, but Sakura seemed to be lost in thought. 'Wow, if Naruto, the second most extreme drug addict in Konoha, has quit, I guess there's really no excuse for us... Oh well.'
Sasuke reached inside his white jacket pocket and pulled out another joint. He lit it on the flame from one of his fingers. Naruto's turn was over. Now it was up to Sakura. Normally the pink-haired kunoichi would never, in her wildest dreams, insult, hit, or anger Sasuke. But now, she's had it.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura complained as she pulled the drugs out of his mouth. "You shouldn't do that." He glared at her. Why would Sakura, the fourth biggest drug addict in Konoha, suddenly quit?
Luckily, their late sensei arrived. "Kakashi-sensei, you're late again," Sakura growled at him. Kakashi just smiled(or at least I think he did), and sat down on a chair. He reached into a bowl and pulled out what looked suspiciously like a joint.
Sakura let it slide; after all, Kakashi needed his drugs. If he tried to quit cold-turkey, he'd probably die. Then she remembered. "Kakashi-sensei, as you probably noticed, we were unsuccessful in our mission," she told him.
The Jounin nodded. "Actually," he told her, "I think It's been quite good for me. Anyway, we've been assigned a new mission by the Hokage."
"Old Baa-chan?" Naruto asked, fidgeting with his kunai, "What does she want now?"
"Well, it's about Hinata," their leader told the three of them. He chanced a sideways glance at Naruto, fearing his reaction.
Much to Kakashi's surprise, Naruto didn't look shocked. His eyes were turned down, staring at his kunai. "So you know about it," Kakashi muttered to himself.
"Naruto, you've been trained by demons in Hell before, right?" The Silver-haired ninja asked. "What did they call it? Surely they've seen it before."
Naruto slipped his kunai back into his holster, never taking his eyes off the floor. "They call it: Careo Sanctimonia," he told them. "It means: To be without purity."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sakura asked. She looked from Naruto to Kakashi to Sasuke; they all seemed to know what was going on.
"It means that she's been in Hell too long," the jinchuriki told her. "She's been tainted by darkness."
"If the situation calls for it," Kakashi said, "we'll need to take her back to Hell to purify her there."
"Why in Hell?" It was Sasuke who spoke this time. "Why not here?"
"According to documented cases, attempted exorcisms on Earth have only resulted in the subject thinking they're free," Naruto explained, "but the demon has just been forced into a kind of deep sleep. It's not even detectable. That is, until it reawakens."
"We should go see Tsunade-sama," Sasuke suggested. The other three nodded. Sasuke and Kakashi left immediately, leaving Naruto and Sakura alone.
Sakura stared sympathetically at Naruto. Naruto stared fixedly at his boots. Sakura turned her eyes downward, gathering her thoughts. "Listen, Naruto," Sakura began consolingly, but hen she looked up, Naruto was gone. She left too.
-Konoha Hospital
Hinata sat up in her hospital bed, letting the clean, white sheets fall off her. Her eyes were closed, as was her mouth.
"Are you alright?" The Hokage asked as she walked around, checking readings from various machines placed throughout the room. As she looked up from her notes and saw that the Hyuuga's eyes were closed, she stopped abruptly, nearly knocking over a medical nin behind her. "Hinata-san?" she asked rather nervously. "Why are your eyes closed?"
Hinata shook her head. "They hurt," she told her superior. She covered them with her hands, blocking out as much extra light as she could. Soon she began rocking back and forth. Without knowing it, she began chanting under her breath.
This is what Tsunade was afraid of. 'Has it started?' She asked herself. "Hinata-san, I need you to open your eyes," the Hokage told the girl.
Hinata shook her head again. Her chanting increased in volume, letting the blond hear what she was saying. "Tru't nymu. Tru't nymu. Tru't nymu," she muttered.
Tsunade's eyes widened. That was it. Hinata did have Careo Sanctimonia. But, to what degree? Perhaps it wasn't too severe. Perhaps Hinata could be purified on Earth and call it good.
"Tru't nymu omg iae bom's rolu ruh!" Hinata shouted in a voice that was far from her own. That cold, demonic voice, it was worse than death itself.
Hinata's eyes snapped open as she charged the Fifth. Her eyes were pure black and her fingernails and teeth were filed to a point. The chunin's hand went through Tsunade. The Hokage's eyes widened. The Medical nin behind her also was critically injured.
Hinata ran to the window, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. As she fumbled with the latch, the Hokage put a tracker on her headband. That demon couldn't get away now.
-Konoha Hospital 15 minutes later
"That should about do it," a medical nin sighed as she removed her hands from Tsunade's stomach. Them Kakashi had arrived just minutes ago. Sakura healed the medical nin, who in turn healed Tsunade. The two of them were exhausted.
Naruto was standing by the window. His eyes were fixed on the bloody track on the windowsill. Sasuke was staring at Kakashi with hungry eyes. Kakashi still had that joint-shaped object in his mouth, you see, and Sasuke hadn't had a smoke in over fifteen minutes.
"Can I help you with something?" Kakashi asked as he looked up from his book. He was currently reading "Moan, Moan Paradise."
"Um, actually yes," the Uchiha told him. "That joint, if you're not going to smoke it," Sasuke asked bashfully, "can I have it?"
Kakashi cocked his head to the side. "Joint?" he asked, confused. He thought for a moment. And another. And another. And then... "Oh!" The Jounin gasped as he pulled the rolled up object from the joint hole in his mask. What? Of course Kakashi has a joint hole in his mask. How else would he preserve his secret identity and smoke his joints? It just couldn't be done otherwise.
The silver-haired ninja hopped over to his village's leader. "I received this from Suna," he told her, unrolling it. When it was fully opened, the occupants of the room could clearly see a very important encrypted document. "I can't read it. It's written in a demonic language. Naruto, could you translate it?"
The jinchuriki received the paper from Kakashi and looked it over. "This is the Occulto variation of the language," he told them.
Fiat Konoha,
Ri jabi tiviobif mird gtez Gaara's fuzem yjay yjutu ed a yaemyif djomeno om ueit bossahi. Nu aratu ay as yozud. Yiss yasu dohmd omvsifu vtavluf otodud amf gamhd. Og pei djeisf duu a djomeno zayvjomh yjay fudvtoqyoem, pei zidy uciviyu yjuz ay emvu.
Gaara of the Desert
He read it over again. "It looks like Gaara knows about Hinata. He says to..." Naruto told them. He didn't need to finish. They all knew what must be done. "She'll go to Suna."
The Hokage nodded, signaling team Kakashi to leave. They did so in the blink of an eye.
To Suna
Hinata was jumping tree to tree, her eyes narrowed and cold, looking for her mark. Her eyes weren't cracked yet, meaning that the demon couldn't see, and therefore had to rely on her to react to stimuli. There was still a chance to save her, but if encountered, the situation had to be handled delicately. On false movement and the demon may overpower her, putting her beyond help.
Team Kakashi was not far behind. They were also gaining. Slowly they caught up to the Hyuuga. Hinata suddenly stopped. She was on a high branch of a tree. Her hands went to her stomach as she gasped in pain. She staggered and fell from the tree.
Naruto's teammates were ready to catch her before she hit the ground, and they would have, but Naruto held up a hand to stop them. Hinata hit the ground and screamed in pain. Naruto continued in the direction that his girlfriend was going, ignoring Hinata laying on the ground in obvious agonizing pain.
He landed on the branch that Hinata fell from and turned to them. "Kai." The landscape before him melted. They were standing not on tree branches, but on huge stone statues. Below, where Hinata was a moment before, was a sand trap.
The other three ninja also released the genjutsu and followed Naruto as he took off again. As they traveled through the newly revealed Suna, Kakashi decided to ask a question. "Naruto, how did you know that it was genjutsu?" He asked. "I couldn't even tell."
"It was a demon genjutsu," he told his old sensei. "It was obvious to a demon." Naruto picked up his pace, forcing the others to struggle to keep up. "She's close. She's really close."
The four of them sped on, continually increasing their speed. Before they knew it, they were standing in front of the gates of Suna. Sakura's eyes widened in horror as she looked at the scene before them. There were hundreds of bodies laying throughout the village. There was a trail of death leading right to the Kazekage's palace. They stood there for what felt like hours.
"This can't be real," Sakura said as she tried to release herself from the genjutsu. It didn't work. She tried again, but it still didn't work. "This isn't real," she told herself firmly.
"That won't work," the leader told his teammates.
"N-Naruto, th-this can't be real..." Sakura replied.
"No, it's not," he admitted. "but that release won't work." He took his kunai in his right hand and stabbed it into his palm. He clenched his jaw, but not a sound passed his lips.
The corpses before him vanished, to be replaced by staring villagers. It was well into the evening now, how long had they been trapped? He turned to look at his comrades and saw why the villagers were staring. The Konoha shinobi were standing perfectly still, their eyes glazed over. Suddenly blood burst from Kakashi's and Sasuke's hands as they returned to this world.
"You didn't have to do that," Naruto told them. He walked over to Sakura and placed his bleeding thumb on her forehead. Her eyes immediately returned to normal as her knees buckled. Sasuke and Kakashi caught her as she fell.
The two of them lifted Sakura to her feet and the four continued towards the palace. If the staring was bad before, it was terrible now. Suna citizens stood, goggling from afar. In all fairness, they were a pretty weird sight. Three of them were bleeding and the other one had a bloody fingerprint on her forehead. Unlike Konoha, those sights were uncommon in Suna.
As the Konohajin walked on, they noticed something strange happening. When their blood hit the ground, it sank into the sand, like the sand was absorbing it. After remembering where they were, however, the relaxed a little. It was hard to completely relax when your blood was being absorbed by living sand.
The Konoha shinobi were almost to the palace gates now. They could just make out the building in the distance. Naruto picked up his speed, as did the others. Soon they were running at full speed. Before they knew it, they were at the palace gates, waiting to be let in by the guards. After a few agonizing moments, they were admitted.
The dark, gloomy room that engulfed them seemed to drag their spirits down even more. There were no windows in the room and the sand walls had been hardened to stone, letting in no light. The only source of illumination came from candles mounted on the walls in stone holders. The room was empty, aside from a lone desk in the center and the figure of a man hunched over it.
The four approached slowly, not wanting to find out what would happen if the startled the Kazekage. As they inched forward, Naruto could clearly see the desk in the dim light. Sprawled out over it were research reports and books, both about demons and popular demon mythology. One showed a demon ripping a child limb from limb. Another depicted a creature sneaking through a dully lit corridor. Various other drawings showed a possessed person, a wicked looking blade, and an exorcism. The rest were only partially visible, buried under other reports and books.
At the end of the table was the Kazekage. He was laying with his head in his arms. His arms blocked the view of most of his face. From what they could see, he was asleep, eyes closed. Realizing for the first time how peaceful he looked, Sakura stroked the cheek of Suna's leader.
When the pink-haired ninja touched his face, however, she felt something cool on her fingers. A few seconds passed before she realized what it was. It was blood. "Gaara!" Sakura shouted as she ran past a confused Naruto. She bent down and placed her ear to his chest. He was still breathing; barely. She turned Gaara over, to look at him more closely, but she couldn't see clearly. "Sasuke!" she shouted. "I need more light!"
The Uchiha obeyed. This room was too small for any fire jutsus. A single one would light them all on fire. Instead, Sasuke went over to the wall and punched it out. As he knew it would, it opened right into the air. He had remembered climbing a set of spiral stairs from the top level of the palace. They were in the tower.
Along with a burst of dust from Sasuke's side of the room came a flood of sunlight. Now Sakura could clearly see Gaara's face. Parts of his sand shield were already flaked off. The parts that weren't were covered in cracks. He had been like this for at least eight hours. She quickly but carefully scanned his body for injuries and found three. The first was a shallow gash on his forehead, slowly bleeding. That one was low priority. The second wound was a series of broken ribs. There were at least five on his left side and two on his right. That one was high priority. The final injury were broken chakra veins in the back of his neck. That was top priority.
Sakura healed the broken ribs and mended the gash on his forehead. Those were the easiest. Now that that was done, Sakura tried to determine the best course of action for the last wound. She analyzed the damage and came up with two possibilities.
The first was the obvious one, take him to Suna's hospital. That was quickly thrown out by her rational side. If Sakura, the apprentice and future successor to the greatest medical ninja ever, couldn't do it, no Suna medical nin could. The second course of action was almost as simple, but twice as stupid. She realized that if they could catch up with Hinata and purify her quickly, she could mend them easily. There two problems with this, though. Number one, Gaara might not have that much time left. Number two was that they might not be able to save Hinata at all.
Sakura was lost. She had no idea what to do. Luckily, though, someone did. Naruto stepped forward and placed his palm on Gaara's forehead, knocking off sand as he did. He knew one way to heal Gaara, but it would require a massive amount of chakra. He'd do anything for Gaara, though. He was like the brother that he never had.
Naruto gathered all of the energy that he could into his now healed hands, and started making hand signs. Naruto would have to use the reversal jutsu. It would reverse his body into the state that it was in before he was injured. The blond finished the last hand sign. Needing a blood source for demonic jutsu, he slit both of his palms. Instead of flowing freely, it collected on the chakra that he had gathered. Now that the easy part was over, it was time for the hard part. "Sasuke! Sakura! Kakashi!" he called. "Hold him!"
The three moved and soon were in position. Naruto was in front of Gaara, Sasuke to the left, Kakashi to the right, and Sakura behind. They grabbed him firmly and prepared to hold him with all of their strength. If Gaara were to move, he would end up injuring himself all over again. The blood that Naruto had gathered disappeared in a flash as the jutsu started.
The first thing that happened was a crunching sound in Gaara's side and a slurping sound as the Kazekage's ribs broke again and his head was sliced open. The only thing happening after that was the flakes moving backwards through space and time and rejoining his armor. Then the cracks started erasing themselves. After all of the cracks were gone, Gaara's chair turned around and the kazekage was lifted out of his chair.
A sudden and unknown force pushed Gaara backwards, causing Sakura to be knocked out of the way. Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto held firm, determined not to let Gaara get hurt again. Sakura rejoined them with a muttered gomen, and aided in the Don't Let Gaara Die Movement. The harder they resisted, the harder the force pulled the injured man. Just when they thought they could no longer hold him, he stopped. His head shook violently. He changed directions and started moving forward, to the right. This movement was just as intense as the last. When he stopped this time, the gash on his head mended itself. With one last(first?) burst of energy, Gaara was forced to the left, where his ribs repaired themselves. After that, Gaara was returned to his seat.
The blood on his desk was gone, and his eyes were closed. Naruto and his companions collapsed to the ground. Naruto was pale form excessive blood loss. Sasuke, Kakashi, and Sakura were just exhausted. Neji was completely out of chakra as he wasted it all trying to use his Byakuga to see through Sakura's clothes. The kunoichi, however, wore Byakugan-proof clothes, ever since Neji had used it to watch Tenten in the shower when she was nine. (A/N: ...shudder... Happy now?)
Naruto opened his eyes and saw Neji lying next to him. He was instantly filled with an over-enthusiastic rage. "What the hell are you doing here?" The conscious jinchuriki shouted as he jumped up.
"I'm here to save my cousin," the Hyuuga told Naruto. He fell to the ground and cartwheeled around the room. He circled Naruto twice and then hugged the blond. Naruto was confused. What was Neji doing here? And, more importantly, why did he like being hugged by him.
As Naruto looked back at his hugger, he saw Hinata in Neji's place. Oh, that made more sense. Naruto put away the kunai that he was about to kill himself with and hugged Hinata. The Hyuuga hugged him harder and harder, to the point were he could hardly breathe.
He looked down again and saw that it was not Neji or Hinata hugging him, but Sasuke's snakes constricting him. (A/N: Yes, for all one of you who don't know, Sasuke has snakes in Shippuuden. Sorry for massacring the spelling.)
"Wake up," Naruto heard someone shout. A blunt force spread over his chest and his already opened eyes opened. He was sitting in a Suna Hospital bed like the one that he had seen Kankuro in. Sunlight flooded the room through large glass-les windows on the walls.
Sakura was hovering over him with a worried look on he face. Noticing her concern, Naruto had to ask, "Who died?"
The old Sakura would have beaten the jerk to a pulp. The nerve of him! He worries her into spending all night watching over him and then has the nerve to ask what's wrong? Jeez! The old Sakura, however, was gone; Replaced with a kinder, more caring Sakura. Instead, she tried her best to look cheerful. "Well, after you saved Gaara..."
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There, That's Chapter 1! Hahaahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaha! Now I command you to review it!