Disclaimer: See first chapter.

A/N: a little short, but I wanted to finish the battle... Also, if you read the first two chapters before I posted the third, read them again, at least skim through them, because some characters were changed, with completely new parts added in.

-The Hidden Void: Part 3: Kinenbi comes to the rescue-

Hinata got up quickly, parried a thrown shuriken with another kunai, kicked up the dead woman's body and held it up for a meat shield. She could hear the shurikens thudding into the body; she stared into the corpse's blank eyes and almost threw up.

She knew where the Void-nin who was throwing the shurikens was right now, but he/she would almost certainly move away after he/she finished throwing the lethal barrage of steel. So, Hinata threw the body in the general direction -fear, adrenaline, and a soldier pill popped into her mouth letting her do so- and rolled to the south, while forming the handseals for-

"Fire style- Blaze of Glory!" She spewed from her mouth rushing fire- the grass caught on fire, and there was also a smell of roasting pork accompanied by screaming. She winced as she heard the screams- the fire jutsus were always so brutal- and she almost wished that she had used something else- but this was the only jutsu that she thought would work on such a wide radius.

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Naruto was facing a different kind of a problem.

The Void-nins must have decided that he was the bigger threat. His doppelgangers had suddenly been eliminated in one fell, coordinated move, and now he was certain that he had been surrounded. A shuriken or a kunai or two came flying his way, but he was sure these were only diversions; the Void-nins must be coordinating a massive jutsu, he thought.

'Damn it, fox! Show me where the damn things are!' he yelled mentally. The Kyubi had stopped giving him aid suddenly, and now Naruto could not tell -at all- where the Void-nins were hidden. 'Damn it! Come on, you goddamned animal, show me where the-"

There was a flash of white, and Naruto fell into darkness...

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Hinata started, as she suddenly saw a brillant white flash. She had seen Naruto running about, his grey long-sleeved shirt torn in several places, and was about to go for aid when she had been momentarily blinded by a flash of white- and when she gained her vision back, she saw Naruto lying prone on the grass, smoke rising a little from his body.

Her first instinct was to march in and carry him out- but her ninja caution warned her of such foolhardy actions. She knew that whoever had used the jutsu must have seen her after that idiotic scream, and knowing that she didn't stand a chance against something like that, she started running the other way, using what options of stealth that was left to her on the grassy banks.

A kunai whizzed by. She dodged it easily, but then- the kunai had only been a ruse, to get her in the line of a deadlier projectile. A needle buried itself in her arm, then another in her thigh, and another in her shoulder. She fell, the needles burning; she felt the poison from the needles working their way through her veins, and she fell...

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Kinenbi had been attacked.

While washing bowls, he had been beset by Void-nins. However, unlike Naruto and Hinata he hadn't been attacked by invisible ninjas. The ninjas had been visible, and after crushing the two of them with his Earth Style techniques the other two had run away. Kinenbi knew that something must be wrong back where Naruto was- but then he got jinxed up in a trap.

After spending several valuable minutes freeing himself, while on the alert for any attempts to finish him off while he was doing so, he had run to the campsite, and had seen nothing... Then he seen the headless corpse, the glint of fallen kunais and shurikens on the grass, the body with a kunai stuck in his back, a dead woman bleeding from a dozen wounds.

After seeing all this, he concluded that something must be wrong, and needed not his bravado but his stealth- a ambush. But how the hell do you attack something you can't see?

Easy, he thought. He saw Hinata falling, and he assumed Naruto had fallen also. They were probably unconcious, if not dead- so they wouldn't feel any pain. Just do his family's trademark Earth jutsu that somehow piled tons of rocks on their enemies a mile away. He smiled. And he -just- might have enough chakra, provided that he used one of the side-effect heavy Chakra pills that he had saved over all these years. They increased one's chakra threefold for a short time, although for days afterward they would suffer cramps, weak bladders and temporary hair loss along with noticeably weakened strength for a day or two. But then, this was worth it, he thought.

He popped in a pill. He waited. Then he started performing the hand seals, hoping that no one had seen him.

Someone kicked him in the back, hard- 'so much for not being seen' he thought- then he was punched in the face, a near-lethal chop to the neck from the side, a jab to the side of his ribs, then a boot to his buttocks- he was trapped, he knew, and getting beaten senseless from at least four people. Ignoring the mental cries of 'how the hell did they do that?!' he suddenly ducked what he felt was a punch again to his face -which was right- and lunged ahead, crouching, to what he thought was the knees. He was right. His shoulders crashed into someone's kneecaps, instantly shattering them. He heard a cry of pain froma above, did not wait for someone to kick him, lashed out with a kunai, rolled away, and broke into a run. He ran to the tree where a headless corpse lay near, and jumping onto it -knowing that someone could stab him at any point- desperately, with speed he didn't know he had, performed the seals.

"Earth Style- Art of Crashing Stars!"

At that point someone indeed brought the butt of their kunai onto the back of his head, knocking him out.

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Naruto awoke, feeling... very bad. He was battered, bleeding from several places, and he also felt glazed, as if he had been burnt very slightly but all over his body. His left arm seemed to be broken, and when he tried to get up, he found that he couldn't- he was too weak. Or disabled, he thought with a touch of panic. All he remembered was a flash of intense white light- sensation of being burned- and darkness.

"All you all right?"

"K- Kinenbi?..." Naruto croaked. He found that his throat seemed to be burnt, too.

"Yeah, that's me." The familiar voice said. Kinenbi stood over Naruto, staring down at him. "How do I look?"

"Wha- what... did- happen?" Naruto choked out. He would have spluttered, if his neck and tongue didn't seem so burnt and dry.

Most of Kinenbi's hair was gone, and his face was pale, with a rather parched look. Kinenbi laughed at Naruto's expression of horror. "I look good now, don't I?"

"You... look... uglier than-... ..usual." Naruto said.

"While you got a lovely tan." Kinenbi said, chuckling a little. "Don't worry, my beautiful hair will grow back... it's only temporary. And excuse me, I gotta go take a piss." He walked off, and as he did he shouted, "Hinata said to let you rest for a while."

'Hinata must be alright then too...' thought Naruto. He smiled- or at least, tried to. 'Hinata's alright, I'm alive and so is Kinenbi... All's right with the world, so far.'

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Kinenbi strode over to the heaped carcasses of their enemies, all mauled beyond recognition. The jutsu only targeted those perceived as enemies- which was it's greatest power. But, it drained the user horribly- contrary to what he had told Naruto, the pills' side effects were nothing compared to what the jutsu caused.

He had shortened his lifespan by at least three years- maybe more.

A/N: the battle was rather lame... sorry. The romance I haven't had the time to explore yet- but it will happen, as soon as they reach somewhere where it's not so action-filled. Kinenbi won't be a really major character, for those hating original characters... so don't worry. And the Hidden Void are not evil. At least, not evil for the sake of being evil. they just have their own agendas, that's all.

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